Wizard of the Moor

DEMU SHowcase saw some big engines working down the branch, courtesy of Waveydavey. Somebody turned the Yard Pilot selector up to 11. Once the pickups were connected it ran very well. 37149 leaves on the last train of the weekend. Unfortunately Waveydavey's Starfish is just out of shot. It had been the subject of several admiring comments during the show. Many thanks to Robert, Paul and David for operating, and especially for allowing me to borrow the ex-Longcarse stock again. I hope that a plentiful supply of Tunnock's finest was sufficient recompense. My favourite comment received during the show was from an anonymous gentleman who opined, "This looks like a proper railway, not trains running through a #*^$%^# golf course!"

A couple of my examples from Waterloo Street. D1/115 D1/118 More details of the construction in the layout thread.

My goodness, doesn't time fly? It doesn't matter whether you're enjoying yourself or not, time's gonna fly right by you. I've working on some bug fixes and some new stock for Waterloo Street in preparation for DEMU Showcase at the weekend. Bug fixes include some track renewal where it had got damaged at the baseboard joints and general tweaking of turnouts. New stock includes a rake of Parkside 24.5t steel mineral wagons. I'm not sure if these will be in coal traffic or destined to head down to the shipbreaking yard as scrap. I originally intended to cut these down into MDVs, however the Finelines kit has taken care of that urge so I decided to build them as they are and try out some upgrades. After careful perusal of Paul Bartlett's photos I decided to build three D1/115 examples and two of D1/118. D1/115 have a single door banger spring for each door and various flavours of oil axleboxes. The D1/118 wagons have two springs per door and roller bearing boxes. The shopping list included: Bill Bedford sprung w-irons Ambis brake gear Axleboxes and buffers from Wizard Models Dave Bradwell 12' tiebars Some detailing sprues from newer Parkside Dundas kits to get the stronger and better shaped ABS door banger springs There's nothing complex about the construction, just putting it altogether. The main issue I had was that the Ambis lifting links didn't fit. The brake levers then had to be redrilled and filed back to suit - a most tricky operation when everything must be lined up and marked out when test fitted to the wagon. However, generous lubrication with cheap Spanish brandy helped it all go smoothly. Some easier improvements inlcude replacing the end door handles with 0.2mm wire staples and making up the little safety loops that hang down from the brake cross-shaft below the push rods. Painting and weathering were also the opportunity to try something new. In this case the use of salt as a mask to creat rust spots, as described recently in MRJ. It certainly works well and is easy to do, but it is better suited to a light rusting rather than creating the end-of-life rust bucket look that Paul B has in his collections. NB: Point lever removed for the sake of clarity! Further weathering was with washes and MIG powders. I'll have to live with it for a bit before making my mind up if this is the way to go. Transfers are by Modelmaster, with the yellow triangles by Cambridge Custom Transfers (will that soon be Cornish Custom Transfers?). Some of the brake gear has got a touch of the Dali's. Not sure how that happened, either too much Butanone when glueing on the ABS bits, or too long sat in the sun while the paint was drying. Sigh... Does anyone supply TOPS transfers for >16t mineral wagons (MDV, MDO, MEO)? These panels look OK, but don't show up in many pics. Right, a little less waffle and a lot more weathering is needed before the weekend. I'll look forward to seeing some of you in Burton town hall. Please do say hello if you're passing: there will be some special guest operators on duty for the semi-finals of the Pro-celebrity 3 Link Swearathon

For the tight spot, when you have figured out exactly where it is, then a grinding disc from a mini-drill accessory set makes a useful "file" for getting into the flangeway gap. Use it in you fingers, not in the drill! Take it gently and keep checking how the wagon wheels roll. I'm still sorting out my first P4 turnouts, six years after I made them Well done on getting this far. James

Fantastic stuff, even though Baltic Street conjures visions of Dalmarnock for me Your architectural modelling is spot on. A how-to feature on how those tenements are built and painted would be great.

Peter Tatlow's new LNER Wagons book (Vol. 4A) mentions that growers of garden peas preferred cattle wagons to ventilated vans when transporting their produce. That's pre-WW2, mind, so might not apply to the BR wagons. Now, how to model a load of green peas convincingly...

That is one funky set of level crossing barriers! What's up (and down) with them then? Did Salvador Dali win a Blue Peter competition...

Glasgow St Enoch had an MPD hard by the station throat, at least in pre-grouping days. There's a photo at the link below where you can see the engine shed beyond the station buildings. It does seem to be more of a goods shed by the time of the pic. http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=7517&start=30#p155681

A sub-five-minute tweak, he said. Hmmm... Just to prove that modelling does occasionally take place in the wilds of Waterloo Street, here are some pics of D5366 following Laserglazing, headcode replacement and some other mods. Yep, I haven't added the buffer beam pipes yet. The new headcodes are simply the most appropriate from the Heljan sheet. Adding the nose door stays improves the look of the front end. Can anyone get the Heljan wipers to actually touch the screen when fixing them to the bodyshell? I couldn't, so new etched ones were applied and secured with Klear. The Laserglase makes a big difference. Still got to sort out the frames for the cabside windows. And the buffers... The Extreme Etchngs fan and grille set is also well worth doing. It would have been much easier if I wasn't trying to preserve Max Stafford's rather nice weathering on the roof. Finally, a brake van to finish up the post. Bit of a Bradmann one this. Bachmann body on a Dave Bradwell chassis. New handrails from 10 thou brass rod and Masokits lampirons to replace the rather ill-defined originals. Apologies for the somewhat gungey paintwork on the underframe. I built the Bradwell kit 10 years ago, and in my enthusiasm managed to trap the wheels and suspension in there. I didn't fancy gumming the whole lot up by spraying it with my airbrush, so carefully brush painted instead. By contrast, detailing the Bachmann body was very quick indeed. Now I'm off on my travels again, so no further modelling for a while

Well, looks like I've got a couple of volunteer operators for Showcase then. I'll put David down for a 6 hour shift on the Saturday, and Martin similar on the Sunday. I can just wiffle around and fetch the tea. :D Mark, Thanks for your comments. I did try to say 'Hello' at Stafford last weekend, but an early exit to dodge the snow prevented it.

Not sure where you were attempting to link to there, Ian. Some nice 16 tonners at Elgin here: http://www.gnsra.org.uk/images/gallery/PG07_Gas_lamp_in_Elgin_yard_late_60s_733.jpg The one at the extreme left can give hope to all of us who can never remember where the end door stripe should point to

An enquiry in another place about containers for whisky traffic lead to this shot, UID at Alness http://www.railbrit....e2.php?id=29586 Apologies if it's been included in this thread before.

In a slight change to the previously published schedule, the next public appearance of Waterloo Street will be at DEMU Showcase on the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of June. Better get a move on, all that stonework ain't gonna scribe itself...

The Scaleforum 2011 Retrospective includes some photos of Waterloo Street, along with all the other layouts, taken at Leatherhead by David Brandreth. http://www.scalefour...1/waterloo.html Many thanks to David and the Scaleforum team for organizing this fantastic record of the show.

The next confirmed outing is DEMU Showcase 2012, followed by Manchester 2012 and Scalefour North 2013 after that. (2012-01-22 Edit: new date added)