The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:16 am

Thanks chaps!

The line's actually looking rather bare at the moment - the Mind Your Own Business that covers much of Penlan Bank has suffered from die-back over winter (it'll return!), and we lost some other plants over the winter too. Lighter evenings always make me feel like gettig out in the garden though, so I'll get to the garden centre soon...

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Mon May 31, 2021 6:47 pm

Something's (finally!) stirring in South Bristol...

After a long period when, once again, Nature was threatening to reclaim the metals of the (WH)WHR, today trains ran for the for time in nearly two months.

First up was a test train to check clearances after some heavy-duty gardening...

May 21 A.jpg
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Followed by a short goods, caught here shunting at Clarach...

May 21 B.jpg
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Over the coming weeks I'll clean up and re-position the buildings, test one of the steamers, and then passenger trains will return for the first time this year...

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Lonsdaler » Mon May 31, 2021 10:14 pm

I'm in the same position, although the absence of trains on my line has been considerably longer. Looking forward to seeing more from you.
Phil

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Fri Jun 11, 2021 8:47 pm

Work continues on bringing the line back from winter hibernation. Last night I cleared the track again (everything's growing so fast at the moment!), the night before I fiddled about with Russell (test run tomorrow?), and this evening I've been cleaning the buildings that have been stored all winter and spring. When I took Penlan station building out to clean this truly horrific sight awaited me:

Spiders.jpg
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Perhaps the management have landed a lucrative filming contract for an Arachnophobia re-make?!

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by ge_rik » Fri Jun 11, 2021 10:37 pm

Maybe she's a psychic and that's ectoplasm? The dog is clearly sensing something that we mere humans cannot see........


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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Old Man Aaron » Sat Jun 12, 2021 4:11 am

Looks a laborious task, re-activating the line. Those passengers might appreciate an offer of some trauma counseling after their time in the spider cave :? - or at least a season pass on the line. :)
Looking forward to seeing the line wake up again.
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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by FWLR » Sat Jun 12, 2021 7:01 am

The dog is looking straight at the spider....If it was me I would have run miles away, well maybe crawled away... :lol: :lol:

It is something I really don't like looking forward to when it's time to get the models out. I have our turntable to uncover yet, but I keep on putting it off.... :( :(

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Sat Aug 14, 2021 6:57 pm

Good afternoon!

After a couple of weeks away (in beautiful Orkney) I'm back, and have been getting the garden back in order. Naturally, some trains were required, but I didn't fancy the faff of live steam today, so it was out with the RH battery locos, plus a mixture of Welsh Highland, Ffestiniog and West Kent rolling stock. I don't recall the last time the railway was this busy, there must have ben as many as four trains in each direction - that's practically London Bridge in the rush hour as far as the (WH)WHR is concerned!

Here's what it looked like...

IC day 1.jpg
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IC day 2.jpg
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IC day 3.jpg
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IC day 4.jpg
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IC day 5.jpg
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It's still the plan to use the chassis from the Hercules as the basis for a Kerr Stuart diesel loco, but progress on that has been painfully slow. I really ought to prioritise the project I think, so that I've got some more appropriate IC motive power, but I'm having fun in the meantime...

You never know, at some point a train may reach as far as the upper terminus at Clarach again, and I might even get round to running the first passenger service of 2021...

Cheers all,

Andrew.

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Lonsdaler » Sun Aug 15, 2021 1:38 pm

That's all looking very lush Andrew. I actually struggle to keep any decent growth with MYOB. It grows well enough in the summer, but succumbs to the exposed nature of our back garden and dies back massively if we have heavy frosts, which tend to feature each winter. Come the spring and it's a case of hunting out the surviving fragments and coaxing them back to vigour. Even our creeping Thyme suffers the same!
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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:12 pm

Hi all,

Having completed my WHR brake van, and thus being able to run a "proper" Welsh Highland goods train (ie without pinching anything from the Ffestiniog!), I thought I ought to run a train at the weekend.

The plan was to steam a loco, but I only had limited time, and the Baldwin was temporarily inaccessible in a pile of stuff associated with a spot of home improvement, and Russell seemed to be lacking batteries in the RC, so it was a case of rostering one of the trusty RH battery electrics. Hardly an authentic WHR train then, but it looked quite nice...

Here's the train heading up the hill, with the new van at the rear:

WHR goods 1.jpg
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And on Penlan Bank again, with the loco passing the remains of a Ffestiniog Ashbury 4 wheeler, no longer fit to serve even as a PW hut!

WHR goods 2.jpg
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Arriving at Penlan:

WHR goods 3.jpg
WHR goods 3.jpg (282.02 KiB) Viewed 3687 times

Shunting the guards van ready for the return journey:

WHR goods 4.jpg
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And heading back down the line again:

WHR goods 5.jpg
WHR goods 5.jpg (348.41 KiB) Viewed 3687 times

Th photos are OK, but the whole experience highlighted some areas where I must do better! Apart from the problems with the steam locos, track, lineside and rolling stock maintenance backlogs meant there were a fair few derailments, and things weren't looking their best.

I made a start on taming the chaos that afternoon, by finally sorting out partitions for the big box that houses the WHR wagons, so now they're less likely to get damaged - which means I can carry out repairs relatively safe in the knowledge that it's not an entirely pointless task! I think a permanent home for my locos is next on the agenda - they lost their shelf when we re-decorated the living room, and have been living in odd corners (including under the sofa!) ever since...

Interestingly, this morning the subject of completely remodelling the garden came up, and instead of instinctively thinking "No! My precious railway!" I found myself pondering the improvements I could make to a future version of the line. I could really do with some on-track stock storage, and with losing some of the harder to reach and maintain spots on the current line. I knew they were there when I designed it, but thought I could live with them - it turns out that, although I can, I'd really rather not!

Cheers,

Andrew


PS Note that, like the other five in the garden, the Box bush at Penlan has succumbed to the bloomin' Box Moth...

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Old Man Aaron » Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:08 am

Something about your line just feels perfect, I must say. :salute:

It'd be a shame to lose such a beautiful line in it's present form, but I know all too well what you mean, living with the problems. A new line of the same theme and detailing, redesigned for ease of use, sounds like a great idea.
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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Soar Valley Light » Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:20 pm

Hi Andrew,

These photo's are even better than the last! The train looks fantastic and I look forward to seeing them behind a WHR loco.

I know what you mean about finding things, I'm about two years into a 'sort out' - the first eighteen months involved thinking about it! I've got miles to go yet but the start point was building a workbench in the cellar. That is now a reality rather than a pipe dream - I just need to kit it out. The trick then is to carry on with the sort out and not be distracted by modelling projects!

I agree with Old Man Aaron that it would be a shame to see the present line go but I understand where you are coming from. It's all about timescales again I guess, getting something back up and running is important but the benefits of experience could lead to even greater enjoyment from a rebuilt railway. It's all a bit of a gambol. I look forward to seeing what happens next!

In eager anticipation!

SVLR Andrew
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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Wed Sep 15, 2021 12:10 pm

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated. The camera may not lie, but it can be pointed very selectively, and as long as I don't use video mode it can't spot derailments and other operational hiccups!

Remodelling the garden is just one option of many, and may well not happen... Our children are all now in the sixth form or at University, so we're contemplating what we might do in the next few years. Stay in Bristol for the short/medium/long term, stay local but move house, move to somewhere cheaper where we can have a bigger house and garden, downsize etc etc... All of those options have different implications for the railway (which is a fairly minor consideration really), and it's almost impossible to work out what the right answer is! Time will tell...

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:03 am

Morning all!

I spent some time tidying the garden this weekend, including clearing the line all the way to the upper terminus at Clarach. The light was failing by the time I'd finished on Sunday afternoon, but I took the opportunity to run a very quick train with a battery loco and a few wagons I happened to have to hand:

Mixed goods 1.jpg
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Mixed goods 2.jpg
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Mixed goods 3.jpg
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Mixed goods 4.jpg
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The train just made a single round trip, but everything ran surprisingly smoothly, in the short term there are just a few point blades which need some attention so they can move freely. More worrying is the general age/lack of maintenance of parts of the line, but as long as things only fall apart one at a time I should be able to keep the show on the road...

Cheers,

Andrew.

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by ge_rik » Mon Nov 15, 2021 7:30 pm

Always reassuring when trains seem to run ok after a bit of a lull. My garden is smothered in fallen leaves at the moment. There are still quite a few to come down so I'll have to wait a week or so before I can have a good tidy up and the maybe run a train or two....

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Soar Valley Light » Fri Nov 19, 2021 8:00 pm

Always nice to see things stirring on the (WH)WHR. I like your photo's Andy, looks like it was fun, no matter how brief.

Like Rik, my line is covered in leaves again. That's where it's not overgrown! I took an hour to cut a 5 yard stretch out of the creeping thymes last weekend. They make for hard work but they look good.

I love the brake van on your train in the pictures. Great to see some operational fun being had in running it round. :thumbleft:

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Sat Nov 20, 2021 12:13 pm

Soar Valley Light wrote: Fri Nov 19, 2021 8:00 pm
I love the brake van on your train in the pictures. Great to see some operational fun being had in running it round.
Glad you like it! I think of that as my "jaunty" brake, because my wife referred to it that way once. I thought it was just the colour (possibly a little inaccurate, as it turns out), but she tells me it was also its general beach hut-like feel.

Don't tell anyone, but I don't always run round the guards van... Glad you noticed I was doing it properly this time though!

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:46 pm

Afternoon all!

It's an easy enough mistake to make... How was I to know the shopping list said "Parmesan" and not "Palmerston"???

Palmerston 1.jpg
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RH locos taste notoriously bad in risotto, but I thought I'd better make the best of things, so took the new loco out into the garden for a run. A fairly gentle period of running in seemed a good idea, so today's train consisted of just the Pickering brake composite, a fairly typical out of season Welsh Highland train until they gave up on a passenger service altogether outside of the summer months.

Palmerston 2.jpg
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Palmerston 3.jpg
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Palmerston 4.jpg
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Palmerston 5.jpg
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I have to say, I'm VERY pleased with it. It looks stunning and ran beautifully straight out of the box, appearing to be controllable, powerful and happy with slow running - I look forward to testing it further. At some point I'll be brave and undertake the loco's complex lining job (and add the nameplates), but I don't think there's any hurry - I'll enjoy it just as it is for a while...

Hope you're all enjoying your weekends,

Andrew.


PS Having run what turned out to be the only passenger service of the season, I'll put away the buildings now and revert to goods only operation until Easter-ish...

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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Peter Butler » Sun Nov 28, 2021 1:20 pm

What a little beauty, you have an early Christmas present and still have the weather to use it.
I'm sure you are much happier than your post conveys!
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Re: The (Windmill Hill) Welsh Highland Railway

Post by Andrew » Sun Nov 28, 2021 1:30 pm

Peter Butler wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 1:20 pm What a little beauty, you have an early Christmas present and still have the weather to use it.
I'm sure you are much happier than your post conveys!
Yes, very happy!

It was such a lovely run that I've actually just put the loco away rather than risk having too much of a good thing! I don't want to tempt fate...

I'm looking forward to putting some slate wagons behind it next time out, and maybe a general goods train of Ffestiniog wagons...

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