Boring Visually? (Part 1)

Boring Visually ... But ...

Some readers will be ancient enough to remember Motorail before it became Motorail, whereby cars were sometimes loaded on to bogie General Utility Vans fitted with end doors.

Two doors opened conventionally and a plate was lowered to fill the gap between vehicles. Generally a beefy BR employees drove the cars on and off as clearances were tight.  

Some services used flat wagons ...

... where motorists were usually guided on, trusted to do the driving themselves.

Specially designed car carriers were used in later years ...

... again with loading and unloading in the hands of Motorail staff. Note that these wagons each carried six cars, but a GUV or flat wagon could only manage three.

A further three car version was developed by "The Western" ...

... using side loading (as with Channel Tunnel shuttles), shown above on test. Below, a vehicle on display and not being unloaded!

There was, at one time, a huge range of Motorail services.

But in pre-Motorail days, someone at BR had a jackpot idea. They modified a standard carriage or GUV type to carry SIX cars!

The steel fabrication was undertaken by Newton Chambers of Chapeltown, near Sheffield way back in 1961!!   In fact, the vehicles were heavily modified Mark 1 coaches. 

STOP PRESS : The above highlighted sentence may be rubbish; utterly incorrect. fbb will expound further in tomorrow's  blog.

There wasn't much left of the originals apart from body framework and roof! Even the bogies were a special short wheel base design to give maximum space. Much of the original underframe had to be cut away ...

... and equipment relocated; because that is where two of the six cars would go. But how would they get there?

That was the clever bit.

Note that the top four are high up in the van, well above normal floor level but with no room for any ramp down to the lower deck at bogie level!

The two 'lower deck' cars were driven on first and positioned in a two vehicle 'cage' in the centre of the van. The cage had a 'roof' which formed a section of the floor for the top deck once the 'cage' was lowered into irs well.

Obviously all lower deck cars had to be lowered in place throughout the train before the upper deck was loaded.

The main terminals had fixed ramps ...

... but the original departure sidings at Caledonian Road ...

... made use of a wagon with ramp attached!

Here is the portable ramp in use for the short-lived Motorail service at Okehampton ...

... with a somewhat anxious driver wondering where the precious family limo was being stowed!

But the resultant trains were hardly interesting to look at!

You might think that any such service would not arouse the excitement juices of a typical railway modeller with very few layouts having space for a realistic length of Motorail train.

But Oxford Rail offers a splendidly detailed 'car flat' priced at around £40. 

Revolution Trains will allow you to run a set of four 'cartic' wagons at £160, but ...

.. they do come as a set - you can't  buy one!

So we have to assume that there are modellers who run scale length Motorail trains on their layouts.

You would need lots of OO model cars to fill the open wagons.

But with Newton Chambers TCV vans ...

to be continued ...

  Next boring blog : Friday 10th April 

The Most Boring Railway Wagon?

We Don't  Like 'Boring'!

The salt wagon wasn't boring; it was rather splendid as the above from Rapido Trains.

When fbb was a lad, he craved for a Saxa salt wagon for his model railway. Hornby Dublo sold one but it was too expensive for the lad's limited pocket money budget. Anyway, whilst it was coloirful, it was printed tinplate and not very realistic.

A later version, branded SD6, was much better but still too pricey.

But, if you want to learn about specialist wagons on the real railway, you can start you exploration in the on-line sales lists of model 'manufacturers'. (They don't make anything; they are all made in China.)

Here is a gunpowder van, rare on the real railway but often to be found trundling happily round even the smallest layouts.

Oxford Rail has recently issued various versions of this. ...

... a rare wagon designed to carry heavy machinery. 

Then there us a recent 'Prestwin' cement wagon, 'produced' in exquisite detail, at an exquisite price (?), by Clark Rail Works.

Oxford, again, has announced a crane and match wagon set, seen below in unpainted form.

fbb could go on ...

... and on ...

... but you get the idea. Specialist models which were rare on the real railway are being sold to detail-loving elderly railway modellers at high prices and hoped-for high profits!

But the real railway, in the good old days, used an awful lot if very boring, very ordinary wagons.

There was the five plank open wagon ...

... the all-steel mineral wagon ...

... and the general purpose goods van.

In their desperation for 'something different' modellers are buying "private owner" rolling stock ...

... often just because they look pretty.

Another growth industry is for fake names on wagons.

They are not cheap.

So fbb got to thinking about what would be the most boring piece of rolling stock to add to his Peterville layout; which would also be the most boring on the real railway.

What about a BR 'standard' bullion van?

BR had a contract to carry gold between various banking institutions and, as gold is heavy, a large vehicle was needed to spread the load. The van also carried security guards ...

... so one compartment plus the usual 'facilities' were retained when the vehicles were converted from ordinary passenger coaches.

Certainly such a model would be visually boring and lacking opportunities for "exquisite" detail, both internal and external.

As far as fbb knows, there has never been a ready-to-run model of a bullion van available.

But fbb thinks he has found something more visually boring visually than even a bullion van!

Bewildering Display of Bus Designs

Richard Rosa's book (£15 - available on-line) begins with a thorough survey of buses that were available pre 1904.

He lists them in date order with the caveat that their first few...

... never carried any paying passengers!

Buses on the rest if the list were used 'in service'.

He then goes on to look at the various models in turn - making for a fascinating and detailed read. The snippets below are offered as a taster and not necessarily in the order Mr Rosa has used! There us much more than these few extracts! 

The Gillet steam omnibus, operated by the Motor Omnibus Syndicate Limited.

And with a top deck roof - untold luxury!

British Motor Syndicate Limited : British Motor Company Limited

Thus was a petrol engine vehicle with seats next to the driver and in limited top deck accommodation.

Straker Steam Omnibus (experimental)

fbb guesses that the top deck 'windscreen' is not to protect from the gales of forward motion, but to divert smoke and red hot cinders from the chimney!

There is a contemporaneous advert for a Straker Omnibus or lorry.

Again, advertised with a lid!

Bromley Motor Car Company Limited

Surely one of the first midibus routes; to the fleshpots of Catford Bridge!

And we are only at page 28 of 212 with loads to read so far.

More in due course.

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Easter should be a Christian Festival celebrating the fact of the empty tomb. There should be no argument. Everyone, at the time, accepted the fact that a dead body was no longer there. Even those who illegally killed Jesus accepted that fact.

But then the question arises as to what happened to the body?

The easiest way to dispel the idea of Jesus' resurrection would be to produce a body. Nobody even tried!

Did Jesus appear in physical form to many different people in many different circumstances? Did he cook ... 

FISH

... for some night fishermen? The accounts are utterly plausible and from eye witnesses recorded very close to the event. They are not triumphalist; they are rational reports from people who struggled to believe their own eyes. 

You couldn't make it up!

Yet, they are reports from people who remained frightened that they would be next in the anti-Jesus purge. They spent much of their time behind locked doors, in fear and in prayer for their safety.

Hardly a good recipe for a great world religion!

They will be watching out, waiting in fear and wondering about their future for seven weeks!

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 Next boring blog : Thurs 8 April 

A Real Floating Bridge

Possibly A Particular Pontoon?

From Latin via French, a pontoon ('ponton') was an flat bottomed boat. Join several together and you get a Pontoon Bridge.

Probably the most celebrated Pontoon bridge was Mulberry Harbour from WW2.

But the 'flat bottom boats' are made of concrete.

It is quite hard to conceive of floating concrete, but apparently, if you make the boat like a big box, it will float. (see also warships and cruise liners, made of steel which does not, of itself, float.)

And so to Seattle.

Apparently, there is a bit more to Seattle (in the USA) than just the Space Needle.

Seattle is, to use a technical term, big; and there is even more 'city' in what might be called 'greater Seattle'. 

There it is, top left of Uncle Sam's realm and in Washington State which isn't Washington D C.

The red line boundary of Seattle passes through a chunk of wetness on the East which is Lake Washington.

This is Belleview viewed across the lake from Seattle.

It is a long way round by road, so in 1940 they built a bridge.

But the bottom of the lake was too soft to take conventional piers - or maybe to build piers would have been too costly.

So they built it on concrete pontoons; thus ... tada ... it was a genuine 100% floating bridge. O.K., not quite. The slopes down at each end were on concrete poers, but the long middle bit floats to this day.

An additional floating bridge was built further north and opened in 1963.

Both bridges have been enhanced and/or completely rebuilt in later years.

Here they are today with their official names.

The replacement Evergreen Point bridge us wider and longer than its predecessor.

The southern crossing, named after Lacey V Murrow, consists of the 1940 bridge rebuilt; plus an extra bigger bridge beside it.

Looking in the opposite direction to the above, we see a train. The double track has replaced vehicle lanes on the new additional bridge.

The structure had to be thoroughly tested to ensure that it could carry the extra weight of a whole train. Thankfully for Seattle commuters, it passed the test!

Although Lake Washington is not tidal, the weather can be scary! This us the train-free Evergreen Point Bridge (the northern one).

So that is a summary of your so-called floating train.

The line across the bridge is new ...

... with the first day drawing large crowds ...

... and with sales stalls etc at the new line 2 terminus at Redmond.

We're you to ride the line 2, these are the trains that may carry you ...

... and very smart they look.

This video takes us on a ride across the floating bridge; but as you 'float' ...

... don't get seasick!

Or maybe lakesick?

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Like many people today, Thomas refused to accept that the resurrection had taken place. He said he would only believe when he touched Jesus ' ...

WOUNDS

He did and he did! 

Then he went on to be leader of an early Christian church in India.

There is something very human, very simple and very reasonable about the resurrection appearances of Jesus. Nobody expected to see Him, all struggled to make sense of it - YET ...

... it changed every one of them, dramatically.

What could be more "human" than a breakfast on the beach?

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  Next boring wagon blog : Weds 8 April