The Great Bear

Moving back to the modelling, a couple of photos I thought might help show the donor loco and how it comes apart. I should have taken these before taking it apart, so there's a bit of a mess here and there. The donor Bachmann Earl. In this case on in BR livery which I found on Ebay for a reasonable price. Taking the body off is a cinch, one screw on the underside of the chassis that goes into the smokebox saddle. (Just need to remember where I put it along with the one for bogie!) Having taken off the cab and backhead of boiler, leaves the chassis One thing to note, is that the Bachmann Earl chassis does not have sandboxes above the running plate - as mentioned by Coach Bogie above many Bulldogs had these, as shown in the photo in his post. If present, those ahead of the leading driving wheels would be useful in covering up the opening in the underside of the boiler which needs to be enlarge to fit the Bachmann motor, along with nameplate. I am going with a loco without these sandboxes.

Very nice, Mike and a lot neater than I am going to manage! The joint between the boiler and chassis is the tricky bit I'm realising and more of that is exposed with the Earl chassis with no sandboxes infront of the spashers. Plus I managed to hack away a bit too much so have then had to put filler back on to the K's boiler. Adding the the bump on the smokebox side (what is it) and the front of the cab (it that the reverser) I had also realised need to be done.

Thanks, chaps. Good to know my eyes weren't deceiving me as looking at photos I thought I saw one that looked taller, though if I am looking right at that drawing the tapered one isn't taller, just thinner. (Second row down, second from left?) I just need to pin down which Bulldog I want to model. As my layout is post war the selection to pick from is more limited. To help I've now got a good selection of photos, both from GWRJ Bulldog articles, the David Maidment book and this photo archive site

Thanks again, Russ. A few Bulldogs look to have had the short cover, but most something taller (how many different heights were there?). The medium height casting I got from 247 looked about right pity I glued it in wrong place and mangled it removing it. Duh! But I'm sure I can concoct something based on the one linked to and photos. Would be a test of my fusion 360 skills! Cheers Jon

Thank you, Russ. That drawing may prove useful, if I can fix my 3d printer, printing a new boiler to mount on the Bachmann chassis is an alternative to butchering the K's boiler. To that end, you wouldn't happen to have or be able to point me in direction of drawings for safety valve bonnets ideally with topfeed? Cheers Jon

Edit - topic title changed What would be the right chimney for a Bulldog? I have a K's model which I'm butchering to join with a Bachmann Earl chassis but the chimney on that looks a bit too stubby to me What would be an appropriate replacement from say Alan Gibson or 247 Development, no sepcific chimney for a Bulldog is listed? A 43xx one perhaps? More on this little project soon. Cheers Jon

I doubt it, that would be too competent and would require two government departments DfT and MHCLG to talk to each other!

On the subject of DOO presumably that would be another potential plus for GTR in getting rid of the 171s?

I don't use Cura, I use ChituBox for slicing. I think that setting is only applicable to filament PLA type printers whereas I am using a resin printer. I do enable anti-aliasing in the slicing software which smoothes surfaces especially curved ones helping (along with angling the print) to avoid stepping.

Yes, saw a couple yesterday between Ljubljana and Trieste, a prairie tank and further toward Italy a consolidation tender loco. No pictures sorry but part of an interesting trip from Vienna to Trieste with detour to Lake Bled. The Semmering Bahn was of course a highlight but Ljubljana to Trieste also interesting. I was rather fooled toward the end by Google maps, thinking a the border how can this 5mile distance as crow flies take 30 mins. I didn't realise we were 1000ft above Trieste and the railway heads west first then doubles back. The drop down along the coast to Trieste was impressive even in the murky weather. A lot of freight on the rails, not just container trains heading up from the med ports. Most locos were Siemens Eurosprinters, both Slovenian and OBB. Some locos of French origin, z front on freight. Swanky new CAF civity emu on the train from Ljubljana to Trieste last evening.

John and Roy - thank you for sharing your experience with the Cobalt SS: seems a mixed bag which is a shame. I can't remember whether I removed the springs from the Peco points, I'm away from layout at moment. That may have a bearing on choices.

Anerley to Penge West seem pretty close, 32 chains if Wikipedia to be believed?

Hi John How did you get on with these in the end? I'm considering using them to ease access and maybe ease reconfiguration of my fiddle yard. All the best Jon

Thanks, Ron. On the face of it these seem a good solution, including both the frog switching and DCC. Mounting at right angles to track may be issue for some locations though no doubt some form of crank can be used.

Hello I want to replace DCC concepts Cobalt point motors in my fiddle yard with surface mounted motors due to access problems. If I go for Peco or Seep surface solenoid motors how do I control them on DCC, what decoders? The points are electrofrog with rails bonded, how do I control the frog polarity, currently done by the Cobalt motors? (That's the main bit I'm struggling to understand looking at various products) Whether a single decoder per point or multiple points from a decoder I'm open to either. The routes are set via macros on an NCE procab system, if that matters. Thanks in advance for any help or guidance Jon

Would the hornrby set plus a C23 clerestory be a plausible Q set? (or a C25) Were these sets numbered? It is London division post war I'm interested in. I fancy adding a bit of variety by adding this home built effort into the mix

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

All Highways England (the "roads department") projects over £500m (which doesn't get you much nowadays in terms of new road construction), have to go through DfTs Business Investment and Commerical Committee for authorisation to proceed. On a scheme costing way more than that, like the Oxford to Cambridge expressway, DfT will be taking a very close interest a lot of politics at play too. Sure like the railways, DfT keep in the background, so others can take the blame, but to say the government has no control isn't true.

Ah yes, avoiding Otmoor.

Unfortunately now that the planning process is complete, the biggest changes that could reduce cost like those you mention can't be done, without spending years re-assessing the environmental impact and re-doing the whole planning process; under the hs2 bill what can be changed now is just details I think. Having worked on the project for a while I tend to agree that a lot of money was chucked at it after the consultation stage, longer tunnels or lowering the level of the line. I do think that notwithstanding the real reason for the project, capacity, the journey time saving and top speed thing has been over emphasised - my the ignorant media, politicians but also hs2. I did get the impression at times that Andrew McNaughton wanted the fastest train set in Europe. The higher linespeed as Phil says makes tunnels larger in diameter but also I believe means move away from ballasted track at quite a cost I'd think. More fundamentally, a higher speed means that your ability to wiggle the route around constraints is more limited, so then you end up having to tunnel under them etc. I never really understood why for instance much of the route coudn't broadly follow the M40, at least once beyond the Chilterns. A lower speed would have helped with this. So the scope for cost saving now is limited; maybe yes lower speed and go back to ballasted track, look at details of bridge designs. The big money has been committed by the basic design, which I think erred toward over specification.

So in relation to points (b) and (c) the app doesn't check for an active subscription before working say? I could see me using this subscription and allowing me to clear out a lot of old magazines (more room for storing trains!) but am concerned about the longevity. Not necessarily my subscription, but if say something happened to BRM or digital system changed.

The printer broke, PSU went bang, in April and I haven't got around to fixing it yet So I need to get over that hurdle first. Also actually building some has shown some minor tweaks to the designs needed but achievable.

A couple more, further variety not catered for by RTR A K22 full brake With all the toplights the body proved a bit vulnerable with my rough handling, one crack being pretty obvious still A way down the to-do list is to add grills to the luggage doors of this and the other brakes. My first go at a clerestory, a C23 non-corridor all third. The commode handles were a different design I got printed due to issues with Shapeways checkiung and are noticeably more chunky. I've since managed to tweak the original design to get past their checking again. I also had a go at showing some of the panelling being boarded over. Just need to weather this now to show a coach on its last legs. It should nicely break up the Hornby suburban set creating a 5 coach set. All the best Jon

A couple more recently finished home printed coaches. Both are brake composites, filling a gap in the RTR provision. Whilst my painting and lining is very slowly improving its doesn't bear close scrutiny An E83, originally a tri-composite brake compo and a E94: A couple of other coaches are neary there - infuriating how taking a picture shows problems! There are also a couple of other brake compos in the pile of semi-finished models. All the best Jon

A few very belated follow up questions: How is a non-gangwayed train (eg the new Hornby suburban set) named, how different from gangwayed? In GWR speak there is no such thing as brake third? How are full brakes called up van or brake van? Abbreviations equivalent of BCK etc didn't exist in GWR days, that came with nationalisation (from LNER practise?)?