Rufford Red Lion Square

[James Harrison]

My last two Parkside covered vans are now built and waiting final painting. 

 

I came home from work this evening to a big envelope from Peco containing the instructions and templates for a northlight loco shed.  Top marks for customer service, I only ordered them Friday and there's been a weekend between then and now so very happy. 

 

No progress of late on CfP but then again wagons have been taking up much of my time; also what I have been doing has generally required days to dry out so progress is naturally going to be quite slow at the moment. 

 

I need to check if I have any red oxide paint lying around, and if not then order some...

[Compound2632]

What's the red oxide for? If for red wagons, i.e. red lead colour, then Halfords red primer is your friend.

[Andy Hayter]

I have posted this elsewhere recently but red oxide and red lead are not the same thing.

 

Wagons were generally painted with the cheaper red oxide. (Ferric Oxide - aka rust).

[James Harrison]

Red oxide for ballast wagons (which is noted in Tatlow's book too, now I've gone back and re-read the livery notes). I'm trying as a first go some Humbrol #73, which is looking promising (on top of the original Oxford blue colour on the wagons), once it's fully dry I'll make a judgement on it. 

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

I have posted this elsewhere recently but red oxide and red lead are not the same thing.

 

Wagons were generally painted with the cheaper red oxide. (Ferric Oxide - aka rust).

 

There's been some discussion about this in the context of Great Western wagon livery in the nineteenth century. I think it's important to be clear what period one is speaking of. My personal conclusion, which is quite possibly wrong, is that red lead was the pigment used for "red" wagons in the nineteenth century and in some cases up to the 1920s - e.g. Caledonian, Great Western up to c. 1898 or 1904, and PO wagons. At this time wagons that weren't red were generally grey, the pigment being white lead mixed with black in varying proportions.

 

I'd be very interested in any hard evidence to the contrary.

 

Anyway, iron oxide-based pigments vary considerably depending on the proportions of the various oxidisation states of the iron ions, amongst other factors, so I'm not convinced that even if you know the colour is red oxide, you're much closer to knowing what colour it is! At least that means that whatever colour you choose, it's hard to say you're wrong.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Compound2632

[Poggy1165]

I doubt there's anyone alive today who can say exactly what shade the GC ballast wagons were. Somewhere in the general spectrum is about as close as we are going to get. And I doubt they were painted all that regularly either, so whatever shade they started, it would fade. 

 

I presume that the logic for having ballast wagons a different colour was to ensure they were not used in traffic.

 

As I often say, oh for a time machine and a camera with a very big card.

[James Harrison]

Progress on the ballast wagons so far has been literally to remove the top of the framing and apply a first coat of red paint. 

 

My priority with wagons at the moment are a pair of covered vans, which I anticipate finishing tonight or tomorrow- I've about reached the point with those of five minutes' work and five hours waiting for paint to dry (cue the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch about 'five hours?- you've never had it so good, in my day you had to wait three weeks').  So then the ballast wagons follow on whilst the covered vans dry off.

 

Anticipated work tonight then is to finish painting the van roofs, then move on to the ballast dropsides and fit 3-link couplings, take a view on the suitability or otherwise of Humbrol #73 paint, and maybe even get so far as to make some canvas covers for the axle boxes. 

[James Harrison]

Well, what actually happened....

 

I finished work on the 7th, got home... and was violently ill.  Spent the weekend laid up in bed unable to move without the room spinning.  I was better on the Monday (11th), which was good fortune as I started a new job, with a longer commute which means no modelling now on weeknights. 

 

I was able to pick up where I left off, finally, on Saturday morning.   The Parkside vans received transfers (so are now complete), the ballast dropsides were worked on some more, and the first of the retaining walls on CfP was progressed.  Photos, as ever, in a little while. 

[James Harrison]

 

The completed covered vans...

 

 

... the ballast dropsides have been repainted, canvas covers fitted over the axleboxes (I cut these from paper), the- what would you call them?- doorstops?- have been fitted (carved from some plastic sprue) and 3-link couplings have been added.  I still need to repaint the solebars and then put some ballast in them.

 

 

I decided to extend the retaining wall along the cutting side for a short distance, unlike other areas of it I used a good thick piece of balsa wood as a base and it seems to be a lot more solid.  I then added a few doubling pieces of embossed plastic sheet to suggest pilasters to the corners. 

 

 

And the other end of the wall. 

 

Plans to complete this first wall are- it needs painting, it needs touching-up and touching-in in places, it needs a capping or coping.  Then the toe walls need building and I think from my experience with this first wall I will use some 10mm balsa backing from the outset.  I can see now of course that what I should have done was to have built the retaining wall structures solid onto the baseboards before getting stuck in with building the cutting sides, as it would have saved so much hassle now.  We live and learn, I guess. 

[Poggy1165]

To go back to cattle vans for a second, the HMRS do a rather nice photo of a CLC version of the GCR cattle van

 

I have never seen this photo before and came upon it completely by chance. However, it shows the arrangement of plates far better than my crummy photo.

 

I am intrigued as to what the load is, but it certainly isn't cattle, or indeed beer casks.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Poggy1165

[Andy Hayter]

My guess on the cargo is either baled wool or baled raw cotton. Whatever it is, it is not a particularly heavy cargo to be loaded to the full capacity of the wagon (hence my guess at a raw fibre.)

[Poggy1165]

Fascinating, Andy. Quite likely given that (among other things) the CLC served Liverpool docks and Manchester, the centre of the cotton trade back then.

 

I would never have dreamed of it as a load for a cattle wagon, but it just goes to show. 

[James Harrison]

Great photo Poggy.  Mmmm, very clear.  I wonder if I could make a neat enough job of it?  Well, I'll give it a shot...

[Poggy1165]

You can but try. It's all any of us can do. Modellers who achieve absolute perfection are rare. To draw a parallel, I can trap and kick a football, but I'll never be Sergio Aguero. That's why he's on 200k a week while I never got past playing for my school House. We just try to do our best - and enjoy! Nothing else matters.

 

As an aside, I'm amazed by how closely that Parkside van resembles a diagram 17. I am actually now wondering if the LNER just tweaked a GCR drawing. Entirely possible. If you'd suggested it to me off the wall, I'd have said - nah! But seeing it in a photo, it really does have the looks and proportion. 

[James Harrison]

It's the weekend again, so let's make the most of it and crack on with something.  I will look at the cattle vans again but I might leave that a few weeks as I already have a few other things on the go and I try to limit myself to one or two things at a time. 

 

Last weekend we looked at finishing the covered vans, we did a bit more to ballast dropsides and carried on with the first of the retaining walls.  Npw I know the first retaining wall isn't quite finished yet but I'd prefer to do all the wall copings and final painting etc in one go so I think the plan for this weekend will be to start work on the smaller toe walls and to paint the solebars for the ballast wagons.  If I do that today then fingers crossed the paint will be dry tomorrow so I'd be able to add the transfers and then look next weekend at  abllast load and weathering, which would then see that pair of wagons finished. 

[James Harrison]

 

Yesterday I managed to finish the painting for the ballast dropsides, task for today will be to apply transfers and varnish preparatory to next weekend, weathering and loading. 

 

 

Then started looking at the toe walls.  I had a long think about these and how to build them and what I wanted them to look like.  I decided eventually to use 10mm balsa as a basis and, because this would already impinge somewhat onto the platform width, argue that the necessary bracing/ pilasters would be be built back into the cutting side rather than out onto the platforms.  This made actually building them a little bit quicker and easier but I think in an ideal world I would have liked to model pilasters to add some interest to what is otherwise just a long boring wall.

 

Obviously there is an issue at the moment with a bit of a gap at the bottom, what I'm planning to do is to lay a little more ballast onto the platform surfaces and build up a shoulder to bed the walls down into.

 

 

 

Overall it is starting to look encouragingly close to what I had in mind.  The next step with these walls will be to paint and weather the brickwork, then bed them down into the ballast, then look at the copings. 

[richard i]

If you kink the lower wall to join up with the higher one it would add a different angle and save a gap, or make it into an access path to get to the top of the high emankment for repairs.

just thoughts 

richard

[James Harrison]

The plan for that area is that there will be a path running diagonally up the cutting side from the platform to the road, as a means of allowing passengers to access the platform without having to cross the line.  Station staff of course would use the barrow crossing.  I'm just debating whether or not that path would run as a constant (or almost constant) gradient down to the platform surface or whether it might start off at platform level as a short flight of steps and then become a a long gentle rise.  

 

Just getting these little walls done, or more accurately begun, is another little tick on the long list of things to do.  I'm now making up some proper papier mache (as in, taken some thin card, delaminated it and now it's going to sit in water and mulch for a few days) which I'm going to use to key in these walls to the cutting sides- at the bases I will create ballast banking next weekend to bed them in properly.  One that is done- that will be another week gone waiting for it all to dry out again- once that is done, I'll be able to look at the coping, which at the moment I'm quite taken with the idea of a stone coping with a bit of a lip over the wall, similar to on the platform edges.  When that is done- that will be what, two, three weekends away?- I'll be able to at least start thinking about soil, grasses, fences, paths..... or wait maybe not quite just yet as there is still another wall to consider yet, which just to add a complication or two will be rising up the hill on a curve.... 

[James Harrison]

Another weekend!  Right, plans. 

 

1. Add transfers to the pair of ballast dropsides and varnish.  Once dry, weather and add a ballast load. 

2. I've had some shredded cardboard soaking for a week.  I'm going to try and mulch it into proper papier-mache and bed in the retaining walls around the back.  Then I'm going to lay some ballast around the bottom of the walls to cover up that black line. 

3. I might start drawing up Red Lion Squre station properly.  You might remember this sketch from seven or eight months back. 

 

 

Well, my new job doesn't involve spending hour upon hour all day everyday staring at a computer screen drawing, so now it doesn't feel like such a chore dragging the drawing board out and doing 'proper' drawings.  So I might spend a few hours this weekend starting the proper drawings for RLS station. 

[James Harrison]

 

Urgh.  The light isn't great today.  What I hope you can see though is that the ballast dropsides have had the transfers applied and then varnished.  So so far as they are concerned now, the plan is to weather them and add a ballast load and then-they're done. 

 

Whilst the toolbox was out it was a choice between packing all the tools away and bringing down my drawing equipment, or cracking on with something else.  Like I say, the light wasn't great and the tools were already to hand, so the ballast hopper was brought down and started.  This started life as a Hornby NE loco coal hopper wagon, so who knows what the prototype is... like the majority of my rolling stock this one is just a facsimile or charicature of proper GCR stock, it looks right at a glance but the details aren't quite right and- well if I were building a perfect model all I will say is I wouldn't start here to get there.  Anyway. 

 

First step was to separate the body and chassis, then remove the tiebars between the axle boxes and the tension lock couplings. 

 

 

Then move onto the bodywork.  Firstly use a fibreglass pen to remove the NE and loco coal markings, then shave off the moulded handrails and the strapping to the ends of the hopper with a scalpel.  Then use a file to remove a few lines of rivets.  Then use the scalpel again to remove the moulding cheeks on the inside of the hoppers, down amongst the underframes where Hornby thought they wouldn't be seen. 

 

 

Then wash off the fibreglass dust and leave it to dry overnight.

 

Moving on to Cremorne for Pittance.  I'd had some shredded cardboard soaking since last weekend, so most of the water was drained off and then the cardboard broken up further in my fingertips.  Then some watered down PVA was mixed in with the remaining water and the whole lot well mixed, before it was balled up into little malleable chunks and plastered along the back edge of the tall retaining wall.  The objective being to build up the ground level to the level of the retaining wall coping. 

 

 

Something like that. 

 

At this point, with the mulch used up, I still had a bit of water/PVA mix so I took some more shredded card and soaked it in the PVA for a few minutes and then laid it along the tops of the toe walls, to tie them back into the cutting sides. 

 

 

So that fingers crossed when I do reach the point of adding soil and grass, there won't be a gap where the cutting finishes before the wall starts. 

 

 

Finally extra ballast was laid on the platform surfaces and banked up around the base of the toe walls to seemingly bed the masonry down properly into the platforms.  

 

Quite a bit squeezed into two hours work I think.  Tomorrow- I can't do anything with CfP because it will still be wet, so I will start looking at drawing up Red Lion Square's station building. 

Edited March 2, 2019 by James Harrison

[Caley Jim]

Instead of using soaked card, you could use DAS modelling medium, which has a firm putty-like consistency.  It is water soluble, so can be thinned by leaving it in a sealed container with some water.  you can make any consistency from soft putty to that of thin plaster depending on how much water you put in.

 

Jim

[James Harrison]

3 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Instead of using soaked card, you could use DAS modelling medium, which has a firm putty-like consistency.  It is water soluble, so can be thinned by leaving it in a sealed container with some water.  you can make any consistency from soft putty to that of thin plaster depending on how much water you put in.

 

Jim

 

I think when I get around to doing the other areas of RLS that is a route I shall investigate. Soaked card and whatnot is a method that works but I am finding it tedious and slow going, not a problem really but if working on larger areas I'd quickly lose patience with it. With the cutting at last done to my satisfaction I can move on. There is no way on Earth that CfP will be dry enough to work on it tomorrow, but I think I should be able to start making the copings for the three walls that are already in place. I'm pondering how to do that last wall, the one that rises up and curves at the same time.  I also want to start that drawing tomorrow.

[James Harrison]

So, what got done today? 

 

Ballast dropsides- weathered with chalk pastel, ballast loads added, they're now drying out after watered down PVA was poured in to set the ballast in place. 

Ballast hopper- no progress. 

Red Lion Square drawings- I made a start.  Doing proper scale drawings takes quite some time, and I was reluctant to do much of it before because my job entailed hours each day staring at a computer screen drawing. My new job is more working out calculations, which personally I'm finding more stimulating- and drawing now is less of a chore and becoming what I have always thought it should be- enjoyable. 

 

So I took my roughly 1:200 scale sketch plan and elevation and I started working it up to something more useful.  I found that my sketch scales out at around 43.400 metres in length, full size, which would scale out at 570mm or so at 4mm scale, and by my reckoning the available frontage is more like 400- 450mm.  Hmm.

 

The solution I have come up with is to put the porter's room and gents WC into a second building, which will probably be at the buffer stops end of the departures platform. 

 

 

So this afternoon out came the drawing board and the propelling pencils and other drawing paraphenalia and after a few hours or so I had a 1:100 floor plan, which measures 342mm, which scales out at 450mm at 4mm scale.  Now this block entails the refreshment room, waiting room, booking office, parcels office, station master's office and ladies waiting room. 

 

In concept, if not appearance, it is probably fairly close to Birmingham Moor Street.  I'm not saying that as a criticism or a compliment- it's probably entirely natural as there are only so many forms a modest terminus to a secondary mainline can take; and probably also a subconscious influence considering how it's fairly local to me.  All I'll say is that the design I've sketched out takes it's design cues more from Douglas, Isle of Man, Leicester Central and one or two stations on the Lancashire Derbyshire & East Coast.  

 

Elevations to follow- probably next weekend. 

[James Harrison]

Modelling? On a weeknight? Yes, for all of about 20 minutes. The ballast hopper has had its first coat of red paint...

[James Harrison]

Both coats of red paint now applied, so the plan for tonight is to paint the inside and, if there is time, dirty up the hopper doors and the chassis.  Then the weekend I'll be able to fit couplings, reassemble, adds transfers, varnish and a ballast load.