Peter's Confessions - Well, some of them!
Hello, my name's Peter and I'm a model-oholic!
I do have varying interests in modelmaking and I will cover them all, but try not to mix them up in one feature. To begin with I will mention my passion for all things 'Emett.
Emett was the builder of the gadgets in 'Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang' and many other promotional automata for a wide range of businesses. All of his 'Things', as he called them, were designed to do no more than make you smile, they never produced anything. He also built his own model railway 'Emettland', which was extensively toured around UK and USA. One of the original locomotives was recently featured on the TV series, 'Repair Shop' and made to run again.
Rowland Emett was the creator of many cartoons published in 'Punch' magazine
in the 1940's and 50's, several of them depicting narrow gauge railway engines.
I couldn't resist modelling them, and those with a long enough memory might recall
l seeing them displayed at local exhibitions, when we were allowed to!
As a member of the 16mm Association I attended the annual
Garden Railway Exhibition at Peterborough in 201 where I entered, and won
the Model of the Year trophy with my 'Early Morning Milk Train' model.....
These pictures show the development of Emett's 'Rail Taxi'
from the only cartoon sketch shown above to the finished model.
There is a youtube video of some of my Emetts at work here.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHWWkVZi1p8
Brockhampton & Umbridge Railway Preservation Society's Emett Collection
A visit to Peter Butler's garden railway showing his wonderful collection of scratchbuilt Rowland Emett Far Twittering and Oyster Creek Railway locomotives and rolling stock.
.My models are all scratch-built from HIP, fitted with 12v motors, battery packs, Deltang RC receivers and operate on my SM32 garden railway. (More on that to follow).
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Rowland Emett (1906-1990) was awarded his OBE in 1978 for services to art and engineering. One of his most popular creations was the 'Far Tottering and Oyster Creek Railway' for the Festival of Britain, 1951. He was approached to design a miniature, passenger carrying railway, based on his cartoon drawings which frequently appeared in Punch magazines of the period. At first, he did not take the invitation seriously and only when reminded he was expected to present his design drawings to a committee did he get to work.
It was approved and construction of locomotives began at the works of Harry Barlow, Southport, a well-known and respected builder of 15" gauge locomotives, usually in more conventional form. Three locomotives were built on Harry's standard 4-6-2 chassis, each powered by petrol-electric units housed in tenders. The locos were named, 'Nellie', Wild Goose', and 'Neptune'. Three trains of open passenger stock were also built and Harry Barlow, who held the operating concession, recovered his costs in the first two weeks of operation and continued into 1952 carrying up to 2 million passengers.
Among my own Emett models I have built 'Neptune' in my favourite material, plasticard (HIP). As every good engineer knows, the first thing to do when making a locomotive model is to ensure the chassis is correct and working perfectly, which I why I started with the chimney!
Having only a few black and white photographs and post-cards to work from I manage to construct the remainder of the body to an acceptable appearance using a '0' gauge chassis which I had bought (used) more than thirty years ago.
Yes, I know it's not 4-6-2 but no one has noticed so far! The rest of the bodywork continued in the same manner, just making it look 'right' and following the style of accessories as closely as possible....
Eventually it turned out like this with a colour scheme taken from a postcard, (showing an artist's impression of the locomotive), which was sold at the Festival Railway in1951...
As with all of my locomotives it does work, powered from a trailing wagon with 12v rechargeable power pack and Deltang receiver.