Ruston

Would that be the 4mm kit? I don't see why not. I began the conversion, for River Don Works, on a loco that I built years ago. It's still in bits though and will now probably never be finished.

Thanks for posting that, Paul. I notice there's a weighing machine inside the building. I can't see a weighbridge in front of it, so I assume the tippler doubles as a weighbridge? This is something I have been wondering about. Since making the original post, and from the answers given, I have made a simple outdoor control post with buttons but I may change this and have a control/weigh cabin instead.

I meant mechanical noise. There's some grating with the worm and gear at higher speeds. I wonder if grinding paste, the sort you used to lap valves into car cylinder heads, would help?

The Yorkshire is finished, sound-chipped, and has entered service as National Coal Board North Eastern Division Area No.6, loco 15. Propelling 21-tonners toward the weighbridge. Ready to depart for the exchange sidings. Arriving at the exchange sidings. it's slightly noisy but I'm hoping that will go with running-in. The fold-up chassis, being rigid, and my trackwork being prototypically rough, means I am going to fit a keep-alive. There is one particular set of points that it cuts out on. No other loco has problems on this and I put it down to the weight of this thing - it's flippin' heavy, being whitemetal!

National Coal Board North Eastern Division Area No.6, Loco 15, a Yorkshire Engine Company 0-4-0DE, hauls a train of 21-ton hoppers into Royal Oak sidings - the BR exchange sidings on the former L&Y Wakefield to Barnsley line. The loco will leave the loaded hoppers for the BR trip to Healey Mills and will take a train of empty 16-tonners back to Royd Hall Colliery.

I have made some progress on the Yorkshire diesel. Engine compartment doors now have overlays, made from plasticard. The rods and brake gear are on and most of the handrails have been made and fitted. The front and rear handrails that come with the kit are truly awful things and are more suited to Scarborough seafront than a locomotive. The cab has been glazed using thick clear plastic from an Oxford diecast car box. I had tried putting thin plastic on the inside and building it up with "glue 'n' glaze" but it was a complete disaster. The chassis/frames on this kit are a simple fold-up affair but are very narrow. So narrow that whitemetal spacers are provided to fit over the axles before fitting the wheels. I have built the width of the frames up using thick plasticard overlays. PHOTO UNAVAILABLE THANKS TO PHOTOBUCKET MUPPETS The rear handrails need to be made and fitted, the engine compartment door handles ditto. The originals were cast on to the body and had to be filed off before I could fit the overlays. Sandpipes to add too and then a light weathering. The tippler now has a set of controls and an operator, complete with brake stick and bothy. I don't know if brake sticks are something you just don't notice because they're so small, or if no one ever models them? PHOTO UNAVAILABLE THANKS TO PHOTOBUCKET MUPPETS

Now you just need an 88DS to complete the set of the 3 main standard gauge Rustons.

The prototype in action: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/28530-industrial-locomotives-in-the-late-80s-to-mid-90s/?p=496317

Thanks. The benches are scratch-built and the tools, oil cans etc. are from various sources - Duncan Models, Severn Models, Skytrex, Ixion, Phoenix etc.

And don't forget to lop the screw heads off and drill the holes out! I have done this on Royd Hall and although it's tedious, and they're such a small detail, it makes the difference.

A couple more... Instead of having to keep calling it "the tippler loco" and "the tippler shed", I've decided this side of the layout is to be Royal Oak sidings, from the real NCBOE sidings and disposal point at British Oak, near Crigglestone. Royal Oak also fits in with the naval theme for my loco names. The tippler, now with guard rails.

16-tonners at Royal Oak sidings. Three unfitted and one vac-braked example.

This morning I planted the screens building in its final position and wired up the two hoppers (two more yet to build and fit) to the control panel. This enabled me to have the first ever full and proper operating session with this railway. It's taken three years but I've finally got there! The sequence of operations begins with a loco (today Manning Wardle class H, Jervis) despatched from Royd Hall shed to collect the paddy train and take it to the fiddle yard. A second locomotive (Manning Wardle class H, Pellew) moves off shed to take on water. With DCC sound this is more than just moving the loco to the water tower and waiting - pressing F12 gives the sound of the tank being opened and the 'bag' being put in and water flowing, followed by the filler lid clanging shut again. And, of course F11 gives the sound of the handbrake being wound on once stopped (remember to press F11 again for the sound of it being wound off again before moving off!). This loco then moves on to a rake of wagons at the screens and propels them under to commence loading. The tippler loco (in this case the Fowler diesel, today) is started up (DCC sound of donkey engine cranked and started, followed by main engine start). After idling a while to build up air pressure, the klaxon is sounded and it moves off to the fiddle yard to collect a train of full mineral wagons that have previously been left. Bur first it is used to release the paddy train loco from the dead-end siding and allow the paddy train loco to take the paddy train back to the mine. Paddy train arrives at the mine, loco runs round and shunts the train off the loop. Back at the tippler the Fowler shunts and empties the 4 mineral wagons and then propels them to the fiddle yard. At the mine, the other rake of wagons are filled at the screens and are hauled out under the arch bridge and reversed to be propelled slowly over the weighbridge. Once weighed a lamp is hung from the drawhook of the last wagon and the train sets off for the fiddle yard. On arrival at the fiddleyard the train engine is released by the tippler loco and then couples on to the waiting empties to return to the mine, whilst the tippler loco empties the fulls and so on... When operations are to finish the locos return to their sheds, the diesel is switched off (a nice running down sound to the engine). One steam loco is taken over the ash pit whilst the other takes on water. One moves directly off the pit to the shed and the other moves onto the pit before going to the shed. All of that took about 1 1/2 hours and it takes quite a bit of concentration to run three trains, work the tippler and fill the wagons with coal without it overflowing! I also ran a second coal train but loaded with larger lumps of coal. The third hopper will be for the smaller size coal and the fourth (if I ever get around to it) will be for waste, to load the Hudson tipper wagons. John Fowler 040DM peering out of the tippler loco shed. Jervis at the water tank.

No. I haven't tried that. How do you mean, exactly? I suppose it could be but most of the grounded vans I've seen are straight onto the ground.

I decided that the tippler loco shed area needed an extra stores building and as every layout I have built so far has featured a grounded van body, this one was to be no exception. I bought the Parkside Dundas North British 8-ton van kit as this is suitably aged and would have been long out of service by the layout's period. This kit also has the advantage of having a short (9-ft.) wheelbase, which meant I could make use of the underframes. The body, grounded. It looks better in real life than in the photo. I roughly sanded the planks and painted the whole lot with a wash of black in an attempt to make it look like aged bare wood; the paint having flaked off long ago, and with metalwork painted and powder-weathered as rusty. The wagon. With the addition of a floor and sides made from plywood, and metalwork from plasticard, I made it into a generic fixed single plank open, based on a photo of a Hull & Barnsley wagon with a similar brake arrangment. It is now the PW/Tool/re-railing wagon.

I like this. Where did you get the transfers for the locomotives from?

I would have thought a railcar like that wouldn't have such a thing as a deadman's handle. It would probably be petrol-mechanical, so a clutch pedal, forward/reverse gear lever, change speed (gear) lever, brake, throttle and advance/retard controls.

I would like to know how you get wagons on and off the traverser as I assume you don't drive locomotives on to the tippler.

Manning Wardle H class Jervis and a couple of mineral wagons at the exchange sidings of NCB Royd Hall Drift, Summer 1966.

Have you found a drawing to work from? For a long time I've wanted a Hibberd but no one does a kit in 7mm and I've never seen any basic dimensions, let alone a drawing. I'll watch your build with particular interest.

Just one question: Presumably a hydraulic motor has to have some pump arrangement to produce pressure in a hydraulic system, so how does this work and what powers the pump?

Thanks for that, Brian. It's not finished yet but pictures of the progress are here - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/76299-royd-hall-drift/page-8 That is excellent. Have you got any more pictures of your layout? You ought to post in the UK Standard Gauge Industrial section of this forum.

I was going to post this in UK Industrial but I guess there may be people who have reserached them for modelling that isn't strictly industrial... I've built the tippler but I'm wondering how they were powered. I presume electric motors but would like to know for sure. I have thoughts of having a derelict building with a boiler in it as if the plant had been modernised to run electric motors but was originally steam-powered. Also, the control of wagon tipplers - the pictures that I have seen don't show any control hut. Does this mean they didn't have one and a bloke stood next to it and pushed a button, or have photographers never widened the shot to include the control hut?

I'm working from just one photo of Stanton No.44, in Adrian Booth's Pictorial Survey Of Standard Gauge Industrial Diesels. I think it's going to be one of those models that you don't look too closely at.

Whether the chairs are the right way round or not, the tippler has just tipped its first wagonload of coal! Pics tomorrow, probably.