BernardTPM

I'll see what I can find!

Hi Simon, Good work on the Crab; I hope you didn't loose too many drills doing the handrails! The Farish single vent van is a late '30s LNER design (in fact the same as the one recently done in 4mm by Bachmann) so is 17'6" long on a 10' w.b. That looks like the later version of the body. There are a couple of isues with this: the lamp bracket is very tall (not too hard to sort with a sharp knife and some filing) and the sliding door is moulded flush with the side instead of being stepped out. Oddly the earlier tool Farish used was correct in both respects, though the detail is a little neater on the later body. I scored down the sides of the door and underneath the side with a sharp knife and took it out, sticking it back in place a 10 thou." further out. Many that were originally unfitted would have had vac. brakes added in the late 1950s, so 'standard' 4 shoe brakes are OK. Those that were built fitted would have clasp brakes to the standard LNER pattern.

Perhaps you could shorten the Farish body, possibly by taking a chunk out of the middle as both ends' curved drops look about OK (obviously if you have a scaled drawing to hand you could check that out) and mount it on the modified chassis you've made, with the GEM sideframes removed from the sides and thinned down. An alternative might be to use the old Minitrix 2MT tender underframe.

The loco-hauled Mk.3s were used on the West Coast Main Line, usually behind 86/2s or 87s. When new (1975/6), the rakes would have Mk.1 kitchen/buffet coaches and a Mk.1 BG. Kitchen coaches would vary but some would be RKB, possibly with RFO (again Mk.1) or just an RB. The Mk.3 RUB buffet coaches came later (hence the end roof vents are different, being like the HST type; those on the Jouef buffet are wrong).

Mk.2 Astravan in the first pick too, it would seem. Wonder if that large blue arrow was a livery trial leading to the later blue/white Rail Express Parcels?

Nice, but why fit the BR1 bogies to the Siphons when the Collett 'Pressed Steel' bogies (Bachmann ref: 36-010) would be more appropriate? A few had other GWR bogies too, but the 'Pressed Steel' type were the most numerous. Ideally those on the Hornby Hawkesworth BG would be perfect, but that's a lot of left-over to chuck into the spares box!

There was an article with photos and drawings in the January 1980 Railway Modeller. The follow-up article on its later career mentioned in it never appeared.

It will suit all the wrap round door Mk.2s, including the air-conditioned ones and is a simple, quick improvement on the basic Farish TSO and FO. Of course the early Mk.2 and Mk.2a stock didn't have wrap-round doors plus doors in the middle so they're going to be more work anyway as you have to fill in at least part of the Farish footstep recess and loose it completely for the TSO (that applies to brake ends as well, of course). They still look better with the prototypical gap above the footstep, though.

Good work on the coaches, Simon. There's another simple little improvement that can be done with these end-door Mk.2s; cutting and filing away the area under the door and above the footstep. The footstep/buffer units unclip quite easily. After that all you need to do is trim away the lower part of the side under the door where it incorrectly steps down from the end (it should be level). Don't trim all the way to the end of the moulded recess but stop at the edge of the door, so there's a small part of the original shallow recess left to accommodate the moulded footstep that correctly extends just beyond the door. Only minor touching in (underneath the door) should be required as the area exposed looking from the side is the black of the footstep moulding. This adds a little more to the definition of the door area too. Nice to the the 'Provincialled' NSE coach. Very typical but rarely seen modelled.

You might do better to apply the red over the cream (over the white primer); simpler to mask and less chance of the red looking pinkish.

The other point with laser scanning a near 50 year old loco is that it will pick up on all the surface lumps and bumps acquired over the years (as well as the fact that the surfaces were probably never as clean and accurate as the designer might have intended).

Not only narrower (with noticeably taller yellow and red bands on First and Catering vehicles) but the grey also ran straight into the black on the ends. On loco hauled stock there was a narrow band of blue with the usual round corners to the grey panel.

You want silver outline lettering too!

Yes - tricky beasts! It does look odd, but, as you say, could just be in the CAD methodology.

Yup - I think this whole ledge should dip down very slightly in front of the windows too, but that is a pretty minor issue and wouldn't be hard to correct if the basic shape is right.

As built all were fixed, but alterating the RH one to hinged started circa 1964. It would be nice to have the early variation as an option so you can run an early 'Thousand' (introduced from December 1961) with a very late King (which were all withdrawn by the end of 1962). The front corners of the cab look a bit too rounded. This is a very tight radius on the real thing as shown here and with a very slight curve in plan view across the front 'shelf' (curves that meet at an angle in the centre), also just discernable in the picture, particularly the RH side. Please don't recess the outer edge of the slats on the bodyside grilles; they should be flush (and on Hymeks too) - it's not too clear on the pictures if they are flush or not.

I think that is a very sound idea!

Personally, I'd say for corridor stock, the most important interior parts are the partitions (both the corridor and between compartments) so the light only shows through the coach in the right places. For open stock seats become the partitions to some extent and tables tend to be right at the window while for Pullmans you really need table lamps, therefore a table to put them on (On the other hand seats are less important as curtains tend to hide them).

Yup. On order!

I'm glad what you've done is the 'correct' version; even if it hadn't been it still would have looked better anyway! The Micro Sol demo was useful too. Well done!

You're doing a great job on that old Hornby body. Just one thing regarding the numbers; going by the picture you posted, those you're using look to be more accurate than the real thing which seems to have been numbered using spare vinyls from the local takeaway, given the odd typeface. Of course, it may have been corrected later.

I wonder if I can fit them in my 4mm Vauxhall Viva...

Might be worth seeing if there's a Japanese tram chassis that could fit if done in N. I think the Bachmann Brill will be too wide in the chassis block.

Massive!

The Tri-ang dock shunter was loosely based on a Bagnall, but while the Matchbox does bear some visual relationship to the Tri-ang model there are sugnificant differences, such as the angled front to the cab (found on some Rustons, but otherwise not very Ruston!), that make it quite unlike a Bagnall. I'm pretty sure it's entirely freelance.