Guy Rixon

Is the model of a medium Metro tank (leaf springs on leading axle) or a large one (volute springs)?

Underframe for the GER van. This is a nice, s-per-instructions build ... except for the obligatory design mistake and the missing parts that needed to be replaced. The design mistake is that the body-fixing screws are placed where they foul any sprung buffers. The holes for the screws had to be re-drilled. Luckily, this is pointed out in the instructions. The missing parts were the castings for the suspension hangers, and I've replaced them with brass parts. The white metal castings would have been liable to damage anyway. The replacements are "forged" from 0.9 mm brass wire. The eyes at their lower ends were made by annealing the wire in a candle flame, flattening with pliers, drilling out, and bending to shape using a jig to get them near enough the same size. The one on the left of the photo is possibly a little too long and I may replace it. Or not, this being a boredom-limited activity, and the variation in lengths being likely to be hidden in the other detailing.

Recently added are buffers for certain SR express EMUs and coaches. These are slightly novel (for my stuff) in that they include buffer-head overlays and a mechanism for keeping the heads from rotating. All is written up in the shop. The anti-rotation thingy, which comes down to fitting a sloped, plastic plate that bears on the wedge-shaped buffer-retainer, is experimental. It seems to work on my test pieces. It's the sort of thing that one could make from scrap material, but the printed retainers save some work.

You might ask how the NPCS gets into the goods depot and why. If it's come in on a fitted freight, then no problem. If it travelled in a passenger train, then what's the motivation to move it from the passenger station? A good reason to move NPCS to a goods depot: Marylebone had a large perishables dock in the goods depot, alongside the passenger station. Given that a pilot engine needed to separate any loaded vans from the passenger trains in which they arrived, to free the passenger stock for servicing and/or fast turn-around, it's as easy to move them into the depot, where the goods porters work and the distribution lorries operate, as to put them in a different platform. A counter-example: some perishables traffic on the SECR was handled at Cannon Street (which was topologically convenient), and was not moved round to Southwark depot, despite that depot being only a mile or so away and specialising in priority goods like perishables. However, the WTT shows the empty vans being tripped round to Southwark depot to concentrate them for return workings. I don't know exactly why this was done, but I speculate that Cannon Street had spare platform space outside peak hours, whereas Southwark Depot was tiny, busy and reachable only over the most congested length on the entire railway. I think it must have been more efficient to unload at Cannon Street and to move the stock in the slack period.

The bridge looks to be copied from the preserved section of elevated iron railway now in one of the northern museums (Shildon?). IIRC, that structure was originally for a set of staithes, not a river bridge. The style of lighting in the painting would probably date it. I don't know enough about art to be sure, but I suspect that it's a 20th century style. I think that a Victorian artist would have painted a more even lighting, softening the vignette around the engine, and might also have avoided the evil chemical green in the river. This is illustrative art grown out of high-impact advertising art, and it says "1920s or later" to me.

The brakes for the SER/SECR coaches, having been withdrawn pending correction, are now back. In fact, there are now three different variants, to cover two types of rigging and two types of kit.

OK. So we need to pick a class of locomotive. It could be A (4-4-0T), B (ditto), C (0-4-4T, like a Stirling Q), or E (better 0-4-4T). Class D 2-4-0T are extremely cute, but probably too small for this work; also busy elsewhere. Class F 0-6-2T could do it, but are goods engines and busy. Class H 4-4-4T and the 2-6-4T are out of period. I have an IKB kit for a 4-4-0T, so I think I might use that. If shiny antiques are to run, it also raises the question of using unrebuilt, 8-wheel rigid stock instead of the rigid rebuilds. A couple of ex-inner-circle sets were put back into service in 1909, after the MDR dropped the mic. There were more stored coaches, so a 4-set of these could easily have been dug up for the CCEJ services. They would be fun (and easy) to scratch-build.

The degree of curing matters too. I printed some LNWR brake levers on a banana-van chassis and they actually survived for a while, being somewhat bendy. Then I cured the print and all the sticky-out bits broke off. IIUC, curing is progressive anyway, even one doesn't inflict UV, so bits will get brittle. What I have done for the banana vans, which have levers vertically curved to clear the axleboxes, is to print a template for accurately bending brass levers. At least, I've designed it, to be printed later; that way, I can't lose it.

Thin pieces on prints seem to come out well and to be moderately robust, provided that they are connected at both ends and the unsupported length is not too great. Anything thin exposed at one end is doomed. Thus, a brake lever on a MR wagon is typically OK, but a LNWR one, which sticks out beyond the headstock, is very vulnerable. Lever guards are chancy, too.

From 1907, aluminium from the plant at Fort William. Not lowlands, but definitely NB territory.

If you had some very thin, waterproof plastic as a liner, then you could "cast" the load in the wagon and still have it lift out. The plastic postal wrappers used on some goods posted from China come to mind.

Shapeways print in various kinds of plastic. The nylon forms give low resolution and poor finish, but are cheaper. The "smooth fine detail plastic" gives much better detail but is more expensive. Some fine features won't print at all in nylon. The springs on the rail car are likely to fall in this category. if you can get the thing printed in SFDP (previously known as Frosted Ultra Detail) then your life may be easier. You will certainly have to do less to prepare the thing for painting. SFDP, being acrylic resin, accepts CA glue quite well. For European customers, Shapeways print in Eindhoven.

Yes, and the tea was pretty orange. If I'd mixed the paint with it I might have been able to skip a wash or two.

I have been considering the Metropolitan trains into and through Strand in 1909. Previously, I'd thought of short EMU formations, all of which turn back at Strand because the SECR has not electrified its system. Recent reading suggests two alternatives. First alternative: four of these ... ...which are the "bogie stock" of c.1998, but with the brake coach converted to a driving trailer similar to this... ...which is a later photo but I think at least the driving windows are as built in 1905. These coaches to be propelled into Strand for the north by one of these ... ...being one of the BTH series of electric locos. At Strand, the electric loco comes off and the train goes on to (I think) Woolwich behind an SECR engine (I have an H and I'm not afraid to use it). Two of these push-pull sets were historical, were formed in 1905, but were converted c.1907 into N-stock EMUs; I would have to presume that this change didn't go ahead. Alternative two is six of these ... ...being rebuilds of the 8-wheel rigid stock. These would again we worked in from the north by an electric loco (but not propelled, as they did not have driving trailers) and taken on by an SECR loco. If I push the bounds of the story a little harder, I might presume that the Met keeps a steam loco at Strand for the onward service to Woolwich. The EMU, give-up-at-Strand-and-go-home workings will probably be Hammersmith and City trains. The bogie-stock push-pull coaches are almost covered by the LRM kits, but their driving trailer is the kind converted from the N-stock motor-cars, not the 1905, unpowered version. The refurbished rigid stock is available from Roxey.

Also available in teak: After a shaky start, I think that came out quite well. The trick about painting teak, IMO, is to get the basic colour right. The grain pattern isn't so critical. However red you first paint your model it needs to be a little redder than that. The painting sequence was as follows. Prime with Halfords primer. Mike Trice, who's really good at teak, uses yellow primer but I had none, so used grey. Base colour of "Wooden Deck Tan", from the Tamiya range of alcohol-thinned acrylics, sprayed by airbrush. This is nothing like teak (despite Tamiya being big on IJN models and the IJN actually using teak for decking IIRC). It provides an woodish, even coat to conceal the primer. Two washes of raw sienna opaque, in artists' acrylics paint, thinned greatly and applied with a 1/8" flat brush. Brushed out in the presumed direction of the grain on each panel, but these washes settle so flat that no grain effect results. This is a pleasantly orange colour, but rather light even for new teak. All subsequent steps are with the same kind of paint and same brush. Slightly stiffer wash of burnt umber, to darken and age the teak, applied when the previous wash was not quite dry: a wet-in-wet technique. This streaked a little and I left the streaks in, making sure that they were in the direction of grain. Drink tea; look critically at model; decide it looks too new. Further wash of burnt umber. More tea; more criticism; decide it looks too red (ha! fool!). The burnt umber looks very dark brown en masse, but is quite a red colour when thinned. Mike Trice prefers Van Dyke brown for the darker colour. Further wash of dark brown, mixed roughly 1/3 black to 2/3 burnt umber. This wanted to streak quite strongly and I let it, deeming it time to get some grain. Because it's a wash, the streaks are diffuse, not sharp and flecked. That's appropriate for teak, which has gentler graining than timbers like oak and rubberwood. At this stage, the colour balance shifted from reddish to a more neutral brown. Look at real, preserved coaches in modern photos on the computer; face-palm; model is now not nearly red enough. Final wash mixed roughly 50-50 from burnt umber and alizarin crimson (yes, really; looks implausible on the pallette). Success! Model is now a warm orange-brown, with "grain" still showing from the blackened wash. That was all done last night, under fluorescent light. In sunlight, this morning, as per the photo, it's an even better colour (IMHO). I now have a lengthy but repeatable procedure to paint my Metropolitan, Mansion House and Middle Circle stock. And it's fun! PS: ignore the reference to Middle Circle stock. That was painted in normal GWR colours. Me stupid. But the other flavours of coaches are up for teaking.

So near and yet so far. I thought that I had found a low-grief way of lining SECR coaches, where the gold(ish) lining has to be on the edges of the mouldings or on the extreme edges of the panels (i.e. so close that the eye sees it as on the moulding). I was using a technical drawing pen with "Windsor yellow" calligraphy ink. This is very fluid and tends to pool in the angle between the panel and moulding. Surface tension pulls it into a uniform line even if I didn't draw it smoothly. Perfect! I lined a whole coach with it and was content. Except ... it somehow dries colourless, except for a dark stain. I now have an unlined coach with signs of wet rot around the mouldings. Oh well, better luck next time. Meanwhile, time to build something that doesn't need lining. That's the GER-van kit looted last year and for which I need Edwardian's new transfers.

All very fine, but "with spurs enabling the SECR to run from Canterbury" kills the two-adjacent-railways idea. Too modern and efficient. And I still think that LCDR/SECR/SR would plonk a station on the main line and run a bus to the town for the holiday-makers. Or just let them walk. But I suppose if the LCDR had already built a short branch, then the EKR might run parallel to that for a mile or so, especially if the EKR's jetty was slightly away from the resort.

If the modelled stations are north of the ex-LCDR main line, then one needs to be careful of where on the coast the layout is placed. Between Whitstable and Margate, the main-line stations are within walking distance of the coast, so there's no justification for the LCDR branch. West of Whitstable there are marshes and the mail line goes landward of them; but there are no towns on that bit of coast. However, if one postulates resort development near Botany bay, then there might have been a need for branches. The SER branch then goes to the SER lines near Margate, presumably, rather than all the way down to Canterbury or Ashford. You're right about 2H rather than 3H (the Hampshire ones). Bachmann make (or at least used to make) a blue 2H. If there is, say, cement traffic on the SER branch, then it might run round at the terminus, if there were a run-round loop. If the siding link between the two stations were built on the model, then there could even be some weirdness like the cement traffic is now ('80s) worked along the SER branch into the terminus and then out again along the LCDR branch, because the connection to the main line is better that way. In fact, if the traffic source is very close to the modelled area, the cement trains could be propelled along the SER section and run round on the LCDR section.

Given the location, and the unusual twin-station layout, the history is obvious. One station was built by the SER and the other by the LCDR, these two companies being engaged in a death-struggle all over Kent for 30 years to 1898. From 1899, the two railways were run by a single management, the SECR and later inherited by the SR. This means that the lines leaving the station go to significantly different places. The ex-LCDR line goes only a short distance, to the ex-LCDR main line --- this puts the layout on the north coast of Kent. The other one goes much deeper into Kent, down to the SER territory around Ashford. If you haven't electrified both stations on the physical model, it's plausible that the ex-SER one was not electrified by the '80s. That lets you run the passenger service with your DMU, although a DEMU, possibly a 3H, would be more typical for this corner of the country. The SER and LCDR would not have been exchanging passenger trains, so the lack of a connection between the two stations is thus made plausible. I think there would have been a connection from your platform-2 road into the centre siding for exchange of freight. You could either add that or consider that BR rationalised it away. Perhaps you add the sleepers from the lifted track? Given that both stations are old --- and we know this because essentially no new railways were built in Kent after 1899 --- you would need to retcon the built layout with the steam-era layout. Primarily, where were the run-round arrangements, given that the SER and LCDR had no push-pull or railmotor stock? For the upper station, I suggest that there used to be a loop outside platform 1 but BR removed it. For the lower station, where you still need run-round for the freight, I think the line second from the bottom needs to be promoted from siding to down running-line and you assume a second cross-over just off-scene. You don't need many sidings for '80s freight operation. The ex-LCDR station is the one with the busy, electric service, as outlined by Nearholmer. I think this is the lower station as built. The ex-SER one is the top station: just a minimal BLT on the end of a relatively long branch. Since the distance from the LCDR station to the main line is small, trains can be quite frequent; they clear the section quickly. On the SER line, which is single, expect longer intervals while the trains trundle down to the next passing loop. In earlier times, there might have been Saturday excursion trains into both stations, bringing in different stock and locos. Late '70s might be pushing it a bit for these.

And after considering the economic environment, think about the railway outside your layout. Line speeds, signalling headways, lengths of block sections and position of loops all have a bearing on what trains can appear and when.

IIUC, a "waybeam" is a baulk of timber running under and parallel to the rail. Somewhat like Brunel's baulk road, but used more often in bridges, with the waybeams sitting on the lateral girders, where there's no enough vertical space for a ballasted formation. Charing Cross railway bridge is like that. Assuming that definition, is it correct that all the plain-line chairs are L1s? I ask because I am planning to build several yards of track on waybeams (there's always one!).

It's certainly possible to have the coach run in under its own momentum. Plenty of weight and pinpoint bearings will do it. There was a model slip-coach done like this on an exhibition layout decades ago (Yeovil?). That model just free-wheeled to a natural stop from the inherent friction in its bearings; it had no motor or brake. IIRC, the operators had to practice to get the right speed and release point to stop the coach in the platform. It may be possible to give the coach a DCC-operated brake instead of a motor. This would make for more realistic operation and might be simpler than a motor bogie. It seems to me simpler to operate than the consisting and deconsisting. It may also be possible to build the decoupling and braking into the track, not the coach. A ramp to release the special coupling on the slip coach might work, and the brake might be made like a retarder in a hump-shunting yard.

Can't print beer, more's the pity. If the stacking differs for full and empty casks, then I can do both, since the work is mainly in drawing one cask. As to whether the model casks should be solid resin or partly hollow, that depends on the desired weight and the resin cost. These will be done at home (way too expensive at Shapeways), and I'd expect the consumables cost for solid casks to be around £1 per wagon load. I.e. negligible if I'm printing a handful. It's more work to hollow out the model casks, and if the stacking direction varies between full and empty then I need a different model for each, otherwise the uncooked resin inside won't flow out. PS: the immediate offer is only for standard-sized Burton casks, otherwise I'll be drawing cask variants for the next few years.

This is the final form of the Grande Vitesse van for which I showed the body some time ago. The chassis is somewhat modified from the kit design, with spring suspension, sprung buffers, and the right kind of axleboxes. Much 3D printing was involved; getting a 2mm bearing into a box 5.75" wide was challenging. I need to go back to my other Grande Vitesse vans and bring their chassis up to this standard, as it rolls much better than the basic version. I now have CAD for the SER-pattern springs and axleboxes, which I can adapt to some other SECR vehicles that have been languishing.

If the cask were full, then would not the beer would keep the chine wet enough to stop shrinkage? If the community can agree on the cask size and stacking arrangement, I shall print some cask stacks. How many would you like?