Player of trains

Hello fellow bashers, at the recent Stafford Show I picked up one of the Hornby Dublo starter set 0-4-0s made from the Dinky pushalong train body, I'm wondering if anyone has bashed one before, I have found a bash which I think was shown here before the great RM web crash on a Hornby pocket rocket mechanism. Just wondering if anyone else has done otherwise with the body. It's a fantastically large body of decidedly Drummond LSWR flavour and I'm thinking perhaps a chunky 0-6-0 using the Electrotren chassis or maybe even an 0-8-0 like the K&ESR Hecate.

Indeed that's definitely the market they want to cultivate leading into the initial waves, I will still lament that there's nothing suitable to kitbash in the interim, I wonder how well a Belgian inspired type 10 pacific will fit on the A3...I have had that idea rattling round my noggin for a while. Darn this conversation is making me revaluate some of my earlier predilections to whether I change or not.

Well there's still the 3mm society, plenty of support there for 12mm gauge components that are equally as cross compatible with this despite the .5mm difference I'm trying to get some wheels ordered now to begin prototyping kits of my own. Furthermore there are OOn3 disk wheelsets available though Dundas for their Tralee & Dingle Railway kits which are worth an experiment with, though the axles may be too long...

Indeed, whether or not I jump ship I've made good on printing kits for sale in 009, and I'm already cracking on a 1:120 16t mineral wagon wheels will be interesting to source however, I did think it odd there's not one in this range already but I expect it sharpish.

Oh indeed, I wouldn't expect anything at all like what I model to actually turn up, or otherwise exotic. as it is my 0-6-0s are butchered J15s and the M&GNJR Beyer lookalike is on a cut up Oxford Radial mechanism, I do think that a basic 0-6-0 tender engine in this range would do a better job at capturing modelers as well as the trainset market too, besides which what's going to haul all these steam era PO wagons, a 9F looks quite out of place. It's just moreso convenient that an 0-6-0 would be suitable bash fodder for the likes of me.

I aplogise I didn't mean to come off like that. I wasn't asking them not to produce big pacifics or a HST, I just feel with how phase one of the range is so large that perhaps a smaller steam loco would have fitted in, it would both serve to capture the public and trainset market as well as modelers wanting to take a punt. I've done the same in 009 waited for models or make my own, resin printing has been my blessing, which is what I would do here but making mechanisms is not my forte, I've tried and I'd much rather rebuild an available model. Furthermore to this I'm at a turning point where I could go into 1:120 with minimal fuss, I've spent a while focusing on 009 with little in the way of OO, just a few 0-6-0s and the making of a Beyer Peacock 4-4-0 and feel I've not wasted a lot of money on one scale to completely abandon it. I hope you can see where I'm coming from.

I am 20 but not with the same proclivities for motive power. I am at a turning point developing a new loft layout and I am seriously considering TT with the new support. But track is one thing, locos are another. Rolling stock I can build and print just fine but locos need a donor chassis. I feel the early stage of the 1:120 lineup could easily befall what befell Dublo and they never made a proper small loco (the R1) until near the end. If there was say a Fowler 4F or a J39 in this range to begin with I would genuinely switch over as it would provide an ideal donor chassis to begin working from to make a Victorian and pre grouping style 0-6-0, so far all we have is a vague promise of a 57xx and that 's it. All being said I will put in a pre order for an 08 as I am interested in the applications of the chassis in OO12/OOn3 (Donegal tank anyone?) But yes not much that appeals to me unless I want to turn 08s into a fleet of Kirtley goods locos.

Thanks Jason, Highlevel are the ones' I'm already looking at, probably the high flier if it fits. I was mostly wondering too if there was a specific aftermarket chassis kit as are usually available if you know the right summoning ritual.

Hello everyone, I've just picked up the LSWR Falcon kit, while I'm waiting for it to arrive I was hoping if I could get some pointers on motorising it and ask if anyone else had a finished model? I built a keyser terrier I picked up years ago at Warley and owned a few other models and I know the chassis was never the strong point or the wheels being true, I'll know when its in my hands but how were the milestones locos for this and the Falcon? I did notice it seems to have a brass chassis over the whitemetal blocks of the usual range. I know it had a separate motorising kit too, that certainly won't be available now so what would be the best modern alternative? Cheers. Alec

I might be about to make a fool of myself. But are the wheels on backwards on the A3 and A4, the counterweights are the same side of the wheel as the crank? they're not arranged like that on the prototype are they? rather irksome if not.

And here that Baldwin is! I managed to find a cheapish 542 for this project as I was never bothered about the working headlamp more getting a black one to repaint as it would be a shame to repaint a more elaborate livery like 540 or Sid. The poor thing found itself swiftly dismantled and all laid bare for painting. The rear cab extension is printed and just glued to the bunker. It's been a relatively simple repaint in the same livery as my fairlie Unicorn with yellow cab and tanks and leaving the boiler black. The rods got a coat of red which I think really helps them pop out compared to the tanks and the black wheels. The buffer beams are more of an experiment, they're printed and fit onto the existing buffer beams and over the 009 coupler, rather than paint them all red I decided to see what varnished timber would look like with only the shanks painted red. The varnish effect was done in the same way I've done it on the teak coaches that make up my passenger fleet. I like to think the little people that populate the layout borrowed a few lengths of spare teak from the carriage shed to fit the bufferbeams to the baldwin. The Lining has been done the same as on Unicorn and was far more irritating and time consuming... you can probably see in the photos that some of it is peeling or not properly stuck and I'm doing my best to flatten that with microsol and set. The fireiron hooks have been improvised from some spare coupling hooks from a Dapol pug kit (does this make it a pugbash?), I suppose they're a bit heavy duty but they'll be loaded quite heavily when I get around to it as the Baldwin is going to be the railway's banker at the Cavalier's Stand bank and as such it'll have all sorts of useful gismos and bits and bobs stashed on the engine as well as its irons. Chain, a pick, deck chairs, the essentials. I hope this repaint isn't too egregious like the Fairlie and I do wish I had better lighting in my home, my house faces north south which is why I'm always chasing the best light or under harsh LEDs, never a good spot.

Thanks! I've not got a huge amount built in the way of other locos for the Island, at least not in OO. I recently treated myself to a Bachmann Baldwin which I'm finishing up like Unicorn and just finished lining it yesterday. Now just waiting on some suitable light to photograph it in.

It looks superb Corbs, very much considering RC for my own beyer 4-4-0 now. I think there needs to be some gateway between the tender and cab footplate. Lots of space for an unfortunate sod to tumble through.

Hi Larky I've just checked this out, I'm the guy who rebuilt their Farlie already. The body breaks down into five parts, two smokeboxes, two tanks and the cab. There are eight screws that hold down the cab, two that hold each tank and one for the smokeboxes. The main thing to be aware of is the pipework and wire attached between the tank and smoke box assembly, this can be pulled away and then the tanks and cab lift off as one assembly unslotting from the tanks.

Bit of an update on the 0-6-0, fully lined now but setbacks because my cat decided to bat it off the window sill means it's without a roof again. None the less I'm very happy with it, just need to finish off some plates for it, number and works plates but I'm still debating if it I want to give it a name or not being a lowly goods engine. The lining is by Corbs and I'm not the greatest with microsol and set but its better than my first attempt and the film will be less noticeable once its weathered and dulled down. On a slightly more narrow gauge note I've been busy rebuilding and repainting a Bachmann double fairlie, brand new printed cab and chimneys and the yellow I use for my narrow gauge locos. Compared to my Heljan Wardle (which at the same time has been mauled, depending on perspective, with buffers). The yellow I use is Rover Inca Yellow in rattle cans from Halfords, I promise its not as sickly and bright as it appears in photographs. It also got its bufferbeams at this point I'm planning to run the railway Campbelltown style with both sprung buffers and chopper couplings for mostly working with colliery stock which I've been busy adding dumb buffer blocks too. The lining is HMRS LNER loco lining which I think goes very well with the yellow paint, I have long ran out of corners but I actually prefer the right angles now I've lined the loco. The nameplates and Fairlies patents plates are also printed, number plates are not happening until I know where the engine will properly sit on the company roster but will probably be No.8, I've got some whitemetal crew figures but I'm likely going to purchase a set of figures from Modelu intended for the Fairlies https://www.modelu3d.co.uk/product/11200/ . It might be a bit mad to rebuild a fairlie in this way but I'm very very chuffed with the final result and can't wait to keep at this into the new year.

I can't believe I let this pass me by Mr Tom, Scaca Fell is frankly a piece of art not just a model so I eagerly await what you produce for Ballamoddy with such rugged landscape in that part of the Reverend's world, same goes for the locos of a line about to hit hard times which you'll no doubt weather beautifully. Watching with interest, Alec

Posting that photo of Rood Ashton makes me feel a lot better about them

They look excellent Corbs, especially nice to see them complete No.2, in your honest opinion do you think the tender could do with a few more mm of height to the body? I do think they're a bit low alongside your models and the 0-6-0 I'm building but not jarringly so.

It's that time of year where I make a thread again to start properly posting modelling in and try not to abandon. Hi I'm Alec and I've made a few threads before but I'm determined to keep this one going properly, like my name the previous threads are a visit to a much younger person who really didn't know what they were doing! The setting for my railways is the Island of Tumm, a fictional Crown Dependency and later republic in the North Sea set where Dogger Bank exists. I had set up a thread for the island in the Pre-Grouping modelling forum but the island has had such a significant remodelling and rewrite I think its easier to start over and with a far more general thread. The island has a mix of standard and narrower gauges and even historically broad gauge although this was all lifted by the 1890s aside from in an industrial capacity. Much of the economy is centred around gas and oil production with a healthy coal and peat extraction business. Plenty of intercity/town passenger workings as well as holiday traffic, as well as agricultural, general goods and specialised traffic like chemicals. Most of my models are a variety or kitbashes or modified models but I'm trying to work towards fully printing completely freelance or off the shelf builders designs rather than directly kitbashing existing models and falling into a trap of not making a cohesive looking fleet and just locos from anywhere and everywhere with different safety valves put on them! And to start off the thread, directly flying in the face of all that is my current project rebuilding a Hornby J15 into a semi-generic 0-6-0 goods loco for the Chevrilshire & South Coast Railway with a distinctly Drummond like flair, the loco is almost finished aside from numbering, the most glaring thing is needing to fill the hole in the front of the running board where I popped the frame extension out of when dismantling the loco. The new fittings were designed in my usual method of tinkercad and printed on my Photon Mono the new smokebox door and wing plate was the last thing made for this model, originally I just glued on a wheel dart seen in the top corner as well as a sandbox that was canned as well. New footsteps were also printed after managing to loose all but one of the originals but I think it works towards helping loose the GER basis. Said GER heritage is why I decided the wheel dart didn't work and I fully removed and replaced the smokebox door. This photo shows the fitted out loco and with the test print for the new tender, The Wordsell tender is too distinctive and needed replacing, @Corbs has several of these tenders if you'd like to check out their thread to see some excellent examples of them painted up. It's a generic victorian tender but with a slight lean towards Beyer Peacock practices, this loco is intended to have been built on island at the company works in the town of Tetre but the company has several beyer products on the books, the intention being that they just copied the existing tender. Said tender was a little gunky as it was printed in solvent washable resin and I had to just rinse it with water so a proper one is being printed when new water washable resin arrives tomorrow. For now though the loco is nearly done and is mostly in the original BR black but touched up with citadel Abbadon black and brass bits and pieces like the dome. The crew are Andrew Stadden figures, made from the Edwardian Enginemen pack and I am genuinely pleased with how well I've managed to paint them (at least by my standards) these figures are very detailed and I cannot recommend them enough. Next up a quick project to fit in around the last week of university, I recently picked up though a friend in Canada this gorgeous brass kit of a hand crane. Its a Trax kit, an Australian company, made for them by KM models in Korea and somehow ended up in Canada and now here with me in the West Mids. The kit itself is a model of a Cowan's and Sheldon 10 ton hand crane of which one is preserved in Australia having been used on the Sydney and Panmetta railway nicknamed the Hernia! Being Australian it is HO scale but the buffer height works fine with my existing models and if nothing else serves to make it even cuter. It is in need of some basic repair, the brake rigging on the match wagon needs a piece refitting, the jib rest seems to have been soldered on broken off and poorly superglued back on then broken off again so that needs tidying up. The counterweight needs the guide frame fixing and the crane itself needs the frames fixing with a new screw otherwise the wheels will keep dropping out. None the less it is fully posable with all the gearing and winch assembly working flawlessly, it borders on miniature engineering. The most obvious absence is the handle for the winch and a few other details like coupling hooks. Livery wise I'm just planning a basic black with white highlights on the jib where needed, I'd love to detail this too, sleepers and tools stacked on the match wagon which will be a very fun job to CAD up and print. Cheers for taking a look and there's a real backlog to post so watch this space.

I'm really happy with how the tenders have come out Corbs and the 2-6-2 is really lovely, the terrier on my shelf should be fearing for its life about now.

This isn’t level crossing stupidity but it is grade A idiocy, I believe this is the Llanberis Lake but correct me if I’m wrong. Idiotic couple plastering themselves strolling down the line then having the gall to say it’s ok as it’s been disused for years when called out for it. I really despair that someone who’s made a living out of ‘influencing’ others could encourage such stupidity.

cheers Rob, I’ll note that that bit is poorly explained and probably should be written as more stable ground, the eastern end of the island is relatively boggy and flat where water drains off the hills in that region whereas the west end aside from Selmond is rockier in the sense of it being firmer ground better for farming crops, it’s not snow Sonia levels of Rocky more Staffordshire moors level of rocky.

The affect on the world wars is an interesting thing to consider. Really though nothing actually changes in my own canon, invading the island would be significantly difficult, England and later Britain defended it because it was once the ideal staging ground for an invasion but by the industrial revolution and certainly once the aviation age began it would get significantly more difficult to invade from the island, its not next door either, its in the middle of the North sea so even from mainland Europe an invasion is difficult. In a hypothetical scenario I think Britain would fall before Tumm, not that it would make any difference but I don't think an invasion is strategically sound. However Tumm does not go unscathed. Far far from it, its a domestic oil and gas supply for Britain with offshore platforms being experimented with as early as 1930 in the shallow channel off Castrum Bay. In both world wars the island was heavily bombed by Zeppelin raids and the Luftwaffe and further attacked with V1 and V2 missiles and proposals were discovered for a V3 gun aimed at the oil field in Torrshire. The destruction was concentrated on the fuel sites and railways and directly contributed to a huge motive power crisis on the island not unlike the Southern's issues not truly solved until the 70s. Older designs were kept in service till breaking point and nothing was there to replace them.

They're looking quite excellent Annie, now I'm struggling not to go perusing the Download Station for broad gauge.

Now for something a bit different but actual modelling. Now I posted way back in the summer some narrow gauge 0-6-0s but they've had a further remodelling (I mean did you see how squat that chimney was) and they're probably headed towards another remake using the modern Farish Jinty chassis. These locomotives are intended to be completely freelance but taking inspiration from the time period and other builders. Four of these locomotives were built and delivered to the Chevril Magna & Bramble Fosse in 1875; No.2 Parzifal, No.3 Berrenger, No.4 Boatman and No.5 Orphean. (No.1 was a Fox Walker 0-4-2st purchased from the contractors). The builder in question is the small time builder Alistair McKenzie based out of Ringsend Dublin and an Irish based builder is probably the most unrealistic part of all this. The locos were built to rather high quality and expensive to boot costing around £1000 each and they're largely inspired by the Small and Large Englands delivered to the Ffestiniog which were inordinately expensive compared to other tenders. Though the main reason for Alistair McKenzie being chosen is because the man in question was friendly with the Whenbarrows, the main financiers of the route. For once hobnobbing paid off without a catch as the engines proved popular to the point other companies on the island would purchase them with the County Eastwich opening their narrow gauge arm with them and the Codsollop Tramway company operated at least one. I've drawn all these designs up just using Tinkercad and printed them on my Anycubic Photon and the plan was to fit them onto the old long wheelbase Graham and Farish mechanism but they're a bit difficult to fit motion to with the way the existing rods are fixed with one pin. So I'm looking towards the newer Jinty mechanism or the revised Dapol terrier. Below are all the variants I've made so far but one or two more might emerge in time. Left to right, CM&BFR locos on delivery, Middle CM&BFR locos as rebuilt, CER locomotives with NER Style cabs. Inspired mostly by Beyer Peacock and other builders of the time with the bent sheet iron cabs, this is a depiction of how they were delivered in spring of 1875 to Chevril Magna. Secondly are the rebuilds, most of the CM quartet were given newer more enclosed cabs when sent back to Ireland for overhauls in line with the standards employed by the company. As already said the CER opened its narrow gauge leg with a few different narrow gauge machines with several of these locos purchased and built with the NER influenced cabs due to the ownership dispute of the company. Most of these were also given dome mounted safety valves (no real reason for that we just wanted some variety). Finally is the 'trammy mack' as its dubbed, this being a pun on the frequently used shortening of Alistair McKenzie to Allymack. This is eventually going to a friend and is a model of the locomotive that the Codsollop Tramway employed with full skirts and cowcatchers. I have printed off and assembled the as built variant of the locos but I'm waiting to really perfect the frames and chassis before working towards making a full run to make the rest of the fleet. Now for a bit more colour, with the opening of the Pidney Vale branch in 1886 there was a need for more motive power and a 2-6-2 was ordered from Manning Wardle, one of their predecessor designs for the Lynton and Barnstaple locomotives. The model itself is one of the Heljan Wardles that I'm modifying to eliminate some of the issues and backdate it as its actually a model of the newbuild Lyd which is in itself based off Lew, the one built in 1925 which presents some advancement issues to say the least. I'm aiming to swap the Joy valve gear for external stephenson and several more period details. The engine will become No.6 Prydwen and is painted in the rather bright earlier yellow livery of the company with red frames which I have completely not appropriated from the Vale of Rheidol...promise. The lining is LNER lining from HMRS but I had enough to just do the back and one side so there's some more on the list to be ordered. Moving back to something standard gauge and actually more pre-grouping in style are locos for the C&SCR. I've had the body for a Sparkshot mogul rattling around in the parts drawer for over a year now and I've finally decided to get on with it. It'd sustained a few knocks over the years and I've been printing detail parts for the loco on my new Photon-Mono as well as other parts like buffers and coupling hooks reused from Dapol kit leftovers or leftovers from other projects. Finally the boxcabs, I posted these way back when I started this thread and they were getting on a bit. They were the first CAD project of a friend of mine and I've been reworking and detailing the original files in Tinkercad. They're based off the Dagenham locomotives and reasonably applicable for early diesel traction especially with the resources of the island. Thanks again for having a look at my mad ramblings. Alec