Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...

[Caley Jim]

This shows the point I've got to with the 900 class drive.

It has 6'6" driving wheels, which means there isn't room for the driveshaft above the axle, so the whole drive has to be angled to take it under.  I had to do the same with my 98 class 2-4-0 which has 7' wheels.  One benefit will be that the majority of the tender weight, which will come from the capacitors lying alongside the motor, will be at the front and will transfer to the loco chassis through the drawbar resting on the rear loco chassis spacer, the front bogie being lightly sprung.

 

Jim

[Skinnylinny]

Thank you, Jim! 

For a change, I thought I ought to dig out something actually related to the thread title. A while back, I started on an 0-4-4t for the Great Southern's local passenger trains. This has mostly sat in bits in a drawers for several years... until today! The chassis has been stripped down, trimmed, and reassembled, some new side tanks made of plasticard, and a quick coat of paint. Note that in the picture below, the front splasher isn't fixed yet - it won't be attached until the body and chassis are properly located with one another, so that it'll be in the right place.



Some frame extensions will be added from plasticard, both at front and rear, and I'm considering painting the wheels blue. So far my 0-6-0 tender loco has blue wheels, but the smaller 0-6-0t has black. There will also be some bits and bobs added to disguise the motor where it sticks out in front of the tanks - clack valves and plumbing and such. These parts will be fitted after lining-out, though, as they otherwise tend to get in the way!

My current plan for livery is to match existing GSR stock, something like this (with black edging to panels):

[Skinnylinny]

And, as if by magic...

This morning I dug out my red lining transfers before a work call. Unfortunately, they are old and crumbled as soon as I tried to apply them to the model. Ah well, I have a bow pen kicking around here somewhere...

About 30-45 minutes of lining later and here are the results so far:



(Forgive the body being a bit squint on the chassis! It's just resting on top and is currently slightly rear-heavy, pending me sticking some weight in the smokebox) Honestly, I was surprised at how quickly this came together - possibly even quicker than if I'd used transfers, and without the backing paper to hide. 

[Skinnylinny]

Well that hasn't taken long at all - done in between various work bits (mostly while waiting for the computer to do its thing), I now have one side completely lined, crested and named/numbered, and hopefully, if all goes well, I should be able to do the bunker rear and the other side tomorrow before going to club in the evening... We shall see. 





Black edging has already been applied throughout so hopefully tomorrow's work should just be attacking with the lining pen and the red paint.

[Skinnylinny]

Not much to report in the last month, I'm afraid. I have been gifted a (surplus-to-requirements) Silhouette cutter by a friend, but have been too busy with work to get around to poking it properly. 

Thanks to @Dungrange at the club placing an order with the (sadly now closed) Finescale Figures, I have acquired a group of three youngsters for Linton Town, and have had a thoroughly pleasant afternoon painting them (although I think the faces need a darker-skintone wash). They do look rather familiar, seen here on Brewhouse Quay...

[Skinnylinny]

Also in progress (and still wanting a little tidying up) is this piper figure from Finescale Figures. Unfortunately I broke off the piper's chanter while removing the supports, so that will need replacing with some plastic rod when the figure is ready to be installed on the club's forthcoming Edinburgh Haymarket layout. The 4mm scale tartan paint hasn't turned out too badly, although it's definitely 00 rather than P4!



I started with a coat of red, then diluted some Vallejo "German camouflage green" acrylic and used a calligraphy pen to apply the green stripes. Not perfect under cruel magnification, but plenty good enough at 1:76.

[Compound2632]

21 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

Also in progress (and still wanting a little tidying up) is this piper figure from Finescale Figures. Unfortunately I broke off the piper's chanter while removing the supports, so that will need replacing with some plastic rod when the figure is ready to be installed on the club's forthcoming Edinburgh Haymarket layout.

 

No sound, I hope!

 

On 18/09/2023 at 17:58, Skinnylinny said:

 

May I respectfully suggest a bit of plasticard or sheet metal to represent the front end of the frames and the guard irons? It looks to me as if there's enough clearance to do the same at the hind end, if you get rid of the spurious bogie guard irons.

 

The lining looks good.

[Skinnylinny]

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

No sound, I hope!

 

 

May I respectfully suggest a bit of plasticard or sheet metal to represent the front end of the frames and the guard irons? It looks to me as if there's enough clearance to do the same at the hind end, if you get rid of the spurious bogie guard irons.

 

The lining looks good.

Thank you! I'm going to add some dummy front and rear frames, but this will wait until I have the chassis running properly. They will be used to disguise the means of attaching body to chassis.

Heh, we did jokingly suggest adding a sound module to the layout, although I vetoed anything continuous. Possibly a few seconds of sound that can be manually triggered. I rather fancy the audio from the old Nationwide clip of a parachuting bagpiper. Unfortunately for the piper, the pipes are a two-handed instrument, and one also needs two hands to "flare" when landing. The sound when landing is... certainly something!
 

  

[Compound2632]

42 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

The sound when landing is... certainly something!

 

Next time, just throw the bagpipes out of the plane...

[Skinnylinny]

"You've got three bullets. What do you shoot?"
"The bagpipes. Three times..."

[Caley Jim]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

No sound, I hope!

And why not, might I ask?

 

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

if you get rid of the spurious bogie guard irons.

CR 0-4-4T's always had the guard irons on the bogies, same with 4-4-0's.  Surely that kept them directly over the rails?

 

10 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

"You've got three bullets. What do you shoot?"
"The bagpipes. Three times..."

Moderators, can we please, please have a 'thumbs down' rating?

 

What you want is a full pipes and drums, WITH SOUND!  I could stand in front of that layout all day!  😁👍

 

Jim

Edited October 18, 2023 by Caley Jim
Correct tank loco wheel arrangement

[Skinnylinny]

13 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Moderators, can we please, please have a 'thumbs down' rating?

 

What you want is a full pipes and drums, WITH SOUND!  I could stand in front of that layout all day!  😁👍

Personally, I am actually a fan of the pipes... IF they are properly tuned (which those played on Princes Street often are not!). However I'm aware that they are very much the Marmite of the musical instrument world. 

Also, we'll happily have a full pipe band, I'm sure... Well volunteered on painting them!

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

 Well volunteered on painting them!

Aye, that'll be shining bright!

 

Jim

[RedGemAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

Personally, I am actually a fan of the pipes... IF they are properly tuned (which those played on Princes Street often are not!). However I'm aware that they are very much the Marmite of the musical instrument world. 

Also, we'll happily have a full pipe band, I'm sure... Well volunteered on painting them!

Oh yes, well tuned pipes can sound absolutely fantastic when played by someone who actually knows what they're doing.

[cornamuse]

On 18/10/2023 at 17:29, Caley Jim said:

And why not, might I ask?

 

CR 0-4-4T's always had the guard irons on the bogies, same with 4-4-0's.  Surely that kept them directly over the rails?

 

Moderators, can we please, please have a 'thumbs down' rating?

 

What you want is a full pipes and drums, WITH SOUND!  I could stand in front of that layout all day!  😁👍

 

Jim

I can provide recordings of my band and resident piper playing highland cathedral. The yoga class in the next room have given up on their whale fart recordings, or whatever they listened to, and now just go with our playlist… 

[Caley Jim]

Highland Cathedral bring a lump to my throat. I walked my youngest daughter down the aisle to that! Couldn't sing the first hymn. 

 

Jim

[stephennicholson]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

Highland Cathedral bring a lump to my throat. I walked my youngest daughter down the aisle to that! Couldn't sing the first hymn. 

 

Jim

"Mist Covered Mountains" as played at the Queens funeral does the same for me

[Skinnylinny]

15 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Highland Cathedral bring a lump to my throat. I walked my youngest daughter down the aisle to that! Couldn't sing the first hymn. 

That's one to add to the playlist then! I'm much the same with the second movement of Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No. 2, except in that case it was my mother I was walking down the aisle! 

[JeremyC]

It could be argued that Highland Cathedral is not really Scottish given it was written by two Germans.

[Skinnylinny]

It's been a busy month at work with the run up to Warley in a bit over a week. With our announcements safely made, I have been able to do a little bit of modelling. 

One of the most imposing features of Linton Town is the brick retaining wall and bridge/tunnel that acts as a scenic break. I've been looking into options for this for several years, and have never *quite* found a solution that satisfied me. Most of the ready-to-place options have stretcher bond brickwork, which just looks wrong to me, or comes in sections which have very visible joins too frequently to be easily disguised without creating a very distinctive regular pattern along the length. I've shied away from scratchbuilding thus far as I doubt my ability to get neat results repeatably (and given the retaining wall will have an overall length of over seven feet, consistency will be important!).

However, I've finally given in and purchased some foam board and some sheets of South Eastern Finecast "brick arches" - these come in English bond brickwork (hurrah!), include the appropriate patterns of bricks for corners (double hurrah!) and have several different sizes of arch, including one which is big enough for the scenic break tunnel. I'm still nervous about consistency, but I have so far managed to turn out a basic archway, and I'm actually excited to try out some of the "blind" ones needed for the retaining walls... 



Since this photo was taken I've added some more decorative brick layers above the arch, and a buttress, and thus far things seem to be going fairly well... A fair bit of fiddling, but the retaining wall is relatively modular in concept so it oughtn't to be hard to put it to one side if I get stuck, and go back to it later.

I also received a parcel from work, and I have to say this is a rather pretty little thing. I'm especially impressed with the sound (it being a Digital Sound set) working quite happily on analogue!

 

I'll be heading "down south" soon for the Warley show, where I'll be on the Rapido stand, so do come and make yourself known! I may be without my usual purple hair, though - I don't think I'm going to be able to dye it in time - so look for the brown hair with green ends!

[BlueLightning]

57 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

I may be without my usual purple hair, though - I don't think I'm going to be able to dye it in time

 

Wait, you mean the purple isn't natural?!?! 😛

[Skinnylinny]

On 15/11/2023 at 09:39, BlueLightning said:

Wait, you mean the purple isn't natural?!?! 😛

Haha, sadly not - it would require a lot less maintenance work if it were!
 

A trip to the Falkirk exhibition on Saturday just about floored me for the following two days, but I'm hopeful that with plenty of rest and being gentle to myself during the show itself, I should be able to make it through the two days of Warley.

 

There were some excellent layouts, and I was very impressed by some of the scenic bits on offer from traders too - especially the trees from Primo Models. While Linton Town is very urban, I found myself pondering whether I could get away with a small park or patch of ground where I could justify one of their trees... Perhaps in the school playground?

 

I also managed to grab some more of the South Eastern Finecast plasticard from Squires, and some more work has happened on retaining wall design. Now to figure out how to get a nice consistent slope back on the lower wall, then transition to a vertical section at the top... 

[Nick C]

24 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

I also managed to grab some more of the South Eastern Finecast plasticard from Squires, and some more work has happened on retaining wall design. Now to figure out how to get a nice consistent slope back on the lower wall, then transition to a vertical section at the top... 

 

A quick google suggests 3 options:

• a constant slope all the way up.
• a sharp transition with a couple of rows of bricks proud (I don't know enough about walling to know if that's a decorative feature or structural!)
• a smooth curve all the way up.

I'd guess the first is easiest, but the second most interesting...

[Caley Jim]

Sorry I missed you at Falkirk.  I was there for a few hours either side of mid-day.  As you say, some nice layouts on show.  Sadly Squires had only imperial sized brass tube there, so I'll have to bite the bullet and pay the postage on the 10mm tube I need for my next loco!☹️

 

Jim

[Skinnylinny]

15 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Sorry I missed you at Falkirk.  I was there for a few hours either side of mid-day.  As you say, some nice layouts on show.  Sadly Squires had only imperial sized brass tube there, so I'll have to bite the bullet and pay the postage on the 10mm tube I need for my next loco!☹️

 

Jim

Ah well, hopefully we'll bump into each other at Glasgow? As for Squires, I believe they'll be at Paisley, but if not, I could pick some up at Warley for you if given details. :)