London cambrian

Today hasnt seen a huge amount of activity so i'd thought i'd do an introduction to part of my current project. When my dad first started with the wagon building a few years back, his first wagon was a brake van seen previously. then came four wagons then the outside framed box van. My first were the rail wagons and i am currently working on a follow up, two open ballast wagons and a much smaller box van. The van presents more challenge than the wagons so that has been the focus of recent work. These are all Ex metropolitan railway stock, in London transport livery ( post 1933 and possibly even only post 1948) First a history lesson. Very little details of the wagon later known as SC(stores car) 630 are left. it was thought to have been rebuilt from an early ballast wagon built somewhere between 1866 and 1882 by the Metropolitan railway. But the origin of these short wheelbase 2 plank open wagons is unclear, so the Met probably bought them second hand. At any rate, one was converted at an unknown date to a short box van. Despite the vast majority of Met goods van not be passed to London transport in 1933, this one did and ran in various stres train including the Lillie Bridge Ealing common train i beleive, being numbered SC630. Interestingly, one of my other wagons is the next in sequence, SC631 Anyway, details are sketchy, though one thing that is not is the bodywork. All of our drawings are taken from James Snowdon's book Metropolitan railway rolling stock, whom we are greatly indebted to! At the start of the week i started with a pile of small section wood supplied from a dolls house supplier. Any small section wood will do, preferably soft woods but this time round all i could get was obeche, which is actually very nice and easy to work with. after matching wood sizes to a scale drawing, the corner and door posts were let in or rebated using a combination of a sharp stanley knife and a carefully set milling machine. This allowed planks to sit at a required depth and strong joints to be made. The frame was glued together with ordinary exterior wood glue. Unlike previous construction, they were dowelled together for alignment and then glued, being left over night to dry. 16mm wide planks were then cut from 1.5mm birch ply, being careful to ensure the grain ran the correct way. These could then be glued in place, each one was given a chamfered top edge that act as a rain run off on the fullsize to stop water rotting the edge of the planks. Diagonal body frame bracing was then fitted. these milled down to the correct width (nothing appropriate being available) and were cut using a razor saw to shape Door post were then cut to length and the other pieces in the door frame were also cut. again these were dowelled together. Being a lazy person i couldnt be bothered to rebate the door frame so glued bits of ply running against the planks to simulate a rebate. Finally planks were cut for the doors and glued, and that is how things stand currently. So next job is to start adding various bits of strapping and platework, make the hinges and fit the doors, before making the ends, assembling the body and making a rood, sometime by next week. So until i find something else to write about. Hope you find it interesting. Its really not that big a leap from model railways to this. I did it. Cheers Mark

Yeah i think you might mike! Your lovely little O2. Is it lined yet? hows mattys one? Good to see you on here. Any news on greystones? pm me back

Hi Ian. Have you got his name i may well know him. My grandfather is in farnborough and is chief angineer at the Frimley club where i spent a lot of time until about a few years ago. If hes not already tell him to become a member there. Bit of known person i'm afraid is my grandfather but more than willing to help those with an interest. Cheers Mark

Pannier wise, dug out some pics of the current state of affairs. We're fiddling with the valve gear atm, though work has stalled for a long time now. As anyone who has built an outside cylinder loco kit knows, valve gear is the tricky part. and being quite a lot bigger doesnt make valve gear any easier in 5. Its something of a black art, few people understand it fully, many people get the basics and are happy with that, but being live steam it is essential to the working. Parts of our gear are being redone to newer drawings but i wont bore anyone with details. And yes we are eccentric..! (for anyone not in the know so much, this is an eccentric strap from the pannier tank. The eccentrics are the four offset discs on the axle) Think yourselves lucky 0 gauge boys. On to wagons, currently under construction are two more ballast wagons, numbered SC631 and BD704. Also a box van that is really quite short. Frames are made from some nondescript hardwood availbale from Homebase, planed to thickness. Wagon bodies made from a mixture of B&Q pine and obeche obtained from a dolls house supplier. So really any one can do it. Today i am making the doors so will post pics tomorrow when they are done. Then its onto the ends, though i have to work out how i am going to construct the roof arches yet. CNC router might be the easiest option. Buffers are turned from solid inch steel or brass bar. We've only just started using steel because the price of brass is through the roof, but steel isnt as nice to work with. Recently the loco was back in the workshop. after a series of events, our friend required a new radio control unit for his loco, so we swapped out ours and replaced it with a higher spec one. We took this opportunity to rewire alittle and investigate higher power sound systems. Nothing much to see except the inner gubbins. I'll try and upload some videos of stuff as they come, when i work out how to that is! Little bit of what we're about. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G2_AXeaTSA Hope you enjoy this out there. back tomorrow with building progress. Cheers Mark

ha yeah you'd be lucky to a coach bogie in a boxfile let alone a wagon! no condensing gear on the Pannier as the London transport ones never had them. the only panniers ever fitted with gear were the much modified 9700 class. the had cut back tanks but the rear half were extended down to the footplate. people often ask why LT didnt buy those panniers, you'd have thought them ideal. It was because they were too high for the majority of the sub surface network. they were the later type Pannier with high roof, so too high for everywhere except the original broad gauge tunnels around paddington where they worked on the smithfield meat market trains. condensing gear on a 5" engine would be interesting. the Pannier would be ideal because it really powerful for its size, and would be less affected by the gear... But anyway i have enough to be getting on with.

Right, afternoon all. Its just too cold to be out in the workshop and i am bored of cutting up planks for van sides (more another time) and waiting for glue to dry so here goes part two Perhaps i should just identify the pics alittle. The first pic, not a single wagon in there belongs to me, thats a very small selection of wagons that can turn up to any GL5 event. A small event may have 30-50 wagons. a medium size, 100+ wagons, and the biggest easily top over 200! The second and 5th pics are at a private railway in Lincolnshire, you can see pretty much all the layout in that view, from that viewpoint, but we still had 100 wagons, 5 coaches and 8 locos there that day. Right, since i havnt been kicked off with shouts of take your model engineering and stick it... on another forum, I'll continue. Over the last few years, the Neasden outstation of Southam carriage and wagon has been rather busy. The original loco was built nearly 14 years ago now, and i probably have some embarressing shots of a very young me driving it! Which i will spare the viewers from... Numbered as 18 Michael Faraday she (or should i say he) runs on halfords car batteries and 7 beuhler motors so has a good turn of speed and grunt! Its also fitted with radio control, hence most recent shots show her driverless! Decked out in Metropolitan/London transport red of the 1930s (Halfords volkswagen Gambia red!) As Nigel quite rightly commented, live steam is best, so currently in the shops is a pannier tank which will of course be outshopped in LT red livery. Currently its in many bits awaiting niggle sorting and painting. The first coach was built nearly ten years ago and remained for a long time solitary. The metropolitan railway extended brake 3rd 'dreadnought' no 495 was originally ride on but hasnt been used as such in years. More recently 2 more third class coaches have been built, in a similar manner using birchply normally associated with model planes or boats, and varnished several times to achieve a rich teak colour. The short teak van is a loose model of the Milk van preserved in the london transpoert museum. before anyone comments, yes its too long but its a riding truck so it doesnt matter, just looks good. The first wagon built to scale was B563, a metropolitan railway brake van of 1898, in its final livery under LT. After the brake van came 4 wagons in a year, three Met railway 3 plank dropside ballast wagons, Met 23(soon to be renumbered), LT BW32 and BW147 also, on an identical chassis as they were rebuilt from the ballasts, a 5 plank open, ash wagon, A952 Then came an unusual vehicle, and one of only three Metropolitan railway goods wagons to survive, the 'Pooley' workshop van, for the men who calibrated and maintained the weighbridges at station. this vehicle is modelled with a full interior including forge and workbench, as well as opening underfloor lockers and doors. A full photo survey of this wagon was taken as it quietly rots in a field in Rutland! My first two wagons were a pair of articulated railwagons, for which i had to design my own drawgear for (nothing similar exists) and the livery is totally based on supposition, there being no photos. Nearly there, As mentioned earlier two more coaches are on the way, this time first class coaches to make up a minimum 5 coach set. Still a PITA to move around! On my workbench are two more ballast wagons, to take the total up to 5, and a short little box van for which i am making the body for this week. Finally, all our wagons together in one train back in dember. There are three more London transport wagons in 5 inch gauge belonging to a friend that make up the full 12 wagons, with three more coming, and another brake van from someone else. Pretty good considering it was only a farily short line (approx 50 miles) and only had 600 wagons So, if your still with me, a busy house and a lot to move around! Cheers, LC

Cheers Nigel most people dont have a garden big enough and with these latest wagons we'll be struggling for space as well! Next blog should hopefully be a stock list, then i'll get down to workbench and future projects stuff.

A few people have expressed an interest in my larger scale modelling activities, not really the norm on here so you understand the interest when just a wagon is bigger than the human baby! So, with a bit of luck what follows is an account of the world of 5 inch gauge railway modelling. Hope this ok on here Andy and all the mods (if not chuck me out with a shout of 'and stay out' ) but 5 inch gauge is basically model engineering and is usually associated with the miniature railways found in many parks across the country. But like those modelling in the gauge 3 society, theres a small group of us who build scale wagons and run scale train operations on a large scale. As could probably be gathered from my posts in the london underground section, my interest lies with the Metropolitan railway, naturally our models reflect this (when i say our, its me and my dad). My dad lived by the Met at one point and so my interest was invoked when he built a 5 inch model of the Metropolitan-vickers bo bo electric (of same class as Sarah Siddons). And about 3 years ago we got into the 5 inch gauge world nd now run a set of 5 coaches, 9 wagons (with three more coming) and a radio controlled electric loco. Impressive really considering only three years and the loco is 5ft long and a two man lift, as are the coaches! The group we run as part of is called the GL5 or Ground level 5 (mainline) association. Rules are simple. Build wagons, dont carry passengers, no narrow gauge, run proper trains and most importantly, have fun! It was set up a fair few years ago by Doug Hewson and brent hudson, to run scale trains in a prototypical manner, many of you on here wil recognise. The group has nearly 500 members and runs at various club and private ground level tracks around the country. I myself dont have track (though with luck that could soon change slightly!) but have built two wagons and with three more on the way, as well as doing parts for the majority of the other vehicles in our collection. My interests also lie in studying the real vehicles with intent (yes it does sound like a crime...) to model Right, if your still with me, this blog with a bit of luck will be my workbench,what i have done, what i get up to, and hopefully entice a few of the other 5 inch modellers on RMweb out! Dont ever tel me you havent room for a railway! You may well of seen this stuff at the acton depot open weekend a few weeks back if you went, so yes its us, and its big! Anyone interested can find more photos on my flickr http://www.flickr.co...s/33124243@N06/ Edit- and oh yes thank you to Mike (dinmore Manor) for use of the last pic and letting me drive his engine (LSWR O2 tank) all afternoon at Brents track last december!

Hi guys I'll reiterate what i said on one of the other threads, The acton depot is lookng for more underground layouts, especially Met themed ones for a bigger model show next march. Any willing to exhibit their layout or know the owners of layouts, get in contact with lyndsey the organiser at acton and get yourself invited. What with it being a big year for the Met next year they want even more layouts and models, especially condiering this year was a little thin! Anyone wants to contact them and needs details, give me a pm and i'll put you in touch. So anyone with an LT/Met layout, be good to see you there next year! Otherwise it could beome an ever decreasing regular crowd! Cheers all Mark LC

Hi Metr0land We kind of tour the country with these things. We are part of a group called the GL5 who model in 5 inch gauge and build wagons and coaches, as well as engines and run railways in a prototypical manner. We are one of 3 people who model the Met railway in this scale and we have by far the most stock. As a group we have nearly 500 members who do stuff like this, mainlystock is the big four companies and private owner wagons which we run at a selection of tracks owned by clubs around the country on specific days. Most of the above pictures were taken at 2 tracks in wiltshire, but the one of the bridge (concrete cast in a mans back garden!) is in lincolnshire. I can post a few more pictures showing the wagons if people want, but i have a flickr site with most of them on,explaining more. Search GL5Mark, coate water or greystones and it should come up. http://www.flickr.com/photos/33124243@N06/ For those interested we will be attending the acton depot model show in March, hopefully with enough track to have a loco shunting wagons on a table top by RC. Oh the fun the larger scales afford! Cheers Mark

Hi all Following on from On30runner's post, heres again modelling Met on a larger scale. I'll try and dig out the other photos, all our models are in 5 inch gauge, roughly 12th scale, a scale smaller than the acton miniature railway. Current stock is a Metrovick 18 Michael Faraday, a live steam pannier tank, L93 in bits still, 3 wooden bodied Metropolitan railway Dreadnought coaches, (2 more coming) and 12 Metropolitan railway design wagons (designs from Snowdons book) made to finescale standards, Cheers all LC

Hi all The leamington and warwick model society are doing a model of a station called Duxbury, based loosely on Aylesbury but with LT tube/surface stock on of the lines.

I know the feeling. I've one of their e classes which has stalled building, but i am dubious as to what it'll even haul. Have an open and brake van as well, the open isnt too bad but have never used it. Theres gotta be a kit for a wagon similar in design to the met ones more accurate than the Bachmann steel framers. Midland low side opens were virtually identical... LC

Hi there. Good to see other LT modellers, nice adaption of the LT 4 wheel wagons. Just a tip, the wagons were wooden framed, i know more difficult to obtain but worth wile with a bit of bashing. Also the single central door knee is to an LMS pattern, replacing with two wooden ones where the lines of bolts are o the side would improve it further. Further reference see the south eastern finecast model of the wagons. On the subject of F303, any chance of seeing the pick. i'm always fascinated by the odd LT wagons that they bodged and acquired! Cheers

Hi The Lt flat and brake are looking good! Any chance of bringing them along to warley, I'll be there on the sunday if i come, out with the pannier tanks on the mainline on the saturday B) Including the newly repainted L94! Might just to have to put in a big order for those when their done, there goes the other modelling projects! LC

Re LT flat Excellent. Its about time someone made a model of them. There on my shopping list! Do you think you could shorten the wagon to make the more common 50 ft open bogie wagon. with the wooden sides. Then benefit of such a common design wagon is that the builder can make anyone of hundreds of modifications that LT made over the years Any chance of any pictures?

Hi there I heard through a friend, that your working on the brass etchings for a London transport 50ft bogie wagon/flat in 4mm Is this the case or is it someone else? Mark

Not an accurate model as it has had to be bent around but intensively run. Its in the clubhouse of Guildford model engineering society. Great to watch, it shows both cheltenham st james and Malvern road. stations. site feature Some photos Dedicated gallery LC

Ooops thanks kenton. Relevent veicles at GW175

I spoke to someone on the model railway (Model of cheltenham st james. Well worth a watch!) in Guilford MES's clubhouse, the full brake that lives on the back of their milk set was he said ratio or something. I imagine that the coach in question must have been a conersio of brake coaches, because no one else has mentioned anything like that. Question: why does everyone else have a pile of kits to do and I don't! All I have is a metropolitan E class minus destructions and a metropolitan railway Brake van. Do the books have drawings in them Kenton? I'm not too worried about bogies as my laout is low down so I'll rarely get to see them! Thanks. LC

I photographed the wagon when I was at GW175 there, and have been meaning to go back. I plan to make it to 00 gauge, which could be a bit awkward as the well goes down between the wheels, and what with 00 gauge being far smaller than scale, it could end in disaster! hen I make measurements for it I will also make one to 5 inch gauge, having a lot of interest in that scale in the family! Where had it come from, before GWS. Was it at a steel works? Also, is there a kit (preferably plastic) for a dean full brake, as i have seen them on several layouts (Also at didcot, under restoration) Great if anyone can show pics. Thanks LC

Hi Can any one tell me if there is a book on GW wagons that covers the Coral A 12t Glass wagon in detail. Or alternatively if anyone knows anytihng useful or has pictures they could show me, then I would be grateful. I'm looking to make a model of one in 4mm and 12th scales, so drawings would help. I know there is one at didcot, Rusting in peace, but drawings would be preferable to crawling all over it! Thanks LC