Jim Martin

Hi Jo Have you used the BHE snow ploughs at all? The TPM ones don't seem to be available at the moment, so I was looking at the BHE as an alternative (lthough their website isn't terribly clear about which item would suit a 47) Also, have you tried any screw coupling etches other than TPM? I can't find these anywhere, so I was considering either N Brass or Smith's Components (from Scale Link). Looking forward to seeing the 31 develop. I've always thought it was one of the best of the Poole efforts. Jim

Hi Jonas It's crossed my mind, but it's never really been close to happening. I know that someone did cast this type of wagon - there was a photo in issue 6 of Grahame Hedges' old N'spirations magazine - and if I'd known how long this project was going to take, I'd have been sore tempted myself. That said, I've always been keen to explore the different looks that the hoods of these wagons have; and that would require doing each one separately. I did give serious thought to casting the core - essentially the part that I've just completed - for consistency of dimension and shape. I didn't follow it up because I had doubts about the adhesion of the filler to the resin.

It's all right and it's coming along We've got to get right back to where we started from (Maxine Nightingale, "Right back where we started from") If Wikipedia is to be believed - and when is it not - J. Vincent Edwards and Pierre Tubbs knocked off their plinkety-plonkety classic in a mere seven minutes while driving to the local hospital to visit Tubbs' wife, who was about to give birth (although they did cheat a bit in that they used a tune that Edwards had written several years earlier). I always find these stories of huge success on the back of little or no effort - like smug youths describing how they reeled into their exams after partying till dawn, only to emerge with straight As - rather hard to believe. Nevertheless, it's safe to say that even if they'd spent days over every word and weeks over each note, they'd still have taken less time over it than it's taken me to get my replacement batch of IHAs up to the same state that the original ones were in when I discovered that they were the wrong size. For various reasons, this project has been very stop-start. Things have moved on a bit, though: so far, at least, these wagons are squarer and neater than the old ones and I'm reasonably confident that they're going to turn out all right. They look pretty messy at the moment, which is partly because I distress the surface with a scriber to give the filler something to key onto; and partly because the black styrene bleeds its colour all over the place when you brush solvent onto it. The hoods on these wagons "hang" in different ways, which is something that I'm trying to recreate. The various bits of rod stuck to the inner "core" of the wagon should act as guides for various fold patterns. I expect to be doing some sculpting of the filler as well. And that's the way it is. More progress soon, I hope. Maybe even before the end of the year...

808 and 809 were on the rails at Seaforth when I went past this evening. I couldn't get a decent angle for a photo through the fencing, though. Jim

Mind you, it also says that the Network Rail version is "not released", so either yours are knocked-off or they don't update their website often enough! The panel van looks really nice. I'm definitely having a couple of those. Jim

Hattons are showing "Ford Transit LWB High in white" as a pre-order. Possibly a plain, unglazed panel van. The Oxford model is the 2006-style cab, which makes it just about okay for me. I'll probably get one or two, but what I really want is the 1986-2000 and (especially) 2000-2006 style. Jim

My copy arrived today. It clearly has something of the character of N'spirations about it. I'm confident that Grahame will be able to strike a balance between the kind of material he was publishing when he wasn't beholden to anyone else and the need for inclusiveness in a society journal. I'm looking forward to it. Jim

Coming along very well. It has a definite Great Central look to it. I think you've made the right choice with the splashers. I first saw that drawing years ago (in Tuplin, I suspect) and they never looked right to me as drawn. The continuous splasher definitely looks better, not to mention more in keeping with other designs of the same period. Jim

So you stuck the drawing down to a sheet of 10 thou (?) with pritt, then cut the panelling out, then removed the drawing, is that right? I occasionally suffer from pangs of pre-groupingism and find myself wondering how one would do panelling in 2mm. How do you separate the remains of the drawing from the styrene sheet? There was an article in MRC in April 1976 on "LSWR 4-Wheel Luggage Vans", written by Gordon Weddell. It doesn't include anything exactly like your model, although it does cover a 22' luggage van of 1883 which has the same pattern of panelling above waist level (no lower panels), but with droplights in the doors and no louvres. Also, it's got an arc-roof. There's a note to the effect that "A drawing of special 24ft Luggage Van will be published shortly". I don't know if it ever was: I certainly don't have a copy of it. Jim

It's been quite a while since I checked this topic (seems to have been going mostly in circles for quite a while now), but this post reminded me of an NTSB report that I'd read a number of years ago: take a look at http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2004/RAB0402.pdf, particularly page 3, the section headed "Nomenclature Consistency". Jim

As far as I'm aware, that's it now. Modelzone on Deansgate closed down recently. I travel to Manchester fairly often for work and used to visit MZ en route from Oxford Road station to my office there. The Manchester branch had more of a railway slant than the Liverpool shop. I'd be interested to know whether there were any more half decent model shops in the city centre that I'm not aware of. Jim

Nice photo. Love that site. My wife's from Ormskirk and she well remembers travelling into Exchange in her younger days. The warehouse looks like an interesting choice. Jim

The photo at the top of the linked page was taken from almost exactly the same spot as the first of my 1991 photos. This one was taken from a position more-or-less where the covered wharf was, looking at the tracks running between the wharf and the now-missing warehouse, just about where the words "Goods Station" are on the OS map. Interesting shot: you don't often get to see the underpinnings of a turntable like this. Also, the book cited at the bottom of the "Timeline" page: "Manchester: the warehouse legacy" sounds interesting. Jim

As promised, I had a look in my copy of Per Rail to see what it had to say about the facilities at Ducie Street. For those not of the GCR persuasion, Per Rail was a book published by the GCR in 1913 as a sort of extended advert for its goods services and facilities. I assume that it was intended as a "giveaway" to the sort of people who made decisions about how and by which route goods were to be shipped. It's a substantial book - 238 pages - with hard covers and printed on nice paper, so it can't have been cheap to produce. In its full form, it included three coloured maps: one of the facilities at Immingham, which was owned by the GCR and was brand new when the book was published; one of "the areas of the developed and undeveloped coalfields of Central England... and the situation of the numerous collieries and industrial areas... served by the Great Central Railway"; and one of the GCR and its connections. Copies with the maps intact are apparently very rare: my copy doesn't have any. It also contained a supplement specific to a particular region, bound into the book inside the back cover. Mine had the Liverpool and Birkenhead supplement (it's pure coincidence that the supplement is for where I live: I bought the book at the shop on the platform at Loughborough Central on the preserved GCR and I didn't notice the supplement at the time), but only the outer pages survive. I've got pages 1,2,51 and 52: the rest have come out long ago. Anyway, the chapter on Manchester goes into a brief outline of how marvellous a place it is ("Manchester occupies, of course, the supreme position in the Cotton Industry" - this sort of gung-ho approach to punctuation and capital letters is fairly common in publications of the day) before turning its attention to the equally marvellous facilities provided by the GCR: The Great Central Company has been fully mindful of its obligations to this great city. In the vast warehouses of Ducie Street, which tower seven stories high and wall in the Depot, are stored immense quantities of all kinds of merchandise, lying there in safety awaiting the owners' instruction. There is also a lofty and spacious covered wharf, which is utilised for fruit and vegetable traffic, and where the fish, which daily arrives in special trains, is handled. Potatoes, carrots, cabbages, and cauliflowers are here by the truck load, with every kind of garden produce in infinite variety. There is also an immense traffic in bacon and butter from Esbjerg and other Danish ports, and during the season fruit of all kinds in large quantities from Germany and other parts of the Continent arrives by the Company's boats to Grimsby, and across the country "per rail". The Grain Warehouse is a tremendous building, occupying three sides of a square, and having six stories above the huge area of ground floor. Ample accommodation is thus provided for the storage of the large quantities of grain, other cereals, and flour with which the Company is called upon to deal. The London Warehouse (as it is commonly called) is a building of equal height to the last named. The ground area is provided with five stages, and here the bulk of the general goods to and from London, Southampton, and other ports is handled. The floors overhead contain wares of all kinds, and especially shipping traffic. The warehouse is fireproof, the ceiling of each storey being brick, and four floors are furnished with with Automatic Fire Alarms communicating directly with the Fire Brigade Station. The Bonded Warehouse, dry and wet, upon the massive doors of which one sees two locks, one for the Excise Officers' key, and one for the Company's key, which prevent either authority from entering without the presence of the other, affords extensive accommodation for both dry goods, such as Tea and the like, and the various wines and spirits which are embraced in the term "wet goods". Then there is the Canal Warehouse, where the goods are received and despatched by water route along the Ashton, Peak Forest, and Macclesfield Canals, which are owned by the Great Central Railway. This building is most conveniently situated, close to Ducie Street, and goods received by rail from other parts can be forwarded by barge. The Company owns both road motor lorries and innumerable horse-drawn vehicles for the collection and delivery of Goods in Manchester and district. In Manchester alone the Company has nearly 600 horses stabled. It should also be mentioned that adequate facilities for the shipment of coal and coke are provided at the Manchester docks as well as at Partington and Glazebrook. And then it's on to the next section, which describes the goods station at Ardwick, where "the heaviest loads are whisked by powerful cranes off the drays and lorries, and deposited in the waiting wagons, with the most amazing ease and celerity". Nothing about wagon turntables, I'm afraid. Jim

This had crossed my mind, but I'd never heard of it being used in this country. It was very common in the USA, though, which is why you see photos of big-city freight houses with four or five parallel tracks packed with boxcars all lined up. Jim

The very short tracks leading into the flour warehouse had been puzzling me too. I would have thought that sacks were much more likely than bulk hoppers for transporting either grain or flour back then. Certainly the GCR owned very few hoppers and the ones they did have were for coal, I think. After some thought, my money would be on wagon turntables just inside the building, leading to tracks running along the long axis of the building parallel to Store Street. This would be similar to the arrangement shown on the map where tracks enter the main warehouse. I'll have a look at "Per Rail" tonight and see if the text mentions anything about the internal arrangements. Jim

Some more Ducie Street pictures... Firstly, an extract from the 1922 edition 25"OS map The tracks immediately alongside the passenger station are all LNWR and lead to their goods station. The ones further away are GCR (or MS&LR, or LNER, according to taste): these split and run either side of the triangular(ish) grain store. Looking at the GCR goods station, the large building which contains the word "Goods" from "Goods Station (G.C.R.)" is actually two buildings: the large warehouse and a much more modest (but still pretty big) shed between the warehouse and the flour warehouse. The letter "G" of "GCR" is in the flour warehouse and the word "Station" is in the covered wharf area. A couple of things to keep in mind, because they'll be mentioned again in a minute: the open area between the main GCR warehouse and the LNWR goods station (with a weighing machine marked in it); Junction Street, along the north-east edge of the site; and the aqueduct carrying the canal across Store Street (between the words "Clements" and "Ward") This photo appeared in a 1913 book published by the GCR to advertise its goods services. It shows the area between the GCR and LNWR warehouses, facing away from the flour warehouse and back up towards Ducie Street (it's a bit distorted by the way the pages lie and I wasn't about to press down too hard on a book that I've just this instant realised is now a hundred years old!). This shows the two joined buildings I mentioned above All of the remaining photos were taken by me on 13 June 1991. I don't remember why they're black and white: I suppose I was going through an "artistic" phase. At the time the area around the warehouse was in use as an NCP car park. I don't recall whether the warehouse itself was being used as a car park or as anything else. This view (stitched together from two photographs) shows the north-eastern side of the main warehouse. It was taken from the bridge where Junction Street crosses over the canal, forming one of the two entrances to the canal basin. In the left background is the unlovely office block which extends up the station approach ramp to Piccadilly (built on the site of the LNWR goods station). The covered wharf area would have been to the immediate left of this shot. The twin-gabled building just visible on the far right is on the other side of Ducie Street, opposite the warehouse. The other exit from the basin was off to the right, under Ducie Street. Taken from the same place, this shows the bridge which carries Ducie Street across the canal. If you look at the map, you can see that this exit from the basin actually passed underneath a building as well as the road. There was another basin on the far side, but I don't think it was anything to do with the railway. I can't remember what the tall building in the background is called, but it's the one on Piccadilly Gardens. Next, a shot taken from inside the car park, looking back at the Junction Street bridge. Everything to the right of this shot would have been the covered wharf. One curiosity of the canal basin is that two canals met there, so the Ducie Street bridge led to the Rochdale Canal, while the Junction Street bridge took you onto the Manchester & Ashton-Under-Lyne Canal. This shot shows the south-eastern side of the warehouse. It's taken from more-or-less the same angle as the 1913 photo above, and you can clearly see where the smaller shed used to be attached to the warehouse. Finally, this shot was taken from the service road which runs along the back of the modern office block on the approach ramp. It shows Store Street, looking north-east. The bridge in the distance is actually the canal aqueduct. There isn't much to see on the right side of the road, but there's quite a bit on the left. First is the recess with the two parked cars. This would have been the street-level access to the flour warehouse, which was immediately above it. Then you can make out a section of newer brickwork, which marks the point where a bridge carried the railway across the street and into the main part of the goods station, between the warehouse and the covered wharf. Beyond that is a section of wall which would have run along the back of the wharf area. Further away again, you can see a van emerging from Junction Street. Junction Street drops very steeply from the bridge over the canal where I took the first couple of photos down to the level of Store Street. The map shows a bench mark at 160' right on the bridge and another at 126' just by where the van is: that's a 34 foot drop in a distance of no more than 200 feet (you can see how steep it is on Google Streetview). All of the stuff to the left of the road has gone now, replaced by a gradual gradient up towards the canal basin, which is edged with modern flats (including the warehouse, which is now a hotel). I have a number of other shots taken that day, including a bewildering number of detail shots of doors and windows. These pictures were "digitised" by photographing the original photographs. If people are interested, I'll see about getting the whole lot properly scanned. Jim

Further to Arthur's reply, I've scrawled all over the photo you posted earlier: 1: LNWR London Road goods station 2: MS&LR (later GCR) Ducie Street goods station 3: Covered wharf area for the canal basin, which is in the angle between this structure and the MS&LR warehouse) 4: MS&LR grain store 5: Included for no other reason than that it's a perennial RMWeb favourite, the LNWR's overspill passenger station / parcels depot, Manchester Mayfield A: Ducie Street B: Approximate line of Store Street C: Approximate line of tracks into the GCR goods station. There was also one track that ran down the right-hand side of the grain store and into the transverse shed immediately below Store Street (the flour warehouse). All the other tracks on that side of the grain store were LNWR into their goods station. I have some other stuff that I'll post after I've had my tea, Jim <edit> The "transverse shed immediately below Store Street" is, as Arthur said, the MS&LR flour warehouse. Plates 89 and 91 in the Johnson book show the end of this building that faces onto the LNWR goods station approach quite clearly. Also, there were actually two parallel tracks running down the right-hand side of the grain store, not one as I wrote above. One of these served the grain store; both continued across Store Street into the flour warehouse. </edit>

Mike Assuming that the warehouse extends down to street level with high-level rail access, it looks more like the MS&LR grain store, which stood on the south side of Store Street in the angle between the LNWR tracks to their London Road goods station (alongside the station approach, where the big office building is now) and the MS&LR tracks which continued over Store Street towards Ducie Street and the canal basin. That was long-gone by 1991, although I think I took a shot looking down Store Street which may show some of the remains. Jim

Railways in the and around the Manchester suburbs, by E.M. Johnson contains a couple of photos of the LNWR London Road goods with the GCR Ducie Street warehouse (the one that's been converted into an apartment hotel in the last couple of years) towering over it in the background. I have a set of photographs that I took 15-20 years ago around Ducie Street and Store Street, showing the GCR warehouse, the canal basin etc. Jim <Edit> It took me about 10 seconds to find those photos: they were in the first place I looked. They were taken on 13 June 1991. I don't have a scanner, but if anyone's interested I'll see what I can do. I'm pretty sure that a friend of mine has one. </edit>

I expect it'll work out for the best. At times like this I try to remember the Samuel Beckett quote: Ever tried, ever failed No matter Try again, fail again Fail better I've started on the replacements and I'm happy, at this very early stage, that they're going to look better than the originals.

Give us a "D" D! And I'll just stop right there and you can choose how this ends for yourself. I'd suggest one of the following: debacle, despondency, dire, dreadful. I think a pattern is emerging, don't you? Alternatively, you could just leave it at D, as in "D-grade: not very good". After several months of working on the three IHAs, I'd got to the point of adding the hood supports. It was then that I noted how lardy they appeared alongside the first wagon. I know the old adage "measure twice, cut once" as well as anyone (obsessive re-measuring is one reason why I work so slowly), but still... Naturally, on checking, it turned out that the entire batch are too wide. Not only that, they're too wide by too much for me to ignore it; and too solidly-built to be dismantled without wrecking the whole thing. So it's back to Square One, except that this time every single part is being checked against a micrometer before it gets glued to anything else. This is going to make them even slower to build, but at least the damned things will be the right size. In the meantime, I've resorted to a bit of retail therapy to perk myself up. A Class 60 has arrived: 60054 "Charles Babbage" in Railfreight Petroleum. My intention is to repaint this as 60055 "Thomas Barnardo", with EWS "beastie" vinyls on the triple grey paint scheme. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that Fox have stopped selling EWS branded items, so I'm not sure how this is going to work out. I could remove the sector markings and paint in the yellow panel easily enough, I think, but that would still leave me needing to source the actual beastie logo and I'm not sure how to do that yet. The other new arrival is another Class 66. This is another Farish 66135, so it'll have to be renumbered. That should be easily done: Fox still sell what they describe as "maroon numbering for freight locomotives" (no mention of DB or EWS, see) so I'll pick up a sheet of those soon. While I was at the Liverpool show recently I bowed to the inevitable and bought a new razor saw. The old one has been missing for well over a year now and it's clearly not going to turn up any time soon, or at least it wouldn't have until after I'd bought a replacement. I dare say it'll show up any day now; it's been that kind of week.

Third rail or no third rail, that's a beautiful chunk of track you've got there. Jim