Porcy Mane

A couple of minutes work with some evergreen strip and channel would see the ends of Parksides 1/146 body converted into a respectable 1/146 Lot 3157 wagon. Steel vac pipe from 0.9 brass and Wizard models does a pair of BR hopper vac cylinders but beware, the 21 ton BR hopper builds can be as confusing as the 16 ton mineral. For example, Pressed Steel seemed to fit vacuum cylinders to the lot 3157 wagons at random. There is a good few pics about that show wagons from lot 3157 fitted with all vacuum brake paraphernalia apart from the cylinder itself and coupling hoses. Painted grey of course. And a similar but subtly different 21 tonner alongside one of it's earlier 13t wooden brethren in deepest Sussex. Ardingly Station, 28 Oct 1962 by Ian D Nolan, on Flickr P

Don't think so but I'll check later to confirm. Busy at the mo. IMHO the Cylinder on the Hornby Tope is noticeably too small. P

But start thinking about a Parkside welded body on the tope chassis and there is some decent permutations. Parkside kindly sell the body sprues separately. Thing is, it then starts getting expensive for one wagon. That's why there is upwards of forty Parkside hoppers and a good few more Airfix/Hornby/Bradwell combinations strewn across my work bench... P

Mike. is the brake mechanism spigoted to the chassis in the same way as on the Hornby tope? See items 38-9 on the attached pic. And I guess the coupling assembly must be part of the chassis moulding now, not a separate screwed on affair? Oooh goody. That should make their replacement with Ambis etched jobbies a little less stressful. P

Black5 in the snow. Sunday Last. P

Out of the Murk. East Lancs Railway, yesterday

Wow! didn't realise you could wire a layout with bagpipes. Never heard bagpipes go pop. Must get to my local Lidl and buy some... Porcy Edited for spilling mistakes

Hymec and Gresley. The guy who posted the photo on smugmug is asking for help identifying the locos (and Locations?) P

This is comprehensive. If that's the sort of detail you're after. http://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=locodata&type=S&id=601101055&loco=62055 P

Yes it is... See post: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/82160-Hornby-k1/page-16&do=findComment&comment=1709463 Something sharp under the back of the coal and work your way forward. The tender will probably fall apart as very little glue is used. P

Somewhere I have a spare sheet. If I can find it I'll stick it in the post? and now for a hijack... ...going back to the boiler bands, this is mine with them removed. I'll replace them with waterside sheet once the jobs been moved on a bit more. I agree with mark about the steps and spectacle plates. Etched make for a big improvement. I'm going to see if I can model one of the spectacles open. Only time will tell if that works out? My etches came from Mainly trains. Also a mention must go the that kindly Mr. Gubbins at High Level. He donated a couple of J72 test etches (from his scrap bin) so I could make a better job of the compensated brake linkages. There's spare set of EM linkages should you want them? Still a way to go. P

Further to Jons pics here's yet another phot of the fan Exhaust. Taken in 2005, for those that don't know the area it shows how rural the colliery location was. The red arrow indicates the room that housed the airlock door shown in post #247. P

Hmmm? I bought a hopper kit some time last year (2014) and it had the same style transfer sheet as the last batch I bought in the 1970's. Don't know how long it had been in stock? and application method had changed from rub on to methfix. 7. Remove boiler bands??? 8. Remove Tank top rivets. ??? (A couple of top down 1950's pics of short bunkered 72's I've seen appear to have flush riveted tank tops but who is to say they were like that pre grouping?) P

I know of one 4mm exhibition layout that has scale dog logs deposited around. Their appearance (Or the pointing out of their existence) is dependant on the type of exhibition it is. Looking for them has provided non railway interested kids plenty of entertainment! And then there are some railway related thing's that you would never consider modelling. http://news.sky.com/story/85759/disgusting-goat-sex-man-jailed P

I can't vouch for the accuracy of this site but I've found myself using it with more regularity as it's quicker that digging out the ABC's. Here is it's entry for 62011. http://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=locodata&type=S&id=601101011&loco=62011 P

Anyone for a J15... Porcy

Your prerogative of course. The fact we all have varying viewpoints makes the world far more interesting. With a tiny loco against that magnificent big sky it would make me think how insignificant we and all our views are, in the bigger picture of things. Nice pic though... P (And it then would be a picture of a loco on a viaduct?)

Needs a loco on it. Preferably a pacific trailing an exhaust to match the clouds. P

The Shaft was capped years ago with some major remedial work being carried recently as part of the open cast mining in the area. This is the air lock door colliers walked through to access the shaft. The airlock was located to extreme left of the long low red brick building (with light coloured window surrounds) and led to the shaft top directly under the headgear wheels in this pic: https://flic.kr/p/a57dSm Probably one of the most extensively mined areas in the North East. That's why the transformer men have cap lamps. Bantling Castle colliery and sidings lay directly south by only a few yards (I think it was called Sebastopol locally[after the battle]) then East Castle Colliery came later it's shaft and sidings located only a couple of hundred yards to the East but to the North of the S&T. The "hole" of the Pontop Pike area was a warren of collieries and wagonways. P Edited to turn a spelling mistake into a pun.

Things don't change. It always struck me when walking through any drawing/design office that there could be dozens, if not hundreds of personnel beavering away at their drawing boards/workstations, distilling ideas, yet it would always be the guy in the top office that would be given the credit. Adrian Newey is a name that pops into my head when thinking about this a little deeper. I've always seen the man in the top office as the leader that brings everyone together and has them pulling in the same direction. Seems like Thompson couldn't do this (for a multitude of reasons, both personal and engineering wise, according to what's been written and documented) yet Peppercorn could. I wonder what they would have thought about the Hornby model? P

Dunno about that. 62027 had a lucky escape coming down the Lanchester Valley. Totally wore away a new set of engine and tender brake blocks but fortunately no trains in front of it. That's according to the driver, the late Harry Friend who used to be a neighbour. Reason given was only eight out of 34 loaded 16 tonners had the brakes dropped. I think it should have been 18 sets of brakes dropped and pinned. His account of the incident was written up for a magazine a good few years ago. P

... but a bit weak on braking of loose coupled freights. P

Two ways of looking at it. What If someone asks if your Hornby is a Bradwell? Just so happen to have one of them sat next to my Hornby jobby on my bench at the moment... P Appy New Year to all and Sundry...

Nice light. P

Crikey!!! You gave me palpitations with that post, having just researched out 62050 and sorted out some tender sideframes with straight ends for which it was fitted in the 1960's. But think I've sussed it now. I suspect you might of typo'd. Should 62050 not be 62020? I think it should. Porcy (Who's off for a lie down to recover)