Adam

If that thing bears a relationship to a real Barclay, it’s a 16” and the wheels should be more like 3’ 8” (the ones Gibson do). That would certainly fix the height, but might not sort out the other issues... Adam

That was what you did back about 1990. Slightly alarmingly, that’s 30 years ago. The kit (and the the design of the loco) does make this easy enough. Adam

I think I put a Road Runner + in mine (I prefer my steamers to accelerate fairly sharply) but any of those articulated gearboxes will work if you make the boiler it’s own sub assembly. Not that they’re available at this precise moment... Adam

They look like Gibsons (Ultrascale centres are usually grey). Nice work Mike, though Hecate was a strange beast. Adam

That’s very interesting. Presumably a cab assembly swap at overhaul then! As you were... Adam

The ‘three pipes’ you mention definitely imply Westinghouse gear. The one beneath the buffer beam is stream heat (and all passenger engines had that) with vac and air pipes above. One thing though, 2662 has an Isle of Wight bunker in all the BR pictures I’ve seen (I’ve considered modelling it) and which it retains in preservation. Adam

That's looking very promising. Forgive my ignorance of the real thing, but wouldn't the backhead be the same shape as the firebox visible on the outside? That's certainly true of the Jinty and I assume that this would have been the same? Unless I've missed something somewhere and that's meant to sit inside a casting? Adam

Ah! Lovely! I've done one of those, my first standard gauge etched loco (and as good an introduction as you could wish for). Wulfstan remains a favourite and has a Railway Executive plate allowing it out on the mainline, much to the annoyance of a chap at a show who said it shouldn't be out without one, only to be told that yes, we knew and yes, it did. Adam

I think that's unlikely - the green appears to have been one of the standard, factory colours (the other predominant one being light grey) and since one of the main factories was at Filton, the numbers involved were huge, and the life-expectancy of the houses relatively brief, repaints with locally 'acquired' paint are probably unlikely, at least in large numbers. Anyway, down at the bottom of the siding, beyond the prefab's garden: Adam

Yes, I remember reading that. Here, probably: https://beamishbuildings.wordpress.com/tag/airey-houses/ There were a lot of different types of prefab, and there’s a big thick book on the subject which lists all of them. For Jack’s benefit - the Larkhill road area of Yeovil originally had a few score of these AIROH bungalows (and there were half a dozen at Charcott, just over the hill from where I’m typing this, at one end of what had been R.A.F. Penshurst). Adam

The title is a quote or a paraphrase - from someone who'd moved into one from something less salubrious - and, when you consider that they were fully-plumbed and fitted out with hot water and electric appliances and compare that to some of the unmodernised 19th century (and earlier) buildings they replaced, you can see why. Interesting buildings anyway, recycled from leftover airframes. Adam

The post has arrived, and with it, the latest MRJ, no. 282. Some great stuff therein, and the star is Hywel Thomas’s terrific Morfa Bank sidings, but there’s much else, including Karl Crowther’s take on Kentside and the Kendal branch and a proper sized mill chimney. Personally, there’s something more modest, but hopefully worthwhile, my model of a little prefab bungalow. Hope you enjoy it. Adam

I'd quite forgotten about the 'skirt', but yes, that's the other elephant in the room! Adam

The wheels are 3’ 6” (so 14mm). That’s the usual dimension for a 14” cylinder 0-4-0 by a British builder - Pecketts, RSH, Barclay, Bagnall, etc all did something similar. Gibson will do you a 3’ 8” wheel which is the correct Barclay pattern but visibly too big, though it might be amenable to skimming down in a lathe but if you’re doing that you may as well stick new tyres in the existing wheels. That approach works and I’ve seen it done most effectively in P4. The two big things that have stopped me working on mine are that the 16” version is a work of fiction (sticking bigger cylinders and a extra couple of mm on the front of the footplate on a scale rendition of a 14” does not make an accurate model: the real 16” tanks are about 15% bigger in every dimension). That’s resolvable, and min will be back converted to a 14" in time. If you’ve got one with the larger tank, then you just have to live with it. The other factor is the top speed which is in the Smokey Joe realm (yes, I know DCC can tame that but I don’t do DCC) so a replacement chassis is essential for me at any rate and if you go down that road then etched overlays for the spokes might b the way forward. Adam

Just catching up with this Stuart and the end result is really rather good: I hope it goes as well as it looks. I don't like the lettering, mostly as I think it's about twice the size it should be and surely it should be centred on the horizontal as well as the centre line of the tanks? That's nothing to do with me, of course and that's entirely my problem, but the weathering is lovely! Adam

Nice work (just admiring the brake assemblies, too, I have to make a set of these for a work in progress). An alternative, that's probably cheaper, are spare bike spokes. OK, so mine came free with a wheel that I'd worn through the rim on, but they're pretty inexpensive. Adam

My experience of Ultrascales is limited, but the problem is familiar and - in my case - is material based rather than, necessarily, any question of lubrication. I'm reasonably confident about that because these were conversion sets (for a 66xx as it happens) and came ready assembled. The driven axle was prone to slipping out of quarter at the slightest provocation, well, until I pinned it through the axle, anyway. I recall somewhere in an MRJ piece - possibly by Guy Williams - that the author faced similar problems with Ultrascales and drilled between the spokes with a 0.5mm drill and epoxied a pin in. My 08 may have suffered from shifting cranks, too (as the real things do!) and dad may have got fed up with that and pinned the driven axle, too - the loco lives in Somerset rather than with me in Kent. Mark Humphrys suggested something closer to prototype practise in MRJ 229: https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/mrji/issue.php?s=229 and that's worth a look. Adam

And now you know why! Adam

As others have noted, I’d think theft extremely unlikely for a host of reasons of which the amount of faff in relettering is just one. The paper trail is the other big one: it was known where the things were supposed to end up, and even quite large collieries had fleets of a size that would make checking and searching practical. The only bona fide example (a complete accident I should add), I know of comes from the preservation era when the Dart Valley (as it then was) acquired a Toad with some vehicles they’d actually legitimately purchased. BR - in the form of Plymouth CCE - found out quite quickly and had it returned, but not before it had a large GW applied. It retained that for the rest of its days (well attested in photos - the anecdote is dad’s, a volunteer at the time). Adam

Steady on Simon, ‘pre-publication information’? Goodness, some of us haven’t got over regular colour! Adam

Sorry to hear about the stroke, Rod, but glad that you're recovering well enough to resume work on this fascinating project. Adam

It's a compromise I wasn't happy to live with (much more noticeable then the steps, I think) and, as it happens, it's not that difficult. You an see that I added a 5 thou' overlay with superglue to represent the decking. The protruding headstock ends are something Geoff Kent did and where the master leads... I think I've done four now (spread over twenty years - my second ever plastic kit was one of these: it eventually fell apart and it's since been rebuilt. I knew how to pick 'em) and they get easier. Adam

Very nice, David - I've never bothered to replace the steps on mine, perhaps I should? I agree that the key bits of the Cambrian kit are usable, but there are improvements to make in some of the details. One thing, however, is that because Colin Parks designed the operators' platform to fit inside the solebars, the ends of the safety rail are too far away from the outer edge of the solebar. It should be right to the edge per this picture: https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brcatfishzev/e172cfd16 From what I remember of building a Mermaid, I abandoned the headstock/solebar locations and built up some of the stringers as well as putting some laminates of 60 thou' sheet behind the coupling. What I'd do were I to make another (possible) I'd solvent-weld an oblong of 60 thou' in there to keep things square. See below for what I did: An below for what I was thinking of - if the plastic sheet was level with the bottom of the solebar it will be more or less invisible: Adam

And here's the near finished SE&CR hopper, in the paintscheme that I guess the real thing would have ended its days. All the pictures I have of them in the BR period were taken before 1952 and show the vehicles in well-rusted Southern livery which is probably pushing it for something that lasted until after 1960. So all over black it is. The straw lettering isn't, as you'll observe, BR Gill Sans as I strongly suspect a repaint would have been performed outdoors at Broadclyst or Meldon and the signwriting on BR(S) service stock often looks a bit crude. So my way of approaching this comes from the HMRS sheet for Scottish pre-grouping wagons (various types of fish wagons on the NBR and Caley had the yellow letters, I think). Being Pressfix this was *fun*, but the end result isn't bad at all and will be improved by weathering, but that's for another day. Note that the chassis had a bit of weathering before assembly because getting in under the hopper when it's in one bit is tricky. Will this do @Enterprisingwestern? Adam

Not research, citation. The reference should be to the archive or publication where they were found. It's nothing to do with copyright (though images of archival material may be subject to copyright clearance and fees and material held at The National Archives is more complex than most in that respect: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/uk-government-licensing-framework/crown-copyright/) just, if you like, good manners to other people interested in the same thing. You're quite right, I know almost nothing about Engine Record Cards, the uses to which they were put or how many were in circulation and by and large this does not bother me one jot - I'm far more interested in wagons. But I do know and care about documentary research and like to make things clear to people who have to read what I actually do, the nature of my sources and the assumptions I have made. I can't do this in the case of this type of document because, well, I wasn't there at the time and as noted above, people that were are a bit shy of explaining that for whatever reason. So, they're quite a common form of document and often quite ephemeral - this is (probably) where variations in dating events in the lives of locos come from - but if you want to make a systematic survey you'll almost certainly have done one of two things: been to Kew, in which case chances are you've looked at the originals and the information is likely to be presented in a consistent format and gathered by the same person at the same time. If the author is open about this we can check and go back to these records to check whether 1. they have it right or 2. whether there is something else in the record that is interesting for a different reason. Alternatively, you're simply regurgitating stuff that's appeared in print dozens of times before and which *may not be correct*. Or maybe it is? No one can tell by now and we end up in hearsay and gossip. This happens an awful lot, and not only in railway history (though it is notorious for it). Or, you have your own collection, and are citing from that. Any of these is legitimate but it's only fair that the reader is clear on the provenance of that information. I hope that explains my position. Adam