Alstom Anxious : Hitachi Hopeful (1)

Firstly : Metro-Cammell Moribund

Railway modellers, train enthusiasts and maybe a few normal people will recognise the venerable Class 101 diesel train once seem in all quarters of the British mainland. They were made by ...

... Metro Cammell at Birmingham.  Historically, they built the Brighton Belle trains.

The company had premises at Saltley, but the main site was at Washwood Heath. Actually, if you are to believe Google Maps it wasn't at Washwood Heath!

But Google Maps and Google Earth do show a huge scorched earth site just to the west of the northern end of Washwood Heath.

This is to be the mega depot for HS2 which, if Rishi and Keir have their evil way, won't actually need all of it!

Here is a view of the actual MetCam depot ...

... and here is part of the aerial view spun round to match the works picture's orientation.

The circular "holes" where once stood the two gas holders will help our readers' geographical orientation - or even help them know where they are! Further help comes from Open Street Map.

Gas holder imprint is middle left! The road alongside the depot is Warren Road.

Leigh Primary School stands sentinel to one of the Metro Cammell entrance gates as was!

For a while he company was known as Metro Cammell Weyman and was also a manufacturer of buses ...

... notably the MCW Metrobus.

Washwood Heath was also a major supplier of trains for London Underground.

The company built the Blue Pullmans ...

... a whole heap of Networkers ...

... and the Adelantes

These are now with Grand Central.

But Metro also once made much humbler train vehicles as here ...

... with the Presflo cement and salt wagons.

The last trains completed before the site closed in 2005 were the Pendolinos (Pendolini?) for the West Coast main line.

Way back in 1989 the business had been sold to GEC Alsthom before it lost its "h" to become plain Alstom.

It is also worth noting that Metro Cammell exported trains to other far flung parts of the globe as here for the Hong Kong Metro.

As a somewhat smaller project the two original MAGLEV cars for Birmingham Airport were built by MetCam just along the road.

Clearly the closure of Metro Cammell was a huge blow to Birmingham's economy - nay, the nation's economy - but is the same thing happening all over again?

More tomorrow.

What's Going On?

Readers may wonder what is happening to fbb's blog schedule. The "promise" a few days back was or a "two-parter" which has become a "four-parter". Why?

On Sunday 8th the gruesome twosome of fbb and Mrs are setting off on a short Daish's coach holiday. Destination is Llandudno. Return is on Thursday 12th.

The blurb for the Somerset Hotel (odd name for a gaff in North Wales??) offers Wifi in communal rooms only.

This sounds both ominous and inconvenient.

fbb is thus restructuring his blogging muse to ensure that something is prepared in advance for blogs Monday 9th to Friday 13th incl. It also means that this weeks posts have been re-diddled to add extra pre-blogging preparation time.

Quite a challenge for the old bloke!

 Next Anxious and Hopeful blog : Friday 6th Sept 

Sunday Variety

Write Out Correction 50x!

At school it was common for teach to add the dreaded code SP50 to a marked essay. This meant that Sir expected a neat part page of e.g. the word "necessary" on his deck at the start of the next lesson.

It's SchaRfenberg - named after one Karl of that ilk, who invented his automatic joiner of trains in 1905! His invention was certainly not "digital" and it was a good while before the automatic UNcoupler came along.

Until then you had to yank on a gurt big lever to get them apart.

Then fbb, overcome with aghastness, realised that he had no idea how they worked. Obviously the pointy bit pokes into the "cup" of the attaching vehicle, but what happened then was a closed book for fbb. Or maybe even a closed coupling.

But it is "all on line"!

In each "half" of the coupling "hook" is a bar with a pin at the end. That's the dark grey bit that sticks out pointing left.

The other notable component is a circular disc with a bite taken out of it. That shiny metal lever is part of the UNcoupling mechanism.

So the two couplers approach, gently, and the magic happens.

See the bar from the left hand coupling is about to click into the bite in the opposite disc. Likewise the other way.

And, abracadabra sim salabin ...

... they come together sweetly and strongly!

In modern systems there are pneumatic, hydraulic or servo driven gubbins to do the UNcoupling and once the trains are joined in holy matrimony, other gubbinses join the electrics etc.

If you are captivated by the technology of SchaRfenberg couplers there is oodles of excitement  awaiting you on the interwebnet.

Government Transport Policy?

So, fix what things?

Isn't that exactly the same as the last lot promised? And with 14 years of expertise, how well did it go?

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back!

Some news snippets of varying content.

Better For Bedford

Wuxams? It is currently on the A6 south of Bedford ...

... but the development is due to spread west to the Midland Main line, hence the desire for a station.

The huge warehouse, top left on the above, is a B & M distribution centre. The Google Earth view shows where development is in progress!

Bad for Brum?

Yet again, it's all about the money!

Saving The Planet?

Hmmm?

It's Big; It Steams and It Costs!

People like Henry Greenly and Wenman Basset Lowke cut their teeth on miniature railways.

Thebsmaller scales ran from "5" downwards for what Henry would have called a model. Eventually the arithmetic led to "O" gauge and in the late 1930s, as they had run out of numbers, to "OO".

But there are still those who are wealthy enough to run trains in the larger "model" scales.

But if you do have the money and a large garden, this is the sort of 5" gauge model you might like.

Such a beauty will only cost you £15,000.

Grand Prix, Great Prize or Great Price?

We have just had the British GP at Silverstone, not too far from Northampton Alan's residence. On a weeknd excursion by rail, Alan was intrigued to spot some different styles of sign for the bus link from Northampton.

London North Western Railway had not spent a great deal on disseminating information about the special buses.

Young Bill had done a splendid job with his felt tip pens; we note especially the chequered flag motif!

The station's official sign was of superb quality.

But if you found you way to "the top of the hill" ...

... actually the top of the bridge across the line.

, Stagecoach had hired something big and obvious.

It didn't tell you too much.

But, as Alan reported, there were no times or fares on the Stagecoach web site.

But fbb is made of sterner stiff and he looked more widely on-line and, lo and behold, the Silverstone race site had the necessary.

This, for example, shows departures from Northampton on the Saturday.

and the Northampton fare?

These arrangements would tend to be used for passengers from the north. If you were coming from London your connection would be from Milton Keynes ...

... but at a higher price.

Maybe take the chopper next year?

 Next 1X blog : Monday 15th July 

Chicolate Variety (2)

It's Complicated!

Say hello to "Chocolate Crumb".

One of the first stages in making milk chocolate is to combine cocao bean "juice" with milk solids and cocao fats in a vessel with reduced pressure.  It is the opposite of a large pressure cooker, maybe a sucker cooker! The resultant "sludge" is dried and makes, tada, chocolate crumb!

In 1911 and in response to the huge commercial success of Dairy Milk chocolate, Cadbury's opened a factory just up the road from Wolverhampton at a little village called Knighton.

The manufactory was created on the banks of the Shropshire Union Canal (although this Knighton is in Sraffordshire!). It was well off the th beaten track, therefore deliveries in and out were by canal.

Here is milk arriving ...

... and here is either chocolate crumb departing or cacao beans arriving.

The "crumb" would then chug happily via the canal network to Bourneville where the final processes would create the deliciousness that is Cadbury's top selling product today!

Later the site was developed and extended and ended up in the hands of a group called Premier Brands which makes, amongst many well know items, Cadbury's Cakes! (Yep, Cadbury's cakes are not made by Cadbury's!).

That's quite ruined fbb's day - he won't enjoy his raspberry chocolate mini rolls nearly as much!

Under Premier Brands the site was developed massively ...

... and until recent closure plans, employed about 300 people.

But bottom right, you can see a longboat parked at the old wharf ...

... which no loner makes anything, but is a well known landmark (should that be "water mark"?) for boaters on the canal.

Parts of the canal are very definitely a single track road water which means a retreat to a suitable passing place is often necessary!

Back At Bournville.

And a P.S. to yesterday's blog. Remember that bridge over the line from Bristol to Brum?

This is to the north of the Bournville factory. The diagram below shows how the trains got over to the eastern side of the canal where the "Waterside" wharf was located.

Obviously the bridge also crossed the canal! And, although well hidden from roads, it is very obviously still there as pictured from the towpath walk! 

The access road to the wharf is located just east of a very low bridge on Bournville Lane near Bournville station ...

... which is the other side of the very low bridge.

Opposite the station is one of the many back doors to the main factory complex ...

... where we really MUST start looking for purple, red and yellow wagons.

But there is a problem; the rilway closed in 1976 but almost all the om-line pictures of the Cadbury's rolling stock collection are provided by monochrome photos. Some of the locos are in colour but not the earliest!

But there is evidence ...

... that at least more recent diesels were not blue but chocolate brown, a color which would seem appropriate.

Some of the steam locos appear in coloured pictures but may have been hand tinted.

The mystery of monochrome montages applies very much to all older wagons.

Those vans that are preserved are, you guessed it ...

... painted to match the product!

There is one snap on-line of a Cadbury's coal wagon ...

...which surely wasn't yellow!

Why would you paint a coal wagon in yellow?

As for the rest as pictured in yesterday's blog, many more may be added. Here are some venerable Hornby "O" gauge tinplate versions ...

... for which fbb could find no evidence of full size reality. And as for the aged Triang Hornby model ...

...with a body shorter than its chassis, it is more definitely a fake. 

The only possible example of reality comes from Bachmann, whose Cadbury coal wagon ...

... might have existed, perhaps in chocolate rather than red? It is an even better model if you cam buy it "weathered"!

Maybe there is a Cadbury's wagon club of dedicated livery experts who would sort fbb out. But the new models from Dapol would appear to be fake or, at best, speculative.

Never mind eh? They are pretty, and at less that £12 from some suppliers ...

... they are, in today's market good'n' cheap.

Foe a more expensive Cadbury's van you can seek out this company ...

... and there's is Dairy Milk brown!

Tomorrow: a Baffling Bridge in Battersea!

 Next London blog : Tuesday 30th April