James Makin's Workbench - 1990s dirty diesels & grotty wagons

[phixer64]

Excellent series of photos there, very helpful. It adds to the dimension of detail on the HST. Might use this on a rake of coaches myself.

 

Regards Jeff

[WCML100]

looks fantastic! Could I say possibly the best ever recreated HST set that I have ever come across!

 

Keep up the good work - looks very slick on the layout.

[George Leacon]

That HST looks stunning, worthy of being next to Selena Gomez.  

[legomanbiffo]

Absolutely outstanding and inspirational HST James, well done. I have experimented those fridge-magnet type strips before and found that they work well. I suspect having all the jumpers on one strip might be better in operation. The 350 EMU is another obvious contender for this technique.

 

In my opinion, fitting obviously missing items such as passengers, corridor connections and jumper cables makes far more of an impact than (say) changing coarse grilles for finer scale ones, or correcting errors in boiler water fillers!

 

Bif

[Grimleygrid]

Superb James, superb!

[bobster]

Top work there James as always.

 

Cheers, Bob.

[d winpenny]

Absolutely superb work

 

David

[steve fay]

HST looks superb.

[James Makin]

I've been on annual leave recently which has been great for finishing up some of my ongoing modelling projects!

 

Non-railway work colleagues don't understand the concept of taking time out and not flying away somewhere exotic but for me this is much better than sitting by a pool! 

 

MHA wagons by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

Joining the fleet today are the first 'MHA' ballast wagons - 394657 and 394938 to be precise! Now most of these wagons are fairly similar, without such variety as in previous projects like the OBAs for example. However, look closer and there are some great variations to be had. 

 

MHA wagons by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

The most major variation is the different body type - this is the later design body compared to the version from Hornby. S-Kits makes resin body kits to convert your MHA (or indeed HAA!) to the later type, which has less bodyside ribs and a triangular top rail.

 

MHA wagons by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

I've bought a batch of 7 and working on these a few at a time - the first two had their bodies painted into EWS red and gold, before being mated with the Hornby chassis. Instanters were added along with Colin Craig brake discs on one wheel of each axle. The S-Kits pack also includes some of their buffers which make for a more realistic replacement to the original Hornby sprung version.

 

MHA wagons by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

The wagons can be toned down slightly - I've been using layers of Humbrol 113 and 119, along with the classic 62 and 186 here. Quite a lot of the fleet have a sandy-type colour appearance. Example's 'Whisky Story' is ideal listening for EWS ballast trains. 

 

MHA wagons by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

394657 exhibits quite a few scars and scrapes to the bodyside, with EWS logo painted out in shiny red, while 394938 has a noticeable horizontal damage line under the EWS logo, so the wagons aren't as dull as they first appear! The interior is weathered with a variety of sandy and darker browns, following panel lines as per prototype pictures. 

 

MHA wagons by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

There are another three in the works right now, given their small size, they seem fairly quick to complete!

 

Edited August 14, 2016 by James Makin

[Doughnut]

 

Non-railway work colleagues don't understand the concept of taking time out and not flying away somewhere exotic but for me this is much better than sitting by a pool!

 

 

Know exactly what you mean!!!

 

Dave

[rob D2]

nice work on the EWS wagons.

I was adding some frame dirt to Bachmann sea cows and found the ideal accompliment was

 

The tra LA LA song by the banana splits

[Boco_D1]

A little late to add, but the HST does, as other have siad, look fantastic. I'm about to take on a 'Merlin' n gauge HST so look forward to seeing yours, although when I say 'about' there's no gaurantee it will be anytime soon but have purchased required parts for the task, slow and steady wins the race and all that. Anyway keep up the good work.

 

Jimmy

[phoenixchris]

James, once again that is superb work, that HST has to be one of the best modern image models I've seen.

[James Makin]

A little late to add, but the HST does, as other have siad, look fantastic. I'm about to take on a 'Merlin' n gauge HST so look forward to seeing yours, although when I say 'about' there's no gaurantee it will be anytime soon but have purchased required parts for the task, slow and steady wins the race and all that. Anyway keep up the good work.

 

Jimmy

 

Thanks Jimmy! The Merlin HST might be a little way down my list as well, decided I need a little break from tackling all those bits in one go, slow and steady is definitely the right approach to avoid sheer boredom from tackling each job 8 times over!! Be quite good to blitz a single coach in a short while and then do something completely different, gradually upgrading a set over a longer time period - that's what I'll be doing for my next few HSTs!

[Boco_D1]

I know what you meant about the bordem of the repertive tasks, I still have around 80 passengers to paint for my OO stock and 160 for my n gauge stuff, drives one potty. The other problem is the ever increasing list of projects to do, at least it's nice to know I'll never run out of stuff to do.

[steve fay]

Any chance of a link to the eBay page for great little gangways, I'm not having any luck finding them on eBay

[WCML100]

Any chance of a link to the eBay page for great little gangways, I'm not having any luck finding them on eBay

 

I would agree - cannot seem to find them on ebay but they do look really good

[James Makin]

Any chance of a link to the eBay page for great little gangways, I'm not having any luck finding them on eBay

I've had a look and it seems they've not currently got any listings for the gangways at the moment, but the seller to follow is 'Birmingham Modellers' - the link is below -

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/birmingham-modellers

 

I've seen the listings end before and come back on so I'm hopefully this is a short term break, as always with cottage industry suppliers I'd recommend stocking up big for the future when you can!

 

Best of luck!

James

[Derekstuart]

That's really rather impressive. Turns a good model into a great one.

 

Though can anyone confirm that I am right or wrong on this:

HST MK3's have brake and reservoir pipes on BOTH sides between carriages but only on ONE side between the outer carriage and the power car (facing the front of the PC, it's the left IIRC).

 

The above might have changed since they've been re-engineered post privatisation. I know that sets I've seen have the ETH dis-connected about half way (presumably each half set gets its ETH supply from its PC, whereas originally it was always the rear power car (in fact, it was whichever power car was started first- but typically the rear).

 

I really am thoroughly impressed with this HST model. It is certainly inspired me. One of the things I'd never liked about HST models is the vestibule (badly moulded on Lima/Hornby anyway) and as you've said, the big gap below made more obvious by lack of buffers. There's a lot of really good work on this forum- but every now and then a BRILLIANT piece comes along.

 

Now, can I get my motivation together to try replicate that on the HST's best livery- Swallow.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Derekstuart

[steve fay]

Taken last week, if it helps

[James Makin]

Derek, I think this is a good shout - I snapped this from 43005 standing at Didcot on Wednesday, it does look from this particular view that there may only be 3 pipes connecting vs the 4 pipes that connect the coaches, but it's really dark under there!

 

 

Cheers,

James

Edited August 16, 2015 by James Makin

[Derekstuart]

Hi James

 

That third 'pipe' I think is the control jumper (38 way IIRC). What seems odd to me is in Steve's picture, there are TWO jumpers. I thought there was only one- either I am mistaken or it is a later adaptation (was this set one of the poor unfortunate sets to be vandalised with 91 TDM?)

 

 

Hi Steve

 

It seems like the far side ETH jumper is in place. Do these only need one to function? Is that the same on LHCS too?

 

I remember all this vaguely from my younger days with my Dad (then an Instructor on HST's) at Kings Cross and Bounds Green. Sadly he has departed now so I cannot ask him.

 

 

Either way this HST model is really superb. Because of the time I spent on them when new I've always had a bit of a 'thing' for them. I can see my local model shop (that has some b/g PCs in stock) will thank you for this article, whilst my debit card will curse you.

 

EDIT: This is a really interesting thread. Later on when I can get some peace and quiet I am going to read through the whole lot. I like what you did with the OBA wagons (I opened a page at random)btw.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Derekstuart

[James Makin]

I've just been through my archive photos a bit closer and my shot of the connecting between 43017 'Hannahs' and a TGS taken at Didcot on 5th July 2014 would also show 3 central pipes running and then the two outer ones on each side - 

 

 

Funny how it's the little details that can be fascinating to model!

 

Agree Derek on Intercity Swallow - I too have one in the pipeline, albeit interspersed with a few newly-painted Virgin coaches for the transition period!

 

[bigP]

--

Edited January 30, 2021 by bigP
Deleted

[Derekstuart]

BigP,

 

That refers to the HST prototype. There were many changes between those two and production.

 

James,

The nearest one is the ETH jumper, the yellow one is the main reservoir, the red one is the brake pipe, then there's the MW jumper. It appears then that there's another brake pipe and then another reservoir pipe. You can't see whether the far side ETH jumper is plugged in.

 

From that photo it does appear that the pipes are duplicated on both sides between the outer carriage and the PC. I am pretty sure that they weren't originally, but they are getting on a bit now. I know that when my Dad retired he tried to throw away all his training manuals- and I stopped him. They will be there somewhere- I recently came across his 156 and 47 manuals.

 

I'm sure on this forum there will be someone who can say for certain.

 

EDIT: I have just google'd HST POWER CAR and recent photos (EMT and worst) show both sides having brake/res pipes, yet in Swallow livery (the ones HST's were designed for) its only on the RIGHT side (facing the front) not the left as first thought- so obviously a mid life upgrade- it doesn't seem to be dependent on whether or not it had a DVT conversion either. I can't cut and paste for some reason so I can't list the URL's.

 

So- your model is right.... best ignore me but remember that for the Swallow version.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Derekstuart