Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Some seaside resorts do have that je ne sais quoi,https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bBZUjgMep94

 

Better that than a bad town on the coast .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryzFxorpMF0&app=desktop

[Caley Jim]

... but a corpse van from one of the adjacent main-line companies might be justified - perhaps bringing the remains of some long-lost Erstwhile to be interred in the family tomb.

The NBR had such a vehicle, which, IIRC they called a coffin truck, but I doubt it ever got as far as Norfolk!

 

Jim

[corneliuslundie]

It is still happening. My wife and i accidentally had a few days in Morecambe a few years ago. It was closed.

Mind you (to bring the thread slightly back on track) the Midland Hotel there has been restored nicely. Pity about the rest of the front.

On bandstands, 

This one at Llandrindod Wells is quite nice, still in regular use and in a town which I suspect in 1905 was about the same size as Castle Aching.

Does CA run to a theatre/concert hall? if so the Albert Hall in LLW might be appropriate:

Jonathan

[runs as required]

A May snowfall in LLW is certainly my idea of fun

[uax6]

All this talk of bandstands makes me wonder if the PC has made sure that the  new cast iron urinal has been installed yet?

 

Andy G

[Compound2632]

Ah but Llandrindod Wells was a seriously upmarket tourist resort in its late Victorian heyday. Did not the Kaiser and the Empress Elisabeth both stay there incognito (not at the same time...)?

[Edwardian]

All this talk of bandstands makes me wonder if the PC has made sure that the  new cast iron urinal has been installed yet?

 

Andy G

 

Ah, la pissotière de Clochemerle!

[Regularity]

The Shadowy Missenden - hard to spot, as no doubt playing the role of some eminently respectable citizen, hiding in plain sight, but look for a man who can hood his eyes like a hawk, and you will have found the éminence grise of international espionage himself!

 

The Shadowy Elusive Missenden, perchance?

 

Now, on which finger, on which hand, is the digit truncated at the third joint...?

[St Enodoc]

There were two necropolis railway services from London: the quite well known one from Waterloo; and, another, from Kings Cross. http://stcnsg.org.uk/cemetery1954/index.htm

 

Possibly not enough traffic of such a kind on the WNR to merit dedicated rolling-stock or trains, although the Festiniog had the former, and there was a horses-tramway in Argentina (I may have the wrong country, but I'm pretty sure the right continent) that had both.

One in Sydney too:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rookwood_Cemetery_railway_line

[St Enodoc]

I am sure there must have been some effort to erect a splendid fin-de-siècle station there?

 

The Shadowy Missenden - hard to spot, as no doubt playing the role of some eminently respectable citizen, hiding in plain sight, but look for a man who can hood his eyes like a hawk, and you will have found the éminence grise of international espionage himself!  

Call International Rescue!

[St Enodoc]

Which made me look-up Port Soderick.

 

It has possibly the funniest Wikipedia entry in existence, which makes Shepherd’s Port seem like thriving resort. I bet the IoM Tourist Board love this.

 

“Port Soderick is a small hamlet to the south of Douglas, capital of the Isle of Man, once famed for its pleasure grounds and beach. In latter years there have been various attempts to rejuvenate the area, all of which have been unsuccessful to date.

 

The beach area has its own small promenade and hotel (latterly named "The Anchor" but now closed and abandoned), a suspended walkway (now closed and deemed unsafe), former oyster beds and Sealion-pool, large building formerly housing an amusement arcade, paddling pool (long since filled in by shingle from the incoming tide ........

 

......... The site has limitations mainly associated with decay of the building structures due to lack of maintenance and vandalism and the general deterioration of the old coastal walkways. In addition there is no sewer connection at the site and the sea outfall has long been destroyed.“

 

The railway station is very pleasant; rather glad I missed the rest!

But apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the holiday?

[Hroth]

It needs to be more remote, desolate, and visibly unsuccessful really.

 

Can I offer Allhallows as an alternative white elephant, if a rather later one? Talk about the last resort!

 

Allhallows looked rather bleak so I followed it up on  Disused Stations.  http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/a/allhallows_on_sea/

 

I don't know whats worse, the fact that it was a failed twiglet, the end of a line that was a bit too far into the unknown - all those bleak marshes on the edge of civilisation - or that its now the site of a trailer park.

 

 

Largely demolished - the site is now a residential Park Home Estate known as Kingsmead Park Allhallows. The degraded north end of the platform survives as a raised base for new homes. The pillar water tank which was at the south end of the platform survives and has been restored and is well maintained. It stands amongst the homes.

 

Looking at the site on Google Maps, the nearest thing to Public Transport is a rudimentary bus stop at the end of Avery Way.  Like so many sites of former railway stations, its thoroughly eradicated.  In the aerial view, you can pick up the outline of the station in the development, though at a cursory glance, the water tank now seems to have vanished too.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Avery+Way,+Allhallows,+Rochester+ME3+9QJ/@51.4742933,0.6556089,127a,35y,209.63h,45t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d8d127f8ca9c6f:0x58ee5e19a086473e!8m2!3d51.471372!4d0.6471099

Edited May 23, 2018 by Hroth

[Hroth]

Ah, la pissotière de Clochemerle!

One wonders what the etiquette of using such "facilities" is.  Does one enter through the little flap and progress in one direction (left or right) to the first vacant spot and then proceed in the same direction to exit?

 

The Shadowy Elusive Missenden, perchance?

 

Now, on which finger, on which hand, is the digit truncated at the third joint...?

Does he have a white cat?  Thats another important identifier.  Too many gentlemen of impeccable character and missing fingertips have been rudely accosted by over-excited adventurers....

[Edwardian]

The Shadowy Elusive Missenden, perchance?

 

Now, on which finger, on which hand, is the digit truncated at the third joint...?

 

I don't know, but I am becoming rather tired of having to disguise myself as a milkman every time I want to take a train from King's Cross!

[St Enodoc]

I don't know, but I am becoming rather tired of having to disguise myself as a milkman every time I want to take a train from King's Cross!

Try St Pancras next time...

[Talltim]

... but a corpse van from one of the adjacent main-line companies might be justified - perhaps bringing the remains of some long-lost Erstwhile to be interred in the family tomb.

There’s a whole book about funeral trams

Edited May 23, 2018 by Talltim

[Edwardian]

Try St Pancras next time...

 

Yes, well, the way things I going, I might well do that.  But it will be a one-way ticket to Paris! 

 

 

There’s a whole book about funeral trams

A1ADCD40-CD15-4FCF-AFE8-9A6D541206A1.jpeg

 

 

Truly, there is a book on everything, though it makes me realise what a mainstream author J. R. Hartley was, compared with the authors of some of this arcana.

[Annie]

Allhallows looked rather bleak so I followed it up on  Disused Stations.  http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/a/allhallows_on_sea/

 

I don't know whats worse, the fact that it was a failed twiglet, the end of a line that was a bit too far into the unknown - all those bleak marshes on the edge of civilisation - or that its now the site of a trailer park.

 

 

 

It didn't exactly have much going for it, - bleak marshland, an unfortunate name like 'All Hallows' and to get there you leave from a station called 'Gravesend'.

 

 

Reminds me of a town on an imaginary minor railway I plotted out that I named 'Trenchmouth on Sea'

Edited May 23, 2018 by Annie

[Hroth]

Of course, Allhallows is the sort of place where Pip met Magwitch...

[Edwardian]

Seeing as we seem to have strayed south eastwards, I have a small confession to make.

 

Well, two small confessions.

 

As you know, the budget for CA is fairly tight at the moment, and indulging in new and shiny things is rare and seems almost sinful.

 

Birthday celebrations are somewhat perfunctory in our household - nobody makes a fuss - and the Memsahib cannot, in any case, quite bring herself to spend good money on a train.

 

In these circumstances, I have taken to using my Natal Day as an excuse for an indulgence. Last year it was the Hornby Peckett, Dodo, which is a wonderful little model.

 

This year ....

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Now, they look very pretty indeed!

 

But, given how famously modest the performance of the real things is, deeply sub-terrier, what work do you have in mind for them? Are we looking urban, or rural?

 

Surely not the death of a thousand razor-saw cuts to make them into something West Norfolkian.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Now, they look very pretty indeed!

 

But, given how famously modest the performance of the real things is, deeply sub-terrier, what work do you have in mind for them? Are we looking urban, or rural?

 

Surely not the death of a thousand razor-saw cuts to make them into something West Norfolkian.

 

No, no surgery! I will replace the buffers - Hattons, bless 'em, listened, and included alternative buffers, and I will have to face trimming off the rivets on the smoke box wrappers, otherwise it's just a case of screwlinks, crews, the usual extra details and some judicious light weathering and they are good for a pre-Great War SE layout. 

 

I was thinking of pairing with an ex-LCDR 6-wheel 3-set converted to push-pull.

 

You recall I was banging on about Dunton Green and the Sevenoaks - Tonbridge line?

 

A good way to mix mainline traffic - Os/O1s and Cs on goods, Fs/F1s with secondary passenger services, Ds and Es on boat trains and 'car trains' - with little Ps on motor trains. 

[Annie]

Delightful little engines  

 

The SE&CR livery has always struck a chord with me and I've been much tempted more than just the once.

[Poggy1165]

When you look at those locos it makes you wonder why no one has produced them before. They are so damned attractive it hurts. Somewhere in one of my zillions of books I have a photo of one sandwiched between a couple of push-pull coaches. Of course the photo is black and white, but in colour - wow! 

 

Complex livery, certainly. It must have cost a fortune to produce even back then when labour was dirt cheap. But as a model, so hard to resist. Why isn't everyone modelling pre-group?

[Hroth]

Wills offered a whitemetal Class P kit, chassis and motor extra, back in the grey mists of time.  So far back that the chassis was built for the Triang TT motor.

 

Hattons sold a nicely finished example a while ago for £90!