The Johnster

I’ve filled the toplights with Terracotta Fine Milliput, which seemed more amenable to what I wanted it to do and much better than the first attempt, which didn’t go off properly after a whole week. Can’t do any more until this has gone off and can be sanded smooth, then I can start painting, interior first. Next move move will be to order a cab detailing set off Springside, so I can finish off the cab before the crimson livery goes on. I have a good feeling of steady, ordered, progress with this project now that the bogie problem is resolved.

Experiencing the same on Mac with Safari; works fine on iPhone Safari. Will try logging in direct when I get home.

It is not difficult to balance rotating mass, that is, the wheels, cranks, crankpins, coupling rods and so on, with balance weights on the driving wheels and counterbalances for the internal cranks of inside cylinders, and as the forces increase identically in the rotating mass and the counterbalancing with increased speed of rotation, it can be done pretty accurately and effectively. Hammer blow is nothing to do with this, although the ‘stiffness’ of the wheels will affect the ride if the loco and may exacerbate or ameliorate it. Hammer blow is caused by reciprocating mass, the stuff that goes to and fro rather than round and round. This is the pistons, piston valves if there are any, and crossheads. And then there’s the connecting rods. These take some of the reciprocating load at the crosshead end and become rotating mass at the crank end. Hammer blow, unsurprisingly given what it is called, manifests itself as a physical shock throughout the loco and at the railhead, and is A Bad Thing that has caused many a CME to look old and grey before his time. While the rotating mass maintains the same speed, reciprocating mass stops dead for a nanosecond (or we’ll say it does to stop my brain hurting) at the end of it’s stroke, accelerates until it gets to the middle, then decelerates to stop at t’other end before reversing itself and repeating the move. So, we have stuff going round and round all at the same speed, and stuff going to and fro at all sorts of different speeds, the latter being impossible to balance and easier to increase than it is to reduce. The difference has to escape the system somewhere and does so in this violent way. This is is my very limited layman’s understanding of a very complex engineering issue; I am sure there are many contributors here who can explain it better than my inane ramblings! A steam locomotive in motion moves, like god, in all sorts of mysterious ways, not all of them in the same direction or speed and not all of them intended...

Good question! I will be glueing plastic glazing to a painted whitemetal surface. Superglue is the obvious choice but will fog the glazing. I have Bostik, which might be a bit messy, but might go for Liquid Glass used as glue.

A large number of ‘bargain’ bikes, bought new at below the price you have to pay for something of any quality, develop major wear issues fairly soon and are not well looked after. Many repairers won’t touch them and spares won’t fit; it’s easier and cheaper to abandon them and buy another one. Welcome to the throwaway society, and the delusion that cycling is cheap, or green...

A big tank loco can carry enough coal and water for a non-stop London-Brighton run, 60 miles, a distance suitable for a lot of the Southern’s fast commuter jobs; you can see why Maunsell designed the Rivers. It is a matter of debate as to whether the Southern would have been better off improving the Eastern Section’s per way in the wake of the Sevenoaks accident rather than withdrawing the locos in a knee jerk reaction. Large fast tank engines were, as we’ve said, ideal in many ways for much of it’s work, and were introduced almost immediately upon nationalisation, LMS types followed by the Brighton designed Riddles 4MT tanks. The LMS had no such trouble with it’s big tanks, from the Fowler 2-6-4T on. In the event the Southern put it’s money into the 3rd rail, never built another big tank engine for fast work, and converted the Rivers and the big Brighton tanks to moguls. The River design was in fact exonerated by a trial on the GN main line shortly after the accident; over 80mph was achieved and Gresley, who was on the footplate, reported that the loco’s ride and stability gave him no cause for concern. One has to give credit to the steady nerves of anyone aboard the loco on this occasion; personally, I’d have been a bit apprehensive (by which I mean bl**dy terrified) given the class’s well publicised ‘Rolling Rivers’ reputation, even if it was ill-deserved! The GW seemed happy enough with their various large prairies, and the LNER seemed to show little interest before WW2 in big tanks.

They’re fairly safe these days; things were different about 800 years ago, mind... We actually rather like some of them.

A possible answer to the loco length problem for modern image is to go industrial, which can include a few internal user older wagons. But I endorse the idea of a plank to get you going; it'll build your confidence, teach you a lot, and be a lot of fun. And it could be incorporated as a branch or siding off your eventual bigger layout, so nothing is wasted, and you have something to use as a test running track in the meantime. Win win.

This is a very educational thread! A comment, purely my own viewpoint and not to be taken as definitive or authoritative, on the subject of driving standards. These differed noticeably between individual drivers in my time on the railway back in the 70s, on diesel traction, and the differences must have been more pronounced with steam. The driver is tasked with stopping the train at the places and times determined in the working timetable subject to and authorised by the Rules and Regulations, but, if he's any good, does this with the least discomfort to the passengers, or the guard on a freight train, the least work for his fireman, and on some railways he got a bonus for saving coal. The traditional way of training him for his highly skilled job was to let him spend many years firing to other drivers. This meant that, with minimal interference from inspectors and depending on his own enthusiasm for attending mutual improvement classes, which were voluntary and in any case more focussed on Rules and loco technology than driving technique, new drivers tended to acquire and continue old drivers' bad habits, and pass them on to the next generation. If they were innovative enough to try a new technique of their own while being supervised in the seat during this long training period, the driver in charge told them not to and they were very strongly persuaded to do it his way. 'His way' worked, of course, tried and tested over time on regularly done jobs. But the fact that it was seldom challenged led to a stifling of innovation and a persistence of, not bad practice, but practice that could sometimes have been bettered. Modern steam drivers are different, as are their locos in some ways; their training is much more closely monitored by inspectors and be drivers who have themselves been taught by inspectors; the preservation movement is approaching it's 3rd generation of main line steam drivers and nobody who worked steam pre-1968 is in the game any more except in an advisory capacity. The job references the old guys continually, even the loads and timings on main lines are based on the old days, but the situation is different. The locos are, at least theoretically, in better shape, but good coal is harder and harder to come by, and the rail profile and ballasting is not set up for steam operation. So, 'properly' taught drivers under the observation of inspectors a good bit of the time are driving locos that are in theory fully restored to main line condition, but I suspect that not all ex-Barry rebuilds withdrawn in poor condition are as good as Tornado, which is getting a bit of mileage under her now. Maintenance is rigorous, probably much more intense than in BR days, but I suspect focussed on safety issues rather than improving the efficiency or tractive ability of the loco, and locos can be set up very differently from each other to the specification of their owners or the preserved railway they mostly run on. So, one rebuilt light pacific will fly up a bank with 11 on no problems, while a classmate with the same crew and same coal in the same conditions will struggle with 10. Remember the criticism of Flying Scotsman last year when she embarrassed herself on the West Somerset (that was a stall, not a slip, i know, but illustrates the point; this loco was described as a bag of nails by Alan Pegler back in '63 and must have been pretty rough until her NRM rebuild; perhaps she'd have performed better in this situation in her nailbag condition). This sort of event happened daily on pre-'68 BR and nobody commented except the signalmen and the drivers of following traffic held up by it. Drivers' techniques still differ of course, and each driver has his favourite loco, that responds best to his methods, especially if he's the only one that can get much out of her. Messroom debate on the matter is no doubt as lively as ever, and as opinionated, such is human nature, but there is a fundamental difference I think. It is that modern driving standards are probably better than the worst of traditional ones, but unlikely to match the sheer depth of experience and knowledge of the best. They are by and large very good indeed; driving a steam loco even at heritage railway speeds and loads is a complex and skilled job without having to react to situations at 90mph on a busy main line, but we are not really comparing like for like if we are comparing current steam operations to the old days.

Found the level then; knew it wouldn't take long...

Sort of; hiraeth means a longing (the hir element means long) for something lost, and is often used by expatriates to express homesickness. I have seen big men with tears in their eyes when the down train emerges from Patchway tunnel and you get that wonderful view over the estuary to Wales beyond.

industrial pollution made it next to impossible to keep anything clean in the big industrial towns. In Cardiff, GKN's East Moors steelworks was on the downwind side of most of town on most days, but the lower Splott area around Portmanmoor Road (where Shirley Bassey actually hails from, not Tiger Bay) was constantly coated in iron ore dust, and the rest of us got our share when the wind shifted, even the nice people in Cyncoed and Rhiwbina. My mother would watch the weather forecast like a sailor for wind directions, and her language was a bit sailor-like when they got it wrong and washing on the line copped it; this went on until the 70s. Places like Sheffield, in a bowl of hills, must have been much worse. Carbon monoxide added to the mix increasingly during the post war decades, and things were arguably at their least healthy in the mid to late 60s, even if they were a little physically cleaner by then. In mining villages everything was covered in coal dust, and the big cities away from the coalfields were caked in soot from domestic fires. Rural communities had less of this to deal with, but were blighted by extreme poverty so fresh paint was rare. Councils swept streets in the big towns, but farming or fishing villages had no such service, the dust and much piled up until it was washed away by heavy rain. Streets everywhere were full of horse s**t, which got picked up to use as fertiliser by anyone who was lucky enough to have a patch to grow veg on; flowers in gardens were a 1960s innovation for many people! Even in my lifetime (born 1952) public baths were places where the public went to wash themselves, not swimming pools, a 'public health' not a leisure facility. You got a towel and a tiny hotel sized bar of coal tar soap for your tuppence or whatever it was, or saved money by taking your own. Very few people, even those earning relatively good wages, owned their own homes and renting was the norm, with most urban houses in multiple occupation and nowhere offering any privacy; whole families lived, and somehow increased, in single rooms. Malnourished barefooted kids died of TB, your clothes had to last for years because there'd be no new ones, so were mostly faded and scruffy hand-me-downs, lousy because you couldn't afford to heat the water to wash them, in a tub by hand. I am washing clothes as I type; washing machines are brilliant! People left their front doors open not because of the wonderful community spirit they talked about decades later in pubs to bore the likes of me with, but because nobody had anything to steal, and neither did their neighbours. No running water, often no sewer connected to your facility at the end of the garden, tin baths once a weeks, daddy first then mummy and kids in age order; the little ones probably came out dirtier than they went in! There was no public health service, and GPs had to be paid if anyone was ill, so by and large they were never treated and got worse until they got better. Or didn't. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, and that's probably just as well... How one models this is down to personal choice. Not many will want to show urban or rural poverty and deprivation in all it's anti-glory, but it can be suggested and hinted at. The hardest thing to recreate is probably the filthy fug that enveloped the big towns and cities and mostly reduced visibility to about half a mile on good days; this haziness and glare on sunny days is very apparent in old photos. Vibrant colours and clear blue skies are very much a modern image thing. Clothes, except for the managerial classes on the commuter platform, should be tatty, and people stooped and bent from labour and malnutrition. H0 figures might represent stunted growth. Everybody wore hats, all the time or 'you'll catch your death of cold', a serious consideration. Period modelling may be to some extent about social history as much as trains.

They’ve gone to a good home, then. Not any less possible in the Cynon Valley than at Tondu as there were at least 4 allocated to Newport Division In ‘our’ time photographed in Lewis working in the area or at Godfrey Rd; one photo shows the cab end of Diagram N no.38, also photographed in Lewis by H.C.Casserley at Bridgend on an Abergwynfi working. So coaches known to be at Newport also appeared in the Tondu valleys. Circumstantial enough for me! Some progress on mine today; I’ve finished the seating and am ready to paint the interior. Next job therefore is to have another go at Milliputting the toplights. Then I can paint the interior followed by the exterior, then the numbers, then the glazing, then the no smoking labels, then the roof can go on. I’ll detail the cab before putting the front back on. Then we can have a look at the bogies, fit couplings, and final details like new buffers and a new bell.

What I find very noticeable is the dirtiness and run down feel of everything, especially the buildings, none of which are painted as they would be in later years. I associate this general drabness with wartime and post war austerity, but the pernicious effect of nearly a decade of depression is being manifested here as well I think.

I've picked up an K's kit B set coach kit on 'Bay; arrived this morning. It's a plastic kit with whitemetal castings for bogie sides and ventilators, and has, wait for it, fishbelly bogies! It's a Collett flat ended design, and as the flat enders were split into individual coaches in their later lives, I'm gonna use it as such on Cwmdimbath; it'll make a good running partner for my Comet C66/75. Never unpacked as far as I can see and all complete; only drawback is that the roof is broken in two pieces. Good news is it's a clean break and should be easily repairable without showing. As the bogies have whitemetal sides, they may be more appropriate to use beneath the A31 project. I have a pair of 3D print fishbellies on order which can be used beneath this coach; they'll have to be modified whatever I put them under so there is no loss there. The coach'll need an interior, but after the working up of the Triang clerestories and the Comet C66/75 I'm getting a bit of experience under my belt with these (I'm also scratching one out of card for the A31) and am a good way up the learning curve. Livery will be 1956 unlined maroon. Won't make a start on this at least until the A31 is completed, but overall my intention to release the layout from the bondage of ex Airfix bowended B sets and A28/30 trailers is off to a pretty good start!

Tempting, Mike, but I'll stick with what I've got for now and leave it for somebody else. Instructional to soee the thing reduced to components, though. As built from the kit, there is no floor and no interior detail beyond the bulkheads, and the thing looks very empty, but is not bad overall. Mine has been epoxied together solidly and squarely, which bodes well for anyone attempting a new construct; it is a fundamentally correct to scale model that can be worked up. Somebody going further than I'm intending would probably try to go for glazing at the correct depth (not flush). Some detail on the cab front is cast, and would be better as separate components, but I will not be bothering too much with this beyond replacing the lamp irons with my standard Rexel no.13 staples cut to size. Good enough is good enough; it you wanted a fine scale A31 you'd scratch it. I'm expecting my interior and cab details, along with the radically different look of a crimson liveried coach with plated toplights, to 'lift' the model to my satisfaction. It'll certainly make an impression on Cwmdimbath among the steel bodied trailers and Collett suburbans with it's panelled body and fishbellies, and might go some way to inhibiting my constant badgering of Dapol to apply a 4mm shrink ray to their lovely 7mm diagram N. I have photograhic evidence of no 38 at Bridgend with boards for Abergwynfi in Lewis, H.C.Casserley no less! But I will of course still give Dap an occasional reminder about this; my public expects it of me...

Got wrong then, substitute Broad, Mejim, and Narrer as appropriate. Couple years since been down A30...

Canton diesel depot had them from opening in 1962.

And you take up less space in sidings, headshunts, and on turntables; the big Brighton tanks were produced at a time when railways used to 4-4-0s were having to go 6-coupled with big boilers to cope with increasing loads and were finding it difficult to reconcile the sheer size of these locos with operating practice...

Machynlleth.

Not sure, Calvin. It wasn’t a colour used particularly by our forces, or the Merkans’, the source of most of the war surplus stuff that permeated much of life in the late 40s and 50s, and my guess is that, with austerity and rationing of materials in force until ‘51, it was a colour that could be produced without recourse to materials on ration or difficult to obtain in quantity. Whatever the reason, it was very typical of the period for painting wooden surfaces, and there is a garden side door at the other end of my street still displaying it’s remains.

Thanks Tim. I'm probably going to have to get one for the buffers anyway, though! One of my other trailers has lost it's bell and an order to Peter's will be forthcoming. I've bought a K's flat ended B coach kit on 'Bay (another one I have to construct an interior for, this is getting to be a habit), which got delivered this morning, and this has cast whitemetal bogie sideframes for fishbellies. Construction is similar to the Americans that came with the A31, but this is a plastic kit with plastic bogie stretchers. As I say, I have the Stafford Road/Shapeways 3D plastic printed fishbellies on order, but am thinking that these K's bogies, which will be heavier with the whitemetal side frames, might be more suitable for W 207 W and the Staffords can be used under the B coach. The idea is to keep a lower centre of gravity; it probably doesn't make much difference but just feels like better engineering to me! The Staffords are a better looking thing, though, with sharper and crisper detail. It's not a race, and the Staffords will probably have arrived before I get to mounting bogies on 207, so I can defer the decision until then. The Staffords are, I believe, supplied to replace Lima and will need some modification whichever coach they are used on.

I think it's the large glass panel that's giving you that impression. Smaller glass panes in wooden frames set into the panel might have a more pre-war feel, a technique used on modern doors that are supposed to look 'traditional'. The bright paintwork is fair enough in my book; it was not until the austerity period that paint became difficult to obtain and for a good time during the late 40s and the 50s nearly all doors, and window frames, that managed to get painted were painted mid green. Colour was invented by the Beatles in 1963, as everyone knows. Enamel signs are sometimes done to death a bit on layouts, but a newsagent/tobacconist/general comestibles like this can be legitimately plastered with 'em.

I use 'Fochrhiw', and sometimes 'Scethrog', in a similar fashion, but if you want a 3 syllable expletive Cullompton is pretty good. I have a soft spot for Longwoodswidger, the same part of the world, as well; a hint of Ramblin' Sid about this IMHO. (Best Devon accent) 'Oi be a long woods widger. an' oi do widger all the live long day in the long wood. Sometimes, oi be 'aving a beer in th'evenin' with one of they medium length woods widgers, but oi bain't 'avin no truck with they short woods widgers. Bain't natrel, trouble'll come of et, mark moi words...' By which time you've almost made it to Launceston if you're coming down the A30!

I have specifically chosen Cwmdimbath's period as 1948-58 to take maximum advantage of this, Ian. Locos in late G W R intials livery are justified, as well as the transition liveries, and I have workmen's coaches in shirtbutton. I model to photographs when they are available, and 'best guess' when not; for instance I have no photo of 9649, delivered new to Tondu in 1946 in what must have been unlined green G W R intials, and assuming a full overhaul when her boiler ran out of ticket in 1953, probably ran in the livery until at least then. I have made the point that she is owned by British Railways with red backed number plates including a smokebox number plate and shedcode. I have a pair of Hornby Collett 57' suburbans, brake and compo, just to show i'm not going OT with this (!), but they are in BR crimson and have no end branding. I have no idea if coaches from broken up sets were ever used at Tondu, but there were some in South Wales allocated to what was then the Newport Division, and that's good enough for me! The point about liveries is very valid, though. Nowadays, when stock changes owners, the new owners are often very keen to re-livery the vehicle as soon as they can, and overlays make the job much simpler and easier, but on the traditional railway it ran in what it was painted in until the next major overhaul. This can be guesstimated at 7 year intervals in the case of locos, on the basis of a 5 year boiler certificate with a 2 year extension following an examination and hydraulic test by by a Board of Trade inspector, but storage out of use for periods and time waiting for space in works might extend this; it is not an exact science. Best advice as always is to work from accurately dated photos, but these are not always available especially for obscure Mid-Glamorgan valleys workings... I can be fairly accurate with loco numbers as information from RailUK and BR Database shows where they were allocated when, but information about coaches is harder to pin down; types can be shown in photos but rarely numbers. I have to wing it a bit, although people here have been immensely helpful. ChrisF in particular has extended my knowledge of such matters very considerably.