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Skinnylinny

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  1. Skinnylinny

    More rolling stock

    By Skinnylinny,

    As the Great Southern Railway is set in a real location (near Guildford in Surrey, the meeting point of the LBSCR, SECR and LSWR), I felt it would be necessary to have some representative rolling stock from various pre-grouping companies, especially the "local" ones.
     
    As the layout is to be set either pre- or post-war (c.1910 or c.1920), but pre-grouping, I appear to have placed myself in a position where the vast majority of RTR private owner wagons are unsuitable, being based on the RCH 1923 design. I've caved in a little to accept an Oxford Rail North British open wagon (as a nod to the layout's actual location in Edinburgh) and have found one or two of Hornby's 3- and 4-plank wagons which use an older-style underframe. The major visual difference I can see between 1907 and 1923 RCH chassis is that the earlier ones have brake levers attached to V hangers which are two straight lines, while on later wagons these V hangers bend to become vertical over the solebar, as shown here:
     

     
    There has also been some kit building, mainly plastic from Cambrian and a few Ratio wagons (mainly LNWR and GWR prototypes). A variety of Private Owner wagons is being built up, with owners' names being friends with appropriate industries. I'm also cheating a little by having differing names on each side of the wagons - as the layout is an end-to-end, only one side will ever be seen at once, so I can get away with this sort of trickery!
     


     
    I've been working hard and have built up a fair collection of rolling stock so far, with at least a dozen more wagon kits to complete, so I suspect that there will be more than enough goods stock to keep any operator occupied for quite a while! Here is a representative sample, though more wagons have been built since this photograph was taken, and there is plenty of lettering to be done.
     

     
    By joining a local Hacklab, I have gained access to a laser cutter, with which I have been experimenting with producing bodies for fictional wagons. So far I have produced a milk van and a sheep wagon for the North Western Railway, from illustrations in the Thomas the Tank Engine books! A rather finer project appeared in the form of a North British Railway 6-wheel 3rd coach body for use as a grounded coach on the club's layout, so my next blog post will show some of these.
     
    Finally, have a shot of a GSR passenger train running on the ELMRC's Newcastleton layout (in the Scottish borders - one can only presume there are three in the cab!)
     

  2. Skinnylinny
    A house move a few months ago has meant that a space has become available for a new layout along one wall of a bedroom - I have been gifted a 4m long wall (a shade over 13 feet) and so plans have begun for a branch line terminus run by the fictional Great Southern Railway. As yet, only a few details of this railway company have been discovered, though as your author is writing a history of the line, more information should be forthcoming - follow this blog for any new revelations!
     
    The track plan for the station has been drawn up, and signalling diagrams are in the works, but most of the work so far has been on rolling stock, of which a selection may be seen in photos below. Most of the stock has been kitbashed to greater or larger degrees from RTR stock with the odd kit, especially for rolling stock for adjoining lines (LB&SCR, SE&CR and possibly the LSWR, depending on where the final location of the layout is determined to be).
     
    The locomotive livery of the railway is a dark blue, with black panel edging and red lining. The coaching stock is painted blue with white panels above the waist, while most goods stock is painted a dark grey and lettered "G S" or "G S R" depending on the design of wagon.
     
    It all started off with an Electrotren 0-6-0 tank engine... which, after a few alterations to anglicise it (including removing the boiler-top sandbox, replacing the safety valve and whistle, and fitting new buffers to 4mm scale spacing), looked like this:

     
    It has since been joined by a somewhat bashed-about Great British Locomotives static Wainwright C class, on a shortened Hornby Jinty chassis, which actually runs surprisingly well after some fiddling with the pickups, though is still awaiting lining and finishing up:

     
    Coaching stock is made up of modified Triang/Hornby "short" clerestory coaches, with the original brake third and full first, two brake thirds spliced to provide a full third and a short bogie full brake, a corridor coach modified from a full first, and a couple more full thirds to be made up. A passenger train still on the painting bench can be seen below - I am cursing myself for choosing a panelled livery, but it *does* look rather smart...

     
    Branch stock is 6-wheelers from the Bachmann US Thomas range, painted in plain blue. I really must get around to properly converting a brake to go with these:

     
    Finally, goods stock is mostly modified Triang and Hornby wagons, mounted on slightly more up-to-date chassis. A Triang van (on a Hornby tank wagon chassis) and a Hornby Hull and Barnsley van with additional framing, mounted on a Dapol wooden-frame chassis are shown below:

     
    While another H&B van with cross-framing, a 3-plank open and the goods brake (a very sliced-up Mainline LNER 20T brake van) can be seen here:

     
    A few other wagons are in the pipeline, including a tanker from an Ertl Thomas tank wagon, a Mainline cattle wagon and a 5-plank drop-side wagon or two from the "Your Model Railway Village" partwork, which appears to have no real-life counterpart I can identify! More details on the modifications to these models will be written up at a later date, along with the construction of the layout as it progresses.
  3. Skinnylinny

    2. Opening the box...

    By Skinnylinny,

    So, having sat down and opened the box, I checked to make sure all the parts were there. Easy enough in the Peco kit - the exploded diagram and parts list corresponded to all those big grey lumps of metal. Having a basic knowledge of steam locos, I had no trouble here. The Branchlines chassis kit was rather more fun. The parts list in the instructions included such joys as "Etched nickel silver fret of most parts (1)". In fairness, everything else is listed fairly clearly and has been packed into small resealable bags in an organised way, such as wheels and axles and crankpins and associated nuts being in one bag. I should really have taken a picture of the various bits in the kit before I started, but having got up the courage to start, I dived in.
     
    Starting out, I managed to get the main frames off the etch, remove the etched representations of the springs (as mentioned in the instructions, if I wanted a full footplate on the body) and fold it into something vaguely box-shaped. Out came the soldering iron, away went the swear box, and construction commenced.
     
    So far, I have a basic brass box with some spacers. Not too shabby, thinks I. Best to check it's square, though, so I popped the included bearings into the etched holes in the chassis, reached for an axle and... oh. The axle doesn't fit through the bearing. Hum. Not that the chassis isn't square, it won't even go through the first one. I decided to try the axle through just the chassis, and no surprise, it's a fairly sloppy fit. Not even at the end of step 3 of 23 and I've hit my first hurdle.
     
    The axles are 1/8" steel, and the driving wheels are described as "specially commissioned, black plated, steel tyred, wheels of the correct pattern" which is all well and good, but doesn't tell me much about why the 1/8" axles won't fit through the 1/8" bearings. Incidentally, there are two types of bearings included (both for use with the 1/8" axles) - described as "long brass "top hat" bearings" and "short brass "straw-hat" bearings". The axles will happily pass through the long bearings, but not the short ones. Could anyone offer ideas or advice on why this might be, and how I could go about remedying this? Incidentally, while I'm asking, apparently the long bearings will need shortening at a later stage and I have no idea how to go about this - the instructions assume you'll know how! So it looks like I'm signing off for tonight. I'll post a picture showing where I've got to in the morning - the light here is no good for photography sadly.
  4. Skinnylinny

    A fresh start!

    By Skinnylinny,

    Right, well, those of you who were following my blog last year will be aware I was modelling in N scale. This year, a scaling up in the size of my student flat (plus new flatmates I actually intend to live with for more than a year) has allowed me a little more time and space, and as such the N scale has been packed into two shoeboxes, for playing with at a later date. However, I now have a 5'6" x 2' alcove in my new bedroom, and the blessing of the two flatmates to build a layout. Nothing fancy, but a little 00 gauge shunting plank.
     
    Before I started, I had a few requirements for this layout.
     
    To use Peco code 75 trackwork and electrofrog points (neither of which I had used before, only ever having built one permanent layout before)
    To use the Metcalfe range of buildings, and have at least some of the buildings built by friends and flatmates
    To find a decent, cheap, pulse-width modulation controller, or build my own
    To avoid as far as possible the appearance of the great hand from the sky (see point 1)
     
    With this in mind, I opened up AnyRail and Google SketchUp, and came up with the following basic design:
     

     
    where the right-hand side is still subject to change into possibly a cassette or traverser type fiddle yard. A little playing around in SketchUp (well, a lot, I love that program!) came up with this, to get an idea of the scale of the buildings and trains:
     

     
    The building layout is still very much subject to change. I would quite like to use the Metcalfe bus garage to have a shed with a siding disappearing into it for scenic interest, possibly with a lorry poking its head out too... Ideally, this layout needs to be finished (to some level) within a year or two, allowing me to move it if necessary due to a flat move (a frequent occurrence as a student!)
     
    So far, my ideas about the points and signal control are to use wire-in-tube, and possibly the old Playcraft signal kits, with GEM ground signals, also connected to the wire-in-tube. Now, all I have to do is get my hands on some of the GEM signals, which seem to be like hens' teeth!
  5. Skinnylinny

    Wonderful wagons?

    By Skinnylinny,

    Having posted a while back in Modelling Questions, Hints and Tips about Peco's Wonderful Wagon kits, I received a whole ream of replies saying that I would do better not to bother wasting my time with the kit. Were they right? Was I about to waste time and money (both scarce resources to a student!) on something that would vaguely resemble a wagon if viewed short-sightedly through frosted glass on a foggy morning? Would the sprung buffers work? Would I melt the axleboxes? Read on, if you dare...
     
    So, the first thing to arrive through the post was the Wonderful Wagon chassis kit and a set of Peco tension-lock couplings. The tension-locks are quite nice, actually, especially given their age, and when pulling, there is about 1-2mm of gap between the buffers of the wagons (using the WW chassis kit) which is impressive. The chassis kit was put to one side until the wagon bodyshell (a Dapol unpainted 4-plank open) arrived through the post, having been ordered at the same time as the chassis. The only thing I did note with the chassis kit was that no wheels were provided, nor bearings, the instructions recommending Peco's own wheels; I used Bachmann 8-spoke wheels, which would prove to be my downfall later on.
     
    About 3 weeks later, my wagon body arrived, (due to a misunderstanding about billing and delivery addresses) and a quick dry-run showed that with minimal filing off of locating pegs (the Peco and Dapol ones, needless to say, not matching at all), the chassis kit would fit almost perfectly under the body.
     
    I started by assembling the bufferbeams, with the very neat buffer springing mechanism, and attaching these to the end of the wagon. The couplings were attached (a nice, simple but secure snap-fit).
     
    Now came the fun - the axleboxes in the Peco kit are for use with brass bearings, so a pack of top-hat bearings was acquired, and fitted into the axleboxes. Then, slotting them into the w-irons and testing for smoothness of travel (the importance of this being laboured in my advice thread). Now, just to spring the w-irons apart slightly and insert the axles-Oh dear. The Bachmann axles are about 1mm too long to fit. So, out with the soldering iron and a bit of bodging to melt the bearings into the axleboxes - not for the faint-hearted! Eventually, various bits of persuasion with a scalpel, a soldering iron, various files and some model oil resulted in something that fitted and moved relatively smoothly. Rinse, lather, repeat on the other axle. Glue to base of wagon between solebars.
     
    After leaving to dry for a while, I discovered that the metal w-irons actually got in the way of the buffer springing mechanism, leaving the buffers rigid. *sigh* Dismantle, hack, file, melt, test fit, melt some more. At this point I was starting to question my sanity, but kept on going, being fairly close to the end. Eventually, I had a sprung, buffered chassis and body, needing only to fit the brake gear.
     
    *SURELY* nothing could go wrong with the brake gear? As supplied, the Peco chassis kit comes with two sets of solebars, for 9' and 10' wheelbase wagons. The brake gear has two sets of brake shoes moulded, one for each wheelbase. The instructions say to cut off the appropriate brake shoes for the wheelbase of chassis being constructed, so I did, only to find that the shoes overlapped my Bachmann wheels again, so I cut up the brake gear and re-assembled it so it would fit.
     
    You have now reached where I am currently. I *think* all I need to do now is paint it. Time will tell if the wagon will survive long enough to get painted before being smashed out of frustration. In fairness, despite the pain of actually assembling it, the chassis kit comes out quite nicely... At least in appearance. I still need to acquire some track and test-run it, but that's another story...
  6. Skinnylinny
    With the news that some of university exams at the end of the semester are being postponed (due to the 1 foot plus of snow we've had in Edinburgh preventing the delivery of exam scripts, chairs, tables and invigilators), it seemed like a perfect time to kick back with a bit of modelling. The purchase of four Peco 15-foot wheelbase chassis kits enabled me to make a start on the chassis of my hacked-about Tomix Clarabel. Some careful measuring and two cuts with a hacksaw later (the cut locations happened to line up perfectly with handy raised detail to keep the blade in the right place) and I was able to glue together a rudimentary chassis, which will hopefully have the cut marks (and the bit where the saw slipped!) hidden by footboards if I decide that they're too obvious and can't be hidden by filling... Anyway, some photos:
     

    Bottom of chassis
     

    Side view, showing saw gap
     

    Left-hand-side view of coach
     

    Right-hand-side view of coach, showing saw mark on solebar.
     
    Also this month, I picked up a curious van off a certain well-known auction site. The chassis markings claim to be a Farish product, but what does it represent? The top half being ventilated makes me think it ought to carry perishables, maybe fruit, milk or fish? I'd like to use it to portray a fruit wagon, but if that's not possible I'm sure with some plasticard it can be pressed into service as something else...
     

    What is it?
     
    Thanks for reading.
  7. Skinnylinny
    Listeners who are listening may have seen my cunning plan blog entry about hacking about a Tomix Annie and Clarabel into decent representations of typical UK four-wheeled coaches. I was hoping for a fairly simple job - cut/file off the noses and faces, repaint and plonk on the layout. When they arrived, they were too tall, too wide, and wouldn't negotiate my curves without falling over. I hemmed and hawed before deciding to carry out my first "proper" piece of model bodging. Cue buying a saw and filler from work, and after repainting a body shell crudely in maroon to see what it would look like (placed on a hacked-about Peco chassis) I discovered that height-wise, the bodyshell is not actually that bad. The Tomix chassis raises the body quite a bit above "correct" height. This is how it looked:
     

     
    Hmmm, not bad at all. Just need to worry about the width now. CAUTION: What follows is a very detailed blow-by-blow account of how I did this - it was my first attempt as a complete beginner. With my newly-bought saw, I cut a long slit down the middle of each end (very roughly - the saw blade was very flexible (note to self: buy a better saw)) then hacked my way down the middle of the floor. A bit of tidying up of this, then I trimmed back the ends until I reached the edges of the middle panel at one end, then removed the corresponding amount from the other end with a scalpel and filing.
     
    Once everything lined up nicely(-ish) I glued the two body halves together again with liquid poly, then carefully applied filler along the cracks. Being very careful with how it was applied, I managed to not destroy the beading detail on one end, although the other (smooth) end looked a little less neat - it was my first time dealing with filler!
     

     
    A little more filing and smoothing after the filler had set (in the bathroom, on the windowsill after complaints from my flatmates (that White Putty stuff has a fearsome smell and even worse warnings on the back of the tube!) led to this before-and-after shot with a somewhat worried-looking Annie seeing her eventual fate. (This is why I am apparently heartless! )
     

     
    A lick of paint (well, several light coats to cover the white-orange contrast of the filler) makes a huge difference, and I'll leave you with two views of the opposite ends of what used to be Clarabel:
     

     

  8. Skinnylinny
    Having a layout involving sharp curves (140mm radius), bogie coaching stock looks a bit silly (with three mark 1s covering approximately 180 degrees of curvature), so I have decided to go down the route of 4-wheel coaching stock. A quick look on eBay was horrifying and caused the student loan alarms to start wailing - they generally go for about £25-30 a pop! Then I remembered having seen the Tomix Thomas the Tank Engine range in N scale. Fantastic - one set of Annie and Clarabel available for £20 from the shop I'm buying my track from, so no increase in postage. Plus, being made by Tomix, they'd go around my ludicrously sharp Tomix curves, right?
     
    Well, the parcel arrived today. I say "arrived" - it got to the perfectly fine by the Japanese post office, at which point it was handed over to Parcel Farce. Long story short, they didn't even bother to put a "You were out" (I wasn't) card through my door, just threw it on the floor inside the main door for the building. One 'phone call to the nearest post office confirmed that the parcel was there, and so I went to collect it.
     
    The track was just as I expected, and the points are beautiful - very small, but you can still unclip a small piece of plastic underneath and slot in the standard Tomix point motor in about 15 seconds.
     

     
    Next out were the coaches. These actually look really nice, with a decent representation of the panelling on the coaches in the TV series. I don't know if there's any specific prototype these are meant to represent, but they make nice generic panelled stock:
     

     
    However, on playing with them on the track I had to hand, I came up against a problem; the coaches struggled with simple curves, tipping over when going from straight to curved track due to buffer lock. This photo (with the Rapidos removed) gives an idea of the angle the coaches are at to one another on curved track:
     

     
    Trying the on a reverse curve, however, pointed out a different problem with the long rigid chassis-mounted couplings; they wouldn't stand half a chance of staying coupled, even if the couplings could be extended to prevent buffer lock:
     

     
    Between the coaches, this could possibly be remedied by having a rigid bar coupling free to pivot at each end, but how to (removably) couple to a loco? I was thinking of fiddling around with bits of bent wire at this point, until I placed a Peco van on the track too. This led to another discovery:
     

     
    These coaches, despite being nominally 1:150, are somewhat larger than Peco rolling stock at nominal 1:148. So the question is posed: Do I cut my losses and sell them on whence they came on eBay, or do I persevere and attack them with a saw and file and try to make something presentable out of them? I'm loath to damage the finish on them, especially having paid just over £20. If all else fails, I may have to try to make something out of a Peco chassis and some plasticard, unless anyone else has any suggestions for how I can obtain four-wheeled coaching stock at a price suitable for a student budget? Also, does anyone fancy a Tomix Annie and Clarabel?
     
    Answers on a 4" by 6" piece of pulped dead plant or recycled electrons, please.
  9. Skinnylinny
    Having obtained my stupidly-tight curves for my N gauge shelf layout, I realised that my Farish 94xx (crudely repainted in maroon) wouldn't navigate them, with its too-long (!) fixed wheelbase. This is not going to be a layout where I can run 9Fs and Pacifics (although to see a Pacific navigate a 1-chain radius curve would be fun!). As such, I decided that I would attempt to modify my 94xx to allow it through the curves. How? Flangeless centre drivers, of course!
     
    Being a poor student, I don't have a mini-drill at present, so the flanges on the Farish drivers are currently being filed off by hand, using a needle file. One wheel is already done, and allows me to test the running qualities in one direction. More information tomorrow after test running has occurred, but some photos of the work so far:
     

     
    The bottom centre driver is the one that I have attacked.
     

     
    View along the chassis to allow you to compare the flanged and flangeless wheel profiles.
     

     
    Inside of curve, with flangeless wheel overhanging the inner rail.
     

     
    Outside of curve, with centre driver quite definitely moved sideways over the rail.
  10. Skinnylinny
    After a year in university halls, in which I dabbled a little in 009 and N scale (mostly building wagon kits and two Parkside 009 coaches), I moved into my flat for the next three or four years on Monday. Considering that I had the smallest room of any of the bedrooms in the flat, I didn't hold much hope of having any space for modelling. Cue two surprises when I arrived.
     
    The first surprise was a shelving unit with shelves 5'6" by 1'. Hmmm... enough space for a small N scale BLT?
     
    The second surprise was finding that Lone Star diecast track (in "000" scale) is actually a pretty decent representation of the geometry of Peco N setrack...
     

     
    So, as I had a box full of Lone Star track and some trains, I set out a fairly simple terminus with run-around and three sidings, and then a small fiddle yard at the other end. The result was this:
     

     
    My thinking is something along the lines of using the far supports to hold a scenic break (road overbridge or tunnel, anyone?) to disguise the fiddle yard, which will probably have the controller in the corner kept free by the curved storage roads. I've also started on my first ever N-scale building kit... I have to hand it to those who've been doing it for years; even though I'm young and still have (relatively) good eyesight, I found it a struggle to get all the parts lined up and in the correct place. Here's a photo of the Peco goods shed, prior to fitting gutters and downpipes and bargeboards:
     

     
    As this isn't my shelving unit (it came with the flat) I can't make any permanent alterations to it, so this means all points will be operated by the big hand in the sky, track may well be held down with blu-tac and scenery may well be grass-on-a-roll. It'll be very different from the big permanent 00 layout at home. I've got no idea how well this is going to turn out, but it'll be an interesting experience, both in a new scale and building a scenic (well, as much as possible) "temporary" layout. As it's planned to be a temporary layout, though, I have no intention of trying to get the tiniest details right and perfect, on the basis that things are liable to get damaged or lost quite easily. I'm happy creating a generic station, something that "looks right" and gives me somewhere to run/show off some of my rolling stock and dispel the "playing with a train-set" myth. What do people think?
  11. Skinnylinny
    OK, I'm not quite sure how these blogs work, or if I've got file uploading right... let's try it and see, shall we?
     
    Well, it's scary, but somehow I've got through the first year of university in Edinburgh, and returned to sunny Sussex just over a week ago. Having recovered from a nasty stomach bug (it actually was a dodgy curry, ironically enough) and been given a clean bill of health by the doc today, what better than to crouch over some noxious chemicals and sharp blades for a while? No, not the usual student pastimes I got a modelling project I'd been looking at for a while out. Just something gentle to ease me into a hobby that hasn't seen much happen since Easter, on account of exams.
     
    I'd been fortunate enough to pick up a couple of the old Hornby "shorty" clerestories in LNER teak (not exactly prototypical, but I like them, and they look good enough behind the Hornby bomb-proof LNER 0-6-0 that I use when younger visitors come around to play trains) and had been looking at them for a while trying to figure out what it was about them that bugged me.
     

     
    The coaches in question.
     
    Then suddenly, one of my flatmates hit the nail on the head when they spotted the coaches on my windowsill. "Where do the people sit?" So I sat down today armed with a pair of scissors, some thick, gloopy glue and the brilliant Bill Bedford coach interior kits that can be printed off his website for free (though, having had to trim the non-corridor ones quite substantially, I might try corridor seats in the next coach).
     
    The results (apologies for the shoddy handiwork, which is in no way representative of the kit!) ended up looking something like this:
     

     
    I wasn't aiming for a finescale appearance, just a means to stop light travelling diagonally through the windows. As I say, these coaches are mainly for younger visitors, and will have to withstand the occasional sticky fingers, so I'm not putting too much time into them. However, I think that this has made a huge difference to what is otherwise a very basic coach model. What do others think? Worth the time?
     

     

  12. Skinnylinny
    Having established a nice oval of track and got a train running by the slightly simplistic method of applying a 9V battery to the power cables, it was time to think about speed control. My nice Bachmann controller has apparently travelled to the dimension of lost socks during the move to the new flat, so I had two choices: Fork out for another one (not an attractive proposition for a poor student, especially as I wanted a PWM controller for low-speed running in N gauge) or put my studies for a degree in electronic engineering to use and try to build one. A quick look at the bank account told me that buying a decent-quality controller was out of the question, so it was off to Maplins... Surprisingly, the circuit I came up with was fairly simple, looking something (but not quite entirely - one component value has since changed from 100uF to 10nF) like this:
     

     
    On this diagram, the top potentiometer (variable resistor) is the speed control, by adjusting the length of the "high" pulses, while the bottom one allows the length of the "low" pulses to be varied to suit different locomotives. In the event, however, I used a single 20 kilohm variable resistor, with the middle connection of the variable resistor connected to the point between the two of them on the diagram (Maplins not having the ones I wanted, and a friend having a spare variable resistor lying around)
    After a trip to Maplin, the circuit was built on a scrap of veroboard, and the result was this:
     

     

     
    A quick attachment to some switches and a battery, and a loco was put on the track. After a few faltering starts, there was movement! A quick calculation showed that the Farish 04 shunter ran at a maximum scale speed of 26mph. Given that the maximum speed of the prototype is given as 25-27mph, I was fairly happy with the results of this little experiment. Low speed running is pretty good too, with the only objection to slow-speed running being the need to clean track and wheels on my test track... All in all, this controller, which was only meant to be an experiment to see if it could be done, may very well end up in use on my layout!
     
    (P.S. I should point out that this controller is only likely to work for N gauge and smaller, with adjustments to the supply voltage for T scale etc - the 555 chip I used can only supply about 200mA of current - plenty for an N gauge shunter, but possibly not for a 00 scale Pacific...)
  13. Skinnylinny

    New couplings!

    By Skinnylinny,

    Having built the Peco Wonderful Wagon chassis (and yes, I will be building one of the tank wagon kits on the same design of chassis!) I was left with a spare pair of Peco Anita couplings, as they come in packs of four and I'd only used two. I recently obtained a second-hand Mainline coke wagon, and noticed that the locating pegs for the Mainline and the Peco coupling were the same distance apart. Curious, I unscrewed the Mainline coupling and fitted the Peco one (using a spot of glue as there's no screw-hole in the Anita couplings. The result? Buffers (just) touching when the wagons are being propelled, and about 1.5mm apart when being pulled. When passing over Peco medium-radius points, the buffers on the inside of the curve touch (being pushed or pulled) but the coupling takes the brunt of the push. The width of the couplings means that coupling is very reliable, but they're short enough that they don't stick out like the huge tension-locks on Hornby's older models. However, the Peco ones are still compatible with standard tension-locks, so I think I have the best of both worlds: compatibility with (relative) discreetness.
     
    I now have this:

     
    As opposed to this:

     
    And end-on they don't look too bad either.

     
    Looks like I'll be firing off an order for a couple more packs of those then!-
  14. Skinnylinny

    Micro-tailchaser?

    By Skinnylinny,

    I received a parcel in the post from Japan, containing an oval of Tomix "Mini Fine Rail", and, following some experiments, have discovered that it *should* be possible to build a roundy-roundy-style layout in N scale within a 1-foot width board. Experiments with a Farish 04 shunter and some Peco SWB wagon kits show that they will run around the 140mm radius curves (admittedly with some grinding noises from the wheels of the 04), although the Rapido couplers will not work reliably on the curves. However, I have an idea for a modification which may work, but more of that later. The other issue with such sharp curves should be obvious to anyone who's ever built a setrack layout: the number of wagons required to take up a given arc on a curve. Obviously, on your "average" prototype curve, you would need a great many vehicles to take up a few degrees. On these curves (which scale up to about 1 chain radius - half the official minimum operational radius of the class 04!) five 10' wheelbase wagons appear to take up 90 degrees... This leads to some wonderful views from above, such as:
     

     

     
    This also leads to a slightly ridiculous appearance when running bogie coaches, as three mark ones take up an entire 180 degree curve by themselves. I think I might have to use four-wheelers.
     
    However, in terms of appearance, the track isn't that bad, being pre-ballasted, but with a lower ballast shoulder than Kato Unitrack. Sleepers appear to be slightly under scale length for UK track, but this may be to do with the overscale rail clips:
     

     
    There are two small gaps moulded into the ballast in each track section, for the neat power clip.
     

     
    Also, Tomix produce their smaller-radius curves (at least, I am not aware if they do this for larger-radius ones like this) with infill between the rails and outside them, because the smaller curves (known as "Mini Fine Rail") were originally designed for modelling tram lines. Therefore, they may be of use to modellers looking to reproduce dockyard track on their layouts. However, Tomix's products are not widely known of outside of Japan, and are almost impossible to obtain outside the country.
  15. Skinnylinny

    1. In the beginning...

    By Skinnylinny,

    Hi, all. After several years learning the basics (building plastic scenery kits, then moving on to plastic wagons etc...) I've decided I want to actually start on building a loco kit. I know that a lot of people would recommend going for a simple kit first, maybe a wagon or something static, but I reckon I've got the basics of soldering down, and after years of building Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol loco kits wanted to build something that might eventually move by itself.
     
    I came up with a couple of criteria for choosing the kit:
    MUST be a complete kit - I simply don't have the knowledge to be able to buy wheels, motor and gearbox seperately yet! I wouldn't know where to start looking for them.
    MUST be "simple" - no tender locos, 4 coupled wheels maximum, preferably no outside cylinders but definitely no Walschaerts valve gear!
    MUST run on 16.5mm gauge track - My plank layout has 00 and 009 track on it, but I have a Hornby rolling road, and ideally I don't want to be chasing a loco around a layout trying to see tight spots when it's moving.
    IDEALLY a whitemetal top half/body - My soldering's ok, but I'd like the added weight, and I'm more comfortable working with a solid material than a sheet, after years of just working with plastic.
    PREFERABLY steam outline, but early/industrial diesel might work.

    I had a look around, and considered a couple of kits.
    The first ones to catch my eye were the DJH starter kits - a rather cute Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 and a BR class 02 diesel. Very nice, I thought, especially when someone brought the steam loco, built up, to the club. But... and there had to be a but... the price was a bit of a stumbling block. Being used to RTR prices, I baulked somewhat at paying £125 for a diesel shunter or £135 for the Barclay, especially given that they still needed assembling! On a student budget, these are not items I can afford to make a mess of.
    Next, I saw the Branchlines chassis kits, designed to fit the Dapol bodies I know and love... At least I ought to be able to make a decent bash at the top half, even if the bottom never worked out... But lack of weight looked like it might be a problem.
    Finally, eBay threw me a curveball I wasn't expecting, and I somehow ended up the owner of a Peco Talyllyn body kit and the "complete" Branchlines chassis kit to go with it. At £90 it wasn't cheap, and it didn't exactly fit my layout plans but it claimed to have everything in it (except solder, glue, tools and paint) and I'd heard good things about Branchlines kits, ran on the right gauge track, has plenty of heft (there's a lot of whitemetal in that body kit!) and is 4-coupled and steam outline. Besides, at 7mm scale rather than 4mm, the parts ought to be bigger and less fiddly, right?
     
    The parcel arrived at my work, and my colleague was intrigued enough to ask to open it up and have a look. I'd just had my lunch break so couldn't really look myself, but told him to go ahead. A quick scan of the instructions, a look at the parts and he packed it all up carefully and walked away, muttering something about calling the nice men in the white coats for me. When I finally got a chance to look, I panicked and figured he might be right. The instructions are terrifying. A few days later, I bit the bullet, got out various tools and bits, and sat down at the table...
  16. Skinnylinny
    After some playing around with the shelf layout, the track plan has evolved somewhat, following the purchase of a Metcalfe brewery kit to add some operating interest. At present, the projected layout is looking somewhat like this:
     

     
    However, the Tomix Mini Fine Rail track system (primarily intended for trams) has come to my attention, and using it, it should be possible to fit an oval onto my 1-foot-wide shelf. I'm not sure quite how well it would work, but I have done some rudimentary experiments with some (protesting!) 009 flexitrack I had lying around, bending it to approximately 140mm radius (the second(!) smallest radius Tomix offer), and my Farish 04 shunter will just about grind through it with a short-wheelbase 4-wheeler. Bearing in mind that 009 flexitrack has a habit of kinking and therefore forming straight sections linked by tighter curves than the nominal radius, I bit the bullet and ordered enough Tomix track from a well-known auction site to try out an oval. If it works, the plan is to build a roundy-roundy slightly more train-set styled layout, while possibly retaining the BLT. However, I would be gaining a continuous run at the expense of severely limiting what stock I can run; while my 04 will negotiate 140mm radius (scaling up to 68 feet radius (1.03 chains!) or just under 21m) my steam-outline pannier will not. Any ideas of seriously-short-wheelbase locos would be gratefully received!
     
    If the 140mm radius experiment works out, the basic layout plan is something along these lines (all curves and points 140mm radius unless otherwise shown, and I am seriously rethinking that 103mm rad siding!:

     
    Any thoughts or comments?
  17. Skinnylinny
    And so begins another entry in the Peco/Branchlines Talyllyn saga.
     
    At the end of my last blog post I was struggling with the chassis. Having got the basic box and (finally!) got the axles to fit through the bearings, I put the kit aside as work and uni took over my life. A week off work sick, however, meant that I suddenly had rather more "free" time, so out came the kits and I thought I'd have another look. Right, so I've got the axles smoothly in one set of bearings, I think. Time to test that theory by fitting the wheels to that axle - Whoops!
     

     
    One of the crankpins snapped while attempting to fit the second wheel to the axle... And one of the *tiny* brass coupling rod bushes (I think that's the correct term?) got swallowed by the carpet monster. *sigh*
     
    At this point, rather than throw the whole thing out of the window, I decide to fire an email off to Branchlines to enquire about the availability of spare wheelsets and crankpin bushes. Seeing as I'm struggling with the chassis, it might be an idea to start on something a little simpler, right? Out comes the body kit...
     
    Apart from the slightly strange feeling of *everything* being overscale (I'm used to working in 009, rather than 0-16.5), the kit seems to go together relatively well. It's my first whitemetal kit, too, so I was expecting at least some flash and imperfect fits, but fortunately there were no K's style horrors here. Over the course of an evening, the main superstructure came together (regularly being checked against the chassis to ensure it would fit) and I've now reached a point where the kit is starting to look vaguely locomotive-shaped. At this point I'm still undecided on whether or not to actually build the cab. I know that on the prototype, my options are no cab and no trailing pony wheels (for two years of the loco's life) or cab and pony wheels, but it's my loco and I like the cabless look. I shall have to think about it. Meanwhile, here are some posed pictures (with the chassis parts balanced on coins, and a 009 loco to give an idea of scale).
     

     

     
    Oh, and no, that dome's not been fixed on yet...
  18. Skinnylinny
    Well, the time came for another trip to Harburn Hobbies (usual disclaimer applies - no connection other than satisfied customer, etc. etc.) and departing with a yellow bag that felt much lighter than when full of 00 stuff (although the wallet felt heavier, so that's probably not such a bad thing!). Some more track (almost enough to complete the station and scenic area), a Peco platform kit and one wagon (to test my tracklaying until the rolling stock I made last year turns up in the unpacking!), a roll of scenic mat and a pack of Metcalfe stone "railway cottages", of which more later.
     
    It has to be said, I was dreading buying a grass mat, with mental images of those huge mats sold by Hornby et al., with enough grass to cover 6 double-decker buses (or something...) but was delighted to find one nestled in a box at Harburn that was 48" by 12". Excellent, I'll have that! It fitted perfectly, and suddenly, my shelf looked a lot more green! It's amazing what a kick-start that provided to the modelling juices, too, seeing some progress so quickly. I set out the track I'd bought, and the goods shed, and started on a Metcalfe house... (Apologies for the dodgy focussing - a mobile 'phone camera is all I have access to at the moment until I can persuade one of my photographer friends to come around with some decent equipment)
     

     
    That evening, work started on the first of the Metcalfe houses (I have space for three of the four in the box - four sets of semi-detached houses for £6 seemed like a good deal), and then it really started to hit home how tiny N scale is...
     

     
    And, jumping ahead a little:
     

     
    However, the Metcalfe kits are very well designed, and were an absolute pleasure to build, and don't look bad when finished either! On the other hand, those chimney pots! The instructions implore you to try their method of rolling chimney pots from paper, and while they do look pretty good, they took the most time of anything in the entire kit! Still, as a first card kit I'm pretty happy with the way it's turned out. The sheds are quite nice, too. Pity I don't have enough space to fit them at the back of the houses where they belong. (Paper is there to mark the position of roads and buildings)
     

     
    On another note, the goods shed is now painted and finished, and (bar a few glue splodges) I'm quite pleased with it. Still not sure how prototypical it would be to have a goods shed so close to the platform (although I might add another siding), but "it's my train set!"
     

  19. Skinnylinny
    So, a fortuitous group of events occurred: I gained a new Hornby 700 class loco, I unearthed my old photographic base, which was in surprisingly good condition, alongside which I found some lumps of steam coal which had been donated by a friend with a steamroller. The result?
     

     
    Bill the fireman looked at the lump of coal again. " 'Ow the 'ell am I supposed to get that through the firebox door?!"
    "Never mind that, lad," said his driver, "Just get it on the tender and you can use the 'ammer on it!"
  20. Skinnylinny
    As shown before in my blog, I have been modifying various bits and pieces to try to create a plausible set of rolling stock for this Great Southern Railway, including a Wainwright C Class (from the Great British Locomotives magazine series of static 00 gauge models, mounted on a hacked-about Hornby Jinty chassis, and with clack valves and plumbing liberated from a LSWR 700 series by a club member who is turning one into a North British Railway engine!) and an Electrotren continental 0-6-0 (which has had its boilertop sandbox removed, its buffers re-spaced to match 00 scale stock, its safety valves and whistle replaced, and various other little anglicisations).
     
    A tidy through one of those various boxes of indeterminate boxes of bits that all modellers seem to acquire over time found me unearthing a pack of red lining transfers that had been used for lining out one side of the tank engine. This has led to me lining the other side of that model, along with the larger tender engine. As such, here are two locomotives of the Great Southern Railway in fully-lined blue livery. Unfortunately, I've never got the hang of neatly curving transfers, so any curves in the lining (splashers, and the curves on the cab) are painted by hand with a brush, the red being painted first over-width then carefully touching in the blue and black either side.
     

     

     
    And a closer view of one of the coaches in the panelled blue and white livery. These are mostly chopped-about Triang clerestories. So far there's a brake 3rd and a full 1st completed, and a full 3rd, a corridor 1st and a short full brake (undecided whether it will remain with very short bogies as it fitted just now, or whether it would better suit being a 4- or 6-wheel vehicle) in progress.
     

     
    Finally, as promised a few posts back, a more detailed view of my first laser-cutting project. Having joined the Edinburgh Hacklab, I've been learning how to use their laser cutter to produce card kits. I really like the mixture of the very traditional modelling material with the very modern method of cutting the parts. This milk van was based on an illustration in a Thomas the Tank Engine book (of all places!), stretched a little to fit a Dapol RTR wooden-framed chassis. Only later did I find out how closely it resembles a GWR milk van (specifically, about 2/3 of a Diagram 04 6-wheel milk van!). The model was cut from 1mm card, glued with PVA glue and painted with acrylics. A very simple kit to assemble, it took about 5 minutes to glue together!
     

     
    With GSR locos in red-lined blue, LB&SCR locos in either Improved Engine Green or Marsh Umber, LSWR locos in various shades of green and SE&CR locos in bright, lined green (yes, I have a Hornby H class on pre-order...) there will certainly be a lot more variety than endless locos in grubby black that would have made it down this branch line in BR days...
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