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Stoke Courtenay


checkrail
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  • RMweb Gold

Strike while the iron's hot (or you'll never get round to it!). Today I addressed the issue with the cess in the cutting, to which 'Regularity' of this parish alerted me yesterday. Does this look a bit better?

 

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I attacked the unruly hanging basket liner 'grass' with hairdressing scissors, but it kept bouncing back again, with scale 10 foot fronds suddenly arching over the track. I tell you, it's evil. Eventually I got it into some semblance of order, applied some PVA and some more ash ballast, and toned it in to match the rest with various brown, black and grey washes.

 

The loco is 4908 Broome Hall on an up parcels train.

 

John C.

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Funnily enough I seem to be going through a phase of building GWR open wagons at the moment. I don't think there is severe shortage as such; you can currently purchase the following diagrams: 

 

O11 - Parkside

O13 (China Clay) - Parkside

O29 - Ratio

O30 - Cambrian

 

 

Moreover, eBay, swapmeets and some traders at exhibitions throw up Coopercraft diagrams on a semi-regular basis, with diagrams O2, O4 and O5 popping up now and again. Or, if you're feeling brave, Model Railway imports of Canada have some Coopercraft kits listed for sale at the minute - shipping costs will be a factor though.

 

Make a start on those listed above, keep your eyes peeled for Coopercraft diagrams, and eventually you'll have a nice range of GWR opens! 

CoY

 

It's a start but not that many considering how many diagrams there were made, there are about 20 wagons 011 & 029  in number are on my layout plus an odd 030 and other company wagons..

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Work on the cess in the cutting led me to a closer inspection of the permanent way prior to Andy Y's visit. To my dismay I found a few quite significant bald spots in the ballast near the rail overbridge, not far in front of King Henry V in the attached photos. There have been no problems, accidents or issues in the area previously, but I have on occasion noticed one or two tiny flying insects in the loft. Carr's ballast is made from ground nut husk. Could there be a connection, and is my ballast being eaten by some kind of fruit fly, or am I imagining it?

 

Anyway, new ballast was soon added and subsequently toned in to match.

 

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post-15399-0-57911700-1546802639_thumb.jpg

 

These two pics are very similar, but I couldn't decide which was better (or worse). They also show some more new trees above the tunnel.

Edited by checkrail
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I love the spacious feeling you’ve created- I hope it comes across in the press pictures.

 

I blame woodlice for all the damage in my miniature domain: They remind me of overscale armadillos without heads.

Edited by Limpley Stoker
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 Carr's ballast is made from ground nut husk. Could there be a connection, and is my ballast being eaten by some kind of fruit fly, or am I imagining it?

 

 

I believe Woodland Scenics ballast is also made from nut husks, so it might be a more widespread problem if that were the case. I'd be more inclined to suspect the occasional lump of ballast that hasn't bonded

well, and gets dislocated in track cleaning etc. In any case I've rarely seen neater-looking ballast, so I imagine it will all look great in Andy's photos.

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Talking of open wagons I've recently acquired one of Oxford Rail's ex-NBR 8 ton 4-plank opens, brakes on one side only, in LNER livery. Am I right in thinking that such a wagon would have been very unlikely to find its way to south Devon in the 1930s or do you think I could get away with it?

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Such a wagon (hand brakes, open, general goods) would be part of the common user pool, so could turn up nearly anywhere.

LMS and LNER unfitted opens and vans would constitute well over half of the ordinary goods wagons in your era. Between them they accounted for about 90% of such stock. But photos suggest that GWR were more common in GWR country than raw statistics might suggest. There are two reasons for this: “station wagons” loaded at major transshipment centres were not common user, in fact were often restricted user (i.e.specifically allocated) and thus a lot of branchline “smalls” traffic was in company wagons. Also, a lot of traffic would be within the GWR network, and the GWR reckoned their wagons were better made and also had such things as sheet rails which made them more popular with other railway companies, which meant that the other companies often kept them on their systems if they could. To prevent this, GWR employees would show a preference for using their own vehicles for goods traffic remaining on their system.

Proportions of wagons owned, which was fairly constant throughout the grouping era, was:

LMS: 16

LNER: 13

GWR: 5

SR: 2

However, the LNER had a number of hopper coal wagons which generally remained on their own system, particularly in the Northeast of England, so the proportions appearing on anyone’s layout might need adjusting. Also, those figures are not adjusted to reflect possible variations in the quantities of fitted and specialised stock. Some variations are to be expected.

Edited by Regularity
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Useful info Simon, for which thanks. I was aware of pooling, and of the rough proportions of big four freight stock, and already have some LNER wagons. My query was more on the lines of: 'Would such an ancient clapped-out wagon have been used at this period over the great distances involved, or would it have spent its days on local trips?'   But what you say is persuading me to keep it!  (And in the 1930s I don't suppose it was actually that 'ancient'.)

 

John.

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The requirement for brakes with a lever (not brakes) on both sides was issued in 1911, and applied to new builds. The regulations stated an intentention to remove all wagons with brakes operable on one side only by 1938. It is questionable if this deadline was met for all general wagons, but the majority would have been either fitted with a independent either-side brakes, or a lever each side and a Morton clutch on the side with the brakes.

It depends on the build date and usage as to whether or not a ex-NBR open would be around in the 30s, but with so many built, it is highly likely that some were (the LNER was not the richest of railway companies!) although they might be somewhat worn and faded by then: nice weathering opportunity ahead!

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Layouts looking good and Andy's pictures will be a delight to see in the magazine.

Just ply him with coffee and biscuits, I picked his brains on taking pictures which changed the way I approached my own layout photography.

 

Clerestory looks fine to me so I would tend to leave it for now, must be more urgent things to get on with?

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How did you day go with the guv'nor then ?

 

Thoroughly enjoyable morning thanks Robin!  We had a good old chat. He's very good company, and easy to get along with. Everything worked well, and I saw my own layout from some new viewpoints and angles.

 

It's going to be nice, in due course, for you and others to see pics of my layout by a real photographer.  (On the other hand it may just expose the many blemishes.)

 

Will keep you posted.  Just in the process of knocking out an article now.

 

Cheers,

John.

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A lovely time with John yesterday; the layout is quite superb. It's evident from all of John's pictures that he's a remarkably tidy and exact modeller and everything looked 'just right'. Every aspect has room to breathe and there are some wonderful viewpoints as we know. Anyway, the pictures will do the talking in due course!

 

attachicon.gifFeature_3s.jpg

Do you mind me asking who makes those  figures

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