Iain.d

I’m not a prolific poster on RMWeb nor am I ever likely to be. I’m reasonably displaced from the subject railway that interests me and I use this forum to keep the fire alive. I like to make models of trains as a release from work where I continually interact with dogmatic people with heavily entrenched views, therefore, online, I don’t get involved in disagreements. I have read the previous two pages with such disappointment and it makes me wonder why I should continue to come here. And for those that think this type of debate is healthy and constructive criticism? Its not. Thank you to Phil Brighton, a few posts above, for showing us his work and trying to remind us of what we are really here for. Kind regards, Iain

This is the only Kirk LNER origin carriage that I have. Originally constructed in 1991, its been slightly updated with MJT bogies and scratch built underframe, MJT vents and a few other details added. I think from previous discussion on this thread, a few hundred pages or so back, I have the change from carmine to cream at the wrong height. I think it’s too high? I’m not sure the number is right for this diagram - I have the Harris LNER Carriages book and will need to check. But I’m not going to change either now. I have plenty of Kirk Southern Region Maunsell’s (at least 20) and while they’re not a match for the Hornby or Roxey Mouldings, I’m still happy with them. I think we would be so much poorer without them. This one has also been updated with MJT bogies, scratch built underframes and so on. Both of these were rebuilt and repainted in the early 2000s. The move to Australia was not kind to much of what I had built and collected and some is still to be repaired. I was somewhat dismayed to watch the removalist’s playing catch with some of the boxes containing my railway stock between the container and the house.... Kind regards, Iain

Thank you, that's actually the seating I have, that came with the Restaurant Composite and what I recall came with the Ian Kirk kits. I didn't realise it originated with/from Coopercraft. Kind regards, Iain

For my modelling, I haven’t done as much I would have liked to in the last week or so; work was busy and took me away from home for a few days. I have managed to solder the bodies together on the LMS D1938 Restaurant Composite and the GWR A44 Driver Trailer I’m currently doing. This is the A44 Driver Trailer with roof loosely fitted. The body work is pretty much done and the next job will be to focus on the interior, then the roof and prepare the buffers and all the whitemetal bits for the underframe. The kit came with the Ratio style plastic seating but this is ‘too thick’ such that the seat edges will be visible in the compartment windows – there’s nothing wrong with the seats, its because the compartment partition to the window frame on these carriages was so narrow. The D1938 Restaurant Composite came with much narrower backed seating (same as used to come in the Ian Kirk kits) so I’ll use this instead for this coach and the Ratio stuff in the restaurant carriage. I had intended to have the roof as detachable but I think it’ll need to be glued on, its such an integral part of the coach’s strength. This is the D1938 Restaurant Composite. Its in a similar state to the A44 and the intention is work on this ones interior also. I also need to think about how it will couple up to the the adjacent carriages in the rake. I normally use a rigid hook and bar system but given the length of this carriage I'll try and engineer / cobble up something that articulates. Apologies for the photos looking so grubby. I try and clean off the flux residue and heat staining from what I’m building pretty much after every session. They did get done yesterday, but maybe I had greasy fingers before photographing them. We had take out for tea... What the images do show is that I need to trim and fettle the roofs a bit more, though this is not so readily apparent in real life. Kind regards, Iain

Many thanks for taking the time out to show these. I have the Mike King book you mention, and yes it has some superb detail in it. On seeing the image I quoted higher up this page I was able to find references to the stock / set in the book; that piqued my interest to ask for specific photos. On looking back to page 5 of this thread I realised I'd read about your coaching stock previously, and I'd seen Mick Bonwick's weathering pages - I just forgot! They are beautifully done carriages. I am looking to build a set - Roxey Mouldings do these diagram numbers - but I'll do them in early BR crimson. I intend to build a S&DJR based layout, I don't have any evidence of these non-corridor carriages working on the former S&D but there's no real reason why they couldn't have at some point. In the early 1950s a variety of ex LSWR carriages were used. I'm certainly more drawn to the more less common coaching stock than say homogenous rakes of Bulleid or BR Mk1 stock. Kind regards, Iain

Hi Tony, Some really nice work there, thank you for showing it. Some rather nice carriages too, as in the picture above. Any chance of some closer pictures and telling us a little bit more about them? Kind regards, Iain

Have spent a very pleasant morning and lunch time reflecting, reminiscing, telling tall stories and celebrating those that couldn’t be there. Lest we forget. Even managed a bit of modelling chatter! Kind regards, Iain

I have managed to get a little more done on my two current builds; a D1938 LMS Restaurant Composite and a A44 GW Driving Trailer. Both are Comet Coaches kits. I had an issue with the axle box castings for the 6 wheel bogies on the D1938, such that they had got quite bent and, as they are so fragile, attempts to rectify them caused some of the spring hangers to break off. So I took the plunge and chopped off the hanger brackets and cut new ones from 1.5mm Evergreen angle that I drilled with .6mm holes and then narrowed the side with the hole by about another .6mm, short pieces of .5mm brass wire were cut and the whitemetal springs (from the hanger brackets) were also drilled .6mm for reuse. The image is more cruel than reality. A mixture of superglue and araldite was used to attach them to the bogie sideframes … well not ‘mixed together’, rather some bits were superglued and some were araldited…. Once the new bits were on, I tidied up the original axle boxes and springs and trimmed to fit. Not perfect, but with a coat of paint, a bit of weathering and traveling at a scale 40-50mph, I don’t think anyone will notice. The carriage will traverse a 30in curve with ease. I must remember to paint the wheel backs and axles. I also managed to fit droplights, door hinges and door stops to the sides and solder up most of the underframe. The A44 GW Driving Trailer is pretty near the same state with sides done, less the horizontal handrails at the non-brake end. The ride height is fine but I have to do a little work on the bogie sideframes. The castings are beautifully crisp but about .5mm too deep/high at the top and the axlebox holes are about 1mm too low, such that they will foul the solebars. It won’t take long to tidy those up though. Using shouldered bearings rather than top hats would have been better option and allowed easier fitting of the sideframes. This week’s task, everything else permitting, is to work on the step boards on the D1938 and both carriage's ends and build and fit the bodies to the underframes. Kind regards, Iain

Hi Jack, I don’t have many books covering the southern region or the West of England services. I have had a look through the ones that I do have and there aren’t any pictures in them of formations containing Maunsell Low Window stock (that I can easily identify); there are plenty of images containing High Window stock. I had a look at David Gould’s Maunsell’s SR Steam Carriage Stock and a brief summary of his chapter on early 59ft Corridor Stock would suggest that not that many were built (compared to later high window ones). For the initial build, (1925) he states 10 x 3 coach sets, 2 x 8 coach sets, 1 x 10 coach set, 1 x 11 coach set, 10 x loose corridor brake composites, 10 x general saloons and a half dozen each of dining cars split between 1st class and 3rd class. The individual carriages were placed in formations of pre-grouping stock. Of these, the 10 x 3 coach sets and the 10 Brake Composites were destined for the West of England and the remainder were for the central section services. In 1926 and 1927 more were built but not in particularly large numbers (other than third class vehicles); four more 3 carriage sets were intended for WoE services. In his chapter summary, he says that in 1929 the 14 3 carriage sets worked mainly on the Weymouth trains and that 10 brake composites were used in the up and down Atlantic Coast Express (5 in each) from Ilfracombe, Torrington, Plymouth, Padstow and Bude. They were mixed in with SR Ironclad and ex-LSWR vehicles. The above is a very brief and condensed summary and not really doing Gould’s book justice. If you don’t have a copy it might help you; I refer to my copy regularly. Hope that helps. Iain

Hi John, A Stove R was often conveyed on the 4.37pm Bath - Templecombe having arrived in Bath in the early hours of the morning with the 12.37am Leicester - Bath parcels. At Templecombe it was marshalled into the 8.25pm Templecombe - Derby perishable service. There's a good article on this train in the Somerset & Dorset Railway Trust's Bulletin 129. Kind regards, Iain

Hi Jack, There are many pictures of Maunsell Low Window stock in Ivo Peters' books on the Somerset and Dorset, in particular the two 1950s ones and also 'An English Cross Country Railway' one. Is there anything specific you're looking for? Kind regards, Iain

I thought I’d show some of my current work, partly related to the discussion of buying online. I have had a pretty good level of success on eBay, missed some bargains mind! To find a lot of stuff I use ebay UK rather than ebay AU. One such bargain was this Comet Coaches D1938 LMS Restaurant Composite; I got it for just shy of 40GBP including wheels and postage to Australia. I was the only bidder. It’s an ‘old kit’, pre Wizard Models, (instruction sheets are dated 2006) and it’s fine other than the axle boxes, that I’m guessing someone has had a go at. Most of them are damaged and bent, the whitemetal casting being very fragile. I've made up the bogies, they're compensated with both outer axles being able to move very freely. I put tape over the truss rodding to stop them catching on things as I'm building. I’m in the throes of working out how to repair/reuse the axleboxes. I know I could buy some replacements from Wizard but they’ll take a while to get here and I don’t have the patience, and I get a satisfaction of making something damaged fit for purpose ….. I also got this Caledonian Railway 45ft Full Brake for not a lot. I don’t know much about it other than its from Worsley Works. The etchings are really good. I have rolled the sides and roof and folded up the internal strengthening ribs on the floor pan. The duckets are on the work bench as I think about how to bend those. I’m not sure of the diagram number or how long they remained in service, I’d be surprised if any made it to Nationalisation. I have no idea what the underframe looks like but I’m guessing queen posts and wire rather than angle iron. Not sure about the three big holes in the roof either; are they for vents or those little skylights that some brake’s had? I have some images and a drawing of a Caledonian brake carriage and I’ll make it a representation of that. It’s not really crucial as it's going to be finished as a departmental vehicle (to go with a 6 wheel MR crew coach and a D&S 15 ton Cowan Sheldon crane that I bought many years ago from Mr Pinnock). I built some 8ft bogie frames for it, not sure what overlays/axle boxes to use yet, maybe Fox or MR but in some images images I've seen of CR stock, the bogies look very similar to LSWR ones. I’ve also prepped the parts of a GW A44 Collett Driving Trailer. I’ve made up the bogies but not yet attached the sides as I want to make sure I’ve got the right clearances between the bottom of the solebar and the top of the bogie frame/wheels. I spent a pleasant morning rolling and bending the various components for the above 3 kits in the garage before it got too warm . If I can this week I’ll solder in all the side and door furniture on the Comet Models kits, the Caledonian Brake will be on the back burner until I can acquire some more bits and try and find out a bit more about it. Or, as summer's coming, we might just go to the beach... Kind regards, Iain

I have finally completed my latest 1980s Hornby Stanier rebuilds: a D1903 Composite Open and a D1999 Third Open – I say finally as these two seem to have taken an age. Mind you I’ve also been doing a GW Auto Trailer and an LMS Restaurant Car, a Ratio SR wagon, and a half dozen or so other little jobs…as well as working, keeping a house, getting the garden ready for summer, having a WA holiday staycation….so I can’t really complain! Here they are, pre the body being fitted back to the chassis. I have probably ‘over painted’ the interiors for what will, and can, be seen through the windows. But if I ever get around to building a layout and I end up taking pictures, sure as eggs are eggs there’ll be some part of the interior that hasn’t been done. There’s also the possibility, one day, that I might fit interior lights. D1903 Composite Open: D1999 Third Open: And complete, less corridor connectors. I think they scrub up pretty well and stand a reasonable level of scrutiny. I'm not quite satisfied how the ends mate up to the sides and roof, but that's related to the original design by Hornby and not worth the effort to rectify, but with the added detail of filler pipes, handrails, gangway suspension thingies, lamp brackets, electrical connectors and alarm gear the right impression is there. The roof ribs are reasonably pronounced, but I can live with these; in some of the images I have of these carriages they were/are quite obvious, much more so than the BR Mk1. I've also built these to run in rakes of like vehicles (bar the odd one or two) so, as they are all the same, the ribs are kind of hidden in plain view, if that makes sense. I need to cut back the bogie fixing bolts. I am quite pleased how the curtains and table lamps came out in the first class section of the D1903. The curtains are blanket ribbon (I think that’s what it’s called) glued to a little frame cut from plastic card, I then tie a couple of wraps of cotton about a third of the way up to represent the tie backs – everyone is slightly different. The little assembly is then glued to the back of the glass. Though a faff and fiddle to make I think these are better than painted on curtains. I never had much luck with the MJT ones either, I could never get them to look more than a painted casting - due to my inability rather than the product! Kind regards, Iain

I think this looks quite good, interesting to see if the stock movement will alter the placement of the track. Because of your original post the other day, on my way home from work tonight I went to our local stationery shop (Officeworks) and got a big roll of bubble wrap, thinking I might give it a go. When I got home I asked my partner what I should do with the roll I'd bought. She said 'pop it in the corner'. It took me ages. Kind regards, Iain

I think the image of the Push & Pull trailer approaching Wells Priory Street (p.51 of The Somerset & Dorset Files No.4) is a Period 2 style. I have seen a couple of images of mixed trains on the Wells branch, there's one in Ivo Peters' An English Cross Country Railway and there's another in one of the other Somerset & Dorset Files books. I'll have a look when I get chance. I think there are some in the Alan Hammond series of books too; trouble is many of these images, while great for the stories written and historical content, are of a lower quality. I bought the six Somerset & Dorset Files after they went out of print, but managed a couple of new ones from bookshops by chance and the rest through eBay and the Book Depository. There's not much pre WWII stuff in them but I think they are a great series of books, very informative, many unpublished and well captioned photographs. There is lots of detail in terms of workings on the S&D, station locations and operating procedures - plenty of images without moving trains too. Certainly worth their money - there are though, lots of images of Bulleid light pacifics... Will send / have sent you a PM. Kind regards, Iain

Thank you! But they're not mine - they are from a Comet Coaches interior etch. I just drilled the lamp hole and soldered them all up. Kind regards, Iain

Hi Stephen, Thanks for putting this forward, its some interesting research. I don't have much on the motor trains on the S&D 'branches'; there's a picture on p.51 of The Somerset & Dorset Files No.4 showing Johnson 0-4-4T 58047 hauling a single Push & Pull carriage towards Wells, I can't make out the carriage number entirely (maybe M24468). The date is suggested as 'sometime in 1951'. More interestingly, on p.53, there's an image of a four vehicle mixed train in the bay platform at Priory Road comprising a 6 wheel van, carriage, tank vehicle and box van. I've often wondered about the heritage of the carriage in this train. I've never thought it was a former LMS (or one of its usual constituent vehicles) or a LSWR type. It crossed my mind it might be a former S&D carriage. I've read they'd all been withdrawn by 1930 but would date this photo post 1930. This carriage looks very similar to the lower sketch you have produced above. The door and door vents layout look similar, there could even be a end window visible and it looks like the penultimate compartment door has been sealed up. The truss rodding attached to the solebar is quite prominent, not something I've seen on many carriages. Not sure if it would be a brake third or a motor trailer. The picture is undated but from the R.M. Casserley Collection. Kind regards, Iain

I agree there are lots of great books being published, on my trips back to the UK I usually stock up with a trip to the Titfield Bookshop; in February I got a few good books, Peter Tatlow’s Breakdown Cranes, Don Roland’s Twilight of the Goods and a couple of the District Controllers Views – to help improve my understanding of how the railways worked – to name but a few. Good job my hand baggage wasn’t weighed… I get the odd book from the Book Depository (when the postage to Australia is free) but their stock is hit and miss. What I do find disappointing is that so many of the books I would love to get are either no longer in print or attract prices well beyond my ability to justify on the second-hand market (for example Gordon Weddell’s LSWR carriage books and Keith Parkin’s Mk1 carriage book). Much of my current purchasing interest is to help with modelling. I haven’t had too many books where the captions are poor, but I have bought a couple recently where the photos have been over manipulated in some photo editing software, such that the images are really poor – I’d rather see it how it was taken in the 50s or 60s and allow for the camera/film of the day. On two, published and purchased in 2019, the binding is so poor, after the first read the pages are beginning to come loose in one and have fallen out in the other. Kind regards, Iain

An update on my builds in progress, I’m doing a former LMS D1999 TO and a D1903 CO which are coming close to completion. I’m always surprised at the ‘number of bits’ needed to complete them – I’m in two minds whether modifying 1980s RTR is an easier/better option than just going for a straight kit build. There’s not much in it, in terms of price – the cost of the donor being the main factor. Most of what I have converted is from old stuff I owned as a child (so kind of free) or I buy damaged stock from eBay; I got five Stanier’s earlier last year for the princely sum of 10.02GBP, so I couldn’t argue. Saying that the next two I’ve started are Comet kits: a WR A44 auto trailer and a LMR Restaurant Car. The D1903 will be its accompanying open seating. Here they are in bits, I didn't have enough brass tables and seat ends so I cut bits of white plastic card up, missing though are the curtains for the D1903 and few of the toilet / luggage window rails: And with the sides attached and roof detail added: For the first class tables in the D1903 I bent up a bit of .45m wire to represent the lamp base and cut some translucent speaker cable sheathing for the shades. The weather is beautiful at the moment, pushing 30, so all being well, I’ll manage to get some paint on them over the weekend. Kind regards, Iain

Hi Stephen, I have read that the tender now with the MR Compound 1000 is the former Deeley tender taken from S&D 7F 53805; this was done in 1959 when (I believe) the restoration of the Compound was undertaken (see Model Railway Journal No 202 p270 for more information). I have images of 53805 in July 1957 with a Deeley tender, no images for 1958, and with a Fowler tender by March 1959. The tenders currently behind 53808 and 53809 are (again I believe) the ones they were withdrawn with; certainly the hybrid tender behind 53808 today, looks the same as the one in photos between 1962 and 1964. I think 53809 had a 'standard' Fowler 3500 gallon type its whole life. Kind regards, Iain

Thanks for showing Al, impressive modelling. I don’t have any sort of layout at the moment but this inspires me to give something a go, even if it’s just a fancy ‘plank’ at 9ft x 2ft. kind regards Iain

Being between recently having finished a LSWR 3 carriage set and waiting for an order from Wizard Models to arrive, I decided to do a bit of finishing off of things I’d started. I do struggle having unfinished stuff lying around or too much on the go at once. First up was completing the brake gear and undergubbins of a couple of Parkside special cattle vans that I had constructed during our lockdown, I think in late March, early April. The bits supplied with the kits were quite basic so I used an etch from Mainly Trains that had some GW Dean and Churchward components on. I only used the various brake levers and the V hangers. I did start doing the handbrake linkages, but it was all too difficult; despite using different melting point solders I couldn’t get it all to stay together as I applied heat to various parts. Three hands would have been useful! It’s not perfect but a reasonable representation. The wagons will go in a train make up that won’t be shunted or marshalled, it’ll be a through train, so one would be hard pushed to notice! There’s enough on one etch for two wagons, plus heaps of different size levers; certainly enough for another day. Painted up, I think they look okay. Still need to sort the shonky transfers out though! Having done dozens of RTR carriage rebuild/refurbs so far, I now have only seven 1980s Hornby Stanier coaches left to complete and will be using a variety of Comet sides and other components. I scratch built the underframes from brass strip and 1mm angle brass and have finished the last lot. They’re now all done and waiting to be fitted out with battery boxes, dynamos etc. Kind regards, Iain

Postage does seem to becoming more of an issue out to Australia. For many items I buy from UK suppliers or eBay UK, I get them delivered to my sister's house in England and she forwards them on, bless her. What she can't send on (too big / too heavy) I pick up on my trips back. I don't think I'll be back to the UK for a while, so my purchases are massing! I'll certainly need to take full advantage of the baggage allowance next time....

Their Sans Lower nameplates state they’re suitable for some diesel and electric locos. They look similar enough to what I recall seeing in the mid eighties. Not sure how modern City of Plymouth is/was. KInd regards, Iain

I have used Narrow Planet for bespoke plates. Very good they were too! kind regard, Iain