If you’re going to have a non-specific factory, you’ll need box vans. For some reason, decent (i.e. not Triang, not Dublo, not Hornby-garish-private-owner) vans seem to be hard to come by. These ones are, left to right, a Dapol meat van, a Mainline Vanfit and a Hornby ex-Southern Railway van. I’ve tried to get some variation in terms of shape and colour, just to make shunting a bit more interesting. For some reason, I really like those Southern vans. I don’t know if meat vans were used for anything other than meat, but there’s one here anyway. Maybe it has the workmen’s lunch or something.

Speaking of workmen, you’ll notice there are none. I’ve been trying to find some typical steam age factory worker types and they are very difficult to get hold of. At least, to the level of detail I’m looking for. I don’t want something ready-painted, because frankly ready-painted figures look terrible. My brother is a wargamer, and having seen the results he and his fellow hobbyists get on their figures, the blobby paint jobs that seem to be the industry standard just won’t cut it for me.

The big difference between the way wargamers do things figure-wise and the way we do things (generally) is that wargamers appreciate that one thing you can’t scale down is light. Therefore, they paint light and shade on their figures – starting with a dark base coat, adding colours, then adding highlights. The results are, comparatively, spectacular.

This chap explains things far better than me.

http://www.brifayle.ca/2bshadowstheory.html

So, that’s how it’s done. And for my money, these are the best OO gauge figures on the market at the moment:

http://www.dartcastings.co.uk/montys.php

These are figures full of detail and character. The Workers, in the Railway Staff section, look to be exactly what I’m looking for, and I reckon they’ll come out just fine. I do have their Skipper and Vicar figures (I intend to paint them as Captain Haddock and Rev. W. Awdry respectively).

[Usual disclaimer - I have no link with the above other than as a satisfied customer. Although if Monty's would like to send me a load of figures in exchange for this plug I wouldn't say no]

The reason for my concern figure-wise is that, on a large layout, the somewhat short on detail and dubious-of-scale figures by Modelscene and Hornby would go unnoticed. On a layout this small, detail compromises tend to stick out like a sore thumb. That’s why I’ve been painting the track, as you see above. Still no ballast, but you know how it is.

It’s a café made out of an old coach. Not even a buffet car, just a regular BR composite coach on a length of track. I’m told the lemon drizzle cake is very good.

Externally, there are only a few differences from a standard passenger coach. A ventilation duct has been installed on top and a set of stairs leads up to the entrance. And, of course, there’s that livery. One might charitably describe it as “challenging,” but there’s no doubt that it catches the eye. You may wish for something simpler, although I understand a number of US firms produce graffiti decals. Don’t forget to paint over the kitchen windows.

The coach sits at right angles to the high street behind a fence in what appears to be a former school playground. At weekends, market stalls are set up here. If you’d like to see it for yourself, take the train to Deptford Bridge (which, I’m told, is the oldest railway station in London), come out of the station, turn right and it’s just a minute or two up the road.

It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s definitely something different for the modern image urban modeller.

It’s a thorny question. The counter-argument is that there are relatively few Scottish modellers. However, it’s also worth noting that people used to say exactly the same thing about the Southern, now superbly well-supplied.

The other point I would make is the Murphy’s Models argument. Irish railways were utterly unrepresented in the model market, other than in the form of a few reliveried and unambiguously British prototypes. Murphy’s Models leapt into that niche and made a success of it. I don’t think it’s ridiculous to suggest that the same thing could happen for Scottish railways, if enough people clubbed together and approached a manufacturer.

See, I’m a firm believer that sometimes the model creates the market. I know several people who own a Q1 but are not Southern modellers, but just like the engine. And it seems very unlikely to me that everyone who bought the NRM/Bachmann Deltic models the appropriate line/period for such an engine to make an appearance.

I’d suggest something like the Caledonian Railway 439 class, pictured left. It’s small, lasted a long time and is typically Scottish. 74 passed into BR service and one survives on the Bo’ness and Kinneil Railway.

The other suggestion I’d make is the Jones Goods, perhaps as a limited edition? These lasted well into LMS days and one, of course, survived into preservation. It performed on a number of railtours in BR days and would add a welcome splash of colour.

I’m no expert on Scottish railways, I have to admit, and would welcome all thoughts and comments from other folk.

It all started when I added a bit of grass (carpet fibres, available from the shop at Pendon Museum in their own scenic range). Unfortunately, this was a little more effective than I’d hoped, and really showed up the bare grey card. I added washes of light grey in various shades with various brown tints to make the card look a bit more like concrete. Here’s what the layout looks like with no stock, vehicles or buildings:

As you can see, I did add clutter. The buildings have loads stacked up against them, largely to ensure they get positioned correctly. The large crates and small barrels are from Gilbow – superb accessories, among the best on the market in my opinion. The other crates are Peco and the red-ended barrel is Merit.

The pile of sand is a discovery of my own. There’s this substance you can get in art shops known as gel medium. Essentially, the idea behind this is that you add it to paint to give your paintings texture. It comes in several varieties and can be easily shaped. It costs a little under £10 a jar, but is incredibly useful. I’ve used it to represent sand, gravel and pebble dash in the past. Here, I mixed it with Games Workshop’s “Snakebite Leather” paint, which creates a nice sandy colour.

The tractor is an Oxford die cast model and the car is Classix. I don’t intend to fix the vehicles down, as they’re a handy way of setting the period. I want this to be fairly flexible in terms of setting, just so that nothing I run there looks totally wrong.

Conceptually, this is basically a smaller version of “Micklewhite Wharf.” At the moment, it’s called “Semple Town,” which I hope people won’t take as a comment on its builder. It’s set in East London on the south bank of the Thames – the distant buildings on the backscene are supposed to be on the far side of the river. The name comes from the tendency of places in East London to be named after industrial firms – Canning Town, Silvertown, Beckton. This is the works of Harry Semple.

I have no idea what Semple’s factory produces, but it certainly requires a large variety of rolling stock. Much of this has been inherited from Micklewhite Wharf, for the obvious reasons that (a) it’s the same setting and (b) both layouts require compact stock in order to be satisfying to run.

Above left is the Terrier, the “main line” engine. It’s also the longest engine on the layout, which might be a first for a Terrier. It’s hauling the workmen’s train, which consists of repainted “Emily’s Coaches” from Bachmann’s Thomas the Tank Engine range. There’s barely enough room for the engine with both coaches, so most of the time the train will consist of one coach. The Terriers, as I’ve said before, were typical East London engines and could be found both north and south of the river.

Above right is Billy, a rather battered Bachmann Junior locomotive. For a while, Bachmann produced this and an 0-4-0 saddle tank using the tooling from their American Thomas range. Unfortunately, this got them in a bit of trouble with HIT Entertainment, Thomas’ copyright holders, and so have been withdrawn. Detailing is minimal and they’re basically freelance, but I think they look rather neat. I was going to repaint this one, but I think I might just weather him down a bit.

The engine on the left is another Bachmann Junior engine, this time a somewhat Hunslet-esque diesel shunter originally named Rusty. I’ve repainted it and slightly weathered it, and coincidentally it matches Billy’s colour quite well. The wagon immediately behind is a curiosity, and not actually mine. My brother picked it up second-hand, and due to a lack of space and time I am the current custodian of much of his stock. The lack of markings suggest it’s an internal user wagon. As the bro said, it’s quite a nice thing to have on a Docklands layout.

The railway still isn’t finished. The more I do, the more I find to do. I’m sure you know what I mean. But given that in terms of total hours I’ve spent less than a day to get this far (not including drying time for glue) and considering that I’ve spent less than £10, I’m quite pleased.

Now I’m thinking in terms of other micro-layouts. I’ve had lots of layout ideas over the years, but no room for them. Now I’m thinking in terms of a parcels depot, a Tube station, a harbour, a scrapyard, dabbling in O-16.5…

That out of the way, here’s my latest project. It may be the laziest layout ever built.

The concept is shamelessly stolen from various layouts Carl Arendt’s now-legendary website, Micro/Small Layouts for Model Railroads (link below). It was built in a boxfile. Most of the scenery was from the scrapbox, so total cost to me was £6. Quick run-down of the layout…

Base – Boxfile from W. H. Smith. I removed the end rather than try to hack through it. This caused the file to lose a lot of its stiffness, remedied by reinforcing the bottom with foamcore board.

Track (including buffer stops) – Hornby. The points were a fiver second-hand (RRP £12), which is why small local model shops with a good selection of second-hand stock are indispensible. Shout-out to Jane’s Trains in Tooting, possibly the best model shop in London.

Buildings – Metcalfe. I’ve had these for a while, and as you can see, they’re a little the worse for wear. The kit came with a sheet of card with extra details on – I cut the walls around the edge of the layout from this.

Ground – Grey card.

Backscene – Blue card. The buildings in the distance were cut out of National Trust leaflets (yet another reason to support the National Trust). I plan to add more buildings along the right-hand side, which currently looks rather bare.

Crane – From the Ertl Thomas the Tank Engine range. It’s currently awaiting a hook. In my opinion, this is a hugely underrated toy in modelling terms. Admittedly it’s freelance and could do with detailing, but cranes like this could be seen from the First World War right through to the 1970s. It could be used in almost any industrial scenario and, to my knowledge, there’s nothing quite like it on the market at the moment (not for that price, anyway).

The layout is almost finished in fact. Now, I know what you’re thinking. How can I say it’s nearly finished when I haven’t even ballasted the track? Well, here’s the thing. I don’t plan to. I actually quite like it the way it is. I know, sacrilege. I plan to add some clutter to distract the eye from the bare “concrete,” but otherwise the ground will stay as is.

Basically, I wanted a simple layout that I could actually get finished without getting bogged down or having to make expensive shopping trips for the scenery. It took a grand total of two evenings, not including the time it took to assemble the buildings (one evening). It’s not much, but I like it.

Further explanations will be forthcoming in the next entry.

See also

www.carendt.com – A Mecca for the enthusiast of the micro-layout.

A Collett 0-6-0 shows us how it's done.

However, in the meantime, here’s a nostalgic look at snow on British Railways circa 1963 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4pJwcE7JI. It’s a narration-free, slightly artsy collection of documentary footage set to a delightfully ’60s soundtrack.

57xx pannier and Toad brake van finish clearing the line.

As you might imagine, there’s plenty of snow-clearing footage, mostly on the Western Region as far as I can see. Other highlights include some prestigious diesel services featuring a Warship, a Western and the Blue Pullman (all of which was probably, again, filmed on the Western Region). The filmmaker has spliced in some old footage of LMS engines for variety and there are lots of evocative shots of day-to-day operation in what are now termed “adverse weather conditions.” Also for some reason we are treated to film of a gentleman eating his breakfast. All in all, a great resource for anyone planning a snow-set railway.

In America, this sort of model railway is not uncommon. That is largely because American companies tended to buy off-the-shelf, as it were, from major locomotive works. In Britain, this was the case for light railways, industrial railways and narrow gauge railways, but most of the main line companies tended to build in-house. Indeed, while there are layouts depicting fictional British railway companies, they do tend to be in the light railway/industrial railway/narrow gauge railway mould.

So to build a freelance main line is a slightly daunting prospect, as it rather suggests that some serious scratchbuilding is going to be a necessity to represent the weird-and-wonderful locomotives of your fictional company. Or is it? What got me thinking about the idea of a fictional company was the fact that a number of companies over the years have produced freelance locomotives in OO scale. There are enough, if you’re prepared to perform a little modification and sacrifice super-detail, to get a pretty complete locomotive fleet.

There are additional ways you might pad the loco stud out. While I noted above that most companies built in-house, it wasn’t unknown for engines from one company to end up on the lines of another. Midland ‘Jinties’ ended up on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway and the Northern Counties Commission in Northern Ireland. London, Brighton and South Coast ‘Terriers’ found their way on to the London and South Western Railway and the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Railway. Some London, Midland and Scottish Railway 8Fs could be found on the London and North Eastern Railway. Major companies even, in times of need, bought off-the-shelf, as with the LNER J94s.

Or – how’s this for an idea – suppose your company managed to poach a real-life locomotive designer? Say, your company convinced Stanier or Bulleid to work for them? You could run reliveried Black 5s or West Countries. Or even let your imagination run riot with might-have-been locomotive designs and failed projects. Suppose Bulleid was given the wherewithall to build a full run of Leaders? There’s no shortage of possibilities.

For now, here are the fictional classes I have in mind for my own layout, along with how they might be made. I’ve come up with my own very basic class numbering system.

B1

Description: An 0-4-0 side tank. Their small coal capacity meant that they were almost exclusively used for shunting.

In reality: Hornby’s Guest, Keen and Nettlefold ‘D’ class tank engine. Although this is based on a real locomotive, the body has been so stretched in order to fit the standard 0-4-0 chassis that it’s practically freelance.

B2

Description: A larger side tank, capable of trip working. Often used on branch lines.

In reality: Triang’s Nellie. This has been produced in several variants over the years. It’s theoretically based on an LSWR C12, but in reality looks almost nothing like it.

B3

Description: An 0-4-0 saddle tank, fitted with a bunker to increase its range. Primarily used for shunting, although capable of hauling short goods trains. Problems with adhesion led the designer to devise an unusual extended saddle tank for increased weight. This tank appeared almost to wrap around the engine’s boiler, leading the class to be nicknamed “sausage rolls.”

In reality: A Bachmann Junior 0-4-0.

B3X

Description: An enlarged version of the successful B3. They were used for much the same duties as that class of engine. Perhaps inevitably, they were nicknamed “jumbo sausage rolls” or simply “jumbos.”

In reality: A Hornby ‘Percy the Small Engine’ with face removed.

B4

Description: An 0-4-0 with extended side tanks designed for use on passenger service. They were noted for their superb acceleration, although they could be unstable at speed.

In reality: A Hornby Railroad ‘LBSC 0-4-0T’. This was originally manufactured in the guise of an 0-4-0 version of Thomas the Tank Engine.

B5

Description: A rugged 0-4-0 shunter intended for dock shunting and indeed, use anywhere where heavy loads needed to be moved around tight curves.

In reality: Hornby’s ‘International’ tank, a vaguely non-British-looking engine produced in the 1970s.

E1

Description: A mixed traffic 0-6-0 with extended side tanks. Essentially a larger, improved version of the B4, it was a highly successful design and formed the basis of a number of subsequent locomotives.

In reality: Bachmann’s Junior 0-6-0 tank of 2005. This, like the “prototype” of the B4 above, was based on tooling originally devised for a version of Thomas the Tank Engine, hence I’ve said that the E1 was derived from the B4.

E2

Description: A small class. The company bought five Jinties from the Midland Railway to augment the E1.

In reality: Er, a Jinty. Triang, Hornby or Bachmann.

E3

Description: Intended to be a modernised version of the E1, these locomotive bear many similarities to the earlier class.  The most obvious difference is that the E3 is a saddle tank. It bears a passing resemblance to the Austerity tank, although it predates that class by a good ten years.

In reality: The current Bachmann Junior 0-6-0 saddle tank. This uses the same chassis as the earlier Junior 0-6-0, and so I’ve accounted for this by saying that, again, one locomotive was based on the other.

ED1

Description: A one-off 1930s experiment in diesel traction, using the frames of a withdrawn E1. Its designer had hoped to replace the railway’s tank engines with diesel traction. Unfortunately, while the engine was fine for shunting, it had very poor acceleration and low speed, and was virtually unusable for trip working. No further members of this class were built.

In reality: The Bachmann Junior diesel shunter. This uses the standard Junior 0-6-0 chassis, and so I’ve said that it uses a steam locomotive’s frames. It wasn’t unknown for this to happen with early diesel shunters. For instance, I know Sentinel used the same frames for their early diesels as for their vertical boilered steam shunters.

ED2

Description: Another one-off 0-6-0 diesel experiment carried out with the assistance of English Electric. As a result, it bore a strong resemblance to early diesel shunters of the LMS, LNER and Southern Railway. However, unlike those, the aim with this engine was to again produce a mixed traffic locomotive capable of doing anything a tank engine could. The resulting engine was a failure on trip working due, again, to low speed and poor acceleration. Furthermore, it was unreliable, and ended its days as a mobile generator.

In reality: The Triang 0-6-0 shunter, which looks almost but not quite like a Class 08. A lot of early diesel shunters bore a resemblance to the Class 08s, even if they weren’t directly related to them. Therefore it’s not too ridiculous to suggest that another “almost-08″ was constructed experimentally.

G1

Description: A Victorian 4-4-2 passenger tank designed for commuter trains. Although fast, they were incapable of hauling the longer commuter trains and so were relegated to secondary services by the First World War.

In reality: A Bachmann ‘Emily’ from their Thomas range. This character is based on a Great Northern Railway Stirling ‘Single’. My version is being converted into a tank engine, with the tender reserved for an I1.

H1

Description: A 4-4-0 passenger engine used mostly for secondary passenger services and pilot duties, although they could occasionally be found substituting on expresses.

In reality: A Bachmann ‘Edward’ from their Thomas range with face removed and a more realistic tender (haven’t decided what, though). The tender supplied is utterly hopeless as a scale model.

I1

Description: Known as the ‘Small Moguls,’ these were basically a tender version of the now-legendary E1s. Like the H1s, they were capable of pulling occasional express trains. However, they were primarily used for secondary passenger services and fast goods.

In reality: A Bachmann ‘James’, again from the Thomas range, with the tender from the aforementioned ‘Emily’. As you may have guessed, this also uses the Junior chassis, this time with the addition of a pony truck.

I2

Description: The ‘Large Mogul’, a powerful mixed traffic engine which really came into its own for heavy goods work. Indeed, they were the favoured class for these duties.

In reality: Hornby’s version of James. This is larger than the Bachmann version, being a modified version of Triang’s hopeless 3F tender engine. The extended front and Schools Class tender serve to make this a freelance engine.

J1

Description: A 4-6-0 intended for heavy freight but, in reality, offering no advantages over the established I2. However, they were excellent passenger locomotives and, before the arrival of the K1s, were reckoned to be the best express engines on the railway.

In reality: Bachmann’s ‘Henry,’ yet again from the Thomas range. This engine, in the original Railway Series books, is based on a Black 5. In the TV series it looks like no engine living or dead.

K1

Description: The railway’s first Pacific. The J1 ‘s success as an express engine was noted, but it was not without its faults. The rear of the locomotive looked somewhat ungainly, being unsupported, and the unusually large cab windows were prone to breakage . The K1 was designed to correct these faults, and also boasted a larger boiler. The resulting engine was perhaps not as elegant as the Pacifics developed on other railways in the 1920s, but it was more than capable of the jobs it was given.

In reality: Yes, once again, it’s from the Bachmann Thomas range. This time it’s Gordon, which uses many of Henry’s chassis components. It’s commonly asserted that Gordon is based on a Gresley A3, but in fact there’s not much of a resemblance. Hence, again, I feel no guilt whatsoever for claiming it as a freelance model. However, the tender is again hopeless and will be replaced.

K2

Description: A somewhat inelegant Pacific with inside motion, developed in the mid-1930s to work the routes for which the K1 was too heavy. The resemblance to the LMS ‘Princess Royal’ class has been noted, and allegations of industrial espionage against Crewe have been made, although never proved. In fact, given that this engine has few similarities to the Princess beyond the visual, the theory is largely discredited.

In reality: A Triang Princess. These were too short to be considered ‘scale models,’ and didn’t have outside motion – once again, it’s a case of an engine that’s bad enough to be freelance.

So there you go – 18 different classes of locomotive, sufficient to cover most duties on a railway. These aren’t the only freelance or semi-freelance models that have been produced, not by a long way. With a little imagination you could probably do a lot more, but I hope I’ve proven that it’s possible to create a freelance fleet. In future entries, I hope to explore the fictional company a bit more.

Speaking of airport services, a train pack that has piqued my interest is the ‘Imperial Airways’ pack. This consists of a T9, a Pullman composite, a Maunsell brake coach and a bogie utility van, all in Southern livery. This replicates the service that ran out of London Victoria, serving the Imperial Airways airfield at Southampton. Due to the lightly-laid track, the T9 was about the only express engine capable of using the route. I’ve often thought it would be an interesting service to model. AND I WAS RIGHT.

The Railroad range has a number of new additions this year. The GWR County and LMS Patriot have been added, as have the old Lima Class 40 and Class 33. One that rather caught my eye, though, was this:

It’s a freelance 0-4-0 finished in the livery of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. A neat little model and rather appealing. It appears to be based on the LBSC E2, which was an 0-6-0. But I do wonder how this works in terms of copyright.

Allow me to explain. Bachmann, as I have explained before, holds the licence to produce Thomas the Tank Engine characters for the North American market. A few years back (2005 I believe) they introduced the Junior range in the UK. The locomotives for this were an 0-6-0 side tank and an 0-4-0 saddle tank, both rather freelance-looking but nice enough in their way (I own both, and crude though they are, they have a certain charm). Unfortunately, the tooling they used to make these was developed from the Thomas range. As a result, they got into a bit of trouble with HIT Entertainment, who own the copyright for Thomas. They have since withdrawn those original Junior engines and introduced a generic 0-6-0 saddle tank and diesel shunter.

The problem, you see, was that Bachmann’s tooling was specifically developed for the Thomas range. Hornby can get away with using the same tooling for, say,  Oliver the Western Engine that they use for the 14xx in their regular range because the 14xx was developed first. Now, the engine you see above was originally developed for a battery-powered starter set in Hornby’s Thomas range. That is to say that it was specifically developed as a Thomas character. This, I think, might cause them to fall foul of the same problems as Bachmann. I hope they don’t, as it’s a delightful little engine.

Further Reading

http://www.semgonline.com/steam/e2_class.html - The E2

I think the most interesting lot of models, certainly if you’re a diesel person, is in Heljan’s range. We’re promised Lion, the Class 23, the Class 14, the Class 15 and, rather out of left-field, models of all four types of four-wheeled railbus used on British Railways (AC, Park Royal, Wickham and Waggon und Maschinenbrau).

There’s even an all-but-confirmed rumour that Bachmann are to bring out a ready-to-run City of Truro. Everyone’s sworn to secrecy at the moment, but here are the facts as reported in the modelling press.

• Bachmann is producing a top-secret model.
• One of the major manufacturers has been developing a model of City of Truro in secret.
• Bachmann produced a hugely successful model of Deltic for the National Railway Museum and have been looking for a follow-up.
• They carried out a poll and City of Truro was the National Collection locomotive most wanted.

Basically, this is the worst kept secret since Watergate. I look forward to it, I think City of Truro is a fine and elegant locomotive and I have no doubt that sales will be through the roof, particularly if they produce it as it looked when performing railtours in the 1950s.

No word on Hornby’s programme yet, so I’ll no doubt be scouring their website as intently as is possible with a roaring hangover on New Year’s Day.

So, what’s next for the major manufacturers? Well, frankly, I think all bets are off. Take a look at the list above and take a look at some of the models we’ve already had in recent years - the ‘Clan’, the 4-CEP, Falcon, Kestrel, Deltic, Class 17, Q1, T9, the Devon Belle Observation Car. These are models that, not too long ago, would have been considered risky if not downright insane for anyone to produce ready-to-run. Yet even the economic climate hasn’t slowed the flow of oddities. So, these would be my wild guesses.

• The Class 35, better known as the Metrovick Co-Bo, better known still if you grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine as Boco. It’s the really obvious gap in the diesel range at the moment.
• DP2, the super-Deltic produced in the 1960s. No more ridiculous than some of the one-offs Heljan has been producing, it was basically a regular Deltic externally. Bachmann, over to you.
• Duke of Gloucester. A one-off, but it’s an obvious gap in the range of BR Standards. It’s back in the news at the moment and, of course, has done extensive work in preservation.
• Come to think of it, the other BR standards, namely the 3MT 2-6-0 (i.e. the tender variant of Bachmann’s recent tank) and the 2MT 2-6-0 and 2-6-2T.
• Upgraded GWR coaching stock. Given Hornby’s upgrade of their Castle class, this is an obvious accompaniment.
• An upgraded GWR King. Generally, upgraded GWR stuff.
• Hornby, I have no doubt, will continue to expand the Railroad range. I’d imagine the old Castle and Schools class will find their way there. There’s a fair bit of Lima that would go quite well there, I’m hoping to see the LNER J50 and GWR 94XX.
• Electric traction is obviously neglected at the moment. So, BR Classes 81-85, the EM1 and EM2 for Easterners and the Class 71 and 74 for Southerners. I note that Hornby have been advertising catenary recently – preparing the ground?
• Obviously it depends how sales of Bachmann’s new 4-CEP go, but it does seem to be the dawning of the age of the old-skool Southern EMU at the moment. I would imagine a pre-war unit such as a 2-HAL to be a good choice, as it complements existing models but is reasonably different in outline.
• People keep on asking for the Blue Pullman. Will someone finally grant them mercy?
• Hornby have re-released the Dean Single and Caledonian Single in a number of guises. The one veteran from the Triang range that hasn’t been re-released is Rocket. Could this be its year?

Those are just my guesses for now, but as I say, nothing is too ridiculous at the moment. Nothing at all.

Which is why I was intrigued by a new book in the popular Haynes manual series. The Thomas the Tank Engine Owners’ Workshop Manual (1945 onwards). The book promises to be a technical guide to how Thomas and his friends work and how the railways of Sodor operate (probably at a loss).

This is far from being the first technical guide to Thomas and friends, but it’s the first one to tie in with the television series (as opposed to the original books) and the first one to be aimed specifically at young children. The television series has long been criticised for moving further and further away from railway realism, so this would seem to be a return to the good old days.

The book features cutaway drawings of Thomas, Gordon, Percy and Mavis (illustrating a side tank engine, a tender engine, a saddle tank and a diesel-mechanical shunter respectively) plus Trevor the Traction Engine and Harold the Helicopter. There’s also a diagram of how steam engines work and an explanation of how an engine is built, driven and maintained, including a section on the time Henry was rebuilt. An article called ‘The Tracks of Sodor’ explains the basics of railway operation and ‘Old and New Engines’ gives a history of locomotive design (The First Steam Engines, Narrow-Gauge Engines, The First Express Trains, Newer Steam Engines and Diesel Engines) using characters from Sodor as reference points. One niggle here is that Fergus is used to illustrate the first steam engines when he is in fact an Aveling Porter traction engine locomotive – not the pinnacle of modernity, but hardly a pioneer of steam. Given that Rocket has appeared in the books, it would surely make more sense to use him/her/it for this section.

There are a few factual hiccups – for one thing, I’d seriously dispute the article on how an engine is built (the cab before the firebox?). From the point of view of the fictional Thomas universe, the manual includes a number of sometimes quite obscure factoids from the books hitherto ignored by the TV series (Henry was built as an experiment, Sodor has a bridge to the Mainland, there’s a rack-and-pinion railway up Culdee Fell), but ignores others (the existence of the little-seen electric railway to Peel Godred is denied). Rather than going with the idea that Henry was entirely rebuilt into a Black 5 following the story ‘The Flying Kipper’, this book states that he was simply given a larger firebox. This, I suppose, explains why the Henry in the TV series looks nothing like a Black 5.

All in all, despite a few nitpicks, I’d say this was a perfect present for a young Thomas fan. Older children might find it a little basic, but for the young ‘uns it’s a simple introduction to a complex subject, easy to understand and clearly illustrated and just generally Really Useful.

Further Reading

http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/ - Martin Clutterbuck’s site on the technical side of Thomas, with some contributions by Yours Truly.