Adam's EM Workbench: Farewell for now

[Porcy Mane]

 Bring on the Plastruct tube!

 

I've a workroom full of the stuff*, ready and waiting. Don't forget the end caps.

 

*At present it's been put to good use draining a cistern in the loft after a ball cock decided to fail overnight. (hence the wet pants)

 

Who sez railway Modelling serves no other purposes?

Edited December 10, 2016 by Porcy Mane

[jjnewitt]

I've got the Durbar walkways sorted. Decent ladder frames included on the etch?

Such a pity that the tank is underscale for the majority of the Shell & Esso 20 tonners.

 

A selection of bespoke ladders will be included with the underframe. :-) They'll also be available seperately as part of a detailing etch to tart up the Bachmann model.

 

It's a shame, for me at least, that Bachmann decided to do the 14T version rather than the 20T one as I'd really like a few SMBP 20T anchor mounted wagons. The length is relatively easy to overcome and I did think about converting some as Adam and others have done rather well but I can't get past reduced tank diameter and more importantly and noticeably the effect that has on the anchor mountings. The Esso one pictured above wont stay like that.

 

Justin

[Adam]

Thanks all, it's good to see that there's interest in this one. It's also useful that the things travelled singly - one of the downsides of being born years after the era I'm modelling is that these sorts of throwaway details are not something stowed away in the memory banks. Presumably Chlorine tanks would also require barrier wagons? Anyway, another small detail has been added and the end supports are now completed, and with them, the visible soldering (I still need to add a couple of plates for fixing points).

 

 

I didn't have suitable channel for these, but I did have some L section which, once soldered in place provided the bones of the answer. The remaining side of the channel is from scrap etch from the chassis kit while the holes are part of an abortive attempt to model the boltheads that hold the real things in place. I had thought of doing this by soldering in pins but will instead use little plastic cubes; there's less risk of everything falling apart that way.

 

The other current project is another 21 ton hopper - a fairly substantial rebuild of a Parkside LNER dia. 100 wagon into a BR dia. 1/145. These were built by Metropolitan Cammell and also by Hurst, Nelson. They were interesting in their hybrid construction with riveted panels and framing in the same style as the welded 1/146. Here's a link to a Paul Bartlett picture: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/br21thopperrivet/h2af34d4c#h2af34d4c

 

Here's my version:

 

 

Now I'm not certain what the handrails inside the wagons were actually for and though Parkside supply them I usually trim them away. In this case, I've chosen to reinstate them in 0.3mm brass. The end platforms are from the (excellent value) Bradwell etch - which will also yield steps and rap plates in due course - because they are thinner than the Parkside versions - while the corner reinforcement plates are spares from the Rumney Models chassis which went under my dia. 1/107. There's still a very long way to go with this one.

 

Adam

 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

Grandmother and eggs moment, sorry Mark Adam.

 

I don't know what you're doing with the end tank wooden buttresses, but Hornby Dublo cheated and recessed the tank end, appended pics show the prototypical arrangement.

 

 

 

Also, further information is available in some "Railway Archive" magazines, can't access them at the moment to give the numbers.

 

Mike.

 

Edited to get the name right, I blame 2 days of tiling, all I'm seeing is diamonds!

Edited December 11, 2016 by Enterprisingwestern

[Adam]

Thanks for those - I was aware of that, but hadn't decided. My inclination was to take a prototypical approach which means I can paint the tank barrel and fit it afterwards. Yes, I know I should have filled these earlier...

 

Adam

 

PS - no worries about getting the name wrong; we've been having that sort of week ourselves...

Edited December 12, 2016 by Adam

[Fat Controller]

Thanks all, it's good to see that there's interest in this one. It's also useful that the things travelled singly - one of the downsides of being born years after the era I'm modelling is that these sorts of throwaway details are not something stowed away in the memory banks. Presumably Chlorine tanks would also require barrier wagons? Anyway, another small detail has been added and the end supports are now completed, and with them, the visible soldering (I still need to add a couple of plates for fixing points).

 

ICI_Chlorine_003.gif

 

I didn't have suitable channel for these, but I did have some L section which, once soldered in place provided the bones of the answer. The remaining side of the channel is from scrap etch from the chassis kit while the holes are part of an abortive attempt to model the boltheads that hold the real things in place. I had thought of doing this by soldering in pins but will instead use little plastic cubes; there's less risk of everything falling apart that way.

 

The other current project is another 21 ton hopper - a fairly substantial rebuild of a Parkside LNER dia. 100 wagon into a BR dia. 1/145. These were built by Metropolitan Cammell and also by Hurst, Nelson. They were interesting in their hybrid construction with riveted panels and framing in the same style as the welded 1/146. Here's a link to a Paul Bartlett picture: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/br21thopperrivet/h2af34d4c#h2af34d4c

 

Here's my version:

 

Parkside_rivet_001.gif

 

Now I'm not certain what the handrails inside the wagons were actually for and though Parkside supply them I usually trim them away. In this case, I've chosen to reinstate them in 0.3mm brass. The end platforms are from the (excellent value) Bradwell etch - which will also yield steps and rap plates in due course - because they are thinner than the Parkside versions - while the corner reinforcement plates are spares from the Rumney Models chassis which went under my dia. 1/107. There's still a very long way to go with this one.

 

Adam

The handrails would have been to give the teemers something to hang on to; in cold conditions, the load might well freeze solid, whilst otherwise a larger lump of coal might wedge solid. In either case, some poor soul would have to climb into the wagon and knock seven bells out of the load to get it to start moving.

Other 21t hoppers had 'lozenge' shaped steel pads on the sides- this was also so that someone could encourage the load to move, by belting them with a very large hammer. You can see them in this photo:-

http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/br21thopperweld/h2a62a3ac#h2a62a3ac

[Porcy Mane]

More Granny & egg stuff.

 

At NCB establishments the handles were definitely grab handles as access was regularly needed to to access the insides of wagons. Not least to pack the doors with grass or straw to prevent small coal exiting through closed but worn bottom doors. The shunters used to collect grass and straw from embankments and cuttings on the way back from the exchange sidings. (At least that's what happened at a couple of collieries I used to attend.)

 

Brass makes a better job of the long continuous handles (Welded and Rivetted) but I prefer to use 0.3mm styrene rod. It doesn't hold it's shape and is nowhere near as strong as brass but I find it easier to disguise the holes on the outside of the wagon. Also the handles were often missing, distorted, bent upwards (most often) or downwards  due to the scouring action when being tippled and the delicate plastic stuff seems to capture this damage look a little better. (IMHO) When painting the inside of a hopper I'll usually accidentally bend or snap a couple of the plastic handles but it just makes them look a bit more like type.

The pasticard "chock" is just temporary to try and bow the sides out.

 

 

Usually, you could tell tell from the outside when the long handles had been recently replaced with the short welded type due to witness marks in the paint/weathering. (Middle Wagon Colour Pic)

 

OCT 74 04. Barclay 0-6-0ST Llantanam Abbey at Mountain Ash, September 1974 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Sometimes you would see both types of grabs inside a wagon. 

 

 

There's plenty  of phots about that show the varying patterns of short handles. I Like this one.

 

https://flic.kr/p/k72L7n

 

P

Who had seven years of walking alongside, around and over a multitude of 21 ton hoppers to get to my place of work. I even used to commandeer the odd hopper along with the loco occasionally as a good substitute for a ladder. (Well before the days of cherry pickers).

Edited December 11, 2016 by Porcy Mane

[Fat Controller]

The minerals used on the shipping coal traffic in South-West Wales were so rusty that the NCB used to keep bales of straw near the screens, rather than rely on being able to scavenge stuff from the lineside. The wagons would often stand loaded for a week or two, hence the rusting-through of doors and sides.

[hmrspaul]

Grandmother and eggs moment, sorry Mark Adam.

 

I don't know what you're doing with the end tank wooden buttresses, but Hornby Dublo cheated and recessed the tank end, appended pics show the prototypical arrangement.

 

1-IMG_5687.JPG

 

2-IMG_5688.JPG

 

Also, further information is available in some "Railway Archive" magazines, can't access them at the moment to give the numbers.

 

Mike.

 

Edited to get the name right, I blame 2 days of tiling, all I'm seeing is diamonds!

 

 

Chlorine tank drawings are in

 

Fidczuk, Peter (2006) Gas by Rail Part 2: Imperial Chemical Industries Railway Archive No. 11 p20 – 41 + back cover.

Drawing - diag. TR032B 14t chlorine tank

 

Bartlett, Paul W. & Fidczuk, Peter (1990b) Tank wagons, part 2. ICI 14ton liquid chlorine tanks.    Model Railways vol. 7 (part 8) pp 421 - 425.

     Drawing - diag. TR032B 14t chlorine tank

 

Paul

[Fat Controller]

More Granny & egg stuff.

 

At NCB establishments the handles were definitely grab handles as access was regularly needed to to access the insides of wagons. Not least to pack the doors with grass or straw to prevent small coal exiting through closed but worn bottom doors. The shunters used to collect grass and straw from embankments and cuttings on the way back from the exchange sidings. (At least that's what happened at a couple of collieries I used to attend.)

 

Brass makes a better job of the long continuous handles (Welded and Rivetted) but I prefer to use 0.3mm styrene rod. It doesn't hold it's shape and is nowhere near as strong as brass but I find it easier to disguise the holes on the outside of the wagon. Also the handles were often missing, distorted, bent upwards (most often) or downwards  due to the scouring action when being tippled and the delicate plastic stuff seems to capture this damage look a little better. (IMHO) When painting the inside of a hopper I'll usually accidentally bend or snap a couple of the plastic handles but it just makes them look a bit more like type.

The pasticard "chock" is just temporary to try and bow the sides out.

 

21tHop_PsideBod-001-Sm.jpg

 

Usually, you could tell tell from the outside when the long handles had been recently replaced with the short welded type due to witness marks in the paint/weathering. (Middle Wagon Colour Pic)

 

OCT 74 04. Barclay 0-6-0ST Llantanam Abbey at Mountain Ash, September 1974 by Andy Kirkham, on Flickr

 

Sometimes you would see both types of grabs inside a wagon. 

 

 

There's plenty  of phots about that show the varying patterns of short handles. I Like this one.

 

https://flic.kr/p/k72L7n

 

P

Who had seven years of walking alongside, around and over a multitude of 21 ton hoppers to get to my place of work. I even used to commandeer the odd hopper along with the loco occasionally as a good substitute for a ladder. (Well before the days of cherry pickers).

I'm intrigued to know what you had to do with all those 21-tonners..

That top photo of Mountain Ash has a couple of other interesting features shown. The first is what looks like interlaced track- in fact, it's a way of allowing the loco to run past the weighbridge without running over the weighing cells. The loco is switched on to the offset track, which bridges the weighbridge, but can still stay coupled to the wagons, which pass over the other pair of rails. The second is the elevated weighbridge cabin, which would allow the operator to check the wagon interior.

[Adam]

Chlorine tank drawings are in

 

Fidczuk, Peter (2006) Gas by Rail Part 2: Imperial Chemical Industries Railway Archive No. 11 p20 – 41 + back cover.

Drawing - diag. TR032B 14t chlorine tank

 

Bartlett, Paul W. & Fidczuk, Peter (1990b) Tank wagons, part 2. ICI 14ton liquid chlorine tanks.    Model Railways vol. 7 (part 8) pp 421 - 425.

     Drawing - diag. TR032B 14t chlorine tank

 

Paul

 

Thank you Paul: I can almost certainly lay my hands on the relevant edition of Model Railways, but Railway Archive is proving a challenge so if anyone has a copy or knows where I could lay my hands on one, this would be appreciated. 

 

Adam

Edited December 11, 2016 by Adam

[Leander]

Thank you Paul: I can almost certainly lay my hands on the relevant edition of Model Railways, but Railway Archive is proving a challenge so if anyone has a copy or knows where I could lay my hands on one, this would be appreciated. 

 

Adam

Google is your friend http://lightmoor.co.uk/books/railway-archive-issue-11/RARCH11

 

Lightmoor Publications

[Adam]

Google is your friend http://lightmoor.co.uk/books/railway-archive-issue-11/RARCH11

 

Lightmoor Publications

Yes - funnily enough I'd tried that - but it's sold out!

 

Adam

[Enterprisingwestern]

For us wagonophiles, there are actually 4 (consecutive?) RA's with the relevant series of articles on chlorine and comparable traffic, well worth obtaining IMHO.

My previous caveat applies, but I'm confident Paul will be along with the details.

 

Mike.

 

Edited thanks to Brian "lexicon" w's post below.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Enterprisingwestern

[Fat Controller]

For us wagonophobes, there are actually 4 (consecutive?) RA's with the relevant series of articles on chlorine and comparable traffic, well worth obtaining IMHO.

My previous caveat applies, but I'm confident Paul will be along with the details.

 

Mike.

'Wagonophiles', surely?

[Enterprisingwestern]

'Wagonophiles', surely?

 

Don't call me shirley.

 

Mike.

[hmrspaul]

Thank you Paul: I can almost certainly lay my hands on the relevant edition of Model Railways, but Railway Archive is proving a challenge so if anyone has a copy or knows where I could lay my hands on one, this would be appreciated. 

 

Adam

It is, of course, the same drawing.

 

Paul

[hmrspaul]

For us wagonophiles, there are actually 4 (consecutive?) RA's with the relevant series of articles on chlorine and comparable traffic, well worth obtaining IMHO.

My previous caveat applies, but I'm confident Paul will be along with the details.

 

Mike.

 

 

The only 3 I know of are:

 

2005

Fidczuk, Peter (2005) Gas by Rail Part 1: Early Chlorine tanks. Railway Archive No. 9 42 – 50.

2006

Fidczuk, Peter (2006) Gas by Rail Part 2: Imperial Chemical Industries. Railway Archive No. 11 p20 – 41 + back cover.

Drawing - diag. TR032B 14t chlorine tank

2007

Fidczuk, Peter (2007) Gas by Rail Part 3: Murgatroyd’s. Railway Archive No. 15 p25 – 42 + back cover.

Drawing – diagram of bogie tank BPCM770xx series liquid chlorine

[Enterprisingwestern]

The only 3 I know of are:

 

2005

Fidczuk, Peter (2005) Gas by Rail Part 1: Early Chlorine tanks. Railway Archive No. 9 42 – 50.

2006

Fidczuk, Peter (2006) Gas by Rail Part 2: Imperial Chemical Industries. Railway Archive No. 11 p20 – 41 + back cover.

Drawing - diag. TR032B 14t chlorine tank

2007

Fidczuk, Peter (2007) Gas by Rail Part 3: Murgatroyd’s. Railway Archive No. 15 p25 – 42 + back cover.

Drawing – diagram of bogie tank BPCM770xx series liquid chlorine

 

Thanks Paul, 3 it is, I blame my age!

 

Mike.

[Adam]

We left the tale of the Italian ferry van here:

 

 

As can be seen below, the bare carcass now has all the various framing, the double skin on the roof and a start made on the door fixtures. Most of this is from Evergreen strip, though in the case of the hinge detail, the 10 thou' thickness has been sanded back a little: it will still be over scale! Next on the agenda are the remaining door details before I think more about the underframe.

 

 

 

Here's the real thing, on the left, and painted silver, believe it or not...

 

 

Italian Vans at Hove Station, 30 June 1966 by Ian Nolan, on Flickr

 

Adam

Edited February 4, 2023 by Adam

[Adam]

By way of a break from chasing tiny fragments of plastic strip around the workbench I've started something else; a quick project, albeit building a very unusual wagon. Last time I went visiting my parents in Somerset, I flipped through a back issue of GWRJ and found, on the letters page, a nice picture of a GW dia. O30 open at Reading in 1965. These differed from those I built a little while ago by being constructed from steel sheet rather than planks. Given Swindon's form with building iron wagons in its early days it's perhaps surprising that they didn't pursue this beyond the 50 of these that they built between 1932 and 1934, but having found this picture I thought a model would be fun and Cambrian produce a kit in 4mm. As originally built they looked much like W124189 in Paul Bartlett's collections: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwropenmerchandiseowv/h1a0647b8#h1a0647b8

 

More detail can be had from John Lewis's article in GWRJ, no. 38. My model (it will represent W124174) differs in that the prototype had been modernised as part of BR's vac' fitting program in the 1950s with tiebars, Dowty hydraulic buffers and, presumably, the usual modifications to couplings, gaining either instanters or screw links (I've assumed the former) and, probably, a couple of lamp irons. It retained spoked wheels at the time of being captured on camera, but very little paint which is what makes it fun.

 

 

The kit is one of Cambrian's most recent and comes with a one-piece chassis which is excellent, even if it does feel a bit like cheating. I've replaced the supplied axleboxes and used some Parkside mouldings for the brakes because they happened to be loose on the bench - the Cambrian ones will be used somewhere else at a later date. Buffers are on order and the sole modification to the body, thus far, is to add a protector plate to to door and to rescribe the plank lines inside the door; Cambrian still make these raised on the inside of wagons but that's easily dealt with by a couple of passes with a scalpel blade, first with the tip to scribe the plank line and then flat to remove the raised bits and probably bolt heads, but such is life.

 

Adam

Edited February 4, 2023 by Adam

[Adam]

I said it would be quick.

 

 

This is the opposite side showing by home-brewed GWR type ratchet brake lever guides, three parts in each, all butt jointed! This joins the queue of wagons waiting for the weather to warm sufficiently to put some primer on. Looking at the forecast this may be some time yet. This should be incentive to actually finish a few other things. Now, about those conflat chains...

 

Adam

Edited February 4, 2023 by Adam

[ullypug]

Nice. Funnily enough I spent last night wrestling with some conflat chains...

[Adam]

Nice. Funnily enough I spent last night wrestling with some conflat chains...

 

Ah yes. The how is the simple bit, it's the doing that I'm trying to avoid! 

 

Adam

[Adam]

Something from the same source - but a little more protracted - is this Mermaid. One of Cambrian's most ambitious kits, once you've worked out how to assemble the chassis square, it's actually quite straightforward though it's taken a bit of thinking time.

 

 

From underneath the key challenges are obvious: the tiny surface area of the joints is apparent, as is the reinforcement in each corner, at the end of spars and even the vacuum cylinder (a Parkside spare - the Cambrian one had hidden itself while I was doing this) is structural!

 

 

More gubbins added and with them, a bit more strength. This would be easier if the framing was full depth - I've had to build the height up with 40 thou' sheet to mount the vac' pipe level with the bottom of the headstocks. The reason is something to do with the size of the injection moulding machine employed when the kit was engineered in the '80s. Colin Parks who made the moulds tells me that this was at the limit of what he and his brother could do with regard to part size, complexity, and mould pressures and temperatures. In other words, like all these things, it's a trade off and a more or less scale version of these complex wagons in moulded plastic would still be tricky. Though there has been some whinging about the complexity of this and other Cambrian kits they have two things going for them. The parts go together and include pretty much all the detail of the prototype. They can be built consistently square. It's still better that the RTR equivalent (good photos available here) in terms of detail and accuracy [RCH rather than BR type W irons, naff buffers, over thick bottom flange to the solebar and so on].

 

 

Weight is another issue, but the Mermaid has plenty of space under the floor. The white brakeshoe is my fault as I've lost one of the moulded ones and thus replaced it with a new one cut from 40 thou'.

 

Adam

Edited February 4, 2023 by Adam