Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[Donw]

If quite fits with the old fashioned. As a child with clockwork Hornby a few tracks could be anywhere your imagination had heard about with Trains heading for all sorts of destination. Reality has no chance with a childs imagination. You obviously have enough left.

 

Don

[Simond]

Don,

 

I think you may have solved one of the most pressing problems in the world.

 

If we could get the false news purveyors, xenophobes, megalomaniacs & dictators into a virtual reality setting, whose images are driven by their imaginations, unfettered by any connection with the real world, they can bomb & strafe each other’s virtual territories to kingdom come, and the rest of us can live in peace.

 

Best

Simon

[Nearholmer]

If only, Simon.

 

Unfortunately, what little evidence I'm aware of, suggests that given a VR world, all they do is use it as a practice-ground: Goering was a big-time model railway enthusiast, with a whopping great layout, and, guess what ...... it had facilities to permit model aircraft to rain terror down upon the little lead people below.

 

Anyway, sticking my head back under the metaphorical blanket, and retreating to my permanently free of unpleasantness fantasy version of the south of England in the 1930s ......... I hope to be able to play trains later.

[unravelled]

A detail from a Giles cartoon. I think that the observation of the tinplate is wonderful...

 

 

Link to original, and Giles archive

 

http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=7

 

The Giles annual was part of Christmas, along with Hornby Dublo  on the floor, (before we had a layout). I leared more history from rereading Giles cartoons than I ever did at school.

 

Dave

Edited November 26, 2017 by unravelled

[Nearholmer]

The best introduction to the history of commercially made toy/model trains is a book known in English as 'Clockwork, Steam and Electric', and if you want to know about the link between totalitarianism and toy trains, read the author's biog here https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Reder (I don't think there is an English version of this on line).

 

The book was translated into English (with far too many 'translator's asides' for my liking), by C Hamilton Ellis, who made an utterly ineffectual attempt to be an espionage agent at one stage, and I've often wondered what the conversations between author and translator were like.

 

Long before he wrote The History, Reder wrote a seriously technical book about model railways, leaning on his professional knowledge of the real thing. Very rare book now, so cover picture stolen off the web.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Nearholmer

[St Enodoc]

A detail from a Giles cartoon. I think that the observation of the tinplate is wonderful...

 

giles1.jpg

 

Link to original, and Giles archive

 

http://www.gilescartoons.co.uk/cartoon.asp?cartoon=7

 

The Giles annual was part of Christmas, along with Hornby Dublo  on the floor, (before we had a layout). I leared more history from rereading Giles cartoons than I ever did at school.

 

Dave

The detail in Giles' cartoons was always observed and drawn wonderfully, almost creating a complete short story on a single page. Like you, I used to get one every Christmas. I like your point about learning history - perhaps I should reread some of mine.

 

Thanks for the link too - I could waste a lot of time there.

[Nearholmer]

Relieved the grumpiness resulting from a cold by getting ready for the LNER.

 

The tank engine is ‘set dressing’ only, in that it has a truly awful mechanism that barely works; I bought it to convert to a LSWR G6, without realising that it needed a total reconstruction, and it has languished ever since!

[Edwardian]

The best introduction to the history of commercially made toy/model trains is a book known in English as 'Clockwork, Steam and Electric', and if you want to know about the link between totalitarianism and toy trains, read the author's biog here https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Reder (I don't think there is an English version of this on line).

 

The book was translated into English (with far too many 'translator's asides' for my liking), by C Hamilton Ellis, who made an utterly ineffectual attempt to be an espionage agent at one stage, and I've often wondered what the conversations between author and translator were like.

 

Long before he wrote The History, Reder wrote a seriously technical book about model railways, leaning on his professional knowledge of the real thing. Very rare book now, so cover picture stolen off the web.

 

Splendid.

 

Well, naturally I assume that we all wear a collar and tie whilst building and operating our model railways.  I wonder if the Germans go a little too far with the adoption of white lab coats as well?

 

Perhaps he is a model railway doctor.  If so, I could do with a house call from one.

 

 

Relieved the grumpiness resulting from a cold by getting ready for the LNER.

 

The tank engine is ‘set dressing’ only, in that it has a truly awful mechanism that barely works; I bought it to convert to a LSWR G6, without realising that it needed a total reconstruction, and it has languished ever since!

 

What a wonderful station Paltry Circus has turned out to be!

[Mark Carne]

From what I know Kevin, I wouldn't trust theirin Hamilton Ellis translation of "Clockwork,Steam and Electric", apparently he really minced it up and the original author wasn't happy about it.

[Nearholmer]

You don't surprise me. My German is pretty basic, but even I can see peculiarities, and the way he inserted all sorts of little comments and reminiscences of his own is just plain impertinent.

 

It's made me wonder how trustworthy his other books are. The LBSCR is very good because of the reminiscences, a first-hand account, but are the 'dry facts' all correct? And, once he moves on to lines that he didn't know personally?

 

Probably unfair criticism, though, because research was much, much harder then, and if it wasn't for him, and others of the same generation, we wouldn't have highly-readable 'introductory general histories'. A lot of more recent railway books are probably better researched, and contain more detail, but they are sooooo boring!

[BG John]

Well, naturally I assume that we all wear a collar and tie whilst building and operating our model railways.

My dog is the only one in my house who wears a collar, and it's so long since I wore a tie that I've probably forgotten how to do it up. Does that make me ineligible to be a railway modeller? I need to know urgently, as I've just discovered the reason I've done almost no modelling in the last 18 months, and have a lot of catching up to do. If I'm allowed.

[Edwardian]

My dog is the only one in my house who wears a collar, and it's so long since I wore a tie that I've probably forgotten how to do it up. Does that make me ineligible to be a railway modeller? I need to know urgently, as I've just discovered the reason I've done almost no modelling in the last 18 months, and have a lot of catching up to do. If I'm allowed.

 

You only need wear them if you have "poncy mining friends"!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkihKpnx5yM

[Andy Kirkham]

The detail in Giles' cartoons was always observed and drawn wonderfully, almost creating a complete short story on a single page. Like you, I used to get one every Christmas. I like your point about learning history - perhaps I should reread some of mine.

 

I particularly treasure his 1950s ones - he seems to have been in his element with grime, smog, rationing and bomb sites. To me he never seemed quite at home with Swinging London, mini-skirts etc.

 

[Nearholmer]

He’s caught the interior of a gloomy old station to perfection - note the unilluminated gas lamp. Ages back in one of these threads, I posted one that I’d done (very amateurishly) of a similar scene, and this is how envisage the interior of Paltry Circus, based heavily on my memory of the old Shoreditch station, which opened on to a ripper-esque alleyway off Brick Lane.

 

To be fair, the photo below of Shoreditch is the 'before' one, of a 'before and after' pair, that I think dates from immediately after WW2. Or possibly WW1. Or possibly when I knew it in the 1970s. Apart from the photo-opportunity repaints once every 40 years, it didn't really change much from 1860 to 1990!

Edited November 27, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

Oh I think Giles saw through swinging London just as he aw through everything else. Nostalgic for the gloom and grime of fifties London are you?  My Dads office was at Moorgate between it and the Station was a bomb site which wasn't cleared and developed untill 1965.

 

Don

[Nearholmer]

Ran a real rush-hour with visiting trains, for an hour this afternoon.

 

The final picture, of the Buckinghamshire Alps, shows that Railway poster artists had almost as much imagination as blokes playing with toy trains have.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Nearholmer

[St Enodoc]

Ran a real rush-hour with visiting trains, for an hour this afternoon.

 

The final picture, of the Buckinghamshire Alps, shows that Railway poster artists had almost as much imagination as blokes playing with toy trains have.

That must be 'Arrer on the 'Ill in the background.

[Andy Kirkham]

That must be 'Arrer on the 'Ill in the background.

 

When melancholy autumn comes to Wembley

And electric trains are lighted after tea,

The poplars near the stadium are trembly

with their tap and tap and whispering to me.....

[Nearholmer]

Harrow on the Hill, or possibly Camelot, given the rather fanciful style of the poster.

 

Somewhere, in one of my stashes, I've actually got a better publicity graphic of a Met electric loco, on the cover of a little folded card giving details of the train services to the 1925 Wembley Exhibition. It's got the twin towers of the old stadium in the background IIRC...... must try to find it!

[St Enodoc]

When melancholy autumn comes to Wembley

And electric trains are lighted after tea,

The poplars near the stadium are trembly

with their tap and tap and whispering to me.....

Well, if we're coming over all cultural:

 

Oh! it really is a wery pretty garden

An' 'Endon to the westward could be seen

An' by clinging to the chimbley

You could see acrorss to Wembley

If it wasn't fer the 'ouses in between.

[Nearholmer]

The station was nearly called Paltry Gardens, in honour of that song.

[boxerbayrailway]

Thought I'd share this bit of fun,  though not O it's still in the "Old Fashion"   some beautifully filmed sequences in the evening.  They've made a few of them,  usually with

a fun plot.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQtZP3RC50

[Jintyman]

Hi there,

 

I watch this thread as I do enjoy your trains, it takes me back to when I was a lad and I played with my Dad's Hornby O gauge when we put it down on our large living room floor. I remember running his 'Eaton' and 'County of Bedford', although I took a dislike to his Scot as it was the wrong wheel arrangement! I also remember the old controllers with the arm that you turned like a regulator, the trains didn't half shift along. I wasn't allowed to run his Princess as the wheels had cracked badly, so that one just sat in its box. Nord and the Wagon Lits coaches were another favourite.

The thing was, you could just set it up, and everything worked so well, and you could just run trains with the minimum of fuss, lovely memories.

 

Keep up the good work, it makes me feel very nostalgic, especially this time of year.

 

 

Jinty

 

 

 

PS: The video Boxer Bay put up is outstanding!!!!

[Nearholmer]

Glad you're enjoying it Jintyman. Sounds as if your father had good taste in toy trains, and what you say chimes a bit with me, because I 'cut my teeth' on hand-me-down-Hornby-tinplate from one of my uncles.

 

Boxer - I've enjoyed the Duck End films that I've seen, but that one is new to me, so many thanks for posting it. I shall have a proper watch of it this evening with my small daughter, who I think will appreciate it too. The guys who make those films have a genius for conveying motion without there actually being any; exceedingly clever.

 

Kevin

Edited December 4, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Thought I'd share this bit of fun,  though not O it's still in the "Old Fashion"   some beautifully filmed sequences in the evening.  They've made a few of them,  usually with

a fun plot.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQtZP3RC50

 

What wonderful, I might say 'magical' little film.  I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a long time. 

 

It had a very considerable charm, and, a level of realism, through sound, steam, snow and light, that you won't fine in a finescale system!