Nick Lawson

Replacement bogies. The Ratio kits include plastic bogies which are notoriously flimsy. Perhaps less well known is that they have a slightly undersized wheelbase (about 0.5mm) and when assembled the coaches ride too high. I have looked at alternatives. If I tell y'all what I've tried, hopefully someone will tell me what I should have done! Firstly, in “Another Place” last year, Bill Bedford raised the tantalising possibility of 3D-printed replacements. https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=6795&sid=874626701c068edcd1f3c06f4175ae6f&start=25#p72927 Sadly these have not appeared yet, but I live in hope. In the meantime: Various former products aren't available either. Dave Bradwell has stopped doing his MR bogies. 247 Developments are currently out of stock and waiting on a change of supplier. Cunning Plan 1: Eileen's Emporium do Bill Bedford's old range of sprung etched bogie chassis. I've used a few sprung W irons from this range and quite like them, so I tried the 10' wheelbase kit. This is extremely delicate to start with and would require filing down even finer at the bottom to hide behind the tapering Clayton axleboxes, for which they were evidently never intended. (Picture 1). I've put these to one side for now, pending a “Cunning Plan 1A” occurring to me. Cunning Plan 2. I bought some Brassmasters 10' CCU units. These bogies are pivoted transversely so that each side can pitch independently of the other. The pivots are brass pins with a rather rounded underside to the head, so seemed to be a bit of a sloppy fit. I soldered washers to the underside of the pinheads to get a flatter, firmer stomach fit. I then trimmed the back of the Ratio plastic bogie sides and glued these to the chassis; which is when I discovered the discrepancy on the wheelbase of the former (see above). A bit of unscheduled sideways gouging was required to open up the plastic axle end holes to match the brass chassis. The offset of wheels from centre of cosmetic axleboxes isn't too noticeable provided you don't look. The pivotting is controlled by wires soldered across the otherwise open ends, meaning that cosmetically the bogie ends are a bit lacking. For a coach in the middle of a fixed rake this wouldn't matter. As I'm building a brake/3rd to go at the end of a rake, I tried taking the plastic Ratio bogie end and pinning it unglued to one end of the bogie with brass wire such that the bogie can still flex as intended. This was a bit of a faff to file back the brass sides to fit this end piece and I'm not sure how long it will stay in place anyway. I didn't feel inspired to do the same to other end of the bogie. (Picture 2) The brass chassis does include fold-up brake shoes. I only broke one off! (reattached) but the nature of the compensation means it would be very difficult to fit any further brake gear. Fitting the brass bogie mount to the underside of the coach floor was when I discovered that the coach rides too high to match normal buffer height. Having prised the brass mounting plate back out of the Araldite, I adjusted the height. In fact to get the correct buffer height the coach has to sit very low on the bogie so that there is minimal clearance between solebar and bogie. I sat the coach on what I think is the tightest curve it will have to negotiate and thankfully I think this is ok in my case. With hindsight I realise I missed a trick, in that I could have slotted some lead inside the u section bogie mountings before glueing. Maybe next time. Cunning Plan 3. I bought a set of MJT 10' CCUs from Dart Castings. These are also longitudinally split bogies, but in this case the transverse pivots are replaced by a torsion rod. This means that control wires are not needed at the ends which therefore can have an end frame, (but in two halves). I may well relegate the Brassmasters bogies to a coach in the middle of the rake and use MJTs on the end coaches. The MJT bogies don't include any brake gear at all. Dart also supply whitemetal caliper brake block castings, but frankly the alternatives supplied by Wizard looked nicer, so I got some of those instead. I haven't actually built these MJT bogies yet, as they were overtaken by: Cunning Plan 4. By my time period, a percentage of Clayton clerestories had had their original 10' bogies replaced by 8' bogies. The Comet range, supplied by Wizard, includes MR 8' bogies with cosmetic whitemetal sides and an optional springing kit. The brass chassis is rigid and the only flexibility is at the bogie pivot. The optional springing is in fact a damping mechanism to limit sideways rolling while still allowing the bogie to pitch longitudinally. (in the third pic below, the pair of arch-topped verticals are riding on these springs). The cosmetic bogie sides are evidently the last remaining piece of an earlier whitemetal kit. You have to saw an awful lot of metal off the back to match the brass chassis; and even then it's very thick in some places – but not very robust in others. Like the Ratio sides, these whitemetal ones are less than the nominal wheelbase, so more gouging was required - more difficult with whitemetal, particularly as I had previously burnt-out my minidrill on a bit of diy. I built one of this pair, just in time to read elsewhere in this forum @Daddyman said "I wouldn't recommend using any system that consists in putting a thick W/M frame on to an etched innards as the bogies will end up too wide, which will play havoc with your footboard supports, if you're fitting any. I found that out the hard way..." I haven't fitted any footboards yet. Compared with my Brassmasters/Ratio bogies, the Comet one is perhaps 1mm wider in places, (accentuated by the shorter length) although the widths over the axleboxes themselves are more comparable. As the Comet bogies are rigid you can at least add brakegear to the shoes which are provided. I had half a set of yokes left over from something else, so I faked them into the ends, but leaving the inner brakes with a plain wire crossbar. Anyway that's the story so far.

No, they have to be scraped off after painting. I hummed and hawed about whether to paint first and fix later, but tried it this way first. The picture is post-priming, so I've already scraped once. It wasn't that onerous.

Sometime later... Commode and door handles One of the improvements to these coaches illustrated by Stephen Williams [“The 4mm coach – Part one”] is to cut away the mouldings for the L-shaped commode handles and replace them with brass. I had a go at this, using 0.3mm wire. The prototype handles had a very square corner, which is not really replicable in bent wire. They were also fixed at three points. I toyed for a while with bending up larger gauge wire which I could file down to achieve a squarer corner and to which I could solder a third leg; but then the other side of my brain threw its teddy out of the pram and I settled for bent brass with two legs, for a quiet life. However, in order to get the handles to sit parallel with the coach side, when cutting away the moulded plastic plastic, I left a small, half-height “plinth” at the angle to glue the unsupported corner against. I have a Bill Bedford handrail bending jig (available from Eileen's Emporium). This is of course for straight handrails, so I used it to make a straight handrail of the overall required length and then laid this sideways on the jig to bend it in half in the other plane. It took me three goes to find the right overall length. A number of my attempts to bend a handle in half (without one end secured as for the intended use of the jig) were off target so I just started again each time. I'm sure I've seen somebody does a jig for right-angled bend handrails, but don't remember where. The jig did at least make it relatively easy to get a set of handrails that look reasonably similar and reasonably square. The main thing with fitting these to the coach beading is that it is really obvious if the relevant parts of the handrail aren't parallel with the beading. I drilled the hole for the top fixing first, inserted the long end of the wire into this and then marked and drilled the hole for the other end. Some of my marking up was obviously defective and some remedial broaching was called for. Looking back I didn't do enough of this on some of my earlier handles and it shows. Part way through this job I added a refinement: as a last adjustment before glueing a handle in place I flattened the front surface of the handle with rough emery and then polished with fine. I think this two minute step makes the commode handles look a bit less like wire; and it is much easier to do it before fixing. Again I see I have done this better in some cases than others, so this may be something where it is better to fettle up a matching set together, rather than making and fitting them individually. I started off by putting superglue on the front, but changed to just blobbing glue around the legs of the handle on the inside of the coach; because in some cases with sloppy holes the handle had stuck fast before I could position it accurately. Also this made less mess and seems to have worked adequately. Afterwards I filled holes around the handles with tippex (a wheeze I picked up elsewhere in this forum). Apart from the commode handles, there are also the T door handles. I replaced the moulding with Markits brass handles. Compared to the foregoing saga, these were quick and easy to do. I drilled holes for the handles and with minimal gentle broaching had a push fit. Altogether I'm quite pleased with the overall result which meets the 2 foot rule, certainly when I take my glasses off.

A small additional detail: the Modified Hall also had a new, modified No1 boiler, with 3 rows of superheater tubes as compared with the original No1's 2 rows. http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/m_in_hal.htm There was a visible external difference - the external steampipes were slightly longer, joining the smokebox higher up https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fc8.alamy.com%2Fcomp%2FKMG0EW%2Fmodified-hall-class-6960-raveningham-hall-pulling-the-somerset-coast-KMG0EW.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alamy.com%2Fstock-image-modified-hall-class-6960-raveningham-hall-pulling-the-somerset-coast-167538081.html&tbnid=KI0EOfH3rVdxFM&vet=10CAMQxiAoAGoXChMI0JbUxsbR8gIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEA8..i&docid=o-r-5tkS0e5U8M&w=1300&h=957&itg=1&q=modified hall boilers&client=firefox-b-d&ved=0CAMQxiAoAGoXChMI0JbUxsbR8gIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEA8 than on the earlier engines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GWR_4900_Class_5900_Hinderton_Hall#/media/File:Hinderton_Hall_5900_Didcot.jpg Your loco looks to have the longer steampipes. These newer boilers were interchangeable with the older ones. The preserved, but unrestored 5952 has a "modified hall boiler"

Excellent - just what I needed!

Thanks for the info on panelling/beading and analysing old photographs Are there any photos from late Midland days of Clayton clerestories modified with door ventilators? People seem to hedge about this and stick safely with the knowledge that some appeared like this in LMS days. Personally it seems reasonable that as Bain stock was built with them that the Midland might well have converted earlier stock, but I don't think I've seen the photographic evidence (although as you've noticed I can't tell the difference between Bain & Clayton stock in some of these pictures). Not having to bore out all the door ventilators on an entire rake would be a definite win. On the subject of this conversion, I spotted item "10415 - C &W index of changes to stock" in the Midland Study Centre's online search tool. I asked Dave Harris about digitising this in the hope that the start date of this door modification might appear. He did the index but said there was too much material to do the rest. I haven't had time / opportunity to pursue this further. I'm very grateful for this discussion as I'm learning a lot!

I started a thread while thinking about underframes, then slipped in a diversion to clerestory sides. I've given the thread a more general name before moving on to: roof rain strips. Following Stephen Williams I made rain strips for the lower roof from plastic strip. The Ratio moulding in fact had a ghost of a rain strip which I used as a guide. The end result looked like SW's, but not like the prototype photographs. The rain strip should not curve down at the ends as much shown. I managed to get the strip ends away from the roof again and straightened them up a bit, although they should be slightly higher still. Memo to self: remember this when you get to the next coach.

Stephen, Really? Looking at e.g. Lacey & Dow fig 162, (earlier than my period) the clerestory panels look to be recessed. And are they glass or a solid replacement?! Whereas the Pullman sleeper in fig 184 has more obviously flush windows. Ah! That's useful to know! I note btw that on that carriage, minus gaslamp tops, it is the torpedo vents that line up with the doors, c.f. the other style where the gaslamp tops align with the doors with torpedoes offset to one side. So, if I have removed the door ventilators, (seemed like a good idea at the time) should I also steer clear of the clerestory grilles? I like your suggestion of indicating stuff with paint, as that means I can defer a decision! Otherwise I'm never going to get anything into service. Thanks also for the interesting links

@Compound2632 ( Yes, me again ) My period is 1923, so I guess the windows had gone by then? On the other hand, I don't know whether at this period I could follow Stephen Williams p46 ( a post grouping photo after the removal of gaslighting) and model the clerestory with louvres adjacent to the ventilators? And if I could do so, the best way of representing it?

. Like others before me I'm having a go at this. I have Stephen Williams' “4mm coach” vol 1 which devotes a chapter to mods on this type of coach. This post is partly a commentary on that. In the section on the underframe, SW cuts away the plastic truss rods and replaces them with brass wire. He says he considered similarly replacing the plastic running board supports but decided against it, perhaps partly because his aim was to demonstrate a technique and had already done so. Perhaps also to leave scope for keen types to go one better?! The downsides of leaving the running board assembly are: firstly that it makes life more difficult to have to carefully pare away the truss rods from the running board – rather than just clearing away the whole lot; and secondly that the end result is to make the running board stanchions look even more massive than before, in comparison to the new, slimmer truss rods. I "went for it", and replaced the running board stanchions with steel wire – mostly salvaged from unwanted alex jackson couplings hanging off an ebay purchase. The problems with doing this are that firstly the prototype stanchions appear to have tapered downwards, which I did not try to replicate; and secondly that the plastic footboards now look even more butch. I thinned down the latter. Another time I might try to fake up replacements from brass offcuts as SW suggests. I hadn't originally intended to replace the supplied plastic brake and gas cylinders, but when I got to them found they are really manky; so replacements were sourced from Wizard. I should have gone for whitemetal V-hangers rather than the brass ones I acquired. I fitted these and temporarily wired the brake cylinder lever between them to find the cylinder height to match. The whitemetal brake cylinder ends were distinctly oval, which won't show, but too tall for my requirement (I probably bought the wrong part) so I sawed about a mil off the top. Because I hadn't intended to fit these replacements I had glued the solebars on to the floor before finding I needed to cut off the plastic mounting for the original cylinder, which again made life difficult. The whitemetal gas tanks are plain. I managed to superglue some plastic strip around them to represent the supporting bands. I was so busy trying to ensure that I didn't superglue my fingers to each other and everything else that I annoyingly didn't end up with the ends of the plastic in line with the casting defect on one tank, such that these could all be hidden away. Also I made these tanks up before realising that “Historic Carriage Drawings vol 2” (David Jenkinson) P97 nicely illustrates the asymmetric positioning of these tank bands and also a more rounded end to the tank than the supplied casting, which perhaps could have been fettled to match. SW's narrative includes phrases on the lines of “I knocked this up from bits in my scrap box” which is annoying to a newbie who hasn't got such a thing. I think I must count as a "noob" no longer as I now have a modest scrap box and did in fact find a couple of spare brass brake-shoe hangers which I cut down and soldered to some wire to make the brake pulls. It was trial and error to get this assembly to clear the underframe and I might have made a neater job of trimming off the excess afterwards. The replacement bogies are a story for another day. Clerestory framing. Switching from low to high: Stephen Williams notes that the Ratio clerestory sides are completely featureless but decided against improving them. However, David Jenkinson (ref above) helpfully shows the framing of the clerestory sides for the three diagrams modelled by Ratio, together with the D508 Brake Composite. I had a pack of assorted plasticard strip and used a length of the finest strip (no idea what size this is) to make the verticals of the framing. The result is a bit too prominent ,partly as I went in a bit heavy-handed with the spray can, but hopefully no worse than the legendary framing on the body sides! (Apologies couldn't get a decent picture). For anyone who fancies a go at this - note that Jenkinson's drawings are reproduced slightly smaller than 4mm scale - at least in the edition I have (pendragon 1998) - so you need to adjust to suit.

I like this scenario. A modeller could select a suitable perishables van and fudge whether it contained milk churns or fruit & veg as suggested earlier.

In those days Baghill had bay platforms in both directions, and the Leeds trains would have run into one of these. If anything the train would have been more in the way on the main S & K at Ackworth. Counting arrivals and departures separately there were about 100 train movements a day at Baghill in those days; but even so it was never crowded in the way we modellers prefer! But thanks for the thought.

Might be. the WTT was from May 1922. I hadn't thought in terms of produce.

Courtesy of the MR Study Centre I have a 1922 Midland Railway WTT for the Swinton & Knottingley Joint Railway (Midland & NER). This includes the NER services between Pontefract Baghill and Leeds, via the connecting line to the L& Y at Monkhill; and then Castleford. Firstly, although three services per day were straightforwardly between Leeds & Baghill, the evening service from Leeds, having made a 2 minute stop at Baghill then joined the S & K line and continued one stop to Ackworth. A quarter of an hour later it then returned tender-first to Baghill, with a five minute stop allowing it to use the turntable before proceeding back to Leeds. Any ideas why this one service extended to Ackworth? Secondly what sort of train configuration might be expected for these Leeds-Pontefract services in 1922? A few years after the grouping this service was culled entirely.

@47137 @micknich2003 @MarkC and for anyone else interested: NERA have now made "Servicing the North Eastern Railway's locomotives" available as an eBook for £5. https://ner.org.uk/product/servicing-the-north-eastern-railways-locomotives-ebook-new/

Apologies, I paraphrased far too loosely

Thank you all for your responses. @Compound2632 for clarifying that class A was "fitted", and class B "unfitted". (For some reason I was guessing the other way round!) @Crimson Rambler For the article expounding the MR's own sub categories of goods train. An interesting read! @kevinlms- and all who weighed in on running rights - no I didn't say, but the WTT relates to the Swinton & Knottingley Joint Railway - a joint venture between the Midland and North Eastern companies. In order to get their Act of Parliament they had to give varied rights to the GC (MSLR back then); GN and L&Y. Yes this was the GC running their own goods trains (as described in MR terms) over the S &K from Wath Junction in the south as far as Milford (on NER metals) to the north. (I believe they stopped at Milford Yard, rather than turning off the York line at Milford Junction.)

Courtesy of the MR Study Centre I have a 1922 Midland Railway WTT. This shows GCR trains passing through, which the WTT describes as either 'G.C. Class “A” Goods' or 'G.C. Class “B” Goods'. Can anyone tell me what these labels mean? They don't appear to align with later classification systems.

Yes please!

Although it is increasingly obvious that it would be useful if I actually read these tomes properly rather than skimming them.

Where to start?! @Compound2632 Yes, I also have Lacey & Dow (both) and the Jenkinson & Essery. (The memsahib is getting increasingly restive as more and more reference works spread across the living room surfaces. The date of the changeover from single-end steps to both: for everyone else Stephen (in a PM) has now hardened up to the view that steps both ends were universal by the end of the Great War. I will have to run an anachronism after all then for now. ("I don't know what came over me officer. When I came to I had a mek brush in my hand and it was All Over") Here's a related detail for debate: it appears that when steps were at a single end, on both sides, then the handrails went to the lower roof, next to the base of the clerestory. However, when the steps were both ends, single side, then the handrail went to the top of the clerestory end. Is this always the case? If so then the Ratio kit is incorrect in this detail (tut!). In this case, if you are following Stephen Williams' book in fitting brass handrails, then watch out because he just replaced what Ratio had provided. (I think this book provides useful inspiration to wannabe modellers to get started kitbashing, but the author admits in the text that he wasn't really an expert on the prototype. And as @Steamport Southport points out, things have moved on.) Steam heating. Thanks @Compound2632 for pointing out the photo DY6422. This very usefully shows the steam heating pipes on the end of the carriage, and their relative prominence, compared with other end pipework. Carriage roof handles. I think I can identify 4 configurations! @Compound2632identified: 1. originally no handles 2. long handles running along the clerestory top. Jenkinson & Essery's illustrated review plate 133 shows such a handrail silhouetted against the sky. Williams, vol 1, p36 has a nice large reproduction of MR drawing 1219 which shows these clearly. 3. Jenkinson, referenced earlier in this thread stated that the long rails were replaced by a set of shorter ones. These are partly visible in the photo I was PM'd. They probably equate to the layout in Jenkinson & Essery, plate 129 of a Bain round-windowed clerestory; in which the short handrails are centred above each of the gas lights. 4. Lastly, Williams vol 1 P46 shows a nice view of LMS clerestories, from which the gas lights have been removed; and so have the clerestory roof handles except for the end handles and the one adjoining them. New question! Bogies: I take the point about a change to 8' bogies. At grouping would most Clayton clerestory stock have been 8' or 10' or an indeterminate mixture? .

@Compound2632 Stephen, thank you for the comprehensive answer. I will choose to believe the change in step arrangement was later rather than sooner, so I can have some of each. The clerestory top handrail - David Jenkinson ("Historic Carriage Drawings" 1998 edition p96) opined that, "the clerestory top handrail (dating from c1900) had mostly been replaced by a series of shorter rails on the side of the clerestory roof by c.1920." I can't say I've noticed either arrangement yet. You won't be surprised that I am working from Stephen Williams' "4mm coach". He models an "emergency brake tell-tale linkage", which doesn't appear to be an original fitting. While you're at it - what period did this get added? Thanks again.

Thanks Wickham. The shorter handrails - that's a thought. In the meantime it occurred to me that, going in the opposite direction, they might also have been to assist someone climbing up to slide the gas shutoff bar across. Um, these coaches had lavs from new. I think also gas lighting?

Some Midland Railway coaches had steps up both sides of one end only, while others had steps up the left hand side only of both ends. Is there a logic to which was applied to particular diagrams and did it change over time? I've see the suggestion that brake-ended coaches would be "more likely" to have all the steps together at the brake end. Is there anything in this? I've looked at the usual reference works. It may be coincidence but earlier pictures of Clayton clerestories have the single-ended layout, while the few examples of the double-ended variety come with LMS livery. Or is this another detail lost in the mists of time? If I want to model a D499 Brake 3rd in 1923 does it matter which I adopt? (I.e do I need to take a scalpel to Mr Ratio's venerable plastic?!) Second question. The steps were supplied with a handrail. On an end with steps up the left hand side only there was also a shorter, vertical handrail up the right hand side of the end. What was this used for? (Actually I see that on a coach with steps at one end only, the other end had these short handrails on both sides.)

A cheap and cheerful hack to the Ratio carriage seating kit. I've been building an old Slaters D516 6 wheel Composite coach. Lacey & Dow vol 1, p113 shows the interiors of both 1st & 3rd class compartments from one of these coaches. (Essery & Jenkinson's “Midland Carriages, an illustrated review” p118 has a better reproduction of the 1st class interior btw.) The illustrations show the significant difference between the first and third class seating, particularly the height of the seat backs, visible through the windows. The third class seat backs come roughly 1/3 of the way up the windows; while the swanky firsts come almost 2/3 of the way up and have wings. The Slaters' kit included 2-part carriage seats but all of one type, suitable for the 3rd class compartments, but a grave disappointment to any first class passenger. Taking the 3rd class first: The supplied seats are slightly too tall, coming half way up the window. Also the top of the main section of the back should be roughly level with the bottom of the window. This latter can be rectified by removing a mil or so off the foot of the seating, preferably before assembling it. This of course means that the seat itself is a bit on the low side, but that will be less visible than the back when you peer through the window. Having lowered the whole thing so that the main section of seat back aligns, reduce the top of the seat back slightly so that it is approximately the required overall height. I've done nothing with the compartment wall above the seat back. (Wot, no hat rack?) As indicated, the first class seating should be visibly more opulent; in fact not only having much higher backs but, thanks to the larger compartment size, allowing the passenger to lounge back, unlike the hoi polloi in the smaller, sit-up-and-beg 3rds. So on to phase two: I had previously acquired some of the much larger Ratio carriage seat strips. A quick comparison showed that these were much too tall, reaching to the top of the carriage windows, rather than nearly 2/3 of the window height. Removing the headrest section from the seat would bring it down to about the right height - although the convex curvature of the seat back would be completely wrong for a passenger wanting to lean back and fumigate the compartment with one of his largest cigars. Cut and shut time: By sawing horizontally through the back just above seat level, cleaning the seat flush, spinning the back over so it was back to front & upside down, and reattaching the back to the rear of the seat, not the top; one gets a slightly deeper seat (front to back) and a seat-back with a suggestion of lumbar support and a reclining curve that can be set to any angle you like. So a better shape, but still not right. Take 2: repeat the above, but having sawn off the back, warm it up (carefully!) with a hairdryer or other heatsource & flatten the curve out slightly before reattaching to the seat. This now gives an approximation of the first class seating, but sans armrests and wings. (Oh all right, the "careful" heating was Take 3!). The first pic below shows a before and after. The armrests were cut from bellwire superglued into the seat back. They are too round and not wide enough, but will have to do. The wings were cut and filed out from scrap plastic and glued in. They are still a bit big and make me think of Mickey Mouse. Having reversed the seat back I then cut away most of the old headrest from underneath the seat so I can hide some ballast weight there. The second pic below, further exaggerated by perspective and pale primer gives an idea of the possible effect from the different seating.