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Sarn (Montgomeryshire) and Nantcwmdu (South Wales) plus Montgomery Town in 7mm


corneliuslundie
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On 03/11/2020 at 20:49, corneliuslundie said:

I pondered on that but could not find any examples. However, posters were normally in colour from much earlier than 1912, so I took the view that the pictures would probably be prints of colour paintings. If anyone has proof that they should be black and white please let me know before I fix the roof.

Jonathan

 

Perhaps you only got colour poster/photographs in First Class (black & white for the 'Plebs')?

 

 

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2 hours ago, Northroader said:

I fancy back then there were quite a lot of sepia prints as much as black and white.

 

That would fit in with my memories. Trouble with colour is it tends to fade a lot faster; I suspect those fitting out the carriages would want pics which would last.

 

Nigel

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Well, time for an end of year "progress" report - not that there is much despite seemingly spending hours at the workbench.

First, nearly complete and awaiting transfers, GWR No. 1196 , ex Cambrian 2-4-0T for Sarn. This is a Gem white metal kit with a chassis from somewhere (I can't remember) and a High Level gearbox. The finish is actually pretty lousy despite my spending a lot of time trying to improve it. I hope that a coat of matt varnish over the transfers will hide much of it. I have been in some discussion with a couple of people about the lettering. There is a photo of 1196 in 1931 in Cambrian Album 2 which appears to have no lettering on the tanks. However, I am persuaded that the lettering must be there but not visible under grime, and I don't fancy that idea. So lettered it must be, and numbers on both buffer beams. I have some really ancient rub down transfers, but I suspect that I shall have to invest in a sheet of the correct ones from the HMRS.  Even then it will be no sinecure as I shall have to close up the lettering a good deal to fit it and the number plate in. I have the plates, from Kings Cross plates. 

GWR 1196 model.JPG

 

Next, a GWR bogie parcels van from a D&S kit I have had for at least 15 years and started nearly that many years ago. I only noticed when taking the photos that the roof is crooked, so it will have to come off and I shall have to try again. By the way, there is some lining on this side. Can anyone see it? Just a single yellow line for the 1912 GWR lake livery. I originally bought this kit (and the next one) when I was hoping to model Nelson & Llancaiach on the Pontypool Road to Neath line. I am not sure what I shall do with it on Nantcwmdu as I can't imagine that there would be that much parcels traffic to a small mining village (perhaps the week before Christrmas during lockdown!). But as it was started I vowed to finish it. It has given me a lot of grief but I got there eventually - other than the lining, which I am undecided about. I might try again when/if I can get some yellow 0.2 mm pens but they currently seem to be out of stock. But at least it is built and more or less off the workbench.

 

GWR parcel van.JPG

 

Now the real horror. Even before I started building the parcels van I had started a Slaters 3rd class bogie carriage suitable for Nantcwmdu. The asides were painted at least 15 years ago but then it lay in its box. The body is now complete with the roof on, though the roof and underframe still need painting. And there are passengers, as I mentioned on the Traeth Mawr thread, though all along one side of the carriage. Lining this one will also be fun when I get that far. The sticking point (literally) has been the bogies. There are dozens of small parts. This includes 16 brake shoes which have to be added after the bogies are assembled with the wheels irrevocably in place. Unfortunately they have to be squeezed between the wheels and the bogie frame, and a small peg inserted in a hole in the frame. But when this is done some of them are hard up against the wheels. One cannot fit them earlier as the brake pull rods have to be added at the same time to each pair of brake shoes.  So now some of the wheels are very reluctant to go round and I still have four to go. I may have to pare the brake blocks down if I don't want the vehicle permanently in the carriage sidings (with passengers!). And i still have lots of bits to add to the bogies and to the body, some of which I have not yet managed to identify -and are not mentioned as far as i can see in the instructions. Also, there are brass brackets to hold the footboards which have two 45 degree bends in them. The instructions say to strengthen the joints with solder, which I did, but two have still come adrift with all the handing needed to try to get the brake shoes in. So perhaps this one will be finished in time for the end of 2021 review. And what do I do with it when it is finished? Far too posh for the GWR to send to Nantcwmdu and anyway the passenger service will be provided by the Rhymney.

 

GWR carriage.JPG

 

Well, that's it. When I get these off the workbench I am going to enjoy myself and build some 7 mm wagons for the club Montgomery Town layout, first a long wheelbase LNWR timber wagon and then a pair of Cambrian dumb buffered timber wagons. And I hope soon to start a chapel for the main street based on Capel Coffa here in Newtown.

So:

 

Christmas 2020.JPG

(note the sheep)

If you have got this far, thank you for your perseverance.

Jonathan

Edited by corneliuslundie
Adding photos and typo
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I am of course too young to remember GWR days. However I cannot clearly remember what photos were in such carriages in the 50s, I do remember the maps very clearly.

I do wonder if they used some colourised photos in GWR times and posters are a real possibility. There are very few around today from those times so my view is you keep those pictures and claim they are prints of paintings or colourised photos.  If someone claims they were B&W in the 30s and 40s tell them that was an economy measure. 

 

I am not sure if Slaters intended their coaches to be assembled by normal mortals

 

Best wishes to you and Clare.

 

Don

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Thanks Don. Having created and fitted the photos I wonder if it was worth it as they are almost impossible to see. You can't actually see much of the seven figures.

Do I detect from your comment that you too have had fun with a Slaters kit? I think in future I'll stick to their PO wagons - except that I already have far too many.

Jonathan

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On 24/12/2020 at 20:53, corneliuslundie said:

So:

 

Christmas 2020.JPG

(note the sheep)

If you have got this far, thank you for your perseverance.

Jonathan

 

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you too Jonathan.

 

Was in Newtown myself last week, having the car serviced and a new battery fitted.  Dropped it off (as requested) at Charles Humphrys at 08:15, and he said, "That'll be this afternoon then".  So I did a great deal of walking (total of 5.7 miles) and sitting and eating, in and around the town that day!  By the time I got to pick the car up at 15:10, I had pretty much exhausted the cultural highlights of Newtown! (LOL)

 

Keep safe, one and all.

Steve

 

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2 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Thanks Don. Having created and fitted the photos I wonder if it was worth it as they are almost impossible to see. You can't actually see much of the seven figures.

Do I detect from your comment that you too have had fun with a Slaters kit? I think in future I'll stick to their PO wagons - except that I already have far too many.

Jonathan

 

Given that I work in 7mm mostly I still find them very fiddly. Mind you things like the photos etc. do show up more in 7mm (if you fit them that is!)

 

Don

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At least last week Newtown was open. Our usual walk is not in the town, but up the lane near our house to about 800-850 ft, from where we can on a clear day see England one way and Plynlimon the other. On days when it is not clear we may be able to see the town! But beautiful countryside and plenty of sheep, the reward for a 1 in 7 hill. Today though we just walked in the park on the town side of the river.

There is though also a nice walk down river along the old canal. We went that way yesterday but decided not to today as it was full of runners. Too difficult to socially distance.

But in the town not lot. All three museums shut and the art gallery now also shut. And of course no cafes again.

When things are "back to normal" we must sample the delights of Llangurig - other than the disused railway embankment!

Jonathan

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Llangurig; here's a snap of the station site in 1998:

 

gllangurig.jpg

 

Looking east, where the railway passes through a cutting before heading out towards the A470; that bit's now a public footpath.

Edited by NCB
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3 hours ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you too Jonathan.

 

Was in Newtown myself last week, having the car serviced and a new battery fitted.  Dropped it off (as requested) at Charles Humphrys at 08:15, and he said, "That'll be this afternoon then".  So I did a great deal of walking (total of 5.7 miles) and sitting and eating, in and around the town that day!  By the time I got to pick the car up at 15:10, I had pretty much exhausted the cultural highlights of Newtown! (LOL)

 

Keep safe, one and all.

Steve

 

 Once had a car, a BX, serviced at Newtown, at the then Citroen dealers. Saved me a drive over to my usual dealers in Shrewsbury, and I could get the train back to Aber for a day's work. Big mistake. I'm convinced the mechanic was on drugs. He dismantled the carburetor (why?) then put it back together wrongly. Start of a long saga; I had to get the Shrewsbury dealer to sort it out. Still not great, swapped it for the then new Xantia, another mistake, then managed to get one of the last BX's in the country. Great! Did me for 8 years and 160K miles.

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22 hours ago, NCB said:

Llangurig; here's a snap of the station site in 1998:

 

gllangurig.jpg

 

Looking east, where the railway passes through a cutting before heading out towards the A470; that bit's now a public footpath.

 

Yes, a friend and I walked that bit of old road a few weeks ago, until the gate at the side of the 'new' one at least.  One image I cannot find, is a view of the original railway bridge which took the line from Llangurig station (or the site of it anyway) westwards over the road leading north to Llanidloes (so behind the 'Blue Bell Inn').  I'm sure someone told me that the bridge was only finally demolished in the 1980's, so you'd think there would be some (pics) about.  The place I've retired to, is just behind the PO/Village stores and the previous owners left a framed print of a photograph hanging in the hallway.  Taken from somewhere up that way, looking back down on the village, the embankment and road bridge are still there, but it is too small to make out much detail (I took it out of the frame and scanned it and discovered that the print itself, is of a scanned photo, so that doesn't help much either).  Might be that its a scan of a photo someone in the village took, all those years ago.

 

 

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23 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

.... When things are "back to normal" we must sample the delights of Llangurig - other than the disused railway embankment!

Jonathan

 

You'd be very welcome, so lets hope that 'normal' gets a move on!

Steve

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23 hours ago, steveNCB7754 said:

 

Yes, a friend and I walked that bit of old road a few weeks ago, until the gate at the side of the 'new' one at least.  One image I cannot find, is a view of the original railway bridge which took the line from Llangurig station (or the site of it anyway) westwards over the road leading north to Llanidloes (so behind the 'Blue Bell Inn').  I'm sure someone told me that the bridge was only finally demolished in the 1980's, so you'd think there would be some (pics) about.  The place I've retired to, is just behind the PO/Village stores and the previous owners left a framed print of a photograph hanging in the hallway.  Taken from somewhere up that way, looking back down on the village, the embankment and road bridge are still there, but it is too small to make out much detail (I took it out of the frame and scanned it and discovered that the print itself, is of a scanned photo, so that doesn't help much either).  Might be that its a scan of a photo someone in the village took, all those years ago.

 

 

 

From memory (which may be dodgy!) that railway bridge was quite a low one; I think the next one a couple of hundred yards west, over both road and stream,  or so was the main one, even though the road bit was single track. After the first bridge was removed the second one was closed off; I intended to get a pic of it but when I finally got around to it the arch had been removed.

 

Nigel

 

Edit: after a look at past 6" maps on the NLW site there may not even have been a bridge. The western bridge was the official route.

Edited by NCB
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I did a couple of field trips to Llangurig in 2003/4 when the embankment across the back of the Blue Bell's car park was still there.  The bridge had already gone but recently enough for the height restriction signs on the approaches to it to still be in place.  I felt that where the railway had crossed the road that runs between the Blue Bell and the village hall was too high for a level crossing but nowhere near high enough for it to have ever been a bridge.  My conclusion, therefore, was that the road had been severed when the railway was built and the detour road across the front of the school to the bridge at the other end of the Blue Bell's car park built as a replacement.

 

The layout of Llangurig that I'd hoped to build never came about because I came to the conclusion that the quantity and nature of the many buildings - particularly the Arts and Crafts architecture of the Black Lion and the matching terrace beyond the bridge - meant there would be an awful lot of work for not much railway. 

I also had some reservations about the Blue Bell.  It's undeniably a very modellogenic structure, but it was also quite clearly originally four or five, perhaps six buildings that over the years have been amalgamated into one.  Without knowing the history of the pub - about which not even the lady then running it (Sandra?) knew much, and she'd been born and brought up in the village! - there would be a lot of potential for error that, depending on the nature of the error, could be difficult to put right.

 

Jonathan: when you take your walk around Llangurig be sure to stop at Cwmbelan on the way - a lovely little village that I felt had more than enough potential to become a small intermediate station on the branch to Llangurig.  I would also recommend your walk takes in Marsh's Pool, upon the hills behind Llangurig. An idyllic spot.

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12 hours ago, mike morley said:

I did a couple of field trips to Llangurig in 2003/4 when the embankment across the back of the Blue Bell's car park was still there.  The bridge had already gone but recently enough for the height restriction signs on the approaches to it to still be in place.  I felt that where the railway had crossed the road that runs between the Blue Bell and the village hall was too high for a level crossing but nowhere near high enough for it to have ever been a bridge.  My conclusion, therefore, was that the road had been severed when the railway was built and the detour road across the front of the school to the bridge at the other end of the Blue Bell's car park built as a replacement.

 

 

You are absolutely right, I had misunderstood verbal info I had been given about the location of the bridge.  Old OS mapping, does indeed show that the road turned sharply westward, as it came down the from the north.  Then, it followed the 'rear' of the embankment (in front of the old school - now a private home) and then turned sharply south under and through the bridge set in the embankment.  So the actual bridge was nearly at the west end of the village, West of St Curig's church, and so NOT behind the 'Blue Bell' Inn.

 

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And with snow at the moment?

None in town  or on the hills immediately to the north west but plenty on the Kerry Ridge and above Penstrowed for the last two days.

By coincidence, I am just reading one of my Christmas presents, the Oakwood Press book on the M&M. Not a new book but well put together with plenty of photos and seemingly well researched.

There is a mention of an early loco0motive called Montgomery. Could this have been the one bought by Savin which ended up as Cambrian property? It seems to have got around when in Savin's ownership, and David Davies is a link between the two companies?

Jonathan

PS No, I shall not be modelling the M&M.

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Snow has finally reached my place, after trying for several days; a very thin covering this morning, a tad more after a few snow showers today.

hZ_0321.jpg.4adc47d3eac7d503dc1a316130e51e45.jpg

 

Happy New Year all.

Nigel

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Taken on Wednesday though there had been more on Tuesday. From Bryn Lane looking towards Penstrowed, so a little south of west I reckon (Bryn Lane winds so much one needs a compass or the sun to tell the direction one is facing).

And re those brake shoes on the Slaters carriage, all but one now fitted and the wheels currently all turn. The problem turned out to be more glue on the wheel rims than rubbing blocks, though some had to be eased. The last one will be fun as the securing lug broke off when I was a bit rough with it so I have drilled a 0.5 mm hole and inserted some NS wire. Then on to the springs and axleboxes. Even the springs have three parts each.

Also parcels van roof removed, trimmed and replaced, then partly lifted again at one end to get it to sit down properly on the van end. So a little touching up needed of the painting and the rest of the lining.

Number plates fitted to 1196 but I discovered that the ancient GWR transfers I had - a rub down type so I have no idea where I got them or how many decades ago - had lost any clue about how to stick to anything, so they have gone in the bin and an order will be off shortly to the HMRS. Fortunately, those are still in stock, though for the HMRS getting replacement stock has been a real problem over the last year and is not likely to get any better as one of the two suppliers has closed. But if you want HMRS transfers and they are not shown on the HMRS site it is worth looking at Eileen's Emporium and a couple of other traders who still seem to have a wider range.

And I have an interesting puzzle with M&M connections for you locals. The latest WRRC Newsletter has a photo of a nice model of an M&M brake van. As it happens I had the M&M history by John Holden for Christmas - not exactly a new book but I was living in South Wales when it came out and had never heard of Llanurig (hangs head in shame). The person who built the model used the drawing in the book, which John Holden says was of a Metropolitan C&W Co build. And given the amount of detail which went into his research I am sure he is right. However, there is a Mike Lloyd drawing of an almost identical brake van design which Mike says was built by and for the Cambrian - and also I have the Cambrian drawing which Mike used as a basis for his. It has Cambrian Railways on it but no mention of Metropolitan. There are also three other Cambrian drawings of similar brake vans, albeit gradually getting larger and more modern, again all with Cambrian on but no mention of an outside builder. So was Mike misled by the drawing and the sparse Cambrian records, or did Metropolitan somehow get hold of an eight year old Cambrian drawing and use it for the M&M van? Since relations between the M&M and the Cambrian were not exactly good at that time I can't see Oswestry giving the M&M a drawing. And it also throws up the bigger question of whether one can assume that a drawing with Cambrian Railways and the relevant Locomotive Superintendent's signature can be taken as representing a Cambrian built vehicle. 

Jonathan

 

PICT0205.JPG

new year.JPG

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Jonathan, 

How interesting.  The brake van in question is definitely Cambrian.  The list of wagons that I have, which I think you might have as well,(?), shows an outside framed single verandah brake built by B'ham, the rest are Cambrian.  The inside framed ones, which I think that is one of, are all Cambrian built and are the ones with the diagram, but the double ended ones, although some were built by the Cambrian others were built by the Metropolitan,  others by B'ham.  The Metro ones were 1895, the B'ham ones 1898.  I wonder if they gave them all the drawings, and if they were built for other companies under licence, or just purloined?

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I think the entire subject of Welsh brake vans is a minefield. 

For instance, I'd love a Mid Wales Railway van, but as far as I know there is nothing to go on other than a couple of pictures of the one (or was it two?) that went to the Elan Valley.  The Oakwood press says they only had one, but photographic evidence suggests that either they had two that were rather different or they altered the one they'd got during the comparatively brief time they had it.  And neither bears much more than superficial resemblance to the 16mm version that's on sale.

Something I am particularly mindful of is the Victorian habit of hailing "Mr X's new passenger engine for the Y Railway" when in reality it was simply a standard product of Sharp Stewart, Kitson, Manning Wardle etc. with perhaps a minor tweak or two to the specification in order to accommodate the customer's specific needs (Furness 4-4-0's and the Cambrian's Beaconsfields being a very obvious for instance).

I think it highly likely that exactly the same thing happened with guards vans, simply because the budget for them was so much smaller and the roles they had to perform so much lower profile.  Why would anyone bother allocating valuable drawing-office time to something when a perfectly acceptable version could be bought off-the-peg from Met. B'ham, Glos etc?

 

And as an aside, if the ever-genial Andy Cundic's Talyllyn Road layout ever goes on show again in its Welsh guise (Last time I spoke to him he was considering altering it to a Highland Railway layout) the loco roster includes a very nice portrayal of GWR 1338, the ex-Manchester and Milford, originally LNWR, Coal Engine, complete with GWR tender.

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