Author Archives: Simon

Unknown's avatar

About Simon

Erratic, wandering, journalling rarely…

It’s a kind of magic

It’s early morning, circa 6:30, on what promises to be a beautiful summer’s day. I am walking down the hill to the local newsagent’s, to collect the newspapers I will be delivering today: not something I usually do, but a friend is away on holiday for a fortnight, and I am providing cover for him. It is just about the beginning of the last week of August*, and the air is clear.

From a couple of miles away comes the distinctive sound of a Sulzer 6LDA28B engine (if you are North American, think of an Alco engine), a burbling, rasping and guttural noise. Somewhere in the local goods yard (when we still had one) a class 25 is getting ready to move, but the acoustics of the area and the clear weather mean it could be just the other side of the fence – or even more miles away. It isn’t doing anything yet – no sound of wheels on rail joints or of buffers clashing. It just is.

That is the deep, emotional, memory that links me to railways. There is nothing visual, nothing tactile. The only other senses involved in my memories of that era of railways (early teens) is of warmth and the smell of diesel exhaust when standing close to an engine: if I stand too near to certain buses, I get a whiff of nostalgia for that period in my life.

That was the magic. And the memory has been brought to the forefront of my mind by an interesting and vital question posed by Mike Cougill: What happened to the magic?

And that is, frankly, the problem.

Digital sound may come close – and I don’t have a need to get a bass response that shakes me – but the odour and warmth are beyond our reach, or would be suicidal. None of this can be caught by building a 3-dimensional model. Many modellers try to recapture the sight and sound of the railway scene, but the sight is not what inspires me, or more accurately, the sound and smell cannot be captured in the same way as can be the sights.

For 37 and a half years I have been trying to capture something which cannot be captured. If I want to re-visit this experience, there are plenty of preserved railways with the appropriate diesel classes to enable me to do this, and I don’t even need to ride a train, just stand next to the engine at the station. I have been trying to capture the ephemeral, to model sound and smell via sight. I cannot do this. It is pointless to try. It all sounds rather depressing, doesn’t it?

But, this is not all bad news. The realisation of this means that I am free to divorce what I cannot replicate from my attempts to build a model railway. Although I am keen to make my models as accurate as I can, and for operations to be as authentic as possible, I am not, after so many years of going down the road, trying to build a model of a railway. I am, after all, trying to build a model railway.

This is enormously liberating. I am free of that constraint, free of its shackles: to quote Trevor Marshall, I have broken Marley’s chains!

Simon
* I can be this precise as my visual memory is of seeing the cover of the September 1978 Railway Modeller (a rather nice EM model of North Leith on the North British Railway, a layout which i did not appreciate at the time) on top of someone else’s delivery round, and it typically came out at about the 24th of the preceding month.

Shortline Inspiration 2: the Edgemoor and Manetta

This line in deepest South Carolina is a little gem, and thanks to Chris Ellis, editor of Model Trains (now, after various name changes, Model Trains International) is quite possibly better known in the UK than in its home country! It featured as long ago as 1980, with all 6 turnouts of the line (plus the interchange connection to and owned by the Seaboard Air Line, Atlanta Division) and a somewhat compressed plan. Although I can see the reasoning behind the latter (the plan would fit onto two shelves in the corner of a room, taking up 7′ x 7′, in H0) I feel that the compression goes too far and prototypical operations would be hard to replicate, particularly at the interchange. With Chris’ permission, the plan – along with a later version by Giles Barnabe for N scale – has been reproduced on RMWeb. (Click to open up a link.)

The prototype was a very short, short line about 2.3 miles long which ran from an interchange with the SAL at Edgemoor to the Mannetta mills at Lando (Manetta Mills owned the line). The line even managed to have a plate bridge over a river (with timber trestle approaches, which collapsed at least once!) In short, it had one of many of the features modellers look for.

E&M number 5
Trains latterly consisted of a Porter 0-4-0 tank engine, hauling up to two freight cars at a time! Freight was primarily coal in, and blankets out, generally requiring hoppers and boxcars. Trains were worked with the engine at the Lando (terminal) end: pushing up the hill to the interchange – sometimes pausing half-way to pump up more air – and pulling down to the mills. When delivering coal, the engine was trapped at the end of the coal ramp spur whilst the hoppers were emptied; coal was also delivered to the boiler house in the same manner. The engine itself was coaled by shovel, from a roadside truck whilst standing on the loopneck at the end of the line. The railroad also owned a flat car which never left Lando: once the day’s switching and shifting was done, it was left between warehouses separated by the tracks at the start of the loop to act as a platform allowing access between them! It had to be pulled out of the way at the start of the raiload shift, and put back at the end. The mills worked three shifts in 24 hours, but the railroad only operated for one of them. At the interchange, empties and deliveries were dropped off by passing ACL/SAL freights, which collected loaded cars and empty hoppers which had been left on the house track at Edgemoor. In earlier times there was even a passenger service, and the line ran with 0-4-4T and 0-4-2T power.

As big as a train can get on the E&M!

It was the last steam-worked non-tourist line in the USA, but operations ceased in July 1975 when the engine failed its boiler inspection. Trucks took over, and that was more or less that, although the loco was still there nine years later!

With a requirement of a small loco (it might be possible to use the old Rex loco as a starting point in S – anyone have one for sale?), half-a dozen boxcars, a couple of coal hoppers a gondola, a flat car and maybe a tank wagon, this would not be a difficult line to equip. I have sketched out an idea for a 12’8″ x 8’10” spare room, designed to feature most of the features of the line. Although I have had to come down to 42″ radius curves, I have used number 8 turnouts as even with a small engine and 40′ long freight cars, this simply looks better than anything tighter. If anyone wishes it, I can supply the plan as a Templot file, or – if you let me know the paper size – as a pdf for printing. There were warehouses both sides of the loop, the spurs served the coal traffic.

edgemoor_and_manetta

For further reading search out the following magazine articless:
Jim Boyd, “The Last Steam Shortline”, Railroad Model Craftsman, March 1972
Chris Ellis, “The Edgemoor and Manetta”, Model Trains, May 1980
Giles Barnabe, “Edgemoor and Manetta Revisited”, Scale Model Trains, May 1986
Giles Barnabe, “Edgemoor and Manetta RR”, Model Trains International, Issue 101
Finally, the Arcadia Publishing book, “Lando”, by Pual Scott Williams of the Lando-Manetta Mills History Center (2007, ISBN 9780738552682) has a lot of information, including the Sanborn Insurance map of the Manetta Mills and railroad tracks at Lando.

Unsung heroes

As some of you will know, a very close friend of 25 years standing died last week, and obituary notices have appeared on-line.

In thinking of how I will remember my friend – who was a great example of a good Samaritan as well as infuriatingly obstinate at times – my thoughts have dwelled on how he came to be so well known to so many people within the UK exhibition “scene”, thoughts encouraged by kind words written and said about him.

John got involved in supporting Mike Cook at the York Easter Show simply by volunteering. He had already been exhibition manager for the (then) annual show in Leicester, and had supported one of the more interesting 0 gauge layouts then on the circuit (Ynysybwl Fach – I hope I have that right!) and his willingness to get stuck in with the heavy loading and shifting had been noticed, so he came with good references. This naturally led to him helping at Warley and various events put on by The Association of Larger Scale Railway Modellers, where he simply got on with the job. Not officiously, just effectively and helpfully. Pat Seymour, of Alan Gibson Wheels, told me how he made them feel welcome and looked after them at York when they had just taken over the range from its eponymous founder. The warmth of that welcome was demonstrated each time they met up, especially during John’s illness: he died of pancreatic cancer. He was an accomplished modeller, always prepared to try a new technique and who would not use a new tool for a model until he was familiar with it, and had won awards as well as produced models professionally, was well known as someone to share a drink (or several) with, and would go out of us way to help a stranger, but he never looked for recognition – his primary aim in entering competitions was to get more feedback so that he could improve his technique.

The thing is, it is only when they suddenly are no longer there, that we notice the people who grease the axles. Real heroes go unsung, but that does not mean we should forget them

R.I.P. John Coulter, 1962-2015.

Location, location, location…

There is a terrific discussion taking place over on Mike Cougill’s blog about creating a sense of place. The latest post is really thought provoking, and the first comment posted served to open up my eyes about over-planning.

Well worth an enjoyable visit!

The Joy of 1366!

Once in a while, you come across a really interesting discussion on the net, and very recently I stumbled across a lovely thread on the RMWeb forum, where one of the members is recording part his recent switch to 0 gauge (7mm:1ft, or 1:43.5 ratio). Because he is sharing his progress, his trials and tribulations as well as his success, there has been a lot of great support and advice offered, as well as humour and friendship. It is a great advert for the web, but I was particularly taken with this post, where Chris describes the “learning opportunities” provided by a kit for a GWR 1366 small pannier tank. To quote him directly:

The 1366 was a steep learning curve/baptism of fire. It would have been very easy to have given up at multiple stages but perseverance and determination generally won over lack of skill and the right tools. I have invested in a few more tools but what I have is still just a step up from basic. This does mean I have to think carefully about the solutions I come up with – those with fully fitted workshops will no doubt be able to turn out more elegant things quicker but it’s not a race.
I’ve said this before but the 1366 has done more to move my skills on than a simple straightforward kit. It has sorely tested my resolve and, despite the current trial separation, will be completed once the confidence has been restored with a few completed projects under my belt.
The main things I’ve learned though are that it’s fairly hard to hurt brass and NS with solder. If something doesn’t work take it apart, clean up the bits and have another go. Keeping the areas to be soldered together clean and well fluxed is important. Most important of all is that you won’t gain skills over night: they come from having a go and keeping trying until you find what works for you. What works will be different for everyone and personal preference comes in.

“Most important of all is that you won’t gain skills over night: they come from having a go and keeping trying until you find what works for you.”

Wonderful.

Simon