Ruston

Not much, young snail. It's too cold, I've been wating on a delivery of corrugated plasticard and I've run out of ballast. The Land Rover now has the basis of a 3/4 tilt but it's unfinished. One other thing - I was all for chucking the whole lot in when the locos wouldn't run anything like reliably and even blamed DCC. I've rebuilt the Ruston with full suspension and it runs better, if quite wobbly. The Hudswell runs better after several hours on the rollers. The Hawthorn Leslie hasn't run since I went DCC because I've still not fitted a chip to it. The Markham is still a pile of castings and etches because I haven't even started to build it. The Ruston 88DS scratchbuild is still in the planning stages but only in my head.

Was it an official Land Rover conversion? I suppose I could leave the truck cab and add a 3/4 tilt but this is what I was thinking of. http://www.landrover...064/7064-01.jpg

I'm sure it'll be perfectly safe. As I've run out of corrugated plasticard and my local model shop is waiting for a delivery from Slaters, I thought I may as well have a do with this here Land Rover and make a start onconverting it to a mobile welder and at the same time correct a few inaccuracies on the basic model. For a start, that heater intake has got to go. Only series 3s had that and it's on the wrong side for a home-market motor anyway. The wing mirrors are a bit too chunky so they'll be heading for the bin. The ridge on the top of the tub will have to go. This seems to be to locate the top on an optional hard top version of the model. The rear cross member (fallen off in the photo) is the wrong colour and doesn't have a PTO hole in it so that needs something doing about it. The Land Rover badge has the extra piece for a Station Wagon badge underneath it so that'll have to go. The tailgate appears to have fixings for pioneer tools - on a civilian motor. What were they thinking? Oh dear, what have I done? The interior is for a series 3 so I'll have to ditch that horribly realistic plastic interior and get it back to basics. The steering wheel is on the wrong side too! The whole thing is going to get repainted. Deep Bronze Green, the classic Land Rover colour, for the bodywork and wheels with black for the chassis and drivetrain/suspension. I'm also going to ditch the truck cab and attempt to make a full canvas hood but I haven't quite figured out exactly how yet...

OK, OK, I'll keep the Land Rover! I didn't mean that it would carry the drums anyway. Full drums leave the works by rail! New empty drums would arrive by rail too. What I was thinking of was a van for local deliveries of smaller consignments, or a small lorry for local deliveries of less than railway wagon-load. I'll probably modify the Land Rover to be a mobile welder unit. They did build some series 2s with a PTO-driven generator and arc welder set in the back. After all, it was the World's Most Versatile Vehicle! I could make some sort of cameo with the landy and a bloke welding some piece of plant.

Just out of interest, what is the width and length of this vehicle in millimetres? I'm looking for something of this type for my layout, although I won't be making it radio controlled. Thanks,

I think you're right. It's not glued in so I can remove it and dirty it up a little. I'm not sure I'll leave the Land Rover in though. I can't imagine anyone would use an 88 to deliver drums of chemicals. It'll only hold 3 at the most and it would be quite a task to get them in. What I really need is a Transit-sized van or small, short wheelbase lorry. I'm not sure if a Transit fits the time period?

Hi, Kris No, they're only there to hold it until the glue dries. They're much too large for rivet heads and the tank is supposed to be of welded construction anyway. I've added a small detail to the water column. I think this fellow is about to pour some petrol on the the brazier that keeps the water from freezing up (a hollow resin drum with some holes drilled in and suitably weathered and some gloss varnish around the column to represent leaking or spilled water). The staircase is made from 32 individual parts of plastruct channel, plastic rod and Slaters treadplate effect plasticard. Gratuitious shot with steam effects photoshopped in.

It's almost a month since I posted anything about this but I have been doing something with it. First off, the 16tonner as finished. I've already posted this pic elsewhere but here it is anyway. And a general view of other things that have been going on. The backscene has a full-height building along part of it, a water column has been made and is fed from a water tank made from an old lancashire boiler (Duncan Models castings on an old silicon sealant tube). Some ballasting has also been done. The building in the foreground is the engineers workshops. And for the far end of the railway (which is still completely bare) I've started to make a storage tank for the tar when it is unloaded from the cars. It's made from foamboard and cereal packets. You can just about make out the scoring on the card to represent welded panels. It'lll show up more when the thing is painted.

And I also found an earlier black & white print of the Ruston shunter outside the loco shed. Probably sometime around 1956-60.

Rooting through some old colour slides of industrials I came across this one, believed to have been taken at Bury, Thorn & Sons' Huddersfield works sometime in 1961.

It scales at about 65 feet high so as large as it may look, it still isn't a big as it ought to be!

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything about this and, to be honest, I haven't done much in the way of progress on the railway itself. I have made one more structure and have been tinkering with wagons so here's a few pics. Works chimney. The tank wagon, complete with home-made tank. The transfers are from Fox. I haven't weathered it yet because I'm still thinking of having some Bury, Thorn & Sons transfers made. I initially painted the tank in the same light green as I've used on the buildings and made my own transfers, with black lettering, on the ink-jet printer. The transfers weren't too bad but the tank looked horrible in green! So I removed the transfers and repainted it in black. I've also been turning this: Out-of-the-box 16t mineral RTR by Lionheart Trains. Into this: Horrible tatty mess.

I've dug the POWSIDES 14t anchor-mounted wagon kit out again and have had a go at making my own tank. On the left is the tank that comes with the kit, filled, filed and primed but still egg-shaped at one end and with a diameter that varies by as much as 4mm along its length. In the middle is a piece of drain pipe that I have used to make the tank on the right. The original tank should be about 46mm dia. but the pipe is 41mm so my tank will become a chemical tank that should have a dia. of 42mm. I'll get the extra milimetre by layering it with plasticard. I've glued two layers of thick plasticard to both ends and cut and sanded to shape. For HMRS Paul - length of kit frame over headstocks as built up = 123mm. Width = 48.5mm

I'll go back and edit my posts accordingly, shall I? I forgot to say that I used the same polyfilla mix to cast the steps into a mould made of plasticard offcuts. I then pulled the mould apart. The steps were then superglued to the floor and some dried up mix was crushed to powder and used to fill the gap. Pete - yes it is PECO bullhead except for the inset track, which is PECO flat bottom rail only.

I meant which details? If you mean the oil drums:

Thanks, chaps. Not bad for a pic taken on a mobile phone, eh? And I see I've got a popular star for it too!

Which ones?

The Ruston 44/48HP diesel shunter of Bury, Thorn & Sons Ltd. backs onto a tar tank next to the loading dock.

It's growing on me. It doesn't look too bad with a few chemical drums lying about and now I've put a few more details to the building too. It's now got a door, steps and handrail on the steps. There's also a loco shed appeared too! The shed needs a bit of weathering on the roof and some gutters and downpipes. I bought the unpainted drums at Guildex, Telford. They're from Invertrain and Skytrex. I may design some sort ot BT&S lettering for them in the future.

The loading shed track has been infilled. It's not pretty. I used polyfilla, mixed with black acrylic and burnt umber poster paints, mixed to a pourable consistency and literally poured on. After a day it's workable enough to be able to clean the rails and scrape the stuff out of the gap between the running rail and the check rail. Unfortunately it didn't pour evenly and further messing about has damaged some of the surface. So it's not the pristine concrete that I wanted but rather weathered instead. I'll see what I can do to tweak it with damage, puddles and weeds perhaps. The building now has a couple of windows and awaits a door and steps up to it. The wagon entrance will have an outer box fitted that will contain the roller door. That's why there's no lintel. The concrete may not look very good but at least the locos still run on the track.

I've had a go with the tanks and they still need more work but no matter what I do I'll not be able to get them properly round. I'll persevere with them and see what they look like once they have a coat of paint on. I've started on the construction of the frames now that I have this little beauty in my mitts. A 'hold and fold' from Eileens. There's no way I could have folded the solebars without it. OK so some smart alec will tell me that I could if I faffed about with bits of metal and a vice etc. but I couldn't have done them so easily and quickly. So I now have this: Which was a PITA because the instructions are virtually non-existent. I had to guess on the positioning of some of the frame parts and guessed it wrong and had to unsolder and re-solder them so that the running gear and brake rigging would fit where it ought to. Trial fitting the axle guards etc. And I've also done a bit more on the building. Coming soon... Would you like chips with that? An idiot's guide to starting in DCC

Cheers, chaps. I've done a little more on the building but then I got side-tracked with this: I bought two and they're going to be for the outgoing products (creosote in bulk and benzole). They're about as modern as it will get, being a design that was still being constructed into the mid 1950s, in contrast to the older style of tank that I'll be using for more tar tanks and for acid transport. This is what's in the box: It all looks straightforward enough... But then you get this... thing. That's the resin tank and one end held in position. There's a seam along the length, the tank isn't properly round and, as you can see, there's a bloody great gap that you could drive a 48DS through! I'm not impressed. I wouldn't mind so much if it were a case of getting what you pay for but it's more expensive than a Slaters or Parkside kit so I'd expect quality equal to those at the very least. Somehow I think I'm going to run out of swear words before this... thing looks anything like a railway tank wagon. Anyhow I've fixed the ends on to the tube and await the glue hardening before I tackle the filling and filing/sanding/swearing.

That's terrible original soldering on the Ruston there! What idiot did that?

Yes, after the rust-coloured undercoat I slapped Maskol on the parts that I wanted to remain rusty. Once that had dried I painted the green all over and left it to dry overnight. I then peeled the Maskol off to leave an edge with a peeling paint effect. Rust stains on the green paint were done by thinned-down orange paint and once that was dry a wash of dirty thinners slapped over the whole lot so that no fully clean paintwork remained. The thinners did take off some of the undercoat so I touched up those spots with a differing shade of rust mix to give a variation in tone as rust is always varied. I'm quite happy with it. The wall also needs some down pipes but I'll not fit those until the 'concrete' in front of the wall and around the rails has been poured as they'll get in the way of spreading and smoothing it out.

The rust effect seems to be alright. I've made a small office/toilet block building for the corner. It still needs guttering and an external pipe. Everything's scratch built, even the window frames and the slates are all individual, cut from plasticard. I've no idea what to use for the gutter though... I did get rather bored whilst fitting the slates on the office roof so I'm not looking forward to the roof of the loading bay...