Ruston's Industrial locomotive and wagon workshop thread.

[Ruston]

On 23/11/2021 at 16:24, JIM 48DS said:

Hello Ruston I am new to the forum and my interest lies in the UK standard gauge railway modelling.

I do like what you are doing to the Manning loco.

Welcome to the best part of the forum. Do you have some connection with the DVLR?

 

It is over four years since I turned from 7mm modelling back to 4mm/OO and one of the first kit builds I did was a Mercian Models 16-inch Andrew Barclay, which I altered and painted as one of the fleet from Springvale Furnaces. Apart from a few short runs on my River Don Works layout, it never saw any use and has been in a display cabinet all this time. It had every little space crammed with lead, which prevents me from fitting DCC and so it has now been sold. As part-payment I have taken another Hattons Barclay, which I may make into a Springvale engine, with the narrow and open-backed cab.

 

Work continues on the Manning Wardle, which was reassembled for a test run, which it did but the Stay Alive was not functioning, so it was taken apart again. I have begun to fit the handrails pipework.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[JIM 48DS]

Dave out of the whole forum my interest lies in the industrial railway modelling. I will be looking through most of your work over the next couple of days.

This is mainly so I can see what I need to make a nice little layout and of course mainly to look through your inspiring work.

I don't have any connection with DVLR but I have the Jim loco.

[AlfaZagato]

For going by Ruston, you sure do end up with a lot of Barclays.   Since I stalk his threads, I know Barclay doesn't have your Rustons, either.

[Mol_PMB]

26 minutes ago, Ruston said:

Welcome to the best part of the forum. Do you have some connection with the DVLR?

 

It is over four years since I turned from 7mm modelling back to 4mm/OO and one of the first kit builds I did was a Mercian Models 16-inch Andrew Barclay, which I altered and painted as one of the fleet from Springvale Furnaces. Apart from a few short runs on my River Don Works layout, it never saw any use and has been in a display cabinet all this time. It had every little space crammed with lead, which prevents me from fitting DCC and so it has now been sold. As part-payment I have taken another Hattons Barclay, which I may make into a Springvale engine, with the narrow and open-backed cab.

 

Work continues on the Manning Wardle, which was reassembled for a test run, which it did but the Stay Alive was not functioning, so it was taken apart again. I have begun to fit the handrails pipework.

Your repeated vandalism of these lovely Trafford Park cpc Barclays makes me sad. I know you produce beautiful, more interesting and individual models from them, but soon you'll have destroyed them all! Are you not even tempted to keep one and decorate it with a bedraggled teddy bear? And can't you leave one to grow up to 7mm scale for my MSC layout?

(just kidding - keep up the great work!)

 

 

 

[Ruston]

17 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

Your repeated vandalism of these lovely Trafford Park cpc Barclays makes me sad. I know you produce beautiful, more interesting and individual models from them, but soon you'll have destroyed them all! Are you not even tempted to keep one and decorate it with a bedraggled teddy bear? And can't you leave one to grow up to 7mm scale for my MSC layout?

(just kidding - keep up the great work!)

 

 

 

I like to customise them. I think of myself as the Dave Kindig of industrial railway modelling

 

Find one on ebay and buy it. Every time I destroy one the value of yours will increase.

[Mol_PMB]

I like the way that the bedraggled teddy bear migrated around the loco:

[sir douglas]

was somebody watching titfield thunderbolt the night before

 

48 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

 

 

[Ruston]

The Manning 16-inch special is almost finished.

 

I'm awaiting a Stay Alive and then it can be assembled. Everything is now painted and all the lining is on. A finish coat of clear varnish needs to be applied in order to seal the decal lining.

The windows can then be glazed and some weathering added. I have removed the Horus nameplates from the Hattons Barclay that was one of the first locos to run on the CVMR whilst I was still building the layout. The plates will go on this Manning and I have plans for the Barclay, which include a rebuild along the lines of the Dalmellington Iron Co. No.18 after it was rebuilt to go through the "quarry brig".

 

I have weighed all the parts shown above and it comes to 202g, which is a significant improvement over the 129g of the loco that I built for Scott, using the Railwaymania kit as intended. This one won't need banking assistance on the CVMR.

 

We're having a running session with the CVMR on Saturday, so the loco can be properly tested, if I have it finished by then...

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[Barclay]

On 23/11/2021 at 18:43, AlfaZagato said:

For going by Ruston, you sure do end up with a lot of Barclays.   Since I stalk his threads, I know Barclay doesn't have your Rustons, either.

Nope, although I'm not averse to making a 48DS - it's one of the few diesels I can legitimately run in 1947!

[Ruston]

The Stay Alive arrived in the post, this morning, so I set to fitting it to the decoder and assembling the loco. Scott brought his Manning back for a run on the CVMR and I took the opportunity to take some pics of the two together

 

It now only requires weathering. Certainly some weathering/damage is needed on my more dodgy bits of lining.

 

 

With the turned-down flanges it can now run on the overgrown track in the foreground, which, incidentally, the blue one can't because it's still on stock wheels. It can also pull 6 chaldrons and break van up the bank without a problem.

 

 

Making all the changes wasn't easy but if it was easy everybody would be doing it and then it wouldn't be cool, right?

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[Corbs]

Awesome! How did it manage on the incline?

[Ruston]

6 minutes ago, Corbs said:

Awesome! How did it manage on the incline?

Six chaldrons plus break van, no problem. The chaldrons are Smallbrook Studio kits and are quite heavy and not anything like as free-running as a RTR or kit wagon on pinpoint bearings. The blue Manning couldn't manage 5 Slaters 3-plank dropside wagons plus break.

 

 

[Ruston]

I still haven't attended to the dodgy lining but it has a dusting of soot weathering powders on the top surfaces. I have added dumb buffer blocks and vac pipes to enable it to handle any and all traffic on the Calder Vale Mineral Railway.

 

 

The DJM Austerity has been put back together, minus all the excess gears, and with the etched rods, from RT Models. I made the rods jointed as there is still a lot of movement in the axles, despite shims of up to 1.2mm being put behind each wheel. I have put the drive to the centre axle.

I screwed some 14BA screws in the holes for the crankpin screws, but from the rear. The crank pins on the wheels are only wide enough for the pathetically thin, non-working, original rods, so some Alan Gibson crank pin nuts have been screwed on with the narrow part facing inwards. This narrow part has roughly the same diameter as the DJM crankpins and the two together allow the rods enough space to move in. The screws were cut off and filed flush with the nuts, which doesn't look very good, so I may add some tiny cosmetic discs to them.

 

It is running on a non-sound DCC Zimo MX617 at the moment and seems to run well now. Going around the curve on which it is pictured (above) the gears and rods would tie themselves in knots before these alterations and it would grind to  a halt. With the larger motor and the extra weight that I put in the tank previously, it should now be a decent runner and hauler.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[Ruston]

In the works next is a double build of a pair of Andrew Barclay 153HP 0-4-0 diesels.

 

One is to be built as a commission and is to be the prototype below, seen at the Foxfield in 2012.

 

The other is for myself and I am as yet undecided on exactly what it will be. So far I have noticed detail differences in the arrangement of the driving rods and the buffer beams, as on the example below, seen in 2016 at Waterside.

The Vulcan Foundry also built the same design, but with minor differences, for the War Department. I think that Vulcan and Barclays were the contractors for Drewry in the build of these and there was probably some mix and match of parts going on. I have seen photos of Vulcan-built examples with Barclay wheels. Some also had louvres in the engine casing doors.

 

The models will be built using Mercian kits. Past experience of Mercian kits is that nothing is straightforward...

 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[Mol_PMB]

1 hour ago, Ruston said:

 

The models will be built using Mercian kits. Past experience of Mercian kits is that nothing is straightforward...

 

Best of luck. You are a better man than I. I have still never finished a Mercian kit. 

[Sandhole]

16 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Best of luck. You are a better man than I. I have still never finished a Mercian kit. 

AH, Dave is the Mercian Obi Wan!
Chris, the disciple.

[Ruston]

On 29/11/2021 at 21:23, Mol_PMB said:

Best of luck. You are a better man than I. I have still never finished a Mercian kit. 

They can be a bit, er... trying. The kits for these builds are advertised on the box as being able to construct either the WD or the private industrial version, as used by Lever Bros. at Port Sunlight. One kit has only one set of cab parts that will allow only the WD version to be built, whilst the other contains parts enough to construct no less than five cabs!

 

I made a start, this afternoon.

The frame spacers along the bottom are marked up for EM gauge, with the exception of the one on the far right. I never understood why all of these old kits used such narrow spacers for OO. I'm using the EM spacers and even with the OO wheelsets in there is sufficient play and clearance between their back-to-back measurements. I did have to file about 30 thou. off the faces of the bearings, but I'd rather do that and have the frames look better. The wider frames will also give more leeway when it comes to fitting weight and a speaker.

 

The gearboxes are High Level Roadrunner plus at 60:1 ratio. The wheels are Markits 3ft. 3in. Barclay wheels. I don't normally use Markits wheels but no one else produces are Barclay wheel of anything near the correct diameter.

 

The decision as to how to build my own loco has more or less been made for me by the fact that the only set of rods provided are the same as the one at Foxfield. I expected another set as the Port Sunlight locos had yet another arrangement but one that was nearer that on the Waterside loco. I will now also build a WD loco as I can't be bothered to scratch build a set of rods.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[Mol_PMB]

I recently picked up a secondhand copy of the book about the railways of Port Sunlight - fascinating! I’m not going to get distracted from modelling the nearby MSC, but it was really interesting to read about the Bromborough docks and industries. 

A custom set of rods shouldn’t be too hard for you? The Mercian ones probably won’t fit anyway... 

[Ruston]

On 30/11/2021 at 17:45, Mol_PMB said:

The Mercian ones probably won’t fit anyway... 

It wouldn't be the first time that's happened, but I was pleasantly surprised. They only needed the crank pin holes to be opened out and both chassis are now rolling freely.

 

There is a small problem with the cranks.

I have made one up, using the three layers of etch. The hole is square to fit on the end of the provided EM axle. It is held on with the nut merely for the photo, but would have to be soldered on. The problem here is that the outer face of the crank is set a long way back from the outer face of the wheels, which would require a very long crank pin. It has been done like this on the box illustration and looks bloody awful, IMHO. I will have to make my own cranks and either use a 1/8th P4 Gibson axle or use a Romford/Markits EM extended axle for outside-framed locomotives. I'll also make my own cranks a bit beefier than the kit parts.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Ruston

[AlfaZagato]

Looking at the pics of the real things you posted above, it looks like there isn't any large fitting on the jackshaft flycranks.   Could you swap the bushing that looks to be outside the fly on the model?   That might bring it flush.

[Ruston]

22 minutes ago, AlfaZagato said:

Looking at the pics of the real things you posted above, it looks like there isn't any large fitting on the jackshaft flycranks.   Could you swap the bushing that looks to be outside the fly on the model?   That might bring it flush.

Correct. There isn't any such fitting. I screwed it on to hold the crank in place but it shows how far out of line the crank is because I could put a crank pin in and still run it with the brass screw in place. The provided axle isn't long enough to bring it flush. If I brought one side flush, the other side wouldn't have enough axle outside the frames to fit the crank on. I have to replace the crank axle with something longer and as the kit cranks have square holes they can't be fixed to a round axle. I get where the designer is coming from in having everything fit onto the squared axle ends, because it means instant quartering, but it looks rubbish. Quartering fly cranks isn't half as difficult as a lot of people make it out to be.

[Michael Edge]

Would an EM Romford axle work for this?

[Barclay]

Markits actually make P4 axles which I understand people use with an old set of wheels for the setting up of chassis before the P4 ones go in. They will be a little longer I suppose?

 

If you want to try a set of Romford extended axles I have a 00 set I'm never going to use, but you will lose the automatic quartering of course.

[Michael Edge]

I think P4 axles will be longer than EM but I've never used them, lots of EM ones though.

[Ruston]

13 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

Would an EM Romford axle work for this?

The axle provided is already EM. I have an old Romford EM axle with the extended threads to use on one loco. The other will have to make do with a OO one and some extensions.