Signs of the times

Something I have noticed lately is the challenge in the search for reference materials for things of the steam era. The earlier you go the more challenging it gets. One barrier that hits harder in the U.K. than in the U.S.A is the take up of colour photography. For my N-scale United States modelling there is no better colour photographic resource than the photos of Jack Delano. Sadly I have yet to find anything similar for the UK that is in colour in the 1940s or earlier. U.K Train photographs in colour tend to be from B.R days post Nationalisation. Mind you if someone can show me otherwise I would be most grateful :-)

Another thing that has made things challenging is the decline in books available new. I have been fortunate enough to get a mint new copy of John Lewis' "Great Western Railway Auto Trailers: Post-grouping and Absorbed Vehicles Pt. 2" but in searching for Part one more recently, I have only been able to find second hand copies. Not that there is anything wrong with that but to me the next step is that it is not available at all, which is an issue. This is only a specific example of many cases of trying to chase down material that has led to trying to find new avenues.

For the 16.5mm gauge (HO/OO Scale) layout I am working on at the moment, there is a siding that will be al the better for an engine shed. For extra interest I thought I might see if I could model it on something from the Exe Valley line. Turns out Tiverton Junction had a single track engine shed that seemed a good fit (though as the siding is so close to the edge of the layout, the shed will be truncated in at least one direction) So I looked through my books and did find some good photographs. Did I mention the photographs are black and white, all of them? Many modellers talk about making a model form photos and that's well and good but it is nice to be able to work with a dimension or two to get one started. So I tried searching for a plan or similar. I found mention of one here and at the time there was a link to a location in an archive in the U.K. Using the link I emailed the site to enquire about options for getting a copy of the document. The staff at the archive sent me a work request form to cover costs which I completed, scanned and returned. Having exchanged money for services, the archive staff then sent a high resolution set of scans of the blueprint. Doing some aligning, stitching and then finishing up, I have a plan that shows all the main dimensions of the shed including the smoke chimney.

So things have got to a whole new level (or depth depending on your point of view) for me in terms of acquiring material. Overall the experience has been positive though next time I might see if I can get multiple documents for the half hour of service you pay for.

The 16.5mm gauge (HO/OO Scale) layout I mentioned above will hopefully get photographed soon to add to an upcoming blog entry. Until next time.