Jump to content
 

Buckjumper

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,107

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    2

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Buckjumper

  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
    Twelve examples of the Great Western’s 13 ton AA7 brake vans were built between 1897 and 1898 to Lot 206 for working the company’s trains from Acton over the Metropolitan and (for a short stretch between Farringdon Street and Aldersgate Street) the Widened Lines to Smithfield – they were numbered in the series 56985-96. Essentially they were a short version of the AA3 vans with a 9ft wheelbase, measuring 16ft over headstocks with a proportionally smaller verandah than the larger vans.
     

     
    It has been suggested by various authors that the AA7s must have been the among the first fitted brake vans on the GW because of the Smithfield meat trains, which included fitted Micas, but in reality, the perceived volume of meat traffic to Smithfield has been blown out of all proportion, and careful study of the relevant WTTs show that in fact the meat trains made up only a very small percentage of the traffic over the route as Smithfield was also the main general merchandise goods depot for central London and the City. To put things in perspective; in 1912, out of sixteen daily goods trains only four were scheduled for meat traffic, and of these, three were mixed trains of meat and general merchandise. Quite surprisingly, only one single trip each day was solely reserved for the conveyance of meat. It’s worth remembering that Mica’s were vacuum braked to convey chilled and frozen meat between Birkenhead and London at passenger-rated speeds, and it would have been the brake vans on those trains which were first vacuum fitted. It wasn’t until later, maybe much later (post-Grouping?) that vacuum braked stock was required on the Smithfiled trips.
     
    The model is from Big Jim’s wonderful Connoisseur range, and the only major deviation I made was the addition of WEP compensation units rather than a solid chassis. GW paint from Precision, weathering from Humbrol and transfers from the HMRS. Glazing is 0.13mm glass, instanter couplings from CPL and sprung buffers from Slater’s.
     
    This example was built to commission, and is in 0 Finescale, but I have a pair to build for Basilica Fields where meat traffic not only shuttles between Acton and Smithfield, but east from Smithfield to St. Katherine Dock via Basilica Fields on the (Middle) Circle Extension.
     

     
    No photoshoppery…well, just a little to get rid of a couple of specks of dust, but the colours and lighting is au natural care of the fat old sun.
  4. 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.
  5. 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:
     

  6. Buckjumper
    Some 1600 ten ton open merchandise wagons to Diagram 03 were built by the Great Western Railway in four batches during the years 1904-5 and 1912. These wagons were a development of the Diagram 04 introduced three years earlier and incorporated a 4⅛†wider top plank bringing the internal height to 3’3″ which remained the basic standard for GW 10 & 12/13T opens in all future builds. At the same time the width was made wider by 6″ bringing the inside and outside dimensions to 7’7″ and 8′ respectively. Many, perhaps most, of the 03s were fitted with the Williams patent sheet supporter to aid the wagons sheets protect the merchandise when in transit.
     

     
    I recently completed a commission for an 03, built from a WEP kit and this was given a light weathering as if recently built. The running number suggests that it is one of the final batch, and as the wagon will fit into a c1912 scenario, I think the degree of weathering is appropriate.
     

  7. Buckjumper

    Tar Tank Wagon

    By Buckjumper,

    Over the weekend I was hunting down some photos on my computer and found a few of the tar tub tank wagon that I decorated about 18 months or so ago, but which haven't been posted on here. If memory recalls correctly, this was one of the last models I completed before having to drop model making for a while. The model was built by Graham and Peter Beare and briefly described by Graham in a thread at the time, and I gave a rather full description of my process of decorating it with a couple of photos posted alongside to illustrate. Having found the other photos I thought it would be of interest to post the whole set here for completeness, and as a lead-in for a future tar tank article that will appear on Basilica Fields which Graham has kindly offered to build. Don't hold your breath for the next tub though as Graham is very busy working though vast swathes of of track construction at the moment, but in the future I will be referencing back to this post. In a nutshell the wagon is a Slater's kit married to Exactoscale sprung axleboxes units and has replacement brake gear from both Ambis and Exactoscale plus a lot of extra detail. Graham is making a detailed photo-journal of the construction of the next tank as he builds it, showing all the areas he modifies. It will be a terrific read and should raise the bar of modelled tar-tubbery! In the meantime, here is a précis of the weathering process.
     

     
    The top coat is Precision enamel Red Oxide airbrushed over Games Workshop white acrylic primer which is perfect for translucent colours such as reds and blues as the primer adds depth to the finish which is emphasised when T-Cut is applied.
     
    Rather than go for a perfectly smooth finish which is the usual goal of painters, I increased the air-to-paint ratio and sprayed from an extra couple of inches away causing the paint to land in a semi-dry state and giving the finish a slightly gritty texture. After a couple of days I knocked this back with some 2000 grit wet & dry, working in between the rows of rivets on the tank sides and ends, but I wasn't too fastidious about it. I then applied T-cut using a cotton bud, polishing these areas to a shine. The remaining gritty texture around the rivets helps facilitate the appearance of erupting rust, but the sides need to represent sheet metal, and an underlying sheen with plenty of depth helps to trick the brain into thinking it's looking at just that, not injection moulded plastic. This surface also helps to bed transfers in, so it's a two-birds-with-one-stone process. Later on the shine can be knocked back by weathering - not matt varnish which is a sure-fire way of obliterating all of the nuances I've worked hard at creating. The tank top was left alone with the rough texture in place.
     
    The transfers supplied are for No.9 in the fleet, which is a slightly longer wagon than No.2 (Graham wanted a red tank, not a black one, hence the change), so I had an interesting morning chopping the numbers and letters up and re-spacing them until they matched the photograph. All the ironwork was then brush painted with Humbrol satin black.
     

     
     
    The model was then weathered with my base palette - a 70/30 mix of Humbrol 33 and 133 with the tiniest drop of 62 for brake dust accumulation on underframes and ends. This is applied very thinly with the merest of hazes wafted gently on and the patina slowly built up. Subtlety is the key to all weathering, even for those dirty great filthy WDs clanking around the country in the 60s; build up the weathering textures and colours slowly, just like the real thing. The tank sides and ends received a gentle dust of muck which was wiped away in a vertical motion with a moistened cotton bud, the grime remaining trapped in the textured patches around the rivets accentuating the texture of erupting rust, gunk and spillages. The tank top was given a waft of the sooty mixture and left alone.
     

     
    Graham didn't want too much tar spillage represented as he supposed that in the Edwardian period there might have been a little more care taken over getting the stuff into the tank compared to the laissez-faire state attitude apparent in later periods. The limited spillage was represented by a Metalcote gunmetal and grey 64 mix drybrushed on. The tank top was then scrubbed with a stiff brush to simulate scuffing and rubbing from boots, sleeves, hands and trouser knees from the men who scrambled all over it to fill 'er up. I used the same mix to simulate spills and seepage from the oil axleboxes.
     
    At this stage the amount of grime looks fine, and I see so many models weathered to this stage, but to my eye it's all a little flat, so time for some sleight of hand.
     

     
    I mixed 33, 62 and 64 in a ratio of about 4-1-1 and with a flat bush, and almost all of the mix wiped off, I brushed in an upward direction across all the rivets, along every edge on the tank, the frames, the ironwork, the running gear to give the impression of shadows. This takes some time and requires a lot of patience. I then mixed the same colours in a 4-1-1 mix in favour of the light grey, drybrushing all the same areas but in a downward motion which simulates light bouncing off these raised areas. it has to be done with extreme subtly or you get a caricature seen so often in some areas of military and fantasy painting - it sometimes works in those arenas, but not in ours. If you bodge it up, simply wipe away with thinners or knock it back with a mist of the general weathering mix. The highlights and shadows lift the murky running gear, the grittier areas and especially the tank rivets and the ownership plate which was one I had etched specially for the wagon.
     

     
    To finish it all off I added oily water runs on the tyre faces where the tank had been standing, and pushed tiny grains of rust weathering powders into the springs and axle guards. That's about it, except for the frippery, so here's an early colour photograph...
     

     
    ...and how we're used to seeing them in the old orthochromatic emulsions. Well, sort of...
     

  8. 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.
  9. Buckjumper
    The West Mersea Branch - 1946 Essex in ScaleSeven
     
    by buckjumper
     
    original page on Old RMweb
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:30 pm
     
    This thread began way back on RMWeb2 and was migrated to later incarnations. As the layout is still under construction I thought it worthwhile to dump it over here to the all-singing, all-dancing RMweb X.0.1.
     
    Here's a pr?©cis of the story so far.
     
    The project is the brainchild of Peter Hunt, proprietor of Perfect Miniatures, and the layout is built in 7mm to ScaleSeven standards. The layout is being built during regular meetings on the last Sunday of each month with couple of Wednesday meetings for good measure. Although working to S7, there have been a goodly number of 0F modellers turning up regularly to help out.
     
    The project is ambitious. The first meeting was in Jan 05, and after a few brainstorming meetings, the first 12" of track went live in that September after 30' x 4' of boards had been constructed. These are entirely in MDF, and have been soaked (with no ill effects) on more than one occasion thanks to a dodgy roof.
     
    The railway is set in June 1946 - which gives some interesting choices for locos in both pre-War and wartime liveries.
     
    Trackwork is hand built using pine and lime sleepers/timbers, steel rail with C&L and Exactoscale plastic chairs. The steel rail is subject to entropy thanks to the potent combination of steel flux and the aforementioned sieve-like roof but running hasn't been marred by this, and is also unaffected by the wheel cleaning regimen which appears to be an anathema to Peter and therefore non-existent! Electrical feed is via one brass chair on each electrical section with a dropper wire soldered to the underside (no unsightly blobs of solder here!) which is wired to a bus running under the layout, each rail end is placed in a jig and two holes drilled through. Our own two-piece brass fishplate castings are then slotted through and soldered together. This gives the desired expansion gap, and the fishplate works the same as the prototype. Currently point tie bars are temporary PCB, but we're working on a system of cast cranked rods as per prototype which which will slot through holes drilled in the switch blades. Yes, there will be an electrically dead section on the bars.
     
    Much of the trackwork has been laid by Colin Dowling, John Watson (of the Mid-Suffolk Light P4 layout 'Kenton' fame), David Whitaker and Peter, and everyone else has been employed on drilling fishplate holes, soldering droppers to brass chairs and threading plastic chairs onto rails, wiring etc.
     
    I just turn up, drink coffee, eat cake and devour Peter's vast library of railway books - after all, I model all week long!
     
    Control is by DCC and currently a Gaugemaster Prodigy is being used.
     
    We're going through a track testing phase - checking gauge, check rail clearance, electrics etc, and I've been messing about with all manner of electrostatic grass fibres, fake fur, hanging basket liner, hair and wotnots to try and achieve a scythed grass bank which looks right - I'm desperate to get rid of the lurid grass mats Peter's put down pro tem just 'to give us an idea...' Scenic treatment begins next month!
     
    So what's in the photo (taken yesterday)?
     

     
    Well, apart from the typical detritus, the photo is taken from Mersea Avenue bridge - which leads to the next part of the project. The left hand track is the headshunt with the down and up running lines next on the right. The brass locos are sitting in the pilot loco siding (current incumbents are a Southern somethingorother [why?!?!], a C13 and a J17), then there's the carriage siding and cattle dock. The block of wood nearest the camera indicates the position of a bothy and between this and the mockup of the watertower will be an assortment of PW huts, mess rooms, and all manner of rat-infested huts, van bodies, ladidah. Between the water tower and signal box will be a large GE-style wooden coaling pier.
     
    In the distance is the main platform with some coaches occupying the road, there's a bay to the right, and a parcels and end loading platforms beyond which both have stock in. The run round loop to the left of the main platform road has a milk dock next door, and there's also a builder's merchant's warehouse beyond that.
     
    Peter has been to measure up Framlingham station buildings and West Mersea will be based on them but in an extended format. The water tower will probably be based on the Framlingham one too, and the signal box will be one of the later GE types, big enough to accommodate a 60-70 lever frame...there are plans to make the levers in the 'box move when points are thrown...
     
    What you see is only half the intended width, and the left-hand points on the headshunt nearest the camera will lead eventually to another next set of boards which will incorporate a gas works, a maltings, a goods shed, timber sheds and coal sidings.
     
    According to Peter's timetable we'll be starting the next phase late 2008 - this some 18' of double track plus the headshunt in a cutting bounded by the Mersea Avenue and Firs Road bridges. This section will be exhibitable. Beyond that phase will eventually be the loco shed, a turntable, engineer's sidings, carriage sidings, and the junction to the East Mersea branch, and beyond that the junction to the Rowhedge branch.
     
    The whole kiboodle is anticipated to exceed 120' in length in it's current format (however, as usual, Peter has more plans...)
     
    I said it was ambitious!
     
    I'll see if I can find some of the older photos of things in progress.
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Colin on Mon Jul 30, 2007 4:47 pm
     
    Blimey, that's some layout on the way!
    I'd always envisaged any potential line to West Mersea as a light railway in the style of the Kelvedon-Tiptree-Tollesbury line - J15s on 2-coach trains of ancient stock crossing a long timber trestle over the Strood, that sort of thing.
    Was the line ever actually planned, or even started? The countryside south of Colchester rolls a fair bit, there could be some interesting scenic features!
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:01 pm
     
    I don't know of any serious plans for a line to Mersea - I'll have to check with Peter, but the East Mersea and Rowhedge branches certainly will be in best rickety GE style.
     
    The background is that West Mersea had a bit of a late Victorian boom similar to other East Anglian seaside resorts after the line was opened in the mid- 1860s - hence the '1865' architecture of the station building, but with the later 1880/90s additions. The signalling will have been upgraded at this date, and that will also be reflected in the style of the box.
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by nobby on Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:23 pm
     
    My wife comes from and my mother-in-law still lives in West Mersea so i shall look forward to watching the progress of this with interest.
     
    Am i correct in thinking that i have seen another layout elsewhere which was also an "imaginary" view of the line in OO gauge.
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:45 pm
     
    IIRC there was one called West Mersea at one time Nobby.
     
    OK - so going back in time to September 05 - baseboards have been built, and the first sleepers in the bay and parcels road have been laid. Chairs have been threaded onto rails, power hooked up to the dropper from each brass chair in this length, Peter's attached one of his J69s which is under construction and she rolls forward first time to smiles all round.
     

     

     
    Came the evening and a GE sandwagon was attached - our first little shunt.
     

    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by westrerner on Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:05 pm
     
    It looks as though it will be a stonkingly good layout. Knowing the area reasonably well having sailed the R Blackwater and Mersea Quarters and the R Colne for many years, I will follow the layouts progress with interest.
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by L49 on Mon Jul 30, 2007 10:00 pm
     
    Bloody Hell...
     
    That's about all I can say. It looks like it's going to be a superb layout. I agree with Colin, I always imagined that any line onto the island would be a bit lighter, bu this really looks like it will be good.
     
    Are there any plans for an intermediate station on the way out of town? I suspect the formation woul;d have to curve away quite sharply from the St Botolphs branch, and pass under Magdalen Street, before heading off into barracks land. There is a gorgeous little building behind the bus garage which I have always wanted to model as a station, it has the perfect facade... That's another one of those 'future' jobs. Maybe a station at Monkwick or Middlewick, within the council estates established there from the 30's to the 50's, or is that a bit modern?
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:41 pm
     
    I'm not sure what plans Peter has as the line heads towards Colchester - in one sense we daren't ask..!
     
    I do know he has written a full history of the line from conception to present day... plus all the technical bits of info. I ought to get him to publish it online in the style of a Peter Paye line history
     
    Anyway, I thought this might be of use - we're working on everything below the red line atm. Everything above will be tackled in the future. I'll post the trackplan beyond A-A later - so you can see the exhibitable bit.
     

    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Ralf on Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:57 pm
     


    buckjumper wrote:
    Oh yes - the lever frame. We've plans to make the levers in the 'box move when points are thrown...
    It's all stunningly impressive but wow, this bit in particular caught my eye!!!!
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Bar Side on Wed Aug 01, 2007 3:16 pm
     
    Adrian
     
    Do I recall you saying on the last thread that this is being built somewhere near Stowmarket?
     
    Ivan
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Wed Aug 01, 2007 8:26 pm
     
    Sudbury.
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Bar Side on Thu Aug 02, 2007 12:05 pm
     
    Stunning looking already so I shall be watching updates with interest. This was one of the layouts from earlier RMWebs that had me thinking about what had happened to it.
    B12s over the strood? Not sure that brave is the right word.... Would have made a fabulous sight though - not unlike the run from Manningtree in to Brantham. Plenty of mud & high tides. Got stuck on Mersea island on fathers day this year by the exceptional high tide. I hadn't checked the tide times before heading off.
     
    Ivan
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Thu Aug 02, 2007 10:26 pm
     
    I shall try to remember to update the thread each month once I've run out of older photos. Getting stuck on Mersea island sounds like fun
     
    In November a pile of rails had been cut to size, drilled for fishplate fixing bolts and labelled to match Peter's seemingly mad schematic. However, it did mean we could ID any bit of rail, know where it was going to go and what power was going to be needed. Sleepers and point timbers were laid in the platform areas and the rails roughly placed on top.
     

     
    One of the great things about the project is that even though we're working to ScaleSeven standards there are many 0F modellers involved too - everyone's made very welcome and then given a job to do based on what they feel capable or comfortable doing. This attitude has firmly laid to rest the idea that those of us working in the true-to-scale gauges are inhabiting ivory towers or up our own backsides, and the proof in the pudding is that there are often more 0 gaugers present at a meeting than S7 bods.
     
    One of our talented 0 gaugers, David Whitaker scratchbuilds most of his stock as he models c1890. Here a scratchbuilt GER Little Sharpie is buffered up to one of my GER Special Cattle Boxes.
     

     
    By Christmas 2005 a number of tracks were laid at the country end of the station, and were invariably clogged up by visiting locos in the buff
     

     
    Colin Dowling's brassy J68 shunts my ancient GER Special Cattle Box - I'd obviously done zero work on it in the intervening month whereas David's Little Sharpie was probably painted and in service...
     

    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:03 pm
     
    Hooking out some more photos from the development we come to Feb 06. Colin painted and weathered his J68...
     

     
    ...and loads of half finished bits of stock began to populate every square inch of laid track...
     

     
    ...more stock. The finished van on the left is also by Colin whereas mine is incomplete and on the right. Pennine intercepted my van early in it's build and suggested the rainstrips on the Slater's model were perhaps somewhat less than accurate. He posted one or two suggestions and I plumped for the ones you see here. Mere minutes with a scalpel and replacement strip, and it's visually worth a million bucks (if you'll pardon the pun). Four photos of the completed van can be found here
     

     
    Then there's a bit of a gap in my photographic record - though Peter's got loads of photos himself.
     
    So come July 06 and quite a lot of work has been done. There's also a lot of visiting stock this month. Geoff Stenner brought his scratchbuilt SER O Class. This has the the smoothest, quietest loco mech I have ever seen. Entirely scratchbuilt with ballraces throughout and a Sid Stubbs motor/box, like all of Geoff's locos, even at a crawl the loco travels several times it's own length when the power is switched off.
     

     
    Visiting B17 Somerleyton Hall with Peter's brassy J69 and Colin's J68 behind.
     

     
    Colin built B12 8579 in 32mm gauge, so it won't be starring on West Mersea. However he has got about half a dozen to build for the line - all with his own design of crank axle for working inside motion.
     

     
    The Thompson D328 is one I built for a customer and is out of period here. Any Thompson coaches on West Mersea will be finished in the ersatz teak livery. Eight photos of the completed coach can be found starting here
     

     
    We worked through many types of grass mats, fur fabric, bleaches, dyes, and were unhappy with everything. we want grass to look like grass, not a teddy bear or underlay. Al the rejects seemed to get piled on the embankment and left there for months. We now know what we're going to use - but that's for another instalment. The chap on the right is the genius behind the whole crazy idea - Peter Hunt. Older members may remember one of his earlier business ventures - he was one half of Chuffs.
     

     
    Patience is a virtue. These scratchbuilt SER coaches took Geoff 9 years to build...
     

     
    By August there was some interesting progression. A visiting A4 goes head to head with the B12 and Colin's J68 has undergone a minor transformation. Another transformation is the grass bank. Over the top of one of the grass mats I used Heki fibres puffed from a Noch bottle. This gave the best result so far - certainly the colour is better(!), but still I wasn't happy.
     

     
    Also visiting this month was this Princess.
     

     
    A study of the mocked-up station buildings. Those along the platform are in the 1865 style when the branch was opened. The L shaped one at the end is a later addition to help cope with the booming resort traffic in the 1890s, and is based on Framlingham.
     

     
    Colin's transformed J68. This was handed to me for some weathering and a round dozen photos of the model can be found here
     

     
    Next: into the new year.
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:22 pm
     
    Jan 07: Came the New Year, came David Whitaker's GER 4-2-2 P43 Class Single to visit.
     

     
    Scratchbuilt except for a handful of castings David said it had been on the backburner for a while. Ostensibly designed by James Holden, Fred Russell -Chief Draughtsman did most of the work, much as he did throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, ensuring a continuation of the in-house style over several Locomotive Superintendents.
     

     
    However, I'm sure Holden did have much input as not only does it hark back to the style of SW Johnstone (in charge at Stratford before moving to Derby), and lends much to his Midland no 1 & no 2 classes, but there are shades of the Dean Singles in there too; Holden was Dean's Principal Assistant at Swindon before being lured to Stratford. The P43s were a small part of the Indian summer of the Singles at the turn of the century, but were replaced from the crack expresses within two years as the Claud Hamilton class were released to traffic, and only lasted 10 years.
     

     
    By now the mocked-up warehouse and sidings opposite the station were in situ.
     

    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Thu Aug 30, 2007 8:00 pm
     
    Another gap in my photographic record but by April some temporary wire-in-tube bits and bobs had begun to be fitted to the points. These are attached to temporary PCB stretcher bars until the cast ones based on the prototypes arrive. Once they're in place we'll begin to look at the proper mechanical bits and pieces which will drive both these and the signals. Part finished wagons continue to clog up the lines as do the Kirk Gresley's.
     

     
    Peter has often dug up bits of trackwork between meetings, the plan evolving much like the real thing did over many years. In the top left the trackwork has been lifted and slewed to make for a smoother transition. A fearsomely complex bit of pointwork was going to be built off the layout and inserted off picture to the left, but the chap was unable to complete the task for a couple of (very good) reasons. This was no problem and instead it was built in situ. IIRC some changes to the crossing angles prompted the ripping up of rail and sleeper and relaying.
     

     
    Happily I've managed to avoid all of the tracklaying malarky by drinking copious amounts of coffee and eating cake while discussing important things like the styles of buffer stops which would be extant, the types of wild flower in bloom in June (June 1946 remember!), styles of GE and LNER railway fencing, whether some 9' sleepers would still be in the sidings and other scenic curiosities.
     
    The unfinished tank wagon in the distance ended up looking like this
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Dan Randall on Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:18 pm
     
    Adrian
     
    That's a pretty impressive train set and I look forward to future updates.
     
    Regards
     
    Dan
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by onslaught832 on Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:28 pm
     
    That's one hell of a project, thanks for posting it. Is the platform MDF too I will look forward to your updates, It has been a fascinating read so far
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:10 pm
     


    onslaught832 wrote:
    That's one hell of a project, Thanks for posting it. Is the platform MDF too
    Yep - MDF it is.
     
    A couple more instalments to come to bring it all up to date.
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Sarcodelic on Sun Sep 02, 2007 12:23 pm
     
    That's very nice.
     


    ...and it's visually worth a million bucks (if you'll pardon the pun).
    I never realised that J69s were legal tender in the U.S. before
    __________________________________________
     
    ??? posted on Sun Sep 02, 2007 5:48 pm
     
    Aha! The only legal tender bucks were J67s 68492 and 68511, both on the Lauder branch in Scotland
     

     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Sarcodelic on Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:52 pm
     
     
    Why didn't I see something like that coming? I'm outpunned!
    __________________________________________
  10. 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.
  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
    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.
     

  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  20. Buckjumper
    Until the mid-1880s, the general merchandise wagons of the Great Eastern Railway had high rounded ends (‘half-moons’ in GE parlance) intended to help support sheets to protect goods in transit from inclement weather. Several thousand examples were built fr0m the 1850s (under the antecedent Eastern Counties Railways) onwards , and by 1878 accounted for 58% of stock owned by the GER.
     
    Over the years new batches were given progressively modern features which then cascaded down to earlier builds as they came into works for examination or repair. All were built with side doors, most had outside timber framing, and individual angle irons held the corners together. Later builds had conventional corner plates with the wooden timber framing, but the final batches incorporated outside iron diagonal bracing and knees to which the sides were secured. Early examples had no brakes until the 1870s when single-side wooden brakes with one lever acting on two wheels were introduced. These were gradually replaced from the mid-1880s onwards with iron brake blocks . During the 1870s self-contained sprung buffers gradually replaced dead buffers, but from the early 1880s standard short buffer guides were fitted to new builds. Both of these types were bolted to square wooden packing pieces to increase their length to 1? 7?. From the early 1880s running efficiency was improved by fitting Worsdell’s Type A grease axleboxes.
     
    The livery was standard Great Eastern slate grey (Humbrol 67 or Phoenix Precision P.505 for modellers). Lettering was hand painted in white but stencilled on older wagons as per the photographs...
     
    [This is an extract of the latest entry on my external Basilica Field journal. Click here to read the full entry.]
     
    Click here to access the full journal
  21. 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.
  22. 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.
     

  23. 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.
  24. 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!
  25. 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.
×
×
  • Create New...