Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

It's not what you've got, dear Annie, it's what you do with it that counts...

 

...and

of course!

 

On no more serious a note, this is the true reason I walked away from Ally Pally with a lump of O in my bag: I spent the first half hour of the show amazed by how many 3mm layouts were present before the penny dropped. Being so used to seeing 00 in front of my face or in photographs I couldn't believe how small it was at only a few feet distant, and resolved there and then to have a go at 7mm. Then the little red menace ambushed me and the rest, as they say, was surprisingly expensive...

 

Considering that I used to make tiny P4 models of 19th century engines in brass.  I think I'll manage to adjust and settle into working in 4mm scale again.  I know at today's prices I couldn't build myself an 00 layout so it's just as well that I've got a fair old bit of hoarded stuff.  The die cut Metcalfe buildings are an indulgence that I can afford since tools with sharp edges are a complete no-no for me and I'm sure that I'm still capable of making a tidy job of putting  all the nicely cut out pieces together.

 

Something I do need is a new razor saw since my old one is shockingly blunt.  This is the kind that I prefer, - a lot of the hobby razor saws on the market are too flimsy for serious work.

 

I've found a nice new sheet of 1.5mm modellers ply that I had hoarded away I and must see about getting some 1mm ply as well.  I much prefer working in wood and card as I don't like working with plastic all that much.

[Annie]

'A Further Selection of Locomotives I Have Known', by J.N. Maskelyne.  I can't find my copy so I'm wondering if a kind forum member who has this book could scan the drawings of GWR No.34 for me.

[Annie]

I was asking about a 3D printed Y10 Sentinel here.......

 

.........Only I wasn't so certain about going in that direction since it could end up being expensive especially when I've got more than a few mechs already that could hide under a Sentinel.

 

Then I remembered Thingiverse and went and looked there.  I like Sentinels and with my main aim being to make a shunting layout based around a sleepy minor terminus with only a minimal passenger service, but with a steady demand for goods traffic I thought a Sentinel or two might be ideal.

I did find a basic 00 Y10 that could form a good basis for further detailing only it had more than a few problems that could be annoying to solve.

However on searching further I discovered two On3 Sentinels which looked promising.  These have been made to suit a Lima motor bogie as the power source, but when I checked out the various parts of these locos in Mesh Viewer I could see that they have plenty of space inside for other options and the meshes themselves have been very nicely made.

There's a company in Auckland called Makeshop and they do 3D printing so I'm going to ask them for a quote.  

I know I've already purchased the 00 signal box kit, but at this stage of planning On3 is just as possible as 00 and my stash of old model railway bits will be just as useful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if I should start off a new thread for my tactile model railway projects to save confusion.

[Annie]

9 hours ago, Annie said:

'A Further Selection of Locomotives I Have Known', by J.N. Maskelyne.  I can't find my copy so I'm wondering if a kind forum member who has this book could scan the drawings of GWR No.34 for me.

You can stop searching now, - I've found my copy of 'A Further Selection of Locomotives I Have Known'.  I purchased it second hand when I was 20 something and I would have been awfully disappointed if it had gone missing.  I found enough sticks of incense to permit me to reverently read Russell volume one and while it was nice to see the semi-official photos of No.34 the drawing was the same as the one by  J.N. Maskelyne, - which was also the one C.J.F. copied for his drawing. Still, - it's better than a poke in the eye.

Because I've been helping Steve Flanders with his 19th Century GWR locomotive series and solved a particularly knotty problem with the cab interior placement on No.633 he said I could choose the next engine so I chose No.34.

 

[Schooner]

 

More for the group, as I imagine your reference works go into greater detail, but it's a lovely photo.

[Annie]

38 minutes ago, Schooner said:

More for the group, as I imagine your reference works go into greater detail, but it's a lovely photo.

It most certainly is.  However it's going to be the 1895 locomotive that Steve is going to be making, firstly because there's more known about it and secondly because it will be in the green with Indian Red frames and wheels livery which will look very fine indeed.

 

 

[eheaps]

Virtual Teutonic more or less finished!

 

[Compound2632]

On 11/05/2023 at 15:08, Edwardian said:

But, yes, the assumption that one speaks LNER and the insistence on using these terms is irksome. I know, for instance, what a NER C1 is, versus a P or a P1, or a Class 59, but remembering which one is which of the damned 'J' is something I constantly struggle with!

 

Chatting with Paul Gallon, builder of Rosedale East, at ExpoEM yesterday, I observed that in each of his operating sequences - 1908, 1918, 1928, the 0-6-0 is about 35 years old. I asked was the 1928 engine a C or a P (this was during the 1918 sequence so it was lurking at the back of the fiddle yard). It was of course a P, No. 1860. He said the engines were always known to the men as P, P1, P2 etc. right to the end, causing some confusion and incredulity among RCTS-type railtourists to some remote NE yard when they were told "We had a P1 shunting the yard".*

 

*I understand that among those who only speak LNER, P1 denotes some abnormally large eight-coupled mineral engine of young Nigel's design. 

[Annie]

2 hours ago, eheaps said:

Virtual Teutonic more or less finished!

 

Beautiful work Ed, - absolutely beautiful. 

[Annie]

Sorting out the problems with the interior footplate position cameras with Steve Flanders's new '633' class was an exercise in near frustration to get the interior mesh to align perfectly with the main body mesh as well as having the six camera positions working correctly.  Being able to chuff along this section of the line 'Tristyn in Winter' while standing on the footplate was an absolute triumph after all the time it took to get it properly sorted.

 

 

[Annie]

Afternoon Cheer Up Poster:  London Underground  by H.Thomas Maybank 1913

 

(Poster courtesy of London Transport Museum)

Edited May 15, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[Mikkel]

Not sure I feel cheered up! 😄

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

Not sure I feel cheered up! 😄

I can always find another old pre-grouping poster if you like.  😁

[Mikkel]

Thanks but no need Annie, I like the wry humor in that poster, it's refreshing after all those glorius sunshine posters 😀

[eheaps]

Contrasting winter/summer posters from days gone by.

 

Nowadays they'd need one that says "It's @#%£ing boiling below" all year round...

 

[Hroth]

7 hours ago, Annie said:

Afternoon Cheer Up Poster:  London Underground  by H.Thomas Maybank 1913

 

(Poster courtesy of London Transport Museum)

 

The ills are what you get with all the coughs and sneezes in an enclosed space...

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Hroth

[Annie]

Switching over to Tactile Railway Modelling mode in 3.....2.....1....

 

Once I've made up my mind what I'm doing with my layout project I'll open a new thread and leave this one to my digital waffling.

 

I've been emailing 3D printing companies and after one young lady who runs her own cottage industry printing business had a look at the files she said they were a bit too finely detailed for her setup and she's pointed me on to another 3D printing company who should be able to do the job.

 

 

This is the Sentinel model I'd like to have printed.  It's an On16.5 model that uses a Lima motor bogie as its source of propulsion and I'm sure I've got one somewhere amongst all my hoarded ancient 00 stuff.

I've been finding huge quantities of Triang series 3 track and I haven't got a clue where it came from.  Any kind of recent second hand RTR track is a shocking price here and the new stuff is sell a kidney territory.  In fact all kinds of old tat you could barely give away ten years ago is being listed for daft prices so it looks like I'm going to be honing my scratchbuilding skills.

I ran trains for years on series 3 track and it was fine.  If I bury it under ballast nobody will be able to see what it looks like.

I've been looking about over at Smallbrook Studios at their On16.5 model kits and their Kerr, Stewart 'Skylark' based kits are tempting.  As always postage costs will be the deciding factor.  I gave up on ebay due to the postage charges most of the vendors were wanting to send anything to New Zealand.

 

 

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, Annie said:

I've been looking about over at Smallbrook Studios at their On16.5 model kits and their Kerr, Stewart 'Skylark' based kits are tempting.

 

Its not a Kerr Stewart, but its Smallbrooks Thor body kit that sits on a Smokey Joe chassis and is of a Peckettian persuasion.  It goes together easily, the only fiddly bit being the handrails and the smokebox door handle.

 

Here's their example from the website

 

 

And here's mine

 

 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/128411-under-way/

 

This is from the RMweb "Cakebox Challenge" of 2018, and was one of 4 (!) entries I made, all in different scales.  Sadly the images of the completed submission vanished in the great image loss but I did find the final image on an old laptop.  The track is a scrap piece of Peco Code 100 Streamline, and to make it a bit more narrowgaugey I chopped every other sleeper out, what is above is before the sleepers got chopped.  Apart from being a bit finer scale, it looked pretty similar to Series 3 track!

 

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Hroth
replacement of image

[Annie]

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Its not a Kerr Stewart, but its Smallbrooks Thor body kit that sits on a Smokey Joe chassis and is of a Peckettian persuasion.  It goes together easily, the only fiddly bit being the handrails and the smokebox door handle.

 

Here's their example from the website

 

 

And here's mine

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/128411-under-way/

 

This is from the RMweb "Cakebox Challenge" of 2018, and was one of 4 (!) entries I made, all in different scales.  Sadly the images of the completed submission vanished in the great image loss and I can't find it on this PC.

 

 

 

 

Yes I saw the saddle tanks, but it was the side tank kits I was looking at since they appeal to me a lot more.

 

[Hroth]

5 minutes ago, Annie said:

Yes I saw the saddle tanks, but it was the side tank kits I was looking at since they appeal to me a lot more.

 

 

Ooohhhhh....   You shouldn't have posted that!   I've got a spare Smokey Joe chassis, Midsomer Brevis might get a new loco...

 

And with that long chimney, I can see it in LNWR Black.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Hroth

[Annie]

10 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Ooohhhhh....   You shouldn't have posted that!   I've got a spare Smokey Joe chassis, Midsomer Brevis might get a new loco...

 

And with that long chimney, I can see it in LNWR Black.

 

 

Oops sorry  😉

 

LNWR Black does sound awfully nice though.

[Metropolitan H]

On 12/05/2023 at 09:10, Tom Burnham said:

Do you know who painted it, please?  It has something of a C Hamilton Ellis look, but I wonder if the background isn't a bit too accurate for him.  And it lacks a couple of young rustics by a wicket gate in the left foreground...

Yes, the painting is by Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis and was published as one of the illustrations in his book "Trains and Tractors" - published 1957, by Allen and Unwin.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Metropolitan H said:

Yes, the painting is by Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis and was published as one of the illustrations in his book "Trains and Tractors" - published 1957, by Allen and Unwin.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Regards

Chris H

Mystery solved, - thanks very much Chris.

 

7 hours ago, Hroth said:

And here's mine

 

 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/128411-under-way/

 

This is from the RMweb "Cakebox Challenge" of 2018, and was one of 4 (!) entries I made, all in different scales.  Sadly the images of the completed submission vanished in the great image loss but I did find the final image on an old laptop.  The track is a scrap piece of Peco Code 100 Streamline, and to make it a bit more narrowgaugey I chopped every other sleeper out, what is above is before the sleepers got chopped.  Apart from being a bit finer scale, it looked pretty similar to Series 3 track!

Oh now that does look very nice.  The Great Image Loss has a lot to answer for, but thanks for hunting about and finding a copy of your Cakebox Challenge entry.

[Annie]

A pair of Swindon green '633' class engines on shed on 'Tristyn & District in Winter'.  No.642 is a condensing engine and No.635 isn't.  It certainly was 'interesting' at times sorting some of the problems with these engines, but it's been a lot of fun as well.  No.635 will be staying on 'Tristyn' and Nos.633 and 642 will be going off to 'Minories'.

 

[Schooner]

On 09/05/2023 at 12:45, Hroth said:

 

I've always been fascinated by the "oily rag" patterns on photographs of newly cleaned broad gauge engines!

Just broad gauge...?

Ant.  She had a sister named Bee...

 

Apropos of nothing, I couldn't not share this

So many details to take in! The 'temporary' wooden structure was replaced in the 1890s, after about 50 years' service.