Arthur

Nice job with the Garratt, did you use the original frames and chassis? Even with the impending Hattons/Heljan version I'm still inclined to build the K's Garratt that has been in my stockpile for some years.

Good luck with the new venture Stu, website looks good.

Thanks for the kind comments, much appreciated. Nearly Iain!, not a Borderer, but a rare Atkinson Leader, a rear steer 6x2, with a spread axle 40' trailer. Modelled on an actual lorry operated out of BSC Orb works in Newport, S. Wales. It's a conversion from an Oxford Atkinson Borderer. The Mandator is improved from the, basically, quite good EFE model, already in BSC livery and modelled on one operating on contract out of Ebbw Vale. Trailers are scratch built using the original axles. I'm working on something else at the moment and when complete I'll do a write up covering all of them. The Leader a bit clearer here, before the chain link fence was erected, b&w for a change. Snap Iain, I took my class 1 on a Dodge 500, around 1981. Five speed box with an Eaton two speed axle, worked like a splitter but no visual indication of where you were, you just had to know, or guess. No power steering, a pig to reverse.

Iain, Allan, thanks for the kind comments, they're much appreciated. Interesting stuff about Graham and Jidenco, and Colin Massingham, there sure were some characters about! I'd built a couple of MTK kits, and bought a third, for the Transpennine DMU, directly off Colin at the Manchester Show, around 1985. Those familiar with the prototype will recall it's stylish curved windscreens. He seemed a bit affronted when I asked for a pair of cab end castings too, "they come with all the parts you know". I'd anticipated problems with glazing it and wanted a couple of spares to practice on, my explanation seemed to satisfy him. Nearly 30 years later it still sits, unbuilt, in it's box, spare ends too.......one day, perhaps before it's thirtieth birthday.. I'll dig out the two MTK kits which I did build just to show that not all were cast in frustration into the scrap pile!! The layout, ahem....whistles, shuffles feet...., actually, there isn't one! There's not more to see as it's just a 3' x 2' module, whose existence is all down to Stu (stubby47). Stu has been Overlord and Chief Whip for the RMWeb modular layout at the annual Taunton meeting. Earlier in the year he was looking for a 3' module and I volunteered to build one. For me, it serves as a photo backdrop and was a test bed for building techniques for a larger project. (Along with being a great day out with Stu and the other module builders at Taunton.) So, killing two birds with one stone, photos of my other Jidenco builds which also show the rest of the module. Ivatt 2MT 2-6-0 Stanier Kitson 0-4-0ST And a general view showing some of the more specialised stock. Picking up on Iain's observations, no doubt some Jidenco kits were more unbuildable than others and I do seem to recall reading before that the Skye bogie was one of the more....er.....challenging builds. The 7F had an etching error on the cab roof, the Kitson saddle tank had massively over etched axle holes in the frames, the bearings went straight through, the Ivatt 2MT, as far as I recall, was without problems.

That wouldn't surprise me Michael, they worked Barrow trains into Manchester Victoria.

Steady Allan, the name Jidenco will raise the steam pressure of the loco kit builders!! Many considered them unbuildable or at least requiring an inordinate amount of modification to build them. Having said that, I enjoyed building the three I've got. Not beginners kits by any means, they did require a bit of problem solving, but where's the fun if there's no challenge. Here's my Jidenco Fowler 7F; Why the name Jidenco, Allan? Did it have any meaning? After the demise of Jidenco they were available for many years as Falcon Brass. They've more recently been acquired by somebody else, Springside?? I'm intrigued by the Lionel Currie story. A long shot, but on the web, there's a Curries Builders, a Lionel Currie, in Milton Keynes, not too far from Hemel.

I did wonder whether a Schnabel type transporter would be an option, there's one in the U.S. rated at 1000 tons.

Dave, I agree, if all it takes to convince UP's engineers that a quick lube all round will render it fit for a 1200 mile rail haul, that's what they'll do. However, 4014 has been standing at Pomona for 50 years (has it turned a wheel at all?) and I suspect a good deal more might be needed. So the engineers have to decide whether it's reasonable to do any necessary work, in less than ideal conditions, at Pomona, or better to move by road, as it is, and do all the work in Cheyenne. A rail haul would probably be limited to a at low speed, 20mph max? UP happy with that on a busy main line? Seized bearing, fractured axle? The road move of 4023, subject of the documentary I saw, was across town and up a steep bank, and that was slow. Those modal flat trailers, with air suspension and all wheel steering, are widely used over here, and on the highway are good for 20mph. A move of a few days. All I'm saying is don't dismiss the possibility of a road move, it's feasible and might be the simplest option.

Why not by road? Far larger loads than a Big Boy are moved by road here in the crowded, infrastructure heavy, UK. There was a documentary a while back about moving a Big Boy, albeit a short distance, by road. The BIg Boy would, I imagine, require some considerable work just to get it rolling, let alone fit for a 1200 mile rail haul. Just simpler to drag it, even lift it, onto a road trailer and do all the work in Cheyenne I would have thought??

It's very noticeable on some videos, and some stills too; the leading end of the front power unit being swung way off centre on curves and in yards.

To Poggy's post, which I think is spot on, I'd just add industrials. Having built many 4mm kits over the years, most now duplicated in the RTR market, my current and future builds will almost all be of industrial prototypes.

Now on any other internet forum that would have a whole other meaning.....

We've a very large Victorian greenhouse which also has no transverse glazing bars (though the pitch of the roof is considerably greater than your canopy Ron). The individual roof panes have convex scalloped lower edges, the design is such that water running off the roof, rather than running down the edges of the panes, by the glazing bars, tends to run down the centre of the glass keeping the timber drier, and, therefore, longer lasting. It's at least 100 years old and though we had it re-roofed three years ago, it was because the glazing bars had dried out and shrunk so that the glass was slipping down, there was no rot in any of the timber.

Excellent Jim, thanks for posting them and I'd love to see some more. The tall building on Piccadilly Gardens is part of the Piccadilly Plaza complex and the Piccadilly Hotel can be seen on the skyline to the left. The tall block was re clad a few years back and is now called City Tower.

Not quite Michael, the one with the lines running into it, and with writing on the end wall, is the LNWR London Road goods depot, the long narrow one, with two gables, at right angles to the lines, is the GC Flour warehouse, and the big square one below it, and next to the LNW Depot, is the GC Ducie Street Warehouse. The building centre right, with the tower and large triangular courtyard, was Manchester Central Fire Station.

The wagon at Blackett Huttons was used to carry a small ladle taking iron from the cupola furnaces to the casting bay.

Stunning Dave. I can smell the tar and creosote whilst watching that.

I didn't know there was anymore.....

Nice photo here of a Janus crossing a canal bridge on an internal line at Shelton steelworks, Stoke on Trent. Too distant to show any detail but the handrails, both sides, are clearly there. http://www.flickr.com/photos/robmcrorie/5359164917/

My first ever kit was a K's Coal Tank, which I was quite pleased with at the time. Here are some others I've built over the years, posing on the module I built of this years SWAG meet. They all have Romford wheels and gears, and Anchoridge motors of one type or another. All have etched brake gear on the locos and new frames as most were bought as bodyline kits. The Midland 2F has a Perseverance etched chassis and I modified the round top firebox by added a Belpaire firebox in brass. I've a Fowler dock tank and Robinson O4 2-8-0 somewhere too. Unbuilt, I've still got bodyline kits for another O4 which was going to be modified to an O4/7, a Princess, Duchess, 8F and a Garratt most of which have Comet chassis to go with them.

Just yer ordinary Black Country newt.

I may have got the road wrong, it was probably the one you mention, I cannot recall what is was called but it was essentially the boundary between the Westinghouse works and the houses. Edit: Just looked on Google Maps, wrong orientation, it's, not surprisingly, Westinghouse Road.

Ah, right, those houses were built by/for George Westinghouse who owned a large heavy electrical engineers in the US and was the first to open a factory in Trafford Park. The houses, school etc. were built to house his workers. When built, apart from the new works, they were relatively rural but, as the industrial estate built up around them, they became lost amongst heavy industry. It was Westinghouse's US roots which gave rise to the naming of the grid of streets in the American fashion, first, second and third avenue etc. the works later became Metropolitan Vickers, then AEI and finally GEC. Known locally to some as 'the big house' it was for many years the estates biggest employer. Their main office building, on First Avenue, was a listed building so is probably still there. Though the works hadn't been owned by Westinghouse since 1910 or so, even into the seventies, local busses serving the works still carried the name Westinghouse on their destination blinds. In the fifties I think, may have been earlier, a turbine shaft on high speed rotational test broke up and bits weighing up to half a ton or so were flung several hundred yards around the park. The test house walls bore the scars till closure in the eighties. A double track estates line ran down the middle of First Avenue, not on the road surface, there were two separate carriageways either side of the tracks.

On a map, the two systems would be hard to separate Dave, as they just merge together south of Salford docks.

Dave, I think that you may be referring to the Manchester Ship Canal system there. Does the route you mention run east-west on the north bank if the Ship Canal? That was the MSC 'mainline' which ran from Salford Docks, through Eccles, Irlam and onto Latchford near Warrington. There were interchange sidings with the L&Y in Salford, the LNWR at Weaste and the GC at Partington. The latter were largely busy with coal traffic from local pits to the coaling basin on the Ship Canal, and with traffic to and from from Lancashire Steel at Irlam. The linked Trafford Park system was all south of the Ship Canal.