MikeOxon

I do like the idea of running your train on a train! You must have been with a grumpy lot of passengers - I'd have thought most people would be fascinated. What's the diameter of your baseboard? (sorry if you've mentioned it somewhere, but I haven't spotted it) Perhaps you could make the curtain above the backscene double as a carrier bag, so that wiring wouldn't be exposed in transport? Mike

see my comment on the previous post - Scale Link do frets of barbed wire! Look under 'Etched Brass Frets - Various' in their catalogue Mike

You seem to be doing quite well with your barbed wire but, if you run out of patience, Scale ink do the stuff - see http://www.scalelink.co.uk/ Mike

You seem to be doing quite well on your blog at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1344-up-the-line-1918/ If you run out of patience, Scale Link provide the stuff in 00 scale - see http://www.scalelink.co.uk/acatalog/Etched_Brass_Frets___Photo_decoupe.html Mike

Excellent observation, Mikkel. Alas, my own waistline is more like the one on the left Mike

One of the things to remember when 'turning back the clock' is the former widespread use of horses, which continued up until WW2 and lingered even into the 1950s. I felt I needed to learn a bit more about how they were used, so that I could replace some of my more modern traffic with appropriate period vehicles. I found the book 'Great Western Horse Power' by Janet Russell, which proved to be a mine of information but seemed to concentrate on large depots and cities, whereas I was interested to know what might be found at a small country station. Then I spotted a photo of a horse bus at Bampton Station, on the Fairford Branch, and decided that this would be a good starting point. I bought the P D Marsh kit of a one-horse bus, which turned out to be a reasonably straightforward white-metal kit. The interlocking joints at the body ends might have seemed a good idea to the designer but were hard to get to fit well, in vew of flash and distortion, and were also very difficult to disguise in the finished model. Eventually, I ended up with a reasonable appearance, as below (note that luggage rails are not included in the kit). I've since seen that there is an etched brass kit of a similar vehicle available from Scale Link so, perhaps, this will be a better bet, next time To complement this model, I bought another couple of kits from the Langley range - a small farmers cart and a larger van. Langley, very usefully, also supply a range of wheels, which I have used to convert a pneumatic-tyred old 'Merit' plastic model into an earlier type of vehicle. The differences between the horse breeds in the two Langley kits are very noticeable. I suppose the equivalent to 'rivet counting' in the equine world is knowing all the different breeds of horse, and the details of harness for various applications. I'm just beginning to understand how the collar provides the 'pull', while breeching straps enable the horse to hold back a following vehicle. While at Swindon Steam museum recently, I took the opportunity to examine and photograph the harness on their scene of a horse and parcels dray. I need to do a lot more reading yet! I think my own railway should be classified as a 'working diorama', as one of my main interests is setting up small scenes, within the overall layout, to illustrate specific themes. I found an old photograph of horse shunting in progress at Barnstaple Junction, back in Broad Gauge days, and decided to try and emulate the scene, as shown below, where the horse is attached to a provender wagon. Note that the horse is in the 'six foot' (actually much wider on former BG lines!) and pulls from the side, to avoid being run over if the wagon 'runs away'. As usual, a few other people feel it is necessary to watch the proceedings! I found a very useful plug-in for Photohop (and Elements) from www.photo-plugins.com , which simulates the effect of various Black & White film types - even old non colour-sensitive emulsions - and can also add grain and toning effects. It does a great job of 'turning back the clock' as shown below: Now that the longer evenings are coming, I am considering several other projects of which, more later. ---EDIT (26 Sep): I felt the thread looked a bit insubstantial for pulling the wagon, so tried some fine chain instead. Better, I think - now perhaps a bit heavy! Mike

I am very grateful to member KH1, who alerted me to the 'Cleminson principle', in reply to my earlier blog entry about 'Milk Churns and Syphons'. In another thread in the forums, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/6484-cleminson-chassis-drawing/, I read that there was an article in 'The Engineer' of Feb 15th 1878, describing this system. Back volumes of The Engineer can be downloaded free from http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/The_Engineer_%28Bound_Volumes%29 , so I show an illustration from p111 of the relevant issue. There is a kit available from http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/cleminson_underframe.htm but it didn't quite meet my needs, since I wanted to retain the existing outside frames on my model. I thought it would be fairly easy, however, to build something along similar lines so, having some spare brass sheet handy, I sketched out a design to apply to my K's Low Siphon: I printed this sketch to scale, pasted the parts onto my sheet of brass, drilled the necessary holes for axles and pivots, and then cut out the pieces with jewellers' snips. The hatched areas on the drawings were folded up, to make the axle supports and the tabs within which the centre axle mount slides. The linkage pins were made from unfolded paper clips. The various pieces were then attached to the floor of my Syphon, by means of screws through the pivot points: I had some spare Bachmann wheelsets, so I removed the pin-point ends with a cutting wheel and threaded the axles through my, rather crude, axle mounts. After straightening everything up, I found that the vehicle would now traverse my 15" radius curves successfully! Here is a pic of it running through some pointwork. This was very much a 'quick test' form of construction but, having established that the method works, I think I'll have another go, probably using nickel-silver sheet, which should be much more rigid and able to hold everything in good alignment. I'm very pleased, as this now opens up the possibility of running the ubiquitous six-wheel coaches on my 19th-century micro-layout Mike

I have mentioned before that the attractions of the pre-grouping period include the elaborate and colourful liveries. These also, however, present a challenge to the modeller in achieving these effects on a small scale. Many years ago, while recuperating from a bout of pneumonia, I built a rake of Ratio 4-wheelers. Looking at these now, I am somewhat amazed to see the patience with which I tackled their painting! 30 years later, natural 'weathering' has given them a 'used' appearance, and I quite like the appearance of the dust on windows and footboards! The Ratio sides have good relief detail, which I exploited when applying the lining. A steady hand and fine brush were all that was needed to apply black to the raised moulding lines. These coaches, however, also had a thin gold line within the edges of the panels and realising this feature was much more difficult! Eventually, I found a technique that, I think, worked rather well. After completing the main painting, using enamels, I made up a dilute water-based gold paint. (at the time, I used Rowney Poster Paint). I found that surface tension caused the water to accumulate in the recessed edges of the panels, and so deposit a fine line of gold particles in these areas. After drying, it was simply a matter of removing any stray particles with q-tips and a fine dry brush. This method laid down just enough gold to provide the necessary highlight, without being too prominent. I find some model lining is far too dominant, which does not create the right 'impression' of the prototype. Nowadays, there are many tools and materials that were not available 30 years ago. Most significant of these is the Personal Computer, which allows detailed artwork to be prepared, using programs such as Photoshop. I have used my computer to prepare lining and lettering that can then be printed onto specialist materials, such as the various decal papers distributed by Crafty Computer Paper - http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/category/Decals I have been pleasantly surprised by the resolution that can be achieved by printing on these papers with an ordinary ink-jet colour printer. I use an HP Deskjet with the print quality set to 'maximum dpi'. As well as printing individual items, I also sometimes print whole panels, such as a wheel arch, complete with edge lining and emblems. These are then applied in the same way as other water-slide transfers. When viewed under a microscope, I find the detail is amazing. The maker's-plate is only about 4mm across and yet most of the lettering can be read. Similarly, the GWR garter crest on the splasher shows plenty of detail I remain, of course, seriously impressed by the skills of those who create these effects with bow pens and rigger or liner brushes, but my 'cheats' do enable good results to be achieved by those of us with lesser skills 🙂 Mike

Hope you find some interesting books, Mikkel! As my picture shows, the sun always shone in the old days Mike

It was good to meet you at Didcot and I can confirm that the Foden looks brilliant 'in the flesh' - close up photos can reveal imperfections that are quite invisible in practice. I have made my own transfers using ink-jet decal film from http://www.craftycomputerpaper.co.uk/category/Decals My HP inkjet can produce very good resolution - I have made readable makers plates in 4mm scale. I use the white decal paper and print the background as well as the design. They also do a dry rub-off decal but I've not tried that yet. Mike

I think I started looking at Pre-grouping railways because they offered an opportunity to build something different, in bright colours, with lots of polished brass, and with small locomotives and carriages that could operate in a small space. All attractive features for modellers! Having got the 'bug', I wanted to find out more about how things were really done in the early days, when railways were at the cutting-edge of technology, so I've recently been doing quite a lot of reading. I discovered that there are many books from the 19th century that are now out of copyright and freely available as downloads from various websites. In particular, I have found the Internet Archive ( http://archive.org/ ) to be a very good resource for such books. Simply type in a few keywords and see what you can find! Many of these books can either be read online or downloaded in formats such as PDF. Apart from the text, there are often interesting drawings and early photographs. In an earlier entry in this blog, I showed my models of broad and standard gauge engines side-by-side, never suspecting that I would find a similar comparison of the real engines! The following photo is from "A History of the Great Western Railway - Illustrated" by G.A.Sekon, 2nd ed, 1895: An even earlier book "The Iron Road Book" by Francis Coghlan, 1838, provides a detailed description of a journey on the, then incomplete, London and Birmingham Railway, with the aim of providing re-assurance and guidance to would-be travellers. There are details of how the railway was constructed and how it was managed to ensure the convenience and safety of the passengers. It contains the following splendid advice on choosing your seat: "get as far from the engine as possible -....- should an explosion take place, you may happily get off with the loss of an arm or a leg - whereas if you should happen to be placed near the said piece of hot machinery, and an unfortunate accident really occur, you would very probably be 'smashed to smithereens' " I hope that this is an example of 19th century humour and that loss of limbs was not considered quite so lightly in those days! I got quite 'hooked' on all this material but must get back to doing some modelling Mike

Congratulations on your scenery. Like yourself, I'm catching up after a 30-odd year gap and am pleased to find that the added patience, which the years bring, yields results! My recollection from WW1 photos is that hedges and trees seem to have a rather 'blasted' look, so I would say yours look right for the scenario, and your 'path' is excellent - great for kids on mountain bikes, if you ever change your time frame! I assume that you will eventually have a back-scene, which could provide more depth to the hedge. Mike

I hadn't read this blog before, as military railways are not my thing. I've just spent an interesting hour reading most of your posts, however, and found them full of useful ideas I'll continue to read with interest.

I agree that the slow running of the Roco chassis is superb! I read the comment about lack of long-term reliability on the County Gate website at http://www.009.cd2.com/members/how_to/roco.htm I expect this wear only arises in heavy continuous use and, if it arises on my model, I shall try to devise a 'work-around' Mike

I find it rather curious that the modern OS map marks the route of the Roman Road but not the old railway!

Good to see that parts are still available for these attractive models. For anyone thinking of building one of these: do remember that they are quite large locomotives! I don't have sufficient clearance, in several places on my NG line, to run mine!

I have mentioned before in this blog that my layout includes an 009 narrow-gauge section. Most of this section does not need changing in order to fit in with my revised 19th-century timeframe but, a long time ago (1980), I built a 'Centre Models' kit of a Leek & Manifold 2-6-4T, of which the prototypes appeared in 1904. Whilst not quite fitting my new era, it is a handsome locomotive that I had never got to run well, so I decided to re-build the chassis. A body kit is still available from Meridian Models The original kit included a fret of nickel-silver valve gear, which was extremely fiddly to construct and get working. Alas, all my efforts were soon undone by the unsatisfactory white-metal chassis supplied in the kit. This soon warped and, in the process, destroyed the valve gear, which I could not face re-constructing at that time. More recently I saw a small 'Roco' engine being sold fairly cheaply, which had working outside gear. I had read that this chassis is not considered to be very reliable in heavy use but, nevertheless, I decided to see if I could use under the L&M body. My method is to take photos of the parts I wish to fit together over a sheet of graph paper, as a scale reference. I have the camera fixed on a tripod, so that all the photos are at the same scale. I then overlay the images in a photo-editor (I use 'Photoshop Elements') to check clearances and to see where any parts need to be modified. I find this method of creating a 'visual impression' of how the parts will fit suits me better than trying to make detailed drawings. It was clear that, with a little trimming of the underframe, the 'Roco' chassis could be fitted and give a reasonable impression of the original loco. I even found that there were suitable attachment points for the existing pony wheels and trailing truck. I adapted the motor mount, by fitting a flex grip from a British 13A plug across the side mounting points, and re-wired, omitting the DCC adapter board. (My layout is DC only) It all went together surprisingly easily and proved to run very smoothly at nice low speeds. Now, it must join the queue for re-painting, once I have got the hang of my new airbrush. It probably won't find a home on my current layout but I do enjoy watching the outside valve gear working, as in the following animation. Mike

I like the track level shot of the Castle very much - it really brings the scene to 'life', though the photographer must have given the driver quite a scare ! Mike

I find the 'tester' pots of household paints very handy for this sort of thing. Farrow & Ball do a wide range of colours in good opaque and tough paint - find them at Homebase etc. Afraid I have no expertise on building weirs but, perhaps, a piece of translucent polythene to make the main curve of the flow, backed with some crinkled aluminium foil might produce the effect, especially if lit by an LED from below. Just a thought - I haven't actually tried it. Mike

Thank you for that suggestion. After a little research, I see that Brassmasters do a universal kit, which I shall try - see http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/cleminson_underframe.htm

For anyone interested, I attach comparative shots using the BW filter I mentioned in #1209. The 'Ortho' image represents the older type of film, which had no sensitivity to red. Most old (pre-WW2) railway photos are of this type and can be very misleading if used to interpret liveries. There is an article with more information about how Photoshop handles colour on my website at http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/technical/brightness/bright1.htm Mike

My small layout includes a building representing a creamery, so I have been considering the traffic needed to serve this facility. I remembered that I had an old K's plastic kit of a six-wheel low Siphon, which had been put on one side as it had no chance of negotiating my small-radius curves. Looking at this model again (30 years after building it!), I think it is an attractive vehicle, representing the earlier low-roof Siphon, with only two doors each side. I intend to change the roof to an earlier single-arc design and apply an earlier style of lettering but the main problem is how to get it to stay on the track! I laid the vehicle and a section of curved track on my scanner, and the image shows the magnitude of the problem rather well. Looking at this image makes me realise how remarkable it was that manufacturers, like Hornby Dublo, made large Pacific locomotives negotiate such track reliably! It also increased my admiration for those fine-scale modellers who manage to make true-scale models stay on the track at all. I remembered that I had tried both removing the centre wheel flanges and also using a 'floating' axle on a centre support, both without success. The Mansell wheels that I had fitted had rather fine flanges, so I replaced these wheels with coarser Bachmann coach wheels and found that, as a four-wheeler, it would now navigate my curves successfully. I 'd be interested to hear from any one who has suggestions for any alternative ways of tackling this problem (apart from the obvious "use larger-radius curves" I've also been exploring the 'GWR wagon red' subject and happened to have some Farrow & Ball 'Rectory Red' paint left over from house decorations. According to their catalogue "Vermilion red was often made cheaper by the addition of red lead which blackens with age, so changing the colour to Rectory Red". This sounded quite a likely description for the make-up of GWR wagon red, so I tried it on one of my 3-plankers: I think this matches the 'light red' given in several descriptions, rather well and also has the potential for being 'weathered' to a much darker colour. Mike

I had a look at an OS map, to see where your railway is located, and was disappointed to see that there is not even a "track of old railway" marked. You can, however, look at the original 'County-series' maps at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/map.aspx?pubid=270 These large scale (1:10,560) maps of Montgomeryshire mark the line and show the layout of the stations. Other modellers will find these maps of interest, too, as they cover the whole country as it was in the 19th century. Mike

I think the very light buffer beam is a give-away! I have a good B/W filter for Photoshop from www.photo-plugins.com that simulates the colour response of various film emulsions very well! I like your idea of adding a few scratches!

Taking photos can be very helpful in sorting out your ideas. When I made the little horse-shunting scene on my blog, I took loads of photos and moved the models about, until I got the effect I wanted. Colours are very hard to judge because they always change as the paint dries. No rush -keep "steaming on" Mike p.s. - there was a pic of a nice Georgian table in my previous comment but it disappeared. I've tried putting it back- let's see if it 'sticks' this time. (I don't understand how pics work on this website)