A stroll through Railway Modellers past

[Andy Kirkham]

Some pictures of Cyril Fry (and family)

https://irishphotoarchive.photoshelter.com/image/I0000F.ASiQZWfU4

 

https://irishphotoarchive.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/1954-10-06-Mr-Cyril-Fry-Dundrum-with-his-Miniature-Belfast-Trams/G0000haexsurtIJI/I0000YEQuha8D7EI/C000094Ti_qheqAk

 

https://irishphotoarchive.photoshelter.com/image/I0000efstUCXezJA

 

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, BR Blue said:

When visiting Dublin you can always go and see his collection:

https://www.modelrailwaymuseum.ie/cyril-fry/

 

I'm afraid it gets very poor reviews on TripAdvisor (including by modellers) where  7.50€ was clearly judged by most to be very poor value for money. The museum suggests allowing 40 minutes for a visit but most reviews said it wasn't worth more than 15m for a rather indifferent 00 gauge model railway and a few of Cyril Fry's models in glass cases.

By way of comparison, Pendon is £8 but TripAdvisor's reviewers suggest allowing 2-3 hours for a visit which seems about right and most reviews gave it full marks.

[BlackFivesMatter]

I was surprised by the photo and bio of PD Hancock being so young, in one of the earlier 1950s editions.   This was after after a good number of articles, plans and sketches which he had already published in earlier editions. 

 

Fascinating to see the loco drawings of BR standard locos at a time when they were in production and being introduced. 

 

The branch line plans as food for modelling thought - Ashburton branch, Cuckoo line, Yealmpton branch, Hawkhurst line and Eye valley all at a time where these were operating normally before the great pruning. 

[Andy Kirkham]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I'm afraid it gets very poor reviews on TripAdvisor (including by modellers) where  7.50€ was clearly judged by most to be very poor value for money. The museum suggests allowing 40 minutes for a visit but most reviews said it wasn't worth more than 15m for a rather indifferent 00 gauge model railway and a few of Cyril Fry's models in glass cases.

By way of comparison, Pendon is £8 but TripAdvisor's reviewers suggest allowing 2-3 hours for a visit which seems about right and most reviews gave it full marks.

Here's a video of the earlier model railway in Malahaide Castle. It was truly enormous and would have kept a child entranced for hours. Its no wonder people are disappointed in the new exhibition. But I wonder how much of Fry's work remained. It seems to have been continually updated to include the most modern trains.

 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[Pacific231G]

3 hours ago, BlackFivesMatter said:

I was surprised by the photo and bio of PD Hancock being so young, in one of the earlier 1950s editions.   This was after after a good number of articles, plans and sketches which he had already published in earlier editions. 

 

Fascinating to see the loco drawings of BR standard locos at a time when they were in production and being introduced. 

 

The branch line plans as food for modelling thought - Ashburton branch, Cuckoo line, Yealmpton branch, Hawkhurst line and Eye valley all at a time where these were operating normally before the great pruning. 

One of the things that CJF seemed very successful with was to make personal contact with a range of modellers mainly by actually going to visit the major clubs- he was of course a lifelong member of the MRC- but I think he got Charford, Craig & Mertonford, and North Devonshire from a visit to the newly formed Edinburgh and Lothians Miniature Railway Club.

 

I've not been able to find out much about G.H.Lake. He was the first editor of Railways , later Railway World, started in December 1939, whose proprietor was E.L. Lake (his brother perhaps). In 1941 he was one of the three editors who made up the BRMSB with R.J. Raymond (MRC) and  J.N. Maskelyne (MRN). After the war he was the Secretary of META and, in 1947-48, President of the British Region of the NMRA. and he wrote at least two books. "The Railways of Tottenham" (1945) and The "Miniature Railways Handbook" (1954) republished in 1958  with "- Gauges from TT3 to Gauge One" added to the title. He was obviously a well known figure within the hobby but of his own life I've found nothing.   

Edited February 19, 2022 by Pacific231G

[eldomtom2]

Vol.1 No.3

Feb-Mar 1950

 

Price: 1/6

 

Published by Ian Allan Ltd.

 

Editor: G. H. Lake

 

This issue's "Editor's Page" is on British Railway Modelling Bureau Standard Dimensions. The BRMSB has apparently produced a booklet containing their newly produced standards to ensure interoperability between different manufacturers' products, available for 1s. Whether or not the BRMSB saw any success is unknown to me - certainly no one talks about BRMSB standards these days.

 

Kenneth Lyth presents A Small 00-Gauge Exhibition Railway. This provides an interesting example of how attitudes in the hobby have changed, being a 12x4 oval intended to "convince visitors that model railways are not to be regarded as just toys" - it would (and this is not an insult) be regarded as a fine example of the "nostalgic train set" style of layout today.

 

W. R. Moss provides Some Suggested Developments for 4 mm. Scale. Most of this is devoted to various suggestions for loco construction, though one of his more bizarre suggestions is that railway modellers who also happen to be horticultural experts should "persuade vegetation to adapt itself to indoor growth".

 

There is then an extremely brief article (less than half a page of text and two photos) on A Swedish HO-Gauge Railway. I suspect the article, about Carl-Erik Nordstrand's American-outline layout, was taken from some sort of news service, as no writer is credited and the images are credited to Al Barry of Graphic House Inc.

 

Squeezed beneath the second photo of the preceding article is a brief notice of BR's New Standard Wagon Liveries.

 

G. H. Platt then discusses Modelling a McConnell Single-Driver of the L.N.W.R. This includes drawings, but evidently this did not fill the "official" drawing slot as there are more drawings later.

 

J. H. Russell provides a brief digression on an interesting topic with Miniature Railways with Miniature Cameras. Obviously most of his advice is outdated in these days of digital cameras, but the superiority of his photograph to the others in the issue, at least as far as convincing the viewer that isn't a model goes, is undeniable.

 

Next follows a long and technical article on Improved Efficiency in 00-Gauge Mechanisms. The precise name of the writer is unclear - It is printed as H. J. Stubbs, but the Exact Editions copy has had "H." and "J." crossed out and "S." written above them.

 

Shoved in the middle of the preceding article are drawings and photographs of a L.M.S.R. (now L.M.R.) Post-War 12-Wheeled Restaurant Car.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Cyril L. Fry continue demonstrating The Irish International Railway and Tramway System in Part Three, this time focusing on the layout's rolling stock.

 

The bi-issuely Model Railroading series returns, this time focusing on box-cars. The primary focus is on scratch-building your own, and the article includes drawings for a Southern Pacific boxcar.

 

This is the first issue to have a letters page, in the form of Modellers Mailbag. Colonel G. G. Templer of Jersey wants more details on OO mechanisms. Gilbert Roberts complains that the Bradford-American M.R. Society was forgotten in the first issue and a false impression presented that "the Harrow society is the only all-American railroad club in England". J.B. Hodgson of Wibsey, Bradford is looking for people interested in forming a Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Society.

 

The final section is News and Views of the Trade. Having devoted this section in the previous two issues into detailed looks at specific "systems", it now enters the more familiar form of several brief reviews of various products. It also introduces a system where products are scored by giving them up to three "locomotive discs". Reviewed are an OO-gauge coach kit by Aero-models of Liverpool (12s. , three discs), an O/Gauge 1 point motor by James Rogerson Ltd. of Guildford and Reading (17s. 6d. , three discs), an OO-gauge platform truck kit by K.M.R. of Manchester (2s. 9d. for two trucks, two discs), and a range of pre-fabricated ballast from Peco (1s. to 1s. 9d. , two discs).

 

I do not generally mention advertisments unless one sticks out to me, as it did in this case in the "Small Advertisments" section, with the first appearance in Railway Modeller of a now-famous name:

Quote

Hornby Trix, Dublo, Graham Farish, trains bought, sold exchanged. - Hattons, 136, Smithdown Road, Liverpool, 15

 

[Nearholmer]

I think that Mr Stubbs was probably Sid Stubbs, who was quite a prominent modeller through the 1950s and 60s. Maybe “HJ” was a typo, or “Sid” was his nickname.

[swampy]

10 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Vol.1 No.3

Feb-Mar 1950

 

.....

 

This is the first issue to have a letters page, in the form of Modellers Mailbag. ...... J.B. Hodgson of Wibsey, Bradford is looking for people interested in forming a Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Society.

 

 

 

The request was obviously successful, as per the LYRS website...

 

The Society

The first Line Society - 1950 and all that!
In early 1950 members of the Bradford Railway Circle got together and started a correspondence group discussing the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway.

They placed an advertisement in the March 1950 issue of the Model Railway Constructor inviting like minded individuals to join. By 1956 a regular Newsletter was in production and its first editor, Tom Wray, was at the helm.

[Pacific231G]

Though they weren't adopted by the likes of Hornby Dublo, Trix and later Tri-ang,  B.R.M.S.B. standards were very important in the post war development of the hobby, used by most "serious" modellers and, more important, by the manufacturers who supplied them with wheelsets, track components etc. Their standards never developed as far or became as universally accepted by manufacturers as the N.M.R.A.'s did in North America. but the introduction to the Gauge 0 Guild's document on standards says this 

"The introduction to the BRMSB (British Railway Modelling Standards Bureau) standards of 1950 is reproduced below, because it remains as
valid today as when it was first written,"

The BRMSB disappeared in about 1960 and its standards document (which covered 0, S, 00, EM and H0) went out of print when META was wound up in 1975. Its standards were adopted, with some improvements, by both the G0G - who say that their present standards are compatible with BRMSB and the EMGS which adopted them but with a slightly wider gauge of 18.2mm . 

 

I think that by far the most interesting advert in RM no. 3 is that for Graham Farish's "Formoway" track which I think was the first ready to lay flexible track. (though Pecoway was advertised two months latere in no.4  It mean that moving away from proprietary set track no longer required modellers to hand lay their track. Would  J.H. Russell be Jim Russell who became a well known and well respected modeller? His approach isn't necessarily outdated by digital photography - light and optics haven't changed- but I don't think many experienced photographers would want to rely on flat lighting alone without any modelling (in the photographic sense) and there was a far better  article about model photography by John Ahern in MRN or MRC at around that time.

It's curious that Reg Perrin should have missed the Bradford-American MRS since both he and they were clearly involved with the British Region of the NMRA (I assume that Perrin was its Hon. Sec.) which makes me wonder if his article had been written some time before it was published. G.H.Lake had also of course been heavily involved with the NMRA having been the President of its British Region in 1947-1948, which no doubt explains why there were two articles about model railroading in Railway Modeller's first three issues. I suspect there would have been more had Lake not left after no. 4. 

Edited February 21, 2022 by Pacific231G
small updates

[Legend]

Quite a change in content between then and now . These RMs are too early for me , but based on the access to archive editions  for the first time ever I took out a subscription to the magazine . I'm really looking foward to looking through some back issues maybe from 1970 onwards . Pure nostalgia .

[Steamport Southport]

First issue is free with the current issue.

 

Might be previous issue as I think the new one is out.

 

https://peco-uk.com/products/copy-of-railway-modeller-january-2022-vol-73-no-856

 

Surprised how small it is, even compared to the 1950s issues. Oldest one I've got is about 1954.

 

 

 

Jason

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

The BRMSB disappeared in about 1960

I think it continued in name for a while longer but was moribund.

 

10 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

J.H. Russell be Jim Russell who became a well known and well respected modeller

Yes.

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I think it continued in name for a while longer but was moribund.

 

 

META (Model Engineering Trades Association) had already taken on the actual publication of the standards and used the BRMSB name until it too disappeared but I think you're correct that the BRMSB itself simply faded away rather than ever being formally closed down. It was in any case little more than an ad hoc  committee (originally The British Railway Model Standards Committee) mainly of magazine editors. Styling itself as a Bureau suggested something far more established, with offices, staff and some kind of quasi-official statust, than it ever really was.

I'm not terribly sure what standards modern RTR stock is built to (I've heard NMRA RP25/110 mentioned) but the bad old days when products from different manufacturers were mutually incompatible do seem to have passed. 

 

[Flying Pig]

On 21/02/2022 at 07:44, Nearholmer said:

I think that Mr Stubbs was probably Sid Stubbs, who was quite a prominent modeller through the 1950s and 60s. Maybe “HJ” was a typo, or “Sid” was his nickname.

 

An obituary for Sid stubbs is here - it seems he was a genuine Sid:

 

 

[2mmMark]

On 21/02/2022 at 11:29, Legend said:

Quite a change in content between then and now . These RMs are too early for me , but based on the access to archive editions  for the first time ever I took out a subscription to the magazine . I'm really looking foward to looking through some back issues maybe from 1970 onwards . Pure nostalgia .

 

On the whole, I'm impressed by the project.  The sheer magnitude of the archive is awesome.  I reckon there's got to be 60 or 70 gigabytes of data in total, as each page is a single JPG file, roughly one megabyte in size. I think that's a sensible choice compared to PDFing everything as it's easy to save the individual pages you need, for drawings etc.  This is specifically permitted for private use, a sensible policy which echoes what used to be printed in the magazines ("this drawing may be photostatted to any scale...")

The effort involved in scanning would have been considerable, as everything pre-2010 would need doing and there are thousands of pages.  On quite a few magazines from the 1990s & 2000s, the ad pages have been largely omitted. It's nice to have them on the more historic content. For me, with an interest in Lone Star 000, it's useful information.

However, some of the scans from the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s are rather poor. That might be down to the printing of the magazine as it was "modernized" from about 1966 with a new font type. Still readable and the drawings are legible. Something that would have improved the scan quality would have been to put a sheet of black paper behind the page being scanned, This prevents the reverse side from showing through.  (I use a piece of black plasticard on my scanner).

From 2010 onwards, it looks like the content has come straight from the publishing software.

The text on the pages has been through an OCR process with variable results.  This does allow the pages to be indexed for searching.  Google seems to know some of the content.  This helps make up for the lack of a formal index.

So the question for me is, can I throw out those boxes of magazines in the loft?  I think I can, just need to find the roundtuit. A pity there's no easy way to find homes for the magazines.

Another thing that is vividly illustrated is the wide gulf between high and low detail modelling in the 1950s & 60s.  The good stuff, say from PD Hancock and similar stands up well today but the lesser models don't.  Nowadays, the standard of modelling in the articles is much more uniform. That seemed to progress from the mid 1970s onwards.

For best viewing, I prefer my Acer Spin1 convertible laptop which folds back on itself to become a tablet, usable in portrait mode. This suits the scanned pages well.

Mark

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, 2mmMark said:

Another thing that is vividly illustrated is the wide gulf between high and low detail modelling in the 1950s & 60s.  The good stuff, say from PD Hancock and similar stands up well today but the lesser models don't.  Nowadays, the standard of modelling in the articles is much more uniform. That seemed to progress from the mid 1970s onwards.

That gulf was visible right back to the very start of model railway mags in 1909, and I’m not as convinced as you seem to be that it has gone away.

 

If you look at the “modeller made” content of a proportion of the layouts in today’s Railway Modeller, that is turn a blind eye to all the ready-to-run and ready-to-plant, and focus only on the “home handicraft”, some of it is pretty basic. I actually think it’s a strength of RM that it includes “entry-level to high-fidelity”, because there will always be people working at those extremes and all places in between.

 

My cynical self also thinks that if some of the “good stuff” of earlier years was presented through modern hi-res photography and printing, we might get a shock. Those spot and whitewash pictures probably flattered quite few models.

[2mmMark]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

That gulf was visible right back to the very start of model railway mags in 1909, and I’m not as convinced as you seem to be that it has gone away.

 

If you look at the “modeller made” content of a proportion of the layouts in today’s Railway Modeller, that is turn a blind eye to all the ready-to-run and ready-to-plant, and focus only on the “home handicraft”, some of it is pretty basic. I actually think it’s a strength of RM that it includes “entry-level to high-fidelity”, because there will always be people working at those extremes and all places in between.

 

My cynical self also thinks that if some of the “good stuff” of earlier years was presented through modern hi-res photography and printing, we might get a shock. Those spot and whitewash pictures probably flattered quite few models.

Here, borrow my glasses.

[eldomtom2]

Vol.1 No.4

May 1950

 

Price: 1/6

 

Published by Ian Allan Ltd.

 

Editor: G. H. Lake

 

Below the title page is a notice on A Change Of Editorship. G. H. Lake, citing health problems and a change to monthly publication, is retiring from the editorship in favour of a yet unnamed successor. It is worth nothing that the magazine did not change to monthly publication after this issue - it carried on a bimonthly basis for eight more issues before switching to monthly publication with the November 1951 issue. As this issue is labelled as just being the May issue (and not the April-May issue), one wonders if the switch was intended to take place sooner...

 

The Editor's Page for this issue mentions absolutely nothing about the change in editorship, and is instead fairly generic advice for the new modeller.

 

In response to Theodore Horn's article two issues back, C. B. Smith writes on Another "Charles Dickens", this one not having been modified and still in original (if battered) condition,

 

A. G. Templar provides drawings and instructions on building An O-Gauge Radial Axle.

 

Separate from the regular reviews is Test Report No. 1 - Graham Farish, "conducted" by Roy Hawke. This is a detailed review of the newly launched Graham Farish range, consisting of track, a Black Five (individual price 65s.), several wagons (individual price 3s. for open wagons, 4s. for vans), and a brake van (individual price 4s. 6d.). Train sets, consisting of the Black Five, five wagons, and a brake van can be had for £5 18s. 6d. without track and £8 3s. 6d. with a circle of track. Performance is allegedly very good, with the loco lasting over a hundred hours of continual operation with relatively minimal wear. I note that despite the editoral praising BRMSB standards last issue, the fact that the GF stock is not to those standards is dismissed with the reviewer's comment that "I personally don't think that matters"...

 

After this is a brief piece on The "Railway Modeller" Test Track. The picture of it is labelled as one of it "in its private enterprise days", so was this purchased from someone else?

 

This issue's Ten Minute Model article is on using casting powder to make bridges - this comes with a disclaimer that it will likely take significantly longer than ten minutes.

 

The Trade News this issue only reviews two products - Hale's couplings for Trackmaster wagons (9d. , three discs) and Peco Flat-bottom track (3s. 8d. per 18 inch length, three discs). Are the Trackmaster wagons mentioned the Pyramid Toys ones that Tri-ang bought the rights to later?

 

Prototypes for Models No. 4 - Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway has unfortunately reverted to the original pattern of not printing the locations of the photographs.

 

Edward Beal presents plans for A 2-Rail OO-Gauge Portable Layout. This is 12x8ft ("the minimum size for an OO-gauge railway model of any sort of satisfactoriness"), can be folded in half, and is intended to be the first of a series of articles, with this one covering the plans and the following ones covering construction.

 

Cyril L. Fry writes what is apparently the last article on The Irish International Railway and Tramway System, continuing the overview of the rolling stock - not all of Irish prototypes.

 

There is a brief article on the (Manchester?) Model Railway Society's Silver Jubilee - Manchester Celebrations. This clears up the confusion regarding Mr. Stubbs' name by noting that he was given the incorrect initials in the previous issue.

 

Modeller's Mailbag this issue entirely focuses on responses to the said Mr. Stubbs' article in the previous issue. E. G. Kay of Chichester offers the Modeller his hearty congratulations for publication of the article. E. P. Hyatt of Morden, Surrey, provides various technical criticisms. C. J. Freezer of Dagenham, Essex is rather critical of the whole article, feeling that commercial mechanisms are already good enough and Stubbs' suggestions will just add delicacy and expense.

[Nearholmer]

16 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

Performance is allegedly very good,

 

The wagons were designed to maximise drag, IIRC from some I bought at jumble sales in the 60s, so the locos needed to be strong!

[kevinlms]

6 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Vol.1 No.4

May 1950

 

Price: 1/6

 

Published by Ian Allan Ltd.

 

Editor: G. H. Lake

 

 C. J. Freezer of Dagenham, Essex is rather critical of the whole article, feeling that commercial mechanisms are already good enough and Stubbs' suggestions will just add delicacy and expense.

Cyril Freezer seemed to always think that everything was at the top of the cycle.

[pete_mcfarlane]

17 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Edward Beal presents plans for A 2-Rail OO-Gauge Portable Layout. This is 12x8ft ("the minimum size for an OO-gauge railway model of any sort of satisfactoriness"),

How to put people who don't live in huge Victorian vicarages like you do off Railway Modelling!

 

"I've only got room for a 10'x6' layout"

"Don't bother, you won't be able to cram in two thousand feet of track and a couple of randomly positioned factories, so it won't be 'satisfactory'''

[Derekl]

17 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

It is worth nothing that the magazine did not change to monthly publication after this issue - it carried on a bimonthly basis for eight more issues before switching to monthly publication with the November 1951 issue

 

It is noted in one of the magazines (after CJF took over) that the intention was to go to monthly publication, but that the shortage of paper prevented them doing so.

[Martync]

Interesting that the price of the issue being discussed was 1/6 or 7 1/2p. The first RM I bought (Sept 72) was 18p - I suspect a decimal conversion of 3/6. So it only went up 2 bob in 20 years.  I haven't bought an RM for ages, but suspect its not far short of £5 by now........although a somewhat different magazine of course!!

[Nearholmer]

I use RM cover prices as an inflation index. As reflective of the reality of inflation as all the other indices, which include, or not, various goods and services.

 

I also started to buy it regularly at around the 3/6 to 17.5p change, so that is a useful benchmark.

[Pacific231G]

On 27/02/2022 at 11:23, Derekl said:

 

It is noted in one of the magazines (after CJF took over) that the intention was to go to monthly publication, but that the shortage of paper prevented them doing so.

As I mentioned before, monthly publication came with Sydney Pritchard's  purchase of the title from Ian Allan with November 1951 (vol2 no 13) the first Peco edition. That and the December edition  were in the original format but Peco enlarged it from vol 3 no 15 in January 1952. Perhaps Peco found a way to overcome the paper shortage.