Leaderboard

This post covers the the building of a 5&9 models "Jenny Lind" kit in EM gauge. Jenny Lind is a 2-2-2 with a six wheel tender. Singles often provide problems when it comes to powering them and this is no exception. Others have powered this kit using a modified High Level LongRider bogie and this is how I have done it as well. The only real modification is to add a central axle. The tender went together without a problem other than having to fabricate a footplate out of brass as the whitemetal one caused the tender to ride too high. I started on the locomotive next by fitting the valve gear. It is quite fiddly and delicate and should really have been etched, not cast. It went together ok in the end though. The frames were then fitted capturing the leading and trailing wheels. The boiler went together easily along with it's fittings. It is just sitting there in this picture, hence the funny angle. The only real problem I've encountered is with the driving wheel splashers. The inside diameter is the same as the diameter of the tread of the wheels. Therefore there is no room for the flange and even if there was the wheels would be in contact with the splashers and cause running problems and shorts. I think I will cut the top off the splashers and replace it with thin brass sheet. This will keep the same outside diameter while significantly increasing the inside diameter. The model will be finished in dark green with a burgundy underframe. White and black lining. More to come in future.

Hi all, It's been an age since I last updated this blog! Firstly, following a very enjoyable time at TINGS, I'd like to thank MikeJ and the North of England Line (NoEL) team for being most welcoming on the Sunday and letting play with some of my creations (no layout of my own again at present!). As seems to be the case in recent years, my own modelling picks up when I know I've got somewhere to run locomotives (and occasionally stock but not on this occasion) and TINGS was no exception. So, in eleven days two locomotives went from being raw 3D prints and an unaltered donor chassis into these: Above are my interpretations of Gresley's rebuilt C1 Atlantic 3279 and K2 4659. 3279: uses the Farish Jubilee chassis originally slated for a 'standard' C1 coupled to a Union Mills tender drive and tender assembled from a set of frames from a V2 and an old Farish A3 tender top (suitable cut down). The whole tender has been packed with as much lead as I could fit and amazingly haulage is almost as good as a standard Union Mills tender! 4659: is mounted on a Farish 4MT loco chassis and uses a Farish B1 tender drive with a 3D printed body. The loco body sits a little high at the front and I will be remedying this as and when I have the time and inclination. I've got some Farish B1's to convert into K3's (they've been sitting in their boxes for a couple of years now!) and I might do another K2 using this approach at a later date - the coupled wheelbase of the B1 is spot on for the K2 and just about correct for the K3! As Julia commented at TINGS, both these locos are too shiny at present but the paint had barely dried by the time they got their first runs! Both have some small bits of finishing work (i.e. line 3279's frames in red) but I'm really quite pleased with how they came out - especially 3279 as this is my first 'proper' attempt at an LNER green livery. Sorry to those who have already seen this video elsewhere but here is 3279 in action on NoEL hauling MikeJ's exquisite 'Queen of Scots' Pullman rake. One locomotive that didn't make it was this: My latest attempt at a standard C1 class Atlantic, I've still got a lot of problems with this and I don't think this latest choice of donor chassis/parts is a going concern... However, I've now got another Farish Jubilee chassis and will have (yet) another go using this sometime in the far flung future! So what is next? Selling my house! I'm pleased to say that just about everything pertaining to the big 'D' and the ice rink closure is now sorted (the ice rink is scheduled to be refurbished later this year - day job is safe but will be unemployed for a couple of months) but the house has to be sold before the end of the year. At the moment most of my free time has been spent decorating and generally sprucing the place up (with some much appreciated help from my parents - thank you guys!). I'll be moving back home for a few months to regroup before trying to get back on the property ladder nearer to work (I currently commute 40 miles a day and if I no longer need to, I'd rather not!). All that isn't to say that modelling is completely dead (although earlier this year is really was as my mojo had been completely lost and I was thinking about selling everything). I made a few impulse purchases at TINGS, all second hand or returned stock: All of the above will be converted into more appropriate stock for my 1930's LNER leanings (some initial ideas below)... I also bumped into Hans Starman of N-Stars at TINGS, he presented me with this: This is his end of a project to build an N gauge B2, 'Sir Sam Fay' class locomotive, the chassis is a converted Peco Jubilee while the tender drive is solely Han's work. As with every chassis I've seen from Hans, this one runs like a Swiss watch! Now I've got to complete my end of the bargain and design the body for the loco and tender (and sort out his etches but that's another story!). I wasn't very well last week so to keep myself going insane I came up with this during some of my better moments: With all the hype surrounding a certain Hornby product at the moment, I don't think anyone will need any explanation as to what this is going to be. The tender is straight off the Farish A1 while the chassis is two Dapol Britannia chassis spliced together and mounted on Dapol B1 wheels (the cylinders are off the B1 as well) - yes, this means the coupled wheelbase is slightly too long but I think this can be disguised with some careful placement of the pony and Cartazzi trucks. I've got some clearance issues to sort out to get the loco chassis free running but I'm encouraged that my latest bout of insanity looks like it might actually work! Meanwhile what to do with the rest of the A1? This is something I've wanted to do for awhile and I think it'll be something a bit different from the more common A3s and A4s you see running about! I'm not expecting lightly speed the above anytime soon, other life commitments have to take priority again. I've also got J6 and D49 commissions to squeeze in at some point as well (as well as a commission for another locomotive) so time is really going to be tight for the rest of the year - at least the D49 has a concept chassis made up: So, the end of a lengthy blog entry and in all likelihood the last one for awhile. Good modelling everybody!

I think GW loco men must of been underpaid so underfeed going by the width or the cab entry. Some time was spent looking at photos to see what went wrong. There is no drawing with the instructions. Over size bunker side sheets. I have a couple of bang on side shots. Using a pair of dividers I worked out it was 2/3 bunker and 1/3 opening. I will need to sort out the handrail so it takes up less space, and work out how to hide the old handrail holes and get rivet detail in them. As a matter of interest I tried the cast cab floor in place. Surprise surprise, it would only fit with the bunker side sheets reduced in length. The plus side I did get some of the tank top details soldered on. It seems to be bringing it to life now. I want to add a spacer to the smoke box so It can be screwed in place. I will do the same with the bunker too. Did not get much time at the bench today, which is disappointing after not doing anything model wise over the weekend. I had to degrout the car, we had take the bikes to a local park for a ride and managed to get so much sand in the car it looked like we had been to the beach. Tomorrow should be better.

Just a quick update. Crew fitted to the T9 and smoke box plate fitted from Fox. I also found the screw coupling and am quite happy with the end results as per the photos. It hauls 2 coaches just... I'll need to make sure layout is absolutely level though! Have put Wheal Elizabeth up and tested it ready for Scaleforum next weekend. There were a couple of running repairs but these have been fixed. Do come and say hello if you're at the show. Now, I can start to think about the next loco for construction. Definitely ex GWR and suitable for a Somerset branch line!

Returning to the project after a few days the bunker assembly has been attached to the rear of the main part of the loco: Apologies for the tape over the cab roof, have not yet looked at that bit yet!! The rear tender buffer beam from the donor Q1 loco has been cut off and added to the rear of the bunker replacing the GBL 4MT Standard one for more commonality (plus it has sprung buffers already fitted of course). Also added all be it with double sided tape temporarily are some side paneling below footplate level. These are simply strips of black plasticard (the extremely useful sheets of black plastic that Fox Transfers post with their products as straighteners, some of the most useful packaging supplies I have ever encountered!!!) cut to length and them an angle introduced at the leading edge. Some steps of some kind - a slot most likely - will be cut into these panels (hence their only temporary attachment for the moment) That is it for the moment however, I am away for a week and a half now during which no doubt I will suddenly be struck by another hair brained idea, or decided to model the Scottish Highlands instead!!!

Having a little early autumn interlude in Somerset now that number 3 child has departed the nest. Usual recipe... cottage, log burner, kits, books, local ales, walking, cycling, the odd visit to the local steam railway... 'oh, I didn't realise it was that close, fancy that eh?'. Also trying to see if I can do a blog post from the tablet, so anything might happen... Kit assembly with suitable surroundings... Suitable reading material. I've been saving this book for a suitable occasion. I must say that it does not disappoint... if like me you like photos of obscure railways in Plymouth. I haven't seen any mention of South Yard yet though. Maybe he is saving that for the next volume.

In truth we probably have - had friends staying this weekend and it took almost all week to get the house into a decent state - but that is not what this is about! Top of my list to sort out for the next outing is the traverser fiddle yard and have mad a bit of a start here. Have decided to look at a rather more low tech solution and as an experiment I knocked up a test slider from some laminate shelving. Actually seems to work pretty well now but will it with loads of weight on it and a fair helping of dust and other grot? The advantage of this over my previous attempt is that the rail height should be identical between the two pieces. I do have to make a couple of decisions though - do I leave the profile of the lower piece as is and use a traverser table again or omit the lower (locking) piece and just drop in several cassettes ? My worry about the cassette idea is that they will be pretty heavy and unwieldy. Problem with the traverser is that, as I intend to try and fit everything back into the existing baseboard frames is that I might only be able to manage three roads rather than the five I have at present. Possible answer to this though is that three roads that all work have to be better than five roads of which only one works! Another dilemma is do I use plain track or aluminum angle as seems popular. Am thinking that the angle might add anti warping strength to the fairly long boards and possible make re-railing wagons easier. Oh and yet another - do I use a run off at the other end for locos? I do have this on the current one and intended it to be used for running around trains but in practice it was easier to just pick the loco up and plonk it back at the other end. If I only end up with three roads I would then have to leave one clear for the run around. A thought has literally just occurred to me - could I have a cassette at the end just for the loco which would then be inserted at the other end? Yet another thing that I have been pondering is if I could get it to run on a length of M10 studding which I could turn with a handle. Will have to think all this through a bit but suggestions on any of the above would be most welcome!

Hello, welcome to my blog in which I will hopefully be able to share some of the things that I am modelling when time allows. I tend to have several projects on the boil at once and this often means I swap around doing different models as time and resources allow. My workbench at present has several different modelling projects on the go and the active ones are as follows: #Hornby Sentinel shunter - to be repainted into ICI Mond Orange, grey and white livery as per real shunters that wore this livery when working at ICI Tunstead quarry. #Bachmann Covhops - using the vacuum disk-braked bauxite version of the model I am converting these to through vac piped bauxite liveried wagons as per the recent article in Rail Express Modeller #Lima PCAs - some long-overdue repaints and renumbers for some friends. These have been stripped and repainted and need numbers, data panels etc. applying to them and new small size couplings replacing the original Lima big D couplings. Other projects in boxes include some Hornby HAA conversions to CBA lime hoppers; Hornby KFAs weathered up ready to become Greater Manchester binliner train with WildBoarModels excellent binliner containers; a pair of Bachmann HEA hoppers being repainted into a one off Railfreight General sector livery; kit wagons from Parkside and Chivers to be used as static abandoned wagons on my layout Speedlow; plus some resin and brass kits of ICI hoppers; plus a few more! My other modelling is related to my own layout that I have slowly been building for the past couple of years and is based on Railfreight operations in the Buxton area around 1989 to 1991 and will therefore feature lots of lovely private owner air-braked wagons plus lots of lovely Buxton allocated 37/5s plus visiting locos from 20s, 31s and 47s as appropriate. The layout is now at the stage where all the track has been laid and wired for DCC and tested for the first time to make sure it all worked correctly. The next stage will be to start ballasting the track then onto the scenic. So a wide variety of stuff on the go for me! Cheers Paul Edited: 1st April 2023 missing images restored.

Building a new small layout and have decided to go to DCC. So far I've put a decoder into my Heljan Class 15 which is working fine and a Bachmann 21 pin decoder into my Bachmann Warship which now doesn't work at all! Ho hum - off for repair to see what happened! I have a non DCC ready Bachmann 08 so I've bought a decoder to hardwire in. Control at the moment is a second hand basic Backman EZ controller but if everything goes well I'll upgrade to something a bit more sophisticated.

The bookshop has its interior. For the interior I used the pub interior from Scalescenes as a base and the bookcases are from a free download of Clever Models. The used illustrations and book covers I selected from internet. This was a job I liked to do. Unfortunately when you resize them to 4 mm scale the sometimes beautiful designs get lost. Therefor I selected the fronts more on colour them on design. Books are very tiny in 4 mm scale and hard to work with in card and paper. In the picture the whole interior with the shop window display next to small cup. My regular readers know I like to create a story behind a shop. I did this also for Walden Books. In the Northall Gazette of 26 October 1956 here was an article placed by the re-opening of the bookshop. And of course a picture of the finished shop front and the next overview picture. The used lightning is temporarily. But gives an impression of what I want to achieve when the diorama is finished. Advices and comments are much appreciated. Regards, Job PS. For those you like it the article of the Gazette in PDF:

Companion to the six wheeled composite of the previous entry is this D&S brake 3rd which as you can see, was built and painted to a lovely standard by Danny Pinnock many years ago, but in the interim has gained some less than appropriate weathering: I realigned some errant transfers, then again I tweaked the chocolate brown base to a rich chestnut with tinted mist coats, weathered it more appropriately as described in the last entry, and finally re-glazed the carriage with 0.13mm glass. Very pleased with the result, and so is the owner.

Those of you who were at the RMweb Live event and took a peek behind the layout would have seen the lash-up that was the control panel/programming track. I realized VERY late that I needed my OO rolling road/NCE power panel for the DCC demo so I cobbled something together from an old ice cream tub and a bit of old kitchen kick board. I had a spare panel and autoSW for the programming track. A short length of Peco flexi completed the arrangement and it all worked well at the show. This could not continue though so I set about planning something more permanent and it occurred to me that if I could make some multi gauge track I could fit the panel and autoSW to the uPVC shelf at the rear of the layout - this is common to all my layouts so would also work for Summat Colliery etc. Plastic Magic worked well with the Peco sleepers and I ended up with this Much neater and I now don't need to lug the rolling road "block" with me to shows - space is a premium in the Scooby especially with Fourgig Keen eyes will note that the OO track is offset so that there is also a 9mm track should I ever go mad and do an N gauge layout In all seriousness if anyone needs an N gauge programming track at a show I have one as well as OO and O

It's starting to come together. Not sure of the paint finishes for the tunnel mouth. I live in a small Spanish seaside town and it's not easy to buy modelling materials.

I’ve slowly started work on the next layout in the Farthing series. “The sidings” are inspired by an interesting arrangement at the back of Gloucester Old Yard, where a headshunt served a series of kickback sidings that gave access to a variety of facilities: One siding served a private “biscuit” depot, another served the local waterworks, and finally there was a backroad to the loco depot’s ash sidings and coaling stage. Above left is the overall layout at Gloucester (see this post for details). The headshunt is in red. On the right is the rudely simplified and manipulated trackplan that I have extracted from this to suit my available space and personal tastes. Trackplan Here is the plan again, as it will appear on the layout. The scenic part of the layout will focus on the “neck” of the headshunt (what I think the GWR would have called a shunting spur), as well as the biscuit- and waterworks sidings - all turned through 180 degrees compared to Gloucester. Also featured on the layout is the lowermost siding of the main yard, where Loco Coal and ash wagons are stored, as per Gloucester. The "backroad" siding leading to the loco depot is mostly off-scene, but still plays an important part in operating the layout. The rest of the station is represented by a simple fiddle yard. The headshunt and sidings can accommodate a minimum of 3 “standard” four-wheel wagons and a tank loco. The very short shunting spur emulates that at Gloucester. Operation The table above shows the main "moves" I can make on the layout. An interesting operational feature at Gloucester was the exchange of Loco Coal and ash wagons: These were stored in the main yard, and when needed they were picked up by the yard shunter, moved to the headshunt and turned over to the shed pilot, which then propelled them to the loco depot. The yard shunter also worked wagons into the “biscuit siding” and the waterworks. These features are carried over to my layout - although I'm taking some liberties: In reality the biscuit siding was partly operated by gravity shunting, but I’m not doing that! As for the waterworks, I don’t know exactly what the traffic was, but a bit of research and photos suggests coal in for the pumping engines, and waste ash out. As salt was sometimes used for water softening I also saw an opportunity to also run a salt wagon or two, until someone corrects me! Buildings I want to use this layout as a way to improve my skills at constructing prototype buildings. So I've been looking around for various prototypes that were either standard GWR or that I found interesting. Some will be replicated directly, others will be adapted. Biscuit shed. The actual shed at Gloucester wasn’t very inspiring, so I will base mine on a downsized version of the rather nice "beer shed" at Stratford on Avon. This is open at the front and thereby gives a view across the loading dock into the shed, as indicated above. It is closed at the back and thereby hides the small radius point and entry to the fiddle yard behind it. Stable block. Can’t have a Farthing layout without horses! And I’ve always wanted a stable block. It will be fairly large with 8-9 stalls, reflecting that Farthing is a medium-sized mainline junction. Similar to the one at Witney. Mess room. This was inspired by the lovely GWR building in Truro yard that CK has kindly shared some photos of here. Water works. Not sure how I will do this yet, and I may chose only to have the works lightly indicated. In any case I'm thinking something low, like these at Low Bradfield - althought it would be nice if I could find a prototype in GWR territory. Replaceable cameo. I’m pondering whether I can try out the idea of replaceable cameos in the waterworks siding, similar to the idea sketched out previously in this post. Above is an updated attempt at showing the overall scheme of things at Farthing so far. I don’t intend to actually join up the layouts in practice, but it’s nice to have a general storyline behind it all. Sadly I haven’t given much serious thought to this as I went along, which means it’s now a bit of a challenge to make it all fit into an overall plan that makes reasonable sense. Anyway, essentially we’re talking about a medium-sized junction station in a cutting, with some creative earthworks to accommodate the growing town around it. Shades of Newbury, a touch of Kings Meadow, and delusions of Gloucester! That's about it for now. My original idea was to set the layout in the 1940s, but after mulling it over I’ve decided to stick with my normal Edwardian timeframe. That won’t stop me from doing the odd “out of period” running session though!