Frappington Jct

M&GN Class A Rebuild (ish) from a Hornby Adams Radial It's been a long time since any updates here, and to be honest I haven't really been active on here recently. I have, however, recently started a long planned project which I thought I would document here. I've long been an admirer of the M&GN Class A Rebuilds, a class of 4-4-0s originally built by Beyer Peacock in the 1880s, before being rebuilt with Midland Railway parts in the late 1890s/1900s. A model which approximates them has long been an ambition of mine, and I'm now cracking ahead using a Hornby Adams Radial as a base. This won't produce a perfect model for a number of reasons, but I'm hoping it will look good if nothing else! The Hornby Radial was chosen for a couple of reasons - one being the (slight) passing resemblance, and the other being that the bodywork comes apart pretty comprehensively, aiding rebuilding. The loco will be paired with an old, cheap, Airfix 4F tender (with the motor removed, and needing a new rear buffer beam) for now, although in the future I may replace it with a Bachmann equivalent, as these can be got for £40-50 from the Bachmann spares department. The model is going to be a compromise, primarily in relation to the boiler. I'm not replacing the Adams boiler, and cannot easily raise it higher in the frames as it is cast in the same metal block as the lower cab and side-tanks. I will however be extending the smokebox - theoretically! For the same reason, I don't know how effectively I'll be able to remove the side tanks without ruining the boiler, but I expect I'll have a go! So far, the loco has been completely dismantled and the rear of the cab, bunker and safety valves removed. Next steps that I have already decided on will be to extend the smokebox and fit an MR smokebox door, continue to remove unnecessary details on the footplate such as the toolboxes, replacing them with new outside steam pipes, and opening up the splashers. I also need to look at whether the cab needs lowering slightly before I then fill in the square spectacle plates and replace them with circular ones. I also need to fix up the tender. I now need to source a new Johnson dome, MR smokebox door (I think 247 Developments sell these) and a new safety valve cover. If anyone knows where to get the latter I would be very grateful! It would also be good to find some tablet catcher equipment, but a cursory glance online hasn't thrown up any options.

Hi all, I'm planning on using a Hornby X8966 motor (off a newish Smokey Joe) in an upcoming project, simply to save costs as I have a spare in stock, and am planning on mating it to a proper gearbox in order to tame it somewhat. Does anyone happen to know (roughly) how fast they spin, so that I can plan gear ratios etc.? Some concerted Googling hasn't thrown up any results (or if it did I totally missed them!) Many thanks

It's certainly an interesting loco - I think if I were building it myself (as opposed to taking on someone else's nearly completed project) I'd build the booster bogie either as part of the loco or the tender (still with full pivot functionality etc.) rather than as a completely separate unit, in order to try and reduce some of the daylight issues. This one seems to have been built with some massive tolerances in mind!

I got Filton Street out for a quick photo session with the Avonside (since christened 'Orion' with name and works plates from Narrow Planet) and it looks at home in the slightly dirty, industrial conditions. I'm slowly getting better at taking photos in the close confines of this layout... I've also got started on the rtr-bashed Gresley C9 picked up from the MRC online shop a while back. I *think* it's a combination of a pair of Hornby tender drive B17s with a scratch-built chassis, powered by a 4-wheel motor bogie in the tender with pickups wired through to the loco driving wheels. It runs OK - I think it could benefit from a really extended bit of running in but my rolling road is currently out of action whilst I procrastinate about replacing a broken wire. I haven't made any major changes or mods, the most pressing task being to try and remove as much of the daylight infront/behind the bogie as possible. The space under the cab can been seen in the photo above and annoyingly can't really be reduced due to the swing of the bogie. The daylight under the tender however can be partially rectified. As can be sort-of seen below, the tender to bogie connection is facilitated by an old-style big plastic Hornby tension lock coupler (minus the hook), which in turn facilitated the solution to the daylight issue as I could glue a strip of styrene along either side without impeding the bogie's swing. Not the most elegant solution but it does the job! I was also keen to put the loco in a fictitious BR livery (the prototypes were converted to non-articulated locos and subsequently scrapped prior to nationalisation), because rule one etc. I didn't want the faff of a complete repaint, so have simply replaced the LNER letters and numbers with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' lettering and a fictitious 60727 number - neither loco survived to be renumbered by the LNER post-war, so seeing as 60727 appeared to be free I just went with that. This is the slightly neater side - as is often the case with my work one side is slightly wonkier than the other, but in this case I think I can just about get away with it, especially once it gets a bit of dirt on it in the future! Another loco to join my slowly growing stud of 'LNER locos which should never be seen anywhere near a BR livery!'

Thanks, that's really interesting

Thanks all, that's all really helpful! I've currently only got one of the 4 carriage kits I've bought in my possession - the others are in the newer packaging style so I presume have the metal wheels but the one I've got is quite an old example so comes with plastic wheels hence I didn't know they now come with metal wheels, that's very useful! @Jeff SmithI am a little concerned about traction, but it's only got to be able to haul itself, a very light plastic loco kit and one other carriage. If it can haul more than that that would be fab, but if not I can find another use for the other two kits I've bought. I'm tempted to permanently couple 2 coaches and run pickups across all 4 axles which should help - I'm also planning to explore compensation. @uax6I hadn't thought of using one of the pacer boxes - I'll look into it. Thanks again all!

Hi all, Hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction. I'm planning on putting a motor in a Ratio GWR 4-wheeler in order to power a static model and am hoping someone can point me in the right direction for wheels. I'm planning on using a High Level Roadrunner gearbox and am happy building that, wiring a motor etc. but don't know what to look for in terms of wheels. They need to be 13mm diameter with pinpoint axles - I was considering looking at rtr spares, but then realised I obviously need to be able to get at least one wheel off to fit a gear wheel. Any help in where to look/what I ought to be looking for would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks

Hi Edwardian, Don't worry I'm very aware of the unrealistic nature of my budget! The only reason I asked at all is that I saw (and missed out on) a pair of 4 wheelers in need of a fair bit of work available for £15 each on the Model Railway Club online shop about a month or so ago, so didn't think it did any harm to just ask here. I'm very aware of the high price of pre-grouping coaches/modelling in general and do have a back up plan involving attacking some Ratio GWR 4 wheelers, but like I said, I didn't think it did any harm to ask given I have seen some in budget.

Perhaps a bit of a long shot this but I didn't think it would do any harm asking. I'm looking for 2 or 3 Great Northern Railway coaches in OO gauge, either 4/6 wheelers or bogies. I'm working on a very limited budget (hence the fact this is a long shot!) and can only really afford to pay up to £30 total - I'm trying to put together a small train for my Dads old Kitmaster Stirling single as a birthday present, which will include a motorised van of some description which puts limits on what I can spend on the rest on the train. Happy to take on a restoration project or kits, as long as they have an underframe or a full set of components (my skill stops abruptly at scratch building underframe!) Many thank

Apologies for taking so long to reply - I saw the replies, didn't have time to respond and then totally forgot. My apologies - I'm not a GWR expert so read 'Churchward' and just assumed. That does make a lot more sense, I did wander why the GWR would have produced a loco in that style. Many thanks! That's a really interesting article - I really like the idea but I'm not sure I have the confidence in my abilities to be that radical on a fairly expensive rtr model! I might experiment with the method of bulking the tanks out on a cheaper model for future use though. The model is now edging close to completion - much has happened since I last updated! The cab front was replaced with new, smaller windows (remarkably symmetrical for my efforts!), leaving a gap for the original locating tab. The gap was designed to be a tight fit so that the friction holds the cab in place rather than gluing it down or fitting screws. I fitted a blank piece of styrene over the locating tab to form the basis of the backplate as I didn't have an appropriate size one in my spares box. At the moment the backplate is being left blank, but I might have a go at detailing in the future. The indent at the bottom is to accommodate one of the screw mountings which held the original cab on. The cab also gained some microstrip ribbing to breakup the plain sides. The model has now also gained a coat of green paint (the tin said it was apple green, though I would suggest it's much closer to GWR but hey ho) and a full set of red lining, which was horrible to apply. I hate lining, even using the ever excellent Fox Transfers sets. It now awaits coal in the bunker, a crew and its name and works plates which are on order from Narrow Planet. I'm loving the shape of the J72 cab as modified and am really pleased how this is all turning out. In my opinion it captures the look of the Avonside B3s whilst being slightly bigger - a nice compromise to ensure I have a model which runs properly for once!

As seems to happen rather often, I've gotten rather side-tracked from what I was doing... The 2MT has acquired some paint on the tender and had all its decals removed, and is now waiting for transfers (and a tender drawbar assembly). I really hate doing lining however, so I'm now in the 'putting it off for a while stage.' In the mean time, I've taken advantage of the very low prices of Kernow's GWR 1361s to undertake a project I've had in my mind for a while. For ages, I always assumed that the 1361s were locos from a private builder which the GWR had absorbed at the grouping or something and liked the idea of using them to represent an industrial loco. However, the 1361s are actually designed by Churchward (?) for the GWR and have no industrial pedigree, so there was nothing *accurate* that could be done with them... That being said, I recently came across some pictures of Avonside's B3 saddle tanks, which very much look like a baby version of the 1361s, with square cabs and less gubbins on the tank tops. As such, I thought I could modify a 1361 to represent fictional 'B3x' of sorts, and if it goes horribly wrong, at least I've got a good quality chassis for future projects. The loco as it arrived: The cab is the biggest thing which needs changing - I could have built one but then that relies on my rather dodgy scratch-building skills. As a compromise, I sought a donor and came across a fairly cheap Mainline J72, which had a nice shaped cab and a bunker with the right curve on the back. The cab as it came off the J72 (with help from my new razor saw - my new favourite tool): This of course needed further mods to suit the model I wanted to build - the doors needed to come off, a new front piece had to be built with smaller windows, the bunker needed shortening and the whole thing needed raising by about 1.5mm. The whole thing nearly fell apart a couple of times (the plastic is REALLY brittle) but I got there eventually. At this point, I forgot to take a picture of the cab mocked up on the loco before I dismantled the bodywork... Sorry! Ideally I'd have removed the whole body from the chassis to undertake the following work, but the 1361 isn't engineered to do that easily. Instead, the top half of the water tank comes off in one (rather heavy) piece to access the motor, and whilst this will make painting the underside of the tank a little tricky, it serves well enough for my purpose of removing the safety valve cover, handrails and a couple of other little bits to better represent the B3s. The tank as it came off: And after I'd hacked away at it abit: Other things I've learnt today? Well, the transfers Kernow used seem to be totally impervious to T-Cut, so I'm just going to have to hope they'll disappear under a couple of coats of primer... Next job is to decide on a paint scheme - I'm liking the idea of apple green with red lining

Thanks! There's not a lot more than that to be honest! Aside from the tool boxes (I think originally used mostly just because I had them, but they do also serve to hide the motor clips) and the bunker, it's got bars over the rear cab windows and a proper cab floor, as well as the frame extensions on the chassis. The rest is as is, just with a new paint job.

The Hornby 'Toby' chassis (suitably re-motored and extended with cosmetic frame extensions) looks quite good, though I have to admit mine sits a little too high (and I think a tiny bit of glue got into the gears, making it a slightly rough runner, but hey ho)

An oddball of a project now. A little while ago, I bought an old Hornby 2mt off eBay, which had been upgraded with new separately fitted details, an extended tender etc. It also had new wheels and a replacement worm gear, though no motor. The plan was to simply fit a motor and complete the paintwork etc. and, hey presto, a decent 2mt for circa £30. The loco as it arrived (not the best photo sorry): However, once I started to try and reassemble the valve gear, I found that the new scale wheels really don't interact well with the old Hornby valve gear - I think the new wheels were slightly smaller than the original and hence the rods are too long. In looking for a solution, I came across a Bachmann split chassis 2mt sans tender on eBay, which had been wired for, I think, a DCC decoder in the tender. As such, I was able to pick it up for £38 - taking the current project total to about £56, which is still cheaper than a new Bachmann model, especially as I'll probably sell the original loco body to recoup some of the cost. The new loco as mentioned had been wired for DCC operation via a decoder in the tender (which it didn't have) so some re-wiring was required before it would run - it's a bit of a mess so I'll just leave that to your imagination... The next question became modifying the tender to match the loco, As can be seen in the photo below, the tender as received is significantly taller than the loco, with the tank sitting too high in relation to the loco footplate. There's a limit to how much chopping I wanted to do, so rather than reduce the height of the tank so the footplate matched the loco, I instead have glue micro-strip along the base of the tank to improve the look. Not perfect but fine from normal viewing distance. As can also be seen in the above photo, to reduce the height of the tender cab I removed the roof and filed the bulkhead down slightly to improve its appearance. Again, once reassembled it's not perfect but fine from a distance. Whilst the floor is still the wrong height in relation to the loco footplate, it's not really noticeable so I'm going to leave it as is. I've also removed the moulded coal load and installed a false floor into the bunker to add real coal to. The sides of the bunker are a bit rough but shouldn't be too noticeable once complete. Just waiting now for some more filler to arrive so I can disguise all the little nicks I've made in the tender cab sides...

Hi all, I recently bought a half finished Hornby Ivatt 2mt upgrade project off Ebay which has been fitted with Gibson wheels but still came with the original valve gear/connecting rods etc. Annoyingly, the plugs (I don't know what else to call them, sorry!) on the outer ends of the connecting rods don't stay in the holes on the wheels when the chassis is motion - is there a good way to stop this from happening or would it be better to just buy new coupling rods from Gibson? I've included a picture below to illustrate. Sorry if this is a silly question - I'm slowly building my way up through chassis building/restoration etc. so am still learning! Thanks

Extracted Filton Street from its shelf to try and replicate the original photo of Green Goddess with my model - I'm rather limited by the layout itself both in terms of the background and the possible angles, but the flavour is there! Also, I hope you will indulge me a quick shot through the layout with 'Hurricane in the distance.

It's been a while since I've updated here, but work has slowly continued to complete 'Hurricane' and her accompanying Rectank. All the lining was completed about a month or so ago - it's one of those jobs I find really rather tedious and thus I tend to procrastinate rather when it needs doing! Thoughts then turned to how to mount the loco onto the wagon, and how best to replicate the original picture: For a while I was considering ditching the buffer stops in place of sleepers chained onto the tracks, or ditching the track altogether and simply 'chaining' the loco onto the wagon. These ideas were rejected for a few reasons, although one of the primary ones was that the wagon's loading/chain eyes (or whatever they're called) are superglued in the unused position and I really didn't fancy dismantling the wagon just to move for tiny parts! More than that though, I knew I wouldn't be satisfied with either of these solutions so eventually decided to press ahead with as good a replication of the original solution as I could produce. I had a length of Z-gauge track (correct for the model, if not quite to scale), which I cut down to length and removed approximately two thirds of the sleepers in line with the photo. The sleepers in the photo appear to be metal, so all had a couple of coats of Humbrol rust wash, as did the rails themselves, as I assume any old rails which were sound enough to carry a load and were sitting around in the yard at New Romney/Ravenglass would have been used regardless of whether they were a tad rusty. The track was then affixed to a set of sleepers taken off some ancient Hornby 00 gauge track, weathered accordingly, and in turn glued to the Rectank. The buffers were rather fiddly and had to be slightly shorter length wise than I would have liked as the longer tender that No. 8 carries compared to 'Green Goddess' in the original picture means that it's all a rather tight fit onto the wagon! They're rather simple in construction however - simply plasticard triangles with micro-strip detailing painted grey with a rust wash and a pair of Z gauge sleepers as the buffer beam. I did experiment with rivet detail but it was very difficult to get right and make look good so I gave up as realistically they would have been near invisible from any normal distance. The photos below show the wagon prior to the 2nd set of buffers and loco being installed. The loco itself was a VERY tight fit, and needed some material taking off both the loco and tender footplates to maximise the amount of space to get the 2nd set of buffers onto the Rectank. However, after a couple of false starts and a small amount of profanities it all, finally, went together and I think I can now finally declare the project complete! (In case anyone's interested, the loco in the background is a Gresley C9 recently bought from The Model Railway Club's online shop, and which I suspect originates from a heavily modified pair of Hornby tender drive B17s. It needs a bit of work so will be reappearing here at some point in the future!) Close ups never do these things justice, but oh well! When I have time I'll pose the ensemble on Filton Street for as near a replication of the original photo as possible. 'Atlas' Update But wait, there's more! Just a quick 'Atlas', the Dubs crane tank, update - the loco now has a motor and runs, albeit rather noisily in one direction. I've reused the original pick ups and resistors, attached to an N-20 motor with new worm gear affixed in place using my customarily messy style of motor mount! Motorising the chassis has also meant I can finally permanently fix the cylinders to the loco - them being glued together with a plasticard strip and then glued to the chassis. It nearly all worked first time, though a 0.5mm clearance issue with the slide bar necessitated an annoying amount of adjustment. I got there in the end though! The loco still needs a hook (on order), rear frame extensions and a good coat of dirt to cover some frosting from the varnish I used... Slowly getting there though!

Hi all, I'm starting to plan a rebuild of a rather wonky K2 model I built a couple of years ago and am hoping the hive mind might be able to help me with some information regarding cab styles. I know that the original K1s had a rather square cab (like this), but did they keep these when rebuilt as K2s or did they receive the more curvaceous style fitted to the new-build K2s (like this)? If they did keep the squarer cabs at rebuilding, how long were they retained? Did they get rebuilt again, presumably to increase route availability post-grouping? Essentially, what I suppose I'm asking is did any K2s have the original square type K1 cabs until withdrawal? I hope that makes sense - I did have a bit of google beforehand but couldn't find anything particularly conclusive. Thanks

I've now completed the lining out of one side of 'Hurricane', and the LNER style lining was definitely the right idea - the black is more obvious in real life. I've based the lining off this photo of No. 8 in 1950 so haven't put anything on the tender/cab cut-out (or what ever you would call it), but then again for the sake of ease I've built it in the slightly later style so might decide to line it as such. We'll see. I do also need to think about what to do about the works plate, as if the lining has highlighted anything it's the large space on the cab side that could do with filling.

I managed to find a pot of Humbrol Decalfix in a draw and it's solved my adhesion issues. I've been quite busy this week so thus far I've only applied the black boiler bands. I've been grappling with the black and white lining and would appreciate a second opinion in terms of how it looks. I applied a single corner onto the cab and can't decide whether the lining is too thick or not - part of me isn't that keen but looking at BernardTPM's photos I don't think it's too far off? The perils of using items from multiple scales on one build!

I've never needed it in the past but I think I might give it a go with this

Thanks! I think the best thing to say is that I'm going to *attempt* the lining! I'm having problems getting the Fox lining transfers to stick at the moment so we'll have to see - I'm debating what way to go with the tender lining as I can't find a black and white composite waterslide transfer, but equally I don't know if I'd notice if it was just white

No.8 is nearly done! All physical additions are now complete (apologies for some of the poor picture quality below) and the whole loco has had it's initial paint job - just needs transfers now to complete. The new physical additions are as follows: front end steam chest (or 3rd cylinder box, I'm not sure what it is!), under-tender air tank (or at least again that's what I think it is!), right-side battery box, smoke deflectors permanently attached and nameplates (so small I could get away with just printing on standard paper and it looks pretty decent!). Just need to get transfers on and then all that needs doing is to modify the Rectank it's going to sit on before the model can be declared complete.

I've had a productive evening! The bogie height has been reduced, a handbrake handle made & installed on the footplate, the loco buffers and vacuum cable have been fitted and everything primed (albeit a very thin coat on one side as the can started to run out.) The loco buffers are a little wonky as I had to modify a set of brass N-gauge auto-coach buffers to get the length right (they were the only ones available with the correct sized oval buffer heads), but from normal viewing distance it isn't really noticeable. I've also made a pair of smoke-deflectors for the loco out of thin plastikard - the photo below shows one attached to the loco temporarily, but they won't be permanently affixed until after painting as the insides are being painted red which won't be possible if they're installed. I'm rather pleased with the results so far and looking forward to painting!

I decided I didn't like mk1 tender, it was too wide and whilst I was pretty happy with it in all other senses I knew the width would irritate me. So, I rebuilt it slightly narrower and I'm much much happier - turns out not only was the width wrong but the dangers of using a mix of different period photos shown. I found a couple of photos from the 1950s which clearly show more space on the tender for the crew, no tool chests (or whatever they were) between the crew and the bunker, and the cowling didn't travel as far forward on the tender. These have all been incorporated onto the tender, along with water filler cap, mock corridor connection & look-out, buffers and vacuum pipe. The bogies still need a bit more adjustment to improve the ride height and repair some areas where I removed a tiny bit too much material, plus I need to work out what fittings to put on the tender footplate - I assume a handbrake would be a good start? Then it's onto smoke deflectors and paint and it's just about done