C J Freezer's own layout

[Nearholmer]

There have always been those who liked to play the elitism game.

 

Oddly enough, they seldom seem to be people who are themselves genuinely of massive competence or genuinely opening up a new path. The genuinely excellent or innovative seem to have a decent degree of humility and understanding about them.

[Pacific231G]

There have always been those who liked to play the elitism game.

 

Oddly enough, they seldom seem to be people who are themselves genuinely of massive competence or genuinely opening up a new path. The genuinely excellent or innovative seem to have a decent degree of humility and understanding about them.

Or they're people who've developed a particular skill to a very high level and then decide that other skills are of far less importance or value. I have come across people who are genuinely at the top of their field and are very arrogant about it but they're far less common than the pattern you've so accurately described.

[LBRJ]

The main reason, and CJF wrote this many times himself, was that few modellers had enough stock to need a large fiddle yard. When he redrew many of his plans in the 1980s more stock storage was one of the principal changes.

 

I recall reading CJF's typical initial locomotive roster for one of his plans was something like an

060T for shunting 

060 for the freight

and a 460 for the passenger train (no doubt of 3 coaches!)

I bet CJF really meant a Pannier Tank. 45xx and a Hall! Well that's how I interpreted it in my youth and later still an 08, 25 and a Western!!

[RJS1977]

I recall reading CJF's typical initial locomotive roster for one of his plans was something like an

060T for shunting 

060 for the freight

and a 460 for the passenger train (no doubt of 3 coaches!)

I bet CJF really meant a Pannier Tank. 45xx and a Hall! Well that's how I interpreted it in my youth and later still an 08, 25 and a Western!!

 

Which is really how Hornby should be structuring the Railroad range.... (Plus present-day equivalents).

[kevinlms]

I recall reading CJF's typical initial locomotive roster for one of his plans was something like an

060T for shunting 

060 for the freight

and a 460 for the passenger train (no doubt of 3 coaches!)

I bet CJF really meant a Pannier Tank. 45xx and a Hall! Well that's how I interpreted it in my youth and later still an 08, 25 and a Western!!

How horrible!

 

But it is how Tri-ang structured much of their range. The LMS had the Princess, the Jinty and a 3F. Although for some strange reason, the 3F was discontinued quite early - presumably the mould needed rework and sales didn't justify the cost.

[LBRJ]

Which is really how Hornby should be structuring the Railroad range.... (Plus present-day equivalents).

 

It would make a better start to a model railway than buying 34 class 66s in different colours and pretending they can all live together somewhere, that is for sure.

[PatB]

Which is really how Hornby should be structuring the Railroad range.... (Plus present-day equivalents).

Indeed. As far as I can see, the currently catalogued RR range is a bit of a dogs breakfast. However you can almost do something sensible with the 27xx and the County if you can also find an ex-Mainline Dean Goods. Similarly an old-stock Jinty, ex-Airfix 4F and the RR Compound would also provide a fairly coherent start.

 

As for CJF's own layout, there's a branch line roundy-roundy in 60 Plans that he claimed to have built as a scenic test track. His loco recommendation was, IIRC, a 45xx with a B Set, a Pannier or a mogul on freight and either an auto-tank or a diesel railcar to give the bay platform a reason to exist.

[LBRJ]

When Model Railways was turned into the dreadful Your Model Railway (forerunner of a generation of easy reading picture lead bright and shiny magazine lite, without being either) CJF was documenting the build of a layout he called Arteare. I recall that it was (naturally) a GW BLT. to make use of the then new better standard RTR stock.

[kevinlms]

When Model Railways was turned into the dreadful Your Model Railway (forerunner of a generation of easy reading picture lead bright and shiny magazine lite, without being either) CJF was documenting the build of a layout he called Arteare. I recall that it was (naturally) a GW BLT. to make use of the then new better standard RTR stock.

You raise an interesting point about CJF's later layouts.

 

A look back through some issues of Model Railways reveals a track plan for 'Arteare II', (August 1982 Page 497) where he points out the boredom of his previous layout 'Arteare'. Apparently it went to EUFMO 1981 (whatever that was - European exhibition?) and 'they' exhausted its possibilities. after a full weekend.

 

Next mention of his layouts is, MR November 1982 page 387, is that 'some track' had been ripped up', because it wouldn't fit in his study, along with other stuff. Presumably that was Arteare II? So a new layout is started, in a shorter space. This is part 1 of Brill. Its titled a boxed diorama.

 

Part 2 December 1982 Pages 765 - 767, discusses his early days when NOTHING was available. Then a sequence of how to go about actually building a layout. A few general views of his stock.

 

Part 3 January 1983 Pages 22 - 24 Building PCB points

 

Part 4 March 1983 Pages 154 - 155 Power supply & lighting.

 

Part 5 June 1983 Page 353 - Problems with the control panel

 

June is also last issue as editor, for July has Ken Jones, who mentions that CJF has retired.

 

The last mention of 'Brill' is June 1983 and no mention of 'Arteare II', apart from the initial track plan.

 

CJF did some drawings of early GWR locos, in various issues after his retirement, but off topic here.

 

 

The dreaded 'Your Model Railway' change, came about in January 1985, with Dave Lowery as editor, so long after CJF left.

[RJS1977]

You do have to wonder if there was something more behind CJF's retirement. Normally a magazine editor would include something in their editorial to say "This is my last magazine as editor. XYZZY will be taking over. I'm sure he'll do a good job." It's quite unusual to just have a new editor jump in and say "The old editor's retired - I'm in charge now" (or words to that effect). That said, I can't remember whether CJF signed off when he left RM either....

 

Incidentally, while I have a lot of time for Steve Flint as RM's current editor (though I don't necessarily agree with everything he says in his editorials), I've noticed that under his editorship (or possibly the later days of JB's stint), RM has stopped its 'tradition' of acknowledging price increases either in the magazine before the increase or in the first one at the new price. Whilst it's not a 'big' thing, I felt it was something that helped oil the wheels of the relationship between magazine and readership. Not saying that prices shouldn't go up (of course they will) but I think a note along the lines of "Sorry, the cost of printing's going up, from next month the price will be ....."  just helps maintain the feeling that the Editor is a 'friend'.

[kevinlms]

You do have to wonder if there was something more behind CJF's retirement. Normally a magazine editor would include something in their editorial to say "This is my last magazine as editor. XYZZY will be taking over. I'm sure he'll do a good job." It's quite unusual to just have a new editor jump in and say "The old editor's retired - I'm in charge now" (or words to that effect). That said, I can't remember whether CJF signed off when he left RM either....

 

Incidentally, while I have a lot of time for Steve Flint as RM's current editor (though I don't necessarily agree with everything he says in his editorials), I've noticed that under his editorship (or possibly the later days of JB's stint), RM has stopped its 'tradition' of acknowledging price increases either in the magazine before the increase or in the first one at the new price. Whilst it's not a 'big' thing, I felt it was something that helped oil the wheels of the relationship between magazine and readership. Not saying that prices shouldn't go up (of course they will) but I think a note along the lines of "Sorry, the cost of printing's going up, from next month the price will be ....."  just helps maintain the feeling that the Editor is a 'friend'.

Yes he did 'sign off' in RM March 1978 page 96.

 

Don't know about leaving MR, but there were several drawings of early GWR locomotives appearing after his retirement, so that tends to suggest there was some form of continuation.

 

Not sure apologising for a price rise makes a lot of difference, fact of life that inflation continues.

 

Editorials are surely meant to raise a bit of controversy? So why would you want to agree with everything? Editors control everything that goes to print, unlike a forum such as RMweb, where everyone gets to say their piece, directly.

[bécasse]

Cyril told me that he was "sacked" from the editorial chair at MR because the parent board wanted a change of direction and that meant that a new editor was required. Not the first time that that had happened there, of course, John Brewer having suffered the same fate many years earlier.

 

I do wonder whether Cyril was actually an employee at either Seaton or Hemel Hempstead, rather than being a self-employed "contractor", not an unusual arrangement for journalists as it left them free to write on the side. Certainly, John Brewer was never a Peco employee in all the long time that he edited the Railway Modeller.

[Pacific231G]

Cyril told me that he was "sacked" from the editorial chair at MR because the parent board wanted a change of direction and that meant that a new editor was required. Not the first time that that had happened there, of course, John Brewer having suffered the same fate many years earlier.

 

I do wonder whether Cyril was actually an employee at either Seaton or Hemel Hempstead, rather than being a self-employed "contractor", not an unusual arrangement for journalists as it left them free to write on the side. Certainly, John Brewer was never a Peco employee in all the long time that he edited the Railway Modeller.

Depending on his contract, being employed by Peco wouldn't necessarily have prevented him from writing elsewhere but full time staff contracts were probably far more the norm for editors in those days; the various books he wrote for them while editor such as "A Home for Your Railway" are copyright Peco whereas Buckingham Great Central and Narrow Gauge Adventure are the copyright of Peter Denny and P.D.Hancock respecitvely. If Freezer had been a freelance editor of RM then I'd have expected any additonal work to be contracted separately as an author.

 

Looking at his later plan books, Freezer seems to have been fairly scrupulous about not recycling the plans he drew for RM though Minories does re-appear in a couple of his books for PSL to illustrate wiring and operation . If he had been an employee of Peco and those drawings formed part of his duties for them* then copyright might well have remained with Peco but this may also have been a point of honour. Other plans he drew up at that time, such as Dugdale Road for Nick Freezer, do reappear in his later books but I don't think that was ever published in RM.

 

* I was once pleasantly surprised to be paid by the BBC for some articles I wrote for their staff magazine. Even though I was a BBC staffer at the time, the articles weren't part of my work as a programme maker and I was free to write for others as well. Some employers do though try to claim ownership of any intellectual property their employees may create even when it's not part of their job. 

[Pacific231G]

Cyril told me that he was "sacked" from the editorial chair at MR because the parent board wanted a change of direction and that meant that a new editor was required. Not the first time that that had happened there, of course, John Brewer having suffered the same fate many years earlier.

 

I do wonder whether Cyril was actually an employee at either Seaton or Hemel Hempstead, rather than being a self-employed "contractor", not an unusual arrangement for journalists as it left them free to write on the side. Certainly, John Brewer was never a Peco employee in all the long time that he edited the Railway Modeller.

A small update on this. I have just looked again at a small book in my library "Railway Modelling" by C.J. Freezer first published by Arco in 1961 though mine is the Arco Mayflower "Handybook" published in 1969. This was definitely while he was still editor of Railway Modeller though the only reference to that is a note to contact him about local clubs c/o Railway Modeller. Clearly therefore his employment contract with Peco didn't exclude other writing. Some of the photos in the book (but not the track plans) had also appeared in RM but as the whole book is © Cyril Freezer 1961 I assume they were taken by him. Though only 150 pages long it's actually a very good practical introduction to the hobby though from a time when fibre based track was more common than  the "new" injection moulded plastic. His advice on joining and running Model Railway Clubs still looks very valid!! 

[LBRJ]

You raise an interesting point about CJF's later layouts.

 

A look back through some issues of Model Railways reveals a track plan for 'Arteare II', (August 1982 Page 497) where he points out the boredom of his previous layout 'Arteare'. Apparently it went to EUFMO 1981 (whatever that was - European exhibition?) and 'they' exhausted its possibilities. after a full weekend.

 

Next mention of his layouts is, MR November 1982 page 387, is that 'some track' had been ripped up', because it wouldn't fit in his study, along with other stuff. Presumably that was Arteare II? So a new layout is started, in a shorter space. This is part 1 of Brill. Its titled a boxed diorama.

 

Part 2 December 1982 Pages 765 - 767, discusses his early days when NOTHING was available. Then a sequence of how to go about actually building a layout. A few general views of his stock.

 

Part 3 January 1983 Pages 22 - 24 Building PCB points

 

Part 4 March 1983 Pages 154 - 155 Power supply & lighting.

 

Part 5 June 1983 Page 353 - Problems with the control panel

 

June is also last issue as editor, for July has Ken Jones, who mentions that CJF has retired.

 

The last mention of 'Brill' is June 1983 and no mention of 'Arteare II', apart from the initial track plan.

 

CJF did some drawings of early GWR locos, in various issues after his retirement, but off topic here.

 

 

The dreaded 'Your Model Railway' change, came about in January 1985, with Dave Lowery as editor, so long after CJF left.

 

 

Sorry and thanks for the corrections. It was indeed the editor Ken Jones who lead the start of the charge down the slope that ended in the disaster that was YMR.

To think they went from the sort of interesting writings of Rice, Barlow ,Rowe, Brent, Sharman etc etc etc  Layouts featured such as Luton Hoo, Gransmoor Castle, ESLR. HighDyke Axford to the sort of  "Build your own crap layout for a £100" in a couple of short years

 

Two good things did come with the mega dumbing down though...... 

The birth of MRJ

and YMR did feature the forever fabulous Rosladen to Trengenver

[luckymucklebackit]

Depending on his contract, being employed by Peco wouldn't necessarily have prevented him from writing elsewhere but full time staff contracts were probably far more the norm for editors in those days; the various books he wrote for them while editor such as "A Home for Your Railway" are copyright Peco whereas Buckingham Great Central and Narrow Gauge Adventure are the copyright of Peter Denny and P.D.Hancock respecitvely. If Freezer had been a freelance editor of RM then I'd have expected any additonal work to be contracted separately as an author.

 

Looking at his later plan books, Freezer seems to have been fairly scrupulous about not recycling the plans he drew for RM though Minories does re-appear in a couple of his books for PSL to illustrate wiring and operation . If he had been an employee of Peco and those drawings formed part of his duties for them* then copyright might well have remained with Peco but this may also have been a point of honour. Other plans he drew up at that time, such as Dugdale Road for Nick Freezer, do reappear in his later books but I don't think that was ever published in RM.

 

* I was once pleasantly surprised to be paid by the BBC for some articles I wrote for their staff magazine. Even though I was a BBC staffer at the time, the articles weren't part of my work as a programme maker and I was free to write for others as well. Some employers do though try to claim ownership of any intellectual property their employees may create even when it's not part of their job. 

 

Was Minories not an already established type of layout before it appeared in the RM?  That would allow him to continue to comment and develop the theme.

 

Jim

[JohnR]

Was Minories not an already established type of layout before it appeared in the RM?  That would allow him to continue to comment and develop the theme.

 

Jim

 

No, was its first appearance not as "Plan of the Month" designed to utilise the new Triang TT Jinty and suburban coaches?

[Nearholmer]

From what I can work out, Minories was genuinely innovative.

 

The nearest antecedent that I can find for a busy terminus linked directly to a FY is the one that 231G mentioned yesterday in another thread ".....would definitely include Bill Banwell who, with Frank Applegate built Maybank while they were still teenagers. This O gauge main-line Great Central terminus, built in 1932,......".

 

Maybank was rather more complicated than Minories, and had a loco depot, accessed via an incline, over the FY, but it possibly sowed a seed, which germinated when CJF was waiting for a train at Liverpool Street(Met).

[bécasse]

From what I can work out, Minories was genuinely innovative.

 

The nearest antecedent that I can find for a busy terminus linked directly to a FY is the one that 231G mentioned yesterday in another thread ".....would definitely include Bill Banwell who, with Frank Applegate built Maybank while they were still teenagers. This O gauge main-line Great Central terminus, built in 1932,......".

 

Maybank was rather more complicated than Minories, and had a loco depot, accessed via an incline, over the FY, but it possibly sowed a seed, which germinated when CJF was waiting for a train at Liverpool Street(Met).

 

There were actually three prototype terminals within a mile which used the Minories rationale, Liverpool Street (Met), Mooorgate (Widened Lines) and Liverpool Street (West Side), and I suspect that they all influenced the development of Cyril's brainwave, certainly the other two (and especially West Side which was a sight to behold at peak hours) encompassed more activity than Liverpool Street (Met) with its single bay platform. Aldgate, in the same square mile, might well have been a fourth terminus of the same genre, shoehorned in along one side of the triangle, but I can't now remember now whether any Met loco-hauled trains were handled there or whether they all reversed at Liverpool Street.

[luckymucklebackit]

OK - I withdraw my previous suggestion on the basis of below (and other word meaning sites), 

 

Minories (disambiguation)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

Minories is a street in Central London and former civil parish also known as Holy Trinity Minories

Minories may also refer to:

• Church of Holy Trinity, Minories, a former church in London
• Minories railway station, western terminus of the London and Blackwall Railway,
• The Minories, Colchester, a listed building and art gallery in Colchester
• Minories (model railway), a famous design of model railway by C.J. Freezer

 

 

Jim

[JohnR]

From what I can work out, Minories was genuinely innovative.

 

The nearest antecedent that I can find for a busy terminus linked directly to a FY is the one that 231G mentioned yesterday in another thread ".....would definitely include Bill Banwell who, with Frank Applegate built Maybank while they were still teenagers. This O gauge main-line Great Central terminus, built in 1932,......".

 

Maybank was rather more complicated than Minories, and had a loco depot, accessed via an incline, over the FY, but it possibly sowed a seed, which germinated when CJF was waiting for a train at Liverpool Street(Met).

 

CJF certainly acknowledged the history of Maybank, and indeed some of his plans owe more than a little to it. However, Minories was more designed with simplicity in mind, yet with the ability for an intensive service to be run. 

[Nearholmer]

Becasse

 

And Broad Street, and Fenchurch Street. He did specifically cite LSt(Met) though.

 

K

[Pteremy]

I may have missed it in speed reading this thread but didn't CJF first use the phrase 'the art of compromise'?? If so then that is perhaps his greatest legacy, as it sums up what unites 'railway modellers' are about, even though we all chose to strike the compromise in different places. 

[ejstubbs]

I thought that was Roy Link?  Or perhaps he just borrowed CJF's phrase for the name of his layout, which first appeared in Railway Modeller in October 1978.

[Pacific231G]

From what I can work out, Minories was genuinely innovative.

 

The nearest antecedent that I can find for a busy terminus linked directly to a FY is the one that 231G mentioned yesterday in another thread ".....would definitely include Bill Banwell who, with Frank Applegate built Maybank while they were still teenagers. This O gauge main-line Great Central terminus, built in 1932,......".

 

Maybank was rather more complicated than Minories, and had a loco depot, accessed via an incline, over the FY, but it possibly sowed a seed, which germinated when CJF was waiting for a train at Liverpool Street(Met).

This was Maybank at its first public appearance in 1932 at a small local show (probably a hobby rather than a model railway exhibition) in a church hall in Wealdstone. Note the MRC badges sported by Bill Banwell and Frank Applegate

The following year it appeared at the MRC Easter show at Central Hall, now with signals but without the high level goods sidings and by its fifth appearance there in 1937 Bill and Frank looked rather more relaxed.

This was the trackplan as published in a description of the layout in MRN in August 1934.

The four main baseboards, each six foot by two foot were 1/4 inch ply braced with 2x1 timber as presumably was the seven foot by two foot board holding the motorised sector plate traverser and the removable board mounted above it for the loco shed.

 

According to Bill Banwell they came up with the idea of a terminus to hidden sidings simply because they didn't have room for the then normal continuous run. The layout lived in a thirty two foot long shed that had been converted from a ladder rack when Bill's builder father was forced to retire early for health reasons. The fact that it was run regularly as a home layout explained why it actually worked reliably when exhibited. Maybank appeared as a major attraction almost every year at Central Hall until the war and was apparently a real show stopper. Cyril Freezer said that he "was just old enough to remember it in its final guise" and described it as "the first of the moderns" (Railway Modeller May 1959 1969 Homage to Maybank) Building such a ground breaking layout it in a year or so was an extraordinary feat for two teenage modellers. Looking through pre-war MRNs and MRCs I could only find one other example of hidden sidings and that was rather later than Maybank so I think Bill and Frank really may have invented them.

 

Cyril Freezer's comments are rather pleasant "This was the first time I had seen a properly laid out model working to timetable and spent a great deal of time happily admiring the railway, little realising that in due course both its builders were to become good friends"

 

One curious aside is that in its later appearances, when Cyril Freezer saw it, Maybank was being exhibited with a return loop to replace the traverser and in his original Minories article Freezer did suggest that as a method of operating the terminus. That would make sense as arguably one tank loco hauling a departing suburban train is much the same as another tank loco hauling an arriving suburban train.