Anotheran

Rude of the English to pinch all the Roman letters for their new fangled language that the Welsh had been using before English existed 😁

It was really good to see Bleat in Stafford on Saturday. Sorry I didn't actually say hello. You were in the middle of a discussion as to how a catching sandpipe was causing problems, so I didn't want to interrupt! Photos on here are always good. But your work looks even better in the flesh. I have seen Bleat a couple of times now, and if that really was its final outing then I look forward to seeing your next presentation out and about.

Thank you. That's rather interesting. I found when looking at plastic to plastic welds that d-limonene worked as well or even better than MekPak on some of the kits but not at all on others. I assume specifics of the plastic composition caused the differences. I'd not even thought of using it to bond metal to plastic. But as you say, sticking something into soft plaster is a good analogy and that has been a method of adding adornment to surfaces for milenia! I will definitely use going forwards as more forgiving than a quick drying superglue!

Please forgive me being a little on the slow side, but I can't tell from the text whether this is intended as irony or fact, as I don't know whether d-limonene is actually of any use for bonding brass to plastic. Given that I have a large bottle of d-limonene and a pile of mixed media kits I'm actually curious. (Though I do suspect that most of my d-limonene will have evaporated before I actually get to do some proper modelling!)

When I first looked I thought I saw wisps of steam in front of the trees on the right hand side behind the loco. In fact it's the shadows on the backscene behind the trees! Very effective though, and an all round great picture!

Those of you of a nervous disposition look away now as I'm posting an update after nine months. Family life has got in the way, but this evening I decided that I at least should try some kit building to get back to things. Sorry, it's not really anything new. I thought that the quickest results would be to have a go at some more 16-ton minerals. Sadly way out of date for my favourite era. But I did have three kits waiting close at hand and I thought I'd give a production run a try. Not finished by a long way, but I've advanced them in little over an hour to a stage that at least they look like waggons! The pictures are only there as proof that I've actually done something! They're no different from the one that I did back seven years ago! All the fiddly bits left to do, so they may be done one at a time. But we'll see how it goes. They're sat on my desk now, so they'll keep nagging at me to get on with them. So shouldn't be nine months before the next instalment. But that's all for today. I now need to go to make sure that the two newest additions to our flock of bantam chickens have managed to find their way into the coop! Thanks for looking!

Great views Shaun. I particularly like the pub and the teashop ones as the effect of looking up at the train on the viaduct is quite striking with the multiple layers of scenery in front of them. Is that bridge in the second to last really 14' clearance between the lines though? From the height of the car it looks to me more like 11 or 12. Don't want to take the top off any of your vehicles by driving them through an incorrectly signed bridge because if they hit it that could stop the trains for quite a long time while the engineers come out to confirm it's still structurally sound! 😉

I know you've still got the tiles to do, but right now it almost looks like you've had a fresh fall of snow on the rooves. Beautiful modelling even if you are going to get rid of the snow!

Having your goods shed the same size as the After Eights box sounds a good idea to me. Particularly if you follow your normal technique of leaving the roof removable and filling the interior... ...with After Eights

I was very pleased to see on the pre-grouping waggons thread a post by wagonbasher Andy saying that Tackeroo may be at the Stafford show in September. I only saw it in Gnosall and it wasn't working very well at the time so am very keen to see the Andy squared layout up and running! Go for it lads!

Looking again at the diagrams... There could be some logic to three bolsters... Each is directly above one of the three axles, which means that weight is equally distributed from the bolsters directly above the axles. Obviously the wagon frame should be distributing the weight evenly, but I guess a little bit of help in that distribution by putting the bolsters in the right place can't be a bad thing.

Maybe it's a GWR thing... both the diagrams in Atkins et al for diagram J6 and diagram J10 (figures 161 and 169 respectively) and the photograph of number 40987 to J10 (plate 215) show three bolsters. So if it is meant to be a BEAVER C then it is missing one. However, I know even less about other companies than the GWR (and I don't have books for them either) so BEAVER C could be a completely incorrect identification and it may not be missing a bolster. (But it does look like the pictures in the book to me)

Looking at GWR Goods Wagons (Atkins, Beard & Tourret) page190, other than the missing central bolster, it looks very like the BEAVER C (built to diagram J6 in 1889 of which there was one, or converted from broad gauge to diagram J10 in 1880 of which there were eleven). Dia J6 was 27'7" over the headstocks, dia J10 27'6", both with a 9' x 9' wheelbase. But I'm sure there are others out there more expert than me.

In both the second and third sentences the phrase "with a bull" is used, implying that even if stock is horned they do not need to be tethered unless they are being carried with a bull. The only requirement for tying seems to be when a bull is either on it's own, or present with other stock.

John Wilkes Poundley of Black Hall, Kerry, was partner to David Walker until 1867. They were responsible for Kerry station, which opened in 1863. On the disused stations site photographs stated to be of the early 1900s do show the chimneys with pots, the brickwork of which does appear to be contemporaneous with the rest of the building. That doesn't mean they haven't been rebuilt, just that they don't look like they have. It also shows very decorative bargeboards. The Wikipedia entry for J W Poundley and D Walker shows photographs of other buildings with similar ornate bargeboards and states that these were "typical" of Poundley. So maybe in Traeth Mawr... Interestingly the 1861 census of Black Hall says that JW was a land agent but that his son John Edward, was a surveyor, which in the 19th century censuses is often synonymous with architect. In 1871, however, after the dissolution of his partnership with David Walker, JW is listed as the County Surveyor and his son as a land agent! One wonders if the enumerator mixed them up in 1861. JW died in 1872, but his grandson, also John Wilkes, entered the law profession (articled clerk in 1891, solicitor in 1901, still in Black Hall in Kerry) so could well have travelled along the line to Traeth Mawr to take a look at his grandfather's work in 1895 as a 22 year old. None of the above is likely to be of any help, but it may be interesting in some way!

Was absolutely fantastic to see this brilliant layout in the flesh today at the Stafford show. Incredibly inspiring details in such a small space. The way it works with so many distinct views means that you don't notice that it's quite a tight curve. Just brilliant. Also made my 8 year old daughter's day when she took a photo showing a group of Midland Railway waggons saying that she wanted to take it for Mummy. I was a bit confused as I know my wife isn't very interested in model railways. But then said daughter pointed out that "the man has put Mummy's initials on the waggons" ... MR.

Chris, this had me laughing (though maybe that's partly the heat). Particularly when I noticed that your note of apology was itself missing the apostrophe in Grocers (or rather at the end of Grocers as it's definitely a plural in my mind). Of course with your humour I have no idea if that was intentional or an ironic mistake... I went with intentional. Fantastic research, work and the hints of the storyline that always find their way into your posts. Neil

After a quick exchange with AndyY I realised that most of the images on the thread were unlikely to ever come back. So, as I said on Newcastle Emlyn, I've taken the decision to go back and find all of the images and repost them. That's now done on both threads. So everything I've documented is available again in full technicolour, warts and all. Obviously I can't post images that were in other people's posts in the thread, but I think that it all pretty much makes sense again with the images back that I did have and was able to post. I'll now take a copy of everything in order for my future reference, and just in case...

Well that didn't take me as long as I expected. Helped by the fact that (by a peculiar quirk of the IT fates) pages 15 to 17 had had all of the images restored, which included some long posts of kit builds with lots of pictures, I have now completed reuploading all of my images for this thread. It also means that I now have them all located in a single, well documented, source directory! I'll have to do the same for my DE thread, but very pleased to have Newcastle Emlyn back fully documented. This excludes images posted by other contributors of course, which sadly are still missing, but I can't do anything about those. So for those who may want to look back at my mistakes, they are all there in full technicolour.

So maybe I'm just procrastinating, but after a quick exchange with AndyY and realising that the images on my threads were unlikely to return I decided to go back through them and repost them (at least all the ones that I can find). Once I've done that I'm going to save the lot to a Word document so that I have my own back up of it as a record of what I've done. Sad to think that some of the images in contributions to my thread by others, such as Jock, are gone forever, but at least I still have the text that was posted that was a great encouragement at the time. Only up to page three so far... during a conference call for work! Sadly, while I kept a great track of my images at the start, I think that later I may struggle to find them. We'll see when I get there.

For those of you that don't follow my other somnolent thread (Doxey End) I thought I'd post here that I've come to a decision on how I can at least progress a little. Instead of waiting on my rebuilding the inside of my garage, which has take a back seat behind a lot of other things in life, I've decided to move DE up to the loft. There's a nice dry space that is lined, with strengthened and boarded floors about 11m by 3m between the runs of shelves that are front and back of the house. So plenty of room to set stuff up, even if it's not as convenient pulling down a loft ladder. But we also enlarged the hatch so all of my planned boards for DE and NE will go through it! So I'll be setting up the layout(s) up there for now. Which will give me more of an incentive to make some models (buildings and rolling stock) in my office! I'll keep you up to date and I'll take some photos of the space up there next time I go up so you can see what I'm prattling on about. What I do intend though is to progress DE as quickly as I can with only starting on baseboards at most on NE. I will, however, be building stock for NE as that can run on both!

So another two years on and what have I done, other than buy more kits... Not a huge amount. I've pottered with a few kits but unfortunately even the garage conversion has had to take a back seat in favour of a lot of other bits of life. However, I have made a decision on that. For now I've moved DE into the loft that we have fully lined out, had the floor strengthened, boarded and shelved. I'm fortunate that I have a large space that I can move around in (about 3m wide by 11m long) that is free between the shelves that line front and back of the loft. This means that I will be able to progress on DE without any changes to the garage. I could even move ahead with Newcastle Emlyn up there, but I'd like to get DE somewhere close to finished before I do much on that even though I'll keep working on kits for rolling stock (which can run on DE as well of course) So, in short, I'm resurrecting this thread! If anyone is still listening... sorry to wake you up 😀

The link to the engraving that Edwardian posted a couple of days ago was a fascinating article from the 1893 that said the boys signed a declaration that they were... "fully aware that this employment will not entitle them to promotion, compensation, or pension. That their services will be discontinued on their attaining 16 years of age, unless they then succeed in passing a competitive examination for direct appointment as postmen on reaching 18 years of age..." So no whiskers would, I think, have been the norm! It does go on to talk about those who went on to enlist as having preference over those who had never been a Telegraph Messenger Boy when seeking employment with the Post Office later. But the pictures are all of the "boys".

I think your first guess was probably correct (though you've not said where that was). I think this picture is taken looking down Duncannon Street from the NE corner of Trafalgar Square with St Martin-in-the-Fields on the left hand side of the background.

Hi Mike and thanks for that! It's never me that resurrects my topic, and I think you've now done it twice! Sadly almost all of my modelling has had to take a big backward step in priority over the last couple of years. I've even stopped purchasing kits on eBay. I am keeping track of some of my favourite threads on here and every now and again I get out my plans or the solvent and a kit. But nothing really thread worthy. I will be trying to do more over the summer... As for the slates... I saw your post and have immediately purchased a used copy from Amazon £2.90, post free. I know it will just annoy me that I've got more to look at and still no time to put it to good use. But curiosity just got the better of me! Thank you for the reference, and the prompt to get me back on here and thinking of doing some modelling again! Neil