South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[tomparryharry]

I think you've caught that pretty well, old chap. I do like the light throw from the platform.

[The Johnster]

Why, thank you kindly sir, lor' bless 'ee.  I'm happy with the results, and the rather manky atmosphere created.  This evening has been spent installing my new Dapol conical top water tower, which experience is documented on the Dapol section of Products & Trade if anyone is interested.  This came in the post this morning along with a 'Bay Baccy ICI salt van, nicely weathered but I may put a wash of my own muck on it.

 

The cardboard box storage system is working well, but pva has been substituted for glue gun glue, which feels far more solid and safer.  Of course, I got another nice solid box this morning with a Dap water tower in it, and this will, with the boxes already in place, provide sufficient storage to accommodate all the stock in service and allow for future purchases as well.  There are at least 2 locos on the shopping list, the famous 94xx which Baccy now says will arrive in November and a Southeastern chassis kit for the 1854 Philou gave me.  Then there's the 5101s; I'll find Dapol's hard to resist at the price level if it doesn't go up and if it reviews well and to be a good runner.  But I'm not going to be chomping at the bit like I am with the 94xx; the 5101, whichever I buy, can go to the back of the queue!

 

Then there's a Comet E147 B set and A44 auto trailer, but the B set will not impact on storage too badly as I'll probably withdraw the K's E116 set, but keep it for occasional use rather than scrap it; it will migrate to the spare stock and bits drawer. 

 

Onwards, in general, and upwards...

[The Johnster]

Not a brilliant photo; Ian’s that he’s taken of the shed for thread are much better, but it illustrates the basics of the system.  The biggest problem has been preventing stock from rolling out, and the rocket sticks I collected last Nov 6 have been cut, actually, more truthfully, snapped to lengths as kerbs and hot glued to the edges of the boxes.  Everything is neat and tidy and I know where to look for it (well, should be, we’ll see!).
 

The coal trains, in fixed rakes, live in their fy roads on the layout, as do the two auto sets and the close coupled Hornby Collett bowenders; the standard traffic at Cwmdimbath.   Locos are divided thusly by storage box; panniers are all on one level with 57xx/8750s in one box section and 2761 & 8448 outside. 57xx one end and facing inwards, bunkers visible, 6762 at other end.  Prairies are also on one level, 4557 & 82001 outside box containing 4575s.  56xx have box to themselves, and 4218 sits on top. 
 

Stock is sorted like this; B set lengthways in a box with all 3rds above them and workmen’s clerestories sitting on top.  NPCCS in 3 separate boxes, brake vehicles (BR and LMS BGs, SR B, and SR BY) lengthways in a deep box, bogie vans (GW Siphons, LMS GUV) in long box, and 4 wheeled vans (Ashford PMVs, Fruit D, Damo) in their own box. Goods stock is stored crossways and divided over 4boxes, one for opens, one for vans, one for sliding door vans, and one for  ‘specialist’ (conflats, mogos, tank, salt etc). A bogie bolster C is stored upright on it’s end next to the opens.  Brake vans have box of their own, and various loads sit on top the vans box. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by The Johnster

[Northmoor]

That's the kind of "No Expense Spared" storage solution I can completely relate to: 98% of the functionality for 2% of the expense.

[tomparryharry]

Not 'my' photograph John; it's all your own work. I merely commented upon how you achieved the lighting effect. As far as storage is concerned, the prime objective is to have the stock get-attable, while you're not trying to get at it. For good cardboard, have a trawl through Aldi or Lidl in the first instance. Penny to a pinch of Po, you will find what you're looking for. I dislike spending good money, when even better things are going in the bin. I'd much rather spend money on other exiting things.

 

In other words, don't look at the package. Have a look at the package that encapsulates the package. After a great big sentence like that, I'm going to lie down; that's me done for today. Phew!

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

That's the kind of "No Expense Spared" storage solution I can completely relate to: 98% of the functionality for 2% of the expense.

Which is pretty much what made it attractive to me.  Plus I like using my glue gun.  The money saved on a £38 Ikea Billy equates approximately to the cost of a Dapol static water tower, and a salt wagon off 'Bay, so it's a bit of a win win.  Actually it's 100% functionality for zero expense, all expense spared; the boxes came free with various things ordered online, some of which they are now containing again...

 

The cost of glue sticks (I know it does...) should be factored in I suppose but it's more or less negligible.  A box of 100mm sticks costs £1.49 for 2 dozen and I've used 5 up on this project on the basis that too much is better than not enough.

[The Johnster]

                                                     Notice to Enginemen

 

 

Enginemen are reminded that hot ash or clinker must not be deposited from locomotives of 42xx, 56xx, or 82xxx classes when taking water at Cwmdimbath.

 

 

10th May 1954

 

Newport Divisional Mgr,  Loco. Dept.

 

To be circulated asap to BRY & TDU loco. depots, WR.

 

 

 

 

 

To avoid damage to the barrow crossing...  I may move the barrow crossing a bit further towards Tondu.  I'm not going to move the Water Tower!  No, hang on, come to think of it the Water Tower has to move.  See what you've started now, Mr TPH...

[tomparryharry]

Why am I getting the blame? I've never been to Cwmdimbath!

 

I did travel on the top of the bus between Newport & Cardiff, mind you.....

[The Johnster]

I always recommend double deckers for this.  It's like flying; much safer and more comfortable in some sort of aircraft...

 

The per way hut with the privy and the water tower have swapped places, fortunately before the Notice to Enginemen was issued, so it has been recalled and cancelled.  The barrow crossing remains in it's original situ, and a small pile of ash will appear near the water tower, approximately in a short line alongside the track representing where locomotives varying in length 'twixt tank filler cap and and firebox from panniers to 42xx and 3MT have dropped ash and clinker.  

 

There's still a bit of work to do blending the tower base into the scene. and I'm thinking of a sheep looking down the drain in that uncomprehending way they have have, but the basic job is done and I am happy with it.  There was a better position for the tower between the Remploy Estate siding and the main running line, but it would have blocked the view of the starter, so this was rejected.  Locos could have taken water on the siding or the main line.  Never mind, to quote Curt Cobain as he pulled the trigger...

 

I've had a very relaxing running session this evening.

[tomparryharry]

I was reliably told that knowledgeable gardeners would collect the ash from the pile for home use. Ash & clinker has a high acidic content, and as such slugs & snails don't like it one little bit.

 

Seeing as the object lesson was to relax, I'd say you seem to have hit the mark. Well done!

[88D]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I always recommend double deckers for this.  It's like flying; much safer and more comfortable in some sort of aircraft...

 

The per way hut with the privy and the water tower have swapped places, fortunately before the Notice to Enginemen was issued, so it has been recalled and cancelled.  The barrow crossing remains in it's original situ, and a small pile of ash will appear near the water tower, approximately in a short line alongside the track representing where locomotives varying in length 'twixt tank filler cap and and firebox from panniers to 42xx and 3MT have dropped ash and clinker.  

 

There's still a bit of work to do blending the tower base into the scene. and I'm thinking of a sheep looking down the drain in that uncomprehending way they have have, but the basic job is done and I am happy with it.  There was a better position for the tower between the Remploy Estate siding and the main running line, but it would have blocked the view of the starter, so this was rejected.  Locos could have taken water on the siding or the main line.  Never mind, to quote Curt Cobain as he pulled the trigger...

 

I've had a very relaxing running session this evening.

Sheep in that uncomprehending way!? What a slur on Valleys sheep. It’s just that we don’t comprehend them! May I point out that it was a sheep from Merthyr, on the Skip road to Cardiff, that first fathomed out how to cross a cattle grid by rolling over it! Bet you never did that! Uncomprehending indeed.

[Gopher]

3 hours ago, 88D said:

Sheep in that uncomprehending way!? What a slur on Valleys sheep. It’s just that we don’t comprehend them! May I point out that it was a sheep from Merthyr, on the Skip road to Cardiff, that first fathomed out how to cross a cattle grid by rolling over it! Bet you never did that! Uncomprehending indeed.

I've seen sheep sheltering in bus shelters in the Vale of Glamorgan, whilst passengers stood outside in the pouring rain.   Council had to put gates on the front of the shelters to keep the canny sheep out.  

[The Johnster]

Dowlais Top sheep worked out how to lift the axlebox lids on coal hoppers at Cwmbargoed to get at the tasty grease inside.  The uncomprending way is, I will allow, probably part of the Borg-like collective's plan to lull us into a false sense of security.  OTOH, on a hill-walking holiday in mid Wales many years ago, on the slopes of Pumlumon, I found one drowned in a pool barely big enough to contain it, and the only one for miles in any direction.  This smacks of stupidity above and beyond the call of duty, and has to be admired (but it had happened a while before and was best stayed upwind of).  At Southerndown they frequently fall over the cliffs; the ground above slopes ever steeper towards the edge and that's where the best grass is, then they go too far to climb back, their little legs scrabbling in panic as they go over.  It is, in a grim way, rather comical, but at least you can understand the thought process that leads to it; 'oo, look at that nice tasty looking grass by there'

 

This assessment of comparative species' cognitive ability should in all fairness be balanced by the fact that parked cars at Southerndown sometimes behave in a similar manner, as the grass gets wet and they start to slide...

[Gopher]

Yes sheep still do some very stupid things in pursuit of food.  I remember a car going over the cliffs at Nash Point - complete with occupants who sadly got killed.    

[The Johnster]

This has happened more than a few times at Southerndown as well, sadly; I eyeswitnessed one back in about 1966.  It's pretty hard to do at Nash, as there is a

ditch at the side of the car park to stop it, but any accident that can happen will eventually find a way to happen.  At Southerndown there are suicides as well, and one of those Samaritans hotline phones in the top car park.  I'd rather go over the 3 Golden Cups, or better still 5 minutes up the road to the Pelican In Her Piety, my favourite pub in this vicinity and my favourite pub name anywhere (as, sadly, the Slaughtered Lamb from American Werewolf In London put your clothes back on Jenny was fictional).  Sadly, well actually very happily for a while, they began about 20 years ago doing seriously good food, but the word got out and these days (well, not these actual days until WAG eases lockdown like they are doing in England, but you know what I mean) you've got to book weeks in advance.  

15 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

I was reliably told that knowledgeable gardeners would collect the ash from the pile for home use. Ash & clinker has a high acidic content, and as such slugs & snails don't like it one little bit.

 

My mum used the ash from our living room fire for this; some plants like potassium, which is what ash from fires, potash, basically is.  She was pretty good in the garden, a wallflower specialist, and knew a lot more about it than she'd let on, and certainly much more than me!  So, I occasionally give my various pots and containers the ash from the barbecue, and it doesn't seem to do them any harm.  I don't do her other famous trick, which was to have old newspapers in the boot of the car to pick up any horse doo doo we came across, the fresher the better, still steaming ideally; there was still plenty about in the 50s and 60s.  My father gave this as a reason for not buying an estate car.

[The Johnster]

Running has been deteriorating at the fy throat, and I decided this evening to do something about it, so I have ripped all the track up.  There are a few problem spots but the worst is the long dead frog of a 4th/3rd radius Hornby curved point; this will not figure in the relaying.  This has been prompted by the new storage system as much as the running, as less stock now needs to be stored on the layout; the only essentials are the loaded and empty minerals, and the 2 coach rake of permanently close coupled Hornby Collett 57' suburbans.  I could now get away with reducing the number of roads from 7 to 4, the 'permanently on the track' stock and one road for crane shunting (you don't hear this term much any more, and it gives my age away) to and from the storage boxes.  

 

I have an opportunity to configure things so that the Remploy siding become a through road to the back two roads of the fy, which are the mineral roads.  This would mean that empties could emerge on the branch from the fy, and be propelled down the Remploy siding, which would then become the access to the colliery exchange sidings, actually the same fy road they just came from.  After a suitable time, the loaded could appear at the siding and, after shunting the van and running around, likewise disappear back whence they came via the branch.  

 

There are pros and cons to this.  The pros are that the shunting would be interesting as the coal trains would have to run into the platform road to set back onto what would be the Colliery branch, and there would be a better sense of purpose to the workings as at present the empties and the loadeds simply turn up at the terminus, shunt vans and run around, and go back the same way; the colliery is accessed by a ground frame that only exists in my imagination.  And a kickback spur (I have an rh Peco medium turnout for it) just behind the trap point could stable a colliery loco, even a loco shed with coaling and watering facilities cut into the mountainside with a retaining wall. 

 

Cons are that the loading dock, which I rather like, will have to go, and there would be less NPCCS presence on the layout, and I like NPCCS, especially as it is the only way I can justify various styles of main line gangwayed stock at Cwmdimbath.  I would have to re-imagine Remploy and it's trading estate off scene, which the colliery already is, and NPCCS and other traffic for it would simply arrive and depart after running around.  

 

Basically I'd be swapping my parcels traffic for coal, and vice versa, losing neither.  Parcels needs less shunting than coal as the van doesn't have to be run around, but using that road for coal traffic gives more opportunity for future expansion.  I will sleep on it.  

 

I will have a spare left hand medium turnout and might use this for a further goods siding, to separate mileage traffic, but I'm a bit worried about crowding the look and getting even further away from the Abergwynfi influence.  I'll sleep on that as well; this is playing to my strengths as I'm world class at sleeping...  sleep for Wales, I could, sleep for Earth in the interplanetary sleeping Olympics...

[chrisf]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 I'd rather go over the 3 Golden Cups, or better still 5 minutes up the road to the Pelican In Her Piety, my favourite pub in this vicinity and my favourite pub name anywhere (as, sadly, the Slaughtered Lamb from American Werewolf In London put your clothes back on Jenny was fictional).  

 

Point of information: there is a Slaughtered Lamb about 10 minutes from Farringdon station in London.  I have been to several gigs there.

 

Chris 

[88D]

18 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Dowlais Top sheep worked out how to lift the axlebox lids on coal hoppers at Cwmbargoed to get at the tasty grease inside.  The uncomprending way is, I will allow, probably part of the Borg-like collective's plan to lull us into a false sense of security.  OTOH, on a hill-walking holiday in mid Wales many years ago, on the slopes of Pumlumon, I found one drowned in a pool barely big enough to contain it, and the only one for miles in any direction.  This smacks of stupidity above and beyond the call of duty, and has to be admired (but it had happened a while before and was best stayed upwind of).  At Southerndown they frequently fall over the cliffs; the ground above slopes ever steeper towards the edge and that's where the best grass is, then they go too far to climb back, their little legs scrabbling in panic as they go over.  It is, in a grim way, rather comical, but at least you can understand the thought process that leads to it; 'oo, look at that nice tasty looking grass by there'

 

This assessment of comparative species' cognitive ability should in all fairness be balanced by the fact that parked cars at Southerndown sometimes behave in a similar manner, as the grass gets wet and they start to slide...

It must be Dowlais Top sheep that are the ultra-intelligent ones then: they are also the ones who invented and developed the ‘rolling over the cattle grid’ trick as well. My admiration knows no bounds.

[The Johnster]

8 hours ago, chrisf said:

 

Point of information: there is a Slaughtered Lamb about 10 minutes from Farringdon station in London.  I have been to several gigs there.

 

Chris 

Ok, the Pelican In Her Piety is now officially my second favourite pub name...

 

The opening scenes in 'American Werewolf', where Jack is killed and becomes a lycanthrope (don't they ride racing bicycles?) which are set on the North Yorkshire Moors were actually location shot on the Gospel Pass in the Black Mountains, the road between Hay on Wye and Llanthony.  The mountains are about 1,000 feet too high for North Yorkshire, but it's desolate enough up there!  This area was also the inspiration for Conan Doyle's 'Hound of the Baskervilles', which he transposed to Dartmoor to include the escaped prisoner and because it had better rail connections (hurry, Watson, we can catch the 11.40 form Paddington.  The game is afoot!').  He was staying locally and liked the bleakness.

Edited May 12, 2020 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Fy progress, and I’ve gone for the Remploy-as-a-colliery-access-road version.  This makes the best use of the turnouts and track available given the awkward dog leg at that end. All roads pass over a r4curve at sime point but 1 of the mineral roads uses an r3.  4 roads (out of 6) are capable of 4 coach/11 and a van with loco, and two can handle 7 and a van&loco. 
 

This is effectively a coach/3wagon extension of the two main ‘passenger’ roads. 
 

Cuppa now just; track is all in position and test run with a 56xx.  Some wire soldering and fixing down left, and the scenic break is to be repositioned about wagons towards Tondu.  It’s been a bit intense, but I’m happy with it now.

 

Remploy trading estate still exists, but has been re-imagined off scene.  The traffic still appears at Cwmdimbath to be run around. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Job done, coal trains and autos tested successfully (autos are critical as they are propelled into the fy.  Normal running to the new pattern starts tomorrow.   Bit of making good work and the scenic break to attend to, and the new water tower to 'bed in'.  I've ordered a Parkside 13t steel open, 3-planker equivalent, as the start of a drive to rectify the imbalance of too many vans and not enough opens.  

[The Johnster]

I've found a few glitches; my hitherto much vaunted near perfect running was, though I didn't think of it that way, the result of my fine tuning couplings and in some cases buffers to run well on the old track plan.  I've found I've had to do some minor tweaking and checking of back to backs to achieve similar performance with the new plan.  As I haven't test run every possible combination of stock yet, there may be more tweaking to do; I regard this as a 'settling in' process and it may take a few weeks, but overall the layout and it's stock are performing well.  Two electrical problems have asserted themselves and must be the next priority job; actually it is an identical problem on two Peco turnouts, in which the curved blade is not making electrical connection to the stock rail.  I've cleaned the areas to no avail, and the matter can be resolved by forcing the blade home, but the answer for reliability has to be to wire the blade to the stock rail.

 

I've picked up another Parkside kit wagon on 'Bay, a BR diagram 1/019 steel dropside 'medium'.  Loads will be largely the same as my Baccy LMS 3 planker; containers and the odd tractor or large wooden case containing who knows (or cares) what.  I was going to knock it together on the sofa this evening but I've had a couple of beers now...

 

In more news, I've pre-ordered a certain upcoming pannier from Rails/Sheffield, at a bit less than the Baccy price.  Hopefully, this won't lead to a spat between Baccy and Rails like the Baccy/Hatton's upset!

[88D]

On 10/05/2020 at 21:23, tomparryharry said:

Why am I getting the blame? I've never been to Cwmdimbath!

 

I did travel on the top of the bus between Newport & Cardiff, mind you.....

I always stayed inside.

[The Johnster]

You'll be doing ok in the current situation, then!

[The Johnster]

The 1/019 is assembled and awaiting painting.  There were no transfers with the kit but I've probably got enough on other sheets to cobble something together.  For some reason this wagon is apparently not XP, and there are no lamp irons on the ends, despite it's being fitted; AFAIK the entire BR production of these dropside mediums were.  So it's only the wagon number and the tare/wheelbase info.