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Older Inspirational Layouts


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3 hours ago, john new said:

Oh it did, saw it do so at York Assembly rooms. Sound track fastest train etc, then oops....  

 

Wasn’t that also the layout that finished the  sequence with a rat.

The rat was a feature of the layouts by Roy Jackson and friends. 

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12 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

During the 1990s this version of Charford was dismantled and replaced by a new version, which incorporated part of the main line as well. By July 2001, due to John's failing eyesight, the line closed and was dismantled for good. Charford Station and the more recent Marshwood Junction boards were saved and continued under the ownership of other modellers, as did some of the locos and stock.

John

I did not realise Charford and Marshwood had survived.  I wonder if John was a like P D Hancock in that every time the layout was dismantled and rebuilt parts of the previous layout(s) were included in the rebuilt layout.   Look into Dundreich and parts of Craigshire dating back to the earliest days of layout can be found.  Wonder if the present version of Charford is the same?

Malcolm

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2 hours ago, dunwurken said:

John

I did not realise Charford and Marshwood had survived.  I wonder if John was a like P D Hancock in that every time the layout was dismantled and rebuilt parts of the previous layout(s) were included in the rebuilt layout.   Look into Dundreich and parts of Craigshire dating back to the earliest days of layout can be found.  Wonder if the present version of Charford is the same?

Malcolm

Malcolm, I'll drop Phil Knife a line and ask him if he knows where Charford and Marshwood are and, if he does, whether he is allowed to tell me.

 

Phil's article suggested strongly that the original Charford boards survived through all the later incarnations, so wherever Charford now is it will be essentially the same Charford as was started 66 years ago. I'll also try to find his earlier article, which predates my BRMA membership but which I will have somewhere in a box of older issues donated to me by the widow of a late member.

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3 hours ago, dunwurken said:

John

I did not realise Charford and Marshwood had survived.  I wonder if John was a like P D Hancock in that every time the layout was dismantled and rebuilt parts of the previous layout(s) were included in the rebuilt layout.   Look into Dundreich and parts of Craigshire dating back to the earliest days of layout can be found.  Wonder if the present version of Charford is the same?

Malcolm

 

John Charman, PDH, and Peter Denny all built their layouts at a time when resources were tight (coming off the back of wartime shortages) so were inclined to reuse materials wherever possible, even when materials became more freely available again. PDH in his later years related his shock at seeing people throwing away perfectly usable pieces of timber. I've also heard one of Peter's sons saying that he and one of his brothers came home from University to find Peter had dismantled their TT layout (itself a 'classic layout' to my mind) to reuse the baseboards for Buckingham - the outlines of the track can apparently still be seen underneath parts of Buckingham. Even a brake van Peter built to the wrong scale found further use as a grounded van body on Buckingham, and Malcolm has related elsewhere how one of PDH's coaches has recently been rediscovered as a grounded body on one of the E&LMRC's layouts! These gentlemen didn't throw things away unless there was really no further use for them (although of course PDH in particular was known to give items away).

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14 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 (although of course PDH in particular was known to give items away).

Don't I know it.  Whilst we know where some items are there is a lengthy list of items we have no idea whether they still exist or, if they do exist where they currently reside. Welcome to the frustrating world of the model railway historian! Not only did he give things away he bought and sold through the small ads in the mags. etc. etc. PDH dabbled in many branches of our hobby and many an unsuspecting modeller will have in his collection a model that was at one time owned by him.  

Malcolm

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On 21/11/2019 at 02:10, DavidB-AU said:

 

A few photos of the layout here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/74169-pre-grouping-layouts/&do=findComment&comment=2887404

 

But I can't recall ever seeing a plan.

 

Cheers

David

You have now! David  I've sent it as a PM

Jan 1968 RM

It's interesting reading the article. It was a home layout built by Vivien Thomson with her husband Ken but with her doing most of it. She referred to it as our layout  but then talked about how "I decided to model Eastbourne in summer 1909". It sounds like they both had somethnig to do with it, she mentions Ken doing research on LBSC signals in the British Museum (It wouldnow be the British library)   but she was the lead partner in the project. It also sounds like Ken was a Rugby fan or player as she writes about finding things on the way to a match. At the time of the 1968 article they also had a pre-school son.

She said that track making was beyond her so used Formoway, most of it salvaged from the previous layout and that "the remainder of the trackwork was laid and ballasted as and when funds permitted" and points were operated by straegically placed Farish levers the cost of solenoids being "prohibitive". She/they were clearly building Eastbourne on a budget.  Scratchbuilt buildings don't cost a lot of course but she was also building rolling stock and, as a mainline terminus  the layout had quite a lot of that. 

Edited by Pacific231G
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On 23/11/2019 at 10:25, john new said:

Wasn’t that also the layout that finished the  sequence with a rat.

No, that would have been one of Roy Jackson and friends creations such as 'High Dyke' or 'Dunwich', hooked onto the end of the last train of the day.  A two-wheeled EM gauge bright red rat running at a scale 80mph.  Priceless.

Edited by 5050
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16 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Malcolm, I'll drop Phil Knife a line and ask him if he knows where Charford and Marshwood are and, if he does, whether he is allowed to tell me.

 

Phil's article suggested strongly that the original Charford boards survived through all the later incarnations, so wherever Charford now is it will be essentially the same Charford as was started 66 years ago. I'll also try to find his earlier article, which predates my BRMA membership but which I will have somewhere in a box of older issues donated to me by the widow of a late member.

John

As the E&LMRC historian I would very much appreciate learning the whereabouts of Charford (on an 'in confidence' basis if necessary).  I would also appreciate scans of both articles by Phil Knife if that is possible.  I have scans of many of the articles on Charford.  When I started trawling the model railway magazine's compiling a list of all P D Hancock's articles and letters I took the opportunity to scan, for the club archives, any articles by the other ELMRC worthies John Charman, Ken Northwood and Sir Eric Hutchison so I have a fairly comprehensive but I suspect incomplete collection of their articles from MRN, RM & MRC and in Hancock's case some of the American mags.  Eventually once I have completed my work on PDH I will go back and complete the research on the others whose written exploits are, thankfully, somewhat less prolific.

Malcolm

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15 minutes ago, dunwurken said:

John

As the E&LMRC historian I would very much appreciate learning the whereabouts of Charford (on an 'in confidence' basis if necessary).  I would also appreciate scans of both articles by Phil Knife if that is possible.  I have scans of many of the articles on Charford.  When I started trawling the model railway magazine's compiling a list of all P D Hancock's articles and letters I took the opportunity to scan, for the club archives, any articles by the other ELMRC worthies John Charman, Ken Northwood and Sir Eric Hutchison so I have a fairly comprehensive but I suspect incomplete collection of their articles from MRN, RM & MRC and in Hancock's case some of the American mags.  Eventually once I have completed my work on PDH I will go back and complete the research on the others whose written exploits are, thankfully, somewhat less prolific.

Malcolm

Perhaps an Excel spreadsheet posted here would help, then others may be able to point you in the right direction?

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The later version of the Charford Branch, which included the mainline at Marshwood Junction, was featured in Model Railway Journal No.100 in 1998.  The trackplan was in the following edition, 101

Cheers, Dave.

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23 hours ago, dunwurken said:

John

As the E&LMRC historian I would very much appreciate learning the whereabouts of Charford (on an 'in confidence' basis if necessary).  I would also appreciate scans of both articles by Phil Knife if that is possible.  I have scans of many of the articles on Charford.  When I started trawling the model railway magazine's compiling a list of all P D Hancock's articles and letters I took the opportunity to scan, for the club archives, any articles by the other ELMRC worthies John Charman, Ken Northwood and Sir Eric Hutchison so I have a fairly comprehensive but I suspect incomplete collection of their articles from MRN, RM & MRC and in Hancock's case some of the American mags.  Eventually once I have completed my work on PDH I will go back and complete the research on the others whose written exploits are, thankfully, somewhat less prolific.

Malcolm

For Peter Denny, there is a photo of his garden railway in RM for 1998 October Page 488. Not sure if you want this sort of stuff or just articles?

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On 27/01/2013 at 18:46, The Stationmaster said:

Frank Dyer's Borchester - always for me a demonstration that you could build a model of an operationally logical railway doing what such a railway would have done had it been real.

I couldn't agree more Mike and I've managed to get a complete run of Frank Dyer's articles in MRJ. I was very grateful to the group that managed to preserve and exhibit it for a few years allowing me to see it in action three or four times.

It was one of those layouts, like Bradfield Gloucester Road now, that I found myself standing and watching for ages as a proper set of operations were carried out properly and it wasn't even all that large. 

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29 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

I couldn't agree more Mike and I've managed to get a complete run of Frank Dyer's articles in MRJ. I was very grateful to the group that managed to preserve and exhibit it for a few years allowing me to see it in action three or four times.

It was one of those layouts, like Bradfield Gloucester Road now, that I found myself standing and watching for ages as a proper set of operations were carried out properly and it wasn't even all that large. 

David

Am I correct in saying that Borchester was sold about two years ago to someone in Lancashire?  

Malcolm

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23 hours ago, JohnR said:

It would appear we both used the same Charford / Charman index placed online back in 2009 by I think 'Caddy'.   My Charman index has an article on Railbuilt Signals dating from 1966 and I have an expanded 'Related Letters & Articles' section three items of which date from the original publication of 'Cuddys' index.  All additions highlighted in red on the attached.

PD's list index of articles will take longer to check but there will be additions, eg his USA articles.

Malcolm

49123211563_c28621ac3a_k.jpgCharford Articles Index - revised Nov 2019 by Malcolm MacLeod, on Flickr

Edited by dunwurken
Cuddy to Caddy
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7 hours ago, kevinlms said:

For Peter Denny, there is a photo of his garden railway in RM for 1998 October Page 488. Not sure if you want this sort of stuff or just articles?

 

Kevin,

 

I think Malcolm is only thinking of compiling histories of past E&LMRC members, of which Peter was not one.

 

Tony Gee (TBG) is the Denny expert.

 

Richard

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28 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

Kevin,

I think Malcolm is only thinking of compiling histories of past E&LMRC members, of which Peter was not one.

Tony Gee (TBG) is the Denny expert.

Richard

You are correct Richard, I am limiting myself to Hancock, Charman, Northwood and Hutchison.  Life is too short to cast the net wider though Don Rowland and W Loch Kidston would be obvious candidates if I did expand it further.

Malcolm

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5 minutes ago, dunwurken said:

You are correct Richard, I am limiting myself to Hancock, Charman, Northwood and Hutchison.  Life is too short to cast the net wider though Don Rowland and W Loch Kidston would be obvious candidates if I did expand it further.

Malcolm

All makes valid sense. It's just that Peter Denny did appear on your list.

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On 23/11/2019 at 21:42, RJS1977 said:

 

John Charman, PDH, and Peter Denny all built their layouts at a time when resources were tight (coming off the back of wartime shortages) so were inclined to reuse materials wherever possible, even when materials became more freely available again. PDH in his later years related his shock at seeing people throwing away perfectly usable pieces of timber. I've also heard one of Peter's sons saying that he and one of his brothers came home from University to find Peter had dismantled their TT layout (itself a 'classic layout' to my mind) to reuse the baseboards for Buckingham - the outlines of the track can apparently still be seen underneath parts of Buckingham. Even a brake van Peter built to the wrong scale found further use as a grounded van body on Buckingham, and Malcolm has related elsewhere how one of PDH's coaches has recently been rediscovered as a grounded body on one of the E&LMRC's layouts! These gentlemen didn't throw things away unless there was really no further use for them (although of course PDH in particular was known to give items away).

 

You are quite right about the TT layout and here is some archaeological evidence!

 

Buckingham_Restoration.jpg.ea2c5e06cf3a89df489f3270dbb572b8.jpg

 

This is the corner board under Buckingham goods yard.

 

The rail got used to make the overall roof at Buckingham.

 

As you say, these people didn't waste much.

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