Railway Modelling Crimes

[jcm@gwr]

6 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Hmmm, I do not see any reference to the local temperature when I look at one of my posts.

EDIT: I just went to my profile and there is no reference/link to any weather service listed. There was a link sometime back (Weather Underground) but I removed that.

 

I'm afraid you didn't remove it, we can still see it!

[boxbrownie]

35 minutes ago, jcm@gwr said:

 

I'm afraid you didn't remove it, we can still see it!

Some odd advertising like banner......

[boxbrownie]

It is still the Weather Underground banner we see........obviously as your already there they figure you can just look out the window 

[TheQ]

The Future crime I'm expecting to see..

 

"The Distance Inn" at "19 Covid road". on an exhibition layout arriving near you soon  Sometime..

 

 and a vast amount of similar puns.

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by TheQ

[jcm@gwr]

5 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The Future crime I'm expecting to see..

 

"The Distance Inn" at "19 Covid road". on an exhibition layout arriving reasonably near, but not too close to you soon  Sometime..

 

 

Corrected it for you, to meet the current guidelines!

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 04/07/2020 at 20:11, Budgie said:

 

There's something wrong with your Chester, SC, banner at the bottom of your sig. It tells me that the temperature there is 0 C, which is NA F. I know that Fahrenheit is naff these days, but I'm not sure that is what was meant here.

Seeing as 0°C is 32°F (thank you food tech in high school) that's definitely out a bit. 

[muddy water]

15 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Rather akin to this perhaps?

 

(and yes I do know what it is and who put it here.)

 

You are now going to have to tell us the story behind this now!

Is it a mobile nuclear bunker?

[sir douglas]

it would be a crime to not tell after leading us on

[JCL]

Doctor Who set from the 1980’s?

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 24/02/2020 at 08:00, Chris M said:

Is using this chap to help with planning a crime?

In all honesty, the first photo gives me This is Spın̈al Tap vibes.

 

On 09/03/2020 at 22:18, F-UnitMad said:

My SWMBO doesn't even need to ask the question....

 

In fact my SWMBO doesn't even need this sort of gadgetry. She can just 'tell'....

Try sharing a house with your mum like I do. It's even worse.

 

On 10/03/2020 at 09:56, HonestTom said:

Does not numbering your wagons count as a crime? Nobody's spotted that my wagons have indistinct white blobs where they should have weight, numbers etc.

 

On 04/04/2020 at 01:06, MrWolf said:

This is described as an Excellent kit built weathered 10 plank wagon with real coal load. Starting bid £14.99 + £3.90 post and packing.

The weathering appears to be Wilko non drip gloss white... This clearly has a foot in two camps. Modelling crimes and eBay madness

 

Exactly the sort of thing I'd deliberately buy to fix up.

Which leads on nicely to my own extensive wrap sheet, which I've just realised I've never shared:

1. Liking hook and loop couplings due to their plentifulness and ease of use. Means I don't have to replace the chassis on all my beloved Triang stock.
2. Not caring about perfect scale accuracy. If it looks fine it is.
3. Freelancing nearly all of my locomotives - and not just the liveries. I like designing my own stuff.
4. Attaching hook-and-loop couplings to old Trix and HD stock so I can use them with the rest of my collection (assuming it's nothing rare, obviously)
5. Deliberately buying broken models to be parts fodder.
6. Actively refusing to use DCC.
7. Using purely manual points and signals.
8. Not weathering my locos or numbering my wagons.
9. Having a GWR loco and an LMS loco on my Norfolk-set railway.
10. Having no idea how signalling works and where all the signals go.
11. Using grey-painted sawdust glued to the baseboard instead of scale ballast.
12. Not using a static applicator to place static grass.
13. Naming all of my locomotives, even the grimiest of goods locos.
14. Having a Triang Nellie in my fleet.
15. Running my 9F without smoke deflectors. 
16. Using how odd, imperfect or awkward a locomotive is as part of the criteria for me liking it. Makes me able to relate to it.
17. Using how cute a locomotive is as part of the same criteria.
18. Modelling a preservation railway.
19. Modelling a fictional railway.
20. Injecting my sense of humour into my work

[Pacific231G]

On 05/07/2020 at 23:09, Pacific231G said:

Rather akin to this perhaps?

 

(and yes I do know what it is and who put it here.)

 

I came upon this a few years ago in a small (pop. 400) village called Commensacq in the middle of the vast pine forests in the Landes Département of S.W. France. It took me some time to find out what it was- I was thinking failed night club - but it's a slightly sad story.

The carriage sits  on the derelict but unlifted rails of a shortish light railway that used to run from the Bordeaux-Dax-Bayonne main line at Labouheyre to a village called Sabres.  The line finally closed (it had been freight only since 1950)  in 1969 but was immediately put to a new use taking visitors to the Marqueze "Ecomusée" - an open air recreation of a farming community from before the region's great moors were turned over to forestry that the line had passed through.

 

Marqueze is about 4 kilometres from the Sabres terminus, well away from any public roads, and in order to give a sense of travelling into the past, visitors, who park their cars and buses at the very well preserved terminus at Sabres, can only get there on a train of historic carriages that shuttle back and  forth. 

 

 

The operation was originally run by a preservation group in partnership with the museum and as well as the short shuttle service they were also developing a services from the main line at Labouheyre for which they acquired a couple of bogie coaches and other stock. Unfortunately some disagreement with the museum-who only wanted the shuttle- led to the society being chucked out in 1990 and the rest of the line was abandoned (but not  lifted).   Though much of their stock was distributed to other railways the two coaches sat on a siding at the open air museum. Then in 2011 someone had the idea of creating a series of I think twenty one open air sculpures as "The Forest of Art". This "ghost train" is one of them called "Vis Mineralis and is the work of Stéphanie Cherpin a well know sculptor from Paris. It;s supposed to represent an artificial object being slowly reclaimed by nature. Though the rails are stil there they are in no condition to run anything on so the coach was transported on a low loader. put back on the rails and wheeled into position after which it was sprayed with a coating usually used to render houses to form  the sculpture.

For me, the crime isn't the conversion of a derelict coach into a sculpture - its partner is slowly rusting on a siding at Marqueze  and will certainly never turn a wheel again- but the loss of the railway itself which was developing very well until it was summarily closed because of some internal politics a few months after most of the track had been relaid.  The coach and its partner should be allowing visitors to get to the museum by train (Labouheyre has a good local train service)  without taking their cars.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Pacific231G
clarification of dates

[MrWolf]

Sadly that childish "I'm taking my ball home" attitude is prevalent amongst all preservation groups, regardless of what it is that is being preserved.

[RedGemAlchemist]

8 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Sadly that childish "I'm taking my ball home" attitude is prevalent amongst all preservation groups, regardless of what it is that is being preserved.

Sadly, that does indeed seem to be the case. 

[MrWolf]

6 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Sadly, that does indeed seem to be the case. 

 

When it comes to having gigantic bone china egos, I sometimes think that the "nerds" are worse than the "jocks". SWMBO and I have backgrounds in music and art respectively. Lots of people there make themselves look good purely by making others look bad. Passive aggressive backstabbing is the order of the day for a large percentage trying to hang onto a little power or prestige. Punch them in the face, (metaphorically or literally) and they go whining to teacher. This unpleasant and counterproductive attitude is also present in the workplace in my experience, thanks to people who really shouldn't have got the job in the first place. One of the main reasons why I do my own thing.

I'm certain this isn't news to anyone on here!

[TheQ]

On 14/02/2020 at 10:37, KeithMacdonald said:

 

As my next major layout (subject to approval from my Managing Director) will provide a setting for "stuff" collected for over fifty years, I'm fully expecting the Rivet Police to come knocking, and I've already got my alibi prepared.

 

It's going to include the "East Wiltshire Railway Museum". A bit like some of our Heritage Railways, with all kinds of weird and wonderful out-of-place and out-of-era visitors. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

 

 

Based on Ludgershall? you can't get more east Wiltshire than that,  Hampshire within sight and the Tidworth Station on the branch line had the Hampshire / Wiltshire Border running through the station!

There have been proposals for it to be a heritage line.. can't see it happening..

[Pacific231G]

Just now, MrWolf said:

Sadly that childish "I'm taking my ball home" attitude is prevalent amongst all preservation groups, regardless of what it is that is being preserved.

This is probably now a bit OT for 'Railway Modelling Crimes' but if you're referring to the  Vis Mineralis "ghost train" this was not a case of "taking my ball home" by the preservation society.

Both the museum (probably through the Département) and the volunteer society ABAC had aquired various items of stock and ABAC had relaid track along the whole length of the line as well as setting up a station with a new spur into the forecourt of Labouheyre's SNCF station.  I've not been able to get to the bottom of what really happened but it was very sudden and, so far as I can tell, the dispute was around who controlled the line and its paid staff (who were and are employed by the museum) and the distribution of revenues. I suspect though that the real conflict  was  over aims. ABAC wanted to develop the whole eighteen kilometre long line as a "Train Touristique" but the the museum's new management was only interested in  the four kilometre shuttle that still conveys visitors from Sabres station (actually a very good example of a typical French light railway terminus) next to the car and bus parking to the open air museum site.

 

After their contract was terminated, after twenty years, at the end of the 1990 season ABAC donated much of the stock they had acquired, which would have had no further use for the shuttle,  to other preservation schemes  while the stock belonging the museum, including a railcar, two steam locos, a number of diesel locos (mainly shunters) and the six four wheel carriages still used for the shuttle remaining at Sabres.

 

I'm not sure who owned the two bogie coaches but, if it was ABAC, it's likely that there were simply no takers- railway preservation in France is nothing like the virtual industry that it is here -  and they just sat on the siding at Marqueze gently rusting.  The museum carried on using the steam locos on high days and holidays to operate the shuttle and I did get to travel behind and in front of one of them (the train just shuffles back and forth as there is no run round at Marqueze) the first time I visited the museum. They have though been stuck in the loco-shed at Sabres for at least ten years  and the last steam driver has since retired so I can't see them ever being used there again.   The museum did pass its railcar on to a preserved railway a couple of years ago and I hope the the two steam locos do eventuall also find good homes.

Edited July 8, 2020 by Pacific231G

[KeithMacdonald]

4 hours ago, TheQ said:

Based on Ludgershall? you can't get more east Wiltshire than that,  Hampshire within sight and the Tidworth Station on the branch line had the Hampshire / Wiltshire Border running through the station!

There have been proposals for it to be a heritage line.. can't see it happening..

 

Thanks for the suggestion - I like that. Could have all sorts of trains and operators? GWR, Southern on diversions, military to Tidworth, coal to Moredon (Swindon power station), etc

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midland_and_South_Western_Junction_Railway

 

The "East Wiltshire Railway Museum" might be host to all kinds of heritage operators. Even a “Hastings” DEMU.

https://www.hastingsdiesels.co.uk/news/ludgershall-legionnaire

 

[TheQ]

Back in the days of MSWJR even a Great eastern loco made it to Ludgershall with a military train. certainly practically every company sent troops there, in old carriages from all over mainland UK.

In LMS days there were still LMS carriages on through trains to Southampton

[MrWolf]

I have always found it strange why the MSWJR route was closed. (Unless it had long been planned to build the bypass down part of the route) As it was extensively modernised and expanded under GWR ownership during WW2. Probably no more short sighted than the closure of the GCR and the M&GNJR. A bit late now they have been replaced by the polluted, congested and inefficient M1, M62, A17, A34 etc.

I would definitely like to see more layouts based on the MSWJR.

 

As for taking their ball home, I was talking more generally. A pity that the two groups couldn't work together for something mutually beneficial. The end result being locomotives gathering dust and stock rotting away that DOES sound very much like what I was talking about (albeit a 304.8mm/ft one) As for the coach being turned into "art", it's all been done before and better with projects like Cadillac Ranch.

Hastily rerailing the topic. Ex MSWJR 0-4-4 (now GWR no:23) apparently doesn't get scrapped in 1930, it's rattling around the vicinity of the GW/LNW joint lines of Shropshire sometime in 1938/9. At least it is on my layout. Probably more incongruous is the occasional appearance of a Triang 2 car DMU. A horrible old nail, but I am rather attached to it!