Michael Edge

I've found two which I did wrong, both 3mm scale from last century though. I got the most recent one, a 7mm W, right at least.

It's fairly clear from side photos and the SR weight diagrams show the position of the return cranks but I went to check on the U1 GA I sent you and the steam passages are easily seen at each end of the valve chests in the plan view. I think the valve gear drive in the original Bulleid pacifics was to the middle of the valve spindle so outside admission had no drawbacks, the rebuilds retained this feature. I'm now wondering if locos of these types which I've built in the past are correct in this aspect.....

I've just seen your request on the IRS forum, I built one of the 0-6-0F locos for Herculaneum Dock using this drawing. 351 AB 0-6-0F.pdf I made a few mistakes on it, as revealed when I measured one in Glasgow transport museum but much of it was based on a Barclay weight diagram - it may be of some use to you. The biggest error was the overall width, as shown by the red line outside the buffer beam but from your photo the 0-4-0 may have been narrower. The model looks OK though

The earlier comment made me think so I went to check - the locos listed, including the U1 do indeed have outside admission valves so the backward lean is correct. Outside admission wasn’t popular with most railways since it made it more difficult to keep the valve chests steam tight where the piston rod passed through the ends.

Locos with inside admission piston valves (nearly all) have the return crank leaning forward at bottom dead centre. Outside admission piston valves (notably rebuilt Bulleid pacifics) and slide valves require the crank leaning backwards.

We use 3mm cork glued down with pva, the track is glued with No More Nails (ni Clous ni Vis en France), ballasting with dilute pva. We haven't actually got round to ballasting in the station yet, it's very difficult to get to and our layout is 5ft off the floor.

PM sent with drawing attached

It's very noticeable on a U1, there is a big gap between the valve chests and the footplate but it's a very common mistake, even more so with angled cylinders. I agree about the S15, that's a real dogs breakfast of errors.

It is at least a very nice cycle track, we rode the whole length of it earlier this year.

I did consider doing just the framework for our model, mostly from wire soldered in a jig, but it would still be too big for one person to lift off and we really need access inside. For the moment we are ignoring it - and the outside canopies our model should have.

It’s very important to get cylinders in line with axle centres (except in GW 2 cylinder locos), anything else just looks wrong.

You've got the cylinders far too high, centre line should be horizontal and in line with the axle centres.

The EM1 generated a great deal of interest at Manchester, even more encouraging was the sale of two oil fired Sentinel 0-6-0 kits - sales of this have been extremely disappointing to say the least.

Quite complicated actually, they delivered the models personally to Cyprus by air, all extremely well packed in sections (the back wall outside platform 1 is 4m long. They were then brought to the UK and taken to France by car. They have done most of the buildings for the layout now (others by Peter Leyland and Geoff Taylor), we were expecting the last delivery when the war started and we haven't heard from them (it's a husband and wife team) since July 2022.

You might find these pdfs useful. Citadel buildings T15.PDFisland platform buildings.PDFisland platform buildings.PDFmain building critical dimensions.PDFmain building full drawing.PDFoutside wall.PDF These are the outline drawings I did for the brilliant Ukrainian modelmakers who did all the buildings for our Carlisle layout. Our model is exactly to scale but we haven't found any reasonable way of doing the roof - even in its reduced form it's 7ft long.

No, they were scratchbuilt, only mentioned because it was the same customer for a lot of EMUs, mostly MTK kits.

I’ve built a six car set of MTK 306, also a 307 and a ten car set of 309, no digital photos of these though. They all went to the same customer along with a lot of SR EMUs and some London Underground sets. I think most of these have been sold on now, it would be interesting to find out where they have gone.

Not this first one, I have all the etches to cover any of the 0-8-0s but this one is a long wheelbase loco as built for Normanby Park steelworks. I’ve not done any work on it for some time, there rarely seems to be much interest in steelworks locos, they are mostly poor sellers.

Proper Job is available on draught round here in Yorkshire - at least at the Fox and Hounds Newmillerdam (near Wakefield) on Wednesday. That's a long way from Cornwall....

The same sort of gearbox is available from Slater's as well, I use these in nearly all my 7mm work.

It's been a while since I posted one of these but this is the latest test track photo. The Barry 0-8-2T and EE/HL haven't moved for some time now. Next up is the latest 7mm job, a GW 72xx from a Dave Andrews design - makes a very pleasant change from wrestling with Jidenco kits! Next along the back is one of my customer's Ebay bargains, I though this was ready to convert EM gauge but it's not quite what it seems. It's a white metal kit finished as Cambrian No.44, however it isn't - it's really GW no. 1192 which was rather different and had much smaller wheels - I don't know what to do with this. The SR Ashford 0-6-0DE is still waiting for the 3rd radiator etch and sandbox patterns, the Hornby 08 is part of the DG coupling hook experiments. Nearer the front, no progress with the 0-8-0 Sentinel and the latest EM1 is still waiting its turn in the paintshop. At the front is a B17 which is going to be 61669 "Barnsley", it's time my layouts had at least one green loco. Frames and tender are etched, the body will be a heavily modified Hornby one. The two wagons at the left are the DG coupling test wagons. We will be at the Manchester exhibition this weekend with the kit stand if anyone wants to come and talk to us about anything - or buy a kit of course!

If anyone wants to discuss our future programme we'll be at the Manchester exhibition this weekend - and you could buy a kit of course...

It's been a while since I posted one of these but here's today's test track photo. The Barry 0-8-2T and EE/HL haven't moved for some time now. Next up is the latest 7mm job, a GW 72xx from a Dave Andrews design - makes a very pleasant change from wrestling with Jidenco kits! Next along the back is one of my customer's Ebay bargains, I though this was ready to convert EM gauge but it's not quite what it seems. It's a white metal kit finished as Cambrian No.44, however it isn't - it's really GW no. 1192 which was rather different and had much smaller wheels - I don't know what to do with this. The SR Ashford 0-6-0DE is still waiting for the 3rd radiator etch and sandbox patterns, the Hornby 08 is part of the DG coupling hook experiments. Nearer the front, no progress with the 0-8-0 Sentinel and the latest EM1 is still waiting its turn in the paintshop. At the front is a B17 which is going to be 61669 "Barnsley", it's time my layouts had at least one green loco. Frames and tender are etched, the body will be a heavily modified Hornby one. The two wagons at the left are the DG coupling test wagons. We will be at the Manchester exhibition this weekend with the kit stand if anyone wants to come and talk to us about anything - or buy a kit of course!

Definitely up at the back of the loco, you can get away with the loco being lower than the tender (springs sagging) but not this way round. Looks a good job otherwise though, I know what fun Jidenco kits are!

It could be one of the intermediate shafts has slipped, they can come partly out of the frame plates and the result is a loud screaming noise and not much movement - they can also slide back in and all will be well for a while.