OO gauge GWR Mogul and Prairie

[Oldddudders]

10 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

 I didn't know that! I thought that the rear unit(s) moved up to the front unit(s) because the motorman was already in the right place.

At a through station, there is usually no dispensation for berthing in the platform. So the driver of the first portion should still be on-hand to help with coupling up. 

[The Stationmaster]

9 hours ago, The Johnster said:

 

What he said.

 

Of course, real railwaymen wanted to crack on and finish the job so that they could go home/up the pub/to the match/whatever, but very slow runing had to employed at certain times, for example propelling wagons into goods sheds which the driver could not see inside of and where men might be loading or unloading vehicles, or moving forward when pinning down brakes at the top of an incline.  Pickups shunting small goods yards where only the guard was doing the coupling, uncoupling, and changing the points was done at a speed appropriate to allowing him to get to the next place that he had to couple or uncouple or the next point he had to throw; going any faster was pointless. Another snail-racing situation was drawing up to an adverse signal with a loose-coupled freight; here, the game was to keep the train in motion, even at a very slow speed, and not to actually stop, as this took time and was harder work for the loco, and even at a snail's pace, it is easier to pull away when the signal clears.

 

I'd agree as well that some layouts at exhibitions overdo the crawling element, and I presume this is at least in part to show off the slow running capabilities of the models.  But, even if you don't drive your locos at dead slow speeds, an ability to crawl smoothly, and to start and stop smoothly, tranlates into a smoother and more realistic performance at whatever speed you do operate at.  My view FWIW is that good slow speed performance is A Good Thing under any circumstances, and most current RTR is capable of very good slow speed performance.  Not that it couldn't be improved further, but it is better now than it has ever been when you consider the very jerky and unpredictable performances of my younger days.  Motors, gear ratios, and pickups are all much improved and current RTR on well laid track with a hygiene regime is very reliable and as good as can be reasonably expected from volume produced models at the sort of prices the market will bear.  Modern model are much quieter than they old stagers as well, a sign of a well desigined and built mech.

 

 

I wonder how many local goods yards The Johnster actually saw being shunted by local freight trips (or good sheds come to that)?  I remember all too well the first time I watched wagons being worked by a capstan in a goods shed and it was rather worrying to say the least as I looked on wondering how the wagons were going to be stopped.  And very few local goods yard were shunted by the Guard alone - usually there was at least one member of the station staff around to help and sometimes to save time the Fireman would get down and assist on the ground.  My uncle was a porter at Challow, on the GWML, just before the war and he or one of the other station staff always assisted the Guard in shunting the trip - Challow was a very long way from unique in that respect.    Shunting was always done as briskly as possible because in the first place most trips had very limited time allowed to shunt at the vast majority of intermediate stations and secondly the crew wanted to get the job out of the way as soon as possible either to create a break with time for food (because there were no booked breaks in their diagrams) or to get over the road to the pub.

 

BTW the Rules in any case required men working in a goods shed, or on wagons on sidings, to be warned to cease work and stanbd out of teh way before shunting and in any event when shiunting the Driver had no need whatsoever to see inside a goods shed etc as he was working under the direction of the man in charge of the shunting work.

 

It was only after local staffing started to be really severely cut back in the 1960s that a Guard might finish up shunting on his own but for the more difficult/time consuming jobs a Travelling Shunter would be provided.   But of course by then local goods yards were becoming increasingly rare in any case.

[7007GreatWestern]

"Another snail-racing situation was drawing up to an adverse signal with a loose-coupled freight; here, the game was to keep the train in motion, even at a very slow speed, and not to actually stop, as this took time and was harder work for the loco, and even at a snail's pace, it is easier to pull away when the signal clears."

 

It would also have the advantage of making wheel slip less likely which was both inefficient and brought with it the attendant dangers of priming (carry-over). Additionally it would keep the couplings taught, thereby reducing the uncomfortable 'jolting' of wagons banging together.

 

Here is an excellent article on the LNER Encyclopaedia website describing the techniques used to safely control heavy unfitted freights in the steam era:-

 

https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4280

 

As you can see, this was a job requiring considerable skill and judgement, even in the ideal conditions of a 'good' locomotive in dry weather conditions. Managing such a train at night, in foul weather on a loco that was struggling for steam or adhesion must have been a nightmare!

 

[1466]

I never worked on the railway but I did spend time watching goods trains shunting at Mitcham .

The C2X would draw its train into the headshunt which fed a fan of sidings . The shutter/Porter would select a cut of wagons or a singleton van . The C2X would push them and stop whereupon the cut would slowly trundle over the points and into the desired siding . Now this was all dependent upon the shutter running alongside and applying the brakes by leaning on his shunting pole . So it went at , say ,  4 to 6 miles an hour. Shutters had to be athletic to repeatedly cover the ground including walking back to the engine for the next cut.

So my memory of the railway is of things moving at a slow pace but obviously workers wanted to get the job done . They weren’t intentionally slowing down but as the Johnster says there safely concerns ( not today’s Elf and safety ).

I concur with the Johnster about the value of today’s RTR and their slow running . Cromulent !

 

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, 7007GreatWestern said:

"Another snail-racing situation was drawing up to an adverse signal with a loose-coupled freight; here, the game was to keep the train in motion, even at a very slow speed, and not to actually stop, as this took time and was harder work for the loco, and even at a snail's pace, it is easier to pull away when the signal clears."

 

It would also have the advantage of making wheel slip less likely which was both inefficient and brought with it the attendant dangers of priming (carry-over). Additionally it would keep the couplings taught, thereby reducing the uncomfortable 'jolting' of wagons banging together.

 

Here is an excellent article on the LNER Encyclopaedia website describing the techniques used to safely control heavy unfitted freights in the steam era:-

 

https://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4280

 

As you can see, this was a job requiring considerable skill and judgement, even in the ideal conditions of a 'good' locomotive in dry weather conditions. Managing such a train at night, in foul weather on a loco that was struggling for steam or adhesion must have been a nightmare!

 

Wheel slip, my Uncle said he would make sure Union of South Africa did not slip (not an easy task) when he was asked to take it out of the + on its return to service in 1994......my Son and I stood on the adjacent platform to make sure  and my Son still has the lump of coal Uncle Ron threw to him, treasured piece of anthracite that is! 

 

I remember when I first started secondary school at Holloway Boys, I used to walk home via Hornsey Depot and often got an evening of riding around in the cab of an 08 while my Uncle shunted various wagons, back then I had no idea how precious those memories should have been.

[The Johnster]

I certainly shunted yards and private sidings on my own as a Canton goods guard in the 1970s, notably Rhoose and Aberthaw Cement Works and Marshfield, for the milk, but, as Stationmaster Mike says, this was becoming the exception rather than the rule by that time.  The jobs were in my link, though, and regular.  I also shunted places with ground staff and travelling shunters, and occasionally had to put wagons off with hot boxes at remote unstaffed outposts like Pontrilas or the remnants of Pontypool Road in the middle of the night.  When you were alone, you were the sole arbiter of speed, and I generally kept things to walking pace so I could keep up.

 

An aspect of yard shunting that any railwayman will instantly appreciate but is not necessarily immediately obvious to others is that of sight lines, and the importance of being somewhere the driver could easily see you, or the secondman if you were on that side of the loco.  It made a difference if the job was single manned in some places, and choosing a spot where the driver could see you and you could monitor the progress of the movement was essential.  An assistant on the ground who could relay your handsignals could speed matters up considerably here.  I see otherwise cromulent exhibition layouts being shunted where bridge abutments, signal boxes, cuttings, buildings and all sorts would have made life difficult in reality, necessitaing relayed hand signals or standing in the 4 foot of running lines with your back to the traffic so that the driver could see you on curves; real yards were laid out with this in mind.  Some places had shunters' platforms, at about footplate height and with footsteps up to them, to help with this problem.

 

Don't forget that, from the footplate viewpoint, you are trying to pick out a man on the ground dressed in drab clothing against whatever background there happens to be (but usually pretty drab itself) maybe up to 60 wagon lengths away round all sorts of curves and behind all sorts of various obstacles, and in a busy marshalling yard you had to be sure it was the right man as  well!  Drivers needed good eyesight, and not just for reading signals at a distance.  There were places I preferrred to be on the ground at night, where the driver could pick out my Bardic lamp more easily than my handsignals in daylight; yesterday's newspaper was often used to make handsignals more visible.  In practice, of course, there developed a sort of almost psychic communication between you and the driver, and I would be walking along a siding at the lead end of a shunt with the loco 40 wagon lengths away with my hand out and my fingers doing the signalling, effectively controlling 2,700 or so hp with a fingertip moving up and down through a range of an inch or so.

 

Another reason for very slow propelling into goods sheds was clearance; another of my link jobs was the Pontypridd Parcels with a Hymek, later a 37, which included propelling into the Brunel shed in the yard there, which had very tight clearances in the entrance, so that any movement through it had to take place very carefully.  Fog, of course, slowed things down dramatically, as did snow and ice, which made walking diffiuclt at best and treacherous at worst.  Aberthaw Cement was always a slippery place where care had to taken as in wet weather, not unknown on the South Wales coast, the grey cement slurry mud that was all-pervading and a very narrow pathway between the embankment and the siding meant that you had to be very careful; a fall would put you under a Presflo faster than the driver could react to it.  You wanted to get home for supper, but you wanted the same number of legs you started the day with as well!

 

There were also 'easing up' movements, which, with screw couplings, meant that the man had to go in between the vehicles.  You would protect yourself by ensuring that the brakes were applied on the cut being shunted into, and if you were on your own would prop the shunting pole against the first wagon to remind the driver that you were there but out of sight, and I would wait while the easing up move was completed before going in there, but many guards and shunters didn't, trusting the drivers implicitly and absolutely to save time.  For a single move, the time saved was never, in my view, worth the risk, but it made a big difference over a shift of carriage shed shunting.

 

Another of my link jobs was a booked Sunday Pengam (Cardiff FLT) to Felixtowe, work to Swindon for relief and work a down Padd-Swansea back.  This was single manned for the driver. and I was required to act as secondman for the light engine movement off  Canton (52 or 47), and, because the headshunt at Pengam follows the curve of the docks branch, had to remain in the cab with the driver to relay shunting signals from my side; incidentally, there was one of the aforementioned shunting platforms here, and an indicator light to tell you when you had cleared with 15, the maximum the headshunt would allow.  You had to keep an eye on what was happening behind you here as well, as because of the curvature the driver could not see how close the other end of the engine was to the stop block; we were much less fussy about changing ends in those days, bad boys we were...  As the back working was a passenger job, you didn't want to get off the loco and do any coupling up or uncoupling yourself because you wanted to keep your uniform clean.

 

On one occasion, a gloomy winter evening with the yard floodlights on, I was alarmed to see a shunter running out from under the road bridge with his arms waving and, simultaneously, noticed that one of the floodlight towers was rocking a bit.  I told the driver 'red light, stop', but a derailed wagon that we were dragging out of the yard had severed all the signalling cables and the main running lines were affected.  We were told to abandon ship and the minibus picked us up to travel on the cushions up to Swindon for our back working.

[David C]

Don't know why I bothered to look inside this thread. Although I model the WR, my layout is a BLT on which a mogul would never be seen, so any discussion of the latest model of one of these would be of no real interest to me at all. But I am really glad I did! The previous contribution by The Johnster and those of all the others above were fascinating giving a real insight into railway work  - and also how dangerous it was. 'Elf and Safety is the subject of a great many moans and I have, during my own working life (not on the railways, I hasten to add), been guilty of joining in the moaning and groaning too.

 

I changed my mind when David Maidment gave a talk to the MRC a few years ago. He had been asked by the BRB to look into the subject after the Clapham rail crash and found that at the time, an horrendous number (I think he quoted 40, but can't be sure) of railwaymen were being killed every year. He then was involved in developing H & S practices on BR until he retired quite a few years ago now. Nowadays that 40 (or whatever) is down to a very few indeed. 

 

So, thanks, gents. Your memories will make me look at how I operate my own layouts in the future. There is a huge amount of valuable memories on here of professional railwaymen which ought to be saved. Could not these all be gathered in one place on RMWeb? I only stumbled on these discussions by accident ...

 

David C

 

 

 

 

 

[The Johnster]

H & S was taken very seriously by the railways even back in steam days, but the culture was that you were responsible for your own safety while you were on the job.  Per Way and shunting were probably the most dangerous, and despite the carnage, you would see shunters and guards, and others, doing frankly stupid things in order to save a few seconds, such as crawling in between vehicles as a short cut, using shunting poles as brake sticks (of course, we all knew that brake sticks were for playing back-of-the-cabin baseball).  I witnessed an accident at Canton Carriage in which a shunter got his hand crushed between buffers, and then saw a man doing the exact same thing a week later.  We rarely bothered to change ends during shunting, which we should have, and loco sheds could be particuarly lethal if you didn't keep to the prescribed walkways, which were lit and had rails protecting you at the blind spots.  On shed, locos could move off without warning and did not always have their lights on.

 

We were pretty casual about official walking routes as well (though I had a slightly different attiude after a near miss with the up Fish on the river bridge at Newport),  The most used for me was Canton-Cardiff Central, allowed 25 minutes, footbridge/De Croche Place, Ninian Park Road, Tudor St., Wood Street bridge, Central Square.  You would usually set off in the general direction of the carriage shed to get a lift, and if there was nothing about, usually in the small hours of the night, you'd blithely cross the 4 running lines of the up and down Llandaff Loop and up and down Barry, walk the cess as far as the site of West Box, and there was a proper footpath the rest of the way.  Crossing Clare Road bridge there was very little clearance between any train that happened along and the parapet.  But, of course, 'we knew what we were doing'.

 

But marshalling yard shunting was the most dangerous; it really was the quick and the dead here, a young man's game requiring lightning reflexes and agility to stay out of trouble.  Swansea High Street goods, where one of my link jobs was to assist making up a fully fitted NCL goods, scared the bejaysus out of me, even in daylight, with wagons and vans appearing from around the blind corner of the NCL shed down the bank under gravity and the shunters sending them in all directions apparently at random, including on to your train.  Radyr was pretty scary as well, as Mike will no doubt confirm; if you were putting the train off from the top end, rather than running in to Quarry reception, the loco pulled up beyond the station on the relief roads at an indicator light around the corner out of sight up by Radyr Weir.  Driver would set back when the indicator flashed, so you were propelled southwards without warning in the van, and the shunters began uncoupling the train into cuts, on the move.  Next thing, you would be freewheeling into a curved road in the dark between lines of 21tonners or coke hoppers with no idea if it was an empty road or if the Quarry shunters had sent another cut up the road in the opposite direction.  You couldn't stop the cut too early, or it might block the junction, and you would try to get about half way along (they were all through roads between the Junction and Quarry) before putting your brake on, though on more than one occasion I had to wind it on early when obstructing wagons loomed up out of the dark and on a few occasions was obliged to abandon ship.  The shunters revelled in this, and loved scaring the pants off Canton guards...

 

Even walking around was scary at Radyr.  There were walkways between the roads, but they were not especially generous, and you would be walking along a curved narrow canyon flooded with washery water, solid ice in winter, between rakes of coal wagons which occasionally moved a little as a cut hit them from the Junction end, about 6 inches clear of your elbows on each side.  You could rely on good train preparation here, and after a while I learned to trust it, and wait for the van to appear from the mess in the well lit area towards the Quarry end, where the driver could see me climbing aboard it and exchange tips, knowing that the train was in good order and that all I had to do was set a match to the already laid stove and put the already trimmed and filled lamps on their brackets.  It was my responsibility to ensure that the train was in a safe condition to travel, not the train preparers, and had anything gone amiss, it would have been me that carried the can, but I reckoned this way was probably safer overall.  Sometimes you were in a position to make that sort of call.

 

The opposite was Margam; generous footways and superb lighting, but when it came to train preparation you were on your own in indian country, often having to couple parts of the train and any vacuum pipes, having to scratch around for van equipment, stove coal, lamps, burners, lamp oil; pretty much everything, and on one occasion, having prepped a van, they pinched if for a down line working while I was giving the driver the load and I had to start all over again.  Bunch of *****.

[melmerby]

17 hours ago, The Johnster said:

H & S was taken very seriously by the railways even back in steam days,

 

Not so sure about that.

I went on a school shed bash in about 1959/60 ( most of us apart from the school master were about 12 or 13)

We went to about 8 sheds in the Manchester area and the only place there was any what we would call H & S was Reddish, which was an electric depot for the Woodhead route.

We went there to see the EM1s and EM2s and were properly escorted by a person who acted as instructor and included cab visits and some demonstration of things about the electrics.

Everywhere else we were just given free rein, including Gorton, which was a huge sprawling site and Trafford Park both of which had locos constantly moving around.

[The Johnster]

As I said, the culture was that you were expected to take care of and be responsible for your own safety at work or in working environments.  The legislation demanded that the railway provided you with any safety equipment you might need, but it was up to you to go to the Stores and ask for it, and up to you to use it when it was needed.   The usual reason that train spotters (myself included back in the day) were evicted from sheds was on safety grounds, and trespassing on the railway was discouraged for this reason as well. 

 

Most sheds were poorly fenced and some were more or less open house, like Radyr or East Dock in Cardiff, but where the only way in was through the office, like Bath Road or Holbeck, you had to ask and were usually turned away.  Even I could see the point sometimes, keen as I was; a group of us did Oxley in the winter of 1965 in thick fog, crossing running lines to get in.  That felt like pushing our luck at the time, and, luckily, on a Saturday afternoon there wasn't much moving, but by the time we came back out the light was failing as well.  I still have no idea what Oxley looked like...

[7007GreatWestern]

21 hours ago, The Johnster said:

H & S was taken very seriously by the railways even back in steam days, 

Generations of Footplatemen attended informal training groups, in the own time called Mutual Improvement Classes. This seems to have been the case in most if not all the Railway Companies in the steam era. In his book "The Great Western's Last War : Efficiency in Adversity", Adrian Vaughan says the following:-

 

"Footplatemen took a profound interest in their work. Most engine sheds had 'Mutual Improvement Classes' where experienced Drivers gave weekly lessons to any member of the loco staff on the technicalities of driving, firing and how the locomotive and its brakes worked......The 'MIC' was entirely a voluntary activity...The GWR had no official part in the proceedings which were supported by the time and money of the men'

 

I should be added that the Company Rule book, the bedrock of safe operations on each railway would also be taught at MICs and enginemen were expected to commit much of it to memory.

 

There was even a National Federation of Mutual Improvement Classes - an indicator that this level of diligence and professional commitment was not specific to the GWR.

 

As a former footplate volunteer at a well known preserved railway, I had the pleasure of attending a few MICs around 2000 delivered by two former GWR footplatemen! That's a memory I will cherish.

 

My point is this: I believe Railwaymen have always taken their responsibilities incredibly seriously. The difference is that H&S is now enforced 'Top-Down' by a branch of Government. In the steam era it was driven 'Bottom-up' by men who knew only too well the responsibilities they had to the travelling public, their workmates and themselves. They were to a large extent, simply left to their own devices.

 

If installations such as engine sheds were run down and neglected towards the end of the steam era I believe that has more to do with the shocking run-down of the railways due to underinvestment, than the attitudes of individual railwaymen.

[JST]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

As I said, the culture was that you were expected to take care of and be responsible for your own safety at work or in working environments.  The legislation demanded that the railway provided you with any safety equipment you might need, but it was up to you to go to the Stores and ask for it, and up to you to use it when it was needed.   The usual reason that train spotters (myself included back in the day) were evicted from sheds was on safety grounds, and trespassing on the railway was discouraged for this reason as well. 

 

Most sheds were poorly fenced and some were more or less open house, like Radyr or East Dock in Cardiff, but where the only way in was through the office, like Bath Road or Holbeck, you had to ask and were usually turned away.  Even I could see the point sometimes, keen as I was; a group of us did Oxley in the winter of 1965 in thick fog, crossing running lines to get in.  That felt like pushing our luck at the time, and, luckily, on a Saturday afternoon there wasn't much moving, but by the time we came back out the light was failing as well.  I still have no idea what Oxley looked like...

 

We kept asking but never got allowed into Bath Road. However, got in in the end by getting into St Philips Marsh shed , walking along the track, over the girder bridge and  in the back way! Despite the H&S hazards you don't see as a 12 year old it was worth it because "Falcon" was parked at the back of the shed not visible from Temple Meads. Surprised the shed Forman when we ran up the exit steps past his office! The only shed we failed to get into (despite several attempts) was Templecombe on the S&D The shed foreman seemed to have radar telling him we were coming. There was an open yard between the entrance gate and the shed/office and we never made it over that no man's land!

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

As I said, the culture was that you were expected to take care of and be responsible for your own safety at work or in working environments.  The legislation demanded that the railway provided you with any safety equipment you might need, but it was up to you to go to the Stores and ask for it, and up to you to use it when it was needed.   The usual reason that train spotters (myself included back in the day) were evicted from sheds was on safety grounds, and trespassing on the railway was discouraged for this reason as well. 

 

Most sheds were poorly fenced and some were more or less open house, like Radyr or East Dock in Cardiff, but where the only way in was through the office, like Bath Road or Holbeck, you had to ask and were usually turned away.  Even I could see the point sometimes, keen as I was; a group of us did Oxley in the winter of 1965 in thick fog, crossing running lines to get in.  That felt like pushing our luck at the time, and, luckily, on a Saturday afternoon there wasn't much moving, but by the time we came back out the light was failing as well.  I still have no idea what Oxley looked like...

Way

 

The attitude of the Foreman & staff dictated the chances of getting in and staying in

Some, such as Saltley, I got evicted from several times, so once in you needed to be very inconspicuous, Tyseley was less of a problem once you were in (via the builders yard next door)

Stafford Road & Bushbury were OK, never got to Oxley. Me and a schoolchum got nabbed in Bournville trying to unscrew the smokebox number plate off a geriatric, withdrawn Midland 2F.

We were just sent on our way after a good ear-bashing.

Managed to do Derby shed & the works more than once, entry again from a next door site.

[geoffers]

Managed to do Templecombe but it was on Saturday 5th March, 1966, and no-one cared anymore, there were few shed movements and everyone and his dog were there doing it it too.  Managed Weymouth shed once but that was about it. Never managed Bournemouth shed but you did get a good view of it from the end of the long down platform.

[B10M]

Hi all, 

 

Some additional pics to be uploaded in due course but thought I'd share this particular pic first (which I didn't even plan on capturing or demonstrating at the time lol)

 

It shows that the trailing truck bogie being as thick and chunky as it is between the bunker floor and the axle itself is far too much and this causing it to lift the mid and rear wheels as we all know by know is an unfortunate feature to say the least.

[melmerby]

Wrong piccy?

[Hal Nail]

31 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Wrong piccy?

It's showing the back wheels are being held off the deck?

[Marshall5]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Wrong piccy?

I'm thinking that that's the 7mm scale Lionheart by Dapol 45xx.

Ray.

[7007GreatWestern]

1 hour ago, Marshall5 said:

I'm thinking that that's the 7mm scale Lionheart by Dapol 45xx.

Ray.

I'm thinking Lionheart wouldn't produce a model with those God-awful bendy slidebars. No, that is Dapol 4mm.

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, B10M said:

It shows that the trailing truck bogie being as thick and chunky as it is between the bunker floor and the axle itself is far too much

 

2 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

It's showing the back wheels are being held off the deck?

 

I was expecting to see the rear truck as well

[B10M]

19 minutes ago, melmerby said:

 

 

I was expecting to see the rear truck as well

I wasn't initially trying to show the issue but merely took some photos of it since blackening the wheel tyres. Just glancing through the many pics I noticed that above. 

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, Marshall5 said:

I'm thinking that that's the 7mm scale Lionheart by Dapol 45xx.

Ray.

Not with the tank to footplate gap in that pic.

[Butler Henderson]

11 hours ago, 7007GreatWestern said:

I'm thinking Lionheart wouldn't produce a model with those God-awful bendy slidebars. No, that is Dapol 4mm.

And the side tank lifting away from the running plate. An almost old RM type review of a BR one in Model Rail describing it as excellent with a query on the shade of green yet the photo next to a real one clearly shows the slide bar issue.

[martinT]

16 hours ago, geoffers said:

Managed to do Templecombe but it was on Saturday 5th March, 1966, and no-one cared anymore, there were few shed movements and everyone and his dog were there doing it it too. 

Me too!

 

[B10M]

Here's a better pic... 

 

Also, the slide bars, I've had the body off a d they will not straighten up sadly, I think the only way to straighten these would be to try and remove them from the cylinder blocks and refit them at a better angle. 

 

The running plate being bent is a tad disappointing, not even going to attempt a fix.

Edited December 21, 2021 by B10M
I left my brain in bed!