Dunedin

Hi, I used Railmatch Roof Dirt for the roof above the orange line. I think Hornby use black on their Exec power cars, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right though, but my recollection is that black would be the correct colour. I use the Roof Dirt because when I apply the weathering, I use matt black for the exhaust staining, so the roof dirt, which is more of a grey provides contrast and makes the exhaust staining stand out more. I give the HST trailers the same treatment: roof dirt for the whole set and then at the ends of the TGS and FO nearest each power car, I use black and then fade it out. I give the cant rails similar treatment, because they got stained from the power car exhausts. Also the power car traction motor gearboxes used to leak, so the adjacent coach would frequently get splattered with oil, which the trainwashes couldn't remove from the chamfered edges of the doors. Once a month the sets would be hand washed, but in the meantime, it would build up. An example of a Lima TGS:

During November/December I also managed to make some time to start another repaint project. Back in 2012, I came across a pair of new Grand Central HST power cars for £69.99! They were a bargain at the time and I love bargains, but by today's prices, it seems ridiculous. I didn't have an immediate use for them at the time, but I had always intended to use one of them to replace my surrogate DVT conversion of 43123 using a Hornby dummy chassis and a Lima body: This was always something of a compromise and whilst it looked the part to an extent, a powered version would have been useful, so I decided it was time to have a go. First job was to file out the new light cluster so I could insert one of the originals that I had spare: Then the guards van windows needed putting back in (these were on the power cars when built, but were plated over later in life): Then for the repainting: Primer The yellow and Exec Dark Grey: The white between the two is actually the primer, which I decided looked ok. The hard part was working out how to take the line round the nose. This is really hard to mask because it is a 3-dimensional curve and it's hard to keep the line horizontal in all dimensions! I didn't manage it particularly well on the Lima version either, but then I covered it up somewhat with weathering. This time, I wanted it to look right, but painting it just wasn't working for me. A rummage through my transfers envelope (it's quite a large envelope) turned up some Fox HST power car swallow transfers which included the red and white stripes for the nose ends. I tried those and they were certainly more successful than my attempts at painting. The Exec Light Grey and red/white stripes on the guards van end (and my attempt at painting the nose end stripe - ugh!): All the paint is acrylic - yellow and Exec Dark Grey are Railmatch and the Exec Light Grey is Vallejo Model Colour Buff (VAL70976), mixed with Railmatch BR Rail Grey. Mixing is inconvenient, but I think the result is an acceptable match for the Hornby Exec Trailers and acrylic is easier to work with than enamels. The improved result with the Fox transfer on the nose: Finished result except for numbering, minor detailing and weathering and for comparison, the unchanged dummy Grand Central power car: I'm quite pleased with the result - it almost seems a shame to weather it! My intention for the dummy is to convert that to 43084 which was another surrogate DVT and the first one to be painted in InterCity Swallow livery. It just about fits the timeframe for Kirkhill, it having appeared in March 1988 and besides, I do like Swallow livery, particularly on the DVTs! That may be a while in the making though; as per my previous post, we do have a layout to build!

It's been a while since we posted anything on here, but as Graham intimated, a house-move for me together with problems with elderly parents meant my summer and autumn came and went with little progress on the layout. That changed somewhat over Christmas with a determined effort to finish unpacking boxes that had been left to languish in the garage and get things cleared so we would have a workshop for layout-building and repainting rolling stock etc. Graham posted the plan for the new fiddle yard in the summer and I had drawn (or rather sketched) the concept for the extended main boards back in January last year: I then made up the cutting instructions for my local B&Q so we could get the wood cut: New Kirkhill Boards.pdf I now have three 4ft x 8ft sheets of 9mm ply reduced to a kit of parts. This doesn't cover all the boards yet, but it's enough to be going on with and we decided that the most important thing is to get the main boards completed first, bearing in mind that our next exhibition is at Crewe this November. That may sound like a long time off, but it won't feel that way, based on our experience last time! We don't need a fully-working fiddle yard and don't even need to be able to run along the back of the depot on the main line to begin with, so long as the layout looks finished to observers. After all, Diesels in the Duchy don't run past the depot on the main line by intention. For us, that can come later and means that we can concentrate on getting things to look right, rather than go hell for leather and finish up with a compromise. At least, that is the plan. Keep watching for further news.

Certainly. If you find the post you want, scroll up so you see rmweb.co.uk in the address bar at the top of the screen. Hold your finger on that for a second or two, then release. The full address will then be displayed. If you then hold your finger on that, you can select and then copy it. You need to do that before you start writing your post though, I think, but it will be on the clipboard, so you can use it later. When you get to the point in the post where you want to insert the link, tap and hold your finger at that point and the paste option will appear. Then you can insert the link. It may sound slightly involved, but it's actually quite quick. Good luck!

I've finally worked out how to do it on the iPad: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87779-revised-mk3s/page-9&do=findComment&comment=1755273 Thanks for the rating and enjoy reading.

You'll probably be more expert than we will then! Look forward to seeing you.

Just to whet a few appetites before Stafford next weekend, I've been working on some of our latest additions - penultimate blue HST power car, 43102 (looking a bit the worse for wear as it approaches its CEM overhaul and repaint into Swallow livery): I also have a Hornby HST set in Executive livery, which has been fitted with Kadees and weathered, ready for the show. There's been a good deal of comment on the latest batch here on RMWeb and there are many things wrong with them - particularly the buffet (see some of my posts on Revised Hornby Mark 3s), but with some work, they can be considerably improved. I've added the missing roof vents to the buffet and changed the cantrail stripe to yellow to change from a TRUB to a TRFB: We're looking forward to next weekend and to seeing as many of you who can make it.

Today, I managed to remove the glazing on the corridor side of the buffet. I was then able to use Turtlewax Safecut to polish the "handrails" off the outside of the glazing. I've glued a length of wire on the inside of the glazing, where the handrails should be. It doesn't show up particularly well in the photo, but I reckon it looks considerably better than the original. I've also re sprayed the cantrail stripe yellow, so it will now be a 407xx series TRUB in an East Coast set on Aberdeen Kirkhill.

Thanks Temeraire! As it happens that's something new for this year: we were having reliability problems with our Prodigy system so we've changed to NCE! Stafford will be the first time we will have used it at an exhibition, so it's fingers crossed that we'll have mastered it by then. What could possibly go wrong? It will be great to see you again though, so do come and have a chat.

We will be at the Chatham Show - June 13th -14th.

Thanks Surfsup. I agree, it is surprising just how good some those details on the Jouefs really were. We use them on Kirkhill for the Mark 3a push-pull sets. A complete repaint transforms them. As to whether to use the Hurst vents or Jouefs ones, it probably boils down to cost and availability. I know Hurst things can be difficult to get and I don't know the cost. Jouef buffets are available on eBay quite cheaply - in fact there were four buffet roofs on there at the end of last week; buy it now for under £20 which old have made them a no-brainer.

They are, but they should be on the inside! My plan is to remove them - Turtlewax Safecut applied with a cotton bud should do it - and then to glue some wire handrails on the inside of the glazing where they should be.

All the latest ones I have are marked TEC on the boxes. Further to my last post, I've now fitted the vents from my Jouef buffet to the new Hornby TRUB and I reckon they look ok - I think one is the wrong shape, but it's certainly an improvement: I also montioned about the underframes being incorrect on the latest Hornby batch of Hornby buffets (TRUBs), despite them getting earlier batches correct. I don't have any of their earlier buffets, but I discovered that once again, Jouef had this detail correct 30-odd years ago: Jouef - note the two sets of battery boxes and two red charging sockets Hornby latest - only one set of battery boxes and one charging socket I know that the undeframe is not particularly noticeable, but the point is the same as that for the roof: Hornby got it correct on earlier batches and then realised it was wrong, but went ahead and manufactured them anyway, in the hope that no-one would pay enough attention to notice and then priced an incorrect model the same as the others that they could be bothered to get right! That just shows an attitude of cynicism towards us, their customers, that is hard to believe. Hornby would do well to look at the history of many parts of UK industry, not to mention their own past - companies that behave in this way seldom have a bright future. The quote is often attributed to Churchill, but I understand its first use was by George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

We use three full sets of Lima HST trailers on Aberdeen Kirkhill, one of which is fitted with flush glazing and really looks superb. I thought long and hard about buying a set of Hornby HST trailers, but decided another Exec set would be useful and liked the fact that they come with flush glazing. The TGS interior has been resolved by fitting one from a spare Lima TGS I remembered I had and I also realised that I had a Jouef buffet. These used the tooling for the TSO/FO roofs which had Roe Vacs, so they were technically incorrect, but the kitchen roof vents were separate items. I'm going to rob these from my Jouef and fit them to the Hornby model. The remaining issue with the roof will be more difficult to solve: Due to it being a standard trailer roof, it has a plenum chamber (the sqaure box in place of the Roe Vacs on the Mark 3a roofs) at both ends, whereas it should be only at the saloon end. I'm still deciding what to do about that: ignore it, see if I can file it off and add the ribs, or try a cut and shut on the roof? Jouef top, Lima midddle and Hornby bottom. I have also noticed that the underframe side-skirt layout in incorrect on the latest Hornby buffet: there should be four sets of battery box access hatches and two battery charging sockets because the buffets had two sets of 110 volt batteries, unlike the other trailers which had one set. The old Lima models were also wrong in this respect, but bizarrely the earlier Hornby examples actually had this detail correct. Admittedly, the underframe is less obvious than the roof, but here again Hornby have regressed! There was earlier mention made of Jouef bogies looking finer. I agree, they do and they are also technically correct in that they are assymetric like on the real BT10: the lateral control rod brackets (vertical bracket outboard of the dampers) are only on one side of the bogie frame and Joef noticed this and modelled it correctly, whereas Lima and Hornby either missed that fact, or more likely chose to ignore it! Side with lateral control rod brackets Side without It would of course be possible to get round this on the Hornby / Lima bogies by simply cutting the brackets off one side of each bogie.

Since the last post on the subject of the General Manager's saloon, 45020, I have been somewhat distracted. I was asked at short notice to assist in creating a diorama to be presented to a colleague at his retirement after 44 years in the rail industry, working for BREL, various parts of British Rail, Intercity Cross-Country, Virgin CrossCountry and finally Bombardier. Two of us came up with the idea of the following: Diorama.pdf The 377 was cut and shut from a Class 170 and an Electrostar cab end from Wells Green TMD. Not my best job ever, but it was very well received. Just as well my colleague who was retiring isn't a modeller! Back to 45020: I showed a photo of what I thought was a reasonable job: Then I looked at a photo of the real thing and my illusions were shattered: http://flickrhivemin...020/Interesting I realised that I had too many doors and not enough windows! 45020 has two doors on each side, whereas the Comet kit and for that matter the forthcoming Bachmann model have three. Add to that the fact that the droplights are wrong too - the model has the original LMS wooden type - and it was clear that I had a serious problem and some decisions to take. Oh, and the centre windows at the ends of 45020 were fixed and not droplights, but yes, you've guessed it: on the Comet model (and Bachmann) they are also droplights. Damn! (or insert similar expletives as appropriate, like I did!) I did a bit of research and discovered that I could actually get an etched brass kit of 45020 by A1 Models, but this is as it was in later life, with the hopper windows, so I would have to buy two kits if I wanted the correct windows. Besides, I decided that I already had one kit and there must be something I could do with it. If it didn't work, I could cut my losses and go down the A1 route. Having never worked with brass before, I didn't really know many tricks or techniques, but I reckoned I could do something with my set of needle files and could use solder as a filler. The droplights in the doors were removed - de-soldered by re-melting the solder and removing it using a solder pump. Then the new outline of the windows to replace the doorways were scribed onto the brass: I filed out the droplights to form the new windows, using solder to fill any errors and then file out again: I couldn't just remove the end window droplights because this would have left too large an opening, so I filled the edges with solder and then filed and smoothed it until I finished up with the result I wanted. In the photo above, right you can just see the result. Eventually, this was the result, with the bodyshell primed, ready for the next stage: What I learned from this stage was that brass is actually a very forgiving material to work with - it's actually easier to work than plastic and if you get it wrong, there are ways to recover it by using solder as a filler, then filing again. The next stages were the roof and underframe. More of these anon.

Before continuing with the thread on the saloon, this is a brief note in memory of my former colleague and very good friend, from Haymarket Depot, who sadly died before his time last Thursday following a long illness. I first met him at Haymarket Depot in 1983 and finished up working alongside him as Senior Technical Officer (STO) from 1985 – 87, before I left there for Craigentinny. Most of what I learned about Classes 20, 26, 27 and 47, together with the old heritage DMUs, I can attribute to him. We made a good team and had an immense amount of fun along the way into the bargain. I still regard that particular job as being one of the most enjoyable of my career on the railway. I am not mentioning his name out of respect to his family, but my reasons for including this post are partly because some of you (Bob-65B for one) will remember him and will know who I’m writing about and partly because he provided me with an absolute goldmine of information which has been useful for our loco fleet here on Kirkhill. I still visit Haymarket Depot on a fairly regular basis in my current job. Whenever possible, we would meet up after work for a few pints and a chat about old times and progress with the layout. Unfortunately he never got to see Kirkhill for real, but was looking forward to seeing it at Model Rail Scotland in 2015. Haymarket will seem odd without him.

I had bought various melting point solders at the Stafford Show last year, together with some liquid flux and I also managed to get hold of a section of roof from a stand selling Comet kits. Early in December, I bought myself a temperature controlled soldering station, so I reckoned I had everything ready to make a start. I read up on some of the threads on RM Web on the subject of soldering brass kits, so I thought I knew what I needed to know. I had a go at soldering some scrap bit and pieces of brass together to get used to the soldering station and the types of solder. That seemed to go ok, so it was on with the kit. The kit consisted of 2 bodysides 2 ends 2 reinforcement pieces to enable the sides and ends to be joined together 2 headstocks 2 droplights for the ends 6 droplights for the doors There were also components to make up 2 sets of retractable steps, a table for the interior, a propane gas bottle storage box and a gas control box. To assemble the body, the first stage was to solder the droplights in place on the ends and the sides. I cleaned all the components and buffed the surfaces which would have the solder applied using the wire brush on my Dremel. All I had to do then was solder them together. Having painted the surfaces with flux, they were placed very carefully together so that the droplights were located exactly where they needed to be. Then the idea was to tack them in place with solder, before making the final joint. That was when the problems (or challenges) began! How do you stop two pieces moving relative to each other when they are too hot to hold? After several attempts, together with what seemed appropriate expletives I managed to locate one droplight, but I couldn't carry on like this. Then I hit on the idea of clamping them together, but the clamp wouldn't have to act as a heat-sink or the solder wouldn't run. I found some small plastic clamps which were perfect - they didn't melt because the heat wasn't applied for long enough and they didn't absorb much heat for the same reason, but they held the parts together so I could tack-solder them. The rest of the droplights followed in no time. Making the joints between the sides and ends went ok - more flux, plenty of heat and the solder ran into the joints perfectly. Soldering brass kits was a breeze, I thought. Here are a few photos: The underframe incidentally is from a Mainline LMS full brake, donated by Graham, which we thought would be an acceptable substitute for the Comet version. I sat back to admire my handiwork and compared it with the photos of the real thing. Here is another link to another picture of 45020 - this time later in its life: http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/dm45020/Interesting Now apart from the hopper windows that have replaced the LMS sliding vents (which on the model are still correct for 1988), can anyone spot what I did?

The week after Warley, I had a knee operation to reconstruct a ligament which broke during a ski holiday last March. Faced with the prospect of six weeks off work, on crutches and pretty much confined to the house for at least the first three weeks, I needed something that I could do sitting down. Daytime TV? Definitely not! The first week was spent renumbering and detailing a Class 37/4 which I got from the Bachmann returns stand at Warley, but after doing my Christmas shopping online and writing the Christmas cards, I needed something else to do. It seemed the perfect opportunity to do something about building the Comet Models kit of an inspection saloon that I acquired from Poor Old Bruce a few years ago. Now I know that Bachmann are bringing out a model of one of these shortly - in fact an example was on display on their stand at Warley, but I needed something to occupy myself and having never built anything from brass before, this seemed the ideal opportunity. After all, how hard could it possibly be? The subject I wanted to model was the ScotRail General Manager's saloon, no. DM45020, which I remember being based at Craigentinny when I worked there. It was one of two that we had and they were a source of frequent frustration and trouble: they were usually wanted a short notice (that's my story anyway) and the batteries were invariably flat and the gas bottles would be empty, but in spite of this, they were something of an oddity, even back then. 45020 was of interest because it was somewhat unique, being painted in ScotRail colours (well it was Chris Green's) and also mounted on B4 bogies - and Bachmann's saloons don't appear to include this variant, for now, at least. I didn't know it when I started, but 45020 was actually a little more different than I thought, but more of that anon. This will be part of a few posts, but for now, here's a link to a photo of the real thing at Inverness: http://www.departmentals.com/photo/45020a

Graham???? In truth, as reported earlier (much earlier) in this blog, they were a joint effort: Graham did the body-bashing a few years ago and they've been waiting ever since for me to get around to painting them. At Christmas, I decided I couldn't put it off any longer. As I remember at Craigentinny, the CBMs used to remove all the stickers before they mounted the glazing unit so then the poka-yoke was lost. I also remember the inward inspection snagging at Litchurch Lane on HST trailers (when they still had main works visits) identifying reversed bodylights and them having to be corrected as part of a C4 or C3 repair. No wonder coded repairs at works were expensive! There is another little anorak feature that you may like: having looked at photos to get the livery demarcation lines as accurate as possible, I also noticed that the Mark 2E onwards didn't have the bumpstops on the doors, so I removed those too. Unfortunately I only noticed that after I had finished applying the livery, but I think the touch-up job worked well enough. After I drew Graham's attention to this, he then checked and discovered that bumpstops were omitted part way through the Mark 2D build, but so far I've refused to take them off the ScotRail coaches I've already painted. As you say Bob, the Airfix/Mainline/Dapol Mark 2Ds are excellent models and they may be 30-odd years old (I think my first ones were bought in 1977), but sorting out the paint works wonders for them. I need to add white lining to the blue-grey FOs we use on the overnight rake at some point. It isn't particularly difficult to do, but it would improve them no end.

We've been promising to add some photos of the completed Mark 2E coaches, so here are the first few: TSO 5840: TSO 5869: We have a full Cross-Country half-set with RBR - TSO - TSO - BFK - TSO - TSO - BG, so these are just two of the TSOs of which 5869 is the only one in blue-grey. Another feature is a selection of non-matching bodylights (windows) which were common on Mark 2 d-e-f coaches and Mark 3s. These were the result of bodylight renewals at depots in which the double-glazed unit was fitted the wrong way round such that the outer pane which was tinted, faced inwards. Only one of the panes was tinted, but it was almost impossible to tell which was which, especially at night. Each coach has at least one (with the exception of our pristine, ex-works vehicle - photo to follow); on 5869 there is a reversed bodylight second in from the toilet window: The early Airfix Mark 2D coaches had more of a green tint to the glazing than the later ones, so I used some green ones randomly to represent the reversed glazing units. We used the completed rake for the first time at Biggleswade, but Ally Pally was the first time since they has been weathered. I just need to pick out the door handles and grab handles to finish them now.

I've begun an experiment to fit lighting to some of the stock on Kirkhill. First attempt is DBSO 9708 which is chipped for the head/tail lights and fitted with a strip of LEDs for interior lighting of the saloon. It still requires a fair bit of refinement - not least in tidying up the wiring so it can't be seen from outside the coach. I added pickups to each bogie by supergluing strips of veroboard under the bogie to which I soldered phosphor bronze wire to act on the backs of each wheel. Wires were then run to another piece of veroboard inside the guard's compartment to act as a junction box: The head and tail lights were a modified Express Models set of lights which I bought and never used for a Hornby Class 47 some years ago (before I switched allegences to Heljan!). These are fitted into the nose and the roof: Interior lighting is LED string which you can buy on Ebay (5 metres for under £10 which gives you 300 LEDs). They come in a continuous ribbon, but you can cut them into blocks/multiples of three, so I used two strips (6 LEDS): The LEDs are permanently fed from the track, although they could be controlled via the dcc decoder and switched on/off. The decoder I used is a very basic Gaugemaster which isn't too good for loco control, but makes an adequate function-only decoder for head/tail lights. It doesn't have the additional function outputs that I would need for the interior lights though, so these are fed by a recitfier which was unused from one of the electromagnetic Kadee uncoupler units. It's a bit chunky, but was quick and easy to use here: The finished result with headlights: ...and tail lights: As I said, the wiring needs tidying up but the main priority is improving the pick-ups so they make good contact but don't cause too much drag due to the friction on the wheel backs. I think this needs rather more research to get the optimum result because I can imagine a long rake fitted with pick-ups like these could become extremely stiff. Fewer contacts would help, but this could cause flickering of the lights. The Bachmann Metro-Cammell Pullmans and the DMUs use the bearings for current collection, so that could be an option worth trying. I do like the interior lighting effect - particularly for a layout such as Kirkhill, so I'm going to keep trying - especially as I still have well over 290 LEDs left!

I thought I might as well post a few photos of our new item of stock for Wigan: Surrogate DVT Power Car no. 43123: It wasn't the original intention to have this ready for Wigan, but then Graham realised that having motorised all of our HST power cars, bringing in the "failed" set with a Class 47 could prove difficult with powered vehicles with different performances either end of a long rake. Of course, the easy option would have been to take one of the newly motorised power cars and put it back on a dummy chassis, but when have I ever taken the easy option? I had wanted to make a surrogate DVT for some time because they are very different, I had last week off as holiday, so how hard could it possibly be? The fact that it's only been finished tonight probably answers that... It's a bit of a bodge in places, but essentially it is a carved Lima body, on a Hornby dummy power car chassis, both being appropriately modified for the buffers, drawgear, air hoses and electrical jumpers and sockets, followed by repainting where necessary, which is where the bodge factor comes in: ideally it should have had a full repaint, but there wasn't time for that - maybe later...

Another item which received attention during the last week has been the wheel lathe shed. I had a problem with the cladding which became terminal: when I built the shed, I bonded the Evergreen styrene sheet onto the plywood with Bostick - which seemed to work when Graham built the maintenance shed. With the wheel lathe though, after a short while, the styrene started to deform and de-bond, leaving it in a sorry state. I made various attempts at bonding new styrene sheet onto the frame but the same thing happened and the shed was really beginning to look a mess. So a week ago, I decided to do something about it: All the cladding was removed and as much of the old glue as possible. Then the shed was painted with undercoat - something I didn't do two years ago which might have been the significant difference between the lathe and the maintenance shed. It had to be painted prior to our first exhibition because it wasn't clad. This was the shed last week: This weekend I set about re-cladding it with more Evergreen sheet, but this time I also used solvent-free Bostick. This is how it looks now: Hopefully this time the combination of undercoat and the solvent-free Bostick will work, but time will tell. It needs painting and the signage and lighting replacing, but it should be ready in time for Wigan! The final two boards now have snow applied - I hadn't realised until tonight how appropriate that is for this exhibition - it just wouldn't have been the same without snow would it?

Another news topic is that Aberdeen Kirkhill is now on Facebook: http://facebook.com/aberdeen.kirkhill The page needs much more work - in particular I think it needs a better selection of photographs and links, but it's a start.