Castle Aching

[Talltim]

On 23/04/2019 at 17:18, Edwardian said:

The WNR/CA, has long been a communal effort in its conception from the first.

 

Annie, having discovered the design of several WNR saloons, has now been researching the loco fleet and has discovered a fourth fifth standard Sharp Stewart Class; 0-6-2T

 

As a result, 50% of the notional fleet will comprise these four five Sharp types:  2-4-0, 0-6-0, 4-4-0, 2-4-2T, 0-6-2T.  These can exhibit detail differences if I ever do more than one class member, but the "class" sizes will be small, 2-3 locomotives each. 

 

The presence of two of the Beyer Peacocks, the Adamesque/L&F-like 4-4-0 and the Class 101-like 0-6-0, is now explained by the temporary inability of Sharps to accommodate WNR due to a full order book, leading the Directors to look elsewhere.  

 

The mainline passenger and goods types are, thus, all drawn from these Sharp classes and the two Beyer substitutes, plus the Beyer IG.  They are supplemented by three individual 'intermediate' or mixed traffic locos; the 4-4-0 Neilson we have seen, the 2-4-0 ex-CMR rebuild we have talked about, and a late decision in the form of a 2-4-0 Crewe Type. 

 

There remain half a dozen tanks for various branch duties, each different, and the works shunter. 

 

 

 

The trouble with only building one a class, is that it is then not obvious to the the viewer without access to the Oakwood history of the line that it is one of a class, .

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Talltim said:

The trouble with only building one a class, is that it is then not obvious to the the viewer without access to the Oakwood history of the line that it is one of a class, .

 

Hmm.  I see your point.

 

So, I need either to:

 

(i) write the Oakwood volume; or,

 

(ii) build all the locomotives!

 

[Northroader]

Darius Ogden Mills quote, applied to the Carson and Colorado Railroad, springs to mind:

”Either we have built the railroad 300 miles too long, or 300 years too soon”.

 

p.s. here’s a nice little Sharpie for you:

  

https://www.wcpr.org.uk/Hesperus.html

Edited April 25, 2019 by Northroader

[Talltim]

50 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I hope that the folds in the map aren't concealing any sudden changes in topography, hitherto unsuspected (and very thin) ridges of intrusive igneous rock, soaring thousands of feet above the near-plain, that sort of thing.

Paint them pale blue, cut a hole through them with artfully placed trees to disguise it.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

So, the requirements of the system ...

 

Please see the latest system map below. 

 

It is a sketch, really, as the lines have not be surveyed.  Some parishioners may be surprised, or even shocked and dismayed at the extent of the system, which now reaches south through Thetford forest to the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds, has a second route to the north coast and strikes boldly east to Norwich itself. 

 

For the north coast extension, I will have to deconflict with Annie's tramway.  For the southern route, I need to deconflict with Red's KLR.

 

However, this gives me more route mileage.

 

The genesis of the project was to represent something of the places in Norfolk we visited and./or drove through on our weekend escapes from the Fens.  The new network takes in more of these places, on the north Norfolk coast and Thetford Forest. It also allows me to connect with other places important to me or which I have known, like Bury St Edmunds and Norwich, which I have several times visited. 

 

It also gives access to places off-system, such as Wisbech and March, both of which I know well, and other favourites, Ely and Cambridge.  WNR trains can now run off-system, to these destinations.

 

COMPETITION!

 

The map shows approximate routes and, the further from CA it gets, the vaguer it gets and the fewer of the stations and communities served it identifies.

 

The challenge is to survey the routes.  There are really only two rules to follow:

 

- To bear in mind that you are not taking the line through Real Norfolk. The line necessitates a strip-like Expanded Norfolk wherever it goes.  These are the famous/notorious folds in the map, which conceal a strip of Extra Norfolk either side of the line.  A lot gets lost down these.  There has to be an expanded population (and a regiment recruited from it!) in an expanded countryside either side of the line, where the towns and villages served by the line may be found.   The trick is that the New Land must match the terrain into which it is inserted, so that it can be stitched to the real landscape to ether side of it.

 

- Otherwise, normal railway civil engineering considerations apply.

 

This is not my forte, though it's a passion for some.  So I wonder, is anyone up for surveying part of the WNR?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought the perennial complaint was that Norfolk was an area suffering from a lack of communication with the rest of England?

 

Or are we looking at a particularly intrusive example of "gnarly" ground?

 

[Edwardian]

28 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Darius Ogden Mills quote, applied to the Carson and Colorado Railroad, springs to mind:

”Either we have built the railroad 300 miles too long, or 300 years too soon”.

 

p.s. here’s a nice little Sharpie for you:

  

https://www.wcpr.org.uk/Hesperus.html

 

Built for the Watlington & Princes Risborough in 1876.

 

And here's a nice Gauge 1 model of her!

 

 

She is even smaller than the Cambrian Seaham type,  The only other  example to the same diminutive dimensions I've come across was the jersey Railway's North Western, of 1872. 

 

[Edwardian]

OMG, it's hailing!

 

Anyone else having this weather?!? 

[Annie]

And of course I've added considerable miles of coastline somewhere north of Lynn and a sizeable wedge of new landscape driven between Wisbech and South Lynn.  I thought about trying to map it, but my brain said, 'Not today thank you.'

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Annie said:

And of course I've added considerable miles of coastline somewhere north of Lynn and a sizeable wedge of new landscape driven between Wisbech and South Lynn.  I thought about trying to map it, but my brain said, 'Not today thank you.'

 

Arise Greater Norfolk!

 

Norfolk the Beautiful ... From sea to cold grey sea!

[Martin S-C]

You do realise you're granting those foreign Johnnies far too much Danelaw? They nabbed enough off the Saxons (who of course nabbed it off the Celts, etc etc) as it was.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Martin S-C

[70b]

well Annie, there is no need to map it, what you need to do is incorporate a Doggerland Railway, it solves all the problems of requiring extra Norfolk you could possibly imagine, see here

 

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

 

one of the maps on there already look like the start of a railway system

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

 

COMPETITION!

 

There has to be an expanded population (and a regiment recruited from it!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps a bit sparsely populated to recruit a whole regiment? There would be no-one left to do the farmwork.

 

I love playing about with maps.  I don't know that it would be necessary to make "folds" in the landscape. There must be villages and hamlets that could have been bigger. Engineering wise, Norfolk is rarely hilly enough to provide much of a challenge to railway builders.

 

I see that the WNR has its own station in Bury. But does it have a connection there to the GER if only for goods? In Norwich it seems to be running in very close to the overly large M&GN station.

 

Perhaps we could set up an RMweb group to build a modular empire based on the WNR.

[Joseph_Pestell]

8 minutes ago, 70b said:

well Annie, there is no need to map it, what you need to do is incorporate a Doggerland Railway, it solves all the problems of requiring extra Norfolk you could possibly imagine, see here

 

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

 

one of the maps on there already look like the start of a railway system

 

The people of Norfolk already get enough grief without accusing them of dogging.

[Joseph_Pestell]

26 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

You do realise you're granting those foreign Johnnies far too much Danelaw? They nabbed enough off the Saxons (who of course nabbed it off the Celts, etc etc) as it was.

 

I think you mean Danegeld. The modern equivalent is some of us paying lots of Euros to German "box-shifters".

[NeilHB]

I do like the look of the (much) expanded West Norfolk Railway. I rather like the look of the Fakeney branch - will it have a short freight only line to the quay (I always thought Morston Quay should have had a railway - delightful!)? Somewhere for one of the ancient WN cast-offs to spend the last of its days.

 

I do like the idea of a modular WNR - sounds rather fun! 

 

Also can’t quite believe that we’re now on Page 700...

[Martin S-C]

I think you mean Danegeld

No, Danelaw, the land itself. Everything east of a line from Southend to Chester. James is creating more for them!

Edited April 25, 2019 by Martin S-C

[RedGemAlchemist]

19 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Perhaps we could set up an RMweb group to build a modular empire based on the WNR.

There kind of already is, informally at least, as a good dozen of us all are doing railways set in the same fictionalised England (which we refer to as the Achingverse), my own included.

Edited April 25, 2019 by RedGemAlchemist

[Joseph_Pestell]

7 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

 

No, Danelaw, the land itself. Everything east of a line from Southend to Chester. James is creating more for them!

 

But it was already there. Until they flooded it to sail their longships on.

 

PS: They're welcome to Southend!

Edited April 25, 2019 by Joseph_Pestell

[Joseph_Pestell]

12 minutes ago, NeilHB said:

 

Also can’t quite believe that we’re now on Page 700...

 

Wow! I had not noticed that.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

OMG, it's hailing!

 

Anyone else having this weather?!? 

 

It's confined to your hidden fold of the map...

 

53 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

No, Danelaw, the land itself. Everything east of a line from Southend to Chester. James is creating more for them!

 

Danelaw, the are of the Island of Britain ruled over by the king of the Danes, by agreement with the king of the English.

 

cf. Coleslaw, the area ruled over by Old King Cole.

 

I'm enjoying some of those good Anglo-Saxon place-names on the Norwich branch.

Edited April 25, 2019 by Compound2632

[Martin S-C]

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

cf. Coleslaw, the area ruled over by Old King Cole.

cf. Colemans, the land ruled over by people with bad breath.

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

cf. Colemans, the land ruled over by people with bad breath.

 

We've been there, in some detail. No "e".

[Nearholmer]

I think he’s talking about a manufacturer of oral hygiene products, unless, of course, there are people out there cleaning their teeth with mustard.

 

And, a little known fact is that Wincarnis tonic wine was made by Coleman’s (with an ‘e’) of Norwich.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

Doh! Reckitt & Colman is Colman’s of Norwich!

 

And, Colman of Norwich took over Coleman of Norwich, the latter being the ones who made toothpaste (as well as Wincarnis, which is an odd combination).

Edited April 25, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

Colelateral damage due to not keeping on-topic. Apologies all.