Dunalastair

My own ventures into forced perspective (some of which are described in the dioramas strand) employed 3D printed parts. I found that an overall albeit simplified model in my preferred 3D design tool helped see what did and did not work. 123D can toggle between orthographic and perspective views - more sophisticated tools may allow more control. So much depends on the viewpoint - inevitably what looks good from one view may look very odd from another.

Looks good. How do you envisage operating it? As a confirmed diorama-builder, I always wonder how such micro micros can sustain interest.

Yes, useful discussion, thankyou. The printer has been working overtime, and most of the parts needed for the diorama are now available, albeit only the loco has been painted. With an untidy railway room as a backdrop, a mockup assembly yields this arrangement, which brings home just how tall this is going to be - especially as the overhead gantry crane and cabin are still sat at ground level. I am still not sure how I am going to arrange the support for the cabin girders or indeed the lower part of the hydraulic ram. I suspect that there will be an element of try-and-see. Whose bright idea was it to build this at 4mm scale? I did consider 2mm scale and apart from the lack of an opening end door wagon, that might have been more manageable.

1829 Stourbridge Lion? Pre-Rocket? But no door - only a painting of a Lion. https://www.therailwayhub.co.uk/62622/stourbridge-lion/

Yes, thankyou, I had a long and interesting telephone conversation with Mike Smith, who made the presentation on the Works. Among other interesting snippets, he suggested that there was an electrical feed from the gasworks. This was apparent when the bridges were demolished to stop children accessing the gasworks site. The powered capstans on the SG were apparently electric (despite what I thought), but the tipp(l)er was hydraulic, probably with an electrically powered compressor in the building under the hopper - hence the windows and door for access. He is local, and had established that he had a family connection with the coal traffic on the canal, before the railway connection was put in.

A previous prototype thread addressed the coal tipper linking the MR at Stroud with a NG tramway serving the local gasworks. https://heritage-hub.gloucestershire.gov.uk/autumn-2022/local-history/stroud-local-history-society As the project has moved from research to 3D printing components for a diorama, I thought it was time to start a build thread here. This is the Hornby end-tipping wagon I bought for the project, suitably weathered, sat on a simple mockup of the tipping gantry. And this is an earlier version of the 3D model. The Muir Hill loco, NG wagons, main hopper and the SG wagon gantry have now been printed. Hopefully more will be posted here as further progress is made and the camera is found.

It is an Monoprice MP10 Mini, which I believe is a near-clone of a better-known design. I use whichever PLA filament I can get cheaply from ebay. I have previously used other Monoprice filament printers - this gives comparable results but on a larger buildplate. I do also have a resin printer, but had trouble commissioning it and have stuck with filament since. Conventional wisdom is that you need to go to resin to get anything better than 'plastiscene tube' models, but I have had reasonable results from filament printers, I like to think.

Sorry to confuse - locos at Stroud, horses at Berkhamsted. Guilty of conflation, m'lud. One account of Berkhamsted has it that working of the 'fulls' was part gravity, part horse. It must have been an interesting sight, as expresses roared by on the embankment above.

That sounds possible, but a clearer photograph which I am now working from (thankyou Mike Smith) makes it clear that a MH loco was used. Parts are now coming off the printer, so I'll start a build thread in the 'diorama' section at an appropriate point. Sadly, the IRS handbook I ordered which describes the Stroud Gas locos (including the later Rustons) never did arrive, but at least I got a refund. I wonder which landfill the package ended up in? Postie did deliver a fiddle bow yesterday, a day before the tracking predicted, so despite the cost, Royal Mail does seem to be a more reliable carrier than Mr Bezos.

Or Newquay ... from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen or Inverness. https://www.cornwallairportnewquay.com/uploads/downloads/10935_CAN_-_Direct_services_pdf_update_Summer_23_S3_(2).pdf When I lived in Truro, I remember flying Exeter to Edinburgh, much cheaper than Virgin at the time, even paying for airport parking. Newquay was still being converted for civil use by one of my colleagues at the County Council at the time.

In other markets, manufacturers have been moving some production back to the UK, or at least Europe, to reduce time to market (and protect IP). I don't imagine that the fashion industry could work on three year lead times. Do we know how long it took Margate to get boxes on shelves from 'pulling the trigger' back in the day? Does it help when manufacturing is at least partly in-house in e.g. Sakado City or Seaton?

As ever more of today's railway disappears under wires (but not tomorrow's if EWR plans are to be believed) so 'contemporary' models look to me ever less convincing on naked rails. Why spend so much on getting every detail right on the rolling stock if there is an elephant in the room with the missing catenary? While not every Japanese N gauge layout puts up the masts, many do, and even without wires which obstruct track-cleaning I would suggests that they look the better for it. It might be heresy in today's super-detailed catalogues, but in N gauge, there seems to be more scope for livery stickers on what are often smooth sided EMUs (ends can be more of a challenge). There used to be suppliers of these - are there not still? Indeed, with computer manipulation based on prototype photographs and print shops offering high-res vinyl at reasonable prices, there seems to be scope for DIY on plain (even 3D printed) bodyshells - that seems to be how the Japanese toy market seems to work. And if you print your own, then you (probably) don't have to worry about a license from the TOC. And if the prototype livery changes, then you might even be able to change the stickers.

Thankyou - most useful - and rather confirms my impression. My model of The Fort and Banavie is perforce set pre-75 as it represents the original FW station. I shall either have to replace the bag of Maxey red ballast or experiment with recolouring when laid. I tried a short stretch by my version of the Banavie swing bridge, so perhaps I'll try recolouring that. Not Maxey's fault - I picked the red on the basis of what I understood at the time. https://www.maxeymodelsandballast.co.uk/collections/n-gauge?filter.v.price.gte=&filter.v.price.lte=&filter.v.option.color=Red&sort_by=best-selling

Ah, thankyou, stock rather than layout, for now. But still very nice. And thankyou also for the Coventry L&B reference - reminds me of when I was researching for my small scale diorama of Edge Hill in its early days.

I have not been to Warley since pre-COVID, and now don't much enjoy crowds, so thankyou to all who braved the busy halls for these photos. I was thinking that I had not seen any photos of pre-1860 layouts, then I saw this. Do we know anything more? The wagons behind look as if they belong to a later period, so is it perhaps depicting an anniversary celebration, or is it older stock on a newer period layout?

I generally prefer green BRCWs, but if blue Co-Cos float your boat, then what about making do with two front windows instead of three? 2011 is presumably equally out-of-period for you. More sensibly, it is noticeable (at least to my eye, on a screen) how different the blue looks depending on whether it is raining or the sun is shining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJsOKk92N_U

That is sad. There used to be a good bar in the station building with a range of well-served beers and ciders - a friend was a member of the Society - mainly for the beer. I drove past on the A45 (which cuts the line of the branch) yesterday. Nice model - good luck in finding out more.

Just in case it helps with Googling - it is Higham Ferrers - and there was a thread on the branch ten years ago. The Rushden Historical Transport Society have a presence there now.

Yes, there were mentions of a grey-green, as well as the WW2 green - but I am now going to try to back out of that particular rabbit hole. https://www.tamarvintagetractors.co.uk/product-page/fordson Sadly, WeBuyBooks has shipped my IRS Handbook by Amazon, and it has not arrived. We seem to have lost several packages via Amazon lately. I have raised a query by ebay. but suspect that a reimbursement is more likely than a delivery. Postie generally provides a better service.

Yes, it is that restored example I have been basing my simplified 3D design on. It may now be on the Silverleaf Poplar in Lincs, I gather. Though the tractor unit sits high, it is not as high as some models I have seen based on the Nonneminstre castings - I think that motorising may distort some dimensions. I have adjusted my design a little - a revised version is now printing. That took me down another rabbithole : colour. Google 'Fordson tractor' and most early examples restored were / are blue. I had lunch yesterday at Chester House Estate and they have a tractopr of about the same design as that used by Muir Hill. And it indeed is blue ... https://productivedesign.co.uk/portfolio/chester-house-estate-wellingborough-northamptonshire-branding-signage/ However, it looks as if the 'blue' is part of the Estate's 'corporate branding'. But, in the early 1920s Ford apparently used grey paint of various shades - hence presumably the grey on the restored MH example. The tractor wheels were variously red, black or orange, but of course MH did not use those (I wonder what they did with them?). Between opening, closing and reopening of the plant in Cork, and the history of the Dagenham facility, it seems a complex story. Apparently the colour was changed again in WW2 when the tractor park in Essex provided too obvious a target for the Luftwaffe. Photos of the similar Hudson gogos at Statfold Barn are both grey and blue - hedging bets or accurate research? I think I'll stick with grey, perhaps with the red coupler blocks.

At some point I will need to start a build thread, but for now I'll continue posting here. Mike Smith has kindly sent me a higher res image of the 'wagon on tipper' image, and another similar photo as well. These enable a little more detail to be made out. The second image suggests that the gas company had its own wagon(s) as well as using colliery POs. It also shows the MH loco slightly more clearly. So the 3D model hopper building now looks a little different, with corrugated cladding on the lower part, windows and a door. Here is another perspective render. It may be noticed that I have changed the very nominal MH for a representation of the earlier more obviously Fordson variety with chainguards. An initial print looks a little small beside the Peco OO9 tippers, so I may need to review dimensions.

You have probably told us before, but what variety of red ballast are you using? Do we know when red ballast was first used on the WHR / ME (presumably from the quarry still used in Lanarkshire - Cloburn?)? I have tried using red ballast on a trial stretch of my N gauge NBL era layout of The Fort / Banavie, but compared to photographs of the era it looks too red to my eye (as well as too chunky). I think in earlier years ballast might have come from a pit on the hill above Neptune's Staircase.

It was supposedly the first time a double decker from Stirling depot had gone over. The driver put a wheel on a soft verge on the afternoon run and the rest followed, with a slomo slide to a stop in a grassy field - thankfully a demolished fence rather than a stone wall. None of the kids were seriously hurt, but the conductress suffered acid burns from the battery under the stair. It is very disorienting to be in a heap of kids in a bus on its side, trying to remember where the emergency exit is. Nowadays it would be on Reporting Scotland if not the national news - then the kids were simply ferried home in cars which stopped to help. I never did hear how they retrieved the bus - it was gone the next morning, when they gave us an old open-platform ?Leyland. In those days there used to be a serious crash about once every two years - I seem to remember that the Killin bus ended up in the Loch one year. It was safer ten years before when the school trains still ran on the DD&CR and C&OR.

They look good! I remember the Lodekkas - I was in one of those when it turned over on the school run ...

I went to school in Callander on Alexanders blue buses for six years in the seventies, so good to see a blue bus with the promise of more to come. I don't remember seeing quite that style of signwriting before - generally either a curly 'Alexanders' or a squarer 'Midland' (or indeed the 'blue bird'). But a Google does turn up examples e.g. these Not being a bus expert, over what period was this style used? Of course, some were blue and cream while others were cream and blue - I hope we get to see both.