Ben B

Something a bit different... Both Pacer sets in operation at the KWVR last weekend; the right-hand set, the 'spare' was very unusually in passenger service, and in a simple but effective bit of re-livery work for the event. And newly repainted, the 101, in rail blue.

I really like the lit carriage shot- it just needs a bit of firebox glow illuminating the cab, light reflecting off the platform surfaces... I know it's very much 'old school' but I love the Airfix platforms, for the texture of the slabs... I've had good results with night shoots on a couple of dioramas, where I've misted them with gloss varnish so they look like they're wet after a rain shower, you get some interesting, muted reflection effects.

That is rather poor moulding... I assume it's because they're using recycled plastic? If that's the case it's a bit odd, as Dapol (who I gather use softer, recycled plastic to prolong the life of ancient tooling) don't have the same problems with quality of moulding. At least not the last few I've done; yes there was some slight bending of longer components, but no mis-moulds, and the bending was easy to put right by immersing in warm water.

They do starter boxes for youth groups; this was our Scout and Cub group last week. Figures are detailed, clip together so you don't really need glue, and the box comes with paints, brushes, rule books for a simplified version of the game... all really well thought out. By contrast the Airfix version of the youth group box had the Spitfire and Messchersmidt bf109 which many of the kids found trickier to do (and being older kits, were sometimes a bit warped or had flash issues). The Warhammer option can be done over a couple of weeks, so you don't lose interest (and crucially, being clip-together, you don't risk 30 kids getting high on poly-cement fumes). I've dipped in and out of Warhammer since I was about 10, and my mate Owen took me to a Games Workshop store. Even when I've not modelled, I've read the books though- anything by Sandy Mitchell or Dan Abnett (both acclaimed Sci-fi and comic book authors) is worth a read. It's a very immersive I.P, with some great stories and art supporting it. And I'd echo comments about the paints, and the welcoming stores. My eldest is into it, and more than once I've gone with her into a shop, thought 'I'll buy some paint whilst she's browsing' and ended up leaving with at least a book, if not an actual kit :) Something I'm working on at the moment... a new version of the first GW kit I ever bought all the way back in 1994... the Rhino a.p.c. When I saw they'd released an upgraded version of the kit to modern standards, I had to buy it :)

Cheers for putting the pics up- that's some lovely work, it's very well observed and carried out. I particularly love the build up of snow in the footsteps, details like that :)

Reckon that's one of those quizzes modellers do for kids, spot the number of dogs on the layout. Sneaky hiding one driving the car :)

Wrong sort of Teddybear bottom left, shouldn't it be a Heljan class 14? ;) I really like that; having the models on display at least keeps reminding you that you have a hobby. I can imagine it being a nice motivator. I keep thinking I ought to have the odd loco on display, and I'm also thinking I should do the same with my old cameras, rather than having them in a box... Looks like nice weathering on the snowplough train, do you have any more shots of it please?

Good use of the Oxford Diecast cars though, but shame they've chosen figures in such lifeless and unrealistic poses...

Is this evidence of a coup at RMWeb? Is Phil parking his (1/72nd scale) tanks on Andy's lawn? :)

My Dad was stationed at Moreton in the mid 1990's, you could wander round the airfield in the evening if you were escorted by staff (my Dad took us cycling round the place). Wish I'd had a camera, the crashed train was impressive. I recall they had 3 carriages (one on its side) and a shunter with a rake of tankers. I know last time he was there about 20 years ago they were under talks to get a 73, and when I did a google earth pass to show my kids a few years back they had a DVT and two of the carriages from the Pendo that crashed at Grayrigg. Not sure if they're still there now, the Home Office downsized the place and sold most of the airfield for housing...

Love this shot; when I was at primary school, we read a story book about a man who collected 'junk' and lived in a railway carriage in his garden. The story was that he collected so much stuff that he bought more and more carriages, with a workman joking "now you just need an engine, and you'll have your own train!". I think its the quality of the light and the slight graininess of the pic, it reminds me of the illustrations in that book. Funny how things stick in your mind, even after 30 years :)

That has 'special effects shot from a 50's B-Movie' written all over it :)

Looks like it could do with a pass by the weedkiller train! On a serious note, I don't like scenes like that, as I think that for people who don't understand railways, it can encourage missuse when it looks neglected. When I was in Wales a few years back, I got into a row with a couple of fishermen who were walking along the Cambrian Coast line as a shortcut; they were tourists, and their 'justification' was they thought it was a closed railway because the tracks were rusty and it was very overgrown. Admittedly it was a Sunday, so hardly any traffic, but I pointed out that it was technically an open railway, appearances to the contrary...

Can't say that! My boss ticks me off even for calling them Robots... officially they're High Fidelity Medical Patient Simulators. She takes a low view of sci-fi references. Me testing the voices by growling "By Your Command" or "Kill All The Humans" gets particularly withering looks ;) Also, the child-simulator is even creepier, with working facial expressions... when we last had the wigs on it to make it into a female patient, I got in bother for calling it M3GAN on her wristband after the murderous girl bot in the film that came out a few years ago ;)

I'm increasingly a believer in both Murphy's Law, and the unpredictable whims of the Great Machine God. Not railway related, but in my work-world as an NHS Simulation Technician, I can test the robots, the suplimentary kit, the controllers, laptops, and all will be fine. It will then, of course, mysteriously fail as soon as there's 20 doctors and nurses in the room and my boss is observing. And work perfectly straight afterwards. And I'm sure it's a psychological thing, but the robots do seem more reliable if you talk to them! I had the hideous embaressment of supporting an insitu training in Modular Theatres in May; 12 actual Doctors and Surgeons and a Sim Fellow. I'd got the kit ready a week before, tested it the day before with a colleague, got into work at 6am, scrubbed-up, we had 40 mins before Ward Round... and one component failed, ruining the whole scenario. All, it turned out, for the want of a 9v battery which someone had 'borrowed' the night before. Didn't do much to improve my reputation with The Big Important Surgeons, but did show the importance of paranoid checking of the kit.

Abandoned rails in the... woods? With my family living on Anglesey, at the tail end of the summer we met up with them for a walk along the Dingle nature reserve at Llangefni. The car park is right next to the old station building, and spotting a gap in the fence, I walked up onto the track. Normally, I wouldn't walk on a railway, but knowing there haven't been trains since the 1990's (and with a bridge demolished by a lorry and not replaced by anybody else) it's unlikely there will be another train any time soon... I felt safe enough for a wander. Remains of the platform at Llangefni above. Bridge at the entrance to the Dingle. And the reason the bridge is very heavily fenced off, the deck is rotten through. A little further in to the reserve, another gap in the fence showed where people have been getting access. I thought I would, too, being as lots of people were walking their dogs along the line. For those who might not know about it; The Anglesey Central Railway from Gaerwen to Amlwch was closed to passengers in the 1960's, but the line was retained to serve a chemical works at Amlwch (and, briefly, an oil installation). When the chemical works switched to road transport in the early 1990's, the line was mothballed. British Rail looked at reintroducing passenger services, but the run-up to Privatisation complicated matters. Then a preservation group wanted it, and the negotiations again came perilously close when, again, the privatisation of rail infrastructure got in the way. Council/Government authority has been flip-flopping between supporting re-opening as a mainline, re-opening as a preserved line, ripping up the tracks so Sustrans can lay a cycle path, or a combination of the 3. In the meantime, bridges rust (or in one case, get knocked-down a by lorry collision), sleepers rot, and tracks disappear in undergrowth... except that the preservation group are going to great lengths to keep the tracks cleared and looking like a railway line. Here's something unusual; the lubricator left bolted to the tracks. Can't recall seeing one of these left in-situ on an abandoned line before. Another bridge; not fenced off this time, but I wasn't about to dare cross it, just in case the deck was as rotten as the one near Llangefni station. Honestly, I've seen more overgrown lines on the continent that are still active; there's something really pretty about this line cutting through the woods. It makes me a bit angry that it's sat there unused, and that the Welsh Assembly Government turned-down re-opening it in the transport review earlier this year (according to a chap I spoke to, in favour of the 'rip it up and tarmac it as a cycle path' option). Apparently though the preservation group have agreed a 100 year lease on the trackbed; who knows, maybe one day it'll reopen. Until then, it'll stay looking pretty if slightly melancholy. The next time I go back to see my parents I'm going to explore the stretch in Amlwch, with the overgrown level crossings on the old light-railway stretch which served the chemical works.

Sorry to hear that. It's always a sod when you've been working somewhere a while and get passed over. It could be that they didn't promote you BECAUSE you do the work, and know how it goes, and the managers think nobody else will do the job properly if they lift you up. One of the departments at my work fell to bits for weeks because a guy who'd been there 20 years retired, and the rest of the team were left scrambling as it turned out only he knew the procedures properly. At my wifes' work (a school), a teacher who's been covering loads of subjects on a crappy rolling temp contract applied for a better-paying, permanent role in Art (which he has been covering a lot of, and in which he has a degree). Turned down in favour of a fresh out of training newb, and to add insult they told this chap "but if we'd have promoted you, we wouldn't have cover for all those other subject lessons, and you do it so well". He asked for a payrise in recognition then, and was told badically no chance. So he's told them where to stick it, and walked.

That thought occurred to me when we used the tunnel in the summer, all the trains were looking bit worn around the edges. Given the age of the locomotives, I wonder if anyone is giving thought to their replacements? Massive tri-bo heavyhaulers. Even little things like all those opening and closing doors in the vehicle carriages, all those motors working away... it's a very intensive service with what is now quite old stock.

Mine turned up yesterday too- guessing it was planned to arrive sooner, with the references to 'just about time to enter' the diorama competition, deadline 17th September.

The great thing with the Cambrian and the trestles, is that you can legit have anything from a GWR Pannier up to a 158 crossing that bridge, and it would look accurate :) It's a lovely bit of model-making, really captures the location

Bits of the line do look in good nick; when I was in France in August there were railways which looked far more overgrown and abandoned, and were in fact still active. I think the heritage group have made a good effort at clearing weeds, maintaining the formation, if only to keep it looking enough like a railway Removing the bridge at Llangefni was, I think, the result of collision damage but the fact that it appears there's no intention to re-instate it is a good hint of the future, or at least what the priorities of officialdom are. I kind of get it, they want to prioritise tall lorries over an abandoned railway... but it could easily be used as the prospective replacement cost to sink the whole thing. When the Dudley Bypass was being built, there was a clause that the bit of the mothballed railway they lifted had to be relaid and formation restored as soon as work was done, against possible reopening. What worries me is that Okehampton shows how even a recently-used line (which had carried heavy freight, and occasional passenger runs) apparently needs an almost-total upgrade, at vast expense. Likewise even a basic station (judging by the new ones at Soham and near Bristol) cost millions for what is, effectively, an unmanned halt with a pre-fab concrete platform and a telescreen. I'd guess costs like these, and the innevitable consultant work to repeatedly re-establish the business case, would put restoring the branch into HS2 costings territory. Not to mention TfW don't seem able to roster enough trains to meet existing capacity. It's why I wondered if the Nuclear freight option would be on the cards: the much-mooted redevelopement of Wylfa nuclear (which may, or may not, happen on a seemingly weekly basis). Would a strategic freight line provide a better case for re-opening the Amlwch branch? It's been talked about a lot for the Trawsfynned branch, and the mothballed section from Blanaue Ffestiniog, if their power station gets re-lit, and seems equally unlikely.

Yeah I'd heard that too, though I gather Sustrans have had their eye on the route for a while purely for a cyclepath. Would seem a shame not opening as far as Amlwch, especially as there would be the possibility of new industrial development on the brownfield chemical works site. Having explored the remains of the line, it seems criminal to leave it closed. Ok so Okehampton showed that in this day and age it would cost a phenomenal amount of money for even a '4 sprinters a day, single track, bare concrete platform-station' branch with probably 2-decades-worth of lucrative work for a consultancy firm, but... ...the formation is intact as far as I can tell, barring where the overbridge was ripped out at Llangefni (the fact it was meant to be replaced, and never was, probably hints there was no intention of entertaining reopening). The other bridges need looking at, and the track replacing, but it would be far less work than the Borders Railway. If the WAG really were serious about cutting road traffic, you'd think it would have been an easy win, but they seem to be more in favour of more diesel buses at 20mph :(

I think that's one of those 'worth it' shots; how often could a photographer get a snap like that? Can imagine he dived aside pretty quickly mindyou, to save his camera :)

I don't mind the Pacers (and yes, I used them regularly, living in Carlisle, then Bingley, then Keighley). Taking the KWVR's unit, as it's my local line, of which I'm a member; It's significant and suitable for KWVR use, having run on the adjacent mainline, and had the branch survived into BR ownership, it could logically have operated on the line. It's been beautifully restored into a period specific scheme relevant to the area, and a vol on Sunday mentioned there was an intention to restore the interior of at least one vehicle to period-specific condition. It's generally used for midweek diesel railcar services (and plenty of locals do use the services on reduced fares for locals, myself included until my work shift pattern changed). Where it runs on 'normal days' it tends to run the early turns and/or in addition to steam services. Given the alternative cost of a class 20/37 on 4 mk.1's, I can't blame the KWVR for using it to increase capacity. It does come in handy if you're using the line to visit other attractions, avoiding long waits at stations for the steam-hauled service going back and forth. The Pacer is holding the fort whilst the stalwart 101 DMU is being repaired and restored, and likewise for the W&M railbus as a single-unit is too short on capacity for the summer. Finally, the Pacer (and a second example, mainly acquired for spares) were also reportedly added to the fleet with an eye on filming, to give a more modern-looking train (indeed, both Pacers have been used for filming contracts). There was also a point recently where a genuine peak-hours commuter service was planned, in co-operation with the council with Levelling-Up funding to subsidise, as part of a general boost in public transport locally. The Pacer would have been ideal for these early morning/late afternoon shuttle services, but the bid for funding failed (the Council bizzarrely tacked on an otherwise-unrelated 'robotics college' for Keighley to the public transport funding bid, which seems to have sunk it). In any case, I think the KWVR is making good use of a historically-significant asset they have, so like I said at the start, I really don't mind it.

It's a Sunday in September, 1986, and a morning stroll produces the unexpected (but welcome) sight of an engineers train heading slowly up the branch to collect the workers and their equipment...