corneliuslundie

Interesting, the second recent photo of a fly-ash train. In both cases pretty long trains. A challenge to model. Jonathan

"The usual London Terminus for GWR when Paddington is inaccessible is Reading." Rather a long walk to the nearest Tube station. Seriously, are those in charge trying to drive traffic off the railway? A few years ago a way would have been found to continue using Paddington whatever engineering work was going on. I assume the change is partly because of the foolish decision by NR to ban all work near live railway lines after the incident in South Wales where its staff ignored the rules and were killed. So send people on the roads instead, where there are several deaths every day. Jonathan

I am sure J3189 is correctly captioned, but amusing that not a point in sight. Jonathan

Yep, Burry Port & Gwendraeth Valley. They cut down some O8s after that. What happens when you convert a canal to a railway. Jonathan

"confused by the capital C" blame the spell chucker. But yes, the Swansea Wagon Co makes sense. An interesting wagon but a bit early for me. Amused that Canadian Redwoods are in the news today. We shall all have to add higher backscenes. Jonathan

Just a note to thank those who regularly post updates and videos on here to keep the rest of us informed. Much appreciated. Jonathan

I saw them at Llandudno Junction too when on a day trip from Harpenden taking in the Festiniog. I thought I took a photo but can't find it. Jonathan

With trains a persistent problem is length. We often have to compromise and use shorter than prototype rakes. With track layouts we constantly have to compromise because of lack of space. With trees there is a similar problem. A mature tree can be well over 100 ft tall (discounting the Canadian redwoods near here) and a 120 ft tree will be over 18 inches high. But on most layouts it is not practical to have the trees higher than the backscene, perhaps 8 inches at most. At least we can make our individual wagons accurate. Jonathan

C7549 is a real rarity. Jonathan

I don't know about the iron ore, but I think it was often imported through Cardiff Docks. So the rails would be going downhill, for export, and the iron ore uphill. There are certainly photos of these wagons in the docks. See for example page 100 of the WRRC Rhymney Railway drawings book. And re buffer heads, I suspect that the answer is "but not for long". I have just ordered some. Jonathan

I, like you, am curious about the iron bodied batch. Early on many companies had iron bodied wagons, but wood soon took over. The GWR had metal bodied loco coal wagons but I think that there were problems even there with corrosion. And of course in BR days the 16 ton minerals suffered the same way. Wood certainly has advantages, even if it may mean more maintenance. And plenty of pre-grouping wooden wagons lasted to BR days. BTW I have noticed that in the GWR withdrawal registers there seems to be a blurring between timber wagons and Iron Ore & Rail wagons. Certainly some of the South Wales companies had dedicated Iron Ore & Rail wagons, but some of those so described in the registers were definitely timber wagons, albeit that they might have been used as rail wagons in later days. As in these Rhymney Iron Ore & Rail wagons: low sides for the iron ore and wooden stanchions for the rails. Sorry if I am hijacking the thread yet again. Jonathan

The BT stock looks rather more modern than what the SBB drafted in. Or was it just that they were on the longer distance services? Jonathan

"Now the question to actually ask is why did they build the wooden and flitched underframes???" To confuse us modellers of course. Or to give us plenty of choice when building our models. Choose almost any combination of frames etc and all one has to di is find a number which fits. But this is so unlike the later GWR where one gets the feeling that changing the length of the bolts holding the buffers on would have led to a new diagram number. Jonathan

And not just a slight scrape. However did the driver not see the bridge? Jonathan

"wrong sort of farm animals " which is why I read the book "Welsh sheep" before choosing the sheep for my mid Wales 1930s layout - Kerry Hill and Improved Welsh Mountain. A modern period layout would have completely different breeds. The wagons in a train would not tell me that because of pooling, though of course the loco and brake van would be GWR. And woodland in the 1930s would have included elm; not now. But more to the point, different companies had distinctive styles of architecture. There was a layout at last year's Machynlleth show (organised by the Corris Railway people). I looked at a layout and it shouted out Cambrian, probably Llanbrynmair just by the style of the station buildings and signal box. I am sure there were distinctive architectural styles on the Midland too, though with a big company like that which had absorbed many smaller companies, there would be numerous styles, each typical of the original line. Jonathan

Re renumbering by BR, I am aware that wagons from the Big Four received letter prefixes to their numbers which were otherwise unchanged at Nationalisation. Also that the ex PO wagon fleet was gradually renumbered in a series with the prefix P, various wagon repair companies being given batches of numbers (though I am not sure that anyone has managed to disentangle completely which batches went to which repairers). What I was asking was about wagons which had been in revenue service but were then withdrawn and allocated for service use, often with a cross on the side or lettering restricting where they could go, such as not on the main line. Did they received new numbers then or merely a new prefix (ie not B, E, M, P, S or W which they previously carried)? Possibly ED or similar. It is an academic question, as it is well outside my period of intertest, but I am currently analysing the fleet inherited by the GWR large numbers of which were withdrawn as "worn out" but then allocated to service or dock use and given completely new numbers. Jonathan

Sorry, the link didn't carry over. And what came up for me was in English. Try this: https://sot.com.al/english/aktualitet/aksident-tragjik-ne-kosove-furgoni-perplaset-me-trenin-e-udhetareve-h-i649599 Jonathan PS It works for me now

You are not the first person to make that mistake. A question, about an era which I know little about. You say that the wagon is in service use. Did BR renumber wagons into a new number sequence when they went into service use, as the GWR did? Jonathan

https://sot.com.al/ One in the Balkans. There are only about three passenger trains a day on this line, and as far as I know now no freight. Krushevë e Madhe is on the line between the capital of Kosova, Pristina, and the second biggest city, Peja. Jonathan

Were the brake vans being stored or in use? And just one has a white end. Jonathan

Or like me already have about 240 wagons kit or scratch built and running out of space (or need) for more. Until recently my standard procedure if a modelling project was not going well was to put it to one side for a while and build a wagon, whether kit or scratch built. But not now. Jonathan

And almost certainly no 12 inch steel buffer heads anywhere at the moment. Jonathan

Is it because there are now so many much better RTR wagons that kit building is less necessary? And the latest announcement of a 1907 RCH design will make even more kits redundant. After all there is even now a Rhymney van RTR. And I am not buying any wagon kits. 240 wagons is enough. Mind you, at the Welsh Railways Research Circle Publications Working Group meeting today we were talking about the desirability of a layout's company being evident without any rolling stock present. That means buildings and scenery. Jonathan

In JVol4169 the smokebox numberplate has serif numbers. How common was that? Jonathan

And "Bus hits bridge on first day of rail replacement services on closed Shrewsbury-Wolverhampton line" https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/telford/albrighton-and-cosford/2024/03/09/rail-replacement-bus-hits-bridge-on-first-day-of-replacement-services-on-closed-shrewsbury-wolverhampton-line/ Jonathan