Northroader

Here's another pair of halts with "Heath" in the name. There's two because there's a "High level" and a "Low level", the pity of it is they're not on lines crossing over each other, like Whittington or Builth Road, and those are/ were stations, anyway. The setting is the north side of Cardiff, on the direct main line the Rhymney Railway built south from Caerphilly through the mountain in a tunnel to get to Cardiff avoiding the original route missing the mountain and using the Taff Vale Railway. Another railway, the Cardiff Railway, came on the scene, leaving the docks to use the Rhymney line as far as Heath Junction, where it turned off to head up the Taff Valley, parallel with the TVR with the idea of tapping into all that lovely coal traffic. The said traffic had made the TVR very rich, and able to afford lawyers who blocked any hope the Cardiff Railway had, leaving it with not a lot to do. Heath was at the northern edge of the Victorian building in Cardiff, but the two lines north from there could help with the twentieth century housing developments. The Rhymney line was very busy in its own right with traffic from north of Caerphilly, the Cardiff forming a branch with no through traffic. The two halts were made just north of where the lines divided, served by a road called "Heath Halt Road". The line gradient changed after the Cardiff line branched off, so that it is much lower than the Halt on the Rhymney line, which is where the h.l. / l.l. distinction comes from. Here's a shot of the Low Level Halt, the High Level being up through the trees on the right a hundred yards or so away. (copyright on the photo is John Lord of Geograph) It's worth noting that the Cardiff Model Engineering Society have their base in the park just southwest of the halts, they have open days usually around bank holiday weekends, and well worth a visit.

Boars Head at Ardington?

It's got to be the "Sir Garnet".

That's supposed to be a rat! No, stick to modelling. The inspiration is very patchy.

One of Johnsters posts made me go back and do some digging for facts on the TPOs. I find the ones parked at Shrewsbury in the daytime had come from Aberystwyth, not off the Central Wales. Apologies for misleading you.

I'm nominating Selah Friut Row as winner of that cameo layout competition. It's all you need, really isn't it? It's a layout I was unaware existed and I didn't get to Armitage, so seeing a picture of that makes me know I missed something.

Thanks, I got the drawer runners from b@q they've got small ball races in them and supposed to be mounted on the sides of the drawer, but mine are flat underneath, very sweet action, but be sure to put a lock on!

And Brunel only just missed Newport.

Me oh my, what a glorious day, and I've been in the loft modelling this afternoon, mad, or what? Just got the urge to push on. Nearly all the effort this last month has been on my Englefield thread, with a major rebuild going on. I have done some work on the smaller of the Washbourne stations, ballasting and platform texturing, but I'm not satisfied with that yet. One operational job has caught my eye, and that's the traverser. Lovely action on the drawer runners, very free moving, a bit too damn free. You find that when a train leaves, and the rear coach starts bumping on the sleepers. Then you see the traverser has crept 2mm or so sideways, so a locking device is needed. I've got a rod projecting out of the rear of the baseboard to move it, but I've left that alone, and placed something at the baseboard end, not rocket science though. A copper tube lies transversely with two lugs soldered on. A length of code 70 rail is inside, with the ends bent up to form matching extensions. One of these is at the rear of the board close to the operating handle, and the other can engage in one or other of two small slotted plates mounted on the traverser. A quarter turn of the rear extension can free or engage the other in the plates. At the risk of seeming big headed, I must also put a link in for the LBSC modellers digest, as Nick Holliday kindly invited me to show a train to illustrate his series. http://www.lbscr.org/Models/Journal/LBSCR-Modellers-Digest-5.pdf

Then there's Berwick.

Really nice looking job, and great choice of prototype.

Had a look at the Oak Hill article in the Digest, and it really has come on leaps and bounds. I'm sure you'll push on with more jobs for it soon, although I'm finding summer has arrived at last, looking out at a cloudless sky, and one more reason to slow down. Definitely a milestone issue of the Digest!

"Let's stop messing about, shall we gentlemen?"

And it's the proper size!

I'd say the Central Wales line always had a very LMS look to it, it had close contact with GWR on the Pontardulais Ammanford stretch, local workings and mineral trains, but GWR 460s didn't really appear. The high level line behind the station would see a good variety of GWR tank engines, including absorbed valley lines and the Peckett types which had Swansea Docks for home. Bear in mind also through workings were on a very long stretch requiring tender engines, tank engines wouldn't show past Llandeilo going north. The area around the station was docks sidings and terraced housing, but the line then ran along a very pleasant stretch of the bay, with seaside beaches, and the Mumbles tram, before turning inland across the Gower peninsula. There was some coal mines around here, but also green areas, and certainly not as blighted as the upper Swansea valley. One feature which would be worth having is the TPO coaches, presumably this served the remoter parts of Wales, but worked from Swansea Vic to Shrewsbury, where there was a transfer into the mail train using the North to West route. Steam days at Shrewsbury there were always a couple of Royal Mail coaches parked in a siding close to the station during daylight hours, and would assume the same applied at the Swansea end. My parents did a holiday at Tenby in the late fifties, travelling from East Shropshire, and they were routed through Shrewsbury and the Central Wales, with a change at Llandeilo for Carmarthen.

It's pretty basic stuff, always assuming the wagon had a brake. Boyd's book had a small side elevation, otherwise try a tour of the museum / preserved line pics:

On the subject of local delicacies, I have to propose lardy cake from Wiltshire, a real chloresterol product, as it was a sort of cake, but totally saturated in lard. Because of this it is better served up warmed, with the lard in a liquid state oozing out. In Swindon works, Friday was "Lardy morning" with lads sent out to bring it in from the local shops. It then went into "lardy warmers", each gang having their own homemade job, biscuit tins with electric heating elements sort of thing. This would then be consumed with relish at morning tea break. I've tried to find a picture of a really runny one without success.

There was a Virgin set in North Pole this morning, side by side with a set in GWR colours. The paint job looks different from the attached clip though? Looking at the stretch west of Maidenhead coming home, there's a gap of around half a mile of up relief just east of Twyford, a bit less on the down relief and maybe a bit on the mains. Otherwise there's some still to do in Sonning Cutting and on Kennet Bridge, but it does look like it's shaping well. All the East end of Reading looks finished.

Is that some sort of aerosol application?

I'm using the chassis of the Atlas F9 for a GP7 superstructure kit I bought off you some time back, so the bodyshell is spare, anyway. Talking of the garage, what we need to know is what's happening layout wise. How are you doing?

Where's the castle and which ways the feckin drill hall?

Thanks for the offer - driving or watching? (Either pretty knackering, I would think) TBH, the only cast bits would be the fans which are coming off a surplus plastic F9 bodyshell. Everything downstairs will be different, otherwise only the horns, which I get from a helpful young man at the Winchester show.

Yeah, see what you mean, that could account for the lack of louvres. I never went into the second generation stuff. Oh well, it's going to end up a Beep.