Castle Aching

[robmcg]

Whilst admiring your skill, these do rather give the impression of large, powerfully built ladies, who lack both decorum and a basic sense of personal hygiene, going forth as with their skirts hitched up round their hips to mud wrestle.

 

Do we not, here at least, live in a more elegant age?!?

 

I can only apologise, and confine myself henceforth to elegant machinery with fairground colours. <g>

[Regularity]

fairground colours. <g>

Have you seen some of the liveries foisted upon us over the past 3 decades?

[TheQ]

1870s, 1880s, 1890s?

[Edwardian]

I can only apologise, and confine myself henceforth to elegant machinery with fairground colours. <g>

 

Really, I should apologise.  It's just that the whole of the rest of RMWeb is for BR steam and the so-called Transition era, as is most magazine content and most of every exhibition.

 

Here is where I seek to escape from it all!

[drmditch]

Really, I should apologise.  It's just that the whole of the rest of RMWeb is for BR steam and the so-called Transition era, as is most magazine content and most of every exhibition.

 

 

 

Not on my railway!

[Edwardian]

Not on my railway!

 

Well, you have gone one better in re-imagining history.  I assume that, with no Nationalisation, there was no Beeching; the good Doctor could have been given something else to destroy, or, perhaps, kept in Canada, along with polyester. And, presumably,in your happy world Ernest Marples could have found his true métier,which I rather fancy was selling dodgy second-hand sports cars to assorted fellow Spivs and Co-Respondents in Bournemouth, and otherwise doing nothing more harmful than corrupting susceptible middle-aged widows and keeping the Brill Cream industry tolerably buoyant.

[Caley Jim]

The good doctor was commissioned by Ernest Maples when Minister of Transport. Marples was a director of Marples Ridgeway, who were building motorways at the time. Need I say more....?

 

Jim

[Regularity]

Without nationalisation, the question is, how long would the railways have survived without the abolition of common carrier status? Or in the case of the LNER, just how long could it survive?

[Edwardian]

The good doctor was commissioned by Ernest Maples when Minister of Transport. Marples was a director of Marples Ridgeway, who were building motorways at the time. Need I say more....?

 

Jim

 

Hence, would you buy a second hand car from this man?

[Hroth]

Really, I should apologise.  It's just that the whole of the rest of RMWeb is for BR steam and the so-called Transition era, as is most magazine content and most of every exhibition.

 

Here is where I seek to escape from it all!

The ones to beware of are those who affect an admiration for BR Blue, with the shambolic remains of steam-age infrastructure with undermaintained locomotives and rolling stock, all capped by that awful drab monotone "livery".  At least the "Transition " era was, to a degree, forward looking.  AND the locos were painted in the proper colour for locomotives!

 

Perhaps they should have stuck to Blood'n'Custard for coaches, rather than all over red......

[CKPR]

The ones to beware of are those who affect an admiration for BR Blue, with the shambolic remains of steam-age infrastructure with undermaintained locomotives and rolling stock, all capped by that awful drab monotone "livery".  At least the "Transition " era was, to a degree, forward looking.  AND the locos were painted in the proper colour for locomotives!

 

Perhaps they should have stuck to Blood'n'Custard for coaches, rather than all over red......

That'll be me then, interested in the railways of West Cumberland c.1908-12 and West Cumbria c.1973-77 !

[Edwardian]

Blood and Custard was an attractive livery.

 

I grew up during the Age of the Train.  It seems to sum up our nationalised system at that point in time that our family never once took a British Rail train, but drove to preserved lines!

[CKPR]

  I assume that, with no Nationalisation, there was no Beeching; 

Back in the real world, rather than our pleasant pre-group arcadia, the newly formed LMS wielded a proto-Beeching Axe in West Cumberland quite soon after the Grouping, removing many and often all passenger services from the former WC&ER and C&WJR lines and the M&CR Mealsgate branch as well as closing the M&CR Derwent branch and would probably have withdrawn more services and abandoned more lines but for the onset of the war and the policy of  'shadow factories' and the dispersal of industry out of range of the Luftwaffe. Needless to say, talking of alternate histories, in my miniature make believe pre-grouping world, the Great War does not happen.   

[Hroth]

Back in the real world, rather than our pleasant pre-group arcadia, the newly formed LMS wielded a proto-Beeching Axe in West Cumberland quite soon after the Grouping, removing many and often all passenger services from the former WC&ER and C&WJR lines and the M&CR Mealsgate branch as well as closing the M&CR Derwent branch and would probably have withdrawn more services and abandoned more lines but for the onset of the war and the policy of  'shadow factories' and the dispersal of industry out of range of the Luftwaffe. Needless to say, talking of alternate histories, in my miniature make believe pre-grouping world, the Great War does not happen.   

Cutting out the Great War/The War to End All Wars/WW1 might probably have solved a lot of the problems besetting the 20th Century, whilst perpetuating some of those from the 19th!

 

Ideological movements may have taken a different course, Political divisions would not have occured to the extent that trouble the world today.

 

Technological developments may well have taken longer to come to fruition.  We might be just seeing the first jet aircraft and colour television. There wouldn't have been the flood of war surplus lorries, and the people trained to drive and use them.  Flight would not have developed so rapidly so mass transport and foreign holidays would still be the preserve of the wealthy whilst the rest of us would be off to Blackpool or the West Country.  Space travel would still be the stuff of boys adventure yarns. Computers?  Mainly people who do calculations, though these new-fangled transistors might allow more efficient calculating machines than the big valve ones that have recently taken the place of tabulating equipment.

 

Healthcare might still be hit and miss, while the move towards universal welfare might be only just taking place.

 

Be careful about what you imagine.  The inhabitants of your little worlds might not thank you for it......

[Nearholmer]

It is an interesting line in speculation, but what we tend to forget, while caught-up in the ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ mindset, is that some technologies were seriously held-back from wide application by both WWs and their aftermaths. The USA wasn’t seriously affected by either WW on the domestic front, and in neither case did they take a rest when it came to consumerist progress ...... profit is as good a motivator as is necessity, it would appear.

 

Where GB/UK seems to have been ‘shaken out of the groove’ by both WWs was in social matters and the relationship to Empire. The countr6 was inching towards votes for women, universal education, social provision, divesting itself of some of Empire and reaching more balanced settlements with other parts of it, etc, but it would probably have continued to inch on all fronts, rather than make any leaps.

 

And, our position in respect of industrial competition with Germany? Would we have ‘lost the peace’ slower, or more quickly? I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have won it under any circumstance, I’m afraid.

[Edwardian]

The continuing story of GER 6-wheel coaches  ....

 

To recapitulate ... I had heard that GER 6-Wheel coaches had been converted from Ratio Midland Suburbans.  Now, as Stephen (Compound) has pointed out, these coaches had an unusually wide waist band, which means they do not lend themselves to representing other prototypes.

 

Certainly, when I compared them to the only drawings I had, which I reckon are an 1880s GE style, there was no match.  

 

Then Stewart Ingram kindly provided me with the article in question, and Jonathan Wealleans was able to show me some examples of such conversions.

 

It seemed to me that the conversions were based upon late 1890s coaches of the type produced in kit form by D&S.  I cannot afford D&S kits at present, and am not yet at the etched construction stage of my foray into railway modelling. I do have some old Ratio Suburbans, however, and I do have Guy Rixon's GER 3D-printed coach parts.

 

So, I took pictures off the web of D&S box lids, which show line drawings of the coaches, and scaled them to what I estimated was 4mm scale.  I then laid the Ratio sides next to them, and found that they were a reasonable match. This is the position I had reached in July last year, when I posted the comparison shots.  I concluded that the Ratio Midland Suburbans could be used to represent the 1897-1898 diagrams that D&S Kits produced. 

 

I re-post these pictures below, together with a picture taken today showing a Ratio side next to a D&S GE side in the same 1890s style.  It will be seen that, in fact, the Midland waist is a little narrower than the GE! 

 

However, I think this confirms that the Ratio sides are a reasonable match in styles.  I think they need a moulding strip added to the bottom, and door lights and beading will need to be squared.  There are other details, e.g. see how the beading is shaped round the door handles. A lot of vertical cuts and kippering will be required, and the whole exercise might well drive me towards the D&S option, but it's worth a go, I reckon.

[sem34090]

Careful, or you'll have a certain non-simple locomotive around here who has a distaste for misuse of his company's coaches! 

[Compound2632]

Careful, or you'll have a certain non-simple locomotive around here who has a distaste for misuse of his company's coaches! 

 

On the contrary, I have seen and so believe: Edwardian has my blessing to kipper these sides as he pleases.

[Regularity]

And, our position in respect of industrial competition with Germany? Would we have ‘lost the peace’ slower, or more quickly? I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have won it under any circumstance, I’m afraid.

Since we fell behind Germany (as the U.K. and not as the British Empire) circa 1870, we had lost long before the 20th Century. The reason we run the “Dreadnought race” was that we started so far ahead with our navy that we only had to match German production to stay substantially ahead.

[Compound2632]

Without nationalisation, the question is, how long would the railways have survived without the abolition of common carrier status? Or in the case of the LNER, just how long could it survive?

 

The closest one can get to that is the Great Northern Railway, which staggered on until 1953 before having to be nationalised by the two governments - in fact its bankruptcy brought the Dublin and Belfast governments to the negotiating table for the first time since partition.

[Donw]

There was a deliberate policy to run down the railways. On the Much Wenlock line the train service ran through to Wellington but a lot of passengers would catch the train and change at Buildwas  to catch the Train to Shrewsbury the county town. The timetable was revised so the Shrewsbury Train was to depart before the Wenlock train arrived. However by a bit of smart working  the local railway staff would ensure the Wenlock train arrived early at Buildwas before the Shrewsbury train departed. Instuctions were received from management that this paractice was to cease and the Wenlock train should be held at the signal until the Shrewsbury train departed before it was allowed into Buildwas station. My information came from one of the guards on the line.

 

I was lucky in that during my Childhood travel by train was a normal event. 

 

Don

[robmcg]

The good doctor was commissioned by Ernest Maples when Minister of Transport. Marples was a director of Marples Ridgeway, who were building motorways at the time. Need I say more....?

 

Jim

 

In my day I have owned a number of Jaguar motorcars and one of those I rebuilt from top to bottom was a red 1957 3.4 compact saloon, and my Brooklands Books had lots of contemporary road tests,  some with adventurous speeds on the M1.  Mine would do an easy 'ton' too.

 

Even if the motorways hastened the demise of rail, I personally enjoyed those days of speed. There is no fun in motoring anymore, far too many common people.

 

I think that accords with Edwardian's pleasure in things of an older age. I do hope so.

[Edwardian]

 

I think that accords with Edwardian's pleasure in things of an older age. I do hope so.

 

Speaking of which, given the prominence in today's media of the centenary of female suffrage in the UK, I thought Castle Aching should contribute with a contemporary reference, commemorating the sacrifice to the cause made by Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne.

in 1907.

 

In the words of Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, 10th Duke of Chalfont:

 

I shot an arrow in the air; she fell to earth in Berkeley Square

Edited February 6, 2018 by Edwardian

[CKPR]

Talking of KHAC, I don't think I've revealed my soi-distant claim to an old Anglo-Irish title.It's nothing, I won't mention it again...

[Les le Breton]

Thank you for your notifications, dons and students of RMweb University. I have come across another Pre-Raphaelite picture which has Railway interest, but of doubtful provenance.

 

 

“There is less in this than meets the eye.”

(Tallulah Bankhead)