Wright writes.....

[polybear]

Charlie,

 

I have experience of making the Branchlines' chassis for a V2. I cannot now recall which issues of BRM they were in, but I built a Pro-Scale V2 (of infamy!) and a Nu-Cast V2, fitting Branchlines chassis to one of them (maybe both). The chassis is good, but I found forming the slidebars way beyond me, so gave up and used some from elsewhere. 

 

Hi Tony,

 

There's a couple of Proscale V2's on Ebay at this very moment.  Perhaps you'd like another.....

I can see it now.....an in-depth step-by-step build thread:  "Tony revisits the Proscale V2......Mo covers her ears......."

It'll be a real hit.....

[jwealleans]

That may be so, but I have it on good authority (one I hesitate to question) that it was very boring to watch.

 

I might now add that I'm being upbraided by She Whose Opinion We Do Not Question for reminding people that she said that.

 

But more seriously, I lobbed that in to make the point that no one layout is going to please everyone. I loved SS and spent ages looking at it on the occasions I saw it, but there were other schools of thought. I see layouts at some shows which I think are awful, for different reasons, but they keep being invited and they seem, in some cases, to be popular. It's a broad church and as long as there's room for me to stand well away from what I don't like, may it remain so.

 

I imagine Stoke may have been at the simpler end of the operating spectrum (I never had the privilege) but there are times when it goes tits up on Grantham that that has a great deal of appeal.

Edited January 4, 2019 by jwealleans

[Enterprisingwestern]

Doesn't that petrol sign say 1s/3d and 1s/5d?

 

Mike.

[nerron]

Doesn't that petrol sign say 1s/3d and 1s/5d?

 

Mike.

That's how I see it too.

[Mallard60022]

Stoke Bank is not a normal location...

 

'Come on old girl, we can do better than this, I thought, so I nursed her and shot through Little Bytham...'

 

Here be legends, enough to bring a lump to even this old GW diehard's throat!

 

Strange how a dear and actual old boy Dudders called a relatively new locomotive 'old girl'...…….just a saying I suppose? This isn't another statement about locomotives having the female gender applied. That has been discussed to death elsewhere.

Phil 

[The Johnster]

The 'old girl' was pretty new at the time as well.  Locomotives are in general femaie, even if some are a bit butch; 'back 'er down on to the coal road, driver'. 'she's priming', and so on.  Other stock seems not to have a gender, and even multiple unit trains are 'it', but locos, steam, diesel, or electric, are always referred to in such terms and nobody ever seems to question the issue.

 

Joe Duddington scripted his own dialogue, so if he says he thought 'come on old girl', then that is the way that he naturally thought of his 'lovely Mallard'.  

[31A]

It occurs to me that the kind of layout that is entertaining at an exhibition might very quickly become boring if it was your own permanent layout at home.  I could also quite happily spend ages watching "Stoke Summit" at exhibitions, but I think I'd soon get bored with it if I had it at home.  One which I found entertaining at shows, and would also keep me occupied if it was mine would have been "Borchester Market".... 

[The Johnster]

 

I might now add that I'm being upbraided by She Whose Opinion We Do Not Question for reminding people that she said that.

 

But more seriously, I lobbed that in to make the point that no one layout is going to please everyone. I loved SS and spent ages looking at it on the occasions I saw it, but there were other schools of thought. I see layouts at some shows which I think are awful, for different reasons, but they keep being invited and they seem, in some cases, to be popular. It's a broad church and as long as there's room for me to stand well away from what I don't like, may it remain so.

 

I imagine Stoke may have been at the simpler end of the operating spectrum (I never had the privilege) but there are times when it goes tits up on Grantham that that has a great deal of appeal.

 

Unless the exhibition is a niche affair (Expo EM and that sort of thing) and not a general model railway show, the organisers will usually try to include a cross section of standards from train set to fine scale and as much as possible in between in order to illustrate the broad church that the hobby is, as well as trying to tick various boxes concerning gauge, period, and size.  The concept is an exhibition to show people who are not involved in the hobby what options they have for entering and continuing beyond entry level.  

[Clive Mortimore]

Boring layouts......diesel depots

 

This one has been invited to Ally Pally.

It is called Pig Lane (Western Region)

[t-b-g]

It occurs to me that the kind of layout that is entertaining at an exhibition might very quickly become boring if it was your own permanent layout at home.  I could also quite happily spend ages watching "Stoke Summit" at exhibitions, but I think I'd soon get bored with it if I had it at home.  One which I found entertaining at shows, and would also keep me occupied if it was mine would have been "Borchester Market".... 

 

Your thoughts are totally in line with mine. I am very lucky to have a number of friends in the hobby and some of them have been daft enough to invite me along to exhibitions as an operator, as they seem to think that I have some ability in such areas.

 

One of the layouts I operated at a few shows was "Gresley Beat".

 

It is, without doubt, a layout with huge amounts of action, with several trains moving at once nearly all the time, some superb modelling, lots of lovely locos and stock and we usually had a huge crowd round it all weekend.

 

But I was bored silly. I would run trains round and round for 20 minutes and want to go and do something else.

 

My current exhibition layout is Peter Denny's Leighton Buzzard. When we take that out, I really look forward to my turns at the controls and it seems that we start running when the show opens and an hour later it is closing time. The time just flies by and although we only have 5 trains and a sequence lasting 16 moves and taking an hour, it is challenging, interesting and fun.

 

Strangely enough, when the operators are really on song and the layout is running nicely, as it does most of the time, people will stay and watch it for an hour or more, sometimes coming back later.

 

The acid test for me as to whether a layout is a good one to operate is this. Does the layout ever get run just for the sheer pleasure of operating? Not just when there are visitors, or for testing but because the layout owner, perhaps with a friend or two if more than one operator are required sit for an hour or two on a regular basis just because they enjoy running the layout.

 

We probably run Buckingham around 100 times a year with running sessions lasting between a couple of hours on an evening to an all day session with visitors, many of whom ask if they can come again because sitting at the controls is about as good a model railway experience as you can get. Even when I am in the shed alone I often work through a few timetable moves or spend half an hour organising the goods yards at the stations ready for the next multiple operator session.

[grahame]

. . . . . organisers will usually try to include a cross section of standards from train set to fine scale and as much as possible in between in order to illustrate the broad church that the hobby is, as well as trying to tick various boxes concerning gauge, period, and size.  The concept is an exhibition to show people who are not involved in the hobby what options they have for entering and continuing beyond entry level.  

 

This can be an Achilies heel with some exhibitions. I think that including layouts with woeful standards (construction, modelling, running/operation, etc), to provide a demonstrative 'cross section of standards' (even at a general model railway exhibition), can show the hobby in a poor light. There is even the possibility that it can put people off the hobby.

 

I'd have no objection to some beginner type layouts being on display but they need to be competently built and running well, even if simple and mainly using RTR/RTP products - i.e. of a decent standard even if just to demonstrate what can easily be achieved by new entrants and the options available. Isn't there some sort of need for experienced and better modellers to encourage and show beginners how to build a decent model railways rather than let them produce something that doesn't work well and looks tatty (and then to display it at an exhibition)?

 

G

Edited January 4, 2019 by grahame

[CF MRC]

That's how I see it too.

Doesn't that petrol sign say 1s/3d and 1s/5d? Mike.

It does now! 2* & 4* prices.

Tim

Edited January 4, 2019 by CF MRC

[t-b-g]

It does now! 2* & 4* prices.

Tim

 

Lovely modelling.

[Clive Mortimore]

Boring layouts......diesel depots

 

This one has been invited to Ally Pally.

100_5466.JPG

100_5488.JPG

100_5459.JPG

100_5460.JPG

It is called Pig Lane (Western Region)

I forgot to say how it is operated.

 

I only have 12 main line locos for this layout. Each loco is allocated a number which corresponds to those in a pack of cards, 2 is the class 22, up to King is the class 50. An Ace is a fuel train and the Joker is the stores train. I turn one of the cards over and that is the loco that I either bring on to the shed or it drives off, in case of the two types of train they arrive and shunt the full wagons to their correct places and remove the empties. It stops me getting bored. The list of what loco matches which card is displayed for the public to see, and at times I will ask a member of the public to chose a card. I then drive their loco, the kids like that.

 

I have designed the layout so it can be operated from either side, so no matter which way round it is the push rods for the points are also facing the public. Again I can invite a member of the public to be the shunter and change the points to put the loco where it is supposed to go.

 

Hopefully my little diesel depot will not be as boring as it could potentially be.

 

No worries about sound and flashing lights as seen on many depot layouts, I don't like them.

[Tony Wright]

It occurs to me that the kind of layout that is entertaining at an exhibition might very quickly become boring if it was your own permanent layout at home.  I could also quite happily spend ages watching "Stoke Summit" at exhibitions, but I think I'd soon get bored with it if I had it at home.  One which I found entertaining at shows, and would also keep me occupied if it was mine would have been "Borchester Market".... 

Good afternoon Steve,

 

One of the reasons why Stoke Summit never came permanently east was because, other than at exhibitions, it was boring to operate. As a home layout it would have been of no use to me for a variety of reasons, including its being boring to drive and that it was as complete as any model railway could ever be said to be. 

 

It was conceived, constructed and completed entirely with exhibitions in mind. From a personal perspective, I find the typical branch line terminus-type exhibition layout (in any scale or gauge, and however well-modelled) the most boring of all to watch. Small locos, pottering around, never stretching their legs and exactly the sort of place I'd never have visited as a 'spotter. And, the operation is probably wholly-unrealistic, at least with regard to the times between trains. 

 

When we sat down (six members of WMRC) and decided what we wished to build for an exhibition, the principal criterion was for 'spectators to watch the trains go by'. Not just any old trains, mind, but (as near as was practicable) accurate representations of full-length ECML sets in the late-'50s/early-'60s (self-indulgence on my part, of course). Most of those trains (out of necessity) were built from kits (the Bachmann Mk.1s were still on the near-horizon), as were the locos. Well over 20 years on, would we have considered RTR were it being built today, I wonder? I doubt it - we wished to show what we, as a group, could make, not just buy. I've said before, layouts today (and not just in OO) are awash with RTR items, at shows, in the press and on the Web. 

 

Was it successful? I'd like to think so, and folk recall its appearances at shows with affection. I rarely operated it - building things to me is much more important than running a layout (any layout) - preferring to 'windbag' at one end (best do what one is best at, I always feel).

 

Of course it didn't please everyone. One bloke at York said to me 'It's just trains going round - look there's one, and another, and another............' He was puzzled when I shook his hand and thanked him. Another said it didn't look all that interesting (it had no station), but he couldn't give a full opinion because he couldn't get near enough to see it!  Exhibition managers are not fools, and to have done over 80 shows with it (including all the principal ones - some more than once) from 1996 until 2013 suggests it was successful. Remember as well, big layouts are costly to invite. 

 

Little Bytham gave me (and much the same group of builders) something to get my teeth into (the few I have left!) as a 'last great project'. Stoke would have no place here for the reasons mentioned, and, once its exhibition career was over, WMRC had no use for it and it was sold. The new owner operates it regularly, and is very happy. Speaking of operating, I rarely operate LB by myself (other than just run trains round for my own enjoyment). I've never operated a real railway, preferring to be an observer. And that's where LB suits me now. I can set a big loco going on its big train, and watch it from every angle I wish as it bowls by. Just as I did as 'spotter. Others might prefer to shunt. Not me! 

 

And, speaking of big locos................

 

 

This is my latest, painted build (painted perfectly by Geoff Haynes). Built from a DJH kit, the guy I made it for is very happy indeed. The red-backed nameplate is correct for 60506 in 1958. 

[31A]

Good afternoon Tony,

 

Thank you for explaining the ethos behind the Stoke Summit layout.  I wasn't complaining about it; quite the opposite!  As I said, I spent ages watching it at exhibitions and never tired of being entertained by it.  As far as "roundy roundy" type layouts at shows go, I have also found Gresley Beat, Dewsbury Midland, Leicester South and Thornbury Hill good to watch as a show visitor, to name but a few.

 

But I also find the 'medium sized main line terminus' layout entertaining to watch at shows, and would put Borchester Market in that bracket (not a small branch line terminus), and I would imagine they must also be more interesting for the operators to work.  In the same bracket I would also put Buckingham Central and, for example, the East Bedfordshire MRS layout "Sutton" (and several others who's names I forget); the kind of layout where big trains arrive, terminate, locos are released and sent for servicing, coaches are shunted, goods trains likewise.  I would imagine Clive's "Sheffield Exchange" layout would be similar.  It's the kind of thing which would also keep me entertained as a home layout whereas I think a "roundy roundy" (no matter how big) would soon bore me.  It's the kind of layout I aspire to in a modest way within the space I have available with my "Finsbury Square" layout.  I've been building it for about 20 years and I still find it enjoyable to operate; I do so several times most days!

 

So the point I was trying to make is, as I said before, I think an entertaining exhibition layout is not always the same as an entertaining home layout (although it might be).  And also of course that what one person finds interesting to operate and watch is not necessarily what appeals to some body else.

 

I have also been playing around with big green locos recently but only I'm afraid doing a bit of detailing on a Hornby A3, as per my layout thread update yesterday.

[Lecorbusier]

The 'old girl' was pretty new at the time as well.  Locomotives are in general femaie, even if some are a bit butch; 'back 'er down on to the coal road, driver'. 'she's priming', and so on.  Other stock seems not to have a gender, and even multiple unit trains are 'it', but locos, steam, diesel, or electric, are always referred to in such terms and nobody ever seems to question the issue.

 

Joe Duddington scripted his own dialogue, so if he says he thought 'come on old girl', then that is the way that he naturally thought of his 'lovely Mallard'.  

Interestingly the Rev Audrey made his locos male and I suggest quite middle class .... it was the coaches that were female and somewhat flighty. What's more the trucks were characterised as working class male definitely cutting up rough .....as indeed the diesel shunter was as well. What that says about the Rev. is anyones guess?

[rowanj]

I really enjoyed the brief flurry of posts on wagons a few pages ago. I was very good this Christmas and restricted my spending to a few Parkside kits, which are fun to build.

 

This is my short LOCO coal rake - I'll add a couple more wagons in due course. The first couple still need transfers applied. The wagons are a pair of LOCO coal wagons and a 21T and 24T mineral wagon,one of each, which were used to supplement the purpose built LOCO types. The brake van is ex-Airfix, converted to the earlier LNER builds, The Dave Alexander Q7 is probably overkill for such a short rake, so I assume it is being used just to get it back to Tyne Dock..

 

As this is my first post here for 2019, may I wish eveyone all the best for the New Year.

 

John

Edited January 4, 2019 by rowanj

[Clive Mortimore]

Good afternoon Tony,

 

Thank you for explaining the ethos behind the Stoke Summit layout.  I wasn't complaining about it; quite the opposite!  As I said, I spent ages watching it at exhibitions and never tired of being entertained by it.  As far as "roundy roundy" type layouts at shows go, I have also found Gresley Beat, Dewsbury Midland, Leicester South and Thornbury Hill good to watch as a show visitor, to name but a few.

 

But I also find the 'medium sized main line terminus' layout entertaining to watch at shows, and would put Borchester Market in that bracket (not a small branch line terminus), and I would imagine they must also be more interesting for the operators to work.  In the same bracket I would also put Buckingham Central and, for example, the East Bedfordshire MRS layout "Sutton" (and several others who's names I forget); the kind of layout where big trains arrive, terminate, locos are released and sent for servicing, coaches are shunted, goods trains likewise.  I would imagine Clive's "Sheffield Exchange" layout would be similar.  It's the kind of thing which would also keep me entertained as a home layout whereas I think a "roundy roundy" (no matter how big) would soon bore me.  It's the kind of layout I aspire to in a modest way within the space I have available with my "Finsbury Square" layout.  I've been building it for about 20 years and I still find it enjoyable to operate; I do so several times most days!

 

So the point I was trying to make is, as I said before, I think an entertaining exhibition layout is not always the same as an entertaining home layout (although it might be).  And also of course that what one person finds interesting to operate and watch is not necessarily what appeals to some body else.

 

I have also been playing around with big green locos recently but only I'm afraid doing a bit of detailing on a Hornby A3, as per my layout thread update yesterday.

Hi Steve

 

Thank you for mentioning Sheffield Exchange. I too like tinkering about with a terminus station and moving locos around engine sheds, the Exchange provides me with this form of entertainment, with the added bonus of trains running round the room. I set a couple off on their journey to the fuddle yards as I shunt the locos off the platforms into the loco yards, (I have a steam and diesel stabling points)  or from the loco sidings to on to a train in the station. After a few laps the circulating trains get driven into an empty fuddle yard siding, either they are swapped with one in the yard or others follow the two that have been whizzing around out of the station. There is a downside to my operating, when I fill the station up with DMUs*, there are no locos to shunt. I am not over keen on a lot of shunting so no freight appears at the station but I do have parcels trains arrive and occasionally a GUV or CCT will be taken off a train and shunted into the end loading bay. I am really lucky to have the space for a terminus station and a continuous run.

 

I still have to assemble some sort of timetable, something our friends with real locations don't need to make up.

 

* The station does look good with a host of DMUs waiting to take the commuters home.

[Hollar]

Interestingly the Rev Audrey made his locos male and I suggest quite middle class .... it was the coaches that were female and somewhat flighty. What's more the trucks were characterised as working class male definitely cutting up rough .....as indeed the diesel shunter was as well. What that says about the Rev. is anyones guess?

When my son was young he loved the Thomas stories, but reading them with him always left me discontented with the 1950s-deferential milieu (not to mention the sexism).  In the end I started making up my own.  My favourite (and James's) was when the two Scottish locos came over and unionised their workmates. At the height of the  strike Sir T Hatt came out to try an coerce them back to work.  He was routed when either Donal or Doogie went up to him and said "See you fatty.  See me, See my buffers  . .."  Whereupon decent working conditions were restored.  Happy days.

 

Tone

[landscapes]

Good afternoon Steve,

 

One of the reasons why Stoke Summit never came permanently east was because, other than at exhibitions, it was boring to operate. As a home layout it would have been of no use to me for a variety of reasons, including its being boring to drive and that it was as complete as any model railway could ever be said to be. 

 

It was conceived, constructed and completed entirely with exhibitions in mind. From a personal perspective, I find the typical branch line terminus-type exhibition layout (in any scale or gauge, and however well-modelled) the most boring of all to watch. Small locos, pottering around, never stretching their legs and exactly the sort of place I'd never have visited as a 'spotter. And, the operation is probably wholly-unrealistic, at least with regard to the times between trains. 

 

When we sat down (six members of WMRC) and decided what we wished to build for an exhibition, the principal criterion was for 'spectators to watch the trains go by'. Not just any old trains, mind, but (as near as was practicable) accurate representations of full-length ECML sets in the late-'50s/early-'60s (self-indulgence on my part, of course). Most of those trains (out of necessity) were built from kits (the Bachmann Mk.1s were still on the near-horizon), as were the locos. Well over 20 years on, would we have considered RTR were it being built today, I wonder? I doubt it - we wished to show what we, as a group, could make, not just buy. I've said before, layouts today (and not just in OO) are awash with RTR items, at shows, in the press and on the Web. 

 

Was it successful? I'd like to think so, and folk recall its appearances at shows with affection. I rarely operated it - building things to me is much more important than running a layout (any layout) - preferring to 'windbag' at one end (best do what one is best at, I always feel).

 

Of course it didn't please everyone. One bloke at York said to me 'It's just trains going round - look there's one, and another, and another............' He was puzzled when I shook his hand and thanked him. Another said it didn't look all that interesting (it had no station), but he couldn't give a full opinion because he couldn't get near enough to see it!  Exhibition managers are not fools, and to have done over 80 shows with it (including all the principal ones - some more than once) from 1996 until 2013 suggests it was successful. Remember as well, big layouts are costly to invite. 

 

Little Bytham gave me (and much the same group of builders) something to get my teeth into (the few I have left!) as a 'last great project'. Stoke would have no place here for the reasons mentioned, and, once its exhibition career was over, WMRC had no use for it and it was sold. The new owner operates it regularly, and is very happy. Speaking of operating, I rarely operate LB by myself (other than just run trains round for my own enjoyment). I've never operated a real railway, preferring to be an observer. And that's where LB suits me now. I can set a big loco going on its big train, and watch it from every angle I wish as it bowls by. Just as I did as 'spotter. Others might prefer to shunt. Not me! 

 

And, speaking of big locos................

 

Dsc_0585.jpg

 

This is my latest, painted build (painted perfectly by Geoff Haynes). Built from a DJH kit, the guy I made it for is very happy indeed. The red-backed nameplate is correct for 60506 in 1958. 

 

Hi Tony

 

That is a very nice looking A2/2, why am I not surprised the recipient is very happy.

 

I would be over the moon with it.

 

Regards

 

David

[Tony Wright]

Good afternoon Tony,

 

Thank you for explaining the ethos behind the Stoke Summit layout.  I wasn't complaining about it; quite the opposite!  As I said, I spent ages watching it at exhibitions and never tired of being entertained by it.  As far as "roundy roundy" type layouts at shows go, I have also found Gresley Beat, Dewsbury Midland, Leicester South and Thornbury Hill good to watch as a show visitor, to name but a few.

 

But I also find the 'medium sized main line terminus' layout entertaining to watch at shows, and would put Borchester Market in that bracket (not a small branch line terminus), and I would imagine they must also be more interesting for the operators to work.  In the same bracket I would also put Buckingham Central and, for example, the East Bedfordshire MRS layout "Sutton" (and several others who's names I forget); the kind of layout where big trains arrive, terminate, locos are released and sent for servicing, coaches are shunted, goods trains likewise.  I would imagine Clive's "Sheffield Exchange" layout would be similar.  It's the kind of thing which would also keep me entertained as a home layout whereas I think a "roundy roundy" (no matter how big) would soon bore me.  It's the kind of layout I aspire to in a modest way within the space I have available with my "Finsbury Square" layout.  I've been building it for about 20 years and I still find it enjoyable to operate; I do so several times most days!

 

So the point I was trying to make is, as I said before, I think an entertaining exhibition layout is not always the same as an entertaining home layout (although it might be).  And also of course that what one person finds interesting to operate and watch is not necessarily what appeals to some body else.

 

I have also been playing around with big green locos recently but only I'm afraid doing a bit of detailing on a Hornby A3, as per my layout thread update yesterday.

Thanks Steve,

 

I didn't infer for a moment from what you wrote that you were complaining; merely stating  and putting forward your own points of view. Even if you were being 'critical' (which you were not), it would have been taken in any spirit intended. The day when we're too easily 'hurt' in ourselves by different opinions, is the day I give up railway modelling. 

 

I think I'd disagree with you (to some extent) with your assessment of Borchester Market. In my more-formative days, the work of Frank Dyer was hugely-influential on me - for God's sake, he was building the likes of A5s and O2s when others just moaned that nothing like that was available RTR, so they'd not be able to have one. Not that moan from Frank, he just built what he wanted - a 'true' modeller in my book. 

 

It's just that, as I grew up (no, that's not possible!) I became less-convinced of the layout's 'authenticity'. The ECML did not see many six-coach expresses, and none which branched off and went off to a terminus in a small town in Notts. Borchester could never have been RA9 rated, yet Frank had a V2. The chaps who took it over introduced even more big stuff, which made it more anachronistic to me. 

 

Another thing I'm not convinced about on any layout is the situation where stations on the same line are far too close together. Wellow Park was no more than a quarter of a mile from Borchester Market, without a scenic break. Scenic breaks are all well and good, but what was the minimum distance between adjacent stations on the same line, on the real thing? In my teacher training days, travelling between Liverpool Exchange and Ormskirk, one could see Orrell Park from the Junction at Walton, but it must have been a good half mile. That was on a suburban route as well (though it was also a trunk main line between Liverpool and Preston). I know having more stations on a layout allows for greater operational interest, but it is often at the expense of 'realism' in my view. 

 

Which makes me think that realism and operational interest are often incompatible. I'm told that Norman Eagles' Sherwood Section was a fascinating line to operate (by clockwork!), but, from the pictures of it, there was no ballast on the track and any fields were just green paint. I once operated Ken Longbottom's Diggle and Halebarns, but, although it was more realistic overall than Sherwood, the trains either seemed to go very fast - or not. The fastest was the first - driving out the rodents from the covered garden sections! Gainsborough, too, with it's 'whole of the ECML between Kings Cross and Leeds' in an old school, though operationally 'interesting' has trains going far too fast in my opinion. I'm not against trains going fast (heck, I've been part of a group which has modelled the fastest section of steam main line in the realm - and the world!), but it's the acceleration from a start which is often all too rapid. That said, some shunting takes place far too slowly on many layouts. It wasn't always crawling along at a snail's pace - often, a shunter would be in reverse gear before it had ceased going forward (difficult to replicate in model form, I know). 

 

As has been said (too?) many times; each to their own. I'm a prototype, main line man. I was when I was a boy.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

Hi Tony

 

That is a very nice looking A2/2, why am I not surprised the recipient is very happy.

 

I would be over the moon with it.

 

Regards

 

David

Thanks David,

 

He collected it from Geoff this afternoon - a happy, if poorer, customer!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Captain Kernow]

I find the typical branch line terminus-type exhibition layout (in any scale or gauge, and however well-modelled) the most boring of all to watch. 

If you are considering that kind of layout in the context of having experienced (and had your modelling ethos influenced by) the steam-era main line in action, then that is certainly understandable, because of your personal background and interests.

 

But even at age 60, my memories of the steam era are few and far between. I didn't do much trainspotting and what little I could muster up the enthusiasm to do, was in the early 1970s and, therefore, in the BR corporate blue diesel era (oh, how some of us wish we could re-visit that again!).

 

It's not that I wasn't interested in railways in my youth, quite the reverse, it's just that the act of 'train spotting' and recording numbers etc. held little attraction for me. I much preferred to travel on the trains, visit stations and just watch the railway in action. If I had had a better camera as a teenager, I'd no doubt have a much more interesting personal archive of photographs.

 

My personal interest in railways has gradually changed from being a relatively 'main stream' enthusiast for all things GWR, to getting more and more into the odd and unusual, which include branch lines, out-of-the-way railway places, industrial railways, narrow gauge etc.

 

For a lengthy period, my main interests were in the Somerset & Dorset line, itself a relative 'odd ball'. I never had the space to build a full-size prototype station at home, so it had to be a fictitious scenario for me. 'Engine Wood' was my first exhibition layout and in order to incorporate some operational interest for me (and hopefully exhibition visitors), I made it a crossing place on a single line, with a small goods yard that saw quite a lot of shunting and some exchange traffic with the nearby NCB colliery.

 

It wasn't a prototype location, but I went to quite extreme lengths to give it an aura of prototype authenticity. Apart from modelling appropriate S&D structures and running locomotives with local shed allocations, I also had a full-size signal box diagram commissioned (drawn for me by a genuine S&T engineer at work), which was displayed in front of the layout. I also composed a set of genuine-looking Local Operating Instructions and displayed them alongside the layout information on the 'public' side of the fiddle yard screens. I even commissioned the artist Peter Barnfield, a personal friend, to do a beautiful pencil drawing of the station with a train in the platform - a reduced-size copy of this was also displayed, together with all the historical background information, covering the historical development of the line and it's setting in relation to the real geography of the area.

 

It was notable, then, that many people at shows, especially shows held in the Bath/Somerset/Wiltshire area, would exclaim that they remembered catching a train from that station. One retired driver even told me, in all seriousness, that he remembered the place when he was working!

 

The point with all this is that although I am an enthusiast of the fictitious layout, for me it has to be:

 

- firmly based on actual company practice, using appropriate buildings/structures and locos/rolling stock appropriate to the area/region of BR/local depot etc.

- set in a real location, that you can find on an Ordnance Survey map (but regardless of whether there was an actual railway there or not)

- given a detailed and plausible historical back-story (composing this side of things is almost as much fun as building the layout!)

 

The most convincing 'lies' are certainly those with an element of truth in them.

 

Back in the day, before we decided it was costing too much to host, I had my own website, with details of three of my layouts posted up on them. I will admit now to being rather shy when it came to admitting that these real locations (which sometimes had fictitious names) didn't actually have a railway running through them. At the time, I just wanted to see how many would spot the subterfuge.

 

Well, some did spot it, and some didn't.

 

Apart from those who claimed to have caught a train from there, I've had people come up to me and tell me they 'took the wife and the dog' out for a walk, to look for the remains of 'Engine Wood'.

 

I've had the Clerk to a local parish council in Somerset e-mail me, informing that the council were just finalising a book on their village on the Somerset Levels and had now just found my website, read the blurb about 'Bleakhouse Road' and felt that they should now include a chapter on the old railway (I tried to let them down gently, but never heard back from them when I 'fessed-up').

 

When it came to 'Callow Lane', my (still unfinished) goods yard in South Gloucestershire, based on Midland practice, I made up the usual fictitious account, albeit based again on a real place near Coalpit Heath. I was convinced that there had never been a railway there, nothing was mentioned in my books nor was anything shown on the Ian Allan Pre-Grouping atlas. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I perused a copy of 'The Midland in Gloucestershire', when I found that there really had been a goods-only line to the supposed location of my layout. It was just a map, though, I've never been able to find any photographs of 'New Engine Yard' (real name), so 'Callow Lane' (fictitious name) has been built as a fictitious 'might-have-been' layout.

 

Hoisted by my own petard, perhaps?

 

This is the most superb thread - a belated Happy New Year to everyone on it!

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But I also find the 'medium sized main line terminus' layout entertaining to watch at shows, and would put Borchester Market in that bracket (not a small branch line terminus), and I would imagine they must also be more interesting for the operators to work.

 

As one of the recent Borchester team I can answer this. Everything on BM was there for a reason, it wasn't until we reproduced one of Frank Dyers timetables and worked to it that I really appreciated what it was all about. It was so methodical that it changed the perception of how you operate a layout from turn the controller and away you go to being signalman first, bell code exchange with either fiddleyard, set the points, set the signals, set the electrics and away you go. Because you were running in a numbered sequence aside from operator error you wouldn't clash with one of the other operators, indeed you could see 3 locos moving at the same time just with DC. We used a mix of modified RTR and kit built stock, although it was a terminus, aside from the locals most were through trains running through from the ECML to the Sheffield direction, it was marvelous operating some of these PDK or DJH Thompson pacifics, to be on the layout they had to be reliable and operate smoothly and they were, they only had to pull 6 coaches at the most, but this was the split consist coming from Grantham so explains the story, You'd then find that 4 coaches would go forward in the Sheffield direction and the other 2 would be shunted into the carriage siding. Later when the train returned the 2 carriages would be shunted out of the carriage siding by the departure loco and backed onto and coupled up to the 4 already in the platform and away you go. It explains why BM didn't have to be a large town because of the function it fulfilled. Interesting to operate, too right, we had a perfect excuse to shunt stock around, how often do you see that. We mainly used an 08 as the station shunter, it should have been a Drewry 04 but we could not rely on the model(s) we had to be reliable, you slowly pull the stock out of the station up to the shunting limit and then reverse them into another platform across all that arrival/departure pointwork, smoothly, without derailment etc. It could be hard work thought, just the concentration. I'm sure that certain people such as Lord Bytham would come up deliberately for a chat just to knock you off your thoughts. I was operating the GN fiddleyard one time and got into a conversation, a train was about to depart and the senses returned, the wrong train had been set-up?

A couple of times I was lucky enough to be a guest operator of Stoke, once was at Didcot, not sure of the other exhibition but I got into trouble because I slowed a train down for a chat with the signalman, the main reason was that somebody wanted to photograph the model, but hey ho, a bit of a devil really because I did it again about 10 minutes later. You buy the likes of BRM over the years and see the loco articles and there it is in front of you on the end of your controller, it gives a different perspective, aside from the appearance of the locos they do what it said in the article, certainly showed me what my B'mann A1 could be doing but nowhere near as good as a DJH A1. Also helped out with Biggleswade at Sunderland, the latter had its board problems but would be my preference over SS and just over BM in fact. Like Little Bytham, a lovely bit of station modelling.