The Johnster

Speed depended on wheelbase, and the long wheelbase 4-wheeled vehicles were permitted 75mph, a situation that pertained until the last CCTs, PMVs, and the like went out of use in the late 70s. GW passenger 4 wheelers were long a thing of the past by then, of course, but 4 wheeled Southern ‘Van Bs’, and 6 wheeled LMS ‘Stove B’ and LNER ‘BZ’ vans with guards accommodation heated by stoves survived on some specific duties.

I always built the chassis first, and didn’t touch any thing else until it was finished, painted, and tested. I knew if I could do that the rest would assemble itself if I shook the box. I always had more trouble with apparently simple block chassis than with fold up brass or nickel silver. Many years now since I’ve attempted anything like this, but a Southeastern/Wills chassis kit for an old Wills 1854 body kindly given me is in the offing!

I can confirm that refurbished Collett Restaurant cars were used with choc/cream BR (W) liveried mk1s on the 'Red Dragon' up to about 1959, with both lined maroon and choc/cream examples. The 'Red Dragon' had a mk1 Restaurant Car in BR (W) choc/cream until the choc/cream sets were broken up, 1962 I think. The Colletts are apparent in photos because the roof line does not match the mk1s or the carmine/cream Hawksworths previously used, and they have visible truss rods unlike the single central truss of the mk1s. Hawkworth slip composites were also painted in BR (W) 1956 choc/cream to run with named expresses. I have seen a photo of a King leaving the carriage sidings at Weston Super Mare with a brand new rake of BR (W) choc/cream mk1s, including restaurant car, all on what must have been brand new B4 bogies dated 1962. Everything is all the same except when it's different...

Absolutely what they said; chest infections can be very serious very quickly and you need to prioritise looking after yourself over depressing lists of jobs to be sure not to relapse. My advice, FWIW, is to make very sure you are fully back to a healthy state before tackling any of them, and if any are too urgent for that get someone else to do them for you, but I know this is difficult if you are used to looking after things yourself. The 116s can be put off until the later stages of your convalescence when you are well enough to do it and bored enough to want to; we can wait!

The good news is that you have all the bits and most of the assembly is already done, to a good standard. What remains is the cylinders and motion, i.e. the piston rod, crosshead, and connecting rod, along with presumably the vacuum pump on the rh side. To be honest I would give up on it 'as is' as a working model on setrack curves; you might get away with it using 34's method but it'll be a lot of faffing. If the aim is to do it in memory of your grandfather, it could be worth considering it as a mantlepiece display model, which seems somehow more respectful than a 'mere' shed lurker on the layout. My initial thought regarding getting it to run would be simply to substitute a complete Hornby Grange chassis; once you've fitted the body to it and eliminated any points at which the Hornby mechanism fouls the body you should be up and running. You'll also be able to put in some cab detail without the motor protruding into the cab. Your grandfather's body work, which looks very good, will have a functional role to play on your layout, and you won't have to resort to tender drive, a thing I don't like; moreover, you can if you choose model the tender empty or nearly empty, not always an option with RTR. There'll be brake blocks and rodding and other underframe detail not in the kit. And the setrack curves will no longer be a problem! I can recommend 'Glue and Glaze' liquid glazing for the cab windows (no connection, satisfied user); very effective and easy to apply. When you apply it, it looks awful, a milky fogged glass appearance, but it goes off completely flat and crystal clear. I wonder what's wrong with the motor. It might be worth test running it removed from the chassis to see if it's actually duff, and hanging on to if it isn't. Problems could be down to gear meshing, pickup, or short circuiting, always a fiddle on these sort of kits.

We had our full share of idiots at Canton, though! Nicknames were brilliant; we had Harpic, who'd drive you clean around the bend, and Thrombosis, a bloody clot wandering around clogging up the system. Also Tojo, because he looked a bit like the Japanese General, who derailed the Ferry Road tanks by returning the ground frame at Grangetown while the train was still half way across it, which is idiocy of a fairly advanced degree... You are dead right of course, nobody at Canton or even on the Western could have thought that a 1,250hp loco could replicate the performance of one rated 350hp more, but once Marylebone Rd had decided to prohibit maintenance of the Hymeks because of their hydraulic transmission and, more importantly IMHO, the inability to find room in that cramped bodyshell for train air brake equipment, they were doomed. One suspects that someone at 'The Kremlin' looked at photos for something of a similar general size to a Hymek, 'we want an engine about that big', and that was it! I doubt the Western was happy to accept 25s for Hymek work, but that seems to have been all that was on offer, and a poor loco is arguably better than none. Nobody asked my opinion, shared by the drivers, which was that the Hymeks should have been kept going for another few years as there was still a good bit of vacuum work about. The WR had some experience with them double headed on the Newport Docks-Llanwern iron ore trains, heavy slow unfitted drags where 8 driving axles were no bad thing, but in South Wales only Ebbw Jc men traction signed them IIRC until the Hymek replacements arrived. The only point of similarity between Class 25s and Hymeks was the all-up weight, 75tons, on 4 axles. A refurbished 31 or more 37s would have been a better bet, and there were 37s in storage at Margam at the time. I have often wondered about the WR's reluctance to use 37s on passenger work and they were proven performers on freight, but the WR seems to have considered them as exclusively freight locos for a very long time, despite them already having proved themselves on Eastern and North Eastern Regions passenger work before being allocated to the Western in 1963. The Scottish Region later used them successfully on passenger work as well, and they had routes were poor reliability was potentially life threatening! Maybe it was a mindset with roots in their being replacements for the 100 lower geared 60mph 'freight' Hymeks to replace 56xx on Valleys work which fell through when Beyer, Peacock went under. One might argue that a Hymek is superior to a 37 in terms of power/weight ratio, as a 37 is 30 tons heavier, about the weight of a coach, but in practice there seemed little to choose between them for main line work. There was nothing better than a 37 for Valleys work. There was a period in 1964 when they were used in pairs for high speed running trials between Bristol and Paddington, including some timetable service runs, with borrowed Deltic-geared bogies, but it was not followed up. Even on their standard bogies, they were good for 105mph, over the Hymeks' 90. A few years later, when the futility of attempting to run the Cardiff-Crewe service to time with 120 dmus even when they were strengthened with bubble cars was realised, 25s were drafted in to work this service, initially with 6 mk1s. This of course proved equally futile, but the passengers had better seats to be more comfortably late in; the load was eventually reduced to 4 before the locos could reliably time the trains. I always thought a Hymek would have been ideal for this job, and in later years 33s, a bit more in that power range and another 75ton pocket rocket, were successful with it. 37s took over eventually when air conditioned stock was introduced on the route, but it really needed 47s. I had a run from Crewe to Cardiff in the early 90s with Fire Fly, which fairly flew up the banks! We passed Aylestone Hill sidings, so this screed is not off topic...

As a very general guide for locos, repaints took place after ‘heavy general’ overhauls at main workshops, which were when the boiler certificate ran out and that had to be fully overhauled. Boiler certificates were for 5 year periods but a 2 year extension could be (and always was) applied for subject to a Board of Trade inspector’s endorsement following a successful hydraulic pressure test. So, based on this and allowing for the time the actual overhaul took, and excepting any time that the loco was out of service in storage, the last locos painted in company liveries in late 1947 would have been repainted into a BR livery by the spring of 1956. But there are photos of locos in big 4 liveries in the early 60s; these may be either locos that have spent time-out of service (in which case a suspension of the boiler ticket can be applied for), or older livery showing through badly warn or faded BR livery. Coaches, including NPCCS, seem even to have lasted about the same time in previous liveries, but stock for prestige services was painted more often. Goods vehicles could be in service without painting for much longer, but during the 1948-60 period a very major production of new vans and wagons, initially to big 4 designs but increasingly to the BR standard designs from 1950 onwards concurrent with withdrawal of huge numbers of older vehicles at a time that traffic was falling sped the elimination of wagons in big 4 liveries by about 1960. Wooden bodied xpo minerals were rare by then and gone from all but industrial use by about ‘63. By the mid 50s very few had not been repainted into BR grey or withdrawn. This is is a very general overview of the situation; individual exceptions could certainly be found and this is very much a ‘rough guide’! Photographers tended understandably to concentrate on newly painted stock because that looks smarter and shows detail better in the photo, which may explain the lack of big 4 liveries in your photo books.

So it does, well spotted. This presumably means that both cylinders oscillate in unison with each other. This sounds disastrous for stability. It’s an odd little beast altogether, isn’t it, and from such one can often learn unexpected lessons. And I have to endorse the opinion that it’s designer and creator deserve muchos kudos! If it can be made to work, I’d be at least as inclined as the cylinders to replace what I think might be missing coupling rods, which I think might improve the running and reduce the likelihood of slipping. I can’t make out on my phone screen if the wheels are flanged, or what gauge (if any) (well it must be some gauge, but you know what I mean) it is, but if it’s LGB it should run on that track.

The spurs also come in handy for trains that can simply reverse direction; dmus, railcars, autos etc. When not being used for these, they are handy for topping and tailing longer trains on a double ended fiddle yard like this one.

I think I'd be inclined to try to somehow hydraulically test the boiler before firing her up... Given the lack of burnishing on the copper pipes and boiler bands I'm not sure she's ever been steamed.

Sound is one of the greatest potential areas for DCC to improve the believability of our layouts, and videos of Phil Bullock's blue diesel era layout Abbott's Wood opened my eyes to how good it is with diesels. But I've yet to hear steam sound that cuts the mustard for me; there seems to be a conception that if the loco makes a white noise panting sound like a sheepdog with asthma 4 times every driving wheel revolution, that's enough. It isn't. Steam locos at work in service make all sorts of different noises according to their valve setting, cut off, regulator setting, and how hard they are working, and that's just from the chimney. Safety valve noises are different on GW locos with the Swindon standard safety valve cover, which tends to project the noise directly upwards and give the illusion from below that the loco is quieter than other types, so from a modelling point of view you have to determine whether you want the impression of listening to the loco from the lineside or a platform, or an overhead location such as a bridge or hillside. This does not even begin to address all the other noises steam locos make, sometimes when they are not moving, from leaks and components expanding and contracting as they heat up or cool down, or all the bangs, clanks, and rattles when they are in motion. Different valve gears and piston stroke length/crank throw combinations also had a part to play; for example, Churchward style GW locos are said to 'bark' rather than chuff when they are working hard, which means that the 'attack' of the noise wave from the chimney as it reaches your eardrums is sharper and more pronounced than other types Different chimney, smokebox, and internal draughting also makes for subtle differences between classes of locos. 3 cylinder locos (at least us GW types don't have to worry too much about these) have 6 exhaust beats per revolution, Maunsell's Lord Nelsons had 8, and those 3 cylinder types with Gresley/Holcroft conjugated valve gear famously made some very funky syncopated interpretations when the valve settings were out or a bit worn (it don' mean a thing if it ain't got that swing). Preserved locos are usually far too well looked after for this sort of thing, but if you are modelling LNER/NER/ER or the ex LNER areas of Scotland in the steam era it needs to be taken into account; in fact whatever you model the effect that high mileage and wear had on what a loco sounded like needs to be taken into account for any layout with steam locos that does not represent the preservation era. Steam DCC sound is, IMHO, 'not there' yet, but will no doubt continue to improve. To be fair a system that encompasses all of the noises I have described in a way that responds to how hard the loco is working dynamically by measuring the load on the drawhook rather than monitoring the current consumption of the motor, which is not necessarily the same thing at exactly the same time, is a big ask, but this is what is probably needed! The tiny speakers are not helping it though, even in 7mm, and I would like to see, I mean hear, this experienced through headphones of decent quality; this could give a very realistic binaural effect... I know folks are going to respond to this with examples of speakers that they say are very good for their size, and no doubt some are, but as soon as one considers something to be good for it's size one has already accepted it's inadequacy. The bandwidth of the frequency response required to simulate the sound of a big loco getting under way with a heavy load is simply beyond any speaker than can be fitted aboard a model railway locomotive, hence the asthmatic panting and the white noise safety valve blowoff. This is why I would prefer hi-fi quality headphones to be used; the silly little 'ear buds' that mobile phones are supplied with ain't gonna cut it!

Like jjb1970, my worry is the brute force, in this case needed to separate the cab front from the firebox backhead. You've obviously managed this at least twice without precipitating a disaster, so I'll have another go with a bit more confidence now. But, in line with the OP's point and the discussion of the topic, I would like to see removal of roofs made a lot easier both to actually do and to work out how to do in the first place. With even small locos around the £100 mark and coaches around £50 or more in some cases, I reckon the cost involved will not be excessive as a percentage of the retail price of the model. Magnetic mounting would be my favourite method, though I'm not sure of the effect it might have on DCC. Screws will be unsightly and plastic clips will get broken.

I had first class door numerals left on the old transfers and have applied them to the end compartment doors. The 3D bogies have had their first coat of primer, and seem to have taken the paint well enough; I was a little concerned about this, but all seems well. The roof sections have also been grey primed. 'Guard' door lettering can be applied today, but it's too nice out on the patio for now... Shopping list; 8BA nuts and washers for bogie attachment, another pack of NEM couplings. Or an experimental bogie attachment with superglued stud fittings. Rather out of focus image attached, but it shows the colour well enough!

Meanwhile, on a warm spring day on the patio of a ground floor flat at the back of a Victorian terraced house on the mean streets of inner city Cardiff (think dub reggae though open windows a block or so away and a general aroma of marijuana), The Johnster (for it is he) does a bit of absent minded potching* with the plants, clears up the mess from yesterday's barbecue, and does a bit more spray painting in the high tech cardboard paint booth perched on the top of the cast Iron chimenea. Pausing frequently for a sit down and a cup of tea and never even breaking into heavy breathing, never mind a sweat, he's put a first coat of grey rattlecan acrylic primer on his fishbellies. There are 4 of them, a pair of cast whitemetal K's from the E116 kit for this coach and a pair of 3D prints from Stafford Road Works/Shawplan. He was a little worried about how the prints would take the paint but everything seems fine. He took phone photos earlier and attaches one, showing the current state of play on W 207 W. *One of my favourite South Wales words, it means semi-aimless pottering about, tidying up, pottering, faffing. It frequently achieves quite a bit, almost by accident.

Interesting project; I have no idea what it is but it looks sort of European. It's very crude and toylike, and I'd imagine it to have been a mass produced item somewhat like the Mamod locos. I can't see that whoever designed it had ever had much to do with actual steam locos of any sort. There is what looks like a crankpin on the trailing driving wheel and it may have had a coupling rod at one time. I'm guessing that there are exhaust steam pipes leading from the cylinders to the chimney, but I'm not sure there's a smokebox in the conventional sense of the word. My attention is drawn to the soldering that fixes the cylinders to the frames. The cylinders are probably not as long as they look, extended into a tube that acts as slide bars, but they may have been originally oscillating like a Mamod's, and altered to be fixed by someone. This may have been because the oscillating cylinders made the loco unstable when it was running. Just random thoughts, I'm no expert in this sort of thing.

Crimson/cream for auto trailers was a continuation of the GW's habit of painting them in the 'best' main line livery, and was apparently discontinued after Riddles noticed one at Paddington and demanded to know why his main line gangwayed stock livery was being used for such a vehicle. The first series of Hawkworth A38 trailers was produced new in this livery. The livery lasted until the late 50s and maybe the early 60s in one or two cases, and probably was a bit faded, and certainly weathered, by then. Your coach looks 'right' to me. Plain unlined crimson was used thereafter until 1956, when plain maroon was introduced. This lasted until 1958 when the decision was made to provide lining to all passenger stock. My layout's period is 1948-58, and includes all these variations as well as the 1948 'transition' liveries, one of the reasons for choosing that period. I have some stock in late GW liveries as well. A 64xx would be in plain black until 1956 when they started to turn up from the paint shop in fully lined out passenger green; this gives you scope for 2, one in each livery!

You may well be right about his being a trader, and he wasn't pretending to be a private individual but a model shop, though not one I'd ever heard of. This wasn't crime of the century, but left an unpleasant taste... It has long gone now, though. The loco has been worked up to my standards and performs faultlessly, one of my best slow runners.

Transfers ordered from that nice Mr Isherwood, who has been more than helpful. Next job now is glazing, and we've just come inside from barbying First Class Sausages and are going out a'debauching soon, so not tonight! I may have to cut a notch at the top of the seat backs to accommodate the glazing strips; the alternative is cutting each one to fit which seems a lot of faff. It's getting close to bogie time, and I've already made up the K's frames from the E116 kit. These run well with the Romford disc coach wheels that came with this kit in the American bogies, but I need to add a tiebar to match the photos in Lewis. The very last job will be fixing the roof, and I will not be doing this permanently for some time, as passengers and a cab detailing kit need to go in there first, and possibly a driver. It will be painted grey and weathered, though; it is currently matt black and while this looked ok with the GW livery, in crimson the thing looks too much like a 1950s London Transport coach for my taste...

Second coat of maroon on and looking not too bad; it's at the point where I can get away with it as it is and I'm not sure that another coat won't obscure detail, so enough's enough. Nothing to do to this now until transfers for the numbers arrive and I can put them on and matt varnish to seal them. I could, if an opportunity presents itself, put the floor in but everything else must await the glazing, which in turn must await the varnish, which in turn must await the numbers.

A word of caution about spraying and drying outside, probably preaching to the choir for most of you. The weather has been absolutely perfect for this for the last few days, but avoid windy dry days when dust will contaminate your finishes, and late summer evenings especially around harvest time as there is a lot of particulate matter flying about. A calm, clear, day just after the air has been washed by heavy rain is best. Dry weather is generally A Bad Thing in this respect.

Probably because they've been around for a good while now, and date from the time when separate roof mouldings were the norm. I don't know a lot about plastic moulding technique, but I would imagine that it was easier to produce coaches in this way back in the day; the chassis, sides/ends assembly, and roof were the main components. The big difference now, I suspect, is CAD, which has made it much easier to design moulds or toolings that can make the bodyshell in a single unit (though some quite elderly models are made in this way; the LIma siphon comes to mind, probably because I've been working one up recently). There is an advantage in having a single piece bodyshell, actually several, including structural rigidity, but the main one is that it reduces the number of operations required in the assembly plant, which in turn helps keep a lid on labour costs and production times. My ex Airfix coaches seem to bridge the gap, with the auto trailers having a bodyshell with the floor moulded integrally but a separate roof, and the B set being a 'roof based' bodyshell, so this is not a particularly recent phenomenon or necessarily entirely predicated on CAD.

Thank you for your kind words, Ian. It is indeed a fine afternoon for a bit of nostalgia, and far too nice for modelling no matter how much the glazing in the A31 needs to be done. I, too, was once one of the usual suspects at the London end of Platform 3, but this was in the 60s; my association in the 50s was with the London end of Platform 2 in the company of Uncle Ted, as I was too young to go trainspotting on my own then. The gleaming Brits are nonetheless very clear in my memory, as is the fuss they made getting a train away over the hump of Canal Wharf Bridge. If your memories include Saturday mornings looking across towards the up side to see a tall, rather gaunt, grey haired elderly gent in a brown coat which had seen better days, the small boy whose hand he was holding was yours truly!

Presumably alongside the 'hut' class of 0-4-2Ts, and the 'tin shed' Swansea Dock pugs... One would have to model a 'cottage' class pannier with a thatched cab roof, I imagine. Diesel railcars could perhaps have been the 'garage' class!

HST association with Paddington-South Wales services goes back to my time on the railway, and includes a period when the prototype set worked a Swansea diagram. We were all given training in the use of the emergency coupling bar; IIRC you opened the access panel with a carriage key. Traincrews were not allowed to travel on duty with the prototype diagram, but I managed to obtain dispensation for myself and driver as we would have been over time for our 12 hour rest period for the following day's duty. Several of us managed to go into overtime by not travelling on this train and restriction was removed as soon as the production sets entered service. They were a revelation on the South Wales banks; it was possible to accelerate to 50mph off the platform at Bridgend on the down and have to shut off before the bottom of Stormy Bank over the river bridge, and you could accelerate to 90mph before the top. The trains showed similar contempt for the corkscrew out of Neath up Skewen. I was once guard on an ecs working from Canton to St Philip's Marsh, and sat in front with the driver. We observed all speed restrictions and went start to stop in 48 minutes, a remarkable thing. The original guard's accommodation was in the power car, which had a control desk for light engine movements in 'reverse'. The ride was very rough here and pretty noisy as well; walking through the engine room when the Valentas were voicing their opinion was terrifying, even with earplugs. The cab was very quiet and comfortable. I believe these trains have been in front line service for a longer period than any previously used on the GW, as motive power and as coaches. The Hawksworth stock and later 52s pale in comparison. I'll miss them; when introduced they were the only high speed air conditioned service in the world that did not require supplementary fares, not to mention the diesel speed record, and we were very proud of them. I once milepost-timed one at 135mph on the down Badminton between Hullavington and Brinkworth, so uphill (!); the ride in a 2nd class mk3 was very good but a little noisy. This was in the 80s. I'll miss 'em on the Paddingtons, but they'll still be in 4 car use, pocket rockets! That said, I like the 800s. Nothing will ever really replace a Canton cleaned Brit with a rake of choc/cream mk1s interrupted by a refurbished Collett restaurant car in my affections, though...

I also use Ford Rosso for crimson livery, and am grateful for the headsup about the Sierra Beige for cream. And I'm struggling to see anything that dodgy about the lining; it's better than anything I could do. A 4575 may be overkill for a single trailer; they were used on 3 trailer sandwiches in South Wales.