Ben B

12 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

especially as there was insufficient room for an assistance dog in the cab

There's an idea for an April Fools anyway, if you can get a giant labrador teddy, outfit it with a harness, high-vis and drivers cap and leave it sat at the controls whilst the tram loads at Brum or Wolvo, see how many passengers notice and panic ;)

I've loved the look of that line for a while now, seeing the pics of the vintage stock in regular use. Thanks for your shots, that one of the electric with the chevrons is really nice! Hard to imagine it being done here in the UK these days, though I suppose it's similar to those 37 hauled trains on the Cumbrian Coast some years ago...

4 minutes ago, F2Andy said:

I see Big Bang Theory has been mentioned a couple of times. The spin-off, Young Sheldon, also features model "railroading". However, in series 5, episode 4, about five minutes from the end, the view of the model, clearly US outline, segues into the real thing - and is a green Peak, pulling maroon Mark 1s. Only a very brief clip, I could not tell if it was a class 44, 45 or 46

I'm sure in the Big Bang Theory, Sheldon sometimes wears a shirt with a British train on it, looks like a Midland Railway single-driver.

This has been a fascinating travelogue, thanks for sharing :) shame you couldn't make the KWVR (my local line these days), and always love your obsession with Travel West Mids buses (blue and silver, for me- childhoods on the routes 257, 256, and 254's). Hope your flight home is a tolerable one!

And yet more location shoots with 40K miniatures. I finally picked up one of thr massive Rogal Dorn tanks this year (couldn't get one at Games Workshop in Bradford, but the wargaming shop in Llandudno had one). Apart from the missing bottom hull plate, a nice kit. I bought a 3rd party hull plate to fill the gap.

I wanted to shoot some cameo scenes, with the crew stopping for a break (rather than in combat) and found someone on eBay selling unbuilt sprues of the Guard heavy weapons teams. A few figures provided crew in suitably casual poses.

I tried to pick angles that made it seem the viewer was hiding, lurking somewhere nearby in the undergrowth, trying various forced perspective tricks.

Not a bad kit- I left off the silly front hull guns in favour of headlamps, and went for the twin-gun turret option for that Command and Conquer, Mammoth Tank vybe. Very simple paint job too- black spray, then mix of grey and green, and a lot of drybrushed black, boltgun, and brown before sloshing with Nuln Oil.

18 hours ago, Busmansholiday said:

31163, latterly 97205, or most of it at Nemesis Rail last month.

 

Shame to see it in that state, I photographed it at the KWVR gala some years ago. Is it being repaired or scrapped?

1 hour ago, exet1095 said:

We get a lot of this sort of thinking causing people from being distracted from getting current kit working properly.

 

When you can pour a jerrycan full of electricity into a wagon as quickly as you can a jerrycan of diesel, and it has as much energy within that 23kg weight, then I will be interested.

 

Oh yes, and jerrycans don’t burst when you chuck them 6’ off the back of a wagon onto the deck, so that the people needing fuel can quickly grab them, take to a secure and/or secluded area, and then fill up.

 

They don’t need special cables etc… either!

 

A cynical armoured soldier

 

 

Ah, but imagine how much exercise all these newly conscripted National Service youngsters will get... nothing gets rid of teenage obesity like the pressures of having to furiously wind an externally mounted dynamo handle, to recharge your IFV, all whilst under Russisn sniper fire ;)

More miniatures shooting on location. This is a moss-covered slate wall near Aberdunant, doing duty as the alien Forrest World of, er, Gratuita-Latinus IV ;)

I thought the Rhino needed some troops, and picked up through eBay an unbuilt sprue from the Tactical Squad set (they came without transfers, hence their lack of heraldry).

On 03/06/2024 at 20:51, KeithMacdonald said:

Red.

Possibly the least-used colour in a railway modeller's paint box?

Usually...

 

 

 

Warhammer fans, clearly- Blood Angels Space Marines on manouvres. Clearly that or the Army were getting ready to give Johnny Martian a biffing on his own turf...

Whilst in Wales last week, I finally had chance for a bit of location shooting with the Angel jets :)

I did a bit more miniatures on location stuff later that day, with some Warhammer bits, will try and post those after work :)

Really liking this layout, and the thought that's gone into keeping it self contained, stock storage etc. Looking forward to seeing it develope!

On 22/05/2024 at 07:46, bmthtrains - David said:

 

Far worse than sniffing enamel paint are those terrifying DIY laser cutters. I commented years ago on a thread on here advising that people really shouldn’t be cutting MDF and styrene in open framed laser cutters in their lounge with no extraction and got shot down for being some sort of woke H&S policeman. 

 

 

Agree entirely; I bought a laser cutter a while ago. Following my experiences as a school DT techie, I made sure I invested in a more expensive one which had a lid and a very powerful extractor system. 

One I'm working on for my first O layout (mainly so I have somewhere to run my Dapol Austerity when it arrives!) is a what-if preserved railway in Dudley, set in the slightly confusing tangle of industrial branches which once existed on the outskirts.

Where I grew up, in Gornal, was on the trackbed of the Gibbons Railway, an industrial branch off an industrial network.  The Pensnett Railway (Earl of Dudley's Railway) had a branch from Round Oak Steelworks (in Brierly Hill) down to Baggeridge Colliery, Himley, and Ashbourne Marina via a loco-worked incline.  From the base of the Barrow Hill Incline started the Gibbons Railway, a short, climbing line up to a foundry at Dibdale Road; the line had its own Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 tank locomotives, "Gibbons" and "Emily", and exchanged traffic with the Earl of Dudley's Railway and also with the nearby GWR via their line from Kinswinford to Wolverhampton via the EoD connection near Himley.  When I found out the trackbed of the Gibbons line, closed pre-War, actually ran under our front garden, I decided I wanted to build a line based on it; in fact a footbridge went from right under our house, spanning the line under our garden, according to old maps.

In reality of course it's all gone now, barring a short length of the trackbed near the Himley Road which is a footpath down to the Barrow Hill Incline.  Much of the old industrial network and the GWR lines are footpaths, there's a mothballed line into the Pensnett Trading Estate, and (finally!) Dudley has rail back in the form of the under-construction Metro extension and Light Rail factory, regular rail having stopped in the 1990's.  But in my imaginary world;

The Gibbons line built a branch to serve the top end of Lower Gornal village in the early 1900's, terminating in a small, simple station with goods shed near St.James Church (my Scout group was based here when I was little), and whilst the line operated as a light railway, it carried through goods traffic on behalf of the GWR.  Surviving the war as a freight-only line, the Gibbons Railway was absorbed by the Earl of Dudley's Railway/Pensnett Railway, with the Dibdale Foundry supplying machine parts to Baggeridge Colliery and Round Oak Steelworks, with coal from the NCB at Baggeridge going the other way.  When Baggeridge Pit closed in the 1960's and the Pensnett Railway connection to it via Barrow Hill Incline closed, the Gibbons line continued to the ex-GWR who maintained their mainline connection via the Pensnett Trading Estate.  It had all closed by the early 1970's but a preservation group acquired the ex-Gibbons line as a home for a small collection of industrial locomotives, in alliance with the Black Country Museum and Birmingham Science Museum.  In reality the Black Country Museum were very railway-averse, but I figure this preserved line would give them scope to widen their preservation efforts to railway stock.

By the present day; the Dudley Railway has a 'main line' from the foot of Barrow Hill Incline (now a popular footpath and cycle way, as in reality) up to Gornal St.James Station, with loco facilities in the old Dibdale Foundry, which itself is a working museum.  A little-used branch continues from the Barrow Hill terminus in the direction of the old Gornal Town GWR Station, where the trackbed of the ex-GWR line is met; in this reality, the Midland Metro absorbed the line from Kingswinford to Wolverhampton via Himley, Pensnett and Gornal, meaning trams regularly serve Gornal on this route, interchanging with the preserved railway on Bank Holidays and summer weekends.  The former spoil-tips around the Gibbons line have now been replaced with the Milking Bank housing estate which exists as-in reality, just with a railway line running through the middle of it, making this a very urban preserved railway (with all the subsequent trespass and vandalism problems this would entail) though with a countryside stretch at one end.

In character, then, it's very much a West Mids equivalent to the Middleton Railway, with industrial tank locomotives and diesel shunters working short trains with custom-made passenger stock.  I also like the idea that it would have provided a home for preserving locomotives from the real Earl of Dudley's fleet; the locomotives "Lady Morvyth" and at least one of the DE2 diesel shunters, all of which sadly went to scrap.  I figured it might also be a home for the smaller locomotives disposed of by the Severn Valley as they grew.

At present, beyond this backstory, what exists are boards with track for Lower Gornal St.James Station, an unbuilt AB 0-4-0 to be either "Gibbbons", "Emily", or "Lady Morvyth" and a few bits of stock.  It's very much a long-term project, but one I really want to build when I have the space.

It's that visiting Pug at Spon Lane again, as the morning sun burns off the mist...

That 67 does look very pretty in maroon- is it a special heritage repaint, still in SNCF main-line service, or a private operator doing heritage liveries (like LSL do here)?

I've a model (well, to be fair, toy) one in HO, I might be tempted to do a maroon repaint having seen that shot...

16 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

But where was I?

 

Mike.

Is that in South Wales, up from Port Talbot?

I think near Pontnewydd there's somethink like that, stumbled over it a while ago on google earth whilst looking for my dads old house in South Wales...

On 05/05/2024 at 17:36, GWR57xx said:

Fabulous modelling - if it wasn’t for the “edge of the world” I wouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t a photo of real life.

Stunning.

Agreed- those plants near the fence are extremely convincing!

Looks good, particularly the weathering on the panel lines!

(Back to Gerry Anderson again, but... Star Wars gets a lot of credit for the whole used/battered/weathered science fiction angle, whilst it has to be said Derek Meddings and his team were doing that back in the 1960's).

Will be interested in seeing how your X-Wings turn out, I have one in the stash which I keep being tempted to build, but don't seem to find the time...

2 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

I know, I was just being silly…

 

 

The bus-like design of the cliff railway car bodies (often claimed, by cliff railway history elites who don’t want us to find out, to be the work of a local coach builder) is actually because they’re rebuilt from buses, which were mysteriously disappeared from the streets of Bridgnorth by the troglodytes (or whatever we’re calling them) some years ago and converted in their secret underground workshop (which is also where the strategic steam reserve is maintained, with overnight testing secretly taking place on the SVR). The section of cliff railway we’re allowed to ride on is only the upper tenth of the whole route… 😜 😅 (Is there a tin foil hat emoji?)

 

(This post may not contain any facts. Then again, it all sounds far more sensible than most conspiracy theories you read about.)

It's why the cliff railway was closed for so long recently, the engineers mending the bottom-tenth of it accidentally tunnelled through the base of the Flat Earth and risked the cars falling out of the Matrix, disturbing the dinosaurs and lizard-people secretly running things.

Better stop there, in case Mods Andy and Phil are in on the conspiracy ;)

6 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

My best mate grew up in Bridgenorth. He's 6ft 7, I'll have to ask him if he only moved away because he kept banging his head on the tunnel cielings ;)

Out of interest, do/have any units carried this scheme in preservation?

Just thinking, the KWVR made a splash with their 101 in plain blue, and how they might top it with their 108...

4 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I found a chap on YouTube with what appears to be some theories about a sub terranean element to Bridgnorth based on all the basement windows and bricked up 'windows' he saw about town.  He also had theories about ice houses not really being ice houses in another video of a different place.

 

I think he would be very interested in the idea that there might exist a subterranean engine shed, if only he could find 'what lies beneath' Bridgnorth.  He might wet his pants if he found the 'hidden' gated north end of the tunnel in the woodland

Daft as it sounds, when I was at college in Stourbridge there was a lot of talk about tunnels under the town. Our Geology lecturer told us about it all, in connection with the Kinver rock-houses. Our college had blocked-up access from the basement into some, apparently a couple of tunnels that had been part of a tannery linked into them, the stone under the town being quite easy to dig out. It was meant to be heavily radon-contaminated though.

I like the idea that there's a conspiracy of trogladyte Morlocks under Bridgenorth, biding their time. Either that or the SVR has the Strategic Steam Reserve under that hill ;)

On 08/05/2024 at 14:18, Hacksworth_Sidings said:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204779782640

 

Possibly of interest to some people here... Stirling Single kit, £65 (though the seller does take offers), unsure if it's complete. I'd buy it myself and look for a LotI chassis to put with it, but other things need my attention first. 

I spotted that... I bought one for a tenner from the sales coach at Midsommer Norton last year, unbuilt. And that was a fiver more than the lady on the till was asking, but I was having a nice day out and told her to keep the change. 

Question for the West Mids modellers... Ace Models in Dudley was my old haunt as a child, but I've been trying to remember a second shop in Dudley that sold model trains, it was near the Fire Station, I think it was on St.James road?  I got an Airfix MK.2 from there with pocket money, and remember really wanting a pair of second-hand Lima 4-wheel shunters they had.  From memory (we're talking 30 years back) it was small, pretty much a room with a counter, compared to Ace Models.  Anyone else remember it? 

I love stuff like this; I built a micro layout a couple of years ago inspired by the embryonic operation at Dolgarrog, but based off the old MoD line into the dunes near Harlech.  I figured it would be a small, industrial diesels and single mk.1 coach kind of operation, ferrying holidaymakers from the mainline out to the beach.

For a line which shouldn't have been closed, mainline, I'd have said Silloth, but it might also make a very nice preserved route.  Characterful seaside town for the terminus, and a link to the mainline inland; if they could have kept the whole route into Carlisle, there could have been the possibility of tapping the WCML and railtours.  Who knows, when the Freightliner runaway happened, and the goods lines were closed, it could have given the fictional preserved line a stop right into the centre of Carlisle, not far from Citadel Station itself.