Ruston

This is a stalled project - a scratchbuild of a De Havilland DH10 Biplane Bomber in 1/72 scale. I last did anything on it in January. When it is eventually finished it will be completely from scratch with the exception of the guns, which will be brass castings that I have already bought for it.

28mm figure painting. The sentries have come in and they report Zulus to the Southwest... Thousands of them. 'Ere they come, thick as grass and black as 'ell! Now then, has anyone seen Michael Caine anywhere?

From everything I've ever read, by the time the NCB came to dispose of locomotives they'd be so worn out that another industrial operator wouldn't want them! But I wouldn't worry about it so do whatever you want as it's your trainset.

I had nothing better to do this evening, so I drew up some rules for operating the layout. They'll be particularly useful for visiting operators but also for myself. And with 9 sound-fitted locomotives, which use 6 different configurations of function keys, I've printed off cards to go with each in order to prevent pressing the wrong buttons or having to go through the sound decoder notes. I know some people are sceptical about sound but I'm now a definite convert. It adds so much more to operation and the set up of the acceleration/deceleration, the general smoother running with the Zimo decoders over the Gaugemaster (non-sound) and the fact that some use a brake function, means that driving is that bit more realistic. You really do have to drive them more like the real thing and think and brake in advance. On the locos that are fitted with keep-alives there is no emergency stop!

I've had to be very careful to ensure there is nothing broken before posting these. Lord Nelson on shed. ...and at work.

There is no mechanism to jam. The hopper holds the coal and the only mechanical parts (a motor with flywheel and the springs the hopper is mounted on) are on the outside and not in contact with the coal. If the spout becomes blocked then the hopper is easily removed and tipped upside down to remove the blockage.

That would be quite realistic if it wasn't for the rod between the end stanchions being bent, and one of the diagonal rods being broken and showing bare unpainted plastic.

Today I fixed a 3-volt motor to the hopper. To this I added a flywheel with a flat milled on one side so as to cause vibration. It isn't wired up properly yet and to power it I held the two wires from to motor onto a 1.5v battery. It was rather noisy too, so I want to have some form of speed control so I can find a speed at which the motor will run and operate the hopper but without being so noisy. I'm thinking of getting an old model railway controller. The other idea is to take the DCC chip from the next loco that I convert to DCC sound and then I can run the hopper from the DCC controller and set the appropriate CV to restrict the upper voltage limit to protect the motor. The first trial used crushed coal but some pieces were too big and jammed in the spout so I had to crush and sieve it all again. The next trial worked well with the coal that was now up to 3/16ths of an inch and a wagon was filled in about a minute. The trial showed that I had underestimated the capacity of the hopper and it will probably hold 6 wagons worth. After the crushing and sieving I was left with a lot of sub-1mm particles, which I thought would look OK as coal for boilers or power stations so the hopper was refilled with this. Apart from the filling process creating a lot of dust, the hopper wouldn't work with such fine material. It just seemed to settle and gum the spout up. I have decided to add the fine coal and dust to my ballast and find an alternative or maybe not use such small sizes. I have a jar of Carr's coal which has grain sizes smaller than the "large" real coal and so I tried this. Whilst it works well in the hopper it is very heavy. One 16-tonner holds about 300g of the stuff! I don't think that's going to do the motors on my locos much good and the 'coal' is attracted to magnets, which isn't a good idea around motors in case of spillage. Does anyone know what this stuff is made of? Some kind of steel slag, perhaps? I suppose the best thing to do would be to get some more coal and crush it and put it through sieves with different hole sizes but where I will find such things with 2mm and 2mm holes I have no idea. Other things I have learned from these trials are that lighting under the screens building will be essential and that great care must be taken when shunting the screens because locomotives will not fit under them!

I've no idea and, to be honest, I hadn't given it any thought. I wanted green so I painted it green but flicking through some of my collection of Irwell Press 'Industrial Railways In Colour' shows the metalwork on pit buildings at various locations to be blues, greens and reds.

6th August. Yorkshire Wolds Railway at Fimber. Derwent Valley Railway, Murton. Sadly, neither railway was running today but I had only called in whilst passing by.

A little more has been done to the exterior of the building and an experiment in the internals is in progress. PHOTO UNAVAILABLE THANKS TO PHOTOBUCKET MUPPETS The hopper will be able to hold enough coal to fill 4 16-tonners. It's a simple card construction, mounted on blocks of insulation foam and springs. The spout has a cross section of about 1 sq. cm. The weight of coal pressing into the narrow spout and the shallow gradient of it seem to be enough to allow the coal to stay put until the end is lightly tapped with the end of a pen. Tomorrow I will fix a small electric motor, with an eccentric weight, to try it properly. I'm hoping the foam and springs will insulate the rest of the structure from the vibrations of the one hopper so as not to cause the 3 other hoppers that will eventually be fitted to drop their loads. PHOTO UNAVAILABLE THANKS TO PHOTOBUCKET MUPPETS

It's a Fuli S5800. It's a tough camera and it's survived being soaked in a Welsh lead mine, dropped on the floor in a slate mine and being covered in mud in a fireclay mine. It's not bad when you can get the aircraft in the frame but it's a bit like an air-gunner deflection shooting -you have to aim ahead and press the shutter where you think the target will be by the time the electronics have done whatever it is they do. Here are some I took at Sywell, 2014. EE Canberra (PR9?) Pitts Specials? Replica R.A.F. SE5a.

Here are a few that I took at Old Warden, last year. My old Fuji point and shoot isn't very good at shooting moving aircraft. Bristol Blenheim. Gloster Gladiator. Hawker Demon? DeHavilland Dragon Rapide.

As we seem to have been moved from the "Special Interests" to "Prototype" I'd just like to remind people that this section is also for models of standard gauge UK industrial railways,locomotives, rolling stock etc.

I think the baseboard will cope. I've just been in the shed adding more to this construction and I've run out of brass section - again! I was going to have to take a break from it anyway - there's only so much sawing, milling and filing that can be done before wanting to slit one's wrists... I've got a tubeplate to fit inside an Ixion Manning Wardle for a bit of light relief.

A pre-war tank from me. i found this in a farmyard near Flockton whilst walking the dog, last Sunday. The overall size and shape, plus the filler lid and the fact that there is evidence of where a timber would have been on the end suggest it was a railway tank to me. I'm not sure about the pipe flange at the top, this end. though. A modification for farm use, or original?

I may be stretching the time frame here because these shots are undated. They're certainly late 90s if not maybe 2000. Thomas Hill V333 at M.O.D B.A.D. Kineton. Thomas Hill 307v, 272v and one other, unidentified TH in the loco shed at Kineton. AB663 at Kineton. IIRC, this had recently arrived from Germany where it operated with the BAOR and was built to continental loading gauge. Unidentified TH at R.O.F. Eastriggs. Note the standard/2ft. gauge level crossing and 2ft. gauge Andrew Barclay loco. TH 309v at Eastriggs.

Thanks, Giles. Today I have been doing the tedious job of sawing and milling more brass H-section for the screens building. So far I've used about 8 metres of the stuff and now the frame is becoming too large for the soldering plate. It's tricky trying to keep everything square and as it grows more deviation is creeping in. Some parts will have to be fixed with Araldite as some of the wall panels (that will be brick embossed plasticard, backed with card) need to be slotted in the columns before cross pieces are fitted above them.

Following on from the topic on 48DS locos and with news of the 7mm Judith Edge kit posted today, I thought it's time to do the same for the 88DS class. I have more photos of 88s but most of them are copyright of various photographers, so I'll have to stick to the few official RH photos that I have. As with the 48DS, this class began life under Ruston's old classification scheme and were known as 80/88HP Diesel Shunters. The first was w/n 192325, which left the works in June 1938. 201980 of 1940 at the War Department's Inchterf gun ranges with a very strange piece of rolling stock. On the front is a Vortex spark arrester and flameproofed lighting. Engine starting on most 88DS was by admitting compressed air into the cylinders but later flameproof locos had electric starting. The battery for this would have been on the other side so we can't tell if this was the case but we can see the hole in the top front of the frame plate for hand-starting gear. Hand-starting gear was deleted from sometime around when the classification changed to 88DS. 242868 of 1946, about to depart Boultham Works, destined for the Gas Light & Coke Co. at Southall. Note the bulge on the rearmost engine cover side panel - this covered part of the donkey engine that was used for initially charging the main engine starting air receiver. On these early locos this small engine would have been one of Rustons' own PT 1 1/2HP petrol engines. 254036 of 1947 at West Midlands Joint Electricity Authority's Ocker Hill power station. A year on from the previous loco and the cab had been redesigned to be fully enclosed. 262997 and 275886, both of 1949, at WMJEA Birchills power station with what would have been BR ex-private owner wagons. 299107 of 1951. This was Rustons own works shunter and was fitted with smaller diameter wheels and had no buffer beam weights. Note that the bulge for the donkey engine has grown larger and has moved to the middle panel.This was to accommodate the diesel engines that replaced the petrol PT engine. This one is taken from a later publication so I have no details but it shows a late loco with the rubber seals around the windows. The rear cab windows were also enlarged on these later locos. We're going back chronologically with 242870 of 1947 to show a loco with a special feature. This loco was supplied to Wallasey Corporation Gas & Water Dept. and was fitted to run on coal gas. I don't know the details or whether it was in addition to diesel, or as a complete replacement. Another one from a sales leaflet and unidentified but was probably for the Air Ministry. This shows a fully-flameproofed loco with a shortened cab (looking again it's probably a lengthened frame) and two exhaust conditioners behind it. On the running plate is the box for the starting battery and note the lack of bulge in the side panels as there is no need for a donkey engine.

177530, taken from Ruston & Hornsby sales leaflet No.7216 of 1936. The drawing shows the front to be flat but picures in the same leaflet show the rounded header tank, as seen earlier, so it can't have remained in th as drawn state for long.

Looking good! You can definitely put my name down for one. You do mean the frame weights? I've only ever seen a picture of one 88DS that didn't have the buffer beam weights.

Block out the top sections of the side windows, take off the BR electric lamps and vac pipes and it's the industrial version. I could be interested in one of these. It has the same engine as an 03 and mechanical transmission (though Hunslet's own and I don't know if that was self-shifting air-powered), so I suppose the sounds for an 03 would do to make it DCC sound... Does anyone know the wheelbase? [just found it - 9ft. - that should go round my curve]

It's in their advert in Railway Modeller that they will be closing at the end of September unless a buyer is found. This is another blow to West Yorkshire modellers. With Wakefield Model Railway Centre gone a few years now I'll have to wait for exhibitions to buy my supplies, or go on the interwebs...

Strangely-coloured industrial saddletanks, today. Really, what's not to like about that? If only the pictures had sound with them. Far better than F***** S******n in my humble opinion, of course.

Foxfield Railway, Sunday 17th July. Whiston posing as Hurricane. There's something not right about that chimney.