Booking Hall

I've a confession to make. I've developed a 'thing' for brake vans! Aside from the two ready built Slaters MR vans I picked up on Ebay, and the Cambrian SR lightweight van I'm building; for 50p I also picked up this early Triang short brake van with a cast metal chassis and the old, crude, sleeved, wheels. I thought it might be possible to adapt it for Far Wittering, but when i looked in my copy of Peter Tatlow's book 'LNER Wagons' I found a drawing and photograph of the NER prototype. It turns out that this is the one Triang modelled, and actually did a pretty good job of it. Aside from the ducket being a bit short and not 'sticky-outy' enough, the roof having torpedo vents in the wrong place and no chimney, raised mouldings for the grooves between the planking and only one stepboard (in the wrong place), it's actually pretty accurate over the main dimensions! Later models ditched the metal chassis and had a plastic one which did have the two stepboards, but not mine! Having been pleasantly surprised by learning this, I decided to 'improve' it as another brake van, one that would look at home on the line, a bit archaic and dog eared. I started with the chassis, getting rid of the old wheels and axles, reaming out the axleboxes to accept PECO shoulderless pinpoint bearings to which were fitted Bachmann spoked wheels. the open axlebox ends were covered over by a bit of shaped plasticard and microstrip to represent the box cover. Since I couldn't remove the moulded stepboard without major surgery and recourse to a hacksaw, I left it where it was and added a new, lower one made from plasticard, glued below the axleboxes with staples as the steel hangers. The old Triang D shaped couplings were filed off and new Dapol couplings will be added when the body is refitted to the chassis. On the body, the moulded handrails were carefully shaved off and the ducket was sanded smooth. Then a cover layer of 010" plasticard was glued onto the ducket , a bit longer so it would bend down in a nice 'S' shaped curve to the bottom of the body, and a bit wider so as to allow for a recess at each side. part of this was then filled in with putty, leaving a rectangular aperture where the glass (glue n glaze) will be fitted after painting. Another piece of plasticard formed a 'lid' at the top. I couldn't remove the roof as it was securely glued to the body, so I sanded the ventilator detail off it and made a new overlay of 010" plasticard. I had to do this as all four corners of the roof had been broken off during the van's long life. The overlay was bent around a suitably sized bottle to give it the correct profile and was then glued on. After that, holes were drilled for new wire handrails, bent from 0.3mm phosphor bronze wire. And that is where I've got to so far. Next job is to add the torpedo vents and chimney to the roof and some lamp irons and then it's into the paint shop.

Unfortunately, I've just been told that the Brierfield St Lukes exhibition, in April, has been cancelled due to Coronavirus concerns, so unless something else comes along, Far Wittering won't be seen in public until November 2020.

That's coming on really nicely Jerry.

Welcome Svein, good to have you with us, and thank you for your very kind comments. I'm glad you've enjoyed the read.

Oh, before I get too carried away on my next two layouts (a rail-served gasworks in a Christmas tree box, and my 0 gauge shunting layout), there's the small matter of all those buildings I promised to build for the club layout, not to mention the landscaping . . . .

Cheers Andy, truth is, I need to stop fiddling about with this one in order to make a start on the next one (or two!) layout(s). I do still have to add the Velcro for the drapes (and buy some drape material), and finish off building the stock, and weather it, and perhaps make a new controller, and make some raising pieces for the trestles to bring the track height up to 36". But apart from that it's completely finished!

For BR in the 1970's era, you could model a derelict signalbox.

Pretty much the last job to do was to make some knobs to go on the point operating wires. I was planning to turn up some brass ones on my lathe, but it's cold in the workshop at this time of year, so I looked for another solution! After a little bit of thought I superglued on some short lengths of the brass tube in which the wires run, over which I'd squeezed a length of insulation cut from some audio cable. A perfectly acceptable result, and still small enough to ensure operation will not be too 'heavy handed'.

Wow! thanks Corbs, that's much appreciated.

A 350hp shunter ambles through the pleasant countryside with a single wagon trip working to Far Wittering on a warm late spring day in the early 1960's.

A couple more pictures of the now weathered bridge before I fix the backscene in place. The stonework is more polystyrene pizza base and the fencing is some ancient Merit stuff.

This is what I've done so far. I mocked up a stone built arched road bridge, but it looked a bit 'heavy', so i changed my mind to a stone and timber accommodation footbridge. It needs a bit of weathering and the new piece of backscene is only temporarily pinned in place at the moment.

Thanks Steve, a tree is a good option. I'm well on with it now so I'll soon see what might do it.

Thanks Corbs, that's a possibility. I'll see how it looks when it's up there.

Russ, in case you want to be pedantic about the size of the plates on the post . . . .

I use 1mm copper jewellers wire (for 4mm scale), cut to appropriate length, straightened by rolling between two bits of MDF, paint it white and when dry, marked off at 6mm intervals and then twiddled between fingers whilst painting the black sections using a chisel tip permanent marker - instant drying.

I'm considering using the cut off section of backscene as a 'view closer' to screen off the fiddleyard, perhaps with a low relief representation of a bridge mounted on it to link it to the retaining wall and through which the train would make its exit (or entrance!). This is something I should have considered much earlier, when I could have formed a curved corner for the backscene rather than an angle.

I decided that the right hand end of the layout needed a tree to balance up the view, and to give my cows some shade, so a shrub in my garden (actually my neighbours shrub which overhangs my garden, got a light pruning! An hour or so later, a bit of paint, some postiche, a sprinkling of light and bright green flock, and voila, one tree.

Been adding my figures to the layout today.

As it's a Sunday, there's normally no workings to Far Wittering, but an urgent requirement for some stone and cattle feed has brought the R1 up from town with a couple of wagons. I just hope the farmer appreciates the service given and the train staff are suitably rewarded!

The second tweak I've had to do is reposition the telegraph pole route. This is because I realised from playing with the layout that if I added the 'wires' they would be in the way when I needed to uncouple the loco in the station to run round, and whilst I was sure i would remember they were there, it's inevitable that they would get snapped . So, they've been repositioned along the front of the layout and the wires added. As there is a 90 degree change of direction at the end of the goods yard siding it meant I had to make another pole with two cross arms at 90 degrees to each other, both fitted with 'J' insulator spindles. I then took the opportunity to make a further pole with just one insulator on it to continue the route towards the (at the moment, imaginary) military depot. Whilst I was tidying things up I weathered the road using the airbrush to represent tyre tracks and then sprinkled some brown earth powder along the centre as country roads often do have 'detritus' on them from carts, cows, sheep etc.; and to emphasise the point I've repositioned the cow being driven by a herdsman from near to the backscene further forward. Perhaps I should add a trail of 'presents' in the direction from whence it came!

Excellent! Look forward to meeting you Mark.

If you take a look at my thread 'Far Wittering' - link below - on page 1 I've posted it's inspiration, a trackplan of a layout in 4ft x 9inch (plus fiddle yard) which appeared in the RM for December 1984. I've upsized this to 4' 10" x 1' 2" (because that's the maximum size that will fit comfortably in the car!) and added a couple of extra sidings. A fiddleyard only 1' 6" long would be adequate for the original plan.

One of the tweaks I've had to do is to reduce the gap at the crossing on the two left hand turnouts. These are fairly old PECO Streamline ones, and as such, the flangeway gaps are quite wide, meaning that stock lurched over them as the wheels dropped into the gaps. I've superglued some plastic microstrip to the wingrails and filed them to follow the closure rails. This has cut down the gap considerably and wagons now roll over it with hardly a jolt.

And YOU get the prize for observation Steve! However, the truth is rather more prosaic. I knocked the lamp with the vacuum nozzle whilst sucking up surplus static grass, and the metal bracket I'd so carefully fashioned from a beer can pinged off into the never-to-be-seen-again region of the railway room. I was about to make another when I saw the lamp lying on the platform looking just as though it had fallen off, which, I suppose, it HAD! so I glued it there. I'm glad it looks like it was intended, although you now know differently. Please don't tell anyone else