The Fatadder

A chance stumble across an old thread on Demu has revived interest in a project I started planning a while back, One area that I find quite interesting to operate are charter rakes, the combination of all sorts of different traction with rakes of mixed coaching stock is rather appealing. At the moment I have in progress a full VSOE set (which will have an accurate formation of different coach types, and is more of a long term project). Along with a full Blue Pullman set (Although this still requires the 2 mk1 buffets painting). Anyway the third project is based upon a set operated by Vintage Trains Limited based upon a set which was used for a charter in the South West with City of Truro and a green class 37 (believed to be 261) The formation looks to be Loco: Mk1 break, Mk2 (not sure which diagram), Mk1 Pullman 2nd class, Mk1 Pullman kitchen, Mk1 break While Vintage Trains predominantly operate steam tours, I have also found photos with their stock used with preserved diesels (having found a number of photos showing such operations on their website including a similar formation to the one I have planed (although it has lost the breaks and added a load more mk2s.) From this I will also add a pair of mk2d firsts in Intercity giving a couple of extra options. This rake should be pretty simple to put together, other than the Bachmann Commonwelths being too narrow for proper wheels. The mk2s are going to need a few minor modifications to the paint (removing the Pullman names and then re varnishing) and a mk2 will need to be sprayed up to match them. The handy thing with this rake its ideally sized to fit in Bodmin (whereas both the VSOE and Blue Pullman rakes are way too long!) Some photos to finish things off for now: First off 50049 with a longer rake City of Truro and the 5 coach set Another of City of Truro And another Finally a couple of shots of the coaches themselves Mk1 Pullman Parlour Second 353 (TOPS Number 99353) Mk1 Pullman Parlour Second 349 (TOPS Number 99349)

Thanks for that, looks rather good! Guess I aught to get hold of a couple of sets and see how I find building them!

Don't suppose you could post some photos of the Masokits ones please? Their website appears to be lacking somewhat in images of the products...

This suddenly gets even more expensive... Hadnt realised that they were introduced that early, looks like I now need to get a 2nd rake...

Personally in terms of looks and functionality I prefer the Heljan one. Smiths just looks too crude, Romford too over scale (and way too stiff), Hornby looks very good but is way too stiff

So the all important question, will these be of use for a layout set in the south west in the 80s (and what sort of numbers would be needed...)

Over the time RMweb has been offline I have been getting on with a couple more wagons: The first is a Hornby CDA, the intention with this was to get a wagon working reliably enough to be used for track testing on Bodmin, The CDAs I had converted with Exactoscale wheels on the last layout were very unreliable (part due to the finer wheel profile, part due to the awful axle design), as such I've decided to go with Maygibs for the fleet which will hopefully be fitted with etched break disks. In order to provide clearance I have attacked the insides of the wirons with a milling bit in the dremmel opening them out to accept scale wheels. I have also started work on looking at how I am going to detail them up, at the moment I am looking at: New roof Add missing end detail New buffers Remove fictional ballast box New couplings Drill slots in the side Thin the tops of the sides Of course given the fundamental errors with the basic shape of the hopper it wont be perfect, but hopefully it will get it passable. The sooner someone makes a decent HAA/CDA in 4mm scale the better! The plan is to have one rake in their original blue livery with ECC logos, and a second rake in EWS condition. ________________________________________________________ The next wagon to go through the works was a Dapol KIA in Tiphook blue livery. Was rather disappointed by the model as it came, missing half its lettering and with shockingly bad quality control (the whole thing fell to bits after taking it out the box). Still so far I have glued all of the 'steel' loads in place (giving a little bit of extra weight) then glued the roof/end into position (they kept falling off the model). final job so far was to cut 4 lugs off the inside of each bogie in order to be able to fit proper wheels. Still want to do some more work, including adding the missing lettering, getting rid of the rubbish buffers and the hugely overscale hand-break wheels. ________________________________________________________ The final wagon is a Bachmann VDA, this has been renumbered, fitted with Bill Bedford suspension and 51L axleboxes, and converted to P4 using a set of Colin Craig 10.5mm wheels. Just needs some couplings, extra weight and a bit of black paint on the w-irons now... ________________________________________________________ Along with the wagons I have been working on was a Regional Railways Bachmann 150, This is the start of another major detailing project which is principally concerned with getting rid of the OTT all axle drive mechanism that Bachmann fitted and replacing it with a full inertia, black beetle (or similar) motor bogie and clear windows. So far I have been concentrating on the non powered end (mostly because I need to have a 150 available for testing clearances on the new layout.) Working off some incorrect information I fitted it with some disk fitted wheels (which now need to be replaced with plain ones). Thankfully the wheels just droped in (and better still the breaks are in the right place!)

Must resist.... Tornado is a couple of years too modern for me on the other hand it really is rather tempting......... Did anyone confirm if they have done the tender with the rollerbearing axleboxes?

First off I needed to make some minor changes to the track plan, shifting point locations in order to clear cross members on the baseboards. Once this was sorted I then made a start on test fitting templates onto the two baseboards. This was made slightly more tricky by not having the station board built (with the end of the platform being the datum from which everything else needed to be aligned...) Thankfully a combination of the CAD drawing, and positioning the station boards templates on the floor, enabled me to accurately determine where the joint would be, and start laying templates on the next board. At the moment all I have done is place the templates on the board, firstly so that I could start overlaying the Colin Craig templates for the S&C, but also so I can start to get a proper idea of the layouts size. Further discussion with Colin has identified a few more areas which require changing, principally the need to convert the track heading into the station to jointed track (its going to have the top line as jointed FB with BR1 base plates, the next with PAN11 base plates and the bottom road in BH. This also thankfully removes the need to make so many adjustment switches! The final job today (shown in the bottom photo) was producing a simple plasticard jig for correcting the Exactoscale F27 sleepers to a 700mm spacing, took a while to get enough bits of plasticard cut to the right spacing (for some reason the chopper wasnt producing accurate cuts!) but got there in the end. Haven't tested it with rail yet, but looks like it aught to work. A length of the exactoscale track as it comes is shown above for comparison. The next job is going to be determining exactly how much of the BR1 and PAN11 sleepers are going to be required so that I can get them (and the adjustment switches) ordered and have something to work on while I wait for the S&C kits to be released. Suppose I also aught to get on and get baseboard no3 built as well at some point.....

The photo shown in the catalogue was of the N gauge model (couplings were rather obvious.) Good to see photos of the 4mm model, looks like its going to be pretty good. Really looking forward to these.

Just realised that I had managed to switch the first post in the blog to draft (hiding it from view), which kind of answers some of these questions. Anyway.... The layout is in P4, with flat bottom track work which will be built using the Colin Craig range of parts for points and Exactoscale for plain track, the Wenford branch and the siding at the front are bullhead and will both be built from Exactoscale components. Things such as the engine shed & storage sidings which can be seen on the B&W railway today are not being modelled (given that if the line was still in active service these wouldn't have been built (and the originals wouldnt have survived.) Its a bit of a shame really as a small fuel point in that location would have added a few extra movements, but my thinking is that with both Laira and St Blazey so near, its just not needed. (though despite saying that, I may well go back to Templot and have a play to see how it would look............

Guess I will have to ask the oblivious question, What's the source of the resin nose ends? Look pretty good!

Well thats the track plan pretty much sorted, at least until the accurate templates arrive and I can start gluing them down to the baseboard. With a bit of luck I may even get baseboard no3 built at the weekend (though given my dislike of woodwork I doubt that...) This evening has been spent working on a CAD drawing of the whole layout, working around the templot drawing to add in the platforms, buildings and bridge. Still needs a lot of tweaking to get things in the right place (particularly with the bridge which I havent properly scaled to size yet). I've also made a start on drawing an approximation of the footbridge, although because the roadbridge isnt quite right yet the footbridge is currently too near to the running line. The next job: finish working on the bridge so that I can start working out the rest of the buildings... Attached below is a full copy of the track plan. (word of warning, you will probably need to scroll across to see all of the full version of this image!)

thanks that would be handy.

Cool, will have a play and see what I can come up with....

The last day or so has been spent doing yet more fine tuning to the Templot plan for Bodmin, Focusing on more small improvements to alignment, and more importantly sorting out the sleepers. This results in a change from this: to this: Much tidier! There is still a fair bit more to do, with the Sleeper spacing still needing to be corrected on to concrete track (still more reading of the manual needed to work out how to have two different sleeper spacings on the layout without manually moving each sleeper!) but its getting there. Once I have sorted out that final issue, the next job is going to be printing out the templates and seeing how the templates for the points compare with the Colin Craig ones I intend to build from. (If not theres going to be more modifications needed to get the two plans to match up!) Once thats done, theres not a lot more that can be worked on until I start buying track components....

The plan for the layout is a modern 'what if' based upon Bodmin, so the engine shed etc has all been removed.

Good to see more progress, really is looking like the next time I make it down its going to be finished!

Back to Templot and messing around with Bodmin's track plan. Having failed completely at my first attempt at printing the track plan, I've now noticed that there is still a fair bit of work to do before its going to be ready to start sticking down on baseboards. At the moment it looks like there are 3 main jobs to do. Firstly some of the track is not properly connected together (ie its just arranged by eye), I'd prefer to get this connected up to make sure the alignment is spot on before I go and print it. But I seem to remember having a few issues with this in the first place (hence giving up and just bodging it together!) The next job is a bit more important (potentially), which is moving all of the point sleepers which are overlapping so that they are in the right place. Of course not knowing what the right place is makes this a bit more fun! (not to mention I am struggling with the Templot website's search function trying to find something that tells me how to do it...) The final job for the evening is going to be converting the track so that it has the correct sleeper spacing for FB track (so that I can easily sort out the incorrect spacing on the Exactoscale bases.) Again having found the appropriate instructions I proceeded to be confused by imperial data entry!) The big problem I have at the moment is that I need to have a mixture of BH (a couple of sidings and the branchline) and FB (the mainline and all but one point). Not a very productive night so far, so hopefully it will get better..... Anyway I've added the full trackplan below

Yea it is a renumber from 048, nearly made the same mistake you did with loco choices, but thankfully caught it in time! One day I will get round to trying to sort out the stripes.....

My choice of locos to model comes down to a couple of factors, Victorious, Hood, Implacable & Dreadnought were simply chosen for their names, Others such as Warspite, Illustrious and Defiant were chosen as they matched the livery variations that I wanted to model. As with most things I model I have little to do with the real railway (other than looking at photos of things I'd like to model.) Tend to find that travelling by train just ends up annoying me!

Currently my fleet comprises: 50001 - Dreadnaught - Early Revised NSE 50007 - Elgar - GWR 150 50014 - Warspite - Large Logo with black roof - In works 50031 - Hood 50036 - Victorious - Large Logo 50037 - Illustrious - Early NSE 50039 - Implacable - Large Logo 50049 - Defiant - Railfreight All of them have been converted to P4 (half with branchlines wheels and the other half with gibsons which have unfortunately failed to stay on the axles, the gibson half are now in the process of being replaced with Ultrascales. Most locos have been renumbered, and Victorious and Implacable were professionally weathered a couple of years back. Hood has had some minor livery changes to model it in preserved (mainline certified) condition, and Elgar has had the nameplates corrected. In each case when renumbering correct details (red buffer beams etc) have been added. At the moment I have one weathered 002 which is going to be striped down and resprayed in Large Logo (with black roof) as Warspite, however I am waiting for detailing parts to be come available before starting (as I want to correct the cab windscreen, improve the grills etc.) No point starting the project until the bits are available! Assuming that this conversion goes well, I plan on carrying out the same modifications across the rest of the fleet.

I had a similar problem on my last layout. A solution which I was recommended was to glue the templates down with Superglue, as that will prevent them from wrinkling up even if they do get damp again. Looks like an interesting layout, look forward to seeing more!

I have managed to get a copy of that series for articles, which has been incredibly useful in working out what I am doing. I had completely forgot about it though... Looking again today I found the bridge drawings which have been particularly handy given the lack of photos on the net!

A little more progress this afternoon, having found a lot more information on the original road bridge in the MRC article on the North London Scalefour group's Bodmin layout, I have set about drawing up my version of the bridge. Having finished copying the old bridge from their drawings, the next step is going to be adding the more recently built foot bridge (however thankfully there are quite a few photos of this, so it shouldnt be too difficult to suss out the sizes.....) I have also began thinking about how the bridge will be made, The plan is to work around a 60tho plasticard core for the supports, which will be faced with the local stone (This needs some experimentation to decide which method for replicating this stone I will use.) The three bridges will be built as seperate units, and the fitted to the supports once the layout is built, This is a result of a minor problem experienced on Blackcombe where it was very difficult to get decent access under the bridge for painting once it had been fitted to the layout. This time given the added complexity of the local stones colour, much greater access will be required for painting in order to get an acceptable finish. the construction of each bridge is very similar, with a number of longitudinal I beams, with associated cross members with a more detailed mesh barrier on top. The Wentworth branch bridge is a little more complicated being of fabricated iron construction rather than a single beam. I am to add this detail from microstrip, allowing the use of the same long plastic beams as the other 2 bridges. For the barriers I am going for an etched construction, comprising of a stainless steel mesh in brass frame for the footbridge, and multiple part brass etch for the road bridges. this will need a half round section adding to the top to complete the profile. In each case the intention is to etch the whole bridge side as a single component (Saving on soldering and adding strength). Given the extra cost involved with this, The actual bridge sections will be one of the later components to be built (as I do not want to get the etches done until I am certain that this project will be completed.) Next up I guess its back to playing with the templates on a baseboard, although thats a bit tricky given im still 5ft short of baseboards... While looking for photos of the bridges on fotopic (before it decided to give up working!) I found a better image of the road end of the station building, showing I had made a slight mistake with the roof. this is now corrected.