The Oak Hill Branch - LBSCR / SECR 1905ish - New layout starts on page 129

[BlueLightning]

So, who could the Lady of the house best do without, her personal servant or someone to look after the children for her?

 

In that case I think I should make her the governess, after all you couldn't possibly expect the lady of the house to look after the children?!

 

Gary

[Edwardian]

In that case I think I should make her the governess, after all you couldn't possibly expect the lady of the house to look after the children?!

 

Gary

 

Quite!

[Andy Hayter]

Thanks James,

 

Sounds like a plan. The question is which one would be most likely to be with the family when they are travelling? After all they are at the station so must be heading somewhere.

 

Gary

 

I think the governess plan is the sound one.

 

It was common for a butler and a maid to be sent in advance if the family were moving from town to country residence (or as in this case vice versa): this so that they could open up the property, air it, heat it (if necessary), clean it, and make sure everything was in order for the arrival of the master and the family.  

[Compound2632]

Whenever I read more into other companies, I find to know them is to love them. 

 

Edwardian's getting quite theological here - must be the effect of the rush of ecclesiastical architecture over on CA. Having seen his youthful SVR snaps, I suspect that for him, for the Great Western, to love it is to know it. 

 

In slightly more mundane terms, having a passion for a certain company/location/what-you-will leads to research and a deeper understanding but often research throws up something that just has to be pursued... It's also called getting sidetracked. (I'm sure non of us here are guilty of that?)

[BlueLightning]

Thanks guys She is most definitely going to be the governess then!

[BlueLightning]

In slightly more mundane terms, having a passion for a certain company/location/what-you-will leads to research and a deeper understanding but often research throws up something that just has to be pursued... It's also called getting sidetracked. (I'm sure non of us here are guilty of that?)

 

I think you are right, and I don't think any of us could possibly be guilty of that. I wasn't modelling the late 1950's and then started reading about the LB&SCR as part of studying local history ever!!!!

 

Gary

[ChrisN]

These are the upper class figures I have Only 1 is planned to not be part of the family.

 

upperClass.jpg

 

From left to right:

 

Son - Wife - Husband - Not family - Daughter 1 - Daughter 2

                                    Governess

 

The one that is not part of the family may find her way in somehow possibly a nanny or similar?? would they have been that smart??

 

Gary

 

Gary,

Ten years earlier the Governess will be a Nanny. Looking at the children I think they look, the boy, 10ish, the little girl about 12, and the older girl at least 14.  She appears corseted so, if she has long hair then she could be sixteen, if her hair is up then maybe eighteen.  (You could roll a thin piece of DAS or Milliput and give her a plait to bring her age down if her hair is up.)  So, when they go on holiday to Wales the lad will be a babe in arms.  The two elder girls can be Stadden Figures but unless he has sitting children then they will have got bored and started running around.  I will have to find a suitable lady but, oh yes, but I will have to add the typical 1895 style of enormous sleeves.  The husband could be this gentleman, who has neither hat, beard or moustache.  His hat could be in the coach, and he has time for his whiskers to grow, but there may be a seated Langley figure to fit. 

 

They say that the pleasure is in the journey not in the arrival so making my journey a little longer will make me ecstatic I should think.

[BlueLightning]

Sounds like a good plan Chris! The older girl has her hair up and while I like the idea of modifying them I'm honestly not sure I could manage to do it well! So I think I shall go with her being 18.

 

Now I just need to name them and come up with a back story, which obviously must include an 1895 trip to Wales!

 

Gary

[Northroader]

Don't forget when they went anywhere they liked to have plenty of luggage, although I don't think the milk churn was hers. Painting by Tissot. If allowed any leeway, this is my wife's ideal, I have to put my foot down with a firm hand.

[BlueLightning]

That looks like roughly the amount of luggage my misses needs to take the kids to school in the morning!!!! :jester:

 

Gary

[ChrisN]

Gary,

I will just have to have an older girl, which is no problem.  As for luggage I have no problem as they will come in a luggage saloon so it is all hidden.

 

As for amounts of luggage, when the children were young, (stop me if you have heard this before), we had a game the day before we went on holiday, usually camping.  It was "If you, (my wife), put it out, I will pack it.  We usually had an estate, and eventually three lads, and I would put on a roof rack.  Fortunately I am quite good at packing because once the roof rack was filled, and the car was full, stuff would still appear, and appear, and appear.  All of it of course essential.  We never left anything behind. 

 

I am assuming that lady only has her hand luggage with her as she has not got much more than my wife normally takes.  She must have sent the rest on ahead.

 

They could of course be the guests of the young Englishman who lives at Ty Mawr, half way up the valley.  The family could travel up to his house with a special halt for it but the carriage would have to be driven up the roads.  It is March time so not the usual holiday period.

[BlueLightning]

Chris,

 

That sounds like a good reason for them to be visiting.

 

As for packing for when travelling I had to trade in the estate earlier in the year and now have a small MPV!! Not that my good lady would ever go over the top!!

 

Gary

[Compound2632]

Painting by Tissot.

 

Willesden Junction, 1874, looking towards London with the Loop Line station on the viaduct - compare this OS 25" map, surveyed 1865. Tissot was usually a very acute observer of detail - note the slotted post signals on both the main and overhead lines. However, that engine on the viaduct, with its great polished dome and Salter valves, doesn't correspond to any Southern Division engine and in fact has rather a French look to it - Tissot had only been in London a couple of years when he painted this. One has to allow that the engine wasn't going to hang around to be sketched, unlike the rest of the scene.

 

What's really caught her attention is the sight of Mr Ferdinand Lopez 'walking backwards and forwards as though waiting for the coming of some especial train' - though he eventually crosses to the down side, walks down the platform ramp and into the path of the down Inverness express.

 

Excepting the Gare St Lazare, I can't think of any other station that is quite so vividly evoked in art and literature as Willesden Junction.

[Edwardian]

Willesden Junction, 1874, looking towards London with the Loop Line station on the viaduct - compare this OS 25" map, surveyed 1865. Tissot was usually a very acute observer of detail - note the slotted post signals on both the main and overhead lines. However, that engine on the viaduct, with its great polished dome and Salter valves, doesn't correspond to any Southern Division engine and in fact has rather a French look to it - Tissot had only been in London a couple of years when he painted this. One has to allow that the engine wasn't going to hang around to be sketched, unlike the rest of the scene.

 

What's really caught her attention is the sight of Mr Ferdinand Lopez 'walking backwards and forwards as though waiting for the coming of some especial train' - though he eventually crosses to the down side, walks down the platform ramp and into the path of the down Inverness express.

 

Excepting the Gare St Lazare, I can't think of any other station that is quite so vividly evoked in art and literature as Willesden Junction.

 

Ah, the suicide at Tenway Junction!

 

Having eaten a mutton chop at Euston, Lopez takes a First Class journey to "Tenway Junction", "some six or seven miles distant from London", though he buys a return ticket.  Then there follows a most evocative description of this "marvellous place, quite unintelligible to the uninitiated" 

 

I love the way that locomotives are given the attributes of horses - "it seems ... impossible that the best trained engine should know its own line" - and the idea of a "wilderness of wagons".

[Northroader]

Willesden Junction, 1874, looking towards London with the Loop Line station on the viaduct - compare this OS 25" map, surveyed 1865. Tissot was usually a very acute observer of detail - note the slotted post signals on both the main and overhead lines. However, that engine on the viaduct, with its great polished dome and Salter valves, doesn't correspond to any Southern Division engine.

How about one of these?

[Edwardian]

How about one of these?IMG_1125.JPG

 

According to the map linked by Compound, only one of the lines crossing at high level was North Western.  The other was that of the Hampstead Junction Railway, absorbed by the North London Railway in 1867.

[Adams442T]

How about one of these?IMG_1125.JPG

 

Beautiful!!  One of my favourite locos!  The North London Railway 4-4-0 tanks, even in their later enclosed cab guise, retained much of the workmanlike elegance that they were famed for.

 

I do have one of Jim Connor's excellent, 4 mm scale, Class 1 -10 locomotives to start on, as soon as I've finished my current project!

[Compound2632]

How about one of these?IMG_1125.JPG

 

Ah yes of course! Point to M. Tissot. (He's missed off the sand-dome and added the Salter valves but not bad for someone whose idea off a suburban passenger tank engine might have been more like this or as painted by Tissot's friend Monet.

 

According to the map linked by Compound, only one of the lines crossing at high level was North Western.  The other was that of the Hampstead Junction Railway, absorbed by the North London Railway in 1867.

 

I took the high level line in the painting to be the loop line rather than the Hampstead Junction line, as it's so close to the end of the platforms; also, from the lighting, I think south is to the right so we're looking east. Which platform are we at? She wouldn't have all that luggage just for a trip into Town - she must be going on somewhere. Has she come up from the country and is changing for somewhere SW via the West Junction line? But wouldn't it be more likely to have gone up to the high level platforms for that? Where is one of Trollop's 'well-taught pundits' when you need him?

 

Anyway, wouldn't the loop line passenger trains be NLR?

[Edwardian]

Ah yes of course! Point to M. Tissot. (He's missed off the sand-dome and added the Salter valves but not bad for someone whose idea off a suburban passenger tank engine might have been more like this or as painted by Tissot's friend Monet.

 

 

I took the high level line in the painting to be the loop line rather than the Hampstead Junction line, as it's so close to the end of the platforms; also, from the lighting, I think south is to the right so we're looking east. Which platform are we at? She wouldn't have all that luggage just for a trip into Town - she must be going on somewhere. Has she come up from the country and is changing for somewhere SW via the West Junction line? But wouldn't it be more likely to have gone up to the high level platforms for that? Where is one of Trollop's 'well-taught pundits' when you need him?

 

Anyway, wouldn't the loop line passenger trains be NLR?

 

Bow to your greater knowledge; I am one of the uninitiated for whom these lines are unintelligible!  All I know is that the NLR used it, and that must include whatever line featured in the painting.

[Andy Hayter]

 She wouldn't have all that luggage just for a trip into Town - she must be going on somewhere. 

Well maybe but there again perhaps not.

 

It is hard to believe now that up until the end of the 19th century, London was a very compact city.  Places such as Neasden and Twickenham were villages surrounding the city.  

 

So an 8 mile journey might well be a move from the country seat to the city mansion and require that a Lady have all necessary requirements to hand.

[Argos]

A feature of the painting that I don't think I've ever seen modelled are the Red and Green platform tiles.

 

Very colourful!

[Compound2632]

By the way I think that's Tissot's own luggage in the picture - note the JTJ monogram on the small case. (Jacques Joseph Tissot, anglicised to James.)

 

I had a hunt for any more of his paintings featuring railway scenes but was rather hampered by his later religious phase - a widely-reproduced set of Stations of the Cross. However, from 1880 or thereabouts there are two versions of the Departure Platform, Victoria Station - one more chaotic than the other - which also looks more highly-finished. It may be the same locomotive with its back to us in both pictures - with that great brass bell-mouth dome*, it looks more like a Beattie well tank than anything Brighton or Chatham. But at least we're getting back on the right line for Gary! (Apologies for the CA-esque meander.)

 

Edit: * or North London again?

Edited June 23, 2017 by Compound2632

[BlueLightning]

Right while we are off topic I am going to go on a little rant!! Don't feel bad if you don't read it, it really has nothing to do with Oak Hill.

 

As regular readers will know I am what would be considered "young" for a railway modeller (3 kids and a divorce don't make me feel young!!), in fact I am 28! I also have a reasonably young face, I recently got ID'd trying to buy a bottle of wine!!

 

So why the hell does that make some modellers think that I am not even worth their precious time talking to!!!! I went to an "exhibition" today, if you could call it that, with one very poor looking layout of a station very local to me, or at least that's what it claimed, it looked nothing like the station ever did!! And it wasn't working, the operator had no idea what had happened and instead of trying to fix it was talking to the crowd.

 

He repeatedly ignored me when I tried to talk to him, as I wanted to help so that my step-son could see the trains run, I ended up chatting with some of the other visitors and made sure to be loud enough that he could hear me talking about the fact that I am a committee member at Uckfield MRC and have a layout which has just been published by the Brighton Circle.

 

It didn't take long for a crowd to gather around me to look at pictures of my layout on my phone, the layout operator changed his mind about wanting to talk to me by this point but unfortunately for him so had I!

 

How the hell can people be this ignorant about someone because of their age!? What the hell does it matter how old someone is!? Are there really people out there that still believe you can't be "young" and a railway modeller!? And how do these people think this hobby is going to last if they act like that towards people!?

 

End of rant, if you did read it give yourself a pat on the back.

 

Also, am I wrong?

 

Gary

[Edwardian]

Right while we are off topic I am going to go on a little rant!! Don't feel bad if you don't read it, it really has nothing to do with Oak Hill.

 

As regular readers will know I am what would be considered "young" for a railway modeller (3 kids and a divorce don't make me feel young!!), in fact I am 28! I also have a reasonably young face, I recently got ID'd trying to buy a bottle of wine!!

 

So why the hell does that make some modellers think that I am not even worth their precious time talking to!!!! I went to an "exhibition" today, if you could call it that, with one very poor looking layout of a station very local to me, or at least that's what it claimed, it looked nothing like the station ever did!! And it wasn't working, the operator had no idea what had happened and instead of trying to fix it was talking to the crowd.

 

He repeatedly ignored me when I tried to talk to him, as I wanted to help so that my step-son could see the trains run, I ended up chatting with some of the other visitors and made sure to be loud enough that he could hear me talking about the fact that I am a committee member at Uckfield MRC and have a layout which has just been published by the Brighton Circle.

 

It didn't take long for a crowd to gather around me to look at pictures of my layout on my phone, the layout operator changed his mind about wanting to talk to me by this point but unfortunately for him so had I!

 

How the hell can people be this ignorant about someone because of their age!? What the hell does it matter how old someone is!? Are there really people out there that still believe you can't be "young" and a railway modeller!? And how do these people think this hobby is going to last if they act like that towards people!?

 

End of rant, if you did read it give yourself a pat on the back.

 

Also, am I wrong?

 

Gary

 

One of my false starts - i.e. when I almost started railway modelling, but didn't - was when I was a 20-something. 

 

I joined a club, for the first and last time, but found the levels of condescension simply unbearable.  I thought to myself "hang on, I am after all a practising barrister and an army officer, financially independent and holding down two very responsible roles. Do I really want to be treated like a small child by these grumpy old men?"  

 

I went and took up a different past-time, where most members of the group were middle-aged and above, but who welcomed me and treated me with the same consideration and respect that I extended to them, and I made firm friendships across the generations.

 

In both cases I was learning something new. The difference was in the attitude of the established members of the group. 

 

So, you can judge from that.Gary, that I readily empathise with your experience.

 

Fortunately we are both in good company here!

[BG John]

I joined my local club when I was 12 or 13, and was a member for about 30 years until I moved away. I was Treasurer for quite a few years too, starting in my 20s I think. I started building my first exhibition layout when I was 20, and exhibited it a lot in my mid to late 20s. I don't think I was ever treated like that, by anyone, regardless of their age. Unless I didn't notice!