Leaderboard

First off I must apologize for the long delay in posting a blog, the truth is that for the time being at least, I cannot spend as much time as I'd like on model railway's. Therefore, after what seems like an eternity, here's part three of 'De Snitzlton'. This blog covers the design and construction of a trailing bogie / pony which I considered a last resort 'steam assisted uncoupler' method as I much preferred the original design that featured in Part 1, but this design failed to deliver. This blog also illustrates the construction and wiring of the locomotive to run on DCC. What is Fun Town ? : Fun Town is a small table top module that can be used alone or form part of a larger unit, it fit's like a jigsaw piece to the Walls Traverser Cover to create a small 36" x 18" layout over the top of Snitzl Town's traverser. Done so far : Overhead Tram, Jules Verne's Flying Ship, Steam operated Traverser, Market Stall Wagons and Market Stall Engine without DCC uncoupler. Still to do : Steam Tram, Stall Replenish Wagon, Animated Figues, Hot Air Balloon, Interior racking & goods for the Warehouse, Gantry Crane and anything else that may be appropriate, in other words, a bit of fun. Regards Snitzl Thanks for Looking.

I've sketched out the obvious principal variations in Large Prairie bunkers visible in Russell, both drawings and photos. I'm making the assumption that the lines of close spaced rivets on the bunker side did indeed follow the top seam of the water tank. It sees to me there must have been variations in coal and water capacity. I shall have to take a closer look at the RCTS volume.

A couple of dry evenings has resulted in a lot of progress on 37065, which has now been fully resprayed into Mainline livery (using Rainbow Railways acrylic Mainline Blue, Model Air Grey Black for the roof and a mix of Model Air chrome yellow and Model Colour golden yellow for the ends. After a coat of gloss varnish, Fox transfers were used for the body strip and silver numbers, it is an odd sheet as it includes numbers for all classes, two sets of stripes, but they sell different packs for different classes with the different sized Mainline logos (it turned out mine was for a 73 which were too big). Also two big were the 37xxx numbers in blue (I am assuming the centre box locos had bigger numbers on the ends). Thankfully a sheet of NSE coach numbers was the perfect size so I could add the end numbers (as ever regretting not sourcing some from Railtec while I was adding the numbers one by one. With this done the model gained a coat of mat varnish before reassembling. (It will get a set of rub down Mainline logos in the future to complete the loco) full bufferbeam detail has been added (Intercity Models / Heljan), although it does still need a Dingham next time I build a batch. There are still a few jobs outstanding, it needs the lighting boards reconnecting to the main circuit, the lights all need glazing, and eventually it will need modifications to the fuel tanks and windscreen. For the latter I want to see if any of the current laserglaze parts will fit (along with a silouhette cut window frame.) Finally I need to find someway of securing the body and chassis as the body is missing its retaining screws (and the bufferbeams were cut away from the chassis block. The most obvious solution is to do a chassis swap with another loco which does have the central body attachments, so one can be held on at the ends and the other in the centre. All in all I am really pleased with this little project, which really should be the last class 37 added to the fleet. I say should because the master plan would really need another 37/5 in Transrail (and LoadHaul 37s just look so good!) It should at least be the last 37/0 at least, given how less frequently they would be seen in the SW relative to the refurbs.

Things have moved on a bit since the last update. The body fabrication has been completed and the base coat of satin black applied. Buffer beams repainted (which are Hornby class 31 for info) and the body fittings replaced. Nothing left now other than tackle the lining The chassis has also had black paint applied to the fabricated bits and so I could do an (almost) final assembly the cylinders had their red lining applied and satin varnished. Just need to get a Zimo sound decoder and 9F sounds before hard wring it all in. Last thing I indulged myself in a pretty pointless exercise of detailing up the cab a bit. Most will never be seen, but I'll know it's there The crew came with the donor 9F and were good enough to drop in without any further work. Hours of painstaking work with the Pressfix awaits .....................

A relatively calm day before the storm has allowed me to further refine the layout. For some time the drawbridge giving me access to the shed without having to learn to limbo was causing me issues with track, and current reliability, so I bit the bullet (I do like chomping down on ordnance it seems...) and screwed it down. The height of the layout - sort of nipple height - means I don't have to bend too much to get in and I thought it a reasonable sacrifice for better running. The drawbridge had caused me problems when setting out the fiddle yard, as I tried to avoid any pointwork where the drawbridge joins the baseboard, so fixing it down meant I could revisit the fiddle yard and the Wombourne branch. So, a lot of experimentation and re-appraisal based on my emerging timetable plans meant I have now ended up with two "inter-city" loops roughly equivalent to a 2+8 HST length, or loco and 9 mk1-2 stock, a turnback siding 4 cars long for the EMU to Birmingham/Walsall which will connect every half hour with the Wombourne bubble, two more short loops capable of each accommodating two 2 car DMUs or one 6 car, and two loops which feed onto the freight avoiding line for two decent length steel or van trains. All told it should allow me to set up about half an hour's worth of activity, before taking a pause, removing the Wombourne backscenes, and setting up new stock for the next half hour sequence. The Wombourne backscenes are removable to allow me access to the fiddle yard, and setting up a flight of trains will avoid the need to constantly add and remove stock, whilst allowing a wide variety of typical formations you would have seen had the line really existed. More importantly, I've been able to ease curves so hopefully Heljan 86s will get round without throwing themselves onto the cork. One happy side effect of this replanning (did I mention I'm a retired Town Planner? You'd think I could plan the layout better than I have, but no, I couldn't plan a drunken in a brewery) is Wombourne has grown again, without sacrificing Sam the Mechanic's tin shed, or the Engineers compound. The Wombourne branch now spans pretty much the length of the fiddle yard side of the shed which at least makes a feature of what otherwise would be a dead area. So, once the new ballast has dried, the glue cured and the weather has calmed down I will be able to launch some train services, although I will need to clean some of the track which has got tarnished over the winter. Hopefully the next blog entry might be something including moving pictures! The Wombourne branch curves in past the derelict ex-Railway cottages to run behind the old goods yard. Sam the Mechanic's tin shed has been turned to face the front of the layout, and a pedestrian foot crossing put in to give me an excuse to blow the horn. I play trains. Deal with it or bite me. Semi dereliction is the aim and a crudely painted "Keep Clear" on the doors shows a level of "couldn't give a f"""ery" typical of this on the margin type locations and businesses. Mrs Miggins has moved, but is still doing ten rounds with the Wombourne Flasher. Slightly reduced engineer's yard but still enough room to park a few vans and trucks and have a pile of resignalling items ready to load up for use somewhere. The Flasher's footpath now turns into the backscene via a stile. Some little scroate has turned the finger post. The "Save Our Trains Barbara!" graffiti, dating from 1967 and aimed at Barbara Castle, is still there, having become a bit of a local landmark and mysteriously repainted every so often. I need to paint the rails, having forgot to do it before laying. Another cracking piece of planning. The Wombourne branch has had at various times a Park Royal Railbus, Gloucester single units and Class 153 "Scuds". In 1986 two early morning through services to Birmingham were introduced, using over-night stabled DMUs in marginal time, and in 1993, whilst for most of the day you still needed to change at Wednesford into a Birmingham all shacks, the morning through services had been handed over to Class 150s from the Tyseley "Centro" pool, a two car 150 just squeezing into the platform (a 156 would have one door off the platform so were banned). Here we see the usual shuttle fare in 1993, unusually in a slightly grubby state given it hasn't long been outshopped as a single car unit. The Wombourne Pullman departs past a number of bravely parked commuter cars using the remains of the old goods yard throat as parking. Given the air of decay and the unstaffed station, probably not the most secure of locations but a half hourly shuttle with the train laying over in the station actually affords a high degree of passive supervision. Welcome to Wombourne: Cell Block H. "The Freak" will be round to sell the tickets, any cheek and you will be bent over for a rectal gloving" Old Ma Miggins is still slugging it out with the Flasher who is seemingly oblivious to the passage of the Scud. Clearances are a bit tight. Looks like the gate might need repairing.

Another bank holiday and a bit more time at the tinking table working on the 1361. The cylinders and slide bars are done, crossheads fettled and con rods added. CSBs are fitted and all runs smoothly. The cab, roof, smokebox, bunker and tanks have been fashioned from about a million bits of brass. Everything has an overlay. Even the overlays. Thank goodness for my RSU. The kit is carefully thought out and any mistakes are mine. I can see a couple of things in the photos that are going to need tweaking. It's starting to resemble a series of component parts which are ready to be fitted together, once they've had a thorough clean up. Still I'm a happy chap as it's been quite a while since I've built an engine and I'm enjoying it.