Pacific231G

When I wired my H0m layout, I decided to avoid my usual explosion in a pasta factory by giving each of the five set of points its own terminal block for both the motor and frog switching with properly colour coded wires etc. The net result was ......... an even larger explosion in a pasta factory and plenty more opportunities for wires to work lose from their screw terminals! Oh well! At least all my layouts have been on portable boards so I never have to work from below and I'm sticking to that. BTW I understand that both Frank Dyer and Perer Denny were in the habit of including mains wiring with everything else under their baseboards. NOoo!!

Hi Tim It wasn't intended to be a rule - when it comes to artistic impression and preference that would be absurd. Copenhagen Fields is an extraordinary piece of work (as too is the Vale Scene at Pendon though I know that some have reservations about it) and I wouldn't criticise it at all. (and I did enjoy seeing the new tube station complete with working lift at the MRC mini exhibition) N scale does also seem to lend itself to railway panoramas and a panorama, especially if it is very well detailed, is always fascinating. With Copenhagen Fields there is of course far more to look at than the railways themselves- London basically! However, I don't believe that a more typical railway scene modelled to exact scale is necessarily superior to a well observed impression making judicious use of compression and even simplification. One has only to think of the Buckingham Branch which is a surprisingly compact layout.

That sounds like an excellent project, will it be an impression of a station or simply a stretch of mainline in a typically Brummie urban setting? I do see a difference between fully "Retro" modelling which does seem to be about emulating model railways of a past age such as HD and simply using whatever feels appropriate to create the look and feel of a real scene (there was nothing "retro" about Monet and Manet!), and if a model feels and looks right, whatever its level of detailing, then it is right. What for me spoils a model at typical viewing distances isn't lack of detail but far more things like deep flanges, excessively wide tyres and large gaps between the corridor connections of coaches. Though ths may be a controversial view in some circles I actually find that an absolutely to scale model of a real location never feels right as a modelled scene. I think this has a lot to do with the size and viewing angles of models versus the real thing and how our eyes and brain interpret what they are seeing and edit out the spaces between the interesting bits. We are used to seeing the real thing from close to ground level and from as close as three or four metres but, dependin on scale, we typically look at a modelled scene from the equivalent of perhaps forty metres away. For the same reason I find that aerial photos of railways (unless the secenry is the point of the photograph) are rarely as attractive as those taken from closer up. With a model of a railway I think what we are doing is trying to give the impression of a lineside view but from a different viewpoint so a lot of our foreshortening and using much tighter (up to a point) pointwork than protypical is actually artistically desirable.

There was a complete description of Holywell Town and its operation in BRJ no 40 (1992) and it would indeed make a very good micro-layout. Trains were limited to a two coach motor train for passengers (max speed 20MPH) and for goods, three loaded or five empty wagons with a 20 ton brake van at each end. The loco was always at the downhill end of every train and for descending goods trains the side brakes on every wagon had to be secured and the handbrake on the brake van next to the engine applied before heading downhill. The shunter or goods guard worked the brake in the other brake van during the descent which was limited to 10 MPH (this is in the 1916 Appendix so may have changed later) There were two ground frames at Holywell Town, one at each end of the loop. They were released by the train staff so shunting of the goods yard from the loop could only take place with the trap points at its lower end open. Goods trains always worked to and from the loop and on the main (platform) line there was only room for a locomotive between the end buffers and the upper loop points (which were protected with a FPL even though no passenger coach would ever have got that far). No wagons were allowed to be left on the running line outside the loop to eliminate any chance of runaways. The main line gradient was 1:260 in the station area from the heel of the upper loop turnout to the overbridge and 1:27 below that all the way (apart from a short section of 1:31 about half a mile from the junction) down to Holywell Junction . I can't be sure but the goods yard looks to have been flat beyond the trap points and only appears to be elevated because of the drop in the main line. There was a notice under the bridge "Goods trains to stop to pin down brakes" but they wouldn't really have started by then. If it was properly equipped with trap points and the two ground frames- unlocked by a single key representing the staff and Annett's Key so only one could be open at any time- this could make a rather interesting development of Inglenook Sidings with quite a lot to do if it was run strictly to the rulebook. Very frustratingly the NLS OS map collection only has the 25 inch map of the area for 1910 before the LNWR reopened the line (which had been a mineral tramway) This shows it as "Old Railway" but it looks more like the LNWR had done the civil enginnering work by then but hadn't yet laid the track. However, there is a detailed plan here though it doesn't show the two trap points. https://content-eu.invisioncic.com/y320084/monthly_2023_01/HolywellTown.jpg.69e019e2d92177ed0ec25058afec3b37.jpg This was in a post by Bécasse last January and the red box scales as 3m x 1m in 4mm scale. (https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/177063-can-you-produce-a-signal-box-diagram-when-you-only-have-a-layout-plan-and-no-photos/?do=findComment&comment=5071080

So is Tornado a full size working model of an LNER A1 Pacific or an actual Peppercorn Pacific? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_2P2mFT_ac

I've probably said this before but I see a world of difference between a showcase model complete in every detail and a model that conveys an impression of the real thing (which may or may not be very highly detailed) . A good example of this are the ship models traditionally presented to owners by the yards. They were superbly detailed, probably down to the last rivet, but you'd never feel that you were looking at the real thing. This model does though (at least it does for me) Especially when seen like this Though in many ways simplified and definitely not a showcase model, it feels to me like the hardworking coasters whose engine rooms we used to visit in Plymouth's Millbay Docks when I was a cadet there in a way that a ship in a glass case never could. The same was true of the model of a King that used to - and maybe still does- grace the main up platform at Bristol TM. You could put a coin in its case to make it work and it was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship (built I think by Swindon apprentices) but it didn't really give the impression of the real thing that a train running on say the Buckingham Branch does.

We do use RTR locos on operating days (usually four each year) to augment John Ahern's locos (most of which still run incredibly well given their age) but hide them when the MVR is presented as a static display . The other rolling stock was all built by John Ahern so just about everything you see was his work. Thanks to considerable efforts by other members of the team I joined a couple of year ago, every inch of track on the layout is now usable and we test it all during maintenance sessions though it does require very regular TLC. Though it has inspired several 00n3 layouts, the MVR is indeed a standard gauge layout (albeit 00) though it does include a number of narrow gauge locos (60 cm to 3ft gauge) built to various scales that simply looked right. I like to imagine that thay are standard gauge versions of the narrow gauge locos they were based on built by the same manufacturers and, given John Ahern's ability to create a convincing world, they just seem to fit. If you didn't know they were based on narrow gauge rather than SG light railway locos it wouldn't be obvious.

Well that's Christmas more or less over and a far busier one than I'd expected with social engagements every day from the 23rd (and almost every day from the 16th) till yesterday encompassing, Buckinghamshire, Worcestershire and Oxforshire as well as London. No rest today as I have an appointment with the urologists at my least favourite hospital (I used to have a choice but no longer it seems). I hope you all had good and happy midwinter festivals of whatever tradition you favour.

I do see a distinction between "retro" and "impressionistic" modelling. Retro seems to mean using older proprietary models to create the sort of developed train-set layout that were in truth the majority of actual layouts when such equipment was in the shops (and in their modern guise still are). An impressionist layout might also make use of such products but esssentially focuses on creating an overall scene rather than on highly detailed individual models. It is likely to require just as much skill and artistry as a hyper realistic layout but applied in a different way and with different priorities. You'll not be surprised if I quote the difference between the Madder Valley and the Vale scene at Pendon as an excellent example of this. The Vale scene is the superb result of over half a century of incredibly fine scale modelling by a team of dedicated modellers while the Madder Valley represents no more than a dozen years of work (probably rather less) by one equally artistically gifted man who used much broader brushstrokes (brickpaper rather than individually painted bricks for example) to create an overall impression of a world that seems totally believable. Equally, Frank Dyer was content to use ordinary 00 standards to create layouts (Borchester Market in particular) that gave a wonderful and again very convincing impression of a full size railway in everyday operation. I think there is a question about how important it is for all the modelling in a layout to be of a consistent standard - does a super-detailed piece of almost show-case rolling stock for examply look right within an impressionistic scene- or is it OK for the layout to simply be the background in which to show off such models of trains? John Ahern and Peter Denny both built almost everything themselves and did so to a very consistent standard and the result just seemed to work.

And you can add as much as you like of a really good brandy (I won a bottle of Calavados in a Christmas charity lunch auction last Sunday so I might try some of that)

Thanks for this Melmerby. I'd forgotten just how good Steeleye Span were (still are?) . This is the best of their reditions of it I've found on Utoob https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDc2FD-vy8M and is clearly an authorised recording (judging by the multi-camera video) and I think being to a live audience makes it work even better than the studio recording on the album . There are several other A Capella versions of Gaudete around like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTdAugBt-_g. Being all-male voice it is probably more authentic for 16th Century church music but I think Maddy Prior's precise and haunting voice lifts the Steeleye Span version to the realms of the sublime and I've really enjoyed listening to it again.

The Madder Valley was indeed extremely well designed for operation. We run it about four times a year and though, to keep things moving for the public, we don't operate it to its full potential which would require a lor more shunting, it can still hold my interest for a full day (preferably operating Maddeport) There aren't many layouts I've operated that I could say that of. It's interesting how many later layouts were closely based on it including Derek Naylor's Aire Valley and Giles Barnabe's 00n3 layout. Curiously though, while Ahern wrote extensively about every aspect of the railway, including its control systems and two-rail electrification scheme, he never did write about its operation. Like many home layouts, I suspect it wasn't actualy operated all that often though running an occasional train up and down the valley would have been entirely possible and enjoyable on his own. I do rather wonder if that was also true of the West Midland Railway. The WMR was clearly designed for intensive operation with a set of standard routes, as described in "West Midland, a railway in miniature", but did Edward Beal actually have regular operating sessions with a group of people as Peter Denny, Frank Dyer and John Allen did? The MVR wasn't the first model railway to include a world beyond the railway corridor. Aldo Cosomati's 3.5mm scale Alheeba State Railway (MRN Dec 1933 & Jan 1934) also did this and though nothing like as well developed as the MVR ten years later, it was one of John Ahern's main inspirations. John Ahern's layout was though the first to fully develop the idea of a railway within a believable world and I would love to be able to actually visit Madderport and Gammon Magna and to have tea in the Monraker's Inn. I would say that the balance between creating a believabl world in miniature and including a very operationally sound model railway in that world has rarely been achieved as well.

Particularly interesting in these photos is the narrow gauge (18 inch gauge?) track running round the Cowlairs works, especially the crossing of the SG track in what I asseume to be the locomotive erecting shop.

Not as bad as if they'd been having to ride in some of the Parliamentary wagons (I hesitate to describe them as carriages)

Thst seems to be popular in France too, though often with just a descending curve rather than a helix to the under layout storage sidings. Unfolded figure 8s with the storage sidings crossing below the scenic section also seem to be popular. Such sidings have always struck me as being rather awkward to access though John Charman had his main storage sidings below the terminuus in in the permanent version of Charford. He wrote that this was 5 1/4 inches below the terminus and, looking at photographs there does appear to be a gap of that height between the bottom of the upper baseboard and the storage sidings. That looks like a rather narrow access slot through which to deal with derailments and track maintenance etc. but it obviously worked for him. (The ruling gradient was 1 in 35)

Wretched things. Jouef were very fond of them for their powered tenders, diesels and electrics in H0 but getting the mech apart to change them can be a real pain. Fortunately Roco didn't fit them to their 63000 (SNCF diesel BB) and they're my best runners. I've never known why they are so popular with manufacturers in continental Europe unless modellers really are needing them for very steep gradients. Long trains on club layouts perhaps?

Would they be able to get it sufficiently unpolluted for water supply? There are metal mines (mostly adit mines AFAIK) that closed generations ago, some of them from the eighteenth century, whose water outflows are still poisoning the local environment and water outflows from coal mines can also be a problem (though not always).

I received this from one of my feeds this morning https://bigthink.com/health/james-hamblin-doctor-didnt-shower-five-years/?utm_campaign=weeklynewsletter&utm_source=rejoiner&utm_medium=email&utm_content=11%2F30%2F23+Smarter+Faster+(A)&rjnrid=kyq43eA The Doctor is from New York but the interview came from Australia's Nine Network. Could it be that we've been wrong about a certain proportion of exhibition visitors all these years? I have "tests" today at the local hospital. The trainee GP I saw on Tuesday (who fortunately for me happens to have been a urologist before she changed specialties) is pretty sure it's nothing serious but "wouldn't want to be the doctor who missed it".

Thanks for this. I knew about this operation but not in any detail so this is an excellent find.

I assume that one reason for the railway was to protect the floors though in the 1895 photo they look rather less well polished. The Musée des Arts et Métiers (Métro Arts et Métiers surprise surprise!) Is definitely worth visiting and I found it a very friendly museum with none of the vast crowds of the better known Paris museums. They used to have a wonderful display item which illustrated the virtues of railways by cranking a handle that pulled a heavily loaded axle fitted with cart, pneumatic, and railway wheels over a surface of rough ground, tarmac and rails. The relative ease of moving it on rails was very striking. They have some very interesting objects including Cugnot's steam carriage, Bleriot's aircraft, and Clément Ader's Aéroplane no. 3 that made a short powered flight in 1890 (though he hadn't solved the problem of control- it was the Wright brothers who did that)

The second of those is a terrific source. It illustrates a great deal of the examples offered in the Decauville catalogue. and the gunboat being moved through Paris on Decauville rails removed behind it then laid in front of it is a real find. The reference to wine caves is slightly out as the Ackerman caves near Saumur (and possibly others) ran for several kilometres tunelled through the very soft rock (Tuffe) that make up the escarpment on the south bank of the Loire. The sparkling wine there is made by the Methode champenoise' (though they now have to call it méthode traditionnelle outside the champagne region) with a second fermentation in the bottle. This requires a lot of handling as the bottles are turned, disgorged and dosed. This is very labour intensive but made easier by bringing the bottles in their racks to stations set up for each task which was where the railway came in.

I don't think it had been used for some time before the redevelopment but had simply been there in the floor. The movement of large objects was probably a daily occurence when the buillding's primary purpose was teaching. As a museum it would have taken place far less often and mainly when objects needed to be refurbished . The development of rubber tyred trolleys to move things around would in any case have made it redundant, just as they did at the Ackerman wine caves in Saumur. They're not limited by where the rails are which had also imposed a rather rigid arrangement of display cases either side of the track and, unlike the Decauville platform wagons, could be motorised. Parts of the museum were extensively rearranged during its redevelopment and, in several places, the railway simply reaches a new wall. What remains of it runs through the larger galleries that were not moved. but several of the display cases are now over the track This is what it looked like after 1895 when CNAM opened its collection to public display after creating a number of large galleries in what had been a priory full of small rooms/cells Apart from the galleries, a line - inset in the stone floors- runs through the former chapel This ends at an outside door to a courtyard for items to be moved on and off site (mainly to the museum's workshops in an industrial suburb of Paris. I've tried in vai to find a plan of the system but, though I've found plans of the museum's galleries after 1895, the railway clearly wasn't considered worthy of note. There was a goods lift between the floors of galleries and this was presumably fitted with rails.

But there is of course Perrygrove Railway in the Forest of Dean which is very similar in concept to Heywood's own Duffield Bank demonstration railway though the reproduction Heywood "heritage" rolling stock seems to have been moved elsewhere. I find that I far prefer the 15 inch gauge when it's treated as a minimum gauge narrow gauge railway than when it is a large-gauge miniature railway.

The Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (CNAM) 50 cm gauge tramway is even stranger than the current museum had realised (I was in communication with their very helpful curator of transport and energy M. Lionel Dufaux while writing a short article about it for the French Railways Society Journal last year). The four wheel truck preserved at the museum looks to be a bogie from one of Decauville's standard type 71 hand propelled 3m long platform wagons However, if you looks closely, you'll see that only one wheel on each axle has a flange, the other is flangeless and, on the railway itself one rail is of Broca (grooved tramway) profile and the other standard Vignoles (flat bottom) profile. Both rails were inset into the floor but the Vignoles rail has no flangeway and is a millimetre or two proud of the gallery floors The points (there are two and a wagon turntable in what remains of the railway) were set by a single tongue in the Broca rail. CNAM was and is an important higher education institute (one of France's Grandes Ecoles) and the railway's purpose was to take exhibits, mostly large models of machines etc, from the galleries where they were displayed to the public, to the conservatoire's two large lecture theatres for demonstrations and lectures with minimum disruption and without damaging the wooden flooring. This seems to have been a very regular operation which the railway made far easier. The track also extends to the rear door of the institute to enable objects to be brought in and out of the building. The railway probably only ever had two or three flat wagons to carry this out and, AFAIK the bogie on display is the only part of its rolling stock to have survived. Why they adopted this peculiar (and possibly unique) hybrid arrangement of track and wheelsets isn't clear. M. Dufaux suggested that it might have been to make it less obtrusive in the floor with only one grooved rail and no conventional crossing or to reduce rolling resistance on the tight curves (though these seem to be Decauville's standard four metre "setrack" curves for its 40 and 50 cm gauge portable railway system). It might also have been a matter of cost as there were several hundred metres of track and Vignoles rail was only about 60% of the cost per metre of Broca. That might not have been a major factor in the museum's installation but Paul Decauville was well known to CNAM. He had supplied it with a 1/5 model of his portable railway system and possibly this was a proof of concept for other more extensive uses of this hybrid system. We may never know. The museum was closed for a major eight year redevelopment until 2000 and, though the tramway was now redundant, the architect decided to keep a large part of it as a feature and it runs through several of the galleries. The museum is well worth visiting if you are in Paris and makes a nice contrast with the better known museums and galleries.