Leaderboard

Haroldston East is a layout that lives next to my desk. In fact, the removable fiddle yard runs along the back of the desk while attached to the layout. The layout measures about 6' wide by 1'4" deep and is built on one baseboard 8" high. The height is taken up by shelves for storing rolling stock and road vehicles not in use on the layout. The removable fiddle yard adds about 5' to the layout, giving plenty of room to run trains onto and off of the layout. The track plan is a little extravagant for a small station, featuring a double slip. The passenger platform is unusually situated beyond the loop, as this makes more room for shunting freight wagons. There were a few stations with similar arrangements. A locomotive, having brought a passenger train into the platform, must propel the stock out in order to run round, before propelling the stock back into the platform. Multiple units, which I hope will feature on the layout soon, don't suffer from this problem. Wiring is all DCC. Points are a mix of Peco insulfrog and electrofrog types. They are all animated by servo motors controlled from the DCC controller. At present, the track and basic scenery are complete. I still need to add the coal yard, some more trees and more low-relief buildings near the platform. The fiddle yard currently has just one track, but it has been designed for conversion to a cassette system for lengths up to 3'. The date for the layout isn't set exactly. The year is roughly 1960, but BR blue diesels and a Terrier appear from time to time. Here's a lineup of the regular locomotives on the layout; all Midland Railway or LMS types. Something the layout could do with is some more appropriate rolling stock - I'll keep a look out for some LMS van and open wagon kits. Apart from that, there are plenty of details to add that will keep me busy all Winter. Please let me know what you think of the layout so far in the comments.

Now I'm back from the UK and have some time to spare here is the update on the van. I'm limiting this to pictures only. wheel parts chassis parts and technical plans 1 assembled chassis 2 wheel silicon mould 3 tyre parts etc with one wheel completed van body painted van body from different angles, windows are blanked out for painting but are clear plastic underneath cheers

Except for the buffer heads and final finishing, my Brassmasters Jubilee in now structurally complete, ready for painting, except...... More problems have arisen, so it's currently a series of ups and downs. Final assembly and attachment to the tender has confirmed that the fall plate(s) will have to be omitted or heavily modified. As modelled, they probably work fine with the Stanier 4000 gallon tender, but with the Fowler 3500 they are too wide and long. This results in them jamming under the cab doors and contacting the filler plates that surround the brake and water scoop columns, preventing any angular movement of the tender relative to the loco to follow curves. I could trim the fall plates to miss the filler plates, but that would still leave the cab door issue. I'll have to see about that. I've previously mentioned the DCC chip problems and partial recovery and I confidently expected coupling of the tender pick up wires to the loco would help improve the loco response, but it hasn't really improved matters, so, presumably, it's not just a pick up issue. What is worse, is that now everything is connected, electrically, I seem to have introduced a dead short in the reverse direction only. Since it shorts one way but not the other, the short must be due to some movement withing the pick up arrangements, possibly due to the loco suspension. There doesn't seam to be a mechanism for the problem to be with the tender pick up arrangements, so I'll have to investigate the loco. At present, the motor is only constrained from movement by the (quite stiff) connecting wires and I've noticed that the front brake blocks are perilously close to the wheels, so they will be my first bits to check out. There isn't a lot of clearance between the brake hangers and the rear wheels of the bogie, so any stretching of the front brake pull rod will have to be done very carefully, so as not to transfer the problem! The other area to look at is contact of the wheels inside the splashers. Perhaps when the loco pushes the tender, the draw-bar forces tend to push the rear of the loco slightly to one side, causing the drivers to touch inside the splasher. Mind you, for that to cause a dead short, something on the other side would also have to be touching at the same time. Isn't fault finding so much more of a challenge that building in the first place? Anyway, here are three shots of the loco before it comes apart to investigate the above issues. I've even temporarily fitted the front number plate (45701) and shed plate (26A - Newton Heath). Unusually, my chosen loco remained at this shed for nearly its whole working life, returning after works visits. Side on traditional front three quarters view and, finally, a rear three quarters view. Dave.

I've recently been lucky enough to get hold of a Farish 37 in EWS livery, so it's been through the shops to get lowered to reduce the gap between body and bogies and to get a dose of weathering. Usual mix of enamel washes and powders and a spray of dullcote. Still some details to still pick out, but I'm pleased with how it's come out - it's already become one of my favourite locos!

My painted and weathered Crab was returned home this afternoon and very nice it looks to me. The apparent strange angle of the front steps in the last photo I posted which raised comment was, happily, an optical illusion or due to barreling of the camera lens. Here are some shots of it parked in front of the Jubilee. Now to fit the DCC chip and front AJ coupling. I'll have to try to source the correct shed plate - Farnley Junction, 55C. Dave.

This was a bit of a diversion for me as I have been a bit too busy to build recently. I've also stalled on the oil depot. (I plan to pick that project back up after Christmas.) But anyway, back in April I repurposed some poorly designed cattle wagons into scrap-carrying wagons. This is what they looked like: I have recently joined a Facebook group about Lego trains and I saw someone had built an open gondola wagon that used inverted panels for the sides of the wagon. The panels have little edges, which means they seem to have little ribs, much like industrial hoppers or gondolas have in the real world. I went and had a look in my boxes of bits, which included quite a few pieces from some Star Wars Imperial Troop Carrier sets that I had bought a while ago for the Stormtrooper mini-figures when the sets were on sale. (I've built one of the troop carriers, but two stayed in bits.) I stripped the fencing-style edges off the scrap wagons and used the panels I had to try out how the wagon could look. I felt the wedge plates on the end looked good. I also tried it with some inverted slopes out of the troop carrier sets. I didn't take a photo of that experiment but decided it would be the way forward. I realised I needed more parts and so placed an order on Bricklink.com. I used the Wants List system on Bricklink, listing the parts I needed and then finding one dealer who had all of them in stock. Then came the long, slow wait for a box of Lego bits to be delivered... (I added in the train employee to boost it over the minimum order limit. He'll be working in my freight yard soon enough. The brown supports will also be useful somewhere.) I ordered a mix of panel sizes to see which ones worked out better - one wagon has the short panels (2 bricks high) and one has the large ones (3 bricks high). The wedge plates give the ends a bit of definition and look like the kind of reinforcing a wagon end might need. Unloading could b difficult so I have added doors in the middle of the wagons. There are a couple of things I'm not really sure about. I like the inverted slopes as 'ribs' but the width of the tiles used on the top of the wagon puts the panels into shadow. I could use thinner tiles, I suppose and maybe have smaller doors. In which case I need to buy some more panels. I also wasn't sure if the short panels worked on top of the 1x4 brick with a line, so I swapped them round. I like this version more but it's still not ideal. You can see the width of the tiles on the top of the wagon in this final photo. In real life the wagons look alright, but I will probably end up changing these tiles. So, in conclusion, these were a fun build and I am reasonably pleased with them. I think I will revisit the issue of the upper tiles though. The 3 brick high panels look a bit better to me, so I might order more of them and replace the 2 brick high panels. I might also look to build a longer gondola similar to the one I saw in the original photo that inspired these. As ever, thanks for reading and have a happy Christmas!

Before the Parkside kit was announced, I fancied a pair of gunpowder vans via the established route of elderly Ratio Iron Mink kit plus Shirescenes etched brass sides. Unfortunately I cocked up the painting of the first van so it sat in a cupboard gathering dust, until I needed to get the Modelstrip out for another project. Having stripped and resprayed one van, I thought that was as good an incentive as any to do the second one, so another evening was spent with the Ratio and Shirescenes parts. I assembled both vans as per the instructions, except that I also filled in and removed the ventilator from each end of the wagon. Somewhere along the way I'd also managed to lose the etched door locking gear from one of the van sides, so a fair approximation was then botched together from wire and plastic. Incidentally I seem to remember that there are some dimensional issues with the Ratio Mink, but since I'll only be operating this pair of vehicles, they'll at least be consistent with each other. I imagine if the Parkside one is substantially more accurate, it might look a bit odd in the same setting. The transfers were from Fox, and there are enough on the sheet to do three vans. I've yet to add the "GPV" letters to the ends, and it's a good job there are enough for three as I ruined a few of the letters before getting into my stride. I have just enough GPVs to finish them off. In typical Barry Ten fashion, too, I managed to misplace my copy of Beard et al so couldn't track down any prototype lettering info beyond what was available on the internet. From what I can gather, the placement of the GPV's and GWs varied considerably, and some of these wagons also had "gunpowder van" in white lettering. However, in the end I found a photo of a 3mm Iron Mink which was the basis for my lettering for both vehicles. I know it's not really the done thing to model a model, but the 3mm model looks plausible to me. Still a few things to be done, and roofs painted, but nearly there, and I'm pleased with the "different but still GWR" look of them. Now I need to find how these vehicles were marshalled into trains.