thegreenhowards

I don’t know about A5s at Saunderton, but the A5/2s were built with cut down chimneys and domes and I think A5/1s were rebuilt to comply at some point. Other changes were to brakes etc. But relatively minor I think. Others will know more than me.

Sounds like that is the answer then. Will have to take a deep breath and find £150+wheels and motor - ouch!

Thanks to all who offered advice on my A3 pick ups. I have made progress this morning, by shorting out the two bogie wheels. This was much harder than expected as the metal block which holds the bogie wheels was painted in a non conductive paint and the bolts attaching it to the main chassis were also insulated. So I had to ream out the axle holes slightly to remove the paint and then solder a wire between the bogie frame and the main chassis. This was made harder by the issue which Tony raised as the nuts securing the bogie in place had been glued on and I couldn’t free them up so had top work with the bogie in situ. Anyway, thus improved it works much better. The loco glides over the crossing perfectly, however, the tender still gives a slight twitch (but doesn’t stop) when it crosses with the other side pick ups. I could solve this with a pick up on the insulated side of the loco. However, I thought four wheels picking up (on the tender) should be enough for anyone. So this led me to investigate the crossing further and I found that there is an almost imperceptible rise over the centre of the diamond crossing. This means that the plastic frog is the highest point and just as one wheel is on the plastic the others have a tendency to lift of the track - hence the stall. This is exacerbated by the plastic frog crossing section being much longer on a diamond crossing than on Peco insulting slips. I don’t understand why this is necessary. Anyway the solution looks to be to lift the crossing and try to remove the ‘hump’ in the middle. That won’t be easy and will have to wait until I’ve finished running my sequence through on the Gresley Jn thread. As I’ve said before, if only Peco did electrofrog diamond crossings in code 100. I know I could switch to code 75, but I’ve too much invested in code 100 for the time being ..... and if I can’t lay level track in code 100 what chance in code 75! I hope this experience is useful for someone and I haven’t bored the rest of you too much. Thanks again for the help. Andy

Another project I have just started is the creation of the full 1951 Heart of Midlothian as it was launched. This was one of the ‘Festival of Britain’ full mark 1 sets of which a handful were spread around the country. Most of the rake is available RTR, but two coaches are not - the Kitchen Car, of which more later, and the RSO. The latter is produced by Southern Pride in their ‘etchmaster’ range which are exceptional value. Basically you get a etched brass side and a plastic shell. Here is my work in progress. I’m never very keen on producing crimson and cream coaches as I haven’t found good Halfords matches and I hate masking things anyway. This was hand painted with precision paints enamels and isn’t too bad, but doesn’t bear very close scrutiny. The main work remaining is finishing the underframe, decals and painting the roof and underframe. However, I have a slight problem in that the ride height seems too high - about 1mm higher than a Bachmann equivalent. The difference seems to be in the gap between the bogies and solebar. I have used the recommended Bachmann bogie mounting from Southern pride as shown below. Has anyone else had this problem? Andy

Tony, We crossed in the ether! I had noted the Nucast example on your thread and thought I wish I could find one for £50! However, building new frames would be beyond me. From your photos, I think both look great and I’m struggling to see the ‘lumpenness’. However, I’m less discerning than some and I expect even I could tell the difference close up. Anyway, your report on the haulage ability of the Craftsman example gives me some confidence that one of those or a 52F model one would do the trick, so maybe I’ll go for one of those. Andy

Thanks Joseph, I have plenty of lead - I use it for RTR locos. I find it works well and closes most of the gap between RTR and white metal in haulage terms. In fact a weighted RTR loco outperforms a non weighted white metal one, but once weighted the white metal outperforms. I’m sure I could weight the A5 with lead and that might be enough, especially given the size of the bunkers etc. The reason that I hesitate is that I will want this loco for my ultimate layout, which I plan to be a model of King’s Cross set in the 1950s and based around my favourite trains - the sleeper services. The sleeper ECS was combined into one long rake of sleeping cars with the other coaches leaving on arrival. The A5 will have the most extreme task of any loco (just like the prototype), pulling out the ECS sleeping cars. Work on the layout hasn’t even started yet (apart from in my head) so there’s plenty of time! Andy

Yes. That’s what the GCR built them for. The LNER copied the design for some North Eastern services and later on they came south to the East Mids with the couple of examples mentioned getting as far as KX.

I did consider that kit, but I think it’s all etched brass and I want the weight and therefore haulage power of white metal. It’s also quite pricey. I may go down that route in the end, but I’ll try a few more eBay auctions first. Their website seems up to date so I assume they’re still trading.

I was only kidding! I’ve bid for unstarted, half built and completed kits, generally Nucast because I want the weight of a white metal body as I may want it to pull ECS from sleepers just like 69814 had to do. They tend to go for well over £100 because the kit isn’t built anymore and there’s no RTR version. A3’s on the other hand are less sought after because Hornby make a good model, so unless you particularly want it to pull really long or heavy trains, there’s no need to kit build for most people. That may seem unfair, but that’s the market at work. Andy

Tonight we have another loaded coal train. This time it’s headed by an O2, 63954, which wasn’t the most common of classes south of Peterborough but this is early ‘50s pre-9Fs, so it may have been more common then. That’s what I hope anyway as I’m rather partial to O2s - exceptionally graceful for a goods engine. I use very similar rakes for each coal train with just the odd wagon changed. This probably has too many steel bodied wagons for the early ‘50s, so I intend to try to produce a substitute rear 8-10 wagons which can be wooden or steel according to the period. The loco is Heljan and has been in ‘out of the box’ condition for a couple of years, but got the weathering treatment in my recent blitz. Here’s the video. Sadly the low viewpoint seems to emphasise a slight crest in the track work which is barely noticeable from normal viewpoints.

Thanks Gilbert, ‘BR Database’ doesn’t mention any of these being transferred to KX or other ‘34’ sheds, so I guess they must have been short term loans. As I said I’ve seen a picture of 69824 on a suburban set and an A5 is definitely on my wanted list. I keep bidding on eBay but they seem to go for high prices...and anyway ‘sir’ wouldn’t approve. I quite fancy a standard 4MT tank as well - were they c.1958 as well? Andy

I’d agree with Blake’s 7, the one Sci Fi series which completely hooked me.

Thanks Tony, that’s the help I was looking for regarding the wheels. Personally I find the American system creates less problems than wiper pick ups - yours are great, but those made by others can be pretty rubbish and I generally have to replace those I’ve bought second hand. Before you tutored me, mine were equally rubbish! Shorts can be an issue, but your smear of araldite trick works wonders and I’ve learnt where the common problems are. Why do people buy stuff off eBay? That’s easy. This cost me £100 with a GB1 motor gearbox and painted to a pretty good standard - certainly better than mine and I’m too mean to pay for someone to do it professionally! Even if I have to do quite a lot of work, I’ve saved £150 on the DJH kit price and I quite enjoy sorting these things out and rescuing a kit built loco (with help from others for which I’m very grateful). If I’d started from scratch, I would probably have got the grate operating rod right, but could easily have made the same mistake with the deflectors, and would probably have made other mistakes. You certainly do have a valid point about kits not being built correctly. This one had many other errors which I’ve already corrected. E.g. single chimney, banjo dome (one of your favourites I know!), no front footsteps, front handrail not split. Thanks to David W for helping spot the problems. I’ll endeavour to correct the issues you raise. Andy

Thanks Mike, I’m 100% sure that it is not a short because I use DCC. If it was a short I would have a loud buzzing noise. I also tested that I can run another loco up to this one one the same piece of track. I’m aware that this can be an issue on all metal locos, particularly with the American pick ups, but I’ve got used to the normal problems and how to avoid them. For example, this came without front footsteps and I made mine out of plasticard to avoid any shorting issues. I will try your test when its warmed up in the loft this afternoon. Andy

This thread is moving on twice as fast as normal - you can tell everyone’s stuck at home! I love the diesel photos Tony - I don’t think I’ve seen all of those locos before. Could I ask you for a little ‘virtual loco doctoring’? I have a DJH A3 (second hand - not built by me although I have sorted it out a bit see https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/135510-coulsdon-works/&do=findComment&comment=3856937 if you’re interested but not relevant to this question). It is giving me problems with stalling over crossings. It’s fitted with ‘American’ style pick ups which I know aren’t your chosen solution, but I think you agree that they normally work OK. This loco seems to stall at exactly this point on my diamond crossing unless going at a fair lick in which case it still twitches noticeably. If Peco did a code 100 electro frog crossing I’d switch (pun intended!) straight away...but they don’t. The front driver is on the plastic bit but I can’t see why the others two drivers don’t pick up - they are live. Some other locos struggle here as well so there must be some unevenness in the track but I can’t see where. Pick up is on the left for the loco and right on the tender (Right way up and facing forward). Here is the arrangement from below. My question is: “Could I improve things by making the bogie and/ or Cartezzi truck pick up as well. And, if so, what is the best way to do this - do I need new wheel sets or can I short out the existing ones?” Thanks in advance for any help. Andy

Today I feature the newest member of the Gresley Jn stud, BR Standard 5MT, 73157 on 2050 Cambridge- King’s Cross stopping train. As mentioned further up the page, 34A had three of these for a year in ‘57/8 and they were mainly used on Cambridge line services. The loco is a DJH kit bought off eBay, but sat in a drawer for about a year as it needed some work. The sequence needed a new ‘Cambridge’ loco so that encouraged me to get it working as described on my workbench thread here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/135510-coulsdon-works/&do=findComment&comment=3882762 It’s still DC as I’ve struggled to fit a chip so far, but the layout is switchable (mainly for running in and testing) so I’ve switched over for the video. You may notice a slight twitch in the video - this is as she goes over the diamond crossing (off screen) and is a problem place for several locos - I clearly need to do some more work on the pick ups or the track!

I had heard bad things about the haulage capacity of the Bachmann version which is why I went down the DJH route. This one will need further weighting to get up to a 10+ coach train as it slips slightly on the six coaches. I think this is partly because of the tender pick ups creating friction so I may have to tune these first.

Quite a while since I posted on here, but I’ve not been idle. Here we have BR Standard 5MT 73157. This is a DJH kit bought off eBay ready built but, as normal with secondhand kits, it has needed quite some work to make it ready for my layout, Gresley Jn. It was built to a fairly good basic standard and fitted with a DJH GB1 motor gearbox, so for £100 it was good value. However, it was missing some finishing details and had only been static displayed so needed a lot of work to make it run reliably. On the cosmetics, I’ve renumbered it from ‘Maid of Astolat’ to 73157, one of the trio which spent a year at King’s Cross in 57/58. I also added things like crew, coal, lamp irons (staples in my case as I prefer robustness over finesse) and the delightful cast plates on the rear of the tender which are from Modelmaster. It was fitted with three coal division plates which I’m pretty sure is wrong. I removed the middle one and have left in the foreword one which seems to be correct for a BR1B tender, but I’m not sure what should be in the gap between the forward and rear division plates as prototype photos from above are rare. Can anyone help? The photos show that it still need some paint touched up. The mechanics were more of an issue as is often the case with second hand kits. The first thing which happened was the worm gear popping off the motor in the DJH gearbox. This is a common problem which I’ve had twice before, so I just used one of the stock of spares which DJH sent me the first time it happened. Apart from that the pick ups were useless and I’ve had to add tender pickups and the valve gear has disintegrated on several occasions. I keep think I’m finally getting it there, then fitting a DCC chip and finding it still doesn’t work reliably enough to run smoothly. So, for now it’s staying analogue while I run it in a bit more.

Today we feature the up afternoon Talisman headed by 60108, Gay Crusader. This is a DJH kit bought off eBay and tidied by me - see my workbench thread if you’re interested. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/135510-coulsdon-works/&do=findComment&comment=3856937 It’s a good runner and will pull well although it’s slightly hesitant over insulator crossings so will need some further tuning. 60108 got it’s smoke deflectors in November 1961 and the Talisman retained this basic formation with the twin ex Coronation FO through to at least 1961 (I don’t have CWN for ‘62) although strictly it should have an extra coach by this stage. So this train is representative of late ‘61 or maybe ‘62. Here’s the video showing the whole formation.

Just three bits of plasticard. One for the back bit carved to shape and two small thinner ones for the steps. The steps do have a habit of falling off which is a pain. Not the most finescale of methods, but better than nothing.

Today’s train features another of my recent bargain purchases, K3, 61912 hauling the 1730 from New Clee fish train. This is a Bachmann model, but I have renumbered, weathered and added front footsteps (which weren’t even in the detailing pack - is that usual?). It’s now 2150 at Gresley Jn so you will have to suspend disbelief at the amount of daylight! Here is the video.

Indeed they were. 69814 in 59/60 and I think a couple of others earlier - I have seen a photo of 69824 on a suburban set but I can’t find the allocation on ‘BR database’. I think they were brought in to try to handle the ECS from sleeper trains which other locos struggled with on the flyover at Wood Green. I did think about adding in the A5s, but decided to limit my list to non LNER engines as I thought that expanding it to the ‘home’ fleet would open the flood gates.

Gilbert, You’re right in that they changed. The problem is finding a photo and even then that I find it quite difficult to tell which smoke box door it is unless the photo is from a side angle. I need to put aside some time for concentrated research starting with re-reading the green book - should be plenty of time for that now! Andy

Not the most exciting train today I’m afraid, but they all have to be shown. Here we have the 2121 King’s Cross-Royston. This was a standard Mark 1 non corridor outer suburban set. I had hoped to put a new B1 on the front and I bought 61032 from Kernow last week with that in mind. But I’ve been thwarted both by Modelmaster not delivering the renumbering transfers and by an issue raised by Tony Wright in that my chosen B1 (Hitchin based 61097) had a ‘Bulbous’ smokebox door whereas the Hornby one doesn’t. So I either need to source the correct smokebox door or choose another example for the renumbering. In the meantime you’ll have to put up with 34A’s 61394 which you’ve seen already. Here’s the video.

I’ll have a look on ‘BR Database’ and see if I can find the numbers.