Castle

Hi All, The White Gill Sans BRITISH RAILWAYS was also on a number (if not most?) of the Blue Kings until the introduction of the lion and wheel. The Griffon is right in that it was the only complete class to receive the Blue but I disagree with everyone's assessment of it - it think No. 6023 looks very smart indeed in person. Cue the howls of derision and horror... Don't you just love a livery debate?! I think that there is another list of repainted Saints in GWW - I will look it up tonight unless someone else gets there first... All the best, Castle

Hi All, Coach kind of beat me to it here but there are quite a few pictures in the very early BR days, depicting locos with a lack of tender or tank insignia. There is a picture of such hallowed machines as a certain No. 4079 with a plain but lined (if you see what I mean) tender in the (I think) colour rail collection. The reason i was given is that there were never any transfers produced for the Egyptian Serif BRITISH RAILWAYS insignia and therefore it was sign written where used. This meant if an engine was needed back in service quick, it went without. I hope this adds to the picture! All the best, Castle

Hi Missy, That is just stunning work - I look forward to seeing this at an exhibition one day soon! We must discuss coach buffers at some point too... All the best, Castle

Hi All, A Visitor from Brum... No. 5043 came through yesterday on a tour and had an hours stop at Didcot. Naturally, all the Didcot volunteers went out to say hello to Bob, Alistair and the rest of the gang and have a chat. A quick picture was snapped of this fine locomotive for Little Didcot just before she got the road: Enjoy! All the best, Castle

Hi 69843, I have never served in the navy at all, I come from a family of sailors! I am a land lubber so that explains the dryness... The answer is still no. Hi Nick, Thanks for that - I figured that someone such as yourself would be able to sort us out here! All the best, Castle

Hi All, Thanks for all the likes and kind comments everyone! Mikkel: La la la la la... Only Joking! I am full of useful phrases like that - its the product of coming from a family that served in the Royal Navy. A slightly 'oblique' and very dry sense of humour! Rob: That is a key phrase that I have used a great deal (albeit in a more 'family friendly' version!) because doing really is key to learning how to do this stuff! 69843: I did the Siphon a while ago and just had a bit of tweaking to do to get it to run with Nos. 111 & 9118. Thanks for the kind words! And no, you can't... Sorry! Farren: At 81E the track on the mixed gauge stuff is all the bridge rail stuff as you describe and the speeds are so slow and the amount of actual use is so low that any problems of that sort wouldn't really show up. What the situation was in genuine mixed gauge days I have no idea at all but its an interesting thought. All the best, Castle

Hi All, This is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end but it is perhaps the end of the beginning - of my boat train. Right then, as the song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang goes "Up from the ashes, grow the roses of success". I don't think that two more diverse quotes could or indeed should be so crudely nailed together like this - Churchill and Disney! Long story short, an incident involving me, a badly shut pot of black paint and some of the most rural Anglo Saxon heard in the Castle household resulted in the coach sides and end assembly having an overnight bath in a small tank of Dettol. The resultant affects were: 1 A very annoyed Castle. 2 A very (some might say too) clean sort of a smell in the home of Castle - despite the double bagging of the tank in an attempt to seal it. 3 Some bare brass that needed a new paint job. 4 A lesson learned about keeping paint pots away from freshly finished paint jobs. 5 A very annoyed Castle I know points 1 and 5 are the same but I really do deserve the metaphorical kick up the backside for this schoolboy error! Thankfully, it only hit the model and didn't go all over the room too. Words like stable door and pre bolted horse might be used over point 4 but if it helps anyone else to not do this then so be it! If anything, paint job 2 was a bit better than paint job 1 so at the end of the day I think I have gained in all areas but the lost time and materials but we live and learn. These things are bound to happen from time to time and we have to overcome them to get on. Philosophical as always! Having got back to where I started from (!), I then had a look at the etched window bars. There are two types, the straight 5 bar types and what I call the grill type. Both of the etchings for these require trimming to fit and the 5 bar ones, if cut directly in half, were good for 2 of No. 111's windows. I love a bargain! The grill type also needed cutting in half but would only do one window each. The etchings on these are VERY thin and required careful handling. I must admit to loosing one in the process. Here is a before and after on the 5 bar without black top coat. Then there was much rejoicing (hooray!) as the final assembly could commence. Then I remembered what I had forgotten - the end grab rails! Not only hadn't I made them but I had also neglected to open out the holes in the etched ends AND drill the holes in the aluminium roof. Arghhhhhh! I could just smell another paintwork disaster... The modelling gods were obviously satisfied with the previous sacrifice of a fully finished paint job as a quick dab of roof grey that was sprayed into a can lid and then applied with a brush soon hid any evidence of my little miscalculation. I bent the handrails from Alan Gibson brass 0.45 mm handrail wire and used a combination of a drawing and a Bachmann Collet as inspiration. I have a small pot of chemical blackening solution so a ten minute soak in it made for no paint and no opening out of holes due to paint making things thicker. This is a kind of very advanced chickening out - I just didn't want to take any other tool than a pair of tweezers and a screwdriver to the coach any more! Luckily, this coach only has them on one end. The Bill Bedford style coupling was employed as I think it looks the business without having all the cornering issues of scale screw link couplings on coaches. The securing nuts for this and the bogies were sealed in place with my own special brew of a thick old pot of black games workshop acrylic as a kind of thread lock. It works quite well and it is totally removable so I can open the whole thing up in future if I want to install lights and the like in future. I haven't got around to putting the luggage in yet Kev, but I am going to an exhibition next month so I will have a look and see what they have on offer. The gangways are my own version of the Dart Castings set up, using end board etches, some scrap brass and my own paper bellows. After experimenting I found that the Dart ones at 4 sections long were a bit too long. For the minimum radius I have planned and forced the coaches to derail when I tried it, I reduced the thickness of the paper a bit and went for 3 which seems to work very well. Not prototypical probably but when little No. 4079 flashes past at a scale 90 mph who is going to know? I also blackened the end boards so there was no chance of the paint abrading off and causing problems as they seem to need to slide over each other quite a bit going through 'S' curve / cross over type points. Here it is being tested a bit earlier on with a little something else I have been tinkering with and I had to get it to this stage before any paint went anywhere near anything so I could make changes to the set up if needed. So there you have it, a finished Collett K. 41 Full Brake Coach representing No. 111 in its possible livery of Early BR crimson & cream. I don't care now if someone comes up with a picture of it in plain crimson and say "it wasn't in that livery you know" (imagine this said with stereotypical nerd type accent) I shall just put my fingers in my ears and go la la la la la etc until they go away... I have painted it twice now! I have suffered enough! And that's all for now... What's that you say? What is that next vehicle in the train Castle you say? That hasn't been on here before has it you say? Well, no, it hasn't I suppose... Well, alright, as it's you! Gee - it's a SIPHON, er, G. Much, indeed whole books have been written, about the famous GWR SIPHON breed of what would now be termed CCTs but are known to us GWR geeks as Brown Vehicles. This particular example is an inside frame SIPHON G No. 2796 of 1937 vintage, built as part of lot 1578 to diagram O.33. It sped up and down carrying milk churns and parcels, much like its fellow SIPHONS until the dark clouds of WW II closed in. It became part of an ambulance train and was use as part of Cass. Evac. (Casualty Evacuation) operations. To do this it gained roof ventilators and internal racking to hold the stretchers. It is quit a spooky vehicle in this respect as doubtless some of the poor souls that boarded her might well have been on their last journey and some may not have made it out the doors again. The truth is that we just don't know but it is a sobering thought and again another reminder of the railways role in winning WW II and the sacrifices made for victory. Funny how this subject has stuck with Little Didcot for a page or so isn't it? Today it's role is somewhat more peaceful as a store for the carriage and wagon department's soft furnishing and textile supplies. It has little purpose as an active vehicle on site but it is currently being externally restored so that it can be seen, enjoyed and appreciated by members and the public alike while continuing as a vital piece of equipment for the C&W projects. The model is basic as you can get - an old Lima version was bought on line and taken into Little Didcot's own C&W works. The under frame was stripped right down and detailed from various sources including Dart Castings, Frogmore and so on. The bogies were given new wheels to replace the cookie cutters fitted in Italy and they had the missing steps fitted too. It originally got screw link couplings and white metal hoses too but these have been removed in favour of the Bedford unit described above. The new numbers were courtesy of Modelmaster. Well, from famine to feast on this thread, you wait ages for Castle to get on and finish a project and post something about it and two turn up at once! Now I guess we need to look at a super saloon or three. As a teaser, look at the roof on this: All the best, Castle

Hi All, Didcot - where the Great Western still reigns supreme Or Didcot - Little Swindon Predictable again... All the best, Castle

Hi George, While I know next to zero (well, zero really!) about LMS wagons, with the assistance of my fellow RMWEB members, I managed to model the two LMS vent wagons at Didcot. I used Ratio uppers and a Parkside chassis on one of them which was a straight swap and required no further work than building the kit as prescribed by Ratio themselves. My build is here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51212-little-didcot/page-8 I hope this is useful and thread hijack over - sorry Ric! All the best, Castle

Hi All, M.I.B.: Anthony Manor was (I am fairly sure) was in plain black with BR and I can imagine that she was black during the war too. Having been built in 1938, you can assume that she could have gone as far as 4 to 5 years before overhaul which would put her first heavy general in 1942 or 1943. Tender engines will look good in wartime livery because of the plated over cab windows so these two would be a great choice. The only issue being that if they are BR black you will have to remove the number and shedcode plates from the smokebox door. Rich: looking at your blog, you have a 2884 on your layout. If you renumbered her to No. 3822, which was built in 1940 then you can go for black no problem at all! All the best, Castle

Hi All, Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the paint discussion - particularly Rob and his chemistry experience. I knew somebody here would know. It seems that the chromium compounds would be the trick. As Mike says though, they were still lining the 4 cylinder beasts in 1942. They must have had a secret stash of paint... It shouldn't be too difficult to produce models in the WW II livery - plating over the side cab windows is simple enough and black paint if needed is easy to do too. A trip to the Fox website for the GWR transfers would seal the deal. Chris is right though - there aren't many models done like this. One exception is MickLNER on this forum who has done some absolutely cracking models of the Gresley Pacifics in wartime condition on his thread which is well worth reading. I would have thought that you would have been looking at the end of WW I rather than WW II Mikkel! Still, I would encourage any wartime railway modelling. One book I have on WW II railwaymen is Steaming Through The War Years by Reg Robertson, published by Oakwood Press. It is based on his experiences on the ex Great Eastern lines rather than the GWR but it is a cracking read none the less. The ISBN number is 0 85361 4725. All the best, Castle

Hi RJS, I can only guess that it was something to do with the chemicals that went into the green paint being sourced outside the UK and / or being in short supply and / or being required elsewhere for essential war work. They did need to paint a lot of essential war winning stuff green during the war - Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Churchill Tanks, etc... I am not a chemist so I don't know what goes into green paint, only that it stops the rust and you have to get the right shade otherwise you have lots of enthusiasts telling you about it! The irony being that apart from two exceptions, all of the Kings and Castle remained green (albeit unlined) throughout the war. How Swindon got away with that one I don't know but someone out there will know more about this than I do.* Lets throw this one open to the floor. Anyone please? All the best, Castle *If there are any Castle Class questions, I'm your chap!** **Except the one above about the green of course...

Hi Rob, Lovely pictures there - very nice indeed! Nos. 3738 and 3822 (with the black paint and plated over cab windows) are in wartime black to help tell the stories. The sacrifice, supreme effort and harsh conditions endured by railway personnel during both world wars is largely forgotten with focus of course being mainly being on the battles and not the home front. By having these engines in these schemes, we get to help tell these stories and pass the history along. When we were playing yesterday, a chap and his family asked to come up on to the platform to have a look at the engine and take a few pictures. Whilst they were there, one of is two sons asked me (very intelligently I might add, given his age) as to why the engine was black but didn't have the BR logo on it. This promoted a little discussion amongst us, the gentleman and his family about the railways in WW II. The lad went away with a great deal more knowledge than he started with by asking a simple question and the railwaymen were remembered to another group of people. Mission accomplished! Besides, the collection already has a green one: http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/locos/3650/3650.html We don't want any duplication now do we? All the best, Castle

Hi All, Just a quick Big Didcot update from Little Didcot... Although she was relaunched into traffic over the recent bank holiday weekend, today was a thank you for all of us that had dropped our current projects to jump in and take part in Mission Pannier! No. 3738 was steamed for us all to indulge in what is colloquially known on shed as 'workers playtime'! This is where we all had a go at driving her up and down the main demonstration line under the supervision of one of the crews. Here are two pictures of the entertainments for your delectation and edification: No. 3738 is now set for the remaining 4 years of her current boiler certificate. We started dismantling her in mid to late November to get the boiler out, it was tested out of frames last month, the annual insurance exam was about two weeks ago and she was back in service by Easter. Not too bad at all if we do say so ourselves... All the best, Castle P.S. No prizes for spotting the only bit that we forgot to put the black top coat on...

Hi Peter, That is an amazing transformation. Well done! I have never heard mixed traffic black described as the wrong kind of green before. Perhaps it should be described in the same way as Stroudley's improved engine green? British Railways improved mixed traffic GWR green? I'll get my coat... All the best, Castle

Hi Ric, Yet more lovely work good sir! Have you thought about printing your own decals using some of the DIY decal sheets that are available on line for your lorry? Is there nobody out there doing transfers for these things? I must admit to not looking as I am only building rolling stock at the moment but someone out there in RMWEB land will surely know... All the best, Castle

Hi Mick, Yet more excellent work although I thought that No. 9002 was a posh coach... http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/coaches/9002/9002.html Now seeking coat... All the best, Castle

Hi Ric, This looks like an excellent start to a workbench thread - the wagons look like a top job as well! The colour of the weathered wood effect is great, especially if that is your first go at it! I do very similar and find the inclusion of the games workshop washes can give you lots of different and very useful effects so give them a go. As Kev says, the colour that wood weathers to can vary from quite dark and stained, through the shades that you have produced right to such bizarre shades as a sort of silvery grey. This is of course dependant of the timber and the type of weathering it is exposed to. The best thing to do is to have a look at the world around you when you step out your front door. I shall enjoy reading this... All the best, Castle

Hi Kev, And I was going to put some in this too to cover up the various mounts and screw tops... All the best, Castle

Hi All, Now, where was I? Things have been a little hectic at chez Castle recently, with such inconveniences as going to work and so on... Modelling time has been at a very high premium ( I.E. non - existent!) so the odd moment here and there was grabbed to keep things moving, albeit at a snail's pace. I figured that the next move was to begin the interior work. Having peered inside it seems to be very simple. A wall along one side to form a corridor and shaped at the ends to allow access to the connections at each ends and a separate guard's compartment. I roughed out the shape I plasticard to start with and got it all to fit. The guard's compartment got a highly modified section of Comet seat and a table, along with a brake pedestal . The doors for the luggage compartments was done with a layer of thin plasticard sheet. It was painted with Games workshop acrylics to simulate the wood finish and some brass door handles from the Comet etch supplied with the kit used to finish. I still have to make and fit the letter rack and brake setter and pipe in the guard's compartment. The painting of the internal walls of the coach sides is selective as there is no need to do a lot of it as it can't be seen and if I don't have to risk the external finish doing it then there is no point. The long, almost unbroken internal wall hides a LOT of sins... I know its all a bit over the top for a full brake interior but still, why not?! There have been a few transfers applied to the outside and all those number ones were carefully juggled into place the lining was also done with transfers. Thanks to all the advice from my fellow RMWEBBERS, a few etches of window bars of varying types were purchased and await modification and fitting. Well, there we are for now. It's not far off finished and with luck I will get the majority of it done over the bank holiday weekend so the next update won't be too far away now. Until next time... All the best, Castle

P.S. City of Truro and the flying Peckett (why do I hear close harmony singing as I write that?) was coming on nicely too! All the best, Castle

Hi All, Missy showed me Railcar No. 12 at Ally Pally yesterday and all myself and my friend could say was WOW! It is all very well doing railcars in 4mm but to do this in 2mm to this level really is an achievement. Well done Missy! They do look so beyond their time don't they? That particular iteration has a bit of the look of an HST front in a funny sort of way... All the best, Castle

Hi All, Another thing is that the picture are the right way round - the modern world in grainy black and white, the Edwardian era full of life, colour and variety. Even saying that, those are some rather nice shots of the modern station. Very well observed and captured. Art on RMWEB - whatever next?! All the best, Castle

Hi Mikkel, Brilliant - I love the narrative qualities you weave into a post! Really took us on a journey there didn't you (pun sort of intended!)? What is the source and materials used in the Auto trailer please? Thanks and all the best, Castle

Hi Farren, The red frames was purely a preservation thing for No. 4079 - apparently at the behest of Lord Gretton when he owned her and it stuck until she returned to the UK. The frames are now black again. The picture is great isn't it? The grandfather and the kids if you think about it - they are quite different but also share a lot of common heritage. When there is a Stanier designed LMS machine on shed at 81E, it is regarded as a long lost cousin! All the best, Castle