checkrail

3 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

Lovely loco John. I am hoping it’s at Didcot when we get over in the summer.

A good chance I should think.  The crew told me that the aim was to take it out to a preserved line about 3 or 4 times a year.  I think that's usually for a week or two. Next destination is apparently the Churnet Valley Railway so you might want to check on 4079's summer schedule. 

Nipped up to the ELR yesterday for a ride behind 4079 'Pendennis Castle' from Heywood to Rawtenstall and back. The Castle was in splendid nick and fine form.  I last saw this loco pausing at Starcross with a down stopper in the summer of 1961.

John C.

7 hours ago, KNP said:

And here is a repeat of this mornings picture but in monochrome to help those that still only have a black and white monitor!

"And for those of you watching in black and white the green ball is behind the pink."

12 hours ago, gwrrob said:

a rather nice photo of Kingsbridge yard on the cover.😎

Thanks Robin.  Nice variety of wagons in that photo. What date do you think it is?

Nice weekend in Bridgnorth and day out with son and grandsons at the SVR spring steam gala on Sunday.  Shame 'Betton Grange' couldn't make it but 'Hagley Hall' and 'Erlestoke Manor' were looking great, as was the Stanier mogul and the delightful 'Fenchurch'.

Here are son and grandson getting in the way as 4930 runs into Bewdley.

But for me the best bit was the wonderful train of GWR carriages of various types.  Lovely to see the real things after a few years of occasional kit building and peering at old photographs.

We actually rode in the set of Stanier LMS coaches on Sunday, but that was no loss.  As Steve Forbert sang, "Driving a Jaguar's impressive, but you cain't see it go by ..."

Now back to those new PO wagons. 

John C.

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

'Gloucester', for a box made by Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Company.

Thanks Miss P.  Even expanding the pic to max. and looking through the bottom of my varifocals and a hand-held magnifier I couldn't make that out. So well done Rapido for including such microscopically fine detail (which I'm afraid is now about to be obliterated with matt black).  

While on the subject of PO wagons can anyone tell me what the lettering/symbols on the axleboxes of all three of my new Rapido items signify?

John C.

2 hours ago, gwrrob said:

POWsides do a six plank wagon , Beer and Co. of Kingsbridge, a local coal merchant with the option of two running numbers [No1 and 2 ] in both transfers and kit.

Thanks Robin. I've seen a 'Beer & Co.' wagon somewhere on a layout in the past but hadn't connected it with Kingsbridge. I note that the POWsides listing describes it as 6 plank but uses a Slater's 7 plank as a base, presumably because there's no kit or RTR 6 plank item available?  In spite of my stern remonstrations to self about no more PO wagons I'd find one of these impossible to resist if a RTR model appeared.

2 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

Beer and Co

 

Image and description here.

Wow! What a layout.  Thanks for alerting me to it.  Who's the writer?  I see that he bought it in fairly embryonic form but has made a lot of progress with it since.  This is Pendon-standard stuff isn't it? 

Robin @gwrrob, please tell us more about the Kingsbridge coal wagon. It's a new one on me.

John.

2 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

I'm really torn between placing an order for a couple of them, or buying 4 pre lettered kits from POW sides.   

2 hours ago, gwrrob said:

POWsides have a long waiting list at the moment,

Talk of POWsides reminds me that having built some of their kits in the past, often supplied with Slater's or similar kits as a base, I already had some 1907 pattern RCH wagons.  An example ( two in fact) is the Renwick Wilton wagon below (left).  I always wondered why it and its companion were slightly different dimensionally from my two Bachmann versions.  The new Rapido RW wagon has a different lettering style to those others. Here it is sandwiched between the aforementioned POWsides one and one of my Bachmann R, W and Dobson ones. 

I realise I've got quite a mix of periods here for one firm's wagons, but they're interesting and hopefully add a bit to the sense of place,  I guess the Rapido one is the earliest livery, the black ones next in age and the R, W & D one the final version after the merging of the companies?  Any further light on this would be welcomed. There's a good picture of the black ones (if they ever were really black) in Tim Bryan's 'A year in the life of the Great Western', showing three of them in the yard at Bodmin in 1925.

John C.

On 16/04/2024 at 17:04, gwrrob said:

Apart from Gibson wheels, what treatment will these get John

Shortened couplings so that the front of the coupling loop is in line with the buffer heads, and weathering. The RW wagon (of which more anon) will also get the Brian Kirby coupling modification and some added friction as it will from time to time work in and out of Stoke C. yard so needs to be 'shuntable'.  That won't apply to the other two which will go into the returning coal empties train.  

2 hours ago, gwrrob said:

Did you see that photo in Google images of one in the siding at Pontypool Road.

I did Robin. Great photo with plenty of locos stock in the frame. Hadn't come across 'Acorn' PO wagons before.

On 06/04/2024 at 18:28, gwrrob said:

One of Rapido's latest wagon releases struck a chord with me John @checkrail It even has the same running number as the Replica model I have.

Yes, got one of those on order Robin @gwrrob. Looks very nice. I have two of the Bachmann 1923 RCH pattern ones and two from POWsides kits. Also a couple of the Bachy Renwick Wilton & Dobson ones.  I didn't know that Replica had done one (and with the same number as the new Rapido model!)

The R,W & D ones are a dark red. My existing RW ones are black.  The new Rapido 1907 type is a dark reddish-brown.  What colour was the Replica one?  It's got me thinking -  were RW wagons perhaps always dark brown, misinterpreted by modellers and manufacturers looking at b & w photos?  Or did RW start off painting their wagons dark brown, subsequently change to black, then change again to a dark red after merging to become R,W & D?  

Spent an interesting half hour the other day googling the history of the firm.  Among other things I found  a nice pic of their 1951 Hull-built collier "Renwick" passing Portishead out from Bristol. It was converted into a sand dredger in 1969. And surprisingly the company later branched out into running a. travel agency, having a shop in Torquay. Some stuff too about the company patriarch Cliff Wilton. But nothing more about their wagon fleet. 

John C.

PS. Nearly forgot - it seems that Dapol once did a 5 plank R & W wagon in light grey. But I've never had much confidence in the accuracy of their PO wagons.

14 hours ago, Harlequin said:

New lamps and lenses:

 

Ordered some yesterday, plus a loco crew, so let's see how the new type lenses shape up.  

3 hours ago, Harlequin said:

I always used a tiny dot of superglue when I was fitting the Modelu self-adhesive lenses, because I didn't trust the adhesive and because half the time I'd left the adhesive on the backing anyway!

Funny you should say that Phil. I found this morning that I had just one red Modelu lens left in stock,  so I put it on the E95's tail lamp very carefully - using superglue!

3 hours ago, Harlequin said:

shots from inside the scene,

This where the compact and capable Panasonic TZ100 comes into its own.  And its 'post focus' setting does half the work of focus merging for you. (My iMac and ffworks do most of the rest.)  If I was using a big dSLR to try these kinds of shot I would probably have knocked half the layout down by now.