Why does pre-grouping seemingly generate little interest?

[sem34090]

Hi All,

Some of you may know that this is a drum that I've been banging for a while now, with little response, or one which has fizzled out very quickly.

I was just wondering, quite simply, why?!

I was also wondering why there has been little call for pre-grouping routes and assets, given the good response to some recent pre-grouping loco releases. Is it as simple as 'people don't really care, so long as the route is not clearly 'modern'. I am having a stab at doing a couple of pre-grouping routes, but it seems like I'm the only one!

I have been thinking about this also because a search for 'Pre Grouping Train Sim' brings me to my own thread here:http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index. ... e-grouping!

Anyone else bothered about this? Or am I just banging a broken drum that nobody wants to hear?

Regards,

sem34090

[mikesimpson]

I think you will find that there is not much interest in pre-grouping routes/stock simply because those of use who were train-spotters back before grouping have to be around 80 years old now. I still remember the LNER trains running through the yards at Tweedmouth and on the Scottish Borders route between Berwick/Kelso/St.Boswells but I was only about 7 then and that line was closed once Beeching got his hands on it.

I have built the route for my own interest, but had to use assets from lots of payware routes, so there is no way I could ever release it. Really trying to get all of the stations/locos/scenery right is next to impossible now.

Mike

[TransportSteve]

The Pre-grouping period to me was 1875 - 1922, you will probably have a few folks interested in that time era, very few of them still alive, but, not many I wouldn't have thought. Even the older members in our community would probably relate more to when their interest in railways reached the heady heights of pre-war and the introduction of the 'Big Four' Railway Companies, and then the Nationalisation of British Rail from 1948 onwards to 1968 when Steam finished, and diesel and electric took over, which many of us can obviously relate to still.

Cheerz. Steve.

[sem34090]

Interesting... I suspected some of this would come in somewhere. I appreciate that I am an anomaly (!) in that I can't remember the full heights of NSE days (I wasn't around then!) yet I model pre-grouping both in TS and in 4mm scale, so was wondering what people with less unusual tastes would think.

After all, the US is getting a route set in 1869...

I also note with interest that one of the three votes so far cast (One of which was mine) is from someone who is developing pre-grouping stock for TS. To that person I ask, Reveal yourself! I am intrigued...

[Stone75]

After all, the US is getting a route set in 1869...

Maybe due to the fact that many of these early US railways feature in Westerns on film which are popular. My wife probably sees more pre grouping railways than me in her period dramas. For me its BR Blue to the 90's from when I was a lad.

[smarty2]

I am one of those that was a kid in the sixties and only have a mild interest in that period, modern for me most of the way, I would say that you are in a tiny minority as Mike says.

[sem34090]

I thought as much, but thought the poll would confirm my suspicions!

Shame though, given how nice some of the latest (pre-grouping) DT and VW releases have been.

[IronBidder]

There's nothing wrong in asking the question, but I think few people will respond to it, and commercial developers will take no notice of it. We simulate/model what interests us and few people will have an emotional attachment to pre-grouping because we haven't encountered it in our own lives. How is pre-grouping fairing in model railways? That shows the likely direction of travel.

P.S. By pre-grouping I assume you mean pre 1923.

[skiddaw]

Pre 1922 is too far back for me but I support your effort to encourage back-dating of modern routes to the steam era. The period of most interest to me is the BR era , 1959- 66. (My trainspotting days). Train sim does allow me to explore other time periods on either side of this and I enjoy looking at locos and stock in pre-war and wartime liveries as well as the BR blue era.

[michaelhendle]

Hi,
I was born the year the railways got nationalized,my grandparents house backed onto the Hounslow Loop,so saw plenty of trains going to and from Feltham Marshaling Yard,so was watching trains from a early age.These Loco's were all allocated to Feltham.

Urie H15,H16T,G16T,Adams 0395,and Drumond 700,these were all built for the London South Western Railway,and lasted into the BR era,so for SR enthusiasts they would be very handy,as you could have them as they were when first built,then as they were post grouping Southern,and finally BR.

They might sell better as they cover all 3 era's of interest,my era would be say 1952-65.
I would like to see some Maunsell EMU's like 4 SUB, 4 LAV, 4 RES, 4 BUF, 4 COR,Commonly known as Nelsons or Pompey sets

[karma99]

Lack of the routes is the main problem from our point of view.
We're happy to build steam locos from any era but not having anywhere to run them is the big problem. We got away with it for the Terrier because they survived so long and Stepney is so famous in preservation but that's not the case for most older engines.

[sem34090]

I agree that locos spanning multiple eras, through to BR days and/or preservation are the best bet, as they will appeal more.

From what I have been able to gather on RMweb, the Pre-Grouping sector is expanding, with new RTR models introduced regularly for the period as the manufacturers know that pretty locos in pretty liveries sell very well. A recent poll over there showed (at least when I last looked) that the pre-grouping era was more popular than the most modern era, probably because more are turning towards it due to the availability of models.

I think that this, as with many things in life, is one of those proverbial Chicken and Egg situations, and the loco and coach producers for TS have provided the chicken, so the egg (the routes) should follow at some stage, and I am currently investigating a few more route possibilities, probably starting with the backdating of a short route, most likely the version of Hayling Island released on here. The first route will be LBSCR, as that is the company that most interests me.

I suppose this shows another issue: the sheer amount of companies divides the pre-grouping period up so much that one route will only satisfy some people.

[tango4262]

I think some people are getting Pre-Grouping confused with Pre-Nationalisation.

Private Companys Pre 1846
Pre-Grouping 1846 -1922
Grouping 1923-1947
Nationalisation 1948-1996
Privatisation 1997- Present Day

[TrabantDeLuxe]

My opinion on the matter is that there's a couple of factors. A lot of 'historial' train enthousiasm comes from an idealisation of memories. The generation that is now tech-savvy, but old enough to have witnessed steam is the crowd that saw the demise of steam on BR metals. A few might have youthful recollections of the big four, but none have recollections of the miriad of companies that existed before 1923. Compare for instance the relative lack of enthousiasm for steam traction in the Netherlands - as there simply are less people in the scene with personal recollections from before 1958. Most interest I've gotten for my Dutch steam projects have strangely been in the UK!

Then there is the discussion of, perhaps through the above, how the big four and british rail are much more in the public eye. How many pre-grouping (in original livery) locomotives do you tend to find out there in the heritage scene? My impression is that the 1930 - 1970 era is the main focus. You'll have to do serious research in order to even be exposed to the individual companies of the edwardian era.

On the plus side, I do think pre-grouping might gain traction. Maybe not in the commercial TS development scene, but I do think that the internet, younger generations (some nerd should graph age vs interest in pre-grouping, you'd be surprised) gaining an interest in steam traction without having personal recollections to that era, all serve to increase the interest in said era.

Didn't Chris Eden-Green once do a podcast on this?

[AndiS]

[I wrote this at the same time as Trabant and I did not talk to him. ]

Many factors contribute to this.

Most people seem attached to present day trains. The others are attached to their own memories. The rest (sic) is interested in things that only exist in simulation.

For present-day stuff, you just go and look at it. For preserved stuff, you need to travel and you risk that they did not restore it too precisely but still you get a chance at "knowing what is right". For the rest, you can only read some clever texts that will tell you that it is very hard to say what colour things were and that they modified stock and infrastructure following mind-bogglingly complex patterns.

The big four were but four. The bigger pre-grouping companies were a dozen or two (depending on whom you ask). There were lots of smaller joint railways after the grouping, but they seem to get as much attention as the pre-grouping companies. The rolling stock on them was from one or more big-four companies, and rolling stock is what matters for most.

Most people love superlatives and then you always look towards the end of any period. Pre-grouping engines were great in their days but they pulled less at a lower speed than later models.

Many love to believe that Dr. Beeching simply took an axe and destroyed the good old railways. So what was there at that time is defined as the thing to praise.

A lot of things happened in the thirties or late twenties. There were excursion trains and trips to the seaside before the grouping, but not on the scale of the thirties. There were no banana specials because there were no bananas. Stuff like that. A lot of things only happened before WW I, like unparalleled coal export. But somehow, that appears less sexy.