Portchullin Tatty

This is my understanding too; particularly the economics of buying coal when it was cheap. Coal was a very significant cost of running the railway when the labour cost was cheap prior to labour inflation (which is really a post WWII thing, albeit I know that this comment is relative to the starting point). There was an article in the Highland Railway Society Journal that concluded that purchasing efforts of a single director who had good connections with the coal industry added 1% to the dividends of the entire railway company for the years that he had a seat on the board. At the time, dividends on the HR were 5-6%; so 1% of this was in effect adding 20% to the profitability of the company - that is a pretty significant sum to the shareholders. The Highland were extensive users of the coal stack which may well be associated with this policy although it may also have had a lot to do with security of supply given that the lines were at the extremity of the country. Basically, just what we do with natural gas today. Oh hang on, correction - the exact opposite of what we do with natural gas!!

As small point, an possibly less of an issue in 7mm in comparison to 4mm. I find that nuts sometimes break loose because the surface area soldered is not that large. If the nut is hidden away (as per the nut in the bunker in the last view), it becomes impossible to do anything about it. I thus wrap a little bit of wire around the nut and then solder this in place too.

Hi Frank Yes it is a 360 loop. It is possible to hide the wire behind the spokes. the slack is taken up behind the boss as you only need one decent piece of contact with the axle and in practise it is difficult to prevent it. I am sorry I don't have any pictures at present, but the next time I do one I will take care to do so. Mark

Hi Frank I have two variants/observations on your approach. Firstly, when soldering the wire to a steel rim, you do have to use a strong flux. Carr's brown label - nothing else seems to keep the steel clean enough to allow the bond of solder. Secondly, I have never got on with inserting the wire in the axle hole, I find that it makes the axle be a bit scew, either off centre or even less inclined to be perpendicular to the wheel. Instead I adopt a trick taught to me by Bill Bedford. Instead of two pieces use a single piece of fine wire and make a loop a little to big for the axle. Solder each end as you do and leave the loop in the centre. Once the axle has been inserted the loop can be tightened such that it touches the axle by simply pulling one of the ends and holding it with a bit of superglue. In practise the wire is difficult to stop from touching the axle even if it is a bit bigger than I have described. I do like your locos by the way! Mark

Hi Josh At over 10 years ago, the memory is fading a bit it was painted with acrylics blended to get to a colour that I thought worked. If I recall correctly, the core of this was burnt umber but there was then a bit of grey in there as the base colour. Whilst it was wet, I did blend a little burnt sienna and/or black in local areas where it was less likely to have traffic (as the granite shingle that this is supposed to represent is darker in such locations). Then when it was dry I did dry brush to a very moderate degree and then also a bit of weathering powders; notably dirty soot and concrete dust. I do know I had a couple of cracks at this so I can only recommend playing on a scrap piece and be prepared to go back over it. Good luck! Mark

Thanks Ian. I did some digging myself and found these two entries on the Loch Eil - http://www.cs.rhrp.org.uk/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=1052 Lochaber - http://www.cs.rhrp.org.uk/se/CarriageInfo.asp?Ref=945 The former obviously in tourist stock green (in its reincarnate form for the WH services). I will have travelled the line about then, strange I don't recall them. I can only presume that it was when they were in blue & grey and as I was much more interested in loading my bike on and sticking my head out to admire the view, I missed them!

Thanks for the link Ian, that indeed is a good half an hour's watch! Even a good chunk of Aaron Copeland to help the story along the way! For those who might want to acquire the DVDs, they are on ebay at rather less than Ian paid (sorry Ian!). The maroon observation cars were something I had not known much about. I am familiar with the old beavertails and the converted DMU end cars, but what are these. I am only looking at them on a small screen but are they (or at least one of them) a converted Thompson?

You need to get the dirt out Robin; there are a lot of clean locos in the stud now!! The last Dave Franks chassis I completed was constructed as a split chassis with cast brass AG wheels. It was pretty simple to do but does lead to a little loss of the brake operating gear but this is invisible under the front footsteps.

I have developed the habit of carefully (aka very carefully) measuring the centre to centre of both the coupling rods and the chassis wheelbase. I do this with some vernier callipers. If you insert the prongs of these into the coupling rods to measure the minimum distance across the holes and then repeat for the maximum distance. If you sum these and divide by 2, you have the centre to centre distance. Repeat this for other coupling rod and the wheelbase. Be very structured about it, do the rear first and get this right, then repeat for the front. It takes a bit of getting used to, the main things being that you can apply more or less pressure to the callipers such that you get different dimensions. However, I reckon I can measure down to circa 0.02mm. Even if I can't, I can mismeasure consistently and it does not really matter if I measure the right distance, only that it is consistent. With regard to quartering, I sight through the spokes. Make sure that you are looking square onto the axle and then see if the one behind lines up. Again, whether it does or not is irrelevant, what you need is consistency. And one final suggestion.........sign yourself up for the forthcoming Missenden Autumn Weekend (booking for which will open soon I hear) https://www.missendenrailwaymodellers.org.uk/index.php/autumn-weekend/

Jonathan As others have said, the design is like the Scalefour Society's compensation units at the time. Unfortunately, they did introduce a load of drag which was fine for a coach or two, but for a whole train, it just didn't work. It is in part why I developed some sprung Fox bogies https://miscellanymodels.com/future-plans-and-dreams/fully-sprung-fox-bogies/. These are a lot more effort than those you have, but they do glide when in use so they make the coach look realistically heavy. This shows it under construction https://highlandmiscellany.com/2018/04/01/dia-51-test-build-fox-heavyweight-bogies/ The D&S kits normally come with a fixed bogie. I now routinely throw this away to fit my own design. If you can wait a week or so (I am on hols at the moment) I can easily post a set to you as I do have a NER coach to do soon. PM me if this is of interest. Alternatively, you will need to acquire either the Bill Bedford sprung bogies or those produced by Brassmasters. They are only the functional innards of the bogie, so you will have to sweat the D&S frames on to get a sensible Fox Bogie.

Very fine

And a very helpful forum if you have not already found it..................

Looks good. Apologies if the answer is in the thread, but where did you source the pictures for the backscene/get it created? Fairly obviously the north of Scotland!

But the question would be whether the landing after a fall of 100+ feet will kill them before they bleed to death from the cuts the plate glass causes when they break it to start their fall.......

Hi Dave I will be embarking on one of these before too long too. However, I decided to decline the use of the compensated bogies provided in the kit. I have never been a fan of the split bogies that Alistair Wright designed. Instead I have designed a sprung bogie based on my standard Fox bogie. You can see some pictures of the artwork in my 8 June post on the Scalefour Society forum https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=91&t=1345&start=275#p76129 It will be interesting to see how the two solutions compare! Mark

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that they will have used 3/16ths inch thick steel sheet, possibly 1/4th. That scales down to 0.1mm. Obviously a compromise will be required and the comments about the Parkside minerals are all agreed, but etching is the place to start. Geriant, if I unearth anything I will let you know offline. Mark

The diagram is repeated in the LMS Society's publicly available list of drawings See page 77 of this I will make an enquiry as to whether there is anything further they hold; there is a fair chance they do. Do any still exist? I would say it would be a challenge to do this as a 3D print, getting the thinness of the sides to be convincing and then the underframe will be pretty open too so again would need delicacy. It would be a pretty significant task even as an etch...........choose something easier Geriant?

These croft cottages are normally known as "but n bens" See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_and_ben It probably had a division wall between the two rooms and definitely would have chimney breasts. Looks good though!

I wonder what 'too many railway books' looks like. Simple - no such thing!

Jon, can I make a suggestion. On your signal ladders, run a piece of 0.3/0.4mm rod front and back of each of the two side rails and then file the outside face flat so that the two piece of rod and the etch sandwiched between appear as one piece. In addition to looking a lot more prototypical, it stops the tendency for a flat etch to pick up waves and curves that look terrible! It doesn't take long.

This is an intriguing trackplan for which I am trying to work out why it existed. Do I assume that there was a significant gradient in the down direction from Bagthorpe and Zeen Valley? This is the main justification I can see for having a pair of down lines but only a single up to effectively allow two trains to occupy the block (parallel blocks, I appreciate)? And there is either no passenger service on the Zeen Valley line or it always ran through to a destination in the Babbington Jct direction as only trains from Bagthorpe can come into the bay? And why have crossover 46 when it was effectively repeated by that at 88 for no apparent advantage except possibly leaving the yard without blocking back on the Bagthorpe down line? And what is signal 68 for unless the junction for the Bagthorpe and Zeen Valley lines is close (in which case why bother with the third line). And why five shunt signals 22-25 & 33? I suspect you know some of the answers; can you share as it is doing my head in!

Another option you might want to use is to have a set of Markit/Romford wheels for use in setting up chassis. They do manufacture P4 length axles and of course these wheels to go on and come back off many times for multiple locomotives without any real bother (and you have the advantage that you can test the chassis comfortable that quartering is not a problem). Obviously it also allows them to be removed for painting. Then, as Mike says, only put Gibson wheels on once. And if you use Gibson wheels I would say it is important to gently chamfer the last 1/2mm of the axle before mounting them - the steel axle can have a very sharp edge and damages the wheel boss irreparably. Mark

Hi Iain, That does look really good; a significant part of which is the gentle flow of the curve. It will be really important to keep this consistent; it is very difficult to do this with a shallow curve. I would suggest you make a template. Maybe get Tim Horn to laser up a template (as long as possible) or glue a templot print out to a sheet of plasticard and then cut to one of the railheads. You only need to do one line like this, the others can be set out from the first one (again with a jig or template of some description). Keep up the good work and the defence against all the east coast layouts that seem to be on this forum!! Mark

I have struggled with primers for a while so i asked my local car body shop; this is what they recommended and I have to say it is the best i have encountered but it does need a couple of days to fully harden.

Woodbine I use servos and I have come up with a little solution such that the servo is fitted to the signal base but the whole signal can be taken out for building or maintenance. I came up with a number of tips associated with building and operating signals which you can find here Or more generally on my signals as a whole see here I prefer the MERG servo controllers but some of this is because I am used to them rather than they are necessarily better.