MAP66

That's some nice figure painting, great flat tones and subtle colour blends with shading - no glossy looking figures here. You've done well to pick out the white shirt collar on the chap in the middle, without getting white paint elsewhere and I particularly like the grubby shirt on the gardener.

Thankfully you survived to tell the tale, with only a few singed hairs. Quick thinking with the fuel cut off saved the day by the sound of it. I hope the bike is not too damaged after the ordeal and no doubt you will be laughing this off over a pint or two later on.

I could be shot down for being incorrect on this but one of the reasons often quoted by my Uncle Jim about the Sten gun jamming, and I quote “Well what do you expect when it was built buy a bloody toy company”. This is also an attempt to bring trains back into the conversation as well, as Uncle Jim was of course referring to Lines Brothers and their brand name ‘Triang’.

Its no good staring out of the window Albert, your ticket is out of date and you're about to be found out by sharp eyed GWR ticket inspector Ernest Clipper.

I think the works dept would have ensured that a mains supply could be tapped off from the feed to the water tower before siting the grounded van and the necessary ground works were undertaken to run in the new water supply.

Apologies for the lack of posts lately, I have been taking advantage of the good weather, undertaking some 1:1 scale modelling in the garden and the patio should be finished at the weekend. There has been some very slow progress on the auto coach interior and the non-smoking section is at least almost complete, all the seats are now upholstered within this section and all that remains are some vintage GWR notices and holiday posters to add. The smoking section will take much longer to complete, much more seating. Serves me right really, as I should have just painted them. Below we find regular passenger Albert Cushing trying out the new seating. I think I have his vote of approval.

That looks a bit good does that. One for the realistic modelling thread when you have completed the scene!

Thank you Steve, It does help to be slightly mad to think up this stuff and a great deal of patience to see it through. I’ve found that my patience has grown over the past few years after returning to the hobby. It’s almost certain, that if I had taken on this 5 years ago, it would have ended up in the bin. P.S Please inform Col. Archie Pickled-Onion (retired) CMB that his order of 500 vacuum hoses will be ready for collection this side of never (give or take a couple of Millenia) 🤪

Appreciate that Rob, that was one of those tasks which causes you to tell yourself, almost immediately after starting, “you twatmus, what were you thinking of” and “no wonder there’s no info out there on how to do this”. I was, however, determined to see it through to the bitter end and glad I did as it turned out… sweet dude. I take it the club badge and T shirt are in the post. In the meantime I will follow club rules while out in public by wearing my underpants on my head and inserting two pencils up my nostrils. 😄

After some considerable ‘effing and jeffing’ mainly caused by small parts held in tweezers with the inevitable ping “Eff it” moment, followed by “Bollox, never going to see that again” I eventually triumphed and completed one, yes just one, flexible vacuum hose. The flexible hose part was fairly straight forward as explained previously, using the 5A fuse wire. The pain in the ar5e challenge was the rigid pipe section and forming the 90˚bend while still allowing cable to pass through. I used some 1.1mm o/d brass tube and bored this out to an internal diameter of 0.8mm. It was then a case of cutting a 45˚ mitre (let’s just say it took a while). Finally, I achieved the mitre and threaded both pieces of tube onto a length of decoder wire. The two angled pieces where then superglued together to form the 90˚ bend. Being extra careful not to get any glue on the decoder wire! Success, the glue held the join and the wire was still free to move inside the tube. I’m using the decoder wire as a draw wire to pull through the required number of much thinner enamelled copper wire at a later stage. It was then a case of passing the flexible hose over the decoder wire and gluing to the rigid 90˚ bend. I then used a crank pin washer at the end of the flexible hose to mimic the connection coupling and some ‘glue n glaze’ applied with a small brush to add some chamfers etc. Anyway, the name of the game was to come up with a flexible vacuum brake and steam hose for permanent coupling between coach and loco which could carry decoder wires within it and resemble the hoses supplied in the detailing kit, so here it is…. On the left, one of the hoses supplied in the kit. On the right, my flexible hose as a comparison. And finally, a close up of the tricky little !!**?? 🤪

My awaited supplies arrived yesterday, so I am now able to continue my experimentations with the flexible vacuum hoses. That will be for Thursday, as today its Jill’s post op follow up, so will be off to Bristol for best part of the day. There has been some more progress with the passenger step levers and they are now attached to the partition wall. It was again a worthwhile decision to not yet glue the partitions in place, thus allowing assembly and attachment of the levers outside of the coach. The completed sub-assembly of the partition wall leading into the smoking compartment, complete with step levers. A glimpse of what's available to see through the window. And your overhead shot. The lever guards are made from brass strip, off one of the frets from the detailing kit.

Many Happy Returns old chap 🎂 and hope you find those darn elusive signal levers. I normally find what I'm looking for almost immediately after I have purchased more of the same 😄

Not much activity lately on the auto coach front, largely due to the fine weather which has led me into the garden instead. I’m also waiting on some more supplies to arrive which I need to complete the vacuum and steam hoses, basically, I will be trying to fabricate something together using small bore brass tube. In the meantime, I managed to find the Wills point rodding kit that had eluded me and have crudely adapted two of the ground frame point levers to use as the passenger step levers. It seems to work, you will only see a glimpse of then through the window anyway.

This interior malarkey is taking a bit longer than first anticipated. There’s a total of 10 partition sides and 8 door sides to deal with plus a whole host of other fiddly bits like corner trims etc. I’m not complaining, I’m actually enjoying the challenge, this is just to explain why it’s all taking longer than expected. The luggage compartment is now almost completed and I’ve moved onto the passenger entrance vestibule. I have gone with half glazed doors here, I have no idea if that’s correct or not but I liked the idea. A few more progress pics…

Work has commenced on the luggage compartment and I’m keeping the colour scheme all tan brown in here. I might try and replicate some scuff and scratch marks on the wood panelling and have some electrical conduit coming down the partition wall for a light switch. The door is no longer brass, I’ve gone back to card again and have scribed in the two panels and used some micro strip for architrave. The idea is to house the sound decoder and speaker in this area (both not purchased as yet) and disguise them as much as possible with luggage. That’s the preferred choice, if it doesn’t work out then maybe, I will be able to squeeze either one or both into the loco? I won’t know this for sure until I start working on the loco and reached the stage where the body shell is ready to be fitted to the completed chassis, then I will have more of an idea of available space.

I checked with my coach passengers and none of them suffer from any dust allergies or hayfever, so all good!

That's rather splendid old bean. I think your version is less nerve wracking than the way I went about it and of course, I will still need to partially glaze mine which means there's still a fair chance of making a horses ar5e of it.

I’m back on the coach interior and have installed panelling up to the bottom of the windows, above the windows I am just leaving as a painted surface. The other side of the driving cab partition is now complete, apart from some touch up detail painting. Luggage compartment next. Panelling profile sheet cut to size, painted and installed on both sides of the coach. Drivers cab sliding door installed, a few gaps around the edges to sort out still. Cornwall, next year perhaps.

Unusually for me, I have started to think about the coupling of the auto train before getting to that stage. I would normally only think about the details for that type of thing when I arrived at that stage and hope that a solution would materialise. The problem I need to solve, having made the decision that the loco and auto coach will be permanently coupled together was how to; Model the vacuum brake and steam hoses connected from the coach to the loco, with flexibility and the ability to hide several data cables within them as this will be DCC operated. I came up with the spring idea again, I wrapped 5a fuse wire around a length 0.8mm brass rod which seemed to be about the right OD for the supplied white metal hoses which I was aiming to replicate. I then coated the spring evenly, while still on the rod, with glue ‘n’ glaze. Before the glue ‘n’ glaze started going off, I carefully removed the spring from the rod and left it for the glue to cure. After which I had a spring which when bent through 90 degrees did not distort and returned to a straight position. The glue ‘n’ glaze helped the spring to better retain its shape when bending and flexing and provide a skin for paint to adhere to. Furthermore, the spring forms a conduit for wires to pass through invisibly from coach to loco. Further work is required, but it’s a promising start. I may need to increase the spring OD to 1mm to allow more internal space for cable routing, at present there is only room for 1 x 32 gauge pvc coated wire. However, up to 6 of the red coloured thin enamelled wire in the image below can pass through the spring with ease. Here is the flexible part of my brake hose with 1 x 32 gauge wire passing through it. So far the black paint doesn't chip or rub off. The hoses supplied in the kit are there for comparison. I still need to build the hollow rigid pipe section and attach to the end of the hose. Close up of the flexible vacuum brake hose and cable carrier. Bent to 180 degrees, without any of the spring coils separating, all held in place with glue 'n' glaze.

Thanks Neal. it was worth the effort when you see the end result. I just need to keep the standard up for the rest of the coach interior, still a way to go yet.

That’s it, the interior of the driving cab is now finally completed. I am not adding the glazing until absolute last for fear of marking it. Due to the interior detail, it’s a must for me to have cab lighting so as to see some of what’s inside. I tried to see what would be visible in normal daylight with the coach roof on, it turns out that the back of the cab interior is in dark shadow and the driver is not that visible. Now that’s actually a good thing as you do not want the driver visible when the auto coach is being pulled by the loco. Contrary to this, you want a visible driver when the auto coach is being propelled by the loco. So the solution is a cab light which comes on when the cab is driving and turns off when going the opposite way leaving the cab interior mostly in shadow. That’s the aim anyway, here’s some shots of the finished cab interior… View from above, managed to squeeze it all in. View from the rear, if you have the power to see through doors and partitions. Parking/hand brake on the left and vacuum brake on the right. From the front, lots of light and visibility with the roof off. The red wire is a trace wire in place for when I am ready to fit the front lamp. With the roof on, the driver is mostly in shadow and not clearly visible, hence the need for a cab light. Its good to still see the controls though.

Yes, there's lots of little silly things which only become apparent when you start to tackle a specific task. I've opted to remove that screw boss as I did with the driving cab one. I'm working on an alternative solution for securing the coach body to the underframe (work in progress). Now we've established which side the passenger stair levers are located and I'm sure you've got this sussed but just in case both lever handles point outwards towards their respective passenger entrance coach door when the steps are in the stowed (raised position).

The nearer lever has the steps in the lowered position, if you look at the video from 6:40 on, you will see the steps lowered to allow Rodney Cox to board the coach. I would suggest watching the entire video though as its quite informative about how the coach was coupled up to the loco.

This is a frame lifted from the South Devon Railway video which I posted on the 29th April (2nd video) which shows the levers for the passenger steps on the same partition wall (so not handed) the driving cab is to the right. Which makes sense to me as the Airfix model has a moulded drop down seat on the opposite partition wall so the lever could not go on that side. Also note that I think the coach in the video is a later version, hence the sliding doors to the passenger areas as @Neal Ball drawing shows hinged doors. I have some spare signal levers which look similar, so now I finally have a use for them.

Here's a final shot of the front cab panelling with items attached, I say again its much easier to work on the detailing when you can remove it. In addition to the regulator, we now have the communication apparatus or bell system for the driver, guard and fireman to communicate via the GWR bell codes. The next step will be to glue the 3 front panels in place, however, I must first make a concealed route for the two wires from the front lamp as they will need to pass behind the centre panel and through the cab floor. After that the two door panels can be fitted and finally the rear partition panel. How it should look.