Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[MrWolf]

I do have a liking for the smaller locos and wooden rolling stock of all of the pre-grouping companies. The problem being that I only have room and funds for one layout and I don't stretch Rule#1 too far beyond plausibility! 

[Compound2632]

On 24/02/2022 at 23:31, malc60015 said:

I think the last sentence sums it up, loco £20 + decoder and stay alive £30=£50
Against a £70 loco no contest as I seem to have an abundance of Airfix product!!

 

i should point out that two of my Airfix 4Fs were bought for £20 in the early 1980s, whilst the third was second-hand about 25 years ago! But if you've got money to burn on the frivolity of DCC...

[Regularity]

6 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I do have a liking for the smaller locos and wooden rolling stock of all of the pre-grouping companies. The problem being that I only have room and funds for one layout and I don't stretch Rule#1 too far beyond plausibility! 

Given the location, and a junction off the LNWR central Wales line, then something small and LMS is quite justifiable.

[MrWolf]

My 4F cost £20 from eBay last year, something of an impulse bid.

 

Do I win a Gonk?

[MrWolf]

46 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Given the location, and a junction off the LNWR central Wales line, then something small and LMS is quite justifiable.

 

I'm rather glad you said that! I had some vague idea that I might be able to get away with that kind of a justification.

Much better to hear it without prompting.

 

PS, The cheque's in the post!

[Mulgabill]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

My 4F cost £20 from eBay last year, something of an impulse bid.

 

Do I win a Gonk?

 

Why would you want a 350 without it's R ??????

 

TONY

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

 

I'm rather glad you said that! I had some vague idea that I might be able to get away with that kind of a justification.

Much better to hear it without prompting.

 

PS, The cheque's in the post!

Maybe the monthly cattle train uses an LMS loco?

[MrWolf]

3 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Maybe the monthly cattle train uses an LMS loco?

 

I have a number of LMS cattle wagons, which have to come from somewhere, as well as a couple of MR brake van kits from another project.

[MrWolf]

On 26/02/2022 at 20:30, Mulgabill said:

 

Why would you want a 350 without it's R ??????

 

TONY

 

I was thinking more about the 1970s fairground tat variety of Gonk.

 

 

 

 

We do allow diseasels around here, but only the stylishly dressed ones. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by MrWolf
Sheer ineptitude

[PaulaDoesTrains]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

 

I'm rather glad you said that! I had some vague idea that I might be able to get away with that kind of a justification.

 

You don't have to justify anything to anyone. It's your railway. Run what makes you happy.

[Regularity]

5 minutes ago, PaulaDoesTrains said:

 

You don't have to justify anything to anyone. It's your railway. Run what makes you happy.

If what makes him happy is running plausibly authentic stock, then he has himself to justify it to, if no one else. Also a useful mindset if the budget is limited.

He can also run anything else when letting his hair down, of course.

[MrWolf]

I do like the idea of running trains on the layout which are plausible, (had the line ever got beyond the proposal stage in reality) although I tend to abuse the time space continuum in order to run locos and stock that had long been scrapped by the period in which the layout is set.

That Tri-ang Dean single is known to fly about when nobody's looking! 

If I was being a purist, the layout would probably be operated by one or two locos, perhaps the odd visitor from the main line, including the 4F.

Other visiting locos could be loaners during repairs or servicing, or on a permanent way train.

Then there's the trials of autotrains, railcars....

[MrWolf]

It has also occurred to me that if at some point I have far too much money, I could wind the clock forward to the mid 1950s without changing much more than the road vehicles and the railway stock...

[PaulaDoesTrains]

16 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Also a useful mindset if the budget is limited.

 

I do agree with you that the discipline of focusing on the authentically plausible can be a great help to those on a limited budget.
 

[Gedward]

I posted this yesterday on another thread and it seemed relevant here.

 

I think sometimes we get a bit too concerned with trying to match real world prototypes exactly. And unless you have the space of Heaton Lodge, it will always rely on compromises. You may get the dimensions down exactly right and it still looks wrong. For me, the simple answer is go with what looks right on your layout, over what is right on the prototype. At the end of the day we're building a diorama, a small snapshot, of a small piece of the world. Hence why we all need to hang on firmly to rule 1.

 

 

[NHY 581]

9 hours ago, MrWolf said:

It has also occurred to me that if at some point I have far too much money, I could wind the clock forward to the mid 1950s without changing much more than the road vehicles and the railway stock...

 

 

I've kept the buildings on my latest slice of decrepitude in their pre-war colours on the basis that the line managed to evade the corporate paint brush for something like thirty years. Plausible up to the 1950s but I know I am pushing it into the mid 60s. 

 

That said, it adds to the general air of bucolic neglect.........

 

And who really cares anyway.......( I don't ! )

 

Rob. 

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

I've kept the buildings on my latest slice of decrepitude in their pre-war colours on the basis that the line managed to evade the corporate paint brush for something like thirty years. Plausible up to the 1950s but I know I am pushing it into the mid 60s. 

 

One could have a cameo of the repainting gang just getting their kit sorted, closely followed by the man with the closure notice...

[John Besley]

6 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

 

 

I've kept the buildings on my latest slice of decrepitude in their pre-war colours on the basis that the line managed to evade the corporate paint brush for something like thirty years. Plausible up to the 1950s but I know I am pushing it into the mid 60s. 

 

That said, it adds to the general air of bucolic neglect.........

 

And who really cares anyway.......( I don't ! )

 

Rob. 

 

Rule 1 applies, the last railway I built (or started) back 35 years ago supposed that an industrial line survived feeding onto the mainline still using a mix of panier tanks and an R1 in run down old BR livery based on a timescale of late 1970's early 80's ... Only got as far as building the loco dept and workshop... Still got the buildings in the attic and rolling stock...

[Regularity]

I understand that quite often the instruction to repaint somewhere was frequently followed by a closure notice…

[Gedward]

 

Having spent my entire career, working in the art studio of a blue chip ad agency. One of the first things I learnt as a young 18 yr old was, "Use your artistic licence".

 

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Gedward
Editing copy and typos

[MrWolf]

Yesterday was a non modelling day.

A trip to the East Lancs Railway open day was organised and for the first time ever, it wasn't raining!

 

Lots of locos to admire and we found that we were traveling in one of the two surviving coaches from the last steam hauled passenger train from August 1968.

 

This beastie really took our interest, being one of the two surviving L&Y locos and very much my kind of engine.

 

 

 

The weather sheet is an interesting detail.

 

 

 

 

The other surviving L&Y loco was keeping itself busy:

 

 

A Hudswell Clarke that would look better in a livery of shed green...

 

 

Royal Scot:

 

 

 

This came through double headed by City of Wells, but returned without it, I'd like to have got a picture there.

 

Six wheeled scruffiness:

 

 

Getting back almost on topic, the return trip was by pannier 1501...

 

 

 

We did struggle to get any really good photos to be honest. I think that the mistake we made was trying to be polite and not simply standing in front of someone else's shot.

The memsahib was trying to get a shot of this loco at Ramsbottom as there were less people around than at Bolton Street.

Some chump with a giant camera came up alongside her, looked at her holding up her phone to take a shot and quite deliberately sidestepped in front of her.

So she tapped him on the shoulder and gave him a telling off.

No profanity, no threats or insults, just the kind of short sharp dressing down about manners that you might have received from Princess Anne or something.

At first he tried to be huffy and said "I'm a professional photographer, I sell MY photos..."

To which the reply was: "Well, I do hope that out of gratitude you make generous donations to the railway..."

 

The whole thing was just seconds and she was struggling to keep a straight face, because there was a number of others who overheard  and were already finding it amusing.

 

All in all, a very entertaining day out. 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by MrWolf

[Tortuga]

Good work by Miss Hood there!

 

I don’t understand this self-entitled attitude that seems to be invading everywhere; I bet Mr I’ve-got-a-big-camera thought he could push in because she was using a phone camera.

I’ve not used a “real” camera for taking photos since our honeymoon to Iceland since I realised the one on my phone took better pictures. It also does videos (so I can choose frames as photos instead of getting a blurry cab shot) and slips easily into my pocket when I’m not using it instead of getting in the way.

[MrWolf]

I can understand someone getting "caught up in the moment" wanting to grab a picture and getting inadvertently in someone else's shot.

But she was the only person standing by the front corner of the loco at the time and the man looked right at her, saw that she was at the perfect spot for a photo and stepped across in front of her.

It was only after that when I began to really notice how often a train would pull in and people would be waiting patiently to get a shot as it pulled up and the "serious" photographers would simply push in front of them because they're obviously not as important.

 

"Excuse me, are you partially sighted or just plain ill mannered?" 

 

I just thought - oops, here we go...

[Rowsley17D]

We've always enjoyed our visits to the ELR, friendly staff and volunteers. Our young grandson got to go on the footplate of the Lanky 0-6-0 when we passed it at Ramsbottom on one occasion.

[MrWolf]

The place itself is great and as you say the staff are very friendly and knowledgeable. I'd recommend anyone to pay a visit, it's a fine example of a preserved railway. The self important photographer isn't unique to that railway, nor unique to just railway events.

 

I suspect that they're wannabe gossip magazine photographers who failed the interview.