The Johnster

The designers think about how the loco is assembled in the assembly plant and keeping a lid on production costs, on the principle that the market wants low retail prices and once it's out of the factory it's your problem, not as a deliberate policy but simply because there is no profit in considering the ease with which consumers/customers can dismantle the model, and therefore this is not considered. Now, the following is bad engineering and purists will be rightly offended, but a bodge that works well for me is to re-assemble the loco without the screws (which may well have sacrificed themselves to the Carpet Monster God in the way that little important things do) is to fix the body to the chassis with cheap pound-shop superglue. This will hold for handling purposes but can be easily broken, cleaned off, and replaced should you need to get inside again later. Pure bodgery, but effective.

All the way from Newport, presumably with an Old Oak driver who signed the traction. My best memory of 1200 was watching it with loaded 35ton loose-coupled iron ore hoppers flat out through Newport High Street at about 20mph on the up relief middle road on a Newport Docks-Llanwern, ground trembling under me, proper thug of an engine. Impressive!

Back in the 70s, and seen on one of those menu boards with removable letters you saw in chippies in those days which were sometimes fun when letters were missing or had fallen off. The place offered, amongst other delights, 'urkeyburgers', and a can of 'cold grap'. This was up your Salubrious Passage in Swansea. I want an urkeyburger and a cold grap, please...

I stand corrected, tx, Rob. Ladmanlow is a superb layout, as is your own flock.

That’s not a Bardic, there’s nothing in the middle. No use at all when it gets a bit lively after a Cardiff-Newport derby (‘sorry, bwt, was that the back of your skull, fares please…). Where’s the heft?

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water Jill came down with half a crown, but, not for fetching water... Half a crown, two shillings and six pence, and the largest sized and denomination silver coin of the old system in my memory, though the crown, 5 shillings, 25p, was larger in both senses but was withdrawn before my time.

The Bardic handlamp, made in Southamptorn and supplied to police and the armed forces as well as BR, was a splendid piece of kit. Cast aluminium body so the weight was not excessive and built to withstand a direct 50-megaton strike, they were bright enough for the job, reliable, and a re-assuring presence if you were working a rough Saturday night late train... I managed to drop mine off a 37 at 60mph, and when I recovered it it was barely scratched. The red-white-green aspect version was issued to locomen, guards, and shunters, and signalmen had an extra yellow aspect. One would have no qualms about clipping it to a loco headlamp bracket and running at high speed through torrential rain for a few hours; the lamp would have worked perfectly. This was part of the guards' personal equipment, carried in the leather satchel. I took a dislike to the satchel when I was issued with one, possibly because it was brand new and lacked the gravitas of the battered and stained bags that the old timers used. But mine got respectable dirty and scuffed soon enough, and I came to love it for it's sheer quality of construction and perfect suitability for the job. It was divided into two long compartments and a square end one. The long compartments held your publications (Rule Book, General & Sectional Appendices thereto, load tables, gradient profiles, notices & such on one side and everything else including the vital teacan, makings, and last night's Echo in the other, with the Bardic being strapped on by one of the closing straps. The end compartment was for detonators; first thing the guards' inspector would ask you if you encountered him was always 'are your dets in date' (and I'm pleased to say mine always were) Old dets were returned to stores for 'disposal' (never knew what that entailed) in exchange for new ones . They were, or should have been, replaced every 3 months and the cover had the 'use by' date stamped on to it. We were also issued with an Acme Thunderer pea whistle. I loved this thing, better than a horse, tear gas, or water cannon for crowd control and just the thing to hurry passengers up when it's getting close to departure time. The POWER!!! A man's whistle, used by the police.

No, the vans didn't carry spare lamps, but they did carry a supply of paraffin. When the van was not in use the lamp housings were kept on brackets inside the van, which may account for the impression that there were spares. Lamps, on a properly prepared train such as they had never encountered at Margam, the 'stards, were trimmed for a quarter inch wick and filled, which was enough for 24 hours in normal conditions. Normal conditions were not guaranteed with brake van work, with the lamps being poorly sealed against the 45mph wind and a bad rider, a rocker, being more than capable of knocking the lamps out, so that they had to be constantly relit. Plenty of matches in a sealed box, usually a tobacco tin, were essential. Other essential equipment supplied by the guard was last night's newspaper, used in rolled up balls soaked in paraffin to ignite the kindling. If matters were desparate, one would throw paraffin on to the struggling fire and stand back, while the pipe did a flamethrower impression; the stove would be going ok after that! The newspaper was also useful for giving the driver the 'tip', the right away handsignal that confirmed that you were safely aboard the van, which might be 60 wagons away from the loco, then, as you got under way, rolled into strips to seal the many draughts around the front door, window frames, and between the body planks. In between your other duties, this would occupy the first hour or so of the run, and once a decent seal had been achieved, the stove would be too hot and you'd have to open the back door, even on freezing cold nights sometimes! Thus one of my most pleasant memories is of a winter evening run up the Hereford road in falling snow, pure xmas card scenery, and out on the balcony for a good bit of the way! The final use for the newspaper was more prosaic. Guards, in the usual of things, sometimes felt the call of urgent nature, and on these occasions a decent supply was a lifesaver... The van's equipment was checked by the guard as part of his train preparation. It was:- .A shunting pole, stowed in brackets next to the non-stove-end door. .A brake stick, stowed in brackets next to the pole. .3 lamps, one tail and two side. Side lamps carried removable red shade slides, I'll come back to those in a minute. .A pair of track circuit clips, kept on wooden blocks on the side wall stove side opposite end to stove. .Paraffin, usually in a glass milk bottle held in a bracket on the side of the brake wheel side bench. Train preparers who took any sort of pride in their job wound ensure that there was a supply of kindling and coal in the stove bunker. At Radyr, the fire would be laid ready for you, the work of the legendary Johnny Chopsticks, friend to guards extraordiare. More about him in my 'Confessions of a Canton goods guard' topic. Side lamps carried removable red shades which, as Mr.Hodgson says were removed when the train was running on relief, slow, or goods lines parallel to main running lines on the side nearest said main running lines in order to re-assure drivers of overtaking trains that they weren't about to plough into the back... Anyone who has tried to decipher the perspective of lamps on curving tracks at night will understand the need for this. The lamps showed white to the front so that the locomen could look back and confirm that the van was still there and that therefore the train was complete and not divided (coupling breakages were a constant threat in the days before instanter couplings). The side lamps could be reversed to show red forward and white rear as a means of attracting the attention of signalmen, other traincrews, and anyone with knowledge on or about the railway, of a problem that necessitated your wanting the train stopped.

Goods brake vans never TTBOMK had any form of internal lighting; certainly I never came across or heard of such a thing during my career as a goods guard in the 70s. They carried three paraffin lamps, two sides and a tail, which were deployed outside the van on brackets, but there was nothing inside. The paperwork was done by the light of your Bardic handlamp, or oil handlamp in previous times. At night, a guard needs to develop night vision to see where he is, so internal lighting would be counterproductive. Tilley lamps were used by Per.Way, S & T, and similar staff working around the track at night, and in tunnels. They would have been useless to a guard, too large, heavy, and dangerous if tipped in a poor-riding van and much too bright to preserve night vision. The Bardic, a superb piece of kit, could easily be carried by your satchel straps, but it was important to not shine it in your eyes. One could destroy night vision by opening the stove door as well; those things went like blast furnaces and most had bulging midriffs where the cast iron had got red or orange hot and softened, then 'settled'. There would have been practical difficulties in providing internal lighting in brake vans. Gas or oil lighting would have been a fire risk, especially in a rear-end collision, and bottled gas or battery lighting would have been frequently stolen. This is before the extra work needed to provide gas bottles or batteries is considered, which would have been an added cost at a time when costs were being blamed for the haemorraghing of cash that plagued BR in those days. This was at a time when any repair or maintenance work costing more than 50p on a brake van would result in it being scrapped. ISTR that the short-lived container brake vans and converted non-gangway brake 3rds used for Freightliner and Cartic 4 trains, Class 4 freight, prior to the 1969 single manning agreement with the unions that allowed guards to ride on locomotives on fully fitted goods train, were provided with bottled gas heating and the B3rds had the standard dynamo/battery arrangement found on coaches and NPCCS for lighting. Presumably they had bottled gas heating for when they were at the rear of the trains and could not be connected to the loco steam-heating boiler. Heating in goods brake vans was from the stove, and they were very effective; given the draughtiness of the vans they had to be! I used to scribble notes, passing times, stuff from the Train Prep Certificate on a piece of scrap and copy it up on to the 'ticket', the daily guards' journal sheet and my own notebook when I was in a warm, lit, cabin with a table to write on. It was a waste of time trying to do paperwork in a moving van anyway, as writing was difficult when you had to wedge yourself in the seat to avoid being thrown about, though one could catch up in loops or if you knew you were going to be held at a signal for a while. The journal and the note book would contain similar information; driver's name, loco number headcode, load, brake force, maximum wagon speed, then passing point times en route and any other notes such as signal checks or reasons for delays. Delays had to be accounted for and there was a constant dichotomy between us, drivers, station staff, and signalmen as to who would be responsible for a particular delay (20 minutes Abergavenni loop, 7 minutes signal C125, 3 minutes TROS, 2 minutes station work, awaiting connection 28mins, &c). This was particularly pertinent if any train involved in the Royal Mail contract was involved, as there were stringent penalties imposed on both parties if the mails were late. Delaying a TPO was a hanging offence (quite literally according to some people as wilful delay of Her Majesty's Mails (then) was High Treason, and a gallows was kept funtional in Chelmsford prison should it be needed...). For modelling purposes, van lighting needs to be the running lamps and the stove. Stoves, if they were drawing properly, were intensely bright, and the tempatation is to have a bright flickering light illuminating all that lovely detail you've put inside it, and this did happen, but out in the country in the dark the stove door, a downward hinged flap, was either closed or on a latch, so the light in the van would be fairly subdued. With the door closed and the stove drawing hard, there is every excuse for sparks from the stove pipe! The stoves (IIRC they came from a company called 'Little Devil', which suited them) had a raised rim at the top which was the right size to hold a standard railwaymans' enamel tea can. I didn't do this much myself, not being a fan of stewed tea, but it was fine for coffee or simply boiling water up for a brew. But most of the places that you had to go to to get water for this purpose had boiling water available anyway, so most of the time the tea was not made in the van.

Had 'gator tail in the Old Orleans in Cardiff years ago, not bad but I'd prefer conger eel if we are talking about that sort of thing. Old Orleans was a great night out though, the sort of seriously messy stick your face in it eating I love, they give you a full length polythene bib at the start of proceedings so you know it's going to be good! The place is a Harvester now, and I've no objection to Harvester but Orleans was much more characterful. And they were a dab hand with gumbo.

Elves. Good at wine but can't hold their beer.

50-100million to have it designed and built by contractors, but a lot less if the railway uses it's goodwill and large membership to find in-house engineering design and uses members as far as possible to transport and deliver materials and to do the labouring of the build. It's still gonna be hideously expensive, but probably more comparable with the by-pass bridge or the river wall at Sterns. If we are talking about a Bridgnorth-Kidderminster railway, those expesnsive matters would have been in addition to the Victoria Bridge. But I would respectfully suggest that the Victoria Bridge would be unlikely to be demolished in the first place. It would cost a fair bit to remove, big cranes and heavy lifts to avoid it blocking the river, and would probably be left in situ. It is, after all, still happily carrying trains and was not really that likely to fall down 50 years ago! I would suggest that, as a sweeping generalisation, the UK has a surfeit of heritage railways, though, some of which do not really have much to offer in the sense of length, scenic value, or historical importance. I'm not sure what impression of the steam age modern youngsters pick up from riding in a mk1 open behind a Hunslet 'Austerity' along a 200 yard stretch of track at 5mph while looking at a line of part-restored Barry heaps.

Yes, absolutely, as I reccommended earlier, spend as much effort and money as you can on preparing the space, which needs proper insulation both at floor (ceiling below) and roof level, and proper ventilation, plus an easy access. Don't fool yourself that it's only a hobby and you'll be happy to put up with some discomfort and inconvenience, because, over time, you won't. The layout space needs to be as comfortable to be in as the main part of the home; you will be spending a good bit of time up there and it needs to be a nice place. My experience of a loft layout was that it tore itself to peices by expansion and contraction, and the humidity got to the chipboard floor and baseboards, worsened by dad's insistence that it could be heated by one of those silly little flying saucer paraffin heaters, which stank, managed to fail to cope with the cold, and caused condensation everywhere. The upshot was that I vowed to never again tolerate a layout in a space that was not equally heated and ventilated to the living area of the home, and ideally should be contained within it, and I have kept to this principle, eventually leaving a club I joined because of the freezing accommodation in winter amongst other reasons. I waited many years after losing my home in a vicious divorce, but have for the last seven years been able to have a railway in my rented flat by having a) a tolerant and supportive Squeeze, and b) a reasonably sized bedroom and planning permission to occupy one wall and half of two others.

First time I ever saw Jimmy Carr on tv I thought there was something off about him, he made my flesh crawl instinctively. I have to own that he is a superbly accomplished professional standup comic who has studied his craft hard and well; his academic knowledge of it is of a very high level. But, he seem to me to be sleaze personified, and I do not have the impression that this is a persona, it's him. Deeply unpleasant sexual innuendo, coupled with with arrogance and an overwhelming smugness, come-uppance long overdue. I don't like 'im,

Not sure that replacing Victoria Bridge would have been an absolute, but it would certainly have been a massive difficulty. Replacing it with a replica would almost certainly have been impossible, but replacement with a box-girder or concrete beam sounds plausible; the railway did something very similar with the Bridgnorth by-pass bridge. If the preservation movement taught us anything, it is that little can not be achieved by determined men and women of common purpose, even with little cash and working in appalling conditions. I would cite the Ffestiniog's Deviation, a serious new-build railway in incredibly difficult terrain with some of the higherst rainfall in the country, as an example. Duke of Gloucester is another. Landslips seem to be becoming an increasingly common issue for the big railway, as Victorian civil engineering earthworks begin to fail with age and axle loads never dreamed of when they were built. The last 20 years of profit-taking and intense use have not helped either. Perhaps the Buddlea roots have destabilised things...

The GW, and subsequently the WR, had separate number series for different types of passenger and NPCC stock. An auto-trailer series and Railcar series certainly survived into BR days and carried the W suffix starting at number 1, and there were numbers 1 in coaching stock, horse box, carriage truck, and Cordon series but I am unsure when they were withdrawn, which could possibly be before 1948. There was an SRM series at one time as well.

Depth front to back is a little uncomfortable in terms of reaching across, I would suggest 30" maximum for this. The problem with these sorts of decisions is that you make them at the beginning of the layout-building process and convince yourself that reaching too far won't happen often and you'll be able to live with it, which does not take account of two problems that will (will, not might) arise later; firstly, that every time you have to reach and stretch to the back of the boards you will regret having made them that wide, and secondly, you are very probably on the same space-time continuum as most of us, which means you are not getting younger, which will make the problems worse over time until you get fed up and skip the layout, Getting these decisions right, now, saves money and effort and will result, I promise, in a more enjoyable railway. To compress Barmouth, I would build it for 5-coach trains on the Coast Line and 3-coach in the Ruabon Bay, and bring the footbridge in to the northern end of the Coast platforms as a scenic break. Then arrange the backscene to suggest that, instead of the long near-straight leading to Llanaber, the prominence of Graig Y Gigfran and the A496 coast road at it's foot are brought forwarad a hundred yards or so closer to the railway, which will now look as if it rounds a plausible left-curve towards Llanaber. This should leave room for the salient features of Barmouth Station. At the other end, bring the short rock tunnel in a bit closer for a shorter concrete beam viaduct on the curve behind the harbour. The real location gives an impression of being crowded and cramped at that end, opening out a bit to the north for the littoral plain, so a good impression can be managed despite the compression and having to omit some buildings; just model the more obvious and distinctive ones. Or, abandone the concrete viaduct/harbour section and make the southern scene-break a 4 or 5 storey hotel in front of the railway leading into the rock tunnel, subdued lighting, and the photo backdrop of Cadair Idris given eye-drawing prominence; it catches the eye well enough in real life.

And of course the CKD concept was never about reducing production costs, which it probably didn’t much anyway in the 1960s when there were fewer components to assemble anyway, it was a way of avoiding purchase tax, the precursor to VAT, and selling models to people who otherwise might not have bought them. Kits were exempt from purchase tax, RTR wasn’t.

Biodiversity on the Camrbian is good as well, though a little different; you lose the 14xx and panniers but gain 75xxx, 82xxx, and 80xxx, 45xx, & 4575. This is one of the reasons I suggested something based on a compressed Barmouth, because the Ruabon locos worked through to that station; also, it had some particularly interesting shunting movements and loco changes. GW/WR;14xx, 58xx, 54xx, 45xx, 4575, 43xx. 2251, Dean Goods, Dukedog, Manor. LMS/LMR; Ivatt 2MT small prairie and Ivatt 2MT. BR; 78xxx, 76xxx, 75xxx, 82xxx, 80xxx, Class 24, possibly Class 20. Dmus (mostly after closure of Ruabon line); 101, 108, 104, 105. All available from good quality RTR sources, along with a very good selection of the coaching stock one would need for the period. I am a little surprised that nobody seems to have had a crack at Barmouth before, at least that I'm aware of, it is perhaps a bit long, with the Cambrian Coast platforms and then the Ruabon bay extending towards the Bridge and the Junction. It is approached from the southern end around a very distinctive concrete beam viaduct at the back of the harbour through a rock tunnel and behind buildings that would make good scenic breaks, but is a bit more open to the north with only a footbridge to serve as a break. If it were to be operated/viewed from the shore side, as would make sense on a roundyround operated from the centre and built around the edges of the loft, then the beach and the sea are a convenient and fairly easy backdrop. from the other side the land rises steeply in a rocky slope with buildings clinging to it, a bit of a challenge but very satisfying if you are into that sort of thing, narrow lanes snaking up the hill. The southern end would need a photo backscene of Cadair Idris, which I believe is available from Gaugemaster.

Yes, I agree with Combe Martin's point, but was commenting mostly on Alexl's statement that a Dapol Middleton Colliery would be fine for his purposes because of his affinity with that colliery. His choice of course, but it seemed only right to me that it should be an informed choice, and that he is aware of the shortcomings of this model and it's Hornby equivalents.

I understand and sympathise, having lost several locos to Mainlines' split-axle obsession, but don't write of split current pick-up altogether! It is in many ways a very good idea, a product of the best of scratchbuilding practice in the 70s and 80s, when, with a combination of 3-point compensation, open frame chassis with split pick-up and Portescap motor/geaboxes some very highly detailed and superbly running locos were built. The move in RTR exemplified by the new RTR kids on the block, Airfix and Mainline, and to some extent Lima, was to produce models with good underframe detail and visible daylight beneath boilers, dispensing with the earlier boiler skirts. The new locos looked good, but failed to deliver good running because of the combination of feeble transversely mounted pancake motors that had to run at very high rpm to produce enough power (and even then were so underpowered that traction tyres had to be used) and then be geared down with plastic spur gears which introduced too much mechanical friction into the drives for good slow running. Mainline, rather bravely I thought, went for split chassis pickup in combination with this, but in order to keep the pricing at a competitive level did not specify components, especially the soft plastic central stub axles and the metal wheel stub axles, for reliabliity; wheelsets went out of quarter easily and were insanely difficult to get back in quarter reliably. Then, to top it off, the chassis half-blocks were prone to mazak rot. Poor design with poor materials. The result was that the models developed a poisonous reputation, reflected in the low prices they command on the Bay of e. Anyone aware of their performance knows that the model may run when they get it, but it will almost certainly expire terminally in a fairly short time. The cloud hanging over them has effectively prevented further development of the split chassis idea by British RTR companies; Sales Dept. advise very strongly against it, and the current use of powerful (and cheap as chips) Chinese can motors driving through worm and idler gear reduction, along with well-designed pickup wipers that impose minimal drag on the wheels, provides good power and controllable slow running. I have a 2h eBay early Bachmann 43xx chassis underneath a later Hornby large prairie body (derived from the old Airfix) which performs very well indeed, holding it's own against the current Hornby in this respect. This is a sort of combination hybrid mechanism from the early days of Bachmanns' inheritance of the 43xx from Mainline, and has Mainline-type chassis blocks and split current collection but a modern can motor and worm/idler drive. It performs duties that are light for a large prairie on my BLT, and has been running for over 2 years in frequent use, and I drive it gently so as not to provoke quartering issues; so far so good. There is no reason that a properly designed and built split chassis built to current standards of high-spec materials could not work well and reliably, and were I building a kit or scratch project I would certainly consider it, as pickups and me have a turbulent and unhappy history when it comes to adjusting them to provide minimum drag for good slow running. Design requirements would be; brass or nickel-silver open frames with electrically dead spacers enabling 3-point compensation suspension, rigid and resilient plastic for the stub axles and a firm and reliable attachment to the outer, live, quarter-axles for reliable quartering, modern can motor with worm/idler drive, easy access to axles for removal and cleaning to ensure good pickup performance through bearings, not direct to the frame like the Mainline chassis block/live axle interface. My entire modelling history of some 60 years can be regarded as a constant struggle to achieve good pickup performance and reliable, controllable, slow running, with success partial but incomplete to my required standards. This was achieved by kit and scratchbuilders in the 70s with Portescaps, split pickup, and 3-point compensation, and while current RTR running quality is a massive improvement over the 60s and an even more massive one over the retrograde attempts of the 70s and 80s, it needs 3-point compensation to achieve completely reliable, controllable, slow running, for which perfect pickup is necessary. If this were to be done (and I'm sure that improvements in plastic materials will enable it to be done cost-effectively eventually), it might then be worth dispensing with the wiper pickups (for split collection as a means of improving pickup reliability, and their braking effect. I live in hope...

Descalated?

In 8x2 feet, you could probably extend Gumstump & Snowshoe to include an exchange yard at the lower level to supply traffic from the rest of the world, and maybe another factory/quarry/mine/harbour for more shunting. Something else at the higher level as well perhaps. Or reverse the concept so that the gradient is downhill to a lower level at the front. I designed something like this for my own possible use years ago, a BLT with a connection to a lower level representing a previous horse-drawn tramroad that had been upgraded as an industrial branch but never incorporated into the main line network; lightly laid track, small engines, hired in 16xx perhaps. It was inspired by the Melingriffith Railway to the north of Cardiff, and an imaginary connection to it from Coryton station. Just thinking aloud. Gumstump's steep gradients and short zigzag headshunts mean that traffic has to be taken up or down two wagons at a time, which means more shunting, and more shunting means more quiet playtime for dad...

I was wondering this as well, Mon Capitain. Not interested personally, wrong gauge wrong period wrong area and any reasonable price is going to be out of my league, but I imagine it will not be difficult to find a buyer, and I'd find it a perfect shunting layout for home use if I was one of it's owners. One hopes it has a future; the thought of it being skipped is not acceptable!

That escalated quickly…