Methuselah

More speed-corrected Edwardian equine minutiae for your delectation Mikkel - and some very interesting characters fresh from your Farthing diorama.... :-) . I had to watch this several times - quite poignant when one reflects on the events of the Great War and the Spanish Flue bearing down upon them to change their world forever.

UPDATE;- Thanks for the comments and moral support. Since I posted this a few hours ago, I was informed first thing this morning that the buyers chain on the property I'm living in and selling - has collapsed..... (****..!!!) - presumably due to the 'Panic-demic'....! Not that I'm in anyway trivialising the CV-19......but all the panic and febrile response only makes matters worse. Hey - ho..... Ah well.......I'll have to revert to 'Plan B' and rent this house out, as there is no way I'll get a sale in any reasonable timeframe in the currently febrile climate.... I can't allow my plans to be diverted - or I'll miss the summer season working on the farmhouse - and the model railway and other projects will have to go onto the back-burner yet again...and I'm determined not to allow that to occur. I was afraid that this might happen, but despite having everything crossed..... Life will go on, we are all just going to have to re-adjust our expectations for the immediately foreseeable future, whether that be three months or eighteen months. Stay safe folks.... :-)

Floods, Plagues and Pestilence - yes really..... Given the rising global pandemic and all of the associated uncertainties, even incipient panic by some, immersing oneself in the world of miniature fantasy may seem like a highly frivolous activity of little import - and in truth - it is. On the other hand, a non-reactionary approach and a sense of historical perspective probably make for a calmer, less panic-prone citizen - so you'll excuse me if a lean towards the latter view. We had terrible flooding locally this winter, a great tragedy for many, and resulting in ongoing misery and hardship. Fortunately, being in a reasonably elevated position, my property suffered no significant ill-effects to the biblical inundations. What may yet prove to throw a massive spanner in the works for me is the pandemic, and it's effects upon the supply of workers, both skilled and unskilled. I have a big program of work on my property this year, and until I get that to a reasonable state of advancement, serious progress on my diorama is simply not going to be possible - I simply dare not allow myself to become prematurely diverted. Of course, that hasn't stopped me honing some of my ideas. The enforced delay has allowed time to come-up with a number of improvements that had not hitherto revealed themselves to my ageing brain. The biggest single - and recurring problem to manifest itself, in terms of layout design, has been that of space, and, rather like the child whose eyes are bigger than his belly, I've found that I had somewhat underestimated the space that I will need, not by much, but a miss is as good as a mile... I've become rather obsessed with not bending or foreshortening the diorama, and whilst Woofferton wasn't very big as railway stations and junctions go, I'd not really allowed enough for the curves at the ends, carrying the line away to imagined horizons. At the end of the month, I'll finally move the thirty miles or so to the farm. I've had a caravan on site for a couple of years now. It's a few years old and pretty basic, but perfectly tolerable - at least until you get visitors....whereupon it starts to get like a sardine tin...but in the current situation, that’s not likely to be an issue…! Had I gone for a normal property restoration, I'd have been finished long ago. Being, apparently, some sort of masochistic idealist, I'm trying to create a sort of eco-friendly, off-grid paradise. Doing this with a six-hundred year old house is not without it's challenges. Last season, was mostly taken-up with groundworks - digging and burying a kings-ransom in various types of pipes and ducts. As well as normal sewers - to a septic tank of course, there is a system to collect and store rainwater - lots of it. Overflows, back-up pipes to the well, ducts for wires for the various pumps and sensors etc. I could go on, but you get the drift. Part of the new railway room will in fact sit over the main water storage tank - something of an impediment to progress....! I've had to wait for the ground to dry-out a little before digging the rather large hole for the water tank, but this will happen very shortly now. Thus, being off-grid for sewerage and water, I will have to address the electrical system. Currently, I'm using mains power, but next year will see the fitment of a goodly number of PV panels and batteries to store surplus energy. The rest of this year will see new floors and walls at the ground-level, a new porch, and finally, the railway room/outbuilding. Having mentioned Floods and Plagues - lastly - Pestilence. Not clouds of Locust fortunately - but mice. I don't actually have a huge infestation - but then again, it only takes a few mice to cause untold damage.... To this end, moving with me will be my two Savannah's. These cats are, we are told, pedigree cross-breeds of some sort of Asian cat, with the wild African Serval. They are not especially large, but they are exceptionally athletic - and very good mousers, so they will have a field-day - or at least I ruddy hope so. In case you are thinking that I paid the reputed thousands for these cats, let me inform you that they were rescue cats and came free.... Rather foolishly, having always owned cats, I thought that I'd be able to tame them and bend them to my ways. Well, it's fair to say that I've only been partially successful. They are siblings, and had been used for breeding at a cattery, and, truth be told, had never really been handled. They aren't nasty as such - and are very clean.....but they live for each other - and ONLY for each other. You can't just pick them-up like teddy bears and cuddle them. They are nervous, jumpy and highly strung, and if panicked, will hiss at you like a Cobra about to strike…. However - they are very beautiful, and have limitless curiosity. They move like water flowing and both of them together like a shoal of fish. Some people who have had them from kittens put them on leads. These two would never suffer such domestic abuse and are far beyond such impositions upon their freedoms. All interactions have to be on their terms. Oddly, they were house-cats when they arrived, but they now love to roam free. When it's cold or wet, they much prefer their basket or propping-up a scalding-hot radiator. When it’s a cold but sunny day, they are often to be found, sat like book-ends on the window as a mirror-image. In Roman times, people used to have niches by the entrance to the house, in which they placed their household gods - the Lares & Penates, to ward-off evil spirits and bad luck. In my case - I'm hoping my Lares & Penates will rid me of Pestilence too. Anyway - their utility as mousers is about to be put to the test. I'm just hoping that the mice haven't caused damage to all my stored railway treasures... Model railway-related acquisitions have now slowed to a tiny dribble, and the real work is about to begin…..

I never saw clogs in general usage, but in the 1950's and '60's, I commonly saw kids playing barefoot in very poor areas in the warmer months. At the time of my grandfathers childhood in the late 1800's, this was common. Boots were expensive and saved for Sunday Best and church. At the risk of serious thread-drift;- Jeremy Atkinson is the last traditional clogmaker in England, based in Kington, Herefordshire. https://www.clogmaker.co.uk A pal of mine still wears clogs made by Jerry about forty years ago. Here he is explaining the traditional method of clogmaking. Fascinating ;-

Interesting to see people wearing clogs. Clogs seem to have lasted much longer in some parts of the UK. Very comfortable and nigh-on indestructible.... :-)

Mikkel;- Another one right up your alley. Reprocessed film from 1901. It's so good it's spooky. Great detail of the dress of working people in northern England in 1901. It's like looking through a time-travellers wormhole back a hundred and thirty years..... It's strangely addictive....

Paris, about 1890 - another amazing restoration. Sharpness, speed corrected, colour and sound added. Almost spooky.... Anyway - lots of horses...!

I'm not minimising the work in the recordings etc, in fact, I was actually disregarding the cost of the sound files entirely. The sound chips themselves are currently prohibitively expensive, and that needs to change. I think the purveyors of these recordings can charge what they like - the market will sort itself out naturally. Another issue that I forgot to mention was - and again, I say this as an old crock recently returned to this hobby - there seem to be way way to many different sockets etc. ONE standard universal socket should suffice if it has enough pins. Sound aside, there are lights and smoke, and that's about it at 4mm scale. Simpler cheaper decoders could be sold with the standard pin-configuration. I'd prefer to buy the decoders and shop-around for the sounds, and ultimately, I think that's what the market will dictate. The data cards in digital cameras etc today are tiny. If there was a slot for these in the decoder, just the data card with the sound-files etc could be transferred between models - a quick and easy operation. Cards could easily be sent-away to be written, re-writen / updated from websites, or the dedicated users could write their own, as some already do.

I returned to this hobby only a couple of years ago, after an absence of almost fifty years - so this is my take from that perspective. What struck me was a) How much had changed, and b) How much had remained the same..... Big changes with DCC (We were just flirting with PCM and sound back then. ), SOUND - which I really like - and some amazingly detailed RTR - even some gear that might seem 'old' to you guys was 'new' and 'quite detailed to me....! What had remained pretty much the same was the general availability of various loco kits and ready built kits - usually needing to be rebuilt. On that score, a big advance is the availability now of some really excellent motors and reduction gearboxes etc to get these kits running acceptably. I bought a lot of used locos in the first year, and frankly, I thought most of them were cheap as chips. Yes, I bought a few brand-new items, and yes, they were a bit pricey - but I didn't 'have to', it was a choice. Out of around 300 locos, mostly used RTR and kit, I bought I think four new locos and one coach and one brake-van new. All the rest of the rolling-stock is used. If one has a little modelling and technical ability, it's not hard to sort-out the various niggles that some of the used items inevitably have - that said - a lot of it was boxed and like new. I can't really understand folks bitching about prices - as if they don't like the cost, then they don't have to pay it. The 'market' will inevitably sort-out what is sustainable. If I see a new desirable RTR item, I look at what else is available, and how difficult getting a decent workable and well-finished kit/upgraded RTR model would be. (There is one area where I do have a gripe, and that is the cost of the DCC sound decoders for the locos. If one only has a few locos, this is clearly less of a problem. The non-sound decoders seem to be available for around a tenner - no biggie, but sound decoders all seem to be around £100. (= £30,000 for all my locos....!!!). For a potentially tiny mass-produced electronics item, that seems a vast amount, far far more than the cost of more than 95% of my locos....! Even the Hornby basic sound decoders (An excellent idea BTW.) are still around £34. (= £10,300). Sooner or later, there will have to be a really affordable sound decoder to enable universal usage. A tenner would be acceptable. (=£3,000). If they became cheaper, they would be more universally used. Clearly, I'm not going to fit sound to ALL of my locos at those prices - I was simply illustrating the vast potential cost.... :-) )

A decent Dean Single or the very similar Armstrong 4-4-0 would be wonderful, as would some decent period coaches.

You've pre-empted another of my questions there, which is 'was there a set maximum number of wagons'. I seem to remember reading somewhere it was a blanket 80 wagons on the GWR, but then I also heard stories verbally that 2800 often pulled 100 wagons - and the 4700 was more powerful. Presumably there would have been references to this in the printed rules - what would be the publication to look at I wonder....? Did it vary depending on what line it was - as some lines only had shorter goods-loops etc....

Yes, I think the southbound platform ended at that crossover anyway.

When my grandfather was a born, there were no cars whatsoever. Almost no real technology at all as we would think of it today. Are we any happier now...? Probably not.

Thanks Rob.

Wow - those are fantastic Peter....is the LNWR loco entering Berrington & Eye...?

Horses and wagons...saw this and thought of you sir;-

Phil, I'm also building a model of Woofferton and part of the Tenbury Branch as far as Tenbury, but although I have been collecting together all the stuff I need, I have still to finish building/converting some outbuildings for the model railway. I've been collecting images and maps etc, but the further one goes back in time, the harder it gets to find the very few images that survive. I'm setting the infrastructure around the Great War period, when the main line was still LNWR signalled I think. I have read both of the Tony Barfield books, but I'd be very interested to hear what Selwyn Frost has to recall about the Tenbury Branch. Some features of that branch are missing in terms of photos. The iron bridge over the Teme near Little Hereford the Level-Crossing at Little Hereford, the West Box and especially the Turntable at Tenbury. I have a Blog on RM here, but I haven't posted for some time as I have been stalled on the building works for various reasons. I should get this built this year however - and maybe some shizzle worth posting.

High Phil, TBH I was struggling to find images of any older non GWR or BR locos in use in that area, and that 4F popped-up tagged as being at Leominster. I have seen other images of 4F's in Woofferton for example. I really wanted some older LNWR locos working the area, but as this area was out in the wilds, it didn't get photographed so much in the distant past it seems. Some location images are also hard to find. There are quite a lot of images of Woofferton on this FaceBook. Go onto FaceBook and look-up 'Tenbury Wells Branch Line'. There are over 100 Members now - and many are off the SVR, so there is a little cross-fertilisation of information. There are images there of many parts of Woofferton, including parts of Ballast Hole sidings and the hidden bridge/tunnel.

I bought one of these locos, but I've no where to run it yet. In practice - how much will they pull....and how does that compare with what the real ones pulled in terms of number or wagons....?

A few years ago I acquired a large archive of original pre-war Hawker drawings, mainly Fury, but the whole range was inter-related, like Meccano. The old chap I got them off told me that a few parts had survived through to the Harrier. Doubtless something like valve or some such assembly. The drawings are fascinating, as they even show a projected version of the Fury with a fully-enclosed cockpit, similar to the Hurricanes. CAD is great, but some of the old hand-drawn drawings are really exquisite.

Actually, there were parts on the Harriers that went back to the 1930's Hawkers such as biplane Fury's.....

Land Rovers often used to be sold with either a Full Tilt or a Half Tilt, if they had a cab. Mine had a Full Tilt - fun in the summer, like an arctic wind-tunnel in the winter...!

I'm what you might term a 'returning modeller' I've been out of it for forty years, and some things at least have changed. We now have the easy ability to include sound and tiny lights - yet - I see relatively little use of smoke. My interest is in 4mm steam era - so the scale may be a disincentive as there is precious little space available inside some small tank engines for example. Certainly, I have seen some of the larger American and European models producing prodigious amounts of smoke. Not only that - it's being 'chuffed-out' at a realistic rate in puffs. Over fifty years ago, Triang had a basic unit - which they later enhanced with a simple piston to give a puffing-effect. It seems this basic and excellent idea has fallen by the wayside. When my son was a kid - he used to watch the original Thomas the Tank series. I watched one today to refresh my memory - and the smoke effects were generally superb - and that was over thirty years ago.... Admittedly - these were at a larger scale (7mm...?). I wonder if anyone on this website knows the scale and how they achieved the effects...? There are a few clips from behind the scenes on You Tube which give some hints. It looks like a piston or diaphragm mechanism. Here is en example of some serious smoke - admittedly at G-Scale, but what I've seen thus far at 4mm is the merest wisp compared with this;- KM1 locos, Gauge-1...? The dogs-danglies methinketh...!!! Here is an informative YT video about the unit's used in the American Lionel locos;- The German KM1 locos - these have to be the best out there - but bear in mind - these are Gauge 1, 1/32 scale. If only we had this level of effect at 4mm scale....! Back in the real world - here is more, this time in 4mm - very worthwhile effort - and with sound, it really brings the loco to life ;- The excellent Roco puffer-unit in HO scale to show what is possible. Hornby and Bachman please take note...! Note the smoke-bleed to the cylinder areas etc. Could this unit be used in UK 4mm-scale locos...? I purchased a Seuthe unit to experiment with, and to be frank - was rather underwhelmed. I experimented with some commercially-available smoke-fluid, as well as Baby-Oil, with similar results. Since I couldn't see much discussion of this subject when I searched this website - I thought it'd be useful to start one to pool knowledge and experience. I have noting to offer - but I'm all ears... :-) Questions to discuss;- Which are the best and worst units at 4mm scale? Which are the best smoke-fluids to give the densest smoke? Oil-based or water-based best...? Have any forum Members adapted or copied the old Triang/Hornby Synchrosmoke 'puffer' units into other models? What about the use of increased reservoir sizes to allow longer smoke-runs without having to refil every couple of minutes...?l (The old Triang/Hornby puffer-units came in several sizes - how did this effect running-times...?). Has anyone used the Roco puffer-unit in an OO/4mm loco...or adapted any other units...? Can DCC allow a fan-based unit to synchronise with the sound using the existing decoders that are currently available...? I do not claim any knowledge of this subject - but I'm betting some of the subscribers to this website will have some fascinating and informative insights to share. Any videos of the effects achieved would also be very encouraging....!

Somewhat higher on what we always used to call 'The Saddle' - 52° 6'5.24"N - 2°20'17.50"W. On calm days - the sounds from the trains below used to float up, presumably reflected by the hillside. Halcyon days of Larksong, when, as kids, we used to stand, heads out of the sunroof and revel in the breeze and the smell of an old cars leather and petrol. Simple pleasures...!

Last Sundays sunset from the Malverns ;- When I was a kid, my father used to bring me up here for walks and tell me of the Romans, the Mercians and Elgar, but I was always fascinated to see the trails of smoke and steam from trains that dotted the landscape. It was nothing to be able to see half a dozen or so at once. My greatest pleasure was to see locos dive into the tunnels, especially when it was under the Malverns - and I would rush to the other side to watch it emerge hundreds of feet beneath me with a dramatic gout of white steam. The whole landscape looked like a perfect diorama - and the trains were usually the only movement discernible. I can still see them crawling, worm-like through the wonderful Worcestershire landscape - and hear their distant whistles for attention. It looked like some vast model railway, wrought by a master modeller, for whom no detail could be omitted. Childhood memories linger - like wisps of steam that never quite evaporate....