Bedlington North

I've got a failed motor from one of my Bachmann 08s. It has the flywheel and worm still attached and in good condition. Yours for free if you pm me your address....

Shawplan sell etched brass insert panels for the headcode area to suit the various arrangements of marker lights that Class 47s wore. I think the ones that suit the loco you have pictured are EEDP47-04 Headcode Panel Blanking Plate for White Marker Lights. You will have to glaze the actual lenses yourself though with those parts.

http://www.shawplan.com/fittings.htm

2 minutes ago, Western Aviator said:

I once heard someone talking about Shilbottle and how the local youths deface the road signs by adding a short horizontal line to the first “l” to make it into a “t” (pictures online confirm this to be true). Apparently Shilbottle is twinned with Scheißeflasche in Germany and Bouteille de Merde in France.

The Shilbottle signs on the A1 are quite regularly defaced.

Various views of a DMU seat cast in PU. As it came out of the mould, no clean up. 

I have successfully cast PU resin seats for 4mm scale DMUs, but no pics at the moment as I'm at work and the seats are at home. The mould was a deep, blind cavity with undercuts which should theoretically be prone to bubbles, but they were good. I will shove a pic or 2 on later.

I have found that the temperature resistant silicon needed to make the mould and the whitemetal are more costly that the equivalents used in resin casting - plus you need a way to safely melt the metal.

32 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

I bow to your better knowledge.

 

Is polyurethane less susceptible to air entrapment?

It is sold as a casting resin unlike polyester and is water-thin. One tip I like is to put the filled mould on a washing machine on spin cycle. It helps to encourage any air bubbles out of crevasses.

Also painting a thin coat of resin into the mould where possible. I've not needed to do that though.

I resin cast my own exhaust stacks for my Hurricane model with no air bubbles.

5 hours ago, leopardml2341 said:

I'd be interested too please

 

Just a thought, I've successfully used two-part car body filler 'pressed' into a mould before now. That tends to eliminate bubbles and is essentially the same polyester type material.

 

Rgds,

Except most resin casting is done with polyurethane and not polyester resin!

Good work on the models. It does show that the Airfix 31 body is still worth considering for modelling purposes. The only small issue that is immediately wrong with it for me is the exhaust ports which were modelled after the ports fitted when the full-size were powered by Mirrlees engines. 

A1 models of Doncaster occasionally offer an etch of 6 rectangular exhaust ports which can be used to correct this error.

They have an Ebay account which can be found by searching on their name as a seller.

I have no connection with them, except as a customer.

On 19/01/2021 at 18:33, jamie92208 said:

Yes in 68 things were quite bleak.  I actually stopped trainspotting for 3 years I was so disheartened after steam finished as we had steam through Settle till the very end.  However quite a few dreams have been fulfilled.   Who would have thought that I would be able to ride the first portion of the Waverley route or see a Big Boy in steam, so dreams can come true.

 

Anyway back in 2014 we are still high in the Welsh valleys.  It's still 23rd April (My eldest's birthday). After Aberdare and a filling sandwich we went back down to Pontypool.

And the footbridge gave a good view up the valley with the first of the junctions visible behind the pacer.

 

 

 

I'm sure this is Pontypridd, not Pontypool. 

I thought Cameron Bridge, despite the reversed image. It's too distinctive! Sadly too slow to get in first.

I was going to suggest it may have been Inverkeithing.

I'm not arguing with you.

But, if I was in Hornby's position and knew I could leverage my old toolings to make a batch of models to sell directly and sell out with days then I'd take that money every time.

It wasn't so long ago that some of their other items like the Captain Tom Moore Class 66 or the Rocket were marketed as pre-order via retailers. That didn't seem to pan out too well as it seemed that they were both over-subscribed with orders AND short supplied with models (in the case of the Rocket).

They did respond to the demand for the Tom Moore 66 by making more, so perhaps all is not lost and they will make more runs of the models in question here to be made available to retailers. As a company they do need more quick wins to raise cash, so cut them a bit of slack, as the alternative is they run out of cash....

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

One reason for the presence of a brake van is if there was a lengthy propelling move at the destination. Akeman St, between Aylesbury and Bletchley being one such.

 

While true, I was only responding to the part of Darius's question about the wagons being air or vacuum braked.

An alternative viewpoint to that is that Hornby have made something popular which has sold out and will no doubt help their profitability to be able to continue developing new models. I'm sure they will be as delighted as you are frustrated.

13 hours ago, Darius43 said:

I have fitted the wagons with Hunt Couplings - magnetic couplings from West Hill Wagon Works.  They work quite well but do have an odd “steam-punkish” appearance at the end of a wagon.

 

I have seen pictures of PWA trains with and without brake vans.  Did these wagons need brake vans or were they air or vacuum braked?
 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

The clue is in the TOPS code: the last letter specifically. If it's an "A" then air brakes, a "V" then vac brakes, "O" is unbraked and "W" is vac braked but fitted with a through air pipe.

During my first year at First school in Newcastle in 1981, we went on a school trip that took us to Blyth harbour. We visited an RNLI lifeboat that was moored near Bates Staithes and we watched Cresswell tieing up to her moorings as well as wagons being shunted on the West Staith. I was only mildly interested at the time, whereas now I would love to  be able to go back in time to that day and take it all in! It still seems a slightly odd place for a school trip.

So J8263 has evoked lots of memories for me of that day!

I'd prefer to see if the real model in front of my eyes reminds me of a peak than comparing a photo of a model with a photo of the real thing. 

In any case it's pointless chasing perfection ins shape and form of a 4mm scale model. It's just not possible to tool every subtle shape or surface and also some detail is either too soft (ie you can hardly see it on the model) so you either leave it off or emphasise it or when you scale it down people say it's overdone. Either way, you will get a kicking on this forum...

I saw both the Bachmann and Heljan prototypes on the same day and, yes, there are small differences between them which just proves my point. One company put some details on, the other left some off. The important thing as far as I'm concerned is that they can easily sit next to each other on the layout. I have happily ordered a 45/0 from one manufacturer and a 45/1 from the other.

I would have though it was relatively simple to use at least one diode in the AC supply to the CDU to give half-wave rectification. At least....

4 hours ago, Global said:

Looking at the new Bachmann 45s they seem to have captured the look of the Peaks in a way Heljan clearly cannot.

 

Although lacking some of the extra details of the Heljan, and possibly dcc functionality, if you want a Peak that looks like a Peak it’s clearly the better option. After all you can always add a few extra pipes to the Bachmann if you want to, but you can’t change the deformed shape of the Heljan! 

Have you actually seen the Heljan model in real life? I saw the prototypes on the Heljan stand at the Glasgow exhibition in 2019 and they definitely captured the Peak look for me.

16 minutes ago, melmerby said:

No

That's the 1976 Green Market off Clayton Street, closed in 2007.

There used to be a good Greggs in there, when they used to be a proper baker.

When it closed for redevelopment a new (smaller) Green Market was built with entrances in High Friars and Nelson Street, the entrance in Nelson Street is still there but unused, since it closed some years back.

https://goo.gl/maps/KAA3MNF8qM2P6aff9

 

EDIT

Found this:

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/historic-greenmarket-set-close-good-1418623

 

 

As I said...

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Didn't there used to be a small "market" area in the revamped Eldon Square called Green Market with an entrance off Nelson St at Grainger St. end?

You could go through it to High Friars IIRC.

I think you might be thinking of the Green Market in the incarnation of the Eldon Square shopping centre that was built in the late 1970s. That part has now been demolished and redeveloped and there is no market only shops. Hence why I was asking John if he perhaps means the Grainger Market.

14 hours ago, johndon said:

 

I remember them all, the guy who ran Northumbria Models is still (at least until the virus hit) a regular at model railway shows in the North East.  There is a small model shop open now in the Green Market so Newcastle does still have one 'proper' model shop.  Fenwick still has a selection of Hornby, Bachmann, Scalextric and a few plastic kits.

 

John

  

I thought the Green Market was gone now after the redevelopment of Eldon Square? Are you meaning the Grainger Market? 

And Replica Railways list some 6mm square RfD logos for wagons:

http://www.replicarailways.co.uk/transfers/oo-gauge

Their product code 41018.

Here are some panel transfers from fox that I have used in the past. They come with stencil type individual letters for the wagon TOPS code which are fiddly but look fine when covered in weathering grot:

https://fox-transfers.co.uk/freight-vehicle-stencilled-data-panels-white-clear