South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[The Johnster]

This is a distinct possibility of possible distinction, and a photograph may well be the thing to do this with.  Nothing is set in stone decided as yet, though the track plan is pretty well workd out. 

[1466]

14 hours ago, The Johnster said:

An important part of the Colliery plan has been done this afternoon, with the aid of The Squeeze holding the felt tip pen.  The branch running line must be relaid and taken from the current scenic break locus around about 50 degrees of curve in order to approach the new fy board at a suitable angle after a reverse curve, and while I want as much space as is practicable for the colliery corner, which I'll come back to in a minute, I need to keep a close eye on the radius of the running line to allow as large a radius as possible in the interests of both appearance and good running.  Two guidance marker curves in green felt tip have been set at roughly 36" and 30" radii, and the ability they give to visualise the use of the space shows that the track needs be laid to be laid to 30".   I'll be purchasing some curve setters on Wednesday as well...

 

The colliery corner is not a simple corner, but a complex shape made up of the angled wall of that end of the bay window, an inglenook, and the chimney breast.  One at least of the colliery roads needs to run offstage into the fy, but I can get away with tighter curves and even the larger radius setrack if absolutly neccessary.  I am considering the use of setrack no.3 Y turnouts for the fy in the interests of economy and space saving, but it would mean rather a lot of reverse curves which I want to avoid as much as possible.  Wednesday is pension day, and the project is on hold until then because I will be undertaking the two-bus schlel crosstown to Lord & Butlers' to buy half a dozen lengths of code 100 streamline, which should be sufficient, and some turnouts, but not all of them as I will wait until the track is half laid to be sure which additional turnouts are needed. 

 

I'm increasingly sold on the idea of Walthers' Cornerstone 'New River' as the main colliery building complex, not cheap but cromulent and a good use of space.  I can raise the washery (and the whole complex if neccessary) a little if the side screen clearance is an issue (Americans seem to refer to what we describe as a washery as a tippler), and there needs to be an impressiong of the pit occupying a site sloping upwards from the railway and the valley floor, which 'New River' suits admirably, though with probably a good bit of bashing, cut'n'shut, and 'Johnsterification'.  So a job for later tonight or early next week will be to make a full size card template of the footprint of this kit to aid positioning and ensure it doesn't end up where the washery feed roads will be a problem.  The actual track layout of the colliery is as yet undecided as I will need to be flexible in terms of what goes where and how the shunting will actually be carried out, another reason for not buying all the turnouts at once.  There will be at least two through washery roads.

 

A question for the knowledgeable, and one I should know the answer to and think I do but need reassurance... about weighbridge working.  My memory of working pits long ago when I did not pay as much attention as I should have is that they were usually situated between the washery roads and the exchange, and that rafts of emtpy or loaded wagons were pushed or pulled over them at very low speed, but I'm wondering if this is right and if, in fact, the wagons were stopped on the weighbridges for individual weighing; I may be thinking of MGR working.  The correct procedure may have some impact on my timetable!

 

The timetable is probably going to be impacted anyway, as there will be a lot more operation centred on the colliery (haven't named it yet, how about 'Forest Pit') and I may have to cut some of the passenger workings.  There may be a workman's halt outside the pit as well, as it's a bit of a walk from the main passenger station especially if the downcast is in the far corner, though the trains will still have to come up to the terminus to run around.  I may reinstate the night shift as well, all this NCB investment has to be paid for, but I can't see the branch's signalboxes being open overnight; TTBOMK Blackmill and Brynmenyn didn't do night shifts, though Ogmore Jc and the rest of the Tondu complext worked  24/6 (not Sundays).

 

Mines in the UK must, as a legal requirement, have at least two means of entry and exit for obvious safety reasons, and the normal situation is to have separate downcast and upcast shafts for ventilation purposes, a vital consideration.  But I don't want to lay out another £30 for another DAPR headgear kit (though I'm open to persuation). and might go with the excuse that the downcast is incorporated in the 'New River' complex but the sheaves are enclosed and out of sight, while the DAPR pithead is the upshaft.  The usual arrangement was that the downcast shaft was the main one in terms of the (often double decker) cage for taking men and empty drams down, and men and full drams up; a constant supply of full drams and the efficience with which they could be brought to the surface was one of the key factors in a pit's productivity and output.  The other, upcast, shaft, is used to take down the likes of pitprops, hay for the ponies, equipment in general, and anything else that needs to go down or come up, without interuppting the flow of coal from the main shaft.  It can also be used as an overflow to the main shaft if needed. 

 

There will have to be a narrow gauge dram network, and some drams to pose on it, but I can't see making this operational.  The drams were pushed around be hand or sent off by gravity on their own cogniscance, which was exactly as rough and ready as it sounds, and scarier than in Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom (aa bom shavai, aa bom shavai), and, sadly, locomotives were not used, even petrol tractors, IIRC; no chance of a quarry Hunslet!  Electric locmotives were used underground of course where there weren't pit ponies or conveyor belts, but we won't be modelling that...  There was a surface testing and driver training track for the undergound locos at the back of Nantgarw, visible from the A470 dual carriageway when it was built, with ridiculouts gradients and curves and deliberate bad tracklaying, great fun as a spectator sport!

 

I'm getting impatient to crack on with this now, and must be disciplined.  Pension day not being until Wednesday will prevent me buying anything until then, but the temptation to rip track up and see how the turnouts and new curve will work in practice is strong.  I must and will resist, as I will not be able to operate the layout at all if I do this, we need to retain the existing fy and pretend colliery for now and, while the colliery is less urgent, the fy needs to be replaced completely on the new board and the plain line section of branch put in in one session to enable running to continue.  Once that's done, I can start laying new track in the colliery with the aid of my 'New River' footprint template and some card cutout turnouts.  Patience, Johnster, patience!

Love “ cromulent”!

[5BarVT]

22 minutes ago, 1466 said:

Love “ cromulent”!

And I’ve learnt something this morning.

Not the first time The Johnster has added to my education!

Paul.

[The Johnster]

I am trying to promote it’s everyday use, along with ‘embiggen’ of course…

[MrWolf]

That will be most useful for the more loquacious among us who regularly find themselves short of words...

[The Johnster]

Exactly; a cromulent embiggening of one's vocabulary is what is needed!

[The Johnster]

Another attempt at uploading the headgear photos.  Fungus crossed…

[The Johnster]

Yay, it worked!

 

Needs cables of course, disappearing down a ‘ole inna ground at one end and into the winding house at the other.  I reckon it could do with some ladders as well as the sheave axle will need a bit of grease every so often and someone has to go up there to apply it.  I could make the point with a grease filled bucket and an old bass broom for applying it left on the lower landing out of the rain; can’t imagine anyone wanting to lug them up and down every time.  Or make a little cameo with the guy hauling the bucket up on a rope. 
 

The present 4-road fy is in the background, and will form the basis of the colliery track plan.  The outer road will be slewed to run into the back road of the new fy so that my empty and full rakes circulation is catered for.  

Edited November 22, 2021 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

It's pension day, and I'll be going to buy some track at Lord & Butler, reckon I need 8 lengths of streamline, and small radius Y , 2 lefts, and a right turnout, insulfrog please.  I know I can get it cheaper online but I want it NOW and Peter usually gives me a few quid off.  Some preparatory work has been done, positioning the scenic break in it's new position (but not gluing it down yet), and I'm starting to build up the ground behind where the washery will be.  I have ended my flirtation with the Walther's Cornerstone 'New River' kit, though 'Diamond Coal Corporation', with a two road washery, is still in contention.  Problem is that it seems to be more diffuclt to source than New River, unless ordered from the States, which lumps about £40 postage on top.  New River has a 3 road washery which make things a little crowded for me.

 

As that nice Mr Rolley has pointed out, many Valleys pits were laid out with the pithead on the lower slopes of the mountainside, so that the drams could run by gravity into the screens, and then finally to the washery, which was at the bottom of the slope on the banks of the river, which it then duly blackened with the outfall drain.  The different levels were separated by revetments or retaining walls.  This approach should work well at Cwmdimbath, with the buildings stacking up towards the rear corner of the inglenook.  The pithead will be at the apex of this triangle, low relief or facade representation of the winding house to the side of it.  The boiler house can be at a lower level, with lagged pipes feeding the winding engine, alongside and perhaps sort of merging with the screens, which will sort of extend into a covered overhead conveyor which will feed the washery.   I think I could adapt Diamond Coal to something very close to this configuration, but the buildings are more likely to be home made, card with suitable brick, stone, or corrugated iron sheet facings.  The boiler house can have some sort of chimney, and there will be various other buildings as space permits.  Photos online of Marine at Cwm, Ebbw Vale, will give the general idea.

 

From the railway perspective, the pit will have 4 roads, of which one will be slewed to connect with the back road of the new fy. 2 will be for the washery, and the other one will be the weighbridge road.  There may be a kickback to a new loco shed, or this can be assumed to be out of sight off the slewed through road.  The exact layout and position of everything will be allowed to evolve as I  play around with it over the next few days, but the WR branch and the through road will have to be fixed in position before this can happen, probably tomorrow evening.  So full passenger and freight services can be resumed from Thursday or Friday, and the colliery should have sorted itself out by the start of next week, I hope. 

 

With the track pva-ed into place, the wiring can be finished off and the scenery can be started.  I expect this to take several weeks and perhaps more, and the buildings will be represented by temporary cardboard place holders until it is finished to show the sight lines and composition of the scene.  Any that work well enough will be faced as the final versions, but I am expecting them to be destroyed, messed with, rebuilt, altered, and so on for some time until I'm happy with them.  Apropos sight lines, the scenic break, a piece of stiff black card, will act as the right hand visor sightline limiter of a proscenium, so it's postion in relation to the operating position must be very precise before I finally fix it in place.  In the meantime. smaller kit buildings to represent offices, workshops, ventilation fans, pumping engine house, stores, and the like will gradually appear, some as low relief at the back and up the mountainside.  I'll need a second pithead, and this will probably be a low relief representation as well.

 

The weighbridge is an important part of the railway operations and needs to be prominent.  If we count roads from the through road, it will be on no.2, while the washery roads will be 3 and 4.

 

A longer term plan is for ariel ropeway buckets to take the spoil from the screens up the mountain for tipping.  ISTR seeing these as 3D prints somewhere on Shapeways' site, and it might be possible to have them actually operating with the aid of RTR cable car sets or some sort of home made system.  Their squeaking and clanking was so much a part of Valleys life that you only became aware of it when it stopped, and the movement of the little black rectangles against the skyline would attract your eye from many miles away.  But we need to get the basics finished first.

Edited November 24, 2021 by The Johnster

[5BarVT]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The boiler house can be at a lower level, with lagged pipes feeding the winding engine,

For some reason I have always assumed that the winding engines were electric.  Now you have said, it’s obvious really, why use electricity when you have “free” coal on hand.

Paul.

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

 “free” coal on hand.

 

Not necessarily; if the pit is not producing steam coal, it might have been economically-favourable to buy in; I'm given to understand there are instances of this, though I'm afraid I can't cite any evidence. Coals to Newcastle!

[The Johnster]

Winding machines were electric at many of the more modern pits, and older pits were given electric winders in later years, but in Cwmdimbath’s period, 1948-58, steam was the norm.  As Compound says, some pits imported coal for the winding engine boiler, and for landsale/concession as well. 

[The Johnster]

I’m inthe pub recovering from the shock of spending all those beer vouchers.  8 lengths of code100 n/s streamline, and two left hand small insulfrogs; I’ll go back next pension day for the remaining turnouts.  Picked up cupla packs of joiners as well, so there will at least the start of a laying session tonight…

[The Johnster]

I've made some progress; the branch running line to the point in the new fy where it creates a loop with the new back road from the colliery, the colliery part of the loop, and the colliery sidings (2 washery roads, a weighbridge road, the through road, and a short siding off the through road for a loco shed, are down, and will be permanently fixed in place tomorrow,  Next job will be the wiring, which will be complete separate feeds for BR and NCB, which with the insulfrog turnouts should be pretty straightforward..  I am going to use the Hornby HM6000 phone app controller for BR and the Silurian era Gaugemaster for the NCB.  Next pension day is in 2 weeks, and I will purchase more turnouts for the fy and more lengths of code 100 streamline.  Decided not to buy it all at once, to spread the cost a bit. 

 

I like the look of the new area, nice sweeping curves and a bit of separation between the branch and colliery.  It'll be a while before it's anything like finished, though, plenty of space to fill with scenery as well as the buildings for the colliery and perhaps a hill farm.  I should be able to incorporate the Nant Lechyd stream at the front of the new scenic board; lots of ideas buzzing around in the largely empty and unused space inside the mortal remains of my cranium...

 

The progress is despite the sudden death of my minidrill, my go to for trimming rails as I don't do it enough to justify a Xuron.  Managed by careful measurment and marking the cut postions, then clamping the rail upside down on the workbench and hacksawing from the bottom of the rail; this preserves a reasonably smooth rail end to accept the PECO rail joiners, my preferred method joining rails and a good way of preventing doglegs.  The running line has been laid to a precise 30" radius with the aid of a borrowed Tracksetta, courtesy of Nick C (will post it back to you in the morning, Nick, tx, it made the job much easier).

 

Wrote this yesterday evening and failed to send it, so here it is, about 24 hours late...

 

 

[The Johnster]

Been fiddling and fettling with the new trackplan this evening and we have arrived at a reasonably settled conclusion in which I can hand propel a rake of wagons about without derailments.  The running line has a sweeping S into the scenic break, while the colliery yard has morphed into a 4 roader, a curve leading on to the old fy board from the original exchange siding on the station board, and splitting into two full length washery roads capable of taking the layout's 10 wagon maximum, a through road to the new fy, and, inbetween these, a short siding.  The purpose of this short siding is as yet undetermined, and I'll return to the washery in a minute.  The washery roads are angled slightly away from the viewing/operating postition to give the illusion of greater length and draw the eye away from the cheat by which the through road circumvents the scenic break.  It is assumed that there are sorting and storage roads offstage down there.

 

I know I said I'd given up my infatuation with Walthers' 'New River', and would like 'Diamond' but it's not available without the cost of ordering from the States, but this does not mean that I've given up on kits.  Faller do three, two of which are a bit big and Teutonic in appearance, but 'Old coal mine' has potential for adaptation to my purposes.  It only has one washery loading road but a bit of jiggery pokery with corrugated iron sheets on a frame could easily adapt it to a two roader, and it is fed from a high level covered conveyor or dram road so will be easy to place on the layout with the pithead and some sort of screens at a level that can feed it from their ground level.

 

So I've taken the plunge and ordered one from Topslotstrains for £34.  I need this fairly soon as it needs to be in position to determine the final position of the washery roads before I fix them down, and is a marvellous piece of semi-dereliction with a lot of character that I could probably not emulate, and will be easy to adapt.  1:87 industrial buildings usually sit quite well in 4mm use.  It is dispatched and sould arrive in the next few days. 

 

Tomorrow will be fixing down of the running line and NCB through road, wiring up, and test running.  The new fy will use the Hornby 3rd to 2nd radius curved turnout at the throat, as previous experience with it has shown that I can reliably propel auto trains through it.  The new fy will have 5 roads of which 2 will be full length. a better capacity than the one it replaces and with more space between the roads for my piggy little chip fingers.

 

I'll probably spend  several weeks shunting my new colliery before getting on with the work; ground cover, ballasting, bedding everything in.

[chesterfield]

Young Sir,

What is required for your WIDE audience is a track plan- hand drawn or some photos of the entire layout - holding breath - going red in face

[The Johnster]

Patience Padawan, and breathe...   I’ll post some photos later when I’ve tidied up a bit.

Edited November 26, 2021 by The Johnster

[1466]

11 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Been fiddling and fettling with the new trackplan this evening and we have arrived at a reasonably settled conclusion in which I can hand propel a rake of wagons about without derailments.  The running line has a sweeping S into the scenic break, while the colliery yard has morphed into a 4 roader, a curve leading on to the old fy board from the original exchange siding on the station board, and splitting into two full length washery roads capable of taking the layout's 10 wagon maximum, a through road to the new fy, and, inbetween these, a short siding.  The purpose of this short siding is as yet undetermined, and I'll return to the washery in a minute.  The washery roads are angled slightly away from the viewing/operating postition to give the illusion of greater length and draw the eye away from the cheat by which the through road circumvents the scenic break.  It is assumed that there are sorting and storage roads offstage down there.

 

I know I said I'd given up my infatuation with Walthers' 'New River', and would like 'Diamond' but it's not available without the cost of ordering from the States, but this does not mean that I've given up on kits.  Faller do three, two of which are a bit big and Teutonic in appearance, but 'Old coal mine' has potential for adaptation to my purposes.  It only has one washery loading road but a bit of jiggery pokery with corrugated iron sheets on a frame could easily adapt it to a two roader, and it is fed from a high level covered conveyor or dram road so will be easy to place on the layout with the pithead and some sort of screens at a level that can feed it from their ground level.

 

So I've taken the plunge and ordered one from Topslotstrains for £34.  I need this fairly soon as it needs to be in position to determine the final position of the washery roads before I fix them down, and is a marvellous piece of semi-dereliction with a lot of character that I could probably not emulate, and will be easy to adapt.  1:87 industrial buildings usually sit quite well in 4mm use.  It is dispatched and sould arrive in the next few days. 

 

Tomorrow will be fixing down of the running line and NCB through road, wiring up, and test running.  The new fy will use the Hornby 3rd to 2nd radius curved turnout at the throat, as previous experience with it has shown that I can reliably propel auto trains through it.  The new fy will have 5 roads of which 2 will be full length. a better capacity than the one it replaces and with more space between the roads for my piggy little chip fingers.

 

I'll probably spend  several weeks shunting my new colliery before getting on with the work; ground cover, ballasting, bedding everything in.

Grandma and eggs time again . Might a possible use of ”the short siding “ be to store brake vans ? Or is that inappropriate as the minerals  are already inside private sidings ? 
Or  another use might be a siding for cripples .

Enjoying  the vicarious excitement of conceptualising and planning .

Ken 

[The Johnster]

There is already a van kip, short kickback off the exchange siding, and the new short siding is deep into NCB territory where BR engines are not allowed to go, but I like the way you’re thinking, Ken; a cripples and general storage road is a good idea.  Front runner in the conceptualising race at the moment, ‘now just’ as we say in South Wales, is a loco shed that doubles as wagon repair when the locos are out working.  Or a pit prop siding. 

[MrWolf]

I always thought that it was "Now in a minute"? Or is that more of a Wrexham thing? 

[The Johnster]

‘Now in a minute’ means ‘soon, in a minute or so’, but ‘now just’ means ‘now, at this moment’.  
 

‘Come from over by there to over by here now just, not now in a minute’!  It is actually grammatically correct Welsh, but spoken in English,  often by people who speak no Welsh and are unaware that this is grammatically correct in Welsh.  

[The Johnster]

As promised for Chesterfield, who must be purple by now, photos of the extension.  First is from the existing limit of the scenery looking south. The left hand road leads from the colliery exchange and, swinging around to the right, eventually forms a loop with the running road to it’s right.  Off it are the colliery sidings, left to right weighbrige/washery/loading, washery/loading, and ‘short road’, then back to the through road leading off scene. 
 

Apologies about the other photo, which remains inverted whatever I do to it!  It is taken from above the fy entrance looking northeast across the colliery yard.  A pile of old clothes represents the mountainside on which the pithead is located, and cardboard placekeepers roughly mark the positions of the Faller converor/washery/loader, the possible loco shed, and the weighbridge; there will be a screens structure to the right of the pithead and the facade of the winding house on the wall to it’s left, with the boiler house just downhill in front of it, but still at a higher level than the sidings.  Sundry other buildings and a good bit of general clutter will complete the scene, hopefully maintaining the unplanned and higgldypiggldy look natural to such places.  
 

The wiring is in and everything is working smoothly, and the track has been pva-ed in place, though I will need to buy 3 more turnouts and 3 more lengths of streamline to finish off the fy.  Ballasting and basic ground formation next. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ianathompson]

 

This is the photo in the correct orientation.

 

It looks to be coming along nicely.

 

Ian T

[The Johnster]

My thanks for putting my photo the right way up, Ian.  Yes, I'm happy with progress.  It was very reassuring when I connected the feed wires to the controller, turned the wick up, and it all worked, no problems, first time.  Actually, next job is to paint the base colour on the boards, grey or brown, and black in the colliery area, and then paint the rails, then I can think of ballasting and ground work.  The scenic break will be approximately where the wooden batten is.  I haven't pva-ed the washery/loader roads yet as they may need a bit of postitional fine tuning when the Faller loader arrives and is built.

 

The colliery, I've decided in an entirely arbitrary way, will be called Dimbath Deep Navigation No.2 Pit, though the locals know it as New Pit.  If this is No.2, there must be or at least have been a No.1. which offers a possible plausible explanation of why the 'through road' disappears off scene into the new fy; there is an NCB rail connection between them parallel to the BR ex-GW line, the inspiration for this being North's Navigation Raiway at Maesteg two valleys over between Llynfi Junction and Caerau.  Perhaps that's where the NCB engine shed is. 

 

In operation, what will happen is that, when a train of empties arrives at Cwmdimbath. the BR loco will set back into the exchange road, detach the van, and draw forward so that the colliery engine can put the van in the kip.  The BR loco will then set back with the empty wagons, uncouple, pick up the van, and retreat to the station for water.  Colliery loco will now propel the empties on to the through road and collect the loaded, which have been previously weighed, to bring them up to the exchange road, detach, and draw forward into the kip, which is when the BR loco, having run around the van, will propel it on to the rear of the train and draw the loadeds out on to BR metals.  It will then run around, shunt the train to the loop, and await a path.  When it gets one, in theory to Ogmore Junction, it will actually run to the exchange fy road, the right hand one at the bottom of the Ian-corrected photo,

 

Meanwhile, the colliery loco will run back down to the colliery yard and attach to the empty rake on the through road, and shunt it over the weighbridge for taring and under the loaders.  When the BR loco has delivered the loaded wagons to the fy exchange, it and the van are crane shunted off, and the colliery loco sets about swapping empty wagons from the loaders for full ones from the fy, to simulate loading and provide shunting activity.  Once all the wagons have been exchanged in this way, the next train of empties is ready to have a loco and van attached to it in the fy exchange road ready for the next working.  Before that happens though, the colliery loco has to shunt the loaded wagons over the weighbridge and marshal them on the loading roads ready to make up a rake for the next loaded BR working.  The process repeats when the next empties arrive from Ogmore Junction.  I think this is about 90 minutes work at reasonable speeds, and weighing movements over the weighbridge must take place very  slowly with each wagon stopped on the bridge for weighing.  The current working timetable allows for this to happen five times in a working day, which I'm not sure is feasible, so perhaps some of the clearances and/or some of the passenger working may be dispensed with; I'll find out by trying to do all the colliery shunting and run the timetable.  I will have to cheat and separate such operations as the pickup goods shunts and colliery shunting into separate sessions occupying the same time slot in a 'meanwhile, back at the ranch' (or, rather, colliery) Saturday morning movie fashion.

 

 

[The Johnster]

So strong, so brave so handsome; my hero, shrugging off storm and rain, cold and early morning, smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast. 

 

The postman brought me goodies this morning, coupla bits from RT for the Austerity (chimney Hunslet works plates, lost wax injectors) to lift it a little, and, more importantly, a box containing a Faller 'Old Coal Mine' kit.  I've built the basic shells of this thing (it comes in two basic parts, an overhead covered dramway which feeds a loading chute at the end, and also a washery/loader section at right angles to it.  The loading chute will be needed for 21ton hoppers and 8/9 plankers, as there is not much clearance in the washery loader for anything higher than a 7-planker; my W4 Peckett can squeeze under though, just.  The kit is of course intended to be used with H0 and is 1:87 scale, but looks fine on my 00 layout. 

 

 Anyway, I've got as far as completing these main sections, and have placed the kit on the layout in order to determine the exact positions of the NCB sidings, which are now pva-ed in place and sitting under the usual heavy suspects to keep things flat while the glue goes off (usual heavy suspects are; jar of water for cleaning paintbrushes, pot of pva glue, tin of grey emulsion, hammer, big wire cutters, big pliers).  So another progess box is ticked.

 

The kit is a minor disappointment.  It will, in addition to the pithead, winding house, screens and other buildings, serve the purpose I intend, a small and compact colliery with a suitably untidy sense of semi-dereliction; I can remember places like this in the valleys well into the 70s, though corrugated iron was more common than rough wood uprights, beams, and plank cladding.  The disappointment is in the general level of quality.  At this price I'm not expecting a Rolls Royce kit, but would have thought something around the BMW or at least VW/Ford level would not be too much to ask; what I've got is a Lada, which is at least not a Trabant...

 

Much of the structure is supposed to be rough wood, and has relief to represent this, but only on two opposite sides of a four-sided piece have this, the other two being a rather odd uneven plain surface.  The pile of coal that you have to have in order to support the end of the dramway loading chute is something that a 1950s RTR manufacturer would have been ashamed to put in a loco tender, the support for the feed end of the overhead dramway is flimsy and not braced, a very poor piece of design, you can read a newspaper through the plastic, and the precoloured pieces are not particularly well coloured and far too shiny. 

 

None of this is a dealbreaker but it might put me off buying any other Faller products.  The precoloured shiny components are not any more of a problem than painting plain uncoloured plastic, and i would paint the insides of the structures in any case, which will deal with the light bleed.  I can deal with bracing the dramway supports (which will be held up by the mountainside to some extent anyway), and cover the coal heap in real coal dust, and of course a bit of weathering will not come amiss!  I don't really mind improving a product, but if it is marketed as being precoloured it is a bit irritating to have to paint it, or at least spray matt varnish it.

 

The main deck of the dramway is very flimsy and relies on the box structure of the sides and roof for rigidity, which is all very well when the kit is complete but the thing wobbles about like Mr Blobby while construction is in progress, and just when you need a rigid piece to glue the sides to properly.  It just smacks of poor design and poor quality production.  Ok, moan over.

 

Tomorrow, I'll paint the interiors, finish the windows, and, depending on progress, get on with the various walkways, ladders, railings, and other details.  Then the roofs can go on and the painting and weathering can commence; should be done by Tuesday evening!  Spray matt varnish will dirty the windows quite effectively.

 

There is a clear view from the chute end up the length of the covered dramway, so this might benefit from some narrow gauge track and a wee dram or two.  Mine's a Glenfiddich, thank you very much....  To this end, and possible future lighting, I will not fix the roofs down for a while.  Or I'll cheat and have closed doors at the end...