Blueball Summit

[Rivercider]

That stone train looks  great, and brings back a lot of good memories.

 

BR got good value out of those wagons, they were robust, and well suited to the aggregate trade. They were a low tech solution and ideal for a short term terminal with grab discharge. The shortest sets of wagons I remember from my time in Bristol TOPS were the trains that ran from Tytherington to Redditch over night around 1978/79/80. There were two sets in the working each formed of 26 MSVs, (and for a time they were a mixed rake of MSV/MTVs), Each week night an empty set came off the LMR to be swapped with the loaded set at Stoke Gifford yard which then went back to Redditch.   

 

Hopefully I will get to see Blueball Summit again one day,

 

cheers

[Downendian]

The Stone branded MSVs are fantastic Andy, scratch built and the weathering is spot on. They also worked from Tytherington quarry in South Glos, and I’ve put together a rake in 4mm. I’ll use your wagons as a weathering guide if I may. 
Neil

[andy stroud]

On 19/02/2024 at 10:47, Rivercider said:

That stone train looks  great, and brings back a lot of good memories.

 

BR got good value out of those wagons, they were robust, and well suited to the aggregate trade. They were a low tech solution and ideal for a short term terminal with grab discharge. The shortest sets of wagons I remember from my time in Bristol TOPS were the trains that ran from Tytherington to Redditch over night around 1978/79/80. There were two sets in the working each formed of 26 MSVs, (and for a time they were a mixed rake of MSV/MTVs), Each week night an empty set came off the LMR to be swapped with the loaded set at Stoke Gifford yard which then went back to Redditch.   

 

Hopefully I will get to see Blueball Summit again one day,

 

cheers

Hi Kevin.

I remember pairs of class 37s on the stone trains from Tytherington in the early 1980s. Talking of mechanical grabs to unload the wagons, I often wondered if the comparatively lightweight empty wagons were ever knocked off the track by over zealous grab operators.

Edited February 21 by andy stroud

[andy stroud]

On 20/02/2024 at 17:36, Downendian said:

The Stone branded MSVs are fantastic Andy, scratch built and the weathering is spot on. They also worked from Tytherington quarry in South Glos, and I’ve put together a rake in 4mm. I’ll use your wagons as a weathering guide if I may. 
Neil

 

Hi Neil.

Thankyou for your kind comments. For the weathering I simply copied some of the wagons on Paul Bartlett's site. I just brushed the colours on by hand in patches over a base of Precesion Paints Bauxite.  Patches of Light Rust, a darker rust (light rust with a tiny dab of  black), and then some Humbrol no64 grey drybrushed on for streaks of stone dust and to pick out underframe details and roller bearings.  I think what really helps is afterwards a spray over with matt varnish that has had a very small dab of white added. This seems to tone everything down and make the colours blend together nicely.

[Rivercider]

47 minutes ago, andy stroud said:

Hi Kevin.

I remember pairs of class 37s on the stone trains from Tytherington in the early 1980s. Talking of mechanical grabs to unload the wagons, I often wondered if the comparatively lightweight empty wagons were ever knocked off the track by over zealous grab operators.

Great work as always Andy.

 

I recall that the pairs of class 37s were generally used on the PGAs to/from Wolverton, but sometimes also provided to load a MSV set.

 

I don't recall any specific incident regarding derailment of MSVs during unloading. I do remember office colleagues of mine

who dealt with the stone traffic being very impressed by the skill of the regular grab operators at some of the terminals,

how quickly they could unload wagons, and very cleanly too with very little residue left once they had finished.

 

cheers 

[andy stroud]

 

I have recently introduced a new brake van to the layout.  This is my seventh. Guess you could say I quite like brake vans. For this one, I  tried something slightly different by attempting to depict an open door on the veranda. This was  quite common and often stands out in old photographs as the inside of the door was generally painted a light grey colour which was noticable when the door was wide open.

 

 

To be honest, this job turned out to be slightly more complicated than I first thought. The main problem was that the roof was moulded as part of the body itself and therefore was not easily removeable. In order to access the inside of the van I had to cut a large hole in the roof in order to remove the existing window/door bulkhead. I decided to build a new bulkhead and door from very thin brass sheet. This is seen in the picture below. The glazing bars are 0.3 brass rod.

 

 

Another recent job was to replace the ladders on my Presflow wagons with fine etched ones and add some handrails made from high E electric guitar string.

 

 

Below is a picture of the original plastic ladders.

 

[Phil Bullock]

Great work Andy!! You can never have too

many guards vans…