muchfiddling

I have almost exclusively Marcway turnouts and Colbalt digital motors. I use 1mm piano wire from Eileen's Emporium.

The weekends consignment of beer passes through Malago Rd.

An unbelievable clean picket "Beast" shunts new customer wagons at Liberty Pit.

Memory Lane is complete. It obviously need pavement, walls, fitting and street lights, plus a good scattering of people to bring it to life. But I can now move on to my next task a batch of 7 plank wagons for the Colliery.

Memory Lane is almost complete, just one small cottage to complete. This is the white Lion

I'm still plodding long with Memory lane.

I've started work on Petite Properties Memory Lane

A merry Christmas to our readers The winding house is now reunited with the layout perhaps tomorrow between cooking the Turkey I might just string the cable between the sheaves and winding house

The winding house is now complete. It needs placing on the layout and the cable fixed between the winding house and the sheaved placed in position.

No it doesn't Nod, it's constructed from foamex, like most of the items on the layout. I'm the only one who nods here I've spent the last few days putting together a whole heap of miners and associated folks, and painting them. It looks like some labour unrest could be brewing on Liberty Pit. This scene will look a lot better once I've added some cinder ground cover, I also intend to paint a water colour back ground scene. Trouble at mill "no it's at the pit"

the screen for my pit have now been positioned. These feature and internal hopper to enable empty wagon to be filled with coal. ( A simple slide is fitted to the rear where they are out of sight). In a dire emergency a loco can get underneath. I'll be adding mining tub, miners to make it more convincing as I finish them.

this week things I've been working on the screens for my mine. This features a removable roof, so I can load the loose coal into a hopper. This will be used to fill the empty wagons (if everything goes to plan.) The main body of the screen is 9mm ply, the internal hopper is fabricated from foamex, and sleeted with Slaters corrugated sheets. The stanchions came from Cornwall boats, and great value for money at £2.95 a packet of 10. I'm really look forward to moving on to something else. But I still have a few week work on the mine.

Yes Liberty Colliery was well closed by 1900. I presume it was sited in what now is Liberty lane in the area close to Ashton Gate. I read somewhere it was a rich seam of coal, extending out are far as Dundry which must be 5 or 6 miles. ( The Malgo society put out a very intresting news letter featuring many local intrest stoires). Of course in my senario the colliery is still working in the late 1940's / early 1950''s. At that time if you sat in Victoria Park (close to Bedminster station you witness the multitude of stock movements between Temple meads and Malago Vale. Plus of course the normal passenger traffic and freight movement on the by-pass line via St Phillips. regards Rich