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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

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!

So it doesn't look like much does it? : Ta-da! : I needed to add some finishing touches - the closed position was a little loose, so I secreted a thin magnet and a washer to act as a securing catch: Of course, I only use the beer for illustrative purposes.... Cheers!

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....

Finding things to do in lock-down is something of an ‘art-form’. A friend recently introduced me to some software called 'Pixbim ColorSurprise AI'. He showed me some remarkable results, where it had automatically coloured some of his old monochrome photos. So I thought I’d try it out on some of my collection of 19th-century railway photos. There’s a ‘free trial’ version but, as is so often the case, it is hobbled by printing multiple watermarks all over any saved results. To show the effects it produces, I made screen copies of some of the preview images. I’ve no idea how it works but it does turn monochrome images into quite pleasing effects, like tinted postcards. The colours seem fairly weak but I couldn’t help noticing that it seemed to favour the view that GWR wagons should sometimes be red (ish) I thought it added ‘atmosphere’ to the scene in Huntley & Palmers yard in Reading: It also made a reasonable shot of a Broad Gauge scene at Dawlish, seeming to recognise the sand colours and again brown/red wagons but I had to turn up the blue to get a pleasant-looking sky: I played with it on several other scenes but the results are rather ‘hit and miss’. I think if I wanted to do more of this, it would be better to spend some time editing with Photoshop. I read somewhere that it is supposed to work better with portraits, so I tried it on Brunel: Again, my feeling was ‘could do better’. Still, it’s something to play with in lock-down and it can create some evocative scenes. Thank goodness, though, that I have Amy Wilcote to paint some scenes for me In a more serious vein, I set up to do some more 3D printing after a break since before Christmas. In the meantime, I had changed my laptop and had to re-load the Cura software. When I started to print, things went horribly wrong, with poor adhesion and very poor surface finish. I thought that perhaps the filament had degraded over the break, so tried another spool but it was no better. Eventually, I tried converting the file on my old laptop and it worked perfectly well! Somewhere, I had gone wrong in setting up the parameters on the new machine, so I simply copied all my old settings files across into the ‘Application Data’. I examined both sets of data and found several differences but I’m still not sure what was the main culprit! It felt like being back on the initial learning curve again! Mike

With the holiday period now upon us, many of North Leigh’s locomotives are now ‘on shed’. In the following photo can be seen my first ‘scratch build’ - a GWR ‘Queen’ class, with a ‘Stella’ 2-4-0 next in line. Disappearing out of view, the back of ‘Lord of the Isles’ can just be glimpsed, while on the front track is a Dean Goods, together with an early PBV. (The 'back scene' is by Photoshop) Locomotives ‘On Shed’ Looking back into Broad Gauge days, I remember a comment by Mikkel on my construction method in which I added 3D-printed cladding to a metal boiler – he wrote “Boiler then cladding, like watching a real loco being built”. After some searching, I found an old engraving of the Swindon Boiler Shop, with the boiler of my Gooch Goods being readied for the addition of the cladding In the Boiler Shop In many ways 2020 is a year best forgotten but the lock-down gave me plenty of time to practise using my 3D printer, to make a wide variety of models (both 'Standard' and Broad Gauge). True to form, my Armstrong Standard Goods still needs a number of finishing touches but I think it has captured the ‘look’ of the prototype quite well. Armstrong Goods I can only hope that 2021 will see the present restrictions being relaxed, although it will take some time. I also hope to have some more ideas for creating new types of models. Perhaps I shall also find a few more Amy Wilcote paintings. My best wishes to those who have followed my posts over the year and for the encouragement you have provided, which is much appreciated Mike

Ok, so where were we? Ah, yes the victim had been reduced to pieces (or at least stripped of its means of movement( and was ready for reconstructive surgery. So now it is time to address the thorny subject of wheels. As I mentioned before, you have basically three choices: Aland Gibson, Markits and Ultrascale. So lets compare what you can get for how much using a Bachmann 2251 Collett goods as our exemplar. Ultrascale offer a conversion pack that includes all wheels (inc tender) and crankpins - in fact as they state - everything you will need. They also have notes offering advice on how to do the conversion. What you get from Ultrascale. See: https://www.ultrascale.uk/eshop/products/view/CAT007/30 This will set you back £96.58 for wheels with Nickel Silver tyres or £70.57 for brass tyres (some Ultrascale packs offer steel tyres too which seem a couple of £ cheaper - the 3F tender engine for example). Ultrascale also state that the product is supplied as per the image. I take this to mean that the wheels arrive in the case of the the 2251 ready assembled - so quartered, correct back to back gauge, pins fitted and and with a (brass) gearwheels fitted in place. All you have to do is drop them in and add the coupling rods, reassemble, test admire followed by a bragging session at your local club of choice (although if you don't do the bragging at a model railway club you might get some odd looks or comments). So all in all quite a good deal. You can get the wheels unassembled with separate pins included and without a gear wheel for about £10 cheaper (in the 2251 example) - just make sure you select the correct diameter axle for the driving wheels. The biggest problem is that the range or ready assembled wheels is quite small - The range of Bachmann steam engines covered is just 5, but both the standard DIY wheel range and the diesel conversion range is much more comprehensive. Which brings me to a useful digression … whatever your interest period if you are moving to EM or P4, buy a cheapo 2nd hand Bachmann or Hornby diesel, convert it (much quicker and simpler than a steam loco - I did one using an Ultrascale drop in set in under 30 mins) and you'll have something to test your track with (aka playing trains) while you build and convert your way to finescale nirvana. Markits also offer complete conversion packs, the GWR 2251 is £72.15 (I emailed them to check) and for this you get all wheels (all with nickel silver tyres), 'super deluxe' crankpins and axle nut covers. The Markits wheels will need assembly (and the gear wheel(s) salvaging from the victim), but they are self quartering so that is a considerable amount of heartache and pain done away with. It is unclear whether these packs use their 'standard' profile or the finer flanged RP25 profile. If you know please let me know. It is also unclear from the website/catalogue whether P4 profile wheels can be supplied (I'm not hopeful) so these are probably an EM only option. Again, remember to state gauge (OO is their default) and axle diameter when ordering. Sometimes the Markits axle nut covers etch included in the conversion packs have balance weights too (for example the LNER V2) - a bonus that will save you fabricating them later. Finally, there is Alan Gibson. AG also offer a conversion pack for the Bachmann 2251 Collet Goods at £20.00 with steel tyred wheels. However, this pack is for the driving wheels only. So when tender wheels, crankpins and coupling rod bushes are included that takes the price up to £37.70 (prices from the most recent catalogue (2018) on the Alan Gibson website). So buy Ultrascale and get a drop in set, spend £24.43 less and you get everything you need for Markits but with some assembly required, spend £34.45 less than that and you get Alan Gibson with quite a lot of assembly required. But what Alan Gibson has in its favour (apart from being cheap) is that because its not an all in one deal you can spread the cost. Being a perennially poor thanks to a multitude of children much as I would love to buy Ultrascale drop in products (and if you ask me to do a conversion for you I'm afraid I'll insist you do) I usually end up using AG products. So having laid out your choices in wheels, I'm going to ignore choice and concentrate on the ones that are cheapest and also probably need the most work. (It has struck me that these two things may be related). The first thing to note is that Alan Gibson doesn't have an e-commerce portal (unlike Ultrascale), but then again Markits don't either (or do lots of others) relying instead on human determination and the innate stubbornness of the finescale modeller in trying to press money on businesses that often give an impression of not wanting to take it off us. For AG products there is a short cut - the EM Gauge Society stock his conversion packs and a limited range of other AG products - but unfortunately not the whole range. Happily they stock both EM and P4 versions, so another reason to be an EMGS member (even if you do P4). So in preparing and assembling our AG wheels there are 4 different tasks: Fit crankpins Fit balance weights Assemble on the axle Quarter them Fitting crankpins. This is the job I do first for a number of reason, mostly centred on its much easy to do them now than when the wheels are on the axle (or even on the loco). Some points to note: Some Alan Gibson wheels (the very earliest ones made for the range, like if my memory is correct, the J15) don't actually have any crankpin holes. Instead there is a blind drill mark at the location where you have to drill the hole. How big a hole? Ideally 0.75mm (see https://www.trfastenings.com/Products/knowledgebase/Tables-Standards-Terminology/Tapping-Sizes-and-Clearance-Holes ) as this will mean that the M1 machine screws AG supplies as crankpins will then cut their own thread in the plastic wheel centre. However, I have used 0.7mm drill bits quite successfully. The difficult bit is making sure that your hole is at right angles to the face of the wheel. Take your time, look at it from many angles as you slowly drill the hole.... If it isn't it might be enough to cause binding as it will, as it rotates, slightly increase and decease the distance between the wheels (or actually the pins) and we all know thanks to the great Iain Rice the importance of wheelbase and coupling rods matching.... don't we? I have in the past done this by hand, but now that I'm the slightly smug owner of a drill press and machine vice, hand shake is now a thing of the past. Here we have a set of AG wheels destined for a Bachmann Stainer mogul (or it might be a Jubilee, but I think a Mogul). Left is as it comes out of the packet with no crankpin hole. Centre, with the crankpin hole drilled - and you can see its right on the edge of the indie of the boss. Right, countersunk ready for the crankpin to be fitted. Although I'll talk about coupling and connecting rods separately, it is also worth considering the combined thickness of the coupling and connecting rods, especially as with some that aim for a more prototypical profile (and why not?) through using multiple etched layers they can end up thicker than the bit of the AG crankpin that is left sticking out of the wheel. (It is also worth checking this even if you intend reusing the RTR rods - better safe than sorry.) If they are too short it can be solved by getting longer ones (yes I know - duh!!) (still M1 though) from any one of a multitude of sellers, many of whom inhabit ebay which at least makes buying them easy. However, longer ones can make using the GW quartering jig hard as they will be too long to fit in the receiver (answer only use long ones when you have to, shorten them as much as possible (but still giving you 2mm proud of the rods, screw them half in way, quarter the axle, and then screw pins fully home - but more on this later). The M1 machine screws have countersunk heads but the wheels do not have countersunk holes to receive them. So grab a 1.5mm or better a 2mm twist drill, centre it in the hole and give it a quick couple of twists (but no more) to provide a counter sink but not one so deep as to go through the wheel...I normally don't even put it in a pin vice, instead just holding it in my fingers. It is possible for the screws to unscrew themselves if the crankpin nut or eccentric crank is a bit tight on the thread. As this happens when the wheel is mounted on the loco, it is very difficult (but not impossible) to get it back in without undoing a lot of work. So when, happy with all other aspects of the budding relationship between wheel, rods and crankpin, you decide to fully screw the pin home, stop just before the head goes into the countersink. Using a pin introduce a bead of superglue between crankpin head and countersink and quickly screw home. This is especially important if you have overtightened the screw at any point and therefore stripped the soft plastic thread the screw cuts for itself. On some of the wheels the rear of the boss intrudes into the spot where the countersink will need to go. So grab a scalpel (or better yet a chisel ended scalpel blade and carve away the area so you have nice flat space to countersink. Fit the balance weights. Take it from me (because I have forgotten to do this at this stage enough times), it is a lot easy to fit the balance weights now. The can use etched or pre cut plasticard ones from Markits or Ultrascale (or indeed anyone that makes such things) or you can make your own out of 5 thou plasticard and a set of dividers. Once the balance weights are fitted you can also, should the urge take you, paint/blacken tyre rims and paint balance weights - again its a lot easier now than once coupling rods are in place and you are staring at your new pride and joy wondering what isn't quite right (and its starting to annoy you....). If you are one of the sensible people doing an ornate pregroup livery that has wheels other than black, definitely paint them now, and you may as well line them too if needed. For the Claude Hamilton I found that an egg cup was the perfect radius for finishing off the balance weights. Just to show that I don't do what I say I should do. I forgot the balance weights on the Claude Hamilton until I had reassembled everything... Assemble the wheels on the axle. First things first. Make sure the axle is the right length (because it won't be if you are EM'ing your loco - AG supplies P4 length axles that you have to reduce to length for EM). Finding out what the correct length is easy. Take a pair of wheels and your back to back gauge. Using hands (if you're like me you'll need two) hold the wheels on either side on the back to back gauge. Then (possibly using the third hand that you get issued with on joining the finescale fraternity) place a digital vernier /caliper/gauge across the two wheel bosses, note the distance, and then, because you are squeezing the wheels too hard to try to keep a grip on everything, catapult them into the air. The next bit may sound bad, but it really isn't. Reduce the axle to length. First use a black Sharpie (or similar) pen to paint a nice thick band around the axle roughly where you'll be cutting. Then with your vernier calipers put one end at the end that isn't black, and gently lay the other vernier prong aginst the other, spin the axle with your fingers and lo, a thin line shall appear around the axle. And there was much rejoicing. Which was rapidly stopped by the thought of how to cut the axle accurately. You have effectively two choices: Put axle in Dremmel (or similar) shove in a vice, set Dremmel in motion, attack with bastard file until either the axle is the right length or you say goodbye to your fingers. I DO NOT USE OR ADVOCATE THIS METHOD. I know exactly how hard it is cleaning blood of walls and the ceiling (admittedly this was after a minor table saw accident but my darling wife still doesn't let me forget about it and the club I was with at the time were a bit off with me too as it was their walls and ceiling). The safer way is to use a lathe with a parting off tool. Preferably someone elses - another reason to join a club, access to machine tools and gadgets you use too infrequently (or are too expensive) to justify having yourself. The next important job is to offer up one of your newly trimmed axles into the slots for the driven axle. Make sure you have an equal amount of axle sticking out of each side and part with your Sharpie (or similar) where the gear wheel needs to go. Marking the position of the gear wheel on the axle. Then using the bastard file knurl the axle where you have marked. This means, on a resilient surface (not a hard one) like a cutting mat, using the short edge (mines about 4mm across), place it on the axle where you have marked roll the axle while pushing down hard with the file - don't allow the file to wander - and bingo a knurled axle that will probably grip your final drive gear wheel. Knurling the axle for the gear wheel. Work out how many spacing washers for each axle. A tip - if you have outside cylinders etc go for no sideplay if there will be a wheel lurking behind the cylinders or slide bars - its just too infuriating to assemble everything and then find that on a curve the crankpin fouls the outside gubbings. For the other non gear wheel axles, probably not more than 1mm in total (unless you have a huge wheelbase and tiny curves to get it round). On the axle with the gear wheel, as much as you can without causing the gear wheel to lose contact with the intermediate gears - probably less the 0.5mm in total. So take the chassis, measure its width where the axle slots are, take this away from your back to back measurement and divide by 2 gives you the sideplay possible on each side. Then just add 1/8 inch brass washers of suitable thicknesses until you have the sideplay that you want. Take a 6mm (or there abouts drill bit) and using your fingers give it a quick twist where the axle fits into the rear of the wheel, just to take the sharp edge off and help the axle locate itself hopefully perpendicularly to the wheel when its is assembled. Now its time to assemble the wheels ready to quarter them. As I use a GW wheel press and quartering jig I'm assuming you will too...So: Take an axle, add the gear wheel by pressing it on carefully and without twisting it until it is in the correct position. Add any brass bearing that might have been included on the victim by the manufacturer, add the required spacing washers each side and grab a pair of wheels. And move to the quartering section. Repeat with the other axles. Quartering. Using a wheel press and quartering jig like the GW models one to fit AG wheels (or Ultrascale self assembly ones) should reduce your troubles here, but there is wheel wobble to think about. (I'm not going to worry about Markits ones as they are self quartering.) Simply put, even using the jig might not stop a wheel going on not quite square leading to a wobble. My view is that this is caused by the wheel boss sticking out beyond the wheel tyre, allowing it to twist on the mounting stud as the wheels are squeezed in the press. To stop this I have superglued 30thou of plasticard about 6mm above and below the mounting stud on each side of the wheel press. My modified GW wheels press. So you now should have the jig, with a wheel in each half, an axle with all the bits (bearings, spacing washers, gear wheel etc) and you are wondering how to get it all together. Well, it can be a bit of a juggle but three hands probably won't be needed - (but doing the chamfer of the inside of the axle socket mentioned above will help), and gently close the jig until the axle just starts to engage with the wheel. At this point stop, reach for your back to back gauge and insert it so that as you close the jig with finger pressure the B2B gauge will ensure that you set the correct gauge. Squeezing everything together with the B2B gauge in place. The jig is designed for axles that are the correct length, but this might not be the case, and it is easier to set the B2B now, rather than later. When you feel the jig press the axle home, release it and you have a wheel that is probably square and probably quartered. But until we get the coupling rods on, we can't be sure that each axle has exactly the same quartering...

I'm on summer leave for a couple of weeks. Time to decompress and do some modelling. My instinct is usually to start a new project, but I have a number of things on the workbench that I thought I'd better complete first, like the Bradwell kit for the Charles Roberts NCB hopper. So here it is complete. The NCB transfers are from on old Kemco sheet, but I note that Fox also do a sheet for NCB now.

Following on from the entry about modelling and 3D printing some springs and axleboxes for a Stanier brake van, here's the end result, a scruffy, well travelled unfitted van. It'll look just right waiting engine and brake in the colliery sidings. The brake van was built from a Pocket Money Kits brass etch (PMK 00/31) that I acquired a long time ago. There are RTR Stanier vans available now, but I enjoy building things more than buying them. The springs and axleboxes are a distinctive feature on these vans and I think the Modelu printed springs and axleboxes really look the part. The etched kit is quite old school in its design but goes together well enough. The castings for springs, axleboxes and buffers are serviceable but lacking detail. There are some compromises like the verandah corner posts that should be solid timber but end up as angle section on the etch, but not very noticeable. There's no provision built in for compensation or suspension, so you'll have to work that out for yourself. But you get a flat floor to work from, and I used some MJT compensating W irons that fortunately came out at exactly the right height. The buffers are from then Lanarkshire Model Supplies range - Wagon Buffer B013, 1'6" - 1'8 1/2", 13" head - and these really are excellent white metal castings. The handrails are a fiddle. The holes etched in the body for the handrails are oversize for scale diameter wire (0.3 mm), and it really is very difficult neatly soldering thin wire into oversized holes. Also some of the holes shouldn't be holes where the handrails are fitted to the prototype with small brackets. I filled the holes and made some tiny brass brackets. I'm not entirely sure which diagram of van this kit is supposed to represent. It's either D1919 or D2036. The difference is in the duckets, D2036 being a little wider. The model measures up over the buckets as closer to D2036, but the duckets look more like D1919 in proportion. I decided it was a D2036 and chose a number accordingly. You'd not have known if I hadn't told you! Overall, I quite like the result. If I can find another of these kits I'd like to build on with the external diagonal strapping that some of them acquired in later years. After all, I have plenty of springs and axleboxes now.

Having torn up the old 0F test track, thoughts turned to creating an new length of track in S7. The idea was simply to find a suitable plank and lay a length of straight track to run S7 stock along. Well, I did find a plank, sort of, and then things spiralled out of control. After a few minutes with the table saw I had a 1.5m length of 18mm ply which seemed like a good start. Considering the weight of some 7mm stock I thought it might be a bit bendy when supported at each end across the workbench. So I screwed a strip of oak veneered MDF along the back to stiffen it. I though it might be nice to ballast up the track so I could photograph some stock (if I ever get any made that is). The stiffening back board suggested it might become a brick retaining wall to provide a backdrop to the scene. That was the end of the quick test plank. Here's progress so far... Woodwork in grey primer. Pleasant to work outside in the sun while spraying ballast everywhere. No need to vacuum afterwards 8-) A bag of old 4mm ballast, some sieved ashes, a few teaspoons of powder paint and a sea of builders PVA. Not the appearance I was aiming for, too brown. Try again tomorrow... That's more like it. A backwater dead end ballasted with ashes, clinker and assorted dross. Could do with a bit more fine material but it'll do for the plank. A vaguely plausible retaining wall was sketched up and some Slaters English Bond plasticard ordered. Arches would have been good, but too time consuming. There's acres of brickwork here and I hadn't realised how time consuming it was going to be. That's the price you pay for acting on impulse! Basic wall made in soft wood and fitted to the backboard. Then another happy afternoon in the sun fitting the brick sheets over it all. And still no track.

I eventually got around to modifying the CAD model to increase the size of the rubbers. Output the STL file, and back from Modelu came the first 'production' batch of springs and axle boxes. There was a tiny bit of fettling to fit them to the brake van model. The axle box and springs were modelled to exact prototype dimensions. Well, as exact as the original LMS drawings - who knows what adjustments or liberties were taken in the real world of 1920' - 1930's manufacturing? I wouldn't be surprised if there were some compromises in the design of the brake van etch either. Anyway, they fitted easily enough and, to me, they look the part. They'll look less startling when painted. Overall a most interesting and productive exercise. Very happy with the end result. And thanks to Alan at Modelu for making the technology accessible to all of us. I'll be doing more of this, and probably the next project will be to model up a family of typical BR wagon axleboxes. It is usually assumed that they all look a bit like the split cast steel RCH oil 'box. There are some different types, some very different and some subtly different. There are at least two variants of the classic split cast steel box with slightly different casting shapes. There is a split cast steel type with distinctive weight relieving (I guess?) recesses cast into the spring seat. The common and ugly fabricated square box type with flat front cover. A boxy looking cast steel version with a pressed front cover. And just for fun I fancy a front cover 'box with the cover hanging open and exposing the axle end. And that's just for the 'standard' 12, 13, 16 ton stock. There's heavy duty and special axleboxes. And then the varieties of leaf spring to match. Combined with the Rumney underframes and some kit bashed Parkside bodies there's not much BR common wagon stock that can't be accurately represented now. Then some of the LMS hardware. Some choice Midland springs and axleboxes. There are a few LNER 'boxes that would be nice to have. The GWR seems to be well served by the trade already, and anyway the Swindon design language always seems a bit mean spirited and Edwardian to me, but that's just my engineering neurosis. 4mm and 7mm. You could do some cracking stuff in 7mm this way. Dream on... there's already a huge list of projects to get stuck into.

Here's my first Modelu driver painted. The photos are a cruel enlargement of a 4mm figure. Where the Modelu figures score is that they are modelled / scanned from real life so the proportion and pose is entirely natural. That shows up very well against most of the existing proprietary moulded or cast figures I've seen before. I don't know what the resolution of the scan is but at this size the figures lack a little facial definition. That makes them difficult to paint convincingly. You'll see this guy lacks eyes and mouth. That's not an easy thing (for me!) to paint on without it looking goofy. Some contour in this area would help to give the face some relief through washing or highlighting. On this figure the eyes are in the shadow of the cap so not really noticeable with overhead lighting. Is it a big deal in 4mm? When then figure is placed in a scene it probably isn't. Overall I'm very pleased with the result. 3 more loco crew to paint now. For those wot's interested I've painted these figures using some basic military miniature painting techniques. I use acrylic paints (Games Workshop) since they dry quickly and allow rapid progress when painting a small number of figures. Goes something like this - Base coat all over in matt black Foundation for face and hands in dark flesh colour Foundation colours for clothes in a dark grey and a dark grey/blue, leaving a little black in the folds and shadows Lighter shade of grey and grey/blue for the clothes, leaving a little more foundation in the foods and shadows. Don't bother to try and blend the colours, you end up with something like a black/dark/lighter contour map. Dry brushing and washing blend them enough at this scale. Lighter flesh colour on prominent areas like nose, cheeks, knuckles, ears Detail around shirt, tie, hair etc Dry brush highlight of pale grey and pale grey/blue over coveralls and jacket, picking out exposed surfaces like shoulders and edges of folds and creases Sepia wash over hands and face Finally a thin black wash to tone it down and bring the colours together

Cycling home from work through a hailstorm and icy rain today was rewarded by the arrival in the post of a 3D printed sample from Modelu. It is a 4mm 3D printed spring and axle box set for a Stanier brake van. This is something I've been thinking about for a while. One of my occasional projects is an etched brass brake van kit from Connoisseur Kits. Fairly straightforward etched brass stuff. I got to the stage where all I needed to complete it was to fit the axle box and spring castings. Now, the spring hangers, spring isolation rubbers and 4'6" leaf spring are distinctive on these Stanier vans. The white metal castings supplied with the kit are serviceable but a bit lumpy and don't really capture the character of the prototype. Geoff Kent shows a method for making these parts from plasticard in one of the Wild Swan 4mm Wagon books. I guess that's OK if you have Mr Kent's superhuman skills with polystyrene and a scalpel. I'm afraid I don't. You'd have to make 4 this way for a single van, and if you wanted more than one van... So the project was put in the 'difficult box' for a while. I came across Modelu on RM Web a while ago and saw some of the 3D printed output on the website. Reasoned that this could be a way of making some really good parts in any quantity required. I e-mailed a query to Alan Butler (Mr Modelu) and he sent me a photo of some similar items that he'd printed. Seemed feasible - game on! As it happened the prototype information wasn't too difficult to find. The axlebox looks like an LMS 10" x 5" ABW.52 type (corrections please if you know better!) and by sheer jammy luck there is a drawing of this in LMS Wagons Volume 2 (page 170). Not a full engineering drawing, but enough to model up the axle box from in sufficient detail for 4mm. I couldn't find a drawing for the brake van spring and hangers directly , but standardisation on the LMS means that the same 4' 6" spring and hanger details are used on other stock. There are a few decent drawings of fitted stock using these parts in Official Drawings of LMS Wagons Volume 2. (In fact there is enough information in those 2 volumes to be able to work out the detail on almost any LMS or related early BR wagon if you can identify the standard parts used - I wish there was more information like this published). Again it isn't a full drawing but there's enough to scale from to model the parts on CAD. A few evenings on the Mac gets you this solid model... Exported as an STL and e-mailed to Modelu for review. Alan suggested a few tweaks to suit it to the printing process. The updated model was sent to Modelu and eventually here are the samples. I think you'll agree they're a huge improvement on the original castings. Typically when I'm working on things like this I get so close to the detail that I miss bigger things. Comparing again with the prototype it is immediately obvious that I have undernourished isolation rubbers. I'll change the model again before I get some produced. Very happy how this has turned out. For me this is almost a revolution. From now on anything I can obtain prototype data for I can model. Once the CAD model exists I can STL it to any scale I like. The process isn't magic and it does have some limitations, but it seems they're not difficult to design around. On Modelu's advice I've flattened the spring and rubbers on the back so they print nicely on the machine platen, and I've added some extra material around the hangers just to make them robust enough to handle. Bonus feature, by the way, I've made the axleboxes hollow so I don't have to scoop them out to fit over the axle bearings - hooray a tedious, hated job eliminated. I'm already thinking about some distinctive LNER wagon axleboxes in 7mm. Maybe an anchor mount tank for a 14 ton tank wagon in 2mm. Driving wheel centres for some of the more distinctive locomotive wheels that are not well represented by proprietary generic wheels? Could be a long wishlist. Cost? The cost is derived from a fixed set up cost for a job and a charge based on the volume of resin used. Big solid things will be quite costly. Modelu will quote for the work when they've reviewed the model. For a few sets of small parts like this it doesn't cost too much. Probably what I'd expect to pay for castings, if they existed, but of significantly higher quality.

Looking at the High Level Kits Loadhauler gearboxes now. First up the plain Loadhauler. The motor sits very low in the boiler. Theoretically there's clearance, but in reality I'd want more than that. And the back of the gearbox intrudes into the cab through the backplate. So that's not going to work. Next is the Loadhauler Plus that has a swivelly extender section on the end. With the extender level it won't fit, but with it rotated 20 degrees the motor is raised clear into the boiler and the whole gearbox is contained in the firebox with no intrusion into the cab. From the end view you can see that the top of the gearbox would project through the top of the boiler but that section of the gearbox can be cut back to fit. I did consider taking the top off the boiler and using some of the space in the saddle tank to accommodate the gearbox but the structure of the tank doesn't make that too easy. The drive extender hangs down a bit on a loco with small wheels (3'8" in this case) and I'm hoping the brakes and linkage will disguise it. There won't be a lot of room to add weight in the boiler but some can be placed in the ends of the chassis and some could be added to the saddle tank. The Loadhauler Plus fits but there's one more problem to solve. The motor now sits well forward inside the boiler and it doesn't look possible to fit the body to the chassis if the cab and boiler are built onto the footplate as intended. I think the cab can be built on the footplate but the boiler and firebox will have to be built as a separate unit and fixed to the footplate with screws. That's looking like the best solution but it needs a bit more work on the details before I commit. I'll get round to actually building something eventually.

Thursday 31st March Fitting body to chassis, as DB says, requires some careful chamfering of the top of the solebars. More chamfering than I'd imagined. Be careful you don't chamfer all the way through the top edge. You need to include the top of the inside V hanger in the chamfering, gets right in the way. Also check the inside slope of the brackets 10, 11 and the tabs that the brake hangers are soldered to. Needed to make tiny adjustments to the length of a couple of the body side ribs. Eventually it all sits neatly on the chassis, touching everywhere it should. Flanges onto body end supports 18. I'm opting for the scale thickness flanges, and I'll take DB's advice and use a higher temperature solder, Carr's 224. Holding the flange in position while soldering isn't easy. I drilled a 1.6mm hole in a block of wood and stuck the handrail projection into it, trapping the flange square against the wood. Similarly the two small projections on the other edge can just be pushed into the wood block, trapping the flange. After a bit of a fiddle and some cleaning up they're done. 2.5 hours. Total 26.5 hours. -------------- Friday 1st April Checking the fit of the body end supports between chassis and hopper reveals a problem. The supports don't seem long enough to bridge the gap. They appear to be about 0.5mm short. The body is sat at the right height and there's no latitude to move it longitudinally to bring it in contact with the supports. What to do? Filling the gap with solder would be messy, and the location would make it difficult to clean up. Extending the supports will be difficult now the flanges are soldered on. The end supports are tabbed to locate in slots etched in the end platforms 16, 17. If the tab is reduced in length it allows the end supports to be moved closer to the body and the gap eliminated. The downside is that the inside end of the support and its flange no longer sits on the end platform, and I'm assuming it should do. I'm afraid it's the only practical solution I can come up with and I hope the inside end of the support won't be noticeable on the finished model. We'll see. The body is soldered to the chassis underneath, where the lower part of the hopper rests against the chassis cross members. Easy to solder, robust joint and not needing any clean up. With tabs reduced the supports can be slid along the locating slot until they wedge between hopper and chassis, with no gaps. The support is most easily fixed in position by soldering the end of the tab projecting through the slot in the platform. A good joint here is all you need, and it can't be seen so doesn't need cleaning up. The supports fit so closely to the hopper there's no gap, and I can avoid trying to solder the two together here in an awkward place. End of shift. 2 hours. Total 28.5 hours. ---------- Saturday 2nd April Probably time to fit the brake levers. Monkey tail brackets; no I can't figure out how to make the ball ends either. I'm leaving out parts 29, 30 because the bottom of the hopper is the only place I can put the ballast weight. Handrails. Bit of a fiddle, but soldering them in position is easier than fitting them to plastic bodies. 2 hours. Total 30.5 hours. ---------- Sunday 3rd April Handrails completed. And that's the brassy part done. There are some useful photos of handrails on these hoppers; Google 'Bowes Railway'. There's an excellent close up photo of the end of one just about to go over the top of the Bowes incline in the archive section of the Bowes railway website 'bowesrailway.uk'. Shows handrails and buffers in detail. Wish I'd found that photo before fitting the handrails! On the subject of good photos I'd recommend, 'Industrial Railways in Northumberland and County Durham in The Latter Days Of Steam', by Malcolm Castledine, Book Law Publications, 2004, ISBN 1 901945 35 9. Several good photos of this type of wagon including the wooden body variant. For anybody interested in colliery railways and rolling stock, or industrial steam in general it is an excellent source of information. DB recommends MJT 2242 axle box and Spring castings. I'm using 2241 because I happen to have some. They look the part, and I'm not sure what difference there is. There follows about half an hour of carving off lumps I don't need, straightening the springs and general tidying up and fettling of the castings. Oh, and the compulsory chore of scooping out the back for the bearings. I manage to break one in the process but that's about par for the course! We have injection moulded rail chairs and all sorts of tiny accessories now, so why not springs and axle boxes? It would be so convenient. Must look into the economics of this sometime. Buffers. DB recommends ABS 723B buffers. Can you even get ABS castings any more? The photos I've been able to find do show some small differences between buffers, and I imagine that they were overhauled or repaired with whatever was to hand. So there's some latitude in buffer choice, but they would always have carried a self contained buffer and not a spindle type. From looking at photos, and my collection of buffers, I reckon MJT 2350 is a good match, a BR 1'8" heavy duty buffer. Not sprung, but that's not really a problem. The castings are good and need little cleaning up, but the base needs to be reduced in size to match the pads on the headstock. They do look big, but that's how the prototype looked with a fat 18" self contained buffer bolted on. Buffers fixed with epoxy. Couplings. I'll use the hooks in the kit with my own links. I've found it easy to make my own links for 3 link couplings. Doesn't take long to make loads of them, and I can make them to a size that suits me, slightly over scale. Couplings and suspension units are chemically blackened and left overnight to dry out. 3 hours. Total 33.5 hours. --------- Monday 4th April Axle box and spring castings fixed in place with a couple of drops of cyano. Couplings fixed by bending the shank sideways about 45 degrees just after the hook, feeding through the headstock and setting in a blob of epoxy. The bent shank in the epoxy means it won't ever pull out. Wheels fitted, and it weighs in at 32g. So a further 8 g required to make it up to my standard 40g weight. A rectangle of 1.9mm thick lead flashing 26mm x15mm calculates as 8 g and fits neatly into the bottom of the hopper. Epoxy lead in place. That's the build complete, and here it is with a couple of it's NCB internal user buddies. 1 hour. Total 34.5 hours. Next episode should cover painting, weathering and a load of coal.

Monday 28th March The body at last. The perilous origami of hopper body folding is illustrated in the photos. A few of the first folds can be made with a Hold & Fold, but mostly it's careful bending with fingers and thumbs. Take the time to get each joint sitting exactly in place without having to be pushed together. Easier soldering and no burnt fingers. It's a job for the 40W iron. When the tacks are on and everything is aligned then zip up all the joints with a lot of flux and a hot clean iron. Tin the batter plates 28 while still on the fret. Makes them easy to sweat or RSU into place. Side ribs 32, now I see why there are so many of them. Tin them on the fret to make them easier to laminate. You'll need to squeeze the laminations tightly together otherwise they'll not fit in the slot in the body side. The easiest and quickest way I found to laminate all those ribs was to stack them up against a steel parallel on the RSU base plate (itself a 6mm steel plate) to get them all aligned and then to zap one end carefully with the RSU. The pre tinned laminations solder together and the pressure from the RSU probe squashes them together when the solder melts. They still need a little fettling to make them fit accurately in the slots on the body side. With the body laid on one side position a rib in its slot, run some flux around it and touch the 40W iron on the body next to it. When you see some solder melt on the rib introduce a little more solder. Just tack one end to start with. Then tack the other end, and then run solder along the whole joint. File them all smooth and clean up any stray solder. Phew, what a difficult (but ingenious) way to make ribs. Into the cleaning bath and that's it for today. 4 hours. Total 21 hours. -------- Tuesday 29th March End ribs 33, hopefully easier than side ribs 32! Top flange 34, more laminating. Solder paint and RSU to get these tacked together, followed by a run round with iron and solder. They need straightening a bit after soldering. Clean them up and straighten them. I clipped them to the body with hair grips. Tack in place, making sure the flange is pressed down into the rebate etched into the top of the body. When all is in place zip round the flange with a hot iron to complete the soldering. If there are any gaps at the top of the body side and end ribs then fill them with a blob of solder. Clean it all up and pop it in the cleaning bath. Couldn't resist just placing the body on the chassis for a photo. 3.5 hours. Total 24.5 hours.

Dave Bradwell 14t Steel Hopper (Charles Roberts) 4mm P4 ​This has been loitering with intent around the workbench for a few months. It's for my eventual, maybe, sometime colliery layout. I'm building up a collection of NCB internal user wagons. A real mixed bag of knock about, retired stock. Industrial wagons aren't that common as models so I was very pleased to come across this from Dave Bradwell. I'll probably build a couple more, but this one was to see how it builds. I've been getting some time in between episodes of the 7mm MMP 1/08 build. -------------- 20 March The etch is a single sheet, neatly laid out and of good quality. There are several A4 sides of printed instructions and a fair number of sketched diagrams. The diagrams are hand drawn, not the CAD output we're becoming used to, but clear enough. The kit provides the etch and a length of phosphor bronze wire for the springs. You have to find the other bits and bobs yourself. There's a list of the items you'll need to source, nothing too difficult to find. Under frame part 1. The easiest way to remove the Alex Jackson brackets is to score heavily where you want to cut them off, then bend back and forth gently with pliers. They'll fatigue off neatly. Solebars part 2. The way the W irons, steps and solebar flange are incorporated in one part is clever, maintains accuracy and saves the hassle of adding them as separate parts later. But study the diagram and work out how it folds. Some fold lines are on the outside of the bend; W irons and first step bend. Note also that the tread plate on the steps was slightly curved to prevent feet slipping off the edges. Bend the steps gently without breaking the half etch tab, it'll be a right faff to reattach the steps if you do. Don't be in a hurry to file off the remains of the reverse bend holding the steps to the solebar. Keep it on until the overlays are fitted and the solebar assembly is soldered to the chassis. File it off when there's no more risk of the joint becoming unsoldered. The red brown thing the chassis is sitting on is half of an old quarry tile. It's a heat proof, clean and relatively flat surface that doesn't conduct heat away from the work and doesn't char or leave crud on the parts being soldered. So far seems to be proof against all kinds of flux. 2 hours. -------- Monday 21st March Solebar overlays. Solder paint or tin the solebar and sweat the overlays to the solebar. Opening out the three slots in the overlay is more difficult than you'd think. DB suggests a piercing saw, but you need a really fine blade, and even then it's a bit snaggy on the overlay. Could have been etched in the overlay: forgotten on the artwork or weakens the overlay too much? Clean up the solebars and that's all I have time for tonight. 1 hour. Total 3 hours. --------- Tuesday 22nd March Cross members 8, 9, brackets 10, 11 and solebars all clip neatly together and hold each other in place for soldering. That's clever design. I started the soldering together in the middle at the V irons, the brackets 10, 11 and worked outwards from there. You don't need to solder everything to everything else. A few carefully chosen solder joints should do it. And there's the basic chassis. 1 hour. Total 4 hours. -------- Wednesday 23rd March Fold over and solder brake tabs on 8, 9. Some tidying up. Cut out and bend diagonals 12. 0.5 hours. Total 4.5 hours. -------- Thursday 24th March Diagonals solder into place easily. Platforms 16, 17, tin the back lightly before cutting from the fret. Sweat or RSU into place. Time for a trip to the ultrasonic bath. 1 hour. Total 5.5 hours. -------- Friday 25th March Wheels are Ultrascale P4 measuring 25.9mm over axle points. I ought to add that I rate Ultrascale wheels as better than any others by a long way. Never had a set that was less than perfect. Here we go - bearing faff. The first set of bearings soldered into the bearing carriers are much too shallow. The W irons are pushed too far apart by the axle. Same with the second set. The third set appear to have a deeper cone and they do fit. I have a collection of pinpoint wheel bearings from various sources over the years. They all seem to have different cone depths. The differences are subtle and not so easy to see by eye. Any more like the last two? Luckily yes, and finally we have four viable wheel bearings soldered in. Before adding the spring wire it is worth filing the excess length off the end of the bearings. Shorter bearings means less material to scoop out of the back of the cast axle boxes later. The tabs on the bearing carrier are not long enough to fold right over the spring wire, but bend them up 90 degrees and they help to locate the wire for soldering. Phosphor bronze wire solders far more easily than the steel wires sometimes supplied for this purpose. The little handrails for the end platforms bent up using the Bill Bedford handrail tool, spaced off the platform with a scrap of plywood sleeper and soldered from beneath. Hint - you might want to leave these off until the rest of the chassis work is done. With the handrails fitted you can't have the chassis flat on its back any more, it rocks on the handrails. Brake laminations. I drilled 0.8mm and 0.5mm to match the wire I have. Don't solder in the 0.8mm wire yet, just use it for location. 3 hours. Total 8.5 hours. ---------- Saturday 26th March Brakes again. Complete the lamination and add all the wire pins. Also added the safety loop from fine copper wire. I think the copper wire came from some old mains flex ages ago. There always seems to be a short length amongst the workbench clutter when you need it. Chamfer off the back of the brake blocks to improve wheel clearance. Handy hint for drilling small holes or clearing through small holes. I have a set of small drills with 2.35mm diameter shanks. Photo. They go down in size to 0.5mm. It is often easier to use them by holding the shank between finger and thumb and twiddling away than it is to put a similar sized parallel drill in a pin vice. There's plenty of grip for most drilling in the smaller sizes and you have more feel and control, so break fewer drills. I'm choosing to put on the outside V hangers now. The easiest way to make sure they all line up is to thread a length of wire through all of them across the chassis. Don't solder them to the wire, there's no cross shaft on this wagon. Quite lot of fiddling and tweaking to get the brakes in place and lined up nicely with the wheels. A few touches of solder and the brakes are fixed. It was far easier to assemble the brakes as a unit and fit them to the chassis than it is to assemble the brakes in situ between the wheels, as some kits have it. Buffer beam detail on by RSU. Align the buffer pads 5 and hold them in place with a cocktail stick through the hole in the buffer beam while you solder. Time for a break and a clean up. Safety loops, bit of a pain. Spring stops from strip 26, doesn't really work. Difficult to get them consistent and with crisp bends. A bit too big as well. Had more luck bending a U over the end of a 6 inch steel rule 0.5mm thick, tapping the U onto the ruler gently with a brass hammer to square the U, then bending up the feet with a small pair of flat nosed pliers, and trimming to length with snips. Not perfect, but much better. Soldered to the chassis by RSU and solder paint. Brake lever guards. More fiddly, faffy bits. 8 hours. Total 16.5 hours. ------- Sunday 27th March Add the stays to the brake lever guards. Always a trial trying to hold them in place and get one end soldered. These days I stick them in place with blobs of solder paint, they're light enough for the solder paint to grab them. Then trap the end of the stay against the W iron with the RSU probe and, without moving it, zap that end in position. Then tweak then other end to touch the brake lever guard and solder it with an iron. ​That's most of the chassis done 0.5 hours. Total 17 hours.

Why blog at all? I model quite a lot, on and off. I've found out how to do things over the years and solved lot of problems. I've learned a lot from reading what other folk get up to on RM Web and other sites. Maybe what I post here will be of interest to others. I hope so. If readers find anything of use here I'll be pleased enough with that. How did I get to here? We grew up in the 60's not far from the mighty Toton and within earshot of the approaches. Distant, spluttering class 25s could be heard frequently, and it wasn't unusual to be stopped at the level crossing in Long Eaton while a pair of green class 20s and a long train of clumping 16 tonners passed, Toton bound, up the Erewash valley line. For many years as a kid I didn't have a model railway, although I wanted one. Eventually Dad relented and I had for xmas, a long time ago, some sectional track, a Hornby Dublo 8F and a few random wagons. Happy enough for a while. One year I had a Bradford Barton book as a present, London Midland Steam in the North West. I examined every detail of the railway revealed in that book and came to the radical conclusion that my railway models didn't look much like the real thing. Attempts followed to add missing items like brake blocks to locomotives. Wagon kits were built with varying success. OO made way for EM. A Wills 4F was built, with brakes and other details, mostly from scratch and with the most basic of tools. I didn't know any better. University and work intervened. Settled in Gloucestershire and found the time to take up the hobby again. This time BR green in EM. That quickly became P4. Acquired skills and tools. Moved to Derbyshire and settled again, closer to the North Staffs than the Midland. Unsatisfactory excursion in N gauge, soon given up. Since then most of my time has been spent on P4 BR green period and industrial railways. I tried a little 7mm, enjoyed the change, did nothing much with it other than a couple of coal wagons. Recently I've taken a renewed interest in 7mm, it's a little less model making and a bit more engineering, which I enjoy. The workbench in the photo is tucked away in the corner of an upstairs room in a laid back, flaky, unfashionable old house. A happy refuge surrounded by part of a huge collection of railway reference books, too many unstarted projects and boxes of parts and materials and a decent tool chest. Modelling time comes and goes. Sometimes things get plenty of hours and effort and results emerge rapidly. Other times life interferes and then timescales for getting stuff done become geological. Right now I'm working on a Dave Parkins 7mm etched brass 1/108. That'll be the subject of this blog for a while, probably with excursions along the way.