31A

Thurso station looked a bit less interesting a few weeks ago!

Not sure whether or not this helps much, but when I 'did a Brassmasters' on a Hornby Black 5 recently, I obtained a Bachmann Jubilee tender underframe from Peter's Spares. After a small amount of carving at the front end, it fitted under the Hornby tender body. This both took care of the "ledge" and provided better spring / axle box mouldings; however the down side was I had to make my own tender pick ups. I also made up some brake gear for it using a Mainly Trains etch of brake shoes (although the Bachmann underframe does have brake hangers moulded in it). However that might be more expensive and result in more work, if you've got a lot to do. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87442-oh-no-not-another-black-5/

Hi Iain, I've been doing much the same as you with some Bachmann BR non corridors. The Replica brake gear parts do make a worthwhile improvement to the appearance of the underframes. If you're doing a Brake 2nd, you can use one of the battery box mouldings from the same sprue to reposition the one on one side, so that they're both towards the brake van end. I've also used Lazerglaze and while it does bring a huge improvement to the appearance of the body, I initially found it hard to get on with. The first three I did were coaches I'd repainted, and I found I needed to sand down each pane to get it to fit! I'm currently doing a fourth, which I haven't needed to repaint and find the Lazerglaze fits beautifully on this one - evidently the thickness of the paint I'd used (from Halfords' aerosols) had been enough to make the apertures too small!

Nice to see the Harrogate line pictures, having become familiar with it myself through my work in recent years. Cattal station hasn't changed very much!

J6046 epitomises a certain period - the 'throat' had been remodelled and the 312s had just started their (relatively short) reign on the outer suburbans and look smart in blue and grey, but there are still diesel fuel wagons in 'Passenger Loco', a train of Mark 1s runs past in the background and train crew wander (?) about trackside with no hi vis of any kind.

Thanks both! I once knew a man who had worked there, although he was Chief Clerk at Barking Booking Office when I knew him.

'Cammuss" ? (I live in York)

Hi David, I'll have to get some pictures taken, so bear with me! Cheers, Steve

The most obvious change was to replace the glazing with South Eastern Flushglaze, and the gangways with MJT ones. I also replaced the torpedo vents with whitemetal ones (noting where they are offset and where they aren't!), and made step boards in the right places on the solebars and bogies. I must admit I did't go as far as reproofing the roof. Also, I could have rebuilt the destination board racks - that would have been easy enough. I've done the Brake Second in the picture and a Brake Composite, but on a Full Brake I went a bit further. On that one, I cut the battery boxes away and relocated them the proper distance inboard. I thought I would have to replace the angle iron trusses and battery boxes and bought MJT items for that purpose, but actually by cutting carefully I was able to preserve the angle irons, and re-use the original battery boxes - it helped with this one that the Full Brake only had battery boxes on one side, so I was able to glue the cut off items back to back to produce one item of correct thickness. I intended the Full Brake as a 'prototype' for the others I've got, but Bachmann then announced the new ones.....

Perhaps then I'll be able to replace this one and about four others like it that wander around my layout, two of which I postponed 'refurbishing' when the new ones were announced:

Before setting out to straighten the connecting rods, it might be worth considering that they are cranked for a reason! I say this because I had a lot of trouble with clearances between the 'little end' of the con rod and the leading driver's crank pin when I built a K's Atlantic all those years ago. Despite thinning the crank pin head down to almost nothing, I still had to put a crank in the con rods to provide clearance, similar to what Bachmann have had to do with theirs.

I hope the tractor driver, and other crossing users, learn a lesson from this. There have been far too many reports of 'misuse' of that crossing over the years; as far as I know this is the first that has resulted in an actual accident.

I suspected that might be the case!

These images are on Model Railway Express this morning, where it mentions 'SR and LNER signals' - I wonder whether there will be other models which will more accurately represent LNER signals, or are they suggesting that the SR lattice post signal also represents an LNER signal? For SR signals, they do appear to be nicely detailed models.

On the subject of wooden bodied mineral wagons, here's one of my efforts: A Bachmann 8-plank with fixed ends, originally in BR grey livery. I painted most of it apart from the insignia in a creamy / grey colour hopefully representing unpainted wood, then went over plank by plank in various shades of grey / brown to represent weathered painted and unpainted planks. Picked out the ironwork in various greys to represent the remains of a livery; then the whole lot weathered and rusted etc.

It's probably a rather esoteric reference, but there's a nice colour picture of the goods yard at Carlton Towers station (on the ex Hull & Barnsley) on the rear cover of 'Railways in East Yorkshire Volume One' (Martin Bairstow, Amadeus Press, 2002 - no ISBN). The picture is taken from an elevated viewpoint and shows six open merchandise wagons in a siding, of which five have wooden bodies and the sixth is an LNER design all steel wagon. The wooden wagons clearly have unpainted interiors which really amounts to various shades of grey. I've tried to copy the colour in these models, although in fact the real ones are actually somewhat darker, and more varied:

A pity in some ways that the moulds for the Airfix 'five plank' ended up with Hornby rather than Bachmann, as mounting the body on one of the 'new generation' Bachmann 17' 6" underframes would be an easy way for a manufacturer to produce a 'open high' comparable with current models. I've upgraded several myself, but using Parkside bits for the underfarmes.

I wondered whether the design was altered to cupboard doors to make it easier to unload them against coaling stages (at platform height), where it might not be possible to lower drop doors right down? Just had a look at my original Tatlow and reminded myself that the GN had some 20T Loco Coal wagons of similar outline, but these also had drop doors.

Surely the Bachmann Private Owner wagons in their various forms are pretty good models of RCH 1923 specification wagons?

They certainly look like very small section rails; were they deliberately so or have they worn down with years of track cleaning?

Thanks Bill for your kind comments! I have to confess, although the location of the fictional station is real enough, I haven't copied any real buildings (in fact, most of them are blatant kit bashes), so any resemblance to reality is mainly coincidental. I did however spend quite a lot of time in that part of London for work and other purposes about 20 or so years ago, so it'd be nice to think something of the character of the place is reflected in the layout even if that's been arrived at somewhat subconsciously!

I was surprised to see quite how much a 'kit of parts' a RTR model like this actually is! Not sure whether or not it's the same motor as the J15; it certainly looks quite small.

Not sure about GBRf, but at one time Anglia Railways had offices in Artillery Lane, but I think that is east of Liverpool Street.

Hi all, Thanks for the kind comments, and 'likes' etc. Apologies for not replying sooner; I've been away from my computer for a while. Thanks for 'going on', Del - I would be flattered if one of the mags was to publish an article on my layout but still think there are some areas that need further work before it's ready for that. For example, I really must finish Il Dottore's Georgian terraced houses, and the lack of proper signals continues to embarrass me! But hopefully one day. Cheers, Steve

Thanks for the kind words, Andrew! I've been watching your 'Aldersgate' thread and think the buildings on your layout are much more impressive, the more so for being models of real buildings whereas mine are mainly kit bashed, and from American or European kits at that! Recently I've been working on the 'right hand' corner of the layout which was previously undeveloped and not shown in the last lot of pictures I posted. These pictures give an impression of the area; the big red brick warehouse was kit bashed from the Atlas 'Middlesex Manufacturing' kit.