simon b

Fenchurch street station. This has a road under it with a pub in the arches, then an office block on top.

15 minutes ago, roythebus1 said:

Good luck on this project, something I thought of many years ago!

Thanks, depending on how this turns out I might have a bash at some others.

I'm using the chassis and motor bogies from the Hornby Brighton Belle for this conversion, they run well and the underframe equipment is a close match to the PUL driving motor cars going by the pictures I've seen. However they will need to be shortened by 12mm. If I've got my measurements correct the 5BEL motor coach was 66.5ft long or 266mm in 4mm scale, vs the 6PUL motor coach at 63.5ft or 254mm long in 4mm. Looking at the Hornby chassis I think the best place to make the cut is just after the air tanks, there is a gap in the underfloor detail here that doesn't seem to be present on the PUL units.

When I did a quick mock up with the parts taking 12mm length out of it would look correct visually, other than that it looks quite believable. I don't want to chop up the window section from the open coach other than changing the doors, so any discrepancies in length can be lost in the brake compartment.

Interestingly if I was doing the 2 prototype motor cars I could get away without shortening the chassis, they were a little longer so the difference would only be 3mm and not noticeable. The difference being 7 full side windows vs the 6.5 that I'm going for. 

That's going to be fun to operate, plenty to keep you busy and easy to extend the layout to the left past the factory if you wanted to add some extra sidings to shunt. 

Hope you dont mind but one question I have, is have you left enough room between the CT siding and the exit track to fit the CT building in? It does look quite tight. A possible alteration for you to consider is to bring the two points closer to the road in the middle of the board, that would let the tracks around CT spread further and give more room. You could even hide the exit track by running it underneath the upper level as it exits the layout. 

So for quite a few years I've fancied building one of the former SR express emu's, I had planned to have a go at a 4COR but a few chance ebay purchases mean it will now be a 6PUL. I say 6PUL but it will actually be a reformed 6COR. I plan to represent unit 3042 which was one of the few to painted in rail blue, lasting in service till late in 1968.

This will be a first for me, I've built plastic  kits before but never had a go at a proper cut and shut job like this.

I'll have a go at the motor cars first, the starting point for these is the Ian Kirk coach sides for the Maunsell open 3rd and brake 3rd coaches. These will be chopped up and rearanged to form the correct looking window layout, and a silver fox cab fitted in front. I'll use a Hornby 5bel chassis and bogies as these seem to be a close representation, although the chassis will need to be shortened.

A quick  pic of the parts collected so far.

14 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

Ah yes, that's actually part of the DOGA display. It's a really nice diorama display but every time I've seen it. the person on the stand hasn't been able to tell me much about it as 'someone else built it'. Here's a couple of images from the Longfield show:

 

That's the one! Thank you. It looked like some sort of shelf layout/diorama from the glimpse in the video, but I couldn't find any reference to it in the guide. An interesting bit of modeling either way.

5 hours ago, andyman7 said:

I think you may be referring to the MRC's 'York Road' which is a 2mm finescale representation of the tube that fits with the rest of Copenhagen Fields in the full setup

Thanks, but it wasn't York road. I've taken a screen shot of it, looks like a couple of layout modules possibly?

That's coming together very well, are you having platform access from street level?

Sadly work commitments meant I couldn't attend this year, but it looks to have been a great show. Could anyone help me with the name of london underground cameo layout, near to the Double o gauge association stand please? Just caught a glimpse of it in a show video.

3 hours ago, number6 said:

 

Looks to be about the same as BILs and CORs in blue - it ends with a narrow strip of blue before the door. These photos from Robert Carroll's collection on Flickr. 

Thank you for posting those pics, several internet searches for pics of the blue units were not bearing any fruit. At least the masking job will be simple to do, the side of the cab has no raised detail where the join is. I'm nearly ready to make a start on the motor cars, the kirk maunsell coach kits and sliver fox Pul cabs are here. I'm Just waiting for the Hornby 5BEL chassis and bogies to arrive, which I think will need some surgery to shorten a little.

On 11/03/2024 at 10:04, number6 said:

Two units got blue and full yellow ends: 3042 and 3045 in 1967 when on the Southeastern. There is a picture and details in David Brown's Southern Electric Vol2. Don't think any green units got full yellow. 

Thanks for the info, you wouldn't happen to know how far around the sides of the cab the yellow was? I'm guessing the cab door was blue, but the cabside itself was yellow?

42 minutes ago, 1E BoY said:

 

 

Another thing that I noticed on the north side of the line was the vast amount of discarded track panels. Most of them had trees growing out of them. Whoever gets the job of upgrading the Bletchley to Bedford route is going to have to do some track recovery before they do anything else!

 

Would be great if the old track could be taken to Risborough to help with the independent line project, that worked well during the Aylesbury branch work last year. 

13 hours ago, cnw6847 said:

Thank you Simon.

 

the plan is have a three coach train on the back track hopefully using a shuttle  system. 
Two coach trains on the front track that will be manually controlled with the freight trains.

 

The E8s would have used the line. I think they were retired late 93 early 94 but will stretch it. I have an undec Proto 2000 E8 to paint up.

I don’t think the F40c’s would have run on that line but may do one.

The top level being on a shuttle is a good idea, just sit back and watch between shunting the lower level. Would the C&NW have any commuter operations into the 90's, or would it all be Metra by then? 

I've been collecting stock to build something similar, though set in the late 60's with New haven and Penn central trains. 

Ordered some Hornby 5BEL motorized chassis, they will need to be shortened and widened slightly but are a close match for the PUL motor cars.

2 hours ago, Geep7 said:

Yes, it is imagined that this is a truncated branch line, although, never say never, I may add a second fiddle yard at the right-hand end, if I can get planning permission, and turn it into a true through station.

In that case swap it for a single slip, otherwise it will bug you later.

1 hour ago, Geep7 said:

I have something that I have been pondering, which i'd like to open up to the collective mind of RMWeb.

 

You'll see from the track-plan and photos, that the siding to the new factory i'm building is currently served via a double-slip. The question I have is, should I really swap this out for a single-slip, so that the factory siding is only accessed from the lower platform road?

 

 

The station itself is imagined to be on a passing loop, so technically there is no up or down lines, but generally passenger trains would arrive on the upper/rear platform and depart on the lower/front platform.

 

So, should the double-slip stay, or should it go? I will, at this stage, also point out, if I haven't done previously, that the siding has a catch/trap point protecting the passenger lines.

Was the line that reaches the right side of the board a through line? If it was through running line a single slip would be preferred, but not essential. 

Platforms looking good, are you going for 3 coaches long? 

I'm not too familiar with the routes that pass by the chocolate factory  site, but would this line have seen a Metra e8 or f40c?

The rest of the bogies are white metal sides glued to a plastic center, not a great idea and prone to bits falling of it seems. I've got a Triang dummy DMU bogie that has pickups for the headcode lights that model had, that can go at the inner end of the power car, then normal coach bogies for the rest of the cars. It's a bit of a crude setup compared to bogies we have on offer now , but then so is the model they are attached to!

So the other bogies arrived yesterday, one complete dock shunter chassis and a spare dmu casting. Last night I just swapped the wheels over to see how it looks and the result is definitely an improvement, it now sits level rather than nose down. 

Here's a before and after comparison, still not perfect but it's level. I'll try the other bogie casting incase this one does have wear in it, and turn down the wheel flanges while it's in bits.

Love it, will be following this with interest as North American comutter operations are rarely modeled. Are you going to use the walthers high level station on the upper level, or yet to be decided? 

That's great news, long live the Hattons name.

10 hours ago, number6 said:

I've often eyed-up Kirk kits of all 3rds and thought one could make a passable Triang-esk PUL motor coach out of them. You can get cab ends from Silver Fox on ebay. 🤔

 

 

That is pretty much what I plan to do to create the PUL. I managed to get hold of a few open third and brake third kits on the cheap, so hopefully they can be cut and shut into something passable. Use the window sections from the open coach with the doors from the brake coach, silver fox cab on the front. Then sit the lot on a Hornby 2bil chassis with the trussing removed.

I thought in might be possible to bash a PAN using a Maunsell dining saloon, or sections from a 5BEL.

Thank you for the info gents, very helpful.

I was joking earlier about br blue being a step too far,  I had not expected that 2 of them had actually been repainted into it! Now that I know such a thing existed it has to be one of those. Looking through the details on the blood and custard site, I think it's going to be unit 3042. That was made up from ex PUL motor cars with the lower height windows, which will be a slightly easier job to kitbash out of the parts available.

A PAN motor car like in 3045 would be more expensive to do in order to get enough high windows.

I won't be going for 100% accuracy as that is a bit beyond my skills, but a cut and shut of Ian kirk parts should get something that looks close enough.

Hi all.

I quite fancy kitbashing a pair of 6PAN/PUL motor cars, the plan being to eventually create a late 60's 6COR. Now I've seen pictures of these units in green with a small yellow warning panel, but did any of them go "Full Custard" and gain a full yellow front?

BR blue would be a step too far, but I'd like to model them in final reformed condition prior to withdrawal in 1968.

6 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

There's something wrong with that motor bogie, the wheels should sit central to the axle boxes regardless of wheel diameter. It's possible an MTK sideframe grafted onto a Triang motor bogie, the whole thing sits wrong.

It doesn't look right does it? It is pure triang, the sideframes are part of the casting. The weird thing is that it runs perfectly, it has pickups on all 8 wheels and can crawl quite nicely.

I've got a complete dock shunter motor bogie coming fitted with smooth 14/15mm wheels, there should also be a new dmu bogie casting to go with it. That should allow me to build up a good one and get the thing to sit level.

I'll probably replace the other bogies for Hornby items, the MTK sideframes are starting to warp so the axles are getting a lose fit.