Etched Pixels

I've started putting the extra lining on mine. Modelmaster BR mixed traffic matches fairly well. Much left to do beyond that - did all these locos have boiler bands ? Will then etch some name and number plates, paint the whistle in brass, fit pipes and fix the wire etc

Been through my archive and agree it appears only on some departmental cases, so its basically wrong for almost all models. If it was fitted and trivial to pull off that might even be better than in a bag though - less scary for folks and harder to lose. Thanks for the Propane Gas info - I was assuming it was a stones box. Alan

On point 1. Yes they have - repeatedly, and it also sometimes seems to be depend on the operator so something will randomly get printed or rejected. They've changed the WSF rules a bit of late too.

Bernard - I know that - I commented on exactly that earlier!

Bernard; you can just put the right sized wheels on. If you check the drawings for the bogies in question and you work out where the bits fall then it fits and with 7mm wheels and a bit of clearance behind the solebars. I know this - been there, built that. Prism: NMRA N gauge wheels are 2mm or wider and at 7.62mm so yes 11.62mm. For various reasons the wheels are usually 2.2mm (to be compatible with the clunky European NEM standard too). So call it 12mm. That's fine. Even if the front of the wheel fouls the solebar (which it shouldn't as its scale size!) you'd have 1mm clearance at 9mm from the centres with a moulded solebar, in fact as the flange is the only bit that fouls you've got 3mm from 9mm at the centres or about 20° So cornering is not a problem here. You can do *just about* do this right in 3D printed WSF for a 57ft coach so it ought to be easier in plastic. Undersized wheels would IMHO be in the "botch job" category and N has moved beyond that except for a few hard cases (Some steam loco front wheels for example - and even then vendors are increasingly offering a choice of two fittings) Alan

Transport for London are generally very helpful. They also fall under the "freedom of information" act so they've put a lot of basic material up as one easy answer to an FoI request is "it's already public, go away" 8) Alan

Prism: Most of the current Bachmann stuff has the wheel size right. Dapol do seem to go for undersized wheels on a few vehicles. Unfortunately in the GWR case that's a bad idea as it *really* shows. The bogie in the CAD is just a disaster though, its not indicative of N scale at least not since cheap brands of the mid 1970s 8) In the N the flanges are overscale as with anything but P4. Much of the time as with OO the wheel thickness can be the bigger problem. For flanges you can usually provide extra clearance between the solebars under the floor where nobody can see anyway. Alan

Happy to look at any of the other bits further as you get the CAD if it helps

A sprue of those in 1:148 N would be quite tasty if it rescales. Alan

I wondered where the chaps who did N gauge bogies for Lima went, now we know ;-). It actually looks far more Lima than your comments - the body also appear to be on stilts over the bogies and the wheels look too small - there should be measurably more showing below the bottom of the axle boxes (and they appear not to turn in the axleboxes but somewhere higher up - which must be part of the mess) Looking at the underframe I am wondering about the regulator box somewhat. Almost all of the photos I have show no regulator box present, and some periods have gas cylinders in the centre section. The top of the battery box is also wrong - it hangs from the body rather than being blobbed onto it as the model is. It's hard to tell from that view but is the top of the battery box proper right, it seems to be narrower and blank not just over the area that should be see through but further on. Roof is also still missing the destination board clips, that seems an easy fix and they were present into BR days. Has the generator gone walkies or has it been hidden by the Lima bogie ? What else.. rivets on the solebar - you've got a funny looking token little group of 6 each end, but the real solebar looks like it was attacked by a nutter with a rivet gun and has a lot more than the random sample someone picked to pretend its got detail. Also note the rivets if added are not quite symmetrical. The main sets of them are but the V hangar and steps are vary the pattern a bit. Footboards are also wrong for the earlier liveries. Overall its looking not too bad other than the bogie, wheels and jacked up effect. The gas cylinders for older periods are not a big deal to add if someone cares but the stones box bothers me - and would be hard to fix by the look of it. The battery boxes could really do with the nasty blobbiness improving if possible - Bachmann do this by making them a fitting and the recent models capture battery box hanging beautifully - eg the 4CEP. Alan

There are a couple of versions of the CDA, and the brake arrangements differ between them. In addition you've got clasp brakes on two corners and disc on the other two (ie each axle has one of each type of brake). The wheels should be 7mm diameter. Not sure any of the wagon etches will help you.

We did have units in general many years earlier - on the southern 8) I think it's a fair bet that but for WW2 we'd have had DMU stuff in traffic in the 40s. All the major players were experimenting. The GWR had the railcars in production and working well. The LMS had trialled various railmotors in the UK and Ireland, a diesel electric railcar, some of the tyred units and also built a truly beautiful diesel hydraulic 3 car DMU whose styling has probably not been equalled and the Southern had long ago figured out commuter electrification even if in hindsight they goofed on going 3rd rail not overhead as had the LNER. What does surprise me is the GWR went with mechanical transmission given they'd run a petrol-electric prototype long before. Railways like the WCPR had by then shown that petrol/diesel railcars could make the difference between commercial viability and failure. The LMS tyred ones.. http://www.britishpathe.com/video/french-streamlined-rail-car-news-in-a-nutshell/query/LMS The early LMS experimental (quite literally) railbus http://www.flickr.com/photos/aceanorak/8163853908/ The Leyland railbusses http://www.ribblevalleyrail.co.uk/Leyland%20Bus.htm and pure style..

Suggestion - colour the areas the TV side goes over in plain grey as well so that no slight misalignments show up badly.

I hope they've fixed all the mistakes in the version I had. It was a passable book, lots of nice photo material, very little on the stock and operation (less in fact than the Robbins book), and was more like a set of notes than an actual proper narrative. Thanks for the pointers on NLR drawings.. I'd been hunting for some with a view to doing an NLR loco or two as well as coaches. There is a certain amount of really interesting operational information in the Zerah Colburn book, not a lot but it was one line he recorded some of the performance information on. Certainly a railway that in the early days was ahead of its time with clockface timetabling and train brakes.

I assume you've talked to the ***studygroup.co.uk folks. There is a fair bit of material (10,000 odd photos) in their collection .

Interesting material. It's more flexible than compressible although it does compress a bit. I printed three things in it to try - bottle stopper for my MicroSol bottle (because the plastic tops they use seem to disintegrate with time). Works a treat. - chain mail (one part print with interlinked loops). Interesting, but even with 1.5mm or so diameter links not that stretchy more flexible. I don't think you could print a properly functional costume chainmail bra with it for example. - coach gangways. These are much too rigid to work as flexible gangways even using 1mm walls. I think it might work in big scales but you'd actually have to print real 1mm thick folds somehow. It's got two very nice properties. The gangways "clip fit" into the ends - the clip fitting works really well and I think it would make brilliant joiners between parts or motor holders and so on. It's also quite robust so for low feature but thin parts looks like it might be a better choice simply because they'll flex not break. I'm pretty sure you could make some very cool 'working' large scale springs with it too.

David - stick the bogies in hot (60°C or so) water when fitting the wheels. Same trick as heating resin to drill it for handrails - the warmer it is (within reason) the more pliable it gets. Don't go much hotter though as it rapidly goes through the "editable" stage (which can be really useful for things like printing security barrier then adjusting it when fitting) and the 'oh dear' stage. I've been avoiding FUD for bogies likewise though - too light, too brittle. 3D printed Brass bogies OTOH ought to have awesome running behaviour so I may try some brass bogies for a couple of awkward projects. Alan

3D overlays on etched cores doesn't actually work too well with N gauge axle lengths at least - it would probably work with 2fs wheels for some things but the minimum wall thickness drives you over-width very easily.

I tried the flat approach in FUD for one of the Met rigid 8's I was doing. The surface finish was better but it was near impossible to assemble and promptly warped all over the place. The one part shell on the other hand was a bit rougher than I'd like (because it unavoidably needs supporting material) but stuffed over the WSF interior/chassis block stayed the right shape. If you want to avoid most roughness you've probably got to do the sides in another material (eg brass) or design very carefully to have no overhanging bits.

I had been wondering how it would look, mostly from my point of view for weight on the small locos and railbusses. So if I order unpolished do I get it like that or do I get entirely unpolished ?

And British Rail 9Fs proved to be fine passenger locomotives

Beautiful looking prototype Ben. I'd have gone with white metal bogie centres to get the weight where you want it but I guess you wanted to use ATM bogies 8) I'm not sure you'd get one of those to print straight in any layered metal material - and it looks too long for the usual culprits 'lost wax' printing. The centre of the wagon ought to be ok though - you've modelled a structurally strong arrangement of girder and trussing. If the ends droop you can in theory add some removable supporting bits.