ChrisG

That really sounds like a one-off rogue model because generally speaking these locos are lovely runners. Chris

I thought I would break cover to report on my latest IOW coach exploits. The one I'm showing here follows a number of exploratory and ultimately rejected attempts based on Ratio Midland coach sides. It is intended to be more prototypical and is based on Bill Bedford's brass sides for a diagram 377 saloon composite. this one numbered S6364. It will be running on my Ventnor West layout and has therefore been finished in the malachite green I am assuming it would have carried between 1949 and 1952. It has BR style lettering which could be wrong as it may not have received that until it was painted red. In the pictures you can see 1) The Bill Bedford brass sides (one has been glazed the other not yet); 2) The main body shell (floor, chassis, partitions and ends) which were custom cut from 1mm Rowmark by York Modelmaking from CAD files originated by me. Two drawbacks of this approach are that the footboards are a bit thick and the material is harder to stick than styrene sheet; 3) The false roof, again custom cut, this time from 2mm ply. It will be clad in thin brass sheet which I have had custom etched to the precise dimensions, with half etched lines to aid the bending; 4) Roxey Mouldings SECR heavy Fox bogies. After one failed attempt I managed to master the art of soldering the footboards to the whitemetal bump stops. Not the easiest modelling job I have ever done! Still to do are finishing the roof, couplings (Kadees which I use for fixed rake coupling), underframe, end details, and weathering. Chris G Alton Hants

I finally plucked up the courage to weather a locomotive, the chosen subject being one of the Kernow O2s. I started by renumbering it to 32 Bonchurch in late BR livery and then as per Martyn Welch's book spraying it with acrylic varnish to provide a protective layer against the assault which was to follow. In the process I chose the wrong time of day and ended up with the loco misted with large white spots. At first I thought it looked horrible and then I warmed to it, deciding that it would probably work well if I weathered on top of it. The white misting was not unlike certain shots of life-expired O2s in the mid 1960s on the Isle of Wight. Especially good was the effect around the smokebox door which looked like limescale. In the process I ended up with a locomotive more heavily weathered than I intended, but pretty much looking like Bonchurch in her last days of service. Then the tale took a turn for the worse. I had recently had a letter published in the Modeller essentially replying to an article by Steve Flint about the difficulty of servicing and maintaining modern RTR products. There was considerable discussion on this forum about the lack of spares for these Kernow/DJM models. John Flann was particularly vexed that he couldn't get a separate smokebox door... In the process of weathering said beast, the screw and spring which attach the trailing bogie to the chassis took a dive to the floor, and resisted all attempts to find and recapture to them. A polite though buck-passing reply from Kernow referred me to DJM who, at the time of writing of this, have not replied. Hmmm. I own 4 Kernow O2s with no visible manufacturer's support, and I have no idea how long they may last - they get heavy exhibition and home use. I also have a number of kit-built O2s for which I have many spare parts in stock, plus the ability to perform any maintenance task from re-wheeling to re-motoring to refitting detached detailed parts. I am confident they can be made to last a lifetime, and have no such confidence in the RTR equivalents. Does anyone happen to know enough about screws and springs to advise where I might find said articles from an independent supplier? I am guessing they are standard products and not proprietary to Kernow or DJM. Chris Gardner Alton Hants

Do you mean Ventnor Town or Ventnor? Ventnor Town was the station which was renamed Ventnor West and closed in the 1950s.

I too found the editorial interesting and was moved to write a letter to the editor. However I have found no earthly evidence of the magazine or the publishers having an e-mail address, although I cannot believe they receive missives written on paper and then re-type them for publication. The day after my issue arrived there was a short programme about Dementia and Altzheimer's Disease on Radio 4 in which the experts admitted that the diseases are far less well researched and known than others, even though Dementia is now the no. 1 cause of death in this country. They believe some of it is genetic (inherited) whilst for the rest the general rule of "if it's good for the heart, it's good for the brain" seems to apply. Railway Modelling is generally a pretty sedentary pastime and whilst it provides the occasional intellectual challenge I suspect that by and large, and apart from certain phases of design and construction, it doesn't challenge the brain much, and it certainly doesn't provide aerobic or anaerobic exercise. The great strength of it as a hobby strikes me as being that it involves all the stages of creation, from conception to building to detailing, to fettling and maintaining, and many practical disciplines such as drawing, designing, woodwork, metalwork, electrics, electronics, painting and so on. I don't think anyone should regard it as ticking the box on protection against dementia in the absence of other physical activity and intellectual challenge of reading, debating, acting, solving puzzles, learning new skills, and so on. That doesn't stop it being a jolly good hobby to have of course, but I certainly don't think it compares with group music-making or fluency in more than one language, which I believe are among the proven activities which do help. Chris Gardner Alton Hampshire

That's a beautiful model of Cowes signalbox!

Hi Nick and all other honorary "Islanders", Many years ago I made contact with Dennis Nix, who had built a model of Cowes with the gravity shunt. I think it was featured in the Model Railway Constructor at some point. He was basically an LNWR modeller and a built and exhibited Cowes as a temporary diversion. He sent me a video of it in operation, which I probably still have on a VCR tape and should find and get copied. It also had some footage of my old Cowes layout, dating from before my own attempt at the gravity shunt. Dennis's was an authentic approach because he built the layout on a slope and let the stock roll down by gravity. The video showed the fairly vigorous descent and hard stop at the bottom! It certainly was a talking point at exhibitions. It needed careful setting up with adjustable feet on the baseboard legs and his stock all had to have the same rolling characteristics. My own version used a rake of carriages with a black beetle motor bogie. The layout still exists but has spent the last 15 years stored in the roof of our garage following a) an attack by a marauding 3 year old which damaged a lot of the scenery and track and b) a change of life's priorities. If I bring it down it will probably be to scrap it, but I was fond of it as the first layout I had ever got to anything like completion. From memory, there was a controller built into the baseboard and set at a fixed speed for the gravity move. Once the loco had detached and run back over the crossover, the points were thrown and switches thrown to connect the track to the fixed controller. The carriages moved to the end of the platform where they were stopped by an IRDOT. The operator remained in charge of the loco and with another flurry of switching brought it back onto the front of the train. As the designer of the system I used to be able to work it but visiting operators tended to struggle. I realised at the time (this was before I had DCC) that it could have been completely automated with more IRDOTs, but the layout met its end before I got around to doing that. It was exhibited maybe four times in its short life and I got a lot of pleasure from it. My new attempt is part of a more ambitious loft layout, it has no gravity shunt, although as a DCC layout it could be implemented with motorised coaches. However, for the complexity it involves I feel it doesn't bring enough extra to the overall operation of the layout and the complexity of having coaching stock which is motorised in circumstances other than a simple terminus-to-fiddle yard layout puts me off the idea. It might be worth fitting a motor bogie to one set of carriages, and operating these as a fixed rake on a Cowes - Newport - reversing loop shuttle diagram. I'll have to think about that! My Cowes to Newport layout is currently rather sidelined whilst I build an exhibition model of Ventnor West, and I expect to get back to it next Winter. Medina Wharf (compressed) is the next section which needs trackbuilding. There's a blog covering its construction somewhere else on RMWeb. p.s. shall we all get together and built a modular exhibition layout of the whole Island? Chris Gardner Alton Hants

They look quite marvellous! Chris

Loads of foliage on the backscene as you can see, so fewer trees needed on the board. I suspect they will turn out to be low relief trees because there is not a lot of width there. I thought you'ld like the Castle! We used your photo to position it and get the general look. Mark suggested that we should have a Union Flag flying but I explained that was too vulgar for the aristocracy in the 1950s and when I checked the rules and regs I found that it was only recently that people have been freely allowed to fly the Union Flag outside their homes, and that there were a lot of restrictions around it in the past. Yup - roof ventilators are a nightmare! Chris

A brilliant day of progress today. Wizard painter Mark Pretious came over and painted the backscene. The layout is now beginning to look like something. Chris

I received the newsletter and was similarly enthused. I have built a 4mm scale O2 tank loco from a Wills kit, using a particularly snug gearbox and a small motor to leave as much space as possible for the wireless control gear. Lo and behold the list of products for 2017 includes a battery (cylindrical 45mm by 10mm) which will fit in the boiler and an unbelievably small control unit which has many possibilities for fitting - above the motor, in the side tanks or in the bunker. Plus exciting possibilities for charging. This looks like the year it is going to happen. Like previous correspondents I am convinced this is the way of the future, and an article in the latest issue of Scalefour News contains the view that totally reliable slow running cannot be achieved whilst current is still being picked up from the track. I tend to agree..... Chris Alton, Hants

Which was my main objective! At a normal viewing distance the eye will say "ah, an SECR coach". The eye, looking a bit more closely may of course also say "too many compartments and too small luggage compartment" but we all set out own modelling standards, and I am always happy when I manage to reach mine (whilst also aspiring to, and admiring, the levels above me). Thank you for your kind comments :-) Chris

Thanks Jon for the suggestion. I can certainly see the point of that, though I won't be adopting it. I'm applying the art of compromise at the moment for the sake of getting things built. There will be around 8 passenger rakes on my layout when it is fully operational, I only have 2 right now, so anything that looks sort of right is acceptable. This particular batch of coaches needs to blend with what is already there, and as I said I have some proper etched sides on hand for future builds. The standard will rise, and at the moment I am happy to have demonstrated that with judicious use of laser cut components I can achieve reasonable results more quickly than ever before. I'm also helping everyone I'm sure, as a certain result of moving into building SECR IOW coaches will mean that one of the RTR companies will introduce them. Though funnily enough, having taken the Kernow O2s on board I have been sufficiently unimpressed with the durability of all the fine detail, that I am going back to kitbuilding them! Chris

I also tried the Bill Bedford recommended way of building roofs, and stuck 2mm by .5mm plastic strip to the formers. I am very taken with the result, still without the tissue paper. I think it's going to make a very convincing looking roof. Total time to get to this point around 3 hours. Chris

I've been working on a way of creating representational models of the SECR coaches as quickly as possible. I settled on using Ratio Midland suburban sides, cut and shut to length, and to commission laser-cut components based on CAD files which I created myself. The photos show the results of a proof of concept which I regard as successful and will form the basis of a completed model in due course. The laser cut components are made of 1mm Rowmark and are The floor Compartment walls Ends Ceiling Roof formers The brass roof is from Branchlines (universal brass roof) which can be easily bent to the correct profile. The sides do not bear comparison with real SECR sides, there are too many compartments and too small a guards compartment, but the aim of the exercise was to create something which created the right impression and was a variation from the diet of LBSCR coaches. I do have some Bill Bedford brass sides which I will use for a next batch, with modified laser cut components. Some grainy iphone pictures below which show the idea Chris G Alton Hants

Here's the latest shot of the wireless remote control test bed loco. It is being modelled as 35 "Freshwater", one of two push-pull fitted O2s which were used on the Ventnor West branch in BR days. The object of the exercise has been to create as much space as possible for the remote control equipment and battery in the loco body. This has been facilitated by the use of a HighLevel Roadrunner Compact Plus gear box, which means the motor (a Mashima 1015) fits almost entirely between the frames, leaving the tanks and boiler cavity largely clear, as well as the bunker for the electronic gubbins. The remote control gear won't be arriving for some weeks to come so the loco will be mothballed pending arrival. It is hoped that we will be able to operate the branch wirelessly at our first exhibition in October... Chris Alton Hants.

I've made good progress on the layout in the last couple of months. The track is wired, fully tested and running, control panel built and signals operational. Work can now start on the scenic treatment. Meanwhile the buildings are coming on, with photos of the station building and signal box attached. I am now working on the goods shed. Ventnor West has two exhibition bookings now, the first at the Moors Valley Railway modelling weekend and the second at the Farnham MRC show in Aldershot. It will be exhibited in conjunction with Mark Pretious's Merstone Junction layout. And the most exciting development at the moment is the building of No. 35 Freshwater, based on a Southeastern Finecast whitemetal kit, which will be powered by the latest Acc+Ess Protocab wireless remote control equipment which is being developed to suit small 4mm scale tank locos. If all goes well, the branch will be operating wirelessly at the exhibition in October. Meanwhile, there has been no progress on Cowes and Newport...

Here's a link to a couple of pictures of the coaches built by Andy Gannon, Featured in the September Scalefour News, and on display this weekend at Scaleforum. I saw them and they were completely breathtaking. Had a long chat with Andy about his methods. These really are in the top notch! http://www.yorkmodelmaking.co.uk/community/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/December_2015.pdf Chris G

The latest issue of Scalefour News (a members' only publication) contains a superb article by Andy Gannon about how he modelled a large batch of Island-based SECR coaches in 4mm scale using CAD and laser cutting. In passing it mentions that Markits now stock the "clipped" buffers (in brass and sprung) that were fitted on these coaches. The article describes some pretty remarkable model engineering (such as specially cast bogie weights, and a home made vacuum former for the roofs). The use of CAD and laser cutting is somewhat more attainable, however. They are beautiful models and all in all it is a most inspiring article. Now, if you go to Scaleforum in Stoke Mandeville next weekend, this issue also serves as the show guide. Chris Alton Hampshire

I'm pretty pleased with how this has turned out. My first attempt at CAD (using CorelDraw) to produce a building shell. A pretty steep learning curve with the software, just resorting to the help file and generally stumbling around in the dark until finding the answer to each little thing one needs to do. I'm now working on the windows which present an additional layer of complexity. I have to say this is the way to go for producing model buildings. At least it is for me who cannot cut anything straight by hand. On the loft layout it will streamline the building of the terraces of houses at Cowes. It's taken me two or three weeks to get to this stage and there's plenty more to do. Just attaching the brick paper (ashlar using Ventnor stone on the real thing) is going to be a taxing task I suspect. The roofs will be cut from Wills building sheets. Meanwhile the track is now all laid and tested with free rolling four wheeled wagons, and the signals are taking shape. The signal box is built but as yet has no windows (another cad project). I got the 2mm MDF cut at York Modelmaking (no connection other than as a customer) from whom I have had excellent and quick service. Chris Alton Hampshire

Damn - your e-mail has reminded me that I have completely overlooked the trap points at Ventnor West. The 08 was an expedient: I needed a test loco I could rely on whilst building the other layout. I was so impressed with the running qualities (once I had added some decent pickups) that I've remained very fond of it and it turns up all over the place, even hauling passenger trains between Newport and Cowes. It is going to be named "Vectis" one day. Chris

Sadly the tub contained Cornish sea sand... Which has got everywhere it shouldn't have in the kitchen. The cat's away for a few days and this mouse is playing!

A few finishing touches to the baseboards today, then the start of tracklaying. Now waiting for the glue and ballast to dry on the station throat pointwork. Will be starting the trackbuilding at the weekend. Chris

Work has started on Ventnor West. Intended to be a "minor (ha ha) diversion" from building the loft layout (Cowes to Newport) this is intended as an exhibition extension to Mark Pretious's Merstone layout, which made its exhibition debut in February at the Alton Model Railway Group show. Following a full day yesterday working on the baseboards (which had been bought from a friend as ready-assembled kits needing some modification and additions), we were able to lay the track into the station which will mean trackbuilding and laying (the fun bit) can follow. My first thoughts are how different it is to be working on a small layout rather than a great sprawling thing in the loft. Every job (e.g. trackbuilding, wiring) is that much more achievable, with everything in reasonable bite-sized chunks. The viewpoint is not what you would expect for this Station. It is looking downhill rather than uphill. This was because of the orientation of the already built Merstone. And Mark would NOT thank me for suggesting he should turn his layout around at this point. What is it about the ever-restless modeller's mind? I haven't even started on the trackwork and already I'm thinking about possible extensions. Meanwhile at the back of my 60 year old brain is the thought that I need an insurance policy against being unable to get up to the loft one day - hence the layout could also double as a future home layout, with, subject to space being available, the possibility of a number of modular extensions. Anyway, first things first. We are up and running. Progress reports will follow as and when and photos in the gallery, which I hope is in some way magically linking itself to this blog. Chris G

Somewhere else on RMWeb there is a thread detailing how to do an EM conversion... Coudln't tell you where it is though! Chris