Right then. This might be a bit of a read, so if you don’t like silliness, fantasy, reminiscing, model railways, looking at pictures of the above, or graffiti. Look away now...
Still here?
Great!
Part 1.
As a follow on to this thread then:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/getting-started-in-railway-modelling.178767/
I thought I’d post the opposite...
Actually this isn’t the end of railway modelling for me. It’s basically a change of gauge (from 00 to N), and the final dismantling of my old loft layout which has lain mothballed in my old house which has been rented out for the last eight years...
I’ve started on the next one, but I’d like to acknowledge my last layout (slightly embarrassingly called ‘Ladderton’), and have a bit of a chuckle as it finally meets its end.
Taking it apart (there was no way it could’ve been removed without absolute destruction) made me think of all the great times I’d had with it, and here are a few of those times here:
1) Running full length trains made up of all the stuff I remember from my youth whilst drinking a glass of wine and watching them chase their tails...
2) Making different things for it of an evening with our young kids, my friends, Mrs C and anyone else that wanted to get involved.
3) Creating an extension which included a scrapyard and a really steep bank that only certain locos could manage with a loaded scrap train. Very enjoyable.
4) Turning the loft into our bedroom and lying in bed reading while the class 108 DMU trundled around our bed with all the lights on in the buildings and on the platforms.
5) Getting a photo of it into the Readers Railways section of Model Rail magazine (can’t find it at the moment but it’s around somewhere).
6) When Mrs C came around to stay for the first time about 11 years ago and she had absolutely no idea that I liked railways even though we’d been friends for a good few years...
I told her that I needed to show her something in the loft, and she said “Oh god, it’s not some kind of weird latex/rubber bondage room is it?”
I said “Oh god no. It’s far worse than that...”
7) The time I had 50007 ‘Sir Edward Elgar’ pulling seven very expensive Hornby Pullman coaches around with lights in, and didn’t notice that the rear six had become uncoupled before absolute disaster struck with the 50 ploughing into the rear of the train on the unfinished viaduct and the entire lot plummeting not only off the viaduct, but through the loft hatch and onto the floor below.
That still makes me wince ten years later...
8) Realising that I’d finally got the chance, room and finances to make the thing that I’d always wanted to make and had planned in my mind for years.
Yes it wasn’t perfect, but I absolutely loved it!
Part 2.
Ok. This is where the silliness and fantasy comes in...
Let’s just imagine that it was a real place for a moment?
(Yes I know that it wasn’t)
Here then, is the sad story of Ladderton...
Based somewhere on an alternative reality Exmouth/Paignton type place, which once received holiday trains aplenty, it’d become a shadow of its former self by the time it was eventually closed, and the only things to be seen in the former busy station was an infrequent DMU service train, and the odd train of stabled ballast wagons bound for Meldon as seen in this shot:
Here’s a few more shots from the area back then...
A few years later things got more serious, and one day the rail removal train turned up behind an 08...
The down line was the first to go as seen here (not my photos).
@J-Rod will be pleased to note that they do have their own toilet...
Once the down line had been removed they’d soon started on the up...
And that was the end of that.
I had a quick look over the fence last week and the only motive power left to be seen was an abandoned Ford Sierra as the trackbed slowly returned to nature...
The whole area is soon going to be redeveloped into a shopping centre apparently.
Although there has been talk recently of the whole world being removed and bit by bit being sold to Martians...
Goodnight.
Still here?
Great!
Part 1.
As a follow on to this thread then:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/getting-started-in-railway-modelling.178767/
I thought I’d post the opposite...
Actually this isn’t the end of railway modelling for me. It’s basically a change of gauge (from 00 to N), and the final dismantling of my old loft layout which has lain mothballed in my old house which has been rented out for the last eight years...
I’ve started on the next one, but I’d like to acknowledge my last layout (slightly embarrassingly called ‘Ladderton’), and have a bit of a chuckle as it finally meets its end.
Taking it apart (there was no way it could’ve been removed without absolute destruction) made me think of all the great times I’d had with it, and here are a few of those times here:
1) Running full length trains made up of all the stuff I remember from my youth whilst drinking a glass of wine and watching them chase their tails...
2) Making different things for it of an evening with our young kids, my friends, Mrs C and anyone else that wanted to get involved.
3) Creating an extension which included a scrapyard and a really steep bank that only certain locos could manage with a loaded scrap train. Very enjoyable.
4) Turning the loft into our bedroom and lying in bed reading while the class 108 DMU trundled around our bed with all the lights on in the buildings and on the platforms.
5) Getting a photo of it into the Readers Railways section of Model Rail magazine (can’t find it at the moment but it’s around somewhere).
6) When Mrs C came around to stay for the first time about 11 years ago and she had absolutely no idea that I liked railways even though we’d been friends for a good few years...
I told her that I needed to show her something in the loft, and she said “Oh god, it’s not some kind of weird latex/rubber bondage room is it?”
I said “Oh god no. It’s far worse than that...”
7) The time I had 50007 ‘Sir Edward Elgar’ pulling seven very expensive Hornby Pullman coaches around with lights in, and didn’t notice that the rear six had become uncoupled before absolute disaster struck with the 50 ploughing into the rear of the train on the unfinished viaduct and the entire lot plummeting not only off the viaduct, but through the loft hatch and onto the floor below.
That still makes me wince ten years later...
8) Realising that I’d finally got the chance, room and finances to make the thing that I’d always wanted to make and had planned in my mind for years.
Yes it wasn’t perfect, but I absolutely loved it!
Part 2.
Ok. This is where the silliness and fantasy comes in...
Let’s just imagine that it was a real place for a moment?
(Yes I know that it wasn’t)
Here then, is the sad story of Ladderton...
Based somewhere on an alternative reality Exmouth/Paignton type place, which once received holiday trains aplenty, it’d become a shadow of its former self by the time it was eventually closed, and the only things to be seen in the former busy station was an infrequent DMU service train, and the odd train of stabled ballast wagons bound for Meldon as seen in this shot:
Here’s a few more shots from the area back then...
A few years later things got more serious, and one day the rail removal train turned up behind an 08...
The down line was the first to go as seen here (not my photos).
@J-Rod will be pleased to note that they do have their own toilet...
Once the down line had been removed they’d soon started on the up...
And that was the end of that.
I had a quick look over the fence last week and the only motive power left to be seen was an abandoned Ford Sierra as the trackbed slowly returned to nature...
The whole area is soon going to be redeveloped into a shopping centre apparently.
Although there has been talk recently of the whole world being removed and bit by bit being sold to Martians...
Goodnight.
