Leaderboard

Over the weekend I did some work on the washer plant. This machine took the sand from the resolving screen and washed it removing the small particles of clay.The mixed water and sand would be pumped to a cyclone separator where the water would be removed. On the previous version of Fen End Pit the trough was brick built but I wasn't really happy with this. I decided to reuse some of the rusty plasticard from the original fiddle-yard and make the main part of the tank out of this, surrounding it with a low wall. I'm quite happy with the general look but can't make up my mind about the position of the 'gubbins' on top. Does it look better with the cat-walk at the front. or at the rear? While the FDM printer chugged away all weekend making walls I used the resin printer to make some track components. These are only meant to be for show rather than running, no industrial railway system should be without a few track panels ready for use. I made the sleepers with holes in for the rail fast and then a separate sprue with lots of little bolts. The whole lot sticks together with superglue. David

It is not rare that we would like to feature a guest engine on our layouts. In the Rev Awdry's case with his Ffarquhar layout, guest engines would sometimes make an appearance. 'Duck' being one engine, though he is more of a spare engine than a guest engine. The guest engines would make an appearance during the third or ending of the layout's operating sequence and would be in charge of an enthusiast train which would comprise of two modified Airfix Railbus kits. For my layout I will be replicating some fo the guest engines and will begin with the first, Stepney. Stepney was a visitor for Thomas back in 1963 when he came to the North Western Railway from The Bluebell Railway. Since his arrival he has worked on the Ffarquhar Branch as a spare engine and helped double head an express with Duck after a visiting diesel failed. To help the artist of the book which features him, The Rev Awdry made a model of Stepney using a K's/ Keyser kit. After Stepney's book was publish, the model went on to being a regular visitor to the layout at shows and still runs to this day. Bringing Stepney to the Ffarquhar Branch would be something special and also something new for visitors to see. The first thing was to find a terrier kit, the same as the original. As chance would have it, one came up on eBay. It was halfway built but still had all the essential items that were needed to make the model. Some non essential items that were attached to the model had to be removed before any painting could be done. Once the model was prepped and went through test run to see that everything was in working order, the paint could be gathered. Now Improved Engine Green is what Stepney carries for his current livery but the original model of him carried a different shade. Back then, you had to make do with what colour suited best and in Stepney's case, the Rev Awdry painted him in a colour which close to represent IEG. Using profile photos I took of the original model back in 2016, I went through different paint charts to find the right colour. In the end, Revell 17 "African brown" was the chosen colour with Humbrol 20 & 30 for detailing features. One thing that I had to be aware of was that the lining on Stepney's original model, except the boiler bands, was hand painted. So with the use of a bow pen I carefully did my best to replicate Stepney's livery. With one side done, the model starts to look like the engine. His name and number will be done last as I will need to carefully mark it out, ready to be painted on. This is how Stepney currently looks right now and I think he's starting to take shape. What d'you think?

In 2013 I wrote an article for LMS Review on the then new Bachmann 4F. One of the two I purchased was 43875 which visited the Bristol shed. My intention was to convert it to P4 for the layout and a couple of years ago I purchased an Easi-Chassis kit from Brassmasters and started the conversion. This ground to a halt early in 2017 pending a decision on which method of pick-ups to use. Over the past week I have completed the project - not the easiest conversion to attempt - and this afternoon the 4F was tested on a freight on the layout. Here is a video of the test freight train. Especially for you John:-) Thanks to Morgan for the loan of the stock.

Things are really starting to come together on the 47xx, at the current rate of progress I would say there is less than a week’s work remaining until it will be finished (so I should certainly achieve my main aim of beating the Heljan model. The first task last night was to finally get those top feed pipes added to the lower boiler, these were formed from L shaped lengths of 1mm brass rod glued into the resin boiler and then soldered to the footplate. There is a certain logic which says I would have been better off fitting them post painting and leaving unpainted, however I wanted one end soldered into place. With that complete I dismantled the chassis, then gave body, chassis and tender tank a good wash (before drying in the airing cupboard). While the completed assemblies dried, it was out with the soldering iron. The first job was soldering a screw coupling in place on the back of the loco, I see no point in building a kit built loco to an intermediate standard. Unfortunately during the process I managed to brake off the buffer beam and had to reattach. While cleaning up the parts I spotted the missing bolts between chassis and frames, so these were chopped to length and soldered into position on the chassis (before removing excess solder to ensure a good fit with the tank.) The frames assembly was folded to shape before having the spacers soldered into position. The axle holes were opened up to match the bearings, which were then soldered into position (using a spare Gibson axle to ensure each pair was aligned. This was followed by fitting the wheels, in order that I could fully align the breaks which were next to be soldered into position. This just needs wheels removing in order to paint. At this point I figured the other parts would have dried so took them outside for a coat of grey Halfords etch primer (it’s a shame they don’t do it in black!). While I was out there I also gave the tender tank a coat of white primer, I am a little concerned as to how the etch primer will work with plastics and resins, with the former I have some scrap coach to test on but the latter was more difficult. The solution, prime before assembly and then I am just applying etch primer over the same brand of regular primer. It seemed to work well enough on the loco body at least so fingers cross will also work on the tender. The final task achieved last night was the fitting of buffers to the tender. My usual preference is to glue in place after painting (as I like to fit buffers as a complete unit), however the clearances between the frames and housing looked tight, so I assumed some soldering adjustment was needed. This leads me to one of my biggest bug bares with etched kits, If you supply buffers with your kits with a 3.2mm boss on the back. It would really help if the holes for fitting them were etched to the same diameter! In this case they were etched to less than 2mm, and while opening the holes out to match the buffers I managed to brake off the buffer beam (again!). Taking advantage of the beam off model I opened up the holes (and repaired the soldering after the half etched front piece delaminated), then soldered the buffer housings into position. After reassembling the buffers I then soldered the beam into the correct position on the model The Plan: Tonight: Spray loco body green + chassis black. Finish remaining soldering on tender (steps / end) Tomorrow: Fit castings / hand rails to tender, work out loco to tender fitting (missing from loco chassis). Paint inside of frames red. Prime tender Thursday: Paint tender body / chassis, reassemble loco chassis Friday: Finish tender painting, build cylinders, test run Weekend: Apply tender crests, buffer beam numbers, detail painting. At the moment I see two potential hold ups, running out of Rover Brooklands Green tonight and the fact that I seem to be missing the washers to solder the conrods into position. For the former a trip to Halfords at lunchtime tomorrow will resolve, the latter is a bit trickier and may be resolved by buying new crank pins. The other outstanding question is the chassis wiring, the model will need a DCC decoder but currently has a live chassis. I am worried about the risk of a short circuit between a pickup or wheel and the live chassis killing a decoder. The solution would be to buy 4 more wheels that are insulated and to sell the 4 live ones, I could also replace the crank pins with the ‘deluxe’ screw version that I prefer at the same time….

Given that the 47xx body is now complete (with the exception of the top feed pipes which I keep forgetting to add!) My original thought was towards making a start on the cylinders assembly in order that I could finish off the chassis. However given that it will require shortening the lead crankpin, a task I do not want to do until I have soldered the washers into place to hold on the con rods) the cylinders will have to wait until I paint the chassis. Which reminds me I must go to Halfords and buy etch primer today!) Instead I made a start on building the tender. So far I have soldered up the main parts of the chassis, it’s a little disappointing not to have rivet detail on the valances or any detail on the draw beam. I also couldn’t understand why the valances, buffer beam and draw beam do not have the same tab and slot construction as the main sides. Still, it was all soldered together square before trying to clean up the excess solder. This was followed by adding the tank support brackets, after fettling to achieve a good fit between frame and valance. Finally on the chassis I soldered the draw bar mount into position, along with a shortened 10ba bolt. The next task was the one I was most dreading, adding the etched side to the top of the tender. The instructions stated to use 4mm diameter bar to form the curves, as well as mentioning a tab for alignment on the rear of the baseplate. Unfortunately this tab was over etched which made the alignment a little trickier. I used my own approach for forming curved sections in brass, after aligning the valance centrally on the baseplate I tack soldered the rear face into position (using a thick band of solder next to each corner). Once happy that it was square, I rolled the first side against the wooden desk, pressing it against the baseplate former. This was then tacked in position ensuing it was square, before completing the soldered joint along the whole edge. This was then repeated for the other side of the tender. With the valance in place, the next job was to add the front and rear bulkheads, fire iron tunnel and bunker front, before test fitting on the frame assembly. Tonight I am aiming to finish off the soldering on the front of the tender and get the 4 sub-assemblies joined together. Hopefully along with priming the loco body and chassis.

Nothing reported here over a few months doesn't mean nothing has been done, honest! Besides a month-long trip to visit family in New Zealand and Australia (from which it took a while to recover!) before Christmas, I've got a fair bit done on Tillingham, and it now resembles a model railway - in my opinion at least - rather than a random collection of stuff on a board. Talking of opinions, I had hoped that transferring the latest progress to a thread in Layout Topics might elicit a bit more comment and spur me on a bit more, but although it's been viewed a few times, not a sausage as regards any kind of comment, encouraging or otherwise! It may be totally mediocre or boring, I have no idea (hope not) so thought I'd bang a couple of recent pics on here, and link it, and see what happens. I'd assumed it was more likely to attract a bit of attention in the open forums...maybe not! Here's the link: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/130692-tillingham/ or just search Tillingham in Layout topics. I'd really like to hear a few thoughts on how it's been going as I've hopefully learned a lot going along, and have particularly enjoyed getting to grips with landscaping, buildings and a bit of detailing, as well as putting in a couple more electrical feeds to iron out some faltering in the goods yard. It's been nice to have a bit of a play with locos and a wagon or two in the scenic section before I reunite the board with it's "fiddle yard" partner and crack on with the rest of the smaller stuff and do some serious running while doing so. More photos in the layout forum post.

I had a quiet Christmas staying in, planning my new layout, the first in nearly 35yrs! I decided on a small quayside and branch line station, but where do I start?