57xx

The Airfix/Hornby bogies are, I believe, Collett 9' pressed steel, not BR Mk1s.

Although not directly related to railway modelling in my instance, this may be relevant to anyone with a layout in a shed, or in fact, anyone with a shed! Yesterday I discovered that someone had tried to break into my workshop (a 12'x8' heavy duty framed affair). Not by breaking a window (they done that in the past and they are all boarded up from the inside now) and not through the door. I was round the back end of the workshop and notice that one of the roof fascias was hanging off. As I nailed it back on, I then noticed two nails sticking up out of the roofing felt... It was at this point I realised someone had tried to lift/push/prise the bl**dy roof off!! Luckily at certain points there are some hefty screws holding it together and they didn't get in, but there will be some reinforcing to the roof going on inside very very shortly! I'm still gobsmacked that someone tried to enter the workshop in that way. I have another shed for garden tools under construction and I won't be using any nails, it will all be screwed firmly together!

I stumbled across the same seller when looking for the Midland Railway Centre's "Raven Collieries" wagon. £15.99+£2.95 P&P from the Earl, or still available for ~£12.50 inc P&P from the MRC... He seems to have a mini-industry in buying up "rare" stock and selling at inflated prices. This one is so very rare, he had 6 available.

Do you know if there were any series on open wagons?

Thanks Adrian and Industrial for the info and reference material, most useful!

It's one of mine too. I never get bored of seeing updates and pics for Wencombe!

Rich, it is indeed Atkins et al, and is the "New Edition Combining Parts 1 and 2". My "combined" edition has the words "A history of GWR Wagons" and nothing else on page1, and doesn't run to 273 pages. V12 and V14 are not even mentioned in the index. Time to start another book hunt!

Have to agree there, they have lots of diagrams in 7mm that are not available anywhere in 4mm. I was trying to persuade them to scale down the N28 to 4mm when I was at Railex, but somehow don't think a lone voice was good enough.

The wagon "bible" does not have any pics or diagrams of the V12 or V14, only a pic of the V16 with central V. In the text for diagram of the V4 (without underframe details) it says V12 has "vacuum u/f as O15". Flicking back some pages to the Opens section and there is a diagram of the O15, with offset V hanger. It also says in the vans text "For V14, as V12 with GW s/c buffers and bonnet end vents", so maybe they both had offset hangers? It's interesting to note the O11/15 sketch on the Parkside website clearly shows the offset hanger, yet they managed to miss reproducing this in the kit. I have 2 built up O11's and another kit waiting to become an O15.

I knew I had another question... where did you get the tank vents from, Nick? Ric

Hi, yes I meant as Nick has said, I'm talking about the crossshaft for the handle, (apologies if that's no the correct term for it), not the central V hanger. Here's the underframe of my unfitted O11 kit: It's the short shaft at the left. If this was a fitted underframe, the vac cylinder would be at the far side of this pic (e.g. effectively the same view as your pic). As I'm sticking with tension locks for now, I can't fit the longer shaft on the right side. I found a pic of my V12 and I took the same route as you for the handle, exactly the same position! I do have some Bill Bedford DCIII gear in brass that I've been using to update some old kits (Ian Kirk Mink C, Ratio Mink amongst others) that were very light in the underframe area. An etch of just the handles would be perfect to update my Parkside and Coopercraft kits. Maybe I need to ask the question to someone... I wasn't aware that the V12's had an offset central V hanger though, so this means kit and my build of it is incorrect in this respect. cheers Ric

I bought one of the Parkside Mink kits at Railex on they day of their release, it's a great kit. I built mine up as a V12 with the louvred vents. Regarding your comment about the brake lever, when you say it was in the wrong position, do you mean because you mean to have it modelled with the brakes on or the fact that the handle was sat behind the headstock? The one downside to these kits (and the Opens the chassis is derived from) is the brake lever is the wrong shape with no swan neck and a pig to fit in the "off" position. So nothing to do with the builder being an idiot I spotted a mistake on the underframe with your DCIII gear. The cross shaft at the left side of your pic (vac cylinder end) should be shorter and not cross the centreline of the wagon. There's lots of pics and info in this thread.

I remember you'd posted how you made them on the old site, but as the info got lost I ended up buying mine from Eileen's Emporium. They'll do the trick for me, but your's really do look much better.

Yes, the bearings will drop straight in the holes on the back of the axle box. You might need to check the length of the Hornby axles to make sure they'll be ok to run, otherwise Parkside do suitable wheels complete with bearings on this page. You need part number PA34 from this page. I'm just putting together a 9ft wheelbase LMS 5 plank open and found the solebars are actually too short (yes, I did use the longer of the two sets of solebars supplied in the kit). Nothing a bit of plasticard packing won't solve, but still a pain if I hadn't spotted it doing a dry run!

Just catching up on some threads, can't believe I've missed so many updates on here! I like what you done with the back corner, it looks a lot better and part of the layout now. I'm doing the same thing with wagons as you, I have a loads of kits needing to be built up; 2 Parkside LNER vans, a Parkside LNER 5 plank open, a Cambrian LNER 6 plank open, 2 Cambrian LMS 5 plank Opens, a Cambrian SR 8 plank Open, a Slaters MR 3 plank open and a Slater MR cattle van. I also have a couple or rtr vans, Bachmann LMS and SR. Quite a bit to be getting on with!

A mate of mine has one for cleaning bike parts, he put a set of my carbs in and they came out like new. He just uses dishwasher detergent as the cleaning agent.

Wow! Do you want to do my new van when I get it? lol What did you use for the lining? The railmotor looks fantastic, I'll have to drag myself down to Didcot sometime.

I'll second the recommendation for the SBMCC. I was a member for a while when I fitted out my van for racing and will definitely rejoin when I have to get a new van (bloody LEZ :angry:) so I can take things a step further and do the mods I chickened out on before (like a skylight). Don't forget a big stereo too, vans are awesome for that!

Who says you need a backscene? When I started modelling as a lad, it was with Airfix and Tamiya planes and tanks, long before I got an interest in modelling railways (I left that to my dad to make our layout ). I often made dioramas for my tanks and in typical military modelling style, none had backscenes. Don't get trapped in the layout building mindset for this challenge (e.g. it has to operate, it has to have a backscene etc), it'll give you more scope to play with. You may come up with a good solution for a backscene in which case all well and good, but don't feel you have to have one. Case in point, and in keeping with the challenge theme.

I might give this a go, what the heck. The challenge here for me is not to produce something original, but to actually create something!

A *slight* narrow gauge look? I had to get a ruler on the screen to be sure it wasn't! As you say though, not C&L's fault when the sleeper units aren't really meant for OO and it does look a lot better at normal viewing angles.

I've made form tools from bits of tool steel before just using a bench grinder. It wasn't too hard but then they weren't for fine shapes such as wheel profiles (they were actually for making specialised combustion chamber inserts).

Blimey, the practice has certainly paid off! Looking really good there, the opens are great. Well it's all great actually, good job!

You think correctly. Volute springs were also used on some of the GWR's bogies.

Mark turned my order round the day he got it, so I got my bits on the doorstep within a week of me sending it. This was about a month ago.