stivesnick

Hi Martin I have considerd doing something similar in the past so good luck with this project. My thought process would be as follows: 1. Decide which part of the country you want to model as there were coal mines all over the country from Kent to the Forest of Dean and up to Scotland. 2. Decide if you want to include part of a main line/ branch line with your layout or have your facility at the end of a dedicated branch line. 3. Check a rail atlas for suitable sites in your chosen area - If you don't have an atlas ask the question on thois forum and someone can check a map for you. 4. The national library of scotland has an extensive map collection covering various dates including the 1960s that you can view on line . The 1.2500 maps will allow you to see the track plan at a particular location. 5. Once you have decided on a likley location then worth checking for photos on line or if there are specialist railway books that cover that route/location. Middleton Press and Oakwood Press have ranges of several hundred books that cover many of routes in the country. Hope that helps. Nick

Here is a link to a short video about kaolin production - there are some brief shots of the railway loading facility that shows both tank cars for liquid product and covered hoppers for dry product. If you want more railway action check out videos of the Sandesville Railroad that is a short line that serves some of the kaolin facilities in Georgia. Hope this helps. Nick

James On the St Ives (Cambs) to Ely line, very much a secondary route, there was a brick works siding located between the villages of Sutton and Haddenham. The Isle of Ely brick works was only open for around 20 years and was just a single siding but there is prototype to follow! Information from the Ely and St Ives Railway by Oakwood press - words only no photos. Regards Nick

Hi A couple of questions / observations about the operation of this layout. 1. If the local goods train running left to right on the layout, stops on the " main line" to shunt the brink works, will the wagons run down the hill as soon as the loco is detached? I am sure experts on GWR operation may point to a maximum gradient that allows wagons to be left unattended. 2. Do you intend shunting the yard for goods trains running right to left? The train would still be in the right hand fiddle yard. If not then the short run around loop is not needed. 3. Will the brick yard have its own shunter? Hope these comments are helpful. Regards Nick

Hi I had a look on the dm-toys web-site as they have a wide selection of available wagons. Nothing obvious with those boxes on the side around the bottom of the tank. Various suppliers make 4 wheel tank cars so if you do need to modify, there is a choice of starting wagon. Regards Nick

Mike Thanks for the background information. The term Roath Branch is taken from the current Trackmaps book so I imagine this is the term used by Associated British Ports today. Nick

Looking at videos of model railway layouts, there are some great examples from the USA which feature a freight line serving several industries within a city industrial district. These layouts are much bigger than a traditional shunting plank type layout and allow longer trains and some distance between industries. Many American cities have such areas which provide a ready supply of prototypes. Such lines no longer exist in the UK, but go back to the 1970s and 1980s to the BR Speedlink area and such lines did exist. Early editions of the Baker Rail Atlas shows many examples such as the Immingham Tramway on Humberside. The Roach Branch in Cardiff ran from the Cardiff Tidal sidings to Cardiff Docks. The Freight Only Book Vol 3 Wales and Scotland shows a picture of the branch with some VGA wagons being unloaded on the main line loop. The line also served the Carwoods coal terminal, a scrap yard and had an oil terminal at the end. Traffic was a mix of trainload and wagon load trip workings. The line is still there and can be found on google maps, see image below. According to Realtime trains, stone traffic still operates to a siding at the start of the branch. The plan below shows an N Gauge L shaped layout idea. I have added a crossover mid way on the loop to serve a relocated scrap siding. Traffic destinations are shown highlighted and the branch in the 1980s would have a mix of trainload and wagonload services. Scenic details would be a mix of hardstanding, modern and older warehouses plus some Walthers oil terminal kits. Comments and any other information about the branch welcome. Regards Nick

Hi Keith I found this review for an Exactrail box car - which suggests the roof is glued on. https://www.trains.com/mrr/news-reviews/reviews/staff-reviews/exactrail-ho-scale-berwick-7440-boxcar/ Regards Nick

All The gravity shunting employed on the Elizabethtown Railroad would create an interesting challenge for the modeller. I have seen it done; there is a OO GWR layout on the exhibition circuit that shunts the passenger train in this way. Anyone willing to have a go or do you set the layout in the future and they have installed a run around track and have more customers? Regards Nick

Correct, Judicial Reviews have to be about the process and can not be based simply on disagreement with the original decision. Given that the ORR is a very process driven organisation it would be very odd if they had not followed their own procedures. Nick

Some new freight car arrivals that will find use on the new layout. Firstly some bottom drop gondolas for the local fuel dealer and perhaps the large factory. Having checked the details on the cars, the black car is a renumbered wagon so out of date for the layout, but renumbering back to the original will not be a priority. The "buyer beware" warning was not headed on a pack of 6 reefer cars. I thought they were 40 foot cars to match the ones I already had, but they turned out to be 50 foot cars and mechanically ventilated. Work with a magnifying glass showed a refurbished wagon date of 65 (bad) although difficult to read so could be 55 (good). I could not find any reference to the specific cars numbers either on line or in Great Northern Lines East by Patrick C Dorin. There were pictures of similar cars on-line showing they were built in the 1950s, phew! The layout will feature a couple of food packing plants and the intent is to run a Fruit Extra train on the layout dropping cars off at Brandon and for interchange with the Interurban line. I must now stop buying new stuff until after the house move. Regards Nick

All Latest thoughts for the track plan at Brandon station. The GN depot has a passing siding, double ended freight siding behind the depot plus a couple of freight spurs. The SRTC depot has a run around loop, passenger spur, freight siding, car barn and interchange track with the GN. The quarry spur is now close to the town so would be a shunting move from the town. A temporary fiddle yard would be provided initially before the lines continue around the room in future stages. Any comments and suggestions welcome. Regards Nick

A progress update. The dreaded house buying process has started and hopefully in a few months I will have a new model railway room to play with. The good news is that the room is slightly bigger than the one used for the concept plan in the earlier post. The bad news is that the door is more in the middle of one of the walls which affects the plan slightly. Revised concept plan enclosed. The idea would be the build the track in stages starting with the GN Brandon Station area and initially run the layout as a terminus to a temporary fiddle yard before completing the full run around the room. Regards Nick Layout concept.pdf

I remember seeing the layout in the video at a show. Did that layout also have a high level line serving a coal mine? Look forward to seeing how the layout develops. Regards Nick

A couple of new comments / thoughts on the subject The GWR web-site information on the changes includes the number of tickets actually sold at each station and provides a % of total sales. I have not seen this on other operators so far - so people should pester the DfT to get this data provided for all stations. People should also be asking for an accessibility assessment - there could be a breach of disability regulations. There does appear to be a lot of inconsistency between train operators, Greater Anglia and keeping ticket offices at some of their major stations whereas GWR want to close ticket offices at similar size stations. Such inconsistency should be questioned. Interesting that Reading Green Park station that opened recently does have a ticket office which will soon be closed - so that was a waste of money! Just listening to the Minister on the radio - he is saying only 10% of sales - the data on the GWR web-site tends to suggest more than this. Regards Nick

There was a case where straw from a farmers field blew onto the OHLE at Biggleswade on the east coast main line. The area has had many problems with the OHLE, but normally caused by the pantographs on trains bring the wires down. Regards Nick

Station passenger numbers can be found on the ORR web-site. The latest figure for Aylesbury Parkway is 86,896 for 2021/22. Pre-pandemic the figure was 206,834. Worth comparing with the station figures between Bletchley and Bedford. Stewartby is the highest with 76,872, most of the others are below 5000 so less than 15 passengers per day. This is why there has been talk of closing some of these stations that are quite close together and building new ones to serve new housing. Nick

I watched the programme and it was not as bad as I thought it would be. As expected there was a lot of "its grim up north" stuff. The programme set out to blame the train companies and that is what it did. So no mention of the actions of the DfT and Treasury, or Network Rail failing to deliver infrastructure upgrades that the train companies depended on or that unions that initially refused to staff the new trains. For a more balanced programme, it could have included the following success stories: Lumo trains taking passengers off internal flights The success of the rail freight companies The Devon metro and the re-opening of the Oakhampton line Low floor easy access trains on Greater Anglia Regards Nick

Good thinking about being the first building in town. Would these buildings have included a toilet? Perhaps a toilet and associated drainage would have been added later. One feature of many depots based on photos was a barrel of water outside the building to be used for putting out fires. To be added. Regards Nick

Can you clarify what sort of badges you are after. Are these badges for the exhibitors as suggested in the posts above or a commemorative badge for the layout itself? Nick

All Like Keith Addenbroke, I also have a Walthers Depot building kit to make whilst waiting for the proper layout building to start. The N gauge version is quite a simple kit, ideal for spending time when it is too hot to be outside. Oddly it did not include any gutters and downpipes so these have been added from plastic strip. Great Northern depots were generally painted white with grey windows, doors and roof tiles, the natural colours of the kit. I used a car spray on the pieces before removing them from the sprue. Station signs to be added. Looking at photos of real depots, station external lighting is unclear, with many pictures showing no lighting at all on the platform or mounted on the outside of the building. Given that the daily mixed train might turn up at 2 in the morning, this does appear odd. Does anyone have any thoughts/ideas on what normal practice was? Work in progress photos enclosed below: Nick

A few more pictures from Iasi and the OCS unit spotted on route Nick

Train journeys ended at Iasi which is a major city, and although many more trains than other stations, does not have a frequent service on any route. A range on rolling stock at the station as shown below. Iasi as a city has an extensive tram network with a range of vehicles including so newish looking ones. Regards Nick

The final rail trip was between Dolhasca and Iasi. We had arrived at the station to catch the 13.00 train but found that there was a private operate train service by Regiotrans at 12.32 which we caught. Not sure about the basis for these services, any thoughts or additional information welcome. It looks like they only operate 1 train a day on this route. link to their web-site: https://regiocalatori.ro/#/cautare/ The train was a former SNCF unit. The double track line had bi-directional signalling which we took advantage of to pass around some engineering works - no PPE visible! Pictures of Dolhasca station below: Nick

The link works for me to the home page. Then I found this.. Nick