Paintings, Poems and Delights - Incorporating Artistic and Literary Influences into 00 Gauge Modelling Realisation

Railway scenes have often provided inspiration of many great works of art and literature. But in reverse, art and literature can also inspire railway scene in miniature. When shaping scenes in miniature drawn from artistic and literary inspirations, when thinking about the worlds that the artists and authors lived and worked in, it opens the modeller up to how they would have seen, interpreted and maybe expressed the scenery the modeller has created through their work if they were brought back to life in miniature. When I started building my layout based around a small country terminus station, thinking about what 00 gauge passengers could see from the train window, I envisioned a scene that could be the perfect subject for a poem by the late former Poet Laureate John Betjemen (1906-1984). Later when thinking about and developing the scenic details, I began to envision a scene that could be the subject for a painting by John Constable (1776-1837).

Cole Hawlings (Patrick Troughton) entrusts

his Box of Delights to Kay Harker 

(Devin Stanfield) in the 1984 BBC hit series

To enable how if one where shrunk to 00 gauge size, I find it helps to view a 00 gauge sized scene from the viewpoint of a 00 gauge figure where possible. And indeed, in one of the literary inspirations for a scene on the layout, the main character was able to ‘go small’, by means of a box – The Box of Delights! Written by John Masefield (1878-1967), another former Poet Laureate, The Box of Delights was first published in 1935 and made into a hit television series screened by the BBC in 1984, which has since retained a sizeable cult following. The story begins with young Kay Harker returning home for Christmas from boarding school on the train, during which he meets the mysterious Cole Hawlings, who later entrusts him with his Box of Delights to keep evil magician Abner Brown and his gang, referred to as the ‘wolves’, from getting their hands on it. As well as containing many magical wonders, the box allows the owner to go small and to fly swiftly, which young Kay uses effectively to spy on the movements of the wolves he attempts to get his hands on the box, including kidapping, or ‘scrobbling’ as described by Masefield, anyone whom they may think either has it or knows where it is.

My 00 gauge Box of Delights  tribute featuring Kay Harker 

Caroline Louisa(his guardian) talking to the station master 

and Cole Hawlings next to telephone box

Obviously, it isn’t possible to ‘go small’ in real life like Kay is able to with the box. But when building the layout, I have found that by positioning cameras, including a small GoPro-type action camera, in different places on the layout allows the modeller to see it from places where one’s own eyes can’t, including inside buildings, through doors, arches, tunnels etc. This can open the modeller up to new ideas about where to position details, including figures. Thinking of Kay Harker returning home by train, an idea for a platform scene occurred to me thinking about what may happen if Kay met Cole Hawlings again during summer. Imagining this, I placed figures representing Kay and his guardian Caroline Louisa talking to the station master and painted a figure adding a beard using scenic material painted grey to represent Cole Hawlings.

Of the settings that feature in the Box of Delights is something which has a well-established link with the railways, the church. The influence of cathedrals and churches can be seen in the architecture of many railways stations large and small throughout the UK. Well associated as a pastime popular with the clergy, one can see how vicars may well have been inspired by the scenery within their parish, especially if in a country village, to create something set around a railway station similar in miniature. Perhaps the most famous such link is that of Rev. Wilbert Awdry (1911-1997) and Thomas the Tank Engine. Millions of us have grown up with the television series, some of us into adults who enjoy it with new generations! The inspiration for the characters, including the engines, rolling stock and human characters, and settings in the original stories largely came from the parishes where Awdry worked and from family holidays. 

Toby the train engine on a layout based on the Wisbech and

Upwell Tramway on show at Darlington Model Railway Exhibition

One of the most inspiring places for the Rev Awdry appears to be the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway located on the Norfolk-Cambridgeshire border, while he was vicar at St Edmund’s Church in nearby Emneth, where he built model railways in the attic at his vicarage and penned some the original Railway Stories series, which would later be adapted to the television programme known so well today worldwide. A frequent visitor to the line during his time in the area, Rev Awdry saw many J70 steam tram engines in action, from which the character Toby the Tram Engine took shape. As a tribute to the Rev Awdry, the presence of the Church in the Box of Delights and its link with the railways, and also drawing inspiration from poem relating to another location in Cambridgeshire, Rupert Brookes’ The Old Vicarage, Grantchester a vicarage is included on my layout. The scenic detail is partly based on what can often be seen on the real Grantchester vicarage.

At the Vicarage

Much of the scenic detailing, including the farm, fields and trees was inspired by art work largely predating the modern railway age, that of John Constable. Taking is his inspiration from the rural Suffolk countryside where he lived most of his life, some of Constable’s best-known works, including The Haywain (1821) and The Cornfield (1826) are of scenes of ordinary everyday life for his time, unfashionable in an age where many of his artistic contemporaries focused on scenes of wilder landscapes or romantic monuments/architecture. Constable’s use of colour though when painting what were ordinary everyday scenes makes the images pleasing to many an eye, and to the modern viewer they give an insight into rural life of the early 19^th century.

'Steam Power and Horse Power'

With Constable’s works The Haywain and The Cornfield in mind, on the layout I placed a farm cart with a shire horse and two farm workers in a cornfield with corn stooks I made from plumbing hemp. Personally, I have never been any good at drawing or painting pictures, but experimenting with different photo filters available with digital photograph as well as effects available in Microsoft Paint 3D, I found that I was able to make photographs on scenes on my layout look something like a painting, including adding smoke effects.

Constable died in 1837, when modern railways were still in their infancy, but how my image turned out made me wonder how Constable might have painted railways, or indeed, how he may have viewed and interpreted their presence in his art work had he lived a little longer, would he have welcomed their presence in the landscapes he loved so much or may he have seen them as a threat like other artists and poets of his time, most famously William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Ironically though, since Wordsworth and Constable’s time, many great works of art and literature have been inspired by railways, and have no doubt inspired many model railways in all different scales.

'Push-Pull Rendezvous', another enhanced image from my layout

As the local push-pull commuter passes, shots are push and pulled 

around the cricket field