Ruston

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.

Due to cutbacks the new 165DS order was cancelled. Instead a tatty old 165DE was transferred from the Nottinghamshire Coalfield. In the end I built it without the jackshaft. It was causing clearance problems between the cab steps and the crankpins on the rear axle. I could have persevered but I ran out of arsedness and went for the easy option. I fitted Slaters plunger pickups because of the great gap between the running plate and the wheels. The motor is a Mashima 1833, driving through an MSC 40:1 single-stage milled gearbox. The wheels and crank pin bushes were tapped to take 10BA screws. The buffers are Welcome Wagons Lowmac buffers with ABS heads, which have been lightly milled at 60 degree intervals to produce the effect of the countersunk screws that hold the large heads on to the smaller heads behind, as per prototype. The windows have been filed to take away the curve at the top, which appears to be only on early locos (and examples of DS sold to British Railways) and the exhaust hole in the bonnet (a BR feature) has been filled and the exhaust pipe moved to the cab front. Lamps are from Ixion Models, available as a pack of electric and oil lamps with oil cans and tools and the S.W.P. transfer for the brake system are homemade on Crafty Computer Paper.

I have done a little bit more, today. The reccommendations for buffers in the instructions are reasonable but the buffers fitted to 88DS Rustons appear to have been made by Rustons themselves and are peculiar to their locos. Nothing else is exactly the same. [/url] I used Welcome Wagons Lowmac buffers. The bases on these are rectangular but I can't be bothered to file them to shape as that would mean making new cosmetic nuts and bolts. I tried soldering one of the large etched buffer heads, that are supplied in the kit, to the Lowmac buffer but the etch is of course flat and attempts to form a curve on it failed.Instead the Lowmac buffers were drilled down the centre of the head and machined to take the curve of the rear of ABS buffer heads. The new heads were then lightly milled to leave the impression of the countersunk screws that hold the large heads on, as per the prototype.

At last I can now talk about this! Excuse me whilst I now get quite excited... A RTR Ruston 48DS! Wahey!

The most difficult part of the bodywork is done. There are half-etched lines to form the curves but I still found it difficult to get the bonnet to follow the curve along its length and I soldered lengths of I beam inside to help prevent the sides from bowing outward. [/url] Two minor cock-ups - Firstly I soldered the radiator grille in the wrong way round and, second, I obviously didn't use enough grease between the baseplate and the footplate as the bodywork is now stuck to the footplate. It just means that I'll have to fit the interior then paint and glaze the cab before I put the roof on. Of course it can't ever be taken apart then but it doesn't affect getting to any of the workings - gears, motor etc.

For Osgood and anyone else who may be interested:

Derail beams added and the inner footplate and the base for the cab and engine casing are bolted to the frame. There is a layer of grease between the base and the frame to prevent them from becoming soldered together whilst the cab and engine casing are built in situ. [/url] I have decided to build the earlier type of cab with the metal window frames.

As I'm currently building the new 7mm Judith Edge kit I have been looking again at 88DS locos in detail. Apart from the cab styles and windows there are other small details that differ. Some 20-ton locos have weights that take up almost all the length of the frame sides - [Link no longer exists] Whereas others have slightly shorter weights with lifting eyes at the frame ends (this is not the real BR No.20) - https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7498/15198273904_762f46181e_b.jpg The majority of locos with the lifting eyes appear to be later ones, with the larger windows, but the small window-cabbed locos did have them - https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5712/22927403305_241d89afdc_b.jpg Other links to 88DS photos. Where is this? http://davesrailphots.weebly.com/uploads/8/4/8/1/8481551/2316469_orig.jpg Vauxhall Motors, Dunstable - https://c7.staticflickr.com/5/4097/4796643214_053282b79d_b.jpg Vauxhall Motors, Dunstable - https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4077/4796046640_5a348f25f0_b.jpg T.W. Ward, Tinlsey Junction - https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8484/8205978078_1753a96f62_b.jpg ? https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3481/3255305399_bb1c26aecc_b.jpg Ex-British Gas, with flametrap exhaust, Quainton Road - http://www.brc-stockbook.co.uk/hilseaL.jpg Rowntrees - https://roundtreessidings.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/rowntrees-shunter-neville-stead-03.jpg BR No.20 - https://photos.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/BRITISH-DIESEL-AND-ELECTRIC/PRE-TOPS-DIESEL-LOCOMOTIVES/i-MSJ8Dpt/1/XL/20-XL.jpg Bolton Gasworks - https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7171/6587753101_167824969a_b.jpg Wensleydale - https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7339/9987566273_8b47b951f6_b.jpg ? https://c7.staticflickr.com/4/3628/3434208694_3733de47b0_b.jpg ? - https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8502/8389357685_1d81e5e098_b.jpg GCR(N) - https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7082/7381862366_eeee98094d_b.jpg Rutland RM - [Link no longer exists] Telford - https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3728/8864756351_2d89ba4194_b.jpg