thegreenhowards

I had a chat to Jonathan Weallans at Warley and he asked my about the D.227 Gresley 66’6” SLF which I was building about 18 months ago based on sides prepared by Roy Mears. That reminded me that it was almost finished and just need a coupling of finishing touches - window painting and corridor connectors. So yesterday I finished it off. I did find these sides a help in building this coach but they were quite a bit of work - especially putting the plasticard strip in to form the beading. The rest of the coach is produced from Kirk and MJT parts. I had previously built a couple of D.157 SLFs from cut and shut 61’6” SLF Kirk sides in a similar way to that described on Steve Banks’ website. The only real difference between these diagrams is the spacing of the windows on the berth side. The corridor side is identical. Here is a D.157 done earlier to illustrate the difference. This coach will form part of my Night Scotsman rake which is now nearly complete with just one twin SLF needed to complete it as per the 1958/9 winter diagram. Jonathan (and a couple of others) have recently asked me about Gresley Jn, and I realised that I haven’t posted on there for over a year, so I will put a picture of the whole train on the Gresley Jn thread. Andy

I did derail a few wagons….and I didn’t have a pocket full of buses!

I have finally got round to editing the video I took when I visited Gilbert last Thursday. I’m afraid the colour isn’t great as the weather was very gloomy so we were relying on artificial light. I’ve tried warming it up but it’s still not great. Anyway, I hope it gives a feel for the running on Peterborough North which behaved very well while I was there. Highlights for me are the beautiful Thompson kitchen car on the KX-York/ Hull and the ex streamliner twin RS/SO on the KX - Glasgow. Andy

I was about to say that but you beat me to it. Looks exceptionally natural. Definitely one of Rob’s better 37s!

They are nice wagons, aren’t they! These are O gauge Skog models kits. There must be an OO kit manufacturer?

The D1 has to be top priority for your Billington 6 wheelers. If you knock that up, we might have to subsidise your heating bills for a couple of weeks so you can print them in winter!

On the motor gearbox subject, in O gauge we have fantastic helical gearboxes units available from either ABC or MSC (ex Ron Chaplin). Having tried one, I now never use anything else and I’m gradually retrofitting my fleet. They have the Portescap feature of being able to turn the wheels, but the main advantages are the power and quietness. I’m told the helical gearbox is much more efficient and it certainly shows in much lower current draw. I can easily get away with 00 decoders on locos so fitted which saves a bit. They're not cheap at just over £100, but compared with £50-£75 for a more conventional unit I think they’re good value. I’m surprised nothing similar has been tried in 00. Andy

Fantastic Rob. Roll on the spring!

Are you converting them to TTGs? That’s what I need to do in O gauge for Glenfinnan. But I’ve no idea what work is required… Andy

Thanks for your hospitality Gilbert. A very pleasant day with plenty of chat, quite a few trains run and hopefully some decent video. That will have to wait though as I had a 3.5 hour drive home in the rain and then an evening at my club packing up our exhibition layout for Sunday. Off to bed shortly! Andy

South Pelaw is a layout based on a time and a place which allows one to lose oneself in a piece of history. For me they are often the best layouts. I think that’s why we all like modelling the WHL. The fact that it’s brilliantly executed with exquisite signalling and plenty of action also helps.

I also went on Sunday and agree it was a bit quieter than last year. But there were train strikes on Saturday last year which will have shifted the balance. I heard that the Warley club were pleased that attendance was back to pre ‘Covid’ levels. My favourite was also South Pelaw, although I had seen it before. I also enjoyed Netherwood, Staindrop (1920s LNER O gauge), and Long Melford (transition era east Anglia with an impressive lever frame and TV descriptions of each train.). Andy

I had my chips stolen by a gull last time I was there!

I’ve now finished the LMS 12 wheeler. I found some lovely LMS lamps on eBay by Floyd Kraemer. Here is the finished coach basking in this afternoon’s sun on my viaduct. Andy

I agree with all that for 4mm, although I choose a Zimo decoder and Youchoos sound file as my personal preference. I find it best to standardise so that the functions are all on the same keys on each loco without having to play around reprogramming the chip. For 7mm, I try to fit in either a YLR453520 (dimensions in mm) or YLR603010 from Youchoos, both of which have fantastic base. Andy

Of course it is…. It’s the real thing. But DCC sound is still a huge improvement on no sound at all in my opinion. Especially in O gauge where larger speakers can be deployed. It may not be the whole sound of the railway but at least it’s synchronised with train movements and it’s the most important bit. By all means add some birds tweeting in the background if that floats your boat! Andy

I think you’ve proved that you don’t need to illuminate it. You might need to turn the dominos on when you’re using the loco as it looks a bit strange with the headlight lit and not the dominos.

I rather like the V2 framed by the bridge. Andy

Rob, Were these car type headlights turned on during daylight hours? If not, might you get away with a non working version? If you do want them to work, I’d have thought they were incandescent, so a warm white. And they will be powered off the 12v circuit with a resistor. Try a few different resistors until you’re happy - you can get a box with loads of different ones dirt cheap on eBay. Andy

Many thanks. Black it is. As for the frosting, do you mean that they weren’t white but rather a sort of obscure glass? I’ve achieved this is in the past by sandpapering the inside of the glazing material. Is that the sort of ‘colour’ you would expect? Luckily the white is just paper blue tacked to the inside at present! Regards Andy

Tony, Thanks for your photos of West Highland loco classes. I have a rather paltry selection of steam by comparison as my main focus or my West Highland layout has been on diesels…and I don’t think a Heljan RTR 37 is quite what this thread is about! I do have a rather nice K1 built from a Piercy kit. This came from the same source as the V4 which was a collection which rarely ran. This one by contrast, ran very nicely to start with, but I did have to solder the valve gear back together after a few circuits! Does any second hand kit built loco work perfectly (Excluding those built by you of course)?! I have another K1, which I can’t find a picture of right now one and one other steam loco nearing completion. This is a DJB engineering BR Standard 4 mogul. 76001 was a regular on the line at the end of steam. I bought this with the tender already built but the rest jumbled up in the box and no instructions. I’ve sourced some instructions, but even so, it has been a bit of a jigsaw puzzle working out how to put it together! It was also the first time I’ve had to roll my own boiler which was ‘interesting’. It went away for the Summer while I was building and playing with the garden railway but has just resurfaced as my Autumn project. Andy Regards Andy

…and some 37s I hope!

Another project that I’ve been finishing off is this 7mm LMS D.1938 12 wheeled Restaurant Composite. It’s not something I’d normally tackle as it’s off region/ era for me. But I saw it on the Bring and Buy at Guildex and thought ‘that looks nice’. I dithered for most of the day, but when it was still there mid afternoon, I succumbed! I don’t know the origin of the kit - it came in a Westdale box, but I don’t think it was the original. It had been nicely built as far as it had got, but the paint job had faded, the bogies wouldn’t turn and the interior was unstarted. I’ve repainted it and finished off the interior although I still need some lamps for 1st class. I’ve put shims under the bogies so it now runs ok, but may ride too high -I’ll have to see when I run it but can’t think of another solution. A couple of questions: 1. Have I got the white windows in the right places - I’m fairly confident about the kitchen side, but less so about the corridor opposite the kitchen? 2. Should the ends be black? I suspect so, but it’s easier to paint them black than strip the paint off, so I thought I’d check first! If anyone can see any other howlers, please let me know - I’m no expert on LMS coaches. I’m not sure what to do with it, but I think I might use rule 1 and run it in my SRPS Railtour set from the 1970s which will feature on Glenfinnan. They didn’t have one of these but did have other LMS coaches and a Gresley buffet. Andy

As we’re getting a few West Highland engines on here today, I thought I’d show my little and large V4s. The 00 version is scratch built on an old Hornby tender drive chassis. it still had horrible Hornby valve gear when I bought it, but Tony helped me put Jamieson valve gear on a few years ago - in the days when I wouldn’t contemplate that sort of thing myself! Thanks to Tony’s training I’m now happy building my own. This is what I bought my Dave Bradwell tender for - I’m not sure I’ll ever get round to building it though! ’Large’ is built from an Ace products kit which seems to have been put together extremely well cosmetically given their reputation. I bought it looking like this, but running like a pig and it soon got worse when the valve gear fell apart after a couple of stuttering circuits of Glenfinnan! But that was quite easy to repair and an ABC motor /gearbox has it running very sweetly - the old gearbox was jamming somewhere in the mechanism. It’s not often I can say that I have models of all members of a class. Falcon and DP2 are the only others! Andy

Hi Peter, I love the K1/1. Do you have a West Highland layout on which to run it? As for the tender, I believe Dave Bradwell does the type you need. http://www.davebradwell.co.uk I bought one of these for my V4 (which currently has a Hornby tender), but I don’t think I’m ever going to build it as I am concentrating my West Highland modelling on O gauge, so if you’re interested I’d be happy to sell it to you for what I paid which was £50. Send me a PM. Regards Andy