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barrowroad's Blog

Bristol Barrow Road - Bachmann Compound 41140

My latest conversion of a RTR loco is Bachmann Compound 4P 41157 which I have renumbered 41140 as I have a photo of it on shed. Conversion follows my now standard method using Alan Gibson wheels with Markits 10BA crankpins, reusing the Bachmann motion. The tender has a Dave Franks chassis but this time I had to leave off the water pickup gear in order to add extra pickups on the two rear axles of the tender. I'm pleased with the conversion.   Here is a video of 41140 on a Glouceste
The locomotive history of Charlie Strong's yard.

Alfie Solomons Ruston & Hornsby 48DS

This little 48DS was acquired from a contractor's yard in Camden, in 1975. Whilst outwardly scruffy it was in good mechanical condition and was used regularly to shunt fuel oil deliveries to the Metal Box works. After the creation of Strong/Shelby's locomotive hire business, it was hired out to civil engineering contractors and the like. The loco was sold in 1982 and is believed to be in a private collection, somewhere in Shropshire.
Ruston

Ruston in A

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Mattington - 4mm Scale Layout

A new baseboard

Cleaning of locos and rolling stock has been ongoing, plus using the new mini vacuum to clean up loose dust and grit.    Started work on my CBus Canpan after deciding that this would be better than using the Canace8c as that doesn't have enough inputs. Work has slowed down a bit on the cbus but that is because i now have trains running. Plus i wanted to get the corner boards in before working out where the control panel is to go.   So for a week or so i have been thinking abo
MattB

MattB in Baseboards

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Brassey's Blog

GWR 0-6-0 Tender Engines - continued2...

As can been seen the Beyer Goods is pretty much done, painted and numbered 334, but is still sans the springs above the footplate.  It also features DCC sound in the tender!     The return of High Level meant that I got the RoadRunner gearbox for the Armstrong Standard Goods so the chassis is built.  I'm not too happy with the brakes that came with the kit but they fit and will be mainly hidden behind the outside frames.  I have finally standardized on 31.75mm for the axle l
Brassey

Brassey in GWR Engines

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Brassey's Blog

GWR Metro Progress

The two Metros have progressed in tandem.  Boiler bands added as the latest stage.  Next stage - attach the bunker to the whitemetal Wills kit after finishing the cab interior.      I finally got round to starting the Rod Neep kit a few weeks ago and a week off work has seen it almost finished.  It has filled -in coal rails on the bunker and will be finished in the pre-1908 livery hence the red wheels.  It will be 1445 which was at Ludlow in the Summer of 1912.   T
Brassey

Brassey in GWR Engines

8
Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

A little more back-drop completed.

I will not pretend the making of the passenger viaduct sides is now fun.  Found a burst of enthusiasm this weekend to complete another stage of the arches, etc., including the more difficult 'stretching' of brick panels and cutting bespoke piers, buttresses, etc.     The arch section of the extreme left need not be finished with another buttress, as it is to be hid by the end of the warehouse (still substituted by cardboard boxes).   Sadly, I can not say I am happy
Shelf Island

Wagons for Operations

This post is an index to the wagons seen in operations on the Shelf Island railway as I am modelling it in June 2012. I get completely muddled by the Continental designations for wagons hence the photos here.   The railway has a connection to Network Rail, and the wagons for revenue-creating operations listed here run onto Network Rail metals. The railway also has  wagons of its own for strictly internal use. Some of these take advantage of the railway's larger loading gauge, but hopef
47137

47137 in Editorial

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Shelf Island

Modern mess hut (Faller)

This model is my second attempt at a mess hut for 'Shelf Marshes'. The first ended up as a pleasant enough structure, but looking more like a village scout hut or sports pavilion. So I have tried a more neutral subject, a straight build of the Faller kit no. 130130 for a snack bar, they call this an 'Imbiss' or 'Imbissbude'. This model represents a prefabricated building, made in two halves and joined together on site:   The 'joining on site' part went slightly askew for me, only
47137

47137 in Structures

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The locomotive history of Charlie Strong's yard.

Yorkshire Engine Co. DE2 diesel-electric.

This Ruston V6-powered diesel-electric came to the yard from the former English Steel Corporation's River Don works, near Sheffield. It had led a hard life of moving huge forge ingots and casting cars around, and was smokey. It also leaked oil from the engine and was said to use as much oil per hour as it did diesel! It was used intermittently until one day in 1979 when a traction motor fire ended its usefulness.   It spent a couple of years parked in front of the doors of the former M
Ruston

Ruston in A

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Ullypug's tales from the tinking table

GWR 1361 Saddle Tank - Part 3

After quite a lengthy delay, the 1361 has been finished, painted and weathered this weekend. It was great to get the airbrush out, though my set up was a little rudimentary. I just need a name plate, crew and couplings. Oh and balance weights and coal... But I'm quite happy how this has turned out. There are naff all clearances between the wheel rims and underside of footplate (that's why the Kernow one had splashers) so Ive lifted the body up slightly. All runs well and the CSB's work
ullypug

ullypug in EM

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Lillian's Railway Musings

The Great Manchester Railway is born.

Well, its been a while since I posted one of these. Update time, if anyone is interested.   So, last time I left things off saying I wanted to do work with the Woodhead Route and its stock. That stills stands true, I do. But I've since then thought about expanding slightly into the realm of AU railways - which I know are popular, theres certainly room for a lot of speculative thought. What if it had expanded? What if these trains survived? And so on...   And so with my recent
DBC90024's Blog

Malcolm and Multimodal do Making Tracks at Chester Cathedral

7th August 2021 - Malcolm (90024) and Multimodal (90019) at Making Tracks     Having first laid eyes on the Chester Cathedral layout on Youtube several months ago, seen below on Hornby Magazine's clip, I just knew i had to see it, not on someone's video as such, but get out there and see it in the flesh, there have been a number of exhibitions where OLE layouts have been present but this was probably the first where i was either (a) able to get involved in or (b) had sufficient en
The locomotive history of Charlie Strong's yard.

The Cumbrian Engine

This powerful 16-inch saddletank, built By Andrew Barclay, Sons & Co. was built in 1943 and until arriving at Strong's yard, had worked at an iron works, on the Cumbrian coast. It was the victim of dieselisation, but still had life left in it. When the two tiny Ruston 48DS locomotives were not able to deal with the busier times, and longer trains, with larger wagons, the Cumbrian Engine was pressed into service. In 1968 it was converted to oil-firing and used filtered waste oil that was drai
Ruston

Ruston in A

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Kelvinbank, a Caledonian Railway project.

CR Grampian corridor stock , part 5, running trial

A bit of progress. Four bodies are now on frames and I have been playing on the layout to iron out any running issues.   I wanted to try and get it to look as if the coaches are properly coupled. Even with springs I found that screw couplings didn’t really keep the buffers together on curves, and I wanted the buffers to compress to take up and rattle.   I came up with this. Essentially half an aj on a diamond spring it is stiffer then the buffer springs but can be extended to
Dave John

Dave John in General

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Fen End Pit's Blog

More 3D printed Irish wagons (and a J17 back-head)

I had the opportunity over the last few weeks to model up a batch of Cavan and Leitrim four wheel vans. These started out as rather odd wagons, with an external wooden frame and a central section of roof left open to be covered with a tarpaulin. Apparently they  doubled up as both general goods vans and cattle wagons depending on weather it was cattle market day! As with all things C&L they were rebuilt over the years and the appearance in later years depended very strongly on who was in the
DBC90024's Blog

Johnson Street IEMD - Loco update - 1st August 2021 - Bachmann Class 90 testing - Double heading - Multimodal, Malcolm and DB Blue, sorry Bill !!!

1st August 2021   Having recently attended the Making Tracks event at Chester Cathedral a few weeks ago and firstly got stuck in traffic, secondly, got stuck with my CVs - Bill made a oh so brief but not very impressive appearance - Jack, faired slightly better - see third and fourth clips - and possibly a tiny little boob with the coupling rods on the Bachmann intermodals, a third time lucky mission was sought, and in order to do this, my Skoda CVs needed adjustment and through this p
Mattington - 4mm Scale Layout

Trains running for first time in months

Back in May 2019 I packed the layout away expecting it to be up and running again in about 12 months. Here we are over 2 years later and it's finally installed and working. A big pat on the back for me. It's being a crazy year what with house structural problems and other personal matters to deal with   Here we are then. This board now in its 17th year and 4th home has been rewired with new merg cbus electronics soon to be installed. I've added a narrow board for the new analog upper l
MattB

MattB in Layout Wiring

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Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

'Sliding doors' ; or, putting a wagon under the knife.

Ignoring the urgent jobs that need doing on the layout - cleaning track, painting ballast, finishing brick-work, and painting the poor Yard Foreman! - on Wednesday I wondered how difficult it would be to cut open the doors on a Bachmann VBB van.  With only the Hornby VIX to pose as being loaded in East Yard, I wanted a change.  To my surprise, armed with a new blade in the Stanley knife and a metal edge, it was a doddle.  I spent this morning making some loads for the large pallets, and here is
Shelf Island

AAEC container flat (Roco)

The railway has to be able to handle intermodal traffic from time to time. The choice of suitable RTR container flats is extremely limited - I know of only a Megafret twin-set by Brawa. This is quite an unwieldy item on a small layout, and I find it difficult to keep the model on my track where there is a succession of gradients and curves.   I think a 2-axle PFA would suit the layout, but for the time being my solution is the Roco model of a Swiss wagon, supplied with two swap bodies

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