[First encounter with the general public]

Sorry, it's just on my phone

[A London & Birmingham Novelty]

The engraver is not much cop if he makes a basic mistake like that.

 

The engine up front looks to be a 0-2-2 like Rocket, not a 2-2-0 like the L&B Bury passenger engines, or indeed the L&M's Planet which replaced Rocket and it's class.

[From All Fools to Mayday - the April Report]

Locally produced clay tiles come from Thakeham, and they had a narrow gauge railway inside the works until 1980. When closed the management donated the lot to the nearby Amberley museum. A couple of photos of the system are in the Middleton Press book on Industrial railways in the South East.

[Melting in the heat, but we still make progress]

I'd forgotten to take a picture of the bridge under construction in time for the monthly update. I have now taken one at the first "Long Wednesday" of this month.

 

[A busy March]

The ply is 4mm ply cut into 100mm wide strips on the timber merchant's big saw table. The blocks are 50mm x 14mm softwood. Our carpenter did decide on solid wood though for the ends that would carry the bolts and locating pegs for joining to the next one.

[A start is made]

At the moment the station building is in hand, but I may get back to you in future.

[February progress]

Tracklaying started. So far the Finetrax bases are only temporarily pinned in place, but the webbing has been cut on the B7 and the base made to fit the desired curve.

 

 

The club's N gauge exhibition layout, Battledown, is getting tweaks ready for the April Open Day in the background.

[February progress]

The ply is 4mm ply cut into 100mm wide strips on the timber merchant's big saw table. The blocks are 50mm x 14mm softwood. Our carpenter did decide on solid wood though for the ends that would carry the bolts and locating pegs for joining to the next one.

[Starting work on the locomotive]

The methodology is worth a proper blog entry, but here is a taster. The basic funnel shape with the original kit funnel for comparison.

 

 

The flare at the bottom is bored out thin in order to be able to press it to shape over a former

 

[So what is this all about then?]

And a quick photo update of the loco, construction in progress

 

 

The track is actually 3mm scale FS, i.e. 14.2mm gauge, that is more or less the right gauge and I had this display piece knocking around.

 

The extended cab is not quite Brede, deliberately so, and the reason it is made from Plastikard is that it is intended to employ radio control. I will put more detail in a specific blog entry but this loco has a 3v motor, will have a 3v LiPo battery inside the boiler and a WiFi transceiver/controller chip in the coal bunker. The thin wire antenna will poke up into the cab space, hence the Plastikard upper sides rather than brass ones. I need to make a bigger smokebox and craft a better saddle for it than the cast one from the kit. Plus getting all the waggly bits of the motion sorted out.

[So what is this all about then?]

The matching of these two different locos to be modelled in two different scales is so uncannily accurate that it seems to be beyond coincidence. Now I am not suggesting that Bagnall's designers were bearing in mind the needs of railway modellers of a century later, but I do note that the proportion between 7mm scale and 1:32 is almost the same as that between 18" gauge and 2' gauge, 0.74:1 as against 0.75:1. Would Bagnall's have kept the proportions of the key dimensions tied to the gauge of the loco they were building? Would we see the same proportions in their locos for 2'6" and 3' gauges?

[So what is this all about then?]

As a little exercise I have superimposed RCL's drawing of the 7" Bagnall that comes in the kit on top of the drawing you posted of the Sipat. I think my direction with this kit is well justified.

 

 

I need to get out to the workshop shed and my lathe to turn a new chimney now.

 

[So what is this all about then?]

Thank you for that.

 

The frame dimensions of the Link kit fit nearly perfectly, no more that 1/32" out. The overall length quoted earlier must be over any buffers

[So what is this all about then?]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Leading dimensions of Sipat: wheel diameter 1ft 3.5in; wheelbase 2ft 6in; length overall 10ft 4in; width overall 4ft 0in.

 

I never kept on with NG&IRM after about issue 30 and I sold them anyway as part of a tidy up and rationalisation of my hobby room.

 

However comparing the Sipat with the Link kit - at 1:32 scale

 

Wheel diameter of kit:  0.5" - 16/32" - 16" on prototype or 1'4"

Wheelbase of kit:           15/16" - 30/32" - 30" on prototype or 2'6"

Width overall of kit:       1.5" - 48/32" - 48" on prototype or 4'

Length overall of kit:      3 19/32" - 115/32" - 9'7" on prototype

 

All pretty good I think. I had already worked out from the drawing in the Brian Clarke booklet that the front buffer beam needed to go forward a bit. A scale 9" it would seem

[So what is this all about then?]

Incidentally the photo of the wharf with the small sailing barge clearly shows that the River Brede was tidal at that point. Or at least tide-influenced. That ties in with the reports that the wharf could only be accessed on a couple of days around each spring tide.

 

The wharf is quite clearly shown with the tramway on the 1907 25" OS Map (thank you National Library of Scotland) and the rail layout is explained with that shot of the steam crane

 

 

The road is the modern A28 (which I know much better at the Thanet end) so presumably the barges had to lower the masts to reach the wharf

 

[So what is this all about then?]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I'm hijacking Whart's page here

 

 

That is not a problem for me

[So what is this all about then?]

Thanks very much for the photos. As the heading suggests the layout is "inspired" by Brede and not an attempt to do an exact model therefore the loco needs to look the part without necessarily being 100% accurate. These photos will definitely help with that.

 

The photos of the wharf and other unloading points are especially valuable though. I've always found it's the industrial side of modelling industrial railways that is always the mystery area.

 

 

[And Now For Something Completely Different ........]

I spent five years driving up Stourport High Street every day on my way to work in Stourbridge where I would then spend a lot of my time visiting sites in the Black Country.

[So what is this all about then?]

It is that booklet, yes.

[And Now For Something Completely Different ........]

The Kidderminster and Stourport has always interested me, so I like this. Did you consider 1:32 scale on 32mm gauge track though, that seems to be a common way of modelling 3'6" gauge tramways.

[A Vital Component Finally Arrives!]

If you do a search there are quite a few posts on rmweb from people who have tried this product

[A Vital Component Finally Arrives!]

Have you considered these guys?

 

https://electrarail.co.uk/class-414-2-hap-292-p.asp

 

I think they are vinyl sides you stick onto the side of a common coach and it becomes something else. There is an email address on the website you can get more details from.

[A Vital Component Finally Arrives!]

I thought you meant you'd finally found a 2-HAP ..................

[Picking up the story again - part 2]

Yes. They still need glazing, but the bodies are painted in the original Regional Railways knock-off livery complete with ด่วนพิเศษ written on the sides. I made resin casts for the undersides with all the gubbings and the bogies use 3mm Society castings. It's powered by a Geoff Helliwell bogie narrowed down for 9mm gauge. One of the three bodies was hacked about a bit to become a centre car, so once the glazing is done I'll have a three car set.

[Encouraging my little entrepreneurs, or a saga of a vacuum cleaner and a hot air gun]

Just tried it and the answer is no. The formers are too high and though it might work if the curve was in one dimension, it doesn't when you have both north-south and east-west curves.