Road Vehicles in silly places

[Jenny Emily]

On the subject of lorries not being able to get into places, it is worth noting that the side that the steering wheel is on makes a big difference to where a lorry can be easily reversed into or not. Yesterday I drove a 44 ton behemoth for the first time in 19 months (I got bored of driving a desk working from home so decided to give in to cajoling to do some-one a favour) and had the joy of a blind-side reverse into a loading bay. That means I had to reverse an artic around a corner on the passenger side of the vehicle. The view is nowhere near as good to the driver doing this, making it extremely hard to do. Your mirrors can only show so much, and the view to the driver in the passenger side mirrors is much more restricted (try looking at exactly what arc you can see in either mirror in a car). Often you will see an HGV driver go to some lengths to approach a bay or factory in such a way as to prevent the need for blind side reverses. This may include neutral turns (performing a U-turn in the length of a vehicle which leaves rather odd looking skid marks on the road from the trailer tyres - see these at most mini roundabouts in industrial parks and in large factory yards) or doing a full U turn at the nearest full roundabout (far kinder to the trailer tyres).

 

In the UK a well designed distribution centre will avoid the need for blind side reverses like the plague. Sadly more often newer build industrial estates fail to cater for this - a product of 'computer says yes' design work? In countries with left hand drive vehicles the loading bays will likely be a mirror image to those in the UK, or at least the site roads changed to prevent blind side reverse moves. It is also a reason why LHD vehicles driven into the UK from abroad may struggle more getting into loading bays.

 

Also remember that a rear-steer trailer (one whose rearmost set of wheels can pivot to decrease the turning circle of the full artic) will allow a vehicle to manouvere into a space that other artics could not. It is surprising how, with the right skilled driver, an artic can get into a lot of places that a rigid lorry would find it hard or impossible to.

[Will Vale]

 

PS: Mind you, all this is as nothing to some of the unlikely farming techniques I've seen displayed on model railways:

I found it really hard to find farming information when I was researching sugar beet for my layout - I wonder if there's a lot of knowledge embodied in people rather than written down, or at least it's not written down on the internet? Seasons aren't that hard to determine, but planting information isn't. I ended up with 22" row spacing IIRC, with much smaller spacing between plants, but I still don't know if it's right!

 

The roads are much easier - these days it's not hard to find the road you want, or one like it, on Google Maps and measure it - very handy  Vehicles I'm not so hot on - one of the reasons they might be out of place on my layout is that they're useful for adding colour to less-finished areas, and that always seems to happen as an afterthought on the morning of the show...

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[HerbertHopkins]

Go outside and get cold and wet measuring a road?? Much easier, and accurate enough for most modellers is to use the measuring tool in Google Earth (also easier if you're modelling a location which you live miles from!).

 

Happy modelling,

 

Steven B.

Google Earth? You're dealing with an unreconstituted Luddite here! Get out there with your chosen measuring implement and do it the old fashioned way - the fresh air will do you good!

[Will Vale]

Not that I disagree in principle, but NZ is halfway around the world from where you are in That London

 

The margin of error on Google Maps/Google Earth is quite high and you have to deal with the projections, so real life is definitely better if you have the access, but you can't beat Google for convenience, plus it lets you measure things lineside which you can't legally get to on foot.

 

Will

[HerbertHopkins]

Not that I disagree in principle, but NZ is halfway around the world from where you are in That London

 

Good point, I suppose half way round the world is a long way to go just to measure a strip of tarmac.

 

That London - are you from Liverpool originally?

[PGN]

 

I found it really hard to find farming information when I was researching sugar beet for my layout - I wonder if there's a lot of knowledge embodied in people rather than written down, or at least it's not written down on the internet? Seasons aren't that hard to determine, but planting information isn't. I ended up with 22" row spacing IIRC, with much smaller spacing between plants, but I still don't know if it's right!

 

 

Really?

 

I wonder whether your research technique was right? These details don't tend to be widely published on the internet or the like because there's nobody with any particular reason for posting the information. But there's plenty of people who know ... the trick is getting access to them.

 

People with specialist knowledge of rural and agricultural affairs aren't that difficult to find - and if you take an interest in what they're doing, you will probably find they'll happily talk to you and show you things - although you may have to make an appointment to go back and talk to them when they're less busy.

 

Obvious places to try to get a word with people when they've not got other things on their minds and hands are Young Farmers' events, ploughing matches and vintage tractor rallies. Or you could go to your local agricultural show and speak to the dealers who supply the kit to work with the tractors. Possibly even pick up a few of the leaflets they happily hand out to show what all of their whizzy new bits of kit are. Most agricultural engineers with reasonable size premises deal in tractors and agricultural kit, as well as servicing and maintaining it. Go and talk to one of them - he'll probably be happy to show you an example of the implement that is used for the job you're interested in, and tell you what teh results look like. If you're lucky, he might even direct you to a nearby field where you can go and take a look at the result for yourself.

 

On the whole, my view on all of this is that on your own layout you should do what pleases you; and if you don't give two hoots about the colour of a cow then fine - that's not an issue.

 

But once you start exhibiting, or writing articles about your modelling in the modelling press, then ALL aspects of the layout are going to be subject to close scrutiny, by people who know a lot about the subject in question. So at this point, it begins to become that much more important to make sure that the non-railway detail will stand up to the same level of scrutiny as the railway detail.

 

When it comes to the countryside, I fear there is a very real problem that most people THINK they know what it looks like; but as is evident from the layouts we see on a regular basis at exhibitions up and down the land, very few of them actually do!

 

If you were modelling a particular railway with which you were unfamiliar, you wouldn't dream of saying "Ah well - I know what railways look like. I see them all the time. That's enough research - now I'll go and build it." Yet this seems to be what many, many townies do when it comes to the countryside (And all credit to Will for WANTING to research the subject ... even if he couldn't find his answer!)

 

Alternatively, if you're a townie who knows nothing about the country and has no desire to research it, that's fine too. But when you come to build your exhibition layout, why not model something that you know and understand? Like a townscape?

 

I think the one that made me weep the most, though, was a really impressive "actual location" OO layout I saw at an exhibition a couple of years back, with a delightful cameo of a hunt meet modelled from actual photos of the hunt meeting at that location in or about the year being depicted. All the black & white photos from which they worked when building the model were all on display, and you could check and see just how accurately they had rendered it.

 

Just one thing ... it was obvious that absolutely nobody involved in the building of the layout had ever actually bothered to attend a hunt meet and take "livery notes", because EVERY SINGLE ONE of the mounted followers wore a red coat! (If you want to get some sort of an idea of how much this grates on the eye of somebody who has even a passing acquaintance with the subject matter in question ... try imagining a 1940s LMS layout in which every single locomotive appears in full lined crimson lake ... or a station car park in which every single parked car is a Maserati ... or a military scene in which every single soldier is an officer ... or, well, I think you get the idea!) Indeed, you don't even need to attend a meet to get an idea of what hunt followers ACTUALLY wear: hunting's started again, so just pop down to your local newsagent and buy a copy of Horse & Hound. Leaf through it and look at a few of the pictures. Especially the pictures showing large numbers of riders in a single shot, which will give you a pretty good idea of the true ratio of red to black to tweed.

[PGN]

I might just add that for those wanting to do some basic research into the ways of the countryside, Estate Gaxette Publications (to which I am completely unconnected) do a very good book called "How The Countryside Works" - which is a very good general introduction to the whole subject, and shoudl I think be on teh bookshelf of every townie modeller who wishes to depict rural scenes!

[MarkSG]

I think the one that made me weep the most, though, was a really impressive "actual location" OO layout I saw at an exhibition a couple of years back, with a delightful cameo of a hunt meet modelled from actual photos of the hunt meeting at that location in or about the year being depicted. All the black & white photos from which they worked when building the model were all on display, and you could check and see just how accurately they had rendered it.

 

Just one thing ... it was obvious that absolutely nobody involved in the building of the layout had ever actually bothered to attend a hunt meet and take "livery notes", because EVERY SINGLE ONE of the mounted followers wore a red coat! (If you want to get some sort of an idea of how much this grates on the eye of somebody who has even a passing acquaintance with the subject matter in question ... try imagining a 1940s LMS layout in which every single locomotive appears in full lined crimson lake ... or a station car park in which every single parked car is a Maserati ... or a military scene in which every single soldier is an officer ... or, well, I think you get the idea!) Indeed, you don't even need to attend a meet to get an idea of what hunt followers ACTUALLY wear: hunting's started again, so just pop down to your local newsagent and buy a copy of Horse & Hound. Leaf through it and look at a few of the pictures. Especially the pictures showing large numbers of riders in a single shot, which will give you a pretty good idea of the true ratio of red to black to tweed.

 

 

I think you may be thinking of EDMRC's "Thurston" layout (which was at Warley this year, so photos of it may be in the Warley thread - I haven't looked) here. If so, I think you're doing it a disservice. Yes, the setting isn't one of a real hunt meeting, but that's actually the point. The entire scene (the original, in the photos) was posed - it was a photo-shoot for a local newspaper! (That, of course, is where the photos came from that are the basis for the model). The model recreates the scene (including the photographer's van), as posed for the press - it's not intended to be a model of a regular hunt meeting. In this context, it's worth noting that even in the 1950s a photo-article on the local hunt would be a nostalgia feature, so it's to be expected that the newspaper would want a stylised representation with everyone in shot wearing hunting pink.

 

I agree with you about cows, though. The wrong colour cows are something of my own pet hate on historical layouts. Part of the problem, of course, is that in black and white photos a brown and white cow will look, well, black and white.

 

Mark

 

 

[MarkSG]

I might just add that for those wanting to do some basic research into the ways of the countryside, Estate Gaxette Publications (to which I am completely unconnected) do a very good book called "How The Countryside Works" - which is a very good general introduction to the whole subject, and shoudl I think be on teh bookshelf of every townie modeller who wishes to depict rural scenes!

 

For modern image layouts, yes. The real problem with historical layouts, though, is that the countryside has changed a lot over the years and, despite being superficially similar to how it is today, there are a lot of very tell-tale giveaways that will easily date a picture or model of a rural location. Getting it wrong can result in something very jarring to those who know what they're looking at.

[Will Vale]

I wonder whether your research technique was right? These details don't tend to be widely published on the internet or the like because there's nobody with any particular reason for posting the information. But there's plenty of people who know ... the trick is getting access to them.

 

Sure, but it's especially difficult from here on the other side of the world - I could certainly ask local farmers and horticulturalists, but the crops and practices are perforce different since the climate and soil are different here. So the internet (when I need an answer quickly) and books (when slow will do) are very helpful in my case!

 

It doesn't help that as an ex-Brit I'm somewhat reserved. I found some farming forums discussing suitability of land for sugar beet and fodder beet, but I didn't really want to come in an ask (in nerd voice) what the row spacing should be on my train set - they were talking about much more important things than models. I also wasn't sure I'd get an answer in the couple of hours I had available to make the decision - at the time of construction I had about 3 days to go until a show, and a lot more to do than this one field.

 

It's interesting you mention implements though - one approach I found really useful (and this has worked for other subjects as well) was going through for-sale listings of farming equipment looking for seed drills labelled as suitable for beets, then going through the manufacturer's specs to find out more.

 

Yet this seems to be what many, many townies do when it comes to the countryside

 

I know you're generalising, but you might be assuming a bit much there - I was raised on a smallholding in rural Cambridgeshire - at least until we moved to Sheffield in the '80s. So not a 'proper' large scale farming background but some basic familiarity with animal husbandry and access to a source of information (my parents) when I need more. They never planted beets though.

 

You'll be pleased to know I didn't put a beet clamp on my layout corner, which is what I'd earmarked the site for originally, since it would have been well out of season for the layout's late summer setting

 

Cheers,

 

Will

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

Also remember that a rear-steer trailer (one whose rearmost set of wheels can pivot to decrease the turning circle of the full artic) will allow a vehicle to manouvere into a space that other artics could not.

Going forwards, yes... but the rear-steer axle is supposed to lock up when reversing, so it's no different to an ordinary trailer... but ever had one where the rear-steer didn't lock up..?? The wheels turn in precisely the opposite way to where you want the trailer to go... what a nightmare!!!

 

It is surprising how, with the right skilled driver, an artic can get into a lot of places that a rigid lorry would find it hard or impossible to.

I nearly came unstuck once at a regular delivery place, when I had to go in a rigid instead of an artic. On turning into the gateway I took the same line as an artic and ended up heading for the far gatepost Rigids seem to turn about as well as the Titanic once you're used to artics

[PGN]

The model recreates the scene (including the photographer's van), as posed for the press - it's not intended to be a model of a regular hunt meeting. In this context, it's worth noting that even in the 1950s a photo-article on the local hunt would be a nostalgia feature, so it's to be expected that the newspaper would want a stylised representation with everyone in shot wearing hunting pink.

 

Hmmmmmm .... they might have WANTED everyone in red coats - but I hardly think they'd have GOT them.

 

Today, if you want a red hunting coat, it's going to cost you the best part of £1,000. And in most hunts only the Masters (4 buttons) and the hunt servants (5 buttons) wear them. In the hunt I ride with, there are also the "gentlemen farmers" (3 buttons) of the Oakley Club; but this still only makes up a small part of the field at any meet.

 

So the newspaper says "Can we do a photo shoot please? We want hounds, and about thirty riders in red coats?"

 

And the hunt secretary says "We can give you a meet; we can give you hounds; and two joint masters, a huntsman and two whips in red coats. I can probably give you a field of twenty five followers, too. But they'll be in black coats. If you want them in red, then somebody's going to have to come up with twenty grand to pay for them, and it'll be a good six to eight months before they can all be made".

 

Even on the basis you have posited, I consider it exceedingly unlikely that those coats were all red, you know! Especially since the photographer for the photo shoot was presumably using black and white film himself ...

[Shamouti Ben Yafo]

Such fun.

 

For overseas narrow cauge Johnnies with a yearning for tropical climes (or other exotic produce): should one wish to accurately model a Malay rubber plantation, then the standard width of the paths between the rows of trees, don't cha know, is just past the width of one of those spiffing Saracen APC's, what?

[BlackRat]

Red coats?

Pink surely!?

[PhilJ W]

Going forwards, yes... but the rear-steer axle is supposed to lock up when reversing, so it's no different to an ordinary trailer... but ever had one where the rear-steer didn't lock up..?? The wheels turn in precisely the opposite way to where you want the trailer to go... what a nightmare!!!

 

 

I nearly came unstuck once at a regular delivery place, when I had to go in a rigid instead of an artic. On turning into the gateway I took the same line as an artic and ended up heading for the far gatepost Rigids seem to turn about as well as the Titanic once you're used to artics

I remember coming from the Warley exhibition a few years ago and following a pair of German registered low loaders (with about 6 axles on the trailers) and I was amazed at the speed with which they negotiated the M1/M6/A14 roundabout.

[Guest stuartp]

I wonder whether your research technique was right? ... there's plenty of people who know ... the trick is getting access to them.

 

This is very true and research can easily become a hobby in it's own right, but there comes a point when the modeller says 'enough' and goes with what he or she has got, otherwise the time spent on research starts to eat into layout-building time, especially with historical modelling. There's also the fact that there are some questions it just doesn't occur to one to ask.

 

I'm modelling a real location (two actually), miles from where I live and for a layout set ten years before I was born. Quite apart from the railway side the amount of research required on peripherals is staggering. For example, in the last couple of years I've covered -

 

petrol distribution depots, petrol/oil distribution networks, trees, rock formations, why some fields have lush grass and the one next to it has lumpy short grass, dry stone walling, coastal harbours (traffic originating from), coastal harbours (development by railway companies -v- private landowners), coastal harbours (survival of obscure bits of 17th/18th century infrastructure at), flour mills (water), flour mills (electrically powered), boat building yards, sawmills, milk, beef and other traffic between Scotland and Ireland, creameries, distilleries, Carnation Milk, margarine, MOD bulk fuel installations, ROC observation bunkers, staff uniforms, general fashion, raised beaches, how coal got from stations to non-rail-served gasworks, quarrying, country estates (gate lodges attached to), country estates (demise of), vernacular architecture, cows (are Belties beef or dairy ?), cows (they're beef apparently so what dairy cows do I need ?), sheep, goats (wild), buses, municipal reservoirs, war memorials, field gates, rural milk deliveries, petrol filling stations, coastal fish merchants, Lord Peter Wimsey, police cars, ice cream vans, builders' merchants, and 18th century military road bridges.

 

OK, some of this has only been cursory, and some of it has been as a result of being easily distracted from what I was supposed to be doing, but there comes a point when you have to say "sod it, I'll just paint it green" (or pink) and go on to the next job.

 

Incidentally, it doesn't sound like 'Thurston', there's a pic towards the bottom of this page - it's at very low res but I can only see two, possibly three pink coats.

[Ruston]

ROC observation bunkers

 

I was going to model one (the surface bits anyway) on Rotherbrook but haven't done so yet. I've never seen one modelled a all so yours may be a first? The real things are interesting to have a mooch about inside if you've got a T-bar key for them. Those that have been burned, completely robbed or chavved-up aren't quite so interesting.

[halfwit]

I saw one modelled about 20 years ago, can't remember the layout though. I used to be a member of the ROC, the local bunker was small and rather dull. Its now concreted over.

[F-UnitMad]

I saw one modelled about 20 years ago, can't remember the layout though....

John Alison (WWII Lancaster Aircrew) did one on an O scale layout "Mavis Enderby" (a real village in Lincolnshire) that was set during the war. The layout appeared in RM, but when, I couldn't say for definite - maybe early 1990's?, and I don't know if he took it to many exhibitions.

[halfwit]

John Alison (WWII Lancaster Aircrew) did one on an O scale layout "Mavis Enderby" (a real village in Lincolnshire) that was set during the war. The layout appeared in RM, but when, I couldn't say for definite - maybe early 1990's?, and I don't know if he took it to many exhibitions.

 

The one that I'm thinking of was 4mm scale, the operater seemed quite suprised that I knew what an ROC post was.

[Sir Hadyn]

Another that gets me, partly due to my other "interest" and given the detail to which we take our locos and rolling stock is to see steam road vehicles inapproprately painted - steam rollers, traction engines, steam waggons and ploughing engines. Smokeboxes were always black and wheels seldom yellow except for some showmans engines on fairgrounds. Most had lining to a greater or lesser extent. One day I plan a diorama based on Bomford & Evershed's yard at Salford Priors in the 1950s so I can have a good go at painting and weathering engines as they were.

 

Grumble over! Each to their own as others have said...

[PGN]

Red coats?

Pink surely!?

 

You'll never hear the people as wears them calling them pink ...

 

But at the end of the day I think stuartp has hit the nail on the head. If your main interest is in playing trains, then there comes a point at which you're going to want to start playing!

[keefer]

where i work, the loading bay is at a right angle to the service road, vehicles approach from the right, go past the opening and have to reverse in blind-side. there is the additional hazard of limited width of the road, with walls on either side. the trick is to stay close enough to 'this' side going forward so you can line up at a slight angle for coming back. for these blind side moves, the window in the back of the cab is a must!

 

getting the line right is important, but the biggest bug-bear is drivers who won't listen to how to back in - 'who's driving the wagon???' sort of attitude. now i don't even have a license, but i do know how to get you in quickly and with the least amount of hassle! a new driver who listens can get in in 5-10 mins, one who 'knows better' can often take 30 mins

incedentally, familiarity is very helpful - we used to have a driver who delivered to us for 20+ years. as long's the door was open, he would just back himself in, in a one-er, with no to-and-fro necessary!

 

re: rear-steer trailers. i have had the displeasure of trying to back in a 3-axle artic when the steering axle would not disengage - as stated above it just tries to push in the opposite direction! (an added complication was a 3 axle, sleeper cab tractor unit - there was room for all this, just!

i've seen a more recent type though - two axles on the trailer, but spaced further apart and they BOTH pivot (i believe it's some sort of linkage to the fifth wheel coupling?). now, these can really turn! had one of the drivers say it takes a bit of getting used to, if you reverse as normal for an artic, you turn too much and can end up in the wall on your side!

[Black Sheep]

I tend to not particularly bother with road vehicles. In the past there wasn't as much traffic as now anyway, and the photos I've seen of, for example, Trafford Park at work chucking out time suggests that even into the 1970s most people walked, cycled or took public transport to and from work.

 

I have two early series one Landrovers that I occasionally use; given the longevity of these vehicles they can be justified on most periods from the 1950s onwards. I have carefully avoided scrap vehicles in the scrapyard at Grove Stret Yard that post date the 1940s too. I do have other vehicles, thanks to my Father continually buying them for me, but I don't have the heart to tell him that 1950s commercial vehicles just aren't suitable for a 1970s layout. I do also have Gene Hunt's cortina, but even that has an incorrect numberplate for its front grill style.

 

In my opinion, less is more for vehciles and people on most layouts. The world is not as heavily populated and vehicled as many layouts seem to imply.

 

 

As you're well aware, smaller businesses would hang onto their vehicles for longer, some very large companies might be growing so quick trade wise that they haven't managed to update their entire fleet - or they might have done a stobart and kept some of the original vehicles for memories sake.

 

another use of them would be a commercial vehicle show somewhere on the layout.

 

Another that gets me, partly due to my other "interest" and given the detail to which we take our locos and rolling stock is to see steam road vehicles inapproprately painted - steam rollers, traction engines, steam waggons and ploughing engines. Smokeboxes were always black and wheels seldom yellow except for some showmans engines on fairgrounds. Most had lining to a greater or lesser extent. One day I plan a diorama based on Bomford & Evershed's yard at Salford Priors in the 1950s so I can have a good go at painting and weathering engines as they were.

 

Grumble over! Each to their own as others have said...

 

 

 

Very true that these engines would be worked hard and often would be quite grubby, much like the yard's shunter. But most traction engines, I'm lead to believe (courtesy of Fred Dibnah) that they were often run by privateers who would have a fair pride in their engine and give it a good clean down after a days work (unlike the yard's shunter perhaps?)

 

as such, traction engines might not be as grubby as traction engines.

 

going back to landrovers, they really should not be clean! these vehicles always seemed to get used hard and give as good as they got.

paint was never smooth from the factory, especially on the pre 80's ones, nor was panel work,

often damage would not be repaired, for example, an acquaintance drove a series 1 he bought nearly new through finland in winter and stuck it in a ditch, dragged it out, replaced the light, It's still got the dents in the wing from that trip.

[petethemole]

Quite a lot of traction engines used in agriculture were owned by contractors, who employed drivers and the necessary crews for different tasks. The engines would commonly spend part of the year threshing (travelling from farm to farm with a living van) and part on sawbench work. Maintenance and cleaning was down to the driver and the essential would take priority over the cosmetic at the end of a long day. They would probably get a more thorough clean at the yard at the end of a season. Engines used for road haulage seem to have been cleaned regularly, brass polished etc.

 

Colour photos of traction engines in their working heyday are very rare, but even b/w photos give the impression that a high proportion were never repainted over their factory paint job, so even a regularly cleaned engine acquired a patina of oil, soot and dirt that darkened the paint. Engines ar rallies often display this effect if they were restored some time ago and attend a lot of rallies.

 

Pete