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Hello All, the damaged hand is still troublesome, I have had the stitches out but the top layers of skin haven't knitted together properly yet, so no big railway action yet; had to give up an afternoon turn at Swanage tomorrow, let's hope hand is better for the next one on 8th Nov. One ray of hope is that the current dressing has the end of my right thumb exposed (although I cannot feel it all yet) so I am able to grip small things, so small update today with some more work on the injectors and pipework. A downside to this though, is I'm back on drying up duties at dinner time! Another arrival (as I was beginning to find seeing small stuff more difficult) is a pair of clip on magnifiers, so far I am really pleased and they only cost around £8.00 on Amazon: - Now to the model, I have shaped another plastic injector, so here are the pipes and the two injectors: - I haven't glued anything down yet, but here are a couple of shots of the mock-up as it currently looks, may do some more tinkering as required before permanently fixing everything, but here is the story so far: - Thanks for your comments and reading

Andrew To be honest I suspect that the only signal on this plan would be for departures, all the points in the shed area would be hand operated. You could either place a signal at A and have all points hand operated or possibly have a signal at B which would require the arrival/departure point to be controlled from the signalbox as well: - The B option would also need a ground signal in the arrival direction I would guess, to stop locos running through he point. I would expect the railway would go for option A, which would be the less complicated option. Hope that is helpful, only my opinion so it may get shot down by someone with more experience.

Thanks, yes it could have been, cut didn't reach any tendons or important bits, I will make sure the garage is safer in future! Thanks Chris, worst pain was when the nurse injected the local anaesthetic so that she could poke about and see what was damaged, it's OK now but I still cannot grip anything. I am hoping it will be OK for next weekend, time will tell. Popped into Swanage yesterday morning for a couple of hours on the first day of the Autumn Gala, here are a couple of pictures of the visitors, N15 777 Sir Lamiel having just arrived double headed with U Class 31806 at the Town end of platform two: - This is T9 30120 waiting to depart with the "fast" to Corfe Castle from platform one: - Thanks everybody else for your comments and ratings.

Thanks Dave, my wife is a stained glass artist, she uses the garage as her workshop and has a stock of sheet glass in racks, I tripped over my own feet and caught the corner of a sheet with my hand on the way down to the floor. Sad thing is I was rostered at Swanage tomorrow and Friday (tomorrow on the T9 and Friday on 34070), I have had to give up the turns!!

As I said above, I have been studying the photos & drawings I have and decided that the injectors are bolted to the cab front each side, here are the relevant sections from a selection of the material:- Now I have come up with this, I used a piece of plastic rod from a kit & turned it down in the Dremel with a file, I added two of the round collars left over from the Markits clack valve kit and glued it to the cab front, the wire representing the pipes fit in the collars. It still needs some fettling to get everything fitting correctly: - Things are going to slow down a lot now, as I have managed to fall & do this to my right hand (those with a delicate disposition turn away): - Very sore now (about 4 hours after the stitches were put in) and I am beginning to realise how slow one-handed typing is, thanks for reading.

Spent some time studying the drawings & photos I have found on the web and made a start on the injector pipework, the easy bit was making up the Markits clack valve kits and bending the "pipe" to run over the top of the tanks, I have tried to include the set around the tank filler (which in the photo below looks too big sadly): - Then I came to a bit of a quandary, it appears from the photos and drawings that the loco's were fitted with lifting injectors bolted to the front of the cab. Now I haven't been able to make out what shape the injector body is, so I am wondering if anybody has a more detailed photo of the tank tops and cab, all the photos I have found on the web are looking up at the loco, I really need something looking down from a bridge or taken from a platform, thanks in anticipation. Thanks for reading.

Managed to spend a couple of sessions at the modelling table over the weekend so here are a couple of pictures of the results: - Managed to fit the tank fillers, front sandbox lids, middle sandboxes & lids, steam reverser, handrail knobs (excepting the smokebox front), chimney, dome, safety valves, smokebox door handles and I have drilled the holes in the handrail supports on the tank front & the cab doors. Thanks to "Off the Rails" (Ian) for some drawings of the R1 which will help no end on the details. Thanks for reading.

Thanks Dave, love the idea of the piece of insulation as a temporary collar, will help me no end with chassis building as I have always had problems with when to permanently fix the coupling rods in place. Couple of us at Swanage were chatting about locomotives we would like to have experienced and the Z was one near the top of the list, must have been a beast; perhaps a group will do a new build one day!!

Thanks Ian, I usually spot things like that!! I'll let you know on the kind offer of the drawings.

Thanks Dave. Well and hour or so fettling has meant that the chassis now runs smoothly, I have removed the shrink wrap from the top of the pick-ups (i.e. the bit on the sharp bend over the top of the frames) and more carefully adjusting the pressure of the pick-ups on the back of the wheels, I did this by making sure they are only very lightly touching at the extremes of the axle side play. I then fitted the body only to find that the wheels under the cab were fouling the splashers and therefore shorting, more fettling required. I am going to be looking at this next session. This brings me to another question in dealing with Romford wheels and crank pins, how do people fix the coupling rods, I was considering soldering the brass collars onto the crank pin; how do others do it?

Today has been all about electrical pick-up, I have fitted the "back-scratcher" pick-ups and wired the 6-pin decoder socket. This loco has a "live" chassis therefore it technically only needs pick-ups on one side, but I have fitted pick-ups both sides. Firstly this was because I realised that the pick-ups would push all the axle side play to one side only; fitting a pick-up on the other side will balance this out. Secondly, it would make certain that the electrical pick-up was directly from the tyre rim, rather than via the axle. So here is the front pick-ups complete: - Then the non-insulated side: - Finally with the wheels fitted: - Then I soldered the 4 rear most pick-ups: - Now here is the DCC29 decoder and the 8-pin to 6-pin converter cable: - Now I have cut off the 8-pin plug and chopped off the front and rear light supply cables (white and yellow), the orange and grey are the motor supply and the red/black is supply from the track: - Here are the rear most pick-ups bent to shape: - Finally we have the whole ensemble, the red wire is connected to the insulated side of the chassis (which happens to be the right, the black is soldered to the frames, the grey and orange wires are connected to a two pin socket for the motor: - Couple of points, I used some yellow shrink wrap on the rear pick-ups as it is more flexible to the black at the front and once I had everything plugged and soldered the chassis wouldn't run smoothly, I think I have traced this to the pick-ups having too much pressure on the coupled wheels, I have to strip down the chassis again and sort it out. Otherwise the electrical circuit is good and I can run the motor using a decoder and directly from a DC track using a 6=pin blanking plug. Hope this is useful, I'll post an update when I get it running smoothly.

Quick update of the work today and some arrivals in the post. First the arrivals, Branchlines order arrived, Wainwright chimney, Wainwright steam reverser and a set of Ashford style buffers: - Markits order of clack valves, vacuum & steam heat pipes, smokebox door handle, tall ros pop safety valves and a strip of phospher-bronze for pickups: - On the actual loco I have fitted the smokebox door to the smokebox front ring and fitted that to the boiler casting, I have fitted the rear driver splasher boxes in the cab, here is a photo of the loco as it stands at the moment: -

Thanks Chris, I am afraid I am putting off the dreaded day I need to get out the paint brush as I have always disliked painting things, I have a can of Halfords etch primer in the garage ready to start, but I thought I would get the R1 (Christmas present from Mrs H) to the same stage and paint both at once. Pete, thanks for the link, I have had a read and you have shown me initially where I went wrong....... I first tried to fit the cab back sheet on the bunker top using the ledge that the instructions appeared to indicate, but as can be seen from the first picture is way too far forward: - So I then decided the bunker top was upside down, so was going to make up the cab roof with the side and back sheets, fitting that to the front cab sheet would give the position of the back. Before I started I found that measuring the cab side sheets against the roof that they needed 2mm removed (one from the front and one from the back) to make them fit. So here is the cab made up rested on the loco: - Here is a piccy of the separated parts: - Now the problem I noticed was that the back sheet was wrong, it appears that the kit came with one R1 and an H cab back sheet to fit the Wainwright cab, of course I had used the H one and it looked wrong marked in the picture below: - So now I had to swap the cab back, but at least the other work didn't need redoing, here are some more pictures of the cab with the correct back sheet, also in the first picture you can see the cylinder top/smokebox base has been soldered into position along with the front splashers, the boiler is only resting in position: - Thanks for reading, any comments, hints or help are welcomed.

So here are the first bits of the R1 build, I am using the basic SEF body kit and the SEF chassis, motor and gearbox. I have purchased some additional detailing parts from Branchlines and Markits. Unlike the H Class I am building this loco with a live chassis (the H has all wheels insulated and pickups on all wheels), this one will have the driving wheels insulated on one side only. I am going to attempt fitting back-scratcher pickups. I will be using a Gaugemaster DCC29 6-pin decoder, utilising the 8-pin to 6-pin connector cable that comes with the decoder. So far I have put together the chassis: - Fitted the brake gear:- I have added the main running plate casting to the chassis and soldered in the 8BA nuts: - I have started fitting the superstructure together, initially I soldered the bunker back to the running plate and then the cab/tank sides to these, but it turned out the boiler would not fit between the tank sides, therefore I had to unsolder the tank sides, position the boiler and tank sides together and solder the tanks to the running plate so that it would all be in the right place: - I have started to put the cab together, but I am finding that the parts do not fit together correctly and will require some modification to get them looking right. Which brings me on to a question for the forum, does anybody have a general arrangement drawing of the R1 so I can get an idea of where the back & front of the cab fit in relation to the rest of the locomotive. Thanks for reading, hopefully my ramblings are useful.

Another little update, but the execution took ages!! I have fitted the lamp brackets on the bunker back, they took ages to position and get them in line, hopefully once painted the contrast will be better and they will be more obvious. I have now also started on the SEF R1 Class 0-6-0T, I will post some pictures later; I was wondering how to change the title of the topic or should I start a new topic?

Been a long summer, but with the recent rain I have been thinking about this model again, spent some time fitting the front lamp irons to the smokebox and running plate, I think I have the middle ones at about the right hieght: - I will do the back next.

Thanks Ray, the bits have all arrived: - This is the prospective recipient of the drive, although it doesn't look very different I have chopped over 40mm off the length of the deck: -

Well, this evening I have taken the plunge and purchased the bits, after watching this thread for about a year now. I am going to be using a Dapol (ex. Airfix) turntable that I have cut down so it is around 65' (rather than the 75' as molded), the final cost was a bit more than shown below (about £95), hopefully this will get me going to finish the turntable and start the proposed layout, but more of that later; for now I will be waiting for Mr Postman to drop the parcels off at the door.

Jim, below I have posted a picture of the left overs from the H class chassis spacer etch, as you can see there are additional spacers for both EM and P4, the 5 pieces on the right hand end are for EM and the line above the gap are for P4. As far as space in the splashers (mentioned by John) for EM or P4 I cannot say: -

Nige Thanks, I am using the Mashima motor and gearbox supplied by SE Finecast, I cannot remember which size motor it is.

Well done with 4144, good to see her running again. I recently found this buried in a box of photos showing her in the last running period with Hawksworth livery. It is one of the "official" Railway Experience Day shots of the group, I am afraid I don't have a date, but it must have been sometime between 2000 and 2005: -

Another couple of hours fiddling with bits of the H, did a bit yesterday and this afternoon, mostly fixing bits that I had already fettled. First the buffer stocks are soldered on, I wanted to solder these as they will come under a bit more stress that other parts, I am using the Kean Maygib Ashford loco buffers that I bought from Branchlines. First I tinned the two parts with low melt solder: - Then using tweezers I tacked (just got it to stick with a quick touch of the iron) the buffer to the beam: - Then I turned the body over and pressed the buffer on the work bench whilst applying the soldering iron to the bit marked on the inset making sure the iron was touching both the buffer bean and the buffer, you will feel the solder melt & the part slot together. At this point remove the iron and let the solder cool and solidify before moving: - The read buffers were fitted in a similar way: - Then I turned to the boiler top to fit the chimney, dome and safety valves, these are Branchlines parts, here is a shot showing the pilot holes I did earlier opened up to take the spigot on the bottom of the parts (I had already glued the chimney on at this point): - Now with the dome attached: - Finally the safety valves, I had to trim back the Ramsbottom handle back a bit as it fouled the cab front. I decided to glue these parts on as the amount of heat needed to get the solder to flow on to the large brass castings would be quite a lot: - Lastly I added the smokebox door to the ensemble, starting to look a bit more like a loco now: - Hopefully it all make sense, not many parts to fit now and the job of painting will be begin. One other little job that needs looking at is the bogie pivot, I have realised that the with the current setup the loco will only go around very gentle curves, I need get a bit more side movement on the bogie so using inspiration from DLT's thread about his SR locos (specifically the S15) I am going to attempt to add some side control springing. That's all for now, happy modelling.

Some more progress to report on this dark & dismal morning in Dorset, spent an hour or so last evening doing this. Now I purchased the Markits clack replacements as they looked sharper than the white-metal casting and I was inspired whilst reading DLT's thread DLT's SR Locos - A "Black-Motor" for Torrington (the bit about the S15) as the made up parts look really good. Little did I realise that actually making them is like herding cats (i.e. nearly impossible); the results are acceptable, but getting there was traumatic! I may well superglue any future ones. Anyway, I chose to use these parts from the kit (it comes with various options giving slight variations): - On the first one I soldered the square piece and the barrel like piece to the copper wire, then attempted to solder on the bit that goes into the boiler, this made it difficult to get the pieces at the right angle to each other. The second one I soldered the bit that goes into the boiler and the barrel like piece together onto the piece of wire and then attempted to solder on the square piece. In both cases when I came to soldering the last piece on the other three moved or fell apart, here is a couple of pictures of the second attempt: - In the end I got to here: - Before any body says anything the set in the pipe goes the wrong way, on the real locomotive the pipes set outwards before going through the running plate, mine set inwards, I will think about correcting this but for now this is what they look like on the model: - As always, hope this is interesting, any help/guidance/comments (positive or negative) are most welcome.

Haven't been able to sit at the modelling table most of the holiday until Friday afternoon when I managed to solder a couple of bits on to the body, then I knocked over the liquid flux and had to mop up the mess!! Firstly the roof vent and the whistle have been fixed to the cab roof, the whistle is actually a turned brass one from Markits which is a Urie type, but I like it better than the white-metal cast one: - Next we have the cylinder lubricators (little bits in the bottom of the smoke box), the hand rail knobs and the steam reverser cylinders (I am afraid that the depth of field didn't allow for it all to be in focus!): - Then the weekend has been "playing" with 12" to the foot trains, Saturday was a firing turn on 30053 and Sunday was a trip to Norden with this beasty: -

Castle Picking up on your information about Trojan reminded me that I had some photos of the restoration of the locomotive, Trojan's original boiler was in a sorry state so a donor boiler was used (I think it came from a greenhouse where is had been used for heating) to supply the inner firebox and part of the barrel, here is a shot of the barrel after the two parts had been bolted together ready for riveting: - The barrel suspended over the pit whilst being riveted: - The new outer firebox being put together: - New throat-plate being fitted: - Lastly a shot of the loco in the lifting shop at Didcot minus the boiler: - These were taken between Sept 2000 and Jan 2001, hope they are of interest; sorry to highjack your thread with my old photos.