t-b-g

Not all the Barnums had the ornate handrails even in GCR times. Images of carriages with the simpler handrail appear here: https://www.steve-banks.org/gcr/339-gcr-barnum-carriages-design The simpler handrail is much easier to model than the fancy one (obvious statement of the year award nomination please) but they are still quite a bit longer than the ones fitted to Tony's models. The do still have a slight S bend at the top and bottom but they are not difficult to make.

One of my all time favourites was a layout set in the USA that referenced song lyrics. There were two premises next door to each other. One had a sign that read "Trailers for sale or rent" and the one next door had "Rooms to let 50 cents". I thought it was a brilliant use of popular culture on a model railway.

I agree with all that everybody says. The conclusion is that nobody really knows! The one thing I wouldn't query was Malcolm's memory. If he was ever not sure of anything, he would say so. I can't recall all the details myseolf now but when we were looking at Butler Henderson and he commented on the red oxide tender rear on a black loco, he told me the name of the chap at Gorton, the year he went there, what he was sent to Gorton for and chapter and verse on the whole story. The chap had been in Gorton paint shop since GCR days and by the 50s was in a senior position. He told Malcolm that black locos had red oxide and green locos in GCR days had the crimson lake colour. It stuck in his mind as he had never noticed the red oxide before. In service, it quickly got very dirty and the difference in appearance of a dirty red oxide tender rear and a black one that was weathered and rusty was not great. There are very colour contemporary photos showing that part of a tender and those that do exist it is not easy to tell whether they are rusty and weathered black or mucky red oxide. The comment from Percy Banyard was when John Quick sent him some green samples and asked him which he thought looked most like GCR green. Percy replied that they all did as no two locos looked alike. I recall he gave an example of turning up at work and there being 4 green locos lined up side by side and they were all different shades of green. In that respect, Buckingham is spot on as various different paints have been used on the green locos and they are all different. Just about the only combination of colours I haven't seen mentioned by anybody is a green tender with a red oxide rear. So my green tenders have the crimson lake interiors. My black locos have red oxide. I have one with no rear coal divider and that is painted red oxide but was then very weathered until it is almost black. I cannot say with 100% certainty that they are right but equally, nobody can say with 100% certainty that they are wrong. The same is true if somebody wants to paint theirs black.

When Butler Henderson was withdrawn and repainted in GCR livery, there were still people around who had known the locos in GCR days. When Malcolm Crawley and I visited the preserved line at Loughborough many years ago, to see the D11 running during the brief spell it ran in BR black livery, the tender back was painted red oxide. Malcolm said "That is a nice touch. Somebody from Gorton paintshop told me they used to do that all through GCR, LNER and BR days". Most people around today don't have those memories and have to rely on saying what they think might have been the case. It may even be that locos painted at Gorton were one colour and those built by contractors the other, as the livery specifications are pretty vague and don't specifically say which colour they should be. As there seems to be little hard evidence one way or the other, I think we sometimes just have to pick an option that pleases us. The sky won't fall on our heads if we are wrong.

I started one of these as an N4 with round top firebox a few years ago and for some reason, as happens with many of my projects, it got put on the back burner and was never finished. I did find the rivetting quite tricky as there are so many that are really close together, which gave no room for an anvil or support for a rivetting tool. So I cheated and only did every second rivet. I am not saying that everybody should do it but it might be a useful tip if anybody struggles like I did. The round top firebox version lasted quite a long time and is quite appropriate for a GCR period layout.

My mum used to do exactly the same! She was from Sunderland. Of course he wouldn't have had to travel very far to see the ships on the Tyne so perhaps he got away with it.

My understanding is that black locos had a red oxide tender interior and that green locos had the same crimson lake colour that was applied to the outside frames, splashers etc. I attach a photo of the preserved Butler Henderson, which was painted many years ago and although not 100% authentic in the lettering, was based on colours found under the BR Black livery she eventually received. The actual coal space is black but the front and the rear area with the filler covers are crimson lake.

It is very good of you Mike to share your techniques in such a detailed, easy to follow way. I still have a stash of Kirk kits and although my current modelling is pre-grouping GCR there is always a chance I may do some more in the future and I will certainly be referring to your photos and description if and when I do. You have taken things quite a bit further than Malcolm and I did and with worthwhile results. I adopted a different method for the window vents. I cut the Kirk ones out and put a single pane of glazing in then made new ones fixed directly to glazing. You don't get the inset glazing for the sliding vents but I think it may be a bit quicker and easier to do.

I recall showing these before but as this thread is specifically about Kirk kits I will show them again. Fairly poor snaps taken using the camera on my tablet but there is an LNER version, which was done by the late Malcolm Crawley, plus a BR liveried one I did for the late Roy Jackson's Retford. It has fooled one or two into thinking it was an etched kit, so the work involved to fill in the panelling and flush glaze it has certainly made a difference.

I remember him singing about the "Good old EAR & H" celebrating the railways of Kenya. He was a favourite of my parents in law and they often had a CD of his songs on in their car. I grew to enjoy his gentle songs and his melodic and smooth voice. R.I.P.

Having attended the recent GOG show at the venue and been pleasantly surprised at how easy the journey was from near Doncaster, a few of us are going to make our first trip to this show at the weekend. It looks to be a good line up and I am really looking forward to it.

I purchased one of those GCR carriages at a second hand stall at a very reasonable price a long time ago but I have never plucked up the courage to try to sort out its biggest problem, which is that the sides are mirror images and one side has the door handles at the LH side of the doors. I haven't looked at it in years so my memory could be faulty but I recall that one side is correct. I thought that if I ever see another one for sale at a good price, I could make one correct carriage from the two kits. Then one of the "Retford Mob" started drawing some in CAD with a view to producing some etches, so I even stopped looking for the cheap second kit. Such a detail may not bother many people and your build (or builds as I will include the others) look really nice but once I knew it was wrong, I couldn't bring myself to "unsee" it. I have built a few Jidenco models, including the GN Fish Van and the GCR 6 wheel brake van. They are not 100% accurate but they are, to quote the late Roy Jackson, better than the ones we haven't got. I have told the tale of the Jidenco Claughton before and won't repeat it but we do have, between us (the builders of Narrow Road), the Claughton, a Coal Tank and a MR 800 Class 2-4-0 as completed locos from Jidenco kits.

What a lovely model.

Hello Stew. You could do a lot worse than a 9F (N5 to more modern folk!). There is an etched scratch builders aid from Judith Edge or a complete cast kit from SE Finecast. Until SE Finecast was taken over by Squires, you used to be able to purchase the fittings like chimneys domes etc separately but I don't know if you still can. As the GCR used them for shunting plus local goods and passenger trains, they are a really useful thing to have. There are two on Buckingham, the original Denny one from 1947 and a much more recent one built by me from a Millholme kit that hauls the Director's saloon. Cheers Tony

I don't see how you have reached that conclusion based on what I wrote but I have seen the same sort of approach from several manufacturers.

I may be totally wrong about this but I have this personal opinion that much of modern life is made more complicated than it needs to be because we have lots of designers and product developers who don't look as though they are doing anything useful if they just copy what their predecessors did. If they want to be seen as innovative and clever, they feel the need to reinvent the wheel. So a simple loco tender coupling, which worked perfectly well for many decades, is no longer seen as a suitable option. It is almost as if they think "That way of doing things that has worked perfectly for years...... we don't want to do that". There comes a time when an optimum design, which is simple to make and which works well, has been achieved but in order to justify their existence, they don't stop there. Maybe it is just me being a bit cynical about the modern world and there are many who will say that if we don't experiment and tinker with things we will stagnate and never improve. But we do sometimes need to realise that making things more complicated and more delicate and easy to break is not really progress, no matter what the marketing people tell us to believe.

I have a little question about the decision to change from radio control to DCC. I have been visiting a friend today and running his fairly large O gauge garden railway, with worked quite nicely on radio control, to the point where I am considering trying it. So I am interested in your decision to move away from it. Did you encounter problems that you can share to guide my choice?

I do recall mentioning it as a possible prototype idea for a small layout. Another reason I am glad to see it again. I haven't achieved very much on any of my own projects in the 4 years since you started Tewkesbury so I won't be saying anything about your lack of progress in that time!

I am so pleased to see this project up and running again. It is a delightful little scene. Perhaps an entry into the small layout competition at Stafford next year might encourage you to stick with it?

It was, as we say round these parts, a grand day out. Many thanks for letting us play with your lovely layout. 3 of us spent both days at the GOG show at Stafford and then went on to Tony's and met up with the others on Monday. It was one of those weekends that reminds me of all that is good about our wonderful hobby. Spending time with such good people and seeing such top drawer modelling is truly inspiring. We came away with a few projects purchased at the show and tons of enthusiasm to get on with them.

It does explain how a loco from the 1840s lasted so long. I do have one WM&CQ loco on Buckingham. It is one of the few locos I have done much with. I attach a before and after pair of photos showing the state it was in when it arrived here and how it looked after some sympathetic attention. It has crossed my mind more than once to build a model of No 6 in its 0-8-0ST form in the Denny style, perhaps with my own drawings done from a photograph and a couple of known dimensions but there are lots of tasks higher up the priority list.

You have to go a long way in rebuilding terms to match the story of WM&CQ loco No. 6. Built in 1846 as an 0-6-0 tender loco for the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, it became LNWR property and they rebuilt it as an 0-6-0ST. In 1872 it was sold off to the WM&CQ who rebuilt it as an 0-8-0ST and used it on passenger trains. It was then rebuilt as an 0-6-2ST. After damage in an accident it was rebuilt with new frames and a new tank, which was much longer than the old one. In 1903 another rebuild included a change back to 0-8-0ST with a new domeless boiler. So it had 4 different wheel arrangements, which ought to be a record unless anybody knows otherwise. It lasted long enough to become the only LNER 8 coupled saddle tank, being withdrawn in October 1923, after 77 years of use. The story is lifted straight from Dow's GCR book, volume 3, which has a photo.

Frank Dyer was writing more about what is small counterpart would see on the railway rather than the scenic aspects but it struck a chord with me and I tend to think of his 24mm high railway enthusiast when I am planning a layout. I think about where I would stand if I was looking at this bit of railway and try to make that a viewpoint that somebody watching the layout might have. The one place I rarely, if ever, stood to observe a real railway was at the foot of an embankment because I could see very little apart from whatever was on the nearest track. Out of the thousands of photos I took, there might be two or three taken in a hurry when there was no other option that are looking up at a train or loco on an embankment. There are a few of trains on bridges and viaducts but they are more photos of the structure and the trains are almost incidental. One of my favourite trainspotting spots was on the multi storey car park alongside Doncaster Station. What a view you got from there and you could see what was going on right down at the far end of the station. I do like some of the natural eye level views, taken as if by a 24mm high photographer. They really do start to recreate the types of views I saw and the photos I used to take.

I think there is a difference in using foreground scenery to frame scenes or to force a viewer to use a sight line that the layout builder has designed in. That works for me. That is managing a view rather than blocking it. A view like the one above is fine and I have taken a few protype photos like that myself but I wouldn't stand there to watch the trains running. I always think of the series of articles by the late Frank Dyer where he talks about designing his layouts to recreate a view based on where his scale sized railway enthusiast would stand to watch the trains. My problem is with the layouts that have a big building at the front which seems to be there just to make it difficult to see things that I would otherwise want to see. It doesn't happen too often but I have seen layouts with such things at exhibitions.

During my brief period of interest in the real railways, up until around 1980, I always liked to find a location where I was looking down on the railway. A bridge or an embankment was favoured. Looking up at the railway meant that I could see the trains on the nearest track but any further away were partially obscured. Also I wanted to see the track layout, signalling and other infrastructure. I know such things are all the rage but I have never quite got my head around layouts that incorporate "view blockers" so you can see bits of railway between buildings, trees or suchlike. My reaction is always to think that if I was really at that place and wanted to watch or photograph the trains, I wouldn't be standing here to do it, so why would I stand here to view a model? A well framed view will always win for me over an obscured scene where I have to peer around things to see it. That doesn't apply to a disguise for a track going off scene, where a well designed view blocker works really well for me. Model photos looking up also pretty much demand some manipulation to add sky, or you get light switches, book cases or background clutter. I have always preferred model photos where careful framing and a good backscene allow a model to be photographed as it is, without the lies of photoshopping enhancing the finished photo. I don't really want my photos of models to be faked to look more real. I just like good photos of a layout, carefully cropped and composed to show the layout at its best. I saw a P4 layout at show, on such high legs that most people were looking up at it. The track could have been Hornby 3 rail as I couldn't see it or the lower half of the locos. The operator had to stand on a box. I didn't watch it for long! So looking up at trains, real or model, has never appealed to me. As always, it is just my personal opinion and I know that many others have different views.