Ruston

More construction work has been done and still more is underway. Half-relief crusher house and feed bunker for the washery. Walkway and ladder on washery and gantry on slurry tank painted and weathered. Covered conveyor from bunker to washery built. Fence, complete with gate and barbed wire, around the transformer. Conveyor from crusher house to bunker under construction. Hunslet 15" saddletank Beatty (nameplates on order from Narrow Planet) now with Kylpor exhaust (kindly provided by a forum member) and weathered.

As far as I know It's gone to Peak Rail.

Tanfield Railway "Legends of Industry" gala, 11th June. Visiting locos were Manning Wardle L class Sir Berkeley and USA tank 30065, painted and numbered as an NCB loco, as based at Hartley Main Colliery.

Those side-tipping wagons? No, Paul, I didn't. I didn't buy any rolling stock at all. I just bought materials for buildings and the transformer kit. I was going to buy a brake van and saw three second hand examples on sale but they were priced at more than I was willing to pay. All three were Midland vans, built from the Slaters kit and were priced at £30, £35 and £60! I can't see the point in paying that for someone else's old tat when the kit is still available and is priced lower than the last two anyway. The last one had three aftermarket lamps attached, so I guess these must have been worth a tenner each lamp!

On to the second part of the washery - the slurry settling tank, the classic piece of 20th century colliery architecture. I wasn't sure whether or not to include this as these were massive structures. I have seen pictures of different styles, made in steel and not of the classic shape, and had considered building one of those but I found a picture of one at Skelmanthorpe that was comparatively small. It wouldn't need to be shrunk much further in order to be able to fit it in and still maintain some believeability. The thing holding me back from making it was the cone - how to make it? My idea was to have it turned from a piece of wood but I don't have the kit to do it and don't know anyone who has. I asked for ideas, on this forum, in the structures section, and took the idea of construction from one of those things that are put on dog's heads when they've had an operation, thanks to BG John. Marking out the plasticard. Wrapped and glued into a cone and circle, also plasticard, fitted. Loosely sat on top of octagonal card support. The card support needs filler in the joints and the cone needs a top (capping) making, amongst other things.

Hello Arthur. That's a 100HP Huwood Hudswell. A scratchbuilt body on a Mainline class 03 chassis. I'm undecided about leaving it on here. I have an old but unbuilt Roy C Link Ruston LAT that I may have as the narrow gauge surface shunter instead. A 100HP Hudswell is probably too big for a small colliery such as this, both on the surface or underground.

It's a Duncan Models kit. It's not finished yet and I'm going to have a fence around it and cabling etc. I would have finished the transformer, and got the roof on the washery, but I ran out of glue, yesterday. So I spent an hour making more ballast. Proprietary model ballast just doesn't look right for a colliery railway - it's too uniform in colour and size (that's obviously discounting the bright limestone and granite coloured types to begin with) so I make my own from locomotive and forge ash. So far it's made from ash ballast from the trackbed of the NCB line at British Oak, loco ash from the Middleton, Tanfield and Rutland railways and ash from the forge at Tanfield. It's broken up with a pestle and mortar and is sieved before use.

I have used up my stocks of milled brass H-section and my supplier won't have any in for a few weeks, so I have started work on another building. The coal washer doesn't need to be strong as there will be no working mechanism inside it, nor any weight, so Plastruct and plasticard can cope well enough. Here is the first part of the washery. Photos not available thanks to the pirates at Photobucket

The effects of steam, smoke and the sparks and coals were all done in Photoshop, simply by using the paintbrush in layers.

Hunslet 15" saddletanks Jellicoe and Beatty at NCB Royd Hall shed at night.

29th May , Ayshire Railway Preservation Group, Dunaskin. The UK's only working fireless steam locomotive. [

I knew there was a reason that loco always faced the other way on Bury, Thorn & Sons. It was my first ever O gauge loco build though. There isn't much to show in the way of layout progress. All I have done recently is make a bit more of the framing on the screens.

I have just ordered the works plates, 1903 of 1938, from narrowplanet.co.uk along with name plates for both of my 15" Hunslets. Jellicoe and Beatty.

Any more progress on the 7mm Ruston 88DS, Michael?

Thank you, PGH.

Evening all, I'm looking for a works list but I can't find one online and Don Townsley's excellent book on the company lists some locomotives but doesn't have a complete list. I want to get a works plate made up for my 15" Hunslet so I would like to know if there are gaps in the works list that I could use a spare number from, rather than taking a number that was actually allocated to a known loco. The 15" 0-6-0STs appear to have been built between the years 1923 and 1947, so a works number suitable for any time in that span would suit. Thanks.

If it comes with sound fitted, I'm in for a 48DS.

Appleby Frodingham Railway Preservation Society. 21st May 2016. Avonside Cranford The only preservation society railway where you also get to see a real industrial railway in action. The good old Yorkshire Janus diesels appear to be almost extinct, replaced by these hideous foreign things. What are they?

In the garden I have a two stone sleeper blocks, probably from about 1815, one from a horse-worked colliery line, near Lofthouse, and one from the Flockton Colliery Tramway. There is also a 10" gauge wheelset from a hand-worked line that served a local brickworks. Mainline items are an LMS rail chair and a sprung steel key, both from the former NCB line at British Oak. All the above are probably of no interest to anyone but myself.

I have made a start on the screens. The building will be 51cm long x 30cm wide. Height up to 26cm. The frame is being made from 5x5mm brass H-section, which is quite expensive but it's strong and won't warp like plastruct can. Three more 3-road and two more 4-road to be made. Then connect them up longitudinally before building the upper floors.

Personally I have very little interest in "proper" mainline (steam) locos. All the recent media hype about Flying Scotsman simply passed me by but give me a "strangely coloured industrial saddletank" and I'll drive for hundreds of miles to ride behind and photograph it. Any Austerity beats any mainline loco, as far as I'm concerned but only in the right environment. If it's pulling a BR Mk1 and is painted in some fictitious British Railways livery then I won't bother. My favourite preserved (are we still allowed to call them that, or is it heritage now?) railways are the Foxfield and the Tanfield. Why? Because they're as near to the real thing as your going to get nowadays. They have the sorts of locos hauling the sort of vehicles they would have, in a setting that suits. If you've ever wondered round Marley Hill shed, with locos in steam, or sat at the side of Foxfield Bank and watched (and heard!) an Austerity take 8 21t hoppers up the 1 in 50 you'll see that it's a far better than some great big mainline loco chuffing up and down with a few BR Mk1s. Try these: Industrial Railway Society Industrial Railway Record No.203 Continent, Coalfield and Conservation - the biographical history of the British Army Austerity 0-6-0 saddletank Locomotives Illustrated No.61 The Hunslet 'Austerity' 0-6-0STs

Rolls Royce-powered Sentinel diesel-hydraulic at Royd Hall drift.

A few pics of industrial locos at railways I have visited this year. Feel free to add your own. Middleton Railway, Easter Sunday. Tanfield Railway Sunday 9th April. Ribble Steam Railway, Saturday 23rd April. Rocks by Rail (Rutland Railway Museum), Sunday May1st.

Hawthorn Leslie 14" 0-4-0ST Royd Hall No.2.