MRJ 259

[Arun Sharma]

Personally FWIW I found the letter by Iain Rice the most thought provoking part of this particular issue.

 

MRJ used to announce the publication of volume indexes on the editorial page. They haven't done so with the index to vol 32.  With the separation of WS from Cygnet, you can no longer buy indexes for MRJ from the WS stands at exhibitions but only from Hagbourne Road - assuming that you know that one has been published. Perhaps "Not Jeremy" could be persuaded to buy a slack handful for sale on the WS stand at exhibitions?.

Edited November 24, 2017 by ted675

[Captain Kernow]

Not Jeremy is very pleased he's been really organised

What's happened?

 

Has he changed his medication?

 

Shocking news, Andy, but at least we hear it here on RMWeb first!

[Zero Gravitas]

Another very good issue - although I do have one operational question (appropriately, given that Mr. Nield is editing).

 

On page 301, the lower picture of the wagons being shunted down the incline - I’ve always thought that in such circumstances, with no brakevan attached, the engine would always be on the “downhill” end of the wagons, in case a coupling breaks and there is a runaway. Were there any official rules about this, or am I just making it up as I go along (note: not unusual)?

 

TIA.

[Guest Q663389]

Another very good issue - although I do have one operational question (appropriately, given that Mr. Nield is editing).

On page 301, the lower picture of the wagons being shunted down the incline - I’ve always thought that in such circumstances, with no brakevan attached, the engine would always be on the “downhill” end of the wagons, in case a coupling breaks and there is a runaway. Were there any official rules about this, or am I just making it up as I go along (note: not unusual)?

TIA.

Speaking for the BR NE region, the requirement was stated in the Sectional Appendix.

 

Alan

[corneliuslundie]

If it had been a dead end siding, OK, but there is a loop so sensible even if not mandatory to go down loco first.

Really very little to criticise on a very nice layout. To be absolutely picky I thought some of the PO wagons were rather unlikely to have appeared in the area. Some (but not by any means all, all listed in the GWR wagons bible) company wagons were common user but PO wagons were not.

I was interested in Barry Luck's comments on Jackson couplings and the decision to replace them. I have never used them on my layouts, but used to operate John Bancroft's Childs Ercal layout which had them  On that layout they worked impeccably, though i know that John always checked them before each show. But a very nice layout with all sorts of unobtrusive details helping to make a convincing whole.

I am rather glad I do not know what Rhymney Railway platform seats were like as the thought of constructing some along the lines of the LYR ones gives me the shudders. Of course for seats with cast ends such as GWR, Cambrian, Furness etc 3D printing can work well, as Alan Rhodes has demonstrated using prints from ModelU.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

To be absolutely picky I thought some of the PO wagons were rather unlikely to have appeared in the area.

 

Which ones do you think not? (I have in mind justifying an Ocean Collieries wagon - or other South Wales colliery wagons - on a layout set in the same area: MR/LNWR/(GWR) interface in the Birmingham area. c. 1903 and/or c. 1922.) My thinking at present is it comes down to what sort of coal the customer needed for his manufacturing process.

[wagonman]

Which ones do you think not? (I have in mind justifying an Ocean Collieries wagon - or other South Wales colliery wagons - on a layout set in the same area: MR/LNWR/(GWR) interface in the Birmingham area. c. 1903 and/or c. 1922.) My thinking at present is it comes down to what sort of coal the customer needed for his manufacturing process.

 

 

Ocean Colliery produced steam coal which could have found a market in the Birmingham area. I've no idea if it did or not, but it is plausible.

[corneliuslundie]

My first thought was Ocean, but as you say they dealt in many kinds of coal so they are probably OK, though I think one of the wagons may be an RCH 1923 design so too modern.

Frost is also too modern. He was a coal merchant and didn’t set up on business in Whitney until about the time of the grouping. He did later do some contract work for Warwickshire CC.

The obvious one actually is the Birmingham one. I am pretty sure that these wagons would have moved in block loads to and from the colliery, not been pootling around in a local goods yard.

Birch Coppice, Staveley, Griff and Madeley, also the local Birmingham one (Edwin Badland, very nice to see) are fine.

I really can’t decide about the POP coke wagon. The company certainly owned coke wagons as Turton V6 shows one. But its trade seems to have been mainly in London. However, the entry for the company in Turton 6 is sufficiently unclear that I would give it the benefit of the doubt, though again I would be surprised to see coke wagons travelling singly as they normally served large customers.

There are two I can’t read so cannot comment on.

I mentioned above that some of the wagons seem too modern. One has to be careful here as although the 1923 RCH design did not come into use until (surprise) 1923, some wagon builders were producing wagons to very similar designs earlier, though probably not before the First World War. That is how the RCH designs seem to have developed. The reason for my comment on the Ocean wagon is that I have both kits myself. The problem is that there are lots of delightful wagons around but few are suitable for any particular area. In fact I have just put up for disposal about 15 wagons which I now realise would not have appeared on the lines I am likely to model.

As a footnote, I mentioned the common user scheme. The wagons taken into this in were;

1915 GCR, GER and NR open wagons, unfitted, three planks and upward

1916 (April) certain Scottish unfitted open wagons and (June) all companies  unfitted open wagons, 3 planks and upward

April 1918 extended to other types of open wagon, notably Scottish end door

June 1919 all unfitted vans

March 1922 certain companies’ four wheel single and timber bolster wagons.

Other wagons came in later, though GWR cattle wagons were in, then out and not back in until 1939.

Jonathan

OK, I am a wagon nerd!

[Regularity]

OK, I am a wagon nerd!

Nothing wrong with that: wear your nerdiness as a badge of honour!

[Regularity]

Personally FWIW I found the letter by Iain Rice the most thought provoking part of this particular issue.

It was a very eloquent, very thoughtful and very loquacious submission, but I have two problems with it.

 

Firstly, I think it a mistake to have taken the bait that Tony was dangling: he obviously has strong opinions and a desire to find every possible reason to justify his own modelling paths by denigrating others. Tony: why not simply say that you made various choices for various personal reasons, and that you have no regrets over this because of the space requirements for the scope of the layout you want. Nothing wrong with that. Heck, you could even say that you know it is possible to build a mainline layout to P4 standards, but your personal understanding of the work required was that it would take up too much of your time and energy.

 

Secondly, Iain also mentions a private P4 layout, but overlooks “Heckmondwyke” with a 42” minimum radius, and also the “Irish P4” layout Adavoyle, which apart from being an unusual subject, demonstrated that properly designed and made, Proto standards not only work, but work in such a way that the trains ran through the station (at speed) with just the right amount of movement, something which is not achievable in 00. And that the work involved to get to this level of reliability is not that great, either.

 

I think the second point refutes Tony’s opinion as being without factual basis, and as a response to the original article, is all that is needed.

 

The body of Iain’s letter is, however, a wonderful exposition of the thinking behind making an informed decision over track and wheel standards when working in 4mm scale, and should be recommended reading reading for anyone considering a thoughtful and serious approach to the hobby.

 

(I am advocating here that we take the hobby seriously, but not ourselves.)

Edited November 26, 2017 by Regularity

[Tim Lewis]

For those of you who found the articles interesting you may like to see some photographs of the Kerrinhead Signal Cabin and the L&Y platform seats in situ at Kerrinhead in this post:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/118943-the-kerrin-branch/?p=2643675

[corneliuslundie]

The signal box is nice and the seats are "awesome" - which seems to be the most popular adjective among my American friends, but what caught my eye on the layout thread was the terraced houses. Very nice.

Jonathan

[Penlan]

....... I was interested in Barry Luck's comments on Jackson couplings and the decision to replace them. 

Also, Tony Wilkin's mentions AJ's on page 307 in a similar vein.

[Penlan]

Re. the incline, if my scaling is any where near the mark, the incline seems to be about 1,050 mm long and rises somewhere around  50mm, that seems to equate to approx. 1:12, steeper than C & H.P's Hopton incline, but it may be steeper.  Surely a case for an engine pushing, not pulling, and would be chimney first up the incline (So water is always covering the firebox area), as shown in the photo.

[Penlan]

I note a few instances where the item is identified as being S4 or P4, where in fact there's no track involved.

I would have thought 4mm scale would be appropriate enough.

[Compound2632]

I note a few instances where the item is identified as being S4 or P4, where in fact there's no track involved.

I would have thought 4mm scale would be appropriate enough.

 

Perhaps seeking to imply a frame of mind?

[Penlan]

Perhaps seeking to imply a frame of mind?

Perhaps on both sides 

[Regularity]

Bend don’t break,

See both sides.

Throw off those mental chains.

 

Can’t believe I could recall those lines, even if incorrectly.

[Barry Ten]

Bend don’t break,

See both sides.

Throw off those mental chains.

 

Can’t believe I could recall those lines, even if incorrectly.

 

I've still got the vinyl...

[Dunsignalling]

I greatly enjoyed and agreed with almost everything in Iain Rice's extensive letter but, on second reading, it dawned on me that its entire thrust could be summed up by the final sentence of the first paragraph on page 320.

 

"Horses for courses, in other words".

 

John

[Regularity]

I've still got the vinyl...

######. I think I have too, somewhere!

 

I still remember Billy Bragg’s comment on the oxymoron in the line, “I don’t want to be hip and cool. I don’t want to play by the rules.” The Great Man neatly pointed out in a magazine interview on being cool that not playing by the rules surely was the very definition of being hip and cool.

 

He probably didn’t expect to be quoted on a model railway bulletin board a third of a century later... ...but he also made a point which is pertinent and relevant to Iain’s letter, as there is a risk of people who are thought of as “cool” starting to believe it, and getting together and creating an elite. He said - and the phrase has stuck with me since - that “the Oxford English Dictionary defines an elite as a bunch of w@nkers who think they are the bees’ knees, not very cool I think you’ll agree”! Something to be careful of.

 

I realise that I am rambling and drifting, but “elitist” is sometimes thrown at people who subscribe to MRJ.

[2mmMark]

I greatly enjoyed and agreed with almost everything in Iain Rice's extensive letter but, on second reading, it dawned on me that its entire thrust could be summed up by the final sentence of the first paragraph on page 320.

 

"Horses for courses, in other words".

 

John

 

Indeed, that's the destination.  As always with Iain, the journey is most enjoyable.

 

Mark

[Barry Ten]

######. I think I have too, somewhere!

 

I still remember Billy Bragg’s comment on the oxymoron in the line, “I don’t want to be hip and cool. I don’t want to play by the rules.” The Great Man neatly pointed out in a magazine interview on being cool that not playing by the rules surely was the very definition of being hip and cool.

 

 

See also The Clash with:

 

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I go, there will be trouble

And if I stay it will be double

 

So obviously they should go, as there will be half the trouble.

[Horsetan]

See also The Clash with:

 

Should I stay or should I go now?

If I go, there will be trouble

And if I stay it will be double

 

So obviously they should go, as there will be half the trouble.

 

Yes, but it's half the trouble getting them to go.

[Regularity]

Too clever by three-quarters....