Wright writes.....

[PJT]

3 minutes ago, polybear said:

I'd never heard of this before (though I did know about the wheel muffs) so I've learnt something new today

Here's a useful link:

 

Yes, that one was the best, if not one of the best threads on the subject.  I couldn't remember enough about it to be able to find it to quote in my post, so thank you!

 

Hopefully our man now has enough on the subject to be able to sort out his sorry loco with confidence.

 

In my experience, probably 80-90% of split chassis failures on Bachmann 4MTs are down to expanded wheel centres, whereas the B1 (that Silver Sidelines deals with) suffers about 50/50 expanded wheels or split muffs (and sometimes both at the same time).

 

I'm just going to hide now, before Tony reads that we've been discussing how to repair split chassis again...

 

Pete T.

 

[Tony Wright]

35 minutes ago, geoff west said:

Good evening Tony,

 

I'm pretty sure I had a couple of those coaches, as I was there when Baz turned up.

That was the first time I met Baz.

Of course I could have it completely wrong.

 

Regards,

 

Geoff.

Could be Geoff,

 

He had quite a few.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

Ready for delivery for painting......................

 

 

This trio of latest builds will be off soon to Geoff Haynes for painting, all in BR green. 

 

This clearly is the most economical way of creating/painting locos - in batches, all of the same colour.

 

No doubt Geoff will report on how the paint will go on to the 3D-printed resin V2s. There should not be any problem.

 

I've painted the motion on each one. One still sees steam-outline locos bowling around layouts with gleaming motion. Apart from Royal Train or exhibition duty, this was never right. 

[polybear]

20 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Ready for delivery for painting......................

 

 

This trio of latest builds will be off soon to Geoff Haynes for painting, all in BR green. 

 

This clearly is the most economical way of creating/painting locos - in batches, all of the same colour.

 

No doubt Geoff will report on how the paint will go on to the 3D-printed resin V2s. There should not be any problem.

 

I've painted the motion on each one. One still sees steam-outline locos bowling around layouts with gleaming motion. Apart from Royal Train or exhibition duty, this was never right. 

 

Hi Tony,

Do you think you could post some close-ups of the detailing that you've added to the MJT V2's please?  Many thanks

Brian

[Willie Whizz]

On 11/07/2020 at 08:19, great central said:

 

Not Victoria but half a mile or so further north was Carrington. Depending on your time period, small two platform station between two tunnels in a cutting or derelict disused station with little more than a couple of signals and a signal box. 

Plenty of scope for train formations and length without needing to see both ends at the same time.

Not much in the way of backscene required if my memory of the early 60s is accurate. One or two older buildings including the station at the top of the ramp from the platforms and the recently built college on on side.

 

The trouble with Carrington is that, almost literally, "nothing happened".  Not even in Great Central days, when the roughly parallel introduction of electric trams rendered the insertion of a station at this point (as opposed to just a short cutting to let smoke out of two long-ish tunnels!) made it obsolescent practically as soon as it was opened.  Yes, if you had room for large fiddle yards, an extensive collection of suitable stock, and were content to watch it (or perhaps rather bits of it)  trundling between the tunnel mouths for a few seconds at a time ... well maybe; but for most of us I think the attraction would begin to pall in the time it took to lay, wire and test the track, never mind build the layout.

 

Better, I'd suggest, to go another 3/4 mile up the road and look at New Basford - a fairly short GC island platform, mostly on an embankment but with a rock cutting leading to a tunnel at one end for a nice scenic break, a big goods shed (to serve, I think, the many hosiery factories in the local area) and - if you have the space - a carriage shed.  Not  a lot stopped here in latter days, but at least you would get a good satisfying look at your models as they passed through ...

[Chuffer Davies]

3 hours ago, Clem said:

Hi Frank.

Have you tried these little fellows...

 

 

The largest size there is 9mm and the cylinders are 32mm. I don't know whether you can get bigger sizes. I have 3 in different sizes. I've not had them long but they've proved a really good investment.

 

Clem

Hi Clem,

thanks for showing me these, they are just what I was looking for after reading Tony’s response.  I knew there must be an easier way.  I’ve found some pliers on Amazon and put in an order.  I’ll hang on until they get here and try them on the J1 smokebox wrapper.  
Cheers,

Frank

[Barry O]

A trackplan was set up for making a model of Liverpool Central  (it would fit nicely on the end of Herculaneum Dock .

 

But you would be looking down on it fromabove as it is "in a hole" so to speak.

 

Baz

Edited July 12, 2020 by Barry O

[Headstock]

20 minutes ago, Willie Whizz said:

 

The trouble with Carrington is that, almost literally, "nothing happened".  Not even in Great Central days, when the roughly parallel introduction of electric trams rendered the insertion of a station at this point (as opposed to just a short cutting to let smoke out of two long-ish tunnels!) made it obsolescent practically as soon as it was opened.  Yes, if you had room for large fiddle yards, an extensive collection of suitable stock, and were content to watch it (or perhaps rather bits of it)  trundling between the tunnel mouths for a few seconds at a time ... well maybe; but for most of us I think the attraction would begin to pall in the time it took to lay, wire and test the track, never mind build the layout.

 

Better, I'd suggest, to go another 3/4 mile up the road and look at New Basford - a fairly short GC island platform, mostly on an embankment but with a rock cutting leading to a tunnel at one end for a nice scenic break, a big goods shed (to serve, I think, the many hosiery factories in the local area) and - if you have the space - a carriage shed.  Not  a lot stopped here in latter days, but at least you would get a good satisfying look at your models as they passed through ...

 

Good evening Willie Whiz,

 

I've got all the stock. If someone cares to build little Carrington and a ginormous fiddle yard, I'm quite happy to watch it trundle past, bit by bit, a few seconds at a time. I think it may take a wee bit longer than that though. New Basford, I can trundle the same stock past there too, I don't do latter days though, boring stock, not worth the trundle.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Headstock

[Barry O]

The coaches were from a common friend Tony. There had been a lot of damage done to various coaches by a third party. The Blood and Custard ones were no longer required. Theywere BSL but definitely not from Larry or Mr Lawrence.

 

The maroon ones had benn nent and bashed..indeed I have some more for sale now.

 

Geoff if I sold you some coaches glad you can remember them!

Baz

[Atso]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Ready for delivery for painting......................

 

 

This trio of latest builds will be off soon to Geoff Haynes for painting, all in BR green. 

 

This clearly is the most economical way of creating/painting locos - in batches, all of the same colour.

 

No doubt Geoff will report on how the paint will go on to the 3D-printed resin V2s. There should not be any problem.

 

I've painted the motion on each one. One still sees steam-outline locos bowling around layouts with gleaming motion. Apart from Royal Train or exhibition duty, this was never right. 

 

Brilliant work as always Tony - some nicely observed details on the models.

 

I've not experienced an issues painting my 3D printed locos which I believe use the same resin as Mike's. I'm sure that Geoff won't have any difficulties with the paint job!

[MJI]

3 hours ago, PJT said:

 

It depends on what's wrong with the wheels.  At a guess, if you're saying the wheels are scrap, what you mean is the wheel centres have expanded to the point where they foul the coupling rods, either making your 4MT limp like a lame duck or jamming movement altogether.  That's far and away the most common fault with the 4MT split chassis.  The second most common fault is split plastic 'muffs' in the centres of the axles, but since you're not complaining about wheels going out of quartering and you're saying the wheels themselves are scrap, I suspect you've got expanded wheel centres.

 

There's an easy fix for expanded wheel centres; when I say 'easy', it honestly isn't hard to do (it's a lot easier than any of the other Bachmann split chassis problems).  If you do a search on RMweb for Bachmann BR Class 4 Woes you'll find one of the many threads on here (just happens to be one I contributed to, so I knew what thread title to look for) that details how to deal with Bachmann split chassis expanded wheel centres.  If you read it from the top, you'll do ok.  Half way down the thread is guidance on releasing the coupling rods from the crank pins on the centre drivers - that's important to follow.

 

Good luck! 

 

If your problem isn't expanded wheel centres, I'd be happy for you to PM me and we'll try to sort out what the problem is and decide whether it's curable or not.

 

Pete T.

 

 

 

 

Hmm two so far

 

Remove plastic centres, or sand them down.

 

I will give the sand a go, if that fails replace the lot

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Liverpool Central - a modelable terminus what's not to like ?

@Michael Edge of this parish was going to model it but decided (I think) that as it was in a cutting with an overall roof it wouldn't look very exciting and might be awkward to operate. He has of course modelled Brunswick shed and Herculaneum Dock instead.

 

Edit: see @Barry O's post above:

 

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by St Enodoc

[Daniel W]

I mentioned a few days back that I was planning on starting my Dave Bradwell kit for a BR 13ton hopper. I was so worried about getting the hopper body folded and soldered correctly that I did that first, just incase i made a pig's ear of it. Lo and behold, it went together like a treat! I've never made a shape this complex from brass etches before, so it's been a nice little confidence boost for me, i must admit. Once this one is out of the way, I might even *gulp* test my skills on a loco kit next...

[Tom F]

Those V2s do look very nice. I must confess, I do rather like them in BR mixed traffic livery, but I’m sure you have said before that there wouldn’t have been many left by your period (am I right the only one you have in BR black is the Graeme King resin body?)
 

Thought of you Tony as I made a start on this book tonight.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Hawin Dooiey

[DougN]

Regarding the V2's and the detailing of the front end. I have noticed that Tony is firmly in the layout loco group. Personally I am still building the pair of Finney V2's and slowly detailing the loco bodies at the moment (here in CoVictoria we are in lock down again) I am looking at the 2 boxes in front of the smoke box (red boxes on the photo)  on the foot plate and the lubrication runs on each side of the Loco's. I know Tony puts the off side valve and pipe runs on the side of boiler but I am trying to figure out the locations of the "other ends" of the pipes from the manifolds there is 3 to each side and a central pipe over the top. These are in the yellow box below. 

 

As you can make out  (ok bad photo) the pipe runs can go any where. One I know goes to into the top of the cylinder casting Does any one have any good photos of both sides of a loco?  

 

I have also been trying to put in the parts to the cab backhead of which there seems to be a large number - I don't know how many i will use as they are wire to represent the pipe runs, brass castings for the valves, the back head is white metal and there is a good mixture of etched brass to be mixed in! 

 

The interesting thing for the kit builds is I install about 50 discrete parts per weekend! One thing is the kit does fit together and it has been well thought out but there is a heap of parts to install!

 

 

 

[MikeTrice]

3 hours ago, DougN said:

As you can make out  (ok bad photo) the pipe runs can go any where. One I know goes to into the top of the cylinder casting Does any one have any good photos of both sides of a loco? 

These might help. Apologies to everyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Edge]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

@Michael Edge of this parish was going to model it but decided (I think) that as it was in a cutting with an overall roof it wouldn't look very exciting and might be awkward to operate. He has of course modelled Brunswick shed and Herculaneum Dock instead.

 

Edit: see @Barry O's post above:

 

 

Not quite right John, Central was the original idea (my earliest plan was drawn up when I was still at school) and Herculaneum dock was its planned extension. It wouldn't be difficult to operate so much as impossible for anyone to see if it was exhibited, it would be very interesting to operate. Some suggestions in this thread have left me thinking again now though - I hadn't thought of the idea of looking into the side of the train shed although that was the proposal for the Mersey Railway station below platform 1 and 2.

Following Tony's reminiscences above I realised that I used the same route in the other direction on trainspotting trips - Eccleston Park to Lime street, walk to Central, underground to Rock Ferry and train to Chester. We used to go on to Crewe then and preferred this to the rather more direct route from Lime Street. We used a similar route to get to Manchester as well, via the CLC and Manchester Central - rather than just walking a bit further to Rainhill and a direct train to Exchange, no idea now why we didn't use the obvious routes but this was back in the 1950s.

[Tony Wright]

10 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Hi Tony,

Do you think you could post some close-ups of the detailing that you've added to the MJT V2's please?  Many thanks

Brian

As later pictures on this page show, Brian,

 

I don't think they're all that detailed. Indeed, Mike's prototype pictures show you exactly what's needed.

 

I always fit the wiggly pipes (I believe that's the technical description) around the smokebox/saddle, but if you scrutinise prototype pictures, no two locos in the same class ever have 'exactly' the same configuration. Where the pipes come and go to might be the same, but some wiggle all over the place, yet others are quite straight. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited July 13, 2020 by Tony Wright
typo error

[Tony Wright]

9 hours ago, Chuffer Davies said:

Hi Clem,

thanks for showing me these, they are just what I was looking for after reading Tony’s response.  I knew there must be an easier way.  I’ve found some pliers on Amazon and put in an order.  I’ll hang on until they get here and try them on the J1 smokebox wrapper.  
Cheers,

Frank

'after reading Tony’s response.  I knew there must be an easier way.'

 

Good morning Frank,

 

I think I'd find the pliers-method far more difficult than using rolling bars.

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

[great central]

10 hours ago, Willie Whizz said:

 

The trouble with Carrington is that, almost literally, "nothing happened".  Not even in Great Central days, when the roughly parallel introduction of electric trams rendered the insertion of a station at this point (as opposed to just a short cutting to let smoke out of two long-ish tunnels!) made it obsolescent practically as soon as it was opened.  Yes, if you had room for large fiddle yards, an extensive collection of suitable stock, and were content to watch it (or perhaps rather bits of it)  trundling between the tunnel mouths for a few seconds at a time ... well maybe; but for most of us I think the attraction would begin to pall in the time it took to lay, wire and test the track, never mind build the layout.

 

Better, I'd suggest, to go another 3/4 mile up the road and look at New Basford - a fairly short GC island platform, mostly on an embankment but with a rock cutting leading to a tunnel at one end for a nice scenic break, a big goods shed (to serve, I think, the many hosiery factories in the local area) and - if you have the space - a carriage shed.  Not  a lot stopped here in latter days, but at least you would get a good satisfying look at your models as they passed through ...

 

I suggested Carrington as a somewhat tongue in cheek answer to those who had pointed out the possible drawbacks with Victoria.

I spent quite a chunk of my childhood up to about 12 years of age at or around New Basford so know the area pretty well, or should I say did, been living away from the area for 50 years or so now. Having passed through and had a bit of a look there's little left at all.

New Basford would need a rather larger space than Carrington which I believe, without scrolling back to check, was pointed out as one of the drawbacks to Victoria.

[Hollar]

7 hours ago, Daniel W said:

I mentioned a few days back that I was planning on starting my Dave Bradwell kit for a BR 13ton hopper. I was so worried about getting the hopper body folded and soldered correctly that I did that first, just incase i made a pig's ear of it. Lo and behold, it went together like a treat! I've never made a shape this complex from brass etches before, so it's been a nice little confidence boost for me, i must admit. Once this one is out of the way, I might even *gulp* test my skills on a loco kit next...

Good luck with the chassis.  I did exactly the same thing a few years ago and for the same reason.  After a couple of depressing evenings and significant finger-scarring I couldn't mate the hopper square with with the chassis, and the whole lot ended in the bin.  Which isn't something I do lightly. Lesson learned - if you follow Dave Bradwell's instructions everything goes together perfectly and you finish with a lovely model and a real sense of satisfaction.  Otherwise  . . . you're out there in the waste land - or at least I was.

 

Tone

[Clem]

The thing that surprised me about DaveF's evocative Carrington photos a few pages back, was the two O4s pictured which were both Darnall engines. Now I remember Darnall B1s and K2s appearing on the GC at Nottingham, but never remember seeing a Darnall O4. The O1 would have certainly been an Annesley engine as the whole class apart from the 5 westinghouse ones in the NE were at Annesley during this period.

[APOLLO]

ALL of Liverpool's railways are indeed interesting, with tunnels everywhere, many sadly now abandoned.

 

 

Two very good books I have are "An illustrated history of Liverpool's railways" by Paul Anderson (Irwell Press softback) and "Merseyside and district railway stations" by Paul Bolger  (The Bluecoat press softback) - lots of old photos in that book.

 

Just one interesting example (and website)

 

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/canada-dock-tunnel-liverpool-june-2019.118246/

 

Brit15

 

 

 

 

[Tony Wright]

7 hours ago, Hawin Dooiey said:

Those V2s do look very nice. I must confess, I do rather like them in BR mixed traffic livery, but I’m sure you have said before that there wouldn’t have been many left by your period (am I right the only one you have in BR black is the Graeme King resin body?)
 

Thought of you Tony as I made a start on this book tonight.

It's a long time since I read this, Tom,

 

From recollection, Toram Beg was extremely critical of the P2s, claiming there was nothing of Gresley's genius in them. 

 

His criticisms were refuted by the late Geoff Lund (one time shedmaster at Haymarket) who claimed that Norman's 'status' at the time would have been very junior (pre-War) and his involvement with the massive 2-8-2s would have been very limited. 

 

I actually have three BR black V2s; the one you mention and two from John Houlden. In 1958, most would have been repainted BR green. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

Edited July 13, 2020 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Tom F]

3 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

From recollection, Toram Beg was extremely critical of the P2s, claiming there was nothing of Gresley's genius in them. 

 

His criticisms were refuted by the late Geoff Lund (one time shedmaster at Haymarket) who claimed that Norman's 'status' at the time would have been very junior (pre-War) and his involvement with the massive 2-8-2s would have been very limited. 

 

Thanks Tony, I did think 'Toram Beg' had come up in conversation. I think however I had got him confused with Geoff Lund.

Was it Geoff Lund who was critical of Cowlair's overhauls on the P2s?