thegreenhowards

Today, by pure coincidence, the sequence has thrown up the 1700 KX- Peterborough/ Cambridge. This is the opportunity for me to give a first run to some of my proudest achievements of the year, C2, Henry Oakley and my Gresley steel panelled five set. For those less familiar with ECML history, the two Ivatt Atlantic’s were brought out of retirement in 1953 to work a series of rail tours in conjunction with the centenary of Doncaster works. I’d love to model the railtour itself one day but it requires two x 6 bay Gresley BSOs, 6 Gresley D.186 TTOs, a Thompson RK and Thompson buffet car all in Blood and Custard livery and while I have about half of that formation in other liveries, I have precisely zero in Blood and Custard. So that is definitely a long term project! Luckily for me they also worked some ‘warm up’ service trains. In particular the 1700 From KX as mentioned above. So this is the train I have chosen to run them on. I have based the formation for this train on the CWN and a photo on P86 of ‘East Coast from KX’. It is formed of a Gresley steel panelled 5 set for Peterborough and 6 all door Gresleys (BTK,SK,FK,SK,SK,BTK) for Cambridge. The photo shows certain coaches still in teak livery and that is what I’ve represented. Headstock has convinced me that the steel CK was actually a GE shorty on the day (according to the photo) but I’ve only got the steel version so that will have to do. Here is the train emerging from ‘canal tunnel’ Now at rest having stopped at Gresley Jn. ..and rounding the reverse curves. ...and finally an ‘airship shot’ of the viaduct. As it’s a special train and a special day, I’ve prepared a bumper video showing their journey round the layout. Merry Christmas to all followers of Gresley Jn. Andy

I do love a tango. Great photos.

Here we have the up Scotland to West Thurrock cement empties headed by A2/3 60513, Dante. The loco is a DJH kit bought ready made from Rails at Warley a couple of years ago. This train is very much still work in progress. the weathering needs to be harmonised between the wagons, and I need to add a few more yellow ones to represent an early ‘60s look. I have a batch of Airfix presflo wagons in various states of disrepair which will be brought up to standard and incorporated into the train. I will then probably sell on the two grey wagons as they were a later addition. My understanding of this working is that it was introduced in c. 1960 with Presflos. It was then changed to Cliffe-Uddingstone in 1961 when the Cemflo wagons were introduced. Haulage seems to have been predominantly 9Fs and V2s in the presflo era, with 33s replacing steam fairly early (but not immediately) in the Cemflo era. There is a popular story about A2/3s working the train inspired by a comment in one of Pete Townsend’s books. I suspect this was In the Cemflo era and very much the exception rather than the rule, but my normal V2 refused to move yesterday, so I had to use my A2/3. There is a good discussion about the ECML cement workings in this thread for anyone interested. Here’s a video of the cement.

Thanks Tony, Trust you to tune in on a day where the train I show is almost all RTR! Most of the previous Few days have contained a good percentage of kit built stuff. The Mark 1s are Bachmann and the front brake car is the new Hornby version. The rear one is the older Hornby type, converted to Car 81 by removing the ducket and switching the bogies to Gresleys (car 81 and Belinda, plus maybe one or two others acquired Gresley bogies). Andy

This evening I feature the down Tees Tyne Pullman Headed by 60063, Isinglass. This is the early ‘60s formation with Met Cams for most if the train and steel 1928 brake cars.

John, What makes you say that they should have round bases? I don't have an end on picture of this twin, but the pictures of Gresley non corridor stock all have square bases. By the way this model is in 0 gauge - I hope that was clear. NMRS don't do '00' if that's what you were looking for. Andy

I agree. You could always bend your time frame backwards a little - just like you do in the other direction for Deltic. Although I realise that there lies a slippery slope! I really fancy a few GNR non corridor outer suburban coaches - things like the D.183 BCL and D.121 CL. They lasted until the mid fifties and I imagine could easily have worked this sort of excursion. I'm working on Andy Edgson at Isinglass to produce a kit. Andy

Nice formation on the Skeggy excursion. Is that based on a photo or just an educated guess?

Next up we have the 1345 Leeds/ Bradford to Kings Cross FO/ Q path. This was clearly a relief train being made up of side door Gresleys (according to the CWN) although as it was ‘made up’ it was probably not as uniform as the CWN would have us believe. Over the years it was shown consistently as 11 or 12 coaches, sometimes with a minimal amount of First Class and sometimes all third/ second. I’ve chosen to run it in early ‘50s guise with minimal First Class. It’s headed by 60110, Robert the Devil, one of the finer A3 names IMHO. I ran out of side door Gresleys, so used a Tourist TO and a BSO to complete the rake. I imagine this could have happened in real life, but don’t take my word for it! This photo shows (most of) those three coaches. Here is a view of most of the formation in the viaduct. As this is the early ‘50s there are still some teak liveried coaches. And finally the video which shows the full formation.

Thanks. I don’t have enough room but we are very lucky to have a fair bit of space in our club rooms. Even so, it is going to be set up in the area club members use for watching the 00 (and drinking tea) on a normal club night, so it will have to set up and pack down every time we use it. Andy

A bit of progress this afternoon. It may not look very different from yesterday's offering but since then, all the track has been lifted, the cork laid and the track put back down with droppers to every rail (it's being wired for DCC). Andy

Thanks David, We're thinking a LBSCR/ GNR joint station (for member's interest reasons) which I was assuming might have been an extension of the Moorgate line but alternatively could have worked across from the Blackfriars area. I think we're going to be struggling for a 100% credible back story so will have to be a bit loose on the facts. London Wall was my original suggestion but was vetoed by one of out members because he works for a company called London Wall and he thought it would get too confusing/ remind him of work! Andy

Well that would certainly be a distinctive name! Thanks for the idea.

Thanks for the help on here a couple of weeks ago with our new club 0 gauge layout based on a Minories style plan. We are now building the layout and I have started a RMWeb diary of the construction should anyone be interested. It can be followed here. Andy

Baseboard construction is fairly conventional. We are aiming to keep them light enough to be lifted onto racking in folded pairs when not in use. It will need to be put away after every session. Tops are 9mm ply with 4mm ply sandwich used for the long bracing and 9mm ply for the cross bracing. The photo below shows the framing for one of the longer boards before the top is added. The taller 4mm ply on the sides is to form a basis for the retaining walls which will enclose the station. This first board has since been completed and handed over to me for track laying. I have loosely laid the track as below. This is the main station throat board (the one with the signal box on the plan in my first post). The goods yard is only roughly laid out as I want to work back from the entry point once I have that shorter board. And here with some stock to check clearances. Since those photos was taken this morning, I have marked the edges of the track for positioning cork underlay. Then I lifted the track and have glued down 3mm cork which can dry overnight. Andy

This thread will be a diary of the construction of a new 0 gauge layout by the East Surrey Model Railway Club, based in Merstham. It will be our first venture into 0 gauge for many years so many of us will be on a steep learning curve but we're looking forward to it. The design requirements were: 1. Needs to be capable of being set up quickly in the main clubroom away from those working on our other layouts. It would need to be put away at the end of the evening to free the space for our main social and running evening. 2. It should provide something different from our two 00 gauge layouts, one is a 'roundy roundy' and the other a Branch Line Terminus. 3. It should be exhibitable. 4. All rolling stock to be owned by members as for all our layouts. 5. Create a plausible setting for existing members’ rolling stock. 6. Allow us to try out new modelling methods and technologies. With these design criteria we developed a plan based on the classic 00-gauge Minories design from 1957 by Cyril Freezer (former editor of Railway Modeller). Obviously done in 0 gauge it will be significantly larger and there was a desire for more goods action than the original Minories offered so we have ended up with the plan below. The design uses two 1220*690 boards and two 1630 * 690 boards. Each pair of boards will fold onto each other for storage and transportation. The section on the right will be a narrow fiddle yard for use in the clubroom. It will be operated from the bottom of the plan but for exhibition purposes will be viewed from the top. We will build a separate fiddle yard board for exhibitions with some (as yet unspecified) goods activity in front. I have a particular interest in the GNR/ LNER/ BE(E) while other 0 gauge interested club members are generally Southern focussed. So we decided it would be a joint station similar to Moorgate but shared between the GNR & LBSCR and their successors. It will be capable of being set in era 2,3,4 and 5 (i.e. pre grouping, big four or BR steam eras) and set in the City of London We envisage an intensive service of suburban trains from both companies with a rush hour longer distance service of mainline stock and parcels, milk and goods trains. The cassette on the bottom left will hold an 0-6-0T, six wagons and a brake van and will represent through goods traffic to Billingsgate fish market and possibly other traffic for city based warehouses or transhipment to ships on the Thames. It will be on a falling gradient and disappear behind the station platforms similar to hotel curve at King's Cross. We are still considering a name for the layout. Street names in the City of London seem the most promising at the moment. Something like Tower Hill, Botolph Lane, Bank, Telegraph St or Tooley Bridge. We got as far as agreeing the broad principles in the early Autumn before Covid closed the club. Work has continued on the planning and we have recently started building baseboards (in my garage before London entered tier 3) and preparing for track laying. Now we are in tier 4, one member, Peter, is continuing to build the baseboards while I will be laying track. As this is designed to be a diary of the construction, I will provide regular updates as and when we make significant progress. Comments are welcome on any aspect of the build. I'd particularly welcome suggestions for a name. Andy

Compared with many on here I’m a novice myself. I only got back into the hobby in 2012, so I’ve been a a steep learning curve and trying to make up for lost time. My view on layout building is to get something running ASAP. You will learn a lot from that process and see what you like and what you don’t. Some people spend a lifetime planning and never actually build anything. My process tend to result in two steps forward and one step back but that’s how I learn and I enjoy the building process. Gresley junction started on an 8’ x 4’ board and has grown from there. I don’t think much If anything of the original is left, but each rebuild has kept some of the previous attempt and built on that. Andy

Today I feature the 1605 KX- Dringhouses Class C fitted goods. This was previously just another run of my scotch goods rake but Gilbert has been helping me with my goods rakes and I gather this would have had more cattle wagons and less (or no) containers. So I have done some juggling in the fiddle yard and we have a head of cattle wagons. I left a few containers on because of coupling issues but I may do some more tweaks on this rake in future. Here it is headed by top shed V2, 60814. This is a lovely performer - Nucast with a silent Portescap. This is a new angle. Don’t ask how the photographer avoided being run over! ...and finally a going away shot on the viaduct. As is often the case, a video is the only way of seeing the whole train, so here goes.

Thanks Tony, I knew I’d get some ‘loco picking’ homework if I posted on here! I will attend to those in due course. Yes, the eBay locos (60052, 60108, 60154, 60869, 73157) cost between £70 & £120 each built from eBay - only Prince Palantine was over £100. The DJH C2 cost £75 as a mint kit. I had to add wheels and motor to that though. Definitely the most cost effective way of acquiring kit built locos. Obviously you lost some of the fun of building them, but I rather enjoy fettling them. It’s less daunting than starting from scratch and it speeds up the process dramatically. Andy

Today, I'll move onto locos for the year. Most of my locos come from eBay and just take some finishing/ detailing/ repairing from me, but I'll start with the ones I've built from unstarted kits. Firstly, my Klondike Atlantic. This is probably my proudest achievement of the year (despite the weaknesses of the kit of which I was blissfully unaware until I posted it on here). All that lining took ages! You might ask what I'm building a GNR liveried loco for when I have a 1950s layout. Well it will be paired with this loco (pure RTR) and run with the Gresley steel 5 set featured yesterday in a recreation of some of the service trains the pair worked around the time of the Plant Centenarian Railtour in 1953. Here is a second completed kit, this time mounted on a RTR chassis. The combination of white metal body for weight and smooth Hornby mechanism (smoother than I could manage) means it will pull anything asked of it. There is one other kit I built this year, but this one was much more complicated and I rather gave up on getting it to run smoothly in the Summer when the weather improved and it was too hot to go to my workbench in the loft. A New Year's resolution will be to finish it off. Lovely kit but probably slightly beyond my patience levels. Not quite a start from scratch kit, but still a lot of work - a Greame King resin A2/3 conversion kit for a Bachmann A2. I thought I'd better get this built before Hornby render it run of the mill! I also 'commissioned' a few eBay kit purchases. This can mean as little as putting a chip in - often not easy on a metal kit built loco, but in some cases meant adding lots of detail or changing chimneys/ domes etc. Here are a selection. DJH A1, Renumbered and roller bearings added. Sorted out pick ups to get smooth running. BR Standard 5, 73157. DJH/ GB1 Mashima motor. Bought as a 'display case only' model. Always be wary of these as it means they haven't been properly tested! The valve gear fell to bits and worm came off the motor as soon as I tried to use it! I fixed that, renumbered it to a KX example and added the excellent Modelmaster tender plates. A3, 60108, DJH with GB1 Motor/ gearbox. Nice runner but needed additional pickups to get it over my insulfrog diamond crossing. Needed much of the front end rebuilt including chimney (it had a single with smoke deflectors!), dome, buffer beam, drain cocks, front steps etc. V2, 60869. Another one with collapsed valve gear - this time advertised as such. I fixed it and added lamps, drain cocks, lamps etc. 60052. DJH/ Portescap - very smooth running. Needed little ore than chip, coal and lamps. I'm sorry if some of these have been featured on Wright Writes before - I can't remember which and it's too many pages to search! More details of these locos are on my workbench thread, Coulsdon Works. Andy

Thanks Tony, The West Riding is a favourite rake of mine. I wanted to model an all ex streamliner & Thompson formation as I think they look very smart together but it seems that there were a couple of Gresleys in the formation until mark 1s appeared so that is what I’ve modelled - the 1951 formation. I actually cheated a little on the ex streamlined twins. I have two in the formation, the BTO/TO at the front and the RT/TO carriages 4&5. In between these is supposed to be the FO/FO But I have modelled it with a Thompson RFO. I understand from writings that this happened from time to time for maintenance reasons and particularly after the Huntingdon fire in July ‘51. I’ve never seen photographic proof though. Should anyone be interested, there is more detail on the formation on my original post on the formation a year ago found here. Andy

This evening we feature the first loaded coal train of the sequence. There was a break in express passengers in the early afternoon from Peterborough which allowed a slow coal train to run and that translates into 1700 at Gresley Jn (aka Hatfield). It is headed by O2, 63954 which I believe still worked these trains from time to time in the 1950s, particularly before the 9Fs started to arrive and as was common on these trains a loaded bogie brick van is first in the formation to provide brake force. Here is more of the train. But the only was I can show the full length is on a video. So here goes...

Somewhat belatedly I thought I'd post some of my modelling this year. I've had quite a prolific year but unfortunately my photo filing didn't keep up so it's taken me a while to sort out the photos for this post. I'll start with the coaching stock and come back to the locos later. This is a 66'6" Gresley sleeper built from cutting and shutting Kirk kits. It was the final piece in the jigsaw allowing me to backdate my Aberdonian rake fully to the blood and custard era. Here are two catering cars needed for my Hear of Midlothian rake in its 1951 Festival of Britain all mark 1format. The rest of the train can be formed from RTR, but there the original RSO and RK are not available RTR. The RK is Comet and the RSO Southern Pride. This Pullman car 105 is a bit different to the standard Hornby Pullmans with windows in different places. Cars 105/6 and 7 were all the same and all were common on ECML Pullmans in the '50s. I cut and shut two Hornby Pullmans to make this and then used John Peck's superb Precision labels to cover up the resulting mess - these completely cover the umber sections, just leaving me to paint the cream. I haven't worked out how to line round the oval window yet! This twin is an Isinglass kit for a D.307 twin SO. It seems from subsequent comments that it should have straight rather than domed ends contrary to the drawing. Andy at Isinglass has supplied me with some straight ends for the roof but I'm keeping it like this for now for some variety. I also completed a similar Mailcoach twin TO, this time the plywood sided variety. This was bought half built and badly painted off eBay, so I just had to strip it, provide the underframe fittings and roof and re-paint. And a similar Mailcoach tourist buffet from the same source. This is another Kirk cut and shut. This one is a D.16 RKB of which there were only three. One ran in the 1845 KX-Cleethorpes through most of the '50s so I needed one and no kit is available. I was very lucky to that Darryl Tooley provided me with some photos to base it off (thanks Darryl). Here are a couple of horseboxes. A D.4 and a D.5, one Parkside and one D&S. I finished off my Gresley steel 5 car set with this twin BTK/TK (Mousa on Hornby shorty donors). and this CK (Southern Pride on MJT chassis and roof)- sorry about the rather bilious teak rendition! I can now for the full 5 car formation as below. The rear twin was done some years ago by the same method. Finally, some rather more successful teak on two Isinglass kits. A GNR D.310 milk brake. And a D.78V buffet car (LNER conversion from a GNR TO). This is my first venture into O gauge - a Kirk BT. More details of all of these builds are on my work bench thread, Coulsdon Works as below. Andy

Thanks John, I built those kits at least 40 years ago and they’ve served a number of layouts and survived the best part of 30 years in a cardboard box in my parents loft so they have a bit of sentimental value to me. But the main reason they survive is that they fill a corner and I’d rather spend my time building trains than buildings! Andy

That’s a cracking result on those Pullman roofs. A light weathering is so difficult to do and I love the way that you can see that they were white no so long ago.