South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[The Johnster]

The darker colour grey-black matching pot from Wilko just about covered the colliery board, which is looking a bit more like it shoud with all that bare wood out of sight.  The weighbridge kit arrived Saturday morning and has been built, painted, and is now waiting for the paint to dry so I can put the window in; I've fixed the bridge plate into position but will hold back on glueing the building down.  It will be temporarily held in place with blutac as I want eventually to give it interior detail and a light. 

 

I have abandoned the card load platforms for the coal wagons, as they were shedding lumps of coal all over the place,  I have decided to keep a stock of coal in a plastic box which wagons can be loaded with by dipping them into the pile, and emptied into when they arrive back in the fiddle yard to form the next train of empties, which means that I must take care not to derail or tip the loaded wagons!  The idea is that empty wagons are brought up from the fy, and placed in groups of 4 or less beneath the loader. at which point time is suspended while I remove the wagons and load them, and replace them on the loader road ready to be placed to look as if they are loaded and ready to come out to make room for the next batch.  When a suitable period for the loader to have done it's work with washed coal  has passed, the 4 wagons are drawn out past the weighbridge and weighed, and then placed on the through road.  The next 4 are then positioned ready to go under the loader, removed and dipped in the coal box to load them, and placed under the loader, and the process repeated until a full train load has been made up ready for the arrival of the next train of empties.  I spilled some coal while I was practicing this earlier on, and have cleaned most of it up, but will leave some hanging around on the ground in the pit yard.

 

This will be it for a couple of days now, as everything else will need money spending on it and I must wait for Wednesday, which is pension day.  Planned purchases are one left and one right turnout to make up a 4 road fiddle yard, a new track rubber to clear the paint off the track, track colour to paint the track which will need the new track rubber to restore current to the locos, some ballast (fine limestone for the running line, black ash for the colliery) and a ballast spreader box.  Next shopping trip, 2 weeks Wednesday, will see some more grass mats to drape over the cardboard formers to represent the mountainsides, and then we can attack whatever space is left with flock, grass, and foliage.  And I'm going to need more sheep.  A fixed distant signal just this side of the scenic break area is not an unreasonable compromise; haven't measured it, but I doubt if it will be the requisite scale 440 yards in rear of the home, don't care, Rule 1 applies.

 

A bit of long term planning, not going to be for a while yet, will be lighting for the colliery, already imputed or inferred by the plan to light the inside of the weighbridge office.  Dimbath Deep Navigation doesn't have a night shift, but does work until the end of the afternoon shift, with the last loaded clearance at 21.00, well into the hours of winter darkness, and operations start shortly after 6am, so lights are needed.  This is a rather outdated 1950s South Wales pit, though, and doesn't need to be lit up like a modern heavy industrial facility would be so that it can be seen from the space station.  A few lights in the buildings, and two or three yard lamps, small floodlights to assist the shunters, will probably be enough.

 

After shuffling buildings about, the colliery boiler house is the recycled remains of what was once the colliery loco shed, a Kitmaster, nothing new to see here, move along there, now...  This is quite open and I will be needings some sort of boiler to go inside it, especially if it is to be lit!

[The Johnster]

Another two job boxes ticked today, following an expedition to the wilds of Penarth Road and Lord & Butler, where I picked up the remaining required turnout and a pot of acrylic track colour.  The new fy is now complete, test run, and is sitting in little puddles of pva to establish an air of permanence to matters.  There are 4 roads, a mineral exchange capable of 10 wagons anna van, a 3-coach road, and two 2 anna bit coach roads.  This will reduce crane shunting and handling, but not eliminate it, as there is simply no room for a big enough fy.  I've thought about cassettes, but this is just a different form of handling...  An advantage over the old fy is that there is more room between the roads to get my chubby little fingers in between to crane shunt, and more room to have stock standing on the board, especially locos.

 

The new running line, and the colliery branch as far as the start of the yard, have been painted in a brown rail colour, the tops cleaned off, and test run.  Couldn't get hold of a grass mat, my intended basic cover for the mountainsides, at L&B or Antics, so I ordered a Javis one off Amazon, which they say they'll deliver tomoz as part of my Prime free trial.  Even roughly draping this over the card formers will make a huge difference.  Track in the colliery yard will be painted black, of course, and I am going to experiment with 'inlaid' (in the muck) track by making card strips to lay between the rails and scenify; 13mm wide seems a good starting point. 

 

I am also playing around with cardboard shapes to make a connecting building between the pithead and the end of the top gallery of the Faller kit.  The pithead, engine house, and the winding house (which will be a low relief facade) are mounted on a stiff card box, which one of my Amazon item came in. about half inch by about 8 long and 5 wide, which will be blended into the scenery to provide the impression of a ledge cut out of the mountainside to accommodate these buildings.  Dram tracks run across the actual shaft top, or do in theory when the cage is at the surface, and their contents have to be transported in some way to the Faller top gallery which I have decided includes the screens.  A triangular shaped building of some sort will be cobbled up and sheeted with corrugated iron in which the drams are tipped into a chute, not modelled as it is inside this triangular structure and out of sight, which deposits the coal in further drams (I think people in other coalfields call them tubs) which enable the coal to be moved along the gallery, eventually chuted to the lower washery gallery, to be loaded into the big railway's wagons.

 

I'll photograph this when it is finished, as this will be easier than attempting to describe.  It is a part of the reason many Valleys pits were built up the side of the mountain, with the washery in the valley bottom where the railway was; there was usual very little room otherwise, and by having the pithead at the top level of the site, the coal can be dropped by gravity through the various processes that take place betwen it's emergence from the shaft and it's loading into 'proper railway' wagons, lessening the need for hoists, conveyors, and other plant designed to lift the heavy mineral.

 

Next job depends on when the grass mat arrives; if it really does turun up in the morning I'll start the basics of the ground cover.  The other next job is to paint the colliery yard rails, then to balllast the running line, and finally to 'merge' everything scenically with the aid of plaster and flock materials, which on a South Wales layout means sheeps.. 

 

After that, the colliery board can be thought of as basically finished, meaning that the basics will be finished, and the finer details and features can be worked on.  Like the rest of the layout, it'll never be finished and I'll never want it to be.

 

 

[KingEdwardII]

49 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

on a South Wales layout means sheeps..

Yes, those beggars get everywhere in the valleys - the one thing that could push my grandad to murder was the sight of marauding valley sheep laying waste to his prize flowers and veggies

 

Yours, Mike.

[The Johnster]

Their persistence and stupidity is beyond belief, but my view is that they are in fact a Borg-like collective intelligence plotting the overthrow and enslavement of mankind, as suggested by Pink Floyd on 'Animals' (bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream/wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream, the dream, the dream, the dream, the dream), and the stupidity is to lull us into a false sense of security.  Just look into one's eyes.  It's cold, dead eyes.

 

Their reaction to the approach of a train while they are doing sheep stuff on railway lines is unique.  Any other animal on a railway line, when it becomes aware that a train is coming, will run off to the side; not your sheep.  She will decide that the best thing to do is to try and outrun the approaching monster, and the best she'll manage on slippery sleepers is about 15mph, while the train is doing 70. The driver will brake and blow the horn, but still be doing about 40 when he closes the gap.  Mrs Sheep will turn away at the very last second for a near miss, but then, every time, to show how stupid sheep are, will turn back to see if the train has missed her.  At this point she is brained by the cab steps, and rolls down the bank in a death rictus that breaks her legs off.

 

We had to report running sheep over, as the Valleys farmers were in the habit of placing long-dead carcasses on the track for us to run over so that they could make compensation claims on the railway, whose responsibility it is to maintain the fences to keep them off the tracks.  Good luck with that in the Valleys; they may be stupid but have a level of low animal cunning.  At Dowlais, they taught themselves to flip the covers of the axleboxes of the coal wagons up with their noses and eat the grease, leading to trains coming to a seized up halt half way down the valley.

 

Their eyes.  Their cold, dead, eyes.  Be afraid, be a very fraid.

[5BarVT]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Their reaction to the approach of a train while they are doing sheep stuff on railway lines is unique.  Any other animal on a railway line, when it becomes aware that a train is coming, will run off to the side; not your sheep.  She will decide that the best thing to do is to try and outrun the approaching monster,

Observed that behaviour back in ‘78 ish, in the days when views out of the front of a DMU were possible, coming back down the bottom end of the Central Wales line.  Clearly not a ‘one off’.

Paul.

[Nick C]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Their reaction to the approach of a train while they are doing sheep stuff on railway lines is unique.  Any other animal on a railway line, when it becomes aware that a train is coming, will run off to the side; not your sheep.  She will decide that the best thing to do is to try and outrun the approaching monster, and the best she'll manage on slippery sleepers is about 15mph, while the train is doing 70. The driver will brake and blow the horn, but still be doing about 40 when he closes the gap. 

Badgers have a similar response, but can run faster. I've followed one at a good 30mph down a country lane before...

[31A]

1 minute ago, Nick C said:

Badgers have a similar response, but can run faster. I've followed one at a good 30mph down a country lane before...

 

Foxes likewise; I suppose they've never met anything that can run faster than them, until they meet a train and the realisation dawns too late....

[MrWolf]

You have to watch out for them if you're on a motorcycle around here. You slow down to about 10mph and the daft bu66ers trot along the road ahead of you for a while before deciding that it's safer on the grass.

Pheasants are more of a danger, they have a suicidal tendency to fly out of the hedge and straight into you.

Upside being that a dead pheasant is much easier to smuggle home on a motorcycle. 

[Nick C]

7 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Upside being that a dead pheasant is much easier to smuggle home on a motorcycle. 

So that's why you're restoring the sidecar then - sheep smuggling! 

[Sandhole]

8 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Observed that behaviour back in ‘78 ish, in the days when views out of the front of a DMU were possible, coming back down the bottom end of the Central Wales line.  Clearly not a ‘one off’.

Paul.

Way back in the mists of the 70s, I was firing No6 on the TR. My driver was a tall man called Colin Rowbotham. I got on well with him, he was a man of few words and a dry sense of humour.
No6 had a handbrake only in those days and Mr Rowbotham was manning it as we rolled down from Dolgoch.
Two sheep got in front of us and the handbrake was eased. We increased speed and so did the sheep. I gave a quick look to my driver. He had a manic grin on his face.
I never realised ewes could go that fast. We pursued them down to Rhydyronen station where they dashed away across the space there.
Colin Rowbotham looked at me as I tended the fire and said, "Beggars!"
Regards,
Chris.

[Northmoor]

3 hours ago, MrWolf said:

You have to watch out for them if you're on a motorcycle around here. You slow down to about 10mph and the daft bu66ers trot along the road ahead of you for a while before deciding that it's safer on the grass.

Pheasants are more of a danger, they have a suicidal tendency to fly out of the hedge and straight into you.

Upside being that a dead pheasant is much easier to smuggle home on a motorcycle. 

Pheasants are the clearest demonstration of a failure of evolution; thousands of years and they still take off at no more than 10deg, meaning that they are never at more than about wing mirror height when you get to them (and even after 50 yards a fox could still pluck them out of the sky).

 

I believe the reason sheep run away from vehicles rather than move to the side, is an unfortunate effect of having eyes on the sides of their heads, giving them a ~320deg field of view.  The distorted image tends to make things moving past them appear to be curving towards them, so they turn to keep the threat behind them where it appears smaller, running from the small noisy thing until "wallop!".

[Sandhole]

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Pheasants are the clearest demonstration of a failure of evolution; thousands of years and they still take off at no more than 10deg, meaning that they are never at more than about wing mirror height when you get to them (and even after 50 yards a fox could still pluck them out of the sky).

 

I believe the reason sheep run away from vehicles rather than move to the side, is an unfortunate effect of having eyes on the sides of their heads, giving them a ~320deg field of view.  The distorted image tends to make things moving past them appear to be curving towards them, so they turn to keep the threat behind them where it appears smaller, running from the small noisy thing until "wallop!".

My dear Springer , Megan, learned very quickly that, after she had put pheasants in the air, all she had to do, was trundle along under them and grab them when they came down.
She caught me many a good meal over the years I had the pleasure of her company!
Chris.

[figworthy]

4 minutes ago, Sandhole said:

My dear Springer , Megan, learned very quickly that, after she had put pheasants in the air, all she had to do, was trundle along under them and grab them when they came down.
She caught me many a good meal over the years I had the pleasure of her company!
Chris.

Reminds me of a tale I heard many years ago.  A farm manager was wandering across a field, and as a pheasant flew past him, he caught it with his walking stick.  One dead pheasant, and no lead to dig out of it.  I was assured that it was during the shooting season.

 

Adrian

[KingEdwardII]

20 hours ago, The Johnster said:

She will decide that the best thing to do is to try and outrun the approaching monster

They used to do that to me when I was cycling over the Brecon Beacons. Up on the moorland sections, there are no fences at all and a gazillion sheep are wandering around. In summer, they would settle themselves on the tarmac, presumably to warm their nether regions. When I approached on the bike, instead of making off away from the road, they would run ahead of me down the road. I had to slam on the brakes to avoid piling into them, stupid creatures.

 

Of course, they get their comeuppance from the big trucks using those roads - the truckers don't mess about and simply mow them down, since it's much more dangerous for the trucks to slam on the brakes.

 

Yours, Mike.

[MrWolf]

I've often been tempted when I finally get past them on a motorcycle to kick them up the ar5e as I go by.

But I figured that they have enough troubles in their short lives already.

[The Johnster]

Back in my motorbike days, I used to regularly ride along Moorland Road in Splott, Cardiff, which anyone who knows it will assert was in those days a long dead straight, two lanes, residential, parked cars each side.  About a third of the way along and on the left going south was a big black dog.  Now, this dog didn't like me, and I reciprocated, and would hide in waiting to jump out at me and, if he timed it right, take a snap at my left boot.  Just me, he'd ignore all my mates that rode up and down there regularly, and knew the sound of my Z200.  I'd had enough ot this shennanigans, and swore to 'ave 'im, as the colloquialism had it. 

 

Not much traffic about, and I'm doing about 50, left foot off the peg and held back ready for the swing.  Out came bonzo, right on cue, and my foot probably had another 20mph on it; connected with a satisfying crack on his jaw.  Off runs bonzo, howling in pain, and he never bothered me again.  Not proud of myself, but it was the only way to deal with this miscreant.  So I can fully sympathise with Mr Wolf, and of course anyone with a name like that has an axe to grind with sheeps anyway...

[The Johnster]

Another box is ticked, the running line and a length of the colliery branch have been ballasted with Woodland Scenics Fine Grey, and look pretty good.  I'll do a bit of plaster work over the weekend if I have time, to even out/merge the ground cover before the top surfacing.  This will include partially burying some of the colliery track and smoothing off the geography between the running line and the colliery 'through road', made of layers of cardboard to roughly 2 feet contours.  These will feature rock outcrops, sheeps (of course), bushes, and a path worn by the colliery shunter who uses one of them as an easily seen point from which he can handsignal drivers while having a clear view of the yard.

[The Johnster]

Plaster work has been done as planned, and the layout is out of commission until it goes off, which I am reckoning 48 hours tops.  I have made up some cardboard strips to go inbetween the rails to represent track buried in slurry in the colliery yard, and these have been painted matt black, though I will hold off installing them until the plaster has dried and the yard has been fully test run in case any plaster needs to be cleared from rail tops or is interfering with the flanges.  Then the blobby white area will be painted, and the scenery proper can be started.  I will probably need more flock material, and certainly need more grass mat for large area ground cover and mountainsides, but any new purchasing must wait until at least a week Wednesday, next pension day.  But it's a further ticked box...

 

The course of the Nant Lechyd stream on the scenic area of the layout is now determined.  Leading southwards from the station board, where it appears from beneath a bridge behind Lechyd Terrace and runs behind the station to pass beneath the end of the platform and emerge on the western side of the railway, it is culverted beneath the electroplating/galvanising works on the 'stub' siding to pass beneath the main line and the colliery branch just south of the weighbridge.  It then passes, largely unseen, behind a retaining wall at the rear of the colliery yard indicated by a railing at the edge, so the pithead and screens are actually on the eastern bank and the upper gallery feeding the washery actually spans it.  Very little of it will actually be modelled, but the bridge parapets are apparent; I've recycled the Wills parapets from the old road bridge, and all match up, as they would on a branch where all the bridges were installed when it was built and were from the same foundry.

[The Johnster]

Ok, sum foe toes wot i tuk of the initial scenification on the new colliery board. Still a work in progress of course, much tidying up and a revetment wall to hold the pitpead platform area, but the basics are done and we have an idea of what the look of the thing will be; well what it already is, really. 
 

 

View from the mountainside looking southeast, the GW running line in the foreground

 

 

Next shot, from same viewpoint looking northeast.  Again, the running line is in the foreground, and the colliery yard throat can be seen bottom left.  The Wills parapets show where the Nant Lechyd stream passes beneath both the main line and the colliery branch, with the weighbridge to the left of the downstream parapet. The building is mounted at an angle so that the weighbridge clerk can see the scales reading; I can’t see how it works if you lay it out as suggested in the kit diagram. 
 

 

And finally, looking south from a bird’s eye perspective, weighbridge in middle foreground, yard throat top right, and the running line to the right.  The raised ground between the running line and colliery branch is clearly shown here. 

[The Johnster]

That's it done, I suppose, in terms of the basic form.  Obviously more scenic work and blending, and I can keep adding details for years, but as a project, it's all there now.  I am very pleased with the speed and direction of progress, and the whole thing has taken place at blinding speed.  At my age, it will probably be the last bit of layout building I ever do, but never say never; there is no more room to expand though, and I am happy with the layout in this form.  It ticks pretty much all of my boxes; enough operation to keep me busy and interested in a plausible scenario; these Tondu branches were basic and minimalist but despite that worked to something not far off capacity with fairly frequent passenger services, constant clearances from the collieries, and a good selection of other industries to provide traffic for pickups or trips as well as general merchandise.

 

I'll continue with the topic and post photos occasionally, but for now I'll ease up a bit.  I have to have an enforced break before buying the grass mats needed to complete the mountain back and foredrops, until Wednesday week which is pension day, as the budget has been pushed a bit close to a sensible limit at the moment.  I need a space to regroup and reform before returning to the suspended battle with 3100, which should be the next 'project', while continuing to develop the colliery board will be an ongoing background as and when thing.  The costs are frightening unless it is done piecemeal, I reckon £40+ on sheeps alone...  On the plus side, I have enough locos and stock to be going on with, so should be able to manage with low cost bits and bobs to bring things to life and provide detail cameos.

 

I am amazed at how quickly all this has happened; the colliery board was authorised by SWMBO Nov 17, less than a month ago, and the purchase of the Austerity Hunslet that kicked the whole thing off was Nov 13, just over.  As an inveterate procratinator and false starter, this is almost miraculous progress!

[1466]

5 hours ago, The Johnster said:

That's it done, I suppose, in terms of the basic form.  Obviously more scenic work and blending, and I can keep adding details for years, but as a project, it's all there now.  I am very pleased with the speed and direction of progress, and the whole thing has taken place at blinding speed.  At my age, it will probably be the last bit of layout building I ever do, but never say never; there is no more room to expand though, and I am happy with the layout in this form.  It ticks pretty much all of my boxes; enough operation to keep me busy and interested in a plausible scenario; these Tondu branches were basic and minimalist but despite that worked to something not far off capacity with fairly frequent passenger services, constant clearances from the collieries, and a good selection of other industries to provide traffic for pickups or trips as well as general merchandise.

 

I'll continue with the topic and post photos occasionally, but for now I'll ease up a bit.  I have to have an enforced break before buying the grass mats needed to complete the mountain back and foredrops, until Wednesday week which is pension day, as the budget has been pushed a bit close to a sensible limit at the moment.  I need a space to regroup and reform before returning to the suspended battle with 3100, which should be the next 'project', while continuing to develop the colliery board will be an ongoing background as and when thing.  The costs are frightening unless it is done piecemeal, I reckon £40+ on sheeps alone...  On the plus side, I have enough locos and stock to be going on with, so should be able to manage with low cost bits and bobs to bring things to life and provide detail cameos.

 

I am amazed at how quickly all this has happened; the colliery board was authorised by SWMBO Nov 17, less than a month ago, and the purchase of the Austerity Hunslet that kicked the whole thing off was Nov 13, just over.  As an inveterate procratinator and false starter, this is almost miraculous progress!

Great conceptualisation and execution, in very short timescales ! I’ll look forward to updates on this and the 3100 .

[The Johnster]

More photos; found some spare grass mat and have put it on the western side of the valley on the new board.  So, we now have something that could, downhill and with a following wind in a darkened room, pass for an actual valley, with mountains on both sides of it.  
 

 

Here’s 5524 with an auto from Bridgend, ‘coming round the mountain’ and passing the NCB Hunslet 18” on the ‘through road’. The scenic break is no more than the trains appearing or disappearing around the the mountain at the curve in the background, the sight lines from the operating position being arranged to allow this. 

 

 

 

8497 takes a clearance of loaded coal over the Nant Lechyd bridge, a few yards into her run down to Ogmore Junction Yard.  The colliery branch, with the weighbridge, is in the background.  The train will stop just before the scenic break to pin down brakes, as the serious gradient starts here, 1 in 30 down to Glynogwr Jc.  That’s nothing, the real final pitch of the Nantymoel branch in the next valley to this was 1 in 27…

 

 

 

Here she is a few yards further on, slowing for the stop board, where there will be a cabin for a brakesman.  This will also be the location of the down fixed distant signal.  8497 has brought up empties from Ogmore Jc on her outward working, and the colliery’s W4 can be seen in the distance, having put them over the weighbridge for ‘taring’ and placed 4 under the washery hoppers, she is now drawing the rest of the train away to place on the next road to await their turn under the hoppers. 

[The Johnster]

We've had another bit of a setback, all sorted now.  My attempt at scenic treatment of the track in the new colliery yard by partly immersiong it in plaster representing mud and slurry has gone all wobbly, something that has never happened before despite my using the technique on several former layouts and the sidings on the station board of this one.  Probably down to the particular brand of plaster, Wilko Patching Plaster.  The surface seemed to dry more quickly, and harder, than normal, and this might have meant that the interior remained damp longer than normal, and as it's dried it's apparently expanded in some places and shrunk in others.  So the track, especially in the crucial area of the turnouts, has been raised, sunk, moved about, pushed to one side or the other, and made generally uneven, and things were getting worse.

 

So, I've lifted the turnouts and the turnout ends of the sidings, dug away the plaster, and relaid it all, and successfully test run it.  The plaster ground cover can remain, but I will be doing something else to the track areas.  It was not unknown for real colliery permanent way to be slightly less 'predictable' than the ECML, but in order to run model trains over track that represents this accurately one requires fully compensated chassis on all locos and stock, and I'm a bit too wedded to RTR principles to take that on!  Now that the problem is solved, I'm not really interested in what actually caused it, and my assumptions may be completely wrong.  But it's never happened to me before and I won't be using Wilko's Patching Plaster again, back to Polyfilla for me!

 

I've fixed the works plates on the Austerity's bunker sides, and it showed it's gratitude by breaking down!  The ingrate's gears have come out of mesh, between the worm and the layshaft cog.  The nylon cogs do not appear to be unduly worn, in fact the loco gives an impression of being fairly low mileage, so this is worrying.  Investigation showed that there is a small amount of 'tipping' play in the motor, which is held in place by two plastic straps, one at the rear and one at the front, the latter with a moulded half-round shape that holds the rear cylindrical part of the brass worm down.  Seems a bit crude but there is no actual bearing at this point, and the plastic strap is held in by an xhead screw on both sides.  I suspect the threads these screw into are stripped, as they cannot be properly tightened down, resulting in enough play to take the worm out of mesh with the layshaft reduction gear.  Wouldn't mind betting the previous owner stripped them when the meshing failed on a previous occasion, trying to get them as tight as he could, successfully but not a permanent fix.

 

The solution is a classic Johnster bodge; a small lump of foam rubber supeglued to the top of the motor so that the body, when screwed into position, bears down on the foam rubber, which compresses but retains a degree of play against the pressure, and forces the motor downwards, but not completely rigidly, at the worm end (I want to call it the front but it's mounted with the business end to the rear 'facing' backwards).  I was worried that the downward pressure might cause undue wear on the layshaft cog, but the loco's smooth and quiet performance has been restored and I think everything is ok, but I'll be keeping a close eye on things for a while. 

 

While I had the superglue out and the top off, I secured the rear power feed wires (on this model, the pickups are fixed to a plastic plate at the bottom of the chassis, rather than to the keeper plate beneath the wheels, and there are two phosphor-bronze strips, one with the front and centre pickups on it, which feeds through the front of the chassis, and and one for the rear pickups, feeding actually into the cab just beneath the firehole door and then immediately into the main body cavity) to the chassis top surface; they are routed a little too close to the worm for my liking and I feel they are better kept out of the way of moving parts that they can get tangled in or that can wear through the insulation.

 

I've moved a 'platelayer's hut' from the station end to the furthest point of the scenic area on the new board, where it will take up duty as a brakeman's cabin.  There was one of these at the top of the bank at Penrhos, with a couple of brakemen to save time by assisting the guards to pin brakes down, and this was a frequent haunt of 'my gang' from 1965 up to '69.  We'd cycle up from Cardiff on summer evenings, and the brakemen were glad of the company and always good for a cup of tea but you had to bring your own cup.  I got an evening in the cab of the banker, a 94xx, during the last week of steam at Radyr, and on another occasion a ride on the 37 working the Walnut Tree Dolomite Works trip, with the bonus of riding in the cab over the viaduct, so this is my little tribute to the Penrhos boys. 

 

Next job is to make a couple of brake sticks to prop against the cabin wall, and a couple of sleepers pressed into service as a bench, with some teacups or tin mugs in evidence.  Brake sticks, if memory serves, were lengths of 2x2 with a handle shaped at one end, about 3 feet long and with the same sort of heft as a baseball bat, so matchsticks will probably be suitable raw material for whittling them.

[MrWolf]

One of these? 

 

 

Made from 3"X 2" and 3 feet long as I remember. The handle end is the same shape as a sledgehammer shaft and the other end isn't square cut, it's at a slight angle across the long side of the timber.

[5BarVT]

And woe betide the shunter who got caught using a shunters pole as a brake stick!

Paul.