pete_mcfarlane

Coach,

The Worsley parts are designed for a Comet roof, but I manage to substitute a Bulleid roof from Southern Pride, which is almost the right width and shape. The coach is still a bit to wide, but less than 1mm. The fun will start when I do the brake composite, which is to Restriction 0 and only 8' wide. I've not yet tracked down a suitable roof for that.

Pete

Thanks - I'll look out for it in Smiths next time I pop in there.

I'll try and take a photo in the next few days, but basically I bent them to shape by eye rather than using the jig (which I do have). 

Phil,

I used Evergreen 3.2mm channel for the solebars, and brass angle for the underframe trussing. The advantage of using plastic solebars is that you can just glue the stepboards (made out of Evergreen 3.2mm strip) in place.

The open third uses the etched battery boxes that came with the kit - these are very nice. The brake composite is one of the later Maunsells which have the same battery boxes as Bullied coaches, so I used Comet cast omes rather than modify the etched ones as the kit suggests.

The other underframe bits came from the kit, except for the brake cylinders and V hangers, which are Comet.

The coaches are meant to run as a pair, so I used Comet retracted SR buffers at the inner ends, and Slaters sprung GWR ones at the outer end. The Slaters buffers aren't quite right, but were the only sprung square shanked oval headed buffers I could find.

Roof vents and steam/vac pipes are ABS from the spares box. The outer ends have fixed corridor connectors using comet castings and some rather nice etched endplates from the Branchlines etch. The working connectors between the coaches will be some paper ones from Modellers Mecca - the first time I've tried these and they look rather nice.

These Goldstar Maunsells were very nice kits to build. I'd do some more if I can track them down on Ebay....

Pete

I do like David Geen's wagons - the body castings are among the best I've seen. 

Shame that it's closing - it's one of the few museums left that haven't been dumbed down and spoilt. The model railway is very good although I've never seen it running

The railway gallery is definitely biased towards the Midland - they seem to have airbrushed the GNR Derbyshire extension out of existence.

Mikkel,

I paint the floor with Humbrol 67 (Dark Grey) with a little Leather (62) added. After that I dry brush streaks of light grey (64) and natural wood (110) along the direction of the planks, with possibly a dry brushing of the dark grey on top of them to to tone everything down. Probably easier to do than to describe - it's very impressionistic but the trick seems to be to avoid having the floor all the same colour.

Peter

After several attempts, I still can't get a decent photo of the Lowfit! This is best one of a bad lot.

 

Thank goodness I'm not the only one - it always amazes me how many folk use them without alteration

They must be about 50% wider than they should be!

It never ceases to amaze me how good the Airfix wagon kits can be made to look. Given a spot of detailing you'd never know they were pushing 50 years old.

Looks very nice, though I'm not a big fan of the Jaffa Cake livery.

Regarding commonwealth bogies under BEPs, the prototype pair and the phase 1 units seem to have had their buffer cars retrofitted with these at some point in the 1960s whilst keeping the original bogies under the other carriages. The phase 2 units had them throughout from new.

"Slam doors on the Souther" has a photo of prototype unit 7001, with Commonwealth bogies under the buffet car in 1967.

Some of the refurbished units seem to have acquired B4 or B5 trailer bogies and Mk6 power bogies. 2306 is an example of this.

It's going to be E6001 in blue/full yellow ends circa 1970 (it seems to have kept the original oval buffers until at least 1970 and probably later)

The straight runs between the sandboxes are from Alan Gibson .33mm wire. The curvy wires are a mix of the Gibson .45mm wire and some anonymous brass wire of the same diameter I found in my scrapbox. I annealed it to make it easier to bend (by heating it up over the gas ring) and did the curves by bending around a screwdriver handle of about the right diameter.

That looks like an interesting conversion. Are you keeping the Bachmann motor, and if so does it intrude in to the converted brake area?The refurbished units are out of my period, but I have wondered if the MJT sides could be grafted on to the Bachmann CEP to give the hopper ventilated referbished units.

Hubba, hubba...

 

<picky mode>It's probably the way the light catches the model, but those guard's compartment grabrails do seem to have too much 'to the right'</mode off>

Having looked at model and photo again, I think the brass used for the etchings is very shiny, a touch of gunmetal paint should tone them down.

They real ones do project that far over to the right - they actually start to overlap the window. Mine are from a Frogmore etch and a slightly too square - the Branchlines ones were about a scale 4" across and the guard would have needed enormous hands to use them!

I do like the slightly ludicrous combination of a balloon trailer and a Terrier.

Ian,

I'm going to be using the Replica glazing - it does seem to make quite a difference to the models I've seen that use it (including yours).

I need at least 3 more 2-Bils for my layout, and have only 1 more unbuilt kit. The last unbuilt one I saw on Ebay went for about £55!

Peter

That's for the nice comments.

Will you be doing a 2HAL next?

The 2-HAL is on my wants list, but for now I'm going to be finishing off the 73/0 and then doing a DC Kits 74 that has been in my to do pile for the last 3 years.

NickL - I can't scan you a copy of the MRJ article (no scanner!).

I don't know much about N Gauge, but a quick check of the BH website shows that they do an underframe kit for almost every other type of Mk1 EMU. To do the MLV you want a kit for a 1957 type unit, so the 4CEP is your best bet.

This should have everything you need to do an MLV, except for the vacuum exhauster, which you'll probably have to scratchbuild.

Thanks chaps, there's another one on the way sometime, and perhaps another couple when I'm in the mood. The transfers came from Modelmaster (4608), via Parkside Pete. You get two pairs on the sheet, but none of the other* brandings these carried. If you manage to get all four onto the side of a wagon you'll do better than I - the peelable varnish coat peeled rather too soon! I think Cambridge Custom Transfers will do these as well, and this is probably a better bet.

 

Adam

 

*Surprisingly varied

Thanks. I've noticed that problem with Modelmaster transfers, normally with ones that I've had for a while.

Looking good. Where did you get the transfers for the "To work within South Wales and Monmouthshire" lettering from? I'm just about to start painting a couple of these myself.

If you've got some duff buffers BTW, I'm sure Roger will change them

That's a very good point, but being impatient to get these finished I used the spares and binned the duff ones!

The models look really good - keep them coming! I'm building 5 MDVs right now as well as an ever-increasing number of Parkside vans...where did you get your vac pipes?

The vacuum pipes are from ABS - I think they may be sold as a GWR type. IMHO they are the best ones on the market, as they have a nice little mounting bracket that makes them easy to glue in place.

Shawplan and MJT also do them, but they aren't as user friendly.

I've never tried one of their full kits - I'm tempted by the HAP and SUB though. At the rate I build EMUs cost isn't really an issue - I'll get many hours of entertainment for my ??100+

If the etched bits are anything to go by, then they must be pretty good.

Next projects are to be a couple of electro-diesels. A DC kits 74 and a detailed Hornby 73/0.

Colin,

It occurred to me that it might be possible to use the Hornby Maunsell body as a base for the Branchlines parts. It's the right profile but is too short.

The only Hal drawing I have to hand is the highly suspect one in the recent Gouding book on EMUs, but it looks as though the Hal body minus it's domed roof cab is about the same length as the 59' loco hauled coach.

New flat inner ends and a domed cab roof would be needed.

Peter