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Following popular demand, we have a new subgroup dedicated to the wonderful variety that is railways from pre 1923. We will see how this develops, but to start with it will cover modelling, questions and prototype discussions...don't think we'll have any memories any linger!

 

I know layouts have been mentioned a few times, but I like the idea of just have a thread with links to pre-grouping layouts, as opposed to moving anything.

 

 

So, as this is a welcome thread, feel free to introduce yourselves!

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Hello Everybody

 

All I did was ask a question on another branch of the forum and now here we are with a section covering pre-grouping. 

Andy, many thanks for setting it up and now let us see where it leads.

Claude, you got in before me but I endorse what you say and so : Welcome all of you out there with a like interest and questions and let us hope that we can learn from each other and also encourage each other to persevere with this branch of our hobby

 

Michael

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Hello everyone,

 

My first love is the LSWR, but a friend's project has extended my interest to the SECR.  I'm especially interested in wagons (all railways bar one) including private owner mineral wagons.  Always willing to research in my library.

 

Modelling in 7mm - at the moment wagons for Greenwich Croome Hill, followed by a rake of 4 wheel coaches from 1875.

 

Bill

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I'm delighted to have this sub-forum, which I think has been needed.

 

My main interest is GCR, but I have a liking for more or less all the pre-grouping companies, so I wonder if it's more the era than the company that does it for me. If pressed, I would probably list my next favourite lines as LNWR, LY, GWR, Knotty, Cambrian and LSWR, not necessarily in that order. But like I said, I don't turn my nose up at any of them.

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This looks to be a useful and interesting sub-group. 

 

I have just joined the forums and have a particular interest in the late 19th century, so look forward to sharing ideas.  I am in the process of turning the clock back on my small layout - and on my photographic technique, too.  When I've found my way around this site, I may start a thread describing some of the issues I have encountered so far.

 

post-19820-0-89471500-1374575083.jpg

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I confess to being almost exclusively a BR transition modeller, but when I say that the area is East Anglia I think the interest in pre-grouping becomes apparent! Right up to the end of steam in the area, which was of course quite early on compared to other regions, it was a veritable GER paradise, and my layout is also set to include a smattering of M&GN too. So do I get included?

 

Stewart

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Brilliant Idea for a sub-forum - have 'followed' it as I keep being led in the direction of the LBSCR... and then chicken out.

As a question can we have some sort of useful links page perhaps? To promote better understanding & share knowledge, for example I found http://www.stationcolours.info/ to be a very useful website, especially as it does give an indication & suggestions to Pre-Grouping colours - likewise if anyone else has manufactures of kits etc that deal with Pre-Grouping we can submit the links and have a 'pool' of knowledge. Was just a thought.

Many Thanks,

~ Gary

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What a great idea this is, I was beginning to think pre group modelling was a dying interest.  I have been modelling the Midland Railway plus a bit of North Eastern since 1955.  At that time,, there was no option but to scratch build, although Keyser had just started and produced a LNWR coal tank and a bit later some LNWR and LBSR six wheeled coaches. and Exley produced pre group coaches if you could afford them.  So good luck to this thread, I will be following it with interest.

Derek

 

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Various bits of pre-group here, and a little layout that sometimes runs N gauge LBSCR or LSWR stock, or Midland or one or two other things I've built!

 

Currently doing some GCR matchboard stuff although thats aimed at making a postgrouping layout look more sane given the amount of pre-group stock that lasted until the 1950s and 60s.

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I suppose I ought to put in my interests as well for pre-grouping.

 

My main interest is present-day Japan, but I have always had an interest in my local railway the LBSCR, and in particular the Midhurst branches; having grown up in Petworth and now living in Pulborough... I have had a long-burning project to build an N gauge model set in this area; which has been held up by space issues, and uncertainty around work. I have a few kits for rolling stock, a couple of Dapol terriers (they operated the Midhurst branches in the 1880s/90s) and a CAD design for Midhurst East signal box (not that I am building Midhurst itself), plus Vivien Thompson's invaluable book on LBSCR structures!

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While I model modern British and also Scandinavian scenes in N scale, I'm also a modeller of the GER in 2mm Finescale.

 

Having grown up in a house backing onto the route of the long closed Long Melford-Bury St Edmunds branch of the GER's Stour Valley system, I've been aiming to model these lines in their heyday for many years. Naturally the local connection is obvious, but I find the stunning blue livery of GER passenger locos, together with teak coaching stock, so much more attractive than later periods!

 

After switching from OO (with a very brief flirtation with EM) I've managed to build quite a collection of suitable pre-group stock in 2mm. My gloat box still contains a huge pile of etches including many GER coaches that I'm working up to building. 

 

In the short term, I'm putting together a "shunting plank" layout in 2mm, designed to fit within a flight case, depicting the original station at Sudbury on the Stour Valley line, which went on to become a very small loco shed and goods station. 

 

Longer term, I want to model Clare station, further up the line towards Cambridge. The station buildings survive as part of a country park, and uniquely (I believe) the station and line were actually built within the outer bailey of a Norman castle! By day, I'm a medieval historian, so the model will feature both the ruins of the castle on its motte, and the Augustinian priory which sat just to the south of the tracks, just outside the station.

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I look forward to this topic with interest.

 

I find the pre-grouping railways to be very interesting.

 

Of course the GWR counts as a pre-grouping railway as well, but being interested in the west country that also encompasses railways like the LSWR, S&DJR and the L&BR and numerous other subsidiaries.

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Very pleased to see a sub-section devoted to pre-grouping railways, an area much ignored and a million miles away from todays sterile railway scene.

 

My own interest is the Hull & Barnsley Railway. I'm in the process of building a Scale 7 layout rejoicing in the name of 'Staircliffe Exchange Sidings', which is a fictitious location in the Barnsley area which has interchange sidings handling traffic off the Great Central Railway. The period I'm modelling is c.1908. A major feature of the layout will be a locomotive servicing facility, where the locomotives off westbound goods trains will be turned before returning east towards Hull.

 

I would love to hear what other pre-grouping railways other forum members are modelling or planning to model.

 

Davey

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My interests lie in the Birkenhead Joint lines so it's no real surprise to find me looking at LNWR stuff, predictably operation and signalling.

 

Fellow WFRM member MikeT and another, sadly deceased, friend made a layout in the 1980s called Stockton Heath, a Warrington "What if?". I became (re) involved in the early 1990s and we exhibited at quite a few exhibitions, on occasion we would take the layout out in LNWR mode (we also offered LMS Western divsion and BR diesel/steam) - I have now disposed of all my LNWR bits and bobs sadly.

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While I model modern British and also Scandinavian scenes in N scale, I'm also a modeller of the GER in 2mm Finescale.

 

Having grown up in a house backing onto the route of the long closed Long Melford-Bury St Edmunds branch of the GER's Stour Valley system, I've been aiming to model these lines in their heyday for many years. Naturally the local connection is obvious, but I find the stunning blue livery of GER passenger locos, together with teak coaching stock, so much more attractive than later periods!

 

After switching from OO (with a very brief flirtation with EM) I've managed to build quite a collection of suitable pre-group stock in 2mm. My gloat box still contains a huge pile of etches including many GER coaches that I'm working up to building. 

 

In the short term, I'm putting together a "shunting plank" layout in 2mm, designed to fit within a flight case, depicting the original station at Sudbury on the Stour Valley line, which went on to become a very small loco shed and goods station. 

 

Longer term, I want to model Clare station, further up the line towards Cambridge. The station buildings survive as part of a country park, and uniquely (I believe) the station and line were actually built within the outer bailey of a Norman castle! By day, I'm a medieval historian, so the model will feature both the ruins of the castle on its motte, and the Augustinian priory which sat just to the south of the tracks, just outside the station.

 

I wish you luck with modeling the GER, I lived in Haverhill for a few years back in the late 50s and witnessed the removal of the track on the Colne Valley Line, the demolition train was hauled by a Y15 (J15 to LNERers), I may still have some b&w negatives of this train.

 

I always intended modeling Aldeburgh but there is now nothing left but a few photos. I did visit the Colne Valley Preservation line last year but it is too far away for regular visits and as I now live in GWR territory am about to start work on a diorama of a station on a long defunct Dorset branch line and the little that is left is only half an hour away.

 

P4 is now my prefered gauge rather EM which I'd intended using for Aldeburgh.

 

jayell

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I'm sort of on the fence with pre-grouping in that I'm modelling from the cross-over period through to the 1930s - but I just wanted to register my appreciation of the various 'Pre-Grouping' strands that have come into existence the last few days as I'm sure they'll be invaluable to me (and many others) in terms of resource.

 

I also hope to contribute from time-to time, although I think I'll always be in a bit of an 'overdraft' situation as far as the balance of my useful posts go.

 

Either way - I'm looking forward to seeing this Pre-Grouping corner of RMWeb growing as both a source of inspiration and knowledge.

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Should we have a place for resources .. eg the marvellous

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/cuthbert-hamilton-ellis/paintings/slideshow#/0

 

Alan (currently finishing off a North London Railway Brake)

Alan

Thanks for posting this; there are a number of paintings that I had not seen before.

Although many of the pictures have a caption to show the company that is portrayed, can anyone identify

- whose Crampton?

- Lancashire and Yorkshire?

- this one?

Best wishes

Eric

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Alan,

I can only repeat what Eric says: What a wonderful resource of illustration for our modelling.

If this forum continues to receive information like this from our ever-growing band, then we all bebefit.

Time I started to build some of these early trains!

Michael

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This one has been really niggling me. Unlike many Hamilton Ellis pictures, I cannot see any obvious clues in the background to suggest location, so it is down to a black 0-4-4 with mahogany(?) carriages. Could it be LCDR, with chalk downs in the background? The lizard in the foreground suggests that the whiteness in the background is not snow. As far as I know, the LNWR never went in for 0-4-4 tanks (and wrong carriage colour). Other companies with black locos included the Cambrian or the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway. The Barry Railway had some 0-4-4 tanks but the livery seems wrong.

Grateful for any better suggestions!

A website that has a lot of relevant information is here.

Best wishes

Eric

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It's a stumper, this one. The LDEC C class 0-4-4Ts had rounded tops to the side tanks which this loco doesn't seem to have. The same thing rules out the LCDR A classes, and the proportions look wrong for an R class - the bunker of the engine in the painting is too short and there aren't any condensing pipes.

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It's apparently the Wirral Railway - see description at http://www.travellingartgallery.com/landscape/print/merchdetail/S43P.html

Steve

Well found! And another very useful website.

It also confirms my guess that the brake van with the exaggerated lantern roof was L&Y and shows that the Crampton was LNWR.

The Wirral Railway is an unusual choice and seems to have entirely escaped the attention of modellers - unless anyone knows otherwise? 

Best wishes

Eric

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