The engine body is not far off complete. A close photo shows areas that need some cleaning up. The gap between the rear of the boiler and the cab needs to be filled, the cab is square to the footplate so I’m not sure how that bit of drift happened.
As you see there are a lot of holes, but I have the pipework bent to shape ready to go on post painting.
The frames are ready to go. The cylinders have been moved out slightly and solid brass cross pieces and
Progress on the 670 is delayed at the moment until I get the parts for the gearbox. Can’t be helped, difficult times slow things down.
Anyway, I need to build something. I had a browse through drawings and books and settled on a D27 Machinery wagon. ( the CRA does sets of wagon drawings on a cd )
So with a bit of luck here is one I can make from the stuff I have. The body is laminated from 10 thou styrene cut on the silhouette. Bit of an odd wagon, big plates on the sid
Well, there we are, a slap of paint makes all the difference.
Rivets are Archers, easy to apply and they make a big difference on a model like this. No idea what is under that sheet, but it is heavy so this wagon moves as if it does have 16 tons on top. The chains and shackles were fiddly, but add to it all I think.
Catching a bit of evening light.
You can see that this wagon is properly sc
The correct gears arrived and so with a fully assembled and tested gearbox I have been able to push ahead. Soldering needs a bit of a clean up, but thats the chassis built up and running smoothly. Driving the front wheelset means I can have a compensation beam at the rear. The kit suggests driving the centre axle, since driving the front axle would mean losing the view through under the boiler. However by using a roadrunner box and an extender with a narrow motor I was able to get the motor righ
There are times when I can see the appeal of BR unlined black. About half way through decorating the No. 252 was one such occasion. However bit by bit it all came together. The final result is a bit bright, but the brass does tend to develop a patina of its own over time. As ever close photos show errors the eye misses and it needs some builders plates as well.
A few pics ;
Or
There are some things which just don’t scale, no matter what you do the real thing looks wrong in model form. Smoke and water are the obvious ones, but I’l add another. Dust. Scaled down they are not particles, they are lumps.
So I have been enjoying running the railway a bit, collecting info and deciding what to build next. However I couldn’t help noticing that the station had become a bit dusty and once you have noticed it it sticks in your eye. Time for some cleaning, after all we
The main assemblies for the wagon are now largely complete.
Frame has been detailed, spring castings should have more leaves but those look ok to my eye.
Body has the sides fitted. and the floor is planked. Note the holes in the body sides. I think these were to enable the screw clamps to be tightened up when used at a lower level, together with a pair of clamps at the bottom of the well.
The fiddly bit was making the support frames.
Back at the bench again. The Caledonian built 40 Dia 25 lime wagons from 1886 to 1888. They were essentially a Dia 22 mineral wagon with a roof.
The CRA do a drawing of it, which gives the wb as 8’6’’. I don’t think that is correct. The Dia 25 is essentially a Dia 22 mineral wagon with a roof, and they are definitely a 7’9” wb. The Diagram book gives the Dia 25 wb as 7’9” as well.
So I scanned in pics of both types of wagon, scaled them to size and superimposed t
For various reasons this one has taken a while to finish. I had a bit of a fight with the lettering, harsh closeups show my errors.
I wanted to weather it as photographed in the wagon book with the lime getting well into the grain of the timber. That was done with rotring white ink and powders, my lack of weathering skills shows up, but it gives the right overall impression I think.
A few pictures in the on the layout;
As I mentioned in the last blog I have been building some CR ballast wagons.
These were built using my usual methods, styrene bodies, copperclad sub chassis to take the W irons. The outer pair are from the 1890 drawing, the middle one is a pre-diagram version from the photo. The drawing makes no mention of canvass covers for the axleboxes and without a reference photo I can’t tell whether they were so fitted. I added them to the pre -diagram wagon which did have them. I suppose if a
An odd title you make think, but I shall explain.
Firstly the real one. The CR had large numbers of pig iron wagons, in practice used whenever a low sided wagon was needed. Another of those general types you can never have enough of. This example is built from the 51L kit, though I have used my usual method of a copperclad sub chassis for the W irons and sprung buffers.
Ok, the imaginary wagon. I mentioned that I cut some extra bits when I made
I seem to be in a wagon building mood these days. Dunno whether I’m locked down, locked up or or which tier of the cake I’m on, so wagon building is a cheap and time consuming activity.
Now it might be argued that I’m getting my ratios wrong again, too many unusual wagons and not enough of the bread and butter diagrams. I’d agree, but the fun is in the odd stuff. I therefore decided to have a shot at one of the 1896 built D38 glass well wagons. Decent pics in the wagon books and a di
A split blog , but there are quite a few photos.
The footplate made up. Looking at photos I think that as built they had Drummond buffers. Later they had the heavy duty ribbed buffers fitted. It may be that the second lot had them from the start, but I am going for the early version so Drummond buffers it is.
Sitting here on the chassis, always a relief to find it is sitting slightly low. Sitting high can be a real pain. I’ll shim the compensation beam.
Last year I needed some styrene sections and as it happened the only place with stock was Hattons. Oh well. Anyway having ordered the stuff I needed I had a look at the pre-owned stuff. Just for fun, honest. Anyway I saw a Hornby generic 4 wheel NBR brake which had been dropped. The end was well bashed, buffers and couplings broken, the whole thing bent, body off. But all the bits had been put in the box and it was a tenner. Add to basket.
But why ? A lot has been said about these co
The D38 glass well wagon has given me a challenge but I’m reasonably happy with the overall result.
The support frame has a slight lean, but it is only really noticeable in closeup and square on photos. As specials I think the wagon would be in good condition for the Edwardian era, it is in its first decade in service. I therefore just gave it some very light weathering.
If someone has any transfers a scale 1” high that say “OIL” then I’ll buy some. those 3 dots above the
Dead easy, several suppliers make plastic ones. Buy some and plant them ?
Well, no. These are not any old telegraph poles, these are the telegraph poles of the Caledonian railway. As with so many aspects of pre-grouping different railways did things in a different manner. “Signalling the Caledonian” by Jim Summers has an entire chapter on the subject giving many details and a couple of useful pictures of the L+D under construction so combined with photos from elsewhere I know what I’
Making all the poles and fitting sockets for them has kept me going for a few weeks. Chilly weather and bad light slow it all down a bit.
The poles are 3mm dia dowel sanded to about 2 mm dia at the top. I doubt I could drill a 3mm hole through the baseboard square enough to make the poles stand upright so I made some sockets from spare brass tube, 25 mm long with bits of wire soldered on. The bit across the bottom acts a stop but still lets any debris fall through.
Some photos of the poles planted in their sockets. I managed to get the spacing fairly even at 60 - 65 yards, the preferred Caley distance. The camera is much harsher about verticals than the eye, particularly along the length of the layout. People used to Glasgow might be familiar with the effect, tenements do tend to lean back a bit. The time to panic is when they start leaning forwards.
Another year passes.
I was running some trains and in my head as the carriages drew level with the platform I heard the guard shout,
“ This is, er is ….. Um, well dunno where we are really, but we have arrived……….”
Yep, I have never got round to making any running in boards, so I though I had better address that pronto.
There we go, now we know where we are.
The 670 Class leaves Kelvinbank yard in the winter g
Now things have settled a bit on here I am going to add a few blogs.
It has taken some time to get this painted and finished. A fair bit of messing about with transfers again, I do wish someone would do CR goods lining. All looks a bit rough close up, but passable from a distance I think.
A couple of posed pics, the side on official portrait.
At rest in the yard.
They
Well, there they are, painted and in service. Firstly a couple of photos in harsh artificial light, the colours may look a bit more natural in real daylight. Overall I’m happy with them, though the spring suspension system doesn’t seem to hold the track as well as I’d like. A bit of running and it might bed in a bit. I haven’t added any weight, lets wait and see if it is needed.
A couple of shots of them in a train .
A bit of stock construction, always a joy to do . In this case a pair of CR Dia. 11A CCTS from the latest “True lines Models “ kit. Historical notes can be found in “ Caledonian Railway Wagons” by Mike Williams, many thanks to Tony Brenchley of the CRA for producing the kit. Ok, so preamble over, lets have a look at it all. A cast resin body, etches for the chassis and springs and castings in brass and whitemetal for details. The body tends to curve inwards at the top, seems resin does this
A friend of mine described this as a fence. Well, thats her off the christmas card list.......
Anyway, I have been building sections of balustrade. I have no idea how I could have done this without the silhouette. There are 100 sections on the bridge, each of which is laminated with 3 cuts of 10 thou styrene. Thats 2700 shaped holes.
I'm sure there is someone out there who has done something similar cutting it all out with a scalpel. It wouldn't be me.
So, a p
A useful week, both chassis up and running so on to the bodies. My first concern was the buffers. The whitemetal ones supplied are ok, but they are solid and they don’t have a footstep. Magnifying the best available picture of the D11a I am sure that they did have a welded on footstep. So I opted to use a L+Y buffer which is very close in shape to the CR one and solder a footstep to it. More solid than the whitemetal one, and of course it will give me working buffers. Here is one in progress.
