WFPettigrew

One bit of info to add to your list, from Turton's 8th volume: the Glass Houghton wagon is captioned as being photographed at Goole in the "early 20th century" and is indeed lettered as needing returning to the Methley Branch of the L&Y. So it is an authentic pre-grouping one, though when exactly is not clear. Whether it was still around in 1948 is another question - possibly yes given the two wars extending the life of railway stock? I have received my Glass Houghton wagon and was pleased to find it was a relatively easy conversion to P4 - a straight swap of the 00 wheelsets for Gibson P4 ones with no major axle length problems, and only needing a bit filing off the brake shoes to allow the wheels to rotate freely. (Actually I filed a bit more off than I needed to so there is now daylight visible. Hmm, might try a shim of styrene to pack the shoes back out a bit.) As has been commented, the plastic brake gear is commendably fine, with twin push rods etc. There are a few relatively minor dfferences with the prototype: the most noticeable is that the hinge for the end door was above the wagon not inside, and the washer plate ("strapping") on the end door end of the sides should be curved at the bottom not straight. Plus there were commode handles on the fixed end, horse loops across the left crown plates, and this wagon had bottom doors, so there were monkey tails and extra bolts on the solebars, plus obviously, doors in the floor if you really want to go to town with an upgrade! The livery is spot on, and it's a lovely wagon. I hope Rapido will be bringing out more Yorkshire colliery wagons in the future! All the best Neil

I haven't seen the SRS article, but Mike has done a series on the changes to semaphore signals that were then lost when Carlisle power box opened in the journal of the Cumbrian Railways Association. So this may well be a reprint.

Mike, I do think you have a good point about the views down the station being important. The photos of your model that already really shout that this is Citadel and only Citadel are those final two that look along the tracks, featuring that iconic footbridge. And for what it's worth I think your decision to reduce the degree of forced perspsective looks better, even before you work out how to best achieve the views along the tracks. Your rolling stock is already superb, and the thought and skill you're deploying strongly suggests the layout will be just as good.

I agree James, there was a lot of resignalling after the Armagh crash and the various better safety requirements that followed, and these resignalling projects seem to have at least ensured all regular moves on the main line were signalled, with only movements within yards and unusual ones on the main line being hand signalled. Or you could decide the WNR followed the NER where every conceivable movement right down to the driver popping to the toilet had a signal...

Up Vs Down is perhaps overrated. The Furness Railway branches to Windermere Lake Side and to Coniston changed several times as to which way was Up! The main line was always Up towards Carnforth and by extension towards London. The Lake Side line had a triangular junction but the main access onto it was in the Up Direction, while the Coniston was from the Down, yet both were labelled the same Up or Down, changing depending on which Working Time Table you look at! From a WNR point of view I don't think it matters regarding the signalling: the levers will be numbered from one at the left hand end of the box facing towards the track, with levers numbered from one for signalling movements left to right, then points and locks and the odd signal and spare, then at the right hand end the signals for moving right to left.

Thankfully there was room, they both survived. And stayed together for the rest of that lives. But she still fidgeted. And fidgeted. "It's been 84 years" he muttered.

I have just tried using 5A fuse wire wound round a 0.7mm drill then split off using a scalpel held at a diagonal across the line of the drill. They were then flattened and the gap closed up and glued onto the solebar. Please excuse the somewhat out of focus shot and the cruel enlargement - this one looks circular when seen on the actual wagon. The latter is a first scratchbuild of a FR D15 two plank that was urgently needed to serve as a test bed for the trial prints and etches of some new products being developed by a friend, more on which hopefully in the future. The brass here is from the Mainly Trains etch and the W irons are Bill Bedford ones. I would certainly go smaller next time as these are rather overscale for the FR examples, and I will try and follow @Dave John's example and add the securing staples and hopefully generally do a much neater job.... Here's hoping anyway! All the best Neil

Of course! Though it will still behave somewhat more oddly as a rolling vehicle especially when being propelled I would imagine. Whatever the thinking, I think @CKPR has done a lovely job on it, and Mike @Citadel now seems to have accepted the challenge to produce one so they can be compared and contrasted?! (Though I am guessing that the "local" branding might suggest it was not allowed off M&C metals, so would not be allowed any further than Citadel station and those environs to which the M&C had running rights? That said, this may not have been the case in Mike's earlier era?) All the best Neil

Given that the likes of Metro' would happily tweak dimensions of their advertised products to suit the customer (almost a bit like modern day modellers playing around with CAD to shrink or expand dimensions?!) then there is maybe a case that the M&C also bought from Metro, but requested slightly different dimensions, perhaps because they had a slightly different market in mind. Quite why they wanted an asymmetric wheelbase though is beyond me... There is evidence of the tweaking around the various drawings for 1870s gunpowder vans produced by the likes of Metro, and the types that ran on the LNWR and FR - there isn't hard evidence where the 6 on the FR came from but they were similar but not identical to the LNWR ones, and similar but not identical to drawings in the Metro collection... All the best Neil

5 bar vertical tappet?

Indeed, of course!

Thanks Nick. Given the date it would also be perhaps the most likely size as well. Good spot! Shame we don't have the number of that one... (Always wanting more, eh?!) It's tempting! As previously alluded, I am thinking about getting some POWsides decals made up for Old Silkstone pregrouping wagons, and it would be pretty easy to miss out an "i" when rubbing them down... If only to wind up any folks who come over all know-it-all and point out my error.. 😈

Signwriter having a bad day?! Three Old Silkstone wagons on the quayside in Barrow almost certainly about to discharge loads of bunker coal into the SS Lachawana. But have a look at the middle wagon. As well as the rather glaring typo (did they not have spellcheck?!) the word "STEAM" has been rather too spread out, forcing "COAL" to be crammed in. Not the signwriter's finest hour... Note that they have very closely spaced numbers, 1807, 1810 and 1817, which strongly suggests that they are brand new, having been delivered new to one of the three collieries run by the company near Barnsley, and are on their first trip out with a load. The photo is likely to be about 1910, from logs of the shipping in Barrow Docks. Also - given interest in this upthread, note all three wagons have white rims on their wheels... Anyone want to hazard a guess as to the number of planks? I think they are 7 pl with end doors (on the far end of each as we view them) but would welcome thoughts. Image above is a crop from this embedded one, part of the Sankey Collection (c) Cumbria Archives. If you click on the picture below you can then access a "full size image". These wagons are being added to the list of those that are hopefully on the GCR PO Wagon Registers at the NRM, when I can get over there to have a look. All the best Neil Neil

The closure of the Bourne End - High Wycombe line in 1970 led to the line from Maidenhead to Bourne end being worked by some sort of tablet/token in the 70s, which was placed by the crew into a cabinet at Bourne End to allow the points to be changed to reverse round to Marlow. That also changed the point at the throat of Bourne End to allow two trains on the branch, one locked into the Bourne-End Marlow section, the other then able to run up from Maidenhead into the other platform at Bourne End. The driver would take a tablet/token at Maidenhead released from Slough panel box. I cannot remember when Bourne End lost its signal box and put this procedure in place, but I am sure it was run like this in the 70s. Nor can I remember what sort of token authority was given to the driver to run between Bourne End and Marlow sorry - not that this is of any relevance in your model. Clearly WR not SR, but... Prior to such a thing being introduced, the light railway origins of your line could allow just an open air lever frame or one in the station building, operated by the chargehand porter as a semi-block post before such things were swept away? All the best Neil

As Stephen said, they are tandems but with both roads diverging off a straight due to the geometry. I also suspect that this arrangement maximised the length of each siding.