Ian Kirk

Hi, not meant as criticism just a thought you might find easier before getting further with the painting. If you look at your photo of the tender rear you will see that the flute on the top of the tender is rounded at the corners. (as are the coal rails above. ) When I first scratch built one of these in brass (nearly 60 years ago now) I made the corners square as you have, added the top beading to the curve and filled in the back with solder. I then filed the curve on the brass/solder" points " . If you build up the back with bits of styrene (where I put solder) until solid you could file curved corners . best wishes, Ian

Don't know about the Caley Jumbos but the NBR equivalent 0-6-0s (later LNER J36) certainly did. The returned locos were honoured by being named - not common for freight locos - after WW1 "celebrities" Hence the preserved example Maude named for a General of the same name. best wishes, Ian

Hi, The original GEM white metal kit for the Glen used the Triang L1 chassis and was stretched slightly to allow the L1 10ft wheelbase. Mostly no one noticed. Although my friend Pete Westwater who produced the drawing you are using said that for a Scott you really needed 9ft 6 chassis as the larger wheels needed the draw plate to be that much further back and by that point the extra 2mm was starting to show. The little GNofS locos will need a shorter wheelbase though but the Caley 4-4-0s might go on the 10ft wheelbase. The last of the series, the Pickersgill design certainly does. Back in the mists of time I produced brass patterns for Nu Cast white metal kits and we did two classes of GNofS (including Gordon Highlander) and the Caley Pickersgill so I will watch your scratch building of these types with interest. best wishes, Ian

Quite possibly. By the time of my trips to see Sutherland we must have been in blue but, possibly because I associate the area with the "most miles on a runabout ticket" trips of my mis spent youth my memories see things in red/green. Besides, old age doesn't come itself you know...... best wishes, Ian

The station looks the same. I have not been there since the mid/late 70s. Maroon coaches and green diesels then of course. Probably OT but there was a Model Railway manufacturer in the area at the time. I did some pattern making work for them and they did some castings for me. The former Cotswold Models white metal casters were worked on by some Highlands development agency and persuaded to re locate becoming Sutherland Casters. They had some Highland Locos in their 4mm kit range and between us we did some highland wagons. The workshops the development agency got them were temporary buildings (the same sort of things they used as school classrooms) in I think Bonar Bridge. The owners got a former Hydro Board house out beside a dam somewhere and I stayed with them when visiting. The owner was Ron Charlton but as he had been a tail gunner in a Lancaster I doubt if he is still with us. The kits went to Nu Cast and are now I believe with SE Finecast. best wishes, Ian

When I was a teenage modeller, taking my first step from "train set" to scale this was the type of Romford available. I "scale wheeled" several Triang chassis without any of the proper tools. Things were harder to find back then and some things would have required too much pocket money. I drilled the crank pin holes from the Romford cast centre marks using a small drill held in a pin vice and twirled between thumb and fingers. For a six coupled chassis I used the Triang fixed pins in plain holes on the outer wheels (as Triang did) and not having a 10BA tap until later force fitted a bit of brass rod (probably brazing rod) into the hole on the centre driver and using bits of paper to separate everything soldered a (home made) washer to the pin to keep the coupling rod on. With the soldered joint filed down it looked no worse than the Triang original. On a serious note I second what has been said about not trying to hold the wheels by hand while using a power drill. Far too likely to win free and damage fingers. A machine vice on it's own is not much help either as you really need something which grips a circular object. The home made jig using an axle is probably the best without too much investment. I have a small 3 jaw lathe chuck (Unimat) fixed to a steel plate, facing upwards, for these kind of jobs now but I have been slowly building up my tool collection for 60+ years. best wishes, Ian

I wonder if I will ever be "collectable" ? My first involvement in model Railway manufacturing was around this time. My friend Pete Westwater had started to build a scenic exhibition layout in N. The advent of the Peco Jubilee, a reasonably good RTR loco, made this possible. It represented a local station and he had converted the Jubilees into B1s. He was prepared to scratch build a few coaches but goods wagons were a problem. At that time the only British goods stock was repaints of European wagons. Scratch building a decent length coal train would be soul destroying. I suggested trying to produce our own plastic kits. I found a moulder and Pete made some moulds. The plastic wagons and the layout went onto the local Exhibition circuit and later we thought that we could recoup our costs by selling some. The rest as they say is history. Westwater and Kirk N gauge built up in the early 70s I have a price list somewhere (produced on a duplicator, remember them?) To the original wagon kits were added scenic items (fencing, telegraph poles and buildings) all moulded in HIPS. I eventually produced a plastic body kit for the Bi to fit the Jubilee chassis. I tried to buy one back off eBay and failed but a customer swopped one for coach kits. Eventually Farish got going with cheap RTR British outline wagons and Peco introduced their kits and sales dropped off but by then I had 009 TT and had started on the 4mm wagon kits that led eventually to Parkside. Along the way I was prepared to risk borrowing money, Pete was not. So W&K expanded to become Ian Kirk Models. Must stop blethering about me. I started this because I remember buying stuff from Micro Traction, 70, possibly 71 (can't remember the Jamie though) IIRC they were selling driving wheels and gears - I built a few N gauge loco chassis at this time using my own modification of the Triang X500 motor. When Minic Motorways were being discontinued I bought the last of the last production batch (about 500) red e type Jaguars. If I had them now they would probably be worth a fortune but I broke them up and sold the bits. best wishes, Ian

Needless to say there are times I regret parting with this range especially now that it looks as if it is gone for good and wonder what mods I might have made by now if they were still mine. They would be needing another home by now anyway - I can't go on for ever and am enjoying the extra time off that I now have. Just as well so many were produced at the peak of production so there are still SH to be found. Paying over the odds on e Bay for something that I sold for £4.60 (including the 15%VAT) in the 1980s is hard for a Scotsman but I have given up waiting for Coopercraft. Tongue in cheek: when stock exhausted you could always go O gauge as I am still producing the O gauge range! I kept the O gauge ones to give me something to do in semi-retirement and having seen the fate of the 4mm have not tried to sell this on. I intend just to keep producing for as long as I am able and/ or customers still want them. Always glad to hear that people have enjoyed my kits makes it all worthwhile. best wishes, Ian

The film covers several periods each of interest. I think it has been on here before as I recall talking about the final shots of Earl Marischal (which must be late 40s). A letter to my Mother and I from my Father when he was away on one of his Aux. Air Force trips after the war describing his train journey (for Mother to read to me) "Tell the boy it was the same big green Engine as brought us back from Edinburgh last week Earl Marischal". So I can claim to have travelled behind this loco (and presumably been taken up to see the engine) in this condition - rebuilt as a 4-6-2 but in LNER green. I believe that by the time it got BR green it was posted down South. From a coach point of view it's train is really interesting. The ex Coronation twin still in two tone blue and the variety of shades of "teak" one of which I am fairly sure is a "convertible" Sleeper Third that I made a kit for many years ago. best wishes, Ian

Well done. You make me proud to see some of my old stuff being so well built that it stands comparison with more modern models. This coach is one that I went on to produce in O gauge (and still do) and if it had not been for the Hornby loco I would have thought that your model was O gauge. Test of a well built model that it can be photographed to larger than life and still look good. best wishes, Ian

The grandly named East Fife Central Railway. Better known perhaps as the Lochty Branch was freight only throughout it's life if you exclude the short "A4" period after closure when John Cameron re laid the last bit and ran Union of South Africa on it. The Kirkcaldy harbour branch which when proposed/built had grandiose aims of carrying passengers and connection with a Forth ferry. So steep that cable haulage was originally used I doubt if carrying passengers was ever realistic. Even in less safety conscious times. In it's adhesion worked freight only times it had two runaways that ended up in the sea. Both of these have had threads on here in the past , photos etc. best wishes, Ian

Unfortunately yes. When I sold the range to Colin Ashby all was well and Colin continued production. When Colin was looking towards retirement he sold it on to Tony Brown (who had earlier bought Mailcoach Models from me and had acquired Coopercraft) once again all was well and production continued (with Colin producing the "long" mouldings under sub contract). When Tony wanted to retire he sold the whole outfit to a gentleman in Somerset. He got all of the assets including a stock of mouldings. As far as I can tell this gentleman has not managed to produce any of the range for himself and the kits which he sold for a time a few years ago were packaged from the mouldings transferred to him. In the past I have even offered to help get production started again but this was not accepted. I now realise that the range is very unlikely to re appear and the small demand which still exists must rely on the second hand market. Must avoid going on at length as this thread is really about Darius's Triplet build. best wishes Ian

Good to see someone still using something that I made the tooling for almost forty years ago. You have made a good job of the building and painting and the finished model owes more to your efforts than mine. I can't remember what the instructions said but when I built them I put a folded black paper type corridor connection on each end of the kitchen car to represent the corridor connections above the articulated bogies. best wishes, Ian Edited to add; The buffers on the corridor ends should really be clip top type.

I would settle for having him remove the coach range that still bears my name from his website until such time as they can be produced. As I know that the "long" moulds were built to fit a specific type of moulding machine (and I know where they all are) and would require some competent engineering to alter them for a different machine I have my doubts about the likelihood of these ever being produced again. I ordered one some time ago, paying the £15 through his card system and a couple of reminders (now years ago), including one offering to help, elicited no response. Unless /until that order is fulfilled I can safely tell others about this as a warning not to place orders without seeing goods. best wishes, Ian

There are probably a few of us still around. Whether at 70+ we would want to set about making new injection mould tools is another matter. I think I could probably still do a wagon kit that would not compare unfavourably with Hornby Margate RTR but who would want that when the current generation of RTR is so good. New tooling techniques have made it economically viable to cover a wider range of prototypes than ever before. Covering things that in the past might have been produced as kits by modeller/manufacturers. I will be going to Richard Hollingworth's (Parkside) funeral tomorrow. I am reminded of a line in The Longest Day film spoken by Richard Burton as a fighter pilot "The problem with being one of the few is that we seem to get fewer" best wishes, Ian

Off topic but I am interested to see the cast version of the Nu Cast Sentinel. This was obviously produced by using the plastic mouldings as a pattern for the rubber moulds which make white metal castings. I produced this kit for Nu Cast years ago and it originally had an injection moulded plastic kit for the body and white metal underframe parts. I did the patterns (in brass ) for the undeframe etc. and produced the plastic mouldings for the then Nu Cast. I think I still have the injection mould tools but as this is now available RTR there would be no point in re-running these. best wishes, Ian

Very sad. I have known Richard for a long time. We were at school together then went our separate ways. Met up again with our families at Lochty Private Railway one weekend and socialised for a time which led to Richard giving up his real Railway job and becoming a partner in my business. After a time he left to set up Parkside and what a success he made of it. We continued to collaborate on plastic stocks , machine spares and things like that. I always felt welcome when I dropped into his workshop, sometimes just for a chat. In recent years he became Chairman of the North East Fife O gauge group and I saw him last at the AGM in January. It seems that the cough that troubled him was in fact lung cancer . My thoughts are with his wife and family. Ian

Not quite sure about that. Some human "drivers" have coped adequately with speeds double that at low level and no rails to follow. "Situations" can come up very fast so you certainly don't need "buzzers" to keep you awake. best wishes, Ian

Before using Brasso, try it on a scrap of glazing. Depends what plastic you are using but I remember one plastic moulding job we had years ago, rev counter cover for a fork lift truck. These were moulded in styrene and the "failure" rate was quite High with some of the clear bits not optically clear.. They were quite hard to do, the main bit moulded in black and the clear front moulded on in a second operation. I though that it might be worth the work of polishing some of the "duds" and we set to with Brasso. Something in Brasso does not like styrene and the clear styrene crazed and eventually crumbled. best wishes, Ian

I think that the problem visually is not the steepness itself but how you lead in/lead out to it. Real roads can be quite steep but they never have sharp "edges" to the slope. I would try to start the decent on the other side of the baseboard joint as it would not need much to be shaved down and curve the surface down over this. You want the surface to "pull out" with another gentle curve before you get to the bottom surface. If there is still not enough room have you considered raising the bottom road level and putting "low bridge" signs on the model? You could even model a cameo of the recovery of a truncated double decker. best wishes, Ian

IIRC the Roche Drawing book only covered more modern types. The HR types are well covered in the Tatlow book. The Caley and GSWR have drawings available from their respective Societies. There were a few GNofS drawings by John Emslie in the late 50s Railway Modeller (which I still have). My friend Peter Westwater produced a series of drawings of NBR types (4 and 7mm). No longer available commercially but I could help if I knew what exactly you wanted. best wishes, Ian example shown below

My late Father was really an aeromodeller but around 49/50 had a brief experiment with the then fairly new 2 rail 00. He had some of these plus some ERG cardboard wagons he built himself. Once I had started in 00 with a Triang train set 55/56 (I had had O gauge Hornby clockwork before then) developing into my first layout he passed these on to me. There were a van, like the one above but brown, a wooden open in brown,a steel mineral in grey and a brake van. I had some ham fisted attempts to "improve" them as I got older but once plastic kits came along they were just too heavy and I got rid of them. They were not scale models but for their time were very good. For old times sake I picked up one of the brakes at a Show I was at and attach a picture. Scanned not photographed so not very clear (must get a camera). best wishes, Ian

The Airfix rolling stock kits were a Godsend to young early 1960s modellers. A very small investment and a good practice for improving/making your own. An Airfix mineral with brass bearings and Jackson wheels, overscale hinges removed and proper couplings fitted, painted and "dirtied" (I don't think the word weathering was invented at that time) was a proper model and uniquely your own. I still have some I built as a teenager and that was not yesterday! Later they provided the inspiration for the idea of cheap plastic wagon kits but without the bits of the Airfix kits we threw away ( like the plastic wheels) which I used in my 1970s range of "Basic Wagon Kits". In fact in the early days of Westwater and Kirk N gauge we used cut up Airfix sprues melted down to test the moulds before we found a source of pelleted plastic material. best wishes, Ian

Back in the day 1958/60 young modellers eagerly awaited the release dates on these. Just remembered that I still had the price list- hope it attaches OK best wishes, Ian

Even the poorest plastic cements tended to have a bit of solvent in them so some of the joints can in fact be "welds".. Some of my Kitmaster locos, built when they came out (in the early 60s) usually with the enclosed plastic bulb of cement lasted perfectly until played with by my kids in the 80s and even then tended to break mouldings rather than joints. If the original builder made a decent job why not cut away the bits your motorised version will not need and leave the rest as assemblies, rubbing down/ filling any imperfections as required. Far safer surely than attempting to reduce it again to a kit of parts. I have been involved with plastic moulding for a long time and am fairly sure that there is nothing which will attack the joints that will not affect the plastic its self. best wishes, Ian