Edwardian

Excellent. Bags of character. The paintwork on the doors and windows is a very convincing shade of "industrial blue", the roof on the water-tank is a great idea and the rust effect is very good; not too much, not too little. You certainly have an "eye", John.

Goodness. If I had any lingering aspirations to become a "finescale modeller", which, to be fair, I don't, this would kill them right off. Did I hear the word "Stalinist"? "Liquidate the Kulaks! (And while your at it, liquidate new RTR models as Enemies of the Finescale Revolution and a Bourgeois Waste of Time!")

I had hitherto associated these blue edging paviours with Gods Wonderful Railway, but, for this project, they are a nice, subtle way, of tying the fictitious West Norfolk Railway with the real Lynn & Hunstanton Railway and its offspring, the West Norfolk Junction Railway. Both these GE constituent companies (effectively a single organisation) used edging bricks. I did say in a previous post that I did not want to ape the distinctive architecture of the L&H, but referencing the edging bricks is a nice west Norfolk railway touch, me thinks. Hover over the pictures for the name of the stations and see, for example, brick edging on the L&H at: Deresingham; Hunstanton (if you can tear yourself away from the locomotive), and Snettisham. On the WNJ, see examples at Burnham Market, Docking, Sedgeford, and Stanhoe. Note the close up of Sedgeford, which shows the same criss-cross pattern found on the contemporary GE Suffolk station at Clare, as well as on the GW and LNWR. If you want a chance of a pyramid roof station, why not adopt the Lodge at Kew Gardens. This is in the "Queen Anne" revival style that was the architecture of choice for the aspiring leisured and moneyed upper middle classes of the 1860s and trendy arty types, but which by the 1890s had become popularised as the architecture of the Gin Palace. Perhaps the best known station in the style is Market Harborough. I am rather partial to Queen Anne as it reminds me of my undergraduate days, wooing various Newnham Girls. The Lodge at Kew has an almost pyramidal roof, and dates from 1866.

It is a delightful station. Nice bit of carstone from the looks of it, of the large variety. Sedgeford Hall appears to be a delightful Queen Anne-ish house. All in the general area of the WNR. An occasional solecism of provincial classicism is the use of a pilaster or column in the centre of a façade. This, offends, I suspect, because every classical façade must be divided in accordance with the rules, horizontally and vertically, though in many or most cases, these divisions are invisible! The rules also suppose that a façade is surmounted by a triangular pediment, though this may also be invisible, i.e. absent. This comes from temples, Greek then Hellenistic Roman, and in domestic use, from Augustus's house, then, via Vitruvius and Palladio, to the English Palladians. Anyway, the rules require a bay, not a vertical division, to be in the centre of the composition under the apex of the pediment!.

2'6" or thereabouts sounds sensible, but should take the measurement from the coaches. Which means I need to get on an build some coaches! The type of brick seems to be associated with Staffordshire, which is not a problem, as we have railways, though I wonder if they only came from Staffordshire? EDIT: PS If the bull-nose blue brick turns out to have been a fad of the mid-1860s and anachronistic for the circa 1855-58 build-date assumed for Castle Aching, might it feature as an 1860s platform extension? Probably should consider what platforms were being constructed in the mid-'50s. How could I forget Clare? A wonderful station. Your picture below shows them on the wall too! That seems a very common ploy; flags near the station building but then a cheaper surface. This would be macadam in the Twentieth Century at least? What would platform surfaces have been originally? There is a nice example on Trenance, a layout featured on RM Web. It's a lovely layout, I wonder what happened to it?

Platform? Might as well think about this. Two thoughts, so far: This is an 1850s station. Relatively impressive, but a backwater. The old 1850s 40' turntable has never been replaced. The sidings retain lightly laid FB rail. There is a distinct absence of upgrades. The platform was built to a height to contend with 4-wheelers with the low continuous footboards of the period. It has never been heightened. So, we are not looking at narrow gauge, US, tramway low or non-existent platforms, just lower than became standard in the Twentieth Century. Suggestions on the appropriate height are invited. Material. I like my funny little railway to be distinctive. Rather than the usual edging stones, how about bull-nosed blue brick? In this, I am encouraged by a West Norfolk GER-Constituent precedent. Below is a picture of the West Norfolk Junction Railway's station at Sedgeford, opened in 1866. This was a bucolic extension of the profitable (and Royal!) Lynn & Hunstanton Railway, though technically a separate company. Of course, the bullnose edging might not be the original. Platform likely to be gently curving, as per latest plan.

Through a straw? Gazpacho is your friend.

I am sorry to hear that you have been so knocked about and I am sure we all wish you well and a speedy return to pain-free modelling. Just lie on the sofa and watch old films for the next 3 days, though!

Surely there is still some obscure 1950s diesel that they only ever made 3 of and that was crap and only ran for 3 days before withdrawal that has yet to be made available RTR and for which the World is crying out?

I think you are correct in identifying these as two different coaches. The first picture I interpret as having, front to rear as we view it, 6 compartments, a space for a plated over/removed lookout, a single door and then a double door. That is consistent with a D16 48'6" Dean Low-roof van third. It just so happens that 5800 Class, No. 5818 was photographed with coach No. 2072 at Dorstone c. 1937. According to Harris, 2072 is not a running number for a D22, but is the number of a D16.

Know the feeling. Excellent looking track

Topping!

The latest plan, more or less. I have decided that the layout will go in the workshop outbuilding, once this accommodation is powered and insulated. This gives me a comfortable 10'. EDIT: PS it has power; I discovered this when I largely emptied it this afternoon!

Nice work, particularly the coaches. those break ends look very Stroudley and I think will be well-worth your upgrade.

Defeat conceded ...

I think the H&P will be so splendid that many will be unable to resist (I am not sure I will), and dark green is a fairly generic livery that is believable in most settings. The star for me is Dodo, whose leaf green livery Hornby believes to be the Peckett works, or default, livery, so Dodo is just one new nameplate away from being the property of any freelance industrial concern you care to provide with a railway. Smashing idea. I believe the Manning Wardle works livery was a rather attractive and distinctive blue (please someone correct me if I'm wrong). That would be even better!

Me, too. The great thing about the Hudswell Clarke is that it is an example of the innumerable six-coupled tanks with the distinctive saddle tank shape favoured by many manufacturers of industrial locos including Hunslet and Manning Wardle. Together with the Peckett, we would have one each of two of the most characteristic basic types of small industrials. I'd love a Manning Wardle. Any Manning Wardle, but the K Class was probably one of the most numerous.

Some great prototype details there Kevin, but do any of them feature a pyramid?

Slowly evolving thoughts and edging toward commitment! The mainline and the platform road have been upgraded in the late Victorian period to chaired BH. I think that the same may have been the case for the run-round loop and the shed road (locomotives get heavier and the shed road gets a lot of use as a loop). The sidings will be FB laid directly on the sleepers. The turnout on the platform road leading to the sidings will, of course, be chaired BH, but the other siding turnout (or turnouts if I opt for a third siding) should logically also be FB, as Don has pointed out. There is no intention to run passenger trains into the siding behind the platform, so I think it likely that this would be fenced off to prevent access from the platform for passengers. I wondered if this might double up as (a) the siding serving the goods shed, and ( b ) the siding providing an end loading dock facility. The second siding, furthest from the platform, might be where cattle pens might be located. There would be room for a large crane. I would expect the local coal merchant to offload at the end of this siding. I expect he would do so with the aid of a plank straight onto his wagon. This might make a nice little scene and also avoid the vexed question of coal staithes. I am considering a third siding. So given this plan, I thought I'd better have a look at what was on offer. Leaving aside soldering stuff, gauges, ballast, fishplates and what not, and just concentrating on the track, I made the following comparison between SMP and C&L. I should say that I have excluded pre-built points, full point kits or the pre-assembled crossings/frogs and pre-planed rails, and have done so for reasons of cost because building the points has to be cheaper than the £25 pre-built SMP points: For Plain Track in Sidings – Code 75 FB laid directly onto sleepers: • SMP NSR75FB Code 75 Nickel Silver Flatbottom Rail (12 Yards) = £15.00 • SMP Pre-Cut OOSL 100 X OO 3.5mm X 32mm Sleepers = £6.50 For Turnouts in Sidings – Code 75 FB laid directly onto sleepers: • SMP NSR75FB Code 75 Nickel Silver Flatbottom Rail (12 Yards) = £15.00 • SMP CCS4 OO/EM 4mm Wide PCB Sleeper Strip 18X 12" 1.2mm = £7.50 • SMP Copper-clad point kits = £6.99 to £8.75 For Plain Track on mainline, platform & shed roads & loop – Code 75 BH chaired: • SMP Scaleway Type J OO Nickel Silver Track, 10 Yards = £43.00 • C&L FlexiTrack - Thin Sleepers - OO 16.5mm - Nickel Silver - Box 25 metres = £121.00 For turnouts from mainline, platform & shed roads & loop – Code 75 BH chaired: • SMP NSR75 Code 75 Nickel Silver Bullhead Rail (10 Yards) = £10.00 • C&L Rail - N/Silver Code 75 - Bullhead (10 yards) = £10.00 • SMP Plastic Point Kits (Chairs/Timbers only), 36” only = £7.99 • C&L Plastic Point Kits (Chairs/Timbers only) = £12.00

Superbly realistic finish you have to that crane.

Great Bear, Richard, I agree. There are far more late '30s and '40s GW layouts than earlier. It is harder to go earlier. I have chosen 1935, and have had enough trouble with that! Prior to the release of these Hornby Colletts, I think the only RTR GW passenger-rated vehicle of acceptable quality that I could use more or less OOB was the Hornby Horsebox! Oh, but for those Colletts in full faux panelling with some Toplights and some locomotives with Garters to pull 'em! I have chosen a principal mainline, so my research experience is perhaps subtly different, and it gives me both some secondary mainline traffic coming cross-country and the principal mainline traffic itself: 50% of express services are Paddington - WoE, so, aside from the Riviera, pretty much all 70' stock The other 50%, cross-country/ North to West, has a high % of LMS stock, mainly ex-LNWR (as it originally would have been LNWR) and early period LMS. For GW 57' stock there are a lot of Toplights (including steel sided), Bow-Enders and a fair sprinkling of the Flat-Enders from the beginning of the Thirties. From 1936, odd examples of Sunshine stock crop up in trains with sufficient frequency to irritate when researching sample diagrams on particular services. Granges do much the same. The 4-4-0 classes are all gone (if memory serves the last Duke departed the area around 1932) and the mainline passenger engines are almost all 4-6-0, 2 or 4 Cylinders, with Moguls sharing the work with Halls on the stoppers. The exception to this is the retention of the Bulldogs for front of train assistance on the banks. There was a nice mix of the standard straight-framed and the deeper framed Birds and even a couple of Curly-Wurlies kicking about. Hurrah for the '20s and '30s!

Until these new Colletts came along, modelling the GW before the late '30s was quite difficult, because there were locos, but no decent coaches. Late '30s onward was OK because you had Collett Sunshine Stock, and then Hawksworths and Mark Is. Although BR(WR) seems still to be more popular than GWR, I think 1947 is relatively popular as a period for GW layouts. Think of Kings Torre (EM), this excellent layout, the excellent A Nod to Brent. MIB of this Parish is planning another for this period. I can think of some inter-war GW branchline layouts on RMWeb, but a high % of mainline GW subjects are 1947.

Too far for me too, besides, I think my passport might have expired. Have a good one!

Thanks, Don, again very helpful. What you say above is absolutely right. John, I believe Peco sell Code 60 FB, or did, for depicting the conductor rail on electrified lines. EDIT: According to the Antics site, the dimensions of the Peco Code 60 FB are: A 1.57mm 0.062in B 0.76mm 0.030in C 1.24mm 0.049in

Funny you should say that ... It would be good if I could use that for this project.