Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Just now, The Fatadder said:

Interesting, now you have got me looking at the potential for fitting brush seals around the edges of my existing up and over door.....

At a first glance it does appear to be an option so should be a good upgrade for the summer.

To be precise, it has brush seals round the sides and top and a intumescent rubber seal along the bottom.

[St Enodoc]

Happy Easter everybody.

 

I'm very happy to say that Milky Bar Easter eggs were available here this year so I'm a very happy (Easter) bunny.

 

Not much action today in the railway room but I did fettle (gently - no hammer...) the levers a little after yesterday's effort and fitted the front lever guide rail, this being the first and easiest part of Step 11. I also propped the frame up so that it's ready to start fitting the balls, springs and lever spacers.

 

That won't happen until next weekend at the earliest, though, as we have a rather busy week ahead doing other things (as well as eating chocolate).

[aardvark]

12 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

... intumescent ...

 

I had to look that up 🤔

 

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, aardvark said:

 

I had to look that up 🤔

 

I had to check that it meant what I thought (hoped) it did before I posted it...

[FarrMan]

12 hours ago, aardvark said:

 

I had to look that up 🤔

 

Fascinating stuff - and very useful in its place.

 

Lloyd

[aardvark]

On 17/04/2022 at 18:09, St Enodoc said:

To be precise, it has brush seals round the sides and top and a intumescent rubber seal along the bottom.

 

Subsequent examination shows that my garage door is the same.  I won't be able to tell whether the rubber seal is intumescent or not until I set fire to the concrete driveway.

 

This is proving difficult 😡.

 

[TrevorP1]

On 16/04/2022 at 09:01, St Enodoc said:

I finished the Paddington tea tray today.

 

It fits (thank goodness) snugly between the wall and the front fence. The front and rear support are made of 4mm ply, so with the nominal 30mm clearance from the wall and the fence to the centre lines of tracks 1 and 14 respectively there is still plenty of room for the trains underneath.

 

After I'd labelled it up I placed the spare locos on top. There's space for more, which will be needed once the Branch is operational.

 

 

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and a -  much smaller -  tea tray has now appeared on Burngullow Lane. I had a near miss with a couple of wagons this week so I took that as warning! Thank you John.

[5BarVT]

Thank you to all who contributed suggestions on elevation a couple of pages ago, especially t-b-g and the video.  Transition now successfully installed.

I mentioned the difficulty of level crossings on canted track and on Saturday came across a perfect example.  Only a foot crossing, but demonstrates the issue perfectly: Buckley on the Wrexham Bidston line.

 

 

Paul.

Edited April 19, 2022 by 5BarVT
Photo edited

[St Enodoc]

Apologies for the radio silence since Monday but we decided to make the most of the gap between two long weekends for our first short break by air for well over two years (and my first flight of any kind since March 2020).

 

As always, it was impossible to avoid any railway interest at all (!) and as well as passing over some long-disused level crossings we came across this place:

 

 

Someone seems to have got carried away with the sea foam and static grass, if you ask me.

[Nick Gough]

I take it that no trains have used this line recently?

[Barry O]

Is that on Taz??

 

Baz

[5BarVT]

10 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Someone seems to have got carried away with the sea foam and static grass, if you ask me.

They’ve added quite a lot since Google drove down Pioneer Drive 12 years ago!

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, Barry O said:

Is that on Taz??

 

Baz

Well done sir.

 

Yes, Mole Creek is west of Launceston, about two-thirds of the way to Cradle Mountain as the crow flies but probably only one-third in terms of driving time due to some very twisty roads. It has some nice heritage buildings including a pub, whose decoration has a Tasmanian Tiger theme.

 

It was the terminus of a branch that used to run from just west of Deloraine, which is on the main line from Burnie to Western Junction outside Launceston itself.

[Sharky]

Such a lovely part of the world. 

Definitely need to get back there myself.

Was last there 13 years ago! 

[St Enodoc]

Today is ANZAC Day, the 107th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, when we remember all Australians and New Zealanders who gave their lives in armed conflict.

 

I carried on with Step 11 on the lever frame. This is the fiddly part, where you have to fit a tubular spacer between each pair of levers and at the same time trap a small ball bearing and spring in between to provide a friction brake on each lever, stopping them moving when not wanted. I didn't lose any springs this time but I think that two or three balls managed to liberate themselves.

 

Fitting the spacers, balls and springs to levers 28, 29 and 30 was tricky as, after cutting off the tops to simulate the spaces, there was nowhere to hold the little tool in place with a clothes peg. I managed it, though, with a little jiggery-pokery.

 

I should have been able to say that I finished Step 11 too but in fact, as you can see, I forgot to fit the last four spacers, without balls and springs, to complete the job.

 

I also messed around with bridges and buses again.

 

At St Enodoc the overbridge at the Down end also forms the station entrance, with steps down to the platform above another pier between the Up and Down tracks. The two spans will be girders, as at the real Bugle, and the nearer span will extend over the access road to the goods yard.

 

Bill's goods shed is in place now but the clearances through the doors are very tight. I will probably have to shave a little material away before fixing the shed down.

 

The road across the St Enodoc bridge will make its way round the back of Wheal Veronica and cross the Branch at Indian Queens Halt. This will be a stone arch, similar to some on the Chacewater - Newquay line.

 

We've discussed the bridge at the Polperran exit from the scenic area before. I think it will end up as something like this, with the left-hand end of a stone skew arch in full relief but the right-hand end hard against the backscene. This will leave enough space for the two signals here and a suitable road vehicle should disguise the subterfuge.

 

Over to @Clive Mortimore now, to tell us more about the buses and coach.

Edited April 25, 2022 by St Enodoc

[Clive Mortimore]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Today is ANZAC Day, the 107th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, when we remember all Australians and New Zealanders who gave their lives in armed conflict.

 

I carried on with Step 11 on the lever frame. This is the fiddly part, where you have to fit a tubular spacer between each pair of levers and at the same time trap a small ball bearing and spring in between to provide a friction brake on each lever, stopping them moving when not wanted. I didn't lose any springs this time but I think that two or three balls managed to liberate themselves.

 

Fitting the spacers, balls and springs to levers 28, 29 and 30 was tricky as, after cutting off the tops to simulate the spaces, there was nowhere to hold the little tool in place with a clothes peg. I managed it, though, with a little jiggery-pokery.

 

I should have been able to say that I finished Step 11 too but in fact, as you can see, I forgot to fit the last four spacers, without balls and springs, to complete the job.

 

I also messed around with bridges and buses again.

 

At St Enodoc the overbridge at the Down end also forms the station entrance, with steps down to the platform above another pier between the Up and Down tracks. The two spans will be girders, as at the real Bugle, and the nearer span will extend over the access road to the goods yard.

 

Bill's goods shed is in place now but the clearances through the doors are very tight. I will probably have to shave a little material away before fixing the shed down.

 

The road across the St Enodoc bridge will make its way round the back of Wheal Veronica and cross the Branch at Indian Queens Halt. This will be a stone arch, similar to some on the Chacewater - Newquay line.

 

We've discussed the bridge at the Polperran exit from the scenic area before. I think it will end up as something like this, with the left-hand end of a stone skew arch in full relief but the right-hand end hard against the backscene. This will leave enough space for the two signals here and a suitable road vehicle should disguise the subterfuge.

 

Over to @Clive Mortimore now, to tell us more about the buses and coach.

Now had you not lost the boxes the buses and the coach came out of you would be able to read the labels on the boxes.

 

The double decker is a Bristol K with an Eastern Coachworks low bridge body. It is a post war Bristol K as it has a deep radiator, a few pre war Ks were fitted with post war ECW bodies and they can be recognised as their radiators are not so long. I am not sure if Western National had any rebodied pre war Ks but other Tilling companies did. 

 

The single decker as already noted is a Bristol LS with a ECW body. LS stood for Light Saloon.

 

The coach is either a very late coach version of the LS or more likely to be a Bristol MW coach chassis with the first version of ECW coach body for that design of chassis. MW stood for Medium Weight.

[ian]

17 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Now had you not lost the boxes the buses and the coach came out of you would be able to read the labels on the boxes.

 

The double decker is a Bristol K with an Eastern Coachworks low bridge body. It is a post war Bristol K as it has a deep radiator, a few pre war Ks were fitted with post war ECW bodies and they can be recognised as their radiators are not so long. I am not sure if Western National had any rebodied pre war Ks but other Tilling companies did. 

 

The single decker as already noted is a Bristol LS with a ECW body. LS stood for Light Saloon.

 

The coach is either a very late coach version of the LS or more likely to be a Bristol MW coach chassis with the first version of ECW coach body for that design of chassis. MW stood for Medium Weight.

 

Nearly right - but there are a brace of K's shown, not just one.

[Clive Mortimore]

31 minutes ago, ian said:

 

Nearly right - but there are a brace of K's shown, not just one.

Thanks Ian. I hadn't spotted they had different adverts, I was only looking at the type of buses not the obvious.

[St Enodoc]

22 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Now had you not lost the boxes the buses and the coach came out of you would be able to read the labels on the boxes.

 

The double decker is a Bristol K with an Eastern Coachworks low bridge body. It is a post war Bristol K as it has a deep radiator, a few pre war Ks were fitted with post war ECW bodies and they can be recognised as their radiators are not so long. I am not sure if Western National had any rebodied pre war Ks but other Tilling companies did. 

 

The single decker as already noted is a Bristol LS with a ECW body. LS stood for Light Saloon.

 

The coach is either a very late coach version of the LS or more likely to be a Bristol MW coach chassis with the first version of ECW coach body for that design of chassis. MW stood for Medium Weight.

 

22 hours ago, ian said:

 

Nearly right - but there are a brace of K's shown, not just one.

 

21 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Thanks Ian. I hadn't spotted they had different adverts, I was only looking at the type of buses not the obvious.

Thank you both. Clive, I didn't lose the boxes, I threw them away.

 

Yes, two Ks - one by OOC and one by Atlas, I think, so slightly different. The EFE LS is a different model from the one we saw earlier, also by EFE, while this EFE MW coach is also different from the other EFE MW we saw earlier.

 

I have two other buses for which there is no room on the bridges at the moment.

 

One is a Bedford OB but I can't quite convince myself that the WN livery is authentic. The other is an EFE L in Eastern National livery, which I will change to WN. WN didn't actually have any of these but they did have the odd LWL and this will be close enough "at normal viewing distances".

 

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by St Enodoc

[Clive Mortimore]

35 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

 

 

Thank you both. Clive, I didn't lose the boxes, I threw them away.

 

Yes, two Ks - one by OOC and one by Atlas, I think, so slightly different. The EFE LS is a different model from the one we saw earlier, also by EFE, while this EFE MW coach is also different from the other EFE MW we saw earlier.

 

I have two other buses for which there is no room on the bridges at the moment.

 

One is a Bedford OB but I can't quite convince myself that the WN livery is authentic. The other is an EFE L in Eastern National livery, which I will change to WN. WN didn't actually have any of these but they did have the odd LWL and this will be close enough "at normal viewing distances".

 

 

I am shocked.....you can't repaint one of Essex's finest.

 

That is nearly as horrific as what Captain Kernow said on Sunday at SWAG. I tried to explain that a pannier tank is not as cute as a J69. He astounded me by saying something on the lines of "We can't have LNER".....J69s are GREAT EASTERN!!!!!! LNER my goodness, the LNER was only a cover name for the Great Eastern, Great Northern, North Eastern, North British and Great North of Scotland Railways, all very independent of each other, which also included that Johnny come lately railway the Great Central.  

 

 

Actually you can repaint an Eastern National L into another livery, when the Eastern National's garages and buses were transferred to United Counties they did just that ....but not into any other fleet.

 

If you do rebadge the L and pretend it is a LWL remember to paint the steering wheel white. LWs, LWLs, and KSWs had white steering wheels to remind the driver he had an 8ft wide bus not a 7ft 6ins one.

[ian]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

One is a Bedford OB but I can't quite convince myself that the WN livery is authentic.

 

WN certainly had OB's - at least one, HOD 75 of 1949, is still around and turns up in various TV shows set in WWII and just after.

 

If it looks like this:

 

Then it'll do.

Edited April 26, 2022 by ian

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, ian said:

 

WN certainly had OB's - at least one, HOD 75 of 1949, is still around and turns up in various TV shows set in WWII and just after.

 

If it looks like this:

 

Then it'll do.

Thanks Ian. Mine's cream with green trim, in the same style, so that's good enough for me.

[Mike_Walker]

Western National had around 30 in cream and green livery for local work so more likely to be seen at St Enodoc than the Royal Blue ones.

[St Enodoc]

20 hours ago, Mike_Walker said:

Western National had around 30 in cream and green livery for local work so more likely to be seen at St Enodoc than the Royal Blue ones.

Thanks Mike. In due course the coaches will probably end up at Pentowan (Newquay).

[Barry O]

Wot! No Sammy Ledgard bus???🙃

 

Baz