Rummaging through my Drawers

[roythebus1]

Rummaging through my drawers time to clear up the railway room has found some long-lost gems.

 

A Kitmaster Blue Pullman, this is a bitsa of part-made, full made and an unmade power car. there's a spare power car and a Kitmaster motor bogie, all bought off flabby about 12 years ago for sensible prices, just before Baccy announced their super duper expensive one. The motor bogie appears to have suffered from zinc pest, the main part has broken, but it still works. some of the coaches have been painted but the paint has faded and they'll benefit a repaint as will one of the motor cars.  I'm still debating whether to go with the other painted one or go for the unmade one along with the 2nd restaurant car, also unmade. What would the learned members on here suggest as a decent motor bogie for this lot?

 

There's a pair of Trix AL1 motor bogies minus the sideframes but with a working Trix motor, a Bonds (I think) 0-5-0T loco, yes it's missing a centre driving wheel! A motorised Triang Big Big Hymek which has a centrally mounted can motor driving through drafts to the outer end of each bone, with the wheels connected with Delrin chains and sprocket gears. I've only ever run it once, many years ago. I think I'll have to get my camera out and post some pics. A K's Q1 has been unearthed, made up but disassembled, a Ks class 5 body, built but not finished, another 3 or 4 Black 5s with chassis and tenders, very heavy close, should pull the house down! Lots more in the first 2 drawers...5 cupboards to go yet!

Edited April 15, 2021 by roythebus1

[Paul H Vigor]

45 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

Rummaging through my drawers time to clear up the railway room has found some long-lost gems.

 

A Kitmaster Blue Pullman, this is a bitsa of part-made, full made and an unmade power car. there's a spare power car and a Kitmaster motor bogie, all bought off flabby about 12 years ago for sensible prices, just before Baccy announced their super duper expensive one. The motor bogie appears to have suffered from zinc pest, the main part has broken, but it still works. some of the coaches have been painted but the paint has faded and they'll benefit a repaint as will one of the motor cars.  I'm still debating whether to go with the other painted one or go for the unmade one along with the 2nd restaurant car, also unmade. What would the learned members on here suggest as a decent motor bogie for this lot?

 

There's a pair of Trix AL1 motor bogies minus the sideframes but with a working Trix motor, a Bonds (I think) 0-5-0T loco, yes it's missing a centre driving wheel! A motorised Triang Big Big Hymek which has a centrally mounted can motor driving through drafts to the outer end of each bone, with the wheels connected with Delrin chains and sprocket gears. I've only ever run it once, many years ago. I think I'll have to get my camera out and post some pics. A K's Q1 has been unearthed, made up but disassembled, a Ks class 5 body, built but not finished, another 3 or 4 Black 5s with chassis and tenders, very heavy close, should pull the house down! Lots more in the first 2 drawers...5 cupboards to go yet!

Hunting through draws and boxes, it's like model railway archaeology? 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Did somebody call?  

[railroadbill]

 

By coincidence, I had also been sorting through boxes, and dug out...  a K's L21 Q1 loco.  Got given this years ago  by a friend along with other bits, so hadn't made it. Having found it again, been musing about what to do with it, non-runner but looks like it's the pickups that are a problem.  I've got the motor running, so seems fine.  However, it's a DS13 or similar, which were powerful but high revving, gears are very high, look like 20:1 or so, and it's a very heavy loco so not the best combination. Has Romford wheels rather than K's (has cast inserts for Bulleid pattern wheel).  Thinking about a different motor/gearbox perhaps, but maybe I should  try to get it running as it is first.

Bit of fun from the past!

[Paul H Vigor]

22 hours ago, Ruffnut Thorston said:

Did somebody call?  

Roythebus1 has been discovering interesting, stratified deposits in his drawers! 

[railroadbill]

What's in the next cupboard, Roythebus1?  Intrigued, now.  Always a danger that there will be too many projects to finish! Overwhelming!

[roythebus1]

Yes, far too many projects to finish before I pop my clogs! I've been tinkering with the big big Hymek last Friday, the motor runs and the gear train works. It's a case of sorting the pick-ups on that one and then sell it on.

 

Today fitting Kadees to som ehornby HAA and HEA coal hoppers..

 

I've also got 2 full-size vintage buses to finish restoring this year and next when the weather gets warmer. 

[roythebus1]

Let's try again to load pics from computer..but computer still says no. I can't download anything from computer to social media sites, but can from phone. So another few hours to be wasted on the Apple help line again tomorrow. Pah. I've spent mote than 10 full days on help lines this year so far and 3 months trying to get my miscue library downloaded again, all 32,000 songs, still loads lost "waiting in the cloud".

[roythebus1]

Well, I've had a bash at the Triang O gauge Hymek over the lat couple of days, re-arranged the bogie mountings a bit and the pickups and got the loco run-in. Trouble is, no O gauge track to run it on!

 

Next onto the MTK Cravens parcel car...

Edited April 28, 2021 by roythebus1

[5050]

A few things here from my dim and distant past, some found in drawers, others in old shoe boxes (I have quite a few!).  Photo taken for a thread on another forum but I thought it relevant for this one too.

 

 

I'm sure that all items will be readily recognised but please bear in mind that they date back well over 60 years to when my 'scale' ambitions hadn't really had much chance to develop

 

There are several shoe boxes still full of similar 'nostalgia'.  I find it very difficult to throw stuff away..................

 

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by 5050

[roythebus1]

Airfix railbus front there.

 

[5050]

14 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

Airfix railbus front there.

 

Yes, painted in Chocolate and Cream.  I was a GWR 'fanatic' in my youth and painted all sorts of things in GWR livery(ish!).

[Il Grifone]

I could list the lot, if anyone is interested, but....

 

Kitmaster might have sold a few more of the Gr.835 Italian 0-6-0T, if they'd made in in H0 or 1:80 scale. Since it was made to 4mm scale, they should have set the buffers at the 00 spacing and not the H0 one. It shows compared to the Tri-ang wagon. Perhaps they copied the Rivarossi model, as they are also guilty of this crime. In their defence the only readily available FS drawings only show the side elevation.

 

I didn't realise there was a Stafford salt wagon in the original Peco Wonderful Wagon series with wooden bodies. The embossed card sheet is still listed by Peco, but has lost the solebars along the way*. The price is now £1.75, just under four times the original price for the entire kit (7/6d). Such is inflation!

Does anyone have a complete list of these wagons?

* IIRC there were originally six of each type (7 plank end door. 7 plank side door, and 5 plank minerals and salt wagons) followed by numerous further variations, when they changed to a metal body. The printed solebars vanished at this time, replaced by a plastic moulding.

I think the R/T (Rovex/Trix) option for the wheels was dropped at about the same time, leaving just the A/HD (scale/Hornby Dublo) type). Perhaps it's just me, but these wheels always seem to fail to run true. They're plastic (nylon) so not a great loss.

 

I was going to build a Saxa salt wagon properly. (My first attempt at about age ten was a dismal failure - I couldn't get the sides to fit together properly or fold the corners neatly.) Then Bachmann saved me the trouble!

Edited April 29, 2021 by Il Grifone

[roythebus1]

B 

[roythebus1]

The MTK Craven Parcel car has a Lima motor bogie with MTK sideframes. It still runs well as it used to run on the MRC's New Annington layout in the 1980s. It was a bit super detailed with wire handrails, MTK door transfers and roof vents. It's a acquired a dent in the roof which I may be Abe to beat out if I strip it down and rebuild it or just use a lump of filler! Livery as you can see is very dirty BR blue, the colour of most rolling stock in those days. The cab windows are missing from the other end or maybe I never fitted them.

 

 

The BigBig Hymek (made in Russia) was an offer in the local pound shop in Streatham in the early 1980s, a train set for under a fiver or maybe a bit more, maybe £15! A loco, 2 coaches and the oval of track. I bought several sets at that price and promptly shifted the locos and coaches at a profit but kept one back with a view to putting a proper motor in it.

 

I used a double-ended can motor from Home of O Gauge in Raynes Park and built a gearbox for each motor bogie. Made of 2 frame spacers drilled out to take a 1/8" shaft, these are fitted to the outer axles. A pair of Delrin gears and chains drive the inner axles from the outer axles, and cardon shafts transfer drive from the motor to the gearbox. It seems to work well and is very quiet in operation. It only ever ran on the MRC test track many years ago and recently upside down on my work bench!

 

There's still some work to be done on the pickups as the phospher-bronze ones I made last week aren't very effective. As you can see I done a basic paint job many years ago; it really need stripping off and doing again, along with a load of detailing if anyone's interested. It's missing a buffer but that may well turn up one day.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by roythebus1

[5050]

The Stafford Salt wagon has a metal body and, now I've had a chance to think about it, was probably purchased around '62 when my sister lived in Kingston-on-Thames, not far from Norbiton station which is where I caught the train to Raynes Park to visit Model and Tool Supplies.  I also bought a Low Side Peco wagon at the same time.  Both were brought back to my sister's and assembled that afternoon with the help of a tube of Bostick.  The Triang open wagon was hand lettered even earlier (on one side only!) and the name is a nod to the Craig and Mertonford, then and now one of my all-time favourite layouts.  I think the Airfix Church end probably became part of an Engine Shed conversion - or, at least, and attempt at one!  Very few of my early attempts at 'proper' modelling were overtly succesful.

[Il Grifone]

Interesting.

Did you stick the printed solebar to the plastic one? I thought they changed the printed sides (which originally covered the headstocks) at the same time as they replaced the wooden body with the metal one. Perhaps I remember wrongly?

 

I had a grey 5 plank with a wooden body (can't remember the name). You had to cut the sides down - easy with the right equipment, but not so with the tools I had at the time. I did have an X-Acto knife but only found out what 'sharp' meant when I bought a Swann Morton several years later.