Fat Controller

It would have been Easter 1974 when I saw the ones at Warminster- I was on my way to Fareham from Bristol to visit friends. I think the labels were for Fyfees, rather than Geest, as were the ones I saw at Exeter and Barnstaple. I didn't get the impression that any of the yards in question (apart from Exeter) had any large sheds- the facilties in Exeter were on the London end of the sidings serving the cement terminal, so might be visible in photos. I should imagine these were some sort of secondary distribution terminals, rather than receiving traffic direct from the ports.

There was still some banana traffic being handled in the early-mid-1970s on the WR. I saw vans at Warminster in 1974, and at Exeter Central and Barnstaple in 1975 or 1976- none of these destinations handled trainloads of them, but short rakes of half-a-dozen or so in the consist of a mixed freight. The handling facilities were merely small sheds of the 'Provender Store' type, IIRC. Most redundant Banana vans didn't go into the general pools of vans (of which there were already hordes)- if they weren't scrapped, they ended up as 'fitted heads' for coal trains in South Wales, and barrier wagons for sand traffic from Redhill and Oakamoor (not because the sand was inherently dangerous, but to stop it blowing into the guard's eyes..)

Or HMS Troutbridge heading up-river... 'Starboard Lookout here- Leading Seaman Golstein chatting..' 'Everybody down..' 'Oops' Lovable Leslie didn't notice that'

That building at Lapford is a rather wonderful construction, looking like something out of 'Mittel Europ'- was it originally an abatoir, as I believe there was somewhere in North Devon that used to despatch meat in containers?

Pretty certain that some Scarabs ran alongside Townsmen until the demise of both types. I'm also reasonably certain that I saw a Townsman doing the 'Woolworths' run in Llanelli in 1973- traffic originated in Swansea, but I think the trailers were brought down by other tractors to the former Llanelli goods yard. Certainly, there were both trailers and the Rail Express Parcels Commers stabled overnight there. There seems to be quite a collection of Scarabs and Townsmen in the former Aluminium Wire and Cable factory off Fabian Way in Swansea- most are in various states of decay, but one or two look as though an attempt has been made to restore them.

Just to throw a wild card in here- I have seen some photos of an 08 working the yard at Barnstaple. Any ideas when this duty might have finished? The photos were on one of the many sites which disappeared with Fotopic.

But if it's a 'Mixed Train', then it's no longer a 'Passenger Train'... Might it have something to do with the train brakes being in the 'freight' position?

Curious that milk is listed as 'not permitted' as part of the train formation for these...

The ball-clay traffic would probably have disappeared within a few years, regardless of the wagons used, as the main customer base (the cheaper end of the ceramics market in the Potteries) has been reduced so much in importance. After all, Furzebrook went over to 'Tigers', but still lost the traffic. Ball clay is only used in ceramics, whereas kaolin is much more widely used. The 'mixed' trains weren't 'mixed' in the sense of the Mallaig and Oban services, which attached fuel-oil tanks to passenger services, as far as I can see, but were passenger trains where the passenger stock was often outnumbered by parcels vans. The cement, fertilizer, and other traffic still rated a daily freight.

Another thing comes to mind. The CIBA-Geigy resin traffic was for a factory making chipboard somewhere nearby. I have a recollection that EWS took finished product from this factory for a while- would it be credible to suggest that this had happened previously?

That must have been almost the entire fleet! Didn't Appledore have a big contract to build minesweepers around that time?

Clay Tigers have/had a capacity of 57 tonnes, with a tare in the region of 23 tonnes, giving a laden weight of 80 tonnes. Is it possible that the reason they didn't make it to the Torrington dries is that the fleet was initially exclusively for the use of ECC, and that the North Devon dries belonged to someone else?

I wonder why the Fruit Ds lingered on so long on the parcels traffic between Exeter and Barnstaple? They were there on my only visit to the line, which would have been 1975- at that time, there was still banana traffic to Barnstaple.

There was steel plate for Appledore shipyard, carried in SPAs, I recollect. Not sure which way the cereal traffic was going, but I would have thought it would have come via Lapford. The OCAs are strange- I wonder if they were sent to Lapford in error, or if it was stock that had been recalled. There've been a couple of models based on Lapford in the past- I think George Woodcock might have been responsible. Stuart Davies' identity on here (Lapford 34102) suggests he might have something of interest.

Bitumen was carried in lagged TTAs with 'flame tubes'- they used to have four little chimneys sticking out of the top. They'd have probably arrived via Speedlink- the ones for Elswick, Newcastle used to.

The bogie wagons were BDAs and BDW, or the timber-carrying version (BTW)- Cambrian do all of these. The MPV was the same one used for the SRA's timber-loading trials in Wales, but with a pair of Megafrets sandwiched between the power car. There was an account of a trip on it somewhere (Rail or Modern Railways, probably). There had been a bitumen terminal (latterly Colas) between Painters and Bulmers- not sure when this shut. Perhaps at the beginning of the 1990s, when Shell stopped sending product out by rail from Stanlow?

Hereford handled both inbound and outbound timber at this time, I believe, with inbound timber being unloaded there for the timber yard at Pontrilas- this lasted until the siding off the loop at pontrilas was fettled up. The steel would have been sections of various sizes for the pylon manufacturer that used to be just north of the station (Painter Brothers?). My WR Quail, dated 2000, still shows private siding connections for Painter Brothers, Wiggins Alloys, Bulmers and MEB (Hereford power station) off the former Brecon line, though all are marked 'Not In Regular Use'- I think Bulmers was re-activated for the Freight Multiple Unit trials.

Was it for use on the Wensleydale branch, I wonder?

I think you might have a formatting problem- the bulk of the latest entry is hidden behind something showing what the latest postings are, which would normally be to its right. brian

There was (possibly still is) one just to the north of Stafford station on the Up side, around about where the Great Northern line towards Derby left the WCML- this was almost certainly rail-fed in the past, given the location of gates in the old lineside fencing. Unusually, into the 1980s, this dealt in timber though all its stages from whole tree trunks down to finished products- when passing by train, one would see tree-trunks sliced, then separated for seasoning, in neat lines adjacent to the main line. The provenance of each tree would be painted on a board hung on one end of it. Semi-finished timber has been transported by rail until fairly recently- various rail terminals in the West Midlands dealt in imported timber into the mid-1990s. Initially, this would have arrived via Boston, King's Lynn and other East Coast ports, then transported in whatever wagons were available, from ordinary opens, though specialist Timber wagons , to Bogie Bolster and Rectank wagons. Latterly, it arrived via the Train Ferry on French low-sided ferrywagons and Cargowaggon flats.

Wasn't the RNAD at Gosport known as 'Bedenham'? I recollect that the working from Eastleigh along the remains of the Gosport branch used to be nicknamed 'The Bedenham Bomber' even into the latter days of Speedlink.

Just had a look at some colour pictures of various Coastal Command aircraft taken during WW2. Upper surfaces (as seen in plan view) were either in a grey/green (Temperate Waters) camouflage pattern, or in plain grey- some aircraft did seem to just be all-over white. I've visited a few aircraft graveyards over the years- St Athan used to break V-bombers, and we used to park in their shadow for BoB Day displays. The undercarriages on these were kept relatively tidy, to facilitate moving the machines for cannibalisation. These days, Manston, near us, breaks Jumbos. In all cases, engines are removed fairly quickly- at Manston, some of the locals helped themselves to a couple. Cockpits would normally be tarp'ed over until anything worth having had been removed. Resist the temptation to have 'rust' patches- not much ferrous metal in aircraft. What you might well get is a lot of mould/lichen build up over time.

Some lovely work on the weathering there. Just one point about the minerals- when built, the wagons were allocated to particular workings, and had black panels between the doors with white ( or sometimes yellow) lettering to indicate this. In later years, these panels were sometimes overpainted in grey, as the wagons would turn up far away from their original patch. John Isherwood (Cambridge Custom transfers) does some:- Sheet BL100 - Transfers for BR 24.5T Steel Traffic Mineral Open Wagons, (4mm. scale, 1950's and 60's period). Included are eight sets each with LOAD ONLY TO SHEEPBRIDGE IRON & STEEL WORKS; TO WORK BETWEEN RAWDON COLLIERY AND HAMS HALL C POWER STATION; LOAD ONLY TO JOHN SUMMERS & SONS LTD - HAWARDEN BRIDGE SHOTWICK SIDINGS LMR (GC) and LOAD ONLY TO C.E.G.B. EAST MIDLANDS DIVISION markings. This sheet provides transfers for FORTY wagons. 2mm., 3mm., 3.5mm. & 4mm. scale price is £6.00 John Summers ones were to be seen at the opposite end of Wales, in Brynlliw/ Graig Merthyr to Carmarthen Bay PS coal trains in the early 1970s. Many also carried a yellow triangle between the doors, apex upwards, below the 'Load Only' details- this was also painted out in grey sometimes.

They were definitely around after I went away to college in 1973, as I remember seeing them at Llantrisant. The ones at Llandeilo Junction may have gone over to the S&T by then, as this was about the time of the extension of the Port Talbot MAS to Burry Port. There seemed to have been a few of the SR vans that went on to work as 'Pitman's Pullmans' around the South Wales area as well- Graig Merthyr had some, I believe.

I was thinking of the arrangement of twin V-hangers on each side. The sudden, and somewhat belated, arrival of the Banana vans for fitted heads (around 1973, IIRC) might have been related to them being surplus to requirements at Barry. Quite why we'd had to wait this long for fitted heads, when 68ers had been overpowered by their trains for 8 or so years, I don't know. The vans seemed to be concentrated around a couple of locations- llantrisant being one, Llandeilo Jct another. Curiously, I can't think that I ever saw them on the L&MMR, which was across the cricket pitch from our house. The ripening warehouses were in some strange places- Kingston and Exeter Central I can understand, but Warminster also had one, as did Barnstaple, I believe. Were there any dedicated facilities for this traffic away from the former Southern lines?