ChrisN

Andrew Stadden has just announced a limited edition of mid Victorian people, seen here.

It was a few years ago now, (2018?) that I phoned Ratio and bought 5 or so sprues for the chassis.  I am not sure what sprue the roof is on but it may be worth a try, if it is not too late that is.

Slaters do a C10.  @Mikkel has made on on his blog and/or thread.  He also managed to sort out the bogies.

13 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

In the 1927 Alterations & Additions to the GA there’s this note

  “coaching stock running between Dovey Junction & Aberdovey must not exceed 60’ in length and 9’ in width “, which effectively ruled out most of Churchward and Collett coaches as those are maximum coach dimensions over handles and buffers.

 

That is an interesting fact and is probably a deep rabbit hole that I would not want to start to go down.  (Well, I can take some books on holiday to look at while my wife and I are on the beach.)  It would mean that the later coaches would come down from Ruabon.

Do you know when this restriction was lifted?

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

Pre WWI there was a through coach attached to the up 'Corridor',  CR and GWR each providing a carriage, vehicles running on alternate days.  The CR carriage was lettered 'Glasgow and Bristol via Severn Tunnel' on the eaves panels.  I wasn't aware that there was also one to Edinburgh.

 

Jim

Jim,

July 12 to Sept 13th inc. 1913

On the 12?pm Mail train from Penzance to Crewe there was a 57ft Brake Compo, corridor coach, with brake end leading.  It was going from Exeter to Edinburgh, and returning by the 6pm from Edinburgh.

It, or perhaps another one, was then attached to the 1:25 am from Crewe to Penzance to return to Exeter.  It then returned by the 5:43pm from Exeter to Edinburgh.

There were two 'WCJ' Brake Compos on the 3:55 pm Crewe to Bristol, one from Glasgow, one from Edinburgh.  They returned by the 9:10pm Bristol to Taunton, and then on the 7:5 am from Taunton to Crewe.  These returned on the 10:05am from Edinburgh, and the 10:00pm from Glasgow.

That seems as clear as mud to me without sitting down and spending ages working out the coach diagram.

Just to prove myself wrong I checked the 1913 'Through Carriage Workings'.  That specifies '70ft' and '57ft' for some coaches.  The '70' was mostly on the prodigious expresses, or were a few in a train to increase the capacity.  There were a couple of '70' through coaches, one to Weymouth and one to Aberystwyth.  The '57' were mainly slip coaches, (some '70' slip coaches were also specified), but one was specified as it was going to Minehead.

Was there a big capacity difference between 57 ft and 56ft?  Would the guard have been sacked if he could only get a 56 instead of a 57?

There was a '57' bound for Edinburgh and the owning company was given as 'Cal'.

I know that in the late 19th century the GWR asked what was the Cambrian's loading gauge and if they could send a certain coach through a certain tunnel.

At the Board meeting those who should have known did not, so they took the coach, or something very similar, through the tunnel very slowly to see if it got stuck.

I would think that it varied with company.

Have you got the 'Through Carriage Workings' from the Kew Archive for the period?  The ones I have seen only specified the type of coaches, as far as I remember, and not a particular coach or length.

It is a bit late for me to say this, but I ordered 4 LNWR coaches which arrived ages ago.  A few weeks ago my son and his family came round, and a visit to the railway room was an essential part of it.  As befits the age of my grandchildren, Thomas and Percy were out plus others masquerading as James and Henry.  On the back of one of the sets of coaches was a Genesis LNWR Tri-composite, which when my son saw, said, "That is really impressive'" or words to that effect.

You have to be careful with a helix.  There is a layout that I follow(ed), he has not posted for ages, and he started with a helix, and had to extend it from a circular one to an ?oblong one.  He still found that his locos could not pull the trains he wanted up the helix, sorry, his steam locos, I think the diesels did.  Apologies for the foul language.)  He had to put a power bogie in his first coach for it to work.  He was however, modelling the Settle and Carlisle line with full length trains. 10 bogies?

If you have sussed that, sorry, but I would sooner make the silly statement now than when it is all built.

40 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

Anyone else having problems with images disappearing off of their posts?

Not that I know of.

16 hours ago, lmsforever said:

In the 1950,s   I used to go  to my aunties in Walthamstow near Wood Street station ,in the afternoon the United Dairies horse led milk floats would come back to the depot opposite her flat and go up a steep ramp at amazing speeds. There a lot of them and I found out the stables were on the top floor the dairy was the biggest in the area and lasted until the middle sixties then it was knocked down and flats were built . We have our milk delivered by a local dairy its good to to have glass bottles this is an interesting thread .

Thanks, I am glad you are enjoying the thread.

I do know Walthamstow vaguely, although I have not been there for a while.  I must have seen the flats, but not the dairy, very interesting.

1 hour ago, Nick Gough said:

I painted my vinyl slates with Humbrol enamel directly - no primer.

After one coat:

 

It still looks okay over 18 months later:

The individual slates are not as clearly defined as before painting, but still visible.

 

You may recall I made the roof from two sheets of 3mm MDF:

 

Over that I stuck a layer of 10 thou/.25mm plastikard, to complete the apex over the gap between the MDF sheets, and to extend the roof down to gutter level. This also helped with drawing on pencil guidelines for laying the strips of vinyl:

 

An added advantage was that the self-adhesive vinyl stuck to the plastikard much better than the MDF.

 

Nick,

Thank you.  I think I am going to attack the primer with some thinners and then proceed with the top coat,

I had forgotten that you had covered the roof with a layer of plasticard as you had the same issue as I did, the apex was a gully not a point.

The next building I make, Mr Price's house I think that I will use card, and shellac it before I add the plastic embossed sheet.  If I ma not happy with that then I shall move onto other support materials.

No pictures today.  I decided yesterday that I ought to prime the slates on the roofs as I was not sure that the vinyl would take paint directly.  Well, to cut a long story short the cuts between individual slates began to disappear although the lines of slates are still visible.  On thinning the primer the slates are still individually visible but of course the colour is not whaat it could be.  I am now a little worried about putting the final layer of paint on, as I think that to get the colour I want I will lose detail.

ho, hum.  Any thoughts gratefully recieved.

12 hours ago, kitpw said:

I still use gum arabic  which is a distinctly old fashioned approach*.  (If you can't get on with it, it can always be used up in making marshmallows and [?] other culinary delights). The gum arabic I use as a laminating adhesive for card, paper and blotting paper (excellent stuff as it laps up shellac).  Cornellisen (https://www.cornelissen.com) and Jacksons (https://www.jacksonsart.com) stock it and a variety of other exotic resins, gums and varnishes.  I use white glue sometimes for shelac'd materials: neither arabic or pva seem to cause them to buckle and wobble. It might be worth a try on some scrap materials to see if either or both suit your methods and preferences.

 

*I was reminded about gum arabic several years ago when reading a 1950s (?) article on making coach sides in several laminated layers of Bristol board. I've tried plasticard but in my hands, it seems to warp, melt, delaminate or otherwise confound my efforts which is why I investigated card and suitable adhesives (with no volatile solvents).  The body of the little horsebox I posted about on Swan Hill recently is made from Bristol board, laminated with gum arabic.

 

 

 

Kit,

This is very interesting.  I started making plastic kits, and from there started to make interiors.  I realised that if I was making interiors it was not a huge step to make the outsides as well.  I then moved onto card insides with embossed plastic as a cover.  I have seen amazing models on RMWeb using card and paper brick sheets etc, but I am not sure if you get the surface texture.  What I had not realised was that the bond between plastic and card with PVA is only mechanical so it is quite easy to knock the plastic off, although I have started to score the plastic and that seems to help.  

I shall have to see how I progress things.  Despite the shellac the corners of roofs and the top of gables have tended to suffer.

I understand that with any laminations that the ought to be an odd number of laminations, as this gives an even number of glue layers to that the forces pulling the material in one direction are balanced by forces pulling in the opposite direction, but you probably know this already.  I however, place the naughty stuff under heavy glass for at least 3 days and it seems to behave itself.

54 minutes ago, kitpw said:

4D Modelshop (https://modelshop.co.uk/) - much frequented by architectural modelmakers - has a wide range of sheet materials including ply and very thin MDF (they supplied some 1.5mm MDF to me just the other day).  I use quite a lot of ply in various thicknesses and also card and paper: my shellac bill is prodigious as particularly the paper needs toughening up if it is to survive my handling.

 

I do enjoy reading your posts about the devlopment of Traeth Mawr - I might even find out how to pronounce it one of these days (my son just moved to mid Wales and is getting to grips with his local place names) - but I sometimes (mostly, to borrow a well known title) forget to hit the' thumbs up' or 'craftsmanship/clever' buttons.  Must remember in future.

 

Kit,

Thank yo for your kind comments.

In one sense I am quite happy, well fairly happy, working in card and the building itself is fairly robust as it has a fair amount of shellac on it.  Still have not got up the courage to use contact adhesive to stick the surface layer to it though.  The problem is the corners of the roof, and it looks a bit thick.  I will bookmark 4D as it looks like a shop that needs a lot of perusing.

(I pronounce it Tryeth More, but I am sure most Welsh speakers would not be impressed.)

1 hour ago, MikeOxon said:

Have you consider wood?  here are a number of laser cut wooden kits available. A supplier such as Cornwall Model Boats can provide various sheet materials beading, etc..  I have used their materials for building broad gauge track, for example.

Mike.

Mike,

Thank you.  I do have a sheet of beach ply somewhere, which is not very thick but I think is wider than the 100mm of the sheets from that company.  Certainly worth thinking about.

1 hour ago, corneliuslundie said:

Re foamboard, it may not matter for small pieces but sheets I had stored in our clubroom when decidedly bowed when I retrieved them. No problem for their intended use as the base layer for scenery on an open plan baseboard though.

Jonathan

Jonathan,

Thank you.  I was thinking of using thin foam board for roofs, but again it may be damaged easily.  I am trying to resist plasticard for the roofs, but in the end I may have to.

WE went to both the Mithras Temple and the fort when we went to Hexham a couple of years ago, but we drove.  Well done for getting that far.  Stop, when you stop enjoying it and find something nice and relaxing to do.

2 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

I always find it depressing when I look at a close-up photo of a 4mm scale model.  All sorts of 'faults' leap out from the photo, although they are unnoticeable in normal viewing. 

 

In my case, a major culprit is the layers in 3D printing - so obvious in a photo but not in reality.

 

For slates, imagine it's been raining - they look much darker then!

 

Mike

Mike, Yes at normal viewing distance it does not look too bad.  Your 3D prints do not look that bad in your photos.

The slates still need to be painted, and I already know the colour they should be as it will be consistent for all the roofs.

Imagine it has been raining.  Raining?  In Wales?  🙂

7 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Hi Chris,

 

Great to see that painting has begun. For your greys, would it be a good idea to make some test matches with whatever colour goes on the lower half to see what looks best together? 

 

I like those finials, thanks for passing on the Wolf-tip.

 

Oh, and did you mean styrene to replace the mounting board? If so, I'm the one who should be apologising, considering how much I use of that stuff! 

 

Mikkel,

Did I say Scalescenes?  It should have been Scalelink, and this page has them on about halfway down, 'Assorted Finials x 16.

The plain stonework is/will be Humbrol 121 Pale Stone..  What I should have done was find an offcut of plastic and painted the different greys onto that.  Once I have chosen the one I want the whole building will be in the same colour.  

I was wondering about foam board, if that would be more robust.  Maybe card would be fine for the main structure but the roof has not fared well.

No updates on the coach as it is supposed to be a side project and I am posting this rather than make corrections to the E25.

I find these pictures rather depressing, as they show up how poor things are at close up and how badly the mounting board is coping with the general wear and tear of coping with construction.  I will either have to work quicker, or resort to something less environmentally friendly.  (Sorry @Mikkel.)

Barge boards.

The card was measured twice the size it was needed and something was found to draw around to make a circle,  (sorry, cannot remember exactly what), and then cut them out.  I then asked my wife, 'Did we ever get a hole cutter for the craft events?' and was both surprised and pleased when the answer was, 'Yes.'  It was not really sharp enough but we got there in the end with the help of a knife for cardboard.  (I was going to say cardboard knife......)  You see then in position having been shellacked and PVA'd into position.

Paint.

I thought I needed a dark grey, as I used dark grey for the Twll Du station, but of course never wrote down which one.  This is Humbrol 62 Dark Grey.  It looks almost black and is too dark.

This is the other end, and is Humbrol 67 Matt Tank Grey, and apart from being satin, is, er, umm not sure.

So finials and painting

The paint on the side is Humbrol 125 US Dark Grey and is actually darker than the Tank Grey.  Still not happy.  I have founf a picture on my favourite web site of Barmouth on a dull day which represents the station colours quite well, but I originally looked at Towyn, (Tywyn), where the stone was darker and to be consistent I suppose I ought to compare to that.  (I used Towyn before I had been to Traeth Mawr and found out exactly where it was.  I cannot say the jury is still out as it is still collecting evidence.

A view of the finial, they are from Scalescenes, thank you @MrWolf.

The other end.

Final finial.  On the other stations I have half copied, Barmouth, Newtown, and of course Aberdovey, in earlier years they had a sort of strut arrangement at the front, but there porch roofs were much steeper so it seems unnecessary on my one, which is a bit of a relief to be honest as it would have had to have some forward planning, which I have not done.

If you have been, thanks for looking.

That makes an interesting set of signals, almost no two the same.  At least you wil not get bored either making them or operating them afterwards.

I do hope it goes well and things sort themselves out.  In the meantime as @corneliuslundie says, little jobs, small buildings, coaches, wagons, etc, etc.

I have a plan for my railway.  This year I build coaches, next year locos, the third year, waggons and then after that scenery.  The problem is that 'this year' is 2018, and I still have many coaches to build.  I have now gone on to scenic work.  I have some LNWR Genesis coaches as they were way down the list to build and it all helps to save time, so any PO wagons that will help are gratefully received.  

As my youngest said, 'You do not have that much time, dad.'  🙂

23 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah well, POWSides to transfers for those, which I adapted for use on a couple of models of dumb-buffered wagons of theirs, seen in a film of a goods train at Bushey in 1897:

 

 

I still haven't done the brakes!

 

See:

 

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-railway-traffic-on-the-lnwr-1897-online

 

at around 25 s.

Stephen,

Very interesting.  The POW sides Drake and Mount are 1887 RCH, I believe, 7 plank, 10 ton wagons with sprung buffers.  I assume you modified these on your D299 thread, which I must catch up on, not of course that I would want any Bracknell waggons in Mid-Wales............

Very interesting thought about either basic colours or supplying POW sides.  It could be a winner.