Ruston

The Pecketts for Nant Y Mynydd Colliery.

I rubbed it with a cotton bud soaked in white spirit and with the end of a cocktail stick where the lettering was next to the rivets.

Not to me personally but that shows that the buffer beams and domes are seperate parts. Hornby already do two types of dome so if they produce the alternative buffer beams the next batch of Pecketts may include works number 810, otherwise known as British Railways No.1

One of the three baseboards. They are very well made and cost me £25. I couldn't make them myself for less, so they're worth the money. Seeing how strong they are and how difficult it would be to cut depth into the front edge for the stream I am going to stick an extension onto the front, below track level. This means I will only have to cut into the boards where the stream goes under the tracks and it will free up space on the board itself. The stars of the show. Dodo is so far untouched but the blue one has had the biscuit company name removed. Thinking about buildings... I'm no expert on the divisions of Christianity but I'd like to know whether chapels in South Wales are Weslyan or Baptist Personally I think the Baptist one looks better.

After going over some other ideas for a OO layout I think this is the one. Last night I was looking through my book collection for ideas and one book I looked at was Visions Of Steam - The Four Seasons Of Steam In Industrial South Wales, by Peter Cavailer and Geoff Silcock. If you haven't got the book it's a picture book of really atmospheric monochrome photos that doesn't even have proper captions and doesn't just do the usual three quarter views of locomotives. It includes "arty" scenes and people and buildings. So then I looked through the Irwell Press book Industrial Railways In Colour - South Wales 2 and decided that this layout will be the first I have ever built not to be set in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It's all fictional but I'm going to try and incorporate things in the books that have inspired me. Total length of baseboards = 7ft. 6in. Width 9 in. The line topmost will be from the colliery and is descending left to right. The right hand end will have a retaining wall with terraced houses and a chapel above it and on the track level there will be an engine shed. The lower line goes off to a landsale yard and the GWR.

Ruston & Hornsby 88DS, failed with a gearbox fault, at NCB Royal Oak sidings.

A Ruston & Hornsby class 88DS was delivered by lorry to Royal Oak sidings, today. Unfortunately it failed and an ancient Manning Wardle had to take over. The Ruston is to be sent back to the 'shops for remedial attention to its gearbox. The Royal Oak driver washes his car whilst he awaits one of the Royd Hall crews getting steam up and bringing the replacement loco over.

I have been doing some more work on this today. I robbed a Slaters 30:1 gearbox out of one of my larger locos, which can take a larger motor and gearbox, and tried this narrow gearbox in the Ruston. The trouble is the gearbox uses a 3/16ths axle so I drilled out a piece of 3/16ths brass and put a 1/8th hole through it. The sleeve was then drilled through so the grub screw in the drive gear will go through the sleeve and bear upon the loco's axle. [/url] Out of laziness I haven't powered each axle with its own chain but have the gearbox on the leading axle and a chain to the rear. This isn't prototypical but it will get it working. It was then tethered to a decoder and tried on the rollers. Somehow the sleeve has been drilled slightly eccentrically and the gearbox rises and falls as the motor runs. Since the motor isn't fixed to anything this shouldn't be a problem but since I added pickups and tried it on the track it is really disappointing. [/url] I'm going to rip the home made pickups off and put Slaters plunger type for the leading axle but with the rear axle rocking on a knife edge this may not be possible for that axle. I'm now seriously considering binning the chassis and making a new one from scratch. One that will be wide enough to allow space for seperate chains with this gearbox, which means I can go back to a 3/16ths axle in the 'box and get a lower overall gearing by the sprockets. On the bright side I have finished the bodywork and it has at least had a bit of a run and posed for some photos. [/url]

I hope this accurate Peckett model changes that kind of attitude toward industrial locos. I'd say more but I've got to go and paint the copper on the chimney of an LMS Black Five that I'm repainting to be a close enough GWR Hall...

If anyone wants to model MSC number 11 in its earlier days just get Dodo and rename it Alexandria, which is what Peckett w/n 654 was originally named (no number) when it was delivered to the MSC. It originally had the same kind of dome as Dodo and probably wore the same livery when new. The MSC also had another W4 named Valencia (later numbered 25) that had the original style of dome and livery but the rear part of the cab was slighty different. There was also MSC 12, which looked the same as 11. 11 Was sold to Esso Petroleum in 1954.

Peckett W4 Jubilee, of 1897 blowing off outside Royd Hall Drift engine shed.

Is the saddletank moulding empty at the sides? Is there space for a speaker? That is of course assuming a sound decoder can be found to fit.

The Dodo has landed! http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/80881-bsc-river-don-works/?p=2546778

The Dodo has landed! It is straight out of the box and obviously unweathered as yet. I'm just posting these in the hope this little layout inspires some of the many who have bought Hornby's latest offering to build an industrial railway. I'm always banging on about how there isn't enough industrial modelling so I hope this excellent little loco kick-starts new projects and doesn't simply end up on a shelf, or trundling round an existing main line layout.

Paint it whatever colour you want! Just look through the books in the Irwell Press Industrial Railways In Colour series and you'll find industrial locos in just about every colour and shade you can think of. Well, I still haven't got my Peckett. Hornby must have the shop I ordered mine from at the bottom of the list to distribute them to.

I am interested to know how you will make this work in model form. I guess on the real thing there would be a man armed with a brake stick to prevent the empties from running away but we don't have that and gravity doesn't scale down.

This could be interesting... Have you got the Industrial Railway Society book about the brewery railways of Burton on Trent, or Ian Peaty's Brewery Railways book? Lots of inspiration in those two for the brewery railway modeller.

I know you wanted to look in the cab of Florence when we went to Foxfield but it was in pieces. Did you just make the interor up in the end?

Yes. I have done this before on two 48DS Rustons but I scratch built the chassis so they were wide enough. The frames on this kit are very narrow in comparison. I used a gearbox for 4mm in that but then the motor was tiny and I really wanted something a bit more powerful for this loco.

I have cut the bosses off the sprockets. It's the width of the gearbox that's the problem. Where can I get a Branchlines gearbox from and which one? I have a Mashima 1624 motor, so I need something that will take that. I typed "Branchlines Gearbox" and got loads of links. The third appears to be the right thing but goes to a blog that hasn't been updated since 2008 - http://branchlines.blogspot.co.uk/ With it being the third and 8 years old it makes me wonder if it is still current.

Steve, The class 03 sound that Paul showed in the video isn't suitable at all for an 02. The 03 used a slow-running Gardner and a self-changing mechanical gearbox. I have used the Sentinel sound from Digitrains, which I believe was done by Paul, on my Yorkshire Diesel (basically the same as an 02). Both the Sentinel and 02 used turbocharged Rolls Royce engines and twin disc hydraulic transmissions (no gear changes), so it's about as near as you're going to get without a proper sound project for an 02.

Brakes and sand pipes fitted to inner frames and all given a coat of etch primer. [/url] I was going to fit the drivetrain today but the gearbox that I bought from Roxey Mouldings is too wide. There is only 21mm between the frame sides and the gearbox takes up 15mm of that. To be able to fit a shaft with two thinned Delrin sprockets and a gearbox in there I'm going to have to look for something thinner and with a 1/8th axle. Do any of you 4mm chaps have any suggestions for a single-stage 20:1 gearbox? I know 20:1 is high for a shunting loco but the gearbox will have 8-tooth sprockets and the loco's axles will have 12-tooth sprockets, which should give a final drive of 60:1. I could use a 30 or 40:1 if I change the sprockets.

What version and where did you order it from? I have just phoned the shop where my Dodo is ordered and have just been told that they were told by Hornby, only yesterday, that they wouldn't be delivered until some unspecified date in January.

I have been modifying the bufferbeam weights. The cast resin parts are not thick enough or deep enough. The other obvious problem is the lack of the overhang where they fit over the frame ends (bufferbeams). To fix this I added a thickener of plasticard at the backs and a strip along the tops to give the extra depth and the overhang. [/url]

The only bit of truly inset track is that going into the main building and that's a bit of a bodge, which doesn't stand close scrutiny. Between the rails is just polyfilla, rubbed into the sleeper gaps using a finger. The concrete outside the rails is card and plasticard that has been cut to match the curves and straights and is painted in shades of concrete-like colours.