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readingtype

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  1. readingtype
    Last weekend we held another FREMO meeting in our habitual venue -- should you have seen my posts on earlier meetings tehn you may recognise the various doodads that are usually found on the walls of school gyms in many of the photos. But that doesn't detract from some really good modelling. We agreed it was a good weekend. As a newish group and because we're quite isolated from the more expert groups in mainland Europe, we're putting a lot of effort into getting the planning right since it is only possible to operate things in a satisfying way if many potential questions already have answers. FREMO meetings are essentially railway modelling combined with a sort of role playing game. I can't photograph the role playing part since it has no physical expression, but here are some photos I took. As usual they're a bit pointilliste. Smartphone cameras are wonderful things, working close up in relatively low light and smoothing away the awkward details and the 12 inch to the foot background...
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    I confess these photos are a bit biased towards my station (Wasserbach) which I was running all weekend. Showing photos publicly, like bringing out the models for the meeting, is an incentive to sort out some of the details that give away the fact these are not pictures of anything full size!
     
    Ben
     

  2. readingtype

    UK FREMO summer meeting

    By readingtype,


    FREMO
    Onc more it's come around to a UK FREMO meeting, which will take place this weekend. Most of the UK FREMO members are attending, along with invited guests who help fill the driving roster and add to the conviviality. There will be something like fifteen of us (or maybe a few more) over the two days.
     
    The arrangement, made up of modules mostly from the group, is H0 to NEM standards with code 75-80-ish track and gentle curves, and we run to a timetable (reminds me I need to check over it). Preparation includes checking and fettling modules, cleaning tracks, checking the dedicated FREMO throttles ('FREDs') and of course checking the locos and rolling stock. Each meeting is a chance to refine things, so this time we're tightening up a bit on stock selection which will now be drawn from a more tightly defined time window. Notionally this all represents a secondary main line in West Germany some time 1960-69, which allows/excuses a pretty big range of stock -- but we will happily accommodate one or two 'specials'!
     
    Here's the arrangement, lightly anonymised, so you can get an idea of things.
     

     
    There's more about FREMO here https://www.fremo-net.eu/en/home/
     
    Ben
  3. readingtype
    Just back from a good weekend playing trains at the lastest UK FREMO group meeting. It was great to meet up with the regular crew and also to have some newer faces along to run trains. Allowing for occasional incidents, everything was governed by the timetable and run against a 4 x fast clock.
     
    These are some of my dodgy mobile phone photos and as usual they fade into dottiness pretty quick, but hopefully you can get an impression of the action. At each meeting it's great to see scenery progressing on all the modules. This time around we also had some new ones, giving longer stretches of running line and of course some more new scenery to pass through.
     

     

     

     

    Stock is selected from tables near to the fiddleyard operators. This passenger looks a little alarmed that their Umbauwagen is lying waiting on its side -- should have taken the railbus service...

     
     

  4. readingtype
    Just back from a good weekend in the country running H0 model trains to timetable with fast clock and waybills.
     
    Hopefully these photos give a flavour. As in previous posts I'm using the phone camera which takes away all precision and produces an impressionistic result, but this can be nice even though a greater depth of field might be more realistic.
     
    Everyone with a module has much work to do either filling in the gaps and adding detail, or just putting something on the bare wood, but there are still plenty of vantage points from which the only really odd aspect is the full-scale school hall in the background.
     

    V100s cross on goods services also including passenger facilities (Güterzüge mit Personenbeförderung) at Schwarzhausen. At this meeting, these tended to have several carriages and hence to look rather more like the upmarket version, the Personenzug mit Güterbeförderung -- a passenger service with goods wagons added.
     

    Interesting load on an Rlmms at Blauwasser
     

    A quiet moment for a BR 70 in the headshunt at Wasserbach
     

    BR 78 with a suburban service arriving at Werfen
     

    Kaffeepause (tea break) for the south end (?) yard shunter at Werfen
     

    Pickup freight train (Sammlerzug) rumbles through Schwarzhausen
     

    BR 57 running light engine (Leerzug) waits for the road at Blauwasser
     

    BR 29 on postal/goods service at Blauwasser
     

    Werfen's other yard shunter, a BR 81, at the coaling point
  5. readingtype
    This short traverser fiddleyard was designed to incorporate modules from Grainge and Hodder's laser-cut baseboard range into something I could use with my FREMO modules. I had two different use cases in mind: firstly to allow the station module to become a conventional layout suitable for home or exhibition, and secondly at a FREMO meeting to add a branch-line fiddleyard representing 'the rest of the branch'. The station can only take shortish trains in the loop and platforms. The loops are about 100 cm long which is pretty reasonable for a home layout (eight two-axle European wagons in H0) but small by FREMO's more generous standards. The station platform is shorter than that.
     

     
    The fiddleyard module from Grainge and Hodder is 90 cm long, which is pretty much perfect. It's 40 cm wide. I've set it into a frame of my own design, all made from laser cut sheet and slotted together. that can be very quickly knocked down. This is important for any layout intended to be moved frequently. There are two more G and H modules, one at each end. They kindly modified these to be 50 cm wide and added a standard F96 FREMO end profile to one end. By offsetting the fiddleyard module from the centreline I got five equally spaced H0 tracks onto it and allowed all these to align with the run-in track which is in the centre (dictated by the FREMO profile). The two end modules provide a lot of stiffness, are the connection point for the legs, and will include typical tunnel-mouth scenics to disguise the entrance to the fiddleyard in the usual way. That's why the frame has tall sides at each end; they'll be profiled to match the landscaping once I've added this to the boards themselves.
     
    The legs also come from FREMO practice, in this case some Austrian members who shared this dimensioned design on the FREMO forum. It is so simple and obvious when you see it. The benefits compared to single legs or 'H' shaped pairs of legs are stability with minimal parts and the fact that you carry two legs in one go, yet they pack down almost flat. The built-in adjustable feet have a range of about 20mm and the legs were very kindly made for me by a fellow FREMO UK member. Incidentally, FREMO arrangements are much higher than publicly-exhibited layouts: the running surface of the rails is 130cm above floor level.
     
    The overall effect reminds me of some patient beast of burden that's queueing for the loo.
     
    On the traverser itself I used Legacy steel bullhead 00 track. It is rather nice and was on discount even during lockdown when 16.5 mm track from one key supplier was a little difficult to get. The track is on its own independent thin ply board which can be removed and in theory replaced with one carrying tracks in a different gauge, say 18.2 or even perhaps 45 mm (the latter will allow a small loco and a couple of 2-axle wagons, if I ever proceed). Power feeds run on the top surface and have yet to be fixed down. Flying leads plug into the traverser module to transfer power from the layout bus.
     

     
    The plan is to use magnets to align the run-in track. I have yet to discover whether this will work, but last night was the first time a train has run from the fiddleyard onto the station module and back. Cause for celebration as this lot has been interesting to research and design. I'm very thankful for Grainge and Hodder's willingness to modify their designs and to cut to order, and to David S for making the legs.
     
     
  6. readingtype
    The other night I had an idea for a fundraiser mug that might appeal to other railway enthusiasts. I've put a proposal here, have a read if you're interested: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/171159-proposed-ukraine-fundraiser-br-132-not-just-another-blue-and-yellow-diesel/#comment-4781248
  7. readingtype
    Today's activity, as it turned out, was to install Originalbügelkupplungen (OBKs) in my Roco H0 model of the Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB) Reihe 93 (formerly Reihe 378, see Wikipedia page (German, the English one has very little text)). More about the loco below; but to introduce them OBKs are a brilliant way to improve the look of an H0 model by replacing the large clumsy coupling. They simply disappear, while working perfectly with the conventional NEM loop coupling. You can just about see them in the photo.

    This is a locomotive design I immediately loved when I first came across it. The 93 is a 2-8-2 classic allrounder tank loco, lots of small wheels giving plenty of torque for steep gradients and spreading the weight so it can run on lightly laid secondary lines. Although dating from the 1920s, members of the class were running right up to the very end of Austrian main line steam.  Regrettably for me, this event happened very shortly before I was born and so the first chance I got to see one was on a visit to the remarkable Strasshof depot not far from Vienna.


    Austrian locos have a look. It's hard to say exactly what it is, but the balance of elegance and steampunk is distinctive. Some locos had a brass ring around the chimney about half way up which is something like wearing a bandanna or a choker or ... I don't know. Many designs had truly wacky bits and bobs such as two domes with a pipe running between them (at least once through a sandbox in between), or the Brotan boiler which, well to be honest I don't really know what to say about that either. Looks disastrous but apparently it wasn't. Then there are cast iron disc wheels, found on all sorts of different low-speed locos, which most of the class originally had.
     


    There were two significant design constraints and these definitely left their mark. Firstly, Austria's supplies of coal were low grade. This meant thinking about how to make the best of what was available and on larger locos which rapidly chewed through fuel it there was a need for large wide fireboxes; this wasn't such an issue for a humble tank loco. Secondly, keeping weight down was important. Again, with six axles and a weight of 66 tons in running order this would not be a huge problem, but the ethos was there and of course the material saved was money saved up front and for every kilometer run. The desire to save weight led to frames with lots of cut-outs in them, generally rectangles with radiused corners to spread the stresses around them. On the 93 the boiler is raised fairly high and the alignment of the side tanks, cab and bunker leave open spaces which can be seen through. These are at a height where a standing observer can see through from one side to the other, sometimes through several intervening parts of the frame or thin supporting flanges and struts.
     


    The final distinctive feature, which this model has, is the Giesl Ejector -- including the narrow oblong chimney. This was designed by the Austrian engineer Dr.-Ing. Adolph Giesl-Gieslingen -- to Anglo-Saxon ears a rather grand name, but Giesel-Gieslingen seems to have been a genial and friendly as well as erudite man. He wrote an accessible history of the final years of steam designs in Austria, including trials he took part in (book details below). According to the British railway author O S Nock he was happy to roll up his sleeves and get involved when it came to trialling the ejector on various British locomotives. In Britain it wasn't considered a success but it apparently added a hundred horsepower or more to the Reihe 93. I believe that this success goes back to the fact that burning low energy, dusty coal is difficult partly because the fire won't burn nicely. I have read that really good blast pipe and chimney make a difference not by creating super-strong jets of steam but by being just right to keep the fire happily aerated so everything is burned without constricting the cyliders so the exhaust steam can't escape freely.
     
    On with the task: fitting OBKs front and rear. The whole model strikes me as a brilliant example of commercial model loco design. Dismantling it reveals the experience of the design team, taking advantage of that common baseline running along the bottom  of the side tanks, the cab and the bunker. They were able to hollow out this space to place a circuit board for the DCC chip, the lights and the motor. The walls of the space are thick cast metal giving plenty of weight and a moulded plastic outer sleeve slides over the whole thing to carry the surface details representing the prototype. I caution anyone considering opening the model: take your time. It all comes apart very nicely but it offers few hints. The instruction booklet isn't very good on this point. Communication is entirely by diagrams, but I only discovered by trying for some time that is is not possible to remove the side tanks, bunker and cab until you have removed the boiler (screw hidden in the dome, that was clear from the diagram) and the cab roof. Naturally just after succeeding to carefully remove the tank, cab side and bunker moulding I broke a detail part through slight mishandling.

    In common with many H0 models, if you remove the moulded coupling hook from the bufferbeam you reveal a slot exactly the right size for an OBK to go into. Behind the bufferbeam, things are a bit different. The design of this part of the model is extremely ingenious, and hard to describe. Both ends of the model use a similar component to bridge between the bufferbeam and the main chassis. The space under the bunker means the same design challenges are found at the rear as at the front. The part is a cast metal beam that carries the buffers and the NEM coupling at one end. At the other, it is anchored to the chassis with pins and then sandwiched in place so it cannot wobble or twist.
     

     
    Very fortunately, the OBK's shaft slides straight into the slot on the rear bufferbeam which is deep enough to accommodate its full length. The front bufferbeam needs more work; here the guide for the coupling mount is positioned so that the slot cannot be so deep. By drilling out some of the material that forms this guide and by shortening the coupling shaft slightly, the one can be made to fit in the other. To others wanting to follow: just remember to go very slowly, remove material bit by bit and keep trying the fit. Have you read that ever before?
     

     
     


    Finally: a note on the superb replacement wheels. These are to RP-25 profile and were done by Holger Gräler who offers re-wheeling as a commercial service. Here, he has put new nickel silver tyres onto the original Roco centres. Impressive.
     

    Dr.-Ing. Giesl-Gieslingen's book is: Die Ära nach Gölsdorf. Die letzten 3 Jahrzehnte des österreichischen Dampflokomotivbaus, Verlag Slezak, Wien 1981
    OBKs come from H0fine: www.h0fine.com
  8. readingtype

    Composing a layout with a photo editor

    By readingtype,


    Wasserbach
    This evening I took some smartphone photos of my current layout project, something that I quite often do as it progresses to get a sort of scale eye view of things. I think of the layout, in scenic terms, as a set of cameos shaped by images and recollections. In the case of this layout, although I can contribute to the scenic setting from my own memories and photos, the details of the railway must all come from photos in books and online.
     
    Because I have been thinking about backscenes quite a lot recently, I decided to edit in a photographic background that would roughly match my imagination. It's a photo I took from a hotel window as it happens. The result is pretty rough and ready but I think this addition transforms the images. They become a lot more like sketches of the desired result.
     
    No apologies for the grainy photos or the fact that everything is far from the finished state I would like to reach. That's the point. And also, the fact that I've sliced out the background very roughly and the lighting angles and colour cast don't match. This is impressionism rather than documentary!
     
    Firstly, the station depicted by the layout is cut into slightly higher ground and the back of the layout includes the slope where the area cleared for the railway land meets the natural land level. The slope has been cut back to give space to a large shed that has something to do with the freight transfers that take place on the outermost track. These features are shown below.

    And again with the photographic background

     
    Secondly the station building at the very end of the branch.
    Here is is with the natural background

     
    And with the photographic background.

     
    Must straighten that whistle. And get on with the layout!
     
  9. readingtype
    Following the lifting of legal restrictions earlier this month in England, and observing the good practice we have all got used to in the last 16 months, the UK FREMO group met last weekend (unofficially -- this was not a formal FREMO event).
     
    Over the period of the pandemic everyone has been able to make progress in various areas from rolling stock to scenery, timetables to waybills. The new abilities we shared made the event more enjoyable than the last one way back in February 2020. Slowly we are becoming closer to a fully-fledged FREMO group.
     
    Here are some of my impressions of the arrangement. One day I might be able to control the camera on my phone properly; until then everything is a bit more pointilliste than I would like.
     

    First up, a view of my own small branch station, Wasserbach. It's still a 'plywood desert' with foam and Bristol board providing only the broad outline of the scenery. I've left some of the curved fascia of the small end board in shot. This board is a semicircle of 300 mm radius that finishes the end of the station off quite neatly. The track and turnouts are now pretty reliable but as is obvious there is a lot more for me to do. The buffer stop is a massive one designed to slide on the rails and take up the energy of a heavy train running into it. I hope to swap that out for something much more lightweight. One suitable model is available from Auhagen. Unfortunately the kit that just arrived has turned out to contain N scale mouldings in a box labelled H0!
     
    Happily, elswhere there was plenty of nicely finished scenery.
     

     
    Here's a 'joker module' -- a small board, in this case 400mm in length, that can be used to make transitions between distinct scenic areas on larger modules either side. Joker modules are often used between hill profile and flat profile modules, for example. This one features the classic trope: a second railway line running at a picturesque angle under the track used by trains on the arrangement.
     


    Some deer graze in the rough pasture alongside the track on this 1800mm stretch which is scenically complete, and, as used this time around, formed a picturesque curved stretch for trains to be viewed in the landscape on their way to Wasserbach. There are two boards making up this section and though they were designed and built together and pair nicely in a single curve, they could be connected to form an S bend or split and used in different parts of the arrangement -- that's up to the arrangement planner.
     
    I'm happy to say that the two modules I've built that are similar in proportions to these ones were included -- their first outing, and no issues were revealed.
     

     
    By far the busiest station was Schwarzhausen, which was the junction station for the branch line to Wasserbach. The stationmaster and shunter were kept extremely busy breaking up and re-forming the local goods services passing through. In shot is a good variety of stock, and a couple of loaded wagons are visible. The loads will be removed on arrival and might end up going out again on a later service.
     

    There were quieter moments at Schwarzhausen, as here with a railbus waiting at the platform, but these were few.
     

     
    Finally, more timber awaiting shipment in the sidings at Werfen.
     
    Covid-19 kept two of our group away and prevented visitors who are still shielding from coming along, but it was a good weekend and I feel hopeful that the next meeting will not only be to a higher standard still but also accessible to the whole of the UK FREMO group and any visitors.
     
  10. readingtype
    Firstly, I have some replacement W-irons (Achshälter) from Epoche3D in Germany [one is on the right hand end of this E-wagen]. They travelled (adventurously but very slowly, once they reached the UK) through the semi-blockade. These are 3D printed replacements for the rather wibbly units used quite widely on Klein Modellbahn H0 wagons. The photo isn't great but you can see that they correct two faults in the original versions. Firstly the shape of the 'irons' is too narrow at the top. Secondly the axleboxes (Achslager) are very shallow mouldings, 2.3mm from the outer face to the inner face instead of 3.9mm on the replacements. The 3D mouldings are in a resin that can be gently bent. They need a little bit of cleaning up to remove a few artifacts of printing. They accept 2mm diameter plain brass bearings; when fully pushed home these allow the same length of axle as the original. I've replaced the axles with RP25 ones.
     
    Once I have worked out how everything will be held together (not by the coupling mounting, the original design) I will get the other axle sorted and see about some painting. Incidentally the bearings depicted (sorry, not brilliantly well) are the SKF roller bearing pattern used in France, Belgium, the Netherlands etc. Alternatives include the DB roller bearing pattern, which also inspired the Klein one on the left, and the DR oil box which has a distinctive circular cover with four fastening bolts.
     
    If you are interested in European wagons, I recommend a look at Epoche3D's web site. The owner specialises in private-owner wagons and there are some interesting models to look at -- prints can be ordered on request. I mention this as a satisfied customer, nothing more :-)
     

     
    Secondly I have an LS Models/Modern Gala SNCF K van. This is an interesting model that is built very much like a plastic kit with many parts of the underframe glued into place. It originally had absolutely dreadful pizza-cutter wheels that totally let it down. The W-irons on this model are the right shape but they bowed outwards so the axles were loose. I tried replacing the wheels but everything was sloppy and horrible and there was something wrong about the way the new wheels looked.
     
    Then I realised that they were too small. The UIC standard wagons have wheels 1,000mm in diameter, and it looks as though many earlier wagons in Germany also had wheels of this size (perhaps being nice and straightforward rational number). The French wagons preceeding the adoption of UIC designs have bigger wheels. By roughly 10%, which is most convenient as that's the magic ratio between 1:87 and 1:76, allowing me to use Alan Gibson wheels that in 1:76 scale represent the 1,000mm wheel or rather its imperial equivalent. Converting that into the model's dimensions that is the replacement of a standard H0 11mm wheel with an 00/EM 12mm solid disc carriage wheel.
     
    I still need to sort out the W-irons. I have discovered that the axleboxes and springs are glued in parts and these seem to have contributed to the distortion. I've prised them off and I am gently 'persuading' the W-irons to return to a sensible shape. The Gibson wheels are great but being for 00/EM models they are much too long and so I am, with a bit of consultancy from a club member who is well qualified to advice, shortening the axles and cutting new pinpoints. But trial and error is needed to work out the best length to cut the axle back to, because of the pre-existing distortion.
     
    Hopefully it all goes back together again, looks better and runs well. The brake blocks might be thought to need taking back, but if so it will only be a touch. No, the original wheels were not the correct diameter as far as I know. I banished them because they were bad and before taking any measurements!
  11. readingtype
    This is Liliput's 140.C from ten years ago or thereabouts, in 1:87. The real thing was made by North British in Glasgow and shipped to France in 1916 as part of an order for the French artillery (see Wikipedia article).
     
    I acquired this one recently. It did not run well; very hesitant, and prone to stopping with the gear in the same position on each revolution of the driving wheels. I dismantled it and found numerous interesting features, any one of which would probably be enough to put it off its stride, including:
    no pickup from loco wheels due to a connector on the wheel retaining baseplate which never connected motor cradle screws loose swarf in the gear chain gearwheel on rear axle misaligned twist in one connecting rod, leading to binding unfinished surfaces on connecting rods and coupling rods, leading to binding  
    Basically, it's a lovely model and the parts are interestingly designed and made (look at the nuts on the bolts that hold the big end of the connecting rod together), but when it comes to assembly the cosmetic stuff has obviously received attention whereas the parts that make it run well haven't even been completely manufactured before they were not quite correctly assembled.
     
    On the plus side, following some work over the weekend it's now running much better at very low speed (anyone can make something run at top speed), so this is progress. As long as I don't break too many more of the cosmetic parts in the process of troubleshooting.
     
    It's now got much better looking wheels too thanks to the kindness of my friend John who's taken down the absolutely gigantic flanges to something less unsightly.
     
    Plenty more to do. And I have yet to damage the pony truck on this one :-)
     
    BTW here's a comparison of a rod as supplied and after a bit of cleaning up (excuse the filaments from my glass fibre brush).

  12. readingtype
    The loco Roco chose, 2255, appears in a great dynamic photo of February 1945, crossing the temporary span of a viaduct just east of Aachen that had been blown up by retreating German forces the previous Autumn. 2255 pilots another loco and is considerably cleaner than the second S160. I'd love to have a print of the image which is credited to the US Army Signal Corps. I found it reproduced fairly small in Züge der Alliierten, published by Eisenbahn Kurier-Verlag, 2017.
     
    More details of the reworking of the cabside numbers are now on the Model Railway Club blog. I intend to renumber again to a different prototype.
     

  13. readingtype
    Time for something in 1:76 scale. This is my frst brass loco kit build, a Judith Edge kit. Started four years ago and still unfinished now.
     
    Despite the very slow progress the experience of building it has been valuable and although I wouldn't like to stick my neck out too far there seems now quite a reasonable chance it may even be completed. I am very glad I took Michael Edge's advice at the time I bought the kit to try a relatively straightforward prototype. Thank you!
     
    There have been two big challenges so far. The first was 'unsticking' the chassis for free running. That's where a lot of the intervening years went, to be honest; I feared I'd open out the crankpin holes too far and several times put it away to steep while I mulled over what I was doing. I also took it the the club more than once to solicit opinions. It turns out that pickups are difficult. A lot of the issues with running related to those, and I found it difficult to workout what was pickup trouble and what was sticking coupling rods. Running a loco on rollers turns out to be a lot different from running it on track!
     
    The second was a lot more recent, last week in fact, and that was curving the edges of the roof. That issue was resolved by fiddling with it during an evening phone call. The payback for this opportunism was that I wasn't paying full attention so it remains to be seen whether I remember what I did next time. I'm showing the side where the roof edges are slightly out of line with the sides of the cab, which is painful to do but so far I haven't found the will to take it off and do it again, because I'm not sure whether it will come out better or worse. So far, carefully dismantling and refixing has proved the way to go but each slight misstep means another evaluation. But following my success with the cab I felt like carrying on and the front and rear 'hoods' have been done over the last few days.
     
    These two photos confirm it's far from a perfect piece of work, there's loads more to do and I still have a lot to learn before it's finished. But I think it's worth celebrating the fact that now at least this model does have the outline of the real thing.
     
    Incidentally I discovered a very useful gallery on Flickr which will help anyone else wanting to build the model, from ukrail: Hunslet 50T 325hp 0-6-0DH
     

     
     
  14. readingtype
    There's nobody coming round, and I can't get to the club, so I have decided the time is right to start on my first whitemetal loco kit build.
     
    This is an H0 model of the Deutsche Bundesbahn BR V36 (later BR 236), a three-axle, 360hp diesel-hydraulic shunter that was originally ordered for the German Army in the second world war and proved to be a (rough and ready) survivor, with examples travelling beyond Europe and remaining in use for several decades. It is a Weinert kit, manufactured about 25 years ago and bought second hand a while back, though it is still in the current Weinert catalogue (article number 0024).
     
    I'm guided by the excellent build report written by Steph Dale 14 years ago and there's no point in me adding rookie comments; his experience comes through clearly.
     
    What I do want to record is how straightforward and gratifying it has been to solder the main parts together. Weinert's instructions recommend gluing everything. As Steph reported, the way things fit together shows that gluing was probbaly the intended construction method (and not just a recommendation). But with a realtively fine-bit soldering iron at 230C, some liquid flux and a litle 100C solder, it is remarkably easy to get a nice seam of solder along the joins between largish parts like the bonnet sides and top. By the way, the swooshes of darker colour are some discolouration or impurity in the metal, not where I've been splashing liquid around.
     

     
    This is the inside of the bonnet and you can see I've managed a pretty neat seam along the join between the radiator at the left end and the side panel. There's a little spot I have missed towards the right hand end of the join between the side panel and the top. The right hand piece is the front cab bulkhead which is loosely fitted to help locate the bonnet panels.
     

     
    Here's the outside showing the same side and the radiator end along with the top. All pretty clean and tidy. The step between the back of the radiator and the roof is negligible in reality.
     
    The reasons everything is going well so far seem to me:
    Well designed parts Nicely cast, so although like anything cast in whitemetal there is a bit of bowing this can be easily straightened out by very gently bending between the fingers and offering up to a straight edge And on my part, taking plenty of time to carefully remove the very modest amount of flash on the mouldings, to offer things up, to look at the fit and true of things, and then to check again.  

     
    Here's a trial fit of the frames, bufferbeams and running board. The wheels, jackshaft, coupling rods, gears, motor and pickup come ready-mounted to the inner chassis (black), so in this kit there is no pressure to get the chassis running properly.
     
    So far so good. As a beginner, I think this is what you want from a kit project. Not terrifyingly complex, but a challenge that seems achieveable. Since returning to the hobby, I've been gradually investigating the skills and techniques I remember reading about as a kid. I can't magically acquire skills I didn't have then, but I do have a bit more patience nowadays so I'm in with a chance. And I'm looking forward to the rest of the build.
     
    NB for anyone interested in building this kit, the instructions are naturally enough in German. There are British equivalent kits -- Britain really being the home of the whitemetal model railway kit -- but I happened to want to build a loco in line with my current German H0 interests, and I wanted to try a Weinert kit. And finally, it's worth knowing that a British whitemetal kit at list price will cost you less than a Weinert one.
     
    The feature photo is V36 211, built by BMAG in Berlin in 1942, photographed at the Bavarian Railway Museum (BEM) Nördlingen in June 2019.
  15. readingtype
    A couple of weeks back I attended a meeting of UK FREMO members. It was a weekend running session following the FREMO norms as far as possible, although our group is quite small and our arrangement (the way the modules are combined into a minature railway network) was fairly modest. Lots of our modules don't yet have scenery, but we were able to borrow a set of club-built modules allowing us the luxury of a pretty large terminus complete with a running shed. We did have a phone system, and ran to a timetable using a clock running at five times real time, but we don't yet have enough wagon cards set up to allow us to get into the nitty gritty of sending and receiving loads at each station.
     
    There was though quite enough going on to keep everyone pretty busy. I ran my own station, Wasserbach (alas so far totally bereft of scenery). I found that, despite the fact that I had a pretty light set of services to look after, getting shunting done in good time to clear the arrival road in time for the next passenger train was a challenge (that I wasn't always up to).
     
    We were fortunate to have a video of part of the session so you can get a bit of an idea of the event. Thank you to Ewan's Trains and Buses.
     
    The photo shows a BR 41 running light engine in reverse, back from Wasserbach to the depot at Regensburg through one of the modules with finished scenery. It couldn't be used on a return freight service as my station doesn't have a turntable and the loco had no front coupling!
  16. readingtype
    OK so I'm one of the (Oxford Rail) N7 fans.
     
    I pretty much have to be, as I am working on this layout project.
     
    Fortunately I already was a fan as I currently live in Homerton (on the east side of Hackney in London) not far from the  the Great Eastern Railway line on its viaduct running up through Cambridge Heath, London Fields and Hackney Downs. This was one of the chief routes on which the N7 was used and a little bit of reading got me interested in the whole history of the GER, the only 'full size' railway company to concentrate all its loco and rolling stock building and all serious maintenance in London. The N7 is both quite an interesting loco in its own right and very much a representative of the railway that built it. 
     
    Anyway enough of that. This post is an adjunct to the long running thread on Oxford Rail's model, and just records that it is possible to take off the rather plump wheels that come with it, mount them on longer 2mm axles you may have spare, gauge to a 16.5mm back to back, and (after a fair amount of filing) things look like they should work.
     
    The filing is needed because the wheels are going on for 3mm thick. The low footplate means the top of each wheel protrudes through it, so clearance is needed between the wheel face and the footplate and as it happens also at the sides to clear the flange. The front driving wheels are almost OK when taken out to EM. The splashers have plenty of room inside but a little has to come off the sides of the opening in the footplate.
     
    The second driving axle is fine as long as all the sideplay allowed for sharp curves is taken out. There's around 2mm in spacing washers behind every driving wheel -- I have to do some trials out on the line to see what this means in practice.
     
    For the rear drivers, a lot more filing time is needed. Oxford's designers have made the water tanks solid metal (which is brilliant for adhesion weight) but the allowance for the wheels to project into them isn't wide enough for the wide wheels taken out to EM. I didn't do a brilliantly tidy job of making more space, but that is all that will need doing. It's just that it takes a while; I don't really know why the clearance is tighter on the rear drivers than on the others but that's the way it comes. As with the front wheels a little room is needed for the flanges but mostly it is the wheel face that needs more room. The axles can rock slightly so extra space must be allowed otherwise they will rub and also connect the metalwork of the footplate to one or other of the rails. In extreme cases both rails might be connected; you will soon find out as this will short out the track power.
     
    Other than that, apart from my determined efforts to ruin all the detail parts, I have done nothing except to remove the reversing lever and the condensing apparatus lever from the left hand side of the boiler moulding. And taken the lions with their unicycles off in preparation for a later-style British Railways emblem. So there are few more steps to get back to an accurate model.
     

  17. readingtype
    One thing always leads to another.
     
    I decided long ago that my H0 locos would get replacement Originalbügelkupplungen (OBK) couplings. Here after work over the last few days is the front of my Fleischmann BR 86. For sure there is a still dirty great hook but the NEM pocket is gone, it's far more subtle than anything the industry could provide and to my mind the incorporation of the scale coupling hook and turnbuckle is very neat.
     
    It's got lovely wheels made and fitted by Holger Gräler (Germany's go-to engineer for replacement H0 wheels) and I doubt any of my modifications will really live up to them. However, the OBK in the buffer beam is a massive step up from the NEM coupling that was sticking way out before.
     
    Catch is, the guard irons (Schienenraümer) were cleverly incorporated into the coupler mechanism -- they swung side to side as the coupling moved. Once exposed by removing the coupler, the whole thing looked dreadfully crude and was in the way of the OBK, so it's gone. Same at the back. And so now there is a rather glaring absence below the buffer beam.
     
    And that means I now need to create new guard irons front and rear.

  18. readingtype
    Today's fun: trying to fit Bill Bedford BR 'modern image' W-irons under a Cambrian SR/BR 25t Toad.
     
    Catch is: the gauge is EM and the van has the narrowest frames. Evah.
     
    I chose the (sprung) W-irons because for some reason I thought the van wouldn't ride nicely (old moulds, my dodgy construction skills, runes consulted etc). I trimmed them to broadly the right shape with a knife (note the ones on this van, at least following the mouldings in the kit, are unusually wide and lack any weight relieving holes). Trouble is that the width of the whole W-iron unit is 26mm, a good 3mm more than the space available between the frames. So the two W-irons have been chopped in half and (carefully, but not skillfully) soldered back together.
     
    The only axle I could find that would go in was an old Märklin one (remember: h0 is like 00, just 0.87 times as much ...) and this axle was 24mm tip to tip. Filing off the tips got it down to 23mm. Off came the old wheels, the ends of the axles were ridged with a file (as in the Gibson instructions for fitting drive gears to proprietary axles) and on went the Gibson wheels. There's not a lot between the front face of the wheel and the rear face of W-iron. I've cut the moulded W-irons on the solebars back to the springs.
     
    We shall see how this turns out; the frame's currently held together with hair clips and the solvent is doing whatever it needs to do.
     
    And here is one of Paul Bartlett's photos of a prototype 25t van. I'm doing this diagram, D1582, there are a few others covered by the kit
  19. readingtype

    A pony down

    By readingtype,

    My intended conversion to EM of an old Bachmann Austerity was coming along so well until I put the chassis in the body and then picked the loco up by the body :-(
     
    The pony truck is the only casualty. But it's a functional component. So it goes...
     
    Here's the rest of the chassis. It rolls along, but lots of work lies ahead to make the crank pins happy and to reconcile the connecting rods and valve gear. And now I also need to work out what to do with the broken pony truck.
     

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