Tortuga

…some progress occurred today! Before I can lay any track on ‘Whaley Shunt’, I need to repair the PECO tandem point that I recovered from ‘Gibbs Sidings’. I’d previously attempted to modify this by removing the locking spring mechanism, the oddly shaped timbers and thinning down the tie bars and, while I was partially successful, one tie bar has snapped, the tags that hold the point blades in place have broken off and two of the frog dropper wires have parted company leaving me with this collection of bits: Holes were drilled to accommodate the frog droppers and, having carried out a minor soldering job to reattach one loose dropper, the point could be positioned (minus its blades and tie bars). I decided to tackle the tie bars (or more correctly, the leading stretcher bars) first as I need an easy, reliable and realistic method for making these for the points on Alsop. I felt the best solution was to have a hidden operating bar beneath the point to give the whole thing a bit of rigidity and to that end, cut out a patch of the cork to accept a ‘fake base’ with a slot in it through which an extra deep stretcher bar will fit I’ve made the base long enough to accept extensions to the existing timbers for hand point levers. Also in the above photo is the point operating bar, which will fit under the fake base and support the extra deep stretcher bar. …and that’s all I had time for!

Welcome aboard! Progress on here is very sporadic, I’m afraid! Having said that…

Thanks for an extremely informative and helpful reply Mike! I have a feeling that the hand levers at Shallcross were originally the weighted two-way lever, but were replaced by one-way levers. I’ll have to check the photos so I get them the right side and the right way round! Helpfully the fact they return to their original position means there’s no reason to make them move!

Forgive my ignorance, but I’d assumed hand point levers lay in one direction when the blades were set for one road and in the other for the other road. Did all hand point levers* operate in the way you describe? Was the different shape of the handles determined by manufacturer/company? (*Apart from the types with a weighted handle and the type that had to be held over when set for the other route)

Thanks Jonathan. I knew one was RHD and the other was LHD, but I couldn’t remember which was which. I seem to remember the Hornby (ex-Airfix) version is slightly ‘coarser’ scale-wise than the Bachy one. Does anyone know of a conversion kit to convert the Hornby/Airfix to a RHD version? I have an Airfix one from the bay of E that someone has swapped the reverser over on, but I’d like to take it a step further, which would mean a new backhead.

Is that from the red box stable or the blue box stable Graham? Just thinking that you can’t tell unless you see one from each manufacturer standing side by side - I’m sure someone will tell me all the differences between them now! Looks just fine for a freight engine at the end of its journey, before going on shed for disposal by the way; good work!

Is all this skylight work being done using a silhouette cutter? I’m thinking scratch building the signal box on my layout is the way forward, but I’m not looking forward to cutting out all those small window frames!

Must’ve come the other way then! 😜

Or you could truly come to the dark side and model 1960’s BR: that way you could legitimately get a 9F and have green and black locos…

Classico of course?

LNER Diagram D195 all-steel high.

I learnt this the other day! Although to confuse the issue, Highways people would refer to a bridge carrying a road over a railway as an underbridge and a bridge carrying a railway over a road as an overbridge!

Alternatively it might only be possible for the private siding for the tanker to be shunted by trains running from CR. Same effect on the model, but it might be worth thinking what the private siding is - might it generate other traffic that needs working to CR before reaching its final destination?

It’s not fully naked, it’s still wearing its skirts!

Very nice. I was out and about around Biggin, Alstonfield and Alsop myself yesterday. The final leg of our walk was along the Tissington Trail north of Alsop to Biggin in the rain.

I didn’t know Northern and Transpennine issued their own tickets for their own services. I thought a ticket issued by the machine was valid for the journey you wished to make via any permitted route, regardless of which train operator’s service you travel on? EDIT: I should make it clear that I was thinking of local stopping services rather than long distance ones when I wrote this. I used to use both Northern and Transpennine services to travel into and out of Leeds: arrive at station, buy ticket and get on whichever service arrived first. Obviously, if I was going to travel between, say Leeds and London, I would book a ticket that allowed me to travel on a single service run by one operator (like using a plane)

Nice little collection there Jay! I had thought about getting an example of the Hillhead Quarries wagon, but I wasn’t sure if that livery would’ve disappeared before WW2? How accurate to scale are Dapol’s wagons by the way? Yours look to be scale 9’ wheelbase rather than 10’ wheelbase stretched to fit. I’m after a Saxa Salt liveried salt van and while Dapol seem to be the only manufacturer who does one, it looks as if it might be a livery applied to a manufacturer’s “standard” wagon rather than a “true” scale model.

I don’t know that the weathering is too heavy, it looks to match the first wagon pretty much spot on: wouldn’t they have run about together anyway?

I might’ve been buying stuff from a certain online auction business again… While I enjoy building and detailing wagon kits, it takes time and I don’t want it to become a chore (“Now I’ve got the track down, it’ll only be eighteen more years before I can run some trains), so I’ve decided to take inspiration from the likes of @NHY 581 and @Tom F (among others) and up the wagon fleet with some r-t-r offerings - ex-PO stock in particular: While these are in pre-war livery, part of ICI’s fleet of 5-plank lime wagons (specifically those without tilt bars) was pooled at the start of the war, so these will be heavily weathered and given appropriate “P” numbers to reflect that - handily removing the fact that they are the same wagon! ‘Rails to Ashbourne’ (H Sprengler) has a wonderful photo of the sidings at Ryan & Somerville’s Works in the snow of February 1954 with a rather worn P63496 at the left of shot. Although mainly (apparently) bare wood, the very faded “Marcroft Wagons Ltd” can just be made out: quite simply, I had to model this one! The brake gear will have to be firttled with though, as the levers are stuck to the solebar rather than fitted into their mounting holes, and the axleboxes need replacing as the prototype has oil ones… Suggestions for how to change a pitch black livery to worn wood will be gratefully received by the way!

Further progress on the Shock High tonight: capping strip retainers along the top of the sides; representation of the mountings for the shock absorbing gear; cover plates and the vacuum cylinder and actuating linkage. As it turns out, my local model shop doesn’t stock 5thou plasticard (needed for the capping strip retainers), but from a quick internet search, neither does anyone else. Instead I settled for using 10thou and filing that back to about half its thickness once those tiny bits (0.5x1.0mm!) were stuck in place and the glue had dried. I’ve gone with four per side and none on the door - although the prototype photo only appears to have two, both on the right hand end of the Morton clutch side - reasoning it originally had more during my time period. I’m really pleased with the vacuum cylinder actuator: hand filed from 20thou plasticard, it’s my first recognisable part made from scratch! Obviously I should’ve made it before finishing the rest of the brake gear, but, hey ho, it’s on there now. Tarpaulin bar and chalk boards for the ends next. Oh, and the lever guard retaining strap and couplings - but then, I’ve still got those to fit to the five steel mineral wagons I did previously, so maybe I’ll do those in one go!

T’missus is exam marking so I’ve mainly been on Daddy Duty. Did manage to get some more brake gear completed on the Shock High: …and added door springs from scrap brass etch. Had to stop there as I need some 5thou plasticard for the remaining detail work, so I moved on to removing mould lines from parts to build up an LMS vacuum braked Medfit. I’m using an ancient Ratio kit for the body combined with spare chassis parts from a Parkside kit, plus some brass brake gear from Mainly Trains, so a bit of a kit-bash in the works!

Shots fired!

Super slow progress (so what else is new?) on B722295, the BR Diag. 1/040 Shock High: Buffers (by Lanarkshire Models, no connection, just satisfied customer, etc.) added and currently working on the brake gear (brass bits by 51L, again, no connection, just satisfied customer…) Brake shoe mouldings lengthened as described in Part One of Geoff Kent’s “The 4mm Wagon”, but guess who didn’t read the bit about saving and refitting the tumbler? Replacements made from 1.5mm long scraps of 10 thou - best leave them to set before drilling the hole for the cross-shaft!

You can’t even see the join!

From that photo it looks like the sharpest part of the curve is at the end of the lifting flap and therefore fully supported without the need for an extra leg as previously suggested.