2996 Victor

Hi Neil, yes, it does - I've got roller and 3-point track gauges being made to 13.120mm gauge. I'm intending to use EM standards for check/crossing etc, assuming the track layout actually incorporates points, as I'm toying with the idea of trying to make it pointless! The aim is to keep it small, but there are a few key features of the original line that I'd like to squeeze in if I can: a length of stone-walled embankment and the Stephenson bridge, for instance. Loco(s) will probably have to be scratch built, although I'll look around for something to cobble into "Dowie", and I may be able to adapt "Tommy" from an available de Winton kit. Strangely the wagons are available as a 3D print, although they're intended for OO9, so I don't yet know whether they'll adapt to the 13mm gauge. There also seem to be a few discrepancies with published drawings, but how noticeable they'd be remains to be seen. Cheers, Mark

So, here we are again! Just to add to the rail-induced madness going on chez moi, here is the beginning of my burgeoning micro layout of the Crich Mineral Railway, which ran between Cliffe Quarry, Crich, and Ambergate in Derbyshire. Why? Well, I was looking for photographs of the Ashover Light Railway for my ALR OO9 layout (link in my signature), and in amongst some postcards of the ALR were some of the Crich Mineral Railway. And as both the CMR and the ALR were owned by the Clay Cross Company, I thought, "that'd make an interesting combined exhibit" (if I ever get it/them finished and exhibitable!). Curiously, the CMR was built to metre gauge, well sort of - it started out as a horse-drawn plateway of around that gauge, and sort of ended up at a metre when converted to edge rail and locomotive working. And the first steam loco was built in Chesterfield! And as if the foregoing madness wasn't enough, instead of building it in HOm where track is readily available, in order to make it truly comparable to the ALR layout, its going to be 4mm/1ft scale metre gauge, hence OOm. Why, oh why, oh why, do I do it......? Cheers, Mark "Dowie":

Have you got a copy of the J I C Boyd book, "The Londonderry & Lough Silly Railway"? Published by Bradford Barton in 1976. Lots of great photos of the line, locos, carriages and wagons, plus drawings. I'm afraid I gave my copy to the Lynton & Barnstaple Railway for their second hand book sales when I had a clear out at Easter. They might still have it. Good luck with your layout! Cheers, Mark

Ordered! Resistance was, seemingly, futile!

Excellent work! Just out of interest, whose markings are they? I was thought that the "green" Eindeckers were flown by the KuK Luftfahrtruppen, although memory is a bit hazy! Cheers, Mark

It certainly looks good. I'm trying very hard to justify its appearance on my Ashover Light layout.....

The fruits of my recent labours, vis-a-vis weathering. Left to right we have: No.7 is a "ready-weathered" ALR example. It has had the bare-wood repair planks repainted with a shade of grey slightly darker than the factory paint, and then further weathering with dark earth, rust, sand powders dusted upward from track level, and a light downward dusting of a white/brown to (hopefully) represent limestone dust..... No.21 is one of my ex-Nocton Estates examples, re-lettered. I had already "track-weathered" it as described above, but having left it a few days, I felt it was too dark given that the majority of traffic was crushed limestone, so it, too, has had a downward dusting of white/brown. No.51 is the other ex-Nocton Estates wagon, as yet un-touched after it's reliverying. It's surprising how much difference the weathering powder makes to the shade of grey, as well as the intensity of the white letters. It's sat on the bogies without the brake stands, which is why I haven't had a go at it yet! And here's one with the MR ballast wagon hiding in the gloom behind! Cheers!

Looking again at my first efforts with the weathering powders, overall, I'm pleased with the effect. The Midland Railway ballast wagon, given that I want it look like it's been stood, forgotten, for some time, needs a little more rust/rust stains in a few places, such as the brake lever guard, where the door securing chains are, and around the brake gear itself. The Class D, No.21, looks good to my eyes. However, given that the ALR's primary traffic was limestone, it probably needs some light-grey dusted down the wagon sides and ends. If it brightens up enough to get some photos up to my usual standard, I'll post a couple later. Although at the moment, it looks more like reindeer..... Cheers!

Spot on! I'd "stuck" the wagon to a sheet of cardboard with some blu-tak to make it easier to handle and lacquer - while I was unwisely holding the card at an angle, the blu-tak decided to let go

Lunchtime found me a being brave and trying out some Humbrol weathering powders that I picked up recently. Now, I have never, ever before tried weathering anything with this kind of material, and being my usual cautious self, I didn't bother reading any instructions or looking at videos on YouTube. Nope, I just went for it! Using mostly Dark Earth, with some Smoke, a touch of Sand and some Rust, I think I have achieved pretty good results both on Class D No.21 and the Midland Railway dropside ballast wagon. In the case of the Class D, I've tried to give the look of an in-service wagon that's not too long out of the shops, slightly dusty/dirty, with a hint of rust on the door striker plates and suchlike, while the MR ballast hopefully looks a bit more tired, and like its been forgotten for a while! I'm going to let them sit for a day or two, and if I'm still happy with them, I'll post a photograph then. One thing I did discover quite quickly is that if you want to "fix" the powder to avoid it rubbing off with handling, which I do, even a mist coat of matt clear lacquer reduces the opacity of the powder significantly. What appears over-done and heavy-handed can almost disappear under the merest waft of lacquer! So both wagons have had several treatments to reach their current condition: its just a case of try it and see how it looks. Oh, and something else I discovered about the Bachmann Class Ds is that the brake stands are simply clipped on to the bogies. Ask me how I found out...... Cheers, Mark

Milk Churns 2: The Return of the Dairy Cruelly enlarged! Left to right are PECO, Lilliput World, Dart Castings small and Dart Castings large. And for a bit of a chuckle: I think I'll probably make a false floor with the churns and a few other odds and sods, so that they can be easily removed if necessary. Cheers for now!

Thinking a bit more about the brakeless bogies on the Nocton Estates Class Ds, I contacted Bachmann to ask if they were able to supply the bogies separately. Unfortunately, the answer was in the negative, so I shall have to employ a little more ingenuity..... As regards loads, being owned by the Clay Cross Company stone is obvious, as is coal, but of course the ALR was also a common carrier. Intrigued by a photograph on page 76 of "The Ashover Light Railway" by Gratton & Band which shows a wagon loaded with milk churns, I set about getting some for one of my Class Ds. Can you believe it: there is so much to learn about milk churns! As far as I can make out, what it boils (!) down to is that churns used for transporting milk by rail were of two types: conical and parallel. The conical type is the earlier, with the parallel type being introduced in the mid-1930s. As the conical type is more appropriate to my time-frame, I started off with some PECO plastic moulded items, which appear okay, if too small. Then I found some from Lilliput World which looked a better bet, but although nicely made in turned aluminium, on arrival they seemed a bit spindly and not conical enough! It was at this point that I discovered that the conical type churns used for rail transport also had a crown with a recessed lid, which allowed them to be stacked, for example in GWR Siphons. And neither the PECO not the Lilliput World ones have the recessed crown. What to do? A little more searching of the t'interweb found an old friend in the shape of Dart Castings, who do two sizes of conical churn in cast whitemetal with, you've guessed it, recessed lids!!! Halleluiah! Another point to note with model churns is that the handles are often very crude. In small scale, that perhaps isn't all that surprising, but the handles on the real things are quite distinctive. I don't know how they've managed it, but the Dart Castings churns have very delicately shaped handles that really look the part - they're a masterpiece of pattern-making! And being whitemetal, their finish is a pretty good facsimile of galvanised steel. So folks, you heard it here first: if you want nice milk churns, get them from Dart Castings (with whom I have no connection other than as a satisfied customer!). Phew! Cheers, Mark

Small, but perfectly formed!!!

Heeeeeeere's Peggy!!!

A few photos of the Class Ds: the enlargements are more than slightly cruel, and annoyingly, don't really reflect the reality. I actually used my "proper" camera, and the photos aren't as good as my smart phone - they certainly seem more distorted! Or perhaps its the curvature of the Earth..... You can see what I mean about the overlapping wash on the sides of a couple of the wagons. Ah well, I can always load them with ballast or coal! Cheers, Mark

I practiced a little more with the washes on the interior planking of the Bachmann Class Ds this afternoon. I thought I'd try again with the gouache, this time with pure black rather than a dirty green/black, and I was immediately surprised by how much better it looked. But as before, as it started to dry, the pigment flocculated on the planks and not in the grooves or grain. I wonder if it's because the underlying paint is enamel, and the surface is somehow slightly greasy. So I thought I'd give it a go with thinned acrylic, even though I'd only got dark grey to hand. The difference was quite astounding, and I'm really impressed with the effect. I should have stuck to Harold Minkwitz' techniques and used black instead of trying to be clever! I do think that a pale grey with a buff tinge is more appropriate than pure white for the base coat, though. It still needs practice, of course, and with an R-T-R wagon or a pre-built kit, I think it needs to be tackled side/end/side/end/floor individually, as you seem to end up with patches of overlap otherwise. However, I think I can say I've made some progress! Cheers, Mark

It’s a nice-looking little layout, well put together, and with great scenery that disguises the fact that it’s a Timesaver. I tend to agree with Wendell’s comments insofar as the loop and spurs are not of prototypical length, which is of course because its essentially a puzzle. However, if an extra track were added running parallel to the main line from the cross-over and exiting stage left (or right), this would be the prototypical loop for appearances sake, and could end at a dual-track sector plate, thus: The layout would then serve a dual purpose, either as a prototypical model railroad, or by ignoring the loop track, as a switching puzzle as the operator requires. I’m doing something similar with my Ashover Light Railway layout: it’s basically an Inglenook with and additional kick-back siding and a small passenger station. I'll be able to either run it as a “proper” model railway or purely as a shunting puzzle. Cheers, Mark

I've spent an interesting couple of hours trying to find the most successful way to represent the weathered and worn woodwork of the interior of an open wagon. A link in a useful thread in the Modelling Question, Help and Tips sub-forum led to this link: http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/weathered_wood/ and this sub-link: http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/decks/ I think the techniques look most effective: the author of the page, Harold Minkwitz, creates a grain effect with coarse sandpaper, paints a white primer over the styrene, and then tints with washes, the wash filling the sandpaper scratches to give the effect. So I followed the techniques described, although as sandpapering the interior of an R-T-R or completed kit leaves gaps in the corners, I used a junior hacksaw blade with the ends cut off so that the teeth go to the end. I then painted the interiors of my wagons an off-white (I felt pure white would be too glaring), but having tried a wash of black over the off-white, it was too obviously an off-white base and unlike the models on the page, it didn't look convincing. So I've gone back to a pale buff-grey for a base colour. I've used designer's gouache for the washes, thinning with water and adding a spot of washing-up liquid to reduce the surface tension. Unfortunately, the wash doesn't seem to stay in the plank grooves and weathering scratches, and tends to clump, as it were, which isn't very convincing. It could be because it's gouache rather than ink or stain. I did find that I needed to be brave and use more colour than I felt right, and it looked okay until it started to dry! At least it's water based, so it's been washed off, although it has left some slight staining, which may point to an answer.... More practice needed, I think! Cheers, Mark

Here is one of my Bachmann Class Ds, now ALR No.21, after having been treated with the new MicroSol: I think you can see that the Old Time Workshop decals have settled quite nicely over the planking of the wagon side - the 'L' seems to show the effect most clearly. Very satisfied, so on with matt lacquer and weathering..... Interestingly, the MicroSol also seems to work well on the PC Pressfix 'ED' used on the Midland ballast wagon. I must admit that I tried it with some trepidation, but I needn't have worried, as it turns out! Cheers, Mark

That's fabulous, thank you! Cheers, Mark

Well, it would seem that MicroSol and MicroSet do indeed lose their efficaciousness when 20-plus years old! New supplies arrived today, and having tested them, I can say that there is a definite improvement in the way the decals "sit" over the wagon's side planking. Photo to follow when (if) I can get one that shows the decals sitting into the grooves of the planking that is at least moderately in focus.....

Thanks, Paul, I'll have another look! Best regards, Mark

Many thanks! I did look (briefly) at the HMRS sheets, but couldn't make out which was the appropriate sheet! Is the "LMS" plate (was it a plate or was it a painted-on panel?) on the bunker is on the same sheet? Sorry to ask so many questions, but as I mentioned, I'm a novice in Derby matters! Thanks again, Mark

Hi, I realise this is thread resurrection taken to its limits, but I wonder if you may be able to help. Being largely ignorant with regard to Derby products and practises, a search through the RMWeb fora found this thread and your post above. I'm thinking I may need a small ex-Midland Rly loco for a current project and a 1F would seem to fit the bill nicely. Would you mind saying whose products you used for the tank side numbers, bunker side "LMS" and the various number/build plates? I've found that Fox Transfers seem to have the numerals, but I can't see the plate in their catalogue. Thanks in advance for any info! Cheers, Mark