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Wright writes.....


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49 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hello Tony

 

A little question, would a British Railways, Southern Region allocated Karrier Bantam with flatbed trailer be used at Little Bytham? 

Ooh you are awful.  (but it was a rather clever question of an unusual detail).

 

I suspect the Bantams were in any case used mainly on town rounds at they replaced the little Scammells in many places.  I don't know how the ER worked its cartage fleets but generally the WR used used rigid vehicles on country rounds only moving artics in from the Divisional pool for any special jobs - a good example from the Little Bytham period being the major replacement of water mains with pipes coming in from Stanton & Staveley for delivery to site.  Frightening to relate but it is 41 years since I last had management responsibility for a railway road delivery fleet - 100% rigid as we served a lot of country areas in addition to town rounds (parcels traffic only by then of course)

 

Rigid vehicles were much better for country work but a station might have an artic if there was some sort of regular traffic which required the use of stand trailers that were left at a customer's premises to load or unload while teh tractor unit did another job.  Period photos of LB might reveal the sorts of vehicles which were in use?

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1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

 

Tony,

 

If Clive can provide correct ER fleet numbers (and registration number?), I will provide the transfers !!

 

On the other hand, you may say "Look at my face - do I care" ?; (...no, probably not) ! :o

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Hi John

 

Sadly I cannot at the moment and may be some time before I can find out. There must be a list somewhere with fleet number, registration numbers and vehicle types.

 

As Mike says most country stations would have a rigid 2 or 3 tonner. The small articulated vehicles we all like to populate our layouts with were more of a town and city type vehicle because they were designed to get into factories, warehouses, railway yards etc. where a horse and cart had been used beforehand.

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15 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Sadly I cannot at the moment and may be some time before I can find out. There must be a list somewhere with fleet number, registration numbers and vehicle types.

 

Well - that's what I thought; but my researches via the internet have turned up nothing so far. Perhaps someone nearer the (N)RM could look into this, when they have time; I'd certainly like to re-allocate my road haulage fleet :-

 

image.png.4251bbe12f0b400e047b577e2e95ae47.pngimage.png.b4ab22618c84d55be7ca35aaecd0c745.png

 

The Bedford OX and Scammell artics. will probably end up as wagon loads, being inappropriate for a rural station, but I'd like them to have, say, Bournemouth area allocations / registrations.

 

The BATH SERVICES Bristol LS is correct for Evercreech Junction, I think, but I have been unsuccessful in finding out the route number and destination blind lettering for the service that served Evercreech Junction.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

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2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Tony,

 

If Clive can provide correct ER fleet numbers (and registration number?), I will provide the transfers !!

 

On the other hand, you may say "Look at my face - do I care" ?; (...no, probably not) ! :o

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

I do care, John,

 

Honestly. 

 

However, as others have pointed out, the likelihood of an articulated BR lorry at LB is probably highly unlikely. As such I'll donate the vehicle in question to someone who can legitimately use it.

 

Period photos I have seem to show nothing more than a private Thames 'Trader' in the yard. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

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The merits of a (metal) mixed media loco kit are no better illustrated than by this DJH 'Semi' I'm building (pictures of which have appeared before). 

 

1296914831_DJHSemi06.jpg.c6f33e289dfafe0cb808b6044f802fc0.jpg

 

As can be seen, where weight and mass are needed, cast metal is the material used. The cab is etched, as is the whole tender body (obviously yet to be made-up and fitted), presenting nice 'thin' (and realistic) edges to the eye. 

 

1077170466_DJHSemi07.jpg.752b8f2d03ad22bfb882bdd517775c85.jpg

 

As with all my loco builds, thorough testing (at speed and under load) was conducted before proceeding further. CITY OF LONDON (which it will become) just flew round LB on 14 bogies.

 

I still find it strange that an article on building a very popular locomotive like this type is no longer considered BRM material. Are current readers just 'seduced' by what they can achieve by 'just opening a box', no matter how good what's inside it might be? 

Edited by Tony Wright
to clarify a point
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24 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

As with all my loco builds, thorough testing (at speed and under load) was conducted before proceeding further. CITY OF LONDON (which it will become) just flew round LB on 14 bogies.

 

I would have never have thought that it wouldn't be able to manage a reasonable load.  After all it is a model of Sir Bill's finest.

 

Jamie

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3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Ooh you are awful.  (but it was a rather clever question of an unusual detail).

 

I suspect the Bantams were in any case used mainly on town rounds at they replaced the little Scammells in many places.  I don't know how the ER worked its cartage fleets but generally the WR used used rigid vehicles on country rounds only moving artics in from the Divisional pool for any special jobs - a good example from the Little Bytham period being the major replacement of water mains with pipes coming in from Stanton & Staveley for delivery to site.  Frightening to relate but it is 41 years since I last had management responsibility for a railway road delivery fleet - 100% rigid as we served a lot of country areas in addition to town rounds (parcels traffic only by then of course)

 

Rigid vehicles were much better for country work but a station might have an artic if there was some sort of regular traffic which required the use of stand trailers that were left at a customer's premises to load or unload while teh tractor unit did another job.  Period photos of LB might reveal the sorts of vehicles which were in use?

 

When I hear of the Scammell Scarab I'm reminded of my family holidays in Falmouth during the early '60s. Dad would buy his paper at the station every morning and when he'd done that we would watch the men unloading the Conflats which the morning goods had brought in. The poor souls had to use the hand crane and there were often several containers to be transferred to the waiting Scammells and their trailers. I wonder what they thought of us standing there watching them every day?

 

Incidentally I once had a work colleague, Brian Dickenson,  who served his apprenticeship at Scammels factory in Watford. His final test was to assemble a complete Scarab from scratch. Brian lived in Harrow at the time. Like many teenagers his timekeeping was appalling. If he was on time he'd catch a local from Harrow and Wealdstone, if late it was a bus journey (I think).

One day Brian was late and travelled on the bus. Instead of a rollocking when he got to Scammell's men rushed up to him cheering, saying how glad they were to see him and was he alright. Had Brian been on time it turned out that he may well have been under the horrific pile of wreckage from the Harrow and Wealdstone train crash. His workmates had heard about the radio but Brian had no idea...

 

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47 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

 

I still find it strange that an article on building a very popular locomotive like this type is no longer considered BRM material. Are current readers just 'seduced' by what they can achieve by 'just opening a box', no matter how good what's inside it might be? 

     Only BRM can give the answer to that question. 

 

   Perhaps BRM are following the current sales patterns and readers interests in what they publish ( as they should) , being realistic far more items are now sold r.t.r  than kits and it has been so for a long time.

 

    Unless peoples attitudes/needs suddenly change ? , this is not helped because so little new in kits are now being released and the costs and time involved . Railway modelling is lagging behind other modelling interests as well which isn't helping, just look at any Military or Aeroplane modelling magazine , every issue is full of new kits ,conversion kits, various decals etc etc , Railway Modelling is a poor second to all these other modelling hobbies.

 

   Most "modellers" nowdays have very limited space living in modern small houses, the vast majority have no need for pulling power, in some cases the financial resources and the most the important factor the actual spare time free, to make what are lets face it very expensive and in some cases not that good quality models.

 

   Taking all those points into consideration, how many people are now actually consider becoming Railway modellers, who then actually make things in a serious expensive and time consuming way ? . The alternative is simply buy good quality ready made items and mostly are still at fairly reasonable prices , it isn't surprising to me at least that numbers of "serious modellers" are probably becoming smaller yearly .

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8 minutes ago, micklner said:

     Only BRM can give the answer to that question. 

 

   Perhaps BRM are following the current sales patterns and readers interests in what they publish ( as they should) , being realistic far more items are now sold r.t.r  than kits and it has been so for a long time.

 

    Unless peoples attitudes/needs suddenly change ? , this is not helped because so little new in kits are now being released and the costs and time involved . Railway modelling is lagging behind other modelling interests as well which isn't helping, just look at any Military or Aeroplane modelling magazine , every issue is full of new kits ,conversion kits, various decals etc etc , Railway Modelling is a poor second to all these other modelling hobbies.

 

   Most "modellers" nowdays have very limited space living in modern small houses, the vast majority have no need for pulling power, in some cases the financial resources and the most the important factor the actual spare time free, to make what are lets face it very expensive and in some cases not that good quality models.

 

   Taking all those points into consideration, how many people are now actually consider becoming Railway modellers, who then actually make things in a serious expensive and time consuming way ? . The alternative is simply buy good quality ready made items and mostly are still at fairly reasonable prices , it isn't surprising to me at least that numbers of "serious modellers" are probably becoming smaller yearly .

The 'debate' just carries on I think, Mick,

 

I'm sure model railway magazines (as you say, 'as they should') target the largest numbers of readers' interests, and it's clear that articles on kit-building (any kit-building?) are of diminishing interest. I've mentioned this before, but one editor (about nine years ago now) told me he was very twitchy about publishing an article which involved the use of a soldering iron! 

 

Yet, Steve Flint at the RM seems more than happy to accept articles on the building of quite complex kits, and his magazine has the largest circulation. It would seem there is hope.

 

It's a personal thing, of course. Without appearing a to be a hypocrite (difficult, I know), is this the most popular thread on RMweb with regard to views? If not, it would certainly seem to be among the most-popular. If it is the most popular, then what does it prove, if anything? That a thread which is chock-full of examples of posters making things, by themselves, for themselves, as individuals or in groups has a greater 'popularity' than any thread which just extols the virtues of RTR and/or illustrates models achieved by commission? 

 

An interesting thought....................

 

I know the hobby would hold no interest to me if I were unable to actually make things. Of course, I buy things already-made - house, cars, clothes, furnishings, food, etc, etc., but none of those is a hobby to me. As I say, a personal thing.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

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2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

I do care, John,

 

Honestly. 

 

However, as others have pointed out, the likelihood of an articulated BR lorry at LB is probably highly unlikely. As such I'll donate the vehicle in question to someone who can legitimately use it.

 

Period photos I have seem to show nothing more than a private Thames 'Trader' in the yard. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Tony.

The Classix range included an Austin K2 dropside in BR livery with an ER fleet number and they seem to be available on the 'net from various sources, it would be more than suitable for LB as they were used in agricultural areas.  The van body version of the K2, which would also be suitable, carries a WR fleet number.  What I don't know is whether or not the fleet numbers carried on either matched their registration numbers.

 

Private traders could of course use all sorts of vehicles hence the Thames Trader.

 

Edited by The Stationmaster
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As Tony knows from our talk at the Stafford show, a lot of his kit building articles I really enjoyed in my teens and there was variety from mixed media kits to fully etched ones.

 

I learnt and aspired to these, so much so I built my first etched and whitemetal loco aged 14.

 

In my view, the articles need to inspire, teach and show what can be done and how to.

 

If none of the techniques are shown, how is anyone meant to know what and how to do?

 

Not everyone is confident in going head first into the unknown.

 

I'm hoping to sit down and right some kit building or conversion articles in the near future when I get a bit of spare time to encourage others in the future.

 

In my teens I used to get book at shows as a demonstrator until I started working, partly to show if someone so young can build kits, then why not other age groups?

 

 

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Base Toys do a ER Karrier Bantam fleet number KE 6301 E....KE Karrier Bantam, 6 for 6 ton, 3 for GN area (ideal for Tony) 01 fleet number and lastly E for ER.

 

I did find a few other photos but they seem too modern for Tony's time period.

CYW 623 C

JAR 323D This is an ER based vehicle, AR being a Southend Registration , so I assume it is a GER area lorry. I once owned JAR700Y a Honda C90. 

AUUblurred

 

Unable to read their fleet numbers as they are on the rear corner of the cab.

 

In SW Stevens-Stratten and WJ Aldridge's book Railway Owned Commercial Vehicles there is a photo of two in a yard in Sheffield but their fleet and registration numbers are not clear enough to read.

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Having noticed Tony's BR road vehicle I had a look at my fleet and most are off region and the ones that are ER allocated, are they correct?

 

I am like most of us and I haven't really researched the road vehicles that would be in use at my location in my time period. I think we are more rule one with the supporting cast than we are with the stars of the layout. Some little things can make or brake a layout. Our little people's fashions and station staff uniforms, how often are they incorrect for the period modelled?

 

Are the surroundings we place our trains in as important as our trains?

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10 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

I am like most of us and I haven't really researched the road vehicles that would be in use at my location in my time period.

 

I, for one, would be a keen customer for an OPC-style 'An Illustrated History of British Railways' Road Vehicles"; - the trouble is, no-one's written it yet !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

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12 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

I, for one, would be a keen customer for an OPC-style 'An Illustrated History of British Railways' Road Vehicles"; - the trouble is, no-one's written it yet !!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Me too John and if anybody is interested in writing it , I can supply my list of about 26,000 of the fleet.

Some useful stuff will be found in the thread on "Railway Motors"

Merf

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26 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Are the surroundings we place our trains in as important as our trains?

 

Not pointing the finger at anyone specifically, but it often bemuses me that someone has taken the time to ensure that the railway aspects of their layout are reasonably accurate (e.g. right loco class, livery for the era and area), but get the non-railway aspects wrong, when even 5 minutes online would have given a big hint as to what is right.  One of my personal bug bears is canal scenes where the canal is totally wrong (too narrow, overly tight bends, wrong craft etc).

 

Adrian

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4 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

It's a personal thing, of course. Without appearing a to be a hypocrite (difficult, I know), is this the most popular thread on RMweb with regard to views? If not, it would certainly seem to be among the most-popular. If it is the most popular, then what does it prove, if anything? That a thread which is chock-full of examples of posters making things, by themselves, for themselves, as individuals or in groups has a greater 'popularity' than any thread which just extols the virtues of RTR and/or illustrates models achieved by commission? 

 

I am sure you must be aware that there are hundreds of threads on this forum posted by modellers, building from kits and scratch-building, Perhaps you should take a look.

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5 minutes ago, Nickey Line said:

 

I am sure you must be aware that there are hundreds of threads on this forum posted by modellers, building from kits and scratch-building, Perhaps you should take a look.

 

Pop into the 2mm area, its relatively quiet ( in terms of posts) but chock full of people making stuff. 

 

Jerry

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Interesting that Markits have turned up in the recent discussion. I am looking for replacement bits for a J72 I am detailing. I need new tank fillers and safety valves. I thought that Markits might have the right or similar fittings. However their website hasn't been updated and I can't find a catalog of things they make . If any one has a list of Markit items I would appreciate a PM. That way I would place an order as for us lot living on the other side of the earth we do purchase a lot sight unseen. Even better if there were photos.

 

This is an ongoing and increasing problem as "builders of models" it is becoming more difficult as the suppliers start to reduce. Years ago I managed to get the last of a NER turned chimney from Mainly trains, manufactured by Puffers, I think. Unfortunately both of these have gone to god now. The chimney is just right and lovely proportions. 

 

thanks in advance

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14 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

 

 

1077170466_DJHSemi07.jpg.752b8f2d03ad22bfb882bdd517775c85.jpg

 

 

 

Tony,

It's interesting to see how people test their builds and its quite lucky that the w/metal on the tender chassis is weighty enough to keep itself on the rails pulling that load....

I'm now going to be picky..... Can you do something about that signal base please? It sticks out like a sore thumb! I'm sure the real S&T would love a lovely flat base at the bottom of their posts, but in the real world it really doesn't happen (except on platforms). Its something that I find jars on quite a lot of the best layouts....

 

Andy G

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5 hours ago, DougN said:

Interesting that Markits have turned up in the recent discussion. I am looking for replacement bits for a J72 I am detailing. I need new tank fillers and safety valves. I thought that Markits might have the right or similar fittings. However their website hasn't been updated and I can't find a catalog of things they make . If any one has a list of Markit items I would appreciate a PM. That way I would place an order as for us lot living on the other side of the earth we do purchase a lot sight unseen. Even better if there were photos.

 

This is an ongoing and increasing problem as "builders of models" it is becoming more difficult as the suppliers start to reduce. Years ago I managed to get the last of a NER turned chimney from Mainly trains, manufactured by Puffers, I think. Unfortunately both of these have gone to god now. The chimney is just right and lovely proportions. 

 

thanks in advance

Markits catalogue is a downloadable pdf from their website.

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8 hours ago, figworthy said:

 

Not pointing the finger at anyone specifically, but it often bemuses me that someone has taken the time to ensure that the railway aspects of their layout are reasonably accurate (e.g. right loco class, livery for the era and area), but get the non-railway aspects wrong, when even 5 minutes online would have given a big hint as to what is right.  One of my personal bug bears is canal scenes where the canal is totally wrong (too narrow, overly tight bends, wrong craft etc).

 

Adrian 

I was at a show recently and looking at what was clearly a meticulously-researched model, hugely atmospheric, very well made, and placed very highly in the judges' assessment. Unfortunately, those behind it clearly had no understanding of marine operations whatsoever - something of an issue for a dockside layout. Dockside travelling cranes had no crane rails (perhaps understandably, crane rails look very different from the normal variety of inlaid track) and several cranes were placed with legs between the mooring bollards and the dock edge.

 

This would inevitably result in the cranes being unable to travel once a ship had moored up. Or worse, one crane had its' leg directly in front of a bollard, which would therefore be unusable. Especially with the cranes being fixed in position as modelled. There were also entirely too many cranes for the length of dockside modelled, but I suppose one can let that sort of thing slide for the usual reasons of selective compression.

 

I suppose this neatly illustrates the point that we all have different areas of knowledge. As I work in the maritime world, the above was really jarring to me, yet would have passed unnoticed to someone else. I'm quite sure that people who are intimately familiar with cars, or architecture, or farming, or any of the other things that get incorporated into a model railway, all pick up on particular things that most people would just have let slide as 'good enough'.

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9 minutes ago, RLBH said:

I was at a show recently and looking at what was clearly a meticulously-researched model, hugely atmospheric, very well made, and placed very highly in the judges' assessment. Unfortunately, those behind it clearly had no understanding of marine operations whatsoever - something of an issue for a dockside layout. Dockside travelling cranes had no crane rails (perhaps understandably, crane rails look very different from the normal variety of inlaid track) and several cranes were placed with legs between the mooring bollards and the dock edge.

 

This would inevitably result in the cranes being unable to travel once a ship had moored up. Or worse, one crane had its' leg directly in front of a bollard, which would therefore be unusable. Especially with the cranes being fixed in position as modelled. There were also entirely too many cranes for the length of dockside modelled, but I suppose one can let that sort of thing slide for the usual reasons of selective compression.

 

I suppose this neatly illustrates the point that we all have different areas of knowledge. As I work in the maritime world, the above was really jarring to me, yet would have passed unnoticed to someone else. I'm quite sure that people who are intimately familiar with cars, or architecture, or farming, or any of the other things that get incorporated into a model railway, all pick up on particular things that most people would just have let slide as 'good enough'.

The coaling cranes (two of them, both movable by rope and capstans) at Herculaneum Dock ran on rails right along the dockside, well outside the bollards - as can be seen on my layout. The cranes might have to be moved along the ship during loading but not past bow and stern lines.

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