Wright writes.....

[4630]

1 hour ago, grob1234 said:

 

People will laugh and tut, but I have used cheap coca cola. It's very effective at removing tarnish. Just give it a good wash in clean warm water after, and dry quickly to avoid water marks.

 

That’ll be the phosphoric acid component of your cheap cola at work. 

[Tony Wright]

23 minutes ago, grob1234 said:

 

My Silver jubilee rake got a good dunking in cola prior to painting. 

 

I’m not tight enough to drink the coke after though!!

 

Edit: I hadn't completed the ride height adjustment here.

 

Sorry for the 'kitchen' photo. It's too long to fit in my studio!

Pandemic permitting, Tom,

 

You'll have to bring it over and we'll get a shot of the whole thing on Little Bytham.

 

It looks superb.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[grob1234]

4 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Pandemic permitting, Tom,

 

You'll have to bring it over and we'll get a shot of the whole thing on Little Bytham.

 

It looks superb.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Thank you Tony, I'd love that.

 

This set might even work, I cunningly fitted OO wheels instead of P4...

[Tony Wright]

Regarding the thousands of pictures of Little Bytham I've taken, I'm always trying to get new angles.

 

However, it's extremely difficult.

 

 

That said, I don't think I've tried this view before. 

 

This little stream (which drains fields to the west of the main line) has long been covered over, though one can still hear it gurgling from time to time after prolonged rainfall. 

 

I was able to visit the garden adjacent to the wee brick arch to take measurements, but it's now been completely fenced off. 

 

 

This is a similar view to what I've tried before, though from a slightly different angle. 

 

Dave Wager's girder bridge is spectacularly realistic, Bob Dawson's splendid semis frame the scene to the right and Ellen Sparkes' lovely washing still flutters in the breeze passing over her gardens. 

 

More later. 

 

 

[GH in EM and O]

3 hours ago, grob1234 said:

Not the best picture perhaps, but at least I'm able to practise some off-set lining using my bow-compasses:

 

 

Without doubt the hardest bit is the cab front. I'm tackling that with a brush...

Nice job Tom. You should be able to get much of the way round the cab front with the bow pen, leaving just the end parts to do with the brush.

[grob1234]

22 minutes ago, GH in EM and O said:

Nice job Tom. You should be able to get much of the way round the cab front with the bow pen, leaving just the end parts to do with the brush.

 

Thanks Geoff, its the windows and behind the ross pops that are the tricky bits. I'm getting there slowly though

[Tony Wright]

One more this evening................

 

 

In B&W because it's much more redolent of the period...............

 

 

[Theakerr]

14 hours ago, polybear said:

 

It's a game that's slower than a Koala, the aim of which appears to be the member of one team trying to take the head off a member of the other team using a ball that's as hard as a house brick.

 

Gone.....

I believe Robin Williams defined it as Baseball on Valium

 

[Bucoops]

2 hours ago, grob1234 said:

 

My Silver jubilee rake got a good dunking in cola prior to painting. 

 

I’m not tight enough to drink the coke after though!!

 

Edit: I hadn't completed the ride height adjustment here.

 

Sorry for the 'kitchen' photo. It's too long to fit in my studio!

 

Stunning!

 

I see we have a new reaction thingy of a round of applause. A fine candidate for it.

[Chas Levin]

3 hours ago, grob1234 said:

 

Iphone panorama... wasn't sure how this would display but turns out its OK!

 

Love it - fabulous pic of a fabulous rake! 

[Steamport Southport]

Am I the only one thinking that the train matches the kitchen décor?

 

 

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

Possibly.  I'm thinking that the kitchen decor matches the train...

[Bucoops]

I've just noticed we've reached Grouping. Only another 25 pages and we're at Nationalisation. They'll be gone in the blink of an eye!

[Tony Wright]

A couple more 'slightly different' views................

 

 

A scene from just after Nationalisation, looking northwards along Station Road as a D3 (LRM/Wright/Haynes) heads eastwards towards Bourne on a Notts-Lynn service.

 

Out of interest, here's the real view today.

 

 

I'd have needed steps to get the same relative height, but it gives an idea. The pole to the immediate left is not a telegraph pole; it carries electricity, and today's telegraph wires are underground. 

 

The two bungalows to the left have been extended and altered to almost beyond recognition from what they once were, and a further house has been built between them and the ex-GNR semis.

 

I thought I'd go for another model view from this position.

 

 

What's made it incongruous is the other train, which dates from no earlier than 1957, with the B16/3 (Nu-Cast/Wright/Haynes) carrying the later tender device. Still, does it work? 

 

And in colour........................

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Tony Wright
to add something

[dibateg]

I especially like the view of the K1 above the huts Tony, as well as the view of the trains crossing. The muted colours make it look very lifelike and the natural viewpoint of seeing trains from a lower level between buildings from a distance works so well. That's a huge arch under the M&GN line. How high is it? So there was a big change to the village in '59, station and M&GN closing in the same year. Was there a replacement bus service?

 

Thoroughly enjoyable!

 

Best Regards

Tony

[Tony Wright]

A couple more.................

 

 

Seen from the triangle with the Witham Road, a K1 (Nu-Cast/Wright/Haynes) heads southwards on full coals for Ferme Park. 

 

 

Further south along Station Road, a K2 (LRM/Wright/Rathbone) heads a Grantham-Peterborough 'parly'. The gable end of one of the GNR-built semis is just visible to the right.

 

Even if K2s were still running, could one get a prototype comparison shot today? 

 

 

Some hopes! A mast on the ECML is just visible above the trees.

 

I think this the biggest difference between 'historical' prototype modelling and prototype comparison shots today. For well over a century, apart from locos/rolling stock/signalling/widenings our railways would have remained the same, with cuttings and embankments cut on a regular basis. 

 

Even when I've gone back to locations where I took pictures 40 to 50 years ago, it's impossible now to replicate the same views because Mother Nature has been left to her own devices - for too long?  

 

 

[t-b-g]

22 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

I've just noticed we've reached Grouping. Only another 25 pages and we're at Nationalisation. They'll be gone in the blink of an eye!

 

I always look at the post numbers on the "New content" list.

 

We are presently working through the former LMS 8F class.

 

Will there be some sort of extra kudos attached to post numbers like 60103 or 60022?

[Chamby]

Amazing that the Station Road bridge is still standing intact after all these years.  So much of our national railway infrastructure has completely disappeared since Dr Beeching had his day.  

[Tony Wright]

13 minutes ago, dibateg said:

I especially like the view of the K1 above the huts Tony, as well as the view of the trains crossing. The muted colours make it look very lifelike and the natural viewpoint of seeing trains from a lower level between buildings from a distance works so well. That's a huge arch under the M&GN line. How high is it? So there was a big change to the village in '59, station and M&GN closing in the same year. Was there a replacement bus service?

 

Thoroughly enjoyable!

 

Best Regards

Tony

Many thanks Tony,

 

The colour palette was deliberately muted, though some of the scatter has had to be 'refreshed in the last 12 years.

 

How high is the bridge in Station Road?

 

 

Off the top of my head, I don't know.

 

When Ian Wilson built it he counted bricks, having measured one (which, by the way, were made not far from where we used to live, in the Black Country). 

 

Made of engineers' bricks, it's a magnificent structure and is really a 'tunnel' bridge, with at least a third more height above the parapet. It was re-pointed (in part) a few years ago, and from time to time the trees are cut back (but not cut down) around it. It would clearly be more expensive to demolish it than just maintain it. 

 

One of the 'delights' in modelling Little Bytham is the amount of railway which is above 'baseboard level'. The MR/M&GNR bit, in particular, is almost all above the mean level. 

 

At the south end, Station Road is higher than the main line but at the north end it's below. The two are level at the station. Rob Kinsey plotted all the relative heights and Norman Turner cut all the baseboard formers to suit. What a duo! All I did was make the roadbed from MDF and glued/pinned it in place. 

 

One still sees so many 'flat earth' layouts at shows and in the press. Fine if that suits the prototype (though even railways in the fens have to cross over water courses). There must be just as many bridges which carry railways above other routes as there are which take them below. 

 

Interestingly, when I measured Stoke Tunnel's portal, I borrowed the late Pete Lander's black and white surveyor's two-metre stick and just propped it against a wing wall and took a picture, taking dimensions from that. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

[Tony Wright]

23 minutes ago, Chamby said:

Amazing that the Station Road bridge is still standing intact after all these years.  So much of our national railway infrastructure has completely disappeared since Dr Beeching had his day.  

Good afternoon Phil,

 

Station Road bridge ceased to carry trains prior to Dr. Beeching's axe. 

 

The line was closed at the end of February 1959, and the track lifted within a few months. Local youths saw off the signal box in the hot summer of 1959 by setting it ablaze, and the girder bridge was demolished at the end of the cruel winter of 1963. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[FarrMan]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Interestingly, when I measured Stoke Tunnel's portal, I borrowed the late Pete Lander's black and white surveyor's two-metre stick and just propped it against a wing wall and took a picture, taking dimensions from that. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Tony

 

Please. It is not a 'two metre stick'. It is called a ranging rod. Handy for eyeing in straight lines, and also point forward for getting through crowds!

 

Lloyd

[Tony Wright]

4 hours ago, FarrMan said:

Tony

 

Please. It is not a 'two metre stick'. It is called a ranging rod. Handy for eyeing in straight lines, and also point forward for getting through crowds!

 

Lloyd

Good evening Lloyd,

 

I'm not a surveyor, and what I borrowed looked exactly like a two metre 'stick', divided into equal numbers of black and white segments. 

 

If I'd described it (correctly) as a ranging rod (not that I knew that's what it was called), I wonder how many would have understood exactly what I meant?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[MJI]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Good evening Lloyd,

 

I'm not a surveyor, and what I borrowed looked exactly like a two metre 'stick', divided into equal numbers of black and white segments. 

 

If I'd described it (correctly) as a ranging rod (not that I knew that's what it was called), I wonder how many would have understood exactly what I meant?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

It is one Osman long

[FarrMan]

11 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Good evening Lloyd,

 

I'm not a surveyor, and what I borrowed looked exactly like a two metre 'stick', divided into equal numbers of black and white segments. 

 

If I'd described it (correctly) as a ranging rod (not that I knew that's what it was called), I wonder how many would have understood exactly what I meant?

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Tony

 

Very good point. It is just that I used to get annoyed when students studying surveying used such terms.

 

Lloyd

[t-b-g]

31 minutes ago, FarrMan said:

Tony

 

Very good point. It is just that I used to get annoyed when students studying surveying used such terms.

 

Lloyd

 

You could always say that you used a ranging rod, which is a 2m long measuring instrument used by surveyors. That covers the correct terminology and explains it to those who don't know what one is.