Being somewhat of a back-water in railway history, the Witney branch via North Leigh became home to many unusual vehicles, rarely seen elsewhere. I have already shown the standard-gauge Tilt Wagon ('Hat Box') but a particular claim to fame for this line was that it became the 'stamping ground' for William Dean's experimental 4-2-4 express tank engine, shown below entering North Leigh station.
William Dean's e
Almost 10 years ago, I wrote a post about Dean’s experimental 4-2-4 tank engine , which made a brief appearance in 1882 before being hurriedly rebuilt as a more conventional 2-2-2 tender engine. Very little information has survived about the original engine, except that it had a chronic inability to stay on the track.
With so little prototype information available – and even less that could be considered reliable – I felt justified in taking considerable liberties in the design of my
It was only when I looked at the photograph of "City of Truro", which I took yesterday, that I noticed that the nameplate was missing! About half of my track is in tunnel, so there was an evens chance that it had dropped off in the tunnel. Fortunately, I have a 'search and rescue' procedure.
Some time ago, I became interested in the idea of shooting video from the footplates of my model locomotive. I found that there was a miniature video camera, popular with aircraft RC enthusisats,
I've been starting to get my 'painting eye' in, by working on some of my 19th-century vehicles, before I attempt any people.
For the Victoria carriage, described in previous posts, I first spayed the entire vehicle with red car primer. After that I painted the undergear, footboards, and folding hood with black acrylic. I chose Crimson Lake as the main body colour and painted all the relevant panels with Humbrol enamel (now RC403, though I used an ancient tinlet of HR116 - these paint
Oil lamps are continuing to prove awkward!
Following an appeal for help from the forums, I have established that the small circular fittings, adjacent to the lamp tops, are plugs to fill the apertures left when the lamps are removed for trimming and filling, rather than oil fillers, as I had originally thought.
I've now drilled the roof of my U29 model, to take the lamp tops and have another small problem to solve! Since the roof slopes down from the sides of the cleresto
The recent fine weather has kept me away from the modelling for a while, while I have been pursuing my outdoor photographic interests. I am also procrastinating a little, as my coaches are at the stage of needing a lot of fiddly detail work to be completed!
Because of my small radius curves, 'fine' flanged wheels are a bit unreliable, so I prefer to use 'Hornby' or 'Bachmann' wheels, which hold on pretty well round the corners! For my 6-wheel coaches, I decided to try 'MJT' Mansell w
My photo alongside might look similar to the final one in my previous post but is, in fact, the result of a complete re-build, in an attempt to correct at least some of the mistakes I'd made!
I'd already found some of the problems in trying to adapt real drawings to an 00 gauge model, in that the wheels fouled the diagonal members of the chassis. Then, when my grease axle boxes arrived from 'MJT' (after 15 days and well within the 21 days maximum), I found that there was insufficient
I had intended to wait until my carriage truck was complete, before writing another post, but various events have introduced delays, so here is a 'work in progress' report. . Some of my readers seem to like my 'off-beat' approach to modelling and this one also has some unusual features!
It all began when I saw a box of 'extra long' safety matches on the supermarket shelves. I had been looking at a drawing of an early wooden-framed carriage truck (1866) in Janet Russell's book on 'Gre
I have mentioned in some recent posts that I intended to work on the scenery of my layout and, in the course of doing that, I found some problems with the narrow-gauge track, where it climbs from the station area, up over the main line towards the quarries.
What followed has been a frustrating few days, when my little railway has been showing its age! I suppose it is hardly surprising that some of the track is giving problems, as it was first laid in 1979.
Th
In my previous post, I described a little about the location of North Leigh station on the branch line to Witney, originally planned in 1849. For some reason, this line was omitted from Bartholomew's 1/2inch map of 1903 but I have restored it to its rightful position, in order to show the location of the station and its proximity to the tunnel through the ridge of high ground between North Leigh and New Yatt.
The later, cut-off, which allowed trains to run directly from the Worcester
I have mentioned before in this blog that my layout includes an 009 narrow-gauge section. Most of this section does not need changing in order to fit in with my revised 19th-century timeframe but, a long time ago (1980), I built a 'Centre Models' kit of a Leek & Manifold 2-6-4T, of which the prototypes appeared in 1904. Whilst not quite fitting my new era, it is a handsome locomotive that I had never got to run well, so I decided to re-build the chassis. A body kit is still available from Me
This blog aims to follow the conversion of my existing layout to an earlier time-frame. I hope that others will find it of interest and helpful, if they are also considering the Pre-Grouping era.
By way of background: I built a small layout about 30 years ago for my then-young son. It was based on old Hornby-Dublo (2-rail) track and I added an 009 narrow-gauge section for additional interest. More recently, I had another look at this old layout and thought it would be suitable for ru
As I mentioned in my first entry in this blog, my layout started many years ago as a Hornby Dublo layout for my young son. The plan was taken directly from the Hornby Dublo Handbook of 2-Rail Track Formations (1st edition), as shown below, drawn using SCARM software
Original Track Plan (as built in 1979)
This track plan formed the basis for a small, simple layout, to which I added a narrow gauge section (009) at a higher level, for additional interest. The up
I find it interesting to observe how, having broken the ice, the waters of enthusiasm start to flow!
I’ve been experimenting with some of the tools in 'Fusion 360' and while it’s still very early days, I can now produce carriage sides with ‘tumble home’ curves and I can also add curved tops to the ends, for fitting to roofs.
So far, this has just been an experiment, as I explore some of the possibilities for future designs.
The 'Fusion 36
I am grateful for the patience shown by my followers, while I have been wrestling to make progress on 3D modelling, against a background of many distractions!
In my previous post on this subject, I described my progress in understanding how ‘slicer’ software turns a 3D computer model into a file suitable for 3D printing. This enabled me to make a few test prints by downloading 3D models from the web.
3D printed carriage from downloaded STL file on the web
Most of my entries in this blog, so far, have related to locomotives and rolling stock. For most of us , these are the key elements of a model railway and involve a lot of scratch or kit building, since very few pre-grouping (and especially pre-WW1) models are available as RTR.
Now, I am starting to think about scenery aspects and have realised that there is something of a paradox when 'turning back the clock'. We tend to think of 'older' as meaning 'quainter' and more 'weathered' wh
I visited the Swindon Railway Festival yesterday (15th Sep). It's always good to study prototype fittings, such as the sand boxes on the Dean Goods. In model form, these often show a 'draw' from the casting process, so it was useful to be reminded of the shape and details of the original.
Dean Goods no.2516 - Sand Box
There was also a sizeable model railway exhibition and I got talking on the Broad Gauge Society stand. I mentioned that I had recently photogra
In my previous post, I made the self-fulfilling prophesy that I would be distracted by the forum thread on GWR standard gauge 'tilt' wagons, started by drduncan. Initially there was some discussion as to whether the photo shown was, in fact, of a Broad Gauge wagon but the dimensions (especially the height) seemed sufficiently different to indicate that the vehicle under discussion was indeed Standard Gauge.
Something 'clicked' for me and I decided that I had to add one to my stock, s
My first post in the Forums was in July 2013 while I started this blog a little later, in August. I've not been doing much modelling recently, since other activities take up most of my time during the Summer months, but I do spend time thinking "where next?" and also taking stock of the past year.
A year ago, i had just started trying to re-create some late-19th century "atmosphere", while knowing rather little about how things were actually done. Thanks to the patience and help of m
I have mentioned before that the attractions of the pre-grouping period include the elaborate and colourful liveries. These also, however, present a challenge to the modeller in achieving these effects on a small scale.
Many years ago, while recuperating from a bout of pneumonia, I built a rake of Ratio 4-wheelers. Looking at these now, I am somewhat amazed to see the patience with which I tackled their painting! 30 years later, natural 'weathering' has given them a 'used' appearance
One aspect of modelling, which interests me, is the ability to compare the proportions of locomotives that are rarely photographed together.
Many years ago, I built a K's Milestones kit of the GWR Broad Gauge 'Rover' class locomotive, so I decided to photograph this model alongside my Tri-ang Dean single, to illustrate the profound differences between these types:
The Broad Gauge locomotive takes advantage of the width between the wheels to use a much
I've now built my second GWR 3-planker from a David Geen kit. This time, I made a floor from 10 thou brass sheet, which acted as a template to keep the body panels square. It certainly solved the problem of trying to align several lumps of white metal in my far-from-steady hands!
My method, when working with brass sheet, is to print a scale drawing of the part onto paper and then stick the paper to the brass using a glue-stick. For the wagon floor, I simply used a guillotine to cut o
Photographs can be very cruel! Looking at the photo of the handbrake ratchet in my previous entry, all I see is the huge tab, which I have not filed smoothly. It's invisible in practice but not on the photo! It's a real test, to subject modelling to this type of scrutiny.
My favourite weapons for removing those pips, as well as flash on white metal, are emery nail boards from the pharmacy. They're cheap and disposable, and don't get ruined by white metal, so saving my precious needle
In a previous post: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12531-milk-churns-and-siphons/
I mentioned that I had tried painting a GWR wagon with Farrow & Ball 'Rectory Red' paint.
To re-cap, this colour is described by the manufacturer as Vermilion mixed with Lead Oxide, to make it cheaper. It seems to me that could be a plausible formula for the red used during the 19th century on GWR wagons.
Because it is difficult to compare colours accura
Since reading Part Three of the RCTS "Locomotives of the Great Western Railway" series, I have become fascinated by the first standard-gauge locomotives to run on the GWR. I shared some of my findings in a forum thread - now updated at https://www.rmweb.co.uk/blogs/entry/26175-early-gwr-absorbed-engines/
My interest has gradually become focused on GWR No.184, which was built by E.B.Wilson and Company for the Oxford, Worcester, & Wolverhampton Railway in 1853. It was photographed
