Neal Ball

I seem to remember in the BTF films from a few years ago, there was a video about a farm moving. I nearly wrote “ staff”, maybe that’s the distinction - the labourers would stay behind, but the staff would travel.

Plus of course a carriage for "the farm labourers". The Commander would have travelled 1st class from Plymouth.

I find the old GWR magazines fascinating to read through. I have about 6 next to the model railway. Now that they are on-line, I can see many a happy hour flicking through the pages. Have fun reading and I look forward to seeing the 57 cattle being transported. Presumably there was machinery as well?

That sounds about right Tony. I read a comment I think in the Dapol thread that the carriages are heavy. Do any of your kit-built locos struggle with the 3 of them? I am hoping for a set to make 6 carriages and hope that my new kits can cope! I don't really want to put a 61xx on the front. Thanks, Neal.

Thanks as ever Mike. Have you seen that the GWR magazine is available on line? https://didcotrailwaycentre.cook.websds.net Fascinating to see it.

Most definitely the case Chris, thank you.

Thanks John, very kind. I want to add roof boards and seat numbering panels, I am also going to try adding corridor handrails as well. Looking at the photo in Russel, the seat numbers seemed to finish at 368 and it looks as if it starts at 304 3rd class x 5 compartments at 4 across = 40 1st class x 4 compartments at 3 across = 24 Which gives a carriage capacity of only 64 which doesn't seem very much. In Russel, some photos show carriage seat numbers, which always seem to be 3 digits - but some photos show letters - does anyone know when seat numbers were changed for carriage letters? It is possible that this is a post nationalisation scheme. Incidentally the typical rake for the 70ft South Wales stock was (Taken from the Comet models instructions): Brake third = 4 compartments = 32 Third = 10 compartments = 80 Composite (above) = 64 Restaurant carriage H26 (1st x 18; 3rd x 32) = 50 Composite = 64 Third = 80 Brake third = 32 Giving a train capacity of 402 - many years later a GWR 8 carriage HST would accommodate 487 or 557 depending on the configuration: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/hst-trainset-capacities.73196/ To be continued!

The e111 Composite is now glazed and door handles added etc. The rear / other side is still to be glazed. I am very pleased with how it looks and also how it runs - its as smooth and easy running as an RTR carriage. Glazing and door handles are very much the order of the day at Henley-on-Thames as my stock of carriages queue up for attention!

That looks very nice Tony. How about a light grey for new / service look? Or of course some gentle application of weathering powder, which will have the benefit of not being completely even over the roof. Did you get a set of 6 or just 3?

This is the new page for my County loco build. This blog will describe the build of a Great Western County 4-4-2 tank loco. The chassis is by SE Finecast which will sit under a body from a Dean Sidings / Phoenix kit - the latter being a Resin based model. The instructions suggest you use the chassis from a Hornby 4-4-0 County loco, but by going for the SE Finecast option, I am hoping for a better loco. As an aside the Hornby County 4-4-0 loco is going for something like £70 on eBay - of course it needs to be the loco driven model, not the tender drive. The prototype: These locos were built around 1904-1912 in 3 batches, with only 30 built in total. They were built around the same time as the County 4-4-0 tender locos. Both had driving wheels of 6ft 8 1/2" and were reputedly rough riders. This is from the site: http://www.gwr.org.uk/no4-coup-tanks.html its about 3/4 way down the page. Swindon 2221 Class Built between 1905 and 1912 with Standard No 2 boilers, these were tank versions of the 4-4-0 Counties, and were therefore known as the 'County tanks'. They were built to work the growing number of faster suburban services from Paddington. The first two batches had square dropdown frames at the front, the third (and last) batch having the later curved style, and cylinders set lower. They were fitted with bi-directional water scoops. The initial shape of the brake hangers on the driving wheels was curved, following closely the perimeter of the wheel, but was soon changed for a 'straight down' style as seen in the pictures here. The class was an early recipient of ATC, the first locos being fitted in 1908, with most of the rest of the class in 1915–1916. (At that time, the equipment was still known by its original name of 'Audible Cab Signalling', a term remaining in use, and latterly supplemented by 'Automatic Train Control', well into the 1920s.) The last loco was withdrawn in 1934 This photo is from the Russell vol 1 loco book and shews 4-4-2T no 2237 at Reading in the 1920's. This loco was based at this time at Reading and regularly worked the branch to Henley-on-Thames. There is a new build project for a full size 4-4-0 tender loco: https://www.churchwardcounty.org.uk The loco is being built at Tysley and will be based at the Gloucester, Warwickshire Railway when finished. Why build this kit? It will be something different to the usual Collett standard GWR locos and will be another case of stretching my skills. This will be the second loco I have built. The loco build: These are the etches for the frames, with the resin body behind: At this stage, it's a case of reading the instructions and identifying the parts. (There is a lot of surplus etch here, as the spacers are also for EM and P4). When cutting the parts from the etch, do not cut on your trusty cutting mat. Instead use a piece of plywood. As can be seen, my ply, also has holes drilled through the wood. In the photo above, you can see the frames and the holes cut out for the axles. These need to be opened out a little to get the bearings to fit. The tool in the foreground is a 5 sided broach reamer (Squires sell them as a set of 5) I thought I would only use them once, for my Metro loco build.... when in fact I use them all the time. Place the required hole on the plywood and over one of the drilled holes (in the ply) and gradually work the reamer round until the axle bearing fits. Note: Please do not file or drill these holes - you will possibly end up with a distorted hole. Only use the broach reamer. I now use this method when making up my bogies for my carriages and it is making a huge difference to the way they run. ________________ The black art of Soldering: Practice makes perfect.... I use a 25w iron, nothing fancy... together with DCC concepts solder and DCC concepts flux. I have soldered seemingly for ages and connecting wires together hasn't really been an issue. But soldering up a Brass carriage can take a lot of practice. I still have my first carriage kit (from about 30 years ago) where I struggled to heat the brass, piling more solder onl which became an unsightly mess. The only solution at that time was to get someone to make it for me, which is what happened. The jury is still out with regards to the "Poppy's jig" in the photo below. During the Metro build, I found it a bit of a nuisance and couldn't initially get the frames square. However, the first frame spacer that was soldered in for the County tank was the spacer that sits under the front running plate. (The screw-in spacers were already in position). At that point the loco was put into the jig. (For this loco, the front spacer brings the frames together, almost into a bow shape, like a boat!) With the frames in the jig, I could solder up all the various spacers with relative ease. I started work around 1:30pm and put the loco aside about 5pm or so and couldn't resist putting the wheels on. The next step will be getting the wheels to run freely and for this, they will be placed on a section of track which gets lifted at one end, whereupon the chassis should easily run down the elevated track. Day 2 build - 21st December 2023: With the chassis complete, I needed to ream one axle position only. Note: In order to have consistency, from this point on, keep all the wheels together, only remove one side and mark the wheels up so they always go back into the same axle. (When working on the loco, I always keep it in the same direction as the instructions.) The front wheels spin nicely, the rear wheels didn't, so need to be reamed. This is the reaming tool in action. It didn't need much to get both sets of wheels spinning nicely. They were then tested on a short length of track, which was supported at one end by a pair of pliers - they happily free-wheeled down the track. Its not a great photo, but you can see that the incline is minimal: Next I made up the bogie - I've got pin-point wheels in at the moment - the correct wheels were out of stock at Wizard models. The whitemetal sides were superglued to the metal frame - however, with the fixing bolt and spring in place (The spring is a bit tight), it's going to be very difficult to get the nut onto the thread.... I think for the time being, I will force a piece of plastic sleeving onto it. At least that way when I am working on the chassis, it wont keep dropping out! This is what it looked like at the end of the day - it felt as if there wasn't much to show and progress was slow. edit: Friday 22nd December 2023: Today I have been working on the cylinder parts - the photos are self explanatory: The Brass items still need fettling before they can fitted: Final shot for today shows the loco loosely placed onto the chassis. It needs fitting at the back properly. I now need to retrace my steps and continue working on the chassis, setting the cylinder details aside for the time being. However, I will do the modification with the bogie fixing that discussed in the comments below. I will then move onto the gearbox assembly (Roadrunner Plus) and also look at the rear fixings and the fixing of the rear radial truck. Continued Thursday 28th December 2023: A quick 5 minute job today 😄 It was going to be very easy and straightforward.... Re: Brake rigging The County etch is set up with brakes at the rear of the wheels.... which seems to be the way the County 4-4-0 tender locos were set up. The County 4-4-2T always had the brake blocks on the front face of the wheels. In trying to check the details; it was obvious the tank locos always had their brake rigging on the inside of the frames, with the County tender locos having a mix of brake gear on the inside and outside. (Its seemed to change at will.) Out came the TD set and with the aid of the dividers, I marked up the points to drill. On the drawings for the kit, the two sets of brake gears are shown as having a different height... but this is now looking wrong on the model. I need to check it again before carrying on. Friday 29th December 2023 Progress has been slow over Christmas and no doubt will continue to be slow over the New Year period as well. I marked out the brake rigging (for the brakes to be in front of the wheels) and drilled 4 holes in the correct place - it later turned out that, 2 were not in the correct place. 😠 But sometimes, that is just the way it is - its only 2 holes in the wrong place and no-one will know 😎 This is the chassis being marked out for the brake rigging, using the existing holes as a guide: It turns out that the pilot holes for the brakes on the front wheels are set lower than those on the rear drivers. I faithfully copied the holes on the frames and put them into the new position.... I then trawled through all the photos I could find of both County tank locos and County tender locos and can not see any that have a differing height for the brakes. Whilst brakes changed position during the respective locos life, they were always in the same plane. Not to worry, I just need to drill 2 fresh holes. I then turned my attention to the coupling rods: These were adjusted by use of the 5 side reamer broach until they ran smoothly. At each stage, they were checked on my elevated piece of track to see if they moved of their own accord. It's a fiddly process, but worth taking time over. For this test, I used a piece of track that was higher on the left than the right - It was longer for this test, so the elevation was gentler. The other side of the loco was done, until eventually I was happy with the movement. I will put together a short video shortly to show this working. Checking how the loco looks: Inevitably in a project like this you want to see how its coming along, I can never resist the temptation to put the body on the chassis. In checking it over with the drawings I am working from, I reckon its about 1mm too high... (Looking at the photos, it also seems to be higher at the front). I've recently been looking at the pony truck at the rear and need to do a side-by-side comparison. The one that comes with the kit is a whitemetal item - whereas Wizard do a lovely etched brass kit: https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/locomotive/ls2/ It will come down to the mounting point and the space that I have. (I decided against as the white metal will have a bit more weight.) By the end of the day, I had made good progress - but something still bothered me. Namely parts no A13 (see drawing below) - I couldn't work out how they fitted onto part B6. A13 should be the sides of the firebox, with a gap inside for the power pick-ups..... I have soldered B6 into the frames as per the diagram - however - What I have now realised is that B6 shouldn't go where I have got it, it needs to go to the bottom of the frames. Unfortunately the way the lines are drawn, it looks as if they need to go into the top aperture, but clearly they don't! I will therefore fettle up a piece to go at the bottom of the frames to solder in the firebox and the pick-ups. Then at the same time, I am going to fettle up a piece to fix the pony truck into. I then need to fettle up the brake rodding in it's new position..... Happy New Year Wednesday 3rd Jan 2024 update: Yesterday the brake rigging was finally drilled into the correct position... meaning a few extra holes were drilled in the frames - check before drilling etc. The old holes have been filled to avoid confusion when everything gets sprayed. Work then moved onto setting up the cylinders and slidebars, with the last job being soldering the connecting rod together. Issues: 1. In folding up the cylinder block to go onto the frames, the instructions say don't solder - why? It's all held together with slots in the frames that then slot into the cylinder block. The sliderbar supports, also slot into slots in the frames - likewise surely they should be soldered.... The last section supports the vacuum pump and is always falling off! - so that is definitely going to be soldered. (The pump itself has a rod going through to the crosshead and that will need to be superglued as its small whitemetal casting.) 2. In fitting the slidebars on, obviously they don't get painted, so need to be masked when spraying - but that means the area behind them on the frames wont get sprayed. In typing this, I realise that I will probably need to finish off as much as the chassis as possible. Then once that is done, I need to bring the chassis into the lounge for a couple of days to warm up, then give it a couple of coats of primer, then black. Then re-assemble and paint the body as a separate entity.... 3. Or start work on the body, so that can also be sprayed. Thursday 4th January 2024. Work has continued on a few fronts today - I have soldered the cylinder etch / box square - but not soldered it to the frames yet. The sliderbar support has been soldered to the frames though, plus, I have soldered up the gearbox. At the same time, I soldered onto the frames the support for the vacuum pump.... only to find that it fouls the body and in fact you cant see it in any of the photos I have! (It has been removed). Saturday 6th Jan 2024 I have moved the position of the motor, originally, I set it from the front driving wheels, with the motor projecting into the boiler: Unfortunately, this put the weight onto the front bogie, lifting slightly the rear drivers. Eventually this will be cured with extra weight. By deciding to change the motor round, I had to move the angle / position of the gearbox: The advantage of using the Roadrunner plus gearbox is that you can set it at (almost) any angle you want. Essentially by changing it round, whilst changing the weight distribution, I was able to set it in such a way as I avoided a cross-bracing section on the underframe: With this change, I powered the motor up to 12v DC and reassembled the wheels and valve gear and for the first time, we have a running model: The wheels rotate nicely at all power levels. This is how the motor sits - the right way round! At this stage, in testing the wheels etc. everything is held on by the use of small plastic bits of tubing. Hence the white ends! Saturday 13th January 2024: It's been a bit quiet with the County 4-4-2T project over the last week or so. That changed this afternoon as I started work on more of the body detailing items. Whitemetal items, together with the handrails were all applied: The smokebox dart is from Comet models. The front steps are being glued to the front running plate and at the same time I have found a couple of buffers in the spares box. the ones with the kit are correct for the Dean loco, but one of the heads is smaller than the rest. I have seen photos of the larger buffers on County locos. Next to it is the backhead - recently @MAP66 has been working on a backhead for his 48xx project at Tyteford Halt. You wont be able to see this detail, but we will all know it's there! The detail will be picked out once its had primer applied. Wednesday 17th January 2024: It's coming together nicely.... electrical pick-ups have been added today. The wires were as supplied in the chassis kit. These have been soldered to a PCB, which in turn has been soldered to the frames. The loco was then tested on 12v DC and it successfully ran up and down on a metre of track. The remaining items have been added to the body; which has included forming the handrail round the smokebox. It's not perfect, but it's not bad. Lamp irons have also been fitted (I've forgotten to put the lamp irons on for the spare lamps - tomorrow!). The front running plate has not been fixed in place yet. Tomorrow, I will solder in the rest of the electrics and sort out the DCC decoder and stay-alive. (edit 16/2/24 I have just found this video on the Missenden page about forming handrails: https://www.missendenrailwaymodellers.org.uk/index.php/virtual-missenden-bending-gwr-handrails/ Thursday 18th January 2024 - a minor setback ☹️ Today see's a minor setback... that is a nuisance! Yesterday in running the loco, one of the pins holding the valve gear in place caught on the motion bracket and everything stopped for a while. Unfortunately, the two halves of the Roadrunner plus gearbox came apart and have been glued overnight. With the motor removed, the two gears in the above photo should rotate freely - they don't. Individually they are fine, rotating freely. At first I thought I might have bent the rod on the topmost gear, hence the larger rod pin there at the moment. It's not that, it makes no difference. Although that top gear in the photo looks a bit wonky - but thats not it as I have poked and prodded them, they don't want to move :-( I have emailed Highlevel kits to see of they can suggest anything. I might have to remove the glue between the two parts and see if that makes any difference. (27th March - at this point, I still have not had a reply.) To be continued..... On the positive side: I have now fixed the running plate back to the main loco body. There is a small piece of brass folded in 90 degrees under the plate, that goes up behind the cylinders. Currently all being glued together.... It's a new impact adhesive that allows movement for 3 minutes and cures completely in 24 hours. There is a small piece of electrical tape underneath to (hopefully) avoid it also setting to the chassis! It was a b*$*$r to get together and it looks like I have moved the handrail again! The backhead has had a paint - yesterday it had a coat of white primer - today it's black. Then obviously onto detailing Brass; Copper; White and Red in hopefully the right places. When it's in the loco, it seems to be set so far back from the cab doors, you wont see any of it.... (27/3/24 - it's now had to come out to get more weight into the loco!) Saturday 27th January 2024 update: Today, we start with how we finished last Thursday - with the backhead - now with the pipework picked out. Plus the first wheel with painted rim, all of the wheels will be done before the loco is finished. I have had a few issues with the gearbox..... to cut a long story short it turned out one of the gears had got some superglue on it - not recommended. It's all fixed now and I am pleased to say the gearbox and motor are working very well now. Seen here under test with a screwdriver playing the part of an axle! Compare this set-up with how it was originally done - its all reversed, which puts the weight of the motor over the driven wheel. Seen here in place - more testing - more fettling and finally we get the gearbox and motor in the chassis. Finally - it's getting there! It has taken a lot to get it to this stage in trying to get the chassis to fit into the loco body, then the addition of the front running plate to try and get that right. At this stage the loco isn't wired.... the pickups are done and the motor is wired up, but at the moment they aren't connected as I am waiting until I spray the chassis and I will then wire in the decoder. I had it happily running up and down on the layout, holding onto a 9v battery! There is a short video of the testing phases of the loco build on Youtube: Testing process for the loco: Running the chassis up and down on track set to a slight incline. Checking weight distribution - in this case, it was obvious that the motor was lifting the rear drivers. Only slightly, but enough to be an issue. The combined chassis and loco body are still very light (@150 grams) so will need a lot of extra weight packing inside. I will try to cram as much weight into the void within the chassis around the area of the drivers. I am hoping to get it up to 200grams or so. Run for a while on the rolling road, testing the slower speed steps. The complete loco was then tested on the layout using a 9v battery. At this stage it is not wired up for DCC. The completed loco will have a Zimo decoder and 10,000 uf Stay-alive. The McKinley video is here: Tuesday 13th February 2024: The loco has had a spray of black inside, together with the chassis etc. Previously it had all had 2 coats of white primer. Sunday 18th Feb 2024: The loco had it's first coat of Railmatch green yesterday: This afternoon it has had it's second coat. The reveal: Friday 23rd February 2024: Whilst work has been progressing on the body, the chassis is being put back together. The motor and gearbox are now back in; the wheels have had their rims painted (primer & two coats of black): Transfers have now been applied to the loco. The buffer beams needed another coat of red and will have their numbers applied tomorrow. The Great Western is from Fox, with the plates being Railtec. Update mid-March 2024: The County tank and SRM are seen together at Henley-on-Thames and then today the loco is posed outside the signal box at Henley-on-Thames: edit: end of March 2024. The loco is running, but still struggles to pull its own weight. I am trying to increase the weight inside the loco to push it down onto the track. I have other stuff going on at the moment, so its been a bit sidelined - I will get back to it soon... To be continued!

Excellent job on removing the top feed Kevin.

I should point out that the Comet etches are for the windows after they were modernised. The original windows as per the GWR photos at the top were Beclawat windows which slid down. The whole window moved, rather than the fixed panes at the top,

Yes I think so, or 1938?

Perhaps someone who is going to Ally Pally today could oblige....

That’s a good improvement Phil. Well worth replacing it.

Interesting Mike thank you.

My carriage construction blog now covers the build of two Centenary carriages; the C69 and D120. I had been meaning to finish the blog for a while for these carriages. Hope you find it useful.

You can’t have too many Pannier tank locos Kevin.

I know what you mean Mike. I tried using the bow pen on my Mallard models J5 yesterday for the bolections. The paint was drying too quickly, I watered it down and it was going everywhere 🙁 Yesterday was our first full on decent temperature all day, this at 10am it’s 24 in the shade on our terrace already.

The 28xx was out and about last night, it even hauled the Centenary 6 carriage rake! Which is quite a heavy train. As ever, I was waiting for paint to dry….. The 70ft carriages have had their final coat of varnish to seal the transfers. The bolections and droplights were finished on the C23 clerestory, any overspill has also been tidied up. ditto on my last remaining Slaters Toplight. These carriages will now have door furniture added and will then be glazed. It’s good to see them all at this stage in their respective builds.

Surprising that it’s now 14 years ago. That’s the same version in my photos at Henley and it has always been a good runner.

I guess the question is, which depot supplied the engines for Helston? And then do you have details about loco overhaul for the correct period. Let’s assume locos for Helston were supplied from Truro and that 1158 was based there in 1918. The bonus would be that it visits Swindon for a heavy general in Sept 1918 - which would include a full repaint - and that come Jan 1919 it is released back to Truro - the chances are it would arrive back from Swindon in the 1919 livery. Looking at loco history details they were in and out of Swindon all the time, so the chances are a loco would get all liveries relevant to that time. Does that help?

Here is a quick iPhone photo of the 28xx which shews the extent of the train. The loco drove into Platform three, then reversed the train into the headshunt / back siding access. Its a lovely loco that runs very smoothly.

Thanks Andy. The 72xx is a Hornby loco from the so-called design clever days, weathered by TMC it's a lovely loco, which runs very well. It is fitted with a Zimo MX640 sound decoder The Dean goods loco over the years has been a right pain in the a**se, but these days is fitted with a sound decoder, which will be a Zimo MX series. Now as a result it is a very good runner. I am sure the story of this loco is way back in the history of Henley - several pages ago! I bought it from Gaugemaster / the Engine Shed as it was the local model railway shop at the time - this is in fact the 2nd loco as it was so difficult to get into the tender to fit the decoder! It's an Oxford loco. The Collet Goods is a Bachmann loco, with only pickups on the loco - one day I will add pickups into the tender. Its fitted with a Guagemaster decoder - its an "ok" runner.

As I was assembling the train, I added coal into two wagons - one was a fresh load using the Geoscenics kit. This wagon already had a Dapol plastic coal load, which I reduced in height and then added coal on the top. Im not going to weather it, to make a difference in a mixed train.