Kirby Uncoupler

Mk2c stock from 1969/70, also didn't carry slogans for the first couple of years, and were painted with brown underframes and bogies, which also would apply to those with IC slogans until 1978-c.1980. However our friends at Accurascale  are not offering the blue-grey without slogans on Mk2c stock (limited appeal?), so their option with IC slogans and black chassis, will be correct for 1978 onwards, although repainting your chassis brown is easy, you won't even need to remove the body. Slogans with brown chassis covers the period c.1970/1 to 1978-1980ish.

    The indirect reason for the switch from 1964/65 brown to traditional black coach chassis, is due to the first couple of HST sets in 1976, being out-shopped with brown chassis, including the Mk3 skirts, which HQ and the Design Panel decided would look smarter with gloss black.  From around 1978 this spread to the rest of the coaching fleet, which is also around the time when blue-grey spread to much more of the DMU and suburban EMU fleet, replacing the failed white/blue on the former.     BK

Hi Everyone,

   I have made some alterations to two of my Accura TSOs (how very dare I), first I have repainted the roofs into matt grey (Humbrol 67), and secondly I have repainted the underframes and bogies into pre-1978 brown. I used Humbrol 160, but it varied and was most obvious on clean ex-works stock. The brown would weather and get dirty, the later black u/fs could weather and look grey.

   Accurascale have very kindly provided three versions of the blue-grey livery, (a) Without IC slogans (1968-74ish), (b) With IC slogans (1970-NSE 1986+), and (c) With NSE lettering (1986+), the application of the IC slogans appears to have been a long drawn out process, perhaps awaiting works overhauls? 

   Another job was to remove half of the "No-Smoking" stickers, at the appropriate end, since many more people smoked back then, smoking compartments could be filthy places. Removal is tricky, to avoid scratching I used acetone/nail varnish remover, but it can smear. Others have suggested T-Cut, but I haven't tried it on glazing, it is a mild abrasive?

   I decided to try magnets to secure the yellow WR destination boards, gluing a thin steel washer to the back of the boards, and round neowhatsit magnets inside the body. I used impact glue, don't use superglue cos it could stain the paintwork, and/or fog the glazing, leading to disaster.

   The loo appears to be occupied!

                                                     Cheers, Brian.

20 hours ago, robertcwp said:

As a number of BR Eastern modellers follow this thread, I thought these two images that I have added to my collection might be of interest:

 

Twin-RS-SO_JUL-63 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

E1733-4E_YorkCW_28-9-63 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

Thanks Robert, these are two very useful photographs. Apart  from the roller bearings and added centre door detail on the Twin First, look closely at the guttering. It's not continuous at either end, with sections removed?    BK

12 hours ago, RFS said:

 

Hello again after a while!

 

I've now done the same as you and converted my S1935 coach as above. First time I've done this. so can I ask if you have varnished over the transfers above and if so with what type? Just want to get everything right as I'm about to do the same on the 3-set from which I've already removed the SOUTHERN decals and the 3s on the doors.

 

Thanks

Hi Robert, glad it went okay. In this instance, I would advise against spraying varnish over the whole sides, since removing the glazing is difficult, and likely to break/snap etc., meaning disaster.  I just dry-brushed on the minimum of satin varnish, only over the transfers. Anything for an easy life!

Or if you must spray, cover the  windows with masking tape, and just spray the lower half of the body, or just the transfers, with a very thin layer, don't blast away. One quick swipe from a foot away will do. Don't over do it, just enough to cover that transfer shine, and supposedly "seal" the transfer.  It needs a delicate touch.

If not confident of doing the above, just leave the transfers as they are, if they come off later, just put some new ones on.  

                                                                                        Cheers, Brian.

Ten years ago, or whenever it was, your's truly was embroiled in the great Bachmann 73050 debacle, and we had a right old ding- battle about it , in the RMweb Bachmann section.  If you study the BR Standard classes for long enough, the penny eventually drops, and you realize that many tender classes (but not all), had a change of footplate arrangement, halfway through production. The original design was copied from American practice, involving an extended footplate and semi-open cab doors, and no traditional British-style fallplate hinged on the tender front. The idea looked good on paper, but in practice on the main line, disturbing cold draughts rose up between loco and tender. 

    To try and rectify the problem, unwieldly concertina curtains were added to the cab rear, this improved things, but was not the perfect cure. So the later builds were changed to a shorter British style footplate, now with added hinged fallplate on the tender front. This also did away with the side doors and rearmost vertical handrails, and added short side panels to the tender front.  As far as I know, all the originals remained as built, none of these were rebuilt to the later style, and the two styles could not be mixed, and that partly explains why there were so many versions of the tenders.  This affected classes 70xxx, 73xxx, 75xxx, and 76xxx, but 9Fs came later so were all built with the later arrangement. All high-sided tender locos were built with later cab arrangement and fallplates.

     Bachmann had already produced their magnificent 73xxx Standard 5s, for many years, and had already produced early and late cab/tender variants, so no new mouldings were required. The BR footplate change occurred between the end of the 73000-49 batch and from 73050 onwards. Bachmann had announced a black 73050 (73050-73052 batch for the S&D), which was correctly illustrated by a mock-up in their latest catalogue, except when the models arrived in the shops, something had gone wrong, and the factory had produced 73050 from the early cab mouldings. None of the magazines had spotted this, and when I criticised Bachmann, they went into complete denial, and couldn't see any problem?

     The heated debate on RMweb went on for days, with Bachmann repeatedly stating there was no problem, some RMweb members started attacking me, for daring to chastise the company, others were panicking that Bachmann might pull out of the UK market. As if? Eventually we asked Graham Hubbard and team, to compare a 73050 from the shelf, with the mock-up in the catalogue, then at last the penny dropped at Bachmann in Barwell. They now confirmed that there had been a factory mix-up in China, and they announced a product re-call from the shops, for re-bodying/re-issue, but some had already been sold and got away. So beware next time you buy a secondhand 73050, but then again the dodgy ones might have become collector's items?   🙂

                                                               Cheers, Brian.

17 minutes ago, chris45lsw said:

The Brighton I3s were, in fact, splendid engines and the performance of Nos 23 and 26 on the 'Sunny South Express' between Rugby and Brighton in 1909 outshone LNWR saturated Precursor 'Titan' and demonstrated the benefits of superheating.  It was the I1, I2 and I4 classes which were pathetic!

 

Chris KT 

Thanks Chris, I couldn't remember exact details, LBSCR was not my line, but a book was published back in the 1980s (IA?), regarding locomotive nicknames, and a century ago,  the offending non-efficient Brighton class were given the slang name of "XXXXXXs",  which rhymed with merchant bankers in the Cockney world.       BK

The thicker one-piece whitemetal loco chassis were okay in their day (e.g. Wills in the clear cellophane bags), try bending a cold Mars bar, but the thinner cast chassis that you assembled (Stephen Poole, McGowan), were a disaster. You had to avoid doing the body screws up too tight,  because they could bend the chassis up, down, sideways, or twist, though one saving grace, was you could always bend them back again! Don't forget, whitemetal was a bearing surface on the real thing, so on a model frame, could be regarded as a ready-fitted bearing.

    Regarding bogie nuts and bolts, I prefer a fixed bolt on top, which provides a rigid vertical pivot on locos, though  can be a pain for body removal, but on coaches I insist on bolt on top - nuts underneath. If a nut falls off a coach, the coach will happily carry on running, if a bolt falls off, the bogie comes off, and you have a potential mega train crash.         BK

What I was trying to say was, I never saw any BR Standard Jamieson kits in stock, during my time at KX, from around 1973 to 1986. By that time the range was being run down, although the Reading shop were still supplying ready made and painted kits from time to time, notably LNER pacific variants (not A4) and V2s, many by David, son of Ted Morris the boss, who later took over. Did anyone ever see the golden LMS Coronation in our showcase?

   Judging by the fully-printed instruction sheet on your 80xxx, that would suggest it was from the regular range. I remember the list of kits in our counter price list books, but by then a lot had been ruled/crossed out as no longer available, but obviously after 50 years I cannot remember many details. Another oddity was individual classes were available as body kits, frame kits, and/or chassis kits, whereas most examples shown on this thread, appear to be complete kits in one box? By the 1970s, we had a certain mis-match of remainder stock, i.e we had the body, but not chassis, and vice-versa. The frame kits were a simplified version of the chassis kits, for scratch-builders, or those working to EM gauge. 

                                   Cheers, Brian.

Crikey, i've opened the floodgates with this nickname topic. No rude ones please, like the LBSCR I3 class wozzit, that lacked strength, and didn't pull very well?  

                                                                         Cheers, Brian. 🙂

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Good morning Mike,

 

45156, one of the locos which generated the most incredulity to the 'spotters at Chester. 

 

Observing operations one day at the east end of the General, a 'Mickey' appeared on a Manchester-Llandudno express. 

Hi Tony and All,

      I'm confused here. back then why did you refer to Black 5s as "Mickeys", I thought they were always "Black 5s, Class 5s, 5s, 5000s, 5MTs or Ten-Wheelers"? To me a "Mickey" is a 2MT 2-6-0 or tank (Mickey Mouse, cos the front silhouette looked like the cartoon character ears), or were you talking Chester General slang?      BK

I've done some digging about "MW5 Motors", it seems MW Models was started by Geoff Wright (no connection with our Tony here), son of Maxwell Wright, and his brother David after WW2, suppling engineering parts to Edward Alan Morris Electrical Supplies Of Reading, later name changed to Electrical And Mechanical Engineering Supplies. EAMES stopped selling Meccano to concentrate on model railways, MW Models then opened in Henley-On-Thames specializing in Meccano, no doubt maintaining the trading relationship with EAMES on larger scale model railways, perhaps Eames had an investment in MW Models? 

     So maybe it was MW Models who later bought in the  Airfix motors, perhaps to use on Meccano, and supplied EAMES with them for use in loco kits, but then why did we have stacks of the white and blue empty boxes for re-packing at King's Cross? All very confusing!

      It could be that MW Models was named in memory of their father Maxwell, so it could have been the Maxwell Wright 5-pole motor (made by Airfix as the 1001)? Geoff Wright had a long and productive life, dying last year at the age of 93.

https://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/henley-on-thames/180009/geoff-wright-july-28-1930-april-12-2023.html

BK

14 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

All right, I have to ask.

 

Who were M and W or is that a state secret?

D'ya know, you've got me there, I never asked, or don't remember asking, there were various parts of EAMES/MRM that I never fathomed, and I worked there full-time for ten years, after three years as a saturday boy? I never knew about the shop in Henley, until I stumbled upon it, whilst on holiday on the River Thames. As soon as I got back to work at King's Cross, I asked questions, but none of the local KX staff were aware of it, only when I quizzed a director did I get a reaction, and a cagey response, on a friendly "you don't need to know" basis! There was nothing illegal going on, they probably used the Henley address for buying in the Airfix motors to re-box, and similar.

    E.A.M.E.S. of Reading  (Electrical And Mechanical Equipment Supplies or similar) was run by the Morris family, headed by father Edward W. Morris and David W. Morris (clue?), plus John Gauld in Reading, they bought MRM in KX circa 1971, and ran them as two parallel businesses.  My best guess for MW5, is M for Morris, W for Windings or Wholesale perhaps?, and 5 obviously for 5-pole. Bob Treacher, now retired from Alton Model Centre might know more, he used to work for EAMES, before setting up his own successful business.

                                                                                                 Cheers, Brian.

2 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

HI Brian - great to hear from you again!

 

If I may correct one particular fact, though, when I worked at KX, it wasn't as a Saturday boy, but as a full time member of staff, but on a limited contract only, for the months of the summer vacation from university.

 

It was such an interesting place to work. I made my first loco kit** 'for commercial gain' when I worked there, inspired by the lovely models in the showcase in the shop.

 

** Cotswold M&SWJR 2-4-0 tender loco

 

Hi Tim,

      Great to see you posting too, I well remember that 1334 loco of your's, good one to start on too, solid chassis, and no valve gear.  Nice job on the weathered track and pannier.

To try and answer "Barclay's" question above, most of the regular Jamieson kits were of Big Four types, I don't remember any BR Standards or Austerities, unless perhaps produced as specials(?), your L&Y 0-6-0  was not  exactly an obscure type though. You'ed think Austerity and Jamieson would have been a good match, being "austere" basic kits? The range was started by "Mr.Jamieson", and bought out by Eames Of Reading in the 1960s, the original owner was then kept on to produce the kits in Cornwall. I can see Barton-Wright (L&Y) written on your box in red biro, but details were normally on the ends, for storing on shelves. Thank you for rescuing this old girl from the secondhand stall.

One of the most popular kits in the range, and the most troublesome to produce, was the LMS Streamlined Coronation.  The nose was pressed and hammered out over a former, and was forever going wrong. As regards quantities of kits produced, I have no exact figures, in the 1970s we seemed to sell fewer and fewer, as more modern kits came on the market, they were very much of the 1950s and 60s, we still had some old stock in the early 1980s.

                   Cheers, Brian.

Hi Tony,

    I thought you didn't like Portescaps, or has that fatwa been lifted, in your more mellow years?😁 I remember a TW moan about the "Portescap Whine" coming from my DJH Black 5 and 8F locos, both hauling FA Cup specials via Little Bytham, when Mansfield were away to Norwich.

Good to see the old KX-Jamieson A2/1 brought back to life, Bert Collins, John Edgson, and my bosses would have approved. Back in 1974 I was a humble saturday boy at the KX shop (MRM Co.Ltd), as was Captain Kernow (see above) a few years later.  No doubt you placed the A2/1 commission on your saturday day-off from school in Wolverhampton, I might have even taken the order?  So there's a friendship that has lasted 50 years.

   Jamieson kits (from Cornwall) used to come in no-nonsense plain brown (manilla?) boxes, with a bright yellow wrapper, the contents were effectively sealed, so to many they were a mystery. Even us staff were reluctant to break the seal, since a sellotape repair would look bad if returned to the shelf, but how else were we supposed to display or explain the kits to customers? We did have spare yellow bands for extreme damage, the regular kits used to have printed class details on the end, for "specials", you'd just get a running number of class code, written in ballpoint pen.  Some of the kits were rather basic, couplings rods were drilled rail section, valve gear (where applicable) had to be modified for your particular loco.

     Concerning another current topic on this WW thread, with all senior members of the KX shop now sadly passed away, I think it's safe to reveal that my bosses did knock out "bootleg Romford axles", from time to time, another way of boosting profits, which worked well for years, none of the customers were any the wiser. Except for one day, a customer brought back some axles he'd purchased the week before, saying he couldn't quarter his wheelsets properly. On examination, the squared shoulders were out of parallel, making correct assembly impossible (sloppy lathe work, I know who did it!). More axles were returned and replaced in the ensuing weeks, it was only one rogue batch, most came back, we turned the duds into split axles, but there must be some dodgy originals still out there. 

      Another story from back then, was the great debate amongst customers,  about whether the the Airfix 1001 motor, or the MRM/KX MW5 was the superior motor? We sold both,  but people would often insist on one or the other, we even sold the 5-pole armatures as spares. Well the truth is they were identical, being the same thing, another of my bosses crafty little schemes, we even had a "MW Models" lock-up shop in Henley-On-Thames, to add legitimacy, and give MW5 an address. All the motors were in fact made by Airfix, it was a re-badging exercise, I often got lumbered with the job of re-packaging a few hundred at slack times, they were better than Romford Bulldogs from W&H, our great rivals.  Tee-hee.       BK 

Thanks for providing the video, the new coaches look wonderful, but i'm slightly disappointed with the windows, they appear to be suffering the "fish tank" effect, which has afflicted various coach models over the years, especially the old Airfix types, though to a lesser degree here. As can be seen in the video, moulding the windows as thin boxes with clear sides, creates the prismatic or "fish tank" effect. Wouldn't this have been avoided by moulding them as thicker "pebble" type clear windows, as produced by Extreme Etchings for their Mk2 air-con glazing? It's particularly apparent on the shorter van windows, and the coaches in the red-blue research livery.

       The Mk2/2A coaches produced years ago by Bachmann, designed by Colin Albright, with help from your's truly,  don't suffer from this problem. Here are some of my stretched Bachmann Mk2B conversions, which illustrate the difference.

And just in passing, shown below is one of my stretched and lowered Lima late 2C conversions, these use homemade sheet glazing (actually Peco point packaging chopped-up), with the frames drawn on with a bow pen. I will still be buying an Accurascale rake or two, then I will have three versions running on my layout!

                                                            Cheers, Brian Kirby.

As an amusing afterthought, if CF Tim extended the Copenhagen Fields baseboards, north by a few feet, he could then model the old Holloway Prison (which looked like a Disney fairy castle), Kirby Towers, AND Doctor Crippen's house, which was demolished in the 1950s. Crippen was hanged in Pentonville Prison, which is on the east side of Caledonian Road, so just off-scene on the CF layout. BTW, Pierrepoint the hangman, would arrive and depart by bus or trolley in The Cally, at either of the two hanging jails, carrying his tools of the trade in a small suitcase, having come to London from Manchester, by train at St.Pancras. or Euston.  No doubt he sometimes used the Cally tube station, which iwas halfway between the two jails, lots of prison staff would commute via here too.  BK

15 hours ago, CF MRC said:

Your view is to the SW, Tony. Highgate is to the north.  The copper cupola is just visible above St Mary’s Free Catholic Church (a weird sect I hadn’t heard of). 

Courtesy Phil Parker 

 

Tim

My recently late French aunt Suze was a practising Catholic, and her Welsh husband (on my Mother's side) had converted to keep things sweet, and enable them to marry in church, whilst living in Rhodesia/now Zimbabwe. After UDI in 1965, my uncle brought the family back to the UK, and they stayed at Kirby Towers in Penn Road, which is just a couple of blocks north of the church, modelled at the north end of the Copenhagen Fields layout. Come Sunday (in 1966/67) my aunt needed to attend a service, so the Kirby clan suggested this very church, having seen the "Catholic" sign outside. Taking their three children along, they entered into the sparsely attended service (less than 10), to their horror everything was spoken and sung in Latin, they were in the "wrong branch" of Catholicism (it's complicated), so they beat a hasty retreat, and sneaked out.

    I used to walk past, or be driven past, that church every day of my life, often on the way to the Tube, it was a strange place of worship, rather run-down, and there never seemed to be any activity? The crypt had been let out to a clothing manufacturer (sweatshop), and had a separate entrance on the east side, complete with colourful sign, which was out of keeping with the architecture. The church eventually fell into dis-use, was demolished in the late 70s/early 80s.

    From the top floor of Kirby Towers, the view north was dominated by that weathered copper cupola (another Catholic church) around two miles away, alongside the equally prominent "Suicide Bridge", as the Archway Bridge was referred to by all North Londoners. Even at that distance, the gap/cutting through the Northern Heights was very distinctive, and you could see the cars crossing the bridge, even at night. Amongst our neighbours were actors Kate Winslet, Bob Hoskins and Julian (?), who played the character from "Rumpole Of The Bailey" (with the Wagnerian named children), and not forgetting Copenhagen Fields team member Martin Cook. I live "overseas" now, but I miss N7, well some of it!

                                                                                                                  Brian Kirby.

This man was one of my heroes, what a full and wonderful life he had led, 98 is a terrific innings. Not sure I ever met him, but i've read the books and articles written by him (Top Shed), and the books about him written by others. He must have still been in his 30s, when he took charge of Kings Cross steam depot (the aforementioned "Top Shed"), one of the most important depots on the ECML. After it's closure in 1963, he gained legendary status, whilst still middle-aged. Wasn't he behind, or involved with, the fitting of "German Smoke Deflectors" to the Gresley A3 class, from the late 50s onwards?

                                    Best Wishes for him, and his family.

                                                       Brian Kirby.

In the USA, for many years they've had drive-in cinemas, then they invented the "drive-thru" take-away restaurants, now copied by McDonald's and others over here. So why don't we have drive-through model railway exhibitions, obviously the aisles will need to be made wider, wider still for buses, and one-way only, and then there'd be no need for a car park.         BK

I have found something interesting with this poll,  there is a serious UK spelling mistake in Question 6.  No American spelling here please.

I do worry that some people have too much time on their hands?😄   

                                                                 Cheers, Brian.

Heathrow (London Airport) is where it is, because it was already there. RAF Heathrow was built as a WW2 "Super-Bomber Airfield", with extra long runways for larger bomber aircraft, a few others were dotted around the country. RAF Heathrow was redundant after WW2, and tailor-made for peacetime passenger travel, within easy reach of London. Many people forget that there just wasn't the money around for grand projects, so in the 40s and 50s they adapted existing sites.    

                            Cheers, Brian.

We all know that HS2 and it's originally planned northern extensions, was partly designed to make accessing the Warley train show far easier, but alas for the time being, our cousins up north will have to carry on using the Victorian rail network, although trains from the NW already run through to Birmingham Int., like from Abu Dhabi on the Cambrian Coast. Up until the advent of the NEC, national shows were mostly based in or around London, which had excellent transport links to all parts of the nation, even Lincolnshire.

     Ancient Britons had a similar idea 5,000 years ago, they opened a national conference/leisure centre on the fringes of Salisbury plain, everyone walked or rode a horse to the venue, so some would have to take a week off work, just to get there, plus another week for the trip home. A big advantage with this location, was that the ground could be returned to agricultural use, between events. The food and drink could be supplied locally, oxon and hogs for roasting, mead from the local friary, thus providing much needed jobs in the area. From an environmental prospective, lots of smoke from all the roasting, increased methane production from eating root veg, and both River Avons (south and west) contaminated, due to lack of loos.

     Now in the present day, we make an annual pilgrimage to a collection of large sheds in central Mercia, which until the 1970s, was beautiful pastoral countryside, where Shakespeare went for picnics. Looks like we're stuck with that lot now, although being able to fly in for the Warley show is handy, apart from the added pollution. Maybe the answer is for the shows to come to us, rather like a travelling circus, although to a degree we have that already, with the string of leisure centre venues, except in Lincolnshire.

      I think what we've all learnt from this discussion, is that if you want to attend nationwide events, whilst relying on public transport,  don't live in Lincolnshire, although it's very pretty, the houses are cheaper, and it's flat, so less pollution from exhaust and brake dust.   

                                                        Cheers, Brian. (Who used to live in Islington)

3 hours ago, Vecchio said:

 The Waterman layout had a few issues with short circuits, 

Sorry to hear that, for Pete it must have felt like P4 Acton days all over again ( If you're old enough to remember that one? 🙂 )? But then if modelling the WCML, it's accurate and prototypical, for trains to stop running for a period, whilst the power supply is restored, at least the catenary didn't come down, just like the real thing.

    Seriously though, it can't be easy setting up a 150ft plus layout in yet another different location, a layout so big that it can't be tested  in it's entirety back at base camp, so the odd gremlin is bound to creep in? As a whole the layout is very impressive, particularly the station, with it's modern office blocks.

                                                      Cheers, Brian.

8 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

I have actually built the Jidenco W, in 3mm scale but I can't find any photos of it. I have built two 7mm ones and the steps over the motion are a real pain, this is the most recent one.

 

The steps on this are more or less where they should be, 

 

Very nice, and you've managed to make those valve gear steps, into real foot pockets, whereas I cheated and just added a flush backing plate.    BK