Weekend World Of Fantasy 1

Cornelius Chuddery

It is passing possible that out loyal readers may not have heard of Cornelius, but he features in a two page spread in the October edition of Railway Modeller. Watchers of the social scene of the early 21st century will recognise a proponent of "Steampunk"! 

The garb, Victorian clothing plus goggles and gears on a top hat, is the "uniform" of this genre. The sitz-im-leben is that Victorian engineering and steam power continued to be developed and found its way into all avenues of daily life in the form of weird and wacky machines. 

fbb has some feeling for the concept when, in his early teens, he spent a weekend on a farm in company with a school chum called Jacob. Apart from helping with a few farmyard chores (moving a flock of cows from one field to the next - terrifying!) part of the fun was building a "thing".

It was to float on the pond and its non-working mechanism consisted of on eclectic collection of old clock parts, vintage electrical bits and oddments picked up in the farmyard.

It was a joy to behold as it floated gracefully in the goo at the pond's edge. 

A few weeks later Jake reported that a cow had trod on it and destroyed "The Thing" utterly!

So Cornelius has built a model railway replicating the fantasy world of Steampunk.

His fantasy world mixes dinosaurs with rockets and has track balanced precarious on poles. 

You can almost hear "traditional" railway modellers tutting into their mugs of tea!

But Cornelius Chuddery doesn't care - he enjoys his steam punkery! Sometimes he uses his 21st century persona of normality - Laurie Calvert

But surely ALL railway modelling is fantasy? We are creating our own world, bending time, size and fact to create something we enjoy. It may not be "correct" but it conveys an "impression" - in that sense our next item is just as fantastical ...

fbb Gets It Wrong - Again!

Another article in the RM caught fbb's eye. It is a layout entitled "Sonning" described by its creator Martin Kirkham. It is a large, long layout replicating the much photographed Sonning cutting on the GWR main line out of Paddington.

Martin has also included a lovely model of Sonning station ...

... complete with its four platforms and typical GWR foorbridge.

Whilst fbb's modelling skills are minimal, he does admire such skills in others. So he set about to find pictures of the real Sonning Station to compare excellent model with reality.

Sadly, there was nothing to be found on the interwebnet, which fbb found strange. Usually there is a wealth of corroborative material on line.

There was a possible reason for this information shortfall.

There never was a station at Sonning! It is pure fantasy!

Collapse of stout party!

Nearby is Twyford (to the east); where the new lifts and footbridge combo somewhat destroys the original GWR quaintness of the station.

Here the branch to Henley Upon Thames diverges. Henley is now just a single track station ...

... bit does have staff, a proper station building and, appropriate for your author ...

... a nice-looking caff!

fbb wonders what modernisation might have done to the fantastic (in the true sense of the word) Sonning station.

Eboracum Fantasticum?

Just as "fantastic" is a bit of First Bus news from York. "The lads" have repainted a single decker in Yorkshire Rider livery ...

... and very smart it looks. It is photograped on Station Road York, a road which never led to today's station. It did lead to the original station which was inside York's city walls.

The grand building was the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway and is now, appropraietly, The Grand Hotel. fbb went to a meeting there ...

 ... and it was - and still is - GRAND. fbb's jolly was in "the small meeting room" on the second floor. "Small?" - it was about the size of fbb's house. The sarnies were excellent and plentiful; the meeting was , as ever, a complete waste of time!

The privatised West Yorkshire PTE, re-branded as Yorkshire Rider, bought the privatised York-West Yorkshire business ...

... rebranded as York City and District ...

... and named it York Rider. It wasn't long before the whole lot was swallowed up by the expanding First Bus.

But the present manifestations are, of course, pure fantasy!

And So To Scotland S-L-O-W-L-Y.
At 0655 this morning the fbb will start/will have started (dependent on when you read this posting!) their journey to Scotland.

The rail line between Crewkerne and Exeter will be closed from Saturday 15th until Sunday 23 September. No South Western Railway services will operate between Crewkerne and Exeter between those dates. This does not affect Great Western Railway services between Exmouth to Exeter and Paignton which will operate normally. The closure is to allow Network Rail to carry out works to reduce the impact of flooding on rail services in the future. 

Hooray for South Western Railway! They have published the timetables on line (and on display at stations) to include the replacement buses.

Thus it will be/was that the fbbs drove to Axminster and will catch/have caught the replacement bus to Crewkerne.

That will be a three hours and twentyfour minute grind to Waterloo instead of two hours and forty three minutes, although, to be fair to SWT, the fbbs would have caught the 0724 which stops EVEYWHERE and takes two hours and 54 minutes on a normal Saturday.

A report on the whole journey will follow - possibly in tomorrow's blog if the old crusties get there at a reasonable time.

 Next fantastic blog : Sunday 23rd September