South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[timbowilts]

Another local girl picks around for scraps on the waste ground; they get everywhere up here.  

 

She is a Peco Scalescene girl, not as plump and sleek as the tastier looking Bachmanns blocking the non-existant traffic on the road bridge scenic break, which have presumably only recently arrived from Romney Marsh and have yet to endure the harder life that will give them the lean, scruffy, Valleys look...

What would the chances be of the sheep having come from the Gower salt marshes?

 

Tim T

[The Johnster]

Mmm, tasty.  Not impossible I suppose but less likely in those days before 'Salt Marsh Lamb' was a culinary 'thing'.   And Llanrhidian, sheltered from the open sea and the prevailing southwesterlies, probably sees more rain than Romney, but is not much better as a preparation for life in the mountains.  Their Gower cousins at Rhosilli, which are grazed on the Worm's Head and have to be taken over on foot across a rocky tidal causeway at low water, are much more ruffytuffy!

[Fat Controller]

Mmm, tasty.  Not impossible I suppose but less likely in those days before 'Salt Marsh Lamb' was a culinary 'thing'.   And Llanrhidian, sheltered from the open sea and the prevailing southwesterlies, probably sees more rain than Romney, but is not much better as a preparation for life in the mountains.  Their Gower cousins at Rhosilli, which are grazed on the Worm's Head and have to be taken over on foot across a rocky tidal causeway at low water, are much more ruffytuffy!

Having been brought-up on the opposite side of the Burry Estuary to Llanrhidian, I would say that any trade in sheep would be of ones that spent spring and summer in the hills, before being brought down to the coast for 'finishing'. I doubt that many went the other way. These days, I live quite close to Romney Marsh, in a village which used to have a very big annual sheep-market; the same principle applied, with the farmers from the North Downs bringing their sheep down to the coast.

As an aside, once the words 'Salt-Marsh Lamb' appeared on the ticket at the butchers, the price doubled.

[timbowilts]

I have to admit to a drooling mouth just thinking about it!.

 

Fortunately I’m in Swansea this weekend so will be visiting the market before I set off home.

 

Tim T

[The Johnster]

Having been brought-up on the opposite side of the Burry Estuary to Llanrhidian, I would say that any trade in sheep would be of ones that spent spring and summer in the hills, before being brought down to the coast for 'finishing'. I doubt that many went the other way. These days, I live quite close to Romney Marsh, in a village which used to have a very big annual sheep-market; the same principle applied, with the farmers from the North Downs bringing their sheep down to the coast.

As an aside, once the words 'Salt-Marsh Lamb' appeared on the ticket at the butchers, the price doubled.

 

Sospan, then.   The hill sheep were, and presumably still are, largely kept for wool, rather than their meat.  

 

My sister lived in New Romney for a while and I visited on several holidays, my first trips on the RH&DR; it is a fascinating area and quite unique.

[The Johnster]

I have to admit to a drooling mouth just thinking about it!.

 

Fortunately I’m in Swansea this weekend so will be visiting the market before I set off home.

 

Tim T

 

Pick up some laverbread while you are there, Tim; shallow fried with ham, egg, and mushrooms in the ham fat, now that's good eatin'!!!

[Donw]

My daughter was once a PCSO in the Bridgend Valleys

.

At the Pontycymmer PACT Meetings, the subject of most complaints were the feral sheep that terrorised the village, they would invade gardens, rip open black rubbish bags and leave the contents strewn everywhere, leave their calling cards ( you know, like the inside of an Eccles Cake) everywhere, play "chicken" with traffic  in the main street  and, most chillingly, they were totally unconcerned by the screaming, yelling, 4"x2" waving locals trying to disperse them.

.

Nowadays, in a different job, she still attends PACT meetings, in a Cardiff suburb, where the greatest cause of concern amongst residents is not crime, but ..............seagulls !

( PS she does not frequent Bodega Bay which is not a suburb of Cardiff ! )

 

Try living in the Forest of Dean they invade gardens getting over cattle grids to do so, the pavements are strewn with their droppings they lie down along the road edges and will run across in front of you. They do of course have the right of way on  the road. Report hitting a sheep and you will get a bill for the sheep 

Don

[The Johnster]

Photo time again, this time a naturally lit 4145 stands in the platform awaiting the right away with the 18.15 Bridgend service formed of the stock from the 17.10 Tremains-Cwmdimbath workman's, which serves the ROF factory there.  The date is probably 1950 or so, with crimson B set and the loco still in G W R intitials livery as delivered new to Tondu in 1946.  The lamp is one of the new Springsides.

 

A real workman's service ran from Abergwynfi to Tremains ROF and return in the evening, and this has it's basis in that train.  Abergwynfi is a major inspiration for Cwmdimbath, and had I more room for a coal train to disappear behind the station might have been what I actually modelled, but Cwmdimbath has a goods siding and a private siding for a Remploy factory so that I can run parcels vans.  

 

I wonder what the young lady in the woollen coat is saying to the driver.  Perhaps she is mentioning the large amount of spilled coal about the place; this will find it's way into local coalsheds by the morning as the station is unstaffed after the departure of this train.  It will, one way or another, have gone before the next photo is taken...

 

Nicking coal is a perfectly respectable Valleys pastime, with chapel going pillars of the community being involved, and both the rallway and the mine owners took great efforts to combat it, to little avail.  This is the 1950s and memories of the hard times of the 20s and 30s are fresh in everyone's minds; nothing is wasted, and everybody's house is heated by coal!  But the problem is not as bad as it was during the 80s, when trains of 21ton hoppers running down the Cynon Valley from Tower Colliery would be brought to a stand by the coal thieves with a sleeper or similar across the track or the vacuum bag being pulled off the back; by the time the loco crew had removed it the thieves had opened all the hoppers and the train would be stranded until all the coal was gone.  This stopped overnight after the miner's takeover at Tower.  

[mozzer models]

I like 24/7's plates; good quality at a sensible price, and am glad that 9681 is featured in their range, but I have to say that I am finding their website a bit difficult to negotiate.  Maybe it'll be worth waiting until the Cardiff show in October!

were not attending the Swansea or Cardiff show this year

[timbowilts]

were not attending the Swansea or Cardiff show this year

That’s a shane!

[mozzer models]

That’s a shane!

sales were to low to make it worth going 

we will be at the Taunton rail-ex Oct 27th-28th

[The Johnster]

I am sorry to hear this, but we cannot expect you to commit to shows that will not pay their way for you.

[The Johnster]

Cwmdimbath has a new loco on the books; 8497 (no plates yet but they are available from King's X), delivered new to Tondu in 1952 from RSH.  She is a Limbach hybrid, and the saga can be followed in 'Questions, Hints, and Tips' if you want to read about the convoluted tale of her coming into existence. She is in a finished enough condition to enter service, and will mostly be sharing the coal trade with 4214, but is still very much a work in progress with not only the number plates but quite a bit of detailing and working up still to do.  

 

Here she is with a trial pickup, arriving in the loop.  No surprise that she is a Limbach hybrid, and is in a very incomplete state with much detailing and working up remaining.  I am pleased with her so far, a big improvement on the Lima toy we started out with!

[timbowilts]

Just a heads up for you, Johnster, though you may already be aware of this series of books. I received this in the posttoday having only recently become aware of its existence. The Tondu information may be of use to you?

 

Tim T

[The Johnster]

Thanks Tim.  I was already aware of some of the trip reporting target numbers courtesy of ChrisF, gentleman that he is, but not the ones above U17, so this information is very useful.  Nantymoel, next valley but one, has 4 separate duties; the times are the booking ons, not the train times, including a 16 hour duty, so having morning and an afternoon (SX, of course, most collieries knocked off after the morning shift on Saturday for the maintenance crews to get down there and do their stuff) jobs for Cwmdimbath's colliery clearances seems highly probable, and is the real excuse for 8497's existence.  Each duty would have done 2 or 3 clearances.  I can have an overlap at about 14.30 when the morning engine leaves with it's last loaded clearance as the afternoon loco turns up with it's first load of empties from Tondu to cross it at the terminus; both locos have to run their vans and themselves around and this would be a very active interlude in the normal running of the day's services.

 

I'm thinking U16 now for the morning turn and maybe U24 for the afternoon run.  Does anyone know what shape and colour Tondu's targets were?

 

Off visiting the sick and wounded in Royal Glamorgan Hospital later, long bus trip, so no modelling today!

Edited July 11, 2018 by The Johnster

[Donw]

sales were to low to make it worth going 

we will be at the Taunton rail-ex Oct 27th-28th

 

 

I am sorry to hear this, but we cannot expect you to commit to shows that will not pay their way for you.

 

 

Come to Rail-Ex Taunton we try to put on a really good show

 

Don  (Treasure of Somerset Railway Modellers Club)

[chrisf]

 Does anyone know what shape and colour Tondu's targets were?

 

I think you will find that they were round and had once been white.

 

Chris

 

Gentleman?  Moi?

[timbowilts]

I think you will find that they were round and had once been white.

 

Chris

 

Gentleman?  Moi?

Yes, not the most practical colour sceme in the industrial South Wales area, is it?

[timbowilts]

I'm thinking U16 now for the morning turn and maybe U24 for the afternoon run.  Does anyone know what shape and colour Tondu's targets were?

The photo below of U19 shows a “white” round target disc

 

Tim T

[The Johnster]

Question fully answered, and the photo of 5208 at Ely should serve as guidance; I'd say the disc is about 18" diameter, 6mm.  And it vindicates my mixing hoppers and ordinary coal wagons in the same train as well.

[The Johnster]

Couple of shots at the 'town' end of Cwmdimbath, an area neglected a bit because of the difficulty of getting even a phone camera in position and the lighting, which is all wrong...

 

It's about twenty to six in the evening, and a 3 coach auto has turned up from Bridgend as the day's business is wrapped up in the goods depot before the staff goes home.  The photography isn't especially good, but there is some atmosphere to be had from these images in my view.

  

[chesterfield]

May we have a few details of the Rickards Records books please.- what the main coverage is and where we can get them?

[The Johnster]

Pannier party.  The new and still anonymous 94xx is ready for the off with the Remploy clearance, lamped up for class C, and 5756 has just rolled to a stand with the daily pickup; it's about half ten in the morning.  The pickup has 45 minutes to shunt before the next passenger is offered from the junction, and today is complicated by it having to trip traffic down to the colliery for the pit head baths construction.

 

The 5 planker is altered from out of the box condition only to the extent of white paint on the ends of the handbrake levers; there were a good few newly painted wagons around in the early 50s, a drop in the ocean of general decrepitude admittedly but the Ideal Wagon Committee's work was starting to bear visible fruit.  The tarpaulin sheeted load is, IIRC, Bachmann, and has been weathered.

 

One of the wooly ladies roots around in a sort of generally unfocussed way for scraps in the foreground; this might attract comment anywhere except South Wales.  They have right of passage everywhere, and the farmers generally just let them get on with it; only in the harshest weather and at shearing time are they bothered with.  My great aunt Nell from Tonypandy once came home from the shops to find one in her hallway patiently waiting to be let out; it had practically destroyed the kitchen!  She had no idea she'd shut it in, and it ambled off in a completely unbothered fashion...

Edited July 25, 2018 by The Johnster

[timbowilts]

May we have a few details of the Rickards Records books please.- what the main coverage is and where we can get them?

Before I give the publisher free advertising have you tried Google or Amazon?

 

Tim T

[The Johnster]

5756 has marshalled the trip for the colliery and her driver is in the box picking up the token, which he needs to give to the guard when they get down there so that the guard can operate the ground frame and lock them in the colliery.  The signalman will decide whether to let them back out on the basis of how close the next passenger is, but it will not take them long to get back up the bank engine and van, so, as long as the colliery people don't mess them around stabling the wagons, they should make it.  They've only got about 20 minutes, though, so they'll have to get a wiggle on!

 

These wagons will probably re-appear from the colliery as the workmen empty them, so in dribs and drabs over the next few days or maybe a week.  Their capacity to upset planned workings adds a bit of interest to the proceedings; the colliery traffic manager phones control and tells him the wagons need to be collected when he get's around to it, which doesn't always fit in with the WTT, so Control may even order one of the 'disposal' locos to run up and get it or them in a spare path; this is a natural outing for 2761 of course!

 

The cable drums came up yesterday, but the colliery wasn't ready for them and they've spent the night on the stub siding awaiting this trip.

 

The next passenger up is an auto, so it doesn't matter that the loop is blocked with the rest of the pickup's traffic; 4 of these are for Cwmdimbath, but the empty hybarshock at the Tondu end is to go back, having been collected from the timber yard at the junction on the way up; and will make up the return train along with the lowfit and 2 vans that are in the loading dock at the moment.  It delivered a new sawing machine, hence the 'shock' wagon being used, but is now of course wanted back on it's branded circuit working at East Usk asap.  

 

I have no idea what is under the tarps on the hooded opens, or in the vans.  The lowfit brought up a BD container, and either it or a conflat will return the empty tomorrow, but it cannot stay here; the room is needed for the loaded wagons as space is at a premium at Cwmdimbath, where one siding has to accommodate smalls, full loads, TBCF, delivery, and mileage traffic, 6 wagons at a push and no opens for mileage loading to be stabled outside the loading gauge, not that much is ever loaded here anyway; the traffic is overwhelmingly inward as is typical of such locations.

 

I love this sort of minutiae of day to day railway work, and can invent it for hours...

Ah, I've cropped the hybarshock out; you'll have to use your imaginations...