Compound2632

Isn't that 00?

For real Midland goods atmosphere, have a browse of the Midland section of Warwickshire Railways. But if you already have a run of Midland Record... The Midland had rather standardised ways of laying out goods stations, whether city centre goods depots or wayside stations - get that right and it'll shout "Midland" without a speck of red insight! If it's Wellingborough you're thinking of, that's certainly on the grand scale - most of the siding space being for the remarshalling of coal trains. But it's all standard Midland procedures writ large, so scaleable down, I suppose. Copyright for illustrations in Midland Record will generally have been retained by the copyright holder; otherwise copyright remains with Wild Swan and the authors.

Just so - ideally. Thanks to all who have convinced me to stop looking at mitre boxes and start looking at a new engineer's square - my current one is getting a bit rusty and gunky, having got glue on it too many times.

I did look at that photo but thought "ugh panniers" and moved on before I'd spotted the water tower!

I'm very curious about the Midland wagon and would love to know more about the drawing. Essery's Midland Wagons has three sketches of early Midland wagons, drawn by A. Whitehead, but no sources are given other than "all dimensions and details are deduced from old sketches"; none look much like yours!

The question has been put: Here's a good c. 1958 photo of Bromsgrove South box and relief cabin, from an angle at which the offending water tower cannot be seen, though the water column is prominent. LMS / BR standard UQ signal arms on Midland timber posts; fogman's hut (?) neat the base of the relief line signal post (why necessary so close to the box? Or is it the privvy?); and various mysterious iron and wooden posts.

@Annie is making improvements to a digital model of the Lickey Incline, including Bromsgrove station. I've been feeding her snippets of information from Terry Essery's Saltley Firing Days (Silver Link, 1994; there are other editions under the title Firing Days at Saltley. In particular, we've been looking at Bromsgrove South signal box and the adjacent relief cabin, In the background of photos of this can be seen a water tower of distinctly Great Western aspect; it appears to be very like one at Henley in Arden, which has every appearance of dating from the building of the North Warwickshire line in 1908. It is prominent in a May 1956 photo on p. 143 of Essery's book. So, how to account for the intrusion of this piece of Wessey infrastructure at a thoroughgoingly Midland location?

Brilliant website - thanks. I've just been gorging on 2-4-2s!

Well, no, of course they wouldn't. Why would they want to when there's the rival attraction of the light railway?

It was there in 1956, well before the Wessey got its nose in.

Most places have.

Terry Essery's book has a May 1956 photo of the south box with the water column in front of it between the main and relief lines. The relief cabin is a flat-roofed concrete box structure immediately to the north of the signal box. There's also a water tower in the background - curved roof, on stilts, same style as this Great Western one at Henley in Arden, so I don't know what was going on there! Nice bit of film though a shame about all those interloping panniers. Four at once, though that's not unprecedented - Essery has photos showing one, two, three, and four 3F 0-6-0Ts banking together. It always seems to be the one at the back putting out the filthiest exhaust!

OK I had a read of the relevant bit of Terry Essery's Saltley Firing Days and I'm not certain which water column he was talking about though he does mention the relief cabin (where crews were exchanged) at the south box.

In these minor earthquakes, one usually only feels the earth move of lying in bed. When standing up, one's legs act as rather effective dampers.

That is a myth. May I refer you to Locomotive Profiles No. 15 which provides a detailed and less simplistic account of the design process for the Royal Scots.