Woodcock29

Thanks for the additional photos Tony. I'd seen your previous posting before but these additional images are quite useful. I took a few myself in 2013 but of course I couldn't climb all over the tender. Andrew

Ah I think that is probably the right answer Simon, otherwise we would have found some other examples. Just goes to show how easily we can be mislead by viewing from certain angles. Andrew

Tony G (and Richard) Like Tony I was of the view in recent times that all water pickup 'ships' wheels had only 6 spokes. However, the other day whilst browsing photos of D7s again (research for my D7 resin kit from Graeme King!) in Yeadon Vol 29 I came across a photo of D9 6021 Queen Mary which clearly shows a wheel with 8 spokes (p61). I've yet to find any other evidence on any other locos. In the past I've generally fitted the Alan Gibson 8 spoke castings. But a couple of years ago I purchased a batch of 15 of Mike Edge's nice etched n/s 6 spoked 'ships' wheels to replace the 8 spoked wheels and for future builds. I also have one of Mike's B9s to build one day but must first finish my B8 which has stalled since the end of 2021 as well as a range of other projects. Andrew

Sorry to hear you've got Covid Tony. Hopefully your symptoms remain mild and Mo stays clear of it! I caught it from my 4 year old granddaughter who was visiting from Qld back in Feb. We had 6 in the house at the time and somehow our daughter managed to stay clear of it despite no internal isolation between us all. My wife was most affected with a raging sore throat for nearly 3 weeks. My symptoms were very mild - a slightly elevated temp for a day and felt a bit lethargic for a couple of days. Andrew

Tony Not sure if you still own the Hornby O1 shown above? If you do you could improve its looks enormously with one of Graeme KIng's resin tall flowerpot chimneys. I have probably shown this improved Hornby O1 previously. It also has Graeme's resin NE style smokebox door. I should take a better photo so the chimney is more in silhouette. I really should remove the NEM pocket moulded into the pony truck! But its really only noticeable in a photo. I suppose I should also have made new 'wiggly pipes'. But this was only intended to be a quick makeover. The Hornby O1 is in my view the best of the LNER 2-8-0 models. I don't run it much as I'm predominantly a 1930s period modeller. Andrew

They would have been. Andrew

Great views of the Matterhorn Graham. It was all a white out when we were there in 2018. Andrew

John I'll a look to see what gears I have at present. Andrew

I have two of a mate's Bachmann WDs which need new motors as they now have shorts in them. Last weekend I got four K3s from him which I'm yet to properly assess. I know two probably have the shorting issue. One has a worn or damaged crosshead that drops out of the slidebars - I might see if I can fit one of the redundant crossheads from my new Bachmann V2 (?). Otherwise I'll fit valvegear off one with a stuffed motor initially to get that one going. I don't think any of these have had excessive running though. I've recently had to fix two Heljan Garratts for another mate which had wiring issues. And for another mate to fit double Peco fibre washers either side of the front axle to stop the crankpins on the leading driving wheels on a Heljan GWR saddle tank from occasionally jamming with the crossheads. I've also just this morning regauged the driving wheels on a Hornby Railroad Hall for him as well. Admittedly that was because it jammed in pointwork built by the late Norman Saunders. The back to back was however as tight as 14mm on one pair of wheels Seems like the issues with current RTR are wide ranging! Andrew

Tony Its great to have RMweb back - thanks to Andy and his team. I have almost finished working on my Bachmann V2. The latest improvement is to fit Comet V2 valve gear. To summarise I've shortened the front of the smokebox. Removed the Bachmann engine to tender coupling and made a simple hook and bar from brass rod. I've also taken the electrical plug arrangement out of the Bachmann coupling and reused that to connect the tender pickups. The footplate had slight curves on the raised central sections so I've glued sections of 1mm square brass bar to keep them straight. Added the missing handrails to the front curved sections of footplate. Removed all the rivets on the upper surfaces of the footplate because I could find no evidence of any of these in the LNER period. There appear to have been a limited number in BR days but not as many as Bachmann have provided! Filled in the gap between the safety valves that shouldn't be there. Removed the rear cab window glazing. Fitted crew and coaled the tender after dusting down the coal space and other top surfaces of the tender with coal dust powder. Painted the handrail knobs green where necessary as they were black on the model even though the handrails themselves were painted green by Bachmann. Fitted the flanged Cartazzi wheels. With the valve gear I have reused the Bachmann eccentric crank as that was quite well shaped - maybe a bit long? But the Bachmann crankpin screw fitted into this nicely and I didn't want to start fiddling around with the driving crankpins. I managed to use the Comet coupling rods but did have to move the centre of the front crankpins holes forward by approximately 0.2mm. The worst part of this was opening out the holes large enough to fit the Bachmann crankpin screws. I have modified the Comet valve gear so that the vale rod and separate valve spindle actually move back and forth as they should. The valve rods are fitted to the top of the lower slots in the expansion links with pieces of nickel silver wire soldered only to the back of the 3 part expansion link ands seem to work ok. So they are fixed in forward gear. I also found I needed to moved the Bachmann cylinders back by about 0.8mm. The Comet motion bracket fit quite well straight onto the Bachmann plastic mounting spigots but with longer screws (14BA I think). I will weather the valve gear in due course. I've also rubbed the cylinders down to remove the circular plates that were not on the first batch of V2s built (they were added to these later) and painted the cylinders black as they were after first shopping at Doncaster - I still need to add the red lining. There's a great photo of 4791 in Loco Illustrated No 9. The one extra thing I'm contemplating doing is to rub down the fronts of the V cab on each side and repaint with the black section of lining against the firebox much thinner - the bottom of the white V in the lining should be below the bottom of the numbers on the cab sides. This means I'd be removing the excessively bold flange on the V that Bachmann have moulded and on which they have applied the lining - at the moment I need more courage to tackle this!. I have however loosened the cab so it is now actually separate from the firebox so I can remove it to do this task - it was glued onto the firebox on each side but with not much glue. Andrew

This is my Heljan O2/3 that I did up. It has a new expansion link (I note the motion bracket looks non-vertical in the photo but its not so obvious in the flesh), buffers, chimney, some wiggly pipes, behind the main steam pipes, smokebox door handles, correct longer handrails on the other side of the tender. Really I should have shortened the cab windows with some inserts at the bottom and replacement bottom framing. I'm sure I've posted a photo before but here it as its a current topic of conversation. Recently I was lucky enough to be offered another one from a deceased estate in Qld for not much as part of the valve gear had come apart. It didn't run very well but after some attention it ran fine forwards but was very stop start in reverse. I've put it away for the time being as I don't need any more distractions to the umpteen projects I have on the go at the moment! However, my plan is to see if I can get some spare parts from the Heljan agent in the UK once the new batch of GN O2/2s have been released (recalling that spare parts for the O2/3 were available after its release - I bought some) with the aim of making an O2/1 with the higher original GN cab and the lower footplate for a short travel valve engine. Tony - I have been advised by 'Brush Veteran' that the lower footplate with straight buffer beam will be fitted to the new models as this was tooled up originally. I also have a plan to build a Gresley O1 from an unbuilt Nucast O2 so have been collecting parts for that - some Heljan parts are likely to be used as well. It will be another companion to my original Nucast O2/2 built in 1982 - gosh thats 40 years ago now! Andrew

But there is no reason whatsoever for modelling the eccentric rod/expansion link as Heljan have done.

Plus the awful incorrect eccentric rod/ expansion link arrangement. Andrew

Tony G - you are quite right in your more expansive comments on the valve gear on that A1. In fact the whole motion bracket is too low when I have a closer look. Andrew

Tony I'm confused by your statement above. In that photo it looks to me like the radius rod is in neutral gear, ie through the pivot position of the expansion link. If I had to say it was not in neutral I would say marginally higher ie slightly in reverse. If its in full forward gear surely the radius rod should be near the bottom of the expansion link? What am I missing? Andrew

John please remind me what the overall size of the layout is? Andrew

This L&Y rail motor is from a Jidenco/Falcon Brass kit. I've probably shown it previously - its probably about one third scratchbuilt. I started it maybe 12-13 years ago and finished it when I took early retirement 10 years ago. I built it for a mate and then purchased it when he started selling his 4mm models. I've also built the two Jidenco GN fish vans - the chassis were terrible and the doors all wrong on the 5T clerestory roof van (they're still wrong because I didn't know that when I built it!). I've also got two of the GC 6 wheel brake vans to do - one is a brand new kit and the other is part built in a job lot I bought. Andrew

Tony from a quick perusal of Malcolm Crawley's GN Tender book, whilst very few J3s were ever attached to Ivatt A Type tenders, the only one which did and acquired a BR number was 64153 which was withdrawn on 19/5/52. Three or four others reached BR days but didn't get renumbered before withdrawal. A few others were coupled to this type of tender for short periods in LNER days but the majority by far were coupled to Stirling C or D Type tenders. Andrew

Ah but Tony the tenders in the above two pictures of J3s are not the same. Gilbert's on PN is the correct Stirling D type with square rear corners, 3 coal rails and transverse front tool box. Yours, as I mentioned on your thread or by email - can't remember now, is the Ivatt 'Horseshoe' A type tender which is incorrect. Clarification has been provided in The Clearing House article. Andrew

GN 0-6-0s I just love them!

On my LNER 4791 they came out very easily using just a knife/scalpel blade. I'll shortly have 3 more to do for a mate - hope they're just as easy.

Mention of the late Bill Richmond's massive LMS WCML layout in NZ sent me searching for photos I had taken on two visits - 1997 and 2006. In 1997 Bill was still working on the layout but by 2006 his age had caught up with him and I don't think it progressed much if at all after that visit. Bill received a lot of assistance with scenic items from BRMA members in Australia as well as at least two people from the UK. The layout was situated in a building which I understand to be 60 x 40 feet and was also used for shearing Bill's pedigree sheep. Tring station - buildings by the late Harry Howell I understand. Harry is likely to have also painted the backscene. Nov 1997 visit Primrose Hill tunnels - the Euston end by the late Alex Mathieson. Buildings above the tunnels by the late Harry Howell. 1997 visit Part of Camden Goods Yard with Bill in the back right attending to some issue. Harry Howell may well have painted the backscene. 1997 visit The Doric Arch at Euston built by the late Alex Mathieson. Jan 2006 visit. Alex was one of the founding members of the British Railway Modellers of Australia back in 1978. Reports are that the layout worked well in its younger days. I understand Bill started working in what he called S4 back in the early 60s. The layout was originally started at a large property Bill lived in near Wellington but some time in the early 90s I think, Bill moved up to Hamilton not far from Auckland which is where I met Bill and saw the layout. Andrew

Tony there is a model of Potters Bar, in the 30s I think, being built I think in France. Its seen from time to time on the LNER Model Railway Forum. This one interests me particularly as I spent my first 8.5 yrs living just up the road from the station, although I can only remember it when the widening was complete. Andrew

The wee blue fella has been out on my layout for nearly two weeks now as the daughter and her family are still with us due to 4 of the 6 of us being covid +ve. The upside is the older granddaughter who was 7 last Sunday, now knows how to run all the trains around from the hidden storage loops and utilise the automatic stops in the loops. Whilst the 4 year loves running the wee blue fella. Its fun watching the wee blue fella running around with two ex GN Howlden 6 wheelers. They run really well in reverse as well! So a good test to Danny Pinnocks 6 wheel arrangements. Andrew

Tony G I have found a couple of photos in DL Franks Great Central Remembered that might be 3250 gallon tenders attached to 11Bs. I don't have John's LIvery book as my main period of interest is the 1930s. But interesting to know they are in there. Andrew