Ruston

I've stopped work on the Rustons for now. This one, returned to my ownership a while ago in a deal involving swapping an O gauge loco for it and another sound-fitted OO loco. I had built it to order for use on what was my White Peak limestone & Tarmacadam layout but when it returned to me I didn't find much use for it. It's had a quick make-over to adapt it for use on Blacker Lane.

A rather scruffy Peckett, at Blacker Lane opencast disposal point.

A rarely photographed view of the weighbridge. Rare because I can't get the proper camera in here and need the rubbish phone camera for this. And a new/not new loco. I've had this one for quite a while now but this is the first time it's run on BL. It's a Hattons Barclay with deep buffer beams and "Workington Steelworks" buffers, from RT Models. It's based on a prototype that was bought second hand by the NCB and worked at Hartley Bank colliery, which was about half a mile away from British Oak, as the crow flies, although the two places were separated by several miles by rail. Hartley bank also had a staithe on the Calder & Hebble and the line there also passed under the Midland line on another viaduct. Picture from a local newspaper cutting. The Barclay is on the left. I have found video of the Barclay, which clearly shows the workington buffers but as I don't know what colour the loco was painted I simply left it red.

To be honest, Mike, I don't enjoy building wagon kits. It's not like building a loco, where you usually build just one example. With wagons its usually many of the same type and it's repetitive and quite boring. There's also the way that some kits just don't build well and don't run well. At least that's what I've found but perhaps I'm just not good at building wagon kits? If that's the case I'm certainly not alone. I don't like spending hours of time and effort to end up with something that may not run well because if it doesn't run well, or derails on curves and points then it's as much use as a chocolate teapot. Not to mention the waste of money in buying the kit, transfers, paint and in some cases the wheels and buffers, too! At least you know the thing is going to run perfectly straight out of the box with RTR and I'm not really bothered if I've made it or some Chinese factory workers have made it. The bit I enjoy is weathering and that still needs to be done whether it's a kit or RTR. I'd rather shake the box, weather the wagon and enjoy seeing it running than see my cash and time wasted on a kit that may end up being a useless lump of plastic.

192 throbbing horsepower of Rustonness.

Progress with one of the others. Based on w/m 321733 that had block buffers and worked for The Distillers Co. That one had a lowered cab roof, but the cab is unaltered here. I've made new buffer beams, plus the various parts of the buffers themselves, out of Plastikard. It's still a work-in-progress.

Couldn't agree more. 😉

I can't be bothered to wade through 193 pages of this stuff, so I don't know whether or not it's already been suggested and I don't know if anyone from Accurascale even reads this , as it isn't a thread started by them, but please can we have a BR 21-ton hopper? There's nothing produced, except the Parkside kit. I'm no stranger to building kits but I can't get one of those damned things to stay square, run true, and stay on the tracks well. I'd buy a dozen of them and happily take a hammer to my Parkside ones!

Because the body can be broken down into cab, engine casing and frames, it wasn't that difficult a task. About 20 seconds to spray a coat of white, leave for an hour, 2 minutes to brush-paint a coat of yellow, leave for a couple of hours and then around 45 minutes for each of the three parts to apply the masking tape. 20 seconds to spray the black. Apply transfer, leave for an hour, 20 seconds to spray matt varnish. Leave a day and weather. Acrylics are a great time saver. I'd still be waiting for the first coat of white to dry if I'd used enamels. The shed would stink, too.

Another old 48DS that was of no further use arrives at Strong's yard. This one may spend some time moving wagons about before ending up in one and on its way to becoming a Rover 75.

I should have known already. A few years ago, someone brought out a 7mm 48DS kit that appeared to have the exact same layout of the etches and repeated the same mistake with the windows. It was basically a rip off of the Impetus kit and I corrected the windows on the kit that I bought.

There are two screws that hold the cab to the frame/running plate but if all you want to do is to add crew figures then there's no point at all in removing the cab as the only access into it is by removing the roof. The cab is metal and the roof is plastic. Flex and crack the glue around the top of the cab and get a sharp scalpel blade in if necessary. The roof will come off quite easily.

I know what it is that's been bugging me about this kit now. The windows are too large.

A SA needs to go in the cab but if that suppressor thing is removed from the motor, an ESU speaker will fit in front of the motor. I used a 6 pin Zimo MS500 that plugs directly into the Hornby socket and saves having extra wires to fit in.

Thanks! The trouble with getting a layout to a state where most of it is done, and it is all useable, is that the little things that are needed to finish it don't get done because you start playing trains with it. I do, anyway. I had another running and photo session. The NCBOE bought a loco, second hand, from Charlie Strong. Thomas Hill 'Vanguard' diesel-hydraulic rebuild of a Sentinel vertical-boilered steam loco (RT Models kit).

The lack of market interest in a tension lock coupler for O may have something to do with them looking bloody awful! 3-links are large enough in O to be used quite easily, so why anyone would want to disfigure their models by ADDING such a thing is beyond me. In any scale you'll get people going on about this detail isn't right, or that isn't right on a model but they seem to be able to live with these ruddy great ugly and unprototypical couplings stuck on the ends of everything.

Paint and weathering done. Stay Alive in cab, ready to be wired to a decoder. The chassis block has been chopped, as per the previous one, but I used a piercing saw and file, just to prove it can be done without a milling machine. I forgot to take a pic of the chassis block before I refitted it but here's one of the lumps that I sawed off to prove it.

Hybrid, built from a BR blue one and a Rowntree one.

Unidentified Ruston 88DS at the NCBOE disposal point at Blacker Lane, near Wakefield.

Hornby have done it, despite their "Era 6" listing, as present day, preserved condition, which has a silver painted exhaust. Still a work-in-progress but looking better now.

Three on the go but not all are mine. It's a mix and match job to get what we want. First up is the one for Blacker Lane. This uses the chassis from the BR green one, frames from the Rowntree and bodywork from the BR blue one to give a mid period 20-ton type. Next is for my friend Scott's half of Sevastopol Works, where it will be a quite new loco, so is in Ruston works livery, or as near as. This uses the chassis and frames from the BR blue one and the bodywork from the BR green one. The lack of buffer beam weights is ideal for conversion to block buffers, which is what it will have when I've finished with it. The full-length side weights suit the early period. The frame has been painted green but needs a better colour match yet. The roof will also be painted green. Last is for use at Charlie Strong's yard since I sold my Judith Edge kit-built 88DS that ran on there. This uses the chassis from the Rowntree one, the frame from the BR green one and the late type bodywork, with larger windows, from the Rowntree one. The white roof has already been painted but, like the other one, requires a better colour match. The frame will also go green and so this is a late model 17-ton type when finished. That exhaust will be painted. White? What were they thinking?

This one is a bit of a mystery but then again maybe not. It's in Middlesborough, photo taken by Keith Long in May 1959. A white, or possibly yellow 48DS with dark lining. It would have been brand new back then. (Flickr, clickable pic) There were 3 48DS of similar vintage in the area - 402808 of 1956, of Harrison Bros. foundry, which is pictured earlier in this thread and was painted in the usual lined green and had jacking points under the buffers, so it can't be that. 411318 of 1957 of the Owners Of The Middlesborough Estates Ltd. also pictured in this thread and in green, with oval/double height buffers, so not that one either. Some lettering is visible above the open engine casing doors and it could be 417891 that was new in May 1959 to Michael Baum Ltd. Scrap dealer, Cleveland Dockyard, Scotts Rd. Middlesborough. A very strange choice of colour for the time, especially if it was white!

Teddy Bears Picnic. After BR sold them off, D9513 and D9531 were put to work by the NCB at British Oak opencast Disposal Point, where they were painted in the orange and black livery of site operator Hargreaves Industrial Services.