End of the Line-Padstow

[2ManySpams]

Hi Padstow people.... Can't remember if i've mentioned this before but i'm also reconstructing the goings on at Padstow from the CWN, WTT and loco duties... But for 1959/60. I was getting on very well until about Christmas but haven't touched the work for some months now. Major house building work (20 weeks worth) has stopped play and all modelling :-(

 

There's an NCR website maintained by a chap who also helps run SEMG. He's interested in timetables etc. He's on here as Pixie (i think) - a search for Wadebridge Show should find him. He may be able to help with your quest.

 

keep up the interesting posts. The larger space sounds smashing.

[tender]

Hi Ken.

 

Downloaded your spreadsheet, great stuff, i might even use it as a basis for my version of Padstow.

 

Excuse my numptieness, but what does 2LP, BG and BY stand for? I guess 2P is a 2 set maunsell, 3P a 3 set, GW goods and NP newspaper.

Couldn't work out what happens around 2.55, is that extra coaches for the local service to bodmin or another service?

 

Keep it coming.

 

Ray.

[2ManySpams]

BG is a bogie guards (parcel) van

BY is a 4 wheel van with a central guards compartment (like the Hornby model)

 

HTH

[autocoach]

2 LP was for a 2 coach local passenger set. The Bodmin set of modified LSWR coaches used on that service. These were highly altered in the 1930's and I have no clue on how to model them. Not even very good pics. None of the London Bridge or Roxey kits seem to match. Suggestions are very welcome. In early BR period, I understand they were replaced by a Maunsell BTK-BCK set. I will probably use a set like that until something accurate comes along. Will have to wait for the Kernow promised O2 to get more accurate. I have some GWR B-sets and 45xx classes that may start running to Padstow even before nationalization to liven up the blanks in the schedule.

 

 

The 2:55 is a bit of a mystery to me too. As near as I can guess is that it is a combined train that left Padstow with both the through vans for Templecombe, an extra coach and the local passenger set for Bodmin. The train would have been split at Wadebridge with the local passenger coaches going on to Bodmin (Bodmin Central the Southern terminus. Not Bodmin General which was the GWR station.) The loose BCK or BTK coach and vans would go on a train out of Wadebridge for Okehampton. It would be interesting to make it up like that even if better information surfaces. I am assuming the perishables were fish (rabbits?). Again I am asking for information on what vans would have been used for fish in 1946-47 on the Southern out of Padstow.

 

Until the O2's appear, I have an M7 on loan to the NCR to fill in. Overkill, but it has the right wheel arrangement. I know I cold build a kit but I have so many other things to do. I am off in two weeks to sail the Leeward Islands (St. Martin, Antigua, St Kitts and Nevis, St. Barts and Anguila) for two weeks on a 47 foot catamaran as part of an 8 catamaran flotilla. I have another life and a full time job besides occasional messing with trains.

 

All this assumes the Rupture (Rapture) does not occur this Saturday at 6 PM as a local preacher predicts.

[autocoach]

Again I am asking for information on what vans would have been used for fish in 1946-47 on the Southern out of Padstow.

[2ManySpams]

Hi, I've been through the info I have and can't find reference to a particular van type or diagram. I've not spotted anything in photos that looks like a special fish van and an assumption would be that normal closed vans would be used.

 

The other thing to remember is that WW2 (German attacks on ships) and over fishing of the herrring drastically reduced the amount of fish landed at Padstow by the late 40s. It sounds like only the odd few closed vvans would be needed therefore.

[2ManySpams]

PS I too would be interested if anyone has more concrete info on this traffic.

[autocoach]

Back a week from sailing vacation in the Leeward Islands (St. Martin, St. Barts, Anguila, Antigua, Nevis). Still trying to get my head back towards 4mm scale. Not a wheel on the layout has turned. The workbench is still undisturbed.

[Oldddudders]

No shame there. Your neighbours in the US modelling fraternity often seem to regard summer as time off from the layout, and then have a "back down to the basement" event in September, when days shorten and temperatures drop. Time standing further back from the layout is often well-spent at your stage - you might have new ideas or other inspiration about how to proceed next, rather than grinding on with a design or features that may prove to be less than optimal. When it happens, it happens - don't force it!

[2ManySpams]

Must have been tough slumming it on a break like that I think my mind might be elsewhere after touring around the Leeward Islands. Somehow sitting at a modeling bench won't quite be the same again for a while.

 

I've got the opposite problem... I love to be modelling but can't start until I've finished decorating the house.... and that's decorating from bare plaster and timber! Joy. Back to the gloss-work before I get caught on the PC.

[autocoach]

Actually, except for occasional hot spells like last week where we had 3 days around 39C the SF Bay area where I live remains relatively cool sometimes foggy and very windy in summer. We get two or three of these hot spells a summer when the prevailing westerlies die and a high pressure area sets in. The humidity drops to 20-30% so it is quite tolerable as long as the air conditioning works. And in my case, like so many in California, no basement. Most California houses since the 1940's have been built directly on flat concrete pads. I once had a house in San Francisco built in 1917 that had a basement, but that was in a marriage long long ago.

 

I too am in a similar boat (can't get away from the nautical terminology) to Chris. The room where my layout will go is now painted (my roommate did that while I was sailing. She cannot handle a tiny yacht head that you can only flush when at sea), but until the new carpet is contracted and laid, I do not dare begin construction of "Padstow on the Pacific Mark II". This version will have platform and inner harbor track extensions, and the long wharf. There will be an exit towards Wadebridge (180 degree turn) from the station area with a reverse curve across the 3 span bridge at Little Petherick Creek bridge to a hidden staging yard (US term that I prefer to fiddle yard).

 

The bridge kits from Central Valley look made to order for the Little Petherick Creek bridge.

 

I have a new Bachmann Bulleid BCK-CK-BCK set coming to detail, repaint to Southern Railway green and if the rumor is true flushglaze from Shawplan with thecorrect early window style. About the time the bench work is in progress, the BWT's should arrive.

[autocoach]

To belatedly answer Peter Beddings kind response above on the coaches used for the Bodmin service. I would love to be able to build the Roxey kits but my brass kit construction skills are just not there. I have tried on and off over the last 40 years but to no avail. On the other hand bashing Ratio (Midland Clerestory?) kits sounds like an interesting alternative and more to my skill set.

[autocoach]

The downstairs bedroom has now been re-carpeted so there is now room to build Padstow on the Pacific Mark II with a fiddle yard for Wadebridge and beyond. Construction will commence in the fall.

 

I have been most interested in the discussions in the readers letters sections of MRJ #207 and 208 on the 6 minute short timing of the arrival of a Bodmin WR train and departure of an up train on the NCR line at Padstow's single platform. I may have to simulate the moves. This close timing does not appear in the 1947 WTT, but I may have to grant the GWR earlier trackage rights through to Padstow from 1945 on instead of BR in 1948 in order to add train moves and some fun. I already have the GWR 45xx and B set from my earlier model of Brixham.

[autocoach]

Not much happening here. I did note that Oxford is going to issue a 4 mm WWII/Post war Bedford OWB in Royal Navy blue. It will be perfect in the station court picking up/dropping off sailors for/from the HMS Vulture naval air station nearby at St. Merryn.

[Peter Bedding]

Not much happening here. I did note that Oxford is going to issue a 4 mm WWII/Post war Bedford OWB in Royal Navy blue. It will be perfect in the station court picking up/dropping off sailors for/from the HMS Vulture naval air station nearby at St. Merryn.

 

Hello Ken

 

I have also tuned in to Oxford's future programmes, and the OWB in particular. I haven't got an immediate application for the RN version, though I shall have to have one to inspect at close quarters. My great hope is that Oxford will soon produce a variant in Tilling Green, and with both Western National and Southern National lettering. I believe that in the immediate postwar period Southern National used OWBs to Padstow, and there are the odd photos of one parked in the forecourt.

 

PB

[autocoach]

Product is pouring in...

 

The Modelzone/Signal Box limited Bachmann N class 1860 arrived. It has been tested on DC and is awaiting the installation of a TCS M1 decoder this week.

 

My BWT 3329 is now en-route

 

I succumbed to the deep discount and bought a GWR 28xx from Hattons..I tried to build K's kits for these 20 years ago with little success.

 

I also picked up a pair of Hornby Maunsell coaches (BTK, CK) in Bullied green to strengthen the post 1945 image for my Padstow on the Pacific.

 

And I just placed and order with Cambrian for 5 SR opens and a pair of LBSC vans. Add a little variety. Also all of my opens are PO or GWR and that simply won't do on an SR layout.

 

But nothing is happening on the layout itself. I have to get busy on the benchwork for the expanded version in my rather large bedroom. I have a clear area 18X8 to build an island type layout. It is all full length windows along one 18 foot side of the area so I cannot build an around the wall. (One of the joys of being an old bachelor(divorcee) is sleeping with one's trains in the same room with no one to yell at you about how un-romantic that is.)

 

No photos. I still need to buy another digital camera.

Edited September 18, 2011 by autocoach

[The Stationmaster]

I have been most interested in the discussions in the readers letters sections of MRJ #207 and 208 on the 6 minute short timing of the arrival of a Bodmin WR train and departure of an up train on the NCR line at Padstow's single platform. I may have to simulate the moves. This close timing does not appear in the 1947 WTT, but I may have to grant the GWR earlier trackage rights through to Padstow from 1945 on instead of BR in 1948 in order to add train moves and some fun. I already have the GWR 45xx and B set from my earlier model of Brixham.

 

Wait until you see MRJ 209 - methinks some of the earlier comments in the letters page have been far more inventive than fact (and the CWP - although I only have 1958 plus any number of year's worth of timetables) would appear to support.

[autocoach]

BWT Alert

 

Yes, the first has arrived and is now in service on the Padstow-Bodmin line. I hope to have some china clay traffic too to the long wharf at Padstow before long.

 

For now the 3329 is working Padstow:

[autocoach]

Nothing really happening here. I am sort of planning the move to Padstow on the Pacific Version 2.1.1.1 RTM (software joke.) An offer to help build the benchwork fell through.

 

i just saw an article in the December Model Railroader Workshop Tips and Track Planning Ideas by Ian Rice. Name should be familiar to most of you. In it he described building L girder bench work and then building sectional Layout segments on top of that. I sort of like the idea. As my new layout will be free standing rather than attached to a wall. 4 or 6 foot by 3 foot wide segments bolted together may make it movable should I be forced into a retirement home or move to a larger place. I will start on the benchwork after Christmas.

 

In the meantime I have some Cambrian LSWR 8 Plank and LBSC vans to build. As I mentioned elsewhere I am thinking about a string of 5 plank opens for the clay traffic to Padstow wharf. Not really there in the 1945-47 period, but I have to justify trips to Padstow by BWT 3314.

 

Is the set of letters in the latest MRJ the final word on the 6 minute timing conundrum at Padstow? I like the idea of two trains on the platform track at the same time and have tried it out. Even though the platform is about two coaches short of the full length in my Padstow version 1.1.45 FP003, it is a very feasible solution. (He is two coaches short of a full train?)

[The Stationmaster]

Is the set of letters in the latest MRJ the final word on the 6 minute timing conundrum at Padstow? I like the idea of two trains on the platform track at the same time and have tried it out. Even though the platform is about two coaches short of the full length in my Padstow version 1.1.45 FP003, it is a very feasible solution. (He is two coaches short of a full train?)

I think in terms of the real coach working MRJ 210 is almost the last word and recent letters have, I think, got things properly sorted about the realtionship between arrivals and departures - i.e where it wasn't the same stock turning round it was a short distance (Bodmin) departure which left a few minutes after another train arrived (from the Okehampton direction/much further east on that route). The only problem with that proposition - which is otherwise perfectly sensible and workable - is that there was no authority to do it in the 1934 SR Appendix but that of course does not mean that such authority wasn't given at a later date; regrettably from enquiries I have made recently it seems that those who would have been able to answer that question are no longer around among the circles of retired staff.

[autocoach]

Well, what am I going to do with the 2 BWT's I have acquired? 3329 was frequently used on the short Wadebridge-Padstow passenger and mixed service. 3314 could serve a turn occasionally on that service.

 

However, I have been surveying a possible second level above the staging yard on Padstow Mark II with a spiral underneath Denis Hill emerging after 4 tight loops at Helland Bridge, then Pencarrow Woods tank and on to the clay dries and Wenford Bridge in about 17 feet of track.

 

Fictionalizing that clay traffic had not all been diverted to the GWR in 1945-7 would allow 3314 to see regular service on a string of 5 plank wagons (what SR wagon diagrams?) and an ex LSWR road van.

 

The Padstow Mark II benchwork is scheduled for January construction.

[autocoach]

Oh the joy...

 

Very welcome product news for 2012

 

First the Kernow/Dapol gated stock for local passenger services (not quite sure if these represent coaches used in Bodmin-Padstow sets. But I may have to get each of the SR sets anyway.

 

And then to discover hidden on the Cambrian site the following forthcoming types

• LSWR D1410 Van,
  
• LSWR 'New" Brake van. (Dia. 1543 please, pretty please..for the Wenfordbridge traffic tailing a BWT)
  

Now where am I going to put all this stock. Vertical storage in the staging yard. ( I don't fiddle with MY trains...)

[trisonic]

Super.

I admire your fortitude, I've given up the idea of modeling a finescale 4mm Scottish layout due to the complexities/headaches of obtaining virtually everything from the UK!

 

Never say never, I may revisit before I peg out............

 

Best, Pete.

[Oldddudders]

First the Kernow/Dapol gated stock for local passenger services (not quite sure if these represent coaches used in Bodmin-Padstow sets.

There was pull-push to Bodmin until 1931, but not with exactly these sets. I don't think P-P featured anywhere in post-war North Cornwall or North Devon, sadly, but these models are far to nice to ignore! In my case they help me out, because I haven't room for the run-round loop on my Torrington branch platform at quasi-Halwill, so such a set with auto-fitted M7 will make a good substitute for the E1R and conventional coaches. [As a Brighton fan, I don't like the E1R, which is a horrid-looking development of Mr Stroudley's delicious little tank.] P-P also ran to Torrington until 1931, so there was at least some sort of precedent.

[autocoach]

Super.

I admire your fortitude, I've given up the idea of modeling a finescale 4mm Scottish layout due to the complexities/headaches of obtaining virtually everything from the UK!

 

Never say never, I may revisit before I peg out............

 

Best, Pete.

 

Isn't there a shop in Wick or Thurso who will become the Kernow of the North?

 

I just have not tried to do it in super finescale at the track level. I need to keep the 16.5 mm gauge as I still run visitors from the other side of the planet, the Southern Pacific not to be confused with a West Country or maybe it is a very far west country. (Still looking forward to the Athearn MT4 with Skyline casing that has taken far far longer than the BWT to gestate in the Orient.)