Strand and its trains

[Nearholmer]

37 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

I don't know if iron viaducts would have been considered in the early 1860s

 

I can't claim to know for certain whether examples existed in the 1860s*, but what I do know is the "iron elevated railway" concept was floated by Werner Siemens c1870, in discussions after an engineering exhibition in Paris. He went on to flesh the idea out, all based around electric traction before that had been properly realised in practise, and he obtained a patent for it in I think 1880 (I've got a copy somewhere, so will check). The patent included some cracking design drawings for the structures, as well as lots of electrical details. He wanted to build it in Paris, but couldn't get permission because people thought it would make the boulevards look untidy, and he also tried in Berlin, where the objection was that passengers would be able to see into bedroom windows.

 

*Actually, the West Side & Yonkers Patent Railway was opened in 1868, cable hauled. That was probably the first, and what WS was inspired by. Handily for him, the history seems to be in German! https://nygeschichte.blogspot.com/2008/07/west-side-and-yonkers-patent-railway.html

Edited November 17, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

The elevated sections of the Paris Metro have a great deal of character but of course simply being in Paris helps. Does, however, date from the early 20th century rather than late 19th.

[Guy Rixon]

An insight: if it's an "L". I can build the thing above Bedford Street rather than next to the road. Then I can continue along (contrafactual) North Bedford Street to Seven dials. This helps a lot with curves and the width of the station. I just need to relocate the Post Office (historically built in the 1870s) from Bedford Street to Chandos Street. The bays for the Market traffic will be on iron viaduct over Bedford Street and, possibly Henrietta Street.

 

I feel justified in iron viaduct from Chandos Street down to South of the Strand, as this is just a big, unavoidable bridge. That gives me about four modelled feet of iron viaduct, which is plenty.

 

[Guy Rixon]

An unexpected step forwards, or possibly sideways. My lady wife bought me a resin printer as an early christmas-present and these have just emerged:

 

 

 

The first print is one of the RFM buffer-guide sprues. The second is a partial wagon-chassis with Hill's patent brakes, something unobtainable as etched bits.

 

The buffers I shall use immediately, as I have a wagon waiting for them. They are as good as SW prints, except possibly that the bores for the buffer tails may not have formed well; I'll find that out in due course.

 

The chassis print is a stress-test of the printer. It's almost useable as is, but is a little warped at one end, which may turn out to be fixable with heating and reshaping. It's also lost a few bits, such as the safety loop at the "downhill" end and part of the slotted crank on the far side. But these are early days and I've not got the process optimised yet. Most likely, I'll print this again, with better support structures, after adding more detail to the solebar faces.

 

These efforts are not to replace the RFM range sold on Shapeways (which is why I'm showing them here and not on the shop thread), and I won't be marketing the home prints. The fact that the printer works well means that I can make for myself things that would be unattainable (assembled banana-van bodies with properly-smooth sides) or unaffordable (forests of cast-iron columns for my elevated railway) at SW. I can also develop new RFM products very cheaply. The incremental cost of materials per small print is very low and the shipping charge cost is just the shoe leather consumed in walking upstairs.

[Mikkel]

Very nice! I'm impressed by that brake gear.

 

PS: Where can I get a wife like that? 

[Edwardian]

13 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

 

PS: Where can I get a wife like that? 

 

Wish I knew; some chaps have all the luck!

[Guy Rixon]

16 hours ago, Mikkel said:

PS: Where can I get a wife like that? 

She is absolutely unique and more dear to me than any trains.

[Guy Rixon]

Current wagon is a NSR "Longbottom" 2-plank wagon of 1892, from the Mousa kit. Does anybody known any running numbers for these?

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, Guy Rixon said:

Current wagon is a NSR "Longbottom" 2-plank wagon of 1892, from the Mousa kit. Does anybody known any running numbers for these?

 

These are the 17'6" wagons? G.F. Chadwick, North Staffordshire Wagons (Wild Swan, 1993) has a photo of this type, in LMS 1936 livery, numbered 196216; the caption states that this is NSR No. 6216, built 1902; another photo that appears to be the same type, c. 1920, No. 940, and also No. 6103, also built 1902, photographed in 1904 with an experimental either-side brake. This latter was built by Metropolitan RC&W Co.; possibly 6216 was as well which hints at block numbering for additions to capital stock. 

[Guy Rixon]

Thanks Steven. Yes, these are the 17'6" wagons, for which the GA is dated 1892. I guess they were built all through Mr. Longbottom's time as CE, and he died in office in 1902 IIRC. The kits has double-block brakes on one side only, so number 6216 sounds good. Now I can finish the transfers and get it varnished.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Guy Rixon

[Compound2632]

The 1904 photo shows:

 

Top plank:  N  .  S  .  R         [knot]           6103        (approx 5" lettering, along the bottom of the plank; knot about 7" on centre-line of plank)

Along bottom of lower plank, under number, in script (GWR style) To Carry 10 Tons

On bottom of solebar, to left of brake vee, number again, approx 4" numerals.

[Guy Rixon]

Here's the beast pretty much finished.

I still need to black the internal ironwork and the tyres. The may be some paint touch-up to do, and, of course, some weathering.

 

The load is written as 8 tons, not 10, as that is written on the GA and I'd already set the transfers before Stephen's inputs. I suspect that the 1902 wagons had 10-ton bearings and springs like the 1904 ones, but chose not to scrape and repaint.

[Guy Rixon]

A new freight-flow has come to light. Cattle go north through Strand to the LNWR where they arrive at Maiden Lane goods station, that being the most-convenient depot for the Metropolitan Cattle Market. The cattle trucks return empty over the CCEJ and call at Bedford Street Depot, SECR, where they are back-loaded with empty fruit-baskets which are then dropped off at rural stations in Sussex and Kent.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

A new freight-flow has come to light. Cattle go north through Strand to the LNWR where they arrive at Maiden Lane goods station, that being the most-convenient depot for the Metropolitan Cattle Market. The cattle trucks return empty over the CCEJ and call at Bedford Street Depot, SECR, where they are back-loaded with empty fruit-baskets which are then dropped off at rural stations in Sussex and Kent.

 

Why don't empty fruit baskets go home in empty fruit vans? The fruit vans have to get back to the country anyway...

[Andy Hayter]

The vans have to be returned immediately until Common User rules come into effect.

 

The baskets can only be returned once the fruit has been sold - 1 to 2 days difference perhaps.

[Guy Rixon]

Fruit baskets returning in cattle wagons is known from a period photo reproduced in Southern Wagons vol. 3. Doing it this way makes sense when originating stations need to get the baskets back to the consignors when the fruit vans are needed somewhere else. Bear in mind that "fruit vans" on the SECR means PLVs or PBVs or Grande Vitesse vans, all of which are in high demand.

[Compound2632]

Yes, I see. It also occurred to me after posting that quite a bit of fruit traffic might be coming up in guard's compartments.

[Guy Rixon]

There's also the issue of returning baskets that originally arrived by road, but these would have come from nearer London and perhaps not from cattle country.

[Guy Rixon]

The train of SECR 27' stock moves glacially towards completion. I've been working on the other 3rd-brake.

This is newly built from an unstarted, fossil kit and involves significant upgrades to the kit from home printing: buffers, brake rigging, spring hangers, and  droplights. The detail is over at the S4 Society forum.

 

If the lining and lettering works out, then this one should be finished some time in the next month or so and I can then move on to refurbish the other, built coaches shown earlier in this thread using what I've learnt from the new build. Having stalled for 25+ years, the glacier is now moving relatively fast. Must be global warming.

[Mikkel]

Lovely end detail. Great trees grow slowly.

[Compound2632]

4 hours ago, Guy Rixon said:

Having stalled for 25+ years, the glacier is now moving relatively fast. Must be global warming.

 

Now I have a vision of the retreating glacier depositing 27ft-ers at intervals as drift. But that's mostly because it's No. 1 Son's special subject. (Glacial deposits, not SECR carriages.)

[Guy Rixon]

This is the final form of the Grande Vitesse van for which I showed the body some time ago. The chassis is somewhat modified from the kit design, with spring suspension, sprung buffers, and the right kind of axleboxes.  Much 3D printing was involved; getting a 2mm bearing into a box 5.75" wide was challenging. I need to go back to my other Grande Vitesse vans and bring their chassis up to this standard, as it rolls much better than the basic version.

 

I now have CAD for the SER-pattern springs and axleboxes, which I can adapt to some other SECR vehicles that have been languishing.

[Guy Rixon]

So near and yet so far. I thought that I had found a low-grief way of lining SECR coaches, where the gold(ish) lining has to be on the edges of the mouldings or on the extreme edges of the panels (i.e. so close that the eye sees it as on the moulding).

 

I was using a technical drawing pen with "Windsor yellow" calligraphy ink. This is very fluid and tends to pool in the angle between the panel and moulding. Surface tension pulls it into a uniform line even if I didn't draw it smoothly. Perfect! I lined a whole coach with it and was content.

 

Except ... it somehow dries colourless, except for a dark stain. I now have an unlined coach with signs of wet rot around the mouldings. Oh well, better luck next time.

 

Meanwhile, time to build something that doesn't need lining.

That's the GER-van kit looted last year and for which I need Edwardian's new transfers.

Edited February 12, 2021 by Guy Rixon

[Guy Rixon]

Also available in teak:

After a shaky start, I think that came out quite well. The trick about painting teak, IMO, is to get the basic colour right. The grain pattern isn't so critical. However red you first paint your model it needs to be a little redder than that.

 

The painting sequence was as follows.

1. Prime with Halfords primer. Mike Trice, who's really good at teak, uses yellow primer but I had none, so used grey.
2. Base colour of "Wooden Deck Tan", from the Tamiya range of alcohol-thinned acrylics, sprayed by airbrush. This is nothing like teak (despite Tamiya being big on IJN models and the IJN actually using teak for decking IIRC). It provides an woodish, even coat to conceal the primer.
3. Two washes of raw sienna opaque, in artists' acrylics paint, thinned greatly and applied with a 1/8" flat brush. Brushed out in the presumed direction of the grain on each panel, but these washes settle so flat that no grain effect results. This is a pleasantly orange colour, but rather light even for new teak. All subsequent steps are with the same kind of paint and same brush.
4. Slightly stiffer wash of burnt umber, to darken and age the teak, applied when the previous wash was not quite dry: a wet-in-wet technique. This streaked a little and I left the streaks in, making sure that they were in the direction of grain.
5. Drink tea; look critically at model; decide it looks too new.
6. Further wash of burnt umber.
7. More tea; more criticism;  decide it looks too red (ha! fool!). The burnt umber looks very dark brown en masse, but is quite a red colour when thinned. Mike Trice prefers Van Dyke brown for the darker colour.
8. Further wash of dark brown, mixed roughly 1/3 black to 2/3 burnt umber. This wanted to streak quite strongly and I let it, deeming it time to get some grain. Because it's a wash, the streaks are diffuse, not sharp and flecked. That's appropriate for teak, which has gentler graining than timbers like oak and rubberwood. At this stage, the colour balance shifted from reddish to a more neutral brown.
9. Look at real, preserved coaches in modern photos on the computer; face-palm; model is now not nearly red enough.
10. Final wash mixed roughly 50-50 from burnt umber and alizarin crimson (yes, really; looks implausible on the pallette). Success! Model is now a warm orange-brown, with "grain" still showing from the blackened wash.

That was all done last night, under fluorescent light. In sunlight, this morning, as per the photo, it's an even better colour (IMHO).

 

I now have a lengthy but repeatable procedure to paint my Metropolitan, Mansion House and Middle Circle stock. And it's fun!

 

PS: ignore the reference to Middle Circle stock. That was painted in normal GWR colours. Me stupid. But the other flavours of coaches are up for teaking.

Edited March 3, 2021 by Guy Rixon

[Compound2632]

Tea and observation seem to be the key ingredients here.