Wingman Mothergoose

There were no slip points at Richmond, there being plenty of space for standard track components

I think I’m going to do it! Medium Radius isn’t an option I’m afraid, as I don’t have the space for them. Chris

Just having a bit of a rethink, should I keep the double slip at the goods yard entrance or should I stay more true to the real Richmond and replace it with two points? Double slip as is at the moment Two points as per the real location Chris

I've ordered a set of Guards door handles, grab handles and a set of the cast double battery boxes, to add a tiny bit more weight to one of my twin sets. See what you've made me do?! ;-) Chris

I see. I'm going to order some and see how I get on with them then! Chris

As an aside, I did experiment with fitting one Kirk Gresley suburban coach with MJT sprung buffers. It mostly worked, but I was a bit too heavy handed glueing one of them to the coach and the casting broke while I was trying to free it off! Not deterred me though, I will try it again on the next kit I build or I may upgrade one of the twin sets with them. Chris

It looks like the MJT etch is door handles and a bending jig to make your own grab handles from wire. Not really that much if an issue though. If my finances this month stretch to it I may order a couple of etches and have a go, and also try and steady my hand enough to get a dab of gold paint on the moulded door handles on the Kirk coaches. participating in this thread is actually inspiring me to do more to the Kirk coaches than I normally would have done. Chris

The commode handles are the door handles aren't they? Just on the MJT page now looking at the kits, there's one for door handles that has a bending jig for making up the grab handles from suitable wire Chris

Hi John, You're correct, I used the 51ft underframe trusses that came with the single coach kits on a couple of my conversions, before I realised they were wrong. The Third/Third came with the truss underframes, but one was broken on the sprue so I used an MJT 61ft angle iron truss underframe kit instead. If the turnbuckle truss kits have instructions with them then I think I will definitely have a go with one on my next kit, or even retrofit them to the twin sets with the shorter 51ft underframe trusses. I was secretly hoping that only 2 of the turnbuckle trusses would be required, so I could be thrifty and use the 2 left over on another coach! I think I did ask on the Gresley Junction thread about grab rails, would I be right in assuming apart from guard's door handrails MJT just supply a jig to make the grab rails and the modeller has to supply the wire? No idea what size of wire would be appropriate, but my wife uses a lot of copper wire to make her own jewellery so I'll have a plentiful supply! I'll try it on one of my poorer efforts first to see how good a job I do. Chris

Hi John, I can't imagine what the station must have been like in steam days, I'm far too young to remember steam unfortunately(or Richmond being open). My original intent was to build a layout based on Chesterfield Marketplace, as the GCR and that area is close to my heart. I was offered the Richmond buildings by one Louis Heath, a fellow member of the LNER Modellers Facebook group, who had built the station in 1975 for his then layout. I couldn't refuse it when I saw it, as I've been to Richmond before and had lunch inside the train shed as well as walked along part of the former track bed(as well as exploring the castle, which was the main reason I went there!). The buildings were in a bit of a sorry state when I bought them, and in places they still are, but now they're safe in my converted garage I can try and improve them and preserve what I can. The layout is still very much in the early stages of construction, having been altered several times to make the track plan closer to the real thing, and the decision to change to DCC last year set construction back too. I bet your dad's office was a quiet place to work ;-) Chris

Thanks bud, I didn't really know much about this forum until recently, and I intend to post a lot more in here now Chris

Definitely friend! I look forward to it! hopefully I will have a lot more done by then!

So yesterday I decided to paint and weather the sides for the platform extension. I'm using Peco concrete platform sides for this, as per the real Richmond, and the colour Peco supply them in is far from what I think concrete should look like! I used Wilko grey primer followed by a dusting of Plastikote matt black sprayed at a distance to make a bit of a patina effect

Hello Mike, I recently watched with interest your YouTube videos on applying teak livery to LNER coaches. I'm going to have a go at the teak livery myself in the coming weeks, but using Phoenix paints instead. Will be the first time I've attempted any livery but BR crimson or maroon, and I'm looking forward to the challenge! First thought I need to find a way of stripping the paint from a scrap coach I recently purchased... Chris G

Hi John, The under frames are to short as they're the underframes meant for single suburban coaches, the ones on the articulated stock are a fair bit longer, something I will change once I have enough MJT parts. You'll have to show me how you did the turnbuckle underframe kit, as that's something I want to attempt too, maybe on my next twin set if I do another. I used the angle trussing as it was easier to do. The Harris books are something I hadn't actually thought about owning, but now I've built or converted several coaches I think the time has come to do my own research, including using the correct numbers in future. The first twin set I did was a First/Third, with the correct length underframes, but I omitted the !st class numbers on the doors, something I may change soon. Thought I'd add this photo of the Third/Third brake and the First/Third on my layout, I was using them to test the newly laid curves. I'd set the articulation gaps to negotiate the old curves on my layout which were fairly tight, but since moving house and being given a fairly roomy garage for the railway room I've had more space to ease the curves somewhat and now the twin sets look better as the gap doesn't close up so much. Speaking of Mailcoach kits, I did buy the Beavertail observation car kit off eBay a while back, but after hearing all the horror stories about how poor a fit the parts are and how much of a pain it is to paint I decided to sell it on. I used to Coronation style pin system to articulate the first few twin sets because I didn't have the parts to do it the other way! Chris G

I'm not averse to running an A3 up the branch! I was trying to buy at least one example of classes of locos that either ran on the branch or ran in the north east and may at some point have been part way or all the way up the branch. At the moment I have one of each of the following classes: Class 20(I know, but who doesn't love a 20?) BR Standard 3 tank J72 K1 K3 L1 V2 I also have a class 101 DMU, which were regular traction on the line in the 60's I keep an eye out for an A5/2 and D20, and I've pre ordered the TMC/Bachamnn G5, as well as the forthcoming Oxford Rail J27 and Rails NER railcar. Any ex NER locos will do too, apart from the Raven Pacific's which I'm pretty sure never made it up the branch at all(I'm happy to be proved wrong on that one!!), and I've also got my eye on a Q6, even though they're probably a tad heavy. Richmond was lucky enough to have been provided with a small turntable, and I was looking at getting a London Road Models 50' tunrtable kit, but ended up using a Peco turntable(which represents a 70' table?) as I was offered one at a price I couldn't refuse, but it does let me run any loco I like up the branch should I apply 'rule 1', something which may work as I've ordered the KR Models GT3! As you said though, having Darlington as the nearest MPD means that I could justify running a whole lot of different locos, plus I can always use the excuse that a loco from elsewhere is on a running in turn from Darlington works... ;-) Chris G

Hi John, I've converted several Kirk coaches into articulated twin sets, most of them probably not prototypical, but they look the part. This one is a proper Kirk Third/Third articulated twin kit, which I finished last week(it has the wrong numbers on it, but that doesn't really bother me so much) This one is a Third/Third brake, that I converted from two suburban coaches. The under frames are too short, mainly because I had almost finished the brake before I decided to convert it to a twin, I may change it at some point in the future though. The full Third was bought as a spares coach as it was in a sorry state, but I managed to find parts to finish it in my spares box. Fitted both sets with NEM pocket mounts and both will also have vacuum pipes at either end. I set the gap in the middle so they would go round the sharp curves on my layout(curves which are no longer so sharp as I've moved house and have much more room for my layout!). This second set also has a different articulation set up than the Third/Third above, this one uses the pins into the bogie method that the Kirk/Mailcoach Coronation kit uses Chris G

I think I'll give a set of Southern Pride sides a go when I can afford them. I can pretty much justify any main line stock at Richmond on troop trains or even the odd rail tour. Do the MJT battery boxes add a fair amount of weight to Kirk kits? I've not had any issue with running them, not having a really long running line helps, as does only having relatively short trains. I was thinking about adding some 'liquid gravity' to the underside of some of them to give them a bit more weight, but if the battery boxes really help then I may as well order a load and fit them to all of my Kirk coaches. Speaking of the Kirk coaches, I was thinking about adding door and grab handles to them at some point, although I'm fairly happy with them as they are. I do have a set of sides and ends for a Kirk quad-art set, and I was considering having a go at scratch building them or at least combining parts from different kit manufacturers to make a set up, I can probably get Isinglass to make me some floors, roofs and bogies. Chris

Aah, I understand you now. I'll be having a go at fitting it tonight, and I'll probably vice it for my YouTube channel too Chris

Looking good Jesse Chris

Andy, Thank you. Think I've built or converted about 6 twin sets so far, some for myself and some for other people. The set pictured actually has MJT underframe trusses on the right hand vehicle. I'm aware that the turnbuckle truss rods were used on the majority of the twin sets, but I wasn't keen on reproducing them. Although I'm happy to have a go at making a set of truss rods up to see how they look. I've used the MJT trusses on a couple of coaches so far, when I've bought them with missing parts. Numbers aren't so much of an issue for me, I did think about researching the correct numbers, but ended up using a Modelmaster transfer sheet with random numbers instead. I've heard the MSE kits can be a swine to make, I'm going to start off with their NER slotted post signal kit, and if I do a half decent job of it then I'll see about moving on to making my own from their parts so I can build models of the real signals at Richmond. Otherwise it might have to be either 'modeller's licence' and say that the NER signals were replaced with LNER/BR upper quadrants or I pay somebody to build the signals for me... Which brass coach sides did you use and how easy are they to do? Chris

Thank you all so much for your help! I think I have a good idea of how to proceed with this now, and I've managed to order a reprint of the WTT for the Richmond Branch too, so when that turns up I'll have a better idea of how the passenger service worked. There are a couple of book about the Richmond Branch, I have one of them, North Eastern Branch Line Termini by Ken Hoole, and I'll be ordering another book dedicated to the branch and the Catterick military railway, shortly. V2's have been mentioned, they were regular visitors to the branch, troop trains ran through to Richmond. I'm assuming this was due to weight restrictions for locos on the military railway or due to excessive curvature that meant longer tender locos couldn't negotiate them. Troops alighting at Richmond would then march the relatively short distance to Catterick Garrison. Also apparently there was a lot of horse box traffic at Richmond, due to there being a fair few wealthy racehorse owners living in the area. I don't know if the horse boxes were simply attached to regular service trains or if several horse boxes were marshalled into their own special racehorse train. Maybe a bit of modeller's licence could be used? Tank trains were something I considered, but by the era my layout is set I think the Centurion tank was the British army's main battle tank and it was a bit too wide to be transported by train. But that obviously doesn't stop me having other military vehicles transported by rail, Land Rovers etc. Chris

Hi Paul, I've ordered a 'kung fu' cap from Digitrains, as the DCC Concepts cap I fitted isn't a 'high power' type and doesn't help with the J72 stalling on insulfrog points(I only have 2 of them and they're both double slips). In your article you say you secured the cap to the decoder with spots of mastic, what exactly did you use? I ask as I don't want to fry my decoder by using something I shouldn't! Chris G

I've also finished track laying in the station area(with the exception of the goods yard, which will be on a separate board and I'm waiting for more points to arrive), and I've started work on excavating the cork to fit my platform extension

So the track laying is proceeding apace, I've managed to get the main lines to a point where I can now think about the fiddle yard. I've temporarily laid out the points and some track to give a representation of the yard, but I do welcome any ideas or constructive criticism on how I can improve it to maximise the amount of space I have available! One comment on Facebook last night was to add a couple of kick back sidings to the outer tracks to store locos or shorter trains to free up the long roads for other stock. Another suggestion was to use 3 way points, but I'm not keen on that as I've just removed one from the scenic section of the layout as it kept derailing locos. Chris