thegreenhowards

Today’s instalment in the pre-war artic series is The Coronation. This rake is built from the Mailcoach kit to an acceptable built not brilliant standard. I think it looks the part running past at speed, but they are certainly not showcase coaches. There’s a nice chime whistle on this video for those who like such things. I bought the set from Tony Wright, but I forget who built it originally. Here are the coaches: It is hauled by a Hornby Gadwall straight out of the box. I will tart it up, but it’s not a priority as, sadly, this rake spends most of its life in a box. Does anyone know how often the non ‘Commonwealth’ engines pulled the Coronation? I went to see Tony to pick this rake up. It was very reasonably priced given its less than perfect finish, but sadly for my wallet, Tony had acquired some much more tempting (and expensive) stock the day before I visited. But that’s tomorrow’s episode as I’m saving the best for last! Andy

....and painting over that horrible copper bit on the chimney.

More or less Tony, You made one side while I watched and maybe did one or two easy bits. Then I took the other side home and did that myself. It does occasionally jam with the nut holding the conn rod onto the front wheel hitting the back of the rod from the slide bar assembly. I think I need to file the nuts down a bit and move the pistons out in the cylinder block. However, a bit of bending rods sorted it out for the run today!

All this talk about artics reminded me that I promised to run some of my pre war articulated stock when I finished the sequence. First up is the tourist stock. There were two versions of the tourist rakes, the long 12 car version formed BSO/twin~TO,RB, Twin TO, Twin TO, RB, Twin TO, BSO and the short version as featured here formed BSO, Twin TO, RB, Twin TO, BSO. Here it is behind V4, Bantom Cock which is a scratch built body on a Hornby chassis with a fairly horrible Hornby tender drive. I bought it second hand a while ago. I then replaced the valve gear with help from ‘Sir’ a couple of years ago, and have bought the correct Dave Bradwell 3500T tender kit, but have yet to build that. So you’ll have to ignore the dodgy tender! ...and an aerial shot I will leave it the reader to decide whether this is filmed during the short period when Bantom Cock was being tested out of Cambridge or post war in Scotland. and now the stars of the show... And finally the ‘compulsory’ video!

Chris, The battery boxes don’t add a huge amount of weight on their own (5-10g) but combined with other MJT bits they weight a Kirk kit sufficiently. The main reason to fit them is that they’re an accurate reflection of a LNER twin battery box unlike the Kirk single ones. As for door and grab handles, I think you can get away with a careful dab of gold paint on the Kirk door handles, but it’s worth adding the grab handles - although I didn’t on my quad art - too many doors! Andy

Many thanks for your kind words Tony and for all the ‘likes’ as you’ve read through. I do love coaches and I think I prefer building them to locos - they’re quicker, there’s more selection of things not available RTR and I know that I can get them to work whereas with locos that’s a bit of a lottery! The YouTube channel is really a dumping ground for videos that I’m putting on here. I’d recommend watching them via RMWeb because that’s where I give the description. Andy

J6 for me

I’d say that Southern Pride are the easiest - the tumblehome is ready formed which really helps. They are also very good value. Thompson corridor stock doesn’t have too many doors either which reduces the hassle of adding foot furniture. Can you justify PV stock at Richmond? The Harris blue book is good for numbers. Getting them right is part of the challenge of kit building for me. On MJT the battery boxes make a big difference. Andy

I agree Peter, a missed opportunity. I think reliability is a big issue as the problem with artics is that if one coach needs attention, both are taken out of service. With fixed formation trains like Eurostars that is less of a problem.

Thanks Chris, I do love artics! My quad art was an early build for me is is not built to a particularly high standard, but it does have a presence and I love it. Your’s looks good, but I would suggest you consider using white metal MJT stuff for the underframe rather than the Kirk stuff supplied with the kit. This is both better looking and gives badly needed weight to the coaches. It can be glued on with epoxy. Also be careful with the angle iron; most of these 51ft artics had truss rods rather than angle iron. There were some built in the late ‘30s with angle iron so check the numbers. MSE kits are quite fiddly - I have built a couple but they produced some bad language along there way! Brass coach sides are a doddle by comparison, so I would start with them to practice soldering. Andy

Thanks Tony, that means a lot coming from you. I do like to do things myself. Partly because I take pride in it being truly MY layout but also because I begrudge paying someone else to have the fun! Sadly that means it will never be a masterpiece. Andy

I found time today to have a play with my K3s and they certainly weren’t as good as the A4, but I think they acquitted themselves quite well. The Bachmann K3 is already quite well weighted and there’s no room anywhere for more lead in mine. DC users could make a little more room by removing the decoder socket and hard wiring the engine, but it would not make a huge difference. So I had to test it as it comes, and it couldn’t quite manage my Elizabethan rake (which is pretty heavy). My white metal body on Bachmann chassis version did (just) manage the Elizabethan, but that was about the limit. So I decided to see what they could do on a more typical ECML rake. In this case, I used my 1735 KX- Newcastle rake which is 11 cars and includes the all metal Silver Jubilee triplet. This they both managed fine. I then added 4 cars from my (embyonic) Heart of Midlothian rake and this was about the limit for the standard Bachmann example. (Please excuse the head code - this is just a haulage test!) 15 cars including some heavy ones is a quite creditable performance I think, if not quite matching what the prototype could manage. Clearly a (well built ) white metal kit would manage more, but I think this proves that RTR can manage a long enough train to satisfy 99%+ of all modellers, and even, I would guess, 90%+ of the more discerning kind of modellers found on this thread. Of course the Bachmann K3 has many other issues aside from its haulage capability which dictate that a kit is probably the way to go for this prototype - the SE Finecast kit is superb. Andy

Chris, Many thanks for your compliment, but I don't think you can compare my layout with PN or LB. Both are built to a finer scale than Gresley Jn and are much more complete. If and when I ever complete Gresley Jn. it will still be Peco code 100 and with relatively crude scenery. What I can say is that I try to run full length trains with prototypical formations with the correct motive power. In that respect, PN and LB have been my guiding lights. And it is nearly all my own work - with a little help from eBay! I hope you have enjoyed reading through the thread. Andy

Chris, Many thanks for your kind comments. I hope you enjoy the read/ watch. Andy

Fair question - I did say that A4s are the easiest! I think the answer is probably not, but it would still do a quite respectable job. I may have a play tomorrow if I find time. I do know that the motor in a Bachmann K3 is pretty strong because I have put a white metal body on the Bachmann chassis and it will haul my 45-50 wagon coal train as shown here.

Gordon, You don’t pay for a higher starting price anymore - they did away with that some years ago. A reserve price will cost you whether or not it sells, so as ‘Hayfield’ says, start with the lowest price you are prepared to accept. Alternatively, there is always a large market for new RTR stuff, so if you’re feeling risky you could start at £1 to draw people in. I think this generally works and results in a higher end price. However, it sometimes can fail miserably and leave you selling an item for less than you wanted. So if you’re risk averse start at the minimum you’re prepared to accept. Andy

Hi Tony, Thanks for showing your improved RTR Pacifics. They certainly look the part to me. I assume your Bachmann ‘Boswell’ is based on 60130? If so, I’m not surprised you’re not happy with the haulage. I have generally found the earlier Bachmann A1s to be inferior in haulage terms compared to the later offerings. The ones with the decoder socket in the tender are particularly strong (although I appreciate that will just annoy you - sorry!). My own 60130 and 60123 (based on 60158) are limited to 8-10 coaches. I have been experimenting today, just to make sure that I could back up my claims. I don’t have 14 all metal coaches spread over all my rakes, let alone in one. But I do have 10 metal sided coaches with white metal bogies in my Elizabethan. So I combined that with my Newcastle rake including the all metal Ex silver Jubilee triplet (which you sold me ex Gamston Bank). This made a pretty heavy 22 coach rake. I’ve stuffed my latest A4, 60007 - Sir Nigel himself, with as much lead as possible and tested it out on this rake. It could just about pull the rake out of the fiddle yard (with some wheels slip), but the coaches derailed on my curves, so I had to shorten it to provide a proper test. Here is a video showing Sir Nigel in action on 17 coaches including the 10 Elizabethan Thompsons, the metal triplet and four plastic coaches. I hope most would agree that that is a pretty respectable performance. I appreciate that such information is of little relevance to Little Bytham with your fantastic stud of kit built Pacifics, but I hope that it is reassuring to others who, like me, rely on RTR to bulk out our express steam fleets. A4s are probably the easiest because of the amount of space for lead within the body shell, but other Pacifics can achieve results which are almost as good. Regards Andy

Prices seem to be holding up to me based on what I’ve not won! I think that for every person who’s being careful with money, there’s another who’s bored at home and playing trains. Put a couple on tomorrow while the £1 offer is on and see how it goes. Andy

Good Afternoon Tony, I've no doubt that you need a heavy kit built loco to haul your heaviest rakes, although I would be surprised if a suitably weighted RTR pacific couldn't manage many of your mainly Mark 1 rakes. I thought that you were comparing unweighted RTR with your locos which I think is unfair, but if you weight the RTR first then I agree that's a fair comparison. My main point was really that modern RTR is remarkably good and will pull most prototypical length rakes which are thrown at them. I'm sure that you would admit that your rakes are at the extreme end of the weight spectrum! I would rather we celebrate the magnificent kit built locos which are shown on here for their beauty and the research, creativity, skill and enjoyment which has gone into making them rather than by trying to justify them by putting down the haulage capability of RTR. Just my honest opinion. Andy

I feel compelled to leap to the defence of modern RTR again with regard to haulage capability. In my experience the latest RTR steam locos pull very well and the large ones will easily handle 10-12 RTR coaches out of the box. With the addition of some lead they will generally pull more - easily up to 15+ plastic/ RTR coaches. Surely that is a prototypical load?! I admit that they struggle with a long train of kit built metal coaches but that is hardly a fair comparison. This is particularly true of the newer locos - for example latest Bachmann A1 (E.g. 60117) far out-pulls the earlier ones (e.g. 60158). It’s also true of the latest freight locos - my RTR O1, O2, Q6, WD 2-8-0 and 9F all pull my 50 wagon coal train. Admittedly there’s some wheel slip as they get going, but what’s unprototypical about that? Tony often compares RTR out of the box with his locos which have every available orifice stuffed with lead. That is hardly a fair comparison. If the RTR loco is similarly stuffed, I’m sure it would get closer to kit built locos’ performance. In summary, RTR pulls well enough but a (well built) kit will pull better. Andy

Tony, I hesitate to post this here as I don’t want to stoke the ‘DCC wars’ again! However, I have experienced exactly the problems that you mention so I thought I’d share my experience in case it’s useful for others. I believe that DCC is much less tolerant of poor pick ups than DC and this is what causes a lot of the problems like the one you mention above. I have several locos, both RTR and kit built, which work perfectly on DC and turn into stuttering wrecks on DCC. It’s more common with kit built locos but also applies to RTR. Four example, the Hornby J50 is one example of a RTR loco which works well on DC but horribly on DCC - I have three and all were the same. I cured this by fitting Stayalives, but I don’t understand why it should be necessary. With the stayalives, they run better on DCC than on DC. With kit built locos, I often have to fit tender pick ups or to get acceptable performance on DCC when loco only was OK on DC. I opt for tender pick ups first if practical and a stay alive if not (I’ve never needed both!). I have no idea why this should be. I suspect some decoders are better than others, but I’ve had problems even with non budget decoders. It is certainly a frustration of DCC - but not sufficient to make me change back! I like my sound too much, and when it works it is silky smooth. ATB Andy

I am indeed building a 52F models kit of an A5/1. He also does an A5/2. It’s a beautifully designed kit and it seems far better than either of the old discontinued offerings (from Nucast and Craftsman). There was a discussion about the merits of the different kits in my Gresley Jn thread a few weeks ago starting here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/149386-gresley-junction/&do=findComment&comment=3885053 I’m building it as my ‘lockdown’ project and it’s making good progress. I hope to be able to post something tangible in the next week. I would caution that the kit is not for beginners. It’s very detailed and fits together very well, but it’s very fiddly and therefore time consuming. I must have spent about 20-30 hours so far and I’ve got some way to go! I would definitely say that a white metal kits goes together more easily and certainly much faster. Andy

Having run the up pick up good last week, today it’s time for the down pick up. Here we see it arriving across the rack of slips and running through the loop line between platforms 4 & 5. I originally tried filming the whole shunting operation with assistance from my daughter as ‘videomeister’, but it lasted 15 minutes which I thought would be testing everyone’s patience (including mine!), so I have included a few highlights instead. The NB type 1 reversed into platform 6 and then shunted the first five wagons into a siding which will be picked up later for the Dunstable branch goods train. We now see it propelling the rest of the wagons across the other rack of slips back to the down side where the back three will be dropped in a factory. Having dropped the vans, we now see it drawing three empty open wagons out of the factory siding into platform 1 where it reverses. And finally, having run round the remaining wagons, here it is leaving Gresley Junction across the northern rack of slips. For those who prefer still images, here is the NB Type 1 leaving Gresley Jn and joining the down line. I have to admit that I’m using educated guesswork to compose this sequence and I don’t know whether it’s representative of what would have happened. For example, have I broken any operating rules and would the Dunstable branch pick up have been dropped off the main line train,or would it have run separately from, say, Ferme Park. Any comments very welcome. Andy

Love the stock Gilbert - what a wonderful rake.

Tony, Can I ask you a question about which solder to buy? With all my lockdown modelling, I’ve nearly run out of mid temperature solder for brass kits. Rather than buying the normal small packs for £5 or so which don’t last long, I thought I’d buy a big 500gm reel like the one you have. However, I’m not sure which temperature to buy for general purpose brass kit construction. You seem to be able to buy 145C, 179C and 188C solder. I believe 145C is for adding small detail once the main pieces have been soldered together with higher temperature solder. Is that correct? If so, should I go for 179C or 188C? Thanks Andy