Tim Lewis

As Gavin said, a few pictures will appear here over the next few days, following our "practice" operating session last Saturday. Not got much time right now, but here's one for starters. Kerrinhead is an L&Y terminus (although there's a preponderance of LNWR stock at the moment), modelled just after Grouping. More photos in a day or two.

A year ago tomorrow since the previous post, so it must be time for another "nothing to report" post! However, there is something to report, in that I have at least ordered a shed. I had been hoping that it would be installed by Christmas, but that looks highly unlikely now. Still, hopefully fairly early in 2017. It would be nice to think that more rapid progress will then be made on the layout, but we'll see!

Hmm, thanks for that. Sounds like I have more work to do to the bogie bolster than I first thought. To be honest, I hadn't really looked closely at it so far. I'll get round to it at some point, in the meantime, it can run as it is (I did add weight as suggested by cheesy smith and it runs tolerably well considering it doesn't (yet) have any springing/compensation etc.)

Remarkably, there has been an outbreak of modelling! The NER brake has progressed a bit. Here is the completed body (except for grabrails and roof) in primer: I was pretty pleased with the lamp irons, which can just about be seen on this picture (it has also grown a few grab rails): These were made from some nickel silver tie-bars off a Dave Bradwell etch. These are half-etched where they attach to the axleguards and, with a bit of thought about where the bends should be, you can end up with the half-etched bit as a nicely thin but (moderately!) strong vertical piece (where the lamp loops over - don't know the proper name!) The grabrails on these are a bit of a nightmare: originally there were 23 (depending on exactly how you count them). At some point in their history, 4 got taken off (hurray!), but then another 8 got put on (boo!). So, a total of just 27 then (includes one on the roof in case you're wondering why it's an odd number - I don't know for sure that the V4s had them, but certainly the very similar Toad B/E did). Anyway, here's one side with a complete compliment of them: The really tricky ones are those that butt join to others - requires some quick work with a soldering iron. Only a few more to do on the other side now. Has taken the best part of a full days modelling so far...still, at least it's progress.

Marvellous! - easy when you know how - thanks for that. I would never have spotted that. When I was trying to prise the inner floor out earlier, the fact that it was beginning to bend alarmingly suggested that it must be glued at either end but, as you say, it's just the buffers keeping it in place. Being able to separate the inner floor will make adding more weight to an empty wagon easier.

Yes, the conversion to 10' is a surprising amount of work! I believe that quite a few 9' ones DID make it into BR days (over 1000 according to Tatlow), but I suspect they were scrapped well before the 10' ones. (Edit - however I suspect you're right about the XP branding - wasn't there a minimum wheelbase for this? (possibly 10'))

Pretty sure that's a 9' WB: the 10' ones had different metalwork/plates where the diagonal framing meets the door (and probably other minor differences too). I converted 5 Parkside ones to 10' (see workbench) using Dave Bradwell underframes, scratch replacement solebars and bits and pieces. I've got another 8 in the drawer to do sometime. The Oxford model looks nice, though I can't see the notches for the partitions, and the bars look a bit thick, but easily remedied.

It ran with that bent handrail for quite a while. Coincidentally, my (first) D20 is going to be 62396 too (it had several spells at Tweedmouth/Alnmouth in the 50s)

Unfortunately, this is another one of those "nothing-to-report-but-didn't-want-to-have-a-year-between-posts" posts! Nothing has happened on Coldstream construction over the past year. However, I'm hopeful that there will soon be some real progress on the railway room front - watch this space in 2016! (I know I said that last year, but it really might happen fairly soon, but as usual, don't hold your breath!)

No posts for a while - the usual reasons of too much work, not enough time for modelling etc. etc. However, there has been a bit of progress. When Bachmann released their LNER vans and opens (a few years ago now - time files), I bought a few of each. I have now finally finished swapping the wheels and adding weight. Most ran OK individually without extra weight, but in a longish train there tended to be too many derailments, and they definitely benefit from more weight. These are intended to form the basis of a diverted ECML freight for Coldstream. The vans weigh in at about 34g as bought: happily, you can remove the underframe and the floor and attach weight inside the van body. I've added 3 nominal 5g balance weights to bring them up to around 50g. Not really the right motive power, but it'll do for now. And the opens: These only weigh about 22g as bought. There is space for a bit more weight between underframe and body, but you can only get as far as around 26-27g this way - not really enough. Drastic surgery would be required to get more in. I couldn't be bothered with this, so they will run with loads (if I want some empties, I'll use the Parkside kits). Currently their precious cargo consists of over-sized balance weights! Bringing up the rear is a bogie bolster and brake van, again from Bachmann: These wagons are not quite as good as you could produce from kits, but less effort! However, there's still much to do in the way of renumbering and weathering and (especially the bogie bolster) some added detailing, but at least I've got a reasonable train to run whilst I do this. Away from RTR conversions, an ex-NER V4 brake is also taking shape: This is from a D&S kit which I think I picked up at the Scaleforum bring-and-buy a few years back. There was one there this year too, with a price tag of £40! It wasn't there at the end of the weekend, so presumably somebody forked out for it. Probably they didn't know that it's currently re-available from D&S for (I think) £16.50 or thereabouts. Hopefully get a bit more done over the coming winter months.

Well, this looks nice! Layouts under construction are always interesting. Not sure what's happened to that brake van in the first picture though!

They are worth the effort!

The 60ft Metalsmiths turntable has I believe been available for some time. The others have been "to follow" for some time as well. Unless your project has a very long gestation period (some do - look at mine!) I would be tempted to go for the London Road one.

Only just found this - very nice.. I wonder whether your 'disaster' with rubber and white spirit might be a useful technique for representing where tree roots are causing heave of tarmac etc. Probably a bit difficult to control though.

My e-mail from Hattons arrived this morning, so apparently they don't all get sent at once (which is what you might think), so you may get an e-mail in the next day or two I guess. If not, I would give them a ring.

Interesting - I pre-ordered one when it was announced, but I haven't had an e-mail. As you say, quite a price hike, but I was surprised how cheap the original estimate was. I guess it won't stop me buying one!

Only just found this - very nice indeed. Love those big puddles!

Only just discovered this thread. Some fabulous modelling here - reminds me of the end of my trainspotting days, mix of green and blue diesels with proper numbers. I particularly like the steel wire coils (a couple of pages back): what did you use for those? Excellent stuff.

Sadly no progress on Coldstream to report, I just didn't want to have a full year between posts! What little modelling time I've had this year has been spent on stock, some of which is very nearly complete! The only news on Coldstream is that we've (almost certainly) decided not to move house, so instead we're going to build an extension and have a cabin at the bottom of the garden for the railway. Hopefully there'll be some progress on this in 2015. Watch this space!

Last seen somewhere back on page 1 about 5 years ago , I've recently finished off the first batch of wagons for my cattle train. The reason for the very long delay was that I messed up varnishing over the numbers, like this: Of course, this didn't reveal itself until the varnish dried, by which time I'd numbered all seven of them. I couldn't face stripping the transfers off, so I put them away whilst I contemplated what to do with them. Earlier this year, I thought I'd have a go at masking it with weathering. An initial dry brushing produced something like this: which looked suitably encouraging, so I pressed on with the rest of them. After much further detail weathering, and also adding buffers, vac pipes, tethering rings etc etc they're more or less finished now. As you can see, the roofs are not yet fully fixed in position, and I need to come up with a better way of securing the steam pipes (as half of them have fallen off!), but other than that, they're done. Here's the full train behind my J39, (still in strange hybrid livery and with cock-eyed tender): and here again, posed on my good friend Gavin Clark's rapidly evolving L&Y terminus layout: (some LSWR stock was visiting as well!) I've also re-wheeled a short rake of Gresley suburbans (4 of them, although only one shown here): Here's the cattle train leaving behind the J39: You can see the layout at Scalefour North in April (but without my J39 or D11, or the LSWR stock!)

Luckily, a friend (thanks, Steve!) had a copy of the Johnson book, which I've now borrowed. There is also a drawing in the May 1974 Model Railways, which he also had a copy of. So, at some point I'll get round to making some cosmetic frames. Took it round to a friend's house last Monday to run around his (rather large) roundy-roundy. It performed OK, but the fact that I'd used pinpoints for two of the tender axles resulted in NO sideplay or vertical play, such that any tiny imperfection in track gauge could cause derailing. I've therefore switched back to the original Bachmann axles for all 3 axles in the tender. I suppose I could have filed away a bit of the inside of the tender frame so that the pinpoint bearings were further apart, but the Bachmann axles run fine. I will also add some weight, as the tender weighs next to nothing. We'll see if this brings an improvement (it still runs fine in a straight line!!)

Many thanks - I'll try and look that out.

Interesting - thanks for that Arthur. So, if I built a load of fish vans, I could legitimately have a double headed V2 and D11/2 on a diverted fish train, now there's a thought....maybe later! I forgot to ask earlier, does anyone know where to find a decent drawing of a D11, sufficient to get the shape of the frames and firebox, so I can add cosmetic frames? Isinglass don't seem to do one.

I was worried about this beforehand, especially as both axles are driven with a 'continuous' chain of 7 gears between them. In practice it wasn't a problem (touch wood: not run in yet!). The gear wheels have to be a simple push fit onto the axles (because of the 'splined' section referred to above): I didn't pay any particular attention to how this related to quartering or anything. I did ensure that the two gears went back on the same axles (i.e front and rear), although that was probably unnecessary as I think they're the same. I quartered the drivers by eye (they're 20 spoke so quite easy) and just dropped them back in. I did make sure that I hadn't moved anything during the time that the drivers were removed, but again maybe not necessary. It seems that there is sufficient 'slop', though this didn't affect running when it was OO, so hopefully it still won't now it's P4! Edited: typo.