Building a pair of Class 309 Clacton Units

[Bucoops]

Great work

 

As for the other project - looks suspiciously like a pair of HST power cars?

[74009]

Thanks Bucoops

 

It is indeed a pair of HST power cars - but not just any HST, it's a Genesis Kits 252 001  -  building that will guarantee an announcement by Hornby, Heljan or Bachmann.  I'll put a short thread up about that at a later date.

Edited December 14, 2020 by 74009

[74009]

So, when I removed all the masking tape and Maskol, this was the initial result.

 

On the whole ok, but some tidying up to do.  The big problem was that the red in particlar hadn't adhered all that well and in places the Maskol had pulled it off.  Particularly visible on the rear left vehicle.

 

This actually wasn't as much of a disaster as it looks - it was quite easy to cut some more bits of masking tape to cover the white and touch in the damage with a paintbrush.  Once gloss varnished it doesn't really notice and there will be a coat of satin varnish too once the transfers are on.

 

I think the failure of the red paint to adhere was probably because I thinned it too much before spraying - so what I was effectively left with was red pigment suspended in thinners and no actual paint carrier.  The varnish has sealed it up though so all is good now.

 

I'm currently working on painting the roof, black areas of the cab ends and the red guttering - once that's done I'll put up some more pics.

 

After that I'm down to interiors, transfers, varnish, the window frames and glazing - then I can get back to that Bulleid Double Decker!

 

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by 74009
Grammar

[74009]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Just do them Maroon.......the only colour I remember them in as I use to travel on them every day from Shenfield  to Colchester to College.........lovely machines they were.

 

Yes indeed they did look rather elegant in maroon.  Trouble is these are refurbished units so it has to be Jaffa livery or later.  If I was keeping them I'd go with Jaffa.  I do have some unrefurbished sets to build too but these will be blue & grey, which is how I remember them most.

[cg501]

25 minutes ago, 74009 said:

 

Yes indeed they did look rather elegant in maroon.  Trouble is these are refurbished units so it has to be Jaffa livery or later.  If I was keeping them I'd go with Jaffa.  I do have some unrefurbished sets to build too but these will be blue & grey, which is how I remember them most.

 

When doing the rub down of the paint on one of 309616s DTs. we found the following remnants of the maroon livery.

[cheesysmith]

Nice work, but be careful. Before long you will be looking at all those GE suburban EMUs and replica coaches. It gets very addictive.

[Barclay]

11 hours ago, 74009 said:

So, when I removed all the masking tape and Maskol, this was the initial result.

 

On the whole ok, but some tidying up to do.  The big problem was that the red in particlar hadn't adhered all that well and in places the Maskol had pulled it off.  Particularly visible on the rear left vehicle.

 

That patchy red line looks just like the real thing after umpteen trips through the carriage washer!

 

Great project - I hope they are fast - these things could fly, I remember one late night trip in particular - Liverpool Street to Chelmsford in 20-something minutes including a stop at Shenfield. Luckily no-one standing - they wouldn't have been for long..

[74009]

2 hours ago, Barclay said:

That patchy red line looks just like the real thing after umpteen trips through the carriage washer!

 

Great project - I hope they are fast - these things could fly, I remember one late night trip in particular - Liverpool Street to Chelmsford in 20-something minutes including a stop at Shenfield. Luckily no-one standing - they wouldn't have been for long..

 

Hi Barclay,

 

Yes I did think that about the red line too

 

Yes they do run quite fast.  Nearer the beginning of this thread (8th August post) there's a video of them undertaking a test run on the layout of the Chatham and District Model Railway Club.  Even though they're unpainted, they look (and sound) good at speed.

 

I travelled on the final 309 run from Liverpool St. to Clacton many years ago  -  that was a super-fast one too!

Edited December 15, 2020 by 74009
extra info

[74009]

13 hours ago, cg501 said:

 

When doing the rub down of the paint on one of 309616s DTs. we found the following remnants of the maroon livery.

 

I wonder how many layers of paint there must have been in total.   I don't remember then as far back as Maroon - I do have some super-8 cine of them running in Blue / Grey though.  

[Izzy]

The 309’s were meant to be the first in a series of  100 mph 25kv express emu’s based around the Mk 1 body and mainly meant to run on the WCML then under electrification. The decision to then use electric locos meant they were the only ones built.

 

90+ along the Hatfield Pevrill section was normal as was flat out up/down Brentwood bank. You could stand by the cabs in middle units and watch the Speedo, I often did. Smooth as silk.

 

The two car units were to allow extra power units per carriage, 6/10 rather than 8/12. The fastest diagrams were two 10’s each way from both Clacton & Walton separately morning and evening, along with very limited stops. Ran between the normal hourly interval ones.

 

Those 3D cabs look very nice. Could have done with such when I made my 2mm/2FS ones - one 4-car in maroon & a 2/3/4 car in blue grey - would have made life a lot easier. The NSE livery looks very nice. I am sure your friend will be very pleased with them. I know I would be!

 

Izzy

[Bucoops]

36 minutes ago, 74009 said:

 

I travelled on the final 309 run from Liverpool St. to Clacton many years ago  -  that was a super-fast one too!

 

I was on it too!

[BernardTPM]

4 hours ago, Izzy said:

The 309’s were meant to be the first in a series of  100 mph 25kv express emu’s based around the Mk 1 body and mainly meant to run on the WCML then under electrification. The decision to then use electric locos meant they were the only ones built.

It was probably fortunate that they didn't go ahead with that as it would have meant improvements like air-conditioning and extra sound-proofing would have come very late to the WCML. Still superb units though.

[Derekstuart]

To back up the comments made by @Izzy and others, my Dad was a Stratford based Driver in the 70s and he never had a bad word to say about them, stating that 'The Clactons' was his favourite rostered duty. He described them as fast, smooth (Commonwealth bogies I'm guessing without looking) and quiet(ish).

 

It was only one of two UK stock that he wanted to have a model of (the other being the J72- the first locomotive he passed on.)

@74009 many thanks for the sharing this with us all. It is a quite impressive and inspirational project which, out of respect for my late Dad, I shall be following myself in 2021.

[74009]

An exciting development today in that the etches for the window frames arrived about 3 weeks earlier than expected.

 

Don't look too closely at the paintwork because it's not finished yet - but I think the frames will transform the appearance of the whole thing.  Just need to secure them without getting glue on the paintwork

 

The apparent extra bar along the top of the window frame is just a reflection - at the moment the paint has been gloss varnished ready for the transfers.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by 74009

[74009]

Sorry for the long gap in updates on this - there has been good progress (in fact they're almost finished) so there will be a proper update soon.  I'm starting to think about the Bulleid 4DD again too.

[roythebus1]

I remember seeing these units and riding on them when they were brand new. I had an aunt and uncle who moved to Chelmsford in 1959 and sometimes I'd get to meet my uncle from work at Earls Court and he'd take me to Liverpool Street on the tube to catch the new "brown electrics" as they were known then. There was still a bit of steam around too!

[74009]

So, a long overdue update on this project - which is in fact nearly finished, maybe a week to go.

 

Last time I posted, the model was in the early stages of painting and the etched stainless steel window frames had just arrived.  As far as the painting goes, this is now basically complete.   It was actually quite difficult - NSE livery is never easy, especially the later version with the curved upsweeps, and I had continued problems with the paint not adhering well to previous layers and being removed by masking tape.  However, after a battle, I got the paintwork to standard that I was happy with then gave it a couple of coats of gloss varnish, to seal it all up and to provide a good surface for the transfers.

 

The black cab-end window surrounds were particularly awkward as they're inset and it was difficult to do it neatly.  In the end I used some black lines from a transfer sheet to draw a box around each window, then painted up to that.

 

The other tricky thing was the thin yellow line around the edge of the corridor connector.  After a few aborted attempts to paint it on and / or use transfers, I decided to paint it onto the unused Worsley Works etches of the corridor connector front, then stick it to the 3D printed cab end.  This almost worked very well - the problem is that the corridor connector on the cab-end is about 2mm higher than the Worsley Works etch - so the effect is similar to the problem that arises with MJT VEP / CIG ends. You can see the effect very clearly in the second image, at the bottom end of the connectors.  What I'm going to do is make up some more connector ends to the same dimensions as the 3D printed ones, paint them up and replace the ones that are on there; I only stuck them very lightly so it'll be easy to substitute them.

 

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by 74009

[74009]

For the headcodes I simply found a 'face-on' photograph, cut the headcode part out of it, adjusted to the required size then printed them out.

[74009]

The window etches are very fine and delicate, but because they're stainless steel they are in fact really hard and it's quite a job to cut them from the sheet and remove the tabs - particularly for the small hopper inserts.   These are the two types of large window - the opening version on the left, and the sealed up version on the right.  The sealed ones only appear in the corridor alongside the first class compartments.

[74009]

To remove the frames from the etch, my final process has been to lay it on a hard steel ruler and heavily score the tabs with a largish craft knife until it cuts through.  This is heavy going and results in significant discomfort in the fingers - I could only do about 20 - 30 per session.  I tried assorted snips / jewellers' shears etc, but to no avail.

 

It's important to hold the frames carefully whilst cutting them in order to avoid distortion. Once removed from the fret, I'm grinding the remains of the tab away using the flat stone attachment in the Dremel, mounted horizontally in its stand.

 

For the main window frames this is working well, but the small hopper inserts are just so delicate that I'm really struggling to get them off the sheet and grind the tabs without bending / snapping them.  At the moment I'm on about 4 successes from 15 attempts, at which rate I won't have enough to do the job.  However, to be honest it's hard to see even under the magnifying glass whether they're fitted or not - with the naked eye it's almost impossible to tell and on the layout there's no chance so I'm not too worried.  Of course anybody who'd never seen the original etches wouldn't know that those bits had even been there!

[74009]

The thing I was most worried about, given the amount of work that had gone into the Network SouthEast livery, was how I was going to stick the etched window frames on to the bodies without getting glue on the paintwork.

 

Those who have followed this thread from the start will know that I have two extra TSOs which were substituted because of a differing door position following the removal of the toilets from these vehicles when the 309s were refurbished.   One of these I'm going to insert as a CEP trailer into the preserved 'Hastings' unit, and this gave me a handy test-bed  -  ruining the paint on something that's only a single colour wouldn't be such a problem.

 

I'll describe the process I used in some detail in case anyone else needs to do something similar, because it was straightforward and worked very well.  I'm not saying it's easy though - great care is required and it certainly can't be rushed.

 

What I decided to do was make a grid out of elastic bands, slide the window frames underneath it then introduce the tiniest amount of the extra-runny superglue, the one that always goes everywhere, and allow capillary action to draw the glue under the frames.  In fact I'd thought about this before I got the frames drawn up and etched and they're designed in such a way that, compared to the Worsley etch, there's just the tiniest lip / overhang along each edge of the two parts, which gives you somewhere to introduce the glue from the inside. I also made the corner radii slightly tighter than the Worsley shape so that the frame etches would sit 'full face' on the coach sides just in the four corners.  Finally, it was clear that the transverse bar across the windows was going to be very helpful as glue could be put here without too much danger of it going astray.  The positioning of the transverse bar on the coach sides matches the positioning on the 'sealed' version of the two frame etches shown above.  This is actually very handy, as the divide is slightly higher on the opening version so when fitting those, which are very much in the majority, it leaves a very small lip visible on the outside.

 

The first image below shows the initial arrangement of rubber bands.  Once these have been positioned, each frame can be carefully slid underneath them from the bottom.  (Before doing this, gently roll each frame from the inside so that it matches the gentle curve of a Mk1 bodyside.  This isn't entirely prototypical but I can't see a sensible alternative). Once they're all in place, final positioning adjustment can be made - it's critical to get them all exactly right.  I found the easiest way was to position the coach under a magnifying glass, then gently move the frames around with a wooden cocktail stick.  It only takes a few minutes to get them all in the perfect position.

 

When happy, put 5-6 drops of extra-runny superglue into the lid of a small paint pot.  Use one of those little microbrush applicators to pick up a small amount of the glue and carefully touch it on the exposed lip visible on the outside of the coach, along the bottom of the horizontal glazing bar.   Don't touch the glue anywhere else at the moment because if it gets to the sides of the frames it will capillary under the rubber bands, which will be a disaster.  Just before you do each one, satisfy yourself that the positioning is still perfect - this is the advantage of the first touch of glue being from the outside, as you can still see what you're doing.

 

When the glue has been applied to all of the horizontal bars, give it a moment to make sure it's set and then carefully remove all of the small rubber bands, but leave the big horizontal ones in place.   With the small bands gone, you'll be able to get inside the body to apply a tiny bit of glue as before, along the tops and bottoms (but not the sides) of the frames.

 

Once this is done, remove the rubber bands and introduce a little more glue, again from the inside, to the sides of the apertures.

 

The second image below, which is about 5 times larger than real life, shows the final result  -  I think they look really good and give a depth that would not be available by using paint or a sharpie. 

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by 74009

[74009]

And finally, this is the first of the 309 vehicles to have the frames fitted.  

 

[Bucoops]

Great work!

[cheesysmith]

Those window may be a lot of work but they do look worth it in the end. 

 

Bit OTT, but are you mad enough to model some with the hoppers open?

[Les Bird]

These are looking really good. You can keep all the modern units (cracked or not!), give me a 309 any time especially in maroon.