doilum

As a child I don't remember it being sold in shops. It was just one of those things that grew in gardens and allotments. We don't force ours. It just grows and will be harvested as needed between Easter and October.

Possibly, Saturday excepted, because it was freight only. There have been one or two major magazine features over the years but I cannot remember exactly where and when. There is also the parallel universe of the Charlesworth empire to explore and explain. What surprised me was the scale of the operation with upto five parallel tracks in places. Somewhere along the way I have managed to misplace both my copies of the Frank book. Time to have a look on Amazon.

The ones in sacks came packed in peat.

Thanks for the links. There could be a modelling challenge in the making. I had just found the Lawrie goes Loco episode at the Middleton Railway with the tiny Hunslet diesel. The danger is that it might lead down dangerous paths. I have always fancied having a go at a 5" gauge wagon...........

Some of the small Jersey New potatoes were delivered in plywood barrels / drums about 18" in diameter and perhaps 24 or 30" tall. As a small child our weekly green groceries and wet fish were delivered on a Friday usually in an orange box ( great kindling) but occasionally in one of these barrels. At one point I had one lashed to a redundant pushchair to create my own Hunslet quarry engine. On the end the barrel was repurposed to store the aforementioned kindling. They were still in seasonal use in the early seventies when I worked for a fruit and veg trader.

And orange boxes and potato barrels all intended to be single use. Cauliflower and cabbage came in sturdy returnable crates.

If anyone takes the time to view this slide show can they identify the little shunter?

There is an episode titled Photo collection. This is without commentary, just a faint musical background. Some amazing photos mostly, l think, from the collection of Deryk Rayner. Look out for an amazing tiny diesel shunter at Robin Hood coke ovens. I am inspired to finish the painting and numbering of the J 54 that the late Jack Hepton built for me around thirty years ago!

If you look on YouTube for Adventure me. This guy has a three part series retracing this branch. Spoiler warning. He is NOT a railway buff and some of his terminology is cringe worthy, but he is good at merging old and present day images and maps. The end you have described and the swing bridge are in part 3.

A very handy one as mum is in the care home round the corner!

Not sufficiently tech savvy to do links!!! I haven't plucked up the courage to watch his walk around Methley Junction. Explaining the what went where, why and at what time has defeated life long enthusiasts.

I have always had a soft spot for this rat's nest of mineral lines and idiosyncratic locomotives. So I was easily hooked by a you tube warrior called AdventureMe. First the spoiler warning: this chap has no railway knowledge and some of his errors in both fact and terminology are cringe worthy. He also has that total lack of historical perspective common amongst most people under the age of forty that have had a carefully planned and executed National Curriculum. To be fair is very aware of these limitations! So why bother? This guy has a good pair of legs and endeavours to retrace as much as possible of the route. He is also able to superimpose the route on to modern maps and images and has worked hard to find archive photographs and match them to the present landscape. Why am I promoting this? Well, there have been several threads over the years of people looking for small collieries and quarries to model and if you can't find one here it might be best to stick to a bucolic BLT. There is also a good three part series on the Hunslet Goods Railway.

Another afternoon out in the early sixties. A neighbour was an independent bargeman with a very similar vessel. One afternoon my father and I were invited to join him as he collected his empty barge from Ferrybridge power station and returned it to his home mooring just above the weir at Castleford. He later sold out to Cawood Hargreaves and joined them to head up the team that developed the large pusher tugs and 170 ton pans.

Security guards? These are definitely development of the last thirty years. (I was going to say post Thatcher but that might have been misconstrued as political). You might have been challenged by an ordinary employee who wasn't afraid to clip your ear if you have a cheeky response. Mostly they might turn a blind eye if you were behaving sensibly and were not putting yourself or anyone else in danger. There were a surprising number of public rights of way that crossed colliery land not to mention unofficial ones that were tolerated by the pit owners.

Happy days of long walks with dad or grandad to watch barges being loaded or muck being tipped. If, by the Friday of half term I was becoming insufferable, dad's trick was to get me out of mothers hair. We caught the train through to Goole and spent an afternoon wandering along the dockside. A constant lesson in history and geography as I learned where ships had come from and the cargoes they carried along with a potted explanation of the L&Y and A&C navigation. My favourite was watching the Tom puddings which loaded in Castleford being emptied into large ships for export.

This year's new growth is just coming through!!

Bicycle spoke nipples. Better still, motorcycle spoke nipples.

Wooden dowels. Cut in half and centre drill. That set of old felt pens. Bin them. Fill the caps with epoxy. Drill and secure with super glue. Golf tees.......... My solution is shown below. Or you could find a true artisan to custom turn them from billet aluminium!

There are much more knowledgeable people amongst the Wakefield MRC ( look for the thread on their Stanley layout). From my understanding the rhubarb would be packed in boxes not dissimilar to ammunition crates or banana boxes. These would have been taken in vans probably as express freight owing to the perishable nature of the crop.

My scratch build based on the surplus tall bunker etch from the Mercian kit. It has as a random motor from a broken toy but runs smoothly. I love this photo almost enough to have another go!

Definitive. There are surprisingly few good pictures of Antwerp in the local books.

I had thought that too, but the Ron Chaplin units used a gear mount milled from a solid block. These have separate frames with machined spacers very similar to my ABC units. A phone call may be in order this week.

Thanks. I too had had that thought and have just returned from the workshop having had a good look at my other ABC driven locos and their brochure. The one mounted on the motor has the same dimensions as their Mini but needs a tiny final drive. What puzzles me is that the input is through a worm where as all the other ABC gearboxes I have seen have a helical input. The other, which is missing a helical input, has the same axies as the VML2 but the frames are longer by about 11mm overall. The method of construction of the frames is very similar to the ABC examples that I own. It might have to we sit until we get back to real shows and Guildex.

I have just bought a job lot of motors and gears from the bay of E. I am very happy with the purchase but could have been ecstatic but for two absent gears. This is NOT a complaint!!!! Can any one advise me as to what I have bought and if spares may be available. There are no manufacturers marks but they appear to be professionally made. The first one needs a fine, straight cut final drive with a radius of around 4mm. The second needs a helical fine cut worm (apologies if that is an engineering contradiction) to fit on the motor. Sorry for the lousy photos. I will add a couple more in the hope that someone recognises them.

Is that a kit build then?