Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

Parish News

 

Our Tireless Indexer has been once again working diligently behind the scenes.  He has now made live all the dead links that I managed to insert into the Topic Index (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2184725), for which I am most grateful. If you have a mo, please fell free to test randomly the links and please report any problems.  

 

These additions represent a trawl through just the first 50 pages of the topic, which, I note, now stretches to 482 483 pages.  Clearly, then, more links fall to be added to the existing entries, and new entries will doubtless arise.

 

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Our Topic Index: Sensible Choices for a Happier Norfolk!

Edited September 3, 2018 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

On conscious and unconscious influences ...

 

I knew that CA was inspired to a great extent by John Ahern's Madder Valley. In general I find inspiration in the architectural modelling, the building techniques and composition, and, of course, from the freelance railway theme and the whimsicality.

 

Here I refer specifically to the composition of the castle in the corner, rising behind the town at Gammon End. A spot of light Index Testing brought up an early post on this - +400.  I had both visited Pendon, and had been reading Ahern's book on landscape modelling at the time thoughts turned to CA as a layout concept.

 

For Castle Aching, the composition was adapted to be something more appropriate for Norfolk.  A motte and bailey arrangement, with a more Norman style donjon or keep, causing the village to cluster around the base of the mound, rather than to lead up the hill. The freelance railway terminal, o'er shadowed by the ancient Keep, was re-orientated.  Nevertheless, I think the influence of Gammon End is still detectable.

 

Thumbing through the worn but treasured stack of my father's Railway Modellers, I came across an article on P D Hancock's Craig.  Craig had been a great favourite of mine, but it was not until I saw again after all these years the map of Craigshire in 1957 that I realised how, in certain essentials, CA resembled the plan of Craig.

 

The standard gauge railway at Craig came in from the left of scene on a curve.  In doing so, it left quite a bit of scenic depth to the rear of the line, depth that increased as the station was raked at an angle from the back scene and came back out towards the viewer on the right hand side.  Finally, the lynch pin of the scene was the castle upon its eminence in the left-hand corner.

 

All this is common to CA. 

 

There the similarity ends, of course: Craig had a harbour and town scene, complete with electric tram system, to the rear of the station.  As the line rounded the corner, it branched off to Peter Allen's works.  In the foreground, of course, was a narrow gauge station and yard. It was a much busier scene with many more rails, as befitted a town and a port, though it was not crowded by the standards of the day, when CJF was filling every corner of everyone's box rooms with as much track as possible. 

 

Nevertheless, CA's deep scenic field to the rear of the station, the course of the line and the angle of the station, and the anchoring hill and its castle in the left corner were all found at Craig. I assume that the reason all this seemed right to me as I visualised CA was because I had spent hours of my childhood poring over Craig and had absorbed its lessons, though it is only now I recognise the influence.

 

Lord Erstwhile came about because I thought it would be fun to re-name The Ostrich, which is, I believe, an armorial beast for a Norfolk family, The Dodo, and needed a local family to be associated with it.  Or so I thought. But, does Lord Erstwhile owe something to Lord Craig, I wonder?

Edited September 3, 2018 by Edwardian

[ian]

But, does Lord Erstwhile owe something to Lord Craig, I wonder?

If he does you can bet that Lord Craig, being a canny Scot, will demand payment in full.

[Hroth]

Parish News

 

Our Tireless Indexer has been once again working diligently behind the scenes.  He has now made live all the dead links that I managed to insert into the Topic Index (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2184725), for which I am most grateful. If you have a mo, please fell free to test randomly the links and please report any problems.  

 

These additions represent a trawl through just the first 50 pages of the topic, which, I note, now stretches to 482 483 pages.  Clearly, then, more links fall to be added to the existing entries, and new entries will doubtless arise.

 

The Honourable Indexer has asked that Parishioners recommend posts they think should be indexed.  Please do so by PM to the Indexer, who may be found here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/user/21705-runs-as-required/

 

Your Parish Needs You! Please let the Honourable Indexer know what you would like him to include.

 

Our Topic Index: Sensible Choices for a Happier Norfolk!

 

We're well into an exponential growth period, I feel.

 

(I am not going to plot pages/time to prove that gut assertion!)

[Northroader]

I enjoyed the Craig and Mertonford, particularly the first glimpses with the ng interchange, but I’m afraid as it ended up, it started to look very busy, if you follow me. There was just a bit too much of everything, it seemed to me.

[Skinnylinny]

Readers who remember the Craig and Mertonford may be interested to know that parts of one of the layouts (Dundreich) and a fair amount of the stock still exist, under the protection of the Edinburgh & Lothians MRC:

http://elmrc.org.uk/dundreich.php

[runs as required]

Briefly back to the Crab & Winkle link on the Emmett 0-2-0 page above.

I've since had the time to read this history of the Kelvedon and Tollesbury Light Railway by the Rev. Keith Lovel - and it is beautifully written.

 

Weirdly, I now recall i was present at that last week-end in 1951. My paternal grandparents were 'plotlanders' out in the Essex flatlands ever since grandpa returned to no job after a Great War spent in Thessalonika, vitteling the disastrous Anzac Dardanelles campaign. Before 1914, he'd travelled, snappily dressed, all over Europe, Russia and South America in Phosphates ("guano" or Chilean bird sh!t  #571++  to us WNR tiffosi) with a German company that had disappeared.So from a smallholding near Maldon, he'd biked across back to the GER Jazz suburbs selling eggs and veg,

 

Post World War II (after war work at Hoffmans - bizarrely another German company) he ran a boxlike old Morris Cowley called George .

We drove in George to Tollesbury - I remember because of Tom Driberg - the colourful celeb MP who my grandmother, a force to be reckoned with in the local WI, knew well.

I seem to recall even then, their talk was of the nuclear facility being projected at Bradwell, where Driberg had a beautiful house.

Sorry even more OT this post than usual.

dh

Edited September 3, 2018 by runs as required

[Compound2632]

Were you not aware that your local aristocrat is Baron Erstwhile in the peerage of England (or is he even a Viscount) and Baron Craig in the peerage of Scotland? I daresay the family has acquired an Irish title along the way too.

[brack]

I enjoyed the Craig and Mertonford, particularly the first glimpses with the ng interchange, but I’m afraid as it ended up, it started to look very busy, if you follow me. There was just a bit too much of everything, it seemed to me.

I get the impression PD Hancock started to feel similarly near the end.

[Donw]

This surely is one of the dangers for a long lived layout. There is a tendancy to add a bit here and there until you have wandered from the original concept. Perhaps the best example is Buckingham. The original single track layouts were much more appropriate for Buckingham the small country town it is. The later major double tracked terminus was more appropriate to a major city. Buckingham works because Peter Denny makes us believe Buckingham was that larger city.

CA seems to be smaller than the concept for Craig and much better suited for a Norfolk town for being so. I would also say the buildings so far built for CA have so much more local character than those PD did for Craig. 

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

“ Buckingham works because Peter Denny makes us believe Buckingham was that larger city.”

 

The illusion worked very well on me. When I first moved to the area, I set out to cycle to all the towns within about twenty miles, when it came to Buckingham’s turn I had great hopes and was deeply disappointed. Not only was it much smaller than I expected from Denny’s illusion and it’s atatus as a former county town, but it was exceedingly poor and tatty at that time. Lots of interesting old buildings, but terribly ill-maintained, and a dusty branch of Woolworths was pretty much the best shop! It’s changed a great deal in the intervening thirty five years, with lots of new housing, a university, and a good deal of tidying and minor gentrification, but it’s still a bit of a ‘second fiddle’ place.

[Edwardian]

My ambition is to finish CA; at this rate I'll be lucky to do so; they'll be no chance of the rebuilding that Craig and Buckingham underwent!

 

I can only assume that, pre-1980s, people had a lot more spare time!  When I think of the hours that went into layouts like Madder Valley, Buckingham and Craig, the mind boggles.  Yes, I have chosen to build most things, but not from scratch as they did; they had to make the components too!

 

The expansion of the CA plan has been modest from its original conception to what is now envisaged.  There has been some 'creep', but this is modest, and, I hope, within appropriate bounds.

 

Some examples:

 

• The station building is a little larger and grander, with a train shed. This represents the decision to commit to the 'small independent' rather than 'light railway' character, rather than representing any increase in size and importance of the community served.
• Some upgrading of the track-plan was advisable: A third siding was added to the plan, and the shed siding extended into a loop.
• The turntable has been extended to accommodate a 4-4-0.
• A pond and pair of cottages will now be almshouses, and further castle ruins now form the basis of a gothic drill hall.  Aside from that, everything I get around to building will have been envisaged from very early on, when I was still visiting Norfolk. The size and nature of the place has not changed.

It remains a large village/small town, served by a modest terminus.  The services remain much as originally planned:  6-7 wagon goods services, 4-coach branch services and longer mainline services.  Some foreign through services.  A mix of 4 and 6-wheel coaches, with only the odd short bogie coach. It is fair to say that the number of potential foreign through services has expanded; I look now to more than one GE service, and to GN and MR services, as well as a M&GN one.  The types of locomotives and stock, and the train lengths have not changed, however.  The tramway connection was there from the start.

 

Fortunately, I think that the vision that has crystallized is one with which U will remain happy. Not all details were sketched out from the beginning, or yet have been, but there are locomotives and groups of buildings hardly begun that were decided upon 2-3 years ago, and the plan has not changed. I want to finish CA as I have envisaged it, and as it has evolved here.  Future ambitions involve extending the line and visiting other places, not in developing or re-developing CA itself.

 

Mainly, though, CA will be spared development because I find track-building stressful and I'm not very good at it!!!

[runs as required]

“ Buckingham works because Peter Denny makes us believe Buckingham was that larger city.”

The illusion worked very well on me. When I first moved to the area, I set out to cycle to all the towns within about twenty miles, when it came to Buckingham’s turn I had great hopes and was deeply disappointed....Not only was it much smaller than I expected from Denny’s illusion and it’s status as a former county town, but it was exceedingly poor and tatty at that time. Lots of interesting old buildings, but terribly ill-maintained, and a dusty branch of Woolworths was pretty much the best shop! ... it’s still a bit of a ‘second fiddle’ place.

I did exactly that with exactly the same sense of disappointment (though diverted on my bike from a trip with my school friend to Silverstone. However cycling through Stowe greatly exceeded expectations).

[Talltim]

I can only assume that, pre-1980s, people had a lot more spare time! 

I've realised that my parents certainly did. When I was my children's age (in the 80s), I used to be out all day. Somewhere in the time from me being a child to now, people stopped letting their kids out and they now need to be taken to things. Even if they are at home the only way they will entertain themselves is on a computer, and too much of that turns them into awkward little .

[runs as required]

My ambition is to finish CA;

at this rate I'll be lucky to do so; there'll be no chance of the rebuilding that Craig and Buckingham underwent!

The expansion of the CA plan has been modest from its original conception to what is now envisaged.  There has been some 'creep', but this is modest, and, I hope, within appropriate bounds.

Some examples:

• The station building is a little larger and grander, with a train shed. This represents the decision to commit to the 'small independent' rather than 'light railway' character, rather than representing any increase in size and importance of the community served.
• Some upgrading of the track-plan was advisable: A third siding was added to the plan, and the shed siding extended into a loop.
• The turntable has been extended to accommodate a 4-4-0.
• A pond and pair of cottages will now be almshouses, and further castle ruins now form the basis of a gothic drill hall.  Aside from that, everything I get around to building will have been envisaged from very early on, when I was still visiting Norfolk. The size and nature of the place has not changed.

Fortunately, I think that the vision that has crystallized is one with which U will remain happy. Not all details were sketched out from the beginning, or yet have been, but there are locomotives and groups of buildings hardly begun that were decided upon 2-3 years ago, and the plan has not changed. I want to finish CA as I have envisaged it, and as it has evolved here.  Future ambitions involve extending the line and visiting other places, not in developing or re-developing CA itself.

Mainly, though, CA will be spared development because I find track-building stressful and I'm not very good at it!!!

A serious post this  - theory of railway modelling - a new category in our exponentially growing Index!

It raises certain areas for debate (on a new "Betjeman Studies" course at Buckingham Private University?)

• Do you really need to finish CA? It seems highly successful - just as the "the play wot I wrote" was the core spark to Morecambe & Wise. Gothic cathedrals were never intended to "be finished" - it implied God was dead, the best were  successive overlays of visions. Muslim art (a carpet for example) should include an imperfection to acknowledge human fallibility.

   

• Whimsy is highly prized on CA - clearly one of the principle reasons for parishioners (led by Kevin!) posting.

  Art history (in Mackem Sunderland at any rate)  acknowledges the brief delight in whimsy in British wartime and postwar art - the St Ives school; the Fry Art gallery artists in Saffron Walden; John Piper and Betjeman; for us Ahrons. It passed in the 1950s. Macho New York was dominating High Art -  Abstract Expressionism was lining boardroom walls: de Kooning, David Smith, Rothko, Jackson Pollock.

   

• In Britain's present state perhaps whimsy is back ! A key defence mechanism against Black Dogs on the A66

   

  dh

[St Enodoc]

Readers who remember the Craig and Mertonford may be interested to know that parts of one of the layouts (Dundreich) and a fair amount of the stock still exist, under the protection of the Edinburgh & Lothians MRC:

 

http://elmrc.org.uk/dundreich.php

Cared for by my old friend Dunwurken of this parish.

[St Enodoc]

I get the impression PD Hancock started to feel similarly near the end.

Don't forget that Craigshire was, physically, very small - being housed in PD's bedroom. Definitely a quart (or two) in a pint pot.

[RedGemAlchemist]

<p>

 

A serious post this - theory of railway modelling - a new category in our exponentially growing Index!

It raises certain areas for debate (on a new "Betjeman Studies" course at Buckingham Private University?)

• Do you really need to finish CA? It seems highly successful - just as the "the play wot I wrote" was the core spark to Morecambe & Wise. Gothic cathedrals were never intended to "be finished" - it implied God was dead, the best were successive overlays of visions. Muslim art (a carpet for example) should include an imperfection to acknowledge human fallibility.
• Whimsy is highly prized on CA - clearly one of the principle reasons for parishioners (led by Kevin!) posting.

  Art history (in Mackem Sunderland at any rate) acknowledges the brief delight in whimsy in British wartime and postwar art - the St Ives school; the Fry Art gallery artists in Saffron Walden; John Piper and Betjeman; for us Ahrons. It passed in the 1950s. Macho New York was dominating High Art - Abstract Expressionism was lining boardroom walls: de Kooning, David Smith, Rothko, Jackson Pollock.

• In Britain's present state perhaps whimsy is back ! A key defence mechanism against Black Dogs on the A66

   

  dh

Exactly. Also consider the following you've created, and the half-dozen or so people, myself included, working within the whimsical world you have created with their own work. The fact that this one little railway has inspired those people and thus spawned more spinoffs than most TV franchises is surely something to be proud of. Edited September 4, 2018 by RedGemAlchemist

[Hroth]

I can only assume that, pre-1980s, people had a lot more spare time!

 

Its possible that it can be pinned down to a more specific era, to that time before the television became a popular form of entertainment.  Back then, people were encouraged to have hobbies, to make things, to fill in those "idle" moments.  its a habit that persists, but if the habit hasn't formed, or is diverted into essentially meaningless activity then we begin to wonder where all the time goes!

 

Just think of what could be achieved if you didn't slump in front of the telly all evening, or poke and prod at keyboard or screen. Radio listening doesn't count, as things can be done whilst The Organist Entertains* in the background.

 

Even it it turns out that the particular hobby in question results in a "scale model" of Flying Scotsman from matchsticks...

 

 

* Or other wireless programme of your choice.

[Martin S-C]

Regarding Peter Denny and Buckingham, remember too that he also found time to build and maintain a clockwork-powered garden railway. Place that against a statement from a railway book I have just read authored by a churchman who insists that his job is a 24/7 one. I too wonder where Peter Denny found the time. I only have time to model now that I am retired, and even then I expend far too many hours on forums like this one!

[Nearholmer]

“The Organist Entertains”

 

Even before I knew what an oxymoron is, I knew that this was one.

[runs as required]

My wife ( a psychotherapist ) spends all her 'spare' time reading novels, mainly I notice by female wriers - she originally taught English lit.

Having just accused me of slipping away to w##k on that bl##dy computer again, she did offer: "And what about Dorothy Sayers ? Lord Peter Wimsey was her 1940s hero"

dh

[ian]

“The Organist Entertains”

 

Even before I knew what an oxymoron is, I knew that this was one.

That depends if he is doing it with his organ or something else.

[Hroth]

Regarding Peter Denny and Buckingham, remember too that he also found time to build and maintain a clockwork-powered garden railway. Place that against a statement from a railway book I have just read authored by a churchman who insists that his job is a 24/7 one. I too wonder where Peter Denny found the time. I only have time to model now that I am retired, and even then I expend far too many hours on forums like this one!

And then there was the Rev Teddy Boston, with a full-sized narrow gauge steam railway in his garden (and a substantial OO gauge layout in a shed).

 

In times past, the life of an established churchman was quite different to what they are expected to do nowadays.  Its the reason why curates were invented...

[Hroth]

That depends if he is doing it with his organ or something else.

TOO much information...