I found this charming small railway online (following a post by Mike Siggins) and thought I’d share it with you. It’s on Facebook …
And the videos are also available on Facebook
Such as this Youtube clip https://youtu.be/c-w20_Q0HTg
It’s a cheery, jokey, charming, colourful and beautifully detailed layout and project. Well worth watching.
Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN 8 January 2023
Our budget Polar Express made a Christmas appearance on the Christmas lunch table, quickly assembled with whatever there was to hand …
Trains don’t usually run on Christmas Day but this special one did.
The centrepiece of our Christmas table and family lunch today.
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Delivering the Tiny Christmas Tree, the wobbly jelly and the iced Christmas cake ….
Past the large Colman’s Mint Sauce advertising hoarding, HG Wells style …
A few passengers and staff wait on platforms, along with barrels and wine.
Past the Polar Bear and the Snowman and the Frozen Reindeer …
Past the forest of lovely wooden fir trees …
Past the old wooden horse bus or waggon
Then back in the box after Christmas!
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The track and rolling stock is a mixture of my instant battery Train in a Tin and the larger set from Fred Aldous, seen here in my 2017 post:
Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Blog post by Mark Man Of TIN, 25 December 2022
I stuck this illustration (from Railway Modelling magazine? c. 2012?) in my scrapbook as it reminded me of modeller Stan Catchpol’s column in Military Modelling magazine in the 1980s.
Drawn by Ian C. Robinson
I like the Lilliputian / Borrowers aspects of the tiny railway people coming alive to build your ‘model’ railway / their normal railway …
Blog post by Mark Man Of TIN, 4 December 2022
Two interesting pages from a random issue of Railways magazine Volume 3, No. 21 January 1942 which I scanned before I passed them on.
Above is a 1941 era Cruiser tank “en route to embarkation points” – official LNER photograph – and obviously a propaganda shot. such open daytime shipping shows our allied armoured might, replacements only a year and a half after the disastrous loss of tanks at Dunkirk and the Fall Of France in May 1940.
And now from WW2 to the American Civil War (amongst the early Wars to use railroads)
“Shoo! Fly! don’t bother me!
For I belong
to Company G!”
This 1860s minstrel song instrumental can be heard here on this Library Of Congress https://www.loc.gov/item/afcreed000121/
According to Wikipedia: “Shoo Fly” is among the songs (“John Brown’s Body” is another) claimed as compositions by T. Brigham Bishop.
According to Bishop’s account, he wrote “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me” during the Civil War while assigned to command a company of black soldiers.
One of the soldiers, dismissing some remarks of his fellow soldiers, exclaimed “Shoo fly, don’t bother me,” which inspired Bishop to write the song, including in the lyrics the unit’s designation, “Company G”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoo_Fly,_Don%27t_Bother_Me
Wikipedia also mentioned a Spanish-American War troop connection in the 1898: “when flies and the yellow fever and mosquito were a serious enemy.
Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album
(about 22 minutes) in on Join Bing and Sing Along (1959)
and its the second track on the Disney Children’s Songs album No. 3https://youtu.be/49kPW5E9L5E
… notably without the Company G part.
So Shoo Fly – temporary railway loop or American Civil War minstrel lyric sung by black (Union?) Soldiers (of the USCT US Coloured Troops?)
And the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B? That’s another story, another war and another Company.
Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN, 7 October 2022
Postscript
I have not followed this Anne Parrish link up for The Perpetual Bachelor (1925) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Parrish
One of the joys of looking at model railways for me (a non-railway modeller from a railway modelling family) are the landscaping, buildings, figures and scenics.
This includes the Peco backdrops of city, town, seaside, mountain and country.
The urban ones have little joke puns about the shop names or owners, much as model villages often do.
One example below is Tim Burr and son – carpenters or wood shop. Others may be people the Peco artist knew (the same thing was done in the original Airfix railway building range).
Can you spot any other pun names? The pub. The mineral water factory. The chippy.
The details shown are from two scenes from Peco:
Medium SK45 Old Industrial Town – Centre Sheet
Medium SK46 Old Industrial Town – Extensions.
These painted backscenes were done by Peco employee and artist Jack Whealdon in the 1960s and 1970s. He must be one of the most familiar, affordable and frequently purchased landscape painters in the world!
I use these country and city scenes as backdrops for displaying my figures, once painted …
My Salvation Army Life Saving Scouts and Guards (Guides)
… and as the backdrop to my tabletop games.
I like imagining the lives of the characters and the conversations going on between them. Characters chat outside the pub or across the road by the chippy. Washing blows on the line in the backyard. A rickety fence needs a bit of work. Here a woman leans from an upstairs window, maybe to chat to a man cleaning windows – a neighbour or a window cleaner?
This could be any Midlands or Northern Town, a little like Coronation Street on a sheet or two of backing paper.
Looking a little closer though, I noticed a different type of humour. Not shop name puns but a glimpse of a lady undressing with the windows open.
A cheeky touch of seaside postcard humour here , glimpsed by some of the sharper eyed model railway commuters as the train trundles by?
Cheeky Peco!
Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN, 30 August 2022
In £1 packets, I picked up every one they had on a railway modelling stall at a recent West Country Steam Fair, my first Fair since the pandemic and 2019. This haul was £8 worth.
I have not yet posted the 54mm plastic figure haul from 2018 – one for a rainy day!
Plastic Soldier Review http://plasticsoldierreview.com/review.aspx?id=366
The 1961 Airfix Civilians set designed by John Niblett. Its box art of urban Britain is just about how I remember it as a late 1960s / early 70s child. These Civilian figures have not been available since 1973 to 1975.
I grew up with a few of these civilian oddities mixed in as ‘personalities’ mixed in with my motley mix of HO/OO toy soldiers.
I like the description of the characters on the box back – 
Image from Airfix’s Little Soldiers, Jean-Christophe Carbonel – I like the silhouettes of the figures.
The struggling postman with mail sack has lots of character. It’s good to be able to name and identify poses – although some are not now quite PC? (2 Fat Men)
These Station Accessories and mix of railway figures and workers are often not listed with military figures in some Airfix reference books. They feel a little forgotten, less familiar or undiscovered.
Plastic Soldier Review ‘Station Accessories’ review page:
http://plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=430
Image source: the lovely Dapol website – pure Airfix purchasable nostalgia
Wonderfully Airfix Railway figures are all still available from Dapol in hard grey plastic including this old 1960s Platform Figures and Accessories set.
These are slight and slender (HO 1:87 maybe according to Plastic Soldier Review?) in comparison to the chunkier 1961 Airfix Civilians above and later 1970s Airfix. This is in the same way perhaps that first version 1960s Airfix figures such as Infantry Combat Group, German Infantry, 8th Army and Afrika Korps are small compared to their 1970s larger Airfix second versions.
Worth mentioning that those familiar Airfix building kits – the thatched cottage, Church, windmill, Tudorbethan house and others – are still available from the same Dapol website.
Other former Airfix figures still available from Dapol:
Airfix Platform Accessories (and figures)
https://www.dapol.co.uk/shop/model-accessories/self-assembly-oo-kits/c012-station-accessories-514
Airfix Railway Workmen
Airfix Platform Figures https://www.dapol.co.uk/shop/model-accessories/self-assembly-oo-kits/c008-platform-figures-set-of-36-510
Blog posted by Mark Man Of TIN on 31 August 2022
These are some of the shad(ow)y railway characters that turned up in Lockdown April 2020.
I think they look quite striking in dark painted undercoat, like mysterious silhouettes or Cluedo game pieces from the 1920s and 1930s.
They were bought as civilians and NPCs (Non-Player Characters) for my Scouting Wide Games and snowball fight projects to go alongside my LBB30 STS Shiny Toy Soldiers 42mm range Boy Scout figures.
These plastic figures needed a bit of height to be adults alongside my strapping Boy Scouts, so I mounted the adults on 1p MDF and penny pieces.
A bit of research suggests that they are hard to find ex-Lionel Railway stock (USA). Now out of production and widely sold out (including from my original supplier below), they were sold or marked as O figures.
What would your Demilitarised DMZ Book Choice be for World Book Day 3 March 2022?
Here’s mine, time to visit a quiet bunch of vanished and surviving branchlines and Short Line railroads …
Read or see more at Man of TIN Blog Two:
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/dmz-no-4-dmz-book-choice-for-world-book-day
Blog posted / cross posted on my Sidetracked blog by Mark Man of TIN, World Book Day 3 March 2022
In place of the promised tankettes and Tankette Tuesday, here is the DMZ demilitarised version: Tank Engine Tuesday
Tank Engine Tuesday? No that’s not engines for tanks. I once saw a Matilda tank engine for sale on EBay and thought for a moment, it’s a start. A Matilda Tank on the Front Lawn would certainly be a conversation piece …
Anyway a DMZ demilitarised look at my occasional Sidetracked blog, where my gaming life sometimes overlaps with railways and model railways.
Ben, this lovely beast of a Tank Engine is still lurking in the family toy cupboards, along with this vintage handmade station with its tin and card adverts
“Bill and Ben are based on the Bagnall 0-4-0STs “Alfred” and “Judy” of Par [Docks] in Cornwall, who are both preserved and in working order at the excellent Bodmin and Wenford Railway in Cornwall.”
“According to the foreword of Thomas and the Twins, Alfred and Judy are both Bill and Ben’s twins. Alfred was once repainted yellow for a Days Out with Thomas event, to resemble Bill.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_characters_in_The_Railway_Series
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Railways are one DMZ demilitarised and relaxing modelling way of keeping the crafting modelling hands busy during current disquieting events.
Its an occasional itch – I come from a Model Railway Family (we’re all about 1 inch tall, made of plastic and don’t move around much).
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Peter Dennis’ versatile civilians from his Little Wars, 54mm Paperboys – great passengers!
One of the attractive sections of H.G. Wells’ Floor Games (1911) is the ‘lectric, or clockwork engines, the photographs of the cities and islands by his wife Amy Catherine (“Jane”) Wells and the charming drawings by illustrator J.R. (John Ramage) Sinclair.
Floor Games 1911
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The most attractive parts of railway modelling has always been the scenics and especially the figures, often a useful (but sometimes expensiv e source) of civilians for my DMZ Demilitarised Games – snowballers, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts / Guides …
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/railway-civilians-54mm-size/
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/fogman-and-brazier/
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Some interesting DMZ reading and viewing
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Why not Do a Snooville? I remember this at the time from the family Railway Modeller magazine! https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2019/10/13/do-a-snooville/
Much as I like British railways and vanished quirky branch lines, I also like American railroads, Mixed Train Daily and Short Lines (Hello citizens of Bowdon!)
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/10/20/railcars-and-rural-america-mixed-train-daily/
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I also like pop up instant railways
whether in a tin,
a pop up book https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/05/22/pop-up-railway-americana/
or a Wild West battery train set and birdhouse trackside station
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2018/07/14/the-wild-wilko-western-express/
Set up and taken down in minutes. Instant fix. Quick joy.
Even a quirky pen and ink digital railway?
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/short-trip-by-alexander-perrin/
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Why not take it around in a suitcase?
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/spain-in-a-small-case/
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Taken from my occasional blog – https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN, 1st March 2022
Sidetracked 