John-Miles

Derbyshire had a lot of heavy industry at one time. Staveley Iron and Chemicals, Sheepbridge, Stanton Iron Works, Renishaw, Markhams (Chesterfield - they made things like tunneling shields and mining equipment), I could go on but it was by no means a rural backwater. Most of this had gone by the 1980s however.

I read in a recent Backtrack that the Midland had a lower operating ratio than the other major railways. That means it spent less of its income on running trains than the others. You can be as rude as you like about double heading but the evidence shows that the Midland knew what it was doing. Also having dealt with several thousand Midland photos for the Roy Burrows' collection (now in the MRSoc Study Centre) I am confident that most Midland trains were not double headed.

I can add one more service - but I have never seen any documentary evidence to support this. I am told there was a through Midland carriage from Swansea to Aberystwyth via Three Cocks and Moat Lane. If anybody has proof of this, I would be very interested.

There was also a through carriage from Hereford to Aberystwyth at various times. Obviously via Three Cocks and Moat Lane.

Builth Wells , shunt at Builth Road, was the chosen route. Fewer LMS miles? Either way would have been stunning.

The Mildland through coaches to Swansea were worked by the Midland from Birmingham to Worcester Shrub Hill where they were attached to a GWR train to Hereford. The Midland then attached them to one of its Hereford, Brecon, Swansea services which was then amalgamated at Ynisygeinon Junction with the train from Brynamman and the whole thing was repeated in reverse for the return journey. Not surprisingly the service was a casualty of WW1 and never reinstated. You would need real stamina to make that journey when you could do it much more easily by the GWR but the scenery by the Midland route was much more spectacular.

According to Wiki, the Pintsch system used a compressed fuel gas made from naptha. Naptha is a loosley defined term for volatile hydrocarbons

I seem to remember the Midland used a system called Pintsch for its gas lighting. DId this use town gas? The Midland also had a policy in areas with a lot of signals of lighting them by gas and certainly in the case of Chesterfield, they built their own gas works rather than using the town supply.

Markham Main was in Yorkshire. There was a Markham (no main) to the east of Chesterfield in North Derbyshire between Staveley and Bolsover. I designed a boiler house for it when I was a student!!

Having watched what was involved with fitting trams into central Brum, they spent a lot on moving services presumably to avoid the man from the gas / electricity / water board coming along and digging up the tram tracks later and holding up services. This expense would be incurred even with Very Light Rail so I am suspicious of their cost estimates. Slightly different topic, my brother was the site agent for Dudley Freightliner Terminal - I think this would be late 1960s. He worked for Bryant Civil Engineering at the time.

His email is <camkits4u@gmail.com>. His name is Richard Evans and he lives in north Cardiff alongside the Rhymney main line.

For those who model in 4mm, this is a prototype view of the forthcoming 1102 kit from Cam Kits. The proprietor is a friend so I am not making any recommendations. It is expected the kit will be on sale in July or August. It looks like it should be easy to build as the boiler and fittings come ready made in resin.

A moment in time is tautology - very common but being a pedant I thought I would point it out.

My brother worked on the reconstruction in the 1960s as a junior civil engineer working for Bryant Construction. He has two interesting stories. The first is that early one morning, one of the piles for the Rotunda came through the tunnel at the north end, fortunately without incident. Presumably somebody had got their coordinates out. The second was that at the intersection of some the the beams and columns, there was so much reinforcing steel that they couldn't fit it all in, let alone poke concrete around it. The solution was to throw some bars away. Sounds alawming but the station still stands.

Sorry to hear of the demise of Roy Burrows. He was a remarkable man and his collection is stupendous. I first saw it when most of it was kept in his house - fortunately it was a large house but every nook and cranny was full of the most amazing examples of railwayana. Thanks to him, a huge quantity of Midland Railway artefacts has survived and as Stephen says, the collection is available rather than being hiddena away. He also had the foresight to catalogue it to museum standards and he put a considerable amount of effort into looking at how best to preserve and store items. I catalogued most of the photographs (so any errors are my fault) and IIRC it was around 7000 items. Others chipped in, so for instance David Geldard did the tickets. It was a huge effort but the results are worth it.

I have spent an interesting half hour looking through Welsh Newspapers Online (it's free unlike a lot of other sites). I found lots of examples of theft from wagons but only one of someone stealing wagons. This was done by hiring wagons and then selling them on to other people and claiming they were lost. Of course, it didn't work. So I am now eating a large portion of humble pie. It looks like wagon theft was not common. There are some interesting articles about missing wagons, for example one about a LNWR wagon loaded with copper ingots which was missing. Most of the thefts concerning wagons was petty pilfering, often for tiny amounts such as 3d worth of coal. Alcohol was much in favour for stealing.

The modern equivalent is car theft. All cars carry such things as VIN numbers and registration plates - you just create fakes and off you go. Same with wagons. Repaint and provide fake plates.

The way that companies attempted to tracktheir wagons was to send out letters. I have a lot of correspondence from Llynclys which largely consists of wagon owners asking if their wagon has arrived and if yes, when was it dispatched. I have no doubt that some wagons disappeared and were repainted and assumed a new identity.

Tom I recommend a site visit when we are allowed out. The station is still there, albeit with a single line and west Derbyshire is beautiful. You could also have a look at Bakewell and Hassop where there are substantial remains. Hassop also has a good cafe.

There was a book published by OPC on the Midland Railway in Gloucestershire some time ago. The Neil Parkhouse book recommended above is brilliant and well worth buying.

How deep is the sea between Sweden and Denmark? It would have a significant bearing on costs.

My memory is that it looked like it had been creosoted - no paint.

And Penyghent - there is a good Welsh name for you in the midst of the Ribble Valley (there is also Pendle)

We had a family holiday in Horton in Ribblesdale in 1960. I spent a lot of time watching the S&C and I didn't see a 2F.

I dropped the roof of one of your Kirtley brake vans from a height of around 1.2m onto a laminate floor and thr corner broke off so they are quite brittle. No problem though I rolled a new one from nickel silver. Nice kit by the way.