gazer117

Hi I've been looking to model one of these vans in 4mm in the BR era. The instructions supplied suggest using Modelmaster sheet 8196, but after a night of googling I've not found any information or a supplier for this decal sheet anywhere. Does anyone have any ideas if this is a mis-print and if so where i might find some BR era transfers for this van ?

On 21/06/2021 at 23:42, Thunderforge said:

Back in the nineties I bought many railway magazines, and very often there was a layout based on some bleak northern line, some wind blown moor with sheep and stone walls. The engines would be bluish grey black and the carriages were always red. I never appreciated them at the time; I liked tiny shunting yards, not twenty feet of double track main line broken only by a catch point!

 

Does anyone have any photos or names of the layouts I recall? There were always dusty little six wheelers pulling endless coke trains, miles and miles of wire fencing and spratt & winkle couplings. I’d flick past them thinking ‘boooring’ but the images stick in my memory  and I wonder if anyone else has the same recollection?

 

Back then I was a philistine who never appreciated brass kit building, hand laid track or historical accuracy, I just wanted the latest plastic gadgets from Hornby. But looking back these were layouts full of skill, realism and dedication, and it must have sunk in somehow! :-)

A bit after the 90's but the Blea Moor layout that was on the show circuit for a while certainly ticks the 'bleak' scenery box, and interestingly, whilst different this layout has always stayed vividly in my memory too. 

Thank you both for really quick replies, yes i agree it looks like a Dia2103 van. 

The second question is are there any 4mm kits out there for that diagram van, as my quick google has drawn a blank ?

Hi, is anyone able to help with working out the orgins of the middle van in the photo. To my untrained eye the left van looks like an LNER fruit van that's had a replacement roof as I cant see an sign of vents, and the furthest right looks like an LMS van. My question is what is the van is in the middle as it appears to be plywood sided, but other than that I'm stuck? 

That's great thank you ! 

Hi, does anyone have an up to date Maskokits catalogue, or is able to tell me the most recent price for the under frame kit for the airfix/Dapol class B tank, which i believe has a product code of 6.09 ?

52 minutes ago, Rockalaucher101 said:

Looking at the instructions and the images on the Brassmaster site it looks like they're glued to the back of the steps

They are basically two "Y" shaped pieces of casting with a 90 degree bend at the bottom. I'd guess that the two arms of the Y shape are mounted at the top and the single piece with 90 degree bend facing outwards underneath the bottom of the steps ?

Hi, I am in the process of detailing a Bachmann Jinty using brassmasters detailing set, but I'm stuck when it comes to the injectors. 

I can't work out how/where to fit the injectors as the instructions are wonderfully vague and the pictures online don't clear things up much more. Has anyone got a photo of the brassmasters injectors fitted to a Jinty or photo of the real thing that might help show me where they fit ?

On 06/09/2020 at 14:57, Steve51769 said:

I was wondering if the collective on here could point me in the right direction. I've been trying find a supplier of sheets of Eastern Region 00 smokebox number plate numbers (individual number transfers not whole plates). I can find lots for cabside numbers but not smokebox number.  Does anyone produce these? Is there a gap in the market here? I've tried using BR white coach numbers but the font is wrong. 

 

Thanks

 

Steve

I would recommend Railtec transfers. They come as a 3D printed decal, and to my eye look equally good as most brass Smokebox Numberplates. 

Any suggestions as to what the 16 ton minerals above the safety valves are ? They don't appear to have top doors, so I'm leaning towards LMS built ones, but i can't see any markings on them suggesting bottom doors. 

37 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Possible, there's not much "in the way" but you'd have to gain quite a lot of height to join the SWML which is dropping towards Swansea at that point.  Has the Swansea District Line been singled yet?  I know it was planned after the re-doubling across the new Lougher viaduct was completed.

 I think that there are problems with clearance on the district Line, that have restricted it's usage but is still double line. I do believe that the Welsh Government want to create a "Swansea Parkway" station on the district line. I'm not sure as to how much life the bridge over the River Neath has left in it as it's got a severe speed restriction over it. 

8 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Realistically a 40 minute saving plus the Llanelli connection time, but that adds up to a lot.  One of those lines that should have been modernised and might have survived a lot longer, but which would be completely uneconomic to reopen.

I agree, i don't quite get why the Welsh Government are so hell bent on the Carmarthen-Aberystwyth line. The line from Carmarthen-Llandeillo seems to have been forgotten and would be a much less costly project. I'd argue that if it was an isolated line there would be no case for reopening but as you said it would shorter the journey from Carmarthen to Shrewsbury to 2 1/2 hours which IMO is pretty good compared to the 4 1/2 hours at the moment. How many people would use it is a different question altogether. 

2 hours ago, Northmoor said:

When I used to go back and forth between Pembrokeshire and Liverpool as a student, I almost always travelled via Cardiff.  Had I used the HoW, I would have connected into the same service at Shrewsbury; going the long way round cost me no time or extra fare and was on a more comfortable 158 unit.  The line speed and many stops on the HoW was only part of the issue.

A bigger time penalty was the connection at Llanelli because going North, the train from Milford always arrived just after the Shrewsbury train had left (so you needed to have left at least an hour earlier and spent the time waiting at Llanelli) and in the Southbound direction, the HoW train arrived just after the Milford train had left, so you had an hour+ wait for the next one.  I never understood why they were timetabled like this; it wasn't even as if they were timetabled to connect with London services at Swansea and the number of people commuting from stations on the HoW to travel towards Cardiff must have been tiny.

Considering the spectacular growth over the Crewe-Cardiff route over recent decades, you would think exploiting the available capacity on the HoW to encourage a few people a day to use the direct route, would have been a cheaper way of providing extra capacity between West Wales and the West Midlands or the North West, than lengthening trains between Cardiff-Crewe/Manchester/Liverpool.  There's a lot of Universities in those conurbations....

Out of interest, I remember reading that when Llandeilo-Carmarthen closed (just before Beeching), the line was still operated by steam, every station except one was staffed and all had manned level crossings. The annual saving from closure was just £11,000 per annum. 

I was going to suggest that if you upgrade the HoW line, the next obvious suggestion would be to re-instate the line from Carmarthen to Llandeillo.

Yes you'd need a new alignment in places and several new bridges but it wouldn't be un-surmountable and would save atleast an hour to get to Llandeillo from Carmarthen ?  If you did that and upgraded the HoW line you could route quite a lot of traffic from/to Carmarthen/Pembrokeshire that way instead of it going through Cardiff and the Marches to reach Shrewsbury. 

On 08/06/2020 at 13:20, caradoc said:

Would a service from Cardiff to Holyhead actually be any quicker via Swansea (reverse), single line (presumably) from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth (reverse), single line to Afon Wen, single line (presumably) to Bangor (reverse again) than via the current route, which is all double track (except for Wrexham/Chester) and maintained to main line standards ?

 

 I seriously doubt it would, its currently roughly 2 hours to Carmarthen, add another 2-2 1/2 to get to Aber. From Aber to Dovey junction, with time for a change you're looking at another hour and a further 2 hours to get to Porthmadog and another 2 hours to get to Holyhead.

So what's that 9-10 hours, whereas currently Cardiff to Holyhead is under 7 hours. 

If i had the money to burn I'd look at re-doubling and upping the line speed wherever possible on the heart of Wales line to make it a viable route from west wales to the Midlands and see if traffic increases.

A couple of 16ton in this picture. Interesting looking wooden wagon in the background. 

Great thank you. I'll get some B003 in that case. It seems like the "standard" dia 1/108 are anything but standard !

Hi, as the title suggests, I'm looking to replace some plastic buffers on some Parkside 16ton Dia 1/108 mineral wagons with cast ones from from LMS. Which would be the correct ones to use as I can't quite work out the correct (or most common) ones to use as a couple say that they were used on mineral wagons ?

Great thanks for that link, i shall have to spend a bit of time bringing myself up to date. 

Great thank you ! Yes i'm working in 4mm, and sticking to 00.

Where can you get cast brake gear from ? I've got a bit of experience with etch but i'd rather try building the sprung W irons first before i move onto a full underframe kit, as i would like to have some clasp braked 16 ton wagons so I'll end up getting a set or two of the Rumney underframes.  You mention cast metal brakegear, can you point me in the right direction for who supplies them ?

5 hours ago, Mark Forrest said:

A few other tips, if you are new to using them...

1. use “waisted” bearings, it means the hole/slot in the rear of the axlebox can be smaller yet still allow sufficient movement
2. get a jig to help align the axles.  I think Bill Bedford does one, but I use the one which Brassmasters sell
3. throw away the wire that comes with the Bedford etches and get yourself a pack of Ernie Ball guitar string/wire.  I use the 11 thou (same as AJ couplings).  Much quicker and easier than trying to straighten the (often slightly rusty) wire that comes with the axleguards

Hope that helps. 

All this advice is greatly appreciated, as i'm a complete novice to Sprung/compensated underframes. With the Waisted bearings are any brands recommended in particular ? 

Also any other recommended upgrades for below the Solebar ? 

1 hour ago, Mark Forrest said:

For your 16 tonners you want the BR open type, for the 21T/24.5T you want the BR heavy duty plate type.  As a general rule of thumb, use the heavy duty for wagons rated 20T and above.

Great thank you.

Hi, i've decided that im going to start using sprung W Irons on some of my Kit builds, but I'm unsure as to which set of Sprung W Irons from Bill Bedford are the correct ones to use. 

The kits that i need sprung W Irons for are BR built 16 ton , 21 and 24.5 Ton wagons (All from Parkside), can someone please tell me which set of W irons i'd need for each wagon type please ?