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NorthernGuard

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  1. I decided to fit all the brake gear etc on my Vanwide, but one slight grumble: the instructions seem to be generic for all the variants, so you are helpfully shown 2 positions for the brake 'air' pipes, 'dependent on era', but no indication as to which applies to this model. Time to consult Prof Google... plenty of pics of vans in later life & preservation, but I searched in vain for an old pic showing the vac pipes. Think I figured it: the pipes provided seem to be 'no2s'. As the sheet recommends, I used PVA-based adhesive: Roket card glue. Moving onto the brake yokes & pull-rods... the 4 pieces are similar to, but different from those illustrated which I suspect represent air-braked gear. Once I worked out which goes where, I tried to coax the tiny pips to locate in the barely visible holes in the backs of the brake blocks, which needed gentle pressure (fearing a sudden catastrophic 'snap'...) to keep them in place. At one point, I thought it might be easier if I removed the couplings... "right, said Fred..."). It was, but they couldn't be re-fitted with the brake gear in place! Lucky I used PVA, not cyano! The 8 safety straps resemble elongated staples, but thinner, which straddle the yokes and locate into pairs of tiny holes in the floor. These holes seem to be simultaneously too tight until the wire goes in & then too slack to hold it in place. I found that as I fitted each one, I could apply a blob of PVA with the jaws of pointy pliers acting like a bow-pen... Once I'd done them all, I left the van on its roof for an hour before placing it upright... only 1 of them fell off! All in all a beautiful little model, but to be honest the underside detail is almost invisible when it's running around a layout. I suspect many modellers will leave the bag unopened! I can see why they cost £30-odd: look at the door-runners, locking bars & hand rails, but how many of us can afford to run 30+ wagon trains at these prices? Maybe there's still a future for kit-building, after all!
  2. I'm an irregular participant on this site, but if anyone's still interested... About 15+ years ago, I had a mooch around Bradkirk & Weeton, where the Marton line ran parallel with the one to Poulton. The road which crossed the latter by Weeton SB continued over the Martin line a short distance further on. Looking towards Kirkham the wide cutting was (is) somewhat overgrown, but was clearly a railway trackbed. There are still some rails in place from when the stub of the Marton line was used to dump spent ballast. Crossing the road, facing toward Blackpool, it appeared as if the railway had never existed, so completely had the contours of the land been reinstated with spoil from the M55 construction, I believe. Aerial photography during a long dry summer (never guaranteed in Lancs) might reveal the course of the old railway. The precise location of the point where the motorway joined the the trackbed is hard to discern, certainly by the time you reach the big roundabout. When I started driving regularly between Preston & Blackpool around that time, it was a bit of an obsession to identify the spot: tricky at 70mph! I'll look out for the 4 trees if they're still there. I still get a slight frisson driving along the trackbed/Yeadon Way & suspect many a visitor sat in stationary traffic has wondered why there's only one lane each way! I was dismayed to discover that Arthur K's amazing photos are (temporarily?) unavailable following RMWeb's recent problems. Luckily, a friend in Blackpool North SOP printed them off for me about 10 years ago, albeit on thin copier paper. Thanks, Arriva or whoever it was then! The scene at Kirkham has changed greatly in the past few years with electrification, remodelling & re-signalling. At my age, I'm not always convinced that change=progress. OLE is necessary, but unsightly, & the new layout feels like it was done to a tight budget, rather than for operational flexibility; ditto Blackpool N. I confess to a sense of loss akin to bereavement when the remaining boxes disappeared. They were old friends & a link with the glory days of the Fylde's railways. I am in awe of the railway men & women who made the summer operation work in the old days. Kirkham was like Clapham at times, the difference being the more famous junction was busy all year & had the systems & infrastructure to suit. Signallers used circuit phones & initiative to ensure everything was kept moving & Preston didn't become blocked with a back-log of trains, which wouldn't necessarily arrive in STN order, let alone WTT. The September1959 Fylde RCTS traffic survey commented that by the end of the day, they could only find one example, where a train might have been signalled more effectively to avoid delay. If anyone is daft enough (modesty forbids) to contemplate modelling that wonderful scene, the survey reveals that every other loco was a Black5 that day. You can never have too many! Part of that operation required the efficient disposal of locos & stock at North & Central. My understanding is that although there were pilot engines, it was usual for train engines to propel their trains in & out of the termini. There were literally miles of sidings, but once they were filled, rakes of empty stock would be cascaded to the station goods yards on the Fylde & beyond. These ECS movements would be reversed later in the day, to get the day trippers home. These days, with fixed formations & barely enough stock & crews to run a basic, 'clock-face' timetable, there's no spare capacity to cope with surges in demand. As I said, not all change is progress! After Central closed, services terminated at South but the carriage sidings remained until loco-hauled trains were transfered to North in the early '70s. The SB, a short distance beyond Waterloo Rd bridge, then continued to operate with no track adjacent to it. The Foxline series is a goldmine: shame the final Blackpool book never materialised. Check the other volumes for more pics of Fylde seaside specials photographed further afield...
  3. Both Blackpool sheds had the standard Lanky 'coal hole' with water tank above. No 'Cenotaph' here!
  4. I picked up this undated pic recently, of a Lanky 0-6-0 on shed @ Blackpool. To the right, my eye was drawn to the odd (to a Northerner!) 21t mineral wagon. The number is W109797. It's evidently been used for loco coal but not branded as such. A google search for GWR minerals brought me to this thread. Note the white diagonal stripes indicating doors at both ends. I imagine these wagons were intended to be emptied mechanically. The single drop-down door would not be popular with the shed staff if they had to shovel from the 4 corners, with some choice words about Swindon products! This pic illustrates the fact that WW2 & Nationalisation led to vehicles turning up in unlikely places. Now I need to track down a nicely-built kit, given the issues with the plastic in un-started/-finished ones! Unless there's different kit out there... Incidentally, note 'SP' (station pilot) chalked on the smokebox. Blackpool had some SP plates which were carried on the loco lamp-irons, but were evidently not always used. A few years ago, one of these was on ebay, with Blackpool Central stencilled on the back. At first I thought it was something to do with a signal. Unfortunately, the penny didn't drop until moments after the auction ended & it went for about 30 quid!
  5. Definitely looks the part. You can consider this 'an expression of interest' ! This technology is perfect for a shortish run. Indeed, I imagine they could be produced as required, rather than have to commit to a quantity of etchings, which might take years to shift.
  6. For me it's the seasonal traffic which excites me, running alongside the regular passenger & limited, but distinctive freight traffic. Poulton Curve or somewhere on the Fleetwood line would avoid the heavy excursion traffic. I've spent the best part of 2 decades 'researching' my proposed layout of Kirkham, but no building has actually happened, of the trainset or my mountain of kits. I also have a large collection of RTR stock waiting for the glorious day to arrive... What I have achieved is to amass a lot of photos & copies of spotting logs (esp the West Coast Sightings books, which cover the '59-'64 period). Facsimilies of links & rostering diagrams for locos & crew are available on ebay (I think the seller is: jtpend1). One limitation of these is the use of generic descriptions eg 'LMS Class 4 2-6-4T' which make no distinction between Fowler, Stanier & Fairburn variants. WTTs are much more informative than public timetables. There are many album-type books, but I think the most useful are Stuart Taylor's in the Foxline 'Scenes from the Past' series. Sadly, a proposed Part 6 never materialised. Others to look for are the relevant old Bradford Barton volumes. ColourRail has a fair number of images, many in colour, as slides, prints or downloads. Bear in mind that trains to & from the Fylde were also photographed many miles away. The Foxline books opened my eyes to the amazing variety of rolling stock to be seen, as well as motive power. There are numerous books with loco allocation info. Volumes in the 'Book of the...' series have details about individual locos, such as changes of tender, boiler, livery etc to make your brain hurt! In the BR period Blackpool had sheds at Central & North. The former closed in '64, its allocation being dispersed & North continued as a stabling point, servicing steam locos until '68. Typical allocations were Stanier & Ivatt 2-6-2Ts & 2-6-4Ts; Black 5s; Jubilees; Ivatt Class 2 2-6-0s. In the '50s, there were still ex-L&Y 2-4-2T, 0-6-0, 0-8-0 & the last 'Dreadnought' 4-6-0s. Also a few new BR Standard 5MTs & 2-6-4Ts for brief periods. Fleetwood had Crabs, Lanky 0-6-0ST & Fowler Dock & 3F 0-6-0T; BR Standard 2-6-2Ts. Regular visitors were Royal Scots, Patriots, Britannias, Stanier & Ivatt Moguls, WD & 8F 2-8-0s, LMS & BR Class 4s. More unusual & exotic were 9Fs, B1s, K1s, K3s, Clans, Super Ds... Really special visitors included 60113 (1952), 41101 (1959 'Andy Capp Special), 'MR 1000 & 60022 (1961) 60114 (1964) 4472 (1966 &7)... From the late 50s, local services began to be operated by DMUs: Derby 108, Cravens 105 etc, Met-Cammell 101, Birmingham 110 & Swindon Trans-Pennine 124. Original Derby Lightweight units seem to have worked to/from Cumbria. Birmingham 104s generally worked from S Manchester. The TP units seem to have worked Manchester diagrams. I have a pic of one with small yellow panels at South around '65. It's not clear if this is a 5 or 6-car set. (they sometimes ran without the buffet car). I have a pic of a 'yellow diamond' Met-Cam unit at Fleetwood. Euston services were gradually dieselised at the same time: Class 44 Peaks & EE Type 4 (40s) worked these until they were in turn displaced by Brush 47s & EE Class 50s. Brush Type 2s (31) & EE Type 3 (37) replaced the B1s, K3s & rare K1s on ER work from '61, but Jubilees & Blk5s worked in from W Yorks until '67. Some Manchester diagrams brought E Midlands-based Sulzer Type 2s & I have pictures of a Birmingham Type 2 (D5384) on the coast line & on Central shed in '64. Incidentally, DP2 worked Londons around '63, as had each of the 'LMS Twins' a decade earlier. The Deltic prototype was photographed apparently coming off the Fylde line at Preston, but I suspect it was a posed publicity shot, probably on a Sunday morning. One genuine pic at that location was of two 9Fs neck & neck on passenger services. Even more remarkably, one was an original Crosti-boilered version! (1957) Although Metro-Vick Type 2s were fairly common at Preston, the only confirmed visit to Blackpool was in '64. The loco was the later preserved D5705 working from Barrow. There was a Yorkshire 02 shunter at Blackpool for a time & a Midland 3F was dumped at Fleetwood for months... There were always unconfirmed rumours about Stanier Pacifics, until a preserved one came in modern times & Duke of Gloucester may have worked a train out when new... Despite all this exciting variety, when the RCTS carried out a traffic survey on the Fylde in '59, to record a day in the last summer of almost total steam operation, every other loco was a Black 5! It'll be, to quote the PM, a world-beating layout... if I ever build it!
  7. Did this product ever materialise? I'd definitely have one. I'm assuming it's 4mm scale? I've got just about every Black 5 variant bar this one!
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