Barry Ten

It's  a new camera, Mikkel, and I'm still adjusting to the settings - but you're right, they are murkier, and I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it. Of course it

might be that the lens needs a clean! 

7 minutes ago, Regularity said:

U-this, U-that.
Das Boot, anyone?

(I will not follow with jokes about U2.)

 

Dave's carriage building really has "the edge" over everyone else's.

(Oh and Das Boot season 2's on now, it's very good!)

4 hours ago, wenlock said:

They are indeed supposed to be lamp irons, but if they are Churchward pattern then they are going to have to go!

 

BW

 

Dave

Reminds me of when I was showing my S&D 6-wheelers to a non-railway modeller. He was impressed with the all-brass construction, then rubbed his finger over part and said "you could get that bit of rough solder off with a scalpel!"

"That's not solder, that's a lamp iron!"

They'll add some splendid play value.

According to the instructions (which I don't have with me right now), it was gold lining until 1911-ish then yellow. My 7mm coaches are lined in gold but I went with yellow on these as I wanted to be able to run them in combination with post-grouping stock.

16 hours ago, Iain.d said:

They look great Barry, I'm following with interest as I have two S&D milk vans to do.  I will use Vallejo Prussian blue as dedicated railway colour model paints are unavailable in Perth.

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

I think any prussian-ish blue will do the job nicely.

On the panelling (but as close to the edge as I can get the pen). I don't think I'd be able to do a consistent job of

lining onto the beading and I favour consistency over accuracy!

12 minutes ago, Dave John said:

Very nicely made and lined. 

I can take no credit for the finished one, though! Unfortunately I don't know the builder/painter but they did a superb job.

1 hour ago, Jack Benson said:

Hi,

 

Beautiful work, very nice.

 

Any idea the livery of these vehicles at nationalisation in the late '40s? did they survive into BR?

 

Thank you

Thank you. I'm afraid there's little or no historical information with the kit, nor do my S&D books have much to say about coaching stock - even the Atthill history only briefly touches

on the topic. I'm sure more knowledgeable types may be able to shed some light. 

Thanks! The lining will be a real test. I dusted off the bow-pen last week in readiness. 

Will you bother with lining in 2mm? 

I'm 10 years on from my comment in this thread (eek!) and I'm still well happy with S&Ws. I think I began fitting them around 2011, I've now converted a very large proportion of my rolling stock and locos, and have no real grumbles. I use the 3mm version on 4mm stock, and routinely propel trains around 30 inch (and tighter) curves without issue.

I put permanent magnets on my running lines as well as sidings, so trains have to be able to run through without anything uncoupling when it isn't wanted. Now and then I do get an issue with a guard's van or similar detaching from the end of the train, but while I wouldn't say I've cured the problem 100%, I find a combination of extra weight (to stop "waggle" at the end of the train, which allows the couplings to go momentarily slack) as well as the occasional use of friction brakes on the axles, helps make the problem infrequent enough that I can live with it.

1 hour ago, marc smith said:

After seeing your superb layout "L'heur Blue" and realising what the moving car added to that wonderful scene.....
I thought maybe you were also considering a similar mod to that bus @Barry Ten

I considered it - at least with one of the lighter plastic buses - but there's no really straightforward way to get a circuit of road into

the layout without a lot of work! 

2 hours ago, marc smith said:

Will you occasionally reposition the bus, from time to time?

Yes, I like to move them around and on and off the layout, for variety - another reason for making the axles rock, as they can be parked anywhere handy - even on an overbridge 

Yes, the sleeves are glued to the chassis but the wire can still rotate within them.

1 hour ago, Ravenser said:

 

My reaction would be, in order of attraction:

 

4.  2.  1. 3.

 

Scenario 4 seems strangely plausible. The structure work could be a lot of fun, and the walk from the Festinog to the Village is rather long as I recall . Groundle Glen also comes to mind in this connection

We walked from Porthmadog to Portmeirion, but sensibly caught a bus on the way back.

As mentioned above, I'm not tempted to do anything prototypical with the 0-4-2 and its coaches, so thoughts have been meandering in

somewhat whimsical directions, with a view to what could be accommodate on a single small-ish board (say 4 x 2 or thereabouts) with

a continuous run.

Among the ideas that have come up (none original!): are:

A garden centre with a narrow gauge railway.

A zoo.

A seaside narrow gauge railway, going around a boating lake, duck pond etc. I wondered

about modifying the loco and coaches to make them work in 7mm or 10mm, suggesting

a proper miniature railway. 

Portmeirion - essence of "the Village" with Italianate architecture, locos numbered 1, 2

and 6 etc - the PMSL (Port Meirion Steam Line).

I'm not sure why the Dutch are such fans of Welsh narrow gauge, and it might not be an accurate impression, but I did bump into several Dutch who holidayed in North Wales quite frequently, including volunteering on the lines. Perhaps it was near enough to drive to, while still being very different from the Dutch landscape. I also notice Dutch number plates quite a lot when driving in the wilds of West and North Wales!

There are some fine standard and narrow gauge preserved lines in the Netherlands of course, and I think I visited most of them. This was always a favorite:

https://www.stoomtram.nl/en/

All very modellable!

Cheers, Nick.

I'm very impressed with the Finetrax range. I think the main thing is that the filing jig is very well designed, taking all the guesswork

out of the equation.

There are things I'd do differently a second time, but that comes with experience, Rather than build each point as a unit, which meant

a lot of unnecessary rail breaks, I should have thought carefully about where the points could be built as pairs or with lead-ins to

adjacent track. I'm sure with your P4 experience this is second nature, but it's new to me! Anyway, I'm pleased with the results

and by all means direct your friend to ask any questions I might be able to help with.

Thanks, Nick - I've just added a new update.

I brought it to two RMweb dos if I remember - one in Stafford and the other the Taunton one. It was a pain to transport as there wasn't room in the

car for both the layout and the legs - and it was a tight squeeze even then. 

For the second outing, I booked a van - the smallest type as I'd be driving it on my own and I'm never confident in vans, at least not initially. When

I turned up to the collect the booked vehicle, though, I was told the one I'd asked for wasn't available and the only one left was a super-long

wheelbase Transit! I wasn't at all happy but it was either accept it or not be able to bring the layout, so I took what was on offer. Unfortunately,

there was a severe right hand bend just to get out of the rental area and I managed to prong the side of the van against a fence just getting

it out! That ended up costing me around 150 pounds before I'd even loaded the layout! Then when I got to Taunton, the car park was already

almost totally full and there was only one awkward spot left which would need to be reversed into. I tried, but I couldn't back the van in on my own.

Luckily Neil (Black Rat) came to the rescue, saving me from turning into a sweaty mess before I'd even started putting up the layout! I was very

glad to get home that evening and dump the van off. The same rental place messed me around a few years later as well, once again not having

the booked vehicle ready on the day, so I've avoided them since.

Other than that, the layout was shown at the Newport cinema show and a couple of Lord & Butler-sponsored exhibitions (the ones that used

to happen over father's day weekend) and that was it. When I was made an offer for it at Newport, I quickly accepted as I also had no room

to store it at home. The layout has since been shown quite a few times and the new owners made it more user-friendly by adding integral

legs and improved inter-board alignment. I did slightly regret selling it, though, as it had been built to scratch a very particular itch, and I don't

think I played with it often enough to fully satisfy that desire. With the new 56xxs on the horizon, I thought I might as well have another go - we'll

see if this does the trick! At least it'll be easier to store, as it can be shoved up into the attic.

Just a minor comment on the Duchess, and in no way intended to detract from the marvellous modelling on display - when I reworked my own Margate-era Duchess, I came to the conclusion that the original model has a design error in that the footplate slopes down from back to front. I think you can see this in the way the parallels on the tender don't line up with those on the loco. Every Margate Duchess I've seen in photos seems to have this slope, but I've not seen it otherwise commented on. For mine (which is now back in pieces) I cut away a portion of the cab floor so that the back end could sit a bit lower.

Thank you, very helpful.

With the passenger train there's no real need for the coaches to negotiate any curves beyond a slight bend on the station road, so I think I'll be OK - but as always the proof will be in the pudding. The passenger train can run in and out from the straight road in the fiddle yard if needed. On the 4mm Paynestown, the remaining passenger services were handled by a 14xx and auto-coach, and a railcar, both of which tended to work into the bay.

Hi Izzy

I'm intending to run a B-set as the main coaching stock, and my plan was to body-mount the DGs as I've done with S&Ws on all my 4mm coaching stock. If

that doesn't work, a rethink will be needed. The B-set won't be gangwayed but I plan to make the run-around along enough to accommodate a third

coach if needed, which might end up being gangwayed (like a Hawksworth brake, for instance). I thought about nibbling a recess under the gangway to

allow for the delay latch?

Thanks, Ian - that advice about the 4.5mm datum will be very handy.

I have the utmost admiration for the 2FS community but I know my limits! At least with this exercise, the track is the only variable. I'd hate to be laying track for the first time and also trying to get a 2mm mechanism to run!

The 64XX certainly does (there are a few areas of track I still need to fettle where it stalls occasionally, but that's not the loco's fault). As for the 57XX, I'm slightly holding out hope that it might be improving with lubrication. Grease didn't seem to improve it at all, but I tried a few drops of normal plastic-compatible oil last night and there was a noticeable improvement, so I plan to keep running it in and add a bit more oil, sparingly. Glad my dabblings in couplings may be of some help!