Edwardian

As a relative newcomer, there is a lot I have yet to spot on this site. I am glad to find this layout, however, which is very much after my own heart. I have decided to launch my return to this hobby by trying something rather different, but my first and most enduring love is the Great Western in the South Hams. One day I will build it, the railway I always wanted as a child, but in the meantime I am happy to have discovered a Nod to Brent, and look forward to backtracking through its 400 plus pages! A great subject very well executed. By the way, today I also came across the member who makes those resin bodies for small industrials to fit RTR chassis. I have one of his Hawthorn Leslies in my to-do pile, but that is by the by. He is ARC models and is to be found here in the Small Suppliers section. Last year he was canvassing support for a 3150 body to fit the Hornby Large Prairie chassis. Now, if there's one thing that characterised the South Devon mainline in the '30s it was Bulldogs for pilots and 3150s as bankers. So, anyone interested in South Devon in the '30s, why not head over to ARC's thread and tell him you want him to make a 3150. I believe David Geen had one in development for sometime. I don't know if it ever surfaced, but I am more a resin body kit than a brass kit customer in any case. Oh dear, got me onto my favourite subject, sorry, but it also strikes me that a resin body kit for a Bulldog that fits the Bachmann Dukedog/Earl chassis would also help to represent this time and place; by the mid-thirties nearly all the South Devon Bulldogs were running with the larger 3,500 gallon Churchward tender, which the Bachmann model has. Just a thought. Anyway, great layout; really great job.

Indeed, 70 footers were reserved for the principal express routes, but in the '30s 'specific services' included every single West of England express (to Plymouth, Penzance or Truro), save the Limited, and then only because the Limited had dedicated sets of 60' coaches built for it. You might get 57 footers on relief services, as the odd strengthener on, say, Saturdays, or on excursions, but the regular timetabled formations all required 70 footers throughout. 70 footers off a West of England express were even worked to Kingsbridge, and I wonder that more of the evergreen GWR branch termini layouts don't feature a Dreadnought or 2 tacked on to a B-Set.. I only pretend to reasonable knowledge for the services into the South West peninsular, though I note that 70 footers were also used for expresses to Wales, both Concertina and South Wales types being associated with this route. 57 footers running to the South West would be on cross country express services from Bristol, Crewe, Wolverhampton etc and would include portions from further afield, e.g. Manchester or Birkenhead. These services would typically be hauled by Castles or Stars, however, not Kings. Incidentally, there would be a high proportion of LMS vehicles on these services. To run a representative selection of passenger services on the South Devon mainline, you really need roughly as many 70 footers as 57 footers, and the Kings (along with Castles), are only likely to be seem with the former. The fascination of GW passenger services is, IMHO, with the coaches, more than with the (pretty standardised) locomotives, much as I love them. Not only do you get plenty of 70 footers, which are simply magnificent, especially the Dreadnoughts, but you get many styles. Looking at mainline running to the SW in the '30s, you get: Clerestories (although mainly cascaded to local sets on stoppers), Dreadnoughts (70'), Concertinas (70'), Toplight (wooden panelled and steel bodied) (70' and 57'), Collett coaches of the bow-ended period (57' and 70'), later Collett flat-ended coaches (57'), and sunshine stock, not to mention the Riviera and Centenary sets for the Limited. What typifies a GW train, apart from the Limited, is that it will do its best to have as many of those different styles and periods in the length of a single train as it can! The company seemed almost to take a perverse pride in achieving almost total lack of uniformity with its trains.

It might be worth adding that GW coach working timetables invariably specify that the brake ends are outermost, which you can only achieve with both left and right handers if you want the corridor to remain on the same side. As was pointed out above, left or right handedness was determined by viewing the corridor side; i.e. the brake compartment (or first class section) is to the right on a right-handed coach when viewed from the corridor side. Whilst handed Van Thirds are necessary to ensure brake ends remain outermost, handed composites only make sense, to me, if 2 composites are marshalled together, which I suspect did not happen all that often other than in the sets mentioned. I would expect to find that most expresses of the period comprised more than one portion, i.e. a train is actually made up of two or three mini-trains, each with the required numbers of first and third compartments, brake coaches and luggage, reflecting different start and end points for the various portions. Given this, it cannot have been all that often that you would need to run two composites in the same portion. Doubtless examples could be found and, fortunately, information from coach working timetables, which provide at least the theoretical consist, are available, both from Kew and in at least one published volume. Turning to the Collett bow-enders announced by Hornby, I suspect these coaches probably did not remain in the original sets for long; the Great Western had a propensity for running a real mixture of coaching stock diagrams in most services. When introduced, these coaches were fully lined out with faux beading, as were steel bodied LMS coaches prior to 1933. That would be a sight, but I doubt Hornby will ever produce that livery option. I suspect that the coaches were more likely to be seen in the fully lined livery when working in sets. I note the point about Platform 1 at Paddington, however, I doubt these new Hornby coaches typify trains on the principal routes out of Paddington, for instance, a look at a '30s coach working timetable would show ex-Paddington West of England expresses almost exclusively formed from 70' stock, all of which would have been older than the 57' bow-ended Collets (albeit the 'South Wales' 70 footers were only slightly older than their 57' counterparts), though I would be happy to learn of their use on other principal express routes from Paddington (Cheltenham Flyer, perhaps?). Other railways might have run their principal expresses with 57' coaches, but the Great Western had 70 footers. The new Hornby Colletts are suited to cross-country expresses, e.g. North to West services, i.e. between places like Wolverhampton and Crewe and Devon and Cornwall. I think Hornby are to be commended for tackling this subject in such a proper and thorough manner with all the basic revenue-earning variants. Welcome (and long overdue) though these models may be, however, they are probably not the most suitable companion for Hornby's new King, but I really don't see anyone producing RTR 70' coaches any time soon. They will give the Castles and Stars something to pull and I look forward to seeing them released.

My second structure, and first scratch-build. Progress was charted on another thread, so apologies to those who have seen it; nothing new follows. Obviously, the gardens need doing, but the structure itself is complete. I have found experimenting with downloadable textures and various recycled materials a very satisfying process.

Mr MacCormac - Well done for that. I would never have imagined that precisely the sections needing to be replaced to back-date would be separate discrete components. I wonder if there is otherwise a manufacturing logic to this or whether it does betoken a different model in the future. In the meantime, it would seem to suggest that a relatively painless conversion would be possible. It also prompted me to wonder whether the wheel-sets can be replaced. If so, a new body would get you an E3, with smaller wheels, or an E5 or 6 with larger; Brighton kept rigidly to the wheel centres and the trailing wheel diameter on all these Es.

GNR Dave - I suspect that the tooling used for the E4 would not suit its original configuration and it may not be possible to back-date the model to this livery. I believe Marsh chimneys were added - I guess that's what she's got - and maybe new boilers etc that altered the appearance? Someone with more knowledge of the subject than I (almost anyone), will doubtless correct these assertions if necessary.

Hardewick is, or was, also housed at Locomotion, so it seemed a logical next subject. Having said that, thought should, perhaps, also be given to Locomotion's Worsdell M1 (D17) 4-4-0. The NER is cruelly under-represented. As for polls, recent UK experience suggests that they have some reliability issues, but, I would happily go for Gladstone (though it would be nice if they tooled up for the standard variant, too), and the South Eastern 737, so that I will have something to go with the fully lined C Class that I will never own because Bachmann only made 5 of them, and I blinked and missed them. For GER, personally speaking, I would vastly prefer a T26 in Prussian Blue (and I suspect that as LNER and BR E4s they would be reasonably popular). A cut-off date seemed implied for Stirling Single pre-orders, if not expressly stated. Whenever it is, I pray I do not miss it.

Good news. If I can scrape together the deposit before the pre-order cut-off, I shall hope to be the proud owner of one in due course. For coaches, at least from the 1890s, I wondered if anyone had experience of the Diagram 3D range? It is one Hell of a choice for the first steam outline model, but I have complete faith in Rapido; if they say they will do it, I am sure that they will do it, and to an exacting standard. I am really impressed with them for doing this. Hardwicke next?

Now caught up with your posts - further highlights for me were the superb paint-jobs on the venerable Merit figures, and, particularly, the FFR complete with cam nets and poles - beautifully observed and which takes me back to my days in Part Time Signals, prior to Armoured Recce (how about Scimitar/Sabre, Spartan, etc - (Blue diesels era, you could do Fox)?).

C&WR, so much good stuff here, I'm glad I found the thread. I see that you, too, made some Scalescenes brick and flint walls; I suspect I may need rather more of them than you if I keep going! I love the interiors and the Art Deco station; I look forward to perusing the whole thread with more care at my leisure. You mentioned John Ahern over on my cottages thread. Fortunately I do have his books on buildings and landscape and have visited MVR. His work is a great inspiration, I find. There is something special about card and paper modelling, IMHO. It has a delicacy, warmth and luminosity. It's watercolour rather than oils. A fantastic thread - one never knows what you will come up with next - keep up the good work!

Credit where it's due, I say. To sit and eat sausage and mash to the sound of little tank engines chuffering about, before sauntering round to the station and procuring a ticket to the coast ... It does the job for me. And, by all means, quote anything you want.

Cornamuse - The quality that Gainford Spa has in my eyes is rare and rather hard to define, so, I gratefully adopt Mr Hudson's succinct definition, "original, authentic and quirky". I could comment upon various aspects I admire: Early Victorian architecture, infrastructure and rolling stock, which is rarely seen; Italianate stucco and short wheel-base stock captures a sense of period beautifully. There is human interest in the details. The combination of elements is clever in a compact layout in one of the larger scales; it is a quart in a pint pot. Finally, I like the use of card, a medium that, together with the consistent palette used to finish the scenic elements, yields a warm and natural look. But, the magic is in the effect that combining all this somehow produces, and I could not put my finger on precisely how that works. In my humble opinion, there is a charm about the model and something whimsical. If I may presume further, it looks to me like a model made by someone happy. Some models are good for the soul. This is one of them. I look forward to more views of the layout, and also to the 'history', because it is entirely believable that it has one.

I love it, too. I have looked longingly at dozens of superb layouts at exhibitions and in the press. Many have impressed and inspired; only two have also made me smile, Madder Valley and Maeport East. This is the third layout to make me smile. Thank you for that.

Those figures are stunning. This is the future, surely. How VERY ingenious. Time to don my tail-coat and topper and get scanned!