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About this blog

This blog complements my Pre-Grouping Blog by covering my modelling activities in the Broad Gauge era of the Great Western Railway.  As with the earlier blog, I intend to cover the various methods by which I construct elements of the Broad Gauge scene.  For more background see https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/17705-a-different-type-of-railway/

 

Entries in this blog

General

Building 'Tantalus' - Part Three

At the end of the previous Part, I wrote that I intended to turn my attention to the chassis. Before that, I had broken off from work on the chassis, to give some thought to the problems posed by the curved splashers over the driving wheels.   Now that I have proven the technique of ‘hybrid’ construction, combining traditional etched brass model-making with 3D-printing, I’ve decided to pursue similar methods for the chassis. For wheels, I recovered a spare set from a ‘Mainline’ Dean Go
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A Tender for 'Rob Roy' - 1

It’s been some time since I last tackled an etched brass kit, after spending most of my time recently in learning about 3D printing and, before that, Silhouette cutting. I had to refresh my memory on ‘the rules of the game’!   I bought the Broad Gauge Society kit (FL07) for a 6-wheel tender some time ago and have only just got around to its assembly. I was pleased to see that the instructions start with the reminder that “… some parts are a little over scale due to limitations of the d
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Open-top Cattle Wagon

Whoo-hoo  – I seem to be getting the hang of 3D modelling, at least for simple shapes like carriages and wagons.  Whereas I had some infuriating moments when designing my first cattle wagon model, its open-top cousin has proceeded with scarcely a hitch.   I decided to follow exactly the same procedure that I used for my first wagon : floor and ends as one ‘body’ and individual sides as two separate ‘bodies’. After printing these separately, I used a soldering iron, set to 200°C, to ‘we
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3D-Printed Cattle Wagon - 3

Building the Chassis   This is an addendum to my previous post about building a Broad Gauge cattle wagon body. Although I built a chassis at that stage, I found the construction was too light and would not support wheel-sets adequately. I should have remembered that I had the same problem with the first design I did for a carriage chassis, so this post is an aide memoire to help me avoid the same mistakes again.   My chassis is basically a rectangle to fit under the body, wit
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3D-Printed Cattle Wagon - 2

Following my previous post, where I showed how I made a cattle truck side, I have followed a rather convoluted route to arrive at a model of the complete body.   I could have printed a flat floor and some ends and then pieced all the parts together but I got caught up in the idea of trying to print the whole body in one go. I soon abandoned this idea, when I realised it was going to involve a lot of support structures for the various horizontal openings, but I did get as far as forming
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3D-Printed Cattle Wagon - 1

As I wrote in the previous post, I found plenty of inspiration from my research into Broad Gauge cattle wagons. It gave me the impetus to move straight on with the design of a 3D-printed model.   Whereas I created my 3D printed carriages by extruding the carriage from one end, I felt that the sides of these wagons might be better printed while lying flat on the printer bed. This would mean assembling the wagon from separate parts for the sides and ends, mounted on a rectangular base, r
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Broad Gauge Cattle Train

Now that I have completed my research into, and constructed models of, the Mail Train that is described in the BoT Accident report of 1868, regarding the collision near Bullo Pill on the South Wales line, I am turning my attention to the Goods Train.     my Mail Train models, based on accident report from Bullo Pill 1868   According to the accident report, the goods train was headed by the locomotive ‘Tantalus’ and comprised 20 cattle wagons, plus a third-class carr
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Broad Gauge Mail Coach - part 5

My progress, since the previous post in this series, has been slower than anticipated, mainly because of the need to build a chassis that deviated from that intended for the BGS kit. I also took a few false turns, which led to a significant amount of re-work.   In the comments following my first post about this coach, I said that I prefer scratch building to kits. I suppose what I really meant is that I like to do things my own way. The down side of the scratch building approach is tha
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GWR Posting Carriage - Part 2

I hadn’t expected to make quite such rapid progress with this model – I must be getting slightly more proficient at using the ‘Fusion 360’ CAD software!   In part 1, I showed how I created the rather complex profile of the sides of the Posting Carriage by extruding a drawing of one end. I drew the end profile as a series of straight lines and arcs, traced over a drawing contained in one of the very useful Broad Gauge Society data sheets.     While this process gave
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Wheels for my Wagons

I got something of a shock when I saw the current price of Broad Gauge wheel-sets so that started me thinking about 3D-printed wheels. I realised that I wouldn’t be able to make metal rims but it could be a way of making basic wagon wheels in bulk.   Many early GWR wagons used the form of wheel ascribed to Losh and Bell, in which wrought iron spokes were cast into the hub and wrapped around the inside of the wheel rim, to give the characteristic appearance shown in the following illust
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Wooden Goods Brake Van

In a previous post, I commented that I felt I was getting the hang of 3D-modelling. That didn’t mean that I can’t still get into a mess and sometimes things happen in ‘Fusion 360’ for which I have no explanation. For example, I was approaching the final stages of the chassis I shall describe below and found that one of the complete axle-box assemblies had moved about a centimetre from its proper place on the sole-bar. Back-tracking through the history made no difference, as the software seemed t
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GWR Posting Carriage

After having constructed a range of models that were intended to replicate the two trains involved in the accident at Bullo Pill, in 1868, I have been casting around for ideas for new subjects.   The trouble with a 3D printer is that it opens up so many possibilities that it is hard to decide what to tackle next. It would be easy for me to continue modelling various carriages, wagons, and locomotives but I have been looking for something that’s a bit ‘different’.   One of the
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GWR Posting Carriage – Part 3

In this post, I turn to the design of a chassis for my model Posting Coach. Fortunately, there is a detailed contemporary description and illustration, given in Whishaw’s book ‘The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland’, published in 1842.   According to Whishaw: “The under carriage is formed of two soles, 7 feet 8 inches apart, 9 inches deep, and 4 inches thick, and projects 10 inches at each end beyond the body ; and six cross pieces, one at each end without the line of the body, whi
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GWR Luggage Box

Following my recent series about modelling the GWR Posting Carriage,  @Mikkel asked “But where did the luggage go? Next project?”.   In response, here is my next project!   In the early years, the GWR addressed the need to transport passengers’ luggage by providing separate ‘luggage boxes’ – and it seems that Victorians always travelled with a very large amount of luggage! It should be remembered that, at that time, passengers’ ‘luggage’ might also include their personal carr
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Hinged Doors for a Luggage Box

By the end of the previous post, I had completed the chassis for my planned Luggage Box. I expected the Luggage Box itself to be a simple construction: two panelled ends, two sides, and a roof.   Following my now usual practice, I created each of these parts as a separate ‘body’ in ‘Fusion 360’, so that each could be laid flat on the printer bed and could be printed in a few minutes, to the required panel thickness. A wave of a 200° soldering iron to seal the joints and that would be t
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Broad Gauge Horse Box

My ‘Geeetech E180’ printer seems to be performing exceptionally well at present, so I have been cracking on with some items from my ‘to do’ list.   After the poor results I was getting last year, I made a point of going through the long list of adjustable parameters in the ‘Cura’ slicing software. I suspect that the most significant change I made was to the ‘line width’ setting. The default setting matched the print-head diameter of 0.4 mm but I reduced the setting to 0.3mm. Since the
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‘Fire Fly’ class - Research

Introduction   One thing leads to another and what, for me, started as a small project to build the interesting-looking ‘Posting Carriage’ from the early years of Brunel’s Broad Gauge railway, for the GWR, rapidly extended to include a Luggage Truck and Horse Box.   All these vehicles appeared in some of the beautiful lithographs by J.C Bourne, published in 1846. In particular, his illustration of Bristol Temple Meads Station, shows an engine of Gooch’s ‘Fire-Fly’ class headi
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‘Fire Fly’ class – Part Two

As I carried out my research for this project in Part One (Research), I realised just how difficult it can be to decide what these old engines were actually like!   One of the problems seems to be that, in those days, engines were hand-built by craftsmen who. perhaps, were not so keen on trying to follow a drawing but knew how things should be done!   I noticed, for example, that the shape of the firebox casing on the ‘Fire Fly’ replica is actually quite different from that seen in an
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‘Fire Fly’ class – Part Three

It has taken me a considerable amount of thought before deciding how to proceed with the next stage of building my my ‘Fire Fly’ class model. The obvious method would be to construct a strong frame around the outside, as I have done for previous models, but it doesn’t really work with this prototype.     Fire-Fly replica at Didcot showing Boiler Support   As I showed in the previous post, the prototype was built with four short frames linking the smokebox and firebo
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More Waverley Thoughts

Over two months have passed since I last wrote about my attempts to build a model of a Waverley-class 4-4-0. To re-cap, I have built a boiler, by using the Broad Gauge Society (BGS) kit for a Gooch Standard Goods, and have cut out some inside frames from card, to carry 24-spoke driving wheels taken from a Tri-ang ‘Lord of the Isles’ model. After putting these parts together, rather roughly, I felt that I had achieved an approximation to the appearance of the prototype.   As I continued
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Aeolus Valve Gear

Interpreting the Valve Motion   At the end of my previous post, I commented on the surprising layout of the valve gear, as shown on the Lane sketches. The Works drawing of the engine, as originally designed, shows a more usual arrangement, with the weigh-bar placed under the boiler behind the smokebox.   Following further research, however, I have re-interpreted the drawings of Aeolus by E.T. Lane and have, therefore, revised this post on 16th April.   According to
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One Step on a Broad Road

After spending a long time reading and thinking about Brunel's broad gauge railway, I knew I had to make a start somewhere. The thought of plunging straight into a layout was proving too daunting so, I decided to buy a display case of the type sold by Antics models This case has a plain wooden base, measuring about 330mm x 80mm, onto which I could build a short length of broad-gauge (BG) track.   I wanted to build my track base using materials and techniques that mirror the original co
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Planning a Mail Train

Having ‘cracked’ the main problems with building my Mail Coach, I have started thinking about the other vehicles that made up that ill-fated train. According to the accident report, the engine ‘Rob Roy’ was pulling three passenger carriages, and a luggage van. It is stated that the leading carriage had a break compartment in it, and that the third carriage, which was the mail carriage, also carried a guard.   This leaves me trying to decide what the other carriages might have been. A M
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Broad Gauge Mail Coach - part 4

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time thinking about undergear for my Mail Coach. Apart from building a kit for an N6 Horse Box, which included fairly detailed brake gear, this is an aspect I have tended to ignore in most of my scratch-built models.   I have described myself as an ‘impressionist’ modeller but, somehow, now that I am exploring the Broad Gauge and an earlier period, I feel a certain responsibility to try to be more historically accurate.   The Broad Gauge Soci
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Aeolus in Context

At the end of my previous post , I wrote that the engine and tender would next enter the paint shop. Because the various major components (boiler, firebox, etc.) were all printed separately and simply plugged together, it was easy to paint each part in its appropriate colour, with no masking required.   I use acrylic paints, which I like to apply in the manner of water colour. I use an alcohol/water mix to ‘wet’ the surface and then add pigment to achieve the desired depth of colour. F
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