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James Harrison

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Blog Entries posted by James Harrison

  1. James Harrison
    It is starting to feel like I'm on the home straight with this model now.
     

     

     
    The loco itself is being lined out, I only have to add the red lining around the cab edge to finish it off. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that full GCR livery is, at the moment, beyond my skill level and beyond what I can reasonably achieve, so I've simplified it a little. Unless you get right up close to the model, you can't tell. Besides, I work to the 2' rule.
     
    The loco now needs the last bits of lining applied, cab handrails, reversing lever, nameplates and numberplates.
     
    The tender is a bit more involved, as the original plastic chassis it was fitted with broke apart.... I would have needed to do something with it anyway as it sat too low on the track, and I had a spare Jaycraft resin Director tender to hand which when paired with a Triang 2P tender chassis sites at the right height. So I now have a K's whitemetal tender in my spares box, and a Jaycraft tender running behind the loco. The 2P tender chassis has to be extended a little at the rear, which is why there are no buffer or drawbar fittings yet. I've also got to line out and add handrails to the tender- more work required here!
  2. James Harrison
    And.... it's finished! No.1 of 4, anyway.
     
    The roof: I used the roof formers that had been drawn, fitted to a sub-base. I laid thin strips of balsa wood over them, then the final covering is paper.
    The underframes: Battery boxes and bufferbeams had been drawn up and cut. I used some BR Mk.1 buffers, which look right. Underframe trusses I made up very simply from some 10 thou plastic sheet. Couplings are my usual Kadee type.
     
    Right, next project I think.
  3. James Harrison
    After two coats of Humbrol matt orange to begin the teaking process, I fitted the bogies. I'm using Hornby Gresley bogies for these, with the detail removed.
     

     
    Then returning to the teaking process, a drybrushed coat of Humbrol satin mid-brown finishes the job.
     

     
    At this point I tested the model on some track and found that each bogie needed a 5 gram weight fitting inside, and the body needed two 10 gram weights fitting inside the saloon just in board of the bogie pivots. This meant that the as-drawn interior couldn't be fitted.
     

     
    So I built the seating out of balsa wood instead.
     

     
    After a bit of experimenting I settled on this arrangement as being suitably robust, detailed enough to pass muster for me, and fitting over the weights in the body.
  4. James Harrison
    After a lot of swearing, frustration, wasted plastic and quite some time spent just idly staring off into space whilst the silhouette cutter does its thing, I think I'm getting somewhere.
     

     
    This is just the basic body shell. It's not quite ready yet- there are some small gaps to fill- but now that the drawings are back to scale I'm hoping the second one will take a lot less time to get to this stage. No, I'm not building them in tandem!- the idea is to build the first one and then the second afterward. If I foul up the build then I've only lost one set of parts....
     
    There is a sheet of seating I've cut out to go inside but it seems very flimsy as it's only cut from 10thou plastic sheet. I'm thinking maybe something built up from balsa wood would be stronger, not to mention it would add a bit of weight.
  5. James Harrison
    Well. I wasn't anticipating a break away from locos and rolling stock for quite that long.
     
    Since I finished the Pollitt saddle tank back in January, I've built a 1/600 RMS Mauretania, an entry for the Cakebox Challenge and most recently been working on a "Your Model Railway Village" station building, trying to convert it into some goods offices but more crucially turn it into a structure that could actually have been built.
     
    This last is an on-going project and I've frankly had to put it down and turn my attentions to something else because spending two or three weeks just on the windows and doors almost drove me out of my skull. I could feel the project stalling.... so put it down, do something else and pick it up again in a while.
     
    One of the projects I've been itching to do for some time is some proper GCR rolling stock. I've got a few Jidenco etched brass kits for Barnum Saloons which I've had for a few years, but the lack of availability of matching brake thirds rather put me off looking at them. I have a thing about models looking 'of a hand'- that is to say everything modelled to an identical standard- and I felt that matching up etched brass carriages with scratchbuilt plastic ones would not be following that maxim.
     
    Added to that, a few years ago JCL of this parish built a Barnum saloon using a silhouette cutter and very kindly made his drawing files available for download- see his Wainsfleet thread. Now, I have a silhouette cutter and to be honest these last few years I haven't really made as much use of it as I would like. Something to do with my spending all day drawing as my job, and then not wanting to come home to do a bit of modelling and- yes!- doing more drawing. So as a gentle breaking-in I thought I would build a couple of Barnum saloons from the existing drawings.
     
    Currently I have cut and assembled the carriage sides. I have cut one bogie (I didn't realise that only one bogie was drawn on the file!) and so I'm now cutting out a second bogie. Then there are the carriage ends, the floor and the seating to cut.
     
    This is a project I'm rather looking forward to. My intentions are to build a pair of the saloons and then have a go at building a pair of the brakes.
  7. James Harrison
    And we're about ready for some paint....
     
    There have been a couple of interesting challenges with this one. Firstly the safety valves, which barely protrude above the saddletank. The way I solved this was to take the original safety valves and cut them right down, then I used some plastic sheet to form the bar above. Secondly the saddletank filler cap. I started this by using a holepunch to produce several 5mm diameter plastic circles. These I then glued together to give me a solid plastic cylinder, 5mm across by about 5mm high. This I then banded up with some cartridge paper. Putting that aside for a while, I took a 5mm drillbit to the saddle tank to give me a 5mm hole, which then needed filing out to about 6mm for a comfortable push fit.
     
    Handrails are simply lengths of 0.64mm diameter plastic rod, as are the coal rails. There are a few extra bits and pieces still to fabricate and fit, but those can wait until after painting.
  8. James Harrison
    Well, for the last fortnight I've been working on rather a nice WWI biplane but now that that is finished there is no reason why the little shunting loco can't make a reappearance on the bench.
     
    So; The prototype.
     

     
    The starting point.
     

     
    And now, to continue....
     
    Last time I discussed this model I had gotten as far as cutting it up into several pieces with a view to lowering the body. So, to continue that idea, I took some measurements from my drawing (since starting this model I've taken delievery of a model railway magazine dated December 1968 with scale drawings of this engine) and I used a pair compasses to scribe lines onto the loco body to demarcate where I should place my cuts. The saddle tank needs to lose the bottom 6mm or so; the cab and bunker need to lose about 4mm from their bottom. The relationship between cab roof and top of the saddle tank is just about right so the datum point of the model is taken as being about the joint between saddle tank and cab, and the tops of the saddle tank and the cab roof.
     

     
    After some fairly major surgery to the cabsheets and the saddle tank. To be able to lower the bodywork I need to turn thebody around on the chassis.... or turn the chassis around under the body.... in any case the motor no longer sits in the smokebox but rather protrudes into the cab. The knock-on effect of this is that in the rear of the bunker two slits now needed to be filed to accommodate a pair of cast-metal 'hooks' in the chassis that hold the body in place.
     

     
    The saddle tank and cab then had a lot of wrong or unneccessary detail sanded off. Rain strips on the cab roof, the dome, the safety valves, rivets on the saddle tank.... all removed. Then a new whitemetal dome was fitted. This was I think a spare from a kit. Then it was refitted to the running plate and the whole body offered up to the chassis to check firstly it all fits and secondly it all looks good. Well, I think it looks a lot better!
     
    The smokebox at this point purely a push-fit so I then took that off again, sawed off the chimney, and went into my sparesbox again, returning with a brass casting for a GCR-pattern tapered chimney. This was then glued into the smokebox, which was then reinstated.
     

     
    Yes, there we go.
  9. James Harrison
    Onwards, now, to a new project, and I've chosen to model a Class 18 converted.
     

     
    Photograph from the RCTS LNER locos books.
     
    These are quite interesting engines which started life as 0-6-0 tender locos in the 1880s and were converted to tank engines in the early 1900s.
     
    My starting point for this project is a Triang 0-6-0 dock shunter, which looks vaguely similar but the similarities stop there.
     

     
    I started then by cutting the bodywork up into separate components. The saddle tank, cab and bunker form one, the smokebox a second and the running plate a third. There was a fourth part- the skirt running around the loco below the saddle tank. I decided that as the bodywork needs to be lowered it would make sense to tank material out of that skirt, and as I'm not confident I could take a neat 3mm slot out of it I decided to remove it entirely and replace with new material.
     

     

     

  10. James Harrison
    Ending 2017 and beginning 2018 as I mean to go on, clearing some more of my longer-waiting projects, I've started on the last of the four cardboard ex-Metropolitan Ashbury carriage kitsI started last Summer.
     

     
    Carriage underframes; having started with the simple open box structure from the kit (a floor and four sides to fold up), I added a sheet of 0.5mm plastic sheet on top to brace the floor and provide the carriage footboards. I've also added the couplings (knuckle couplings from the Kadee range, same as now most of my coaching stock) and the buffers (I think these are from the Dart Castings stable- I could be wrong!- but they are intended for British Railways Mk.1 carriages, but don't look out of place for that).
     

     
    Now from below; firstly you can see the original cardboard element of the floor and solebars. Left to its own devices that's not really a very strong structure, so you can see I braced it up with some 2mm square plastic strip running the full length of the carriage down both sides. At the ends, where the buffers and couplings are fitted, I put two of these in (making a 4mm by 2mm block) and then cut the middle out of that to allow a gap for the coupling. I also drilled 2.4mm holes through the blocks to provide a form footing for the buffers. The bogies are plastic kits by Parkside Dundas intended for one of their long bogie wagon kits; the reason I have used these particular bogies is that the original carriages had very short wheelbases on the bogies (of the order of 5'), which are pretty much impossible to source either as ready-to-run items or as kits. It is a case of using wagon bogies (which are shorter than carriage bogies), or using carriage bogies with a wheelbase of 8' or so. Which on a carriage of about 40' length looks pretty ridiculous. Finally, in the middle of the carriage, are two iron weights of 10 grams each. These are some of those self-adhesive balancing weights you can buy for balancing car or motorbike wheels.
     

     
    Coming up to the bodywork now, you can see how I've used two kits to create the panelling. I've also used 10mm lengths of 0.5mm square plastic strip to create the louvred vents. The sides and the roof are drawn as one piece and to create a nice even curve I scored the roof at approximately 2mm centresto induce a curve. I also know from previous experience that the roof is a little too wide, so I cut a 2mm strip out of it down the centre of the carriage.
     

     
    The carriage ends are separate components and fit inside the carriage sides.
     

     
    For the interior of the carriage, I am using spare ends from the main kit and otherwise useless parts from the second kit (bought for the panelling) to create the bulkheads between the compartments. These will be then be painted, and some seats built out of plastic sheet.
  11. James Harrison
    I said last year that 2017 would concentrate more on trying to clear my to-do list than taking on new projects.
     
    To a degree I have succeeded in that; at the same time I seem to have failed woefully.
     
    I did very well at paring down my stock of unbuilt wagons, but unfortunately as quickly as I was building them I was buying more. To my recollection my unbuilt wagons collection now runs to five or six cattle wagons, a GCR open wagon, a GCR double bolster, a pair of LNWR opens, a Midland covered van, a GCR horsebox and a GCR bogie parcels van. There are also donor vehicles intended ultimately to be the basis of a GCR 4-wheel brake and a GCR bogie fish van.
     
    I've had more success when it comes to carriages; although I did buy a rake of five 4-wheelers, at the same time I have managed to reduce the unbuilt carriages backlog to one ex-Metropolitan Ashbury carriage, a pair of Barnums and some clerestories.
     
    When it comes to locomotives I don't think there has been any real progress. Granted, I did complete a pair of Pollitt 4-4-0s, an LDECR 0-6-4 and a Pollitt 0-6-0, but that still leaves a huge amount of work to do- and this year I've bought another three projects (donor locos for a Robinson dock tank and LDECR 0-6-0 and a K's ROD which was going for a song).
     
    Now what does this all mean for my 2018 Programme?
     
    Put simply, another moratorium on taking on new projects and another year trying to get through the to-do pile.
     
    First priority will be to build the last of the Ashbury carriages. Slow, awkward and painful as it may be, once that carriage is done it represents not only another project finished but also another completed rake of carriages. That boost to my enthusiasm should be enough to see me through to doing one or two of the cattle wagons. I've tried batch-building this year and I've worked out that it probably isn't for me. So rather than do all of the cattle wagons at once I'll probably spread them out through the year and do one or two at a time.
     
    I'm going to try and do more of the locomotives this year, quite probably the easier/ quicker jobs will be the ones to be looked at (this means the repaint jobs and those which only require tweaks to be made good). Don't expect to see any herculean efforts of hack-bashing!
  12. James Harrison
    Nearly finished. I'm now thinking about how to weather it, specifically how to realistically model the limewash.
     
    I went back to my test piece.
     

     
    I tried tipex; it doesn't look right. There's something decidedly off and unsavoury about the appearance.
     

     
    On the other side, I tried matt white paint. I did think this might be a bit too thick and on the nose, but actually it looks about right....
  13. James Harrison
    Well, I finished the body panels after using a lot of plastic strip (half a packet's worth!- I'll need to order some more of that if I'm doing six or seven of these), and then I was in a position to build the bodywork, or some of it.
     
    I remember the first of these wagons which I built many years ago I had issues with making sure everything was square, so this time I made sure of it.
     

     
    I was then able to look at the doors. I re-used part of the lower door from the kit; the upper doors I built completely from scratch.
     

     

     
    Next step is the first stage paint shop. Those doors look very thin and fragile!- once the roof is on of course you won't see that and it won't look so odd. it is all square, which was my main concern. Now I'm fettling with the roof to get a good fit.
  15. James Harrison
    For the last few months I have been looking for a specialised freight train to model. I have, in the past, built a bogie fish van or two and had another gifted to me, so you might be thinking a fish train would answer the bill, but my understanding is that fish trains usually ran to 30 or more vehicles, just a little too long for my tastes and storage.
     
    It was whilst discussing some alterations to an N gauge cattle wagon with a friend that I first found this image, courtesy Steve Banks' website.
     

     
    A bit more manageable, I think. The loco- yes, you can get those quite easily. The brakevan?- built one of those previously and got the drawings for an improved version. It's the cattle wagons that need a bit of thinking about.
     
    So, having a look at what is available (and more importantly available on my budget of maximum £20 per wagon). The Bachmann ex-LMS cattle wagon- the framing is wrong. The Oxford LNER wagon- well there's the obvious issue of the sides being identical rather than handed, then the framing being of approximately the right pattern but the wrong material (angle iron rather than timber).
     
    It did give me an idea though- the Dapol (ex-Airfix) kits. Well, I had one of those to hand (one I built many years ago) and offering it up to the drawing in Tatlow's LNER wagons book suggested that the overall dimensions were about right. Worth a shot?
     

     
    Well, this is what we're aiming at.
     

     
    And the starting point. First impressions? Overall dimensions are suitable, framing is about the right pattern but the wrong material, the doors are wrong and there are probably a multitude of little details that are wrong but would pass my 3' viewing distance yardstick. Better put in an order for a lot of plastic strip and sheet....
     

     
    To see some progress at an early stage the first thing I did was to build the chassis. This is a remarkably robust set of mouldings and went together quite well, once the flash had been removed.
     

     
    Each panel of the body is an individual piece. Making for an easier job of the conversion- especially when it's all still on the sprues!
     

     
    First job is to cut away the excess strapping to the bottom of the body panels. We don't need it for these wagons. Then the angle iron strapping has notches cut into it at the joints.
     

     
    Why would we cut those notches in? Because we're turning the angle iron into timber- a strip of 0.5mm square section plastic down each side of it to bulk it out. Don't forget to add the extra vertical to the top of the body panels. Then some plastic sheet into the corner.
     
    Well, I managed to butcher two panels- leaving another pair to look at, and the ends, and the other five kits, but then the pink elephants told me to stop for the evening. I don't know where they went last night after I packed up but they weren't at the table this morning.
  16. James Harrison
    As I said last time, my current modelling activities are generally of a variety that don't, taken individually, merit blog posts. Taken as a group though I think they do.
     
    Last time I said I had finished a cardboard kit for an ex-Metropolitan carriage and was working on a pair of Parkside LNER fish vans.
     
    Those vans are now finished and I have 'converted' them into GCR-ish vans of the unfitted variety. The conversion was very slight in nature- it amounted to omitting the vacuum cylinders and smoothing down the raised 'FISH' lettering on the doors.
     

     
    Well, I think they look rather neat and tidy and I will be looking to buy up a few more, as and when I see them going for a song, to build up a rake. I already have five of the Bachmann type converted to GCR-ish examples as a fitted rake and it would be nice to have a similar rake of unfitted stock.
     
    Moving on, I recently bought a rake of five Ratio GWR carriages repainted into GCR colours.
     

     
    The level of finish is absolutely beautiful so I am limiting my meddling to the bare essentials. They don't have interiors but I am loathe to start breaking them apart to fit one; it just seems to be begging for something to go badly wrong.
     
    My alterations then run solely to fitting Kadee couplings and doing something to get them roling freely. Either they weren't built with bearings, or the bearings have seized. I'm not about to go pulling the axles out of them to investigate- I shall be using a cocktail stick and some candlewax to coax them into running sweetly.
     
    In addition to the three shown in the photograph are an additional composite and a brake third, which both require new chassis (which came as part of the sale). So these will be the next thing on my to-do list, after which I am planning to build some GCR cattle wagons by hackbashing the Dapol kit- and I'll be doing a blow-by-blow account of that having proved the concept to my satisfaction on a decript old Dapol cattle wagon I built years ago.
  17. James Harrison
    Over the last few years I have accrued a short rake of the Bachmann LNER covered vans.... three of the fish type and two ventilated. When I received Peter Tatlow's GN/ GC/ GE wagons book as a gift last Christmas, it occured to me how much the LNER design takes after the GCR pattern, what with the vertical side panelling and the slide doors. Granted, with the ventilated vans the end panelling is wrong, and there are differences in detail, but it got me wondering whether the Bachmann model would be a suitable starting point for an easy conversion project.
     
    Of course, the result is not going to be 100% right- but given my broad strokes approach, whatever differences are likely to be small and of an order that I can live with.
     
    Well, so far I have dismantled three of them and replaced the tension locks with 3 link couplings. I'm not intending to perform any major surgery on these wagons. Even with that small change and a repaint I think they pass muster as layout stock.
     

     
    It occurs to me that with these two models I could get potentially eight variations of covered van. The two bodies are subtly different in end panelling and door detail, but then also there are two different underframes- one is timber (?) and the other metal channel. So putting body type 1 on chassis type 2 and vice-versa would make four different types of van. And then removing the vacuum brake equipment on some as well....
     
    As an aside, does anybody know the thinking behind the brakes on freight stock? It seems rather haphazard and random as to whether a covered van was vacuum braked, vacuum piped or handbrake only.
  18. James Harrison
    Difficult post to make, this.
     
    Turns out Photobucket have put a lock down on 3rd party hosting- and until rather recently all of my photos were hosted on Photobucket. Basically, if you have a free Photobucket account, you can't link back to any photos you put on it. You can continue to use Photobucket for 3rd party hosting.... for an eyewatering $399 a year fee.
     
    This absolutely flies in the face of everything I happen to think fair, just or right.
     
    Therefore, I have taken the decision that all of my images on Photobucket will be deleted forthwith. If I can't share them with friends, I'm going to deny them to Photobucket entirely....
     
    So, regrettably, there are going to be few or no photos to any of my posts except for those from the last few months.
  19. James Harrison
    Hmmm, trying to turn out a rake of carriages as a batch build really isn't turning out too well. Great, for the early part of the build- I got the basics of three new carriages done in one night!- but now that I'm coming to do more of the detailed and intricate work, well, it means that there's three times as much of it to do. Given that a lot of it now is repetitive and tedious (I defy anyone to build enough seating for three carriages in one go without going round the bend in the process), I've cut my losses.
     
    I had got all three carriages into teak. Two of them, I have also repainted the corridor connections, the solebars and the underframe trusses. At this point I took the furthest advanced of the models and have been concentrating my efforts just on that one, to see some worthwhile progress and keep my enthusiasm/ momentum up. Otherwise the build would stall and I'd have three more subjects for my Shelf of Shame.
     

     
    So; the basic body with a new floor fitted and painted. The inside of the body also needs to be painted.
     

     
    For the interior, I'm making use of some coach sides I bought a few years ago. These have since sat in my spares box taking up room and lying idle (it is difficult to build a rake of LNER carriages from five compartment sides and four identical guards van sides. You're lacking five corridor sides, four handed guards van sides, thefloors, the roofs, the bogies......) So I cut them up, glued them back together in a different order and hey presto!- an internal compartment side).
     

     
    Of course, you still need compartment walls- out of 0.5mm plastic sheet- and something to hold the construction rigid. As I'd already built a floor, I built a false ceiling.
     

     
    It's appallingly crude but it does look the part when the interior is fitted inside the carriage. Loose fitted, I should say. There's still something missing....
     

     
    .... the seats! Now painted up and drying. Once dry they'll be fitted into the compartments. Then just a matter of glazing the carriage, fitting the interior and building a new roof.
  20. James Harrison
    Picking up the three ex-Triang Caley coaches again; last time I had cut down the bodies to achieve lookalike versions of GCR 1905 mainline carriages.
     
    I then started to look at the carriage ends; I would have to sand down all of the detail and then rebuild. The ends of the GCR carriages being panelled, and the Caley coaches re-using Mk.I ends.
     
    I then recalled I had six Hornby Gresley carriage ends in a spares box lying idle. These won't be quite right but they are at least panelled, and in any case will be closer to what I'm trying to achieve than would fettled Mk.I ends. So the carriage ends were cut away and the Gresley ends fitted.
     

     
    I then primed the bodies, not in readiness for final paintwork as such but more to highlight areas still requiring attention.
     

     
    The all-third.
     

     
    All-first.
     

     
    Brake composite.
     
    I went for a green paint partly as an experiment, partly to use up old paints in the paint tin. I have many shades and tins of green that see little to no use, also a shortae of space for colours I do actually need (a dark green, various shades of brown and teak, black and greys). So I'm using the lesser-used paints for priming purposes.
     
    I then started to blank out the extra windows and doors with plastic sheet- you can see this most clearly on the brake composite.
     
    That done, I have started to remove the bogies. The carriage ride height is too high- the mounting bosses need to be cut down- but also the original bogies were damaged and needed replacing. I'll be using Bachmann Gresley/ Thompson bogies as replacements.
  21. James Harrison
    Progress with the loco has reached the lining out stage. The easiest way to line it, I reckon, is to start with some LNWR/ BR mixed traffic lining (grey with an inner red line) and then touch in the yellow outer line afterward.
     
    To which end I have ordered some appropriate lining transfers. Whilst waiting for them I succumbed to itchy fingers and began another project.
     
    You may remember last year when I had a few attempts at building some original 1898 GCR carriages. The conclusion I reached, after building a pair of them, was that they can't be hackbashed convincingly from ready-to-run models. But then I found that some slightly later carriages (from around 1905/ 06) are strikingly similar to old Triang Caledonian coaches.
     

     
    Composite brake carriage, builder's photograph.
     

     

     
    All first and all-third, scale drawings in George Dow's Great Central Railway. vol.3 (this work forms the backbone of my little reference library).
     
    So comparing the carriage bodies to the photograph and drawings, suggested that I could build a model of each from the three Caley coaches I had in my project stash.
    Each body only required one cut to each side to arrive at a close approximation of the GCR carriages- and even better, the beading matches up! No need to sand the bodies smooth and rebuild the beading afterward.

     
    The brake carriage was first under the saw. A big plus with these old Triang coaches is that once a pair of fixing screws are removed, the roof drops out and then the sides all loose. Being reduced to a set of flat parts makes it so much easier to cut them up and change them.
     

     
    The all-third followed. The windows on the corridor side make a pleasing match with the drawing- and even better the number of compartments matches.
     

     
    Finally the all-first. My comments on the all-third about the match of the windows and compartments stand true here too.
     
    Right, that's the easy bit!
     
    Now to cut up the underframes..... which are much chunkier pieces of kit. I cut two up and then called it a night.
     

     
    So one of the underframes cut down to length, then the carriage sides glued into it and left to set. The all-first has been likewise treated, leaving only the all-third still flatpacked.
  23. James Harrison
    A sheet of HMRS LNWR lining transfers arrived a few days ago so Friday evening and yesterday I spent a happy couple of hours lining the bunker, tanks and boiler.
     

     
    I still have the splashers and the cabsides to do but it is eventually going to be a very neat little engine. Looking at period photographs of these engines in GCR livery the lining really stands out against the black and this effect I think has been caught very well.
  24. James Harrison
    Long ago I bought a resin kit for a large Welsh tank engine with intentions of turning into a Metropolitan loco. Well, that hasn't happened but it is being hacked into something else.
     

     
    An 0-6-4 mineral engine of the Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway. Interesting railway, that. In the middle 1890s the Company set out to build somewhere around 170 miles of track, in the process gaining the distinction of being the single largest railway scheme to be approved by Parliament in one session. Unfortunately it ultimately reached neither Lancashire nor the east coast, the only section actually being completed being the line between Chesterfield and Lincoln (and even then the last few miles into Lincoln were along Great Northern/ Great Eastern property). Within 10 years of opening it had been bought by the Great Central; much of the route closed in the 1950s but a 10-mile stretch survives as a test track.
     
    So, the model. The real thing was built to haul coal trains to the east coast in the period 1904-06; six of them entered service under LDECR ownership, and three more were completed shortly after the GCR bought the line in 1906. They survived into the late 1930s/ early 1940s. You might see some vague resemblance between this model and the big 2-6-4 freight tank I built recently. The reason being, the LDECR's locomotive superintendent was quickly made Robinson's right-hand man at Gorton; it is believed that he had a hand in the conception and design of the GCR's freight tank locos of 1914.
     
    Yes, the model. Let's try not to sidetracked again.
     
    I started, as I have said, with a resin kit for a Barry Railway class L 0-6-4.
     

     
    It's basically one moulding with a couple of brass and whitemetal castings to fit; of which more later.

     
    The first thing I did was to cut the cab away; it needs to be completely replaced.
     

     
    The side tanks are longer, wider and taller; so I made up some new plastic side tanks and fitted them.
     

     

     
    Then the joint between the side and the top of the tanks had to be sanded to a radius, and then I was able to fit the chassis (I'm using a Hornby 0-6-0 chassis under it, which is what the original kit was designed for).
  25. James Harrison
    Another of my stash of wagon kits finished.
     

     
    This time it's a Cambrian Kits pre-grouping wagon, finished as usual with POWsides lettering. This is the last of 7 or 8 Cambrian pre-grouping open wagons I bought a few years ago. Next up are going to be a pair of POWsides/ Slaters opens.
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