South Wales Valleys in the 50s

[Northroader]

On lifting capacity, a 57xx weighs around 50 tons, so a 5ton hoist will have a struggle just lifting the a**e end of one.

[1466]

Johnster , at the risk of Grandma and eggs , when I had problems with curved track pulling out of shape . I used a tracksetta to give a smooth and correct radius , then drilled 0.5mm holes in affected sleepers and inserted over length 0.45 brass wire . After a good application of PVA  overnight , I trimmed the wire flush . It worked and that curve has been done for about 10 years now .

Ken 

[The Johnster]

Sometimes nana's memory isn't what it was and a reminder does no harm, Ken.  But in this case the road concerned is the blank ended shed road, which is straight, but has twice pulled away from the the join with the turnout.  I can only assume the sleeper base is moving at different rates as different concentrations and masses of pva go off, as I can't explain it any other way.  But this time I reckon I've beaten it; let the sleeper base wander off wherever it likes, and pull the rail through the chairs back to the correct position with pliers.  I'm winning with this so far and can pull again tomorrow if needed...

 

As for lifting locos, an Austerity weighs about the same as a 57xx, and as an 08 (which given the wheelbase and wheel diameter is perhaps a more apt comparison.  A W4 would be much more to such a gantry's liking.  But what would this gantry which, if I'm honest, I only want because I think it'll look cool, actually do here?  Jobs needing wheels out are probably a bit much for a little place like this, and would in this case probably be taken to Maesteg or somewhere where there were more extensive facilities, and jacking & packing would be the normal way of lifting fr the purposes of getting in undereath between the frames to get at the pistons from that side.  We probably need to be able to lift a loco enough to get at the journals and hornblocks, as well, and again, jack'n'pack are our friends.  Some packing timbers lying around the area or at the side of the shed will suggest the procedure.

 

OK, scrap the gantry.  A small wooden (i.e, home made) gibbet hoist will probably do for coaling, and for the W4 the bucket is simply passed into the cab by hand!  There is probably room at the back of the coaling road for running repairs to wagons if needed as well; replacement planks for damaged 7-plank XPOs, and more packing timbers.  Little hand trolley or sack truck to move them about the area, way to go!  I'm starting to appreciate why collieries were usually such a mess at the surface!

[The Johnster]

 

 

08.55 and, with the new colliery loco facilities and Wood bros factory in the background, a pair of panniers, 5756 and 9649 ease into to colliery exchange loop with the first empties of a dull day.  The bracket signal is the colliery loop starter.  The corrugated NCB loco shed has become known as ‘Bethania Jc’; those familiar with the Valleys will need no explanation. 
 

 

09.45 now, and the traffic exchange has been completed, and 9649 & 5756 sit at the head of the loaded clearance waiting for a path down to Ogmore Jc Yard. All three starters feature in this shot the loop starter nearest the camera, the main starter behind it, and the bracket for the colliery loop in the distance. 
 

5797 is running in to the goods loop with the morning pickup.  This loco differs from 5756 in that there is no topfeed, and the top front lamp bracket is fixed to the front rather than the top pf the smokebox (I have no idea of the reason for this variation, but it is modelled in Tondu 1953 condition; photo in the Hodge/Davies ‘Tondu Valleys’ book.  I’ve seen a photo of another 57xx with this feature, also in unlined unicycling lion black BR livery. 
 

A pannier never offends, so three of them must be triple-inoffensive!

[The Johnster]

 

View of the NCB loco shed from the slopes of Mynydd y Gwair.  The Hunslet is running past light engine along the colliery branch with the WR running line in the foreground (the wires have since been dealt with).  Forest No.1 stands on the shed road outside the shed itself, ‘Bethania Jc’, and behind is the coaling road, with the mess cabin,  water tower, coaling platform, and an empty internal user wagon. 

[The Johnster]

 

5756 gets under way with the return leg of the morning pickup, so it’s 10.45, and passes  the colliery Hunslet about to propel a raft of empties into no.4 road under the loaders.  Forest No.1 fails to hide on the shed road behind the Hunslet.  The day is proceeding well enough so far with the BR side running

to time and the NCB well on top of the job!

 

Touch wood…

[The Johnster]

 

New Rapido LMS diag 1666 from Rapido, my first ever item from this company and a lovely little wagon. Underframe and interior are superlative.  Bit of judicious weathering to take the new off, and having posed for her photograph, she’ll go straight into general merch traffic!   I have enough opens now, so of course will not be buying any more (yeah, right)…

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

New Rapido LMS diag 1666 

 

Good to see these doing exactly what they're supposed to do - getting everywhere.

[The Johnster]

Second only to Southern PMVs for that trick.  The railways were Nationalised at midnight on December 31st 1947, and by 00,05 on first January 1948 there were PMVs in the sidings at Thurso... 

 

My modelling period is nominally 1948-58 in South Wales, and at that time the largest single origin of general merchandise vans and opens was the LMS, with the LNER second and the GW third, the Southern a positive last.  Orders for big four designed wagons were still being completed well into the 50s, and the BR standard wagons started to appear in 1948, making increasing inroads into the others as time passed until their production stopped in the early 60s.  And the majority of these wagons were pool, and had been for many years.  So there is every reason to have LMS wagons and vans at Cwmdimbath, and I do.  I probably have too many LNER examples, and both LMS and Southern 'Ashford' vans.

 

The 'Ashford' vans, with their uneven planking that made more efficient use of lumber and developed from an SECR design, were built for all of the big four companies during WW2 under the instruction of the Ministry of Supply, which oversaw the use of strategic materials like timber.  Apparently, Ashford had a large store of pre-cut plank that were of little use for other purposes, so railway companies requiring new vans were ordered to obtain them from Ashford.

 

I digress, and it's my bedtime.

[The Johnster]

Policy on the Dimbath Valley Railway is, as far as is practical, to have the biggest possible variety of vans and. wagons (and everything else for that matter), so that where models of the same type occur, they are in different liveries or there are detail differences.  For example, the general merchandise fleet has two Baccy BR standard vanfits, one planked and one plywood, and two LNER vanfits, one in late LNER livery and one in BR livery.  This becomes a bit of a challenge when it comes to minerals, but between them Bachmann, Oxford, and Parkside have come up with the goods.

 

What I would appreciate from wagon manufacurers would be more 'unpainted' livery wooden unfitted opens.  This is a tough one to do yourself, getting the colour and fading right is a bit of a challenge, and wagons in this 'livery' were not uncommon in my 1948-58 period.  Dapol have done them in 7mm, very effectively, so there is a precedent.  I have the feeling that I have far too many wooden unfitted opens in BR gray livery for the period.  There were a good number of wagons produced like this between 1948 and the end of delivery of big four designed wagons in the mid 50s, and they could be seen in service into the early 60s.  Beeching probably saw off the last of them, as his pruning enabled a comprehensive cull of older (and some not-so-old) wagons now surplus to requirements and with nowhere to store them.  

 

The point at which wooden unfitted opens began to recieve unfitted grey livery is a little blurred.  AIUI, there was an instruction to paint them in 1959 following a complaint from the BTC that the wagons looked tatty and created a bad impression (which they did, and which is exactly what I want to recreate), but it seems probable that some were being painted before that, either because paint shops were ignoring the instruction or hadn't recieved it.  But I could do with a few unpainted ones at Cwmdimbath.  I've had a go on a late-build LNER open, but it's a bit 'meh' and I'm not minded to try it again until I devise a better technique.  Problem is that faded weathered unpaints are a not dissimilar colour to weathered grey livery, and I can't quite find the right yellowy-brown colour for newer ones.  And they would have looked different, darker, in the rain, but it is very difficult to find photos of this.  Cameras were expensive and people didn't want to get them wet.  Older wagons going through shops would be replanked with unpainted planks as well, so for example the rather nice new Rapido LMS D1666 could qualify, but Andy probably hasn't found a photo; I 'get' manufacturers' reluctance, at least those that care for accuracy, but I'm sure the evidence is out there. 

 

XPO wooden minerals are easier to deal with, as the original planks were left in situ with decaying original liveries, and the odd new replacement.  There were also running repair replacment planks filched off other wagons, so you could see ('see', underneath a thick layer of coal and general filth, is perhaps not the concecpt I'm trying to communicate, 'barely make out if you were lucky' might be more accurate) a plank with a different PO livery, perhaps upside down or the inside face showing out; anything went.  Painting one or more of these on a wagon is not difficult and the effect is not bad.  I also have one or two with missing and broken top planks, a common enough sight in the period as these were vulnerable to loading damage.  Bottom planks got rotten and were frequently replaced as well.

 

There are also the very early BR standard vans to consider, some of which appeared unfitted in grey livery, though these must have been very rare beasts.

[Northmoor]

You know Johnster, there's the basis of a good article for one of the mags here, explaining how paint and weathering styles changed progressively; for those of us who weren't born at the time, it's easy to fall into the trap of believing that overnight on 1st January 1948, everything appeared in BR livery and the wagon fleet consisted mostly of grey 16t steel minerals.  The more I learn, the more I realise that the short 20 years from Nationalisation to the end of steam, consisted of perhaps four overlapping periods.

 

The research isn't complete but you've explained why very little of a photographic record exists.  It could be a really informative article, explaining not only what things looked like but why and so much more useful than, "To recreate this scene, buy A, B & C from Hornby and D & E from Bachmann....".

[The Johnster]

My rather nice new Rapido D1666 is a case in point.  Andy is pretty good when it comes to research and I have no reason at all to suggest that the model is wrong; in fact I’m pretty certain it is correct.  It is in an apparently anomalous BR unfitted grey livery with LMS-style numbering and lettering, not BR Gill Sans.  I assume this is a variant of the 1948-50 transition liveries.  But if it was a strict and absolute rule that unfitted wooden opens were not to be painted, fixed and immovable as the positions of the stars in the firmament, then this wagon could not have been painted in grey until 1959 at the earliest, and as it is is most certainly a model of an unfitted wooden-bodied open wagon, surely it should be unpainted?

 

Well, yeah, but… a lot of what should have happened didn’t happen in BR’s formative years, and some stuff that shouldn’t did.  Not all the instructions always got posted everywhere, and when they were they weren’t always read, and when they were read they were sometimes ignored.  On top of that some wagon repairs were outsourced to private repair shops which may or may not have received all the painting instructions.  The country was in dire economic straights and heavily in hock to the Americans following the war; don’t forget rationing was still in force until 1953, lifted for the coronation, and had been more severe in the late 40s than it had been during hostilities.  Many basic manufactured commodities were prioritised for export by the Ministry of Supply, to relieve the serious balance of payments problem, and these included paint, so the correct colours were not always available; there were more than 50 shades of grey!  Watering down and incorrect mixed of paint were inevitable. 
 

My D 1666 would probably not have been painted in grey livery with LMS-style BR number in 1959 or later, in fact is is not particularly likely that it was painted in or after 1969 at all, but if modelling the 1948-58 period has taught me anything, it is that ‘probable’ does not mean ‘impossible’.  Or even ‘possible’.  Given the paint supply issues and delivery problems in the very severe 1946-7 winter, it is quite possible that some workshops were not painting some overhauled wagons even before nationalisation, but this is supposition on my part and I have seen no reference to or photographs of such practice, it’s just that it wouldn’t surprise me!

 

The theoretical timeline of what should have happened to unfitted wooden opens is as follows:-

 

. 1st January 1948, instruction to paintshops to continue painting in whatever livery and letter/numbering style they were using up to 31/12/47, but not to indicate any ownership.  Prefixes (E, M, S, W) to be used for the relevant big-four previous owner and for new-build deliveries.  Newly built unfitted wooden open wagons not to be painted unless they had corrugated steel ends.. 
 

. 1st June 1948, standard liveries agreed, unfitted vans, steel bodied opens, and wooden bodied opens with corrugated ends to be painted grey, all unfitted wooden-bodied open wagons to be unpainted, letter/numbering now to be in BR standard Gill Sans. 
 

. ‘Sometime around’ early 1950, black panels behind letter/numbering following complaints from shunters about difficulty of reading white letter/numbering on grey or unpainted wagons at night. 
 

. 1959, instruction to paint unfitted wooden opens (and minerals) grey.  It may be that, to some extent at least, this was a formalisation of what was becoming normal practice anyway.   
 

So my D 1666 is probably (meaning, my interpretation of the model is…) modelled as a wagon that has been incorrectly painted grey sometime between 1950 (black panels) and 1959, using LMS letter/numbering transfers to clear old stock; nothing was thrown away in those days!  
 

It’s exactly the sort of thing that made me choose this period to model!

[1466]

25 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

My rather nice new Rapido D1666 is a case in point.  Andy is pretty good when it comes to research and I have no reason at all to suggest that the model is wrong; in fact I’m pretty certain it is correct.  It is in an apparently anomalous BR unfitted grey livery with LMS-style numbering and lettering, not BR Gill Sans.  I assume this is a variant of the 1948-50 transition liveries.  But if it was a strict and absolute rule that unfitted wooden opens were not to be painted, fixed and immovable as the positions of the stars in the firmament, then this wagon could not have been painted in grey until 1959 at the earliest, and as it is is most certainly a model of an unfitted wooden-bodied open wagon, surely it should be unpainted?

 

Well, yeah, but… a lot of what should have happened didn’t happen in BR’s formative years, and some stuff that shouldn’t did.  Not all the instructions always got posted everywhere, and when they were they weren’t always read, and when they were read they were sometimes ignored.  On top of that some wagon repairs were outsourced to private repair shops which may or may not have received all the painting instructions.  The country was in dire economic straights and heavily in hock to the Americans following the war; don’t forget rationing was still in force until 1953, lifted for the coronation, and had been more severe in the late 40s than it had been during hostilities.  Many basic manufactured commodities were prioritised for export by the Ministry of Supply, to relieve the serious balance of payments problem, and these included paint, so the correct colours were not always available; there were more than 50 shades of grey!  Watering down and incorrect mixed of paint were inevitable. 
 

My D 1666 would probably not have been painted in grey livery with LMS-style BR number in 1959 or later, in fact is is not particularly likely that it was painted in or after 1969 at all, but if modelling the 1948-58 period has taught me anything, it is that ‘probable’ does not mean ‘impossible’.  Or even ‘possible’.  Given the paint supply issues and delivery problems in the very severe 1946-7 winter, it is quite possible that some workshops were not painting some overhauled wagons even before nationalisation, but this is supposition on my part and I have seen no reference to or photographs of such practice, it’s just that it wouldn’t surprise me!

 

The theoretical timeline of what should have happened to unfitted wooden opens is as follows:-

 

. 1st January 1948, instruction to paintshops to continue painting in whatever livery and letter/numbering style they were using up to 31/12/47, but not to indicate any ownership.  Prefixes (E, M, S, W) to be used for the relevant big-four previous owner and for new-build deliveries.  Newly built unfitted wooden open wagons not to be painted unless they had corrugated steel ends.. 
 

. 1st June 1948, standard liveries agreed, unfitted vans, steel bodied opens, and wooden bodied opens with corrugated ends to be painted grey, all unfitted wooden-bodied open wagons to be unpainted, letter/numbering now to be in BR standard Gill Sans. 
 

. ‘Sometime around’ early 1950, black panels behind letter/numbering following complaints from shunters about difficulty of reading white letter/numbering on grey or unpainted wagons at night. 
 

. 1959, instruction to paint unfitted wooden opens (and minerals) grey.  It may be that, to some extent at least, this was a formalisation of what was becoming normal practice anyway.   
 

So my D 1666 is probably (meaning, my interpretation of the model is…) modelled as a wagon that has been incorrectly painted grey sometime between 1950 (black panels) and 1959, using LMS letter/numbering transfers to clear old stock; nothing was thrown away in those days!  
 

It’s exactly the sort of thing that made me choose this period to model!

Good points well made , Johnster .

I , being a certain age- 1944 South side of the valley  an amusing little vintage - remember those 1950s years of brutal rationing and hardship . And short trousers - by law to save cloth! And chaps in winter … ouch!

[The Johnster]

And Izal medicated tp. And doing homework with ice inside the bedroom window and your Quink frozen solid.  Kids terday, don’t know they’re born…

Weird, isn’t it, being the same age as old people?

[Nick C]

I've just dug out a photo of Medina Wharf, on the Isle of Wight, dated 1959. About 50 wooden bodied unfitted opens visible, of which at least 18 are clearly painted grey... mind you, the island was often a law unto itself for such matters!

[The Johnster]

Given the restricted island stocklist, they were probably better able to keep on top of overhauls.  
 

Developments in the little valley in the shadow of Fforest Ogwr (Fforest in Welsh is more akin to it’s Old English meaning, a wilderness, rather than a woodland but a lot of Sitka Fir was planted up there in the 50s and 60s), nothing spectacular, just clearing some tasks from the pending tray.  Fy roads extended with odd bits of Streamline cutoffs, and no.1 colliery road similarly extended on to the fy board.  This allows a repositioning of the weighbridge, which has been wandering around homeless for a while now, with room for a full (or empty) 9-wagon cut behind it mostly off-stage and room for a cut in front as well.  This location gives a much more comfortable feel to the siting of the bridge and the office, and will make the shunting easier.  Only a bit of course, we need some challenge!

 

I’ve also had a go at making up card-supported coal loads for the minerals rather than emptying them innthe plastic box and dipping the wagons in to load them; one too many derailment spills triggered this move!  Card cut to fit inside wagons with folded card support, simples, but the first attempt has bot been completely successful.  Some card bases were either cut too small (and they shouldn’t have been, I measured them carefully enough) and/or have shrink a little under the dilute pva used to stick the coal on top.  
 

Mk.2 will be cut oversized and trimmed to fit after the coal has been pva-ed and the glue gone off.  This will allow some shaping of the loads by slight upward bending.  The mk1 supports were too high as well, and I will experiment with half-legos for mk.2.   Sponge foam is a possibility as well. There’s 34 wagon loads to do if I’m to have a load available for all the wagons, but in practice about 25 will be enough.  Boring and repetitive but it needs doing, sooner it’s over & done with the better.  Making a few surplus without supports for possible general use in 9’ and 10’ wheelbase opens might be wort the effort at the same time!  A few opens have acquired tarps, with rigging cord lashings, tinfoil painted a fair impression of tarpaulin grey, will ‘do’ until I get my Round Tuit and buy some Parkside ones.  

[The Johnster]

 

The NCB’s Bagnall 200hp DH Cyclops brings a raft of empties down from the exchange loop, badly needed as there are not many left to put under the loaders!   You can get too far ahead of yourself in colliery surface work…  Cyclops and her load ate heading for the weighbridge to ‘tare’ (note the exact empty weight of) the wagons before Forest No.1 removes the last of the loadeds from beneath the loading hoppers and places the tared empties on the loading road.  The men working underground are due their ‘snap’ break soon which will give a bit of breathing space at the surface and prevent backups. 
 

The rest of the morning will taken up with the two engines working together from each end of the weighbridge road to weigh the lds before making them up into the next clearance, with the W4 moving mts under the tippler to keep things moving.     
 

Meanwhile, at the back of Dimbath Metals’ siding, a new Parkside ‘PLATE’ awaits collection by the pickup, even now leaving Glynogwr.  Cambridge Custom transfers, bit of lead flashing inder the floor, runs like a dream.  B 930633 on this side…

 

 

…but turn it around and, what sorcery is this, it becomes E 309476, in a pre-black background earlier version of the same BR unfitted grey

[neal cooper]

I make my coal loads in O gauge from off cut plywood or cardboard. With cardboard I use knotting fluid or shellac first to harden them up. This protects the cardboard from the paint and PVA when adding the coal and stops any shrinkage.

[The Johnster]

My idea was that the pva would ‘seal’ the cardboard against the um, er… possibly not thought through very well!  We’re there now, though, next stage will be to add lumps of Blutac ballast underneath to give the loaded wagons a bit of ‘heft’. 

[The Johnster]

 

Lunchtime on an autumnal but sunny day, and the NCB’s Hunslet simmers on the exchange loop headshunt in a photo taken from the slopes of Bryn y Cae.  It will be here a while as the loop ahead of it is occupied by a loaded train for Ogmore Jc. waiting for the road, and there’s an auto to arrive and depart first, so the crew are over the Forge for a quick half.  The group of disparate and desperate structures behind belong to members of the Ogmore Forest Pigeon Fanciers, and the mountain slope behind is exaggerated, but not by much…

[The Johnster]

 

 

Our photographer has taken a picnic and a girlfriend up Bryn-y-Cae with him, and it is now a couple of hours later, the light is starting to fade, and they are packing up to come home, but we will draw a veil over exactly why no photos were taken during the intervening period (though odds are that there will be a rushed wedding next spring…).  But, just as they were leaving, this little cameo persuaded him to risk a final shot, and he’s got away with it; 6642 has brought the last load of mts for today up and has retrieved the van and placed itself out of the way on the goods loop.  Meanwhile, the NCB’s Hunslet has coupled to the rake and is propelling them out of the exchange loop done to the colliery yard, where a train of lds is being prepped for dispatch.  
 

The 3rd element is ‘no.2’ auto set, today a mix of ancient and modern in the form of 5524 and A43 ‘intermediate’ compartment trailer with W 3338, the last surviving A2 Clifton Downs compartment driving trailer in it’s unique lined crimson livery.  Note the replacement cream droplights, as per 1952 photo of this trailer at Pontypridd in Lewis.  This train is a through working from Porthcawl, though not advertised as such in the public timetable; local cognesciti are aware of it, though.  This arrived before the mt coal train, but waits until that engine has retrieved it’s van and got itself out of the way before it comes down for watering, in order not to delay the all-important mts which will soon be needed at the colliery.  

Edited October 8, 2023 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

 

Two in the morning, and there is an immense amount of nothing going on at ‘Bethania Jc.’; everybody’s gone home except Tommy Horizontal, the night fitter, who is earning his nickname by ‘resting his eyes’ in the cabin.  All is in order and having done an oil filter on the Bagnall he’s on top of his job, though he doesn’t look it!   There is little sound except for the burbling of Nant Lechyd, the little stream, and some dripping, quiet hissing, and contraction creaks from the steam engines.  Tommy has little travel alarm clock to wake himself up at half four to start laying fires and bringing them up to pressure. 
 

The real Tommy Horizontal, who I knew from working at Royal Mail, was once a loco fitter on nights at Nantgarw, and had been working on one of the Hunslets which was in light steam and had been having reverser trouble.  Sorted out with a big hammer and lots of swearing, so he retired to the cabin and got his head down, not having checked properly that the loco was in mid-gear, or that the regulator was fully closed, or that the handbrake was fully wound on.  
 

It almost writes itself from this point.  Tommy was woken up by a rumbling noise, to see in the half-light of dawn that the loco was proceeding steadily at a walking pace across the car park behind the loco shed, wearing some of the shed roof as a hat and covered in brick dust from what had been the back wall.  He caught up with it easily enough and brought it to a stand, but not before it had wrecked the surface supervisor’s brand new Rover 2000.  
 

This was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the end of Tommy’s NCB career!  The loco was undamaged and, once having been hauled back on to the rails by a classmate, was in service later that day after an examination. 
The Hunslets were replaced with diesels not long after that. 

[The Johnster]

 

‘Bethania Jc’, the NCB’s tin tabernacle engine shed, has finally got a roof and may be considered complete.  Not the packing timber lying around for use with jacks if a loco has to come off it’s wheels.  Surplus Wills corrugated sheeting from this project will be used as fencing about the place; fencing is very much an incomplete job at Cwmdimbath, and there should be one between the BR running line and the NCB branch in the foreground of this shot for a start!

 

Not the most complex building, but a satisfying little project nonethelesss, good chance to go a bit bonkers with the weathering!

[The Johnster]

Psst, wanna see some photos...

 

 

Afternoons are big engine time at Cwmdimbath; here's 4144 waiting for the off with a train of various NPCCS for the D & O mail order company's distribution depot down at Glynogwr on the stump of the old Hendreforgan/Gilfach Goch line.  The train has to come up here to run around so as to be able to shunt into the depot, and there is a small outstation 'returns' department here that swaps a van once a day.  Photos are great for spotting stuff you don't notice day-to-day; fence needs straightening.

 

4144 was delivered new to Tondu in the April of 1948, and spent the next fourteen years at the shed.  It must have been delivered in this early BR transition livery, unlined GW-style green with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' in Egyptian Serif, applied between 1st January and 31st May 1948.  I've not seen a photo of it at Tondu in this livery but feel fairly safe in my choice, encouraged by the GWS at Didcot who generally seem to know what they're about and have painted this very loco in this livery.  OTOH, it is probably pretty unlikely that the loco ever appeared with an LMS 6-wheeler in BR 1956 maroon or a PMV in 1956 malachite green, but when you have a 1948-58 time frame such anomalies are par for the course and I try not to worry about it...

 

The train is awaiting the arrival of the afternoon pickup, which features next.

 

 

Here it is, an hour or so later having done it's work and waiting to run down the bank to TDU goods.  The loco on this job can be anything, a fill-in turn for whatever is on hand at TDU, and today it has 4218, a very long-term Tondu denizen.  These 2-8-0s were known at Tondu as 'Big Boys', though Tondu is a long way from Sherman Hill in several respects!  The water tower overflow culvert emerges beneath the fence here.

[The Johnster]

 

Saturday morning, and Tondu’s passenger trains are strengthened to cope with demand for shopping or going to watch Bridgend murder some hapless English chinless wonders in the rugby, or daytrips to Porthcawl in the summer.  This is the 07.45 auto arrival from Tondu, forming an 08.10 departure for Bridgend.  Leading trailer is W 3338 (Roxey), the sole surviving Clifton Downs coach, loco is 5524, then A44 ‘cyclops’ W 256 W (Wizard), A30 W 189 W bringing up the rear; all proper TDU allocations!

 

Note the loaded coal train left overnight in the exchange loop awaiting an engine & brakevan for the first clearance of the day; the ebv is following the auto up and will be here in ten minutes. 
 

The London Plane tree seed husks I collected 2 months ago to serve as gorse bushes have worked out well enough, and the price was right!