RobAllen

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.

For reference, this is the list of locos allocated to the ex-SDJR sheds 22C (Bath), 22D (Templecombe) and 22E (Highbridge) in 1945 as documented by Hawkins & Reeve in LMS Engine Sheds vol 4: Sentinel 0-4-0T: 7191 L&YR 0-4-0T: 11202 MR 1P 0-4-4T: 1251, 1298, 1307, 1322, 1324, 1334, 1346, 1348, 1371, 1406 SDJR 2P 4-4-0: 634 MR 2P 4-4-0: 497, 518 LMS 2P 4-4-0: 696, 697, 698, 700 LMS 3P 2-6-2T: 115, 181 LMS 5P5F 4-6-0: 4844, 5056, 5440 SDJR 3F 0-6-0T: 7316 LMS 3F 0-6-0T: 7275, 7465, 7496, 7542, 7557 SDJR 3F 0-6-0: 3194, 3198, 3216, 3218, 3248, 3260 MR 3F 0-6-0: 3356, 3734, 3792 SDJR 4F 0-6-0: 4557, 4558, 4559, 4560, 4561 MR 4F 0-6-0: 3875 LMS 4F 0-6-0: 4096, 4102, 4146, 4402, 4417, 4523 SDJR 7F 2-8-0: 13800, 13801, 13802, 13803, 13804, 13805, 13806, 13807, 13808, 13809, 13810 Assuming, that I've counted correctly, that's 62 engines. For comparison, there were 80 on the books when the LMS took over in January 1930 and 65 in 1955 when H. Swift of the Southern Region drew up a list.

I do! A Google result indicated that it might have something useful, so I hunted through the pile of books that I have from my dad and found that he had bought it. I really must catalogue the books I have! This book seems useful! I think I need to read the prose in details for the SDJR part though as there is information about loco allocations just mentioned in passing within the prose.

I've also discovered that LMS Engine Sheds vol 4 by Hawkins & Reeve has a list of Joint Line locomotives that was drawn up immediately prior to the official LMS takeover on 1st January 1930. They also have a list of engines working the "Somerset and Dorset Section" as drawn up by H. Swift of BR's Southern Region Locomotive Drawing Office dates 1st January 1955 which is also useful. Ideally, I'd like to know what was allocated for the summer of 1938 and then into 1939 after the bridges to on the Mangotsfield line were strengthened.

Thanks. Vast majority is BR-era, but there is info for Bath Green Park in 1934 and 1946, though it wasn't Green Park then :) As far as I can tell Shed Bash UK is a list of what was seen on shed that day, rather than what was allocated, but does provide useful info.

Does anyone know where I can find a list of which locos were allocated to the various SDJR sheds for the LMS era? (1923-1948)?

My current plan is electromagnets. All my dad's old stock is Spratt & Winkle, but I've been considering Dinghams after an enlightening conversation with the exhibitor of Lochty at the Thornbury MRC exhibition last year. A little tempted to use Kadee because the NEM pocket version would be easy for newer stock. However, it doesn't look much better than tension lock to my eyes. It's a well made point though as initially I won't have all stock converted. However, this is a quite a narrow layout at just 18" wide, so maybe not too much a problem if I do end up using hand-of-god? I would far rather have questions now when it's all just paper plans than later! One benefit of being a (very) slow modeller. Reading @Graham T's thread has been fantastic learning (for all good reasons). I've learned much about the quality of scenery and weathering to aspire to & how to do it, but also saw the hassle of replanning a track layout after it had been laid! Graham uses 3-link, but I'm not sure I'm up to that!

Question for the hive mind: Is the Bachmann Collectors Club worth the money? Presumably other manufacturers have similar schemes? Any views on these things?

Good to know! Cattle dock is a bit of an unknown. I read somewhere that cattle dock usage was transient with vans not left there for any time as they were loaded last before the train left and first when the train arrived. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) As such, I wondered if it made more sense to be at the "start" end of a siding, allowing parcels vans to stay at the loading dock. No idea if that's how it worked though. Maybe parcels stock was similarly transient at the dock? Equally, there's a catch just there that needs to be hidden. Could be a larger dock that does that or a shed related to the coal heaps, I think. You make a good point about access for cattle at the back, though, which I hadn't considered, so moving it the carriage loading area would solve that. Fortunately, I don't need to make that decision for a bit. Please continue! Yours and everyone's thoughts are very much appreciated. The wealth of knowledge on RMweb and the willingness to share that it makes this community so valuable. I know very little and have learnt so much from reading this site.

It’s impossible to overstate how good hot custard on treacle pudding or apple crumble is.

Head over to this post and the post after this one.

I have a new client and project, so my general mood has been lifted. This weekend I printed out the full size track plan and put on baseboards. Now I'm starting to mockup the main buildings to get a feel for the "3Dness" of it all. Next week I'm speaking at a conference, so life's picking up again.

Next thing I want to do is mock up the buildings to get a feel for the "3D-ness". Started today with the goods shed: I have never done this sort of thing before, so started with a Cornflakes box, some Pythagoras theory and cut out a rectangle with relevant score lines: The dimensions are from the Bachmann Shillingstone goods shed as that seemed a logical place to start. I added the front and back, cut out an entryway for wagons & called it good enough: I'm pleasantly surprised that it's not as overbearing as I thought it was going to be. My ruler says that I have 30 scale feet to the next track. Is that enough to turn a horse and cart? I'm at a conference next week, so the station building mock-up will have to wait until I'm back.