Railway Magazine Guide to Modelling - November 2019

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November 2019

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From the editor S

Modelling GUIDE TO

Staff

Editor Pete Kelly RMModellingeditor@mortons.co.uk Contributors Nigel Burkin, Ian Lamb, Jon Longman Production editors Pauline Hawkins, Sarah Spencer Designers Charlotte Turnbull, Fran Lovely and Tracey Markham Picture desk Paul Fincham, Jonathan Schofield Group advertising manager Sue Keily Publisher Tim Hartley Publishing director Dan Savage Commercial director Nigel Hole Subscription manager Paul Deacon Circulation manager Steve O'Hara Marketing manager Charlotte Park

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December 2019 issue of RMM is out on Friday, November 22, 2019.

Pete Kelly Editor

ome very attractive ready-torun pre-grouping locomotives, special-edition or otherwise, have been emerging from the model manufacturers of late, with more eagerly anticipated examples on the way.

Modern painting and finishing techniques have made their gorgeous and often highly complex liveries eminently possible – but if these little jewels are not to remain static showpieces in the display cabinet, the often-asked question is: “Where will the appropriate rolling stock come from?”

For many decades, pre-grouping model locomotives and rolling stock have been the undisputed domain of brass-kit manufacturers and, properly put together and painted, the finished items have formed the basis for some of the finest and most long-lasting layouts in the country.

Barry Allen’s evocative shed scenes (see O-Scale Corner on page 35) just wouldn’t look the same without his superbly weathered kit-built locomotives, but so many people taking up the railway modelling hobby nowadays do not have the skills to kit-build, and even if they did, physical impairments might prevent them from doing so, especially in smaller gauges.

As if in answer to this dilemma, out of the blue Hatton’s of Liverpool have released details of their ‘Project Genesis’ to produce a wide family of OO-gauge four and six-wheel coaches of the kind built for common use by many railway companies in the mid-to-late 1800s, and many lasted well beyond that period – indeed a good number were absorbed at the 1923 Grouping, and some found new

leases of life on branches that needed simple stock to run on them.

Hatton’s say that ‘Project Genesis’ will represent faithfully the trains of Eras 2 and 3, bringing modellers the opportunity to run detailed trains of coaches in liveries not normally seen in ready-to-run form.

Hatton’s are currently at the research and CAD stage of the models, and images of the six different body styles and eight liveries, including Great Western, Great Northern, London & North Western and South Eastern & Chatham, and more details can be found on our news pages.

Where is Channel 5 TV’s The Great Model Railway Challenge going?

Having gathered opinions from friends and associates from both inside and outside the hobby, and despite my initial optimistic feelings, I now fear it might be turning as many people off as it is drawing people in.

A neighbour who has never been involved with railway modelling, but has always been interested in the books and articles I have shown him about both the hobby and the history of fullsized railways, thought the emphasis on ‘entertainment’ went over the top.

Examples quoted were the kind of items being produced for the ‘scratch-built challenge’, in particular the ‘tanning thong’ item that was thrown to the competitors in the final heat.

My neighbour had expected something a little more down-to-earth, perhaps inviting the teams to produce normal layouts with the emphasis entirely on build quality, along the way introducing viewers to the hobby by describing

in laymen’s terms the techniques of baseboard-building, track-laying, locomotive and rolling stock care, scenery construction and so on.

He also thought that the deliberately introduced drama, such as the unnecessarily long pause following the announcement: “And the winner is…” was becoming a little old hat nowadays.

As for the special effects, he thought the space rockets, volcanoes, landslides, dinosaurs, earthquakes and so on were so far removed from anything that would even cross his mind were he ever to become a railway modeller as to be totally irrelevant.

I suppose the producers, and perhaps even some presenters of such a programme, would say with some justification that their job was to entertain rather than draw people into ours or any other hobby, and that the latter was the job of people like myself.

That’s very true, but the point I’m trying to make in mentioning my neighbour’s views is that, being a nonmodeller, you might have expected him to enjoy the entertainment rather than the serious modelling – but actually nothing could be further from the truth.

In view of the tightly constricted nature of this issue, several items have been held over until next month, including St Ann’s Cove and the second part of Nigel Burkin’s guide to model painting.

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November 2019

Letters to the editor✉ ‘Mysterious tracks’ puzzle is resolved

I’ve just been reading the latest RMM and saw the letter about the ‘mysterious tracks’. The most likely explanation would be a refuge/store for permanent way trolleys and trailers like the Wickham recently produced

by Bachmann.

The photo used with the original letter was not clear enough to be sure, but two objects in the background might be the deck and wheels of a hand-pushed trolley. If I’m right, there might well have been a shed or sheds for trolleys just off picture to the right, but if I’ve guessed wrong in this case, such a scene would still make an interesting lineside cameo which often turns up in old photos.

While I’m writing, I’d just like to let you know that the recent Romiley model railway exhibition sent just over £1600 to the Methodist ‘Action for Children’ charity. In particular, visitors liked our quite large array of what one might describe as ‘live’ layouts – i.e. those we let the visitors ‘drive or otherwise constructively interfere’.

Steve Langton, Email

I’ve enjoyed absorbing the October copy of RMM, which was obtained from Rhuddlan Models. In the lovely archive photo the right-angled track right of the main line was fairly common but rarely features in railway photographs.

It was the means of manoeuvring permanent way/Wickham trolleys from a storage position or small shed (just out

of photo to the right) on to the main line track. Having rolled it along to the end of the right-angled track, it was not then difficult to lift a lightweight Wickham trolley, with a man at each corner, through 90 degrees on to the main line.

In the photo, curiously, the two wheelsets and flat truck frame between the right-angled tracks and the telegraph pole (with white telephone cabinet attached?) almost certainly form a permanent way unpowered flat trolley.

The two right-angled tracks – note their long sleeper spacing – would allow two permanent way vehicles to be loaded at the same time, or a choice of trolley. Some permanent way trolley track installations comprise just two rails rather than four to facilitate a single vehicle, such as the one still in existence to Bewdley MPD on the Severn Valley Railway.

Get in touch by emailing: RMModellingeditor@mortons.co.uk or send to: The Railway Magazine Guide to Modelling, Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR. Thanks to our readers’ explanations, the purpose of the right-angled track in this wartime Railway Magazine Archive photo, showing a Robinson O4 2-8-0 on a mixed goods train, becomes crystal clear.

Steve Whittaker, Email

The mystery of the rails at right angles to the running lines in the Railway Magazine Archive photo on page 16 of the last issue is an easy one to solve. They are for the use of Wickhamtype gangers’ trolleys.

These would live in a small, secure shed which would have been just out of sight to the right of the photo. When required for use, a trolley would be pushed out of the shed and up on to a removable turntable placed in the

four-foot of the running line – having first obtained the necessary permission, of course – and the turntable could also be used for turning the trolley round.

The dismantled turntable was normally stored on the trolley itself.

I know the South Devon Railway used to use them in the 1970s and 80s.

They might still have them, and I’m sure other heritage lines would use them.

Martin Howard, Chairman, Diesel and Electric Preservation Group Ltd

Look at the mixture of carriages! No. 72001 Clan Cameron heads the 2pm Manchester VictoriaEdinburgh near Scout Green on May 28, 1952, in this Mortons Railway Magazine Archive photo.

North-West locospotting memories I very much enjoy your publication, which is brought by a member of the North East Cheshire branch of the Gauge O Guild, and Colin Chambers’ letter (October) brought back memories for me.

I was brought up in Whitefield, to which he refers, before marriage took me south of Manchester, and enjoyed a number of years in my youth in the late 1950s/early 60s locospotting not only in Manchester but also at such places as Leeds, Wigan, Wolverhampton and, always my favourite, Crewe.

Colin’s reference to the LiverpoolNewcastle expresses passing through Eccles, headed regularly by ‘Jubilee’ 4-6-0 No. 45581 Bihar and Orissa, or ‘Patriot’ 4-6-0 No. 45516 The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment was particularly nostalgic.

I used to go to all four main Manchester stations regularly, and still remember that, annoyingly, the above afternoon express always seemed to be headed by No. 45581 in Platform 5 at Exchange when I was there. However when I spotted a kit-built Gauge O model of it for sale a couple of years

Also from the Mortons Railway Magazine Archive, ‘Princess Royal’ Pacific No. 46211 Queen Maud is pictured at Oxenholme with an up ‘Mid-Day Scot’.

ago, I couldn’t resist adding it to my collection.

The highlight of the day was always the Glasgow express arriving in Platform 16 at Victoria at around 5.15pm, after which we would head for the Bury electric to take us home. The express was always headed by a Scottish-based ‘Britannia’, ‘Clan’ or ‘Royal Scot’, so it was always worth the wait.

London Road (now Piccadilly)

Bachmann’s lovely Wickham trolley and trailer is just waiting to be used by modellers wishing g to re-create a right-angle permanent way access track.

Photo: Nigel Burkin.

where I saw my first ‘Princess Royal’, No. 46211 Queen Maud, and Central, after the introduction of the exSouthern Region and Western Region ‘Britannias’ to Trafford Park shed were also exciting locations.

Those happy days I shall never forget, and modelling and reflecting on those exciting steam days with other modellers is really enjoyable.

John Roebuck, Email

The rising cost of model railway carriages – but why buy new?

Last month Dave Harris wrote about the high cost of model railway coaches, and while I cannot speak on behalf of the model manufacturers, I would like to make a few salient points in their defence.

Firstly, we modellers seem to be demanding ever-greater detail in proprietary models that obviously can lead only to extra production costs. Secondly, production costs overseas (in China, for example), have rocketed as workers demand pay rises and working conditions to equal ours, including pensions, sick/maternity leave and so on, and thirdly, fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates also add to the cost of imported goods.

Having said all that, I fully accept his point that to put a reasonably authentic rake of six or eight new coaches costing around £300£400 behind a locomotive costing around half that is not an attractive proposition – but why buy new?

Frankly, for exhibition purposes, the extra detail in the coaches (or locomotive for that matter) isn’t noticeable as the train speeds past on a layout.

On my exhibition layout, 95% of my coaches are good secondhand ones that cost me around £8 to £10 each. I like someone else to take the ‘hit’ on buying new, just as I do when I replace my car(s). I resist losing £3000 off a new car’s value immediately I drive it off the garage forecourt!

Taking Dave’s other point, lights in the carriages, he is right.

The complexity of assembly of coaches doesn’t lend them to be easily disassembled to put lights in yourselves – but why worry too much about lights when there are no passengers to benefit from them?

Another good point that Dave made is that, at exhibitions and the like, rakes and rakes of carriages can be seen whizzing around the layouts with not a passenger on board. No wonder British Rail went bust!

Some years ago I mentioned this lack of passengers to the senior decision-makers of both major model manufacturers (no names, no pack drill) and each said it would increase their costs unacceptably – and how many should they put in?

I replied that even three would be nice! I did add that the passenger figures didn’t have to be 3D. They could be like the very early twodimensional celluloid Subbuteo football players that we older modellers might remember from our youth. The fact that the figures were just 2D wouldn’t be that noticeable through the plastic ‘glass’, even on closer inspection, and they would be reasonably cheap to add.

Finally, Chris Chapman in his letter wrote about having transparent plastic couplings made to make them less obtrusive. What a good idea.

How about that, Mr Manufacturer?

Robin French, Brentwood

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