Martin S-C

When I suggested it I was definitely thinking of a proper train ferry rather than a car-float which to my mind yells "USA east coast city" so loud all other considerations get lost in the noise. Absolutely. Except the body of water off Moorhaven wil be more sheltered... While the UK was limited (IIRC) to cross-channel traffic, I was indeed carrying in my head a fictional version of the end of the Ryde Pier, or maybe a harbour line down from Ryde station with a small paddle steamer taking a first class sleeping coach across the Solent or a few wagons ditto. That kind of very English but fantasy small-scale affair. It was only a suggestion - a means of introducing a fiddle yard concept alongside a fun bit of modelling.

James, I agree. Kevin - absolutely. In addition, being a socialist, Wells' imagination was always going to be grounded in reality; its how these things are. Um, okay, politics aside. A fiction work written in the past tense and especially WotW which is written from the perspective of an individual who endured and survived the events described is likely to represent a narrative written after the events - and probably some time after once the writer has gathered his thoughts and a file of letters from friends and relatives and various newspaper accounts and probably re-visited the ground where what he is describing took place. Five years after? Ten? I think the thing that really stamped WotW into my psyche (to speak in stupidly pretentious terms) is how real it seems. How you could open an OS map and look at the places described, or go visit them. It was fiction, but almost fact-fiction. A very powerful story.

As Wells wrote in 1897 that his "Martians were studying us in the last years of the 19thc", that doesn't limit the War of the Worlds to the Victorian era at all, in fact it almost certainly puts it square into the Edwardian era which began only 4 years after he was writing. I very much doubt the Martians had a huge cannon and a dozen giant space-travel shells laying around in case they saw a nearby planet that they would jealously covet, so if they were studying us in the last years of the 19thC then, given the limits of even advanced technology, their cannon and missiles would have need to be constructed and most likely been shot at Earth around 5 to 10 years later at the very least. Though "last years of the 19th century" could mean anything from the 1890 onwards I suppose. I'm very comfortable with an attack date of about 1905-1910. Its all fiction anyway but hardly something for steampunkers to get worked up about.... though I suppose this is the internet when the usual levels of behaviour drop markedly in some quarters.

It may be the famous and terrible Nigel the Flying Shark leaping out of Little Muddle harbour and trying to eat the photographer.

Very nicely done Calvin, though some blighter seems to have nicked a couple of critical bits and its not pumping up much water at the moment!

Been a while since I read the book but I thought the line was "...in the last years of the nineteenth century..." Or am I confusing Richard Burton's spoken line with Wells' written one? And the BEEB are making a WotW series? Oh wow, awesome. I read the book when I was about 8 or 9 and completely fell in love with it. Still my favourite read.

That's uncanny. Your model is "just like the real thing" as those good old Airfix ads use to inform us.

I was going to click the "informative/useful" option on the above post but there needs to be a "too much information" button as well.

Thanks everyone. I often get twitchy about not doing "proper" modelling to actual prototypes and knowing not very much about wagons (except for knowing what I like). In times of stress I go back to my library of Madder Valley images and look at things like this to reassure myself that a fantasy railway can run some odd vehicles and still be coherent. Regarding watering facilities I was going to have a water crane or two at either the ends of the Puddlebrook platforms or the Snarling ones. This develoment means the decision is now taken on it being Puddlebrook. The introduction of the circuit into the plan makes more sense for the latter location as well so that circulating engines can take water between roundy-roundy runs. So after coasting back down the hill the banker will need to trail back into a platform road and spend a few minutes topping up before it creeps back into its "hole". More opportunity for playing trains.

Today was also Finish Off My Half-Dozen Lime Wagons day. They are only the basic Dapol ones but add an extra nice mucky traffic for the line.

That footbridge must have been a trainspotters dream perch.

Train fare might be a bit prohibitive.

Oh dear, Annie. Suggesting that I need another engine is very dangerous ground. Very Dangerous Indeed. When the words "banking engine" get mentioned I start to go glassy-eyed and slack-jawed and think of 8-coupled monsters. Things like this pop into my head. Or this! Aha! More wheels! Moar! Muahahaha! Er, yes, well. There were some nice meaty smaller things about. The Welsh railways had plenty of chunky 0-6-2Ts and its not unreasonable to think one could have been bought prior to the GWR nabbing them all in 1923. But if I try to resist the urge to spend money on a whole new engine just to run backwards and forwards up and down a 12 ft length of sloped track pushing things, I could use one I already have, the LBSCR E4 for example which is classed as a "big tank engine" in my stock list. I also have a couple of smaller models in my "kits for a rainy day" box. An NLR Park 0-6-0T and a GWR 850 class 0-6-0ST. I've always thought the GW 850s were terribly pretty engines. The NLR Park was rated a 3F so moderately beefy for its size. I also have this and she may be the one. A pretty rare model and having the three most desirable features of any steam engine: saddle tank - check; open cab - check; outside frames ...mmm... - check. At least having a banker or pilot is easy with DCC. I'll work out what my "standard" weight train is - I already know the maximum freight will be 8 wagons plus brake, though of course that still allows a big variation in weight, and the passenger will be no more than 3x 57' bogie coaches at most and more likely 2x 50 footers plus a van or two, in some cases only 2x 4-wheelers plus van/horse box/etc and I'll set to work driving various trains up t'hill and work out which are my tough engines and which are the wimps. I'll then allocate a range of power ratings to the fleet and the wimps will get the light trains or need a banker. Or go into the works to see if we can stuff some more lead into their boilers. There isn't anywhere to put a banking engine at Puddlebrook though. A quick scribble on the plan shows some potential locations for banker sidings however. #1 and #2 are my preferred ones - the gradient is at that end. The other end is the lifting flap and is already crowded. If I go for location #1 I get this kind of thing. Nicely placed right outside the east signal box. The banker can drop off at the next station along the line and run back down hill easily enough. I'll do some train weight/load testing before I decide if I want to eat into the real estate of the Forest Stone Co's workshops.

He was into timber viaducts, so I've heard.

Pigsty. Garden dump of broken up old anything-at-all-you-can-imagine. Stashes of things that might be useful one day such as lengths of timber, bricks, roof tiles, tin buckets without handles. Rabbit hutch maybe? Bit exotic for the 30s but you never know. Old tree stump for garden seat. Tree with suitable branch and wooden plank and 2 bits of rope as kid's swing. Pram with babby in getting some fresh air. Sundial. Pile of firewood. Washing tub. Half a barrel with flowers in - or other container. I hope this isn't being too in your face - too helpful - but I have some photos of Pendon I took last year. I've put the garden-relevant ones in my Dropbox. Here's the link. https://www.dropbox.com/s/1owntdwa541p1j7/Dsc00413.jpg?dl=0

Thanks for the reply. As to back gardens, try googling images of Pendon's village. Every back garden is an allotment there; pigstys, chickens, etc, etc. It would seem few peeople pre-war had lawns and flower beds except the very well-to-do.

Today we built the gradient that carries the main line east from Puddlebrook to Snarling. It rises on a pretty stiff grade in a tunnel under the stop block ends of both Green Soudley and Nether Madder. The string came out to play again and was very useful. The red track beside the gradient is the hidden circuit which will split into an up and down storage loop under Armisford Mill, with a third, centre, through road. The embankments that take the main line from Puddlebrook past Witts End were also put in and some progress was made on the higher board (+5") of Green Soudley. Due to a massive cock-up with gradients and levels by yours truely, we had to make a major engineering alteration to the Wye & Aight Canal at Green Soudley. It will all come out in the wash but I really should do proper maths when designing model railway layouts instead of sketching things and hoping they'll work. Twit. Here's where we are today: String, wooden blocks and ...the hand. I let him out of his cage now and then for a bit of exercise round the garden. The raised wobbly-edged bit of ply in the foreground is the edge of the Green Soudley goods yard. There will be a steep wooded slope here dropping down to Witts End village (where it says "Tin Chapel"). String and blocks sans hand. Due to my muck up with basic mathematics this gradient is a bit of a naughty one. Still, I'll just have to roster the correct power rated loco to my trains now which is an extra layer of fun. I think. Legs for the embankment over the River Aight. This is where the Maldon Line/River Blackstone inspired wooden trestle will go. Embankment tops going in. 13029 playing "scrape my roof" again. The hand is back. Seems to fit... just. An embarrassingly steep gradient visible in the background. I hate straight track. Where there's a wiggle, there's a way. View from the other side. The higher board carries the gradient up to Snarling, the lower one with loco goes to the circuit/hidden loops.

The rude fellow is turning his back on her! Swine!

I decided to bung this here because if I put it in my thread the peasants will start rioting. It hasn't turned a wheel yet but it sure is impressive.

I think those two pics show that, even with the highest standards of modelling, photographing an 00 gauge loco from directly front-on doesn't give satisfying results. Wheels are just too close together and the tyres too thick. The second pic shifted to one side handles the incorrect gauge problem much more sympathetically.

Kevin, I like the brick chimney arrangement tucked into the corner of the L shape. Is that taken from an actual building or just your clever imagination? I am trying to work out what that chimney would be for (other than to take smoke away from a fire, obviously!). It makes me think that's a wash house or maybe a bakery or something akin to that.

Dr D has it right. Its an old Keyser plastic kit. Its HO scale and was made for the Spanish market apparently. I think they're from the 1980s. They are called "Mataro" coaches and are supposed to be copies of the original 1840s coaches that ran with the locomotive of that name, the first in Spain I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia_Railway_Museum#/media/File:Tren_del_centenari_1848-1948.JPG Two coaches come in each kit, a first and a second class and I was lucky enough to pick up 2 kits on e-Bay last year. There are some images on the interwebs of them being made up into British-looking ones: https://srmg.org.uk/victorian-4wheeler My plan is to take the Eastern Counties coach that survived post-WWI as well as similar examples from the S&M and the K&ESR and make up a train. I was going to just use 3 of them and make the fourth one a grounded crew bothy but they are so nice I think I'll have all four in service. The injection mouldings are pretty ropey so lots of cleaning up but they have potential. I'll be dragging them into the early 20th century with different buffers, couplings, oil lamps and possibly other details, plus metal wheels of course as the kit ones are really only useful for a static model.

Just lining, lettering and weathering to go now. Me and this pair have had a bit of a love-hate relationship, but now that I'm nearly done I'm mostly satisfied with the result. I've learned a lot from painting these, mostly what not to do and hopefully the next train will come out looking a little less dogs-breakfasty. Speaking of which...

It's "my" double slip again Gilbert. You really are a terrible tease.

It is quite wonderful what you learn in pursuit of the hobby of railway modelling. I need to inspect my little plastic cats and dogs and cows and sheep more carefully in case I'm inadvertently placing a 1st class passenger in a field.