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Barry Ten

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Blog Entries posted by Barry Ten

  1. Barry Ten

    Pannier papers

    By Barry Ten,

    Just a quick update on a couple of RTR-based projects that have featured on here recently and not so recently...
     
    Work continues on my Tri-ang 57XX which as I mentioned a few weeks back has been fitted with a surplus Bachmann
    chassis. The body is now in that state of maximum tattiness before - hopefully - things start moving in the right
    direction again!
     

     
    The top feed and associated plumbing has been carefully removed and the resultant scars addressed with sandpaper. Now. I'm going to be honest here and admit that I initially got it into my
    head that the Tri-ang body was already non top-feed fitted, which was clearly not the case - 0/10 for observation! However since the handrails were already off, doing this backdating was 
    perhaps a bit less fraught that it would be on a Bachmann example. Paul Marshall-Potter has very kindly done one of these Bachmann conversions for me, and very nicely, but the Tri-ang 
    moulding is decidely more forgiving in that it doesn't have so much nice detail to begin with, so I felt more confident about hacking away.
     
    Onto the other side of the loco now, and an attempt had been made to reduce the thickness of the visible part of the cab side sheets:
     

     
    I'm pleased with the way this has come out so I'll repeat the exercise on the other side, before beginning to reinstate handrails and so on.
     
    Cheekily photo-bombing the other shot is my 94XX which has been nearly finished for a year or two. It just needed some minor tidying up and then it was done. But, the cabside number plates I happened to have in stock were for a BR-built example without the solid extension between the front frames. I thought it would be a fun challenge to modify the frames accordingly:
     

     
    Here the Lima moulding has been cut away with a razor saw, and the resultant rectangular gap in the footplate addressed with some careful work with plastic sheet and filler. The vertical part of the smokebox saddle must also be reinstated. Once all that's finished, the front bits of the smokebox saddle /frames will be added from two triangular pieces of plastic card, and the 94XX should be ready for final detailing. The white patches around the bunker are where I wasn't quite happy with the existing filling over the incorrect footstep recesses; I really hope these final layers will sand back sufficiently to hide the work.
     
    That's it for your regularly scheduled dose of bodging - thanks for reading.
     
  2. Barry Ten

    Fancy a pint?

    By Barry Ten,

    The last week has seen some relaxing, low-stress scenic modelling around the area of the level crossing. After fiddling around with
    loco chassis and so on, it's nice to cut loose and just hack away some polystyrene with a kichen knife.
     
    Perhaps the most obvious development here is the sudden arrival of a pub, where previously there was just a steeply sloping hillside.
    This has caused no end of comment in the King's Hintock parish newspaper, but since the establlshment apparently serves a wide
    range of ales, the pub's arrival has been quietly accepted by the majority of local patrons. Many of them have remarked on the fitting
    name of the pub, "The Swan", given its location overlooking the three resident swans behind the signal box.
     
    In reality, this is the pub (very obviously the venerable Superquick "Swan") that used to reside on the winter module, and so needed a new
    home following last year's redevelopment. I held it against the green hill, squinted a bit, and was struck that it looked immediately at home
    there, with the white sitting very comfortably against the green. A pub-shaped recess was then hacked away into the hillside; all very unlikely
    but I wanted it to sit tucked away as it is, and be screened from various sightlines. Eventually more trees will crowd in around the pub, as
    well one or two smaller ones between the pub and the signal box, further helping to push it back. The model is in fact very old (easily more
    than 40 years) and has been on every layout I've had, so it had to have a place on this one. It's had a fair bit of refurbishment and detailing
    over the years, and the white walls (which had turned grubby with age) were carefully brush painted with Petit Properties "top of the milk",
    which is a very subtle off-white. The roof of that Maudslay bus has also been done in the same shade. It's a bit less in-your-face than pure
    white,
     
    I don't know what others think, but my suspicion is that large single-pane window and those half-glazed doors are a bit modern for the
    steam era, so they may be tastefully backdated to something a bit more between-the-wars, without being too much of a stickler.
     

     
    The frustrating prospect of closed crossing gates, when a tasty pint awaits at The Swan. Never mind, they won't be closed long.
     

     
    Here's a shot from a different angle showing how the pub sits in the scene, partly screened by trees from some sightlines.
     

     
    Much more to be done, but it's the journey, not the destination. Thanks for reading!
     
  3. Barry Ten
    Just a few brief mentions of some loco projects that have been on and off the workbench this week.
     
    First up, the SE&CR E1 class has had some reworking of its pipework and associated details following
    the photos in the David Maidment book on Maunsell 4-4-0s. There's not much left to be done now,
    and I've already started filling and sanding in preparation for the painting.
     

     
    Next up is this Dean Goods which has been featured on these pages before. All I've done to it this week is change the chimney, using a 247 Developments casting, add a smokebox door handle, and put the correct numbers of the buffer beam. I think the loco-tender gap can be reduced a bit. This is one of my favorite models, not least because there was such a fight to get it running the
    way I wanted.
     

     
    Into pure RTR land now, with this Bachmann 4500 class Prairie. This" is one of two GWR-lettered locos (a 4500 and 4575) that I picked up from Totally Trains in Ross-on-Wye about 15 years ago, not long after the initial release of these models. Although both models have had a fair bit of running, they were both still totally out of the box except for the removal of the tension locks. I had
    some plates in hand for 4550 so this week I backdated the model by removing the original lettering with T-cut, then replacing with HMRS decals. Light weathering was applied, as well as crew, screw couplings, coal and lamps, and that's your lot. It was only when weathering this model that I got a real appreciation for how intricate the body detailing is. All my Praries still run superbly, and with the body being as good as it is, they easily hold their own with contemporary releases.
     

     
    Finally, a bit of a throwback. I had an old Tri-ang Pannier chassis lying around, as well as a spare Bachmann Pannier chassis, and I wondered how well the two might be married. A couple of careful hours with a rotary tool had enough of the plastic shaved away to enable a very nice accommodation of the newer chassis. In my case the chassis was one of the older Blue Riband units with a fairly fat can motor, so it should be even easier with a newer unit. I do have some Comet chassis parts squirrelled away, but the Bachmann units are so reliable and rugged that it seems daft not to use them.
     
    Aside from the sentimental value of the old Pannier body, the advantage in going this way is that a non-top fitted Pannier is very easily obtained and - as I hope is evident in comparison with the Bachmann model - the proportions of the Tri-ang moulding are spot on. My plan is remove the crudely done handrails, fill and tidy up various damage, then replace new handrails, details, etc, and finally end up with a nice inter-war Pannier which won't look out of place on the layout.
     

     
    Cheers!
     
     
     
  4. Barry Ten
    In possibly the least exciting blog update ever published on RMweb, I've added some brakes to the E1.
     

     
     
    There weren't any with the kit so I selected some more or less suitable ones from a Mainly Trains etch
    of Southern brake gear types. These are supposedly LBSC tender brakes but they look about right
    based on photos, having a curve to them. Railwells saw me coming back with some nice brass clack
    valves, as well as a copy of David Maidment's book on Maunsell 4-4-0s, which will help with figuring
    out the placement of pipes and so on, especially on the fiddly side. Onward and upward!
  5. Barry Ten
    I've soldiered on with the DJH E1 class, adding handrails and some boiler fittings.
     
    The instructions are a bit vague, and my available photos a little murky, so I'm going to be prepared to redo some of these pipes
    when I get a better sense of how they run, for a given loco. Also, I've held off from adding all the DJH castings as some of them look
    very sketchy, such as the feed connections (I think that's what they are!) that are meant to enter the boiler half way up.
    Perhaps I'll pick up some better ones at Railwells! The plastic ones that came with the Airfix Schools looked better than the
    DJH things.
     
    Details aside, I'm delighted with how well it runs. Just being able to plonk in a DJH gearbox is a great advantage, in my book,
    as most of the trouble I've had with kitbuilt engines has been due to gear meshing, motor torque etc, rather than chassis
    elementals such as frames, coupling rods, valve gear, pickups and so on. 
     
    For this loco, incidentally, I decided to experiment with 0,33mm phosphor bronze wire pickups rather than 0.45 mm wire, and
    the results are perfectly satisfactory from a running point of view. The only drawback is that the pickups are more vulnerable
    to mis-handling. But, being 0.33 wire, they should be a good solution for bogie pickups and so on where you don't want too much
    frictional resistance. In this case, however, just two pickups on the main wheels seemed to be all that's required and I don't see
    any point making work for myself!
     
     

     
    Cheers, all!
  6. Barry Ten
    Over the last few weeks I've putting together a DJH kit for the SE&CR E1 class.
     
    These were Maunsell's rebuilds of the earlier (and very handsome) Wainwright E class locos.  They were all but identical to the similarly rebuilt D1 class and the kit caters for both variants. All you do (ignoring minor issues of wheelbase and driver diameter) is choose between fluted and plain coupling rods.
     
    I've had the DJH kit in my SABLE-* for some while, and with the Bird class behind me, I thought another 4-4-0 would be a good if not too challenging project to keep me busy during the later summer months.
     
    This appears to be one of the older kits in the DJH range, as evidenced by the battleship-class chassis frames:
     

     
    These proved to be quite difficult to solder, and needed the use of a 70 Watt gas iron rather than my usual 40 W Weller. They are also very basic with regards to such niceties as brake detail - there isn't any!
     
    However, it does result in a very solid and heavy mechanism, which pleasingly runs very well without any additional weight.
     
    Work then turned to the rest of the loco. For once, following time-honored advice in the pages of railway magzines, I made the tender
    first:
     

     
    Work then turned to the main loco superstructure, which went together fairly straightforwardly. I found the castings to be a bit indifferent in terms of fit, but some careful work with files, low-melt solder as filler, and a lot of squinting and double-checking, seemed to result in things being square and parallel etc. Unlike the other DJH kits I've made, this one has the boiler in two halves with the join along the top and bottom. 
     

     
    After another few evening's work, the loco is beginning to approach the finishing line, and has now begun running trials:
     

     

     
    Lots of fiddly but satisfying jobs remain to be done, as well as brake gear, but there's no great rush now that it's running. I quite like it when locos are in this semi-finished condition!
     
    *- Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy
     
  7. Barry Ten
    Bullfinch is just about done, apart from some small but enjoyable final touches such as crew, glazing and some suitable lamps. Here it faces off against City of Truro!  The plates are from 247 Developments and It's numbered for the post-1912 numbering scheme.
     
    The kit has been terrific fun and while the end result is more impressionistic than anything else, it does look different enough to the City to represent the small-drivered 4-4-0s and is certainly a nice runner.
     
    I can't remember if the City was sprayed with a rattle-can or airbrush, but it would have been done using Railmatch's later shade of GWR green, whereas for the Bird I opted for Precision's 1906-1928 shade, and applied it with an airbrush. The black bits were then brush painted with Lifecolor "weathered black" which dries quickly and is a very matt, almost dark grey shade. I've still to give the tender a good going over.
     

     

     
    There are a few things I'd do differently if I was building another one. My rivets are rubbish - must try harder - and the boiler bands are a bit on the heavy side, albeit matching the ones on the Airfix firebox. A job I might get around to sometime is moving the cranks in-board a bit as they don't need as much clearance as they've got here. However, I'd be loathe to alter the quartering so that might be a job that waits until there's some other reason to take apart the chassis - hopefully not for a while!
     
    Of course I would like a curved-frame Bulldog but I have to be realistic and say that I'm already at capacity with GWR engines - not that there aren't a few more in the kitbuilding queue, including such lovelies as a County Tank, 2021 class, Armstrong goods, a De Glehn compound and a few others. Better get cracking!
     
  8. Barry Ten
    As mentioned, I've built a new signal box to replace the old platform-mounted one for which there was unfortunately no place on the layout following the addition of a bay.
     

     
    Final exterior detailing is still to be done, but the painting is more or less complete and I think it looks quite smart. I followed the guidelines for signal box painting from the table in Vol 2 of Stephen Williams' GWR branch line books, using dark stone for the woodwork around the windows, and leaving the frames white. The area around the signal box, which was a mess of different levels, gaps in the scenery, and so on, is being consolidated to give a level surface for the addition of point rodding, walkways and so on.
     
    I had a fight with the letters on the nameplate. The set I had (Ratio, I think) were incredibly brittle, such that i didn't manage to get a single "N" to come off the fret without shattering. The "O"s where also similar afflicted! I hope it was just a dodgy pack as I would like to think I could revisit the nameplate again at some point and do a neater, more consistent job - hence, it's only lightly fixed in place. I now have to tackle the interior, which can be good fun but I think this will be my fourth such detailing job, so the fun is starting to wear off slightly!
     
    I do still have this older signal box I built for Wyvant:
     

     
    Which has a fully-detailed interior, and is unlikely to ever feature on another layout of mine. so the temptation is to re-use all the
    parts on this new box. If anyone would like that box, by the way, I'd be happy to see it go to a new home. It's totally freelance,
    cobbled together from two or three Wills boxes, and is much too large for King's Hintock!
     
    On the subject of signal boxes, I've also spent some time extending the point-rodding along the platform, as seen by the length
    protruding in front of the 28XX:
     

     
    This is an 8-rod run and took me about four hours to do the length of one set of rods, or about 14 inches. The bad news is that I still have about 12 hours worth of that before I get to the signal box - and then it carries on the other side, although admittedly only 4 rods then! In any case there's no rush as I've run out of components and will need to wait until RailWells before stocking up on more MSE parts.
     
    Where the rodding presently terminates:
     

     
    Another job I must attend to is removing and replacing the incorrect cloakroom designations on the station building, such as the ladies waiting room. 
     
    Aren't these two figures characterful? I got them from a old box of castings made by Linka, and I've no idea of their provenance, whether they're someone else's 
    figures "reboxed", but they're splendid chaps, I think you'll agree; obviously not up to the standard of Modelu figures but very good considering their age. Unfortunately
    the pack of figures contains lots of copies of the same few types, so there's a limit to how many I'll be able to use. For the chap with the broom, I cut off the casting and added
    a separate broom handle from brass wire. The bicycle, by the way, is an etched product from - I think - Dart castings. I must make some more of them.
     
     

     
    A couple or general shots to finish off with:
     

     
     

     
    That's it for now, thanks for reading.
     
     
  9. Barry Ten
    This year has seen slow, if steady developments, around the area of the bay and double junction.
     
    The two signals here are both modified Dapol, both of which had failed and were therefore modified and
    re-equipped with bounce-controlled servos. The platform starter is very low to permit sighting under
    the footbridge, whereas the bay starter is normal height. The signals are controlled using a Megapoints
    board, which I thoroughly recommend for ease of use.
     
    Whether the bay would have merited anything other than a ground signal, I leave to the experts!
     
    As can be seen, work has also started on painting the allotment retaining wall, but it needs rather a lot
    of toning down. Quite what business the tea van is expecting to pick up on that lonely back road, is
    anyone's guess.
     

     
     
    Moving on...
     
    The addition of a bay meant that there was no longer room for the old platform-mounted signal box in its old location, so after a great deal of dithering I finally decided to build one of
    the new Ratio brick-built boxes and situate it much closer to the level crossing. Here it's just resting in place while I get a feel for how it will look. This works quite well (I think) because the old box was rather hidden behind the goods shed.
     

     
    And on...
     
    The servo-operated level crossing is still going good, although annoyingly one of the servos developed a jitter and had to be replaced, which was a fiddly and difficult job,
    due to me not designing the mounting devices for such an eventuality!
     
    Beware: a servo operated level crossing is all very nice, but I tend to leave the gates open to trains and rarely close them!
     
    Just coming into view on the right is a bracket signal for the double junction, again servo-operated. Unfortunately, having gone
    to the trouble of installing these signals, I found that they were blocked from the operator's view by the pub that used to stand
    next to the road. I'd been a bit bothered by that pub, though, because I felt that its parallel lines tended to emphazise the tightness
    of the adjacent curve on the main line, which is one of the tighter spots on the layout. By replacing the pub with an irregularly
    shaped orchard, I hoped to kill two birds with one one stone: make the signals visible, and de-emphasize the curve. The pub has
    been allocated a new spot elsewhere on the layout.
     

     
    And on...
     
    I thought this might be a good spotting location for trains, so - rather than have them half-hidden behind lineside fencing or walls - I sunk the orchard down into the scenery by half an inch or so, just so that the boundary fence could sit at a level which wouldn't obstruct the sight of the rails and wheels. This created a nice undulation to the foreground road, which I'm very taken with! I'm not a great believer in flat layouts, and I think even a small variation in ground contours can be very effective.
     

     
    And finally, to round things off, just a slightly tighter view on the prairie. Eventually those backscene hills will be misted down a bit.
     

     
    That's it for now, many thanks for reading.
  10. Barry Ten

    Fun with 7mm

    By Barry Ten,

    It's that time of the year when I set out an oval of Peco track and wait for the rain to come in...
     
    Most of it's been on here before but to recap, the loco is a Tower Brass Prairie which I painted, and the
    wagons, with the exception of the Minerva Iron Mink, are from Slaters and Parkside kits. Still a few more
    to build!
  11. Barry Ten
    I had a spare hour this afternoon, and itchy fingers, so I set about correcting the too-short smokebox. As far as I can gather - and my OS Nock books on GWR 4-4-0s haven't really helped clarify things - it''s the fact that the boiler is superheated which leads to the longer smokebox on the Birds and Bulldogs. From what I could glean from photos, the chimney stays where it is, and all the extra length is ahead of the smokebox saddle. I eyeballed the necessary extension distance, based on photos of the smokebox front in relation to the front frames. I wasn't concerned to be overly precise as the Airfix/Dapol boiler is already a compromise; its more a question of ending up with something that looks right, even if it's not spot-on dimensionally. And that, of course, will be a subjective judgement.
     
    The handrails were removed (leaving the knobs intact, for the most part) and a compass used to mark a series of cutting points offset from the first boiler band. Using a razor saw, I then cut the smokebox in two, cleaned up the sawn-away areas, and then made a lamination of plastic card to go in the gap. I cut two discs to approximate but slightly over-size, test-fitting them to see if they gave the right spacing, glued them together, then fixed them onto the smokebox front. Once that was dry, I did some trimming until they were reasonably flush with the front, and then glued the whole assembly back onto the rear part of the smokebox, ensuring all was level and parallel. I allowed that to dry, then went back carefully over the joined areas with files and sand paper. And that's where we're at now; I'll add a bit of filler to the join tomorrow and then re-sand, and then it'll be ready for repainting and re-instatement of the handrails, which of course have to made anew as the boiler is now slightly longer.
     
     

     
    A bit blurred but it hopefully gives an idea of the extended smokebox and how it alters the character of the loco as a whole.
     

  12. Barry Ten
    After some snags with the gear-meshing, the Bird is now running nice and freely and I've began priming and tidying up the bodywork ready for painting.
     

     
    This is after several applications of Games Workshop Chaos Black, which is a very good flat black and excellent for priming and general painting. I found that the bodywork had acquired a lot of scratches and gouges from the process of removing the surface detail, little of which was obvious in the bare plastic state. I seem to remember going through a long process of this with the City as well. However, now that it's nearly ready for the final coat of green, I'm starting to have naughty thoughts about the too-short smokebox. For the Bird, it should be about 2mm longer than the City, and this (I think) will go a long way to making it look right... ish, since that pronounced front overhang of the smokebox is quite a distinctive feature of the Birds.  I'll have a think about it, but the plan would either be to splice in a lamination of plastic card and then file it down to the right diameter, or to buy a second Dapol City kit and use the smokebox from that one to add a bit to this one. Wasteful, you might say, but in an exciting twist of fate, I also have need of a pair of outside bogie frames for a Dean single project, and the City ones could be adapted to suit.  It's a bit of a pain in that the handrails will need to be removed and redone, but I suspect it'll annoy me if I don't tackle it.
     
    One bonus of doing the Bird, is that the Branchlines kit contains a few extra bits for the City I never got around to fixing. These are the wheel balance weights (correct ones for a Bird are also included) and the small wheel covers or splashers that go over the front bogie wheels. The weights and splashers needed some careful fitting to avoid clearance issue (there's precious little clearance around the main drivers, so the weights had to be exactly flush to the wheels) and the bogie clearance is critical, but after an evening of fiddling, all came good. The addition of the bogie splashers really helps with the look of the front-end, although they're barely evident in this shot. 
     
    While I had the City on the bench I touched up some paint damage here and there and added a bit of bling in the form of the polished splasher rims, which I think helps lift the rather plain unlined livery. One thing to note - and which I didn't spot until I was doing the Bird - is that I missed out some beading on the tender, along the lower side of the flared portion. I haven't fixed it now, but it should be feasible without a complete repaint. Fortunately the Railmatch green I've got in a pot is still an exact match to the shade I sprayed onto the City about 12 years ago.
     
     

     
     
    Cheers, all.
  13. Barry Ten
    With the major work on the loco complete, the Bird has temporarily borrowed City of Truro's tender for some running trials:
     

     

     
    Initial results are quite encouraging from a haulage and general smooth-running point of view, but one thing I'm  struggling with is the outside cranks tending to go out of quarter if I handle the model. They were a very loose fit on the extended axles and the usual Loctite retainer I've used in the past quite successfully doesn't seem to be creating a firm enough bond. I remember the cranks on the City being quite a tight fit on their threads and almost not needing to be retained - they certainly took a bit of brute force to shift - but that's not the case with the Bird.  The City's cranks were of the usual type where you have to solder a retaining washer on, whereas these ones are the sort where a bushed washer has to be screwed on, and I must say I prefer the former.
     
    I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to how I can get the cranks to stay in quarter - araldite, perhaps? I presume soldering is out of the question  due to the different alloys but perhaps I'm wrong.
  14. Barry Ten
    Progress continues on the Bird class, proving if nothing else that I need to refine my riveting techniques, but I hope the overall effect will be satisfactory once the frames are painted
    and less attention-grabbing, as they are in plain brass.
     
    The major work on the body is now done, with the cutaway parts of the boiler and firebox reinstated with plastic card and filler, and as seen by the safety valve, I've begun to
    put back some of the detail. 
     
    Minor gaps around the base of the lost-wax safety valve were filled in using Mr Surfacer, a very useful product perhaps more widely used in the aeromodelling community than
    railway modelling, but well worth investigating. Unlike normal plastic filler, it's more like a thick paint that you can apply quite precisely with a brush.  It's excellent for dealing
    with minor seams in wing roots and so on, but also handy for these kind of job. It's very hard on brushes but I've found if they're cleaned thoroughly immediately after use,
    they do survive!
     
    The etched cab sheets are from Branchlines and fit neatly over the original mouldings, but they don't correct the error in those, in that the sheets don't extend far enough back. I
    didn't bother fixing this issue as it's never bothered me particularly with the City.
     
    With the boiler off, it's clear that there's a lot of room for weight over the drivers:
     

     
     
    In fact it's even better (or worse!) than it appears as the body will still need to be packed up a mm or so to allow ample bogie swing. In any case, virtually the whole of the firebox and rear part of the boiler can be stuffed with weight without any risk of the loco being nose-heavy. 
     
    Once the boiler is fitted permanently, the smokebox saddle can be filled and smoothed over to eliminate the join, and various other bits will be tidied up. I think it'll be a bit easier to get the weights in before I do that, though.
     
    This is a jolly fun project and while there will be a fair few compromises that would be too much for the purists (wrong boiler, wrong footplate step position, cab side sheets, ride height etc) I will be more than happy to have another outside-framed 4-4-0, and which will be something just that little bit different compared to a City.
     
    Plates were purchased at RailEx - and yes, it's Bullfinch!
     
  15. Barry Ten
    As mentioned in the comments to the previous entry, I found that the way I'd put in the motor gearbox resulted in smoother running in reverse than forward. It might have run-in but not willing to take a chance, I bit the bullet and swapped the gearbox from driving on the rear to the front axle, and after some predictable faffing around, was very pleased with the outcome. The loco's now dead smooth at all speed in forward, and only a bit grindy in reverse gear. That's much like the City, which is super-smooth in forward mode but never gets to operate in reverse very often so is inevitably not quite as nicely run-in in that direction. My passenger locos rarely need to back-up except when I've over-shot their stopping position in the fiddle yard.
     
     

     
    Body detailing has come on with the addition of boiler bands, handrails and so on, and I've also added the outside bogie frames. Unlike the City, arranging clearance for this loco has been dead easy because there's lot of room for those small drivers and there seems to be ample vertical play in the front bogie. The boiler, like the money in Father Ted Crilly's account, is "just resting" for the moment, but the fit of the various components is so good that it almost doesn't need fixing.
     

     
    It'll soon to be time to tackle the boring bit - the tender!
     
    (Sorry, can't get excited about tenders).
     
  16. Barry Ten

    My Bird Performs

    By Barry Ten,

    With apologies to XTC...
     

     

     
    On and off the workbench these last couple of weeks has been a new GWR outside-framed 4-4-0, following my earlier exploits with a City class.
     
    I fancied building one of the Bulldog/Bird/Fllower types with smaller drivers, so an order was placed with Branchlines for their excellent mixed-media kit (also the basis of the City), only this time specifying the 5' 8" driving wheel options. All the other variations are already catered for by the very well designed etch, including deeper frames as needed for a Bird.
     
    The chassis is nearly the same as the City, but the smaller drivers caused me to use a different motor/gearbox orientation, horizontal compared to the underslung installation on the City.  Pleasingly, there's a lot of room above this motor for weight in the firebox and boiler, so adhesion shouldn't be a problem. The City will pull six kitbuilt coaches, after a bit of prototypical wheel slip, but the Bird should be a real slogger - I hope!
     
    The main work, as it was for the City, is on the plastic body, where at the very least handrails and moulded details need to be removed and then reinstated. On the Bird and Bulldogs, the boiler band and safety valve positions are different as well. Additional work is also needed to fill in the heavy cutaways under the boiler which suit the large splasher diameter of the City, but not the much smaller ones on the Bird.
     
    All good fun, though - and very much in the comfort zone if you've done any military modelling, etc.
     
    Names? I think it's going to be a toss-up between Bullfinch, Chaffinch and Kingfisher...
  17. Barry Ten
    Oh well, I've gone and done it now. Not just double-tracking the entire layout, but also removing the old "Winter Module", which to be honest was looking quite tatty after recent work in any case.
     

     
    Here it is in its glory days; nothing wrong with it as it stood but I'd found that photographically it was very challenging to shoot
    well, being a sod with regards to exposure and colour balance, as well as not providing quite the number of nice angles I'd
    hoped for. However, I'd have happily lived with it despite the above, except that in its existing configuration it didn't easily allow
    for the line to be doubled, let alone with the addition of a junction.
     
    Here, instead, is what we have now:
     

     
    I knocked through the division between the Summer and Winter modules, roughly where those two sets of diverging points are (you
    can see the gap the pink foam where the old partition came), creating a single, big, L-shaped scenic module which now includes this junction.
    The idea here is that the junction serves a branch which will be represented by one or two extra storage roads in the fiddle yard, allowing for
    extra variety of services to run in and out of the station, including railcars and so on.
     
    Going back to my lovely sketches of the last entry:
     

     
    I eventually settled on the second option, but with one tweak - I realised that if I had the branch, I didn't need the additional crossover on the main, since there are
    already two at the other end of the station, and in any case the branch junction itself can permit run-round moves if required. The benefit of removing the crossing was that the double-track formation could be eased slightly, making for gentler transitions and generally looking a bit less forced compared to what was there before. It was never an issue originally
    as much of that track was off-scene anyway, so as long as it worked, I didn't care that it was a bit ugly.
     
    Although it's subtle, the radii to the right of the level crossing are a bit gentler now and large locomotives look happier transitioning through the curve:
     

     
    Allowing the Summer Module to sprawl into what was previously the Winter one gave me the chance to play around with some buildings in a way I hadn't considered
    before, and I ended up rotating the pub by ninety degrees, compared to how it used to be. I also re-located these two cottages, putting them on a gently descending
    road which passes in front of the pub. That pink cottage has been on every layout of mine since I was a teenager, so it's bound to find a place here!
     

     
    Although there's still a lot to be done, I can start to look forward to this bucolic view up the hill toward the pub:
     

     
    As for the track side of things, the double-tracks were wired for cab control (and DCC) and it's been great fun just being to have two trains circulating at the same
    time. The junction is wired and tested as well, and I'm ready working on the signals. I haven't quite decided how to deal with the exiting of the tracks through
    the far end of the old Winter Module, whether they'll go into tunnels, under a bridge, or just dodge through the backscene with some foliage acting as view-blocking. Plenty
    still to consider, then, but that's all part of the fun.
     
    Cheers, all.
  18. Barry Ten

    Branching off

    By Barry Ten,

    The addition of a bay platform, as covered in the last entry, begs the question of where the branch trains are meant to go once they travel off around the layout.
     
    There's nothing to stop them going into the fiddle yard and occupying one of the main roads, before reversing direction and coming back out again, but given that there are only
    six storage roads (plus a few cassettes) it seems a bit wasteful to tie up a whole road with just a railcar or dmu when it could be taking a 7 coach train. Hence, I've been giving some
    thought to adding a diverging branch which will be served by its own storage solution, be it a siding or two or perhaps cassettes.
     
    I thought I'd doodle up handy, cut-out-and-keep sketch to show where things are now, and where they might be heading:
     

     
    Click, as they say, to embiggen.
     
    This is all in the context of a larger plot to possibly go fully double-track around the whole layout. something that's been hatching for a few years, but which I've not yet
    committed to fully. As can be seen from the sketches, I've got two possible options for the branch, one which preserves a bit of single-line main, as it is now, and the
    other which fits in with the full double-track scheme. There are numerous pros and cons, as can be imagined. Going double track allows for the fun of running two
    trains at once, which can't really be done at present, but it would take away from the slightly bucolic, sleepy feel of the layout as it currently stands. In DCC, it's not
    too hard to coordinate two trains operating at the same time (allowing for the single-line section) but in DC, it involves far too much switch-flicking to be relaxing, so
    I tend to go with just one train moving at a time, which is by no means a bad thing.
     
    I do like the double track concept, though, especially with the diverging branch, and in a way it's back to square one as this was basically the final configuration
    of my old layout, which I took down in 2006 before we moved to Wales. That one also went through a number of phases, including being a bit like the present one
    in that it was partly double and partly single track. Perhaps "double-track plus diverging branch" is my ideal layout?
     
    One consideration which ought to be mentioned is the winter module, which is not really compatible with the double track junction, since it would be hard to conceal
    the entry/exit points in a satisfactory manner, with so much more track. However, the winter model is more or less gone as it stands, since I ended up tearing out a lot
    of the scenery in adjusting the track earlier this year. I also found that the plaster bed for the snow-covered landforms weighed a bloody ton, something I hadn't been
    aware of when I was adding it a bit at a time. No wonder the brackets needed reinforcing! So whatever happens, the winter module needs a lot of work and won't
    be returning in its old form.
     
    On that score, I've been considering knocking down the partition between the summer and winter bits, making a single scene and allowing the junction to breathe a bit
    more easily. Once I've done that, I'll only have to conceal one set of tracks, rather than two, which does appeal. (In the very, very long run, I might even blend the
    spring and summer modules, too, creating a single scene much more like a traditional model railway).
     
    Anyway, just floating these thoughts here and very interested to hear any opinions!
  19. Barry Ten
    As mentioned in the previous thrilling entry, I thought I'd add a bay platform to the layout.
     
    Once the new point was in, I laid some track in a temporary formation and then went through a process of cutting a recess
    in the old platform and gradually trimming and adjusting both the platform and the track curvature, until I felt that things were
    satisfactory and a variety of test vehicles were able to enter and exit the bay without clouting anything. These included
    an Airfix and Bachmann auto-coach, a Heljan class 128 parcels unit, and (as seen below) a GWR railcar.
     

     
    I made the bay slightly longer than previously intended, by cutting back a bit more and relocating one of the station
    lamps. The footbridge provides a hard limit, though. The allotments survived unscathed, with the only change being
    the addition of a low retaining wall to offer the gardeners a bit of protection.
     

     
    The hole in the end of the platform seen here is the remnant of the hole that used to be under the signal box, and which
    will now be filled in. There'll be a water crane at this end of the platform eventually, but I'll wait until I've done a few jobs
    first before adding it. Among these tasks will be adding starter signals for both the main and bay platforms, as well as
    a representation of a trap point. I've plonked the old signal box down on the up platform here, to see what I think of it,
    but in the end I may substitute it for a larger box on a proper base.
     
    On that subject, does anyone know of an example of a signal box (full height or otherwise) mounted on the ramp of a
    platform?
     

     
    Cheers!
  20. Barry Ten
    Just a quickie here to show some progress on the reworked "spring module", which to be honest is looking a lot more like early summer than in its earlier manifestation, but perhaps no bad thing as at least it's less miserable than the actual summer...
     
    Track was reballasted, which went well initially then horribly wrong, when the black card I'd used under the track in places, to shim the C+L, reacted with the dilute glue and began to stain the ballast a fetching shade of dark blue! After much aggravation and gnashing of teeth, I resprayed the whole lot in warm grey, then painstakingly re-painted the sleepers and rails.
     
    Once that was sorted, a fair bit of time was spent working on the scenic transition between the farm scene and the backscene. The fence seen in the background here is a 2mm scale one, glued directly to the backscene, but I think it works pretty well as a piece of forced perspective. I also carried on the scenery beyond the module, so that there's something to be seen under the occupation bridge rather than just a dark rectangle. As with the similar dodge on the summer module (er, the later summer module) there's a small strip-light mounted off-stage to provide illumination to this area, so that it seems to be a continuation of the main backscene and associated details. As is evident from the photo, I still need to make a few tonal adjustments to the green under the bridge. The tractor is a Langley white metal kit.
  21. Barry Ten
    Something that's been brewing for a little while is a plan to add a bay platform and/or loading dock to the down platform, partly to add a little operational interest, but also to enable me to run my 14xx and autocoach and various railcars, which rarely get a spin on the current layout. It seems a waste of a whole storage loop just for a small train or unit, so they only occasionally get put on and given a run, but whenever I do, I find myself wishing I had a way to keep them on a layout. A bay siding, where the short train could tuck itself out of the way most of the time, but come out as needed, seemed an obvious solution. As to where that train then heads, whether it remains on the main line or heads off on a branch, is a story for another day, but in the meantime I thought I'd tackle the bay!
     
    Owing to the curvature of the mainline at the south end of the down platform, a Peco long-radius point was very easily spliced into the formation with no need to adjust the curvature of the existing trackwork. Fortuitous! Sighting low with a mirror confirmed that the track was still maintaining a smooth curve through the point, with no nasty kinks at either end.
     

     
    This provides the trailing connection to the bay, but what of the bay itself? There isn't room for a long bay platform, so there's no possibility of a 45xx and B-set fitting in, but there'll be ample room for a 14xx and autocoach, and/or a single-unit railcar with perhaps some tail-traffic. I also envisage parcels and milk vehicles using this bay when there isn't a passenger train present. In essence, all that's now required is for the existing platform to be cut back in width and modified/extended in length to accommodate the new bay. Luckily, most of the messy work of hacking and bodging can be done off the layout itself. Here's the space left after the down platform has been removed in its entirety, a two minute job involving only the disconnecting of some plugs under the baseboard, and the removal of the bridge and other loose items:
     

     
    And here's the freshy-extracted platform, nervously waiting surgery:
     

     
    The bay will go in on the right side of this platform, extending back to just before the small square hole which is where one of the platform lamps goes. The signal box will have to be re-sited, but that's no great problem especially as it's tucked away at a slightly awkward spot now. It might even migrate to the up platform.
     
    Hope these changes-in-progress are of interest.
     
    cheers.
  22. Barry Ten
    Last night I tackled one of those inessential but niggling jobs that I'd been meaning to look at for a while, which was to extend the up platform a bit.
     
    Here's a before shot:
     

     
    And here's the slightly lengthened platform, which has now been brought forward a bit:
     

     
    Sorry about the difference in display size; the forum seems to handle images differently if they've been linked to from elsewhere, as
    opposed to just uploaded.
     
    I cut the old platform back at the point where the ramp commenced, then spliced in a new section and a revised ramp. The new platform end
    has to taper quite a lot to fit into the available space, but not unrealistically so, I think. This doesn't buy that much extra length, about half
    a coach's worth, but it's just enough to enable a 4 coach train to be accommodated at the platform without the locomotive and leading coach
    being beyond the platform limit, and now a 5 coach train doesn't look silly. Longer trains still can't be accommodated but that was true of
    many country stations as well.
     
    Having done this, I reckon the platform ramp on the other side of the lines could benefit from being tapered as well, with the rear boundary fence
    being skewed closer to the tracks. Although normally one likes platforms to be as wide as possible, I think in this case narrowing it a bit will
    help with the illusion of greater length.
     
    cheers!
  23. Barry Ten

    Point rodding

    By Barry Ten,

    Now that I've sensibly put aside all thoughts of a revised bridge arrangement (thanks, all, for the candid feedback) I've been freed to push on with some the jobs that were in limbo while I dithered over this and that. One of them is to relay all the point rodding that was ripped out last year, when I added the trailing connection to the goods yard.
     
    I went with the Wills product originally, but I was very dissatisfied with the end result, considering it overscale and far too fiddly for the results, which in my view didn't look half as good as the plastic strip rodding I'd put on a much earlier layout. So for the replacement rodding, I did what I should have done originally, and went with the MSE cast stools and square-section rodding. A few packs of each were purchases at last year's Railwells. and it proved much easier to install than the Wills stuff.
     
    Here's the first stretch of rodding in place, tucked between the platform and one of the running lines. There are seven runs here, tapering down to three by the time it reaches the bridge; the Wills stuff just wouldn't fit in the same space if I tried the same number. I've also made a start on a representation of the linkage to the tie-rods themselves, more impressionistic than anything else but at least there's something there to fool the eye. With a relatively simple track layout like the one on this layout, anything that makes the track look "busier" is a help, I feel.
     

     
    Cheers!
  24. Barry Ten
    Fairly self-explanatory this; for some while I've been toying with the idea of altering the bridge over the three tracks as seen here:
     

     
    The existing girder bridge was all right, and I've lived with it for a good while, but I've gradually become dissatisfied with it and have
    been considering alternatives. The front-runner at the moment (not that there's much competition) is a brick arch structure which
    would take the road over the rails in a gentle hump, with one large arch for the main line tracks and a smaller one for the goods
    siding.
     
    Clearance is tight, though, so I thought I'd made a card profile to get some idea of how it might look:
     

     
    The narrower arch is a semi-circle, whereas the wider one is a three-centred arch which gives a little more headroom. My concern
    was that the pier between the two arches would have to be too narrow, but, allowing for tight clearances, I don't think it looks
    out of place, at least in this mockup. In practise, I'll have to make the main arch slightly wider to accommodate a run of point-rodding,
    with the tracks slightly skewed away from the center-line.
     
    I very much like the idea of the smaller arch being as tight as feasible, which would in turn place running restrictions on which locomotives
    could and couldn't traverse that siding. A final consideration might be to make the bridge symmetric, with another small arch on the right
    side of the main lines, which would permit a trailing siding off the down line. As with the girder bridge, the new structure would be built
    on a slight skew to add a bit of visual drama and help draw the eye into the scene.
  25. Barry Ten

    Class 117 dmu

    By Barry Ten,

    If there's a theme to some of my recent RMweb activities - the Blue Pullman, the Patriot, the FFA/FGA container wagons - it's that each was a project started at least ten years ago, and well before Bachmann announced their equivalent RTR model. Another case in point is this Class 117 DMU, which is another prototype that Bachmann have in their pipeline (although, like the container flats, it hasn't yet appeared, so I'm still slightly ahead of the game).
     

     
    If you've been reading this blog for a while (and if so, thanks) you might well think I'd "done" this model some time ago. And you'd be right, in a sense, in that the 117 was finished, painted and decaled way back. In fact, here's a distinctly rubbish photo from 2010:
     

     
    Er, so what's new, then? Fairly obviously I've added cream lining, which was done after deciding that the original plain green livery
    was just too dull for my tastes, something which I believe also influenced the decision to add lining to the real things. The lining
    (Modelmaster) really lifts the model, in my view, a simple change but a worthwhile one.
     
    But I wouldn't have bothered lining the model if I hadn't got it running well, and that was a very protracted saga indeed.
     
    The original model had some cosmetic work done, including Silver Fox resin sides and carved-off front lights to take it back
    to as-built condition. I also flush-glazed it using Finecast glazing (not to everyone's taste, I know, but it definitely beats the
    nuclear blastproof thickness of the original Lima sides) and until there's a better solution, it does the job for me. The Lima
    wheels were replaced with a set of Ultrascales, new pickups were added, and off we went.
     
    But the running was still crap. I've had really good Lima mechanisms - I've got one in a GWR railcar which is superb, and has
    been so since it was bought - but the DMU was never very good at smooth stop/starts, not a very desirable quality in a model
    that is meant to do a lot of stopping and starting! Since I'd had good results with the Black Beetle bogies in the Blue Pullman,
    I decided to swap the Lima power bogie for a suitable black beetle. Let's just say the results were "mixed" - it was certainly
    a smooth starter (and stopper) but try as I might, I could not get it to shift the 3-car unit reliably. This was (and is) a puzzler,
    as two units will shift the 8-car BP with ease, with lots of adhesion left over. The BP will still drag itself around the layout even
    if one of the cars has derailed. So why was one Black Beetle not up to the job with this 3-car DMU? To be honest, I'm still
    not entirely sure, but I can only put it down to a tricky set of factors involving wheel diameter, coupling interface and the
    thorny problem of weight distribution, which needs to be a bit cleverer in a vehicle with just one power bogie.
     
    However, the other issue is that the Ultrascale wheels were de-railing at every opportunity, and although I've had fine
    results with them under other models, there was something about the DMU (and my track) that they didn't like, again
    possibly down to wheel diameter. So, in a spirit of pragmatism, I kept the Ultrascale axles (which are necessary to
    fit the Lima bogies) and swapped all the wheels for Hornby 14mm units. Bingo, no more derailments. I also performed
    a similar swap on the Black Beetle wheels, which was considerably trickier as the original wheels and axles didn't like
    being separated. In fact I managed to destroy the BB axles but was able to substitute the Hornby ones, and eventually
    get the BB axle gear mounted. The result, as hoped, was an immediate improvement in adhesion, with the 3-car unit
    now moving without any tendency to spin its wheels.
     
    Suitably encouraged, I then added a Class 108 DMU sound decoder, and found that the characteristics were fine for
    the BB without any tweaking of CVs etc. The BB isn't as loud as the original Lima motor but it's still a little growly and
    the sound decoder masks this very nicely, smothering the growl in proper diesel rumbles.
     
    The model still needs the interior painting properly, windscreen wipers, passengers, and I also intend to add working
    corridor connectors. As supplied, these DMUs were not gangwayed but they were gradually modified, and whereas I
    don't know if it's appropriate to have speed whiskers and gangways on the same unit, mine will.
     
    As for the base model, this DMU was bought as a two-car unit very shortly after the original release, so that would
    make it - I think - around 1981 or thereabouts. Does anyone know? The white roof tops were done by me shortly
    after getting it, along with the hand-painted headcode numbers, and the model was a firm favorite at the time. I
    believe it was bought from the model shop at the Ffestiniog terminus in Porthmadog, where we were holidaying
    at the time. It gives me a warm glow to have it back in service.
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