Stoker

The question isn't "am I going to buy one?", the question is "what theme will my narrow gauge layout be, tin mine or china clay works?".

You might also want more motorcycles. They were very common back then, probably more so than cars among poorer families.

It was a cracking layout. Don't suppose you remember what year it was published?

I'm pretty sure it was called "Selsey Beach".

I did already have a look through those but no such luck.

Hopefully I'm putting this in the right place. Does anyone remember an EM gauge southern region 3rd rail electric terminus station layout, set in the 90's Network Southeast era, which was featured in one of the modelling mags maybe 20 years ago now? I seem to recall that it was a seaside theme (may have even had "beach" in the name) and was a "what if" layout. I remember it being particularly impressive for the time, given that almost none of the stock was available commercially, so it was all scratch and kit built. It also had a very impressive station concourse with a lot of realistic details.

The wheels on the cargowaggon (go round and round?) as it sits out of the box aren't too bad. Neither are what I got with the DJ Models tiger wagons, or the Bachmann polybulk for that matter. One thing I would like to do for my eventual CDA fleet is to upgrade the single sets of disc braked wheels (for those who are not aware CDAs have one pair of wheels disc braked, the other pair tread braked) to the Stenson stainless brake rotors. I think that would set them off nicely. I do think you are correct that I'll just need to test things, and not assume that following the prototype means I can fit anything anywhere. One thing people often forget, myself included, is that the real world railways have their own restrictions just like the models, some sidings and branches were not suitable for large bogie wagons, and careful operation is sometimes required through turnouts. Buffer lock can and does cause derailments on the real thing, although it's rare. That said, I think we make life hard for ourselves in the model world when we mix trainset standards with model standards - I don't think I've ever measured a turnout on google maps that was less than 75 feet in length, which would be about a foot long in 00 scale. That's probably considered a small radius turnout, but in model form we'd call it a large radius because compared to trainset stuff it's massive.

Which is something I noticed when searching for sprung buffers, or even just metal upgrades for a finer appearance, the more I look at it the more it becomes apparent that the best time to have done this was about 10 years ago when there were still a few suppliers around. This is the exact thing that is putting me off of EM gauge, lack of availability for common parts. The only outfit that makes EM finescale wheels for the Hornby Sentinel is Ultrascale, and they won't produce their next batch until they've had sufficient interest. I can't not have a Sentinel on this layout, that's a deal breaker. I remember the days when you could pick up the blower and give Branchlines a call, and have all the bits and pieces you'd need in the post the next working day. All this sums to make Dinghams more attractive. Sounds like the only downside might be coupling on curves. As I've said I'm going for prototypical track geometry on this layout, so I'm hoping that won't really be a problem.

PMP makes a good point, I should probably clarify what my parameters are a bit more. The layout is going to be a china clay siding, mostly running stock dating from the 60's through to the early 2000's. The largest wagon would be a bogie cargowaggon, the next largest would be a PBA, and the smallest would be an OOV/UCV clayhood. The largest locomotive would likely be a class 66, the smallest being a Sentinel. As for radii, I'm going for realism, and this will be an end-to-end layout, so large turnouts and minimal use of scale radius curves would be the order of the day. Finally, before we get any more long winded third person accounts of blurry eyes and wobbly hands forcing bitter acceptance of tension lock couplers, I should point out that I'm 32 years old, and hopefully have a way to go yet before any of that becomes an issue. Honestly, were it to come to that, I'm more likely to starve to death in my basement, having spent 3 days trying to couple two wagons at age 80, than I would be to reluctantly embrace the dreaded tension lock - family will say things like "he went out doing what he loved" and "that's the way he would've wanted to go" while the mortician pulls photoetched coupler components out of my solder burned wrinkled fingertips.

Some good input so far gents. I feel I should clarify that "handedness" would not be a problem for me, given that the layout will be an end-to-end, so the Dinghams are certainly an attractive option. I'm definitely leaning heavily toward these at this point. What really appeals to me about them is that if I were to decide to go 3 link at some point in future (let's say I try it and I like it) it would be really easy to swap the Dinghams for 3 link. As far as OO vs EM, I'm still undecided, although I really like the look of Peco's new bullhead stuff.

You might be surprised to know that the process of change that you are talking about actually happened much earlier. A lot of research and development occurred at Lee Moor, where a rotary calciner was constructed, among other things, in the early 30s. This was followed by a rotary drying plant at Rock Hill/Caudledown on the Goonbarrow branch in 1939, but due to the war that wasn't commissioned until 1949. A board of trade working party published a report on the state of the industry in 1948, which made recommendations for improvements at a time when the government was subsidizing and rationing the industry. This led to a period of rapid mechanization, and the bulk of the big modern drying plants were built during this period which spanned the 50s, 60s and 70s. Moorswater rotary dryer was built some time in the late 60s or early 70s, and it replaced the old coal fired dry completely, disused from that point on apart from it containing an additional filter press for the new dryer. By about 1970 ish, only Goonvean used coal and Great Wheal Prosper kiln at Carbis Wharf actually lasted until 1991, the clay being trucked down to Charlestown harbour in it's final 2 years. The 80's and 90's were actually a period when no new dryers were built and as a 2 decade period it can be divided into two distinct halves; pre 1988 and post 1988. Pre 1988 was a boom period for clay and the beginning of speedlink freight. It was a time when every available resource was mustered to process and ship as much clay as possible. Older plants were shut down as the industry re-organized it's flows to concentrate on larger plants for more efficient operation. Post 1988, the industry had hit it's peak and was now in rapid terminal decline. The CDA was introduced to replace the clay hood, but each year an ever growing number spent more and more time stored at St Blazey. The industry spent the 90's coming up with a survival plan that culminated in the 1999 sale of ECCI to Imerys. Blackpool dryers, Drinnick dryers, Collins dryer (and with it the entire Retew branch), and Ponts Mill dryer were all shut down by the end of the 80's (on re-reading, I've remembered that Pontsmill was actually shut down in '92, and Moorswater sometime in the mid-90s). The next wave of shutdowns wasn't until the 00's, with Kernick Buell, Par Buells, Par slurry plant, Marsh Mills Buells, Blackpool slurry plant, and Crugwallins Burngullow tube press.

For those of you who are like me and passionately hate tension-lock couplings, what is your preference for an alternative? I'm currently at the benchwork stage, so I'm starting to consider what standards I'd like to adopt, and for the longest time I've wanted to try out 3-link couplings. However having had no personal experience of them, I'm not sure how practical this would even be on what will predominantly be a shunting layout. There's also the issue of buffer lock - I've read various things about this; that sprung buffers help a lot, also that you should keep radii as large as possible (which is my intention, why bother with realistic couplers if you're going to have unrealistic curves?). I've also read that some people say you can't really propel 3 link on anything other than EM or P4 because the sloppy standards of 00 cause frequent derailments. Then of course, some say 3 link is too fiddly, while others don't seem to mind. Having looked at Richard Bohill's "Finlow" it seems he uses what look like Romford screw links without any issue. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Wanted: Heljan Cargowaggon; any livery except blue circle cement Bachmann Polybulk; literally any livery DJ/Kernow Imerys Nacco JIA; preferably clean but will take weathered

The problem is that Fowey is a dead-end, meaning wagons need to end up on a traverser so they can be moved to the empties siding after unloading. If you increase the size of the wagon you're using, you also need a bigger traverser. There's room to do this, since there's two traversers, one behind the other, which could be combined into one. However this system with the traverser is really inefficient and probably wouldn't be much better than with the CDAs. Their best option would be to be to build a hopper unloading chute in the wagon sidings, and add new conveyors to take this clay to the existing conveyor system. This would allow a locomotive to pull an entire train of hoppers over the chute, run around the empty train, rinse and repeat. The other option would be to remanufacture the CDA fleet. The third option would be to abandon the Fowey rail entirely and just use trucks, but that wouldn't exactly make much since given how much money they spent on Rocks.

Alternatively, you could get in contact with the person who made this: http://www.shapeways.com/model/424124/pra-china-clay-wagon-n-scale-1-148.html?li=search-results-1&materialId=61 That's assuming they used drawings. If not, they might be able to make a OO scale model available.

Back in the 60s the clay company was still using the Bagnalls in Par, and they had an English Electric, a Sentinel, and a Fowler at their other drying plants. The rest of the sidings were all shunted by BR. It wasn't until the 70's that the Blazey allocated 08 started making trips into Par and up to Pontsmill, and around the same time a few of the private sidings were modified in a way that required permanent shunters, at which point the clay company acquired some 08s for this. So basically I do believe that there were some 08s allocated to Blazey when the class was first introduced (or not long after) but they were confined to the yard for the most part.

For people who are interested in executing my version of the plan, I have drawn up a scale plan of the cottage, with architectural features typical of the Bugle area.

So I'm guessing the cassette/whatever will be on both the right and left sides of the layout?

Definitely. The station at Bugle is accessed by steps down from the road bridge anyway.

How's this? This is pretty much just based on Bugle station without the actual passenger station. The only problem I can think of is that you'll need the length of track to be able to take trains off the siding onto the main, and vice versa. Where will the track be going once it leaves the scene?

In 1988 the clay industry peaked at over 3.25 million tonnes. It came close to hitting the same mark again in 1992, but then steadily dropped off. At the moment, Cornwall is just about producing 1 million tonnes annually, which is less than the industry was producing in the 1960s. By 1998, 3 rail served drying sites had recently closed (Blackpool dryers, Drinnick dryers, and Pontsmill dryers), and by 1999 ECCI were acquired by Imetal, forming Imerys. I really doubt that '98 was the peak for rail movements on clay, perhaps '95 but by '98 it was very much in decline. As you can imagine I was obsessed with class 37s as a boy! From our house we could hear them roaring up the Luxulyan valley to reach Goonbarrow. My Dad still has them all, I've asked him to pick out a couple of the best ones and send scans to me. I'll post them up as soon as I get them.

Been following this thread with interest, as Par has always been one of my favourite stations. The 1980s saw the clay industry hit it's peak output, the volume of traffic was unlike anything before or since and most of it is gone now. As a young lad growing up in Cornwall, Par was one of the places my old man would take me. You didn't have to wait all day for a single clay train like you do these days, they were very frequent. You could go almost at any time of day and there'd be something happening. Trains coming from Burngullow, Goonbarrow and Fowey, sometimes all at once. I'll never forget the one day I got invited by the BZ crew inside the workshops, and up into the cab of a 37 to fire up the engine, how that roaring exhaust echoed in the shed! You wouldn't get away with that these days! What an amazing time in Cornish railway history that era was.

"By the mid 1960s, the locos had settled down to give reliable service, with availability over 85%, with one locomotive permanently out of action, with no action being taken to fix it." - quoted from Railway World annual, 1980, Chris Leigh. For my money, if a locomotive is one of the first diesels to be introduced to a predominantly steam region, and manages within 5 - 6 years of being introduced to hit over 85% availability, that's pretty damn good going. I defy any diesel on the face of the planet to hit that sort of availability in that era. BZ and Laira shop crews became legendary hydraulic wizards, proving the point that it's the knowledge of the maintenance base that ultimately decides the reliability of a locomotive. Painting them as unreliable when they were in fact very reliable once they were given a fair chance is disingenuous.