AJCT

Yes, that's the tablet-catcher recess fitted to the initial Scottish batch of 27s (D5347-69), although unlike the 26s (D5320-46) I've never seen any of the 27s actually fitted with the catchers. You may also need to alter the cabside windows to the "droplight" type - the sliding ones on your model were originally only fitted to locos with T/C recesses. HTH... Alasdair

Many thanks for that, Paul: I think you've identified as MD1s a couple of motor/gearbox units I bought several years ago from another fellow-modeller's collection - long before the recent acquisition of the J39 etches. I'm assuming one way of using the MD1 is to mount it in the tender and drive the loco via a cardan shaft and UJs - possibly a bit beyond my skill set at the moment...! Anyway, if the opportunity arises for another look though my recently-departed friend's collection I'll have a better idea of what I'm looking for in terms of drive-train components. Cheers - Alasdair

Following this with interest: here's my take on reworking the Triang-Hornby EE Type 3 - see post dated 10 Aug 2020. Cheers - Alasdair

Thanks for that... any chance you could post a pic of the J39 motor / drive train in case one turns up among my late friend's effects ? Does anyone have an assembled example of the J39 kit, of which they could post a pic? Alasdair

I'm hoping the collective expertise around here can help me identify the origin of an etched brass kit in 4mm scale, for an LNER J39 0-6-0, which I've acquired from the estate of a fellow modeller. I say "4mm scale" as that's what these etches are, but they have 2 sets of Register Marks which I understand would enable the artwork to be etched to either 0 Gauge 1:43.5 or 00 Gauge 1:76.2. Apart from these, there are no markings at all to identify the origin of the etches. The "Loco" etch is 7.8" x 6.5" and the "Tender" etch (which is for the 4200 gallon version) is 9.8" x 6.6". They're both flat etches which I'd have thought would rule them out as being from either the Pro-Scale or Anchoridge boxed kits. As you can see there's a part missing from the "Loco" etch: there's no boiler (though I'd have said the gap was too small for an unrolled one) or other castings like chimney, dome or smokebox door. Any help appreciated ! Alasdair

Found a pic I took of the demolition in Jan 1985 - not brilliant but I've brightened it up a bit - as you can see a lot of it had gone by the time I got out with the camera. Interestingly, you can still see one of the gateposts of the "occupation crossing" which presumably predated the footbridge. Alasdair

I've always suspected that the MU jumper-cable sockets at the sides of the bogies on Bachmann's 40s were a bit overscale - rather visible from the end-on view. Published pics also suggest that several of the original ScR allocation lost their MU jumpers at some stage, but I don't know if that included 40159 as at your time-period. Alasdair

IIRC the farm we holidayed at near Skelbo, all those years ago, had one of these - if it's of interest, I'll have another rummage through the family photos and see if I can spot the registration number.... Alasdair

I do like the idea of the motor angled as in your pic - I have a couple of 4-4-0s to build some day, and this looks like a good way to sort the perennial problem with 4-4-0s and get adequate weight above the driving wheels, at the back of the firebox. What motor/gearbox combination are you using ? Alasdair

You're welcome... this is the 3rd loco I've built (admittedly all 0-6-0-tender) with these KM units and they all run beautifully over my track, which I wouldn't describe as any better than "reasonable". Thanks for the tip about the M1 S/T screws - may follow that up. Cheers - Alasdair

Just super-glue - I'm no expert on this, so for a long time I've just used ordinary "Loctite" for everything, and so far it's all stayed stuck. I usually go for those little "Mini Trio" 3-packs of 1gm tubes, as I've found the hard way that any bigger size of tube goes hard long before I finish it...! I probably used a glass-fibre brush to clean up the mating surfaces of the black plastic hornblocks and the related part of the frame before applying the glue. On the loco, I also drilled through the corners of the frame cutouts and inserted wee set-screws (14BA I think) which self-tapped into holes drilled into the plastic hornblocks as belt-and-braces after super-gluing - Another trick I learned some time back with the KM units is to ease the side-slots a little and polish up the sides of the brass axle-boxes with a fine file, to ensure that they slide freely up and down (should move by gravity) before fitting the tiny springs and the retaining links. Usual disclaimers for any products mentioned here and earlier. HTH - Alasdair

You're welcome... I don't claim any great skill or expertise, but the saw-it-in-half idea just seemed like a pragmatic solution to the chassis-width problem. It might work for converting a kit-built 00 loco chassis to P4: I have a Kemilway etched one for the BR 4MT 2-6-0 built as 00 aeons ago, and that might be the way forward there. Anent spacers... the former Eastfield Models (now NB 4mm Developments) chassis kits for NBR locos like the J36 and J37 included 3 sets of spacers for 00, EM and P4 - so I might be able to redeploy the non-P4 ones I have left over, for the afore-mentioned BR 4MT. Alasdair

On the assumption that (as the thread title suggests) we're talking about South Eastern Finecast rather than Wills Finecast kits, my answer is... "built it". "It" in this case is the ex-LNER J38 which was not one of the original Wills range, but may have been derived from the similar J39 when that was upgraded around 30 years ago. As it happens, I did create a J38 from an original Wills J39 kit many years previously, but that was sold off when I migrated to P4 and felt that my earlier 00 handiwork wasn't worth trying to rebuild. That turned out to be a good decision: the original version was essentially a bodyline kit intended for a Tri-ang chassis, whereas the more recent kit No. F171 has an etched nickel-silver chassis with provision for the wider 4mm-scale gauges... or so I thought ! As I've said elsewhere, my MO with P4 tender locos (kit or conversion) is to tackle the tender first - the theory being that achieving success here will encourage progress with the engine. First issue though was to find that the top edges of the tender sides weren't exactly straight - - and this even shows on the kit-box photo. So I filed off the top-edge beading and replaced it with 0.3mm brass wire soldered on with lowmelt... another first for me. Here's the finished version - - which I'm much happier with, and I think I've also managed to get a better shape to the front and rear cut-outs. Next up was the tender chassis: for suspension I used Kean-Maygib sprung units which I'd had squirrelled away for decades, and simply used them glued on to the outside of the 00 subframes to allow for the wider gauge. Following the example of my friend Don Rowland, I fitted tender-only pickups, connected to the engine with a miniature plug-and-socket: this shot of the underside shows the socket over the front axle - Following a discussion with a fellow modeller on the subject of over-heavy cast-whitemetal tenders, something else I did was to replace the tender internal floor and coal-space parts with 40-thou plasticard, the whole thing being assembled with cyano. This reduced the overall tender weight by about 38grams, and partly shows here - The basis of the coal load is from an Airfix mineral wagon kit.... And so to the engine. Here's the soldered-up chassis frame, with Kean-Maygib horn-blocks and axleboxes, in my Poppy's jig - I dutifully used the EM/P4 frame spacers provided in the kit, but... when it came to offering up the motor/gearbox assembly (Mashima 1426 with HighLevel 60:1 Roadrunner) I found the frames were too close together - I considered using a narrower motor and a SlimLine gearbox, but the J38 is BR Power Class 6 and I really wanted the power of the planned 1426. So the radical solution I came up with was to saw the whole chassis in half lengthways, and then re-assemble it in my Poppy's jig to keep everything square. To hold the frames the right distance apart I used the tubular brass 00 spacers at each end, packed out with washers and one of those little brass knobbly bits you get on the ends of steel guitar strings (useful as they're 2mm ID) - I then soldered the otherwise-redundant 00 frame spacers to the stubs of the EM/P4 ones, viz - - and re-inforced the joints by drilling 1mm holes and soldering in wee "rivets" of 0.9mm brass wire. After all this, assembly of the motor/gearbox on to the rear driving axle along with Gibson wheels and crankpins was relatively straightforward, and after plenty running-in round the Newton Duns circuit she runs beautifully - right down to an almost imperceptible crawl. Construction of the loco body (cyano again) didn't cause any particular problems - apart from making sure that the running-boards were properly straight, so I built up the body on a small piece of plate glass and bits of packing to ensure that everything ended up square - - well, nearly ! In some ways, it's the finishing touches that take the time - handrails (especially the curved one over the front of the smokebox), lamp-irons, brake-gear, sand-pipes etc. Just a front vacuum-bag and some fine wire for the lubricator pipes to add, and then she'll be ready for the paint shop - Overall, quite a satisfying build, and I was able to practise some techniques new to me - as well as learning critical things like whether the chosen motor/gearbox will actually fit...! Alasdair

Definitely... the subject of "mixed trains" has been aired on a few threads here. The George O'Hara book mentioned above has a whole section on mixed trains, but not all those pictured are true "mixed trains". Just because a train has one or more vac-fitted vehicles (eg vanfits, fish vans, cattle vans, horsebox) either "on the engine" in front of the passenger coaches, or attached at the rear as "tail traffic" (the last of which would carry a red tail-lamp), doesn't make it a "mixed train", and a glance at the engine headlamp code may identify the train as a goods working which just happens to convey empty passenger coaches, perhaps as an unbalanced working - the pic of LMS 2P 40618 (pic #556) is one such. The true steam-age "mixed train", as exemplified in particular by the Dornoch and Killin branch workings pictured in the O'Hara book, usually carried a Class B (ordinary passenger) headlamp code. There might be a fitted vehicle or two between the engine and the passenger coach(es), and then could follow a variety of fitted and unfitted goods stock (especially coal wagons). Lastly there would be a brake van which should carry a tail-lamp and side-lamps "exhibiting red lights to the rear during darkness, fog or falling snow", as the rule-book would have it.... HTH...! Alasdair

You're welcome.... As mentioned on another thread, as a memento of those holidays I've always had an eye out for a 4mm model of a 16XX and my patience was rewarded a few years ago when I picked up a pre-owned built-up Nu-Cast one from Hatton's for a very reasonable price - complete with P4 chassis and Portescap 1219, no less. It was sold as a "non-runner" but that was only because no-one had wired up the pickups ! So with a repaint and new number-plates it's now 1649, which IIRC gave me my first footplate trip way back when. Really a "display shelf model", but it's fun to make up a typical Dornoch branch train (albeit with a BR Mk1 BCK as I don't have an LMS one) and give it a wee run round the Newton Duns circuit. Not quite such a flight of fancy, though, as I believe 1646 and 1649 were hauled through Hawick on their way to the Highlands all those years ago. Alasdair