Coal empties for the ECML

[Loxborough]

Thought so, thanks Mick. So the Hornby, Triang and Lima grey NE brake vans (examples of all of which are currently available on e-bay) were all just clangers on their part, then?

 

G

[Colin parks]

They certainly are odd looking beasts, and I quite like the Caterpillar idea. The thing that I can't get out of my head is the noise; 16 clasp brakes screaming as they try to slow down an 800T coal train, and all within about 8' of the guard's ears. They must have dreaded turning that handle!

 

G

Hi George,

 

Yes, the guard's job must have been quite difficult - especially on steeply graded lines. An 800 ton train eh? That means each wheel would have had to stop 100 tons' worth of train. The guard must had needed strong arms for that!

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Loxborough]

And here it is, with the brindle bars corrett. Thanks very much, Castle, for pointing that out. (and to Jonathan for providing the vocab!)

 

 

Goes into the paintshop tonight, so if there are any other 'I think you'll find' suggestions (which I will do encourage) please go now .... (or forever hold your peace!)

 

And for Castle's quetion a few posts ago about were they common, Tatlow has 60 being built from 1913, of which 58 were still extant in 1940, against 194 and 174 of the other two main GNR types. So, roughly 15% of the ex GNR fleet; I think I can reasonably justify one on the layout.

 

Thanks again,

 

George

 

 

[jwealleans]

I don't have a drawing to hand but that looks pretty good. Red oxide down to the bottom of the solebars, as they're timber.

 

I've only just noticed your comment about not seeing any on Ebay - I picked up a pair of the D & S kits, built (badly) but pretty much complete wihtin about a fortnight of each other last year. As I'm only a very occasional Ebayer I must have hit it luckier then i thought.

[LNER4479]

Well if we're all going to have a go at posting pix of our 8-wheel GN brake vans...

 

 

D&S kit. Needs weathering a tad(!) but runs lovely. My only criticism would be that that support brackets for the steps are too flimsy.

 

Your scratchbuilt effort looks magnificent (the step brackets look far more substantial for a start!).

[Loxborough]

Lovely imlage of the D&S kit, 4479, thanks for posting that. Perhaps we should have started a new thread "images of  8 Wheel brakes"??!!

 

Quick question for those who know; many of the available images on the net show grabrails and (in some cases) lamp irons picked out in white. The ones shown in Tatlow do not have this, though it is a job to tell from the images whether they are bauxite or black. I have a suspicion that the changover to white grabrails was a safety thing which came in later. Does anyone have any idea of when the changover wsa made?

 

Thanks,

 

George

[Loxborough]

Painting and weathering started...

 

 

Patch painted last time she went to the works, she is now in a disgraceful state and well overdue for a full rub down and repaint.

 

More tonight. Who knows, I might even put glass Windows and a roof on it...

 

George

[Loxborough]

OK, so the brake is on hold pending supplies (anyone who has hints about how to get Dart Castings to fulfil orders, or even just respond to e-mails, suggestions would be very welcome...) so I decided to get on with the next thing.

 

 

 

Now, I am a little frightened about the idea of modelling a loco, mainly because people here pay so much attention to them, and I am bound to get something wrong. There is also the little issue of them having to work.

 

 

 

Being a conscientious sort of modeller, I have done some research and come to the inescapable conclusion that almost all of the coal trains seen on the ECML did in fact have one of those puffy steamy things at the front. Now, each modeller has to accept his or her own level of compromise, and I struggled for a while with the idea of compromising on this, and running (or at least showing) a loco free train. This, though, would probably get me excommunicated by the moderators so I have gone for the compromise and invested in Bachmann’s excellent O4 offering. The plan is to take my bits in my hand and build a J6 (LRM) for the next train (class D freight) and, then, for the loaded coal train, venture into outside motion territory with an O2.

 

 

 

All of which requires me to actually do something about weathering the O4. A pleasure, as it turns out. Resprayed and renumbered for a Doncaster loco, then lamp added and generally roughed up. Needs coal.

 

 

First, the helicopter shot.

 

 

Left side. Helicon focus to get the whole thing reasonably clear, and photoshop for the background;

 

 

And some messing about...

 

 

Right side;

 

 

more silliness...

 

 

The lamp is worth commenting on. DCC concepts product, and really excellent, with something that looks like a scale handle. Most excitingly, though, it does this;

 

 

They supply a variety of resistors so you can get the brightness right, and I have gone for pretty dim. The photo above was taken in darkness on a 4s exposure.

 

I don't like having more than one project on the go at a time, and want to get the brake completed, so may have to scratch build the bits on order for DC f they don't come soon. Watch this space...

 

Have a great weekend all,

 

George

[robmcg]

Beautiful photos, thankyou. It inspires me to maybe photograph a grubby goods train someday soon.

 

Rob

[Loxborough]

Too hot to do any building work on the house today so disappeared into the workshop to assess the brake. Decided that the only pieceI really needed in order to finish it is the torpedo vent, which can be retro fittted, so got on with it. Now complete, save the famous vent... Weathered using powders and no wash, which gives something a little more subtle than I usually end up with, and I am quietly pleased with the effect.

 

 

 

Irritated about the windows; went to great trouble to fit glass (microscope cover slips) but forgot about the superglue/glass thing. Thus we have frosted Windows. Damned if I am going to go to the trouble of replacing them (they will break as soon as I go near them and I will be left struggling with bits of broken glass superglued to the inside of a fragile wagon full of electronics...

 

 

 

And, from DCC concepts, more exciting lamps;

 

 

 

The red is more obviously red in real life (usual difficulties in producing this sort of shot...) The lamps are not just cosmetic; I plan to have a degree of block occupancy detection and automated signalling, which means that the back of the train needs to draw current. Great excuse to invest in lamps, though fitting all three to the brake wagon, together with the specialist bits and pieces like clasp brakes, brings the build price up into RTR loco territory...

 

Overall, the brake van has been a fun challenge, though the next thing I build will have four wheels and two brake shoes!

 

Happy modelling all,

 

George

[benbrown]

hi george

im having the same issue with falcon brass kits ( owned by dartcastings ) its been over a week and half since my order was placed and the money went straight out having said that they do say allow 21 days for shipping will just have to keep waiting on the post man     the 04 and brake van look amazing

regards ben

[Loxborough]

hi george

im having the same issue with falcon brass kits ( owned by dartcastings ) its been over a week and half since my order was placed and the money went straight out having said that they do say allow 21 days for shipping will just have to keep waiting on the post man     the 04 and brake van look amazing

regards ben

 

I'm seven weeks from order placed and money going out, and they have totally ignored two chasing mails. Fortunately this is play and not work, not therefore getting stressed about it, or chasing them too hard.

 

Thanks for the positive comments about the modellng, by the way.

 

George

[micklner]

Very nice .

 

Brake Van should have "dirty" white handrails in LNER period. Perhaps a drop of varnish might clear the glazing ?

[Rail-Online]

Fantastic model George!  Well done.

 

They say when you view a model train passing the watcher looks closely at the loco, the first couple of wagons, the last wagon and the break van. The mind makes an 'assesment' of the quality of the train based on these few items of stock and not every vehicle in the train.  After playing around with my stock and positions within the train of time consuming (to build) wagons versus RTR ones, I think this is correct.  If this is so your empty coal train will be well received!

 

Cheers Tony

[Loxborough]

Brake Van should have "dirty" white handrails in LNER period. Perhaps a drop of varnish might clear the glazing ?

 

Thanks for that comment, Mick, which speaks to something that has been nagging at me for a while (I actually asked the question a few posts ago before applying the paint to the handrails). I thik there may be some subtlety to this, though; looking through Tatlow and web sources it seems that while most of the LNER went for the white handrails (for, I imagine, very good safety reasons) the ex GNR vans retained either black or bauxite (job to tell from the images) even when repainted by the LNER. Was this, perhaps, some particularity of the Doncaster works?

 

Thanks again,

 

George

[gr.king]

I'm tempted to think that the bodies of the riding (side) lamps should be black, at least for the greater part of the LNER period. I was daft enough to do mine red initially.....

[Rail-Online]

I'm tempted to think that the bodies of the riding (side) lamps should be black, at least for the greater part of the LNER period. I was daft enough to do mine red initially.....

I think you may well be correct here. Certainly some of the ones that were sold ex brake van into the 'collectors' market by BR were black.

 

Tony

[31A]

Thanks for that comment, Mick, which speaks to something that has been nagging at me for a while (I actually asked the question a few posts ago before applying the paint to the handrails). I thik there may be some subtlety to this, though; looking through Tatlow and web sources it seems that while most of the LNER went for the white handrails (for, I imagine, very good safety reasons) the ex GNR vans retained either black or bauxite (job to tell from the images) even when repainted by the LNER. Was this, perhaps, some particularity of the Doncaster works?

 

Thanks again,

 

George

Hi George,

 

Good to see your finished brake van - it's come out really well!

 

I meant to comment on handrail colours earlier when you originally asked the question, but it slipped my mind.  Years ago when I modelled the 'Big 4' period and bult LNER wagons, I formed the opinion from published photos that brake van hand rails could be either body colour, or picked out in white, depending on which works built / repainted them.  My main source of reference is the 'first edition' of P. Tatlow's 'LNER Wagons' (OPC 1976), in which an 8-wheeler in GN livery has the handrails painted body colour, as does a GN 4-wheeler in LNER livery.  The ex GC vans illustrated in the book both have white painted handrails, and on page 165 there are two photos of newly-built LNER standard 'Toad B' brakes - one built at Dukinfield in 1927 with white handrails, the other bulit a year later at Doncaster with body coloured handrails.  So you pays your money....

 

As regards brake van side lamps, again from published photos I formed the opinion that fixed ones on the body side as per your 8-wheeler probably had the cases of the lamps painted body colour.  Obviously photos from that date of brake vans are almost inevitably black and white, but if you look at ex works vans in the same book (for example) the tone of the fixed side lamps is indistinguishable from the body sides, whereas parts which are clearly painted black (e.g. axle boxes, buffer heads) contrast in tone with the body colour.  This is obviously only my impression, possibly subjective and open to being proved wrong, but that's how I painted them on the models I made.

 

Hope this helps!  Like the O4, too....

[Colin parks]

Hi George,

 

Just noticed that the brake van is finished!  It has come out very well -especially with the 'aged' paintwork.  Re. the superglue misting of the windows.  If you do re-glaze the van fixing the panes with superglue again, breathe hard on the glued pane, inside and out, immediately after application.  This should accelerate the setting process and drive off any fumes.  The first ten seconds are the most crucial and success is aided by being very sparing with the quantity of glue applied in the first place (which is best done with the point of a pin.)

 

Some people have mentioned acetone as being suitable for removing superglue residue, but how that would work with a painted model I do not know. 

 

All the best,

 

Colin

[Loxborough]

Long time away from the forum, firstly on Holiday in the UK, which included taking Paul 'Wordsell Forever' Gallon up on his kind invitation to spend a very pleasant evening with the Whitby group (though they wisely didn't let me any nearer actual modelling than slapping woodstain on a fascia board with a 2" brush!). Then back to work in Guinea, which was somewhat curtailed by a decision not to build the bloody railway after all. Now on an extended modelling/housebuilding break at home!!

 

Anyway, thanks for all the interest around the thrilling subject of colour schemes for lamps and grabrails on a GNR brake van (not something I would have predicetd, a few years ago, that I would be getting excited about). Running lights in black, tick, done.

 

Grabrails, I think the consensus seems to be that Doncaster did not paint them white, though there is a difference of view about whether they were body colour or black. My personal take on the available B&W images in Tatlow I is that they were black (although it is virtually impossible to tell, in truth). So, based on the fact that I have done them in black I am going to take advantage of the ambiguity and leave them alone, on the understanding that they may be wrong (and if anyone can produce a colour photo which shows them body colour I undertake to change them accordingly). 

 

So, here it is, with balck lamps, the roof vent (finally) and grab rails unchanged.

 

 

I have an obsession at work about never including 'final' in a document title, and accordingly I will not say that this is finished, but I am not planning to do anything else on it in the near future.

 

More hoppers next.

 

George

 

Edit to correct spelling of Wordsell, before I get excommunicated by the NERA!

[Worsdell forever]

It was very nice to have you, still spelt it wrong though... WORSDELL

[Loxborough]

Yeah yeah yeah. If he'd worked for a proper railway company I dare say I would be bothered to get it right. (Ducking for cover).

 

Incidentally, which if the two estimable engineers are you celebrating? Or is it both?

 

George

[Worsdell forever]

All of them, there were quite a few...

[Loxborough]

More hoppers, I promised, and here they come...

 

A pair of 51L offerings. Thgese are billed as P5 but there were virtually extinct by 1937, which is my chosen timeframe. There were, however, still plenty of P17s still around and, if my information is correct, these were pretty much indistinguishable fro P5s until they were altered later in life to give them clasp brakes. (The real difference between the two lay in the underframe)

 

So, a pair of P17s. One painted (with a P17 number and suitably uprated to 12T)  and one on it's way;

 

 

Generally I found these lite to be nicely detailed. They could have done with more bolt details on the outsides and, something which I don't understand (probably because there is something about the manufacturing process that I don't get), no planking detail is provided on the interiors of the sides. Still, no more than 5 minutes with a scalpal and I set that right.

 

Nobody could say, however, that the kits fell together. I enjoyed doing them but I fear that some people, having paid £12.50 for a kit, would not expect to have to do quite so much messing about. Just as an illustration, I couldn't get the brake assembly to go together at all as it was provided and ended up having to do some quite delicate filing; top 'before' and bottom 'after'.

 

 

Perhaps this was operator error and I was being dull about it. Or maybe we are all getting spoilt by the quality and ease of construction of kits nowadays?

 

Anyway, I am enjoying them and have no regrets about having bought them.

 

George

 

[Colin parks]

Hi George,

 

It caught me unawares that you were wagon-bashing again!

 

Nice to see another shot of the brake van. Since my last post, I have discovered that toothpaste (well, certainly Colgate Total!) will remove superglue smears and most likely fogging too. Perhaps it is too late, but a little paste applied with a cotton bud might clear those windows on the brake van.

 

All the best,

 

Colin