Dave John

If it is actually a fuse box, get it changed. Modern consumer units provide a much higher degree of protection than older fuses or units with just mcbs and a main switch. Replacing a Consumer unit also has the advantage that the person doing the change has to test and verify all the circuits connected to it and it surprising how many faults show up when this is done.

There would be a real temptation not to build the body and just have the chassis as a display model on its own. Or one of each....

An impressive furball in there, removed a few like that over the years. I do look at some of the huge layouts with loads of stock that people build and my first reaction these days is to wonder how they keep it all clean.

Hi Londontram , have a look at the NB viaduct crossing the kelvin at maryhill. There still is a point on it, back in the day it was 4 tracks with several . To be pedantic its not one viaduct but two next to each other with the top filled in . The north one is brick arched , the south stone , so it looks like a viaduct with a stone face on one side and a brick face on the other .

A very old tin of humbrol matt 61 as a base, then a wash of a darker acrylic for highlights corbs. I am getting a bit artistic with acrylics , I mix them up a bit . I'll be chopping off an ear and buying a beret next... Fair point Mikkel , but some of my older locos have pointy armed drivers from very old airfix figures. Mind you I reckon it would take a crew of 6 to run and clean a D1.

I have been slowly painting and lining the D1. It must be said painting and lining is something I have never been good at. I know how to do it but I just don’t seem to have the artistic flair for it. More than half an hour and my eyesight and hands become two entities with wills of their own, so it might be a while longer while I do the D1 bit by bit. Mind you, I have no shortage of crew ready to drive it. Figures by Andy Stadden, The close up pic shows me where I need to just correct the paintwork a bit.

I can see where the OP is coming from, these clip on wireless gamepad things paired with a mobile phone are very popular with those younger folk who have the eyesight to see the screen so why not use them as a controller for DCC as well. I had a bachman DCC thing for a while, just couldn't get on with the little joystick thing and hated the fact that it was an IR link and had to be pointed at the base station, at least the phone thing gets round that. I too am dubious about the IOT (internet of things) and the levels of automation predicted. Marketing tells us it will be wonderful, our smart homes will be controllable from anywhere via the internet from our smart devices. Hmm. Our smart devices? Someone else smart devices ? The company that made the devices smart server through which the commands pass one way and the data the other ? The Governments computer which has access to the companies server data and the encryption key in all those IOT devices ? Much as I agree with JJ that a kettle with a switch is cheap and simple it does depend on the Smart meter that we are all getting not switching all your electricity off just as you want a cuppa. Which of course would be when the electricity supplier or the government decides you don't. Still, my layout is DC so I could run trains from a battery. Hang up a couple of oil lamps for light. Might even add to the Edwardian atmosphere of it all......

I have a 15 drawer bisley which sits on a 5 quid castored plant pot stand from Lidl. This sort of thing only cheaper. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/25-30cm-Wooden-Plant-Pot-Square-Wheels-Mover-Trolley-Caddy-Garden-Flower-Stand-/123462846362 All the assorted storage I have in the railway room is on castors, makes moving things about to get access to the railway a lot easier. For that matter so is the railway itself. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/2091/entry-19250-the-baseboard-waltz/

I do enjoy the old advertising posters. Google the Caledonian golfing girls and see what they sell for now. https://www.antikbar.co.uk/original_vintage_posters/sport_posters/golfing_girl_caledonian_railway/PS0563/ Ouch.......

I upload videos to YouTube and then add the link to my post. This does mean that you need to start a you tube account. Make sure the videos are set to public on Youtube. The link is a long string, just copy and paste it into your post. Have a go, even I managed to get it all going.

Keep it as disposable floor cover. Put it on the floor in front of your layout when you are doing wet works like ballasting or scenery. When it has been dribbled on by pva / paint / plaster etc throw it away.

"Photos of engines at the period of interest are mostly taken from ground level; certainly good views of the tender top rear were not the photographer's priority!" Er, aye. On the plus side the CR had no water troughs. Though the crews seemed to mess about with tool boxes. Sometimes you just have to guess.

Yes Regularity, I have now added it. The wiring to the tender is done too.

Very nice Mikkel. There is pattern here. You have made a cracking model based on a few of the rtr parts. I have made a model with 4 of the original kit parts. Really we have both ended up as scratchbuilders. Down the line I will end up with a pair of RoS 812s . I have a sneaking feeling that I will wish I just started from scratch.....

Thanks all. I think I got the tube from squires Londontram.

I made up most of the tender body and then spent a while getting things level. Set the buffer heights and shim the compensation beams so the footplates are lined through. Then place the loco and tender on the tightest curve I have ( about 48 inch radius ) and that gives me the minimum length for the tender - loco drawbar. The Caley coaches tender kit includes these, but the size I needed was between the two. Easily adjusted. I put the whole thing together and ran it up and down for a while. Tender needs a bit of weight but apart from that smooth. It is always satisfying to see what is essentially a scratchbuild run well. But something was niggling at me. The overall look was right, but somehow the line of things was broken. I went back and looked at photos of the real thing. It dawned on me. Cab doors. The Caley liked cab doors hinged on the tender side plates and opening out. In the shut position they covered the lower half of the cab handrail. They shut them. Looking at pictures of engines out on the mainline they are well and truly shut. Well, they would be. The ballast is a long way down and going past rather quickly. Doors are a good idea. Ok, I then wondered how everyone else had tacked the issue. I searched, I looked, I went away. You see cab doors on tender locos are one of the modelling worlds little secrets. We ignore them, particularly in the smaller scales. I am as guilty of this as the rest, I have built tender engines and quietly ignored the gap. In rtr terms the gap is often the size of the grand canyon to get the thing round train set curves but even in more accurate layouts they seem to be quietly ignored. The problem is simple, models go round tighter curves than real trains so the door would either be too big of too small. Even with my 48” curves the door would have to shrink and expand by 3mm ish. Time for a bit of a think. I ran the D1 and its tender up and down a while and had a tidy up of the bench. A thought struck me, the doors don’t have to shrink and expand, they just have to appear to shrink and expand from a normal viewing distance. Sliding doors in effect. I dug out some fine brass tube, 0.8 mm od, 0.4 id. 4 sections about 20 mm long were inserted into the tender as parallel to the body as I could make them. Ok, the top two intrude into the coal space, but thats where the coal will be. Next I made up some doors, 10 thou brass with 10 thou spring steel wire as the runners. These slid into the brass tubes like so. The hooks at the front go round the lower part of the cab handrails. So with the tender and loco together at the biggest angle between them you get this sort of telescopic action. The proof of the pudding is in the watching….. I’m actually quite pleased with that. It’s probably been done before, so I wouldn’t claim to be original. Just a first for me. Paintshop next. Might take a while.

Through truss girder. Go to Glasgow on google earth, then follow M8 west and onto the M80. In street view you can clearly see the big one over the M80.

Thanks Tony, I'll have a good read of their site, might treat myself.

That is an excellent result. May I ask, did you buy a bundle pack from Ghost or did you source the printer and toner/paper separately? They seem to do do the toner cartridges for a large number of printers, some of which are no longer available so any pointers as to what I should be looking for? Thanks

True knuckles and I have had a lot of hassle with shaving the insides of whitemetal kits in the past. The tops of the splashers there are 10 thou brass and they clear by less than 1 mm.

I have got on fairly well with some free time over new year. The last difficult bit of the body was getting the roof soldered on neatly and adding the cab handrails. The spectacles were giving me a bit of grief, and awkward thing to form in brass. So I stopped and thought about it. 10 minutes later I had enough to do a fleet of engines thanks to the silhouette. The dome and chimney from the DJH kit fettled up reasonably, safety valve and whistle are from Caley coaches. So next step chassis. Calculate the shims needed, carefully clean and paint the frames first. Rear wheels and gearbox in without problems and nicely square. I sometimes find quartering problematic but this one required very little adjustment. The backscratcher pickups are from my bits box of very small springy contacts taken from old electronics. they actually are double contacts but are only the width of the rear of the flange. So, put it under the body and stick it on the track. This is where you normally find the coupling rods foul at the top of their travel, but lo, it ran. This is a dry run, not even oiled it yet. A bit grainy wthj me just holding the camera, but it gives the general idea. Most of the tender is done too, getting there .

You are getting good at that Caley lookalike livery Corbs. Really if it hadn't been for that silly grouping thing I could be having lot of fun. I have an ROD sitting in a box. Why ? Well the Caley borrowed 53 of them. Much as I would like that to be borrowed in the Glaswegian sense of the word it was official, but I'll do something with it when I have done messing about with my D1 "kit".......

Heh , it does look rather like a flying banana Mikkel. The stuff does show up faults well and it is easy to mark with a pencil.

The silhouette software will print to a printer if you want. So far it does all I want, and I just wouldn't be without it now. I used it today to make templates for cutting brass. Draw them, cut styrene, glue to brass, cut round them.

Getting the boiler and footplate fitted together was a time consuming task. Try, file a bit, try again, file a bit more. When in place I could make the spectacle plate and get the whole thing looking a bit like a D1. So here it is actually sitting on the track. Also seems to pass the push along through points and curves without the wheels fouling the body test. In theory that means the Gibson wheels will be fine. From the rear with the motor and gearbox in for a trial fit. There is room for some weight above and to the sides of the motor which I think will be needed. The centre of gravity is ahead of the leading driver due to the boiler and it wants to come back to between the drivers. Ok, this is the backhead from the kit, together with the wheel and worm drive cover. Hmm. A bit of help from the silhouette produced a styrene laminated one which is pretty close to the drawing and can be detailed reasonably easily. Also it can go in after the rest is painted. Since I have slimmed the width down to about scale size the DJH roof is now too big. It is too thick as well, so I thought it was simpler just to solder one up from bits of brass. Should be a fair bit of free time next week so things should get progressed at a better rate. Happy new year to all and I hope your modelling goes well in 2019.