LarryG's general album

LarryG

Western Thunderer
While I'm busy building and photographing the layout, it sometimes helps if a train is included in a scene. You won't need telling that the scene beyond the bridge is fake. I hope some of the details and colouring in the photos of the prototype will be of use to modellers....

WEB Scenery 8.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
Typical turn-of-the-Century GWR architecture displayed by the signal box and on the opposite platform. This was probably the smallest type of building, as they came in lengths and heights to suit the circumstance together with a variety of canopies. In pre-preservation days, the platform covering was small chipping and dust, but paving slabs outside the station buildings...
WEB Dee Valley 2.jpg

Although passed to run on the Dee Valley at least as far as Dolgelley, LMS Black 5's were rarely if ever seen except at Corwen in steam days. 45337 is seen in 2018 passing the site of Bonwyn Halt, a small wooden platform affair...
WEB Dee Valley 3.jpg

GWR late 19th Century architecture is seen in the toilet block. Dating from around 1996, it nonetheless faithfully replicates the colour of the bricks and style of window frames. Company style lies in the running-in station name board....

WEB Dee Valley 4.jpg

Remove some of the preservation-era furniture and trees and Carrog is pretty much as it was before closure. The square-post GWR starting signal for Down trains and the ground signal for Down trains using the Up platform are worthy of note. There is also an outer home signal at the end of the single line loop. Many of the over-bridges on the Dee Valley line had a red brick arch but the remainder of the bridge could be random stone, dressed stone or brick.
WEB Dee Valley 5.jpg

Glyndyfrdwy signal box is a Great Western Railway type 27c wooden design fitted with 21-levers which was opened by the Llangollen Railway in 1992. The signal box and lever frame were moved in mid-1988 from Leaton, on the Shrewsbury-Chester mainline. The original brick type signalbox was on the platform this side of the level crossing in steam days. Note the smaller signal (upper quadrant) controlling Up trains departing from the Down platform. Note also the platform slabs laid facing towards the platform edge (I got mine wrong way round) ....
WEB Dee Valley 7.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
This GWR branch left the Dee Valley line at Bala Junction and sped off up the Arenig Mountains to Blaenau Ffestiniog. In 1993, this nuclear flask train is being propelled to Trawsfynedd near the site of Llan Ffestiniog station on what had been the 1' 11½" narrow gauge section. It was converted to standard gauge in 1883. Two SR Queen Mary bogie brake vans and bogie bolster barrier wagons were in use until the line settled down after some upgrading of track....

WEB Dee Valley 10.jpg
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Footbridge (from Welshpool) at Glyndyfrdwy around 1992. It was later found to be corroded and removed. Glyndy lacks the GWR character of other stations on the Llangollen Railway. It is not a copy of the station that existed in GWR and BR days....
WEB Glyndyfrdwy footbridge 1.jpg

The footbridge in 2009....
WEB Glyndyfrdwy footbridge 2.jpg

Glyndyfrdwy when it was painted in London Midland Region colours...
WEB Glyndyfrdwy footbridge 3 jpg.jpg
 

Lyndhurstman

Western Thunderer
Heritage cleaners know what steam-era cleaners knew. Don't go near anything hot and ignore areas that are impossible to keep clean...
View attachment 111597
Yep. Never polish a surface you need to stand on; it will bring you crashing down. Plus - unless you're one of those who spend your life watching trains from bridges - you're not going to see it anyway :)

Cheers

Jan
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Yep. Never polish a surface you need to stand on; it will bring you crashing down.

Cheers

Jan
Too true. My very first task as a cleaner was scraping the build up of slippery muck, sand and whatever off the full length of an Austerity (2-8-0) running plate. All very health and safety conscious long before the phrase was coiled, yet out on the road I was expected to bring coal down from the top of the tender and duck when the driver blew the whistle! What we were expected to do 59 years ago must be no less amazing to today's young generation than the stories the men told us about life when they were young.
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
I had ordered 64XX sound but a minor mis-communication over the phone saw 57XX sound arrive. All GWR sound alike don't they, or is it they all look alike? Who cares.........PhilH installed it in my 64XX and brought it round this afternoon. Sounded good. A real 64XX in my preferred livery for Panniers......

WEB 64XX Carrog.jpg
 
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LarryG

Western Thunderer
Rapido bus.....Streets ahead of anything I have from elsewhere....

WEB Birmingham bus 1.jpg

From a historical standpoint, these Metro-Camm bodied Guy Arabs with their distinctly 1930's shape stretched to 1950's 27' and sliding vent windows hardly fitted the image of a 'New Look', which is how they were advertised. But of course the 'The New Look' was solely down to the radiator concealed behind a tin front. The sloping back windscreen was suitably disguised behind upright pillars, but there was no getting away from the 7' 6" wide body. Birmingham's passengers and conductors must have looked in envy at operators across the country who were ordering their post-war buses to the new width of 8'. Having conducted both widths of buses, I can tell you that extra 6 inches made one heck of a difference when collecting fares.
WEB Birmingham bus 2.jpg

PS:I just remembered I worked on buses with engines removed from scrap Birmingham buses.
 
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P A D

Western Thunderer
Very nice Larry,
Will you be adding some period advertisements to the sides?

Out of interest, where are the back ground locations?

Cheers,
Peter
 

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
I need to get one of those buses! I grew up just outside the city limits so rode a Midland Red bus (service 151 IIRC) from Earlswood to the Bull Ring. I then walked across town to the Council House/Victoria Square and took a Birmingham City Corporation bus route 96 "Lodge Road" to the top of Newhall Hill, nearest stop to the Legge Lane factory of Ashton & Moore (Metal Colourers) Ltd. I have always liked the "regal" colours of Birmingham's buses. I seriously don't remember them ever carrying advertisements, by the way, and Youtube videos seem to confirm that.

Here is a photo I took a few years ago of the entrance to the Birmingham City Omnibus Depot in Digbeth:

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All Corporation buses carried the coat of arms. The two figures represent Industry (blacksmith on the left) and Art (painter on the right).

As to the width of the buses, yes, Midland Red buses (all registered with HA for Smethwick) were larger than the Corporation buses, but then they generally travelled longer distances. The exception in Birmingham was and is the No. 11 Outer Circle which some say is the longest urban bus journey in Europe. The Inner Circle No. 8 was obviously very much shorter!

There are actually two number 11 routes, one clockwise (11C) and the other anti-clockwise (11A). I don't think I ever rode either but it is quite a common "right of passage" for younger Brummies today.

Thanks, for sharing, Larry, it stirred my brain cells quite "a bit".

Paul

PS Don't get me started on the trams, my family hate me starting up "The gap on the Bristol Road between the two lines of trees is where the tram to the Lickeys ran". GROAN from all and sundry.
 

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Larry

Can you provide details of where you bought the model bus? Hattons' search engine doesn't seem to work. OK, Rails of Sheffield have them. Several choices, I think the Rubery one will be mine, echoes of the novel "The Rotters Club" by Jonathan Coe. Yes, more Bristol Road nonsense to needle the family!

Paul
 
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