checkrail

Brown and cream remembered trains, blue remembered hills ….. John C.

Some trains seem to have crept into this further photo of the station horse trough. John C.

But it's not Stoke Courtenay's only horse trough! Here's one that stands on the station forecourt, and actually has some water in it. This one is white metal, from Dart Castings, and is a little bit shorter and narrower than the Wills offering. Like the Wills one It comes as part of a set, along with a water fountain (seen in the pic below) so both human and equine thirsts are catered for. The water is just gloss varnish, dribbled in and left to set. Finally, here's a wider view of the horse trough in context, partly hidden behind the fence. John C.

As far as I remember Neal the horse trough (plastic) was part of a Wills set of war memorial, bench and trough. The bench too is now outside the pub.

Gosh, you have as many bikes on your layout as locos! They look very good Kevin, and I love the way you've customised and detailed them. Will definitely get some more. Thanks.

Thanks Kevin, but there's not much more scenery to photograph - just a few bits of grass and trees. Regarding bikes , I bought some very nice laser cut ones a couple of years or so back (Scale Model Scenery maybe?), but somehow lost them within a day or two of receipt. I do remember unwrapping them and being rather impressed. But because they were flat, fibrous and the colour of cardboard I think I might have thrown them away with the packaging. Might give them another go.

During a short break from coach building Stoke Courtenay's pond has acquired a couple of dozen reeds. Who says I don't do grand scenic projects! I bought them at the MMRS show in December, then forgot all about them until the other day. They're by Green Scene. I don't think I've taken any pics of this corner since my pre-focus stacking days, so here are a few more. The next one's my favourite. The drinker (the drunk?) leaning on the pub signpost has had his bike nicked, even though it was glued to the post. You can see the glue mark. Actually it disappeared into the vacuum cleaner the other day. Perhaps I should take this as a prompt to obtain some better bike models than those old Modelscene (ex-Merit?) jobs. Next is a view of Church Lane and the church lych gate (Langley Models I think, or was it Dart Castings?) Finally a pic of those two classic village institutions, local pub and parish church, taken from the embankment by the end of the loco spur. John C.

Thanks Neal. Actually I took it all off the van end. I reckoned that 2mm off the corridor end would bring me perilously close to the first door line!

Brilliant!

Be no good to me then.

You're right Chris. I've just re-measured and the Bachmann Colletts are indeed 242 mm, not 244. I should have picked this up when @The Fatadder mentioned them as being 60 1/2 feet.

Nice!

Thanks Mike. That all makes sense now.

Final comments on my experience with the D121 build. First time I've used Comet parts and was a bit puzzled by a couple of things. The first was the length of the etched sides, which I had to shorten quite a bit with razor saw, files etc. I did this at the van end where there was enough blank space. But why were they so long in the first place? Russell has the D121 as 69 ft 11 1/4 inches (61 foot, near as dammit), and the C77 and E159 subjects of the Bachmann coaches exactly the same. And the Bachmann models are exactly 244mm long. Don't quite understand. Am I missing something here? The other thing is that the Comet instructions have a drawing of the coach end complete with steps and handrails and states that. "the ends are identical". I think this must be wrong. Perusal of Russell suggests that by this period steps and handrails were only provided where there was a roof tank to access, so the van end should be plain. But by the time I realised this I'd applied the sides to the body and didn't want to risk damaging the coach trying to carve off the steps. Might do this carefully in due course. But I did omit the handrail at this end! Hmm, I see from the second of these pics that there's a bit of a gap at the compartment end, so another delicate little job with some filler and paint touch-up. Be nice if you could get black filler. Whenever I finish a coach I feel a slight dissatisfaction that I haven't executed it as well as I would have wished, and vaguely consider starting it again. But once seen running by in a train at normal viewing distance these thoughts fade away and I accept the result as a decent 'layout coach'. John C.

The Bachmann donor vehicle on which my D121 was grafted required a bit of work. Most of this was to the roof, where the layout of shell vents needed changing and one of the roof tanks had to be removed. This involved a bit of careful work with riffler files and sanding sticks. It looked a bit of a mess at first but after a few coats of Lifecolor roof dirt it came out better than I'd expected. The underframe got some new MRD sprung buffers at one end where the donor coach was missing a buffer, while the solebar footboards were carved off/added from Plastikard as appropriate to follow the footboard layout of the D121. Finally the steps below the guards' doors were added from handrail wire and bits of Plastikard. I did have quite a bit of trouble getting the sides to lie absolutely flat and stick firmly to the coach even with superglue. There's not a lot of clearance round the edges and I think the sides might have become slightly distorted. One thing I have learned is that the tumblehome on coaches, whether pre-formed or not, can become slightly flattened through repeated handling in the various painting and detailing processes, even though I tried always to rest the upper half on a piece of dense foam. I ended up using the microstrip false cantrail trick again on the corridor side, and think I might need to do it with the other side too. John C.

Thanks number6. Ha ha - yes, indeed. Can just imagine my younger self doing that! (Remembering - from the early 70s - waking up in a dead train at 3 am in a carriage siding at Guildford, having intended to get off at Surbiton around 11.45 pm.) But for corridor-side ventilation why didn't they just put in airstream ventilators like they did with the compartments on the other side of the same coach? And who would adjust the droplights anyway? Weird, and does seem like clinging to tradition.

I'd been putting off this conversion for some months as I wasn't sure what to do about the conspicuous surface-mounted door locks on the cream, or the fiddly door hinges, which I'd never tackled before. By sheer serendipity I had nearly enough glue-on door locks left over from the D29 'Bettabitz' clerestory conversion I did recently. These were trimmed to size as far as I was able, stuck down to a bit of timber with double-sided tape, then primed & painted. When the paint was dry a sanding stick was drawn gently over the raised handle bit to reveal the brass. They were then glued to the coach side with Roket Odourless. I made a couple of extras by drilling holes in a piece of black Plastikard, inserting Comet T-handles with a spot of cyano, cutting or fiiling off flush at the back, then cutting round the handle to leave a little rectangular base. From the b & w photos in Russell one can't tell whether these locks were black or brown. I've guessed at black. The splendid Comet illustration model just has normal T-handles with no attempt to represent these locks, but I thought they were too characteristic of the diagram not to include. I glued the door hinges in. They weren't as bad as I thought either, though I lost so many of the little devils that from a Comet detail pack that might have done four coaches I ended up with no spares left! The Comet template that came on the fret, for drilling the hinge holes, was no use, its intervals not bearing much relation to this particular coach, so I used horizontal strips of masking tape to locate these, drilling where the tape edge crossed the door line. Worked ok. I was so exhilarated by this modest success that for a few seconds of insanity I also considered going the whole masochistic hog and putting in the door stops. Then I realised that on this coach they were exactly in line with the low waist lining. That was the get-out clause that saved me from going doolally. But the little dimples Comet had put in to mark them were useful in positioning the lining. As usual the lining is a thin strip of Tamiya yellow masking tape with a black line ruled on it with a fine marker pen. I tried yet again with transfers, thinking it would be much easier on a flush-sided vehicle, but just couldn't get it straight. My method does looks pretty crude close-up, but is acceptable to my eyesight from a distance. (Blind men & galloping horses etc.) John C.

Here's 4073, finally commissioned into service this morning. No, it's not Caerphilly Castle, it's a D121 van third of 1936, built with Comet sides on a modified Bachmann donor vehicle. My main reference photos when building were figs. 255-257 on p103 of Russell's 'Great Western Coaches Appendix, Vol. 1', especially the first of them. I wanted a van 3rd for one end of my Penzance express, for a change one that wasn't a Hornby Collett or a Centenary (there's one of those at the other end), and was attracted by the idea of something a bit different, with its low waist and the numbers and door brandings on the cream rather than the brown. I also rather like the droplights with no doors on the corridor side, like some vestigial remains of a bygone order. Here it is in the train, behind a Bachmann E159 van compo returning from Newquay. John C.

Another view across the station. Only when posting the last two pics did I realise that the branch starter had gone to 'off' before the prairie had even run round its train. A little quirk of those Dapol signals, which sometimes operate themselves as you switch on power to the points & signals power bus. John C.

Here's one of Stoke Courtenay station taken from just above the footbridge. The sunlight is real, flooding through the Velux just as I set up the shot. Such moments are usually my cue to stand on the chair and pull down the blind, lest my scenery fades to grey. John C.

Great to have you back. Looking forward to more pics of Teignbridge & Upcombe. This layout was one of my inspirations. Regards, John C.

Did you mean 'I have no wagon with "train station" '?

Hall pulls away from Stoke C. as a 28xx hauled class D freight approaches. John C.

This is a bit better too. I knew something looked wrong about that C16. I'd got my Fox transfers mixed up and given it loco shirtbutton totems - the coach ones are smaller. Fortunately the transfer came off pretty easily with careful prodding from a cocktail stick. Looking at this photo perhaps a second application of Dullcote on the affected panel wouldn't go amiss. Have now got the transfers in separate envelopes clearly marked 'loco' and 'coach'. John C.

That's a bit better. A coat of varnish to follow then to see if I can avoid making a mess of the transfers. Going to be interesting putting the numbers and door brandings on the cream. John C.