Wright writes.....

[jrg1]

The first two photographs are full of interest for me, the third is dull, dull, dull.  No atmosphere, could be just about anywhere, and a depressing same old same old look about it.  Modelling the catenary would be a challenge, but evoking the atmosphere as the model LB does is far more of an achievement.

[micklner]

First two photos of LB are of a Railway. The third is just a plank of wood with a Train sitting with some wire and overgrown weeds thereon . Zero character and could be anywhere in the UK  that might run they particular Train. How sad. I see no attraction to the 1940's war period everything bombed out and knackered.

[Headstock]

I think you're all being a bit harsh on photo three. Admittedly the A4's are not as pretty as the A1's or A3's, but they could motor back in the day.

[Reorte]

The first two photographs are full of interest for me, the third is dull, dull, dull.  No atmosphere, could be just about anywhere, and a depressing same old same old look about it.  Modelling the catenary would be a challenge, but evoking the atmosphere as the model LB does is far more of an achievement.

That's how I feel about an awful lot of the world in general, not just the railways. Even the weather is sunnier in the old colour photo! (can't tell what it was like on the first one though). Whilst I'm glad that various things from the past stayed there too it often feels like we threw the baby out with the bathwater when we got rid of them.

 

Have to say though that against all my principles I wouldn't mind attempting to model catenary and build working automatic signals, getting it all up and looking right might be rather satisfying.

[bike2steam]

I believe that such things continued for many years and that there were problems between Bullied and his civil engineer though the Bullied Pacifics were as far as I know superbly balanced with very little hammer blow compared to some other locos.

 

Jamie

In theory - yes, but in practise things could be a lot different.

[Clive Mortimore]

Reading everyone's comments on the three photos of Little Bytham Tony shared with us makes me think you all want to go back to a pre digital, no a pre television age, you could only afford a secondhand bike and where you doff your cap to your elders and betters and were thankful for that. Come on guys, yes a models of a bygone age are great but to want to live in the past, life has moved on so you afford a model railway, you can discuss issues about toy trains over great distances and get an instant response. Likewise railways have moved on and provide a different service than in times gone by.

Edited May 18, 2016 by Clive Mortimore

[APOLLO]

Time certainly has moved on, but not everything is better.

 

I went by train to Ian Allan's half price closing down sale in Manchester by train yesterday. A swish Glasgow to Manchester EMU whisked me from Wigan NW to Manchester Piccadilly (via Golborne & Chat Moss) in 31 minutes. Back around 1964 Jubilee "Mars" took me from Manchester Victoria to Wigan Wallgate non stop in 17 minutes direct via Atherton. - Progress ?.

 

On a ECML note, I bought the two Irwell books "The book of the Great Northern" Vol 1 & 2. both at half price I've not read them yet - they are laid up for Xmas !!!

 

Brit15

[chris p bacon]

On a ECML note, I bought the two Irwell books "The book of the Great Northern" Vol 1 & 2. both at half price I've not read them yet - they are laid up for Xmas !!!

 

Brit15

I'll see if I can find a note of all the corrections for you.

[Reorte]

Reading everyone's comments on the three photos of Little Bytham Tony shared with us makes me think you all want to go back to a pre digital, no a pre television age, you could only afford a secondhand bike and where you doff your cap to your elders and betters and were thankful for that. Come on guys, yes a models of a bygone age are great but to want to live in the past, life has moved on so you afford a model railway, you can discuss issues about toy trains over great distances and get an instant response. Likewise railways have moved on and provide a different service than in times gone by.

I doubt that any particular past time is anyone's idea of perfection but neither is now, nor does the future look like being. Some things have changed for the better, some for the worse, and the only person who can say whether it's a net improvement for someone is that person (the same being true for what even is an improvement and what isn't).

[APOLLO]

I'll see if I can find a note of all the corrections for you.

 

I only looks at the pictures !!!!!!

 

Brit15

[46256]

Getting reacquainted with a peak loco on Saturday at the Severn Valley. My mates and I were completely indifferent to them , they were on most of the express trains we either saw or travelled on. We mourned the passing of steam...what we failed to realise was how much of the steam age infrastructure was still in place in the late sixties and early seventies..

[chris p bacon]

I only looks at the pictures !!!!!!

 

Brit15

Then you'll certainly need them 

[t-b-g]

Reading everyone's comments on the three photos of Little Bytham Tony shared with us makes me think you all want to go back to a pre digital, no a pre television age, you could only afford a secondhand bike and where you doff your cap to your elders and betters and were thankful for that. Come on guys, yes a models of a bygone age are great but to want to live in the past, life has moved on so you afford a model railway, you can discuss issues about toy trains over great distances and get an instant response. Likewise railways have moved on and provide a different service than in times gone by.

 

Yet looking at your own layout threads, I see lots of very nicely modelled 1960s green diesels. Isn't that nearer the 1950s than the present day?

 

I have read through the thread and can't find a single mention of anybody actually wishing that they still lived in the past. I model pre WW1 GCR but I certainly wouldn't want to get myself there by time machine.

 

All we want to do is to build our model railways set in a period of our choice, when we think that they were more interesting and attractive.

Edited May 18, 2016 by t-b-g

[APOLLO]

It's the "steam age" infrastructure I miss on today's railways. Sidings, (sans weeds & trees) and full of stock, signal boxes, line side huts, motive power depots (Springs Branch especially) and a myriad other bits n bobs.

 

Coming home yesterday I noticed there is a lot of work going on around the proposed Salford Chord area,(seems work has started on it) and the former 4 track line towards Victoria over the curved viaduct is now 2 track with masts stuck into the outer 2 track formation, not onto the outside of it  - looks very odd to me. I came home via Bolton to see the new tunnel at Farnworth.. Yes, alot of investment (at last) 'oop north - but the modern (2016) railway somehow doesn't quite "cut it" for me, and hasn't done since the named 86's & 87's stopped whizzing past my house.

 

Brit15

[Tony Wright]

G'day Gents

 

Did LB change that much between 1937 and 1957, a few signals and maybe a coat of paint ???????

 

manna (AKA Terry)

Terry,

 

Not a lot.

 

Pre-war some of the signals were somersaults. ER blue enamel running-in boards were put up by BR, though no 'sausages' as far as my pictures show. The station remained gas-lit on the platforms, with 'Little Bytham' at the top of the lamps.

 

 

 

This shot was taken at some point in the mid-'50s, and appears to show the footprint of another building. However, this doesn't appear on any of the pictures we have, nor on the drawings. It'll be great to see Bob Dawson's buildings in place.

 

 

The completed station can then play host to scenes such as this. Graeme King kindly gave me one of his resin J6s to try out. I think Graeme's made a better job of his own ones, because this is a bit 'pimply' round the edges. I should have been more diligent in cleaning it up. I believe a resin chassis is made for it. I just made a brass one, much preferring that medium. I'll have to sort out the respective ride-heights, though, and fit a 36E shedplate.

 

 

Shunting the yard, she looks just fine. Thanks Graeme.

 

 

The weathering on the J6 was completed yesterday, as was the weathering on this Heljan 'conversion' of an O2/3 into an O2/2. Both were weathered by my usual dry-brush technique, of which I'm quite pleased. I was given an O2/2 cab by Heljan and fitted it to a 'dud' O2/3. It was only dud because someone had damaged the wiring and the circuit board in the tender. Strictly-speaking, the central footplate should be lower, though I did make a new bufferbeam for it, and a Nu-Cast GNR tender. It, too, needs a Retford plate. I await Heljan's complete O2/2 with interest. 

 

Yesterday, Paul Marshal Potter and Brian Kirby came to run the railway. 

 

 

 

Bringing with them goodies like these, which they've modified. Paul took two Bachmann Panniers and turned them into something special, as did Brian with the Hornby Crosti. 

 

Gentlemen, thank you for a most stimulating day. 

Edited May 18, 2016 by Tony Wright

[Reorte]

Talking about infrastructure although I'm no fan of how it all looks these days one thing that has changed is that it no longer feels like the railway is, well, quite honestly, dying. I was born in the 70s so my early memories of it are a bit later than most others posting here (I guess!), and whilst I remember it being more interesting, and having more personality and character, it also felt like it didn't have much of a future a lot of the time.

[Tony Wright]

Reading everyone's comments on the three photos of Little Bytham Tony shared with us makes me think you all want to go back to a pre digital, no a pre television age, you could only afford a secondhand bike and where you doff your cap to your elders and betters and were thankful for that. Come on guys, yes a models of a bygone age are great but to want to live in the past, life has moved on so you afford a model railway, you can discuss issues about toy trains over great distances and get an instant response. Likewise railways have moved on and provide a different service than in times gone by.

Clive,

 

I don't think anyone has suggested that they want to live in the past, merely that they wish to recreate railway scenes, in model form, from the past. Surely, nobody can deny that railways, particularly steam railways, or steam diesel transition railways were far more interesting than they are today, at least to the enthusiast.

 

May I give you an example, and it's not from my youth? I trained as a teacher in Ormskirk, and travelled regularly, via Liverpool, to my then home in Chester by train - electric into Exchange, thence on foot to James Street and change at Rock Ferry on to a DMU. I saw the Bank Hall Jubs (admittedly dead), and watched the last steam-hauled expresses in the land on their journey between Exchange and Preston. Birkenhead shed still had steam, and there were still loads of L&NWR lower-quadrant signals at Hooton; they were still there when I travelled daily to Birkenhead as a teacher. Chester still had masses of semaphore signals, plus the massive 'boxes to operate them and a myriad of lines everywhere. Even as late as 1984 (when I last took pictures at Chester), there must have been at least a dozen different diesel classes, locomotive-hauled passenger trains, holiday extras, plus many different DMU types. Today, Chester is a railway 'desert'. Most of the complex trackwork has gone, the Western wing is redundant, scenes once easily photographed are now invisible behind tall trees, and what of the trains? Liveries designed as a competition for children and a sea of mediocrity to me. Where once a Semi, EE Type 4 or Brush Type 4 headed for the N.Wales coast on 12 bogies, or a Stanier 5 went to Llandudno with a club car in its train, there are Voyagers or even those ghastly Pacers. 

 

In compiling the Deltic book, I've come across pictures I took 40+ years ago, with small boys eagerly taking rubbings of the nameplates at Doncaster. Real (and future) enthusiasts.

 

Of course, I have no wish to return to a stone-cold lavatory seat of a morning, ice on the inside of the ill-fitting sash windows of my bedroom (remember the winter of 1963?) and my Dad's car always needing fiddling with. However, I'll make railway models of what I remember from that time, but don't ask me (or anyone else) to get excited about making railway models of what they see today. And, don't you make (rather nice) models of green diesels? That livery had started to disappear in the '60s.  

[46256]

One thing I wouldn't want to experience again from the past , the tobacco filled rooms..carriages...buses ...pubs....apologies to those addicted to the weed...

[APOLLO]

I agree Reorte most change these last couple of years has been positive. I noticed the jungle at Springs Branch (the old shed outlet) has been completely cleared of trees recently, I must go and take a look / few photos. Also Springs Branch depot is now some sort of rail training centre. There is a resident red 08 shunter which seems recently repainted a bright red, and quite a few tatty wagons MPV's etc. It's now classed as a LIP (locomotive inspection point ?) - but there is only ever the one loco to inspect, I wonder what goes on there now ?.

 

Network Rail has been busy felling trees along the WCML past my house - they even put a letter through my postbox informing me of the work - and held a meeting in a nearby church hall to discuss any local line side resident's questions. It's a lot better line side now.

 

Brit15

[APOLLO]

Nice Liverpool memories there Tony.

 

I also remember Liverpool Exchange & James St as I used them to attend training courses at Hind St gas works, Birkenhead (behind Central Station) back around 1971.

 

The run into Exchange from Kirkdale was always a very interesting bit of line. An elevated 4 track line with branches off to the docks, and the vast Cheshire Lines Huskisson goods depot still extant and in use back then. Industry & railway infrastructure everywhere, though admittedly most was old & worn out. What an interesting subject for a model railway it would be.

 

James St was a memorable station, at a deep level, accessed by 2 big passenger lifts or by a very long sloping pedestrian tunnel. It had a peculiar smell of ozone and grot !!. I liked the illuminated train describer, and remember the ex LMS electrics grinding up the steep grade from under the river into the station.

 

If I had time I would walk down to the pier head and catch the ferry across to Woodside, though it was a bit of a walk from there to the gas works - a bus a train and a ship to work - not many have done that !!.

 

Brit15

Edited May 18, 2016 by APOLLO

[Clive Mortimore]

Clive,

 

I don't think anyone has suggested that they want to live in the past, merely that they wish to recreate railway scenes, in model form, from the past. Surely, nobody can deny that railways, particularly steam railways, or steam diesel transition railways were far more interesting than they are today, at least to the enthusiast.

 

May I give you an example, and it's not from my youth? I trained as a teacher in Ormskirk, and travelled regularly, via Liverpool, to my then home in Chester by train - electric into Exchange, thence on foot to James Street and change at Rock Ferry on to a DMU. I saw the Bank Hall Jubs (admittedly dead), and watched the last steam-hauled expresses in the land on their journey between Exchange and Preston. Birkenhead shed still had steam, and there were still loads of L&NWR lower-quadrant signals at Hooton; they were still there when I travelled daily to Birkenhead as a teacher. Chester still had masses of semaphore signals, plus the massive 'boxes to operate them and a myriad of lines everywhere. Even as late as 1984 (when I last took pictures at Chester), there must have been at least a dozen different diesel classes, locomotive-hauled passenger trains, holiday extras, plus many different DMU types. Today, Chester is a railway 'desert'. Most of the complex trackwork has gone, the Western wing is redundant, scenes once easily photographed are now invisible behind tall trees, and what of the trains? Liveries designed as a competition for children and a sea of mediocrity to me. Where once a Semi, EE Type 4 or Brush Type 4 headed for the N.Wales coast on 12 bogies, or a Stanier 5 went to Llandudno with a club car in its train, there are Voyagers or even those ghastly Pacers. 

 

In compiling the Deltic book, I've come across pictures I took 40+ years ago, with small boys eagerly taking rubbings of the nameplates at Doncaster. Real (and future) enthusiasts.

 

Of course, I have no wish to return to a stone-cold lavatory seat of a morning, ice on the inside of the ill-fitting sash windows of my bedroom (remember the winter of 1963?) and my Dad's car always needing fiddling with. However, I'll make railway models of what I remember from that time, but don't ask me (or anyone else) to get excited about making railway models of what they see today. And, don't you make (rather nice) models of green diesels? That livery had started to disappear in the '60s.  

Hi Tony

 

I think what I am trying to get across, modelling historic layouts is wonderful but perhaps we should not be comparing the past with today as the railway has changed to meet differing requirements.

 

Isn't the enthusiast view on the railway, especially that of the past a romantic one? I am just old enough to remember holidays in North Wales and seeing Black Fives going hell for leather on passenger trains and Winston Churchill thundering through Farnborough station when visiting my nan. I don't think things were helped by the writings of the time by mainly middle class enthusiast who didn't have to rake out an ash pan form inside the pit. Yes there was more activity and greater variety of locomotives and stock than today, plus there were the country stations that saw a couple of stopping trains and may be a trip freight each day which were all added to the memory banks. Trouble is our memory is great for us when thinking of happy times which we do when model making, it is supposed to be enjoyable but it can blank out the worst aspects.

 

I have vivid memories when I was a young boy of standing in the corridor of an over crowded and dirty train hauled by a steam locomotive that seemed to stop in the middle of nowhere every few minutes. I now travel mainly by car on over crowded roads. And I remember crossing Goldington Green in 1963, when the snow went over the tops of my wellies and school uniform was shorts.

 

As for my modelling, I am a historic modeller and a D&E modeller at the same time. In fact the time difference between our respective modelling periods is only 8 years maximum. Thank you for you nice comment about the diesel models.

[Reorte]

I have vivid memories when I was a young boy of standing in the corridor of an over crowded and dirty train hauled by a steam locomotive that seemed to stop in the middle of nowhere every few minutes.

So what you're saying is that apart from the steam part nothing's changed?

[Brian Kirby]

Hi Tony,

     We certainly had some good fun playing trains on Tuesday, and a jolly good natter (I can natter for England, one of my many faults), many thanks for being a fine host. Thanks also for re-producing your new photo of my Hornby Crosti pulling one of your coal trains. Awhile back on the RMweb Crosti review thread, I received some stick over the weathering, suggesting i'd over-egged it with the white staining. That was down to my ignorance of camera settings, and the white was being over-emphasised. I nearly gave it another fine spray of black, but it looked okay to me in the flesh, Tony's superior photograph shows it as it is.

   Paul's panniers look good, I like the way he has neatly removed the top feed. I do love the fine handbuilt trackwork on LB's scenic section, some of the best 'OO' track you'll ever see. More of Tony's photos will hopefully follow, including my naughty half-built diesel train, that was on a shake-down test run, which de-railed and unfortunately clouted one of Little Bytham's ground discs. Whoops!

                                      Cheers, Brian.

[St Enodoc]

a bus a train and a ship to work - not many have done that !!.

Many people do exactly that in Sydney - for example, folk from the Northern Beaches can catch a bus to Manly, the ferry to Circular Quay then a train to other bits of the city centre. In a few years' time, that last bit will be by tram!

[DougN]

Many people do exactly that in Sydney - for example, folk from the Northern Beaches can catch a bus to Manly, the ferry to Circular Quay then a train to other bits of the city centre. In a few years' time, that last bit will be by tram!

Yeah typical. Sydney just wants to match Melbourne   we have ferry's, trains, trams, buses...but mostly single occupant cars