scratcher

As I mentioned above in the Damo A post, I have two more Damo A kits to build. I've just completed the second. To speed things up I used the ends from a Hammond Damo B kit. Otherwise build pretty much the same. The ends require a bit of filing down at the top in order to mate with the Hornby Siphon H roof.

Go for it Will 😀. I think what I like best is that I can legitimately model mainline stock from two very different railways. And I don’t think I would have got round to making loco kits if it wasn’t for the GCR side (I have a separate thread for locos). The downside is that you need a lot of stock! I must have a decade’s worth of kits accumulated. But now I’m retired I might actually complete them.

It's been a quiet modelling year for me, mainly due to the acquisition of another motorbike, but that should change again as I've recently retired. Over a year ago I bought one of the new Alan Rose / Martin Kirkby 3D printed GCR coach kits, the 60' matchboard brake third. It's finally complete, apart from buffer shanks and heads. It comes with the body, ends and roof pre-assembled, with the chassis pre-assembled, with bogies, and with a nice interior that even has luggage racks. It had a lot of printing lines that were removed as best I could with a fibre glass pen (Alan has since apologised for the lines, apparently mine was not typical). The biggest problem was that it wouldn't go round my 4th radius curves, so I had scrape away some of the chassis beams, quite a fraught operation during which I snapped the chassis in two, but it all worked out in the end. Paint is Precision coach teak over Halfords orange filler primer, applied using Ian Rathbone's technique whereby the teak is thinned and a couple of drops of linseed oil added to make a scumble. Chassis is Halfords matt black, which in reality is more a satin finish. Fox transfers. Handrails and gangway door on the brake end, glazing, corridor handrails and luggage window bars finished it off.

Lovely looking model. I would have got one but built the NuCast kit a couple of years ago. Two observations. I didn't think the rear of the two cab side windows were glazed. And I think the letters and numbers are missing their white shading.

Sorry if my original post wasn't clear. What I'm really after is how the vehicles were used in practice. For example, would a theatre or circus charter an entire train or just attach one or more vehicles to a service train. Photos seem elusive. I threw in the car carrying as I came across this a while ago https://friendsofvt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/MOGO-Details-and-Development.pdf and there is a photo of a rake of Pythons with the caption "This photograph from the June 1933 GWR Magazine shows a special train of PYTHON wagons at the Singer Motorcar Works in Small Heath (Singer Motors Ltd acquired this site on the Coventry Road in 1926, where the ASDA supermarket is now). The train was transporting new motorcars to Brentford Docks in west London for export."

Photos I have seen usually show an individual Monster attached to normal carriages, but I wondered how they were actually used in the 1930s. Were they employed singly attached to service trains, or were trains of Monsters made up for conveying say an entire circus, or were they used in conjunction with Damos or Asmos for car carrying, or ... ?

I picked up a nicely built and painted D186 open a few years ago, but it had a poor interior. I've replaced it using 3D-printed seats and tables from floyd-kraemar on eBay. Seat and interior colours based on the example preserved at the NYMR.

I have an A5 in 1930s red-lined black built from a NuCast kit which I run with the Hornby 51' Gresleys. The formation is Brake 3rd - Full 3rd - Full 1st - Composite - Brake 3rd. To be prototypical for the ex-GCR London Extension the Brake 3rds should have 6 compartments not 4, the Full 1st / 3rd, should be articulated, and the Composite - Brake 3rd should also be articulated. And just to be awkward the Composite - Brake 3rd pair should both be 55' long. Some also were delivered post-1934 and had steel-angle trussing. The Hornby's should also have the yellow lining removed, which is possible with care.

Thanks everyone for your posts. According to Becket, the 01:30 left late enough to so that it could convey newspapers, the 00:10 leaving too early, so just as you say Mike. He also says the 01:30 was described in the timetable as the 'Isle of Man Express' as it connected with the morning boat to Douglas. That makes some sense to me, as the coach is a brake composite rather than a plain 3rd. But given the passenger accommodation was combined at Birmingham, that moniker could have equally well applied to the 00:10.

Train Formations & Carriage Workings by W.S.Becket says the formation for the 01:30 on leaving Paddington was: Full Brake (to Manchester Exchange via Chester) Siphon G (to Birkenhead) Siphon G (to Birkenhead) 70' Brake Compo (to Birkenhead) Siphon G (to Birmingham) Siphon G (to Birmingham) Full Brake (to Banbury)

The bits are in the photo, suitably cut down. Looks a bit odd but it enables the DC3 brake gear to be modelled.

It was time consuming more than difficult. A lot of filing down, taking care not to file the edges of the sides or the roof, then when it gets too awkward to use a file, scrape with a scalpel blade. When flat enough, carefully scribe the grooves between the planks. If you look at the photo you can see where the moulded planks end and mine start, but it's good enough I think. You need to cut off the footsteps on the left side of each end, carefully with a very fine blade, as you need one intact to re-use as the top footstep where the hood was. I removed the door bars and replaced them with ones from the Parkside kit; it's on its own sprue so I phoned Peco and they kindly sent me the sprue in the post for a small charge. Handrails also removed and replaced by wire. The underframe is https://peco-uk.com/products/10-ft-wheelbase-gwr-rch-wagon-underframe-kit. The two roof hatches at each end were filed off and replaced with one central hatch. The step below the doors is by Frogmore @ Dart Castings. There's a very good photo in Freight Wagons & Loads by Russell which was my main reference.

Before the Damo I'd built three Micas. The first two are from Parkside kits, one as X7 and one as X8. The third is the old Wrenn / Triang model which has a decent body but is a foot too long for what it is supposed to be, so I filed off the ventilator hoods and mounted it on a Peco 10' wheelbase underframe to make it into X9, which is the one diagram with that wheelbase.

I have a couple of other topics on GW & GC Joint Line late 1930s for loco builds and coach builds, I thought I'd start this one for wagons and vans, as I've just finished the building a brass Jidenco GWR Damo A car van. First thing to say is what an awful kit. The worse thing is that the ends aren't the right profile. The ends in the kit have a constant radius curve for the top, but in practice they were nothing like that and had the same (or near enough) profile as Siphon H and Python. That necessitated replacing the ends with planked plasticard, and using the roof from a Hornby Siphon H. The sides aren't high enough but only by about 1mm so careful placing of the rainstrip gets round that. Various other parts are either underscale or overscale, so had to be filed down or replaced. The solebars are flat brass which needed bending into the U-shape, not as easy as it sounds. The Damo A has the same underframe layout as the Mink D, so single V-hanger and clasp brakes with DC3 handbrake, which I added using various MT and Bill Bedford etched parts. Single steps from Frogmore. I'm happy with the end result but it took a long time. And I've got two more of the kits to make 😫 - I think I'll do one more and call it a day. I also have an AF Hammond Damo B to make which has a really nice white metal casting for the ends; I considered using the ends from that for the Damo A but I want to make the Damo B at some point. I believe that Hammond also made Damo A and Asmo kits, which I'd love to get hold of but have never seen for sale.

Finally completed the 3 x Micas from my earlier post.

I've removed weight where possible, everything is clean, pickup drag reduced, coaches run cleanly. Not sure there is too much else I can do on that front.

I enquired about the X6152 motor and got this reply from a spares stockist. "You need X6152 (your R number was'nt on the service sheet but this is the newest motor I know of (maybe open the loco up to see if it looks the same) from our website or ebay store. We don’t know of alternatives." I ordered one anyway and fitted it a few days ago. Interestingly the new motor has the same dimensions and has the same worm gear, but is not exactly the same. I had to file down the lugs on the mount point that engage with the plastic case on the rear of the motor to get it to fit, but with that small mod it dropped in and it works fine. I've given it a good run with a medium weight load and it behaved itself. So far so good.

Looks like the Castle and King motors are different after all. X7011 (King). X6152 (Castle).

Anybody know what class of loco would have been used on this service in late 1930s please?

Anyone know definitively whether the metal steps on the van ends were painted black or white? Very difficult to tell from B&W photos due to lighting and you are invariably looking edge-on.

It's possible I was mis-reading the meter, probably I was reading 2A when it was 200mA. I did give it a good thrash light engine, which I thought had cured the problem as it then seemed to behave ok, but problem came back. What I can't work out is why a Hornby King with what appears to be the exact same motor doesn't misbehave running longer & heavier trains.

Update. It's three and a half years on, and the Castle which had been running perfectly for all that period is now showing the same intermittent slowing down problem. I've been using it mainly on a 7 vehicle parcels train which includes a couple of brass coaches, and it's fairly close to its limit. I added an 8th brass vehicle (70' and quite heavy) and that's when it started misbehaving. Lightening the load does not cure things; the damage has been done. 😭

I've just acquired an M13 from a well-known auction site. Any possibility that folk could re-attach their photos to their posts, there's a few details on mine that aren't exactly right.

I have 3 recently completed Micas awaiting painting, an X7 and an X8 from the Parkside kits, and an X9 which is a Wrenn body with the vents filed off on a Ratio 10' wb underframe (so a Mica A). The only thing trickier than the end handrails was the DC3 brake gear. I struggled with the handrails but semi-cracked it eventually, although no 2 are exactly the same! @CoY if you are still wanting some made up, I don't mind making up a pair that you could then use as a pattern?

Took rather longer than expected to complete, but pretty much finished now. Experimenting with David Keen close-fitting buckeye couplings.