Castle Aching

[BG John]

And, I let it pass, because I was embarrassed by my own folly!

 

K

You've got a folly? I think Castle Aching needs one of those!

[Nearholmer]

With the Parish Council, or Advisory Committee, or whatever we are, that the place has, it might be said to be beset by follies.

 

Brings to mind one of my great childhood heroes: Mad Jack Fuller, of Brightling.

 

He sprinkled his corner of the Weald with some superb little follies, including a modest conical one on a hilltop, which he had built so that he could win a bet that the church spire was visible from his house (it wasn't), and is buried in a ....... .......Wait for it ........ ............ Yes! A pyramidal mausoleum, in the corner of the churchyard.

 

I was so impressed by tales of this guy, that I used to go on thirty mile round trip bike rides to admire his works.

 

K

 

PS: I shouldn't have said "buried in" a mausoleum: he was interred, according to his firm instructions, in full clothing and a top hat, sitting at a table set with a good dinner and a bottle of wine.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Nearholmer

[BG John]

I'll have to build one sometime. If I ever finish sorting out my house, I could follow my railway modelling practice of building something to use up all my surplus materials!

[Andy Hayter]

C&L/Exactoscale do 9ft 6in underframe kits - 9inch and 12 inch solebar.
 
Not cheap though

http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=541_542_551_552

[Edwardian]

You've got a folly? I think Castle Aching needs one of those!

 

With the Parish Council, or Advisory Committee, or whatever we are, that the place has, it might be said to be beset by follies.

 

Brings to mind one of my great childhood heroes: Mad Jack Fuller, of Brightling.

 

He sprinkled his corner of the Weald with some superb little follies, including a modest conical one on a hilltop, which he had built so that he could win a bet that the church spire was visible from his house (it wasn't), and is buried in a ....... .......Wait for it ........ ............ Yes! A pyramidal mausoleum, in the corner of the churchyard.

 

I was so impressed by tales of this guy, that I used to go on thirty mile round trip bike rides to admire his works.

 

K

 

PS: I shouldn't have said "buried in" a mausoleum: he was interred, according to his firm instructions, in full clothing and a top hat, sitting at a table set with a good dinner and a bottle of wine.

 

In due course I expect that an order will have to be placed with the Metropolitan Pyramid Company.

 

 

C&L/Exactoscale do 9ft 6in underframe kits - 9inch and 12 inch solebar.

 

Not cheap though

 

http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=541_542_551_552

 

Thanks, Andy, but they look like my idea of self-torture, and they would add at least £7.80 to the cost of each wagon.

 

I've been talked into a lot of things since starting this topic, but, for me, wagon kits are things that should cost a fiver, take an hour or 2 and a tube of plastic cement!

Edited September 7, 2016 by Edwardian

[Andy Hayter]

Rather my feelings as well - hence the comment on price

[BG John]

If you're after cheap wagons, Dapol unpainted bodies are cheap, and may be bashable into something suitable, combined with a Ratio or Cambrian chassis. You still need wheels and buffers though.

http://Dapol.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=177_60_85_125

[Edwardian]

If you're after cheap wagons, Dapol unpainted bodies are cheap, and may be bashable into something suitable, combined with a Ratio or Cambrian chassis. You still need wheels and buffers though.

http://Dapol.co.uk/index.php?route=product/category&path=177_60_85_125

 

Crikey, they are cheap!  Might be  too modern and too long, but surely worth getting a 4 and 5 plank to see what surgery might make of them.  Thanks for the tip.

 

You have mentioned somewhere that some of the Dapol wagons have a pretty decent chassis, while others are some relatively crude Airfix retreads.  Can you direct me towards one of the former? 

 

They seem to have a 9' w/b with a brake on one side only.  Still not particularly economical compared with Cambrian Kit chassis plus Gibsons

Edited September 7, 2016 by Edwardian

[Shadow]

The clock tower in Grimston is a nice little folly.

Built for Queen Vic 60 yrs on throne

 

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1168945

 

http://c7.alamy.com/comp/CNP7CB/the-grimston-clock-tower-erected-in-honour-of-queen-victorias-jubilee-CNP7CB.jpg

[Edwardian]

The clock tower in Grimston is a nice little folly.

Built for Queen Vic 60 yrs on throne

 

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1168945

 

http://c7.alamy.com/comp/CNP7CB/the-grimston-clock-tower-erected-in-honour-of-queen-victorias-jubilee-CNP7CB.jpg

 

Thanks, Dave.  Yes, I had 'clocked' that one, but could not see how to fit it in to Castle Aching.  It's arguably too grand for CA, but then it's too grand for Grimston!

 

It is such a wonderful structure, that perhaps I should think again. 

 

I have a bit of a 'thing' for these Victorian Jubilee clock towers.  The one at Warboys was planned for Fenmarch on the Cambridgeshire Fenland Isle of Eldernell & Mereport Railway.

 

Back in Norfolk, for Achingham, I was considering the Downham Market one.  These days in a fetching black and white, in the past it appears monochrome.  How I would model it is anyone's guess!

 

Here: https://www.duetimeblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/1907-1-800.jpg

[BG John]

Crikey, they are cheap!  Might be  too modern and too long, but surely worth getting a 4 and 5 plank to see what surgery might make of them.  Thanks for the tip.

 

You have mentioned somewhere that some of the Dapol wagons have a pretty decent chassis, while others are some relatively crude Airfix retreads.  Can you direct me towards one of the former? 

 

They seem to have a 9' w/b with a brake on one side only.  Still not particularly economical compared with Cambrian Kit chassis plus Gibsons

I wondered about them for a few freelance broad gauge conversions. I've never seen any of them close up, so I don't know which are good or bad. I noticed that some of them have wooden solebars though.

 

I think the Hornby one in the middle of this photo has potential, and is only spoiled by the solid brake lever, that looks very fine side on, but not from above. I don't know what they normally sell for, but this one was £7 at an exhibition. The one on the left is Bachmann, and Slaters on the right. All I've done is take the couplings off, and slide the original wheels out to EM gauge.

 

Edited September 7, 2016 by BG John

[BG John]

The brightness of the wheels draws attention to their somewhat chunky appearance, too, but it's a very nice wagon.

When does it get a brake lever, solid or otherwise?

The wheels should probably have split spokes too. I'll probably attack it with a permanent marker or something when I get round to fitting couplings.

 

I only built the Slaters wagon 35 or 40 years ago, so you can't expect it to be finished yet!

[uax6]

Does anyone happen to know how the Dapol open bodies scale out please? They look like they are just the job for some HR coal wagons! (How come I've never found them before?)

 

Downham's clock is unusual in that it is made of cast iron sections. Let me know if you are going to have a go, as I'm often walking past it, so can measure it up and take detail photos if you want. (I thing the portrait would cut it out well...)

 

Andy G

[Donw]

I take it all back.

 

Somehow, I got it into my head that there was a 9ft 3in option available from the trade in there somewhere.

 

And, no; because I can't read, it would seem.

 

K

 

PS: it occurs to me that a 10ft wheelbase on one side, and a 9ft on the other, would, on average, be absolutely correct.

 

The answer is simple take one 10ft and one nine foot solebar cut both eaxctly in half join a 9ft half and a 10ft half voila two 9ft 6in solebars with no gap   

 

Don

[BG John]

Does anyone happen to know how the Dapol open bodies scale out please? They look like they are just the job for some HR coal wagons! (How come I've never found them before?)

I'm hoping someone will buy a few and measure them! Or owners of complete wagons could let us know. The only Dapol wagons I have are 6 wheel milk tanks, so not much help. One thing that stands out in the photos is the gap between planks in some of them.

[corneliuslundie]

No help on wagons except to say that chassis from scratch are pretty easy, though little cheaper than kits by the time I buy axleboxes, springs, W irons, wheels and buffers, also sometimes sheets of etchings of washer plates (those semicircular things). Oh, and that the brake mouldings in kits for nominally 9 ft wheelbase wagons vary enormously. My spares (two in the kit, only one used) are sorted into 8 ft 9in, 9 ft, 9 ft 3 in and 9 ft 6 in!

But back to matters ecclesiastical. You could emulate Swaffham Prior which has St Cyriac & St Jullita (one church) and St Mary in the same churchyard - and one has an octagonal tower and the other what appears to be an almost round one.

As for theology, you are not at all far from Our Lady of Walsingham, so many parishes are very "high". One of our grandchildren was christened at the nearby West Rudham. At one point in the service, with incense wafting around and bells being rung, my son-in-law leaned over to my daughter: "We haven't come to the Catholic by mistake have we?"

I had thought of suggesting that the 2017 AGM of this thread should be held during the Llandrindod Wells Victorian Week, but this year's was a paltry affair and I fear it may not happen again. I am sure Edwardian would just have seemed like an up to date lawyer, possibly an up-and-coming railway promoter! Either that or he could have come as a schoolboy.

Jonathan

Edited September 8, 2016 by corneliuslundie

[ChrisN]

In terms of wagon sizes, although I do not know the Dapol sizes here are some from my layout.  The Cambrian Railways 2 planker, is 30mm x 59mm.  The North British mineral wagon which was begun to be built in 1887 is 30mm x 60mm.  Robert Parry the coal merchant at Traeth Mawr who bought his wagon second hand from I think the Midland which probably got it from somewhere down south, it is an ABS kit, is 29mm x 59mm. All these are pre 1900. The Hornby PO wagon which is probably 1923 RCH design is 32mm x 66mm.  It dwarfs the others but it is also a seven plank wagon.  I will try and put a picture up if that is helpful but may not be able to until tomorrow evening.

[Nearholmer]

The LBSCR open wagon was a general purpose, rather than coal-specific, wagon, but the drawing here is a beauty in terms of general dimensional info and construction detail for a wagon that would have been elderly, but serviceable, in 1905. http://www.lbscr.org/lbscrorg/Models/Journal/LBSCR-Modellers-Digest-3.pdf#page24

 

K

[runs as required]

That pdf of the LB&SC modellers' journal was quite an epistle!

Just shewing those Brighton modellers are still the aristocracy of the 1920s. Were they mainly city gents trundling to and from LB from places like Uckfield?

 

I really enjoyed the FS virtual models of Lewes station.

dh

[Nearholmer]

RaR

 

Mr Holliday, author of one of the articles, and occasional visitor here can probably answer your question, but it made me chuckle, because I "learned the craft of railway modelling" as a member of Uckfield MRC, and for a decade I trundled to and fro on the LB train (actually getting on and off at Croydon), and there was a regular "railway modelling compartment" on the home-bound train, where the commuting members of the MRC congregated to discuss the finer points of Wills kits etc.

 

I should make it clear, though, that I've never worked in The City, or behaved like a gentleman.

 

Kevin

[Nick Holliday]

RaR

 

Mr Holliday, author of one of the articles, and occasional visitor here can probably answer your question, but it made me chuckle, because I "learned the craft of railway modelling" as a member of Uckfield MRC, and for a decade I trundled to and fro on the LB train (actually getting on and off at Croydon), and there was a regular "railway modelling compartment" on the home-bound train, where the commuting members of the MRC congregated to discuss the finer points of Wills kits etc.

 

I should make it clear, though, that I've never worked in The City, or behaved like a gentleman.

 

Kevin

I cannot really speak for other members of the Brighton Circle, as, to be honest, I haven't the faintest idea how they earn(ed) their crust, although I am aware of a diplomat, Methodist minster, college lecturers and a tile maker. I suppose I could be classed as a hairy a****d builder, and have spent most of my life in Sarf London. Any commuting these days is on the Northern Line or between home and Leatherhead on the Southern, when they run trains.

[wagonman]

The brightness of the wheels draws attention to their somewhat chunky appearance, too, but it's a very nice wagon.

When does it get a brake lever, solid or otherwise?

 

 

It could also do with a number! That one was no.10, the figures appearing under the right hand end of 'Warminster', according to my book...

 

 

Richard

[BG John]

It could also do with a number! That one was no.10, the figures appearing under the right hand end of 'Warminster', according to my book...

 

 

Richard

Oh come on. As I said early, I only started building it 35-40 years ago. I can't be expected to add a brake lever AND a number any time soon. Which should I do this decade, and which can wait until the next one?

[runs as required]

Oh come on. As I said early, I only started building it 35-40 years ago. I can't be expected to add a brake lever AND a number any time soon. Which should I do this decade, and which can wait until the next one?

I'd seriously argue you've earned that C/C notification.

 

It was the belief of the great cathedral builders that the edifice should never be finished, for it would then cease to be a 'living' entity.

The same belief seems true today with the business maxim that once a great corporate headquarters is finished, the firm is doomed: think Thorn House in St Martins Lane, the Vickers Tower, Millbank. (Now I think it Tory party headquarters, formerly Labour's -'Aye, we're all doomed!' )

Manchester has its Co-op Insurance tower and who remembers the once great Tootal Broadhurst Lee  who left us that huge terracotta palace in Oxford Road.

 

I'm proud to admit to never having finished a project.....

  dh.

[BG John]

I'm proud to admit to never having finished a project.....

  dh.

I'm struggling to think of any I've finished either.

 

For a moment this crossed my mind as a finished project, but then I remembered that my anti-knock over, anti-brush losing, plastic solvent bottle holder, isn't quite finished, as the swap over screw and non screw tops are experimentally just held together with Blu-tack! As far as actual models go though, I think I have a 100% record of non completion .