Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

One would like to think that the progenitor of Horncastle in 4mm was the similarly named actor, but alas, Donald Henry Pleasence lacks a 'g' and spells his agreeable surname with an 'e'.

 

Pity.

 

[Nearholmer]

I wondered that ...... and yes, the diagram is from Mr D Pleasance, I cited the date incorrectly because I’d received a mixed heap of MRCs, which I was trying to read while eating my lunch.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

One would like to think that the progenitor of Horncastle in 4mm was the similarly named actor, but alas, Donald Henry Pleasence lacks a 'g' and spells his agreeable surname with an 'e'.

 

Pity.

 

 

Are these biscuits supposed to have an almond flavour?

 

I've some early 50s MRCs, the ones with the bracket signal logo on the cover, including some 1953 issues, so I'll look out for the Horncastle trackplan, but I don't think mine go as far as 1955!

[Edwardian]

51 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Are these biscuits supposed to have an almond flavour?

 

 

 

In the circumstances, I would have chosen garlic ... 

[Hroth]

39 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

In the circumstances, I would have chosen garlic ... 

 

Or you could try catnip?

 

Foul play, Mr Bond!

(The vision of Q branch is truly amazing!)

[Regularity]

On 07/09/2019 at 07:39, Donw said:

The only question I have is it looks as through the access to the turntable is via a loading dock so I would want to ensure there was sufficient room for the largest vehicle to use the dock and the largest loco likely to run  to both fit in and still allow the turnout to operate.

It may not be a dock, it may just be a recess cut into the platform for the loco headshunt.

But if it is a dock, then it is likely to be used for horses and prize cattle or maybe horse-drawn carriages, in which case the requisite piece of NPCS will be at the dock for but a short time: after arrival for immediate unloading, or just before departure for all but immediate loading.

 

On 07/09/2019 at 08:15, Nearholmer said:

On your trackplan: I still think that the truly distinctive feature of the original is the ‘in’ and ‘out’ roads for the warehouse, and that you are in danger of submerging/losing that.

Kevin is right on this: it is not a run round loop, but a bypass road for getting wagons in and out of the shed without needing to shunt onto the main. Of course, with horses it just meant less to-ing and fro-ing.

Have a look also at places like Bridgwater (SDJR).

On 07/09/2019 at 11:34, unravelled said:

Btw, regarding the trackplan, wouldn't reversing the release crossover simplify operation? As drawn, the train will have to shunt back a considerable way before the loco is able to use it.

No. It simply wouldn't reverse.

When this station was built and the track laid, tickets were often collected on the train by the guard proceeding down the outside of the train, one compartment at a time. This was done whilst the engine was running round outside of the platform, e.g. the train stops on the route in, with the loco clear of the run-round crossover. The brakes are applied (by hand, at this period) and the loco detached, the crossover reversed, and the loco pulls forward and runs round. It then couples up to the stock, and once the guard has collected the tickets ,the brakes are released, and the coaches are pushed into the platform. The loco can then head off for turning (even a tank loco was likely to be turned in the early days - and later, e.g. Cardigan, Fairford - if there was a turntable) and servicing etc. The platform road thus also serves duty as a carriage siding, as it is not required for goods arrivals.

Even when tickets were collected at the station, this operation of stopping and running round before arrival in the platform would continue for some time, possibly until the crossover was reversed and moved down the platform road.

Even then, if the coaches would fit into the remaining platform face, the driver will stop the train such that he doesn't have to reverse up the platform before uncoupling. The passengers can walk and they don't have to fight the reverser and move the regulator arm an extra two times.

 

Sorry: have been exceedingly busy hence the late response, and no personal criticisms intended, but unlike railway modellers, real railwaymen want to accomplish everything with as few movements as possible. It is worth bearing that in mind when operating.

[TheQ]

48 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Or you could try catnip?

 

Foul play, Mr Bond!

(The vision of Q branch is truly amazing!)

Oi leave me out of it, I prefer a choccy cooky..

[Edwardian]

26 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Oi leave me out of it, I prefer a choccy cooky..

 

In your case a choccy cooky continuum, one presumes 

 

 

[runs as required]

8 hours ago, Edwardian said:

... alas, Donald Henry Pleasence lacks a 'g' and spells his agreeable surname with an 'e'...

I'd always assumed that to be a stage name, the opposite of the disquieting characters he so relished playing.

dh

[Edwardian]

46 minutes ago, runs as required said:

I'd always assumed that to be a stage name, the opposite of the disquieting characters he so relished playing.

dh

 

Apparently it was his real surname, and he ran away from the railway to tread the boards!

 

Pleasence was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, the son of Alice (née Armitage) and Thomas Stanley Pleasence, a railway stationmaster. He was brought up as a strict Methodist in the small village of Grimoldby, Lincolnshire. He received his formal education at Crosby Junior School, Scunthorpe and Ecclesfield Grammar School, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. After working as the Clerk-in-Charge at Swinton railway station in South Yorkshire, he decided that he wanted to be a professional actor, taking up a placement with the Jersey Repertory Company in 1939.

 

Wiki

 

Swinton, if I am correct, was on the old North Midland Railway; an ancestor of the Midland Railway, so that should please Our Stephen.

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

... you'll get me started on D.H. Lawrence, the Great Central, and the Midland.

[Nearholmer]

Back to Mr Pleasance and Horncastle for a moment: I've just been reading his articles, and he deserves recognition as a pioneering 4mm fine scale modeller of the pre-grouping scene (the layout was set in 1906).

 

The sort of deep research he did, and his attempts to portray things as exactly as limited space permitted, are 'ordinary stuff' for the MRJ-reading segment of our hobby, but were pretty unusual in 1954. He graduated quickly too, in that his earlier SR/GWR layout, which features in 1952/3 editions, looks very much less well-developed in style; very ingenious, but almost juvenile by comparison.

[Donw]

1 hour ago, Regularity said:

It may not be a dock, it may just be a recess cut into the platform for the loco headshunt.

But if it is a dock, then it is likely to be used for horses and prize cattle or maybe horse-drawn carriages, in which case the requisite piece of NPCS will be at the dock for but a short time: after arrival for immediate unloading, or just before departure for all but immediate loading.

 

Kevin is right on this: it is not a run round loop, but a bypass road for getting wagons in and out of the shed without needing to shunt onto the main. Of course, with horses it just meant less to-ing and fro-ing.

Have a look also at places like Bridgwater (SDJR).

No. It simply wouldn't reverse.

When this station was built and the track laid, tickets were often collected on the train by the guard proceeding down the outside of the train, one compartment at a time. This was done whilst the engine was running round outside of the platform, e.g. the train stops on the route in, with the loco clear of the run-round crossover. The brakes are applied (by hand, at this period) and the loco detached, the crossover reversed, and the loco pulls forward and runs round. It then couples up to the stock, and once the guard has collected the tickets ,the brakes are released, and the coaches are pushed into the platform. The loco can then head off for turning (even a tank loco was likely to be turned in the early days - and later, e.g. Cardigan, Fairford - if there was a turntable) and servicing etc. The platform road thus also serves duty as a carriage siding, as it is not required for goods arrivals.

Even when tickets were collected at the station, this operation of stopping and running round before arrival in the platform would continue for some time, possibly until the crossover was reversed and moved down the platform road.

Even then, if the coaches would fit into the remaining platform face, the driver will stop the train such that he doesn't have to reverse up the platform before uncoupling. The passengers can walk and they don't have to fight the reverser and move the regulator arm an extra two times.

 

Sorry: have been exceedingly busy hence the late response, and no personal criticisms intended, but unlike railway modellers, real railwaymen want to accomplish everything with as few movements as possible. It is worth bearing that in mind when operating.

 

I would agree with you if we are talking about one of Edwardian's renderings but I was referignto the map and to me there appears to be no run around shown on the passenger line. Or do need stronger glasses?

 

Don

[Donw]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Apparently it was his real surname, and he ran away from the railway to tread the boards!

 

Pleasence was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, the son of Alice (née Armitage) and Thomas Stanley Pleasence, a railway stationmaster. He was brought up as a strict Methodist in the small village of Grimoldby, Lincolnshire. He received his formal education at Crosby Junior School, Scunthorpe and Ecclesfield Grammar School, in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. After working as the Clerk-in-Charge at Swinton railway station in South Yorkshire, he decided that he wanted to be a professional actor, taking up a placement with the Jersey Repertory Company in 1939.

 

Wiki

 

Swinton, if I am correct, was on the old North Midland Railway; an ancestor of the Midland Railway, so that should please Our Stephen.

 

 

 

 

Good carreer choice. I can just imagine the Carreers officer saying ' Now then young Pleasence there's no future in acting go for a steady job on the railway you wont regret it'. 

[Edwardian]

6 hours ago, Donw said:

 

I would agree with you if we are talking about one of Edwardian's renderings but I was referignto the map and to me there appears to be no run around shown on the passenger line. Or do need stronger glasses?

 

Don

 

Indeed.  This was my chief reason for amending the plan!

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, Donw said:

Good carreer choice. I can just imagine the Carreers officer saying ' Now then young Pleasence there's no future in acting go for a steady job on the railway you wont regret it'. 

 

And a good pension at staff grade too.

I bet he issued himself a ticket to Jersey at railway employees discount before resigning....

[Donw]

5 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

And a good pension at staff grade too.

I bet he issued himself a ticket to Jersey at railway employees discount before resigning....

 

I was not suggesting there was anything wrong with going for a railway job. Indeed I took a similar job in telephones myself. Being given an ehanced (extra 6.6 years) pension from 50 was rather like a modest win on the lottery of life.  It was more the thought of a Carreers officer totally failing to appreciate that someone might be able to aim higher.  Just think if I had spent more time practising on  guitar I might have made millions (well a better sense of pitch would have helped I had a devil of a time trying to tune a cello at school). Obviously a lot fail but that shouldn't stop you going for your dreams if you are sure you have the right abilities.

What I dont agree with is those who just want to be famous without doing anything for it (except perhaps display their lack of any real talent). 

 

Don

[Regularity]

23 hours ago, Donw said:

 

I would agree with you if we are talking about one of Edwardian's renderings but I was referignto the map and to me there appears to be no run around shown on the passenger line. Or do need stronger glasses?

My reference to your comments was solely about the loading dock on the loco headshunt, Don, nothing more: I would have quoted you appropriately if referring to something else. 

My other points were directed at others’ responses to our Host’s “renderings” as you so charmingly put it.

 

But to the point you make about the map, there are simply too many possibilities for us to know for sure, including the simplest idea that the surveyors missed it.

If we know the gradient profile, we might be able rule gravity shunting in or out, though.

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, Donw said:

 

I was not suggesting there was anything wrong with going for a railway job. Indeed I took a similar job in telephones myself. Being given an ehanced (extra 6.6 years) pension from 50 was rather like a modest win on the lottery of life.  It was more the thought of a Carreers officer totally failing to appreciate that someone might be able to aim higher.  Just think if I had spent more time practising on  guitar I might have made millions (well a better sense of pitch would have helped I had a devil of a time trying to tune a cello at school). Obviously a lot fail but that shouldn't stop you going for your dreams if you are sure you have the right abilities.

What I dont agree with is those who just want to be famous without doing anything for it (except perhaps display their lack of any real talent). 

 

Don

I now have a strange image in my head of someone playing a cello while holding it like a guitar.

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I now have a strange image in my head of someone playing a cello while holding it like a guitar.

 

Rather like a Viol in fact....

 

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

 

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

 

(A sort of pre-grouping bowed string instrument!)

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Hroth
addition of completely appropriate image...

[Edwardian]

While we're on the subject of big wigs, under this one the thought occurs "all my birds are trying to fly back!"

 

 

 

While on the subject of birds, this heavily protected species has now finally been seen ....  

 

[Compound2632]

"A little bit of bread and no cheese".

 

 

[Edwardian]

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

"A little bit of bread and no cheese".

 

 

 

So it's reported

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Edwardian

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Rather like a Viol in fact....

 

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

 

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

 

(A sort of pre-grouping bowed string instrument!)

 

So that's where Jimmy Page got the idea from.

[drmditch]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Rather like a Viol in fact....

 

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

 

 

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

 

(A sort of pre-grouping bowed string instrument!)

 

My understanding was that the viol family of instruments were normally bowed. Obviously any stringed instrument can also be plucked, but I personally have never fully recovered from the pizzicato passage at the start of the last movement of the Eroica. I broke my A string (top string on a Viola)  and the remainder of the symphony, which is of course magnificent, left scars on my musical psyche.

 

However, if readers will excuse a random enquiry to save searching on-line, does anyone know of a kit available for an NER horsebox? 

Edited September 12, 2019 by drmditch
Wrong string!