South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[Ian Hargrave]

On 11/02/2023 at 15:23, Budgie said:

When I used to go on holiday in the 1950s and 60s to Aberaman (near  Aberdare), my grandfather's coal was delivered to outside his garden gate on the access road behind the house. It was just dumped there, and he organised people to carry it down the garden to the coal-house for him. (It was a long narrow garden, mostly used for growing vegetables, and the plants he was growing for the flower show.) I didn't get involved in that until about 1962, because I was too young, and my Mam thought I would play with the stuff and get myself all dirty. I also remember that those people who didn't have back alleys behind their houses (not very many people like that) had their coal unceremoniously dumped on the pavement outside their front door, and they had to carry it through the house. Horrible dirty job. 

On holiday  ?  Hmm…an interesting observation . Yes I know all about coal houses and back lanes and tin baths hanging on nails in the backyard..and Aberaman too.Well so I should as my mother was its very first District Nurse under the newly created NHS and Dad the hon.Secretary of the local rugby club. I grew up there in the forties and fifties. Not your average holiday resort though. For a change it was Barry Island,Porthcawl or Mumbles ( via the Vale of Neath ). No cars until my early teens to widen the horizons. My cousin up yonder …Ceinewydd…tells it too.His dad my mother’s younger brother,looked after the pit ponies in the area. Tondu being a centre for them.

 

The house and street I grew up in is little changed since I left .But the landscape has. Its ghosts still remain 

 

 

[Budgie]

49 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

On holiday  ?  Hmm…an interesting observation . Yes I know all about coal houses and back lanes and tin baths hanging on nails in the backyard..and Aberaman too.Well so I should as my mother was its very first District Nurse under the newly created NHS and Dad the hon.Secretary of the local rugby club. I grew up there in the forties and fifties. Not your average holiday resort though. For a change it was Barry Island,Porthcawl or Mumbles ( via the Vale of Neath ). No cars until my early teens to widen the horizons. My cousin up yonder …Ceinewydd…tells it too.His dad my mother’s younger brother,looked after the pit ponies in the area. Tondu being a centre for them.

 

The house and street I grew up in is little changed since I left .But the landscape has. Its ghosts still remain 

 

 

 

Basically, we went there for a month (teachers' holidays) to visit my mother's parents. Their house at the top of George Street was the base from which all our activities started. Day trips to Barry Island when the weather was good, and stuck indoors playing cards when it was pouring with rain. And, of course, visiting all the relations (and there were a lot of those).

[Ian Hargrave]

9 hours ago, Budgie said:

 

Basically, we went there for a month (teachers' holidays) to visit my mother's parents. Their house at the top of George Street was the base from which all our activities started. Day trips to Barry Island when the weather was good, and stuck indoors playing cards when it was pouring with rain. And, of course, visiting all the relations (and there were a lot of those).

Oh yes, George Street was part of the way to Aberaman Station,now long gone and easily accessible to Eynon’s chippy,run and owned by May who always add a portion of scrunchings to your order.My mother visited a number of patients there.We lived further up in Godreaman in the bizarrely named Pleasant View Street. The “view” encompassed the infamous Phurnacite plant with its noxious yellow fume clouds and Aberaman Colliery where,I recently discovered,two Kerr Stuart Victory tanks resided to work the NCB branch up the Aman Valley. I remember their almost incessant barking but little suspected their significance at the time or that some seventy years later I’d be purchasing a model of one in OO gauge !  I did a little tour around last year .Much obviously has changed.But the chippy is still there as is the house in which I grew up ….with now a BMW 4x4 parked outside rather than my father’s Morris Oxford or my uncle’s Vauxhall ( visiting the local NCB stables and for a bowl or two of my mother’s stew and slices of apple tart )

[The Johnster]

Having partially girded my lions, stiffened the sinews, cried 'havoc' and let slip the dogs of relaying, I've made a start.  First job, next move in the timetable anyway, mt mineral from Ogmore Jc (fy) to Cwmdimbath to empty the fy.  Luckily, the track is not particularly firmly glued down and I got it up without problems; one turnout and two lengths of flexi. Then, clear everything off the fy board and the fy approach board.  Prepare the ground for relaying, chisel attacks on lumps of glue, ballast, scenery, sleepers that didn't come up years ago last time I messed around with it.  Then I savagely ripped out the scenery, road overbridge, and miners' platform.  Took abour an hour and a half of mildly destructive vandalism.

 

So I had a break and a cuppa, and started repositioning track.  The running line, the branch, now curves a little more than it did (it is still pretty gentle) and the fy turnout with the fy roads are towards the front of the fy board, whereas they were at the back previously.  This 2-road fy suits me, having evolved with the layout; one road is reserved for the mineral, which arrives loaded and the wagons are emptied into the coal bin, from which they are refilled during stopclock downtime at the colliery when they are under the loader.  This road when the mineral is not standing on it, and the other road, are used to crane shunt stock on and off for all the other workings.  Crude, simple, bit like The Johnster really, but it works, which is more than can always be said for The Johnster.  The turnout is in the same position relative to the trackplan, but closer to the front of the approach board.  Moving it south would have compromised the fy capacity and moving it north would have made the somewhat awkward positioning of the southern end of the colliery lower yard behind the fy throat even more prominent, which I don't want, it's bad enough as it is!

 

I took out colliery no.1 road and relaid it with one of the fy lengths so that it runs parallel to the branch, at about scale five or six yards distance, opening up a v-shaped area in the colliery lower yard.  Formerly five wagons capacity, it is now eleven, more than long enough to accept a complete loaded clearance rake.  It also offers the option of being extended onto the fy board, but I am undecided about this for now.  I like having space on this board for locos to sit on.  So, current sitrep is that there is only one fy road with a turnout in it awaiting the purchase of another length of flexi, the track is pva-ed in it's new positions, and weighted down for the pva to go off overnight. 

 

Tomoz or Thursday will be a trip down to Lord & Butler's for the flexi, may buy two lengths in case the extended no.1 road option is taken up, and some ballast.  A new Mynydd y Gwair is needed, and I may dispense with the road overbridge altogether; I haven't given this much thought yet and will probably allow it to develop organically, evolve on it's own terms to general principles rather than plan it down to the last detail and try to get it right. 

 

My current thinking, though, is a cutting as the branch cuts through a spur of Mynydd y Gwair, with the platform between the branch and colliery no.1 road.  The platform may well disappear into the fy with only the north thirty feet or so visible.  The scenic break is a bit awkward because the colliery lower yard extends further south than it's position, which must hide the turnout, and I was never happy with the previous road bridge and retaining wall arrangement, but I felt that the road access to the colliery had to be modelled, in fact of course it doesn't.  This will mean that I can rethink the upper level so that a roadway runs up a slope along the back wall with buildings at varying heights along it.  Perhaps, or the road access is off-scene to the south and serves both levels off-scene.  It's just occurred to me that if the local farmer grazes sheep on the land between the branch and the colliery, he'll need access over a small footbridge just north of the scenic break as well; Peco or Wills curved top plate girder bridge commends itself!

 

So, no road or road bridge over the cutting, the actual break hidden in trees and poor lighting and a pipe bridge along with the sheep farmer's occupation brideg to take one's attention away from it, a reprise of the original idea from before the colliery board appeared a year ago last November.  The actual break is a piece of matt black card with a hole in it and black strips for the trains to run through.  Road access is on the eastern side of the valley and not modelled.  The pipe bridge will span the cutting and then be incorportated with a new long footbridge that will run from the platform to the upper yard, crossing all the lower yard roads in the process. 

 

The south end of the lower yard is a bit (by which I mean very) flaky at present, and I think this footbridge in front of a few buildings at ground level here will make it look a lot better, especially if nothing is at a right angle to anything else, which will break up the viewed impression of the flat wall immediately behind the buildings.  There will be an assumed but not modelled road access between the buildings, mostly low relief, here.  There will be fundamentally two footpath routes from the platform, which has no public road or footpath access, into the colliery, one off the northern ramp, turning right and crossing the yard throat on the level with a barrow or ground crossing, used by men working in the lower yard and possibly the tippler building, especially it's ground floor, and a set of steps up the cutting side to the footbridge, which as I say will also carry the pipe, presumably a water main, which will access the upper yard, possibly with a set of steps down from it accessing the new v-shaped area and the buildings that are going to be placed there.  This footbridge will probably be some sort of lattice wood or steel girder affair, with the 'Black Bridge' in Cardiff as inspiration.  Something not unlike it once spanned the branch and the colliery sidings at Blaengarw, a wooden lattice cage on wooden supports, so there is an example in the area.

 

I'm feeling good about this job.  I've spent too long deciding how to proceed with it and now I've started, which always generates a degree of positivity.  It'll be a while before matters are progressed enough for photos. though, so patience, muy compadres...

Edited February 15, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

I've made a start on card formers for the retaining wall that will hold Mynydd y Gwair (the mountain on the western side of the valley) back off the branch, and what is now going to be a high wall between the branch and colliery no.1, leading into the mountainside where the branch disappears informally into the fy.  A new miner's halt platform, or rather the piece of wood that will form the core of it's structure, has appeared, on the eastern side of the branch, and the wall will lead off the southern end of this, incorporated with which will be the pier of the footbridge that will lead across the colliery yard along with the water main, with a staircase leading up to it; the Kitmaster kit will probably supply this.  The water main will need to cross the branch between the retaining and dividing walls as well, and there seems little room for my intended sheep farmer's occupation bridge.  He will access his land between the branch and the colliery yard by a ground level crossing to the north of the platform. 

 

The retaining wall needs to be stone faced, or a bare rock cut, and as it will not usually be visible unless one looks for it, so stone paper is the favourite at the moment.  The colliery side wall will face front, though, and needs to be Wills plastic sheets or something with proper relief, perhaps paper again on the colliery side.  Then I will need to tidy up the retaining wall dividing the top and bottom colliery yards, also facing front and needing to look the part. 

 

The formers are pva-ed into place, and run from the colliery wall around the back of no.1 and the vee-shaped area between it and no.2, which has been roughly scenicked.  I'll need quite a bit of scenic flock and bushes to cover the ground, and there needs to be ground built up on the west side of the branch on the approach to the station throat as well, as it is very near the edge of the baseboard here and needs some foreground detail cantilevered off the front of the board to stop it looking as if it's trying to hang in mid-air!

Edited February 17, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

Bit more progress this evening, platform faced, a ramp put on the end that you can see (whic will lead to a footpath and foot crossing over the throat of the lower yard sidings) the water main pipe bridge is in place with a support frame, but it will need more of these.  It will not now be incorported into the long footbridge.  All is running well.  The new, longer, number one road will be used for assembling loaded outgoing wagons that have been weighed.  I did an exchange of traffic at the colliery earlier, BR loco backs empties with van into colliery from station on to loaded wagons already weighed for clearance dispatch on no.1, van is coupled to loaded, then loco places empties on no.2, cuts off and recouples to van, hauls van and loaded train off the premises ready to run around in the station and right away Ogmore Jc.  Colliery loco then takes the empties over the weighbridge for taring, and works as required to place empties beneath the loader and weigh and assemble loaded wagons for the next clearance.  Can be done within the timetable at a reasonably leisurly pace!

Edited February 18, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

This evening has seen a bit of attention to fencing, old plank fencing appearing around the new Wood Bros Ltd factory, and a grass mat representing Mynydd Maendy, to the east of the valley, has replaced (to be more accurate, covered) the wooden platform on the colliery branch which started life as a loading bay for a Remploy factory on the original layout.  Fencing and a gate have appeared at the north end of the miner's platform, approached down the ramp, and the wood plank crossing, like a barrow crossing but it isn't, has been put in between no.2 and no.3, giving access to the lower yard area.  It is close enough to the  turnout separating  no.1 and no.2 to require a shaped piece to fit into the vee of the turnout...  I ran trains in between doing this work.  I have a bit of Ratio GWR concrete fencing to go in to separate the colliery from the branch running line, and some railings which will be deployed around the colliery.

 

Onwards and upwards, or perhaps more like sideways and sort of diagonally back a bit...

[The Johnster]

 

Early days at the newly revised scenic break; branch needs reballasting and the card cover that will eventually be the abutment of the proposed footbridge from the miner’s platform, foreground, across the lower yard to the upper yard of the colliery is still completely naked, unpainted, and unscenicked.  A set of bridge footsteps, probably Kitmaster, will lead up from the platform to the footbridge level.  The platform is backed by a stone wall that predates the colliery and the branch, old farm structure, but there is a gap here filled by railings.  Forest no.1 positions some loaded minerals on no.1 road, and the new space of the vee-shaped open section of the lower yard is apparent behind the engine.  The branch was originally about four inches further back at this point. 
 

The engine’s weathering is coal dust, and will wipe off. 

[The Johnster]

I’ve got fed up with the ‘temporary placeholder’ NCB loco shed at the station end of the NCB exchange road which has been there over a year, a home made cardboard building with stone paper walls and a very crude bit of modelling that I am not proud of, and have ordered a Pocketbond Scenix loco shed off eBay.  Apparently I’ve done well, £10.99 and £4.50 p&p; I’ve seen another one at £28 and one at £38 also on the bay, though the £38 one is post-free. 
 

These are fairly crude RTP thick resin with solid black windows, the engine shed being brick built with three ‘windows’ each side, but at least there is relief to the bricks and it should respond well to weathering.  I will try to make some doors for it; there are what look like hinge brackets at each end.  
 

I’ve also ordered a long footbridge to span the colliery lower yard between the miner’s platform/scenic break and the upper yard.  This will make a bit more sense of what looks at the moment to be an unlikely situation with the upper and lower yard levels apparently having no connection with each other.  This bridge is a lasercut wooden kit from torri_laser, who advertise on the Bay, and is in fact meant as a rather unlikely single track railway bridge with somewhat flimsy lattice girder piers, but it is going to be busy enough at shift changes to justify the width, and should be perfectly cromulent in this role.  
 

i’ve decided that the stairways and railings of the Walther’s ‘Diamond Coal’ building are too obviously undersized H0, with the proximity of new 4mm detail to show them up, and they will be removed and replaced with 4mm products. It’s starting to come together…

[The Johnster]

The Scenix engine shed came this morning, and this evening I are mostly installing it.  Plenty to moan about with it and I'm glad I didn't pay out £38 for it, but we'll come to that shortly; it is quantum better than the placeholder cardboard cutout shed!

 

I have given it a wash of dilute cream as cement between the bricks, picked out the window, 'section', and door arches in blue for engineering bricks, and generally weathered and messed it up with algae/moss staining.  The windows are just silly, blacked out becaue of course they aren't windows at all really, but with little squiggles of grey in them which I think are supposed to represent light reflected from the glass.  Remember the windows on 1938 Hornby Dublo passenger stock?  I decided that the only thing to do with them was to black them out properly, with black acrylic paint, perhaps a back story about an RAF pilot complaining about light from them during the war or something.

 

I also pencilled in a general impression of writing on the notices on the notice board, and glazed it.  All in all it looks a bit less like an overpriced toy now!

 

 

 

The slight offset of the doorway is intentional, as I want room on the inside for workbenches and tools eventually, but the lack of real windows means that we have to assume that the rear wall is a solid wall with no windows at all, which seems unlikely but there it is.  Note the new coaling stage, the end portion of an Airfix 7-planker, and the Triang brake van cabin.

 

 

 

So here's a more broadside on view, showing the platform needed to access the notice board.  Some work will have to be done around the rear doorway, where I have placed a piece of card for now to show where the stub end of track will possibly emerge; probably a walled platform maybe long enough for a W4 or similar to stand out there.  The 'through shed' concept of this model is raising questions, such as should I retain this feature or block that end up?  If I block it up, I will have to construct a suitable lean-to or extension building that will cover the doorway arch completely.

 

The interior is completely matt black, and of course will have to be painted white, cream, or grey.  This will show up the lack of back wall windows further, but this is what comes with this territory...  This is the basic form of the NCB engine shed area, and while detailing is needed, can be regarded as fundamentally complete, and the improvement to the overall look of this area is considerable.  Good evening's work!

[The Johnster]

 

It's a dull evening and the light is failing, but in the slack period in the timetable between 19.40 and 21.50, when I sometimes schedule a pigeon special, Control have arranged for a loco and brake van to be sent up from Tondu to retrieve a green carded mineral wagon from the colliery, and the opportunity has been taken to clear an ex-LMS hyfit (Parkside) with empty cable drums wanted back at the manufacturers' at the same time.  8497 happened to be hanging around the shed yard in steam, and a passed fireman as driver with a passed clearer as fireman were delighted to be given an opportunity to show their mettle with some real railway work! 

 

In this shot, 8497 is in the process of removing the train from the colliery exchange road, and will run around ready to depart when a path becomes available between Blackmill and Brynmenyn, but has paused to brim the tanks, with the wagons fouling the exchange road turnout but at this time of the evening nobody is bothered much about this.  The new Scenix NCB loco shed is in the background.  The green-carded mineral has siezed brake rodding, meaning that the brakes cannot release properly and the shoes drag and overheat, and care must be taken to not allow expansion to lock the wheelset, resulting in flat tyres, so they will proceed quite slowly down to Tondu goods for it to get proper attention from the C&W people in the morning.

 

The engine shed looks quite effective with blacked-out painted windows (certainly a big improvement on the rather toylike 'as supplied' 'reflections'); I can remember seeing various industrial and docks buildings in this condition well into the 60s around Cardiff, twenty years after the end of the war and blackout restrictions.  In the case of some buildings, the windows were so dirty that I doubt that some of the occupants were ever particularly aware that they'd been painted over, and in any case some were effectively blocked up from the inside with notices, newpaper pages, and 'pick chers of gurlies wot ain't got no clotheses on' (looking at you, NCB locomen's cabin at Mountain Ash, an extensive and impressive collection only rivalled by the out-and-out pornfest on the walls of Swindon locomens' cabin in the 70s.  Of course, I never approved of such goings on!).  But I won't be adding any more Scenix buildings!

[1466]

I’m always impressed by the modelling ( not of the pick chers kind) and the oh so convincing back stories and context . Who else could conjure up a passed fireman and passed cleaner to crew a special ? Wonderful!

[The Johnster]

Well, I think a Tondu shed foreman at a time of the evening when a lot of his locomen are heading for home/the pub, having had a request from Control who in turn had it from Traffic who in turn had it from the colliery, might well have popped his head into the loco crew cabin and seen these likely lads playing cards, and knowing that the crew of 8497 had just come on shed and that, because the fireman's wife is very close to delivering her expected baby, they might appreciate an early finish instead of disposing the loco, made a quick and highly popular decision.  8497's crew abandoned ship and bolted for it in case he changed his mind, and the likely lads set about building the fire and getting under way, making their way firstly across to the goods to pick up a brake van and then off into the wide blue yonder with not a care in the world...

 

On arrival at the colliery exchange, it was noticed that a wooden hyfit with empty cable drums had been coupled to the greencarded mineral, and the NCB chargehand asked if they would take this out of his way as well, and, always eager to please, of course they all agreed, including the guard, Traffic's man on the spot.  Just after the photo was taken, with the tanks brimmed, they moved into the platform road and pulled up by the box to enquire when a path might be found for them, and the signalman told them they could go down to Blackmill home if they liked, but that there would be no progress further than that for about another forty minutes; there's a lot of booked movement at that time of the evening and this train must run slowly with the greencard. 

 

So they opt to wait it out up at Cwmdimbath, taking the opportunity for a leisurely pint and a game of shove-ha'penny in the Forge, not an unsual occurrence at all in those days and making for a pleasant break in a not unpleasant job that was a welcome relief from the boredom of 16.00 spare duty, and on overtime for the guard as well!  Moreover, the passed cleaner has never worked a train at night before and is relishing the adventure, not to mention that they've done the foreman a favour and earned brownie points that will be useful next time they want to get away to watch Bridgend RFC playing at home, or the cleaner wants an early finish for a bit of extra-curricular with his girlfriend (come on out for a walk up the mountain nawr te with me, cariad, and I'll show you the lights of Maesteg!...'.

 

Thus is the railway amicably run and a start made on the next generation; 8497's fireman's missis was delivered of a bonny bouncing baby boy with a full head of hair identical to the fireman's in the wee hours of the following morning, and our younger generation heroes didn't actually spend much time looking at the lights of Maesteg!

[The Johnster]

Postman turned up yesterday morning with a longish cardboard tube, which contained the makings for my colliery footbridge from torri_laser, 58cm long!  The idea is to span the valley, crossing the branch and the colliery lower yard, to provide access to the upper yard from the road, which is this side of the valley (not modelled).  It’s supposed to be a single track bridge on steel frame column supports, and is shown in torri’s eBay advert carrying a 37, but the supports are far too flimsy for a105 ton loco, so it ‘s a footbridge, ok?  
 

As well as answering the question of how the men get to the upper yard of a colliery with no apparent road access that side of the valley, it will help to distract attention from the somewhat undefined and deliberately vague bottom end of the lower yard, where things are suggested rather than modelled because of the shape and space of the inglenook that the colliery occupies.  A combination of attention distraction and low lighting will have to do to achieve this while making sense of the topography.  

 

Simple lasercut stiff thick card kit, fitted together perfectly, pleasure to build it, good tight fit ensuring squaring and making glue a formality; if only all kits were as accurately produced as this!  Photos when I’ve painted it and finalised it’s exact position. 
 

Also expected this week, courtesy of EVRI (the former Hermes, so fingers crossed!), is a Lledo 1936 Mack truck wrecking crane, my excuse being that it’s war surplus (this is the 50s after all, and according to Wikipedia a large number of these were sent over with lease-lend as well as used here by the US Army later in the war after Hitler invited them to join in the fun officially, so one demobbed and in industrial use in South Wales in the 50s is not impossible) to handle materials in the lower yard.  Cheap & cheerful; it’ll look better when I glaze it.  It’ll need repainting; Lledo are b*ggers for spurious liveries!

Edited March 8, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

The Lledo Mack turned up at lunchtime, chawarae teg nawr, EVRI.  No better and no worse than expected, rather crude, in a grey Costain livery, but for £2.99 it'll do once I've painted it up a bit.  The hook is at the end of a plastic rod about half a mm thick; I think I can improve on that and possibly run a winching cable back from the jib head to the gubbins as well.  If I can get the bodyshell off it's rivets and separate the chassis off, life will be much easier and I can have a go at some basic cab detail.  Real Macks had split windsreens, and the chrome plated rad grille/headlights/front bumper is well intentioned enough but a bit, er.... 

 

I'll probably highlight it's military provenance with a coat of olive green, suitably distressed.  The jib swivels, which will be useful for posing as if it's just offloaded a load of pitprops or cable drums.  Not sure it was capable of luffing, but we can work around that with an unloading platform or ramp of some sort.  I'd rather one of those Coles cranes, I think Corgi Trackside do them, but that will have to wait until finances improve a bit.

 

(Cue tragic violins and image of freezing Johnster in old coat, bobble 'at, and fingerless mittens) It's been a tough couple of months, and I don't know how I'd have managed without the government's topping up of my smart electric meter, which ends this month, but austerity measures are starting to pay off and the situation is easing to the extent that the children can sometimes eat; it will ease a lot more when the weather improves!  Combination of inflation, fuel prices, and my own fecklessness, for which I've paid!  I should be more sensible at my age, but I'm not!  Spending on the layout has had to be relegated to low priority, and some projects are on hold, and my intention to buy a Rapido 44xx is in serious question, but we'll see how it goes...  A current spec hi-fi 1854 or 2721 would really put the cat amongst the pigeons, but it would hopefully be Bachmann which would give me a decade or so to save up!

 

I managed to bend a section of rail behind an isolating gap in the platform road while re-soldering a dry joint, and broke it trying to bend it back with the pliers, so that section has had to be ripped out and replaced with one from the fy, which now of course needs replacing itself.  This evening's job will be rail painting on the new platform section and test running, and then it'll need to be reballasted, which will have to wait a week until pension day for my to buy the ballast, as I've used all of my previous bag, and new track for the fy...  which means that the bridge painting and photo might be delayed a day or so, patience, padawans.

[The Johnster]

 

Here is the footbridge, crossing the bottom end of the lower colliery yard and giving access to the new clocking on office, the flat roofed red brick building to the right of the canteen/pithead baths building underconstruction on the upper yard level.  Those of you old enough will spot that this building is in fact a 1960s Triang station waiting room cut in half lengthways and stuck together, not the most challenging piece of modelling ever.  The roof needs finishing off and there is a lot of tidying up work to do to merge the steep grass bank (virtually vertical at this point so it may well be replaced by a stone retaining wall) and the upper level surface.  The lower yard needs a bit of a seeing to as well, and I'm not sure yet how I'm going to deal with the disappearance of the lower yard at it's southern end, but the vagueness and poor lighting proposed may work fairly well so long as nobody looks too closely.  As attention diverters, therefore, there will be cameos on the bridge, groups of men talking before going on shift or after coming off it, maybe someone leaning on the railing smoking, deep in thought, some bicycles propped up against the railings, and a break in the nearside railing for a fiight of railed steps down to the lower yard, along with some lamps.

 

The Mack has been dismantled and given a coat of matt varnish prior to repainting.  It looks as if it was never intended to be capable of luffing or winching, which I suppose makes sense for a wrecking truck, which just needs to pull things apart.  In view of this, the overscale hook cable may be a steel rod and quite correct; apologies to Lledo of London!  My Mack has a single piece windscreen, not a split one as I said yesterday, and may be the 1927 BJ or BH model; I'm not going to lose much sleep over it.  The matt varnish is already reducing the toy look. 

 

It will need some sort of platform or loading bank to be able to access the items it is going to be theoretically capable of removing from 5-plank or possible 7-plank wagons, which I will need to give some though to.

[Michael Hodgson]

As you say the supports are far too feeble for use as an underline bridge, so I like your conversion to foobridge use, but it's a bit wide for a footbridge isn't it?  Think I would have amputated half of the the roadway, or if running trains over it I would have replaced piers with brick supports.

[The Johnster]

I think you are probably right, I can't really get away with it being a footbridge too light for motor traffic and it being that wide.  That said, it needs to be a little wider than a normal footbridge, as it has to handle a whole shift at a time.  I think the answer is to provide better supports and allow it to be used for motor traffic, and have motor vehicles parked on it.  Perhaps a 5cwt axle load restriction.  This would mean that it could support structures. 

 

We'll see.

[The Johnster]

I have trimmed about a third of it for width and sawn about 5mm off the bottom of the piers, and will play around with it in various positions for final installation tomoz.  It still looks (because it is) wider than a station or public footpath footbridge, but as I say it needs to cope with shift changes, when it will be quite crowded.  Also sawed off about three inches from one end to stop it overhanging the baseboard and possibly getting caught up in sleeves and such; this will not affect it on the scenic part of the layout.  A possibility is to move it south as far as the inglenook wall, as far as it can go in fact, as a sort of low relief bridge, as no.1 road needs to be extended into the fy in order for a full length loaded train with a few 21tonners, 42xx, and brake van to be accommodated inside clear on it.  If it disappears under the bridge, it will look much tidier and more natural.  Much of this area is not finalised yet and may well develop 'organically' rather than being planned, simply by putting hillsides, bridges, buildings, roads, pathways and so on down and moving them around until a) they look passably realistic and b) good!  This has been the process so far in the 'upper yard'.

 

The Mack has had a couple of coats of blue, and will be re-assembled and weathered/rusted/distressed over the next few days, along with the addition of cab glazing and a steering wheel if I can find something to make one out of.

[The Johnster]

Bit of lazy progess over the weekend, sessions of running a train, doing a bit of modelling, doing the next move, breaking for a muggatea, repeat sort of thing.  A bit more fencing done, the bridge finalised and put into postion about 2 inches off the inglenook wall that marks the southern boundary of the colliery lower yard, and the Mack painted blue and rusted up/distressed a bit.  It's looking the part but I really need a crane that can luff for this job, or at least one with a higher set jib. 

 

Next round of buying must concentrate on ballasting and scenery, as there is a backlog of outstanding jobs starting to build up.  There also needs to be a bit more of a human presence, surface workers around the place at the colliery and some sort of cameos on the bridge, Dimbath Metals loading dock, and in the rear yard at Woods Bros Ltd.  I think this sort of thing needs a restrained approach; the layout should still look quite empty of humanity, but at the minute it's looking a bit too empty...

[tomparryharry]

If it's a footbridge, try dropping the scale to 2mm, but in the 4mm context. A set of 2mm bridge girders should  look just right, being of lighter construction in the real world.

[The Johnster]

Hmm.  But the railings might look oversized on it, and 2mm support piers will not have the height.  
 

Anyway haven’t ha d a photo for over a week, so here goes…

 

 

The 14.45 arrival, a through Class C NPCCS working from Cardiff General with traffic for ‘District & Overseas’ mail orders’ distribution warehouse down at Glynogwr Jc.  The  Canton engine is normally booked to go on shed for turning at Tondu, while it’s crew have their lunch break, and a Tondu loco & crew do the last few miles.  But today, with no loco available at Tondu, the Canton engine, 5398, has worked through with the Tondu crew, proving that not all Canton locos were clean all the time*.  5398 is in BR early 1948 unlined green with ‘BRITISH RAILWAYS’ in GW Egyptian Serif style on the tender, barely discernible even in a side-on view so you’ll have to take my word for it!

 

In fact what’s happened is that I heavily weathered the Bachmann loco bodyshell and tender that I goy off the ‘Bay as a temorary chassis donor for my failed Hornby 5101, and give it an occasional outing on top of it’s old chassis.  Pleased with this weathering job, a properly weathered loco should look as if your hands will get dirty if to pick it up!

 

*Cleaning was performed on engines for Paddington services and anything going ‘off region’, including goods and mineral services.  

 

[tomparryharry]

Aha! Methinks we have a misunderstood post. The idea is to have the bridge spans in 2mm, but the bridge piers & height in 4mm. That's why a 2mm bridge, but in a 4mm context. 

 

In other words; building a 4mm bridge, but using the width & span of an existing set of 2mm bridge plates.

 

Yes, I think I've got that right....  

[The Johnster]

Ah, I see.  Yes, that makes sense, but the bridge is in place now and I'm not unhappy with it as it is; it's very straightness is performing it's function of drawing one's eye away from the rather messy bottom end of the colliery yard, which is coming along nicely but slowly, and it's shadow is helping in this function.  It is wide for a footbridge, but I have narrowed it somewhat from it's original single track width, as it needs to carry fairly large numbers of people simultaneously at shift change time.  It's not a big colliery, but there are probably 150-200 men on each shift.  We don't work nights yet, as there is more work to do on the yard lights first, but that means a workforce of 400 men already, and maybe a hundred or so of those using the bridge at shift changes.  The workmens' train has accommodation for about 60 men, but it rarely full, 30 or 40 is more likely.

 

What it does need is cameos, as it looks very empty between shift changes.  There is already a small group of girlfriends sheeps involved in a conversation regarding that borg-like species imminent slaughter of humanity and domination of the planet, but more is needed, and someone leaning on the wooden railing having a fag might well appear at some time, maybe one of the roster clerks or a foreman in a dust coat.  There is a temptation to have a couple of blokes out creosoting the railing, but this might be a bit too obvious.

Edited March 23, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

 

8497 scurries away engine and brake van from Cwmdimbath on a summer evening, past stock in Dimbath Metals' siding.  The loco has brought today's last delivery of empties for the colliery up from Ogmore Jc, and as the colliery locos have retired for the night (the Hunlset can just be seen in the background on the shed road, ash being emptied before the fire is banked up with slack to keep her in light steam ready for the morning), the empties are in fact left on the exchange road overnight and the Hunslet's first task in the moring, when sufficient steam has been raised, will be to propel them over the weighbridge for 'taring', the empty weight of each wagon being recorded against it's number by the weighbridge clerk.  When the wagons are weighed again after loading and while they are being readied for dispatch, the empty weight will be subtracted from the loaded weight, and the resulting figure will be the basis of invoicing.

 

This is 8497's last job of the day, and once the van has been delivered back to Ogmore Jc, the loco will be left on Tondu shed's inlet road for the night shift shed men to deal with; our crew can hand in their journals and go home, or over the pub, and who can blame them on a fine summer evening, they've earned it...  The shed men will brim the tanks, clean out the fire and any soot that has accumulated in the smoke box, and stable the loco in light steam until the morning, when the fire will be relit ready for tomorrow's adventures.  There's only the evening miner's workmans and the last auto to go, and another Cwmdimbath day is over; sometimes there's a pigeon special but not tonight!

 

I've ordered a 2h 'scale speed' recent chassis Holden 101 tank off the Bay, with a veiw to using the chassis for an as yet undetermined freelance colliery loco.  There are three candidates, bodyshells, a modified Nellie with the bunker cut off and repainted unlined mid-green, a blue-painted Dokafority diesel, and a Playcraft/Jouef NB D2705 shunter.  Dokafority is the front-runner at the moment, as I have the Nellie chassis earmarked for the D27xx NB, with a jackshaft modification.  A possibility is to share it between the Dokafority and Nellie, or to modify Nellie with outside steam pipes to make her look more amenable to outside cylinders and a tank top coal bunker.  There is also the possibility of replacing the 101's wheels with the smaller diameter offerings from the Dapol L&Y pug, which is in the process of having a High Level chassis built for it in order to improve the running and get the motor out of the cab, but I'm doubtful that sufficient 'ground clearance' will be available.  It's due for delivery on Saturday, so I'll be able to measure up and see if the wheels can be replaced after test running it; smaller wheels will certainly be a visual improvement, and further tame the speed as well, if they can be used.   Or I could see if Nellie's wheels are suitable.  We'll see!