checkrail

Good excuse Rich! But if you do come back to look at them again I'd be happy to photocopy the instructions and post them to you. John.

They're ok, but to be honest I only got them because the clerestory ones come as complete replacement end units (the Hornby ends just slot out) and provide a representation of the scissors gangway. The outer end of this coach, next to the loco, has the floating end plate glued solid. Only the inner end uses the floating plate as intended, where it works well buffered up to what's coupled to it - at present a Hornby Collett compo with folded paper gangways. I do still have some of the Slater's exquisite scissors gangways from their toplights to make up one of these days, but they scare me to death!

Thanks for this Mike. You've got a regular production line going! They look good. After your recent 'heads up' over on ANTB I bought a pair of the C16 sides from Worsley, so that's the next project. Any hints or tips welcome. I also realise that you commissioned the D33 sides from WW. What was your source of pics and info? Russell (Part 1, p.186) says that D33 was originally described as a 'brake 1st kitchen car' (?!) and going by the 1900 picture (fig. 170) a heck of a lot of alterations had been made by your period. Might have a go at one of these once I've worked my way through the rest of my stash of unbuilt kits. (I note that like the D29 it's heavy on luggage space at the expense of passenger seating, so might not be appropriate at the other end of the M set.)

I had yet another go with black/gold lining transfers, but with no success. As @The Fatadder has rightly observed in a recent post, it's even harder when you have to put the lining on the raised part of the panelling (which might be narrower than some transfers!). So I used my usual method of ruling a black line with my Pilot V5 pen onto some orangey-yellow Tamiya masking tape, cutting out a thin black/'gold' line and applying to the coach, sealing it, after lettering, with Dullcote. Not ideal but within my capabilities!

To be honest Miss P. I hadn't given the bogies a thought but your post sent me back to Russell. So I can add to Mike @Coach bogie's recent post. In Vol 1 and Appendix Vol 1 I found at least 12 post-war photos of clerestory stock still with bogie footboards, inc. one coach in BR days with a 'W' prefix to the number. Perhaps the best is Appendix, Fig. 282, of a pretty well maintained E69 in brown & cream with the 1942/1943 lettering, marshalled into a main line express in 1949. Was glad to find these (even though I guess they'd be the exception rather than the rule by that date), as I'm not sure one could carve the footboards off the Hornby bogies all that successfully - They're such an integral part of the moulding.

And two more taken before the body/chassis fit issue was sorted. (Although of course on the second one you can't see it!) John C.

A couple of pics of 3352 in service on a Newton Abbott - Plymouth stopping train headed by 5975 'Winslow Hall'. Looking at photographs shows up things you hadn't spotted in reality. I noticed that in all my photos of this new coach the body didn't seem to be sitting properly on the underframe. My necessary butchery had removed the spring-loaded plastic tags of the Hornby original and I was relying on a body-to-chassis push-fit. Problem was soon sorted. I'd glued in three 40 thou Plastikard cross pieces - fore, aft & centre - to stop the bodyshell falling too far over the solebars. The middle one was a bit too low, causing the body to rock slightly fore & aft. Bit of plastic carved off and all sorted. I might end up tack-glueing the body down. I'm always reluctant to fix coach bodies to underframes permanently because in my experience the minute you've glued them you see a minute bit of white material that's statically attached itself to the inside of the glazing! John C.

Put the final touches to the D29 clerestory earlier today. Here are the 'official' photographs. Final jobs today were to touch up the paint here and there ('Oops, there's a bit of Indian Red on the cream - oops, now there's a bit of cream on the brown', etc.), to add the lamp irons (Brassmasters) and to convert the original lavatory droplight to the later pattern fixed unit with an inwardly opening toplight, as per photos in Russell etc. (Done by adding a little piece of microstrip and painting it Indian red.) The very last thing was to snip the now redundant lamp brackets off the Keen Systems gangway end plates - three brackets per coach end seemed a little excessive! Hope the vehicle now looks a bit more 1930s-ish. Currently processing some pictures of it in service on the layout, so a bit more to come about how I got on with this conversion. John C.

Although I wasn't entirely serious I've since remembered a great photo of just such a scene. If you have access to Tim Bryan's excellent book 'A year in the life of the Great Western' have a look at p.8 showing an identical container on a GWR Scammell mechanical horse outside a terraced house in 1935 with chaps in white coats & aprons (and ties of course) unloading a kitchen cabinet from the container's back doors. Cakebox Challenge scene?

Some pics of the revised underframe from clerestory van 3rd 3352. It struck me that by the 1930s these would all have been converted to electric lighting and have had the long lower footboards removed, In spite of careful carving I was unable to keep the horizontal part of the truss rods in one piece when trying to remove the central supporting pillar for the footboard, but new bits of trussing were soon fettled from some brass rod, with a bit of masking tape wound round in the middle to represent the gizmo that I think must be a tension adjuster (?). Some Comet V-hangers, brass wire, and white metal battery boxes and dynamo were added from the spares box to provide a sketchy suggestion of brake gear and electrics. The positioning of these elements was a combination of Russell and a bit of guessology, so may not be quite right. Gives the flavour though, I hope. The guard's steps were made from short sections of the old footboards suspended from just behind the solebar by a couple of Claire's Lace Pins (last used in point construction. I had to take care when marking out the position for these as the guard's door on the brass etch is in a different position on one side to the simplified Hornby version. Of course, I managed to break a buffer off when handling, and was about to order some metal Dean oval buffers when I remembered an old broken clerestory coach and did a bit of cannibalisation. Meanwhile the superstructure awaits a few final details before I re-unite it with the underframe and bogies. John C.

Now there's a scene worthy of Kevin's superb detail modelling talents! A selection of 1930s house furniture being unloaded. Just an idea.

It's a day of bright sunny periods at Stoke Courtenay, or at least it was until I climbed on a chair and closed the blind on the Velux window! I don't know, the best spring in years with day after glorious day ideal for mountain bashing, and us all under house arrest. And though I have the layout to keep me busy, every time I go up to the loft I have to shut the blind and obliterate the lovely sunshine in case my scenery fades to grey. Will have to compromise and go for a brisk walk in the park once I've finished the last few twiddly bits on the clerestory van third. John C.

Absolutely no way Rich! By my period this would most likely have had the shirtbutton totem, but I've chosen to do mine in the earlier 1928-34 livery for a bit of variety, and because I think it suits the coach. Fortunately, on either of these options lining is restricted to the gold/black waist line - I find that difficult enough!

At least you won't have the wrong sort of leavers on the line. I'll get my coat ...

During lockdown I've finally run out of displacement activities on Stoke Courtenay, screwed my courage to the sticking place, and started to address my current stash of coach kits and conversion parts. On the workbench at the moment is a Hornby D29 corridor clerestory van 3rd. It's being fitted with a pair of brass sides formerly made by Bettabitz/247 Developments, which I was lucky enough to pick up on eBay a while back. Here's the coach as it was until a couple of weeks ago. Over the years it's had some paint and transfer alterations as well as Keen Systems ends with a representation of the correct scissors-type gangway, but the lack of relief panelling always bugged me, especially when seen adjacent to a Slater's toplight for instance. Here's the donor body after a bit of work with a drill, mini handsaws and files/sanding sticks. And below are the sides. The droplights were soldered in, then I came across the problem of the window bolections - the etch doesn't have any, so if used as is you'd be painting a recess rather then a raised moulding. Then I remembered a set of D47 toplight sides from Frogmore which arrived a long while ago as an unexpected item in baggage area, as part of an eBay purchase of PC coach kits 'n' bits. So I robbed Peter to pay Paul and nicked the separately etched Frogmore bolections. The smaller ones were a good fit, but the large ones were for larger toplight windows and needed trimming, then applying in two parts. This wasn't as hard as it seemed (at first). I wasn't confident of soldering them neatly enough, so glued them in with Roket Rapid. Then a mini-disaster involving LMP solder meant I had to rip them all out again and re-do them, and they've not been so straight and true since! The guard's lookouts were also subject to two goes, what you see here having since been removed and replaced using the Hornby part as a template and a backing piece. Finally, a coat of Halford's primer covered a multitude of sins, or at least some of them. John C.

Hmm, got a couple of these but have never really checked them out against the real thing. Think you've planted the seeds of new mini-project in my mind. Nice work - look forward to seeing it again after paint 'n' transfers.

Lovely close coupling there between King & train. Looks great. (But then again, there aren't any curves on your main line are there!)

Great! I do enjoy seeing these action videos.

And a lot less mucky than messing round with plaster, especially after track's laid & ballasted.

Track and ballast looking really good.

Nice job on that prairie Kev. Talk about making moonbeams out of cucumbers! Seem to remember some article in a mag (MRC?) yonks ago (in, or even before, the days of Crownline detailing kits) where someone had converted Lima's 4575 into a flat-topped 45xx (which of course you already have). But his observations apply to both variants. He removed the upper body from the footplate and took something like 2mm off the bottom all round. The excess height, IIRC, was due to the height of the installed Lima motor, but he carved some plastic (?) off the top of it and got it to sit at the right height without compromising its running.

This is interesting - especially the two year bit. I'd always assumed around seven. As suggested, one possible answer is a time frame ( five or ten years, say) rather than an exact date or year, an approach recommended by none other than David Jenkinson in his otherwise quite purist article on historical modelling, "Is your mutton dressed as lamb?" in the Sept 1964 RM. I like having a mixture of pre- and post-1934 liveries on coaches, but I also have locos and rolling stock (and a road vehicle) dating to the 1938/9 period, which I wouldn't want to get rid of. Let's call it a sub-set of Rule 1.

Not sure we've seen the station from that angle before. Nice. And a 45xx plus B-set does it for me every time.

Thanks Martin. I do rather like that, including the patch of sunlight!

Thanks Martin. No, don't mind at all if you use a Stoke C. image as your demonstration. I'm delighted you thought it a suitably photogenic subject. You're right re the slightly 'washed out' foreground effect being due to the auxiliary light source I often use - a DynaSun 500w photographic studio lamp found on eBay. There's often a balance to be struck between getting enough light on the trains without the bleaching effect. That said, we all see colours differently, and have personal preferences and perhaps my eyes are not as discerning as others'. Though the more I look at your re-worked images the more I like them, I've always liked a 'pale' look to model railway photographs - makes things look lighter, more open and spacious. Maybe something between my versions and yours would be my ideal. I'm grateful, as ever, for the interest and suggestions and am sure lots of us will find this a useful tool. Like 00-sf and Templot, another innovative contribution of yours to the hobby! Cheers, John.