Thunderforge

Sadly the Flux Capacitor Unit never saw its full potential in helping the train stick to it’s timetable because nothing on the East Coast Main Line ever made it to eighty eight miles an hour after nationalisation...

I thought the brake had to go last in case of a breakaway, although passenger stock should all be air-braked anyway. And if the last carriage was non-brake and became uncoupled there would be no railway staff on board to manage the situation...

Please forgive what is probably a daft question, but I’m going to have to ask... Your little passenger train consists of an engine, a first/third carriage and a brake third, and it has wound its way through the home counties and into your very own branch terminus. Passengers out, passengers in, engine does a run around and maybe even used your turntable so it’s facing the right way, the guard is just about to blow his whistle when you realise the brake end is right next to the loco, and the ‘normal’ carriage is at the back. That’s a bit odd isn’t it? So does the train leave anyway or do you bump the passengers around and shunt the carriages into the reverse order? And then the brake carriage is the wrong way round, so do you put that on the turntable? I’ve never seen a carriage on a turntable... and by then some of the passengers have been sick from the motion, it’s all too much. I’ve chickened out and I’m making TWO brake thirds, just so I don’t have to deal with the problem, so tell me good people, how was it really done? And no the answer isn’t a DMU! :-P

I loved those shows he created, so innocent and British it all is. It would have been amazing to work on one of those shows, where so much of it was created from everyday materials and special effects were crinkly plastic and tinfoil. Deepest respect, Karl

If you’re downloading programs you might want to also try Inkscape, which is a free vector program. It might be of use if you’re drawing up plans for buildings, wagons etc. It’s basically a free version of Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, obviously cut down and limited, but useful for a layman. I use the latest version of Photoshop at work but I’ve used Gimp at home and to be honest it depends what you want to do with it. Gimp doesn’t use layers, but a lot of the tone/colour/level functions are similar, you could still use it to join some photos together to make a printable back-scene for example!

Had to google that one! A very ... unusual engine. It’s really impressive, in both first build and rebuilt build, I’ll keep an eye on your thread LNWR18901910.

I think Edward was pulling them on the inside back cover of the early books, and yes most of the non-express carriages were peeling-varnish teak. Extra merit points for knowing the name of Gordon's Express...?

No. 5 is looking really good, especially with those four wheel coaches! Do you remember these from the book series?

This isn't the BR era you know! It's company policy to give all carriages a thorough spit and polish before they leave the station! Well, the first class ones anyway...

I just feel sorry for the chap who accidentally uses it as a trouser press...

Here’s a quick and cheeky way of making a Pre-Grouping company, pick any two names from this site and Bob’s your uncle! http://www.inkalicious.com/elizabethan.html It’s an ‘Elizabethan sounding town name generator’ which will give you such beauties as; The Cheddarsfield & Folihearst Railway Co. Great Barberschase and Saltferry Tramway Fluddcourse Light Railway Foliden & Coggscleak Mining Cooperative Have fun!

Whoa, what an amazing railway! The textures are really well done, the peeling paint on the door, the bricks, the cobbles, all of it. I’ll follow this with interest!

Someone will sell in the UK, nature abhors a vacuum!

Bucket with a coiled up hosepipe shoved in it? You know the way hosepipes uncoil themselves and get everywhere... Of course you'd have to have something else on the other side too. Maybe a length of chain or rope hanging from the handrail, y'know, conveniently in the right place. The funnel conversion really makes the engine stand apart. I've seen so many repaints of this loco (I've done it myself) and your eye can't help but paint in the Caledonian blue livery or 'SmOkEY J0E' scrawled on the side, but yours actually looks like a different engine!

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm new to all this you see. Mostly I want to have a go at working in brass without buying a kit and ruining it. I thought if I could buy a pattern I could cut out the shapes and re-cut anything I b*gger up. I've been scratch-building wagons from aluminium as a bit of fun, but with rather a steep learning curve. Perhaps I should look at some books on brass building for 'best practice' techniques. Again, thanks for the response, Thunderforge Edit: as a graphic designer (and a musician!) I appreciate the work that goes into producing the highly detailed items available and certainly think the skilled craftsmen should be paid for the work they do.

Nice! Is that a cut down funnel or replacement?

Yes, precisely. I realise it wouldn’t make much sense from a business point of view, but there are a lot of people out there who just want to promote the hobby, downloadable card kits and such. It may well be a non starter, but you never know unless you ask! :-)

It mentioned it on the Hornby site I’m afraid. I grew up with Thomas, and now my two and four year olds watch it. They are much too young to play with Hornby stuff but we have tonnes of Take-N-Play and Trackmaster which suits their age group much better. By the time they’re old enough to understand fishplates and DC wiring and what to do when the blasted engine stalls for the umpteenth time, they’ll be well past Thomas and into more grown up things like er, Pokemon Go and memes.

There are a hundred makers of brass kits out there, but does anyone (company or individual) sell the patterns for a kit without the actual brass? Strange question I know, but in the same way you can buy and download 3D designs for home printing, I wondered if anyone did a similar thing with brass? Obviously you would need all the castings and wheels, and it probably wouldn’t allow for etched detailing... I’m new to all this so forgive me if it’s a daft question! Cheers in advance, Thunderforge

I dug out my lightbox earlier and took some better pics. Made a coal dock from a bit of wood and self printed brick paper. Going to add a water tower to it at some point. Also made a signal, which needs a ball/point top thingy and a ladder. The signal is made of card, at the bottom is a coin with a nail facing up through the signal post. And finally a load of forage under a tarpaulin, which also seems far too green, I imagine a load of cut grass would go hay coloured very quickly. It’s a lump of synthetic fur rolled up and painted, the tarp is cotton painted with several coats of pva. Edit: All the bits in these pics apart from the wheels of the wagon and the track have been spare/reclaimed/blagged material, not bad for O gauge eh?

I wanted to post my little work in progress, but it’s all scratch built so wouldn’t count... and then I remembered, the wheels are from an old Smokey Joe! Project is stalled for a moment while I’m waiting for a disc cutter to arrive. This is an awesome thread by the way, very inspiring and clever conversions in here.

Hi Luke, that wagon looks good painted, hand painted lettering is something I struggle with, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but a good layer of dirt helps. My method of painting comes from war-gaming, so I’d recommend a black wash which should fill all the gaps where the planks meet. Then dry brush some brown and a dash of grey/green. Except of course if you want clean, well maintained wagons! So, what will the load be?

It’s amazing what a difference a bit of shrubbery makes. I like the idea of using sandpaper for ground texture, what grade did you use? I imagine it would be lighter than gluing on ballast across the same area, and less likely to flake off. On a small layout like this having it dead flat would be fine, but on a bigger area I wonder if you could pack it up with card for subtle contours? Maybe moistening the paper to give it some give? Hmm, I’ll have to experiment when I start my layout. :-)

That's a great little wagon! :-)

Hi Bill, thanks for the interest. I started as a bit of a test to see what I could make and it’s exceeded my expectations so far! I’ve worked for litho printers for years and they’ve always been happy to let people have a few old plates, especially if it’s for something unusual. If you need more it’s worth asking, and likely to be available in a few different thicknesses. All the best, TF