The Johnster

My apologies for my incorrect radius information regarding Peco Streamline turnout radii.

Except that wheel profiles, flangeways, and coupling incompatibility made all that not quite as simple as it should have been…

5524 sweeps in with an auto from Bridgend, passing the box and 5633 on the goods loop, just run around the van, which as soon as the auto clears into the platform it will move over to the exchange loop ready to place it on the rear of the loaded coal wagons; it will then run around the train ready for the 6 miles to Ogmore Jc yard, which will take the best part of an hour. It is 13.10. The lump of what looks like earwax is a rock face waiting to be painted in an experimental position. This too shall pass.

Difficult to imagine now, but back in the day only enthusiasts were much interested in speeds in mph, and the writing of C J Allen, O.S. Nock, and others in Locomotive Running & Performance articles in Railway Magazine. Loco crew had time allowances to run through sections with different classes of train, fob watches to time themselves, and extra time allowed for heavier loads or smaller engines. Trains ran to time, not at a speed, and, as has been said, very few loco were fitted with speedometers which were in any case less accurate than the watches until diesel days. Consider Joe Duddington's wonderful self-written voiceover for Pathe about Mallard's famous record run' (the loco was not fitted with a speedo but did have a Flaman speed recorder, which was not for the drivers' use at the time and of only passing interest to them), what he said was 'then, well, they tell me the blokes in the dynamometer car 'eld their breath, 126 mph! That were faster than any steam engine had gone before...', because only the dynamometer car had a calibrated speedometer. Listening to this still makes my hairs on my neck stand on end, it's the mother lode, even it it wasn't on the GW... To take another speed record, City of Truro's, the speed only came to light because of quarter-milepost stopwatch observations by Flewellyn, the Inspector on the footplate, Charles Rous-Martin, a railway journalist in the leading mail van, and the Post Office inspector, whose job it was to time the train accurately in connection with the penalty clauses for late running in the Mails contract. All three highly experienced train-timers confirmed the time between the quarter-mile posts and their notes back each other up; it is unlikely that Clemens, the driver had any idea how fast he was going in mph, nor much interest in it. He'd have known he was picking them up a bit, but not much more than that in detail. The timings show a less than scupulous attitdued to PROS, especially on the sea wall and through Exeter. 100mph has a cachet to it but is in reality only a number, not of itself particularly interesting. His braking for the platelayers was absolutely the correct thing to do; these men would not have been used to trains bearing down on them at that sort of speed (sorry, to those sorts of timings) and he wasn't in the business of killing anyone just to beat the LSWR!

Let us hope so, it is a very good idea that would make properties more affordable to first-time buyers, I believe they do this in Germany as well. You want to try the same thing with a South Walian accent; the gogs hate us much more than the English, have done for 1,500 years at least. Actually, my experience of Gogland xenophobia is that it exists in inexplicable pockets; Bettws y Coed is much friendlier than Llanwrst despite them being either side of a bridge. In Barmouth you can't take it personally because they hate everybody, even themselves... It's parochialism as much as anything else, and a sense of the culture being eroded that may have some basis in fact. It is also a reluctance to blame locals for selling to incomers at inflated prices, cashing in and getting out.

Hmm. Not so sure; I think the issue arose in the post-war period when someone from the chattering classes commented in a letter to the 'Thunderer' on the ancient appearance of the carriage pilots at Paddington, referring to 8750s with large Victorian-looking domes. The M7s at Waterloo or the J69s at Liverpool St seem not to have attracted such approbation, but never mind... The result was that 'modern-looking' 15xx were drafted in despite not being suitable for the work; they were fundamentally intended as heavy dock shunters. The regions' sensitivity to criticism is also shown in the use of the new 94xx panniers on these jobs, again not the original intention which was to replace the remaining pre-grouping South Wales 0-6-2Ts. The 15xx (and the 16xx for that matter) were introduced under BR, and the last 8750s were not built until 1950. Some of these late-build engines had very short working lives even by the standards of the day, less than four years in some cases, scrapped before their first overhaul. It is econonically debatable that they should have been built at all, but this requires the 20/20 vision of hindsight; the railway world changed unrecognisably and unforeseeably between 1948 and 1958, and again, though perhaps a little more predictably, between '58 and '68.

I had a loft layout in my teens, loft conversion by Buffalo Bill Enterprises PLC aka my dad. it eventually tore itself to pieces because of the temperature range; sub-zero F (it felt like sub-zero Kelvin) in winter, oven in summer. You cannot spend too much on insulation or proper ventilation and I would seriously reccommend a professional conversion. Have a think about what you want from your layout. This could be one or a combination or all of several things; do you like building scenery and buildings, do you like watching the trains go round, do you like shunting and realistic operation, do you want fast long expresses or will two-coach branch line trains suffice? There is a trade-off in attic layouts between comfort, an important consideration if you are going to be spending a lot of time operating or watching trains go round, and space. Most layouts are built at around table or desk level, which is reasonably comfortable for operating and viewing purposes, but in a loft, because of the tapering roof, you get more space the lower you build your baseboards, but your back will pay for it. I personally would not reccommend a train set to start with; you will very quickly become tired of the limited possibilities for operating and the enforced shortness of the tailchasing trains. Expanding it with the Hornby trackmats and the plan book will lead to you building unrealistic and sometimes unfeasible track plans; these things are designed to sell track. Also, it limits you to setrack curves and track geometry, with is unrealistic in appearance. I'll come back to curvature in a minute. My view is that it is better to start with baseboards no more than two feet wide, that you can reach across easily, and which can be built around the outside of the available area. It sounds like you could build a single baseboard area of about 10x4 feet, but you would need access all around this as 4 feet is too far to reach across. Don't forget that when you reach across a layout, you are reaching over the top of delicate models that are easily damaged. Adopt a track standard before you start and keep to it. For a 50s/60s layout the best is probably Peco code 75, available in chaired or clipped appearance, but it is a little delicate and you might be better off with Code 100 to begin with. Problem is that Code 100 is not available in chaired form. These are flexible track systems and curves can be laid to any radius you want; your models will run better on larger radius curves which also look more realistic. Curves are very much a compromise, and a 4' radius, fairly large in modelling terms, would, if scaled up to full size, carry a severe speed restriction. Radius 1 setrack, 15inches, would not be used on a main line railway, even in sidings, but may be found in factory or dockland systems. Peco points, turnouts, are available in fixed radii, small 2', medium 30", and large 36". There are basic types of layout that can be summarised as follows:- .'Roundy roundy', continuous run circuits with a station/yard and scenery on one side and a hidden fiddle yard on the other. A fiddle yard is a set of hidden sidings or loops which can be regarded as 'off stage', where you fiddle with the trains, taking them off and putting them on the track. A train leaves the fiddle yard, runs through the station stopping if you want it to, then re-enters the fy, then another one repeats the performance. Versatile, as you can run the trains continuously if you want to, and shunt the yard while a train is circulating. Good if you want express trains or a passing loop station on a single track main line. .BLT, branch line terminus. Fy to terminus, all trains have to be reversed, usually by running the loco around to the other end, before they leave for the 'junction', the fy. Good if you like shunting and complex movements, and has the advantage that it needs less space (or, conversely, has more room for scenery) than the roundy roundy. .Industrial/docks/harbour/colliery/quarry/cement works. Similar to the BLT, but much more focussed on shunting, the thing for you if you like tight curvarture and industrial buildings with small engines. Can be achieved in a very limited space, or as big as you like. In this case I actually recommend setrack, as flexi does not like being forced into the curvature required. .Shunting problem. Modelling combined with a mathematical/logic problem; the idea is that a randomly formed train has to be shunted out into a specific formation or wagons delivered to specific positions in the minimum possible number of movements according to the rules. Absolutely absorbing and a superb diversion from real life, hence very relaxing. All shunting operation contain an element of this of course. The classic is the deceptively simple 3-siding 'Inglenook', with sidings of 3, 4, and 5 wagons capacity respectively and a headshunt capable of taking the loco and 3 wagons; there are something like 150.000 possible combinations apparently. The time to adopt digital (DCC) control is before you start buying locomotives, as it rapidly becomes expensive to convert if you don't. This to some extent precludes you buying older secondhand locos, even some from the noughties of this century, as retrofitting DCC to them is not always easy. In fact I would advise a newbie to stay away from eBay anyway until you have developed the knowledge to distinguish older models from current ones, loco drives from tender drives, &c. A very rough guide would be that, if it has an NEM style coupling, it'll probably be ok... RTR models deze daze are very good indeed, to scale, well detailed, and good runners, but there are some dogs out there to avoid. Don't buy 7-plank or 16ton minerals from Hornby or Dapol (or any make secondhand) as the wheelbase is an incorrect generic 10' where it should be 9'; the body panels are stretched to fit so you can't replace the underframe with the correct one. The 2721 pannier in the train set is another dog, hopelessly out of scale; it is no longer in the catalogue but still turns up in trainsets sometimes. Hornby's Railroad 0-4-0s, Dapol's cattle wagons and Fruit D, Bachmann's LMS vans and cattle wagon inherited from older companies, and many others are out of scale and therefore irredeemble; avoid. Especially avoid 2h Mainline locos. These were well scaled and good models in their day, but sadly the components for the split-chassis pickup mechanisms are poorly designed and of poor quality; any in running condition will fail fairly shortly. And, welcome to the Insanity hobby, good luck and let us know how you are getting on. Plenty knowledgeable folk here to answer your questions and suggest things. Above all, have fun with it!

Great if you're into retro, but otherwise I'd hang on a bit; I believe Dapol intend to release an 81xx in due course.

Panniers were derived, some rebuilt, from saddle tanks, which came in three sizes, innovatively and imaginatively described as small (850, 16xx; 4'1" drivers, uncoloured R.A.), medium (2021, 54/64/74xx; 4'7" drivers except 54xx 5'2", yellow R.A.), and large (Buffalo, 1854/2721, 57xx; 4'7" drivers, blue R.A., later yellow 57xx). The large saddles and panniers are therefore generally too heavy for branch work and were originally concieved as heavy freight engines. Then there were the 94xx, red R.A. and should be nowhere near a branch line... I am hoping that someone will eventually produce an 1854 or 2721 to current standards as I want one for Cwmdimbath, but the groudswell of wishlisting opinion seems to favour the 2021 and, while hopeful that Accura might turn up with one based on their 57xx mech, I am therefore a bit of a wilderness crying in a voice. Won't shut me up, though; I've been fairly successful with wishlisting (44xx, diagram N auto-trailer). Back to overtly pretty little GW side tank engine porn, both 517s and Metros were used on auto work in South Wales, and could be seen side by side; I have seen photos of both classes on the Llantrisant-Cowbridge auto*. They were the ideal candidates for auto work in the 20s, when the SRMs were being rebuilt into trailers, as they were write-offs from the bean-counters' viewpoint and there were plenty available. This gave them another three decades of use, and when the supply of good ones ran out the 48xx class was developed from the 517s to carry on the breed. The 54xx was similarly developed from the 2021. The new engines naturally tended to be put to the heavier auto work, which was on suburban branches and main-line routes, so the 'typical' rural bucolic grass-chewing bumkin branch tended to retain 517s or Metros for some time. Certainly they were in the majority for such jobs in the inter-war years and some lasted into early BR days. *Cowbridge bucked the trend, the daily pickup being a 57xx job. It would make a superb layout for anyone seriously into auto-trailers, as a large variety of diagrams were used. Flying Banana railcars also appeared.

A problem that affects all parallel-boilered GW locos with Belpaire fireboxes. It is difficult in the absence of dated photographs of good provenance to be certain of the top-feed/no-top-feed status of any such loco at any given time. This is because, when a loco is taken into works for overhaul, it is ready for return to traffic in about 3 weeks, but the boiler overhaul takes 5. So, the next suitable boiler from the pool is put on the loco irrespective of it’s top-feed status and the original boiler is put into the pool when it’s overhaul is complete. Hence boilers get swapped between locos at every overhaul whether or not top-feeds are fitted to them in order to release the loco to revenue-earning traffic and free up the workshop bay for the next patient. 517s and 48xx were built before top-feeds became standard, but top-feeds became more common on both classes over time as more of them were placed in the pool. But even in the 60s, some previously t/f fitted engines received back-feed boilers from the pool at overhauls. Boilers are pressure containment vessels (no sh*t, Sherlock) and are of necessity very well built; cared for and maintained properly they will last for many years and some from locos that spent 30 years in salt air at Woodhams are still structurally sound, though of course work to the back plates, front plates, tube joints, and firebox wrapper water jackets is needed before they can be hydraulically tested. From our pov, it would be nice to have a record if which boilers were carried by which locomotives at given dates, and the top-feed/back-feed status of said boilers, but TTBOMK no such record exists! It is reasonable to assume that an RTR product gets this right for the livery modelled, but if one wishes to change the model’s number, we are back to photographic evidence. My view is that, unless you are certain, it is better to go for a backfeed version. Should better information come to light at a later date, it is easier to add retrofit top-feeds and the associated plumbing than to remove it and have to make good the damage.

It soft against my skin like the shadow on the wall come and lay down by my side till the early morning light All I’m taking is your time help me make it through the…

Taken looking towards Bath from the road bridge, the exit turnout from the up goods loop just poking itself into frame extreme right. The junction is just on the other side of the bridge. There was a rather nice old pub behind the photographer, can’t recall the name of it now just… Trees suggest winter, and steam heating is on. This was becoming less usual by the late 70s. Looks as if the train has slowed for the junction, presumably taking the Westbury route. IIRC these vans originally had 3 sets of side doors

Pengam Bridge? My usual spotting haunt a decade earlier! For the mid 70s almost entirely plain blue with full yellow ends, with some retaining their pre-TOPS numbers. Dmus in blue/grey with fye, possibly some plain blue remaining. A good variety of classes; 08, occasional 20, 25, 31, Hymek until 1975, 37, occasional 42 & 43 from Bristol direction, 45, 46, 47, 52. Dmus; 101, occasional 117 from Bristol, 119, 120. Apart from the last two all are readily available as RTR models. Sorry to hear about your tremor, mate. I live in Roath and would be happy to undertake any renumbering work for you, just PM me.

Excellent choice, well done Dapol, a sure-fire winner so long as the mech is reliable and gives good slow-running. I am a bit disappointed, because neither class was a feature of the Tondu Valleys in my layout’s timeframe, perhaps surprising since this looks on the face of it to be natural auto territory, but actually wasn’t until 1953. Tomparryharry, with his Llantrisant leanings, is going to be delighted! It does play in my direction to some extent, as the more interest in pre-grouping GW is generated by the 517, the better chance that someone will turn up with the 1854 or 2721 half-cab pannier I’ve been banging on about for years…

Might I suggest a range of 1/76 road vehicles, not necessarily die-cast, to a better standard than the traditional Oxford/Classix/Base &c fare we are used to, and possibly in a simple plastic kit form (definitely not cast whitemetal). What I am looking for is something that could be assembled with doors or windows ajar or open, and the ability to put drivers, passengers, and things on seats inside. Decent headlamps and tail lights/indicators as opposed to silver or red/yellow paint would be an improvement as well, as would steerable front wheels. Proper glazed destination panels on buses as well, please. A model 100E Ford Popular is a good thing on a 1950s layout, but one parked outside a Post Office with the door left open while the driver pops inside to buy stamps or fags tells a story and brings a cameo to life, as does a lorry with an open door outside an office or a van with the back doors open while it is being loaded or unloaded. These could sell well outside the model railway customer base of course.

Story about my chum Steffan, who learned Welsh in evening classes run in Cardiff by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, the Welsh Language Society. He was picking it up quite well (he is fluent now), and decided to visit the National Eisteddfod, which that year was in Caernarfon, to try out his newly-learned skills. As the Eisteddfod is in summer, and Caernarfon is prime tourist territory, there was no accommodation to be had in the town and he managed to find some in a pub in Bangor. Now, for those of you not familiar with this area, it is very Welsh-speaking. Now, the other bit of background I must impart is that, on the Eisteddfod Maes, where only Welsh is spoken, those learning the language wear 'D' (for dwsgyr, learner) badges, and natural speakers therefore know to take time and explain things to them. I've been to the National, as a monoglot English speaker, and managed perfectly well with the limited vocabulary I have; the atmosphere is generally inclusive and welcoming. Anyway, Steffan had had a day on the Maes and gone 'home' to the pub in Bangor in the evening, and was propping up the bar (a thing that comes very naturally to Steffan, when a local noticed his 'D' badge and began to speak to him. But all he could hear was gobbledegook; the local argot is performed at a breakneck pace in either language! So he asked the guy, in the best Welsh he could muster, if he'd mind slowing down a bit so he could follow what he was saying. The guy gave him a very strange look, and spake, slowly with a pause between each word, as if he was speaking to a child or an idiot, thusly; 'I, was, speaking, to, you, in, English!!!'. You can't make this stuff up!

Cwmdimbath is a short branch, and one of the Tondu area branchlines. This means that there is every reason to assume that any loco shedded at Tondu could have appeared there, as well as any of the passenger stock; it would not have been a self-contained operation, and it was part of a network. Running to time was important here because late running on any one of the branches north of Tondu, all single line except for the last half-mile in from Brynmenyn, would affect traffic on all the other branches for the rest of the day. It may have been one of the most intensely worked single-track networks in, well, the world, operating to very close to full capacity most of the day. There were spare paths on the branches, but they couldn't necessarily be slotted in at the junctions. Locos can be swapped around a bit. I have worked out loco diagrams, seven of them in total, and once allox to a diagram a loco stays on it for it's working day. I also keep a count of the days, as they need to be out of service for 2 working days every 10 working days for boiler washouts. One of these days can a Sunday, when nothing ran on the network. I realise that it is unusual for a railway modeller to have more engines than are needed to run the layout, but that's how we roll at Cwmdimbath. In fact there is a shortage of auto-fitted locos, which seems to be correct as the shed had the exact number, 5, of 4575s needed to run it's daily rota at any given time, with no spare to cover washouts or works visits. Photos of Abergwynfi show that auto stock hauled by non-autos that ran around it were not at all uncommon, and such trains are allowed for at Cwmdimbath. The 7 diagrams are covered by 11 locos, and this does not prevent me from wanting more... A feature of the Tondu Valleys passenger working was the operation at Bridgend, where they connected with the SWML. The island loop platform 3 was used, to the north of the up main line, and the trains would arrive from each Valley in sequence and would be called on into the already occupied platform. Then the loco of the first train would run around via the down main and couple to the rear of the last train in, the other locos coupling to the stock ahead of it and leaving in sequence for different destinations with different stock. Abergwnfi was considered the most important connection as it served the largest town, Maesteg, so that train was the last in and first out with a different engine. This is one of the features that makes modelling the area so attractive, and an influence on my choice of it. The termini would therefore see a variety of locos and stock in different combinations throughout the working day. Tondu had a good biodiversity for a nominally average run-of-the-mill Valleys shed as well; the usual panniers and 56xx, plus 42xx, 45xx, 4575s, 5101, 44xx at one time, 64xx later, 94xx, and 3100, a Collett 1938 large prairie rebuilt from a 3150 for the Porthcawl-Cardiff 'Residential' commuter train. This was worked in pre-war days by Bulldogs. 3100 was photographed at Abergwynfi, so is known to have penetrated the mountain fastnesses on occasion; good enough for me and there is a slow ongoing project to build it. I can't find any evidence of 44xx except on the Porthcawl branch, which had vicious curvature, but the upcoming Rapido is going to be very hard to resist; it would look perfect on the pickup! There's also a Rule 1 BR 3MT prairie, 82001, on loan from Barry who got it new from Swindon in 1951 but are in no rush to have it back (these engines were not liked at Barry, who preferred 5101s and their rebuilt TVR A class...). Plenty variety, all justifiable and mostly prototypical, at least plausible.

There are some, but not many. There are very many modellers who can open boxes of better locos, carriages, track, etc. nowadays, and some of us can improve them with extra details, weathering, passengers/loco crew, &c, and even build Comet/High Level &c chassis kits.

Whilst I enjoyed building Cwmdimbath, and occasionally enjoy altering it a bit, the purpose of it in my mind is to provide a railway service to the colliery, businesses, and community of the village. It is a real place, only small and in the 1950s. Trains run as far as is practicable to the 1955 Rule Book, and to a working timetable & sequence based on (but not slavishly following) the actual 1960 WTT for the Abergwynfi Branch two valleys over. On real 'traditional' railways, the traincrews liked to shunt and make movements in an established sequence even beyond the WTT, as it was proven to be the best way of going about the job and saved time in conferring with everybody involved, unless circumstances demanded that things proceeded 'off plan' The timetable is to real time and the trains move at realistic speeds, and time is allowed for shunters on the ground to move about and 'catch up'. It is governed by a battery analogue clock with an on/off switch, and the rule is that no movement takes place when the clock is switched off. If there is dead time between trains and no shunting to do at the colliery, it can be advanced, but any movement must be in real time. This is a huge part of my 'real but small and in the 1950s' philosophy, giving the movements a clear purpose and replicating the operation of real railways to a timetable; 'Once I built a railroad/made it run/made it race against time'. On real railways, the basic principle is that everybody wants to get on with the job so that they can have the next cup of tea (the fuel on which railways really run)/go home/up the pub, so there tend to be periods of apparently nothing happening (there is a seething mess of stuff going on out of sight of course) interspersed by intense action. Not so intense that you kill someone, though. Some movements, such as propelling wagons into private sidings where men not familiar with the niceties of railway work may be working on other wagons, take place under caution and slowly, otherwise the wagons can be banged about a bit. Colliery clearances and delivery of empties revolves around a continual supply of empties that the colliery has no room to store on site, as if the supply runs out and coal cannot be chuted into wagon, the whole thing comes to a stop, and the men underground start complaining about their bonuses. General merchandise on the pickup has to be positioned in the goods yard and private sidings, and mileage traffic may not be collected by the customer, who will be charged demurrage while the wagon/van is in everybody's way but that is still cheaper than paying to store the stuff himself, a common problem on the pre-Beeching railway where mileage rates were set by government. All part and parcel of the challenge of making it 'race against time'.

Pretty much.

'Come home to a real fire, buy a cottage in Wales'... '🎵 In your holiday home In your holiday home We'll burn all your tables we'll burn all your chairs we'll burn all your children that's sleeping upstairs'.🎶 Nasty little period, Meibion Glyndwr, glad it seems to have subsided a bit. By far the biggest portion of new adult Welsh language learners are English incomers, and things have moved on a bit since 1282.

Second homes are a major political issue in Wales, and cause all sorts of problems as well as the nationalist/language issue, but apart from that issue the same can be said of areas in England such as the Peak and Lake Districts, and the North Norfolk coast. I am always a little surprised that people in these areas seem to protest less in general than us Welsh do at the imposition and the destruction of village life caused.

To the extent that, one night in 1973, working one of my link jobs, the 03.15 Cardiff (Long Dyke)-Carlisle Kingmoor, 7M49, we were told booking on that there was no loco for us on the shed and that Hereford men had earlier left one on the train at Long Dyke for us, shut down and handbrake on. Minibus ride out to Long Dyke, driver & 2man climb aboard loco, and I carry on with prepping the train and the van. Loco is a 40, Canton men don't sign 40s, but as you say the cab is identical inside as well as out to a 37. But drivers and especially 2men were still sensitive to manning issues in the early 70s in the wake of the 1969 single manning agreement, and if I was to mention this, there was a good chance that Traffic would be told to keep its nose out of Loco Dept, business, diplomacy would be needed... Van & train prepped, and the 40 started up, the familiar engine note must have alerted them, surely. Train is booked for a 47, but I've checked the load tables and we are within the load and brake force for a 40, so I hand the load slip to the driver, and comment that the loco has a water pickup scoop (a batch of 40s delivered to the LMR for WCML non-stop Euston-Glasgow trains had these). He looks at me as if I'd just landed in his cab from Mars, then the 2man pipes up 'he's right, there's the gauge to go with it'. It was at this point that the Loco Dept. realised that it wasn't driving a 37. 'Ferk it', says the driver, 'it's exactly the same as a 37, we'll go with it'. Fair enough, none of my business, and off we went to Hereford with me enjoying that lovely whistle all the way, without incident. In practice there wasn't much difference between the classes, the extra 37tons of the 40 cancelling out the extra 250hp. The handbrake worked properly on a 37, though...

Pristine anything on the railway lasted less than the first trip, especially when it was raining, and it was imperative that cattle vans where hosed out and disinfected after use, so occupant weathering was kept to a minimum, not that you wanted to be downwind on a hot day, but they were not allowed to get dirty. Cattle were expensive and their health needed looking after. In pre-WW1 days the vans were disinfected with lime, which stained the lower parts white, very prominent in period photos, but the practice was stopped because the lime irritated the beasts’ feet. A normal wash of general dirt should suffice for weathering, with perhaps some fibres teased out of string protruding from the drainage slats in the lower portions of the sides and ends representing straw, especially if there are occupants.

Well, he wouldn’t be much of a landlord if he didn’t have Tennants, would he?