My latest build gets started, pic attached.
9' wheelbase for an RCH 1907 5-plank open wagon. The solder is 1mm in diameter, for a sense of scale. It sounds really hard, but it's no diffferent to kit building in HO/OO or higher - the smallest thing you can see is still the smallest thing, but in 2mm:ft that 'thing ' is a handrail, whereas in HO it's a rivet and in O it's the thread of a nut.
It also helps that these kits cost almost nothing - £6 for a pair with some of the finest detail you'll see.
>>1262958The point I was making was not to over-intellectualise the choice; ultimately you have to like the visuals of what you're going to model. That said, if you're serious:
Pre-grouping (i.e. pre-1923): lots of crazy liveries, mostly 0-6-0 tank and tender engines pulling 4 or 6 wheeled coaches and open wagons. Pre-20th century has some really cute stuff - dumb-buffered wagons, express trains with huge single wheels in the middle, ballast over the sleepers, etc.
Grouping 1923-1947: four big companies, lots of glitz but essentially the beginning of the end - the era of streamlined express trains, lots of black liveries outside of the 'specials'. You would see Pre-grouping stock and locos on branchlines and secondary routes until the end of this period.
Nationalisation 1948-67: British rail struggles to cope with the huge debt of the war, and so lots of rationalisation on loco types and stock, and new standards appearing like the BR wagons that are still around today. Everything gets black or brunswick green, 99.99% of the pre-grouping stuff is gone by now. At the end of this period almost 40% of britain's rail mileage is slashed by the Minister for Transport in what is known as 'the Beeching Act'. It's very popular because boomers can just about remember it.
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