Castle Aching

[Donw]

Another interesting SG/NG interchange would be Aberystwyth. Loads of GWR on both sides.... 

 

If you were of a hair-shirt nature, it could even be extended to BR Blue, though the ng side would outshine the rest!

 

Even better would be with Cambrian and GWR standard Gauge and Vale of Rheidol on the Narrow gauge about 1900 -1911 Unfortunately it would need too much room in 7mm.

 

Don

[Donw]

Regarding Dave Taylor's Bridport and Charmouth layouts both beautifully done. I have operated both Bridport, was at Rail-Ex Taunton last month. Top quality modelling.

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

Some of the most interesting, and practically model-able, interchanges weren't with the very few common-carrier NG lines, but with obscure tramways and industrial railways.

There was a really obscure line that linked the Mawddwy Railway with the Corris [ Edit: 'linked' may be an exaggeration, but the two were very close at their upper reaches, and I went straight from one to the other], from [corrected to:] Aberangell , which had a wonderful little interchange, for instance. The route is now a forestry commission "bottom rung" track, accessible only by 4WD or mountain bike, over which I piloted by old Landrover about ten or fifteen years ago.

A scene such as this would allow for pretty strange SG locos and stock, alongside the most basic of NG, in a small space. Below is a cracker, being the line of the Deeside Slab Quarries. There were places similar all over the country, except possibly Norfolk!

Edited November 12, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

.

Look at an Airfix Pug on a Minitrix 0-6-0 chassis, or a new cab on an H0 4-wheel diesel for the other approach, resulting all too often in models lacking credibility because they look like what they are. (Done well, a “pugbash” is a thing of beauty, but is then narrow gauge modelling to 4mm scale. )

.

 

Well caveated. Just like a lawyer, in fact.

[runs as required]

I plan to do Barnstaple Town (1913-4, with the intention of ultimately working backwards by stages to cover 1898 and c.1907-1910 as well).  The intention is to give equal stress on SG and NG. From the turn of the conversation I am realising that this is a surprisingly rare approach. 

 

I need to sell the house and buy a bigger shed, and, of course, get somewhere with CA, but it's lining itself up as the next project.

 

Perhaps surprisingly, the NG side can be almost entirely be replicated using RTR, whereas the SG side has to be entirely kit/scratch built.   

 

And yes, there's even a castle of sorts!

Interesting that point about modelling so as to embrace a range of 'epochs' (I think railwayists term them)

 

I enjoyed a visit to Newcastle's MRS exhibition on Saturday where I inspected  Lime Street in reality for the first time.

The time modelled is post war but pre BR which was exactly the time when I first experienced it  - on the way home to Birmingham from a holiday in the Isle of Man (where I'd learnt to swim across at Peel), Dad had booked us GWR north to Woodside from Snow Hill and back LMS.

I later knew it through ten years from 1955 studying and working in Liverpool.

After examining it carefully on Saturday I asked could you plausibly run LNW trains in and out? The buildings and the concourse looked very pre-grouping. Only the Empire theatre next to Waterhouse's hotel and Lancelot Keay's St Andrew's Gardens i935  flats above the cutting seemed completely anachronistic.

But one of the Lime St. custodians said signalling would be the major obstacle to mounting different exhibition running week-ends.

 

dh

[Regularity]

Well caveated. Just like a lawyer, in fact.

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

 

And I do like that particular pug-bash: just barely enough of a nod to its origins (something about the cab windows), but full of believable charm.

[Annie]

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...

 

And I do like that particular pug-bash: just barely enough of a nod to its origins (something about the cab windows), but full of believable charm.

The whole railway layout that little Pug-bash is sitting on is loaded full of believable charm.

[Nearholmer]

Ted Polet's work?

 

And, another rather wonderful interchange to consider https://www.simonbowditchillustrations.co.uk/illustration-gallery_1_009.html

 

With due respects to the artist, I'm not convinced that he's caught the 3ft gauge loco very well; there are a couple of photos of these locos at the interchange, along with their eccentric wagons, and the locos were more 'Emmett' than the drawing suggests. Memory tells me that they had outside frames and outside Stephenson valve-gear, but I would need to hunt around for ages to find the pictures.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Hroth]

Well caveated. Just like a lawyer, in fact.

Caveat peritum, as they say!

 

Although that sounds a tad medical.....

 

(but a nice bit of narrow gauge)

[TheQ]

Some of the most interesting, and practically model-able, interchanges weren't with the very few common-carrier NG lines, but with obscure tramways and industrial railways.

 

There was a really obscure line that linked the Mawddwy Railway with the Corris [ Edit: 'linked' may be an exaggeration, but the two were very close at their upper reaches, and I went straight from one to the other], from [corrected to:] Aberangell , which had a wonderful little interchange, for instance. The route is now a forestry commission "bottom rung" track, accessible only by 4WD or mountain bike, over which I piloted by old Landrover about ten or fifteen years ago.

 

A scene such as this would allow for pretty strange SG locos and stock, alongside the most basic of NG, in a small space. Below is a cracker, being the line of the Deeside Slab Quarries. There were places similar all over the country, except possibly Norfolk!

 

I may have mentioned this before but, Norfolk did have a narrow gauge railway, Not For stone, but unsurprisingly for sugar beet, it would make a very interesting model.. http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF13751-Claxton-tramway&Index=12881&RecordCount=57339&SessionID=65086c70-9a05-468d-9e9e-73c8252b86d9

Edited November 13, 2018 by TheQ

[Edwardian]

I may have mentioned this before but, Norfolk did have a narrow gauge railway, Not For stone, but unsurprisingly for sugar beet, it would make a very interesting model.. http://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF13751-Claxton-tramway&Index=12881&RecordCount=57339&SessionID=65086c70-9a05-468d-9e9e-73c8252b86d9

 

Fascinating.

 

I assume post Grouping and quite short-lived.  The page you linked to says it closed in 1936, yet beet growing did not take off on any scale until the 1920s, with the aid of government subsidies.

 

While Napoleonic Europe had to pioneer this alternative to cane, I imagine cheap and plentiful imported cane sugar from the British West Indies rendered domestic beet production otiose in earlier years.

 

EDIT: indeed, one is tempted to suppose that military surplus equipment made such a scheme viable, but I note that the gauge appears to have been 1'6" - 1'7", which puts it pretty much in the minimum gauge camp. Some military railways adopted minimum gauge, but I don't think the majority. 

 

Something not so far from the Lincolnshire potato railways, I wonder if the line was horse/man worked or had motive power? One could adopt the Noch Feldbahn system for what here is literally also a field railway system.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Norfolk had a few sprigs; my point was really that I don’t think it had an NG/SG interchange, but I may be wrong.

 

c1’7” is strongly suggestive of genuine Decauville, at 500mm gauge, which would fit neatly with beet growing, because there was a bit of a fad for beet production using modern, French methods in the last quarter of C19th, and there are other places where it gave rise to NG railways.

[Talltim]

Am I the only one who is constantly amazed by Kevin’s knowledge of pretty much everything obscure?

[TheQ]

Norfolk had a few sprigs; my point was really that I don’t think it had an NG/SG interchange, but I may be wrong.

 

c1’7” is strongly suggestive of genuine Decauville, at 500mm gauge, which would fit neatly with beet growing, because there was a bit of a fad for beet production using modern, French methods in the last quarter of C19th, and there are other places where it gave rise to NG railways.

Hmm 1 ft 7inches * 4mm = 6.3mm close enough to Z gauge track 6.5 mm, an Idea is forming for a micro layout

[ian]

 I wonder if the line was horse/man worked or had motive power?

 

On the link it says "motive power was a converted Model T Ford".

[wagonman]

18inch gauge was not unknown in this country – Woolwich Arsenal had a large system as did Crewe Works. 

 

I like the description of the Claxton line as "post medieval"...

[Nearholmer]

Yes, 18” settled-out as the most popular sub-60cm/2ft Gauge in this country, but 20” (closer to 500mm) was a minor contender, resulting from either copying or tie-up (I forget which) between Fowler and Decauville. Another gauge used for portable hand/animal worked lines was 400mm, again Decauville, and there is a portable system (like giant Hornby clockwork track) preserved, I think by Neil Ripley, which appears sometimes at NG tests. But, if you look hard enough, it is possible to find nearly every gauge from about 11” to standard, in 1/2” or less increments, in use somewhere. 3ft and 2ft dominated though.

 

And, yes, ‘industrial’ narrow gauge railways are indeed a portal (wormhole?) to obscurity, because they were used for nearly everything at some stage!

[Edwardian]

On the link it says "motive power was a converted Model T Ford".

 

Thanks, hadn't spotted that.

 

I suggest this argues post-Great War.

 

The Model T was introduced in 1908, but UK production at Trafford Park dates from 1911.

 

In those days you would hardly cut up a newish motor car for beet lugging on rails.  More likely an old, probably pre-war, Model T was converted in the '20s?  

 

EDIT:  Well I never, the Model T might even fit with the army surplus theory. Not sure of the gauge, but certainly the British Army seems to have had some.  A convertible "Crewe Tractor" no less (http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-crewe-tractor-ford-model-t-chassis.html)!

Edited November 13, 2018 by Edwardian

[St Enodoc]

Am I the only one who is constantly amazed by Kevin’s knowledge of pretty much everything obscure?

No, you are not the only one Tim!

[Andy Hayter]

Norfolk had a few sprigs; my point was really that I don’t think it had an NG/SG interchange, but I may be wrong.

 

c1’7” is strongly suggestive of genuine Decauville, at 500mm gauge, which would fit neatly with beet growing, because there was a bit of a fad for beet production using modern, French methods in the last quarter of C19th, and there are other places where it gave rise to NG railways.

 

I thought Decauville was 600mm (2ft equivalent).  Did they do 500mm as well?

[Nearholmer]

They supplied 40, 50, and 60cm as standard, each in several weights/formats, plus all the complicated bits to make pointwork to any gauge in a variety of rail weights, plus rail, fixings, sleepers, tools, locos, carriages, wagons in multiple types, cranes, turntables, inclines ........ in fact, imagine the best model railway catalogue ever printed, and you’ll get some concept.

 

And, they were only one supplier of this stuff, there were several other big suppliers (Koppel, Fowler, Hudson etc) plus multiple slightly more niche suppliers.

 

All you needed was a good balance in the bank, and a telegraph connection, and you could get what you wanted, delivered, almost tomorrow ....... internet shopping big time!

 

To get a flavour for the variety of uses of NG railways, have a look at this, which I compiled a long time ago (so the postal address is wrong!) http://deangoods.co.uk/eastsxng.html

Edited November 13, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Owd Bob]

Sorry! But i'm late to the party as usual but here are a few model vehicles i've painted up for 'Her Indoors' over the years, mostly Lledo's Days Gone models and Models of Yesteryear, all bought very cheap some for pennies from the local charity shops. She collects 'First Aid Nursing Yeomanry' (F.A.N.Y) and Womans Transport Services (W.T.S.) artifacts and keeps these vehicles in a display cabinet with her collection. 

This started out as a bright Orange Warburtons Bread van.

 

[Hroth]

Bright Orange Warburtons bread was never going to win hearts and minds!

 

For what originally looks very toylike, you've done a terrific job on them.

[Hroth]

They supplied 40, 50, and 60cm as standard, each in several weights/formats, plus all the complicated bits to make pointwork to any gauge in a variety of rail weights, plus rail, fixings, sleepers, tools, locos, carriages, wagons in multiple types, cranes, turntables, inclines ........ in fact, imagine the best model railway catalogue ever printed, and you’ll get some concept.

 

And, they were only one supplier of this stuff, there were several other big suppliers (Koppel, Fowler, Hudson etc) plus multiple slightly more niche suppliers.

 

All you needed was a good balance in the bank, and a telegraph connection, and you could get what you wanted, delivered, almost tomorrow ....... internet shopping big time!

 

To get a flavour for the variety of uses of NG railways, have a look at this, which I compiled a long time ago (so the postal address is wrong!) http://deangoods.co.uk/eastsxng.html

You begin to wonder "whats the smallest radius they do, and would I get it in my garden..."

[Regularity]

I would have to dig books out from I don’t know where to answer that directly, but the British military 18” gauge locos were designed to go round 20’ radius, although 25’ or so was more usual.

 

Depends on the size of your garden!