Poggy1165

This is one of my first attempts and it taught me a few things. One is that these etches are really best used for new construction. With retro fitting there are all sorts of difficulties to overcome and any slight fault in the original construction - for example if it has been assembled out of square - are cruelly highlighted. In this particular case the etches project ever so slightly above the wagon sides, and they should not. I hope to disguise this once the capping pieces are in place. Recommended approach for retro fitting: Put the floor in first. You will probably find that even if you don't use glue you won't get it out again once it's in place. Some gentle filing may be necessary and it's better to have it fit easily - a force fit will cause the edges to distort which you do not want. Trust me on that one. Next put in a side. If it projects above the wagon side, trim gently at the bottom with scissors. Preferably not your wife's favourite crafting scissors if you want to live. Better to to take off too little than too much, as you can't very well put it back once it's cut. Repeat with ends and sides, not applying glue until you are entirely happy that everything is as good as you can get. Patience and care is advised. Did I mention how thin these etchings are? If anyone's interested the August Marshall livery was copied from a photo. Not sure who August Marshall was, or whether his wagons would have been seen west of Woodhead, but I couldn't resist it. It's certainly more likely that an Burtts Beehives wagon or whatever.

I can't help but think that one of these in 7mm scale, and in the original blue and white livery, would be absolutely awesome.

In case anyone is wondering, the brass is very thin, especially the sides and ends, so it's easy to get distortions. It's also a matter of time, patience and care to get all the etching tabs off without doing (too much) damage. As far as the sides are concerned, imagine fag paper made of brass and you won't be so far out. In addition, the plank lines are etched through, so what you have in effect is 'planks' held together by the ironwork. The good news is that the instructions are excellent and well worth reading before you start.

I have a special tool, bought many years ago from London Road Models. It's essentially a piece of metal with a sharp end, down which a weight is allowed to drop. This forms the bolt or rivet head. There are more sophisticated pieces of kit on the marke for this job, but they ain't cheap.

This is what the MMP etches look like before anyone has had a chance to spoil them. They include not just the (interior) floor, sides and ends but also capping pieces and the tiny capping brackets, wagon label holders and so on. There is an awful lot of punching out of bolt heads to be done. Whether you find this frustrating or relaxing is down to you.

This will be a slow blog, because I am a slow worker. There are all sorts of reasons for this, health mostly. Any road, I am trying to improve my stock of wagons. Some will be sold on (some already have been) to make room as I don't have nearly enough siding space. (My ideal layout would probably be a model of Dewsnap, except I'd need arms like a gibbon to reach over it, since no one has yet invented a 7mm scale working shunter.) One of my first jobs is to make use of the etched brass wagon interiors produced by MMP.

Very nice!

Very nice and 'different'.

Excellent work! Amazing what can be done in 2mm scale these days.

Happy St David's Day to all my Welsh friends. For me today will likely be spent fitting capping pieces to private owner wagons. Just need to find the magnifier first, because even in 7mm scale, some of those bits are small.

For anyone interested, my understanding is that the D&S 4mm GC items offered by the GCRS are available to all, it's just that they're discounted for members. I suppose if you wanted a few it'd be worth joining to get the discount, but it isn't actually essential. Sorry I don't have the full SP on what's available, being into 7mm I don't follow 4mm issues as closely as I used to do. (Edited) Check out this thread My link

The more I see of your work, Ron, the more impressed I am. In fact I don't think 'impressed' is strong enough, more like awed. I think it's partly that I knew and loved this station when I was a boy, and that my favourite pre-group railway ran into it. But I like to think that I'm fair enough in my nature to appreciate something like this whatever the prototype. Anyway, I'm very grateful to you for putting it on here and letting us see it.

I count myself lucky in that I saw Whetstone at almost every stage of its (public) development. It did take a while to get everything working properly. The last I heard of Andy Gibb was that he was restoring commercial vehicles and had indeed given up model railways, at least for the time being. Some items were saved, notably engines and rolling stock, and I know where some of these are. But the bulk of the layout did (as I understand it) end in the skip.

Buckingham - I first saw this in the Railway Modeller when I was just a little kid. Even then my jaw dropped. It looked like a real railway, unlike most layouts of that era that looked like a stepped-up version of my train set. As I grew older and learned more I was amazed at how much of it was built from scratch. Whetstone - sadly a short-lived layout, but if I had the space and money to build something similar in 7mm scale I should die happy. Those long trains of coal wagons were the highlight. For me that's what railways were about. The third I don't recall the name of, but it was a large main line O layout by the Keighley Group. Seeing this at exhibition was the final kick to get me into O Gauge, even though Whetstone was in the same room. I find the restriction to three quite hard. I could easily name a dozen more

The Amazon thing - some people offer books at stupid prices and just hope that mugs will look no further. I have seen copies of my own books (novels, not railway related) offered at 5 or 6 times the cover price. The funny thing is both are still in print and available brand new for the cover price or less! I hope no one has been caught especially as I don't benefit from the sale. Generally, it is a better place to sell books than Ebay and there's a facility on there telling you the lowest price, so you can offer yours for 50p less than the next guy. Not a bad venue for selling unwanted railway books.

Divide by four, multiply by seven. Should work. There is also a percentage calculation, but the figure has gone out of my head for the minute. Third alternative, buy a scale rule with 4mm and 7mm scales on it. Apply the 4mm section to the drawing to get the scale equivalent. Then take that over to the 7mm side and you have the same measurement in 7mm scale.

That's a good idea. It would eliminate a lot of dead EMU mileage for a start. The problem with routing Glossop trains there would be the perennial one of getting them across the Piccadilly throat. (I think this must always have been a difficulty - there are certainly lots of photos of GC goods trains waiting patiently in the MSJ&A through platform for a road.) There have from time to times been vague mutterings of a flyover, but I think we shall see pigs flyover first. It will be interesting to see how things pan out with the Manchester-Liverpool and Manchester-Preston electrifications. I would guess some of the locals that currently do the dead mileage might be diverted through onto those routes, but we shall see.

In regard to metrolink, I think it's fair to say that any developments beyond those already announced are long-term to say the least. I notice from the latest map that the proposed Stockport line has been deleted, so I suspect any extension to places beyond is unlikely to happen in the lifetime of anyone over 50. 'Tram train' is an interesting one. The technology is certainly there, and if we were Germans I suspect the whole thing would be up and running within three years. As it is, see above. With the Chester line getting priority. If anyone's interested in Metrolink there's at least three long and well-illustrated threads on the Skyscrapercity Forums. This is perhaps the longest and most interesting My link

Sorry to come in late to this, but I think the deployment of N5s to Peterborough may have had something to do with the Stamford branch. The N5s were certainly used on this, and a diesel shunter wouldn't have been suitable. At a guess the clutch of N5s was sufficient to provide for this branch, for the Peterborough pilots, and whatever other bits of jobs the C12s formerly carried out. The project is already impressive and should be superb when complete - congratulations!

Simply awesome! I spent many happy hours on that station as a lad. I would never have dreamed that someone would have the bottle to model it.

That's a definite GC chimney. I bet someone out there would be glad to buy it off you. Anyway, it captures the feel of the real thing. Wish I had a GC tender to give you but I passed on the last of my 4mm stuff a year or so back.

That bridge is a fantastic bit of work! Bridges are such an important part of the real railways but they are rarely well-modelled. (I am as bad as anyone in this respect.)