Jump to content
 

Please use M,M&M only for topics that do not fit within other forum areas. All topics posted here await admin team approval to ensure they don't belong elsewhere.

Diesels come to Pendon! Form an orderly queue!

Andy Y

By Andy Y,
in Modelling musings & miscellany

 Share

Recommended Posts

Denbridge

Denbridge

Posted
Posted

On the service from Sheffield the LNER loco worked through to Swindon. The working was photographed many times by Maurice Earley. There is a shot on eBay of an LNER Atlantic in Swindon roundhouse at the momenthttps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PHOTO-GWR-LOCOS-8300-4934-AND-GREAT-CENTRAL-C4-5263-SWINDON-SHED-4-32/192637155619?hash=item2cda11b923:g:KNEAAOSwODFaUX8RMike Wiltshire

i recall there is a class C1 atlantic built by Guy Williams for just such a train
  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
dibber25

dibber25

Posted
Posted

I don't understand this at all Dave. Pendon is a model museum, unique in the world so far as I know*   portraying with extraordinary detail and accuracy a piece of rural England as it was in the 1930s including its railways. That was a time before diesels had started to appear (at least in the Vale of the White Horse) so they're not appropriate to it any more than Britannias or 9Fs would be. That's not an anti D&E policy any more than it's an anti BR or even an anti LNER policy.

 

If editors choose to run articles on Pendon it is presumably because their readers appreciate them and there's nothing in Pendon's methods and techniques that wouldn't be appropriate to a modeller portraying D&E.  I don't think there's been an article on building steam locos for Pendon in a very very long time. I doubt whether other modelling articles are being pushed out. Isn't the dllemma for most editors sourcing enough articles of high enough quality? 

 

*Rambolitrain (in Rambouillet about thirty miles SW of Paris and very accessible by train) exhibits a comparable standard of modelling but is essentially a scenic O scale model railway with some excellent cityscape rather than a portrayal of a complete landscape with trains. It also includes on the floor below the main layout a display of models telling the story of model railways from their early beginnings. 

 

Dave's comment that Pendon has been overdone 1,000 times in magazines is, of course, nonsense. In general, magazine articles over the last 50 years have traced the development of Pendon which, both on and off the Vale Scene, has been a gradual process and is news. Across the past 20 years or so, The Vale Scene (as opposed to Pendon Museum) has generally been 'used' by magazines as a an ultimate example of modelling through which to promote their own 'exclusive' or their latest development. Thus, when I was Editor of Model Rail, our photographer Martyn Barnwell was the first to be allowed to take pictures with the glass screens down. Later we were privileged to shoot video there with Telerail, and later still to give ace layout photographer Chris Nevard the chance to see what he could do with the Vale Scene. More recently, BRM has shot 3-D there. There is no doubt that it is the realism of top quality modelling at Pendon or anywhere else that attracts the media to see how it looks through whatever their latest lens or lensman might be. 

I have often thought that (given the money to invest - which is always the obstacle) an audio-visual presentation of Pendon with a gradual CGI transformation to the Vale and the railway as it is today would be great way to explain the layout and educate the visitor. My only problem with the diesel day is that I recall the area in green diesel days - I never saw a Hymek on a coal train (they generally headed passenger trains that were often beyond the means of a Type 3 diesel) and I certainly never saw a two-car Cravens set (they were ER DMUs). A single-car Pressed Steel, or a three -car Swindon CC set would be appropriate or a GWR AEC railcar, one of which Pendon uses as a track-cleaner but which isn't usually seen in public. Seems a pity that even Pendon is apparently adopting the "it's only a DMU. Any old DMU will do" approach. I bet they wouldn't do that with steam. (CJL)

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
Edwardian

Edwardian

Posted
Posted

all that the trains were almost incidental.

 

Can't let you have that one, I'm afraid!

 

The Great Western had considerable variety in styles of coaching stock, and unlike the Set-based Southern, seemed to take an almost perverse pride in ensuring that no two coaches in a train matched. 

 

The locos on the other hand .... yeah, they all look the same! :onthequiet:    

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...
Rail-Online

Rail-Online

Posted
Posted (edited)

Regarding the South Wales to London coal trains in the early 1960s (Pendon's diesel day period), I suspect that the Severn Tunnel Junction to Acton coal trains would have been still in the hands of Severn Tunnel Junction 9F's (and perhaps the very last 28/38xx 2-8-0's) until about 1963/4.  At that time Brush Type 4's were available to take over the remaining declining traffic.

 

Tony

Edited by Rail-Online
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
bécasse

bécasse

Posted
Posted

Regarding the South Wales to London coal trains in the early 1960s (Pendon's diesel day period), I suspect that the Severn Tunnel Junction to Acton coal trains would have been still in the hands of Severn Tunnel Junction 9F's (and perhaps the very last 28/38xx 2-8-0's) until about 1963/4.  At that time Brush Type 4's were available to take over the remaining declining traffic.

 

Declining the STJ-Acton coal traffic may have been, but when I was an Oxford undergraduate 1964-67 the best description that could be applied to the Brush 4 hauled coal trains that I happened to see on the mainline was bouncing, especially going west empty. My only surprise was that derailments were as infrequent as they were!

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • RMweb Premium
MJI

MJI

Posted
  • RMweb Premium
Posted

Personally this is the kind of attitude that made me give up with D&E modellers years ago.  If you want to further the cause of D&E modelling stop this perpetual carping about anti diesel agendas.There are some very good diesel models out there, but nothing comes close to the standards achieved at Pendon! I have no patience for the 'Poor us we're discriminated against brigade because we model post Steam era railways' attitude that seems to prevail in some quarters. Personally I would quite enjoy seeing some Western Region Hydraulics on Pendon for a special event.

 

I model Steam Diesel and Electric. I am also a friend of Pendon and member of the Great Western Study Group all of which have enriched my modelling knowledge and skills. Strangely nobody has told me I can't model diesels in those groups despite the alleged anti-diesel policy. It is not at all unreasonable not to expect to see diesels on a layout set in the 1930's any more than you would expect to see a Great Western Bulldog on a layout set in the 2000's. Or perhaps the owners of that hypothetical layout should be vilified for being anti steam?

 

If you are suffering from Pendon Fatigue get off your backside and create the D&E equivalent with the same attention to detail whilst giving up 50 years of your life for the project. Pendon is special and represents thousands of hours of hard work from some of the best modellers in the country. Choose your era and location carefully because you will surely discriminate against somebody. How about 1970's Western Region Devon and Cornwall. Prototype fidelity says no Deltics, No 20's, No 24's, No 26's No 27's No 40's No HST's Only Cross Country DMU's 119 or 120 and Pressed Steel Sets, Westerns, Hymeks, Warships, Peaks, 50's 47's, 25's etc. How many Diesel era layouts actually only run what appeared in the area and are of the same era? How many layouts have some locos showing headcodes and domino's at the same time? Agreed there are some that get it right, but if you want accuracy then you have to stop playing trains! Pendon was never set up to play trains but to capture a vanishing period of history so grow up!

 

Mark Humphrys

 

The area I am trying to model has had everything Diesel loco wise but the experimental type 1s and the Scottish type 2s

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • RMweb Gold
The Stationmaster

The Stationmaster

Posted
  • RMweb Gold
Posted

Wasn't there a daily working off the ex-Great Central line via Oxford to Swindon, using LNER locos? The engine returning north on

a late evening / overnight service.

 

It was originally a GCR working (normally an atlanyic according to a couple of sources) but at some time in the Post F Group era an exGNR (LNER C1 ) became the regular motive power and finally it was a regular turn for a B1.  Hence on a Sunday visit to Swindon E Works which usually included the shed you would get to see a B1 on shed at Swindon.  But that was down on Saturday back on Sunday evening working.

 

I'm not sure if the GC fish train which in later years went to Marston Yard, east of Swindon, was worked through by an LNER engine but I think it changed at Banbury.

 

The pacific trial with 'Victor Wild' was on a Paddington - Plymouth working via the B&H - I have a copy of the train notice lurking somewhere but it might well have dome some sort of initial trip to Swindon for clearance checks etc.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • RMweb Premium
MJI

MJI

Posted
  • RMweb Premium
Posted

I think the idea is great as long as they are suitable for the area and early BR.

 

So the WR Diesel Hydraulics are perfect, but I hope they do manage to get a suitable DMU, and not some random one.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Denbridge

Denbridge

Posted
Posted

It was originally a GCR working (normally an atlanyic according to a couple of sources) but at some time in the Post F Group era an exGNR (LNER C1 ) became the regular motive power and finally it was a regular turn for a B1.  Hence on a Sunday visit to Swindon E Works which usually included the shed you would get to see a B1 on shed at Swindon.  But that was down on Saturday back on Sunday evening working.

 

I'm not sure if the GC fish train which in later years went to Marston Yard, east of Swindon, was worked through by an LNER engine but I think it changed at Banbury.

 

The pacific trial with 'Victor Wild' was on a Paddington - Plymouth working via the B&H - I have a copy of the train notice lurking somewhere but it might well have dome some sort of initial trip to Swindon for clearance checks etc.

the A1 concerned was unnamed at the time. It was just 4474.
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • RMweb Gold
griffgriff

griffgriff

Posted
  • RMweb Gold
Posted

 

Wasn't there a daily working off the ex-Great Central line via Oxford to Swindon, using LNER locos? The engine returning north on

a late evening / overnight service.

Was it not the York / Bournemouth.....there was a service that took Hymeks north to the GC too.

 

Griff

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • RMweb Gold
The Stationmaster

The Stationmaster

Posted
  • RMweb Gold
Posted

Was it not the York / Bournemouth.....there was a service that took Hymeks north to the GC too.

 

Griff

 

The York - Bournemouth ran via Oxford Road Curve at Reading.  In diesel times it was worked to Banbury by a Darnall D67XX where a WR loco took over which was normally replaced by an SR loco at Oxford (which happened to be the last regular steam working over the GWML between Didcot and Reading West Jcn.  But the loco change locations changed over the years when it was running via the GC and the southbound working was never to my knowledge booked to be worked by a WR loco anywhere north of Banbury but Wr locos had other turns to Leicester or Nottingham at one time.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Pacific231G

Pacific231G

Posted
Posted (edited)

The York - Bournemouth ran via Oxford Road Curve at Reading.  In diesel times it was worked to Banbury by a Darnall D67XX where a WR loco took over which was normally replaced by an SR loco at Oxford (which happened to be the last regular steam working over the GWML between Didcot and Reading West Jcn.  But the loco change locations changed over the years when it was running via the GC and the southbound working was never to my knowledge booked to be worked by a WR loco anywhere north of Banbury but Wr locos had other turns to Leicester or Nottingham at one time.

I remember it well. Oxford-Reading West on that train then to Reading General on the trolley bus and back to Oxford was one of my occasional jaunts, in the end just to get a last whiff of steam  after it had otherwise disappeared from the WR.

 

There was also the Pines Express after the S&DJR had closed but "The Pines Express is running ninety, nine, Oh, minutes late" was an all too familiar announcement by the very deliberately speaking station announcer at Oxford. Nnety minutes late was the worst I heard but several times and twenty to forty minute delays seemed almost the norm. It was almost always the southbound Pines that was late, very rarely the northbound service, and I don't remember the York-Bournemouth being anything like as erratic. In the sixties Oxford also had several Summer Saturday Only services coming from the north for people who presumably found Skegness to be a little too bracing and ISTR their timekeeping being rather uncertain.

 

Did the York-Bournemouth go onto the GC and if so was that via Woodford Halse? I did get to Woodford just once before it closed in 1966 but that was on a steam hauled local train from Banbury possibly soon after WR steam had finished in the area.

Edited by Pacific231G
  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
Peter Kazmierczak

Peter Kazmierczak

Posted
Posted

Did the York-Bournemouth go onto the GC and if so was that via Woodford Halse? I did get to Woodford just once before it closed in 1966 but that was on a steam hauled local train from Banbury possibly soon after WR steam had finished in the area.

 

Former Great Central metals started at the junction with the GW Padd - B'ham line, just north of Banbury station.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...