The Johnster

I’d go for a Garratt for Ebbw Vale; much better on those sharp Western Valley curves. But where a big tank scores over a tender equivalent is in adhesive weight.

I actually had a layout on a plank called Plankton back in the 80s; I claim no ownership of the name or idea, though. It had a single track crane shunt fold around fiddle yard/headshunt called, for similar reasons, Battenborough Jc. It was a kind of progenitor of Cwmdimbath in that the 'baseboard' came out of a skip.

We've seen the BR standard 2-8-4T before, but I reckon it would have probably had smaller than 5' driving wheels and might even have been a 2-10-4T with 4'8½" wheels. Such a loco would have been a bit niche; Lickey and Worsborough banking, heavy transfer or other short haul freight, and hump shunting, but pre-1955 BR was not shy of producing niche locos such as the 77xxx if they saw a need. I doubt it would have had the water or coal capacity for the other usually mentioned short haul heavy jobs, the Newport Docks-Ebbw Vale and Tyne Dock-Consett iron ore trains. It might just even have had 3 cylinders for smoother starts and to keep within the loading gauge over width, and of course 3 cylinders leads us into Duke of Gloucester country with British Caprotti valve gear and double chimneys. While we're at it, let's have boosters on the trailing wheels as well to get those heavy loads under way. I'd stop short of smoke deflectors, though; this thing's never gonna go fast enough to use them... In the event, there were enough 9Fs to go around for Ebbw Vale, Consett, and the Lickey.

Liquid Gravity, not cheap but very useful, is small lead ballbearings or shot, which can fill a space as if it was liquid. A dilute PVA mix can then seal it in place. 94xx are most associated with the Paddington ecs workings, which was their highest profile job, but they were spread all over the WR including Devon. The biggest concentration of them was in South Wales, which accounted for about half the 210 built, understandable as part of the reason they were built was to replace older pre-grouping constituent 0-6-2Ts that were approaching the ends of their useful lives. So you can certainly include one on a Devon layout. There are 2 slightly different types, the original 10, 9400-10 built at Swindon, which had a higher boiler pressure and were built in 1947 by the GWR. These initially carried unlined green G W R initials livery. The other 200, 9411-99, 8400-99, and 3400-9, built in that order by BR between 1949 and 1954, originally carried unlined black livery with the unicycling lion totem. Some of these locos were built by outside contractors and will have small differences in the builders' plates. All locos had GW copper capped chimneys. There was one visual difference, as the original 10 had a sloping plate between the frames on the front of the footplate ahead of the smokebox to cover the tops of the inside cylinders; the Lima model shows this. The 'BR production' locos did not have this and the tops of the cylinders, the valve chests, were half visible. The new Bachmann loco is to be produced in both versions, but converting the Lima to the 'production' type is quite hard work and weakens the structure at a point where one has already removed plastic to clear the Bachmann chassis; I have not done it. If you are modelling the GWR pre-nationalistion period, only the first 10 are suitable. Your layout looks from the photos to be a fairly main line affair, which is good because these were heavy engines, with the red dot route restriction, and are not really a typical branch line loco. Check out RailUK website which will give you shed allocations for your area in 1948; if none of the original 10 were in the area, you'll have to invoke Rule 1! Some of the later built locos were in service for a very short time before being scrapped; my own prototype, 8448, only lasted from 1954 until 1959.

Miss P, you are amazing. Once again, my thanks. Also Mike for some bogie elucidation. Footboards can be added to the K's bogies, as can the tiebars, and it's not worth worrying about the rivets; Mikes big photos show the Stafford bogies to be correct and the K's incorrect, but it's not the end of the world.

Camping on motorbikes with some mates, back in 1970 when I was 18, for a long weekend. Did some hillwalking up Waun Fach, hired some canoes, went spectacularly unsucessfully pony trekking (mine wouldn't take any notice of me and kept stopping to eat hedges), and quite a bit of gratuitous consumption of beer in the evenings. Great times, not a care in the world.

I've done a little more today in the interests of having fewer bits in a box to go missing; 8BA bolts through the bolsters, nuts secure and the second bogie keeper nuts on the bolts for safe keeping, and the trusses are on on the basis that I'll replace them with something better (and, let's face it, pretty much anything will be better than these flimsy lack of efforts) one day. The bogies are assembled but do not yet have wheels fitted, and I plan to use the K's coupler bars that attach to the bogies with NEM mounts and tension lock couplings. When I'm in town tomoz, buying paint for this coach and the A31, I'll invest in a roll of masking tape to mark out the holes and position the drill securely for the shell vents. These are off centre and I am going to assume that I can use the ones on the Hornby Collett Suburbans as an alignment guide, but I have an idea that on these coaches the vents are half way between the compartment divider bars on the roof. Mr Ganderton's coaches' bogies have a footboard that the kit ones don't have, but the Stafford Road/Shapeways 3D printed ones I've just bought for the A31 do. I am going to assume from this that the K's bogies are not only incorrect with respect to the footboard but also the tiebar that the Staffords have; I've made a comment about all this on the A31 topic. Plan is to carry on for now with the K's bogies and build the kit to the instructions except for my added interior, but I may at some future date replace them with Staffords, probably at the same time as I get around to doing something about the trusses and those hopeless battery boxes.

I've been comparing the Stafford/Shapeways bogies to the K's ones with the E116 kit, and the photos of W 207 W in Lewis. There are differences and anomalies that I am going to have to live with. The ones in the photo are, of course, correct, but the Staffords had a step moulded, I mean printed, which does not appear on W 207 W's bogies, about 6 inches above the tiebar. I could of course cut it out but there is bolster detail that it hides which would then be missing. The K's whitemetal bogies have no tiebar or step, and a different pattern of rivets. Not sure what this means; was there more than one version of the fishbelly bogie or is the K's version incorrect? Should there be tiebars and a step on the K's bogies (I can probably add those). Is it that fishbelly bogies for Gloucester RCW steam railmotors converted to auto trailers were slightly different to the Swindon product, or did Swindon send bogies up to Gloucester to complete the railmotors? Should I really worry that much! From the Lewis photos, though, the Stafford bogies are much closer than the K's ones for W 207 W and I will be using them unaltered. They run well with Hornby coach wheels and no top hat bearings, as did the original K's ones for the incorrect Americans for this coach, Romford wheels I think. But the Romfords are a bit too long in the axle for the Staffords. I have a set of 4 axles of these for the E116 as well, and may find a home one day for the Americans, perhaps beneath a Siphon. I have one small moan about the Staffords; they are printed in white plastic. Black would have been better, surely! But it would probably have been gloss, and I'd still have complained...

A very smart young lady in a very clean (they always are) UPS van has just delivered my Stafford Road/Shapeways fishbelly bogies. They've come all the way from Eindhoven, which makes the postage seem very reasonable. I've had a look and am very pleased with them, good, crisp, prints with plenty of rived detail and no flash at all. There is a very slight texture to the surface, but I am sure this will mostly disappear when I paint them. I've decided to be lazy and fit these bogies to the A31, and the ones for the E116, which I now know it to be, will be fitted to that model which they were meant for in the first place; swapping bogies when you don't have to sounds like asking for trouble... I've also given the bodyshell a squirt of rattlecan matt varnish to assist keying for the crimson.

It’s definitely got a certain presence!

Large scale OS maps of the required period are your friend for this purpose. They show track plans, even small buildings, signal posts, water columns.

I’ve stuffed mine full of ‘liquid gravity’ as well as the original Lima ballast, but it still struggles a bit with loaded coal trains; so does one of my much heavier Baccy 56xx. It romps away with anything else I can hang behind it, though.

Ah, yes, I can see now that the inner end compartment is spaced differently and is obviously the first class. Mr Ganderton’s fully lined coaches are awesome, and mine, in 1956 unlined maroon, will not be fit to be in the same topic! Many thanks for this vital help, Ms P; I now know a lot more about E116s than I did only a couple days ago. There were flatended B sets during my period at Tondu, but I believe they were E147s, and a pair of Comets are on the ‘to do’ list. Having finished the bodyshell, more awkward than difficult and I could have done with a third hand (or perhaps a prehensile tail; why did we get rid of those?), I’m putting it aside for now to concentrate on the A31, which with luck could be all over bar the shouting by the end of the week. I’ll then return to this project.

And very smart she looks, too. I opted for the Baccy 57xx chassis because it has GW type fishbelly coupling rods whereas the Hornby generic 0-6-0 has parallel fluted ones. I have a pannier with this chassis, a Hornby 2721 half cab. It’s a good slow runner, but not quite in the Baccy class! But it’s a massive improvement on the horror that originally sat beneath that perfectly good Lima body. 8448 continues to give excellent service, but will be withdrawn when the new Baccy appears; the chassis will then be looking for an eBay 57xx body to live beneath. The number plates will be transferred to the new Baccy 94xx.

Don’t think I’ve seen this, perhaps it’s a Wiltshire thing. I’ve seen thinking about an end wall of a terrace across the road for it, but a brick pillar might do the job very well.

Sorry to hear you and Mrs Les have been in the wars; hope you’re both out of them soon.

We’ll be glad to have you, Tim. I have pleasant memories myself of Glasbury.

Thank you for this very useful guide , Ms P. Now I’ve got some E numbers I might be able to find out a bit more. The buffer situation suggests that E116 could never have worked split as singles, having no inner buffers, but there are 4 rather nice turned brass buffers with the kit (I’ve just found!). Looks like my idea of having it as a single coach on my layout relies on Rule 1 even more than I’d thought! At least I now know that it’s an E number and therefore a brake composite. Once I’ve identified the first class compartment I can put the 1 on the door and the the sausages in the windows.

I bought a K's B set coach kit off 'Bay, initially because it had fishbelly bogies which I needed for the K's A31 I'm building as another topic (!), but I've decided the coach has a role to play on Cwmdimbath in it's own right, and I will make it up anyway. It's a Collett flat ended type, similar to E147 as made by Comet but that coach has Collett 9' bogies. I don't know what E number this coach is; E was used by Swindon to denote brake composites, and an initial squiz at the side mouldings does not show any obvious different spacing between the compartments to accommodate a first class one. Perhaps it's a brake 3rd. I know some flat end B set coaches were split from sets used individually in the BR period, certainly in the West Country, and am using that as a Rule 1 excuse to employ the coach in this way on Cwmdimbath. It'll make a good running companion for my Comet C66/75. I'm having a general modelling session today in between doing stuff to the A31, and decided to assemble the body of this on the basis that it's harder to lose the bits from an assembled kit. The intention today is to complete the body shell and reinforce it with the bogie stretchers. These are plastic on this kit unlike the whitemetal ones on the A31. This is a plastic kit and the only whitemetal parts are the cosmetic bogie sideframes, which are indeed fishbellies! If you've been paying attention at the back (and if not, why not?), you'll have picked up on the fact that I have, for the A31, ordered a 3D printed pair of fishbellies from Stafford Road Works/Shawplan, which is due to arrive tomoz. I haven't actually decided which bogies are going under which coach yet; the ones from this kit which will have whitemetal sideframes are of course heavier and may be more suitable for the all whitemetal A31. They are the same mounting for both coaches although the stretcher on this is plastic, and whichever coach I use the Staffords under I will have to modify the mounting, which is I believe for Lima coaches. This is the worst kit I have ever come across for flash and moulding pips, and a good bit of trimming and fettling seems to be necessary for all the parts. The ends are a bit 'moulded' and not very crisp, but the sides are rather good. Fitting the sides to the ends proved a problem and some trimming had to be undertaken before the parts would sit properly together, and we are now at the stage of waiting for the glue to go off before I mess about with the shell putting the stretchers in; I'll be a lot happier once this is done as the thing will be much more rigid. Putting a floor and compartment dividers in will improve matters further. Like the A31, this coach'll need a floor and an interior, and I'm not happy with the truss/battery box moulding, very crude. I think these will be from Comet, and I'll probably bin the kit buffers as well. Livery will be 1956 unlined maroon. Ok, back to the fray...

More progress today; the Milliput has gone off hard, so I've been rubbing it down smooth, and painted the inside. Dark grey floor and upholstery, cream walls for cab, vestibule, and luggage compartment. dark brown for seat backs and bench dividers and saloon end walls and sides. I'm not going to worry too much about the saloon doors from the vestibule, or the one I assume led into the cab from the front saloon because there's a gap between the seats on that end bulkhead, as I doubt I'll be able to see them once the roof's on through the smaller window area. I'll do the cab to saloon door, though, as this can be seen through the cab windows. The plan in Lewis shows what might be a sliding door here; whatever it is supposed to represent it's not a solid bulkhead. I assume there were sliders from the vestibule to the saloons as well, as no door opening arcs are marked. Having done the inside of the cab front, I've glued it back on (Gorilla Superglue) and am ready once the interior paint's gone off properly to do the first coat of the exterior 1949 crimson. I have a pot with probably not enough in it, so will not start until I've been to town and bought a new one in Antics.

Inspection of the pillar box, which I unpacked to make up and paint this avo, shows it to be an 'E II R' item, and E II wasn't Queen until half way through my period. The frets (there are 2) include mouldings for a free standing on a post small box, also current monarch, and a wall mounted one for G R. The George one is probably more suitable for Cwmdimbath, not the sort of place where postboxes were replaced that often and George VI is probably considered very modern; it is anyway correct for the first half of my period and not incorrect for the second; Elizabeth II is incorrect for pre-1953 of course. But I haven't got a wall to put the G R one on except the station building, and I'd have to cut a rebate into the planking for that or it'd just look stuck on (well, to be fair and to paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies, it would be, wouldn't it?). So I'm gonna cheat and make my confession now to avoid comment later; I'm gonna use the G R wall box on a post as a free standing box, and not use the pillar box at all. As an ex employee of Royal Mail, my shame is only slightly outmatched by my desire to provide the residents of Cwmdimbath with a G R postbox at the entrance to their station, so that they can post letters while they are running for the train. One of the drawbacks of the railway running all the way to end of the narrow baseboard at Cwmdimbath is that there is no room to model any of the village, which is assumed to be up the hill and at the absolute end of the valley. Apropos, it is time I gave some thought to a nameboard for the station and one for the signal box. I could use the excuse that these were taken down during the war to confuse 5th columnists and have not yet been replaced, but it's a bit thin... I've also taken the yard lamps off their frets and, when I've finished this screed and the cup of tea I'm currently supping. I'll crack on with painting them and installing them. I've decided that one is needed at the 'country' end of the loop where brake vans are uncoupled and locos coupled after they have run around, but this is going to be a bit vulnerable to being knocked over if I'm not careful, and I'm famous for not being careful. A bit of perspex frontage to protect it might be a good idea!

It's a very distinctive building and visible from Fabian Way, the main A483 into Swansea from the Briton Ferry direction. It is familiar from photos of the Swansea Docks 0-4-0s as the background to many of them; enthusiasts seeking these locos with cameras went to Danygraig by default as access was easy and it saved hunting them down all over the extensive dock network; it's harder to hit a moving target!

This is a bit of a conundrum that affects autos, dmus, railcars/bubble cars, light engine diesel or electric, HSTs; anything with a cab at each end. If it is to be used bi-directionally on a layout, do you put crew in one, both, or no cabs? On Cwmdimbath, because we are in South Wales, the autos come up the valley to the terminus loco hauling, and propel back down. Thus, they are only visible for a short time loco hauling, and are very quickly in the station where they habitually linger for the time it takes a coal train to clear the section and maybe for the empties to come up before propelling back to Bridgend. So, my compromise is to have a fireman aboard the loco and a driver in the auto cab, which for Kevin's railcar would translate into a driver in each cab. Thus a driver sits incorrectly in the auto cab, but only for a very short time. We have not yet reached the stage when 4mm DCC drivers are able to change ends as they should... There is no ideal solution to this, we all do the best we can for our own circumstances. One of my auto sets has no driver because it is loco hauled by non-auto fitted locos in both directions, a thing that seems to have been common in the Tondu valleys if photos of Abergwynfi are anything to go by; Tondu shed never seems to have had more than the bare minimum number of auto-fitted locos to work it's services and works visits, boiler washouts, or other day to day problems may account for this.

It was called Naval Colliery actually in Penygraig not Tonypandy, and I believe it was manned by 'Bevin Boys' during WW2, but I don't know much more about it.

Movements inside the confines of the MPD needed no headcode or even lamps. They were made under the instruction and authority of the yard foreman, but were not handsignalled by ground staff as they were in freight yards or carriage sidings. In practice, you had a good look round, blew the horn, and moved off carefully paying attention to anything else moving around. Accepted working practice determined who had right of way where. The headcode, as Merfyn Jones says, is to inform the signalman, not only for him to identify the working but as a train description code in panel boxes. Traincrews communicating with signalmen on signal telephones used it. On shed, the headcode was either what the loco was carrying when it arrived or the duty it was about to leave to pick up after the driver had prepared the loco.