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Shortly after my last post, I received the 3d printed PG004 wagons that I'd mentioned so I've been working on them for the last week or so 

After a quick rub down and prime of the body, I again added pipework from wire but apart from that there was not much to add to the kit

So this is what I've ended up with , again I'm really pleased with these and I have two more to finish 

This pic shows the difference in end profile of the two hopper types.

You may also notice this one has brake pipes -  I now have a stack of these and I'm going to have to spend a bit of time going back through everything fitting them.

Overall really happy with them and I'm hoping i can convince Snailracer to print me some 007 salt hoppers next 

1 hour ago, 08221 said:

Like the ARC wagons, what paint and transfers did you use please 🙂

The transfers are from Fox and the paint I used is Humbrol Acrylic no81, not quite the right shade as its not 'mustard' enough but in my eyes it looks ok 

.

2 hours ago, w124bob said:

All done with mainly Vallejo acrylics and powders to add the texture, Tamilya acrylics were used on some of the stock. The only two enamels I now use are Humbrol silver (for the shanks on Oleo buffers) and gunmetal for tiny amounts of wear on footsteps etc. I don't own an airbrush, my three main rules are, thin, often and lots of water. I add a small amount of "wetting agent" to breakdown the surface tension in the water, expensive but you only use one drop.

https://www.artsupplies.co.uk/p/golden-wetting-agent

The two main Vallejo colours for the rail sections are black and burnt umber, with white and a tiny amount of black for the sleepers. A gray car primer from a rattle can was the base coat.

Except for the tamiya acrylics - I've never liked them - that's almost word for word how I would've described what I do - I even have some humrol silver enamel that's at least 40 years old! - I guess that sadly I'm just not as skilled as you 

Just to add to yesterday's post there is now a Facebook page for the designer of these 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557188435790&sk=about

Usual disclaimer I have no financial connection with Snailracer - although as he's used my photos perhaps I should ask for commission 😀 - my only interest is that I hope he continues with railway stuff as there's a few wagons I'd like him to do yet!

Your weathering is cracking - do you use enamels or acrylics?

I've not been spending much time on the forum lately, but didn't realise it was 18 months since I'd posted anything!

I've still been fiddling around with several things, and to continue my stone wagon theme I've been building these recently.

They are 3D printed, I had them drawn and printed for me.

The base model is a PGA (diagram 003)

The first two I've built as PG003a one with a scratch built end platform and side ladders the other more or less as built without ladders, I added the 'lozenges' - which were added during the 80s on the real thing for strengthening.

The air pipes along the sides I added from straight wire. As the brake gear on these are mounted on the end platform I also made a brake frame to mount the distributor on and the cover which goes over it all.

The other two I have built as PG006a

For these the bottom ends of the solebars needed altering/straightening and the side ribs were added to the hopper body from plastic angle with pipes again from wire.

They all need air pipes as I'm waiting to recieve some that have  been printed.

I've weathered them lightly but they could do with a little more especially the interiors.

Overall, I'm more than happy with them, and considering that they were drawn and printed by someone who has no interest in railways/model railways he has done a brilliant job. I have one more of these to build and he has just drawn a PGA 004 for me and has started on a 007 ex salt hopper as well. So my train will be getting way longer than I'll probably ever need! 

If anyone thinks they may want some for themselves let me know as he has said he may sell some if there is interest. 

22 hours ago, The Johnster said:

A 58 couldn’t do 100mph.  

Oh yes they could - quite easily actually! 

It looks like a representation of a air brake distributor to me

37 minutes ago, hmrspaul said:

 

I've always understood the numbers were the TOPS code for where the condemnation was made but these were five figure numbers. A four figure number may have been the works code, as used on maintenance panels 

 

Paul

Yes the number is where the vehicle was condemned.

Before TOPS, locations had a four number code which was used by the engineers/C&W. This was the number used on the CM&EE panel (the maintenance panel on wagons) after the date, which showed where the repair had been done  - a quick scan of your site found this photo 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/wagondetailspoetc/h269a40aa

The code was also used on the cast metal IR and GR plates that used to be put on the solebars.

I used to know  quite a few codes, but the only one that comes to mind at the moment is 3000 which was swindon works.

5 minutes ago, big jim said:

 

Now, I don’t normally have a rant on here but the last few weeks I’ve had experience while on duty of some quite frankly unhelpful members of staff, it really p**ses me off on Twitter to see people using the hashtag #railwayfamily and how we all work together and look out for each other etc, it’s far from the truth in some cases, not always but it just takes that one, and I hate this word, ‘jobsworth’ to just make the job difficult

 

I’ve only been on the railway for 20 odd years but even now it’s a different place, no one wants to make decisions, has the balls to use their own initiative, think outside the box or just generally be helpful for other peoples sake and to keep the job moving, the barriers last night, the signaller on Sunday, a ticket office member who refused to validate my parking when a hire car was parked longer than the free 20 mins in the car park during a crew swap

 

even doing crew swaps at station now is fraught with danger as a lot of the WMT and LM car parks have ANPR cameras so you can’t even park outside if you get there early or you will get charged, The likes of nuneaton or tamworth I now have to park in side streets in the hirecar until I know the train is pulling into the station before going into the carpark to give us enough time to park up and the other driver get back to the car in time to avoid a ticket, It’s just small things like that which make the job (outside of actually driving the train) that much more difficult logistically and take the pleasure away from it, the car parks are managed by an outside company so you can’t even go to the ticket office (if there is one) and give a reg No to the staff as they have no way of inputting it

 

and while I’m off on one, last night I experienced the new signalling in basford hall in the dark for the first time, whoever designed that wants shooting with a ball of their own ****, beforehand the signals coming in from basford hall jn were on a gantry above the track so as you come round the corner you could see both of them clearly from some distance away, they have now put the left hand one a separate post lower down so now you can’t see it at all until you are about 200-300ft further along the track than before, similarly the one in ‘the middle’ is the same, last night there was an intermodal alongside mine waiting at the adjacent signal (on the gantry) and I couldn’t see my, now low down signal until I was less than a loco length from it as the other train was completely blocking my view, beforehand the signal was visible from over 2000ft away, a very poor set up and quite frankly a spad trap   

Sadly the job is a long way from what it was Jim - one of the reasons I took redundancy/early retirement 5 years ago, and it sounds like it's still going downhill. 

The fragmentation of the railway has left lots of separate entity's just looking after their own little empire, without really caring about how their piece of the jigsaw fits into the picture . The only time they really care about interaction with other companies is when there's money to be made or lost! from a claim.

1 hour ago, nightstar.train said:

How do the RHTT work Jim? Is it:

a) Jet continuously all the way

b) Jet at pre-determined locations using a map or GPS

c) Some sort of detector that senses leaves on the line

d) Someone in the cab with a switch controlling it

 

Rhtt trains have an operator in the cab with the driver who has a remote control to operate the jets, and a list of sites/mileages where to do it.

The older sandite trains/locos were operated by the driver, from a button in the cab, and the sites were marked by signs alongside the track.

1 hour ago, P.C.M said:

I have been looking forwards to getting a couple of these, but the three ribs on the body are not something I can find in any pictures. Are they on early builds like the centre ladder. 

 

Cheers Peter.

No,  there were weld lines but no where near as prominent as Dapol have modelled I've filed/sanded them almost flat on mine 

Edit to add photo

40 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

Ade,

Before it's too late, are the brake levers on upside down? That looks like the one with the Morton latch from the other side as well.

I think that's well spotted and correct Ade, unfortunately the levers do appear to be on upside down

1 hour ago, Nick G said:

 

Nice work, didn't realise it would be so easy, thanks for the heads up. Need to find a suitable number to do with the ladder in that position and and I will have a go.

When choosing a number bear in mind the first few with a ladder on the left hand side retained the two small grab handles on the centre stanchions - later ones didn't have these.

5 minutes ago, 37058 said:

Hi Nick

 

My only issue with these is that they have chosen to model the early type with centre ladders! Why didn’t they just model the type that was more common, this being the later left hand fitted ladder examples. Apart from that minor (minor for me anyway) they do look very mouth watering. Now do I get a couple and rework the ladders and grab rails to the left? Or repaint an already left handed ladder type? A few have also had a moan about this 😜
 

Cheers

Anthony

It's not hard to move the ladders over- certainly a lot easier than a respray - see my post on the Dapol HEA thread.

12 hours ago, Nick G said:

Had 4 arrive today, the 2 Railfreight red and a couple of Bauxite versions. Nice wagon, wonder who will be the first to respray one with the ladder at the left rather than the center into Railfreight red?

I had a couple arrive yesterday too, the first thing I did was to move  the ladders out to the side on one of them

Still a bit of tidying to do! 

It was actually very easy to do, if you look carefully Dapol seem to have used the same body/chassis for both versions so the ghost holes are there to give a drilling template. The ladder comes free - at least mine did - with a little bit of prying with a scalpel blade leaving the lugs intact to fix into new holes.

Incidentally nice models except for the awful brake pipes! The ones on the VEA's  looked correct but were just tiny but these are just strange.

Thanks, yes the brake van is from a slaters kit.

Thought it was about time I posted something !  I've not done a lot over the summer but have fitted in the odd hour here and there. What I have finished are a couple of Skytrex TTA's, I changed the second to have the central end ladder, which also entailed changing some of the underframe slightly too, not a perfect conversion but I'm happy with it.

I've said before I dislike painting/weathering as I can never get it how I'd like it to look, but I'm more pleased with these, possibly because I've done it short bursts - often weeks apart -  which has allowed a bit more layering. As I've built most of my kit stash now - I've got more wagons than I'll ever use! - I think I need to go back through them and hopefully I'll get to enjoy weathering.

At the same time I also finished off a blue spot van I built a long time ago.

Hopefully I'll find enough mojo to be able post something again soon 🙂

Edit to add, looking at those photos, I've just noticed I haven't fitted bow gider safety loops on the van so it's not quite finished yet! 

Just dragging this back up, in amongst a pile of old dust coats in my garage I found this 

Sorry you're correct that one does appear to have had the planks removed. That would be difficult to replicate as although you could cut out the planks it would be hard to find anything that was strong enough to plate over the hole without being too thick.

You could maybe cut out the planks, put a thick (40  thou ?) Piece of plasticard in the hole before putting a thinner sheet on the outside?

Or maybe just a thin piece of plasticard 'plate' each side?

There were many different ways of patching brake vans up - some just had a boarded repair covering the bottom half or so of the planks - the bottoms rotted out- I think whichever way you choose will be okay.

As i remember the majority of the ends that were sheeted were actually sheeted over the top of the original planks (and I also remember that many, if not most were actually thin steel plate)  including i think the picture youve linked to?  So you would be OK putting some plasticard over the top, though I would suggest filling the gaps between the planks first if you are using very thin plasticard. Something I was considering doing to one of mine but I didn't bother in the end 

5 minutes ago, djparkins said:

 

Well those castings were done by ABS [Adrian Swain] but that all changed when RJH took over.

 

 

 

Didn't realise that - Adrian really was a master at casting 

11 hours ago, djparkins said:

 

Post-War Prototypes, which started in 1979 with a Class 47 which sold for £37.50. I think the 31 was £51.50 when it came out in 1985. These were sold to RJH Model Railways in 1988 

My memory tells me I bought this in 1984?

To my shame I still haven't built it, though I did put the ends together and made a start on the chassis 

In my defence it was the first brass kit I ever bought and the learning curve was pretty steep, looking at it, my soldering hasn't improved much in nearly 40 years! and the body still scares me, though I notice now that prmrp do preformed bodies for these. 

I really do need to man up a bit and get on and build it, the castings still look really good all these years later.

I remember at the time wanting most of your range 🙂

Back in the 80's/90's when everyone seemed to want to give us mugs, this was one of many I received 

I'm pretty sure that West of England freight turned into Trainload Freight South East and then into Mainline, before EWS turned up.

I'm sure Mike (stationmaster) will be able to fill in the details.

10 minutes ago, Sitham Yard said:

To expand presumably you mean what they had available for brake van/guard's accommodation.

Andrew 

Indeed