Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Today I clocked up my 43rd anniversary of working in the rail industry. People still ask me what I'm going to do when I grow up - I tell them that I don't know yet...

 

Anyway, when I got back from Melbourne this week these were waiting for me:

 

They were made to order by Off the Rails Online http://www.offtherailsonline.com/ (usual disclaimer) and are absolutely lovely.

 

I've stuck the Porthmellyn Road sign on the wall temporarily but the others will have to stay in their boxes until the branch line grows far enough to put them up.

 

I've just realised that I should have ordered one for Polperran as well. That will have to wait for another day.

Edited July 20, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Andrew P]

They look nice, and really add to the quality of the Layout Build.

 

Very nice indeed.

[St Enodoc]

They look nice, and really add to the quality of the Layout Build.

 

Very nice indeed.

Yes they are, aren't they? Not cheap but good value in my book.

[5BarVT]

Today I clocked up my 43rd anniversary of working in the rail industry.

Congratulations. 42 years two weeks ago yesterday for me. WR S&T started their trainees two weeks before BRB that year (get the regional loyalty in early?!). So 42 years ago today I would have been sitting in the lecture theatre at the ex LMS training school in Derby.

what I'm going to do when I grow up - I tell them that I don't know yet...

Ditto!

Anyway, when I got back from Melbourne this week these were waiting for me:

Really nice. I have seen their site before, just need to get round to deciding what I want on mine.

Paul.

[Barry O]

They do one for Chapel en le Frith (Central) but these seemed to have stayed asc LMS bullet boards...shame but might be tried anyway

 

Ta for the link

Baz

[Barry O]

Congratulations on your 43 years. Most I managed in one company was 10 years...tank factory at Barnbow.

 

Fresher's are back in leeds...pubs difficult to get into....

[St Enodoc]

So 42 years ago today I would have been sitting in the lecture theatre at the ex LMS training school in Derby.

Yes, it was still called the School of Transport then, only becoming the Railway Engineering School a few years later. A bit like boarding school - we had to stand when the Principal (Leslie James) entered the dining hall and we were allocated a silver napkin ring complete with napkin, which lasted for the whole week.

 

We were too late to see the model railway round the sunken lounge - anyone on here remember that?

Edited September 16, 2017 by St Enodoc

[St Enodoc]

Congratulations on your 43 years. Most I managed in one company was 10 years...tank factory at Barnbow.

 

Fresher's are back in leeds...pubs difficult to get into....

Five employers along the way - just over 20 years with BR was the longest although I had 8 9 different jobs in that time, not counting the training scheme itself.

 

Edit - forgot one!

Edited September 20, 2017 by St Enodoc

[Stubby47]

Pentowen not Pentewan ?

[5BarVT]

Yes, it was still called the School of Transport then, only becoming the Railway Engineering School a few years later. A bit like boarding school - we had to stand when the Principal (Leslie James) entered the dining hall and we were allocated a silver napkin ring complete with napkin, which lasted for the whole week.

I'd forgotten about the napkin rings - thanks for the memory. I worked there 84-88 when Charles Underhill was in charge - he took us on an outing to Tees Yard and Thornaby depot in the induction week, so he may have taken over by then too.

Remember the dodgy emergency alarm and the poor soul who was allocated follow up each one overnight?

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

On 16/09/2017 at 18:37, Stubby47 said:

Pentowen not Pentewan ?

Pentowan is my name for Newquay (derived from Towan Head). The real Pentewan has become Tregissey in my world (it's not far from Mevagissey and there's a hamlet called Tregiskey not far away).

 

For completeness, to save folk searching back to the start of this thread:

 

Porthmellyn Road - an earlier layout was Porthmellyn Junction but I have changed this to ...Road as in Bodmin Road, etc. There's a real place called Portmellon near Mevagissey, which on some old maps is spelled Portmellin, while there is another Porthmellin on the Roseland peninsula.

 

St Enodoc - taken from the name of the church near Rock where the late Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman is buried. I've used this name on two or three layouts before.

 

Indian Queens Halt - stolen from the real place Near St Columb Major, which never had a railway, and moved west to round about where Quintrell Downs Halt was in reality.

 

Polperran - not a million miles from Perranporth. The name was coined by Agatha Christie for one of her stories.

Edited July 20, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[St Enodoc]

I'd forgotten about the napkin rings - thanks for the memory. I worked there 84-88 when Charles Underhill was in charge - he took us on an outing to Tees Yard and Thornaby depot in the induction week, so he may have taken over by then too.

Remember the dodgy emergency alarm and the poor soul who was allocated follow up each one overnight?

Paul.

Charles was a fine railway modeller and also as you will know a whisky enthusiast, to the great benefit of the RES bar and its patrons!

 

I'd forgotten about the emergency alarm. If your name had a star next to it on the course members' list you knew you weren't going to get a lot of peace and quiet at night.

 

I didn't do any residential courses during the time you were there but I did some a few years later when quality management was taking off. Denis ????? was in charge by then, Charles having retired I think.

 

Happy days.

[Bogie]

Having been to that part of the world recently it is all starting to make perfect sense to me.

[St Enodoc]

They do one for Chapel en le Frith (Central) but these seemed to have stayed asc LMS bullet boards...shame but might be tried anyway

 

Ta for the link

Baz

Baz, have a look here:

 

http://tracksidesigns.co.uk/epages/950001489.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/950001489/Categories/Large_Custom_Signs/LMS_Hawkseyes

[Barry O]

Ta!

[Oldddudders]

Yes, it was still called the School of Transport then, only becoming the Railway Engineering School a few years later. A bit like boarding school - we had to stand when the Principal (Leslie James) entered the dining hall and we were allocated a silver napkin ring complete with napkin, which lasted for the whole week.

 

We were too late to see the model railway round the sunken lounge - anyone on here remember that?

I had multiple stays there in 1973/4. The model had already gone. The serving ladies in uniform were something from a bygone age, even then. Was it there that we were brought tea in bed? Or was that The Grove?

[St Enodoc]

I had multiple stays there in 1973/4. The model had already gone. The serving ladies in uniform were something from a bygone age, even then. Was it there that we were brought tea in bed? Or was that The Grove?

I don't remember being brought tea in bed either at the School of Transport or The Grove Ian! You must have forged a special relationship...

 

The main house at The Grove was very nice indeed but the wooden huts in the grounds less so. Talk about going from the sublime to the gorblimey.

[St Enodoc]

Work and other distractions are getting in the way of train time at the moment but I did manage to start the next point today. This is the double slip that connects the main lines and No 1 Spur to Platform 3 and the Loop at Porthmellyn Road (19A/22B). I only got the vees and one stock rail done but that was better than nothing. Filing the switch blades comes next - probably not until next weekend though.

[Oldddudders]

I don't remember being brought tea in bed either at the School of Transport or The Grove Ian! You must have forged a special relationship...

 

The main house at The Grove was very nice indeed but the wooden huts in the grounds less so. Talk about going from the sublime to the gorblimey.

 

Well at one or the other a respectable lady did indeed bring students early morning tea! OTOH I did enjoy a couple of particularly good early mornings at the Grove in 1990. The lady in question was not making my tea though. I was lecturing, she was on another course, we already knew each other really quite well - and, after all, I'd worked with her father and her sister, while her BIL had been in the year above me at skool. I still wear my "I managed it at The Grove" teeshirt with a sort of smirk....

[St Enodoc]

Well at one or the other a respectable lady did indeed bring students early morning tea! OTOH I did enjoy a couple of particularly good early mornings at the Grove in 1990. The lady in question was not making my tea though. I was lecturing, she was on another course, we already knew each other really quite well - and, after all, I'd worked with her father and her sister, while her BIL had been in the year above me at skool. I still wear my "I managed it at The Grove" teeshirt with a sort of smirk....

Jolly good show sir!

[Andrew P]

Your Map and locations make so much sense, and brings the whole project together rather well. Superb Sir  .

Edited September 17, 2017 by Andrew P

[St Enodoc]

Your Map and locations make so much sense, and brings the whole project together rather well. Superb Sir  .

Thanks Andy. As you well know, there are a few omissions from the map, such as Pencarne, Trewenn and Porth Merryn (not to mention Penhayle Bay and Treheligan Junction).

Edited September 17, 2017 by St Enodoc

[The Stationmaster]

Yes, it was still called the School of Transport then, only becoming the Railway Engineering School a few years later. A bit like boarding school - we had to stand when the Principal (Leslie James) entered the dining hall and we were allocated a silver napkin ring complete with napkin, which lasted for the whole week.

 

We were too late to see the model railway round the sunken lounge - anyone on here remember that?

 

Alas no ('no' in the sense that the model railway was locked up out of use - if it was still there - the first time I went there on a course,  an Induction Course in September 1966, one of the speakers was Mike Casey)  Alas might also refer to the aforementioned Principal as well   I can't remember the date of my last visit but for some obscure reason I was conned into going there to lecture on a TOPS course but to my eternal disgust the snooker table had gone by then.   Fortunately I seemed to spend more lecturing time at Webb House at Crewe which although it lacked the gravitas of Derby school wasn't too bad a place and had some interesting kit once it became the signalling school while they were also very helpful with the courses which we (the Train Planning Training Group) ran there.

 

For the record my railway involvement started in July 1965 with a temporary job for the summer in the Stationmaster's Office at Paddington, then into full time employment as a Railway Student trainee in September 1966.  I moved out of the 'big railway' in 1999 and joined the world of consultancy in a signal engineering company doing mainly ops related stuff but some 'signal engineering stuff' as well and officially left them in 2005 (my final project for them was in Aus) although I still do odd bits and pieces on audits and safety stuff to help out a mate in his consultancy work. So my involvement with railways has thus far run over 52 years, on two different continents (but if I include conferences of not less than one week in duration, a total of 9 different countries - assuming Scotland and Wales can be counted as such) and thanks to doing odd bits & pieces for my mate a total of 3 different track gauges.

[The Johnster]

Let me assure you that Wales is absolutely and definitely a separate country by any legal definition that has existed since the start of the 16th century, despite Edward the First's claims to the contrary.  Henry the Seventh, Welsh born, declared it to be so (and himself the King of it, not surprisingly) and promoted the original Act of Union between Wales and England, so it had to be a country for that to take place.  Elizabeth the First also made the point that the Union was a unity of two separate nations ruled by one monarch in her claim to the North American continent which was based on the concept that it had been 'discovered', and settled, by Prince Madoc and his followers some three centuries earlier.  Madoc had made a voyage over there, and returned to mount a second expedition with settlers; nobody ever saw or heard from any of them again, but this was the expedition's intention, to start a completely new life and sever all connections.  A Native American tribe, the Mandan of the lower Mississippi valley, apparently have some Welsh words in their language.

 

Scotland is even more certainly a separate country, so your tally of nations is absolutely correct, Stationmaster!

[St Enodoc]

Alas no ('no' in the sense that the model railway was locked up out of use - if it was still there - the first time I went there on a course,  an Induction Course in September 1966, one of the speakers was Mike Casey)  Alas might also refer to the aforementioned Principal as well   I can't remember the date of my last visit but for some obscure reason I was conned into going there to lecture on a TOPS course but to my eternal disgust the snooker table had gone by then.   Fortunately I seemed to spend more lecturing time at Webb House at Crewe which although it lacked the gravitas of Derby school wasn't too bad a place and had some interesting kit once it became the signalling school while they were also very helpful with the courses which we (the Train Planning Training Group) ran there.

 

For the record my railway involvement started in July 1965 with a temporary job for the summer in the Stationmaster's Office at Paddington, then into full time employment as a Railway Student trainee in September 1966.  I moved out of the 'big railway' in 1999 and joined the world of consultancy in a signal engineering company doing mainly ops related stuff but some 'signal engineering stuff' as well and officially left them in 2005 (my final project for them was in Aus) although I still do odd bits and pieces on audits and safety stuff to help out a mate in his consultancy work. So my involvement with railways has thus far run over 52 years, on two different continents (but if I include conferences of not less than one week in duration, a total of 9 different countries - assuming Scotland and Wales can be counted as such) and thanks to doing odd bits & pieces for my mate a total of 3 different track gauges.

I was lucky enough to know Mike Casey both as a boss and also a friend. He was immensely proud of having been born in the same year as the King class.