4mm Blodwell Junction (Shropshire) - Cambrian Railways/GWR/BR

[Barry37]

The GWR Pooley van has turned up in Blodwell Junction's tiny goods yard, with a V1 brake van. Time for the weighbridge's annual service and calibration (?), apparently.
The open shed is where one is shown on maps, but I haven't found a photo that shows the goods yard looking towards the bridge, to know what it actually looked like. Some vegetation needs to added between the running line and the siding. and some "goods" awaiting collection in the shed.

 

[Barry37]

I've discovered another photo of pipes for the Lake Vyrnwy – Liverpool pipeline being unloaded at Llanrhaidr Mochnant in 1931.
This is a good side view of the road trailer used to carry the pipes, and the "motive power" is a GWR Fordson tractor. Seems to have been taken the same day as the photo in Mike Lloyd's Tanat Valley book, but a different pipe with an "advert" on the side.
The Talbot process being advertised, was (is?) a method of coating the inside of steel pipes with bitumen & a filler. The pipe was rotated at some speed and the bitumen applied by centrifugal force.
The crane is a former Midland Railway one, bought by the Cambrian Railways, which was by the time of this photo, GWR No.466. Haven't so far found any good photos of this crane.
In this photo, at the far right, two pipes can be seen side by side on a wagon, though I don't know what sort of wagon it is. The wagon end has a pattern of strengthening ribs, and the body is probably at bit taller than double bolsters.



The pipe size was 25 feet by 3 feet 6 in, so it was possible to scale the photo to 4mm scale, and make a pipe trailer. The other photo is more 3/4 rear, so is a help, though some details have had to be guessed.
There is a hand brake which seems to work on at least one front and rear wheel, possibly by tightening a metal band round a drum behind the wheel.
Here's the model – 3D printed in quite a few pieces. The main chassis structure is two halves, split horizontally, to make U channel when joined together. The front wheels seem to have had a mudguard, but not the rear.
Pipes weren't, AFAIK, unloaded at Blodwell Junction, but the trailer makes an unusual wagon load, which could have passed through. Excavators for the pipeline trench arrived by train in 1931, which will also make for an interesting wagon load: a work in progress at the moment.

 

[simond]

That pipe looks a great deal bigger than 3’6” diameter, but then again, judging by the way the driver’s sitting, it is a very small tractor…

 

[Barry37]

That pipe looks a great deal bigger than 3’6” diameter, but then again, judging by the way the driver’s sitting, it is a very small tractor…

It's the diameter* quoted in several places, including details of a pipe cleaning job (the inside) that's either currently underway, or recently been finished (All three pipelines). The 1950s pipe may have only been 3 feet diameter.
Tractor rear wheel size (over tyre) was apparently 42in, and this pretty much matches the pipe size in the photo.

* That may have been the inside diameter, though having seen some unused pipes at the Teifi Pools reservoir (Ceredigion) around 1980, I don't recall them being particularly thick walled.

This is one of the GWR tractors with a similar trailer at Handsworth (Warks. Railways website). The tractor has a rather more weatherproof cab than the pipe-towing one. The trailer seems to have a rather over-complicated front end.

 

[simond]

I work with pipes and tubes, well, the company makes electrodes and the instruments for testing coatings on them, amongst a great deal of other things, and pipes are usually referred to by inside diameter, sometimes without any reference to thickness of pipe or coating, which does make getting the external electrode to be the right size something of a challenge. The argument is that the designer needs to know the area through which the material will pass, so for pipes, they talk in inside diameters, and for tubes, the external dimensions (tubes might not be round) are used.

I'd agree that the tyre and pipe are very similar in size, I'm sure your measurements make sense, it just doesn't look that way at first sight.

They are both really quite small as tractors go - presumably they were horse-sized though I'm sure they could do a lot more than a horse.

I wonder if the complicated front axle assembly was due to the trailer potentially being articulated on a suitable tractor - eg a Scammell mechanical horse or similar?

 

[Barry37]

I work with pipes and tubes, well, the company makes electrodes and the instruments for testing coatings on them, amongst a great deal of other things, and pipes are usually referred to by inside diameter, sometimes without any reference to thickness of pipe or coating, which does make getting the external electrode to be the right size something of a challenge. The argument is that the designer needs to know the area through which the material will pass, so for pipes, they talk in inside diameters, and for tubes, the external dimensions (tubes might not be round) are used.

I'd agree that the tyre and pipe are very similar in size, I'm sure your measurements make sense, it just doesn't look that way at first sight.

They are both really quite small as tractors go - presumably they were horse-sized though I'm sure they could do a lot more than a horse.

I wonder if the complicated front axle assembly was due to the trailer potentially being articulated on a suitable tractor - eg a Scammell mechanical horse or similar?

It may be, on the Handsworth photo, that the trailer has been altered from horse-drawn to tractor-hauled, which meant lowering the drawbar to suit the tractor.
Oxford Rail have a Fordson version planned, in all sorts of likely spurious liveries*, but that's a tractor with big plates at front and back to push wagons with.
* another RTR "manufacturer" is offering models of Bulleid's Leader loco in a similar variety of unlikely liveries, given that only one loco ever made it out of the works. That was, I think, only to Lewes, and perhaps not back under its own steam – it's uphill to Falmer.

 

[simond]

I remember the shunting tractor at Birkenhead as a kid - a working one would be a great challenge in 7mm

 

[AJC]

I remember the shunting tractor at Birkenhead as a kid - a working one would be a great challenge in 7mm

It’s been done in 2mm, @Giles has done lorries in 4mm so 7mm is just a matter of will, surely?

The 2mm Scale Association

The 2mm Scale Association Website

www.2mm.org.uk

Adam

 

[simond]

It’s been done in 2mm, @Giles has done lorries in 4mm so 7mm is just a matter of will, surely?

The 2mm Scale Association

The 2mm Scale Association Website

www.2mm.org.uk

Adam

Yes, I have reflected on the same observations. Giles’ smallest independent vehicle is the little Austin, I think, so it can be done, but I think the issue is that tractors don’t have much bodywork so hiding the battery poses a challenge.

I found this, but it’s a bit late for my era.

English




←

 

[John_B]

I think the issue is that tractors don’t have much bodywork so hiding the battery poses a challenge.

Something magnetic under the baseboard, where the mechanism, guide rails etc. wouldn't be seen?

 

[oldravendale]

Simon - I'm shortly on my way to Kettering so can't research at the moment but I published a photo of a shunting tractor on these august pages some time ago - in fact three photos. One was at Carlton Colville museum and another at the London Transport collection at Axton but those are probably a bit modern. However another was at Lowestoft in probably the 1930s. It may be an inspiration. If you can't find it send me a PM and I'll dig it out for you.

Brian

 

[daifly]

Here's the only one I could find:
Shunting using chains
Dave

 

[Barry37]

Here's the only one I could find:
Shunting using chains
Dave

Interesting thread.
At Neyland, in Pembrokeshire, a GWR(?) loco was used to do some unconventional shunting. A small ship of some kind had become stuck in mud near the railway quayside, and the use of a shunting engine plus long rope was tried.
The rope was slackened, so the engine could give a proper "tug" when the rope became tight. Unfortunately, the ship stayed where it was, and the loco derailed, which must have been an odd entry in the Accident Book.

 

[LarryG]

Interesting thread.
Unfortunately, the ship stayed where it was, and the loco derailed, which must have been an odd entry in the Accident Book.

Towing a boater instead of a bloater.

 

[simond]

Interesting thread.
At Neyland, in Pembrokeshire, a GWR(?) loco was used to do some unconventional shunting. A small ship of some kind had become stuck in mud near the railway quayside, and the use of a shunting engine plus long rope was tried.
The rope was slackened, so the engine could give a proper "tug" when the rope became tight. Unfortunately, the ship stayed where it was, and the loco derailed, which must have been an odd entry in the Accident Book.

Generally in such circumstances, there’s a bang that makes your teeth rattle, anyone who has any sense hits the deck face down and the whipcrack of the broken rope signals the imminent return of normality…

 

[simond]

Something magnetic under the baseboard, where the mechanism, guide rails etc. wouldn't be seen?

If I were going to do it, it would have to be r/c, so it could actually shunt!

 

[Giles]

I've often thought about a tractor, but when I offered up a servo, a gearmotor, and a receiver, there wasn't anything left of the tractor......

The other issue is it would need a diff. I remember the traction engine determinedly carrying on in a straight line no matter which way the front wheels were pointing... I solved that by making it single wheel drive, which is quite prototypical. I took the precaution of building a differential into the fork-lift to avoid the same problem. I used to have a (full size!) Fergy 35 with a frontloader and back hoe, and one had to do most of the serious steering on the brakes with that!

The smallest R/C I actually made was a 4mm long wheelbase Series 2 Landrover, which I gave to my brother. (It's got a tighter turning circle than a real one though...)

 

[simond]

(It's got a tighter turning circle than a real one though...)

the Titanic had a tighter turning circle than an Sll !

 

[Barry37]

This is one of the internal combustion-engined trench digging machines being unloaded at Llanrhaidr in 1931. It's being carried on an LNER Flatrol DD, built in 1929 to D59. There appears to be a second digger beyond the LMS wagon, but as there was only one of the Flatrol DD wagons at this time, the digger must be on something else. Two more similar Flatrol DDs were built later, so, for model purposes, there'll be two of these wagons.
Background has mostly been removed to try and clarify what is actually digger, and what is not


This is the nearly finished drawing of the wagon and digger.


From a similar-era US quarry digger photo, it seems that on these early IC diggers, the body didn't rotate. Instead, the jib was mounted on a turntable in front of the "cab", which seems to have been turned by a cable round its pulley-shaped rim.
The bucket and caterpillar tracks are modified from an online drawing of a more modern digger. It's not very clear from the photo. what the operating area consisted of, so the model will be transported with a tarpaulin over the "works" in the cab.