Pacific231G

They've probably only got the rights for UK distribution of many of their films so would be breaching copyright if they made it available more widely.

My favourite restoration is the colour version of Jacques Tati's 1949 film Jour de Fete. Tati shot his first feature film on a new Thomson system intending it to be the first French feature film in colour but, as a back-up, had a second camera shooting in black and white. In the event the colour system didn't work properly so the film was cut and released from the black and white negative though with some hand colouring on one or two shots. Eventually Tati's younger daughter, the director and editor Sophie Tatischeff (Tati's real surname), was able to return to the original colour negatives thanks to new digital technology. In 1995, thirteen years after his death, she released Jour de Fete as the colour film that Tati had oriignally intended . There was more to this than just replacing each shot in turn as the cutting rhythms for black and white are often different from those for colour, but Tatischeff had been the editor on two of her father's films so her edit can be regarded as true to his intentions. Seeing what had long been one of my favourite films in colour for the first time- albeit from a DVD- was brilliant so if you've not seen the film I'd go for the colour rather than the more widely known monochrome version. There are two short railway scenes in the movie, one of them involving some wagons being shunted by a steam tank loco on the metre gauge S.E Centre system a couple of years before it closed and the other a standard gauge level crossing and some bicycles (a visual gag used by Tati in his previous short film l'ecole des facteurs (school for postmen)

My recollection of scientific method is that is it is indeed impossible to "prove" a negative (something that those who don't want to believe in anthropogenic global warming tend to rely on despite the weight of evidence) About the first thing I was ever taught as a child was that a swan could break a man's arm with its wing; for a long time I thought they went around looking for people's arms to break so you were maybe lucky to escape with just the loss of your ice cream. It's been gulls that have stolen my ice cream but I really enjoy watching them fly as they're awfully good at it and seem to genuinely love doing so (There are few things funnier though than watching a gull's reaction to a bad landing, hurt pride doesn't begin to express it). I've also pondered on the attraction of our hobby and I think for me it has something to do with the marriage of technology and art as well as the sheer range of skills involved from studying the shape of trees or the architecture of a building to figuring out a wiring diagram or how to shunt a goods train without enough siding space.

Seen this before and It was disproved. Hi Dave Could you expand on that please? It's a claim I've also heard many times before so it would be good to have a credible, ideally peer reviewed, source to deny it. Curiously, I was given some of the Rev Awdry's Railway Series books when I was a child and didn't really take to them. I think maybe it was because they seemed to focus so much on the engines. Though I loved the steam railway I did get to spend time in my grandfather's signalbox just before he retired so was perhaps aware from early childhood that railways were about a lot more than enabling Kings and Castles to strut their stuff. .

Hi Budgie I've just been looking at Loco-Revue's review of these in their February edition. I understand that they're a special series made for REE by ESU of their model of the DRG type 36-37 coaches. I'm afraid REE is a bit above my pay grade (and they wouldn't half show up the age of the Hornby-Acho 131TB) but I do have a set of the Roco Bastilles - which for me are "good enough" and the earlier and much cruder Lilliput versions which are not and seem to be based on the earlier DRG type 30 with visible rivets which were not the coaches used on the Vincennes line. Apparently SNCF received these coaches in fairly poor nick but compared with the elderly four wheel double deck "Bidels" that had worked the line they must have seemed pure luxury for the commuters coming in and out of the Gare de la Bastille.

So am I. After 18 months the throat point work is still taped to the same board and progress has been nil. I really must get on with it.

Excellent news. It makes a very good concrete finish for things like fences.

I do take my research seriously so, just to clarify, the Chemin de Fer de l'Est's 11 series 2-6-2 Prairie tanks were fifty locos specifically developed for the line and delivered in 1925. These became SNCF class 1-131TB. They were more powerful than the preceding 0-6-2 and 2-6-2 tanks (latterly SNCF 1-031TA and 1-131TA) and were part of the Est's plan to handle the then rapidly increasing commuter traffic without significant infrastructure costs. That plan was largely based on a detailed analysis of the most efficient way of operating such a terminus and line. The 131TBs were never push-pull fitted and hauled trains of the four-wheel double-deck coaches nicknamed "Bidels" until the arrival in 1948 of the ex DRG bogie coaches that soon became known as "Bastiilles". The Prairies were replaced by the Mikados between 1961 and 1962 and after 1964 all services were operated by auto-fitted 141TBs and bogie push-pull sets cascaded from the Gare de l'Est's suburban services when these were electrified. Bastille and its line were largely ignored by enthusiasts until its last few years so the vast majority of photographs and films of it show it operated with push-pull stock and 141TBs. That includes this atmospheric film marking its closure made by SNCF's film unit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwn8DzI0rpU . Because it was supposed to be replaced by the planned RER for several decades before that actually happened at the end of 1969, Bastille became something of a living museum of pre-war steam commuter railway operation so it's a shame it wasn't better known. Push-pull operation did away with the daily ballet of locos using the traversers and charging around the terminus to get from the train they'd brought in to the next one they were taking out . Hornby-Acho produced a fairly good model of an Est 1-131TB in SNCF livery but for some reason matched it to a set of the Est commuter coaches that so far as I know were never hauled by them. These did though form the basis of the reversible (push-pull) sets handled by the 141TBs but there's not been a mass market model of that.

I can take no credit for this design but it's the neatest example of a very compact throat for a busy urban terminus I've ever come across. This is the trackplan of the old Bastille terminus in Paris that served a very busy suburban line that in the rush hour could have trains departing every one or two minutes. All five platforms, as well as the sixth track next to platform one and the loco shed, had direct access to both up and down lines and the station could handle simultaneous arrivals and departures from any two platform roads. Beyond the throat the main line was signalled for up and down working (using semi-automatic mechanical block signals) rather than bi-directionally. To achieve maximum traffic density, particularly during the busiest period of the evening rush, five trains would depart in turn from platforms 5 to 1 to be replaced by arriving trains that would enter the now vacant platforms in turn from the up line to form the next wave of departures. The first complication was that until the early 1960s there was no push-pull working so the Prairie tanks that then operated the line had to get from the arriving train they'd just brought in to the front of a later (but not much later) departure as fast as possible . Electric traversers, similar to those ar Birmingham Moor Street, were fitted to maximise available train length but the releasing crossovers between 2-3 and 4-5 were retained. The other complication was that the line ran onto a viaduct wide enough for only two tracks very soon after leaving the station. The viaduct was over a mile long and there was no room for carriage sidings on the very cramped terminus site so all ECS movements had to use the main line and had to be hauled not propelled. I drew this plan for Continental Modeller using Peco large radius left and right hand points with just the one single slip and a three way in the small MPD as per the prototype. Rather to my surprise, the total length of the throat was about the same as that of the real terminus. This had been laid in pointwork with an unusually sharp 7.5 crossing angle (tangent 0.13) normally only used for sidings and apart from the slip seems to have been made up entirely from standard turnouts. The designers had been able to do this by using the angle between the station site and the viaduct to arrange the throat pointwork so that no passenger train ever had to negotiate a reverse curve. From all accounts it was a bit lurchy for passengers but it could handle full length corridor coaches. I'm fairly convinced that when the station was first built, the smaller train shed occupied by platform one and its loco release track was intended to be a goods depot . It was a much plainer structure than the main shed and it was the norm in those days to have goods facilities at city termini. This would make for an interesting four platform terminus with goods. The Bastille terminus was faithful to steam and mechanical signalling till it closed at the end of 1969 and though it was in Paris I could see it as an equally busy urban station in London or any other large connurbation. Though it has five rather than three platform faces it's also the closest thing to a real Minories I've so far discovered.

I hope you mean beside Ramsgate Harbour Mike In the harbour would imply rather excessive exposure to sea water. Seriously, were they planning a sort of Hornby version of Pecorama? Loco Revue did a survey of RTL H0 flextracks last July and gave them realism (in representing French track of course) ratings of A-G, none did better than a C as no mass market track represents the fixing of flat bottom rail by fang bolts commonly used in France (and elsewhere in Europe) but the six out of sixteen that did rate C, included all four flavours of Peco code 75. This seemed to be because the rail fixings though still different are less obviously Germanic than the others. This was of course before the appearance of Peco Bullhead. Of Loco-Revue's featured layouts over the past few years I'd say a majority used Peco though a surprising number also used SMP BH despite the sleepers being too wide in H0. I think Peco use a different distribution model outside the UK from that used here and there's no reason why Hornby International couldn't do the same without competing with their own suppliers. There seems to be a far larger proportion of modellers in Britain modelling non-native railways than in most other countries so the UK market for their H0 Jouef, Rivarossi, Lima, Electrotren and N gauge Arnold brands should be potentially profitable.

Hi Martyn An excellent small layout and thanks for posting the photos of both your model and what's now left. I've always been rather intrigued by Hollywell Town ever since I discovered it as one of Cyril Freezer's plans of the month. I didn't know until your post that the run round was purely to get locos of goods trains to the upper end for shunting. That does make it a real life Inglenook Sidings with no using the mainline to cheat and the extra challenge of the two brake vans. Do you happen to know the real capacity of the run round and the two sidings? How large is your layout of it ?

Not at all Doc. I'd noticed that SMP effectively had the same bent timber though on the plastic version the two sleepers are sort of separated but improbably cut down. The angle of chairs is even more improbable. .I couldn't agree more with Martin and aren't we always told with rolling stock not to assume that the diagram is the same as the real vehicle but to look for actual photos.

This drawing is from about 1940 and is of a standard turnout used for British military railways. It is FB, military logistics made the extra transport needed for chairs undesirable (sleepers and timbers could normally be sourced more locally) for overseas use. It follows the Committee on British Standard Permanent Way practice except that "crossing sleepers" were to be of the same cross section as ordinary sleepers (normally 10" by 5") rather that the larger 12" by 6" cross section of civil practice. Most of the actual drawings I've been able find from before pointwork was largely prefabricated do have the bearers splitting the angle between the diverging tracks particularly around the crossing. There does though seem to have been a lot of variation and this would surely have depended on the practice of individual railways as well as the engineering requirements of each situation with factors such as the relative traffic across each branch being taken into account. I wonder if there's not sometimes a desire by modellers to seek a single "correct" answer on prototype practice that doesn't really exist. Martin I suspect the oddly angled "bent" sleeper at the end of Streamline pointwork was put there to strengthen it and supposedly represents the first separate sleeper on each branch beyond the crossing. Fortunately, a few seconds with a craft knife will remove it. Peco's previous "Pecoway" points were straight timbered throughout.

It's been done!! A few years ago there was an H0 (or possibly 00) exhibition layout, built I think by Stuart Robinson, in which part of the track was flooded with real water to just above the tops of the rails and the flooded section was longer than the one the GP-39 met in December. It seemed to work alright though I wouldn't recommend it in P4 !! In fact, the puddle in Harrisburg Oregon looks short enough for only one bogie to be in the drink so if all eight wheels had pickups and you drove slowly enough to avoid spashing water into the mech it should work alright. These might be more tricky http://www.railpictures.net/images/d2/0/2/9/6029.1405048226.jpg http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/6/1/7/6617.1372952532.jpg The trouble with water is that it doesn't scale very well because of its surface tension but perhaps you could use a very lght vegetable oil instead. I think reproducing this scene would present far more of a modelling challenge http://www.railpictures.net/images/d2/1/9/1/6191.1472674913.jpg

Hi Simon Symmetric three ways seem to have been quite widely used in France in situations such as hump yards and from the Bastille listing were clearly a fairly standard item. I do find French railway terminology particularlty interesting because, unlike American or German terms, much of it seems to derive directly from the terms used by British railway engineers at the time when they were building the earliest public railways in France. I suppose it's a bit like all the American terms adopted by the London Underground from when they were being financed by US promoters. OTOH It's also quite interesting to find terms like gare or rame that have a subtly different meaning from their usual English translations. From everyday French Aiguille is normally translated as needle but it can mean point so what we always called points became Aiguilles meaning the actual point blades and aiguillage for the whole switch assembly or even the whole thing. Though branchement is the official term for a turnout, Aiguilles still seems to be the vernacular term just as the word points is in Britain. I'm not sure whether aiguillage is also used to refer to pointwork more generally. There is a more generic official term Appareil de voie that covers points, crossings, and slips but also derailers (used more commonly than trap points) and the expansion joints used for CWR but I can't find a single English word that means quite the same. Appareil de voie is a bit of a mouthful but not nearly as clumsy as "Switches and Crossings" (why not just use the word pointwork to generalise and then more specific words when requred) I think I'll wait a long time to hear. "Trains are delayed because of switch and crossing failure in the Croydon area." I do rather like coeur de croisement (heart of the crossing) to differentiate from the crossing as a whole, far more elegant than frog.

Hi Fabrice This is looking very good and I'm interested to see that you're using L girder construction for a portable layout. Will you be exhibiting it this year? Do you think more French modellers are now building shunting layouts You do make me very ashamed of my "explosion in a spaghetti factory" wiring Hi Simon Fabrice can probably confirm this but most references I've seen to three ways in French refer to them as Une Aiguillage Triple sometimes more precisly with what you're calling a tandem Une Aiguillage Triple Asymètrique and the type with opposite crossings Une Aiguillage Triple Symètrique. This does seem more logical than giving them completely different names and Aiguillage is far more elegant than the clumsy Switches and Crossing I have sometimes seen references to Un Branchement Trois Voies but again Symètrique or Asymètrique. as abbreviated in this list from the 1950s of all the pointwork for the old Bastille terminus in Paris. The symmetrical triple highlighted accessed the three tracks of the small annexe traction -locomotive sub shed. In the listing for each piece Tg refers to the crossing angle as a tangent and AFAIK this would be the simple reciprocal of the crossing or frog number. In the list a couple of releasing crossovers were still original C.F. de l' Est pointwork with crossing angles expressed in degrees and minutes.

Thanks Paul, I'd certainly be interested in anything you can dig up. Chris, I've now got the Alan Jackson book (thanks for the recommendation, it's fascinating) but looking at what appear to be parcels of land acquired for the line around Wood Lane it looks rather as if there were intended, possibly a bit later than the original plans, for a connection to the West London Line as well as the southbound connection to the H&C round the back of what is now Frithville Gardens.

The YouTube link in the OP seems to have gone, it's a BBC programme so that may be due to copyright violation, but It's still there from the Youtube link in bgman's post (#28). However, If you're in the UK, the Time Shift programmes seem to be repeated fairly often including The Joy of Train sets. The Mike Sharman sequence was actually taken from a much older programme in a series called something like "Small Worlds". Like TimeShift it was also made by BBC Bristol. It also included a long sequence about Peter Denny and the Buckingham Branch and was filmed (on film!) when he was still a parish rector so quite a few years ago now. It's a programme I'd very much like to see again.

It might be worth asking a local gallery or museum how they protect objects in storage that are not on display. Conservancy over hundreds of years is their business so they wouldn't be very pleased with some plastic foam that attacks the old masters so they should know some answers. More important they're likely to have a better "in" to the conservators in the larger museums (though you could always approach those directly)

I watched the Dansette episode and I've seen a couple of others including the Hornby loco one. I enjoyed his presentation and the insights into the history and significance of the devices he's reassembling but I was constantly frustrated by so rarely being able to actually see what he was doing or the particular bit of the thing he was talking about. It's not a tutorial and I'm not expecting to know how to do it but, when he's talking about something he's holding or working on I really really want to see it. It's obvious (because you could often see it in the long shot) that the director had one camera, I think on a Steadicam mount, covering close ups of his face as well as his hands and another as the master shot, plus I think a fixed camera giving a very wide shot but for something like this you really need a camera dedicated to the actions. It can be shot on two operated cameras, though three would be better if you want to focus on the personality as well as what he's doing. I accept that for this show there was limited opportunity for later pick-up shots but it was heavily edited so there should have been far more material available to the editor.

It also seems as if they ended up contemplating a roughly east-west line from Mill Hill Park to the West London Line with connections at its eastern end to the H&C (in both directions) and the WLL. At the western end they presumably abandoned the idea of a direct connection to the GWML at Acton M-L, possibly after the District Railway built its connecting line from Turnham Green to its own station at Ealing Broadway in 1879, in favour of a somewhat longer line connecting with the District Railways lines to and from Ealing Broadway and to Hounslow. Possibly what had originally been conceived of as a connecting line between the GWML and the WLL was more seen as a line to tap the anticipated expansion of the the suburbs roughly along the Uxbridge Road. There is I suppose a bit of a gap, at least in west-east lines, between the GWML and what is now the District Line. That gap was to some extent filled by the electric tramway that once ran along the Uxbridge Road and it's interesting that this was to be the route of one of London's recent proposed new tram lines though local opposition pretty well killed off that idea. .

Thanks. Your Googling seems to have been more fruitful than mine. The RCHS comment about the LR&A is interesting but if that did closely follow the alignment of Western Avenue and did make a junction with the H&C near that railway's Latimer Road station then what the heck is the line heading due south doing as that would then be a different railway. The thick plottens!! The London Gazette page should be particularly useful once I can get my head round the locations and should enable the route to be traced at least in general. In that notice, Mill Hill Park station is Acton Town on the Picadilly and District; Addison Road station is Kensington Olympia; the "road or lane leading from Gunnersbury Park to Ealing Common" is Gunnersbury Avenue on the North Cicular. I haven't traced it yet but this appears to be a very different railway using some of the route of the now abandoned but still authorised LR&A original more or less different railway effecively connecting the H&C near Latimer Road with what is now the Picadilly Line's Heathrow branch as well as what is now the District Line's Ealing Broadway Branch. I can't see what traffic it could have hoped to gather and it wouldn't appear to any longer be directly associated with the GWR.

Not at all Chris, including postage it only cost a fiver. Thanks for this and it does seem to settle it that it was the Latimer Road and Acton though it'll be interesting to know where it was actually going to join the H&C and in which direction.

The route I've sketched in is speculative and I'm not convinced of it so more a question of " possibly 2+x+ maybe 1 + y = z where 2 is the abandoned railway, 1 is the Frithville Gardens curve and x,y & z are all unknowns. The date of the OS map showing the abandoned railway can be bracketed between the opening of Olympia in 1886 which is on the map (It had a different name until soon after it opened) and the GWR's New Northen Main Line from Old Oak Common to Rusilip built in 1903-1906 of which there is not yet a hint. That doesn't though tell us for how long the railway works for the line in question had been abandoned. Given that the bridge over the N & SW Junction Rly. appears to be in place the answer is maybe not that long though if there were still plans to build it I don't think it would have been marked as abandoned. Remember that the "Hammersmith" the south pointing end of the route appears to be aiming at is the N&SWJ's Hammersmith Branch terminus which was between Hammersmith and Chiswick (it's later more honest name)

I'll know more when I get the copy of this book that I've just ordered; thanks for alerting me to it. Phil, I've taken the liberty of marking the route of earthworks marked "abandoned railway" on your gazetter map along with the "Frithville Gardens Curve", the position of Latimer Road and a speculative route from the end of the earthworks at East Acton via the other possible parcel of land passing old Oak Farm to the WLR at Uxbridge Road (slightly south of the present Shepherds Bush overground station) with a connection to the H&C via the Frithville Curve. This does seem the likeliest explanation, as Stationmaster says, given that it agrees with the powers granted to the GWR but the route of the earthworks still don't make a lot of sense. Why end up heading due south then having to make a fairly sharp turn to the east when a more direct south easterly line would only have had to cross open fields? If that is true and the Hammersmith terminus of the H&C had also been a terminus for trains coming from the west on the GW mainline I wonder what sort of station it would have developed into. Definitely in Clarendon territory (a layout that I also like very much) Thank you all for trying to help me solve this little mystery. If I turn up anything else I'll let you all know.