RobAllen

For what it's worth, the latest Apple Maps has offline maps. I've not needed them yet, but have set them them up Yorkshire ready for my trip to the NYMR later this year in case I forget closer to the time. Funnily enough, my wife also prefers my larger car to her Aygo for longer journeys.

Irritatingly, they have you over a monopolistic barrel if you want to use the nice large screen for sat nav. Car manufacturer navigation systems aren't especially good in my experience though and don't seem to route as well or know about heavy traffic patterns like Waze, Google Maps or Apple Maps do. Also, that £300 update is out of date in a year or so too if you happen to travel to somewhere where the roads have changed. The phone maps are updated for free, much more regularly. As a result, we use our phones in holders attached lower than the windscreen using ProClip holders in each car. These are not cheap as they are per-car model, but in our view they "fit" the car better. https://www.brodit.co.uk The "real" solution is to get a car with Android Auto or CarPlay and then you get the nice big screen with the decent maps.

As I work in IT, I rely on them professionally on a remarkably regular basis!

FWiW, I also cannot react to @18B's posts either.

I built a Finetrax OO point as a test for my new layout. While it went together reasonably well, I didn't enjoy building it enough that I am looking forward to building the rest that are required. As a result, I'm going to use Peco Bullhead as I don't want to resent time spent on my hobby as I'll end up avoiding it.

Ironically, I was talking with @Compound2632 recently at the MRS meeting in Kettering about how hard it is to work out colour of locos and rolling stock from photos. At least with buildings, we can generally find later colour photos that give at least the right flavour. Related : Although out of my timespan, l’ve been staring at colour photos of the SDJR to try and get a feel for the ballast colour and am hoping that the colours in the 30s weren’t that far different from the 60s.

Which reminds me that I need to work out signalling for Holcombe. Hoping that it’ll be simple!

I was not aware - thanks for pointing it out. I have snagged that copy. I had noted that there were a number of stations with the same basic design, so Midsomer Norton will work just as well for me as Wellow. No matter how much research I think I’m doing, there’s always more that can be done.

Thanks. The downward slope looks more interesting than the upward one, though Radstock’s seems quite steep compared to most stations. Downwards feels a bit different and I’m hoping will help give the station a sense of place on the SDJR.

You have interpreted the general idea correctly. I had realised that I needed the ground to be “platform height” on the station entrance side, so the idea is that this higher ground would allow driving straight onto the carriage loading dock from the road which seems to be a neater use of the landscape by the railway company. However we do need to be at ground level for by the time we get into the goods yard itself, so I was thinking of a curved slope, but your point about the camber is well made. I like your idea of keeping it higher lever all the way along to simplify the slopes. Thanks. Not sure how that buffer stop on the carriage loading dock line got there! It’s gone on the master plan now! Interesting point about whether a buffer stop is needed on the platform line. I’ll have to see what I can do there when I get that far. This is incredibly helpful. Thank you.

Copper clad sleepers it will be then! Thanks.

Did you try the ModelTech connectors on a curved join in the end and did it work?

Worked most of the day trying to get on top of the load. Then I spent a bit of time mocking up a station building for Holcombe in cardboard. I completely forgot that I needed the side walls to go up to the apex of the roof! Doh! Ah well, the roof isn't steep enough either I think, so I'll have another go later.

Very nice to have work, but I'm knackered! Anyway, I had a go at mocking up a station building. Guess who forgot that the side walls to go up to the apex of the roof? Not sure about the proportions, so will try again. I'm thinking that Wellow's station building is a good basis for Holcombe's station building as I want a design that suggests "Bath extension". Wellow, Midsomer Norton, Chilcompton, Binegar, Shepton Mallet & Evercreech New were all the same basic design, with the canopy sloping down to the edge of the platform which feels more compared to a flat canopy or one that's higher at the rail end and rakes back towards the station building. I wonder why Midford, Radstock & Masbury were different? @RailWest has a rather lovely picture of Wellow station at http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/images/stn/wellow-05.jpg so you can see what I mean about the canopy. (I can't embed it as RMweb only embeds images with an https URL.) Next job is to find plans of Wellow station for its dimensions!

I merely need to find more time in each day…

A complete and true statement if ever I saw one.

This book is fantastic. I’m less than a third in and clearly it’s going to need re-reading with a pen and paper by my side. It’s a shame that the book doesn’t have bigger photos :) I would never have guessed that LTSR 4-4-2T 2103 was allocated to Templecombe (22D) in late summer/early autumn 1935 for the Bath-Templecombe run! It didn’t last long there before being moved to the Bath-Bristol route though apparently. Wouldn’t be much of a stretch to run it in to my fictional Holcombe though… I’ll try to curb my enthusiasm and write more comprehensive info in a single post.

It arrived this morning! That's this evening's reading sorted then.

Snowed under getting up to speed with new client and new project. Great from the money-making point of view, but my slow pace of modelling is now even slower!

Successfully spoke and attended a technical conference in London and then today made it to Kettering for the Midland Railway Society meeting. Two excellent talks that I very much enjoyed. Unfortunately my train home was delayed by 10 mins at Kettering which meant that I missed my connections at Leicester and New St, leading to arriving home over an hour and a quarter later than intended.

Likewise. I very much enjoyed both talks too. Sorry I had to duck out afterwards; I had a train to catch, which was subsequently late… Photographers just didn’t take photos of the interesting bits of the train!

Added to my Amazon wishlist in hopeful anticipation of my birthday :) My dad has volumes 1-4 of Essay & Jenkinson's An Illustrated Review of Midland Locomotives, which I have yet to read.

Seems so. Reading from Hawkins & Reeve: "The allocation was characterised by 0-6-0 tank engines suitable for both banking and shunting". Though they also talk about the difficulties of getting the 7Fs into the shed. However, it appears that the allocation to Radstock was 3Fs and the 0-4-0Ts. Bristol locals, surely? Agreed. No reference that I can find of them on the SDJR line. Discreetly correcting your typo (!) surely these were for express passenger work north of Bath? Fixed, thanks. the Black 5s were used on the SDJR and were very successful. The bridges to Bath from Mangotsfield were strengthened in 1938 and tests showed that they could take 270 tons to Masbury and so reduce the amount of double heading required. There are photos of 5432 working the SDJR lines from 1938 through to 1958. According to Hillier-Graves in Locomotives of the S&DJR, six Black 5s worked the SDJR line in the summer season of 1938. In Vol. 4, there's quite a lot about the MR shed's building, architecture and cost, but Bath is treated as one shed when they talk about locos. Yes, and then after the bridge strengthening of 1938, Jubilees, Patriots and Black 5s seemed to be used for the express passenger work north of Bath from what I can tell. According to Bradley & Milton in Somerset and Dorset Locomotive History (pages 65-66), shortly after the Midland & LSWR signed the lease to take over the Somerset & Dorset Railway in 1875, the Midland loaned Johnson 0-4-0Ts 6, 1262 and 1263, Kirtley 0-6-0s 351 and 353, and Johnson 0-6-0T 1128.

Hawkins & Reeve state that in March 1926 they had separate offices, mess rooms, etc., but by 1928 had been taken to change this and the ex-Midland shed appeared to have been given over increasingly to repair work only, with the formal absorption in 1930. It's difficult to tell as 22C (Bath) included the sub-shed at Radstock so the 1945 allocation list includes a lot of ex-SDJR 2Ps, 3Fs, 4Fs & of course the 7Fs. In 1945, the classes allocated to 22C are: Two Stanier 3Ps 2-6-2Ts Five 2P 4-4-0s Three 1P 0-4-4Ts One 3F 0-6-0 Ten 4F 0-6-0s Three 5P5F 4-6-0s (Black 5) Six 3F 0-6-0Ts (Jinty/Bagnell) One Sentinel 0-4-0T One L&Y 0-4-0ST Eleven 7F 2-8-0s From this list, I cannot tell which were shedded at Radstock and which were at Bath itself though. Looking at Shed Bash UK, Bristol Barrow Road had a large allocation of engines, but I have no idea which if any were used for the Bristol to Bath line. Though, the Shed Bash UK page for Bath Green Park shows that a number of 22A (Bath Bristol Road) engines including a 1P 0-4-4T and a 2P 4-4-0 were spotted at Bath in 1946 & 1497 which implies that at least some of the motive power for the Bath-Bristol route came from the Bristol end. Mitchell & Smith's Bath Green Park to Bristol shows 0-4-4T 1404 at Bristol St Philips in about 1923. That station was essentially only used for Bath trains, so we know that 0-4-4Ts were used on that run. There's also a picture of 2-4-0 155 outside the MR shed at Bath in 1930, but I have no idea where it was shedded as we'd need to see 1930s allocations for Bath, Bristol and Gloucester which I haven't found. (Yet?) Essentially, it looks like the same sort of locos were used for local Bristol and SDJR traffic.

Continuing to put information where I'll find it again (and that may be useful to someone else), this is the list of locos allocated to the ex-SDJR sheds on 1st January 1930 as documented by Hawkins & Reeve in LMS Engine Sheds vol 4: Sentinel: 7190, 7191 1F 0-6-0: 2880, 2881, 2882, 2883, 2884, 2885, 2886, 2887, 2888, 2889, 2890 1P 0-4-4T: (1200), (1204), 1205, 1206, 1207, 2101, 2102, 2103, 1230, 1231, 1232, 1305 2F 0-6-0ST: 1500, (1501), 1502, (1503), 1504, 1505, 1506, 1507 2P 4-4-0: (300), 301, 302, 303, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 633, 634, 635 3F 0-6-0: 3194, 3198, 3201, 3204, 3211, 3216, 3218, 3228, 3248, 3260 3F 0-6-0T: 7150, 7151, 7152, 7153, 7154, 7155, 7156 4F 0-6-0: 4557, 4558, 4559, 4560, 4561 7F 2-8-0: 9670/13800, 9671/13801, 9672/13802, 9673/13803, 9674/13804, 9675/13805, 9676/13806, 9677/13807, 9678/13808, 9679/13809, 9680/13810 This is the LMS number. If the number is in brackets, then the loco was withdrawn so early in 1930 that it didn't get to wear its LMS number.