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
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
I've been reading the thread started recently by Robin2 on "Why have moving trains on layouts?" - ( http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/78169-why-have-moving-trains-on-layouts/ )
There've been lots of interesting and thoughtful replies and it has made me think. On the one hand, I couldn't build an engine without wanting to make it work satisfactorily and, on the other, I don't run trains very much but do enjoy setting up various static scenes for photography. I do find
I’ve now managed to produce a set of ‘printable’ parts from the original download from the ‘Printables’ website described in my previous post.
I’m still puzzled by the theories on exactly which of Trevithick’s locomotive engines was actually used for the Penydarren trial, which was the moment in history that put the steam locomotive on the map.
There is a print in the Science Museum collection, said to be the Penydarren engine but it has been discredited because, accord
I have not forgotten about my plans to create a diorama, as described in my Broad Gauge blog.
While I was researching the early days of the GWR, however, I found myself thinking about what had gone before – back to the ultimate pre-grouping period! This led me to Trevithick’s engines, of which I photographed a replica at Blists Hill Museum near Telford:
Trevithick replica at Blists Hill Museum
Trevithick was a remarkable inventor but, sadly, not a good
NB There is a newer version of this post at :
In my OP in this Blog, I referred to the need for plenty of horses and the facilities to support them. As part of "Turning Back the Clock", I decided that an essential railway vehicle would be the Horse Box, so I chose to build the Wizard Models/51L etched brass kit of the GWR diagram N6 box.
I felt that the N6 was a suitable design for a beginner in etched-brass construction, as the prototypes, dating from 1890, were of a pa
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
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
Most of my train-running recently has been for the enjoyment of my young grand-children. For this, I tend to use my reliable ‘1854’ saddle tank, with its heavy ‘Wills’ cast body and ‘Hornby’ chassis that make it fairly ‘bomb-proof’
Trains at North Leigh
Suddenly, after what has been many months (if not years) of reliable running, the engine de-railed on the three-way point at the West end of North Leigh station. Following application of the ‘big hand in the s
Although popular with several European manufacturers, tender-drive has never been well-regarded in UK, possibly because of some rather poor implementations back in the 20th century. Nevertheless, it does have some advantages, when modelling prototypes from the 19th century. Locomotives of that period were generally quite small, with open cabs, and most passenger classes used single drivers until quite late in the century. These characteristics create two problems for the modeller: there is littl
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
I've finally worked out a simpler method for constructing a clerestory roof, so now I have all the vehicles needed to take Sir John's family up to London for the season.
On my first U29 composite, described in recent posts, I folded the roof from a single sheet of 5 thou brass sheet but found it difficult to make the reverse folds correctly. For the family saloon, which I now believe to be Diagram G13, I have therefore made the roof in three parts - two separate sides and the raised
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 have written before in this blog about the Wilcote family, whose activities formed such a large part of the social life of North Leigh in the late 19th-century. Any regular readers will know a little about the younger daughter, Blanche, but her sister, Amy, was a far more serious character.
Like any well-educated young lady of the period, Amy enjoyed practising her artistic accomplishments. Remarkably, some of her work has survived and come into my possession, so I am fortunate to
Some time has elapsed since I first decided to paint the wagons red on my GWR 'North Leigh' railway but I still look out for any further information that may shed further light on when and where this colour was used.
My 1st edition copy of 'Great Western Way'(GWW) stated: "it would seem to be about the end of the 1870s that wagons and vans first sported a standard pattern of painted lettering. It was about this time, too, that the change from red to grey as a body colour
Despite what I wrote in my previous post , I decide to add a ‘rolling’ chassis to my model of ‘Edith’, to help me assess the overall appearance of this little engine. Printing and assembling some of the very small parts created some new challenges.
Our heating system failed last week, just as the weather turned colder. I had not noticed before how sensitive my 3d printer is to the temperature in my work room. For the first time, I experienced a fractured filament as it wound off the
I know that this is a model railways website but I also have no doubt that many people visit because they enjoy looking at the photos of other people's layouts. Thus, it is inevitable that photography plays an important part in communicating what we are doing. There are lots of excellent photos on this website but I thought that it might be of some interest to show some of the techniques I use when photographing my small layout.
The word 'photography' is derived from two Greek words
North Leigh Station, with Goods Yard and Narrow Gauge System Beyond
When I first decided to attribute the location of my small layout to North Leigh in Oxfordshire, the only basis I had was a map dated 1849, which shows a branch line from the OW&WR main line running south from near Stonesfield to Witney. Of course, this line was never built and Witney was eventually served by the now closed Fairford Branch described at http://www.fairfordbranch.co.uk/ , from which website the fol
Having built a Victorian train, I now have to think about providing some passengers. Since I know far less about 19th-century styles of dress than I did about 19th-century railways, when I started, I decided it was time for some reading.
As I pointed out in a previous post, I have found the Internet Archive ( http://archive.org/ ) to be a very useful resource. Old 'out of copyright' books can either be read on-line or downloaded in formats such as PDF. In my current search, I found '
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
Introduction
The last few months have been busy ones for my household, with little time to think about model-making. The spells of hot weather have not been conducive to spending time in my workroom either and, on top of all those things, I have had another failure of the feeder mechanism in my 'Geeetech' printer.
Broken Filament Feeder
I think the root cause of the problem was a faulty temperature sensor in the print head, which caused the feed tube to j
When I started this blog, a year ago, I wrote that my aim was to follow the conversion of my existing layout to an earlier time-frame. In practice, I seem to have spent most of my time designing and constructing new stock, while I have done relatively little to the basic framework of the layout itself. So, for this post, I decided to make a start on some 'backdating' of the layout scenery. Fortunately, static features of the landscape tend to change much more slowly than vehicles: I often notice
It's been a cold, wet, dull, Spring and I have been finding it difficult to gain much inspiration for modelling. I got somewhat bogged down in the intricacies of what Amy Wilcote calls those 'old broad gauge things'. I have, however, been enjoying viewing the splendid work shown by other modellers, in various threads on this site. So, in an attempt to get my own ideas flowing, I have been wandering around some of the less familiar parts of North Leigh.
The creamery is not a very attr
For the last couple of weeks, I have been dealing with various track issues and tidying up bits of scenery, none of which makes for very interesting blog writing! I noticed, however, in Mikkel's workshop thread some comments about Witney blanket trains, which reminded me of a photo that I had seen of a GWR 'Queen' class 2-2-2 heading such a train. This seems a rather unlikely combination but I eventually tracked the photo down to Colin Maggs' book "The Branch Lines of Oxfordshire" (Amberley, 201
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
