A bit more done to the Supertram CAD, there's a couple of little bits to sort on the body (front rubber bumper is one) but the bodf is nearly there now.
Chassis and articulation is next to be sorted, but that's more 'modelling' than copying the prototype.
Few more pics
Whilst nothing much has been happening with Grime Street......see previous entry about Sheffield Grimeside..... I've been giving some thought about its future, I'll be honest I like building stuff rather than operating and with pressure of work being another contributory factor taking it out was becoming less enjoyable than previously.
So serious thought time ensued the upshot being as it stands at the moment Grime St will be departing for pastures new most likely early in the new year.
One thing I've been messing about with lately is a Scammell Scarab for the Faller Car System, last night it reached the point of 'trial run'
Whilst it's long way off finished it's getting there, based on the Oxford version with DIY steering, Nigel Lawton motor etc
Very quick mobile video.
Finally got round to getting the Wiking Control87 vehicle up and running at Doncaster last weekend.....it will be a bit of a learning curve getting it to drive it well....but I'll get there.....hopefully!
The very first go on Grime St is shown bellow....yes it's not great!
So, as a DHL box van doesn't really go the plan is to build it into something like this.....
https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7496/15490092630_098d7fe14d_m.jpg
Probably use an RTI resin cab, married to a pa
Leeds 600 was one of my earliest FUD prints now approx 5 and a half years old, never been happy with either its performance or finish....
So a 19mm powered Bullant/dummy Bullant have been fitted into the Halling C mech chassis frame, definitely better so far, the drive unit on this is another 38.5:1 Belt drive unit and has 'plenty' to shift the 3d print body.
Th body had been primed and painted using aerosols and the question was how to strip this back, previously I've used Dettol and Is
As was mentioned before I'd ordered some 'Easy Street' girder rail for the proposed extension to'Grime Street', it's produced in the US and available from http://www.proto87.c...tcar-track.html (usual disclaimer)
So what do you get?
Well this is a twin left hand points module, as you can see you also need the plain and curved track sections to complete a working point, so I duly ordered some! Also shown is one of the downloadable drawings available on the Proto 87 website, these ar
Now being a sucker for moving road vehicles on the FCS and obviously the Magnorail cyclist I must admit I'm tempted to add a Wiking Control87 vehicle into the mix....
These being very much like the FCS vehicles but radio controlled....not a cheap item but one of the trucks altered to say a BRS wagon being reversed in and out of some of the factory yards on Grime St would create a bit of interest at exhibitions I think.
A gimmick? Yeah probably but I always view it that we're there to ent
One or two of my regular readers (optimistic here!) may know that Grime Street was due to be at the Warley show very shortly.....
Unfortunately I've had to withdraw and we won't be attending, last week my van and approx £3k of tools were stolen from where I was working, yep Grime Street had it's own van to travel in.....it doesn't now.
Obviously this has impacted heavily on my available time to prep/work/exhibit, you name it...not easy trying to keep going when half your kit has disappea
I've managed to fit a number of Bullants to various trams....very happy with the running these have now done....superior in pretty much every way to anything that I'd tried before, overall this is definitely the way forward for the Grime St fleet.
A quick video of two Bullant powered reworked Horsfields. This was filmed yesterday at the Hazel Grove show.
Most if not all of my fleet of trams run on Halling or Halling derived mechanisms, up till recently I've been fairly happy with their running yes slower would be nicer, I too hate 100mph, crash stop, 100mph, crash stop, 100mph running as seems to be the norm on some tram layouts, to a degree unless you're prepard to build your own the tram market is governed by what's available....and that's a whole lot less than the railway side of things!
As Grime Street has grown even the Hallings are get
As per the last post we spent the weekend at the Halifax MRC show, well looked after and a really enjoyable weekend, it was also nice to be home with layout all down and packed in less than an hour!
The self promotion bit, well I was a bit shocked to be presented with the best layout trophy, previous winners including Barrowfleet and Liverpool Lime Street, so to be even considered pretty much made my day.....chuffed to bits as we say up here!
Me and a cup.....
Well Faller car system like....both use Faller front axles, steering guide, motor mount and wheels but the rest from other suppliers. The motor is 12v rated mini motor from Nigel Lawton, this fits directly into a 10mm Faller motor mount, battery is a 3v rated half AA. that coupled with a diode drops the speed to something acceptable, even better I called into Tesco today to find all their half AA Duracells were on half price sale!
One is the previously seen YWD Leyland Olympic the other a B
The reworked original section made its debut at the Southwold show this last weekend....lots really still to do but passable....anyway a couple of pre show pics showing the new 'opened out' extreme right hand end..........
Well sort of........
I suppose like everyone else I'm never happy with some stuff so as the 'new' railway section on Grime St has really begun to take shape (3 road fiddle yard built on one board and a cantilevered one in progress for the other end) I decided that a revamp of the original board was due, so large blunt instruments were brought into play.....resulting in this mess....
I've decided to add in another loop and a better (more depth) side street on the original board, by d
My latest madcap idea for more moving road vehicles is to see if I can alter the n gauge Tomytec bus to power a 4mm truck, the Tomytec bus is on examination almost a Faller copy to a degree, the front axle whilst not the same is similar using 1mm brass pins for the wheel attachment, five minutes after opening the box the rear axle was out and swapped for a Faller one with larger wheels.
As far as I know the Tomytec operates exactly the same as a Faller vehicle, in so much as the reed switch
Not quite as the Mod era is a bit late for the Grime Street period, so here's 'Bert' taking his newly purchased Lambretta LD125 for a quick spin.
Or in reality the old Airfix scooter and rider messed about with to run on the Magnorail circuit, needs a little bit of fine tuning but getting there.
Now does anyone do a 'Bubble Car' in 4mm?
The Grime Street team had an outing to Peterborough this weekend to exhibit at the Festival of Railway Modelling, we had a very enjoyable if busy weekend, the layout seemed to go down well and I was fairly busy answering questions, mainly about the cyclist....
We were well looked after and had a thoroughly great time and it was great to chat to several RMweb members from the boss down.....!
I'll be honest and say I didn't really get to see as much of the show as I'd have liked but that's
Prior to the festival of model trams in July there was a rapid period of building to add a 'jointing board' to Andy Burrow's Florin Street layout, the two Leeds tram layouts live 250 miles apart so construction to join the two for inter running had a few minor difficulties but we did manage it and it will happen again (and better) in the future where the two layouts are in attendance. This involved building a double junction off the original layout (to the right hand end) and a small board to jo
Well no, it's Rochdale Town Hall about 3pm this afternoon, as sort of requested here's a short video clip that was kindly sent to me by a visitor to the Heywood MRG show this afternoon.
Road vehicles, trams and that bloody cyclist again! I now need eyes in the back of my head but fortunately no serious crashes!
What's that thing they have on the back of trucks now, 'do not pass on the nearside' ? Well more by luck than good management I've managed not to mangle a cyclist with a sideswipe. smile emoticon
I've re done quite a bit of the Faller circuits using magnetic strip so was having a bit of a test before scribing the new plaster bits....
Sorry about video quality but trying to get it all together at the same time was fun....
There are quite a few ongoing projects at the moment mainly FUD prints but a few other bits and pieces.
First up is Leeds post war car 276, this was to be the prototype for a batch of 50 , unfortunately it never progressed beyond this one, this proved to be the last complete tram built at Kirkstall Rd works, (601 and 602 were built by Roe at Crossgates and 600 was nominally a rebuild)
Shown in the second of it's three liveries (light blue, dark blue then red). FUD print body, scratch bui
Very few of the trucksides used for the Leeds tram fleet have had to been produced as there are plenty of resin or white metal cast parts about. However there wasn't anything for the EMB pivotal trucksides used on the Chamberlain cars that became known as Pivotals obviously due to their trucks, which in theory were meant to combine the best of the 4 wheel and bogie designs, in practice they weren't a success as the linkages needed plenty of maintenance to work well, the majority of the time in u
A cryptic heading....however I was fairly amazed recently when the Grime Street Blog ticked over to 100,000 plus views, I can only put it down to a stuck F5 button on my various laptops!
To be honest I'm always gobsmacked that anyone is interested in what I'm doing, the subject matter is hardly mainstream add that to my ramblings, well 'nuff said! So thank you to all who have looked in and taken an interest, whilst I doubt it's inspired many I do hope it's shown that modelling trams doesn't
Well that was rather an eventful month or two, having missed RMWeb live through illness, next outing was Leeds MRC show this last weekend, as the layout doesn't often get put up in its full form now (it's getting too big!) opportunity was taken to get a few pics of the current state of play. It's as complete as it has ever been, but you know the old mantra....'it's never......' well that remains the case.
Several things are planned before its next outing in February (Rochdale) but as per nor
As per the recent entry Grime Street board 3 made its public debut at the Festival of Model Tramways last weekend.....
The whole event wasn't without stress and drawbacks as I didn't quite manage to get quite a few things finished in time (ie stringing the overhead at 11.30, painting the road surface at 12.30 the night before and the weathering the road surface at 5 am before loading and heading for the show is not good for your stress levels)
However the one thing that did perform faul
