https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3tbFYlYp50
…with three brand-new heritage passenger cars on the ever-expanding restoration of the beautiful L & B line in North Devon, England.
ALL done by volunteers and a little help from local gubmint, too.
Wait until they re-open the Chelfham Viaduct and station!!
tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
Cracking video Tac…
Nice to see a great vid of the L&B, which is situated in the northern part of my county. Even so, as it is over 80 miles away I rarely visit it. We are lucky in my county having at least five heritage railways and a tramway system.
All well worth visiting. Neighbouring counties also have good heritage railways.
Those new coaches look superb!
I wonder if Accucraft will do a batch in that color scheme.
Tac, can you fill me in with the usual passenger consists, do they always have a brake at each end?
I have a Southern green observation to run in a mixed with a Southern bogie gondola and brake van. The passenger cars are sooo long! Wondering if I should get a composite brake too.
By the way, I got another W&L Pickering composite brake. Now I have the full set.
Andrew
Andrew, the reason for running a brake at each end of some lines like this - and that includes the Welshpool, is that there are no turning facilities for the locos or longer stock. Some lines have the short wagon turntables, like those we see in use for speeders in North America, but anything longer only travles facing the same direction - forever. The Welshpool has two composite brake coaches, you’ll recall, and if you look, you’ll not that the loco runs around the train. Same with the Tal-y-Llyn, too.
There are no turning Y’s on little railways here in UK - the lines were built as cheaply as possible, although that’s hard to imagine when you look at the glorious coaching stock inside and out…and land was always very dear - far too dear to use just to turn a loco around.
Now you have the whole set of three Pickering coaches? Same here.
tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Lynton Pet Shop Boys [I wonder if anybody here will understand the connection?]
Andrew,
As Tac did not give an answer about consist I have posted these links. The first is to the new redeveloped version and the second to the original line. I hope your answer lies within them.
Thanks Tac, I figured it was because the loco went to the other end for the return journey but had to verify because it only really came into light recently when you mentioned getting the other W&L brake composite. In fact I was thinking of getting a second saloon coach a few years back. Just as well I didn’t.
I have noticed the brake cars on several railways have the protruding windows sometimes at the end of the train and sometimes within. I guess they can’t be fussy which end the windows are if they can’t turn the cars around.
Andrew
Thanks Alan, I have looked over those sites before.
There is an old B&W distant photo of Lyn with a coach, bogie gondola and van/brake.
I opted to get a mixed train like that when I bought some Southern cars.
I need to find the photo again!
Andrew
The protruding windows on brake vans (read caboose) and some passenger parcel/brake van stock was known as a look out ducket. Useful where no veranda existed or in faster passenger trains. Some pics may be found under Southern Railway search as much L&B only yields models or the reconstituted line.
Interestingly I have been looking at the Bachmann Lyn loco as I felt a small UK line might be a change from what I presently run. A pipe dream most likely but it is a fascinating model.
The little look-outs are called ‘duckets’, and are anomalous to the wide-vision caboose structures that you are familiar with.
Alan, Andrew asked me about why there was a brake on either end of the consist. I answered his question.
Just like the Welshpool & Llanfair and the ill-advised Leek & Manifold, three passenger cars were all they really needed. The L & M coaches were even bigger, as it was another 2ft 6in gauge line and all the stock was bigger. The locomotives were unique in the UK, being 2-6-4 tank locos of prodigious size - E R Calthrop and J B Earle.
tac
Ducket! I figured there would be a name for them. Anyway I have just ordered at great expense an L&B composite brake to finish my mixed consist. The other end has a southern bogie van with ‘ducket’. These coaches cost me an arm and a leg for shipping to Australia. Ducket!
I had an unresolved consist but now sorted. Thanks for the help guys. I was not that keen on the L&B coaches at first because of their length. I read that the L&B was essentially a passenger railway so they also ran mixed but not very often goods only.
Andrew
Hi Andrew
looking through the books I have on the L&B there is only one picture with brake vehicles (both coaches) on each ends and that is early on as the coaches are still in the maroon and white livery.
The pictures I have showing complete trains only have 3 or 4 vehicles (coaches and a goods wagon or just coaches) the brake coach is not at the end of the train but in the middle.
Also I can not find any pictures with a goods bogie brake in a train with coaches.
Given the amount of goods rolling stock the L&B had it is quite likely they ran pure goods trains at times although this does not appear to be very well documented or photographed.
Mick
Mick, I have noticed consists in various configurations but I appreciate the logic in having a brake at each end.
I guess it didn’t always work out that way though as a matter of convenience on shorter trains.
(http://www.lynton-rail.co.uk/files/embedded/imagesHolwell120915/Train_at_Bridge_59_Holwell.jpg)
Just after the 6 minute mark there is a L&B double header and 9 coaches with a brake at each end.
Andrew
It seems like you found the pics Andrew. Good.
One-way mixed consist trains don’t need a brake at each end. Excursion trains do. They leave the terminus, go to the end, and then return. Hence the need for a brake at each end.
tac
**tac Foley said: '**tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Lynton Pet Shop Boys [I wonder if anybody here will understand the connection?]
I guess I’m alone here in knowing the connection?
When we were staying in Lynton back in 1988 and walking aroound the town [very pretty it is, too], we went into the local pet store to get some kitty treats for our cat. The Store owner was being helped out by his rather scrumptious grand-daughter, and we got talking about the railway, which was then a fading memory, and not even a dream. I was talking to the old man about having just walked around the remains of the station, and he told me that he had been the very last station-master there when it had closed down in 1935 - his photos were on the walls of the pet-store, with him clearly the same man, dressed to the nines, standing there.
Hence my reference.
tac
