ElTesha

I agree about Sam's reviews, I don't normally watch them especially as he runs his railway on a carpeted floor a practice I abandoned at about the age of 12. He often gets things wrong, in this latest one, about the HM7000 series, after he downloaded the sound files to the locos, he couldn't get them to work but he had missed the need to remove the loco from the track for 5 seconds to enable the sounds. He made some mumbling comments and resorted to switching off and restarting the App. Not reading the instructions fully or following the instructions on the App (which I noticed in his screenshot) in not a very professional approach. Furthermore he didn't tell us whether he reported the burnt out decoder or whether he got a positive response, which I would have expected from Hattons. regards TerryD

Problem solved re Peco turnout plans, Hope it's not caused any sleepless nights😉

Sorry if its a problem awakening this thread but does anyone have copies of the Peco streamline turnout plans that they used to publish on their website, they seem to have disappeared on the latest iteration of the site. I would like copies so that I can test my new layout before commiting to th ereal thing, any scans or pictures would be great. Best regards and fingers crossed, TerryD

Sorry to disagree but they are not 'flares. more like a conservative pair of 'Birmingham Bags'. Flares fitted rather tightly down to the kneeand then 'f;lared out' to the cuffs.

Don't forget that Sandwell also includes Tipton. I was born in Princes End on the Tipton / Coseley border and you don't get much more Black Country than that (I was born in my Gran's house on the Tipton side of the border but she reputedly paid a peppercorn rate to Coseley council for her front step which was in that district!). Robert Plant is actually quite proud of his Black Country background if you listen to him being interviewed these days he still has his accent. One of the songs on an early Zep album was 'Black Country Woman'. Dear Phil Lynott died in 1986 and lived most of his life in Dublin.

Hi Guys, Guess what, while writing my last post I mentioned faggots - the foodstuff. However when I added the singular it was hashed out like this - ###### and yes I did write the actual word. It must be because of the American use of the word as a derogatory adjective for ######? It even hashes out the official word to describe one who prefers to have a relationship with another of the same gender - begins with H has s.e.x in the middle and ends in ual. Does anyone else have this? Is this P.C. gone mad or is it my own PC doing the filtering?

Hi Keith, I don't remember her 'doing' the front step. We never used the front door because my Aunt and Uncle used the front room as a bedsit for many years until they were able to afford their own home. Also while the front step was in Coseley, the rest of the house was in Tipton - The Coseley/Tipton border ran down that side of High Street, I didn't believe that story myself until looking at some old 50" to the mile OS maps of the area while researching the Princes End branch (LNWR) and this confirmed the position of the border. One of the days - I can't remember which - was spent preparing food items such as Faggots etc on the scrubbed top kitchen table for the next week, I can remember being taught to chop herbs such as Sage while the onions were boiling, I also remember the net like membrane used to wrap each of the individual faggots unlike today's tasteless meatballs which pass as faggots - perhaps someone knows what that membrane was called I seem to recall her referring it as caul or something similar, I believe it was the same stuff that is used to encase Haggis. Saturday was for shopping for the communal family Sunday Lunch, we had no fridges in those days so the meat and veg would be as fresh as possible - we would have had fresh veg and perhaps a chicken from the garden but that was before Grandad developed Alzheimers and there was no time for the women of the family to tend to a garden.. Terry

The 'hobs' in question are probably a reference to the old cast fireplace/range which had a hotplate or hob on either side of the fire and the whole affair was blackleaded (graphite) to a dark burnished black. In my gran's house in Princes End Monday was washing day, Tuesday was for ironing (flatirons heated on the 'hobs') and Wednesday was Blackleading and brass polishing day. Terry

Should have read M & B. That must be a strange combination to produce a smiley!

Not sure if this has already been solved but the Eagle and Hop was the emblem of William Butlers of Springfield Brewery Wolvrhampton (remember "Springfield Bitter" from M&B ) according to the Brewery History archive: http://www.breweryhistory.com/Defunct/Pics/WMOxleyMoor.htm Terry

Hi Arthur, Not only those uses, but on a more homely level my mum and dad collected large lumps of the stuff (approximately 8" across) to make a rockery and low decorative retaining wall on part of our sloping garden which was on two levels. As far as I know it is still there nearly 60 years on! Good stuff this nostalgia! Terry p.s. I've always had cavity walls in my houses filled with 'Rockwool' damn good stuff too. T.

Hi Arthur,The word Tarslag brings back bittersweet memories for me. The small council housing estate in Coseley where we moved to as a family in the 1950s was just over a mile South of Ettingshall Spring Vale Steelworks, it was still being built as we moved in and the need for housing was so great that the houses were occupied as they were completed, one by one. The estate was known as the Tarslag Estate initially and I was so embarrassed by the sound of the word that when I attended Dudley Grammar school that I missed out the 'Tarslag' part of the address and letters from school often went astray - no postcodes then. Adjacent to the site of the Estate the BCN canal ran in a cut about 30 ft deep before entering the Coseley tunnel. On one side was a company who crushed and graded solid slag for roadstone. They had a series of grading sieves down the slope of the cut to a small wharf at the side of the canal where the graded slag would be loaded into Barges. The sieves were all belt driven and I can remember the noise to this day - might make an interesting, if challenging, working feature on some model someday. The company was known as William Gilberts, now gone and forgotten. Terry (Edit: I should have said 'narrowboats' rather than 'barges', but that is how we called them then) (I should also have said that Tarmac were the main building contractors for the estate)

Hi Arthur, The product Tarmac was invented by one E P Hooley who used slag instead of roadstone coated in tar thus producing Tar Macadam and he founded the company. It was a Wolverhampton company whose head offices were at Ettingshall. Tarmac as a company was founded at the Spring vale site in 1903, in 1905 it was secured by Alfred Hickman who became it's first Chairman. That is not surprising as the Hickman family had owned the Spring vale Steelworks since 1866. The Steelworks itself expanded by merger and was incorporated as Alfred Hickman Ltd in 1897, the very same A Hickman who was chairman of Tarmac. Terry .

Here I am,late to the party again - sorry. The company in this article - 'Perry' - rollmakers were listed in the 1975 Midland Rollmakers advert a few posts above this one so they had been around for a long time and making rolls from late 19th C at least. It is interesting to note in the context of this thread on the transport of rolls, that Perrys was less than 1/2 mile from the Spring Vale steelworks (locally known as Stewarts and Llloyds - closed 1984) which was served with sidings from the Stour Valley line south of Wolverhampton. By the way there is still a link with the steel industry on the same Perrys site (looks like many of the original buildings survive) as C & S Steel is there making black and bright rod. Highfields today - Original Perrys building still standing Another fact which may be of interest is that looking at the site on Google maps there is the remaining track of a railway line passing adjacent to the site of Perrys and runs to Priestfield and Wolverhampton low level, passing just to the east of the Spring Vale steelworks, now demolished, the site of the original works is a business and retail area. Perhaps there was movement of rolls between the two by rail - there is an area to the North of the Perrys factory site on the opposite side of the road which is still clear and could have held sidings? This particular line to the Spring Vale and on to Wolverhampton are the remains of the GWR line (originally the OWW) and the picture on the Perrys history shows a roll loaded on to a GWR road wagon, perhaps moving it to the rail sidings? This same line also ran South to pass the Bloomfield Steelworks next to Bloomfield Junction on the Stour Valley line (LNWR) with sidings opposite the works with road link. I'm not sure if there were rolling mills there but it is in the parish of Tipton of which was said in the 19th C :- "These sources describe Tipton as a place where `the coal mines are said to be inexhaustible' (Pigot and Co. Directory, 1828/29); where `the parish is celebrated for the richness of its coal and ironstone, and for the number and extent of the iron furnaces, forges, and rolling and slitting mills" And that was just as true up to the 21st C. The OWW also provided a direct link between Perrys factory and the Round Oak Steelworks (locally - "The Earl Of Dudley's" - closed 1982) with it's rolling mills - now the Merry Hill shopping centre - in Brierley Hill just 4 miles South of the Perrys factory. So perhaps there was the possibility of rail movement of rolls in the area away from the crowded and narrow local roads. There was also a link from the Stour Valley line to the Patent Shaft rolling mills (closed 1980) at Wednesbury via Bloomfield Junction and the Princes End Branch so perhaps there was the possibility of the movement of rolls by rail (note the LNWR road wagon in the post linked to here). The Perrys factory was surrounded by canals (Wednesbury Oak Loop and the BCN Bloomfield Junction to Deepfields cut) with narrow hump back bridges built by Georgian canal builders Brindley and Telford so perhaps rail movement would have been a more attractive solution! All pure armchair conjecture of course, but I find the possibility interesting as I was born and bred in the area just a mile or so south of the Spring Vale works surrounded by a web of rail and canal with a grandfather who was a signalman on both the GWR line and the Stour Valley main line at Deepfields. Terry Edit: I have just noticed on an old OS map (25 inches to the mile) that the Bloomfield steelworks was indeed a rolling mill. T

I know that i'm late coming to this party but although the rolling mills at that time were not rolling wide plate, trestle wagons were in use taking plate up to the John Thompson boiler works at Ettingshall just up the Stour Valley line S of Wolverhampton. I worked there in the drawing office for a short time in the late '60s and early 70's and plate wagons were in use then. It could add some variety of traffic perhaps? Here's a picture from the mid/late '60s in the JT sidings showing a few wagons but there were always more than this on site as far a I can recall. The chimneys in the distance in the upper middle of the picture belonged to the Stewarts and Lloyds steelworks - also now gone of course