Portchullin Tatty

Definitely, You don't need to curse to open the latest box from Bachmann so it can only be "proper" if you have cut or singed your finger and exercised your command of anglo-saxon!! Keep up the cussing good work! Mark

Only just found this thread and I would just like to say how impressed I am with it. Great to see proper modelling!

Bravo! Mind you, with 9 HR brake vans built already, i hardly need another!!

The intention is to make them available to others; as an etch so you will need to source the castings chief of which would be the axlebox/springs which you can get as a separate item from Coopercraft or Branchlines. I'll post here further when they are ready and how to get them. I will take a look at the ducket; I think it may actually be too low rather than to fat but I have the Jenkinson book so will take a look at the reference you have pointed me towards. Here is a view of it now part painted clipping along quite nicely; albeit somewhat lost as the layout it is on is a model of Eridge in Kent!

Although not Highland vehicles, these full brakes have a strong association with the Highland's branchlines in the post grouping years. Once the LMS took over the Highland's system in 1923, they seemed to have been horrified by the state of the coaching stock that they inherited! Portions of the Highland's fleet were speedily retired and large numbers of foreign company's stock was drafted onto the system (especially the main line from Perth to Inverness, where the trains became fully corridor connected almost overnight). When it came to the branchlines, the upgrade came primarily by the cascading of the better Highland stock onto these lines but there were exceptions. Although the Highland had full brakes, it was a line that had a lot of parcels/packages traffic, so it seemed that they needed even more and a batch of these Midland six wheeled full brakes were drafted in. Many photographs of the Highland branchlines of the 1920s had one lurking in the background so I felt one should get to make appearances on Glenmutchkin. Simple, I thought, Slaters do a plastic kit for one and whilst it is no longer available, it is easy to pick up second hand and it should be a nice quick build. Unfortunately, I had not realised what a rubbish kit it was! It is too short and too narrow, most of the mastering is really crude and the panelling in particular would be a scale 6 inches deep. So the Slaters kit made it back on ebay only marginally quicker than it came off and I set about designing my own kit. It has taken a couple of iterations and about three years, but finally I have got to the stage where I am happy with it but you can form your own view! The first iteration used a cleminson chassis but in the light of the success I had with sliding axles on some of my other 6 wheeled stock, I redesigned it to include these and some sprung W-irons in the style of Bill Bedford's. Other than the use of these sliding axles, the main unusual feature of the model is the arrangement of securing the roof. I have found that it is essential to bolt these in place to prevent the roof becoming adrift at some point in the future (which has happened to half my stock over time). Therefore, I designed a set of legs that allow the roof to be bolted through the floor from below and in the process also securing the separate chassis tight too. Broken down, the components look like this and having them separated does make painting a lot easier. It is definitely the route I will take in the future. It is intended that this kit will be made available for sale as a 4mm/1ft model - albeit you will need to source the fittings/castings yourself. I have prepared some fairly extensive instructions and this includes the details of what is required and where to get it from. I am waiting for a quote from the etching company to be able to work out the sensible cost for these; so an update post will follow when I list it on the Miscellany Models site. In the meantime, here are a couple of additional views of the completed vehicle, awaiting its turn in the paintshop!

A couple of my modelling friends are in the process of putting together entries into a competition to build cameo layouts being orchestrated by the publishers Titfield Thunderbolt. To be fair to Oly, his entry is largely complete as long as he does not seek to tinker with it too much(!), the same could not be said for Chris’s entry – titled Bottom Works Siding – so he has some catching up to do! To assist Chris I offered to make his signals and after a few weeks of work we have reached the point where they are complete. Chris’ model is based on the GCR’s route over the pennines at its Yorkshire end. It will represent a set of transfer sidings from the Woodhead route electrification to a industrial line serving a coking plant – so I suspect we will get to see a fair amount of grot in the finished article! Its signals are LNER or BR(E) practise which is mildly different to what I have built before in some regards but not others as there was a lot of standardisation between the LMS and LNER (and BR more or less adopted LMS practise). So first up is an LNER standard wooden post with replacement BR miniature upper quadrant arms. The post is a piece of brass square section that I filed to a taper (hard work) with predominantly Masokit’s fittings (which I found to be notably better than MSE’s equivalent). This one is effectively a standard LMS/BR tubular post signal (apparently with brewer’s droop – sorry!) with a small bracket that has another miniature arm signal to it. This is assembled with a combination of tubes and angle section from Eileen’s Emporium, along with some more Masokit’s arms. And finally a miniature ground signal – which despite being startling small was not actually all that difficult to build – it being based on a excellent little etched kit from Palatine Models. As a result of a lost camera, there are not really any meaningful photographs of the signals being created but fear not, I still have a few to go for Glenmutchkin, so there will be some to come! In the meantime, and to prove that they really do go, here are some videos.

So, that is where all our taxes are going................. Crisis in healthcare, social care and the like and they go about producing transfers for the S&D!!!

I can assure that the jetty is still there........well it was on Sunday when I last looked across the firth at it! It is properly tumbledown now and is marked as being a dangerous structure (as is a similar one on the south side of the firth in Cromarty). Whilst it is a summer only ferry (so you'll have to wait until June for it to run again), the ferry still runs. It is a little landing craft that has room for two cars and you have to reverse off when you get to the far side - bet that hasn't changed since 1971 too!

I think that it is impossible to avoid the floppy sides on a single skin of etch; it is worsened by the braces that you have run across. Thus, I always use a piece of 1*1mm brass square section fro Eileens along he top and no more than one or two braces across the width of the coach. Look out for the roof section though, as it has a little lip to it and you will need to accommodate this so the bar needs to be down from the top by about 1mm. Mark

Hi Martin, I can only clear up the livery question, which you have largely answered yourself anyway!! The standard livery for the highlands good stock was a variant of red oxide, your description of a red brick is probably not too bad if you went for a relatively dark brick colour (and it varied anyway!). Ironwork was picked out in black. The model picture (which may be one of Pete Armstrong's?) has this right in my eyes. Non-passenger stock was painted in Highland green, but I don't see in any NPS in your photograph. What I can not tell you is what the Highland vehicle is; I am still working on this. It looks taller than the model picture you have but I will take a longer look at it this evening. With regard to the terrier, things can get a bit confusing. I am pretty certain that the admiralty acquired some second hand ones through the first war and this looks unlettered in one of your views, so I guess that this is one such. However, the Highland also had some on loan during the period due to the pressures of traffic that they were suffering in the war. They had these for some years and it is not known whether the Highland repainted them and if so, in what colour! They are fine photographs and all are new to me. Does you contact have any more that can be shared. I take it you/your contact knows that Invergordon was a large Royal Navy base during the war and also a big base (run by the Americans) for the laying of the north sea barrage of mines? If they do not already know of it, you will find some photographs of Invergordon Harbour in these places: http://www.theinvergordonarchive.org/search.asp?id=&page=11&start=1665&q=harbour https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwi/wwi-north-sea-mine-barrage/scotland/invergordon.html http://www.ambaile.org.uk/en/page/show_home_page.html Mark

Don’t worry – this is not announcement of being turned to the dark side of modelling “Green With Rivets” (aka the GWR)! Instead it is a reference to a week’s trip to the extreme west of Cornwall to support my wife who was appearing in a musical that was running for a week at the Minack Theatre – https://www.minack.com/ As I was expecting to have a degree of time hanging around whilst the Mrs was on stage, I took a little modelling with me – in this case, a Jones era double deck sheep van. As can be seen in this George Washington Wilson photograph of Kyle – sheep traffic was an important source of traffic to the Highland Railway – the majority of the train in the platform are sheep vans and there is also a row of them in the foreground. Ever with the eye to efficiency, the Highland developed a double deck van to double the number of sheep that could be transported in one vehicle. I believe that the Cambrian Railway and several railways in Ireland had similar vehicles, but otherwise these were characteristic of the Highland’s lines to the west coast and clearly I have to have a rake of them. Unfortunately, there is quite a lot of effort in each one………….for example each side below is made up of five layers of laminate (and they are delicate too)!! The highland had several versions of these vans, this time I chose the second era of van, which has a single door and diagonal bracing; I do have plans for some of the other diagrams so this is a topic we will revisit at some point! The starting point for this vehicle was an etched kit from the Lochgorm range (presently unavailable, but we are all hoping……) and as already hinted, it is not an easy one! This is mostly due to the delicacy of the parts and the multi-layering of the etches that take up a lot of care to line up with each other. It takes a fair few hours simply to get the sides made up and ready for assembly and then you still have the metal bracing to do! There were a number of elements to the kit that did not work for me. The various tabs you see in the above image are to help locate the various floors with each other but in practise they are not correctly located and just get in the way – so I whipped them off! I also ditched the compensated suspension and instead used spring suspension instead with some trusty Bill Bedford sprung units. However, I did not spot the biggest problem until it was too late. There is an error with the design of the kit ends where one of them is missing the top gap between slats. The correct end is as per the top picture and had I have spotted this prior to the assembly of the ends, I would have been able to insert the additional gap with a piercing saw. Having missed the problem until after I had built the van, I decided not to sweat the parts apart to cut in the slat. It only shows to those that know it is wrong; the problem is that I am one of them so it does niggle! Contrary to the instructions, I did not loose lay the floors in place and instead created a cage arrangement by hanging the floors from rods that were secured to the roof. As can be seen below, this enables the roof and the floors to be released from the interior of the van. This is necessary to both paint the vehicle but particularly populate it with the necessary sheep. You would be startled by how many sheep are required to fill one of these – around 50 and it costs a fair amount to populate each van. Thus, I have in mind casting some of my own in resin, although that is a story for another day. The problems with the kit did not finish with the problems noted to date. The iron strapping was not quite right, the springs for the axleboxes are too big and the brake lever/shoe seemed excessively skinny. Thus, these were all adjusted or replaced with alternatives. All this effort and problems to solve meant that the van took a great deal longer to finish than the week that I had available – so it has taken until now to photograph it. This is what it looks like and rather dainty and different I think it is too! And if anyone wants to see what the musical was like, here is a clip (with apologies for the rather shoddy photography which is me!)

If there weren't enough excuses to go to Scaleforum already, here is another........ I am pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of volume 3 of my father's series on railway cranes. Advanced copies of this have just arrived from the publishers and will be formally launched at Scaleforum with my father in attendance if you want to speak to him. This will be on the Crecy book stand along with a selection of their books (including volumes 1 & 2 if you haven't got these). For this volume we move away from breakdown cranes to permanent way cranes. This is a big topic and has even less standardisation than breakdown cranes (and there ain't much in that!). Thus the book is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all such cranes but rather more a review of the main types and development of them. The book covers from the relatively early days (given the scarcity of material on early cranes, this is a slightly relative concept) upto the contemporary Kirov cranes. If you can't make it to Scaleforum, then it can be ordered via your preferred bookseller or direct from Crecy http://www.crecy.co.uk/railway-cranes-3. The one book in the series that is still to be done is one of cranes mounted on engines. My father does not feel that he knows enough to write this one so if there are any that feel that they (or collectively) know sufficient, I know a publisher that would be interested.............. (PS this is not a mikey take, it would be great to finish the story!). Mark

Here are some pictures of some of the layouts that will be in attendance at Scaleforum: Brunswick Yard by Pete Degnan is a fictitious location somewhere in the Midlands around 2010 to the current day depicting a wagon repair depot a small maintenance depot. The layout at the moment is still a work in progress project and when fully built will have a 3ft fiddle yard on each end. The stock being assembled for the layout roster will consist mainly of DRS, GBRF and Network Rail examples. Kerrinhead by Gavin Clark. Fictitious ex Lancashire and Yorkshire branch line set in the mid 1920s and located in the hills between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Flintfield. The much admired GER branch line terminus built by Vincent de Bode returns to Scaleforum. Pre grouping Great eastern in all its glory

Although not strictly about breakdown cranes (because it deals with permanent way cranes), those with an interest in cranes will wish to know of the next of my father's books which will be launched at Scaleforum in September this year. Or it can be bought through the usual sellers and the publisher Crecy.

John, A few queries regarding some of the colours you have used. I have not come across the spectacle plates been painted the same colour as the arm before or the blinders being white? Whilst I have seen brackets and gantries in grey before, I had thought this was a fairly recent paint scheme? Can you enlighten me when these colours are appropiate? Mark

Very sorry I can't make it north to take a last look at Black Gill so give the layout (and your father) my regards...……… ......….and maybe persuade him not to stick to his guns for too long!! Mark

Yes, but I have not got to it yet! Actually, it is an imperative as the axlebox/springs that I have used are no longer available due to the demise of Andy Copp at Lochgorm. I need them for the fox bogies too - something also of relevance to NER/GNR modellers. Must kick my ar*e to get these done...................

Probably too late, but I have been working on the ECJS 12 wheel bogies, which were probably the same as yours. You can see them here https://highlandmiscellany.com/tag/ecjs/ At the moment I am waiting to do a second test build of these; my first attempt sits a tad high - most of which I think is in the underframe and the set up point of the spring bearings.

Pre-grouping modellers and historians with an interest in things north of the border owe a considerable debt to Sir Eric and his contemporary Henry Orbach. They photographed, measured and recorded a wide range of stock, buildings and miscellaneous railway features from the pre-grouping era. Our knowledge of these would be considerably weakened without their information as there was simply no effort to record things otherwise. The Railway Modeller ran articles every month or two, typically with two or three wagons in each article for many years. If you are of a pre-group bent, they are well worth finding. The link from Caley Jim is interesting, I am not sure this is widely known. Your model Ian is very fine indeed!

I have produced some etches for a number of options to go with the P7 hoppers. The links already provided in my earlier posting show these in use. These include foot steps, side brake levers, end brake levers, replacement brake shoes/stanchions, outer W irons and anti-friction wheels. A couple of the combinations that are possible can be seen in this picture. As of the moment I have sold out of these but if there is interest in them I can easily get some more etched.

Presently there are no ready to run options although with the various NER locos now proposed, who knows?. The P7s are available from Coopercraft (Slaters) although please read the plentiful cautions about the supplier here on RMweb (so keep your eyes on ebay). The P4 is available from David Geen. You can find some work I have done to the Slaters kits to backdate them here and here. I have not used sprung buffers. You need split spoke wagon wheels from Alan Gibson. Mark

Volu Hi John Volume 3 will be launch at Scaleforum on 22/23 September 2018. The author (my father) will be in attendance over the weekend. Mark

My father's book "The Dingwall and Skye Railway" contains drawings for the viaduct just outside of Achnasheen based on my measuring up. Many of the buildings were standardised down the line so the good shed and signal cabins were the same as those at Garve which are in the book. The latter will have gone by your time frame, but the goods shed lasted quite a long time. Also, find the film "The Line to Skye" which is often on YouTube - it is amazingly atmospheric. In case you don't know, the hotel was a fire that the insurers did not pay out on; if you know what I mean............!!!

A Highland Railway Clyde Bogie, in LMS Livery. Designed by David Jones and delivered from 1886; the last of these lasted until 1930 and as you can see picked up the full LMS livery (but lost its name, which had formerly been Durn but this was taken by another locomotive. They were once the premier locos of the line but by this time the last survivors saw out their last days on branch line duties, which is what this one will do. The model is built from a Lochgorm Models kit, to P4 standards by John James. And yes it was a pig getting it to work within the side frames! Apologies for the slightly droopy tender; a spacer piece of plasticard did not get put in when I reassembled it!! For other highland and similar things; take a look at my blog at www.highlandmiscellany.com..............