ikcdab

Hi all, i am looking to roughly date the attached picture. This is Blue Anchor on the Minehead branch.

There is a pre-Worboys level crossing sign - i think these were standardised in 1934 but had been around before then.

The prairie tank appears to have GWR on the tank sides, though it is very indistinct and i might be seeing a new BR logo.

There are no camping coaches in the siding - they were withdrawn in 1939 and didn't resume here until 1952. They had been first located there in 1934, so the period 1934 to 1939 and post 1952 are ruled out.

The number of cars suggests that this isn't during war-time petrol rationing.

During the war, a pillbox was built on the sea front which i believe would have been visible in this picture, so that suggests pre-war. The beach huts appeared in 1927.

The leading and rear coaches are clerestories.

All this is conflicting. If its pre-war, then it has to be between 1927 and 1934.

If its post war, then its between 1945 and 1952.

I know nothing about old cars, there may be some evidence there.

All detective comments welcomed!

Ian

I started mine as noted and I have the superstructure complete. I don't remember now, but I didn't have any probs doing the footplate.

But I have got stuck with the crossheads that just don't make any sense at all.  How did you overcome it?

19 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

It is indeed - but it has straw yellow lettering for crimson / maroon containers; therefore no 'flying crate' logos.

 

John Isherwood,

Cambridge Custom Transfers.

So white lettering always needs the "flying crates"? The transfers in the kit are white without crates.  So I either need to go elsewhere to get some flying crates transfers or revert to maroon and yellow lettering?

20 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

It's the same colour as vacuum-fitted wagons - call it what you will!

 

CJI.

Hi John, I guess your set BL39 is the one for BD containers in this kit PC52 (4mm).  Does your set have the arrow symbol?  

Ian

3 minutes ago, SM42 said:

Bauxite 

 

I think some call it red, some call it brown. 

 

Andy

Not according to the instructions.  They clearly state that the wagon is bauxite brown, but the container is bauxite red.  The odd picture I have found suggests a difference between the two, but I'm unsure if that's weathering or I am looking at maroon containers.

Hi all, I am building two parkside conflats (kit PC52). The instructions say that the BD containers were maroon with yellow lettering, later changed to bauxite red with white lettering. The transfers supplied are white, so I need to paint the containers bauxite red.

Oddly, this is a colour I have not come across before.  I am familiar with bauxite brown, but not red.

What shade was this?

Can I get away with mixing some maroon into bauxite brown to get to the correct shade?

Ian

2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

It would be interesting to know your age - by your mid-seventies, you may have a different perspective!

 

CJI.

15 years until i get to my mid-70s.....

So do you need a removable or lifting section at all?

My layout crosses an outward opening doorway and we just duck under.  After several years it is not a problem.

I would just leave it fixed and avoid all the trouble and hassle.

Ian

12 hours ago, John Besley said:

Very nice looks very much like parts of the SR mainline to Exeter... is it possible to reload the missing photos?

 

Noted your comments on heating, I have used two tubular oil filled radiant heaters in my garage / workshop for the last 20 years running them 24/7 executive in the hight of summer, they keep paperwork dry and tools rust free

Hi John, I'll see if I can find the missing pictures.  I need to do an update anyway.

Whatever I am doing with the shed is working as it's remained bone dry for the last three years despite all the rain we have had!

On 18/01/2024 at 21:12, The Johnster said:

The situation in the US may well be different, but here I would say that whitemetal loco kits are a busted flush, and only one manufacturer (Southeastern Models) is still in the game.  Whitemetal is not a good material for loco kits*, though it is easy to cast and work for the producers, and cheap.  Etched brass kits with resin preformed boiler units became popular in the 70s and 80s, but have had their day in the face of competition from an increasing range of high-quality low-price well detailed and good running locos from the RTR world. 

 

There are a few providers of etched brass foldup chassis kits, and these can be used to replace RTR mechs that have failed.  A problem is that some of them are designed for motors that are no longer obtainable that substitutes have not been produced for.  They are popular with those who convert RTR locos to EM or P4 gauges (as you probably know, the history of RTR provision in the UK is based on the early adoption of a compromised gauge/scale, 00, 16mm gauge 4mm/foot scale, a hangover from the days when motors could not be shoehorned into the smaller British bodyshells in H0 3.5mm/foot scale, and EM, eighteen millimetre, & P4, prototype scale 18.84mm with scale wheel and rail profiles, are remedial attempts to achieve better looking models and track, as is the niche British H0 scene), and are usually supplied with frame spacers to accommodate all three 4mm scales.  TTBOMK nobody is producing loco or chassis kits for British H0.

 

3D has some promise, but has been around a while and failed to live up to it yet.  It is a useful modelling tool for those who can afford a decent quality printer, but commercially is far too expensive and the quality is sometimes questionable.  At the root of the pricing issue is Shapeways, an organisation that seems to have been formed with the best intentions of creating a community of producers and customers to be put in touch with each other, but in Europe is based in Holland, with the result that, since the UK withdrew from the EU, means that 3D printed products, even those printed in the UK, are subject to import duty, pushing the prices up further.  A squiz through their online catalogue reveals an overburden of questionably realistic, poor quality generic, or improbable freelance models, and pointless duplication of items readily available at lower cost as current standard 'hi-fi' RTR, but which have to be fitted to a chassis, painted, detailed, and finished; can't see many people buying them!  3D can provide items for British H0, but does not seem to have resulted in any great increase in uptake of that genre.

 

3D may have a role in sourcing items not available by other means, but a well-detailed 3D coach bodyshell costs at least as much as a finished RTR coach to current standards of detail.  One would need such an item quite badly to buy the 3D bodyshell, which will need bogies, a chassis, underframe detail, a floor, internal detail, glazing, wheels, buffers, ballasting and drawgear, and couplings as well as painting and finishing; it is really a scrathbuild aid for a major project! 

 

 

*If I were choosing a material for a loco kit, I would avoid anything that conducted electricity and would want a material that was rigid without being thick, as it is best to leave as much room as possible in the body cavity for DCC chips, speakers, lighting, and ballast as is feasible.  Whitemetal ticks none of those boxes, will deform and sag under it's own weight over time, and is not amenable to the casting of sharply defined detail.  I'm also less than enthusiastic about it's lead content, although it is commendably heavy as ballast.  While we're on the subject, I'm not a fan of etched brass either; detail can be very good, but the thickness and rigidity of the material is inadequate.  Brass plate of about 0.5mm thickness is needed for anything structural, and this is relatively difficult to work with.

I think 3d printing is the way to go. For not much more than the cost of a couple of rtr locos you can have a really good resin setup.  Fusion360 is free for home use and is a very capable design package.  Once you have that then any models you want can be designed and printed at home. Certainly there is a learning curve, but also there is a curve when learning to build etched brass or whitemetal or scratchbuilding from brass. 

Sam's trains has a series when he learns to design and print stock and locos, starting from the simplest mickey-mouse stuff through to a fairly sophisticated LNWR loco. Well worth looking at.

A lot of railway modelling skills have changed, and if you can develop tech skills, it opens up a whole new range of things. 

On 18/01/2024 at 09:01, burgundy said:

The issue with 3D printed locos is that, without significant amounts of lead inside, they will blow away in a stiff breeze. I also replace any bearing surfaces with brass and tend to build a complete, new, compensated chassis.

Time will tell how a 3D resin model survives, with chunks of ballast randomly scattered around inside it.

There are some examples in the thread on Mr Craven's engines.

Best wishes 

Eric 

May well be true, but it's the same for virtually all rtr models that are moulded in plastic.  You just need to add weight. Personally I think 3d printing is the way to go.

41 minutes ago, uax6 said:

No.  The guard at the rear of the train would communicate (lamp signals/flags etc) to the driver to indicate when clear, and when to set back.

 

Andy G

And the guard will also indicate when the driver should stop.  The guard can see the buffer stop, the driver probably can't.  

Ian

I agree with the above ref the hardware.  You won't go far wrong using peco points of any type.

BUT if you want reliability, you do need to address the power supply. Do not rely on fishplates. Wire a separate track feed to every piece of track.  You also need to avoid using point blades for electrical continuity and wire to the crossing.  I don't use peco points but there are ways of doing this and others will come along with the details. 

I am sure that someone will come along in a moment with the exact details. 

I remember being told a long time ago that whilst we railway modellers fit point motors to our layouts, in the real world they use "point machines".  The issue being that a point machine contains both a point motor to move the blades and a facing point lock.

in mechanical operation there will be just rods and locking mechanisms, in electrically worked areas, there will be just point machines linked by electrical cables.

LIP is loco inspection point.  These trains are normally sandite RHTT.  It's an available path, the train only runs as required.

This sort of thing really annoys me.  They would never do it if it was going to cost them money, they only do it because they aim to increase revenue, and dress it up as a "simplification"...

Our 1897 sleeper 9038 has clear windows throughout. 

It would have been oppressive to have windows blanked out...

The app bulkrename is free and very good.  You can add sequential suffixes or prefixes to any subset of files.  There are many different rename methods in the app.  I have used it for years and highly recommend it.

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

as if the team haven't been trying to do this. Succession planning has in fact, been in place over the years .. unfortunately the well of enthusiastic people has run dry.. as other have said some people have nether the time of inclination to take on more responsibilities away from work..and it isn't just a model railway thing.. Sports clubs, charities, preservation societies you name it .. all are short of volunteers.. and its the same elsewhere (for example in Oz and NZ).

 

The organisers have, between them a lot of successful business experience.. of course, I tke it you are part of the Committee/events Commitee at your local club? 

 

Baz

Hi Baz, point taken. As i said in my other post, I am on the organising committee of a regional (non-railway) annual show. This costs us getting on for £300K to stage and we barely cover our costs and made a loss this year. It is staggeringly difficult today when all the costs have risen c25% and you can't jack up the ticket price to cover the costs or you drive away visitors. So i very much appreciate how hard it is and I admire the Warley club for keeping it going for so long.

23 minutes ago, snitchthebudgie said:

 

Sorry, but easier said than done.  Especially when you're already planning two or three years ahead.  You've got to have the people who want to step up.  

As I said, it's not easy, but if you fail to succession plan then your event dies. I agree that you need to have the people ready to step up.  But you can't just wait for them to turn up or to offer themselves. You need to create the environment in which people want to help out. 

I have no connection with Warley except as a very happy visitor over many years and I have no idea at all what attempt they made to recruit new volunteers .  Bearing in mind the thousands who attend, it doesn't seem beyond the wit of man to recruit a small number of them (1 or 2 a year) to add to the team. All I know is that I have never seen any kind of advert at the show or in the show leadup asking for people to come forward to help organise it.

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The age thing in debate annoys me. RMWeb is actually pretty polite and avoids the sort of idiocy which pervades much of the general media and political discourse which often moves towards two extremes:

 

-young people are feckless layabouts who are incapable of getting out of bed (never mind doing anything useful) and lead pampered lives in which they just want to sit playing games and expect everything on a plate; and

 

-old people can't use technology, don't know what the Internet is, are (misogynist, in the case of men) racists deeply insensitive to anyone not a mirror image of themselves and who just sit telling us that things were better in the old days.

 

Both of which are offensive generalizations which would be unprintable if thrown at any other group. Usually things are worded differently to make views more acceptable but you don't have to read between many lines to figure out what is meant. There are many reasons why I might hold an opinion of someone, but their age is no more relevant than their race, nationality, faith or gender in how we should think of people. 

 

If our hobby is not fully engaging with young people then maybe we need to ask what we need to do to draw more young people in. Nobody owes the hobby anything, we're not entitled to the interest of anyone. I believe model railways (models in general) is a wonderful hobby for people of all ages, but if we want new blood the hobby has to draw people in and engage with people. Which is where the oft derided YouTubers and other platforms such as the even more hated TikTok can come in, whether or not we like some of the 'influencers' and channels on those platforms they seem more connected than many alternative means of communication and are finding a broad audience and presenting stuff in a way which seems better suited to today's audience.

100% agree.  You miss the third thing, everybody's old and no young people coming along.  To be honest, it's rubbish.

To prove my point, look back 30 years. The same thing was being said then.  But people forget that there are always "new" old people coming onto the scene.  Biology dictates that. It's a fact that young and middle aged people have so much to occupy themselves with families and things, but when that eases up, they are freerer to do other things. My own local heritage line is thriving with young people starting to take over things but we also have managed to recruit lots of older people.  Of course, they may not be with us for that long, but new old people are always coming along.

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but please don't blame "ageing demographic" for the closure of a club or a society.  You need to understand why new people aren't coming along and joining you, and sort out that problem.

I very much regret the demise of the Warley show, I attended it for many years. I also regret that the organisers didn't make provision for their replacement years ago such that there was a constant evolution in the organisation staff. If you recruit one new person to the committee every year, then you are sorted. It's succession planning.

And I do know how tough it is. I am involved in organising a local (not railway) show. It costs us £250k to put on and we barely break even. It's really tough but we have been successful in recruiting new people to help out and the committee has been totally renewed over the last 10 years. 

Ian

It's M2.  But very short.  Whatever you buy, you will need to shorten them a lot.

26 minutes ago, Torper said:

No windows?

You don't need windows. They are a security risk, let in UV light and get in the way of scenery. 

when there is so much on-line to attract you, it is really important to encourage any form of creative hobby. I don't really care if my grandkids take up model trains, boats, planes, warhammer, knitting or cookery - its all about learning a skill and making things. That is where the excitement lies - creating something that nobody else has done. and whatever they do, they can be assured that when they come to visit I'll be helping them with that hobby....

i very much appreciate this as its one of my bug-bears - horrible voids between coaches.

So close coupling is a must.

But equally important is rigidity - seeing coaches "shimmy" back and forth when using hook and bar is terrible. Any of the rigid couplings - hunt or roco close couplers are my choice - hold the coaches a fixed distance apart and are a million times more realistic.

However, for wagons, i retain hook and bar as they were loose-coupled and did joggle around.

Ian