Ivatt46403

Does anyone know of a kit for a LMS/MR hand cart similar to this one: (http://northwestimages.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/carnforth-station-heritage-centre.html) It's one of the pieces now missing from my platform (and some people). Marcus.

Happy New Year everyone! It's been a miserable wet Sunday in Bristol today so what better than a spot of modelling to start the year. I decided to get on with this etched barrow kit for Buckden: A combination of soldering and superglue gave me a nice little barrow: Which a quick daub of fresh, bright green paint gave me a new addition to the platform: Marcus.

I vote for both! Like I said you've got a lot of planning to do before the modelling starts on Buxton, so why not just tick over ELJ until you're ready to lay track on Buxton - you know exactly what and how to do the scenics for ELJ and presumably can lift a lot from the 00 version. Then you'll have a beautiful diorama to play on while you're working on Buxton. Marcus.

HI Paul, You're definitely not letting anyone down - and I can understand you're reasons - but it will still be a shame to not see ELJ updates anymore! Is there a local club with rooms you could use for running? Or you could run on the exhibition circuit - I'm sure you'd be welcomed with open arms given the quality of your modelling! Whatever you decide to do we're all here for your fantastic modelling skills so will look forward to following your new project! Happy new year! Marcus.

No more modelling until the new year as I've gone to San Francisco for work, then will be back in Buckden (the 12 in:ft one) over Christmas. Happy Christmas everyone! Marcus.

Station signs arrived from Trackside Signs so I made a start on the sign boards from various bits and pieces of plasticard and rod. Think I need to file the pitch down a little more but I'm happy with the start I've made: I've made them too tall so I can plant them, and am now faced with my standard "what colour were they" dilemma. They were replaced before the colour photos I have, and in the b&w ones they look darker than the lampposts etc, so it may be marroon, with a white board. Marcus.

Great work - I've always been very fond of the 08. I had a swallow livery one as a child. I have an 09 in Mainline as I've driven the real thing at the RMWeb day, but I should come with a reason for one on Buckden. Marcus.

Yes, sounds like Cooper Craft are having some difficulties at the moment. Marcus.

Looks like you can get it direct: [Edited to remove link - looks as though you're unlikely to get one any time soon] Marcus.

Now I've sorted some couplings, here's a few quick ones of it in service behind my J15 Marcus

Here's the new one fresh from the paintshop. I used Halfords grey aerosol primer, thought about leaving it at that (the roof is just that) but then gave it a brush coat of Phoenix LMS freight wagon grey (P38), then Tamiya Nato Black for the below the solebar as per my copy of "A Illustrated History of LMS Wagons Vol. 1", The inside is Phoenix weathered wood (P990). I'd probably have airbrushed the grey if it wasn't for the fact that I washed my airbrush noodle down the sink last week. There's a great photoo in An Illustrated History with them all lined up with white painted wheels which I am considering adding, then heavily weathering. The grey has come out a little more gloss than usual - either I didn't mix it well enough or I was a little impatient with the undercoat. I'll be weathering it anyway - or what happens if you apply matt varnish to a gloss surface?? HMRS transfers are finally ordered (by mail! with a cheque!) so I might actually have some LMS decals on my wagon fleet soon. For comparison, as I managed (accidentally) to do a very similar pose, where's the other, Slaters/Coopercraft one: Marcus.

Yes that sounds right -certainly looks like that one - I definitely don't remember buying the underframe separately. Both kits came together very nicely, the wire rails on the Parkside one are much finer than the plastic rod on the the Coopercraft/Slaters kit but that's easily swapped. Marcus.

Hi Mark, Thanks - yes here it is: It's beige plastic, and it doesn't say Cambrian on the bottom.. Marcus. (and I know I need to fix the roof down )

I picked up the new Parkside Dundas LMS cattle wagon (PC87; Diag. 1661) from Modelmania this week and put it together today. I wanted a second one to go with my (unknown manufacturer) other kit - there's a nice Ken Fairey photo in John Rhodes' book of two with different roof profiles marshalled in the front of a passenger train at Kettering. Alas my two have the same roof profile! Nonetheless it's a nice kit to put together as ever from Parkside. A little more flash than sometimes but nothing a clean up with a file won't fix. I followed last month's Railway Modeller's lead and added roof bracing: Marcus

Blimey! Well from previous on this thread i'm sure it's going to be exquisite. Marcus.

Oh so these were probably oil then - thinking about it the station was so far from anything it probably wasn't on gas. I presume they would still have needed lighting one by one though? Marcus.

How are you going to put the new track into the old scenic board? Marcus.

Yes as Maxwill says it's now gone. It stood as a private house (occupied by the former station master I believe) for a long time, and was there when I was a child (I'm in my thirties now) but was demolished when the recycling depot on Brampton road expanded. Raunds, Cranford and Kimbolton stations on the line still exist as private dwellings, and lots of the bridges are still extant - you go under one on the road Brampton-Grafham (station was just as you entered the village on the left from Ellington but now gone), and you can get to one from the Grafham Water path. And of course there is the very fine viaduct at Thrapston that you can see from the A14. I should really drive the line and document what's left - Thrapston Midland Road station was demolished quite recently. Marcus.

Only "almost" gone? From what I can see from the road there isn't anything still standing? Or is there still some trace? Marcus

I think they were, but I'm not sure. And I was thinking the very same thing - it would be very neat and just the thing for computer control. All three wire into the board from DCC but it shouldn't be an issue to switch them individually. Marcus.

The platform lamps are now wired up and work very nicely. Casting a warm yellow glow with some nice shadows too. I've also started to light the windows in the station house. I do like lighting, railways run in the night look really effective I think, but I don't like all the windows to be glowing all of the time. So I've build some little window back units for individual grain of wheat bulbs: They're just little boxes in plasticard, then sprayed black and drilled: Then they're glued to the backs of the windows. I've made the holes big enough, and stopped them up with bluetac, so that in theory I could swap out any failed bulbs - although the top window would be jolly fiddly to do. I'll do the other windows in time, and then the plan is to have either switch or computer (Raspberry Pi) control so that the platform/yar lights come on at dusk and the station lights go on and off pseudo randomly once it's got dark. So here in twilight is Ivatt 46403 hauling the evening stopper from Kettering. Marcus.

Whilst searching on Google for a copy of one of my favourite images of Buckden to post which demonstrates that (if you look really really closely) the loading gauge was an LMS Midland one (unsurprisingly) - which is fine because I can get a nice one from Scalelink - I have found a bunch of new pictures of Buckden from Ebay here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?_odkw=&_ssn=redgate8&_armrs=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2046732.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.XBuckden.TRS0&_nkw=Buckden&_sacat=0 Some of which show new sides and new bits. Some of those are very interesting and exciting and I can easily add in. Some parts show things which I've clearly got wrong. Eek! Marcus.

The correct LMS seats arrived from Scalelink yesterday, so this morning i've put two of them together, spot the difference: Marcus

Hi Clive, Interesting question and nice footage. I don't have any colour photos of the signs from Buckden, but I think not. Looking carefully at the photos I have there appear to have been two phases of signs. Firstly iron posts with LMS hawkseye signs (which I'm guessing were yellow), and then later concrete signposts with ER blue replacement signs - but these were all new and not repainted hawkseyes. I'm going to go with the hawkseye signs - although this means I need to fabricate some sligthly more complex posts! Marcus.

You are absolutely right Paul, although I think you and I are going to become each other's worst enemy, reminding us of what we know is true... Marcus.