rowanj

The other day I saw a photo taken at West Gosforth Staion of the twins, 26500 and 26501, which were taken there on the occasion of a railtour up the Ponteland Branch. The branch left the North Tyneside Loop just east of South Gosforth Station, Not being electrified, the twins must have been hauled there by something, I assume they were taken either from Heaton or, more likely, South Gosforth Car Sheds, where they were allocated. In my world one of them is going via the ECML and will take the North-West curve at Little Benton Quarry Junction, then pass behind the Shed to join the Ponteland Branch, The Ponteland Branch is an interesting line,, given that it closed to passengers in 1929, but remained open for freight until 1988, albeit truncated, Now, most of it is the Metro Line to Newcastle Airport, and the site of West Gosforth is the Regent Centre Bus/Metro Interchange, Had the whole line survived, it would probably see considerable traffic from Ponteland as well as the Airport traffic. Having dropped off its; mineral wagins , J27 65815 leaves the sidings to head back to Heaton, I think the photo shows what a good job Oxford Rail did with the model, for under £100, I renumbered it, then weathered it using Humbrol powders.

With the chassis stripped back to get the last of the deatail added, you can see what I was trying to describe about the added part, cut down from the EM etch, to give a smoother join between the bogie and the chassis. The kit and the instructions havent kept pace, At this point, I was hunting through the etch to find the etches for the springs, only to find they were now etched onto the chassis side, Similarly, the firebox spacer looks nothing like the illustration in the instructions, and seems to simply fit at the bottom of the representation on the chassis sides without any of the additions described in the text. I did see Arthur's recommendations on wheels, Mick, I confess to having had mixed results with Slaters, no doubt due to a lack of competence on my part. I;m going to stick to Markits for the drivers, though may try to get some bogie wheels and see how that goes. It will probably all go quiet now as I get the chassis finished. Just out of interest, I've attached the GA drawings of the motion, which I tracked dowh on the tread Mike Meggison created 10 years ago when he did the test builds, This thread was where the Chivers reference popped up.

I found a pair of 15mm bogie wheels tucked away- I think they are Scalelink, so spent quite a while on the bogie, All the clearances a VERY tight, and I needed to spend a fair bit of time to get it together. The bogie builds up in layers, and ends up semi- compensated, The loco needs at least 15mm wheels, otherwise it will llok odd compared to the prototype= even at 15mm they are undersized by almost 1mm. The bogie joins the chassis via a bolt through the stretcher/spacer in the middle of the bogie. The slot needed opening to allow it to move smoothly on the 8ba bolt. It then passes through a hole in a spacer in the chassis, Fair enough, but I found the bogie and chassis tended to bind together as the bogie tried to move, I took the EM bogie spacer and cut it to fit bbetween and right at the bottom of the spacer on the chassis, opening its; slot too to allow the bolt to move freely. This gave me two flat smooth surfaces and( to my surprise) when I pushed the chassis through some points on the layout, and round the curves, the bogie behaved, albeit with a small short on one wheel, Thw bogie bolt also is used to hold the chassis and body together via the smokebox, which has a nut soldered into the floor. I'm not wild about this arrangement, but can't see an alternative. The rear fixing is also odd, The rear spacer has a hole, which gets blocked when another part is soldered imeediately underneath to provide a sort of slot, This protrudes through the rear beam and I think is part of the coupling between loco and tender, In any case, the blocked hole doesnt line up with the hole in the footplate, I'll see what happens when I start the cab floor to see where I can best drill a hole and solder in a nut, which I would prefer to be invisible. It is unusual to find this with Arthur's kits, and it's possible I;ve cocked something up. I believe the chassis was designed before the body, to fit a Chivers kit, so this might explain it, And finally, I test-fitted the DJH moteo, and it looks like it will fit. The cab/splasher side front would seem to show this. So I'll finish the chassis- brakes and springs to be fitted, and get it running (hopefully) before doing anything much more on the body,

A couple of minutes later, the D20 meets a fellow ex-NER veteran. J21 65070 is a Dave Alexander kit which I rebuilt into one of the locos without train braking, It is heading for Tyneside with a short rake of open wagons. The J21 is held at the signals, and will soon reverse the stock into the sidings., On my next layout (in my dreams) I will be able to draw them in from the north, as per the prototype. Even in the loft, I didnt have enough room to fit run- though sidings , so they are dead-ends under the bridge at Little Benton North.

I have made a start on the loco body. This really is not a kit to be rushed, The basic chassis went together really well, though I needed to triple check where some of the spacers went. The one for the ashpan floor looked nothing like the one on the etch,. Actually, the instructions could do with an edit, and there is an asumption that the builder is familiar with the name of all the parts on the prototype. Not in my case, I like to build the footplate along with the chassis to check overall fit and clearances, There were no issues here. The footplate is the usual 2 etches which must be oldered together, The inside valve gear is very prominent and I was determined to have a go, I found a GA drawing which largely baffled me, and Mikemeg kindly sent me some photos of his build. This, along with Arthur's instructions, have allowed me to produce something which I am sure isn't right, but looks as though there is something going on. I've also built the bogie, which involve several etches/overlays and is new to me I don;t have suitable wheels at present, and it is the wheels which keep the bogie cosmetic sides in place. Once I get the wheels, I'll fit the bogie and see what motor/gearbox combination would fit, I still have a spare DJH AM9 to find a home for. Incidentally, Arthur's kits are no longer supplied with rolled boilers. I have done a couple by hand, but decided to invest in a GW Models Pinch Roller. ordered the old-fashioned way, via a phone call tp George, followed up with a cheque in the post, There is a similar one on Ebay, but at £30 more. So here is a photo of progress so far, posed alongside that bloody tender, in its' final form after using the suggestion by Mike Edge to represent the overlap on the sides.

I'm going back to the much simpler task of working out which small bits of my North Eastern Kits D20 go where, and how I can make them fit without burning my fingers and unsoldering all the pteviously fitted small parts...........And any further posts on railway modelling shall remain. Why, at my age, I can get agitated about some of this other stuff is a mystery,... a bit like, how do all these parts fir together to make the inside valve gear.

I totally agree, Graeme, as long as those who disagree are equally entitled to respond in the same vein. Of course the comments about shooting were in jest, though not, in my view in particularly good taste. I was more concerned about the blanket disparaging of a vital profession- love them or hate them. I would be sorry if Lez were to leave- his modelling posts are worth reading. I'm going to leave all this well alone.

I imagine this was in jest... BUT my brother is a "bean counter", though he studied 4 years to become one, Should I send him and any former colleagues round to you to undertake your proposed solution to the World's ills?

As long as it's constructive, I hope folk will criticize away. How else do we learn? I'm intrigued by the sellotape suggestion, and will investigate. Very thin styrene or photo quality printer paper may be another option. I need to be confident it will stick and stay stuck.

I'm in the early stages of a D20 build using ArthurK's NorthEastern kits, I wanted to build this one with one of the resided tenders, which were attached to some of the longer-lasting locos, including those on the Alnwick-Newcastle turns. How I'm getting on with the tender is covered on my building thread, I suppose I have been semi-successful, which, of course, means I have also been semi-unsuccessful. I was using my DJH version as a "model" when adapting the NER tender in the kit, and decided it was far too uniform in its; matt Railmatch Weather Black, so have weathered it down using a photo (albeit in black and white) of a loco in 1957, the last year the class was in service. 62396 emerges frpm Scottie Bridge, on which we stood many a time to spot the trains, You need a stepladder to see over the top of it now, as it has been rebuilt following ECML electrification and to stop idiots hurting themselves. The next photo , which just arrived on a Facebook page, is the only one I have ever seen of a freight on the North-East curve, which took trains off the ECML onto the North Tyneside Suburban line, and, in this case, onto the Blyth and Tyne towards Newbiggin and Blyth. If you see a rake of hoppers behind a J27 on my layout on the Down Line, it is about 1000 yards from this point, and the wagons should really be empties, This curve, incidentally, is the only remaining one of the three which were here (Benton Quarry Junction), and is now a freight-only single track, It will be used by the restored passenger services on the Northumberland Line in mid 2024

I am annoyed with myself about that bar on the tender, but these things happen. I debated what, if anything to do about it, as I suppose the best way to represent an overlap would be to build the tender that way, Could I live with what I had? Obviously, because I was obsessing about it, I couldn't, but, equally, I couldn't stand the thought of dismantling everything and cutting out new sides. So I have compromised, and removed the offending part and rubbed the side down where the bar was fitted, It is currently in the paintshop, and I believe I will be left with a thin line which will suggest the join on the tender sides. Thanks to Mick and David ( honestly, chaps) for pointing this out. This is the best of BRM- help from the experienced for the less knowledgeable.

Oh well- too bad now. Back to the modelling kindergarten.

Hi Mick- good to hear from you. Like your A2, by the way. It's a few years since I tried using the universal coupling rods, and I didn;t get away with them. I'm going to search through the spares box to see if I can cobble anything together, Ideally, I would prefer a rigid set, rather than articulated ones, as I would use them to set the axle spacings on the scratchbuild chassis. Re the tender strip, it is there on all the rebuilt tender sides. The sides seem to have been cut in two parts, then welded together with the external strengthening plate. Although these tenders are almost always referred to a "like the LNER 3500 GS" they are actually dimensionally quite different,( as I discovered when I used a drawing to cut one out!) and I would not recommend using a GS kit as the starting point. I'll repost a photo which shows the strip in place.

Well, perhaps my first dip into scratchbuilding turned out better than I expected. Posed against the DJH loco, the tender looks the part, I think I still don;t like the tender, but a few of the last D20's used on the Alnwick-Newcastle turns had them, so it makes a change. Now I only have to build the loco! While the DJH kit was being used, I decided to do a bit of weatheing to the rather bland overall matt black. Still a bit more to go. As an aside, flushed by my moderate success, I now have the Isinglass drawing of a J24, and have made a tentative start at what will be an almost wholly scratcbuild loco and chassis with a kit-build tender. No promises of success, Does anyone produce 8ft x7ft 9in coupling rods?

I'll double-check the location for the Westinghouse tank. I shoulld have made it clear that the interference happened whenit hit the back of the coupling hook where it protrudes into the tender, I remember an office inspection where the overall rating was "not entirely unsatisfactory", and I think that about sums up my attempts at the tender. There is something odd going on at the front corner which the photo has exposed, and needs investigation, I need to fit buffers, transfers and coal it up. To do the latter, I've taken a tip from Wallsrail on Youtube to use the foam packaging which seems to come with everything these days as a base, to which I add real coal. Quick and simple, and can be removed if required. I'll finish the tender, and stick it behind the DJH D20 and see what the overall effect looks like.

Though the photo makes it look "as rough as the roads", I'm showing this to show my solution to building a resided NER 3940 tender while, hopefully, having the capacity to undo the work and build the NER version supplied in the kit, I'm doing it this way for a number of reasons, I'm working largely from photos, and without a scale drawing, it is easy to get some dimensions wrong, I think the rebuild makes the loco look ungainly, and may decide I just can't live with it, A drawing may turn up, and I'll have another go at a truly accurate version, As far as I can tell, the tender top is much closer to a GS than to the NER version, and I suspect the bulkhead was quite different too compared to the original, I really didnt want to mess around with Arthur's tender top, with its slots and etches for the NER fittings, In any case, I don't have a decent top down view of the rebuild., so I used what I could see from photos and from GS tenders, The new sides and back- of which there is a good photo in Yeadon- are just tack soldered to the tender top, and a false floor built which will just sit on top of the one in the kit, I decided to leave the front bulkhead alone, though I was tempted to see if a whitemetal one I had from a Wills K3 would work. I'll now tidy up the tender top, which is largely just tack soldered, re-solder the top of the sides where there are gaps where I soldered wire along all the top edges , then see how it all looks after a spray of Halfords Etch Primer, then Halfords Matt Black. Then I'll probably hate it and dismantle the lot, and grovel apologies to Arthur for messing up his kit. A final issue was fitting the Westinghouse air tank, This is very prominent behind the rear buffer beam. and was usually left in place even when the Wesinghouse train braking was removed in LNER and BR days. Incidentally, the standpipe for the brake was usually left in place too, cut away at the top,, and I have replicated this. There is a nice whitemetal casting in the kit, but where to fix it? I decided that it should really slip between the frames of the sub-chassis, and on test, this looked right, The problem is that in blocks the slot where the rear fixing screw goes, and also is fouled by the protuding dummy coupling hook, My solution, which seems to have worked, is to cut the casting in half, on the basis that only that part next to the buffer beam would be seen, and the screw would pass unhindered. It has worked up to a point, but still makes getting the body and chassis together a bit of a fight, so I'll probably refit the tank after the tender is assembled. It is a force fit beteewn the frames, and a dab of Blacktack should keep it sufficiently firmly in place,

With the weather warming up (temporarily), and as a break from a rather frustrating attempt to build a re-sided tender for a D20, i ran a few trains in the loft., Unfortunately for the spotters, nothing unusual passed by. j27 65815 from North Blyth has a rake of 16T minerals, rather than the more usual 21T hoppers. I understand these were normally used for household coal, and photos of them in rakes in the NE are thin on the ground. Heading north loaded is a bit anachranistic, and all I can assume is that they are to be dropped off at the various yards before being incorporated into pick-up freights , Well, that's my excuse. B1 61014 ORIBI was also common fodder, based at Gateshead, Tweedmouth and, strangely, Tyne Dock, I'm not sure what turns the latter had to warrant a B1 on the roster. Here it has a fitted freight, probably from Millerhill to Forth Banks

Just for fun, here are the latest cuts for a re-sided D20 tender. I used the variuos photos I've either got, or have been sent, and Blandford's drawing, I was talking to Andy Edgeson yesterday bemoaning the lack of a D20 drawing in the Isinglass range, her told me his father had only mangaed to get through 50% of his planned drawings before his death. Anyway, even before a final tidying up, these are not quite there. The rear cutout looks a bit short, They look a bit tall, but then so were the real things, Nevertheless, I may "shave" them if I go ahead with this , At the moment, they are just stuck to the kit side with a small blob of blacktack. Even if I get them looking right, I must say that the revised sides , in my opinion, ruined the look of the locos- I think they looked much sleeker with the original NER tenders.

These last few posts from Daddyman and Pebbles have really caused me to hesitate about how to proceed, While how the tender top was built or rebuilt is fascinating _ I do really enjoy these research-t ype activities- the main issue, for me, is whether I get build a tender with the new sides without spoiling Arthur's kit. I have got to the point of almost completing the tender sub- chassis and the footplate and basic tender top, sides and back. The latter is a one piece etch with 3 folds. You really need to put this together, as one uses the slots to get the 2 -layer footplate valance soldered together accurately. So, whatever I decide, I've gone ahead and completed the basic tender structure. Just as an experiment, I've posed the 3600 side I cut out against the kit, leaving the "bodged" front as seen in the photos. The shape is wrong, but, when stuck behind my DJH kit, I think it gives an impression of what it might look like if my very rusty scratchbuilding skills can produce a decent side, It would ne simple to solder the new side to the part in the kit, and I'm going to at least have a go at cutting out a pair of sides and do some more testing.

61410 was the first etched kit I ever built-from PDK- and although I did get it to work, it was a bit of a triumph of optimism over experirnce. Over Norman Solomon;s track it would probably have been fine, but on my layout, it had its' moments.... So I got a replacement chassis from PDK and it now runs much better, to the extent that Heaton has rostered it on a Berwick semi=fast, and the return trip, on which it is seen here.

These 2 photos from Jon4470 of a different loco to the one in Daddyman's post seem to confirm what happened re. the tender rebuild. i.e that the coal rails and the curve on the sides were cut away and a replcement skin fitted to what remained , As Pebbles suggested, there is nothing to suggest that the tender top and front was altered in any significant way, David and Jon's photos, along with Blandfords drawing, will allow me to have another stab at fabricating new sides, My current thinking is to build a pair of tenders, one of the original and one rebuilt . I trust Jon wont mind me posting his photos, but if so, just let me know and I'll delete them.

Re Daddyman's comment, Yeadon is quite clear that new tender bodies were built, However, captions to relevant photos in my Bellwood Books state equally clearly that the original tender bodies had the rorron coal rails removed and new skins fitted over the exisiting sides. It looks like the tender sides are in 2 parts, The bottom part reaches to a point where the curve on the NER tender would have begun, and a second piece is welded from there completing the tender side, and giving them the GS look. A similar looking mod appears at the rear. I'm still trying to work out the difference in dimensions, The sides certainly need to be about 4mm longer than my original effort. The front curve is shorter than on my first effort, but I cant quite tell from the photos where the curve at the back of the tender begins, The whole tender sides also look to be taller than a GS version, I think what I need to do is complete the tender chassis and footplate, then, short of tracking down a photo or drawing with the appropriate dimensions, construct a few plasticard versions until I get something which looks like what I can see in the various photos. I see now why Mike didnt bother....

I spent a couple of hours looking through all the photos I have of the D20 with the modified tender, I'll be able to build suitable sides and back, and have a good idea where the coal dividers go, but still can't identify the water filler, or details of the fronk bulkhead, However.... i assembled the dummy chassis - a really nice etching, The tender footplate, like all of Arthur's kits which I have built, comes in 2 layers, The lower one has the inner and outer buffer beams and side valances attached, and these are folded down using the half-etched lines. All very easy, but this revealed an issue with my homemade new sides, which I had been beginning to suspect., On the real thing, the descriptions all talk about the new sides as "similar to GS 3500 gallon", which they are. They were used when the original coal rails began to rot, and were a skin added over the original sides. I cut my part from an Ian Beattie drawing, and it is now clear that, while they may be accurate for an LNER tender, they are about 1 ft shorter than those fitted to the D20. I'll go back to my photo stash to see where the extra space occurs, and try to cut out a side of the correct length, then see where we go. from here.

He didnt go ahead, unfortunately, I should be OK if I can find a decent top-down view, and a view of the front end, For all I know, they were not changed during the rebuild, but I'll not make any irreperable change to the kit until I find out.

60506 leaves a lot be be deired, but it has a bit of sentimental value. being one of the first DJH kit I attempted. This was in the days when DJH attended the Newcastle MRS , and the kits included a full set of wheels, Although, over the years, I have reduced the "strangers" who would rarely, if ever, be seen at Little Benton, the Wolf has survived, I do have a photo of her at Newcastle, but new England locos north of that would be like gold dust to the spotters, Putting her on The Queen of Scots is adding insult to injury. I'm thinking of dragging her into works to do a bit of tarting up to become 60502. The D20 on the headshunt is there for photographic purposes, as I begin a Northeastern Kit of sister loco 62383, This one is modified DJH with a Dave Alexander tender,