Northroader

Careful, there’s two kinds of coal in South Wales, anthracite was mined in the west around Swansea,being a hard coal which burned quite slowly, popular for furnaces with long processes, like brewing and malting. The central and eastern area, north of Bridgend, Cardiff, and Newport, produced a different kind of coal, generally called steam coal, much softer. When you burnt it, it swelled, became spongy and burnt fiercely, with a fairly low ash content. This was what the GWR used, not the anthracite. Northern coals were similar, but generally not as high bitumen content, and more ash was produced.

That looks like a recipe for the way gypsies used to cook hedgehogs. What does it taste of? No, i must not be facetious. There was a nice P4 NER layout called Bramblewick featured in the MRJ some time ago. They did ash ballast which looked good, made from fine sand, powdered wood glue, and powder paint colours (black, burnt umber, smidgen of blue) These were thoroughly shaken up then sprinkled over a bed of resin glue on which the track had been laid. The glue soaked up into the mixture, but when levels were satisfactory, a spray with a mix of water and resin glue was applied to fix it.

I’m only running a small line, but there’s a passenger train, a goods train, and a horsebox special, which I quite like. (The third vehicle has a chassis waiting for a LSWR horsebox body)

Very, very clever, — and it works, amazing!

Next job passing through the shops is a LBSC machinery wagon, working off drawing and photos in OPC’s “ Illustrated History of Southern Wagons vol. 2”. I’m messing up a Slaters wagon under frame kit, 11’ W/b, cat. 7037. It’s intended for a MR large cattle van, without which no pre-.... what’s that? oh yeah, right.... The deck and frame members are a single piece, and need a slight trim at each end to get the right length. The solebars need a small piece out of the middle to match the correct wheelbase, and a strengthening strip of plastikard behind the join. Once the solvent has set, the sole-bars are trimmed level with the deck, and the headstocks added. There’s an extra layer of plastikard on the deck, topped by a floor of Evergreen plastic sheet, v groove, cat. 4188. I never have much luck scribing plastic sheet for planking, the scriber always wanders off, and the grooves are never even, so having the ready made looks a lot better. Axleguards, boxes, bearings and wheels go up, and a check made that all the wheels are touching a level surface. I’ve filed the front of the axleboxes flat. The kit comes with a nice set of metal buffers to make up, but I’ve used my own oversize couplers. It also has the bits to make up Morton type handbrakes for all wheels and both sides, the later builds were fitted with this, but I’ve bodged up a single side brake like the early builds had from scrap plastic. The sides and ends are from .060” plastikard, with extra detail from scrap pieces. The early builds had two rails each side, presumably to help roping down loads. I’ve drilled pilot holes for these, but left them off until the painting and lettering is done, as they’ll get in the way. Later builds had four holes along each side instead. There’s still one of this type preserved at Haven Street on the IoW, with SR finish.

“Fair stood the wind for France, When we our sail advance, Nor now to prove our chance, Landed Princess Tabitha.”

FFF, surely?

Don’t worry, he’s been reading the BEANO again.

There was a replica of the Coalbrookdale loco built a few years ago, it was displayed at Telford Central station for a time, but now the Ironbridge Gorge Museum has it, usually at Blists Hill. I had a thick book on early steam engines a few years back, research in that had the boiler existing for a long time as a water tank at a site near Ironbridge, and that records exist in a coroners court following a boiler explosion which placed it out of service, but further details are vague. The site of the Hasldines foundry at Bridgnorth is recorded, which made the parts for other Trvithick engines such as the Penydarren and Catch me who can. There’s a replica of the Penydarren loco at the Waterfront Industrial Museum in Swansea.

Time for a pre raphaelite, methinks, never mind the dogs, some bast*rds let the sheep out: Plywood metaphor?? mmm, must get me brane round that one... Edit: after a lot of worrying, I think I should model the LNWR, and make a Plastikard Problem, a Brass Precedent, and a Plywood Metaphor? Maybe I’d best go to bed.

One German spam:

Was it, what, four weeks ago, you were going “I dunno about this soldering lark”? Now look at the pair of you, very well done! Good luck with the progress of this enterprise.

I’m back to running trains on the layout, having wired up the tracks, there’s just a sectioned feed to each of the tracks off the fiddle yard, plus an isolating switch for the centre road of the traverser. My one and only point has a separate slider switch tucked behind the front ‘fence’ which looks after the polarity of the crossing and links mechanically to throw the point. The old scenic backsupport from the small station has had one end cut and spliced into the support for the main station, so that it is carried round the end above the fiddle yard entry. There was a picture of a piece for doing this a few posts back, but I junked this as I’d managed to crack the sheet whilst bending it, and the piece I’ve got now is nice and smooth.

Cor, look at the wheels on that!

The big wagon is trying to climb on top of the little wagon. Mummy says I should watch Peppa Pig, not this.

Actually I was looking at the Swindon Didcot stretch today, and thought the wiring is coming along well. The catenary and contact are done on both lines as far as the old Highworth Junction site at Swindon, excepting a stretch on the down at Bourton, and two stretches on the up at Uffington and Shrivenham. The auto transformer cable is behind with progress, gaps here and there, and there are bits of blue rope visible in places. This excludes the Steventon gap, on this stretch the masts, crossbeams, brackets, and insulators are all positioned, and there is a bit of earth cable, but no overhead wires at whatever height. On the Oxford line nothing more has happened for ages.

Strange how this style was pushed hard by the leading modellers of the 1930s, but seems to have had no real impact, with very few known models made like this. As you say, the SR was the leading user for prototype buildings, followed by the underground. LMS, LNER, GWR, just a handful of places. Probably the best place for examples was Northern and Eastern France and Belgium, as there was wholesale destruction of railway buildings in WW1, and widespread adoption of this look for the rebuilding work.

Your second scene, my gaze travelled up to the BRM ad at the top of the page with a picture of “no place”?

Red SOO at night, Jordan’s delight?

Here’s a blast from the past, an Edward Beal design:

Your lines looking great, play trains, hinny.

The boiler on these had the fire hole door under the chimney, then a large flue with grate running back from this, then a combustion chamber the far end, then a set of fire tubes coming back to the front above and to each side of the large flue. These terminated in a smokebox, explaining why it is a saddle shape. The fireman worked at this end shovelling from the leading tender, which was just a large wooden playpen full of coal. The tender at the rear was just a rectangular water tank. Remember no injectors, boiler feed was by axledriven pump. Around 1960, we had this one and Locomotion sent over from Bank Top station where they’d been on plinths to be fettled up. Most of the woodwork was replaced, so Kevin’s halfway to winning his bet. Quite a few bolts needed replacing, the story goes that they needed to have a burnt and blackened look to suggest primitive workshops, and the smith shop foreman said they’d just give them to old so- and- so, and not tell him what they were wanted for, and he’d do his usual job.

Turntable feed, you’ve got a rail in the bottom of the pit, if you cut this across at right angles to the axis of your running lines, have a wiper underneath each end of the turntable, one end to the one side rail, tother end to the other, feed into the two segments of your turntable pit rail, and Robert should be your fathers brother? (Did we met him before in Oak Hill?)

Any fule kno BTP’s are 0-4-4T. Sined Frends of the G6.

Like a “black hole” on wheels, but very tasty, and with that train, Paltry Circus goes north. I’m afraid I’m a total philistine, what little bit of tinplate I have, gets a coat of Matt varnish over the shiny enamel for starters.