South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[The Johnster]

Now you've triggered my memory banks, yes, I do recall the Hornby version, tx Welchester.  They did Dunster station building to go with it IIRC..  The Ericplans drawing is very similar to the Fordhampton kit, though the kit has the stove pipe at the other end, with the stove just to the left of the top of the staircase.  I assumed that the lapboard panel on the rear of the box to the right of the rear cabin window was to accommodate it, but not in a way that I'd thought through...  Llandeilo Jc, a 'four windows' version of the same design, had the stove in that position; back in the 70s I once took a teacan up there to make tea and got myself thrown out for spilling said beverage on the highly polished timber floor!

 

Your photo of ex-Dunster/Minehead shows that the ridge tiles are terracotta and need painting.  She's nearly ready for her photo; downpipes to go on and some light weathering, and the board over the rodding outlet and that's about it.  The intended look is 'recently repainted in WR brown/cream', which will more closely resemble these boxes as I remember them from my spotting days.  By the time I worked on the railway, many had been painted in all-over grey, which, apart from being unsuitable for Cwmdimbath's period, I didn't like...

 

What are the little cirlique brackets at the roof corners for, and what is going on with the right-hand lower panel on the NW (Southern at Cwmdimbath) elevation?

[RodneyS]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

What are the little cirlique brackets at the roof corners for

They will be hip irons. 

They are screwed to the rafter and stop the hip tiles sliding off the roof.

Rodney

[The Johnster]

Genius, delightful.

 

My day has not been wasted, I have learned something new, that has managed to slip by me over the last nearly 72 trips around the currant bun.  Now, to devise a way of modelling them, because now I know that they are a) there, and b) why, I will not be content until the box has them at each corner.  Obvious when it's explained, but I'd never have worked it out in a month of Sundays...

 

The other matter does not seem to appear on my box, so I will leave that end as it is; attempting to paint a straight line half-way up (or half-way down, whichever way you look at it) is asking for trouble and I reckon best course of action is to leave well alone.  Is the round thing top right of the door frame a telephone bell?  I'll need to fabricate a bracket to hold the stove pipe to the roof as well.  I've also fettled the doorknobsand their back-plates, black for the cast-iron back/estcutheon plates and a pointillist dab of brass for the doorknobs, applied with a cocktail stick.  You should always keep cocktail sticks to hand in case you have an infestation of six-inch high vampires, as six-inch Buffys are not so easy to come by...

[RodneyS]

Personally I wouldn't bother with the hip irons.  They weren't always used.

They would be very fiddly to do and to get all four the same would be difficult.

Less is more.

 

If you really want to fit them then perhaps a small hole drilled in the end of the hip and make them from office staples.  I've never tried it myself.

 

If you do this then please make sure you bend the end down in a nice curve so they won't catch your sleeve, your hand or wrist.  Otherwise you will be cursing me and using your cocktail sticks on an effigy of me.

Rodney

 

 

[The Johnster]

Yes, hip irons are probably a step too far; anything robust enough will be horribly overscale, less is more, more or less…  I’ve done the wooden board above where the rodding and wire emerge, though.   

[The Johnster]

  And, she's ready for her profile.  Roof not sitting right yet, but I'm not gluing it down until the interior is done. Plasticard sub-floor and internal divider/banister between stairwell and locking room are in, and weathering has brought it to life and taken the 'toy new' off it; at first glance, it looks like a proper signalbox...  The roof will sit properly eventually, and I'm not 100% sure why it is springing up in that corner, but not too worried now just.  Oh, and the outside black-painted rail has to go on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photograpy's cruel gaze has shown that I need to revisit the bottoms of some of the windowframes, and that there is much to do yet, but Cwmdimbath has a new signalbox and I'm quite pleased with it!  

 

 

What the layout increasingly needs now, having reached a fairly advanced stage of development, is cameos.  Here's Idwal Bracchi, Master Gelatarian and Espresso Coffee maker, making a trip in his Ford E83W Thames van down to Cardiff's Costa Rica Cafe in St Mary Street opposite the no.3 Trolleybus terminus for supplies and a chat, Maria in the passenger seat heading for Howells and a new dress because Idwal's in the doghouse and trying to bribe his way out of it  Young Rita is left in charge of the cafe under strict orders from Idwal regarding boys, which she'll ignore, and less strict ones from Maria, who fancies a wedding followed by grandchildren and is not necessarily bothered about waiting nine months after the honeymoon, which she might well not ignore, especially as Maria's planning on eating out before she forgives Idwal, and they won't be back until late...*

 

It's Monday, and quiet, so she should cope well enough and takings will be good for a Monday when the local lads realise she's temporarily escaped from Idwal's icy gaze...  He's passing the back end of Dimbath Motors' yard, which is turning into a collection of dumped, not scrapped, vehicles and bits.  A Ford Model A lists terminally to port amongst what Marge calls 'foilage' having lost it's front nearside wheel, a plank that 'might come in handy one day' chucked into the cab, and, right in the end corner, an equally ancient and mouldering AEC Matador cab is morphing into a nature reserve.

 

The decaying Ford model A was a freebie Lledo sent with the Thames, in a promotional livery, great opportunity for Johnster to go to town with the distressing.  Funfunfunfunfun.

 

*And she's told Rita this.  When your dad's Italian and you live in the Valleys in the 50s, you can't let an opportunity like this go by, as anyone smart enough to offer to stay after closing to 'help with the dishes' will find out!  Shennanigans!!!

 

Wrote this Tuesday evening and forgot to press send...

Edited February 8 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

I picked up the 'Fordhampton' goods shed from the post office yesterday, having instructed them to keep it there for me, and have made a start, a pretty good start actually.  An odd kit, though, with only an exploded diagram which does not show some of the interior fittings as the instructions; you can download a pdf which I thought might give more precise detail but it's just the same exploded diagram.  I'm not sure how proceeding sequentially by numbers would work either.  I didn't think it would give me mush trouble though, and so far touch wood it hasn't, there was enough information on the exploded diagrame to enable me to work it out, or guess...

 

The pre-coloured plastic is definitely off.  As a 'Fordhampton' model it's supposed to be painted as for Southern Region, but the green is somewhat pale, more pea than malachite, and the cream is a quite deep yellow, with a slightly green cast to it but that might be reflections from the doors.  It doesn't matter, it's going to be painted in proper, WR, brown where the green is and a better cream elsewhere.

 

The intention for the first session was to assemble enough of the kit to provide structural integrity, which I have done; the shell is complete  and stiffened by the inclusion of the internal loading platform.  The doors are in place as well, as are the sidewall windows.  Glazing is frosted-looking, and I am going to replace it with clear glazing, which will necessitate internal painting and detail, which the model could do with anyway as the sliding doors reveal quite a lot of the interior.  There is a lean-to office on an extension platform at one end of it, and this will need a door visible on the inside of the end wall, or possibly an extension of the office inside the shed.  Rafters and storage space in them might be fun as well.  The loading platforms are presumbly intended to represent concrete, but are far too dark a grey to pull this off; they'll need painting as well.

 

I like the opening and closing doors.  Not just a gimmick IMHO, as they can be used to indicate time of day on the layout; the shed would probably be manned 06.00-18.00, and at other times the lights are off and everything's locked up.   No work Saturday pm and the entire Tondu network is out of action on Sundays except for ballast jobs and one or two main line turns.  After the little card goods shed it looks enormous, but can only hold two vehicles inside under cover.  Blaengarw was about the same size, though stone rather than brick.

 

Clearances are a bit tight, as they were at most real goods sheds, and the final positioning will have to be very precise.  The rail-side wall moves a bit, and I will insert temporary bracing peices to keep everything solid and where it should be until the building is finally positioned, and am considering locating pegs for the corners.  There probably needs to be a stove pipe for the office and an external telephone bell.

 

 

[The Johnster]

Since the Fordhamton goods shed comes with no instructions beyond the provision of an exploded diagram, which does not even show all the parts but does at least show the part numbers of those not hidden by the drawing, it occurred to me that it might be of some use if I were to record the order in which I am putting it together to hopefully assist anyone else building this kit, and highlight some of the pitfalls.  There are probably other and better sequences of assembly but this is what worked for me.  
 

I started out by constructing a corner, my usual practice to attain a solid and rigid structure to form the rest of the building on.  As there is no floor baseplate in this kit, it has to be built from the roof downwards. The initial corner was made up of parts 1, 2, 32, 51, and 56, but with the benefit of hindsight I might have been better advised to go with 8, 9, 33, 50, and 60.  Both these corners complete, one can then pay attention to the end wall and the doors 10, 14, 15, 16x2, 17x2, and 58. Don’t get glue on the door hinges and not that the blobs at the top of the arches on piece 10 is to prevent the doors opening inwards.  The door hinges sit in the recesses and the backplates fit over them; hey presto, opening doors, like the meerkat says, simples!
 

This process is repeated in principle at the other end and the roof apex glued; you should now have a rigid and solid building.  Next piece is the loading platform; note that the narrow end of this glues to the back of the door hinge backing plates 17x2 between the archways, and further strengthens and squares the structure.  I found that at this stage the 3-window wall was not firmly secured relative to the half-walls on the ‘road’ side of the shed, and installed two temporary wooden bracing pieces as reassurance; these will be disposed of when the shed is finally set in position on the layout.  The end platform and office are fairly straightforward and should present no problems, but inset the window frame and it’s glazing before the structure is enclosed.  
 

Now we must attack the hung sliding main doors; little more complex but nothing to be scared of!  First glue the slide rail (on the green sprue, part 39) to the yellow support girder, 3.  It fits outside the girder’s detailed side at the bottom of the girder, with the flat side of the rail outermost and the inner part facing upwards to accept the slide wheels when they are glued to the doors, patience Padawan.  The end buffers are on the outer edge and point upwards

 

Now glue the slide wheels to the tops of the big doors, from the back (side without planking) into the holes at the tops of the hanging brackets on the doors.  These holes may need to be carefully and gently reamed out to accept the wheels, softly softly catchee monkee.  We’re getting there, Padawan.  Glue the girder/slide rail assembly to the top of the big doorway, locating rib there for it, and secure the buffer ends of the slide rail direct to the brick work it’ll be to the lower two of the five course of the raised brick section at the top of the wall.  Now go away and have a cuppa while the glue goes off. 
 

You can then hang the doors when you are ready, and carry on with the detailing; glazing, gutters, downpipes, bargeboards, all pretty staightforward and holding no fears for a modeller who has just installed working sliding doors on his his goods shed…

Edited February 11 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

No more parts left on the sprues, so I must have finished it...  Well, I've finished building the kit anyways.  Surplus glazing and the trolleys have been sent over the road to Dimbath Metals, because the trolleys don't look like anything I ever saw in a railway goods shed.  That might of course be my GW bias, but they are not right for this building on my layout.  Sometime in the next few days I'll get into town for some needed supplies, including cream paint (that awful yellow colour is gonna have to go) and some balsa strip, 3mm square section I reckon, to make roof trusses out of.  Basically the green bits need to be brown, and the yellow bits need to be cream; I've already done the window frames white.

 

Talk of roof trusses segues into internal detailing.  This is essential because quite a lot of the inside can be clearly seen from the outside when the doors are open, and the only nod the kit makes to what is inside is the loading platform.  I'm planning on 'lining' the interior of the brick walls with card to provide a bit of bulk for them and a base for a whitewashed finish.  The office is at present only accessibly to moles digging their way in, and a door will have to be provided in the wall behind it.  A window for the clerical staff to keep an eye on the acton might be an idea as well.  The office is tiny, and I am very tempted to extend it a little way over the platform inside; it simply seems not big enough for the shed.  A place like this would have two or three porters working under a leading chargehand, and a clerk as well; they wouldn't have standing room in an office that size, along with a desk and some shelves.

 

The next question is cargo handling gear, a crane or a hoist.  The line of least resistance is the existing Wills yard crane, but if it goes outside on the platform extension, where there is barely room for it, how do goods unloaded by it that need to be locked up overnight inside the shed find their way indoors, there is no way between inside and outside at loading platform level (by the way, I need to find room indoors for a lockup as well)?  The crane can go inside, I suppose.  The alternative might be a chain hoist on a cross-girder, basically a sort of simplified gantry crane; I remember there being one of these inside the goods shed at Llanelli in the 70s, but it had probably not been used for some time; the building was being used to stable locos at the time.

 

Lighting will be provided on the inside of the roof above the loading platform, with one lamp at the bottom edge over the loading bay.  As I've deliberately left some of the roof glazing panels out to provide a view inside the buildng, I will need to make some sort of cameo of glaziers in the process of replacing them  This would have been done from inside the building, perhaps at weekends, but a few panes of glass and some equipment hanging about (what  do glaziers carry with them, ladders? buckets? tins of linseed oil and putty?  Crawling boards in the rafters?).

 

Funfunfunfunfun.  Seriously, I'm enjoying this build, and the signal box which needs an interior.

[The Johnster]

The signalbox now has its interior, Ratio kit arrive this lunchtime, guess what I’ve been doing all day…. The next task for the signalbox will be drilling a hole under where it is going to go for the lighting cables, lights to be concealed in the roof and, and the cables for the flickering stove.  Said cables can then be inserted into the box from beneath, at which point the box can be glued in it’s position but the roof will remain unfixed until the last minute.  
 

The project will then overlap with my planned lighting for that area, which will encompass the box, Dimbath metals, the goods shed, and the NCB’s ‘Bethania Jc.’ Loco shed.  I need a new signalman, and I’m sure Alan Modelu will oblige, and when the lights are all working and the signalman is in place, the roof can be lightly glued on and I will tick job done for this project. 
 

There’s been some progress on the goods shed as well; the horrible lurid green parts have been painted brown, the horrible lurid yellow parts have been painted cream, the ridge tiles have been painted terracotta, and I’ve made a start on the interior.  Basic weathering has been applied, algae stains and a wash of pointing colour between the bricks; much more natural-looking.  

 

 

[The Johnster]

Goods shed substantially complete, lighting still to do; photos:-

 

 

Shoulda paid more attention to DOF, but you get the idea.  Work needs doing on the hardstanding which needs to be cut into the hillside a bit to allow lorries to turn and back into the main loading bay.  Note the missing skylight panes. 
 

 

Now from the ‘country’ end.  
 

 

A view inside through a broken skylight, with a Cambrian steel-bodied sliding door van in the starring role.  The surviving glass is frosted and dirty. 
 

 

Interior, with Wills yard crane. Note the plastered internal walls, cuts from cardboard boxes.  These give a decent thickness to the walls when you look inside, a very easy and worthwhile improvement.  More interior details later.  
 

The crane seemed a bit isolated out on the small outside loading platform, not much room for goods to be transhipped, so I moved it inside.  The slew is limited but there’s plenty for it to do its job.  
 

All he doors work and careful positioning has resulted in tight, but not problematic, clearances.  I’m waiting for some asbestos roofing for Dimbath Metals in the background, which will put this locality into a state of reasonable completion.  The goods shed needs some GW barrows and a sack truck, and a few more bits and pieces lying about, I mean stacked and laid out tidily, awaiting collection.  

[The Johnster]

Couple more of interior. 

 

Early afternoon, because the sun is streaming in through the skylight, spring or autumn with it at that angle. The staff are in the office finishing off their lunch (the office, which doubles as the overnight lockup, s bigger than it looks because it goes through the end wall into the lean-to outside).  A GER van has been unloaded and is waiting to be taken away on the pm pickup, no back load for it. 
 

 

Same scene from outside, as viewed from the mountain road.  Not bad.  

[The Johnster]

With the goods shed finished, for now, attention yesterday evening turned to the road side of the goods yard.  There should be clear 18 feet of space from the loading platform to the next siding, or, in this case, the back wall of the yard, to enable road vehicles to manoeuvre.  This is, I’m told, derived from the turning circle of a horse-drawn 4-wheeled wagon, the usual vehicle when most of these yards were built, and also the turning circle of a Scammell Mechanical Horse, which is how it fot it’s name. 
 

We had nothing like enough room, so a very roughly semi-circular space has been cut into the mountain and the Blackmill road which joins the real Dimbath Lane at Gilfach Orfydd about two miles down the valley has been moved a few yards westwards.  A new dressed stone retaining wall holds the mountain back, no small feat as Mynydd y Gwair, the prominence in question, is some 800 feet above the valley floor here, and very steep; the retaining wall will need buttressing to hold the mountain off.   The hardstanding has been extended to the retaining wall, and the Albion six-wheeler backed up to the loading platform looks a little less trapped by the geography. 
 

The road has been cut, a gentle S-bend shape, from card and glued to the top of the retaining wall; there will be a fence but it’ll be a bit scary for lorry and bus drivers and a proper nail-biter if any passing has to be done.   The situation more or less demands a rock face on the mountain side of the road. 
 

I remember these Valleys mountain road fences; white-painted concrete uprights about 3 feet high every 10 feet or so and two tubular steel rails.  I suspect the protection afforded was more psychological than real, any weight or momentum would have simply broken or uprooted the uprights, but they’d have probably prevented a low-speed collision from becoming an impromptu demonstration of Newton’s First Law.  They had black tops and either red or white depending on direction reflective glass lenses; these were replaced in later years by reflective paint, but not until the sixties. 
 

A lot of the mountain roads in the area were built in the 30s as job-creation public works, and I would guess the fences date from that period.  

Edited February 19 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Sunday evening, photo time. 
 

 

To kick off, 82001 on loan from Barry, who don’t seem to be in any great rush to get it back, has has a run up to Cardiff for the D&O parcels, and is depositing a Python in the mileage bay.  An Austin 10 van and an AEC Matador cab are slowly being reclaimed by nature in Dimbath Motors’ dump compound, with the end of Lechyd Terrace and Billy Twice’s (William Williams’) pigeon loft overlooking the scene. 
 

Iestyn Roberts’ missus Haulwen has been over to Maesteg Woolworth’s and is coming home, Iestyn’s old but loved Austin Seven rattling and banging down the rough mountain road towards the village.  Haulwen likes a bit of speed, and the mighty 7hp power plant is up to almost 25mph; her excuse is she’s cooling the brake drums!  The markers are home made, the ones on the outer edge being due for rail.  They don’t look as bad in real life as they do in the photo.  The goods yard is over the drop to the right, and Mynydd y Gwair looms over the scene to the left

 

[lmsforever]

Like the story line and the layout looks really good shall followmthis.

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Like the story line and the layout looks really good shall followmthis.

 

Why, thank you kind sir.

 

Something else has managed to reach a stage of completion, the loading platform and single-storey factory building for Dimbath Metals, kitbashed out of a laser-cut workshop building.  The roof ridge sports a full length ventilator structure, as some fairly unpleasant fumes are given off by some very unpleasant chemicals involved in the processes of galvanising and electroplating in which this firm specialises.  Asbestos sheet roof, deliberately rough in places and improved a bit with weathering.  Next door and sharing the platform is Wood Bros Ltd, a printed card kit.  This place is a bit of a mystery in that nobody knows quite what goes on in there, and local rumour has it that it is a front for top-secret government activity of various dodgy sorts.  We can only hope that it's our government...

 

 

Here we are, room for half a dozen wagons tops and four at the platform.  It tends to attract shocvans and opens. with sheet tinplate from a works at Briton Ferry for treatment, but is a legitimate destination for almost any general merchandise goods traffic that does not need crane handling.  

[The Johnster]

Sunday evening, photo time. 
 

 

To kick off, 82001 on loan from Barry, who don’t seem to be in any great rush to get it back, has has a run up to Cardiff for the D&O parcels, and is depositing a Python in the mileage bay.  An Austin 10 van and an AEC Matador cab are slowly being reclaimed by nature in Dimbath Motors’ dump compound, with the end of Lechyd Terrace and Billy Twice’s (William Williams’) pigeon loft overlooking the scene. 
 

Iestyn Roberts’ missus Haulwen has been over to Maesteg Woolworth’s and is coming home, Iestyn’s old but loved Austin Seven rattling and banging down the rough mountain road towards the village.  Haulwen likes a bit of speed, and the mighty 7hp power plant is up to almost 25mph; her excuse is she’s cooling the brake drums!  The markers are home made, the ones on the outer edge being due for rail.  They don’t look as bad in real life as they do in the photo.  The goods yard is over the drop to the right, and Mynydd y Gwair looms over the scene to the left

 

[The Johnster]

 

Hunslet 18” ‘Austerity’, today’s ‘bottom end pilot’, draws a rake of recently delivered empties on to the weighbridge road.  That done, she’ll run on to the (unmodelled) headshunt and return to propel the rake of weighed loadeds in no.1 road to the right of the loco up to the exchange loop, where 5643 will be waiting with the brake van for the evening clearance. To the left, the loaders can be seen with both loaded and empty wagons under them; a stores van awaits tomorrow’s pickup on no. 5 road. 
 

With the clearance out of the way and the men underground starting to wind up production for today, the austerity will take the new empties over the weighbridge for ‘taring’, establishing a precise empty weight for each wagon.  This will be subtracted from the eventual loaded weight to form the basis for invoicing.  Once that’s done, she’ll be heading for Bethania Jc (the NCB loco shed) to drop and clean fire while top end pilot Hunslet 16” Thorne no.1 will tidy up and leave empties under the loaders ready for the first windings in the morning.  Out of frame to the left there are already six loaded wagons waiting to be weighed first thing in the morning; they will shortly be joined by the three on no.3 road under the loader.  The surface foreman is pleased with today’s work, and the job both of providing loaded wagons for clearance and tared empties for the ever-hungry loaders is well in hand; there will be one over the bar for the boys in the Forge later…

[The Johnster]

 

Couple of shots of local girls. 

 

 

Recently sheared, mooching about on the platform.  Bet she hasn’t got a platform ticket!

 

 

Due for shearing, in the shade of the fence on Lechyd Terrace in the late afternoon, strolling along as if she owns the place. 
 

 

Edited March 6 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

 

08.00, and it’s all action for Cwmdimbath’s morning rush hour.  On the goods loop, 4144 has run around the stock for the 08.40 workman’s to Tremains, 5555 has set back with the 07.45 arrival from Bridgend, away at 08.15 and taking water, and on the exchange loop 6624 has just pulled up with the first empties of the day for the colliery, and the signalman thinks it’s Clapham Jc…

[The Johnster]

 

 

5633 has just got the road into the colliery exchange loop with a train of empties and, as soon as the driver has opened the regulator, the train will draw gently forward into the loop.  The colliery’s 18” Hunslet stands outside Bethania Jc NCB shed; the crew are in the cabin gulping down the last of a cuppa; they have a few minutes before they are called into action, as the 56xx must run around the train and remove the brake van before the Hunslet can couple to the mts and haul them down to the weighbridge for taring. It’s 12.40 lunchtime.