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I know I can't be the only one and that it's just an "age" thing... Having taken a better look at the pic (above) showing the Class 31 and 307 on the stops at Liverpool Street, I really do miss slam door multiple units and loco-hauled traction. For the passenger, I know technology and comfort have moved on (supposedly). I guess I'm having a "rose-tinted spectacle" moment. If I was 20 years older, I suppose I'd be all nostalgic for steam. Mid life crisis? No thanks, I'm already having one...

On the plus side, we can still enjoy loco haulage (or propulsion!) twice an hour between Norwich and Liverpool Street, and the Mk3 coach always seems to me to be the peak of British passenger accommodation design. The HST seat layout is arguably better, but the ride is usually superb.

- Richard.

I placed my order before I found this thread and went for a non-DCC six-car set i.e. two extra coaches. I think it will make a nice display as a 'reasonably plausible might have been' - the experimental set strengthened to carry 100 or so passengers and find out about catering, walking about on board, travel sickness and so on.

I will probably never have a layout large enough to run it, but the local club probably always will. I do imagine the market for a full 14 car APT-P is very small, and the price would be set by what someone is prepared to pay - a bit like houses over a million pounds. But, such a purchaser might be more 'Golden Age' than 'Hornby' so to speak, and looking to blow a lot more.

Just looked at the eBay posting, it made £370. Sounds about right, if a bit low, for a model to finish off.

- Richard.

Is the D9539 'all over green' one a BR livery or 'as preserved'?

 

Tony

It would be difficult to answer this question without first-hand knowledge of every locomotive. Possibly neither. A search on Google suggests D9500 entered service with wasp stripes on the bonnet, and the NCB painted these out on this particular loco in favour of stripes on the buffer beams. I think you have got to either pick a real locomotive and model it as it was at a specific time; or do what you like and accept that one day someone will tell you it is "wrong". There is a nice artists impression of an all-black one here:

http://andrewbriddonlocos.co.uk/abl2/locos/br-class-14-d9500-s/122-br-swindon-class-14-d9500.html

You could force the issue one way by adding a nameplate to be sure the model is in a fictional condition (perhaps 'freelance condition' is better).  I'm very happy with my Loadhaul one, and it was popular enough to sell out at Hattons.

- Richard.

The building at Stonehenge Works on the Leighton Buzzard railway was built by Italian POWs. Their stone work in the upper left hand corner (see second photo, below the fourth rafter) seems to be a record of their opinions at the time ...

- Richard.

(photos by myself on 1 October 2009)

A word of caution/advice to those buying the latest batch of OO Westerns.

 

D1023 in Maroon has the Talisman clips so is only correct for the loco in preservation. And not suitable renaming, except as D1015 also in one of its preserved guises.

 

Of the two latest BR blue versions, both have the Talisman clips but D1021 Western Cavalier has the red spots on the cab sides below the data panel, whereas D1010 Western Campaigner doesn't have them.

I have updated my spreadsheet of details for a blue Western with full yellow ends. The changes are in bold text in rows 5 and 13. This spreadsheet replaces revision d which I posted last summer.

- Richard.

Class 52 Western details e.xls

 

That being the case I'll probably rename the Dapol BR blue D1005 Western Venturer to D1011 Western Thunderer, the latter not being withdrawn until October 1975 - so I would image the Talisman clips would have been fitted to that loco? 

D1011 Thunderer was fitted with the Talisman clips. This loco also had headboard clips at both cab ends (like the Dapol moulding), unlike the real D1005. I felt the Dapol blue FYE model was closer to D1011, and wanting something slightly different I went for this and sold on the original plates on eBay.

- Richard.

Guys with the loadhaul version, are you happy with it and does it fit in well with what ever you have it running with? Sorely tempted to get one myself as i'm a sucker for things that are different, but been told to wait until after fathers day

 

gribble: it does say somewhere it's a ficticious livery hence why you've never seen the original!

I am delighted with mine. When I ran it on the club layout, the room fell silent. A teenage member asked if it was a German loco (which seemed a fair question) and afterwards an ex-railwayman did quietly tell me it was a fictitious livery. I think it needs some nameplates, perhaps on the solebars.

- Richard.

... It looks about right for a Victorian level crossing keepers house, and I might be tempted into one.

Yes. You could add a window to the end wall of the 'office' and put the lever frame in there; and perhaps locate the building at right angles to the tracks instead of parallel. The kit will easily build up into a mirror image if this helps the location you have in mind.

- Richard.

Three more detail photographs, and two views of the finished building.

- Richard.

Upstairs window is layers of 1mm card

Outer layers for lean-to extension

0.020" styrene sheet overlays and then 0.100" x 0.015" strips

Finished model

The details on the end of the office are from Hornby magazine earlier this year: a 1:43 letter box and a 1:76 sign and empty notice board. I've never seen a meter box modelled before, so I measured the one on my house. I need to add guttering and flashing, but the roof still looks better in the photo than in real life. The barge boards are still unpainted and left in their 'raw lasered state' which I quite like. The roof sections are resting in place so I can lift them off to show the interior.

Here are some photos from the last week ...

- Richard.

Faller embossed stone card, marketed for HO but looks good at 1:64

The outer wall for the booking office has a curiously familiar shape

How well do you think these kits would work, used for a O gauge layout?

Hi Jim,

It is a well-proportioned building (which is probably what attracted me to it in the first place) but I think it would look twee in 0 gauge. For example, the bay window is less than 11 mm deep - that's barely 18 inches at 1:43. The model might work at the back of a 0-16.5 affair, or a standard gauge light railway.

Some of the features of the kit show up the differences between a scale model and a dollshouse. I mentioned the floor level being too near the ground in the first post, but also the barge boards are too short - they look pretty, but they don't reach the eaves. So when you start thinking about adding guttering, the ends of the soffits will be in mid-air. The barge boards measure 2.5mm wide which scales up to about 4.2 inches - too narrow for a real building

The walls are 3mm and 2mm MDF ... if you pad these out to something near scale thickness either the rooms will become even smaller, or you will need to cut some larger roof sections.

So I think it's too small.

It might work as a cottage in rural surroundings at the back of an 0 gauge layout, but in this case I'd still want to reduce the sizes of the doorways. It is part of a large range, and some of the non-railway models might work better. I want to try another one for the same layout.

- Richard.

A couple more photos to show how the building is taking shape. The plan is to finish the interior and stop for a while ... the treatment of the outside depends rather on the region being modelled.

The model is glued together with Evo-Stik Impact wherever possible. (This is a solvented contact adhesive if you’re unfamiliar). I choose this because it doesn’t let paper have a chance to warp, and it sets just about instantly. I resort to occasional superglue, Mek-Pak and woodworking glue when I have to, which usually means when the Evo-Stik would dissolve the surface.

The staircase is from small-section triangular stripwood, glued onto a strip of card. I added stair treads from flat stripwood too, but while the camera struggles to pick these out, it finds faults like the crooked kitchen plinth which I never noticed before.

- Richard.

This is build of a 1:48 dollshouse kit by Petite Properties into a freelance 1:64 scale model. I bought my kit from the dollshouse show at the Tower Hotel in London earlier this year, a nice change from the usual model railway circuit. The core of the model is thin MDF but most of the modelling is in card and paper so I hope this forum is a satisfactory location for the post.

The kit is marketed as a 'basic kit' for the builder to finish to their own specification, and essentially comprises laser-cut walls of MDF, and window frames, doors and roof panels from 1mm card. There is also a second set of window frames laser-cut from thinner card (so you can have a frame on both sides of the glazing) and some detail fittings like chimney pots and window sills. The building presented is a one-up one-down affair with a lean-to extension on one side and a further extension on the other. This second extension might be a ticket office or perhaps (after cutting a doorway into the main house) a kitchen or living room.

MDF core with foam board chimney stack

The living room and bedroom scale up to about 11’ x 12’6” at 1:48. If you put a staircase and a chimney breast into this, and start thinking about a shower room or a kitchen, it is clearly a very bijou residence! A bit too twee for my taste, and so am building it as a 1:64 scale model instead … for a diorama now, and maybe one day a layout …

I reduced the height of the walls of the main house by 3/16”, and the heights of the two extensions by 1/8”. I used the offcuts of MDF to trim down the door openings to 1:64 scale. I want the window frames to be near flush with the outside of the building (not on the inside walls) so the rooms can have window sills, and the plan here is to attach the windows to the outside surfaces of the walls and then add new outer wall skins from card on top.

The MDF walls are 3/32” and 1/8” thick, far too thin for a scale thickness even at 1:64. I added pieces of 1mm card on the inside of the main house to add thickness and to provide rebates for the upstairs floor to slide into. The bay window is built outwards from the front wall on 3/32” wide strips of card to make depth for external cladding and decoration.

The kit has one serious shortcoming in that there is no attempt to model the location of the damp course, and so the entrance doors and floor are at ground level. I raised the whole of base of my model on a piece of 3mm foam core board, and then glued this onto a sheet of mount board. The mount board is oversize to help blending into a layout. I have also put the chimney stack on one side of the house, instead of at the rear, to let me put the foot of the staircase near the front door.

After all this you might wonder if it would be easier to start from scratch but for me no ... the laser-cut walls are flat and cut true, and make a good foundation to work on. I have tried to avoid painting as much as I can, and so the model is finished with coloured papers, card and especially veneers. I picked up an unfinished marquetry kit at a jumble sale and this has given me the “oak” flooring, “mahogany” office counter, and some kind of “dark wood” kitchen worktop. So far I have resorted to styrene for only the dado-height panelling in the office, the skirting boards and the brick base of the lean-to.

Hope you like the pictures so far.

- Richard.

General arrangement

Station office

Lobby and shower room

Edited to simplify content on 21st April 2014.

Looks like the A end. There are A/B letters below the bottom of the outer cab door handrails. Whether Dapol got it right is another question...

B.

 

Westerns have an access flap for the compressor brushes on one side only. This is the small rectangular panel in the bodyside beneath the centre grille of the right-hand group of three. This flap is towards the B end of the locomotive.

 

If you are looking side-on at the "flapped" side of a Western, the A end is to the left and the B end to the right.

 

I can't see the flap in this photo, so if this is the side without it, the B end must be on the left and the A end on the right.

It's the A end. Dapol have put a black letter A below the cab hand rail nearest the camera. I didn't realise it was there, I need a magnifying glass to see it. The access flap Geoff mentions is on the side facing the camera, and is just about visible (if you know what you are looking for) if you enlarge the photo. Thanks both.

I've put a Kadee coupler on the other end; so I'll remember when the loco is pulling a train, the A end is leading.

- Richard.

Here is a photo of my D1011 'Western Thunderer. The plates are by Shawplan, and the track is C&L '00'.

Could someone tell me whether this is the A or the B end, and why?

- Richard.

I'm grateful for all the suggestions and comment but I remain convinced that something as light as chinchilla sand is never going to be a workable option unless the adhesive is applied after the sand and the basic appearance isn't too critical. That is, unless someone can find a practical way of securing what amounts to about a 2mm thickness of the sand grains each measuring no more than about 0.1mm in diameter. I should add that the congealed sand in the initial test piece produced by the more usual method of applying glue to ballast has also now broken down, presumably because the sand grains are too fine for the PVA to reliably adhere to it.

I've had plenty of ballasting failures but the techniques described here ("put ballast onto glue") have always worked for me, sometimes after a second application, while the "add wetted glue to ballast" method made messy and shapeless results. I like to apply masking tape along the edges, apply glue and sprinkle the ballast from a height. Then lift the tape and vacuum up promptly. It's easier to add too little ballast and top it up next day than pick off wet bits or chisel off dry lumps. Perhaps with a very fine ballast like sand, it would be worthwhile to apply an "undercoat" of coarser ballast to get near the wanted finished surface, and then next day apply the sand as a "top coat".

- Richard.

I bought mine in Watts bookshop in Sheringham on Thursday, six in stock there. There are some in the convenience store in Hatfield Peverel today too. It is a good model to try out weathering techniques.

- Richard.

I get the feeling that part of the success comes from painting the track before starting the ballasting. Paint doesn't stick to Peco track very well (I expect SMP is better for this) but paint does help seal the sub-base and make a consistent surface for the glue to stick to.

- Richard.

I have used a similar technique, but I applied the glue using a cocktail stick. I dipped the stick into the glue, then used it to draw a box between the sleepers. This was Peco OO9. Reloaded the stick for the next gap, and so on. This was slow but it did put down a consistent amount of glue along the track.

I was using a thinner mix of glue than is descibed here, more single cream than double, but it seemed to work. A thicker mix of glue would be more controllable, and I'll try this next time.

- Richard.

Spotted at the Tower Hotel in London this afternoon.

- Richard.

That is suitable for covered vans but is not a good idea with open wagons though is it ?

The way I did it was to discard the steel weight inside the wagon. I put the bolt head below the coupler and the nut inside the depth of the underframe moulding. Then I filled the underframe with fine lead shot and superglue. If I was more ambitious I'd drill and tap the steel weight.

The Kadee screw is excellent for screwing the draft boxes under the chassis. Use the Kadee drill and tap (which I think are supplied in the starter kit) to make the hole which can be blind if required, and cut the plastic screw down to the correct length. No need for nuts and bolts. If the chassis can be removed from the body it is possible to fix the Kadee in place with the screw in a tapped hole and cut it flush for a much quicker installation on an open wagon.

I bought some Kadee screws but haven't found the matching tap yet. So I stayed with metric.

- Richard.

What sort of plastic is the draft gear box made of ? I am wondering which glue is the most effective ?

The boxes respond well to Slater's 'Mek-Pak', but an M2 bolt and nut makes for a stronger job, especially with longer trains.

- Richard.

A friend knew a Teresa Green ...

This is my most difficult loco conversion so far - a Hornby Barclay class 06 diesel. The coupler is a no. 141 'whisker' coupler which is a long underset shank, the gear box is seated into a slot I cut into the plastic chassis. The coupler is fixed with an M2 screw through the existing hole in the chassis opened out a bit. This is the cab end. The bonnet end is less tidy so I won't offer it as a suggested solution!

One day I could cut off the buffers and dummy coupling hooks and fit some plain plastic sheet over the buffer beams, this would cover up most of the cut out put there for the original tension lock coupler.

- Richard.

Pedestrian crossing at Manston airport, Kent ... photo by a colleague John Hanson deserves a wider audience.

- Richard.