Michael Edge

I've built three of these so far and still another one waiting, it's a very good kit, accurate as far as I can tell. Some of the fittings are not as supplied with the kit, my customer supplies better ones from various sources. They are all slightly different, this one with a Marsh boiler. This is the latest one, painted by Ian Rathbone. I think all these Albion kits are excellent but not very well known - I hope this provides more inspiration, keep up the good work with yours.

The 15mm ones are fine although they do run a bit warm, I'm not so sure about the 10mm ones though. I've had some success with them but some failures as well.

Not out of fashion round here, wait for Herculaneum Dock again - some trains might go round and round but most of the layout has to be worked.

Before that the 00 section of the club used H&N couplings, also magnetically operated they had a pivoted loop which moved downwards and a fixed hook. Similar disadvantage to the SJR in finding room for the counterweight, but the biggest factor was that they were single ended. I don't have any photos of these but they were (along with Sprat & Winkle) part of Steve's experimental progression. I changed my stock from H/D/Peco to these when I joined in 1972.

They aren't all the same John, it depends very much on which one you have (tried) to build.

I've dug out my two 6 wheel fish vans to photograph the SJR Mk10 couplings, these two vans always run together so they have kept these at one end (DGs on the other ends). From underneath the construction is apparent, most of it is made from soft iron wire bent round a jig of pins in a wood block. The hooks are mounted in a short length of brass tube soldered to a plate, the inner extension of the hooks have a small lead counterweight to return the hooks upwards. The design is essentially the Triang (tension lock) coupling turned upside down, the extra bit turned back on the top of the hook serves two purposes, it restricts the downward movement and acts as a buffer when propelling. From above with the couplers engaged, one of the disadvantages shows up here - with the best will in the world the hooks could never be identical and usually only one really engaged with the loop. Any error or damage to the shape of the hook tended to produce a lifting effect on the wagons as well. Uncoupling was done by stopping on a permanent magnet, both hooks are attracted downwards, if you keep on propelling they re-engage. Most locos just needed the loop fitted without the hook, easy to solder inside or through the buffer beam. We used these couplings for a good few years in the Leeds club, eventually changing to DGs for the delayed uncoupling facility. They had a number of disadvantages, one detailed above but the main one was the same as the present standard UK coupler in that the pull is off centre (in our case the push was off centre as well), the DGs are all on the centre line of the vehicles.

Boiler and firebox now finished. The firebox top located in the etched groove on the cab front, join between it and the boiler filled with Plastic Padding (or whatever they call it now) as I usually do for belpaire boxes. Side handrails added with a large flange on to the tank front, quite a bit of solder round the handrail pillars after I managed to get the holes in the wrong place and had to move them a bit. The sides of the smokebox saddle are formed from n/s sheet, the top join to the smokebox is Plastic padding again. No cladding bands on the boiler since they will be lined but after much discussion it seems that two of them are actually straps bolted on to the top of the tanks so they will go on. Next job will be out in the garage machining the boiler fittings, I'm glad it's getting a bit warmer again this week.

Smokebox door (and a moulded one as well) posted to you yesterday, thanks for the loan of it.

I have always though there should be a market for the Jidenco/Falcon brass etches, we (Judith Edge) sell a lot of "etches only" quite profitably and Worsley Works does the same but: It depends very much on how the etches are arranged for production - nearly all ours are one sheet per loco type but these might be mixed up to use space "efficiently". Re-working them as kits is not a viable option, effectively it would be starting again with little reference to what already exists. They are as I have pointed out before extremely variable in quality, accuracy and "buildability" - some are very good, others not so. Bearing in mind my first caveat, the best option might be to offer them on a sold as seen basis, flat pack in a board envelope would be cheap enough. I wouldn't worry about instructions, they weren't much use in the first place, but a drawing and some parts identification could be provided for very little cost.

That looks superb - but I'm not very keen on the visible screw heads, are they staying like that?

Looks OK so far, you've done all the difficult bits, it's all downhill from here.

I don't think so, it's 68155, not a departmental one. I'll send it to you in a pm.

I've found one top photo of a Y3 but as usual it has coal piled all over and round the water filler. I can't imagine what the planks are supposed to be.

I think it's a Stanier tender, you just can't see the top where it turns in. It looks the same width as the cab to me - Fowler tenders are considerably narrower.

Don't use 3 in 1 oil - it could well be that which has broken down the Romford wheel insulation. I use car engine oil, it doesn't harm any plastics. Electrolube should be OK though.

Gibson steel tyres are definitely better for adhesion.

The Carlisle Duchesses are all rigid, just the bogies (all centre pivot - no rtr style arms) lightly sprung so as not to take too much weight off the drivers. the trailing trucks just go along for the ride. Some have Ultrascale whells, some have Markits, the Ultrascale ones are definitely slippier, no Gibson wheels on the Duchesses but some of the Princesses have them.

Arthur Keen has moved on quite a bit today. It always seems major progress when the boiler goes on, this one rolled from .010" brass as usual. It looks a bit strange in the firebox area but this loco had a raised round top one, the half etch in the cab front is the shape of this. As usual I had no photos of the top of the tanks so this is also a bit speculative. The fancy plating in front of the smokebox is two layers of etch, interesting how it overhangs the wooden part of the buffer beam. Tank front steps added before the boiler while I could still get to the inside, I put the front handrail on before fitting the boiler as an aid to getting it horizontally aligned. The leading springs are on as well, made up from etched layers, these are on the frames but I wanted to make sure they came through the footplate and looked right under the boiler. More on the peculiar motion of the LSW C14 - looking at the lifting link the reverser will lift the radius rod when the lever is pushed forward so that might be why it was done the opposite way to conventional. Comparison with the slightly larger S14s shows the lifting link in front of the expansion link - and this time the return crank points the way you would expect.

Yes, that's what you have to do with Slater's wheels in 7mm - that's what I mean by engineering nonsense.

Most of the Duchesses on Carlisle weigh about 650g but even so some will pull more than others.

It's still booked in for Leeds this year but that may well be cancelled - we don't have to decide until August though. Nothing else booked for Herculaneum Dock but at least it will be packed ready to go.

You have to be quick with the soldering iron but it only needs a touch of solder to lock the fastener on - and they are easily removed if necessary by squeezing gently behind them with side cutters. The problem with the loose bushes (apart from being engineering nonsense) is that they are far to big in diameter. I don't much like running the rods on a steel screw thread either but I do have some locos which have been running for many years with this (Sharman wheels without the bushes).

I've only got one fitted 16T mineral, so that will be two.

It certainly is - I wouldn't have put it there! However Mr. Jones was usually right as far as I know. I don't know why they put the reverser partly in the doorway either but I can see this in other GKN locos.

Railmatch 1406 sleeper grime - all of Carlisle has been painted with this as well. It's a bit expensive, Wentworth Junction has taken 3 cans but spraying outside does use more paint. I hate to think how many cans have been used to paint Carlisle's 30m x 6m - but I haven't paid for that... Just as I finished spraying I found a track buckle (sleepers broken out of the glue) - on the section across the middle which had to be laid in winter, the rest was done in warm weather. I left the board in the garage overnight to cool down a bit and glued it back in place with runny superglue. Putting the layout back together today I had a strong sense of déjà vu - at most of the baseboard joints I had to trim the rails a bit - for anyone who doesn't understand this reference see the thread about Leeds Victoria and the 1977 Barrow exhibition.