jwealleans

Until you get on a pushbike; then every road is at least slightly uphill (and generally into the wind as well).

Wild stab - flowers (or other perishables) in the cattle vans? Cattle was very much declining by 1962, was it not?

[anorak] I think you'll find the leading vehicle is a Southern Van C or variant, Gilbert. They seem to have got all over the system very quickly after 1948. Hornby is your friend. The vehicle behind the cattle vans is most likely Gresley but I have a small voice saying 'North Eastern' to me. BR CCT after that? Then a bogie Southern Van B? Then another Gresley but we're getting to the limit of what my screen will manage after that.[/anorak]

Have you had a good look at that second BV, Gilbert? Looks to me like a Southern one of a type Bachmann may have recently done.

Not much from me as I have failed to shake off my cold this week. I have been doing a bit, though, while the drugs lasted: Coach interiors. Humbrol 186 and gloss varnish so you get a bit of a shine visible through the windows. Seats are from Coopercraft. On the compo each alternate partition has to be made up from plastikard so there's still a bit of painting to do. Dan supplies some black plastikard in the kits so I've made up floors as well, to avoid unwanted light showing up from below. Today's homework is a scan through the GE Society Journal CD to see if I can find an interior photo of one of these compartments. K3 has had the boiler extended and it now needs cutting back to the right length. As you can see it raises the cab slightly as it is. Then I can get on with the other bits of RHD conversion, new buffers and the like. I have no short handrail knobs so unless I can get hold of some at Newcastle next weekend it'll be an order to the AG workshop.

Coaches now painted and drying. I went cautiously with the Games Workshop varnish and haven't had any disasters as yet. The composite is almost at the same stage as the brake; I'll finish them off in parallel after a few days' drying time. While those were drying I made a start on the B1s. One has had a total repaint and lining - I spent much of my extra hour (and the rest of Sunday) cursing Mr Fox and all his earthly works. I wish I'd known the early BR version was going to be flogged off cheap when I bought this one. The camera doesn't show it up as badly as I expected. This is the worse side. I've started the Klear treatment on this one and it is beginning to acquire a nice shine. For 61058 I studied the picture in LNER 4-6-0s at Work and concluded that it had been relettered but not repainted. The LNER style lining is visible, most conclusively on the buffer beam. I've also copied Tim's idea for making the curly 6. We're moving into a loco phase AM as I have an Ivatt 2 on the way to renumber for Thurston. As I'm in that sort of mode I thought I'd have a go at a K3 I was going to convert for Pilmoor. It seems Tony Wright has done a similar conversion in BRM this month although I haven't read that article yet. What gave me the idea was reading that some of the K3s with Darlington cabs were not converted until after 1939. These seem to have included Nos 52 and 53, both York engines. For those who don't know, the second batch of K3s built at Darlington in 1924 had an NER type cab with very low side windows. I can't find a picture now I want one, of course. Crews in other regions complained about the window height and so they were altered by Doncaster, twice in fact, until the pattern which the Bachmann model carries was arrived at. The SEF kit contains etches for all the different patterns and I intend to build it with the GN cab, so this was effectively spare. The K3 strips down very readily into it's component parts: The SEF etch with the selected parts removed. I have misplaced the kit instructions so we're proceeding by common sense and photographs from here on in. The cab loosely positioned on the body. The side sheets are about 1mm shorter than the Bachmann cab but the curve is wrongly shaped and puts the cab too far forward. I've lined it up with the back of the footplate which I think is where it ought to go. I'll have to make up a small boiler extension piece. I expect I ought to shorten the backhead as well but we'll see when I go to refit it. A thin layer of filler at the bottom of the side sheets will also be needed.

The fish van kit was sold to Adrian Swain and is not presently in production. Your best bet for that one might well be Falcon/Jidenco - I don't know how good their version is but it's the same vehicle. Brassmasters are getting R & E kits again so the bogie van may be available. The 15T LWB van is on the Society list at least.

Don't you just hate those smileys sometimes?

Is that Robin who's passed out on the platform from excitement?

The second link I posted, Mike. Jonathan

It depends.... they come in (I think) 3 sizes; best bet is get a mixed sheet, that'll show you all the available options, then work from that to decide what's best for any given project.

http://www.archertransfers.com/ or http://www.historexagents.com/shop/hxsearchresults.php?SupplierCode=AT&GrpKey=&DscKey=&SearchData=&ComingSoon=&PageNo=10

Well, I've been put to shame by Mr 'Metropolitan' Worsdell, churning out locos almost as fast as Stratford used to, so it's time I got my finger out and finished these coaches. Had a couple of good nights at the bench and got almost all the soldering complete on the composite. Bit of tweaking and tidying and she's off to the paintshop. The roof is only placed for the photograph - that will be the next job, this evening I expect.

Looks very Berliet to me.

Hi Bob, Nice to hear from you. I wish you'd happened by when I asked that question a few months ago.... I looked at as many photos as I could and didn't find conclusive evidence either way. In the end I decided that making two wasn't twice as hard as making one and that way no fool could put it onto the layout the wrong way round and hide my hard work. Did you ever finish that luggage Compo you were building?

We were at Warley that year. What a fantastic layout that was.

Have you got a J73? There's a man on here who's just finishing a P4 one and I suspect isn't far from you.

Mike; it's the brown bits - the body. I've edited my post to make it clearer. It wouldn't have occurred to me either. WoM - yes, you're right, they are raised.. I have no idea whether that's prototypical or just the way they've tooled it. The other one i built earlier in the year was the same.

Coaches, coaches... I've got the brake 3rd painted and it will now dry for a few days while I catch the other one up to it. The body colour I use (Precision Track Dirt, after a recommendation by Larry Goddard) is a pleasing shade of brown, but I have had reactions between it and the Games Workshop varnish I use. This time I intend to let it cure a while before bringing them together to see if that helps. As you can see I haven't managed to pull the handrails off those steps as yet... The Composite which makes up the other of the pair has had the interior partitions attached to the floor and suitably reprofiled so the body can be taken off and on. One or two parcels arrived this week so I have been able to finish off some stalled projects. GN gunpowder van is now about ready for painting (when the buffers have been straightened). MJT rocking W iron and some home made brake gear from the bits box have sorted it out. In the same packet some LMS coach buffers also from Mr. T were all that was needed for this Lima GUV. The idea came from Larry's thread and he can explain what was done much better than me. There are a few of these to be seen in the Ian C Allen photos of the former GE. This one will run on Thurston initially but ultimately will end up in the milk train planned for Wickham Market. It's a very easy job and the basic bodies can be picked up at shows for not very much. Finally these came from Scotland yesterday: There's not too much you can do to improve the Hornby B1 but Dave Bradwell's dome and chimney do make a difference; I refer you again to Larry's thread here. I've had mine to bits to strip out all the DCC gubbins: call me old fashioned but I like my locos to run without having to find and plug in the tender when I'm fiddling with them. It seems to have survived that OK. The future 61059 which has arrived from its owner can be seen trembling in the background. Finally while I was travelling last week I put together this MAJ kit for an L & Y van. Not something I know anything about or have any reference material on, so built very much to the instructions. I do like outside framed vans, though and this is something just a little different. They're very easy to put together, these kits and it's a shame they aren't more readily available.

Nice job. The roofs on those are.... character building, aren't they?

My guess was that they painted rather than grained and/or varnished it.

If similar to 3rd class stock, grained timber walls and red/black moquette seats. I think I took a guess and painted the compartment walls on mine cream. In 4mm I just use a dark red for the seats; there may be a better way to do it in 7mm.

Dragging it back, but some in service pictures from (I think) 1979 here. Some nice rolling stock shots generally in this collection.

I was working away this week so didn't get any time on the coach until last night. Steps were the main aim and they are now fitted. They could be a bit finer, but they're a bit vulnerable and so I went for robustness over finesse. Ultimately these are club models and so may not always get the care in handling and operating that my own do. Thanks to 'Owd Sweedy' for the drawing on the LNER forum which was my blueprint. Dimensions were worked out by eye from that and photos. The edges of the thicker strips used for the sides are chamfered down to lose some of the thickness. The handrail runs up through a slot in the footboard and is just plugged into the hole beside the door. This has to be removed before the body comes off - I wonder how long before I forget and irretrievably bend or snap one of them?

You're not wrong about that kit and the older ones are better to build as the nasty bendy plastic Dapol use these days isn't as easy to work with. If you fancy a bit of variety they're also dead easy to backdate to an LNER version. I've done one and Mikemeg has (I think) four completed ones on his workbench thread.