Castle Aching

[Compound2632]

It was explained to me by a western dales hill farmer that his principal market had always been Bradford - once upon a time for wool, these days for Eid lambs.

[Andy Hayter]

Sheep will tend to orientate themselves according to the weather.  In wind, rain or snow bums tend to go to the windward side - nothing worse than getting snow in your eyes.

 

Round here on hot summer days (and they do get very hot) you will find them in a circle with a tree in the middle projecting a sight of twenty or so bums to the passer by.  Simple reason, the tree provides shade and keeps their heads out of the sun.

[Caley Jim]

Sheep will tend to orientate themselves according to the weather.  In wind, rain or snow bums tend to go to the windward side - nothing worse than getting snow in your eyes.

 

Round here on hot summer days (and they do get very hot) you will find them in a circle with a tree in the middle projecting a sight of twenty or so bums to the passer by.  Simple reason, the tree provides shade and keeps their heads out of the sun.

You will also find that if a hill breed and a lowland breed are put together in a sloping field, e.g. blackface and suffolk, the blackies will head for the top of the field and the suffolks will stay at the bottom.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

Our sheep-farming neighbour's considered opinion of the species:

 

Sheep are born to die

[jwealleans]

That's a variation on my neighbour's "sheep spend all their lives looking for somewhere to die".

[webbcompound]

 

the LRM kit looks remarkably like one of the carriages of which I have photos, but as far as I know is 4mm. Other carriages look a bit different and i suspect that they were from various original sources.

If we actually make sufficient progress i might start a thread. But it would be a good idea if I made some progress on my own layout.

Jonathan

 

I shall have to e-orient some of my sheep on Sarn, I fear.

The club is the Newtown Model Railway Society which meets in the middle of no-where between Newtown and Welshpool, courtesy of our Chairman who lets us use a building on his land (a former farm yard).

The layout, in 7mm will be based on the premise that the BCR actually got built as intended with a junction part way along where the route was to divide to Montgomery on the GW/LNW joint line and to Minsterly on the branch off that line. The station will be Montgomery, rather nearer to the town than the station that did exist, but naturally still a brisk walk - partly because Montgomery is on a hill. It will be based on Eaton. There should eb a nice backscene with the town, the castle and the hill fort side by side, as can be seen from the Chirbury road. We are setting the period just before the Grouping, as of course if he BCR had been completed it would probably have been absorbed by the GWR and become just another GWR branch. Hence the need for the ex-LNWR carriages which lasted until the early 1920s. the LRM kit looks remarkably like one of the carriages of which I have photos, but as far as I know is 4mm.

 The LR etches are shot down from a larger size available from Mercian, but unfortunately they appear to be in 1 Guage. So either too small or too big for you. Maybe you can get them resized, as the etches appear to be identical.

 

[Caley Jim]

One of our farming neighbours had some tups in our field.  On the way out to church one sunday I found one of them lying dead.  When I told her, her response was 'A sheep's one ambition in life is to die!'.  He'd probably had a head-butting contest with one of the others and come off worst!

 

Jim

[Poggy1165]

Surely sheep spend their time forming the equivalent of Colditz escape committees. It seems to me they can't bear to be on the right side of the fence, that straying onto a road or railway is considered much more fun.

[Nearholmer]

Farmers can be callous to a degree that shocks urban and suburbanites.

 

In the West of Ireland, on a dead-straight country road in the middle of nowhere, a cat shot out from a gateway and I ran over it before I really knew what was happening.

 

I stopped, went back to the twitching and agonised moggy, then went to the adjacent farm cottage to fess-up and get a number to call a vet. The woman was totally unfazed, brushed aside my apologies, went to the middle of the road, picked-up the cat by its tail, and dumped it, still twitching in death-throes, into a dustbin ..... clanged the lid down, dusted her hands off, and went back to whatever else she was about.

 

Mr Softy-Englishman here was left standing in the road, mouth agape, trying to compute what had just happened.

[Edwardian]

Surely sheep spend their time forming the equivalent of Colditz escape committees. It seems to me they can't bear to be on the right side of the fence, that straying onto a road or railway is considered much more fun.

 

You've watched too much Shaun the Sheep 

 

 

Farmers can be callous to a degree that shocks urban and suburbanites.

 

In the West of Ireland, on a dead-straight country road in the middle of nowhere, a cat shot out from a gateway and I ran over it before I really knew what was happening.

 

I stopped, went back to the twitching and agonised moggy, then went to the adjacent farm cottage to fess-up and get a number to call a vet. The woman was totally unfazed, brushed aside my apologies, went to the middle of the road, picked-up the cat by its tail, and dumped it, still twitching in death-throes, into a dustbin ..... clanged the lid down, dusted her hands off, and went back to whatever else she was about.

 

Mr Softy-Englishman here was left standing in the road, mouth agape, trying to compute what had just happened.

 

Vet friend flagged down by a couple who had just run over a sheep.  Well, he just bent over and did for it,  and on carrying it off to his car for disposal, had to keep reassuring stunned couple that, yes, it would be fine.  

[Regularity]

If you are a livestock farmer, animals are a commodity and there is no room for sentimentality but always time for good husbandry. I was fortunate enough to know one set of great-grandparents (born in 1890!) and until I was was 5 or 6, Gramps kept pigs for the sole purpose of eventually eating them. Although born and bred a townie, we always lived on the edge of town and my mother’s upbringing in a village during the 40s and 50s has meant that, thankfully, I have a desire that animals do not suffer but no squeamishness about their ultimate fate. No, not dying, but becoming food. Oh, and clothing.

[Nearholmer]

Not being callous, and being squeamish are different things.

 

For my money, Mrs Irish Farmer was callous. If she’d finished the cat off before it went in the bin, I’d not have been so gobsmacked. In fact, if I’d not been able to see a better way out of the situation, I’d probably have dispatched the creature myself.

[St Enodoc]

Our sheep-farming neighbour's considered opinion of the species:

 

Sheep are born to die

So are we all.

[runs as required]

Oh, The Railway Series got me way before seven!

 

In fact, I should make my new mantra: I can do it, I will do it, I can do it, I will do it, I can do it, I will do it ...

God Help You!

We sang that in the school choir back in primary school days in 1948 Wylde Green Brum!

You've watched too much Shaun the Sheep 

Vet friend flagged down by a couple who had just run over a sheep.  Well, he just bent over and did for it,  and on carrying it off to his car for disposal, had to keep reassuring stunned couple that, yes, it would be fine.  

"on carrying it off to his car for disposal, had to keep reassuring stunned couple that, yes, it would be fine. ...

...when eaten roasted with rosemary"

Son's ex girlfiend's Professor Emeritus dad did this with roadkill regularly!

dh

Edited February 15, 2018 by runs as required

[truffy]

If you are a livestock farmer, animals are a commodity and there is no room for sentimentality but always time for good husbandry. 

 

When we first moved to Switzerland, we rented a chalet on farmland. Our landlord's son got some (rather large) 'pet' rabbits. When we remarked on their size and how healthy they looked he (the landlord) smiled and said "gut essen!"

[Nearholmer]

Born to die? Nah!

 

Born to be wild!

 

(You all know the air- guitar riffs)

Edited February 15, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

Ah, the Yorkshire Dales: ewe-topia.

 

To get dangerously back on topic, how do sheep figure in the economy of North Norfolk c. 1905?

Edited February 15, 2018 by Compound2632

[Caley Jim]

You've watched too much Shaun the Sheep  

Or Timmy!

(only those with young grandchildren will appreciate that!)

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

Ah, the Yorkshire Dales: ewe-topia.

 

To get dangerously back on topic, how do sheep figure in the economy of North Norfolk c. 1905?

 

Good question.  No idea of the answer, but we did discuss the interesting cattle traffic from Scotland to Norfolk for finishing (fattening up!).

 

One day, when more everyday stock has been produced, it would be quite a nice feature, not to say a talking point, for a West Norfolk loco to drift into CA with a train of assorted Scottish pre-Grouping cattle wagons. 

[TheQ]

Norwich, Earlham road about 1900,

 

There are still regular sheep sales in Norfolk, I can see Sheep from my house today, I would guess there were more back in 1903

Edited February 15, 2018 by TheQ

[Caley Jim]

Ah, the Yorkshire Dales: ewe-topia.

An ecologist might describe it as a land devastated by woolly maggots.

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

Back on six-wheele4 coaches for a moment.

 

I’ve just been to see somebody about something else, but took the opportunity to look at a few things.

 

Two 1870s large-scale models of six-wheeler underframes, probably both made as patent-demonstrators. One is clearly showing the chain-brake (pictures are taken in a mirror at the bottom of the display case), the other the mounting of the outer axles in metal sub-frames or cradles, which look as if they are designed to be adjustable, probably to allow everything to be squared-up nicely.

 

The point is that not every six-wheeler had Cleminson’s refinement/over-complication; some had other people’s, or none.

 

Also, two signs within a real coach under restoration. Tiny details that surely must be included in any ex-LNWR vehicles that the WNR might purchase.

 

Judging by these, the LNWR “do not lean out of the window” sign probably ran to five sides of foolscap, and was presented with the ticket, in a leather slip-case.

Edited February 15, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Norwich, Earlham road about 1900,

220px-Earlham_Road,_Norwich1.jpg

 

There are still regular sheep sales in Norfolk, I can see Sheep from my house today, I would guess there were more back in 1903

 

Good then, we need sheep.

 

A nice juxtaposition there between the Ancient, in the form of traditional pastoralism, and the Modern, in the form of the new-fangled electric tram.

 

The Ancient, spreading across the road in the way of the Silent Herald of Modernity, seems to be winning.

[Compound2632]

On the real thing, the Cleminson or similar arrangements were very much the exception - only used on lines with unusually sharp curves. Of course we modellers usually have unusually sharp curves... 

 

Rather wordy notices! In an emergency, not only does the passenger have to lower the droplight and reach for the cord but also to have the presence of mind to do so on the right hand side facing forward!

 

While I can understand wanting to discourage throwing bottles out of a moving train, I've been on enough trains where there's been a loose bottle rolling around the carriage floor to think that "take your rubbish home" is better advice.

[corneliuslundie]

Why do you think Norfolk has all those enormous churches? Certainly not pigs.

I shall of course also need sheep on Nantcwmdu, but roaming the streets and railway lines looking rather unkempt, rather than in fields.

Thanks for the comment about the LNWR carriage.

And I love those notices. Definitely for the First Class section, most of the riff-raff would not have been able to read that many words.

Jonathan