Adam

Hi Alastair None of this is a particular problem - and I too model in EM so wasn't concerned about the absence of compensation on a 9' wb wagon (there's plenty of weight of course), though simple 3 point compensation would be very easy to devise if the mood took me. I've devoted myself to modifying the wheels to reflect the prototype. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out, but that's the subject of the next update,or will be, once I've take the photo's... Adam

Hi Jim They are inside bearings, yes. The top hats were added as they were supplied, the frames were drilled for them and the (1.5 mm) axle would have slopped around otherwise, and without a lathe I didn't fancy opening the wheels for a pair of wagons out to 2mm in order to fit them. As you point out, whitemetal is fine as a bearing - good enough for the real thing indeed - particularly for this sort of thing which won't run very far, or very fast. If I did have access to a lathe and had the requisite skill, I might be inclined to make new wheels of the appropriate pattern in any event. Adam

This variety seem to have used chain, just visible in this shot: http://www.banklands.com/images/YE2869-tipping-slag.jpg Some is provided in the kit, but I haven't decided whether to try and make 'em work which would require some finer (possibly underscale) chain. In theory this shouldn't be too difficult since all the bits are there. I'll have another look once the main bits of the carriage are fully soldered together. A fiddle, because there isn;'t much in the way of location provided. Nice clean castings however. Adam

And now back to wagons. I've managed to acquire a couple of these whitemetal kits for slag ladles, used to dipose of the by-products of the blast furnace. Rather specific as rolling stock goes, and surprisingly small, but dad and I have a couple of suitable locos, and they're a little bit different (to say the least!). For those interested, there are a few shots of the process here, together with the drawing and photo's of the wagon that the kit (from Clarke Kits - it is no longer available), is based upon. Inevitably, it's a little more involved than something like the ABS LNER six-plank featured elsewhere in the blog, but it's the kind of thing that really lends itself to a whitemetal kit. Happily, everything but the couplings were in the packet. Starting with the two major sub-assemblies, the carriage and the ladle. The instructions suggest 40 though plastic for the baseplate which, since it isn't necessarily structural, is fair enough. I happen to have a sheet of 40 thou' brass to hand so used a bit of that instead. This has the benefit that you can solder it of course. The 'floor' is shown here soldered to one of the sides: The pivots for the ladle keep the top square aided by some 1.5mm rod to ensure that the bearings are parallel (there are some brass top-hat bearings in there somewhere - compensation? Er...), and a short time later, it looks a bit like this: Note that the ladle is only fitted temporarily. To give you an idea, although the vehicle has the same wheelbase as a 16 ton mineral (9'), it's a good bit shorter, and only slightly taller, so it's pretty tiny. Adam

Mike I've not come across this particularly - but I'm not surprised - enthusiast interest in industrial locomotives and railways has always been a rather specialised one, save for that brief period between the end of BR steam and the take-off of preservation/the rise of the diesel enthusiast when industrial steam was 'discovered' as something rare and different before it ended. Familiarity is part of it - enthusiasts/preservationists were generally interested in preserving an image of the passenger railway as was and in locomotives. Many had been spotters and small, black, grubby machines weren't interesting - 6 drivers, outside cylinders and a tender were - which is one reason there are so many of those too (and many are hopelessly too large for the purposes to which they are put).* I guess the other element is 'image'. The 'Austerity and Mk 1' was a typical step in the preservation process since the loco's were fairly cheap, reasonably powerful, and tolerant of poor maintenance, and with decent spares availability. There does seem to be a preservationist thing of BR loco's being perceived as 'superior' to industrials, and for long distance passenger service there is undoubtedly something in that, as few industrial loco's were constructed with that in mind. That said, there are an awful lot of loco's preserved and probably rather more than are actually needed to operate the preserved railways that own them... So partly pragmatism, partly snobbery. Adam *NB The longer, hillier, preserved railways do need to additional power and capacity of course, but a 2800 on the South Devon Railway (for example) at Buckfastleigh is silly, no matter how attractive.

A point to remember of course is that it depends what the research is 'for'. Modelling purposes of course require rather more in the way of pictorial sources. Research because you enjoy it, or for the purposes of historical enquiry is slightly different. TNA do some very handy research guides, including one for railway companies and the like which give a guide of the sorts of documents held by it and other repositories. The British Railways Board (Residual) webpages also explain - to a limited extent - where the documents it held went. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-subject/railway-companies.htm?WT.lp=rg-3066 http://www.brb.gov.uk/railwayheritage There's a link there to the National Register of Archives which is very good for corporate things. Parliamentary records relating to railways (acts authorising construction and so on) can also be accessed online to an extent: http://www.parliament.uk/publications/archives.cfm The NRM is also a useful resource, though it should be realised that it hasn't, for good archival reasons, been able to fully catalogue what it has acquired in the last 20 years. This is often, rather unfairly, complained about, but the range of material and the skills needed to accurately catalogue it are not cheap particularly if the material wasn't well described (rescued from skips, photos bequeathed without notes...), in the first place! Adam

The big AEC shown earlier in the blog is now all but finished, though it needs a dose of weathering. Painting road vehicles is a slow job,even when the end result is a simple, one colour livery such as that used by BRS. Partly it's the different sorts of detail (particularly chrome) which isn't normally associated with railway vehicles and partly because they're usually a bit cleaner - for a road haulier, their vehicles are as much bill-boards as hardware - not sparkling necessarily, but probably shinier than your average 'Black 5'. This one was painted by hand. Three, thin, coats of Humbrol matt Scarlet allowed to dry, then a coat of Johnson's Klear to seal it. Following the first pass of detail painting, it looked like this: The second pass, which picked out the radiator grill, the window rubbers and the chrome and it looks a lot more like a lorry: Note that the radiator surround is grey rather than shiny. Not every operator polished the aluminium up, so a metallic paint isn't really necessary. Fully lettered and glazed (a combination of Pocketbond packaging, Ferrero Rocher box and clear plastic sheet...), it scrubs up fairly well I think. There's another view here, but that's all for now. Happy new year. Adam

Well, there aren't that many rivets on this prototype, so buying a special bit of kit isn't essential. Mike Edge is a member of the forum so should be able to help with any queries. The lack of bearings in the box is a bit of a surprise so you might want to ask him about that. Barring the metal forming, this should be a fairly straightforward kit to build, much more so than the NB diesel Kenton seems to have got most of the way through; it's a plainer prototype. You seem to have understood the principle behind the compensation, the idea is that the equalised (see-saw) axles make the two point of a triangle formed by the rigid, driven axle, thus keeping at least 5 wheels on the rail at all times. I don't know what gauge you work in. If in OO or EM, compensation is something you can do, but on a prototype with a wheelbase this short, it doesn't, in all truth and having tried both, make a whole lot of difference. I look forward to seeing your progress. Adam

Hopefully, this photo should show the arrangement of the representation of the brake gubbins slightly more clearly. A bit untidy perhaps, and I'd like to say that the next one will be better. The next one however will be the earlier 1/119 variant which had a slightly more conventional twin-cylinder (one big, one small), arrangement with a changeover lever. A bit like this one: http://80srail.zenfo...a98d2#h1db78de6 Just don't ask when... Adam

Thanks! The lever is, I think, a judgement call. These short LNER levers are reasonably unobtrusive and are neat enough to get away with I think. In the context of the large EM tailchaser my stock will appear on (next exhibition at Yeovilton in June 2010) it isn't too obtrusive on this model - you see the shape more that the finesse that isn't there I think. Quite apart from anything else however, I didn't have a suitable brass lever/guide in stock... Adam

Loathe as I am to use a TOPS designation for a wagon, this is one of the relatively few occasions where the wagon type is fairly obvious! While the basic kit is pretty good, accurate and well engineered, also including many of the things plastic wagons sometimes lack, there are a few things which can be improved or extra detail to be added. The usual things like grab handles on the end door are easy enough though the sides and ensds are a bit thick, thinning them down a bit is straightforward. The fun starts, as is so often the case, is the underframe. What you usually get with any form of 8 shoe AVB is a tumbler on the centre line with linkages heading towards the gloom under the wheels where as pragmatist I can ignore it. This: http://www.gallery68...et/p475948.html shows that it's a bit more complicated. The kit does the 1/120 which had self-adjusting brake gear. The linkage on the solebar is there of course but photos show something going on between the solebars, but not very clearly. This shot from Paul Bartlett's collection is one of the best I've found, showing a lever and a rod leading from the cross shaft heading towards some sort of bracket mounted on the solebar, with *something* behind it. This shot of a Coil B shows the direction it goes in (more or less...): http://www.gallery68.../p47042723.html Not being quite sure how it worked, I went for something representational. It's just as difficult to photgraph as the real thing but I hope this helps fellow detail fetishists... Maybe a sketch [and perhaps a better photo] later... Adam

Nope, all the Impetus kits are in the hands of Kalgarin, and certainly these weren't produced on a modern CAD system. Having spoken to Roger Slade (the designer), about this, I'm absolutely confident that it's a new kit. Adam

It certainly fits together very well, without too much cleaning up. This is true of most of Adrian's kits though (the Rectank frames were a bit of a fiddle I remember, but the bogies were very easy). You can use epoxy for the main assembly I wouldn't personally: this one has all the metal parts soldered. You can adjust the square-ness of the soldered basic wagon with a gentle bit of twisting and use a thick plastic floor epoxied in(this has two laminates of 40 thou' with a layer of planking in 15 thou' on top), to hold it square. I'll see if I can't take an overhead photo of the underframe tonight. HTH Adam

Ah, that's the deluxe version of the EM conversion! I've never gone so far as removing the brakegear, it bends out ok, but that's worth knowing for the next 1, 2, 3, however... that I do. Very useful, thanks. Adam

The latest 'work-in-progress', well, more completion of outstanding works really is this LNER open. A fairly standard LNER vehicle, derived, I think from a GNR design with a wooden underframe and AVB. In this case - since dad built one years ago - I adapted it with steel channel ends following a David Larkin photo. I'm not sure whether I'll follow the photo and finish it in engineer's olive green or as a traffic vehicle in bauxite. All irrelevant until it gets a bit warmer in any case... For those interested, this shows the AVB as modelled, mostly as ABS intended, but with all the linkages and so on added in wire. Although the wheels are trapped in I don't see that as too much of a problem since whitemetal hasn't got a lot of flex in any case! For plastic kits you might want to model these safety loops prototypically, but this is a real fiddle, for no real benefit in terms of appearance. Note the 5 thou' plastic capping irons and their associated clips, a more or less universal feature on wooden bodies by BR days. Adam

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the "extra moulded frame"? The glazing does have a representation of the rubber seal around the window, but I don't remember there being one on the bodysides (or anywhere else). The only real issue with those windows on the sides is that the aperture is a bit too large, so I made it smaller which wasn't a problem since mine was going to be re-painted. Clear plastic sheet and a steady hand is always an option - and if done right will be flat, which the SEF inserts aren't. Adam

Nice to see someone else tackling the deficiencies of the LIMA underframe (in other words, I'm relieved that I'm not the only obsessive out there), it really does make a significant difference to the look of the model. I don't agree with you on the SEF glazinf necessarily, but that's a general problem with vac' formed glazing which never looks as good as handcut pieces carefully made to fit - it does eradicate the moulded wipers however... Adam

It's BRS Pix, i.e. British Road Services rather than British Rail(ways). The Austin featured earlier in the blog is now painted, but that's of a slightly earlier era than yours. Probably yellow all round with flying crate motif in your time frame... Not sure BR went in for 8 leggers to any great extent either. Adam

In other news, another long standing project nears completion. Those of you who remember issues 40 and 41 of MRJ (Hursley and Winchester Chesil), might not recall the real inspiration to my ten year old self, Geoff Kent's two-parter on scratchbuilding commercial vehicles. This AEC mk V 8 wheeler based around a Road Transport Images cab and wheels (scratchbuilt chassis and flatbed) will be finished in the bright red of BRS and lettered for its Cardiff depot, reflecting the large number of such vehicles employed on steel haulage. Not sure about the tint on the photo, might have to re-take that... For now, it joins the paint queue awaiting slightly warmer weather. Adam

A few shots of the loco as it now stands - on its wheels. The trials of running in are still to come and having no powered track at the moment this won't be until Christmas. Anyhow, this is as it stood a month or so ago before a coat of primer. Note that the chassis wasn't complete there. A couple of evening's work has now seen back-scratcher pick-ups fitted and the motor installed along with a trial fit of the rods and brakegear (rods removed for the moment now that the bushes are fettled), but barring running adjustments and paint, all construction is now complete. Adam

5 thou would probably be ok. Evergreen stockists sell it in packs of three sheets. I have more than enough for a lifetime. PM me your address and I'll post you a bit. My other suggestion would be magic tape. Used as boiler bands it seems pretty stable under a coat or two of paint. I quite like the somewhat eccentric paint schemes occasionally used in industry in the '60s. I'm most of the way through building an Austerity which will be painted per these NCB examples from Talywain: http://industrialrailwaysofsouthwales.fotopic.net/p58584974.html Dad and I have done a few of these. Here's one I made earlier: Adam

Always interesting to see more industrial models (especially when based on a prototype, and the more so in EM). There aren't many excuses to paint loco's orange now are there? http://industrialrailwaysofthenorth.fotopic.net/p58787254.html Got the patch on the back of the bunker? http://geoff-plumb.fotopic.net/p29540289.html I look forward to seeing more. Adam

None of these are the case with Adrian so far as I'm aware, he simply, of his own free will, chooses not to use the 'net for business.* Even with these arrangements (and having stopped supplying the general trade), last time (last weekend) I saw him he said he was doing quite nicely thank you and had worked a five-day week re-stocking post-Warley. My impression is that he has all the business he wants, and can cope with as a one-man band, knows his market pretty well and fair play to him for that. Dealing with all the things that go with a web ordering/despatch creates a lot of work in and of itself; time which could be used casting and packing (so the chap who runs Dart Castings told me earlier this year, and Dart/MJT have a much smaller range than ABS). Adam *I'll volunteer at this point that dad has known him for many years, we certainly have enough of the kits and bits.

As far as I am aware, no, or at least, not in that period. I believe that current practise is to classify loco's used in the way you describe under TOPS class 01/5. This is, however, a relatively new thing - though I'm not sure of how new (Wikipedia and here has some details. Previously, such loco's were certified for such use by the British Transport Commission and such loco's were identified by cast plates fixed somewhere obvious (in footwells or on cabsides). These would be fairly restricted in mainline use, ususally only certified to access limited stretches of BR metals, often with BR pilotman or inspector on the footplate for longer distance workings. Barclay (very likely in Scotland), Hunslet, Hudswell and YEC - amongst others - all made offset or centre cab 0-6-0 designs which were common in industry. Adam Adam

It's entirely plausible in any case [that the NCB might have acquired one for use in Scotland*] Dave. What is less likely is that loco's were loaned between areas rather than simply bought outright - a bit of strategic re-lettering is more than fair enough! Adam * They seem to have turned up in every other coalfield (except Lancashire) after all.