Ruston

Now that I've decided on not having a working loader I can decide on the footprint of the buildings. I'll plan this out and lay some concrete patches for the supports and then ballast around them, before making and planting the buildings. The last time I did a colliery yard was on the O gauge Royd Hall Drift Mine and, to be honest, I was never happy with the ground coverage for the pit yard, screens and washery. It looked no different from the ballast on the rest of the track and the sleepers, rails and chairs were all visible. I've noticed a few colliery-based layouts that have ground cover that doesn't look proper too. The track in area around the screens at British Oak, and on almost every photo of every colliery yard I've ever seen was up to the rail tops in with years of accumulated mud and spilled coal, so I want to try and do this but the flanges and back-to-backs of OO models have to be considered. To start with I've made a ballast mix that's much darker than on the rest of the layout. It uses only coal and sand this time. It could do with being put through a finer sieve. So that I don't have to lay this stuff on as deep as the track height I'll probably cut and lay card in the area first. It'll take a lot less ballast to bring it up to the level.

I didn't know it was being banned. It hasn't been allowed to be used around here since I was very young. The entire district became a smokeless zone and I remember my granny not liking the fact that she had to use coke on the fire instead of coal. I never thought a time would come where you can't simply find or buy coal anywhere. I wanted some coke for wagon loads not long ago and thought I'd just stroll through a public footpath that goes through my old infants school and pick a couple of pieces off the pile that was always in the playground for use in the heating boiler. Not only is there no pile of coke in the playground but there's no longer a public footpath and the school has a fences and gates round it that would put a maximum security prison to shame! How times have changed and not for the better. I've got most of the coal that I used on the O gauge, so it only needs crushing into finer pieces. I've also got an ice cream tub of coal, from Kellingley Colliery, in reserve.

Sorry if I've missed it but there are 21 pages of this to wade through and as I can't see any on the Accurascale website, I'm wondering if loads are available, or are going to be available, for the HAA/HOP AB? Or if not, what have other people done about loads? I need removable loads and while I usually make my own loads the problem with these hoppers is the cross bracing. They will need to be cut out and embedded in the loads, but then when the wagon is running empty the cross bracing will be absent. If loads are going to be made, will there also be a removable insert that can be put in for empties? Or are these parts available as spares so I can make my own? This conundrum aside they are really nice wagons.

A view of the same Rolls Royce diesel-hydraulic propelling wagons of scrap through Watery Lane sidings.

I had to stand in an abandoned shopping trolley that I found in order to get high enough to get this shot over the wall at Charlie Strong's scrapyard.

Another of my posts where I don't actually do anything. I've been thinking about this a lot. I've made working loaders before and they make for an extra and interesting aspect of layout operation but they have their downsides. The first is building and making it work. No easy task in itself. Then there is the inevitable mess and spillage. No matter what's used as a load or how well the loader itself works, I have never made one where 100% of the load remains in the wagon on loading. Some always hits the floor of the wagon and bounces out onto the floor (of the layout), where it accumulates. Accidental spillage due to operator error adds to this. To clear it up involves brush and vacuum cleaner, but more importantly, a building that can be lifted off the baseboard in order to access the area. More hassle in the design and build stage. There's also the material. The only thing that looks like coal is coal. I don't care what anyone says, this is a fact. The working loader that I did in O gauge used real coal that I smashed and sieved to pieces of 2 grades, the smallest being approx 3-4mm, which in O doesn't look terribly oversized, especially given that deep-mined coal was graded into some pretty large sizes for some uses. What's supposed to be coming out of BL is opencasted coal, which went mainly for use in power stations. Small stuff. If I were to smash the coal down to a realistic size for power station coal, in 4mm scale, it would be not far off grains of salt. It would make one hell of a mess with spillage and the amount of dust could cause problems with keeping the track clean. I'm now thinking of using fixed loads that are placed in the wagons and lifted out in the FY. I already do this with the scrap loads on Charlie Strong's scrapyard and the steel coils on Watery Lane. It's not an exhibition layout, so the only people who I have to please are myself and the friends who come and operate the layouts now and again and if they say anything about it then they can Foxtrot Oscar. 😁 The shunting at the screens can still be reasonably interesting as the trains need splitting to get into the screens sidings and by shortening the screens building in length, the placing of the loads can be done on the terminus end, where only 3 wagons at a time will be able to fit. This means that a number of movements is still required to load a train and get it ready to go out. With no loose coal being loaded at all, the loads of the internal use wagons will need to be lifted out at the staithe but one at a time as each wagon is shunted to the tipper house, so there is still as much to occupy the operator of that train as there would be with a loose load. The only difference being that the hand of god lifts the load out instead of it being tipped. Any additional wagons for this run won't need all of the faff of altering them to actually discharge their loads. I wish I'd bought some of those BRM/Rapido NCB internal use wagons now. Anyway, that looks like being the way forward.

Slow progress, putting off the day that I have to tackle the screens building. I have now filled the space between the rails with "concrete". I had cut a strip of thin plywood and had scored it to represent sleepers laid longitudinally but the gap for the flanges looked huge and the chairs seemed to really stand out, so I decided to have the track inset into concrete instead. It's one of my modelling pet hates when people attempt inset track but you can see the chairs and sleepers through the flangeways, so I was determined to do better than that. In the photo in the previous post you will see the sides of the rails, and the chairs, are visible on the outside of the gauge. I filled these gaps with Milliput and smoothed it so it would come to slightly below the rail tops. I reckoned that the Milliput would hold the rails to gauge even if I cut out all of the sleepers, so that's what I did once the Milliput had hardened. The sleepers were cut out and trimmed flush with the inside of the gauge. A length of 1.5mm thick styrene was cut to be a precise fit inside the gauge and a length of cork cut and glued to the styrene. The cork was cut to allow the back-to-backs of RTR loco wheelsets to clear by 0.3mm. The entire insert was painted before being glued in place. Now there are no chairs, no sleepers and no spaces, just as it should be and as close as RTR OO gauge will allow.

That would be a great finish for extremely weathered and peeling paint! It's just a shame that's not what you intended.

This 20-ton Ruston 88DS was sold for scrap after the ICI works at which it was used ceased to use rail traffic. It had been well-maintained by the ICI fitters and, instead of being cut up, was put on the sale or hire list at Strong's. It spent some time in use as the yard shunter and also shunting the Watery Lane works of Metal Box Ltd. It was later sold for preservation but, as is so often the case, was cast aside as soon as the railway got ideas above its station and started to run an ex-BR steam loco. The Ruston was sold back to Strong but this time it was not so lucky and became razor blades and Rover 75s.

The only electrics on a standard 88DS were the front and rear lamps, internal cab lamp and the electric fan for the cab heater. And of course the battery and dynamo. They could all pose a spark risk so the flameproofed gear had sealed cases, with tamper-proof fastners and, I presume, toughened glass on the lamps. I don't know what they did about the heater fan motor. The other spark risk would have been the ignition system on the donkey engine that charged the air-start reservoir if it became totally depleted. This was why the flameproofed locos used electric start, instead of air, as the battery box and starter motor were also flameproofed.

And one that came in from an ICI works that ceased to use rail traffic.

Speaker and SA in the cab.

I'm confused now. I was under the impression that it was OO, not N. Or do you mean Phil's is N but the kit will be OO, or available in both scales?

It's not a silencer. It's a spark arrestor.

Thanks. Exactly which chassis is it designed to fit? There are two versions of the Bachmann Class 03 chassis and the rear body fixing holes are not in the same place on them. It seems to have been redesigned to get the Next 18 decoder PCB in.

Do you have any photos of the model?

It runs and it's got sound and Stay Alive in it now. Unfortunately, I ordered the sound gear on Thursday and it arrived this morning. Unfortunately because Digitrains have launched a proper 88DS sound project. This has the 165DS project in it, which was the nearest thing available but I will get it reblown with the proper one. Vortex spark arrestor fitted. The lamps will be changed to flameproof ones as soon as the order from RT Models arrives but other than that it's ready to go.

Mine's ready for service. Chassis block chopped, sound and Stay Alive fitted and, of course, a repaint. It's just a shame that I ordered the sound gear on Thursday, before the 88DS project was available. It's got what was the nearest thing in the 16DS project but I'll get it reblown with the 88DS project in the New Year. I'm sure this will be the first of many.

Sound.

Stay Alive test fit into cab. The glazing was removed for the repaint but will be reinstalled before the roof goes back on. The start of the vortex spark arrestor. Things such as this would be better made as 3D prints as all the nut and bolt detail can be added but I can't drive a computer, so this is made from a length of brass rod and a turned piece of aluminium. I'll use a piece of square section styrene for the part where sparks are collected and emptied from. Another small detail that I want to have a go at is to make the buffer heads appear like spark proof ones. I'm thinking some fine weave material glued on and soaked in glue.

The brake standard is glued in to the cab and it could be that the excess was not dry when the cab was fitted. Other than that there isn't any glue used to fix the cab in place at all. There are lugs on the engine casing that lock into the cab, preventing the cab from lifting, even if it isn't accidentally glued. The engine casing is glued to the running plate and located by 3 lugs either side and a large one that locks under at the front. You need to squeeze and ease the engine casing until you hear the glue cracking and giving way. Take it steady and carefully. It will come apart.

The livery is based on that on various Imperial Chemical Industries diesels. The chassis mods have improved the look somewhat but it's a lot of trouble to go to. It could have been avoided if Hornby had put more thought into it. I know they have to be able to fit those awful couplings but surely a plastic pocket that can be unscrewed, like those on Bachmann wagons, could have been used instead? Some people have suggested that it's to add weight but it's now only 7 grammes lighter than when it came out of the box. Seven grammes won't make much difference in pulling power and just how much does anyone want to hang behind one of these things anyway? I have made some ICI logos for it but no specific division or location lettering. It will run on Charlie's Yard as something that came in for scrap but was found to be servicable and was put to use. Ultimately, I see it on a chemical works micro layout.

Lais KungFu 871007or 872007 are the types that I use in my locomotives. The 871007 has the capacitors configured in a square arrangement, whereas the 872007 has them laid next to each other. Either will fit in the cab of the 88DS and remain below window level.

After a quick splash of paint.