Stoker

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes they did, in Maine

Not really mate... maybe a passing similarity but even the shortest of the Maine "two-footers" would've been among the longest narrow gauge railways in mainland Britain. The SR&RL was equivalent in length to driving from Big Ben to Bristol via the M4. They were proper rough and ready real railways, that people relied on for their survival, not the biscuit tin Victorian curiosities of old Blighty.

Do what you want though mate! Rule number one! Slap a balloon stack and cowcatcher on Prince and call it a day if that's what suits you! The only person you rob is yourself.

4 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

There were hundreds of small mining and logging operations that were very similar in style to the uk mining lines

Yes I did already mention industrial systems which is where I feel HOn30 has its greatest potential. However one important distinction I'd make is that UK industrial tended to be much smaller in stature and length on average, being more of the temporary Simplexes and Rustons variety, while North American industrial had locos more in the 10-20 ton plus range. There was some smaller stuff of course, which in the early days was often referred to as the "baby gauge", but for the most part what they called a "small locomotive" would've by UK narrow gauge standards been considered to be on the larger side. Good case in point would be the 12 ton Plymouths at Statfold Barn, which dwarf practically everything else in the shed, if not by length at least in every other direction.

One of my absolute favourites in the HOn30 industrial category is this superb layout that somewhat follows the Hayden & Frary ethos, but to my eyes pulls off a much more believable appearance.

Trevor I'm very glad to see you added a door into the linhay! I was half tempted to suggest one but felt that I'd bombarded you with enough clay related suggestions as it was! It's coming along nicely and I look forward to seeing it roofed.

On the subject of clay related suggestions... just a minor nitpick at the risk of running up against "rule one", and I know this advice is never the best received after the fact... but that blue paint on the windows and doors of the dry would've actually been green in the time period that you're modelling, and as a matter of fact that is the reason for the green paint on the company cottages that you faithfully replicated from photos.

I've had this talk of green paint with several people on RMweb now and it's something that always catches people off guard. Despite multiple enquiries I've yet to find out why ECC so widely used green paint for such a long time, despite their "corporate" colours always being sky blue (appearing on not just the logo but also the company vehicle fleet). In spite of this, the green was absolutely everywhere and seems everyone in clay country had a pot of it in the shed! Under weathering and sunlight it faded to a sort of "seafoam" colour that I'm sure many of you have seen. Their other enduring colour was red, which was in particular applied to handrails, and this also became the Charlestown Foundry standard colour, appearing on things like pumps and hose monitors. After a period in the 60s and 70s when they started using a cream colour, ECC blue was only used on buildings for a brief period in the late 70s and early 80s, but before even a fraction of their buildings received the new colour it was replaced with more cost-efficient red oxide! It rather maddeningly ended up being the most rare colour in clay country.

Oh, by the way, at some point soon I'm going to sit down and have a crack at making up a 3D CAD for the Muir Hill LH-1 loader, which in the 50s was the machine of choice for these old linhays! I'll be putting it up on shapeways when it's done, and will drop you a link to it provided that does not contravene any of RMwebs rules.

Lovely work Rhys, although one suggestion if I may... looking at the prototype and your model, I believe the pub would greatly benefit from the addition of some window sills! 

If you're considering modelling US HOn30, one important aspect to keep in mind is that the US and Canada didn't really have the quaint little Calthrop style narrow gauge common carrier railways that we think of as "narrow gauge" in the UK, which were lucky if they went more than 10 miles in a single direction. What North America had was to all intents and purposes full blown mainline systems, often hundreds of route miles, but merely running to a narrow gauge. Almost without exception, these lines were 3' gauge or 3'6", and basically none of them survived (in gauge, at least) much past the 1890s. The most common locos on these railways were the iconic 4-4-0s, and would've looked very much "wild west" to the British observer! A large proportion of these former narrow gauge systems still exist in their now standard gauge forms, the "way" having remained in constant use since constructed.

In the States, 30" was a much more common gauge in industry than it ever was as a common carrier, particularly mining, construction, and to a lesser extent logging. These systems generally performed only one function and that was the conveyance of raw materials from the extraction site to the processing site, although some did move quite a variety of freight owing to the remoteness and difficulty of the terrain. In such circumstances, one could expect to see pit prop timbers, fuel coal, bunker oil, machinery, and all manner of sundry items trundling from the nearest civilization out to the mine site (or what have you). Many small 30" gauge systems were still in regular use into the 70s before they were superseded by trucks, by then the majority of the motive power coming from just three builders: Plymouth, General Electric, and Whitcomb. A lot of these systems went almost completely unphotographed, written off as "mundane", making prototype research that much more difficult (and on the flipside, freelance that much more plausible).

In terms of what's available, there's really not much unfortunately. It's a great scale-gauge for 3D printing, kitbashing, and scratchbuilding if you're so inclined, but if you feel that's a bit beyond you then you're stuck with some very limited (but still quite good) offerings. As others have pointed out, Minitrains has over the years offered some bits and pieces of questionable accuracy, with the F&C locomotive being actually quite accurate with some minor modifications. For a brief time only, Big City Hobbies sold re-tooled versions of the original Plymouth and Baldwin locomotives from the AHM days - these are good runners that sometimes pop up on the second hand market. One other RTR piece that seems often overlooked in HOn30, is the Heljan "Lyn" which is in actual fact an American locomotive, the real thing having been built in 1898 by Baldwin in Philadelphia -- Lyn was somewhat undersized and cramped by American standards, with standing in the cab requiring stooping, so with absolutely no modification apart from paint the 009 model actually fits into HOn30 perfectly! Evidence of this can be seen in this side-by-side comparison of Lyn with a very similar Baldwin built to more American proportions for an Australian narrow gauge system. Aside from that, the RT Models Grafar Class 08 steam conversion kit would provide a perfectly viable chassis base for scratchbuilding a 2-6-0 or 0-6-0, a ubiquitous type in both tender and tank form.

Although it's not much, I do still think there's enough there to make HOn30 a viable niche gauge for an interesting layout or at least a cameo. 

On 21/03/2021 at 07:15, LBRJ said:

She called Fowey, Fo-WAY... which seemed even more wrong than the more usual Fowi

Flashbacks to an emmet asking my dad for directions to the "Fowi Fairy", which it turned out is apparently Scouse for "Fowey Ferry".

Once the gears had turned and the penny had dropped, "tiz over yonder" (with a pointed finger) "also eez pronounced Foy me 'ansum".

That turned out cracking David! What a difference google maps measuring tool and a few reference photos make, eh? Wasn't so long ago that none of that was possible for the average chap, 3D printing included.

Came across another photo you might find interesting, which shows the powerhouse quite clearly, with less foliage so that it's more obvious how it was built into an excavation in the hillside.

Weathering powders will get diluted by a matt coat, yes, so it's best to build up the effect in layers. The way most people approach this is they "go heavy" on the powder application and then tone it down with the matt coat, rinse and repeat until you're happy with the end result.

Personally since I've gotten into airbrushing I've stopped using weathering powders altogether. I find that they're just too expensive for what they are because you use up so much of them on each project with doing the multiple layers. If you skip the matt coat you will use less weathering powder, but then handling the loco knocks off the finish. I find I can get the same results or better with an airbrush for much less money, material, and time, so as a result I just haven't had the cause to bring them back out of storage.

They look good when first applied but I don't think I'd ever go back to them.

Goodness what a tremendous loss this is. I think I must've been about 10 years old when I first saw an ad in Railway Modeller for his Ruston LBT, which at the time just about blew my mind! I went running off to show my father, as I'd never seen anything like that before and had no idea that people actually modelled narrow gauge! (Back then the model railway press was staunchly standard gauge) I've followed his works enthusiastically ever since.

His advocacy for the characterful, gritty, and charming British INGR back in the dark days of model railway publications that were myopically obsessed with Hornby and Lima trainsets was a breath of fresh air and led many of us down a path of lifelong hobby enjoyment. Now that we have the internet, the window into that world that his enthusiasm allowed has reached a huge audience, and we sometimes forget the humble beginnings from which pioneers like Roy had emerged. I hope he'll be forever remembered as the man who made O14 a reality.

This is a topic that makes me wish I'd taken photos of the Cornish cottage models I'd built over the years rather than just giving them away to people!

There's two types of cement renders common in Cornwall, one is spray render which produces a very textured finish, the other is a flat render that's been applied with a trowel. The row of houses at Burngullow have a flat render, which is just a mixture of sand, cement, and water, so your "texture" in 4mm scale would be builders sand shrunk 76 times! That'd be so fine that in 4mm scale (about 13 microns) it'd be basically invisible. If you want a point of reference, that'd be the equivalent of 1500 grit sandpaper.

To create an illusion of texture, judicious application of weathering is the best way to go. Solid colours don't work for concrete because they just look like paint, so you have to break up the surface by creating a blotchiness of subtle tone variations. Best way I've found to do this is to start with a dark base tone, and then use sponges to apply a medium and then light tone over it. Dull "blend" with a mist coat from an airbrush, and then conservatively stipple lighter and darker speckles to represent the typical fungus/lichen that likes to grow on cement. Once you've got a fairly convincing appearance, you can go back with a slightly lighter shade, and drybrush in a downward motion below any protrusion that may have occluded rain, such as immediately below windowsills and fascia boards. Then go back with a slightly darker shade, and drybrush anything that may've gotten excess exposure to moisture, such as the upper surface of windowsills, behind downspouts and the foot of the wall where rain tends to splash back.

The construction photos are from the early 70s when Keir had the contract to build the new Jetty and a storage linhay. At some point one of the cranes in the photo overbalanced and fell in the river. I'm not sure how they numbered the new Jetty, I think maybe no.5, but I know it wasn't no.8, as that was the designation given to the GWR loader. Jetties 3 thru 7 were originally a mixture of conveyor belts and cranes, with the electricity obviously coming from the powerhouse. When No.8 was built the powerhouse was substantially expanded to increase output. I think I'm right in saying there was more juice used by no.8 alone than all the other jetties combined!

Yeah "play fair and safe" is a good mantra. As far as I know, no case precedent exists for prosecuting a lack of attribution on an otherwise fair use of a copyrighted work, but it's no skin off anyone's nose to give credit where it's due. In reality, I don't think any "violation" on this forum would ever get past the takedown-notice stage since we have quite proactive moderators.
 

11 hours ago, DavidMatthewson said:

Many thanks for that. So from the photos it seems the chimney was located about 10m seaward from the generating station itself. Would the boilers be in the bunker like base of the chimney or the main powerhouse - in either case, how were they connected to each other? All help very much appreciated.

The boilers were in the building, and a flue ran underground to the base of the chimney. The building was split into two rooms, boilers in the room closest to the chimney, steam engines in the other. If you look at the photos you can see that there is a parapet in the middle of the roof which marks the point of the partition wall.

I'll ask around and see if anyone I know has any more information about it.

Oh, and here's a couple more photos you might find interesting:

 

So far as I'm aware the old powerhouse didn't have turbines, it had conventional steam engines. Maurice Dart gave me a lot of information on the powerhouse during our visit in 2004, most of which I promptly forgot! But IIRC the steam rising from behind is from the condenser, and the water tower in front of the building contains condensate to feed the boilers of which I think there were two of the Lancashire variety.

Also just FYI copyright doesn't prevent photographs being used in ways that conform to "fair use", such as educational and research purposes. You do not need permission or a license to display copyrighted work online if it counts as fair use, which this would do.

On 17/07/2020 at 04:45, HonestTom said:

I did a boxfile based on the Lincolnshire potato railways. Video about it here.

I had not heard of the Lincolnshire potato railways until you brought it up. What a great prototype. Lots of potential there. I especially like the timber cabs, very agricultural!

2 hours ago, steve W said:

Tidmeric Minerals was a 14mm layout of the Twickenham club. It was one of the earlier 14mm builds, 15ft long with a continuous run with f-yd at the rear. With most 'industrial lines' tending to have one purpose and as simple as possible it was decided to incorporate three scenes of typical 2ft gauge line use to engage visitors. It successfully did over 120 shows in the UK and Europe.  At the right end was a stone crusher and grader, with animated conveyors and rotatary grader (shaver foils), central was a fine model by Brandon Evans of wooden ore loading hoppers from a cornish tin mine photo with a small workshop area at the left end with a water filled slate quarry behind, disguisng the return curve. Along the way a Festiniog rotating signal became incorporated. Eventually sold to a private museuem in Bremen we came home with an empty van.

 

Cheers

Steve W.

 

Tidmeric is another one that I was already familiar with, and in fact had downloaded photos to use as inspiration. Being a Cornishman I recognised the ore hoppers immediately (Camborne and Redruth Tramway I think). This is exactly the kind of modelling that I really enjoy, so bravo.

Just now, Paul H Vigor said:

Purely industrial narrow gauge layouts - in any scale - do appear to be quite rare? I guess there is always a temptation to run some kind of passenger service?

It would seem so. I can't personally fathom the attraction with passenger trains, but perhaps it says something about my personality type when I say I'd much rather see a train carrying dried sewage than people!

I'm open to the possibility that I might just be one of a lone few who gets excited about conveyor belts and chimney stacks.

There have been some great industrial NG layouts in the past. Ruston's "Whitaker's Tramway", Roy C Link's "NG Sand And Gravel", Hull MRS's "Barrowfleet Brickworks", to name the few I know by heart. But it feels like there aren't many out there in a sea of slate, passenger, and trench layouts. Now I'm wondering if there's anyone on here who can point me to a few more. I could use some inspiration for future projects!

Without doubt, the single biggest variable I've encountered in "slow running" is that different people have different tastes, and different ideas about what "slow, smooth running" actually is. Some people are just more impatient operators, not concerned with realistic movement, so to them a model that others consider intolerably fast might be perceived as nice and smooth so long as the motor performs well within it's capable range. It's this very subjectivity that makes me highly skeptical of other people's personal impressions of any locomotive. And so without meaning anyone any offense l remain unconvinced unless I see a video for proof. (But I'm keeping my fingers crossed for another viable 0-4-0 chassis, you can never have too many)

In my 25+ years in the hobby, I've also seen just about every single gimmick that claims to make fast locos with cheap motors able to crawl, and in my experience none have ever lived up to their claims. My dad had a really fancy (and expensive) controller at one point, with "force feedback" if anyone remembers that, which was hand built by a guru... however my 30 quid gaugemaster could run anything equally as well, because I suspect the critical components in the controller were ultimately of equal quality. Both did absolutely nothing for the cheap mainline 0-6-0 that sounded like a coffee grinder, both were able to get my Bachmann WD Austerity to crawl so slow we had to put a ruler beside the engine to verify it was actually moving. The difference is in the quality of the components that the respective manufacturers put on the locos, the controller had zero to do with it.

I also disagree that "bedding in" makes so dramatic a difference as to completely invalidate out-of-the-box reviews. In all my years in the hobby I've yet to see a loco magically "gain" the ability to crawl entirely from bedding in. The simple fact is they can either do it out the box or they can't, period. I've also run enough locos in my time to be able to know whether they're going to be a good runner the second a current passes through the motor. Good runners have a certain gentle sound and smoothness, with low starting voltages and little stutter - bedding in usually just takes them from near-perfect to perfect. Then the most flawless runners I've ever seen were hand built 009 locos with Swiss made Maxon coreless motors, full compensation, circa 40:1 gearing, keep-alive capacitors, and DCC. The only thing more impressive than the locos was the workshop and know-how of the guy who built them. The point I'm getting at here is that there's no substitute for quality chassis, and no good band-aid for bad ones. It's really just a matter of physics.

Ultimately my gut instinct with the Hornby 0-4-0 is that it's probably a worm and spur upgrade away from being a very good runner, and that the reason why people can't get it to crawl in the videos I've seen is because it simply can't run the motor slow enough to overcome the nearly 1:1 gearing. Many people have found that 5 pole motors help (and I've seen some speculation that this is what Hornby upgraded the 0-4-0 with although I highly doubt it) and while it's true that 5-polers have lower starting voltages and a lower base RPM, that's still no substitute for the mechanical advantage of gears. Ultrascale make 40:1 worm and gear sets that'd turn these locos into Swiss watches, particularly with the addition of DCC and keep-alive, and perhaps I'll do that myself someday as a proof of concept, as I feel it'd be a fun project.

I'm quite sure this is very recent. It was a Sams Trains review of the limited edition Smokey Joe, and one thing Sam always does in his videos is demonstrate crawl capability for each loco - needless to say it wasn't just poor it was flatly incapable. I don't know, maybe this was from the previous run you speak of, I'd be thrilled to be wrong and have another viable source of good 0-4-0 chassis, but I think I'd have to see video proof before I bought one and would need to know specifically which model number to order.

But I have to say that I agree with you about the shift in attitudes in the hobby. It's much more ready-to-run focused now, and that has been at the noticeable detriment of the smaller producers who make detail parts. This has forced a dramatic change in the last few years in particular for the number of people doing "diesel detailing" of North American prototypes, where once it was standard to add horns, bells, thinwall cab kits, air filters, vents, fans, etc. and now it's just expected that a model loco have all this detail pre-applied and proto-specific out of the box.

A lot of manufacturers are now dead and gone or on the brink. Wrightlines and all their fantastic kits, Backwoods, most motor bogie manufacturers, mashima, Romford seem touch-and-go, Ultrascale seem to act like it's just too much hassle to be worthwhile...  for a while there NWSL were just totally kaput and thankfully seem to have come back, but no telling for how long. Branchlines also seem to have slipped into obscurity... they used to be the one-stop-shop if you needed to build a chassis, just give them a call and tell them what you need and they usually had everything.

It's frustrating for me as I have many projects I'd like to 3D print and potentially offer as kits or RTR models, but I just can't get the running gear side of it. I can have photo etches made up no problem, but just not wheels, gears, and motors.

Personally I doubt I'll ever bother with the Hornby chassis. Even with the recent improvements it's still somewhat fast, seems completely incapable of crawling, has no crosshead or crosshead guides, and the bent drive-rods are a bit of an eye-sore. Since the Bachmann Percy/Greg chassis has none of these issues I think that's just a better starting point for me. While the issues with the Hornby chassis can be fixed with a bit of bodging, I'm honestly getting to the point where I just want to get on with it, rather than having to faff with a chassis.

One other big downside for me is that living in Canada means postage is often prohibitively high. What seems like a bargain loco becomes decidedly premium at the checkout stage once postage is added. This means I have to be a bit more careful about what I buy.

I really wish there were more options for chassis. This has been a bit of a perennial issue with narrow gauge. I'd build my own if it wasn't such an ordeal to get wheels, axles, gears, and motors!

Thanks for the replies chaps. I've been working on a design based around the Bachmann Percy/Greg chassis which has a 31mm wheelbase and the wheels appear to be approx 14mm. It sounds like the Hornby 0-4-0 chassis might be a good alternative as 33mm x 16mm is very close. I'm hoping to snag a donor soon so that I can confirm the dimensions and get building. I'm particularly interested to see if I can figure out some ways to upgrade the chassis for slower running, perhaps with a motor swap and some better gears.

Here's a rough draft. I'm quite happy with how it's turned out.

Just now, Cornish_Rail said:

 

 

Just a bit of history on the latter one in your post but the St just site was Lower Bostraze and it reopened in the 1960's and used a oil fired kiln till its closure in 1991 when it was deemed not cost effective.

 

Yes you're right it was oil fired, I forget about that, so technically not a coal fired kiln although still a traditional pan kiln in every other respect, and you're correct that it closed in 1991. The heat from the oil burner passed through the old furnace and under the pan, which dried the clay in the traditional way without any mechanical assistance (apart from the digger). Quite remarkably, the works was operated by English China Clays, and was the last pan type dryer the company operated. It's quite incredible to think that this dinosaur outlived the technically more modern 1939 built Rockhill rotary, and ww2 built Collins rotary and Drinnick Old Cooperage Buell.



This photo taken in 1992 one year after closure shows Lower Bostraze dry from outside with it's distinctive square brick stack, the settling tanks are also visible. The equipment on the left resembling shelves are triple deck screens, very outdated by the time this photo was taken, but in the 30's through to the 60's these were quite commonly used to classify clay to the desired particle size distribution prior the use of more sophisticated refining plant such as centrifuges, floatation cells, hydrocyclones, and hydroclassifiers. Lower Bostraze was not within pumping distance of a clay refinery, and it's 5000 ton per annum output precluded building one locally, so it had to use this more primitive method to the bitter end. If these were not used, there was no way to separate coarse from fine grade clay, and also some clay would be so fine that it could actually pass through the filter press cloth and be lost in the filtrate. This undersized clay was pumped back to a tank where it would be dosed with a chemical called a flocculant, which encouraged the clay to form into larger particles, and then pumped back through the screens to form a closed circuit.



This CCHS photo on the interior of Lower Bostraze shows the small digger used to move dried clay from the pan to the linhay. The travelling bridge with wagon can be seen being moved by a worker, and I believe the item on the wagon is a quick-attach implement of some kind.



This photo, credit to Jim Casley son of the last manager of the works, shows the oil burners in the furnace.
 

On 12/06/2020 at 11:00, doilum said:

Lockdown has given me the chance to scratch a few long standing itches. One is to build a 7mm tribute to Dave and Shirley Rowe's Under Milk Wood. Step one: a zero cost loco from a battered Percy and scrap brass offcuts. 

Could you possibly give dimensions for this loco? I have a project in mind and I'd be interested to do something similar. Wheelbase, driver diameter, width, length, height, etc. would all be very useful.

On 16/06/2020 at 03:51, Rhysb said:

So by the early 1990’s when This layout is based I am guessing on your information that the dry would be oil fired? 

In the early 1990's only two coal fired drys remained; Great Wheal Prosper dry at Carbis Wharf, and another (not rail served) deep in the west near St Just. By that time, manual labour had almost completely been eliminated from the once dreaded "old way". Mechanical stokers fed the furnaces (a circa 30's to 50's innovation), a filter press house replaced the wagon tanks (these came in early 1900s), and the role of men shovelling dry clay off the pan was replaced by a small kubota excavator which rode on one of the two travelling bridges (introduced around the 1980s).

Lord Falmouth's "underdog" clay company Goonvean & Rostowrack owned "Prosper" dry, and leased a single Tiger wagon from the fleet that Tiger had originally allocated entirely to ECC. I believe this ended up being the last white tiger, the last freight out of Carbis, and the only air braked wagon to receive clay dried by coal.

A photo of the mechanical stoker at Great Wheal Prosper dry, Carbis. Coal came in down the chute into a small hopper, which fed into the tube seen below. The tube contained a spiral auger which fed the coal into a "bowl" hearth a bit like a giant tobacco pipe. Air was blown into the furnace via the square duct:



The photo below shows the filter presses at Carbis. These brought clay slurry pumped at pressure from the tanks into the bank of cast iron plates which were lined with filter cloths. Clay would then build up on the cloth eventually forming a giant 4ft square cake weighing about 200lbs. As you can see from the spatter on the roof, sometimes the cast iron plates would "give up" under pressure, which made a terrible mess.



Here we see the Kubota KH-31 that was used at Prosper on the pan. It has it's own heavily reinforced travelling bridge, which it was able to move itself along on using the arm. This machine was used to break up and distribute fresh filter cakes across the pan, and also to remove dry cakes to the linhay.



Lastly, we have the tram wagons on the other travelling bridge, which were used to carry the filter cakes from the press house to the desired spot on the pan. As you can see they were side-tipping.



Early oil fired mechanical dryers built between 1939 to around the early 50s were all built as an extension onto the original coal fired dry, which itself was usually modified by the internal removal of the redundant "pan"  and installation of conveyor belts to carry dried clay through it. ECC's first "big" modern conveyor fed linhay was built on Par harbour around 1951, and was a second hand derigible hangar from RAF Davidstow. The company installed a pair of large rotary peanut roasters inside, and set them up to dry china clay. After just a couple years the plant at Par proved a success, and so the company shifted from mechanizing old dryers to building entirely new plants. The vast majority of coal fired dryers were shut down during this period as they were replaced by huge new plants capable of orders of magnitude higher output.

Here's a photo of the linhay in question at Par in 1951, former RAF hangar of truss construction, being assembled around the pair of peanut roasters:



A closer photo of the peanut roasters sat on their giant concrete plinth: