John_Miles

There was an embankment washout on the Neath and Brecon early in the 20th century. If you look at the embankment it contains all sorts of material from what looks like old bits of boiler plate and slag to ash. In other words anything they had lying around.

There was a link through Iran to Russia which was operated using 8Fs. Could the carriage be somewhere in Southern Russia?

I know there are lies, damned lies and statistics, but I do find some stats interesting. These come from the HMRS newsletter, Points and they are from a letter which quotes one D. Rowland. I can't vouch for their accuracy. In 1938, the main line railways owned 663,500 wagons. The GWR had 82,400, LNER 258,200, LMS 285,600, SR 33,700. I think this puts the number of D299s nicely in perspective.

The USA also benefits from having a large single market .....

I have since a very young age been a fan of the Midland Railway. So the below came as a shock to me. When I was quite young (9 years or less) my mother ran an afternoon group for the local pensioners in the church hall. I used to have to go along after school and I got to know many of the pensioners quite well. One of them was a Mr Baxter who had worked on the railway at Barrow Hill and i discovered that he started work with the Midland. I was delighted to find this out and so I asked him what it was like to work for the company - I was anticipating replies which conjured up visions of halycon days spent on beautiful, highly polished crimson lake locos. His reply was "They were (RMWeb won't allow me to insert the last word but it pertains to people born out of wedlock)". Given that he was otherwise a very polite and gentle man and this was said with such feeling, it was a real shock. Despite this feedback, I have continued to be a Midland fan. I suspect all employers were pretty strict.

I used to work for a consultant back in the 1970s and turned out this sort of waffle. The line never paid in Victorian times when there was no road competition, indeed it cost the Barrow family (the same people after whom Barrow Hill is named) a lot of money. If this goes ahead it would use up huge sums on money which the Welsh Government could use more profitably elsewhere. Also, the population of the are is small so there aren't many votes to be gained.

Eating in a dining carriage with the waiters in white waistcoats, serving your meal on a swaying train. I only did it a few times as a child because my father didn't like having to spend the money but I always thought it was a real treat. My last occasion was in the early 1970s when my employer would pay for a breakfast if we had an early meeting in London. Then it would be kippers.

Mine was that I can remember going to work on identical buses and now it's in a museum. Begs the question, is it time for the care home?

A further point, anthracite was a high priced coal and so it would pay the collieries to burn cheaper stuff in their boilers. The following are prices per ton for coal in 1931 at South Wales ports. Typical steam coal 19s 6d Anthracite 34s Source GLM Review

I saw several things moving on Sidmouth. It's a class layout. I thought the standard of this year's show was better than average for Warley. There were some excellent 2mm exhibits for example. I also spent too much, especially with Alan Gibson and Lightmoor.

I have some answers. They are not totally conclusive but as most of the collieries in the Swansea Valley closed in the 1960s, that isn't too surprising. What people can definitely remember is house coal being brought into the area. Some people did have anthracite burning stoves but more people had traditional open fires which required house coal. People are hazy about coal delivered to collieries for steam raising but Penwyllt brickworks definitely bought steam coal for its boilers. So the tentative answer is that the collieries probably did import steam coal.

Mansfield was reputed to be the largest town in the UK without a railway service.

Now that is a really interesting question. I don't know the answer but there are plenty of examples of wagons from steam coal collieries in the anthracite area. They may have been passing through but.... Also house coal, you can burn anthracite but it needs a special grate. I have made enquiries. Possibly more later.

Anthracite would not be used for loco coal so the wagons that had contained loco coal would have had the soft, bituminous Welsh steam coal, reputedly the best steam coal in the world. The only locos I know of that did burn anthracite were in Pennsylvania. They were odd looking things with the driver in a cab perched up above the middle of the boiler and the poor fireman on a rather spartan platform at the rear. The firebox was huge and the full width of the loco. I think they were only to be found on the Reading and Lehigh Valley; if I'm wrong I will soon be corrected! The loco coal for the Swansea Valley locos appears to have come from around Port Talbot and the Avon Valley which runs east from Port Talbot. This is logical as it is the closest source of steam coal so it would be cheap. The Midland may have let Johnson and Clayton spend on making their trains look magnificent but when it came to most other things, they always accepted the cheapest bid. My views about the source of loco coal are supported by the photos quoted above which show a wagon from the Port Talbot area and lots of photographic evidence for Glyncorrwg wagons at places such as Ynisygeinon.