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In the latter half of the 1840s, William Bridges Adams began to dabble in locomotive design with the help of several key figures, particularly the resident engineer of the Eastern Counties Railway, James Samuel. He had established a works at Fair Field, Bow in 1843 for the purposes of expanding his business building carriages and wagons for both rail and road and locomotive construction was a natural progression. Together they developed the principle of the light locomotive which was proffered as an alternative to the ever increasing weight and power of railway locomotives in general, particularly with the gauge wars and stiff competition between the mighty broad gauge with it's powerful Gooch designed passenger engines and the ultimate symbol of power and speed on Stephenson's gauge, Thomas Russell Crampton's mighty 'Liverpool'. Adams argued that the wear and tear on the permanent way was unacceptable, it being barely able to keep pace with locomotive and rolling stock development. The huge volume of dead weight hauled around by large engines meant that much of the time, particularly on branch lines, the arrangement was highly uneconomical. Adams offered an alternative in his lightweight locomotive and carriage, either as a fixed vehicle with engine and carriage on one frame like 'Fair Field' for the broad gauge and 'Enfield' for the Eastern Counties, or a paired light engine and tender carriage. His vision and that of James Samuel was for frequent light 'shuttle' services and it could be said that considering the make-up of todays trains on lesser lines, he was way ahead of his time. This locomotive and its tender/carriage was first illustrated in Adams' 1850 publication 'Road Progress' as a fold out plate. Essentially the same design appeared in one of his many (32) patents, No.13653 of 1851 and the culmination of this design was Ariel's Girdle displayed at the Great Exhibition in the same year, although this was made by Kitson, Thompson & Hewitson of Leeds since Adams was bankrupt by the summer of 1850 and the Fair Field Works sold off. The design concept was sufficiently noteworthy for Zerah Colburn to illustrate it in his 'Locomotive Engineering and the Mechanism of Railways' in 1871, although the tender carriage in Colburn's drawing is considerably shorter than the original and looks decidedly odd. Stephenson's continued this basic design and one of their versions was illustrated by Daniel Kinnear Clarke in his book 'Railway Machinery'. It is more sophisticated machine and makes for an interesting comparison. This drawing is reproduced courtesy of the National Archives. My fascination for the life and work of William Bridges Adams is well established and aside from writing his biography (an ongoing long term project requiring an immense amount of research not helped by Coronavirus lockdown restrictions), I have an ambition to model at least a good representative selection of his various creations. The 4mm scale model described here is the first of my efforts towards modelling his locomotives. During 2020, the Bodmer single occasionally drove me mad so I felt it was important to have a side project to restore the equilibrium, a sort of yin and yang approach. I would not normally have two loco projects on the go simultaneously in the fear than neither of them would get finished however, in this case it proved a blessing. The following photographs show its current state with much still to do including the tender/carriage. I have to say I find it one of the most attractive (dare I say sexy?!) little engines I have ever seen. Further pictures will be posted with some constructional details in due course. The wheels are only just on (I don't like to force them home until I'm ready to fit them for the final time) and the splashers balanced in place. The footplate side sheets are made but not yet fitted. Cylinders and motion remain to be finished and may well be fitted after painting. They are very delicate and if I gum them up with paint (schoolboy error) I will not forgive myself! There is a little more plumbing to be done such as the steam pipes from the dome and the injectors but it is almost there. The drop in the buffer beam allowed the smokebox door room to open since the boiler was fairly low slung. Adams was a great believer in keeping the centre of gravity as low as possible, a popular theory of the time. The idea was that it made for steadier and safer running but this was not quite the case. The footplate was no wider than the outside edge of the splashers and therefore quite narrow. Later versions including those made by Stephenson who continued the design were wider. The coupling to the tender/carriage can be seen and th two brass pipes are the feed from the water tank, a long wide shallow container which sat under the tender/carriage. Apparently water from the well tank under the boiler was circulated back through this tank to keep the passengers warm in cold weather. Clever!

Over the years I’ve gathered a small collection of anecdotes and photos that document quirky situations and customs on the real-life railway. The idea is to re-enact them in model form while the glue dries on other projects. The Slipper Boy story was one attempt at this, although admittedly that one got a bit out of hand! Here’s another, simpler one. First, the props: ***** Clear as mud, I suspect! Here’s what it’s all about: Railway Magazine, January 1906: Just another incident on the everyday railway, but we can’t allow this stuff to be forgotten! Below is an attempt to re-enact it in my Farthing setting. I’ll see if it works without words: ***** That was the event as reported. But I wonder what happened afterwards? All those tasty eels, and no ice left to keep them fresh... A quick discussion among the staff, perhaps, to find a solution? 🙂 ***** PS: I couldn’t find a period description of exactly how live eel were transported in Edwardian days, so the container seen here is loosely based on a 1970 FAO publication which documents a method that does not seem out of place in earlier days: "Live eels can be transported in small quantities in tray-boxes […]. A typical wooden tray-box contains four lift-out trays about 50mm deep, each designed to hold about 10kg of eels graded according to size. The top tray is usually filled with crushed ice so that cold melt water trickles down through the eels during the journey to keep them cool and lively. […] Each tray has drain holes and is divided across the middle to make a total of eight compartments holding about 5kg each, that is about 40kg for the whole box. The lid of the box is nailed on, and the whole is steel-banded both to prevent pilferage and to prevent the eels escaping through the joints. Boxes of this type are used successfully for live transport not only within the UK but also for 24-hour journeys from the Continent with little or no loss." Source: http://www.fao.org/3/x5915e/x5915e01.htm#Live storage and transport

I've finally completed my scratch built Bodmer single no.124 of the London & Brighton Railway. It's taken a year of blood sweat and tears, trying to be too clever and paying the price! Details of the project have been promised to the HMRS in the form of an article for their Journal, so rather than spoil that I'll just deposit a couple of images here in the meantime. Further details of this project can be found on a previous blog entry entitled 'Build a Bodmer Competition - not!', or a more comprehensive write up should be in the next HMRS Journal out this summer.

GWR No 15 was a bar framed 0-4-0 by Bury. Note the domed firebox which it retained for its whole life in spite of other changes. Built in 1847 for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, it was withdrawn in 1903. This first sketch shows her around 1866. And this second one about 1887, when it had been cut down in height.

I purchased a coach lot off that auction site. Lot was listed as 'LMS Coaches,' and at a reasonable price. Here's the row. I needed to have looked closer before committing. I'm not certain on how much use any of these will be. Reasoning there, I'm looking for coaches for a preordered Improved Precedent in LMS black. I don't fancy buying more kits right now, either. Two Lima vans. I'm pretty certain the CCT on the right does me no good. I've read somewhere that something can be made of the bogie van on the left, though. I think it was Railway Modeller earlier this year. Two Hornby items. The TPO is a little goofy. The BK, I don't know. Looks an awful lot like a Mk. 1 to me. Not much use either way here. Dapol here. The composite looks reasonable. Not a mainline coach, I don't think? The brake, again, looks like a Mk. 1 to me. Also, the brake would need new bogies. Wheelsets won't stay in the existing bogies. I believe this was a Triang. That roof is painful. Just, really painful to my eyes. Mainline, here. Coach on the right I'm pretty certain is what I was after - Mainline's Period 1. Looks decent to me, too. That other coach. Such heavy lines on the roof... Finally, my mystery coach. No make on undercarriage. Looks like another Mk. 1. So, is there anything else here that I could really use?

This sketch is of the second B1 class which was originally designated B2. The first B1 class was based on the B class with an upgraded boiler and was merged into the B class when the originals also received the upgraded boiler. This B1 class had larger side tanks and a greater water capacity than the earlier locomotives.

My clever wife bought me a new 3D printer for Christmas (how did she guess what I wanted?) I was a bit concerned because the box was shipped direct from China by FedEx via what appears to be a puddle at Cologne Airport. Creality customer service were very helpful and we decided it was worth trying to build it and just replace any bits if we found they had been damaged. In the end everything went together very easily ( about 30-45 minutes assembly to first print) and I managed to print off the sample 'little dog'. The only issue I had was that the print bed was just slightly bent and trying to get it level just using the four leveling screws proved difficult. This wouldn't be a problem for small pieces but trying to print large models would have been impossible. Fortunately I had already fitted a BLTouch probe to my old Wanhao duplicator i3 plus printer and I decided to move this onto the new Ender 5. This device allows the printer to detect the actual position of the bed and the firmware then adjusts for any differences in height. The mounting bracket was printed off prior to fitting. You can see that a diagnostic test of a single layer print adhered well to the bed and gave a decent evenly printed part. I was a little scared of doing the additional wiring and firmware update to make this work but in the end it went pretty smoothly following some decent guides on Youtube. As I had white filament supplied with the printer and it is Christmas I found a polar bear on the thingiverse to print. It came out really nicely and the layer surface finish is excellent for a filament printer though it is hard to see in the pictures as my camera seems to refuse to focus on the part properly. You'll probably be wondering why I wanted another filament printer. Well while I think the Anycubic Photon is great for the small detail work in resin but the old Wanhao was still used for 'structural' bits like servo mounts and uncoupling magnet mechanisms. It is very noisy compared with the new Ender 5 and I wanted something that I could do various upgrades to. Festive greetings to you all. David

Finally received my bicycle tyre valve caps yesterday (the previous order were "lost in transit" so, progress was delayed somewhat.) These are plain aluminium, but various colours are available - this could be useful if you wanted to allocate specific knobs to certain functions. However, I opted for these ones - I think they match the overall style of the "control panel" of the layout. The uncouplers and points are brass rod controlled, no electronics are involved. Adding these caps to the ends of the brass rods gives the impression of something more "high tech" than is actually going on though(!) I cut some small panels from 0.5mm plasticard sheet, to cover the rather rough apertures that the brass rods protrude through, the point switches had individual panels and the uncouplers had two shared panels with three apertures in each. There was a fair bit of calculation and measuring involved in making neater openings for the wire shafts, holes of 1mm were drilled at either end of the calculated "throw" of each switch (these were longer in the case of uncouplers than of points.) Then, the plastic between each pair of holes was cut away and the opening sanded smooth to create the linear aperture for the rod to slide along. The valve caps were filled with epoxy. When dry, holes were drilled to accommodate the brass rod ends. I'm really pleased with the end result: Next job is to attach the controller to a suitable bracket, watch this space....

A couple of pictures of the small Hornby MSV and ZKV fleet. Like many Hornby wagons not a faithful replica but guess it's as close as I'll get for now. they still need to be weathered more. also need to get some transfers so the TOPS panels can be changed so they have different numbers.

My build of the Moebius Models 1/350th Scale USS Franklin NX-326 from Star Trek Beyond. Aftermarket: Aztec Dummy Masking Set Paints & Primers: Mr Surfacing Primer, Vallejo Model Air & Tamiya Acrylics, Vallejo Metal Color & MRP Have Glass Varnish. Weathering: Flory Washes (Dark Dirt & Brown) & a HB Pencil. Box and contents: The Build. Goes together quite well, just plan your build with regards to painting. Glazing is fun - not! The vinyl mask set arrives from across the pond.. A capture from the film for reference purposes.. In primer.. The base Adding some colour and more masking. Decalling up and final assembly Weathering Final Reveal Overall it was a straight forward build and I 'm pleased with the results - it was my first Starship in over 25 years. Till next time James

An opportunity presented itself to drag the baseboard outside yesterday and take some photos in the rather dull afternoon light. At last I feel some progress is being made, or in other words, what a difference a bit of ballasting makes! I took a few more photos to show how some of the areas are finally tying together after some further detail was added. Oooh look, ballast at last! This is my own somewhat unconventional technique since the ballast in the 1840s was all over with only the rails showing. This can be a bl**dy nightmare when it comes to keeping things clear enough for smooth running. A view under the bridge. The stables with the tall Greyhound in the background. The tannery, with a little more detail added and some 'bedding in'. The somewhat neglected back yard between the Greyhound and the Tannery.

Quick pic of progress made today, the glue on the track centres and immediate edges is now dry, so I've been gradually layering up the ballast in the area between tracks. The method is pretty simple: 1. Wet baseboard area to be ballasted with very weak Copydex-water-washing up liquid solution. 2. Sprinkle on sand. 3. Drip stronger (1-4) glue solution over sand. 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3. The glue is still wet in these pictures: As you can see, I don't really mind having some ballast on the sleepers - I'm taking inspiration from local examples with regards to this and the colouration that I'm trying to achieve: Thank you for looking in!

Areas like the chimney, cab roof, firebox door, pipes and running plate will be dirty to some degree, even on a well-maintained locomotive. For this subject I have prepared these surfaces with some brush-on AMMO by mig Panel Line Wash (PLW) Black Night. This fluid is a very thin enamel paint, basically, and has a very small content of pigment compared with carrier. I have used it here to introduce a small build-up of dirt around the chimney top and base, the cab roof, the pipework and the running plate by 'sloshing it on' with soft brushes and leaving it to dry. There's still quite a bit of work to be done . . . . . . . .

Final step. Some Mig Productions Dark Mud has been added to the firebox sides that show through the frames under the cab to represent the rusty state of that area, but it's difficult to see in photographs. The whole locomotive has been subjected to cleaning up and running tests to make sure that all pickup surfaces are clear of paint. This is achieved by wiping the surfaces with a Tamiya cotton swab dipped into isopropyl alcohol, which will remove even hardened enamel paint. Wheels were turned with the PP9 battery, and the cotton swab gently pressed onto the affected areas. I'll be interested to read any comments made by those of you who had the opportunity to see this locomotive (and t'other one) during the weekend spent at the Great Electric Train Show.

A bit of history The earliest record of a tenant in The Greyhound public house was a Mary Stiff in 1822. The Upper Grange Road (now Dunton Road) Bermondsey was likely a relatively quiet lane leading off the Kent Road before the arrival of the Bricklayers Arms Extension Railway in 1843/4. At first it was suggested that the railway should cross the road on the level, but the contractors Grissell & Peto constructed a bridge to carry the road over the four running lines. The inconvenience to the occupants of the Greyhound and the neighbouring houses in Greyhound Place is well recorded in the Committee Minutes of the BAER held in the National Archives at Kew. Significant amounts of compensation was paid out for the inconvenience of having a large brick structure right outside the front of the dwellings. The owner of the Greyhound, William Rolls received £2310, a huge sum in 1844. The tenant at this time was William James Peirse and his four daughters. The Greyhound itself was significantly altered as a result of the rising road in front of it and the public rooms were moved up to the first floor on a level with the new road. Thankfully one photograph exists taken at the end of the 19th century which just about shows this unusual arrangement. Access to the six houses further along was via a walkway underneath the frontage. The model The basic shell of the building is in 3mm perspex which I find very robust and resistant to warping over time. Brickwork is embossed styrene, windows in clear styrene with fine strips of styrene overlaid to produce the window frame. The sash windows at the back actually work, a completely unnecessary indulgence! It is not known what the back yard looked like. An aerial photograph taken in the 1930s gives a rough idea but it is so indistinct as to be of no real help. I added a stable block which is rather unlikely but in studying the history of the Greyhound and it's tenant W. J. Peirse, who left the tenancy in his will "to my four dear daughters", I grew rather fond of him and thought he deserved such a luxury. The figures are from scratch, perhaps William's eldest daughter Martha is telling the potman just how queer the rocking motion of the carriages on the new railway made her feel on her recent trip to Croydon. The yard surface is decorating filler with the cobbles scratched in. There are further buildings to come, particularly those of Greyhound Place, and of course the Upper Grange Road Bridge itself which is in the process of construction.