Pathfinder

Great first post and welcome to the forum! Some really useful information here. As you may have gathered from some of the earlier posts on this thread, quite a few of us are fascinated with the operation of 1960s/70s milk trains, including, of course, in South and West Wales. I mentioned John Vaughan's book The Power of the Hymeks earlier and there are some great photos around Cardiff and Newport including a cracking one at Marshfield showing D7080 shunting milk tanks (page 93). This clearly shows the hard standing you referred to. You've now got me thinking South and West Wales again! Just a shame class 22s weren't regulars there. Thanks for the comment, I haven't seen the John Vaughan Hymek book, i'll have to have a look for it, usually when a 'hydraulic' book comes out i give it a flick through and put it back quickly as there is NO S Wales content or the same old stuff going round again. Seeing the sheer amount of work the 14's, 35, and 52s did there,  these books give a very false idea of history, mainly i believe because the photographers never seemed to cross into Wales to have a look :-( Books on Westerns seem particularly bad especially ones concerning their last days, Paddington-Plymouth seems to be all that ever happened, apart from the fact that they worked in Wales right up to there last days, passenger as well as freight. When do you ever see a photo of a Western on a train of 100t tankers? steel? the Stratford Freightliner ? the Radyr-Acton coal ? the STJ- Margam mixed (very!) ? the Fishguard car carrier ? or even the night Western Lady pulled the LLanwern iron ore after the triple header failed !!!  Sorry, just a bee in a bonnet i have about the subject ;-) 22's in Wales? never saw one working, did see them being dragged to Cashmores for scrap though (expensive train to model, 1x 35 and 4 x 22 ) Did see 22's working around Lydney for the forest workings, ballast and coal etc. these being 82A jobs working down from Gloucester.  The odd Warship crept in now and then but not a lot. I forgot to say that the 'Marshfield'  before being a Hymek used to be a 14, happy days !   Me ? i would model the forest ballast trains with 22's or maybe the last 4 kept for the Hemyocks, a model of Cadoxton showing train after train of bananas behind a Hymek would be far too big ! john

Hi, As a new guy here can i add a little about S Wales milk trains ? As a teenager in the 70's in Cardiff i used to see a lot of them ! The main line ones from West Wales used to recess in the large depot on the up side next to Canton around 6pm where a reform and attachment of the tanks coming down from Marshfield would happen, then with a new crew and sometimes a new loco it would depart for London around 20.30. The 'Marshfield' was the trip from the small yard on the up side halfway between Cardiff and Newport. A loco would go off light from Canton around teatime, pick up the tanks, go forward to Ebbw Junc, run round come back to Canton around 7 and add to the train from Whitland. Early 70's this would be a Hymek, after the WR got 25's these were the usual loco but 37's could always stand in. Facilities at Marshfield were basic, just a hardstanding for tankers to draw along side the tanks and load. Weekends could find the milk train sitting alongside platform 1 (now platform 0 ) at Central in the afternoons, and i used to notice how many different designs of tank there was, i even wrote down a few numbers !! sadly these notes have gone AWOL over the years :-( Loco on the Whitland was either a Western or a WR duff. John