Michael Crofts

Thanks, I found the details I needed. I'm kind of uncertain whether I actually want to meet kit-built modellers. They might have a screw loose, or a part missing, or something.

I can' find a website with details of Larkrail 2022 - I have searched - is there one?

It's a listed building and I hoped the listing would say what the stone is, but it doesn't. It just says "snecked rubble". I'd never heard of that before so I did a search. My guess is they wouldn't have brought the stone very far, so it will be whatever was quarried and dressed locally. https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/200390111-mallaig-station-glenelg#.YrVdIY5uckI https://www.mackintosh-architecture.gla.ac.uk/catalogue/glossary/?gid=glos-sneckd&xml=des https://her.highland.gov.uk/monument/MHG22394

Yes it's good but that view blocker in the front left hand corner doesn't convince me one bit.

Here's a nice little diorama by Janet Cottrell. What I noticed was that a lot of work has gone into the trees, there's a very clever use of a river as the visual break between the layout and the backscene, and the highly directional lighting is much better than the LED floodlighting we usually see. Does anyone know who makes the very pretty loco and carriage? Image has disappeared. Here it is again (reproduced with permission)

But that's what they are like in reality! I have two albums of photos on Flickr. Not a flat surface anywhere. And setts really quite irregular. https://www.flickr.com/photos/119194913@N05/sets/72157715569367772/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/119194913@N05/sets/72157715569344267/ And there's these photos by others: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrcgy915a.htm https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/51985833333/in/photolist-2mSerKq-JoWCq7-2mLLb1v-2mfXewq-2mAjnuZ-2mShEo2-2ncNZ6g-2mLH4Jw-2mLH4HQ-2ngaF3j-2mKesJk-2k7MwuS-2iamtgb-2iakjVe-2mKius6-2mKn1eH-2iakjTF-2mfUzT2-2kVorqh-2ir2477/ https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6510499 https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/exploring-by-engine-liverpool-docks-july-1971.62743/

I love rmweb. Almost anywhere else on the internet the discussion about Scottish brickwork bonds would have descended into insults, and before long it would have morphed into tirades about B****t, or C***d, or the N***s. Those setts in front of the warehouse are brilliant. Relatively straight lines between courses, courses not exactly the same width, no two setts the same length or colour, the whole surface slightly uneven, and wind-blown dirt lying against any obstruction.

I have been coming here mainly for amusement. But I have also been following the Little Muddle thread with admiration, and Kevin has answered several questions about how he achieves his stunning results by saying that he observes reality and then tries to model it. I think this thread about prototypes backs that up because it makes you look at the real thing and think about why some models "work" better than others. The comment above by Hibelroad about using impressions of distant structures beyond low-relief buildings is very perceptive and really useful to me in the planning stage of my layout. Insights like that are quite rare.

Yes, but the river is flat and lifeless, just a layer of matt varnish. Doesn't work for me. Full marks for the bus being on a road heading for an underbridge and not perched on an overbridge.

How to use the space well when you have a lot of height. My only niggle, and I agree it's trivial when the overall standard is so good, is that one sees those same 3 plastic sheep, a ewe and 2 lambs, on so many layouts. Bit of a cliché really. Photo by Greg Mape https://www.facebook.com/groups/1911992839045598/posts/3148899745354895/

Nicely posed ModelU figures I think, and very well painted. https://www.facebook.com/groups/385672148111486/?multi_permalinks=7500923393252957

To celebrate the revival of rmweb after the ghastly 2022 outage here is a picture of Brian Ginger, I think possibly the last signalman at Leiston, taken by me. It's sad to see the levers going rusty and no cloth in use, but this was near the end.

I didn't know how much I liked this place until it wasn't there. Can't see the donation button but will make a contribution when it reappears.

I just spent £300 on a portable monitor. Dead on Arrival. So now I have to re-assemble the packaging and pay to send it back. Off topic I know, but Grrrr....

I've just forked out £178 to get a batch of 400+ slides scanned professionally by Slide Converters (who sent me someone else's slide of the Rhyll Miniature Railway when my box came back!). Results were good but the rest of my material does not justify anything like that expenditure. I am tempted by this on a "suck-it-and-see" basis - I think it's the same one others have discussed but am not certain. https://etsytoolbar.com/products/eecord-good-memories

I know space is always a limiting factor but excessively sharp curves always look wrong to me, even on narrow gauge layouts. And photographic backscenes always look like, well, photographs. Never mind, at least the driver isn't staring forwards and the static grass hasn't been overdone. Overall a good attempt at creating an impression of big scenery in a small area. [David Trout on the Miniature Railways Appreciation Group, Farcebook, https://tinyurl.com/mt5a73hz ]

In addition to Flickr, Geograph is a good resource, and I wouldn't count on it always being there. Most photos have a creative commons licence, Attribution Share Alike. One of my favourite photographers there is Alan Murray-Rust. How about this as an example? Mersey Docks & Harbour Board, 1965 https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6510542

'......Whilst some railway operations were dedicated to emigrant traffic, continental and ocean liner boat trains were also synonymous with the most glamorous travel services ever choreographed by shipping lines and railway companies working closely in tandem.' I was around just in time to do some continental travelling before cheap flights knocked it all on the head. I vividly remember Victoria Station and the excitement of taking the Boat Train for Dover - sadly not the Golden Arrow but so much more glamorous than the mundane commuter trains at the other platforms. Then at Calais the long heavy train of blue carriages with that wonderful name painted over the windows: COMPAGNIE INTERNATIONALE DES WAGONS-LITS ET DES GRANDS EXPRESS EUROPEENS. Walking down the train reading the exotic destination boards slotted into the brackets by the doors and finding one's own carriage and couchette, then along to a table in the Voiture Restaurant laid for supper with white cloth, sparkling glass, and silverware. All the fun of big intermediate stations, and shunting as carriages joined and left the train, and wheel-tappers, then next day snow on the Swiss side of the Simplon and bright spring sunshine when we shot out of the south portal. That's what Boat Trains mean to me. No wonder I can't find anything nowadays that deserves the name! I used to have a copy of the print below - it was pinned up in our carriage shed. I think it's gone now. Pity. Belgian State Railways boat trains at Ostend, Belgium, early 1900s by Jack Hill

Fishguard Harbour, yes, OK. Harwich? The Stenaline timetable I looked at his morning correlated the trains very poorly with the ferries (and I've just noticed they haven't yet updated it for 2022) - and so far as I know the ferries are not held for late trains. I couldn't see anything on that timetable that looked like a boat train. I just looked again at Trainline (Ugh!) and all the services from Liverpool Street are shown as hourly with a change at Manningtree for the Harwich branch, no direct services at all, so no boat trains. Am I missing something?

OK, back to boat trains. So what have we got today, that could actually be called a boat train? Newcastle sailings - zilch. Nothing. DFDS have even withdrawn their bus service between Newcastle Central and the ferry terminal (Covid is the excuse - I'm zipping my lips). Harwich - Hoek van Holland - nope. Not a single train that makes any pretence of being a boat train. There are the Isle of Wight connections, but can any of them really be called boat trains? Stranraer? No, and No. Is there anything to Dover? The Southampton Cruise Ships? Poole? Portsmouth? Plymouth? Milford Haven? Fishguard? Liverpool? I was going to be a bit tongue in cheek here and suggest the Bure Valley Railway Broadland Boat Train... but it's gone. No longer exists. Hopefully someone else can suggest what have we got nowadays in the UK that can honestly call itself a boat train. Or are they a ?

Adding to the list of useful material for anyone thinking of modelling Leiston, or using it as inspiration for a freelance model, I recommend these: British Railway Journal, Number 75, contains an article on the Aldeburgh Branch by Jenkins and Turner. Illustrated History of the East Suffolk Railway, John Brodribb, Ian Allan. But sadly, once you start digging in to the subject you find that the published photographic record is really quite sparse, with the same photos being reproduced again and again in different publications. I am a tiny bit puzzled by this because Dr. Ian Allen, the well known railway photographer, practised in Leiston, yet I see very few images of the Aldeburgh branch credited to him. Does anyone know who holds his archive?

Andy Kirkham's original question was: 'Is this how boat trains were usually organized?' and my answer is, no, not "usually", because I can think of 5 kinds of boat trains, there may have been others. Trains chartered by a shipping company and available only to their passengers (but I don't know whether the passengers were issued with ordinary railway tickets by the booking agent, or vouchers). My recollection is that such trains were principally to and from Southampton but I can't remember why I think this. Trains operated by a railway company specially to connect with the railway company's own ships. Extracts from Edwardian Enterprise - GWR 1900-1910 (Norris, Beale, Lewis, Wild Swan) Re. the new Fishguard-Rosslare service, p. 15:- Boat trains left Paddington at 8:45am and 8:45pm each taking 5 1/2 hrs to Fishguard where they arrived in time to work the equivalent return service. The speed of handling passengers' baggage and mails was a matter of great pride to the company, no more than 15 minutes being allowed between the arrival of the train and the sailing time of the ship, and vice versa. New coaching stock was built for the trains which carried nameboards in gold lettering on a red ground.....' Based on my own travels in the 1950s and '60s I think that through tickets would have been issued by the railway company. Trains operated by a railway company to connect with a shipping company's services. From the same book, p. 19: 'But there were bigger prizes to be won in the form of Cunard liners on the eastward run from New York to Liverpool.... The first call of a Cunard liner was the R.M.S. Mauretania on Monday 30 August 1909.... the big ship arrived in the bay at 1:20pm and was at anchor for no more than 40 minutes but this was sufficient to enable a special train with the mails to leave at 2:08pm. Special passenger trains followed at 2:53pm and 3:05pm, reaching Paddington in 4hrs 35mins and 4hrs 51mins respectively... (worked by pairs of 4-4-0s to Cardiff, thence by Stars). I have no idea whether passengers used through tickets issued by the shipping company, or bought tickets for the service on board from the Purser's office, but one thing I'm sure of, there wouldn't have been queues at Fishguard Harbour booking office to buy railway tickets! This was the service which the GWR marketed in co-operation with the ocean liners as the fastest connection between New York and Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Berlin. Ordinary service trains timed to connect with shipping services, principally ferries. Most passengers would have had through tickets because even if they just turned up at the railway booking office (eg: Liverpool Street for the Harwich-Hoek van Holland service) they could buy a through ticket to principal destinations across Europe and the near East. These trains were also open to passengers using them for journeys which had nothing to do with the ferry services unless the train was by-passing the town station and going straight to the dock station (is that what happened at Weymouth?). Ferry services where the train actually rolled on and off the ship much as road vehicles do now. I travelled on these services between London-Paris, also when crossing Denmark, and somewhere else I can't recall. I had ordinary train tickets - and for overnight services IIRC these were made out for the class of accommodation (sleeping compartment, couchette, or standard seat). It occurs to me that http://www.transport-ticket.org.uk/ would have a lot of information about this, but only members can access the website.

Me too, in 1965.

Prototype British narrow gauge/standard gauge transhipment sheds were rare on the common carrier railways but there were several examples in the MOD estate and I actually saw one very near the end of its existence, at Ham Cross, RAF Chilmark, Wiltshire. There was another nearby at Dinton. I bought one of the RAF Chilmark wagons when the fleet was open for tenders and was allowed to visit to inspect the lots. The wagons were all in and around the transhipment shed. I was not allowed to take photographs and there are very few that I am aware of. Most of the ones that are easy to find on the web show the rail/road transhipment facilities. At Ham Cross the 2'0" gauge tracks were raised to bring wagon floors level with the platform and standard gauge wagons and a steel-framed roof covered everything. The standard gauge ran down the centre and the narrow gauge at the side. Probably not picturesque enough for Bridport Town, but hope you don't mind me mentioning it. Uncredited photo: Graham Roose on Flickr: The next picture by Dave58282 on Flickr is of the transhipment shed at Dinton. There is an RMweb thread about the system but it doesn't have any better pictures than these.

I thought perhaps a bit of cheerful news might not go amiss. The LSWR receiving office painted signs which were mentioned earlier in this thread were restored a while back and are in good condition. Below is a link to a Flickr album with 3 snaps I took in 2020 but it hasn't changed. I'll try and take some better pictures next time I am around on a good day. We have a boat which has been lying against Sutton Wharf in what is now a marina for a year, and we have just signed up for another year in that berth, so we go there quite often. Our car parking space is on the granite setts with the inset lines of the old tramway - very uneven ground especially when trying to push a trolley, but very well preserved. Snaps of the LSWR building: https://www.flickr.com/photos/119194913@N05/albums/72177720295344718 Some snaps of the tramway lines including the remaining in-situ piece of broad gauge track on Sutton Wharf are among the contents of this album. There are 7 photos, towards the bottom of the page which this link should open: https://www.flickr.com/photos/119194913@N05/sets/72157715569367772/ The track is also preserved on Vauxhall Quay but I haven't got any pictures of that at the moment. I want to take this opportunity to thank those who have provided information about this part of Plymouth, in this thread and in the earlier one about Cattewater, all of which I have enjoyed reading. I have a much better appreciation of the area because of this forum. EDIT: there is another piece of in-situ broad gauge track - on the quayside at Exeter