Ruston

A SA needs to go in the cab but if that suppressor thing is removed from the motor, an ESU speaker will fit in front of the motor. I used a 6 pin Zimo MS500 that plugs directly into the Hornby socket and saves having extra wires to fit in.

Thanks! The trouble with getting a layout to a state where most of it is done, and it is all useable, is that the little things that are needed to finish it don't get done because you start playing trains with it. I do, anyway. I had another running and photo session. The NCBOE bought a loco, second hand, from Charlie Strong. Thomas Hill 'Vanguard' diesel-hydraulic rebuild of a Sentinel vertical-boilered steam loco (RT Models kit).

The lack of market interest in a tension lock coupler for O may have something to do with them looking bloody awful! 3-links are large enough in O to be used quite easily, so why anyone would want to disfigure their models by ADDING such a thing is beyond me. In any scale you'll get people going on about this detail isn't right, or that isn't right on a model but they seem to be able to live with these ruddy great ugly and unprototypical couplings stuck on the ends of everything.

Paint and weathering done. Stay Alive in cab, ready to be wired to a decoder. The chassis block has been chopped, as per the previous one, but I used a piercing saw and file, just to prove it can be done without a milling machine. I forgot to take a pic of the chassis block before I refitted it but here's one of the lumps that I sawed off to prove it.

Hybrid, built from a BR blue one and a Rowntree one.

Unidentified Ruston 88DS at the NCBOE disposal point at Blacker Lane, near Wakefield.

Hornby have done it, despite their "Era 6" listing, as present day, preserved condition, which has a silver painted exhaust. Still a work-in-progress but looking better now.

Three on the go but not all are mine. It's a mix and match job to get what we want. First up is the one for Blacker Lane. This uses the chassis from the BR green one, frames from the Rowntree and bodywork from the BR blue one to give a mid period 20-ton type. Next is for my friend Scott's half of Sevastopol Works, where it will be a quite new loco, so is in Ruston works livery, or as near as. This uses the chassis and frames from the BR blue one and the bodywork from the BR green one. The lack of buffer beam weights is ideal for conversion to block buffers, which is what it will have when I've finished with it. The full-length side weights suit the early period. The frame has been painted green but needs a better colour match yet. The roof will also be painted green. Last is for use at Charlie Strong's yard since I sold my Judith Edge kit-built 88DS that ran on there. This uses the chassis from the Rowntree one, the frame from the BR green one and the late type bodywork, with larger windows, from the Rowntree one. The white roof has already been painted but, like the other one, requires a better colour match. The frame will also go green and so this is a late model 17-ton type when finished. That exhaust will be painted. White? What were they thinking?

This one is a bit of a mystery but then again maybe not. It's in Middlesborough, photo taken by Keith Long in May 1959. A white, or possibly yellow 48DS with dark lining. It would have been brand new back then. (Flickr, clickable pic) There were 3 48DS of similar vintage in the area - 402808 of 1956, of Harrison Bros. foundry, which is pictured earlier in this thread and was painted in the usual lined green and had jacking points under the buffers, so it can't be that. 411318 of 1957 of the Owners Of The Middlesborough Estates Ltd. also pictured in this thread and in green, with oval/double height buffers, so not that one either. Some lettering is visible above the open engine casing doors and it could be 417891 that was new in May 1959 to Michael Baum Ltd. Scrap dealer, Cleveland Dockyard, Scotts Rd. Middlesborough. A very strange choice of colour for the time, especially if it was white!

Teddy Bears Picnic. After BR sold them off, D9513 and D9531 were put to work by the NCB at British Oak opencast Disposal Point, where they were painted in the orange and black livery of site operator Hargreaves Industrial Services.

Here we go again. BR lettering, numbering and crests removed. Roof off. Buffers off. They seem to have used more glue on this one as the bodywork is extremely reluctant to leave the frame. I may have to put a slit in the underside for the wires that will connect the Stay Alive, in the cab, to the decoder, under the bonnet. It will also mean repainting the bodywork in situ. I haven't decided how that will go yet. If it remains in what is more or less Ruston's factory livery I will paint the roof to match the rest but I'm thinking that it would be nice in Hargreaves orange to run on Blacker Lane. I already have a fictional steam loco on there, so one of my favourite type of diesels deserves a place there. It's Modeller's Licence, not... No, I can barely bring myself to type the words... Rule 1

If you go down to the woods today... D9513, Left, D9531, right. I think both of the prototypes ended up at Ashington and both are now preserved.

It's not the factory at fault. They were shown like that in the original renderings, which also showed it with the front of the bonnet being painted black and with the side weights of the 20-ton version. I'm sure I mentioned these two things on here and those faults didn't make it to the finished model, so perhaps Hornby do read these comments? I never noticed the crests and I'm not sure anyone else here mentioned it either. Then again it's not our job to do their research for them! I had assumed that Hornby employ someone to do all this stuff; I certainly know that they did but he left for better things a number of years ago and so it's probably the office cat that does it now.

It won't stay looking like that for long. I'll have that BR lettering, numbering and crest off for a start!

British Oak opencast Disposal Point, operated by Wm. Pepper/Hargreaves. Full story here -

The steering gear on the barge isn't all there but as it's going to spend most of the time parked facing this way it's not really noticeable, so I'll call it done. The Wills signalbox kit that I built umpteen pages ago came with a wheel for operating level crossing gates, which of course I didn't need so stuck it in the spares box. It made a pretty decent wheel for the barge and saved a lot of trouble in making one from scratch. I could varnish around the barge to eliminate the gap but I may build another barge yet, so I'll leave it for now.

West Country barge Annie Maud is loaded with coal for Ravensthorpe Power Station at Blacker Lane D.P. at the staithe on the Calder & Hebble Navigation.

I found the transfers. Picture taken this evening. I'll get some better ones with the proper camera. It needs a barge under there now.

I've seen that, yes. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.8043352,-1.5480045,3a,75y,79.74h,91.08t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1spDYfZoPYzFsBSd5SvmbiHg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DpDYfZoPYzFsBSd5SvmbiHg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D97.8752%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu I don't know anything about the etches. They're not on the JE UK model shops page.

Dave Bradwell, IIRC.

Wow! That's going back some time! 2005/6? I didn't accomplish all that I wanted to this weekend but the majority of the work on the staithe is now done. It is fixed in place but there are some gaps around it that need to be filled and part of the sleeper retaining wall needs to be rebuilt at the front. The hopper is a Parkside kit that I have been building on and off for months and I finished it today. It would have been complete with NCB lettering but the transfers that I used for the RCH internal users have gone AWOL. I've looked all over the shed for them and I just know that as soon as I order some replacements they'll turn up in a drawer or something! No progress has been made with the barge. I've got some Hornby LNER 21-ton hoppers that I bought second hand, if I can find them, and have a brass kit for an MOT 21-ton hopper that I got from @Mark Saunders that I was about to start when I noticed that the destructions say that it's for EM/P4 only and that major surgery is required to the body to allow it to be built to OO, so that one won't be built now. If I'm going to spend a lot of time and hassle on a wagon it would be one of those Liverpool Corporation types (see pics of British Oak hoppers that have a large control wheel on the side for the hopper doors) but that would have to be a scratch build. I'll stick to LNER hoppers for the forseeable. I think the British Oak-inspired staithe is a definite improvement over the fictional tipper house.

I should have this finished, weathered, and properly installed over the weekend. I will also attempt to finish the barge.

A very thin coat of epoxy adhesive is the best way, IMO. It gives lots of time for adjustment and to squeeze out and wipe away any excess. You will need to hold it in place with pegs or clamps. I have used it to successfully add etched panels to both brass kits and RTR plastic-bodied loco models.