The Night Mail

[jamie92208]

8 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I'm sorry to hear about the flood.

 

I hope it all gets sorted out ok.

 

 

Actually he may be building you a small Muddy Hollow outside the door.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

3 minutes ago, jamie92208 said:

Actually he may be building you a small Muddy Hollow outside the door.

 

Jamie

I wouldn't have been so heartless as to suggest that.

 

I thought he might have asked me up to lie in the doorway and act as a waterproof seal.

[Dave Hunt]

When can you get here HH?

 

Dave

[jamie92208]

21 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

I wouldn't have been so heartless as to suggest that.

 

 

Have you reformed since your days at Ashford.

 

Jamie

[Stubby47]

Best 'clock' I ever had was a Windows 3.11 widget call 'Fuzzy Time' which replaced the accurate tool bar clock with slightly more informative text - 'it's a bit before quarter to', or 'it's a tad after 3'.

[Tony_S]

6 hours ago, laurenceb said:

Never trusted atomic clocks since the tim I saw two in a shop window showing totay diferent times

If they were on different shelves the higher one would be travelling at a different velocity than the lower one so would display differently. It would probably have to be a very tall window though. 

[newbryford]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I thought he might have asked me up to lie in the doorway and act as a waterproof seal.

 

Does that mean that hippos can act and aren't waterproof?

[newbryford]

On 11/08/2020 at 13:29, Happy Hippo said:

 

 

The Midland brigade should note that I have more wristwatches than 7 mm scale pannier tanks:  There, I've mentioned panniers!

 

 

 

 

 

I can only hope that you have one watch......................

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

I can only hope that you have one watch......................

Alas, I have nine wrist watches and four pocket watches

[TheQ]

I have several watches Most of them are at the bottom of the River Bure, with the count down timer going beep every 10 minutes...

[Philou]

Hello chums,

 

Not been here for a day or too and I find that time has moved on.

 

I only have one watch, a Seiko given to me when I 'retired' from Bud Morgan's in 1981. Superb watch keeps relatively good time for this dimension and in all those years I've only had six battery changes.

 

If anyone is interested, I have borrowed off t'interwebs a couple of pictures showing the motive power of the Mellingriffith tinplate works and the Pentyrch Ironworks. I have also extracts of old OS maps showing the extensive mineral workings of the area, apart from the iron/tinplate works, the coal and iron ore extraction tramways - none of which exist today.

 

I'm doing a project of building the Walnut Tree viaduct in 00 - it'll be 6.2m overall. I was considering card, but seeing how 3D printing is the thing, I'm wondering whether too print - save an awful lot of repetition.

 

Cheers and I'll be back - the scaffolding beckons .................

 

Philip

[Stubby47]

28 minutes ago, Philou said:

but seeing how 3D printing is the thing

 

Have you considered laser-cut wood?

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Stubby47

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, Philou said:

Hello chums,

 

Not been here for a day or too and I find that time has moved on.

 

I only have one watch, a Seiko given to me when I 'retired' from Bud Morgan's in 1981. Superb watch keeps relatively good time for this dimension and in all those years I've only had six battery changes.

 

If anyone is interested, I have borrowed off t'interwebs a couple of pictures showing the motive power of the Mellingriffith tinplate works and the Pentyrch Ironworks. I have also extracts of old OS maps showing the extensive mineral workings of the area, apart from the iron/tinplate works, the coal and iron ore extraction tramways - none of which exist today.

 

I'm doing a project of building the Walnut Tree viaduct in 00 - it'll be 6.2m overall. I was considering card, but seeing how 3D printing is the thing, I'm wondering whether too print - save an awful lot of repetition.

 

Cheers and I'll be back - the scaffolding beckons .................

 

Philip

I'd certainly be interested in anything you have on the Melingriffith and Pentyrch works.  As you say,  once you get past the Iron Bridge between Gelynis Farm and Tongwynlais and head north, most of the industrial sites and the tramways have been totally obliterated.

 

I've only ever crossed the Walnut Tree viaduct twice:  Across from Walnut Tree West signal box, (which my father and I accessed via the Garth Tunnel) and then  the return. 

 

Although I'd agree with Stu that laser cutting would solve the repetition problem, it would need to be of sandwich/layered construction, and you'd still need to put in a lot of the very prominent rivet detail.  The under track  ganger's walkway would also be a must.

 

Compared to the rest of the viaduct, the walkway looked considerably fragile.

 

The large retaining wall under the viaduct supported the  ex Cardiff Railway embankment.

 

For those not familiar with the viaduct, it carried the ex Barry Railway Penrhos Branch and spanned from west to east:

 

The minor road from Morganstown to Pentyrch.

The Tramway

River Taff

ex TVR main line

Glamorgan Canal

A470

 ex Cardiff Railway

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Happy Hippo

[Northroader]

I thought the virtual creation was quite a credible attempt:

 

[Happy Hippo]

It's a bit mixed up!

 

Although it does show the majority of the operations in the area, there are a number of glitches.

 

The Cardiff Railway was singled  after Whitchurch (Glam) station way back in 1931, and was eventually closed once the link line from just north of *Walnut Tree Junction and Taffs Well Station was made. (The single line operation is worthy of it's own comments)

 

Yet we see a train on the Cardiff line which is still double track and yet the link line is already in place to the north of the station at Taffs Well.

 

The maker has an obsession with locos running nose first, yet as we know the majority of locos ran 'nose up' the hills so there is no bunker first working which is very unusual.

 

Passenger trains on the freight only line over the viaduct were restricted to summer weekend excursions, very often hauled by ex LNWR locos.

 

I don't think the Dolomite works ever had it's own loco, as any pictures I have seen of the works being shunted seemed to involve the train engine.

 

The other thing is the scenery seems a bit stretched out.

 

The run into Taffs Well station under the A470 is quite short unlike the visualisation.

 

However, it is good especially when one considers the time and effort needed to create such.

 

 

*  The junction of the TVR and Rhymney Railway was at Walnut Tree Junction.  The station which was at the junction was known as Taffs Well.

[Happy Hippo]

4 hours ago, Philou said:

I only have one watch, a Seiko given to me when I 'retired' from Bud Morgan's in 1981. Superb watch keeps relatively good time for this dimension and in all those years I've only had six battery changes.

If you worked in Bud Morgan's, did you ever meet a friend of mine Bill Miller, a Scot, who worked there for a time in the mid seventies?

 

It was his Saturday job.  I worked in a butcher's shop.

 

He got discounted train stuff, my mother got discounted sausage food stuffs for carnivores.

 

Bill went off to join the HK Police Force, and after that we lost touch

[jamie92208]

10 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

If you worked in Bud Morgan's, did you ever meet a friend of mine Bill Miller, a Scot, who worked there for a time in the mid seventies?

 

It was his Saturday job.  I worked in a butcher's shop.

 

He got discounted train stuff, my mother got discounted sausage food stuffs for carnivores.

 

Bill went off to join the HK Police Force, and after that we lost touch

And therevwas me thinking that your holiday jobs would have been in cake shops.

 

Jamie

[Happy Hippo]

1 minute ago, jamie92208 said:

And therevwas me thinking that your holiday jobs would have been in cake shops.

 

Jamie

But at the time I was a fit, charming and just delightfully handsome young man who made home deliveries of meat to the housewives in the locale.

 

There are only a few things better than cake!

[tomparryharry]

I used to pick up/set down a work colleague in Taffs Well. More correctly, Glan-Y-Llyn. He knew my interest in Railways, and said "there's the old train station over there".

 

"Yes, I replied. That's the Cardiff Railway station. The original Taff Vale station is right outside your garden gate".

 

"What? that's not the station, the station is down the road, that's a house you're talking about!" The original station is down near our factory!" ( He was talking about Melingriffith). 

 

" No, young Willum, that 'house' is indeed the original Taff Vale station house for Taff's Well, just outside your home. It's been rebuilt a lot over the years, but the house/station is still there". 

 

I travelled that route for 17 years, every day. Bill would argue that the station was a house; every day. Funny thing, I could have stopped, and showed him what's what. After all, it was only 50 yards away....

 

Cheers,

Ian.

[New Haven Neil]

5 minutes ago, Happy Hippo said:

But at the time I was a fit, charming and just delightfully handsome young man who made home deliveries of meat to the housewives in the locale.

 

There are only a few things better than cake!

 

Such temptation....but its a family forum.

[Philou]

@Happy Hippo Well! I'll go to the foot of our stairs! I was in Bud's from end October '65 until around June '81 and I was Saturdays only (holidays excepted when I would cover for the 'ladies' upstairs, or for Mr Williams who was boats, planes and service 'agent' for the trains). Unfortunately, I never met Bill Miller and I can't even place the face. It could well be that he did do the trains 'upstairs' when I was 'downstairs' with all the kits (plastic and balsa, boats and planes and Wills' and K's). I finally got to go 'upstairs' (where I wanted to be) quite sometime after I started, and is possible (even though the shop was tiny) that our paths didn't cross (tea and lunch breaks were staggered). I may have replaced him 'upstairs'!

 

@Stubby47 I hadn't considered wood as I wanted the members to be as fine as possible - in thickness and width. The largest member (am I allowed to say that?) was 1' 4" x 5/8" which translates to about 5.3mm x 0.2mm that I thought might be too small. But I shall nonetheless look at your link, so thanks for that.

 

@Happy Hippo For the avoidance of possible copyright infringements (though once on the web they're there forever), do you want me to PM you with a couple of things that I have, or shall I post here and be hanged? I can always take them down again, but I shouldn't want your thread to fall foul of the wrath of Andy or Peter (mods). Your photo was one that I hadn't seen before, clearly showing the catwalk.

 

Regarding the comments of the virtual Walnut Tree junction, one of the photos I have is an ex-LNWR O2A and 7 or 8 non-corridors crossing it. The Johnster kindly identified the loco and stock (but I can't remember what the stock was at the mo'). There was no stock belonging to the Dolomite works (perhaps save some tramway type stuff) insofar as I am aware. I have two nice colour shots of a 56xx (BR black) working wrong line with some lime carriers (look like mini containers on conflats) crossing the viaduct taken near the junction with the Dolomite access.

 

The link line was put in to serve a new mine - but it didn't last very long. It was gone by the time I did my weekly Saturday 'commute' between Treforest Estate station and Queen Street to go to Bud's (1976 - 1981). Thinking back to the above, when was Bill born? There were new lads that did Saturdays when the shop expanded - that would have been mid-70s onwards. Curran (related to the Curran works of Cardiff) was the one lad (I don't remember the other lad's name - perhaps it was Bill).

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[Happy Hippo]

I have seen quite a few picture on RMWeb over the years which I know have come from books.  They have not been removed.  

 

The photos I put up are almost inevitably trawled from the internet, although I will always credit where necessary, and I think that is the crux of the matter.  If you post a picture, acknowledge it's originator if possible.

 

Copyright stuff can be used if it is for educational purposes:

 

"Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder for purposes such as criticism, parody, news reporting, research and scholarship, and teaching."

 

 

 

So, the furthering of information about Walnut Tree viaduct and it's surrounds is research, informative and educational.

 

Please post away

[The Johnster]

8 hours ago, TheQ said:

I have several watches Most of them are at the bottom of the River Bure, with the count down timer going beep every 10 minutes...

At Chez Johnster, panniers are beating watches 7-0, prairies are beating watches 3-0, and 56xx are beating watches 3-0.  I am happy with this situation, but none of my panniers are 7mm.

[Stubby47]

I quite like the 56xx class, but they never ran in the South West.  What was the reason for using those (0-6-2), instead of a 2-6-2 in South Wales?

Edited August 13, 2020 by Stubby47

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

I used to pick up/set down a work colleague in Taffs Well. More correctly, Glan-Y-Llyn. He knew my interest in Railways, and said "there's the old train station over there".

 

"Yes, I replied. That's the Cardiff Railway station. The original Taff Vale station is right outside your garden gate".

There were a lot of early stations that were relocated once the railways got up and running properly.

 

My favourite name was Upper Boat on the old ex Cardiff railway.

 

I am sure the the sign for the disused station continued in existence long after the station had shut (1931).