Nick_Burman

The perception of the Grouping varied from railway to railway. As far as I know, the various South Wales lines were dragged kicking and screaming into the GWR. Cheers NB

Hayle Wharves, images can be found on the web. Cheers NB

Not food! :-) Cheers Nicholas

Cheers all, So far the following suggestions have come to light: - Biscuits; - Sausages (meat packing); - Cider; - Beer (and brewing in general); - Whiskey (and other distilled alcoholic beverages); - Beet Sugar; - Cereals milling; - Canned goods (Campbell's, etc...); - Wines, Vermouths, etc... There were suggestions such as onions, potatoes and cereals, but these were raw material out operations, not food processing as such. Another criteria I forgot to add was the possibility of the industry to generate the occasional expedited load - in its US format the layout would be partially electrified, mostly for passenger service using interurban cars (general freight would be moved mostly with steam locomotives). However I envisage the electric cars being used to occasionally haul one or two boxcars or refrigerators which needed moving ASAP. Cheers Nicholas

Thanks for the suggestions. As far as wines are concerned, in France at least transportation was far from anonymous. If the destination was Paris, most wine from the south was not bottled locally but rather shipped by the wagonload (in monofoudres, bifoudres and - later - citernes, or single cask tank wagons, double cask tank wagons and ordinary lined metal tank wagons, respectively) to the Halles aux Vins (the wine wholesale market) in Bercy. Once there the wine was bottled and distributed. The wagons were far from anonymous, as they carried their owner's names prominently on their sides; some of the steel tank wagons (made in HO by REE) were quite colourful. Cheers NB

Catch, I wasn't thinking specifically about the UK when I formulated the question. Rather I have a potential layout format in mind (an expanded Walkley Sidings) with the geographical location yet to be decided, and food processing seems a good change from the usual customer choices. For the time being the mind says "somewhere in the more inhabited parts of the western USA in the 1920's", but this could change... In this case one could change the specific "Huntley & Palmers" to a generic "biscuit factory" (Nabisco?). However, since I mentioned a warmer clime, my mind has turned to something more fruit-based...maybe grape-oriented. For instance, there was one local line in southern France which originated large quantities of vermouths and aperitifs (the Byrrh factory at Thuir near Perpignan), however I'm hard-pressed to imagine whatever inbound loads it might have received (if any) and if it was busy enough to justify a lot of shunting. Cheers Nicholas

Hello, I'm interested in adding some kind of food-processing industry to a putative layout, however could someone point me to examples? More specifically, I'm looking for ideas for industries which might require a lot of shunting (and possibly generate lots of traffic) and possibly multiple wagons spots. Any ideas? Cheers Nicholas

Is there any such page for N scale? The most thorny stuff is in that scale. Cheers NB

Alas I live in Italy so Hattons/Rails is out - what they would offer as a job lot likely as not wouldn't even pay for the postage, let alone any fees they might encounter while transferring the funds (I wish there was something here along the lines of what these shops do). And by dregs I mean stuff which has been offered around several times (including in Ebay) and which have drawn zero (0) interest. Cheers Nicholas

A friend of mine lost a Lima SAR Class 34 (EMD GT26) in the same way. A pity as it is a rather hard-to-find loco... Cheers NB

It's not that easy! Some stuff will find its way onto Ebay for sure, I'm already identifying candidates and setting them aside. The problem is what to do with "the dregs", those models that nobody wants but which still encumber the shelves... Cheers NB

Hello, Sorry to bring up this discussion again, but I can't find the original thread... question, what do you people do when you have pieces of rolling stock that are just too varied or don't fit your mainstream modelling, but you are loath to dispose of, either because it's rare or because you have some kind of emotional attachment to it? I'm asking because I have a dilemma in my hand... I want to build myself a small layout, however I've been torturing myself over what to put on top. I would like to hear what do you do about it. Cheers Nicholas

The WIF ferries used Havana only and were RoRo vessels (same for FEC). Seatrain used loading and unloading via cradles and special cranes. Looking at Santa Cruz del Norte from Google Earth I can't find anywhere where a RoRo ferry could have docked. However, one can see a small inlet right next to what is today the Havana Club rum plant where a Seatrain vessel could have just squeezed in and there could have been a crane to load/unload the ferry there. If so, the ferry could have taken the cars to Edgewater, New Jersey (where Seatrain had its base and a terminal), where the cars would have been unloaded onto US rails, then forwarded to Hershey, PA.. But all this is just speculation. Cheers Nicholas

I'm watching the film and it occurred to me, could Santa Cruz del Norte have once received Seatrain service? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seatrain_Lines The first ship was launched in 1928, only a few years after Hershey had finished assembling its Cuban properties. At least the dates match. Cheers NB

All of a sudden the voices of Compay Segundo and Ibrahim Ferrer burst into my head... "Chan Chan" and "Pico y Pala"... As for the Type 7s, order them directly from F&C if you want them, AFAIK they are available. Cheers Nicholas

Yes, that's the photo. I'll check the magazine tomorrow, but I'm almost sure they kept their English data. By the time they were photographed these tank cars were already life-expired in the US (I believe they were pre-WW1 vintage), their transfer to Cuba being a way of extracting some last mileage without having to answer to the Interstate Commerce Commission. Because of this I believe that TEXACO didn't even bother to reletter them. Cheers Nicholas

@298, At last I'm able to see some of your photographs, some neat rolling stock there. Regarding tank cars, I have images in a magazine of a solid train of TEXACO "armpit-drier" (high handrail) tank cars being hauled by a pair of Hershey locos - it would make for a very interesting operation. Funaro & Camerlengo makes kits for the very same cars if you wish: http://www.fandckits.com/HOFreight/8180.html Cheers Nicholas

I would gladly offer myself were it not for the fact that Italy is a bit too far from Watford... Cheers Nicholas

I have a couple of Kato N scale bridges - one girder, one truss - which pass muster when used on an HOn30 (OO9) context. Cheers NB

World Kougei wanted to do it in N scale in brass, both RTR and as a kit. However, they had to backtrack when either JRF or Toshiba threatened a lawsuit... Cheers Nicholas

Believed to have been taken at Ebbw Junction. Cheers NB

The similarity is no coincidence, they were built by Pressed Steel Car Co. in Pittsburgh - the same builder as the YVRR cars. Cheers NB

Tortosa - La Cava was one of the last meter-gauge railways to be built in Spain. The line to San Carles was graded but rails were never laid on it... something which could come handy for freelancing. http://www.docutren.com/HistoriaFerroviaria/Gijon2003/pdf/td7.pdf Cheers NB

This might be of help, even if it's dated 1948. Notice the thin lines denoting projected lines (which were never built) and the white lines which denoted lines under construction (some of which were never finished). Cheers NB

These were brake vans. The Kiso coaches were normal-sized. Cheers NB