Ruston

It's a Fuli S5800. It's a tough camera and it's survived being soaked in a Welsh lead mine, dropped on the floor in a slate mine and being covered in mud in a fireclay mine. It's not bad when you can get the aircraft in the frame but it's a bit like an air-gunner deflection shooting -you have to aim ahead and press the shutter where you think the target will be by the time the electronics have done whatever it is they do. Here are some I took at Sywell, 2014. EE Canberra (PR9?) Pitts Specials? Replica R.A.F. SE5a.

Here are a few that I took at Old Warden, last year. My old Fuji point and shoot isn't very good at shooting moving aircraft. Bristol Blenheim. Gloster Gladiator. Hawker Demon? DeHavilland Dragon Rapide.

As we seem to have been moved from the "Special Interests" to "Prototype" I'd just like to remind people that this section is also for models of standard gauge UK industrial railways,locomotives, rolling stock etc.

I think the baseboard will cope. I've just been in the shed adding more to this construction and I've run out of brass section - again! I was going to have to take a break from it anyway - there's only so much sawing, milling and filing that can be done before wanting to slit one's wrists... I've got a tubeplate to fit inside an Ixion Manning Wardle for a bit of light relief.

A pre-war tank from me. i found this in a farmyard near Flockton whilst walking the dog, last Sunday. The overall size and shape, plus the filler lid and the fact that there is evidence of where a timber would have been on the end suggest it was a railway tank to me. I'm not sure about the pipe flange at the top, this end. though. A modification for farm use, or original?

I may be stretching the time frame here because these shots are undated. They're certainly late 90s if not maybe 2000. Thomas Hill V333 at M.O.D B.A.D. Kineton. Thomas Hill 307v, 272v and one other, unidentified TH in the loco shed at Kineton. AB663 at Kineton. IIRC, this had recently arrived from Germany where it operated with the BAOR and was built to continental loading gauge. Unidentified TH at R.O.F. Eastriggs. Note the standard/2ft. gauge level crossing and 2ft. gauge Andrew Barclay loco. TH 309v at Eastriggs.

Thanks, Giles. Today I have been doing the tedious job of sawing and milling more brass H-section for the screens building. So far I've used about 8 metres of the stuff and now the frame is becoming too large for the soldering plate. It's tricky trying to keep everything square and as it grows more deviation is creeping in. Some parts will have to be fixed with Araldite as some of the wall panels (that will be brick embossed plasticard, backed with card) need to be slotted in the columns before cross pieces are fitted above them.

Following on from the topic on 48DS locos and with news of the 7mm Judith Edge kit posted today, I thought it's time to do the same for the 88DS class. I have more photos of 88s but most of them are copyright of various photographers, so I'll have to stick to the few official RH photos that I have. As with the 48DS, this class began life under Ruston's old classification scheme and were known as 80/88HP Diesel Shunters. The first was w/n 192325, which left the works in June 1938. 201980 of 1940 at the War Department's Inchterf gun ranges with a very strange piece of rolling stock. On the front is a Vortex spark arrester and flameproofed lighting. Engine starting on most 88DS was by admitting compressed air into the cylinders but later flameproof locos had electric starting. The battery for this would have been on the other side so we can't tell if this was the case but we can see the hole in the top front of the frame plate for hand-starting gear. Hand-starting gear was deleted from sometime around when the classification changed to 88DS. 242868 of 1946, about to depart Boultham Works, destined for the Gas Light & Coke Co. at Southall. Note the bulge on the rearmost engine cover side panel - this covered part of the donkey engine that was used for initially charging the main engine starting air receiver. On these early locos this small engine would have been one of Rustons' own PT 1 1/2HP petrol engines. 254036 of 1947 at West Midlands Joint Electricity Authority's Ocker Hill power station. A year on from the previous loco and the cab had been redesigned to be fully enclosed. 262997 and 275886, both of 1949, at WMJEA Birchills power station with what would have been BR ex-private owner wagons. 299107 of 1951. This was Rustons own works shunter and was fitted with smaller diameter wheels and had no buffer beam weights. Note that the bulge for the donkey engine has grown larger and has moved to the middle panel.This was to accommodate the diesel engines that replaced the petrol PT engine. This one is taken from a later publication so I have no details but it shows a late loco with the rubber seals around the windows. The rear cab windows were also enlarged on these later locos. We're going back chronologically with 242870 of 1947 to show a loco with a special feature. This loco was supplied to Wallasey Corporation Gas & Water Dept. and was fitted to run on coal gas. I don't know the details or whether it was in addition to diesel, or as a complete replacement. Another one from a sales leaflet and unidentified but was probably for the Air Ministry. This shows a fully-flameproofed loco with a shortened cab (looking again it's probably a lengthened frame) and two exhaust conditioners behind it. On the running plate is the box for the starting battery and note the lack of bulge in the side panels as there is no need for a donkey engine.

177530, taken from Ruston & Hornsby sales leaflet No.7216 of 1936. The drawing shows the front to be flat but picures in the same leaflet show the rounded header tank, as seen earlier, so it can't have remained in th as drawn state for long.

Looking good! You can definitely put my name down for one. You do mean the frame weights? I've only ever seen a picture of one 88DS that didn't have the buffer beam weights.

Block out the top sections of the side windows, take off the BR electric lamps and vac pipes and it's the industrial version. I could be interested in one of these. It has the same engine as an 03 and mechanical transmission (though Hunslet's own and I don't know if that was self-shifting air-powered), so I suppose the sounds for an 03 would do to make it DCC sound... Does anyone know the wheelbase? [just found it - 9ft. - that should go round my curve]

It's in their advert in Railway Modeller that they will be closing at the end of September unless a buyer is found. This is another blow to West Yorkshire modellers. With Wakefield Model Railway Centre gone a few years now I'll have to wait for exhibitions to buy my supplies, or go on the interwebs...

Strangely-coloured industrial saddletanks, today. Really, what's not to like about that? If only the pictures had sound with them. Far better than F***** S******n in my humble opinion, of course.

Foxfield Railway, Sunday 17th July. Whiston posing as Hurricane. There's something not right about that chimney.

Slowly, everything is coming together. Nothing drastic has happened but the conveyor between the crusher and the feed bunker is done (except it may yet get a cover), the rollers and belt are in place, as is a walkway and handrail. There is an access door from the crusher house to the conveyor and the crusher house now has some heavy duty cabling around the outside and gutters (made from umbrella spokes with Giles' brackets. The cable hangers are also by Giles. The mine car tippler and Peake Patent Turntable is in place next to the crusher house. The workshop/store alongside the engine shed now has a door handle and a light above the door. On the side of that building is a bell for the shed telephone and on the shed itself is a junction box for electrical cabling. The feed bunker has been repainted and weathered again as I didn't like the blue colour I had originall used. All the buildings have been given a light blow-over of dirt, using the airbrush. Things yet to do on this collection of buildings include downpipes from the gutters, cabling into the engine shed, more filth on the concrete in front of the engine shed and probably a few other things that I haven't even thought of yet.

Thanks, Dava. This evening's project is to make something to fill the gap at the end of the layout.I thought about having some tall trees behind the loco shed and crusher house. I may still have some low-relief trees but a large part of the space will now be filled with another structure. It will be open with just a roof and will be on a framework attached to the side of the crusher house and over the workshop that is alongside the loco shed. If we imagine the adit to be off somewhere behind the collection of buildings, there would be a slope, constructed of steel girders, that rises up to the level of the crusher house where the mine cars would be run through a tippler to be emptied. A chain creeper would haul the mine cars up the slope and another would lower them down another track after being emptied. At first I thought about buying a second hand OO gauge point as the end of a run round loop as this is an easy option but this would have meant extending the gantry over the loco shed and that didn't seem at all plausible. So I decided to put in a Peake Patent Turntable. This device, invented by Cecil Vowe Peak and patented by the National Coal Board in the early 1950s, was designed to turn mine cars and tubs around in a short space and was used in exactly the situation I am wanting to fill. The table did not have rails and was powered by an electric motor and turned constantly. Wagons pushed onto it, or fed onto it by a creeper, would be taken round and re-engage with the rails at the other end where they would be manhandled or picked up by another chain creeper. Hudsons could also provide tables with an pneumatic arm that acted like a switch rail and could direct cars onto one of two tracks. I have made the simple one way off version. Table under construction. Table with rails in place and tippler under construction.

The miners' "paddy train" at Royd Hall. Summer 1964.

The miners' paddy train. In NCB years the paddy train was reduced to a single pre-WW1 coach and brake van. No one is quite sure where the coach originated but the vacuum brake and gas lighting had been decomissioned before it passed to the NCB from the previous colliery owners. The coach is a Slaters GWR composite. I picked it up, second hand, as an unbuilt kit at Kettering. The only bargain I've ever had from the GOG! I haven't finished it as a GWR coach because I fancied having something in varnished wood. You may also notice that I've been planting a few wild flowers and long grass. The coach isn't bent - it's the camera lens that makes it look that way!

As a trial I once lifted one of my locos off the track and placed it on a bare baseboard. It ran for 4 feet before running out of juice. The loco is fitted with with one of these - http://digitrains.co.uk/ecommerce/search/ka2-keep-alive.aspx

This is the craziest thing I've ever seen on this site. Full marks for effort and entetainment value! I know you said you want to use DC but how about DCC, using ordinary plain proprietary rail? Place short dead sections between alternating + and - sections, just long ehough so the loco doesn't short the + and - and a keep alive to carry the loco over the dead sections?

They are all 1/72 scale, both are kits. The Martynside is from AZ Model and Bristol is from MAC.

A few more of my WW1 aricraft models. Martynside Buzzard. A flight of Sopwith Pups. Bristol Scout. Scratchbuilt F.E2b. S.E5a flight and pilots. S.E5a.

Thanks for posting. I like the way you filmed the machines and men up close. Please let us know when you've done the complete film.

How can I have not seen this before? (the original title probably put me off - I thought it was a garden railway). I've just read the whole lot through and I think it's great. Industry, industrial locos, large brick buildings... And your work with the stationary engines is brilliant! I'll be watching this from now on.

The aged Manning Wardle Jervis shunting a single internal use wagon at Royd Hall, July 1965.