Vin

Hi everyone, many thanks for all the support and encouragement on this project. As I'm not going to get time to post all this weekend, I'll do it now... This week I've been making the masters for casting the corridor connections for the emu. These differ from the standard mk3 ones because they have a flat surface either side of the gangway. This is the second attempt at the end piece. The first one just didn't look right, even with the dimensions taken from an official drawing. Then I realized that somewhere down the line that the rubber surround had become larger and therefore making the panels either side of the gangway narrower. I have omitted the high level jumpers as these are in different positions on each coach. Here is the rubber gangway surround and the gangway connection. This is how I made the rubber gangway surround. These won't be painted as they are made from 3/32" diameter rubber heatshrink. I then slid the heat shrink over a piece of 2.5mm core from stripped twin and earth power cable which keeps the shape perfectly. The gangway connector. This will move as it'll be mounted on springs which retract it when uncoupled. Then by using small neodymium magnets and tin plate for the buffering plates this will attract the connections together. So no gaps! Well that's the theory (which has worked in the test I've done). These two pieces will be glued together once painted up. The vertical bar in the centre is a pivot for the gangway connector to swing on. The gangway connector with the spring fitted nuts and bolts. The final assembly with a front and rear view. Test fitting to a rolling chassis. I've designed an etch for the doors in the gangway connector which will cover the nuts and also will be on the other mk3 coaches as well. Cheers Vin

Yeah, micro strip at the ready.... Next job to do is cast some more seats. Cheers Vin

Hi Tom, The fold down arm rests in standard class were those horrible grey plastic. The seats changed when SWT refurbished them but the original design along with the tables can still be found on some of Northern Rail's class 158 fleet which is where I go the measurements from. The only different between the originals and the ones currently fitted are the seat pads have got more padding. I tried casting the armrests but it wasn't practical at all as they are 0.75mm x 0.75mm square and have a bend at the end of them as well. Cheers Vin

Hi Tom, I don't remember the armrests in the snug but there was two round tables. I do remember the armrests in the first class compartments as they felt really cheap for first class. Vin

Hi All, This weekend has see more progress with some of the sides finished off with the glazing completed. I used yacht varnish to fix the windows instead of ClearFix as it is thinner and capillary action draws the varnish around the frame. The tape holding in the glazing while it dries. Also received the order for some more white lining to go between the lower red and grey stripes as I only had enough to do 4 sides. The NSE logos are 4mm ones but fit perfectly on the white band, strangely these units only had two logos per set. These three photos show the fixing of the bodyside to the chassis using epoxy glue and siting of the seat castings. I haven't got round to making the tables yet which happen to be exactly the same as those used on class 158 DMU's. Casting of the seats may take some time as I've only enough moulds for 8 seats at any one time. Cheers Vin

Hi Tom, But are the Pond murals in the right place? Vin

Hi all, It feels like a life time since my last post on this subject after a couple of hectic months doing other things, so I will get back to everybodys PM's as well! I have been making small inroads to the build of the class 442 by making modules (while away in Hotel rooms) which fit on the coaches and then making final checks when I've been home at the weekend, casting resin parts has been out of the question until I've got home. So to start with..... These are the starting resistances (lefthand side) and auxiliary equipment case (etched panel). The resistances are made from 3.2mm diameter evergreen tubing with a piece of 40 thou plasticard rammed down the centre and I do mean rammed! As the hole size in the middle varies from piece to piece. These are then glued into a box of 30thou plasticard. The etchings on the right hand side for the auxiliary equipment case were wrong from the start so I had to stick some plastic strapping on them to make them prototypical. The finished article which has been loaded with liquid lead and then sealed with resin to give a respectable 137g in weight, as this is to be fitted to the MBLS powered coach. MBLS with some of the equipment fitted and the all important interior. The open framed air conditioning equipment case is waiting for the side etch grilles and will house one of the speakers. The interior was made from plasticard to the NSE spec. diagram, detail photos are below. As this a original Network Southeast version it bears no relation to either the SWT conversion or the Gatwick Express rebuild. Seat casting. 1 down 125 to go!!!! This is the MBLS inverted underframe with the air tanks fitted. I had to make the inner edge flat so that the coupling bar has some movement. The brass box section in the background is for the cable runs as each bogie has 4 cables and each speaker has 2, so a total of 12 cables to feed the decoder in the luggage compartment. MBLS corridor side panel. MBLS the other side. Both of these castings have had there problems, the first one was filling in all the holes where the windows would be and then drilling the new windows out. The eagle eyed will notice that I haven't marked out the double luggage van doors yet, but that's an easy job. Getting the sides smooth with small layers of P38 easysand was the challenge!! A few of the finished sides, just the windows to put in. NSE livery is a joy when it goes right but is a nightmare when the unexpected happens, hence why there aren't 4 sides in this picture. What happened? Well. Whilst airbrushing on the red stripes there must have been moisture condensed in the air line after the filter which then splattered all over the bodyside and mixed with wet acrylic paint. This in turn bled under the masking tape. So painting came to an abrupt end and the paint removed from the bodyside along with all the masking tape. Unfortunately this paint removal stained the white paintwork and turned it pink!!!! This is 71825 TSO bodyside. This is TV gel which tints the windows. Lee Filters L209 if anyone wants to know, this is stuck behind glazing. The difference can be seen in the photo of 71825. I think that this is enough for this post. Cheers Vin

Hi all, Thanks for the praise. As for the finished article that maybe a while yet as I'm away from home a lot at the moment. I have finished the interior and sides of the MBLS so I hope to post some photos later on this week. The interior posed several problems because of lack of photos pre- Southwest Trains. So if anybody has any photos or details that would be fantastic? Regards Vin

What does LHE stand for? Cheers Vin

Hi All, After a month of doing other projects and generally being away from home, I've returned to the class 442 and painted some of the finished sides. As painting the complex network southeast (more difficult than the standard coaching stock) with its stripes and bands. Here is the TSW trailer coach sides. The blue looks a bit dark because it was too dark for the camera to pick up the true colour. Here are the underframes showing the differences between the component hatches and grilles. The third rail fuses still needing to be picked out in white on one of the frames. Here is the TSW with the sides just blu tacked on as the silver grey still needs to be applied, which I'm going to do tomorrow. This is a finished bogie and the eagle eyed will notice the wheel size has changed from a previous post after realizing they have lowmac sized wheel sets. This meant I had to redesign the nickel silver disc brake inserts as well. The yaw dampers and hanging brackets I'm etching as a separate fitting and these will go on last. A close up of the almost finished bodyside. The window etches have been scraped back to the nickel silver on the inner edges which I think makes a massive difference. The centre of the coach has the door open lights painted in orange and the surround scraped back to the nickel with a flat scalpel blade. I will fit a clear plastic square over this to give relief gluing over the paint which is something I try to never do, but as it is carrying no weight or protruding to far out it should be a problem. The ends still need the door passenger release controls picking out in silver and the vertical hand rails require fitment once the painting is completed. Painting these sides is much easier part finished and on the flat as getting narrow tapes to run straight over coaches that are 500mm long is bad enough. Wheels, wheels and more wheels! These are for the 5WES and don't include the other ones already made up into bogies. The 4 axles in the top right are 3'1" for the motor coach the info for this fact took a lot of digging. All of these have been chemically blackened and then the disc inserts are glued in with epoxy after painting black and polishing up. Third rail pickup bogie with the centre missing because I hadn't measured the ride height at this point. The other bogie without the third rail pickups as one the real ones they are spread throughout the train. Regards Vin

All those photos bring back good memories and the thrash!!!!

Hi all, Has anybody got any photos from the Intercity Diesel day (21st may 1989) of 37066 and 37058 doing the run to St. Pancras and back to Leicester? Now that's a trip that should be re-run. Tractors, choppers, bones, grids. I'm sure it would be a money spinner. Cheers Vin

Hi Jim, Does the dynamic brake put power back into the batteries? Vin

Proper GE whine from every direction!!! Cheers Vin

Hi Jim, Hope you get a go on the class 37's again? On the class 70's which end whines the most?? The fan/cooler group end or the alternator end? Regards Vin

Hi all, No photos of the interiors yet. I've made most of the seats, which are the same design as those fitted to the original class 158. There are 300 seats to make which includes the 50 first class ones. So I made 10 originals to cast multiple times with differing amounts of wear and armrest positions to break up the monotony. These made so that they aren't handed so any position in the coaches are possible and allows for wiring runs along the length of the coach. As for the mk3 I've made some beds for the SLEP. The photos will happen at the end of the week. Cheers Vin

Hi Bernard, I never knew they did a postcard set of the artwork. If my representations took as long to produce then it would make a nice hourly rate. It took me 2 x 2hour flights to Italy and one 2 hour train trip from York to Kings X Cheers Vin

Hi all, I've done the artwork for the interior walls, but I have a problem and that is for the original NSE versions I don't know which artwork goes where? The only one I know is the Chesil Beach in the DTS. 442 eddie pond artwork1.pdf The rectangular shapes are for the interior bulkheads with the doors and seats removed for clarity. On an A4 sheet of paper the parts are to scale (1:43). I shall be printing these onto white transfer sheet and putting them on the plasticard partitions. Enjoy Vin

Hi Gazza, It's been a while since I did this, but I do have a another part built one. So I'll take some photos later on in the week as it is still in bits. Regards Vin

Hi ngtrain, It's always interesting to find out info from those on the factory floor how these where built. On my build the doors will be in the shut position so I don't need to buy any chimps for door duty!!! I've redrawn the Eddie pond wall art and included a shark in chesil beach and captain pugwash's black pig (it took me ages to find a good image) to Weymouth harbour. I'll post them later. Cheers for the insight. Vin Ps. With these coaches been Dcc I'll be making up wiring looms as well. Fortunately they won't be as long and definitely not as heavy!!!

That's great news. When I get around to finishing the design for the motor car I had sound in mind. The speakers can live in air con equipment box at one end and I'll have to find somewhere at the other. Drive is going to be from 2x ABC gears traction motors so a loksound V4 or equivalent will suffice. This is more work to do. I should at this point thank Brian at ABC gears for sending me a CAD of the traction motors so I can design the bogie around it. Regards Vin

Hi all, Cheers for the link. In the back of my mind I seem to remember a pink design? Or was that from a great eastern unit? I'm going to reinstate the sharks to Chesil beach that way I can't be done for forgery! Back in the early nineties a mate of mine drew the captain pug wash ship and glued it on Poole harbour scene. Even the guard laughed. Cheers Vin

Hi all. I've now finished 6 underframes. 4 for the class 442 (DTF, TS, TSW & DTF) and 2 mk3a SLEP. This has included fitting of M3 bolts for the bar connections on the EMU with Kadee buckeye couplings on the outer ends of the driving trailers. The buffers are in the post and I'll have to manufacture some heads as class 442's have a strange cropped rectangular buffer arrangement. Over view of the finished underframe TSW 71849. I've added a sheet of 20thou plasticard to the top so I can measure out for the interior which has a lot of seat castings and not many tables. The delights of suburban travel!!! I've made the toilet cubicles and the coach end partitions. As this unit will be fitted with full LED lighting I could do with some good photos of the Eddie Pond graphics which adorned the interior panels as I'll make these into laser printed transfers. I don't know if these where different from unit to unit or if there was a certain number of them spread randomly throughout the fleet? Close up showing the etches to good effect. The two piece 3rd rail fuses have been picked out in white but I think another coat of paint will intensify the colour. The red air tank could also benefit from some more red as well. The sides of the solebar will have the paint removed before the sides are glued to them with super glue. This is one of the bogies in position which I'm glad I have glued together yet as the wheel size (3'1" as shown) are too large for the trailer cars. I've order some more wheels from Roxey mouldings, 16 axles which are in the post. Fortunately I etched some disc inserts for the new axles about a month ago. Here are the centre motor coach wheels with etch inserts fitted. These are 3'1" diameter wheels which will also fit the BT10 bogies for the mk3 coaches. The edges have been chemically blackened with Birchwood Casey super blue for steel, nasty stuff but does the job. I'll go back to making the resistances for the motor coach under frame now. Cheers Vin

Hi All, Just a quick update. I've been making a new mould for the underframe equipment casting because I needed to make an access hatch in the bottom for the DCC decoder to sit. On the original casting the whole of the compartment had to be dropped to get to the decoder. The other reason for making a new mould is that I needed to trim 1.5mm from each end so that the bogies have more rotation. This means that the etched overlays protrude by 1.5mm at each end fortunately this isn't that noticeable. The class 442 TS side blu tacked in position to check for fit and any errors. The underframe needs the 3rd rail fuses fitting and then a coating of matt black. The window etches. From left to right top row, full size window frame, 442 and sleeper small window, Toilet and 442 plug door window. From left to right bottom row, buffet window, 442 buffet small window, Sleeper coach corridor side window. More to follow. Vin

Hi Paul, Covering every variation of coach is a very tall order. As things stand at the moment I've made enough parts to produce the driving trailers and intermediate trailers for the class 442. The interiors need to be done as all the carriages will have dcc lighting. Then I've also made enough parts to make a couple of SLEP's or SLE mk3a's as all the above have a very similar roof with one vent box the water tank hatches are in differing positions. Next to make are the coach ends which are very different between the 442 and a mk3 coach. Regards Vin