Just a general question really... What's your favourite region/area/period ?
Steam wise - i'm a big S&D fan, so that does include a bit of Southern, Midland and Western regions !
The 70's-80's - Are the biggest influence to my modelling, i prefer the BR blue period to anything else really, but there is always room for a steam special... ;D
US - Just recently got into US modelling - mostly Union Pacific and Chessie, but in both HO and N scale.
Oh, and a big 'THANK YOU' to elvinley (forum member) for tempting me with his 'G scale' shay... you can learn to hate some people you know.... I can't go anywhere now without looking at G scale stuff ! :smiley-laughing: :smiley-laughing: :smiley-laughing:
Lots of new members recently, so come on - let us know what your favourites are ! :wave:
Region is Western region. My layout is based on Reading.
Eras are BR Blue (my favourite) around 1974, FGW around 2008, plus I have a couple of GWR steamers (not sure what year but I'm guessing 1930s).
Quote from: Mustermark on December 10, 2011, 06:10:15 PM
Region is Western region. My layout is based on Reading.
Eras are BR Blue around 1974, FGW around 2008, plus I have a couple of GWR steamers (not sure what year but I'm guessing 1930s).
Did first still have the 'fag packet' livery by then ?
Definitely post privatisation across the old NSE region including the West London line. Favourite train companies are Southern and Southwest. Favourite rail journey is the Arun Valley line to Victoria. Most iconic train is the Pendolino but favourite train is the Cross Country Voyager has it always seemed to be waiting at Bournemouth to rescue me from the chaos of emergency buses because of a broken down freight train at Parkstone.
BR blue, summer 1976 (it was the hottest that I remember, got burnt on the IOW) so I can run locos with TOPS numbers and headcodes. Lots of variety, locomotive hauled freights and passenger stuff with blue/grey mk I, mk II and HST's (mk III) coaches, fitted, unfitted and rail-freight red/grey wagons. I imagine that some refurbished dmu's were running in blue/grey alongside all blue ones.
The only thing is that if I want a hymek, it should not be there, nor should a blue pullman but next year when it comes out I may apply modelers license or get a time machine.
As for the region, well Southern / Western with cross country from Midland and Eastern..........
Problem is finding a believable imaginary location and name that suits all of them.......
Hi,
My British layout was just a hodge podge of various engines and wagons. No real Era or operator. I do want to do a British layout based on actual operators within Fife around the North British/LNER days. I also want to do something involving the Weymss Private Railway. A couple of future projects perhaps once I get some reliable stock.
My US stuff is the same but I'm now narrowing it down to mid-80's. No real region yet as one layout goes from desert to greenery and back to desert. The other layout is mainly industrial so NE of America maybe.
Alex
Region and area - LNER, eastern region, especially the ex-Great Eastern Railway area. Era - anything from GER era, throughout the LNER period, and I even dabble in early BR steam, and even have a few diesels (including an ex-GWR diesel railcar in BR blood & custard, for no other reason that I love them!)
...however, I also am one if the 'if I like it I will run it' modellers - today, at the Swindon MRC open day I was running a Minitrix class 27 diesel with a Fleischmann 'Chocolate Express' set of German trucks and one coach decorated with Swiss chocolate adverts on it! Well it is Christmas! ;D
Nothing wrong with that ! 'it's my railway, i'll run what i want' - now that is something i think we should all embrase, we all have our favourites but that shouldn't stop us from taking a time a 'time out' and run something for fun every now and then ! ;D
Quote from: 4x2 on December 10, 2011, 06:14:58 PM
Quote from: Mustermark on December 10, 2011, 06:10:15 PM
Region is Western region. My layout is based on Reading.
Eras are BR Blue around 1974, FGW around 2008, plus I have a couple of GWR steamers (not sure what year but I'm guessing 1930s).
Did first still have the 'fag packet' livery by then ?
No, it was all dynamic lines. Dark blue with wiggly stripes. Except for the class 57 which was in green and gold.
Thanks for that ! I've lived in this area (Bristol) all my life and i just couldn't remember... :-[
Steam era from choice Have unbuilt LNER stock, but want to concentrate on LB&SCR to SR as that is what goes past every day and have memories of going by train to Bognor as a small boy.
Artistic licence will prevail in the end and I shall run what ever I feel like at the time.
Possibly even a Japanese C11 and a couple of coaches. ;D
ATSF around the 50's to late 60's north and south in New Mexico USA.
Mike
Region is Western.
Area is West Cornwall (where I live). Fictitiously based on an area twixt Resdruth & Hayle.
Period is 1959-63.
Southern - 1980's onwards - Post Privatisation because of the mix of liveries (I actually like NSE Toothpaste) but especially South Eastern (Charing Cross / Blackfriars via Dartford) Freight runs out there too you know.... And South Central Services down to Brighton...
BUT
I also love LMS & BR Standard Steam Locomotives..... and am looking forwards to the Bulleid Pacifics from Dapol... Its my railway I'll run what I like..
:Class414:
It's got to be modern image for me all the different liverys in the last 10 years or so and I must say (I know I drive them for a living ) I do like the new arriva livery .
Fictitious railroad called "Utah Central Railroad", Black livery, located in Utah USA about the 1970s
Quote from: BobB on December 10, 2011, 06:24:01 PM
BR blue, summer 1976 (it was the hottest that I remember, got burnt on the IOW) so I can run locos with TOPS numbers and headcodes.
Headcodes were over by then, but the last few Westerns were on their last trips (with 10xx headcodes), the 56's had just arrived from Romania and promptly fallen to bits, and the first HST services were just beginning, but not yet out west.
(My last layout funnily enough was summer of '76)
I do have fond memories of 1973-1976 watching freight in the evening at Teignmouth.
Alan
Quote from: EtchedPixels on December 10, 2011, 08:36:17 PM
Quote from: BobB on December 10, 2011, 06:24:01 PM
BR blue, summer 1976 (it was the hottest that I remember, got burnt on the IOW) so I can run locos with TOPS numbers and headcodes.
Headcodes were over by then, but the last few Westerns were on their last trips (with 10xx headcodes), the 56's had just arrived from Romania and promptly fallen to bits, and the first HST services were just beginning, but not yet out west.
(My last layout funnily enough was summer of '76)
I do have fond memories of 1973-1976 watching freight in the evening at Teignmouth.
Alan
What about you then EP ? You seem to have a very unusual collection of loco's and stock... i'd love to know more !
My layout is predominantly BR Blue TOPS to Railfreight Red Stripe.This is my favourite era and based on the east coast mainline around the South Yorkshire area.This way I can combine my favouite era for both trains and buses,the livery for these was brown and cream for SYPTE and red for Yorkshire Traction.I'm not a bus enthusiast or anything but,again,these were what was running around our way when I was a kid on the roads as were BR Blue on the railways.The spot on the mainline that I used to spend quite a bit of time watching trains go by was Bessacarr Junction about a half mile further down from where the Doncaster-Lincoln line crosses the main East Coast mainline.In this area we got to see alnost all loco's and rolling stock that graced the lines around south yorkshire prior to electrification.
Pete
Mine is the BR Eastern Region and specifically The Waverley Route during the period mid 1950's to mid 1960's. Lots of big ex LNER Pacifics plus B1s V2s K3s and a whole host of others, plus early Diesels like Peaks, 26s and the ubiquitous Class 47s. all battling the terrain and elements in that often bleak part of the world...
I can never make my mind up 8)
Right now I've got a small microlayout for pre-grouping bits (85cm x 12cm) + fiddle which is actually mostly finished at this point. Still have to add the gateway to the poorhouse and finish the stack of coffins. That's built to be generic and sometimes runs LB&SCR or LSWR or early GWR depending how I feel. There's a second microlayout (Llanast) which is a piano line design that is more of a shunting puzzle, and a third half built one (East Portillo) which is designed to look nasty 80/90's inner city. The final one I've just disassembled was a small BP&GV layout designed to use very small shunters and insanely tight curves. Unfortunately having turned a Farish 08 into an 08/9 its too sharp for the curves and the initial fix was a botch. It wants doing properly with easitrac and 6-7" hidden curves instead.
The actual layout proper I'm finally building now (a year and a half after it moving) has a current era 'what if' Snow Hill on one side. The idea being that the original Snow Hill merely got rationalised and the lines out survived. Part of one side (the bit that won't fit my 50cm width limit) has been deemed turned into offices and shops, and the rest then struggled on before expanding as New Street jammed up - becoming the Birmingham HS2 terminal, the logical route for the Arriva services and the London-Aberystwyth and other proposed things. The other side is Wadebridge roughly as it was in the late 1970s but without the two long sidings in front of the station (no space for them) and designed so once it's built it can operate in different BR green/blue modes plus modern and modern/preserved by the addition of the odd buffer stop and swap of a building. Not that I've built the buildings yet - my planned trip to Wadebridge last year didn't materialise due to university coursework pressure.
Plus various random entirely unrelated things like small black kit tank engines and other kit builds because I enjoy building kits, also because all the Ultima and Etched Pixels ones need testing so I tend to end up with various oddments. I've no idea for example how I'll ever fit the blue suburbans into anything I build !
The old layout was Devon/Cornwallish in 1976, which was fun but is now defunct, demolished and I need to sell more of the stock off to buy stuff for the modern era shiny colourful stuff.
There is a logic here I guess - both pregroup and modern have the best liveries and a sense of happening and progress, while the 1960/70s stuff (Wadebridge) can try and capture the dismal post Beeching era.
Mostly I just like making things - Snow Hill will be fun because I've no idea at all how I'll do the canopies etc even though I'm only doing one end of it.
Alan
Wow ! That is quite a collection... I love this...
QuoteRight now I've got a small microlayout for pre-grouping bits (85cm x 12cm) + fiddle which is actually mostly finished at this point. Still have to add the gateway to the poorhouse and finish the stack of coffins.
What a dark sounding layout - brilliant !
Also like the idea of very tight curves, shunting locos etc bit like a port or industiral site. Thats something i've wanted to try for a while, along with the hundreds of other great ideas i get on daily basis... Should write a book really ! :smiley-laughing:
Quote from: 4x2 on December 10, 2011, 09:17:11 PM
Wow ! That is quite a collection... I love this... QuoteRight now I've got a small microlayout for pre-grouping bits (85cm x 12cm) + fiddle which is actually mostly finished at this point. Still have to add the gateway to the poorhouse and finish the stack of coffins.
What a dark sounding layout - brilliant !
Right now its far too jolly hence the need for the addition.
I think the darkest plan I ever did but haven't ever had time to build is a passenger station by a food factory (Soylent Green)
Loving this too ! :thumbsup:
QuoteI think the darkest plan I ever did but haven't ever had time to build is a passenger station by a food factory (Soylent Green)
Hi Etched Pixels
You're right, the head codes were officially over by summer '76 but we still could see trains with them, a lot set to 0000 (or was it 0O00). I wonder if the reluctance of drivers to set the head code panels to blank or 0000 was why they became domino after a while. Seemed to be a bit of an unnecessary expense. It could have been because the displays were often a bit strange - maybe the drivers were just not setting them correctly and the confusion caused the change.
As I understand things, the powered signal boxes displayed the code on their mimic diagrams which is why they were regarded as redundant on the actual trains. Are they still displayed to the signalmen ?
BobB
Definitely 1953-63 ish. As for Region, Scottish of either side.
Late 50's/early 60's steam/green diesel. Western Region with visitors from Southern, Midland and Eastern Region.
A sort of catch all ::)
it must be the 90s on the southern region spent many a day at clapham watching 50s 33s going down the south west,thumpers epbs and double headed freights
im glad i got so much of that time on film
:Class414:
daz
Expose me to any railway for long enough (15 mins usually deos the trick) and it'll become my favourite for a while at least. For sheer staying power, though, it has to be SR around Farnborough/Aldershot in BR blue days. This area/time also had the best buses (Aldershot & District). Every little helps.
Then
:Class414:
came along and spoiled it all (sorry Tank).
For me it has to be British Railways Southern Region, evoking happy memories of a long distant childhood standing on the footbridge over the main Waterloo to Woking Main Line, just outside Wimbledon watching a variety of Bullied and Britannia Pacifics on the main routes mixed with EPBs on the suburbans plus the odd deisel - all green back then (early 1960's) with the occasional maroon coach don't recall any Blood & Custards.
Didn't realise back then that steam days were coming to an end - so never thought to take my camera along.
:Carriage:
Well ..Top of the list is LNER, with LMS a close second.. Grew up not far from the old GN lines at Ardsley/Tingley and Morley although most had gone when I was born :(
BR Blue is what I remember from been a nipper so also like that as well...
Cudders
Having done quite a lot of research I decided I liked my local area best (the Alton Line). I then decided I liked the eclectic mix of Green diesels, steam and electrics operating on the Southern Region during the mid-to-late '50s up to the mid-'60s. And then a relative (bless her) got me a NCB Class 14 in BR Blue! Good job the watercress line is not too far away because I can always do a "heritage" layout!
East/West Midlands, late eighties/early 1990's, railfreight era. :thumbsup:
LB&SCR and LSWR and then SR up to about 1960. My present layout is vaguely based on the Petworth, Midhurst and Chichester area in that era. I want a "Schools" in Southern livery! I'm looking forward to, but not holding my breath, for the Dapol Bulleids.
Must say I have a more than sneaking admiration for the LMS!
For me, late 1980s Inverness and Far North / Kyle lines.
class 37s and mk.1s
happy days