Ruston

That doesn't sound good, Paul. Maybe I'll just stick to tension locks then.

I've made a start with the wiring. And I've been hacking wagons. A pair of Dia 1/161 24-ton Iron Ore hoppers will be used for limestone traffic. But first to remove that annoying baseplate on which the hopper body is mounted! With the body now mounted directly to the chassis and the supports reattached it will now be repainted in a shade of grey that is less green and weathering added. I've also come up with a method for making removable tarps for these and the sand wagons. Next on the agenda for the baseboards will be drilling holes for whatever method of uncoupling I end up using. I was considering the new Peco point/signal motors to somehow raise/lower an uncoupling ramp but I'm having other thoughts now. What's brought this about is the accidental purchase of what are shown on the packet to be Bachmann DMU couplers. I picked these up thinking they were the usual wagon type tension lock thingies but although they fit in the pockets of Hornby and Bachmann wagons they are very different. They have a steel loop that drops over a raised plastic lip on the opposite end. So I'm wondering if a length of steel wire was soldered on they could be operated with electromagnets under the baseboard, as on N gauge couplers and so there's less to go wrong and nothing sticking up between the rails... Here's a link to the items I mean

I've been looking at the Parkside website and it looks as if their 26-ton tippler kit is the 10ft. wheelbase flavour so I'm not sure it fits the bill. Meanwhile... I dug this out of storage. It's in need of restoration, not to mention a good clean of the wheels. It's a DJH class 02 but some Yorkshire Diesel-Hydraulics of a very similar type were built for industry. I may even have a bash at converting the appearance to that of a Diesel-Electric. Well, I can't have a Sheffield-based layout without a Sheffield-built loco, can I?

Thanks, Arthur. What about using sheeted 24-ton (Dia. 1/162) hoppersfor the limestone? I'm sure I've seen pictures of those in limestone traffic. It would allow the use of another wagon type and I'm a sucker for rusty BR wagons. I've also had an idea for making a Dia. 1/004 pig iron wagon. The frames and brake gear look to be almost identical to that of Dia. 1/180 Ironstone tipplers. So I could use the chassis from the Hornby tippler (Unfortunately the Bachmann version has the wrong brake gear - most unfortunate because it's about six quid cheaper than the Hornby version!) and scratchbuild the pig iron body from plasticard.

Yesterday evening I built the Double bolster wagon, painted and weathered it. The lettering was made up using Photoshop and printed onto plain white paper. With the black rectangles taking up most of the panels it doesn't really show that they stand out from the surface. I'm afraid the photos aren't very good due to poor lighting. If the sun comes out at the weekend I'll get them outside and take some more. And weathered a few more wagons that I have acquired in the last few days. I've taken a different approach to these than I usually do in O gauge. The main reason being that, apart from the Double bolster, they are RTR,painted and lettered and so I'm not starting with a blank canvas as with O gauge and kits. One difference is the paints used - I normally use enamels but this time have gone for acrylics Starting with an O gauge 16-ton mineral I would paint it all over in a rusty paint, apply Maskol, paint the top coat and peel the maskol off. With the 16-tonner on the right (pic above) I put some scratches in it with the end of a panel pin and then painted over the scratches with Tamiya brown as is, straight out of the pot. This was then wiped off the existing paintowork but stays in the scratches. Other, more general areas of rust and lighter, less pronounced scratches, were lightly painted on and/or dry-brushed. Then, before the paint is absolutely dry, I brushed Mig pigments over the painted rust. The pigments stick well to new paint but can be easily brushed from the relatively shiny surface of the factory finish. The 16-tonner on the left was given an overall coat of paint but some paint was taken off the door end stripe with a cotton bud before the pigments were applied. The frames of all the wagons are given a light, almost dry-brushed coat of Railmatch 'frame dirt' before applying pigments. I find it neccessary to put some paint on otheriwise the pigments don't stick to the black shiny plastic that these RTR wagonframes are made of. The Bogie bolster was given a coat of Humbrol 110 to the decking and black pigment brushed around the edges with a small paintbrush and worked in towards the middle with a broad brush. So, I've got 16-ton mineral wagons for scrap for the furnace, bolster wagons for billets for the forge and have a couple of sand tipplers on order but what wagons to use for limestone? And... I presume the sand traffic would be sheeted? If so, would the sheet be folded up and placed in the wagon for the return trip?

Thanks, Arthiur. I had bargained on being able to get pig iron wagons from Peco but although they do them in N and O, their website doesn't list them in OO - how odd. In fact I'm quite surprised at what else isn't available in OO! I suppose the foundry side also requires sand for the moulds?

You never know, Paul. At least this one is easily transportable and operated from the rear, so it would fit with being exhibitable. Depends on whether or not I make a pig's ear of it, I suppose...

Oh yes, Harrison's Scammels. The models were painted red and were based on those lorries on the layout they were originally on. I had a mooch about their yard, taking photos of the lorries, the ancient Ransomes & Rapier cranes and the pair of Barclay 0-4-0STs they had there. I'm going to use one of the Scammels for sure. Although the name River Don Works was a proper location, this isn't actually based in it. I just thought it would be a good representative name for the general location. Anyway, progress on the Sentinel and the baseboards... I bought the loco from my local model shop on Saturday morning. I know the likes of Hattons etc. are a few quid cheaper but I wanted it now and I like to support my local model shop and I could also see, handle, and have the loco test run before purchase. Not long after getting it home I had it apart for a repaint. It's going yellow with stripes. Between coats of paint on the Sentinel I got to cutting wood. My old woodwork teacher will be turning in his grave but, hey, it's a model railway baseboard and not a china cabinet so who cares? Then, with the top layer fixed to the lower layer and framework, it was time to see if the track fits. I can just get the loco and a bogie bolster C into the headshunt and still be able to get it into the first top siding.

Cheers, chaps. I'll try the boiling water first.

As per title and topic description. Thanks in advance.

It's summer 1973 and a Rolls Royce/Sentinel diesel growls its way over the bridge from the British Railways exchange siding and into the River Don Works. Behind it is an assortment of unfitted wagons carrying steel billets and plate for the forge and pressing plant of this subsidiary company of the British Steel Corporation... Once again we're somewhere in the Lower Don Valley area of Sheffield. Brick and corrugated iron, muck, smoke, polluted waterways, scruffy wagons, small industrial locomotives, cranes, pipe bridges - you get the idea... Track plan finalised: Stuff bought: All the points as shown in the plan, plus a point motor for each and a set of proper switches (I usually bodge this stuff with bits of wire and drawing pins but I want to do it right for once), Bachmann 30-ton Bogie Bolster, Parkside double bolster kit, Code 75 flexi track and the reason I'm building this at all - the Hornby Sentinel. I've had a root about in a box of junk and have salvaged some bits and pieces from when I last did OO some 20 years ago. I'm not sure if any or all will be used yet but they are: A Scammell Scarab (kit-built), A pair of 14-ton tank wagons, two Scammell Highwayman tractor units and one trailer (Langley, I think), an Atkinson ballast tractor unit and a workmans' bothy made from a dead Sentinel steam loco. I've also bought some plywood and other wood so baseboard construction begins tomorrow!

Thanks for that. I've adapted the trackplan for Peco track now and have bought a loco today. I'm trying to work out how the couplings come out to replace one end with the blanking plate. How do you get the air reservoir off the engine end to get to the coupling?

Doesn't fit my trackplan, I'm afraid. I've based it on the tightest and shortest points I can find and the Peco stuff is that bit longer than the Hornby stuff. Hopefully someone who has one of these locos can answer and tell me that they're fine, otherwise I'll have to rethink and do as you suggest. Trackplan here - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/80845-proposed-layout-for-the-new-Hornby-sentinel/

One question before I take the plunge... I've been knocking a track plan together and it involved Hornby R612 & R613 points (the tightest radius, I think). I presume these are insulfrog? How well does this model handle such points with such a short wheelbase and only 4 wheels?

Look, I do O gauge! I don't do OO! Oh sod it! I need one of these and a shunting plank to run it on. The fitting out of the shed for the new O gauge layout has stalled due to the cold and a spot of ill-health so a bit of back to basics OO with tension lock couplers and all can't do any harm, can it?

Correct, I don't understand it and this is why... Locomotives and stock start off clean and shiny and become dirty and worn through use, damage, the effects of weather etc. and, unless they are cleaned or recieve maintenance and works attention, they become dirtier and more worn and damaged over time - the apperance of these natural and work-induced effects do not become more subtle over time, they become worse and more pronounced. Leave something out in the elements for long enough without attention and it will lose its paint and become a rusty or rotten heap. Obviously a plastic or brass model that's sat in a box in someone's shed or cannot rust and isn't going to get covered in oil stains or coal and brake dust so we apply these effects artificially. Some of these effects aren't 100% permanent, such as powders, and can come off to some extent with handling. So, if anything, they become cleaner in parts and, whilst I agree that some of the effects can become more subtle, a model cannot "weather itself" over time because no more dirt or rust can gather if it's made of plastic and kept in a box and we don't apply further artificial effects- it can only become cleaner in parts or the effects more subtle. So I don't get the idea that this is 'active' weathering. It seems to be unfinished to me, especially if a lot is applied, such as on the Western's windcreen in the original photo, and the customer has to wait for it to become more subtle by handling the model or waiting for gravity to help out. Why not just finish the model with the required subtle effect to begin with and handle with care?

Barry, I said it was black simply because that's how it looks to me and and the stuff on the windscreen looked nothing like the dirt I have ever seen on any diesel windscreen. I do all my own weathering so you've not lost a customer in me but if I can see these things then so can others, who may be potential customers, and they are also likely to make the same judgements when they've only got the same photos to go on as I have. If you post poorly photographed and unfinished work then expect criticism because if it really did look like it did in the first photos I wouldn't pay for it, even if I didn't do my own weathering. I wouldn't normally criticise any modeller's work but when you're charging people their hard-earned for a service I don't see any difference in criticising that service and the criticism that is given on this forum to RTR manufacturer's new releases etc.

Well it's certainly dirty but everything appears to be weathered with just one colour - black. Where's the dusty colour on the wheels and lower body side of the Western and what's with the coal dust on the windscreen?

I hope that with all these Sentinels being bought we'll start to see some new industrial layouts being posted in the UK Standard Gauge Industrial section of this forum.

On the prototype all but the sliding windows at the sides have a black rubber channel to hold them in so I expect if you paint this on the windows will look much better.

If a fitted head was required, would the NCB engine crews shunt the train into order? It's just that I read somewhere that when vac-fitted minerals were introduced there were delays in making up trains because the NCB shunters didn't "do" brake pipes (presumably the BR guard had to connect up all the pipes himself?). So would NCB engine crews go to the trouble of shunting fitted wagons togther, or would the BR crew and engine have to do this?

The Vac-fitted one finished.

As no one replied in answer to the question about vac-fitting a 7mm wagon, I've bodged it using scrap box bits that have been left over from other wagon kits and Ambis brake levers that are left over from another project. It represents one that was converted from unfitted in 1966-68. The differences being the axleboxes (tho this isn't neccesarily always a prototype difference but it's on the wagon in the photo I'm going off), brake gear layout (shoes on both sides and Morton lever), bracing bar between the axle guards and, of course, the vac cylinder and pipes. The rest is Parkside as per the kit. I'll add instanter couplings, the rest of the vac pipe under the wagon and the appropriate livery to finish it.

Here's one I've almost finished. It's a PECO kit but I've scratchbuilt the top flaps and a fabricated end door. I've also given it brakes on one side only with clutch type lever on the side with the brakes. It's only lightly weathered when compared with my previous efforts. I guess this one has had works attention, a repaint and re-lettering quite recently. You'll notice that the wheel on the far side right is shiny. For some reason the blackening chemical wouldn't touch this wheel but blackened the others well enough.

No, I didn't think it was neccessary as they're not going to be handled. If any of the paint does chip off I'll just fill it in with dirt and/or rust weathering.