31A

In view of the emblem on the tender side, probably a bit later than 1952?

I hope it does now!

Thank you Phil, I don't know why that should be. I'll probably have to change some settings. I must admit Youtube is a bit of a mystery to me!

Not much modelling today, but a busy day at my local station with no less than three steam specials arriving within a couple of hours; one from Carlisle and two from King's Cross. All behind LMS 4-6-0s! First to arrive, from Carlisle: Have Hornby got the shade of green right? "Insurance" on the other end, soon to be used as ECS pilot: Dragging "Scots Guardsman" backwards at a rate of knots; I wish I'd videoed this as an example of scale speed shunting! I did video the first King's Cross arrival, which had come via Lincoln behind 44871: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj0--MByi0g And was closely followed by the next which had come via Retford; oh no not another Black 5 (45231): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrPTp3QqkZU

I thinks saying it's cost driven is an over simplification. Trans Pennine will be keeping all their Class 185 DMUs, whereas under the original franchise plan a lot of them were to go off lease. So in effect you could see the Mark 5s as being replaced by the 185s which would originally have been lost (although I don't know how the numbers actually stack up), which at the same time will greatly simplify their staffing requirements. I do believe the main driver for this is the need to stabilise TPE's reliability and hopefully regain some of their credibility (which is also having a negative effect on railways generally in the North), rather than being cost driven.

Thanks Chas, glad you like it. To be honest that kind of metalwork is a bit beyond what I usually do!

These are going to be built somewhere; as far as I know it hasn't yet been decided where: https://www.modernrailways.com/article/northern-plots-new-train-order

Thank you Phil, glad you like it. There certainly was some muddling!

In case anyone thought I'd lost interest in this project, an update. There have been a few setbacks on the way, but at this time of the year there's a lot of waiting around for suitable weather for aerosol painting outdoors; also there's been a lot of painting fiddly bits and touching up, etc. Anyway here goes. Being cheap, this J15 didn't include the Accessory Pack and I had to make a vacuum standpipe for the tender buffer beam. This time, I used some thick mains cable. To represent the ridged flexible part, I put a steel 10BA nut into a pin vice, and used t to cut a thread on the copper wire. This makes quite a subtle flexible pipe, in fact probably so subtle it'll disappear under the first coat of paint. Then, the setback. The Isinglass drawing shows the front of the tender cab being level with the front of the tender side sheets, and that was how I made it. I also made the tender cab roof as per the drawing. Conveniently, this meant the cab could be glued to the back of the front coal plate (which is a separate piece on the Hornby model). But, looking again at photos of the real thing, it seems the front of the tender cab was further forwards, and the cab sides extended down in front of the tender sides, to footplate level. If I'd realised this when I started I would have made the brass cab sides long enough, but I didn't. So, I detached the tender cab from the coal plate, glued it to the front side of the coal plate, then glued the coal plate in position further forward. To represent the lower extensions of the cab side I stuck strips of 10 thou plasticard to the front of the tender. Bit of a bodge; it looked like this: But then I put the loco back together and coupled up the loco and tender to see what it looked like. Disaster. The tender cab clashed with the loco cab! Looking at photos, I suppose it's possible the loco cab roof was shortened on these locos, but both the Isinglass and GERS drawings showed the roof the same length as the Hornby roof (which I intended to use). After cogitating, (and not feeling inclined to re-make the tender cab) in the end I pretended I hadn't looked so closely at the phots, and put the tender cab back to where I'd first put it, per the drawings, and took off the plasticard extensions. So I'm afraid it's a bit of a bodge up really or at least compromise. Anyway, after painting and transfers, here is 65424 (as she now is) in the Finsbury Square loco yard. Not easy to take photos of a shiny black engine; I'll take some more when I've done a bit of weathering. Also, I need to get her a smokebox numberplate, as well as sort out a crew and some coal. Anyway, I'm fairly pleased with the result (notwithstanding the above); it's loco that looks a bit different to the majority of J15s.

Thanks Gilbert; glad you like it! I built a pair of these vans, one for Gilbert and one for myself. They were pretty straightforward, but when it came to door details it dawned on me that these vans actually had more doors than the "All Door" Corridor Seconds I'd made previously (albeit with fewer droplights)! If anyone's interested in how I built it, I've described it on my layout thread from Page 45 onwards: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/83030-train-spotting-at-finsbury-square/page/45/

Excellent! I was wondering when it would be my turn to flex my bank card ..... 😊

They do run for a calendar month, i.e. from 1st of the month until the end of the month. I'm not sure about when you need to cancel the subscription to stop it automatically renewing. I used the one that I bought from 1st to 6th June, then cancelled it when I got home after that so you could well be right. There may be something about how far in advance you can buy it; I tried to buy it well in advance but couldn't get it to give me one for June, until I tried again nearer my date of travel, when I found I could. I have to say I'm not by any means conversant with using my phone or Apps to buy anything let alone railway tickets, but in this case there seemed to be no choice and it all seemed to work OK in the end!

I got one in May from the Bremen Verkehrsverbund: https://www.vbn.de I had to download their App to my phone, then I was able to buy one using my British bank card (like buying anything else on line); the ticket was then downloaded to my phone. The main part of the ticket is a QR Code. I took a screen shot of that and saved that in 'My Photos' on the phone. When asked by ticket inspectors, I showed them the screen shot which satisfied them and worked their readers. Otherwise, you can retrieve the ticket from the App when required to show it, but that would probably take longer. One thing to remember is to cancel your subscription after you've got back to the UK (or anyway finished with the ticket) otherwise it will automatically renew itself and you will be charged another 49 Euros for another month, which may well wipe out any savings you made with the first ticket!

Cabin fever. Time to think about the vertical cab handrails. I had hoped that the original plastic ones that are attached to the footplate casting could be retained, but they didn't really line up properly with the cut outs in the new cab sides. In anticipation that this might be the case, I had left the copper wire beading to the cab side cut outs overlong at the bottom with the intention of being able to curve these round and make supports for the upper end of the handrails. This worked well on one side, but obviously these dangly bits of copper wire were quite vulnerable during construction and sure enough the left hand side one broke off. So on that side I had to make a new U-shaped bracket for the top of the handrail, get it to line up with the beading as best I could, and solder it to the cab side. This couldn't really be done until the two parts of the body had been reunited, as the bottom of the handrail passes into holes in the footplate part. Soldering this in place wasn't easy; as well as being very fiddly, I guess the die cast body to which the cab sides are now attached was acting as a great big heat sink! Anyway, that probably stopped the other soldered bits from coming off. Having reunited the two parts of the body, I added strips of 5 thou styrene along the bottom edges of the cab side to represent the angle iron which attached the cab to the running plate. Whilst doing plastic stuff, I made a new cover for the reversing rod on the side of the firebox. This covers the front end of the reverser where it passes through the cab front; most but not all J15s had these and most but not all Hornby models do too; this one doesn't, so I carved it from a lump of 60 thou; it's a strange shape.

I was disappointed when ADL folded, although I understand why. I did a few of their trips, but none as adventurous as yours - mainly to Belgium but also Germany and France.

Apparently normal working resumed at Plessey today with up and down lines back in use.

Tricky Plumbing Part 2: On the right hand side, the steam heat pipe runs along the platform valence behind a lagged cover that looks a bit like a bit of gutter, then emerges from the bottom of that to disappear under the buffer beam and end up beneath the vacuum standpipe. The exact arrangement seems to vary from one loco to another. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgadsdon/49442330162 I'd got some brass half round U section which I've used as gutters on building models and had hoped to use that, but it was too big. So, I filed a flat down one side of a piece of 1mm brass rod instead, and the heater pipe itself is a piece of 0.7mm brass rod. I filed a vertical notch in the end of the 1mm rod and soldered a piece of 0.7mm into that, then filed it off flat on the back, and bent the pipe round to pass under the buffer beam. There wasn't really any way to peg this to the valence, so I've relied on a smear of Araldite along beneath the overhang, and clamped the brass rod to that while it cured. Seems OK so far! Boiler/cab and running plate reunited temporarily for photographic purposes.

Oh no, such sad news! I'd got to know Ken well through being involved with the York Show; what a lovely guy he was. I was just chatting with him a few weeks ago at the Great Electric Train Show in Milton Keynes; it seems difficult to believe..... RIP indeed an sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Thanks Jonathan. I didn't think to look at the Alan Gibson range! The Aralditing seems to have gone OK; just a little bit of cleaning up along the leading edges of the cab sides to make them flush with the front. I wonder whether I should try and tweak the ejector exhaust pipe a bit, to get it to lie more parallel with the handrail. Did I mention tricky plumbing? This is some of it, the vacuum pipe that runs along the left had side of the platform and includes the standpipe on the buffer beam; it has some interesting bends in it. The flexible 'bag' is made by winding 5 amp fuse wire round the 0.7mm brass wire and flooding it with solder. Twists of fuse wire also represent the pipe joints. The pipe pegs into blind holes in the footplate casting where the real thing was clipped and the cab end of the pipe also goes into a hole in the casting. The plastic cab handrails have survived this far!

Thanks Peter, I was afraid someone would come up with something like that! 🤣 I was rather hoping there might be an etch for the loco cab or at least the cab sides, but I've got beyond that stage now. The tender cabs that were fitted to several J15s (other than the "Covered Wagon" ones) seem to have been a bit 'home made' at depots and differed in details; I see the door on that one is different to the Isinglass drawing I'm working from for mine. Nevertheless it might be something to bear in mind if I ever get another J15 - you never know!

Thank you Chas! I've already got two, and as you say, the best slow speed running locos I own. It has a few faults as a model, not show stoppers in my opinion and I can forgive them in view of the performance. Some tricky plumbing next!

Next up, a Covered Wagon. Nothing to do with Conestoga or even a Vanfit, this was the nickname given to the five ex GER J15s which were given side window cabs, and cabs on the tenders, in the 1930s for use on the Colne Valley line (Chappel & Wakes Colne-Haverhill) where there was a lack of turntables and consequently a lot of tender first running. Information came from the Isinglass drawing 441 and drawings in the GERS Journal Np. 133, as well as the relevant RCTS Green Book and Yeadon's Register volumes. A little while ago I obtained another Hornby J15 for a very reasonable price from the Aladdin's Cave that is Anoraks Anonymous in Doncaster. It was an LNER one, which was fortuitous for this conversion as the locos that were given new cabs retained the low roofs, unlike the models in BR livery which depict the later high cab roofs. The J15s are full of detail pitfalls for the modeller and Hornby have catered for quite a few variations. Also useful in this case is the lack of Westinghouse brake, and the tender has oval cutouts in the frames rather than D shaped. So, the starting point is a bit of metalwork. The tender cab and new cab sides are cut out of 10 thou brass and soldered up. The beading is thin copper wire from an old point motor solenoid. I made the coal guards for the tender spectacle plate following the advice in Guy Williams book 'The 4mm Locomotive", only drilling holes for the bottom of the rails and soldering the tops, lining them up by eye. He used 5 amp fuse wire but I found this too soft, and used 0.31mm nickel silver wire instead. I'm not sure whether the scribed coal doors will be visible after it's painted! Another view of the tender cab: And here we have 7524 reduced to a kit of parts, and with the cab sides above the splasher boxes sawn off. The sawn lines aren't too straight in places, deliberately so to try and avoid some of the internal cab detail which is part of the casting. I have also drilled holes in the smokebox and cab front for the vacuum ejector exhaust pipe, which is lying alongside in this picture. This evening I have Araldited the new cab sides in place, and am leaving it alone now until tomorrow to let the glue cure.

Nice to see the Thompson Full Brake announced; I thought it was strange that they omitted it from the original range of re-tooled models. I can throw my old one away now!

Could perhaps be the SNCF regional prefix? These numbers were carried on locos in the painted box on the left hand end (when looked at head on) of the buffer beam but French bureaucracy being what it is, they were also applied to just about everything else, including for example the different volumes of the passenger timetable. https://www.aandhmodels.co.uk/france-1704-c.asp