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I wanted some Private Owners for Farthing, so have built a couple of Powsides kits, i.e. painted and pre-lettered Slaters kits. I opted for two Gloucester designs to RCH 1887 specifications, one a 5-plank side-door wagon, the other a 7-plank side- and end-door job. I like the overall appearance, although TBH the small lettering isn’t quite up to current standards. Perhaps I was unlucky, they look fine on the website. The kits have blank interior sides, so the moulding pips were filed away and planking was indicated with a scriber. The instructions recommend joining all sides first, then mounting the floor inside. I struggled a bit with this, the floor wasn’t a perfect fit and the sides were lightly curved. Some dismantling and remedial work ensued, but I got there in the end. I used waisted pin-point bearings from MJT. Split spoke wheels on one wagon, and plain spokes for the other one because I ran out. Did some of these wagons eventually receive plain spoke wheels? Otherwise I’ll swop the erroneous set later. Some of the small lettering was a bit damaged or missing as the kits came. I touched it up as best I could. Some bits I simply painted over. I’d rather have absent lettering than odd lettering. The built-up wagons. Having admired Dave’s lovely builds of the 7mm versions of these kits, I decided to indicate the interior ironwork as he has done. For this I simply used strips of Evergreen (painted darker after this shot). Good interior photos of these wagons are rare, so drawing on discussion by Stephen and other helpful RMwebbers I drew up the above sketch to guide my detailing of the interior. Please note that this is my own rough and ready rendering. There are various unknowns and no one has “signed off” on this sketch. Anyone interested should consult Stephen’s drawing and info here. Interior ironwork in place. The kit does include a hinge for the end door. On some wagon types this was positioned above the top plank, but in this case I fitted it just behind the top plank, based on this discussion. Archer’s rivet transfers at the fixed ends. Stephen pointed out the “big nuts” that appear on the ends of many Gloucester wagons, extending from the diagonal irons inside. Looking at photos they seem to have been present on both 5-, 6- and 7-planks as seen here left to right (obviously only at fixed ends). The nuts don’t feature in the kit, so I added them. On the 7-planker I drilled holes and stuck in bits of brass. This proved tricky as it’s just by the corner joins, so on the 5-planker I Mek-Pak’ed on bits of plastic rod instead, as seen above. As usual: Liquid Gravity and 3mm Sprat & Winkles. I'm always amazed how much difference weight makes to the "feel" of a wagon. The couplings too: Ugly they may be, but they turn it into a working vehicle. Weathering the interior with pigments. The “Sinai Dust” seen here is courtesy of the late Mick Bonwick. Thank you, Mick. The Ayres wagon. Phil Parker uses a fibre glass brush to fade the lettering on printed RTR wagons. But these are transfers, so would tear (I did try). Instead I lightly dry-brushed base colour over the lettering. Helps a bit, but not quite as effective. C&G Ayres still exist as a well-known Reading removal company and former GWR cartage agent. This (very) close crop shows one of their removal containers at Reading ca. 1905. But a search of the British Newspaper Archive showed that C&G Ayres were also at one time coal traders [Source: Reading Mercury Oxford Gazette March 9, 1918]. So I need to decide whether to designate the Ayres wagon for coal or furniture. I wonder if this explains the difference between the red Powsides livery and the green wagon livery that I normally associate the company with. The Weedon wagon. You can just make out the nuts on the ends, but they aren't really noticeable. The effort would arguably have been better spent detailing the brake gear! I had assumed the Weedon Brothers were mainly coal and coke merchants, but again newspapers and directories of the time offered further info. [Source: Kelly's Directory of Berks, Bucks & Oxon, 1911]. It seems that manure was also a key aspect of their business. The company features on the right in this directory clipping - amongst lime burners, loan offices, lunatic asylums and other essentials of progress! Though based at Goring, the Weedon Brothers had stores in a number of places, as illustrated in the above 1889 advert. I’m inclined to designate the wagon for manure rather than coal. I wonder what that would mean for the weathering? Richard's latest book on Wiltshire Private Owners is firmly on my wishlist. Anyway, the wagons are now running at Farthing. Here's No. 1897 knocking them about in the sidings behind the stables. Overall I've enjoyed the build. May have a go at applying my own transfers next time. It's just a couple of plastic wagons of course, but I learnt a lot along the way. That's one of the great things about modelling, every build is an entry point to railway history. Thanks to everyone for the help.

Over the past month I decided to try and resurrect an ancient locomotive from my collection. It's not that we've discovered a source of high pressure Geo-thermal steam in Clare, it is just that I fancied trying to get the old Impetus Andrew Barclay fireless to work again. I first built this loco about 20 years ago and I can remember my son, who was about 5 at the time, drawing steam locomotives with their cylinders at the wrong end for months afterwards! The loco was built with a split axle design but still suffered from intermittent pickup. I had a little room left in the locomotive so I wondered about fitting a modern DCC decoder and stay-alive capacitor which might be better able to deal with this. I asked for some recommendations on the MERG forum and then opted to order a Zimo MX617f and KungFu stay-alive 27x9x6. I order these from Digitrains online at 13:30 on a Friday, Order acknowledgment was immediate, an email telling me that the goods had been dispatched arrived at 14:30 and the chips arrived in the post at 10:30 the following morning - Kudos to Digitrains and the Royal Mail. Soldering the stay-alive to the chip was nerve-racking but achievable (I believe that Digitrains will do it for you if asked) and the decoder inserted into the top of the reservoir (note: not boiler) . The chips were installed within 24 hours of being ordered! The stay-alive is sitting in the cab but is pretty well hidden. The result is incredible. Before the loco would stutter along and needed to be traveling at an over-scale speed in order not to stall. At this speed the motor was rev'ing very fast and generated an unpleasant whiny sound. After fitting the stay-alive I can now make the locomotive crawl along with its wheels going around at 1 r.p.m. It really does make for a most unusual model (and as such is bound to be released R-T-R before too long!) My second little project has been to work on some tests for a potential little side project. I rather fancy building a small single board 'cameo layout' for the fireless to run on. Many years ago I started a layout based on Mistley in Essex. The layout even got as far as a Scaleforum at City university (I said it was a long time ago) but was eventually abandoned because the maltings buildings were just so damn big and would have taken decades to make in plasticard. But now I have access to a laser cutter! One section of the building looks like this, the actual building being about 8 storeys tall and ten or so bays wide... My first attempt was to cut a test section using 3mm MDF for the base and 1mm MDF for the buttresses and detail. Each of these sections is 50mm wide x 70mm tall. While the buttresses were fine the detail on the brickwork was way too course. For my second attempt I purchased a sheet of oiled manilla card from Tindall's in Ely. (I corrected the closures around the windows etc. on this too) This gave a better look but the tiny pieces of card were extremely fragile to fit. The multiple layers needed were also very time consuming to add. For a last attempt I tried 3D printing just the decorative brick work. The part between the buttresses was printed as one piece and the part which wraps around the buttress was a separate piece. I also modeled the decorative diagonal brick course which had previously been cut in 1mm MDF and fitted into a slot in the 3mm MDF base. As I was in 3D printing mode I added some windows and grills to the print job. This was so much easier to assemble and could be made even easier if I cut some alignment holes in the base with the laser and added some location pins on the back of the 3D printed parts. I had a go at painting the test piece with two different colours of brick and then adding a mortar coat with some fine surface filler. Finally a wash with Vallejo grey wash. I think a building nearly 50cm x 25 cm could look rather impressive, particularly with a fireless and a couple of grain wagons shunting in front of it. I remember an enjoyable operating session on Enigma Engineering (what they make is a mystery) a few years back, this might be a case for Mistrey Quay (who knows what ships from there?) What do you reckon? David

A class of five small lightweight 0-6-0T, numbered 781-5 by the GWR. Two survived to join British Railways but were gone by 1950, whilst three went to industrial use in the 1930s and lasted to 1958/60. Only one received a really major GWR rebuild, which included a non standard Swindon designed boiler as well as GWR style cab and bunker. There are complexities around the E class bunkers! 781, 783 and 785 had an upward extension of the bunker with coal plates in Barry days, but 782 and 784 did not - or at least had lost it in their GWR time. I've drawn it in the Barry sketch. There are various problems with the GWR weight diagrams. Diagram A82, which was purportedly the locomotives as received shows the wrong shape cab entrance and the bunker too low. Diagram B5 ,which only applied to 782, shows a GWR shaped bunker that was never fitted. The locomotive appears to have had a new bunker at that rebuild, but it was a plain rectangle, taller than the Barry bunkers and about the same height as the extensions. 783 had a more major rebuild for Diagram B21 and did have a GWR style bunker. Another feature is balance weights on the wheels. I often leave these off as being tricky to manage accurately, but in the case of the E class only 782 appears to have had them. The generous supply of handrails seen on the Barry sketch may not have been present on every locomotive. They had quite an array of pipework behind the safety valve cover which I haven't managed to understand well enough to reproduce.

Lattice Footbridge and Steps. Based on a G.N.R. foot bridge that existed at Kimberley station,nottingham, this is a step by step guide to modeling the main components of this bridge, from styrene sheet. The stone support structures for this bridge are not included in this build because similar structures of that type have already been covered in other blogs. The build method is very similar to an earlier construction for Kimberley Station, with slight alterations due to lessons learned from that model. The earlier foot bridge had weak points between the handrail sides and steps that required repair from time to time. The main stone structure that supports the steps is based on a bridge structure at Crediton Station in Devon.

The latest incarnation of Hornby's Caley coaches suffer from the drawbacks of their origins; namely a representation of the two preserved coaches attached to their now dated Mk 1 chassis, still with no interior and those brass nuts holding the whole thing together. In the past I have attempted to blend the sides with a more appropriate vehicle, with none too much success, so when the Caley 123 train pack appeared I gave it little attention. It is the same old tooling, and although the engine now has a better motor, it has also acquired traction tyres, which is not a move forwards. However, the decoration is first class, and I got a set with the intention of doing an upgrade to the engine, but came to the conclusion that it was beyond practicallity- not for the first time BTW. The announcement of City of Truro finished any further ideas of modifying 123, but I was pleased with the coaches finish, and decided to do something with them. What follows now is not for the purists- but it gives me an acceptable coach for a minimum of that most precious ingredient- modelling time- and once again involved my stockpile of old Airfix LMS bodies and chassis. Rather than adjust the length of the body and damage the finish, I decided to leave the body as it was. The first line was to join two Airfix underframes to the correct length, but it proved easier to keep the Hornby chassis and fit Airfix ends and roof, to hopefully give a more pre-grouping feel to the whole thing. The coach was dissassembled and all underframe detail removed, and the new ends fitted. Trying out the new profile roof. A comparative shot of the two diffferent end profiles- I think it does make the character change. An interior was also added, but I forgot to photograph this before I stuck the roof on, so here is one of a old Mainline coach that is also being titivated- the old Peco kits being used. To be honest, its hardly seen, but I know its there. Two shots of the interiors as seen from outside- it is better than seeing straight through originally. Some shots of the finished coaches in service, and showing a before and after comparison as well. As I said, a very crude approach to coachbuilding, but it does make the most of the best bit of the original, the finish. I have been pottering about with some other coaches as well, and these will be here soon. Richard