What happens to all the 'layouts of a lifetime'?

[fender]

I was just watching a couple of old BRM DVDs and it got me wondering, what the fate is of these epic permanent layouts once the owners pass on?

 

I know that Pendon was turned into a museum, some portable layouts are bought and sold, and that some are 'owned' by a group of people, but there must be a great many single-owner layouts out there that will simply get broken up.

 

When you compare our hobby to most others, it's a little cruel. Someone into boats, cars, painting, music, or almost anything else, would know that the fruits of their hobby can be given away or sold on, but not so the permanent layout. Or am I wrong?

[jwealleans]

The late Ron Rising donated his layout to the National Trust at Ormesby Hall where it continues to be enjoyed by hundreds of visitors each year.

[The Stationmaster]

'Holiday Haunts' is in Bill McAlpine's private museum near Henley.

[MarkSG]

I've often thought that, if I ever manage to become a multi-millionaire, I'd like to establish a museum of railway modelling that could provide a home for retired classic layouts. There are practical problems, of course, in relocating layouts that were previously permanent fixtures in a room, so not everything would be suitable. But it can be done; the re-homing of Buckingham Great Central following the death of Peter Denny demonstrates that. I just wish we could have saved Craig and Mertonford for posterity, too. 

[kevinlms]

The late Ron Rising donated his layout to the National Trust at Ormesby Hall where it continues to be enjoyed by hundreds of visitors each year.

It has to be remembered that any such donation needs to be arranged well in advance. It must be rare that any large physical donation made is acceptable to the recipient, if it comes out of the blue.

Also an agreement has to be made as to what happens to the donation, if circumstances change & it is no longer required for any reason. Think of Jack Nelson & his dioramas.

[298]

Having seen a couple of "Classic" layouts that have been preserved for future use, I'd say it might have been better to put them out of their misery, especially thinking about the modifications needed to continually operate them & therefore justify their existence. Apart from the issue of certain aspects only having a finite life due to colours fading, glued surfaces deteorating over time, or even the control systems becoming obsolete and difficult to repair, the new custodians might not have the skills of the original builder to deal with the inevitable issues.

 

I can see layouts being treated a bit like old cars, some can be kept in museums, others can be run in anger, but most are really only fit for the scrap heap. It is easy to celebrate someone's work, but most modern manufacturing standards mean the average modeller can build a layout that on the whole is 90% as good as the classics that ought to be saved, but the other 10% can never be regained as it is unique to the creator.

[HillsideDepot]

Someone into boats, cars, painting, music, or almost anything else, would know that the fruits of their hobby can be given away or sold on..

 

Even that, sadly, isn't true. Besides railways, I have an interest in buses - boo, hiss (yeah, I know) - and certainly here vehicles get scrapped when they can no longer be looked after by their owners. It hasn't happened much, yet, on the railway side, but I think that is sadly "yet". As for layouts, they'll probably die with us.

 

But many of us build them as historic retreats to recapture a lost age, even if that was "last week's" franchise operator, but history none the less. So the era has passed, the layout will. Yes there are classic layouts, but photos, videos and so on can, and hopefully do inspire the next generation.

 

 

 

 

[chaz]

 

 

I can see layouts being treated a bit like old cars, some can be kept in museums,

 

I think it might be better to think of a model railway as like a stage set or a film set. It's a background for some action, and when the director has finished with it it has to be discarded to make room for other stuff. But you can certainly think of the rolling stock as like old cars - it would be heart-breaking to see some of the beautiful hand built models of locomotives that exist being lobbed into a skip. The tracks that they ran on are another matter and we just have to face the fact that it's just not practical to save them all.

 

Chaz

[pete_mcfarlane]

 It is easy to celebrate someone's work, but most modern manufacturing standards mean the average modeller can build a layout that on the whole is 90% as good as the classics that ought to be saved, but the other 10% can never be regained as it is unique to the creator.

I'm not sure I'd agree wit that point of view. Take Buckingham as an example - having seen part of it a couple of times at exhibitions, it's technically crude by modern standards and yet it looks far more like a real railway than almost every layout you'll see in a magazine these days. A lot of what makes classic layouts good wasn't the technical skills of the builders but their understanding of how a real railway worked. 

 

But I've also seen Borchester Market at a recent exhibition and wasn't too impressed, mainly because it was being operated entirely using modern RTR stock. The original stock was a careful selection of types that would be seen on a ER secondary line in the Newark/Grantham/Nottingham area, but it now looked like yet another generic RTR Eastern Region layout but with slightly cruder scenery.

[Jaz]

I believe the bigger problem is, we love the old and usually lost, and value it for what it was. Yet the here and now is throw away. We believe it dates faster than stale bread, and want the newest flashiest replacement. And at a later date it will be lost and the dated technology with it, because we fail to value it while it is here still in use, but getting shabby and unloved.

The problem is finding someone who has somewhere to house it until it is no longer in vogue but has reached 'happier days' status. Some of the smaller exhibitions that are being pushed out, are just the thing to preserve with an odd train to match and maybe even a no longer loved controller. And maybe a copy of a magazine they were shown in. 

How much would you pay for a 1950/60s matchbox toy still kept in nice condition in its original box? How many old layouts do exist?

 

Big trouble is in the old days your 'rubbish' could go in the loft. Unfortunately we invariably use ours, and its the last dry rust free port of call before the bin!

[Dunsignalling]

Many of the classic layouts of the past incorporated ingenious d.i.y methods and (often unlikely) materials to achieve results that were well ahead of the 'average' model railways of their time.

 

The mechanical/electrical and scenic aspects can nowadays be equalled by almost anyone using off-the shelf components and moderate skills/knowledge/practice, so what else makes them so special? I shall use Buckingham as my example as it is better known than most.

 

Buckingham is not a model of a prototype station but it represents the distilled essence of what a typical Great Central station was like in 1907.

 

The way that features and operating methods from a number of locations are seamlessly combined makes it more than the sum of its parts and it fits into the sort of space that one might at least dream of laying hands on.

 

It was built to be used whenever its owner felt like it, either alone or with a few like-minded friends. The viewer can imagine (with varying degrees of realism) creating such a layout himself. The thought of building a 50-foot super-diorama modelled closely upon the real thing would (rightly) intimidate most individuals and that of acquiring sufficient space to leave such a model set up permanently all the more so.

 

Building a 'Buckingham' is not a 'one-shot' process; there will be many modifications and (sometimes extensive) rebuilds throughout its lifespan with each new phase incorporating knowledge and skills learned since the previous one.

 

This parallels the gradual development of a prototype railway. It requires all the abilities needed to research and reproduce a real station in model form, plus a real feeling for ones chosen railway that transcends facts and figures.

 

Layouts like Buckingham have advanced our hobby over the years in a similar way that prototype engineers influenced developments on the real thing. Should they be preserved in the same way?

 

Why not, but the big questions are (as on the prototype): How and Where?

 

John

[jamie92208]

I think that the answer to the OP is that it depends entirely on the circumstrances in which the owner/builder passes away.  The lsate David Jemkinson's last layout was Kerndal castele which incouded his earlier Marthwhite.  It was bui;t in a purpose built shed in his garden that also housed the stock for his Gauge 1 garden layout.  It was designed to be operated  by a team to a timetable and the stock was purpose built to suit the timetable.   The house was in a country village with poor public trasnport.

 

 

When he died his wife didn;t drive so needed to sell up and move.   The layout was a permanent fixture and couldn't be taken up and moved so the team that had helped build it took it apart nd pacelled the stock up inot lots tht could be sold at Christies, for whom David was an advisor.  The remainder of the studff such as scenery, track etc was mainly sold on the Wakefield Club Exhibition second hand stall and disposed of among friends of the team.  I'm fortunatge enough to ahve been able to buy some of the stuff and it's nice that some of the track is now part of Lancaster Green Ayre.   The station name boards from Kendal Castle now read Long Preston and are on display in Long Preston village hall.  What the public can't see is that one of the station seats reads Marthwaite.   I was able to buy some of the goods stock at auction at Christies and that will run on Lancaster.  Also the station name boards for Martwaite will read Lancaster (The Green Ayre bit diodn't come till the 1930's.) in due course.

 

As you will sw from the above it was the circumstances that drove the disposal method.  The good thing though is that each of the building team got the privagte opwner wagon letterred for them.  What I'm not suire about is what happenned to the building lettered.  "Heath and Robinson, engineers to the Great Western Railway."

 

Jamie

[t-b-g]

It is interesting to see the name "Buckingham" appear on this thread and as the current custodian of the layout perhaps it is appropriate for me to add a few words.

 

John's comments about a layout like Buckingham being modified and developed are absolutely spot on. There is no great difficulty in repairing or building a replacement for each and any item on Buckingham. The modelling, though highly effective, uses pretty simple techniques in the main.

 

Where it becomes difficult is that these alterations were made, in many cases, after the layout was moved from Newlyn East to Truro. There was clearly no intention of moving it again and many track, wiring and scenic changes were made with no thought towards such things as baseboard joints. Some of the baseboards themselves were made from all sorts of offcuts of various timbers, floorboards and in some cases, just a thin layer of hardboard (possibly "Bristol board"). We did a lot of damage moving the layout, especially as the boards twisted as they were being moved and that caused a great number of brittle solder joints in the track to break.

 

I had the great honour to actually see Peter Denny doing the odd repair to the wiring. He would grab hold of what looked like a birds nest and he would know exactly what each wire did. When he made modificatins, redundant wires were not removed, just disconnected at one end or sometimes, if they didn't cause a problem, they were left in place and new ones added.

 

His wiring was unorthodox and very tricky to follow and I am in the process of completely re-wiring Grandborough Junction as I gave up on getting it going. Even tracing a simple path from the controller to the track beat me!

 

It was fairly easy to get Leighton Buzzard up and running as very little had been changed since the MRJ show and it had been made fully portable for that, although the use of single core "bell" wire on moving parts like plugs and sockets resulted in lots of broken joints and still does every time we exhibit it. Even then, some of the baseboards had very little bracing and have gone banana shaped.

 

I can confirm that to take on such a layout is a major undertaking and isn't to be embarked upon lightly. In my case, it has meant constructing a large timber outbuilding and pretty much, after finishing my current layout project, abandoning plans for my own "big project".

 

I am lucky in that I am not only a GCR modeller in EM gauge but I have also, over many years, developed a reasonable range of modelling skills, so that I am rather like Peter Denny, a "Jack of all trades, master of none". If I need to replace part of a carriage underframe because the plasticard has gone brittle and fallen apart, I can do that quite happily. I can rebuild track, when the soldered joints between the rail and the steel pins they were soldered to go "ping" and the rails fall off and I can make new fences out of cereal packets to replace damaged ones.

 

It will be a while yet before the whole thing is operational but big chunks of Grandborough are working again, using the original switches and controls but with a wiring system that I understand (and have recorded for future reference!).

 

Buckingham is the only layout I would have been willing to take on in this way and it is both a great responsibilty and a great honour to be entrusted with what I believe to be the single most influential layout we have ever had in this hobby.

 

At least Buckingham is safe, in a good environment and although it won't be fully operational for a while yet, progress is being made.

 

Incidentally, Leighton Buzzard will be at "Railwells" in a few weeks and Crispin and Stephen Denny will be two of the operators. That sort of weekend makes all the hard work totally worthwhile!

 

Tony

[fender]

lots of very informative replies. thanks very much.

 

I especially liked the analogy with the film set and the idea that layouts like on in media such as photos and video. in fact, I think the photos and video are almost as important as the layout itself from (my) viewing perspective.

[AndrewC]

This may be a bit morbid and against the grain of views so far but... I really don't care what happens to my layout or stock after I'm gone. Anything sellable will be scraped off and flogged. (DCC, tortoise motors, etc) Locos and stock will probably end up on eBay or with a second hand dealer. There are a few bits that will probably end up on someone's mantle but other than that, out it goes. The layout itself will end up in the skip. I look at it this way. Its my hobby. Collecting, building, and operating are my pastimes. Once I'm gone there is no point in keeping it as some sort of memorial or what ever. I'm getting recycled eventually, so should the layout.  

[t-b-g]

This may be a bit morbid and against the grain of views so far but... I really don't care what happens to my layout or stock after I'm gone. Anything sellable will be scraped off and flogged. (DCC, tortoise motors, etc) Locos and stock will probably end up on eBay or with a second hand dealer. There are a few bits that will probably end up on someone's mantle but other than that, out it goes. The layout itself will end up in the skip. I look at it this way. Its my hobby. Collecting, building, and operating are my pastimes. Once I'm gone there is no point in keeping it as some sort of memorial or what ever. I'm getting recycled eventually, so should the layout.  

 

Not morbid at all and I feel exactly the same about my own layouts and modelling. Perhaps somebody may get some use or pleasure from them once I am gone, even if it means stripping them down and recovering a few point motors and the odd useful building. The locos and stock may prove useful to others but if they don't it is not really a big deal.

 

There are only a handful of layouts that have perhaps gained the status of deserving a contnued existence, either because of their quality or historical significance but at the end of the day it is just a hobby. We can go on about our layouts being historical documents or having some great importance but really we are just a bunch of people who enjoy making and playing with little trains!

 

Tony

[PatB]

I'm not too bothered about what happens to my models when I'm gone but I would like to think that those who survive me won't get too badly burned if and when they sell them off.  That's a rather different subject though and I certainly don't kid myself that I will ever produce anything as iconic as some of the layouts mentioned in this thread.

[298]

It is easy to celebrate someone's work, but most modern manufacturing standards mean the average modeller can build a layout that on the whole is 90% as good as the classics that ought to be saved, but the other 10% can never be regained as it is unique to the creator.

 

 

I'm not sure I'd agree wit that point of view. Take Buckingham as an example - having seen part of it a couple of times at exhibitions, it's technically crude by modern standards and yet it looks far more like a real railway than almost every layout you'll see in a magazine these days. A lot of what makes classic layouts good wasn't the technical skills of the builders but their understanding of how a real railway worked. 

 

But I've also seen Borchester Market at a recent exhibition and wasn't too impressed, mainly because it was being operated entirely using modern RTR stock. The original stock was a careful selection of types that would be seen on a ER secondary line in the Newark/Grantham/Nottingham area, but it now looked like yet another generic RTR Eastern Region layout but with slightly cruder scenery.

 

Had the current range of scenic materials and ready to plonk buildings been available back in the day, I'm sure we'd be looking at an even better Borchester Market. But there is really no excuse for the average modeller to ignoring the  "knowledge" you mention that Frank had, you can still go to shows and see both fairly recent and older exhibition layouts where the builder stands proudly behind their creation, oblivious to the damaged fascia, gawping baseboard joints, and shiny check rails and soldered connections. It is those details (or lack of) that are often inexcusable but are readily accepted once the layout has been "finished".

 

I recall one of Frank's articles where he mentions fitting a lining inside a tunnel. That must have been 30 years ago, but how many layouts do you see now where the track still disappears into unpainted polystyrene...? You don't have to have an artistic flair or a big chequebook to deal with issues such as that...

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I have three significantly younger friends with the model railway bug, all more than likely to outlive me; they ar erecorded as having a free run at 'butchering the carcase' when I no longer need it. (The medical profession are on a promise to butcher my redundant carcase, should that still be of any value to their ends.)

 

My other half is a gardening type, RHS member, all that stuff. There's real angst among the serious end of the gardening interest over the fate of valuable / interesting / historically important gardens when owners die or sell up. Even a well intentioned new owner can - in some folk's opinion - wreak havoc by applying their perfectly legitimate tastes to 'the only surviving early work of Jekyll Landseer' or whatever. Better perhaps than some philistine redeveloping the plot into retirement apartments. The promise to 'preserve the garden' clearly applied only to the roughly 10% that now forms an internal quadrangle to the large scale accomodation now covering almost all the the original plot.  Oh, and the only UK specimen of Fraxinus Cinereo Cumulum reputedly brought back and established by Tradescant was accidentally burned to the ground in a builder's waste bonfire...

[PaulRhB]

Problem is like the full size stuff we can't save everything due to finite amounts of space. There are loads of layouts I like and would be worthy of saving but if you take the NRM approach and look for good examples of specific things or groundbreaking moves forward its easier to select a few. I think one of the biggest issues is they were all designed to be operated and rarely support a train just running round. In that respect a majority realistically would need a fully automated control system building to replace the owners one, (bit like miniatur wunderland), to be viable for a permanent exhibition and that would cost a lot for each layout, £1000+ in many cases even if done by an enthusiast.

I think better in many ways would be to capture these classics extensively in film and photos with a text by the original builder or friends. Keeping a library such as this could be done with backups stored at sites around the country and access provided online or at certain centres like the NRM and its satellites. Much cheaper and more widely accessible especially as many if the classics have been featured in magazines. You could even hold a poll each year to nominate the next entrants selected by a committee to certain criteria. Works with model of the year

[PatB]

I have three significantly younger friends with the model railway bug, all more than likely to outlive me; they ar erecorded as having a free run at 'butchering the carcase' when I no longer need it. (The medical profession are on a promise to butcher my redundant carcase, should that still be of any value to their ends.)

 

My other half is a gardening type, RHS member, all that stuff. There's real angst among the serious end of the gardening interest over the fate of valuable / interesting / historically important gardens when owners die or sell up. Even a well intentioned new owner can - in some folk's opinion - wreak havoc by applying their perfectly legitimate tastes to 'the only surviving early work of Jekyll Landseer' or whatever. Better perhaps than some philistine redeveloping the plot into retirement apartments. The promise to 'preserve the garden' clearly applied only to the roughly 10% that now forms an internal quadrangle to the large scale accomodation now covering almost all the the original plot.  Oh, and the only UK specimen of Fraxinus Cinereo Cumulum reputedly brought back and established by Tradescant was accidentally burned to the ground in a builder's waste bonfire...

 

I am reminded that, in a previous life, I was a landscape gardener (civils rather than horticulture) and am very pleased to note that quite a good amount of the early work of which I am most proud remains visible on Google Earth.  Mind you, given my tendency to massively over-engineer everything I suspect that at least some of it will remain indefinitely to puzzle future Phil Harding/Mick Aston/Tony Robinson combos .

[Poggy1165]

I would suggest that model railways are extremely hard to maintain long-term, especially if there has been a period of disuse. I can think of two reasonably famous layouts that I know that - in my opinion - ended up looking rather sad and forlorn even though nominally 'preserved'. There will also be a finite number of people with either the skill or the inclination to keep such a layout in tip-top condition, and even these people are mortal. A layout that was an epic to my generation may possibly not be half so revered in - say - another fifty years time.

 

There is also the little matter of space. I was once given the opportunity to acquire a layout that I should have loved to own. Unfortunately, I did not have anything like the space to accommodate it, and so I had to politely decline. Many of the 'great' layouts are a tad on the large size - one reason why they are so often the stuff of dreams.

 

Consequently, I think there will only ever be a small minority of layouts preserved. Perhaps even fewer in the future, as not many seem to go in for the 'lifetime project' nowadays. Scrapping and building something else after 3-5 years seems more the norm.

[Colin]

I'm not sure I'd agree wit that point of view. Take Buckingham as an example - having seen part of it a couple of times at exhibitions, it's technically crude by modern standards and yet it looks far more like a real railway than almost every layout you'll see in a magazine these days. A lot of what makes classic layouts good wasn't the technical skills of the builders but their understanding of how a real railway worked. 

 

But I've also seen Borchester Market at a recent exhibition and wasn't too impressed, mainly because it was being operated entirely using modern RTR stock. The original stock was a careful selection of types that would be seen on a ER secondary line in the Newark/Grantham/Nottingham area, but it now looked like yet another generic RTR Eastern Region layout but with slightly cruder scenery.

I think that is exactly why the Madder Valley layout (preserved at Pendon) works for me, on the rare occasions trains are run, they are all from John Ahern's original stock that was built for the line - the layout was fortunately preserved in its entirety (a donation by John Ahern's widow IIRC). Were (for example) Hornby 14xxs, Pugs and Bachy Jinties to haul the trains it just wouldn't look at all right. The layout was a pioneering masterpiece of scenic modelling from another age, and I for one am very glad it survived.

[Herr Dienstleiter]

I think it might be better to think of a model railway as like a stage set or a film set. It's a background for some action, and when the director has finished with it it has to be discarded to make room for other stuff. But you can certainly think of the rolling stock as like old cars - it would be heart-breaking to see some of the beautiful hand built models of locomotives that exist being lobbed into a skip. The tracks that they ran on are another matter and we just have to face the fact that it's just not practical to save them all.

 

Chaz

 

That seems like a helpful line of thought. My Helfenberg layout is about to go to a new home where I shall adapt many of the elements of it into a new format but it will remain - in essence - what it began as, an evocation of an Austrian valley where Mrs. Dienstleiter and I had a wonderful holiday in our early married days. The rolling stock could run on any Austrian ng line but the stage set is particular to us. The son who is most interested in the hobby will probably take on the rolling stock but I shan't be worried if he decides to create a new setting for it in future years ... not least because by then I shall have moved on to the Great Dienstabteilung in the Sky.

[t-b-g]

It was very good to see "Ruxley" from the Epsom & Ewell club at Wigan show this weekend. That is a bit of modelling history, having been read about and enjoyed by me and many others in "Constructors" from the early 1960s. Rather like Buckingham, it has been developed and worked on over the years but even the "modern" bits were done in the 80s and are 30 ish years old.

 

Well done to the club for going against the current "build, exhibit, scrap and build another" way that so many have adopted.

 

The lever frames, block bells and signalls were also an excellent example of how I like to see a layout operated too!

 

Tony