Diesels come to Pendon! Form an orderly queue!

[Andy Y]

 

Pendon Glimpses the Future (and looks to Bodmin in 1928).

 

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to see two special events at Pendon.

Over the weekend of 1st/2nd December only, Pendon will wind the clock forward 30+ years to the early 60s and show a small selection of trains hauled by diesel traction. These trains will run every half an hour interlaced between the usual GW displays. This will show the modernising attempts of the Western Region allowing comparisons to be drawn with earlier services. The modelling on display will be up to the usual Pendon standards.

 

The time is deliberately chosen when much of the infrastructure and working practices remained similar to those witnessed by Roye England when he arrived on these shores in the 1920s. We are on the eve of the appointment of Beeching and his famous report, which would sweep away much of what we see at Pendon.

 

We anticipate that the Diesel services offered will be;

• The Down Bristolian, Warship hauled with a rake of Mk 1 coaches in chocolate and cream
• An up train of coal wagons hauled by a Hymek, working from South Wales
• A local service with a two car DMU in green livery with ‘Speed Whiskers’ working a Down Paddington service towards Oxford
• Fully or partially fitted van train travelling Up towards London from the Midlands

In addition, and again for this weekend only, we are pleased to host the P4 model of Bodmin GWR operating in 1928 – a chance to get up close to a Cornish branch terminus / junction. This is the traditional steam railway par excellence; a full range of passenger and goods services requiring a complex sequence of workings to provide facilities for national and local workings.

The event is being run in conjunction with the last weekend of the Evolution of Finescale Modelling  – In Search of Excellence exhibition at Pendon Museum. This exhibition, assembled from materials sourced by Iain Rice and the Scale4 Society, gives a fascinating insight into how current railway models have evolved through the desire to reproduce, as accurately as possible, the railways of Britain to a scale of 4mm : 1foot, culminating in the adoption of the Society’s standards.

More details of Pendon, including details of this event, charges and opening times, can be found on the Museum’s website; www.Pendonmuseum.com ; look under the ‘Events’ section.

 

[gwrrob]

Whatever next, the Blue Pullman on the down Riviera.

['CHARD]

Love it!  No mention of a Kernow D60X featuring, I note!!!

 

[4630]

What a splendid idea. 

 

Good luck to Pendon.  Hopefully it won't just be a 'one-off'

[Metr0Land]

Love it!  No mention of a Kernow D60X featuring, I note!!!

 

 

Given Pendon's penchant for accuracy I guess they're waiting for the battery box debate to be resolved - see (ir)relevant other thread

[Barry O]

Roye England will be turning in his grave. By the time of the diesels some of the buildings depicted had gone. The scene he set out was what he had seen..and having been fortunate enough to have a long chat with him a long time ago he wanted people to see the Vale as it was..and what a brilliant job the people involved in Pendon have done about doing just that!

 

Baz

[jjb1970]

My advice to y'all is to stay indoors for a few days, keep a roof over your head to keep you safe in case the sky falls in.

[Ian J.]

What next, diesels on the Bluebell Railway...!?

 

Erm, oh...

[bgman]

Blasphemy!

[duncan]

Err no,   blue engines ?

[EddieK]

Class 108 with speed whiskers? Not on the Western Region at that time....

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hi all,

 

I have always been impressed by the Pendon scenics and thought I ought to visit, but never quite got around to it.

 

This could well be the incentive I need to make it worthwhile! Well done Pendon!

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[caradoc]

What next ? For 2019, a background model of Didcot Power station (which is itself now history, just as much as thatched cottages and unmetalled roads) and MGR trains behind Classes 47 and 56 !

[Captain Kernow]

Whatever next, the Blue Pullman on the down Riviera.

Clearly, there can be no greater illustration of the diaphanous and unambiguous conceptualisation of contextual aesthetics that Art of this nature imparts.

[New Haven Neil]

Checks date - no, not April 1st....

[PhilJ W]

Wot, no Flying Bananas?

[duncan]

or Frying Scotsman ?

[The Stationmaster]

Roye England will be turning in his grave. By the time of the diesels some of the buildings depicted had gone. The scene he set out was what he had seen..and having been fortunate enough to have a long chat with him a long time ago he wanted people to see the Vale as it was..and what a brilliant job the people involved in Pendon have done about doing just that!

 

Baz

 

Yes - Roye was very keen on recreating what had been there pre-war and always spoke in condemnatory terms about buildings which had been 'modernised' (even prior to 1939) and had ruined their surroundings as well as losing their own looks and interest.  He had very little interest in the 'modern scene' of the late 1960s so I suspect he would not be over keen on the railway taking on a more modernistic look with the diesels he had no time for or interest in.  So the Vale scene has emerged very much, if not exactly, as Roye wanted it, a recreation of a scene which was already disappearing by the 1930s and as I had close family connections in the area Roye was always interested to know what they had thought of the changes between the wars and after 1945 (although oddly the far older and unaltered barn at Challow where my grandparents farmed after the war was not one he had come across).

 

I can see the 'commercial value' of Pendon joining the world of diesel galas as it might appeal to a wider audience but I do wonder about the prototypical accuracy of the items listed in the OP in relation to the railway infrastructure on the Vale layout.  Pendon could just about have survived infrastructure wise as the goods yards at the Vale stations (except Uffington which lost its freight in1963 ) were closed in 1965 but had long been quiet.  However tubular steel replacement signals would have inevitably have replaced at least some of the timber post signals by the late 1950s when the WR seem to have been going through a considerable amount of signal renewal.   I wouId question the DMU of that type as being appropriate for the area in the late '50s/early 1960s and the appearance of a Hymek on a South Wales coal train at that time would strike me as unusual - in the time of the first 20 or so 'Warships' those trains were still very much the preserve of 28XX and that lingered on while in their early years Hymeks were in considerable demand for passenger and parcels workings plus occasional appearances on more general freights being somewhat underbraked for use on coal trains.  i'm not saying it didn't happen c.1962/63 but definitely out of the ordinary.  And if a Hymek why not a '1000', a very odd omission.

 

So overall I tend to see it very much as a sort of 4mm scale diesel gala rather than anything else and not sitting over comfortably in the Pendon mould of either historical accuracy or having any sort of place in the dream Roye worked so hard to turn into a real model

[Joseph_Pestell]

Roye England will be turning in his grave. By the time of the diesels some of the buildings depicted had gone. The scene he set out was what he had seen..and having been fortunate enough to have a long chat with him a long time ago he wanted people to see the Vale as it was..and what a brilliant job the people involved in Pendon have done about doing just that!

 

Baz

 

I agree with your sentiments, Barry.

 

Most of the buildings portrayed do still exist and I have visited most of them when I worked in what is now Oxfordshire. But they have in some cases changed almost beyond recognition and that was indeed the point of Roye England's project.

 

By all means, attract a new clientele to Pendon by showing top quality diesel era models, but not on the main layout.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Clearly, there can be no greater illustration of the diaphanous and unambiguous conceptualisation of contextual aesthetics that Art of this nature imparts.

 

There used to be a button for "unsure of meaning". Wish we still had it.

['CHARD]

There used to be a button for "unsure of meaning". Wish we still had it.

 

Where's the 'Danger - Overhead Irony' icon when it's needed?  

[EddieK]

Class 108 with speed whiskers? Not on the Western Region at that time....

This reminds me of the early 1980s when RTR DMUs consisted of Lima Suburban units or the Hornby Calder Valley. A number of exhibition layouts had one of the other as a "token" DMU even if the setting was nowhere near the geographic area where the real units operated. 

[bgman]

Yes - Roye was very keen on recreating what had been there pre-war and always spoke in condemnatory terms about buildings which had been 'modernised' (even prior to 1939) and had ruined their surroundings as well as losing their own looks and interest.  He had very little interest in the 'modern scene' of the late 1960s so I suspect he would not be over keen on the railway taking on a more modernistic look with the diesels he had no time for or interest in.  So the Vale scene has emerged very much, if not exactly, as Roye wanted it, a recreation of a scene which was already disappearing by the 1930s and as I had close family connections in the area Roye was always interested to know what they had thought of the changes between the wars and after 1945 (although oddly the far older and unaltered barn at Challow where my grandparents farmed after the war was not one he had come across).

 

I can see the 'commercial value' of Pendon joining the world of diesel galas as it might appeal to a wider audience but I do wonder about the prototypical accuracy of the items listed in the OP in relation to the railway infrastructure on the Vale layout.  Pendon could just about have survived infrastructure wise as the goods yards at the Vale stations (except Uffington which lost its freight in1963 ) were closed in 1965 but had long been quiet.  However tubular steel replacement signals would have inevitably have replaced at least some of the timber post signals by the late 1950s when the WR seem to have been going through a considerable amount of signal renewal.   I wouId question the DMU of that type as being appropriate for the area in the late '50s/early 1960s and the appearance of a Hymek on a South Wales coal train at that time would strike me as unusual - in the time of the first 20 or so 'Warships' those trains were still very much the preserve of 28XX and that lingered on while in their early years Hymeks were in considerable demand for passenger and parcels workings plus occasional appearances on more general freights being somewhat underbraked for use on coal trains.  i'm not saying it didn't happen c.1962/63 but definitely out of the ordinary.  And if a Hymek why not a '1000', a very odd omission.

 

So overall I tend to see it very much as a sort of 4mm scale diesel gala rather than anything else and not sitting over comfortably in the Pendon mould of either historical accuracy or having any sort of place in the dream Roye worked so hard to turn into a real model

I am in total agreement with you on this Mike, well said.

 

Having visited the wonderful concept which is Pendon from early days to its present form and the undetermined hours spent by excellent model makers recreating Roye England's wishes, I would hope this to be a one off event.

[HonestTom]

I don't think it's a bad idea, it's not like they're dieselising the layout forever or rebuilding the whole thing to represent the diesel era. It's just a few trains.

[bgman]

Total heresy!