71000

"M

BASINGSTOKE 1958-67

Martin, I don't know who you are, but the measurements I quoted I took from an original Institute of Civil Engineers paper, published in 1953. Further it seems that these measurements (although adopted by BR at the time), were most likely taken from the GWR. The meaurements you have quoted are more typical of those applying to flat bottom rail track from the late 1950's early 1960's. Also I am fully aware of how track was laid, having been on many BR engineering possessions as far back as the 1970's. However I was not going to use terms such as Timbers or baulks, as this would most likely cause confusion on this website. So I will re-iterate what I said. On Left and Righthanded points the sleepers were at 90 degrees to the straight track. They did NOT splice the difference between the straight and curved routes (as on a diamond). Even on a diamond they did not have the odd unequal lengths seen on one side of the Large Radius Righthanded point. They certainly were never skewed - not parallel - too each other. Which is what is seen with the Peco point I have just looked at on the Kernow website. So unless someone at Kernow has been interfering with the product before posting their picture, I maintain that the Peco point I have seen is totally un-natural. Further the era this trackwork is supposed to be aimed at cannot possibly be pre-grouping, unless Peco are intentionally trying to commit financial suicide. Logically it has to suit the era of the Big Four and up to the 1960's. As too the "Unifrog" I do not think that was a good idea from an electrical point of view. However it may have eased the design problem with this new track in view of the fact that the sleepers ARE too far apart. As 26 sleepers on a 258mm long (Large radius) point is too few, both realistically and visually on the model. The Duke 71000

I don't know how to say this, but it appears someone at Peco has made a few mistakes with these new Bullhead points ! The sleepers on these points appear to be both wrongly angled, not even parallel, and spaced too far apart. And there could be an electrical issue with the "Unifrog" especially on the medium and small radius versions. Indeed these new points look more like narrow gauge crazy track. Having just seen a photo plan view of a Large radius Righthand point on the Kernow models website !!!! The "Unifrog" idea is not new, and has been seen on other manufacturers points in the past. And in the past it often failed as it allowed the wheel backs to touch the opposite rail (and therefore cause a momentary short) as the wheels approached the "unifrog". Depending on the control system being used, whether 16v AC (DCC) or 12v DC this won't do your electrical equipment any good. Metal wheels on coaches and wagons will likely cause repeated momentary shorts (jerking of the train) and the worse case scenario, burn out of parts of the controller......... How it is on real life Bullhead points: On Left or Righthand points the sleepers should be at 90 degrees to the straight track. Not as seen on these points angled halfway between the straight and curved tracks. The gap between sleepers on Bullhead mainline points in early BR days (1953) should be, according to old BR documents & plans in my library, 14 and one eighth of an inch apart. That's 4.72mm in OO scale. As sleepers on Bullhead points were 10 inches wide (3.34mm in OO scale) and I can't say what the Peco sleeper is, but it may be too narrow as well as being spaced too far apart. Whatever it is, it looks totally wrong, even absurd. As Peco's website do not show a single solitary Bullhead track item, I am guessing, but I suspect Peco have used the same size sleeper at roughly the same spacing as on their Bullhead flexi track. I say roughly, because the sleepers on these points DON'T appear to be parallel. Point sleepers on mainline track were wider than on plain track, and the point sleepers spaced closer together. As they had to take a much heavier pounding. As it happens I do not need Peco's new points (as I build my own, as seen on my layout Basingstoke, in Modelling real locations) but I am interested in seeing a picture of their Bullhead flexi-track, as that may prove useful if I can find a good plan photo.... The Duke 71000

SPACE

BASINGSTOKE 1958-67

Jack, Wooden centred wheels, posed a problem for track circuits ! While the wooden centred wheels gave a smoother ride, they had to add metal straps from the wheel rim to the axles, once track circuits became common. And on the LSWR track circuits in quantity became common early on. In conjunction with the mainline resignalling between Surbiton and Basingstoke using air operated, "Automatic Block" lower quadrant semaphore signals, around 1905. Can't find any shots of Maunsell coaches with wooden wheels. Your Hornby ex LSWR Coaching stock, set 44. My BR CWNA (Carriage Working Notices Appenices) shows Sets 7 to 20 & 39 to 62 obviously including Set 44 to all be "2 LAV" sets (with one or two gaps in the sequence). From 1951 until withdrawn in 1958 Set 44 was formed of: Brake Third (BT) 2638 Lavatory Composite Brake (LCB 6403 No change to this set being recorded by BR, and I suspect most if not all of these sets remained basically the same back to pre-war years. There were also "3 LAV" sets 101 to 152 & 158 to 167. The following examples may be of interest: SET 114 withdrawn November 1957 Brake Third (BT) 3031 Lavatory Composite (LC) 4685 Brake Third (BT) 3032 SET 122 withdrawn September 1957 Brake Third (BT) 3059 Lavatory Composite (LC) 4637 Brake Third (BT) 3060 Note: How the Brake Thirds in the above sets are consequecutively numbered. This is typical of a high proportion of ALL Southern sets. Not sure if you have noticed, but the Hornby Lavatory Brake Third, is the same vehicle as their Lavatory Brake Composite with the first class compartments simply downgraded to Third ! I am not an expert on ex LSWR stock, but I don't think the Lavatory third was the same as a Lavatory Composite, as all the compartments in the Hornby model appear to be the same size ! Indeed I bought the three car set numbered as SET 116 in BR crimson. And my records show this set having a Lavatory Composite until its demise numbered 4839, but the model provided is a Lavatory third numbered 267. Having said that I am awre that some mainly older Composite vehicles were downgraded permanently and therefore renumbered from the Composite grouping (4600-6400) to the Third class grouping (1 - 2500). By my era (1958-67) there were very few pre-grouping coaches about, and my set 116, is really only suitable for use in 1958. So it is more to provide a little more diversity on the layout, from the Hordes of Maunsell, Bulleid and Mk1 types in my fleet which has now reached 365 coaches ! Nice to see you back online.

Joseph

BASINGSTOKE 1958-67

M

J

C

BASINGSTOKE 1958-67

Grunfos, Your stock look pretty good. Indeed the Class 31 is so good it brings back terrifying memories of these beasts. Fortunately when I was an BR driver (1988-95) they didn't appear very often. But when they did, they always seemed to have problems, whenever I was booked on one or even pairs of them. Even the solitary Class 31 model I bought for my layout (in green), revealed it had a problem with its metal chassis, which slowly expands and flakes away. Not knowing at the time, that there had been a duff batch, I reconstructed parts before hearing I could have sent it back and got a free replacement ! Your weathering is good, as I do hate this love affair with "Track colour", especially when applied to steam locos. As steam locos never went track colour but grey. All the coal dust, grease, oil, paraffin waste, turned virtually all dust from the track grey as soon as it stuck.

The Business Insurance on my shop burglary was only willing to pay 50% of the Cost Price of the stolen goods. That included only 50% for the loss of my personal camera, based on the purchase receipt. Business Insurance I discovered is a lot harsher than Private Insurance. Indeed this situation is not confined to Britain. More recently the Restaurant in a house I owned in Germany suffered €13,000 damage due to icy conditions, when the tenant did a "moonlight flit" without leaving the key. Again only 50% was offered towards the cost, even though my Insurance Policy was for the complete house, domestic and business. The Duke 71000

BASINGSTOKE 1958-67

Ron, Extremely kind of you. And you are most welcome to see the museum, and the layouts under construction. I'll send you a "message" about times etc.....

A

SPACE

BASINGSTOKE 1958-67

The Johnster, At least Branson had the sense to employ someone who not only understood railways, but also the civil servants. Namely "Chris Green" ex BRB Director. Franchising you need to know is a Civil Service sermantics term for Rent. So in reality the only proper railway company left in Britain today is the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. Which owns and maintains its own track, structures, and rolling stock. Promotes and operates its services etc. John Major originally said: The Government will privatise British Railways and it will be back to the good old days of the GWR, LMS, LNER, SR. At that moment I knew that was precisely what we would NOT get. Instead they hacked BR up into (initially) 128 seperate Franchises. Now if you understand that the BRB had basically 10 Directors on roughly salaries of £1Million per year. (Total cost £10 Million). You then divide BR into 128 units and as a rough guide we will assume that each of these units had 10 Directors each on £1 Million a year. The cost of running the railways has just risen to £1,280 Million (£1.28 Billion), before you move a solitary train. In BR's last full accounting year it cost the tax payer approx £780 Million to operate the whole network using 93,000 staff. Or less than the cost of the new Franchhised system, just for its Directors ! Was BR hacked up to improve efficiency ? Of course not, it was NOT intended to improve efficiency, it was intended to use the Railway network as another Job creation scheme. How many workers are now on the railways today ? Approx 475,000, and they only do about 80% of what BR did, as some chunks of BR such as Casey Jones burger bars, Transmark and the BR Railway College at Derby were sold off totally. The Civil Servants you must understand are charged with running the country on a daily basis. So it is the Civil Servants who dream up these ideas, in the same way that they injected large numbers of "Administrators" into the National Health organisation, just to create jobs. The bottom line problem is therefore the growing population, and finding work for the increasing numbers. So Franchising as they like to call it, introduces Private money in addition to what the Government still has to put in, to supposedly offset the cost of the increased numbers of jobs. Efficiency bedeviled ! The Duke 71000

Len, For any modelling jobs, including that which you are asking about. You need to furnish yourself with a range of modelling tools. Firstly craft knives are for beginners, are not sharp to start with, and the blades often to bulky to do fine work. You need a "Swann Morton" surgical scalpel. Just type in that name on the internet and you will find a host of pictures giving some idea of the range. There are basically two sizes of handle and a range of blade shapes for either the large handle or the small handle. I tend to use the small size handle for 90% of jobs, along with blades 10A and 11. The larger handle and larger blades for only about 10% of my modelling jobs. You also need a set of mini files. A range of small modellers pliers, snippers, a small "Set square". Some small fine toothed modelling saws etc... "Proops" are a good source of supply for all the tools I have mentioned. You will find them on the internet, and they are often at most larger model railway shows with a trade stand. This assumes your are in the UK, as you don't give a location on your posting ! If you are in Spain for example, as I am, many of the modelling tools I have found in the limited number of model shops, only stock second rate tools and certainly no scalpels.

As the term "Spam Can" was a WW2 reference to a basically then new style of food production, and the other new tinned product was "Bully Beef". Possibly the rebuilds should be called "Bully Beef". Depending how you looked at them, the rebuilds were rather Beefy looking !

An extra note in addition to what "The Johnster" has said. Crests early or late were NOT normally found on freight vehicles.

David. The locomotives that were NOT rebuilt kept the Bulleid "Chain Drive". Although numerous alterations were made to locos in Original condition, the alterations were mainly minor improvements to reduce problems, and increase reliability. But this DID NOT extend to replacing the Bulleid valve gear.