Well, my name is Dave and I am building my second layout themed on the Caledonian Railway in the Edwardian era. The first was called Kelvinbank, and since I live 200 yards from the river kelvin which flows through the west end of Glasgow I think I shall stick to the name.
You may well ask, if he has built one already why is he building another? Simply put, the sky fell in. Not the real sky, but to the 4mm scale figures on the layout half a ton of victorian lime plaster falling from a
Scenic work is not something I am very good at, but there we are a gap filled. I wanted it to look like one of the old estates that got enveloped by the progress of Glasgow to the west but has yet to be developed. The result is some lengths of very old boundary wall in some odd locations if you dig about in the area.
Anyway, it fills a gap.
If you are going to have a gate, you might as well have a working one.
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
I made up most of the tender body and then spent a while getting things level. Set the buffer heights and shim the compensation beams so the footplates are lined through. Then place the loco and tender on the tightest curve I have ( about 48 inch radius ) and that gives me the minimum length for the tender - loco drawbar. The Caley coaches tender kit includes these, but the size I needed was between the two. Easily adjusted. I put the whole thing together and ran it up and down for a while. Tend
I have got on fairly well with some free time over new year. The last difficult bit of the body was getting the roof soldered on neatly and adding the cab handrails. The spectacles were giving me a bit of grief, and awkward thing to form in brass. So I stopped and thought about it. 10 minutes later I had enough to do a fleet of engines thanks to the silhouette. The dome and chimney from the DJH kit fettled up reasonably, safety valve and whistle are from Caley coaches.
Getting the boiler and footplate fitted together was a time consuming task. Try, file a bit, try again, file a bit more. When in place I could make the spectacle plate and get the whole thing looking a bit like a D1.
So here it is actually sitting on the track. Also seems to pass the push along through points and curves without the wheels fouling the body test. In theory that means the Gibson wheels will be fine.
From the rear with the motor and gearbox in for a trial
Boiler next. Hmm. I had a look at the DJH one and decided to give it a bash. Well, quite a few bashes. Removed the alignment tags which didn’t align, got it in a jig of scrap wood bits and whacked a lot of lowmelt solder at the gaps. I then filled all the bits that needed filling with lowmelt and attacked the whole thing with a variety of knives, sanders and files.
Most of the “detail” on the castings was overscale and I would have removed it anyway. So after a fair amount of work I now ha
Having got a rolling chassis I turned my attention to the footplate. The one from the kit was unusable so a brass plate cut out and the valance added.
Next part, splashers. The DJH Dunalastair 1 is a kit for OO. With EM you need about 23 mm to clear the wheel fronts, the cast wm ones were much too thick to be any use. That also made the cab too wide. I rather think that the kit was always a bit too wide, in EM it was going to be far too wide. There was no way the outer splashers would clea
The furniture van wagon is now painted and in service. Slight weathering to bring out some of the detail. I do think that the masterclub bolt heads are better defined than a transfer rivet though from much more than a few inches away it is hard to see.
I added a pair of crossbeams pegged into the holes in the sides to which the van is lashed. The relatively new looking sheet may have had a few more ropes in practice, though that was fiddly enough.
A few posed pictu
There is a photo in “Caledonian Railway Wagons” by Mike Williams of one of these wagons of which it it thought nine were built from 1878 onwards. No drawing but they were known to be 18’ long on a 11’8” wheelbase, enough to reasonably estimate the other dimensions.
Construction is from styrene sheet and section. Metal strips on the top of the sides had a series of holes for roping pegs, though I think they may have been threaded for an eyebolt. Perhaps a bar was pegged across the wag
The D 34 trolley is now finished and in service. I think it captures the look of the original though without a drawing I cannot be sure it is dimensionally correct. Wheelbase and overall length are from the diagram.
I decided to fit a rather narrow load so as not to lose the open frame look of the trolley and an out of gauge load would foul the platforms. Well sheeted and chained down it gives some mass so that the springs do not make it all too bouncy.
Some photos
I’m not a very christmassy person, so it gives me a bit of time to make things. I decided to have a shot at this odd looking thing.
This photo has appeared on rmweb before, but if anyone has copyright issues I’ll remove it. Built 1868, scrapped 1917, lived in Glasgow. It is in the diagram book which gives basic dimensions but not much more. Only one built and had the number 1. Should save on transfers.
The original method of construction seems to be flitched. Four he
I have had some Worsley Works etches in the kit stash for a while, so I thought I’d have a shot at building one. This is a 45 foot Diagram 35 full brake, first lot built 1897. Worsley Works only provide the basic body, though it is a very accurate and nicely etched set. Slots for the guards duckets do need widening a little. The builder supplies the rest.
Bogies are Comet 8 foot SR pattern converted to Drummond style by removing the top flange and adding small inserts to give the cu
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
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
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
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
Just a short blog, with the site being slow atm.
I have made and added some detail, all made up from various bits of brass and wire. The smokebox door is technically a GWR one, but it is the right size and shape. If you don’t tell Mr Drummond then I won’t.
A couple of pics all fastened together and wired up.
Runs pretty smoothly so I think it is time for a spot of primer.
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.
Next step is to get on with some chassis building.
Drummond designed these engines with a 7’6 + 8’9 wheelbase. This layout proved successful and was repeated on a number of subsequent designs. I therefore started with a set of Gibson milled frames for the 782 class, these are solid and of a heavier brass than normally found in etch kits.
First things first. A set of coupling rods. These are the Gibson universal etch, soldered up so that the fluted parts go t
Whilst waiting for the gearbox to arrive I thought I would have a go at the saddle tank.
I cut the templates on the silhouette and glues them to 10 thou brass. The notched ones are 3 layers soldered together, with a single layer for the front face.
The frame soldered up. Flat board with some stripwood and various clips to hold it all .
Wrapper annealed, cleaned and formed with various tubes and rods. T
One of the CR engines I have always fancied making is the 323 class, also known as the Jubilee Tanks, first built 1887. There is no kit, so they are rarely modelled, though Jim Watt has made a lovely example in 2 mm fs.
A pic.
The first issue is the wheels. As built they had 4’ 6” 10 spoke T section wheels. Later rebuilds had plain spokes, but thats after my time period. Nobody makes them, nearest offering is Gibson 11 plain spoke, so I’m
I have added a bit of scenic detail to that corner. Much improved in taking the eye round at the end of the viaduct. I am going to have a go a tree making to disguise the rather abrupt end of that big retaining wall, but for now thats the layout back together and some trains running again.
A couple of rough snapshots.
Hope everyone is managing in these strange times.
All things considered the modifications to the body were straightforward. It all comes apart easily and the plastic seems to work well. The list of things which need to be altered to make a Caledonian version are as follows;
Replace buffers with continental style ones. ( these are from shapeways)
Fit westinghouse pump, smokebox rhs.
Remove safety valve cover, fit ross pop valves.
Square off and slightly reduce chimney height.
Reposition and fit single whistle.
Following WW1 the Caledonian, like many other railways, were short of locomotives. They therefore hired 53 surplus Robinson ROD 2-8-0 s from the large pool available locally at NBL . They ran 1919 to 1921. A comprehensive thread is available on the CRA forums
Really it is a decade out of my time period, but Hattons were selling them at low prices so I bought one ( BR, ex GWR version ) just to see what I could do with it.
First off loco chassis. I could buy all the stuff a
