Coulsdon Works

[Nile]

Do you need to add a washer or two to the middle bogie pivot? The coaches don't look level, or is that an optical illusion.

[thegreenhowards]

11 hours ago, Nile said:

Do you need to add a washer or two to the middle bogie pivot? The coaches don't look level, or is that an optical illusion.

That was a good spot! I test run them after the photos and discovered that the wheels were rubbing on the floor. I use the MJT articulation system, so washers aren’t appropriate. It was just a case of bending the brass with one if the pop joiners up a little.

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

The d.210 twin-art is finally finished. here are some pictures of the finished beast. 

 

 

It can can now take up its duty on my equivalent of the Hatfield- Dunstable branch service.

 

Andy

[Headstock]

39 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

The d.210 twin-art is finally finished. here are some pictures of the finished beast. 

 

 

It can can now take up its duty on my equivalent of the Hatfield- Dunstable branch service.

 

Andy

 

Fantastic work Andy,

 

there is nothing better in model railways than seeing somebody recreate something that was real rather than made up.

 

 

And the water fillers (caps off), also on the Dunstable branch train.

 

[thegreenhowards]

And the water fillers (caps off), also on the Dunstable branch train.

 

Andrew,

 

Thanks for sharing those photos which I hadn't seen before. The second looks like Welwyn Garden City (?), do you know where the first is taken? The water fillers with caps off is an interesting shot - I never knew how they opened up! I hope you can see from my photo that I did follow your advice and replace the vents with water fillers in the positions you suggested.

 

Andy

[Clive Mortimore]

4 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

And the water fillers (caps off), also on the Dunstable branch train.

 

Andrew,

 

Thanks for sharing those photos which I hadn't seen before. The second looks like Welwyn Garden City (?), do you know where the first is taken? The water fillers with caps off is an interesting shot - I never knew how they opened up! I hope you can see from my photo that I did follow your advice and replace the vents with water fillers in the positions you suggested.

 

Andy

Hi Andy

 

The first photo is at Dunstable, note the ex LMS stock in the other platform.

[thegreenhowards]

1 minute ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Andy

 

The first photo is at Dunstable, note the ex LMS stock in the other platform.

Thanks - I suppose that was obvious if I'd put my brain in gear!!

[Headstock]

57 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Thanks - I suppose that was obvious if I'd put my brain in gear!!

 

The shot of the filler caps is at Welwyn Garden City.

[thegreenhowards]

It’s a while since I posted on here, mainly because I’ve been concentrating on my layout. However over the last few days I’ve been trying to sort out my Pullman rakes and I’ve decided I need some different cars.
 

As has been aired elsewhere most of the ECML cars were from the 1928 all steel batch as represented recently by Hornby. However about 1/3 were of the earlier wooden type with under frame angle iron. These were the earlier Hornby super detail type, but while Hornby did five different cars there were, in practice, numerous differences between them.

 

I wanted to build one of the second class Kitchen cars, nos 105/6/7 which were East Coast regulars in the 1950s. These were originally First Class kitchen cars built in 1927 and were converted in 1946. They were notably different to the regular K type wooden vehicles modelled by Hornby with an extra oval window and other windows in different places. 
 

I decided to start with an older Hornby (pre superdetail) pantry car and had to cut the side up to rearrange some of the windows. the choice of the older car was partly because it seemed the closest match window wise, partly because there’s not much difference between them apart from the under frame and partly because it was cheap so less of an issue if I mess it up!

 

Here’s the progress to date

 

 

The top side is the one I’ve been working on - you can see the joins. The middle one is the same model unaltered, and the bottom one is a Hornby superdetail kitchen second, so you can see the difference. My reference pictures are in Ford Pullman Profile No 2 pages 137-141.

 

Still to do are filling and repainting the joins and sorting roof and chassis. I’d welcome any comments on whether I’ve missed a glaring problem with this route. 
 

Also does anyone know the best match for Hornby Pullman cream. I’ve tried Humbrol RC416, but it’s too lemony.

 

Andy

[Tony Teague]

Very brave of you Andy!

[davidw]

Agree with Tony. I tried to match Bachmann and Hornby Pullman colours a while back. Very frustrating.

[John Tomlinson]

Difficult with the colours, your picture shows the Car 171 to have a different cream to the other two.

 

IIRC Railmatch do basic Pullman umber and cream, but I fear you'll need to do a bit of mixing and experimentation to get just the right shade to match.

 

In a way the cream isn't too bad as you can do the whole panel between a window, and if it's a bit out with other panels it won't notice so much. The umber is more  testing as it is continuous for the whole coach length. May I suggest you take extra care to get the joints on the umber very tight, mask either side and just dribble a bit of umber onto the joint alone. It might work, being as the umber is so dark anyway.

 

FWIW the umber shade on the Bachmann Mk1 Pullmans is far lighter than the Southern Pride ones (I completed a rake just as the Bacchy ones were announced!), so it does make you wonder what the right answer really is.

 

John.

[Keith Turbutt]

FWIW the umber shade on the Bachmann Mk1 Pullmans is far lighter than the Southern Pride ones (I completed a rake just as the Bacchy ones were announced!), so it does make you wonder what the right answer really is.

 

Hi John,

 

Quite right, the Hornby and Bachmann umbers don't match either. Very annoying as you need to use Hornby brakes with Bachmann Mk1 Pullmans unless you are running a later period when I believe standard Mk1 brakes were used.  Repainting for me is not an option with all that delicate lining.

 

One solution is to use Precision Labels overlays. They do the umber for Pullmans. You have the choice of overlays for the Bachmann Pullmans to match the Hornby umber but you can also choose overlays for the Hornby brakes to match the Bachmann. I preferred to match the Hornby umber which I think is closer to the actual colour - at least that's how I remember it.

 

 You can choose any car number/name - they don't even need to be authentic names! 

 

The link I used is "www.precisionlabels.com/sl20.html" for the Pullman overlays. I found their service very quick.

 

Keith

[thegreenhowards]

On 29/11/2019 at 09:09, davidw said:

Agree with Tony. I tried to match Bachmann and Hornby Pullman colours a while back. Very frustrating.

 

22 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

Difficult with the colours, your picture shows the Car 171 to have a different cream to the other two.

 

IIRC Railmatch do basic Pullman umber and cream, but I fear you'll need to do a bit of mixing and experimentation to get just the right shade to match.

 

I think you've highlighted the problem. I'm not even trying to match Bachmann with Hornby. Rather Hornby with Hornby using Hornby (aka Humbrol) paint. But even that varies between cars.

[thegreenhowards]

15 hours ago, Keith Turbutt said:

 

One solution is to use Precision Labels overlays. They do the umber for Pullmans. You have the choice of overlays for the Bachmann Pullmans to match the Hornby umber but you can also choose overlays for the Hornby brakes to match the Bachmann. I preferred to match the Hornby umber which I think is closer to the actual colour - at least that's how I remember it.

 

Keith,

I intend to use Precision labels for the Umber section which will both hide the joins and provide nicely printed crests, lining and car numbers.

I've used them before and would agree that his service is very good.

Andy

[thegreenhowards]

Some progress on the Pullman car. I've tackled the roof which had to be changed from an all steel version to the wooden version which had traditional rain strips and vents in different places. So I had to remove all of the detail except for a couple of large round vents. Then it needed a good sanding back and several coats of filler primer. I have now added the revised detail as seen in the photo below.

 

 

For the painting, I've decided to repaint the cream completely. This is made much easier by using the Precision labels for the umber as I won't have to mask anything off. The labels have now arrived, so hopefully more progress soon.

 

Andy

[thegreenhowards]

At the same time as I purchased one of the Precision labels for my Car 107 conversion above, I bought some others and I have already fitted them.

 

 

So my Car 166 with Matchboard has become Car 167. Car 166 was never an East Coast car as far as I'm aware, whereas Car 167 did have spells on the East Coast. According to Ford, it was never plated, so stayed with matchboard sides until withdrawal. I do have a Hornby Car 167, but it's in plated format, so not much good (it's gone in my spares pool for now). I think the Prescision labels give a good rendition of the matchboard effect, rather more subtle than Hornby's, and it's a very easy way to change identity - about 30 mins in front of the telly for this conversion.

I also changed my 'Adrian' into 'Iolanthe' - a wonderful name and an East Coast stalwart during the '50s.

 

This time, It's a plated finish as Iolanthe was plated 'by 1959' (Ford vol 2 page 37). The Precision label gives a nice representation of the joins in the plates which are missing on Hornby's finish. As my donor was in post 1960 livery without the flourishes on the top panel (directly above the crests), I replaced the top panel as well with the Precision labels.

Edited December 6, 2019 by thegreenhowards

[John Tomlinson]

The result with the Precision Labels is stunning - I'd never heard of these before but I'm glad I have now!

 

Interesting that the umber on them is quite dark, darker it appears than the Hornby originals.

 

FWIW I used to work with a chap whose second name was Iolanthe. His first name was Aubrey, if he was still alive he'd be 80ish now. Rather exotic names I always thought for a down to earth but intelligent man who started his working life in an engineering works at the age of 15.

 

John.

[Bucoops]

44 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

The result with the Precision Labels is stunning - I'd never heard of these before but I'm glad I have now!

 

Interesting that the umber on them is quite dark, darker it appears than the Hornby originals.

 

FWIW I used to work with a chap whose second name was Iolanthe. His first name was Aubrey, if he was still alive he'd be 80ish now. Rather exotic names I always thought for a down to earth but intelligent man who started his working life in an engineering works at the age of 15.

 

John.

 

Our daughter is called Aubree

[thegreenhowards]

1 hour ago, John Tomlinson said:

The result with the Precision Labels is stunning - I'd never heard of these before but I'm glad I have now!

 

Interesting that the umber on them is quite dark, darker it appears than the Hornby originals.

 

FWIW I used to work with a chap whose second name was Iolanthe. His first name was Aubrey, if he was still alive he'd be 80ish now. Rather exotic names I always thought for a down to earth but intelligent man who started his working life in an engineering works at the age of 15.

 

John.

It's also slightly more glossy than the Hornby version which I think looks better. How it will look in a complete train I'm not yet sure. But once I've got my Yorkshire Pullman up and running I will post an image on my layout thread, Gresley Jn

[thegreenhowards]

There has been some discussion on Gresley Jn, Peterborough North and Write Writes about the Gresley Diagram 16 RKB conversions running in the King's Cross-Cleethorpes trains. Daryll Tooley of the LNER society kindly provided me with some photos and I've made a diagram from cutting and shutting the unrebuilt D.16 and buffet car diagrams. This is what I've got.

 

The corridor side is the same as the original. Unfortunately AFAIK nobody makes a kit of a D.16, so I will still have to cut and shut Kirk sides.

 

Clive M tried something similar without the aid of the photos and came up with a very similar image - I've no idea how he guessed that, but it's very impressive! Anyway, I'm now using this to cut and shut Kirk sides into a representation. 

 

As you can see, there are a lot of bits. Using a Kirk restaurant car would have been easier, but I didn't have any spare, whereas I have several spare buffet sides, so I used them, plus a couple of bits left over from some sleeper cut and shutting. 

 

Unfortunately, when I glued it all together it's come out 2-3mm too short. So I now have to work out where to insert a bit of extra length.

Comments welcome.

Andy

Edited December 10, 2019 by thegreenhowards
Inserting photos

[Clive Mortimore]

After a wee bit of a discussion Andy and I think the interior was something like this. If anyone has more information on the interior, please can you let Andy and I know.

 

 

[Tony Teague]

4 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Unfortunately, when I glued it all together it's come out 2-3mm too short. So I now have to work out where to insert a bit of extra length.

Comments welcome.

Andy

 

Isn't it one panel short in the long non-window area - 14 panels vs 15 - or have I mis-counted?

Tony

[thegreenhowards]

1 hour ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Isn't it one panel short in the long non-window area - 14 panels vs 15 - or have I mis-counted?

Tony

It’s supposed to be 14 in both. But there does seem to be an extra half panel next to the window on my diagram which may account for the difference. Will do some more research.

[Clive Mortimore]

11 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

There has been some discussion on Gresley Jn, Peterborough North and Write Writes about the Gresley Diagram 16 RKB conversions running in the King's Cross-Cleethorpes trains. Daryll Tooley of the LNER society kindly provided me with some photos and I've made a diagram from cutting and shutting the unrebuilt D.16 and buffet car diagrams. This is what I've got.

 

The corridor side is the same as the original. Unfortunately AFAIK nobody makes a kit of a D.16, so I will still have to cut and shut Kirk sides.

 

Clive M tried something similar without the aid of the photos and came up with a very similar image - I've no idea how he guessed that, but it's very impressive! Anyway, I'm now using this to cut and shut Kirk sides into a representation. 

 

As you can see, there are a lot of bits. Using a Kirk restaurant car would have been easier, but I didn't have any spare, whereas I have several spare buffet sides, so I used them, plus a couple of bits left over from some sleeper cut and shutting. 

 

Unfortunately, when I glued it all together it's come out 2-3mm too short. So I now have to work out where to insert a bit of extra length.

Comments welcome.

Andy

Hi Andy

 

I get that happen on my cut and shut efforts. When I go back and check everything I normally find it a 1/2mm here and 1/2mm there not the whole 2mm. If I have the spare bits make some replacements for those a little short or splice in thin bits of coach side hoping the filler will hide the error. On some coaches if only a millimeter short I make the other side to match and jiggle the roof and underframe so there is a little bit more than normal overhang, any more than 1mm it starts to show and bugs me.