Ben B

I bought a copy as a Birthday present for a mate who's an illustrator... read a bit of it whilst in the queue for the till, then immediately went and got myself a copy too

And I'd be VERY surprised if this range ever appears in a Games Workshop, which is what comes to mind when people think of 'wargaming shop'. GW are very into their own, exclusive Intellectual Property, and have been for a while. Not knocking them, my eldest is into GW stuff and I buy the odd kit from them, as well as the novels and especially their paint range. But I cannot see them stocking this new Hornby range, as there isn't really a compatible scale for the main ranges, and it wouldn't fit in with their established games or visual imagery. Can I recommend "The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage" by Sydney Padua? http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/ Its a deliberately tongue-in-cheek, funny recasting of their lives in an alternate reality Britain where they manage to cobble-together a working computer, and Queen Victoria thus demands they (somehow) use the machine to fight crime and have thrilling adventures. The graphic novel is crammed full of actual historical fact and footnotes which mention real events which are lampooned in the story, and loads of genuine historical information at the end of each chapter. And for a railway connection, Brunel himself (with bulging muscles, roguish sideburns ,massive cigar and a ridiculously tall top hat) appears as a frequent supporting character, particularly in the chapter "Lovelace and Babbage vs The Economic Model", where an out-of-control steam-driven computer ends up being chased by Brunel and Lovelace on a road-going Broad Gauge steam locomotive towards the bank of England... It makes sense in context. http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-and-babbage-vs-the-economy/

Actually that also occurred to me as I writing about the Narrow Gauge bit above. Also, what would have happened to the output of all the railway works and factories which had to go over to making shells, tanks and things? Would they have kept producing locomotives and rolling stock instead? Or struggled to survive without the war-work?

Now that's an interesting one... How many industries such as the Lincolnshire potato farms owed their post-war success to the mass of ex-WD stock they were able to aquire? For that matter, railways which ended up with such locomotives (the Ffestiniog with their cheaper petrol-mechanical locomotives for shunting, the Glyn Valley with their steamer)?

Apart from Ingrow Tunnel on the KWVR where a couple of scenes were filmed... The poll reminds me of seeing a station on the Conwy Valley line last summer (which frankly seems to spend most of each year closed by flooding or engineering works anyway), I think it was Dolgarrog. Having it's station rebuilt after flood damage, so working lamp-posts and telescreens, poster boards... and no platform. Obviously closed to passengers, unless TfW wanted prospective travellers to bring their own stepladders...

Loving the white-walled tyres on that 90! An excuse to run a non-powered old bodyshell on a layout, with 90's Hornby wagon-wheels

That's sad, but inevitable I suppose. At least it looks like some possibility of preservation is at hand, rather than it just going for scrap. And at least it's been recorded extensively in print...

I've just caught up with this layout... and yes, it does cheer me up! This is exactly the sort of layout I'd love, if I had space (the only room would be the loft, and at the risk of dragging it back to rodent conversation, the loft is a bat roost so out of bounds much of the year). A lovely compromise between model railway, and nostalgic fun train sets. Reminds me a lot of the layouts in "The Living Model Railway" by Robert Powell Hendry, one of my favourite model railway books growing up...

Interesting topic. I suppose you'd have to look at what planned traffic/justification there would be on your layout for such a service? My local line is the KWVR, and periodically it gets talked about the line running a commuter service... When it was preserved, I gather the original intention was to keep running commercial passenger and freight to the mills along the line, in some form (kind of like how the Middleton in Leeds did with heritage locomotives running commercial freight), but it took so long to do with BR beurocracy that most if not all of that business disappeared by the time it reopened. From what I gather from when it's cropped up in the railway's in-house mag and when the staff/vols talk about it, it's generally regarded as a non-starter these days. Given the gradients and twists and turns of the route, high-speed running is never going to be an issue (nor given the relatively short length), the main problem seems to be the two traditional gate-worked level crossings. That and I suppose the cost of travel compared to the 'heritage' service... would people pay more for both? Would they cram onto the commuter service in preference to a more expensive steam-hauled MK.1? The line has two DMU's and two railbus units, so maybe a sponsored commuter service to a cross-platform interchange at Keighley would be do-able, but I'd imagine a hefty subsidy from Northern (or whoever takes over from them) would need to be in order to cover staffing the level crossings and the like. Thing is, there is a very regular local bus service most of the year, it's only really bad weather where the railway really comes into its own in regards to being regular, though admittedly most of the buses run routes higher up the valley sides than the railway. But that said, as a local resident I get a discount to travel, and I do use the line as public transport when I can, and there is a noticeable selection of other people who do the same, scattered in amongst the tourists. And given just how many houses are being built along the valley, the time might come when the subsidised passenger service rears its head again, with more justification.

We stayed in London for a few nights in the summer last year (me, wife, and the 2 younger foster-daughters whilst eldest was abroad with the Scouts). I remember Kings Cross from the late 1990's and early 2000's as a visiting student when London felt like mainly building sites, but this time when we visited I have to say I found the place a little oppressive... not so much the crime aspect people worry about, it felt like anywhere else I've lived atmosphere-wise (Dudley, Carlisle, Bradford, Keighley). But everything around Kings Cross-St.Pancras seemed a bit too polished, too corporate and verrrry expensive. We walked in from Camden Lock along the canal, and around the stations itself it was all 'restored' heritage structures, or steel and glass and trendy offices. I couldn't really put my finger on why, but it was all a bit off-putting and characterless, and made me feel a bit uncomfortable. Euston Station was still the concrete dump I remembered from twenty years ago though...

Saw an interesting one last night whilst driving through Bingley (West Yorkshire), GBRF 66 with a single bogie stone wagon, RTT shows it as a move from Doncaster to the Rylstone quarry, so guessing a repaired wagon. One for the modeller who wants a modern quarry train in 00 but lacks the 40ft layout to accommodate it maybe?

I can confirm it was still there, as of last Monday, though probably hasn't turned a wheel in a decade (thanks to the whole skulduggery with Network Rail trying to sell the site out from under CE, and the consequent end of rail traffic). "Venom", the ex-Longmoor shunter, a Sentinel, and the two ancient, battered, R&H 88DS shunters were still on site, all looking very faded and worse for wear. Surprisingly not scrapped though, the management, whilst not running rail-served traffic, must have a soft spot for the locomotives....

Fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff, like the sort of in-depth articles I used to read in Creative review when I was studying Photography at Uni (our library had a subscription, one of the few things I missed after I graduated). I used to really want to work in the advertising field, doing this sort of thing, but I think with all the work and demands from clients and so on, that I wouldn't have the patience these days. I remember trying to explain to a friend on the Fine Art course at another Uni about the complexities of these things... she saw a pic from a fashion shoot I'd done, a lass off the drama course in the park and thought 'that's a nice photo'. I tried to explain the planning, the going round charity shops for three days to get the props and costume bits on a stupidly low budget, the sleepness night before the shoot customising the props, the two attempts at the shoot to get the best weather, the co-ordination of getting a point in time before the deadline where the model, me, and an assistant were all free with transport, the model release forms and legal what-not... and that's before getting into the whole 'photography isn't just setting the camera to Auto and going click'. Sorry, rant over. An impressive amount of work, and the bit with the train is a nice part of the ad- and watching it before reading the rest of the piece, I was trying to spot what model it was, so your efforts disguising it's origin worked! Good that you were able to combine your hobby unobtrusively into the job

Oh, I wish I hadn't seen that... I'm thinking Minitrains Porter chassis, and the GEM England body I have in bits in a toolbox somewhere... just as I think I don't need any more projects

There's a preserved surviving Austerity up at the Aln Valley Railway with one of these rounded cabs; saw it briefly the last time I was camping up that way...

A brilliant thread, this; and a very interesting shot. I reckon this is the bridge which still exists over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal near Thackley Tunnel, Shipley. I spent a bit of time in the summer last year picking around the site, looking for any relics of the trackbed. There's the odd sleeper still in the woods, but the bridge at least is still in very good nick. And at least the locomotives still exist, including the very well-kept (if non-working) tank loco in Bradford Industrial Museum (and a diesel is still at Crossley-Evans Scrappers in Shipley, even if out of use).

Now there's a good film... I know it's only loosely based on the real story, but my word does the film deliver in action! No miniatures, nothing like that, every crash staged with real trains, and the bombing of the marshalling yard done by really setting off high explosives and blasting apart wagons loaded with real tanks and lorries in an actual Paris goods yard. I think the only thing faked in that scene was the Armoured locomotive which gets blown apart, which was a prop built around a real chassis for the film because they couldn't acquire a real one.

Hello- just been reading through this thread, did the project progress? I used to use Stourbridge Town a lot when I was at College in Stourbridge in the early 2000's. This thread brings back happy memories... it was still the class 153 when I was using it, though I did like that such a short line had such a neat, functional little station (manned too, which was a surprise for such a tiny place).

Fascinating video! I went on the Himley one when I was verrrry little, when it was still the Model Village. I know the miniature railway Intercity 125's got rescued just before the bulldozers went in, which would have been 2007-ish, I wonder what happened to the Parry unit? I still kick myself a bit that it was all there, abandoned, and I never realised, I'd have loved to have gotten in to have a poke around and get some pictures...

It seems as if every second house on our estate has at least one cat, and because we're on the end of a street all the cats short cut through our garden, use it as a toilet, and try and catch and eat anything that moves. I put some bird feeders on a post in the front garden, with anti-cat spikes around it. There's some bushes with berries on which the birds like, and since doing this, we get about a dozen birds at a time, mostly blue tits and robins and some blackbirds. There's a couple of pigeons too which appear randomly, and we get the odd oddity like a pied flycatcher. But at least three cats like to sit in the bush underneath and pounce up through the greenery at the birds... I feel a bit guilty having the feeders out, it's almost like I'm concentrating the birds into one handy place for these bloody cats to try and eat them...

I've seen that bit on the DVD- the sequel has them travelling on the DLR too. Does anyone remember another post-apocalyptic story, a series from the late-1990's called "The Last Train"? A bunch of commuters on a train from London to Sheffield miss an apocalyptic meteorite strike by derailing in a tunnel (and sleep through it all with the aid of a canister of cryogenic gas which a Government scientist had hidden in her bag). It's been repeated a couple of times on the scifi channel, but I've got a -probably bootleg, judging by the quality- DVD of it. It's not a bad series, and some good railway scenes early on in an overgrown cutting, and the old Manchester Mayfield (before demolition of the platform awnings) doubling for post-apocalypse Sheffield Station.

Thanks for that info- I suppose that makes sense, it's a shame that they need such secure accommodation for the stock but given the problems they've faced, I can see why. I've been to Middleton for pretty much every gala for the last few years, and I am full of admiration for the Vols there managing to run a railway through an urban area, with all the theft, arson, and trespass risks. It was quite sobering being on a train at the last gala which had to stop as a masked teenager was standing, arms folded, on the track whilst his mates lined up to pelt it. I was amazed by how calm the guard was as he walked past us with a weary smile and just said "here's where the fun starts." I digress; as a fan of industrial locomotives it's so nice to be able to go to a line which embraces the more eccentric end of the railway scene, all those lovely little tank engines and especially the historically-significant diesel shunters. I suppose if they can keep getting the odd Austerity as a visitor, it keeps it special.

It's just "War of the Worlds", came out in about 2005. Some good special effects, but the plot is moved to America, and bares only a passing resemblance to the original story.

I've always thought the train scenes in the original novel of "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells, though brief, caught the imagination. Came to mind again with all the talk of Steampunk by Hornby. The railways are there in the background as it were in the early parts of the novel, as a representation of 'normality' and the Victorian mastery of the world through technology, and descriptions of signal-lamps flickering in the twilight, the soft clank and rattle of trains in the dark carrying on as normal after the landing of the first cylinder. A later chapter mentions 'much excitement' as a normally-closed link line between the routes of rival companies at Waterloo in London is opened for the passage of troop-trains and artillery carriers, with waiting passengers cheerfully calling to the soldiers and teasing them 'not to get eaten' by the mysterious Martians. There's a lovely comparison between the advanced machinery of a Martian tripod under the control of a Martian being, but by comparison how an ironclad warship or locomotive, under the control of a human, would look to a lower animal here on earth. But I think the most memorable bit is the description of the flight of refugees from London after the city falls; trains with people crammed on to every space, even on top of the tender, seen running nose to tail at walking pace later in the chapter "The Exodus from London". But there's this haunting bit at the start of the chapter; "After a fruitless struggle to get aboard a North-Western train at Chalk Farm -the engines of the trains that had loaded in the goods yard there ploughed through the shrieking people, and a dozen stalwart men fought to keep the crowd from crushing the driver against his furnace-..." There is a sort-of nod to this in the (generally mixed quality, in my opinion) American film with Tom Cruise, one of the most haunting bits of visual imagery is when the refugee column, walking on foot to a ferry over the Hudson, stops at a level crossing as the barriers automatically drop. An intercity train races past, on fire from cab to tail, and everyone just watches in silence lit by the flames until it passes, the barriers lift, and they just keep on walking. They're so shell-shocked hardly anyone in the crowd reacts at all by this point. In a similar, though later, post-apocalyptic vein there's "Day of the Triffids" by John Windham. The shonky 60's film has the memorable scene of a steam-hauled train, under the control of blinded loco crew, slamming into the buffers of a London terminus. But for my money there's the wonderfully mysterious little bit in the book where the narrator is recalling being out for a drive in the deserted countryside some time after the initial disaster, looking for other survivors. "Once I saw smoke and went to the source to find a small railway train burnt out on the line- I still do not know how that could be, for there was no one near it". It's just a little moment in the book, but which remains unexplained, and up to the reader to try and work out what has happened, just another little note of disaster in a world which is ending. Finally, this bit in "The Death of Grass", a novel by John Christopher about the collapse of civilisation in Britain following a global crop failure. The realization that trouble is brewing builds horribly through the early chapters, until the point where the protagonists flee north out of London just as the Government is giving up, and civilisation is starting to come apart at the seams (there's descriptions of official contact being lost with places like Leeds, grinding columns of military vehicles being sent to, and disappearing into, rioting cities, etc). By this point the protagonists are camping out for the night somewhere near Hawes, beside the railway line (from description it must be the old route from Northallerton to Garsdale, still open at the time the novel was written) as the world is going to hell around them (mysterious flashes on the horizon the night before being interpreted -correctly- as the Government atom-bombing their own cities to spare them having to deal with a starving population). The main character, John, is relieving his friend Roger who's been keeping look out. 'Anything to report?' 'What would there be, but ghosts?' 'Any ghosts then?' 'A brief trace of one apparition - the corniest of them all.' John looked at him. 'The ghost train. I thought I heard it hooting in the distance, and for about ten minutes afterwards I could have sworn I heard its distant roar.' 'Could be a train' John said. 'If there are any capable of being manned, and anyone capable of manning one, they might try a night journey. But I think it's a bit unlikely, taken all around.' 'I prefer to think of it as a ghost train. Heavily laden with the substantial ghosts of Dalesmen going to market, or trucks of ghostly coal or insubstantial metal ingots, crossing the Pennines. I've been thinking - how long do you think railway lines will be recognizable as railway lines? Twenty years? Thirty? And how long will people remember that there were such things, once upon a time? Shall we tell fairy stories to our great-grandchildren about the metal monsters that ate coal and breathed out smoke?' 'Go to sleep," John said. "There'll be time enough to think about your great-grandchildren.' 'Ghosts,' Roger said. 'I see ghosts all around me tonight. The ghosts of my remote descendants, painted with woad.' I love this passage, as it conveys that moment as the old world the characters knew is slipping irretrievably towards a new, more savage one of survival.

I think you've hit it on the head for me... I applaud Hornby trying to move into a new market, and frankly I'd consider myself a fan of the genre (and have built Steampunk stuff in the garden scales), but I really get uneasy with the 'it's Steampunk if you glue some unnecessary watch parts on anything' attitude. Smacks of exploitation of the genre. As the above poster said, a blinged-up livery for the Single with a rake of vintage-looking, elaborately lined carriages perhaps, something more subtle, might have been better. Still, maybe this is just the attention-grabbing launch and something more advanced or subtle will follow.