The Johnster

The situation on the ground in the 70s was that vac-piped vehicles were not visually distinguished from vac-fitted except by the colour of the pipe, white for blow-throughs (which of course we should have called 'suck throughs, but the terminology was loco-orientated and one 'blew' brakes off with the exhauster) and red for fitted. And of course the lack of vac cyldinders and release cords. Through pipes were rare except on brake vans, which did not have vacuum brakes as there was a (debateably sentient) brake operating mechanism aboard the van, though they may have had brake 'setters' (manually operated inlet valves) and gauges. I was familiar with the cokehops mentioned, but the majority of blow-through piped vehicles I came across were air-braked but piped for use in fitted heads, and were often ferry vehicles. Blow-throughs could be used in fitted heads or in class 6 fully fitted trains so long as the rear four axles of the head or train were vacuum braked, and of course the required brake force was available. In the days when brake vans were used on fully fitted express goods trains, it was common practice to marshall two fitted vans behind the blow-through brake van in order to steady the ride for the guard at the high speeds sometimes reached by these trains, which prior to 1967 (Thirsk derailment, but there had been a series of short-wheelbase wagon plain line derailments due to the poor riding of the wagons) and the blanket 45mph speed limit on 10' wheelbase vehicles could be booked to run up to 60mph, and if some of the accounts of running fish trains to express passenger timings on the ECML with V2s and pacifics are to be believed, sometimes a bit faster than that!* Academic by my day; the 1969 single-manning agreement allowed guards to ride on the locomotive on fully-fitted class 6 trains, and brake vans were dispensed with on them except where there was a particular operational need. The only such job in my link was the empty Canton Sidings-Calvert bricks, 50mph 'PIPE' fitted wagons, which picked up traffic at Lawrence Hill including a dedicated brake van with a setter and gauge. I worked this to Swindon for relief then home on the cushions, but the train reached its destination by being propelled along several miles of long siding on the formation of the former GCR London Extension; this was also my only booked working with a brake van through Box Tunnel. *As the old rhyme would have it, 'the guard is the man/who rides in the van/the van's at the back of the train/The driver, in front, thinks the guard is a (something that rhymes)/and the guard thinks the driver's the same....'.

They have all sorts of uses on the layout, I have several yards of wooden fencing made up of them and have used them as barrow/footpath crossings and the floor of the signalbox. The Glyncorrwg coach is progressing slowly, as other parts of my life have interfered with the modelling a bit over the last week, but the compartment dividers and seating is now in place, and the coach has acquired its bell. Spraying brown before glazing is next, along with detailing up the cab with a handbrake stand and a vacuum 'setter' with a vacuum gauge. I checked out Stafford Road Works' website last night for the bogies, and am having a bit of a rethink; the prints are a bit crude and basic, and at £36 including postage are not really worth the money. My previous clerestory conversions have used the original BR B1s, which are the correct wheelbase (8'6") and, with the tiebar cut out and coffee-stirrer footboards cut lengthways for the correct width and trimmed to clear the axleboxes look the part well enough. The bogie frames of the B1s are longer than the Deans, though, and this time I'll cut them back a bit and change the pivot position to compensate. Decision not finalised yet, and I may yet relent and go for the Staffords eventually anyway. Onwards and upwards, or perhaps diagonally and widdershins...

Six and seven years service on a BLT respectively for the 4575s; they improved haulage-wise over time in exactly the way you outline. IIRC Bachmann at one time plated their wheels with an alloy that is a bit slippy until it wears in, after which the microscopic irregularities it develops enable decent gripping. I have also played around with the strength of the springing of the pony and radial truck, as I was of the view that this was too strong and trying to lift the driving wheels off the track. My solitary 45xx, 4557, is mostly employed on the pickup which it is completely at home with, and seems happy enough with its occasional two-coach passenger work. I have a feeling that the sandwich auto work may have an effect, as it means that the loco has to haul and propel the stock simultaneously. Difficult to pin down, but this could mean that the compression of the leading end of the loco may mean that haulage is affected differently to simply hauling three coaches; this theory is bourne out by the fact that slipping occurs more readily when the locos are hauling one trailer and propelling two. Moreover, one of the trailers is a Silurian Era Keyser A31 whitemetal kit, and this thing is a serious lump of heft; it cannot be used in a 3-coach train as it will cause any of my locos to slip to a standstill.

'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a bund'. No, it hasn't quite got the same feel to it, has it? You can refer to Bannau Brycheiniog or Yr Wyddfa in any way you want, Hroth, but the English versions are not recognised in official documents such as National Park literature/promotional material, Government documents, maps, &c. I prefer the English abbreviation of 'The Beacons' for the area in general because the Welsh version, 'Y Bannau', the Fans, to my view, specifically refers to the area incorportating Fan Fawr and Fan Gyhirych including Fan Llia and Fan Nedd, north of the 'waterfall country'. It works like this, the sandstone escarpment from west to east runs Bannau Sir Gaer (Carmarthenshire Fans), Bannau Sir Brycheiniog (Breconshire Fans), the two compromising the general area of the Black Mountain, taking its name from the Glasfynydd which actually means blue or clear mountain but can mean black in some contexts. Fforest Glasfynydd (Glasfynydd Forest, but the Welsh word retains the ancient connotation of a wilderness; to confuse you further it is the site of a large Forestry Commission plantation) lies to the north of it and is the source of the Afon Wysg (River Usk). Divided from this upland by the A4067 road and the trackbed of the Neath & Brecon railway is Fforest Fawr (The Great Wilderness), which covers the 'The Fans' and the waterfall area, then the A470 road separates the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) proper, the mountain mass culminating in the peak of Pen y Fan. Divided fom this massif by the Wysg and the A40 road, and to the north-east of the the central area, is the Black Mountains (keep up at the back), a further sandstone escarpment upland reaching a peak of sorts at Waun Fach (little common), one of the best and most underrated viewpoints on the island of Britain on the right day*, extending finally to Penbegwn (Hay Bluff). In geological terms it is all part of the same escarpment structure. *Better than the higher Pen y Fan, from which the main range of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) is concealed behind Cadair Idris. From Waun Fach on a clear day it is possible to see directly north to Y Brynnau Clwyd (Clwydian Hills, and coming around clockwise Pendle Hill in Lancashire (another stupenduous viewpoint), Y Berwyn, Cannock Chase, The Wrekin and Shropshire Hills. the Lincolnshire Wolds and that escarpment down as far as Southern Gloucestershire, beyond it the chalk ridge from High Wycombe to Dorset, the Forest of Dean, all of Gwent and most of Glamorgan, in fact the entire country of Wales except that hidden behind Pen y Fan, the 'Black Mountain' and Yr Wyddfa, the English Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel coastline from Gloucester to Hartland Point, Lundy, Exmoor, and Dartmoor. Most of Wales and not far short of half of England! You cannot see the full length of the Wolds escarpment from Pen y Fan, and the Preseli range is hidden by the 'Black Mountain'. But you can see Bodmin Moor and Pentire Point from Bannau Sir Gaer.

I think you mean the hose, John, the flexible bit, the pipe is the solid thing under the wagon. The length will vary according to the size of the buffer housings, but should not be long enough to drag on on the ground; photos are probably your best reference and I refer you to Paul Bartlett's website (HMRSPaul here), he is the NRM's head honcho wagons and has a comprehensive supply of suitable photographs of all the wagon types you describe and more.

Not an uncommon problem with tender driven locos. Something is fouling as the wheels and motion move, but not to the extent that a little top finger pressure won't overcome it. There are several things you can do, but don"t use traction tyres on the loco wheels as they aren't driven and it won't improve traction or the 'rollability' of the wheels and motion; what it will do is spread crud all over your layout, catch on point blades, and cause derailments and other problems. Ok, let's do some diagnostics, bearing in mind Sherlock Holmes' quote that 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left however improbable is the truth'. .Firstly, check that the track is laid level and that adjoining pieces are connected smoothly together, and that there are no sudden changes in gradient or direction. .Do the wheels and motion seize up at specific locations on the layout? To test this, run the loco around as slowly as it will reliably run several times over all your track in both directions, noting the location of the seizures. If you have established regular seizure locations, then we have something to go on. Do the siezures happen on curves or where curves start or change radius or direction? If so, are the curves of a radius tighter than that recommended for the loco (this information is contained in the user service manual that came with it, but as this loco is 2h you might not have this. It can be downloaded as a PDF from Grafar). .If it's not location-related, check the wheels and motion for smooth running by holding the loco upside down and turning them gently by hand, feeling and listening for any clicks or resistance. I'm going to assume that the wheels are all running true and square, but this is not necessarily a given with a 2h loco, and I'm assuming that the back-to-backs have been checked. The axles have a degree of sideplay in them to enable the loco to negotiate curves, and you will need to test for clicks/resistance at all stages of sideways play. There will be a tight spot somewhere. When you find it, examing the loco closely under a strong light and maginfication to see if the motion is fouling even very slightly anywhere. This can usually be rectified by some very careful levering with a small screwdriver or similar. .If you can't find a tight spot visually, the problem may be one of lubrication, especially if the previous owner has had trouble and thought he could lube his way out of it. The coloured grease that lubricates new models goes off hard over time, and attracts crud. Remove the plastic keeper plate that holds the pickup strips (small x-head screws, insert them into Blu-Tac or even chewing gum to keep them from getting lost, they are sentient and will try to make a break for the border just to annoy you), carefully so as not to strain the wires, take the axles out carefully one at a time, putting them back before taking the next one out, spray the grease it away with a rattlecan electrical switch cleaner, and clean the residue with a cotton bud, allow the switch cleaner to vape off, and relube sparingly with a non-mineral plastic-safe machine oil, also lubing the points shown on the user service sheet. Any surplus lube will attract crud. Keep a modelling file handy as you might want to remove edges and burrs that might be the cause of your seizures. Clean up the filings after you. If all that doesn't get your loco's wheels turning smoothly, get as much extra weight into it over the wheels as you can. I find Blu-Tac useful for this, easily shaped to clear any moving bits.

I use pencil graphite as lubricant for plastic-on-plastic interfaces, much the same principle and a tip from Cyril Freezer in a Constructor back in the 60s, also IIRC mentioned in Airfix magazine (who remembers that?) as a way to get construction kit valve gear working smoothly. Actually, I suspect this might be better for your purpose than powdered graphite, as it is less likely to get into places where it can gum things up; like all lubricants, use as sparingly as you can manage! I have long ago eliminated plastic wheels on my stock, which runs pretty well by and large; the RTR stuff is the standard metal pinpoint axle/coned plastic bearing thing, which will presumably eventually wear out but some of my stock has been in service for 8 years now and is still rolling well enough. Kit stock has brass bearings and runs superbly so long as I've managed to build it square and true. Pencil graphite lube is particularly useful for RTR bogie pivots. Plastic wheels are 'orrible little things, impossible to set back2backs and spreaders of crud, and my reccomendation is to give them the oppurtunity of an exciting new career in the landfill industry, same goes for traction tyres, Satan's snot.

I doubt we'll see many more 4mm new toolings from Hornby for a while, as the company concentrates its attention on the TT120 range. And Bachmann, the other 'traditional' big player, seem to have reacted to the world recession by consolidating their range rather than expanding it, no doubt under the guidance of their parent, Kader, so, again, I rather doubt there will be much steam input from them for the foreseeable; their recent innovations have been in the field of retooled established diesel models and there has been no steam development sinceh the 94xx and J72, a few years back now. Accurascale, along with Dapol (in their current form) and Rapido, are companies i think of as being newcomers, but this is not fair to them, and they are well-established features of the scene. In the case of Acc and Rap, they are clearly willing to engage with modellers on sites such as this one, and are much more 'approachable' and responsive to our suggestions. So, my view (other views are available and may well be better informed than mine) is that a new 8F is fairly low-hanging fruit and probably on the cards in the next few years, but it is much more likely to come from the Acc/Dap/Rap combo. I agree wholeheartedly on your point about tractive weight, though, and not just on the models mentioned, Haulage of current RTR is not what it should be despite much freeer-running stock than of old, and it has been my practice to ballast over the driving wheels to the greatest extent that I can over the past seven decades; I have yet to make a loco's haulage performance worse and have often improved running by doing this, partly because of the increased inertia/momentum imparted by the weight, and partly because the downward pressure on the pickup wheels is increased as well, improving the electrical connection at the rail/wheel interface. If I can do it, the manufacturers should be doing it for me IMHO. The situation isn't as straightforward as that view suggests, of course, as for 21st-century models DCC and DCC sound has to be catered for in the tooling while DC Luddites like me have to be considered as well. Increased use of die-cast metal in components is a step in the right direction, but RTR, especially steam outline, has some way to go in replicating the performance of the prototype. An 8P pacific should be able to haul 15 bogies on the level at a scale 90mph, and an 8F should be able to haul 60 goods vehicles at 45mph, or 100 minerals at 25. Admittedly few of us have layouts that allow such working, but I contend that my point is correct in principle. Large prairies that have trouble with 6 ML&C coaches when the real thing hauled 2 sets of them in daily service out of Paddington are not really cutting the mustard, although the loads on my layout are 3 tops. The locos that run into difficulty sometimes are at Cwmdimbath are Bachmann small prairies, hefty little things to be fair with die-cast running plates but the 3-coach auto sandwiches required for Saturday services tax them a bit. I claim Rule 1 greasy rails. The prototype was classed at 4MT by BR, and should be able to do better than that!

Pavement Toshiba is working perfectly, all inputs functioning and everything responds perfectly to the old one's remote. And The Squeeze likes the fact that it's white now that I've wiped it over... Anyone want a 32" computer monitor without a remote (only works on PGA input)?

Patience, padawan; EVRI delivered my new layout operating (office swivel) chair and I've got to assemble that and get rid of the old one first...

I have a Toshiba 32” tv with two HDMI sockets as well as other connection options, which has become a bit of a pita over time as first one, then the second, HDMIs ceased to function. Both are needed, as there is a Virgin TIVO box and a Mac Mini computer feeding the tv. These are now feeding the tv by a single VGA/HDMI adaptor, not a satisfactory setup and a guaranteed eventual failure as these plugs don’t like excessive handling. I’ve had a series of SDMI splitter boxes, none of which lasted very long or were reliable. Coming home from the shops on Tuesday, saw that someone had chucked a similar tv out on to the pavement, so checked it for HDMI sockets, box ticked, two of them present & correct… As I had the 4-wheeler heavy duty shopping trolley with, no problem to load the tv on top of it for cartage home, only around the corner anyway. Thinking was that, if this tv works, it can replace the existing problem child, and if it doesn’t there is little to lose by taking the backs off and replacing the HDMI sockets on the original tv, at least so long as I don’t have to go poking around where there might be loaded capacitors that can chuck me across the room… The pavement model is also a Toshiba 32incher, similar to the problem child but in a white casing as opposed to black and with a built-in DVD player (remember them; ah, the good old days…), so it should work with my existing remote. The chucker out had cut the mains cable, so the first task was to replace that, not difficult as it turned out since removing the little panel accessing the innards of this allowed me to tug about 6” out, plenty for a connection and a vindication of my habit of cutting the cables off electrical stuff I’m getting rid of and keeping them because they’ll come in handy one day, yay hoarding! Replaced the fuse with the correct 5-amp, plugged it in, and… it lives! Indicator led lit and normal blank screen. Later today I’ll start connecting things to it to see what it’ll do, but things are looking pretty hopeful now just. Watch this space for the next exciting episode of Pavement Toshiba!!!

I use the real thing, mined by Tomparryharry for me at Big Pit, Blaenafon. This has several advantages, in that it looks remarkably like coal (not everything scales down in this way but geology does, by and large, as does wood, something to do with fractals). It can be crushed as fine as you like and the resultant debris comes in handy to represent the finer grades. I require it to be removed from and replaced in the wagons as part of the operation, and this is achieved by the usual method of making up card platforms that fit loosely inside the wagons, pva-ing the top, and spreading the coal on it. But in general I would suggest lumps between about 1-1.5mm in size for loco, steam, and export coal, smaller for steelworks or power stations, (power station coal was more or less dust by the 1980s), a bit bigger for coking or gasworks coal. My photos of Cwmdimbath show that quite a lot of my loads could do with being a bit finer; do what I say, not what I do! Coke does not look like coal; it is greyer and less shiny. It is also lighter, which means the wagons carry more of it in terms of bulk, hence the coke rails on smaller wagons and the big LMS/BR hoppers. Coal wagons in service very rarely carried less than the full load, up to within a few inches of the top of the sides; it was in everybody's commercial interest to get the most economical use possible from the wagons.

Quite, unless there's something else going on to provide some action. But a few seconds, perhaps five or so with the loco stopped, to show that the operator is aware of the procedure, makes a huge difference. I will certainly walk away from any layout where the loco sets back on to the stock and unceremoniously pushes it towards the buffers (fine with goods shunting of course), though. In reality, the stock is left with a handbrake and the vacuum brakes hard on, so the move is physically impossible. One would not perhaps expect it on overtly train-set layouts without scale pretensions, or Lego and such; fair enough, but it has spoiled the effect for me on some otherwise superb layouts, including P4 examples. Of course, there is no reason that I should assume that layout operators, especially in this day and age, are conversant with traditional railway operating procedures, but the information is out there, and the procedures can be observed on heritage railways, and I think it is reasonable to expect a grounding in the basics. I could go off on a rant about standards of driving and operation at shows, but will restrain myself for now... Much of the problem is that layouts are only erected to be operated at shows, and the operators are thrown in at the deep end with no experience of operating the layout, no 'route knowledge'. I reccomend operating sessions to train them up, as well as to check the layout for problems before going to the show, but this can be a problem for large club layouts. Ideally, in a perfect world where operation is correctly prototypical, one would need almost as many people working a station as the real thing did, see Borchester Market...

Peoples' Republic of China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, North Korea. Zimbabwe?

There were also the Ministry of Supply all-steel 16ton cupboard door 'SNCF' wagons sent to France in the post-war period to replace war losses and returned to the UK to be given to BR when the French had no further use for them, early 50s; cupboard doors on coal wagons were the norm in France. They entered the general pool, where they proved highly unpopular with merchants who were not conditioned to doors that opened like that and preferred the more usual drop-flap type, which they could illegally prop up with any old bit of timber and use as an unloading platform... Parkside do a kit for these wagons, of which there were several thousand and which were dispersed widely, so a usefull addition to any period 4 layout. Nobody liked them, but they enabled a speedier withdrawal of the older 7-plankers. I can't remember any in the 70s, so would be fairly confident in saying they were extinct by then.

Coal isn't just black rocks you know. In fact some of it isn't even black, more grey or brown. Coal from different coalfields, different parts of the same coalfield, and even different seams at the same pit has different calorific values, friability (how well it goes with chips), acid and sulphur content, and other properties, and on top of that is processed after being raised to remove waste material, then screened into different size lumps, then washed in order to minimise the dust. An industrial customer was able to specify the calorific value, friability, acidity, and sulphur content to suit his own boiler or coking needs, and domestic customers were able to specify size and clean-burning ability according to budget. Anthracite, which has been subjected to heat and pressure while deep in the Earth's crust, is used where low smoke emission and very high calorific values are required, but it is more expensive; it is comparatively smooth with shiny flat surfaces. As a very rough guide, power station coal can be quite small in size, steam coal needs to be capable of being shovelled or conveyored/hoppered into boiler fireboxes, loco coal being more critically screened for size. Loco coal to be used with coaling towers needs to be screened for friability, and the GW/WR's use of Welsh Steam coal meant that they did not use such towers, and friability is an issue with export coal tipped into ships' holds as well. For modelling purposes, I would go for a fairly fine product, varying the sizes in wagons of household coal destined for local goods/coal yards and using a uniform size in block main-line trains, especially power station/MGR traffic.

I have a similar one for Cwmdimbath; it has the look spot on and the imperfections are not unreasonable on an item left out in the weather and largely ignored for long periods.

The 2-4-0 is a Ratio plastic kit, originally sold with chassis, wheels, gears, & motor; it had a reputation for being difficult to get to run well and having a weak motor, but yours has a replacement brass chassis and a Mashima motor; it looks to be well-made and assuming it runs well is a bargain! Good runners of this loco are rare as rocking horse doodoo. IIRC there was a 2F 0-6-0 as well, with a similar rep; they turn up on the Bay sometimes, almost always as 'spares or repair'/non runner items. Many of these type of station-shop volunteer-run secondhand places will use the bay's BIN prices as a guide to pricing, in lieu of any more structured information. Easy to use the same method on your smartphone to check while you are browsing, but the shop model has the advantage that you can examine it properly and often get a track test, and you're usually contributing to keeping something open/running or a restoration.

Less trouble for my nominal 1948-58 timeframe, where BR P-prefix numbers can be used. John Isherwood does sheets of P-numbers, and a mix’n’match approach using half-numbers in different combinations easily provides individual numbers for 50 wagons and more. There are 35 mineral wagons in service at Cwmdimbath, all individually numbered with no duplication. I would not swear to them all being correctly numbered, but I can only do my best. I understand and sympathise with your reluctance to mutilate RTR 7-plankers at nearly £30 a pop from blue box, but costs can be reduced with Oxford Rail and Parkside kits, though the latter only cater for BR liveries. I managed to buy some of my fleet on the Bay of e a couple of years ago when Bachmanns coild be had for less than a tenner, especially unboxed!

PO minerals were pooled before the war, Ian, but it would be interesting to have some idea (which I don't) how long it took them to get all mixed up? Traffic flows would keep wagons in their original formations on their original routes to some extent even before the era of block workings, and the shunters would automatically use the liveries to cut wagons out for return to the original colliery unless they were specifically instructed not to, which seems unlikely. I wonder if the level of mixing in that would allow an Ystradgynlais wagon to be likely to appear coupled to an Ebbw Vale in the yard at Stormstown on an Ynysybwl working did not really occur until the fifties, by which time the liveries were becoming academic anyway... I don't worry too much about it at Cwmdimbath, where the 10-year 1948-58 time-frame gives me an excuse to use more or less any XPO livery I fancy, but they are heavily weathered and nearly all (I'm allowing for a few not yet carrying them in the late 40s and very early 50s) carry BR numbers courtesy of that nice Mr Isherwood and his transfers. A couple are weathered to a point where liveries are academic, correct for the period. About half are South Wales liveries, of which a further half are the big players; Ocean, Cory, Nixon (all big players in the Tondu valleys) &c. These proportions are a guesstimation, and not one I lose sleep over! My main moan on this subject is the trade's lack of provision of 1950s XPOs other than those in BR grey livery, which was in fact fairly rare on the ground but has always been an RTR favourite since the 50s. HD did one in tinplate, superb livery rendition, which even then I though an inferior representation to the Trix Twin tinplate dark brown filthy wood livery which was much more in line with what I saw being dragged up the bank at the back of Monthermer Road behind a 56xx heading for Llanbradach or somewhere with the empties. Baccy do one or two; I have a Bachmann weathered BR P-numbered MOY for example, but have put several more layers of weathering on it. It is well known, of course, that by thirty seconds past midnight on 1st January 1948 special pre-organised secret workings had under cover of darkness delivered the regulatory filthy Southern Railway PMVs to every station between Penzance and Thurso, with the standing instruction that at lease one was on hand at each station for the next thirty years, and every parcels train should carry a minimum of three, though Van B's and PLVs were allowed as substitutes.

PO coal wagons were pooled in 1938 (IIRC), and very few of the wooden ones were ever repainted after that. They were left in their PO livery, which by the time the railway was nationalised in 1948 was becoming illegible; some had had the information painted in white stencil bottom left corner as Cwmtwrch points out. The overwheming majority were simply left in their increasingly filthy condition and then had BR PO numbers in the P series applied. After the first six months of 1948 the black panels upon which numbers and other information were painted appeared, painted on directly over the filth. Damaged planks were replaced by unpainted new wood or planks salvaged from other wagons, sometimes turned upside down and/or inside out, top rake and central planks being susceptible to loading damage and bottom planks to rot. BR's June 1948 painting instructions were that wooden bodied unfitted wagons were not to be painted, and new ones still being built to fulfil big four orders were delivered with the wood unpainted but the metal strapping in freight grey. Coal wagons built at this time were all all-steel and delivered in freight grey. The LMS and the wartime Ministry of Supply had been building all-steel minerals since 1936, and these along with the new BR standard versions were beginning to make an impact on the scene by nationalistation. The newly-formed BR inherited 'about' half a million 9' wheelbase wooden-bodied XPO minerals in various stages of decompostion, and one of the tasks of the newly set up 'Ideal Wagons Committee' was to cull the worst of these for replacement with new all-steel 16tonners, and patch up the rest to keep them in service until the replacement program was completed, sensible given the economic restraints of this post-war austerity period. The process was aided by rationalisation in the coal industry and the resulting pit closures, and the now steadily falling demand for household coal (new housing stock to replace bomb damage was mostly gas or oil fired centrally heated) and export coal (again, due to the development of oil-based economies world wide after WW2), but even so it took until around 1962/3 before 7-plank XPOs vanished from the main line scene, though examples survived for many more years as colliery and steelworks internal users. Looking at RTR provision for this period one might think that there was a prevalence of grey-painted wooden XPOs, and these certainly existed, appearing in the later 50s, but there seems to be a deal of confusion over exact dates and even whether there was an actual instruction to do this. The typical appearance of a wooden XPO mineral even in the early 60s was the remnants of the PO livery, with a BR P-series number (K suffix if it was a 20 tonner or hopper), and various interpretations of replacement plank provision, all encased in a thick layer of coal dust and slurry. Bachmann have produced some XPO wagons in heavily weathered PO livery and P numbers, but the trade had never provided a really representative number of representations of this Period 4 timeframe. There would be little that anyone could point out error in if you painted 7-plankers matt black all over and weathered them as much as possible, but attempts were made to clean the wagon numbers and the tare weight for the purpose of colliery weighing and invoicing. Freshly grey painted 7-plankers were not as common as steel-bodies wagons at any time, and nowhere near as common as their neglected brethren. You could usually make out where planks had been replaced, but not much else.

I had a loft layout in my teens, loft conversion by Buffalo Bill Enterprises PLC, aka my old man, so I understand your need for temperature stability; the layout expanded and contracted itself to pieces. An outside building in which you will be spending leisure time that you are supposed to be enjoying yourself in, operating the layout and working on the models, is a case in which the more you spend on insulation the better. Proper underfloor insulation is particularly important as is damp proofing at floor level. as is good quality roof insulation; don't stint on these! Use aluminium foil to reflect heat away from the roof in the summer and back into the space in the winter. Walls, doorways, and windows can be insulated effectively with cheaper materials such as aluminium foil or egg cartons. Seal window and door frames with mastic. Don't employ Buffalo Bill's favoured heating method, paraffin stove, or bottled gas because you will be troubled with condensation, appropos which you will need to consider ventilation as well. Fan heating is not the cheapest but will warm the space quickly and can be used to cool it in hot weather. The better your insulation the less you will spend on heating, and the more comfortable and welcoming the building will be; this will reflect in both the enjoyment of your hobby and the quality of your modelling.

The distortion does not affect the running, so the chassis on its own is fine, but the bodyshell is out of whack, is that right? If so, this is good because whatever you do to the bodyshell once you've removed it from the chassis will not affect the running of the model unless you foul the motor/gear train in some way. Remove the bodyshell, and make up some sort of internal former piece or pieces to roughly the correct internal shape, scrap metal or wood not plastic. Boil a kettle and pour the boiling water into a bowl big enough to submerge the bodyshell. Wearing Marigolds, insert the former pieces into postion, as tightly as you can manage; be careful, the water will be very hot! The hot water will soften the plastic and it will 'redistort' back to the right shape. This might take several attempts before you a happy with it. because you only want to move the bodyshell material a tiny bit at a time to avoid pulling the plastic about too much. Patience and perseverance are the keywords, and you may have to accept that the shell is never going to be be perfect and accept a 'that's good enough' compromise, but you should be able to get it fairly close, 'layout model' close... So long as the original shape is restored as closely as you can manage, there should be no problems with the inside of the bodyshell fouling on the mech. But take care with the hot water...

And you never will, the road to nowhere, Chris Rea's Road To Hell. Mind you, with the traffic as it is, it could easily take you three days to go round once...

Exactly. Though auto-working was common on short urban branches where intense rush-hour traffic needed fast turnarounds. Auto-trailers were developed from steam railmotors, which were introduced originally to compete with new electric tram suburban expansion around the turn of the 20th century, with which the first trailers were designed to run. These SRMs generally proved to be victims of their own success and struggled with the timetables, so the obvious next move was to use the trailers with auto-fitted locos, ideally redacted surplus but still useable stuff like 517s and Metros. The SRMs were rebuilt into trailers over time, the last one going in the 30s, and the 48xx/14xx was the first of a series of locos specifically designed for auto-work, a modernisation of the 517. Modernised 2021s followed in the form of the 54xx, then the smaller-wheeled 64xx for gradient-infested routes. The ultimate was the number of 4575s fitted with auto gear for an extension of auto-work in South Wales in 1953. Of the small prairies, the 44xx and 45xx tended to gravitate to true branch line work of the bucolic backwater sort we love to model, but not exclusively; 4575s were used on longer branches like the Cardigan where their axle loading could be accommodated and the extra water capacity of the larger tanks was useful.