M.I.B

Thanks for the explanations John. "Roof" is back on the greenhouse and new water collection and storage is working well. Much as I'm looking forward to the Prairies and the Manors, I would be happier to space out their arrivals. They are ordered, brass plates are already in the drawer......... stay safe

Be careful with some of those "Atkins" editions - later versions are lower quality repros. Not sure what the technical term is, but they look like someone has taken photos of pages in order to reprint. Hence some of the less detailed photos end up being next to useless, and the text has a really annoying blur to it. In this case it's the one with the SIPHONs on the cover. Go for a different edition.

Great to hear from you John. I take it that RR&Co requires extra programming above and beyond setting DCC addresses and CVs. I opted for the Dapol Prairies - are they due in soon? I only saw something about the Hornby equivalents. I'm trying hard to find an hour for some painting on Project SHUT IT tonight, but the Horticulture Manager wants a guttering/water-butt repair job on a greenhouse........

It has been a busy time working on the house, and as a result the roof trusses are no longer flat stacked........ So not a lot of modelling has been done. Hattons dropped me (and quite a few others) a line to say that the Dapol Moguls are due in September. First to arrive is the green shirt-button logo one with outside steam pipes. I have one on order to become Southall's 6388. With re-logo of course. Then I have a BR black one to come, again with outside pipes, but this will become 9310, complete with side windows. I know this needs a screw reverser, but for now Rule 1 may apply. I did turn a pair of Mainline Moguls into 9300 series engines complete with the modification to the front of the cab on the driver's side. So I shouldn't be scared to repeat the work. Those Moguls have gone along with the Manors and the 61XXs all to be replaced. Not because I didn't like the look of them, but simply because of the details of converting them to DCC. The Moguls, Manors and 61XXs are all paid for thanks to some Ebay sales of models, car parts and antique house fittings amassed over 25 years of car boot sales trips. Otherwise I could not have afforded them. I have treated myself tho - it's that special once-a-year-day again very soon, so I have picked up a barely used boxed BR Star and some brass nameplates....... I hope that you remain happy and healthy.

I have just picked up a copy of "The Power of the Castles" by RC Riley and Peter Waller. Along with some good photos of 5032 with the tender (lined and shirtbutton logo) , there is a write up which lists the Castles which ran with it. This list includes the disputed 4093, but unfortunately the engines are listed in numerical order and only the Castles. A picture or dates would help........ Later in the book are some lovely photos of Spitfire with the tender (lined & shirtbutton logo). The cab side windows are over plated.

I ordered some name plates for Project SHUT IT two nights ago. The Modelmaster site asked for patience as they were busy. I guess with lots of folk stuck on lock-down there has been a surge in modelling and thus orders for them. The price of classic car and motor bike "fix-up" projects has gone up hugely due to lockdown. I always buy in advance, so no hurry and quite patient enough to wait. Then they arrived today! Phenomenal service from Jim Grindlay and the gang in Ayr. And with so much modelling going on, it's time to top up with the Dullcote, which I can almost not model without these days. Gets rid of "toy" shine, keeps transfers in place, and "seals" everything ready to weather on top of. It is an American product and supply is sporadic. So I always buy in bulk. Project SHUT IT may resume soon - electricians started today and I will have a pointy plastic wrapped roof by next weekend. That means next weekend involves moving 1944 large roof tiles up a long ladder by hand...... On the day that Captain Sir Thomas Moore went to meet Her Majesty, I hope that you are all happy and healthy.

The two brown stock in the foreground caught my eye. Long footboards. Mess vans? But looking at the charabanc behind the signal box, these coaches may be in service.

Will - some good research there. W96 looks like a hybrid is possible using the Ratio 4 wheeler kit and a Toplight brake third sides. Looks like Slaters will be making these sides again soon. Don't be tempted to buy them from Coopercraft. CPL do a 4mm D45 Toplight brake "sides and ends" etch. I have their J12 and it is excellent. I have a Ratio 4 wheeler to support my PW train which has ballast hoppers and GANEs and a light crane. It's a great kit and not testing to make. With added weight and steel wheels it rolls well.

Thanks Will. I have those shots - notice the guy in the kilt - the tenders are marked "Taunton" and this is allegedly in Oswestry. These all seem to be quite posed - there is no second TOAD and no oil tank carrying the concentrate. There is another in this series where they are spraying and the operators are quite close and inspecting the spray - you would only want to do that with "water only". These shots are great for construction details. The shots of the trains on task or moving would be good to see. There aren't many non posed ones. I think from photos available, the sequence of GW weedkilling trains is probably: early - no cab on the tender fitted with the spray bar. Tanker of concentrate. intermediate - as above but cab on the tender with the spray bar late / early BR - no concentrate tank - pre-mix added to tenders.

I posted twice last night but this second post disappeared somehow. Hence why I didn't "sign off" as usual. I have had an 8F for a while since reading the Maidment "GWR 8 Coupled Engines" book. This is one of a great series of reference books which are all currently packed away. For those unaware, the GWR had two periods of operating LMS 8Fs - early on in the Second World War and then post war. The 40 used in 1946 were built at Swindon and had a few minor changes in design. By the end of 1946 most of these engines had finally made it into LMS service, however 4 soldiered on into 1947 with OOC's 8477 lasting until Oct 47. The GWR added the blue weight classification dots to the cabs, and buffer-beam numbers. However they continued to run with LMS markings. The model was an Ebay "gamble". Some of the damage was listed, some not. But following inspection it was found to be DCC chipped, which was unexpected, so this positive outweighed all the dods of glue which were not advertised as problem points. The glue spots were carefully scraped off with a scalpel and have left no trace following careful removal and paint touch ups. Bufferbeam number and dots are HMRS Pressfix, and after the red edged Hornby numbers and letters were removed with a fibreglass pencil, solid yellow replacement waterslides from Modelmaster were added. These left a tiny amount of backing film which totally disappeared after a a coat of Microset followed by a coating of Dullcote. As usual, the bunker was rusted, coal added, before the coal was masked at the Dullcote stage. Crew are a mixture: the driver is Hornby with his "box seat" removed with a hacksaw and files, to leave just his legs. This is the third LHD engine on NC and for a change the Hornby driver fitted without modification. The fireman is from the recent batch from AC Stadden. The GWR engine crews must have loved these cabs -they are huge, and very sheltered compared to a Star/28XX/2271. This has been quite a while in the works - not having the reference material stopped the renumber, and house building got in the way since mid March. There has been a two week pause on site, hence the increase in modelling. The site reopens on Monday. Weathering of engines and stock "modified" since last summer may have to wait until next summer for airbrush weathering. In the meantime I hope that you are all happy and healthy on this sunny St Swithun's Day morning. Back to Project SHUT IT!........

Project SHUT IT! After a disaster in December where an Adderley Hall body warped, I have been looking for a replacement. A Bachmann body was considered but the internal work needed to make it fit was too much. The Harry Potter connection makes some believe that Olton Hall models are worth a fortune - it's almost as big a seller as Scotsman! Like the people who believe that the 1967 beetle is a rare model because it has a few panels which were only fitted that year. But that year they sold more beetles than any other year....... Finally I picked a recent Hall body for acceptable money - an Olton Hall/Hogwarts Express item. This will be fitted to the leftovers of Adderley Hall to become 4973 Sweeney Hall. Hence the project name. Anyone younger than I will have to use Google perhaps...... The bodies of modern Hornby Halls are stripped in less than a minute with a scalpel. I like to get the firebox door off BR era models to make the number plate "removal" a little easier. The splasher/nameplates are easy to remove - pull the top of the plate sideways and down to the footplate and back up. They will pop out of a small slot in the footplate at this point. Earlier Hornby and most Bachmann leave a square hole in the remaining splasher. New Hornby splasher removal leaves all the detail behind the plate intact. This is good news if you want to build one of the un-named, side window-less black Halls. Probably a hundred ways to do this - here's mine. With a new scalpel blade I extend the lines of the top hinge right into the number plate. Then gentle carve away the plate that is no longer needed. Before I go too far and too deep I then revert to a straight flat mini file. I keep both the file moving and the work moving so as not to create a flat spot. Be careful not to file away the round flange surrounding the smokebox dart. The aim of the filing is to have a top hinge which extends way beyond the length it should, with no sign of a number plate. The final step is to trim the top hinge to length to meet the lower one. I use the scalpel got this. After this stage its a rub over with some fine emery, then a glass fibre pen to remove the shed plate. One problem with Olton Hall bodies seems to be the amount of damage they have compared to other Halls. This may be because they aren't always used by discerning model rail enthusiasts, but abused and dropped by kids... this one was no exception - the firebox handrail was bent and the knob was broken off and askew. Also the top lamp bracket was hanging on by a thread and has since dropped off......not big repairs. Next - a repaint into unlined green with it's 3500 Gal tender, coal, crew, fall plate and brass plates from Jim at Modelmaster. I am tempted to try out a new Iawata airbrush that I bought last year. Just to do the green painting. But then brushing on Pheonix always turns out well for me, and doesn't hide detail - their paint consistency is great.

Will I thought the TOADs stayed coupled so that there was always one in the right place regardless. It also works when the engine runs around and there's no need to shunt TOADs. I have not seen the photos with a mess van - are you able to share? The weedkiller train would be capable of spraying in either direction. At a sedate pace the direction would be immaterial.

Many thanks.

The 40 LMS 8Fs built at Swindon served the GWR in 1946 and four lucky ones managed to serve on up to Oct 1947. Which ones? And when did they get returned? Do we know their allocations? I posed this on the ANTB thread but there seems to be at least three of us "away from their books" right now. One reply was: The info, along with some nice shots, is in GWRJ 51, 'Swindon's '8Fs'' by John Copsey. I think the same info is in one of the appendices at the back of 'The Great Western Eight Coupled Heavy Freight Locomotives' by David Maidment. Does anyone have access to these please? Thanks.

Thanks Ben - all of my books except the Lyons Shed Book are in storage. I will pinch your reply and start one up on the GWR rolling stock page too.

Please can someone point me in the borrowed 8F direction: I'm looking for details on the 40 Swindon built 8Fs which remained with the Great Western in 46 and 47. I would like to know if possible the return dates of the last of 4 of them - 36 went back and 4 hung on until Oct 47, and their numbers of course. Many thanks and stay safe. UPDATE: The reply is over on the GWR Rolling Stock pages of RMWeb dates, numbers and allocations.

Thanks Will. Railtec were my only option: I have had some good transfers made by them and they were great - I just wondered if there were any already out there. I am building the later version with an old engine cab roof, based on 3 Mainline 2251 tenders. I think the roof is from the CoT kit. My chemicals tank is completed already - the photos I saw included a silver/polished metal tank with the name crudely painted out in a big black block. So that's what I have gone with. I have just checked my notes and found that later weedkiller trains had the bunkers permanently covered with a flat steel sheet. This may have been because the bunker floors were rotten out, or to stop the rain water coming down the bunker onto the footplate and cascading over onto the newly sprayed trackbed, thus diluting the weedkiller even further. I have also gone for the option of a TOAD at either end as seen in many photos. These have been painted. I think a "Permanent Way" label is the most suitable allocation to add to them.

That is the main reason that my weed-killing train hasn't been started! How did you cope with all the lettering on the tender sides?

And the final part of the update covers the "scenic" tender. I managed to get Dullcote applied before the rain started again. Then coal was carefully applied in key areas: at the bottom of the bunker, and in some of the high level "nooks and crannies" to hide a few plasticard joins. Some was tiny grains poured onto placed Super-glue, and others were individual lumps glued on piece by piece. I'm fairly pleased with the outcome - certainly a realistic looking item to have sat somewhere on shed. And when I one day come across that Harry Potter Olton Hall without a tender.......... A quick touch up with some matt black where the white Super-glue cyano-bloom has appeared on the top rear edge coaled area..... On the 10th of July (!!!!! where has the year gone?) I hope that you are all happy and healthy.

Steve, a couple of update pictures. The tender as previously described, will be permanently connected using a steel drawbar and a long thin self tapper up through the front edge of the tender chassis. 6951 has quite a low drawbar compared to the tender so I am using various thickness nuts and washers to ensure that all 4 axles sit on the rails and that the draw bar only has influence in the horizontal plane. When I started the rear axle was fully off the rails. As for the elec-trickery, I extracted the brass wheel rubbing pickups from a recent Hornby tender this week. I hope to reuse these, one per side on at least 2 axles. There is enough slack on the Hornby tender/engine socket to allow it to be drawn back under the tender. Two wires go on either side of the drawbar, held in place with a dod of black-tack. It is mocked up below: The 8 wheel chassis is very light so I am employing modern alloy wheel balance weights. These will lie rubber side up after a bit of Uhu is applied. The rubber is a good bed to fix the chip and circuit board to with some double sided tape. Crossed fingers that there is only two wires to solder - one each to the rubbing pickups.... I did use my new iron this week to "de-solder" the pickups and the ends of wires which were attached. I managed to do that without getting burnt/covered in solder/melting anything, so I'm feeling positive.....

Ask and I will do my best. Still needs airbrush weathering and I'm not overly happy about the way the nameplates are sitting, but we are getting there. this will get quite a heavy weather for a passenger loco: it is coming close to its major shop and a return to lining. This engine only operates right at the start of my time-frame, along with 6951 and the 8 wheel tender. Crewmen from AC Stadden have come out well and nice to have poses different to the Hornby and Dapol figures which I have in abundance. A few micro touch-ups and they will be ready for close ups.

I thought I had a couple of spare sets of brake rodding for Hornby GW 4-6-0s, but it isn't the case. Peter's Spares are out of stock, so for now I made a set for the tender out of Evergreen rod. This means that 6951 won't have rodding either. So the hunt is on for a few sets once more. When I get the Dullcote and coal situation sorted I will post photos. In the meantime 5 sets of crew await final paint sessions.

Rotanks were indeed round. These aren't intended to be Rotanks.

The hybrid Hornby tender received some red oxide rattle can followed by some mat black, and then red oxide from further away, then...... The result was pleasing. Sadly some of the the Fox transfers were drawn off by the masking tape, but this was corrected ten minutes later. Dullcote next, but probably not today as it is rainy and damp: I am currently spraying/venting/drying outdoors, under a gazebo, and the damp seems to make Testors Dullcote go a little cloudy. Then a little left over coal dust to hide a join or two and we are done.

6951, to be joined with the 8 wheel tender took another step in the right direction. Cab window, which was filled some weeks ago, has been smoothed off, and the odd handrails added. These rails were done in a different way to my usual: I drilled the holes, put two knobs on a piece of over-length wire and formed the 90 degree rounded bend. I put a tiny drop of superglue into the hole with a cocktail stick, and fitted the knobs with disregard t the rails. Once the knobs were set,I adjusted the rails to the correct position and with superglue on a cocktail stick, I just touched the inside hole of the knob/wire join and capiliary action drew the glue in. A snip on the outer end of each wire got the length almost right and a tiny file was used to finish them off. Knobs by Markits - they are probably a tiny scale tad too large, but anything much smaller and I could never fit them or thread the wire. A quick brush with some Humbrol matt black and we are close to Testors Dullcote. I will do this after the dots are added to the cab. 6951 will have a brass fall plate fitted along with crew. Plate was trimmed last night. That just leaves, painting the whistles, add the cabside numbers (from Modelmaster) , add reverser rod and cab windows: fit the front two and save the side pair for one of my Granges which doesn't have any for some reason...... The filled in cab window is just about visible - after Testors and then airbrushed grot, it will disappear. On the anniversary of 7/7 I hope that you are all happy and healthy.