jwealleans

On to the Sunday at Bristol and this morning I did get to make a tour of the layout and pick out a few things where they'd been left at whatever move we'd stopped at the evening before. This has turned into a bit of an engine gallery, but people seem to like that sort of thing so I shall plough on regardless. I started with one of the unsung stalwarts of the layout, 3416. This is a Cotswold kit, I believe, which I bought from Neil Ripley getting on for 20 years ago. It's been on the layout from the start and plods round with (usually) the coal empties for show after show, almost always eluding the camera. It happened to be poised to make an entrance here, so I took th echance to capture it. Awaiting the road in Platform 5, Graham's D2 3050 from a London Road Models kit. The train (also by Graham) is the articulated quint set which is a collection of bits from Dan Pinnock, Bill Bedford and Frank Davies. At the rear, having just detached from the same set (must be a quick turnaround), J11 6049. This is a Bachmann example which sees more use now we no longer have Graeme's kit built one to call on. It's a reliable performer although it has suffered. like a lot of Bachmann locos, from oil or grease seeping through the bodyshell and into the weathering. On shed we can see part of K3 227 with the unique Hulburd water treatment gear. Across the main lines from 6049, C2 3254 in the southbound loco spur. DJH by Tony Wright and it performs every bit as well as his reputation demands it should. This is another long time mainstay of the layout. This one would be much better photoshopped, but I have neither the software nor the inclination. 3465 on its now usual High D y k e empties working awaiting the road at the north end. This also gives a view of the allotments Tom and Paul created, which are well worth a look. The mix of hoppers in the empty train is a deliberate contrast with the uniform appearance of the loaded rake. Another look at the delightfully archaic (and slightly anachronistic) J54 in its usual berth. I then walked round the back to the north end loco park. This always attracts a lot of attention when spectators are able to get close to it. These are also the kind of unsung, seldom admired, workaday engines which I prefer. D2 4327 at the bottom is a whitemetal example, either MSL or NuCast. We tried this on the High D y k e empties, after a discussion over dinner about a couple of photographs we've seen of D2s on that working. It wasn't a success but that was largely due to the loco itself: it's an experiment we intend to repeat. Next to it, J15 7515 is Hornby, one of two Grantham had in the 1930s. In the absence of the antipodean visitor this is the default loco for the Ambergate trip. Beyond that, 4040 is a London Road Models J4, built with the Stirling cab. I took that from a Dick Hardy photo of himself on the footplate at Grantham in 1940. 3527, a 521 series J6, is also London Road. I can't identify the whitemetal J6 beyond it (Roy Mears, I believe), but as we fade out of focus, J21 1806 was at Grantham for two or three years in the 1930s before moving on. Beyond that is my J3, 4151 and another J6. I must have gone inside the layout after that as this is taken over the backscene looking down on the Rustom Hornsby yard. The Dapol Sentinel shunter has also been on the layout from the start and other than a dodgy couple of shows when an accumulation of crud inside the axle ends affected performance, it's been another which has given unobtrusively solid performance. The wagon is on loan from Barry Oliver and is an NER Traction Engine wagon. I'd like one myself but I have never been able to identify the kit nor have I seen another anywhere.

Morning Tony, I don't think the guarantee is being invoked yet. It derailed in two places on the curve from the fiddle yard into the Great North Road bridge. The first was an obvious track fault which was fixed. The second was under the platform where the road vehicles turn and we didn't have time to unscrew that and test before the end of the show. It'll be investigated at Newcastle.

The World Should Revolve Around Me - Little Jackie

Saturday morning rolled around and having had no better offers, it was back to the show. I like to record a general view of the layout for posterity and by the time I got set up to do this one, the Rapido boys were there with their goodies. No-one can resist a Single, although the one I already have will remain single, I'm afraid. A chance for everyone else who missed them last time around to catch one. Mine has been a faultless performer at every show we've done and there can't be many weathered ones about. I only know of one other who's been daft enough to do it. Graham mentioned our visitor from Down Under, who brought with him this based-on-a-Ks J3. Readers of the Little Bytham thread will already have seen it performing there. I'd spotted the replacement Stirling tender (from LRM) but I didn't look underneath where it has the Mainly Trains J52 frames. It mainly (exclusively?) worked the Ambergate trip and performed beautifully all the time we had it. I started to do my usual survey of what was out the front, but was interrupted fairly quickly. I did see this trio of Atlantics in the shed. We had a bit of a game with the Atlantics: there are 8 GN ones in all (not counting the brass one) of which 7 are C1s and one a C2. One C1 (3251, in the background here) is reserved for the Leicester set as it has tension lock couplings. One (4432) is a heavy hauler and works turn and turn about with the Pacifics, so should not really ever come on shed. Of the remaining 6, 4401 failed on Saturday and is still awaiting works, but there should still have been 5 in traffic. By Saturday afternoon we had not a one round the back and were really scratching around for suitable locos. By mid-morning Sunday I think we had all of them again, yet that was a further one and a half times round the sequence. It's a bit odd and just as well I acquired all those K3s during lockdown. Just a little left, the north end pilot caught in mid-move when we stopped on Friday evening. Graham and I, with others, have the sad task of disposing of Caroline Middleditch's railway collection so it's nice to see a small reminder of what a good modeller she could be. Chris H posted another selection of views from Saturday on Flickr, so if there's no objection I'll add a few of those here: The shed looks fairly empty here, nothing moving up or down and nothing on the main lines. 4217 is largely a static exhibit these days, being used for track testing in the main. I think the J6 is 3622, a NuCast one I acquired last year. I'm guessing the A4 is 4466 Herring Gull just on the length of the nameplate (Gadwall would be the other contender). It looks like a Tom Foster weathering job so it has to be one of those two. Chris has then turned left to look at the shed throat and the queue of engines waiting to depart. The A4 is Osprey, one of the two allocated to Grantham. I think that one is a detailed Bachmann model. 6229 will probably be going to pick up the down (loaded) High D y k e working you can see in the previous picture and 4114 will probably be going on another trip to Ambergate. Moving down towards the Great North Road bridge, it looks as though the incoming empty Ambergate wagons are being dealt with. Below the shunter there's been a mishap and a job for the scenery team at Newcastle. Some movement on the main line, though: K3 4005 has the up Aberdeen perishables passing the stabled Leicester set. I didn't recall that 4005 had worked this train as well. it usually alternates on the Scotch Goods with 4771. 4005 is from an SEF kit with the GN cab and was painted by Larry Goddard. I've skipped a little way here: we're back at the shed throat and 2548 Galtee More has just come off a Leeds train and is coming on shed. Atlantic 3275 has also appeared, most likely off the quad set which can be seen in Platform 5. A few moments later, Galtee More has vanished, most likely out of shot to the left in order to get onto the turntable. 4494 has not yet moved, but behind it 4114 has, as predicted, picked up the Ambergate trip and is getting ready to depart. Above the brake van, the Atlantic which was in the south end loco spur has crossed over and is backing down onto the quad set to take it Up towards Peterborough. In front of 3276 is another C1 which we haven't seen much, 3272. This one is ex-Hitchin, scratchbuilt at King's Cross Models and after some fettling has turned into a reliable performer. It's had a replacement motor and gearbox from High Level (one of the big coreless ones) and been festooned with pickups. I just need to sort out the loco/tender coupling and it'll be done. Let's finish with this lovely shot Rob Allen kindly posted back up the thread of 2752 Spion Kop in the Down loco spur. This is one of mine, based on a Hornby NRM 4472, weathered in the Tom Foster manner and a bit of a favourite. Am I the only one who thinks that the NRM A3s are generally better performers than the normal range ones?

Well, thank you to the Rapido guys for keeping the thread moving while we all apparently went off for a long lie down in (separate) dark rooms. Two three day shows in fairly rapid succession felt like quite hard work, although I have to say I was impressed with the Bristol show. not having been before. We had quite a leisurely setup compared to the usual pre-show scramble and it was spread over two days, so it all felt much more relaxed than it has on many other occasions. We had time for a spot of indulgence: I had planned to run this during the last hour of the show when we pack up, but having no ballast in it at all it couldn't move any trains, so we sent it out on test. I'm very much hoping to have it completed for Newcastle in November. Friday morning, then, back into the swing of it... I'm afraid I have a complete mental block about where those coal wagons start and always end up with them in the wrong road. But hey, who cares? Tom's not here so we'll put out an extra few dozen wagons to shunt with. Steve keeps coming back, despite the rest of us. I'm not sure about that mixed train he seems to be making up there, though. I'm not sure what happened when Roy pressed that..... Once the show opened, as you can tell, we were flat out the whole afternoon and evening.... Both the blue pointy ones seem to be out and running, though, so we were obviously entertaining the masses. Afterwards we retired to a nearby establishment. Would you buy a used A4 from any of these men?

Mike, if it's any help this is my interpretation of CLC light lead grey, which is probably a random light grey Humbrol tin picked from the drawer behind the workbench.

Brilliant. So one of them was 4472. That's now going to be the next one I build... we already have loco 4472 and carriage 4472 on Grantham (we have the carriage twice, but no-one's ever noticed). Now we can have the wagon as well.

Morning Mike, For once, Wikipedia is your friend here: I think this is pretty much correct: ...the CLC had its own fleet of wagons, which were painted a pale lead grey for the bodywork, with black running gear and white lettering .... In 1929, it was decided that all CLC wagons, other than brake vans and service stock, should be shared between the LMS, which would receive one-third of the wagon fleet, and the LNER, which would receive two-thirds. The transfers took place at the start of 1930, ... The LNER supplied the CLC with some new brake vans, and these were painted in CLC livery, and lettered "CL". I think Peter Tatlow does show the batch built for the CLC in his build table for the Toad Ds. I'm at work so I don't have the book to hand. I'm sure someone will furnish the details.

Brake vans are about all you can get away with like that: all the rest of the stock was divided between the LMS and LNER in 1929 and repainted/renumbered into their wagon stock. I run a CL van on Grantham and that's an anachronism in the 1935-38 period.

Counting Flowers On The Wall - The Statler Brothers

Hey Ho On The Devil's Back - Katzenjammer

I bought something very similar to that (on Ebay) but with more parts missing as my first loco kit. Mike Griffiths, who then owned NuCast, supplied what was missing, the late Graham Varley advised me on a motor/gearbox combination and I completed it, flangeless middle drivers and all. Although I now know the tender is wrong, it stays as it was when I built it and it spent the last three days at Bristol Show moving coal and iron ore round Grantham with no fuss and no problems. I know there's less incentive to build one now the Bachmann one is out, but it started me off on the path of loco building. I almost bought another one at Bristol, the kit was on a stand for £25.

It travels in its own box, carried by two uniformed flunkies.

Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

I Want The World To Stop - Belle and Sebastian

I added those rods to my J21 using the square wire Wizard Models sell for point rodding.

Outstanding, thanks very much indeed.

@russell price Are you still able to give rough dates for motors? I have a Series V which is stamped 2158 and I'd be interested to know how old it is.

You can never have too many. Don't forget that it was only in 1937 that the LNER had more pacifics than C1s and if you take all the Atlantics together I'm not sure they ever had more Pacifics before the War.

I did. At the edge.

I have had a request from a young Australian reader to show how I make up loco boxes for my kit built locos. I don't think this is terribly revolutionary, but no-one knows everything and maybe it'll be of help to someone, so here we go. Given that my stock travels a fair bit, it's important that it's protected and not too badly shaken about in transit. I try to have this kind of arrangement for all my exhibition stock. RTR locos usually travel in their original boxes, unless these become damaged or unusable for some other reason. These are tonight's subjects, K3 17 (Bachmann/Wright) and C1 3272 (scratchbuilt, Mike Shepard). 17 came to me from Tom Foster and 3272, by the good offices of Roy Mears, from Hitchin. I buy boxes at shows from Cheltenham Model Centre if I need any, although other retailers sell similar ones. 17 has one such box which came with it from Tom. 3272 is in the box it came in, which is that from an ABS V4 kit. These are a deeper box, so the engine can stand upright rather than lie on its side. Coopercraft used to do this size of box in dark blue and white and I have quite a few like that. NuCast and SEF boxes are very similar. I'm not sure upright or prone makes much difference if the box is properly padded. I use upholstery foam as the basic material. 1/4" or 3/8" are equally good. I used to get it from a local upholsterer but they have since closed so I ordered this last lot online. You can buy it by the metre and it's not expensive. From memory this piece was 2m x 3m originally and it's lasted several years. The Cheltenham boxes come with a foam bottom insert so I keep this. It's easy enough to make one by this method if your box doesn't have one. This part is as simple as drawing round the box and cutting it out. Make each side piece long enough to do side and end so you don't have any fiddly little bits. Put the side pieces in and use the bottom piece to hold them in place. You can use double sided tape or tape loops to hold everything in place if you're especially tidy minded, but the idea is that the box will end up so full that nothing can really move about. One of the problems with snugly packed locos is getting them out of the box. I make a cradle of bubblewrap longer than the loco and wide enough to allow me to pick it up out of the box. Now, I have heard of paintwork being marked by bubblewrap if left in contact with it for a long time, so although that has not happened to me to date, another layer is needed. I keep the acid free tissue which kit etches come in for this purpose, or you can just use kitchen roll. 17 snugly packed away. I have kept the larger foam pieces which came with the box to prevent it sliding lengthways. These are easily made from packaging or even rolled up kitchen roll or offcuts of your thin foam. I also always keep the little desiccant packets which seem to be included in everything these days and slip one of those in. 3272 equally snugly packed showing that it stays upright. Again I've kept the existing packing in the lid, the larger pieces at each end and a desiccant packet In each case just pulling up the bubblewrap at each side of the engine makes a cradle to lift it from the box and packing it away again is the reverse operation.

I did ask if you were planning to bid before I did, I should point out.

I think it may be earlier, John: armed with the knowledge that it's a Series V, I did some Googling and found a post from 2020 which gave some prices and years. By 1955 ERG were listing the Series IV at 56/- as well as the Series II at 40/10d. and the new Series V at 47/-. In your catalogue it's £2 5s (45/- for those too young to remember), which by the guide above puts it in the earlier to middle part of the 1950s. I also found a post which mentioned serial numbers, so I shall recover the one from mine and contact the chap to see if he can give me a rough date.

John, do you have a year for that catalogue? The Romford Series V motor illustrated looks very much like the one in the scratchbuilt C1 I showed on the previous page.

Preparation for Bristol continues: another loco testing session at the weekend on part of the layout which was up for electrical maintenance. I had to take a couple of pictures of this on the layout while i was there: those who read Sir's thread may have already seen it. Expect to see more at the show. Not so hot on dead frog points (only picking up off the driving wheels) but fine tearing down the main line. Just as a C1 should be used.