Castle Aching

[Killian keane]

11 hours ago, webbcompound said:

I keep looking at these (and stablemates)  If you can live with the clumpy bits the only bit that looks wrong to me is the chimney which looks too short and squat, but would be fairly simple to put together out of tubes.

 

Buying without examining first is always a risk. I just bought this nice looking LNWR single, which I thought would suit with a bit of work and a new chassis.  On arrival I find it is too big vertically, though not far out horizontally. The boiler does sit horizontal, it is just lens distortion that gives it a slope.

I will examine it for ideas as to how to make a proper one myself. Then I will clean it up, give it a paint job, and offer for sale for someone who wants a semi-fictional 50s loco as it looks pretty nice, just not a true scale model.. I need it to be attached to a directors inspection coach, so if it is the wrong size it will look really wrong, but pulling a train it would look pretty reasonable.

Thats very nice,  I have quite a few drawings for the various Buddicom types and might do a print at some point,  the largest was Velocipede with a 7' driving wheel and large outside eccentrics, plans 59 and 60 in the oakwood press LNWR volume 

[Northroader]

11 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

Dunrobin not preset, Boiler at the Severn Valley, wheels in South Devon and tanks in Wales.  

 

Flew by Ryanair?

[Edwardian]

I wouldn't mind one of these ....

 

Wonder if the Norfolk Minerals Railway might have a use for one ... 

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

I wouldn't mind one of these ....

 

Wonder if the Norfolk Minerals Railway might have a use for one ... 

 

Beautiful. Think I said that the Alnerwick Quarry used to have a similar verticle boiler tank.

[Killian keane]

Newmans miniatures do one,  here are the drawings if you'd prefer to scratchbuild

[Hroth]

Some years ago, I was on holiday in Northumberland, a nice little cottage a bit inland from the coast on a rise with the ECML between us and the sea, with views towards the Farne Islands and Bamburgh.  One long day out was a visit to Beamish where I took many photos, especially of the railways.  At the Waggonway, "The Elephant" was in The Great Shed, that I do remember, but I can't remember if "Locomotion" or "Puffing Billy" were running up and down the line for trips.

 

I've spent all afternoon looking through archived CDs and external hard disks AND I CAN'T FIND THE FLIPPIN PHOTOS!!!

Grrrrrrrrr....

 

Of course it would help if I could remember the year I was up there..... 

 

 

[Hroth]

Hurrah!

Or

Perseverance Rewarded!

 

Well....    This is from ONE of the cameras I had with me, I'd taken more with the other one, but that is still lost in the digital wilderness.

 

So, in order, The Colliery Railway, with the vertical loco, the Town station, with a Y7, and the Waggonway with Puffing Billy. 

 

 

 

 

I've a couple of video files of Puffing Billy under way, but its probably pushing my luck to post them here!

(very big files)

 

I think you could call Puffing Billy a self-propelled double beam engine..... 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by Hroth
bad joke...

[Edwardian]

Replying to Compound's comment in the Regency Rails thread, because the stock used in the Rowley Station scene is not early railways kit ....

 

36 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Just had a look there - not even a stocklist under the wagons tab. My comments based on a visit last August.

 

I really do feel that Beamish might try to use 1900s NER equipment wherever possible for its 1900s NER station that ostensibly serves a 1900s town, but I fear that the projected 1950s town will simply result in BR black stuff being run there, as on every preserved line and model railway, world without end.

 

We had a 1940s Peckett as motive power, but at least the restoration of Dunrobin will allow an 1890s train to be run, even if not much to do with the history of the NE of England. 

 

The goods stock on display was in keeping with the station but, on the whole, was not in a good way. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Martin S-C]

On 22/05/2019 at 21:36, Nearholmer said:

The Maharajah had a really splendid name, so clearly needed a splendid railcar: Lieutenant-General H.H. Ali Jah, Umdat ul-Umara, Hisam us-Sultanat, Mukhtar ul-Mulk, Azim ul-Iqtidar, Rafi-us-Shan, Wala Shikoh, Muhtasham-i-Dauran, Maharajadhiraj Maharaja Shrimant Sir Madho Rao Scindia Bahadur, Shrinath, Mansur-i-Zaman, Fidvi-i-Hazrat-i-Malika-i-Mua’zzama-i-Rafi-ud-Darja-i-Inglistan, Maharaja Scindia of Gwalior.

 

That must have been a pain in the rear end when filling in forms. And imagine the horror of doing your own PPI check.

[Martin S-C]

On 22/05/2019 at 22:36, St Enodoc said:

Mmm, I do like a nice éclair.

Working for the International Commission for Eclairs sounds like my dream job.

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Replying to Compound's comment in the Regency Rails thread, because the stock used in the Rowley Station scene is not early railways kit ....

 

 

I really do feel that Beamish might try to use 1900s NER equipment wherever possible for its 1900s NER station that ostensibly serves a 1900s town, but I fear that the projected 1950s town will simply result in BR black stuff being run there, as on every preserved line and model railway, world without end.

 

We had a 1940s Peckett as motive power, but at least the restoration of Dunrobin will allow an 1890s train to be run, even if not much to do with the history of the NE of England. 

 

The goods stock on display was in keeping with the station but, on the whole, was not in a good way. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's always upsetting to see preserved lines that have 'rust and rot' sidings.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

I fear that the projected 1950s town will simply result in BR black stuff being run there, as on every preserved line and model railway, world without end.

 

They're thinking of having a "1950s Zone" at Beamish?  WTF!

 

I suppose that it might be based on a concrete shopping centre, with a tower block and low-rise brick flat blocks surrounding it. The area would be swamped with roads and car parks and there would be an abandoned pre-Beeching closure railway, overgrown and rubbish infested...

 

They could always position it as on-site holiday accommodation, with gifte shoppes in the shopping centre!

 

Green Shield Stamps???

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by Hroth

[Guy Rixon]

30 minutes ago, Annie said:

It's always upsetting to see preserved lines that have 'rust and rot' sidings.

Agreed, but better that they keep wagons against the slight chance of restoration than scrap them. Also, handy if the rusted and rotting things are parked where they can be measured and photographed for details.

[Annie]

Yes that's true enough Guy, but I remember here in New Zealand the NZR donated some older goods wagons from the first quarter of the 20th century to a preservation society.  They were parked in a siding  for years where they turned into rotten wood and rusted metal and were eventually scrapped.  They should have just let the railways scrap them in the first place if they were going to do that and save everyone a lot of bother.

[Guy Rixon]

Respectfully, I disagree. If the wagons be scrapped by the preservation society, there's a chance to salvage some of the metal parts, particularly the wheelsets and the castings. These could be used to restore other stock or even to build replicas.

 

If I had spare time and spare money, it might be be feasible and rewarding to produce some full-size replicas of pre-grouping wagons. I think one could arrange for all the wooden and plate-work parts of a wood-framed wagon to be made new. Getting new split-spoke wheels made up sounds insanely expensive, and it's really hard to find anybody nowadays who can do sand-tray casting.

[nick_bastable]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Replying to Compound's comment in the Regency Rails thread, because the stock used in the Rowley Station scene is not early railways kit ....

 

 

I really do feel that Beamish might try to use 1900s NER equipment wherever possible for its 1900s NER station that ostensibly serves a 1900s town, but I fear that the projected 1950s town will simply result in BR black stuff being run there, as on every preserved line and model railway, world without end.

 

We had a 1940s Peckett as motive power, but at least the restoration of Dunrobin will allow an 1890s train to be run, even if not much to do with the history of the NE of England. 

 

The goods stock on display was in keeping with the station but, on the whole, was not in a good way. 

 

 

 

I suspect that many of the team who initially restored these are no longer with us

Nick

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I fear that the projected 1950s town will simply result in BR black stuff being run there, as on every preserved line and model railway, world without end.

When I started taking “The Modeller” in the mid 70s, there was very little 50s in it, other than Larry Goddard’s articles on early BR liveries. There was a letter, IIRC, commenting that this would not remain the case as typically people were building layouts that reflected their own memories (obviously not the case on this thread, as we would all be 120 or even older!) and that as people who had experienced the era came into their 30s-60s, then more like this would appear. Also, the steam-diesel transition during (for most areas) the first half of the 1960s was a fascinating time with the mixture of stock and traction types. The trend for most railways is towards greater and greater standardisation, balanced against new developments (so we see fewer and fewer different prototypes, with more variations on a theme) as this makes sound business sense. But during the first 25 years after WWII, the attempt to standardised overlapped with the ancient and the new, so I suppose a continuing interest in this era is inevitable.

Plus. For the manufacturers it makes sense: offer (pre-)grouping steam locos in BR liveries, and diesels in green, and you get more sales.

 

That said, as Beamish is about more than just the trains, I would also prefer them to stick to a circa 1900s theme, and eschew as much as possible the 1950s.

[Edwardian]

Well, the '50s is history now!

 

Many periods, including the Transition Era, might be objectively judged as fascinating, but it's not modelled because, all things considered, it is one of the more interesting periods, but because it's what people remember.  It has, as a consequence, been ubiquitous for many years and, like anything you see too much of, it can be a turn off for those of us who weren't around at the time and cannot share the endless fascination for the era.   

 

I was around at the time of Blue Diseasels.  There is a case that can be made for the 1970s-80s as a fascinating time on the railways. For me it represents the nadir of the system. I don't so much experience nostalgia as flashbacks to the banal horror that was a 1970s childhood. Or, possibly, just mine. Anyway, no steam, so it doesn't count!

 

My problem, as my Blue-Stocking university Tutor once informed me, is that I am grotesque hangover from the Nineteenth Century.  I had the good sense to take that as a compliment.  

[Annie]

25 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

Respectfully, I disagree. If the wagons be scrapped by the preservation society, there's a chance to salvage some of the metal parts, particularly the wheelsets and the castings. These could be used to restore other stock or even to build replicas.

 

If I had spare time and spare money, it might be be feasible and rewarding to produce some full-size replicas of pre-grouping wagons. I think one could arrange for all the wooden and plate-work parts of a wood-framed wagon to be made new. Getting new split-spoke wheels made up sounds insanely expensive, and it's really hard to find anybody nowadays who can do sand-tray casting.

I understand your point of view Guy, but in the case of one of the early bogie goods vans it couldn't be counted as anything but a significant loss.  Seeing goods wagons that I remembered well from my childhood rotting into dereliction in a siding was like seeing someone you knew well hung up for the crows to peck at.

 

Perhaps I am getting a little emotional about this, but the memory still hurts even after all these years.

[Hroth]

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

My problem, as my Blue-Stocking university Tutor once informed me, is that I am grotesque hangover from the Nineteenth Century

 

Such an early confirmation!

 

The one good thing about the Corporate Blue era is that the infrastructure of 150 years of British Railways still existed, before being swept away in the brave new dawn of 80s Rationalisation and the forthcoming Privatisation.  Coated in a horrendous layer of grot to be sure, but still worth replicating in minature, even if the machinery that ran on, over and through it was disturbingly ill-maintained. However, that was down to political attitude and the white heat of technology, as it were....

 

Some people like to wallow in the despair of the late 1970s, but at least there is the Transition era to look back on, with increasingly rose-tinted spectacles.

 

Of course, as we go further back in time, the rose-tinted specs become full-sized rose windows....

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by Hroth

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I am grotesque hangover from the Nineteenth Century.  I had the good sense to take that as a compliment.  

 

That you were, or that you had?

[Annie]

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Such an early confirmation!

 

The one good thing about the Corporate Blue era is that the infrastructure of 150 years of British Railways still existed.  Coated in a horrendous layer of grot to be sure, but still worth replicating in minature, even if the machinery that ran on, over and through it was disturbingly ill-maintained, though that was down to political attitude and the white heat of technology, as it were....

 

Some people like to wallow in the despair of the late 1970s, but at least there is the Transition era to look back on, with increasingly rose-tinted spectacles.

 

Of course, as we go further back in time, the rose-tinted specs become full-sized rose windows....

 

No-one wants to remember the 1970s.  It is a decade that needs to be removed from recorded history.

[Nearholmer]

weird as it may seem to think about a museum area devoted to the 1950s, if they don’t  start collecting sharpish then they will struggle to collate a meaningful picture for that decade. 

 

Things with wheels, cars, motorbikes, buses, and trains survive aplenty, but it is no longer easy and cheap to pick up things like furniture, light fittings, cookers, etc etc that would typify those that existed in ordinary shops and houses. As is usually the case, the survivors in good condition tend to be untypically high-status items.

 

Whether the 50s is the best decade to pick for a snapshot is a different question. Personally, I would have shot for the five years either side of 1970, because material objects and ordinary day-to-day things were in greater flux then..... plastics, petrol, private cars, and supermarkets really changed the ‘look and feel’ of Britain over that period.

[Edwardian]

Hopefully I'll be dead before there's a museum of the 1970s

[Compound2632]

37 minutes ago, Annie said:

No-one wants to remember the 1970s.  It is a decade that needs to be removed from recorded history.

 

10 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Hopefully I'll be dead before there's a museum of the 1970s

 

I object. I was happy in the 70s because young enough not to know any better. And I've still got a large cushion with cover made from my parents' living room curtains. Though maybe a Skansen would be step too far - a boxed set of Whatever happened to the Likely Lads is probably a sufficient memorial.