Andrew

Goodness.  Yes, Tony is a mainstay contributor here, and his updates habve been missed.  So all good wishes to him for a quick and full recovery.

Today's activity

Better to take the photos in historical order, although there's a story about the C21st images below.  So, we begin in the 1950s with the Jubilee taking its train through some idyllic parts of northern England in high summer.  Listen to the birdsong!

First, passing Throstlebeck Sidings

 

 

Crossing Foxdale Bank

 

 

Coasting across the girder bridge

 

 

and romping down Bamboo Curtain Straight

 

Moving on, the twentyfirst century proved to be most frustrating as the Bachmann intermodal wagons are particularly demanding in terms of track quality.  The aged and warped timber which constitutes the DGR trackbed really is not to their liking.  It proved impossible to get the rake to do anything like a complete circuit of the line without derailments left, right and centre.  There seems to be very little play on the bogies, so any vertical twisting of the track just sees several bogies bouncing along on the sleepers. 

Having tried things in both directions, eventually I gave up trying to run the intermodal train and just took photos of it.  At least they don't indicate the extent of the aggrevation.  Then, for consolation, out came the Jubilee and nine coaches - which somehow seem to ride much more successfully than those container flats - so the day provided some enjoyment after all.

We start with the Class 66 making an adjustment to the rake at Throstlebeck international container depot:

 

 

Then heading away down Bamboo Curtain Straight towards the coast

 

 

Powering across Foxdale Bank

 

 

and rattling the furniture in Foxdale Carr Hall

 

 

and crossing the Northern Viaduct

(really must add those fiddly hoses onto the front)

 

Having reached the port, the loco duly retraces its steps with another train of containers for Throstlebeck

 

 

Last seen returning across Foxdale Bank, soon to be home:

 

 

 

 

All safe in New Zealand (the models, that is)

A very helpful reply from Alan at the New Zealand Model Railway Guild explains that the locomotives and rolling stock models have survived and were sold to the NZ Government Railways by Frank Roberts in the 1950s. The models are now in the possession of Te Papa Tongarewa/Museum of New Zealand and appear on exhibition from time to time.

He confirms that the models are G gauge (which in the 1930s would presumably have been called gauge 1).  Given NZ's 3'6" track, the scale is 1:24.

The Wikipedia page I've found on Frank Roberts   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Roberts_(model_maker)  has a link to the NZ museum where there are photographs of the models which show their superb detail.  https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/631

Frank lived from 1882 to 1963.  A book called Vintage steam: stories by Frank Roberts, edited by Gordon Troup was published in 1967.  Then a book by Frank Roberts' daughter was published in 1976, covering his life, his workmanship and love of steam power and the making of the garden railway with the aid of his brother, George and friend, Bill Stewart.

It's good that this pioneer of garden railways has a place in history.

 

 

A New Zealand garden railway in 1933

My planned running session (and visitors) today had to be cancelled because of wet weather.  So I started to peruse some long-forgotten copies of the Armstrong Whitworth Record, which was a promotional magazine produced by the engineering group.

The following photos, with not much supporting text, show the Roberts Stewart Roberts Railway which was in Auckland.  This was built "not as a plaything but as a historical record of the New Zealand Railways, Locomotives and Rolling Stock from the earliest days".

"The completeness of the data collected in the work of building this line is astonishing, every locomotive, every vehicle, is a true to scale model of a prototype whose history is known in amazing detail as the result of the tireless searching out and writing to scores of descendants of old railway employees."

Unfortunately there's no mention of scale or gauge, but I'm hoping someone in NZ may be able to enlighten us, especially if the models have survived to today.

The models were apparently built by Messrs F & G Roberts, with the research done by Mr W W Stewart.

 

Just a Black 5

with a parcels train and lots of welcome sunshine today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I see you also have an O gauge line there.  You'll have to be careful not to step on it!

Anyway, that's a very nice video of the 00 Hymek - looks quite atmospheric.

Meanwhile on the real railway, things are looking up:

 

 

The short video is called  A bluebell railway (and it only shows the 4MT):

 

 

Southern Visitors

Several Southern visitors arrived today with David, but we couldn't persuade all of them to cooperate nor pose for the camera.  But here are some that did both of those things.

 

First it's King Arthur Class "Sir Meliagrance".  He was a rather disreputable knight who had a crush on King Arthur's queen Guinevere and kidnapped her, before meeting a very sticky end from the sword of Sir Launcelot.  But the loco runs well.

 

 

 

 

Here showing the Drummond tender with which the Eastleigh Arthurs began their careers:

 

 

Merchant Navy Class "Holland-Afrika Line":

 

 

 

 

And this member of the home team seems to get in everywhere:

 

 

 

 

 

I've invited the owner of Trains at York to look in on this website.       It's a shame he can't remember how that superbviaduct brickwork was done. 

A garden railway faces many hazards

including grandchildren:

 

Take three girls...

 

 

 

First we'll follow Bessie the Black 5...

 

 

 

 

and then Julie the Jubilee (with three types of ex-LMS coaches):

 

 

 

 

and then Stella the BR Standard 4MT, here with Julian's ground signals and water column:

 

 

I couldn't resist another take of 'el classico':

 

 

Rounding off with another view of the girls together:

 

 

That's looking exciting, Thomas.  Once you have a complete circuit you'll be wanting to run some trains.

More of those Maroon Monsters

 

Why not?

 

 

 

 

An exciting day (part 3)

We end with a couple of shots of Castle Class "Earl of St Germans" seen hauling a portion of a long distance express from the West:

 

 

 

 

Western Harrier - the video

 

 

An exciting day (part 2)

This was starting to look like a fantasy diesel gala:

 

 

Then "Western Harrier" took to the road:

 

 

 

 

 

An exciting day (part 1)

The day, which was to feature the first visiting locomotives this year, began with a sort of "Escape from Suez" commemorative intermodal train with the Class 66 and the slowly lengthening rake of container flats:

 

 

 

 

 

And then the first of our exciting visitors appeared:

 

Of which there will be more anon.

 

 

 

Here's the 5 minute video from that last running session: Spring Greens!

 

It's looking fantastic, Thomas.  Keep up the good work, and I hope all goes well with you.

As has been pointed out before, the normal term used by railway modellers, in British English at least, is fiddle yard.  But I doubt you can find such a specialised term in any dictionary.

Spring Greens

After a month of cold and then wet, our weather hasn't been great until very recently.  So I needed to seize the moment in today's sunshine and decided it felt like a day for running Southern Region branch line trains, using the N Class and the BR Standard 2-6-4 tank.  Here are some of my many photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mick, My friend Jannie in York just sent this photo, which looks rather like your layout so may have been taken on Skew Bridge:

Great video, Mick.  The layout has real atmosphere and all the details look just right.  Who said you can't run full-length trains indoors (me perhaps!)? 

Nice to see all those EWS liveried 66s, and I love the way the signal aspect changes a few moments after the loco has passed it.  Well done.

Thomas and the snow

Annie and Clarabel were delighted to see the snow, but Thomas wasn't so sure.  "I don't think we'll be able to get out of the carriage sidings" he said.

 

 

Even when they turned round to face the other way, the enormous depth of snow defeated them:

 

 

"If we try to move from here, we'll just get stuck!" said Thomas.

 

 

Annie and Clarabel were very sad.  "Isn't there anything you can do, Thomas?" they said.

So Thomas jumped everyone across to another track, but still the snow was too deep to risk.

 

 

"It's no good" said Thomas.  "There's too much snow today.  We'll just have to stay at home."  So he blew hot steam into Annie and Clarabel's pipes to keep them warm and cheer them up.

 

 

The Fat Controller told Thomas that the whole line was completely snowed-in, and even the girder bridge was impassable.  But as he said, things like that don't happen very often in Dorking, so we hope the trains will be running again soon.