WFPettigrew

So sorry to hear this Chris - I very much enjoyed building one of your lime wagon kits recently - but fully understand your reasons. Hope you can continue with your stunning modelling. Best wishes Neil

Stephen, It is not dissimilar (but not identical either!) to the "wrought iron" bodied but dumb buffered NSR loco coal wagon supplied by "the ironmaster Robert Heath" - pictured on p69 of "North Staffordshire Wagons" (Chadwick/Wild Swan). Confusingly the PO wagon index at the back of said book (which in itself is also confusingly not laid out in alphabetical order) does not appear to make any mention of Robert Heath, at either Kidsgrove nor Biddulph. Best wishes Neil

Aside from the lovely wagonry, that would have been more than a squeaky bottom moment for the crew, with the firebox crown and indeed inner firebox back well and truly exposed. Get the injectors on and start praying... All the best Neil

Not sure which bit of this I enjoyed the most! The omission of Collett and Hawksworth? And yes, waiting for the broad gauge epiphany! All the best Neil

Though possibly not if you are putting rail-built buffer stops to prevent wagons-with-heft meeting floor-with-possibly-devastating-consequence? And I have not seen 795 before, what a lovely little loco!

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.

Well Bill, Jamie is half way there: The rest of the picture can be seen on the 25" map reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence). This shows that there were 3 pairs of rail lines going into the south east end of the building. That is the view that we have here. The rail lines terminated inside the shed, and there was road access into the north west end through two more large arched doorways in the outer two bays, with offices occupying the centre. . So this was used for the transfer between road and rail. Off the map to the SE were two transit sheds which did not have road access, and the "goods depot and bonded warehouse", which also did not have road access but did border Devonshire Dock, and this latter was used for transhipment with shipping and the storage of incoming bonded goods. The goods warehouse building still survives - and can be seen on Google Streetview from the nearby road into what is now the Tesco superstore: https://www.google.com/maps/@54.1123154,-3.2365406,3a,75y,152.33h,103.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s55y5_eRYz75HnQwvxR9vwQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu Hope that makes sense? Best wishes Neil https://maps.app.goo.gl/EUoa7D4m998FygHX6

Thank you Stephen. Thanks again. So would I be right in thinking the conclusion here is that this does not appear to be a MR vehicle? If so can we start the bidding as to whose it might be?

Morning all, I have a couple of possibly Midland Railway wagons that I could do with a learned mind to help identify please. The first photo (copyright the Furness Railway Trust collection, used with permission) shows Furness Railway Number 4, one of the locos purchased for the opening of the line in 1846 and latterly used for shunting before withdrawal in 1898. Sister No 3 had hauled the very first train on the FR so was preserved (now at the NRM York). The location is believed to be near Ramsden Dock station in Barrow. It is the first cattle wagon that I believe could well be MR. The next two are definitely FR wagons with the X bracing on the sides. The nearer one of the two FR ones is almost definitely an FR medium cattle wagon (what was classed as D46 in the diagram book prepared by the FR in c 1922 for the incoming LMS administration). Can anyone provide any more identification of the first cattle wagon please? Secondly a crop of a one of the Sankey Collection images which are copyright Cumbria Archives - they are happy for such images to be shared with suitable attribution. See https://www.sankeyphotoarchive.uk/collection/search/?searchText=59 for the new scan of this plate. My question relates to the van seen in front of the three road FR Barrow goods warehouse. It has twin louvres running most of the height of the ends. I had wondered about a MR D379 meat van, but the drawings and photos in Essery Vol 1 show these had twin louvres on the ends that were both split with a plain panel two thirds of the way up the ends, rather than being continuous as appears to be the case here. This van does have appear to have a vacuum brake swan neck visible above the headstock, in case that helps at all? Any thoughts? All the best Neil

Those are interesting Jonathan. So were they used (some of the time) for carrying iron ore from the mines/quarries between Tredegar and Treorchy? (This is where Google is telling me is there were iron ore deposits in the valleys would therefore include the upper reaches of the RR?) I am curious that ore could be economically carried in such low side wagons, but I don't know what sort of ore it was, and how dense. The haematite ore found in Furness was typically carried in 4 or more plank hopper wagons rated to 10 tons - so relatively high sided wagons for before the Great War (ignoring the FR's unusual side tip wagons dating back to the 1850s) - but it was a fairly soft crumbling ore hereabouts, and the FR used low side wagons like this in numbers not for ore but to move the newly cast iron pigs to the steelworks/foundries/export to other parts of the rail network. Such low side wagons were also used to bring the limestone to the ironworks for use as a flux, as its density meant you didn't need a heavier wagon - which is what made me wonder if the Welsh ore was more dense. All the best Neil

That is a fair point Stephen, though it assumes that all carriage and wagon construction would go over to iron frames, which may or may not be the case. And it ignores the need to repair wooden framed wagons. Both of these would require a stock of oak being laid up?