Tortuga

Eh, we’ve all been there! (and anyone who says otherwise, is a liar!)

A quick look through the whole book seems to suggest that all vans built by the big four had retaining stays on the lever guard, but not vans from their constituent companies. Exceptions seem to be Grain Vans, Bulk Powder Hoppers, SR Cattle Wagons and BR Cattle Wagons based on SR designs. I hope this helps and that it doesn’t make me seem like some kind of rivet-counting obsessive! If it does make me sound a bit rivet-county, fitting the retaining stays, though fiddly, does make the brake levers and guards much less susceptible to getting damaged/knocked off: even a 1mm wide strip of 10 thou plasticard works - I tried it out on a couple of my mineral wagons with the levers and guards from the kit and they resisted coming free quite well once I needed to remove them in order to fit the etched parts!

Hmm. From a quick look at the GWR Vans in Part 4 of The Acquired Wagons of British Railways by David Larkin it does seem that the retaining strap is absent on two out of the five lever guards that are visible on the four V6 Iron Minks that are pictured (one van clearly has a strap on the other side to that photographed). In both cases where the strap is absent, the guard itself is of a very rounded, toothed type and is on the same side as the brake shoes. All the vans pictured with a “pin down” or a more square, toothed (as in your photo) guard have the retaining strap. Maybe the very rounded, toothed guard was an early GW pattern and the requirement for the retaining strap came in with the 1923 RCH specification, with the earlier guards being replaced during overhaul?

That’s the problem with the classic three quarter view - at that angle you’re looking straight along the length of the retaining strap which is hidden behind the lever guard!

I’ve tried to highlight in red: Not the best photo, I’m afraid, and of a Grammys rather than a Mink - on this wagon the lever guard is positioned just to the left of the right hand spring mount, just add the lie to what I said about the position of the lever guard!

For future reference, the brake lever guard should be roughly between the right hand spring mount and the right hand diagonal of the W iron, but (as always) check with a photo. One other thing that’ll help is the addition of the retaining strap between the W iron and the bottom end of the lever guard - I’ve still to add these to my wagon builds, but I intend to use some scrap brass from the 51L etch filed and bent to shape.

I don’t see why you couldn’t do a book Rob. I’d say the majority of your posts - particularly those detailing your methods - in this thread already read like paragraphs from Martyn Welch’s “The Art of Weathering” and Geoff Kent’s “The 4mm Wagon” series. I’m not saying the book is already written, but probably most of it could be pulled from here and plenty of colour photos could bulk it out nicely. I’d definitely buy a copy, but more probably two - one to keep nice for the “library” shelf and the other with the spine cut off and the pages laminated and put in a ring binder for the workbench. Where do I sign up?

Another post bookmarked. Nice and clearly explained and the photo of materials used will be expanding my shopping list!

Very useful and well explained. Settled on “Craftsmanship/Clever” as I can’t give more than one thingy.

At least it wasn’t too hard to sort out?

I was thinking Reservoir Sheep

(Probably a daft question, but…) Does the copper wrap around the ends or sides of the sleepers so the top and bottom would be electrically live? I’ve read it’s an idea to gap the top and bottom surface so as not to introduce a short, but as I’ve only cut sleepers from copper clad sheet, I can’t see how the top and bottom surfaces would be electrically connected to each other. (I had an idea to potentially feed the rails via brass chairs soldered to the top of a copper clad sleeper with droppers soldered to the bottom)

The reservoir must be dry for that lot to have been needed! Those walls look a pretty good representation of Derbyshire Drystone - I’ve probably asked before, but could you remind me where they’re from?

And we’re back in position! (Well, the corner board is anyway)

Once rain stopped play in the garden, permission was granted by T’Missus to spend a couple of hours on the layout. In that time I managed to mark up and cut out the third end for the ‘south’ baseboard and bore all three for alignment dowels and securing bolts. Why do I need three ends rather than the normal two you ask? The ‘south’ board attaches to the permanently attached corner board with the fiddle yard joining on to that. However (if I ever get to the point where it’s possible), I intend to exhibit Alsop and in this case the fiddle yard will attach directly to the ‘south’ board, so I need two ends that match the profile of the end of the ‘south’ board.

…but that would mean it was a 100% accurate collapsed barn!

Thanks to a combination of a parental visit halting wardrobe construction and inclement weather curtailing gardening activities, I’ve managed a small amount of progress on the layout. The “permanently fixed” corner board has been removed and the framework altered to narrow the side that will attach to the fiddle yard, from 610mm (too wide) to 400mm (the width of the fiddle yard board). While I was at it, I’ve bitten the bullet and changed the profile of the baseboard end, as it was becoming increasingly apparent that the profile I’d originally cut didn’t remotely resemble the real thing when compared with photos from the period and the site visit (last April). South of the station, the line runs in a cutting through a gently sloping hill rather than the flat ground I’d (perhaps stupidly) assumed originally: The northeast side of the cutting has a distinct rock face with a virtually vertical lower section, a steeply inclined middle section and a much gentler sloped upper section - more obvious in period photos, but still (just!) visible today: - while the southwest side is a more vegetated, yet still quite inclined, slope. Rather than jumping straight in with set-square and jigsaw, I drew out the profile full size to see how it would look first: Then, I transferred it to a piece of 9mm ply and cut it out: Original board end at the top, new one at the bottom. I think the new profile better hints at the natural slope of the hill, as well as incorporating the different slopes of the northeast face - while incidentally allowing room for the Down Starter signal!

What is the origin of the ‘Flatiron’ nickname please? It’s a lovely model, though the prototype looks… odd… to my eye - the smoke box is far forward, those tanks are enormous, the drivers are widely spaced and the bunker is huge! It almost seems to ‘work’, but then doesn’t for some reason!

Would that be the dreaded Derbyshire drystone walling similar to this?

Found these photos I took of a water tender at the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway in the yard at Wirksworth. Don’t know if they’re of any help to you?

Good work Jay! No.1279 definitely had axle guard tie rods as do the ones in your photos above, but your models are missing them - ignore me if they are still to do!

“It was at this point when Ferry began to suspect Alex knew something about the whereabouts of his design notes after all…”

I’d guess they were. Oddly all the photos they appear in show them to be (what I believe is) the 1881 Crewe pattern LNWR rotating head type, while the only photo I’ve seen that shows the two in the drawing suggests they are 1941 LMS standard pattern. Maybe the LMS decided to install additional signalling and replaced the originals with their pattern and reused the 1881 ones in the new position. I figured the drawing was prior to my period - Tissington lost the diamond crossing and the track layout changed to be similar to that at Alsop at some point prior to the 1950s, probably earlier.

Thanks Geraint! That’s confirmed what moves the two disc signals controlled. Intriguing that the two ground signals inside the loop are not shown: were they installed after the diagram was drawn?

Please do. I’m not an expert on tenders by any means, but I’m fairly certain one of the Foxline books mentioned that some of the water carriers were water tanks on old tender underframes rather than repurposed tenders: is that an example in the photo?