Nearholmer

Yes, as I argued way back up thread, railway heritage is way over represented in the “available history offering” at the moment. 200 years (in practice more like 50/200 years) of the history of one particular family of technology and associated social history is represented hugely, and largely in a way that doesn’t accurately convey the reality of how things (beyond individual objects) actually were “back in the day”, and very poor provision of contextual interpretation of many aspects. If you compare it with, say, coastal and inland-waterway shipping, or horse-drawn road transport, each of which has a far, far longer history, and has made huge social impact, it’s kinda ridiculous at an historical portrayal level. Those other forms of transport have only scattered representation, and barely any “re-enact it every weekend” participation. We could afford to loose a very high proportion of railway heritage, yet still be able to give a balanced/proportionate historical portrayal, ditto gigantic country houses. But, both make for a jolly fine day out, and for the volunteers involved a really brilliant hobby, so we have over-representation.

Hourly passenger service: xx00 Depart Berwick xx10 Arrive Cuckmere xx15 Depart Cuckmere xx25 Arrive Berwick Goods service TWFO (Q): 1030 Depart Berwick 1050 Arrive Cuckmere Stops short of points, release GF, shunt into run-round loop, restore GF and “lock in” by 1055. 1130 Retrieve token, release GF, shunt as required., forming up train in runaround loop ready for departure, restore GF and “lock in” by 1155. 1230 Retrieve token, release GF, pull forward onto running line, restore GF, depart. 1250 Arrive Berwick. Even this might be tight, because an 08 dragging half a dozen loaded sand hoppers will be painfully slow. Its hard to conceive of an SR passenger service in the 1970s that doesn’t run hourly, even if it runs mostly empty! I’d probably actually timetable the goods to return at 1430, rather than 1230, to give a bit of slack in the shunting process, which can take a surprisingly long time, and to allow the crew to “make a day of it”. In practice, it could come back up in whichever xx30-xx50 slot suits all concerned, but we need to get the crew back to Eastbourne or Brighton by passenger train to book-off by 1630-ish (they booked-on c0800) to avoid paying for a long turn. What with walking time and everything else, they need to be away from Berwick 1500 really. So, my take is “yes, two trains do need to be there simultaneously. You can probably also see why the whole operation was uneconomic, and the branch got closed-down! But, this was BR(S) as I remember it in the 1970s: all rather stuck in the 1950s, if not the 1930s, the positive being a neat and regular set of passenger services, the negative being some very relaxed use of staff time and assets, and wage structures that required the creation of overtime to allow good earnings!

I thought about that, but I’m not confident on things like that, because I don’t know how much ironmongery can sensibly be shoved around by one bloke, using one lever. What’s your view on whether or not it’s physically practical?

Signalling diagram, Take 2: I’m confident that this is the correct way to trap it, and that the two switches at the LH end of the slip, plus the other switch nearby, can be manual, they don’t need to be interlocked, and it makes shunting simpler if they aren’t. Now, this could still be: - a block post, with all the points controlled from one lever frame, either in a signal box or in a “pen” on the platform; or, - not a block post, with the points controlled from one or two ground frame(s) both released by a key on a train staff; or, - not a block post, with the points controlled from one or two ground frame(s) released by a key on on an electric token, and with provision to “lock in” a goods train, thereby allowing a passenger train to be run, by providing a lock-in thingy (what are they called!?) for the token, which releases the ability to issue a token at Berwick; or, - Mol_PMB’s option, which makes this a block post, but uses a ground frame released by a key on an electric token to operate the points, so means that one train has to be “locked in” before the token can be put in the machine, allowing one to the withdrawn from the machine at Berwick and a train despatched from there. I think that either the third or fourth would suffice, but favour the third because it ought be marginally cheaper to create, and I think the fourth might have a safety loopholes. But, I’m only a Barrack Room Signalling Engineer; is there a real one available to comment?

Ah, yes. Had that been invented in c1935, or perhaps had it been used in Britain? I’ll have to see whether I can find out.

The way I understand what you are saying is that it would make Cuckmere a block post within a telephone block system. Is that correct? My instinct is that the SR must have used telephone block somewhere ……. It’s cheap, and they loved cheap! My suggestion (if it’s plausible) also doesn’t allow a goods train to leave while a passenger train is present, but I’ve looked at potential trip times, and I don’t think that matters - provided the goods leaves as soon as practicable after the passenger train is home to Berwick, it can trundle up the line without disturbing an hourly passenger service. PS: what’s really frustrating is that I’ve got a copy of the relevant Sectional appendix for 1935, and the page covering this branch seems to be missing!

Track laying continues an odd hour at a time, and while I’ve been doing that, I’ve been thinking about signalling (or ideally the absence of signalling), so would anyone care to comment? This is something the SR did in the late 1930s, so it’s got to be as simple as possible, cheap, and use as many recycled bits as possible. First, I think this is the diagram, with one switch on the double-slip hand-worked to permit the EST&T staff to pick and drop wagons from the two sidings: [See further down; I no longer think this diagram is appropriate] I have two doubts: - whether I need better trapping, in the form of a trap switch from the run-round loop; - whether or not having one switch on the double-slip manual is feasible in practice. I think it was in reality, and that the way Pecorino make the model one, with two switches ganged together on a single tie-bar is not prototypical, but I’m wavering a bit on this. Next question is whether or not this place needs to be a block post, with signals. I’m thinking that maybe I can get away with it not being, by using a “lock in” arrangement. Imagine that the throat and release crossover are worked by two ground-frames, released by a key on the electric token, and that there is a facility to “lock in” a goods train by inserting said token in a lock box, thereby releasing the machine at Berwick and permitting another token to be issued to allow a passenger train down and back, and that once that train is home again, and its token back in the machine at Berwick, the goods train can then be released by withdrawal of the token still at Cuckmere. Views on this from anyone who knows SR practices would be very welcome. If that isn’t plausible, we’ll probably have to promote the place to a block post, and upgrade the porter to signalman-porter, and decide exactly what arrangements to give him to do his job; the SR put the block instruments in the ticket office, and provided a lever frame semi-outdoors behind railings in some places, and in others had a signal-box from which tickets were sold. Either way, I’m assuming the block post would be switched-out most of the time, with the passenger train shuttling up and down “One EMU on voltage”.

Shall definitely visit when next in town to see family. On a previous occasion, I got a very nice 0 gauge Southern coach there, which I wasn’t completely sure at the time was Exley, but now am, at a very decent price, so I hope the new owners continue to find unusual secondhand stuff, and “price to sell”!

A horse, or nowadays- bike, is a brilliant tool for a preliminary survey, because it gets you along at a pace that suits the job, and the very act of riding gives you a really good feel for slopes. And, of course, each mode could learn from the one before - even Roman surveyors adopted the alignments or general courses of prehistoric trackways where that suited their very linear way of doing things, points at which rivers could sensibly be hordes, and then bridged, were strategic to all, for instance. Surveying was a pretty well-developed science long before C19th, and during the C17th and C18th it got a boost from “gun laying” (sighting and ranging cannon) and valuing and bounding the landed estates. I’ve got a very good book about C17th surveying techniques, and with instruments that you can easily make yourself, and a good grasp of trigonometry, it isn’t too difficult.

Ordinary kitchen “tinfoil”.

That’s actually quite a good frame I think, a bit heavy, but solidly made, and if you stripped it of everything, made sure the head bearings haven’t died, then spent some money on new bits (possibly starting with looking at the BB if it’s been in the rain for ages), you could make a nice flat bar gravel bike, maybe even go as far as fitting drop bars. I’d put something like Deore 1x12, with an 40T chainring, and 40-45mm tyres on it if they’ll fit, and it would be quicker and more fun on anything but real MTB ground than an MTB. The springiness that’s arrived is nice, isn’t it? My bike took me for a good country ramble on Thursday.

Yep, genuine G1 clockwork locos are collectors items, I’m afraid. I can’t think of one that has been series-produced since the 1930s, so even the newest ones are quite old. Probably a Bassett Lowke 112 0-4-0T be your best bet, but you become a curator, rather than an owner in the usual sense, once you take on such old locos. If you are entirely wedded to clockwork, then the cheapest option would probably be to fit extended axles to a postwar Hornby 0-4-0 mechanism, but I have to say that for kids the perfect option is to get Playmobil battery R/C trains, which run on either their own plastic track, or LGB track, and are fully LGB-compatible. Not intending to tout for trade, but my off-spring have grown out of Playmobil, and I have an entire railway sitting here in very good condition, that I don’t quite know what to do with, including the exceedingly good diesel shunter with 2.4GHz R/C. So far, I can’t bear to part with it, because it has the memories of not only my two youngest, but Met H’s son and daughter tangled-up in it. Maybe it could go on to a third family with a railway enthusiast (ideally railway employee) dad.

Topologically, the fewer turnouts your layout contains, the greater the probability that it is exactly the same as someone else’s. Once when getting over the flu, so bored and lazy, I tried to work out a mathematical formula to define the number of topologies that could be created with a given number of plain turnouts (treating all turnouts as bifurcations, not considering L, R, Y etc, but considering ‘flow’, so not treating them as simple nodes). After about an hour, I fell asleep, so still don’t know the answer. Does anyone?

Possibly my ultimate layout would be a model of a model (so there!), and it would include Paddington (well, a station named Paddington), since it would be pretty much a replica of Paddington to Seagood, the fairly ginormous 0 gauge layout built by Gilbert Thomas before and during WW2, and described in his book of the same name. Due to the annoying absence of huge sums of money, an immense space, and near infinite time, this will not happen. PS: actually, I think I would have to rebadge it as Waterloo to Seagood Central, and have different trains, because I never could understood the GWR.

Ah, I wondered how you’d got the texture. Having read that, I think I feel a jig coming on. Maybe two jigs. Now, where’s me tin whistle?

By golly gosh (or words to that affect), is 4mm/ft fiddly - well below the level of resolution of my eyesight! Trial run of the baseboard joint fiddliness, which has to be strong because the track is slightly curved, and I don’t want anything “springing” when I cut it. Fibreglass sleeper epoxied to board; rail chair made from a bit of some FB rail that I found in my bits of metal stash, and, for good measure, a brass pin as close as I dare go to the board edge. Feels strong, and only another dozen to go! Once it’s pained and ballasted, it should look OK, if everyone else is as myopic as I am! PS: I cut it, and it didn’t spring - phew!

That is one heck of an atmospheric railway; I’d forgotten how very good it is. The station construction pages have, I think, been denuded of photos, so questions: - did you use the Dart Castings “legs”? - any hints/tips on them if you did? - what did you use for the platform “deck”? I’m thinking at the moment that I will possibly go for 1mm brass, to give me a nice bed to solder the legs to, and which is close to scale thickness.

Good hint, thank you. I've seen and liked Waddlemarsh, but hadn’t remembered that it has a nice spindly station. Questions will definitely follow.

Off at a wild tangent, but IMO one of the most interesting and atmospheric NT houses is Chastleton, which is (a) preserved in “as acquired” condition, rather than restored, and (b) still quite close to its original C17th condition, because the family that owned it were financially ruined by picking the wrong side in The Civil War.

Ah, I get it. If you read back up thread, I actually said something similar myself, in that all decisions about how to teach/present/portray/emphasise-deemphasise/etc history are political with a small ‘p’. I’ll re-phrase then: it’s now fallen into the same swirling pit of angry polarisation that everything else even slightly controversial falls into these days.

Unfortunately, the topic has very definitely been politicised, as I found out when a load of very reactionary campaigning stuff started to materialise on my Facebook feed. You only have to read the comments under postings about the topic to understand that those opposed to the NT lifting the veil from subjects that people would rather not hear about regard this as a culture war to be fought very hard indeed.

By no means all of this is fixed down, and there will be a lot of fiddly stuff to do around the baseboard joint, but I hope it illustrates the general direction of travel.

Relevant reading: https://www.railengineer.co.uk/progress-with-the-four-lines-modernisation-project/ I’ve lost touch with which bits of this renewal/upgrade have now been commissioned, but relevant to this conversation, the article gives 32TPH as the performance requirement.

My instinct is: But, having bought track last week, I’m very sensitive to the point(!) made above. I deliberately buy anything that I need, and which he stocks, from the local model shop, which involves full catalogue price, and even for a tiny layout the price is very full!

I was always intrigued by that last point, which applied to the top half of the circle too, an incredibly intense service, especially because I’ve got a book with some antediluvian train planning graphs in it showing such frequencies, so I asked the Chief Signalling Engineer of LU about it. He explained to me that it had been achieved by having very short blocks, no overlap beyond signals, so trains might be separated only “by the thickness of a stick”, and if you delve through the accident reports available on Railways Archive, you will find that it all went horribly wrong fairly often, when trains overran signals and ran into stationary trains ahead. The collisions were at low speeds, and seem to have resulted in injuries and minor damage, rather than being catastrophic, which is possibly why they aren’t headline events in railway history. PS: by the time of electrification, the services on the Circle were legendarily slow and unreliable too, you can find lots of contemporary moaning and groaning from users, which suggests that the Met and District were struggling to deliver the timetable, that there were just too many trains on the line to allow resilience.