Gare de Chinon st Jacques

[w124bob]

Apolgies if this not new but I went back a few years and didn't spot anything http://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=74784. 260 pages of inspiration and humour.A Jacques Tati reference, Mon Oncle.

A reference to a newspaper cartoon, Gaston Lagaffe

A really amazing layout with back storyfull of quirky little touches ,if only I could read french!

[Oldddudders]

Super stuff. Period railway in a townscape. French modellers are good at buildings, imbuing them with this sort of atmosphere. I've skimmed the pics to page 14 so far - and saved it for later! Thanks!

[w124bob]

This youtuber  has posted several photomontage clips, the drawings for the intros are good too! I spent 2 hours last night and I'm still only half way through, if ever there was a layout where the trains became almost incidental, then this is it. Pretty sure the builder has his own character on the layout, look out for the chap in the yellow jacket who pops up in some of the construction photos. Love the newspaper front page, Tour de France always features.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsLFrfgp8LJTmfBw-JBtS2Q/videos

[Edwardian]

This youtuber  has posted several photomontage clips, the drawings for the intros are good too! I spent 2 hours last night and I'm still only half way through, if ever there was a layout where the trains became almost incidental, then this is it. Pretty sure the builder has his own character on the layout, look out for the chap in the yellow jacket who pops up in some of the construction photos. Love the newspaper front page, Tour de France always features.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsLFrfgp8LJTmfBw-JBtS2Q/videos

 

Watched 1 so far, seriously impressive stuff.

[Pacific231G]

Apolgies if this not new but I went back a few years and didn't spot anything http://forum.e-train.fr/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=74784. 260 pages of inspiration and humour.A Jacques Tati reference, Mon Oncle.

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A reference to a newspaper cartoon, Gaston Lagaffe

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A really amazing layout with back storyfull of quirky little touches ,if only I could read french!

Thanks Bob for reminding me about this remarkable layout

 

I've not followed the LocoRevue thread for about six months and Jacques Boileau is making major changes. He's got rid of the catenary "A source of inexhaustible irritation"  and is cutting back on some of the townscape scenes. He thinks the actual railway was in danger of getting lost behind them and from what he's written it sounds like he also felt the layout was getting to be too much a series of vignettes. He intends to use the removed buildings for a large exhibition diorama inspired by Nantes P.O. with the railway running in front of a street. I shall very much look forward to seeing that and, as Jacques lives near Tours, with any luck it'll appear at the big Orleans exhibition in 2018.

 

I notice that Jacques uses Kadees and that does suggest that his layout is very much oriented towards "proper" operation rather than as an urban landscape with trains and I've noticed that with other large operation oriented French H0 layouts

 

BTW Even if you can't read French, Google Translate (other free autotranslators are avaiaable) is a lot better these days (It no longer thinks Voie Ferrée means "Shoed Road")  and keeps the page layout with pictures intact.. I can generally read the French with some difficulty and a dictionary but the autotranslated version makes it easier to browse.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Super stuff. Period railway in a townscape. French modellers are good at buildings, imbuing them with this sort of atmosphere. I've skimmed the pics to page 14 so far - and saved it for later! Thanks!

Interestingly, he credits the English with teaching the French how to model buildings.

[Pacific231G]

Interestingly, he credits the English with teaching the French how to model buildings.

hi Joseph

French modellers do seem to respect the work of their British counterparts- shame so few British modellers look the other way across the Channel- but I think the adoption of modules or module-like approaches, particularly within French MRCs, led to a flowering of scenic modelling including buildings. On page 12 Jacques Bolieau does give a very good explanation of his techniques for using "carton plume" known to us as foamcore, for building construction. Before he retired he was a printer so clearly knows his way around card and paper. 

[Oldddudders]

 Before he retired he was a printer so clearly knows his way around card and paper. 

 

Funnily enough, I had looked at some of the fonts in use and wondered whether they were current in such locations in that era. David Jenkinson's seminal"Is  your mutton dressed as lamb?" article in RM more than 50 years ago has a lot to answer for! 

[Pacific231G]

Funnily enough, I had looked at some of the fonts in use and wondered whether they were current in such locations in that era. David Jenkinson's seminal"Is  your mutton dressed as lamb?" article in RM more than 50 years ago has a lot to answer for! 

Hi Ian

Interesting point. We're no earlier than 1958 (when Jean Gabin first played Maigret in the film showing in the Vox Cinema) so, even in Indre et Loire,  the 1950s typographic revolution might well have reached the small city he's grown Chinon into.

I notice that Jacques gives 1956-1968 on one of his plans. He does say that he's trying to recreate an impression of the railway scene as he remembers it from his youth and that does allow for a certain amount of artistic licence if he's modelling a period rather than a more specific time .

 

In David Jenkinson's article-  I have it in front of me now,- he contradicts his main thesis that historical or "period" modellers have a "duty" to strict historical accuracy by stating a preference for a period  rather than a year (in his case LMS 1927-1937) thus allowing him to mix red painted LMS engines with Stanier locos from the black painted era. If you apply that ten year lattitude to BR you could have the last BR steam locos operating alongside the first HST which would clearly be absurd. It is though difficult not to agree with his complaint about a 1947 railway in a 1964 setting (The article was published in the September 1964 RM which with steam still around is definitely historic now )I too have seen houses with TV aerials on purportedly pre-nationalisation layouts when the first regional TV transmission in Britain wasn't until December 1949 from Sutton Coldfield.

 

The typeface he thought he was objecting to was Bodoni ultra italic (not Bodini but that may have been a typo by RM) . Bodoni was one of three official typefaces used by the Festival of Britain. However Giambattista Bodoni died in 1813 and I'm not sure how different the revived Bodoni typeface used by the Festival of Britain would have been from earlier versions.  I think it may really have been Festival Titling he was concerned about as that was designed by Phillip Boydell specially for the 1951 Festival and not made more widely available until 1952. The third typeface used for the Festival of Britain was Plantin. 

[The Stationmaster]

Hi Ian

Interesting point. We're no earlier than 1958 (when Jean Gabin first played Maigret in the film showing in the Vox Cinema) so, even in Indre et Loire,  the 1950s typographic revolution might well have reached the small city he's grown Chinon into.

I notice that Jacques gives 1956-1968 on one of his plans. He does say that he's trying to recreate an impression of the railway scene as he remembers it from his youth and that does allow for a certain amount of artistic licence if he's modelling a period rather than a more specific time .

 

In David Jenkinson's article-  I have it in front of me now,- he contradicts his main thesis that historical or "period" modellers have a "duty" to strict historical accuracy by stating a preference for a period  rather than a year (in his case LMS 1927-1937) thus allowing him to mix red painted LMS engines with Stanier locos from the black painted era. If you apply that ten year lattitude to BR you could have the last BR steam locos operating alongside the first HST which would clearly be absurd. It is though difficult not to agree with his complaint about a 1947 railway in a 1964 setting (The article was published in the September 1964 RM which with steam still around is definitely historic now )I too have seen houses with TV aerials on purportedly pre-nationalisation layouts when the first regional TV transmission in Britain wasn't until December 1949 from Sutton Coldfield.

 

The typeface he thought he was objecting to was Bodoni ultra italic (not Bodini but that may have been a typo by RM) . Bodoni was one of three official typefaces used by the Festival of Britain. However Giambattista Bodoni died in 1813 and I'm not sure how different the revived Bodoni typeface used by the Festival of Britain would have been from earlier versions.  I think it may really have been Festival Titling he was concerned about as that was designed by Phillip Boydell specially for the 1951 Festival and not made more widely available until 1952. The third typeface used for the Festival of Britain was Plantin. 

 

A period is quite easily portrayed if the surrounding scene didn't undergo massive change - typeface is one thing of course (and a common error on model buildings in my opinion) but there are also differences in building styles and construction details, cars, the contents and type of shops, and clothing.  In directly railway terms there can often be anachronisms but in many cases they will go unnoticed by the vast majority of viewers, including modellers, because they are simply not aware of the detail.  Numerous things in the overall railway scene only changed slowly until the outbreak of 'modernisation' in the mid-late 1950s but since the 1960s change has been more rapid.

[Pacific231G]

Hi Mike

I think that a number of small anachronisms- typefaces being one- do add up to  a sense of the overall scene not being true and it's very easy to forget just how different the 1950s or 1960s looked compared with the 1980s. Different cars and motor vehicles of course but far fewer of them and in Britain for example, in many towns even if you owned a car you weren't allowed to keep it on the street and even in a suburb we were having coal delivered by horse drawn cart till at least 1960 .   

For French railways some of the Images de Trains books published by La Vie du Rail can be useful. Because many of the photographs were originally for the weekly magazine for railway workers and their families, they often include a far wider view of the railway, its workers and users, than photos taken by enthusiasts. 

 

I think Jacques has captured the era he's modelling really well except that the town is possibly rather busier than it would have been.

 

I would like to know more about the typefaces commonly used for French signage in Epoch III including hangovers from previous eras but, though I have plenty of examples,  trying to identify them isn't easy.

"police SNCF" (in this context police means typeface) used to be available from the APOCOPA website but isn't any longer (I have it if anyone wants its) That, though, is the font used for timetables etc. so doesn't have quite the right weight for some signage though it's not far off (but it's NOT Helvetica!!)

If you're being really fussy it's worth noting that, whilst computers merrily resize fonts to any size you want, typeface designers would make subtle changes to the weight of various elements depending on the size of the actual font.

 

Typography is a whole world that it is very easy to get drawn into it. A couple of years ago I spent days figuring out a suitable font for a French station name and ended up delving into font design software though in the end I simply used police SNCF and furtled with some of the letters to produce this. 

.

[jjb1970]

Wonderful modelling, it is a real pleasure to admire work of that standard even if only remotely via the internet. I was interested in the comments that he is cutting back on the townscapes as he is worried that the railways were getting lost as to me the really good railway layouts are the ones where the railway is very much part of a scenic whole. A lot of layouts are basically the railway with a bit of scenery added on for effect but to recreate the illusion of a world in miniature the railway needs to be properly placed in realistic surroundings and when I do go to exhibitions the layouts that I spend a lot of time looking at tend to ones where it is the scenic work that sucks me in rather than the trains.

[w124bob]

The fact that the modeller is a retired printer explains the newspaper mock up, personally I like the current incarnation of the layout, but it's his layout to do with as he likes. I do understand the issue with the overheads though. Sometime ago I read a long running thread from a US modeller who hardly populated his layout at all on the basis that the US midwest was mostly empty, but also he disliked action scenes. Personally I really liked the various little stories, it is after all a blog to entertain, he certainly did that for me and I learn't a few thinks as well.

[Pacific231G]

The fact that the modeller is a retired printer explains the newspaper mock up, personally I like the current incarnation of the layout, but it's his layout to do with as he likes. I do understand the issue with the overheads though. Sometime ago I read a long running thread from a US modeller who hardly populated his layout at all on the basis that the US midwest was mostly empty, but also he disliked action scenes. Personally I really liked the various little stories, it is after all a blog to entertain, he certainly did that for me and I learn't a few thinks as well.

Looking at the overall views of the layout on page 246 of the thread (Forums LR Presse threads do get very long!) I think I can see his point. For a home layout. with so many buildings in front of tracks it must affect operation

Jacques clearly loves modelling buildings and those he's removing will not be wasted. His contributions to the thread are certainly inspiring and he's been very generous in explaining the construction methods in great detail. 

 

Something that has struck me when visiting France from the 1970s on is how relatively quiet most towns (resorts in season and large cities excepted) were for most of the day. It struck me particularly when crossing the border into Germany and finding a very contrasting scene of constant busyness.that sometimes really did seem like a Faller catalogue.

[Horsetan]

....furtled ....

 

I'm going to make a note of this word. I like it!

[Joseph_Pestell]

Funnily enough, I had looked at some of the fonts in use and wondered whether they were current in such locations in that era. David Jenkinson's seminal"Is  your mutton dressed as lamb?" article in RM more than 50 years ago has a lot to answer for! 

I think you may be right. At that era, there would have been far more old fonts from signs painted in the 20s and 30s.

[Pacific231G]

I'm going to make a note of this word. I like it!

I've been using the word for years ever since working on the old Microlive programme where our tame boffins used it a lot.

According to wiktionary it means "To gently delve; to probe or rummage tentatively". Unfortunately it seems to have other meanings (q.v. Urban Dictionary) that are far less salubrious and could easily lead to misunderstanding. 

From the same source I can also offer CBAT. (Compulsory Bu**ering Around Time) It's the completely unaccountable time that you have to add to any project to work out the real minimum time to complete it even when there's no procrastination. I think the posh word for it is "contingency"  but for filming it could easily be 50% or more. For railway modelling the CBAT level can be incredibly high. .