Helston Revisited

[Mikkel]

It's a bit tricky because the livery changed over the years and tended to be adapted to each particular design anyway. There isn't much photo material either in this case, as the GWR did not actually have that many horse-drawn wagons with hard sides likes this (I can't find this particular design in the any photos or in Atkins' diagram overview).

 

But as a rule of thumb, in pre-WW1 years the sides would have been chocolate all the way up to the roof, which was in principle white.

 

Then later cream above waist as you have done (your period is 1930s IIRC?). If the top is supposed to be tight canvas I would keep it in dark grey. Some of the last horsedrawn designs has a hard roof which appears very light grey - almost white - in photos. If you look at 1930s motor vehicles it becomes even more confusing, as some of the hard tops are all cream and others are all dark grey. 

 

But to sum up I think what you've got now is plausible.

 

[Mikkel]

PS: Been studying your painting of the harness. It looks fantastic!

[MrWolf]

When it comes to early motor vans a dark grey or black top would suggest Rexine or painted canvas over wadding and wooden slats as the form of roof construction, whereas a body coloured roof would suggest aluminium or steel sheet over a wooden frame.

[Andy Keane]

I now have some passable 3D printed bridge rail fence tensioning posts to play with. These are printed in grey nylon so are quite forgiving of handling yet also easy to drill the wire holes into. Their slightly rough surface is a good imitation of rust. In this photo I have just put some easyline through the top two holes and through three wooden fence posts from scale model scenery. I am not yet sure if I will thread the lines through the posts (which aligns and fixes them quite nicely, but is not scale correct) or instead to use the Peco posts and simply lay the line into grooves and cement in place. Laying them in groves will be much faster but will require seven drops of cyano on every post. I am also not sure if I will stay with easyline, which is probably more accident resistant, or go with fishing line I used on my previous tests, which is much easier to thread being stiffer.

[Andy Keane]

Here is a short sample using the ratio 423 posts, which have little grooves moulded in. It turns out to be much easier to deal with the easyline this way as it only needs threading through the stretcher posts - this is one piece of line threaded back and forwards seven times and tied off at the end. So then using this little jig I can pull out enough line for whatever fence run is needed, put the stretchers and line onto the main base-board and then add the fence posts into pre-drilled holes along the run. It seems quite robust and tolerant of my handling.

 

Edited April 9 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

Another little job I am working on are the cast iron signs for Station Road and Park an Harvey. The station Road sign will need to be free standing while the Park an Harvey will be a wall plaque, both in cast iron. I plan to 3D print these but wondered, given my earlier attempts, if anyone could advise on the correct font for Victorian era cast iron name plates for such roads?

Edited April 9 by Andy Keane

[Harlequin]

6 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Another little job I am working on are the cast iron signs for Station Road and Park an Harvey. The station Road sign will need to be free standing while the Park an Harvey will be a wall plaque, both in cast iron. I plan to 3D print these but wondered, given my earlier attempts, if anyone could advise on the correct font for Victorian era cast iron name plates for such roads?

Have you got any reference photos? Cast iron lettering was not really standardised in that period so you probably won't find a "correct" font, just something that's close enough. The lettering would have been based on some outlines in a book and then patterns made by a craftsman and adapted to meet the needs of the casting process.

 

BTW: You might find that the scale depth of relief of the lettering is so small that it makes it really difficult to paint the letters neatly. I know - I tried.

 

[Andy Keane]

22 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

BTW: You might find that the scale depth of relief of the lettering is so small that it makes it really difficult to paint the letters neatly. I know - I tried.

Phil - that's a good point - on the Helston running in board in the end I got a custom waterslide transfer made up from your file with the letter depth in the transfer. I guess I am best to do something similar and float it onto a bare backing name board. Could you send me something to work from please? Otherwise I shall be reduced to Microsoft fonts again and suffer ridicule as before.

 

https://www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/51-original-station-road-cast-iron-road-sign/?lot=50377&sd=1

Edited April 9 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

So a blank name board something like this:

This one is three feet long overall and six inches deep at full scale.

[MrWolf]

I've had fun and games trying to attach fishing line to the Ratio / Peco posts, it seems to not like any type of glue.

 

I've gone with extremely fine copper winding wire and when I can get back to the layout for a few hours I'll post up the results. 

 

Otherwise I'll be drilling six holes in over three hundred posts.....🤪

[Andy Keane]

3 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Otherwise I'll be drilling six holes in over three hundred posts.....🤪

Oh don't do that - buy the pre-drilled Scale Model Scenery ones that are pre-drilled as in my first post on the fence-line above. They are very good being laser drilled.

[Andy Keane]

I have now made up the stink pipe for Station Road and also the shunting klaxon for the yard. They both have 1mm steel rods up the middle for strength and to plant them and for the stink pipe a bit of thick walled 2mm tube around the steel to bring it up to the correct 6" scale diameter.

The next question is what colours to paint them. I guess the klaxon post and box could be white like a loading gauge or stone like the buildings but its hard to know. The stink pipe would have belonged to the local authority so I guess it could be white, black, coloured, etc - all thoughts most welcome.

Edited April 13 by Andy Keane

[BWsTrains]

Love it, the detail on the base of the stink pipe is superb.

[Andy Keane]

As I potter on and wait for the new Rapido B set E140 coaches to arrive I have been wondering about what bogie coaches would have been used before the E140s got to Helston. I have a couple of photos of B-set like coaches at Helston and it would be good to know what diagrams they were. I think the first photo is E40. The second is rather like E19 but Russell's drawing of this does not show the bulge for brake handle next to the "slip" window on the end (I now see that the drawing of E19 on https://gwrcoaches.org.uk/LowRoofs.shtml#E19 does show the bulge so assume that must be what it is). Does anyone know better or have access to coach allocations for Helston in the Edwardian period?

Edited April 13 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

Phil @Harlequin did you ever get the 8'6" Dean bogies into CAD that could be used with the Worsley Works etches of the E40 coaches?

Andy

[Neal Ball]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

Phil @Harlequin did you ever get the 8'6" Dean bogies into CAD that could be used with the Worsley Works etches of the E40 coaches?

Andy

MJT now stock both 8’6” and 10’ Dean bogies.

[Harlequin]

2 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Phil @Harlequin did you ever get the 8'6" Dean bogies into CAD that could be used with the Worsley Works etches of the E40 coaches?

Andy

 

I have done the CAD but I haven't had the time or the mojo to go through it all to make it printable. 😞

 

Phil

[Andy Keane]

1 hour ago, Neal Ball said:

MJT now stock both 8’6” and 10’ Dean bogies.

Ah yes, listed as “new”. I may take the plunge and try my hand at a coach build on a pair of E40s as it seems all the bits are now available.

[Neal Ball]

3 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Phil @Harlequin did you ever get the 8'6" Dean bogies into CAD that could be used with the Worsley Works etches of the E40 coaches?

Andy

 

55 minutes ago, Andy Keane said:

Ah yes, listed as “new”. I may take the plunge and try my hand at a coach build on a pair of E40s as it seems all the bits are now available.

However, the issue might be in getting some Dean buffers for the carriages. The last time I looked at MJT they were having issues in getting stock. I think there was an issue with the supply of castings.

[gwrrob]

5 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

 

However, the issue might be in getting some Dean buffers for the carriages. The last time I looked at MJT they were having issues in getting stock. I think there was an issue with the supply of castings.

Their steel heads are also always out of stock too.

[Penrhos1920]

6 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

As I potter on and wait for the new Rapido B set E140 coaches to arrive I have been wondering about what bogie coaches would have been used before the E140s got to Helston. I have a couple of photos of B-set like coaches at Helston and it would be good to know what diagrams they were. I think the first photo is E40. The second is rather like E19 but Russell's drawing of this does not show the bulge for brake handle next to the "slip" window on the end (I now see that the drawing of E19 on https://gwrcoaches.org.uk/LowRoofs.shtml#E19 does show the bulge so assume that must be what it is). Does anyone know better or have access to coach allocations for Helston in the Edwardian period?

E19 and E40 look about Wright. You’ll be very lucky to find any coach workings that early for Helston. You might consider a four coach set such as  T36 S9 U4 T47 or T49

[BWsTrains]

14 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

You might consider a four coach set such as  T36 S9 U4 T47 or T49

 

Ah! An old favourite of mine.   See here for lots of helpful input about the coaches, kits and their background:

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/proratio.html

 

I used this Topic (thx @Mikkel) to kit bash various base Ratio models into stock for my Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway project but revisiting it to add some GWR stock on UH is an interesting idea for rainy days ahead.

 

The kits are OK, albeit dated; upgrade sides from Shirescenes an option. Beware Pre-owned kits, the plastic in the one I bought was clearly inferior (Ratio 610 IIRC, bought because new stock was not available during COVID times).

 

All kits appear to be available now.

 

Later addition.

 As referred to in a later post to this one, the following link  http://www.gwr.org.uk/prot36.html

explains the background regarding the old vs new Ratio kits and much else besides. 

 

 

Edited April 14 by BWsTrains
To add info on Ratio kit rereleases

[Mikkel]

11 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

 

 

What a lovely photo. And a rare good shot of a round-ended 3- planker with lefthand GWR!

[Andy Keane]

6 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

What a lovely photo. And a rare good shot of a round-ended 3- planker with lefthand GWR!

It’s my copy of an old photo held in the museum in Helston. I have not seen it used elsewhere.

[Andy Keane]

7 hours ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Ah! An old favourite of mine.   See here for lots of helpful input about the coaches, kits and their background:

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/proratio.html

 

I used this Topic (thx @Mikkel) to kit bash various base Ratio models into stock for my Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Railway project but revisiting it to add some GWR stock on UH is an interesting idea for rainy days ahead.

 

The kits are OK, albeit dated; upgrade sides from Shirescenes an option. Beware Pre-owned kits, the plastic in the one I bought was clearly inferior (Ratio 610 IIRC, bought because new stock was not available during COVID times). All appear to be available now. 

 

 

Those four-wheelers have been built to a beautiful standard. Something to aspire to and would look lovely in Helston.