Page 11 - NMRA Roundhouse September October 2020

Rolling stock design
Mr Stroudley’s predecessor, JC Craven, resigned in 1869 when the LBSC Board asked him to reduce the number of classes of locomotives he had built ~ a reasonable request because seventy-two different designs made maintenance an expensive headache.
As a charitable gesture towards JC Craven, Mr Stroudley recommended that the NT&FT employ his nephew, CJ Cra- ven as their design engineer. CJ Craven was a disciple of the artist MC Escher, often quoting his dictum that “only those who attempt the absurd will achieve
the impossible. I think it is in my base- ment... let me go upstairs and check.” The ingenious consequences of this are plain to see. After a decade in charge
he was declared insane and now happily runs a garden railway that he has built in the grounds of the Fairy Toot Home for Distressed Gentlefolk.
A ‘Scale’ Model?
Since 1951, several modellers have built “Emett Railways” and the genre received a new lease of life when Michael Rayner trading as Smallbrook Studios started to produce ‘Emett Kits’. I’ve built two of his locos.
Emett’s 1951 railway ran on a gauge of 15 inches sometimes known as ‘mini- mum gauge’.The most prolific ‘minimum gauge’ modellers are the Gn15 fraternity who use 00 track 16.5mm gauge to rep- resent 15ins gauge. Instead of a journal they keep in touch with a large website that is worth a visit.
The G designation is derived from LGB Lehmann Grosse (Big) Bahn models, introduced in 1968, using 45mm gauge track No.1 scale track to represent me- tre narrow gauge, so the scale is 1:22.5 roughly twice the size of O scale’s 1:43 or 7mm to the foot.
1:22.5 is an awkward measurement so G scale modellers have adopted various ratios ranging from the 1:19 used by the 16mm to the foot fraternity they model 2 foot narrow gauge using 32mm
O scale track to the 1:24 of H scale. So, that was also a new one to me: half an inch to the foot to represent 3ft 6ins ‘Cape Gauge’.
It’s all a bit confusing! Rayner originally marketed his Emett kits as Gn15 scale 1:22.5 but found that this confused so many potential customers that he now advertises them as 1:24 or half inch scale ~ which is what the doll’s house fraternity who traditionally model at 1:12 call “half-scale”.
All of which means that we can ‘mix and match’ a wide range of parts and accessories sold for 1:19, 1:22 and 1:24 modelling. OK, there are discrepancies but that’s part of the fun when model- ling Emett railways.
Look closely and you will find all sorts of oddities.There’s various bits of Lego; caps from toothpaste and Steradent tubes; and one loco is finished off with parts from a lavatory flush system that I recently replaced.
Bob Machin
Every model railway needs a name and an Emett railway requires something odd. I was going to invent something until I saw a road sign near Bristol Airport pointing to the village of Nempnett Thrubwell.The discovery that the parish also has a prehistoric burial mound called Fairy Toot clinched it.
Since the finances of the NT&FT are now somewhat precarious, we maintain and repair rather than replace Mr Cra- ven’s eccentric designs. Unfortunately, some railway enthusiasts believe that we have a duty to do so and the threat that the NT&FT may soon be declared a “na- tional treasure” has led the Company to consider a modernisation scheme before its railway has a preservation order.
ROUNDHOUSE - September/October 2020 - 75th Anniversary Issue
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