Keith Addenbrooke

I can't promise how far I'll get, but I've mail ordered a US building kit I've long fancied to get started on. There won't be a build thread, but I wanted to acknowledge this thread for the inspiration: thank you. Ensured I sought out the kit I actually wanted, not an easier to get UK one. (My "bigger" long-term micro layout projects - US and UK - will have to remain on hold while everyone is at home).

Inevitable the way things have changed this week. Full marks to Mr Y for his management of the communication of this in my view - it's not an easy balance. There will be as many reactions and feelings as people who were involved / thinking of going / not sure. Experience has taught me that our first reactions can be one thing: our later responses maybe something else. I'd fully understand exhibitors feeling flat about modelling for a while, even if also relieved at not having a health risk to worry about at the same time. Same perhaps for some customers who'd been looking forwards to the show. Maybe, after a pause, there'll be the incentive to do some modelling to make up for the disappointment: after all, this is a hobby for many of us, a source of pleasure to help us step away from the world and relax for a bit. That can be a helpful thing at such times. For some the cancellation is a business issue too: amongst the 'groups' affected that we talk about, there will also be those indirectly hit as exhibitions close, such as some local van hire companies for example, along with hotels / accommodation / the rail companies (etc), venues, as well as those directly affected such as Warners in this case. Hopefully we can all continue to support one another as partners whose passion / hobby and business come together at events like this. Keith.

Happy Birthday and congratulations! RMWeb (through Phil P's Cakebox challenge) finally got me to put together my first scenic diorama after 4 decades of collecting, designing, dreaming and crastinating like a pro. Thank you! Further projects are slowly now coming along - without RMWeb I doubt they'd have got off the graph paper yet. One more thought* - over the next few months RMWeb will have much to do to maintain, support and encourage community across the ages and oceans of our world: now is the time for true social media: I've never met the BRM / RMWeb team in person, but I believe we are in good hands. Keith (* apologies if it's on earlier pages already - bit pushed for time today as it's a Sunday).

Thank you for inviting us to comment: no surprise there are votes either way, of course. Perhaps it depends if the two main buildings go together (ie: part of the same firm or industry) - in which case I'd go for plan 2, or are separate in terms of their non-railway ownership or operation (in which case I'd go for plan 1). Either way, you have a couple of well built pieces to work with, Keith.

Good to hear you enjoyed the show. From the photo, it looks like one option for a slightly longer available platform would be to try "sliding" the existing platform down a bit so the end ramp is before the buffers? It looks like there's enough space before the fence starts. Wouldn't be long enough for a two car DMU (I don't think single car 121 / 122 Bubble Cars went far enough East for this kind of line). Just a thought, so you could see what it looks like? Keith.

Hi Mark, the backscene comes across really effectively in the picture - the post and wire fence running behind the platform had me convinced - if I'd not seen the posting about the diagonal "part-real" fence I wouldn't have known! Could I ask a question though: I was trying to find a fence for a platform on a diorama I'm doing and was assuming I'd need to keep the fence posts vertical on the sloping ramps. Looks like you've done it more simply by using fence panels that stay perpendicular to the ramp? I couldn't find a photo either way (all the photos I found had trains in the way). You may have saved me a job, Keith.

Several of the High St WHS stores I know now include Post Offices, and I do suspect that their outlets at Railway Stations and Motorway Services (and Airports?) contribute to margins. I seem to remember from a Hugh F-W health programme last year (BBC TV) that WHS sell 2% of UK chocolate. That might just be snack bars, but is still a lot. There was (hopefully still is) a good WHS in Altrincham in Gtr Manchester, with a well-stocked model shop just a minute or two away as well.

Aren't they actually looking at Phil Parker making things..?

Was that the shop down an alley way off New Street? More the size of a newspaper kiosk from memory? If so, it was still trading in the 1970s. In those days you could also buy R-T-R from the Co-op department stores in the City Centre too. Probably straying OT, sorry (there's a separate thread for memories of old shops elsewhere on RMWeb, I think). Point of relevance is, at the start of the pre-internet "consumer era", I suggest a high street presence went hand in hand with developing first layouts.

My Dad built some Superquick kits for a plastic push-along Playcraft set we had as kids in the early 1970s . My brother may still have some of the kits. As for an identifiable model railway, it's Nov 1977 or 1978 for me: N gauge Peco Settrack oval with one siding (left hand point), train-set style. H&M Powermaster Controller (which I still have), ready for expansion. Train was a Grafar 94xx GWR Pannier (my favourite UK loco then and now) and two chocolate and cream corridor coaches. Baseboard of Sundeala offcuts 3'8" x 2'2" built for me by my Dad as a Birthday present - no legs (sat on the floor, stored in a wardrobe). Advantage of a late Nov birthday is that Christmas brought four more points and some Peco goods wagons. No photos exist (my small 110 wasn't a flash camera). Further track and 2 (non-matching) blue BR diesels and undersized 1:160 Lima Mk1 coaches followed, along with some kit-built buildings, but never any ballasting or scenery. It was eventually stored and sold off, after overambitious plans I had to rebuild the boards myself into a larger layout didn't work out (I thought I could build a new layout in 3 days - no comment). I've remained interested in operating and layout design (UK and US) ever since, but am only now starting work on what could yet be that elusive first scenic layout (a UK micro and US diorama). Perhaps, for me, in one sense, the first layout could also be the next one...

Being serious, I guess there's a logic there: American Kadee (and similar) style model couplings look enough like prototype knuckle couplers. Shows he was paying attention, and it's a compliment to the overall quality of your modelling that he believed it. Could I ask how you clean your wheels and track? There are a number of techniques, but yours clearly works under exhibition conditions so worth noting. Apologies if it's elsewhere on your thread already (I'm on a train with limited WiFi for searching). Thanks, Keith.

Hope you have a great second day. Forgive my impertinence, but I did just wonder if, at the end of the show, you'll be wisking away the black cloths without disturbing the layout as a final, magical flourish? Not sure I'd recommend it though, Keith.

Fascinating: including the type of motive power is particularly interesting (I can imagine passengers being interested whether a train was made up of standard or streamlined cars, as it could imply a certain level of comfort / age of stock). I wonder if this kind of publication also says something about the post-war scene, that a certain level of stability / permanence was still assumed when it came to a nation-wide passenger network? Brilliant find.

Well explained. I have begun a simple US-outline diorama, which seems to have it's natural home in the Micro-Layout section of RMWeb (I did cross reference it to the US Track Plans thread over here, just in case, but being based on a Walthers' station kit, it isn't trying to be groundbreaking). As for a proper US layout, I was immediately taken with John Pryke's Urban modelling book when I came across it in 2018, and started seeing what it might look like using some Settrack pieces I had - it hardly qualified for a build thread though. A house move later that year, saw a second attempt at getting started in Jan 2019, but again, this wouldn't set the pulses racing (it only got as far as masking tape laid out on the floor!). Eventually, I was advised to take up the masking tape, as it was starting to mark the varnished floor, even under a rug. So, as well as progressing my Diorama (and a UK micro-layout also on that Forum), I think I have two particular challenges to overcome: inertia (a kind way of putting my lack of progress), and nostalgia (lamenting the decline in more easily affordable, easy to source models, or the glory days of Model Railroader magazine etc, won't get me very far now). Time to do some research, and some real modelling...

Good point - I always thought that American passenger operations were far more interesting. In Al Kalmbach's own book "How to Run a Model Railroad" - written as "Boomer Pete" and published more than once I think (from memory, I have a 1944 edition) - he suggests a new model railroad could aspire to have the following: 4 Engines (2 passenger, 2 freight - one doubling as a switcher) 50 Freight cars (including just one caboose) and 15 Passenger Train Cars: 1 Gas-electric, 1 Diner, 1 Combine, 1 Express Reefer, 2 Pullman (sleepers), 3 head-end baggage cars and 6 coaches. Model a Division Point and the possibilities for switching passenger train consists (plus changing engines) become endless, an idea further developed in John Armstrong's Kalmbach Book on Operations for model railroads, in a section later re-printed in Andy Sperandeo's Guide to Passenger Operations. There, Armstrong outlines a day's operations at a busy passenger station with both freight and locomotive facilities 'off-stage.' Of course, Kalmbach's original calculations pre-dated the ready availability of quality locomotives: it wouldn't surprise me if many more modern layouts have 15 engines for every 4 passenger train cars. But with the changes we're now seeing, perhaps there may be a return to that kind of thinking? Sperandeo's volume also included a plan for a major Union stub-end terminal in less than 100 sq. ft. Based on his own spotting days growing up, he takes full advantage of the practice of reversing trains into stations (with an 'off-stage' wye junction) to make realistic operation of a staging - station layout quite straightforward. On a separate note, there are two other immediate attractions to US modelling v UK modelling in the dominant HO/OO sphere: track is the right gauge to start with, and there are no tension lock couplings to deal with (the traditional Hornby-style wide ones may look massive, but I think they were designed to prevent buffer locking on tight curves - model a prototype without all the buffers, and the problem goes).

Having grown up in a 1970s UK household where the highlight of each month was the arrival in the post of Model Railroader magazine, with its impressive heavyweight thud onto the mat, and where Linn H. Westcott was assumed to be as famous as the President of the USA (with A C Kalmbach like a Founding Father?) I've read through this thread with much interest. My guess is that there are a number of factors at work here, which - when combined - are having the effects being observed. Certainly, whenever I ponder buying into American outline modelling for myself I run into three barriers: 1. The much lower exchange rate and higher shipping costs have removed a price advantage of ordering from the US. I think product costs have risen (as with UK outline), or is it just that there are fewer cheap and cheerful entry level products being offered now? 2. The lower availability of product from UK modelshops is also something that's been commented on. An example I know: when I used to visit Hatton's (2nd) shop in Liverpool, there was quite a bit of US stuff on offer - far less now appears on their website. 3. Model Railroader (just for another example I'm familiar with), now seems a shadow of its former self - BRM seems vastly superior to me, which means the inspiration isn't there in the same way. I could probably still draw most of the track plans from Kalmbach's 101 Track Plans book that captured my imagination as a kid, but what will inspire the next generation? As for posting on Forums, I know I think carefully before writing anything - and am much more cautious, even with email - we're all different, and some people enjoy a bit of debate and even controversy, but for others it's just become a turn off, so I suspect more people may hang back, even if only to avoid being misunderstood. For some, the novelty of engaging with social media has passed, while others have moved to video based sharing, as highlighted earlier in the thread I think (again, multiple factors are at work). (I note that one comment on postings is the tendency towards repetition - and I've not really added anything new above: my main point is that I think it is a combination of factors that is driving change, and my experiences / examples also back this up). That said, there are some fantastic models (and modellers) out there, and - another example - a number of excellent small US outline models can be found fully integrated into the RMWEB Micro-Layout Forum (Naples Street TT is one example quoted earlier in this thread). Maybe this is partly due to the late, great Carl Arendt, who had a global span (he could email me from Washington State with details of operations at Ashburton GWR terminus), but in the micro-layout world there is no real distinction between US and other prototypes that I can see. So, don't give up! There are those of us who still dream of a basement empires, mile-long freight trains and quiet, short-line backwaters. Maybe I just still need find a way to actually build one...certainly, reading this thread has awoken something in me again. Keith.

I realise this isn't a recent photo (I'm doing some catch-up reading), and the completed layout has been sold on, but having also checked out the photos of the finished and detailed model on the Kidmore website, I wanted to say how much I really liked the atmosphere on this layout - for me, it just seems to work. I can't remember another Tuning Fork layout that has stood out for me in the same way for quite a while - there's a nice balance between the scenery in front of and behind the tracks, with two decent length sidings making the most of the 32" scenic length. Thank you for sharing, Keith.

I should have added: for those who've not yet seen this edition, but who (like me) find trackplans really helpful in appreciating a layout: pages 40 and 41 of the print edition. Enough said!

As others have said above, there seems to be a really good feel to this month's BRM - I think the combination of articles, layouts and reviews has come together really well, so a big thank you to the team: well done all! Hopefully the striking cover (also appropriate for this edition) will catch the attention of some potential new readers too. I don't normally watch the DVD before reading the mag but, encouraged by the comments above, I made time for this when my print copy came yesterday and also enjoyed the blend of features in this episode of BRM TV - Phil's ballasting demonstration may seem quite straightforward, but could be really helpful for someone who's not tried it before, or someone needing to practice their drumming technique.

This is fantastic - there's no rule that says a build has to be "finished" to be entered - or that you can't add more later: you could email Phil some words and photos as it stands for the competition deadline, and then carry on at your leisure to complete the model as you'd like. Just a suggestion.

6.83p per day (as 2020 is a leap year)! Sorely tempted - do we have until to midnight (UK time) to think it through?

I believe 8" x 8" is designated as a maximum - I used 7" x 7" in round 1 without any trouble. Of course, you could build 4 small dioramas at 4" x 4" in the allowable space. There is a 6" height limit in a standard cakebox.

Thank you for sharing these - interesting to see them. I agree that the change of day and progressive changes in time can be expected to have an impact, but I wonder if the very different theme given for the first semi-final might also have had a bit of a knock-on effect which can't be quantified? The discussion here on RMweb (and, I guess, elsewhere) after SF1 suggested it took the series further out of the comfort zone for some viewers. Just a thought.

Some years ago, in a different context (work), I undertook what was called a 360 degree appraisal - my boss, some peers and my team all filled in a questionnaire about my work style. Only problem was, all bar one person were happy to add their names to their forms, so I had to gently tell the one person who opted for anonymity that it was him (it was only fair). As it happened, his feedback was all positive, but the point is that not everyone wants to share everything publicly (a lot of RMweb users choose not to reveal their names of course), so I'm happy that Phil chooses discretion here. Where there is a consensus seems to be that all the entrants were very good: there may have been a winner, but no losers.

I notice in the second of these two photos of 9989 (when it is running as a light engine) that there seems to be a hose trailing on the ground, which I assume it shouldn't be. Great photos - thanks for sharing the links.