On looking into Old Railway Modellers

[Ian Simpson]

For me, the article that most impressed - and influenced - me was by John Allison in an early 1970s Railway Modeller. It was only one page with a couple of small black-and-white photos, I think the article was called something like "Watching the Trains" and the layout was simply a small double line of N gauge track running between tunnel mouths through well-modelled, interesting scenery: no station, no visible pointwork, just trains appearing and disappearing as they would in real life, then looping around under the hills and coming back on the other track. At a time when most layouts were either intensively-worked branch terminii or large multi-station systems, I was fascinated by the simplicity of the concept and found it really refreshing.

The line that has always stuck in my memory was when John explained why his coaches had different liveries on each side: the different paint jobs allowed him to have more variety of trains on show on what we would now call a micro-layout and "after all you can only see one side of a coach at a time".

Reading that article taught me that accuracy (which I found much too daunting when I read articles by expert builders like England, Jenkinson and Sharman) wasn't the only way into modelling: painting a believable picture was at least as important. And that's been my excuse for being all fingers and thumbs at the workbench ever since!   

BTW I know they were before our time, but the Walkley brothers are big heroes of mine as well. I am still amazed by A.R.'s 1926 Layout in a Suitcase: amazingly ahead of its time!

[Pacific231G]

BTW I know they were before our time, but the Walkley brothers are big heroes of mine as well. I am still amazed by A.R.'s 1926 Layout in a Suitcase: amazingly ahead of its time!

Hi Ian

 

A.R.Walkley is also something of a hero of mine and I'm familiar with his published work, both with his "portable shunting layout", that introduced almost everything such as automatic couplings, two rail track and reversible permanent magnet DC motors, that we now take for granted, and his pioneering 2mm scale layout. I didn't know that he had a brother who was also a modeller.  I know A.R was a member of the Wimbledon club who pushed for what is now H0 but he seemed to vanish from sight after about 1930 and I think he may have emigrated to New Zealand but do you know more about both of them?

Edited June 20, 2016 by Pacific231G

[Talltim]

A great inspiration to me, if it doesn't exist, make it yourself! The LNWR Rail-motor still exists! I have it in my collection after finding it on a well known auction site and had to buy it. It runs very well and the natural ageing suits it to a T.

Photo please!

[Talltim]

I've read (and probably still got in the loft) The Model Railway Men, The Model Railway Men Take Over and Telford and the American Visitor. I'll have to look out for the others, I hadn't realised there were so many. Some of the covers of the Pope books are classic 70s childrens' book, I specially like the one for One's Pool

[St Enodoc]

For me, the article that most impressed - and influenced - me was by John Allison in an early 1970s Railway Modeller. It was only one page with a couple of small black-and-white photos, I think the article was called something like "Watching the Trains" and the layout was simply a small double line of N gauge track running between tunnel mouths through well-modelled, interesting scenery: no station, no visible pointwork, just trains appearing and disappearing as they would in real life, then looping around under the hills and coming back on the other track. At a time when most layouts were either intensively-worked branch terminii or large multi-station systems, I was fascinated by the simplicity of the concept and found it really refreshing.

The line that has always stuck in my memory was when John explained why his coaches had different liveries on each side: the different paint jobs allowed him to have more variety of trains on show on what we would now call a micro-layout and "after all you can only see one side of a coach at a time".

Reading that article taught me that accuracy (which I found much too daunting when I read articles by expert builders like England, Jenkinson and Sharman) wasn't the only way into modelling: painting a believable picture was at least as important. And that's been my excuse for being all fingers and thumbs at the workbench ever since!   

BTW I know they were before our time, but the Walkley brothers are big heroes of mine as well. I am still amazed by A.R.'s 1926 Layout in a Suitcase: amazingly ahead of its time!

"Watching the trains go by" - Railway Modeller, May 1971. The layout was controlled automatically using magnetic tape.

[Eclipse247]

I've read (and probably still got in the loft) The Model Railway Men, The Model Railway Men Take Over and Telford and the American Visitor. I'll have to look out for the others, I hadn't realised there were so many. Some of the covers of the Pope books are classic 70s childrens' book, I specially like the one for One's Pool

Yes that was a good one. It was read on Jackanory by Prunella Scales. It looks like there are a number of Model Railway Men books you havn't read.

[BG John]

Hi Ian

 

A.R.Walkley is also something of a hero of mine and I'm familiar with his published work, both with his "portable shunting layout", that introduced almost everything such as automatic couplings, two rail track and reversible permanent magnet DC motors, that we now take for granted, and his pioneering 2mm scale layout. I didn't know that he had a brother who was also a modeller.  I know A.R was a member of the Wimbledon club who pushed for what is now H0 but he seemed to vanish from sight after about 1930 and I think he may have emigrated to New Zealand but do you know more about both of them?

There have been several topics on this layout on RMweb. Try searching for "Walkley". This is one of them. Has anyone actually built a copy yet?

[Nearholmer]

Interesting.

 

Wimbledon Club seems to have been a hotbed of technical advance and progress towards fine scale during the 20s and 30s. I keep finding references to the club in old magazines, and in hindsight it is an awful pity that its views on H0 didn't prevail.

 

The other advanced club seems to have been Manchester, although I have a feeling that they really "took off" in fine scale terms in the late 1940s, rather than pre-War, but I'm open to correction on that.

 

Kevin

[Spodgrim]

For me, the article that most impressed - and influenced - me was by John Allison in an early 1970s Railway Modeller. It was only one page with a couple of small black-and-white photos, I think the article was called something like "Watching the Trains" and the layout was simply a small double line of N gauge track running between tunnel mouths through well-modelled, interesting scenery: no station, no visible pointwork, just trains appearing and disappearing as they would in real life, then looping around under the hills and coming back on the other track. At a time when most layouts were either intensively-worked branch terminii or large multi-station systems, I was fascinated by the simplicity of the concept and found it really refreshing.

The line that has always stuck in my memory was when John explained why his coaches had different liveries on each side: the different paint jobs allowed him to have more variety of trains on show on what we would now call a micro-layout and "after all you can only see one side of a coach at a time".

Reading that article taught me that accuracy (which I found much too daunting when I read articles by expert builders like England, Jenkinson and Sharman) wasn't the only way into modelling: painting a believable picture was at least as important. And that's been my excuse for being all fingers and thumbs at the workbench ever since!   

BTW I know they were before our time, but the Walkley brothers are big heroes of mine as well. I am still amazed by A.R.'s 1926 Layout in a Suitcase: amazingly ahead of its time!

That is probably why I'm planning to paint my wagons (if I ever get round to finishing them) pre and post grouping on different sides - I blame your influence :-) 

 

Neil

[Ian Simpson]

That is probably why I'm planning to paint my wagons (if I ever get round to finishing them) pre and post grouping on different sides - I blame your influence :-) 

 

Neil

 

That's fine if you're modelling LSWR and Southern! Doesn't work as well for us LBSCR types, bruv ...

[Ian Simpson]

Sorry to take so long replying, Pacific. I'm afraid I still don't even know AR's first name!

 

There are some references to the two brothers (AR and AH) working together in some of AR's Model Railway News articles, for example an 3.5 mm working level crossing they made that won a prize at Wimbledon MRC's annual show in 1926.

 

I would love to know more about him! He does just seem to vanish from the record in the 1930s, although I've vague memories of hearing he was a fire watcher during the Blitz so I'm always assumed he emigrated after the war, or at least came back to Blighty for a while.

 

I've not been able to track down any obituaries in the modelling press. For someone so outstanding, he just seems to fade away without a trace. Beal and Ahern hardly mention him in their books, and Beal seems to have been on pretty good terms with most of the prominent modellers in the late thirties.

 

My own tentative theory: he was a time-traveller from the year 2050 (when British modellers have finally adopted HO ) and he popped back to the nineteen-twenties to show everyone we don't need conductor rails!

 

Hi Ian

 

A.R.Walkley is also something of a hero of mine and I'm familiar with his published work, both with his "portable shunting layout", that introduced almost everything such as automatic couplings, two rail track and reversible permanent magnet DC motors, that we now take for granted, and his pioneering 2mm scale layout. I didn't know that he had a brother who was also a modeller.  I know A.R was a member of the Wimbledon club who pushed for what is now H0 but he seemed to vanish from sight after about 1930 and I think he may have emigrated to New Zealand but do you know more about both of them?

Edited September 2, 2016 by Ian Simpson

[BG John]

My own tentative theory: he was a time-traveller from the year 2050 (when British modellers have finally adopted HO ) and he popped back to the nineteen-twenties to show everyone we don't need conductor rails!

Perhaps he's me then, and the layout I'm building at the moment is actually the prototype, and at some point in the future I'll be going back in time to build the original that I'm basing it on .

[Pacific231G]

Perhaps he's me then, and the layout I'm building at the moment is actually the prototype, and at some point in the future I'll be going back in time to build the original that I'm basing it on .

But you might cross your own time stream and destroy the universe.

[BG John]

But you might cross your own time stream and destroy the universe.

I'm still here, but now I'm starting to wonder if everything else around me is just a figment of my imagination, and I'm actually totally alone in an otherwise infinite nothingness.

 

I'm now so depressed by that thought, that I must get on with imagining I'm doing some modelling, to try to raise my mood a bit.

[St Enodoc]

I'm still here, but now I'm starting to wonder if everything else around me is just a figment of my imagination, and I'm actually totally alone in an otherwise infinite nothingness.

 

I'm now so depressed by that thought, that I must get on with imagining I'm doing some modelling, to try to raise my mood a bit.

You're not BG John, you're Marvin the Paranoid Android and I claim my five pounds.

[BG John]

You're not BG John, you're Marvin the Paranoid Android and I claim my five pounds.

If only you actually existed so I could pay you. I've got a brain the size of a planet, and all I can use it for is to imagine that I'm building model railways.

[Spodgrim]

That's fine if you're modelling LSWR and Southern! Doesn't work as well for us LBSCR types, bruv ...

Well there's an easy answer to that problem...

[Dunsignalling]

That's fine if you're modelling LSWR and Southern! Doesn't work as well for us LBSCR types, bruv ...

R-t-r LSWR wagons available: 0.

 

R-t-r LBSCR wagons available: 1 (Hornby brake van).

[coachmann]

I had a letter about rolling Plastikard loco boilers in the 'Modeller circa 1965 (with wretched spelling), but most of my articles on building locos went to the 'Constructor ' in the days when i had the time to write such things.

Edited September 5, 2016 by coachmann

[Andy Kirkham]

Do others agree that It seems to be specifically the Railway Modeller that stirs most of these nostalgic recollections? The other magazines just don't seem to have caught peoples' imaginations to the same extent.

[martin_wynne]

The other magazines just don't seem to have caught peoples' imaginations to the same extent.

 

Except of course the Meccano Magazine. Every issue of Meccano Magazine in PDF format:

 

 http://www.meccanoin....uk/MMpdfs1.php

 

and

 

 http://meccano.magazines.free.fr

 

All your favourite issues are there.

 

Martin.

[BG John]

Do others agree that It seems to be specifically the Railway Modeller that stirs most of these nostalgic recollections? The other magazines just don't seem to have caught peoples' imaginations to the same extent.

I had the Modeller every month from when I was about 13 until sometime after MRJ started, when I changed to that. I always thought it was the best magazine, but MRN and MRC often had some far more interesting and useful articles, in amongst the not so good ones.

[Nearholmer]

The Modeller is like the shipping forecast, or, for adherents, the CofE: always there, sometimes if only burbling quietly in the background; marking-off the years from cosy-childhood to possibly-jaded-late-maturity; a reassuring presence wherein change is so slow-paced as to be imperceptible, except when viewed at great distance in time; and, it covers a wide spectrum, from near-super-fine, to nearly-straight-out-of-a-box, across all scales and all formats, in a balanced way.

 

Also, it is very largely made up of articles written by modellers, for modellers, with very little "professional" (sadly often journalistic and/or dumbed-down) content.

 

The fact that, almost since its inception, it has consistently seemed rather dated, about ten or fifteen years behind the times, like a slightly outmoded cardigan, is part of the appeal.

 

If it ever looks on the brink of closure, I will personally start a preservation society.

 

A National Treasure!

 

Kevin

[DLT]

Fascinating thread.

[Legend]

The Modeller is like the shipping forecast, or, for adherents, the CofE: always there, sometimes if only burbling quietly in the background; marking-off the years from cosy-childhood to possibly-jaded-late-maturity; a reassuring presence wherein change is so slow-paced as to be imperceptible, except when viewed at great distance in time; and, it covers a wide spectrum, from near-super-fine, to nearly-straight-out-of-a-box, across all scales and all formats, in a balanced way.

Also, it is very largely made up of articles written by modellers, for modellers, with very little "professional" (sadly often journalistic and/or dumbed-down) content.

The fact that, almost since its inception, it has consistently seemed rather dated, about ten or fifteen years behind the times, like a slightly outmoded cardigan, is part of the appeal.

If it ever looks on the brink of closure, I will personally start a preservation society.

A National Treasure!

Kevin

I agree . It's coming home on a winters night to a nice warm house with a cosy glow and the smell of baking. It's traditional, looks old fashioned but actually isn't with it's "talking points" leading the way with comment on the hobby. There's a lot more reading in it than other magazines.