Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[GRASinBothell]

That Packard Coupe is from the Tintin vehicle series, so should be pronounced in the French (well, actually Belgian) way!

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

Brilliant Gordon, those onion sellers are just the sort of cliche I like, although perhaps they ought to be in England, rather than France; they certainly used to come round where we lived when I was a boy.

 

BV = batiment voyageurs, the passenger part of a station,  HM = halle marchandises being what we know as a goods shed. I do have a 1960s Hornby BV, a modern-style building made not from tin or hardboard (which is what most French Hornby stations are) but plastic, it is quite big though, so may not fit  - so need to check tomorrow.

 

All of which has made me want to squeeze a cafe with a big red cigar on a pole outside next to the level crossing, but there probably wouldn't be room.

 

The French connection is this lot and similar wagons, which are pining for somewhere to shunt, safely of course, as per this useful film.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by Nearholmer

[GRASinBothell]

Perhaps that's the problem with going to school in Folkestone. We used to see lots of them (50s/60s) having just arrived on the ferry. I suppose I assumed they also plied their trade in their home country.

Of course, being in Folkestone, with the school playing fields alongside the old South Eastern main line, also exposed me to Bulleid Pacifics hauling long trains of STEF and Interfrigo vans that had arrived on the ferry. I have a small number of Hornby and JeP STEF vans to run behind my Ace West Country.

Gordon

[GRASinBothell]

I'm not familiar with the cigar-on-a-pole.

But a cafe like this one?

It was bought in a (now closed, I believe) toy shop in Toulouse some years ago as a flat pack for use with 1/43 diecast cars.

Gordon

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, GRASinBothell said:

Perhaps that's the problem with going to school in Folkestone. We used to see lots of them (50s/60s) having just arrived on the ferry. I suppose I assumed they also plied their trade in their home country.

Of course, being in Folkestone, with the school playing fields alongside the old South Eastern main line, also exposed me to Bulleid Pacifics hauling long trains of STEF and Interfrigo vans that had arrived on the ferry. I have a small number of Hornby and JeP STEF vans to run behind my Ace West Country.

Gordon

Used to see them in Brighton (Portslade, actually) - they came over from Dieppe.

[Nearholmer]

Yep, we used to seem the slogging up into the Weald from Newhaven, cycling so slowly it was a miracle they didn’t fall over.

 

Anyway, for Gordon, a carotte, sign of the tobacconist.

 

 

 

 

[Ben B]

I've always liked small French stations, of the sort Joueff modelled in H0, with the combined house and goods shed. Is that the sort of protptype you'd be after? The low platform thing could be excused by having the UK versions be light railways (though there were -and are- plenty of little stations here with low platforms, Conwy Valley and Cumbrian Coast come to mind).

 

About 9 years ago we holidayed in France, in Normandy and Brittany, and I was surprised how many little end of the line country stations were still so extensive. We passed a couple that still had plenty of sidings, large-ish manned buildings, where the equivalent here would be a bus stop on a carriage-length platform tucked into an out of town car park. I thought one such station was abandoned, it was such a timewarp, until a modern streamlined railcar appeared. Another was hosting both a modern railcar and a tourist steam service at a shared platform. Fascinating atmosphere

[Simond]

There's an article of interest to those with a penchant for “roues à couper les pizza“ in Entrevoie #50, the magazine of the Cercle du Zero.  I suspect an email to g.deferrieux@gmail.com will get you a link.

 

 

Atb

Simon

 

Edited June 7, 2020 by Simond

[Nearholmer]

One of the things I like about France is that they have a fair few ‘suspended animation’ branch lines, which might be used only for the beet crop or autumn grain collection, rather than closing and ripping them up altogether.

 

We stayed about 20km from Compiegne a few years ago, and there was such a branch to the village, ending at a couple of grain silos and a factory that made, I think, grain/milk based powdered baby food. There was also a huge sugar refinery in the village until a few years ago. It seemed to be used about once a month, and was previously quite busy during the sugar beet season. Very picturesque winding through the edge of the forest and along a river valley, over many un-gated level crossings.

 

Thats the sort of thing I’d like to represent, in extreme compression.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Nearholmer

[F-UnitMad]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't understand a word of that, but it was very interesting to watch!!

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

One of the things I like about France is that they have a fair few ‘suspended animation’ branch lines, which might be used only for the beet crop or autumn grain collection, rather than closing and ripping them up altogether.

 

We stayed about 20km from Compiegne a few years ago, and there was such a branch to the village, ending at a couple of grain silos and a factory that made, I think, grain/milk based powdered baby food. It seemed to be used about once a month. Very picturesque winding through the edge of the forest and along a river valley, over many un-gated level crossings.

 

Thats the sort of thing I’d like to represent, in extreme compression.

Bit boring to operate though.

[Nearholmer]

Gives time for other hobbies.

[GRASinBothell]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Anyway, for Gordon, a carotte, sign of the tobacconist.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, Kevin.

So, naturally, I googled carotte tabac, and got additional education on the subject.

I must have seen them everywhere and not put deux et deux together!

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

Here’s a picture, giving some idea of what the bookshelf essay will look like in English mode.

 

 

I’ve been reading about the delightful little terminus that used to exist at Bishop’s Waltham, and have long been an Emmett fan, so maybe it can be ‘Friar’s Ambling’ in this mode.

 

Of course, this is all no more than a reprise of a set of ideas that we kicked around possibly two years ago now; it’s Northroader’s plus ca change, plus ces’t la meme chose concept that’s caused this.

 

PS: Reading about Bishop’s Waltham caused me to read about the branch junction at Botley, which revealed that those superb strawberry train photos that we looked at in the CA thread were taken there. The branch seems to have been very strawberry oriented.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Nearholmer

[GRASinBothell]

The track plan seems to be growing, with that extra siding in the foreground!

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

No track plan ever survives the first contact with the baseboards.

 

I just checked, and p46 of this thread contains evidence that I've been through every conceivable 0 gauge track plan for this space already, before the 00 1963-BLT used-up the previous set of baseboards.  Need to get beyond the mocking-up stage this time!

 

My problem is (partly) that I'd really like to build an entire railway, not just bits of one, with branches, junctions, the city, the seaside, the country in-between, France, the entire isle of Wight, selected bits of Ireland, some of Spain, a corner of Tunisia, Maine, another seaside but different this time, a few narrow-gauge feeder-lines, perhaps some bits electrified on obscure systems, to several different scales, and in multiple genres, pure historical tinplate, coarse, fine, really fine, and to represent multiple eras. Being interested in too many things is not helpful!

[Northroader]

 

My teaching is based upon the recognition that the objective world, like a vision, is a manifestation of the mind itself.

[Nearholmer]

Thank goodness for that, since I read it to mean that simply thinking about building layouts (when I’m meant to be doing something else) is as good as actually building them.

 

Very good likeness BTW, although I can recommend the DIY shears for the beard.

[Northroader]

It’s the lockdown look.

[Metropolitan H]

I did recommend not going back to work - but my layout is still to be completed!

 

Regards

Chris H

[Donw]

When you have spent a long time thinking about a layout concept and mentally building it. Actually building it can seem an anti-climax. It seems much less roomier than the mental version, curves inconveniently consume extra space, wiring up takes a lot longer thaan you expect etc. Ah but once you get the trains running it is worth it. 

Making a choice of which bit to model is indeed the hard part. I remember CJF's comment that a small version of Ashburton would not exactly conjure up the full might and majesty of the Great Western. I grew up un Reading. The Great Western station there was rather large with goods yards all over the place. With a Southern Railway station alongside as a bonus. The most frequent train journeys were up to London so lots and lots of tracks. It was only later with the use of a bicycle and being sent to travel by rail on holidays as the small family car  was rather too small, that I became familiar with any smaller stations.  The problem then changes from trying to capture a scene where the railway dominates becomes one where the scenery dominates which can be even harder.

I forget the builder's name just now but his Metropolitan Junction was the best capture of the busy urban scene I have seen. On the other hand Jas Millham's wonderful Yaxbury layout has captured a whole branch line. Can I have room for both please?

I think you should pursue the interchangeable layout for a while it could work out well.

 

Don

Edited June 9, 2020 by Donw
typo

[F-UnitMad]

17 hours ago, Northroader said:

 

My teaching is based upon the recognition that the objective world, like a vision, is a manifestation of the mind itself.

Blimey I didn't know we  need a Philosophy Degree to read this thread!!   

[Northroader]

 

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Northroader said:

 

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

What do you think you became?

 

"The triumph of mind over matter. What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind!"

 

F. Howerd

[Northroader]