Annie

Now that the effects of LongCOVID are finally fading out and I'm starting to get some of my energy back I thought it might be a good idea to set my rubbish dump of a room to rights. Yesterday I started to sort out my books and in the process discovered books, - and not only railway books, - that I must've ordered and then forgotten about. So far I haven't found any copies of books that my foggy brain ordered twice which is just as well since with postage some of the books I found were not a cheap purchase. 🫣😬 I also found copies of the GER Society Journal and the Broad Gauge Society Journal that had been put away unread. I shouldn't be all that surprised about it though because when I saw my doctor last week she told me that I was two years older than what I thought I was. Good old Brain Fog, - not nice to know you, - and now you've gone don't bother to come back. 😠 It's not all a disaster though because I found most of my light railway books and GER books. No longer being on meds for LongCOVID and not so fatigued and fogged down is definitely a good thing and perhaps I'll be able to get back to doing some good work on my projects again. 'Tristyn in Winter' was a big help with getting some of my railway mojo back again. Being not based on anywhere in particular, but probably somewhere in South Wales and not totally serious about prototype fidelity meant that I could just play trains and have fun with it. I'll most probably continue with updating buildings and messing about with it, but I'd really like to keep focused on Minehead for now. If I can get the Minehead to Watchet section properly sorted out and complete I can then think about what I want to do with the rest of the line. Bulkeley double heading with Sebastopol. Believed to be at Reading.

They never should have let them convert to the narrow coal cart gauge.

Castle Hill OS map revised 1891-1894. The footbridge across the running lines is where the photograph was taken from.

I completely agree, - it is one very useful photo which is the main reason why I 'borrowed it' and re-posted it here. I'll be going over it for a while yet with my magnifying glass to see what treasures I can find.

That is a very good question. Someone on Faceplant pointed out that the down signal further up the line is 'on' so the route is protected. It was also pointed out that there seems to be PWD staff at work doing things in the immediate area.

19th Century GWR Morning Cheer Up Picture: Shamelessly borrowed from the Didcot Railway Centre. Shunting at Castle Hill (later called West Ealing station). So much in the way of interesting details, - and look at those wonderful signals!

I think that engine shed and turntable are from a later time period going by the dates quoted in the article.

No it's fine. It might mean a bit more work with checking and adjusting the track alignment all the way through to Watchet, but having the right kind of track more than makes up for it.

Well that's gone and done it. This Broad Gauge cross sleepered track is the magic procedural kind that does moveable point blades with proper check rails and frogs, - I didn't know that when I chose it, but I'm not complaining about it. This means that I'm going to have to level and adjust the track all over again, but I don't mind that much since the final result will be worth it. The signal box will be getting properly furnished some time soon. The job is on the list to be done. (Picture snapped in Trainz Surveyor)

Yes it's easy for us to pass judgement with the benefits of hindsight, but we have to remember that railways on this kind of scale had never been done before. Even the most talented engineers of the day were having to play best guesses as to what might be the way ahead.

Excellent work Mike. An investigative industrial archaeology project with a great result.

It seems likely Stephen. Looking at the photo with a magnifying glass I can something that looks like an early variety of flat bottomed rail with spikes going into cross sleepers. I can see fishplates as well. With Minehead station being opened in 1874 after the line was extended from Watchet I would imagine that the section between Minehead and Watchet would have cross sleeped track at least. I know from photos taken at Watchet that the baulk road definitely went that far, - so I'll run the cross sleepered track out to Watchet from Minehead and reassess which variety of baulk road track I want to use after that.

Minehead station in Broad Gauge times. I've frowned over this photo on many occasions and no matter how I look at it the track looks like it's cross sleepered and not baulk road track. I have got some cross sleeped Broad Gauge track of much the same age as the track I'm presently using. It's not perfect in its details, but overall no worse than what I'm using. I'm sorely tempted to make use of it instead of the baulk road track.

Not very much has happened over the past couple of days due to me having medical appointments. Nothing dire, - in fact good news in that I seem to be getting past the effects of LongCOVID after putting up with it for close on a year and nine months. I'd been a little puzzled over Blue Anchor and why I'd left off a wood lot, a stream and a bridge, a small brickworks and a hotel when I last worked on it almost two years ago. The simple answer is that after checking against the OS map I discovered that this part of the layout had been compressed length ways so there simply wasn't any room for them. I managed to put in Pill Copse and the Blue Anchor tavern and some of the nearby buildings, but after that there wasn't any room for anything else without making it all look impossibly crowded. So I sorted the track alignment, changed the signal box and the signals and that was pretty much that.

Marvellous handwriting. You don't see that kind of thing these days.

Definitely still a bargain. Lucky old you. 😀 What I find interesting is that a model of a very small class of early New Zealand locomotives built to a non-standard scale somehow ended up in the UK. A good many years ago I went so far as to order a set of specially machined cast iron wheels for an 'A' class with the intention of building a model to suit Gauge 1 45mm track gauge. Unfortunately far too much life happened and after I crawled out from the wreck of it all the last thing on my mind was what might have happened to a set of wheels for a model locomotive. No I'm not cross. It's an interesting thought as to what a larger standard gauge version would be like. They certainly were good locos, - not so useful once the NZ railways started to expand as their small size told against them, - and most of them ended up having far longer lives in industrial service that they ever did working for the NZ railways.

Yes definitely an 'A' class. If it's been made for 'O' gauge track it will be to 9mm to the foot scale which is a standard sizing for NZGR models here in New Zealand. Not a bad little model at all, - it's certainly caught the character of an 'A' class fairly well. I see someone has got it already for ten quid which would have to be an absolute bargain.

I took some snaps of Blue Anchor as a record before I started work on doing anything to it. I'm going to change the signal box for a model of the one from Helston as it's the earliest representation of a GWR signal box I have. I've always found the emptiness of the 19th century coastal landscape between Minehead and Blue Anchor to be very appealing. The original TS2004 layout had no representation of the road to the Blue Anchor tavern, the tavern itself, or the nearby farm buildings so I added those using the 1880s OS map as a general guide. As a background piece it's not normally seen from this viewpoint. The NLS site seemed to be wanting to be not very cooperative, but as you can see it wouldn't have been much help anyway since Blue Anchor is spread over four different maps. The 1900 OS 6 inch to the mile maps are better than a poke in the eye.

Hello, long time no see indeed. Narcolepsy and recovery from LongCOVID mean that I don't get around the internet so much as I used to. As you see I am still working on digital railway projects, but I've slowed down a bit now and I'm spending time on improving my older projects rather than running off and starting something new. Oh yes the "semi-itinerant shrubs". Patch updates and code changes to the Trainz software will cause things to shift and I've particularly noticed it with some vegetation models. That's why I now tend to use the stable Trainz versions that are no longer receiving updates since it avoids a lot of problems.

Dunster again. I'll more than likely come back and do some more here as I want to sort out the roads properly and put in the missing drainage ditches. There's the farm buildings at either end of Station Road that could do with being improved as well. The extra 20th century buildings that shouldn't be there are starting to annoy me so they will be going fairly soon. The trackwork out to Blue Anchor needs levelling and adjusting, but apart from setting the track clearances in relation to station platform Blue Anchor doesn't need much doing to it since the whole area got a major overhaul a couple of years ago when all the 20th century buildings and trackwork were removed.

How could I. My Mum and Dad owned a lot of his records.

This is Steve Flanders's Broad Gauge Intermediate Station based on the circa 1850s proposed plans for Cheltenham Station. The NRCA were the source of the plans, but they were such a mixed up old lot of different amended versions it was difficult for Steve to tell what the GWR had actually intended for Cheltenham. Sorry for the none too clear image, but the station model is so darn big it was difficult to take a decent snap of it. It does give the idea though that a model of Paddington could be possible. I couldn't help noticing though that some of the drawings the NRCA had of the original station were more holes than drawing so it could be a wee bit of a challenge. Turned the shadows off so you can see better.

Indeed it would be a great project Mike. I know that Steve Flanders would be interested, but he has some health problems at present and has been taking time out from digital model making. Hopefully when he's feeling better I'll be able to show him your research and see what he thinks.

A question for hat experts then. Is the hat the foreman in the photo is wearing a bowler hat, - or is it some other species of hat?

Thanks very much James. As 'what-if' Broad Gauge engines they are entirely plausible in that E.B. Wilson could have built well tanks just like these if someone had paid them to do it.