hartleymartin

It seems from my idea of possible conversions (I'm still looking into the possibility of a side-tank conversion), that a few dress-ups and other conversions have been fielded here. Those 16" buffers look particularly nice!

It would be interesting to see if anyone does an outside cylinder conversion of the Ixion product.

That is a very neat way of partially disguising a join in the baseboard!

This particular image helped me solve an issue with planning my own shunting layout. The use of two Wye points saves a few inches and also eases the radius of the curves.

And have that spring over the front axle...

Have you one of the Ixion Hudswell Clarkes? I'd love to see your take on the model.

Percy? Is that you?

I used to be dead-set against the plastic handrails on the HC, but now I think that it was a stroke of genius on Ixion's part, because they are exactly where most people would grab the locomotive, and they spring back.

I believe that a number of 0-4-0 saddle tanks had a 5'9" wheelbase. I was certain that Manning Wardle had one such type with 2'9" wheels.

I'm contacting a local (Sydney) manufacturer about getting reject components from one of their kits. There were a few side-tank Hudswell Clarkes in Australia, but they had their boilers replaced with a standard {!} boiler from another class of locomotive. It may be possible for me to model one of these locomotives.

Yes, it is proving somewhat difficult to find the data on the wheelbase, etc online. From what I can tell, the Hudswell Clarke has 3'3-1/2" wheels and 11'6" wheelbase (5'6" + 6'0") I suppose that it is possible for people wanting different locomotives to purchase a kit minus wheels, motor, gearbox, etc and then mount the body on the HC chassis.

You don't have to convert everything at once. Have a few wagons with one type of coupling at each end until you have converted all of them over. At least then you will still be able to run all of your rolling stock, even if you have to have a match-truck in between. There is precedence for this too, though not in England. The Standard-gauge New South Wales Government Railways went on a program of converting from 3-link hook drawgear to automatic couplings that ended up taking some 40 years. There were vehicles with hook drawgear and buffers, vehicles with automatic couplings and buffers and then other with automatic couplings and no buffers. It was possible to couple a vehicle with buffers and automatic couplings to another with hook draw gear and buffers using a "transition link" (a D-shackle with a couple of links which would attack to the automatic coupling) I have a photo somewhere of a locomotive hauling 3 trucks and a carriage and two of the trucks were there to act as match-trucks!

Have you thought about having a sector-plate fiddle-yard? You could squeeze a little more room into the run-around loop by eliminating one point at the fiddle-yard end. Better still, you could model the V-crossing (frog) of the point but not the point blades to suggest the presence of a point, but have it hidden behind some scenery. (A picture here would be worth a thousand words if I could find one to illustrate what I mean.)

I think I've chosen the prototype to base the conversion on. Thanks to Dava and his suggestion: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bonedome/4063819917/ It is the MSC Short-tank Canal type locomotive. However, it seems to have a larger diameter boiler. I'll have to pull apart a model first and ascertain what is possible and what is practical before I want to start hacking up a perfectly good locomotive!

Hudswell Clarke also build tank locomotives to the same specification as the Hunslet "Jazzer" Class. I'm looking around for some drawings or data that will confirm dimensions such as wheelbase, wheel-size, spacing, etc to see if the Ixion Hudswell Clarke mechanism can be used for the basis of other locomotives, scratch-building/kit-bashing a new body on top. I have an irrational aversion to building a locomotive completely from scratch because I don't know how good the running mechanism will be. I suppose like many other modellers, I'd prefer to have a known mechanism that runs well as botched attempts at bodies are easier and cheaper to deal with than botched mechanisms.

Carl Arendt (RIP) defined a micro as being typically 4 square feet or less in area. However, he later changed the website to Micro/Small Layouts because there were very many good layouts that followed the micro principle of being an operational model railway (as opposed to being just a diorama) but did not meet the area criteria.

I was looking at a few pictures of various industrial tank locomotives and it occurred to me that it may be possible to do a conversion of the Ixion Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 Saddle Tank into a side-tank locomotive like one of the Manchester Ship Canal company's locomotives For those who are interested in the railways of New South Wales, the NSW Public Works Department operated two locomotives (no. 27 and 28) which operated in Port Kembla Harbour. I seem to recall that their leading dimensions were similar to the Ixion Hudswell Clarke, except that they were side-tank locomotives. The main points of work would be to remove the saddle-tank, fabricate a new top-half of the boiler and then add side tanks. (After choosing a suitable prototype as a reference point).

If I remember correctly, Steel guitar strings were recommended for the coupling. You can get them in a variety of thicknesses from 0.010" to about 0.018" or 0.020" if I remember correctly. They are usually quite cheap in comparison. The weights used in the construction of these couplings are tiny lead fishing weights which have a split in one side, which makes them easy to attach. You just use a small blob of superglue or epoxy to secure it in place. All can be bought quite cheap and you don't have to go through a hobby shop to get them.

I lead to believe that if you do not reverse your stock that you can have a steel wire on one each of each wagon and a brass one on the other. Again, you cannot turn your stock around, but it creates the ability to have delayed uncoupling since it pulls down the steel one, the brass one flicks back up and then you can push a wagon into the siding without unintentional re-coupling. Can anyone here tell me if this is so? It is more of an academic interest to me, since in my own use, I am following the NSW Government Railway's practice of having a combination of vehicles with hook drawgear, auto-couplers with buffers and auto-couplers without buffers. It makes for interesting shunting since you require a vehicle with auto-couplers AND buffers AND transition drawgear in order to couple an bufferless auto-coupled vehicle to one with hook drawgear. Just adds a whole new dimension of complexity when working with shunting layouts.

The "Terrier" is a great choice for Dapol in R-T-R O gauge. They can be run all all sorts of layouts from industrial, light railway, branch line, city line, country line, etc from 1870's right through to the 1950's. Heck, I'm looking forward to getting a couple so that I can re-create the NSW Government Railways N67 class, which was more or less identical to a Terrier, but with a different cab and bunker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/6474986565/sizes/o/in/photostream/

I also think that you particularly captured the Hibberd style of cab quite well.

I think the feature that makes it distinctly not a Hibberd Planet locomotive is the louvred door panels. I have never seen a planet with them. However, you have made a very good looking little locomotive out of what was a poorly-scaled 1970's toy. Who is to say that Hibberd did not manufacture a few special orders in its life time to suit particular local conditions? As you, yourself have said, that you have managed to put an otherwise redundant acquisition to work. It is infinitely more believable than the original Atlas Plymouth Switcher. I hope to make a similar conversion, using one of these models which I acquired quite cheaply. I am surprised that you find the Atlas wheels to have troubles with Peco points. check your back-to-back dimensions on the wheelsets using some callipers. I have had few such difficulties thus far. I also agree that some good scale drawings of various models of Hibberd Planet would be most helpful, since they are a fairly simple outline, which would not be too difficult to scratch-build.

No scale drawings seem available, but I did manage to use photographs to estimate leading dimensions - I hope this helps. These measurements are approximations drawn from photographs using known standard dimensions of gauge, buffer height and buffer centres 6'6" wheelbase 17'8" length over headstocks 6'0" Cab length 10" back of cab to rear headstock 8'4" length over hood 4'4" height of hood 11'3" height over cab (approximated) 8'10" height of cab sidesheet 5'8" rear axle to rear headstock 5'7" front axle to front headstock (make even for front and rear) 9'0" headstocks width 6" clearance headstocks above railhead 7'9" cab width 8'10" cab height above footplate 4'6" height of strip on cabside/cab-back from footplate Rear windows: 24" wide, 20" high

If these are of any help, I went and took some estimate measurements of photos of prototype Planet locomotives using known dimensions such as width between buffers, height of buffers, gauge, etc in photos: 6'6" wheelbase 17'8" length over headstocks 6'0" Cab length 10" back of cab to rear headstock 8'4" length over hood 4'4" height of hood 11'3" height over cab (approximated) 8'10" height of cab sidesheet 5'8" rear axle to rear headstock 5'7" front axle to front headstock (make even for front and rear) 9'0" headstocks width 6" clearance headstocks above railhead 7'9" cab width 8'10" cab height above footplate 4'6" height of strip on cabside/cab-back from footplate Rear windows: 24" wide, 20" high

This is excellent! A prototype to aim for!