brian daniels

Some new cabs in Derby Works waiting for the call.

Yes I will have it with me and might have 37057 that I have cut the bufferbeam away and generally tarted it up for L/L livery.

I do believe this body is the final shot at it.

ETHELS are indeed un powered.

Can Heljan confirm whether the Ethel's will be non-motorised so we don't have to pay loco prices for what is essentially a wagon (a la Bachmann!).

 

Overall great news, will have Ethels and a Tamworth.

 

Anyone want old Hornby 25's that I was going to convert!

Here is 37901 painted just waiting to get some varnish later this week then after that I can put the windows in.

Too hot to do much modelling but I have been soldering this up, a Pete Harvey class 37/9 roof etch. It's for a Mirrlees  37901 or 37902. Once soldered up the hardest bit is to cut a big hole in the roof a 37! Once I got it in I found the inner end by the rad fan fouled the Heljan fan unit so I filed this ends vertical support down until it was flush with the bodys roof inside. The fan unit will only have 2 screws to hold in in now but hope that will be ok. As Heljan had just sent me a 37/4 to run they also sent a spare body so thought it would be a shame to waste it! So after cutting off the ETH on the bottom of the nose there are a few steps and a window need filling on the sides and a cutout on one side needs filling. Most of the 37/4's do not have headboard clips so neither does the model but these 37/9's do so it was a rummage round the spares box to find a set which I think were from JLTRT. I will be doing this in plain grey livery. By the way the etch also comes with a set of etched nameplates for Mirrlees Pioneer.

My biggest issue is the production of a loco with a NRN roof pod.

 

From a manufacturers point of view, I would have thought the production of as many different liveries as possible would be more financially viable, thus, for a pre circa 1988 loco, you will need to cut/file off the NRN pod.

It will be in the bag of bits for you to fit yourself.

Warrior and Viking are now painted and varnished just a hint of weathering on the tracks to do later. Also added the extensions on the Warwell and brass section to raise the cradle off the deck. It is on these spare bogies as I don't have the correct ones yet.

And the viking on a vac Warflat but this will be carried in an OCA. By the way the windows are just painted black.

Knew I had this picture in a book, Class 47 Diesels by Tayler, Thorley & Hill. They are a bit pixalated though.

Seeing as the weather is on full dull settings I got down and made my BVS10 Viking. Went together well but I have added two ariel bases on the rear of the front unit and wing mirror to the front unit both from my ASAM Warrior kit.

To answer CME I think you can see the detail on these resin models is  very good. My ASAM 432 was a resin model as well with white metel details and they look spot on to me, although that's probably because I don't know much about military vehicles.

These Vikings were built from 2001 I see so a modern vehicle which is a bit out of place on a vac braked Warflat but ok in an OCA! You can see the rear of one of these in the attached OCA picture.

They were using these in 2007.

Started as a secondman in 1974 and made redundant last July by DBS, 43 years on the footplate in all.. I was always interested in model railways and found it a very useful job for observing the finer details of rolling stock.

Found this company, "The Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company" on the net that do 1/48 MoD vehicles http://www.hlbs.co.uk/type.php?id=29

I purchased a BVS10 Viking and although it's not the same as what I have seen on Warflats it's as close as I think we can get in O Gauge.

What have I been at recently?

I have built an ASAM Warrior kit to go on the PH Designs cradle that will go on this Hobby Holidays Warwell I am currently building. As well as adding the cradle I have to add the extra width to the top decks on the Warwell and the bits over the buffers. Not looking forward to soldering the little angle supports on these additions.

No problems that I can remember Jeff other than what I said about the rear drivers on the Brit sitting in a groove in the firebox. Wheels are Walsall that a friend turned up for me, AGH couldn't afford them!

Had a very nice time in Trier, went Friday and back Wednesday via Eurostar and Liege to Luxembourg as you can do this loco hauled. Bit miffed to get the same loco back 6 days later that promptly failed 10km out of Liege. Turfed everyone off then driver fixed problem and we all saw it go off empty stock! We eventually got to Brussels with 25 minutes to get the Eurostar home. Didn't do too bad as we were getting on it in 10 minutes of arriving from Liege, didn't know I could run so fast under those subways.

Liege to Luxembourg train

Luckily one steamy got there too late for the crew to work in the morning the next day so it's morning runs were covered with 211.041.

Smoke!

Monster.

Nice background at Volklingen but loads of people having the same idea.

Because of the incident with 01.202 the 220 went to Gerolstein instead of just going to Merzig all the time so that was a bonus.

Not often you get a 218 and a 220 pass on the Gerolstein line!

More smoke.

This 78 looked nice as I don't think it's been cleaned in the last year.

103 at speed.

E10 in Rheingold livery looked nice.

Even more steam

Went with the 103 to the Brohltol Bahn but it was survival of the fittest when we arrived to get a seat on the narrow gauge train.

This Mallet rarely goes all the way to the end of the line and we had to stop for a blow up despite having a diesel banking all the way up.

Simultaneous departure was interesting.

Steamy at Nennig.

This CFL loco should be named "Passion Wagon" as there is a lot of for and aft motion when it accelerates.

Best loco there though was the 220.

Here we are all turfed off at a place called Mery but we were all far from that!

I built a 9F and two Britt's from the MMP range. They also did a parallel Scot I believe. The 9F was the first steamer kit I built, nothing like straight in at the deep end! One problem with the Britt's is the rear drivers keep nice and warm in the front of the firebox. Had to grind a groove in the resin firebox for the flanges to go into.

I would definitely start with a 26. When I did mine I got a set of etches off ebay but I think the bloke that did them has disappeared. You might get an etched headcode box from PRMRP. One thing that needs doing is to raise the side windows but to be honest I bet at first glance it would not be noticeable if it is not done. The main bit to do is the headcode box.

Weathered the pre-production rat I had a few weeks back. I think this is their best loco to date.

And before anyone says it the front is not flat!

Remember I added some cast details to a pre-production Heljan 61XX a while ago? Well I finally painted it. Will have to do a before and after picture when I have weathered it.

Looking back I don't think I did put this on here.

Added a few internal bits from the Heljan 60, adds a bit of colour although they need toning down a bit still.

The Archers beads look very good. Can I ask where you get your Archers stuff from? I seem to recall they do different sizes of rivet heads - which do you use for typical O Gauge use (eg the bogie bolster a while back)?

 

Edit: should have said the weathering looks convincing too, not just that bit of welding!

Sorted out my Archer decals and the rivet heads are sheet AR 88032 7/8 head diameter. The weld beads are sheet AR 88018 arc weld beads .025 inch wide. I did buy a couple more rivet sheets as you never know what you want but so far I only used stuff from the one sheet. I got them from DCC Supplies.

Some down services were routed into the up platform, as can be seen here with 47632 in 1986. 

 

 

100958.jpg

Evening commuters used this to access the up/Jericho C.Sdgs direct and then leave the stock there and engine to shed.

Here is the reason I wanted to have these Dapol mineral wagons, a load of scrap from a BR works to the steel works for melting. I have a picture off the inrernet of a 40 cab cut up in MCV's like this so realised I could do the same with a couple of JLTRT class 24 cabs and sides I have. When Pete first did the 24 he had the wrong size cab windows which he replaced later so I have had these knocking about for a few years. The sides were upgraded as well for an airbraked 25/1 so these went into the spares box as well. I have a Clayton cab and noses as he upgraded that as well for his production run of kits so that might get cut up in a wagon as well later. The bits are just thrown in and not glued down so don't turn them over!

Before anyone says I know a fibreglass roof would not be very welcome at a steelworks but it seemed a shame to waste them. The arrows and blue MU stars are the wrong size as well but I wasn't going to waste good un's on this load.