Sheffield Exchange, Toy trains, music and fun!

[Clive Mortimore]

Now the something else, yet again @RayH's fault. After his comment about the only train in one colour would be a single DMU which forced me to make the Cravens parcels car, I remembered what his layout is

Well that prompted me to have a go at the two Derby lightweight single cars that plied their trade along the branch from Verney Junction to Buckingham. They will not be 100% as I am using class 110s as my basis but hopefully will look the part when I stop making mistakes.

 

The ex 110 DMC is being used for the second one M79901, it was built with a larger van portion and is recognisable buy having a small window between the passenger door and the van doors.

 

The other one M79900 when built had an extra seating bay between the passenger door and the van. It was found the smaller van was useless so the seating bay was removed and the van made bigger, it retained the bigger window associated with the seating bay.  For this unit I have used the front bit of the white units DMBC united the tail end of the TS. The second big window needed filling in and a guards door window fitted.

 

Now when building something I normally get as many drawings as I can along with photos. No not this time I just used the Golding drawing, after using a drawing out the same book and cocking up the cabs on the Cravens Parcels car. Last night while flicking through a DMU book I had a "Oh! (not a RMweb word)" moment on seeing the van end of one of the units.

If you take the passenger portion cab as the front I followed the drawing with regard to the guards door on the drivers side. On the green one I filled in the guards door window and cut out a new one in the other door, at the same time removed the handrails etc. The piece of palsti card I used to plug the big window on the white one was also arranged so what will become the guards door was in the wrong place.

Showing the error.

 

Made worse in this photo of the white one as I haven't plonked the body on correctly.

Had I looked at some photos and checked against the BR diagrams then all would have been well.

 

M79901 rectified. sadly the plonker who cocked things up put the body on back to front, not many passengers can sit on that motor.

 

M79900

 

Someone mentioned that the Cravens looked silly without something between it bogies. So as a temporary measure I cut the under gubbins from a Lima Met Cam DMC and fitted them to the Cravens. The DMC will become a DTC, I have too many Met Cam twin power units when a power car and driving trailer were more common. 

 

Singles having a threesome.

[Clive Mortimore]

12 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Clive,

 

With a bit of cut and shut you could have built a Park Royal 103 I have some bits of BRCW body shell left if you need any extra pieces.

 

 

 

Gibbo.

It has been considered in the past, I am not sure they were used on cross Pennine services. I do have a MTK one which hasn't been assigned to Sheff Ex yet. 

 

Maybe for my next adventure in what can be done with a Hornby 110, I have a Derby 108, 107, 114, BRCW104s 2/3/4 car, and a Gloucester 100.

[Dagworth]

6 hours ago, Flying Fox 34F said:

This morning I have been assisting the OHLE Staff in removing ice from Peascliffe Tunnel in -4C temperatures.  Oh the fun.

When the fizzy knitting reached Ipswich they put heaters in the tunnel to stop the icicles as there is a lot of water that comes through the roof. If you stood on the platform the tunnel had a lovely orange glow. The heaters were interlocked to the signalling so when a train came through the tunnel they all went off and came back on again afterwards. I don’t know if they are still in use but I don’t remember the orange glow more recently. 
 

Andi

[Gibbo675]

15 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Now the something else, yet again @RayH's fault. After his comment about the only train in one colour would be a single DMU which forced me to make the Cravens parcels car, I remembered what his layout is

Well that prompted me to have a go at the two Derby lightweight single cars that plied their trade along the branch from Verney Junction to Buckingham. They will not be 100% as I am using class 110s as my basis but hopefully will look the part when I stop making mistakes.

 

The ex 110 DMC is being used for the second one M79901, it was built with a larger van portion and is recognisable buy having a small window between the passenger door and the van doors.

 

The other one M79900 when built had an extra seating bay between the passenger door and the van. It was found the smaller van was useless so the seating bay was removed and the van made bigger, it retained the bigger window associated with the seating bay.  For this unit I have used the front bit of the white units DMBC united the tail end of the TS. The second big window needed filling in and a guards door window fitted.

 

Now when building something I normally get as many drawings as I can along with photos. No not this time I just used the Golding drawing, after using a drawing out the same book and cocking up the cabs on the Cravens Parcels car. Last night while flicking through a DMU book I had a "Oh! (not a RMweb word)" moment on seeing the van end of one of the units.

If you take the passenger portion cab as the front I followed the drawing with regard to the guards door on the drivers side. On the green one I filled in the guards door window and cut out a new one in the other door, at the same time removed the handrails etc. The piece of palsti card I used to plug the big window on the white one was also arranged so what will become the guards door was in the wrong place.

Showing the error.

 

Made worse in this photo of the white one as I haven't plonked the body on correctly.

Had I looked at some photos and checked against the BR diagrams then all would have been well.

 

M79901 rectified. sadly the plonker who cocked things up put the body on back to front, not many passengers can sit on that motor.

 

M79900

 

Someone mentioned that the Cravens looked silly without something between it bogies. So as a temporary measure I cut the under gubbins from a Lima Met Cam DMC and fitted them to the Cravens. The DMC will become a DTC, I have too many Met Cam twin power units when a power car and driving trailer were more common. 

 

Singles having a threesome.

Hi Clive

 

You could have looked on here:

 

https://www.railcar.co.uk/type/derby-lightweight/single-cars

 

Gibbo.

[cheesysmith]

Clive, have you checked the bogie center dimensions? As siggy69 has found out, there is some work waiting for us.

[Gibbo675]

10 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

It has been considered in the past, I am not sure they were used on cross Pennine services. I do have a MTK one which hasn't been assigned to Sheff Ex yet. 

 

Maybe for my next adventure in what can be done with a Hornby 110, I have a Derby 108, 107, 114, BRCW104s 2/3/4 car, and a Gloucester 100.

Hi Clive,

 

The 103's were regulars on Chester to Manchester services and they used to work to Southport or Blackpool occasionally if there was a failure of the usual units in Manchester. I would guess that they ended up in Leeds and York for similar reasons but I wouldn't have seen them over that way in the 1970's. A trip along the Hope Valley in place of a demic would be  quite possible.

 

Gibbo.

[Northmoor]

39 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

I remember jam packed nine car sets of BRCW 104's made up from three, three car sets running between Manchester and Southport on Summer Saturday's and Bank Holidays back in the day.

 

Oh I remember those sorts of trains too, a few pages back I recalled long rakes being used to "Skeggy".  Very few people seem to model this sort of service though.

 

Until last March, when I was still doing the London commute, I used to enjoy seeing a 10-car rake roar past every morning on its way into Waterloo.  Usually 2x159 + 2x158, with approaching 4000hp.......

[Clive Mortimore]

29 minutes ago, cheesysmith said:

Clive, have you checked the bogie center dimensions? As siggy69 has found out, there is some work waiting for us.

Hi Cheesy

 

I have known for years the bogie centers are wrong on the class 110 (and all my conversions).  I got told by a chap who had made a wonderful Derby lightweight twin before the DC kit or the Bachy models were around. Do I alter it or live with it? At the present time I can live with it, tomorrow I might change my mind.

[Clive Mortimore]

35 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Clive

 

You could have looked on here:

 

https://www.railcar.co.uk/type/derby-lightweight/single-cars

 

Gibbo.

Oi Matey

 

Don't rub it in. I know full well where I should have looked.

[Clive Mortimore]

34 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Clive,

 

The 103's were regulars on Chester to Manchester services and they used to work to Southport or Blackpool occasionally if there was a failure of the usual units in Manchester. I would guess that they ended up in Leeds and York for similar reasons but I wouldn't have seen them over that way in the 1970's. A trip along the Hope Valley in place of a demic would be  quite possible.

 

Gibbo.

Hi Gibbo

 

A 103 is a possibility one day as is a Wickhams.

[Clive Mortimore]

A song for tonight

 

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Many moons ago my mate and I had been to London, after a good skin full of London Pride and were making our way home to Colchester on a 308, we left Liverpool street with a compartment to ourselves. By Stratford our bladders were saying empty us. We stopped at Stratford, on got a family. Hopefully they will get off at Illford...no, maybe Romford.....no, they must live in Shenfield....no chance.... Chelmsford....must be joking (things had started to get painful) ....finally at Witham we were able to say good bye to them. Both door lights down, me one side and my mate the other side, we were still going as the train whizzed through Kelvedon.

On the Southern you had to know which side the third rail was...

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

having to stand on tip toes isn't such a problem

Compartment stock? One foot on each seat. Just be careful that the droplight closing spring isn't too strong.

[MJI]

My Swindon unit production is coming along OK.

 

Started laminating the inner sides for the IC set. Bought a pile of piccies from RCTS.

 

Started working out the underframe components, working out what to make masters for.

[Ray H]

Here's my O gauge single car.

 

 

I believe it - the 12" to 1' version, not my model  - started off as a two car unit and then became two singles.

 

One car presumably had the brake compartment added during the conversion.

 

I have a picture of a two car - Oxford to Cambridge Railway Volume One: Oxford to Bletchley by Bill Simpson and published by OPC that appears to show the Guard's brake (or at least the Guard with head out of window) in the middle of the two car unit. I can't think he is anywhere other than in his van as there was only one place in those days from which the Guard could give the Driver the signal to start.

[Clive Mortimore]

Reading about the two single cars, they were ordered as a twin unit but were altered before they were finished . They were successful in increasing the number of trains per day, the number of passengers and revenue but still not enough dosh to keep the line open.

 

Here is a little update on things railway wise,

 

 

[eastwestdivide]

Excellent stuff in that film, including road-railers in motion and going from road to rail around the 10 minute mark

[Gibbo675]

1 hour ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Reading about the two single cars, they were ordered as a twin unit but were altered before they were finished . They were successful in increasing the number of trains per day, the number of passengers and revenue but still not enough dosh to keep the line open.

 

Here is a little update on things railway wise,

 

 

Hi Clive,

 

A missed detail in the construction of Sheffield Exchange would be the big long planks between platforms at the 1:50 mark. I'm sure you could knock some up from plasticard.

 

Gibbo.

[Clive Mortimore]

Been running trains and listening to this week's releases which Spotify thinks I would like, they have been nearly right this week.

 

As it has been miserable the past week and a bit here in the UK here are two older tunes that might cheer you up.

 

 

 

[cheesysmith]

Two things, if you follow that YouTube link, there is another modernisation report ith a bit with th BB conversion electric moving in it.

 

And did anybody else see what that DC kits DEMU went for on evilbay? £271!!!!!

[John Tomlinson]

11 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

Two things, if you follow that YouTube link, there is another modernisation report ith a bit with th BB conversion electric moving in it.

 

And did anybody else see what that DC kits DEMU went for on evilbay? £271!!!!!

Indeed, eye watering!

 

I'm afraid your DC kits Bury unit is now nudging £80, with a few other DMU's/ EMU's also heading into silly territory. A shame I didn't put some of my pension money into multiple unit kits 15-20 years ago, they'd have outperformed by far anything on offer by our rip off financial services sector.

 

Moral of story, go the Clive route, sheets of plasticard and some sharp knives.

 

John.

Edited February 15, 2021 by John Tomlinson
clarity

[Clive Mortimore]

17 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

Indeed, eye watering!

 

I'm afraid your DC kits Bury unit is now nudging £80, with a few other DMU's/ EMU's also heading into silly territory. A shame I didn't put some of my pension money into multiple unit kits 15-20 years ago, they'd have outperformed by far anything on offer by our rip off financial services sector.

 

Moral of story, go the Clive route, sheets of plasticard and some sharp knives.

 

John.

HEALTH WARNING

 

For cutting the plastic, not to be used in desperation cos some geezer has out bid you on a half built Mad Charlie kit. 

[Clive Mortimore]

15 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

Two things, if you follow that YouTube link, there is another modernisation report ith a bit with th BB conversion electric moving in it.

 

And did anybody else see what that DC kits DEMU went for on evilbay? £271!!!!!

Hi Cheesy

 

I had a butchers at DC kits on e-bay. Once I got past all the DC and DC with the extra C lighting kits I thought the asking prices on the ones for auction were a little high. There is a Cravens quite well made for a few bob short of 200 notes, is that a reasonable price?

[cheesysmith]

Me has followed the Clive route for my emu. Not paying those prices. It would rip the brick out of the chest of this Yorkshire man. 

[Gibbo675]

22 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Cheesy

 

I had a butchers at DC kits on e-bay. Once I got past all the DC and DC with the extra C lighting kits I thought the asking prices on the ones for auction were a little high. There is a Cravens quite well made for a few bob short of 200 notes, is that a reasonable price?

 

14 minutes ago, cheesysmith said:

Me has followed the Clive route for my emu. Not paying those prices. It would rip the brick out of the chest of this Yorkshire man. 

Hi Chaps,

 

Ha-Ha !!!  It would be cheaper to buy these:

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/JPCJDVYE6/o-76-cl504-driver-trailer-coach?optionId=63245303&li=shops

 

https://www.shapeways.com/product/JB2S2QCJ6/o-76-cl504-driver-motor-coach?optionId=63245334&li=marketplace

 

Gibbo.