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Some initial pictures of my latest scheme. Like most of us modelling fanatics I haven't been idle during the lockdown period! These are strange times indeed and I have no doubt that many of us have worried about income and job security so, with the exception of purchasing a second hand Hornby Q1, I have managed to construct the layout with materials and track I had to hand. Folgate Street is a fictitious slice of third rail London and is an old scheme that has been revamped for the purpose. The original station throat was constructed about 11 years ago and was made at the start of my railway modelling journey. I was still fumbling about at this earlier stage hence the use of Code 100 and Insulfrog points. It was a copy of a throat drawn up by the famous Cyril Freezer. The original layout was actually once used as the basis of my 1984 model (see previous posts) and was gathering dust in a forgotten corner of my loft so I thought I'd put it to good use. The fabulous Hornby Q1. This was picked up cheaply from Hattons. It had a missing sand box and steps which have been knocked up from bits out of the spares box. Despite a thorough wheel clean it runs intermittently and I wonder if has anything to do with the DCC decoder that it is fitted with? I don't need it as I'm analogue and I know they'll run on DC current. If I remove the decoder will I need a blanking plate? - any help would be greatly appreciated as it's a smashing model and it deserves to run properly. The roof is another of my soldered wire schemes - to add a bit of interest I've used a downloadable texture from CG Textures for the roof lights. Note the cardboard strips at the side of the track. These have been made form thin card to replicate the wooden boards used at Southern stations to contain the third rail - they help to hide the absence of insulators and also disguised the oversized profile of Code 100 track. A Hornby 2 HAL emerges from the right hand scenic break. The Lyceum Theatre is a freelance structure made from Scalescenes Textures whilst the buildings on the overbridge are downloaded photographs from CG Textures. These have been layered to give a little relief. The superb Heljan Class 33. The station tower is another freelance structure loosely based on the Towers found at Cannon Street Station. Again, I've used Scalescenes sheets to construct it. The station roof is loosely based on the Suburban station one at the side of Kings Cross Station. Two tracks on a slight incline were added to the front of the original layout to add a bit of operational interest. The signal box gantry, based on the one found at Holborne Viaduct Station over the Widened Lines incline, has been made from Plastruct girders and bits from various Dapol kits. All the signals work apart from the one on the signal box - I think super glue seeped into the fine electrical wires and have caused a short circuit! The 5.5 foot layout is an end to end scheme with a main 5ft long fiddle yard to the right hand side. The half station side is fed from a three foot long 'black box' section during normal operation. I utilised a mirror at this end to lengthen the look of the station for the above photographs. More pics to follow.

It took a while for the early railway companies to decide on the best design for points / switches / turnouts. Personally I've always liked the "stub point" design in which the running rails move to set the road, rather than the typical blades. Perhaps it's a design for sleepy sidings rather than high speed main lines: A broken PECO streamline point seemed an ideal starting point to add a stub point to the layout: Pulling off the blades was therapeutic for the eight seconds it took, and cutting through the running rails was quick and easy with a mini-tool. It's actually a rotary tool used by nail technicians to work on nail extensions. I bought it for around £7 on eBay, and it's been an excellent buy. I hoped a tool designed for work on delicate fingers would be useful for delicate modelling work, and it does have very manageable slow lower speeds. It's the first tool I've had that actually lets me cut and grind rails accurately. I wouldn't want to cut through massive sheets of brass with it, but it's perfect for softer materials. The last few inches of the track before the stub point aren't glued to the baseboard so the flexible track can move from side to side to match up with each road: Control is by a coffer stirrer super-glued to the front sleeper of the flexitrack. I haven't decided whether to power the sidings or use rope shunting, so I'll probably do both. The clearances do look as if they were inspired by Triang Series 3 track. Leaving a couple of centimetres of the blades superglued to the sleepers would produce a more realistic model with less flexitrack movement and smaller gaps between the rails.

Since I've finally finished with the railbus, I put together a quick video looking at the construction in a bit more detail. Not much, but hopefully useful to see how it works!

Today has mostly been tidying up - I've made a roof for the Bagnall out of plastic sheet and strip (some nice therapeutic old-school modelling!), added a whistle, crew, ungummed the buffers, and just generally tidied it up for final assembly. I've also fettled the AEC to make it fit its chassis properly and added a very bored-looking driver!

One idea leads to another; in this case, I have tried extending the idea that I showed in an earlier post of adding cladding to a brass-tube boiler by 3D-printing an outer sleeve. 3D-printed boiler cladding During my early ‘learning curve’ with 3D-printing (i.e. about a year ago), I made some broad-gauge carriages, as described in a short series of blog posts. Printing the complete carriage as a single task had several advantages, such as including internal partitions and seats, but also created difficulties in making window openings and other features on the vertical sides. For the window openings, I had to include support structures which proved quite difficult to remove without leaving rough edges around the windows. 3D-printed Broad Gauge Carriage There is the additional point that each print took about 8 hours to complete, which is a serious deterrent to much experimentation - my preferred method of working. As a result, the completed carriages lacked detail, so one solution that I explored was to use my Silhouette cutter to add outside frames to plain carriage sides, as shown in my Pre-Grouping blog My new ‘cladding’ idea, however, is to add a thin skin to the previously printed carriage body. This ‘skin’ can carry the additional detailing to represent external mouldings and other fittings. My initial experiment was to make a ‘skin’ only 0.5 mm (20 thou) thick, which could be laid flat on the printer bed. With this method, cut-outs for windows could be made with no requirement for any support structures, while slots in the surface could be made to mark the edges of doors. External mouldings could also be extruded, by simply increasing the thickness of the skin in the required locations – again with no need for any support structures. The other major advantage is that a detailed skin of this type prints in a few minutes, so it is easy to correct mistakes and make improvements, without committing to extended time-scales. As usual, there were some lessons to be learned. I made the initial drawings of the carriage side in ‘Autosketch’ and then transferred these to ‘Fusion 360’ in DXF format. I placed the drawing on the horizontal (XY) plane and then extruded the main panels to a depth of 0.5 mm, excluding the window areas and door edges and mouldings. After this first extrusion, I selected each of the door edges and extruded these by only 0.25 mm, so that they were recessed below the main surface. In a similar way, I extruded the mouldings by 0.75 mm, to raise them above the panels. 3D-model for side overlay For the louvres above the doors, I raised each rectangle and then applied the ‘chamfer’ tool to achieve the required angle of each louvre individually. chamfered louvres above window My first print, which took about 9 minutes, showed that some of my details, especially the raised mouldings, were too fine to appear in the final print. In fact, I should have used the pre-view facility in the ‘Cura’ slicing software, which would have warned me that this was going to happen. It is all too easy to draw details that are too small to be realised by my printer, in which the print head has a diameter of 0.4 mm. It is interesting to note that narrow slots (0,25 mm), as at the edges of doors, do appear but similarly-sized raised features do not appear. Modifying the drawing meant that I had to get to grips with the drawing tools in ‘Fusion 360’, which are broadly similar to those in ‘Autosketch’ but with some key differences. One important aspect when creating drawings in a 3D program is that you have to decide in which plane the drawing is required to appear. This can sometimes be tricky, especially after the initial drawing has been extruded to create new surfaces above the original plane. The first action, when entering ‘drawing mode’ is to select the drawing plane. By selecting the top surface of the carriage side, I could draw new profiles for the arc-shaped mouldings at each end of the carriage. I could then extrude these new sections by 0.25 mm above the top surface, to match the original mouldings (which had been extruded by 0.75 mm from the original drawing plane). It is essential to keep a clear head when making these modifications! For the straight side-mouldings, I used a different method by selecting the vertical edges of the moulding, where they rise above the carriage side. The ‘Move’ tool can then be used to move these edges in order to increase the width of the mouldings to a printable size. Changing the width of a moulding After making these changes, I transferred the 3D model to ‘Cura’ and this time, I remembered to use the ‘Preview’ mode, to check that the details would actually print! I also set the line-width to 0.3 mm, even though my print head is 0.4 mm diameter. This can improve the smoothness of very thin panels like these. I suspect this is because the nozzle is circular, so that a rectangular grid of lines benefits from slightly closer spacing between successive passes of the print-head. All looked good in the pre-view, so I proceeded to another print, which again took only a few minutes to complete. When printing these very thin ‘skins’, the ‘Cura’ software automatically produces frames around the window openings and the edges of the sides, which, in the case of the windows, provides a fair representation of the bolections. The main panels are very thin indeed and peel off the printer bed like plastic tape but I found they were sufficiently robust to resist tearing. Peeling side-skin off printer bed I smeared some PVA adhesive on the original carriage side and carefully laid my new cladding in alignment with the existing window openings, which already had the droplights represented. Since I had previously sprayed the carriage body with red primer, the droplights automatically appeared in a suitable red colour. As early GWR carriages were painted brown overall, the final painting job was very straight-forward. Although diagonal lines from the printing process were visible on the surfaces of the printed panels, these were sufficiently fine to cease being noticeable under a coat of paint. Skin applied to Carriage Body I shall continue to experiment with different parameters for the printing process and, if making new carriages, I would make the original sides a little thinner, to allow a thicker surface skin to be applied without increasing the overall thickness by too much. I think my present skins are on the limit of what my current printer can reasonably accomplish. Mike

I’m currently pondering what colour I should use for the body of my Broad Gauge ‘Rob Roy’. References to the colour originally used on Broad Engines declare it to have been ‘Holly Green’ but opinions differ on what shade that name represents. According to Christopher Awdry’s book: ‘Brunel’s Broad Gauge Railway’, the Boiler Cladding was ‘Holly Green (Dark Blue/Green)’ until 1881, after which ‘Chrome Green’ was adopted. (he quotes the Broad Gauge Society as the source of this information). It interests me to observe that the ‘GWR Wolverhampton Green’ is also frequently described as a ‘blue/green’ hue, so might the original Broad Gauge colour have been more akin to this Wolverhampton colour than we now realise? I found some support for this view from an unexpected source. The ‘new’ Great Western railway franchise adopted a new corporate livery in 2015, which is claimed to have been based on the original Broad Gauge engine colour - see https://www.pentagram.com/work/great-western-railway-1/story for more information. I quote: "A bespoke paint has been created for train liveries based on the original ‘dark holly green’ used on the first GWR locomotives." What the sources for the chosen colour were is not revealed but it seems very unlikely that the present colour has anything to do with the original Victorian pigments. The ‘new’ GWR colour is defined in the Wikipedia UK Railways/Colours list as #0a493e, which can also de defined as RGB= 10, 73, 62 or HSL= 170°, 86%, 29% When I place this colour against the GWR Chrome Green colour described on the GWR Modelling website the result is somewhat startling. Were early GWR engines really this blue? One point to consider is the effect of ‘brightness’ on the perceived hue. As I explain on my website about colour perception , the human concept of colour can be divided into ‘colour’ and ‘brightness’ (or ‘luminosity’). If we maintain a constant ‘colour’ but vary the brightness, perception of the colour can vary considerably, as shown below: To my eyes, at least, the colour does appear more definitely ‘green’ as the luminosity decreases and all the reports of early engine colours agree that they were darker than the later chrome green. Another colour to consider is the modern interpretation of ‘Holly Green’, described as British Standard BS 4800 14 C 39 - Holly green / Hollybush / #435d50 Hex Colour Code. (RGB= 26, 36, 31). The ‘Encycolorpedia’ website also shows the effect of variations, as shown below, which confirms that darker colours tend to look more green. Finally, I went out into my garden, where there is a real Holly tree, and photographed some leaves, together with seasonal berries. These leaves have a greater green content than the various ‘official’ colours and I find their colour rather pleasing. I thought I’d see what this colour looks like when applied (by Photoshop) to my (still unfinished) model: In the end, I shall probably look along the array of ‘rattle cans’ in the local motorists shop and make a personal choice, relying on the fact that no-one will be able to contradict me with any confidence. Mike

I thought it was about time that I finished my Dean Goods, so here it is virtually done. It has taken an awfully long time to do, although in fairness it has been resting untouched for long periods while I worked on other projects. The loco has the original twin flywheel Oxford mechanism that came with the lined pre-grouping version. Mine is a very smooth runner, which is why I found the project worthwhile in the first place. Indeed I've bought another one at a sale, which also runs very well. Below is a summary of the main steps since the first post on the project, with some further photos of the completed item towards the end. Cab The cab floor and interior splashers were built up from styrene. A cut-out was required in order to clear the motor when fitting the body. The cab detail is a bit quick and dirty. I found a backhead in the spares box, spruced it up a bit and moved it 0.5 mms into the cab to clear the motor. It’s too low, but don’t tell anyone. The raised floor section in the right hand side of the cab can be seen on No. 2516 at Steam, but I’m not sure if it was there in the 1900s? According to Martin Finney, cab seats were a later feature so I didn’t fit any. Brassmasters have some lovely Finney fittings for the cab, but I wanted to save my pennies, so modified the Oxford lever and springs to look a bit more accurate. The cab side beading was made from 5 thou strips, cut on my Portrait and curved gently with my warm and healing fingers. Stuck down with Limonene and secured by rolling a brush handle against it. Further beading and handrails were made from wire. The cab roof was built up with four laminated layers, here are the first two (10 + 5 thou). And the uppermost two (2 x 5 thou). The join between cab and boiler was also built up piecemeal, very close to the spectacles as per my prototype. Fittings Handrails were fitted using my well established formula: "Measure once, drill thrice !". Boiler washout plugs from Coast Line Models. Alan appears to have temporarily withdrawn these, I hope they’ll return. I fashioned a new reversing lever, and fitted a loco jack from the Broad Gauge Society. Photos of the uprights on which loco jacks were mounted during this period are rare, here's a crop from an image I found (left). Also a standing version, which I suspect was an earlier arrangement. The curvy “piano lid” cylinder cover was a feature of some locos during the short smokebox period. They were sometimes left in open position while running! Fittings on the smokebox side were cobbled up from bits of brass. Chassis The loco chassis required very little modification, which means it can be easily replaced in case of a major failure. However, an indication of the ash pan and nearby components was needed. So I nicked Coachmann’s idea and made a simple screw-on unit. Later the ashpan was painted and Archer's rivets applied. Tender The Oxford tender is generally a good representation of the 2500 gallon variant, but various mods were needed to backdate it to 1900s condition. First, the fenders were cut off using a scalpel, and the area was filed clean. The protecting plates at the rear and front were too high for my 1900s prototype, and were therefore filed down to appropriate height and shape. I left the casing for the water filler untouched. Subsequent discussions suggest that the shape may have been different during this period - but I will leave it for now. Next up were the coal rails. I first tried cutting some 10 thou Evergreen on my Silhouette cutter. It looks OK here, but as might be expected it was just too flimsy. Instead I used wire from Eileen’s Emporium, halfround as per the prototype. I considered soldering but thought the joints might come undone every time I applied heat, so used epoxy. The result is quite solid. The uprights were fitted into holes just inside the flare of the tender sides, taking care not to break through the sides. I think the top rail sits a trifle high. Ah well. Photos suggest that most of the fittings at the front of the Oxford tender are not appropriate for my period. Replacement toolboxes and air vents from Brassmasters (ex-Finney) were fitted. Maybe the latter should be smaller on a 2500G tender, not sure. Sandboxes were cobbled together from bits of styrene. The front steps of the early 2500g tenders had an inward curve. A couple of round files solved this. The plastic protects the chassis from metal dust. Here is the result. The finished tender (less brake gear). Loco and modified tender. Painting and lining The loco in primer. After recovering from an "orange peel" disaster I got the paint job done. The green is Vallejo 70.850 with a touch of black (5:1), the red is 70.814. Lining was done with HMRS Pressfix transfers. One side done. The triple panels on the tender were tricky. Halfway through I ran out of lining, and discovered that new HMRS lining sheets are a different colour from the older ones. The samples above show the old sheet, and three new sheets. The latter came directly from the HMRS, whose own illustration still shows the older shade. A Fox sheet is also featured. In the end I cobbled together the remaining lining from an old sheet, using 26 pieces for one cabside . It does show in places. Final details Cab windows were made by filing and sanding the teeth off watchmaker's cogs. The glazing was cut on my Silhouette cutter. Not perfect, but I can live with it. Bit of fun: The Oxford model comes with a choice of coarse or fine screw link couplings (bottom two). I modified mine by adding a “Tommy bar” (top), fashioned from a part that I found in my box of watchmaker’s spares. A last few shots of the loco. Photos of 2487 and some other Dean Goods shows the safety valve slightly off-set from the center of the boiler band, so I copied that. Annoyingly I forgot to add the safety valve lever. Too late now, I can't get in there to fit it properly. The big compromise is the seam line in the boiler, although I only notice it from certain angles. I had planned to distract from the join by carrying the lining all round, but experiments showed that it had the opposite effect, so I left it off. Were I to do it again I would give more attention to matching the angles of the two edges as they meet, which could have been better. Still, I'm happy enough with it. The short smokebox and piano-lid cylinder cover makes it a bit different from available kit versions. No other comparison intended! So that's about it. Loco lamps and crew are on the workbench, and I need to fit couplings bars between the buffers. I also need some work plates, the one seen here is a stand-in of unknown origin. Does anyone know a source of 4mm works plates?

I joined my grand-children for a visit to ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ at Didcot Railway Centre on 7th October. During the afternoon, I slipped away for a while, for a look inside the Broad Gauge shed. Fire Fly replica at Didcot After my exploration of early valve gears, while working on my 'Waverley' model, I decided to look at some gear 'in the flesh', so to speak, since I find it hard to read engineering drawings sufficiently well to get a real 'feel' for the hardware,. It's always a bit of a shock to make the transition from tiny slivers of brass and strands of wire, to the reality of 12" to the foot scale. Those tiny levers and shafts turn into rather hefty lumps of iron. As someone once commented "real valve gear ain't so dainty" It seems a pity that this splendid replica locomotive, which I watched having so much care and attention lavished upon it, now seems to be left at the exposed end of its shed, where corrosion and accumulation of debris are taking their toll. As my photos show, there are various old cans amongst the motion, which may be covering various oil cups, as well as providing homes for several spiders, with their extensive webs. I've not tried to use Photoshop to clean-up the artefacts, in case I falsify some hidden components. To start with a drawing: 'Fire Fly' has gab motion, which is clearly derived from the layout used by Stephenson on 'North Star'. There are three transverse shafts, the central one being called the 'weigh bar' which carries the levers that operate the valves, and two others, arranged to raise and lower the gabs so as to obtain either forward or reverse gear. EDIT 11th.Oct. - I have cleaned up this drawing a little, to clarify the linkages to the gabs and forks, while removing some extraneous lines. This has made it clear that the reverse eccentrics are towards the outsides of the engine and the forward eccentrics towards the centre. Fire Fly valve gear The drawing shows the arrangement, which ensures that, when the reversing lever is operated, one set of gabs is lowered and the other is raised, to engage the valve operating mechanism. The large forks guide the gabs into position, removing the need for manual alignment of these parts. The three transverse shafts are marked in red. Turning to my photos of the Didcot replica: a lot of the details are hidden by the frames, since the photos were all taken from the platform alongside the locomotive. These views are from the right-hand side (RHS) of the locomotive, with the wooden boiler cladding visible at the top of each frame. The forward eccentrics (with the gabs engaged) are near the centre-line of the locomotive. Each side of the two-cylinder engine has the motion for its cylinder carried between bearings mounted on two frames, so that there are four frames across the whole width of the engine. Achieving precise alignment of all the bearings in these four frames must be a critical assembly task. The use of these multiple frames does, however, reduce the load on each frame and this helps understanding why they look somewhat insubstantial, in comparison with later plate frames. I found it was very useful to see how the transverse shafts are supported in bearings carried on shaped pedestals above the frames. The bearings themselves are then held by keepers, with adjustment bolts. A horizontal view across the width of the engine shows the shafts running through the bearings on every frame. In between, the tips of the forks which 'grab' the valve rods when the appropriate gear is engaged can just be seen, although the main rods from the forward eccentrics, with their gabs (notches) are unfortunately hidden. A more oblique view taken from near the front right-hand side of the locomotive shows the layout of the linkage to the valves more clearly. The arched bracings between the inner and outer frames on each side are also seen, as well as the means of attachment of the frames to the rear side of the smokebox. My last photo is a view looking back along the engine, with the somewhat rusty big end visible on the crank axle. I hope that others will find these views helpful, in gaining an understanding of the layout of early valve gears. Mike

I make no secret of the fact that I find it hard to keep up momentum once I’ve completed the main structure of an engine and have to think about adding the various small details. Gooch Goods ‘Tantalus’ – bare bones One particular irritation with my Gooch Goods was that there were some things that I could easily have included in the main 3D-printed components but had neglected to do so. This was largely because, like most of my projects, it was experimental in that I was exploring new methods of construction. In fact, I had found a simple and sturdy method to construct the engine around a brass tube for the boiler barrel. When it was pointed out that the external dimensions of the boiler should include the thickness of the cladding, I simply added a 3D-printed sleeve, which also carried details such as the boiler bands. Since then, I have found some text about boiler cladding in an early book about locomotive construction: ‘Railway Machinery’ by D.K. Clark (1855) “Cleading [sic]. The boiler should be completely enveloped, at all approachable points, in a non-conducting garment, consisting of several plies of felt, covered with ¾ inch pine battens grooved and tongued, and finished with sheet iron, No. 17 wire gauge, strapped well down.” This text indicates that, in the early days, the cladding was rather thin and that its main purpose seems to be have been to protect personnel, rather than reducing thermal losses. Another surprising statement from the same book is: “There should not be any brass ornamental work about locomotives; as, to appear well, it requires continual cleaning.” It seems that, as early as 1855, cleaning was beginning to be considered an unnecessary expense! Detail Painting One advantage from having built my boiler with removable cladding is that I could paint the brass fillets, at the firebox and smokebox ends, with no risk of over-spill of paint onto the cladding! One of the many ‘fiddly’ details to be attended to was painting the ‘bright-work’. Fortunately, I still have steady hands, although I need to work under an illuminated magnifier to be able to see the details clearly, as shown in the photo below. Credit must also go to my excellent Winsor & Newton series 7 brushes, that maintain the fine tips that are essential to be able to place paint accurately. I used to prefer enamel paints for models but now find that acrylics have advantages, although they have to be used in a different way – more like water colour painting. The important thing is to keep the brush suitably moist from a clean pot of water to hand. I then add pigment to the tip of the brush and sweep it across the surfaces, making sure that they stay moist. Keeping the surface wet, I add pigment until the depth of colour is sufficient. The ‘Rustoleum’ ‘Dark Green’ I used is a water-based paint and I added black to achieve my required tint. It seems strange that the colour, as I perceive it, appears to become less blue as I add black! As I mentioned in my post about ‘Rob Roy’, I find the colour feels ‘right’ to me for early GWR locomotives, although it is very different from the later chrome green. For comparison, I photographed one of my Gooch boilers, painted in my interpretation of ‘Holly Green’, placed in front of my ‘1854’-class saddle tank painted in ‘Precision Paints’ 1881-1906 GWR Green.: I also used acrylic paint for the outside splashers on the goods engine, which have half-etched central recesses between the upper and lower edge beading. These are components from the Broad Gauge Society (BGS) kit for the Gooch Goods and I found it easier to paint this detail while the frames were still on the fret, as shown below: Adding details An important omission in my initial construction was that I failed to add a plinth for the safety-valve cover on the top of the firebox. It was a new challenge to work out how to add this feature on top of the curved surface of the firebox. The method I devised, using ‘Fusion 360’ software, was to create an ‘offset plane’ at an appropriate distance above the crown of the firebox cladding. I then drew a square (using ‘sketch’ mode) on this plane and used the ‘push/pull’ tool to extrude this square to meet the curved surface of the firebox. Finally, I used the ‘hole’ tool, to make a central hole to accept the spigot on the base of my lost-wax casting of the safety-valve cover. My method is illustrated by the screen-shot from ‘Fusion 360’, shown below: Because of my modular method of construction, it would have been easy to replace the original firebox with this revised version, although I had already completed some tricky painting of the original firebox, including the polished brass trim. When I added this extra plinth, however, ‘Fusion 360’ offered the option to make the feature a new ‘body’. This new body could be separated from the original firebox and exported as a separate file for 3D-printing. I was somewhat sceptical that such a small item would print successfully but decided to have a go. Considering that my ‘Geeetech E180’ printer is an inexpensive machine, I was pleasantly surprised by the result. Two adjustments to my usual print routine helped to capture the detail: Firstly, I selected ‘extra fine’ in the ‘Cura’ slicing software, which reduces the layer height to 0.06 mm and, secondly, I reduced the ‘line width’ to 0.3 mm. The ‘help’ information in ‘Cura’ suggests that, even though my printer nozzle is 0.4 mm in diameter, there can be an advantage in selecting a smaller line-width and this appears to have been borne out in practice, as shown below. These changes extend the printing time by at least a factor of two but, for small items like these, the time is still only a matter of a few minutes. These plinths are suitable for both my ‘Rob Roy’ and ‘Tantalus’ models. After cleaning up the stray bits of filament, I painted the plinths by threading them on to a cocktail stick then brushing all the exposed surfaces. Engines Compared As I stated at the beginning of this post, the aim of my models is to capture an overall impression of the prototype, rather than the small details. Apart from a few replicas, the Broad Gauge is well beyond the memory of any living persons, so making models that help me to appreciate the ‘look and feel’ of the period is my strongest motivation. In the case of my current models: the Waverley-class ‘Rob Roy’ and the Goods engine ‘Tantalus’, I have been struck by the difference in ‘grandeur’ of the two designs, despite the fact that they both carry the same type of boiler. Two factors strike me as important: the more obvious being the size of the exposed driving wheels on ‘Rob Roy’, which conveys an immediate impression of power and speed. As a consequence of these large wheels, the boiler had to be pitched considerably higher on this engine than on the smaller wheeled Goods engine and this second factor adds to the imposing impression given by the express engine. In fact, the difference seemed so marked, when I first placed the models together, that I made copies of the relevant drawings and placed them head-to-head, in order to confirm that my impression from the models is correct. Drawings Comparison – Waverley class and Gooch Goods And below, a similar comparison between my two models: Waverley 4-4-0 and Gooch Goods compared Not complete yet, I fear, but I’m pleased to see that the broad outlines reflect some of the ‘spirit’ of the prototypes My model of a Gooch Standard Goods Two sprues of lost wax casting for lamps, whistles, and injectors have just arrived from the Broad Gauge Society, so my next task will be to add these small fittings. I also have a nickel-silver fret for coupling rods and some valve gear parts. Mike

Heljan to my knowledge have produced three models of D1000 Western Enterprise painted in its experimental Desert Sand livery. Heljan model number 5204 represented the prototype when it first emerged from Swindon Works in 1961 with no warning panels. Heljan 5213 had small yellow warning panels as applied in November 1962. Both 5204 and 5213 had a satin varnish finish. Heljan 5221 also had small yellow panels but it had a gloss coated ‘ex works’ finish. When the opportunity presented itself I would buy Heljan 5213 - D1000 Western Enterprise, with small yellow panel. This would be my second Heljan 5213. My first was purchased in 2010 when the model was introduced and subsequently replaced in 2012 with Heljan 5204 – with no yellow panels. Heljan 5213, 2012 sales listing My 5213 models appear to have had a couple of manufacturing issues. I think they would have been made around the time that Heljan was transferring production to China. Firstly the body shell can be difficult to clip on to the chassis and secondly the shades of Desert Sand on the bodyshell, front valance and around the fuel tanks are all different. Might this be why I parted so readily with my first model? (A search for images of Heljan 5213 on the internet provides further confirmation of these issues.) With the bodyshell removed it was evident that the plastic cover for the wiring to the front lights was not sitting flat. This plate presses against the underside of the cab seating unit and hence keeps the bodyshell and chassis apart. (The seating unit appears to be a clip fit to the cab side glazing.) Heljan 5213, raised plastic cover to front wiring Heljan 5213, seating unit Heljan 5213, excess glue to front wiring The plastic cover can be prised off and in my case revealed surplus glue around the wiring. My glue was soft and could be peeled away to allow the plastic cover a better fit. I was not totally convinced that I had sorted this issue and so I also filed away some of the plastic from beneath the seating unit. I had a better fit. Heljan 5213, underside of seating unit My latest purchase seemed to have three different shades of Desert Sand, the front valance and around the fuel tanks. looking to have different amounts of red colouring compared to each other and to the bodyshell. I don’t know what shade is correct – if any. However since the fuel tank and valances are removable I set myself the challenge of recolouring those parts to match the bodyshell. As a starting point I bought some Desert Sand from Phoenix Precision Paints. Heljan 5213, as first out of the box on my layout with red shading on the lower parts Shades of Desert Sand, Heljan 5204 left, Heljan 5213 right, Phoenix Precision Paint front valance right The Precision Paint was to my mind too light compared to the bodyshell and I set about making it darker. I had pots of Phoenix GWR locomotive green, orange lining and black. Over a period of a few days I mixed proportions of these colours and painted test strips on the old lids of cream cheese cartons and on an old CD case. Samples and Mixes I thought I had a solution simply by adding black and went ahead and repainted all the offending parts. I was particularly pleased to be able to expose the white battery box tabs with a cocktail stick whilst the paint was still drying. However I was not convinced about the outcome! Heljan 5204 back, 5213 front , lower body repainted with Phoenix Precision Paints Desert Sand with added Black The removable parts had now had two coats of paint with a third in the offing. The moulded detail was fast disappearing. I had previously researched removing enamel paint from plastic and had bought a bottle of Dettol. I had spare front valances and I used these to trial the process. Placing the painted plastic in a solution of one part Dettol and one part water for around one hour worked a ‘treat’. The fresh paint disintegrated, the underlying old paint softened and was brushed off with a toothbrush under running water. I took the plunge and placed the fuel tanks in a measuring cylinder of my Dettol solution and left them for an hour. Fuel tanks soaking in Dettol solution, one part Dettol, one part water, for one hour Again the recent paint could be washed off whilst the underlying older paint needed some encouragement. I did use some white spirit to remove the final traces of old paint and the underlying black plastic moulding whilst undamaged did develop some white patches. Detail items after soaking with Dettol and brushing in running water. Paint residue on the fuel tanks was removed with a little white spirit Back to more paint samples and this time I made a mix of five parts Desert Sand, two parts orange lining and two parts GWR green. In certain lights it was nearly very good! Now what about the white tabs on the battery boxes? Plan A involved purchasing a white fine liner. I sourced a Uni Posca white paint marker with a 0.7mm tip. It was nearly very good and would draw a permanent fine white painted line on a painted or plastic surface. The problem that I had was that the nib has to be pressed down at the start of drawing and this produces a rush of paint /small blob. Perhaps in more skilled hands this could be controlled. For writing and general art work it would not be an issue but for highlighting discrete items such as the battery box tabs the pen did not appear suitable. I noted that the white paint whilst ‘permanent’ could be removed using white spirit before it had completely dried. uni POSCA fineliner, 0.7mm tip Plan B, I had some surplus Railtec water slide transfers for smoke box numbers. The number ‘1s’ were a perfect match for the white tabs. I don’t have much success at fixing water slide transfers and in this instance I finished off by applying a coat of slightly thinned Humbrol Satin Cote. I must have been lucky as nothing moved! Smoke box door ‘1s’ used for the white battery box tabs Something else that Heljan got wrong was the size of the Western Enterprise name plates. The Heljan printed plates are too small. In myBlog Post in November 2019 https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/22891-enterprising-plates-–Heljan-westerns/ I described fitting correct size C.G.W. plates and Crests to Heljan model 5204 – with no yellow panel. This time around I went to ‘Shawplan’, and their range of ‘Extreme Etchings’. (Interestingly Brian at Extreme Etchings tells me that he owns the C.G.W. range.) D1000 Western Enterprise (Heljan 5213) with plates and Crests from Extreme Etchings Brian also said that Extreme Etchings use a two stage process which results in a three dimensional etch. I was impressed. I think the crests from Extreme Etchings are in a higher league compared to the earlier two dimensional offering from C.G.W. A comparison, C.G.W crest to the fore, Extreme Etchings at the rear I have not acheived a perfect colour match. The various body parts seem to change colour with different lighting conditions (and monitors). The body shell is moulded in red plastic whilst the removeable parts are black plastic. I think that could be part of the problem. Heljan 5213 etched crests and plates from Extreme Etchings, lower body repainted Heljan 5213 etched crests and plates from Extreme Etchings, lower body repainted Heljan 5213 etched crests and plates from Extreme Etchings, lower body repainted I still think a good outcome and the Heljan model does run superbly. There is a video on YouTube prior to adding white to the battery boxes. And another on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/2jbu88L

Mike Edge has been busy producing a "Super 40" for use on Carlisle. It is very, very heavy and has the "Co" bits on both bogies driven. My task..fit sound and "gentle" weathering Sound.. Easy peasy as there is enough room to ge a Legomanbiffo Loksound V5 in and a speaker as well with no hacking or bodging to get it to fit! Then a picture of a close sister engine (D335..this one is D334) in "Diesels on the London Midland"by Michael Welch gave a good starting point and side on.. Now back to Mike to refit some windows... Baz

After a delay while I ordered some suitable brass tube, I've finally added the front splashers. I didn't fancy trying to bore these out of brass bar, and in any case didn't have any of large enough diameter. Instead, I had the idea of using brass tube. First step was to solder a sheet of 5 thou brass to the end. This was then cut as close to the tube as possible with a Stanley knife. Then, it was chucked up in the lathe and turned down to the correct diameter, which was slightly less than the 1/2 inch of the K&S brass tube. This left quite a thin top to the splasher (also about 5 thou), but thick enough. The resulting hollow cylinder was parted off carefully with a parting tool. I made life tedious for myself by leaving the splasher rather over-width, mainly because I had no definite measurements for the width. This just meant additional filing later. The two splashers were then carefully cut from the same part using the piercing saw. (Apologies - I thought I had taken a photo of it at that stage!). The next photo shows my crude method for holding them in place for soldering, using a sliver of balsa from underneath. I actually cut off most of the balsa so that I could sit the loco upright on the bench, and then used a cocktail stick to hold the splasher from the top while bringing in the iron. One of them soldered on first time, and the other one came apart (Sod's law), necessitating a repair before trying again. I just about got away with it! Doing things properly I should have used different temperature solders, but I didn't have them. Here's one of the finished items. A bit of filler is needed at the tank end where too much of the thin front has broken away. I don't want to risk filling it with solder!

Having largely sorted the intermediate station, still with no name, I decided to give it a while before ordering the turnouts. This would be where the first spike would be driven so I wanted to be reasonably sure I was happy with it. Almost immediately a sense of, I don't know, not so much doom but something that made me feel a bit uneasy. Long story short, it became increasingly clear that what had started out as an exercise in creating a layout with a decent scenic area for trains to run through, had grown arms and legs until it was effectively two decent sized stations taking up two sides of the room and the anxiety of a) building it, and b) operating it started to build again, which was the main driver for abandoning the previous project and going down this road the first place. Whilst the vast majority of the layout was on show, as was the intention, I'd suffered from mission creep. The largish terminus is fine, but what started out as a small intermediate station now took up a disproportionate size of the other long wall, not to mention what would be required to work it. A rethink was in order. The result is attached. A long sweeping single track run from the fiddle yard, along the long wall across the doorway and into a hidden section a little longer than maximum train length. I was struggling with what to do with that left wall. Access is required for the gas boiler, so the curve had to be as compact as possible leading into St Catherine's Bay, which means the approach to St Catherine's Bay is by necessity quite short. By blocking off that section of the left wall, a train can depart SCB, and if desired be held out of sight, to give the feeling of time passing, before entering the scenic run and off scene;p all this whilst shunting elsewhere on the layout or assembling a train in the fiddle yard. The same would apply for trains heading to SCB. I think it's a decent trade off to have that short section of track hidden and to have the rest of the layout opened up to have a nice sweeping run through the landscape. The small branch terminus has now been moved from in front of the fiddle yard to in front of the mainline, and 3.75" below, a scale 46ft. I still need to come up with a plausible explanation as to why the BLT is there with a mainline thundering past it without serving it. The obvious answer may be that the main line was built some time after the branch. I also need to work out what the geology and contour lines would look like The layout of the BLT remains similar to the original copy of St Cyrus with the addition of a short siding next to the loco release in the goods yard. The two sidings on the left, one for Milk Loading and one for the goods shed, is inspired loosely by CDGFife of this parish Cadhay Sidings. This new arrangement feels so much better already, but I will get into the train room and mock things up, and sleep on it over the weekend to make sure. There comes a point where we have to put the track planning tools down and start to build something...

The next task was to fix the boiler/smokebox assembly to the chassis. Before doing so, I made a chunk of brass to fill the inside of the smokebox saddle, with the aim of giving something to tap a hole into for the chassis fixing screw. I initially intended to make this from insulating material, but didn't have any "engineering plastic" of a large enough size. I tried to make it from a lump of tufnol, but I realised that the space is actually pretty small, so opted to go for brass in the end as something more solid. I first cut a rectangular piece, filed it to size, then filed the seat for the boiler with a round file. (Apologies, I didn't remember to take a photo of this!). At this point I began a somewhat trying phase. Firstly. the saddle was soldered inside the smokebox, but the smokebox front shifted slightly in the process. On trying to fix that, the whole smokebox came off. So I had to clean it up and solder it all together again. Once I had this all attached, I did my best to file the base so that it sat flat on the footplate. But when I soldered the whole thing to the footplate, I found that the footplate was bent upward at the front, suggesting I had filed too much off the smokebox saddle. So it came off again and I inserted some shims of brass underneath, which then had to be cleaned up. Eventually I ended up as you see here. In this shot, the boiler has also been soldered to the tanks and cab front, and the excess solder cleaned up as best as I could. Next job was to drill various holes. Here you can see me drilling the chassis fixing hole through the smokebox saddle, from underneath. The footplate valance was useful for sitting on the jaws of the machine vice. I progressively drilled out the hole to 1mm, then used a pin vice to tap it by hand for the 12BA fixing screw. The next photo shows me drilling the holes on top of the boiler for the boiler "furniture". I measured them from the drawing. Somehow the hole for the chimney wandered to one side a bit on the initial 0.5mm drilling, but I was then able to drift it to central when drilling out to a larger radius. (I forget what radius - I'll need to determine this when I come to make the chimney!). The final step was to drill the holes for the handrail knobs in the smokebox and boiler side. This was also done on the Proxxon by holding the body sideways in the vice - I never have much luck drilling small (0.3mm) holes by hand! Here are some top and bottom views of the model in its current state. In the underside view I've left the body-to-chassis fixing screw standing proud. The screw at the rear end attaches the motor mount, and doesn't fix the body. I'm hopeful that a single screw will be sufficient.

There are lots of different plants, shrubs and bushes that tend to thrive on railway embankments, particularly in the years since steam ceased to operate. Embankments were managed in steam days to reduce the risk of fires, with the advent of diesel traction they were almost left to grow wild. Electrification has seen much of the wild growth being cut back presumably to give better access to install the gantries and maintain them. So taking none of this into account I decided to add a couple of very representative examples of flora often seen whatever the era i.e. brambles and rosebay willow herb. The brambles are the easiest. Good old rubberised horsehair, teased out gives a good impression of rambling bramble growth. Dabbed with pva in the fashion I described in my earlier blog (on making a tree for the rockface) scatter can be applied to represent the leaves. A good blob of pva onto the grass, place the bramble bush on top and apply a small weight on top until the glue has set, job done. Rosebay willow herb and other tall flowering plants are a bit more complex but not difficult, just a little patience is required. Unfortunately though I forgot to photograph the process so a description will have to suffice until I make another batch. 1. The stems are soft brush bristles and I take between 2 - 5 bristles, pinch them near one end and apply a small blob of pva on the end. they are then placed on a piece of polythene to dry. For this project I made 10 of these bunches 2. Once dry they are removed from the polythene, usually a finger nail will easily break any bond with the polythene. 3. Get some green static grass of your choice ready and then with a small brush apply some pva from the base of each bristle to approx half the length. 4. Take a pinch of static grass between your fingers and dab it gently onto the pva, the grass will stick at lots of different angles. Set aside to dry on the polythene again. 5. Once dry, put some green scatter into a small pot. With the small brush dab some pva to the static grass and dip into the scatter. Set aside on the polythene again to dry. 6. When dry put some red/purple scatter into a small pot. Apply a small blob of pva just above the green scatter and lightly brush pva along the rest of each bristle. Dip the bristles into the coloured scatter. Set aside once again to dry. 7. Plant your Rosebay Willow Herb in clumps. In this instance I made a hole in the base with a cocktail stick for each plant and fixed it with a blob of, yes you've guessed it, pva. A view of the finished diorama Something a little more ambitious (and larger) next.

After printing my 1854 Composite body and its chassis, described in my previous posts, I turned my attention to making the very similar 2nd class carriage, built to an 1857 design. Model conversion to 2nd class carriage The prototype had the same overall dimensions as the Composite, so I decided to see if I could easily ‘convert’ my computer model into this different type. In essence, all that needed to be changed were the window locations and the compartment partitions. 2nd class BG Carriage from 1857 To my relief (and some surprise), this proved remarkably easy to achieve, when using Fusion 360. This software keeps a record of each stage in the development of a model, so I could go back into my design, to the point before I added windows and partitions to my original carriage body. From that point, I could bring up my 2D drawing of the 2nd class carriage side and ‘paste’ it onto the side of the 3D drawing. Next, I could simply use the ‘push-pull’ command to open up the window openings on both sides of the carriage. I followed up by repeating the ‘push-pull’ operation on the window frames but only inset these by 0.5mm from the outer faces of each side of the carriage. To make the partitions, I drew rectangles on the carriage floor, spanning the interior of the carriage and of 1mm width. I placed these rectangles at each partition location and then used the ‘push-pull’ tool to raise them to the height of the carriage sides. A simple operation, as all the partitions can be selected and extruded as a group. I saved the revised model and exported it as an STL file, for use by my 'Cura' slicer software to convert it into GCODE for my 3D printer. The actual build process was then simply to copy the GCODE onto an SD card for the printer and press the ‘print’ button. BG 2nd class Carriage Model Following my experience with the solid seats in my Composite carriage, which took a very long time to print, I reduced the ‘infill’ setting to 20%, which caused the 'Cura' software to build up the seats with an open grid structure, as shown below: Carriage Seats with 20% Infill Printing problems Fortunately, I stayed with the printer, to watch the operation, and soon noticed that the model was lifting from the printer bed at one end. This was a surprise, after having completed several successful prints, when the adhesion to the bed was, if anything, too firm! I had, however, noticed that the first layer of the ‘Brim’ around my recent models seemed to print more firmly at one side than the other and had made some very small alterations to the bed-levelling screws, to see if that would even things up. It seemed to have done so but, at the same time, my adjustment had decreased adhesion at the opposite side of the bed. This brought home the lesson that bed-levelling is critical to obtaining uniform adhesion over the whole area of the model. I suspect this factor is made more critical by the fact that my E180 printer uses an un-heated bed. This problem led me to undertake a very careful re-adjustment of all the levelling screws. The first stage is to select the centre adjustment, which is done electronically from the touch-panel. The bed height can be moved in 0.05mm steps until the print head just ‘grabs’ a sheet of file paper, slid across the bed. E180 Touch Screen Levelling Controls After that, the print head is moved to the four corner locations, in turn, and the levelling screws adjusted until the sheet of paper is grabbed to the same extent as at the centre. To do this accurately needs several iterations because, obviously, raising the bed at one side tends to tilt it, so affecting other points. After a couple of ‘laps’ of all the screws, the paper ‘grab’ felt the same at every point, including the centre. I was pleased to find that this cured the adhesion problem on subsequent prints. I shall now make a point of checking the level adjustments before each print-job, since it may well vary when a new layer of masking tape is applied to the bed. Another ‘lesson learned’. Carriage Build Since I noticed the lack of adhesion very early in the printing process, I used adhesive tape to hold down the loose end and continued printing. I was surprised to observe that, although the first few layers had been skewed, the printer was able to recover and laid down even layers for the rest of the model. This allowed me to check that all the ‘new’ features of this carriage printed successfully – the window apertures all opened-out correctly and the partitions were of adequate strength. The floor of the model, however was distorted at the loose end. First (distorted) Print of 2nd class Carriage I could still use this initial model, with some filler to close the gap between the carriage body and the chassis at one end. The good thing, however, is that a re-print is very easy since, although it does take several hours to complete, the construction costs are extremely low and the ability to print, without tying up my computer, means that there is little penalty, in terms of taking up my time! Completing my Mail Train It is now over three years since I conceived the idea of modelling the train that was involved in the Bullo Pill accident of 1868. The accident report contains a detailed description of the make-up of the Mail Train, so I could model each vehicle to re-create an authentic train of the period. I described my original concept in a blog post from 2016 . To re-cap, my Mail Train consists of the Waverley-class 4-4-0 locomotive ‘Rob Roy’ with three carriages and a luggage van at the rear. My model of ‘Rob Roy’ is still not complete but, with the aid of my 3D printer, I am now able to make some of the necessary fittings, included the unusual inverted springs that link the leading wheels. In fact, I have already printed a ‘fret’ of carriage springs for use under the Luggage Van at the rear of the train, as shown below. The first two carriages are the 2nd class carriage, described above, and the 1st/2nd Composite described in a previous post. After printing these, I have sprayed both these bodies with red-oxide primer and have painted the chassis black. The third vehicle is a Mail Coach, which I built from a Broad Gauge Society (BGS) kit, as described in a series of earlier blog posts . The Luggage Van is another BGS kit, this time with a laser-cut resin body, described in another earlier post. Springs for Luggage Van Although there is still a lot of work to do on all the individual models, I could not resist setting out the complete train, in its current state, on a shelf and photographing the result: Model Mail Train (unfinished) I do find that taking these photographs provides me with the inspiration to keep going and I feel that, with the aid of my 3D printer, I now have the means to complete outstanding tasks. I shall next turn my attention back to ‘Rob Roy’. Mike