All In A Days Work………….

Like so many other country branchlines nothing much happens at Bleddfa Road.

A typical day usually starts with the arrival of the early morning passenger train from Kington, and today 5807 is in charge.

A single coach is more than adequate these days, passengers on the return journey will be mainly pupils heading for school in Presteign.

In the meantime, the driver of 5807 has run around his train, and now waits for the road, before setting back into the platform.

Coupled to its train once more, 5807 will now be recreating the vacuum for the brakes. The guard has checked that the tail lamp is in place and noticed my camera.

It is now getting close to departure time, and soon, peace and quiet will reign over the countryside once again, until the arrival of the pick up goods later in the morning.

These days the goods train only runs three times a week, and sometimes only as required. This morning 4600 is in charge, she will have set off early from Leominster, shunting each yard along the branch as required. On reaching Kington only wagons destined for Presteign and Bleddfa Road will go forward.

I’ve cheated a little bit here by cloning the foreground to hide the bare baseboard facia

Goods inwards include fertilisers, seed and animal feeds for the local farmer’s merchant, who rents the old goods shed from BR. Farm machinery sometimes arrives, along with general goods and coal. The quarry and limekilns also generate plenty of goods traffic, such as mortar, plaster. Fuel oil sometimes arrives in a tank wagon, and a ‘Presflo’ has been seen in the past. This is the advantage of having an offstage industry, which allows specialist vehicles to appear. Goods out comprise of cereals. oats, potatoes and other seasonal farm produce. Bagged and loose lime products, and aggregates such as roadstone are also produced at the quarry and limekilns. Some traffic is tripped to and fro between the goods yard at Bleddfa Road and the quarry, and of course there are the empty wagons to return.

Once those empty coal wagons have been drawn clear of the siding loop, 4600 will collect the two vans that arrived earlier and position them opposite the goods shed. She will then collect the empties and the brake van from beyond the engine release. It has been an easy shunt today, but the fun really starts when trains arrive and find the siding loop occupied!

And so the pick up goods returns back down the branch, it is usually timed to cross the 13:15 passenger train to Bleddfa Road at Presteign.

Imagine my surprise when I caught a whiff of diesel fumes and found this DMU idling away in the station platform early this afternoon. Railcars are making more frequent appearances on the 13:15, but this is the first time that a Gloucester RC&W single car unit has appeared. Younger readers will know these as Class 122 ‘Bubblecars’. How times change, for I hated the sight of these things when they started to take over from steam, but I now have a soft spot for the first generation DMU’s

I took a chance when I saved this rather sad, neglected, non-running DCC model. Being an old dinosaur I converted it back to DC, and its engine, sorry motor sprang to life, it has a loose exhaust and a few missing details but nothing that can’t easily be replaced or repaired. That white cab roof will disappear under a coating of exhaust stains when I get around to a spot of weathering. Once the Railcar has departed there will only be one more train today, and that will be the early evening passenger service from Kington. According to the working timetable it should arrive at 18:20, and return to civilisation twenty minutes later.

Happy Easter,

Geoff