Bury, Thorn & Sons

[Arthur]

I've found that Telphers do not need to have man riding capability so pretty much what you've built, anybody asks and it's a Telpher!!

I've also remembered that the L&Y installed a lightweight version at Manchester Victoria. It had a man riding carriage and spanned the through lines to link both sides of the station. Slung beneath was a large wicker basket used to transfer parcels across the station. I think it went out of use in LMS days.

[hmrspaul]

Unloading tar tanks before the sophistication of end connections for steam was straightforward - a steam lance was put in to the load through the top loading hatch.

 

Paul Bartlett

[Ruston]

Thanks for that bit of information, Paul. It's very helpful.

 

I've made progress with the coal unloading equipment. The grab is completely scratch-built from plastic and some fine chain and I've added an operators platform and controls. There's now extra detail in the form of a trailling cable to provide power to the motors. This is hung from supports that travel along the girder as the grab traverses it. I've still got to add some conduit from the mains to the control platform and back to the trailing cable.

The storage bunker, like the wagons, will be filled with real coal.

[Chubber]

May I add my thanks for that info, too, Paul?

 

The grab is very convincing and plenty of scope for 'spilt' coal around there, Dave.

[Giles]

I really like this model - you're making a smashing job of it, and I'd really like to see more.... full of character! Excellent! (and I get to learn about Telphers and Tar wagons, too.....)

[garethevans1986]

Looks good Ruston *thumbs up*...needs on 03 or 08 on it now :-P

[Ruston]

It's been over 2 months since I added anything to this topic. I've done nothing to the layout since due to a lack of both time and inspiration. I couldn't think how to progress the last two sections but I've now had some ideas and a day with no work has seen me begin another building and get a foot/pipe bridge reasonably well advanced.

 

I'm currently scavanging drinks cans to file off the end domes and keep them for further use as the ends of tanks/stills or what have you.

[peach james]

I'll fire a email off to dad, ask how they got tar- but I suspect that it came from one of the local suppliers as a nominal liquid, rather than as a semi-solid. I know 8122/OF heated it with steam, but I suspect that at least some road vehicles involved with transport of tar did not heat it at all. From memory, the Foden lorry did NOT have any way of heating the tar, except when it was next to the Sentinel. Again, based on what dad's said, the Sentinel did both the pumping and the heating when they were taking on tar from another tanker.

 

I know dad talks about Bridson's (edit- he said it was someone else, and that it happened in ~1935) having had a fire involving a tar tanker- the phone conversation was reputed to go a bit like this:

 

Er, boss, we've had a bit of a problem...

 

Yes?

 

A bit of a fire...(long silence)

 

Is there anything left?

 

No, Not really.

 

and then they scraped the remains of the lorry out of the road. I'd suspect it would be a diesel or petrol lorry, with a flame heated tar tank. I don't think tar is above its flash point at ~200C or so. (Sat. for steam @ 275 PSI)

 

This is for spraying tar for roadbuilding as late as when we left the UK in 1979.

 

I spoke with my dad this evening, and he confirmed a few things. It was a Foden lorry that LJB had for tar, it was rather more equipped than I thought, apparently it was fully equipped as a sprayer, even though OF was the one they used for spraying. Fitted with both steam heat coils, and a flame heater of some sort, and a diesel (he thinks!) driven pump. Tar for road work came from Ruthin CC or Flintshire CC's yard, (he's not sure which, now...it was a county council yard, anyway, and had rail access). The tar would be heated before pick up, and would stay liquid for ~1 day or so in the Foden on the shoulder seasons, rather longer in the middle of summer. Apparently, open fires were fairly common for heating the tanks, from how he describes it. Before people ask, yes, I have repeatedly asked dad to write this stuff down, before he goes senile or dies of old age. (he's 60, and is the young one of the group who worked for Lloyd Jones Brothers. Mick, Nigel and he are probably the youngest men to have _worked_ steam on the road, although people like Vern who runs the Sentinel in Whitby have a fair claim on it too. LJB was a for profit operation, and where steam was inapproprate, they used diesel cheerfully)

 

James Powell

[Ruston]

I'll fire a email off to dad, ask how they got tar- but I suspect that it came from one of the local suppliers as a nominal liquid, rather than as a semi-solid. I know 8122/OF heated it with steam, but I suspect that at least some road vehicles involved with transport of tar did not heat it at all. From memory, the Foden lorry did NOT have any way of heating the tar, except when it was next to the Sentinel. Again, based on what dad's said, the Sentinel did both the pumping and the heating when they were taking on tar from another tanker.

 

 

I'm willing to be corrected but I think we may be talking about something else here. You're talking about tar that would be put on roads whereas, as far as this layout and tar distillers are concerned, we're talking about the raw material straight from a coking plant or gasworks. Surely the two are different? Wouldn't road tar be a product of the distillation process? The left overs once all the useful stuff to make dyes, creosote and other chemicals has been distilled out of it?

[Arthur]

Dave , that's right. here's a flow diagram for Crude Tar distillation at Dorman Longs Clarence Works on Teeside.

 

Crude tar from the coke ovens in at the top and road tar, a product, one of many, further down on the right;

 

 

 

For interest here's the flow chart for Crude Benzole Rectification;

 

 

Worth pointing out that Clarence Works was a big, sophisticated, operation taking feedstock from several batteries of Dorman Long's ovens and that not all By-Products plants were so comprehensive.

[Ruston]

That's excellent, Arthur, thanks for posting that!

 

I've made some progress on the actual tar distilling and chemical processing part of the works.

 

An extra storage tank, some pipework and another building. The building is supposed to be a newer, post-war addition to the works and houses the laboratory, among other things...

 

The tanks in a frame are for storage/processing of stuff that has come from the still (corrugated abestos-clad building on the right. Don't ask me what the blue thing does because I don't know. I think the key to making a model chemical works, when you don't know exactly what should go where, is to stick enough pipes and tanks about to confuse everyone.

 

All the tanks and buildings in these two pics are unfinished and glazing/more pipes/weathering etc. is required.The tank ends are made from pop cans and a roof will go over the frame.

[Ruston]

The minutes of an AGM of the BT&S board of directors, in 1958, reveals that an increase in demand and the resulting extra rail traffic had put a strain on the elderly steam locomotives. With the current high cost of coal it was decided that quotes be obtained from various manufacturers for a heavy oil locomotive and that, after a visit from a representative from Ruston & Hornsby, an example of the class 48DS was ordered.

 

The photo shows the loco just after delivery by road.

Edited October 22, 2011 by Ruston

[Worsdell forever]

A very wise decision there by the directors, it should give many years of useful and reliable service...

[halfwit]

A very wise decision there by the directors, it should give many years of useful and reliable service...

 

...before being presented to a preservation society who will scrap it!

[cosa200]

Just found this article on your layout, fantastic! If this was mine, i would be well proud. Well done

[Debs.]

Ruston`s industrial modelling is such that where upon seeing several of his photographs, I`ve had to do a double-take; as it could`ve easily been a 'real' scene.......I really love the setting and careful details like the peeling-paint on the steelwork of the truss-crane and hopper.

[Ruston]

Thanks, Debs. I haven't posted anything on this for a while but I have been doing bits here and there. I'm making a tank loading thingy and another tank wagon at the moment. I've not taken any pictures of the work because the camera on my new phone is hopeless and I can never be bothered to go and get my proper camera.

 

I've also not attempted to run the railway at all. I got a whippet pup earlier this year and he ate through the wiring under the baseboards. I also had to erect some acrylic screens on the edge of the layout to prevent him from taking things off the layout. He ate several resin oil drums!

[Ruston]

Here are the tank wagons that I have been working on.

The first is a Slater's kit. I made my own transfers and painted it in a livery suitable for class A products.




The other uses Slaters parts up to the much-modified frame. Above frame level is scratch built. The barrel is a piece of plastic drainage pipe, covered in thin plasticard that has been dimpled to represent rivets. The barrel ends are drinks can bottoms. The fixings are brass wire and plasticard with a bit of milliput to conform to the profile of the tank ends.



The filler neck and cap are turned brass and aluminium and the valve wheel is a brass etch. The pic above is just after spraying the whole lot black as a class B tank. Weathering and lettering to follow. It really could do with some strapping over the tank so I'll have to do that before weathering.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Ruston

[Warspite]

Here are the tank wagons that I have been working on.

 

The first is a Slater's kit. I made my own transfers and painted it in a livery suitable for class A products.

 

 

Dave

 

That is a superb photograph. Lovely work.

 

Stephen

[Debs.]

Absolutely gorgeous work; I`m very envious (and stimulated)...drinks can bases: brilliant!
A riveted tank is now definitely on ze-list!......I recently found an old (B & W) picture of almost the exact same tank (although by then condemned/'NTBM') at Birkenhead`s Mollington St. shed....complete with decades of sooty/tarry 'patina': so deliciously well-used!

Edited July 29, 2017 by Ruston

[Ruston]

drinks can bases: brilliant!

 

I may as well give some detail then...

 

You need the thinner type of can - well that's what I used. I'm not sure if the fatter type, such as normal coke tins have a wider base or not but stick to the thin stuff otherwise. I used some cheapo fizzy pop from Morrisons (other supermarkets are available) but as I don't drink either fizzy pop (did you know that "coke" contains phosphoric acid and can be used to free off rusted nuts and bolts? Yuck - I don't want that stuff inside me, thank you very much) or tinned alcoholic beverages, I got someone else to empty the tins for me - waste not, want not 'n that.

 

To get the dome you need to turn the can on end so that the opening is at the bottom and the bottom is now at the top. Then take a file to the ridge around the bottom of the can, although it's now at the top. Keep turning the can and filing until it becomes so thin that the end dome falls inside the can. Rescue it and discard the rest of the can.

 

Once you've cut the drainage pipe ( I say drainage pipe but it's probably got a technical name in plumbing circles; it's the sort of stuff you'd find under the kitchen sink) to the length that you want, you mix up some Araldite (other 2-part epoxy glues are available) and spread it on one end but toward the inner edge. Although the can dome is of a greater diameter this does not matter. Place the dome as central as possible, measuring using the Mk1 human eyeball, and leave long enough for the glue to harden (although the blurb on the packet may say it's ready in half an hour or whatever, this is invariably a lie - leave it overnight).

 

Once the glue has hardened take a file and go round the dome in much the same fashion as you did when filing it out of the can. Only this time you are filing the overhang thin enough to fall away from the tube and the glued-on dome.

 

 

Repeat the process for the other end but as one end now has a dome it won't stand up straight so you'll need to old the new one on with rubber bands whilst the glue hardens.

 

Job's a good 'un

Edited December 31, 2011 by Ruston

[Debs.]

 

 

Perfect working description and very helpful, thanks Dave.

I have a collection of various off-cut diameters of 'waste' waste-pipe (if you know what I mean!).......so I`ll have a rifle through and see if there`s an ideal 'tank' size pc. there......`need to go buy a drink in a can now, too!

Edited May 6, 2012 by Mod5
To remove unrequired quote

[Barnaby]

Just coming late to this thread but what a great looking model layout. Is there a web location that shows the layout in its intirety, ie possibly a mag review or on YOUTUBE.

 

I've tried searching useing the heading from here but I have not found anything yet.

 

Regards

[Ruston]

There is no magazine review as it's never been in a magazine and there's no website for it either. As for youtube there's only the little video that I made but that's not a review. Haven't I put that on here already? Anyway, here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H6HHxk0wpY

Edited May 5, 2012 by Ruston

[Debs.]

 

 

I really enjoyed that.......especially the rake of tar-tanks; `absolutely smashing camera-angles/perspectives too!

Edited May 6, 2012 by Mod5
To remove unrequired quote