London cambrian

Hi, would volunteer, but all this 5 inch stuff makes regular stuff a bit difficult! Any, nothing really near, got battlefield line, and severn valley but there still 20 miles+. Nah i like running the 5 inch boxes, The greystones one is pretty good, the levers are miniature replicas and the signals all give a satisfying club. Also, far more action than a real preserved railway! Much more laid back as well! You can leave the box to supervise shunting in the knowledge nothing is likely to go wrong because its a short distance and nobodys in a rush and others can take over easily. Theres another box i ran back in december, over in cambridgeshire, all the lever frames are Ex London transport (courtesy of my signaller friend, the one with the other metrovick) That we had bell codes between boxes going, which reminded me of the Pendennis railway i occasionaly helped with, massive 00 system with interlocking signals, timetable working and bell codes. Great fun. Featured in RM the othe year. Cheers, Mark

Hi paul cheers for that. I never met Gordon Dando but i met his son glyn a few times. he was good friend with my dad for a while, and my grandfather, (peter gardner, chief engineer at frimley if you know him, everyone else seems to!) knew Gordon well, through 2 1/2 gauge society (gauge 3 to the modellers on here! ) and actually knew nigel through that route as well! Its a small world we live in! Will enjoy Gilling, esepcially station pilot duty. Secretly think doug just wants to have a good look at the engine on radiocontrol, especially as he recently confessed to finding LT fascinating! Also rumours of double heading on radio control with mike Aherne, should be fun! Exams not over yet, last day on friday but got another 5 weeks till exams are over, all 10 of them! Wish me luck, gilling will be a welcome break! Cheers paul and all Mark

yeah great fun. beginning to like tuning the signal boxes as much as shunting. off up to gilling this weekend, my first mainline rally, word is we have station pilot duties and some local passenger turns. perhaps a pick up or k class freight turn as well. should be fun, will put pics up next week

Hi all. Exam revision has put paid to a large amount of the model engineering, that and lack of laser cut components, but that hasnt stopped me going out and playing trains! The greystones railway is a private railway near bath, built into a hillside. its featured on here before but not this year. The owner has alarge collection of engine and wagons but they were hardly needed because we were so full! The roster, 2 metrovicks, which we bought because we had given the other an overhaul (nightmare that was!), No 18 Michael faraday (spent most of the time on yard pilot duty) and no 17 Florence Nightingale (friends who we overhauled) 2 LSWR 02s in BR black, i know three people with one in that livery. These two are numbers 17 and 27 i think, seaview and Merstone. 1 GWR manor, that had come from kent, with a large amount of wagons 1 Highland railway loch class, a beautiful model, little light on its feet, but when put on our teak coaxhes, looked stunning 1 LNER K1 mogul, in black, a regular engine but the owner had come from lincolneshire and bough 20 wagons with him, including 6 oil tankers A rather burbly BR green western A rather worn black five which had not been run in something like 30 years, but in its worn livery and Kempenfelts chalk markings, looked rather 1968esque Over two days, other engines visited. Galloping gertie, the GWR ex M&SWJR mogul, also known as galloping alice. A very nice, but a little shiny Adams Radial tank in SR green A 1361 GWR saddletank, unusually, because we dont allow these in GL5, a German railways Harz railway system mallet tank, again an engine that hadne been run in a while. Two metrovicks in our boot, an unusual site indeed. We arrived to see the railway up and running on saturday, so unloaded just the car, the usual 8 wagons but this time two locos. having got both running, and found the track was really swamped, the coaches remained away till later in the day. We spent a day mostly running freight turns, and taking a shunting turn in the yard. We got the coaches out about 3 and they had a few runs round, before we packed up about 5. All the engines staying overnight and wagons and coaches packed into the garage and after more railway talk, we went down the puba and 14 of us whiled away the evening talking of all things railway! The black five complete with 1968 style chalk messages of Dont let me die, the end and a drawn BR logo, carefully copied on by Kempenfelt Second day dawned and i having received a rude 6 am wake up call from this little ######, (yes the monty python sketch did spring to mind, it'll be an ex parrot, it will cease to be!) breakfast duly eaten all the stock was pulled out the garage, with the metrovick acting as pilot, wagons taken to the yard and coaches inot the station. Our loco spent most of the day in the yard that day, a more prototypical operation was run, pick up feeights organised, local passenger turns organise, including one with a milk portion of two tankers, mineral trains and an oils train. I spent most of the morning working the box. the aforementioned loch, being light on its feet presented an operation difficulty considering the gradient on the line. The manor took charge of the minerals, with one 02 on the local passenger. the Black 5 and K1 took a back seat until the lunch, when we reversed running direction and the K1 took over from the manor, with the Loch running tender first. We packed up and left about 4 pm, but I understand that they ran into the evening, not packing up till late, and ran the monday as well, though the weather was nowhere near as good. A request was put in by the owner, and depsite being a riding truck, our milk van was coupled into the train, their feeling was that it looked appropriately victorian! I'm surprised the owner let me shoot this one, he would never suffer the indignity of being rescued buy an electric! The harz tank, another shelf rescue i think. Made a wonderful sound though! That was two weeks ago, bit of a delay, last weekend went to the Mid hants to watch the ful size 02 which was over from IoW, and had a good chat to the owner of the third 5 inch 02. Right, cheers Mark

Hi all You may have noticed that the last week has probably been rather damp underfoot. But last weekend, for a few glorious hours it wasnt too bad. Our first proper run of the year (yes i know its april already!) saw us go down to swindon track, in coate water country park. Each year they hold two 5 inch open days for just 5 inch gauge engines, we've been along to a few now, and each time taken a load of wagons. We meet up with a few mates from the area and have a bit of a run. The track is about 7/8 km long, includes 3 road station, station by pass, diamond crossings and a balloon loop flyover sort of thing, as well as a small yard where we can shunt our wagons. three of us turned up this time, with another old friend from basingstoke bringing some more wagons. While it wasnt as well populated as last year (we had 31 wagons and 4 coaches) with only 17 wagons, and three engines, it did provide us with many hours of entertainment! It was also only the second run, and the first long distance run of my recently completed rail wagons. All the wagons performed faultlessly, which is rarity, with all the wheelsets having been replaced, we are now happy! Yes i'm seeing double too. Unfortunately we spent most of the day trying to get a friends metrovick to work. Basically it been around the block a few time and done many amile and is a little tired. we recently fitted radio ncontrol to it, but that system didnt seem to be working, so we had bit of a fiddle, got it working, and it now runs again. however it is now sitting on our workshop floor awaiting a rewire, and some remedial work, but the last run or so of the day we double headed the two radio control engine at the head of a full train of wagons. The other big thing goin on is the iminent completetion of the last two coaches. The frames are now painted, battery boxes, vacum cylinders and dynamos are all on. As is all the drawgear. Currently the last bits of the bogies are being painted or chemically blacked. unfortunately the damp weather has made much painting all but impossible, so has significantly delayed progress. This time last year we had got the last two running. but it wasnt raining then! The biggest obstacle to taking them out down to a track open day next weekend down in bath is th trailer. Because we now have 5, we dont have enough space in the trailer to carry them, so we are havng to buiild a double stacking rack for them. the weather is hampering the build currently, but i thought i'd give you a few shots of the five together, just to illustrate the size. Yes unfortunately that is my living room! Its 10-11metre long, from wall to conservatory door, and the coaches literally just fit in. The plan is to drive from the back by Radio control but really we canbarely see the front of the train from the back! So, might get another post up later reveal the next project. Cheers all, on this wet and windy afternoon. Mark

re S scale stuff. it would well be Leslie Beviss-smith. he's part of (where I don't know) the MRC but is also the met railway coordinator for the hrms. I spoke with him several times researching the met twin rail wagons, and met him at last years Acton open day. he was working on some cutting sides for an S scale model of the area around farringdon and vine street goods, including met cammell back locos. anyone know how that's getting along? ready for met 150? cheers Mark

sounds good Robert. Brass is notoriously bad to adhere primer to without using a proper two part primer that few have access to. hope to see the fruits of labour soon. be one of the only 4mm stuff I will build! that and the flat. cheers Mark

Hi all. this is gonna be words only unless I get some pics on tomorrow. lots of activity, little progress I am afraid. last few days, buffer stocks have sprayed up for the van, and holes drilled for all 12 buffer stocks on the wagons. door frames corner brackets have been drilled and the body drilled for them, mostly done with a little hand twist drill, because I can't get the battery drill in the door way! The roof arches are all drawn, just waiting for access to the router. But really I need to get my act into gear to do the door hinges before I think about building up the ends, which means drawing them out, tomorrows chore! on the coaches, he steams on as always! footboard brackets have been folded, drilled painted and now bolted to the frames, which have also been painted. they now look very good in grey primer. next step is to make and drill the footboards ( homebase generic hardwood strip), then paint the frames black. As things stand the only. jobs that remain outstanding are lighting connectors, footboards, screw couplings, painting, final assembly and decals being applied. oh and we are still short 8 wheels for no 2! other than that, they are runners and could in theory run next weekend. First booked outing as it were is may bank holiday. It's transporting them that's the trouble, try are 4.5ft long so need a specially designed trailer. that's the biggest obstacle really. sorry words only, I am away from home and flying on phone alone. thanks for paying attention. cheers all Mark

if you can find them, look back through the last few editions of model rail, I'm pretty sure they did a bit recently on modelling them. if not, I know there is something in my library at home, see what I can find for you. of course there's always the rtr scaledale stuff from Hornby

if you can find them, look back through the last few editions of model rail, I'm pretty sure they did a bit recently on modelling them. if not, I know there is something in my library at home, see what I can find for you. of course there's always the rtr scaledale stuff from Hornby

Looking back over the short period of this blog its strange to find that my main project has received no coverage. So to redress the balance! The little van which i have recently been working on is technically a sideline and afterthought to a pair of 3 plank dropside wagons like the ones shown and mentioned earlier. The project is for two more MET ballast wagons commonly used from 1896 uptill around 1980, when the last two were retired. My two are BD704, a wagon adapted from BW251 for carrying equipment variously associated with the breakdwon train too large to run in the covered vans allocated to the task. Most often it carried a bogie for supporting damaged vehicles during recovery. Its almost certain there was two of these vehicles, one later than the other. My one will be through vacum piped, probably an earlierone, though the one i have a photo of has a vacum cylinder. The other is SC631, a stores wagon that like the van would have run in the acton depot stores train, carrying everything from building materials to brake blocks and other consumables like oils. One or other of these wagons was regulaly seen between two tools vans on trains all around the Met system. Wagon frames are made almost exactly as per original, only i have dowelled mine togther with cocktail sticks and have not morticed joints, mostly because my skills are up to nice clean joints needed but also because i have not the will or patience to do such a thing! Frames are hardwood with brass tie rods, all the members cut by hand but in many cases machined to ensure a square edge, and sides drilled as a pair to ensure exact alignment and the wagon doesnt end up crabing down the track! So, to the wagons. they are still at frames stage, awaiting iron work, but the majority of the bits are made for them. They really await asembly once i have the other wheelsets, axle boxes and iron work from the laser cutter. Yesterdays efforts were little, amongst them being the making of back plates for the door knees. These are wooden knees that support the 3 plank dropside doors when they are dropped down. They are an incredibly complex shape as can be seen from the pics from the last round of wagons, the current ones have no doors yet! Today i finished them off and now await access to either a printer or cnc router to make up the knees themselves. Most of todays efforts, after the customary exam revision and general tidy up of the work tables, went on buffers for the van. They are of the self contained type, i solder a piece of round steel bar onto some 3mm plate, then put it in the lathe to produce a convex round face. The stocks are turned from solid inch brass with backing plates carefully drilled on a milling machine, before being soldered together. Because this project was inherited from someone else (frames and a few bits for buffers), i had to make some plugs for the buffer shanks as not enough material ha been left to drill to provide enough support for the threaded rod which attaches the buffer and housing or stock together and holds the spring in place. So several hours were went on that, and i have litterally just finished soldering them all together, leaving them in the cleaning acid till tomorrow morning. Elsewhere on the 3 plank wagons the buffer beams have been drilled to take the bolts that secure on the buffer stocks, and they are now bolted on. On coaches, footboard brackets are being prepped to be put on the frame so that the whole frame can they be sprayed black in the coming week. A can be seen below the mould for the lighting control boxes has just been made, hopefully we can cast the boxes soon and add them to all five coaches. So, till i do a bit more, progress remains as usual visually slow until i start assembling everything. Perhaps next couple post i shall reveal the next projects, especially as modelling will slow down next few weeks as i prepare for my end of year exams. Cheers all Mark

Yeah, the one on the spa valley in similarly clean, though not the same can be said for the one that burnt out, or this one at acton The old braking equipment test vehicle painted in maroon and yellow, as used and ran behind sarah siddons in her later days Interestingly, efforts are being made to start its restoration, a lot of new wood was lying around last i saw it and asbestos has been removed, so another LT brake van soon Mark

Ah, that explains! Sorry if i misunderstood Board over those recessed ends, if they are recessed as they appear and get rid of the mouldings on the duckets and you'll be right there IMHO Cheers Mark

Hi Metroland Hate to brake it to you, but that isnt a hurst nelson, its an earlier metropolitan railway brake van from an LSWR design for the WD. That is a vehicle that was passed onto the LNER in 1937 and as such probably never ran in LT livery, certainly it was never numbered under their system. The hurst nelson was acquired in 1935 to replace Met and mainly District brake vans. The easiest way to tell is the ends are not recessed in on the outsides like that one. They were modified in later life and so began to look quite like the hurst nelsons that they would only have seen for a few years! RTmodels is doing a hurst nelson, its progressing well, i've supplied a load of pictures for him to be modelling it with. Its mostly etch brass but with cast ends to keep weight up. Sorry again Metroland! but then again it is totally your layout! Cheers Mark

Hi scanman, when i get the dates i will post them on here, but someone will probably do it anyway, most of the people on the london underground section go there. We'll be there next year, hopefully with more track and rolling stock. Its in March, everyyear but they may move it from its regular second weekend of march slot, because of the Met 150 celebrations. anyone who wants to see the models in the flesh as it were can give me a pm and i'll see where we are next. Track down in swindon i think is the next stop. the trouble really is we run at a lot of private tracks so opportunities are limited!

Hi all Dont know what happened with the last post, some images wont display and others are in wrong places so oh well! The problem so much of the time is that visual progress is slow so i wont always have something to show for hours work. So going back a little, theres this, proving it is still model railways! Every year the london transport museum depot at acton holds two open days, the first of the year being themed on London transport in miniature. For a few years we have attended with the rolling stock in increasing amounts, and after a poor organisation last year, we were tucked in a corner and few people came to look. So we got very bored and realised there wasnt anything to hold peoples interest in our stand. We had a static stand and people came looked and went away again. So with the advent of the radio control system in the loco a cunning plan was hatched. Table top running in 5 inch gauge. we hadnt seen it done anywhere else so we thought, How Hard Can It Be? A call was put to a friend of ours and ten metres of track were obtained to complement the existing 8 metres we already had. A complete 25ft radius Rh point was purchased for £235 (very reasonable condsidering they usually go for over £300, and a kit for a custom 0 gauge one will cost you about £50 from C+L) as well as a reverse curveand we had enough track for two sidings and headshunt on a 13.5 metre stand. So there we were, we turned up at the depot on the friday with the track in the trailer, and with the help of a good friend, gathered together the tables and set up two sidings with a 3-4 metre headshunt. The spare track formed a display area for the London transport pannier tank of our friends and one of the coaches. With our 8 wagons and 4 more from our friend, we shunted the sidings all weekends, exciting the children and captivating the adults alike! Our fiend bought his identical electric loco but due to electrical faults this wasnt running, just sat in the sidings with oil lights flickering. So running 5 inch on table top? Great fun, but lots of work on the set up. Its amazing what fun you can have with just two sidings and eight wagons, especially with limited space! makes for interesting shunting, reordering wagons. And it attracts people and keeps them interested. we had some people who came back again and again, asked questions and some people even stayed for up to half an hour just watching the engine transferring wagons from one siding to the other. Unfortunately i doubt they'd allow us to run live steam so electric locos only! Finally a short video. I'm sorry for the appalling quality, taken ona camera phone but its shows what tricks we could get upto. people were fascinated by the radio control, and were perplexed when we would drive from the balcony that overhung the aisle we were on, and they couldnt see adriver as it ran on its own. People became convinced it was computer controlled! I'll leave you to digest that and remind anyone with an LT or Metropolitan railway models, the depot are looking for stands for next years show with a strong Met Railway theme, what with it being the 150th anniversary of the opening of the first public underground railway next year. Hopefully more wagon progress next time. I have all next week off as well so who knows what'll come. Cheers Mark

Yet again my day saw little activity on my part, something to do with get up unusually late and punctuated by a visit to homebase and Halfords. However the van SC630 progresses. The planks for the other two doors were fitted, a time consuming job. Then, while one pair fitted, the other doors would not due to a mistake on my part, the changeable nature of wood, a miscalculation of about a mm and the fact the door frame was ever so slightly askew Oops. Anyway after some gentle persuasion (dont worry no hammer involved!) the doors now fit and do not give any visual impact of my butchery! Oh the forgiving nature of wood! Dreadnoughts If i asked you what you thought of when i said dreadnoughts, views would differ. Some of a mindset would think of the massive battleships of the WW1 era, others of a greater mindset would go to the Great westerns massive 70ft express coaches. Other would look at me blankly! However mine and others who have an interest in the met would go the Met railways 'Main line stock' often known as dreadnoughts due to their massive bulk, comparitively to previous stock. However they are only 51ft long which in coach terms are tiddlers. (it also means they are just over 4.5ft long in 5 inch gauge and a perfect fit for an Erde 142 car trailer!) What follows is entirely to my dads credit, which he probably hasn't received enough of in this blog! Recent activity has focused on the bogies, a completed example being shown below Hes building his last two coaches to complete the 5 coach set, and they are now reaching assemly point. the bogies are now complete, save wheels on one which he is waiting on. The frames are just receiving final details such as vacum cylinders and battery boxes as well as dynamos and footboards. Bodys are made from frames of marine ply (available from all good hardware stores) and Birch ply, routed to form windows and panelling (not available at all good hardware stores) Bogies are aluminium plate and angle milled to the correct profile to resemble Fox pattern 7ft bogies (they may well be familiar to southern railway modellers as well) Axle boxes are our own casting, rapid protoyped from drawings from pictures of surviving vehicles. The preserved examples on the Keighley and worth are on different pattern bogies, having been swapped when the originals cracked. the boxes are based ona surviving pair on a 1905 underground trailer car at acton LT museum depot. Springs are made from one layer of spring steel and several more of packing crate banding steel which is ideal for wagon and coach springs. Someone asked about wheels last post, these are CNC machined steel by a contractor who does favourable rates for 'hobbyists'. Before anyone asks yes there are seats but no the doors dont open. you wont beleive the amount of people who ask. Hooks are laser cut but severely cleaned up, then safety chains as fitted to all Met passenger rated stock were made up. It severely annoyed him to find four laser cut safety chain hooks just after he had hand filed four and got them cleaned up! Ah well, such is life! So like i said, little credit where its due, my dads taught me the vast majority of what i know and his work is far better than mine! Hopefully few projects time I'll give him a run for his money, but he'll have moved on to greater things, so hey. Hope you enjoy. will try and get a video uploaded for next time, few pics of acton depot show. Wagon progress will slow again as i need to get on a cnc router for my roof arches. Hope you enjoy, any questions, please ask Cheers, Mark

Hi all and thanks Matloughe, if your 00 stock is Met, maybe get in contact with the london transport museum depot at acton. they're on the lookout for as many met models and layouts for next years march open day, especially what withit being Met 150 next year. Building this stuff can be very satisfying,but at times infuriating. Theres alot of cleaning and preparation before each part is made, and when you come out of the workshop after 2 hours of an evening and realise all you've made inthat time is 4 little brackets, it can drive you up the wall! Wood work however is the best bit, it tends to show large results quickly. especially in a wekk or so i can have a complete van body almost done. Its also interesting to see how the real ones were done and you realise many wagons didnt have much in the way of carpentry in some areas because it weakened the structure. some mortice or tenon joints but mostly they are held together with long iron tie rods. Iron work generally we have laser cut though the two main suppliers in our hobby, Doug Hewson and Dave Noble do supply iron work, or kits of iron work, especially like w irons or v hangars, and complete sets of brake gear. fortunately most wagon have a fairly standard underframe, except the Met, which had to be different! wheels however are a different story. Doug hewson supplies rough castings for wagon wheels but you have to machine and tidy them up yourself. Slaters are the other supplier of 5 inch wheels but for a while they only supplied finescale wheels which are not much good i hate to say. A wheel flange and its tolerance are not something you can scale down so they wont run properly through points we have to use. However they now do what they call coarse scale wheels to GL5 profiles which run really well. for this I'll probably hewson castings because otherwise this van will be so light it will just fall of the track over any irregularities cheers Mark