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t-b-g

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Everything posted by t-b-g

  1. If you did away with the complex scissors plus slips station throat and replaced it with a couple of curved crossovers, you can do Buckingham with RTR track. At an exhibition a while ago, I was shown photos of a layout based fairly closely on Buckingham where somebody had done just that. Such a layout would be far more complex and physically bigger than Minories but the operational potential is many times greater. If you went for an earlier version, such as the double tracked version of Buckingham Mk. 2, it becomes even easier. However, Buckingham was never really about RTR. It was more about the freedom from being constrained by what was available commercially that you get by making things for yourself. When it was started in 1947 there was almost nothing you could buy that could be used, apart from rail, wheels and motors and a few castings for axle boxes and suchlike. Not relying on RTR is a philosophy that I have always liked and which I follow myself, so even when I build a layout that could be done with ready to lay points and track, I prefer to make my own, so it can be based on my chosen prototype.
  2. As long as Thompson or Bulleid didn't get the job, we would have been OK. Written with tongue firmly in cheek in case anybody wants to get grumpy about it.
  3. I agree with you. I have never suggested that any small terminus can be called a Minories. All I have said is that my own small terminus stations were inspired by Minories. That is a simple, indisputable fact I know to be true 'cos it was me that was inspired! I looked closely at the Minories design, chose which parts I liked and which I didn't and came up with a couple of layouts. To say they are Minories is wrong. To say they are nothing to do with Minories is equally wrong. They are just a variation on the design and calling them "inspired by" allows me to give some credit to CJF for the original plan and the inspiration.
  4. There are still a handful of kits showing as being in stock and available on the DJH website, so perhaps they haven't updated it. From a marketing point of view, it would make sense for Ellis Clark to let the world know that they have them. At the moment the kits are well buried on their website and if you hadn't been tipped off to look for them, you would have to get lucky to find them. I do wonder what sort of market there would be for many of the kits nowadays, especially those now available RTR but there were quite a few from DJH that have not yet been duplicated and those may well be missed by a bigger number of modellers.
  5. I disagree. If you keep the same actual layout but organise the pointwork and platforms differently in terms of LH/RH/Y points and their radius, we are only doing what CF himself did and tinkering with the plan. The main feature of Minories was, to me, always the way it was operated, as a secondary double track terminus with a loco spur and no run round facilities. There is a very specific arrangements of the points to give arrivals and departures from all three platforms and possible simultaneous moves from certain combinations. Whether the platforms were curved, straight or had an S bend doesn't change any of that. The couple of layouts I have built may not be true Minories but they were directly influenced and inspired by the CJF plan and I am happy to call them a modified Minories, or Minories style. They would never have been built had the CJF Minories not have been published. Every time I have exhibited them, viewers have commented on the link to Minories, so there must be something there.
  6. My personal choice, on the minories style layouts I have built, is to use larger radius points and straighten the plan. No matter how well it avoids reverse curves, small radius points and me do not get well together. They never look good to me other than in an industrial yard layout. The original out and back reverse curve was one of the aspects that I was not keen on. Even in that tight a space, it was not necessary and wasn't something I think a real railway would do in that sort of situation. So I am happy with the lines in and out being offset compared to the platforms and I have used a gently curving platform rather then a dead straight one, which appeals to my eyes. I have also moved the loco spur point nearer the first trailing crossover, which gives a nicer alignment and a longer siding, with no down side that I can see.
  7. Or you can put DJH in the search box and they all appear.
  8. Thanks for trying but I have been having another look and found them. As I said, it gives no clue as to whether they are going to produce any kits or if they are just selling off the remaining stock.
  9. I have tried and failed to find stuff on their website. Their filter system beats me every time. Of course that could mean that they have just bought up the remaining stock and are selling them off.
  10. It is interesting that the announcement of the sale is released this way. It takes the wind out the sails of any announcement DJH or Ellis Clark (no "e" as you have put but others have added it) might want to make.
  11. As does the Robinson style chimney.
  12. Thanks for that. It is along the lines of what I was thinking. In my case, the first 100 wagons were all plastic, a mix of kits and RTR. All have pin point bearings. We then attached 35 wagons, a mix of plastic, whitemetal and etched (with varying weight) at the rear of the train. I fully expected the heavier wagons at the back to pull the lighter plastic wagons at the front over but they didn't. We were probably at a stage where the pull forwards, through the coupling and the low rolling resistance was just enough to keep them going. I can imagine just putting a finger on the roof of the brake van would have had them all off. Examples have been given of trains being pulled over on curves and I have seen it happen. I just can't work out whether just the length of the train would make it come off or if it is down to variations in weight and rolling resistance. If all vehicles have the same weight and rolling resistance, would an exceptionally long train get pulled over on a curve just due to the overall weight of the trailing load or would it stay on? That is the bit I don't know the answer to. My instinct says that they would stay on but I don't know for sure. Why I even bother thinking about such things is another matter altogether!
  13. Quite a few years ago, we ran a train of 135 wagons around Tickhill & Wadworth, which had 3ft radius curves (EM Gauge). The train went right around the layout and the brake van was a few inches in front of the loco. It would run at various speeds with pulling over into the centre and we didn't get any derailments. I expected it to come off but it didn't. Somebody cleverer than me can explain why some heavy trains pull off the track inwards on a curve and some don't!
  14. There will be a good turnout from our little gang. Two are in the show and at least five of us are coming as visitors. Looking forward to it.
  15. When I was an absolute beginner, my mentors taught me to thin off the over thick edges on whitemetal kits. As far as enhancing a model, it is just about the simplest job I can think of. If a novice is going to go down the route of building fairly ancient kits without trying to do anything to bring them up to modern standards, they are just going to end up with locos that look rather poor if placed next to modern RTR ones. That may be even more discouraging for them than being shown how to improve the kits. Replacing a cab roof, especially something as complicated as a GCR one, is a bit trickier and should possibly be attempted by somebody with a bit more experience but my Millholme N5 got a new cab roof and that was the third or fourth loco I built. At least it didn't have all those complex ribs and angles on the outside. Perhaps the hardest one I have done is a GCR C14. That was tricky! Older kits often turn up at Missenden Abbey and it is a very satisfying to see the reaction of people when they are shown what a difference a few minutes with a file can do to make things look better. To me, it is well worthwhile with a big reward for little time and effort.
  16. I agree completely. I don't think I have built any GCR loco and used the cab roof as supplied. The large scale "Ypres" illustrated above is a great example of what it should look like. As does Mike Edge's B7. I did find a problem with the G Train etched B3 roof but I can't remember why now. I think the rear extension was not to my liking and altering it messed up the half etched part of the angles. I think I used brass T and L section to make a new one. I also dislike GCR locos which have an obvious join between the cab front and the roof. In real life, the cab roof sat behind the front, set down below the top. So many kits have a roof that sits on top of the front with a very visible join. In the case of a thick whitemetal roof, you also end up with the front windows not going up high enough. So I replace the thick roof in a whitemetal kit with a thin brass one and try to fill and make the joint flush. With all whitemetal kits I thin down the visible edges, on roofs, cab sides, tenders etc. to remove the idea that they were built to withstand an attack from most small arms and anti tank weapons. It adds to the construction time but makes a big difference. A chamfer on the edge is better than armour plate.
  17. Possibly a P4 layout called Knutsford. Quite a few years ago there was a plan to have some Gladiator 7mm kits reduced to 4mm scale. It didn't come to anything but a tiny number of test etches for the B7 (and a D9) were produced. One ended up built in P4 on Knutsford and Roy Jackson also had one. He built most of it in EM many years ago. That is the one I have now. The castings were never produced at 4mm scale so Roy got a friend to machine parts for the slidebars and crosshead but he never got around to assembling them. So that is a possibility. They are certainly rare beasts in 4mm scale but I have seen some gorgeous 7mm models from the Gladiator kit.
  18. I just love a B7! There is an air of brute force about them. I have one that the late Roy Jackson almost completed to finish off in EM, a set of G Trains etches for another EM model, plus a Gladiator Models kit in 7mm. One day.................
  19. Very nice! It is good to see somebody going the "extra mile" to get these details correct. This is what the hinges and handles look like, at least on one example:
  20. Does Butler Henderson have its water pick up gear? Yes! You can also clearly see the 13 spoke wheel. The tender on 63771 is not, I believe, its original one. As an ex ROD loco, it would have had a simple round filler cap rather than the D shaped box. The low rear coal plate and the D shaped box make this a GCR rather than an ROD tender. The simple D shape, without the small cut out in the side and without the asymmetrical box on the RH side for the cross shaft on the scoop gear was what was put on some GCR tenders built without a water scoop. Others (such as the self trimmers on the D11/2s) were built with the full set of boxes and looked like a scoop fitted tender other than the wheel and the scoop itself. It is indeed a minefield and it is a brave person who will say categorically that a particular combination of features never existed!
  21. That mounting block is what made me mention the water pick up wheel. My thinking is that the boxes in the back of the tender were kept. There is little or no evidence to prove this but if the boxes were removed, there would have been big holes in the tank top that would need plating in and I know that some tenders were built with the boxes but without scoop gear, so I call it an informed guess. It also made it easy to put the gear back in at a later date if the tender was transferred to a loco that needed it. The mounting for the wheel on the tender front was removed as you say and illustrate.
  22. I have made wire flat by tinning a sheet of brass, soldering wire onto it and filing it flat. It doesn't have to be absolutely precise. You can do both sides but at that size, just getting a flat on the outside facing surface should be enough. I hope that is a possibly helpful suggestion.
  23. Did they run with the tall GCR dome in BR days Tony? That isn't a combination I have seen, as I thought they all had shorter domes by then. The chimney is puzzling me too. If it is supposed to be a "flowerpot" it isn't a very good one but maybe it is a type I am unfamiliar with. Alan Gibson will supply a shorter dome and a better chimney should you wish to improve it. Are you going to add the wheel for the water scoop? I think there is an etched one in the kit from memory but it was a long time ago when I built mine.
  24. Perhaps it isn't very good as a scale representation of accurate valve gear but the point I was making was that they manage to have small moving components on RTR models. So as the scale of the people using the models is fairly consistent, if small wiggly bits are OK in N gauge, they should stand a chance in 4mm scale. They are just as likely or not likely to suffer at the hands of the "average modeller". The lubricator linkage on a Hornby A4 is considerably bigger than the valve gear components on an N Gauge loco, yet both are sold to the same RTR market, yet it was suggested that Hornby had to make the linkage overscale for it to survive. I hope that clarifies what I was trying to get across. I am aware of people moaning (hard to believe, I know) about the finer details falling off RTR models, so there is a point somewhere where delicacy becomes a problem but I am sure that Hornby could have done a better job with the lubricator linkage. Just making the crank shorter and the operating rod slightly thinner without altering the joints would have improved things. I don't have A4s as they are far too modern for me. If I did, I wouldn't tolerate that lubricator linkage looking like a second set of valve gear. If others are happy with it, then that is fine!
  25. Modern N gauge RTR seems to manage with fairly small and delicate valve gear. The Golden Age models A4 shows what is possible. If I wanted an A4, I would be quite happy to take the Hornby lubricator off and put a nearer scale one on. It would be one of the things I would be looking to improve. I would also make a bracket on my new frames and hang the top end of the lubricator on the frames rather than attach it to the body. Just because a model is produced for the "average train set" market shouldn't mean that it stays that way. If folk are happy with it is as supplied then good luck to them but it is something I would want to change.
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