cctransuk

Over-compensation? Heljan seem to have gone from Tubby-Duff to Skinny-Duff! Bachmann for me - if I were in the market for one. Shame! CJI.

I think that the container on the crane is precisely that - a container. Such 'boxes' were loaded into and unloaded out of narrowboats by crane - look carefully, the boats have several heaped boxes in each one. CJI.

Rot - look on the OS map at the relative levels of the A30 (180m. AMSL) and General station (100m.). Which uphill slog would you prefer before the days of motorised transport? CJI.

Bodmin has zero level, or even less steep, approaches - it is built in a valley, which itself has a fairly steep longitudinal gradient. The Bodmin North branch of the B&WR grabbed the only viable way in, and the GWR mainline is the wrong side of the watershed to get into the town from that direction. The GWR, being determined to get a link to Padstow, could only do so via a very steeply graded climb into Bodmin, with a reversal at General station high above the town. It then had to skirt the contours all the way back down again to link up with the B&WR at Boscarne Junction. A glance at an old OS map of the Bodmin area makes all this clear. CJI.

Have you seen the gradient of the road linking Bodmin General to the site of Bodmin North (start of the Camel Trail)? Something along the lines (!) of the Great Orme Tramway would be required! There is a reason why the old rail connection between the two was several miles long, with a reversal. CJI.

In view of the fact that Bodmin formerly had a BODMIN NORTH station as the terminus of a short branch from Boscarne Junction; (now closed with the station site occupied by Sainsburys); I would suggest that any hypothetical station on the chord would have been named BODMIN SOUTH. So, Bodmin might have aspired to three stations - NORTH, SOUTH and ROAD! CJI.

Pricey, IMHO. CJI.

As an aside - my local pub here in Bodmin, 'The Hole in the Wall', has just been awarded Cornwall CAMRA 'Winter Pub of the Year', and 'Cornwall Pub of the Year'. Despite what it says outside, DON'T go expecting food - just superb beers, ciders and wine and bagged snacks. The building is a former debtor's prison - think Dickens' "Little Dorritt" - and features a windowless bar with a perpetual fire - plus a stuffed lion in an alcove off the courtyard! Atmosphere - we've got it in wagon-loads here in Cornwall! CJI.

After a period of closure, The Maltsters has re-opened. I have it on good authority that the Sunday lunches are still superb. CJI.

Living in Bodmin - though not particularly familiar with the detailed topography of the station area - my impression is that some major engineering would be required to build the chord. Indeed, had it been practicable, I suspect that it would have been built. CJI.

....... I thought that you could only go to Newquay on an all-inclusive coach holiday; I can't imagine why else you'd go there! Anyway, Newquay is to become the northern hub of - 'The Cornish Metro', tah-rah!!! No, really - HS2 money! A vital link between Newquay and Falmouth, which will transform Cornish public transport, (and cost silly money)! As an interviewee memorably said on local TV - "Why anyone from Newquay would want to go to Falmouth, and vice versa, is beyond me"! CJI.

Doh - don't you just hate it when that happens? 😡 ..... and, no - I hadn't noticed that, either. CJI.

For a short period in the 2020s - shortie HSTs to Padstow from Exeter? CJI.

In which case, it's just as well that Wadebridge got a bypass - the town traffic in summer is quite bad enough without the railway! However, I prefer your scenario over what was bequeathed to us. CJI.

BR WD liveries - black - with one of two crests. WD - not so sure - but a niche market. In other words - much the same as the 2-10-0. Cast bodies - abandoned in the 1960s in favour of then-superior injection moulded plastic; now re-invented to compensate for the adhesion lost to endless electronic gubbins to make models chuff and smoke. CJI.

Given the volume of traffic converging on Padstow / Rock / Polzeath in the summer, a Park & Ride service a la St. Ives would be a viable proposition, IMHO - but only as a 'preservation' operation. Running from Boscarne Junction - the current end of the line for the B&WR - to Padstow could command ridership figures to rival the Festiniog & Welsh Highland Railways. There is adequate land adjacent to Boscarne Junction for a P&R carpark - indeed, there is already a limited facility for the Camel Trail. Moreover, immediately adjacent, there is an excellent family pub - the 'Borough Arms'. The site of Padstow Station is a soulless car / coach park, which could readily be transformed back to its original purpose. HOWEVER - the fly-in-the-ointment is two-fold : - i] SUSTRANS had the Boscarne Junction to Padstow trackbed converted to the Camel Trail - and this is a deservedly popular walking and cycling trail. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no realistic possibility of the Camel Trail and a reinstated railway co-existing. ii] the trackbed through Wadebridge has been extensively repurposed - think housing, a Co-op supermarket, a now-vital link road, etc. (The station and goods shed buildings still exist, however). I'm afraid that it is a case of 'If only there had been a little foresight' - but, too late now! The Wenford Bridge Branch - again, a distinct possibility as a preserved railway - think Beattie Well Tanks or small ex-GWR 0-6-0PT / 0-4-2Ts, and converted brakevan chassis for passenger accommodation. But - once again - SUSTRANS got there first, and we are too late! A very great shame, and opportunities lost! CJI.

After this winter - rose-tinted? - blindfold, more like!! 🥺 CJI (Bodmin).

Sorry - but IMHO there is no need for a new WD 2-8-0. I judge my locos on performance, not on features (which may, or may not, be necessary). My WD runs superbly - once I had found the random short, generated by a trapped wire. It seems that, nowadays, models are judged on whether they have the latest innovations - be it cast bodies or whatever. If a model looks like the prototype, performs like the prototype - what more do you want? Ahh - sorry; a model with little inherent mass, so that a multitude of electrickery can be crammed in to give chuffing and smoke - hence the 'necessity' for a cast metal body. I know - grumpy old man! CJI.

Obviously - but, nonetheless, not a general purpose design. Rather, a specific design, for a specific purpose, requiring exceptional design criteria. CJI.

Weren't they originally intended for Chunnel trains to the Continent? CJI.

Blimey - that was a quick turnround! CJI.

I think that we've got the point that you don't like it - so don't buy it. It's not big and clever to use 'over the top' stuff like this! 🤔 CJI.

There was a time - not so bad nowadays - that, if you walked into a pub in, say, Blaenau Ffestiniog, the conversation instantly changed from English to Welsh. But that was in the time of 'Come home to a living fire - buy a cottage in Wales'! 😀 CJI.

My understanding is that it was a driver-training loco, pending the introduction of production AC locos. CJI.

I have, in the past, resorted to brass wire dowels, drilled through the aluminium sides into the whitemetal ends. Once filed flush they are invisible, but seem to help in preventing flexing / cracking of the corner joints. CJI.