Fat Controller

Looks like a nice model. Regarding the two hoppers in the train of car-carriers; they were carrying t flint for garden landscaping. loaded at Southampton docks and destined for Mossend.

Parkgate Steelworks?

I can confirm they were fairly common at BTM in 1974/5, working out of the parcel depot to to the west of the station (Pylle Hill?) One or two carried a 'V' TOPS code, though I can't remember the second or third characters.

Any idea what the bogie container flats are doing there?

There was an accident on the WCML, where a train of SAB (two-axle air-braked, vac-piped) ran away . Upon investigation, it was found that all the vac-pipes were coupled, but the air-brake was confined to the front loco.

This was taken in the latter days of the Train Ferry, i.e before November 1994, as there is a nuclear flask wagon towards the rear of the train. The coil wagons were still being delivered; I remember a rake of them at the 'Military Landing'' opposite Dover town yard..

'Yes, we have no bananas We have no bananas today...' was a popular wartme song, I believe'

I visited this shop (combined models and sweets-hop this morning, and was pleased to see they had they had a selection of Hornby-Dublo SD6 wagons. I paid £6 for a VGC Traffic Services tank; other items included two Fruit Ds, a Cattle wagon, steel-bodied Highfit, Breakdown train Packing Van. There were other items indicated as '3-rail'; I only glanced at these. Hoping this is of interest to someone.

Were any rivetted examples lettered in this style? I only recollect the welded sort;.

For engineers' spoil trains, I believe; saw them around Tyne Yard, in the early 1990s

You could turn a pallet truck in the width of a wagon, but it wasn't easy.

In the early 1970s, one of the GW-based examples was seen as a site hut at Pentrepoeth, Llanelli; it almost caused me run into it on my 'bike! It's origin and identity were a mystery to me at the time, there being virtually nothing published about wagons. Uneven wheel-loads, together with 'twist' in both wagons and track, remains a concern The problem seems to arise when several parameters are close to their limits.

Even when there were pallets, the loads were not secured to them, apart from a bit of Signode banding around the top layer. Back in 1979/80, I spent some months unloading 60kg sacks of gypsum from F1 Ferry vans. The load was on pallets, or at least it had been when loaded in Germany; due to the lack of anything securing the sacks in situ, they had slid between the pallets, into the space between load and doors etc. I reckon about a third of the load had to be rebagged; so much for labour-saving devices.

They were not the greatest of successes, being implicated in a number of plain-track derailments. possibly due to uneven loading. Many ended their careers as Internal Users, being used as stores around yards and depot.

I recollect working for a firm that used a small fleet of Leylands to deliver glazes and bagged clay around the North Midlands. As access was restricted in some some locations, they had a 'Terrier', complete with 'experienced' driver for 'okkard' jobs (If you've watched 'Great Pottery Throwdown', you'll have some idea). One morning, the Terrier was't aound, so the driver took out a 'Boxer' instead. I think the fleet manager got the first call to say the wagon seemed a bit tight, shortly getting one to say it was blocking both the works and the main road between Boslem and the D Road.