Zunnan

A few more Cav HAAs have arrived at the test track, this time the Trains4U tyre marked packs 1 and 3. Compared with the previous two packs (KMS packs 1 and 2), these have proven to be markedly better straight out of the box. They still sport the thin coupler hooks, but the NEM alignment is by and large considerably better, but still a little off on the odd one. And unlike the initial 6, these didn't part company at any given opportunity, they did like to throw one of the hooks to the outside after traversing curves but not once did they fully uncouple. None of these have any issue whatsoever with the brakes contacting the wheel faces, some are close but not likely to ever pose a problem. Safe to say EM and P4 conversions will require the brakes relocating. The tyre marks on this half dozen are quite nicely done, weathering is a bit on the heavy side still but a lot more varied than the KMS 6. I'm really warming to these, they're very nicely done in the main. I only hope I can figure another dozen for the goal of a 24 hopper rake which will just about fit the clubs layout before they invariably fly off the shelves.

I've deliberated over the Symoba kinematic conversions for kit builds, I believe THESE would be the offending bits and pieces to provide NEM pockets. I've not had the chance to pick any up for myself yet though, so can't comment on actual dimensions.

Very much doable. The only reason rotation of the bogie has any input is when it is designed to. Stock like the first batch of Bachmann Portholes had the end of the bogies left entirely open, leaving the CCM completely free to move without affecting the bogie orientation...though this led to the axles being more than willing to vacate the vehicle thanks to there being little structural strength in the bogie. Hornby diesels with CCMs also have open ended bogies which don't contact the coupler mount. There are a few 4 wheel wagons on the market now with close couplers. edit: just been to have a look at other stock, quite a lot of Bachmanns more recent coaches like the Mk2F and POT stowage vans have open ended bogies which don't interact with the CCM until quite late in their travel. Of smaller stock I can lay my hands on to double check, perhaps most relevant and comparable in size with the Hattons coaches are the Bachmann Southern CCT and BR Mk1 CCT both have CCMs.

They're in stock, I had the obligatory picking list packed email come through a few hours ago.

After some playing around reliable operation has been achieved with both tension locks and Kadees, though for now the tension locks was by using replacement couplers (36-061). Hopefully the thicker and presumably heavier hooks will have the effect of eradicating the side to side swing so that swapping the couplers isn't needed. I couldn't get the thin hook couplers to behave for love nor money. Pushing the dovetails home further, on these weathered examples I have at least, turned into a non starter as the mounting started to give way before the dovetail started to move deeper; presumably from the weathering getting into the dovetail interface. I can see exactly what you mean as on a couple the dovetail isn't seated fully home but even then some are fully home and the coupler is still out of alignment both horizontally and vertically too high. In the end I kept damaging the air pipe moulding at one end (Plastic Magic works a treat) faffing with the NEM pocket so my workaround with the height for both tension locks and Kadees has been to bend a knuckle in the coupler itself rather than continue to try and correct the NEM pocket. For misaligned brakes its not too much faff. Initially I tried pushing a scalpel blade between the wheel and brake and twisting, but that only succeeded in moving the brake out a tiny bit and not enough to be permanent. The best I've found to relieve that has been to remove the axle and then just grip the knuckle on the offending brake calliper with some longnose pliers and torque the caliper open a touch more. On 6 wagons I have had 2 callipers to deal with, but to be honest on wagons without weathering on the wheel face giving a great abrasive surface to grip I think you wouldn't notice the drag in the first place. The 6 Cav HAAs I have currently have been faultless since with 21 Accura HAAs behind them left running for a few hours at a scale 50mph...through a route including the tight inside curve of Peco setrack curved turnouts on my little running in oval. Which is pretty evil, lets be honest and there are a few models out there which refuse to traverse this. I'd have hung more off the back end but my test oval isn't big enough. I'd say issues solved, I'm certainly happy with them now. For those interested in Kadees, #18 to #18 is viable if you're on more generous curvature and they will tolerate 3rd radius like this with some buffer compression. I've elected for #18 to #19 which leaves a tiny gap as shown above, and when propelled into the curve above results in minimal buffer contact, even through the curved setrack crossover. Bring on the tyre marked packs, looking forward to a few of those arriving in the next day or so.

It should be! I think I'm anticipating the teased /1 more than the /3, truth be told. I can't wait for these to arrive!

I've been able to pick up a few packs of these from KMS at Stafford today. The weathering is rather heavy, but I'm on the side of the fence that quite likes them like this. There is one or two places where the weathering hasn't gone on evenly such as the hopper ends and into the lower cradle crevices, but I'll be giving these a bit of a waft over with some brake dust so can touch in the odd patch here and there while I'm at it. By and large very nice they are too. But...there are one or two areas I've noted which have somewhat of an issue with assembly; mostly relating to the couplers and their dovetail mounts but also extends to the brake pads and frame around the axles. Look a bit closer at the pic above... On roughly half of the wagons I picked up today either the dovetail mount, the brake assembly or both are fixed in place and out of alignment. The dovetail mounts on the hoppers I have show considerable sideways and vertical variances, to the point where it is very difficult to keep a short rake coupled among themselves on my 3rd radius curves. After a bit of bending and twisting, the material used in the NEM dovetail isn't too fond of being tweaked into alignment as so far they have been returning to near original position after a bit of running. This is the view down on the same wagon to wagon of the right hand side in the top pic, so that coupler tweaked off to the side is also pointing up by more than 1mm. Its the same story with the hopper to the left hand side in the first pic too. The very thin profile metal hook doesn't help unfortunately as it has a tendancy to diverge off to the side, which coupled with the misaligned loops means auto uncoupling is rather regular. As I'm not really a tension lock user that isn't too much of an issue for me, but the misalignment of the dovetails goes as far as to cause Kadees to misbehave as well albeit nowhere near as frequently. These brakes work! At first I thought the rolling resistance was the axle retaining frame rubbing on the axle as that too is misaligned a bit and very close to rubbing, but after moving that and the resistance still being present I then noticed the brake shoes. Without the assembly issues they would be pretty much on par with the Accurascale HAAs (I do prefer the brass bearings and free running that gives mind you), and if its the later reinforced bodies but without the higher speed braking equipment you're after then its these over the Accura HDA release for me. They absolutely trounce the Hornby HAA, so I'll be keeping these, warts n' all. They do seem to need a bit of TLC to get them running right though.

I paid a quick visit to Topps Trains in Stafford yesterday, and while I picked up a couple myself, there may still be one or two more 39-677 IC Exec TSO of the non-DCC variety at £50.50, I don't think there was any 677DC though. He found a few bits and pieces recently, no online shop though so its a ring and see or drop in to the shop.

Mine is pretty much the same as others seen on youtube etc. With the screws released the wires at the nose ends hold the body perilously close to the chassis, and I'm talking millimetres with a bit of finagling required to get the body to clear. Compared to the 20, 24 and 47 the 37 is a royal faff which the more ham fisted among us are pretty much guaranteed to do damage to either by twisting or pulling on the plugs too hard attempting to disconnect or by pulling the body too far. Its best done by unplugging those nose end wires, but care is most certainly needed.

Or the 4mm Slaters 6w Clayton kits which are now back on the market, the brake third of which is sans ducket. 😉 The price is a bit exclusive mind you for one which has no wheels or couplings.

Absolutely, I've had stock sold through my clubs shop returned before for damage clearly caused by the buyer; as well as less scrupulous activities on the purchasers part. One particular incident that stuck in my craw was an Ivatt 4MT which I'd never had out of the box from brand new being returned as faulty with the valve gear bent up and the return crank broken clearly from an attempt at moving it from reverse gear on one side. I've also had models returned with parts removed or switched, such as a BR Blue class 45 sent back to me with a red buffer beam at one end after it had very obviously had the bogie swapped out by the purchaser. The less said about the sound fitted class 25 sold which when returned had a Hornby 25 in the box the better... I whole heartedly agree, following the manufacturers provided instructions to install a chip is one thing. Chasing after a fault that could and should be done under warranty is completely different.

That example in particular will most likely be down to the close coupling cam on the Gaugemaster track cleaning wagon. Mine behaves exactly the same no matter what is hauling it, whether the loco has bogie mounted couplers or kinematics. Given the drag these wagons have, I think AYs breeze block was a lighter load…a Bachmann class 20 or 24 can barely shift these monsters.

I do know of the term. A kip is basically the change in gradient at the top of an incline with a slight grade down the rope side so that wagons can roll off and away from the main incline. Places like Bowes have quite pronounced Kips, and there is a nice description on the Tanfield Railway Blog. As far as I am aware, Clee Hill did not use a kip, though the gradient profile of the railway at the top may have allowed wagons to roll away from the incline rather than towards it.

Work has been getting in the way quite spectacularly since I took on a new role, lots of working on lodge so unfortunately the layout has taken a bit of a back seat in favour of making up for lost time with the family or quick and easy hack and slash conversions of old stock. Even my club chairman has got to the stage of threatening to book Hill Top at the clubs exhibition, he's even threatening to look into organising an industrial layouts exhibition just so he can book it twice! Just to get my backside into gear! I think he's addicted to the sound fit I did in the Sentinel to be honest... 😅 I'll have a scan through what images I still retain, a lot were taken on a phone I no longer possess, so some photos may be a bit more difficult to reinstate. On the layout front I think the next thing to tackle before I start in anger on scenery is to get the fiddle yards sorted, the switch to DCC has proven pretty much bomb proof.

What, like the Heljan 128? 😅 I hadn't got around to the ploughs until watching this as I only picked mine up this afternoon, good grief they're a poor show! I have to agree with the assessment of the speakers in this one too. Even turned down they don't seem quite all there, so a bit of tinkering to get the best out of it methinks. I am used to swapping out the factory fits for something else in older models and even more recently like twin 20x20s in the new class 20, but didn't feel the need to do anything with the 47s and was hoping the 37 would be the same. A 27mm round bass enhanced if it'll fit is my initial thought, perhaps replacing the top cube with a 26x14 depending on the config of the factory fit and whether the ohms add up. I'm looking forward to see what Crofty comes up with to be honest. The only other tweak I can find is the usual overbright marker and tail lighting, but that is easily sorted. Very nice model indeed, I'm looking forward to what else they have hidden up their sleeves! *cough*Dutch*cough*...but I'm not cancelling any other pre-orders

I think we could all smell some antics going on for sure; and not just over Titgate! I'm not sure their dealer network, a good number of dumped customers who are gleefully told 'you can order it direct from us instead' or other IP holders who license to Hornby are very appreciative right now given the contempt for copyright the big H has very publically shown. Not to mention the repeated market flooding of competing models with high quantities of their own brand ex-lima specials to spoil the waters. Or is that all just 'semantics' to them as well?

These really are starting to look the mutts, really looking forward to them arriving. The one niggle I have is the bow still being apparent in the bogies at this stage, though I assume this is part of what is referred to by rough assembly.

I can think of a question which is far more incendiary for keeping the marital bliss going... Any updates on the DCC sound options? 😇

Shaving the interior to fit the narrowing of the body at the doors is a nice simple task of removal by rough file. So, while the primer has been hardening I've blitzed out the chassis and interior modifications. The doors will be constructed using 1mm plasticard and spaced inwards on a 1mm thick styrene frame around the inside of the body. To be safe, 2.5mm either side of the interior has been removed as well as opening out the compartment so that when assembled you can see through the tool van section without obstruction. At the same time, the locating holes in the chassis were filled with slightly oversized styrene flooded with plastic magic and crammed in. The resultant goop was scraped out and filled over. All of the chassis battery box detail was also removed using a soldering iron (!!!) to separate around the truss rods. The resulting mess was tidied up with a file or two and a nail buffer to ease the sratches. After building the previous coach, I learned the difficult way to not use red primer on the interior. Photos of the real thing show the interior to be off white, so when I primed the first coach with red for the woodwork and then overpainted with off white it took several layers to get the white right. This time around the interior is going white primer from the start and the compartment doors will go brown over this. Next up the tool van doors were carved from 1mm plasticard. To make them as mirror images of one another all of the carving was done on one sheet before each side was separated. The droplight was carved into the window opening with a fresh scalpel blade. Once assembled on a 1mm thick styrene frame glued into the body, its ready for the doors to to be painted. The lower step to floor level was masked on to the chassis moulding, when clipped together the doors are intended to sit flush on top of the chassis. It worked first time around, hopefully this ones been measured properly too!!! With the bulk of the bodywork completed, its time to begin the paintwork next.

This time around I've gone for slightly thinner material, 0.25mm by 6.2mm styrene strip with a 1.5mm filler between in order to get the width out to cover the windows fully. I tend to prefer this route as when I previously used one single sheet cut down to size the edges weren't quite dead straight when cut with a steel rule and scalpel, and when feeding glue (I'm using Plastic Magic for these builds) in it didn't quite penetrate fully leaving some air bubbles which showed when painting. Going the Evergreen strip route gives nice straight edges and makes it easier to get an even spread of glue beneath the strip as the window fill draws it in very nicely. Once dry the whole side was sanded over with a car body sanding block with a fine grit in order to even out the joins in the cladding. It doesn't need to be perfect, in fact a few dents and dings are going to be ideal for portraying this vehicle in the late '70s after 20+ years of abuse. Once the cladding was done, some thin strip was added to replace the beading sanded off at the coach end, as well as for the new side doors. With the cladding done its time for the first primer coat to show up areas in need of further attention, including filling the remains of the removed compartment doors. Removed beading showed through, as did the joins in the cladding so another gentle sand over with fine grit was called for. I deliberately left the filler slightly shallow so that the ghost of the compartment doors would show, a few choice dinks were left to show in the cladding as well. A nice sunny day and its time to get the final primer coat laid down. Tool doors to do and the body is complete, so its time to make some alterations to the interior and chassis while the primer hardens enough for some more rough handling to get the doors in, the inside of the coach body has a few moulding pips which need removing for the recessed coach doors to mount to. The interior needs material removing so that the narrower body can clear and the chassis needs locating holes filling where the body locating tabs used to go. I'll also look at removing the moulded battery box as photos of this coach in its latter days show a very sparse chassis devoid of everything but trusses and brake cylinders.

I think Mick Dundee was more along the right lines. Thats not a £25 wagon....THIS is a £25 wagon. I think I can honestly say these have been the best wagons I've set eyes on, previously it was high end US freight cars from the likes of Tangent and Scaletrains that I felt were representing the best you could buy. My only regret is buying 4 packs, a 12 HAA raft just isn't enough! There is always the next batch though.

A few hours over a couple of evenings with a fresh scalpel blade and a coarse nail buffing file saw the majority of the surface detail done away with. Gone is the entirety of first class, along with one and a half third class compartments, some beading around the toilet window and also the ventilator. Some of the lower beading on the compartment side may yet succumb to removal if I'm to go completely faithful to ADM395470. Marking for the cuts is a relatively simple task in comparison to the epic shave this coach has undergone. Just keep it square and around 5 feet wide and all is golden! Does the warranty cover accidental damage?! Now that the sides have been opened out, its time to begin filling those unwanted holes. The compartment windows and droplights are both 4.8mm wide, so a length of 1mm by 4.8mm Evergreen styrene strip was cut into 10mm and 9mm lengths. A dab of Plastic Magic and a metal flat edge to keep the infill as flush as possible and it doesn't take long to plug the gaps. The compartment side has a section converted to a kitchen area, which necessitates half of the third compartment plus the door window for the fourth compartment be retained. Over on the corridor side, the larger windows require a bit more styrene! Door droplights are again 4.8mm by 9mm by 1mm thick, but the main windows this time are plugged using 6.2mm and 4.8mm cut to 10mm, with the added fun of less than half a window remaining where the tool doors have been opened out. A new toilet window was also created on the corridor side by partially blanking the large window opposite the original toilet location. The gangways have also at this point been blanked off with suitably shaped 1mm thick plasticard. Next up is ironcladding over the window blanks. On the previous coach I used 0.4mm styrene strip for both cladding the windows and also the gangways blanking plate, which worked quite well. Those end steps also need removing from both ends, and an extra water filler pipe adding to the remaining toilet end. Those wonky buffers are really going to have to be dealt with too!

With tongue firmly in cheek... I like these CKD coaches, bogies first! I take it the next instalment for the coaches will be coming next quarter in the form of a chsssis...or will we be taking the Hachette approach and get the roofs?

Having a rummage around the local exhibition last week, I happened upon a cheap and cheerful little project...I didn't intend for what is going to happen to it, as I have done one already! Lets just say it turned out to be more of a fixer upper than I anticipated. £10 for a Bachmann CK, bargain! But wait... Lining touched up with gold paint, which I was expecting. I was going to just re-line, or perhaps have a stab at full panelled LMS livery. But then the missing corridor glazing presented itself and that little devil got the better of me. 'Do you really want to order flush glazing and then want to do the glazing on other half a dozen Bachmann P1 coaches you have?' 'You know that BTU you bashed together to go with the crane? It needs a partner! Two is better than one...' As luck would have it, I still have half of the corridor glazing from that little project. Game on! I kind of wished that I'd done a build project on that first one, so here we go again! Within 30 minutes of debating the pros and cons of repeating myself, into the IPA it went and within a couple of hours the lining and numbering were coming off. Point of no return, rapidly approaching! Two days later... A bit of an attack with the toothbrush and not very much time needed, the paint was literally oozing off. IPA baths are very effective with Bachmann paint of all ages. Two to three days and its down to bare plastic with very little effort. Spaghetti jars...who knew they had multiple uses? (Don't tell the missus!!!) All spotless and ready for the real work to begin! Next up, and on the to-do list is all of the beading removal, window filling and ironcladding of the upper bodyside. Oh...and cutting two whacking great holes through it! This one is going to be another conversion of a D1694 LMS CK. According to the LMSCA, five such coaches were withdrawn in 1958 then converted and released to traffic in 1959. The one I've done already being ADM395478 which went to Westhouses. This one will become ADM395470 which remained in service until 1981, but unlike the rest survives in preservation as the Bahamas Society Learning Coach. As the title implies, I've been down this rabbit warren before; so in good old fashioned Blue Peter tradition... Heres one I made earlier!

Yes please! 1:6 geometry would be most welcomed following on from the 1:7 currently available. I agree, park it for future development.