Clem

Yep, completely agree Clive, I used to be a drug-taking long-haired hippy with a strong liking for all things Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stones and Beatles. Now, I'm a short haired drug-taking hippy with a strong liking for all things Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Stones and Beatles...... The only real difference apart from the hair is that the drugs now consist only of Statins, Omeprazole (for Barratt's Oesophagus), Linsinopril, aspirin ( both for heart) and glucosamine (for staving off arthritis) and the music interest is much expanded. One thing that has never changed is my love of all things railways (particularly the steam era) and the modelling of them.... Oh and I never seem to get tired of listening to other people's take on this wonderful hobby of ours.

Hi Andrew, With hindsight, I'd do a number of things differently with the K3 including using SEF valve gear. But it was a bit of an experimental conversion and it now fills a gap for the layout. I'm afraid that none of my trains have engine crew as I haven't got to the stage where I'm doing any 'real' operating. It is a work in progress and doesn't have any signals or a timetable at this point in time and that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. But rest assured, assuming I live long enough these things will be attended to. :-)

Hi Tony, Actually, for the K3, I did it slightly differently, and as you suggest, I did use the Bachmann valve gear. I screwed a brass collar (I seem to remember using the original Bachmann bearing for this collar) on the the crankpin. This collar was tapped for the crankpin and secured with Loctite so that the return crank was fixed when secured with the original screw. I didn't feel too confident with this method but, touch wood, it's not failed so far. I made a lot of notes on the conversion but unfortunately I seem to have left out those details but that's what I recall doing with it. For the L1 conversion I used the Gibson return crank as described previously (tapped and Loctite'd) but decided to go down a bit of different path for this one. I did make a lot of notes about the conversion but annoyingly I seem to have not covered that particular task in them. For the Nucast K2 that I converted last year I tried another very risky strategy which has again held up fine in running. Instead of the 14 BA screws provided for the Gibson crankpins, for the central driving wheel I used brass 14BA screws and very quickly soldered the return crank on to them. Bearing in mind, the plastic centred Gibson wheels, I held thin nosed pliers against the rods and pin closer to the wheel to try and act as a heat sink. It has worked but I'm not sure I'll risk repeating it! The floating radius rod is quite interesting. As bought, it does have a certain movement which is not totally unprototypical. Friction from the expansion link does move it back and forth a little. But as soon as it's painted, with the paint in the joints, it seems to change the motion into an up and down motion. I've tried to cure this with an invisible stop above the valve spindle and have achieved some success with it, although it's still less than perfect. I did attempt on one side of the K3 to get the valve gear working, pinning it in forward gear but have left it on the other side as was. I love to see valve gear working prototypically with the radius rod moving back and forth though it has to be correct. Do you remember the old Hornby Dublo Duchesses in full forward gear? Anyway, in retrospect, I think you were spot on pinning your K3 in a neutral position and I will any further K3 conversions.

Hi Andrew, I does look wrong from that angle, I agree but it is correct. One of the difficulties with Gibson wheels I find, is the fact that unlike Markits wheels, the return crank cannot be soldered to the crank pin but has to be tapped, threaded on and Loctite'd in position so I make sure I have enough clearance with it. Here is a sideways view of it. I've also noticed in the photo that the traces of spider web on the tender means that the cannibal spiders are back in the layout room. (I think they're known as 'harvest men' spiders. We've been infested with this horrible creatures for the last three or four years and whilst I don't usually kill spiders, for this particular species I have no mercy. They reproduce in large numbers and were a huge problem when our building work was in progress and I couldn't get into the layout room for several months. The web that this particular species produces has the consistency of impact adhesive stringing. As their everyday name suggests, they kill everything including other spiders but do more damage to models if given a chance. Does anyone else suffer from these little beasts?

Hi Tony, As always, it was good to see and chat to you and Mo at the show on Saturday. I obviously missed your sound chip demo, but it 'sounds' interesting (any chance of expanding a bit about it?). It was also nice to see your latest beautifully smooth running J6. As mentioned, it would be great to visit you and Mo (and Little Bytham) again and I'll contact you when Chris has fully recovered from her cold/bad chest. I've been enjoying looking at your posts above of your RTR 'upgrades' whether by weather, wiggly wire, chimney or dome. It's amazing how just one or two changes can enhance and bring to life RTR locos. I've also done a few but, of course, the big issue for me is the re-gaugeing to EM. The trickiest one so far has been the K3 which has larger wheels. After a lot of hard thinking, I decided that to use the proprietary chassis and maintain the gear meshing, the chassis would have to be raised by just under a millimetre which also meant lowering the cylinders in by the same amount in the chassis. It was a bit of a slog but I got there in the end. I must admit to not being very happy with my paint/weathering job with it and it's down for some further work in the paint shop when it gets to the top of the priority list. Anyway, here's a picture. Sorry that the background is a bit monotonous. I'm slowly trying to work westwards (North in real terms) on the scenery/buildings. Cheers for now Clem

For those interested, here's a photo by Tom Boustead of an O4/1 (63585) passing Gedling Colliery Junction as late as 1959 with a rake of various iron ore hoppers....

Thank you for those links, I think you've hit the nail on the head there with those examples. I'm certain that some of those vehicles included in the Burton-York. I can't see any possibility other than scratch building them. But it'll be one for the future as my present list of railway tasks centre around progressing the layout. Having said that, I'll have to break off from time to time to do something else, if only for the change. Thanks also for posting the photos of iron ore trains. They do indeed show the distinctive look of these trains. That in a way illustrates also what is lost to RTR-only modellers as no-one makes a single accurate iron ore hopper. Thanks for posting the photos and sharing your knowledge of how the ore train consists changed from pre-war onwards. I guessed that was the case having seen 'Grantham' along with Graeme's Appleby-Frodingham rake. The second photo pulled by the O4/3 is interesting. The 2nd and 3rd wagons illustrate the two main versions of the ex-LMS hoppers - the 7'9" high and the 8'6" high. The presence of these ex-LMS hoppers along side the Charles Roberts type always seemed to emphasise the ram-shackle nature of these trains. Similarly, in the 1950s, the iron ore trains to Stanton were nearly always an O4 but very occasionally something smaller like a J39 or K2. I can never remember a WD on them. But later on,from about 1963 the WDs did suddenly appear on them also. Cheers, Clem

Hi Baz, I would be very interested and most grateful for access to etched brass kits of them. They were pretty common and whilst I could scratch build a few, it does take considerably longer. Thank you so much for letting me know. I'm looking forward to hearing from you when/if there are developments. I too recall a rolling rat... or was that roland rat... Cheers, Clem Hi Jamie, that's a great thought. I shall look into that. Thanks for the idea. Cheers, Clem

Thanks for that. What an interesting photo and one that shows tremendous detail. I think that the ones possibly used on the Burton trains were a bit smaller that the 6 wheel Guinness ones but detailed shots like this are priceless.

Thanks for the kind comments but Tony G. is correct in saying Geoff Kent has modelled a complete rake of iron ore hoppers and to a much higher standard that mine. But I am learning... Geoff is simply a magician when it comes to producing prototypical models. Having said that, his work has been massively inspiring to me and that hap-hazard, different heights of the hoppers is something I remember from being a child and is something I really wanted to represent. One of the things I'm trying to get to is to build a little batch of the LMS hoppers which seemed to be pretty numerous on the Stanton iron ore trains - but pretty well all types were represented. You're correct about the consist. The BR14 tanner is a Dave Bradwell Kit, the Charles Robets type are all Bachmann cut and shuts some modelled as ex-private owner and some as BR and Graeme King was kind enough to produce 3 extra Appleby-Frodingham hoppers from his Grantham batch. There isn't a WD type one...yet Now... the Burton-York been train: Sorry about the quality but I've included a scan from the October 1957 Trains Illustrated in which P J Lynch has captured a moment when the Burton beer train had stalled on the steeply graded spur between Basford North (Basford and Bullwell) and Bulwell Common and had called upon the B16 for help. In the normal course of events, the B16 would have taken over at Bulwell Common anyway and would then proceed, usually via the GN Leen Valley route, to York. It's the fifth vehicle that I find interesting but I can quite make out exactly what it is. It looks like a demountable tanker on a flat wagon but it's not that clear. The real shame is that seems to be so few photos of this train from which you can see how it was made up. Anyone any ideas?

As impressive as it sounds, sounding is about as far as it goes at the moment. So far my iron ore rake is only 11 wagons and I'll need at least 40 eventually! Here's a picture of the only ex-LMS one I've done so far - it's scratch built in 15 thou plasticard and represents one of the 8'6" high version - I can't remember the diagram number off the top of my head. It needs some more weathering. The second photo shows the rake so far as a whole. The Charles Roberts ones in the photo are Bachmann/Dapol RTR but cut and shut to provide the correct length and with a new more accurate under frame. The tinies (O4s) usually took a load of 23 full wagons from the ironstone quarries in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire to Stanton. On the subject of the beer train, I'll see if I can fish out a picture of it in my period of the mid 50s. I'm sure I've seen pictures of it with demountable tankers in the consist but I can't think where.

Thank you for your kind comment and don't worry, ex-LMS freight vehicles will be quite numerous - vans, opens, minerals and even the 7'9"" and 8'6" iron ore hoppers. At some point, I want to reproduce the well-known Burton-York beer train. As well as the usual consist of fitted open wagons with barrels and general fitted vans, it seemed to contain of a number of beer tankers. I have photos, but they always focus on the engine and the vehicles in the train are in the distance. I need to do some serious research on it when the time comes. Thanks. I know something about Coeliac disease as a very good music friend of mine was diagnosed with it a couple of years back. He started losing weight and it got to the stage where he was convinced he had cancer (and very frightened too) only to be diagnosed with Coeliac disease. He's been fine since although he misses bread and cake. He tells me that the gluten free versions of bread, cake etc. are too dry. Also my better half has been drip feeding me vitamin D tablets for the last 3 years, mainly in the winter. To be fair the ones I take dissolve in water and taste like blackcurrant juice so there's absolutely no resistance. It gets to the stage where you can almost tell how old someone is by counting the tablets they take! Thanks Tony for the kind comments. You're so right about the steam heating, I've just checked the excursion/summer photos I have of 61188, both pre and post AWS, and in both cases the steam heat pipe doesn't appear until the 1960s in the summer. Interestingly though, some of the other Colwick B1s do seem to carry them in the seaside excursion season. Obviously Colwick were in some cases, slow to remove them in Summer. My period (1954/5) pre-dates AWS fitting. I learn so much from this thread! On the health side, well done for losing half a stone. Losing weight is generally hugely beneficial and does take discipline, although I would never have thought of you as being in any way over-weight. I take statins for my cholesterol but they don't suit everyone and they do sometimes have side-effects. Finally... Little Bytham is looking absolutely stunning (in a good way!!).

Hi Tony and everyone, Well, about 8 months ago the doctor called me in to say my blood test showed I was pre-diabetic. My Hba1c reading was 46 just 2 outside of it taking me into a irreversible diabetes type 2 condition. It was a wake up call for me. My wonderful doctor and the NHS placed me on a 15 session,12 month set of seminars and at the same time I was determined to pull back from the edge of this cliff. Since then I have changed my eating habits and lost a stone and a half, my daily 2.5 mile walk takes me 5 minutes less time to do and my latest blood test revealed a Hba1c reading of 31. Feeling very good..... What has this to do with this thread? Well, I'm building a layout based on the Nottingham-Derby GN line and I'm not a fast modeller. When I discovered my condition, I realised that to get even close to finishing it, I'll need to live if not forever, then as close to that as possible. The prospect of leaving it as it is at the moment in a less than half built state has been a great motivator in stemming that 'doesn't matter' attitude when it comes to healthy eating. This hobby is a life saver in so many ways! Anyway, I've made some progress on the Comet chassis B1 posted a few days ago. It has become Colwick's long time resident 61188 and here are a couple of shots of it on a Burton fully fitted class 4 freight (note the lamps Tony). It now runs beautifully on a fully sprung chassis although I have a couple of adjustments to make to allow the tender to ride a little lower at the front whilst still providing some weight transference to the rear of the engine which is just a little front heavy. The loco needs a steam heat hose at the front and also, the chimney and dome both need just a little work on the boiler seatings. The tender is off a Bachmann J39 which now has a Wills 3500 gallon tender. It's lined with waterslide transfers and I've noticed from the photo that a little bit has gone a bit wavy and needs replacing. After that it needs weathering along with the loco itself albeit very sparingly. As soon as I finish these little jobs I must try to leave the locos alone and get on with the layout itself, not least planting some of those trees on the embankment above the B1. I have a signal box, goods shed, station building and bridge all to build on the west end of the layout, then an extension to the goods yard for the coal line. I'm then facing a complete new control panel and a 30-lever lever frame to build. Then there's the signalling.... Maybe I should have joined a club.....:-)

I am very much in agreement with you and what's been said by others. I would add that - importantly - I think that we have some responsibility to anyone viewing our layouts to get it right wherever possible. Not following correct railway practice and model representation can lead and has led to perpetuation of non-railway practices in models (facing points where they shouldn't be the most obvious example, but there are many others). I think these errors are a great source of irritation to most scale modellers when they come across them at shows. Personally, (with subsequent regret) I am modelling a fictitious place. However, I strive to make it so that a) prototypical layout rules are obeyed, b) the pre-grouping origin is recognisable and c) where possible, the actual line I model is recognisable too, even if the station/place is fictitious.

Hi Frank, Thanks. I've always been a bit of a fan of anything GN but particularly the Queensbury lines, ever since they were featured in the Trains Illustrated (June 1956) - I was five at the time! but it was my brother who purchased it. I always felt that one of the stations on the line(s) was crying out to be modelled. It's brilliant to see what you guys have achieved so far and I can't wait to see it when finished. Best Wishes Clem

Thanks Frank, that's a great idea for future builds. How's Clayton coming on? Thanks Mike (and Dave). I'll go with the thicker piano wire (0.8mm or 0.9mm) for my problem ones as they're already in situ. Where do you normally source it? Don't tell me... a piano shop?. Do normal music shops stock it? BTW Carlisle looks magnificent! Clem

Thanks. I'll give that a go. It's not a massive problem but definitely could do with fixing. I had thought that I'd have to replace with a servo motor but a new operating wire would be way easier! In future, I'll take your advice and use separate tie bars for each of the pairs of blades.

Hi Tony, I thought I'd post this having looked at your lovely B1s - many with Comet chassis - a hundred or so pages back. That really inspired me to get on with this Comet B1 chassis kit that I bought a while back. I decided that I'd like to know whether it was possible to build one of these in EM using Markits wheels (a bit wider than Gibsons) and to make it even more challenging, whether it could also be built with triple layer expansion links similar to the prototype. Here (below) is a picture of the result. The loco is fully sprung as per the Comet system and although it's still under test, it now runs pretty well to say it hasn't been run in. However, clearances are frighteningly small and after assembling the finished main components, It took me a couple of days to get it running at all. When I originally measured the distance across the front two crankpins, I must admit it didn't look achievable. But steadily working through ways of easing the clearances, I've finally got it up and running. I also wanted to do it without splitting the cylinders and motion support bracket and this was achieved also. I needed to have fall back positions and splitting them, as i know you advocate, was one of them. I fully agree with you that it's a lovely kit to build albeit a little challenging in EM the way I've done it. If anyone else is wishing to do one of these, a couple of tips on the springing. Paint the chassis before you fit the springs and then just clean the the guides until they're a sliding fit. If you paint it after the springs are in situ any paint leaking on to the hornblock guides - which are part of the chassis and open - will invariably stop the springing working. I did this and even with them masked off some paint seeped in and caused a couple to cease working. Also, I found the stops on the dummy leaf springs which act as keepers aren't long enough and allow the springs to slip out. It's simple enough to add a short extension to them to cure it. When I first tested the chassis as an inside cylinder 4-6-0, the front bogie shorted on the chassis when going round curves but this was cured with a single longitudinal spring which acts both downwards and sideways and helps guide the loco into curves. One further note of caution: the body has to be weighted heavily and this will push the front wheels up and on to the edge of the motion support bracket giving an intermittent short on one side. This can be avoided by simply removing about 1mm from the front of the insulating wheels side of the bracket where the flange would have caught it. This B1 will become a model of one of Colwick's finest - probably 61188 when numbered. Unlike Little Bytham the B1s along with the K2s, K3s, O4s and WDs are the biggest locomotives set to work my layout. BTW, referring back to a more recent discussion, I use Tortoise motors and haven't had any problems over 10 years plus of using them apart from them being a little bit weak (being stall motors) for a couple of my hand built copper clad double slips in the hidden sidings. I'm not the best track builder in the world so that's probably down to me and not the motors. Thanks for the inspiration Tony and also to everyone else who contributes. It's a great thread. One of the few things I seem to read these days!

Hi Tony, I don't post very often, but I just thought I'd do a quick one to say well done for reaching 1000 pages of this most interesting and inspiring thread. I find it most informative and educational (and not only in a model railway way :-) ) and always a joy to dip into to see your and other people's chat and latest railway creations. Best wishes for the next 1000! Clem

Thanks for such detailed reply, Andrew. It's a lovely piece of work. It must have taken one or two leaps of faith when you were working through it but the results speak for themselves.

Headstock, I have to say that's a lovely representation of an O4/8. I'd be interested to know a little bit more on how you went about it. Is it utilising a Bachmann chassis? I particularly like your modified Dave Bradwell chimney which captures the O4/8 look perfectly. I've used a modified Graeme King GN chimney on my Little engines version of Colwick's 63873 (below) and although it's very close, I don't think it's quite there. How much insert did you need and what did it consist of, brass tubing or turning? Great also, to see the other contributions and creations on this wonderful thread of Tony's. It's so enjoyable and very inspiring to appreciate the level of craftsmanship displayed, especially for a lone modeller such as myself. Best wishes, Clem

It has been very interesting reading the variety of views of wheel sets. Taking the essentials from these views one can conclude that: 1. There isn't a single manufacturer of wheels in 4mm that produces a wheel set that totally comes up to the standard of the modelling that appears on this thread. - i.e. all makes of wheels seem to have intrinsic flaws i.e. one or more of appearance, assembly or operation. 2. If I'm reading people correctly, I don't think anyone is entirely satisfied with their own chosen flavour of wheel. (I know you're pretty happy with Markits, Tony and for excellent reasons but as you have said, they could look closer to the prototype) 3. If any of the existing wheel producers were able to take a true and honest critique of their wares, they might realise that if they solved the issues raised here, it would almost certainly help them become the go-to supplier for the vast majority of us. 4. Being realistic, we probably need them more that they need us. So the real incentive for them to change and improve their products (in our eyes) is not almost certainly not there. For the sake of record, I tend to use Alan Gibson wheels in most cases. I do get wheels that are not concentric and some wheels do get chucked away. But for an EM modeller (and certainly for me at least) they do tend to offer the path of least resistance. The major and critical reason for my choice is that the width of the wheels allow more clearance which is often crucial for an engine with outside cylinders and valve gear. The other big reason for me is, as has been stated by others, they look much closer to the prototype. Like others on here I will test the running height and alignment of a chassis using Romfords but then fit either Gibson or Ultrascale using a GW wheel press in a vice. The boss of the Gibson wheel protrudes out by about 0.5mm each side so the press has to be packed each side with a shim of plasticard to prevent the plastic centres from springing the wheels out of gauge (narrow) slightly once released from the vice. I use a small amount of loctite 601 and (touch wood) haven't had a problem with wheel slipping for years. Markits wheels do have some very good attributes (assembly, smoothness of running, reliability) but width and to some extent looks make them a more difficult option for me. Also I've had problems in the past with supply. So everyone makes their own choice according to their own tastes and requirements but how much easier it would all be if we could all buy a wheel set with the best attributes taken from all the different makers. Dream on..... :-)

Hi Steve. I felt it might be helpful to others to follow up on my early effort with a little final feedback from a rookie. The MSE LNE upper quadrant on a GN concrete post is now pretty well complete and I'm giving it 7 out of 10 for results. For learning purposes and as a bench top first experiment that figure might be a little higher. I've included a couple of photos and would include a video if I could find a way of holding the iPhone steady whilst I operate the lever frame. The signal performs exactly how I wanted it and I'm very pleased with that, but the fibre optics have been less successful. It looks as though I've made 2 rookie errors at least and it this might prevent others making the same mistakes. Firstly, I have fixed the lamp behind the signal arm just a little - perhaps 0.5mm - too far out from the post meaning that when the arm goes up, the end of the fibre optic cable is still partly behind the arm rather than being in the middle of green spectacle. Secondly when I held the iron near the end, of the fibre optic I obviously didn't linger long enough and the result was little different from the way it was before. My mistake was to then try to create the lens with a drop of super glue on the end but that only reduced the light further. So in conclusion I'm very happy with the way the signal works (thanks to following your advice and the megapoints servo control unit) but not so happy with the fibre optics. I realise that It may be possible to rectify the working lamp problems but at this stage, I feel like it is more likely to go the way of Father Ted's raffle car after he found a small scratch. The exercise was intended to be a proof of method for my signalling construction programme which will follow as soon as my scenic work is finished on the layout and on that basis it has been a huge success thanks in no small way to your detailed expositions and awe inspiring creations on here, Steve. Clem PS we may be going to York MRS. I'll PM you if we do.

Graeme, I think Bill Bedford was a little less than fully satisfied with the finish of the 3-D printed O4/5 body although, like you, I found that with a fair amount of filler coats and smoothing back , you could remove the ribbing get a pretty decent result. He then decided he would do the O4/7 and O4/8 in resin instead but as yet I believe there are insufficient pre-orders for him to commence. They are still listed as a future product on his web site though.

Hi Steve. Many thanks for coming back to me so quickly. That is really clear now and it's just helped remove that little bit of doubt you get when you are finding your way. Are you likely to be demo-ing at any upcoming exhibitions? It'd be great to meet you and have a chat. I've included a quick photo (below) of where I am with this first attempt now. In many ways I'm not expecting too much as it's a learning exercise at this stage and if it works well then it's a bonus. The MSE GN concrete post upper quadrant kits are a great starting point for someone like me getting into doing fine scale signals for the first time. I'm hoping to do another similar one to this if this works out. The second is of interest as it resides next to the goods yard with limited clearance on the yard side, and on the prototype photo, the balance arm is hinged half way along towards the weight so that it hangs vertically down parallel to the post from the angled arm. I'm assuming it is for clearance reasons but it'd be a nice anyway to include this little feature. After these first two signals, I'm hoping to progress from single post home signals to a couple of bracket signals which I need for the layout once I've built ip a little more confidence to tackle them. Best wishes and thanks again, Clem