RobboPetes

Very nice! I, too, live in Essex and enjoyed seeing class 20s, as well as most of the other 1st generation locos. I enjoyed many a trip to Toton and other depots around the Midlands and beyond. The class 20s used to venture through Essex back in the 80s, working the Toton-Whitemoor-Temple Mills trains. The presence here was dependent on the Foreman at March as to whether they continued for the entire journey or whether they were replaced by either a class 31 or 37. Occasionally these trains were worked entirely by class 45s. The last pair of 20s I saw through here (Harlow) was in 1985 when the train was only 6 or so wagons long! Because of pathing difficulties this would have been one of the last wrokings for this train. Class 20s were regular performers to Cambridge, but I cannot remember why they worked to there. The last I saw these locos there was back in the late 80s. They had brought their train in and were getting ready to return to the Midlands. Hope this helps you. Rob.

These have always been one of my favourite wagons and many years ago I bought a couple of the John Grey kits. I made the wagons up minus the bolsters: these were fabricated from the relevant thicknesses of plasticard. The bolster pins were going to be made from Bambi mini-staples. I checked these against scale drawings and found they were spot-on. All I needed to do was to drill 0.3 mm holes through the width of the 40 thou plasticard I used for the middle bit of the 'H' of the bolster. Having done this I assembled one and the rest were left while I continued with other bits model-wise. Enter Bachmann on to the scene and the release of their BDA. On studying the model against what I had I quickly realised the John Grey kit was severely lacking. I have since bought 3 railfrieght and one Loadhaul version. The loadhaul one had the holes drilled out to accept the Bambi bolster pins, as the bolsters on these are rectangular as opposed to 'H' section and easier to drill without damage to the outer wall of the bolster. To anyone else thinking of doing the same thing please be pleasantly warned! If you knock the pins, even slightly, the bolster tends to break from the model. I have abandoned this idea and will stick with the pins supplied by Bachmann having already broken off 2 of the bolsters. The gripe I have with these wagons is the plastic brake disc wheels that are attached to each bogie on both sides. I saw some at an exhibition last year and was disappointed when viewing these from normal viewing hieght - above the wagon. I personally don't like the look of the disc wheel when looking along the length of the wagon from above either. I purchased the excellent brass brakewheels from TPM: item number 1824C Plain and blind spoke brakewheels. Another problem seems to be the fixture of the wheels to the bogie. I have found them to be at varying angles, probably due to the soft nature of the plastic. See the following pictures: I did think about painting the backs of the plastic discs. The problem would be in getting a consistent depth to the black on the edge of the wheel. Doing one wagon might be OK, but doing more might show inconsistencies along the length of the train. I feel that when viewed from the side there isn't much to determine between the two versions. See the next photo for a comparison: To do this I made a simple jig made out of two pieces of wood, making absolutely sure the right angles on these where definite. I made a score at right angles on the upright piece to hold the pin when soldering. The angles are vital in such a small scale as this, as any inaccuracies are greatly magnified! This worked well for the first two, but I soon realised the limitation of control on the next couple. Solution: use a smaller thickness of wood to be able to press the pin on to the brakewheel when soldering. I plan to do the other two wheels for the other side of the first wagon soon, and for the remaining two wagons in the not to distant.

Nice work. Look forward to seeing more.

Referring to the brake discs on the BDAs, I shall be posting an entry on my Marsh Lane Sidings blog soon of the TPM etched discs that I have used to replace the plastic discs that come with the model. I'll leave it up to you to decide if the etches are worth the money? The weathering looks great but I would say you need to be careful as to the extent of the weathering will determine how old the wagon is - if you see what I mean. I model the 80s. so the weathering needs to be more subtle than if I was modelling the current scene. Keep up the excellent work you are doing.

I have some of these wagons myself and am planning on loading them with 10 coils, rather than the 8 supplied. I'm looking at some way of having all the coils attached as one so I can load/unload them as a unit as required. I also intend to paint the coils a steel colour to get rid of the silver colour. I will weather them as and when I have experimented on some old stock. Look forward to seeing the layout as you build it.

The weathering is very nice. It is interesting how you are planning a small shunting layout, yet you are also interested in Hereford yard (refer to my blog: Marsh Lane Sidings). Look forward to more of your work.

Very nice idea. I will be following this with interest. Now...I'm just going to look at Ring Road and Cross Street.

I agree with you Harleymartin. I plan to do what your saying by converting the outer vehicles to start, then modifying the rest as time allows. I will work on particular trains to start with (2 x ferrywaggons, 6 x SPAs, 2 x VGAs). I will still be able to run mixed trains as I wish. Eventually, I plan on having all wagons done in a relatively short time. I did the same thing in 4mm several years ago when I was converting my stock to screw/instanter couplings. I remember one day on the local club layout before an exhibition, a mate and I double-headed our Airfix class 31s (now, there's a blast from the past!) with a converter coach making an 11-coach train and got it running a scale 55 mph. We were well impressed! We then set this up as one of the trains for the days showing.

I can't remember where I heard the idea of coffee jar lids to create corrugated iron from either. Mick Simpson mentions it in his article in the March 2013 Railway Modeller. If any one is interested, Maxwell House Classic Blend also has a milled edge.

This is superb! Look forward to the next installment...

A clever and cunning idea! You could run it at almost any point in history, as I believe this still exists today. Good luck with it and I look forward to seeing more from you.

When I wanted to create some corrugated iron using 2 Nescafe jar lids last year, I was well disappointed to find the lid edges were smooth instead of having a milled edge like that found on the edge of a coin. On finding this out I turned my attention to something else, model-wise. Whilst at work about a month ago my manager asked me if I would like a cup of coffee, to which I answered in the affirmative. He told me he had started drinking the Everyday Value range from Tesco. When I went to return the favour some time later I noticed the edge of the lid was rough. On closer inspection I found the edge was actually milled like that as per the old Nescafe jars. Bliss! We're back in business again. Over the next couple of weeks I surreptitiously removed the lids from the empty jars to take home. I've messed about on an old pie dish and created the following:

Brilliant idea and look forward to seeing you wagon fleet grow, particularly interested in the PAAs and PRAs...and yes, roll on the Farish TSL Polybulks! For the VGAs on my own layout I am going to use the excellent TPM bodyshell mated to the Stephen Harris chassis. Good luck.

Thanks David, you're right about the no brainer. I WILL have to blacken them first, but I have stuck some to my wagons already...patience please!!! Yes, I should be more patient!

Hi Gary (sixteen). I agree the more you make the easier it becomes. Another useful link on here is http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/43748-easy-dg/ I have found some handy bits on here that will help me (and others) to make better couplings in future. I will fit them to most items as I like to run trains of differing lengths to suit different traffic. The nice thing about wagonload traffic is the splitting up and spotting of each/couples of wagons. I have included in the calculation a rake of 16 HAAs which I would use for a cement works, similar to Barrington cement works near Cambridge. For the real train they used wagons in cuts of 10 to be loaded at Kings Lynn docks before the onward journey to Barrington. For my purposes I would use wagons in cuts of 8, with only the outer wagons converted to DG.

Another thing to consider when evaluating options is the cost. The more stock one owns the greater the importance of such consideration. The price of the Dapol units have been checked against the Hattons website whilst the cost of the DG couplings is via the 2mm Scale Association website. I currently have 72 frieght vehicles, with at least another 8 to make up and at least another 10 to purchase. Add to this a loco fleet that currently stands at 4 units, with up to another 9 to purchase. Of these, 44 frieght vehicles are runnable with another 8 to make - none of these have the NEM pocket. This would mean I would need to purchase at least 18 Packs to convert these units to NEM pockets (3 units per pack). Add to this the purchase of magnetic couplings to deal with 72 + 8 + 10 = 90 frieght vehicles and 4 + 9 = 13 locos. I would need to purchase: Pack for non_NEM couplings each @ £ 8.00 x 18 = £144.00; Magnetic couplings (x 5) each @ £17.00 x 21 = £357.00 Total £501.00 OUCH! The cost of DGs is £2.50 for 8 pairs. I would need to purchase: DG coupling fret (8 pairs) each @ £2.50 x 13 = £32.50. Total £32.50 Both prices do not include the coupling magnets. The differences in the cost of these is negligible. As can be seen a considerable saving can be made with the DG option. The problems I thought I was going to have fitting DGs to the Peaks was resolved in my last post thanks to a link http://neag.2mm.org.uk/2008/11/work-continues-on-my-farish-peak.html. The research I did for the telescopic hoods and the ferrywaggons confirmed these would be easier than first thought. Using the results above I will be opting for the DG coupling system. The only problem with purchasing the DG couplings is the time it would take to make them up. There is a link on this site that shows a quick way to produce these. Obviously, once you have made the first few you get quicker as you make more. I hope this might help others in making an informed choice between the 2 systems.

Hi Steve22. I've never had any problems with the running of the Farish class 47 (and class 37) chassis. It was just the annoying sight of the flushness of the body and chassis!

Thanks for that Andy. At least with this method you don't have to dismantle the bogie to get to the coupling...and it works! I was thinking of folding the flaps of the coupling that you would normally glue the the vehicle to go through the area vacated by the coupling on the Peak bogie. The flaps of the coupling would be straightened again, then either folded down and secured behind the bufferbeam or somehow secured to the bogie??? The only problem here is how to secure the coupling without fouling the sideframe being re-attached to the bogie.

Very nice! Beautifully weathered too.

Right, research done! If I was gonig to use DGs on the ferrywaggons I would do the same as Silurian above - thanks for the advice. This would work out much easier than I thought. The telescopic hood is a different matter altogether. The bogies on these vehicles have both lateral as well as longtitudinal movement?! The pegs that hold the bogies in place are a relatively loose fit. There are also some handrails moulded to the underside of the bufferbeam. Although they should be there they tend to foul the bogie. These handrails would be removed. I would plug the pivot hole with the appropriate sized rod with a piece of plasticard on the end to keep the bogie in place. The DG would be glued to the underside of the bogie on the end that currently sits at the inner ends of the wagon. If I was to use the Dapol system I would still plug the pivot hole to reduce all movement apart from rotation. All I need to do now is to find out how best to deal with the Bach?Far Peaks?!

In two words...beautifully atmospheric!

Thanks to all those who responded. Yes Silurian, you are right. Even if you add some wieght, it might not be enough to stop the movement of the vehicle you are trying to couple up to if using the MT or Dapol systems. What I am going to do is to dismantle a ferrywaggon and see if it is as difficult as I think. This might mean dismantling the spring and seeing if the coupling will come away from the wagon itself. It might mean more work but this might outwiegh any disadvantages of the Dapol system.

I agree with you Jim in that this system has been well thought out. Most people who use them will agree with P4Frank, myself included. The tweaking is probably, and this is only a guess, due to the stock being carried in an upright position in a stock box (my problem). During transit the stock may move back and forth and thus may get damaged this way. If they are laying on their sides there is less chance of movement. The vehicles that I have that use a close-coupling system have the couplings attached to the bodies and not the bogies. They might not be as bad to modify as I assume, but I would not look forward to dismantling the units concerned!!! Because of the hook one end/loop the other, the coupling are well suited to the end-to-end type layout. Agreed, you can't turn the units round once you have attached the coupling (someone will no doubt prove us wrong here). You certainly have a point Chris, as the pictures in Argos' blog http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1220/entry-11097-mr-thompsons-finest-brake-third-part-i-and-the-first-loco/ show the couplings side by side. The points you have made about size and distance show up well on his site. I hope there is an alternative to the coupling displayed on Argos' site?! I must admit, when I saw Horseley Fields at Hoddesdon last year I didn't notice the size of the couplings from normal viewing distance. If this is the case about size then a look at the Microtrains Z gauge version might just happen.

This is a really intereting development - something that is long overdue. I was put off N gauge back in the late 70s because of the crude nature of the track and the hidious gap between the rail and the switch rail of the points. The sleeper spacing is another problem I find hard to accept. I joined the 2mm Scale Association and the N gauge society at the same time in the late 80s as I wanted to take advantage of this scale over the larger scales. When PECO brought out the code 55 track I was impressed, although the track system is still let down by the previously-mentioned problems. I am currently looking at building my proposed layout using both Easitrak and soldered track in 2mm scale. I can see this track being a big seller as I believe a lot of modellers are not happy with the current range from PECO. I, too, will be looking at this system once the points come on stream. Keep up the great work you have done so far. You never know, you might actually make PECO wake from their slumber and create a competitive rail system that us N gaugers have been wanting for some time.

Dilemma! Which way do I go? I used DGs on Clive Road Sidings at a 2mm Scale Area Group meeting back in the late 80s and was impressed how well they worked. Standard N gauge couplings at that time were unreliable and inconsistent across the manufacturers. A friend advised me to look at the Kadee system, but I considered this too American in appearance. With nothing else available in N gauge at the time as far as I was aware it seemed the logical way to go. I have made some DGs up and started to put them on to my stock. The problem I have now is how do I fit these to the Dapol Ferryvans and Telescopic hoods? I am also trying to work out how best to fit the to to Bach/Far Peaks? Any vehicle that uses a close-coupling system might prove to be problematic where DGs are concerned. Virtually anything else is straightforward enough. I've also read recently you have to continually adjust these couplings if you exhibit your stock a lot??? Enter Dapol, who have now introduced their own automatic uncoupling system. I saw Horseley Fields at the Hoddesdon exhibition in the middle of last year and was mildly interested in the Dapol couplings in use; they worked well and none of the trains I saw uncoupled at any time whilst being run. This has left a somewhat lasting impression which has now brought me to the crossroads of decision...which way to go? DGs are less obtrusive in appearance but will prove to be more problematic to fit. Dapol will be the complete opposite. The only problem I foresee with the Dapol system is the modifications to the older Farish and PECO chassis', let alone the 2mm Scale Association chassis'. I am certainly erring on the side of Dapol the more I look into these systems. I wonder what other modellers think, or what experience they have had with these systems? After all, this might prove to be more beneficial than to just myself?! What do YOU think?