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Adam's EM Workbench: Farewell for now


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The end is almost in sight! The last remaining detail parts will be a set of safety loops before moving on to reassembly and painting. So what's new? I've rebuilt the axleboxes (losing the nice moulded LNER lettering in the process), steps and some tiny door springs. Fiddly just about covers it, but I think it's worth it.
 

SECR_hopper_015.jpg.449035d863ee13bffe2fd8017d6391d3.jpg

 

SECR_hopper_016.jpg.418dea9f2af7f209646868269583ae11.jpg

 

Adam

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  • Adam changed the title to Adam's EM Workbench: Trout Tickling - a SE&CR ballast hopper: DONE
  • 1 month later...

The post has arrived, and with it, the latest MRJ, no. 282.

 

MRJ_282_cover.jpeg.3142e807eb3f00c1ef79509ee83bf442.jpeg

 

Some great stuff therein, and the star is Hywel Thomas’s terrific Morfa Bank sidings, but there’s much else, including Karl Crowther’s take on Kentside and the Kendal branch and a proper sized mill chimney.
 

Personally, there’s something more modest, but hopefully worthwhile, my model of a little prefab bungalow. Hope you enjoy it.


MRJ_282_Palace.jpeg.300b6d120d7c63bfecef17d35f849e3e.jpeg

 

Adam

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  • Adam changed the title to Adam's EM Workbench: An Aluminium Palace or, a prefab in the press

The title is a quote or a paraphrase - from someone who'd moved into one from something less salubrious - and, when you consider that they were fully-plumbed and fitted out with hot water and electric appliances and compare that to some of the unmodernised 19th century (and earlier) buildings they replaced, you can see why. Interesting buildings anyway, recycled from leftover airframes.

 

Adam

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Guest Jack Benson

Pre-fabs were part of the everyday scenery in ‘60s Bournemouth off Mallard Road, whilst the wilder parts of Greatstone near Dungeness had rows of the them. SR green seemed to be predominant, though doubtful if there was any connection but the Southern was always mindful of business opportunities. 
 

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I thought I'd seen that some were to be included in the 1950s town now building at Beamish, but there's nothing on the website.   I'm sure I read a notice to that effect when we were there last summer, but I don't now recall what type they were.

 

There were still some of these in East Anglia when I first moved there.

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On 18/03/2021 at 15:55, jwealleans said:

I thought I'd seen that some were to be included in the 1950s town now building at Beamish, but there's nothing on the website.   I'm sure I read a notice to that effect when we were there last summer, but I don't now recall what type they were.

 

There were still some of these in East Anglia when I first moved there.


Yes, I remember reading that. Here, probably: https://beamishbuildings.wordpress.com/tag/airey-houses/

 

There were a lot of different types of prefab, and there’s a big thick book on the subject which lists all of them. For Jack’s benefit - the Larkhill road area of Yeovil originally had a few score of these AIROH bungalows (and there were half a dozen at Charcott, just over the hill from where I’m typing this, at one end of what had been R.A.F. Penshurst).

 

Adam

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1 hour ago, Jack Benson said:

Pre-fabs were part of the everyday scenery in ‘60s Bournemouth off Mallard Road, whilst the wilder parts of Greatstone near Dungeness had rows of the them. SR green seemed to be predominant, though doubtful if there was any connection but the Southern was always mindful of business opportunities. 
 

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Most likely painted with 'borrowed' railway paint....

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On 18/03/2021 at 16:48, Fat Controller said:

Most likely painted with 'borrowed' railway paint....

 

I think that's unlikely - the green appears to have been one of the standard, factory colours (the other predominant one being light grey) and since one of the main factories was at Filton, the numbers involved were huge, and the life-expectancy of the houses relatively brief, repaints with locally 'acquired' paint are probably unlikely, at least in large numbers.

 

Anyway, down at the bottom of the siding, beyond the prefab's garden:

 

Curvy_stops.jpg.2836bcfdf6f69da61554cc0c067e2e2a.jpg

 

Adam

 

 

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1 hour ago, Adam said:

 

I think that's unlikely - the green appears to have been one of the standard, factory colours (the other predominant one being light grey) and since one of the main factories was at Filton, the numbers involved were huge, and the life-expectancy of the houses relatively brief, repaints with locally 'acquired' paint are probably unlikely, at least in large numbers.

 

Anyway, down at the bottom of the siding, beyond the prefab's garden:

 

Curvy_stops.jpg.2836bcfdf6f69da61554cc0c067e2e2a.jpg

 

Adam

 

 

Looks like the Russian system when they were trying to stop the Germans using it, and then when the boot was on the other foot later on....

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  • 2 months later...
  • Adam changed the title to Adam's EM Workbench: SECR Ballast, a Trout Transformed
  • 2 months later...

It's been a while, hasn't it? Here's a recent project, a tar tank modelled on one of a fleet owned by William Butler of Bristol. It was sort of prompted by picking up a rather nicely finished Slater's kit lettered for that company, but ultimately by the availability of transfers for a Westcountry-based tar distiller from POWSides. The thing is that the fleet I know Butler owned weren't quite like the Slater's kit, charming though the original model - which I've lightly detailed - is: https://hmrs.org.uk/butler-wm-bristol-14t-rectangular-tank-no-73-tar-distillers-bristol-order-1619.html

 

Butler_Tank_007.jpg.7183b47a93d0b05348312784c55ec610.jpg

 

The HMRS Chas Roberts collection has a couple of useful images and these show a 1923 spec' wagon chassis and a heavily insulated tank which is pretty simple to make out of plastic sheet and so I have taken one Parkside underframe (the rest of the wagon will not be wasted):

 

Butler_Tank_009.jpg.61ccd576db370fb35eee07c99ba75a32.jpg

 

 

 

The size comparison is obvious - the scratchbuild is about the size of an SR 8 plank. Here's the complete, unpainted, article:

 

 

Butler_Tank_010.jpg.8e61177b05ff2743ddaa009ed0243c62.jpg

 

 

Probably because of the lightweight cladding over the insulation these had catwalks on the top of the tank (just like a round one). I'm not quite sure what they were like so I've added a plausible guess:

 

Butler_Tank_011.jpg.30d7ecc46d4a3dfa916b1825eeca93db.jpg

 

 

 

Time for paint.

 

Adam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • Adam changed the title to Adam's EM Workbench: A PO Tar Tank
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46 minutes ago, Adam said:


Well it is Friday night…

 

Clearly there is some subliminal suggestion going on!

 

The tar wagon is looking good, quite different to anything I'm used to seeing.

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20 minutes ago, 57xx said:

 

Clearly there is some subliminal suggestion going on!

 

The tar wagon is looking good, quite different to anything I'm used to seeing.


That’s sort of the point - though you can go too far with these specials and I build plenty of normal wagons too - but any layout in the steam era can probably find space for a tar tank as it was a byproduct of town gas production. That said, if you’re going to have one then it may as well be something more interesting than the Slater’s one: there were so many variations.

 

Adam
 

 

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16 minutes ago, jwealleans said:

Nice job.   I don't think mine had the walkways - you must have had a better drawing/picture than I was given.

 

No, just the HMRS images. The walkways are just visible above the top lip and can't really be anything else. The lid is hidden from view in all these works pictures, but you can make out the pressure relief valve: https://hmrs.org.uk/insulation-of-rectangular-tank-wagon-chas-roberts-wagon-built-for-wm-butler-tar-distillers-bristol-order-1619-1648.html

 

The photos of the wagons as complete show them peeking over the sides. I'm not 100% sure about the inset top, but I can't think why else they'd be angle riveted to the cladding. See this image for the clearest view:

https://hmrs.org.uk/butler-wm-bristol-14t-rectangular-tank-no-73-tar-distillers-bristol-order-1619.html

 

All this detail is conjecture, I should add, because the photographer in Wakefield didn't think to bring his ladder. I'd love to be proven wrong because then I could get it right, but this is, at least, plausible.

 

Adam

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Hi Adam,

 

your choice of tar wagon looks remarkably similar to one done for Bristol & West Tar Distillers which features in the revised Tourett volume and for which there is a line drawing.

 

On this the walkways are a set of wooden battens spaced apart - the accompanying image also shows this.

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1 minute ago, SP Steve said:

Hi Adam,

 

your choice of tar wagon looks remarkably similar to one done for Bristol & West Tar Distillers which features in the revised Tourett volume and for which there is a line drawing.

 

On this the walkways are a set of wooden battens spaced apart - the accompanying image also shows this.

 

Hi Steve - thanks, not a book I have and, by the sounds of it, I've guessed wrong. Not a catastrophic error and one I'll have to live with, I suppose, though I could replace the mesh with battens?

 

Hmm.

 

Adam

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47 minutes ago, SP Steve said:

Hi Adam,

 

your choice of tar wagon looks remarkably similar to one done for Bristol & West Tar Distillers which features in the revised Tourett volume and for which there is a line drawing.

 

On this the walkways are a set of wooden battens spaced apart - the accompanying image also shows this.

 

Apologies for the hijack - but exactly which Tourett volume is this, please?   I’m suddenly slightly concerned there’s a wagon book I don’t know about :-)

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