joseph benjamin

I thought you'd like to see a proper snow plough.

Page 59 of The Buxton line part 2 by J M Bentley has three photos of the coal being loaded into I think 16 ton mineral wagons at Dove Holes station, according to the station master about 40 wagons a day. So I just had to write to J M Bentley who kindly filled in some details. Somebody must remember a fleet of 7 ton Bedford trucks trailing back and forth between Peak Forest and Dove Holes.

Part of Peak Forest road bridge has been rebuilt with engineers blue brick and thanks to Mr J M Bentley I've finally found out why. Back in the late 1950s a glut of coal meant about many thousands of tons of it were stored in Bold Venture quarry all being delivered by road and the passage of all these wagons damaged the bridge. Then in the 1960s the coal was transported to Dove Holes by road and loaded into railway wagons for transport to power stations. Do anybody recall this activity.

I couldn't build Peak Forest without the ICI hopper wagons, I built a rake of 10 Uncommon Kits wagons, more photos on ICI hopper wagon 4mm kit thread, some years ago. Then last year I bought a rake of the Hattons/Oxford Rail wagons, with the hopper internal detail these run empty whilst the Uncommon Kits run loaded with crushed and graded MR limestone ballast. I also used it for the track ballast as at the time nobody did limestone ballast and there's hundreds of tons of spent limestone ballast in Hazel Grove. Is it a requirement to own a cat if you model Peak Forest? Unfortunately ours died of old age a couple of years ago.

This looks good, particularly the station building I must finish mine, however I remember peak Forest in steam and early diesel days so my model is based on Peak Forest 1948/68. Here are some photos with compound running in 1959, the fell and 58084 and D5500 in primer on test.

I built an A1 kit of the Fell 30 years ago, it's not just the cab windows which are wrong, as one professional model maker said "Ah a scratchkit". I took took easy route and built it as a 4-8-4.

When father downsized in the 1980s I had the task of dismantling my late brothers model railway which I helped build back in the 1960s it had models of just about every railway company. It languished in boxes for a year or so before I rebuilt it at home continuing the freelance BR theme. Gradually I became disenchanted with it and started a major rebuild based on Peak Forest 1948/1968, the more I read about it, particularly in Mr Bentleys books, the more it appealed. I can still legitimately run a wide selection of models as Derby used the Derby-Chinley-Derby as a test route (amongst others) and it's not far away with the mainline through Cheadle Heath is on my doorstep where I saw all the CoBos when they were new and I was still at school. Yes I have a soft spot for the CoBos, and those hopper wagons, the Fell, etc.

Heres a photo of another peak Forest in steam days.

As a new member I'm finding my way about, attached is a photo of my modelling attempts, Peak Forest 1948 to 1968.