Edwardian

Of course you have .... !

We are, and we do! So long as she lets you out to play. Nice work on the Terrier

Going a bit OT, apologies to Nile, but even a freelance company should have history, and grounded coach and wagon bodies are part of that, as they need to be at least a generation earlier than the setting of the layout. So, for example, people modelling before WW1 are unlikely to need a founded Ratio 4-wheeler based on, what, a 1904 prototype? GE seemed to have lots of 1860s looking coaches, lasting as station buildings etc into the second half of the 20th Century!

Well, my thesis, long-since, no doubt, the unacknowledged basis of a chapter in one of my Supervisor's books, centred on the Worcester House Declaration of 1660, a then relatively neglected subject, so it was pretty much primary sources all the way! As you no doubt know, Charles II was far from vindictive and vengeful on the restoration. He drew the line at the Regicides, but otherwise was all about inclusiveness, to give the regime as broad a base as possible, often to the chagrin of some returning Cavaliers, who often did not recover their lands from the Roundhead usurpers! If only the returning Bourbons in 1814, or the newly re-elected Corbyn for that matter, had displayed similar wisdom .... Anyhow, in religious terms, that meant attempting to give the re-established C of E as broad a base as possible - no Laudian smells, bells and spells, as that had caused the problem in the first place - and it was felt that the moderate Presbyterians might be persuaded to come into the Anglican fold. Alas, it did not come off.

I used to know them too, although, my undergraduate thesis was Restoration, rather than Civil War; I rather think I spent longer considering the policy of Charles II towards the moderate Presbyterians than he did!

A Levelling Party:

Well, bashing and bodging the GE is on my 'to do' list, so I hope to make a contribution at some point.

So, prompted by a number of things - photographs of coaches at Swanage in Weddell, visiting the Corfe Castle layout and starting to read through my latest acquisition, RCTS vol.2 - thoughts tended towards the Swanage branch, what ran there and when. In the absence of a dedicated book on the subject of the branch, I thought I would see what I could find online. One unintended consequence of the preservation of a line is that Google searches usually throw up information on the preserved line, rather than on the history of the line. Generally I find that I overcome this if I employ search terms such as "X railway history", or, "x railway old photographs". I thought I'd share with you the result of searching for "swanage railway old photographs":

At least Mrs Lightening had the decency to open her own account and intervene whilst flying her own colours, as it were. William Stroudley

Perhaps they might be tempted to 'fly the flag' on RMWeb? Excellent work, as usual.

I knew the moment I typed that, that you would say this! And fair enough. I suppose I am more familiar with various bits of England than anywhere else, and it was a post that concerned my personal emotional responses, rather than one that offered a comment on what was objectively worth modelling, so I left it in! I am certainly no less interested in seeing the Scottish, or Irish, or Welsh, pre-Grouping scene modelled than I am the English, just as I have real difficulty in excluding one English region or company in favour of another!

Ah, but all grounded coach bodies were specific prototypes!

For my children, particularly my son, who can appreciate fine detail and accuracy in a model or lifelike computer graphics in a game, there is an enduring fascination with more stylised forms, Lego and Minecraft. These latter are objectively crude and unrealistic in comparison, but they offer greater creative opportunities, and once the nature of that world is accepted, one can happily dwell within it and find it endlessly absorbing (apparently). Perhaps, in due course, the highly individualistic models I have bashed and bodged as against a state of the art RTR model, that wows you with its detail but which is endlessly seen, will offer a similar comparison. Modelling is, after all the art of the willing suspension of disbelief. There can be few, if any, art forms more artificial than opera, yet, if one is prepared to step into that world, it becomes real. I don't see why, on that basis, "coarse scale" should not be as satisfying as anything else. I suspect that I am merely a fuzzyheaded old fool, given over to the idea of a romantic vision of England and her railway's combination of beauty with utility, born of a more optimistic age. For that I don't need to agonise over every last dimension, but I do need a half convincing overall picture. In other words, it is a personal matter of matching the standard to which I aspire to the effect I want to achieve. For other people, the objectives and methods will inevitably be different and lead, quite properly, to different results.

Brilliant. I have long wanted one of these as a small industrial. I got as far as a Hornby body, yet to be cut up, and a Bachmann 'Percy' chassis!

And not an ideal match, but the nearest you will get to a GER T26/E4

A very evocative post, Bill. So, if you can use a Radial chassis for a 380 Class 4-4-0, or 0380, if you prefer, you can pull the same stunt with a 46 or 046 Class, or "Ironclad" tank. I should explain that volume 2 of the RCTS work on LSWR locos arrived today, so there are now some limits, at least, to my ignorance. The 46, at least in its 4-4-2T form, looks like a baby 415 Class. Like the Radial, the 46 Class has 5'7" coupled wheels at 8'6" centres, and a boiler of 4'2" diameter with the centre line pitched at 7', so I imagine you could use the Radial's boiler, shortened, and smoke box. In the original 4-4-0T configuration, we have a very attractive little passenger tank. I read that the 46 Class was Adams's first design for the South Western, intended for heavy suburban services and delivered by Beyer Peacock in 1879. All were rebuilt with extended bunkers as 4-4-2Ts between 1883 and 1886. Of interest to Jonathan and the Corfe Castle posse, the Class held its ground in London until 1903, at which point Nos. 375 to 379 were transferred to Bournemouth for use on the Swanage branch. The whole class was on the duplicate list by 1905, but the first was not withdrawn until the end of 1913, ending up on the Brecon & Merthyr. The remainder of the class survived to Grouping; No. 0375 and 0377 continued to work the Swanage branch, withdrawn in June and January 1925 respectively.

Impressive. That's railway modelling as I understood it from my father's old stack of RMs. Loads of mainline railway, with all the facilities and still room for a high-level townscene! C J Freezer would have been proud. There are not enough layouts like that these days; John Dew's Granby Junction is a superb example: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2773-granby-junction-00-gwrlms-1947/ Can I echo the call for more pictures!

Kemp Town would make a great little layout - as was suggested on the Umber is the New Black topic last year - and was the haunt of both Railmotors and Motortrains. As the Hornby/Dapol Terrier is rear axle driven, the conversion ought to be quite possible.

I hope you do not mind, but I have taken the liberty of re-posting your very helpful Radial pictures in the Pre-Grouping section of the site, where we are attempting to wrestle with the use of RTR releases for earlier periods: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115499-using-rtr-models-to-represent-the-lswr/page-2&do=findComment&comment=2453533. Thank you again for posting this.

Indeed, and thanks. My own peculiar problem is that, currently, I need to renew my long-lapsed membership of the GW Study Group, Castle Aching demands membership of the GERS, M&GN Joint Society, and, probably GNRS, and other interests dictate the need to join line societies for the LSW, SE&CR, not to mention the Brighton Circle! Well, I shall have to aim to join 'em all.

RailroadBill of this Parish has demonstrated that the bunker rails simply unclip from the Hornby Radial. I take the liberty of reposting his pictures from the Radial topic in the Hornby section. As he points out, one is left with the tall filler cap, so information is sought as to the lower, "as built", arrangement. The Radial, I suspect, has potential for conversion to other pre-Grouping types. At my request, Railroadbill very kindly photographed the chassis and took a measurement from the rail to the highest part of the chassis, which he gives as 36.5 mm. Again, I repost his pictures. The Radial has 5'7" coupled wheels at 8'6" centres. So too does the Adams 0380 Class 4-4-0, the 'Steamrollers' of 1879. A small class of 12, characterised by small, solid, bogie wheels. Further, the boiler of the Radial is 4'2" diameter with the centre line pitched at 7', whereas the Steamroller has a 4'6" diameter boiler pitched at 7'2" to the centre line. The conclusion is that the Hornby chassis could be used as a basis for a Steamroller, though with new bogie, o/s cylinders, body etc, so you are really just using the coupled wheels and motor as the basis of a build.

Some very impressive modelling there.

I have ordered volume 2 of the old RCTS book on LSWR locomotives, in the hope that this may assist - I cannot stretch to the more recent 4-volume set - in the meantime, I don't recall much discussion of the Kernow O2. Given that it would need to be re-painted and lined as part of any back-dating, any minor surgery required is unlikely to be an issue, but I wonder if anyone has considered using this RTR release as the basis of a pre-Grouping model? As an Adams locomotive, I assume there is scope for both Adam and Drummond liveries. I understood it to be conceived as more of a branchline than suburban loco, and I understand that they were tried on the Lyme Regis branch, after the Terriers and before the Radials, but otherwise I know little about them in pre-Grouping days.

If anyone is interested in representing the class in LSWR days, there is now a topic in the Pre-Grouping section of the site that is concentrating on the use of RTR models for representing the LSWR, one of several topics appearing to consider how RTR models might be used for earlier periods. The topic includes the Radial, M7, Well Tank, rolling stock etc and is to be found here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115499-using-rtr-models-to-represent-the-lswr/page-1

If anyone is interested in representing the class in LSWR days, there is now a topic in the Pre-Grouping section of the site that is concentrating on the use of RTR models for representing the LSWR, one of several topics appearing to consider how RTR models might be used for earlier periods. The topic includes the Radial, M7, Well Tank, rolling stock etc and is to be found here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/115499-using-rtr-models-to-represent-the-lswr/page-1