Arthur

Hi Rob, Just been reading through your thread and admiring your weathering skills. There was one image which kind of glared out at me though, the bolster wagon with round steel bars. The weathering is excellent but it's a touch overloaded. Excuse the maths, it's just to demonstrate the point, Guesstimating the bars as representing 3" (.25') bars, 20' long. Their volume, in cubic feet, is Pi x Diam x length, so 3.142 x .25 x 20 = 15.71 cubic feet. A cubic foot of steel weighs around 500lbs, so each bar would weigh 7855lbs, or 3.4 tons. There's about 60 bars on your bolster, in excess of 200 tons! If your bars represent 2" bars, that's still a load weight of 140 tons. On the bright side, you've now enough nicely modelled bars for another 10 wagons. I have a particular interest in modelling the steel industry and often see steel carrying models overloaded, people underestimate just how heavy blocks of steel are. Hope you don't mind me pointing it out, seems a pity to spoil an otherwise excellent model by giving it a load which would have crushed it....

There's no attempt at continuous scenery with the Taunton modules, each is distinct, and mine is essentially 'boxed in'. The 4" bridge rails work fine once in place and all modules are settled. They can, however, be the very devil to fit, and move a module whilst setting up and you can easily disconnect bridge rails two modules down. We try to move down, connecting modules in sequence, but always end up reconnecting some and it's very fiddly, sometimes needing three people, one to hold a connection already made, another to adjust the module and a third to guide in the fishplates. Next year we're gonna try 'synchronised swimming', probably easier, we just can't agree how sparkly our swimsuits should be....

Correct Tim, tables can be made to work but are not ideal. They work for us at Taunton because there is now a few years experience of using those at the venue (I've been involved for the last two years). Even so, my module incorporates levelling feet, others use bits of packing as appropriate. We still end up moving, swopping and re-orienting tables to get them to fit. At a new venue you might not know how many tables there are, are they all the same height?, do their lengths work with your module lengths? I could foresee a chaotic opening session whilst tables were tried, shifted, turned and swopped. I wrote up, retrospectively, the construction of my module here; http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85021-a-module-for-taunton-staplegrove-works-bsc/

The lightweights/air portables had two tanks, as described, the fillers were under the seat squabs which had to be lifted away to fill. You got some odd looks at filling stations pumping 20 gallons of petrol into the cab! IIRC the FFR versions had one tank with extra batteries under the passenger seat. I don't think that is an RAF yellow stripe, it's just the light catching where the bodywork rolls in, the upper bodywork being narrower than the lower. The lightweights differed in being slab sided. Yes, the hum from the tyres, the howl from the transmission, the wind ripping round the brick like aerodynamics, a mellow drive they ain't. I swopped my lightweight for a 101 forward control, still have it. Here you sit over the engine, separated from it only by a barely soundproofed dog house cover, fitted with bar grips, permanent four wheel drive, it's ability to produce a racket is second to none. Akin to driving an aluminium greenhouse at 80mph.....all with that charmingly vague steering.

I think that you may be right Wheatley, though they do 'look' short wheelbase in the photo, my former ex. military Series 3 Lightweight (SWB) only had two hoops. Yes, vague steering is a charming feature of the breed! Somewhat akin to steering a ship in a heavy swell, point roughly where you want to go and make continual small corrections as you progress.....

Yes, had my order processed and, as Rembrow notes, seems that they're all here apart from the brake coaches.

Plenty of sheep around today, especially around Parkend. Deer too, common in the evenings and my wife sees them frequently whilst out riding. Boar? Loads of them. They'll plough up your garden overnight and have ruined a couple of sports pitches. Horses, naturally fearful of pigs, are spooked by them. The Forestry Commission admitted last month that the population, they estimate over 800, is out if control and that their culling programme is too conservative and will need to be increased. Ironically, local hotels and restaurants canot get enough Wild Boar as much of it is shipped off to London. Wild Boar sausages, highly recommended.

And, if serving the works, you'll need a good few as well. The works history as it currently stands (other history's are available) has it as a cold charge, open hearth works in the 1960's. The open hearths would be oil fired and consume considerably more oil than the reheating furnaces would have in 1990's mode. As has been said elsewhere, an anchor mounted tank is a big gap in the RTR ranges.

Yes, their Stanier/Kitson 0-4-0ST had the same 'feature'. I did complete the kit though I cannot recall now how I overcame that particular challenge, new frames probably.

I saw those photos on your Sentinel thread Adam, a great find, they're fascinating. I don't know about the Swansea operation but Imperial Smelting also had a works at Avonmouth which smelted zinc and lead. It originally had, essentially, a small blast furnace (much smaller then iron smelting furnaces). In 1968 the works had an ISF furnace installed, don't know much about the process. It closed in 2003. Bit of Pathe footage here of Harold Wilson visiting the new plant. http://streaming.britishpathe.com/hls-vod/flash/00000000/00085000/00085881.mp4.m3u8 Perhaps the Swansea works smelted Tin for the South Wales tin plating trade? Edit; Swansea also smelted Zinc, there were a number of zinc smelting plants there apparently. Imperial, the last, closed in 1971

Hi Dave, Good to hear that you're still with us! No doubt you'll return to River Don Works when you're refreshed and ready. How about a, strictly off topic, pic or two of your aeroplanes? Sounds interesting.

Michael Delamar posted a couple of stills from that bit around 18 minutes in, a while back. The view down the street with the large chimney base, and the view with the Black 5 running past the street end, in an attempt to get a location. Nobody could provide a definitive answer. Behind the Black Five there looks to be a colliery spoil tip. If so, that would suggest somewhere more Central Lancs, the Wigan/Leigh areas. There were a few collieries in East Lancs but the balance of probability suggests further west.

Brief bit on YouTube; Poor quality unfortunately.

Curved Air, I'll have a listen to that Tim. Saw them on their first headline tour, 1970?, they were brilliant. The Curved Air 'theme' was complimented by clear acrylic/Perspex instruments (guitars, bass, violin & drums), pretty stunning in 1970! Yep, Sonja Kristina certainly had it,...... not a bad singer either....

That's prompted/reminded me to order a copy, thanks Colin!

Fascinating photograph, Michael, it's not a Sentinel though. Looks more like a Thomas Hill 'Steelman'.

Bit of a contrast today; Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Soft Machine 3 Journey - Eclipse

Seeing those on Paul's model prompted me to order a set from Railtec. Yet to use them, they only arrived yesterday, but they look very good indeed.

That answers a question, Ivan. I was wondering what body the 82XXX chassis was intended for (their BoB and 76XXX being intended for Kitmaster/Airfix bodies), so, it was a full kit.

Still working through The Nice and ex Nice alumni; Jackson Heights- Ragamuffins Fool and Bump n'Grind. Okay, doesn't really do it for me. The Nice - Elegy And 80's stadium rock; Bad English - Bad English

Nice photos, John. In the last, you can see the cables trailing in lower right to power the rotating mechanism.

Consett, by then, used Basic Oxygen Convertors to make steel and they have to be charged with hot metal. It was a modern steel plant and the whole works still part of the BSC's medium term plans. So, with their blast furnaces planned to be off blast for rebuilding, either the whole plant shut down, or hot metal was brought in. Cargo Fleet's steel plant was open hearth and could be cold charged, so it could spare hot metal from the blast furnaces, hence this service. I believe it ran for several months. The refurbished blast furnaces had a little over ten years in service, there were new/rebuilt plants within the BSC which saw far less in those years. Bit about the ladles themselves here; http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/12668-rolling-stock-10/

Today; England-Garden Shed Then, prompted by Pauls mention of The Nice; Brian Davison's Every Which Way. (Sax, blues rock, a bit like Traffic) Iron Butterfly-In A Gadda Da Vida. (Twice, oh yes....)

In the workshop this afternoon; Airbag-Identity Airbag-All Rights Removed Colosseum-Valentyne Suite.

Yeah, that would have been a lot funnier, Peanuts, had it reflected the truth. 75,000 at Old Trafford, virtually 100% full, 15,000 more than any other Premiership ground could have accommodated..........