John-Miles

If Steve Vincent and Roy James pull their fingers and soldering irons out this will be the first appearance of the Cardiff 4mm Group's latest which is Pencader. For those of you whose reaction is WHAT?? Pencader was a station on the line from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth and the junction for Newcastle Emlyn. The layout won't be totally finished (my stunning footbridge included) but well worth seeing.

No advert for this in the Railway Modeller although amazingly it is in MRJ before the exhibition has taken place. Things must be looking up in Didcot.

Lots of materials other than wine were conveyed in barrels. My paternal grandfather was a cooper and although he volunteered for service in WW1 he was rejected because he worked in a tannery making barrels. These were used for dog poo which was an essential material in the making of leather. Other uses were for carrying "lant" - human urine which was used in the making of blankets - I believe it helped to soften them. That's taken the discussions to a whole new level of Yuck.

We had a holiday in 1961 at Horton in Ribblesdale. I can't specifically remember what pulled what train but I only saw one A3 and the rest were the usual mix of Scots, Jubs and Black 5s.

We (the Cardiff 4mm Group) will be there with Ynysybwl. Lessons on how to pronounce it will be free.

Whatever you do, don't say anything critical about P4. Apparently it has reached perfection.

Bill Bedford is producing a Kirtley Brake Van ( see his thread in "small suppliers"). The release is imminent. So far as I am aware it is only for those of us who work in 4mm to the foot. I stopped buying kits years ago because I realised that buying kits is the easy part, building them takes time but I am making an exception for these.

Well the brake van looks like a winner. I've ordered two.

As one of the Ynysybwl crowd, I would like to add to Graham's thank you. Two of us arrived in the van at 3.15 having driven from Cardiff. The following car was hours behind due to inept navigation but not a problem, the club members rallied round and we had the layout in and erected before the rain started. That got the weekend off to a good start. We thought the show was great and also we liked Whitley Bay where the hotel was. Spanish City is spectacular. We also had a great night out in Tynemouth. We just went there to see the station but the place also impressed. Sorry the specialist traders had a bad time. I did ask Hobby Holidays about a chassis jig but I am just too tight to spend £170 when I have been getting by with bodging things for decades.

IIRC Worcester is off the main line due to its citizens asking for high prices for land when the Birmingham and Gloucester was being planned. The promoters (mostly Birmingham business men) were mainly focussed on getting access to Gloucester docks.

We are doing the long drive north from South Wales to exhibit Ynysybwl (there will be lessons on how to pronounce it). Pre-grouping Taff Vale so something different for you Geordies (and maybe a few Mackems if they are allowed over the Tyne?). Really looking forward to this. We have heard this is a really good show and we get to stay in Whitley Bay which I am told is the Monaco of the North East.

My "great project" was to build a model of Brynamman, both stations, GWR and Midland. Back around 2005 I started, built the baseboards and gradually built the track. Progress was slow. I was still working and I seemed to have less and less spare time plus I discovered the delights of scratchbuilding locos. Then in August 2012, I was diagnosed with Kidney cancer. While I was recovering from having the wretched thing removed, and possibly under the influence of Tramadol, I started to review my life and this included the railway. I started to jot down on paper what I still had to build and how long it would take me. The realisation I had to build 2 stations plus two lots of stock made me realise that unless my life expectancy was 120 plus, I would never finish it. So my light on the road to Damascus came in the form of Penwyllt / Craigynos. It's N&B but had Midland trains. Tudor Watkins had all the photos, track plans, there were only 6 signals (plus ground signals) and only Midland stock (I could borrow some N&B stock from Tudor if I wished). So many hours on Templot later, the track plan was done (I got to version 28), the Brynamman baseboards were rebuilt and progress started. The track is down and wired, signals are built, thanks to Graham Tierney the signal box and station building are done, I've cracked how to do static grass and so about 20% now has scenery. I have 7 locos (4 of which are elsewhere being painted at great cost) and plans for lots more. The main thing is I'm having fun doing it.

Surely the gauge is correct?

Epoxy loses its strength in hot water provided you leave it long enough.

Stephen You are of course absolutely right but it comes down to time and effort. I have been involved with layouts which need upwards of 200 wagons. To scratch build that sort of number would be a huge effort even with the use of resin casting. Maybe it would be easier with 3d printing, something I have little experience with but I suspect would be expensive. Builders of pre-grouping layouts are already faced with the task of either scratch building or kitbashing to get locos, ditto with carriages and the track has to be bespoke, as do signals etc. Faced with that, building a layout in a reasonable amount of time is a huge effort so we all tend to cut corners somewhere. For example on the current layout I am building I have used flexi-track (8' 6" rather than 9' 0" sleepers) just to save some time. I am also using POWsides wagons.

On many lines the ballast was ash - a nice cheap material which the railways had in abundance. The colour of ash varies in subtle ways but is certainly not all black.

IIRC the tender is a from a compound and not original. I think it gained it when it was preserved.

Parliament is going to have to find a temporary home while the Houses of Parliament is refurbished. Why not give them lots of Pacers all joined together as their offices.

London gets to run its own transport system so why not the North West, West Midlands, North East, etc.

Thicker sleepers reduces the options for ballasting. With thin sleepers you can get away with glue first with ballast sprinkled on. With thicker sleepers you have to use the ballast first with glue applied by dropper or spray - it's a much slower method.

I saw them parked at Canton at roughly 9.00 and 17.00.

Sandy As someone who has also purchased some EMGS/ Peco track, I have to say I agree with your comments. I think the EMGS have taken a bold step which is to be applauded but the result could be even better. I expect you will get some brickbats. I once dared to say something negative about P4 on RMWeb and I was rightly corrected and I now know that everything to do with P4 is perfect. Hopefully members of the EMGS are more open minded.

I bought 20 yards of the track and first impressions are very favourable.

Volume 1 of the Zoe Hunter book as arrived and I am awaiting Volume 4. As they are so expensive, I am going to miss out on the other two. I presume the cost is because of the extensive use of colour plus the book length of around 300 pages. I have yet to read Vol. 1 in detail but it does give an intriguing clue as to where the western extension was to go. The implication is that possibly the original plan was for a through station on the site of the goods yard and then the goods yard would have to be where the station was built. The line westwards would then cut through Foljambe Road, so as to miss the gas works, which would involve either a short tunnel or a large cutting and then one presumes it would cut across where the allotments are now and follow Brockwell brook. I await volume 4 for more details.

When I were a lad (this would be the middle 1950s), my school organised a trip to Salford where we boarded a Mersey Ferry and sailed the entire length of the canal. The trip ended at Liverpool Pierhead when there was moored the biggest ship I had ever seen, The Empress of Canada (I was brought up in Derbyshire so ships were a rarity). Salford docks had the distinctive Manchester LIners ships (black hull with the company name painted on the side in huge letters). The railway then ran the length of the canal with lots of 0-6-0Ts to be seen. A wonderful day out - the best we ever had from School.