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I was told recently that Bob Essery would make no apology for re-using photos in Midland Record and LMS Journal - last time it was to illustrate an article on water columns, this time on buffer stops, etc. (Photos cropped for the particular detail, of course.)

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1 hour ago, thegreenhowards said:

I'm exaggerating for effect and with a little effort some of the data could be established beyond reasonable doubt as this exchange proves. But one sees too many captions like the second one and I, for one, know which I prefer. I can then use my own judgement to fill in any gaps as I see fit.

There's also an increasing trend towards:

 

- anthropomorphising the locomotive (never the rest of the train!), as in "the loco breathes a sigh of relief as it breasts the summit".

- I don't know the word for this but it's stuff like "little did they know that in ten years' time all this woudl be covered by a supermarket car park".

- Including personal opinion, as in "what a shame that this class was withdrawn at the expense of the xxx type".

- Presenting supposition as fact. This is, I think, what Tony is driving at and when I spot it it makes me doubt most other things that are written in the same publication.

 

I'm sorry to say that all these are becoming more common in one of the monthly magazines that claims to be a leading repository for British railway history (paraphrased). I still buy it, though, as the quality and selection of the photographs outweighs my annoyance with the words.

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Changing the Subject somewhat, here are some pictures of my latest completed project.

 

2E14EAC4-8731-4B92-9C47-4FE3BC7C5A99.jpeg.0a0fbffe818c6aab41f3450f88024b60.jpeg38B213DE-C7C0-40D5-945E-1218998196A9.jpeg.03ebc68468396773496888388d36bfcc.jpegIt’s a GCR bogie fish van built from a WSM kit. It was a bit of a struggle as it was made from thick brass which needed to be laminated together. It certainly tested my soldering iron’s power!


Only a few of these made it through to nationalisation, and I believe they were relegated to parcels traffic by that stage.  So I’ve finished it in LNER livery without fish branding and will use it in a mixed van train. 
 

I had to guess a bit (tut tut!) so I’ve probably made some mistakes. Any comments welcome.

 

Andy

 

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1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

I look forward to the "Book of Backgrounds" in which each caption discusses everything to be seen in the photo except the locomotive, which is to be regarded as a nuisance obscuring the view of some interesting feature. One might, at a pinch, give the locomotive number and date so the reader can, if they wish, look up full details of its condition elsewhere.

Hi Stephen

 

Why do railway drivers park their steeds in front of the photographer when he wants to take a photo of that interesting structure. When building Hanging Hill there was always something I couldn't quite see owing to a loco being in the way no matter how many photos of that loco shed I could find.

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4 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

There's also an increasing trend towards:

 

- anthropomorphising the locomotive (never the rest of the train!), as in "the loco breathes a sigh of relief as it breasts the summit".

- I don't know the word for this but it's stuff like "little did they know that in ten years' time all this woudl be covered by a supermarket car park".

- Including personal opinion, as in "what a shame that this class was withdrawn at the expense of the xxx type".

- Presenting supposition as fact. This is, I think, what Tony is driving at and when I spot it it makes me doubt most other things that are written in the same publication.

 

 

An interesting observation and yes, it does seem true. I guess they're trying to say something (perhaps nothing much) in a different way from previously to add variety. Snag is that it is becoming the norm.

 

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3 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Stephen

 

Why do railway drivers park their steeds in front of the photographer when he wants to take a photo of that interesting structure. When building Hanging Hill there was always something I couldn't quite see owing to a loco being in the way no matter how many photos of that loco shed I could find.

 

Yes, I know. The photographer has carefully set up his camera to take a photo of the luggage barrow on the opposite platform and then blow me along comes the up Queen of Scots with some hulking great green obstruction at the head...

 

Pre-grouping photos are particularly annoying. Not only do the crew take great malicious delight in parking their engine in the centre of the shot but they then stand on the footplate, grinning away.

 

"Oi, move that b****y loco!"

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14 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

John,

 

I should have mentioned that my conclusion is based on the lower picture on page 65 of LNER Carriages by Michael Harris. This shows the twin 1sts (in the train in the picture of the B1) In maroon, BR roundel, definitely not lined and stainless steel strip (it would appear) evident. 'If they are unlined, they're the first unlined maroon coaches carrying roundels that I've ever come across;'. You've come across them now. 

 

'Less is often more'? And, what constitutes 'irrefutable proof'? My friend, David Lowther, photographed some of the streamliners being broken up at Tyne Dock in the early-'60s. I'm basing my conclusions on his pictures and his observations. First-hand observations. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Having consulted Harris, I concur with your analysis of the photo and with the caption, and apologise for doubting you.

 

The point that I was trying to make is that, nowadays, far too many photo captions make bold statements that are in no way supported by the information contained in the photo itself. When those statements are based on research elsewhere there should be some indication of the fact, so that the reader can have confidence in the veracity of the caption.

 

Of course, a great many captions, especially in magazines, are just plain wrong - or as we plain-speaking Lancastrians would say - b*ll*cks !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Edited by cctransuk
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9 hours ago, Headstock said:

 

Morning Andy,

 

I disagree, I don't subscribe to best guest scenario with my modelling, Why should I except it in books? If research is done properly then there should be no need of best guessing. That should be a point of discussion before publication. Personally, I would never use a photo that I didn't understand the meaning of. One of the problems with Railway picture books is that the picture is the tail wagging the dog, it should be the other way about. Were by the picture is used to illustrates the point that is being made in the text. We are so use to dealing with pictures in books with poor guessing game captions, that it never occurs to us that we should be demanding truth and cold hard facts. Even a small move towards greater academic credibility would not go amiss. At the end of the day, such stuff is just poor research.

Can't agree with you on this one, Andrew. Bad captioning and best guessing do irritate me but very often it's the photo that's the important thing here. It does provide evidence and at worst leads me to go away and do more research in an effort to a) identify the subject of the photo b) understand the context of the photo, and c) use it an an inspiration to bring something in to my modelling that wouldn't have been there. So whilst I sympathise with the ideal that no railway book writer should publish without fully understanding the subject, I'd still rather have the opportunity to see the photos to be able to use for my own research. I'd simply add, never trust implicitly, or take as fact, what you read without being able to back it up with other evidence/information.

 

No modelling today.. (sigh)... Off to family do and then on to a gig with the band tonight. Bit of pressure as we are doing some new numbers for the first time live and we haven't rehearsed enough. :o

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3 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Nothing special? Not the most interesting train? It's probably the only time in recorded history that this bunch of cars was ever coupled together in this manner. 

 

It interests me, especially if I chose to build something like this (though it would not have run through LB).

 

I did look hard at those brackets. You're probably right, but why are the lamps perched so high up?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Morning Tony,

 

Nothing special, exactly. Pretty typical of this kind of train, a hodge podge of second class, or carriages designated as second class for the working. If you look at the formation its pretty straight forwards and fairly consistent with the CWN. The verity of types is also what you would expect at the time period that the photograph was taken.

 

It is a fact that BR failed consistently throughout most of the fifties to meet its own building programmes for MK1 carriages. It is also a fact that those compiling CWN's consistently overestimated the availability of MK1 carriages for Eastern region use in the late fifties. This is not a guesstimation, its simple facts. If the CWN specifies X and you don't have enough of X you had better find something else. Then consider that the further you get down the pecking order, the more likely it becomes that you are required to replace X with Y, Z and maybe a little Q. The point is, the photograph reveals the typical rather than the extraordinary. A caption, that emphasised how typical this kind of formation on this kind of working was and why, would be much better than 'wow, what and amazing set of carriages, isn't it special.' As an example, the likes of the PV Thompson had long since been cascaded from their original status, were else would you expect to see such carriages?

 

On B1 lamp brackets. There seems to be two types that are associated with the two types of electric light fitted, or not fitted as the case may be. The earlier lights seem to be the most likely to have been removed from the locomotives. Both types of bracket elevated the lamp above the light, more so in the case of the box lights as opposed to the originals that looked more like early car indicators. Non of the B1's as far as I can tell had a conventional lamp bracket that would allow the lamp to sit right down on the platform.

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3 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

You're not asking for much, Andrew,

 

As far as I know, the book(s) you demand have never been published. Or, because of what you insist upon, WILL never be published. 

 

However, I'm entirely in agreement that there are too many railway books printed with captions that are just nonsense. 

 

And, what's wrong with a little bit of 'best-guessing', as long as that's made clear in the caption. I'd never state it as definitive fact (or is that tautology?). For instance, John Isherwood made a very valid observation about my caption to the 'Fife Coast Express' picture. It's the first time I've ever seen a shot of the rake in maroon, and (I would suggest) it's not lined. This is substantiated by the picture in the book I cited, and my access to the (unpublished) pictures. Yet, I've never seen the lack of lining ever mentioned before in any publication/official document. The 'water is muddied' by the fact that the ex-Silver Jubilee dining triplet WAS lined in maroon, and any horizontal stainless steel beading was painted over. Yet, again, I've never seen that recorded.

 

I'm basing my conclusions on observations. Observations of photographs (from years ago). Out of necessity, some conclusions will have to be (educated?) guesswork. 

 

And, when you build a model, do you use dozens of pictures of the individual carriage/loco you're making? Top, bottom, sides, ends, underneath, three quarter front, three quarter rear, etc? I try to, but I've never come across umpteen pictures, all taken on the same day, from every single angle of an individual item - not even works' shots. So, at least to me, some educated guesses have to be made. 

 

Recently, I've gone through pictures and found a 'Princess Royal' with ROUND front buffers, an Ivatt 2-6-0 2MT with OVAL front buffers (were they swopped at CREWE?) and a Scottish Director with one round and one oval buffer on its front beam. Yet, I've never seen these recorded before. How can one describe such things without 'guessing' how they came about?

 

I admire your zeal!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Afternoon Tony,


I'm asking for people to work it out before they publish. There is nothing wrong with putting best - guessing in front of peer review for checking first. Out of choice, I don't publish much myself. That which I have, I have always put before peer review prior to publishing. If there is a problem, it can be corrected. After publishing, right or wrong, it's there for eternity.

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1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

There's also an increasing trend towards:

 

- anthropomorphising the locomotive (never the rest of the train!), as in "the loco breathes a sigh of relief as it breasts the summit".

- I don't know the word for this but it's stuff like "little did they know that in ten years' time all this woudl be covered by a supermarket car park".

- Including personal opinion, as in "what a shame that this class was withdrawn at the expense of the xxx type".

- Presenting supposition as fact. This is, I think, what Tony is driving at and when I spot it it makes me doubt most other things that are written in the same publication.

 

I'm sorry to say that all these are becoming more common in one of the monthly magazines that claims to be a leading repository for British railway history (paraphrased). I still buy it, though, as the quality and selection of the photographs outweighs my annoyance with the words.


Nail, head, great big hammer!

 

Increasingly I find myself tossing books to the other end of the sofa whilst shouting “rubbish “! To keep in touch I take one of the preservation magazines but I mostly just look at  the ‘headlines’ and scan the photos because I can’t bear to read it. 

 

Or am I just getting old...

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Cunningham's Law states that the best way of obtaining correct information is to publish wrong information. (This law was formulated with the internet in mind.)

 

There are two options:

  • Publish and be damned;
  • Be damned for not publishing.
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3 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Morning Andrew,

 

That was a very early morning for you!

 

I admire your perfectionism and it certainly shines through in your models, but I think that this is a classic case of 'the best being the enemy of the good'. Railway modellers are often not good at compromise (I've had similar exchanges with Steve Banks!) but I feel that some educated guess work can help others make further strides in identifying the full data which we would all like - rather like the responses to Tony's original post have done. So let's take the B1 at Peterborough as an example. A little research has identified the date and the sun position tells us that it's morning, but more research is unlikely to ever identify exactly what train it was on, so we have two choices of types of caption:

1. The 'Wright' approach: B1, 61079 approaching Peterborough from the south on mixed rake of stock on Saturday 19th July 1958. Notably the rake includes a pressure-ventilated FK (the third car), ex-one of the post-War 'Scotsman' sets. It also includes three BR Mk.1s, plus a Thompson CK, as well as Gresley stock, including a late-build all-door TK.  The loco is shedded at Immingham, so it's reasonable to assume that it's probably a morning summer Saturday train from the southern end of the GN line to the East Lincs line (probably Skegness or Cleethorpes). Prior to the introduction of the Brits, B1s had these expresses.

2. The perfectionist approach: B1, 61079 approaches an unknown location hauling an unknown train on an unknown date. The loco was built in September 1946 and withdrawn in June 1962.

 

I'm exaggerating for effect and with a little effort some of the data could be established beyond reasonable doubt as this exchange proves. But one sees too many captions like the second one and I, for one, know which I prefer. I can then use my own judgement to fill in any gaps as I see fit.

 

Regards

 

Andy

 

Andy,


Your identification of the carriages in point one is not so good, this is why it is so important not to publish and be damned but work out what it is you are saying before publication. Peer review would prevent a lot of the nonsense in book captions.


The choice is not between the two options that you put forwards. A third caption could be written that would be better than either option one or two.

 

I don't expect people to agree with me. The sorry state of many (but not all) railway books is testiment to that.

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1 hour ago, Headstock said:

 

Andy,


Your identification of the carriages in point one is not so good, this is why it is so important not to publish and be damned but work out what it is you are saying before publication. Peer review would prevent a lot of the nonsense in book captions.


The choice is not between the two options that you put forwards. A third caption could be written that would be better than either option one or two.

 

I don't expect people to agree with me. The sorry state of many (but not all) railway books is testiment to that.

I agree with peer review. In fact that's one thing this thread is very good at. All I'm saying is that if at the end of the peer review you don't have a definitive answer, give your best guess and qualify it as such.

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4 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Changing the Subject somewhat, here are some pictures of my latest completed project.

 

2E14EAC4-8731-4B92-9C47-4FE3BC7C5A99.jpeg.0a0fbffe818c6aab41f3450f88024b60.jpeg38B213DE-C7C0-40D5-945E-1218998196A9.jpeg.03ebc68468396773496888388d36bfcc.jpegIt’s a GCR bogie fish van built from a WSM kit. It was a bit of a struggle as it was made from thick brass which needed to be laminated together. It certainly tested my soldering iron’s power!


Only a few of these made it through to nationalisation, and I believe they were relegated to parcels traffic by that stage.  So I’ve finished it in LNER livery without fish branding and will use it in a mixed van train. 
 

I had to guess a bit (tut tut!) so I’ve probably made some mistakes. Any comments welcome.

 

Andy

 

Nice model , looking at Tatlow, the vans were 15 tons not 12, the only photo shows the one oblong blackboard (which should be grey)  only in the last right hand  panel on the upper left corner, so quite a a good guess at the layout !!

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1 hour ago, thegreenhowards said:

I agree with peer review. In fact that's one thing this thread is very good at. All I'm saying is that if at the end of the peer review you don't have a definitive answer, give your best guess and qualify it as such.

 

Andy,

 

Under such circumstances and if I was part of the peer review process, my advice to you would be not to publish but go away and do some more research. My advice would not be, ignore me and publish anyway! If you then did publish anyway, you will have ignored the peer review process, that's pretty damming if you cock up. Any mistakes that you may make as a result will be a long, long time in print and will be pointed out by hoards of Internet users for the next fifty years. Publishing and printing books is still a fairly expensive process and is not that easy to edit, make sure you get it right.

 

I remember when Steve Banks came under a great deal of pressure to best - guess the carriage workings of the GE section for LNER PT&F, all for the sake of completeness and in fact not relevant to the format of the book anyway. Thankfully, he was brave enough to stand up and say no, the information is not available to give an accurate account . He also recognized that once in print, even if a statement was qualified as opinion or guesstimate, it had a very high likelihood as been taken as fact. Books have a very long lifetime compared to Internet boards. Once wrong information is out there in print, ten or twenty years from now, long after the authors death, it can still have a negative impact or be mocked for an extended period of time.

 

P.s. your GC bogie van has scrubbed up rather well, did peer review have an effect?

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4 hours ago, TrevorP1 said:


Nail, head, great big hammer!

 

Increasingly I find myself tossing books to the other end of the sofa whilst shouting “rubbish “! To keep in touch I take one of the preservation magazines but I mostly just look at  the ‘headlines’ and scan the photos because I can’t bear to read it. 

 

Or am I just getting old...

I rarely buy new railway books because of (a) the reasons above and (b) I'm a tightwad.  So many books are published which are little more than three-quarter views of locomotives either standing at or approaching platform ends.  You can see almost nothing of the wider railway so for research purposes they are pretty useless.  However it is hardly a new phenomenon; even the great Eric Treacy filled the frame with the train, used the exact same location hundreds of times and made almost no records of his shots. Most captions in his photographic volumes show that the publisher has identified the loco, location and sometimes the train service but quite frequently can't narrow down the year it was taken.  To name three great railway photographers, Treacy captured the train, Priestley captured the railway and Gifford captured Great Britain at the end of an era.

Edited by Northmoor
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3 hours ago, grahame said:

Back to some fiddling (modelling?). And trying to put together a bunch of buildings to potentially form a sub-assembly and because I wanted to make sure that they fitted a specifically sized area. The problem is that each building was made individually at different times and with various elements of compression and simplification. Bringing them together is rather like herding cats or trying to make a changing jigsaw although the footprint (pen) is a fixed size. But I'm nearly there . . . .  

 

DSC_8781.JPG.c5df781fdc72e1d219b24645f5ec9d8f.JPG

 

Next is to add the 3D aspect. The left edge slopes up but only for the building on that roadside, while the front/right edge and centre remains flat.

 

 

That is looking excellent Grahame; looking forward to seeing Kehoes on the corner. We have been known to put a building through the bandsaw on CF when it didn’t quite fit...

Tim

Edited by CF MRC
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2 hours ago, CF MRC said:

That is looking excellent Grahame; looking forward to seeing Kehoes on the corner. We have been known to put a building through the bandsaw on CF when it didn’t quite fit...

Tim

 

Thanks. Although still lots to do, detail to add and dirtying down.

 

I've not yet tackled Kehoes (the corner cobblers) as it has changed quite a bit over the years and I was looking for suitable period details. Currently it seems to be promoting vaping:

 

2099921568_K1.jpg.24620ed70d6e744ededd7d14e715939a.jpg

 

But I've found this that seems to be from about the right period and will use that as the basis for finishing, branding and detailing:

 

966001634_PicKehoes.jpg.f2e42e1d73b1fe22e9169ab4ab86c670.jpg

 

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8 minutes ago, grahame said:

 

Thanks. Although still lots to do, detail to add and dirtying down.

 

I've not yet tackled Kehoes (the corner cobblers) as it has changed quite a bit over the years and I was looking for suitable period details. Currently it seems to be promoting vaping:

 

2099921568_K1.jpg.24620ed70d6e744ededd7d14e715939a.jpg

 

But I've found this that seems to be from about the right period and will use that as the basis for finishing, branding and detailing:

 

966001634_PicKehoes.jpg.f2e42e1d73b1fe22e9169ab4ab86c670.jpg

 

looks a bit recent to me ... another angle

14908660063_60fddda646_b.jpg.b172aaf314405fa82c87c663d7f6fb5d.jpg

 

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Possibly, although those dirty red/brown canopies may have been there a long time. You can see them (just a corner on the right) in this earlier view although that's probably not quite early enough (note the cars and red road lines) but at least before the second railway bridge was added. 

 

1073390_07eb5fe3.jpg.20040f3be7edc78e107028354bf19ff1.jpg

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Thanks. I have got that pic. It's a great period photo but a little too early for me as the old two storey post office (in front of the hospital ward block building) is there which was demolished before the era l'm  trying to model. Note the copper on point/car control duty with the white sleeves (there doesn't appear to be traffic lights at the junction then), the cast concrete street lights (since replaced with steel posts) and the lack of dropped kerbs at the crossing. And the 'white cup cafe'. Plus the corner cobblers was Kehoes then as well.

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