John-Miles

Sorry I don't look at this section very often, it seems to be mostly someone building coaches. The Caelliau branch is in Upper Cwmtwrch and well worth exploring. There is a road from Ystradowen which branches off the main road and heads down into the Twrch valley. At the bottom is a bridge and you can park. Head north on the east bank of the river and this is the track of the railway. At one place there has been a landslide which has wiped it out but carry on and there is a bridge over the river and some wonderful lime kilns. This is the site of Henllys Vale colliery. If you are fit, there is then the remnants of a rope worked incline which heads up the mountain, over some rather boggy ground but stick at it and when you get to the top of the incline head to your left along a track which takes you to some quarries which were worked by Baldwins for silica sand. Men lived up here in barracks going home for the weekends. There is also the remnants of an excavator. I should have said before you reach the landslide there are the remnants of Brynhenllys colliery which was pumped out by a water wheel. There are bits of the weir left. The comments above about Penwyllt. Well worth a visit. I like it so much I'm making a model of it in EM. Again there is a tramroad which heads from behind the brickworks up the hillside. After all this walking you will be thirsty. There are good pubs on the way back down the valley and in Abercrave.

The last time I travelled the S&C on a loco hauled train it was a 31 and six mark ones. It left Leeds 45 minutes late and arrived in Carlisle on time, such was the slack in the timetable.

I was born and raised in Chesterfield (in 1950) so we caught the train to Sheffield and beyond many times. I don't ever remember catching a stopper, so I have no idea what they did but my memory is that all the trains from the south used the dive under. They ran down the eastern set of lines from Dore & Totley and so the dive under avoided them having to cross the other pair of lines. It seemed rather strange at the time going through the dive under because as a boy I had no idea about conflicting moves etc.

As this has become a thread about reopening lines rather than new stations, there are two valleys to the east of Maesteg (Ogmore and Garw) which would be at least as good a candidate in terms of population served as those lines being mentioned. The reopening of Valley lines in the past 20 years (Aberdare, Maesteg and Ebbw Vale) has gone well and so why not open up a couple more? Also a possible extension north from Maesteg to serve Cymmer and the Afan Valle.

It would be very unstable if it was cantilevered from a single column. Also the column would be subjected to a lot of bending moments which if you are thinking of cast iron would probably lead to failure of the columns.

It's even more complicated than that. How the weight is distributed is taken into account by structural engineers. This is turned into a series of curves which show how a bridge deflects in different loading cases as the loco or whatever, moves across the bridge. Limiting deflections is important. The life of a bridge is a function of how much it deflects under load. Lots of large deflections results in cracking and ultimately failure.

IIRC the link at Gowerton was in connection of the collapse of Cockett Tunnel and the link allowed the GWR trains to and from the west to access the LNWR line towards Victoria rather than allowing trains from the Central Wales to access High Street.

Looks like it is the same as the one previously announced. It's on the old opencast site on Mynydd y Drum to the west of Onllwyn. If this goes ahead, the remnants of the Neath and Brecon will be saved which in my mind makes it well worth while.

Nothing in Wenvoe yet. I wonder if they are sending it out alphabetically in which case Wenvoe will be late but pity poor old Zennor - almost in your neck of the woods Sandy.

I can't see Ivo Peters

I have so far looked in just one book, this is "The Midland Railway North of Leeds" by Peter Baughan. I think more complete results are in Nock's book on the Compounds. I don't have a copy of this although I have read it. He says that following the trials between Preston and Carlisle, in the Autumn of 1924 there were comparative trials on the S&C were held between a Claughton, Compound and a Caledonian 4-4-0. There were further tests in 1925. The results vary from engine to engine but the Compounds did well and are not the duds that has been implied. The results with the Birmingham 2 hour trains are interesting. It has been said in many sources that the struggled to keep time. It is not clear if this is due to ex-LNWR driving techniques. The compounds did well on the Midland on much harder routes (steeper gradients) and at good speeds.

If you have sprung couplings how do you avoid the phenomenon of trains yo-yo ing as the coupliings stretch and contract. Many years ago I used to use Smith's couplings with springs etc and I found, particularly at exhibitions when running long trains, the progress of the train would be distinctly odd as the couplings stretched and contracted. I resorted to super glue and the problem went away.

The LMS tested a compound, a Claughton and an L&Y 4-6-0 on the S&C in IIRC 1924. Whether the dynamometer car was working or not, the coal consumed and work done could be accurately measured. The compound was easily the winner despite being the smallest loco so they couldn't have been that inefficient. Cox is an unreliable source. There are rumours he falsified results from the Rugby testing station to suit his own opinions and he is notoriously pro-L&Y - for obvious reasons. The fact that the compounds were expensive on maintenance was well known to the Midland long before the LMS came along. It was not due to how hard they were worked but to their greater complexity.

I don't understand why you think the Midland Compounds were thermodynamically poor. What is your source of information please.

Other Joint Midland GWR were Worcester Shrub Hill, the Longbridge Halesowen line, the line through Clifton to Bristol Docls and the Severn and Wye (Berkeley Road to Lydney and places north of there). Before the Badminton line the GWR could use their running powers which went all the way along the Midland to Temple Meads.

The Midland worked specials to Weston, possibly with a pilot man but I suspect they had crews who were passed for the route. Interestingly, the GWR had a station which was only ever served by Midland trains at Stoke Prior just south of Bromsgrove near the junction with the line to Droitwich.

As I have said earlier in this thread, the Welsh Union as a concept was flawed from the start. The main weak link was the Mid-Wales Railway (taken over by the Cambrian Railways around 1888). It didn't have the capacity to cope with a significant increase in traffic. One of the main factors was some very attractive but weak bridges - some of them are still there is you are prepared to look hard. Also the line between Brecon and Three Cocks lacked spare capacity. The Cambrian asked the Midland to contribute towards its doubling but the only result was a passing loop at Trefeinon. When there was a large increase in traffic from South Wales northwards in WW1 (Jellicoe specials) these were routed by the North and West route which could cope with large locos and long trains.

Dave We have all been there. In my previous life as an academic, I once started on a long derivation associated with finite elements and I had a brain freeze. There was a French student in the class who twice picked up mistakes in my maths. When you are supposed to know what you are talking about, it makes for an uncomfortable experience.

I am going to stick my neck out and disagree with the expert on Midland Locos!!! I await brickbats. The shape of the cab opening on the 1102 class was subtly different from later Johnson locos. Also the bunker was tiny and of course had a curved back - this is very convenient when picking them out from other 1Fs. There is a wonderful photo of a 1102 at Brecon with coal all over the cab floor. Presumably the bunker was too small for the coal required to get over the mountains to the Swansea Valley. Now retiring to my bunker.

I have a friend who is currently working on a kit for a 1102 class in 4mm. If it follows the pattern of his other kits it will have a resin boiler with chimney, dome and safety valve included. He does this because the initial master is 3D printed and if you do separate boiler fittings, the flare on the base is very fragile. The rest will be nickel silver. I think, Coronavirus allowing, it should be ready later this year.

I don't think we will hear anything more from Sandy tonight. He is celebrating 12 years of marriage - that's nothing for most of us but for Sandy it's epic. As promised, here is part of my Engineer's train. There should be five 3 plank wagons but I can't find the others. They last saw the light of day about a decade ago on Cardiff 4mm Group's layout Dunvant which was LNWR but I used modeller's licence to run these. These LNWR types need some culture anyway!!

I built one of these many years ago. It's a brilliant kit, very easy to put together. I also did a rake of 3 plankers to go with it as an engineer's train. What I never finished was the protective covers over the axles boxes. I'll scout around and see if I can find them - and then there is the nightmare of me trying to take a decent photo.

The LD&EC was to go south of Buxton (but only just) and then it followed the line of Ashwood Dale but at a high level.

Yes I did and it is absolutely fascinating. The line to the west would have gone through what became the goods yard, crossed West Bars, chopped through Foljambe Road, just missed the gas works (now Lidl) and then crossed Goldwell Hill near the bottom and gone through Brockwell, Loundsley Green to Four Lane Ends where there would have been a branch to Sheepbridge Ironworks. Then over the moors to pass to the north of Baslow, behind Hassop and then cross Monsal Dale on a monster viaduct. There's more but you get the idea. It's well worth the money. It would have been a spectacular railway. Think Settle and Carlisle but more spectacular. The picture shows the LD&EC goods yard in the distance. The lines in the foreground are the Midland's Brampton branch. The view is looking roughly east north east from somewhere around Cannon Mill. The level crossing gates are at the across Boythorpe Road with the hill out of sight on the right. In the distance is the tower of the Market Hall. The Town Hall isn't there because it hasn't been built. The line of tall buildings behind the goods yard are on West Bars.

The problem with 3d printing chimneys and domes seems to be that the flair at the base is very fragile. I have a friend who has recently produced some kits of Cambrian locos and he has had the boiler, dome, chimney and safety valves done as a complete unit because of this problem.