James Harrison

Fantastic! I've also seen the GBL Butler Henrson used as the basis of a Genalmond (small wheel version of a Sam Fay).

So the loco's a collie-burner?  Could be worse.... I've just finished reading The Revenant Express where the fuel is something a little more nightmare-inducing. 

Thanks.  They remind me of some Spanish carriages (Electrotren?) which likewise had the very large windows.

Thanks!  I have to break up bigger projects like this otherwise they tend to stall.  A couple of cattle wagons, a bit more on my goods office building, and then another Barnum. 

Looks outstanding. 

Thank you!  It's getting there. 

Very nice.

Thank you!

Please could I ask what you will use for a roof? 

 

Whilst a GWR man, I have a soft spot for attractive steam-age coaching stock. 

The drawing includes some formers for the roof profile; the intention is to build a sub-base and build the roof as a separate unit that then just drops onto the body.  The roof profile itself I'm planning to use my usual method of a paper laminate. 

Funny you should say that!- I'm having at go at building it this way in preference to the pair of Jidenco etched Barnums sitting in a box upstairs. 

Thanks!  I really can't take any credit for that; it's part of the drawing which is entirely JCL's handiwork.  Any problems I'm running into with the build are down to the twisted logic of the silhouette studio software and my own knuckleheadedness.  

I'd like to see the real things running again too!- but then again I'm possibly biased in that regard with being an armchair member/ supporter of the GCR Rolling Stock Trust, which owns three of them and is working on one of them right now.  About three or four years' work to get one back running I understand is what they reckon at the moment. 

I'm using 10thou plastic sheet on the sides, braced up with 20thou and... well, whichever bits I have in the spares box!

The chess set was a graduation present to myself several years ago.  I still can't play chess.  The Stormtrooper, that belongs to my brother.  That whole room is pretty much a dumping ground for things we want to keep but can't store away neatly.

Thank you!

This is an interesting approach to the issue of locating a railway geographically.  Taken a step further, I wonder if it would be possible to take parts of one map, turn them around, mirror them, what have you, then merge them down into another. 

Thank you; it's surprising just how small it appears now for having had a few mm lopped out of it. Now as for a two-tone livery... well somthing along those lines is going to be my next project (sadly not railway-related... let's just say that if it comes off it will look.... dazzling....)

I'm rather pleased with how it has turned out, for a lookalike model you're hard pressed to see where it isn't right, unless you have the drawings to compare it to. 

Thanks!  (I've been away for a few days...)  Looking forward to cracking on with this now. 

I'm now in possession of the December 1968 MRC.  Comparing the loco with the drawing, the length is slightly off but nothing that is obviously jarring or wrong.  Height, on the other hand.... well that 3mm is about right, it might even be more like 4mm has to come off the bottom of the body.  (Also the tanks need a strip taking off of them). 

More progress next week I hope!

It's certainly very tall (in fact, it's so tall that the chassis could fit in back to front with the motor in the smokebox).  I'll be turning that around.... dropping 3mm out of the height then should be a doddle.  Because I'm using the Triang chassis necessarily means that the model will be slightly stretched in length, but only of the order of 4 or 5mm or so.

Then there's the big blocky nature of it.  Before I started cutting it up I measured it; from the wheel tyres up to the chimney top scales out at around 13' 3" or thereabouts.  You've got a high-pitched boiler with a big saddle tank- it's necessarily going to have a certain heft or presence about it.  Lowering it should do something to alleviate that.  Then I'm going to have to replace the dome and chimney, which need to be taller and more slender, which should also act to reduce the apparent size. 

I found a copy of the December 1968 MRC by the way; when it arrives I'll be able to start checking the more critical dimensions and deciding where to make cuts and the like. 

I didn't know what!  Thanks- I'll be hunting a copy up. 

Hehe; the chess set was a present (to myself) several years ago when I graduated from uni.  (I still can't play chess though!)

I had Mons on order for well over a year (since it was announced back in [was it 2015 or 2016, I can't remember]).  Eventually I lost patience with Bachmann's legendary ability to keep announced models on the coming soon list for years- plural- so I cancelled it and put the money toward a Stirling Single instead. 

No particularly hard loss- I already have (counts on fingers) the NRM release of Butler Henderson, the Model Rail limited edition of Ypres, the GBL Butler Henderson (which I've motorised, renamed and renumbered) and a pair of D10s too.  So I've already got four of the same general type for use on Red Lion Square.  Maybe if I see one going for a song at a box-clearers in 2018/19 I'll be tempted...

The plan exists as a deliberately vague-ish concept to stop me going off in all directions and accruing things that don't tie in with my eventual aim.  It's a big plan and of course only a bit of it can be done in any one year!- laying it out gives me a goal for the year and lets me keep track of how I'm progressing.  This is of course why I've just now bought a Bachmann 43xx to backdate to ROD condition.... (well I have a WD brakevan so why not have a loco to match?)

One day we will read of a modeller who started off with a plan carved in stone, built all the correct rolling stock in order, ended up with a perfect working railway and didn't even have so much as a spare rivet at the end of it all. 

 

Mind you thats going top be a very boring read, I much prefer following builds that develop as stuff becomes available and  the mood takes the modeller. Seems a much more fun way of doing things to me. I'll potter off and examine the unbuilt kits box...... 

Ha ha ha!

I've managed to gather together a fair amount of what I reckon I want/ need, probably a lot of that will get discarded along the way.  The plan is carved in stone, unfortunately the stone used was sandstone.... everytime I look at it again a bit has dropped off or eroded away and there always seems to be more random fragments and little bits around it that I could have sworn weren't there last time I looked.  

I really do need to get the to-do list under control though; I've run out of room for donor models, half-built things and general building materials- to the point that stuff has started to go missing and being misplaced!  (It is a bit more difficult to mis-lay a whole carriage than it is just a bogie or a set of axles).

But then again, if you don't buy things when you see them you can guarantee they won't be there when you'e of a mind to buy one.    

Drat, that's a shame.... just gone through my copy of Dow's volume 3 and the only cattle wagon drawing is for the large type.  I wonder if the BRMNA reference page would suggest a source for a drawing....

Thank you both.  I (think) the only drawing I have is for the large type- in Tatlow's book-  but then again I do have Dow's trilogy too with wagon drawings.  I can't recall if either the medium van or the LDECR type are in Volume 3.  The general plan is to ultimately have a rake of six or seven of these vans- but knowing me I'll add on some of the others too, if I can find the info.  

That's kind of the idea I'm toying with for the other five vans in the rake.  I'm doing this one on a piecemeal basis to fully prove my method; I'm fairly confident it works having tried it out on a scrap body, so this is the proving run before fully committing myself. 

Thank you.