Leaderboard

I know it's been a while, but the weather has been good so gardening and mucking about with my car took priority. Finally I have made the extended tank tops and filed them down to fit. First photo shows the tops glued together and a card template I made to help with the fitting to the much wider 9F boiler. A large file was used to knock them down to size - not one of those tiny little things that we modellers mostly prefer. Here's a shot of the body with tank tops bonded on So, just a bit of filler to tidy up and I'll be redy for some primer to see how flat the joins are etc. Then more black paint!

No 92 was one of five small 0-4-0STs, superficially rather similar in appearance, but which were not treated as a class. With one exception they were late 19thC Wolverhampton reconstructions of older locomotives, and by the end of their long lives probably retained few original parts. The first of the group was no 45, built in 1880, which was a new engine, albeit given the number of a Sharp Stewart built locomotive withdrawn a very few years earlier. It had the odd feature of a cab that was only accessible from the right hand side. The next to appear were 95 and 96,which were originally Sharp Stewart built for the Birkenhead Railway, and their cabs only had entrances on the left hand side. In their final form they had rather vestigial spectacle plates at each end of the cab and a rather minimal roof. They were substantially reconstructed at Wolverhampton in 1890 and 1888 respectively when they received new boilers. No 92 started life as two 0-4-2 saddle tanks, 91 & 92, built for the GWR by Beyer Peacock in 1857. In 1877/8, one good 0-4-0ST, 92 was made from the two. In 1893 it received a very major rebuild at Wolverhampton to gain basically the appearance shown here. Amazingly, it then survived until 1942, albeit only as a stationary engine in its latter years. A similar loco, 342, was built by Beyer Peacock in 1856, and bought by the GWR in 1864. This had a similar life to 92, converted to 0-4-0ST in 1881 and rebuilt in 1897. The original 0-4-2ST form can be seen in this blog entry. A peculiarity of all these five was that the design had the firebox behind the trailing wheels with a distinctive long overhang. The result was much greater weight on the trailing wheels than the driving wheels and this high load on the second axle meant they were prohibited on uncoloured routes. They had long lives, mainly in the obscure northern reaches of the GWR around Wrexham. At least two were cut down at one time or another for use on a route with a very low bridge, and this sketch of 92 is based on a photograph of the locomotive in cut down condition. No. 342 was withdrawn in 1931 and No. 45 in 1938. No. 92 survived until 1942, with the boiler lasting a few more years in stationary use. One wonders whether the curious reluctance of Swindon to build 0-4-0Ts was the reason for the long lives of these antiques, or contrariwise, their long lives were why Swindon didn't build any replacements.

Taking time off from theoretical musings, I have reverted to the 'wagon-load' aesthetic in the general merchandise sidings, to try a homage to one of my favourite photographs around of goods yards, by Mr Kevin Lane : [73 005, Guildford Yard, February 1980.] I first came across it in Michael Hymans's 'Southern region through the 1970s year by year', Stroud : Amberley Publishing, 2018, and then discovered it on Flickr. When I have time, I must browse the rest of this gentleman's pictures. Having taken delivery last week of several Bachmann VVVs, of which my 1970's consist was severely lacking, I played around arranging the wagons and '73' in suitable poses. Of course, my yard is only two loading sidings wide and has no such buildings in the background, but it got me thinking about picture composition, wagon arrangement, and why I find the above photograph so evocative; I might post what I think are 'good and bad compositions' in another post. Meanwhile, here is my Sunday morning's efforts, playing around with cropping and a filter. Much more scenery is required and the background ignored, but I like the 'flow' of the wagons, and visual relationship with them, the tracks, yard scene and lorry, and locos (the 'milk train' on the viaduct above is a debatable bonus!). When I get my model looking as atmospheric and detailed as Mr Lane's picture, I will be happy. The header photograph is courtesy of my partner, a picture of a visitor to the bird-feeder last year.

It was gloomy yesterday so I turned the layout lights on and tried running a few trains in the dark. Daft, but oddly fun. Anyway, a few random pics of variable quality. The station in general, I need to lightproof the roof more next time it is off. This is a lucky pic. I cant really see the from of the station building so its just done by point the camera at the mirror on the end of the layout and hoping. The resultant image is then reversed in preview. Through a window. Atmospheric, a bit....

Some time ago my Lister stopped working during an exhibition, it was returned to its stock box in disgrace and, in the absence of any exhibition outings to provide the impetus to repair it, there it had stayed. However a birthday present of a copy of 'Picking, Packing and Processing of Peat' by Paul Webb published by the Moseley Railway Trust spurred me into action. It contained too many nice photographs and drawings of Lister locomotives for me to ignore the overdue repair. Dismantling the locomotive showed up the problem quite quickly. The DCC chip is located under the roof and has four wires from the chassis passing up one of the corner supports. When two of the wires detached before I even pulled them it confirmed that the issue was a broken joint in the wiring. This time I attempted to do the job properly, fastening the wires to either side of a 4-pin Molex style socket. This means that the chassis can be removed from the body and the wiring disconnected. The wiring hides in the canvas weather protection but I need to do more to hide them at floor level. The locomotive is now back in working order, all we need now are some exhibitions.... maybe later this year. David

I modeled up the alternative battery box which had the peaked roof rather than just a flat top. I also completed the second chassis, which had a couple of little modifications over the first version. This time I added the spring tags onto the High Level hornblocks and added supports for a length of sprung steel wire. The result is that the axles are now properly sprung. As the sprung wire connects electrically to the hornblocks and the wheels I used it to feed power up to the motor. I've also managed to finish the coupling rods on this one, fixing the crank pins in place and covering them with the 3d printed covers. This locomotive has a wheelbase of only 32mm and an overall length of 90mm. I plan to use some thin solder to make the wires from the connector into battery box and the control console. I'll reprint the chassis for the first loco and complete the pair. David

With aging hands and eyesight this will be the last kit build for me as I`ve now got quite a selection of builds to play with, plus it`s time to start playing with them all. I`ve been wanting to build one of these for quite a while and took the plunge just after Christmas. £ 400 gets you a complete kit including wheels and a motor/gearbox kit plus all the detail parts in either lost wax or white metal including seating parts for the passenger saloon. Scorpio supply three instruction booklets, covering the motor bogie, trailing bogie and body. It is a complex kit. As ever I kicked off with building the motorised bogie and vertical boiler unit, starting with the coupling rods. There is a great set of etches in nickel silver for the bogie frames etc. There is provision for beam compensation but I have opted for a fixed chassis as this is a complex build. Reading the instructions several times is essential for this kit as they flit about rather than flow in sequence. Nickel silver solders so well and I numbered the parts required at each stage. The etched bearing holes are accurately positioned. But I like to be doubly sure, as this mechanism will be difficult to be dismantled even for painting. I do like to have compensation with loco chassis but this would have added too much complication with the internal white metal detailing. The motion parts are very finely etched or lost wax which benefit from fettling before assembly. Not the simplest of ways to construct slide bars, but they do look the part. But after a bit of a clean up it all comes together.... .......................... more to follow...........................