Good Day everyone, it has indeed been a long time since I wrote anything new on here (2 months), but I have been busy replacing the lamp irons on all my rolling stock, and fitting them where they are required, but are sadly missing, this has been a long process, with about 25 fitted wagons, 10 locos, 3 non-corridor bogie coaches and a dozen NPCCS vehicles completed- still to be done are 6 gangwayed bogie coaches.
This all came about when I realized that I was not really happy with just attaching the Springside lamps with glue permanently, or 'black tack' temporary, to my rolling stock - no, I wanted to be able to "ring the changes" and set the correct lamp code for the duty each loco was performing, and add a tail lamp to whatever vehicle was at the rear of my trains- I also wanted my brake vans to be able to carry removable side-lamps too.

So, what to do?, the answer was found in the Railway Modeller for June 2015, an article by Owen Edis titled "New lamps for old locos" (p514) in which he suggests using small staples cut and bent to shape, to represent lamp irons for his locos and rolling stock.

I cannot therefore accept any praise for this idea- it's his, I have simply copied it.   First I drilled out 0.7mm holes in the centre of the base of all the lamps, to depth of just over 2mm using a pin-vice (drill).
Next step was to take the paper staples (10mm) and cut them with a small pair of side cutters, using the bends already in them to get the shape required and approx 2mm high. This is reasonably easy for ex LMS or BR locos and stock - but much more difficult for ex GWR ones due to the double bend in their lamp irons, tricky....I used a small pair of flat blade pliers.

It was at this stage I found that the "Carpet Monster" claimed many of my products as they 'pinged ' off into space never to be found - except by my wife when she hoovered the carpet days later...
Once you have obtained a suitable lamp iron, the job of fitting it begins, using the internet to search - lots of "Googleing" of images to ascertain the correct positions for my stock with no lamp irons fitted.
Next drill the hole 0.7mm diam in the loco at correct location (if required for a new lamp iron) or use existing holes from the previously removed one, then superglue it carefully in place and finally, a coat of matt black (Humbrol 33) and plenty of time to dry.  Repeat endlessly...


My stock is a relatively new mix of Bachmann/Hornby/Dapol so many of them had some lamp irons of various types and sizes - most of them I removed, (trying to be clever and standardize) many, although in the correct place scaled out at over 6" wide and would not fit the holes drilled in the lamps,some were moulded and of no use for fitting lamps onto, some also were made of fragile plastic and although looking nice clearly would not be man enough for the task, and others although well made (metal) and of the correct size were just too close to the body to allow a lamp to be fitted on them - this being a product of the fact that the hole was drilled in the centre of the Springside" lamp base ...whereas the real lamps had the slot to fit them onto the lamp brackets either at the side (ex GWR, and side-lamps) or at the rear.

I also fitted a couple of new lamp irons for the "spare lamp" positions on the left hand side of the running plate that seem to be peculiar to all of my ex GWR locos.

All this was going very well until I came to my last loco - a Bachmann 3mt Prairie tank, This is my favourite and it is exquisitely detailed, it has a full set of scale metal lamp irons (GWR pattern) fitted, so time for a bit of thinking on this one....
- and I must confess I baulked at the prospect of tearing them all out and then substituting bent staples...So what to do??

Plan B. Drill out all the head and tail lamps to a larger diameter (0.9mm)- no problem and hurrah! they fit onto all this locos lamp irons, but were now a bit "loose" on the other locos with the staple versions, this would not do...more thinking, and then the solution was found."Simples"!!

,"Black tack" to the rescue!! a small piece was inserted into the drilled hole in every lamp (except the holes in the brake van side-lamps which I had not enlarged, as they were only ever going to be fitted to my 2 brake vans).
Success!! The lamps could now be fitted to any of my locos front or rear, and could show the correct codes, likewise all my NPCCS,the 3 coaches and all my fitted wagons could ,if necessary carry a tail-lamp...Result!

All that is left now is to tackle 6 corridor bogie coaches, which seem to have the lamp bracket moulded in soft plastic on the l.h side of the gangway connections at each end, more shenanigans with staples methinks!!
This has been a long struggle to equip all my stock,and many nasty words have been uttered (by me...) but now thats nearly it.
So my next task will be to add whitemetal fire-irons (Springside!) where possible to all my locos.....wish me luck!!
Lastly I would like to apologize for the poorer quality of the photos in my blog now, I was previously using an Iphone 4s belonging to my company (Network Rail) to take photos of Sproston - it was very handy for getting into small places, crap as a phone - but very good as a camera!!

It was about 4 years old, and the only thing I asked if I could keep when I recently retired after 24 years railway service - but they said no!!! (I expect it was given to one of my managers children as a freebie, - my replacement would have been given a brand new Iphone 6s to use )

So NOT a caring company really....

I am now using a cheap compact camera - which has not got such a good quality lens.
Any observations - good or bad always welcomed....please feel free to comment.
Regards
SIGTECH(Steve).