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Out of storage - some of my old UTA and NIR stock


33lima

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Latest progress on the MPD conversion, plus a couple of close-ups of the UTA green MED power car, which are in the livery I plan to apply to the MPD when it's finally done, about twenty years later than the MED!

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  • 4 weeks later...

This really is some collection.... SUPERB stuff. The mixture of maroon/grey and UTA green in the same train brings me back to late 60s memories... Excellent.

 

If I could make one hopefully helpful remark about the superbly accurate liveries portrayed.. just the NCC brake van, so well reproduced by one so young! - is in a Downpatrick livery. As in the RPSI's "Ivan" at Whitehead, ironwork and lower body were never black in NCC / GN days. This came in only when they wore their very final NIR livery in the 70s, so depending on when the layout is set, it would be all over grey, lower parts and balcony interiors included, prior to about 1970.

 

Hope this helps; overall a great pleasure to see such a complete and superbly modelled collection of "northern" stuff.

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If I could make one hopefully helpful remark about the superbly accurate liveries portrayed.. just the NCC brake van, so well reproduced by one so young! - is in a Downpatrick livery. As in the RPSI's "Ivan" at Whitehead, ironwork and lower body were never black in NCC / GN days. This came in only when they wore their very final NIR livery in the 70s, so depending on when the layout is set, it would be all over grey, lower parts and balcony interiors included, prior to about 1970.

 

Thank you for you kind comments, I based it purely on the one currently at downpatrick. And hoping that the livery they had it in was the same livery it carried during NCC days. But obviously not (whoops) thanks for pointing it out, I will be making another one soon so now I will remember that they were all over grey for NCC days.

Many thanks for you help

Nelson

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Nelson, the grey used by the NCC was the same as LMS grey in GB, so should be easy to get. The light grey in the DCDR one was only used by NIR in late days on PW stuff. Earlier UTA wagons were bauxite or darker grey. GN wagons were a similar grey, as were GS / CIE ones.

 

The most common errors in modelling Irish wagons are (a) black ironwork, and (b) black chassis! These seem to have been accidental imports into our consciousness as a result of cutting our modelling teeth on Hornby BR models, where such things were the norm!

 

When modelling almost all Irish wagon prototypes, the chassis, chassis ironwork, wheels and body ironwork are the same colour as the body. Some exceptions existed - NCC "brown vans", for instance.

 

Unfortunately, the livery carried by a preserved vehicle is not always accurate, so it's worth checking your prototype from old photos. In particular, inaccuracies exist in Cultra, but also elsewhere. In the case of preservation societies with limited time, manpower and resources, this can be the result of expediency at the time, or the old case of necessity being the mother of invention!

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Nelson your work is damn good and i look forward to seeing more of it so more pics please.

Thank you for your comment, nothing on the workbench yet, as school slows things down a lot. but a Bachmann jinty chassis came in the mail yesterday, so will have to see what I can do with it.

Sorry 33lima for filling your thread with my chit chat, will stop now, sorry.

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The local railway bug is biting again after a while away, so I've started uncrating my models from the 1990s. They're nearly all just RTR conversions; if I can get RTR standard, equivalent to older Hornby (or even Triiang-Hornby!), that'll do for me.

 

MED power cars are rebuilt Hornby Cl 110 DMU bodyshells with new cab fronts and other detail; underframes are modified from the same source. The MED centre car is a slightly re-worked Grafar suburban. The WT 'Jeep' is a much-modified Hornby early Stanier 2-6-4T, it's in need of some cosmetic repairs and maybe some new axles.

 

The NIR MPD is one of my early efforts, basically repainted Hornby Staniers with added underframe detail, made as a set of 2 power cars and one 'mule'. Power is a Tri-ang Hunslett power bogie with filed-down sideframes and coach bogie frames stuck on!!! After a bit, I re-worked this MPD slightly, adding recessed sliding doors and some extra windows to the powered car, and replacing ribs and other roof detail with more realistic fittings using photo-references, scale couplings and buffers at outer ends, rubber corridor connections etc.

 

The UTA MPDs are a later effort, again from Hornby Staniers but with more realistic re-working of coach sides as well as roofs and other details (same modified Hymek power bogie tho!) to resemble a set in close to original standard, but with the wasp-stripes added after the Bellarena collision when a brand-new MPD - 58 IIRC, it was in light 'Catherwood green' livery - hit a car on an accommodation crossing, circa 1961, and the UTA was found part to blame as greenery hadn't been cut back enough. The near upside-down car was burned out when cutting gear used during recovery set light to upholstery and efforts to fight the fire with water from buckets brought from the nearest house failed!

 

The Hunslett and Metrovick are scratchbuilt from plasticard, chassis and all, again Hymek-powered. The Metrovick was another early effort and done from photos before I got hold of drawings; Hunslett has MIR nameplates and NIR logo.

 

My UTA 70 Class 3-car set and an NIR 'ribbed' MED are currently being refurbished, photos of that and my suburban and corporate-livered 80 Class sets from the 1990s will follow.

Excellent models the railcars are first class.

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The coat of arms was not of NIR or UTA, it was the old Norhern Ireland Government, ie that of ore-1972. This device appeared on the 70s when new, which was within UTA days; it was not perpetuated at first repaint. Eventually the normal NIR device appeared on the ends and sides, once they took over from UTA.

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  • 11 months later...

Latest progress on MPD and MED sets started about twenty years ago, all from donor bits from about thirty-odd years before that:

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As you can see the 2-car 'suburban' MPD set is nearing completion but the 3-car MED (a Grafar slam-door coach will be the centre car) has a while to go, though hopefully not another twenty years :)

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Nice work 33lima.  The MPDs rally capture the character of the suburban units I remember running between Belfast Great Victoria Street and Portadown in the 60s. I recall one of them was No 49.

 

You seem to have a very steady hand with the thin plasticard strips for the MED sides. What is your technique for getting them so straight?

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Nice work 33lima.  The MPDs rally capture the character of the suburban units I remember running between Belfast Great Victoria Street and Portadown in the 60s. I recall one of them was No 49.

 

You seem to have a very steady hand with the thin plasticard strips for the MED sides. What is your technique for getting them so straight?

 

Wish I could remember, Colin, as I'm soon going to have to do it for the second car. I probably started with the top strip on the cab front, as that is a good datum point. Glue in place with one of those Revell Contacta Professional liquid poly glue bottles, the little blue bottle thingy with the yellow cap and long, needle-like applicator. Swore by those ever since switching to them from brushed-on liquid poly many moons ago. Glad they still make 'em. Anyway, run a faint line of liquid poly under the cab front windows where the top strip will go, then quickly pop on the first strip with enough overlap each side to wrap around and reach the front pair of sliding doors. Apply lines of liquid poly left and right then wrap the strip around, trimming, when dry, level with the front of the sliding door. Then mark out the number of strips/ribs needed, working down from the first one then repeat, again using the first, glued on strip as the reference. Think that's how I did it, tho I had more patience and eyesight in those days. All a bit overscale but we'll see how it looks after painting.

 

For the ribbed MED (the one in maroon & grey, made around 1991, pictured below after The Great Unboxing) I just scribed on the ribs!!!

 

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PS did you get my PM about the UTA diesel recordings?

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  • 3 weeks later...

About twenty years after starting it, I've finally completed the two-car 'suburban' MPD pictured above, and here are the results. This started as a re-paint of a model by Steve Rafferty but became a complete re-work, cuttinga nd shutting the sides of the donor Tri-ang suburban comp coaches and adding inserts to the roof and sides to lenghten them. New cab ends and underframe and roff detail have also been added. Power is still the original Tri-ang DMU motor bogie though! I haven't numbered the cars yet but I have added home-made UTA crests, tho I may at some point get some of the comemrcial transfers now available.

 

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The Rover Brooklands Green I used in the absence of (non-metallic) British Racing Green from the local Halfords is a little 'warm' compared to the slightly bluer BR Green but looks a bit darker to the eye than it appeas in the pics. I'm quite happy with the result, another train from my childhood days added to the stud!

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  • 2 months later...

Not strictly one of my old models but a new set...this 4-car MPD is like my 1990s models based on converted Hornby Staniers. This time tho instead of a vintage Tri-ang Hornby metal-framed motor bogie, she has a newer Hornby 5-pole Ringfield unit, fitted in a modified Calder Valley DMU centre car underframe.

 

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And references since available online and in print means increased accuracy in some areas, like the large grills installed (in NIR days?) beside the heat exchangers added by the UTA behind the cabs of power cars.

 

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The set comprises power car 39, dummy power cars 40 and 42 and 'mule' or trailer 532. Variations in colour are down to flourescent (browner) -vs- dull natural (redder) light. The 3-car set behind, with dull matt roofs, is my original (and somewhat less accurate, despite a second wave of modifications) MPD model from the early 1990s.

 

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...and the whole family together, for the inevitable team photo:

 

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