Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Did they have that rather nice GC/LNER - LSWR/SR through working running?

 

We had, IIRC, a Kent- Birkenhead service and a big Gresley engine proving it wasn’t the most powerful loco yet built 

[Compound2632]

[Nearholmer]

I always get a bit confused by which through services they are replicating at Pendon, even after quite a long chat with a very knowledgeable member of their team last time I was there.

 

There seems to have been a Somewhere-on-the-LNER to Swindon service, which involved LNER locos running all the way to Swindon, so I get that that ran through The Vale. But, the Birkenhead to Dover & Margate, and lots of other places in Kent and Sussex, service, known on the Southern as The Conti, ran Oxford to Reading, onward to Redhill (detach Brighton & Hastings portion in some years/seasons) then on to Tonbridge, so through Didcot, but not what I think of as through The Vale, i.e. Didcot to Swindon. So, if they are replicating the latter, isn't it "off piste" for their area? 

 

The Conti, incidentally, had two rakes, one SR, one GWR, each going in one direction one day, the other direction the next, and it changed engines at Reading. I think it was headed by a mogul on the SR, and it must have been a monster load over the Guildford-Redhill section, which has some quite steep bits.

 

Other trains, from the Southampton and Bournemouth direction, and I think Portsmouth, involved SR locos working right through to Oxford.

 

In BR days, thngs changed a bit, because BR(W) crews had to know the routes as fr as Redhill and Southampton, and there were through turns using their own engines to allow them to retain knowledge.

 

I also saw a Nottinghamshire-to-Southampton coal train on The Vale scene, which again seemed off-piste.

 

Anyway, all the trains were attractive/interesting, whether off-piste or not.

 

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

It's a "generic" west Berkshire / south Oxfordshire Great Western layout. There are, I believe, those who hold that Roye England should have chosen to model one specific location but I think they miss the point - it's a 4 mm scale Skansen, bringing together the most interesting, characteristic, and typical features of the district into one harmonious whole.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, perhaps I’m getting too caught-up in railway specifics ...... it’s just that I always perceive The Vale to begin at Didcot, but probably geologically, and therefore in terms of  vernacular building styles, it starts   With the descent from the hills east of Didcot.

 

PS: I just checked Wikipedia, and its no wonder I'm confused! There seem to be half a dozen subtly different definitions of the extent of VotWH, geographical, administrative, colloquial etc.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

Yes, and consider too the museum's actual location, a short walk across the fields from Appleford station. Whenever I drive out that way from Reading, I come over the spur of the Chilterns on the Port Way (A4074, anciently A423), cutting the corner off the loop of the river past Whitchurch and Goring. Coming out of the woods, one gets a magnificent panorama down to Didcot (now shorn of half the fat Ladies of the Vale) and the country beyond, with the downs stretching away to the left.

[Edwardian]

A bright green caterpillar...

[Regularity]

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

VotWH

VoWH.

It is the Vale of White Horse, not the White Horse.

[Nearholmer]

Mr H, who will doubtless read this, dragged me on a vintage bus tour to lunch at a pub with much the view that you describe Mr Compound.

 

Anway, here is a view of the wrong horse, (C, you must show your enamelled box of the right horse) from the wrong train. The train is definitely SR, and Ravillious and his wife must have ridden down to Eastbourne or the like in it, sketchbooks on their knees, because they both created different pictures of exactly the same scene in their different personal styles.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Nearholmer

[brianusa]

Whatever it is, its one of the most romantic descriptions of a railway route in the British Isles.  Compare with Shap, etc!

      Brian.

[Nearholmer]

“It is the Vale of White Horse, not the White Horse.”

 

So it is!

 

Why?

[Annie]

Brilliant to see photos from Pendon and especially photos of the Madder Valley.  Thank you very much James.  As a teenager John Ahern's books were a huge influence for me and I would hunt about in piles of second hand railway magazines on sale at model shops looking for articles by John Ahern.

 

Ravillious's painting of the railway compartment he was travelling in is one of my favourite pictures.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

We had, IIRC, a Kent- Birkenhead service and a big Gresley engine proving it wasn’t the most powerful loco yet built 

 

Perhaps symbolic of the journey from Tri-ang to Hornby, as it were, so to speak.....

 

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

Those two pictures must have been done at different times, or at least, in carriages in different livery. One has the large 3 and carriage number on the door, the other, the word THIRD. The first is good reference for the upholstery - note the fabric round the door frame - and blinds. Can anyone with knowledge of Southern carriages track down No. 990?

[Hroth]

29 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Anway, here is a view of the wrong horse, (C, you must show your enamelled box of the right horse) from the wrong train. The train is definitely SR, and Ravillious and his wife must have ridden down to Eastbourne or the like in it, sketchbooks on their knees, because they both created different pictures of exactly the same scene in their different personal styles.

 

Why does the passenger nearest on the left look like a certain German Leader of the 30s?

And the woman by the window appears to be holding a Kindle 3....

 

Tiptoes out before the wrath of the Parish Council falls upon me.  At least the Ducking Stool doesn't work any more!

 

[Annie]

12 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Why does the passenger nearest on the left look like a certain German Leader of the 30s?

And the woman by the window appears to be holding a Kindle 3....

 

Tiptoes out before the wrath of the Parish Council falls upon me.  At least the Ducking Stool doesn't work any more!

 

Wow! That does look like a Kindle.  Further proof of time travellers secretly walking amongst us (and also riding on trains).   

[Nearholmer]

A lot of her pictures have a strangeness about them that makes them faintly disturbing to look at, so I shouldn't be too surprised to learn that she possessed deep prescience.

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Annie said:

Wow! That does look like a Kindle.  Further proof of time travellers secretly walking amongst us (and also riding on trains).   

 

Could she kindly be asked to go to c. 1905 to take a wander round Vastern Road and Kings Meadow yards in Reading and come back with some colour photos of Great Western wagons?

[ChrisN]

Well for once, I have the information.  990 was a 1924 Maunsell corridor third, which in 1935 was put into SR set 463 and was used on the Kent Coast.   Obviously was used elsewhere earlier.

[Martin S-C]

On 17/08/2019 at 19:36, Edwardian said:

Thought I'd get Dr Newman's brake body rolling.  The solebars are spare 16' solebars from a Cambrian Kits kit (I only use 15' solebars as a rule), and they were the right dimensions. The fold up irons are from 51L and the bottle buffers, as per the Alan Prior drawing, are loco buffers from RT Models.

 

The vehicle sits quite low, but is a very good match for the drawing and seems ideally suited to run with the Birmingham & Gloucester wagons. 

 

I think I will need to build the springs and axleboxes. Having built springs for Lion, I'm fairly confident that I can make something semi-decent. 

 

 

The LNWR brake van print was commissioned by me and another gentleman who is on the 19th century railways Facebook group. I have two of them but haven't done anything with them yet. I have noticed that the bodies are a perfect dimensional fit onto the chassis of a Bachmann GWR shunters truck. There's a fair bit of hacking away of shunters truck underframe parts needed but the wheel base makes them look ... different. I shall probably 'fictionalise' my pair in some way. I think a wire tilt and sheet awning over the open area might add some character. Its really encouraging to see someone else buying one and making good use of it.

 

[Nearholmer]

ChrisN

 

And, when was loco-hauled stock on the Eastbourne Line replaced by spanking new electric units? c1935. So, my guess is that 990 was cascaded from that route to KC.

 

The woodcut (it is woodcut, isn't it?) were made in 1929-30, I think.

 

Virginia Woolf was probably travelling first class in the next carriage.

 

K

[Donw]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Oh but the Great Western calls to me; a man never forgets his first love.

 

The viaduct has kept well. It was 57 years ago I first saw it. There was no station just the viaduct. A sucession of trains were run out onto the viaduct while Roye explained the type of train etc. Then he brought out a few cottages each on its own base and we were able to see them close up  while he explained how he made them. It is rather incredible how it has grown.  I do find the Madder valley a very good addition. Its size is something a lone modeller can aspire to. I find similarities between CA and Madder valley not least in the way CA has been designed as a village and not a random collection of buildings.

 

Don

[Donw]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Mr H, who will doubtless read this, dragged me on a vintage bus tour to lunch at a pub with much the view that you describe Mr Compound.

 

Anway, here is a view of the wrong horse, (C, you must show your enamelled box of the right horse) from the wrong train. The train is definitely SR, and Ravillious and his wife must have ridden down to Eastbourne or the like in it, sketchbooks on their knees, because they both created different pictures of exactly the same scene in their different personal styles.

 

That is more like the one you see from the Cardiff -Porstmouth trains

[Nearholmer]

Yes, the horse is actually Westbury, which he painted from inside a train looking out, and from above looking down onto a train. But, I think the train interior detail was just ‘generic stuff’ that he captured elsewhere.

 

There was a recent photo, of train passing the horse, in one of the railway mags recently, replicating his painting.

 

Just found this interesting snippet, which reinforces my view about where the train actually was: 

 

But this story has a twist. Restorers working on ‘Train Landscape’ recently discovered that the Westbury Horse had been glued over something else, and closer examination revealed the Wilmington Giant hidden behind it. It seems that Ravilious made two paintings, both aboard trains on the Eastbourne to Hastings line, but was not happy with either. So his wife Tirzah took the best parts of each and skilfully cut and pasted them together.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Could she kindly be asked to go to c. 1905 to take a wander round Vastern Road and Kings Meadow yards in Reading and come back with some colour photos of Great Western wagons?

 

I did wander round those yards but sadly 50 years too late and no camera.

 

Don