Wright writes.....

[queensquare]

 

Always amused me that the wagon permanently attached to the coaling tower was from New Rock Colliery in deepest Somerset! Not sure how much coal from the Radstock field was used by the LNER…..

 

Jerry

[Michael Edge]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Graham,

 

Excellent!

 

I might have some spare Comet front steps.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

There should be steps under the back buffer beam as well.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, CF MRC said:

“All the right notes, not in the right order”…

 

Tim

 

Well, you can afford to say that!

Edited August 25 by Compound2632

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning,

 

I derive equal enjoyment from someone saying (for example) 'That's the Up Elizabethan behind a Haymarket A4, sweeping at speed through Little Bytham'; and I did actually make it. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

But a completely authentic reaction should be: "Another flamin' express. When's my stopper to Peterborough?"

[Willie Whizz]

I only once saw Blakeney in the flesh, many years ago now, but found it utterly convincing; it couldn’t have looked more “real” than if it had been a “real” location, and those station  buildings shown in the picture above reminds me so very much of the “real” station building at Wells-next-the-Sea that still stands, though in other uses. 
 

I also saw The Gresley Beat a couple of times; excellent, but the surrounding crowds were so thronged it made it difficult to take it all in - a victim of its own success, I suppose. 

Edited August 25 by Willie Whizz
Incompetent typing

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Captain Kernow said:

The two factors that no one appears to have yet mentioned, that steers people towards building a layout 'based on' somewhere or a given company's practice or even further down the fictitious continuum, are money and space!

 

 

I'll add something to this, if I may?

 

I very much suspect that all but the tiniest spaces will have a prototype somewhere - but finding one that would give the builder/operator sufficient operational interest gets a lot more difficult.

[t-b-g]

2 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I found Charford very inspiring; learnt the whole concept of trains running to a timetable with a purpose in a specific geographical location.

 

I once had a really interesting discussion with Peter Denny about what makes some layouts more interesting operationally than others. He was convinced that a timetable was the key factor. I have several old magazines with Charford featured and you are quite right, the running to a timetable transformed a fairly simple branch terminus into an place where the trains have a purpose and a destination. The modelling may be of a certain time period but I would suggest that a modern version of Charford, using RTR locos and stock, would still be great fun to operate.

 

Most real branches would have a loco and set of stock that went back and forth several times a day, rather like many preserved railways today. Each train would do exactly the same as the previous one.

 

In truth, the operation at most real places was a bit one dimensional. You need to go to fairly substantial locations to get the variety of locos, stock and operation that can be had from a fairly small fictional layout.

 

If anybody wants to give an example of two real places that can be built in the same space as Buckingham and Grandborough Junction and would give half as much operational interest, I would be astonished.

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

If anybody wants to give an example of two real places that can be built in the same space as Buckingham and Grandborough Junction and would give half as much operational interest, I would be astonished.

 

Some years ago I was with a non-modelling friend who had been an avid spotter in the late 70s / early 80s - our teenage years - at a Railex at Stoke Madeville, I think, watching @Kier Hardy's layout - not Hornsey Broadway, the previous one, set in the West Riding I think.

 

After being glued to it for a good 20 minutes, my friend said, he'd have loved to have been spotting somewhere like that. 

 

Then he said, "Not enough Brush 4s" - reality intruding!

Edited August 25 by Compound2632

[Izzy]

4 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

I once had a really interesting discussion with Peter Denny about what makes some layouts more interesting operationally than others. He was convinced that a timetable was the key factor. I have several old magazines with Charford featured and you are quite right, the running to a timetable transformed a fairly simple branch terminus into an place where the trains have a purpose and a destination. The modelling may be of a certain time period but I would suggest that a modern version of Charford, using RTR locos and stock, would still be great fun to operate.

 

Do I take it you mean a sequence based around a timetable type operation rather than  a strict timetable? Where a variety of trains are run which represent what might have appeared throughout the course of a day in any particular week. If that’s the case I totally agree. Doing that also helps concentrate the mind on what particular stock you need for any given layout to achieve that end in the time period chosen. Having in recent years built a small layout which is fictitious but based upon a prototype location has I must say been very beneficial, with choosing the particular location being perhaps the key aspect to it all. 
 

Bob

[Tony Wright]

8 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But a completely authentic reaction should be: "Another flamin' express. When's my stopper to Peterborough?"

Good afternoon Stephen,

 

An authentic reaction from whom?

 

Clearly you've not train-spotted by the ECML in steam days!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited August 25 by Tony Wright
to alter gist of post

[Northmoor]

Seeing photos of some of these "greatest layouts" reinforce one factor that makes a layout particularly appealing to me is, "Can I imagine myself walking around the real location?" (even if it's not a model of a prototype).  I think this goes back to reading RM at a young age, what fired my imagination wasn't a description of a layout's size and basically a list of what had been bought/built, it was the layouts where the author/builder started their article imagining they were on their own layout, watching trains.

 

This reflects a sense of the layout being part of a broader landscape; on some well-made exhibition layouts there is almost nothing beyond the railway boundary and it is hard to imagine what it might look like; others despite being similar create a superb sense of place (Wibdenshaw by @Kier Hardyis one example).  Then there is anything built by the Gravetts.....

 

It is a completely personal perception and no doubt others' imaginations may fill in the blanks where mine can't.  For example @Clive Mortimore has almost no scenery other than place-men on his layout (not much paint on his carriages either....) but I can still easily imagine myself spotting from the platform ends and see the landscape beyond.

[John Tomlinson]

22 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Some years ago I was with a non-modelling friend who had been an avid spotter in the late 70s / early 80s - our teenage years - at a Railex at Stoke Madeville, I think, watching @Kier Hardy's layout - not Hornsey Broadway, the previous one, set in the West Riding I think.

 

After being glued to it for a good 20 minutes, my friend said, he'd have loved to have been spotting somewhere like that. 

 

Then he said, "Not enough Brush 4s" - reality intruding!

 

I think you're referring to Wibdenshaw. I've been glued to that one for longer than 20 minutes, and Hornsey Broadway for even longer!

 

John.

[t-b-g]

34 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Some years ago I was with a non-modelling friend who had been an avid spotter in the late 70s / early 80s - our teenage years - at a Railex at Stoke Madeville, I think, watching @Kier Hardy's layout - not Hornsey Broadway, the previous one, set in the West Riding I think.

 

After being glued to it for a good 20 minutes, my friend said, he'd have loved to have been spotting somewhere like that. 

 

Then he said, "Not enough Brush 4s" - reality intruding!

 

Probably Wibdenshaw. A superb layout. Trainspotting on our patch in the 70s certainly meant lots of Brush 4s. There were probably as many of them seen as everything else put together. 

[t-b-g]

35 minutes ago, Izzy said:

Do I take it you mean a sequence based around a timetable type operation rather than  a strict timetable? Where a variety of trains are run which represent what might have appeared throughout the course of a day in any particular week. If that’s the case I totally agree. Doing that also helps concentrate the mind on what particular stock you need for any given layout to achieve that end in the time period chosen. Having in recent years built a small layout which is fictitious but based upon a prototype location has I must say been very beneficial, with choosing the particular location being perhaps the key aspect to it all. 
 

Bob

 

We do have the clock in working condition and can work Buckingham to it but we prefer the more leisurely approach of working it as a sequence. We do look at the times on the cards as it tells us if there should be a bit of a gap for possible shunting moves between running trains.

 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Good afternoon Stephen,

 

An authentic reaction from whom?

 

Clearly you've train-spotted by the ECML in steam days!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

From the authentic 196x observer on the platform at Little Bytham!

 

My only memory of BR steam is on the Vale of Rheidol. 

Edited August 25 by Compound2632

[APOLLO]

The phrase under the magazine title sums it all up for me !!!

 

 

1951 modelling, O gauge, wooden bridges, what's not to like ?

 

My version.

 

 

Do your own thing and enjoy it - I do !!! (and I enjoy other folks layouts and models also).

 

Brit15

[Willie Whizz]

I see that magazine features an article on a “rivet forming machine”. 
 

All very well being able to “form” them, but is there a gadget attachment  on it to tell you how many you’ve made in your current batch?  What might such a device be called, I wonder?

 

(Asking for a friend …). 

[DenysW]

6 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Not to mention Borchester.............

LNER ->BR stock in a clone of Worcestershire? with Ambridge curiously similar to Evesham? Shock horror. Surely ex-LMS and ex-GWR?

Edited August 25 by DenysW

[MJI]

22 minutes ago, DenysW said:

LNER ->BR stock in a clone of Worcestershire? with Ambridge curiously similar to Evesham? Shock horror. Surely ex-LMS and ex-GWR?

Cross between Hanbury and Inkberrow

[Dunsignalling]

I've been so engrossed (on multiple occasions) with the modelling of the derelict and partially demolished buildings on Hornsey Broadway that I must confess to remembering almost nothing about the trains!

[DenysW]

6 minutes ago, MJI said:

Cross between Hanbury and Inkberrow

Will you accept a blend of Hanbury, Inkberrow, and Evesham? Evesham a town with a station complex with Midland and GWR side-by-sides. Hanbury and Inkberrow villages to this day, with populations under 2,000 - very much houses alongside an A road plus a few cul-de-sacs.

[MJI]

2 hours ago, DenysW said:

Will you accept a blend of Hanbury, Inkberrow, and Evesham? Evesham a town with a station complex with Midland and GWR side-by-sides. Hanbury and Inkberrow villages to this day, with populations under 2,000 - very much houses alongside an A road plus a few cul-de-sacs.

The original writer lived in Inkberrow

[Tony Wright]

An excellent example of a fictitious layout, but based on prototype practice is Little Colne...........

 

 

 

Ex-GE to boot.

 

It'll be in the next issue of BRM, and will be at Doncaster in February. 

 

 

[Tony Wright]

Another fictitious ex-GE layout is Stoke by Nayland..............

 

 

 

Dave Hawkins' creation in P4 - convincing? 

 

 

Edited August 25 by Tony Wright
clumsy grammar

[Tony Wright]

One of the most 'convincing' layout I ever photographed was the Late Dave Shakespeare's Tetleys Mills.

 

Even though it was a work of fiction..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

It couldn't be anywhere but the grimy West Riding.

 

He'd started work on its successor..............

 

 

Tetleys Mills 2, but he died before it was completed. 

 

It was one of the saddest days of my life when Andy York, Gilbert Barnatt and I dismantled it.