Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[Gypsy]

57 minutes ago, durham light infantry said:

 

The radio sets deployed at Arnhem worked as per their intended use. That the Parachute Brigade was dispersed over a wide area, and that 30 Corps was unable to close the range were the real issues. The sets only had a range of 2-5 miles using the battery technology of the day to make them man portable. The bridge was 7 miles from the DZ and 30 Corps closest advance was 12 miles short.

 

Both the WS18 and the WS22 were HF manpack sets - okay they were at the lower end of the HF frequency range and atmospherics play a BIG part in HF wireless comms but in training I used a slighly more modern set (PRC 320) to talk from Salisbury Plain to the Falklands (albeit with a large dipole wire antenna) and on deployment regularly used a 1.2 metre whip anetnna to contact Portishead Radio from the Balkans in atrocious weather. Okay, skywave is a bit of a black art but it can give you comms at a continent spanning level as well as at a much more local level if there are big RF blocking things (fjord walls, mountains etc) or the direct line of sight range is iffy.

 

None of this was news to signallers in WW1, let alone WW2.

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, durham light infantry said:

 

The radio sets deployed at Arnhem worked as per their intended use. That the Parachute Brigade was dispersed over a wide area, and that 30 Corps was unable to close the range were the real issues. The sets only had a range of 2-5 miles using the battery technology of the day to make them man portable. The bridge was 7 miles from the DZ and 30 Corps closest advance was 12 miles short.

 

Exactly, they didn't work given the intended task I think that they used type 38 sets, yet the type 18 manpack set had a range of ten miles and given how strung out the operation was a twenty mile range set would have been a better choice. AFV's could apparently reach the forward positions by radio but they couldn't respond.

[MrWolf]

29 minutes ago, Gypsy said:

 

Both the WS18 and the WS22 were HF manpack sets - okay they were at the lower end of the HF frequency range and atmospherics play a BIG part in HF wireless comms but in training I used a slighly more modern set (PRC 320) to talk from Salisbury Plain to the Falklands (albeit with a large dipole wire antenna) and on deployment regularly used a 1.2 metre whip anetnna to contact Portishead Radio from the Balkans in atrocious weather. Okay, skywave is a bit of a black art but it can give you comms at a continent spanning level as well as at a much more local level if there are big RF blocking things (fjord walls, mountains etc) or the direct line of sight range is iffy.

 

None of this was news to signallers in WW1, let alone WW2.

 

One of my former Engineer friends had a lovely HF burn on the last two fingers of his left hand, caused whilst dismantling a whip aerial on a vehicle and some chump  keyed up whilst he was doing it. It took ages to heal up, I have had a similar incident being clumsy with a Tig welder in sub zero temperatures, still got a divot in my left calf!

[MrWolf]

Um....

 

 

Possibly my fault for the Audi TT, but I couldn't resist.

[John Besley]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

All this talk of Fords, which aren't actually British.

 

And @St Enodoc is right about the Escort. It looked like this in the mid fifties, with an up market fake wood trimmed station wagon version called the Squire, after the more successful US Country Squire.

 

 

I think that the car should have been a Vauxhall. It is a historically British brand that speaks volumes about the country as a whole.

A long established company who saw a gap in the market and became one of the pioneers of the industry, building the highest quality vehicles, selling all over the world and becoming so popular one was even named for foreign royalty.

They ended up having to be saved by the Americans and now assemble bought in parts using cheaper labour in foreign factories for a lot of their products.

 

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

All this talk of Fords, which aren't actually British.

 

And @St Enodoc is right about the Escort. It looked like this in the mid fifties, with an up market fake wood trimmed station wagon version called the Squire, after the more successful US Country Squire.

 

 

I think that the car should have been a Vauxhall. It is a historically British brand that speaks volumes about the country as a whole.

A long established company who saw a gap in the market and became one of the pioneers of the industry, building the highest quality vehicles, selling all over the world and becoming so popular one was even named for foreign royalty.

They ended up having to be saved by the Americans and now assemble bought in parts using cheaper labour in foreign factories for a lot of their products.

 

I look at that and wonder, why on earth can't cars be built these days that have some style, I'd love a van version of the original escort or a Morris Minor...

 

Just imagine being able to drive something that has style instead of a French made van that has a build quality of zero and the fleet providers want us to go electric... one of our engineers had an electric van for a week on trial and had to wait at a services for 1.5 hours while it recharged enough to get home then couldnt park outside his house to charge up on an extention lead overnight as both his service visits 300 mile round trip didn't have charging points 

 

You can keep yer milk floats thank you

 

Sorry rant over I feel better now

[MrWolf]

Back on the layout, the coal bunker has found its home, right at the base of the ramp so that gravity aids tipping a barrow of coal in there. It is of course part filled with about a wheelbarrow worth of small coal.

Now I can paint and detail the area around the water crane and the cattle dock.

Some kind of coal store for the signal box might be an idea too.

 

[MrWolf]

7 minutes ago, John Besley said:

 

 

I look at that and wonder, why on earth can't cars be built these days that have some style, I'd love a van version of the original escort or a Morris Minor...

 

Just imagine being able to drive something that has style instead of a French made van that has a build quality of zero and the fleet providers want us to go electric... one of our engineers had an electric van for a week on trial and had to wait at a services for 1.5 hours while it recharged enough to get home then couldnt park outside his house to charge up on an extention lead overnight as both his service visits 300 mile round trip didn't have charging points 

 

You can keep yer milk floats thank you

 

Sorry rant over I feel better now

 

I feel exactly the same. I was lucky enough to be riding around in this at the weekend though!

 

[MrWolf]

Another old wreck fell through the letterbox this morning. It runs really well, although both traction tyres are missing. The body is severely cosmetically challenged.

It's going to be a source of spares for the other locos, I'm seriously considering swapping the traction tyre wheels on the 517 for the plain wheels off this wreck to improve pick-up.

Other bits are being parted out for projects or going into the spares stash.

 

[MrWolf]

Another eBay find was this relic from the same era or perhaps a little earlier? 

This is what I meant on page one of this thread about so much of the things that you could buy to help you build yourself a company or locality specific model railway when I was in middle school just aren't out there anymore.

There is a plan forming in the background for a number of very small modules that are all related to the Clun Valley Railway theme.

 

Anyone remember this? 

 

[St Enodoc]

43 minutes ago, John Besley said:

I'd love a van version of the original escort

That would be the 300E 5cwt or 7cwt.

 

44 minutes ago, John Besley said:

the fleet providers want us to go electric

Harrods used electric delivery vans decades ago.

Edited March 9, 2023 by St Enodoc

[St Enodoc]

30 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Another old wreck fell through the letterbox this morning.

Either you have a rather large letter box or she was very slim.

[stevel]

22 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Another eBay find was this relic from the same era or perhaps a little earlier? 

This is what I meant on page one of this thread about so much of the things that you could buy to help you build yourself a company or locality specific model railway when I was in middle school just aren't out there anymore.

There is a plan forming in the background for a number of very small modules that are all related to the Clun Valley Railway theme.

 

Anyone remember this? 

 

I Have never seen this kit, is it a Baulk rail model, and as for the loss of so many things we took for granted 30 years ago! thats why I turned to 3d printing.

[MrWolf]

30 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Harrods used electric delivery vans decades ago.

 

Sixty miles between charges and eighteen miles per hour flat out!

 

Still, given the way that the council is stuffing Londoners, that's a good day!

[MrWolf]

28 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Either you have a rather large letter box or she was very slim.

 

....."Fortunately I learned long ago that the man who is prepared to go home alone than with someone who he isn't actually attracted to does better in life and love than he who believes that all the girls are pretty at closing time".....

 

Extract from:

Cor blimey mate! I don't fancy yours much! 

(Lord Byron, 1814.)

 

 

[MrWolf]

48 minutes ago, stevel said:

I Have never seen this kit, is it a Baulk rail model, and as for the loss of so many things we took for granted 30 years ago! thats why I turned to 3d printing.

 

I seem to remember similar models on GWR layouts in the monthly comics from circa 1980, but I've never seen a kit. The name Wiskits rings a bell, but this is the first time I have owned one.

It does represent one of the cattle docks made from old broad gauge rail and consists of three identical sprues, allowing you build a one bay dock of 10' x 21' or combine several to make a dock as big as you need. The gates are the same design as those of the Ratio GWR cattle dock which has concrete posts and steel rod rails.

There's microstrip to represent the infill rails between the baulk rail horizontals, though I expect that to be like the Dead Sea Scrolls by now. 

 

On the back there is an address and a (curiously crossed out) message: Thank you there will be further items through Mike's Models in Holts yours Mike W.

 

I take it that Wiskits was the injection moulding side of Mike's Models?

 

[St Enodoc]

46 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

I seem to remember similar models on GWR layouts in the monthly comics from circa 1980, but I've never seen a kit. The name Wiskits rings a bell, but this is the first time I have owned one.

It does represent one of the cattle docks made from old broad gauge rail and consists of three identical sprues, allowing you build a one bay dock of 10' x 21' or combine several to make a dock as big as you need. The gates are the same design as those of the Ratio GWR cattle dock which has concrete posts and steel rod rails.

There's microstrip to represent the infill rails between the baulk rail horizontals, though I expect that to be like the Dead Sea Scrolls by now. 

 

On the back there is an address and a (curiously crossed out) message: Thank you there will be further items through Mike's Models in Holts yours Mike W.

 

I take it that Wiskits was the injection moulding side of Mike's Models?

 

Different Mike. Mike's Models was the late Mike Sharman, of 1860s triple gauge layout, and wheels, fame.

[stevel]

52 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

I seem to remember similar models on GWR layouts in the monthly comics from circa 1980, but I've never seen a kit. The name Wiskits rings a bell, but this is the first time I have owned one.

It does represent one of the cattle docks made from old broad gauge rail and consists of three identical sprues, allowing you build a one bay dock of 10' x 21' or combine several to make a dock as big as you need. The gates are the same design as those of the Ratio GWR cattle dock which has concrete posts and steel rod rails.

There's microstrip to represent the infill rails between the baulk rail horizontals, though I expect that to be like the Dead Sea Scrolls by now. 

 

On the back there is an address and a (curiously crossed out) message: Thank you there will be further items through Mike's Models in Holts yours Mike W.

 

I take it that Wiskits was the injection moulding side of Mike's Models?

 

looking forward to seeing this built, as this is one of those items I was thinking of designing in Fusion 360, and printing. I seem to remember seeing a drawing many years ago, but don't remember where it was.

I suspect this is the construction method for Penryn cattle dock, but the only picture I can find, has only the ramp and base left. 

[MrWolf]

6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Different Mike. Mike's Models was the late Mike Sharman, of 1860s triple gauge layout, and wheels, fame.

 

Thanks for clearing that up, I had (wrongly) made the connection because the only source of Mike's Models now is via Holt Model Railways in South Wales.

 

I remember the steam powered scotch derrick he used to sell, an awesome model for it's time and one that fetches serious money on the odd occasion one turns up on eBay.

[Limpley Stoker]

2 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Another old wreck fell through the letterbox this morning. It runs really well, although both traction tyres are missing. The body is severely cosmetically challenged.

It's going to be a source of spares for the other locos, I'm seriously considering swapping the traction tyre wheels on the 517 for the plain wheels off this wreck to improve pick-up.

Other bits are being parted out for projects or going into the spares stash.

 

This must be the donor for the chimney screw,

[Stubby47]

8 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

....."Fortunately I learned long ago that the man who is prepared to go home alone than with someone who he isn't actually attracted to does better in life and love than he who believes that all the girls are pretty at closing time".....

 

Extract from:

Cor blimey mate! I don't fancy yours much! 

(Lord Byron, 1814.)

 

 

 

Not a bad philosophy to follow when you have Miss RRH at home with a wide selection of lethal weapons 

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Stubby47 said:

 

Not a bad philosophy to follow when you have Miss RRH at home with a wide selection of lethal weapons 

 

I like to think that is the philosophy which brought her into my life in the first place .

[MrWolf]

8 hours ago, Limpley Stoker said:

This must be the donor for the chimney screw,

 

I think that I found the original for the 517, they're actually much smaller than you imagine, nothing like a Tri-ang or Wrenn / Dublo chimney screw, they're only a plain screw about 10mm long.

[Nick C]

11 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Sixty miles between charges and eighteen miles per hour flat out!

 

Still, given the way that the council is stuffing Londoners, that's a good day!

A quick googling suggests that average traffic speeds in inner London have hovered around 12mph since the 70s (though in the centre they've dropped a bit to around 7 just before Covid, back to around 9 now).

 

So that 60 mile range will do you 5 hours of driving - easily enough for all day once you've added in loading/unloading time...

[Rowsley17D]

13 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Back on the layout, the coal bunker has found its home, right at the base of the ramp so that gravity aids tipping a barrow of coal in there. It is of course part filled with about a wheelbarrow worth of small coal.

Now I can paint and detail the area around the water crane and the cattle dock.

Some kind of coal store for the signal box might be an idea too.

 

 

I don't know if you have room Mr W, but would there have been some sort of boarding to stop crew tripping over the point rodding when accessing the water crane?

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

A quick googling suggests that average traffic speeds in inner London have hovered around 12mph since the 70s (though in the centre they've dropped a bit to around 7 just before Covid, back to around 9 now).

 

So that 60 mile range will do you 5 hours of driving - easily enough for all day once you've added in loading/unloading time...

 

Not much cop for the likes of @John Besley and his friend with their average 300 mile round trips though. Technology still hasn't caught up.

London has had electric milk floats, refuse vehicles, trams, trolleybuses, mail and commercial vehicles for a century or more. It always makes me smile when some local authority blows their trumpet about buying green buses yadda yadda. All been done before and then abandoned. Funny how those European chaps can do it, despite being nearly extinct twice.

 

Although, if London went all electric with 18mph limiters on everything bar emergency vehicles, I suspect that khan and his cronies would be bankrupt overnight...