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Little Muddle


KNP
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On 29/06/2022 at 14:54, The White Rabbit said:

 

One thing that's bugging me... 

 

Access to the 'new' yard from the 'old'/main yard and either of the tracks down to the lane. With the fence, people and vehicles have to go the 'great way round' and the turn round the 'hair pin' in the 'pig yard' is tight. Especially for any horse or tractor drawn equipment. Your layout of course, but I wondered about:

 

a) a gap in the fence after the five bar gate propped open to give pedestrians a short cut and

b) an extension of the pig yard into the embankment to give a bigger turning circle or

c) resiting of the Wills grotties to give more direct access to the new yard from the main yard, particularly if you're going to repaint anyway? 

 

Just my twopennorth. 

History records that the Little Muddle farm and its outbuildings had much a much better access lane until the arrival of the railways some eighty years years ago!

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6 minutes ago, Limpley Stoker said:

History records that the Little Muddle farm and its outbuildings had much a much better access lane until the arrival of the railways some eighty years years ago!


In the next few days I will dig out some pictures from the past that show how Middle Farm evolved and post them.

 

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5 hours ago, KNP said:

Starting to upgrade the rough grass in this area by the farm as now quite old so needs a bit of titivating……

Planted some trees and need to wait now for them to grow….!

 

7CCBB427-0D56-44E8-A6B8-C05B0293DDCD.thumb.jpeg.fe4b4458cd57ad0a999edbd92ad8341b.jpeg

 

Or are they markers so I don ‘t loose the holes?

 

 

 

No that's quite correct you've put protectors on to stop the rabbits and deer nibbling the bark. Give it  twenty years and they'll be lovely copse there. 

 

So Kevin whilst we're waiting could we go and have a look at the 'revised' ivy please. It's just up the slope so it won't take long to get there and it's not as if you've got anything to do now that the trees are in.

Edited by Winslow Boy
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4 hours ago, Ponthir28 said:

Might get a few leaves on the line. With tree’s that close.

Leaves on the line is entirely a modern phenomenon, i.e in the diesel era - although it also affects electrics! - because in the Little Muddle era the track gangs were both numerous and well-staffed. They cut down anything approaching sapling status on embankments and cuttings, so the leaves were never numerous enough to do the damage they can do now. The development and implementation of CWR (Continuous Welded Rail) in the '60s enabled many of these fine fellows to be pensioned off, and the railway then allowed the growth of trees by default, much to the joy of many of its neighbours. The Law of Unintended Consequences may have a rôle here......

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2 hours ago, Ponthir28 said:

Will that be paintings or pencil drawings? Or very early photography.

 

1 hour ago, KNP said:

Chiselled in stone!!!

 

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

Slate & chalk.

 

I'm going for cave paintings... 

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35 minutes ago, Nevermakeit said:

Are the GW wagons kits, and if so, whose, please? 

GW ones are Coopercraft brought secondhand.

LMS one a Peco Parkside.

Brown one a Hornby horse wagon

Edited by KNP
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32 minutes ago, KNP said:

Middle Farm expansion building works are complete.

Trees and vegetation planted and taking root.

 

4881.thumb.jpg.7014856499859528635549c0369cd8e7.jpg

 

4882.thumb.jpg.d44d9dbfc7fb6aa175d8e88deb42c8cd.jpg

 

4883.thumb.jpg.c86399889bea9244f6c36d08e9fe7730.jpg

 

4884.jpg.4abbddafb22781132b540881558fc535.jpg

 

Daft, illogical, impractical layout it is but doesn't that follow real life where you look at something and think...why did they do that like that...

 

More items in hand to dress the area and make look like it's in use.

 

I claim my five pounds you work for the Forestry Commission!

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1 minute ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

I claim my five pounds you work for the Forestry Commission!


No, I’ve spent it

I have update and cleaned the trees.

To do this I spray them with hairspray and then sprinkle on some flock.

This is done an a regular basis (normally every year) and it’s one way I keep the trees etc dusted….

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42 minutes ago, KNP said:

Middle Farm expansion building works are complete.

Trees and vegetation planted and taking root.

 

4881.thumb.jpg.7014856499859528635549c0369cd8e7.jpg

 

4882.thumb.jpg.d44d9dbfc7fb6aa175d8e88deb42c8cd.jpg

 

4883.thumb.jpg.c86399889bea9244f6c36d08e9fe7730.jpg

 

4884.jpg.4abbddafb22781132b540881558fc535.jpg

 

Daft, illogical, impractical layout it is but doesn't that follow real life where you look at something and think...why did they do that like that...

 

More items in hand to dress the area and make look like it's in use.

Looks great and it does follow real life Kevin.  Spent much of my youth/teens playing and working on various farms.  For example many had old wooden and asbestos Nissan huts salvaged from the MOD after WW2.  They were erected where ever there was a gap, in the yard.  They had various uses (machinery stores, lambing sheds etc).  I often thought when trying to back a farm trailer into one of them (with limited clearance),  "why the hell did they put the hut there"

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20 minutes ago, KNP said:


No, I’ve spent it

I have update and cleaned the trees.

To do this I spray them with hairspray and then sprinkle on some flock.

This is done an a regular basis (normally every year) and it’s one way I keep the trees etc dusted….

 

Hmm sounds a bit like 'sweeping it under the rug' to me.😀

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2 hours ago, Gopher said:

Looks great and it does follow real life Kevin.  Spent much of my youth/teens playing and working on various farms.  For example many had old wooden and asbestos Nissan huts salvaged from the MOD after WW2.  They were erected where ever there was a gap, in the yard.  They had various uses (machinery stores, lambing sheds etc).  I often thought when trying to back a farm trailer into one of them (with limited clearance),  "why the hell did they put the hut there"

Agree

it is very difficult to design random, or to give the feeling of random, hopefully I have achieved it here.

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14 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Leaves on the line is entirely a modern phenomenon, i.e in the diesel era - although it also affects electrics! - because in the Little Muddle era the track gangs were both numerous and well-staffed. They cut down anything approaching sapling status on embankments and cuttings, so the leaves were never numerous enough to do the damage they can do now. The development and implementation of CWR (Continuous Welded Rail) in the '60s enabled many of these fine fellows to be pensioned off, and the railway then allowed the growth of trees by default, much to the joy of many of its neighbours. The Law of Unintended Consequences may have a rôle here......

Change of traction and use of cable routes instead of pole routes also played a part and that led to the end of bank burning twice a year (on the Western if not elsewhere).  That made it fairly easy to predict when leaf fall problems would begin on any route on the WR as we didn't get any serious trouble until the 1980s, but from then on it got worse and worse. 

 

Now here's an idea - if any modeller of the Western is into seriously setting the season/time of year on their layout bank burning is a really good indicator and rather different from all the usual ways of doing it.

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6 minutes ago, Alister_G said:

 

Well of course. Everyone knows the leaves fall off the trees every year...

 

Al.

Noted and filed for future reference 

 

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10 minutes ago, Alister_G said:

 

Well of course. Everyone knows the leaves fall off the trees every year...

 

Al.

 

Maybe you should drop an email to Railtrack, I'm not sure that they know....

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20 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

Maybe you should drop an email to Railtrack, I'm not sure that they know....

Ah, clearly an historical modeller - Railtrack ceased to exist 20 years ago.  It''s successor, Network Rail does seem to have some understanding of where leaves come from and has had masses of lineside trees felled - no doubt at considerable expense and nothing like enough.  However they seem to have forgotten the very basic fact, the trees regrow if they aren't killed - so in many places where it was cleared the lineside jungle has returned.  

 

I use a tree surgeon who does work for NR so I know roughly the cost per tree (but I don't bulk buy of course) and I know that it only costs pennies to have the roots killed when you have a tree felled because the necessary can be hammered into the stump in less time than it takes to write it in this post..

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3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Ah, clearly an historical modeller - Railtrack ceased to exist 20 years ago.  It''s successor, Network Rail does seem to have some understanding of where leaves come from and has had masses of lineside trees felled - no doubt at considerable expense and nothing like enough.  However they seem to have forgotten the very basic fact, the trees regrow if they aren't killed - so in many places where it was cleared the lineside jungle has returned.  

 

I use a tree surgeon who does work for NR so I know roughly the cost per tree (but I don't bulk buy of course) and I know that it only costs pennies to have the roots killed when you have a tree felled because the necessary can be hammered into the stump in less time than it takes to write it in this post..

 

Thanks, I was thinking Network Rail, but typed Railtrack. My only excuse is that it's still only about 1961 in this house...

 

Killing off stumps is, as you say, easy.

But someone was probably thinking only about the short term savings and probably knows little about how deciduous trees work. 

Coming from a family who made their money from coppicing and timber, I'd say  NR's accountants are giving your friend a job for life. 😅

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