BernardTPM

Didn't Farish finally do that 101 in the white livery...probably just after you had repainted yours?

Of course! But on theirs the white looked thin and you could see the upper join line to the inlaid section which I filled before painting on mine, the lower part of the window area is better hidden by the change from white to blue stripe.

The replacement layout, Brigenshaw II, would need more up-to-date stock; this was back in the late '80s so at the time it was simply current, May 1991 being the date eventually being chosen so I could run both a Speedlink train and a WYPTE Class 158. Since nothing new enough was in the offing at the time I needed to set about hacking.

For a Class 150/2 the older Farish Mk.3 was chosen because it was a little on the narrow side. Because of that I was able to chop it down in length and then add new sides over the old ones that would give me the recessed sliding doors at the same time. I built the unpowered end first so I could work out the basic structural conversion before working out the drive. I wanted to keep as much of the interior open as possible so hid the drive partly below window level. Only the actual drive bogie and part of the very thin drive shaft sticks up above window level and then only at one end, the one with a toilet window which gave a little extra help in hiding it, while the motor itself hides under the raised vestibule floor. It does dismantle too for servicing, though I made the driveshaft a little too thin as it tends to buzz at speed. I suspect coating it in paint or glue might help by stiffening it and changing its natural frequency. Originally the bogies were modifed Mk.3 with overlaid drop centre frames and air bags, but now it runs on my own more accurate BREL Series 3 type. Note the extra pick-up on the front bogie, vital for good running (and also applied to the Cl.101s).

I guess the Class 155 is the modern equivalent of the 110 in that it helps set the scene geographically. I was given a set of Kingdom Kit etches by Ray Evans of B.H.Enterprises "See what you can do with that, Bernie"! To be honest I used very little of it, just the upper sides, tinted glazing for the saloons and some of the underframe castings because I was in a hurry. It runs on one of my old 1610 MUMUs and my s.3 bogies (plugged in as intended into the older style Bachmann US diesel bogies). I scratchbuilt the ends, lower sides and cabs and made the roof made from one and a bit BHE plastic roof sections each. The lower fairings screw on and hold the floors (powered and unpowered) in place. It was sprayed in Triumph Pimento.

One unit I would have really liked was a Class 110 BRCW 'Calder Valley' unit. I made a start converting a Farish Met. Camm. using spare windows from very early Farish Mk.1s, which had moulded window frames, inserted in place of the normal window strip. The roof was also from a Mk.1 so it would make it quite distinct from the 101. The angle of the ends was also altered. However, this was one of those projects that never got finished.

Well, not so far anyway!

Since lost in the move, so it will never be finished.

Thanks Carl, but I'd use the computer these days. Wasn't an option back in '88 as I had a daisy wheel printer so one size and text style only - wrong and too big!
Anyway, it leads me nicely to DMUs. I think Farish's early choices of 'modern image' models was very sound. Their first was the 08, followed by the 47, 37, HST and 101 DMU, all very common, widespread types covering a pretty good range of traffic. In it's day the Met. Camm. was a pretty good model, though the early motor bogies combined with inside bearing bogies (which were thankfully soon replaced) didn't give the greatest performance, especially in the 3-car option. Later they went over to a power chassis, but the motor bogie did have the advantage of giving a near full set of seating. I wanted a refurb. white/blue stripe 4-car set so I set about repainting a green set, filling in most of the slight gap round the glazing strip. I wasn't entriely happy with the result, so the refurb car tended to run as part of a blue/grey set in later years:

One thing they did benefit from was close coupling which I achieved simply and cheaply by modifing the existing couplings and cutting back the buffers as shown:

I think that's because all I had for Brigenshaw was Farish 101s, though some were repainted and detailed (See next week!). The 150 etc. were going to be for the Brigenshaw II project, that was never completed.

Must have been the late '80s, Pete; the real 150/2s didn't appear until 1987. I think the model was finished in 1988, but I'll have to check my notes on that. I'll do DMUs next, then! (Oooer, unfinished stuff perhaps?)

Those cab side windows look very small compared to the real thing.

It looks like the silver surround has been added to the glazed part whereas it should be around the window opening. I can see why they've done this as they want to accommodate the earlier drop window too, but they could have simply printed the silver surround on the body with just the silver diagonal on the glazing; it should be possible to improve. Incidentally, Class 26s don't have rubber beading round their side windows, though the bodily similar, but later, class 27s and 33s do.

I think the lower edge of the body profile is not quite right on these coaches and I would have done something about it if I had done a full repaint.

I thought that when they first came out, though in other respects they were pretty outstanding models in 1975 (OK, they messed up on the FO seats too, though that did conveniently provide seats for a Mk.2/2a BSO conversion!).

Thanks Bryn. Most have been effectively superced by better and more accurate new models these days (which could be used as starting points for other variants), though it is interesting to note that Lone Star got the Class 24 engine room roof panel the correct width (i.e. the same as the others) when Bachmann/Farish did not!

Now most of the time Brigenshaw has run as a 'Calder Valley' based model, but there was one exception to this.On 23rd August 1986 NSE had an Open Day and exhibition at Cannon Street station and Brigenshaw was invited along. So, just like the real thing, out came the paint brush and red paint and all the lamp posts went red. To help give a Southern flavour I needed some non-electrified BR(SR) rolling stock. The solution was a 73, 33/1 and a 4-TC rake.

Both these locos were only ever run 'in anger' at this show (think it might have been a 2-day event) so they are pretty much unknown (or forgotten). The 33 is about as far as you can go working from the old Minitrix 27 (the Farish 33 was still in the future in 1986) while the 73 was based round the old MTK etch, though I soldered a 1mm strip along the bottom and completely scratchbuilt the cab ends. It used to have a full set of bogie sides, modified from the Lima Swiss railcar, but the axleboxes got used up elsewhere later.

I even painted one of the first NSE livery locos, 47 573, complete with hand painted nameplate:

All a bit of fun really. I wonder if the 47 was the first NSE liveried duff in the country?

No, don't mind at all, Pete and it's nice to see another improved Lima model made as a result of my scribblings. The sliders on my 40 were mixed, one pair from a wooden pencil the others from a black plastic felt-tip pen case, a case of what I had to hand of the correct diameters. I still reckon it's a better solution to tight curves than overwidth bogies

Next, something that would have been really up-to-date in 1978, a Romanian Class 56.

A fairly extensive rebuild of a Farish 47 it features see-through side grilles made from curtain mesh and new bogie sides that used axleboxes from Lima H0 B4 (Mk.2) coach bogies. Sadly Farish missed the mark entirely with their version as they used a different roof profile which was too flat. Very odd considering they'd got it about right for the 47 some years earlier on the same chassis! The prototype 56 012 had a slightly off-kilter double arrow, so I did too. Incidentally, most of the transfers I used for my locos came off the old Cave'Ndish Methfix sheets. I used to have hours of fun poking them with a pin to line them up as precisely as possible while they floated in their meths and water mix. No carrier film, of course. Brilliant.

One thing you often hear said about the Lima Deltic is that i it overscale and underlength. Well, that's not entirely true. It is too high and too wide, but it is actually the same length as the Farish model. Obviously it doesn't look it because of the cross-section is ridiculously large. This model was only done because of the series of articles I was writing for 'Practical Model Railways' in the mid-1980s, nontheless it turned out pretty well. The tiny air horns were made from 0.010" thou.plastic rod heated up at one end with a soldering iron to make them flare out. The other end is simply stuck through a hole drilled through a small sice of 0.030" rod.

For once there isn't a Bachmann chassis underneath. Instead it is an old Atlas E-8 chassis, the old one that shared components with the Peco Jubilee tender drive. I think it may have also been the chassis the Anbrico 50 kit was designed to fit.

Sadly this model was lost. Nominally it was believed to have been rescued with a lot of other stuff in a white shoebox that went to The Engine Shed in Leytonstone when I moved in 2013, but I never got it back. If anyone ever comes across it, I'd love to know.

On the other hand, the current* Farish Class 40 isn't quite as good as this:

When I began this project the whole thing was going to be scratchbuilt, however soon after I started Farish brought out their Class 37. In real life English Electric had used the same jigs to build the Class 37 cabs as they had previously used for the Class 40 (so were able to give BR an unbeatable price!). Fortunately the old Farish 37 was substantially accurate in this regard so this made the most difficult parts much easier (and made it easy to keep both ends looking more or less the same). Basically the scratchbuilt part of the model is between the noses and below the roof and bonnet tops, though I did have to make an extra chunk of roof because of the 40's greater length. The bogies are P&D Marsh (ex-JJP) Peak side frames and the whole thing is powered by a Bachmann F-9. All the outer wheels are dummy, in fact they are simply sliders that ride over the rails. This means the bogies are correctly narrow yet will still go round 6 inch curves. Just don't turn it upside down!

* Obviously now there is a good Farish Class 40, but it took until 2017.

On 07/09/2011 at 13:02, 'bcnPete' said:

I assume that these projects were the catalyst for setting up TPM?...

Would love to see some more...was always a fan of your scratchbuilt BDA me...

Certainly detailing up these models made me think there must be scope for better N gauge parts and kits, though it was the inlay idea that really got TPM started. I'll probably do some of the more interesting rolling stock later.

On 07/09/2011 at 14:25, 'Ben A' said:

When was it that you built/modified these models?

The first one (Class 24) was around 1979/80, but the majority were done between 1981 and 1984.

Talking of TPM...

I suppose this could be seen as a trial run for the 431 Class 31 kit, though this is late '70s condition rather than the kit's 1980s refurbished condition. The camera flash also helps give away the fact that this only has eight wheels as it runs on a 1970s Bachmann GP40. There was no way the original Lima chassis was going to fit after it had been reduced to near scale width. There's some great detail on the Lima moulding, just a shame they provided far too much of it!

Now, one of my later Brig locos:

For some reason I didn't get round to getting a Class 37 until about 1985 or 86 by which time the gears were plastic rather than brass. Fortunately this has the original white (nylon?) gears which didn't seem to suffer from the splits like the later black acetal ones. I managed to lower the body about 1mm by cutting away some of the cab front glazing and taking a strip off the top of the fuel tanks. I also reduced the side radiator grille openings and made them into the 'open' variety, detailed the doors, sloped the nose ends outwards at the bottom slightly and reprofiled the angle sections at each end under the noses which removed an awkward looking facet. Of course, it's still not as good as the new one...

Most of the locos on Brigenshaw were 'ordinary' as befits the Calder Valley in the late '70s. Fortunately Farish played along by releasing a useful range of the basic classes: 20, 25, 37 and 47. Most of them benefited from being reworked and I never did much like their shade of blue, so everything was repainted in Humbrol BR Blue (HR35 IIRC). This meant that reworking the detail didn't matter as it was going to be resprayed anyway. The Farish Class 25 was the later pattern with large centre window and shoulder grilles but I fancied an earlier one too so I bought a Langley Class 24 kit and reworked it. In retrospect I wish I'd recessed the cab doors like I did for the Farish model. Admittedly it was easier to chop the plastic body! Quite a few other alterations to the Farish body too, like cutting away excess framing under the cabs, gauze mesh main side grille, deepening the side windows as well as my standard separate wire handrails, etc.

In response to a request made on the 2mm thread, here's some piccies of my old Brigenshaw N Gauge locos with a few notes about them (other stuff might follow):

24 082 was my first N Gauge loco. In fact it had been bought at Woolworth's in Ilford way back, around 1969/70 as a pushalong model, one of the last ones they did before the range disappeared. This was, of course, once one of the original 'Treble-O-Lectric' models from 1960 and the body was a surprisingly good rendition of the Derby Type 2, later to become Class 24. Power came from a contemporary Bachmann (US) F-9. To gain clearance for the motor and chassis block I had to grind out a lot of metal from inside the body and slightly round the motor casing and the top brush holder. Even so, I had to drill a hole through the roof for the latter part to sit in. This was then covered over with new roof panels. I also revamped the rather crude radiator roof grille. The body also needed to be extended downwards. In late condition this meant modelling the framework parts where the original fairings had been removed, except round the bufferbeams. The buffers, like several early models I made, were Maygib heads (from their spring buffers) with insulation from multistrand wire to create 'Oleo' style buffers. The body cost 3/6, the chassis £1.99 so I reckon the overall cost was probably under a fiver; reasonably cheap even by 1980 standards. And it was a great runner.
The Class 20 is not as it was as when running on Brigenshaw as it was used to make a display model to show off one of my TPM detailing/conversion packs.

It's likely that 2 of those 5mm are due to the scale difference between 2mm scale and British N (1mm per 16 scale feet) as the LMS stove used an updated version of a chassis that went back to Midland days.

As ever, Paul Bartlett's site can help http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brconflata

Just like the HA, the Marina made a better looking van than car!

Just to show the difference (neither railway owned)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27204054@N07/3297598528/in/photostream/ late Marina pick-up with Ital door handles

http://www.theaa.com...s-ital-van.html Ital van with wrap round plastic front bumpers, but still pressed metal at the back

Sorry Ringo, it's definitely a Marina - look at the front bumper and it's the pressed metal one with the recessed centre whereas the Ital had a plastic front bumper that was deeper and finished at the rear following the shape of the wheel arch (same as the car). The Ital commercials appeared a little while after the car versions, hence this extra last version that was the final fling of the Marina. There's a very good comparison in 'Classic Van and Pick-up' vo.1 issue 12 October 2001, page 7.

The Marina at Crewe is one of the last; it has Ital door handles and no front quaterlight. Interesting contrast to the earlier one at Brockenhurst.

Two; there's a pale blue Beetle near the RH front (three if that large 'woodie' towards the left is a Yank tank rather than a large Austin).

Interestingly, out of all those vehicles only 10 are pre-1949 design (i.e. introduced more than 15 years before the photo was taken) though there's something pretty old just to the right, behind the Bedford minibus/Dormobile. Also the colour pallete is either pastel (most of the newer stuff) or dark (most of the older stuff), but TWO bright red Minis and a yellow (Hillman Express) van stand out.

The '47's being built there had already lost the little foot recess under the doors.

Great period find!

Post40-something, on 28 July 2011 - 10:52 , said:

Maybe Dapol will release silver door versions in the future if there is enough demand.

Highly unlikely, unless G.C. change their minds about their corporate image.

Are GC buying these HSTs? If not, surely it should be the customer who is right?

Anyway, BR built them, so they should be blue/grey

Unpainted aluminium window frames came in from 7711. Here is a new 7712 with them.

Apologies - duly noted. Half way through the batch!