Caley Jim

The dominance of pantiles as roofing material is due mainly to the fact that ships exporting Norfolk grain to the Low Countries needed a return cargo in lieu of ballast and generally chose Dutch tiles (and sometimes bricks). So pantiles usurped the native reed thatch...

Like wise in Fife and other parts of the East coast of Scotland pantiles predominate for the same reason.

Jim

I'm assuming bolts are best for bogies, do I need to solder/glue a nut into the floor?

 

 

I find the best way is to tap a 12BA hole in a piece of 30 or 40thou brass and solder that into the inside of the floor.  Screw it into place with a bolt though the bogie pivot hole having first smeared the bolt in vaseline, Then solder around the edges of the brass.  That way you're less likely to get solder in the thread and even if it does get near the bolt the vaseline will stop the bolt getting soldered in.

Jim

The penultimate item on my trial etch sheet is a 4 wheel horse drawn delivery lorry, from a drawing by John Boyle  of a Wordie & Co one (they were the CR's carriers).

The 5p Coin will give you an idea of the size.  Not sure who the horse comes from.  I have a wee bag with 6 or so in it.  I had to open out the shafts slightly to get them round it.

Jim

Part 1-181 is 12 sprues of chairs for Easitrac. How many points can be made from that? For the sake of this question, lets say they're all B6.

If you look in the yearbook catalogue list you will see that each sprue has 8 plain, 2 slide and 1 checkrail chair on it.  You will have to work out how many of each type your turnout needs and base the number of sprues on that.  You will also need to allow for cutting up some chairs to glue in the crossing area.  The 12 sprues should give you enough for the average turnout.  Of course, these are the original plain chairs, i.e. without the pegs.

Jim

Not 4mm, I'm afraid, but here are a couple of 2FS CR Dia 22 wagons built from trial etches from my own artwork.  They are now awaiting painting while I finish test building the rest of the kits on the sheet.   The far one is in the original dumb buffered form, while the nearer on has spindle buffers, which later batches had and which were fitted to others as dumb buffers were phased out.  Many similar wagons were built by outside builders (notably Hurst Nelson and Pickerings) for collieries and private traders.  Some CR wagons were 'thirled' to colliery companies and bore the latter's liveries.

Jim

Another couple of wagons off my trial etch sheet.

A pair of CR Dia 22 8T mineral wagons, one with dumb buffers and one with spindle buffers.  The dumb buffered one was built over Friday and Saturday at Model Rail last week end.  Unfortunately the underframe for it needed quite a bit of fettling, resulting in the artwork requiring several modifications.  I'll have to get another trial etch done of it, just to be on the safe side.

Jim

It can be sorted by nerds who edit the EXiF data in the image file. 

More Copenhagen Fields structures from the Cornish hut emporium. The 1860s three compartment first wouldn't look out of place on a well wagon passing through Tucking Mill - with a suitably geriatric engine in front. One of the other sheds also now has a coal bunker. Matthew has found the prototype photo which would look the business on any layout.

 

Tom's Paget building is literally travelling at 30000 feet over the Atlantic as I write this. Let's hope that UK Customs don't open out the bottom of it for stashed drugs, as happened to a previous building he sent over!

 

Tim

Has Cornwall declared UDI and affiliated itself with Oz?  Either that or I'm getting too many emails from my friend in Melbourne and my computer's inverting photos. (funnily enough the photos i get from him are inverted too!)

Puzzled of Lanark 

Now, if you were working in 2FS............

Jim

The following quote from the CRA forum may help to inform anyone contemplating converting Oxford Road wagons to cupboard doors as I suggested above :-

'There are several reasons why Oxford Rail wagons are more finescale friendly than even the best RTR models. So far they have been produced on self-coloured plastic which has certain benefits for the modeller in terms of ability to modify without having to paint match and painting is easier without further obscuring the moulded detail.'

Jim

And I thought Mathew was in Cornwall!

Some nice shots of 'Scotsman' coming through that area on the BBC this week!

Jim

I know nothing about GC practice, but my inclination would be that the home signal, with a bracket for the loop, on the left hand track would be about where the end of the furthest wagon is.  (where is the bridge?  Can't see it in the pic.).  It would have a second doll on the bracket for that track which disappears off through the backscene.  Coming the other way, towards the camera, the signals would be on the platform, just before the ramp.  It could be a centre post with two equal dolls.  If the road at the back of the platform is a goods line, then that might well have a dwarf arm or with a ring as Poggy suggests. You also need a signal for moves over the crossover between the centre and right hand roads.  If that were only shunting moves, then ground signal might be appropriate.    However, read my first phrase.  My knowledge comes from the recent book on CR practice, though it deals fairly comprehensively with what was general practice dictated by the BoT.

Jim

Now that Oxford Rail are producing some cupboard door wagons it would be great if A Large Retailer was to commission some traders wagons in limited edition runs.  Can we have Salmon and Young from Greenock? 

The ones from Oxford Rail don't have cupboard doors, as I indicated by suggesting how they could be modified.

Jim

Hornby produced a Scottish style cupboard door wagon with a working end-tipping door. Unfortunately it's on the anachronistic NER clasp brake underframe and the body is a bit crude. They only appear to have done one Scottish owner https://hattonsimages.blob.core.windows.net/products/R003Fife-LN_3189507_Qty1_1.jpg. I transplanted two onto kit wooden underframes which improved them a bit but kept the English owners' livery.

The end door n this looks distinctly weird!  It's like a cross between the heavy outside framed type used by the CR and NBR, which was hinged by having two 'hoops' round a heavy top cross member, and the more common type and ends up looking like neither! 

Jim  

By foreign, Mr Watt, I assume that you are referring to 'Down South' or worse, those unspeakable people from the Sou'West.

Actually I haven't a clue where they might originate from as I get a little vague when it comes to cattle trucks as the transport of meat on the hoof was a rapidly diminishing source of traffic in the days of the nationalised railway. Would you care to enlighten me and broaden my knowledge?

Hope to see you on Friday at the SECC.

 

David

 

PS Nice work on the pens. Bit different from the usual sort.

Thanks, David.

The two vehicles in question are GCR and MR, purely because there were kits available for them!  So, no, not from 'the enemy', or 'the competition' (NB) for that matter!

I'll be at Model Rail Friday and Saturday on the Roadshow, if all goes according to plan!

Jim

The pens are now painted and fixed in place.  They still need a bit of limewash splashed about!  Standing in front of them are the two, as yet unpainted, 1870 cattle trucks.  The left hand one is in the original condition with the ends open at the top while the other one has the later boarded-in ends.

Jim

 

Dunn ?   Now there's a co-incidence.

...........................................................

 

But, from the OP, is there a Scottish 'Cupboard Door' PO available.

 

In 1873 Dunn Brothers had collieries in the Mount Vernon and Bothwell areas of the Lanarkshire coalfield, Burnt Broom (http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/Indexes/ListMines1873-3.html)  and Newlands No 3 (http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/Indexes/ListMines1873-4.html) collieries respectively.

Oxford models have announced a range of Scottish PO wagons (http://www.oxfordrail.com/76/OR76MW4.htm), but they are based on the NBR equivalent to the CR Dia 46, which had drop doors, but the same outside framed end doors.  By a bit of judicious trimming, you could remove the door hinges, scribe the vertical division between the doors and add new door hinges.  That might damage the livery details, though.  I did this with the 2MM Scale Association kit for the RCH 1887 mineral wagon.

Jim

I found this rather nice looking LMS wagon a while back, but could never ID the diagram, so I have never tried to build it. Something along the lines of this may look good as a PO wagon.

This is certainly a CR 8T mineral wagon, either a Dia 22 in spring buffered form (the originals were dumb buffered) or a Dia 46.  There were dimensional differences between them, mainly 9" longer wheelbase and 1'7" longer over headstocks for the Dia 46.  A slight puzzle is the vertical planking of the door.  The doors were double skinned and CR built wagons always had the horizontal planks to the outside, Private builders (e.g. Hurst Nelson & R. Y. Pickering) built many hundreds for colliery and coal companies to the same overall design, but theyoften put the vertical planks to the outside.  In 1897 the CR took over 400 such wagons which had been built by H/N for Dunn Bros, but they had 5 planks instead of 4.  The Caledonian Railway Association (link in my signature) have recently produced a kit for a Dia 46 wagon.

Two steps forward one step back

 

That's often the way when scratchbuilding in any scale, especially 2FS.  One of the reasons I try to plan everything out in as much detail as I can before I start.  I've been in the position of having to go 10 steps back!!

Jim

Another item on the trial sheet was etches for some cattle pens.  These are based on those in a photo of Peebles with dimensions from a drawing of a similar NER one.  The etches were designed as one to build a single pen and another to add as many further pens as required.  Kirkallanmuir will have three.

The parts for a single pan laid out round a printed plan.   The plan was stuck to card and holes drilled at the location of the posts to make a jig for assembly.

The single pen assembled.

The three pens assembled.  They were removed from the jig and this then used as a template to drill holes for the posts in the livestock landing.

The three pens in situ prior to painting.

Only a couple of 'foreign' cattle trucks (MR & GCR) available at present, but a couple of CR 1870 ones are under construction while the paint on the pens dries.

Jim

The holes have been drilled in the livestock landing and the pens fitted in place.  There will be a sleeper fence between the landing and the road in the foreground and across the road, behind a wall and on the backscene, will be the market.

Only two foreign cattle trucks available at present, but 2 CR 1870 ones are under constructions while the paint on the pens dries.

Jim

More progress on the cattle pens.  All three are now assembled as a unit and are cleaned up ready for painting.  A fair bit of fettling was required to get the sections to fit together properly, but once i had done one, i knew what to do with the rest.  i also had to use some low melt solder to fill in gaps where the angled sections met the posts, but I knew that would be necessarry.

They are still sitting in the card jig and the next step will be to use the jig as a template for drilling the holes in the cattle landing.  I want to make sure they fit before I paint the pens so that they don't have to be handled too much after painting.

Jim

Since older layouts seem to be flavour of the month on this thread at the moment, here are a few photos of my first layout 'Connerburn' which was started in 1970 as a test bed for techniques in 2FS, but grew a life of its own.  It was exhibited on several occasions, mostly up this end of the UK, but did appear at Warley in 2002 and last appeared at Aylesbury in 2009.  It is a fictional CR branch terminus set somewhere on the Lanarkshire/Peeblesshire border c1885-1910.  the track plan is loosely based on a mirror image of Moffat, with the station building, goods shed etc taken from a variety of places.  The backscene was painted by a good friend and fellow 2mm member who was an art teacher.

This last photo was taken after a new tandem turnout had been installed to provide a further siding.

A link to my current project is in my signature.

Jim

Taking a break from wagons, another set of items on my trial etch are three cattle pens for Kirkallanmuir.  They are based on a photo of Peebles which has some pens in the far background, with the dimensions taken from a drawing of similarly shaped NER pens.  I decided that an etch would be preferable to trying to make them up from styrene, but working out how to arrange the various layers to provide approximately the correct thickness to the posts, rails etc was an interesting excercise!   They are designed rather along the lines of the old Hornby Dublo engine shed kit in that one etch provides a single pen, while a second provides the parts to extend that by one pen, replacing one end section with a 'partition' section.  As many extensions as you like can be added (I'm making up three pens in all) with the end missed off the first pen used for the last one.

First photo shows the parts for the first pen laid out on a paper template of the posts.

The template was then stuck to card and holes drilled at each post to form a jig to aid assembly of the parts.  The second photo shows the first pen in the jig.

Once all three have been assembled and removed from the jig it will form a template for drilling the holes in the livestock landing into which the pens can be secured.

Jim

The Caley had two types of prize cattle wagon - Diagram 40 (2 off) and Diagram 70 (4 off). Diagram 70 had a groom's compartment.

Jim