macgeordie

Excellent work Nick, I'm well impressed. I was browsing through one of my Midland Railway Wagons book just yesterday looking for something different to build, but you seem to have done all the ones I fancied having a go at. I do like the D105 boiler trolley. Are you planning to make the etches available to other members? Ian

The project is finally progressing, I just don't know where the time goes, I'm obviously getting old !!!! I'm in the middle of another batch of wagons which is going well, just a couple of minor little niggles to modify for the next batch. The photos below are from one of the wagons I painted up to have on the layout for the Exeter show in June. They had tarpaulins fitted at Exeter, but I wasn't happpy with them so I've taken them off and I'll make some new ones and see if they are any better. The colour scheme is 'as built' but with a bit of 'in service' weathering. I think I might darken them down so they look more like the filthy livery you tend to see in photos and videos of the wagons in service. The opening minute or so of the video 'The Grime and Glory Days' issued by Stirling Video has a particularly good view of an anhydrite train passing through Kirkby Stephen West, which just happens to be the station my own layout depicts.

Sorry Shane, I just didn't make the connection when I saw the name. If Brian hasn't been able to help yet ( I know he has been mowed out with work this year), try contacting Mike via Brian. I sold two kits to Mike and he may well not need both. Cheers Ian

Excellent job Shane, I like the video, the sound effects are very effective. All you need now is Dynamometer car 3 in Derby test centre Blue and Red and you can emmulate the pics in the MR magazine. I made a kit for it a couple of years ago http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/665/entry-5202-lmsbr-dynamometer-car-3/ but I have since sold the rights for it to Shawplan. Once again, congratulations on a superbly executed project. Ian

Hi Dave Thanks for the information, I have loads of S&C books but I havn't come accross the pictures you mention above. Can you tell me which book(s) they are in and I'll do a search on Ebay for them. I didn't realise the dairy was so close to the station, I thought it was half a mile or so away. Cheers Ian

What an excellent photograph. I have often wondered myself how they attached or detached the wagons from the passenger train which usually took them down to Leeds or brought the empties back. Logically it has to be by using the train engine, but what happens to the passengers in the train coaches while this is going on? I was told that special milk trains ran through the night from Appleby down to London but I have never seen any documentary evidence for this, hgowever if the train ran overnight, there wouldn't be many photographs of them anyway. Can anybody shed any light on this? A seperate milk train would make a nice change on my S&C layout Kirkby Stephen West so if anyone has any knowledge of these trains I'd like to hear it. Ian

Hi Rich There was a thread on an earlier incarnation of RMWeb where one of the Forum members had done some research on the Hornby crane and found the jib is scaled significantly shorter than the real thing. He had made a new jib master and cast some in resin, unfortunately I have searched for this thread and can;t find it any more but it will be worth bearing in mind if you decide to go ahead with your project. In any event good luck, I have to say breakdown cranes always look good on an exhibition layout and attract a lot of attention. Ian

Hi Paul I did look at your website when I was researching these models and it was very useful, thankyou for making the pictures available. A copy of picture 5, the one showing the buffers and vacuum tank would have been very useful in high resolution, but I couldn't find a way of purchasing a download rather than a print, (which I didn't really want) and being a bit lazy I just didn't bother.

Hi James, most of the cast items came from 51L models http://www.51l.co.uk/ . There are two alternative versions of axle box, you will need the oil box version for early models and the timkin roller bearing ones for anything after the late 50's. Springs are BR 9 leaf heavy duty and buffers are BR heavy duty 13 inch. The vacuum pipes I am using now are from MJT. Cheers Ian

Hi Gents I will consider offering the kits to other members. I will be sending the revised drawing to PPD next week for the final version which will be visually the same as the pics above, just a little easier to build. The top tarpaulin frames were fitted in the late 1960's judging by photographic evidence, I just fitted them to these models to make sure everything fitted properly. There is no need to fit them if you are building an earlier version of the wagon. When the traffic first started in the mid fifties, they were usually on a train with an 8F in charge, with 15 loaded wagons. When the 9F came on stream the trains were usually 20 wagons and by the end of the 60's a class 40 was usually incharge, with up to 26 wagons in the train. It might be possible to scale the etches up to 7mm scale, but that isn't as easy as it seems. If there is enough interest I'll take a more serious look at it. I'm not sure what the cost will be for a 4mm scale kit, but having looked at what it actually costs to buy the bits and etches, a complete kit will be about £24.50

A bit more progress at last. These are from the first batch of five etches and look O.K. but I've now altered the drawing to bring the brake shoes more into line with the wheels after a few comments from members at the club. I've ordered another five etches in the new format and hopefully should get them in the next few days.

I've had another look at the wagons and I have indeed simply put the etches onto the wrong side of the wagon on this build, (smack hand, promise to do better next time) Here is a couple of pics of how it should look which is on one of the first test builds. I'll have to make a mod to the drawing so that it's not possible to put them on the wrong way round again, so thanks once again ZG for pointing out the error.

As the saying goes, "Well spotted Wilson, I wondered when somebody would notice that" I must have looked at that brake gear a hundred times before and it never twigged. The other side with the cranked brake lever is incorrect too, I think I have simply put the etches onto the wrong side of the wagon. I will check that now. Thanks for pointing that out, it is a two minute job to alter the drawing at this stage if I need too, but I would have been very annoyed with myself if it had gone right through to a finished rake of wagons before it was picked up.

I know about the Judith edge chassis, I was given one by the same chap who did the resin body, he also gave me one of ther castings. The casting is very basic and I wanted something with a bit more detail. I found the Judith Edge chassis was going to be very difficult to assemble and didn't have the detail I wanted so I decided against it. Also, as I need at least 20 of these it was going to work out very expensive to buy them. I decided I could design my own and get them produced by PPD for no more than it would cost to buy them from Judith Edge Kits. I have a picture of the Judith Edge Chassis with one of the cast bodies which I have added below so you can see what I mean. To be fair, the rake of assembled and painted wagons looked pretty good when I saw them at York show a couple of years ago while I was there with my own layout and that was when I finally decided to have a go myself. The original intention was to use these components, but as I said above, after I had a close look at them I wasn't satisfied with the level of detail.

I've been promising myself for a long time I would have a go at these wagons. None of the bigger manufacturers seems interested probably because there field of operation is a bit limited. They worked the Anhydrite flow from Long Meg quarry on the S&C down to ICI in Wigan frm the mid 1950's until the early 70's, then a lot were transferred to the Nottingham area for iron ore traffic. Here are a few pics from the test builds. I'm making a test batch of 5 at the moment, but I've already decided to modify the brake gear and bring the brake shoes more in line with the wheels. Where possible I've done the soldering on the inside of the hopper as these wagons almost always ran with a tarpaulin in place so the inside will be unseen in most cases. The hopper side stanchions are a bit of a pain to assemble. I tried to use a white metal stanchion from Wizard models which they use on the Iron Ore wagon, but I couldn't get it to fit properly without comprimising the over dimensions of the wagon which is a shame. A casting would have saved a lot of time.

Here are a couple of pics of the internals of the coach in the 'as built' format. If the weather warms up a bit I'll be able to get the thing painted in etch primer but until then it will just have to wait. I want it finished by the middle of February as we are exhibiting at Doncaster and I'd like it running then. There's nothing like an exhibition deadline to focus the mind.

That's a clever little idea, is this a 2mm or a 4mm layout. As an alternative to plastic rodding you could use some scrap rail as it is stronger and being thin will pass through the gap on the stickypad quite easily. I've done this on my layout (in 4mm scale and not using stickpads) and providing you support the rail every 10 inches or so it works fine. You'll need to drill a hole in the end of the rail for the trackpin, but you shouldn't need the elastoplast !!!

Hi Rob Thanks for the compliments. This has been a long drawn out job but it's starting to come together now. I've finished the instructions (12 pages of A4) and I'm waiting for some bits from Comet to go out with the kits which I should get in the next few days. I'm not going to get anything else done for a few days now though as my son who lives near Lincoln is moving house tomorrow so we're going over to give him a hand. I was hoping to get some of the painting done Sunday or Monday but I think this cold weather will have put paid to any airbrushing, which I usually do in the garage due to the fumes etc. Still, if I can get the roof finished for this final test build I might get the painting done later in the week. Since I added the pictutres I have re-aligned the brake shoes to be more or less in line with the wheels which improves the appearence a bit, the shoes were dominating the bogie, although they are pretty much in the correct place for EM or P4 they are too far away from the wheels for '00' Once I get this project out of the way I'll have a go at your coach sides, also I'll let you know when the kits are ready to go out if you still want one. Cheers Ian

I've finally managed to get somewhere with this project. I started it over a year ago but it has taken much longer than I expected. I decided to build Dynamometer car 3 after I completed the Brake coaches for the Mobile Test Unit train last year, here is a link to that workbench thread if anybody is interested. http://www.rmweb.co....t=29552&start=0 I had been using Dynamometer car 1 which was a Stevenson carriages kit, but later found a few pics showing DP1 and the Fell on the S&C under test and they were pulling Dynamometer Car 3 not Car 1 with the brake coaches, so I had to make one. Fortunately, the coach still exists at Barrow Hill Roundhouse near Chesterfield in Derbyshire so I was able to go down there and photograph it inside and out as well as measure everything up, which made life much easier than than it was for the Brake coaches project. There is a picture of the coach taken about a year ago below. I've had the etches made for me by PPD of Lochgilphead. The following pictures are from the third test build which is now nearing completion. I've still got the roof to finish, lots of shell vents and pipework, but fairly straightforward, then of course painting etc. I've asked Frank Warner of Scale Model Transfers to make some transfers for it, so hopefully they will arrive soon.