Jump to content
 
  • entries
    111
  • comments
    916
  • views
    35,701

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

Fire Fly Class – Part Four

Angled Spokes   I ended the previous part of this series by noting that my next subject would be wheels. This subject, once again, raised questions as to what were the real facts! An ‘official’ GWR drawing shows alternate spokes sloping in opposite directions between hub and rim, as below :     Drawing of ‘Firefly’ Driving Wheel   On the other hand, another ‘official’ plan view of the frames shows one set of spokes fitted radially, while the other set is
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

4
General

Creating a ‘Freak’

I completed the draft of this post just before RMWeb went off-line, during its transfer to a new hosting service.  I have made more modelling progress during the last 10 days, so will upload a follow-up article, once I have seen that the current post has settled down in its new home.   Last year, in May 2021, I wrote a post in my blog called ‘From the Stars to Fire Fly’. I drew on contemporary illustrations by E.T. Lane to show some of the engines to which I referred. I now find myself
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

4
General

Printing ‘Eagle’

In my previous post, describing my design method, I wrote:  “This method also means that I do not need to make any of my own measurements but simply rely on the drawing being accurate and traceable”   A lot of early railway drawings were far from accurate!  I found the following in a collection belonging to William Strickland, an American architect:     According to Wikipedia, “William Strickland's Reports are the starting point of American railway engineering, and
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

4
General

Pearson 4-2-4T – Part Four

I ended Part Three with the prospect of modelling the many rods and brackets on the underside looming over me. I had intended to write more at that time but found myself struggling to understand how various parts of the engine fitted together. I think all the ‘easy’ bits have now been done, so I could no longer avoid the complex underpinnings.   To gain an overview, I ‘mirrored’ one half of the split plan-view from ‘The Engineer’ and then colour-coded various elements – blue for frames
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

4
General

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
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

An Ugly Duckling

Having been inspired by a recent post by @Annie, I’m having a go at creating a 3D-print of one of those ‘ugly-duckling’ 4-4-0STs, much liked in the West Country as very successful engines.   As usual, I’m applying ‘quick and dirty’ methods, to create as much as possible by extruding ‘bodies’ from existing drawings – in this case those by Ian Beattie, reproduced in the Broad Gauge Society magazine ‘Broadsheet No.73’   I imported the front-elevation drawing as a ‘canvas’ into ‘
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

Modelling a ‘house removal’ train

I see that we’re now in the 10th year since I started writing my pre-grouping blog. Looking back, I realise how much my approach to railway modelling has changed over that period. There have been two major technical innovations and one significant change of emphasis in my interests.   The first technical innovation, which occurred soon after I started exploring the earlier period, was the Silhouette Cutter, which opened up the possibility of creating complex panelled carriage sides. Si
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

1837 Carriage

I.K. Brunel wrote the following, in a letter to T. E. Harrison on 5th March 1838: “... let me call your attention to the appearance - we have a splendid engine of Stephenson's, it would be a beautiful ornament in the most elegant drawing room and we have another of Quaker-like simplicity carried even to shabbyness but very possibly as good as engine, but the difference in the care bestowed by the engine man, the favour in which it is held by others and even oneself, not to mention the public, is
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

A Tangled Web

I’ve referred before to the problems that arise from using published drawings as the basis for creating 3D models of early locomotives. The usual dictum of “find a photograph of your selected prototype” simply doesn’t apply to the years before photography became established.   That leads to the next problem – so much of the information we read about early locomotives comes from books that were written decades after the time to which they refer. Even Gooch’s own ‘diary’ is considered su
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

A Galaxy of Stars

In my previous post, I wrote that I needed to make a model of one of the longer-boilered ‘Stars’, to see if it made a better comparison with the photograph taken at Cheltenham shed around 1850.   According to the RCTS booklet Part Two, two ‘Stars’ were built with boilers that were 2 feet longer than the others – these were ‘Rising Star’ and ‘Bright Star’. We are very fortunate that E.T. Lane not only made several sketches of ‘Rising Star’, including end-elevations, but also produced a
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

West Drayton Coke Ovens 1839

Background   Almost 10 years ago, I made a model of a lime kiln as a ‘scenic accessory’ on my North Leigh layout. For some reason, I never wrote a blog post about its construction but did write a short article for ‘Railway Modeller’, published in November 2015.   I have, however, described how my model was based on the kiln at Fawler that originally had a siding from the Oxford Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway. Fawler is close to the real North Leigh, on which my pre-gro
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

Pearson’s ‘small’ 4-2-4T

After dissecting the workings of the extraordinary 9ft. Pearson 4-2-4T engines in my previous four posts , I was interested to examine how these engines compared with William Dean’s later attempt to create something similar for the standard gauge.   To make the comparison on as level a playing field as possible, I looked up information on the slightly later Pearson engines fitted with smaller 7’ 6” driving wheels – similar to those on Dean’s standard gauge engine. I have previously mod
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

3
General

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
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

2
General

Photographic Evidence

Having wandered into South Devon territory with my atmospheric caper, I started to look at some of the steam engines used on that line. I realised that, although I have modelled several early passenger engines, including the Firefly class, I have not tackled any of the early goods engines.   The Leo class 2-4-0 were built as goods engines, starting in 1841. It was soon realised, however, that they had insufficient adhesion weight, so all the engines were converted to carry saddle tanks
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

2
General

Pearson 4-2-4T – Part Three

By the end of Part Two , I had modelled all the most visible parts of the engine and felt tempted to stop there but many of the peculiarities of these engines were below the platform, so I had to keep going ‘down there’.   Photo by Snell of B&ER 4-2-4T No.42   Although I have collected quite a number of drawings and photos, there are still some difficulties in determining the layout of all the parts, especially since some drawings omit features and others show some
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

1
General

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
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in General

0
×
×
  • Create New...