Blacker Lane D.P.

[Mol_PMB]

I do like the concrete slab breaking up under the weight of such traffic. I’m just glad it’s not my own driveway!

[Ruston]

Another couple of pics of the dump truck. I'd like a 4-wheeled Foden half-cab, or a Scammell Mountaineer, but I don't think anyone does kits or diecasts of them.

 

[DLT]

Just had a good catchup, lovely modelling!

Cheers, Dave.

[birdseyecircus]

Best I can find for the Leyland is this AEC from the former atlas stobart range.

Paul

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296108919555?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=gxVK43gCQpS&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=vnpb2crgrsi&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Edit: cheaper versions available!

Edited January 9 by birdseyecircus
Additional text

[Ruston]

Making a conveyor to go between the screens and loader buildings.

[Dunalastair]

On 08/01/2024 at 17:59, Ruston said:

Another couple of pics of the dump truck. I'd like a 4-wheeled Foden half-cab, or a Scammell Mountaineer, but I don't think anyone does kits or diecasts of them.

 

Not to your standards and eight wheel rather than four. I cannot immediately see a reference to the scale, so the chances of being able to chop it about to make the shorter version are probably slim.

 

https://lonestardcmt.co.uk/impy-42-tilcon-foden

 

I think Budgie did a cruder three axle diecast of the earlier cab style.

[Ruston]

40 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

 

Not to your standards and eight wheel rather than four. I cannot immediately see a reference to the scale, so the chances of being able to chop it about to make the shorter version are probably slim.

 

https://lonestardcmt.co.uk/impy-42-tilcon-foden

 

I think Budgie did a cruder three axle diecast of the earlier cab style.

I was looking at those on Google. It's not what I meant by a Foden half-cab, but if it was the correct size I expect something could be done with it. The Foden I was thinking of was a proper off-road dumper, such as this one.

 

[paulj]

I saw this on ebay if it's of use.

 

1:76 00/4mm a.b.s R.600 EUCLID R50 Ton OFF ROAD DUMP TRUCK WHITE METAL 'KIT'

 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175952279436?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=l8QLlxudT9i&sssrc=2047675&ssuid=yBlCK8gKS9G&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

Regards

Paul

[Dunalastair]

That generation of Euclid looks rather over-sized (and modern) for use with railways, though not as over-sized as e.g. some Terex machines.  Earlier generations of Euclid were used in the latter days of the Northamptonshire ironstone quarries, running on private concrete roadways and tipping into ironstone tippler wagons for haulage to the steelworks, often as an alternative to extending NG tramways. Eric Tonks has photographs of some of those operations in his series of ironstone railway books. There is a certain rugged appeal to the half-cab dumper, just as half-cab single-decker buses speak of an earlier era.

 

The Cottesmore Euclid may not be half-cab but is an interesting survival.

 

 

The Dinky and ?Matchbox versions of this capture the outline, in all its distinctive three-windscreen glory. I used three of the Matchbox 6B versions on an OO9 quarry layout, but they were very underscale - apparently 1:108.

Edited January 12 by Dunalastair

[mac1960]

My first degree was Mining Engineering and I spent a lot of time in the Yorkshire Coalfield as a student. The mines I was often in were around Wakefield and Barnsley. I don’t remember Scamell contractors being around then . I did see them in Africa but later with Availing Barford .

Cheers

Mac

[Ruston]

Progress on the conveyor. I won't be making all of the rollers and belt as they would be mostly concealed by the roof and wooden planks on the sides. The roof ought to be curved corrugated iron but I will probably have to put a peaked roof on this one. I can't work out how to put a curve in the corrugated aluminium that goes against the corrugations. I haven't actually attempted it yet but I get the feeling it will crinkle and warp.

 

I installed that guard rail around the concreted area but it was only glued on and has already been knocked out of place by my clumsy hands. It will have to come off and have lengths of brass wire soldered on so that holes can be drilled into the wood beneath. I was going to also have a chain link fence around the edge but it would interfere with coupling operations. In addition to being scenic, one of the reasons for having this raised and concreted area free from buildings and what not is to give somewhere to rest my hand when using the shunting pole and having a fence would prevent that.

 

The conveyor has paint on it and is presently drying in the shed.

 

 

 

 

[Ruston]

The screens building now has the roof covered with CI.

 

And I have been putting together an internal use re-railing/P.W. train. I pick up cheap second hand wagons at my local model shop now and again and give them a repaint and weathering. Always the ones where the tension link couplings are missing - there's usually a substantial price difference when the couplings are missing. I think the steel dropside is a Cambrian kit, a GWR Starfish and the van is a Cooper Craft Mink. The flat is a cut down RCH mineral, an Oxford model that had damage to the body.

 

 

 

I'll put some ash ballast,  sleepers and the chairs that Rob gave me in the Starfish and some tools and junk on the flat wagon.

 

 

[maridunian]

4 hours ago, Ruston said:

 The roof ought to be curved corrugated iron but I will probably have to put a peaked roof on this one. I can't work out how to put a curve in the corrugated aluminium that goes against the corrugations. I haven't actually attempted it yet but I get the feeling it will crinkle and warp.

All looking excellent!

 

Ratio polystyrene corrugated roofing curves the right way. It's roughly 5thou thick so can easily be curved around a former to get a smaller radius.

 

https://peco-uk.com/products/corrugated-roof

 

Mike 

[Covkid]

On 11/01/2024 at 18:09, Ruston said:

I was looking at those on Google. It's not what I meant by a Foden half-cab, but if it was the correct size I expect something could be done with it. The Foden I was thinking of was a proper off-road dumper, such as this one.

 

Fond memories of Foden "halfcabs" Dave but my memories were of the slightly bigger three axle trucks used by Hayward's of South Wales in the 1970s. They had a huge land reclamation scheme in the valley above Corris, drawing the slate tips down from above Braichgoch quarry and reshaping the valley.

 

From my memories they used Cat D8Hs dozing and with scraper boxes, around half dozen Fodens, a small handful of fairly new Volvo BM artic dumpers and a collection of Poclain "360s".

 

The Fodens were quite beaten up but had the feature where the exhaust was fed through the tipper body to make the load easier to tip.  I remember the exhaust smoke coming out the tipper body. 

 

Great work as always Dave

[Ruston]

15 hours ago, maridunian said:

All looking excellent!

 

Ratio polystyrene corrugated roofing curves the right way. It's roughly 5thou thick so can easily be curved around a former to get a smaller radius.

 

https://peco-uk.com/products/corrugated-roof

 

Mike 

Thanks. I've had a go with the aluminium and it seems to take being bent quite well. I'm just looking for a cardboard tube to cut up to use as a base to stick the ally sheets to now.

[Ruston]

I found a roll of kitchen foil with not much left on it, so used the cardboard centre. The corrugated panels were bent over a paint bottle and glued to the cardboard.

 

Here's the roof with still wet paint.

I put in some short lengths of plastic rod to represent the return rollers and stuck a length of painted cornflakes packet card on as the return of the belt. I'm now tempted to make all of the troughing rollers and belt and leave the sides partially open, with just low windboards, so the belt can be seen. I won't go into the detail of bolt heads and what not as none of it will be viewed closely but a representation of the rollers and belt will suffice.

 

[Ruston]

It's not quite finished but I had to try it in position and then have a play with the trainset.

 

 

 

 

 

I still need a lot of trees. I wanted to buy some from MBR https://en.mbrmodel.eu/ but that website hasn't been working for weeks. It's all jumbled up on the screen and if you follow the links you can eventually get to pages with pictures of the trees but I can't find how to add them to a shopping basket. I've seen these trees on other people's layouts and they look really good, so I don't want to end up using Woodland Scenics trees but it looks like I will have to.

[GWR57xx]

Wow. There is virtually nothing in those photos that would lead me to believe they are of a model rather than the real thing.

Perhaps, on the last shot, the bottom link of the 08’s three link coupler is not perfect but that is being really picky!

Superb modelling.

[Barclay]

Just 10 months since you started the baseboards! It's an absolutely lovely piece of work. The textures and colours of the ground surfaces I find particularly convincing.

[Ruston]

This looks like it's going to be a bit of a challenge to say the least!

It's a cast resin kit, from Milicast, for a Caterpillar D7 dozer. It is to go on the waste tip. It's probably a bit too old as a prototype for the later period of the site but it's suitable for the 1950s and perhaps even the 60s. Ideally I wanted a D8, as I have driven one of those, but this seems to be as near and as large a dozer as I can find. There does seem to be a lack of earth moving plant in 4mm.

 

Langley do a Drott B125, which is certainly suitable for the 70s and 80s, so I will also get one of those at some point.

[4630]

2 minutes ago, Ruston said:

This looks like it's going to be a bit of a challenge to say the least!

 

 

It's with challenges like this that RMweb could do with a 'Good Luck' button!

 

In its absence though I've fallen back with 'Friendly/supportive'.

 

Based on your inspirational work so far though, if anybody can pull it off you can.  And no doubt at a pace that would put most of us to shame.

 

Good luck.

[Sludger]

Hi Dave,

 

just been catching up on this.

I cannot believe how far it has come since

Mark and i visited after the Wakefield show.

 

Good luck with the dozer  and keep up this

excellent work.

 

Regards,

 

Trev.

[Covkid]

On 16/01/2024 at 12:35, Ruston said:

This looks like it's going to be a bit of a challenge to say the least!

It's a cast resin kit, from Milicast, for a Caterpillar D7 dozer. It is to go on the waste tip. It's probably a bit too old as a prototype for the later period of the site but it's suitable for the 1950s and perhaps even the 60s. Ideally I wanted a D8, as I have driven one of those, but this seems to be as near and as large a dozer as I can find. There does seem to be a lack of earth moving plant in 4mm.

 

Langley do a Drott B125, which is certainly suitable for the 70s and 80s, so I will also get one of those at some point.

 

Wow Dave, I am really envious. I mentioned earlier about the land reclamation project at Corris.  I spend hours and hours just watching the plant reshaping the valley. Cat D8Hs and Scraper boxes, as well as D8 dozers shoving the late waste down the mountainside.  I could only gaze at the operators and wish I were up in the cabs driving those machines. It got to my fifteenth birthday and I still secretly wished for someone to sponsor me and send me to the CITB in Kings Lynn.   I joined BR instead !!!

 

Maybe we need a new section for pIant and I can add photos of what I have collected. One item I really need to focus on is Hywel Thomas' creation of a Hymac 580 excavator on his South Wales based layout, but the Hymac 580 was a relative lightweight for coal sludging.  More for ditching, forestry and arable uses.    

[mac1960]

The pits in West Yorkshire were much smaller than the super pits of Nottinghamshire and North Yorkshire and indeed South Yorkshire with over ground stuff being not much chunkier than your average road tipper. I worked in them as a student undergound, in that combination of pits 3 active one capped (Shuttle Eye) as all are on the Western edge of the coal seams, and all are, or were interlinked. Indeed these seams  dip under the North Sea and out crop again in the Ruhr in West Germany. 

A lot of the coal was pretty low grade, but then there was Emley Moor which had very high grade coal which all went for export, mostly to Sweden, for very high grade steel production eg suspension legs on aircraft. Ironically that pit was the most traditional I ever visited, due to seams being very small and almost Dickensian in nature. Miners lay on their sides to literarily hack it out  including timber props it was really old school. The good thing with timber was there was a warning of failure where as rams just fail. The downside was in the pit showers, where you could see the issues with bruising which with the dust stained like a tattoo.

 

The  coal came out from there at Clayton West and Skelmanthorpe, and there were independent drift mines further up that valley operated privately on a shoe string up until a decade or so ago, but all road access. The coal from Clayton West / Skelmanthorpe , came out on Class 37 hauled 16 ton un braked  mineral wagons through Huddersfield, maybe one or twice a day during the week and the pit closed early 80,s worked out.
 

All a longtime ago for me, and a lot of overseas stuff under and overground and then construction ( I saw the light) quite literally.

Love the way your model looks, I could be in the yard in Orange boiler though my face would show respirator mask, unlike some who I worked with, who used it as a Tie and are sadly no longer with us as a result 

Cheers

Mac

Edited January 17 by mac1960

[Dunalastair]

10 hours ago, Covkid said:

...I mentioned earlier about the land reclamation project at Corris.  I spend hours and hours just watching the plant reshaping the valley. Cat D8Hs and Scraper boxes, as well as D8 dozers shoving the late waste down the mountainside.  I could only gaze at the operators and wish I were up in the cabs driving those machines. ...

 

Just a shame that the job could not have been done without making quite such a clean sweep of the remaining industrial archaeology in the valley to improve the road. Hard now to believe that there was a rather harebrained scheme to connect the Corris and the Talyllyn by this route. Given that the line was I think constructed to horse rather than loco standards (and clearances) it would have required a rebuild of the existing railway as well as an unlikely gradient down to the lake - the suggested electric traction might well have been needed.

 

After that drift, congratulations on the 'presence' of your model. Another 'drift' - I have just been working on a design for a printed caged access ladder for a 1:148 diorama of Manor Powis drift mine, so I can relate to the scene you share above.