Barclay

Looking good, and food for thought for when I build mine. Did you consider Markits? They make some decent crossheads.

The main superstructure assembles onto a hefty fold-up brass sub base, to which the footplate sides with frames extensions are attached. I must say it is very odd putting together what is in effect a loco body with absolutely no 'works' in it at all ! The smokebox and firebox are cast white metal and there's a lot of brass so the whole unit is starting to weigh a fair amount. I did add a chunk of waste white metal into the boiler as well, it seemed rude not to with all that space available. The weight was the cut up remains of the deformed boiler bottom from a Kingdom Kits Barclay, rejected when I built it 20 years ago - at last I've found a use for it. I did have a small issue with the smokebox as it was cast a little out of register - corrected by heavy sanding, but of course you lose the rivets in the process, so I made a wrapper from riveted 5 thou brass, and super glued it to the freshly sanded smokebox, secured at the bottom with a dab of solder. The firebox needed some sanding too but that's fine because that comes with an etched wrapper which fitted nicely. The white metal chimney was 'blind' and rather than attempt to drill it out it was easier to substitute a replacement - I wondered if I would ever find a use for that brass GWR 61XX chimney... It is very close in terms of shape and size and seems to look the part. Once it's all fixed together and cleaned up it will be time to add the details then move to the body work for the engine units.

Thanks that's a very kind offer, but mine's a late kit with the plain 'D' axles and the wheels are just a push fit, so they may not be compatible.

Hi I converted one to an industrial Neilson on the Standard Gauge Industrial part of this site, (apologies I don't know how to create a link) so I've done a bit of research recently into these models. The body is about 10mm too long, 8 in the tank and 2 in the smokebox. The tank is pitched a little high, perhaps 2mm. The firebox is far too fat to hide the motor as has been said above. The tank is also about 2mm too wide but I left that part alone. If you're contemplating conversion work Branchlines make a nice chassis kit that will fit the Hornby body or a scale one. Despite all the above I still think the Hornby model captures the character of the real thing quite well.

I had Peco code 100 on my old 00 layout 30 years ago and the early 80's Hornby Caley pug I had worked just fine on it. That model was only introduced late 70's/early 80's and the wheels were never as crude as the older Triang-Hornby stuff, which also ran OK on the Peco code 100 points. Has their code 100 track acquired finer flangeways since then I wonder?

Well I try to steer clear of the controversial stuff here on RMWeb because it's only playing trains at the end of the day. Suffice to say I was on the EMGS stand at Stevenage - we had a short length of flex-track and the 3-D printed pre-production point, which is lovely, and there was a very great deal of interest. No-one complained that we didn't have a longer piece of track to play with, just genuine interest and enthusiasm, and a lot of people looking forward to the release, so good on the EMGS for making the investment say I....

Well I hope everyone had a decent Christmas and that your modelling activities were more enjoyable than mine. That valve gear was very hard work - Nothing wrong with the parts supplied, although the motion bracket needs a fair bit of re-shaping, just a lack of dexterity on my part I think. The valve gear was assembled using the rivets supplied, although I substituted 16BA brass nuts and bolts in key locations to make it easier to put the sub-assemblies together. Clearances were an issue and in EM at least, it is vital to space the cylinders off the chassis frames as indicated in the instructions. I also had some issues with the return cranks, again due to incompetence, necessitating the re-manufacture of at least 2 of them. These are tricky little things, needing to be very securely located on the crankpin (dab of solder). Even so I managed to suffer from binding and, in one case, the force was sufficient to turn the crankpin. This meant the wheel had to come off to re-secure it with a piece of wire melted across the screw head. It was all pretty desperate stuff but at last I managed to get all 4 sets working and not impairing the running too badly ! Needless to say I have satisfied myself with the valve gear as supplied, which is somewhat simplified - The loco is in mid-gear with no motion imparted to the valve rod, which is only a dummy in any case. Walschaerts can look lovely with everything moving but I really think this level of refinement is beyond me. Over Christmas I finally managed to get hold of a long sought-after kit, the K's Fowler Dock tank. Only problem? More Walschaerts..... The base for the superstructure folded up nicely and now the loco is starting to look the part. I'm looking forward to some hopefully less stressful and more enjoyable superstructure work now. If you are at the Chiltern Model Railway Exhibition in Stevenage on Saturday I'll be on the EM Gauge Society stand so please come and say "Hello". Just don't look too closely at the valve gear!

I'm sure there are others out there with much more knowledge of this matter, but my feeling is that Railway brake vans, containing a company employee, of course, would not have been permitted to stray off Company metals. This does happen on my layout but I think it's probably not appropriate. I think your line would use its own 'internal user' vans if it was felt necessary because of gradient, loadings, etc. Interested to hear others' input though.

I have recently gotten hold of my 'holy grail' kit, the K's Fowler dock tank. I will be making a new chassis for it but I wondered if anyone has any experience of pushing the K's wheels out to EM gauge? It is a fairly late kit with the D-shaped axles so I would ease the wheels out slightly, secure with Loctite, and fill the gap at the face of the wheel with Araldite. Sorry it sounds awful in the cold light of day but I would like to use as much of the original kit as possible and it's just a thought at this stage.

Not too hard to make one - all you really need is the ball races, some bits of brass and a chunk of wood. (Excuse the rough edges). Might need some thought to make it multi-gauge though.

The diagram book by Noel Coates says a Diagram 3 van is 16' long over the body, 7' 6 1/2" wide, and 10' 8" high to the top of the roof. Great looking model, whatever the dimensions !

Have you considered a scene that is also set on the Calder Vale? Perhaps something you liked the idea of but which wouldn't fit on the main layout.

The Clipper's not a sophisticated controller and the Gaugemaster's probably better, but it won't cause any harm. High resistance and full wave is the best setting.

Well I've finally braved the icy wastes of my loft and fitted pick ups to the 2 chassis. With a temporary bridging piece of brass and some weight applied the whole unit is running well. I plan to bridge the 2 units with a couple of wires once the body has been built so each set of pickups is feeding both units. Valve gear next. I would like to attach the return cranks to some Gibson crankpin retaining screws but the shoulder on them is too big for the return crank so I'll have to think again. I really want to be able to screw the return cranks onto the crankpins so they are easy to secure, but I've little experience of Walschaerts, so I am open to suggestions...

Lovely work - and what a colour!

The RM article on Allied Marine was superb and really is responsible for me getting into industrial stuff.

They will, of course, turn up, but only once you've made the new ones....

That I would love to see.....

The postman brought me a present yesterday - Two N20 motor/gearbox units from China - very quick service and only about a fiver for the pair. Two of the bevel gears were bored out to 3mm as carefully as possible. With no suitable equipment I could only bodge it and I have to say they are not perfectly concentric but these gears seem to be very forgiving. Having said that I will definitely try to obtain some with a 3mm bore for next time. For the motor mounts, a section of 'L' - shaped brass was filed to be a fit between the frames, then soldered to the edges of the gearbox with 179 solder. It needs to be offset from the centre to permit the gears to mesh so, sighting it by eye, I made marks on the brass section, and drilled it to take the motor mounting screws that came with the N20's. Then I could screw the motor mount to the gearbox while I soldered it. The motor was then offered up to the chassis, running at low revs, so I could test the mesh of the bevel gears and when I was happy, a dab with the iron, armed with 145 solder affixed the crossmember to the chassis. Never soldered in a motor whilst it was running before but it worked ! I'm very pleased with the running - both chassis are turning over very smoothly indeed - I can't wait to install pick-ups so I can play with test them.

Thanks for the input. I'm definitely still building it and yes Chris, I really should stop worrying. Might move the buffers out a touch though. Colour? They look so good in red, but my livery is green. I might be tempted though.

The wheels have been fitted, the coupling rods slightly eased and both chassis in 'push-along' mode are smooth and free of tight spots: What you don't see in the photo is something that alarmed me when viewing from overhead: See how narrow it looks, and the buffers are surely too close together - I've looked at Giles' superb version of the original GA drawings in Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling Review #103, and the footplate appears to be about 8' wide, quite a common size. The footplates on the Backwoods kit are 29.5mm wide - a whopping 2.5mm too narrow by my calculations. Someone tell me I've got it wrong, please! The trouble is, this manufacturer has got form, because the crane tank was to HO scale thanks to dodgy drawings in the RM - if RM got the Beyer Garratt drawings wrong too, and there's a suggestion they might have, then it's possible..... I mean it's not all HO scale because the wheelbase is right, but maybe some of it is ! Having said that I've seen some superb examples built, so maybe I'm wrong, or maybe it doesn't matter as much as I'm thinking. Answers on a postcard please....

Contact details are still the same - He advertises in every MRJ and attends some of the better shows.

Thanks chaps looking forward to trying the new motors. I must admit I normally do the quartering/fiddling part of the job with the powertrain in place. A small electric motor is so much more sensitive than your hand when it comes to finding tight spots in a chassis, because you hear the motor pitch going up and down. When it's right the motor tells you. I envisage soldering a cross member to the front of the gearbox, meshing by eye, and then a dab of lower melt solder to attach the cross member to the frames, but we'll see how it goes. Now, I can't put the valve gear off much longer..

Looks fantastic - can't help with the provenance but I reckon it deserves an overhaul and a fresh coat of paint. Someone's put a lot of effort into that at a time when the trade gave you very little help by comparison with today.

If you don't already have some I would recommend some horn block alignment jigs from London Road Models. They are just basically extra long axles with very pointy ends onto which you fit the rods, ensuring that when you install the horn blocks the loco wheelbase exactly matches the rods. It makes the process very simple and when it's done you know it will work. Good luck with it.