rowanj

Funnily enough, I've just sold my Hornby 60031 as I cut down on RTR stuff , of which, according to Mrs Rowanj, I have far too much. Little does she know. I concentrate now on kits, etc, This V2 is a Graeme King resin body on an original Bachmann chassis. As 60850 it is a New England loco, and highly unlikely to be seen at Little Benton. It was among the last to be given a General and turned out in lined-black livery, and among the first withdrawals. At some point it will be renumbered to a Heaton loco. Until the Bachmann re-issue appears, Graeme's body on a modern Bachmann chassis is the best way to get a V2, in my view,

I thought it better to leave the final adjustment to the folds on the cab too until I was ready to fit the sides, Mike, so these were "preliminary" bends ahead of the final adjustment. Time will tell if this was a good idea. In the meantime, the Alexander chassis is now complete. As discussed earlier, I fitted something to represent the inside motion, and added the corner brackets and sandpipes. The wheels are Romford 18mm - I cannot get Gibsons to run, for some reason. Incompetence? The power is Highlevel Compact+ with a cheap Chinese motor. I bought loads of these when you could get the for £1 each for a job-lot of 5. I tend to find that1 or 2 in each pack runs slowly, but the rest are adequate for slower running goods locos, especially if restricted to lightish loads and my locos don't run high mileage. They screw into most gearboxes with M2 screws, though at an angle, which can cause a tight fit in some boilers, but fit easily into a tank loco. The piece of paxolin keeps the motor at the correct angle and allows the body to slide over it when fitting the 2 together I fitted all the brakes supplied in Dave's kit. The result is a very "busy" chassis when it comes to fitting traditional wiper pick-ups. In addition, I only had insulated wheels, and baulked at the thought of trying to get wires to 6 wheels without shorting. I had some packs of etches from Scalelink, designed to fit onto Romford axles, with wipers which touch the wheel rim and cause the wheel to be "live", so I used these on one side. I just could not thread pickup wire soldered to the paxolin to give a reliable contact, as it just wouldn't spring sufficiently and shorted in the limited space underneath, So I used etch strips - a bit like the stuff Horny use and Triang used to- and , amazingly, after many curses and a good amount of time, it now works. Moreover, it goes around my curves- miracle. Next stage - complete Arthur's chassis and fit the trailing bogie. Then-famous last words- the loco bodies should be straightforward.

The door issue has been resolved- the etch where the holes are drilled bends back 45 degrees to give the illusion of depth by the doorway. this would have been best done before soldering the cab window inlay, rather than after. Otherwise, putting together the cab details at this stage is sound advice. Once these are complete, I'll fit the cab /tank/bunker sides before adding the steps, etc, to the footplate, as I suspect it will need a reasonable amount of heat. Before moving on further with Arthur's kit., I'll complete what I can to the whitemetal version, including the reversing lever, brake standard and locker. Of course, I could quit while I'm ahead, as the photos look very much like some I have of N10's at North Road Scrapyard.....

Thanks again for the helpful posts. I had heard of the tip about PVA and always use 2-part epoxy. as recommended, I have prepared the tank/cab sides, but will do as much as possible in the cab before soldering them in place. In fact , the etches are so accurate that they are held in place by friction. I am a bit unsure about the etched holes down each side of the cab entrance - shown in the photo. They don't seem to be present on the photos Arthur posted of his build (on his workshop thread), and I recall Mike having to do something on the J72 build, and the design was modified. I don't see a reference to them in the instruction, and now seems to be the time to remove or fill them. Or do they bend back through 90 degrees as a part of the cab entrance? Any advice gratefully received

Heaton's 43126 heads for Tyneside with a loaded cattle train from Morpeth. The cattle wagons are an unprototypical mish-mash and I'll do something about it one day. The loco is simply a re-numbered Bachmann, and still awaits some weathering, but at least it is now a Tyneside loco. The A8 running north is just out of works, having treatment for a de-railing leading bogie. Although better, it still isn't right, so needs another visit to Darlington- i.e the garage workshop.

Evening, Arthur. As luck would have it , the toolboxes are only perched on the shelf. Why are they there? Because they were in the kit and the instructions clearly tell you where to fit them. Another error, I suppose, so thank you for the heads up. There is no locker casting, but I will fabricate something. There is an etched sanding lever, but I cant see a brake standard, so thanks for that. I have made a start on Arthur's body ( his N10's I mean). The footplate consists of 2 etches soldered together, This has been done. His instructions suggest a trial fit of the cab/tank sides to the footplate at this stage to check the fit. The 2 sides fold over to make a very strong structure, and I'm inclined to fit them now to the footplate to add rigidity. The folded tank side provide a hollow ideally suited to be filled with lead - I use small lead balls provided for fishermen, which roll all over the floor and irritate my wife . Is permanently fitting the sides at this point a good idea?

It actually means more than that, if used properly ( not that that seems to be much of an issue these days). It means either belonging to a profession, or being paid for a work which is essentially full-time. An inference of competence is understood, but is not explicit. Surely it would be simpler just to laud the skills of the Norman Solomon's of this world, and only worry about their professionalism if seeking a service from them. Or am I just being pedantic? in the meantime, here is my thoroughly unprofessional work in progress of a Dave Alexander N10.

The chassis now has coupling rods and it runs smoothly, so Ill fit the motor and pickups and test it for shorts, etc with the body in place. The cab is now devoid of the brass bezels, So far, so good. 69109 will be this loco - I'll build Arthur's kit as a vacuum fitted version. The loco spent all its' life at Gateshead until withdrawal in 1962. It was also unusual in getting the later crest at a general in 1959. The location of the number on late crest locos needs care. 69101, which was another option, had its' number on the bunker side, while 69109's was on the tank side below the crest. Yeadon has only 5 N10's receiving a late crest.

nI'm catching up after a couple of days in very sunny Northumberland. Thanks as always to the posters. re the splashers, I think the photo probably gave a false illusion. From what I can tell, they need to be flush with the smokebox front, so that's where I have them. The distance from cab to smokebox front is 72.8 and cab to smokebox rear is 62,3, so pretty close to Arthur's figure, I have given some thought to loco numbers. One will be vacuum fitted as used at Newcastle Central. and the other steam brake fitted only. 69109 looks to an option for the latter.Both. will carry 67A boilers. There is a lip, Paul, on the casting for the front spectacle plate, which dictates the fit of the boiler against the cab front. I wonder how long 69105 remained looking like that, Mike?

I hadn't intended to go so far with the Alexander kit until prompted by the useful posts on the chassis and potential for problems. So the chassis has been finished and painted, and the basic body/footplate assembled to check what happens. The paper cab floor, scored to represent planks, has been fitted, and it looks as though all will be well. The trailing bogie works, though is causing a short somewhere, but otherwise, only pick-ups and coupling rods are needed. Dave provides an etched boiler, but only as a 67 type, as fitted to the first builds. This is an issue for modellers in the BR period, or indeed for any who carried the later 67A version, as the dome was further back and Ross pop valves were fitted without a bottom flange. So there are large holes to be filled in the boiler top, which then needs re-drilled for the castings. I wont do much more with the body until I build Arthur's version, in order to see what extra detail I can fit to Dave's kit. I will, however, finish the chassis and get it running to double check it's ability to go through pointwork, etc.

York's "Flamboyant" heads the Up train to Newcastle, the on to Leeds and London. The A1 is one of the 5 roller-bearing locos. Peter Coster's "Book of the A1 and A2's" is a great read, in which he queries why a superior A1 was "wasted" at York, with its' limited mainline express work. The loco was extensively borrowed by other depots, and there are several sightings and photos of ir north of Newcastle. Here, I assume Gateshead used it on an Edinburgh turn, and Haymarket returned it to Tyneside, and probably beyond to York or Leeds. The view is a typical one from the east side of Little Benton Farm Bridge, known better to the spotters as Scottie Bridge, for reasons lost in history. John

The only service Pullman north of Newcastle was the Queen of Scots. I must do something about my Pullmans - the consist of the train is all wrong, but at the moment it's all I have. So it heads for Edinburgh and Glasgow headed by 60052 Prince Palatine. The loco body was a GBL Flying Scotsman, the tender body originally from a tender-drive Hornby, which I narrowed and fitted the lot on modern Hornby chassis in the days when you get these things at a reasonable price. The Darlington build J77 then heads from the sidings with a Loco Coal train for Percy main. However, it didn't get very far before a crankpin came loose , so it needs to go into the shops.

Hello Mike. Thanks for the extremely useful post. Re the Alexander chassis, I have built several of his kits and was astonished that there might have been an issue with the body/chassis, given that he worked with Peter Stranger/52F on the design. One thing he does/did not always do was to modify all the body castings when he replaced the early whitemetal chassis with Peter's etched versions. I think that is the main issue here. In the event, and as usual with Dave's kits, the remedy was not too difficult, and the cutting of slots in the whitemetal cab floor, and some other adjustment to clear the rear driving wheel flanges leaves the floor and raised chassis"rear end" at the correct height. I did file the chassis slightly to get everything level, and have made a crude first attempt at the wooden floor, using paper scored to represent planks, just to check the effect. So far so good, but I'm also going to check that there is no interference with the bunker bottom. I think all will be well, but agree with Mick that the back end looks bizarre, I also took the opportunity to overlay the Alexander footplate on Arthur's chassis, and took a rough photo. As can be seen, dimensionally all looks pretty good. The front rides up due to the front brake bracket hitting the footplate, and this may make for a tricky mod, Otherwise, all else would seem tobe as you describe, and I cant see an obvious reason why it shouldn't work. I did use the packing piece to reduce the gap on the rear chassis etch on Arthur's kit, so will be moving on to the trailing bogies soon. John

it's not the wrong chassis, Mick. It looks exactly the same on the instruction sheet. I was sufficiently intrigued to play with the cab floor, and, as I thought, once slots were cut to clear the raised etches of the chassis rear, the cab floor sits perfectly flat and flush with the top of the etch. The only problem is that it actually sits a little too low and the rear wheel flanges catch. I'll cut a piece away on each side to sort this. I'm not too concerned at this stage because I use a method copied from Mike to float a piece of paper over whitemetal cab floors, scored to represent planks. I'll put a photo up at the appropriate point. I don't dispute the superiority of Arthur's kit, but have a high regard for Dave's too. I will be trying to speak to him before long, now we are home from France, and hope to see him at RailexNE in a couple of weeks. John

Hi Mike.. Though I'm some way away from doing anything with the body, I too was concerned about the rear frames. I actually considered cutting them off and refitting them, inlaid to the main frames, as per Arthur's kit. It might come to that. I'm not too concerned (yet) about the cutout for the wheel, which will be scale 15mm. Any help my track gets to allow them to go round corners is appreciated. However the cab floor is a problem, as the photo shows. The instructions suggest cutting out the floor to allow it to fit the chassis. I am more inclined to either reduce the height of the chassis rear, which may leave it too weak, or cut grooves in the cab floor and file the chassis down to nake it flush. Has anyone who built this kit done either, or something better?

This is the Dave Alexander chassis, with representation of the inside motion and corner brackets added. Dave had revised etched chassis manufactured to replace the original whitemetal castings and all are very narrow. As a consequence, I haven't fitted the ashpan sides, but may yet do so. Otherwise, only brakes are to be added. I needed to remove the leading screwed spacer to get the inside motion in place and looking half- decent, but the motion cross pieces at front and rear give added strength in that area in any event,

Thanks, Jon. I cant find anyone who produces an etch specifically for the brackets - on Arthur's kit they are, necessarily. on the full sheet for the chassis etch. I would have preferred to have the centre cut-outs but, as you say, once fitted they are not visible, unlike the brackets themselves. So scrap etch cut to shape will be the way to go. John

The basic chassis' have now been assembled and checked for squareness, etc, using Romford 18mm wheels. I'm not sure if I have got the inside motion on the ArthurK kit exactly right, but It fills the gap nicely, and reinforces the need to do something similar with the Alexander kit. Arthur provides the etches for the motion bracket for EM and P4 so I may be able to cut them back and use them in my OO version. The piece of metal at the top pf the photo is the ashpan bottom. I think Arthur recommends Gibson plungers, but I'll be using traditional pickups, so need the space between the ashpan sides to solder the wires to a piece of circuit board. Dave doesn't provide the 8 brackets. 2 at each corner, and these are very prominent. However, I cant see an easy way to produce these, so I'll need to think about it. As usual, I have soldered the spacers to the frames of the Alexander kit, and will remove the screws and fill in the holes once the brakes are fitted. I may need to move the front one back to accommodate the inside motion. At this point, I am very satisfied with the quality of both these kits. Neither have given any major issues. Obviously, Arthur's kit is much more detailed, but both build up nicely. A sterner test of my abilities will come when I try to get the trailing pony truck to go round my curves !

The last A4 I saw in service was 60002 at Chathill in, I think, 1964. It raced through the station heading north, but regrettably, I can't recall what service it was on. Here is my loco further south at Little Benton on an Edinburgh relief, which is very possibly what I saw at Chathill. I don't just run RTR coaches, so the last 2 in the rake are Bachmann with Comet overlays, with the roofs modified a la Tony Wright. One of these days I'll tackle the underframe fittings to make them more accurate. If Avocette reads this, he will recall the excitement when the distants were pulled off in both directions, usually heralding a pair of expresses. In this case, the down train is an ex- Alnwick local, hauled by the last of the D20's. They had gone by the time I started spotting, and , once again, you need to forgive the "time machine" which sees mine passing the A4, which is clearly in post 1959 condition. The leading pair on the local are Kirk kits, followed by standard, but superb, Hornby.

Hi Paul. Here is a shot of a very short but interesting pick-up freight heading south in 1966. The site is where Little Benton South cabin stood - gone by the time of the photo, along with the sidings. The 3rd rail is still in situ, however. john

Morning Mike. I'm having a break from the A2, as I cant get the gearbox to mesh properly. I'll finish renovating the body and tender, and, if I'm satisfied, I'll invest in a Canon/Wizard combination.. The wheels are underscale 24mm, but fitting brakes is still testing what little grey cells I have left. In the meantime, I have just begun to build a couple of N10's, which will fill a gap in my loco stud. One is from ArthurK and the other Dave Alexander. I have decided to build them in tandem, in order to try to use Arthur's kit as a template for additions to Dave's, which is lighter on detail. This may be of some interest , so I'll post a few photos as I go. In this photo, the differences between the kits are obvious. Dave's etch is at the bottom, whereas with Arthurs, I have already had to solder up 3 parts to make the basic chassis side. But the added bolt detail where the rear chassis joins the main part is worth doing, if largely cosmetic.

Class 17's arrived at Gateshead in 1965 and seem to have been used predominantly on pick-up and local goods turns. The loco is an ancient Silverfox resin kit, built many years ago. It runs on a pair of Tenshedo bogies, and if it has moved more than 100 yards since I built it, I would be surprised. The photo showing it passing the DJH D20 held at Little Benton South's signal requires some flexibility (of about 10 years) in the imagination, though both locos are legitimate for the location, though certainly not at the same time.

My "Barry Scrapyard/spares-box A2" has progressed a little. The chassis carcase is now complete, and the motor/gearbox assembled and tested. The latter is an old Mashima round-cam with a Branchlines 3-way box, both of which were lying around in my spares box. I need to drive on the leading axle slot in the gearbox, and had to cut away the bottom of the box, thus losing the centre and rear options, in order to clear a frame stretcher. The cylinder block is from Comet, and, so far, the £4.50 is the only money directly spent on this re-build. We don't count what the stuff in the spares box or the cocked-up DJH kit cost, do we? I don't see any way to fit brakes given the lack of space between the driving wheels-the wheelbase is too short, having been designed as a replacement for the Triang Brit/Wills A2 combination, but I'd like to find a way. This is really just a bit of fun,

When the Up distant at Little Benton South was "on", this was always a sign that nothing interesting was liable to be on the way. Sure enough, 65813 heads another rake of hoppers through the bridge, to the spotters disgust. Of course, for this location, J27's were the staple diet, and I was happy to win a NuCast kit when in France. I haven't checked the contents properly, but, in theory, it will become 65863, which was the last to lose its' superheater, but kept an extended smokebox until withdrawal in 1962. It is appropriate for the time/location, being a Heaton and Blyth loco until scrapping in 1962.

It's a hard life we lead with these modelling wives, Brian. Just grin and bear it.