South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[ianathompson]

7 hours ago, MrWolf said:

One of these? 

 

 That looks prety similar to a"sprag" which was used to secure points.

It was placed between the blades and the rail to prevent the blades closing.

The other side of the blades would then be clamped to the rail to secure the points.

 

I did this many times in practice but never in anger!

 

Ian T

[MrWolf]

They were often referred to as a sprag, sometimes jammed through the wheel spokes of a wagon as a temporary brake. I've heard the term stop stick used too.

[The Johnster]

13 hours ago, MrWolf said:

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.

 

That's the feller, brilliant for baseball played with a coke can and quite re-assuring when the station was overrun by football 'ooligans.  I hit myself with one which slipped off a greasy solebar while releasing the pinned down brake on a wagon of a train I was preparing at Long Dyke one night, and saw stars.  It caught me just above my right eye, which I thought was watering a bit and the driver nearly fainted when I went on the loco to give him the load; my entire right side was cloaked in blood and I looked like someone that had lost an frank and earnest discussion with a mad axeman.  Heeeeeeere's Johnny!

 

End of sports for that evening and I was headed for casualty...

 

I'll get to whittling matchsticks with this photo, thanks, Wolfster.  Handles black from grease on the shunter's gloves, and wood weathered, one new one still matchstick colour.

 

 

8 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

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

Paul.

 

Plenty of them habitually did, though, bad and dangerous practice as the pole was not designed for this and likely to snap if you put too much pressure on it.  But the pole was what you had in your hand and the stick was back at the cabin, and you'd get away with it for pinning brakes down lightly to secure wagons on level sidings and applying leverage from half way along.  The accidents happened when a pole was used to control a loose-shunted wagon running too fast into a siding, the method being to ride on the pole to give maximum leverage.  When it broke, or the hook end caught on something, it was prone to throwing you under the wagon, the result of which is a lot more woe betidden than being caught!

 

As Mr Hughes, the guard's inspector who passed me out on Rules and Regs said, and it has stuck with me ever since, 'remember, lad, each one of these rules was found at the bottom of a bucket of blood', a fair assessement of how safety had developed as they learned the hard way how to operate trains back in the early days...

[MrWolf]

My great uncle Sam, born 1903 (started his time on the railway as a platelayer for the Great Western, before moving to Northampton ) used to say that you could tell how good a shunter was by how many fingers he had left. 

[The Johnster]

Pretty much, and it helped if he didn't walk with a limp as well.

[The Johnster]

Finished off a bag of foliage on the new board, which is looking a little more bedded in after a bit of work to cover the scars of the recent relaying.  Coming along nicely.  It's pension day, and despite the season I'll probably order more grass mat, perhaps some sheeps, and a fixed distant.

[The Johnster]

Xmas eve turned up deliveries, stone paper from Scale Model Scenery and an Aughagen mine accessories kit.  The stone paper will go on to retaining walls and there is probably enough to last me the next 20 years, and the mine accessories has some 'Feldbahn' 6mm gauge rail and 6 tipper drams.  The track has been installed at the pithead and the business end of the 'upper gallery', with a length in the lower gallery where it is visible, and I will post photos when I paint them and the drams.  One dram has been modelled as a broker, so there are 5 positioned around the colliery buildings, 2 at the pithead and the other 3 at the end of the upper gallery.  The mine accessories kit included a bike rack and a corrugated steel hut, and some bicycles, which seems a bit odd.  I can find a use for the hut and probably one or two bikes, but of course they are 3.5mm and therefore childrens 24" wheel bikes in 4mm.  This will be obvious if they are within sight of my 4mm scale bikes, one leaning on the platform backfence by the signal box and another against the goods office.  There are also some parts I am not 100% sure I can identify, but I think they are supposed to be tipper rails and the top of the tipper chutes that you might find on a Feldbahn peat or gravel railway.

 

I'm probably going to have a session later this evening and if I finish painting the Feldbahn and the drams will post some photos later.  6mm equates to about 18" gauge in 00, possibly a little narrow for UK colliery use, but ballpark; looks the part anyway, which is good enough for me!  Livery will be standard NCB rust and coal dust. 

 

The colliery yard and the pithead area are far too tidy.  Real collieries were rarely particularly well ordered at the surface and all sorts of equipment was left lying around.  The Nissen huts formerly working as the Ogmore Forest Non-Political Sports and Social Club (downfall of capitalism and other sedition debated nightly by barroom revolutionaries but never done anything about so long as the beer doesn't run out) have been moved to the colliery yard as space fillers and backdrop glitch hiders, one of which will become a pitprop store and needs a hoist or small crane of some sort to get them out of the wagons, or perhaps a ramp to roll them down.

 

The new grass mat arrived on Thursday and has been put up to join the missing middle part of the mountain, and given some foliage and flock, but another will be needed.  It could do with some rock outcrop as well.  The sheep are not here yet, though the ones formerly posed on the road overbridge have taken up residence at various places on the new board, and I am holding back on the distant signal as I can't find a fixed one and in any case it would have been 440 yards in rear of the home, which equates to 17 feet in 4mm, way out beyond the scenic break and in the next room by the sofa.

[The Johnster]

Took a few pix of general progress at the colliery yesterday evening, with the new ‘join the pithead area to the screens in the upper gallery’ building and the start of some enclosing screens around the base of the headframe.  These are matchsticks to represent wooden shuttering on a card shell or backing, a style I’ve used elsewhere on the layout with a factory building, and which I like; any more and it’ll look like too much, though.

 

I have no idea why the image is inverted; it’s fine in the photo library, and I can’t see how to get it right way up, sorry.  This os the view from the mountainside to the west of the running line, showing drams atbthe end of the upper gallery with the pithead area in the background. 
 

 

See, now, this one’s ok.  Close up of the same area.  
 

 

Here’s the head area; headframe, top of the shaft, boiler house and chimney, wall of the winding engine house, ‘join it up’ building with a steeply sloping roof where drams are tipped down into the upper gallery, 18” gauge rails and a couple of drams to the left of the headframe; note the frame of one that’s gone over the edge leaning against the joinitup. 
 

 

Same area showing the drams a bit more clearly.  Something cylindrical to go in the boiler house to suggest the presence of the boiler, and some steam pipes needed, and of course the cables, running from the winding house window opening over the headwheels and down the shaft, into the very bowels of the earth…

 

 

To finish off, running line in the foreground, downstream bridge parapet (upstream one just out of shot left foreground), weighbridge and office, sheep, and new matchstick palings fence; the Nant Lechyd stream runs between this and the mountain.  The fence will be continued though not necessarily in this form; further along I want the look of a channelled stream with a brick or stone wall (not visible) on this side and railings at the top of it.  Bit of perpective modelling perhaps here, with 2mm sheeps and maybe a tree or two on the opposite bank. 

[The Johnster]

Colliery traffic exchange

 

 

We join the action at half time; 6642 has brought a train of empties up from Ogmore Junction, left them on the loop, cut off and crossed over into the platform road, then set back to collect the loaded from the exchange.  NCB no.5 in on the spur having brought the lds up from the colliery trady for the clearance, and 6643 is drawing them out of the exchange. 

 

 

6642 has cleared the exchange turnout, and, with the help of the ground signals as these are shunting movements, has set back out on to the running line, and is now drawing into the loop to pick up the mts. 
 

 

She’s now deposited the mts in the platform road, clear of the runaround shunt, and, with the van in tow is setting the lds back out on to the running line with the lds for the 3rd time. The brakes on the end wagons are pinned down for all of these movements. 
 

 

The next move is to place the van on the goods siding out of the way, then she’ll uncouple the lds and leave them on the loop, shunt to the platform road, and set the mts back on to the exchange.  
 

 

Having done so, she regains BR metals; the mts can be seen in the distance. 
 

 

As she backs out over the shunt to pick up the lds on the loop and propel them on to the van to make the train up, NCB no.5 emerges from the spur to propel the mts to the colliery, passing over the weighbridge in the process.   When the lds are in the fiddle yard, the coal is emptied into the coal box ready to be spooned into wagons under the loader, and the process repeats itself. 

Edited January 8, 2022 by The Johnster

[Darwinian]

Now that’s what S. Wales valleys railways were all about.

Nice work Johnster.

[Sandhole]

14 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Colliery traffic exchange

 

 

We join the action at half time; 6642 has brought a train of empties up from Ogmore Junction, left them on the loop, cut off and crossed over into the platform road, then set back to collect the loaded from the exchange.  NCB no.5 in on the spur having brought the lds up from the colliery trady for the clearance, and 6643 is drawing them out of the exchange. 

 

 

6642 has cleared the exchange turnout, and, with the help of the ground signals as these are shunting movements, has set back out on to the running line, and is now drawing into the loop to pick up the mts. 
 

 

She’s now deposited the mts in the platform road, clear of the runaround shunt, and, with the van in tow is setting the lds back out on to the running line with the lds for the 3rd time. The brakes on the end wagons are pinned down for all of these movements. 
 

 

The next move is to place the van on the goods siding out of the way, then she’ll uncouple the lds and leave them on the loop, shunt to the platform road, and set the mts back on to the exchange.  
 

 

Having done so, she regains BR metals; the mts can be seen in the distance. 
 

 

As she backs out over the shunt to pick up the lds on the loop and propel them on to the van to make the train up, NCB no.5 emerges from the spur to propel the mts to the colliery, passing over the weighbridge in the process.   When the lds are in the fiddle yard, the coal is emptied into the coal box ready to be spooned into wagons under the loader, and the process repeats itself. 

I love the whole vibe of these photos. You can really get the atmosphere from this.
Regards,
Chris.

[The Johnster]

Absolutely, Darwinian; coal was the reason they existed and any other traffic was just a bonus. In most valleys, the railway opened and was in use for the coal traffic for some time before passenger or general merchandise services were provided, as an afterthought, and the later railways, like the Barry and the Cardiff when it attempted to extend into the valleys, had stations with platform loops so that passenger trains could be held out of the way to allow the moneymaking coal trains precedence. 

 

With many pits having limited siding space at the surface to store wagons it was essential to provide a constant supply of empties to keep the loading hoppers in the washery busy, because they were at the end of a production line that began at the coal face, transported coal to the pit bottom, raised it to the pithead, and screened if for waste and size before the washery was reached.  No empties, face production comes to a halt in about half an hour.

 

To keep the empties coming, the yards had to be cleared of loaded wagons, and exchanges of this sort, details differening according to layouts and locacations, were common.  The unrealistic part of my operation is the pulling out of cuts of mts from the loader to spoon coal (the real thing, mined for me by Tomparryharry at Big Pit) into, then replacing them under the loader for one of the colliery engines to collect and weigh.  I'm not 100% sure my weighbridge operation is realistic, should have paid more attention back in the day instead of being lococentric.  The weighbridge is on the approach road to the yard and thus all wagons must perforce pass over it, but it is locked out of use for most of the time and only released when weighing is taking place.  The release and relocking can only take place when no wagon or engine is standing on it, all of which is a bit of assumption on my part. 

 

Despite the small yard at Dimbath Deep Navigation no.2, there is work for two engines as empties need to be placed under the loader while an engine is trapped in the spur by this exchange procedure, and there are other jobs as well, as pitprops and other general supplies are delivered and the empties exchanged on the branch pickup working.  I also assume that the NCB, still within it's first decade of existence, is fulfilling it's promise to provide pithead baths and a canteen, so wagons of building materials come in as well.  I realise that it is highly unusual for a modeller to want an excuse to have too many engines; most of us don't bother with the excuse...

 

7 minutes ago, Sandhole said:

I love the whole vibe of these photos. You can really get the atmosphere from this.
Regards,
Chris.

 

Thank you very much, Chris, really.  Studying the photos reveals plenty of inaccuracy and more work to be done, wiring hidden and so on, but I consider atmosphere at least as important a part of modellig as getting liveries or details right.  It's not a model, it's a real railway in a real place that never actually had one, serving a real imaginary mining village and it's pit, completely real, only small and 70 years ago.  It is good to know I am not just convincing myself about this, and other people such as yourself validate my attempts at it.

[The Johnster]

 

 

Just round off the story, the final act; NCB no.5 propels the newly-arrived mts over the weighbridge one by one for ‘taring’, establishing the exact empty weight, which will be noted against the wagon’s number and, eventually, subtracted from the loaded weight and used as the basis for invoicing; the most important part of the pit’s operation from a financial pov. 
 

Meanwhile, 6642 rumbles over the Nant Lechyd bridge as she eases the lds towards the top of the bank (scenic break) where she’ll pull up for some brakes will be pinned down for the steep drop to Glynogwr Jc.   A sheep by the old shelter is in conversation with on of her friends who is having a bit of a sit down on the other side of the running line; they’ve seen the big noisy chuffy things before and are not in the least interested. 

[The Johnster]

Any, been messing about with lights for the colliery. Yard lights to go in yet, but this is progress so far…

 

 

 

Plenty atmospheric; you can almost feel the drizzle on your face

[Sandhole]

12 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Any, been messing about with lights for the colliery. Yard lights to go in yet, but this is progress so far…

 

 

 

Plenty atmospheric; you can almost feel the drizzle on your face

Ruddy Superb.
You are capturing those vibes again. My collieries were the Lancashire coalfield.
You capture the mystery and fascination I had, as a little boy, when I saw them in the distance .
Regards,
Chris.

[The Johnster]

Due to the nature of South Wales' geography, your viewpoint from a passing train was often uphill, as the pitheads would be a little way up the mountainside in order to exploit gravity as the product was fed downwards through the various processes to the waiting wagons, and it is this that I am trying to recreate.  Collieries were, mostly, messy collections of apparently haphazardly collected buildings and each one was different and individual, but a common theme was a lot of clutter and stuff lying around.  They were by nature speculative high risk enterprises (I mean the owners' money was at high risk, not discussing the very real dangers of working in one for the moment, even at the surface) where investment was kept to a minimum and things were done as cheaply as possible, and the mess at the surface is a good indicator of this. 

 

The confined site footprints of Valleys collieries 'enhanced' this; pits in Lancashire and the other UK coalfields, including the anthracite pits further west in Wales, were more spread out, and the pitheads more likely to be prominently silhouetted against the skyline and visible from further away.

[1466]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Due to the nature of South Wales' geography, your viewpoint from a passing train was often uphill, as the pitheads would be a little way up the mountainside in order to exploit gravity as the product was fed downwards through the various processes to the waiting wagons, and it is this that I am trying to recreate.  Collieries were, mostly, messy collections of apparently haphazardly collected buildings and each one was different and individual, but a common theme was a lot of clutter and stuff lying around.  They were by nature speculative high risk enterprises (I mean the owners' money was at high risk, not discussing the very real dangers of working in one for the moment, even at the surface) where investment was kept to a minimum and things were done as cheaply as possible, and the mess at the surface is a good indicator of this. 

 

The confined site footprints of Valleys collieries 'enhanced' this; pits in Lancashire and the other UK coalfields, including the anthracite pits further west in Wales, were more spread out, and the pitheads more likely to be prominently silhouetted against the skyline and visible from further away.

Congratulations the Johnster , a lot of progress and things achieved in a short time .

Your mention of the risks involved, threw me back to the Aberfan disaster . The scale , the terror and the enormity of the tragedy and disaster are haunting.

A small feature was how insulated we were in those days when at work . The disaster happened around mid day but I knew nothing of it until the 6o’ clock news that evening . What a contrast to today . 

[The Johnster]

I suppose it depended on your job.  I remember the day well; I was a 14 year old 3rd former at Cathays High School at the time, and, with the school so close to North Road, the main road to the Valleys out of Cardiff, we could hardly be unaware of the ambulances, continually from about half past nine.  Weather in Cardiff was grey and drizzly, but it was raining heavily to the North.  Speculation was as rife as you'd expect from schoolboys, and by lunch time we'd settled on a plane crash.  Trains in the Valleys don't go fast enough to generate casualties on that level if they crash, and a pit disaster would be handled by their own rescue people. 

 

Those who went home for dinner came back with the shocking news, and we were called into an assembly when school started in the afternoon for a headmaster's announcement.  Several teachers were openly in tears, perhaps the most visually shocking aspect for us.  45 or so minutes later it was obvious that lessons could not proceed, and we were given the choice of staying in school for 'quiet study' until 4.30 or going home.  I went home; the atmosphere in school was unbearably grim.

 

South Wales, like most mining areas, was used to pit disasters.  There was a sort of horrible routine in which everybody knew what they were expected to do; the pit hooter sounded continously, the wives gathered at the pithead, the men off-shift kitted up and went down and either came back up with news and survivors or didn't, the main rescue team showed up, and then began the grim waiting.  Articles appeared in the local papers about the price of coal, paid in smashed limbs, wrecked lungs, and lives.  This was completely different, a surface disaster, with ordinary people and schoolchildren paying the highest price of coal, something nobody was prepared for on this scale, though there had been tip failures before.

 

I remember the palpable sense of urgency apparent on the live evening news tv footage of men frantically tearing at the rapidly solidifying slurry with bare, bleeding, hands, many of them having done so since they'd arrived at the scene hours earlier, absolute despair etched on their faces.  Appeals were made for would-be volunteers to stay away, as the issue wasn't manpower by that time, but requests were made for shovels, buckets, picks, kettles, teapots, camping stoves and blankets; we stripped our house of them and father and me went down to where they were being collected, outside the new Telephone House office block in Newport Road, and bought new ones the following day. 

Edited January 10, 2022 by The Johnster

[1466]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I suppose it depended on your job.  I remember the day well; I was a 14 year old 3rd former at Cathays High School at the time, and, with the school so close to North Road, the main road to the Valleys out of Cardiff, we could hardly be unaware of the ambulances, continually from about half past nine.  Weather in Cardiff was grey and drizzly, but it was raining heavily to the North.  Speculation was as rife as you'd expect from schoolboys, and by lunch time we'd settled on a plane crash.  Trains in the Valleys don't go fast enough to generate casualties on that level if they crash, and a pit disaster would be handled by their own rescue people. 

 

Those who went home for dinner came back with the shocking news, and we were called into an assembly when school started in the afternoon for a headmaster's announcement.  Several teachers were openly in tears, perhaps the most visually shocking aspect for us.  45 or so minutes later it was obvious that lessons could not proceed, and we were given the choice of staying in school for 'quiet study' until 4.30 or going home.  I went home; the atmosphere in school was unbearably grim.

 

South Wales, like most mining areas, was used to pit disasters.  There was a sort of horrible routine in which everybody knew what they were expected to do; the pit hooter sounded continously, the wives gathered at the pithead, the men off-shift kitted up and went down and either came back up with news and survivors or didn't, the main rescue team showed up, and then began the grim waiting.  Articles appeared in the local papers about the price of coal, paid in smashed limbs, wrecked lungs, and lives.  This was completely different, a surface disaster, with ordinary people and schoolchildren paying the highest price of coal, something nobody was prepared for on this scale, though there had been tip failures before.

 

I remember the palpable sense of urgency apparent on the live evening news tv footage of men frantically tearing at the rapidly solidifying slurry with bare, bleeding, hands, many of them having done so since they'd arrived at the scene hours earlier, absolute despair etched on their faces.  Appeals were made for would-be volunteers to stay away, as the issue wasn't manpower by that time, but requests were made for shovels, buckets, picks, kettles, teapots, camping stoves and blankets; we stripped our house of them and father and me went down to where they were being collected, outside the new Telephone House office block in Newport Road, and bought new ones the following day. 

Thanks for your recollections .

I was working in an office in Central London and we were hermitically sealed from the outside world . No radio allowed . It would have been unthinkable to have to have tv in a office at that time .

[The Johnster]

Who’s in the mood for some more night shots?  Haven’t quite finished the lighting project yet but the new yard lamps and swan necks have arrived and will probably be installed over the coming week.  In the meantime…

 

 

…Forest No.1 brings a cut of loaded coal up over the weighbridge, now locked out of use, ready for the last clearance of the day, while a sheep looks on. 
 

 

By an amazing coincidence another photographer snaps the same scene at the same time, but this time from the other side of the running line with the train silhouetted. 

The NCB’s W4 has made a bit more progress and has now reached as far as the colliery store and workshop, where some midnight oil is being burned repairing a seized wnch for tomorrow’s morning shift.  The road is set for the 19.30 auto arrival from Porthcawl, a balancing through working not advertised as such in the public timetable, but known to the local cognesciti. 
 

 

6642 rumbles over Nant Lechyd bridge arriving with the mts, silhouetted by the weighbridge lights.  The lat wagon of the cut Forest no.1 brought up is visible in the background; the loco has uncoupled and is out of the way on the loco spur taking water. 
 

And, as she pulls to a squealing grinding stop as 56xx do on the goods loop at 19.30 on this November evening in 1953, the 20.00 auto for Bridgend bathes in the pool of it’s own and the station lights in the background.  Light bleed at the base of the station building needs seeing to and some of the new swan necks will enhance this scene in the near future. 
 

Leading coach is the last surviving Clifton Downs driving trailer W 3338, transferred to Tondu for the start of the new ‘regular interval Cardiff Valleys timetable 2 months earlier.  The ‘unofficial’ lined crimson livery is correct for this coach, and was apparently applied when the coach, originally withdrawn in 1948, was reinstated 18 months later.  It is a Roxey kit built for me by   a kind friend. BThe other trailer is W 211 in transition early 1948 choc/cream livery, an A31.  A31s were never used at Tondu but it is a reasonable place holder as a 57’ panelled saloon trailer; it is a worked up Keyser whitemetal kit.  With half an hour to go before departure, the auto’s crew are over the road in the Forge having a well earned pint, and will have ‘got them in’ for 6642’s crew and their guard, one hopes. 
 

I’m rather enjoying this night working, great fun and very atmospheric. 

[1466]

Great stuff , very atmospheric.

Johnster , you mention working lights . Where did you get them , please ? Gaugemaster’s web site says “ out of stock “. 
Thanks . Ken 

[The Johnster]

The ones for the coaches?   These are cheapo Chinese off of the ‘zon, intended as xmas etc. party lights, warm led chains powered by pairs of CR2032 batteries in small holders with switches, 12 of ‘em for £12.99 free next day postage. They are a bit of bodgerigar solution, but the battery holders are out of sight inside the roofs of the coaches.  They are only suitable for coaches on which the roofs or bodyshells are or can be made to be easily and conveniently removable and replaceable, which precludes most modern RTR (which needs more expensive magnetically switched lighting).  I looked at mounting the battery holders under the floors so that the switches are accessible, but they’re too bulky. 
 

The low cost means that you can cut off as many leds as you don’t need on each string and throw the rest away; those left will still work.  The wire is very thin and difficult to strip back for connection for further use, though the melty solder technique suggested by DCC Concepts for their loco lamps might work.  The Clifton Downs compartment trailer has the wire looped about a bit inside the roof so that each compartment is lit from the centre of its roof; bit of a challenge because the wire is a bit stiff and the Dean roof profile is not the most spacious when it comes to tucking things up out of sight, but the mess is hidden from a ground level viewing position. 
 

I’ve so far lit 4 auto trailers this way, the Clifton Downs, a K’s whitemetal A31, and two Airfix A28s.  The other 8 strings have all found homes inside buildings and as exterior lights around the colliery.  They needed dimming a little in the auto trailers, more so in the gas-lit Clifton Downs and A31. The wires need careful hiding and/or camouflaging or they stand out a bit; as I say they are very thin but are insulated by shiny plastic coating. 

[1466]

15 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

The ones for the coaches?   These are cheapo Chinese off of the ‘zon, intended as xmas etc. party lights, warm led chains powered by pairs of CR2032 batteries in small holders with switches, 12 of ‘em for £12.99 free next day postage. They are a bit of bodgerigar solution, but the battery holders are out of sight inside the roofs of the coaches.  They are only suitable for coaches on which the roofs or bodyshells are or can be made to be easily and conveniently removable and replaceable, which precludes most modern RTR (which needs more expensive magnetically switched lighting).  I looked at mounting the battery holders under the floors so that the switches are accessible, but they’re too bulky. 
 

The low cost means that you can cut off as many leds as you don’t need on each string and throw the rest away; those left will still work.  The wire is very thin and difficult to strip back for connection for further use, though the melty solder technique suggested by DCC Concepts for their loco lamps might work.  The Clifton Downs compartment trailer has the wire looped about a bit inside the roof so that each compartment is lit from the centre of its roof; bit of a challenge because the wire is a bit stiff and the Dean roof profile is not the most spacious when it comes to tucking things up out of sight, but the mess is hidden from a ground level viewing position. 
 

I’ve so far lit 4 auto trailers this way, the Clifton Downs, a K’s whitemetal A31, and two Airfix A28s.  The other 8 strings have all found homes inside buildings and as exterior lights around the colliery.  They needed dimming a little in the auto trailers, more so in the gas-lit Clifton Downs and A31. The wires need careful hiding and/or camouflaging or they stand out a bit; as I say they are very thin but are insulated by shiny plastic coating. 

Thanks Johnster for a comprehensive reply .

I’m  also interested in street lights , particularly gas lights suitable for the1930s to 1950s .

I think you mentioned hexagonal platform and swan neck yard lamps ?

Gaugemaster did bargain packs but they are showing out of stock .

Thanks for your help .

Ken 

[The Johnster]

Again, the ‘zon is your friend.  Just had a delivery of swan neck that I haven’t tested out yet which were £7.99 for ten. You have to sort your own power supply and they come with a set of resistors, but the quality looks pretty good, especially compared to a set I bought a couple years ago with the swan neck formed by the feed wires that fell apart fairly quickly; these new ones are properly bent tube with the wire protected inside.  Studying the photographs closer than I did two years ago pays dividends. 
 

You’ll need to paint the undersides of the shades white, and fix your own ladder brackets if they are to represent gas or oil lamps.  Swan necks are more suitable for 1950s South Wales Valleys, both as platform and as street lamps, but square, hex, and other types are available, as are a variety of yard lamps and modern platform/street lighting, and dome that just look too posh for anything other than the main drive up to Versailles.  If you ever go to Versailles, you’ll be impressed, but you’ll never again wonder why they had that revolution…

 

 

[1466]

3 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Again, the ‘zon is your friend.  Just had a delivery of swan neck that I haven’t tested out yet which were £7.99 for ten. You have to sort your own power supply and they come with a set of resistors, but the quality looks pretty good, especially compared to a set I bought a couple years ago with the swan neck formed by the feed wires that fell apart fairly quickly; these new ones are properly bent tube with the wire protected inside.  Studying the photographs closer than I did two years ago pays dividends. 
 

You’ll need to paint the undersides of the shades white, and fix your own ladder brackets if they are to represent gas or oil lamps.  Swan necks are more suitable for 1950s South Wales Valleys, both as platform and as street lamps, but square, hex, and other types are available, as are a variety of yard lamps and modern platform/street lighting, and dome that just look too posh for anything other than the main drive up to Versailles.  If you ever go to Versailles, you’ll be impressed, but you’ll never again wonder why they had that revolution…

 

 

Great and thanks again .

My Gran’s road had  gas light street lamps with little clock work timers to switch on  and off the main supply . A pilot light burned all the time , so good memories . Her 2 up 2 down terraced house had gas light only downstairs and candles upstairs until the late 1950 s . It made Coronation Street look posh !

I have been to Versailles … what a contrast .

Thanks for your patience .

Best wishes 

Ken