doilum

I have no problems with conversions. My great wish would be that one or two that are currently dismantled and disappearing into the weeds could be returned to at least display condition. There is only so much money, skill and end use to go round and we may have to rethink a future for our industrial locomotives.

And that is the original Airedale. The first of the 15" standard class and now at Embsay.

The great thing about these threads is that it encourages you to take a fresh look at something you took for granted. My guess is that recently restored examples tend to go back to the above drawing because it came from Hunslet. Period colour photographs of the cab interior are rare. There are a couple of shots in Gordon Edgar's book on the Austerity that suggest my original comment wasn't far off. Diana which went through the area workshop at Allerton Bywater circa 1970 has been finished in red body colour up to the waistline. The "no name, no number" example from Peckfield appears to be a straw colour to floor level. And to confuse/confirm things even more, I have a 1963 photo of a 1917 Peckett that has just returned from a full Allerton Bywater rebuild that is black below the waistline and straw above.

Have a look on YouTube for the Austerity Steam Locomotives by Gandy Dancer Productions. Parts 1&2. Lots of close up detail both historic and preserved. In part 2 he gets in the cab of a preserved NCB loco. All your questions answered. The trick of getting a pit loco right is to look for the modifications made to individual engines with regards to steps, handrails and repairs. Have fun, but be warned, they are addictive. Hunslets are like beer. A boy can't just have the one!

Given the sheer bloody mindedness of individual colliery managers and their engineers I think you are pretty safe with " rule one". I have used a light buff on all mine but would love to hear from anyone involved in the restoration of an NCB loco who has removed "original" paint.

I think that the Saville loco is HE 1956 (1939) Airedale no 2. Not to be confused with Airedale or Airedale no 1. It was scrapped on site in 1975.

The boards are around 19" wide to sit on top of an existing set of cupboards. Whitwood no 4 is a straight forward build of the Agenoria kit with Slater's wheels and pick ups. It is powered on the centre axle by a Canon ABC multistage unit. The only real variation was to accurately model the cab side windows. These vary not only from loco to loco but also between rebuilds as individual colliery fitters struck a balance between draught exclusion and the need to see. It contrasts with its stable mate Fryston no2 which has the appatures welded up.

It could make a socially distanced exhibition layout. Full DCC sound with background bird song, and a plug in air freshener doctored to that unique corner of the Aire valley.........

Just a quick sketch. The overall length is 84" as I wanted to future proof the layout by not going beyond what might fit in a small bedroom. There is an additional 12" run off board. The back line is separate. Originally I intended it to connect via a double slip but it was all getting too crowded and I couldn't avoid the baseboard join. In the end I kept the line to show case a couple of the wagons.

Just for completion, the 16" Hunslets. HE 3855 (1954) Glasshoughton no 4. Worked it's entire life there going to Carnforth in 1973. HE 2705 (1945) Beatrice. Remained at AH until 1975 when it went with Airedale to Embassy.

A few more starting with the 15" gang. I really need to sort out the lighting! From the left: Bawtry HE 1698(1932) which worked at Wheldale until it was scrapped in 1972. Astley HE 3509 (1947) which worked at Primrose Hill until it closed in 1971. It then went to the area workshop where it sat in the weeds until 1973 when it went for scrap. Airedale HE 1440 (1923) had a nomadic life ending up at Ackton Hall in 1966. It worked regularly before going to Embassy in 1975.

Sorry about the double post. I am not sure if this really belongs under the Frydale thread but I will include the details here. Whitwood no 4 was Hudswell Clarke 1844 (1951). It moved to Pontefract POW in 1971 and then , in kit form to the Nene Valley possibly as a parts project. Fryston no2 was HC 1883 (1955) and spent its entire working life there being scrapped in 1972. 1972 seems to have been a pivotal year for steam. There seems to have been an area wide policy change on rebuilding locos not helped by a year of on/ off industrial action and a miner's strike. It also saw the end of ponies underground. I will post the other pictures under Frydale in the industrial section.

Whilst I have modelled Fryston #2, Parkhill and Mexborough have missed out. My third 15" (from the Judith Edge kit) ended up as Bawtry but could as easily been Wheeler or Coronation. Parkhill was one of the collieries where my late father in law worked and would be a strong favourite if I was tempted into a fifth austerity. The loco transferred to Fryston for the last year or so of it's working life. My maternal grandfather worked in the time office at Fryston and, strangely enough, my paternal grandfather did the same job at Whitwood. The models are as much a tribute to family as they are to a lost way of life. Just to round off the family connections, in 1970 dad was the head teacher at the tiny village school in Fryston.

Whilst I have modelled Fryston #2, Parkhill and Mexborough have missed out. My third 15" (from the Judith Edge kit) ended up as Bawtry but could as easily been Wheeler or Coronation. Parkhill was one of the collieries where my late father in law worked and would be a strong favourite if I was tempted into a fifth austerity. The loco transferred to Fryston for the last year or so of it's working life. My maternal grandfather worked in the time office at Fryston and, strangely enough, my paternal grandfather did the same job at Whitwood. The models are as much a tribute to family as they are to a lost way of life. Just to round off the family connections, in 1970 dad was the head teacher at the tiny village school in Fryston.

I have Whitwood no 4 and Diana in the Frydale stud. To my surprise, I haven't got any photos of the Hudswell Clarkes or 15" engines on this tablet. A job for tomorrow! These are excellent pictures which I haven't quite seen before.

A wise man (JMB ass. Chief examiner for geography) told me never to use the F word. Bar the Great salt lakes, Polders and a few parts of the Fens, there are very few places on God's earth that are flat. Almost level, gently undulating, not hilly, but definitely not flat. Railway companies may have engineered zero gradient sections for sidings and water troughs but the land around them was varied to a greater or lesser extent. This isn't about the pedantry of marking exam scripts, it lies at the heart of all the truly great model railways.

There may be reason why 98% of modellers use PVA...........

An overhead gantry or pipe works well too. Trees and cement dust are not happy neighbours.

In later years it wasn't uncommon for the greenhouse to be heated with a small coal stove and back boiler. This created a cosy man cave where early cut flowers and tomatoes could be grown and where escape could be found from women, the world and work. Most kept a few chickens or rabbits. Some men chose to enhance their wage with an extra shift or two, others sold the produce of their allotment, the trade being done in the doorway of the local working men's club.

I took the time to browse through a book of Jack Hulme's book "world famous round here". There is a photo of miners working on a trackside allotment in the shadow of Fryston colliery. The photo dates from the 1930s or perhaps the war years as all the wagons are in colliery livery. What surprised me was the scale of the cultivation with a patch of cabbages covering perhaps half a hectare. Likewise the green houses were more on the scale of the municipal park than a suburban garden. The sheds too are on the scale of a single garage and there is not an old door fence in sight. These are I think, a feature of the 1960s as slum clearance gained pace. On reflection, there are no pigeon lofts either, this may be a dig for victory allotment on land released by the colliery owners. A Google image search for Jack Hulme Fryston showed another photo with a tractor and trailer lending weight to the wartime date. A later post war photo ( the wagons have NCB lettering) shows this area has reverted to pasture and was probably the field reserved by the colliery for grazing the ponies during the annual holiday.

The question is: when reality was ridiculous, do we model it faithfully?

I wasn't that far off with the first guess!

Sounds like a plan. My instant guesstimate was based on the length of the points. This would have given a ridiculous 1:12 so I doubled it!

That is fearsome! Must be at least 1:24 even allowing for the foreshortening effect of the camera.

Just a reminder. In the real world ( no flat baseboards) the third dimension goes both up and down. It is thus possible to split the difference between the two lines and reduce the necessary gradient. I have no real knowledge or interest in things great Western but many of the typical LNER coal drops had minimal gradient as the road access was lowered to suit. That said, the landsale drops at both Whitwood and Glasshoughton collieries were of train set proportions and a loco often struggled with two fully loaded 20 ton hoppers.