Westernway

Ive just checked the DAPOL122's and 121's that I have ..

 

ALL of the class 122's have a hole in the bogie hub cap for the speedo cable along with the hole in the chassis.

 

None of the 121's have a hole for the sppedo cable in the hub cab.

 

Ah well - out with the Dremel...

Thank you soony

At least I was not looking in the wrong place

Acting on Tim's suggestion, yesterday evening I unclipped the bodies of my 121 and 122, the latter needed her wind screen clipping back into place because it had some how come adrift, and painted the remainder of the interior black.

I think it is a big improvement for a little work, nice one Tim  I have taken a photo of her in the dark, alas my photographic skills are almost as bad as my modelling ones but it does give an idea of how she looks with her lights on.

So, has the OP's 121 been assembled with two 'blind' bogies, or is the OP just looking in the wrong place? (CJL)

Two blind bogies. My friend has three of these and his are the same. Also, looking at some of the photos on trade websites and I can not spot any holes on bogies.

The goods area is not large but is in constant use and gets very busy at times, resulting in the occasional fopar by the workers!

The track and ballast was weathered. I made sure that it still conducted electricity, which luckily it did. 

I added a fence, a few detailing parts and a few adverts to brighten the fence up a little.

Next I added a buffer stop and ballast. 

A slightly longer second siding was needed so that I could move and store the same sized trains on both it and the one for the goods shed. It took an evening to do but made a big difference to ease of shunting.

To start I removed the buffer stop and dug out the pile of ballast that was resting on it. The track was then added, I took care to ensure it was level.

Hello, Kidderminster, hope to see pictures of your layout soon,

 

Rovex of Redditch

I did post some here Rovex........

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129324-kingswood/

I think you are right Stationmaster.

Not strictly new to the forum but only just spotted 'New Members'

Hi every one.

Living close to Kidderminster SVR station and having always been interested in steam engines and trains in general I thought it was high time I got into railway modelling.
I have always enjoyed making models and painting miniature figures, however I prefer to do something with them rather than have them as ornaments so I use them for Wargaming. In the same way model railways move and look great so the appeal is double to me, however I am totally new to this hobby and work full time as well as doing a lot of commission work on figures, this leaves me with very little time to spend on building a lay out so I have been saving my commission earnings and have used it to get a small layout professionally built.

This is my first ever proper model railway, I have owned several train sets over the years, the first way back in 1967 at the age of 4. I have been fortunate enough to make friends, via a model railway forum, with two great guys, one a very experienced, talented model railway owner and exhibitor, the other a very knowledgeable railway enthusiast. I also live next door to the gentleman who runs Kidderminster Railway Museum so I have lots of help and advice on tap.

I am looking forward to making friends on here and learning from the members who are so very obviously light years ahead of me in talent and modelling skill.

All the best, John

Haven't seen a 121 yet but on the 122, which has the same bogies, there was a hole in the innermost axlebox, just forward of the locating hole in the solebar. (CJL)

Yes there was one on my 122 also dibber25.

John

Hi,

 

What a difference to that unit with just a few passengers.  Off now to the opticians - having looked at the picture with you pointing at that lifting eye - I could barely see the thing!

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

Thanks Alex. A funny/strange thing happen while I was cutting the hooks off of the sprue, one shot off and ended up standing! Honestly!! I could not do that again if I tried! 

Martin, this is a great thread with some wonderful work. First class, the workmanship is very good, I am very impressed with your painting too.

I have had a bit more time in the Railway Room today, so some more progress to show on the Maunsell buffet coach.

 

I have painted the interior, which still need the seats making and fitting plus some other details to finish.

 

The body has had a 'blow over' with Halfords primer and ant small imperfections filled and sanded. I then tackled the roof details; the plans show a side view of the roof detail, but do not show in plan format, so I have copied the middle ventilator spacing from my previous model (which in turn I think were based on photos). The roof tank and cooker vents were made from plasticard, vents are cast accessories.

 

The underframe has had the gas cylinder boxes added (again scratch built from plasticard) but I hit a problem here with the bogie swing - on the full size coach bogie travel would be quite restricted but for a model that has to negotiate minimum 2'6" curves and other track irregularities the bogie dampers foul the boxes. The only solution I have been able to come up with to overcome this is to cut the outer end off the boxes for those affected; I think once painted it will hopefully not show.

 

The other problem was how to fix the body to the chassis - there is not much room on the underframe to put fixing screws once you have avoided the swinging coupling mount and sprung buffer mountings, both features I was keen to retain. There was also an issue with allowing the interior to fit around the corner lugs on the body so that it could be removed as necessary. In the end I managed to get some No.0 X 0.4mm Phillips self tappers between the corner fixing hole and the underframe corner step fixings - it was quite tight as you can see from the third photo, but seems to work OK.

 

Finally for today, a question; an early photo of one of the original RFO prior to conversion in 1947 shows two features - six lead filled boxes attached to the solebar under the corridor side of the kitchen end, and a set of lower steps under the double doors. Unfortunately all the pictures of the buffet conversion I can find seem to show the other side of the coach so I am not sure if these features continued on the converted coach. I am pretty sure the bottom step was removed, but logically I cannot see why the lead boxes would have been removed (as the kitchen end of the vehicle was unchanged in the conversion and presumably the imbalance they were supposed to correct was still present). For the moment I have left both features off the current model although they are both present on the first version I made. Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

Tony

Awesome work! I love the curved bar!!! You are a very talented man.

Nice work. I also like 'Oh Dr. Beeching' on the bottom of your posts.

Thank you Robin. It was a long day but very enjoyable

Thank you for the idea Tim T, I will do it this evening.

John.

I had saved the hardest model till last. The Dapol 121.

I love this model, the 122 also, however I do not like the way the floor looks, being high due to the position of the motor. This problem is accentuated when running in the dark with lights on, which just happens to be how I like to run them most.

I am no where near a good enough modeller to move the floor and motor so I set about disguising the problem as best I could. 

First off the body was removed. I painted the floor matt black allowing to dry between coats, 3 in all. Once dry, I added some passengers then set aside to make sure there would be no super glue fumes to damage the glazing on the body.

The hardest part and by far and away the most time consuming was adding the crew. The vacuum pipes were a little fiddly too, however by 11pm all was finished and she was run in. She was very very tight to start off but she soon loosened up and the noisy motor quietened down.

One thing to note was the lack of a fixing hole in the boogie for the 'Speedometer' easy to sort with a thin drill bit but annoying on a £125 model. I checked with my friend who has 3 of these and his are the same, no fixing hole!

I do not have many clean models on my lay out, this one is. I did want to add a touch of 'weathering' and mindful of the times I have washed my car only for it to get a direct hit from a marauding Sea Gull or starling, I decided to add such a 'package' to this engine.

The next model to be worked on was my Bachmann Class 43 'Warship'. 

There are a lot of detailing parts to add to this one including some very tiny hooks so I decided to add the crew and paint the interior first. Once this was done I put it to one side to dry while I started the hooks and vents. After a few hours of going boogly eyed the hooks were all in place and I had only lost one!

The vacuum pipes etc were ten added, however not the drivers steps, these were left off until the engine was run in. The running in was uneventful and once again a very smooth and quite unit emerged after an hour.

Steps were added, the new detail bits weathered and she was ready to go on my lay out.

Next up and a little more work was my Bachmann Class 37. I say a little more work because there was slightly more detailing bits to add and a driver to remove before I could add mine own crew.

She is factory weathered but I did add a little more to the bogies, fuel tanks etc.

She was then placed on the running in lay out, a little stiff at first but she soon smoothed down and proved to be very smooth with little noise.

I had to drill a hole in the bogie of my Dapol 121 so that I could fit the 'speedometer'. I checked with a railway modelling friend who has 3x121's and his are all the same.

Any one else had this problem?

John 

I bought two exact same engines, not Bachmann, one ran perfectly, the other was truly terrible!

This is my favourite Bachmann Steam Engine. Very well detailed and runs nicely.

Their Auto Coach is a very nice model (they do make very good coaching stuff) and looks great in this livery.......

​I made a cover for the end of the board, again out of 1.2mm Aluminium, this was powder coated black and darkens the tunnel really well.

Thank you for the reply and explanation. 

I have some Heljan engines and they also run extremely well.

It is great having a shunting engine I can actually shunt with and not worry about her stalling on points.

John