Player of trains

Shameless cross posting from my thread in Pre-Grouping but I think my newest design belongs here. Chevrilshire & South Coast Railway Class 8 2-8-2t “Easterns” first built in 1903 by NBL https://imgur.com/YO69Yhn The cad work has entirely been done in Tinkercad and it’s printing now on my Photon Mono4k, plan is to fit the body around a Heljan 47xx chassis. It’s all largely freelance but takes heavy influence from Drummond family locos and the influence they had on Belgian design such as the large Atlantic tanks derived off Caledonian drawings as well as the various big tanks of the LBSCR

Ayep, copper wire fitted after the fact, mechanical lubricators are missing too but I'm waiting to fit the chassis first before deciding where to place those.

A lot of the details have gone onto the Eastern tank now. I've got pretty confident about what printers are capable of so I'm happy to be printing details like handrails, pipework and lamp irons. I'm really liking how imposing the model is but also has a degree of elegance with the wing plates and curves and I'd be happy to pose it alongside the LT&SR and LBSCR inspirations. Main additions are a reworked dome and rescaled safety valves although they might be replaced with Ross valves. I've added splashers to the front driving wheel in front of the tanks and developed the cab interior. The cab interior has largely been made from the collection of kit parts I've built up from bashing about in Tinkercad. I can't say its complete but all the controls have a purpose in my mind and look the part. The cab will be printed as a separate component and will drop on which will make it much easier to paint the interior of the cab. The Eastern is probably rather close to being done now, if anyone can think of anything more that this loco needs or could have please let me know. I'll order the 47xx chassis needed later today and when that arrives I can begin to alter the design to fit the mechanism and a can't wait to begin building a few of these wee beasties let alone the Belpaire fitted Improved Eastern.

Superpower on the island this morning! I've begun to develop the C&SCR's large 2-8-2 mixed/freight tanks known as the Easterns after a certain ship (long story). I'm still hemming out all the details but these locos would have been built as direct replacements to the Class 1 0-6-0s of the 1880s being introduced in 1903 and eventually totalling a class of 25 by 1911built both at the workshops at Tetre and North British Loco Co. There's a huge Drummond and LBSCR influence on this design and I did look further afield for inspiration looking at the various Belgian State Railways designs derived off the Caledonian engines the BSR licensed. The plan is to use a Heljan 47xx chassis as the basis for the loco as the chassis can be bought reasonably cheaply and given the reputation of the model a complete one doesn't cost that much more. I don't pretend to have gotten the Westinghouse equipment accurate but it looks the part and I am basing it off photos of its use on the LT&SR which is appropriate given its own large tank engines. It even looks correctly scaled with my rolling stock designs, rather looking forward to finishing this model off once I have a chassis to properly measure up for the model. Now if I've not scared you all the fact the 'Improved Eastern' hasn't left the drawing board yet probably should. Cheerio for the moment, thanks for checking in.

I find this idea very appealing Fronkenshteen's monster especially. Hornby cut and shuts are always great but short bogie coaches might be a possibility too, I need to find a photo but I've kitbashed Hornby four wheelers into four compartment bogie coaches with some 3D printed components inspired by the pair of Ex North London coaches turned into bogie coaches at the Pallot Steam museum on neighboring Jersey. The concept might just be up your alley Sophia.

Thanks Red Gem, its really appreciated. A quick question this afternoon but does anyone know the running qualities of the Heljan GWR 47xx Night Owls? I know their reputation for doing very good impressions of an Airfix kit but it's how well they run that interests me. Its a potential chassis donor for a project that is slowly coming together in my head. I was going to use more unfortunate ROD's but the 47xx choice hit me like a bolt from the blue last night. Furthermore does anyone have a battered Night Owl they'd be happy to part with?

I am surprised the RODs have been completed to about 90% bar weathering and number plates, but weathering is easy to do in one big batch and the numbers are yet to really be sussed out so I am very happy. C&SCR ROD The C&SCR found itself in a pickle post WW1 with its fleet of usually capable six and eight coupled locomotives worn out by the end of 1918 and an apparent potential crisis beginning to brew. Funds were allotted and forty 2-8-0s were purchased from the War Department Surplus Board early in 1919 as part of a bulk order with the Isle of Alnogg Central Railway. The C&SCR took half of these locomotives and sixteen would enter traffic, the four that did not were found to be the worst of the lot and were broken up for spares. Elias Manning the locomotive superintendent was incredibly critical about the state of the fireboxes on those ones... Most of the working sixteen would be turned out in the existing plain black with some getting the companies white and red wine lining but others just lettering. It was largely a decision made by the sheds with the Caustowe shed lining its allotted engines. A decision was made to convert the small fleet to oil burning while coal stocks were still sporadic and fluctuating, the company already had some knowledge and working experience with oil burning locomotives and the conversions were made relatively professionally with tanks fitted to the tender for fuel oil and atomisers fixed to the floor of the fireboxes on a firebrick pad. Eventually repairs were made to the home designed fleet and these locomotives would find themselves passed on. Industry being the main customer. Cottoness Wells and Colliery Company No.7 Beginning as a small colliery company with shafts sunk in the 1850s the Cottoness Colliery Company amended the Wells into its name around the turn of the century with the once irritating mining hinderance of crude oil turning out to be a very useful material and fuel source. The company had a smattering of Ex Island lines locomotives and industrials purchased from island builders and from the British mainland. No.7 is an Ex-ROD 2-8-0 purchased off the C&SCR in 1934 for lifting the lengthening tanker trains of crude oil out of the Cottoness basin. This was somewhat counterproductive as the locomotive was arguably a poor purchase, while strong it was heavy for the track and also too long. In 1935 the rear wheelset was decoupled turning the locomotive into a 2-6-2 with marginal improvement. I'm unclear on when this loco would have been withdrawn but it was almost certainly worn out after WW2 and sent to the knackers yard by the mid 1950s if not the early 60s. Overall I am very happy with these models, both are Bachmann rebuilds with the backdated smokeboxes I mentioned in a prior post and the oil tanks from the above post. The dynamo and electric lamp looks much better than I initially hoped as well and look reasonably convincing in person, I rather hope weathering will help define the black on black detailing in photos because as usual my lighting is terrible. Thanks for looking in again everyone, its fantastic to be pushing though the too do list. C.W.&.C.C No.7, the numbering was inspired by various Australian liveries. Yellow and Black diagonals felt somewhat too modern for this machine hence why it has black and white vertical stripes on its front buffer beam and dumb buffers. Associations were made to the Prime Minister's spats when it entered service. C&SCR 2-8-0, Shown here are closeups of the lining and unlined side. The loco will be numbered differently on either side to make the fleet look better than it really is. @Corbsis to thank for the White and Red Wine lining as I am finally making good use of a batch they produced for me early into the 2020 Lockdown.

Tonight's Job the ROD Smokeboxes. Took two attempts to print but the doors have come out very nicely and they are a much better option to paying out for the ROD spec model when I bought these two for two thirds the price of an ROD one in the Hattons christmas sale. The locos will be oil burners and I've CADded up the tanks tonight for the tenders and I've put together a stones dynamo and electric lantern for the industrial loco and these components are on print now. Hoping to have these finished this weekend and move onto the next job. I have banned myself from beginning new projects until the current ones are finished, I had a major clear-out and mental unsticking recently and it has helped a lot and now I need to crack on with the list. the RODs were on the top as small jobs, and the next one will be finishing a LNWR carriage truck.

Oh dear what a dangerously inspirational thread to find and spend reading this week in my free moments. Northroader whatever have you done. Why am I looking at a Keyser kit of an LSWR falcon sitting half built in its box and thinking it needs some French accoutrements. Why am I looking at CAD for freelance vans and thinking they could be lengthened. I think a bug has bitten...

Ohh that was the 100th post. Well I was saving this for the occasion so lets be slightly late. The layout I mention is nothing more than sketches at the moment but I want to model sections of the C&SCR mainline including the terminus station. Jutham Citadel. Jutham Citadel was opened on cleared land in 1845 in the city centre next to Jutham Castle linking the island capital to the Chevrilshire county town and earning its name. Initially just timber platforms the company would gradually erect a grand Norman-Gothic terminus to match the neighbouring architecture of the castle, think Conwy bridge, consisting of a glass train shed, booking hall, company offices and seven platforms. Four for through traffic and terminating services and three for terminating suburban services to the south coast of the island. I have no idea how I will transform this into a layout but this is how the station is laid out in my head with the station crammed onto land once held by warehouses used by the military, shops and sailors along Chandler Street. Three long bay platforms face South for the suburban traffic to the coastal towns on the south coast as well as sidings for the company bonded warehouse, those are usually found full of pastel painted vans depending on what fishing or agricultural season it is. Jutham Castle is still an active military fort and largely functions as storage for equipment but its guns still face out west over the harbour as they have done since the seventeenth century. The military sidings curve off the access points for the warehouse sidings with a short run round loop before swinging left and right onto Garrison Road into the castle courtyard and internal arsenal houses as well as warehouses along the river.

Quick check in, both ROD's are now dismembered on the workbench ready for masking and repainting. The original smokebox doors have been pried off and replacements designed and on print. Current plan is just for one locomotive to be in C&SCR livery with two different numbers on either side. The other one will be a bit more fun, again pushing the boundaries of pre-grouping like as I'll be modelling a C&SCR 2-8-0 sold to the Cottoness Wells and Colliery Company. Many of the island RODs found a way into industry in some way or another mostly though replacement on the mainline companies by the beginning of the 1930s. CWCC's one will have become a 2-6-2 with the rear axle uncoupled and rods removed to better negotiate the curves of the small CWCC system. Converted to oil firing what with waste from the refinery being so cheap and electric lighting. It should hopefully be a very different prototype clattering over the mainline to the small terminal at Cottoness, although granted the layout needs building first.

A lull in work and I'm back to railway work, I've had a good clearout of projects to make room for ones that actually should be finished, not randomly collected junk and half formed ideas. Why did have to compulsively collect Keyser kits? First things first the ROD's. The Chevrilshire & South Coast Railway always preferred large tank engines which would culminate in its Andromeda class 4-8-4t locos in the late 1920s but post WW1 the company found a need for heavy motive power with the variety of heavy freight tanks thoroughly worn out. Arguably ROD 2-8-0s were hardly an improvement given the state of the war surplus locos but they managed on the C&SCR system until the existing fleet could be corrected. Managed being the operative word as due to the tank engine preference the C&SCR had a distinct lack of turntables making the 2-8-0s somewhat unwieldy. The company would buy twenty off the War Department in spring of 1919 and three would promptly be broken up for spares upon arrival after the workshop team at Tetre shrugged at the state of the fireboxes. Model wise I have two BR spec Bachmann O4s, main jobs that need doing are replacing the chimneys and smokebox doors, I'm still unsure of other jobs that need doing and it should be a simple print and repaint. I don't plan on modding these locos too much which is unusual for me but I'm thinking some tender cabs should be provided for the North Sea weather.

Thanks for the advice Doilum, pickups are tonight's job so I'll be able to put these into practice. I would use the plunger pickups but I have already spent entirely too much so copper rod in a printed saddle is going to be the order of the day. I may fit the plunger pickups at some point so it will all be left accessible if I want too.

I am rather happy as I found a parcel from Roxey waiting for me when I got home yesterday and work is commencing again on the Y5. I'll post some proper photos when I am home and for the time being spare my blushes from my less than clean soldering. The gearbox does run very sweetly but I do have a question about limiting its movement. I'm rather positive a later stage in the instructions will explain how to fasten the gearbox in place and I have just not got to it . But how do people usually fix the gearbox in place if it has some sideways or up and down movement as so far it is free to swing on the axle. Does anyone have a preferred method?

I'm curious about this Coffepot too, was it a kit and of what loco? Not a coffee pot as the GER 0-4-0s were sometimes called or was it a Vertical boiler which usually get the moniker, sounds like something I would like to track down.

Ahhh when you've done three links in 009 anything is more practical. The last arrival for a while came yesterday, a very lucky buy on Hattons of a Pocket Money kits LMS goods set, all the etches are there for the 3F Jinty kit, the one plank wagon, MR Gunpowder van and LMS 20T brake, complete with slaters wheels too so I am very happy at that. Unfortunately O scale junk is bigger than most scales junk so I had better sit down and figure out what to do with them and how to build them. Perhaps ambitious to begin with but the Jinty is very unlikely to become a Jinty and might be built as the sketched 0-6-2t or a more conventional Victorian/Edwardian 0-6-0. Either is an exciting prospect but for now I'll focus on finishing the Y5 then giving it some wagons to push around before beginning on the bigger engine.

Then the good news is I have absolutely no interest in larger models. I think the Roxey Galloping Alice is about as large as I would ever go, but the heft I fully agree on, o scale models are just about on the tipping point where they behave physically like the real thing, wheels can be individually sprung, the weight of rolling stock and the size means three links are practical and that’s the attraction especially for small locos that would stutter over points in OO

I've spent a nice evening trying out the new soldering iron, my soldering skills are still a bit crude but a small loco kit in a big scale is honestly the best way to try them out. So I do know the chassis objectively looks terrible at this point and I am still cleaning up the solder but the chassis is square and it rolls so I say this is a fab result! I am now at the point I should really look at the gearbox and motor and I'll have a look around the recommended places. I do also have the option of printing gears and a gearbox and using an existing motor, perhaps unconventional but it would be an easy and much cheaper option for hopefully the same result and this little loco will never need to go far or fast at all. I am enjoying this so far and the rabbit hole is only getting deeper as I'm already sketching out loco ideas on scrap paper. All of a sudden this Kitson 0-6-2t turned up in my sketchbook today I may have a problem...

Thank you all for the advice and support, this has already become a very fun project and planning out how it fits into the wider scope and setting of all my models, See my pregrouping thread the Isle of Alnogg for more details there. And thank you for making them available Neil 👍 Thank you very much if you're willing to have a look for the rest of the Lambourne carriage pieces. I've made an ok start on the Y5 figuring out how it goes together and it has shown I needed a new soldering iron which is on its way. My existing one manages with 009 but its faltered with the bigger brass components of 7mm and I just about soldered on the guard irons, So a big variable heat one is on the way. I'm calling 7mm purchases done for now and I'll let these busy me for quite a while but not before I spied a pocket money set on Hattons for a song, and even if its not complete it will yield very useful components and lots of Slaters wheels. Absolutely having a bash!

Current depth indicates Dapol Terrier, I passed Lima 4F about an hour ago and I'm currently careening past the RTR level and heading into resin rolling stock strata!

Good morning everybody. I have been keeping an eye on 7mm scale for a while now and after a visit to the Trent Valley NG 7mm society meet this weekend just past has found me falling down the rabbit hole with a dangerously increasing velocity... There was plenty of inspiration there and thanks to the second hand stall I'm now the happy owner of a Ragstone kit of a GER Neilson G40/Y5 and a Guildex (I think?) Lambourne Valley and Selsey Tramway carriage. The bug has absolutely bitten and I've glanced around Ebay and Hattons to pick up a few cheap projects to resurrect and supplement these first two items but building these should keep me busy for now. I've ordered some of the recommended 7844T type wheels from Slaters for the Y5 but so far I'm stumped for the gearbox and motor as the instructions don't suggest a specific one, I'm not yet that versed enough in motors and gearboxes used in 7mm scale and who supplies them to make a sound judgement on which one to buy just yet. If anyone has built this kit could they make any recommendations? Secondly could anyone suggest where to obtain the correct wheels and axle boxes required to finish the LVR carriage. Thanks for any suggestions people are able to make. Alec.

Hi there Redgem, indeed she is, I'm the one who picked it up! To be honest she's in bits at the moment waiting for a full restoration as its a lot more fragile than it appears. I'll try and post a few photos later if I can pull her from storage but I'll give a run down of the construction. The model as many can probably see has been made from a late Margate era Hornby Railways A3 as far as I can tell date wise, it's tender drive not loco drive reusing the period Ringfield drive, there had been an attempt to wire the motor directly to the pickups in the loco as the tender coupling is useless for conductivity as I'll elaborate but this wire was too stiff and wouldn't allow for much articulation wise. The reason for the typical conductive pickup being a bit obsolete for that task is because the original builder has binned the original chassis block. As can be seen the driving wheels have been replaced with Romfords and these are fitted into section of brass square as the main chassis with the rest of the locomotive being built around that, the drilling of the axles for this chassis weren't very accurate and the wheels are a bit sloppy so I'm going to fabricate a new chassis for it. In combination with this are the rods, the main coupling rods were made from soldering together rail and the original rods and the tolerances also hamper it in that regard too. I do agree with the joins are great, the body has been made by cutting and shutting together two A3 boilers using the smokebox of the second and a banjo dome which makes me assume the builder was working off Gresely's 1938 proposal for a 4-8-2 given the proportions. The boiler was closed off at the bottom without a chassis block inside it using paper cut from a Peco trackplan book! and then painted over and properly lined, before being stuffed with a brick of lead and plasticine (very 80s) turns out the plasticine was what was really holding it all together. The builder used nameplates from No.2580 Shotover spliced into Overshot are these maybe from KingsCross models? Overall its a fab model even in bits and is really deserving of a rebuild and I should get around to it one day. I'm reasonably convinced it was someone's first serious kitbash and despite its shortcomings the imagination shown was fantastic, I seriously hope the modeler is still with us and producing models as creative as this one.

HAH! it is yes, it has never registered with me that it was a Tri-ang body, that's what I get for skimming the thread for pretty photos, I'd assumed it was lost with the bulk of the forum images, in entire fairness the two bodies look similar and it's what I would like to make one day.

Unfortunately lost from the thread now but if I remember correctly @relaxinghobby(apologies if it's not you and I've pinged you for nowt!) has made a fab looking industrial 0-4-0t by cutting the chassis down and the boiler between the ends of the tanks and the start of the smokebox then fixing the two halves back together. Rather a good late victorian industrial and I've been meaning to do it myself.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134072143717?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=pynunmkwrwy&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=g8gqSjh3RrC&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY I can’t claim credit for discovering this listing…but one of the more bizarre ones