Paragon

Neptune Yard (inglenook) OO in MR I think... Still got a well thumbed copy upstairs ; something that I keep looking back at as an inspiration in a small space!

Hi Kevin, This looks really good, I'm intrigued by 37 175, it certainly looks the part in LL Blue, and especially if it is of Lima origins it certainly looks very smart when contrasted with the Transrail TT Grey example which looks to be of more modern parentage, I too like the option to change era; the contrast of modern air braked stock with ClayHoods and LL Blue with Sector grey (up to privatisation) looks appealing to me personally. The layout sounds like an intriguing project and I'm looking forward to seeing this develop in such a small space The sight lines certainly do favour the photography and I look forward to seeing this develop. Best wishes, Paragon (Jon)

I smile at the HST which growls twice past my windows climbing the 1 in 40 incline after Headingley before Horsforth on the KGX-Harrogate evening working, especially when it's an EMT powercar or set! Better than the constant stream of Pacers and sprinters... Paragon

Joe Bonamassa- No good place for the lonely From blues of desperation album (2016) Stripping a ceiling of wallpaper to Depeche Mode, sounds like my idea of home improvement!

I agree, more so given that the raft of exchanges between the trade unions and the government (both colours) is something close to my heart That said enough politics from me!, there are other more appropriate forums and its in the rules and regs so I'll abide by them, however a lot of importance is drawn to the rail strike of 1955(?) which essentially bloodied the nose of the corporate engine and provoked a backlash which I'm sure influenced the Marples/Frasier/ Castle triad so quick to endorse their own closures and blame Dr Beeching (on no way exonerated being a majority holder in the interests of motorway construction) Moving on to the modelling of the death of steam slightly, using the Third Rail report media available on YouTube and the BTF videos concerning the introduction of dieselisation and the marshalling yard at Tinsley, the raft of closures and rationalisations at Sheffield is something I fancy having a crack at, albeit more green diesel than black steamers but the myriad of trip workings would make for a pretty hefty shunting arrangement with a lot of mixed traffic and industry workings, there is another gem of a video called 'fully fitted freight' which also mentions the vastness of the freight network but blimey 15 years (ish) later and it was all gone, how did that happen! Also, the commentary mentions how coal will give way 'to oils and atoms, but we'll still need steel' how wrong you were mister engine driver! Paragon

I'm no keen steam fan, however have to admit that the WR is a beautiful part of the network to model, and that pic of the cutting embankment looks very realistic. Just hitting like didn't feel like enough! Paragon

Kevin, Many thanks for taking the time to compose this topic and the West of England freight around Bristol thread as well, it's out of my region of interest from a modelling aspect but it certainly makes for an informative and enlightening read. Paragon

No encouragement needed I'm sure but what a layout, it's perfect mix of station activities and shunt opportunities in a realistic setting with many a prototypical and accurate working to boot. Clearly a well researched and thought out piece of model engineering and a pleasure to whittle away the hours reading through the older posts on here... And not a shiny loco/ item of stock in sight to boot. Most enjoyable thread an' all. (As an anecdotal piece, I had an interview for an emu shunter position a few years ago, the bloke interviewing me for the TOC in question was a big North Eastern bloke and one of the first things he asked in the interview was what a northern lad was doing down London and how I was so knowledgeable as to the ins and outs of the role and the TOC in question's routes and rolling stock, after the interview he was chatting to me for a bit and told me that when he started as a guard/ secondman closer to home he barely knew one type of loco from another, let alone the different types of dmu, and how if he'd been around the Southern Region in those days he'd have been completely lost as to one type of unit to another, how times have changed with regards to what knowledge is available online, especially through the myriad of forums out there and most populated with ex-BR or just railwaymen in general all happy to share their stories and reminiscences of the time they knew, biggest regret I ever have not getting that job having got through the online stuff and the group interviews but alas, they wanted me but a) I didn't live near the depots they were recruiting for and b: the two lads that got through to the medicals had experience on the railways which I was sadly lacking... Sorry to go off topic!) Edit to remove an errant emoticon smiley thing

Didn't want to just hit like, looks great, do you mind me enquiring whereabouts it's built ie cellar or spare room etc. Just out of curiosity and sorry if you've already mentioned it above. Looks good and looking forward to seeing it develop. Paragon

D'you know that was exactly what I was watching when I typed my dissertation above!!!There was a longer version as well I believe talking about the myriad of goods yards and pickup sidings in Sheffield and how Tinsley was the future, it may have been this video but I'm sure it was longer! It was an incredible thing to behold, and it was planned to a 'T' with the integration of the woodhead ohle and the hump shunters replacing what was a congested and very much clapped out Victorian infrastructure with something built to last a century... Even though it's now a shadow of its former self and the woodhead route only eked out another 20 years or so... Still, if only they'd have seen the modern image and the sorry state of affairs today, I wonder what they'd have done differently... Thanks for posting Paragon Edit: it was that video, I don't know how I got mixed up, I think the playlist I was watching had a short clip about Tinsley straight after hence the confusion!

Massive Post!!!! I understand this thread has gone quiet, but I thought having delved into this topic purely coincidentally and in a nostalgic (adopted as I'm too young to ever have known the era personally) and slightly vexed frame of mind having been trawling through the back issues of railway mags and diverse and long since redundant BR publications on the bottom tier of my crammed bookcase (really need to tidy that up...) next to my other half's mass of nursing journals, I'd contribute nevertheless, having just uncovered my barely read copy of 'Beeching: the inside track'. Now I'm no keen fan of steam, not even those celebrity locomotives still around in preservation, save for having the utmost respect for their presence at the core of the railways for such a long tenancy as the prime movers of the nations economy and continuing to drive the country in spite of the move to electrification which began to usurp some of their earlier haunts prior to the launch of 'dieselisation' in the late fifties and sixties. To me the twilight of steam is an evocative period, the transition from the time tested to the new and vastly different, and from local lifeline to nationally profitable (still don't understand that concept, never will) However back to talking in a modelling sense and going off previous posts on this thread I would agree it is a chance for a veritable goldmine of diversity in both rolling stock composition, livery and traction power, one which I would certainly consider a stab at representing purely for the whole host of prototypical oddities that you'd be able to throw out there! That said, it will not nor will it ever appeal to my elder generations, nor those whose interests were fostered by memories of their own parents/ grandparents and what they remember simply because of the overall sadness and dismay that enveloped the era and has largely still held sway in influencing the mindset of those of us (self inclusive) who discuss it , with the loss of the familiar from engine shape, whistle, coaling tower or the unmistakeable plume of white steam trailing behind a flat out 9F or similar workhorse steam engine of the era! And that's not to mention the similar sorry decline of the primarily localised rail network and the ripping up of some of the oldest branches extant in the country, and the relegation of some major routes as well (the track removals on the former Midland route along the Aire valley and the loss of the Thames-Clyde expresses etc.) That said, it was an inevitability, certainly, as has and will be seen many times over again in the future. Whilst the wastefulness abundant in this period of turmoil and strife (certainly for the 'boiler watchers' who took a distinctly abhorrent view to the new era being ushered in) in terms of the decimation of perfectly sound and able steam locomotion in such a short period of time, without clear and concise prior bedding in of the new diesels and next to no logitudinal experience in their practical, everyday, revenue based utilisation and application anywhere beyond the manufacturers own guidelines and the board's own trial results and guidance publications is symptomatic of the wider notion that we must strive to keep up with the world we live in, often pressured by other countries and the global scene we desperately seek to acquiesce post Suez '57! To clarify and use some analogies from other instances of a quasi-Quantum Leap in technological progress, the Comet airliners were such a huge jump forward and were touted as Britain leading the way to the future of the world's connectivity and ushering in jet travel, however it became painfully apparent that not enough, it has to be said, was known nor was time or money invested properly in learning about the pressurisation/ depressurisation process and its practical application to the materials of construction at the time, thus they entered service with the carrier's blissfully unaware that every time the cabin pressurised and depressurised it caused massive stress on the airframe so that when they began to split open in mid air and sadly cost lives it made the whole world pay attention to the need to invest in the proper study of new technology prior to its application so widely (the Comets being omnipresent and nigh on monopolising jet airliner fleets for a time) Another example, Windscale (Sellafield) and the reactor fire which was a consequence of shaving the cooling fins of the aluminium pods inserted into the core to produce more plutonium faster resulting in a radioactive fire which (if not admitted to by the powers that were) caused a huge outcry and public scandal over the consequences for the locals and their natural environment and later the secret reasons behind the radioactive fallout that was or wasn't deposited over the Cumbrian countryside as a result, and that came about all because we were so desperate to gain a seat at the Nuclear table with our American cousins who had slammed the book of knowledge closed in the wake of the 'red purge' and the Soviet bomb project unwittingly being sold or even gifted to them by the American secret development team themselves, another example of a rush to build bigger and faster without thought of the consequences! So I sympathise with the view that there were perfectly sound pieces of equipment condemned well before their time, indeed including some of the groundbreaking pilot scheme diesels that fell foul of the cutters torch before being wrung of every last drop of usability it was realistically speaking an inevitability in the politics and mindset of that generation. But, for a modeller, it would be a distinctive era to model and one which is worthy of more attention I'd certainly agree! As for infrastructure having read into the decisions at the time, such as the closure of the myriad of pick up freight locations in favour of centralised consolidation centres, such as truly purpose built locations like Tinsley which brought about the closure and rationalisation of many of the smaller goods yards and foundry sidings in Sheffield, some of which were still getting by in a time of huge economic and manufacturing output with Victorian era cranes and sheds designed to be served by horses, rather than motorised goods vehicles, it was again progress in sort of the right direction albeit unfortunately and probably in a sly fashion tied to the ongoing and profitable expansion of the national road system, which just about comes full circle to the modern day, where every household near enough has a car or access to one, there are more lorries hauling from one end of the country to the other than ever before, the railway is a bad joke run by the Dutch and Germans (whose own networks and systems we largely rebuilt after the war!) at a cost to the 'customer' which goes up every year and yet still refuses to run anywhere near to the standard those countries would expect themselves, but still it is by and large staffed by some great people who put in all they can (in the 'coalface' jobs at least) only to be rebuffed by misguided management who focus on gaining customer loyalty (!!!) like you have a choice which company to travel with from Leeds to Kings Cross direct or which brand of crowded Pacer you get on in the morning, when they're all run by the same single bl'''y companies! Only good thing to come out of the Post-Beeching/Marples/Fraser/Castle era was Freightliner, because it is still going strong and standardised containerisation does work as a global business model, so thanks Dr Beeching! So, sorry but huge rant and post now over. (Some of this stuff I have researched honest, but alas I've slept and re-alcoholated since I read up on some of it, so apologies for any inaccuracies!) I'll get off my soapbox. Paragon. Edit to include beer disclaimer and correct auto correct typos (blooming technology grr!)