Almost a model?

Posted on August 5, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

A picture from the BBC website, of derailed engineering trains in Scotland.  This looks remarkably like our ESNG layout on a bad day (and I suspect most modellers will identify with the incident!)

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According to the article:

Two trains carrying ballast for engineering work have collided on the track near Cumnock in Ayrshire, Network Rail has said. No-one was injured in the incident which took place at about 11:20 on Saturday but a number of wagons derailed and the track was damaged.

The line, which was closed for the weekend for engineering work, will remain shut for several days.  It is believed one of the trains ran into the back of the other.

A spokesman for track owner Network Rail said: “At approximately 11:20am yesterday, in a Network Rail work site, two ballast-carrying trains collided, resulting in the derailment of some wagons of each train. No-one was hurt in the incident but it has resulted in some track damage. Once the derailed wagons have been recovered the repair work will take approximately three days to complete. Therefore it is expected the line will remain closed for a number of days.”

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London Bridge rebuild

Posted on August 3, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Our local paper the Sorry Error, whoops, Surrey Mirror published these aerial photos of the London Bridge rebuilding project.  This rebuild will increase the capacity of the through tracks that feed the Thameslink lines through to north London.  It will no doubt be a good thing, but the present disruption to commuters is pretty extreme.  The Shard looks pretty impressive over part of the station concourse.

For us modellers, we are unlikely to aspire to modelling London Bridge in any form, although the through lines past the old Ewer Street stabling point, and the smaller terminals at Cannon Street and Holborn Viaduct could appeal.  However, these shots remind us what good prototypes urban railways can make, squeezed into the available space and winding their way – in this case on viaduct – between the buildings.

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Posted in Inspiration, Out and about, Prototype, Weird and wonderful | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Up the Junction

Posted on August 1, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Just before we went on holiday, I made my last visit to offices in Kew Bridge, reviewing designs of the river crossings for a gas pipeline in Turkey.  This has been a regular trip, from Redhill to Clapham Junction and then back out of London to Kew Bridge.

Changing trains at Clapham Junction is always interesting.  Routes from London’s south and south-west termini, London Waterloo and London Victoria, funnel through the station making it one of the busiest in Europe by number of trains using it, 100-180 per hour except between midnight and 5am.  On a typical brief visit transiting between platforms one will see trains and liveries from Southern Railway, South West Trains, Gatwick Express and London Overground.  Occasionally one can also spot the odd goods train, although most cross-London traffic is in the quieter night hours.

One of the delights of Clapham is the complete hotchpotch of architecture on the main footbridge spanning all the platforms.  On my last visit I took my camera, and these random shots record my visit…..

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Off my trolley – Pacific Electric at its best

Posted on July 30, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Browsing (as one does) I came across a New York Subway site with this excellent picture of a Pacific Electric PCC car at an unknown, but very modellable location.  (OK, New York site, PE picture, does not compute…..  but it’s still a great photograph).

The spindly palms and the large white houses would make a good backdrop to an interurban or trolley line.

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PCC 5010, photograph: Joe Testagrose, 10/1950

 

Posted in Inspiration, Layout design, Prototype, Traction | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Five things you can do to be happier right now

Posted on July 28, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Most people are wrong about the things that will make them happy.  Professor Paul Dolan, speaking at the Hay Festive, said it’s actually quite simple.  I’ve adapted them for model railway use – I think they still work!

  1. Listening to a favourite piece of music – Add sound to your locomotive.  Or just make sure music is available in your railway room.
  2. Spending five more minutes with someone you like – Attend more model railway club meetings and exhibitions.  (That assumes you actually like the other members).
  3. Going outdoors – Garden railway, anyone?
  4. Helping someone else – Working together on a modelling project is (usually) fun.  And passing on ones experience in modelling (but only when asked) is always most satisfying.
  5. Having a new experience – Build something in a new scale, or from a new railway company, or from another country – but without giving up your main interests.
Posted in Hints and tips, Inspiration, Out and about, Weird and wonderful | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Australian inspiration

Posted on July 26, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Rediscovering websites that seem to have gone for good is always good news.  I enjoyed Andrew Martin’s site as it had a good number of very buildable small layout plans.  Although based in Australia, small stations are small stations worldwide – the difference between locations is often that of buildings, scenery, and of course rolling stock.

I’m pleased to rediscover Andrew’s site here (or maybe he never left and I lost touch or deleted the wrong link from my favourites).  He recently described some Australian grain operations in a post, ‘An industry you can model – Kensington Grain Siding (Victoria, Australia)’.  The track layout caught my eye as a good prototype for a scenic N-club to N-mod, 2 to 4 track transition module.  Forget the goods roads greyed out on the diagram and you still have an interesting layout.  The catch might be that the double junction means that the N-mod tracks will be up-down-up-down rather than up-up-down-down as usually set up.  However, that will be no problem providing the operators keep awake!

kensington

And I’m pleased to see that my favourite from Andrew’s designs is back on the site.  Only 10′ plus staging in ‘N’ gauge, and offering plenty of both passenger operations and switching.

westbay_eastern

Posted in ESNG, Inspiration, Layout design, N Club International | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Exhibitions, are they worth it?

Posted on July 24, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

Julias Modelopolis  (Julia makes marvellous 2mm fine scale models, with some 3-D printing thrown in for good measure) recently commented on taking your layout to an exhibition.  The money comments were…..

Browsing the interweb forums I always stumble across people critising layouts that are out and about at shows. The trend these days seems to be that people are almost demanding that layouts run faultessly and have a contunuous flow of trains passing by throughout their time in front of the layout as it’s their right to see this because they have paid to see it.

To me as a layout owner who occasionally takes it to shows it scares me rotten. It applies even more pressure to a situation which is quite stressful anyway. The thought of someone publishing critisism online about my layout because I didn’t run trains constanly or a wagon derailed makes me think is it worth all the effort. To get the layout to a show, set it all up, and try and keep things running throughout is not an easy thing to do.

I built the layout because I enjoy it (well, most of the time anyway!). If it gets invited to exhibitions then great (and it does!) but if what I read on some forums it the general mentality of exhibition attendees then I cannot see that its worth the effort. I wish I was thick skinned but I am not, should I need to be anyway for doing something I enjoy?

There were some good comments, too, including…..

Do those that criticise exhibit themselves? Or even build stuff? Are those that criticise to your face trying to make them selves feel good by putting down your efforts? Are those that do so online cowards who know that you’ll never knowingly meet the person making those comments so they can be rude from the safety of their living rooms?

As long as you’re happy with what you’ve created, does it really matter what other people think?

Don’t get stressed by the small minority of critics. They will be criticising everything (not just your efforts) and can be safely ignored.

I very much enjoy operating at shows you do get some rude idiots but you also get a lot of appreciative people. Life in general throws up rather more rude idiots so being at a show is fun for me. My favourite though are those who gaily talk have visit the station modelled and offering criticism when it is fictitious.

Don’t you just hate ’em??? I use the comment ‘I look forward to critiquing your next exhibition layout. When are you showing it??’

I hope that our ESNG show is generally free of such comments.  It does seem to be a ‘danger’ of modelling a prototype to fine scale that you open yourself up to criticism from so called experts.  However, I do recall my first N-gauge US module on display and two gentlemen complaining that my sidings didn’t have buffer stops.  I refrained from telling them that it was quite normal for rural sidings in the USA to run out to nothing and a pile of earth, as I had modelled.

Posted in Inspiration, Layout design, Operation, Out and about | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Less is more – two interesting examples

Posted on July 22, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

I used to follow a blog called ‘The Staging Yard’, following a UK based modeller’s trials at building a US layout, until it went quiet in 2014.  Reading RMWeb the other day, I saw that the blog had reappeared and was being continued on RMWeb, written by a certain Dr Gerbil-Fritters.  I thought my alias was strange…..

Nevertheless, this thread makes interesting reading, as the layout gets progressively simpler, as can be seen from these plans.

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The thought is that the simpler plans are just more realistic and can be operated prototypically.

However, at the end of the thread, we have the worrying comments….

Not sure yet.  The pike worked fine, was reasonably authentic, yet I just didn’t have any love for it.  I am still looking for an emotional connection, but it’s proving elusive.

And after a little play with British ‘OO’ and ‘O’….

I’m having a short sabbatical from model trains.

Sometimes its difficult to decide what you really want to model.  I hope he will soon be back, but I can so identify with that!

The second example of ‘less is more’ is in ‘O’ gauge, and is on the Model Railroad Hobbyist site.  Here ‘Kurt’ describes his new switching layout, Cleveland Flats.  A mere 11′ long in ‘O’ gauge, plus a few feet headshunt on the left.  This little layout is based on the big cereal food processor at Cleveland Flats.  And even in ‘O’ gauge, it is close to scale length.  The plan is closely based on the prototype, with short tracks and tight clearances.

Cleveland_flats

Another excellent little switching layout that could built in any scale – in ‘N’ perhaps a 6′ x 6″shelf would take the whole plan and give a lot of entertainment for its size.  Imagine the care needed when crossing both grade crossings.

 

Posted in Hints and tips, Inspiration, Layout design, Operation | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Long and winding road – narrow and wide

Posted on July 20, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

One feature of the ‘Shed’ era that I forgot was an interest in narrow gauge railways.  A few Model Railway News articles were supplemented by a copy of Don Boreham’s seminal ‘Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling’ and a history of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway.  Also at that time, Eggerbahn, Minitrains and Peco Crazy Track appears.  I produced a number of models with varying success – including L&B coaches and goods stock in Plastikard – and models of a Glyn Valley tram engine and L&B ‘Lyn’ on early ‘N’ chassis.  And predating these, an ‘O’ gauge Glynn Valley coach in card with thread beading as described by Don Boreham.  This model fitted perfectly on a Hornby Dublo 10′ van chassis removed from its donor vehicle.  Unfortunately, none of these vehicles exist today.

So, off to university in Cambridge, that logically generated a new interest in the Great Eastern Railway, and less logically in EM gauge.  And an uncertainty whether I was interested in 1900, 1950 or 1990 as a period to model.  I still have my rather nice detailed Will’s Finecast kit of a J69 0-6-0 tank, in GER blue as the Liverpool Street pilot.  I haven’t got my scratch built GER 2-2-2 express locomotive.  Not finished (sounds familiar) but it looked the part.  I build one or two ‘O’ gauge GER wagons in plastic, that are still tucked away somewhere.

1976.  After university came work and flats in Kennington and Clapham.  Not much time or space for a railway, but I started to build an EM version of the classic ‘Minories’ layout.  It didn’t get far, though I found an unbuilt EM point kit recently.  Marriage in 1979 and children followed.  I had plans for a small EM shunting layout, based on John Allison’s Selbury Works Sidings, there wasn’t really room in our flat for it.

Selbury

We spent 1984-5 in Hong Kong, and the modelling muse picked up again, as I took enough modelling materials and etched kits to build a number of ‘O’ gauge pre-group wagons.  Then in 1986 we moved to a house in Redhill, with a lined loft space and room for a 12′ ‘O’ gauge layout, a work bench, and a chance to build a few models and even finish some of them.

All this came to an end in 1993, when it was all put away to move house again (from one end of the road to the other, to gain more space).  The loft was lost to a conversion to a bedroom for my eldest daughter.  But a foot was kept in the door by keeping the landing outside as a workshop area.

And then in 1997, the ESNG approach Earlswood Baptist Church with a request to hire the hall for their meetings.  The church leadership made the fateful suggestion – ‘Jon, you like trains, can you liaise with them?’  I did and that has started 18 years of ‘N’ gauge modelling, and three layouts that were really pretty well finished!  And an interest in the USA railways, specifically Lehigh Valley and interurbans, especially Pacific Electric.

As you can see from the last three posts, I am not one of those people who spend a lifetime building one line or one company.  Too much of a magpie mind I guess.  But as I review my modelling activities and the drawers of models at home, I am trying to ask myself, ‘What do I really enjoy about model railways?’  Writing this series of posts has been one way to think through that question.  I’ll think some more, perhaps as I go on holiday, and write a final post with some thoughts in that direction.

Posted in Inspiration, Jon's layout ramblings, Weird and wonderful | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

ESNG meeting – 15 July 2015

Posted on July 18, 2015 by snitchthebudgie

A quiet but busy evening as the club.  Only 8 members present, but we had some good trains running, and more track was laid on the new end loop.  I had acquired a new Farish Southern N 2-6-0 since Sunday – couldn’t resist it.  It’s difficult to believe that this is ‘N’ gauge….

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It ran perfectly straight out of the box.  There was some confusion, though, when Derek’s 31811 was running on the adjacent track.

Graham’s bullet canary made a return visit, and coped better with the larger curves on tonight’s circuit.

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Whilst Allan was running a train of Swiss international stock, from a range of manufacturers.  It was notable how all the coaches from different sources matched each other for level and livery.

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Peter’s A4 made a good show, albeit with a train of blue and grey coaches.  No doubt it was on a preservation steam special.

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Posted in ESNG, ESNG meetings | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment