Edwardian

Clearly I must join!

Excellent figures and subtle painting. If these figures are in your current range, I have overlooked them until now. I particularly like the university students, but I think we have to impose a realism penalty for the fact that none of them appears to be drinking.

Red faces at Shildon today as the management of Locomotion and Rapido try to work out why they have a bit left over....

Greetings from Sunny Shildon. Here with both children and all three dogs. Hope you are all enjoying your weekend and I look forward to catching up on today's posts properly. Today is a peerless day. No one can take that away!

I shall enjoy looking at Jim Reed's work. Thank you. Ploughing engines. I don't know how typical or appropriate they are for Norfolk. In the potato fields of Lincolnshire perhaps. They were the really industrialised end of farming; a big investment in machinery and a team of 6. This is why I reckon they would often be owned contractors rather than farmers. I will look out for the Rolt books, thanks Andy G, but after my track purchase, the moratorium is once again firmly in place, I'm afraid. In the meantime, I have one book on steam road vehicles. The author, writing in 1974, so, presumably, discussing the 1890s/turn of the century, says: Eighty years ago, £2,500 outlay for a set of double engine ploughing tackle and £600 for a traction, were considerable sums even for large landowners. The alternative 'set piece' would be the thrashing/threshing set. Again, this would be in the contractor's yard as we would not be in the threshing season. If 2 hay cuts were done in those days, perhaps a green cut would be done in May? That might be the sort of agricultural activity that could be portrayed. Anyhow, at pages 19 and 20 of Mr Beaumont's volume we have the sort of Fowlers that seem to me more appropriate for 1905; both 1870s products and both at work in the late or immediately post Edwardian period. They have delightful and distinctive safety valve casings, upon one of which, the caption notes, there is a kettle! Note the use of Andrew Stadden enginemen on the Sleaford example in particular! Without kits, these might be a fun scratch-build challenge. Scale drawings anyone?!?

Such a kit would certainly tempt me. Funds permitting a straight Cambrian version and a freelance WNR version would appeal. WNR was a customer of Sharps and 2 other 4-wheel tender locos are planned.

How about trying this:

Thanks, Chris. I ask because a little 2-4-0 of a non-company specific design and with a 4-wheel tender is just right for Castle Aching, plus, my next project, an ex-exhibition layout restoration project, has scope for Cambrian Railways trains. We need to work out how to build these. Any 4mm scale drawings knowing about? PS: Shildon tomorrow (Sunday), thanks; will report anything of interest to the appropriate authorities.

Like how the shelter has turned out. Excuse the ignorance of a GW fan, but what is the "small 2-4-0 class" you have been talking about?

Well, it might be the public spirited thing to do!

Have you told Oxford?

Thanks, Chris. We are contending with some pretty stressful legal and financial problems. They are not intractable and they will not last forever, though sometimes it seems that they are and they will! It takes just about all the income we can generate just to hold the line and some months there is, I am afraid, a very real danger of being overwhelmed completely. I hate living like this. Sometimes it means that the thing that seems to be keeping me reasonably sane has to be parked. Nevertheless, we have much to be thankful for and I do think that it is entirely reasonable to expect the situation to resolve itself eventually. So, while I cannot promise any progress over the next few days, I am not about to give up! Last winter we were reduced to living in a borrowed caravan for the best part of 3 months. Things do get better and will continue to do so. On the brighter side of life, I have started to uncover my stash of accessories, some of which I rescued from storage this week. The advantage of 17 years in the armchair is all those bits and bobs acquired over the years (and some of these might actually date from the days of my childhood layout!) do add up. Of this lot, on Castle Aching I intend to use the farm waggon, and the portable engine, which I have an idea might sit nicely on a GE Mac K. The rest are models that I would like to have for their own sake, but I think I shall have no difficulty in fitting them into future projects. I will work on them at a steady pace in between everything else! I have plans for a pair of ploughing engines, because I hope to include part of an agricultural contractor's yard, because there was such a business in Castle Rising. As May is not the ploughing season, this would seem a good excuse to include the engines. The Z7 class is quite big and the kits will make impressive models. I have my doubts about whether they would fit the circa 1905 period as I suspect that they might be a design from the Great War-Early '20s period. Should that prove to be the case, I have two smaller, white-metal ones, however, I suspect these might be ex-Rowlands Miniature Fowler BB engines, and I think these were only built from 1913! (oh, and presently I have no idea where they are!) The cardboard Foden steam lorry is 1911, the Atkinson colonial 1924 and the AEC 'bus 1917. I suspect the Aveling and Porter steam roller is 1920s!

It is sensible to attempt to cater for reasonably tight curves, as this is a compromise many modellers adopt, and a pre-Grouping locomotive hauling appropriate 6-wheelers as its modern mainline express coaches will look a lot less comprised around tight curves than a large passenger class with a string of mk1 coaches. Though, getting your 6-wheelers round the curves might be the biggest challenge! In any case, even if one has the luxury of generous curves on the scenic section of a layout, one may still need to resort to tight off-stage curves and loops. This is all the more likely to be the case where attempting to model a mainline appropriate to a model such as the Single. Moreover, I must say that snubbing those who may have a 6' x 4' with "train-set" curves is really not on.

Excellent and useful items. It is a shame that I find myself on such a tight budget at the present time; I hope the range will be around for a while, as I could certainly find uses for wagon and coach axle-boxes and buffer shanks and torpedo vents. Might the GNR 6-wheel coach axle-boxes/springs be more economical if they could be offered as a set sufficient fro 6 coaches? I shall have to try for these and buffers. Also, I'd love to see you do the same for GER, but I suspect that does not correspond with your own modelling needs.

JCL, thank you. The first picture, the derelict, I have seen before. It looks to be the single 5-Compt. Third, which Kidner has as the original stock (from 1926). A late GE disposal or did it go somewhere else first? It is a great photo for showing the GE lettering and running number and for the U/F. The second I had not seen. If it went to the WNR, it would not be the first ex-Royal Saloon to end up on a light railway! not realised that Smallbrook had ventured into MGN territory, so thank you. I notice Mike Trice is producing 3D printed GNR coach buffers and 6-wheel coach axle-boxes-springs, though I suspect the latter would become more economical were there to be sold in sets for 6, not 3, coaches. I can fully justify both Midland and GNR 6-wheel stock on CA. I would like a rake of GE 6-wheelers first, though. Problems with real life will probably mean little or no progress for some days. I apologise in advance.

Jimmy, I would certainly find measurements and pictures useful. Somewhere I have my son's Bachmann Toby, which I ordered to supplement his Hornby Thomas train set as the Hornby Toby struck me as vastly too large. I should find it and put it next to my white-metal C53. It's a pity my son never took to it, or I might have been drawn into returning to the hobby sooner! Very convincing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPVDdqh3-wQ http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zre9t

Important that it closed. To paraphrase a certain Kiwi Premier, every time someone leaves Cambridge for Oxford the average IQ of both Cities is increased.

Hence the two Edinburgh women. One says "I hear you've moved to Morningside; you must suffer terribly from the Rates" "Och no", says the other, "the odd wee mouse mebbie".

Have managed to miss this topic until now. I particularly admire the track-work and the rolling stock, and look forward to seeing the excellent scenic work develop. Exquisite.

Yes, it would. I have 6 cottage gardens that need to be Edwardian and productive.

Thanks again, all. Some sound advice to follow. On reflection I might deconstruct the track so far, so as to remove the tinning from the sleepers, which will otherwise compromise the appearance of the finished article. This is not so bad as it seems, because thanks to Edwardian's Patent Wonda-Jig, reattaching the rail should be but the work of moments. Need to order more PCB sleepers in order to produce a further length of track, however. At least now I know why people don't tin the sleepers. BTW, I was fooled into doing this by one of the track ranges I had considered, DCC Concepts, who market pre-tinned sleepers! I am quite sanguine. I never expected to be soldering anything or attempting to build track. In fact, I suspect that most modellers would be allowed to use Ready-To-Lay track on their first attempt to build a model railway. Not according to you lot, obviously! Thanks to the exhortations of Simon and others and the calming tutorial of RAR David, who proved that I could attach one piece of metal to another without my head exploding, I have already come further than I expected. More excitement is on the way in the meantime, however. I don't think I have made it out to a model railway exhibition since autumn 2014, but this weekend I have obtained an exeat as the Memsahib is off helping at a charity clay shoot over the border in Yorkshire. So, this Sunday, 5 June, I will be attending the show at Shildon. If any of you happen to be there, please do make yourselves known to me. I will, of course, be easily identifiable as the chap in the top-hat and frock coat. On the other hand, if I choose to pass incognito, I will be the portly bewildered looking chap with one or two children in tow, including a diminutive, but deadly, little girl with gingery hair.

I hadn't; that is extremely helpful, Kevin, thanks

I was actually thinking what convincing carpentry and how I needed to take note. Non-standard water-tower in the background there.

I am feeling the want of a baseboard. This week I will head south and pick up my tools from the old house. Then it will be shopping for cork tiles and plywood. The length from the end of the station board to beyond the first turnout is 7', and the maximum width of the station area less than 3'. This means I can use a singe standard size 8'x4' sheet of ply to provide the base for the station and yard. Obvious I will need templates for the turnouts before I can finalise the arrangement. In the meantime, the nearest I can get to setting it up is shown below. I believe that I should be able to fit a 40' turn-table and the platform length I require. The station will, I hope, have a spacious feel. I imagine that most WNR branch trains will come out at around 2' in length. A visiting mainline train with 6-wheelers is likely to be no longer than 40". I should just about squeeze in 48" of platform face.