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Buckjumper

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  1. Buckjumper
    Something I recently dredged out from one of the containers on the drive - an ex-GW H7 conflat wagon and container.
     

     
    Originally built five or six years ago, this was going to be in the 1930s GW livery, but the commission ground to a halt when my client changed period to late Edwardian, so back it went unpainted into the box, until picked up by someone else for an early 1950s setting.
     
    It's built almost as designed with the exception of replacement GW-style screw couplings from Laurie Griffin and CPL's lovely shackle and chain set (there's a pretty good write-up of them over on Raymond Walley's site here). Despite the split spring design of the shackles where the two halves are mated with cyano when in position on the wagon, I found it hard to give the impression the chains were taut, so pushed down on the hook at the top so it was flat against the container, tightening everything up, introduced a little glue and bob's your uncle.
     
    Cheeky? Yes. Non-prototypical? Yes. Compromise? Yes. Would you have known if I'd not told you? Exactly!
     
    I love the juxtaposition of the dull oxide of the flat wagon and the glossy carriage crimson on the container with this livery, and despite being weathered, I wanted to maintain that combination of finishes. With my usual 'chuck loads of paint at it and take it all off again' routine, which I've described extensively on here already, followed by a few hours of drybrushing highlights and shadows I think I've just about cracked it.
  2. Buckjumper

    Ivatt 2MT

    By Buckjumper,

    Last year, in the antediluvian period, I was sent this RTR Finescale Brass Ivatt 2MT for weathering and, well, you know, splish, splash, splosh, Noah, and all that, so it went into storage while we dried out and rebuilt. Fortunately my client is a very patient chap, but here she is, out of storage and is now on the first part of a long journey down under to Oz where she'll work out her life on a little twig of an Essex branchline.
     

     
    The model came to me painted and lined, but the new owner wanted a Darlington tall & skinny chimney fitted, so I hunted round for drawings but could I find one? not likely. In the end Mark (a.k.a. 46444) kindly sent me his 4mm model with a Comet chimney so I could at least get some base line dimensions. I also looked at drawings of chimneys produced at Darlington for the old NER, just to get a feel of the shape and style they used to produce.
     

     
    Photos of the members of the class with the t&s chimney weren't particularly helpful as it seems to play tricks on the camera by looking different in each one!
    So these, along with my notes and scribbles I sent to my friend John Birch who is a dab-hand at CAD 3D drawing, and after several emails '...a bit more flare, a little less taper...' we were happy. Off the file went to Shapeways, and a little while later the 3D printed result popped through the letterbox, and I think it looks just about right - it certainly plays tricks with my camera, so it's in good company...
     

     
    It's a shame the range is being wound down - for an RTR loco in the mid-range price it's a cracking model and runs very sweetly. OK, there are compromises between the frames, but if determined they're not insurmountable. A little weathering - as usual I spent more time removing grime than putting it on, followed by my regime of adding highlights and shadows which is a time-thief, but worth the effort in spades and she looks like a working, but cared for engine.
     

  3. Buckjumper

    Goodbye to all that.

    By Buckjumper,

    I've thought long and hard about the practicalities of, and how best to reduce duplication of posts of my modelling and prototype musings across the net.
     
    As a result this 'mirror' of my external blog - a journal of prototype and modelling information pertinent to Basilica Fields - has run its course, so I've deleted the prototype information teaser entries, but all the information which was here - and a whole lot more! - is still available externally:
     
    https://basilicafields.wordpress.com/
     
    Twenty-one months after the flood which tore through our house and the ensuing battles with insurers, loss adjusters, builders, illness, hospitals and bereavement, I'm finally back up and running (although at the time of writing we're still waiting to be signed off by the surveyor!), so I'll slowly begin updating the external blog once again.
     
    Any practical advancement on Basilica Fields will be dealt with in a new layout thread on the main forum.
     
    Many thanks for reading.
     
    Adrian
  4. Buckjumper
    Off we go at a tangent. Get used to it...
     
    One of the locos on the bench which is a whisker from completion is a Great Eastern shunting engine of the R24 class (LNER J67 in the low tongue). This is based on one of the Connoisseur J67 kits (now discontinued) with quite a bit of scratchbuilding and a fair number of alterations to backdate it to 1912 condition. This was started a couple of years ago, just before an enforced hiatus from modelling, and I've only recently picked it up again.
     
    Because of the backlog of work at the time, and the need to get things moving along, I omitted taking lots of photos of the build, so here is a very abridged catchup of work to date.
     
    This is the kit as it comes. In the past, Big Jim has released a limited number of these discontinued kits, and I snapped up quite a number. You might gasp at the price - £75 was very cheap in 7mm terms, but there is quite a lot of work to do, even if built in the intended post-LNER J67 guise. For me, the main thing is that they are a good canvas upon which to work, despite the fact that I chuck half of it away before I even begin...
     

     
    The running plate is solid underneath the boiler, so the first thing to do is cut that away, then solder the valences and buffer beams into place. Apart from a brief period in the 1870s, the GER used flush-rivets, stopped-up before painting, so the rivet press can remain packed away. In the past I have been known to press out the rivets then hammer them back into place...
     
    With the running plate now mounted on a block of wood the superstructure you can see below was tack soldered together, the smokebox soldered up and the boiler slotted into place. I don't like the way the tank fronts protrude into the boiler cladding, so the curve of the boiler was marked off, the tank fronts removed and cut to shape, and the boiler received an inner skin behind the slots which was filled with a number of thin layers of Holts Cataloy knifing putty from Halfords which was later sanded back. The castings in the photo are placed on the model decoratively. The chimney is a replacement brass casting from Alan Gibson (AG) - the kit only comes with the LNER cast chimney, whereas the GER used a fabricated stovepipe. I removed the LNER banana-shaped height extension pieces from the cab front and rear weatherboards to give the earlier GER single-arc profile appropriate for a wooden roof.
     

     
    The cab front and rear weatherboards are short, and don't extend to the floor. In fact there is no cab whatsoever included in the kit, so one has to be scratchbuilt. And in Blue Peter fashion, here's one I made earlier...
     
    Boiler backplate, controls and brake standard from AG, lever reverse from Ragstone Models (excuse the blutak!). The crew were supplied ready-painted by my client. I designed the cab interior to be a once-only fit; there was enough flex in the metal to pinch it through the roof, and as it hit the floorpan would snap into place and not come out again.
     

     
    I made alterations to the boiler and smokebox to accommodate the early three individual handrails and the separate blower valve on the right hand side. The smokebox door casting was discarded and an early pressed type from Laurie Griffin (LG) substituted, but required my making and fitting hinges from nickel strip, wire and bolts. Coupling hooks are from LG, as are the tank top filler lids, which are much finer than the whitemetal ones supplied. LG also supplied the tapered handrails which look a bit wobbly in this photo, but were fixed. Connoisseur can supply upgraded replacement brass clack valves with copper pipe, and these have been fitted. The toolbox has been moved over to the fireman's side, and sits on wooden baulks, the placement of which allows the ubiquitous conical jack to sit on the driver's side. The two-column Ramsbottom valve seat and shroud is from Ragstone - brass valves will be dropped in after painting. Finally, I've filled in the coal bars on the rear windows - these were fitted from circa 1895, but appears to have been rather slow in implementation, particularly for the shunting members of the class. The whole lot was primed with grey etch primer (before I discovered the black stuff), though not before masking off certain brass and copper parts with Maskol.
     

     
    The body has now been painted with cellulose black and the bufferbeams with vermilion. Transfers on the tank sides and buffer beams and number plates on the bunker are from Guilplates. The Maskol has been scraped off the boiler/smokebox joint ring, the clack valves, the spectacles, and the whistle and safety valves have been added. Buffers are from AG. The interior has been painted tan, and a wooden roof constructed from a double thickness of brass sheet, strip and L angle, with an interior lip so it fits in the style of a snuff-box. The coupling hook and links have been chemically blackened.
     

     
    The body and chassis are given a light weathering, with the grime wiped off the tank and bunker side sheets to simulate some deft work with the cotton waste and tallow. The body and chassis are reunited and at last it begins to look like the loco it's supposed to represent....we're on the home stretch, but there's still some detailing to be finished.
     

     
    The wheels are by Alan Harris, but I'm unhappy about the crankpin retainers as supplied - they're too plain.
     

     
    The retainers are stainless steel and threaded 10BA.
     

     
    CPL can supply scale retaining nuts (they're GWR pattern, but who's to know...shhhh!) cast in nickel silver.
     

     
    After sawing one from the sprue, I ran it through a 10BA die (a new one as my old one simply disappeared into the wormhole near my bench). However, this stopped cutting the thread before it reached the end, which meant the castings wouldn't screw in fully. What to do...?
     
    I took my piercing saw to the casting, cut the heads off and trued the backs with a file and wet & dry, roughened the stainless steel retainer and Araldited one to the other.
     

     
    So that's where I'm at. Once the Araldite has set and the rods are back on there's a little more weathering to do to the chassis, a little more coal in the bunker then a test run and it'll be ready for delivery.
  5. Buckjumper
    it's been a very long time since I've updated and I'll try to remember to take a camera to the meeting at the end of the month. In the meantime, here's some video clips of progress through of progress through 2010 and 2011 (all clips by Jonathan Bushell) followed by some of my photos from 2012.
     

     

     

     

     
    By mid-2012 much of the initial ballasting was completed.
     

     

     

     
    I can't admit to having much to do with progress over the last two or three years - that's been down to a dedicated few. I just turn up once a month to eat cake and cause trouble
  6. Buckjumper
    Companion to the six wheeled composite of the previous entry is this D&S brake 3rd which as you can see, was built and painted to a lovely standard by Danny Pinnock many years ago, but in the interim has gained some less than appropriate weathering:
     

     
    I realigned some errant transfers, then again I tweaked the chocolate brown base to a rich chestnut with tinted mist coats, weathered it more appropriately as described in the last entry, and finally re-glazed the carriage with 0.13mm glass.
     

     
    Very pleased with the result, and so is the owner.
     

  7. Buckjumper
    Well it's been a very long time - in fact 223 days since the flood, but there is at long last a definite light at the end of the tunnel, even if it's still a way off. Eventually ten rooms were severely affected either directly or by secondary damage, and taken back to brick and concrete. Where there were timber frames they were removed and ceilings propped up, and my workshop was razed to the ground. It took until the end of July to dry the house out, but we've got one room completed with two more due for completion in a couple of weeks or so. Three rooms have yet to be started, so we're still in a process!
     
    Anyway, the main thing is my new workshop has risen from the silt, and is just waiting for the sparky to come and hook up the juice, which will probably happen at the same time as the two almost-completed rooms.
     
    What it means is that I now have somewhere during daylight hours where I can cut slivers of glass and slosh MEK without being a danger to the kids, though without electricity or lighting soldering and airbrushing is still not possible. RMWeb Live @ Coventry was my first opportunity to wield some new soldering equipment and sundry tools, but I've got a shopping list as long as your arm of things still to replace.
     
    Enough of that, you want pics. For those of you who take the MRJ regularly you may remember a lovely little essay in 7mm on the Mid-Suffolk called Debenham. The layout is now sold and the builder is constructing a new light railway for which I built a J68 and a J15. Last year he also asked if I would weather a couple of ex-GE 6-wheel coaches which he was never entirely happy with.
     
    So first up is a D&S kit of a composite to diagram 208. This was originally built and painted by Danny Pinnock many years ago, and in the interim given a little weathering, and this is how it came to me:
     

     
    Last winter I waved the magic wand over it, added some judicious drybrushing and I've now finally got round to reglazing it with 0.13mm glass, and this is the result:
     

  8. Buckjumper

    Classic Queen Mary

    By Buckjumper,

    When I handed the painted EWS Queen Mary brake van back to Jim McGeown of Connoisseur Models for his exhibition stand last spring he said, 'Thanks very much old chap, would you like to do one in Southern livery too?'
     
    I said 'Yes please Jim, delighted to, old bean,' and skipped away with another heavy box of brass and whitemetal.
     

     
    When I got home I opened it and found the model constructed to Jim's usual high standard; free from excess solder blobs and squeaky clean. Nevertheless it now had the oils from both his and my hands all over it, so I gave it a good scrub with Barkeeper's Friend, a rinse in hot water and left it to dry for 24 hours before blowing it over with a hairdryer to chase out any trapped droplets.
     
    After blackening the wheels with Birchwwod Casey Super Blue I drifted Clostermann black etch primer over the sprung(!) bogies and Acid #8 over both the body and roof. The Clostermann primer goes on very wet out of the tin, so I had the hairdryer at the ready, just in case it decided to droop or run, but all was well, and half an hour later it was dry enough to remove the paint from the wheel treads with a moistened cotton bud. The coverage was such that no top coat was needed on the bogies and they were ready for weathering. As well as reducing the time and expense, on less coat of paint helps to keep the detail nice and sharp.
     

     
    I applied the vermilion to the body first then while that was drying painted the roof white. 24 hours later I masked off the ends and painted the body brown. All the Precision paints for wagons have a dull finish, so after leaving the paint to cure for 72 hours I sprayed Windsor & Newton Galeria gloss varnish in the areas I was going to add transfers and left it to dry for another 24 hours. Transfers were a mix of Parkside left over from the earlier Pill Box and some Fox waterslide I had in stock, and I sealed these with a mix of matt and satin Galeria varnish.
     
    Weathering was pretty much as before - my limited palette of Humbrol matt black and satin brown, with addition hints of leather, light grey and gunmetal where appropriate, putting it on and taking it off again to build up the patina. Again, I spent much more time than anything else over adding the highlights and shadows with a dry brush, finishing off with a grain or two of powders here and there.
     
    It's a bit of a beast of a brakevan - there's certainly a lot to it - and I can heartily recommend the kit Southern aficionados with a couple of etched kits under their belt.
     

     
    These are the last completed photos I can find on my cloud (so far) so until I get the computers up and running again things could a little quiet. I have some 'work in progress snaps' on my phone, but they may not be up to publication standard - I'll work through them and if anything jumps out will post them.
  9. Buckjumper

    A gloomy pill

    By Buckjumper,

    Another from last year's archive, today's positively sil blog entry has an appropriate soundtrack, so
    and enjoy (YouTube link). 

     
    Very much contemporaneous, I reckon you needed to have a sunny disposish to remain sane as a goods guard in the gloomy Pill Box brake vans. Not sure if the vermilion ends were an absolutely most redic safety feature or an attempt to cheer up the poor chap incarcerated inside.
     
    The Parkside kit is as well designed as other kits from the stable, most of the parts just needing moulding lines cleaned up before fixing in position. There are a surprising amount of little bits, particularly around the springs which increases the build time and therefore makes it good value for money in the time/outlay equation, and they all fitted together easily and without any problems. I had some concerns the long low footboards might be a bit too delicate, but in practice they've been fine and are quite resilient.
     
    Freshly painted the vermilion ends were pretty garish, but the grime of a few months hard labour soon fixed that. As usual I spent a lot of time drybrushing the highlights and shadows to bring the van to life, and although the prototype was pretty grim, I think the model is quite delish.
     
    Apols to Gershwin!
  10. Buckjumper
    OK, so I said I'd post this after the weekend and nine months passed instead. It's the result of a concatenation of events including trying to move house, hospital wards (not me) and culminating in being flooded out in the winter storms. We're still reeling from the last one which wiped out my workshop and everything in it as well as half the ground floor of the house.
     
    Fortunately the ground floor is on two levels, and at its worst the water was within a gnats of flooding there too. Main thing is that we're OK but the latest estimate is that it's going to be at least autumn before the restoration is complete which means trying to organise some alternative work space for both my wife and I as we both work from home.
     
    The computers and camera were also victims, so until they get sorted the only photos I have of last year's work are those I stored on my cloud. I'm having to type this on my mobile, so any iffy spelling, grammar or errors are the result of the sausages I call fingers.
     
    So enough of the violins before you pass out from boredom, you want to see pictures of models. So here is the second Parkside SR van I promised. This time it's in a workstained pre-War livery in dire need of a lick or two of paint. As with the last it's pretty much out of the box in O/Fine, the only addition being a lump of lead to give it some mass and momentum.
     

  11. Buckjumper
    Here is a broken record of the construction of a Slater's Southern PLV. Or is it a PMV? I was asked to paint it malachite, and although I don't want to start a bun fight, I'm sure it looked fine to whomever was drinking Elixir Végétal de la Grande-Chartreuse at Southern HQ at the time
     
    The Slater's kit is rather lovely, and the parts fit together exceptionally well. The instructions cover an awful lot of variations, some of which aren't catered for in the kit, so I went through it with a malechite green highlighter to ensure I didn't miss anything for an example from the 1931 batch I'd chosen to emulate.
     

     
    I deviated from the instructions by fitting the roof early on; a gappy ill-fitting roof is a particular bête noire of mine, and I much prefer to secure and seal them once the sides and ends are together, and it gives the added advantage of quickly making a very stable structure. At this stage I also took the liberty of providing cross-body bracing to mitigate against any potential bowing of the sides due to solvent fumes or stresses in the plastic relieving themselves over time.
     

     
    The multitude of brass castings cleaned up beautifuly and were superglued in place.
     

     
    Later in life many PLV/PMVs had the tops of the planked ends covered with steel sheet which I made from 10thou plasticard.
     

     
    I airbrushed the sides and ends green, but then realised the ends were meant to be black...
     
    The roof was painted a dirty grey and the underframe constructed according to the instructions, though I added some extra pipework and safety loops as these are very apparent at eye-level viewing and are very much a part of the overall appeal of the van. Before securing the body to the underframe I glazed the windows and added some safety bars from plastic strip. With the underframe secure I weighted the van with a matrix of fluid lead and pva glued between the cross members. With plenty of expansion room the lead/pva mix won't cause the same disasterous results seen when packed into loco boilers.
     

     
    Transfers were a pickle. Some of those in the kit were shaded gilt for the olive green period and some were sunshine yellow for malachite, but after discussing things with Graham Muz, it seems neither set completely covered either period so I made up the shortfall from Fox which needed subtle trimming to fit.
     
    NPCS never seems to have been taken care of to any great degree, not even in pre-Grouping times, and photographic evidence seems to indicate that these parcels vans wern't cleaned from one repaint to the next, so their typical appearance was various shades of grot, the paint only showing through where jackets and hands of those loading the vans have rubbed against it. The van was finished off with some white indian ink scrawls applied with a nib and knocked back with a further haze of grime and some lovely screw couplings from Pat Legg at CPL.
     

     
    Edited for finger trouble on the android.
  12. Buckjumper
    I haven't built a Parkside kit for a while so knocking out a couple of Southern 12T covered vans to diagram 1428 was a nice change. In fact, to build something 'out of the box' without having to worry about springing or compensation or replacing the running gear with etched bits and pieces was a bit of a tonic. A gin & tonic. Much as I love to super-detail stuff, sometimes the big kid in me just wants to stick a plastic kit together and slap some paint on. What a bonus to be paid to do just that!
     
    The first to fall out of the camera is S47491 built in 1931 and seen in not a too grubby condition a few months after being repainted by the Nationalised railway.
     

     
    Taking the photo was a bit of fun too; the sky was heavy with lowering clouds, but beyond the front the sunset was a mix of yellow, orange, gold, turquoise ,blue, green and purple giving a cinematic, ethereal quality to the light. I set up and snapped away with some looooong exposures as fast as I dare with an eye on the sky above, waiting for the first drops - my main concern was the backscene getting drenched. When it came it was as if the cloud was rent in two - it hammered down, and I just made it to the safe and dry bolt-hole I call a workshop, though I could have done with a coracle and paddle to get me back up to the house...
     
    I'll post up the second van after the weekend - that one's in a different livery.
  13. Buckjumper
    It's been a very busy few months in modelling and non-modelling terms, but now as things are calming down a little I've got time to download and sort through some of the photos stored on my camera from the various building and painting commissions.
     
    Jim McGeown of Connoisseur Models asked if I’d decorate a Queen Mary brake van he'd built in the EWS livery as a counterpoint to the predominantly 1940s/50s stock he already has on display on his exhibition stand.
     

     
    Following the brief, in this livery it’s not an exact copy of the prototype as ADS56299 had the verandah sandboxes removed and the lettering was of a stencilled pattern, but it gives a good impression of what comes in the kit.
     

     
    It was lots of fun to do such a disgustingly modern (and worryingly attractive) livery for a change, and Jim was so pleased with the result he handed me another to do, but this time in Southern brown and vermilion.
  14. Buckjumper

    Ex-GER J65 no.8211

    By Buckjumper,

    J65 no 8211 was the penultimate survivor of twenty locos. Built as GER no.155 in 1889, it spent much of its life alongside several others of the class working the Blackwall line from Fenchurch Street (hence the class nickname 'Blackwall Tanks') until rusticated by the LNER in the late 30s. It then spent the rest of its life vacillating between Ipswich and Norwich, with spells at Cambridge, Colchester, Yarmouth and Yarmouth Beach until withdrawn in November 1953. For almost all of its life it ran as a 2-4-0T with the front coupling rods removed, remained solely Westinghouse braked throughout its existence, and somewhat unusually, retained the old GER wooden roof with low, single arc profile front and rear weatherboards.
     

     
    The model is largely scratchbuilt - I have more than a dozen 'buckjumper' kits, with etchings and castings in a pile from which I can grab what I need to make any given loco, however the J65s are sufficiently different in most dimensions from the larger J66-69 classes that little was scavenged for use here. All the GER 0-6-0T classes shared one diagram of boiler and I had a spare from a J67, which was useful, and the castings came from Connoisseur, Gibson, Ragstone, CPL and Laurie Griffin. The wheels are AGH, the gearbox an ABC three stage spur & helical gear set, and split axle pickups are employed.
     

     
    The livery may seem to be anachronistic with the wartime NE on the tank sides and the BR number and shedplate on the smokebox door, but chronologically it was possible. Numberplates were introduced to the class in 1948, and 8211 remained in the wartime NE livery until March 1951 when it received the early 15½" emblem. Photographs of bucks in this period show this and even stranger combinations - with this species I learned a long time ago to never say never as someone will soon produce a photograph!
     

     
    In this period the smokebox of 8211 was flush riveted along the front seam but had snaphead rivets along the rear.
     

     
    The old District plate of 1915, located under the cab roof on the rear weatherboard, was removed from most locos in the 30s, but 8211 was one of the few to retain the plate. This may be because the weatherboard never received the extension to raise the hight so that an LNER steel roof could be fitted.
     

     
    As usual, nothing looks more like glass than glass and my usual 0.13mm microscope slides look the part. The cab is fully detailed with all the crew's paraphernalia.
     

     
    Tank top clutter and the inevitable pool of water. Boiler cladding bands are 2 thou strip which are within a gnat's of being to scale. Nothing looks worse in 7mm than boilers without cladding bands...except perhaps boilers with grossly overscale cladding bands!
     

     
    It's unlikely the J65s ever had their cabs painted cream - by this time they were far too lowly, however, it does make it easier to see the detail inside.
     

     
    At the end of the day....
     
    In profile they were quite a handsome little class. It's a shame they had all gone before the preservation movement got into gear as they were the go anywhere loco and perfect for lightly-laid branchlines.
  15. Buckjumper

    Ex-GER J15 (2)

    By Buckjumper,

    And here she is. Had a slight misfortune with a drop of oil on the boiler 12 hours before delivery which was carefully removed with IPA soaked cotton buds. Fortunately no weathering was displaced, but oil did seep through the first couple of extra coats of weathering which meant more IPA...still, I won out in the end and delivered on time.
     

     
    65389 was one of the last steam-brake only J15s and spent most of its life pottering around the East Suffolk byways. Dick Riley caught with a series of colour photos on the ESL branches in May 1958, and this is the condition I've weathered her.
  17. Buckjumper

    Ex-GER J15

    By Buckjumper,

    One of four (yes, four) Great Eastern S23 tenders passing through the Works. This is tender No.7886 of 1890 and will be coupled up to a steam-braked J15 by the end of the week once the drybrushing and final weathering is completed.
     

     
    The basis is the tender from the Connoisseur kit, but that only caters for the post-1893 tenders with sausage-shaped lightening holes in the frames. Earlier tenders had the D-shaped slots illustrated, so I had new frames drawn up in TurboCad and etched.
     
    If anyone is interested in a set of frames then I'll be having little batches of the things etched from time to time, just drop me a PM.
  18. Buckjumper
    ...and what a difference!
     

     
    A horribly cruel close-up, and for some reason the artificial lighting has cast a strange almost unreal pall over the photo.
     
    A little more weathering around the chassis and a final test of the electrics and it'll be off to a new home.
  19. Buckjumper

    Basilica Fields

    By Buckjumper,

    I have an external blog - a journal, if you will - in which I have been recording the research and construction of a long-term modelling project in ScaleSeven which will cover the Metropolitan Railway’s Inner Circle Extension, the Extended Widened Lines, and the East London Railway Extension as well as the Great Eastern lines out of Liverpool Street. Such a large area could not possibly be replicated in it’s entirety, so it is proposed to concentrate on the underground lines just east of the junction with the Metropolitan between Bishopsgate (Liverpool Street) and Aldgate beginning at Artillery Lane, and also the Great Eastern main line to Basilica Fields, skipping the huge Bishopsgate and Spitalfields goods and coal depots, and picking things up again just east of Bethnal Green Junction.
     
    I’m working to a plan which is timed as a thirty-year long project (yes, quite mad), so it is planned to build six self-contained segments, each 15 – 20 feet long, with the capability of being joined to its neighbour to make a continuous scene, and each taking five years to complete. Considerable thought and planning has gone into the presentation to ensure a seamless transition between segments, and this process will be discussed further in detail.
     
    I say thirty years, but that's just the construction side - I've been researching for the best part of a decade (and am only just scratching the surface in many areas). For me the interesting part is the road, not the destination. Good job really...
     
    Basilica Fields is set in two time frames – 1890 to 1900, and 1900 to 1906, though these limits are feather-edged with no defined cut-off. The reason for these broad dates is simple; with the workings of more than half a dozen railway companies to consider, there is simply not enough of the historical record left intact to produce an accurate representation based on a window of half a decade, let alone a single year.
     
    When considering basic, but essential information such as locomotive allocations, carriage numbers and formations, etc, even these for the larger participating companies whose historical record is often well documented, accurate data for London’s suburban services has proven difficult to assemble in a meaningful fashion. I believe this is due to three reasons, viz; an incomplete surviving historical record, misinformation perpetuated in print, and lack of interest by historians due to a corresponding lack of glamour in its day-to-day operations. I have been documenting my researches, and those of others upon whom I’ve leaned (sometimes quite hard), in order to attempt to redress the imbalance. I will, of course, be very pleased, if not utterly ecstatic to hear from anyone who is able to correct my errors (plenty, no doubt!), especially if they are able to quote from primary sources.
     
    It is therefore inevitable that in the presentation of this project, some engines, stock, and other items will be anachronistic, so instead I will attempt to convey the spirit and practice of the times based upon the evidence available.
     
    Sometimes entries categorised 'Basilica Fields' on this blog will comprise of a meaty teaser trailer with a link to the full entry on my external blog. There are legitimate reasons for this decision which have nothing to do with generating traffic to it.
  20. Buckjumper
    For ease of priming, the wheels are temporarily put back onto their axles which are masked off. I don't want primer or paint on the axles at this stage as they've yet to be fitted to the inside bearings.
     
    Any flash on the plastic spokes has been pared away with a Swan Morton blade, files and wet & dry paper - whatever is required. Of course the camera picks up no end of evils which the Mk.1 eyeball overlooks...
     
    If, as in this case, the final colour of the wheels is black, then they are primed with a black etch primer from an aerosol. My current lot is from ebay and the coverage is excellent and with this primer I no longer need to bother with a top coat so with one less coat of paint the detail remains crisp. Wheels that will be painted other colours will usually be primed in white or light grey before having a top coat applied.
     
    Wheel front and backs are given a short burst from the well-shaken can, and the solvent in the etch primer flashes off quickly leaving a very smooth slightly egg-shell finish with a nice dense colouration. Within a few minutes the primer is dry enough to handle so the masking tape is peeled off (I ought to have shares in Tamiya masking tape) and a cotton bud moistened with cellulose thinners run over the tyre treads. A dry bud quickly follows to remove all traces of primer. The treads could be given a once over with the brass burnishing mop at this stage, but I usually leave it until the weathering has been completed.
     
    As I noted in the comments section of the last post, the chemical blackening of the tyre treads inhibit the natural rusting process of the steel to a negligible and controllable manner, but another benefit of the chemical blackening process is that it it etches into the surface of the metal and means that, for example, the axles will not need priming before weathering. The blackening process keys the metal ready to accept paint, and the only reason I prime the wheel faces and backs is because these areas tend to get some rough treatment. It's no more than a belt & braces approach. The first time I heard about this property of the blackening process was Raymond Walley's website in his build of the Flying Scotsman for the NRM - see the part about painting the chassis where he chemically blackens the frames before top-coating, omitting the primer.
     

  21. Buckjumper
    ...24 hours later the Araldite is fully cured.
     

     
    Compensation Units
     
    With the axle guards securely in place, my attention now turned to the compensation units. A number of types are available, but I find the type with inside bearings supplied by WEP are unobtrusive and go together with a minimum of fuss; simply fold up and a couple of dabs with a hot iron is enough for the solder to work its way into the folds by capillary action. A small engineer's square ensures everything is fixed at 90 degrees.
     

     
    The bearings supplied (just) fit in the etched holes without the latter needing to be opened out, so that's nice and simple. A quick clean to neutralise the flux and the rocking units can be assembled by opening the holes to 0.9mm and pushing the supplied brass wire through, securing it in place by bending the ends to 90 degrees. Bob's your uncle.
     
    Preparing the wheels
     
    I carefully pull the wheels off the axles, and rub the backs on some 180 grit wet & dry in a circular motion to remove any casting pips and ensure the backs are flat and true. I then give the tyre fronts, treads, backs and axles a rub over with a Garryflex block (grey - medium grade), finally degreasing the wheels and axles with cellulose thinners before chemically blackening them.
     
    There's often a lot of hand-wringing about this process, but really it's easier than falling off a log. I should say that chemically blackening is a misnomer - or should be - because that's not what we should be trying to achieve. How many prototype wheel treads are black? Exactly. What we should be aiming for is to tone down the bright shiny chrome steel of the wheels as supplied to a scale sheen appropriate for our models.
     
    To do this I dilute Birchwood Casey Super Blue with water to a 1:9 ratio in a container and have some clean water in another container ready on the side. Lay out some paper towel and drop the axles into the solution leaving each one in there for 20 seconds. Then transfer the 'blackened' axle to the clean water and leave that for 20 seconds before fishing it out and drying it thoroughly on the paper. I then repeat the process with the wheels.
     
    The combination of chemically and mechanically cleaning the steel, followed by brief immersion in a weak solution will darken the steel perfectly without flaking. If things are a little patchy, it's simply down to that area not being clean or grease-free, so repeat the process! I've recently seen concerns written about inserts theoretically plasticising in the solution, but in 17+ years of blackening wheels like this have encountered no such problems. Incidentally, loco wheels treads can be blacked as the process doesn't interfere with electrical pickup.
     

     
    I give the axles and wheels a quick once-over with a hair dryer then fit a brass mop into the mini drill and buff the wheels and axles until they shine with a scaled down sheen. Some people like to coat them with light oil, but I rarely bother as next the tyre faces and wheel backs need a blast with the black etch primer.
  22. Buckjumper

    Highland fish.

    By Buckjumper,

    The Highland Railway's Diagram 12 fish truck was the earliest of three types of open wagon for transporting fish in passenger-rated trains. There seems to be some uncertainty as to the exact livery - some speculate it was painted in goods red, others in passenger green - of course it's possible that they appeared in both if the type was moved from the wagon register to the NPCS register (or whatever it was that the Highland used to differentiate stock).
     

     
    I was impressed with Pete Armstrong's take on the wagon, but looking at other types of HR stock I thought the Fish Traffic legend should probably have been placed centrally on the door. Pete reckoned the transfers from the HR Soc. wouldn't fit (he was right!), so some judicious slicing up of letters and re-kerning took place, plus a close shave or two of a couple of letters and I think I've just about managed to get away with it. I went for a dual-fitted (piped only) version, which with the safety chains and screw coupling makes for a very busy pair of ends, but also looks slightly comical when juxtaposed with the one brake lever operating a solitary brake block. Classy.
     

     
    It appears the Highland insulated the barrels of fish with turf (whether individually on the barrels or lobbed on top of the load en-masse, I really don't know). Anyway, my brief was to replicate an empty with a barrel and a wagon sheet, with the suggestion that there had been some broken goods. No doubt in reality it would have all been swept clean after unloading, and the sheet properly folded, but a little modeller's license makes for what is hopefully a little scene that suggests the last trip was a little more eventful than usual.
     

     
    For the record, it's a Lochgorm brass kit, and I've added WEP compensation units to the 3' 7" wheelsets. Vacuum and Westinghouse pipes were from my spares box so could be from one of a number of sources such as Connoisseur, Alan Gibson or Laurie Griffin. The safety chains and screw couplings are by Laurie, and I added a representation of the door chains from twisted 5A fuse wire. Sprung buffer heads from Slater's, the barrel was from Ten Commandments, and the wagon sheet homemade.
     
    No chance of one of these appearing on Basilica, but they are a lovely wagon which could so easily be the raison d'etre of a little Highland layout.
  23. Buckjumper
    Abridged History
     
    Several thousand 16 feet long (over headstocks), 3-plank dropside wagons with 9' 6" wheelbase were designed and built by the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway through the 1890s. Over the years detail differences emerged such as axleboxes, lubrication, journal size, and this in turn affected the load capacity which ranged from 8 to 10 tons. Wagons to essentially the same design but with further detail differences were built for the Cheshire Lines Committee, but only those built for the MS&LR were originally fitted with either-side brakes. The Great Central Railway passed more than three thousand of these on to the LNER, but in the years immediately prior to WW2 there were only 600 or so 10T and 5 8T wagons left. Just before Nationalisation numbers had again reduced with only 70 10T wagons and a solitary 8T wagon left in service.
     
    The commission
     
    To build a pair of these wagons as seen in GCR service c1910-12 using the S&T Wagon Works resin bodied kits. These come with whitemetal axleguard/axleboxes, buffer housings, vee hangers, brass buffer heads, etched brass coupling hooks, and steel links.
     
    I'll be adding to this 3' 1" split spoke wheels from Slaters, replacement brass cast coupling hooks from the same source, WEP compensation units (resin can be a bit flexible, so I never build such wagons solid), replacement sprung buffers from Haywood, GC goods wagon paint from Precision, and GC transfers from POWsides.
     

     
    The body
     
    Very little flash exists on the resin casting, just a little under the curb rail which is easily removed. I'm still (weeks later) waiting for the buffers from Haywoods so I'll not open out the buffer holes in the headstocks quite yet and I'll leave the slot for the hooks for now too. To remove any grease and release agent from the mouldings I gave the bodies a quick scrub with Barkeepers Friend and a vibrating toothbrush. These are often half price in the local supermarkets, and last for ages. Why use a second hand toothbrush to clean your models if they're not in a good enough condition to clean your teeth?
     

     
    Axleguards
     
    Or w-irons in modeller's parlance. Only a little flash was present which was quickly removed with a blade and old file kept specifically for whitemetal. The pattern maker really had his brain plugged in for this as he's marked not only the centre line on the underside of the body, but also the position of the axles. Pattern makers take note! This speeds things up no end and leaves no margin for error.
     
    Some Araldite Rapid was mixed up and the axleguards fitted and set aside for 24 hours to cure fully.
     

     
    Next...compensation units.
  24. Buckjumper

    View of the Yard

    By Buckjumper,

    A quick, and very rough sketch to show the levels. That it looks like part of Ricey's Cornfield Street is no accident - it fits the bill perfectly, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

     
    We're looking south. In the foreground I've added the an impression of the far side of the brick lined cutting for the Metropolitan Lines (stage 3 of this segment) and the position of the future road bridge over it on the right hand side. On the viaduct at the back will be the quadruple tracks of the Great Eastern Main and Through lines with the beginnings of some sidings on the left (stage 2). These three stages will only encompass one half of The Rookery with about half as much again either side bringing it to about 20' in length in total. However, what you see here shows the extent of the visible Met. lines for this whole section as they disappear into cut & cover tunnels either side. Over the top on the right (west, towards The City) will be a network of grimy East End streets and courtyards with the main lines on the GER viaduct forming the backdrop. Beyond that is a goods depot and then Artillery Lane where the Met. lines reappear. To the left the sidings eventually lead to a large coal depot. But that's all some way off...
     
    In the space in the left foreground are some dilapidated buildings of a small courtyard (builder/decorator/merchant/whatever) accessed through the viaduct. It all looks to be a tight squeeze and that's intentional; I want to impart a cramped, claustrophobic feel. I think a mock up will be essential so I can move things around if necessary to make the best of it.
  25. Buckjumper
    The recent completion of a commissioned X2 MICA B in post-1904 livery prompted this entry, and the accompanying photographs illustrate that model.
     

     
    Located as it is between the dock and Smithfield market, meat traffic will play a significant part of goods traffic passing through the subterranean levels of Basilica Fields, with the GWR shouldering the greatest load. If, like me, you grew up unsullied by Great Western telegraph code nomenclature, and therefore completely in the dark about MORELS, MITES, MACAWS, MINKS, MOGOs and MAGOOS (one of those is a red herring, and that's nothing to do with fish traffic!), then hopefully you'll at least have some idea of what a MICA is by the end of this mini series. As these vehicles came in so many varieties I'll be dealing with each type separately, so this first entry serves as a detailed overview.
     
    Perhaps the most famous of GWR meat trains were those running between Birkenhead and Smithfield via Acton, but there were other services to Plymouth and Avonmouth, as well as one between Victoria Dock and Cardiff via the North London Railway. The Circle & Widened Lines Extension to the docks also gives an opportunity to transport meat from there to Smithfield, and occasionally direct to Acton without recourse to the NLR.
     
    Through the 1890s, beef from the Americas landed live at Birkenhead, and after a short period of recovery from the arduous journey, cattle was slaughtered and butchered locally. Their carcasses were then chilled before forwarding to Smithfield - a process taking up to 20 hours from abattoir to market. Ventilated vans were found to be sufficient keep the meat cool for this journey, and for the purpose of Basilica Fields we need go to back no further than the 110 vans built between 1889 - 1891 which were later diagrammed X1 and given the telegraph code MICA. Ventilation was via hinged bonnet ends that ran the full width along the top of the vans with scalloped bottoms to the sides, and a series of 1ft 8ins ventilation slots along the side of the vans on the third plank down. Construction was double-cased tongue and grooved planking with flush-fitted doors and no exterior bracing. These vans were fully vacuum fitted for running at fast goods speeds.
     
    Contemporaneously, a batch of 13 vans were built at Swansea Wagon Works for the South Wales Railway and later diagrammed X3 with the code MICA A. These were non-ventilated and were used for rushing chilled meats between Victoria Dock in London to Cardiff. They had ice containers installed and used straw for insulation. The vans were diagonally planked with a narrow cupboard door and were fitted with a vacuum through pipe for travelling at passenger speeds.
     
    With the increase of chilled and frozen meat such as mutton from Australasia, a new van emerged based on the X1 design but without the side ventilation slots and having plain bottoms to the ventilator bonnet sides. These vans were fitted with X3-type ice containers which were filled from the inside, and a 3" air space between the double body sheeting provided some degree of insulation. As such, these 240 vans to diagram X2 could be used either as ventilated or refrigerated, depending on the requirement, and were given the code MICA B. Ten further examples of X2 were built without the end ventilator bonnets and coded MICA A, and another ten X2 were fitted with the end bonnets but had no ice containers and were simply coded MICA.
     

     
    The liveries of the MICAs throws up a few interesting questions which I've not had answered satisfactorily yet, and so I'll begin with extracts from Slinn's Great Western Way pp.97 - 102:
     
    Question: Right-hand small GWR lettering was introduced c1893, so what colour were the X3 vans between being built in 1889 and 1893?
     
    I had assumed that the red lettering was introduced with the white livery from comments in other sources, such as Tourret et al.

    Question: Is there any other source to confirm black lettering was used on white-painted X2 and X3 MICA A and MICA B up to 1904, or did small red lettering in fact appear much earlier during the 1890s?
     
    The whole debate over the colour of general merchandise goods stock in the 1890s also throws up one further interesting query.

    Question: Were X1 MICAs originally painted red?

    The floor is open for debate!
     
    The model was built from a WEP brass kit, pretty much as designed, and given a light weathering. Screw couplings and safety chains from Laurie Griffin. Contemporary photographs show these vans got absolutely filthy, no doubt in part due to their journey to Smithfield on the Metropolitan Line, so this one represents a fairly recently repainted example c1912.
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