wainwright1

Layouts for Disposal. Southwark Model Railway Club have recently considered how to downsize what they have stored in their club room and have decided to dispose of two part-built layouts which are taking up space, but are not likely to get worked on by us in the near future. Another reason for expediting the disposal, is that we are currently contemplating another change of club room and would like to dispose of anything that we do not need to transport to the new venue. These were both started some years ago, but have not been worked on for quite a time. As said, they have been stored for an extended period, have suffered some damage and require refurbishment to bring them up to a standard to be completed, but would make nice layouts for a club or perhaps a private members project. The first is Andy Arches. This was originally a commissioned layout built for the British Rail Property Board (later Spacia), installed inside a trailer and used to promote the use of railway arches. You can see some black and white photographs of what this layout looked like when first completed on our website. southwarkmrc.wordpress.com. The layout could be extended to an end to end or circular format with additional features and used to display rolling stock from different periods. Inspired by the London and Greenwich Railway, it had three sections: one showing the early days, including The Halfway House pub (the first arches let) and three houses in the arches at Deptford Station. Section two showed traditional uses such as a scrap yard, coach storage yard etc. Section three showed an area where the arches had been refurbished in a corporate style with a gate house and fenced courtyard. We had started to produce a fourth board, which fits before section one and would have featured the viaduct construction being completed and a representation of the Grand Surrey Canal. The frontage of this has been prepared with some parts for the canal bridge, but these are not shown in the pictures. I was hoping to represent the original L. & G. track with rails laid on stone sleeper blocks by using scored copper clad sleepers stuck down with the centres then carefully cut away and ballasted. The boards are constructed from plywood and are approximately three feet long and pack together in pairs. Some trestle type legs were also prepared, although not for the new board. Track is Peco code 100. Most of the arches, brickwork and bridges are built from Wills plastic components, so repair/replacement would be fairly straight forward. The second layout is Hatcham Park. This was somewhat more ambitious project and intended to represent a slimmed down version of New Cross Gate. Planned as a continuous circuit layout with a fiddle yard at the back, it would probably have been 32 feet long by 8-10 feet deep. It features the fast and slow up and down lines with platform positions and the station building location which would have been on a road bridge (Left hand end). The approaching double track East London Line, up and down connections (Right hand end), to serve one platform, also connected with coach sidings on the east side of the station (Front of board). On the west side of the station there are two sidings to accommodate four car EMUs and a loco depot with a site for a four road steam shed and at the rear of the board a half relief of the famous ‘Router Shed’ and connected buildings. Some of the track here has had phosphor bronze check rail fitted as this area would have been inset in cobble stones. The sheds were served by a turntable which has been based on the one at Didcot. The well for this can be seen in the pictures and was cut from solid Perspex by Gary Cross. We have the bridge for this, which has unfortunately lost its railings and gear drive, but these are replaceable. In the London bound direction there is a connection served by a ladder of points including three double slips and a single slip which would have connected to the South London Line at Old Kent Road Junction, the Deptford Wharf Branch and the East London Line up line. The six baseboards are each forty inches square and constructed from plywood. They are currently fitted with biscuit connectors, but these could easily be replaced with pattern makers dowels or bullet connectors. There are also seven properly jointed legs to support the boards. The track is code Peco 75 with 18 points including the single slip and three double slips all of which are fitted with Peco point motors. (At least one damaged). I have a PDF which I can forward that provides a selection of photographs of both layouts for your scrutiny if you are interested. We hope that your club or members might be interested in these layouts and would be most pleased to set them out at our club room for your scrutiny. Our club meets on Thursday nights, so please let me know when you would like to visit by calling beforehand so that we can make the arrangements. We have not put a price on these layouts, but they would be subject to negotiation. Looking forward to hearing from you. Many thanks Ray 020 7732 9675

H class not old enough to smoke ? I gave my Wainwright liveried H class its first showing last Saturday on my Hawkhurst layout at the West Essex Model Rail Show. It was running nice and smoothly with a three coach set and completed its first run very well, coming into the station running around its train and then running back to the fiddle yard. On its second run out however, when running out onto the layout it started to smoke very convincingly from the chimney. Obviously seeing that all was not well and suspecting that the smoke was coming from the motor, I stopped the train and removed the loco, replacing it with the Southern liveried one which I also had with me. The latter ran without incident for the rest of the weekend. It was most fortunate that standing right in front of the layout when this happened was our local trader who was also an exhibitor at the show and the one I had bought the loco from. He witnessed the whole thing was in fact the first person to notice it happening. The loco is now being returned to Hornby for rectification and it will be interesting to see what they say about it. Has anybody else had the same problem ? RB

Seriously though, not seen a good punch up at an exhibition since Bachmann stopped selling off their returned stock on their stand. Normally blood spilt in the first half hour, not to mention cases of concussion from idiots with ruck sacks spinning round. Surprised nobody's mentioned it before. Ah the good old days ! Mind you, if someone mentioned Dakota D, that would probably start a riot !

Aforementioned stock seen here. RB

By the eck, sounds like a cracking night out. 'Bout time you got some beers in from't local micro breweries. Trouble at mill, na punch up at local exhibition, probably Bexleyheath show. Millwall were going to send their supporters on an away special, but the regular users complained about the mess they left behind in their rolling stock !

Hi All. Bought some of the new scenic items from Tasma Products. These include been poles, tomatoes on poles, buddleia and hops, some in 4mm and others in 2mm. These look very good, certainly the part, although the 2mm size ones are a little pricey. However, the latter also suit 4mm gardens and allotments. My question is, does any one know what the main material is that these are made from ? It looks like a natural material, which is probably dried and dyed, but it certainly looks good. I note that these items are manufactured in Vietnam, so it could be a plant native to there. On the other hand, it could be something that grows everywhere and it would be useful if it could be obtained in bulk at a reasonable cost for doing general plants, bushes, weeds etc. Does anyone know ? RB

Hi Sandmodeler. Most definitely still trading. Was in there during the week to pick up some stuff. Andy normally tries to get orders out by the next day. He is usually in the shop himself on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, (Subject to exhibitions), and has his helpers in on Mondays and Fridays. Normal opening time 09.00 to 17.00. He is normally quite fast to answer the phone, although he might occasionally be in the store room next door or popped up the road to the post office to dispatch the orders. So just give him ten minutes and try again. He should be at the Bertha James exhibition in Bromley next Saturday if you are nearby. Hope that this helps. RB

Another problem with the smoke oil is that it cools fairly quickly so will not naturally rise and find its way up an extended tube. I have prepared a smoke unit to fit into the tunnel of a new baseboard I have built for my Hawkhurst layout. To help the smoke rise through a hole in the baseboard inside the tunnel, I have got a small computer fan from Maplins which is mounted onto a piece of PVC pipe fixed to a mounting plate that can be easily detached for re-fuelling. The smoke unit is glued inside the pipe with Araldite which is not detrimentally affected by heat. The fan is rated at 12v, but I intend running it on 9v, so that it will turn over gently just enough to push the smoke through without forcing it out too violently. RB

Hi Matt. There is a second problem, in that a certain amount of the smoke oil tends to condense in and around the area it comes out of. So after a period of time, the card around the chimney would become saturated and probably go soggy. We had a bonfire on a layout with a smoke unit inside it and the whole area around it got soaked. You could probably seal the card with something, although I am not sure what would be the best thing to stop the oil from penetrating the card. Polyurethane varnish might do it, although that would also be susceptible to damage from the heat given out by the unit and they can get quite hot if they are on for any period of time. Hope that this helps. RB

The background does not look like the Hawkhurst Branch and I do think that those tanks were ever used on there. RB

Want something obscure. How about the Morris Commercial Imperials with Park Royal body work bought by East Kent. I think that there were around 20 of them and they mostly operated around Folkestone. I seem to recall that Wythall have the remains of another Imperial, but only the lower deck, but that had different body work. Even more obscure ! R B

Hi Brightspark. Nice to see this layout re-emerge after so many years. I saw it several times in its heyday and it always looked very good. I started my Hawkhurst 00 layout over thirty years ago and have also revived it over the last couple of years, but I think that Hope Mill might be slightly earlier than that ? I remembered that Martin had adapted the single line passing station into a double track electrified line, although Goudhurst always looked like a double track station, but did not remember that he had used various buildings from different locations. One thing that I seem to recall, was that there was a short branch coming off the main layout which I do not see in your photos, or perhaps my memory is playing tricks. Might it have been an extra add-on board ? The buildings still look good, shame about the station masters house. I have always fancied modelling one of those, each one at Cranbrook, Goudhurst and Horsmonden being slightly different. Good luck and may we hope to see the layout on the exhibition again some time in the future. Ray

Lets hope that they apply the right shade of green for the S.E. & C.R. version. The shade used on the Terrier was much too bright. Pity they did not check their test samples against the Bachmann C class which is spot on..

I also had a look at the Coppercraft stall at Railex. Not sure what the position was regard to the plastic kits, but he did have the etchings for a lot of the Blacksmith coach kits and other items such as fencing. I think that he was trying to get the castings done for these, but as has been mentioned previously, not sure how easy it is to identify which parts match which kits. With the loss of other manufacturers such as D. & S. who provided a very good selection of parts from their kits, most of which have fallen into the black hole of Weymouth, it is not always easy to find suitable components from alternative sources. I did hear from another source that perhaps Coopercraft did not actually own the tools for the Slaters wagon and coach kits and that there might be moves to get them back. Anybody know anymore ? With regard to Cambrian, I had heard that he was thinking of retiring and asked him at the Chatham show. He said that he was thinking of retiring next year, but was hoping to sell on the business on. He did have a pre-production model for the L.S.W.R. van on show and said that he hoped to have that available in the near future and also produce the brake van before he retired. RB

Hi All. I believe that Ewer Street's official title was the 'Grand Vitesse Depot' where fruit, veg and flowers were delivered for the Borough Market in particular and the S.E. & C.R. and its constituents had special express rated Grand Vitesse vans for delivering these types of perishable commodities RB

I wonder if Oxford have allowed in the tooling for all the possible variants to enable the maximum potential to be obtained from this model ? i.e. Twin framed; oil burning with oil tank tender and the pannier tanked type used by the military, as well as the inside framed type already shown Perhaps some pre-grouping G.W.R. wagons might also follow to match up with the earlier versions. RB

Hi All. I have been using Humbrol enamels for around fifty years and would say that they are my favourite paints although the old formulae ones seemed to work better than the new ones. However, you could always get a dodgy tin in the old range where the matt paint would not dry matt however well you stirred it. I use a lot of paints but have not experienced the stodgy or rubbing off problems, although I have had a problem, particularly with the matt black, which does not dry overall matt, but with shiny streaks. I agree that you should stir the paint thoroughly, I use a wooden tea stirrer which seems to work well, but I also apply a test patch to a piece of plastic card or similar to ensure that it dries properly and continue to stir and test it until it does. There was a blog on RMweb earlier this year related to Humbrol problems and I raised one related to matt varnish. I tested about eight different types of matt varnish some years ago and found the the ordinary matt varnish in the Humbrol enamel range seemed to give the best matt finish, even better than their Matt Cote. I use a lot of,this varnish including adding paint to some to use as a weathering finish. I have had at least four tins where the varnish would not dry clear, but with a cloudy bloom however well you stirred it. I registered a complaint for this on the Hornby web site and they requested that I return the tin to them. They supplied a replacement, but did not answer the details of the complaint. I also returned the other tines to my local supplier so he could send them back with a complaint to Hornby. It would seem that some batches are badly formulated but most are o.k. If you have this problem or the ones already raised in this blog, I would raise a complaint on the Hornby website detailing precisely what the problem is and make a note of the batch number from the label on the bottom of the tin(s). (The label normally has the paint number, a bar code and the batch number). You can then look for tins of the same paint number from a different batch which may dry o.k. Hopefully if enough people raise these queries with Hornby they may take notice and do something to rectify these quality control problems. All the best RB

Hi Stu. Note your comments on the Wills flexible brick sheeting. I assume that this is the thinner stuff they sell to provide the roof parts for the inside of arches or the tunnel. I have only used this once to try to line a tunnel on my new board on Hawkhurst. I could not get it to take the shape and tried to soften it with hot water, but it just distorted out of shape. I did not have any trouble cutting it though. I decided to use Slaters brick sheet in the end which seems to be a little bit more flexible and did the job without any hassle. I have however found problems with the thicker moulded brick sheets. It seems that over a period of time the plasticiser in the mouldings evaporates out and makes the plastic quite brittle, so when you try to cut it, unless you are very careful it shatters. I therefore tend to buy new stock when I am going to make something which is going to require a degree of cutting and the newer stuff seems to be softer and cuts o.k. I do not know if the thinner sheet is affected in the same way. Hope this helps. Ray

Just picked up this thread. Coming from sarf of the river, Thames that is, I can recall the following: W & S Stamps in the Old Kent Road. Penny in the slot train set in the window, good stock of Tri-ang 00 and TT, not sure if he kept Dublo, but he did have some glass cases on the inside of the window display which I think may have contained Exley coaches, but I do not think I ever saw any sold. There was also the new Co-op in Walworth Road (mid 60's) which had lots of Tri-ang that was sold off cheap a few years later and provided me with a layout equipped with the old grey and series three black track. Moving to Deptford on the Broadway there was Nobles Toy Shop which was well with stocked Hornby Dublo, Tri-ang, Meccano and much more. In the High Street close to the entrance to the station there was a kiosk which only opened on Saturdays and only sold model railway stuff. I got lots of bits from there when it closed down. Back to the Broadway in the 90's the was Alpek Models. Alan Bower who was made redundant and decided to open a model railway shop. He was there for a couple of years, but had to move as the premises needed to be demolished to make way for the Lewisham extension of the Docklands Light Railway. We helped him to move to to Evelyn Street. He was there for another couple of years, then the developer next door managed to cut away the foundations of his shop causing it to subside. He then gave up and shut the shop and got trained as a signalman !. At Lewisham on Lee High Road we had Lewisham Models, a well stocked model shop I think, owned by a woman and employing a young Dave Brewer, later chair of Greenwich and Dist. Narrow Gauge Railway Soc. Much later on almost the opposite side of the road there was Lewisham Toys and Models, mostly diecast and books, but also selling railways for a few years. Porprietor Colin Haynes, who is still with us and still selling by mail order and at bus rallies, but not model railway stuff. Up the road at Catford almost opposite Lewisham Hospital, there was the Model Hobby Consortium. Not sure who owned this, but it later became a Beatties. After a little while this burnt down, I think that another one up in Liverpool burnt down around the same time ! Anyway, after a short while a new one opened in the Lewisham Riverdale Centre, employing guess who, Dave Brewer. From memory after Beatties collapsed, I think that Dave went on to work at Modelzone Bluewater and later the Signalbox at Rochester, before passing away prematurely a couple of years ago. I do not think anyone has mentioned ABC (Allan, Brett Cannon) on London Bridge Station Approach. It was there for many years. I started working just north of the river in 1970 while they were re-building London Bridge Station and London Bridge itself at the same time. While they were doing the station. ABC also moved just north of the river for a couple of years until it was finsihed and then moved back to a different arch before its demise a couple of years later. The Allan in the name was if fact Ian Allan the publisher, one of the partners and I believe that they had a second shop in Shepherds Bush. About 1973 we moved offices to Finsbury Circus which backed on to Liverpool Street and Broad Street Stations. there had been a model shop an an arcade opposite Liverpool Street which had shut just before we moved there, but there was also a shop in an arch on the side of Broad Street which I think was called Ross Shields. A few years later a new shop opened in Middlesex Street (Petticoat Lane), and the shop in Broad Street closed with the chap who worked there now at the new shop. I also used to visit Son of Chuffs in Bucklersbury, (and once Chuffs in Lission Grove). Son of was most difficult to negotiate as the floor was covered with boxes of second hand stock, but we got some good bargains when they closed down after a couple of years. I don't think anyone has mentioned Hamblings of Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road. One of the old establised businesses that were very early providers of kits and small batch built ready to run models, plus litho printed coach and wagon sides and wooden components to make complete models. I believe that the litho sides and a large range of buidlings and backscenes are still available from the Engine Shed at Leystonstone and Freestones. On a very local level to where I live now, there used to be Charles Covey the O Gauge specialist of Queens Road, Peckham, who started in one room in a house and then moved across the road to a shop in Kings Grove. He sold out to Home of O Gauge. By the way, when Hamblings closed their shop down they moved to the same room in the house in Queens Road to sell off their remaining stock. I did of course visit all the other well established shops: W and H at New Cavendish Street, Kings Cross Models alongside the station and Victors just up the hill, although he only sold continetal and american models. there were many other shops which also sold model railways as part of their stock, but most of these have now disappeared. Happy days RB

Just picked up on this thread and pleased to see another good Southern prototype in the pipeline. A very handsome and attractive locomotive to model which will fit in well with the other pre-grouping models that have already been released or are on their way. I travelled behind the preserved one on the Bluebell quite a few times and it will be nice to feature this on a layout with other locos which were operating on the line in the 1960's/70's/80's, such as the Terriers, C class, E4 and the visiting J52, Caley Single and T9. I do not know if anyone has picked up earlier on the potential liveries for these models, but off the top of my head, without consulting any reference sources I think the following are possible: 1. LSWR - Adams 2. LSWR - Drummond 3. Southern - Lined Maunsell green 4. Southern - Lined Mausell black 5. EKR - Was it green or possibly blue ? 6. Southern - Bullied malachite with sunshine lettering 7. Southern - Bullied unlined black with sunshine lettering 8. British Railways - Malachite with sunshine lettering 9 British Railways - Unlined black with sunshine lettering 10. British Railways - Lined black with early logo 11 British Railways - Lined black with late logo Some may have been on models I have might seen, so may not be authentic. No doubt some of the experts will be able to comment further. With the external body and mechanical differences between the different examples, including chimneys, as well as the livery options, there must be considerable potential for the model producers to make a good number of models hopefully at a competitive price, Plus as there will soon be a very varied range of LSWR locos available, perhaps we can also look forward to seeing some appropriate coaches to match ? Mind you, the bank balance is likely to implode by then. RB

Hi All. Having returned my Class 31 to Hornby, I received a reply last week confirming the fault and advising that they are currently unable to source spare parts. They have therefore issued me with a code for £100 to use on their web shop. They did not indicate if there was a possibility of a new run of the 'skinhead' in original green livery, but in view of the number which appear to have been defective, lets hope that they might do another one in the not too distant future. RB

Arch Records is starting to look good, I look forward to seeing the shop window display. The one for Walden Books is particularly effective in your picture. With regard to modelling with card, I have used 2mm mounting card available from art and crafts shops for a number of buildings and this is very good for attaching brick papers to. It is not overly expensive and you can usually get several buildings out of one sheet. This good quality card cuts very cleanly with a nice sharp modelling knife and steel rule, ideal for window and door openings. I used to be able to get one type that was a sandwich of white slightly shiny card outside layers with a grey middle layer. This card could be be cut away in thin layers to produce stepped features in wall structures, unfortunately it does not seem to be available any more. I also use Evostic impact adhesive to glue my buildings together and to attach brick paper. I apply it as if it was wallpaper, i.e. I spead a thin coat on each surface and this allows you to align the paper before the glue goes off. If any glue gets on the surface do not worry, leave it a for a few seconds until it starts to go rubbery and you can then rub it off leaving no trace. Use the Evostick in the tube not the tin, because as soon as the seal has been broken the glue will start to thicken and become less durable. I hope that this might help for future projects. RB

Oops, jumped the gun there. I have logged a complaint on Hornby's website today. Will see what their response is. All the best RB

Hi All, I saw this yesterday and checked my two 31s today. The green headcode box one looks o.k., but the skinhead one has the same problems.