t-b-g

Having a few minutes spare this morning I trawled through my old Railway Modeller back copies and found the drawing I used for the sheets open GCR wagon. It was by Kenneth Werrett and was published in the November 1974 edition. It says in the notes that the dimensions were taken in 1917 so I would presume that Mr. Werrett is no longer around but he published a rather lovely series of pre grouping wagon drawings in RM from around 1972 to 1980. They are the earliest and latest ones I have anyway but I don't have a full set of magazines so there may be earlier or later ones. They covered many pregrouping companies and were very nicely drawn.

There have been plenty of shows that I have attended and really enjoyed that had little or no pre-grouping modelling on show at all. So it was really lovely for me that I have not only been to a show that had lots on view but that I contributed to it as well. It may never happen like that again but I was glad that I was there when it did.

Me too. Good modelling is good modelling. I will drool over Canada Street just as much as I drool over anything pre-grouping. I have been attending shows since the 70s and in terms of matching my personal preferences for pre-grouping models, I think this was the best one I have been to. I may never get that ideal mix for me again so I will enjoy it after a 45 year wait!

I recall reading an article on one of the SR branchlines, possibly the one to Seaton. Somebody wrote that because one side of the carriage was subject to wind and weathering from off the sea and the other side was inland and sheltered, also because the sun always shone on one side, once a set had been used for a short while on the branch service, the two sides of the carriages were distinctly different shades of green. The lighting in photos can make a huge difference too, As Bill Bedford says.

We had a lovely weekend with Church Warsop, one of the pre grouping representatives. I think the two posts I quote show that no show is ever likely to please everybody. If the balance matches your own personal interests, then it is bound to not match the preferences of others. Mind you, I was the bloke who went to a DEMU show once and complained about the lack of steam models. The very thing I like about these EMGS (and other finescale or scale specific) shows is that they are very much about the model building side of the hobby and I find that very refreshing compared to the very RTR heavy nature of some shows. I know that virtually everything I looked at over the weekend was either built by a modeller or altered before it appeared at the show. On Church Warsop every single loco, wagon and carriage was either kitbuilt or scratchbuilt and we had nothing RTR at all on show. I didn't examine every item on every layout but I would suggest that we were not alone from what I saw. As modern RTR is now so good and as most diesels (as are great swathes of more recent steam locos) are now available RTR and there are few kits available for many D & E types I think those who like making things do tend to turn to more obscure prototypes. So the models and layouts of more obscure older prototypes are right up my street and I think this was possibly the best exhibition I have been to for many a long year in terms of layouts that I enjoyed and appreciated.

When building locos with wheels close together and larger than scale flanges, I am quite happy using wheels that are correct size over the flange rather than the tread. Real wheels could be smaller than the quoted diameter as they were turned down during servicing. It can help clearances in splashers too. I used Markits LNER pacific wheels on Valour, which are 6ft 6ins scale size over the treads and gave room for a brake hanger between two pairs of wheels, when correct sized ones would not have. I suppose we could all go P4 to avoid such problems.

DJH Southern S15?

They are real.......... Just small.

Morning Tony. The Hatton A4 has only been out of its box for a test run but will hopefully get a coat of looking at one day, including adding some proper coal, lamps, a crew and the missing handrails plus a touch of weathering. I bought it mainly for the connection with my father in law, who saw the first run of the real thing in 1935. The old boy passed away recently at the age of 95 but he liked the model very much and I am glad he got to see it and it certainly stirred up some memories for him. I have a few RTR locos of types that I would probably not spend time building as they don't fit my theme but I just like them. Cock O' the North in original form and Great Northern in GNR livery in 4mm and Silver Link in 7mm.

The amount of relief on all the Hornby boiler "bands" is rather too much so at least the alternate Golden Age ones are more to scale thickness and the Golden Age one managed to get the proper curve at the lower edge of the cylinders. If they could do it, why do others struggle to get that feature correct? I see the GA model has a properly built up multi layer expansion link too. Whether such minor differences warrant a huge price gap isn't for me to say as my only 4mm A4 is my late father's old Hornby Dublo "Golden Fleece" and I have no need of another one, although I did weaken and purchase a Hatton's O Gauge model of Silver Link in original condition when they were selling them off with hefty discounts. Was the valve gear on the O Gauge locos adjustable or is Sir Nigel condemned to run for ever in reverse?

A limited range of metal wheels were produced and I think they are still available. They were on the stand at the recent York show. They are intended for split frame mechanisms. I may be wrong but I think they are now supplied as a "kit" with a cast centre and a tyre and the user has to turn the centre to make the tyre a tight fit. I am not sure that they sell very well as the number of people with the machining skills and equipment can't be great compared to those who wish to buy and fit. They would also need fixing to the axles too. I don't think the drivers I need will have been big enough sellers to make the small list of metal types produced, which tend to be the most popular types. There was a set of square ended axles produced as a test and they were fitted to a model of a P2 by Pete Hill. The last time I spoke with Colin about them, he was willing and able to modify the wheel centres but was struggling to get the axles made. He couldn't find a firm that would produce them in small enough quantities at a price that would make them financially viable. To make the price per axle reasonable, he would have to order such a big quantity that the initial outlay and holding that much stock wasn't going to work for him.

Gorgeous! Mine is for the same chap you painted "Thames" and "St. Pancras" for, so will be in EM. I have a 3D printed body but it isn't very good so I think it will end up scratchbuilt. That way, I think I can make the boiker from 10mm solid brass rod to get some weight that the 3D print simply does not have. It will have friction fit wheels and will be compensated to maximise traction and pick up, which matters in such a tiny loco. I had wondered about trying to make my own wheels. It is something I have never done and I am always willing to try new techniques but the Gibson ones are so close and I can live with a 0.6mm diameter discrepancy. If I can get mine even close to that little beauty, I will be well pleased.

Although I have built very few locos with outside cylinders and motion in EM, as my beloved GCR wasn't big on such things, I have done a few for other projects and my B3 has Markit's wheels after trying two sets of very old friction fit wheels that turned out to be duds. One was an old Ks set robbed from a scrap Ks B2 and the second set was Sharman's which had suffered from the plastic centres going very brittle and no amount of tweaking would get the running true. I had a set of modern Markits which run much better than both although they do not run perfectly true either. They don't look as good as the Sharman wheels but better running trumps better appearance for me. I may yet try either Ultrascale or Gibson replacements for what will be my "flagship" EM loco. I really want it to look and to run the best that I can possibly make it. Having dabbled a bit in 7mm, I often think how lovely it would be if we 4mm modellers had something like the Slater's O gauge wheels. I have fitted them to 6 or 7 locos and every set is spot on in terms of the ease of fit and the true running and of course they are self quartering too with a brass centre insert in the plastic centres. One of my reasons for working in EM is because models are more accurate and look better than in 00 and adopting dodges like moving cylinders out or altering the piston centres has never seemed to me to be much to do with making more accurate models. So on a NuCast K2, Valour, a Duchess and a Scot for Narrow Road (all either old Romfords or Markits), as well as a couple of Bachmann LMS Crabs (using their original wheels opened up), the necessary clearance was obtained by recessing the leading crankpins and making the rear face of the crossheads as thin as possible. This approach means that the connecting rods run parallel to the coupling rods and are not angled outwards. Which is just how they were on the prototype. It involves a little extra work but doing jobs like that to make better models is a big part of what I enjoy about the hobby.

Thanks for the warning! I will be ready for it.

I do the same. Reducing the number of times you need to get the friction fit wheels on and off the axles is well worth doing.

I am not saying that friction fit wheels are the best for everybody in all applications but I don't like to see them being rubbished when they clearly do a good job for many folk. For a good looking, true running concentric wheels, an Ultrascale is hard to beat but the limited range and long wait for delivery is a bit of a downer on them. I have also found that Romford/Markits wheels often require modification before they can be fitted. Many recent ones have been such a poor fit that the axle end and/or the hole in the wheel centre need attention before the wheels will go on the axles. I have used both types, friction fit and Markits and my choice often comes down to what is available that is closest to the prototype. I am currently plotting a Millwall Extension Railway 2-4-0t loco. Good luck finding a Markits wheel that is even close to fitting that. Gibson do a wheel for an Isle of Man loco that is within a fraction of a millimetre of being right size and has the correct number of spokes.

With a full set of friction fit wheels but no problems with quartering, this is the latest from the workbench of Pete Hill (pete55) having a test run on Retford just now. No doubt Pete can explain how it is done mechanically. It is a scratchbuilt NER Class J. We tested it on the Talisman 8 coach set, fully expecting it to struggle a bit and it sailed round at a good speed too. Who needs pacifics when you can have a cute little loco like this?

When you have built a few locos with friction fit wheels, you tend to get a good feel as to whether or not you are going to get any problems. There is a real "sweet spot" where they are just a tight enough fit but not too tight. Too tight can lead to distortion of the wheel centres and possibly cracking of the centre boss. Too loose and you get wheels slipping. I find that if I open up the holes with a tapered cutting broach until the axle will just go a tiny way into the back of the wheel without being forced, then that is about right. The notion that friction fit wheels are somehow not "fit for purpose" is a nonsense. Too many people have had good results with them, including me, to make that a valid view. You need to take care and they possibly involve a bit more work, including knurling the axle end, loctiting/supergluing and pinning if necessary. I have used the pinning method on a couple of locos. One was a fix of a loco that somebody else built where the wheels had been forced on and a centre had cracked. A drill and pin sorted that after several attempts at loctiting had failed. The other was my Q4 which had Ultrascale wheels that were not very tight on the axle as supplied. I am sure the stock of steel supplied for axles must have some tiny variance in size and some lengths seemed to be tighter in the same wheel that others. When a loco is already built, drilling and pinning is less destructive than dismantling to knurl the axles. I have used knurling when helping others during construction of locos at Missenden Abbey and it worked a treat. All my other friction fit locos are just that, fitted by friction. My biggest problem with such wheels isn't the fitting, it is that I have come across many that just don't run quite true. That is when a compensated or sprung mechanism really earns its keep as they can iron out any small variations in concentricity. I have had a method of truing them up described to me that I haven't used yet but I will be trying it next time I build a loco with friction fit wheels if they are not running true.

Lovely!

I had a look at your Argosy model. Lovely stuff! I once flew in one back from Bahrain to the UK in 1966, stopping off at Rome for refuelling, with just my family as passengers sitting in a few seats bolted onto the cargo hold and surrounded by various crates and boxes. I was only 6 years old but the memories are still strong all these years later!

That does look like the one I recall. There are some jobs in modelling where a little bit of extra time spent on a model really makes a big difference and this is one of those times.

That was my immediate impression too. It is a feature I always look at on model A4s to see if they have been done properly or are fudged because it is wrong on so many models. I have seen a small number of 4mm models where the feature is modelled correctly, including an example that was shown on this thread some while ago when the A4 cylinder arrangement was discussed previously. I can't remember whose it was but they had done an excellent job of modelling the cylinder shape properly. If they could do it, why can't everybody?

The fur on Retford was "dry brushed" with acrylics, rather than soaked or dyed. That allowed some of the base "straw" colour to show through. We got the idea from seeing some in use on another layout. It may well have been Gresley Beat but it was a long time ago and the memory isn't what it once was! We did look at static grass but were not keen as the individual strands tend to stay dead straight and can reflect light and look a little shiny. John McCrea developed techniques for inducing bends in the strands of teddy bear fur using heat, which helped it look more wavy and natural.

I don't purchase RM very often and don't have this edition so I don't know whose model appears but I am aware of at least three layouts which portray the Camden Bank/Camden Shed/Goods yard area of the approaches to Euston, so it is actually quite a common prototype for a layout. There is a thread on RMWeb on one of them, that I have been lucky enough to visit and see in the flesh. So that makes four models now, that is unless the layout in the magazine is one of the ones I know about.

There are many factors that impact on whether all the wheels on a loco are touching the rails. You have, at least you should have, rails that are not sitting vertically but are inclined inwards at 1 in 20 or thereabouts. You have wheels that are rarely 100% true. You have a coned wheel tread rather than a flat one. You have a small amount of play in bearings on kit built or scratchbuilt models and often wheels with lots of play on RTR models. Many models have a small degree of "floppychas" through wear and tear despite being supposedly built rigid, especially after lots of running. Those who advocate compensation or springing as a way of keeping all the wheels on the track are quite correct in that it is the only route to ensure that all your wheels are in good contact with your track all the time but many examples I have seen are over the top in terms of the amount of movement provided and the complexity. My personal experience, in 00 and EM, is that I can get running as good as I could wish for with rigid mechanisms and that I can also have brake blocks and standpipes etc. a bit closer to wheels that can't move up and down. I also find it easier to get a mechanism running smoother when the distance between your crankpins doesn't change as a wheel goes up and down relative to its neighbour. I find them easier to test on a bench too, if the wheels can't move about in relation to each other. Turning a sprung or compensated loco upside down and running it with wires to the motor doesn't give a good idea of how it will perform on a layout. I have never moved the centre axle upwards on 6 coupled locos. If your baseboards and track are like ski jumps, then you should build your locos compensated or sprung. I find that with decent flat track and baseboards, any rocking on the centre wheel is undetectable. I have tried compensation, springing, a combination of the two plus just having the centre axle able to move up and down a bit on springs with the front and back axles rigid. When running my layouts, I cannot detect any difference between the types of mechanism. So while I can appreciate and accept that springing or compensating has benefits and I admire and respect those who build them that way and get them to run superbly, I don't go down that route having considered and tried various options. Which is why no lesser person than the late, great, Iain Rice once wrote to MRJ describing me as "the worst Luddite since Tony Wright".