Martin S-C

So, anyway...

Health and safety would have a field day with those snow clearing workers. No hi-vis. Tut-tut.

In JUST his vest? My God, these Tyneside folk are harder than I thought. Off to a swanky gastropub today for Boxing Day dinner. Expensive but no washing up, just come home, flake out on the sofa and open the liqueurs.

Not when you cook them properly which is to par boil then griddle in oil and add bacon lardons and ginger-wine softened sweet chestnuts. Proper food takes time.

You can see from the photographic grey image that the lettering on the tender of the simulated model is wrong. Its the wrong font entirely I think. The GREAT -(crest)- WESTERN was a more squat and chunky font called Clarendon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarendon_(typeface) https://fox-transfers.co.uk/gw-locomotive-lettering-yellow-red-for-black-engines-60057 https://www.hattons.co.uk/337269/Modelmaster_Transfers_MMGW001_GWR_lettering_and_emblem_transfers_for_Great_Western_locomotives/StockDetail.aspx and a very Happy Christmas to all, I hope everyone has a merry week.

Thanks for that. Puddlebrook is still holding my attention for now, one reason being its a place right near where the layout is set. There are all kinds of curious and amusing British place names. Over near Spalding I have friends who live at a place called Tongue End. You couldn't make this stuff up. Any how, as its the season of good cheer and to be merry, here's this. A CHRISTMAS TRADITION. It was Christmas Day in the workhouse; The merriest day of the year. The paupers and the prisoners Were all assembled there. In came the Christmas pudding, When a voice that shattered glass, Said, "We don't want your Christmas pudding! So stick it there with the rest of the unwanted presents." At the door there came a knocking. It was a homeless runt. The Mistress opened up exclaiming, "Come in from the cold you silly child, you'll catch your death!" The workhouse Master then arose And prepared to carve the duck. He said, "Who wants the parson's nose?" And the prisoners shouted, "You have it yourself sir" The vicar brought his bible And read out little bits. Said one old crone at the back of the hall, "This man gets on very well with everybody" The workhouse Mistress then began To hand out Christmas parcels. The paupers tore the wrappers off And began to wipe their eyes, which were full of tears. The Master rose to make a speech But just before he started, The Mistress, who was fifteen stone Gave three loud cheers and nearly choked herself. And all the paupers then began To pull their Christmas crackers. One pauper held his too low down And blew off both his paper hat and the man's next to him. A steaming bowl of white bread sauce Was handed round to some. An aged gourmet called aloud "This bread sauce tastes like it was made by a continental chef." Mince pie with custard sauce was next And each received a bit. One pauper said, "The mince pie's nice But the custard tastes like the bread sauce we had in the last verse!" The Mistress dishing out the food Dropped custard down her front. She cried "Aren't I a silly girl?" And they answered "You're a perfect picture as always ma'am!" "This pudding", said the vicar "Is solid, hard and thick. How am I going to cut it?" And a man cried "Use your penknife sir, the one with the pearl handle." The Mistress asked the vicar To entertain his flock He said "What would you like to see?" And they cried "Let's see your conjuring tricks, they're always worth watching." "Your reverence may I be excused?" Said one benign old chap. "I don't like conjuring tricks. I'd sooner have a carol or two around the fire." So then they all began to sing Which shook the workhouse walls. "Merry Christmas!" cried the Master And the inmates shouted "And a Happy New Year to you as well sir!"

There are several authors whose fiction is based around this area - Eleanor Brent-Dyer, Phil Rickman and Robert Holdstock that I know of. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle set one of his Sherlock Holmes stories in the Forest region. I've pulled several place names from these authors for industries on the layout. It may be a tenuous link but its one way of tying things together.

Its a real place, a few miles from Mitcheldean in the Hereford direction. I saw it on the map and knew it had to be that one. I was really just poring over a map looking for suitable names in the general locality. Other industry names will come from fictional literature set in the region. "Cat Got Your Tongue" halt was amusing but too much of a mouthful. There was a Catsbrain House near the line on the Highworth Branch (which I mentioned before I researched for a train simulator route) and the line was crossed by a footpath to it carried on an overline bridge which became known as Catsbrain Bridge. I have therefore chosen to rename Cat Got Your Tongue Halt to Cat's Paw Halt, partly to retain the catty reference (I'm a cat fan) and partly to make it sound more like Catsbrain. Other stations and towns are unaffected.

Great Shafting is no more and will be Great Soudley from now on, there being a Soudley in the SE area of the Forest. Mitcheldean, nee Borrocks is probably going to be Puddlebrook.

Very nice, the updated track is a big improvement. One suggestion I would make is to dull down the shop frontages if thats possible. Colourful shop fronts I think are a fairly recent thing and having been looking at suitable styles for town buildings for my own layout I have been struck by how drab shop fronts were pre-war and how small and not "in your face" shop signs and nameboards were.

3:10 - is that Rockingham? Have sunk many a fine pint in the Sondes Arms.

I'd add hooks made from small size staples and drill fine holes, then white (or black) tack these on. The staple-hooks add a second line of defence and the boards are less likely to drop off, even if they come loose. EDIT: Actually scale (or near scale) slotted end brackets as was actually done.

Over the last few weeks I have been having a bit of a think. I've not been on RMWeb very long and if there's a thread I feel most at home in, it's James' thread where he is modelling an Edwardian fictional railway in Norfolk and a whole crowd of eclectic folks discuss all things relating to Edwardian railways and society (and many things that are not at all related). There is a lot of interesting style and mood thinking going on over there and its rubbing off on me. One feature of my own fictional world that has risen uppermost in my mind is this merging of fact and fiction, of the serious and the whimsical. Whimsey is good, I have a lot of time for it and my modelling has never been too serious. I could never be a David Jenkinson, a Barry Norman or build a layout like Heckmondwike. I have always embraced a big helping of fantasy in my modelling and its the reason I embarked on what I'm doing now, rather that set out on a course of painstaking research for a particular prototype location and moment in time (and built to finer standards). Having defended my preferences thus far I think what is bothering me is the amount of whimsey in my layout, or rather its style. There is a good deal of double entendre in several of the names and a recent discussion on here about industry names brought forth a suggestion or two that bothered me as they were close to a kind of "line in the sand" of decency that I felt uncomfortable getting close to. I have therefore taken the decision to rework the naming of my model and several of the stations and industries on it. Place names like "Borrocks" and "Great Shafting", I have decided, must go. There is traditional English schoolboy humour in such names but I've decided its not what I want to live with if this layout lasts me out through retirement. They were humorous at first, but such names grate on me already. A map of fictional place names in Britain derived from books, films and models was posted recently on a Facebook group I am a member of and several of these, located in or near the Hereford-Mitcheldean-Gloucester triangle confirmed my preference for some name changes. As I have the initials for Great Shafting now fixed in my freelance rolling stock livery the letters "G S" were a must and for now I'm working with the town name of Great Sandford. Borrocks for the moment I am replacing with Mitcheldean as I want some way to fix the model into the location its supposed to be, even though my Mitcheldean will bear absolutely no similarity to the real place, nor any railway that served it or went hear it. Mitcheldean is a working title only for now, it may change... it may not. We'll see how I feel about it in the new year. The Deep Shafting Colliery will be the Deep Sandford Colliery and other fictional places in the region will be incorporated into several of my industry names. After a fairly dry patch lasting 2 or 3 weeks and brought on by my disappointment over problems in the garage conversion I stopped modelling but today for the first time in a while I had the urge to model again so I plan to tackle a few more wagons over the Christmas break and may even get around to lining those dratted coaches. Mention of whch brings me neatly around to wishing anyone reading this a very happy winter break and a prosperous and successful 2019.

Edwardian as a period/style to describe Atlantics works for me as well. They very much look like something before Titanic, before the Great War and before Socialism (with a capital S)

There IS room for another stock shelf above it.... EDIT: Your fiddle yards are superb and you're extremely fortunate to have so much space. I've seen numerous wonderful layouts built entirely WITHIN the confines of each of your FYs!

All Atlantics are nice. There's something so Victorian about that wheel arrangement.

Rail is the same as road in this context.

Have you a cattle wagon mesh?

Cycle troops could move far more rapidly on a metalled road than foot troops which is their principal raison d'etre (including your other reason, cost). Bear in mind that ALL strategic military movement is by road, never across country. Even Custer and his pals in the 1870s figting the Indians on the almost trackless plains always moved across the land using trails, simply because if a force went along a trail or road it was easy to communicate with them - you sent a rider after them by the same road and therefore should contact them. Moving across country in military terms means moving tactically and usually in contact with the enemy or a very likely expectation of doing so, in these cases the bicycle troops would just dump ther bikes and an admin unit would bring them up later.

I expect he scourged them with that moustache.

Must confess I'd be tempted to build a BLT up there.

That's a cracking texture, though at first I thought you'd got the colour wrong since my Great Shafting livery is a red-brown!

Wait a moment! I know I've seen those green garage doors before somewhere.. Aha! . Thank heavens... back on topic. That was a close one.

James, might I suggest you sneak a portrait of JA into the drill hall. The one of her in her brown coat sat on the bench a few pages back was suitably elegant.

My other hobby is historical wargaming using miniatures and with a group of friends I am fighting the WWII Eastern Front campaign in reduced format. We've reached August 1941. The reason I mention this is that in early WWII bicycle troops were still common and a lot of units on both sides in 1941 had reconaissance companies that were bicycle mounted. In similar vein there were thousands of mounted cavalry still on both sides. The Soviets had many many Cossack regiments and divisions while the Germans still had a few full cavalry divisions as well as mounted recon squadrons and regiments in some infantry divisions.