jwealleans

In a fit of enthusiasm I made up the floor tonight. It's deliberately an interference fit as the body is a bit bendy. Hopefully that will sort itself out once the roof's on, although that's just as bent, frankly. Here is the floor in place inside the body shell with the hole for the BullAnt cut out. Here it is in place - the hole will need extending to allow the unit to pivot but the fixings have plenty of floor to go through. The ride height isn't a million miles away even without any packing or adjustment. The unit is also much less obtrusive than you might think - they're surprisingly low inside a vehicle. You can also see how bent the roof is. That's had another layer of filler after a sanding this evening.

Thanks, Paul. Funnily enough, the wife seemed quite taken with the idea of selling the children....

Hi Mick, I intend to go back though your thread again and pick up on the problems you had. The fit of my parts was very poor, but I've only had the kit a couple of years. The 'batwing' on this one is free to pivot - you can't really see it on the picture above, but on the other one it was fixed. It should just bolt into the floor at each side with packing to get the right ride height. The one below is fixed but you get the idea. I'll make a hole in the floor for it, probably shaped to restrict the swing as well. I haven't thought as far as names yet. I got a decal sheet in mine which I haven't really looked at but I may take you up on your offer. I have the Yeadon to browse through when I get to that stage.

I was trying to restrict myself to the GE list and useful LNER prototypes. Pretty well anything Dan wants to do would be of interest at least. What do I do? Get a second job or sell the children? My list doesn't have those diagrams of horsebox but I'm not sure what year it's from.

Horseboxes, horseboxes, horseboxes..... from the last list of his I have, the 32' van and CCT and the restaurant car (DS131) would also be of interest. The Y6 would also be a favourite I'm sure, especially now Jim McGeown has stopped doing his. The 6 wheel coaches aren't of so much interest to me but they also seem to fetch a premium on Ebay so someone must want them. Did I mention horseboxes? The GE one and especially the LNER Dia 4 and 5 are much missed. I'd be looking at half a dozen of those for Thurston.

Excellent news, Paul. Will you be able to publish a list on here as it becomes available?

Scott, Geoff (Hollywoodfoundry) posts on here - have a look at this and this. I've heard such poor reports of spuds - see Mick Bennett's thread - and the one we have at Ormesby is like a cruise missile in one direction and a three-legged tortoise the other. I want something reliable and this seemed a good option. He does articulated drives which would have powered both bogies, but when I explained what i wanted it for he said this would be adequate.

Almost got where we're going with the N8 now; I had a package from Mainly Trains they day after they resumed delivery - nice to see the service hasn't fallen off even if the range is nowhere near what it was. Sadly they didn't have any of the spectacle grilles I need for the rear cab windows but I got everything else. Buffers are from the Alan Gibson Workshop, steps are altered from a Mainly Trains etch - the originals were very poor and badly bent - and I found some useful odds and sods on their Loco detailing etch as well. The sandbox lids are actually washout plugs - they're round and from normal viewing distance won't show - and I used half a destination bracket holder to make what I believe were the hingeing arrangements for the tank lids. One of the whistles had disappeared, but a shoulderless handrail knob soldered in upside down looks pretty close. Just needs vac pipes, lamp irons, those grilles and cab doors and the bits I seem to have bent straightening out and it can go to the paintshop. I then felt in the mood to start a new project which has been pending for a while. No prizes for guessing what this is: I'm going to build it as I do my coaches, with a paxolin floor and the body as a lift-off shell. The fit of the parts was very poor, especially the roof, but having it all solid should allow it to be tidied up. The power unit has been on the bench since December and will be this: After the poor experience with the one at Ormesby and Mick's comments about spuds I wanted something with enough grunt to drag all that whitemetal about. This is a BullAnt Major and if it performs as well as its smaller equivalent then I will be well pleased.

I'm pleased this has reappeared as I used to enjoy it on the old forum. Takes me back to my youth when it's in this guise.

Slow and desultory progress on the tank, I'm afraid; too much work and good weather (meaning 'outside jobs' for some of us). Mainly Trains have also been on holiday meaning that a number of bits I would have had ready to fit haven't arrived yet. Rob P was kind enough to drop me in Vol 9A of the RCTS Greenies and someone on the LNER forum was also good enough to let me have the relevant section of Ken Hoole's book. Based on those we're going to go with the suggestion of No. 861 a loco which was at York just before the War. All this led me back to the conclusion that the piano front was indeed wrong on this loco, being one of the curved ones like a G5. I removed it and made up a replacement of 60 thou square rod rounded on one edge and two bits of brass strip profiled to look like the frame tops. I've also added boiler clacks (these were not on the original model) and reinstated the bunker coal rails and chimney top. I may discard those coal rails and try to make some more as they've got badly bent and aren't easy to get to stick to the brackets. I notice it's also sitting nose up - I'm not sure whether it's always done that or not but it will have to be attended to. There's some packing at the front under the smokebox so I assume it's the back that's low, but we'll check that out later. The other thing I did was add brakes. The chassis had the wire stubs for the brake hangers but no evidence of any having been fitted. I dug out some of the Alan Gibson plastic brakes and used those. I think they were actually GE, but, hey, they're all Worsdells at the end of the day. These also remove the possibility of shorting the loco out across the brakes.

That is interesting. I thought Danny was doing the production himself for the Society on a limited run basis. That said it's been ages since I heard anything about the last ones we were promised.

Thanks, both - I've been guided round that train of though on the LNER forum as well. It does seem closer to an N8, allowing for the proprietary chassis and what I assume is use of some conveniently handy bits. I don't have enough information to track down which N8 to build it as, so I need to get hold of the Greenie and Yeadon (if there is one yet). Something with piston valves, vac fitted, not superheated (? - short smokebox?), which might have been seen between York and Northallerton in 1938/9. I hope that's specific enough.

Yep, a glance through Locomotives Illustrated confirms it as an N10. I don't know what was going on with the number; I can't see one anywhere near 238. Anyway, that's a while off yet. It is a nice job and hopefully I can do it justice. A few extra detailing parts will be in order. I don't have that volume of the RCTS set, but I do have a very good pictures in the NERA book, Vol 3. Oddly, no drawing in there. I also have the 'LI' and that's without going through the rest of the library.

Something new tonight; one of those jobs that you wish you'd just said 'No, I haven't time...' A few weeks ago, the chap who services the locos on the Pilmoor layout at Ormesby said that he'd brought the last ones back, but "The N10 could do with a repaint". It's a whitemetal kit and it did - badly - need a repaint, so I said I'd do it. Quick dip in the Nitromors, stick all the details which fell off back on, spray it over and Bob's your uncle. No. The 'whitemetal' kit turned out to be scratchbuilt - mainly in brass - and soldered - mainly. There was a shower of bits of plastic, milliput, card, lord knows what else and to put the brass hat on it the Nitromors I was using turned out not ot be the kind you rinse off with water. Guess how I found that out? It's had a month or so to dry off and this is what I'm left with: The smokebox wrapper was glued on - or just stuck on with the paint. It came off in the Nitromors, anyway. A few bits must have vanished in the horrible sticky goo I threw out, but I ought to be able to replace those. So far I've cleaned it all up and run the polishing wheel over it then soldered the smokebox front back to the wrapper. I've also emptied the lead shot from the smokebox and put in some lumps of lead using UHU. It's drying on my WB at the moment. I have a bit of a research task ahead; we've always referred to it as the N10, but the builder numbered it 238. 238, I find, was an N8. The loco had also been lettered in the Thompson style, but 238 was withdrawn in November 1929. I'll have to dig out what drawings and references I have to see what it really is and how to renumber it - Pilmoor is set in the latter half of the 1930s, so 238 is not really an option.

Some of the 4mm kits are still produced occasionally in short runs for some of the specialist societies (the GCRS, for example). If ABS did get all the cast kits, precious few have been released and those which went to 51L were before the 4mm range was run down, I believe. I'd love to see the range available again, but other people are now stepping into the breach.

Impressive is the word. I've stored this for future copying (although pale imitation is probably what will result).

Some pictures taken on Thurston at York. I didn't get everything finished - I ran out of time for the transfers on the Belgian vans, but I did do four out of six which isn't as bad as it might have been. First, a prewar survivor still in the old livery (and far too clean, but that will be attended to). Then a pair of the almost equally aged Belgian built vans of 1917, these freshly painted in the new postwar livery. Finally the Bill Bedford Great Eastern composite, showing a mixture of pre and post Nationalisation livery and also needing a trip to the weathering shop. Then some not of my making, but I thought you might like a look as they're rather nice: B2 61614 Castle Hedingham, built by Graham Varley from the DMR kit: WD 90566, Bachmann detailed and weathered by Craig Thompson. Craig guested with us on Saturday and was kind enough to bring this along, for which we were grateful.

Thurston is on the Harwich-Whitemoor route and it was the recollections of someone who used to work there which set me off on the ferry van project. We don't run an entire train of ferry vehicles, but mix in some fitted vans and other oddments. I'm told it was a B1 turn, but Steve Pearce (31A) pointed me to an Ian C Allen picture of K3 61834 working the train near Newmarket. It's about 17 or 18 vehicles, of which about half are clearly ferry vans. There are also a container in a 5 plank open, a pair of empty lowfits or conflats and what look like a series of sheeted 5 plankers towards the rear. That's the essence of the train we've tried to model. As Brian says you'd be unlikely to see exclusively ferry vehicles in a consist and the longer Continental vans and their peaked roofs and brake hutches make a nice contrast with the 17'6" 12 ton vans we were still churning out.

Thanks, Rob. We did extend the fiddle yard a couple of years ago and I've taken that as a personal challenge... I don't think I've passed the limit for a single train yet, though. I ought to build a brake van before long for it. I pinch the sheets from pads the wife or children have, with a mix so the shades of black are different. The thread is just brown thread from Lord knows where. I put a couple of small wire pegs under the floor to tie it to so I can get it fairly taut. I have been told that if you soak it in dilute PVA it shrinks slightly and tightens, so I'll give that a go.

Haven't posted for a while but I am trying to get a few things finished in time for York. These have been accomnpanying me on my travels and are getting close to finished - tonight they had a coat of primer so I can pick out anything I've missed or botched: This is what they look like close up, allowing for some variations in detail. You can also see where I mercilessly butchered Jon's castings: I see this one has a cockeyed footstep. It's also down at one end; I managed to get some glue into the workings of the sprung W irons on some of these. I also want to get this in shape to run in the same train. The load is a piece of sponge with black paper for sheets.

Bill Bedford does something like this as a downloadable pdf on his website here. Precision Labels also do a range of double sided window labels with a range of different 'No Smoking' sings (LNER gold circles, for example). All these are in 4mm but I don't see why they shouldn't be available in 2mm as well.

Cheers, Ravenser. I have a Crownline one which I'll build as a Y1 (fewer grilles) and will certainly put another BullAnt in that. In the meantime I still have a larger one to try in the railcar and will probably reuse that idea as well if it's successful. I've heard that Spuds are not great and Black Beetles give better results. As and when I get round to the NE railcar Allen Doherty's just done I will probably use a Black Beetle in there. Matt - I've had 3 PMs and replied to them all and I've now also emailed you via your website. You're more than welcome to use the picture.

Rich, that wagon is fantastic. I take my hat off to it.

Now we seem to be back on a more even keel, here's how I spent some of the time between wondering what Andy and Jim were up to. The coach just needs door handles and then it can await the next weathering session. It's been a bit of a trial with all the painting problems I had with it but I'm pleased with it now it's done. The contrasting 'E' (Fox where the rest are HMRS) has worked well, but the rest of the number shows how difficult I find it lining up those LNER numbers. Since this was taken I've taken advice and repainted the vent covers brown. It helps the appearance of the coach enormously and so they're staying like that. I've already posted this in it's own thread; this is the new Jubilee coal wagon from Andrew Hartshorne. I built it last weekend but hadn't got round to photographing it. It does still need the interior painting and it's had that tare weight straightened up since as well. The main project now is these Belgian ferry vans by Jon Hall which I hope to complete for York. Here the body casting is shown with the floor mounting arrangement. The body shells aren't quite square - I'm not sure whether this is a casting flaw or the resin working slightly. I have seen the master and it looked square to me. Anyway, the floor is mounted on two large plastruct angles secured to the sides. They're set slightly further up the interior than the top of the solebars; this is to help set the ride height of the vehicles, as it's easy to pack the W iron assemblies down, but would be very hard to move the whole gubbins up if they rode too high. This and all the other details are secured with cyano; Jon warned me it grips very well, but a very thick type does give you a minute or so to move things about. It's only one step in the process, but getting them rolling feels like huge progress. I now have four mobile and two more to go. They're mounted on Bill B's springing units with brake shoes from the LNER fitted etch from Mainly Trains attached. There was quite a variety of W irons on these - the drawing and two photos I'm working from each show a different W iron - so what you see here is one with the BR plate type and one with the RCH 1923 type. I'll end up with a mixture of the two.