Where Worlds Collide

I know it was months ago, but I’ve finally got round to sorting out the hundreds of photos I took during my spring holiday in the west country.

Just after I arrived at Dawlish on Sunday afternoon, what should I see but a kettle! King Edward I on a return excursion from Paignton, with a full rake of chocolate and cream coaches, only slightly spoiled by one of them being an anachronistic Mk2

The following morning saw another “real train”, top-and-tailed 67s on the daily Cardiff to Paignton, locomotive hauled because of a shortage of DMUs. I wasn’t 100% certain that it had survived the May timetable change, but the appearance of noted railway photographer Colin Marsden just before it was due was a sure sign it was still running. The rear loco is newly repainted in DB “Traffic Red”.

This winch has seen better days, but makes a good still life.

The Globe Inn in Lostwithiel, looking across the 700-year old bridge across the river Fowey. Lostwithiel has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, but last spring the weather was glorious.

Your choice of entertainment in Lostwithiel on a Wednesday night: Karaoke night at The Globe, or go to the station to watch the Night Riviera pass through at 11pm. For anyone who might be interested, I took this at 125th of a second at f1.4, and at 3200ASA. The train was doing something like 50mph.

The very lovely Olivia Sparnenn of Mostly Autumn at The Acorn Theatre in Penzance. A clue as to why I holidayed in Devon and Cornwall rather than Benedorm or Barnetby!

Saturday was the Exeter model railway exhibition. This layout, Bridport Town, was built and operated by a Mostly Autumn fan who’d been at the gig in Penzance two days earlier. One thing I like about this layout is it gives me an excuse to use the word “verisimilitude”.

Late afternoon in Exmouth, and what should I see but another kettle!.

I’ve been going to the Warley model railway exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham for years now. It’s a big commercial show with huge crowds rather than one of the more friendly local or specialist shows, but it’s size means it’s a also a gathering of people you haven’t met for years.

There were a lot of great layouts in all sorts of scales, eras and nationalities. I know some people are only interested in layouts in their own gauge, or aren’t interested in anything outside of a certain region or era, but that way you can miss out on some great modelling.

“Aberdare” was one such example. This was a pre-grouping Taff Vale in finescale 4mm, with a very interesting track plan, and the strange loco depot design with two separate engine sheds because of the narrow site in the Welsh valleys. Another one I liked was the compact HO Danish layout “Havnegade”, set in the late 1960s, reminding me of a family holiday in Denmark around that time, with GM Nohabs in the original maroon livery and those distinctive 5-axle diesel railcars. Closer to my own modelling interests was “Loch Lochy”, making it’s exhibition debut, Scottish blue diesel N, very nicely modelled. And in 7mm scale, a massive “parade of trains” style layout of Barmouth Bridge. Somewhat truncated of course; the real bridge is nearly a mile long!

I also loved the TT3 layout - This was very much not a detailed finescale model, but very typical of the sorts of layouts people built in the 60s and 70s. Indeed, it reminded me very much of a layout I built around that time! My TT3 stock is still in my parents’ loft somewhere!

One of the big hits of the show was “Blackmill”, a large contemporary layout based on Blackburn in Lancashire, so popular you couldn’t get near it all day. Even at 4:30 in the afternoon, at a time when the crowd starts to thin out, it three deep in front of this layout. Ditto the Model Railway Club’s massive “Copenhagen Fields”, 20 years in the building and still far from finished.

While I’m not really into narrow-gauge steam layouts, Bridport Town is one I’ll make an exception for. While fictitious, it has a verisimilitude that all too many narrow gauge layout lack. I think one element, apart from the superb level of modelling, is that all the locomotive fleet doesn’t include anything that’s uniquely associated with a specific British line. For example, the 4-4-0T is (I think) a proposed but unbuilt design by Hunslet for the Lynton and Barnstable. And those ex-War Department Baldwin 4-6-0Ts ran on a great many lines.

Sadly my bank balance too a bit of a hammering; Messrs Dapol and Bachmann had too many shiny things on sale, including the new Mk1 coaches and some weathered Silver Bullets.

Having scrapped my previous model railway layout following an enforced relocation due to work, I’m in a position to make a fresh start. My new place has an attic space giving me a significantly bigger layout space than I had before. It’s approximately fourteen feet long and nine feet wide, although the stairwell and and chimney breast cut two corners out of one side, resulting in an irregular area with the full room length available on one side, and about ten feet clear along the other.

I’ve considered dusting off some pipe-dreams, filling the entire area with one big layout; in N that’s actually quite a big space, and I’ve worked out a way of fitting a Par+St.Blazey layout into the given area.

However, given that I’m into both British and Swiss outline modelling, my current thinking is to build two smaller layouts rather than attempting to fill the entire room with one big one. A larger semi-permanent one with a focus on operation along the rear wall, and a slightly smaller one transportable for exhibition use along the front wall.

There seems to be no end in sight for the grounding of all aircraft over most of northern, central and eastern Europe because we seem to have upset a Norse volcano-god. Living close to Manchester airport, it’s strange to look up and see an empty sky. I did see one small low-flying light aircraft this afternoon, but you can’t fly commercial jets at treetop height.

Although this natural disaster hasn’t killed anyone, it’s still causing a huge human cost. I know people stranded in Canada, Ukraine and The Maldives at the moment, someone else putting up stranded Americans as houseguests, and someone who runs a cattery who has six customers currently stranded abroad. One wonders what the economic might be if this goes on beyond a few days. It’s quite likely we’ll see some airlines fold.

I’ve heard people saying the government “must do something” to bring stranded passengers home. The trouble is that nobody really has any idea how soon the airspace over Europe will stay closed. If it’s just a couple of days, the best thing is for people to wait and travel as soon as the planes start flying again. If it lasts for weeks, or in the worst case scenario, months, then people are going to have to get home by alternative routes; short-haul passengers by rail and ferry, long-haul passengers to whatever airports are still open just outside the cloud to continue their journeys by land.

I’m wondering how rapidly the rail and ferry operators can increase capacity in the short term if the grounding of aircraft is prolonged. Virgin Trains were operating additional Anglo-Scottish trains on Friday using their Voyager fleet which isn’t fully-deployed on weekdays, and I see that Network Rail have cancelled some weekend engineering blockades on the East and West Coast main lines, to carry the passengers displaced from internal British flights. What about Eurostar? I don’t know to what extent their train fleet is deployed at present, or whether they have the trains or train crews to operate additional services. As far as I know there’s no technical reason why French TGVs or multi-voltage German ICE trains can run though the tunnel into St.Pancras; the sticking point is the possibly over-strict fire regulations for the tunnel (rules that don’t apply to cars and lorries on the shuttles), and presumably the lack of drivers with both route and traction knowledge. And of course there will be plenty of demand for these trains in France and Germany as well.

Time will tell if becomes necessary to start reinstating mothballed rolling stock and ferries to increase capacity.

I’ve uploaded a few photos I took of Apethorn Junction at the Macclesfield show to my Fotopic site.

This has got to be one of the best 7mm scale layouts I’ve seen on the exhibition circuit. It’s sheer size makes a big impression, and the whole thing just oozes atmosphere. It’s all DCC with sound chips on most if not all the locomotives, so the layout reverberates with the throaty roar of English Electric and Sulzer engines.

Even after far too little sleep, the after-effects of a little too much Tyskie, and still on a high from meeting some of my heroes, York railway station is still a magnificent place. Here’s East Coast Trains 91105 waiting to depart on a northbound service.

On the way back from Touchstone’s CRS Gig at Maltby (for which I really need to write a review), I decided to break the journey at Edale. I’ve travelled the Hope Valley line many, many times over the past few years, and seen this beautiful line in all seasons, from spring green to autumn colours to snow-covered, but I’d never taken the local stopping train and got off at one of the intermediate stations.

You don’t get much freight on a Sunday, so I was surprised when the signals went off without a passenger train being due, and this came into view.

I’ve read bad reviews of the Sony Alpha 75-300mm Lens. But when I get results like this, I’m not going to complain.

By the end of the week I’d had my fill of narra-gauge kettles, and it was time for some proper trains again. I’d had Rugeley recommended as a good place for main line photography a few months back. It’s a local station on the four-track section of the Trent Valley line. As well as the procession of Virgin Trains Pendolinos, it sees a lot of freight; mostly intermodal from DB Schenker (Née EWS), Freightliner and DRS. And there’s a nice pub just outside the station supplying food (and real ales) when you get tired of watching trains.

Compared with Newport, where it’s all EWS 66s, Rugeley seems a variety of traction. This southbound Freightliner working has a pair veteran class 86s, still hard at work after 40 years. Other trains had DBS dual-voltage 92s, Freightliner 90s, and Freightliner and DRS 66s. One has to question why so much freight on this electrified route runs behind diesel traction.

The final weekend took me to my old home town of Slough, where my parents celebrated their Golden Wedding. This photo is from Saturday lunchtime, when the immediate family went to The House on the Bridge at Eton. There was a big party the following day at the church.

I don’t always stop to think how lucky I am that both my parents are still with is; especially when I think of the number of friends I have who are decades younger than me, but have lost one or both parents.

This last picture is one of those times when you see a good picture and just happen to have your camera with you. It’s the Thames at Windsor, where a huge gathering of swans had surrounded someone feeding them bread.

The second part of my holiday took me to from South Wales to the north of the country.

The first day was spent on the Welsh Highland Railway. I’d ridden the line three years ago, when it was open as far as Rhyd-Ddu, just short of the summit of the line. It’s now extended beyond Beddgelert through the famous Aberglaslyn pass to Hafod-y-Llyn, just a few miles short of the ultimate destination of Porthmadog.

The climb from Waunfawr up to Rhyd-Dhu is spectacular enough, but the descent down to Beddgelert is even more spectacular, as the line twists and turns Swiss-fashion to lose height. The final section is the most spectacular of all, as the line heads through the steep-sided valley of Aberglaslyn pass, with it’s unlined rock tunnels. Decades ago, on a wet family holiday, we walked along this route, though the long-abandoned tunnels. Amazing to ride through them on a train.

The WHR has come in for some criticism for not making any attempt to recreate this spirit of the original undercapitalised Colonel Stevens line, instead building a modern tourist railway suitable for the needs of the 21st century, using powerful ex-South African Garrett locomotives rather than the underpowed tank engines of the original line. But I think what they’ve built is a magnificent achievement.

There’s no forward connection from Hafod-y-Llyn, which is a temporary terminus in the middle of nowhere. So you have to ride the train back through Aberglaslyn pass to Beddgelert, where there’s quite a long wait for the bus for Porthmadog. Still, there are far worse places to spend a couple of hours, in the midst of some spectacular scenery.

Next morning, after a hearty breakfast at the Queen’s Hotel, I headed off for Harbour Station for a ride on the famous Ffestiniog railway. This is one of the longest established preserved railways, celebrating more than 50 years in this form. The locomotive for the day was double Fairlie David Lloyd George, not technically a preserved locomotive at all, since it was built as recently as 1979, albeit to a 19th century design.

Then it was the scenic Conwy Valley line to Llandudno Junction. This is one of the most scenic routes on the National Rail network, and really deserves to promoted better as such. I’d love to see a timetable that makes sensible connections with the Ffestiniog at Blaunau, using heritage rolling stock with windows that open. Not neccessily using steam; I think some first generation diesels would do just as well.

Breaking the journey at Bettws-y-Coed was probably a mistake. It’s a beautiful setting, but the place is an appalling tourist trap, full of tacky gift shops selling nothing but tat, and restaurants serving chips with everything. It’s the sort of tasteless commercialism of which I’m sure that Ayn Rand would have approved.

If you’re based in the north-west, this makes an excellent two-day trip - although it I was doing it again I’d probably stay overnight in Beddgelert and get the bus to Porthmadog in the morning, then take a later train on the Ffestiniog.

Been a while since I’ve blogged about anything much - been too busy doing things rather than blogging about them. So we’ll go back a few weeks to my week’s holiday in mid-September.

The week started with a gig, Panic Room at their home town in Swansea. On the previous tour I’d managed to get to several of the shows, but other commitments meant that this one was the only one of their short tour I could get to.

The Milkwood Jam is a funny venue, a sort of glass box on the top of the building. The band were as tight as ever, with great performances from all five members, and the sound was as good as can be expected for a smallish club venue.

With their new album Satellite written and recorded, new songs made up the bulk of the set, interspersed with a few favourites from the debut album. When I say new songs, quite a few of them have been in the set for a while, with the likes of “Sandstorms”, “Black Noise”, “Go” and “Yasumi” already becoming live favourites. The band are moving more in the direction of shorter, more direct songs rather than sprawling prog epics, and this material comes over very well live.

I took quite a few photos, but the lighting, with low levels and all the light coming from the side of the stage, meant the results were disappointing.

Monday was trains day, and a chance to use my new Sony 50mm Lens for action photography in full sun. I’d bought it for use in low light, especially for situations like Panic Room’s gig in Swansea. In full sun you don’t need to stop the lens right down to f1.4, and I was amazed by the sharpness of the images I was getting - completely blows away the kit zoom.

Newport doesn’t quite have the volume of freight traffic I remembered from previous visits in the 80s and 90s, but there was still quite a bit of steel traffic. EWS class 66s seem to be ubiquitous nowadays; there weren’t any 60s to be seen. There were, though, a couple of loco-hauled passenger trains; an FGW Cardiff-Taunton top-and-tailed by a pair of 67s, and Arriva Wales Cardiff-Holyhead, complete with first class and a dining car, allegedly subsidised by the expense accounts of members of the Welsh Assembly (me, cynical?)

As with the Panic Room gig, I’ve uploaded some of the photos to my fotopic site.