Fat Controller

Brings back memories of the Steve Bell cartoons of a group of penguins with a Reliant 3-wheeler, acting as 'flying pickets' during the Miners' Strike..

'Branchlines' may do something

There was a variation on the 'Paddy Train', where passengers would travel in wagons attached to a commercial goods/coal services. This happened on the various lines around the Llanelly, Burry Port and Kidwelly area. It was all concealed from the Board of Trade' Inspectorate, who 'put the tin hat on things' by making an unannounced visit just as a 'shoppers' special' arrived at Burry Port. The BP&GVR directors were compelled to buy some coaches, and carry out the bare minimum of works to be allowed to convey passengers. Somehow, neighbouring the L&MMR avoided the rigmarole by treating the collier's wives as company employees.

At least some of the Avonmouth traffic was conveyed in containers in the late 1970s. Two 'half-height 20' boxes would be loaded into Boplates. There's a photo in a Trevor Mann book. I remember seeing one when travelling to work on the wonderfully-named 'Smoke Lane' in 1977

There was a daily working into the late 1970s, possibly later, that might be of interest. A Nottingham-Crewe working each morning worked forward to the passenger platform within Crewe Works. It was apparently run for the carriage of North Staffordshire Railway employees who had been displaced by the Grouping, about 50 years previously....

The preserved lines tend to run fewer trains, and less frequently: do any run weekday services outside high days and holidays?

I would consider using some etched W-irons, available from MJT and others. They are intended for those fitting compensation, which you might find useful

Mainly rebodied BR 21-tonners, but the third and fourth ate on LNER-designed type chassi, with the high brake-levers

My recollection is that the 'Shellstar'-liveried wagons had curtain sides, unlike the hinged doors on those examples seen in the 1970s.

Emergency services training? Eurotunnel had a couple for that, as did the Fire Services' place at Moreton in the Marsh.

You read it correctly

There was one on the line to North Dock at Swansea High St I believe.

I've often thought that the Morriston (LMS) branch would make a nice 'short-line. There were about half a dozen terminals of varying complexity between the bridge under the GWML and the A48 bridge at Morriston. At the time I worked at BSC Landore in summer 1974, the booklet for 'Conditional Workings' for the Swansea area ran to about 30 pages.

My train-spotting days....

They would, alomgside unfitted ones. Vans: the main traffic for vans was tinplate, normally conveyed in Shoc-vans. This was from the works at Velindre and Trostre to the the docks at Swansea, warehouses around Swansea docks and Metal Box factories nationwide. Mannesman was on the site of BSC Landore, I believe. Not sure when it closed, but can't recollect anything bearing the name by the 1970s . The old names lingered on; old hands would refer to Landore as 'Siemens', despite the plant having been confiscated at the outbreak of WW1 from the German firm that owned it. Out of interest, what period are you modelling?

Into the 1970s, there were at least half-a-dozen; by the ime of the 1980s Miners' Strike, this had come down to one at Swansea Eastern Depot, which fed the sites of some of the others by road. The depots I remember from the earlier part of the period included Burry Port, Llanelli, Gorseinon, Felin Fran, Morriston.

J1212: are those frameworks on the Carflats the stillages for carrying Rootes car bodies between Scotland and Coventry?

From personal observation of wagons in the Swansea area (I was brought up a few hundred yards from the Llanelly and Mynydd Mawr, and spent 3 months doing a daily census of wagons at BSC Landore in 1974), I'd say that fitted minerals were confined to house coal flows. Shipping coal, and that for electricity generation, was carried mainly in 21t unfitted minerals, with a leaven of 16 tonners . One oddity I noted was a 16-tonner with 8-shoe brake gear, but no vacuum cylinder.

From my memories of the period, wagons abandoned lineside were not uncommon. The train of Highfits looks like a seasonal rock salt working; these were to be seen into the late 1980s, running from Over and Wharton to storage depots nationwide.

It couldn't be one of the coaches which were built for the Burry Port and Gwendreath Valley in GWR days, but only spent a short period there before passenger services ceased, could it?

On the subject of ''chef de train'.. When Eurotunnel were first recruiting, they drew a lot of personnel from the hovercraft and ferries. One group, at least, arrived en-masse in their existing employer's crew bus... Another were catering staff, who the recruiting agency had decided were ideal for posts as 'chef de train'.

A mixture of type, some with steel ends, some with secondary suspension. They didn't last long on the scrap (from McGuinness' at Lonport), as the bodywork didn't take too well to having scrap dropped into them.

As late as 1982, there were 13t opens in use for road salt to yards throughout the country, and also in scrap traffic, and MoD traffic,

Though it might not be obvious, the original locos received new traction packs a few years ago, rated at 7mW against the 5.5 mW of the originals. The stock is pretty intensively used.

Two Tourist Shuttles (at xx:21 and 00:51) would be the usual service outside the holiday season., and has been so since 1995. A third service might be run at xx:39, should there be anticipated demand. It is worth moving departure times about; this can lead to discovering cheaper tickets.