Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...

[Regularity]

Just have “Quick and Fresh” without the “All brought”.

[Compound2632]

Kippers are preserved anyway, so they're a red herring in this context.

 

But that little cameo is positively Mikkelesque.

[Skinnylinny]

Oh dear, I really haven't made a very good job of the copy writing on that one, have I? I suppose that the newspapers aren't fresh either, And I'm sure if you leave kippers out long enough (say a day or two?) they start to smell rather ripe!

Mikkelesque? That's high praise indeed, thank you!

[Corbs]

Ahaaa, we worked out an altered version of the 'night goods' one this morning - have swapped the image in the post above. Good to have collaborative feedback though 

 

Here's another! My money is on the loco....

Edited March 31, 2020 by Corbs

[Tom Burnham]

On 30/03/2020 at 00:11, Skinnylinny said:

And now I have to say a big thank you to @Corbs, who's made this lovely poster for the Great Southern Railway, advertising the morning 'paper train service from London. The loco will then be coaled, watered, turned, and used for the express service to London, the commuter special.
 

Brilliant picture, very much of the period.  "Morning commute" does grate a bit , though.  "Morning train to Town" perhaps?  

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Tom Burnham said:

"Morning commute" does grate a bit , though.  "Morning train to Town" perhaps?  

 

"in time for breakfast" - with vignette of gent at the table, hiding from the wife behind a copy of The Times?

[Tom Burnham]

Not as early as all that, then.  You may recall Jerome K Jerome's Uncle Podger "as on two hundred and fifty days in the year he would start from Ealing Common by the nine-thirteen train to Moorgate Street", and the difficulty he (and the entire household) had in finding his morning paper.

[Corbs]

Hmmm, from what I've seen 'commute' and 'commuter' were in use in the USA from the 1880s but not sure about the UK?

Edited April 1, 2020 by Corbs
typo

[Regularity]

On 31/03/2020 at 18:38, Tom Burnham said:

Brilliant picture, very much of the period.  "Morning commute" does grate a bit , though.  "Morning train to Town" perhaps?  

 

On 31/03/2020 at 18:42, Compound2632 said:

 

"in time for breakfast" - with vignette of gent at the table, hiding from the wife behind a copy of The Times?

 

On 31/03/2020 at 19:28, Tom Burnham said:

Not as early as all that, then.  You may recall Jerome K Jerome's Uncle Podger "as on two hundred and fifty days in the year he would start from Ealing Common by the nine-thirteen train to Moorgate Street", and the difficulty he (and the entire household) had in finding his morning paper.

 

58 minutes ago, Corbs said:

Hmmm, from what I've seen 'commute' and 'commuter' were in use in the USA from the 1880s but not sure about the UK?

Very much USA usage in the 19th Century, for commute (verb) and commuter (noun, “one who commutes”).

“Commute”, as a noun, e.g. “the daily commute” is last third of the 20th Century.

 

”Morning papers delivered in the morning” might be a cheeky way of cocking a verbal snoop at competitors.

[Caley Jim]

20 hours ago, Regularity said:

”Morning papers delivered in the morning” might be a cheeky way of cocking a verbal snoop at competitors.

I recall when my parents and I used to go on holiday to Wester Ross in the late'50's/early '60's the daily papers would arrive around 4:30pm.  These were the first editions, printed in Glasgow at 10:00, put on the overnight Inverness train, transferred there to the morning Kyle train and dropped off, along with the mail, at Achnasheen around noon.  When exactly they arrived in Gairloch depended on how long the postman took to do all his deliveries on the way there.

 

The story goes of the English tourist who, asking in a local general store in the far North West for the morning paper was told, 'I can give you yesterday's, but if it's today's you're being after*, you'll have to wait until tomorrow'.

 

Jim

*Gaelic speakers often use the Gaelic grammar when speaking English.

[Skinnylinny]

Hurrah! The 3D printer seems to finally be up and running again. The first test print was a set of underframe parts for the LSWR cattle van (remember that project?). These seem to have come out ok, so I think I've finally worked out the root of the problem - temperature! The printer is currently residing in a cupboard in my bedroom (the warmest room of the house!) with a small heater bringing the temperature inside the cupboard to about 23 celsius, and this seems to have done the trick. I'm now printing a bodyshell, which should be a bit more of a stress-test.



The springs haven't come out quite as clearly as I'd hoped, but I'll take it for now.

[Skinnylinny]

Goodness, 80 pages already! Well, I suppose I'd better make a comment on how the layout's going!

Track has been laid on one board out of three scenic boards, and painting it has started. I'm awaiting a delivery of ballast. Some bits won't be ballasted in the near future (namely those bits which have flat-bottom pointwork, which I hope to be able to lift and replace as and when Peco provide bullhead equivalents - I'm trying to keep these as untouched as possible.
 

Buildings: I have a station building, signal box, an in-progress goods shed (probably temporary - I will most likely replace this with something scratch built at some point), plus a couple of residential buildings (largely Petite Properties kits, clad in plasticard etc, including two shops and a pub) to go along Station Road in various stages of completion.

Rolling stock: Well, let's divide this up:

GSR:

0-6-0t Sir Samuel Vimes (station pilot/yard shunter)
0-6-0 Havelock Vetinari (local passenger/mixed traffic)
0-4-0t (unnamed) Sharp Stewart (TS Design kit) (under contruction)
0-4-4t (local passenger) (under construction)
2-4-0t (express passenger) (under construction)

bogie stock (2x third, 1x brake third, 1x first, 1x family saloon, 1x corridor first, 1x bogie full brake)
4- and 6-wheeled stock (6-wheel first, 6-wheel brake 1st, 6-wheel third, 4-wheel full brake)

Assorted goods stock

LSWR:
Adams Radial
M7
T9 (in process of backdating to saturated boiler condition)
Adams O2 (under conversion from DJ Models IoW model, bought cheap!)
Ilfracombe Goods (unstarted Branchlines kit)

Assorted coaching stock, nearly all too modern/long

SECR:
C class (needs repainting/lining)
H class
P class
(most of these too modern but all that's available RTR at the moment - I need to get some drawings of suitable SER locos

Birdcage stock (Bachmann) - placeholder for now!
 

LBSCR:
A1 655 Stepney (IEG)
A1X 662 (Umber)
D1 (awaiting construction)

4x Stroudley 4-wheelers, awaiting construction of prototypical Cranleigh Line train

I'll leave you with a quick portrait of where it all started out, the repainted and modified GBL C class, now Havelock Vetinari. Thank you all for the support and help so far, and here's hoping the layout keeps going!

Edited April 4, 2020 by Skinnylinny

[Skinnylinny]

So the printer is back in operation. I'll just leave this here...

[Martin.M]

Linny,

 

Looks good is it SE&CR Cattle wagon? 

 

Martin

UMRC

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Martin.M said:

Linny,

 

Looks good is it SE&CR Cattle wagon? 

 

Martin

UMRC

GSR, surely?

[Skinnylinny]

No prizes for either of you I'm afraid - it's an LSWR D1508 Medium cattle wagon! I decided to go for one of the smaller sizes because the "standard" (i.e. "large with movable divider to make it small or medium") size is commonly seen on layouts set after the grouping period, and I wanted something obviously different!

[jbs]

Hi Linny,

I have sent you a PM.

John

[Caley Jim]

On 01/04/2020 at 21:58, Corbs said:

Hmmm, from what I've seen 'commute' and 'commuter' were in use in the USA from the 1880s but not sure about the UK?

Last night, reading Jim Summers' latest book 'Operating the Caledonian Railway Volume 2', I came across the following at the start of Chapter 7.4: Suburban Services:-

 

COMMUTING

The word 'commuter' has lost its original meaning in modern times.  A motorist cannot be a commuter, for that is someone in possession of ticket sold at a commuted rate.  This is cheaper because the purchaser is going to make many journeys and, in particular, is prepared to pay in advance. The concept goes back to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which sold the first commuted or 'season' ticket in 1842.

 

So, not originating in the USA.

 

Jim

Edited April 7, 2020 by Caley Jim
Edited to correct spelling

[Skinnylinny]

11 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

So, not originating in the USA.

Well, the idea at least - I note the quoted passage doesn't specify anything about the actual use of the word!

Like, I'm sure, many of us, staying at home has been driving me a little potty, so I've been rummaging around in project boxes looking for things to do. I had completely forgotten about these 42' LSWR coaches which I laser cut  back in September, and after being jostled about a bit in the house move, they were looking a bit the worse for wear, with bits of beading loose, some bent sides, and so on. A little TLC and another coat of paint later, and they're starting to look passable, although I still need to reattach some beading, and really must sort out some proper LSWR bogies - they're currently plonked on LBSC fox ones. I had a look at the Roxey Mouldings LSWR ones, but at £13.50 a pair (!) the bogies would be substantially the most expensive parts of the carriages. From what I can tell, the major giveaway difference is the leaf-sprung bolster on the LSWR bogies - perhaps I could 3D print just the necessary bits to do a conversion. Hmmmmm...



Those with a better memory than me may remember a while back that I had picked up some PC Models 56' coaches (quite nicely built!) to act as a stopgap for my lack of LSWR stock. I knew they were too modern and too long, but I didn't realise quite how much too long!

[Nick C]

Would it not be easier to 3D print the entire bogie?

[Skinnylinny]

Easier if you mean in terms of modelling ability, yes. In terms of the CAD work to produce the bogie? Might take a little longer than just the springs!

[Skinnylinny]

Well that was a turn-up for the books! Rooting around last night in my vain efforts to finish the last few boxes of unpacking from the house move, I came across a small, unobtrusive cardboard box.

Contained within were six polythene bags and some laser-cut bits. I had found the kits I cut ages and ages ago for the LBSC's Set Train 42 of 1908, as running on the Cranleigh Line (which I'm extending to terminate at Linton for my layout's purposes, the LSWR having got fed up with the impertinent LBSC wanting to terminate in their station at Guildford!)



Well, over the course of the day, during those little breaks one has to take when working from home, I made a start. Everything began with an underframe for one of the D46s. These, like several other Stroudley brakes were fitted with the unusual 9-spoked wheels. I wasn't able to find any 9-spoked wheels, much less at 14mm, so Gibson 14mm 10-spoked wheels have been pressed into service. They'll have to do for now!

 

The centre wheelset has had its pinpoints chopped off the axle with a slitting disc in a Dremel, and floats in slotted inside guides - I would say bearings but at the moment there's no weight being borne on that axle at all.

Well, one thing led to another, and some bodywork got built, at which point I realised I'd made a mess of the cutting for the bodywork for the brake - the droplights on the bodyside didn't all align with those on the beading. Hmm. One to be finished when we get out of lockdown and I can get to the lab, methinks. Still, to give an impression:

 

Well, behind that you may notice I have started another underframe. By bedtime tonight, I was even further along!

 

Alright, the loco should really be a D1, but still - a loco and six-coach train in 3 feet. Not bad! The battery has been placed there as the coach underframes are free-running enough that a slight nudge can send them a good foot, and they kept trying to escape while I set up the photo!

I wish I could be this productive all the time...

Edited April 9, 2020 by Skinnylinny

[BlueLightning]

10 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

Alright, the loco should really be a D1

 

We'll do some more work on it on the livestream on Sunday! You'll have a D1 before you know it!

 

Gary

[Martin.M]

Linny looks interesting. I do like the 4 wheelers makes up a nice train. Pre grouping trains are generally shorter than more modern ones and easier to fit in... Martin

[Skinnylinny]

Well, when I last left here, nearly a week ago, there were some Stroudley underframes. Unfortunately, no further work has taken place on the full brakes, due to the aforementioned beading problems. It turns out that they're going to need re-cutting from scratch. However, the parts have been useful for testing out different approaches to lining:

 

The left-hand lining was done with a "gold glitter" gel pen, the middle section is a 1mm Posca gold paint pen (run, with a very light touch, along just the edge of the beading) and the right is unlined. While I prefer the warmer colour of the gel pen, It proved impossible to get any sort of narrow lining, meaning all of the beading turned gold. With a lot of care, however, the Posca paint pen was able to produce two distinct gold lines on the beading, and the lighter colour means the lining is more visible. I have, arriving in the post, a brown 0.1mm (nominal) fineliner pen which I'll use to tidy up the lining even more. Of course, this is under cruel magnification!

Also of note: Until now, I've been using Tamiya TS69 Deck Linoleum brown for Mahogany. Well, I came across a long-ago purchased tin of Phoenix Mahogany and what a huge difference it makes to the appearance. A lovely, deep brown, with that hint of purple. So of course, the four nearly-completed carriage bodies have been repainted in mahogany. What a difference! The front three carriages have been repainted here, with the rear one still in the same brown you see above. Thanks to the joys of automatic white-balance, everything is washed-out in this photo but it does show the contrast.

 

So, of course, once the four carriages were painted, and the underframes had had a blast of black spray paint, I couldn't resist removing the full-brake underframe in order to pose Stepney and the more-complete carriages together for a portrait: