steverabone

I’m posting this announcement about the next issue of TRACTION a bit earlier than usual as I know that some of you may have difficulty obtaining a copy in your usual shop . HOW TO STAY HOME AND STILL GET TRACTION MAGAZINE In the current situation some explanation of our various options to order TRACTION online for free delivery to your door. You can still buy a printed issue of TRACTION and have it delivered to your door for FREE. www.world-of-railways.co.uk/Store/Latest-Issue/traction Subscribe to the printed edition and have it delivered to your door for FREE. www.world-of-railways.co.uk/Store/Subscriptions/traction We also offer two digital options. You can sign up to a digital subscription, downloading each issue to keep and read on any device, from Pocketmags – www.warners.gr/tradigital Or you can sign up for our digital archive. This is a membership service, you read the issues online and you only have access for as long as you subscribe, but this gives you access to every edition from the current one back to issue 183, 75 issues. www.warners.gr/TRAdigitalarchive We start TRACTION 258 with an article about the short period in the early 1970s when pairs of Class 50s powered the principal West Coast Main Line expresses north of Crewe to Glasgow. This allowed a significant acceleration of services before the new electric services started. David Clough and Jon Littlewood discuss the problems that BR faced on this demanding route. Eastleigh was, and still is, a superb location to watch both passenger and freight trains. Back in the 1970s and 1980s there was of course more variety than today. A selection of John Dedman’s photographs take us back in time to the days before the ‘Voyagers’ and Class 66s. Regular readers of TRACTION will have been following the series of articles by Mick Humphrys about his days on the footplate along the southern end of the West Coast Main Line. In this issue we begin a two-part article about the years when he drove electric multiple units along the North London Line. Little has been written about this subject so we are particularly pleased that Mick has written about his time driving these less glamorous trains. David Hayes concludes his series of articles about closed freight lines in the West Midlands. This time he recalls the end of operations on the Wednesbury and Dudley line in the 1990s. Ken Horan worked on the footplate in the Shef eld area in the 1960s and took photos of the EM1 electric locos at Shef eld Victoria in the closing months of the passenger services over the Woodhead line. Moving north to Edinburgh Gavin Morrison paid many visits to the depot at Haymarket when it was still responsible for maintaining a wide variety of locomotives including the ‘Deltics’ and Class 47/7s and he has chosen just a few images to give us a taste of what it was like in the 1970s and 1980s. Most British enthusiasts will have memories of that most exciting of railway centres, Crewe. Growing up in this Cheshire town Michael Hitchen followed developments and gives us a taste of what it was like to live there in the BR Blue years. In TRACTION MODELLING we feature a superb 4mm scale layout by the Kendal Model Railway Club. ‘Scorbiton’ is inspired by the railways in Shropshire and is inspiring for both the high standard of the scenic treatment as well as its realistic portrayal of railway operations in the mid- 1980s.

Well I don't think any firm is likely to make one of these anytime soon. My latest German loco a BR64 2-6-2T.

I've decided to start the continuation of this report by using two photos of the completed model and then describe construction which did not always go to plan! Moving on to the loco's superstructure the first part is the boiler. It is made from a length of 20mm diameter plastic piping around which are rolled and glued sufficient layers of card to bulk it out to 25mm diameter. A disc of card has been cut from a photocopy of the front of the boiler. This has been strengthened inside by gluing on several discs of card pushed down the centre of the tube. At the rear of the boiler a small slot has been cut in the base of the boiler to give clearance around the gearbox. The whole of the superstructure is going to be based on this internal frame made up of 1.5mm greyboard. The raised areas join the front and rear sections of the U shaped ends. They will sit over the top part of motion bracket supports which will be hidden behind the water tank sides. The frame has been placed loosely in position. The superstructure frame is secured to the chassis by two nuts/ bolts. The nuts are locked in place by trapping the nuts in a slot in pieces of card which are then covered with another piece of card (the red circles show where they are. To strengthen the superstructure frame I have added further pieces of card in the centre which have packing pieces underneath that bear directly on the the chassis frames. This support down the middle of the superstructure frame is set at the correct height for the bottom of the boiler to sit on. The boiler has had a slot cut in the underside to allow the front securing point to sit inside the boiler. After removing the outer layers of card a small drill bit was used to cut slots in the plastic inner boiler tube. The boiler is positioned in the correct place but not fastened down. I found diagrams of the locomotive on the Internet and printed these out re-scaled to S Scale on thin card. This photo shows the first stages in the construction of the loco body with the combined cab sides and side tanks printed out together with the front of the cab as well as the tops of the side tanks. The thin card has been strengthened with a layer of thick greyboard. The water tanks are made up of four layers of board glued to each other and then covered with layers of white card along the tops and front. I've also soldered short lengths of brass rod to the underside of the footplate above the cylinders. These will support the front of the water tanks and ensure that the underside lines up correctly with the footplate. The boiler has been placed loosely between the tanks. I've now added the rear cab wall and the coal bunker. This was a separate assembly made up of four main pieces of card cut straight from the plan; the rear cab wall, the two bunker sides with the upward sweeping curved section and the rear of the bunker. The entire assembly is strengthened with additional layers of greyboard. The top of the coal bunker have been filed to give a narrow edge on the rear. Just visible on the inside of the cab is a strengthening piece of card that I feel is necessary although the real locos did not have had these. The main boiler parts have been secured in place on the boiler. A job that I had not been looking forward to was adding the three "domes" , the loco chimney and the pre-heating device above the smokebox. For the outer domes I found some correctly sized and shaped aluminium tubes that originally came from Pilot gold and silver marker pens. These were filled in with epoxy resin to make them stronger and to give a base which could be glued to the boiler. When set a hole was drilled up the centre of the epoxy and a length of brass wire was stuck in place. Holes were then drilled along the centre of the boiler for the domes to be located. I also filed the top of the boiler flat where the domes sit. The central dome is a Gibson one filed to give the correct profile for the BR64. The chimney is a white metal casting made by for the S Scale Society for a LNER Y7 0-4-0T. This tapers in to the base. I've cut the casting to the correct length and done some filing to the base. (Note I later replaced the chimney with a different one) The slot in the front of the smokebox has a length of plastic tube glued in place to form the pre-heater device. I've also added some lead weights inside the boiler and along the inner side of the water tanks. I said earlier that construction wasn't without its problems. These were caused by certain discrepancies in the various diagrams I was using which affected the proportions of the model. There are several slight variations of the BR64 and I'd obviously run foul of these. To correct these errors I shortened the top footplate by a couple of millimetres and extended the side tanks by the same amount. This meant replacing the front half of the side tanks. Fortunately there is a line of rivets about half way down the tank so that's where I decided to make the cut. To finish the main boiler structure 10 thou microstrip was glued in place to represent the quite prominent boiler bands. The narrow cast chimney has a had a layer of paper superglued around it and a strip of microstrip has been used to form the lip at the top. In order to make adding the pipework easier I gave the boiler a spray of grey primer. This shows up some of the problems such as the rough surface of the chimney which will be replaced. The boiler has a multitude of pipes of different sizes and shapes and from photographic evidence no two locomotives seem to have exactly the same arrangement! I've used various thicknesses of brass wire and brown plastic micro-rod. I've replaced the chimney with a brass tube and also moved it a couple of millimetres forward. The chimney has a very slight taper inwards towards the bottom. This was achieved by sawing a slot lengthwise down the tube leaving just a millimetre uncut at the bottom. Then a piece of brass was forced into the slot at the top and the cut filled with solder. After several attempts to replicate the smokebox door I feel I have managed a reasonable representation of it. A base was made from a disc of thin card with four circles of descending size glued on to it. Then a disc of paper was glued down on to the base shaping and slightly distorting the paper so that it formed a dome shape in the centre but with a flat ring around the outside. This was then soaked in superglue to harden it. Then it was stuck to a thicker disc of mounting card and the edges filed to a rounded profile. This was glued to the front of the smokebox and various pieces of plastic strip glued in place to represent the door hinges and securing cleats. A handle, number plate and headlight were added . I've also now permamently secured the boiler to rest of the body as some of the next steps require parts to be connected between the boiler and the rest of the body. I've now added a few more details such as the rim on the chimney and the various pumps and air compressors at the front of the locomotive. On the boiler the washout plugs are ovals of card whilst on the domes there are representations of the various handles which are small washers soldered to wires. There's a lot of detail to add to the back of the bunker: ladders soldered up from nickel silver wire, handrails and headlamps from brass tube and wire conduits from plastic microrod. Another view of the completed loco after adding numerous small details, painting, adding glazing and a crew. To disguise the motor covering in the cab there are the figures of the driver and fireman on both sides of the cab. Not very efficient in know but they completely hide that there is a great big motor cover in the centre. The lettering is a combination of transfers and images resized from photographs of the real loco. 064 247 is a locomotive that I saw in 1971 in Weiden. Whilst the model has numerous faults and inevitably photos show these up really well I'm in the main quite pleased especially since performance is good with slow running allowing buffering up without moving stock. Haulage abilities are well beyond what is needed.

Several readers have queried the missing words in the Addiston South article. Unfortunately, somewhere between the proof pdf pages being approved by myself and during the printing process the text was moved slightly, cutting off the last few words. The complete final paragraph is below. Addiston South’ is now over 10 years old and is beginning to show its age, so the future is possibly a Mk. 2 version, but this time with DCC and sound. Watch this space… I'm glad you enjoyed the article about the Leicester Gap. There are several such articles covering different locations that we will be publishing in the next few issues. I won't spoil the element of surprise though by revealing what they are!!!

Hi Thane of Fife Have you read the article in Traction issue 251 about the sleeping car services that operated out of Euston in the 1970s? If you haven't got a copy a digital subscription to Traction will give you access to it. You can download individual copies here if you don't want a full digital subscription. https://pocketmags.com/traction-magazine/issues?gclid=CjwKCAjwg6b0BRBMEiwANd1_SMxZDV2G0cAF7lKzM7I0bOXpw6rrAZZ2JPmvDYg0qZmefZaBjN3_xhoCS8sQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds I also wrote several articles in Traction 201 and 202 about night operation at Carlisle in the 1970s and 1980s. Both of these articles have plenty of photos of the sleepers. I intend in the near future to be compiling another night time feature on the WCML in the mid seventies at Stafford. Maybe with isolation I'll get around to writing it!! Stephen Rabone

My use of card is deliberate - I've been impressed by some of the techniques by German modellers and reported on various forum. I could have used plastic but why not use a more environmentally friendly and cheaper material? I first started using card for my Midland Railway s Scale coaches about 15 years ago and they have remained absolutely stable to this day - that isn't always the case with models made of plastic card. The reason for using British tram mechanisms is that I was able to get precisely the wheelbases I needed without having to hack up expensive a rtr American chassis. You are correct there is currently no German S Scale - after all S Scale is an imperial scale so obviously USA and UK and NZ seem to be the main countries where it is commom(ish).

The chassis is now completed and painted and is ready for the loco superstructure to be built. This will take some time and I probably won't post developments until progress has been made. German steam locos really did have red wheels and frames and the rod fluting was painted red!

I think that this is a very valid point. Whilst the articles are very concentrated in one geographic area they remind us about how incredibly complex and busy the freight railway was. What happened in the West Midlands was replicated all over the country. Fortunately David Hayes kept detailed notes about his local area, although I have managed to get him to write about areas outside his local area - Kent coal, Teesside chemicals and cross London freight! It would be great if other readers who have similar knowledge about freight operations in other areas could produce articles for Traction! I'm also pleased that Caradoc enjoys our foreign coverage. Broadening ones railway interests can't be a bad thing for any enthusiast. Stephen

You can order the issue that has just been published Traction 257 (a single copy) by going to this link. You can then order either a single digital or print copy. You can also order a print copy for Traction 255 and 256 if you missed those. Stephen

Thanks for your comment griffgriff. The series of articles about closed freight lines in the West Midlands has been running in Traction for some years and is reaching its conclusion with the articles about the Dudley Line - Part 1 in Traction 257 covers the 1980s and Part 2 which will be in Traction 258 the 1990s. Whilst the articles focus on the details of operations in the Midlands much of the content refers to traffic from all over the country. I would dispute the implication that Traction doesn't cover freight elsewhere in the country. As can be seen below in recent issues we've had detailed articles about freight over much of Britain. 249 Spoil trains to Forders sidings 250 Boulby Potash traffic in 1980s and Stranraer line freight 251 Boulby Potash in 1990s 252 South Humberside steel and the West London Line 253 Kent Coal in the 1970s, Wolverton ARC stone traffic and the National Coal Board electric line on Tyneside 254 Skinningrove steel and Kent Coal in 1980s and 1990s 255 Teesside Chemicals (2 articles) 256 Warrington area freight – coal to Fiddlers Ferry, the Manchester to Ditton freight line and Warrington Speedlink trips We've also covered freight traffic on the Settle and Carlisle, the Welsh Marches Line, in Ayrshire, South Wales and numerous other areas As editor I'd be delighted to receive even more articles about freight operations in other parts of the country - can you produce something?

TRACTION issue 257 will be published on 3rd April 2020. Has your local newsagent closed down this week? Following the news that 60% of WH Smiths stores will temporarily close and reports of many local newsagents also closing their doors, we wanted to make you aware of the numerous ways you can get hold of Traction without leaving your home (and you save money too!) Buy a single copy of the print version or the digital version of the latest issue - TRACTION 257 Click here to buy Traction or call 01778 392012 Subscribe to the print version starting with TRACTION 258 (published 29th May) Traction - 3 issues for £5* Click here or 01778 392012 (quote TRA/MAG20) Download a Digital Edition Click here for digital version of Traction ================================================================================================================================================================== TRACTION 257 Content In this issue of TRACTION we start with an article by David Hayes about the Wednesbury area and the Dudley line in the 1980s with its heavy freight traffic. Continuing with the same industrial theme David Ratcliffe describes some of the diesel shunters built by the firm of Thomas Hill. By the time this issue appears it is likely that the days of Class 90s hauling expresses to Norwich will be. It seems an appropriate time to look back at the liveries that the class have carried on the Great Eastern using a selection of images from Gavin Morrison. The days of locomotive hauled trains on summer Saturdays in the West Country are recalled in David Clough’s feature which is based on a traffic survey carried out a various locations in July 1983. The text is backed up with a variety of images taken of some of these trains on that day. The use of articulated coaching stock in Britain largely fell out of use after WW2 but is now making something of a comeback, with new articulated stock being built for use in East Anglia and on Merseyside. Colin Boocock takes a look at the history of articulation in the British Isles and discusses its advantages and disadvantages. It’s hard to believe that until 1987 a section of one of the high speed main lines out of London to the Midlands and the North was still controlled by manual signalling in exactly the same way that it had been since the nineteenth century. This section of the Midland Main Line became known as the ‘Leicester Gap’: signalling enthusiast Michael A. Vanns recorded it on film before it vanished. Rail tours on unusual lines, or with motive power that normally didn’t work there, have always been popular among enthusiasts. The ‘Hundred of Wirral’ tour was one such tour taking Class 25s along the Wirral Lines of the Merseyrail system as well as a variety of lines that didn’t usually see passenger trains. Tom Heavyside braved very wet conditions on the day to photograph the train in the Wirral. TRACTION MODELLING features two contrasting 4mm scale layouts set in the London area. Hornsey Road MPD is part of the much larger Hornsey Broadway layout (featured in the Spring issue of BRM) and is set firmly in the Rail Blue 1970s period at the southern end of the East Coast Main Line. Moving south of the Thames Addiston South is a much smaller layout located in third rail territory somewhere in the Croydon area. Stephen Rabone

Sorry Flubrush, I don't know how to slow down!!! Construction continues .... The buffer beams and coupling bars have been added. The bufferbeams are two pieces of copperclad sleeper strip. The back face is soldered to the end of the frames and then a second layer superglued to the first layer. Holes were drilled for the brass buffer headstocks which together with the buffer heads were soldered to both the front and rear copper surfaces of the bufferbeams. The coupling bar is a U shaped length of 1mm brass wires soldered to the inside of the frames with a strip of brass sheet soldered onto the wire to act as a buffing plate for the wagon or carriage couplings. This photo shows the arrangement of the footplates and steps at the front of the loco. These need to be part of the chassis for the sake of rigidity. They are made out of a combination of brass sheet and nickel silver wires. Various parts have been added to represent the headlamps, front steps, air pipes, grab handles etc. At this stage it all looks a bit hideous and needs cleaning up before painting. Test running shows that the loco is capable of pulling the branch line passenger train of four coaches without adding any extra weight.

No I'm not that person. Whilst I was a student teacher (and a member inevitably of the NUS) I was never involved in student politics - much more interested in railways and girls!!

Yes I agree that the average British steam loco is a doddle compared to German ones when it comes to boiler "furniture" and pipework. However, I've had this interest in German railways for nearly 60 years so I think it's time I had a go at building one of them - I have to blame the years my father spent in Germany as a RAF radar technician in 1945-47. His interest in German railways new no bounds and he passed this on to me.

As far as I know I am the only modeller doing German S Scale. If you read my other threads or go to my website (see links below) you will see that this started largely because I discovered the joys of adapting pdfs intended for card modelling to make working models. By the way I can recommend recording your model making in this way of remembering how you solved a problem. I've referred back many times when I forgot how I'd tackled a project in the past. http://www.steverabone.com/sscalewebsite/modelling_the_d_b.htm http://www.steverabone.com/sscalewebsite/new_german_s_scale_layout.html

I thought quite a bit about the position of the motor - the obvious place would be on the centre axle but there is the complication of the support bracket for the expansion link which would mean that the motor would have to be more vertical. I also wanted a little bit of vertical movement on the centre axle and needed access for a basic form of springing. Placing it on the rear axle facing backwards has the advantage that I don't need to cut away the bottom of the boiler and as you say there will then be plenty of space within the boiler and side tanks for lots of weight in just the right place over the driving wheels. I've been running the chassis this afternoon with several heavy weights perched over the drivers and running is pretty good. By the way, the body is going to be largely out of cardboard - really "looking forward" to all those pipes etc.!! I suspect there will now be a period of relative silence whilst I plan the superstructure.

Building a DB BR64 I have felt for some time that I should have at least one German steam locomotive to run on Niederwangen, my Deutsche Bundesbahn S Scale layout. For a branch line there are two obvious choices: the BR64 2-6-2T or the larger BR86 2-8-2T. I saw several examples of both classes in Germany on my three visits between 1969 and 1971. The photo above is 086 346 at Hof shed in 1971 Although I saw a number of the smaller B64 locos I didn't take any photographs of them so here is a photo by Michael Heimerl from Wikipedia and reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence. Plans of the locomotive are readily available on the internet as below. As those of you who have followed my modelling methods will know my techniques are unconventional. I deliberately use a very limited range of tools. To cut brass I usually use a pair of sharp scissors followed by passes with a heavy file to smooth out any curving of the metal. I use a mini drill and broaches to open out holes. A soldering iron, jewellers' screwdrivers and various pliers and wire/ metal cutters are the rest of my tools. Everything is built on a card table in my model railway room/ library. My methods do not produce exhibition standard models but might provide inspiration for those who believe that to scratchbuild locomotives you need lots of advance skills, - you don't!! Note: the description that follows is written as a diary as I constructed the model. Initially I decided to tackle the BR86. For both locos there are available large scale 1:35 resin kit models which have detailed drawings of all the major components of the model, again available on the internet. I'm going to use some of these drawings as a template for the chassis frames. The photo shows the drawing stuck to a piece of 0.16" brass sheet. The centre points for each axle hole were marked with a sharp compass point making sure that they are all in line by using a steel ruler. The first frame was cut out roughly using heavy duty scissors. The recesses at the bottom of the frame were cut by scoring heavily with a Stanley knife and then snapping off. The frame was then tack soldered to another sheet of brass and the holes drilled through and enlarged until large enough until moulding pins could be passed through. These were then hammered into a piece of chipboard. After the heads of the pins are removed they will act as a jig to set up the three coupling rods which will be assembled from Alan Gibson universal rods. Whilst the original locomotive has large lightening holes cut into the frames I'm not going to attempt to cut these out as, by and large, they aren't really visible behind the wheels. The basic chassis has now been assembled. The various stages were: 1. Fit the bearings in the axle holes after opening these out with broaches. 2. Lengths of double sided copper clad sleeper strip were soldered along the top edges of the frames sides. 3. Frame spacers were soldered in place with the frames being held in place with frame alignment jigs and also with axle rods passed through the bearings. 4. The bearing holes for the 2nd and 3rd axles were elongated at the top of the hole to give a small amount of vertical movement. The wheels fitted are not the correct size but have been used to prove that the chassis will traverse the sharp curves on the layout. The result of this work was that the chassis rolled smoothly on the large radius points on the British layout but tended to derail on the much sharper radius of the German section which rather defeated the point of building the model. My suspicion was that the RP25 wheel profile (with their small flanges) of the Markits wheels was the cause of the problem. A second start with the BR64 I decided therefore to try again with the BR64 2-6-2T for which I had suitable Alan Gibson wheels with EM Gauge profile wheels and a deeper flange. This is the result with a chassis that rolls without derailing. Using Gibson wheels does, of course mean that I'll need to be a lot more careful setting up the quartering of the wheels. The brake hangers have been added suspended on wires passed through holes near the top of the frames. I've not added the brakes for the front driving wheels (the right side of the photo) as they will be hidden behind the valve gear. The pony trucks have temporary disc wheels, although the many of the real BR64s had these anyway. Cross wires have been added at the bottom of the brake hangers and two longitudinal "pull rods" have been soldered to them to give some rigidity. The pony trucks are very simple fabrications made from a plate of 0.16" brass sheet with two bearings soldered on the outside edges as seen here. I've now assembled the four coupling rods from a set of Alan Gibson "Universal" rods. These have to be cut to the lengths required and the front and back section of each rod soldered together. I use some alignment jigs to set them up. The Gibson wheels have been removed from the chassis and some (undersized) Markits wheels used to check that the rods will rotate smoothly. No doubt I shall have problems when I have to quarter the Gibson wheels but at least I know the rods are correct! A few hours' work has seen more progress. The frames have been sprayed in brown undercoat. I feel that this will be closer to the dirty red/brown colour that German steam locos ran with rather than spraying it black. Touching up around the wheels and cylinders with suitable give the correct appearance in due course. The Gibson wheels have been fitted with the more substantial Markits crankpins. To do this the crankpin holes were opened up with a fine broach and the holes were then tapped so that the Markits crankpins can be screwed in tightly. A smearing of two part epoxy resin around the thread should lock them in place and also protects the plastic wheel centres when the crankpin washers are soldered in place - the epoxy appears to melt slightly and then solidifies before the plastic is affected. The plastic centres of the wheels are also pressed out of the metal tyres and superglue applied to four spots inside the tyres before pressing the plastic centres back in place. The Mashima motor and Markits gearbox had already been assembled and slots perfectly in place between copperclad sleeper strip that I've used for the frame strengtheners. The wheels were quartered - the rear pair first and once the rods on these two axles revolved smoothly the leading axle and rods were added. Test running with the rods held in place revealed no problems so I've soldered in place the crankpins on all three axles. When I add the return crank to the centre axle I'll flood the joint with oil to prevent everything soldering up solid. So far test running suggests that the chassis rolls smoothly with no binding. Fitting the cylinders and the Heusinger valve gear is probably going to be the most difficult part of construction. In the photo above I've made a card mock up of the cylinder block using print outs for the scans of the parts from the resin kit. The cylinders will need to be slightly wider than scale to give sufficient clearance for the moving parts. I'm assembling the valve gear out of a variety of Gibson etchings. The connecting rod and single slidebar are from a Stanier 2-6-4T. The connecting rod has had the large hole opened up so that it will fit snugly over the fixing washer on the centre crankpin. The rod has also been shortened to the correct distance for the BR64 and a new hole drilled at the crosshead end. The remaining length of the connecting rod is turned through 90 degrees and has a length of brass wire soldered to the fluting in the rod. The crosshead is folded up from a strip of thin nickel silver to give a square shaped section at the top into which the slidebar will be fitted. Two holes are drilled lower down for the pivot for the connecting rod and piston rod. The union link and combination link are from a Crab kit. The crosshead is folded up from a strip of thin nickel silver to give an open square section at one end. This fits over the slidebar as seen in the photo. Using the print outs from the resin kit as a template I cut out the 4 pieces needed for the cylinder ends from 0.10" brass. A strip of 0.05" brass was cut for the cylinder block wrapper. This is where the card mock up proved its worth as I was able to measure the precise length needed. The wrapper was carefully soldered to the cylinder ends as in the photo above. Overall the cylinder block is about 3mm wider than scale but is still within the overall width of the loco body. With wheels that are not scale width it is impossible to get sufficient clearance behind the valve hear and coupling rods without this compromise. The cylinder block has been placed over the frames with temporary packing from card to hold it at the correct height. The cylinders are now fixed in position and soldered to the frames at the front. The slidebar needed shortening slightly but the connecting rod moves smoothly when under power. I've now added the brackets that support the expansion link. These come from a Gibson Stanier 2-6-4T etch. The bracket support originally came with a base plate which folds at right angles and forms a frame spacer. My modification was to snap this off, cut the bracket support in half and resolder the frame spacer to the bracket support with a gap of about 4mm in the centre, The frame spacer sits snugly on top of the longitudinal pieces of double sided sleeper strip and between the frames. The actual brackets are soldered into slots in the support ensuring that the holes in them line up so that the expansion links can pivot. The valve gear is now complete on one side of the locomotive. The extra parts come from a Gibson 'Crab' chassis etch which, by chance, have the right dimensions. The valve stem guide at the top of the cylinder is a brass top hat axle bearing into which is soldered the radius bar. The expansion link was shortened and held in place on the supports by a piece of wire onto which a length of brass tube was placed to stop the link moving from side to side. The return crank and eccentric rod together with the expansion link were put in place as a separate unit with the middle wheels crankpin being covered with oil and a sliver of paper to stop everything being soldered solid. Test running on the bench and the track revea that so far i ahve a very smooth running chassis. The cylinder looks a little lopsided in the photo due to the way the light is reflecting on the metal but is actually correct. The other side of the valve gear has been completed and pickup wires added so the chassis now runs. With plenty of weight added running is pleasingly good and will no doubt get better as the chassis is run in. I've added a fly wheel which gives a little more momentum. The motor and flywheel will be largely hidden within the large cab and coal bunker.

There's some nice work on these models. What have you used for the roof of the engineman's service coach? Is it 3D printed?

The best thing is to give the subscriptions dept a call and see if they have the issue you want 01778 392012 or email subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk. You could also get a digital subscription which gives you access to lots of back issues

This issue of TRACTION is a little unusual as we have three articles about one railway centre. Focusing on Warrington, the changes in freight train operation at this once busy junction start with an article by Jeff Nicholls about coal traffic to the large power station at Fiddlers Ferry, which has recently closed. David Clough examines what he considers to be the forgotten route between Manchester and Liverpool which was once busy with a variety of freight flows. David Ratcliffe reminds us of the years when Warrington was a major Speedlink yard with trip freights from across the North West arriving throughout the day. The days of long distance coach tours to locomotive depots are recalled in an article by J. Crosse who led a tour from the North East to depots in the London area in the 1970s. Elliot Hopewell returns with another tale of his train spotting days when he spent holidays in Cornwall in the days of the Class 50s and how he eventually managed to see the last one he hadn’t seen before. It’s easy to forget just how much the physical railway scene has changed over the years but Chris Cole’s photo study of changes at Sandy documents one such changed location. Mick Humphrys returns with the second part of his article in which he recalls some of experiences driving the first generation of AC electric locomotives on the West Coast Main Line out of Euston. Colin Boocock is intrigued by the introduction of the new Stadler bi-mode Class 755s in East Anglia with their small diesel power unit vehicle located in the centre of the train. He points out that having such a separate power unit is not a totally new idea. Steve Woodhouse has long been a fan of the Class 40s and visited the Manchester area many times to see them in action on passenger trains out of Piccadilly station in their final years in service. Gavin Morrison’s contribution this issue is a series of images taken on the Settle and Carlisle in winter conditions, when he required considerable determination to reach the locations where he wanted to photograph the trains. In TRACTION MODELLING this issue we feature two superb diesel era layouts in different scales. The first is Oldham King Street in Gauge O with its emphasis on parcels traffic and DMUs. The second is that marvellous 4mm scale layout Charwelton. The members of the CBM Diesel Group re-worked an existing layout based on the now closed Great Central Main Line station and brought it into the BR blue period imagining that the line had stayed open.

Super work Scott. I'd like to endorse what you say about scratch-building. Taking the first step is sometimes a bit daunting so build something relatively simple. Like Scott I'd never scratch-built rolling stock until I needed something for my old 4mm Hellifield layout. I chose some anhydrite hoppers and simplified construction as far as possible by making the hopper almost like a box with a Parkside chassis. After building one I built another 10 or so to make a rake. They weren't brilliant but nobody else had one like mine! After these relatively crude beginnings I then gained confidence to do better next time and eventually you'll feel able to tackle much more complex models and in S Scale the chances are nobody else anywhere in the world will have another one.

We'd like to apologise for the problem with some of the images of the DMUs being reversed. This was caused by a glitch in the computer program we use which has reversed some of the images. A search on Google reveals that this is a known issue but one we've not had before at Traction. Unfortunately being DMUs it wasn't immediately obvious that the photos had been flipped and this was missed during the final proof reading. We intend to correct the digital edition but there is obviously nothing we can do about the print version of course! Thanks to those who have added extra info about the HCN trains.

In the January/ February 2020 issue of TRACTION issue we look in detail at a type of freight traffic that has declined considerably over the last twenty years, that of chemicals from the numerous industrial plants on Teesside. David Hayes has researched the history of these once numerous flows of traffic, whilst David Ratcliffe portrays some of the variety of tanker wagons used. Towards the end of the life of the Class 25s, a batch of 12 of the type were placed in a sub-class and designated Class 25/9. Sadly, the traffic that they were intended for in the north west of England didn’t materialise but G.P. Butler photographed each locomotive before they were withdrawn so we can present a portrait of an entire class. Moving north to Ayrshire Stuart Fowler’s photographs show some of the variety of liveries that the Class 37s carried over the last fifteen years. Mick Humphrys, now a ‘Pendolino’ and ‘Voyager’ driver, starts a two-part feature about his early years in the cab driving the Class 81 to 85 locomotives on the West Coast Main Line. Another railwayman, Ian Buck, looks at the Class 117 and 121 DMUs that were based at Bletchley depot and worked on a variety of services in the south east of England. Elliot Hopewell begins a series of articles about his early life as a railway enthusiast starting during his teenage years based in the Lincoln area. One of the less glamorous types of mainline diesel, the Class 31, is the subject of Gavin Morrison’s photo feature when, during the Rail Blue era, they were to be found on a variety of types of train from expresses through to the humblest of freight trains. In the 1990s Colin Boocock became very involved in charities working in Romania so it was perhaps inevitable that he would turn his attention to its fascinating railways. In his latest article he describes the changes since the end of the communist regime, some for the better and others not. In TRACTION MODELLING we feature two contrasting 4mm scale layouts, Reevy Road is a large layout built by the Bradford Model Railway Club and set in Yorkshire, whilst Minories GN is a much smaller layout inspired by the Metropolitan Widened Lines in London.

You are correct that I bought Alan Gibsons' loco etches and many went on to SSMRS members. They were all LMS or MR except for some Isle of Wight engines. There are a few left although none are complete kits. There are some S&D 2-8-0s - loco body and chassis etchings, Stanier 3 cylinder 2-6-4Ts - loco body and chassis etchings, some Crab 2-6-0 chassis etchings and a couple of Brassmaster LNWR 0-8-0 loco body etchings. I've also got photocopies of the chassis and tender etchings which I've used to build my latest model. If anybody wants to know more just ask.