Brassey

Here's the current state of my K's Coal Tank indeed with an LRM Chassis. It has a Sagami 14xx motor and High Level RRCompact gearbox fitted underslung style. They do not foul the cab space. This one has some Alan Gibson coupling rods that are slimmer and currently AWOL along with the pony truck. As can be seen, I am about to fit the the brake pull rods. I would have found it easier to have fitted the brakes before progressing to the footplate as the front end is a tight squeeze to get it all in along with the front guard irons. As can be seen the guard irons are also currently off this model. This is the second chassis (I have 3 in total). I have a couple of sets of Jidenco Coal Tank etches that the other 2 are destined for. More details are in my blog if interested. This might be obvious, but speaking from experience, I found it easier to create the balance weights on the wheels before assembling the chassis.

Having got my LNWR SDX working without fouling the footplate (see blog), it still ran poorly so I replaced the LRM gearbox with the latest iteration of a High Level 2 stage gearbox (RRCompact). Here is a weird selfie I ended up with whilst trying to check nothing was fouling on the opposite side whilst it was on the rolling road. Also checking the brakes were not fouling. Eagle-eyed will spot that I still have not fitted the blower valve on this side despite John of LRM sending me a replacement months ago. Elsewhere on here, it was stated that High Level gearboxes worked well "straight out the box"! They don't come in a box; you have to fold up the flat etches. So I took a pic during this build for anyone interested. Here's how the 2 part etches fold up:

Hi Jol Your Coal Tank looks excellent. Has it been through the paint shop an can we have a pic if so? Another couple of questions: At the end of the brake pull rod you seem to have a link to the frame just before the pony truck. I can't find this on my chassis only kits and there is no mention in the instructions. Is it on the full kit etch only? Also it looks like you have inserted spacers between the pull rod and the brake shoes etch. Are these standard to the full kit as they are not in the chassis kit. Cheers Peter

Is that a smokebox door I can see amongst the lost-wax castings? If so it would be preferable to an etched one.

The last time I looked they were off the public E-shop Peter (Member)

I treat my 0-4-2's as 0-6-0's and have the trailing axle load bearing with beams throughout. Standard n/s wiper pickups on all wheels work for me:

I've built a number of Dean Goods including one which started as a K's. For info, High Level gearboxes come as a flat etch and need forming and the bushes soldering in and filing down to fit within the frames. You'll need a reamer or broach to open out the bushes to get the axles to fit.

I can’t comment on post-grouping GWR stock as it’s outside my sphere of interest

Jol, not sure this generalisation is totally correct as there was a Caledonian 12 wheel break composite through carriage from Glasgow to Weston-Super-Mare via the North West route. Caley Coaches produce this in 4mm and it was advertised in the LNWR Soc. Newsletter a couple of years back. Peter

The MJT hornblocks include an etch for a fixed axle which is a useful option anway. I have soldered these in place first to ensure at least one axle is square while soldering up, usually the driven one. This can be removed and the moving hornblocks then soldered in using the rods for alignment. If you haven't got any MJT hornblocks I guess a bit of scrap with 1/8" holes would work. A chassis jig is also helpful in this situation.

Build the shell of the building out of the sheet; making cutouts for windows and doorways. Use the strip for adding window ledges, door frames etc.

I seriously doubted the wisdom of saturating my thin ply sleepered track with so much liquid. Particularly as it was only stuck down with PVA onto Templot paper templates and already fully wired. My main concern was that the liquid would cause the track to shift/distort and/or warp the sleepers. This damage could have been hidden by the ballast Despite being reassured on the S4Soc Forum, instead I still used Gordon's method, which took much longer I guess, but it worked for me and the gauge remained true.

I can't find any which suggests that the LNWR might not have had running rights over the Cambrian into Welshpool though there were LNWR through carriages. Which is the year in question?

A Pictorial Record of LNWR Signalling by Richard D. Foster

The signal box is not LNWR. The signal boxes on the S&H were designed for that line which was joint LNWR/GWR when the signalling was installed. There is a drawing of the box in Richard Foster's book in the joint lines section towards the back

Hi Chris, I see that you're down as a new trader at the York show this year. That's good.

Peco don't make P4 points

I don't know why London Road set the valances so thick because on most Webb engines the valances were rather thin; almost non existent. Mine maybe still overscale: coloured photo from LNWR Society Facdbook

Thanks Mikkel. It has been the photography of the period that has always drawn me to the pre-grouping era rather than any other. The shot is of Shrewsbury circa 1910 with a LNWR train behind a Precedent 2-4-0 in the far platform and GWR trains in platforms 5 and 8.

There has been progress on things other than GWR too. This Special DX featured early in the blog but stalled. The London Road instructions highlight an error when building in P4 in that the valance can foul the wheel crankpins. One recommended course of action is spacing out the valance further with spare fret from the etch. It also suggests slimming down the Alan Gibson wheels at the boss. I did both and still it fouled! I resorted in drastic filing just to get it running which resulted in a non-prototpical curvy valance. Having encountered a similar problem on a GWR Dean Goods build, I resolved to take both valances off and replace them with 0.8mm brass angle. Before I took them off one-by-one, I soldered in a length of fret waste to hold the thing together as I feared the whole could buckle without the valance. This shot shows the amount of fettling that went on too: Here's the result which I am pleased to say now runs. The kit was devoid of the blower valve casting which fits into that hole in the smoke box and is operated by the handrail. John Redrup of London Road Models has since sent a replacement so I can now get on and fit both and hopefully finish this one off. The tender is half-built somewhere too

Chassis and wheels painted. I am using components from the Finney Dean Goods to build this one which was designed to take a Portscap 1219 motor. I have used the Brassmasters proposed replacement of a Mashima 1220 and High Level Road Runner plus with drive extender. There is not much room to get this in particularly once you wire the motor! (I have since used thinner wire):

I have the chassis working now and my initial thoughts are that it is not as effective as compensation for my purposes. The deflection of the hornguides is minimal resulting in quite a rigid chassis. This shows up some differences in track levels that hitherto I was unaware of. I will see how it gets on over time.

Thankfully the Claughtons were banned from the North to West route pre WW1 so I don't need to build any. I understand the kits that do exist for these (Jidenco?) are right pigs to build. I do have both a Precursor and Experiment in the kit mountain, somewhere near the bottom at the mo.

This is more loco related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeojYgl5GFE

Is Tony a Trustee of the LNWR Soc?