Jump to content
 

Please use M,M&M only for topics that do not fit within other forum areas. All topics posted here await admin team approval to ensure they don't belong elsewhere.

Older Inspirational Layouts


Recommended Posts

On 07/03/2021 at 22:52, D-A-T said:

Slight thread drift, as I never saw it,  but a layout I found inspirational was called Eastfleet by a member of the Wakefield MRC which I think the member gifted to them. It was a circular layout of a harbour branch in the east coast. It just captured the smell of the sea and secondary route nature of the line. Was in Model Railways magazine I think. Late 80s/90s?

Eastfleet was built by WRMC (note, WRMC not WMRC*) member Keith Parker in EM and exhibited by him a few times.  He then passed it on to friend and fellow club member Derek Senior who modified/extended it.  In this guise it appeared at Wakefield show and possible Expo EM (?) but Derek moved a bit further South and I'm not sure what then happened to it.  It was a very nice layout with a viaduct section across the 'sea'.

 

*Wakefield Railway Modellers' Club not Model Railway Club.  Got to get things right...............:rolleyes:

Edited by 5050
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
9 hours ago, kevinlms said:

TP18 is a condensed version, which still includes St James Park Halt, but is only 15ft x 8ft. A similar arrangement of the loops appears.

That was also a Plan of the Month, in October 1962.

Link to post
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Talking of which, has anyone here present got a copy of the first edition of "60 Plans" that they would be willing to part with?

 

I used to have a copy, but I think I threw it away (!!!) about thirty years ago, when it seemed simply outmoded, and I thought I'd grown out of that sort of thing, so now the earliest one I have is the second edition, which actually isn't all that good.

 

 

I have a copy but i'm afraid there's no way I'm parting with it. However, if there any particular plans you need I do have a scanner. For me, the best thing about the first edition is the plans from actual model railways including CJF's own Tregunna,  Potter's Heron, Charford (the caravan version), the first iteration of the Craig and Mertonford after the trams came to Craig but before the standard gauge came to Craig station, and Maurice Deane's Culm Valley Branch. The last three are all in my list of older inspirational layouts and the Culm Valley is particularly interesting though it was only in fairly recent years that I got hold of his articles about it in a very early RM.

What I also notice about the first edition is how many plans (apart from those) were from different people including John Ahern and John Emslie whose plans were mainly based on real  Scottish termini.    

  • Like 1
  • Agree 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I have a copy but i'm afraid there's no way I'm parting with it. However, if there any particular plans you need I do have a scanner. For me, the best thing about the first edition is the plans from actual model railways including CJF's own Tregunna,  Potter's Heron, Charford (the caravan version), the first iteration of the Craig and Mertonford after the trams came to Craig but before the standard gauge came to Craig station, and Maurice Deane's Culm Valley Branch. The last three are all in my list of older inspirational layouts and the Culm Valley is particularly interesting though it was only in fairly recent years that I got hold of his articles about it in a very early RM.

What I also notice about the first edition is how many plans (apart from those) were from different people including John Ahern and John Emslie whose plans were mainly based on real  Scottish termini.    

Interesting. I have an early edition, but clearly not the first, as it doesn't include most of the specific plans listed apart from, I think, Tregunna. It does, however, still contain several of the John Emslie plans, including Moffat and (I think) Kyle of Lochalsh. The latter is combined with a plan for an Irish 3' gauge terminus (I forget which) to create an end to end layout. A concept which would be considered sacreligious today, but which seems to have been quite normal in the 50s. There's also a plan in there by one of the major US designers of the time, whose name I seem unable to bring to mind at the moment.

Link to post
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Bill Schopp.

I was pretty sure it wasn't Mr Schopp, but the other prominent US designer of the time who may or may not have been John Allen. Could be wrong though, and my copy is somewhat geographically separated from me so I cant check immediately,

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
2 hours ago, PatB said:

I was pretty sure it wasn't Mr Schopp, but the other prominent US designer of the time who may or may not have been John Allen. Could be wrong though, and my copy is somewhat geographically separated from me so I cant check immediately,

Definitely Bill Schopp. Plans 22 and 24 are attributed to him.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
5 hours ago, PatB said:

Interesting. I have an early edition, but clearly not the first, as it doesn't include most of the specific plans listed apart from, I think, Tregunna. It does, however, still contain several of the John Emslie plans, including Moffat and (I think) Kyle of Lochalsh. The latter is combined with a plan for an Irish 3' gauge terminus (I forget which) to create an end to end layout. A concept which would be considered sacreligious today, but which seems to have been quite normal in the 50s. There's also a plan in there by one of the major US designers of the time, whose name I seem unable to bring to mind at the moment.

I have 2 editions of that book, but apparently not the 1st edition either, because none of those ring a bell.

For some reason, they are both AWOL, which is strange because I have 5 other Peco track plan books and I usually keep them together.

  • Friendly/supportive 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
12 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Maurice Deane's Culm Valley Branch. The last three are all in my list of older inspirational layouts and the Culm Valley is particularly interesting though it was only in fairly recent years that I got hold of his articles about it in a very early RM.

 

That's interesting David, can you remember offhand, which editions it was in?

Many thanks, Dave.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Ist Edition 58-60  2nd 60-70 3rd ed three impressions 71,74 & 75, 4th undated. My 4th has a Max Williams sticker which suggests around 85.

 

I  never had the 1st, the second was kindly given away with all my magazines while at college. Thank you Mother.

 

The Craig and Mertonford plans are in the Peco book. I know I have seen the original Charford in one of my magazines

 

Don

 

Culm Valley not in 3 or 4 it was in MRN one of the issues given away

 

Edited by Donw
adding post script
Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, DLT said:

 

That's interesting David, can you remember offhand, which editions it was in?

Many thanks, Dave.

Hi Dave

The plan was in the first edition only of 60 plans for Small Railways. Maurice Deane's articles on the Culm Valley (from whence the plan came )were in the January (prototype) and February (layout) 1952 editions of Railway Modeller. I'm looking at them now!

Edited by Pacific231G
  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Dave

The plan was in the first edition only of 60 plans for Small Railways. Maurice Deane's articles on the Culm Valley (from whence the plan came )were in the January (prototype) and February (layout) 1952 editions of Railway Modeller. I'm looking at them now!

 

Thanks very much David, sadly my collection doesn't go back that far!

CJF often referred to the "Deane pattern Fiddle Yard" on a circular layout, where the yard was behind the terminus backscene, and a hidden continuous run could be arranged.

Cheers, Dave.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 10/03/2021 at 14:24, St Enodoc said:

Definitely Bill Schopp. Plans 22 and 24 are attributed to him.

I've looked now, and, yes, contrary to my increasingly unreliable memory, it was a Bill Schopp plan. My 60 Plans is the 2nd Edition, which seems to have dropped the other Schopp plan. 

 

It does, however, include a very narrow, L-shaped BLT by Smokey Bourne. 

Edited by PatB
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, DLT said:

 

Thanks very much David, sadly my collection doesn't go back that far!

CJF often referred to the "Deane pattern Fiddle Yard" on a circular layout, where the yard was behind the terminus backscene, and a hidden continuous run could be arranged.

Cheers, Dave.

Hi Dave. Be sad no more as happily I can PM it to you. Yes, that was the plan that Maurice Deane adopted for his first (AFAIK) published layout, Portreath. It was featured in the Aug-Sept 1950 Railway Modeller. It was his discovery of the Culm Valley line soon afterwards  that led him to scrap that and use the same baseboards, more or less, for the later layout. On Portreath, the terminus, "main" line and the fiddle yard behind the terminus were on the main hollow baseboards and the lower right extension board, occupied by the Hemyock terminus on Culm valley,  was occupied by a Wantage style tramway that ran from a junction with the branch. 

M.E.J. Deane, who  built a number of small layouts, used a somewhat similar arrangement of a terminus coming off the inside of an oval for his Wantage tramway, Jersey, Rye and Camber, and Welshpool and Llanfair layouts though the "fiddle yard" was generally just a passing/run-round loop somewhere on the oval. I don't think he ever built another, what CJF christened as, "Deane Pattern" layout as such. The arrangement was though, notably used by  Wilbert Awdry for his 6ft x 4ft Ffarquahar layout. For a home layout I think the idea was that, if you just wanted to look at it, the fiddle yard was hidden under or behind  low relief scenery but, for proper operating sessions, you  removed that piece of scenery and simply ignored the fact that the fiddle yard was just behinf the terminus.   

  • Agree 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

The other idea with the Deane fiddle yard was that  with the fiddle yard behind the terminus a continuous run link could be incorporated. Sometimes digused as a siding for a works. The 'passing loop' behind the terminus would have been the fiddle yard in those days having to make most of it yourself you were lucky enough to have sufficient stock to make up two trains. In the period just after the war even timber and rail were in poor supply.  

Don

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
3 hours ago, PatB said:

 

It does, however, include a very narrow, L-shaped BLT by Smokey Bourne. 

Is that the Harbour station plan that appeared in the RM for 1961 September?

Link to post
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Is that the Harbour station plan that appeared in the RM for 1961 September?

I don't think so. Although I'm not familiar with that particular issue of RM, the Bourne BLT in the book (plan 43s) doesn't include a harbour or dock. Apart from its compactness, it's a fairly conventional terminus of the "loop and a few sidings" variety, although the loop is longer than normal, and is bent around the corner. The idea seems to have been that the main trackwork, platform and fiddle yard are confined to a maximum width of 7", with only the two sidings of the main goods yard extending beyond that limit. Although attributed to Bourne, the plan has clearly been redrawn by CJF. Interestingly, its one of those shown fully signalled, and has appropriately sited trap points indicated. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
1 hour ago, Donw said:

The other idea with the Deane fiddle yard was that  with the fiddle yard behind the terminus a continuous run link could be incorporated. Sometimes digused as a siding for a works. The 'passing loop' behind the terminus would have been the fiddle yard in those days having to make most of it yourself you were lucky enough to have sufficient stock to make up two trains. In the period just after the war even timber and rail were in poor supply.  

Don

 

Quite so, Don.  One loco, a coach or two and half-a-dozen wagons, and you had a layout!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Donw said:

The other idea with the Deane fiddle yard was that  with the fiddle yard behind the terminus a continuous run link could be incorporated. Sometimes digused as a siding for a works. The 'passing loop' behind the terminus would have been the fiddle yard in those days having to make most of it yourself you were lucky enough to have sufficient stock to make up two trains. In the period just after the war even timber and rail were in poor supply.  

Don

Yes, that was an essential feature of the scheme. On Portreath (RM July/August 1950) Maurice Deane didn't signal the link so it was obviously deemed to not exist during operating sessions. Others have used it as an industrial line or siding, notably Wilbert Awdry with the 6x4 version of Ffarquhar where it was the tramway to a quarry (Toby's quarry). In  the permanent version of  Charford, John Charman had a similar arrangement though the storage sidings were beneath the Charford terminus so the link ran behind the fiddle yard and the rearmost station track on a rising 1:30 gradient to emerge as the end of a timber yard siding normally concealed by a small piece of removable scenery incorporating a buffer stop with a hedge to conceal the hole.

 

Though it was the short lived Portreath layout- short lived because it was replaced by the Culm Valley- that first used the arrangement that CJF christened the "Deane Pattern Fiddle Yard" it wasn't used on the Culm Valley, which is essentially a coiled point to point layout,  and  I don't think Deane himself ever used it again- though his Wantage Tramway layout came close.  My impression, which could be wrong,  is that he was  a bit of a serial layout builder but not a great one for operation and built layouts based on light railways that had appealed to him. It's entirely possible though that the Culm Valley remained his long term layout. and was operated seriously; it was certainly capable of that, and I'd be interested to know of anything else he built or wrote later.  

 

Edited by Pacific231G
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
23 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Yes, that was an essential feature of the scheme. On Portreath (RM July/August 1950) Maurice Deane didn't signal the link so it was obviously deemed to not exist during operating sessions. Others have used it as an industrial line or siding, notably Wilbert Awdry with the 6x4 version of Ffarquhar where it was the tramway to a quarry (Toby's quarry). In  the permanent version of  Charford, John Charman had a similar arrangement though the storage sidings were beneath the Charford terminus so the link ran behind the fiddle yard and the rearmost station track on a rising 1:30 gradient to emerge as the end of a timber yard siding normally concealed by a small piece of removable scenery incorporating a buffer stop with a hedge to conceal the hole.

 

Though it was the short lived Portreath layout- short lived because it was replaced by the Culm Valley- that first used the arrangement that CJF christened the "Deane Pattern Fiddle Yard" it wasn't used on the Culm Valley, which is essentially a coiled point to point layout,  and  I don't think Deane himself ever used it again- though his Wantage Tramway layout came close.  My impression, which could be wrong,  is that he was  a bit of a serial layout builder but not a great one for operation and built layouts based on light railways that had appealed to him. It's entirely possible though that the Culm Valley remained his long term layout. and was operated seriously; it was certainly capable of that, and I'd be interested to know of anything else he built or wrote later.  

 

There was the Rye and Camber, as has been mentioned (RM February 1995) and the Welshpool and Llanfair (RM July 1961. He also built an outdoor 0 gauge end-to-end GWR branch called Hampstead Moreton, which was Railway of the Month in August 1970. A classic garden railway with the track supported on creosoted planks!

  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Is that the Harbour station plan that appeared in the RM for 1961 September?

 

11 hours ago, PatB said:

I don't think so. Although I'm not familiar with that particular issue of RM, the Bourne BLT in the book (plan 43s) doesn't include a harbour or dock. Apart from its compactness, it's a fairly conventional terminus of the "loop and a few sidings" variety, although the loop is longer than normal, and is bent around the corner. The idea seems to have been that the main trackwork, platform and fiddle yard are confined to a maximum width of 7", with only the two sidings of the main goods yard extending beyond that limit. Although attributed to Bourne, the plan has clearly been redrawn by CJF. Interestingly, its one of those shown fully signalled, and has appropriately sited trap points indicated. 

Yes and no! 

plan S43  in the 3rd edition (1971) of 60 plans is the same Smokey Bourne Harbour station which was Plan of the Month in September 1961 (though not credited to him in 60 plans!) and a very interesting idea as docks and harbour branches have scope for all sorts of things that would never be found on a BLT.   Plan 43s in the 2nd edition (1958) is a different, but still L shaped, plan attributed to Smokey Bourne and described in CJF's accompanying notes as "one of the most compact L's ever designed"  It was originally published in the June 1956 RM and the design credited to T.W. Bourne though with what looks like Cyril Freezer's brief notes. The Harbour Station in September 1951 is credited "Plan and Notes by T.W. Bourne" 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
Edition of RM for Bourne's ultra narrow layout identified
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

Didn't Maurice also build a layout based on the Jersey Railway?

 

There are also a lot of references by CJF to a layout built in a small room/cupboard by someone (Frank Coulson?) which was the 'Deane' style with the fiddleyard behind the station.

 

Don

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Somebody, by which I really mean 231G, should write an article for RM, sawing these classics from the past to the attention of newbies - if it covered the classic Deane branch-line circuit, and a couple of others (Piano? And ??), with plans using modern geometry, and some nice examples of the art, it would be a really good read.

  • Like 2
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...