eastglosmog

As a matter of interest, King's Sutton platforms were extended northwards over the stream between 1900 and 1922. They originally terminated about the location of the platform number signs, with the stream in a bridge beyond the 19th century platform ends. Extension had to be northwards as the goods yard was in the way to any southerly extension.

In country areas, it was perhaps more common to divert the stream around the end of the platform if needed (e.g. Andoversford), so could you put an artificial channel around the end of your platforms?

Back to the OP's original question, Springside do a packet of cats and dogs, 2 of each for £4.45. I have a packet and have measured the cats to be about 8mm nose to tail, about 2ft 3in in H0, so should be suitable. Only problem is that the cats are in the typical arched back and tail up pose threatening to do the dogs in!

I think she had been rebuilt with low angle cylinders by then, but I'm still very skeptical of the story! Suspect whoever was timing it had their watch shaken up so much it was running slow.

There is a tale (probably exaggerated) that Rocket managed 53mph on the Brampton Railway in 1837. No records of how many wagons it could pull, though and it was laid aside in 1840/1 as being too light.

Not sure if this has been mentioned before - did a search but couldn't find a mention. One thing I am very pleased about the the new Hornby Collett's is their low rolling resistance. My Dukedog can pull six of them up my 1 in 50 gradients instead of the four Bachman coaches it was limited to before.

I've just measured up my Dart Castings cats (Felix Pendonis) and they are a shade over 12mm from nose to tail - which is the scale length of my real life Maine Cxxn at 4mm/ft. So a bit overscale for your standard British mog even in 00! You would have to have a colony of Stewies (the record length Maine cat) if using them in H0.

It's stated in the Coach livery section of the GWR Modelling website that coach roofs were painted grey from the start of WW2. As blackout precautions were pretty strict with as many lights as possible being shaded or extinguished so they could not be seen from the air, that seems the most likely reason - after all, a white coach roof would show up very well from the air. Don't know what the source of the GWR Modelling website information is, but I have always found their information reliable. Been leafing through several books and greyness of roofs seems often to vary from coach to coach. Additional relieving coaches in particular seem to have darker grey roofs. The only picture of a GWR coach in revenue earning service with a white roof I have seen is one in Kevin Robertsons "Winchester (Great Western) a snapshot in time" where a whole train of new coaches on a Ramblers excursion is shown in 1937 - look like they have just come out of a Hornby box!

There is a description of working the Wallingford branch auto-car in chapter 5 of Harold Gasson's "Footplate Days" (OPC, 1976). He describes the engine being detached from the coach whilst shunting at Wallingford at least three times during his shift and also at the end of the day when the engine was sheded at Wallingford. Also, if you add sound, you need to include the occasional "cheap" from the whistle as the engine pulls away from the coach for those occasions when the fireman forgot to detach the whistle chain! No mention of having to coal the engine during the shift - seams to have been done by the shed man at Wallingford over night.

Fenchurch St was certainly LNER on old Monopoly boards!

By contrast another fairly important component of the Bord na Mona system. These are the wagon tipplers at Shannonbridge power station in 2003 when they were nearly new.

A few from Ireland, north west of Naas and near the Grand Canal.

Remains of Gilli Felen Halt on the Merthyr, Tredegar and Abergavenny taken in 2010. Opened by the LMS in September 1933 and closed by BR January 1958. Shelters were still useful for getting out of the rain over 50 years after they last saw a passenger. The Up line (left) platform was still present under the vegetation, but most of the Down platform was buried in waste.

I have that Rail and sail to Pentewan book. Been looking through it, but no mention of livery that I have found (although it is mainly concerned with the period of Canopus and Pioneer). It does contain an RPC photo of Trewithen, (can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentewan_Railway#/media/File:%27Trewithan%27_of_the_Pentewan_Railway.jpg ) which certainly looks as though there is lining on the cab.

Having read through this thread about a livery well within living memory and recorded in abundant colour photographs, I am no longer surprised by the many disagreements that used to take place in the modelling magazines in my youth about the exact shade of Caledonian Blue!

Indeed it was - the cog driven by the treadmill was much smaller in diameter than the rail wheel. What the designers of Cycloped and all other similar gadgets forgot was that a horse is quite capable of galloping at 20-30mph. All these contraptions did was loose power due to friction in the numerous gears and pullies making it impossible to reach speeds the horse could do on its own! Do you think the one linked to by Nearholmer in post 12 could be scaled down?

Old hat - Cycloped was at the Rainhill trials in 1829! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycloped

Indeed there were - why some canals (Trent and Mersey, Bridgewater and Oxford for example) built a second line of locks beside the original line at critical places.

Been looking up the data for the "Idle Women" who went canal carrying in WW2. Apparently a round trip , London - Birmingham laden both ways with a motor boat and butty (50 tons), normally took just under 3 weeks with a crew of 3. So allowing for the time taken loading and unloading at London Docks and in Birmingham, probably about a week in transit London to Birmingham. Experienced professional boat people may well have done it faster or with fewer persons. In horse days would have taken longer, as the tunnels at Blisworth and Braunston had no towpath and boats had to be legged through. I have also seen that on the Shropshire Union Canal, 26 miles was considered a days run for a horse worked boat.

Jamie Your grey matter is still functioning correctly! The Grand Union did run out of money for the widening scheme north of Solihull and the last 12 locks remained narrow. Also could not widen the arm to Leicester, as planned.

During the nineteenth century, canals were capable of competing with railways, but only in certain locations where they could minimize transhipment costs. Ironstone from Adderbury Ironstone pit in Oxfordshire was transported to ironworks in South Staffordshire and also from Blisworth in Northamptonshire to ironworks in Staffordshire. In both cases, the trip could be done virtually door to door by canal. Later in the twentieth century they lost out as the ironstone pits moved away from the canal. The big success story for canal competing with rail was the Aire and Calder, which was built for larger barges than most midlands canals and operated the trains of "Tom Pudding" tubs. Each tub (which carried 35 tons, narrow boats were usually limited to 25 tons) could be loaded directly at the colliery and unloaded via hoists into ships at Goole. It was very successful. When considering competition between canals and railways, canals had several disadvantages: They needed a reliable large source of water to work, and that water had to be supplied at the summit level, the highest part of the canal and where water supplies could often be problematic. Many canals suffered from severe water shortages in summer time. Railways don't freeze over in severe winters (they may suffer from .snow, but then, so do canals). Engineering a water tight channel along a steep hillside is much more expensive than a railway. Width of earthworks even on a narrow canal was similar to a double line of railway (compare the Oxford canal with the nearby Oxford to Banbury railway) Maintaining a water tight channel over permeable strata (especially limestone) was very difficult with the knowledge and technology of the time (nowadays, plastic sheets can overcome the problem, but even concrete proved unreliable in the early twentieth century). This problem hamstrung the Thames and Severn canal. Canals were very susceptible to mining subsidence. If the railway track subsides and gets a wavy vertical profile, it is at worst just an inconvenience. For canals in subsidence areas, bridges and tunnel roofs had a bad habit of getting to close to water level (Harecastle for instance) or collapsing altogether. As many canals were too and through coalfields (a major source of traffic) this proved catastrophic for many of them. Only very rich canals such as the Birmingham Canal Navigations could afford the continual raising of banks and bridges. Many canals got truncated due to mining subsidence which effectively cut them off from their main source of traffic. Oddly, canals could go up steeper gradients than an adhesion worked railway. Using staircase locks, canals could rise up a slope of about 1 (v) in 7.5 (h). Even ordinary locks with intervening pounds could rise at 1 (v) in 22 (h) as at Devizes Caen Hill flight. The cost of building the locks, however, would be much more than building a line of railway!

Having recently returned to the joys of railway modelling, just a few thoughts based on my experiences to add to all the good advice given above. It is well worth spending several months (well, it was more like a year) doodling and designing different layouts, trying what will fit in various rooms. I think I produced a plan for every room in my house at some time (well, not the bathroom). Ended up in the attic in the end as there was most available space there. Unlike you,however, my attic was already a habitable room - it was my guest room. My baseboard height is 33", around the room, with crawl under access from the stairs to the central operating area. Height is however, dictated by the pitch of the roof. Baseboard widths are 15" to 26" with triangular fillets in some corners to give more room for curves. Anything wider than this would make access to the rear of the boards difficult. Initially, I intended to get the baseboards made professionally. I didn't in the end for several reasons: The baseboard builders order books were so full that the delivery times were so long I could build them quicker myself. My house is old and does not have right angles nor is anything standard size so getting something built to fit exactly would have been difficult. I am glad I built my own baseboards in the end, as not only could everything be cut to fit as I went along, more importantly I was able to change the design without any repercussions. You can also adjust the baseboard supports to enable point motors and wiring to be fitted under the boards a lot easier if you do it yourself. If there is one job that would have benefited from getting someone in to do it, it would have been painting rust on the rails. Taken me all month and still not finished. Best of luck.

Indeed, Rollright Halt, mentioned before, had a goods loop siding as well as a loading bank and tiny iron goods shed, but no staff. Interestingly, considering the naming of the housing estate after Newdale halt, at Rollright Halt the nearby farm which used to be called Limekiln is now known as Halt Farm!

This is true. Unfortunately, the cost of diesel is not the main control. The cost of providing people to control the barge/train/truck is much more significant. It is the number of miles per ton per person for the overall journey (including transfer of the goods from one transport system to another to get to your door) that drives the economics.

I have just been looking up some figures in MJT Lewis's Early Wooden Railways, It seems that on a wooden railway, the same number of horses on a wooden railway could pull about 3.4 times what they could pull on a road. Figures given are (I think) for the Bucksnock Waggonway in 1712 showing 25,200 waggons by Waggonway to 7,350 waggons by road per year. The operators made a profit of £6,345 per year by Waggonway but only £656 by road. To put this in perspective, relative to the cost of coal (which is what was being transported) the waggonway transport cost 1.5 times the cost of mining the coal, but by road, the transport cost was 3.25 times the cost of mining. As noted, these figures refer to early railways which used wood for the rails. When iron came to be used it dropped the friction so much that the amount one horse could pull went up 5 fold or more to the figures given by Kevin above. In wooden rail days (at least on Newcastle type waggonways), one horse tended to pull one waggon at a time (occasionally two on flat lines) - the train of 4-5 waggons came in with iron rails.