31A

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.

Hi Paul, Thanks for asking; I'll try and remember what I did! I went about constructing all the scratch built coaches in a similar way. I was inspired by the writings of the late David Jenkinson, and also the methods of construction of the old PC Models kits (which had sides printed on clear plastic). The body sides are cut from 20 thou Plastikard, laminated on the back to two layers of 40 thou which cover the length of the vehicle below window level; the innermost of these laminations ends 1mm above the bottom of the sides - this gives a rebate for a floor of 40 thou to fit into. After the laminations had set hard, I profiled the sides using a scraper tool (meant for wallpaper scraping, I think), to take the bulk off then finishing with fine sandpaper, checking against the drawing at intervals - it's easy to take too much off! The panelling was then built up using 5 thou Plasikard. A continuous panel of this runs the length of the coach below window level, with the lower panelling built up on this, again from 5 thou cut into strips 0.5mm wide. The upper panelling is then added, above the 5 thou lower panel, again using 5 thou Plastikard cut into 1mm wide (I think!) strip. The picture of the clerestory passenger brake shows this better than I can explain! Droplight frames are cut out of 10 thou. There is a false ceiling at the top of the sides made from two layers of 20 thou Plastikard laminated - the lower lamination fits between the sides, and the upper lamination rests on top of the sides with its edges representing the gutter at cant rail level. The roof itself is from 10 thou which I 'cooked' over a wooden former in an electric oven! I kept looking at it until the Plastikard had melted enough to drop over the former, when I smoothed it down by hand wearing gloves and left it to set, then trimmed to fit. I've got formers for the basic GN profile (which also suits the main roof of clerestory coaches) and for domed ended 'Gresley' style roofs. Not sure I'd really recommend doing the roofs that way today though; commercially available roofs would be much better. The clerestorys were then built up on top of the main roofs; first painting the insides black. I think the clerestory tops were from 40 thou sanded to a curved profile, but on both vehicles I feel the ends of the clerestory roofs could be more domed than they actually are. Interior partitions and corridor sides were cut out from 20 thou. To keep everything square these are cut with vertical sides to fit between the coach sides, with the bottoms of the partitions cut out to fit the lower side laminations, and the width of the tops of the partitions being the same as the false ceiling. The height of the partitions being 1.5mm less that the height of the sides, to allow for the thickness of the floor and false ceiling. This works OK for coaches like this where the sides are vertical above waist height, but wouldn't work so well for coaches with a continuous tumblehome. Although the passenger brakes don't necessarily have internal partitions in reality, I think I added some where they wouldn't be visible to keep everything square and rigid. Solebars were from 40 thou, and step boards from 20 thou - I tended to use black Plastikard for these as the paint on them is prone to damage. Bogies are from a variety of sources - I think the clerestory brake has plastic Ian Kirk bogies, the clerestory third has McGowan white metal ones and the twin has MJT white metal sides mounted on their brass bogie compensation units. Buffers, ventilators etc. are metal fittings from various sources - MJT (from Dart Castings) would probably be one of the sources for these parts today. The gangways on the clerestory brake and the twin set are also from MJT. I usually made door handles from filed down brass pins and grab handles etc. from brass wire, although again etched / turned fittings are available these days for these parts. I think that covers most of it; hope this helps, Cheers, Steve

Mine took 6 corridors (Bachmann BR Mks and Thompsons) without any difficulty. It's retired to the showcase for now, though!

I see, didn't realise they lasted so long!

Looks like the Horncastle set survived long enough to be painted in BR red livery, if that's horizontal lining running through the 'waist' panel?

Nice coaches, Jonathan! I had in mind to make some of the 'long' clerestories but never got around to it. Ingenious to use Kirk kit sides to make them - if I'd thought of that I might have got around to building some myself!

Steady on Jonathan! Perhaps should have mentioned earlier, yes apart from the Kirk LNER Corridor Third, they are scratch built from Plastikard.

Hi Dave, I've just stumbled across this thread, and although I've only ticked 'like' to the first one, I like them all - so yes please!

Hi Jonathan, I thought you might be 'teased'! Just for you, I've snapped some of my teak coaches but to avoid creeping this thread too far, I've put them over here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/76979-lets-see-your-teak-coaches/&do=findComment&comment=1847214

Hi all, Thanks to Jonathan Weallans for prodding me in this direction, I've finally got around to a few snaps of my teak coaches. In the past I modelled LNER lines in the 1930s, but more recently have changed direction to BR(E) of circa 1960. However I dug a few LNER coaches out to pose with my Bachmann / Locomotion GN Atlantic, and thought I'd take a few pictures while I had them out. First up, an ex-GNR 6-wheeled passenger brake van, built from drawings in the first edition of 'Historic Carriage Drawings' (Jenkinson/Campling). It's coupled to an ex-GNR Covered Carriage Truck; the drawings for this were first published in 'Modeller's Backtrack', but I think have since been reproduced in the more recent version of 'Historic Carriage Drawings' (volume 3). Next, a corridor articulated twin. I think these were among the first articulated coaches, converted from some of the earliest ECJS corridor coaches. They seem to have been used in semi fasts from King's Cross in the 1930s (Outer Suburban in today's language), which is why I built them, using an Isinglass drawing I seem to recall. The bogies are MJT, with the middle one slightly modified to accommodate the articulation. The articulated bearing is as per the type used in the Ian Kirk kits, which itself is along the lines of the prototype. This clerestory gangwayed Passenger Brake was made from drawings in the 'Model Railway Constructor', which had a long running series of drawings of GN and ECJS coaches in the 1970s. This clerestory Corridor Third was from a drawing in 'Historic Carriage Drawings'; the original or one very like it is in the NRM: And lastly, an LNER Corridor Third, from an Ian Kirk kit. I lined the upper panels with 10 thou Plastikard to reduce the heaviness of the panelling; the gangways are MJT (as are the gangways on the other coaches). Of the above, the most recently built were the ECJS twin and the LNER Corridor Third; although I've always followed the same basic process for painting 'teak' coaches, I'd like to the results got better as time went on!

Thanks, Tony - I was going to say, the width of the red lining on the frames in my pictures was probably exaggerated by my photography! Just been to check, and no handrails on the rear corner of mine's tender, either - nor are there in photos of the real thing. Having noticed concerns expressed on another forum regarding the 'tracking' of the pony truck (which I think was speculation by persons who hadn't actually run one), I felt I should add that mine runs perfectly through the pointwork on my layout (which includes crossovers made up from Peco double slips) both forwards and in reverse. I wish the K's one I built 30 odd years ago ran as well!

Thanks to Locomotion, and particularly Sandra who spotted my local address and took mine along to the York Show on the off chance that we might meet (which we did), I was very pleased to be able to pick up my 251 today. Must say I'm very impressed with what came out of the box; having added the majority of the add on parts, here are a few quick pictures, winding Finsbury Square back in time to the first quarter of the twentieth century. There are quite a lot of additional parts to add but the diagrammatic instructions are clear as to where they go. There seem to be two different sets of brake rodding for the loco and I wasn't sure why - perhaps they cover different periods of operation? I fitted the parts that needed gluing with Evostick in case they needed to be taken off again to allow the loco to negotiate curves. However having unplugged the front tension lock coupling, I was able to fit the front dummy screw coupling, side chains, steam heat connection and guard irons and the loco would happily negotiate the 3' minimum radius on my layout. I also fitted the piston tail rod covers, and I see the left hand one is drooping in the last photo, so that needs reattaching. Also provided are small segments to fill the cut outs in the cylinder fronts, which have been provided to enable the bogie to swing - I haven't attached these yet so don't know whether they would restrict operation. This arrangement is much less obtrusive than the way Hornby usually do this, which involves a whole quadrant being cut out of the cylinder fronts! Cab doors are provided but I haven't attached them yet; again, as I was concerned they would restrict operation. I haven't added the dummy screw coupling to the rear of the tender (or the steam heat connection) as I thought they would impair the functional coupling from working. The rear guard irons are already attached to the tender. The tender vents are also separate parts; once these are glued in place I presume it would be impossible to remove the die cast coal load - for the photographs I've just placed these in position. The packet of parts does include a moulded headlamp, but the ones in the pictures are my own Springtide ones dropped over the lamp irons. The tender drawbar is the usual Bachmann adjustable design, and I found the loco would operate on my layout with it on the closest setting. The fall plate is freely hinged, and caused no problems on curves. The finish is beautiful, even including picking out parts of the representative inside valve gear, and the loco runs smoothly and quietly straight from the box. I haven't really tested its haulage capabilities yet but it didn't have any problems with the train in the pictures. I just need to decide what it's doing on a c.1960 BR(E) layout - anybody got an 'SLS Special' headboard?

Sorry, hadn't realised they were that old and had temporarily forgotten about Wrenn, although I have at least one of theirs squirrelled away somewhere! Yes indeed, they also employed a good dose of fiction; however the openable doors are handy when posing scenes for photographs. My Dapol one is also acting as a 'place marker' until the promised new ones arrive.