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Charlie Strong Metals (and Watery Lane Sidings)


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On 14/10/2020 at 22:29, charliewolf said:

Hi, I was employed at Norton Barrow metals scrap yard 1977 - 1981. I have posted a few pictures from my time there on flickr. Hope they are of interest.

 

Can you give some directions? Tried a few searches on Flickr but couldn’t find this picture or similar.

Thanks!

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The lorry park area reminds me of the old Western Fuel Co. yard in Bristol. I did a photo survey of it in 2009 before it was built upon, you could see plenty of stone setts, concrete areas, remains of buildings and loading docks, the base for a crane stacking conveyor etc.

Nice work.

 

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Edited by Corbs
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22 hours ago, Ruston said:

The exit/entry to the fiddle yard. Another building will be going where the glue bottles are. The mobile cafe thingy is also featured. This started out as an Oxford diecast popcorn stall. I took the sign from the roof and got rid of all the garish lettering and stripes. I need to make a new jockey wheel for it as the one that was on it became detached and disappeared into the mess that is my shed.

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Moving to the left is more of the lorry parking area. There are the remains of concrete bases and girders to suggest that some sort of works has been demolished on this site. The ground cover looks a bit too rough at the moment but the dilute PVA isn't even dry yet and something will be done to improve the look of it.

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Even further over and there are more concrete bases and cut down steelwork, plus the last remaining building standing. This will be blended in and will be mostly overgrown.

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Fencing posts going up at the edge of the works yard. The foliage won't be as abundant once I've hoovered up the excess.

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Why not prop up the tow bar on some bricks or breezeblocks, jockey wheels break and it would fit in with the ambience.

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5 hours ago, Tullygrainey said:

Great attention to detail Dave, all of which makes it very convincing. This is shaping up beautifully.

Nice to see that someone thinks it's alright. I'm not convinced it's any good, myself. I suppose once I get some more detailing in it might grow on me.

The derelict land needs some piles of rubble, an old sofa, a mattress and some discarded calor gas bottles. Waste paper from the food thing (it's competely gone out of my head as to what it is called!) that has blown into the fence - that sort of thing to give it that air of dereliction.

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1 hour ago, Ruston said:

Nice to see that someone thinks it's alright. I'm not convinced it's any good, myself. I suppose once I get some more detailing in it might grow on me.

The derelict land needs some piles of rubble, an old sofa, a mattress and some discarded calor gas bottles. Waste paper from the food thing (it's competely gone out of my head as to what it is called!) that has blown into the fence - that sort of thing to give it that air of dereliction.

Perhaps a dead shopping cart or two to give it that “urban blight” flavour?

 

Cheers,

 

David

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12 hours ago, Ruston said:

Nice to see that someone thinks it's alright. I'm not convinced it's any good, myself. I suppose once I get some more detailing in it might grow on me.
 

Don't knock yourself - it's looking great. Don't forget it was a lump of plywood barely 2 months ago. One end of my layout, smaller than this, has taken 15 years to look less complete than that.

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On 17/11/2020 at 08:23, Barclay said:

Don't knock yourself - it's looking great. Don't forget it was a lump of plywood barely 2 months ago. One end of my layout, smaller than this, has taken 15 years to look less complete than that.

Lump of plywood to finished layout in 2 months = slapdash. :unsure: That's kind of how it feels because I've bodged and used so much recycled tat, and stuff from the scrap bin on this. The only new stuff is the track, the Skytrex low-relief building and a pack of Wills corrugated asbestos. Having said that, I've just added some more grass and fencing and I'm liking it more.

By Sunday it should be back in its rightful place and connected up to the scrapyard board and unless something's gone wrong with the wiring I should be running trains. Once I get the coil wagons on it, I'm sure I'll like it even more. I would have had the wagons finished but the transfers I ordered were lost in the post.

I'll take some photos on Sunday.

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19 minutes ago, Ruston said:

Lump of plywood to finished layout in 2 months = slapdash. :unsure: That's kind of how it feels because I've bodged and used so much recycled tat, and stuff from the scrap bin on this. The only new stuff is the track, the Skytrex low-relief building and a pack of Wills corrugated asbestos. Having said that, I've just added some more grass and fencing and I'm liking it more.

By Sunday it should be back in its rightful place and connected up to the scrapyard board and unless something's gone wrong with the wiring I should be running trains. Once I get the coil wagons on it, I'm sure I'll like it even more. I would have had the wagons finished but the transfers I ordered were lost in the post.

I'll take some photos on Sunday.

Hi Dave,

 

I do wish my version of slapdash was that good !

 

Gibbo.

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1 hour ago, simonmcp said:

That last B&W shot, my brain refuses to accept it's not a prototype picture:blink:, amazing stuff and so quick as well.

I completely agree.  It helps that we sort of expect historic images to be in B&W, so it seems appropriate.  Dave has also performed an often forgotten trick of having the backscene images correct for the intended viewing angle, in this case from ground level.  A lot of exhibition layouts get this wrong; the images of real buildings are photographed from ground level but when we view the layout from perhaps 2' above, the perspective doesn't work.

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On 22/11/2020 at 19:47, Ruston said:

I'm really liking this layout extension, now. It makes operation so much more varied and interesting. Now that it's all come together it just needs some more detailing The workshop and loco shed need finishing too but I'm running trains again and have cleared the workbench to do a couple of loco commissions, so the buildings will have to wait for now.

 

I stuck an ordinary decoder that I had lying around into the British Oak class 08 and it runs beautifully. I can now run the trip from BR into the loop and so this is the first BR loco that I've run on OO for almost 30 years. I think it's just got itself bumped up the list for the fitment of sound. I really need a brake van now.

 

The 08 can't run into the scrapyard due to some tight clearances that would be hit by the flycranks, so I'll put up a board that will read "No British Railways locomotives to pass this board". There will also be one at the bridge end of the loop requiring drivers to stop and phone the signalman before proceeding. I'll be needing some BTC registration plates for the Shelby Group's locomotives.

 

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I love this shot- it puts me very much in mind of the Middleton Railway in Leeds, the preserved line that used to exchange goods traffic with BR through the 70's.  There's a shot in the book "From Rag to Railway" of a blue 08 squeezing around the stupidly tight curves onto the branch with a cargowagon carrying ex-Woodhead Electric bogies, shipped over from a scrappers in Holland.  The last transferred freight in the 80's I think.

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