Ruston

Another new book that I have recently purchased is Industrial Railway Locomotive Sheds by Adrian Booth and published by the IRS. It is a picture book with captions and covers both standard and narrow gauge from the period 1968 to the mid 1990s. The majority of the photos are of standard gauge sheds and steam and diesel are covered to more or less the same degree. It's a great book to have if you need inspiration for your industrial layout and to get ideas for the clutter/junk that every industrial shed seemed to have around it.

Thank you, Debs. It's nice to know I've inspired someone, especially if it's to do something industrial or something other than box-opening. Speaking of which, I've done a bit of box-opening myself. I have finally got around to buying an Ixion Hudswell. I'm sure it's been reviewed before but I may as well give my two penn'orth... As you can see, I bought the black version but unpainted would be more apt as everything that's black appears to be just the bare plastic, complete with fingerprints in the glue where one of the guard irons has been fixed to the frames and the shinyness of the glue at both sides of the rear of the bunker, which are in need of some filler in the gaps between sides and rear. The red bits are painted but the paint is a bit flaky in places with bits missing from the driving rods. As you can see in the pic, the saddletank has distinct lines along its length as if it was half-etched brass that had been formed wrong and not the plastic moulding that it is. The handrails are a bit too bendy for my liking and the pipework and injectors ought to be painted and not simply left black. Despite these observations it looks like a Hudswell and I'm not sending it back, as I'm a modeller and not a box opener. I'll fill the gaps, smooth down the lines on the tank and replace the handrails with scratch built brass versions. I'll then paint and weather it before it enters service. I've tested it on the rollers on straight DC and it runs very smoothly in both directions, right down to under 10 on the dial of a Gaugemaster series E controller so the first job will be to fit a suitable decoder just to make sure it runs as well on a track before do anything irreversible.

I knew straight away that the title referred to Boulton's Siding. A very interesting book with some very interesting old locomotives. It's nice to see something a bit out of the ordinary being modelled too.

Make that yes it was. Apparently the one right next to the road was accidentally demolished recently. Those inside-framed skips are interesting. There used to be quite a few at the Moseley that came from there. Unfortunately they were weighed in by Northwest Water whilst in storage.

Excellent. Is Cowdale quarry the one that had the Egyptian style buildings that faced onto the A6?

Tried it, Debs. It don't work. At least I can't get it to work so I've given up on it.

Everything is brushed. The only spray I use is primer out of a rattle can. An air brush is one of those things sometimes think I'd like to have a go with but then, IMHO, whilst airbrushing is superior when in the hands of an expert, there's a lot of rubbish airbrushing about and it seems to be something that takes a lot of learning to be able to master so I'll stick with tried and tested methods. Besides, if I got good at it my existing models would look poorer in comparison and the airbrushed ones would stand out as being better. I think a lot of creating a complete scene is down to doing everything to a similar level and nothing standing out as better or poorer than anything else. On the other hand I could be rubbish with an airbrush and make a right old mess!

Some old slides of engines at BT&S.

Following the British naval heroes theme, here are Jervis and Pellew. Although the Narrow Planet site doesn't list Manning Wardle style plates, Steve can do them as shown here.They're not particularly cheap but when compared to the overall cost of these locos it's not much. Why spoil the ship for a ha'penn'orth of tar? One of my pet hates are models of industrials sporting what are obviously BR diesel names with fonts that look out of place. And Admiral Duncan, plates fitted and weathered - not too much though. The lining took a lot of work so I don't want to hide it. I replaced the dodgy gearset and box with a set of 40:1 from Roxey and, after running in on the rollers, it runs acceptably. A close up of the works plate.

Thanks for the comments, chaps. Philip, regarding the chimney - you're right, the replacements do seem wider then the original and the little triangular pieces show up in your photo. I may have a go at making one at a later date. I haven't done anything about the stoker though. It wouldn't be something a loco shuffling a few wagons up and down somewhere like BT&S woiuld ever need. I have plans for a colliery layout though so I will fit it if and when I build that. I've added a saw and a woodpile for lighting up the engines. The sign inside the cab reads "Any driver permitting unauthorised persons to ride on the loco will be liable to dismissal". So don't go to Bury's and expect a cab ride. Damn elf n safety! An envelope from Narrow Planet landed today. It consists of name and number plates for the W4, name and number plates for the X2 (Admiral Duncan, w/n 1888) and names for the Manning Wardles (Jervis and Pellew) so I'm off to fit those now.

It's just about finished. It's a very simple kit to built and the moulded detail is excellent. It's a bit sparse on the small details though, especially in the cab - or it could just be that mine had parts missing. I've chipped and test-run it and it performs well. It'll even drive on the first of 28 notches on the Dynamis. Things I've added are as follows: Sand pipes Window protector bars on cab rear Regulator handle Reversing lever pipes & wheels Wooden floor Fire iron brackets Brake Column (duplicate from a brass kit) Lamp iron & lamp at front Oil cans Crew Making the protector bars I'll get some photos of it on the railway tomorrow. You really wish you'd kept it now, don't you, Matt (Brian)? It knocks the spots off any Dapol 08 IMHO.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with what I do and my engines are alright but they're not quite as good as those by Chris and David. Lining being the main difference and the weathering being another (not to mention the general standard of workmanship). Someone who I know and who had seen my 7mm narrow gauge layout in the flesh so-to-speak, and who isn't a member of this forum, once told me that he'd been looking on here and saw modelling by "Ruston" and that he knew immediately that it was my modelling as he recognised my "style" long before he knew for sure who Ruston was. The aim with a layout, especially when it comes to painting and weathering, is for it to look as much like the real thing as possible. If you have a certain style then surely you've failed in this to some degree... Enough talk, I'm off to finish detailing the cab. I'm off work sick today so I may as well use the time contructively.

After seeing those I'm not sure I'll dare to post any pictures of mine when it's finished.

With the OP's permission I have edited the title of this topic to make it more general so we can post about any new or newly discovered industrial railway books without the need to start a new thread and to keep them all in one place for ease of reference. I've just finished reading something completely different. Rope and Chain Haulage - the forgotten element of railway history by Colin E Mountford, published by the IRS. I don't know of any other book on the subject but if there is I doubt it's as good as this. It covers self-acting inclines, powered inclines, standard and narrow gauge. There are sections on stationary engines, preservation and haulage in the 20th and 21st centuries as well as a number of lines being covered in detail, including some that were built for passenger use and a few that were outside the UK.

I have bought yet another loco. Brianthesnail advertised it on here and within 5 minutes of the ad going up I'd seen the ad and arranged to buy the kit. It's a 15" Hunslet 0-6-0ST and the kit is by 85A models. It's a plastic kit with a RTR chassis and was already partly built, all I had to do was fit the fiddly bits and assemble the sub assemblies into a loco then weight it and paint it. I'm making a few small alterations - I've cut the lip off the chimney to make it a plain stovepipe chimney (ike the engines of this type that were fitted with Kylpor exhaust system), have added a wooden cab floor and handbrake column (I don't know if the kit is meant to come with a column but if it did it wasn't in the box). I'm thinking of making some representation of an underfeed stoker.

Thornaby, wasn't it?

I use Photoshop to add smoke. I add it by cutting it out of a photo of the real thing and resizing and pasting it into my photo. I then use the eraser on a low setting to remove sharp edges and to modify it to fit the chimney. Stray steam is done by the airbrush tool. I don't alway use a straight greyscale mode. Sometimes I put the picture into greyscale and then back to RGB color and alter the colour balance in favour of red and yellow, like the one below.

This evening I've made and painted the despatch office interior. I was looking at cast resin office futniture on one of the stands at the Cleckheaton show on Saturday and reckoned I could do just as well for nowt. Almost everything here is made from things I already had lying around - offcuts of plasticard, brass wire, coco pops packet and tiny offcuts of plastic rod. The one item I did buy was the cast whitemetal conical fire extinguishers. It needs more clutter - a mug of tea on the desk, some files on a shelf and maybe the gaffer's overcoat hanging on a wall etc.

Something has definitely changed in the paint itself. The last 3 tins of Humbrol matt varnish that I've bought have needed a LOT of stirring and shaking, in fact stirring is very difficult because the thick stuff forms into a ball around the stirrer and takes ages to mix in. When you do get it mixed it doesn't always end up with a matt finish and if you leave the tin for a few days the thick stuff settles and you have to begin the whole stirring process again. I noticed that some years ago the stamped number on the lids changed to a smaller size and at a show last year I bought an unopened tin of the same matt varnish, but with the old large numbers, from a second hand stall. This tin took very little stirring and I can leave it for weeks without any stirring - I can open it up and use it straight away and it always gives a matt finish. I've also had the same thing happen with an old tin of 113 and one of matt black when compared with the current stuff.

I've not read the article but an F class is a completely different kettle of fish - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1161/entry-10521-a-little-bit-of-victoriana/ it's much smaller and lower powered than a H. The H vs. the 14 inch special - Cylinders 12x18in. (H) 14x20 (14") Wheel dia. 3ft (H) 3ft. 1 1/2in. (14") Wheelbase 5ft. 4in. (H) 5ft. 6in. (14") Water tank capacity 450 gal. (H) 600 gal. (14"). Basically, it's just a larger engine all round but with a very similar outline.

Yes, Arthur, I saw it and the Ruston in action there once. It all looked a bit bodge it and scarper! A couple of weeks ago I posted elsewhere on the forum asking about the best thing to use to represent ash from loco fire and smokeboxes. I ended up collecting a bag of ash from the Chasewater Railway (the only bag I had was a dog poo bag and how silly did I feel walking around with a bag full of what everyone assumed to be dog poo but having no dog with me at the time?). Once ground up and piles of ash were added next to the loco shed on BT&S I realised that it looked not very different from the ballast. It would though - the ballast is stuff I picked up from the old NCB line at Calder Grove! Anyway, the pic below is one of a few that I have taken to supposedly show the piles of ash from BT&S engines but, as it doesn't look that much different from the ballast , I cropped it to just show the engine. I can't remember if I've already shown and described this or not so I'll describe it anyway. The engine is an Ixion Manning Wardle and the blast pipe, petticoat pipe, steam pipes and tube plate are all scratchbuilt from plasticard, plastic rod and brass tube. The opening door, dart and other thingy are standard on the model as bought.

I saw that Manning Wardle made with a scratchbuilt body on a Dapol Pug chassis and it was quite good. To be pedantic though, the Irchester engine wasn't a H class. It was and is (preserved at the Middleton Railway) a 14" special. But as you aren't modelling Irchester you're free to use your modeller's licence :-) I look forward to seeing you post the build and I would't mind doing one myself sometime. One of the many plans for layouts involves a pre-grouping period colliery in 4mm with a Manning H.

With a bit of help from photoshop. Straight from the camera.

I've no idea. It's been so long since I built that one that I don't even know where they came from. It was built at the same time as the scratch-built Ruston 44/48 and was based on the flat wagon at Blackett Hutton's foundry in Guisborough.