Model Railroading > You may never have heard of him in the USA.........

....but a very well-known pioneer modeller in UK railway circles died early today. His name was the Reverend Peter Denny, who was famed for his Buckingham, Great Central Railway. He even produced a "mechanical" computer so that he was able to run the system on his own when no-one else was available. A very sad loss.

shortliner Wrote:
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> ....but a very well-known pioneer modeller in UK
> railway circles died early today. His name was
> the Reverend Peter Denny, who was famed for his
> Buckingham, Great Central Railway. He even
> produced a "mechanical" computer so that he was
> able to run the system on his own when no-one else
> was available. A very sad loss.


Always a sad loss when somebody like that leaves us.

I think I've encountered the name before as my model railroad magazine reading now consists almost exclusively of several British (Railway Modeler, British Railway Modeling, and Hornby Magazine) and one French (Loco-Revue) publications.

I've frequently enjoyed his book, "Buckingham Great Central," which Peco published in the early 1970s. He was also the inventor of "the automatic Crispin," which replaced his youngest son in staging trains.
The Buckingham Branch was remarkable for being 00 scale, 18mm gage at a time when most British modellers were using 00 stock on HO track, which is 16.5mm. The Rev. Denny's first railroad, an O scale line, was featured in Meccano Magazine in 1931.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/09 16:59 by grahamline.

Jack, I think I can offer some perspective to TO readers: the Rev. Peter Denny's influence on the hobby in the UK is akin to an Allen McClelland's or Bill and Wayne Reid's here. He was an icon.

His 18mm gauge (1:76 scale) Buckingham Branch layout, appearing in Model Railway News as far back back as the early 1950s, has been a major influence on my OO scale layout. His trackplan for that superb layout, published in 1953, included timetable operation and a staging yard -- long before staging had been introduced here in the States.

Another of the truly great men in this hobby has passed on.

I thought OO gauge was 19mm...

Winston Hill

Theory says you are right,Winston, but in UK for historical reasons, regarding fitting the then-available motors into the restricted British loading gauge, it is 4mm scale using HO 16.5 mm track. And thanks to Paul for adding the compaison - I wasn't sure who the American example would be.

Ultra-precise scale OO track, called P4, is 18.83mm. The 18mm dimension is a little earlier and is called EM. The Rev. Denny said he had track width gages made to 18.25 mm to accommodate tight curves and locomotives with longer rigid wheelbases. The trackwork in the book looks superb.

In the Japanese TMS magazine (Tetsudo-Mokei-Shumi, Hobby of Model Railroading), Kiyo Yamazaki introduced Peter's layout by 16-page article of Jan. 1972. And Peter himself wrote 9 pages in Feb. '75. Although the Yamasaki's text said "several years ago, Peter announced his layout to the MR magazine (not RM, Railway Modeller)," I could not get it.

We old modelers all remember him, and will never forget the Buckingham computer.

The Peter's photo is Jan. '72 of TMS, and the computer's is Feb. '75.

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Thanks for posting those photos. I'd never viewed a picture of the Reverend from his younger days.

Looks like a beautiful layout there!

The search in the MR magazine index　was impossible, but I was the thoroughly and discovered it in April, 1966 issue. He appeared on the cover, and six pages of articles were written.

Look at the next site if you are not afraid of Japanese.
http://works-k.cocolog-nifty.com/page1/2009/12/post-5b5c.html