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Older Inspirational Layouts


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OK this is my Index to the Published Works of PDH. 

 

If anyone knows of anything that is not on the list please let me know.   The list only covers articles and letters etc. written by PDH.  Not included are the two appendices : -  [1] Articles or other items related to Craigshire / CMR / PD Hancock written and published by others, mostly from 2000 onwards and [2] Known instances where photographs by PDH [not necessarily of the CMR] have been used to illustrate another author’s work.  These are currently being updated.

Malcolm

 

An Index To The Published Works of P D H Nov 2019 RMWeb.pdf

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Going through old copies of Railway Modeller and Model Railway Constructor from 1960 to 1999, scanning various articles that I'm interested in I've reminded myself of a number of layouts that always caught my imagination. All the various Ashdon & Midport layouts have always been something that catches my eye and I still have a dream of copying the later circular ones.

 

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10 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

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.

Good grief - and I thought Dundreich was a mess underneath!!!   

Malcolm 

49123902188_a05a285962_b.jpgThe underside 19-11-2012comp by Malcolm MacLeod, on Flickr

Edited by dunwurken
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When Ken Northwood died Martin Brent went down to look at the layout to see if it would be possible to put it in a Museum, he told me there was old broom sticks propping up parts of the layout. Definitely not prepared to be moved. As it was the prospect of a museum faded anyway.

It is difficult for modellers today to imagine what it was like during and after the war and the very early fifties. I believe in wartime you couldn't get hold of MRN unless someone else was giving up their copy. Basics like rail were very hard to come by. Old furniture was valued for the ply and timber as well as in its own right.  Perhaps concerns over climate change may make us less profligate with resources, the modellers of those days were very adept about sourcing materials.

 

Don

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1 hour ago, dunwurken said:

Good grief - and I thought Dundreich was a mess underneath!!!   

Malcolm 

49123902188_a05a285962_b.jpgThe underside 19-11-2012comp by Malcolm MacLeod, on Flickr

 

They must have had the same woodwork teacher! That could so easily by the underneath of a bit of Buckingham.

 

This is the underneath of Grandborough Junction, or at least one half of it. You can see the similarities in the woodworking department.

 

Dismantling_4-6_Oct_2010_005.jpg.a0b882d550a635cb157cdffdb5e2a94a.jpg

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6 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

What are the 'bobbins' for?

 

 

The stacked pulley wheels (I think they are all Meccano spaced with thin ply discs) are guides for the waxed thread that worked most of the signals.

 

You can see one of the under board signal mountings in the distance. It is the vertical white melamine faced chipboard with two pulleys on it. Some day I must get under there and rig them up again!

 

The thicker rods running through large nuts, which are soldered to brass pins or various screws, are for mechanical operation of the points.

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1 hour ago, RJS1977 said:

Having seen those two photos, I can no longer feel ashamed for the woodwork underneath Aberystwyth loco depot!

A friend of mine ended up purchasing an old US layout built by a late club member. He had visions of restoring it. I warned him that the layout needed a LOT of work, to do so.

For starters the layout weighed a ton - the scenery was made up of multiple layers of chipboard! A 4 man lift per 8 x 4 module.

 

But the killer was the trackwork. It had all been laid on Peco foam underlay, which had perished back to dust!

 

He did eventually make the correct decision of scrapping it and building a new layout to replace it. Sometimes it's easier!

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11 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Having seen those two photos, I can no longer feel ashamed for the woodwork underneath Aberystwyth loco depot!

 

I can see that I'm FAR too precious about what goes on underneath!

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Just happen to come across the  RM special Famous Layouts when moving some stuff. In addition to the colour photos of the CMR there are a lot of what I assume are reprints on magazine articles.  Includes the three on the original Leighton Buzzard and  two on Charford, plus others quite a handy issue as it is all good articles not all the pages of adverts etc. 

Don

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22 hours ago, kevinlms said:

A friend of mine ended up purchasing an old US layout built by a late club member. He had visions of restoring it. I warned him that the layout needed a LOT of work, to do so.

For starters the layout weighed a ton - the scenery was made up of multiple layers of chipboard! A 4 man lift per 8 x 4 module.

 

But the killer was the trackwork. It had all been laid on Peco foam underlay, which had perished back to dust!

 

He did eventually make the correct decision of scrapping it and building a new layout to replace it. Sometimes it's easier!

 

I guess it depends why the friend bought the layout.

 

If he bought the layout just because he wanted a layout, then yes, it's replaceable.

 

However if the layout was of historical or sentimental value (e.g. owned by a close friend) then scrapping and building a new one can't replace the old one. Imagine the outcry if Tony had done that to Buckingham!

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On 24/11/2019 at 16:47, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

It's not a layout as such, but does anyone recall Peco's advert for their track system which was a replica of the Waterloo station throat?  Possibly late 60s early 70s?

 

I may have hallucinated it!

Hi Doc

 

I still have a copy of the Waterloo track plan made from Peco track. They had it made up on a board on show at the big exhibitions in the 80s, as the back wall of their stand.

 

On 24/11/2019 at 16:52, New Haven Neil said:

Wasn't that the Farish Formoway advert? Used to be on the back cover of the Modeller.

Hi Neil

 

Wasn't the Fromoway advert the southern approach of Crewe before the wires went up?

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1 minute ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Doc

 

I still have a copy of the Waterloo track plan made from Peco track. They had it made up on a board on show at the big exhibitions in the 80s, as the back wall of their stand.

 

Cor, I'd love to see that again.  Was it any good or am I just fondly remembering it through rose tinted beer goggles?

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6 hours ago, Donw said:

Just happen to come across the  RM special Famous Layouts when moving some stuff. In addition to the colour photos of the CMR there are a lot of what I assume are reprints on magazine articles.  Includes the three on the original Leighton Buzzard and  two on Charford, plus others quite a handy issue as it is all good articles not all the pages of adverts etc. 

Don

Yes the articles are all taken from the originals in RM and it is a very good compendium of some excellent articles. I'm fortunate to have original copies of all of them and, because they're photo reprints from the published magazines (with some cutting and pasting) there's some loss of clarity particularly in the photos. Berrow suffers more from that  than Leighton Buzzard and Charford which are both reproduced pretty well. Undoubtedly, the  original artwork was long gone thirty years later so some loss is inevitable and even with the orginal articles avaialable I've found it useful to have them all in one place so Famous Layouts is well worth having.  According to the intro. by  John Brewer (RM Editor in 1990) this was going to be the first of several such compendiums but I don't know if any more were produced.

   

Looking at this again, I've often wondered whether anyone tried building Leighton Buzzard Mk 1 (or something very like it) following Peter Denny's recipe. The three parts of that are amongst the best "how to build a layout" articles I've ever seen. Denny himself never did build the whole thing which added to the folding pair of  station boards (each 2ft 9ins x 15ins), a second pair the same length with a scenic board to  give a run in and to accomodate an engine shed and the other to hold a traverser with a lift out tray that could be turned around. 

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11 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Doc

 

I still have a copy of the Waterloo track plan made from Peco track. They had it made up on a board on show at the big exhibitions in the 80s, as the back wall of their stand.

 

Hi Neil

 

Wasn't the Fromoway advert the southern approach of Crewe before the wires went up?

Formoway had several photos of prototype locations with the slogan "You can't tell the difference" which always seemed to beg the riposte "So we can get away with anything" A bit unfair as I gather Formoway track was pretty good but showing a photo of the real thing with no photo of the model product did always seem an odd way to advertise it.

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On 25/11/2019 at 21:48, t-b-g said:

 

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.

Hi Tony

Did you ever find any archaeological evidence of Leighton Buzzard Mk 1.

I still find his three part "Building Leighton Buzzard" articles on it that started in the May 1960 RM very inspiring. 

The May 1960 RM was something of a classic as , apart from Leighton Buzzard, it included the second part of Putting back the Clock (on P.D.Hancock's Craig and Mertonford) and Railway of the Month was the O gauge Ashdown Forest Railway of the then late G. Drummond Lyle the former chairman of Edward Exley Ltd. Just four photos (including the front cover) and a slghtly blurred track plan but still a very inspiring layout itself.

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8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Tony

Did you ever find any archaeological evidence of Leighton Buzzard Mk 1.

I still find his three part "Building Leighton Buzzard" articles on it that started in the May 1960 RM very inspiring. 

The May 1960 RM was something of a classic as , apart from Leighton Buzzard, it included the second part of Putting back the Clock (on P.D.Hancock's Craig and Mertonford) and Railway of the Month was the O gauge Ashdown Forest Railway of the then late G. Drummond Lyle the former chairman of Edward Exley Ltd. Just four photos (including the front cover) and a slghtly blurred track plan but still a very inspiring layout itself.

 

The fate of the early Leighton Buzzard and its similar relative Stony Stratford remain a mystery. On one of my visits to Truro to see Peter in his later years I asked him the same question as he was known to keep buildings from dismantled layouts for re-use. Sadly he couldn't remember whether the layouts had been broken up or given away intact. There was no sign of the station buildings and bridge on the early LB when we emptied the railway room, so there is a good chance it was given away intact and just maybe, still exists somewhere.

 

 

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That would be a find!

 

I too very much like the neat simplicity of those two layouts, which must have been hugely influential.

 

There is a pair of 42” x 16” baseboards on top of the bookshelves in my study, which are supposed to be for a tiny 0 gauge display, but in weaker moments I keep thinking about using them to create a tribute to those two folding layouts in 00, possibly Stony Stratford on its last legs in the late-1950s...... if someone brings out a r-t-r Derby Lightweight single car, I will probably give-in and do it.

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3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

That would be a find!

 

I too very much like the neat simplicity of those two layouts, which must have been hugely influential.

 

There is a pair of 42” x 16” baseboards on top of the bookshelves in my study, which are supposed to be for a tiny 0 gauge display, but in weaker moments I keep thinking about using them to create a tribute to those two folding layouts in 00, possibly Stony Stratford on its last legs in the late-1950s...... if someone brings out a r-t-r Derby Lightweight single car, I will probably give-in and do it.

You don't want to wait for the Derby lightweight single car Kevin, just go ahead and use the two baseboard for the tribute layout.

 

1 hour ago, DLT said:

I vaguely remember (haven't looked for it to confirm yet) reading that Stony Stratford was sold.  It may have been in the original Peco book, AND I may have imagined it!

You didn't imagine it. It's on P13 of Buckingham Great Central  "...once again, the plan was to include a branch line terminus on the lines of Stony Stratford, although this station had now been sold for £3 at a Model Railway Club Rummage Sale."  I wonder if the new owner did anything with it.

 

The new terminus was Tingewick but , with just a run round and a single goods siding, it was maybe a bit too simple in operating terms.

Apart from the odd placement of the  goods shed (which came from Tingewick) I find Leighton Buzzard mk 1 a far better looking  terminus than its two predecessors, That's not surprising given Denny's development as a modelle and, if Kevin does build his tribute layout. I hope that's the one he chooses. For a minimally  simple terminus that arrangement of two crossovers with sidings in opposite directions (Stony Stratfrord and LB mk1)  is hard to beat in terms of the amount of shunting it takes. I think the first modeller to use it was probably John Ahern with Gammon End (with a station building based on those on the Watlington branch) though I'm not convinced that JA ever did much actual operating of his layout.

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19 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

You don't want to wait for the Derby lightweight single car Kevin, just go ahead and use the two baseboard for the tribute layout.

 

You didn't imagine it. It's on P13 of Buckingham Great Central  "...once again, the plan was to include a branch line terminus on the lines of Stony Stratford, although this station had now been sold for £3 at a Model Railway Club Rummage Sale."  I wonder if the new owner did anything with it.

 

The new terminus was Tingewick but , with just a run round and a single goods siding, it was maybe a bit too simple in operating terms.

Apart from the odd placement of the  goods shed (which came from Tingewick) I find Leighton Buzzard mk 1 a far better looking  terminus than its two predecessors, That's not surprising given Denny's development as a modelle and, if Kevin does build his tribute layout. I hope that's the one he chooses. For a minimally  simple terminus that arrangement of two crossovers with sidings in opposite directions (Stony Stratfrord and LB mk1)  is hard to beat in terms of the amount of shunting it takes. I think the first modeller to use it was probably John Ahern with Gammon End (with a station building based on those on the Watlington branch) though I'm not convinced that JA ever did much actual operating of his layout.

There is a belief that the Madder Valley doesnt run very well. Yet at the museums 50th anniversary celebrations, all 3 operating exhibits, including MV were running extremely well John ahearns classic still with original stock ran far better than many finescale exhibition layouts.

I was told by a number of staff that one volunteer had expended many hours into making the exhibits reliable.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case now. On my most recent visit ,MV Dartmoor and the vale were not running at all well. I was told that the volunteer who had done so much had left. It was sadly evident that Pendon lacks someone to maintain the models properly. I was also saddened to see the MV stocked by modern rtr locos.

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