Wheatley

Thank you. I'd convinced myself Gibson only did bevelled 20mm driving wheels but there is a plain one in the catalogue so I'll go for that. I have one set of Sharman wheels but they're reserved for the 300 Class when Jim Smellie finally releases it ! 

I love that, especially from such an indifferent kit ! Whose wheels did you use please ? I have two currently doing my head in on the bench , there has to be an alternative to Romfords ...

If you just want to change frog polarity the PL-13 is fine, if a bit crude. The PL-15 effectively does the same as two PL-13s at the same time so if you want to change frog polarity and a signal aspect, (or any other auxillary function) it will do both.

However, the PL-15 is ten times more expensive than two bog standard microswitches from RS or Farnells, its only advantage is that it glues directly onto the PL-10E without having to rig up an actuator.   

If you are not using electrofrog points you don't need a PL-13 or a PL-15 :-) 

I doubt the white picket fence in the modern photo is original, but it may well be on the same line as the railway boundary fence / gate in the aerial photo. Which suggests the scout hut is indeed the pitched roof building extended forwards of the fence. Checking an old 25" map against a modern one may help resolve that. 

The advice to check planning applications is an excellent one - I have site plans and dimensioned floor plans of some 18th century warehouses and a 19th century church intended for a future extention to my layout from checking these. An estate agent's site also turned up a dimensioned flood plan of the Station Master's house for the same project, but searching those is a bit more hit and miss ! 

This was done more or less as described above, basecoat was Halfords grey primer over a skim of polyfilla. It still needs work. The track was ballasted with fine sand, which was also used for the surface of the loading dock.

The tarmac in your header photo isn't the same colour or texture all over, and that's a main road laid to a recognised standard. In BR blue days your goods yard could be anything from fresh tarmac to 50yr old packed cinders, or concrete, or ropey old tarmac mixed in with packed cinders, potholes filed in with old ballast or all of the above. Use what you have as the base coat and build up texture and shading with washes of grey/brown watercolour (or thinned acrylic), talc or fine sand for texture and a bit of green scatter around the edges for weeds etc. More texture at the edges where the loose chippings get scattered to, less where it gets regularly driven over. 

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

 

Superb story. I'm particularly impressed that Parmley had noticed who had been travelling with the cheese. A keen eye ! 

...

Fascinating. I wonder if anyone has ever modelled a whole circus train - or even one of the special wagons? 

 

 

 

Not much involving cheese got past Parmley, he later left the railway to co-found Appleby Creamery when the Express dairy shut. 

Not a circus train but I have got most of the vehicles together for the Last Farm Move on BR, from Gloucestershire to Wigtownshire in 1962. A pedigree beef herd needs a lot of Beetles...

On 01/03/2021 at 12:33, Compound2632 said:

I am unable to indicate definitely the exact site of its interment, but ... it was concluded by the inhabitants of the surrounding district that the bird had found a resting-place "somewhere in stationmaster".

One Saturday afternoon at Appleby in the 1990s, whilst clearing up after the day's various steam and deisel excursions, I found a carrier bag with a large full Wensleydale cheese in it, obviously left by one of the throng of tourists who had decamped from one of them for a couple of hours in town. 

Stationmaster and ex-cheesemaker Parmley (well, Railman, but it was definitely his station) was consulted, who recognised it and and believed that it belonged to a lady now heading back towards London via the WCML. He then produced a cheese corer from his pocket (!), sampled it and declared it to be excellent. 

The Passenger Information Manual was consulted which confirmed that perishable lost property could be disposed of by whatever means were locally expedient. It took us two days to eat it. 

The cameo is excellent, I have a couple of Airfix WW1 tommies somewhere  relaxing on the back of a coal merchant's lorry. 

Lima vans - correct, the CCT on the right is a BR Mk1 vehicle, mid 1950s onwards. The bogie van is fine apart from the BR bogies, which can be replaced with spares from Bachmann. 

Hornby - BR Mk1 brake third on the left, the POS (Post Office, Sorting) on the right is surprisingly accurate for an LMS vehicle apart from the bogies (BR again) and the toy operating bits. It's pretty close to one of the 57' designs albeit with some 60' features (the toilet window I think).  They did operate in ones and twos attached to passenger trains, not just in full TPOs. 

Dapol - Period 2 non-corridor lav composite, usually a suburban coach but could be used as a strengthener. The brake third is Period 3 and accurate. If you want to keep the Dapol bogies use brass pinpoints to keep the wheelsets in, otherwise swap for Bachmann LMS bogies. Both accurate but a bit basic by current standards. 

'Tri-ang' - Hornby 1980s vintage I believe, generic Period 3 LMS composite, kind of looks like all of them without being accurate for any of them. Generic bogies again. The heavy lines on the roof are correct, if poorly done on the Hornby ones and a bit overdone on the Airfix/Dapol ones. The lines on LMS coach roofs were prominent flat strips covering the butt joints between the roof panels, whereas those on most Mk1s were welds. 

Mainline - correct, Period 1 BTK, and an accurate model of it too although in the later livery. The other one is an Airfix/Dapol composite, I think, accurate if it is, but a bit light on underframe detail and it looks as though the windows might have been replaced, the Airfix/Dapol ones usually have a heavy prismatic effect. 

Finally - Hornby or possibly Tri-ang BR Mk1 brake third.      

As for what you could use, all the LMS coaches there are in the later 'simplified liveries, and the Period 3 coaches are suitable for 1933 onwards (dates vary for each diagram). The Precedents were almost gone by 1933, so really only the Mainline MK1 and the non-corridor composite out of that lot, and then perhaps only in the earlier fully lined livery. But it's your trainset and Rule 1 applies. Have a look at Ben Alder's Far North Line - he's got locos on there which only ever existed on paper, never mind didn't survive that long, and it's totally convincing. 

I think this problem affects all aspects of modelling that with which we are not familiar, certainly industrial subjects. We model what we see, or what we think we see, or even what we would like to think we can see, often with only a basic understanding of what 'it' is nevermind how it works or even why it's there. 

The example given of signals plonked in random positions is a good one, it winds me up too but I'm an ex-signalman. But the station car park on the same layout will be fine because everyone knows how car parks work even if they don't drive. 

Collieries, distilleries and dairies suffer the same problem. At one time it seemed like every Scottish layout had a white painted distillery in the corner where a quaint 0-4-0 (usually of a type never seen in the highlands) shuttled a couple of grain hoppers and some opens full of casks about. There were small distilleries, it's true, and some if them are very pretty. But most distillery traffic was coal in / empties out. 

This was Dewars in Perth - lots of rail traffic in evidence but not very pretty. Or quaint: https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1246412

And here's a quaint scene at Balmenach on Speyside. I bet nobody models the buildings on the right as derelict (which they were by this date) or the 7 story corrugated asbestos granary in the background !

https://www.railscot.co.uk/img/29/344/

Threads like this and the several now running on milk trains and dairies go a long way to addressing this :-)

6 minutes ago, Silver Sidelines said:

 This is supposed to have now been fixed with the requirements for a Health and Safety file!

Don't believe it ! Northern's fleet engineer was convinced that they never had two Class 142s in exactly the same mod state at the same time. 

Your table is extremely handy for me trying to track down Port Road Black 5s (for renumbering) secondhand, thank you. I'm up to 8 so far I think, 7 Hornby and 1 DJH on a Hornby chassis. 

Just to chuck my two penn'orth in to the knowledge pool, the longer wheelbase was because the Skefco roller-bearings used on the first lsuch batch were bigger than traditional bearings so they had to be further apart to clear the firebox. Once the length was changed I believe the longer wheelbase frames were used regardless of which bearings were fitted (but I can't remember where I read that last bit so don't quote me !).    

The 'as built' variations are a nightmare before you start on boiler and tender swaps. I have a couple of examples where photos of the same loco over a twenty year period show it changing from front to rear topfeed and back again, on at least one occasion with a different tender thrown in along the way. 

I use Lincs couplings in 4mm. The 4mm verson uses an etched bracket to hold the pivot tube and it's an art getting it positioned consistently. The equilateral triangle is a really good idea, it's almost self jigging !