webbcompound

Yes I have the Buckley Album. Other sources I am using are: Boyd on the WM&CQR and the Buckley Connolly on the Victorian brickyards of Flintshire and Denbighshire Pritchard: The Making of Buckley and District plus Dow on the GCR and the resources of the Archives at Hawarden which has some of the source material for the above publications, plus other photos (in particular of the inn) and documents, and the (very big) GCR survey map plus of course several site visits to look at what is left of the embankment and quay stonework. There are still several buildings that I have very little evidence on (they appear right at the back of other photos giving tantalising and contradictory information about roof lines0 so I would be interested to track down a copy of the book on the docks mentioned by big jim if he can provide details. The Cambrian traffic no doubt included empties returning after delivery of stuff (coal?) to the Quay, but also possibly incoming pit props.

WM&CQR chair! Nice. The chord from the main line to the Quay was authorised in 1883, and the contract let in 1891. The 1900 working timetable shows a 1.15pm mineral train leaving Brymbo North Junction, picking up at Frwyd Junction and Lay Hall and arriving a Connahs Quay Docks via the chord at 4.35pm. A goods train leaves Connah's Quay Docks via the chord at 5.00pm, arriving at Wrexham at 7.29pm with the specification that it is to work traffic for the Cambrian. There were six trains in, and six trains out of Connahs Quay Docks on the Buckley line, with the 4.10pm specified to put off traffic for Birkenhead at Buckley Junction at 5.45pm, and the 4.30pm to put off traffic for the CLC system also at Buckley Junction when required at 6.00pm. A mineral train for the Wirral picked up at Buckley Junction at 7.35pm, and a goods and mineral at 11.55pm There was also a link in from the LNWR by the chemical works/timber yard/wagon repair works, but it doesn't seem to have been much used.

Although clearly the Edwardians themselves hadn't worked out what scale they were

There is film of the events, you just have to know where to look. And yes they are wearing khaki (and field gray) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bERNcnaT-ko

Even with punctuation this loco had a long and complex history. It started as an 0-6-0 tender engine built in 1846 by Sharp for the Manchester and Birmingham (their No.30, later LNWR No.430, then No.1222). In 1870 the LNWR rebuilt it as an 0-6-0ST, (became No.1029). Bought by the WM&CQR in 1872 and renamed "Queen". Rebuilt in 1880 as an 0-8-0ST. Rebuilt in 1890 as 0-6-2ST. Demolished in an accident after running out of control into the exchange sidings at Connah's Quay LNWR station. Rebuilt in 1897 as 0-6-2ST. Rebuilt 1903 as 0-8-0ST. Became GCR No.400 in 1905, then No.400B in 1907. Although it passed into LNER ownership in 1923 it did not receive a number and was scrapped in October of that year.

Dave, the bridge is very low, but the locos were made especially short. Phil, as in your photo (1922) No6 couldn't get under the bridge, but it has had its dome and chimney increased in size by the GCR. No6 and No8 did turns on the Buckley when No1 and No2 were unavailable. I haven't worked out how they ran the docks, but since both No6 and No8 were specially made low I'm assuming it was to allow them to get down to the quay. As an example of a specially low WM&CQR loco here is Sharp Stewart built No8 as running in WMCQR guise. Again the GCR raised all the boiler fittings and the cab when they got hold of it and the second photo shows it in that guise. No8 is quite high up my build list.

Although I enjoy tangenital tosh, and to avoid being accused of being the purveyor of further irrelevance, and in case anyone thinks my interest in pre-grouping is just academic, not practical, I have taken the step of beginning my own layout thread. It will no doubt pale in comparison to Edwardian's massively entertaining magnum opus, but at least it will be there. Connah's Quay is the name.

Stung by intimations of lurking and lack of relevance on other threads, and in the vain hope that the pace of modelling will somehow accelerate as a result of posting I am starting this topic to show progress on my Connah's Quay layout. Connah's Quay was the riverside terminus of the Buckley Railway, a venture set up to move coal, bricks and industrial ceramics from the collieries and brickworks of the Buckley area to a shipment point on the Dee. The line was rapidly taken over by the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway, and in its turn this was eventually absorbed by the Great Central, which is how the LNER came to have an outpost in North Wales. The layout is intended to represent the situation at the point of the GCR takeover in 1906 although Rule 1 applies and so there will be an amount of backward easement as far as 1904. Scale is 4mm/foot, gauge is P4 The area of the layout is the old quay, and a section of the newer quay, with the Chester to Holyhead line of the LNWR on a low embankment forming the boundary at the rear of the modelled area. So far much time has been spent juggling and slicing baseboards to produce a viable set-up in the available space. I also want to make the layout removable from its attic location in case we move house, or popular acclaim demands a public outing, neither of which seems terribly likely. So here we are. The plan is taken from a survey of the railway carried out by the GCR prior to taking over the line, currently held at the County Archive. The post apocalyptic photo is the situation so far, on the verge of actual tracklaying.

Unlike many modern internet driven examples this could well be a pre-grouping pickelhaube

Over 24hours since anyone appears to have posted, and only one post in the previous 24. Is it possible Castle Aching has crashed due to the large volume of people liking the posts? Or is there a more nefarious reason for the stoppage

If you put an S bend into the road on the right side, so it leaves the scene closer to the railway, and put the church on a bit of a slant you could probably get at least the whole side of the building in, if not the whole building.

The trick (well one of the tricks) is to overlay transfers in sequence, so for the red black red line on Edwardian's livery I would lay down a red, then overlay a black, then overlay a red, them overlay a green (the main livery colour) and paint green overlapping onto the final green line. Then add a cream line and again overlay it with green and paint up and onto the green. The individual transfer lines can be over width, but by overlaying you narrow them to the required thickness. I would gloss varnish each transfer before adding the next. Obviously you need a paint to match the final green overlay (I cheated by making that black), and the cost of the transfers adds up, but you aren't using enormous lengths for tiny pre-grouping tank locos.

Narrow lining is quite possible, but it depends how much time you want to spend, and how many times you want to scrub it and start again. Poor photos, but you get the idea. 4mm foot scale.

Now this is the Goth layout to end all Goth layouts., A whole railway system inside a cemetery.

All this talk of rabbit trains, I'm surprised there hasn't been an intervention from a certain member of the Parish Council

Also in 1906/10 according to the LNWR marshalling instructions GW traffic came from Cardiff, Kingswear and Falmouth through Bristol, then via Hereford, Shrewsbury and Crewe. At Crewe the Manchester and Liverpool sections were split and Cambrian coaches were attached. By 1910 a whole rake of LSWR carriages was making its way to Birkenhead

Admiral Tegetthof! His career sat squarely in the period when ironclad ships could get to close quarters and ram each other. Tegetthof's ship, the screw frigate Schwarzenberg caught fire after a close range gunnery duel with the Danish frigates Nils Juel and Nyland at the battle of Helgoland. Here he is on the bridge of his flagship Erzherzog Ferdinand Max about to ram and sink the Italian armoured frigate Re d'Italia at the battle of Lissa

according to Boyd The loco was M&B No30 an 0-6-0 tender engine. which became LNWR 430, then 1222 by Feb 1866Rebuilt at Crewe as an 0-6-0 saddle tank in 1870 and renumbered1029 in Jan 1872 and bought by thw WM&CQR in June 1872. (bought in 1872 also says on the photo in Boyd, but the drawing says 1874)

the amazing thing about No6 was that it started its life in 1846 on the Manchester and Birmingham Railway as an 0-6-0 tender. Became an LNWR 0-6-0 tank, then an 0-8-0 on the WMCQR, then an 0-6-2 and finally an 0-8-0 which soldiered on for the GCR until finally being scrapped by the LNER in 1923. This kind of thing would give the WNR licence for all kind of wierd and wonderful variants if the stable wasn't already written down and fixed on the interwebs . As for Claude, Count of Liverpool becoming a WNR director that could lead dangerously to them coming to the attention of Mr Watkin and who knows where that might lead.

Fiction? Pshaw. Not needed. Phase two of my historically accurate layout (Connah's Quay 1904-6) will be the Joint terminus (Britain's only Union Station) at Emilia docks, situated in the alpine coastal district of Birkenhead, where all kinds of transatlantic and Hibernian traffic will arrive. With no need to invent rolling stock the station will provide facilities for the LNWR, the GWR, the GCR, the Cheshire Lines, the WM&CQR, the Wirral Railway and the Mersey Railway, all of which actually served Birkenhead. You may be wondering about the alpine scenery. Lovers of Opera will know that the docks are named after the 18th Century Emilia di Liverpool, documented by Donizetti, who was confined to the Liverpool Convent, in the Alpine valleys, a few leagues from London, (clearly a reference to the Wildreness of Wirral, home of Sir Gawain's Green Knight), from where she is ultimately rescued by her lover, who has been a slave of the Barbary Pirates for twenty years, and has returned disguised as a sailor, pausing only to help the local mountaineers rescue her father from a coach which has been washed into the flooded Mersey.. Oh, do keep up.

I was always aware of gendered tea drinking. Grannies had cups and saucers, grandads had pint mugs

Well not necessarily three as the difference between second and third could be the standard of the upholstry, or the number expected to sit on each side (three for firstin a wider compartment for more legroom, then in a narrower compartment four for second, and five for third if non corridor?). Equally you might have many different sizes for the same class if your carriages have subtly different lengths

If you look at any current hedge you will be able to see whether it was ever layed. Round here (South Northumberland) there are some nicely massacred-by-machine hedges but inside they show the earlier layed structure

you could always park the bus on the level crossing. You would then save a fortune in motors, gearboxes, controllers, wiring, chips (if DCC inclined) etc. And the layout could be one huge cameo, with people getting in or out of carriages, train spotting boys engaging loco drivers in conversation, goods being loaded/unloaded, etc very little of which appears on most layouts.

What people did with their ships and boats then was a lot more risky than they would be now. Flats ran slates from Port Dinorwick near Conwy to Liverpool, and one was sunk at the mouth of the Dee in a collision with a coaster. I doubt the men sailing in Norfolk waters were any more risk-averse than those in the NW so these boats would appear in places that surprise us now. This flat is aground on the Dee at Chester.