Willington (Bedfordshire) LMS in EM

[sharris]

In this installment, two more buildings for Willington.

 

So far, I've discussed the two largest buildings on Willington station - the signal box and the main ticket office. There are another two buildings in the station - a small waiting room on the Cambridge platform, and a shed at the end of the Bedford platform. Both of these structures appear in photographs in the various sources already referenced, although not completely, so, as with the main station building, I have done a little guesswork in the design of the models. 

 

1. The waiting room. 

 

This room appears on many of the photographs, either end-on, showing the west end of the room, or in 3/4 view, showing the front and end, often in conjunction with the adjacent signal box. Eatwell's book has a very clear picture from the signal box end. The principle features of this waiting room appear to be:

 

A central door with a 4-panel window on the front wall - this door appears similar to those on the signal box, rather than on the main waiting room. 

Two windows, one either side of the door - these seem to be of the same 6-panel layout as for the main waiting room. 

All walls are of wooden construction, but with the planking running vertically rather than the horizontal planking on the other platform. 

The waiting room has a slate roof, and there is the appearance of a chimney in some photographs, so it is likely it was heated. 

There appear to be four corner posts (similar to the signal box).

 

I don't have any pictures of the rear of the room, but I have made the assumption that, as with the signal box, this wall is blank, and just consists of vertical planking all the way along. I have guessed that 6" wide planks were used, allowing me to use up more of that embossed styrene I used on the waiting room.

 

Estimating sizes from the assumption that the windows are the same as those in the main building, and counting the planks where I could, my guess for the size of the waiting room is 15' by 8', approximately 7'6 to the eaves and 9'6 to the ridge. 

 

 

I made the walls from plain styrene sheet, and clad this with plank embossed sheet. Windows are from Vivak clear sheet and microstrip in exactly the same way as for the main building. The door was also Vivak with styrene strip glued on to form the door's planking and window frame arrangement. Corner posts were from 3mm L section styrene (or possibly 1/8"). After cutting the Wills sheet supplied with the signal box for the roof to the length needed for the signal box, I discovered that I had just enough sheet left over for the waiting room. My original plan was to use paper cut slates (as per the main waiting room) - I even made such a room, but when I found I had exactly the right amount of Wills sheeting left, decided to use that instead for consistency with the neighbouring signal box. 

 

 

Here's the waiting room in its current state - still needs another coat of paint, some barge boards, guttering, ridge tiles and the chimney adding. 

 

 

As it neighbours the signal box, here's a picture of the two together, approximately in their relative positions. 

 

 

In terms of painting, I've assumed a similar colour scheme (cream and dark brown) as used on the signal box and main station building - some later colour pictures 

 

Although I don't have any pictures of it, the waiting room must be on some sort of plinth to raise it from ground level to platform level. I have conjectured a wooden platform, constructed in model form from balsa wood on which the waiting room sits. I think the bracing on this is more-or-less in line with that shown by Anderson and Fox in the prefabricated station drawings in their LMS Architecture book.

 

 

 

As becomes apparent from my previous posts, none of my buildings have their roofs fixed down yet. And here's a question for the more seasoned modellers - where buildings have some internal details, furniture, lighting etc., do you leave the roof removable to allow for maintenance, or glue it in place in the expectation that nothing with come adrift?

 

2. The shed. 

 

Photographs of the Bedford platform of Willington that show it all the way to the west (Bedford) end ramp show a small structure at ground level that is partly visible behind the fence. Probably a tool or equipment shed. This also just about appears in the Video Dave (Chris P Bacon) put on the 'Bedford St. Giles' thread, but unfortunately the video cuts away to a picture of the Willington station name before any detail can be seen. From the pictures that I have seen (the best are probably the ones in Bill Simpson's book), the shed's roof slopes down in a single direction from the platform side. Although I don't have any direct measurements from the height, I made an estimate counting bricks, and also noticed that the top was approximately lined up with the top of the platform fencing - so I estimated the height by taking a platform section (more on that in a later post), and placing a piece of Slater's fencing on this to see how far it came up. The wall on the platform side appears to be plain brick. My estimate is that the shed slopes down from 7'6 on the platform side to about 6'6 on the other.

 

The west end wall has a door. Rather than being central, this is offset towards the right on the elevation of this side, being closer to the outside edge than the platform edge. This door appears to be made from planks and slopes at the top to match the roof. The outside south wall (facing roadside) is not shown in any photographs that I have seen, so I've made it up, and put a window in the centre of that wall - this was a spare locking room window from the signal box fret. The final (east) wall does not appear clearly in any reference I've seen, so I've assumed it to be plain brick. I've estimated the building to be about 8' x 10' in area. 

 

No photographs I've seen show the roof. Just for a change from slate, I've decided to make it from corrugated iron. 

 

This is my interpretation of the shed: 

 

 

I decided to model this, mostly from balsa wood. The side and plain walls are 3/32" sheet, while the wall containing the window is a laminate of 1/32" and 1/16" with the window sandwiched between to give some depth of brickwork to the frame. The walls were wrapped in embossed brick paper. The door consisted of a rectangle of styrene with the top-edge angled to match the roof line, and strips glued to it to represent the planking. A couple of strips across near the top and bottom and a bit of 25thou round rod make up the hinges, with squares cut from 20x10thou strip for bolt heads.

 

The roof is cut from rectangles of corrugated styrene sheet.

 

 

 

The black and white photographs show the door to be light in colour, so I've used a cream colour (looks a bit dirty in the pictures!), with black for the ironwork. 

 

In the context of the platform the shed will look like this:

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2015 by sharris

[chris p bacon]

Looking for a Bedford St Johns pic I found this in the hard drive.

 

I'm waiting for a reply back from someone I know in Willington, I spoke to him last week and he has a better copy of the ariel photo as well as at least one pic taken in the yard that shows the back (roadway) side of the station building. 

Edited December 3, 2015 by chris p bacon

[sharris]

After a bit of a hiatus from my Brazilian trip, it's time to come back to Willington! 

 

Platforms for Willington. 

 

The Bedfordshire archives state 

 

 

 

Two great authorities on Bedfordshire railways were Fred Cockman and Geoff Webb, both now deceased. The two disagreed about the history of Willington station, Fred Cockman maintaining that the station was built entirely of wood and Geoff Webb that the platforms were stone. Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service Operations Manager Nigel Lutt discovered by chance that both, in fact, were right. 

 

Pictorial evidence shows that the platforms were wooden for the Cambridge platform and partly wooden and partly stone and brick for the Bedford platform, with the stone and brick portion supporting the main station building. 

 

We'll start with the Cambridge platform, since this is all wooden. The Bedfordshire archives states, regarding the fire that burned down the first station:

 

 

 

The platform was composed of sleepers and the buildings which were erected on these sleepers, were of pitch-pine. 

 

So, I have assumed the remaining wooden sections were similarly built. Now, how wide to make the platform? 

 

Again, I turned to the Bedfordshire archive, where there is a 1927 photograph, showing the Cambridge platform pretty much end-on:

 

 

There are a couple of figures standing on the platform, so I used the taller of them to estimate the platform width:

 

 

The platform appears to be about one and a half men wide, so I estimated it to be about 9'. 

 

Constructing the wooden platforms.

 

Now, a while ago I had plans to use ply and rivet sleeps and had purchased a quantity of ply sleepering, but had since changed my mind to use C&L plastic sleepers. Since the platform was described as 'sleeper built' this seemed like the ideal time to use up those spare ply sleepers. So, having cut up lots of them to 9' (36mm) pieces, I had the platform surface. 

 

The sub-structure is based on drawings in V R Anderson and G K Fox, A Pictorial History of LMS Architecture with diagonal bracing approximating what I could see in the photographs and 'X' cross-bracing as I interpreted from the drawings. The top surface consisted of 1/16" balsa flanked by 1/8" square balsa strips. I made legs from 1/8" square balsa - if I remember correctly spaced at 11' (44mm) intervals. I also placed 1/8" strips running along the bottom - these aren't really prototypical, but give the model some strength and stability, and provide a structure to glue the platform to the baseboard when finished. In situ these will be less evident as ballast will hide them a bit. Cross-bracing was 1/8" x 1/16" balsa. The top surface had the ply sleepers glued onto them. Probably some pictures can describe this better than words!

 

 

And looking from underneath - hmmm, I wonder if the X-bracing will be visible - well, at least I know it's there!

 

Having looked as the state of some of the wooden platforms on the Bedford to Bletchley part of the line, I tried staining the platforms with some sleeper stain I made years ago when I was thinking of using the sleepers as sleepers (a mixture of black indian ink, brown, water and a bit of isopropyl alcohol).

 

 

This kind of represents worn woodwork, but wasn't entirely successful - I think the balsa cement I used has soaked into the wood in places and is protecting it from taking up the stain. 

 

The wooden sections of the Bedford platform are made in the same way. 

 

The Brick and stone platform

 

This section supports the station building and consists of a brick base with a stone surface. Photographs indicate that this section is slightly longer than the station building - by about the width of a gate each side. The depth of the platform I set to 9' plus the depth of the station building (about 8') - some photographs show this platform approximately end-on so I could estimate approximately the relationship between the depth of the building and the depth of the platform in front of it. None of the sources I had seem to show the platform surface well enough to say what it is, so I travelled (metaphyically perhaps) up the line to Potton - the Disused Stations website has a picture of the platform surface there which shows it it to be granite setts, edged with tiles - I have assumed brick tiles. 

 

The model of this section of platform was made from Balsa wood - a fairly simple box structure with some bracing to prevent the platform surface sagging. The brickwork on the front steps out a little - these steps were made with 1/32" balsa strips. The platform sides were then clad with embossed brick paper, as per the signal box and shed. For the surface I used SE Finecast granite setts - maybe they look a little too regular compared to Potton. These were cut out to the shape of the station building so that this is set into the surface rather than sitting on top. The edging tiles I made by taking some corrugated plastic sheet and sanding it down to reduce the corrugations. The first lesson I learned was not to use UHU strong glue to stick the stone down - it started off leaving bubbles in the surface and as it dried it curled and shrivelled - for the second attempt, I coarsely sanded the back of the sheet so there was some rough texture to give purchase and used PVA which worked much better. 

 

 

 

(Apologies for the state of the painting of the station building - it's still in an early state and I've only roughed in some of the paintwork so far).

Oops - that looks like a bit of a kink in the track there - I don't think it's as bad as it looks from that picture!

 

 

 

The rear (road side) of the platform will have the landscape built up to the height of the station building, so the brickwork there will not really be very visible. 

 

Barrow crossings

 

There is a barrow crossing at each end of the platform - I made these using ply sleepers again, on a 1/32" balsa backing - apart from the bit at the end of the platform, these aren't stuck down yet (and I think a few bits escaped to the floor somewhere!) 

 

 

There is some more planking which leads across the tracks from the signal box - presumably to protect signal cables and telegraph wires - this appears to run under the Bedford platform (there will be a signal between the station building and the little shed) - I think a bit of this is another casualty to the floor!

 

 

 

Edit: oops - pressed the 'post button far to early!

 

Edited December 24, 2015 by sharris

[chris p bacon]

Lots of wooden platforms were made from old sleepers, therefore making them 8' deep.

[sharris]

Managed a bit of a field visit this afternoon, and now have plenty of photos of the platelayer's hut beyond the end of the goods/cattle dock (106 of my paces beyond the end of the dock to be precise!)

[sharris]

A few pictures from my field trip:

 

The platelayer's hut:

 

North side (facing track)

 

East side (facing Cambridge) with doorway. 

 

West side (facing Bedford)

 

South side (facing away from track)  with large window - larger than I was expecting for a hut, although there appear to be some bricks missing from the bottom, so originally the hole for the window would have been a bit smaller - looking at the unevenness of the bricks on the left, I'd say about 6 courses have been removed from the bottom of the window opening.

 

Immediately to the west of the hut was an occupational crossing - looking along the pathway in each direction:

 

Looking south:

 

Looking north: 

 

Both gates are not likely to be 1930s vintage (the one looking south appears newest), however the one looking north might be more believable as something that can be copied for the model. 

 

A few pictures of the goods/cattle dock.

 

End view of the west end of the dock - a line runs along the left hand end of this - effectively a loop. There is a small bay into which a short line (approx. 1 wagon length?) runs and to the right of this a line runs along the right hand side of the dock - essentially the dock is an island platform. 

 

 

View along the short dock platform - I'll be counting the bricks to see how many wagons can actually fit here! (err, unless anyone wants to count them for me - no, didn't think so! ) 

 

 

View along the north platform of the goods dock - it's had a bit of a tidy up since I last visited!

 

Closeup of the brickwork on the north platform - if the brickwork on the station is anything like this, it looks like I've been too generous with the brick red, and need ample helpings of grey to get the colouring right! 

 

Also apparent in the closeup is the drainage hole every yard or so at the bottom of the brickwork - this continues the whole length of the dock (the cattle dock would have needed a good wash-down after use!).

 

 

What I have absolutely no information about is the layout on the platform of how the cattle-dock area and goods loading (vegetables were a major part of the output from Willington) areas were partitioned.

 

 

Other bits and bobs that will come in handy. 

 

This cart is next to the chicken house owned, I believe, by the Danish Camp people (it was closed on my Christmas Eve visit). I'm sure Dart Castings do something similar and might make a nice little cameo somewhere on the model. 

 

This weighbridge is set into the approach road to the station and appears in this location on Ordnance Survey maps at least as far back as 1901 - some original road surface is also apparent.

Edited December 27, 2015 by sharris

[sharris]

Having consulted Richard Foster's A Pictorial Record of LNWR Signalling it looks like the second picture of the gates approximately follows the LNWR crossing gate design - lighter than a public road crossing, but the general arrangement of cross-bars and diagonals appears similar enough that I might believe it could be a contemporary design.

[sharris]

Here are some of the results from my site expedition at Christmas. 

 

The platelayer's hut

 

To model this I used a mixture of materials. Three of the sides were from 1/8" balsa wood (the two plain sides and the side with the door). The fourth side was a laminate of two pieces of 1/16" balsa wood with a etched window frame sandwiched between the two sheets to give the impression of some depth of brick in front of the frame. The size of the hut was estimated by counting bricks from the photographs. The sides parallel to the railway line were 15 bricks wide (about 11'3) and the sides perpendicular to it were 13 bricks wide (about 9'9). The side facing the track was one brick lower than that facing away giving a very slightly sloping roof to prevent rainwater pooling - estimated at 32 and 33 bricks high (about 8' and 8'3). The lintel over the window and door was 2 bricks(6") high and started 6 bricks (18") below the roof. This gave a box size in 4mm scale of 45mm wide x 39mm deep x 33mm high. 

 

I worked out from the bricks that the doorway was about 3' wide (12mm). Counting the bricks I could see only gave a height of 6' for the door - measuring the doors at home to be about 6'6 high, which seems to be fairly standard, I expect a couple of courses are hidden in the undergrowth, so added an extra 2mm to the height of the hut. 

 

I discussed the size of the hole where the window is in the previous post - even so the window I used is a little bit undersized. The reason for this is parsimony! I still had a rectangular window frame left over from the signal box fret (one I had already used on the end-of-platform shed),  and it seemed a pity to let it go to waste! 

 

The window glass is clear styrene glued in place after painting with krystal kleer and a couple of thin strips of balsa glued around the edges behind it to lock it in place. 

 

The door is a piece of scribed black 40 thou plasticard. I glued a blank to the back of the door opening and then glued the door to this. The frame around the edge is made from plastic strip. The whole was covered in embossed brick paper. Lintels and window sill were made from paper (a bit of the surround from the brick paper - not much goes to waste!) 

 

To paint the bricks I first painted the whole paper in a mortarish colour, and then tried dry brushing brick over the top of it - I'm still learning to do this, and my technique isn't great yet! 

 

The roof is 40 thou black plasticard - I gave the top surface a bit of a light sand to take off a bit of its smoothness, and then a coat of matt black paint. The actual roof appears to be bitumen coated, which the black paint is supposed to represent, and I carried this down onto the top layer of bricks (hopefully there will be no damp problems in the hut!) - the prototype (or what's left of it!) appears to do this. 

 

Looking along the direction of the track from the station end showing the east end of the hut. 

 

 

Oops, that close-up isn't too flattering of the excess paint down the right side of the  door frame - I'd better touch up the brickwork there! 

 

The east and south sides of the hut. The line above the door is where the brick paper wrapped around to. The paper I was using has a fold line that switches the bricks from headers to stretches (and vice versa) - that is on the corner closest to the camera. 

 

 

The two plain sides of the hut - with a gate next to it.

 

 

The last picture brings us neatly to

 

The gates

 

I decided to solder up the gates from some brass strip I had handy. Mostly it's made from 1mm angle, 1mm strip (by about 0.5mm I think) and 1/32" by 1/64" as I had these handy. 

 

I took the measurements approximately from Richard Foster's book making the gate 4' high with centres between the cross bars (starting at the top) 1', 1', 1', 6" and 6". I estimated the width of each gate to be approximately 9' (forgot to take a tape measure on my trip - schoolboy error!) from the photographs, and the verticals equally spaced. 

 

Foster also indicates that occupational crossings were usually just single gates - I don't know what was there in the 1930s, but decided to follow Foster (halved the work I needed to do, and I only had enough strip for 2 gates anyway!).

 

Since I was making two gates, and soldering all the bits together was likely to be fiddly, I made a jig out of some scrap balsa wood. 

 

allowing me to drop the bars and angle section into the appropriate slots and solder it up without it all wiggling out of shape, unsoldering the bits I'd already done, and meant I didn't get burned fingers. The diagonals I just soldered on afterwards. The hinge post is a bit of brass rod, and the hinges small bits of tube slid over it. 

 

 

Gate posts have a bit of a point filed onto them and excess at the bottom to make them easy to plant (in this case in a cardboard box).

 

Finally:

 

The weighbridge

 

The only skill involved with the weighbridge was remembering that I'd bought one at an exhibition a while ago, and to remember not to buy another one at the next exhibition I visit! 

 

 

Well, apart from some finishing off, that about wraps it up for the buildings - I'd better start building some stock and track to go with them!

 

 

[chris p bacon]

Mervyn Askew is doing a talk "Wheels around Willington" at Sandy Transport society on the 27th Jan, hopefully he'll cover the railway too, I'll ask him about the aerophoto picture again.

[sharris]

Mervyn Askew is doing a talk "Wheels around Willington" at Sandy Transport society on the 27th Jan, hopefully he'll cover the railway too, I'll ask him about the aerophoto picture again.

 

Cheers Dave.

 

Btw - are you going to St. Albans? I'm planning on visiting tomorrow.

[chris p bacon]

Cheers Dave.

 

Btw - are you going to St. Albans? I'm planning on visiting tomorrow.

Committee meeting* I'm afraid otherwise I would of cadged a lift with a mate who's going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* the sort where weapons are left at the door.....

[sharris]

Things have been a bit quiet around here for a while - too much real life getting in the way of modelling - and now my modelling room seems to turned into a nursery for this years tomato and chilli seedlings! 

 

However, in among the quietness, a new project has started for Willington. 

 

In the early 1930s Micheline was trying to garner interest in its rubber tyred railcars, and to this end in 1932 had a promotional tour around Europe and America with its Type 9 railcar. Essentially this was an articulated bus running on rubber tyres backed with a flange. The driving cab formed the front 6 - wheel bogie while the passenger compartment was supported at the rear by a 4 - wheel bogie. One of these railcars was tried out on the Oxford to Cambridge line, on which Willington is on the Eastern end of it between Bedford and Cambridge. In reality, the railcar only ran between Oxford and Bletchley, but in my universe I'm having it running all the way through to Cambridge. 

 

This link has a picture of the railcar on its visit to GWR lines (the Southern gave it a try-out too). 

http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrwm421.htm

 

My source material for this project mostly comes from this book:

 

which naturally is written in French - my 'C' grade at O Level might come in handy, although I don't remember my French lessons including the technicalities of petrol driven railcars. Fortunately the book also includes many pictures and drawings (it's worth it just to see some of the bonkers designs Micheline came up with!) 

 

At some point Marklin produced a model of the Type 11 railcar - these were similar to the Type 9s except that the Type 9s had a rear door on each side of the passenger compartment, missing on the type 11. Panelling appears a little different on the type 11s too - fortunately for me, the type 9s had simpler sides on the passenger compartments. Of course the other problem with the Marklin model is that is it H0, so not too useful for an EM gauge railway. 

 

 

 

The model is nowhere near completion yet, but is coming along.

 

 

Currently all the bits are just sitting in about the right place, and the passenger compartment is sitting a little lower than it should.

 

Construction of the passenger compartment is from 30 thou plasticard with slightly cut-down ratio coach seats. The roof is not yet ready - it's currently under a pile of books! The rear of the top-line of the passenger compartment sides curves down a bit towards the back - this led to a a bit of a puzzle as to how to match the roof to this. My current attempt was, rather than trying to curve the roof down to match, was to build up underneath to match the curve the body - I did this by laminating 5-thou plasticard in increasingly thinner slices towards the end - above this are 4 more laminations of 30 thou plasticard - I'll be filing the whole thing to the right (or rightish) shape when it's properly set.

 

Door-frames are scribed (the pencil carbon marking them out makes them look a bit more wibbly than they actually are!) 

 

The driving cab is again mostly 30 thou plasticard - different versions of the railcar differ slightly in the design around the cab roof - I believe the bulge may be an auxillary petrol tank (I say auxilliary as not all type 9s have them). I still have to model the 'aircraft style' heat exchangers. Because of these, the radiator grilles and those on the sides of the nose have actually been reported as cosmetic on the original. I bought some Wizard etched drain covers hoping they might fit, but they turned out to be a bit small, so I'm still looking for grills closer to the right size (will have to look at some of the diesel detailing kits). 

 

I soldered up some bogies from brass, using in some Alan Gibson hornblocks for bearings (soldered in for rigid bogies rather than sprung as intended). Wheel size in the original is 910mm, which works out at about 3', so I'm using 3' bogie wheels from Alan Gibson - I'll be making some 'lorry style' overlays sometime to cover the spokes. The wheel treads are mostly covered by splashers (or should that be mud-guards for something so closely modelled on road transport?) so I'm hoping it won't be too obvious the treads are metal rather than rubber. 

 

Currently there is no link between the cab section and the passenger section - I've not worked out what motor/gearbox combination will fit - I'm thinking something small from High Level might be appropriate, but am not sure yet whether it will drive the centre axle or trailing axle on the front bogie, and hence, how I need to arrange the articulation between cab and passenger compartments - sizewise, this thing is quite small, so there's not a lot of space in the cab. For comparison:

 

here it is next to a 57' LMS coach (straight out of a Dapol box).

 

 

[chris p bacon]

 

 One of these railcars was tried out on the Oxford to Cambridge line, on which Willington is on the Eastern end of it between Bedford and Cambridge. In reality, the railcar only ran between Oxford and Bletchley, but in my universe I'm having it running all the way through to Cambridge. 

 

 I've heard this before but there are some stories locally about a "ghost train" that ran a few times, turns out it was this and because of the tyres was very quiet. I have seen some film about 8-10 years ago of it running East of Bedford at a film show by Frank Banfield, IIRC the film was from the East Anglian Film Archive so you are fully justified in running one.

There were a few other railcars than ran on the Oxford to Cambridge

I don't remember my French lessons 

 

 

Neither do I,  The Father of 31A who is also resident here was my French teacher (and German for a while) quite how he didn't start using weapons on us we'll never know.

[sharris]

There was another Michelin railcar, this time a type 22 which ran to Cambridge in, I think, 1934. This had two 8 wheel bogies, and rather than looking like an articulated bus had the driving cab in a kind of 'conning tower' on the roof - Bill Simpson has a picture of this a Cambridge in his book - I wonder if that was the ghost train.

[chris p bacon]

There was another Michelin railcar, this time a type 22 which ran to Cambridge in, I think, 1934. This had two 8 wheel bogies, and rather than looking like an articulated bus had the driving cab in a kind of 'conning tower' on the roof - Bill Simpson has a picture of this a Cambridge in his book - I wonder if that was the ghost train.

I did wonder that but was told that there were 2 versions and both were seen east of Bedford.

[sharris]

Grrr - the roof I had laminated on the bank holiday and was looking nice and solid last friday has now started to distort a bit and delaminate. Back to the drawing board! :-(

 

Just as well I decided to wait that extra time before thinking about filing it to shape!

 

At least it's only a few days til ExpoEM and more supplies.

[sharris]

About time for some updates...

 

Not a huge amount to report on the Micheline- visits to Expo EM and Scaleforum resulted in a High Level micromiser to try to fit into it somehow. I think the 'somehow' is going to involve a bit of a redesign of the chassis and body to make it fit though!

 

A lot of this year has been spent procrastinating- building up my wagon collection (some documented elsewhere on this site) rather than actually getting down to building the railway. I now have more wagons than will actually fit on the track I have laid. Even SWMBO is getting impatient to see some trains running. Anyway, as a segue into other modelling tasks, these will be the last wagons I start on for a bit.

 

This might give a clue as to the next task I've lined up for myself. On the left a MR long rail wagon (diagram D334) and on the right a sleeper wagon (D306). Both scratch built from plasticard and strip and components from MJT (W irons, springs and axleboxes), Bill Bedford (brake levers and safety brackets), 51L (brake shoes) and PC models (coupling hooks). Buffers are Keen Maygib.

 

The sleeper wagon.

 

The floor and sides are scribed 40 thou styrene (black just because that's what I happened to have to hand). Solebars and headstocks are 1.5mm (60 thou) x 4mm strip. Corner plates are 4mm x 0.25mm (10 thou) and end pillars are 1.5 x 1.5mm filed to taper slightly. Other body strapping is 1mm x 0.25mm. Bolt heads are squares cut from .75 x .25 (30x10 thou) cut down the middle (they end up about 15x15 thou - some more square than others!)

 

Crown-plates on the solebars and other brass strapping comes from the MJT W-iron fret. I've used rocking compensation with these. As this needs the axle boxes to rock on the compensation end I cut the axleboxes from the springs with a kind of L-shaped cut, cutting downwards flush to the front of the springs and horizontally a little below the top of the axle box - the aim is that there is a little bit sticking up at the front of the axleboxes that hides the inevitable gap needed for them to rock.

 

I only had 9' and 9'6 wheelbase brakes, while this wagon has an 11' wheelbase. So I cut them in half and left a few mm stub of push-rod which I filed to be 1mm front to back. I then made forked styrene rods from 1mm x 1mm square section laminated with longer pieces of 1mm x .25mm strip to form the forks. When properly set, the forks were trimmed to match the stubs and superglued on. When properly cured, these were trimmed to length and a central pivot (a cube of 1.5 x 1.5 x 1.5 with a hole drilled through) was glued between them.

 

 

The load is a layer of C&L 9' sleepers glued to a styrene table and dropped in.

 

The rail wagon.

 

Again the floor is scribed 1mm styrene. The photos show a few white strips running across too. These wagons had raised planks at intervals making it easier to get under the loads. Represented by .25mm styrene strip. These wagons had long sides that swing down, and appear from the photos to be hinged around a round cross section. This is represented by 1mm round strip. Side strapping was wetted with solvent and wrapped around to form the hinges. On this wagon the solebars appear to be steel - represented by 4mm styrene channel. There are no crown plates as a result, but rather a lot of bolt heads to do (which I did over a few sessions to stop me going crazy!). These wagons have an 18' wheelbase (possibly the longest wheelbase of a 4-wheel wagon in the MR books) so I remade the brake push rods as above. The lever has a slightly unusual mount which I fashioned out of brass strip. I suspect I mounted the inner V a little too high though as the push rod angles aren't quite where I want them.

 

 

The load is a few 30' lengths of C&L bullhead- I suspect this wagon is taking away some old track rather than laying new 60' sections!

 

Both wagons now join the queue for the paint shop.

[chris p bacon]

Superb,  you've made an excellent job of those.  I'll admit that I tend to shy away from rivets as they try my patience too much so I use the excuse that as I need approx 150-200 wagons I haven't the time. 

What's next on the list?

[sharris]

What next is a good question!

 

Some time early on in the year I promised I'd report back on how I got on with MJT coach compensation units on Ratio LNWR coaches. Well, I got as far as folding up the units and running them up and down the bit of track I've made, and I built the inside of a coach, but I've not got around to actually building the rest of it yet. Then again there are some Slaters MR 6 wheel coaches to build from bits I cobbled together from Coopercraft's exhibition appearances - probably not particularly prototypical for an LNWR line in the 30s, but SWMBO likes riding in the little Victorian coaches when we go to preserved lines, so I thought it would be nice to have some.

 

Then again, there are two boxes from London Road Models - a Chopper tank and a 5'6 tank - that need building, or there are boards and track to make... or I could work out how to fit the gearbox into the Micheline! 

 

So many choices! 

 

But seriously I think it might be some work on the coaches in odd moments for now (if I can find any between Christmas parties!), and some boards and track in the new year when I get a good run and burn off some of my left-over annual leave. 

Edited December 2, 2016 by sharris

[sharris]

By the way, the last time I visited my parents we went on a family outing to Jordans Mill just outside Biggleswade. 

 

A lovely building that I am trying hard to resist the temptation to relocate from the Ivel to the Ouse.

[chris p bacon]

By the way, the last time I visited my parents we went on a family outing to Jordans Mill just outside Biggleswade. 

 

A lovely building that I am trying hard to resist the temptation to relocate from the Ivel to the Ouse.

The Mill at Sandy was much better. 

 

John Jordan was a friend of fathers and when they were kids they did things like cycle from Sandy to Southwold for something to do, they also use to tear around town on motorbikes when they were in their early teens (they'd get an ASBO now) this was until my uncle Arthur (Dads older brother) put the bike in the river, the following day a resident of water lane (now Ivel rd) gave Arthur 5 or 10 shillings as a reward!

[sharris]

Well, they're not actually LNWR, and they were mostly out of service in the 1930s period I'd originally planned on modelling (which now seems to be heading into the 20s), but my other half likes them, so I've started on a batch of MR 6 wheel carriages from bits picked up from CooperCraft at their exhibition appearances. So far I've collected up 3 sets of sides, 3 sets of springs/axleboxes, some roofs and floors and 5 sets of ends (I think I forgot from show to show how many sides I'd got!)

 

Starting with the first floor things didn't look great.

 

 

Err, aren't floors supposed to be flat? So I just used this for dimensions and cut new ones from 40 thou plasticard.

 

The chassis is the Brassmasters Cleminson unit - here shown before linking all the bits together.

 

 

A few points to note when constructing these:

 

It's easier to solder in the bearings before folding up the W irons.

On one W iron assembly the strengthening bars have 3 tabs close together. Only 2 should be filed down - the third is a bearing either side of the screw - decide from the chart in the instructions which hole the pivot screw will go through and mark that hole clearly with a marker pen before filing!

The inner ends of the outer W iron assembled are quite flimsy - be careful when folding up the ends.

The centre W iron has to slide smoothly between the middle tabs folded up from the baseplate - make sure the W iron ends are folded up sharply and evenly, and when folding up the baseplate tabs, clean off any solder on their inner faces after strengthening the folds.

 

So far construction has got this far

 

 

The centre one is most complete so far. For solebars I've used 4mm channel with the upper step sitting in the bottom of the channel. The lower step is 3.2 x .5mm strip with a lip of 1mm x .25 along the back edge. Buffers are Kean Maygib. I still have to work out how to arrange a brake cylinder and gas tanks around the chassis - I suspect I may need a bit of low relief subterfuge. I still have my favourite job - putting on all the bolt heads, of which the photos suggest quite a few are necessary!

 

 

As far as the insides go

 

 

Compartment partitions are 40 thou plasticard templates from the ends. Seats are cut from Ratio seating strips with the backs filed thinner. Sadly I didn't have enough for the third coach, so that will wait until the next exhibition (not too long until Stevenage now - it'll be strange not setting my mind into autopilot from St Alban's station).

 

The pile of staples in the luggage section are the lower step supports - actually cosmetic as the step is glued to the bottoms of the axleboxes.

 

That's the last update now until after Christmas, so I'll wish everyone a very happy Christmas.

[sharris]

My railway related Christmas presents have improved my modelling skills immensely!

 

 

[sharris]

Getting back to the real railway, as well as the MR 6-wheelers, I've started working on an LMS push-pull driving trailer. This consists of Comet D1735 sides, with a standard Comet steel end and a Comet push-pull end to make a D1790. The bogies are Comet too (still awaiting their cosmetic sides). Since I'm making this up from bits and pieces collected over time rather than a kit the floor is a piece of 10 thou brass and solebars are 1/8" (3.2mm) brass channel - that works out to be close to the required approx. 10" in 4mm scale. The sides are actually meant to be overlays for the Dapol coaches but being somewhat parsimonious I thought I'd hang onto the Dapol coaches for the moment as extras.

 

Still lots to do - this is the largest brass assembly I've made yet and will be good practice when it comes to start building locos.

 

It looks like 2015 was the year of the buildings, 2016 was the year of the wagons and 2017 is becoming the year of the coaches. At this rate with a year for locos, a year for the baseboards, a year for the track... I might have something to show by the time I'm 60 (by then my eyes will probably be gone and I'll be starting all over again in O gauge!)

[chris p bacon]

It looks like 2015 was the year of the buildings, 2016 was the year of the wagons and 2017 is becoming the year of the coaches. At this rate with a year for locos, a year for the baseboards, a year for the track... I might have something to show by the time I'm 60 (by then my eyes will probably be gone and I'll be starting all over again in O gauge!)

I've found it goes in 3 year cycles.... 3 years for track etc, so having started on the control panel expect something moving in 2020