philip-griffiths

 

Philip, do you happen to know how steep the gradient was between Nantyglo and Brynmawr?  It was of course used by dmus for just over four years.  The units from Newport used to terminate in the wooden bay at Brynmawr.

 

Chris

Chris,  Vic Mitchell's book on the Abertillery and Ebbw Vale branches has a gradient diagram indicating 1 in 47.  WW Tasker's book on the MTA quotes the same gradient but goes on to state that it was for practically the full length of the connecting line from Nantyglo to Brynmawr.

BTW Eastern valley DMUs for Blenavon would have had 1 in 47 from Pontnewynydd to the terminus.  

Also another line that was not given DMUs - I've always wondered why, Pontypool-Neath, had a 1 in 47 from Pontypool Road to Hafodyrynys.  

regards

According to the 1950 Sectional Appendix the bank out of Abercynon was as follows -

 

5 chains at 1 in 38, then

11 chains at 1 in 80, then

69 chains at 1 in 42

 

 

.....

While it closed to traffic before the advent of diesels, the Abergavenny to Brynmawr bank up the Clydach had the following stretches:

60 chains 1 in 34 approaching Govilon

100 chains 1 in 37 Govilon to Gilwern

160 chains 1 in 38 Gilwern to Gelli-felen tunnels

40 chains 1 in 38 Gelli-felen tunnel towards Brynmawr

40 chains 1 in 35 approaching Rhymney Bridge from Nantybwch.

Those six miles from just east of Llanfoist to near Brynmawr would have taxed a DMU i suspect.

Quick heads-up:

 

If you see a volume advertised under Lost Lines of Wales - BRECON TO MERTHYR, be warned - it is in fact the BRECON TO NEWORT book!

 

I ordered one from ebay (no image with it) and that's what happened.

A seller on ABE is making the same mistake (also very expensive compared to buying from the publisher direct), but at least there is an image of the cover to alert you.

 

I called the publisher and they advised the book underwent a change of title before publishing.

 

They also advised two more titles in the pipeline!!

These are quality publications.

was in Abergavenny today and had a look at this book on Brecon to Newport and was disappointed by how much was missed out.  It jumps from Fochriw to Bargoed to Machen, with only one picture per station.  It makes me concerned about purchasing the book on the Vale of Neath without having a chance to look at it first.

Mid Wales, Central Wales, Brecon & Merthyr, Hereford, Hay & Brecon, Western Valley from Aberbeeg, more or less.

Thanks very much.  Maybe a bit too much GWR except for the HHB :-)

Jintyman should love it, with his Tallylyn at the heart of a few of those lines.

regards

Thanks for that Mike and Barry.   I think I will put in a request as a birthday is on the horizon.

I was in Abergavenny in December and had hoped to buy the new book on the MTA, but it was out of stock, so my sister bought me the Hodge book on the Western Valleys. I was delighted to find pictures of Ebbw Vale LNWR station that I had never seen.   

regards

Hello, 

I noted from an advert a new book on the Taff Vale Extension / Vale of Neath line by Tom Ferris.  I was wondering if the book offers new photos of the book compared to previous publications?  I've note a few books of late have rehashed previous photos. The previews on the website seem to be new material.  Also how much coverage is there of Crumlin Viaduct?

sorry for the questions, but as I'm a sea away from a decent bookshop, I'll need to wait until the summer to check it out in person.

with many thanks

regards

Please can someone summarise which lines are covered?

many thanks.

regards

Thanks Ron

They are very acute crossings. I am even more impressed. The switches are also long. Are you using a tighter EM specification or is it the normal EMGS track measurments?

Regards.

Impressive.  What are crossing ratios on the single sided tandem?

regards. 

Here is the actual colour of the river on Cwm Bach. The colour in the previous photo was caused by a rare burst of sunlight through a window reflecting of the water's surface.

Hello Chris

Please don't take my comment as criticism. I like your model a lot. It is far better executed than anything I have created.

I think it has something to do with memory. There was a picture in. november's backtrack of Groesfan colliery. The dead bracken, coal tips and general malaise and neglect reminded me of home in wintertime. Not a black and white movie more, brown and dull reds.

Regards.

Industrial South Wales in a picture!

I like Chris's model, but it is not grey/brown enough to be what I remember.  There was a great article in MRJ about how to tone down colour as our perception of colour changes as a result of the air through which we see it and the distance.  Growing up in the Sirhowy valley/Aberbargoed I remember dirt, greys, the odd splash of red - as it stood out, grime over everything - remember the clothes coming back from the line covered in smuts because the coke works had been operating?  capturing colour is difficult.  

It is good to note the increasing number of South/Mid Wales layouts that are appearing.  The North Gwent Modellers ploughed a lonely furrow for some time with their layouts based around Bleanavon.  Good to see people being captivated by layouts with good operational interest.

regards

Jinty,

The latest edition of Steam Days has an article on the Hereford to Three Cocks line. while not as far as Talyllyn Junction, it does have details on traffic, locos etc. which would have mostly worked through to Brecon.

regards

Yeah just need to get Cwm Prysor finished!.....and decide on possibly somewhere to model.... South Wales perhaps?

Ah. Someone else who has finally seen the light. Probably the most undermodelled part of the country and yet so much potential.

Regards.

I seem to have mislaid my Scalefour Digest sheet on "Setting out an elliptical arch" (well, I have had it/them over 30 years and moved house at least five times in that period!). I've visited the S4 web site to see if it's possible to download Digest sheets, but had no joy there. I'm hoping somebody with the relevant sheet will be kind enough to scan their copy and e-mail it to me.

 

Please PM me, if you're able to help.

 

 

Regards

 

Dan

Dan,

it is there, 62.0.  

regards

Philip 

Two photos of 40145 at Gilwern, and Abergavenny Junction during the 1950s

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Both photos are by David Bowen, from Malcolm Lewis' collection

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If you want more.............. you will need to join a certain FB Group.

.

Brian R

Thanks Brian.  Have the one at Gilwern somewhere.  The carriage is an LNWR auto coach.  it was used on the Ebbw Vale workings between there are Brynmawr.  On a Tuesday it was extended to Abergavenny.  I think it was to diagram M78 and was numbered 24489, withdrawn around September 1961 so outlived the MTA and the Sirhowy lines on the WR.  

The two coach train pulling away from Abergavenny Junction is a new one to me.  The L&Y carriages are to D131, six were built, with all but one gone by September 1954.

FB Group? 

It does, Brian.  Thank you.  There used to be a Tuesdays Only working between Tredegar and Abergavenny and I'm wondering if it is that which is shown in the photograph.

 

Chris 

Love to see the photo.   The Tuesday only workings were mainly to bring people to the Abergavenny market which was and continues to be held on a Tuesday, though the livestock has now been moved to Bryngwyn.   The train also served as a working by which locos could be switched between Tredegar and Abergavenny for maintenance schedules.

regards

While firmly ( well, fairly firmly) on the GWR/BR(WR) wing of the South Wales valleys side of the hobby, I am intrigued by the statements regarding ex LMS passenger stock being employed in the region (and even former MG & N vehicles !) This aspect has some resonance for me as I recently came across an article ('Caerphilly-A Railway Crossroads' , by Sands TB; pp 719-726 and concluded on p769 of the Railway Magazine, Nov. 1952) which contains a map referring to a Barry Railway scheme dated 1907 - 1909 to link Caerphilly with the Sirhowy valley essentially running parallel to the Rhymney and B&M's Gwernydomen-Waterloo-White Hart halts line and tunnelling between the Rhymney and Sirhowy Valleys ( and with a connection to the B&M) at Machen. Unfortunately, The scheme was never effected, but what an opportunity for a 'might have been' layout running former GWR and ex LMS stock !

Yes the Barry liked stealing other companies' trade :-)

The proposal to burrow under Machen Mountain was advantageous to colliery owners as it provided an outlet for coal going to the Severn channel ports that by-passed the Golden Mile - the line through Lord Tredegar's estate in Newport which resulted in a levy to the Tredegar estate for every ton transited.  It would have been a freight line but if it had been built whether it would have survived that long is debatable.  There Barry Railway line across the Rhymney - Llanbradach viaduct - was closed and the viaduct demolished pre-war.  

The GWR also investigated building a 'Tredegar Park' avoiding line by taking a line from Risca through the hill to the Eastern Valleys line.  There was a fair bit of surveying work undertaken before it was finally abandoned.

Hi. I've been shot down too regarding B-sets but my knowledge of GWR coaching is poor.

Yes. BTL -brake third lavatory. These were LNER acronyms that BR adopted and are used by Jenkinson and Essery in their three volume seminal review of LMS carriages.

So T - third, F - first, L lavatory, O - open, C - composite, K - composite, R - restaurant .....

BTO - brake third open, a popular LMS coach in South Wales.

BTK - brake third corridor

TK - third corridor

T - non corridor third.

The other TLAs.

MTA - Merthyr, Tredegar and Abergavenny line between the former and latter places, ex-LNWR line.

WTT - working timetable, not publicaly available, printed and used by railway staff, it lists ECS - empty coaching stock, light engine movements and freight workings.

Regards.

Again, thank you, Philip.

 

Before we leave this digression and hand Holmside's thread back to him, I have a grenade to lob.  I don't think, on reflection, that the LMS BTL came to the Valleys via the MT&A.  I say this because the ex-LMS stock was substantially replaced in 1954 when the Merthyr - Abergavenny service was turned over to auto trains out of Merthyr.  Stray coaches turned up all over the place.  One of my favourite sightings [not by me, you understand] is that of a Great Eastern corridor coach in the 8.25 am Merthyr - Cardiff General in 1954.  There must be something about Merthyr!

 

Chris 

i know what you mean.  Bill Tasker, in one of his books about the Sirhowy, has a picture of a M&GN teak coach in Tredegar.

Some of the Abergavenny stock moved to Tredegar before it too was replaced by WR stock.   

regards

Thanks, Philip.  Finding an LMS BTL in a Merthyr - Barry set is indeed strange.  The photo I mentioned is in Bylines for April 2017 and, before that, in one of the Rickard's Record volumes.  Another photo showing what must be the same coach is in John Hodge's Cardiff book, taken a month later.  I realise as I type this that perhaps I should be writing to the WRRC newsletter and may well do so in due course.

 

Chris 

Roger Carpenter's photographic collection includes carriages at Tredegar in the late 40s and 50s, so there may be other evidence.  I'll ask a friend in the Ulster MRC if they take Bylines.  Gerald Davies may be the other person to speak to.  He is a member of the WRRC.  I lost contact with Gerald during a couple of his house moves.

regards

Aha!  I detect someone who knows a bit about LMS coaches!  I am interested, and have been for a great many years, in the example marshalled in the formation of the 2 pm Merthyr - Barry Island in February 1958.  Sid Rickard's photo of this working passing Castell Coch was published again in a recent issue of Railway Bylines.  The coach is a Period 2 lavatory brake second as modelled by Airfix yonks ago.  I want to put the correct number on mine.  Keith Jones, who is the current custodian of Sid's photos, made a valiant attempt to find out by blowing up the negative.  Sadly all he could tell me was what I already knew, viz that one of the numbers was 2.

 

As we all know, RMweb functions partly on infinite improbability drive.  If anyone does know the number of that so-and-so coach, now would be a good time to step forward and tell.

 

I have not forgotten my promise to refresh my memory about what is and isn't in Russell's GWR coach books.  Stay tuned.

 

Chris

Chris,  never seen this picture, I find it strange that an LMS BTL ended up marshalled in Merthyr-Barry workings.  There were only ex-LNWR and the off ex-Staffs non-corridor carriages on the Sirhowy/MTA.  The rest were ex-LNWR/L&Y corridor or open stock and LMS vestibule stock, so how that 'leaked' to the Taff Vale is strange.  unfortunately all the P2 BTLs were numbered 25248-25272.  

this started me looking back through all my pictures and books and the lack of non-corridor carriages in South Wales after the demise of the 4-wheeled stock is noticeable compared to LMS practice elsewhere.

regards

Scan_20170913.jpg

 

Chrisf here.  I wonder if Holmside's coach was anything like this?  The picture was taken by the late John Cull at Abergavenny Junction on 4th April 1953 and is now part of the RCTS photographic collection.  I hope the Society does not mind me using it for this purpose.  The coach is of Lancashire and Yorkshire parentage and that is all I know about it!

 

Chris

I spent some time investigating these L&Y carriages. They were cascaded down to the MTA after 1932. They are BTOs to use BR terminology, Fireproof stock, built for Manchester to Stockport from memory. Great photo. Probably the best ive seen.

Regarding autotrailers. The Abergavenny/Tredegar Ivatts were not to my knowledge autofitted. There are pictures of Stanier 2-6-2Ts working single carriage trains but not as an autoworking.

The Brynmawr-Ebbw Vale working was an autotrailer and webb coal tank.

There is an autotrailer in the Vale of Neath WTT for 1944. It ran from Pontypool to Hengoed term time only - served Lewis Girls. My mother says that by the time she was on it in the mid 50s it was a normal train with non corridor compartments.

Y'know, one day, somebody might model this....:

IMG_20170901_135749_1504270705317.jpg

What, Sport Direct?

It is not National Rail metals, but the distance between Clipperstown and Carrickfergus is 30 chains approximately I think. It costs £1.60 and takes a minute.

The Brynamman services were worked from St. Thomas as a branch off the line that served Ystradgynlais and over the top to Brecon.   Paxton Street Coal Tanks from the Swansea Victoria worked out westwards to the branches and on to Pontarddulais and Llanmorlais.