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
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.
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
Some charming figures – Illustration by J.R. Sinclair from H G Wells’ “Floor Games” of 1911
Cheap and charming civilians, especially period ones in 54mm, are still hard to find. Not much has changed since 1911 then!
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/railway-civilians-54mm-size/
Working again researching and blog posting about H.G. Wells’ book “Little Wars” of 1911, I was reminded of this great illustration page of characters.
This book was expanded by H. G. Wells from a small end section of “Floor Games” of 1911 into two magazine articles and the famous book.
The charming railways section of “Floor Games” is explored and illustrated more here:
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 5 December 2021
A Russian Civil War armoured trains gaming scenario from the Wargaming for Grown Ups website:
http://wargaming4grownups.blogspot.com/2021/10/now-with-added-trains.html
The Bennett Brook Railway channel of railway archive films on YouTube shows Training films on everyday tasks such as track maintenance in the age of steam, including these great 1950s track gang.
To me they look just like the Airfix track workers still available from Dapol.
You can access the channel via YouTube through their railway newsreel archive posts such as: https://youtu.be/MGszU8cA8_I
It’s all the everyday detail that make such films fascinating.
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN on Sidetracked, 28 December 2020.
The Last Train from Southwold 1929
Southwold Railway History
http://www.southwoldmuseum.org/transport_Railway.htm
Precious post link to Southwold Railway
As featured in
https://sidetracked2017blog.wordpress.com/2020/12/20/more-curious-railways-on-british-newsreels/
I like the corner compactness of this layout, gaming as I often do tucked away onto a corner table. Another vanished Short Line, this time in Stiperstones, Shropshire.
Another stray article that caught my attention in old Railway Modeller magazines I was lent, this one by Roy Link from Railway Modeller February 1979.
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN on his occasional Sidetracked blog, December 2020
In the days of pop up shops, and Peter Dennis’ Paperboys soldiers, what about a pop up book railway?
I bought this over ten years ago quite cheaply at a seaside Pound Store / remainder bookshops type shop.
Illustrations by Michael Welply. 1997 Piggy Toes Press, produced for the Book People.
Illustrator Michael Welply http://michaelwelply.com/about/ has also painted the illustrations for certain American Army related Osprey titles.
Instant railways that go round and round are always fun, even if the clockwork engine here runs down very fast.
The PRESS HERE sound card worked well enough but the tiny batteries now need replacing (housed neatly in the Station Cafe central block).
Shhh! Don’t startle the deer and the rabbits …
I like the simple American country station halt.
What delighted me about this was the pop up rural Americana buildings.
Barns, schoolhouse, railway station, town hall – straight out of Little House on the Prairie or my favourite and wistful Americana website (and Facebook page) Forgotten Georgia http://forgottengeorgia2.blogspot.com
If I had seen another of these books at the time, I’m sure I would have stripped one for buildings or stuck them down a bit more permanently and adapted them for Airfix figures.
Shootout at the station OOHO Airfix figures. My Train in a Tin sadly doesn’t run on these ‘rails’
Instead of cutting it up and sticking it all down ‘better’ I will enjoy it for the peaceful instant pop up whimsy that it is!
Blogposted by Mark Man of TIN on Sidetracked, his railway / gaming blog.
Sidetracked 