James Harrison

I honestly thought the BR standard type was derived from the LNER large cattle vans.  Thanks for clearing that up! 

I've been doing the other body panels this evening and building up the basic body.  To my eye it looks about right- it's the doors that are going to make or break the model.  Not really clear on the drawing but more obvious on the photos (including the three in Tatlow's book) is that the bottom door- the one that hinges down- the boarding is flush with the other edge of the strapping.  The upper doors sit set back into it.  I'll need to think about how to do that.   

Thanks!

Thank you!

I'd imagine that was potentially quite a hair-raising experience trying to stop a loose-coupled goods train (I've already found pretty quickly that a sudden stop even with model loose-coupled wagons leads to them all bunching up- I think goods trains on Red Lion Square will only be worked at a crawl....)

I've got a couple of dreadnoughts; Dreadnought herself in 1915 fit, the Airfix Iron Duke, and the QE.  Regretably not all to the same scale (come on Trumpeter do the decent thing and give us a 13.5"-er in 1/700.....)  I would like at least one predreadnought (my fancy runs to the Lord Nelson or Agamemnon). 

I was thinking, last weekend, whether it would be possible to model the RN battle fleet in say 1922/23, in 1/700.  Just after all the 12"-ers and the early 13.5"-ers went for scrap; so an Iron Duke, Queen Elizabeth, Royal Sovereign, Tiger, Renown, Hood.  Well, one out of six is a good start....

It's the long long list of other projects that tends to be my undoing.  Once I'm about 3/4 of the way through something the mind starts to wander off and consider the next project.  I'm determined to finish these three before I move onto anything else!- although I do find myself keep being brought back to that 1/700 HMS Queen Elizabeth (1918 fit) that has been sitting in a cupboard for the last two years. 

They've got a distinctly.... I don't know.  I'm tempted to say Southern but then again the colour isn't a million miles off and probably influences that impression.  I once bought one which had been repainted in brown and it looked very like a North Eastern coach. 

I guess this is just going to show that if you take all of the smaller details off there's very little to suggest which company a carriage belonged to, unless there's something obvious like a bow-ended roof or vertical matchboard panelling.   

The bogies I need to replace; I've ordered some Bachmann Gresley/ Thompson ones as my standard go-to replacements.  Getting the old ones out is hard work with those brass rivets!  Then the bolsters can be ground down, which will bring them in line with my Grafar OO carriages. 

Nice to see a model of these locos. Just curious, but should there be 4 safety valves or just 2? Some photos I have seen suggest only 2, but I am not really sure. One day I hope to do one in 2mm scale.

Cheers.  The relevant RCTS 'Green Bible' for the class states that the original Kitson boilers had a twin column Ramsbottom valve; replacement Gorton-built boilers had a four-column pattern.  Considering the problems Tuxford had with water damage to boilers, and my 1918-22 modelling period, I consider it more than likely the loco would have been reboilered at least once. 

What can I say, I just love it to bits

Thank you!

The trick, in so far as there is one so far as I have found, is to use as large a brush as practical, preferably a soft-bristled type, and apply long brush strokes.

It minimises the appearance of brush strokes but there always tends to be the places where the paint drags.

Thank you.  It's been quite an enjoyable build (if fraught in places!) and I'm rather looking forward to getting it finished and moving on to those carriages. 

One thing I didn't realise until I bought the LNWR lining is that there are some corners on the sheet with the red on the outside.... which maybe suggests a way to achieving the GCR freight & mixed traffic red-black-white lining.  I might try it out on one of my next locos- and it if works I foresee a couple of finished models being relined.  Good, better, best and all that. 

Thanks!  They're not going to be 100% accurate of course- the Caley coaches are 'close enough' but obviously not based on GCR types.  But I think they'll make convincing lookalikes and an eyepleasing rake when finished. 

"In Linocln itself the LD&EC, after leaving Pyewipe Junction (GN & GE joint line) was to cross the valley and pierce the hill to the south of the cathedral and be served by a station on the east side of the city."- Great Central, Vol.3, p.154. 

Hahaha; I originally bought the kit with the intention of turning it into a Met 0-6-4. I can't remember if I ever did find a drawing of what became the M2s; if I did I can't remember what I did with it.  The boiler I think is a little high, about .75- 1mm, but in all honesty I don't think the effort involved in cutting up the casting to lower it would make such a difference as to be worthwhile. 

I think the RM article you mention is the one I'm using; it's got that wonderful quote from The Engineer in it (appeared in the April 1978 RM). 

There's a glorious chapter about the LDECR in Vol.3 of Dow's Great Central; on coming out of Lincoln it was planned to tunnel under Steep Hill.  I genuinely cannot see how that might have been done- I'm sure the Cathedral Chapter would have had something to say about that!  That's even assuming Lincoln could have absorbed another railway running through it without becoming hopelessly snarled up (the level crossings are still an issue today and I have 'fond' memories of them from my time as a student there 10 years ago....)

Principally because I don't use solely on RMWeb, there are a couple of forums I post on.  It would be needlessly repetitive to upload them direct to RMWeb, only to then have to use a 3rd party host anyway so I can put them on other forums too. 

Generally, I've gone for wagons you might have expected to see around Nottinghamshire in about 1918-22... my area of interest having moved somewhat in the last four years.  Considering how for for some of that period there was 'a bit of unpleasantness' going on that resulted in pooling of railway wagons to get things moved to where they were needed, when they were needed, I've widened the area where my wagons have come from the East Midlands and North East generally.  

I was able to grab most of mine, there were one or two that I could see the thumbnail but clicking on the picture brings up that annoying speedometer symbol.  I can't see this ending at all well for Photobucket, somehow.

I was still able to view my pictures.... right up to the point I clicked the 'delete' button on each and every one of them.  I was also able to download the photos that I only had on-line (if they were about to deny me the right to keep my own photos they wouldn't have a download option on them). 

As to a free lunch, well maybe so, maybe not.  I uploaded my pictures there and it was nothing to me whether they sold them on to stock image libraries or what-not for financial gain, so long as I was permitted use of my photos in forum posts etc. I get my images hosted, they get money of being able to sell them, we both get something we want- no problem.  If they choose to revisit that arrangement, well, they're going to have to expect people to take their business elsewhere.  I'm not paying $400 a year just to be able to do something I do just as well for free by using a competitor.... I think anybody who would pay that sort of money for a service freely available needs their head looking at

There are also the Oxford Rail models of the North British Railway "Jubilee" coal wagons of the 1880s, though they're a distinctively Scottish design with the big hinges on the end door. Some of the design were, I think, privately owned, and North British wagons have been seen as far south as Southampton, though I don't know how much the coal wagons tended to stay local.

Of course!- I've even got one of those!- don't know how I forgot it. 

See also my start at getting to grips with the Hornby 6/4/3 plank pre-1923 (pre-1907) wagons. And there are kits - POWSides pre-printed use the Slaters kits (their website indicates) or there are the Cambrian ones.

I have several of the Cambrian ones either built or under construction, and generally they're pretty good.  I've not built any Slaters yet but have a pair to be doing, which will follow my last Cambrian open (work on which has just begun).  I'll look out for the Hornby ones too. 

They are indeed POWsides transfers.  I was debating what to do about the ironwork (which is usually black) but the livery notes with the transfers just said all bodywork to be red. 

To my knowledge the Dapol 9' wagons are the only ones available RTR that are pre-1923 (?- could be mistaken on that). 

Hmm, I'd not considered that.  I've still got the remnants of the printed sheets, so it's not like they've been thrown away, yet.  They'd need a few mm cutting out to the middle so that the axleboxes line up with the axles, but it might be possible. 

It's been a lot of work- more than I anticipated to be fair (I wasn't planning on having to completely repaint the kit, for instance).  Basically, it's been a scratchbuild using pre-drawn parts.  I'm not sure I'll do the other three carriages in the kit straightaway, but I'm confident that they will be a little easier as I now know some of the pitfalls to be wary of. 

What a stunning looking loco, really top notch job!

Thanks!

you like me have backed off from the red lining. i was looking ito a pen which might do it. If you solve the issue first let me know as it has puzzled me for a while.

I have tried a few methods for the red lining, first using enamel paint in a lining tool (good coverage but very difficult to control, the paint has to be just right in terms of consistency otherwise it either won't flow or you get a puddle).  Then I tried a Sharpie/ paint pen.  The red looks too pink and there is a minimum pen thickness that is readily available- it's 0.75mm if I remember right- so although you can get a viable result, it is far too thick (the red line on the real thing was only 1/4'' or so thick).  So then I tried homebrew waterslide transfers using an inkjet printer and some photo software.  Very easy to draw it!- but getting it down to scale thickness, it proved beyond the capabilities of the printer.  I suppose I could always use the HMRS LNER red lining- but to be honest my experience with the very thin red lines has never been positive.  The thicker white/black/white lining is very good- but the single red lines prove very fragile. 

So for the present and in the light of those experiments I have concluded with some regret that the red lining is beyond my abilities, tools, resources and patience.  To be honest, it's an omission that I don't really notice- the red lining rarely shows up in period photographs (a result of the film stock then used).  I'd also question, given how fine it has to be, just how noticeable it would be at usual viewing distances.   

Thank you!