Class 304 in N Gauge

[nharding99]

I thought I'd start a thread showing the development and progress of an N Gauge class 304. I'm aware that this has been done by others, I'm taking the approach of using Farish Mark 1 coaches stripped of paint then applying Electra Rail self adhesive graphics. The cabs are 3D printed from N-train. This is the first time that I have attempted anything like this. 

 

Below are some images, the end cars are the least developed. The motor chassis is from a Dapol class 122 and that sits nicely in the pantograph car (Motor Brake Second). You will see that it still has the diesel underframe details that will be removed.

 

 

One or two snags and challenges:

 

The couplings are a little bit erratic. The bogies are NGS Gresley bogies and they seem quite flexible and prone to bending. At the moment the ride heights aren't consistent. Maybe some strengthening with a more rigid plate or guide might help.

 

The Electra graphics are slightly long (perhaps my fault, I may have stretched them slightly) and do need to be wrapped around the coach ends and fixed down more securely. They do lift a little, maybe some small dabs of glue will fix that.

 

In the trailer composite my efforts to remove the paint from the Mark 1 coach used as a basis resulted in transparent sides that were a little foggy. I debated whether to abandon that one but eventually decided to stick with it on the basis that I saw some 304s on YouTube which had quite steamy windows on a cold damp day!

 

I've never seen a 304 in green in N Gauge before. I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows of one.

 

Thanks for reading and any suggestions or comments are welcome!

 

Nigel H.

Edited October 13, 2019 by nharding99

[Gibbo675]

Hi Nigel,

 

Looking good, are you going to close couple the carriages and if so would that ease the bogie problems ? 

 

The 'steamy windows' coach could be Tina Turner's private saloon, a poor effort I know but it might be plausible.

 

Gibbo.

[nharding99]

12 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Nigel,

 

Looking good, are you going to close couple the carriages and if so would that ease the bogie problems ? 

 

The 'steamy windows' coach could be Tina Turner's private saloon, a poor effort I know but it might be plausible.

 

Gibbo.

 

Gibbo you make a good point about the coupling gap. The curves on my layout are quite tight. Perhaps what I should do is work on adding NEM plugins where I can experiment with the length of coupling shanks and come up with the shortest gap that will tolerate my curves. I did move forward the front bogies for the driving cabs which means that they now touch my curved platform edges so I'll likely have to see if I can skim something off those edges.

As for Tina Turner, is there any evidence that she travelled between Manchester and Stoke in the 1960s? 

But anyway I'm sure there were plenty of amorous couples!

 

Thanks

NIgel 

[franciswilliamwebb]

30 minutes ago, nharding99 said:

As for Tina Turner, is there any evidence that she travelled between Manchester and Stoke in the 1960s? 

 

Well, it's a bit of an Ike 

[nharding99]

26 minutes ago, franciswilliamwebb said:

 

Well, it's a bit of an Ike 

 

I see what you did there 

[Steven B]

Don't forget to cut the buffers off - the 304s only had them fitted to the driving cabs. You'll be able to close the gap a little more without them too.

 

Steven B.

[nharding99]

5 minutes ago, Steven B said:

Don't forget to cut the buffers off - the 304s only had them fitted to the driving cabs. You'll be able to close the gap a little more without them too.

 

Steven B.

 

Thanks for pointing that out, will do.

 

Cheers

Nigel

[nharding99]

Progress has been slow, I have cut out and fitted windows for the cabs and started adding the jumper cables. 

 

I always wanted to fit sound and so an ESU Loksound decoder has now been fitted to the Motor Brake Second. This is what it sounds like... Just a quick demo but you get an idea of the air compressor (the ticking sound) and the roar of the engine as it sets off. It certainly brings back some memories for me 

 

Thanks

Nigel H

 

 

 

[nharding99]

Please excuse the messy workbench but hopefully you can see that the unit has been coupled up and is running for the first time as a complete formation. The cab ends still need some work but you can see that I have used some guitar string (wire) to form the MU hoses and NBrass oval buffers have been added. Next steps will be to add the interior (probably based upon the coach interiors I previously removed, as long as its representative it will be fine for me) then I can glue the roof on and use filler to smooth out that gap between the roof and cab. Then I'll just need to add the vinyls and matt spray the sides to protect them. 

 

It runs okay on the straight section. I know that there's a slight loading gauge issue with the platforms on my layout and will need to shave off some of the platform edge to accommodate this loco but hopefully, early in the new year, we might be getting there.

 

Thanks for reading and Happy Christmas to all!

 

Nigel

 

 

[nharding99]

Getting there now. You can see that a little bit of paint touching up is needed. As ever, close-ups can be cruel in this scale but at normal viewing distances the model looks acceptable  (you can probably say that about all of my modelling!) There are plenty of imperfections but I hope that my efforts capture the essence of these units.

 

Once I'm happy with the exterior then I'll apply a matt varnish spray to seal the vinyls.

 

Thanks

Nigel

 

[Gibbo675]

Hi Nigel,

 

How do the vinyls take to being varnished over ?

 

Gibbo.

[nharding99]

4 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Nigel,

 

How do the vinyls take to being varnished over ?

 

Gibbo.

 

Hi Gibbo,

 

According to the Electra advice acrylic varnish is recommended. I've tried a test spray onto the backing sheet and that seemed okay (I'm using matt Humbrol Acrylic Varnish from a can). I'm a little bit nervous about the windows so may try just spraying one window on the model and see how that works out.

 

For my test I did also lay out some scaps of plastic glazing identical to those I used to glaze the front cab windows. These pieces did noticeably fog so I'll need to mask those front windows when I do the spraying.

 

Hope that helps.

Nigel

 

[nharding99]

 

The model has been matt varnished now so the glossy sheen has been toned down and I'm happy about that. I'll maybe cap things off with a photo of the model in context on my layout next time I have an operating session. In the meantime I thought I'd share some lessons learned...

 

Positives

• Using a Dapol class 121 for the motor chassis worked out very well. Perfect size and DCC ready. I didn't mess with the bogies although strictly speaking they should have been of the Gresley type. I checked plans of the real thing (I found an AEI manual with schematics) and the bogies on the motor brake coach are a bit different on the real thing, they have a spacing of 8' 9" as opposed to the 8' 6" spacing used elsewhere on the unit so I felt somewhat justified in my decision.
• The Electra vinyls do alot of the painting/livery work for you.
• Fitting sound (Loksound ESU with legomanbiffo sounds from DCC Kits) added alot of fun factor. I know that sound isn't everyone's cup of tea but for me the memories came flooding back when I heard those sounds.
• It was worth bringing forward the front bogies slightly on the driving cars. I compared with photos of the real thing and leaving the bogies in their default positions on the donor coaches wasn't quite right
• Glazing the cab front windows was definitely worth the effort.

 

Things I'd do better next time

• There is a strong case for re-doing the trailer composite. I didn't really strip the paint from the donor coach properly and the windows were always a bit foggy. Spraying with varnish afterwards made this a bit worse too.
• There are some lumps where the cab ends join the donor coach bodies. These should have been prepared better by making the join completely flat. It's not too bad as is but I'd take more care next time.
• It was well worth fitting the hand rails to the cab fronts but some of them aren't quite square. I'd try to see how I could drill the holes more accurately next time. I just did this using my own judgement and I was probably a bit too cavalier.

 

A few notes and observations that might help others

• For the 1960s green livery, some units clearly had white roofs above the cab. There are plenty of grey looking cab roofs too and it's difficult to tell from photographs whether that is down to dirt and grime or whether they were painted grey but I stuck with an overall grey for the roofs of my driving units. It drew less attention to the join.
• I did find photographic evidence of different yellow warning panel sizes. I went for a wider panel, some were clearly narrower.
• Using Electra's vinyls is a skill that does require some practice and my heart was in my mouth as I undertook each one. It all turned out okay and I think it was slightly easier than using brass overlays (which would then require painting and addition of transfers for lining, emblems and numbers). 
• I wasn't too concerned about underframe details. I did remove diesel exhausts from the motor chassis but didn't go much further than that. There is scope for improvement in this area should anyone wish to tackle it.

I'm quite pleased with the outcome and it definitely adds kudos to my layout!

 

All the Best

Nigel H

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by nharding99

[nharding99]

And as I mentioned last time, here is the completed unit on the layout.

 

Thanks for reading

Nigel H

 

[Grimly Feendish]

Very nice! I'm guessing the Farish Mk1's are the earlier Poole type?

[nharding99]

47 minutes ago, Grimly Feendish said:

Very nice! I'm guessing the Farish Mk1's are the earlier Poole type?

 

Thank you and yes, they are the earlier Mk 1s (flat transparent plastic which were painted/printed on by the manufacturer)

 

Cheers

[Carl]

Sorry to post to an old thread.  Just wondering if it was a 121 or 122 you used as the motor chassis?  Your posts mention both.  I imagine both fit just fine, but thought I’d check!