Jump to content
 

Ravenser

Moderated Status
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3,558

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Ravenser

  1. Ravenser

    Bits and Scraps

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    This should have been a posting about ballasting, that being the next logical step with Mercia Wagon Repair.
    Ballasting began last autumn and quite a bit of work was done, even though it has proved a slow and painful process. There was also the little matter of swapping out four solenoid point motors and replacing them with MTB motor drives after I was warned that continued use of solenoids would ultimately lead to the breakup of the Peco switch blades. Given all the trouble caused by having to dig out one failed point from within the formation even at the unballasted stage, further failures would probably have doomed the layout, so the solenoids had to come out .
     
    Unfortunately life and other things then got in the way. I had an operation on my right eye just before Christmas, they put an air bubble in the eye, and dire warnings were given about the implications of getting dust in the eye during recovery. Did that include plastic dust from model making, I asked? They thought it probably did, so anything involving shaping plastic was out.
     
    (The operation was pretty successful – the sight in that eye has got rather better, not worse. It was this eye condition that panicked me into starting Mercia Wagon Repair since the initial mis-diagnosis by Vision Express was pretty bleak and not properly handled; I thought I'd better do something with the N gauge bits while I still could  since the eye might be gone in 5 years. Happily that is absolutely not a possible scenario.... I just need my new spectacles to arrive now)      
     
    The result was that the only modelling done during a little over two weeks off work was this:
     

     
    Two huts and a weighbridge hut built from freebee card kits given away with magazines over the years. Two of them are courtesy of BRM some years ago and one came with RM a couple of months before Christmas. I’ve accumulated a good few kits from magazine giveaways over the years but nearly all of them are 4mm scale. These three huts represent everything I could find in N from my stash that was usable. And you could fit the lot on the palm of my hand. It feels like quite a lot of effort for a very small reward.
     
    The BRM models were printed on glossy card and the sheen was unacceptable. I have a big bottle of Winsor & Newton artists matt medium bought years ago because someone claimed that it could be used for ballasting in place of dilute pva and the ballast wouldn’t turn purple. It proved unsuitable for ballasting as the stuff is too viscous, but it’s useful for killing the sheen on art paper and card. The printed card roofs on the BRM kits were way too light to be acceptable as slate and since I’m new to N I’ve got virtually no brickpapers in stock. What I did have was a small pile of Model Rail giveaway booklets from about twenty years ago containing various brickpapers. These included a set of printed slate strips in a decent dark grey.
     
    Now I’m pretty sceptical about relief on slate roofs even in 4mm and building up a slate roof strip by strip is pretty laborious, but needs must. I’m sure the rows should have been a little more even, but critically the colour is good. The printed sheet was brushed over with matt medium to kill the  glossy paper sheen : it swells a little but relaxes back into shape as it dries. The white edges were dealt using a green charcoal pastel pencil, with another coat of matt medium to seal it and stop it rubbing off. Similarly cut edges of the card elsewhere were treated with red/brown pastel pencils to remove any white line. Chimney pots were improvised from bits of kit sprue painted, then I remembered I have some whitemetal castings in stock…
     
    It’s been some years since I’ve had the opportunity to do this kind of modelling, so it was a matter of easing myself back in and I’m reasonably pleased with the results. It’s just that a week’s worth of work sits in the palm of my hand. I feel like I‘ve achieved almost nothing.
    It’s been way too long since I did any 4mm modelling in a scale I’m comfortable with and know what I’m doing.
     

    This is the bits of an NNK courier van conversion from a Triang Mk1 BSK. The bits had been sitting on the bookshelf almost finished for nearly a year. This one needs its own workbench post, but I finally fitted the vertical door handrails and blackened them, rubbed down and repainted the ends through several coats of black to erase the vestiges of removed detail and assembled the bits. I’ve even started adding the cantrail lining from Fox transfers.
     
    I’ve also been trying to finish off a clutch of N gauge wagon kits which have also been sitting on the bookshelf gathering dust. These too deserve a post of their own in ORBC, but there’s a Chivers SSA, painted with transfers applied, an NGS chemical tanker ex caustic soda in china clay traffic, and a BH Enterprises resin PNA body.

     
    These now at least now are painted, have transfers and are weathered to my reasonable satisfaction. They just need couplings to go into traffic. But applying 11 tiny scraps of transfer to each side of a chemical tanker was a painful reminder of why N gauge and I don’t necessarily see eyer to eye (I left off a couple of the solebar markings, too).
    While I was at it, I had a go at weathering a few of the RTR bogie wagons, since with N gauge you are always going to mix up way too much of a weathering mix for the job in hand. A useful technique has proved to be a tinted varnish – in other words the weathering wash mixed about 50:50 with matt varnish. This allows a much thinner weathering coat to be applied evenly to the model, since the varnish acts as a filler meaning you are applying rather more volume in a more viscous form. A china clay hopper, a Cargowaggon van, and a Tiphook hood acquired at Warley have all been treated and now look reasonable.
     
    And at Ally Pally I finally succumbed to the Model Rail/Rapido J70 I’ve been resisting for some years. The unskirted versions with waggly bits were marked down to £99.99 on the Kernow and as this was the version that tempted me, I bit – having first put the model up against a SR diesel shunter on the stand to check it was a lot smaller. (I know an 08 is too big to look right on the Boxfile, and I wasn’t spending a tidy sum on a loco only to find it wasn’t suitable). The skirted BR versions have sold out – soon after release I think -  but all the unskirted versions were still available and discounted . Given that 500 each of 10 versions were originally ordered, it’s fairly clear that people want Toby in his classic skirted form and pre-nationalisation liveries are something of a drug in the market. It’s now nearing 4 years since this model was released - how long it will take finally to shift the LNER unskirted models is an interesting question. Rapido
    I’m well aware of the reasons why the cost of new RTR has increased well above the rate of inflation and real wages in the last decade – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It costs what it costs, there is not much to be done about it and nobody is making a packet in RTR. At the same time I notice that at a personal level I will buy a loco I don’t strictly need but like when it‘s priced in double figures. Once it’s into 3 figures I won’t. I have a Hornby Peckett and DS48 for the Boxfile – both were bought at shows for about £75 a time after I’d been resisting a while because I didn’t strictly need them – they run beautifully and are now front-line motive power. My last few loco purchases have been an N gauge Class 33 for £80 off the Dapol stand (I needed something earlier than a 66, shorter, and I wasn’t up for splashing the cash), an NGS Hunslet shunter (£81)  a Hattons Barclay (I finally succumbed when the 14” version was discounted to £84 in a decent livery) and Hardwicke (she’s do on railtour duty with 2 x blue/grey Mk1s). There’s a pattern here. I most emphatically do not expect manufacturers to aim at this price point, but I have more stuff than I actually need and at some point I’ll be out of the game – though hardly out of the hobby – at least as far as unnecessary impulse purchases are concerned. Someone’s 31 at 170 quid – er, maybe not. I’ve already got two 31s , and a pile of bodies, and a 37 as backup that sees little service, and a Rat project to do…      
     
    I had the J70 up on the rolling road for almost an hour each way to run her in the following weekend, and here she is.
     

     
    I‘m delighted to report it’s a diminutive loco, pukka Great Eastern, and runs beautifully. Ideal for the Boxfile . I also took the chance to commission the Barclay – that this has been sat in its box unused for 18 months was another reason to hold back on the J70. It now has buffer wires glued in place to take Sprat & Winkle couplings and I had an operating session for the first time in months to give it a run. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem quite as smooth or sweet as the two Hornby locos or indeed the new J70. Good but needs a prod too often. And then a feed wire to one of the points broke, and the session was truncated. (The wire has been soldered back: all’s well again)
    How many locos does a boxfile need? I’ve got eight…
    Meanwhile ballasting of Mercia Wagon Repair hasn’t made a scrap of progress in 4 months.
        
     
     
     
  2. Ravenser
    As I've mentioned before, in my teens a CJ Freezer article turned me into a modern image modeller , and I attempted a layout set in contemporary Lincolnshire: Ghosts opf Flaxboro'
     
    Eventually the project foundered under many problems, but I hung onto the stock and over the years I've slowly been recycling the stuff as reasonable scale models.
     
    In the photo contained therein, you can see an Airfix 31 heading two blue/grey vehicles entirely washed out by the flash awaiting departure for the E Lincs line at "Grimsby Town"  . They are in fact a Hornby Mk2a "BSK" and a Lima Mk1 SK , and a second Hornby Mk2 brake brought up the rear of the stopping train set.
     
    The Lima Mk1 was resurrected and rebuilt here :  Lima SK to TSO . But at the end of the day the contrast between the SE Finecast flushgalze on the TSO and the flushglazing on the Bachmann Mk1 BSK I commissioned from unused stock to run with it was just a bit much. Added to which the set had no first class accommodation.
     
    So I decided to aim for consistancy of modelling standard and return to another long-abandoned project, an attempt to make something of one of the two Hornby Mk2 brakes from Flaxborough.
     
    The state of play 8 years ago is summarised there:
     
    I started trying to flushglaze one, and it became clear the flushglaze wasn't fitting well. I tried filing out the window apertures from behind , it all started to look very messy, slow, and difficult , the coach would need repainting, there were moulded lining ridges... 
     
    So I boxed it up again and forgot about it. The second Hornby Brake was quietly sold on at the club show a few years later, as I certainly wasn't doing this twice. But the one I had started was now unsaleable, so I kept it.
     
    I've been very evasive how I describe these models because what Hornby produced and sold as a Mk2 brake second is in fact a 4 compartment BFK , and not a BSO. Having decided that finishing this project would give me a coach which would sit better against the upgraded Lima TSO , it was always going to be reworked as an actual Mk2 BFK, thus providing the missing first class accommodation in the set.
     
    The starting point is here:
     

     
    The moulded lines seperating blue and grey were peeled off with a chisel blade and rubbed down. I'm not clear if that had already been done when this photo was taken
     
    The shade of grey was visibly wrong when set against the Lima TSO, the Bachmann BSK - or anything else. I haqd some difficultiers finding suitable aerosol paint - it being the pandemic - and I made do with Tamiya TS-81 to respray it
     

     
    Having hacked away at it to remove the lining moulding, I had to repaint the self coloured plastic in rail blue , and I just about got away with the result. The interior was painted and peopled, and as it is a First , I even went as far as to add white patches for antimacassers
     
    Replacement transfers were applied and sealed with satin varnish. I managed to apply white lining neatly, although I did not attempt it on the part of the top edge where the yellow stripe is. Transfers didn't really fit for the stripe , so I resorted to hand painting (I had left the raised strip in place at the top of the grey area)
     
    The bogies wouldn't do - they had visible lumps above the B4 bogie frame which looked quite wrong. And as this is to run with the Lima Mk1 TSO with MJT B4s, they had to go. A pair of replacement bogies using MJT cast sides on MJT rigid 8'6" etched frames were built up . These are fitted with the MJT NEM etch. This provides useful extra weight in a good place, low down - they were suitably painted with blue coil springs and yellow roller bearings. Nothing much could be done about the underframe boxes , although a plasticard step was fitted below the guards doors. Replacement whitemetal buffers were fitted
     
    The whole vehicle was reglazed with SE Finecast vac-formed glazing .I had this in stock - supplies are getting difficult although I believe SE Finecast intend re-running them. This is the biggest and most critical job, as the lack of flushglazing is the killer with these old coach models. I cut off the flange at the back to get the main pane to seat forward and flush, and I used the glazing for the ventilators as backing and filled up with Glue and Glaze, which was also used to disguise the edge around the glazing. 
     
    One end gangway was plated over to recieve the black paper gangway from the companion Mk1 - the other had its gangway door painted the correct lime green. Underframe and roof recieved mild weathering
     
    And a photo revealed that the orange curtains in First were very noticeable. A rummage in the parts boxes found some MJT whitemetal curtains which were chopped up (Mk2 windows are wider) painted a suitably lurid orange , and stuck in place on the compartment side with UHU
     
    Here's the result in its set :

     
    It won't stand close up comparison with a new Bachmann Mk2a, but it's a perfectly serviceable layout coach , sits ok with the Mk1 , and is a vast improvement on the starting point.
     
    Anyone with a China-made Hornby Mk2a , with its much better standard of finish , has a head start
  3. Ravenser

    A Boxing Post.

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    I don't think I've ever done a product review on here before, but here goes....
     
    A fortnight ago I went to Railex. Most of my purchase list was 4mm stuff, even though I don't seem to have done any 4mm for about a year because of the N gauge project (which is why my annual review and resolutions post for 2023 hasn't happened). But the previous weekenmd I went to a local show - only my second show this year - and picked up the body of a Kirk Gresley 61' full brake for a quid. Everything below the solebars had gone , but I bought a set of MJT Gresley bogie sideframes I didn't need at Warley, and with a few other bits sourced I reckon I can rebuild it and get a decent vehicle for the kettle-period on Blacklade for under £20.
     
    I digress. While wandering round the show I came upon a trader new to me , WWscenics. I was browsing their stand wuith a vague "this looks useful stuff for the hobby" benevolence, when I noticed some brown cardboard boxes labelled as N Gauge Loco Storage boxes. I've started to build one or two N gauge wagon kits, bought a few more , and the issue of how to store them was starting to raise its head. The storage drawer under the bed which contains the Boxfile and its stock also houses the N gauge stock, all of it in the original boxes. I'd pretty well run out of room in there, and I'd more or less decided that my purchases of N gauge rolling stock had reached a limit.
     
    Here was an N gauge storage box, at the price of one modestly-priced N gauge wagon. I don't have 10 N gauge locos, but 10 locos might perhaps equate to 20 wagons. 
     
    At that point my interest moved rapidly from the vague "He seems to have a range of decent stuff" to the immediate "This could be useful". I asked if they had a made-up example: they did, and it was remarkably compact. I promptly bought a kit at the exhibition special price. (It now retails at £29.99)
     
    And the next afternoon, in an unwonted burst of energy and enthusiasm, I actually got on and built it. 
     
    The product is here: WWScenics N gauge loco box and it took me a couple of hours to build.
     
    Here we have the key things:

     
    The material is laser-cut 3mm MDF , with chocolate burnt edge colouring and a pungent mildly acrid smell. The instructions are plain and well drawn, although to be honest what goes where is mostly obvious. Nevertheless what you think you know may not be quite the way it should go together so the instructions are useful. The fit of the parts was excellent. No fettling was required.
     
    I assembled the unit with aliphatic resin, not so much because this is the ideal glue for the job but because I have twice bought a bottle of the stuff from Rocket under the impression it would be useful . Having found no obvious need for aliphatic resin over a good many years I am now trying to use up the bottles on any job where they  might be vaguely suitable, in order to preserve my stocks of PVA, a much more generally useful glue. Aliphatic resin leaves something of a stain despite intermittent attempts to be careful. But then PVA leaves a mark, too  .
     
    The finished unit is small- about a hand span in length and width. This means it fits nicely into the limited space left in the storage drawer after the Box file, 4mm stock storage files, and controller are packed away in it. The cardboard boxes and plastic jewel boxes in which N gauge RTR is supplied are a lot smaller than the boxes we are used to in 4mm , but they still aren't a particularly effective use of space. This unit improves the packing density of the stock by 2x-3x. What that means in practice is that I now have a home for pretty well all the kits I've bought once I've built them - and the drawer is less crowded than it was. Since in a small flat the limit on your fleet is the point at which you run out of space to store it, this is very helpful.
     

     
    It has multiple internal partitions so it builds up into a pretty sturdy unit . Clearly it wouldn't take being stood on or sat on , but otherwise it's pretty solid and I can't see it coming apart easily. The tabs visible on the top surface are designed to interlock with a second box on top. I may or may not buy a second unit: on the whole I think I prefer to keep locos in their original padded boxes, and without the locos I doubt if I would do more than half fill a second box. So the saving in space probably isn't there.
     
    A bonus is that it will make taking models out to run the layout a lot quicker and easier. It also means less scattered debris in the living room. I have been trying to use the boxes to give an impression/mock-up of the backscene buildings but that's only a short term measure.
     

     
    The holes on the ends of the trays are just about big enough for the end of your little finger and there is a recess on one end which is presumably there to take a label. A loose intermediate divider is provided with a series of slots to allow it to be placed so as to stop the models moving about. It is just about possible to arrange the drawers to take two 4 wheel wagons , if one is shorter than the other: the divider always has to be a little more than half way down
     

     
     
    I find it a useful product at a moderate price
  4. Ravenser

    "I can see clearly now the rain has gone..."

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    Things are looking up a bit for Mercia Wagon Repair, and the business seems to have escaped the liquidator's clutches.....
     
    Two or three weeks ago I was feeling more than a little hopeless about the whole thing here , partly (if truth be known) for one or two reasons external to the layout. Although there were enough problems arising within the project to cause dispondency.
     
    In the end after a certain amount of glum staring at N gauge points, I decided to see if  the second of the list of increasingly drastic options - fit frog wires and lift and replace the damaged points - would be viable.
     
    And it was. I managed to attach a frog feed wire to three of the five undamaged points. Awkward but, as it proved, quite doable. The other two points were hopeless cases, One , up against the backscene, did not permit me to get at the relevant areas with a soldering iron. And the other had gaps at the joints patched with plasticard scraps superglued in place. You do not solder anywhere near cyanoacrylate bonds, because in the presence of serious heat it decomposes to give off ..ahem cyanide gas . (The clue is in the name, cyanoacrylate...). 
     
    These happen to also be the points where the motors are SEEPs without switching. Not that SEEP's point motor switching is anything to celebrate, as we shall see.
     
    I already had Peco switches in stock, so these were stuck to the motors with Gorilla Glue contact adhesive and wired up . Excellent! I also wired up the one switched SEEP. Not so excellent...
     
    The "switch" on a SEEP motor consists of a small spring fitted round the vertical actuator rod. The point motor is built onto a PCB : there is a slot through it  for the actuator rod to move along when the point is thrown. On each side of this slot , there is a broad metal contact track on the PCB . On one side it ends in the pad to which the frog feed wire is soldered. On the other side it comprises two short sections, seperated by a gap. One of these sections ends in the pad to which you solder  the positive feed wire  , the other in the pad to which you solder the negative feed.
     
    The spring round the actuator rod presses against the PCB and shorts across from the track on one side to the track on the other ... When the actuator rod is at one end of its travel that is the bit of track connected to the positive feed. And  when it is at the other end of its travel, it's the bit connected to the negative feed.
     

     
    The words that come to mind for this bit of electrical engineering include "crude", "bodge", "primitive" and "Heath Robinson"
     
    The throw of a 9mm gauge point is of course rather less than that of a 16.5mm point. And the problem that this causes can be summed up in the words of The Grand Old Duke of York: "And when they were only half way up / They were neither up nor down" . Or positive , or negative....
     
    In one position the spring didn't quite reach the track connected to the feed. So the point is dependant on blade contact when set that way. Unfortunately that way is into the wagon works - which will be the route the shunters take most often . This is unfortunate. I tried fiddling about with the thing, but the PCB base is screwed into pads of thin balsa and I can't shift the motor along by about 1mm
     
    It seems that holding the switch across for slightly longer (say 2 sec not 1 sec) may induce sufficent travel to establish contact. What that will do to the blades long-term is an awkward question - remembering that this all started with a switch blade broken at the tiebar. And the point with this SEEP motor is the only point even more deeply buried in the formation, and even more disruptive to operation if it goes, than the point I've had to replace.
     
    But there are certainly a few issues with the shunters finding the blade dead when they shunt the works fan
     
    Speaking of which , the replacement job is done and here is the proof - point on the right .
     
    It works ok. (Peco point motor here so no switching issues. Just a dirty great hole in the board top). 
     
    So the Board are pleased to report that Mercia Wagon Repair is no longer facing liquidation. I just have to finish laying the track.
     

     
    In the meantime several other issues have been resolved. When I was in the nearest model shop buying the replacement point and a few other bits I spotted a recent issue yellow Network Rail 57 for sale second-hand at a reasonable price. A little discussion with the man in the shop ended with me returning and exchanging my Freightliner 57 and £20 for his Network Rail 57.  
     
    I now have 57 312, in a state current from about 2012-2019  (I can't now find the video of her emerging from repaint in order to confirm whether she lost the custard livery in early 2018 or early 2019).  She was hired out to a freight operator (I think DRS - again I can't refind the reference) so it's perfectly reasonable to have her turn up on a train of stock for repair/ recently repaired .  But she shouldn't really be seen with the Dapol 33, which with a little stretching of reality is good to about 2003 but no further. On the other hand the Freightliner 66s are fine as companions.
     
    I am starting to realise that "post-privatisation" has become rather a long period, and I am being more than a little hazy about the exact dates of various "modern" airbraked wagons....
     
    No plates were supplied with the loco although she has carried various names at various times.
     
    Here she is , along with my first two efforts at kit-built wagons in N .
     
    These seem to have taken forever to sort out but they now have couplers and can be used, even if they still need weathering/varnish coat. A degree of approximation applies with both, and I'm not entirely sure the chemical tanker really made it to the late 1990s never mind the present. As I said, "contemporary" suddenly seems to be about a 30 year period. It's startling to realise that the 57 must have originally been built by Brush almost 60 years ago...
     

     
    A further excursion has been provided by the question of backscenes. I was pondering the need for some kind of photographic work - or at least something - at the left side of the layout. Then Peco gave away a fine photo -backscene of a townscape with the January Railway Modeller (it's actually Exeter - the cathedral can be seen near the middle of it)
     
    This seemed ideal , even though I had already repainted the backboards with a clean sky colour. But it's just over 5' long, and the layout is 6' long. By the time I thought to phone Peco about the availability of an extra copy of that issue they'd run out
     
    And by that time I'd bought some Gaugemaster photo-backscene for the ends. But those sheets are rather closer up.
     
    Hmmm
     
    I have at least decided to disguise the non-exit at the left-hand end by a road bridge on a rising gradient , at a slight angle to the board. If I were ever to cut a hole at the end and go to an external cassette fiddle , this might disguise it. And in the meantime, it occurs to me that a mirror buried here might help, scenically
     
     
     
     
  5. Ravenser

    Counsels of Despair

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    Things have not been going particularly well for Mercia Wagon Repair recently. As a result I've become rather disheartened and I've been wondering whether I should in fact pull the plug on the project.
     
    Issue number one can be seen here:

     
    A key point, buried fairly deep in the track plan has broken up at the tie bar.
     
    This is the second point to break up at the tie bar out of 7 points I've bought so far (The first large radius point disintegrated at the tie bar before I even laid it.). That is within 9 months of starting work on this project. This particular one failed a few weeks ago during use. It uses a Peco motor fitted to the designed-in attachment holes: in other words I'm using a proprietary product exactly as it is designed to be used.  I've never had such failures in forty years in 4mm.
     
    At this stage there seem to be two possible approaches:
     
    - Extract the plastic tiebar, somehow, and try to wiggle a replacement PCB tiebar  under the rails and also over the actuating pin of the point motor. Not a nice or easy job  
    - Buy a replacement point. Cut out and extract the old point, wire and lay the new one. Reconnect wires ...
     
    Then there is the matter of frog switching
     
    The Peco leaflet with the Code 55 N gauge points makes no mention at all about connecting the frog to a switch to supply it with power. I've read the thing 4 or 5 times carefully through, and  such a reference to frog switching simply isn't there (though from memory such instructions do appear with 16.5mm electrofrog points). All that the leaflet says is "Turnouts are ready for immediate use - seperate levers are not necessary ."
     
    On 4mm electrofrog points there is a wire run to the side , for the purpose of feeding the frog off a switch. There is a linkage wire under Code 55 N gauge points , connecting the swtich rails and the frog - but there is no "loose" wire to link to a  polarity switch     
     
    There is every sign that Peco expect purchasers simply to lay their Code 55 N gauge points as they come, and rely on contact of the switchblades with the stockrail. That is an unreliable contact, and risks leaving the entire switchblade /frog assembly dead - about 3" of track.
     
    (Not a theoretical comment . I've seen this on the wagon works fan , and it is a serious issue for a layout designed around shunting wagons with an 0-6-0 diesel shunter. You should get away with it when running a bogie diesel with all wheel pickup, especially a long one like a Class 66, but wagons are supposed to be shunted around the Works by 0-6-0s)
     
    I tried to tweak the tips of the switchblades on the offending point to ensure contact. I think it may have been the point I had to tweak for switchblade contact - which may have ultimately led to the failure. You can understand why I'm less than impressed with this product...
     
    Having recounted this in a thread elsewhere , someone (with whom I've previously crossed swords several times) appears to state that you can in fact lift the linkage wire "frog jumper" underneath Peco Code 55 points and attach a wire to this "jumper" in order to connect the frog to a polarity switch on the point motor , thus providing a switched power feed to the frog and switch blades. (Which is the best way to wire a live frog) . But -
     
    I've already laid the points. To get at that wire connection and solder on a feed wire to a polarity switch I'd have to lift the points. 
     
    The track is laid and wired and running. Lifting it all and replacing the cork  would amount to "scrap and start again"
     
    It might - to a 4mm mind - seem possible just to accept the issue and carry on. But over the past few months I've picked up disturbing vibes that shunting and shunting/operational layouts are "not what N gauge is about" :
     
     
    It may be unfair to seize on a single comment, but it crystallizes a vibe I feel in the air.
     
    Shunting in N using the "standard" Arnold coupling seems to be regarded as pretty iffy. I have gone for the replacement Dapol Easi-Shunt knuckle couplers - effectively NEM Kadees in N. But they are costing me over £5 a vehicle. They frequently require packing of the NEM pocket to limit or remove drooping , which results in the tail fouling pointwork . And my impression after 3-4 operating sessions is that they are rather less certain and reliable in coupling  than the Kadees I use in 4mm on Blacklade. They uncouple over the fixed Dapol uncouplers, not always conveniently. As usual, successful delayed action is rather elusive.
     
    Put another way - can you remember seeing many "shunting planks" in N? (Either at shows or in the magazines.) Many branch line termini?  An N gauge Minories?  Micros or Boxfiles using N? N gauge inglenooks and other shunting puzzles?
     
    On reflection, the typical N gauge layout seems to be a longish continous run. Commonly on a 2'6" deep solid board , with 12" return curves at each end, and the fiddle yard hidden behind a backscene set 2/3rds of the way back. Operation consists of firing a train out of the fiddle yard, sending it round the the circuit and back into a road in the fiddle yard.
     
    "Cavalcade" layouts do not interest me. I don't want to build one, I don't have the space for one. That is not what Mercia Wagon Repair is about.
     
    Am I trying to do something in N that everyone knows cannot and should not be done in N? A project that cannot and should not be?
     
    When I've raised the issue of shunting in N - apart from the implications of trolling and being offensive - I've been assured that the NGS Hunslet is the very bee's-knees in N gauge running. There can be no question of things being possible in 4mm that are not possible in N.
     
    So I bought one, and here it is:
     

     
    It is indeed a very small locomotive. It cost me £82 which in this day and age is a remarkably keen price (I stuck a wagon kit for a TTA in with the order to bulk it up). The finish and printing is admirable. It does indeed run very slowly, being heavily geared down. But it does not run as sweetly or quite as reliably as my Farish 04.
     
    What it reminds me of is many a kitbuilt small locomotive on 4mm finescale layouts. It waddles a little. It runs slow, and it keeps going , but it waddles. Not quite a even movement. It's a decent locomotive and it will do a job of work on the layout. I'm not the "toys out of pram" type who returns things in a huff because they do not meet his exacting standards 100%... But it's not as sweet and smooth running as the 04.
     
    And it will  be obvious from the photo just how short the wheel base is and just how long the switchblades and frog are on the adjacent point. Any hesitation in contact - they're dead. And the Hunslet will stop. 
     
    Dare I blaze ahead with this project with electrically compromised "live frogs"?? Do I dare spend £145 on a Farish Class 14 in British Oak orange as an additional shunter??? Nobody has mentioned that one as an outstanding shunter. In 4mm I'd have not a shadow of a doubt that a modern RTR 0-6-0T would run shunt very happily over live frog points, smoothly, slowly, reliably all day. But in N??
     
    Disposable income is a little tight at the moment. My savings may be ample - but I'm not necessarily prepared to dip into them to buy a loco that turns out not to be capable of the job required
     
    I started the Chivers N gauge SSA kit. The Peco chassis used is wrong - leaf spring suspension not pedestal. In 4mm  that would be a show-stopper. But in N - nothing can be done.
     
    Then I read this in the current NGS Journal:
     
    That's me told then - the Chivers SSA kit and the NGS chemical TTA kit I'm currently working on can never be good enough to sit alongside a Dapol or RevolutioN wagon with any credibility......  not unless my name's Tim Watson
     
    I painted the main sprues in the TTA kit white - the suggestion in the instructions that they could be left as self-coloured plastic took me aback. Then the bag with the rest of the kit disappeared . Could I find it? I could not.
     

     
    The cars are some cheap plastic ones I managed to find in a model shop's box, which I'm trying to paint up and make passable. Modern cars are quite difficult to find in N . I've got boxes of the things in 4mm/HO needing a good home...
     
    How many more points will fail at the tie bar, and how soon???
     
    At this stage there seem a number of options:
     
    - Press on and hope. Try to fix the tie bar and leave other pointwork as is.
    - Replace the bust point . Maybe try to fit frog feed wires to one or two others.
    - Rip up most of the points and trackwork , and replace them, fitting point feedwires to the replacements. This would mean major reconstruction and rewiring
    - Pull the plug. Decide this project can't be made to work satisfactorily and get out of N. Dispose of the N gauge stock and bits for whatever I can recover before I sink more money time and effort into a quicksand  (I spent over £150 at Warley on a new loco, wagons and bits for this project)
     
    Since two of the locos were given to me and have personal connections, I couldn't dispose of the lot. 
     
    If I scrapped it , what would I do? 
     
    - I think the plan could be done in TT120. There would be some loss of train length, but with mostly 4 wheel wagons it could be manageable. Width might be a more serious issue in a larger scale. 66s and an 08 are promised in TT:120, and in some respects the project might be better done in BR days , with a 37 and 47 as the main line power. But the 66 is 10-12 months away in TT, and I'd have to buy every single item from scratch. This was a project to use a core of existing stock....
     
    - If we're talking about stuff I already have, that points towards either 3mm, (where I have a bag of wagon kits, some second hand Triang and half a dozen Peco points in stock), or OO9. But I have no serviceable 3mm loco, and no design. I have two OO9 Baldwins and some stock, but the design I came up with is 18" wide , not 11" , although I have more length than I drew out. 
     
    - I suppose I could try to come up with an LCC tram scheme in 4mm
     
    - Even Son of Boxfile in OO ????
     
    Or I could box the whole lot up, and put away all N gauge modelling until at least September . When I would re-assess what is to be done about this , in a more cheerful frame of mind.  All my modelling time has been going into N recently - I haven't done any 4mm for about 9 month's let alone had Blacklade up. I know 4mm works, and even more importantly I know I can make it work , within reason. Time to do what will work, instead of plunging deeper into the swamps of N?
     
     
  6. Ravenser

    "Think Thrice, Measure Twice"

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    A fair amount of progress has been made with Mercia Wagon Repair over the last 6-8 weeks. However this has involved a number of revisions and minor tweaks.
     
    The layout - or at least the "main line"  side of it , which was all that had been laid - had been test run  a few times. This amounted to running in a train behind a type 5, the loco running round and picking up a train of wagons waiting in the departure siding , then returning whence it came. The shunter would then shunt the incoming wagons into the departure siding. I have bought one of the NGS Hunslet shunters in Railtec blue and white livery to supplement my Farish 04. It's a very small loco, and modestly priced at £81, and it certainly runs very slowly, which is a plus for a shunter. But despite all the plaudits it doesn't run as smoothly as the 04. I'm reminded of a lot of small 4mm kitbuilt locos - it seems to have a certain faster/slower waddle though (like them) it doesn't stall. I don't regret my purchase, but it isn't my best loco and I'm not sure I'd buy two
     

     
    Along the way I had set about converting the couplers from Arnold Rapido to Dapol Micro-couplers . This is an expensive exercise : even buying packs of 10 couplers it works out at just over 5 pounds per vehicle. I bought a pack each of medium and long , and then found that the long version is something of an embarrassment. On almost anything it looks a bit like the couplers on 1930s Hornby tinplate, projecting far beyond the vehicle. The shorts are too short for most stock, but I did  just about manage to find homes for the contents of the pack. The medium is the bread-and-butter coupling, and I'm now on my third pack of mediums.
     
    To the point. I went to start work laying the wagon works itself , and discovered that I seemed to have bought the wrong handed points...
     
    Acxtually I hadn't. I'd merely not bothered to check the plan and had happily proceeded on normal railway principles. The plan is to be found here   and you will notice that the bottom road of the actual works comes off the upper road of the loop, via a reverse curve and there's a somewhat odd arrangement whereby the topmost road comes off a wrong-handed point and goes round the back of the works on an awkward reverse curve. I'd assumed that everything came off in the normal way through a nice conventional fan of points.

     
     
    I contemplated ripping up the recently laid top road to follow the plan as drawn for about half a second, and decided I didn't much like the idea of shunting wagons through all those reverse curves and access through the loop being required every time you wanted to shunt in or out of one road of the workshop. Nor, I think, would the real railway. Presumably the plan was drawn that way to save on length and get everything on a 6' long (ahem 180cm) board in HO
     
    I am not short of length when it comes to the wagon works. The space constraints are the length of the loop, and the length of the entry/fiddle siding to the left , plus the length of  headshunt required to take an FEA twin-set plus a shunter. Those constraints limit me to a 66 + 3 bogie wagons and a 4 wheel wagon in my 6' in N . But the wagon works sidings are pretty long, so I don't need to compress the fan of points into them.
     
    Then it became apparent that a short and a medium point weren't going to fit in before the board joint . The second point just overlapped the joint - largely thanks to the fact that you can't join Peco code55 N points one after another like you can in OO . They foul each other at the divergance, so a small length of plain track needs to be spliced in.
     
    So I bit the bullet - the second point was displaced onto the left hand board , clear of the board framing, and I decided to go for a large radius point at the divergance of the first workshop road
     
    All this shoved the start of the hard standing in front of the workshop about 6" to the left of the board joint. That was the end of my plan to use the change from ballast to hard standing to disguise the board joint. An access path across the tracks will have to do the job instead.
     
    Here we have progress , with only one siding to go in. That siding is now going to incorporate a Peco inspection pit inside the shed, though not for the full length of it. Since this requires me to cut a slot in the board laying this has been deferred .... 
     

     
    Having got  something like a layout laid, of course it had to be test run, to check nothing fell off (and also to see how it would actually feel if operated as envisaged)
     
    The front siding is the departure road, where wagons that have been through the works are held pending a mainline loco  taking them back onto the network. A train of wagons for repair is standing in the "fiddle" road, representing the connection to the national network. (The limitations on train length are obvious.) As this is in front , it will have to be scenic - I have added a spare bit of flexible track in front as the stub end of an abandoned siding , where an abandoned wagon can be held. This should really be slightly further forward : the intention is to imply that a former double track approach line has been singled. I intend to add a "holding track " at the front , between the two groups of switches . This will be firmly off stage and this front area painted stage black.
     
    What you see is nearly all my serviceable N gauge stock... It became painfully obvious that to run the layout when complete everything I have , including unbuilt kits, would need to be pressed into  service. I am therefore compelled to buy more rolling stock.
     
    I have also been checking dimensions and trying to mock up backscene buildings , based on possible downloads and the Pikestuff material I have. (N gauge stock boxes found a use here)
     
    This is a closeup of the  actual wagonworks area. My various pencil marks as exact arrangements were amended can be seen

     
    The IPA twin and the Network Rail open mark the location of the actual works shed, more or less. This has now shrunk to 12" long from 15" , and it should have a lean-to store/office along the front. It will be a Pikestuff 2  road shed , extended  and with the roof omitted except for a short strip front and back. The rear track is behind the shed : the missing road with the inspection pit  will fit in the gap. Dapol uncoupler magnets have been laid across the door positions: all this area will be inlaid into concrete flooring so they will be hidden . The Cargowaggon is in an area behind the shed which will be used for holding wagons that have arrived and are awaiting their turn in the shed. Behind it is the NGS Hunslet - there is an isolating section here, to hold a "back shunter"
     
    The VTG hood marks the location of the paintshop. This will be the Pikestuff Atkinson Engine Facility, which has a front leanto office . That office, it is now apparent , will block road 2 of the shed, which will have to stop short
     
    And here we see how Mercia Wagon Repair uses my hifi speakers as trestles. There are plates of single ply faced in baize for them to rest on, to protect the speakers - the controller and external CDU box sit on top of the hifi cabinet.
     
    This is a lot less disruptive of normal use of the room than Blacklade , which has to be erected diagonally across the room
     

  7. Ravenser

    A Lot of Wiring For A Little Layout

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    The N gauge project is firmly analogue DC. This is because the core of the stock has been sitting in a drawer for nearly 15 years and none of the four locos concerned are "plug and play" DCC ready . Indeed the Farish 04 isn't DCC Ready at all and would be a real pig to convert. (I understand current production of the model will take a decoder)
     
    Electrical wiring was long one of my blind spots. The wiring of Tramlink (Kent) consisted of a few bits of bell-wire and an on/off switch. Points were dead-frog. The Boxfile marked a huge step forward: live-frog points with - gasp - point motors . But it was and is extremely small. The club project launched me into a supporting -player involvement in DCC which bore fruit in Blacklade, which has a fairly sophisticated DCC and lighting installation for what is a small terminus to fiddle yard layout.
     
    So Mercia Wagon Repair is the first time I've attempted conventional analogue DC wiring on any real scale. There will be six live-frog points - the Boxfile has just three. There will be six electrical sections and two isolating sections - the Boxfile is in practice one section. There probably won't be any signals - the real thing wouldn't have any - but there might be a little lighting.
     
    Tramlink (Kent)'s boards were built of 2" x 1" timber and 4mm ply. This precludes the use of stall-motor point motors like Cobalts and Tortoises. There simply isn't the frame depth to accomodate them. So point motors are by necessity solenoids - Peco and SEEP types.
     
    There will be no control panel as such , just local switches along the front edge of the two boards . I have learned my lesson about operating positions: if the layout is operated from the front, the switches had better be at the front, conveniently to hand. There is no reason at all to operate from the back with the backscene in the way. This is essentially a shunting layout intended for interesting operation at home. It is portable enough - the whole thing will box up as a unit 3' x 11" x 12"  - so theoretically it could be exhibited . But the last two and a half years have altered the dynamics of the hobby considerably. The exhibition circuit is currently a shadow of what it was three years ago, the next 18 months may be somewhat restrictive, and it is getting difficult to see things going back more or less to where we were in February 2020 in the foreseeable future. In this climate , building a new layout principally for exhibition starts to feel like an act of denial. Put another way - this year I reckon there will be just 3 events within 30 miles of me involving layouts from outside the organising club.
     
    Mercia Wagon Repair is therefore going to be an extremely conventional analogue DC layout. Control gear is borrowed from the Boxfile : a Gaugemaster 100M controller and this:   Hanging By a Thread  .  The inter-board connector with its DIN plugs is also borrowed from the Boxfile.  DIN sockets had already been bought for the intended re-wiring of Tramlink (Kent) and can therefore finally be used. (Tramlink was run from a little Gaugemaster Combi , which also has a 16V AC output, so in theory the four input wires from the Black Box could be connected to that. I haven't seen any need to do so yet as the Gaugemaster 100M is a reliable unit, but it might be worth experimenting with its use on the Boxfile since the Combi takes up less space and might not need the use of an extension block to reach the wall socket)
     
    Only one problem there - taking the high current power to the point motors from an external CDU means a comparatively long length of wire to reach the point motors. This is especially the case with the satellite board, where the current would have to traverse a long DIN connector lead as well. As I had bought a new CDU without really thinking why I needed it, I decided to use it after all on the second, satellite board (the left-hand board) and avoid the issue. 
     
    This means that I need three circuits : 12V DC track power from the controller, 16V AC high current pulse from the external CDU to the point motors on the right-hand board, and 16V AC low current continuous to power the CDU on the left-hand board and, potentially, any other accessories requiring a 16V AC supply. That could include a regulated power supply delivering 12V DC to lighting LEDs
     
    The DIN plug from the output side of the Black Box is 6 pin, and the inter-board  DIN connector cable is 5 pin, So far, so good: the necessary number of connections are available. However you will have noticed that the external CDU was wired up with only 2 circuits (12V DC + 16V AC to/from the CDU). The first step was therefore to open up the Black Box, and add two by-pass wires from the input connector blocks of the CDU (ie the 16V AC continuous input) which were soldered to the two spare wires in the output DIN cable. While I was about it, I found out what went to each connection on the matching 6 pin DIN socket I was about to install on the layout. The equivalent socket on the Boxfile is sealed inside a building, so I had no idea what came out of each pin.
     
    Dropper wires are 7/0.2 wire in red and brown - the electrical trader at Ally Pally didn't have any off-cut packs in black. Every piece of rail has a feed , and longer lengths of rail have two. I find soldering droppers below the rail much more difficult in N than in 4mm, and the sleepers are much more vulnerable to melting. Longer runs are in 16/0.2 or even 24/0.2 wire left over from Blacklade in order to minimise voltage drop
     
    Here we are at an early stage of proceedings. Some bits of the wiring and connectors from Tramlink are still in place: the tag strips from the old wiring were re-used.

     
    A hole at the back to take the DIN socket for the interboard connector is visible on the right hand board.
     
    There are to be 3 electrical sections on each board . No section can bridge the board joint because there aren't enough connections on the connecting cable (Also DIN sockets are relatively tough and 28-way D sockets aren't and are rated for a surprisingly limited number of connections. Anyway, I had the DIN sockets and cables already.)
     
    The usual rule "black to the back" applies to the 12V DC traction supply, though brown is the new black. All the section switching is on the brown side, so red is common throughout. Switches for the sections and point motors are mounted at the front of the boards , a small group of switches on each board. The brown patch on the right hand board reflects the fact that I left the low platform of Tramlink in place, and two layers of 4mm ply is too thick to get the switches through. So I had to chop it out with a chisel and a 16mm wood drill from below
     
    This will show the issue. The front siding - mainline departure siding - is laid along the inner edge of the old platform . At the time this was taken the cork to ramp it to this level was still to go in. The gradient is about 1 in 75 and does not seem to cause any issues. The dots are breakthroughs from the wood drill and mark the location of the switches. The rest of the old platform surface will be covered by ballast and sceney in duie course. The complications of re-using existing boards....

     
    And here we have two shots of the undersides of the boards , largely wired. So far I've laid the "mainline" side of the layout (loop and front siding) amounting to 4 points, 3 electrical sections and the basic electrical architecture. That amounts to about 2/3rds of the wiring.
     
    This is the right hand board, as it currently is. One point still to go in, and also the dropper wires for the works siding fan (the 3rd section on this board). The plethora of dropper wires does eat up tag strip connections. Blue and yellow are high current 16V AC for the point motors - the heavy 24/0.2 wire used for the long runs of the AC common is obvious. The back of the layout is at the bottom. (The 16V AC low current circuit is grey/purple)
     
    Point motors are a mix of SEEP and Peco. I already had two SEEP motors but thought I would need motors with switching for the frogs. In fact Peco code 55 short radius points have no frog switching and rely on the blades. But the medium and large radius Code 55 points are unifrog, and need a switch in live frog mode.... I bought 5 Peco point motors (nearly all "new second-hand") and five switches, but only 3 Peco motors and one switch will be used, because I don't like chopping big holes in my baseboard.
     

     
    And here we have the left-hand board,  in the heat of battle.
     

     
    The second point motor - a SEEP - is still to go in. The small hole it requires is visible below the packet of solder, and the ruddy great crater left by installing a Peco motor is visible to the right. The heavier 16/0.2 wire used to reach the satellite tag strips will be obvious . Using heavier wire here should minimise voltage drop : there is another 18" of interboard connector and internal wiring on the other board so this is actually quite a long run. The CDU is bottom centre and the AC common is just starting to be wired. There is an isolating section  to hold a loco at the far end of each board.
     
    As I said - a lot of wiring for a little layout
  8. Ravenser

    Message in a Bottle - 2022

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    I am very late with my annual review this year, even though a stub has been in draft for several months . But rather more has been done than might appear.
     
    The 1:72 Fairey Battle took up much of my modelling activity in the last months of 2021. A full write up is here , and it has now recieved final painting (which needs writing up..). It is already a bookshelf ornament on its stand, and I still intend to build a simple runway diorama as a test piece, on which it could be posed.
     
    Inevitably this activity led to a rush of blood to the head, and I purchased more Airfix kits - a Cromwell tank (1:76) to "bulk out" the purchase of display stands, and a Gloster Gladiator, with one eye on the proposed OO9 layout. Further research has revealed that RAF colour schemes and markings changed sharply with the Munich crisis in the summer of 1938, and the familiar serial letters and camoflage schemes of World War 2 were not used by the RAF prior to that date. Consequently I could either build the Airfix Hurricane Mk1 I have in a very early non-camoflage scheme, valid only for a few months in spring-summer 1938, or I finish it in camoflage with early squadron letters which is valid from summer 1938 to September 1939. Either way replacement after-market decals will be required. The Gladiator (introduced February 1937) is a noticably smaller aircraft than the Hurricane and smaller is definitely better for a OO9 diorama layout. The suspended aircraft is intended to be demountable anyway, so the models could be changed over - which would allow the layout to be dated at any time from early 1937 to the outbreak of war.
     
    Once I started building the Battle I had grand thoughts of following it up quickly with another kit from the gift set, this time a twin-engined one with greater presence on the top of the bookshelf. The Handley-Page Hampden was earmarked for this, and upgrading parts are available to do a better job than straight out of the box. Fortunately I didn't rush out and buy anything as the Battle has taken rather longer than I expected, and this bright idea has receded into the middle distance - however it is still the likely follow-on on the aircraft kit front.
     
    The Cromwell tank was bought with an eye to providing a load for one of the DOGA etched Warflat kits I bought . It would be somewhat out of period for anything I actually run, but it is the last British tank that would fit on a Warflat inside British loading gauge. However in the process of checking Paul Bartlett's website I realised that some Warflats were used to carry coach and DMU bogies in departmental service - and that is something I could credibly run on Blacklade.
     

     
    The Cromwell tank was built before I returned to work, the Warflats are still therefore on - but they are on hold at present as my N gauge project is absorbing all my modelling time. I have at least managed to write up some of that one.... Mercia Wagon Repair
     
    One thing that was finished was my upgrade of an old Hornby Mk2 "BSK" into a decent Mk2a BFK . This now makes up into a reasonably well matched 2-car set along with my ex Lima Mk 1 TSO. The pair were taken along to the DOGA AGT for the modelling competition, and I need to get them into regular service. (Blacklade, I'm afraid, hasn't been up much in the last few months). Again, a write up is outstanding.
     
    I got nearly all the way with a conversion of an old Triang Hornby Mk1 BSK  to an NNK courier van. This needs finishing, assembling and weathering but the BFK took precedence when it came to getting something ready for the AGT and I've done nothing in 4mm since - not helped by a bout of the Dreaded Lurghi some weeks ago (I now seem to be back more or less to normal). Again it needs a post to write it up when it's done.
     

     
    And I really must finish off the 128 Parcels unit this year - if only because it is what will pull the NNK and the NRX conversions . One minor job that was done early in the year was fixing the too-short Kadee on the NRX so it now runs without derailing on curves
     
    I made a start painting the sides for a second Mk1 TSO, this time based on an unbuilt Kitmaster SK /TSO kit, which will have a second Replica interior and MJT bogies. I hope this will come out rather crisper and to a higher standard than the upgraded Lima Mk1, and make a better partner for the Bachmann Mk1 BSK
     
    Beyond that, the Airfix kit of the Trevithick loco is still stalled here: Airfix Trevithick kit
     
    It would be good to get my old detailed Hornby 29 rewired, upgraded and running on DCC

     
    But I doubt if I will get much further than that in 4mm this year - if even that far , considering we are already in the second week of August. The Pacer will doubtless have to wait for yet another year
     
    There is rather more going on in N. Obviously I have started building a layout, and despite my  attempt at a strict "no new purchases unless to finish a job" policy I've been able to indulge myself in a little retail therapy. Four or five new wagons have joined the fleet, although I've been trying to look for bargains that fit the theme instead of sheer indiscriminate buying. This has included one "weathered" TTA that had obviously been hanging around because everyone was put off by the "plaster it with brown from an airbrush" factory "weathering". My efforts to tone this down and rework it spilled over into trying to take some of the plastic sheen off several other wagons , and I'm now the owner of  a  mildly weathered Dapol VTG hood  wagon which I'm reasonably pleased with.
     
    I have also joined the NGS, basically so I could buy their new Hunslet shunter. This has now arrived , along with an NGS TTA chemical tanker kit I couldn't resist adding to the order. Watch this space...
     
     
  9. Ravenser

    Wagons Roll!

    By Ravenser,


    Mercia Wagon Repair
    So - the wagon works layout project described here is now on. And very much as forshadowed in the subsequent comment.
     
    Several things have pushed me into actually doing something. The first and most powerful is a problem that has developed with my right eye. Gloomy reflection suggested that if anything was to be done with the N gauge bits it had better be done quickly, whilst I was capable of it. 
     
    (I am glad to report that I saw the eye specialists yesterday, and they stated firmly that it is not macular degeneration, but something completely different , which is eminently treatable with an 85% success rate - and also that my left eye is entirely fine. To quote Mark Twain  reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated, and I should have a long term future in constructional model-making. I am feeling a great deal more cheerful.)
     
    Secondly, the "corporate developments at work" duly resulted in redundancy as I privately feared. However I have found a new job and start there on Tuesday, so I've actually only been off work for 5 weeks or so.  This gap created a little time to do things, though rather less  than I had been expecting. The labour market, at least in freight, is quite strong - indeed at one point, for the first time in my life, I actually found myself with two job offers.
     
    Over and above all that, I haven't started a new layout project in over 15 years (January 2007 with Blacklade). The previous 28 years saw 8 layout projects  (Flaxborough, versions 1 and 2 of Blacklade Corporation Tramways, Ravenser, Tramlink (Kent), the club project, the Boxfile, and Blacklade, if you ask). So I've been getting a little stale and restive and it shows, in the various speculative layout postings in this blog. .
     
    Of all these schemes, the wagon works in N is the only one that is "oven ready" in the sense that I have a  core of rolling stock available and a place to put the layout. The OO9 scheme comes close, but the space isn't quite there. The possible house move is definitely on hold until I have my feet securely under the table in the new job and the eye is sorted out, but it remains very much in the frame thereafter. At which point the OO9 layout should become a genuine starter. In the meantime the OO9 bits can be test-run on the N gauge layout, rather than the N gauge bits test-run on the OO9 layout....
     
    And the last few months have prompted some very sobering reflections about just how many projects and things that "might come in very handy at some point" -  points that have failed actually to arise in the last 20-30 years - I have stuffed into various cupboards and drawers. Not to mention how slowly I am building things. As Dr Johnson remarked "the prospect of imminent hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully". Lockdown only grazed the surface of this mass, and the last 12 months have managed to produce two coaches and a 1/72 scale aircraft.  I am not quite in the mood to start disposing of stuff, but the clamp on buying any new projects is firm. Purchase for immediate constructional need only.
     
    I was a good boy at Ally Pally , except for bits for the N gauge project.
     
    If I am being more ruthless with my prospective commitments, then a half-built diorama layout started in 1999 and untouched since 2007, that needs significant work to restore to operation, and a lot of work on stock and scenics to finish - but has limited operating potential and some reliability issues - is a good place to start.
     
    So poor old Tramlink (Kent) is no more.
     

     
    The buildings have been carefully salvaged and boxed up in one of the many cardboard boxes lying around since lockdown ("Waste not, want not..."). Most of the scenery was mounted on foamcore packing and came off fairly easily. The track and ballast has been removed by pouring on hot water and scraping with a kitchen fish slice, ready for reuse of the boards.
     
    Track will be Peco code 55 live frog, which was bought at Ally Pally. Although this will be an essentially RTR layout, I see no reason to compromise and use less than the best available commercial products . These will be live frog and control will be DC analogue. I am not up for the hassle and expense of trying to fit decoders into N gauge stock, and I'm not sure the job can be done with the one shunter I own, an 04.  In practice, the layout will need a shunter and a mainline loco, perhaps with a backup for each. There is no obvious benefit from DCC in such a scenario (unlike Blacklade with its multiple units and intensive operation). Point motors will be solenoid, because the framing of the Tramlink boards is quite shallow and Cobolts won't fit. This is entirely acceptable with commercial track, and Peco motors have given reliable service on the Boxfile . The Gaugemaster 100A and external CDU box used for the Boxfile can be redeployed for this layout too, along with the interboard connector - DIN sockets had been sourced when this was simply going to be a rewire of Tramlink
     
    A roll of 1/32 cork sheet was also bought at Ally Pally , and I've sourced some Pikestuff N gauge buildings. However they are quite small, and I'll need more material to construct a rather larger shed.
     
    The layout also has a provisional name: Mercia Wagon Repair - Guthlac Road Site. This is suitably generic - Mercia was a large kingdom, so the layout could in principle be anywhere from Grimsby to Gloucester, or from Cambridge to Chester, inclusive. We are in a largish Midlands town, housebacks will be seen along the backscene, and that's all that needs to be said. The business is generic and not tied to any particular railway company, so the stock tells no real tales.
     
    Site clearance has now reached this stage:

     
    If you are wondering why the old platform hasn't been removed, well it's very firmly stuck down 4mm ply. My intention is to lay the front siding (departure/finished wagons) on top of it, which means the siding will sit about 3-4mm higher than the other tracks. This introduces a little bit of accidental relief onto the site : it amounts to a 2' difference in levels full-size. Sanded cork underlay will provide an approach ramp at 1 in 75 to 1 in 100, which I don't expect to be an issue when shunting a single wagon. 
     
    One issue still not quite settled is the couplings to be used. I'm dimly aware that the "standard" N gauge Rapido coupling doesn't have a great reputation as a coupling for shunting. Everything I own has NEM pockets bar a Farish VBA and VGA , and those look fairly easy to convert. So Dapol's replacement knuckle couplers , or even Kadees, look like a practical option
     
    I am also likely to join the N Gauge Society. Their Hunslet loco would be ideal as a shunter for this layout, and a few of their wagon kits would be suitable and interesting
     
     
  10. Ravenser
    We left the 1:72 Airfix Fairey Battle here . Actually that's a slightly generous interpretation because all I had managed to do was to assemble the two cockpit units  and fix them into one side of the fusilage. Several issues had already come to light, though.
     
    Since then very substantial progress has been made: in fact the kit is now assembled and part painted.
     
    By the standards of plastic kits in railway modelling, the assembly and fit of parts in Airfix kits is extremely good. However as I flagged in the pervious posting, there are some problems with the fit of parts in this kit, and they are mainly found underneath the model. The fit of the two halves of the fusilage is fine on the top surfaces , but underneath there is significant misalignment of the parts . There is also the unfortunate "bubble" in the lower surface between the wings. the wings fit fine, but there is slight misalignment of wings and wing roots on the undcerside
     
    Remedial action to such things is fairly familiar to any experienced railway modeller, and suitable bodging was duly undertaken with files, filler and emery boards.
     
    The scene of battle is displayed here:

     
     
    Filler has been added to one side of the join and the whole thing filed down to even it out . A length of microstrip has been added alongside the wing joint on one side and filed down and the wing root on the other side filed and smoothed to fit.The bubble has been filed down as far as I dared without risking breaking through the plastic, and the hole for the clear plastic stand opened out , possibly a fraction too much. I ended up using a medium size Airfix stand, but the model won't quite sit level. Long-term I intend to construct an experimental basic airfield diorama and the Battle will probably end up adorning this.
     
    A representational air intake has been fabricated to replace the missing part. I have filed it back a little but I suspect it is still oversize. 
     
    There are some optional parts in the kit and choices have to be made about how the model will be presented. The gunner's rear cockpit can be modelled closed, or open with  machine gun poking out; the bomb bays can be modelled open with bombs mounted , or closed; and the undercarriage can be modelled either down or retracted. I decided to keep things relatively simple, and opted for a closed rear cockpit, closed bomb bay doors, and lowered undercarriage. The latter is essential if the model is to be dispalyed on a diorama at any time; open bomb bays restrict you to an aircraft on the ground; and the rear cockpit would be closed both on the ground and most of the time whilst flying. The combination I chose allows the finished model to be displayed on a stand  as if in flight (either in take off or landing) or posed on a diorama.
     
    Here is a rather prettier view of the model right way up:

     
    I had something of a fight trying to get the rear sections of the canopy to seat themselves and I had to resort to filing down the rear gunner's head. (I suspect I may have transposed the figures for the pilot and gunner when building the cockpit sections). I have managed to get a reasonable result with applications of Humbrol Clearfix but it isn't a perfect fit I'm afraid.
     
    I have pre-painted parts of the kit where there should be a sharp line between colours prior to assembly using the acrylic paints supplied, although the underside has been painted in Revell matt black, as I have a pot of that and I'm not sure the small pot of black supplied in the boxed set will be sufficient for all four aircraft .
     
    Otherwise this kit has been built strictly as supplied, without upgrades apart from fabricating a missing part. There seems no point trying to run before I can walk , especially when the kit has some fundamental inaccuracies which cannot be removed without very major work which is well above my level. Once I've built this one I'm sure that more advanced techniques and methods of refining and upgrading kits will make a lot more sense to me.
     
    At this point there are still a few small parts to add before final painting and application of transfers. And painting the canopy is starting to present itself as an awkward task
     
  11. Ravenser

    Pardon My French - or Paint Your Wagon

    By Ravenser,


    Layout schemes
    I started a new job after Easter, and the big lockdown modelling push basically ran into the sands in May and June. But the sale of my late mother's house has now been completed;, and a long-overdue attempt to reduce the chaos of the study has taken place. Out went a large broken computer desk and the very old desktop it housed , and in came a small computer trolley; the office chair moved from the sitting room to the study, the study chair went in the bedroom, and a broken chair from the bedroom went to the tip. 
     
    As a follow up, three new shelves went up on the wall that had just been cleared, giving me an extra 12' run of shelving. To be honest, it would probably take almost the same again finally to clear all the build-up of books and magazines in the flat, but the study is now a lot better than it was, so is the rest of the flat, and a great many things are now readily to hand that weren't.
     
    The new shelves are set at a level to clear the proposed OO9 layout I have been evolving here - Dogger Light Railway   However.... an 18" boxed diorama will severely compromise the new minimalist laptop workstation and drive it well back into the (narrow) room. The curve at one end looks really rather tight with a Lynton & Barnstaple coach.  All in all - possible, but cramped and awkward. 
     
    I've decided that no final decisions will be taken until at least next Spring. I have a lot of other things to sort out before taking on the big commitment of a new layout project. The possibility of moving from a flat to a house using the legacy also needs to be considered , but I am taking no decisions on that front either until next summer, pending some corporate developments at work. 
     
    And in the course of finding homes for piles of stuff, a copy of Loco-Revue dated Septembre 2017 turned up. I read it carefully - there were several articles on a compact modern(ish) wagon-works layout in HO. Total footprint 180 cm x 45cm (interesting to see the French still think in imperial underneath - that's in practice 6' x 18") 
     


     
    The prototypes shown in France can be as simple as a 3 road steel shed , with an additional siding on either side, plus a connection to the SNCF system.
     
    Such prototypes do and have existed in Britain. The wagon works opposite the island platform at Peterborough station comes immediately to mind. Ipswich wagon works closed in the early 80s, but there are other facilities around Britain - probably rather larger , although I haven't seen photos of them. In short , unlike the entirely fictional "Any TOC TMD " layouts we saw around shows before the pandemic,  there is an actual credible basis for transplanting this kind of facility to  a British setting. Such a wagon works  also offers a plausible scenario for shunting large modern wagons singly, in a modest space, without the need to accomodate lengthy block trains. This is very promising.
     
    I have some bits of modern N in store, which spiralled out of being given a presentation Dapol 66/5. Halve the dimensions in the article and you are at 3' x 9". If the wall above the workstation and below the shelves is problematic, what about about the wall on the right hand side? There's now 3' clear on that side before you reach the pile of boxed stuff with forlorn forgotten Tramlink boxed on top of it.
     
     

     
     
    It's at this point that the difficulties start surfacing. For starters, British N is 59% of HO. That immediately takes you up to 3'6". x 10.5"   A class 66 in N is 15cm long. A Dapol Cargowaggon bogie van is only fractionally shorter. Just those two  together therefore come to 30cm , which is longer than the fiddle siding as drawn. And either is about as long as the headshunt at the other end, if not fractionally longer. But you would also have to fit a shunter into the headshunt, otherwise you can't operate at all. A Farish 04 is 6.5cm long....
     
    And since the N gauge locos I  have are 2 x Freightliner 66s, a Freightliner 57, and an 04,  and the rolling stock includes an IWA , a VGA and a curtain sider   any N gauge layout needs to accomodate these vehicles. If it doesn't use  the stock I already have there's not a lot of point doing it.
     
    You suddenly realise that short diesel locos like Rats and 20s disappeared a long time ago.
     
    My calculations suggested I'd need at least 3'7" , which is starting to intrude significantly along that wall. That would allow a fiddle yard 33.5cm long , which would just take a 57 + 2 wagons, or at a pinch a 33 + 3 wagons (A Class 33, the shortest mainline diesel loco still in traffic in the 21st century,  is 10.5cm long). Peco short radius points in N are 123mm long. In contrast the layout in Loco Revue manages 3 wagon trains with an assortment of shunters used in the works
     
    Hmmm. Not quite so simple. And none of this would accomodate my FEA twin-set. It's a bit awkward if your wagon works handles exclusively Freightliner locos, but no container flats ever appear.
     
    Any layout  would use Peco code 55 track. There's no reason to use anything coarser, and pointwork on a shunting layout ought to be live frog. (N gauge actually equates to 4' 4.5" gauge - closer to scale than OO, but still not quite there . However nobody ever seems to notice this.) It would be DC, because none of the locos I have are plug-and-play for DCC, and I don't fancy the hassle and extra expense of trying to fit decoders. I have a perfectly serviceable Gaugemaster 100M and a Combi in the cupboard to run this - solenoid motors could be used.
     
    There are certainly issues. But there are also genuine possibilities, and such a project would use stock I already have which doesn't currently have an obvious use
     
  12. Ravenser

    Contain Yourself - Assorted Conflats

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I suppose it is inevitable that I would want railway containers to feature on the Boxfile. I've spent nearly all my working life involved with containerised seafreight, in one capacity or another, and in the 1950s railway containers were a significant part of British Railways freight traffic. Since it represents an urban goods depot, the Boxfile is heavily skewed towards van traffic and as I've said a couple of times recently my wagon fleet for the Boxfile is light in vans. So the remedy is obvious.
     
    This all started with my efforts to sort out the unreliable running on the Boxfile, and the unhappy discovery that  much of the wagon fleet wasn't really  serviceable. Along the way I found out that both my Bachmann Conflat A and the homebrew Conflat V  were dodgy, and weight and wheel changes weren't  enough to cure them.
     
    When I went rummaging in the modelling cupboard, one of the things I found in the box of wagon kits was a Parkside kit for an ex LNER Conflat S.
     
    So I bit the bullet and decided that the Bachmann Conflat A would have to go -  meaning to reuse the Parkside BD container from the Conflat A on the Conflat S which was to replace it. The kit comes with an ex LNER DX open top container - these were pretty rare beasts and in BR days were only to be carried in Lowfits, since they were thought not to stand up to the stresses of chain restraints. (I do in fact have a Bachmann Lowfit body in stock and will ultimately build it as an ex LNER wooden underframe vehicle , as in Iain Rice's book, to carry the DX . That can be traffic to a London building site. I have a second DX kit in stock now, to provide an empty sat in the yard as an extra scenic detail . But this has been on hold till I found the brass strip, as the plastic lifting basrs are terribly fragile)
     
     But for various reasons the BD container wouldn't quite fit on the Conflat S. So I ended up buying a new Parkside Conflat A kit, and building the FM meat container out of that, which is slightly smaller and which will fit the Conflat S. In due course the Parkside Conflat A will be built and given a Bachmann AF insulated container froma pack of 4 I found while rummaging in the cupboard. See below... (The AF wouldn't quite fit the Conflat S either. Before you ask.)
     
    The unloved BD was eventually found a home in a Dapol ex LMS 5 plank open , which had also shown a strong propensity to derail.  Tight, but after a little work, in it went... TI put lead inside the container when I originally built  so what was a lightweight open now weighs 50g. And suddenly the LMS open is running reliably . Result!
     
     

     
    Here we see the Conflat S , awaiting couplings, final weathering and chains. Behind is the ex Hornby ex NER refridgerated van.
     
    The Conflat A was a bit of a performance. In fact I ended up with a vehicle in which Messrs Parkside played only a limited role. I built the wagon - and then found that for reasons I can't quite understand the chassis was significantly and irredemably crooked. I can't remember when I last had a chassis so far out of true. Attempts to break out one solebar and adjust failed miserably , so the only way to sort the mess out was to cut away the plastic W-rons, fit etched compensated ones, and find a suitable spare solebar in the scrapboxes to replace the damaged one. Axleboxes and springs are ABS castings, as are the brake gear. Not that there is anything much wrong with the Parkside versions, but every scrap of weight is needed wherever you can with a Conflat.
     
    here we have the result , unpainted , without couplings and no securing chains. The various whitemetal bits are obvious. Tierod is 0.045" wire
     

     
    The container is one of the aforementioned pack of four AF insulated containers from Bachmann, finally finding a use. It's been stuffed with a decent amount of lead sheet. Another one these containers has become a sacrificial weathering test piece after a heavily diluted weathering wash removed much of the lettering on one side. White is a nasty weathering job without an airbrush.
     
    The surplus Bachmann Conflat A  was then reworked as a service vehicle carrying wagon bogies, in line with some photos on Paul Bartlett's site. These carrier TOPS codes FAV ior ZVV and were also used by Derby Works for carrying DMU bogies. I contemplated some ex Triang Metro-Cammell DMU bogies in the box and thought "perhaps not". So my wagon carries a GW-type plate bogie - one of the wretched original bogies off the Cambrian Walrus I built some years ago, which are almost impossible to build square. Wheels are the Gibsons out of the Parkside Conflat A kit, which I replaced with Hornby wheels. Baulks are bits of balsa, securing chains are spare bits of the Ambis etches left after I had fitted securing chains to my replacement Conflat A / AF container (seen finished, behind) . The wagon is now fitted with Kadees , but requires new TOPS codes applying. It can now be used as a Loco Dept / engineers wagon on Blacklade, at least occasionally.
     

     
    All of which means I now have a reasonable fleet of Conflat wagons, which can do a job or work, instead of falling off.
     
    I have only one problem still remaining- this:
     

     
    Or at least the semi-scratchbuilt Conflat V on the right . Bachmann container - the original load of their Conflat A - Red Panda chassis, spare Parkside floor and the edging/chain pockets scratchbuilt Despite an attempt to improve matters by melting in one of the bearings to give a little rock ("bastard compensation") it still falls off. It's currently sat on the bookcase , pending further thought. I'm not even sure if there's still a slot to squeeze it into in the stock boxes
     
    The old Ratio MOGO on the left is fine. That one's never given any trouble in its years of use.
  13. Ravenser
    Some years ago I was in a toyshop buying Christmas presents for young relations. While I was scanning the shelves I noticed an Airfix Gift Set in a large box marked down to the absurdly low price of 10 quid. (I think it had started off at around £30 and even that may have been somewhat below the list price.) For a tenner you were getting FOUR plastic aircraft kits in 1/72 scale. most of them interesting and unusual subjects, with acrylic paints, glue and brushes thrown in . That's an absurd £2.50 per kit, or - if you attribute value to the paints and brushes - about £2 a kit. This was value too good to pass by. So I bought the set, even though I had no obvious use for any of the kits, and hadn't touched an aircraft kit since I was a boy.
     
    And there it sat, as a box under other boxes, in the study....
     
    The Gift Set in question, produced in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, is titled VC Icons and features aircraft flown by 5 RAF VC winners in 1940-1. The four kits are for a Hawker Hurricane Mk1, a Fairey Battle Mk1 (was there ever a Mk2 ?? ), a Handley Page Hampden, and a Bristol Blenheim Mk IV.  When I came up with the scheme for an inter-war military narrow gauge railway on some islands in the North Sea (see here )  it seemed a nice idea to have an aircraft on final descent hanging over the layout: there is deemed to be an RAF station just behind the backscene , and aviation fuel and armaments will be brought up from the port by train.
     
    In the context of a boxed diorama OO9 layout 4'3" long any 1/72 aircraft suspended from the lid had better be as small as possible, and the smallest aircraft for which I have a kit is the Hurricane Mk1. (I also have a Revell Mk1 Spitfire kit , which the Daily Telegraph were offering as a promotion a few years back, claimable free from ModelZone on presentation of a voucher. But a Spitfire is bigger than a Hurricane, and Spitfires did not become operational till 1939)
     
    However this is not an account of a Hurricane build....
     
    I hadn't built an aircraft kit since I was about 11, and I don't think those I stuck together as a young lad ever achieved the dignity of paint. I'm not an aviation enthusiast: I've visited Duxford twice in the last 5 years, and flown as an airline passenger a few times over the years, and that's it; although coming from Lincolnshire I'm well aware of the RAF's presence.  It seems only sensible to build something else as a learning exercise to get my head around 1/72 aircraft kits properly, before I venture on building the Hurricane kit.
     
    I want to make a decent job of that one, and some preliminary online explorations have already revealed that RAF markings and colour schemes changed several times between the summer of 1938 and the Battle of Britain. I will certainly need a replacement decal sheet for the Hurricane, and the aircraft as finished will almost certainly pin the layout to the period between the start of the Munich Crisis and the outbreak of war. Whether any other modifications or upgrade parts would be required I don't currently know.
     
    Arthur Ward's "Boys Book of Airfix" (a serious company history, despite the title) has a listing of Airfix kit introductions in the back. From this it appears that the Hurricane kit dates from 1979; the other three kits in my set date from 1968.
     
    Having cleared the old broken computer desk from the study and installed three bookshelves I have a little room to breath. The OO9 layout moves from theoretical concept to possibility; although in practice it would foul and force out the new minimal computer trolley  back into what is a narrow room. Not sure if I want to do that... . The right hand bookshelf in the living room could do with a middle ornament with more presence on its top. Though I think a two-engine aircraft may be too much.
     
    So the test-build kit will be the Fairey Battle. As a single engine aircraft it should be a simpler kit, but it's a bit big for the prospective layout and an aircraft with a very long canopy really isn't suitable for suspending from a length of fishing line: there's no convenient fuselage to act as an anchor point. If it lacks sufficient presence as a  bookshelf ornament, I could attempt a  very simple diorama to be stored in one of two hatboxes I seem to be hoarding - it should be small enough
     
    This is apparently a notoriously inaccurate old kit . It's faults are outlined here: Airfix Fairey Battle rework  That documents a pretty heavy rework. As a learning exercise I intend building it as supplied, according to the instructions and see how neat a job I can do. Any aspirations to upgrade kits are best kept for better basic raw material where a decent result is in fact possible, once I have some idea what I am doing. Using the worst kit in the box as sacrificial training material makes sense
     
    As noted I've no background in aviation modelling. My sole practical reference is a section in Christopher Payne's Encyclopedia of Modelling Techniques, which is veering towards a coffee-table book. This is something but still... Deep breath
     
    I claim no real knowledge of the prototype, but rapid internet checking reveals that the Fairey Battle was designed in response to a 1933 Air Ministry specification for a monoplane to replace the RAF's existing biplane light bombers. A prototype flew in March 1936. It was the first RAF aircraft to be powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin. It was certainly a lot better than the biplanes it was to replace but even this early there were concerns that it's range and bomb load were inadequete for it to be effective in a war with Germany. However the RAF needed to expand, the Battle was a monoplane and could be put into mass production immediately, and so it became a priority. 2,201 production aircraft were built between June 1937 and September 1940
     
    The Battle was effectively obsolete within a year of entering service. It was slow (240 mph maximum speed - the Spitfire could manage 370 mph), and it's defensive armameny consisted of one machine gun in the wing and a gunner with a machine gun poking out of the back canopy. They were sitting ducks for fighters. 160 Battles were sent to France in 1939 to support the BEF. When the Battle of France began there was carnage: in six weeks the RAF lost almost 200 Battles in France. For want of anything better the Fairey Battle remained in service on anti-shipping raids until mid October 1940, and that basically was the end. The RAF operated no more single engine "light bombers" in World War 2: tactical support  /ground attack was left to fighter-bombers - varients of fighter aircraft compromised to take bombs and rockets. Wikipedia  here
     
    I had hoped for a nice simple start to construction. But the first thing  to be done is to assemble the cockpit: and that means figure-painting the pilot and gunner. Ouch. Since some sources recommend painting smaller parts on the sprue I went beyond the crew figures. For model railway work I would use enamels, but this set comes with a bag containing a large number of small pots of acrylic and two brushes , so I used them. The point carry the colour number on the lid - there is no list and the painting scheme diagrams omit detail, but I have a Humbrol colour card booklet which allows  identification
     
     
     
    And here we are so far. Undersurfaces painted in Revell matt black (as I had a pot on the bench) , Humbrol cockpit green for the cockpit, figures in a mix of Games Workshop Macragge blue, Vallejo tierra oscua (flying coats) Tamiya red brown, Humbrol Flesh, and Railmatch warning panel yellow....

  14. Ravenser
    As I noted here the two quickest wins amongst the possible coach projects were commissioning the Bachmann Mk1 BSK and upgrading the old Lima Mk1 SK - since those two projects didn't require me to do a complete paint job. 
     
    So upgrading the Lima Mk1 it was. And after getting a fair way with painting the SK  interior (along with all the other interiors) the penny dropped that I had two Replica TSO interiors in the coach box, and conversion to a TSO should therefore simply be a matter of swapping interior mouldings and painting . So I did just that - the Replica interior fits witout any noticeable difficulty, although the table tops possibly sit a shade high.  (Or the Lima windows are a fraction too deep). I found some suitable figures to represent passengers in another box and painted them up with acrylics: some are resin castings from Peter Goss bought at Southwold one year when World's End was there, while others are Slaters and Prieser figures which had already been part painted by me.
     
    The Bachmann Mk1 BSK also needed some weork to commission it: the seats were painted a light grey, but no passengers were added . There are only 4 compartments, and by this period compartments were less popular with the travelling public. They might well still be empty on a train which will not be departing for some minutes. A Kadee #5 was jammed in the hacked NEM pocket at the brake end with superglue. Somewhere in my boxes I have a Keen Systems replacement close-coupler cam, left over from my upgrade of the Hachette Mk1 SK , which ought to be a drop in replacement to bring the NEM pocket to the right height. However I couldn't find it despite searching - so for the moment the coupling internal within the set is a Hornby/Roco close coupler, which will tolerate a slight varisation in height
     

     
    However the TSO interior is much more open so passengers are necessary. The white-topped tables catch the eye, even with the coach roof on and glazing in place. I didn't want the job of neatly repainting the interior of the bodyshell in white in order to represent the last phase of Mk1 construction with white melamine interiors and strip lights. So the target for the model became Lot 30525, Wolverton 1959-60: plenty of vehicles  from this Lot were still listed in traffic as late as 1992 (the earliest coach listing I have): they were fitted with B4 bogies not Commonwealth or BR1, and had broader aisles with the later seating style , but they retained darkish timber interiors.
     
    (The photo above shows the TSO with a new interior, and bogies and underframe items replaced , but glazing and roof still to be sorted out)
     
    The major faults of the Lima model have now to be addressed.
     
    - Lima's bogies, trussing and underframe detail are unsatisfactory, malnourished, missing or wrong. I removed the Lima bogies, chopped away everything below the solebars and made good the holes with plasticard plates and milliput.
    - The glazing is totally unsatisfactory, with deep slab sides. Fixing this is make or break for any upgrade of this model to modern standards
    - The ends are a complete mess : footsteps that were removed in the early 1960s, moulded handrails that should extend onto the roof but don't, self-coloured black plastic (the ends were blue with markings), gangways with random holes in them, mickey mouse buffers... 
    - The roof vent arrangement is quite wrong for a TSO. (I'm not sure what, if anything, it's right for. These were generic roof mouldings for the whole Lima Mk1 range)
     
    So -
     
    I soldered up MJT rigid 8'6" etched bogies. This was the first time I'd attempted these, and although they proved quite a bit of work (not helped by several errors on my part that had to be reversed) I'm pleased with the results. I used the press-stud system and find the ability to remove the bogies at will quite convenient. It also means that such bogies can be added to a body that is sealed up without needing to break into it, and there is no risk of a bolt or nut coming loose inside which you are then unable to get at and repair.
     
    I added cosmetic whitemetal B4 bogie sideframes from stock (They are actually MJT B5s, but you have to be pretty knowledgeable to spot that something is not quite correct). I also used the etched tongue that folds up into an NEM socket, which MJT supply separately. These need to be cut down a little to avoid fouling the rocking bogie pivot. (I used a piercing saw). They project rather further out than Bachmann /Keen Systems CCM cams, so you need a supply of short NEM Kadees
     
    A replacement underframe truss was stuck in place - I used the plastic Mk1 trusses available from Phoenix Precision in the ex NNK range. These were obviously intended to sit behind a solebar, so the plastic base needs to be cut away. A little bodging with scraps of microstrip under any short legs was needed. Comet underframe castings were used . Unfortunately these are designed to fit behind solebars on an etched fold-up floor plan, not to sit on a plastic floor at the level of the bottom of the solebar. So the battery boxes and other castings had to be cut down to suit. These and the bogie sideframes add a lot of weight to the finished coach, which helps road-holding. Since I can only run 2 car sets there is no question of this making traios too heavy for the locomotives.
     
     For future projects I will use the Replica underframe equipment mouldings, as these can be stuck to the base of a coach without needing to be cut down.
     

     
    The ends need extensive reworking. The footsteps on the ends of Mk1 coaches were removed after 1960 because climbing up to the roof became an intolerable risk once there was 25kV overhead on the network. Normally the bottom step was left in place. The footplank above the gangways was also removed, leaving only the brackets. However every manufacturer of Mk1s throughout history has produced them  with end steps even though the real things carried them for less than a quarter of their service lives. Apparently everyone models the 1950s - nobody models the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties or Nineties.
     
    Taking them off the Lima Mk1 with a sharp craft knife is fairly simple, since the whole end needs repainting in blue. Removing them from the Bachmann  BSK is rather more difficult as you need to make a neat job without requiring a repaint of the ends - I'm afraid there are still slight witness marks, (although a plate was often left at the base on the real thing). As the photos reveal  I didn't dare attempt removal of the upper footplank on the BSK. On the TSO I did remove them, leaving vestigal plastic bumps , which are very representational attempts at the support brackets for the missing footplank, left in place by BR. I also removed Lima's moulded representation of the end handrails and filler pipes, and replaced them with brass handrail wire - in the case of the filler pipes, these extend onto the roof. Only one end of a TSO has these filler pipes.
     
    Lima's representational buffers were quietly cut off and replaced with MJT castings. The ends were painted blue , though there was a slight mismatch between my Railmatch BR blue and Bachmann's rendering when touching up the the BSK ends. Transfers were then added - Bachmann omit electrification warning flashes so these were added to both vehicles. A corporate image Mk1 has a noticeably bare end compared with a 1950s Mk1 festooned with steps.
     
    The roof is held on by clips that fit into holes in the end within the gangway. I painted the outer gangways grey, but the holes looked horrible, so a piece of paper cut to match the gangway door was painted rail grey and stuck in place to hide them once the roof was back on. At the other end the plastic gangway was cut down to half thickness and a working gangway made up from black card stuck to a plasticard plate using an old MJT etch as a template: a thin plate of plasticard was glued across the passenger end gangway of the BSK as a bearer plate to let it slide without catching
     

     
    As already mentioned, the glazing is the most critical part of the whole project. Shawplan's Lazerglaze will not help you here - it's back to an earlier generation of upgrade parts. I used SE Finecast vacuum-formed glazing. The edges of all window apertures were carefully painted in thinned anthracite black to disguise them. In order to get a genuinely flush-glazed effect I had to trim the flushglaze for the main windows neatly around the base and push them well forward.
     
    This won't work with the ventilators, and vents with the glazing recessed by about 1.5mm - which is what you get if you simply fit the flushgalze from behind as it comes - would look pretty unrealistic and spoil the project. Initially I tried glazing the vents with Rocket Glue and Glaze. This worked, sort of: it sagged under its weight, and even a second application left the glazing dished. It was also a very slow process . Eventually I fitted the flushglaze anyway, and poured Glue and Glaze on top of it to fill up the recess. The Glue and Glaze  is now supported by the flushglaze underneath so it stays flat, and a lot less is needed so it dries quicker. The vac-formed pieces for the main window had a noticeable gloove around the edges - I tried carefully filling this with a filet of Glue and Glaze using the microtip. At least it should ensure the windows don't get pushed inside if I pick the coach up carelessly.
     
    Which just leaves the roof, which Lima moulded in clear plastic and which incorporated the glazing. The moulding was scored underneath the gutter line and the side glazing snapped away. All existing ventilators were carved and filed away. Since the moulding is actually clear plastic a full repaint is therefore needed. Parkin's book includes sketch drawings of the roofs and ventilators for most types, and the roof was drilled for new whitemetal MJT dome  vents in appropriate locations , as shown in the relevant drawing. The whole lot had then to be repainted - with several coats required to cover the clear moulding properly. The top coat was Railmatch roof dirt mixed with a dash of frame dirt.
     
    The resulting 2 car set can be seen in the photos. The Bachmann BSK is a touch track-sensitive and can derail if run the other way round , but the new TSO, with all that weight from whitemetal castings, is rock-solid reliable. That said, it's not quite to the standard of the Bachmann coach. At normal viewing distance , the glazing is okay, but at 12"-18" the glazing though flush is undeniably a bit rough and untidy , and noticeably so when compared with the crisp neat glazing  of the BSK. And I have a suspicion there is a slight difference in the actual windows between Bachmann and Lima. Also I forgot to add a strip of microstrip along the roof edge to represent the gutter, so the roor profile is subtly different between the two layout coaches.
     
    The TSO is numbered using some Modelmaster transfers, which include at least one E-prefix number from the correct Lot
     
    So  the TSO is definitely a "layout coach". The medium term plan is therefore to finish an upgrade of my vintage Hornby Mk2a BFK and run it with this TSO. Both vehicles will then be glazed in the same manner, and since the windows on their prototypes are different anyway awkward comparisons are avoided. This will also mean that the finished set gains some first class accomodation.
     
    (This of course leaves the BSK without a partner, and the longer term plan is to floow on by building a second, rather better, Mk1 TSO to run with it using the Kitmaster plastic kit I have . Kitmaster's flushglazing should sit much more comfortably with a Bachmann Mk1)
     
    In the meantime I have a decent second loco-hauled substitute set for the layout. All items used were already in stock , where most of them had sat for a good few years, so the project cost me nowt at the point of construction. As an aside the original Lima box survives with a price tag of £3.50 on the end


  15. Ravenser

    Gremlinology

    By Ravenser,


    Electrical
    In February I had the layout up after a couple of months and all was not well. Things stuck and stalled because they needed a thorough cleaning, the 128's body sat visibly too high, the NBL 21 needed a wheel adjustment, I was reminded that the NRX van needs one Kadee re-setting...
     
    And most importantly, the point that leads into the fuelling point (and which forms part of one end of the run-round loop) stopped throwing . I tried adjusting the motor to release it with my fingers, tried adjusting the throw wire. And all I achieved was a motor that ground and whined without moving anything. 
     
    There had already been a problem here - about 18 months ago locos with limited pickup started stalling on the frog when the road was set for the fuelling point. Checking wires, remaking screw connections didn't fix it.
     
    In short - a new point motor required.  Because of the very constricted space under the boards in the throat area I had used a Hoffmann motor  on this point . And on searching the forum I found an old post from Dagworth reporting that he'd had problems with Hoffman /Conrad motors when the switch failed. Clearly that had also happened to me.
     
    The Hoffmann motor was originally sourced from Finney & Smith, who have been gone for years. A cheap grey clone was available from Conrad, and one or two people swore by them; but on checking the Conrad website these motors are no lonnger available. A like-for-like replacement was therefore not possible.
     
    The original installation is described in an old post here but here is an old photo of the relevant area:
     

     
    It is the upper board that concerns us,  and the Hoffmann motor is the little black and red thing in the bottom left corner of the board.
     
    Here we are again - and the tightness of the location is obvious . You can also see in this shot that the point itself is located to one side , under the board framing , a piece of which has been chiselled away to allow the throw arm to operate. Dear reader - do not create this kind of situation, except from dire and compelling need. 
     

     
     

     
    Clearly a Tortoise was never going in here, and the best and smallest thing I could find was a Cobalt Blue . One has already been used satisfactorily for a good few years - the blue motor just below the Hoffmann.  So a Cobalt Classic Omega motor was ordered from DCC Concepts as the cheapest option. This now comes with 3 switches: one low-powered LED connection and two high power switches. The Hoffmann motor had only one switch, which is why the Erkon ground signal controlling movement off the fuelling point was never installed. Now, potentially, it can finally go in.  (I should say here that the colour-light signals on the main board have been a minor disappointment. Because the platform roads are not in line  with the board edge, the signals are slightly turned - so it's difficult for an operator to see the aspects without deliberately moving to look. As a result they don't really serve as an indication to the operator of what route is set)
     
    There  is, of course, a catch. Cobalts and Tortoises are designed to work a point immediately above them. The throw wire is driven from a mounting in the centre of the casing, through a fulcrum hole positioned on the side of the casing. Making them work a point which is off-set to one side of the motor is  not exactly obvious. And quite clearly there is no way a Cobalt (or for that matter a Tortoise) can be positioned directly above that hole right up against the baseboard frame. Which is the whole reason [sorry, pun not intended] why I orginially used a Hoffmann motor in this location.
     
    Fortunately there is a commercial solution, at least for the Tortoise. Exactoscale have for many years sold a moulded plastic mounting plate to which a Tortoise can be screwed, and which is then fixed to the baseboard by further screws. The throw arm then moves a thick plastic bar which slides from side to side beneath the mounting plate - and a secondary pin projecting up from this then throws the point. The arrangement should be pretty clear from the photos below.
     
    I bouight a number of these adaptor plates when Blacklade was originally built, but only used one of them. Now a Tortoise won't go in this location - but the adaptors aren't designed for Cobalt motors. 
     
    But they can be adapted to take a Cobalt motor - so this posting may be of wider interest to anyone who needs to use Cobalt motors in an awkward location. Details should be fairly obvious from the two photos below.
     
    The recess in the Exactoscale mouldings is just too small to receive the lower flanged base of the Cobalt. But it will take the sticky pad supplied with the Cobalt. All that then needs to be done is to mark locations for new holes for the fixing screws inside the recess. Using the Cobalt as a template to mark the locations I drilled a pilot hole with a pin vice then opened it out with something much larger.
     
    Several of the fixing projections have been removed from the Exactoscale moulding to get it to fit, and I also had to saw a sliver off the back of the moulding. The loss of these fixing points doesn't matter, as the fixing screws supplied with the Cobalt are long enough to go through into the baseboard , so the original fixing points are a little bit of a belt-and-braces exercise.
     
    The sticky pad is then inserted in the recess in the Exactoscale moulding, and the Cobalt added on top - this holds it well enough for setting up. The throw wire needs shortening and fits into a hole drilled in the Exactoscale bar (I left the wire too long, drilled too deep and found I'd effectively pegged the bar to the underside of the baseboard when I tried operating the motor. Once the wire had been shortened a little more all was well)  
     
    The photos were taken before the  main fixing screws had been inserted into the new holes, and before the wires had been connected up, but the details of  installation should be pretty clear.
     
    The current design of Cobalt has 3 switches , compared with 2 on the original design (see the other blue lump in the picture). One of the high-current switches is used to switch the live frog. That leaves at least one switch available to control the Erkon ground signal that was originally going to be installed to control egress from the fuelling point. As there wasn't a contact available on the Hoffmann this never happened, but now it might. However now I am back at work time is limited and the list of  outstanding modelling jobs is long so don't hold your breath... (I am not quite clear how the low current LED switch works. Does it switch either DC feed to a wire , meaning that an LED will light up /not light depending on which way it is connected to the wire??)
     
    The replacement point motor has been thoroughly tested through a full running session - it works reliably, and the frog is live and properly switched. Since it is part of a crossover it is connected to the same output terminals on the accessory decoder as the other point motor with which it works in conjuction. This ensures the crossover always throws together , and saves the cost of an extra decoder output. Since stall motors are low current devices the total current drawn from the output is perfectly acceptable

     
     

  16. Ravenser

    "Which way shall I turn me?"

    By Ravenser,


    Layout schemes
    I have a new job, and (for the moment) most of the time I will be working from home. When I'm in the office I find myself within walking distance of the mortal remains of the Ipswich dock lines, several of whose locos feature on the Boxfile. The shops are open again. The sun shines and we see blue sky. I've had my first dose of a vaccine. 
     
    In the meantime, over the last year of lockdown, there has been time for reflection and clarification. The awkward fact is that I've made much less of an inroad into the backlog of projects than I hoped. Nothing has been done about OO9 modelling  and the putatative OO9 layout here for at least 9 months.  The study has not been cleared; the possibility of moving from a 2 bedroom flat to a 2 bedroom house is back on the table. Nothing has been done about long-dormant Tramlink either. My energies have been focussed on coaches for Blacklade and wagons for the Boxfile. The list of questionable wagons on the Boxfile is now getting quite short, and one good push should finish off the remaining projects already started; I've hit some problems with the coaches, or more specifically a lack of suitable spray cans of paint. Everything seems to have coasted gently to a halt now I'm earning a living again. I still have plenty of projects to go at in the cupboard; there are no exhibitions, so there should be few temptations to buy more .
     
    Into this situation drops an Industrial Railways supplement to the May Railway Modeller. Having looked through this, one layout scheme caught my eye: for a "Basic Exchange Siding" , occupying 9' x 1' as drawn. That could fit along one wall of a small bedroom /study in a 2 bedroom flat or house. The logical thing to do with that kind of space would be to have Blacklade set up permanently, rather than have the hassle of setting up/breaking down every time. But possibly Blacklade could be supported at a reasonable height on brackets - say at 4' (6" higher than on its legs) - as the upper level of a 2 deck arrangement . It's narrow enough - 12" outer ends, 5" in the middle - not to obstruct access to a lower level too severely. 
     
    The Railway Modeller plan depicts a set of sidings with a running line treated as a former double-track route singled . It's basically open country with almost the only structures a road bridge at each end , and a retaining wall and bank at the back. The scenic section is 6' long, and features a run-round loop on one side , with a  pair of exchange sidings on the other: from this a connection to an industrial site runs offstage . There is a long fiddle yard of 2' at onme end, and a short fiddle yard of 1' at the other end. If this were sat on top of shelves and cupboards 30" high, this would allow 3" high boards and 12" separation from the bottom of Blacklade. That ought to be workable
     
    The photographic quality is truly dire but this picture, taken at Louth in (I think) 1978,  looking north from Keddington Crossing, shows very roughly what such a setting might look like . (The station and goods shed was behind me on the other side of the crossing). I certainly have no intention of modelling snow, but this kind of thing is very open and has little height to it . Access for operating would be easy enough, especially if the lower deck were moved say 3" forward of the upper deck. There would be almost no obstruction of the critical centre section of the layout by the upper level; and equally there would be nothing much to lean on and damage when operating Blacklade at the higher level.  Construction should be straightforward and fairly quick. I would presumably use the new Peco Bullhead, though the threeway might have to be from Marcway
     
    Why am I even toying with this?  Well, I have a moderate amount of modern image freight stock which has no use,  left over from Ravenser Mk1. I also have a potentially growing number of Type 2s (not to mention a couple of Type 1s) and a supply of shunters which might be excessive. A simple modest sized layout that gives them something to do on freight operations, a feature missing from Blacklade, would get these models into regular use . The Railway Modeller plan provides all this, in a modest space with limited demands in terms of layout building . 4 points, one slip , a three-way, no buildings, one hut. And it looks like it might be possible to fit both this and Blacklade in the same space for permanent availablity, without causing any serious problems. Anything less minimalist would start to create problems with buildings obstructing access, or becoming vulnerable to damage
     
    In terms of setting , I would be looking for a rather tatty residual railway operation in an industrial area in the Seventies or Eighties. This would probably need to be in an industrial area, not Lincolnshire (although the sugar beet factory at Bardney comes to mind) . South Yorkshire or West Yorkshire would be the obvious choices : a low retaining wall at the back made of soot-blackened massive rough cut stones would suit nicely.  At those dates, the most numerous industrial locations would have been coal mines and coking works, courtesy of the NCB. Those, however, tended to be big complexes and something more minimalist is perhaps called for.  A quarry would push us into the Peak District or Yorkshire - but I don't have any aggregates wagons. Scrap traffic looks a better option: I have a number of air-braked scrap wagons and kits , intended for the club project, which have never seen use. Mineral wagons were also used on scrap traffic , and I have a few of those kicking about. A small industrial shunter would be reasonable: trhe scrapyard north of Bradford had a Sentinel. I have two Judith Edge kits unbuilt in the cupboard. 
     
    There are chronological issues. The line should also have a  basic passenger service. The left hand fiddle yard is only 12" as drawn . The only DMUs that short are 153s (not introduced until 1990) or Classes 121 or 122, which were strictly WR specialities. Unfitted mineral wagons (MCO / MDO) disappeared in  1983, and vacuum-braked minerals in 1988: you can't credibly run them with a 153. A Class 105 or Class 108 will require at least 20" length to accomodate it.  Pacers will come out at about 15" or 16": but Class 142 did not enter traffic until 1985. Class 141 was in service in West Yorkshire from 1983: but they were narrower than the later Pacers, and not available RTR. (Class 140, a one-off prototype, would be a complete scratchbuild).  An extension of the left fiddle yard to 16" seems essential . 
     
    A Class 31 is almost 10" long, a Class 37 slightly over 10". TTAs and equivalent scrap wagons are 5" long. That doesn't give you much of a train in a 24" fiddle yard. Extension to 30" seems essential. Yes  a Rat or a Class 20 is shorter and gives you another couple of inches to play with, and 17'6" underframe wagons are a whisker over 3" long. Brush 2 + 4x SSA/POA , or 20 + 4x MCV/MDO + brake are your limits. Neither really allows much scope for the rest of the train (what rest??) to carry on down the line with some other traffic in vans or some other kind of wagon. And at best the other fiddle yard will take loco + brake van or one wagon
     
    The layout could readily be backdated into the 1960s , at which point a railbus or a single car Derby Lightweight solves the passenger problem . But the other train-length issues remain (In practice I think I would want to try to run both 1970s/80s Blue Period , and mid 60s , as I have green diesels available. Freight stock for the earlier period would be the only issue). This plan may well have been intended for steam operation: a medium-sized 0-6-0 (say J15, J11, J25, 3F, 4F) or a moderate sized tank engine (think Jinty, N5 , J50, Pannier, LNWR 0-6-2T) would allow 1-2 extra wagons. An 0-4-4T plus one pregrouping brake would make a passenger train
     
    A minimum length of 9'9" seems inescapable
     
    While these issues are pondered, along with the possible availablity of a site I don't actually possess, here is a gratuitous picture of a CGO grain hopper at Louth (not at all usual for ABM malt traffic). I have somebody's etched kit unbuilt in the cupboard.
     
     

     
  17. Ravenser

    Loco Hauled Substitute - 1 : Overview

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    In the latter years of BR a little bit of interest was added to the DMU deserts of secondary lines by emergency loco-hauled workings. By the 1980s the Modernisation Plan DMU fleet was dwindling and ageing, while both passenger traffic and passenger services had begun to increase again. Any depot that didn't keep on top of maintenance or saw its DMU fleet racked by some infirmity of old age could easily find itself short of sufficient serviceable DMUs to cover all diagrams . This was particularly the case in areas with Pacer fleets when they suffered their gearbox problems but it wasn't necessarily confined to them. By this stage nearly all first generation DMUs were hitting 30 years old, and being worked more intensively than ever before
     
    The alternative to simply cancelling random chunks of the service due to "shortage of serviceable rolling stock" was the "loco hauled substitute". Provided you had some means to run round or change engines at destination, the hapless depot scraped together some elderly loco-hauled coaches generally surplus to requirements, found a spare Type 2 or Type 3 , and sent them out on a suitable DMU diagram as a "loco-hauled substitute".  ("Top and tail" was not a recognised practice at this time. If it was ever done, it would have been seen by contemporaries as a very desperate lash-up)
     
    For additional operational interest Blacklade has one "loco-hauled substitute" running:  two blue/grey coaches and a pair of 31s which change over Minories fashion. One of the 31s is used to haul any other loco-hauled going - the morning and evening parcels , and the engineers' train
     
    For about the last 7 or 8 years the Loco Hauled Substitute set has consisted of a Bachmann Mk1 BCK acquired cheap as a return off the Bachmann stand, and a Mk2Z TSO bought discounted along with a few other Bachmann coaches when my local model shop closed down. (They can be seen lurking in the back platform in the heading photograph to this blog). They were weathered and given Kadees and they've given sterling service over the years; but it's about time I rang the changes , or at least gave myself another option for this slot.  After all I have a modest sized pile of RTR coaches  and donor vehicles for coach projects, not to mention a stock of bits to rework them. It's just that only two of my diesel era coaches have been breathed on and released to traffic.
     
    So - what's in the pile?
     
    Well :
    - a Bachmann Mk2Z BSO, Mk1 BSK , and SK. All blue/grey , only needing commissioning - Kadees and weathering. 
    - The remnants of my teenage layout Flaxborough, to whit , a Lima Mk1 SK, a Hornby Mk2 brake (presented as a BSK, actually a BFK) , an Airfix Mk2D TSO, a Triang Hornby  RMB roughly repainted into blue/grey and two Lima Mk1 BGs 
    - A vintage but essentially unbuilt Kitmaster kit for a Mk1 SK.
    - Comet sides for a Mk1 CK and BSO, acquired second-hand
    - A Mainline Mk1 BSK acquired cheap secondhand at DEMU Showcase 
    - An InterCity liveried Hornby RMB , representing the last Mk1 in regular traffic (a regular on the 18:00 Liverpool St- Norwich)
    - A Comet Mk1 underframe kit
     
    There's also a Mk3 DVT in ONE blue with neon bars, and a spare Midland Mainline Mk3 TSO, but we can ignore them in this context
    The stock off my teenage layout can be seen here. (For the record one of the two CCTs has been rebuilt and detailed for Blacklade, the other still awaits)
     

     
    Certain reservations must be noted.
     
    - The Lima BGs are 64' instead of the correct 57' - they are therefore only of use as donor carcases to take etched brass sides. The presence of two sets of etched sides in the list isn't an accident
     
    - The Mainline Mk1s have windows that are far too shallow. I was thinking about converting this coach into a bullion van , but that has an extra end window and it all looked a bit difficult. As did justifying the presence of a bullion van on the layout, and doing the blue/grey paint job. An NNX courier van would be easier to justify, but the cut and shut work would be much easier on the old Triang -Hornby Mk1s . This develops into a separate story....
     
    - Some years ago in an expansive mood I decided I would flush-glaze one of the Mk2 brakes. I rapidly came to the conclusion that a lot needed doing to it, this wasn't going to be a quick job and it went back in the pile. I subsequently disposed of the other Mark 2 brake at the club show. One Hornby Mk2 rework was going to be quite enough
     
    Since we have been in lockdown, and since my attention has been wandering from the straight and narrow path of only finishing what's been started, I thought I would do some coach modelling. I've produced enough sets of steam-era coaches for the "Kettle period" in the last few years, so it's time to give the Blue period an alternative to the long-standing loco-hauled substitute set
     
    Where do we begin? A 2 car set is all Blacklade can handle. Ideally I need a brake and a little first class accommodation too. It is winter. I started this lark in early December, at a time when spray painting is going to be questionable for a few months. Especially in a shared landing in a high infection area during a lockdown. I am more than a little nervous about attempting to spray a two-tone livery anyway.
     
    We can agree that an airconditioned FO has no obvious place in a 1980s loco-hauled substitute set. Nor do buffet cars. 
     
    The two Lima BGs are likely to be donor carcases for the Comet BSO and CK sides. They could make a well matched pair. But those will be the two most demanding projects on the list - metal parts, comprehensive underframe replacement, respray in blue /gray, make up interiors. Not perhaps the best place to start...
     
    Simply commissioning a couple more Bachmann RTR coaches is something of a cop-out. This is the time to do some modelling. And I have a pile of MJT coach bogie etches and cast bogie sides in stock. I've had them for years, since I discovered the Engine Shed at Leytonstone and went a little bit mad on the coach bits on offer. That must have been over 15 years ago.
     
    Let's start with the brake coach . There are three options : the Bachmann Mk1 BSK and Mk 2Z BSO, and the Hornby Mk2a brake , which should actually be a BFK and on which I had already made a tentative start.
     
     
     
    (Bachmann BSK - I admit it's had the interior painted, Kadees fitted, and end steps removed. More of that in the next post..)
     
    For the second coach , the options are : Bachmann SK, Kitmaster SK/TSO (interior wasn't supplied and the bodyshells are identical) and the Lima SK
     
     

     
    Now the SK was the most numerous type of Mk1 built . But by 1992 they had all gone from revenue service, while there were still modest numbers of Mk1 TSOs and small numbers of CKs, FOs, and brakes in service. (BSKs, BFKs, and BCKs survived in penny numbers. The BSOs had all gone) . 1992 is my earliest convenient reference point, in the form of a Platform 5 volume.
     
    There is a reason for this . TSOs have 2 + 2 seating  across the centre aisle, for a total of 64 seats. The ER, LMR and ScR specified their SKs for 3 a side seating, with armrests. That gives just 48 seats per coach - a relic of a more spacious age when express trains did not expect to fill all their seats. The WR and SR, whose main lines carried heavy holiday traffic on summer Saturdays, specified Mk1 SKs with plain bench seats and no arm rests, officially rated for four a side seating
     
    In my coach modelling box were two Replica Mk1 TSO interior mouldings. I really shouldn't be running 3 x SK and no TSO in the late 1980s... I already have a  maroon Hachette SK running in Set 4 for the kettles.
     
     

     
    The options now resolve themselves. The Lima SK is nominally an upgrade project to a RTR coach with a ready-painted body. The Kitmaster kit is well, a kit, and it would need painting. Swap the Lima interior for a Replica moulding and flushglaze , and we have a result - a straightforward Mk1 TSO (There's rather more to it, as we shall see, but still at first glance this is the quickest, easiest project...)
     
    We need a brake vehicle and some first class accommodation. Only one project gives me that - the Hornby Mk2a BFK. These two projects are also relatively well matched in terms of the standard of the base model. If the flushglazing turns out so-so then at least you aren't faced with direct comparison against one of Bachmann's better efforts. Unfortunately this project does mean some repainting, as we shall see. And that in turn means it's not going to be finished and ready to enter traffic before at least Easter.
     
    The simplest stop-gap until then is to commission the Bachmann Mk1 BSK. If I can't bring the Lima TSO up to an adequate standard to run alongside (which means acceptable flushglaze)  , then  I simply push ahead with the Hornby Mk2 BFK. If the two end up well matched - it doesn't matter if the BFK hangs fire.
     
    That opens a further can of worms - finding a suitable long term partner for the Bachmann BSK . The Kitmaster SK/TSO, which does have flushglaze and is at least a plastic kit, would probably be the easiest answer
     
    Oh, and along the way I sourced a replacement Triang-Hornby BSK for the NNX courier van - so that got added to the projects, too
     
    (The heading photo is not a loco-hauled substitute or even on BR . It was in fact taken on the GCR at Rothley in 1977, but it does show what blue/grey Mk1 BSK + CK would look like, even if there are other coaches behind the photographer. And at least there are definitely no copyright issues with it)
     
     

  18. Ravenser

    Letter from Lockdown

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    My annual review and New Year's resolutions are a month late this year - which is rather better than I've managed in the last couple of years. Not only that, I can report that that the delay is due to Making Stuff, rather than as in previous years meaning to , but not actually doing it.
     
    I'm not saying I'm completely cured of that. Despite my best resolutions, the amount of modelling I've actually done during various lockdowns , furlough and the like has been much  less than I intended , and less than I ought to have managed. I'm probably not the only one in that situation.
     
    Early in the pandemic I made what amounts to a Statement of Good Intentions here.   Some things in it have since clarified themselves.
     
    I was made redundant at the end of July, and although there has been a resurgence of activity in the jobs market in the last few weeks and a couple of interviews, at this point I'm still looking for work. The legacy will be significant , as the value of things has not collapsed. While I need an income, I'm certainly not broke either in the short or medium term - but it also isn't sensible to spend money without a good reason. Lockdown and furlough have enforced an economical lifestyle on me - and probably on other people. Vaccines are being rolled out, I'm hopeful that I'll find work in the next couple of months; but at present the shops are shut, I'm going nowhere except for my daily walk and it's become blatantly apparent that I have enough projects already in the cupboard to keep me going for a long time - years even - without me spending money to buy any new ones. 
     
    Quite a few of my Good Intentions were carried out last year. I tidied up the 009 stuff on hand, and I did a little weathering of it. I ran the 009 stock a few times. The NBL Type 2 was finished and released to traffic: I've even finally written it up. After years of procrastination an article on the Boxfile for the DOGA Journal was finally written and published . The ex LNER Toad B was finished off. I made progress with the 128.
     
    It was at this point that I strayed from the straight and narrow....
     
    My plan was to work steadily through all my unfinished projects before I started anything new. Unfortunately, once I'd finished off the Toad B I started to reflect on the fact that I hadn't built any wagon kits  for several years. While I was on a roll, perhaps I could build some more, and finish off my purge of the non-runners in the Boxfile fleet, which was discussed here.  That reflection produced a burst of activity, and I replaced a detailed-up Hornby Dublo OHV with a much better Parkside kit that actually stayed on the track, and resurrected and rebuilt  a Slater's rectangular tank wagon from my teens , described here.   
     
    And whilst I was hunting through the relevant boxes in the cupboard all sorts of things turned up, which prompted me to see what else could be done in this direction. (As you do..)
     
    Discovery of the mortal remains of an Airfix cattle wagon kit from my early teens spurred wild schemes of rebuilding it as a tunnel inspection vehicle, based on a conversion photographed at Rotherham in 1984 I spotted in a Cheona wagon book . The battered bits were treated to some Modelstrip and bagged up for safe-keeping, but it's not actually a priority. An Airfix brake van from the same period, nicely painted but which dropped to bits in short order, was also bagged up for future use. But at present I have no need of another brake van. So that's not being built. (I've got a perfectly decent Airfix brake finished as a piped CAR in a storage box)
     
    More constructively , I sorted out the discarded ex Hornby Dublo OHV as an engineers wagon for Blacklade. The chassis was tight, so I loosened it by melting in one bearing a little with the soldering iron to give a spot of rock and slop : "bastard  compensation". It acquired new transfers, along with a load comprising a builders' compressor unit (from a Mendip Models pack that I found in the cupboard) and a spare whitemetal signal cupboard . I should have cleaned up the castings slightly better before I painted them, as rubbing down the paintwork took forever and yellow has rotten covering power to start with.
     
    The elderly Hornby refrigerated van has not only been cleaned up, it has also acquired a scratchbuilt wooden underframe , been painted, and been given transfers. Much of the weathering has been done - I simply need to finish the weathering off, and fit couplings. 
     
    It was at this point that I wandered off into containers. Vintage 1950s railway containers.
     
    Some years ago I bought a Bachmann Conflat A with a rather attractive Speedlink container. Further research discovered that the Conflat A wasn't right for Speedlink operations, and I concocted a more appropriate Conflat V  from a Red Panda clasp braked underframe kit, a spare Parkside wagon floor and a few scraps of plasticard. (It's stretching a point to call this scratchbuilding.)The Bachmann Conflat A then acquired a suitable Parkside BD container.
     
    Unfortunately both wagons proved to derail on the Boxfile. Since Conflats count  as vans , and since I'm underweight in vans anyway, Something Had To Be Done. Especially when I found a Parkside kit for an ex LNER Conflat S in the box of wagon kits.
     
    So I built the kit, meaning to reuse the Parkside BD container off the Conflat A , which it was to replace. But for various reasons the BD container wouldn't quite fit on the Conflat S. So I ended up buying a new Parkside Conflat A kit, and building the FM meat container out of that, which is slightly smaller and which will fit the Conflat S. In due course the Parkside Conflat A will be built and given a Bachmann AF insulated container froma pack of 4 I found while rummaging in the cupboard. (The AF wouldn't quite fit the Conflat S either. Before you ask.)
     
    The unloved BD was eventually found a home in a Dapol ex LMS 5 plank open , which had also shown a strong propensity to derail. I had to file away at the projecting bumpers on the bottom edge to get it in, but after a little work in it went... The container has lead inside it so what was a lightweight open now weighs 50g. And suddenly the LMS open is running reliably, without any need for me to rebuild the chassis . Result!
     
    One more wagon credited to the "vans" , a segment where the Boxfile fleet is light on numbers, and off the total of opens (where I was overweight).
    Here we have the OHV - showing that Hornby Dublo made the sides too tall - and the BD container jammed in the LMS 5-plank open. High security shipment...
     
     
     
    As result of this I now have a spare Bachmann Conflat A knocking around , which I'm thinking of repainting blue  and transferring to Blacklade with a DMU bogie sat on top of it.
     
    And while I was sorting these vehicles out  I fitted coupling wires to the little Ruston 48DS I bought at the last Warley show , and finally got it into service. A further product of this burst of enthusiams was the addition of a few scraps of detailing to the Boxfile, which was looking a little sparse, (Better sparse than too busy). The British Railways delivery van (someone's resin kit) that I built some years ago and never glazed has now received side windows courtesy of Glue and Glaze, and I need to cut windscreen glazing out of clear plasticard to finish the job (It's not the Morris Minor van visible in the photo, by the way. That was a more diminutive replacement, in better keeping with the Boxfile . I gave that a coat of matt varnish to dull it down while I was about it)
     
    The Ruston needs weathering. Another little job for 2021. It does run very nicely - slowly and controllably , thanks to the low gearing - and it's ideal for the Boxfile.
     
     

    After all this progress I succumbed to the urge to buy more wagon kits. The fact that I didn't have any Southern wagons at all in the fleet was starting to nag, and given that the Boxfile is heavily skewed towards vans and the fleet is short of them, there was no doubt that the Southern wagon needed to be one of their distinctive vans.
     
    Given the fact that most of the wagons that fall off the Boxfile seem to have RTR chassis, and nearly all the RTR wagons fall off , not to mention the sordid question of money - the Southern van had to be a kit. A Ratio kit for the wartime plywood type was therefore acquired from Dutfields between the second and third lockdowns, and I've actually built it. (I'm at least trying to ensure that any new project I buy is built and doesn't add to the stock in the cupboard) . That too awaits final weathering and couplings. I will paint those buffer heads.... That reminds me that I modified the kit slightly to represent those fitted by BR in the 1950s, some of which received Oleo buffers
     
     

     
    Then I got distracted by coaches . BR blue and grey ones. A Lima Mk1 from my teenage layout has been extensively upgraded as a TSO and needs finishing off. I have started work on upgrading a Hornby Mk2 a to a BFK. In a moment of weakness I bought a Triang-Hornby Mk1 BSK as "feedstock" for a NNX courier van conversion, and I've made a reasonable start on the job. To add to the list, a Bachmann Mk1 BSK I bought years ago and have got into traffic is being commissioned and weathered as a short term partner for the TSO. More of all this in a separate posting...
     
     
     
    But this does mean that all the three new project purchases (Ratio SR van , Parkside Conflat A, Triang-Hornby BSK) have actually been started and reasonable progress has made on them. My cupboard is at least emptying, and not being refilled....
     
    Also in the coach department there's the two Fisons weedkilling coaches I bought from Invicta . These were ordered in 2019 but I let the order stand when Invicta contacted me duringb the year to say they had come in. The coaches need couplings and weathering , and I have to sort out two suitable TTA tankers for use with them. The lack of an actual spray coach is nagging at me slightly, but I can't see an easy solution. No-one bit when I asked on the relevant Invicta thread about a colour match for the Fisons green.
     

     
    So that's what I actually built in 2020, despite all the expansive plans and good intensions. As far as running the layouts is concerned, the year was equally mixed.  The Boxfile came out and was used a few times: it's a convenient way to test things do in fact run properly. Blacklade has been up three or four times, but it should have been much more...
     
    Now for 2021 - and resolutions aspirations:
     
    - First priority is to finish off  the TSO and the Bachmann BSK and get them into traffic. Followed by the Hornby BFK and the NNX courier van when it's warm enough to spray paint with confidence (i e about Easter)
    - The various wagons need finishing off and releasing to traffic in the next month or so.
    -  The 128 needs to be finished to the point where it too can be painted and released to traffic. Otherwise I have nothing to pull the NNX and my NRX van. Since those vehicles will be/are in Royal Mail / RES red, I'm now leaning to finishing the 128 in Mail red , not BR Blue - this would arguably be slightly more in period for 1985-90. That would mean the 128 would be sprayed at the same time as the NNX van.
     
    This then leaves outstanding on my bookcase and elsewhere:
     
    - The Airfix Trevithick 1/32 loco kit , which I haven't touched in 2020
    - The West Yorks PTE 155 , whose motor bogie seized when it was almost finished - I have a Hornby Javelin motor bogie ready to install
    - The Class 29 , which needs rewiring, a decoder installing , and the cab front windows reworking.
    - The Pacer , which was started a frightening 11 years ago,  and has been largely stalled for at least 8 years... Finishing that may be the biggest project for 2021, especially as I should try to fit Ultrascale wheels into its chocolate and cream  twin, and fit decoders and Kadees.
     
    Not to mention the long-term lurkers:
     
    - The etched brass LNER van, which will require some reshuffling of the stockboxes for the Boxfile fleet in order to find a slot for it.
    - The somewhat battered ex WD road van resin kit (see "brake vans, no real need of more.." above)
    - The  long-stalled Drewry 04 etched chassis, which is a bit daunting
    - The long-term stalled Bratchill 150
    - DCC conversion of the very troublesome 4MT 2-6-0
     
    Beyond the coach projects I'm already committed to, the one that I might well attempt if I get that far is to build up two Kirk kits I have to make a Gresley 2-car push-pull set. Since these are plastic kits they shouldn't be impossibly demanding, I should have everything necessary to upgrade them already in stock, and this would give me an extra two car set for the kettles. The MTK LMS Porthole brake 3rd seems likely to slip into 2022
     
    I've got 3 DMU projects that need finishing. I don't think thoughts of building a DC Kits kit are realistic this year.
     
    If I got far enough down the list to contemplate a new loco project, then a high-standard Class 25 using the Hornby body on a Bachmann chassis would seem the logical candidate. Doing anything with my stockpile of 31 bodies means sorting out a reasonable mechanism to go into them - which isn't so straightforward.. GBL Jinty body on Hornby 0-6-0T chassis is not urgent either
     
    But when it comes to new purchases, I might be a bit more extravagant this year. 
     
    The fact is, I've always half-promised myself that if they ever did Hardwicke, that would be the special limited edition I might go for. Seen on the mainline in 1975-80, usually ran with 3 blue/grey Mk1s: that would be a steam special that might look half-way credible on Blacklade. It would certainly be more plausible than an appearance by the Stirling Single.
     
    I have also been mildly tempted by both the Bachmann MR 0-4-4T and the Oxford N7. Both are moderate-sized passenger tanks, and would not be out of place in Nottinghamshire /Derbyshire in the 1950s: more so, arguably, than 4MT 2-6-4Ts on 2 coach trains . Colwick not only had N7s, some of them were push-pull fitted. However at present a suitable BR black version of either isn't available. I'm not paying for DCC sound, and the round-top N7 hasn't yet been released.
     
    More urgently, I'm half-promising myself the Hattons Genesis 6 wheel full brake in crimson - very close to a GSWR vehicle, and short parcels coaches are always useful. I'm even toying with the idea of a totally unnecessary LNER branch set : Hornby all 3rd 6 wheel, Hattons Brake 3rd + composite. No lights.
     
    And I'm very seriously toying with the idea of a Hattons Barclay for the Boxfile. Something I've considered in the past , but given that it wasn't urgent, it had to be a 14" loco, and on discount. The planets are now aligning...
     
    And someone does a Gloucester DMU trailer body as a 3D print. Not cheap, but it could be an option for the missing weed-killer train spray coach. If I can match that green.
     
     
     


  19. Ravenser
    We left the NBL 21 as a nearly finished bodyshell, here . The sticking point was the need to produce flush glazing for those large curved cab windows by hand.
     
    Finishing the loco was my first big lockdown project and turned into a bit of a fight.
     
    It wasn't really the glazing - like quite a few frightening jobs that didn't prove as bad as I feared. I had used the Shawplan window etches as a template for the shape, traced onto an old business card. (Before I glued the etches onto the model, obviously).  I did this 3 times, to give me spares in case one window went wrong. These templates were cut out and fixed to clear plasticard, then I cut round . (I'm trying to remember whether they were held to the glazing with Pritt-stick or judiciously placed sticky tape. I think I may have done both). They were then filed until they went into the aperture and fixed in place with Rocket Glue and Glaze, which took care of any slight gaps between glazing and frame . Yes, ideally the fit would be good , but it looks perfectly ok at any normal viewing distance and in photos. The front quarterlight was also filed to fit - the rest of the glazing is SE Finecast
     
    Next for the chassis. I had sourced a Class 29 chassis frame and two Class 29 trailing bogies from Peter's Spares. I bought a Hornby Class 25 in blue as mint second-hand at Warley last year for about £50, and I robbed the 5 pole motor bogie out of that. (Before you suspect me of terminal cruelty to Rats, I then bought a Bachmann 25 with damaged handrails at Peterborough for £75, and the medium term intention is to combine the Hornby body with the Bachmann body to produce a super-douper blue Rat at a modest price. Ah, the days when we had shows, and could pile up more and more future projects that we never got round to doing...)
     
    Hornby Ringfield motor bogies were standard items across the range, so it snapped into one of the Class 29 bogie frames. The other bogie was rewheeled with Hornby disc coach wheels. This means a finer wheel profile with shallower flanges that don't catch and lift on stray bits of ballast on my SMP code 70 bullhead track, and has proved effective in preventing stalling on my Baby Deltic. Since there are traction tyres on the motor bogie the resulting chassis picks up on 6 wheels plus 2 crossed fingers. A spare Hornby weight - surplus from the Pacer I started long ago - was slotted into place. Those, too, were standard items at Margate.
     
    I fitted Kadees - long underset , from memory - to the bogies. The Hornby coupling is cut away, a plate of 40 thou plasticard glued underneath to bridge the gap, and then the draft box glued on top of this with solvent, microstrip packing round the sides if possible, and with a Kadee nylon screw  inserted from below for added retention. I think I may have added a spot of UHU on the top to stop it working loose.
     
    While I was about it, I did the same to my old Hornby 29 which was detailed up years ago it a desperate attempt to find a main line diesel that would run reliably on Ravenser Mk1. This loco needs converting to DCC and my first attempt about 18 months ago  failed ignominously, trashing a decoder. A complete rewire is needed: when it was first detailed I fitted Ultrascale wheels and all-wheel pickup, and something is evidently not right somewhere. This loco needs a damaged radiator grill replacing and I will probably have a go at reworking the cab front windows as well. The substantial difference in appearance this makes will be obvious from the photo below, and I have a second Shawplan etch in stock. While D6119 has a 3 pole motor and will never run quite as smoothly, this would at least get it into some kind of use. The "rationale" would be that the loco was appropriated by RTC for test train use after withdrawal in 1971, replacing the Baby Deltic.... 
     
    A TCS T1 decoder from stock was fitted , programmed much in line with the Baby Deltic and test running began.
     
    There were problems. (Entirely prototypically, I might add..)  It kept stalling. A prod was required to get it moving. I added more weight , because the thing seemed to be slipping. I played about with settings, but still it kept sticking in places. Sometimes it would run fine . Then it would start to stall and spin.
     
    After several days of frustration, tweaks and weight adjustments, the penny suddenly dropped. The wheels on the motor bogie had been eased out to 14.5mm back to back. This adjustment meant that sometimes the final drive gears to one axle would slip out of mesh. Hence the slipping and stalling. Nudge the loco and they meshed again. 
     
     The back to back was closed up fractionally (it's now about 14.2-14.3mm)  and all was well. Previous CV values were reverted to in the matter of start and mid volts. And now it runs as well as can possibly be expected from a 5 pole ringfield with traction tyres on one side. There are pickups to those wheels, but I doubt if electrical pickup is more than erratic. So we have 6 wheel + 2 pick up, rather than proper 8 wheel collection
     
     

     
    The underframe was then weathered, with washes of Railmatch Frame Dirt and Brake Dust, and some AK Light Dust Deposit on the centre tanks. And I wasn't happy. The problem can be seen by comparing the top and bottom photos - the bogies were just too bright orange. A further wash of AK Shaft and Bearing Grease over the lot knocked it back to something acceptable , though I left the sandboxes  as colour  photos show these as something of a tonal highlight. The second photo shows D6103 after the extra weathering wash.
     
     

     
    The loco is seen  departing Blacklade with the steam-age engineer's train, my recently completed Toad B leading, and the engineers'  ex GW 4 wheeler (Ratio) just behind . Set 4  (Hachette Mk1 + Hornby Gresley BCK) lurks in the background . I need to weather that BCK at some point. D6103 is evidently working test trains so the engineers at Derby (or should that be Toton?) can work out what the heck is wrong with these things.
     
    This one fought me all the way, but I now have another small short Type 2 that is pretty well bang in period for the Kettle Period. This final write-up has been part finished and outstanding for an indecently long time (D6103 has been in traffic since August) , but we are done. Sorting out the 29  is still outstanding......
  20. Ravenser

    Postcards from the Layouts

    By Ravenser,


    Operational
    As Blacklade is effectively completed, and so is the Boxfile there isn't too much to post in the way of layout construction these days. Lockdown efforts have mainly been focussed on sorting out the litter of unfinished stock projects - and if the truth be known, drifting into one or two more. And those things have gone onto my workbench blog..
     
    However just to prove that the silence is not that of the grave, here are a few snapshots from when each of them was last up - "Pictures from an Exhibition" as it were.
     
    Firstly , the last time Blacklade was up. As well as test running the NBL 21 and having a Blue Period operating session I got some of the post-privatisation stock out of its boxes to check it still ran and give it a touch of maintenance. For some reason - probably that the 1980s are of more interest to me, and I have a full suite of stock for 1985-90 whereas there are one or two things I need to sort out for post-privatisation - I've not run as 2000-7 for a long time.
     
    So the Type 5s got an outing each :

     
    57 011 has always been a pretty reliable performer, and as my most compact Type 5 , is designated for fuelling point diesel traffic and engineer's trains in the post-privatisation period. Here she is test running the two green Railtrack opens to check they are fine. (They were.) I really ought to apply a little mild weathering to this one. The loco-hauled substitute set can be seen in the background.
     
    (This loco was bought as a return off the Bachmann stand for about £40, over a decade ago in the days when Bachmann sold their repaired returns off the stand at Warley and Ally Pally. I think the Fox transfers and the plates to renumber her added 50% to the price... Someone else in the group already had 57 010)
     
    And here is the other green Type 5:
     

     
    This is more of a ghost from my involvement with an abortive club layout project some years ago.  66 532 isn't really that suitable for Blacklade being a good inch and a bit longer than the 57. The container train has nothing to do with Blacklade: I acquired two FEA twins , a Realtrack "ball-bearing" twin and a pocket wagon and built and painted some C-Rail containers. Several of these containers are work-related from the days when I used to work for a carrier. The Hapag 20'OT is a resin Mendip Models kit that hung around in the cupboard for years. This is as many of the wagons as I could get on the layout.: they hadn't been out of their boxes for about a decade.
     
    And now for the Boxfile:

     
     
    Construction of a Parkside OHV steel High and reconstruction of a Slater's rectangular tank from my youth were written up here . However handsome is as handsome does - they were built to replace one or two existing wagons of questionable reliability in the Boxfile's fleet. So they can't be deemed fully and finally "done" until they've run through an operating session and behaved themselves. Here we see the rectangular tank in action, and as a bonus I've finally fitted coupling bars for Sprat & Winkle couplings to the Hornby Ruston 48DS I bought at Warley last year. It runs nicely - so I also have an extra loco in traffic.
     
    And yes, both wagons are good 'uns. They slide in and out of the back siding very reliably.  Which is something of a relief. The Ruston 48DS also runs nicely, at a very satisfactory and controllable speed for the Boxfile. There is too little space for it to run with the supplied runner wagon for additional pickup so occasionally it hesitates at a frog, but that can't be helped, given the nature of the loco and the layout. All in all I'm pleased with my purchase, and the price at which Hornby pitched it was excellent.
     
    But... on checking the two boxfiles which hold the stock, I find I still have five wagons "carded".  One - the LNER unfitted van - is at least serviceable if run the right way round. More damaging is what is carded. Total stock currently stands at 13 vans (incl Conflats); 10 minerals (incl 1 tank) ;  6 opens. The correct ratio for the layout is supposed to be 4 vans, 1 open, and 2 minerals for an operating session. In other words I have 6x the opens, 5x the minerals  - and only just over 3x the vans. And what is carded is 1 van, 2 Conflats, a Bachmann 16T slopesided mineral, and a Dapol 13T LMS open. At the most optimistic view, I have 11 serviceable vans when I should have 18-20 vans. One of those 11 is questionable, another is slightly questionable, and a third is a rather rough Lima van with a new chassis
     
    And every single RTR chassis - a Conflat, a 16T mineral and a 13T open - falls off entering the back road. That's a very sobering situation.
     
    Surveying the stockboxes I find myself forming some further resolutions to address all this. An old Hornby refridgerated van is being reworked as an ex NER vehicle. It now has a scratchbuilt underframe so I gave it some test runs without couplings using the Ruston , and it seems to run very reliably. Lurking on my bookshelf is the long-unfinished DOGA etched van kit.  These two should at least address the fact that I'm light on LNER vehicles. The kitbuilt chassis on the  Conflat V is tight and rigid. Melting in a bearing with a soldering iron to create a little slop at on end might fix it. And ferreting in my modelling cupboard turned up a Parkside LNER Conflat S kit, and a packet of Bachmann small insulated containers. Since I can clearly build a kit chassis so that it stays on the Boxfile while RTR chassis fall off, this would be a possible nil-cost solution. With a bit of juggling I think I can just about get this into the stockboxes as an extra.
     
    I'm not sure what I do about the RTR wagons to make them run, so if  this ultimately replaces the Bachmann Conflat A a further slot opens up. I have two old Parkside BR van kits in the cupboard, one of which might fill the gap. That would get me up to 15 serviceable vans - a roughly  50% improvement on the current situation, at nil expenditure. 
     
     I ought to think about adding a figure or two to the Boxfile: nothing too much , but just a touch of life.
  21. Ravenser

    "What the Hell....."

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I was trying to be systematic and focussed, and work on things in good order, but while I was hunting through boxes looking for bits for the 128 the packet of handrail knobs turned up in my DMU projects box...
     
    As noted in my "programme" posting here, my attempt to press on with the long-stalled ex LNER Toad B (an elderly Parkside kit) stalled when I couldn't find the handrail knobs. Suddenly the brake van was back on the agenda. And as I worked steadily through the things I could see a way to do on the 128, the tasks started to seem more and more demanding, like riding into an ever-stiffening headwind. 
     
    In short there came a point when almost all the obvious things had been done on the 128, and almost all the bits in the bag had been sorted out and applied, and my resolve  fell to critical levels , so that it seemed easiest to pause (the polite term for halt) and to tackle the brake van which ought to be an easier, quicker win
     
    So - the awkward long handrails went in , in an afternoon. I chickened out of attempting an accurate single piece H-shaped handrail - presumably soldered - and the long horizontal handrails are separate from the vertical rails by the door. Feeling emboldened , I was contemplating adding the handrails on the end , when I spotted a problem. When I started the kit, in the reign of George VI [not quite], I got one of the sides upside down . And by the time I added the duckets, somewhat later, there was nothing  much I could do about it. So one ducket is almost 1mm higher than the other. This is not a problem as you don't see both sides of the van, and the discrepancy is slight. But the moment you add end handrails - which must align with the horizontal rails on the side, and with each other- the discrepancy would become horribly obvious.
     
    So I've left them off. Otherwise matters have proceeded as envisaged by Messrs Parkside, the painting has been done, weathering has been carried out, a final varnish coat applied to finish, and the current state of play may be seen here:
     
     

     
    The steam era engineer's train now has a suitable second brake van - the full formation is visible in the short
     
    It was while I was hunting high and low for some lamps for the Toad B (they eventually turned up in a little plastic box hiding in plain site on my workbench) that I found, in tobacco tins buried in an old plywood scrapbox, the mortal remains of two Airfix wagon kits from my childhood. The BR Brake Van is the easier proposition . I painted the parts quite nicely before assembly - I forget what glue I used, but as it was attempting a paint-to-paint bond the whole thing rapidly reduced itself to a kit of parts again, and was shovelled away in the scrapbox.
     
    Unfortunately I really don't have any use for more brake vans. If I did, then I could sort out the poor battered WD road van; and if I needed a BR brake van I have one nicely finished as an air-piped CAR from Ravenser Mk1 which would only need the couplings changed.
     
    Also in the tins were the bits of an even earlier attempt at an Airfix cattle wagon kit. These are not in such a good state as the brake van kit. But when I dug them all out I found that almost all of it is there. I'm missing one end (I've a nasty feeling I threw it away a few years ago as obviously useless) and the doors. Also one buffer beam. And the stations above the sides have taken some damage. But nearly all the necessary bits are there,
     
    I have absolutely no need of a cattle wagon either. But - I was looking through the Cheona book covering brake vans (so as to check painting details for the Toad B) and that volume also covers cattle wagons. At the end is a photo of two BR cattle wagons converted to tunnel inspection vehicles taken at Rotherham in 1989. The roofs have been removed and the vehicles cut down to about 18" above the top of the sides, and a substantial timber platform built on top, carried on heavy longeditudinal timber beams.
     
    That is firmly within my period. And a tunnel inspection vehicle could run perfectly credibly in the 1980s engineering train
     
    The two wagons in the Cheona book are BR built Southern wagons to dias 1/35? and 1/35?  , not the GW-derived BR standard cattle wagon dia 1/353 done by Airfix- which is demonstrably a final version of the GW MEX. I have only managed to find internet pictures for one cattle wagon to tunnel inspection vehicle conversion to show you what I mean - this is a little different as it is based on a dia 1/353 wagon, but the vehicle has not been cut down and the platform is quite thin  DB893928. The photo was taken at Belper in 1980 and the vehicle belonged to the District Civil Engineer at Nottingham, so it's not that far from Blacklade. By 1982 this vehicle had been acquired for preservation and was at Quainton Road
     
    The damage to upper stantions would make this particular conversion difficult from the parts I have. But a similar vehicle cut down by an extra 2 planks and given the much more substantial platform seen on the two vehicles photographed at Rotherham should be doable and ought to be plausible. A hybrid - possibly, but definitely a possible BR conversion . And I rather suspect it will be quite hard to prove it definitively never happened...
     
     
     
     
  22. Ravenser

    Waste Not, Want Not

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I have to confess that I've slipped off the straight and narrow (no, I'm not modelling the Nullarbor Plain as 3'6" gauge...) 
     
    The plan was that I was going to systematically work through the litter of stalled unfinished projects on the bookcase, to clear the decks , clear my head , and achieve a maximum of result for a minimum of effort . No new projects!
     
    However I've come off the wagon, fairly spectacularly..
     
    There were two catalysts. Firstly, there was the ex LNER Toad B which I reported stalled here  as I couldn't find the packet of handrail knobs. As you may have guessed, the packet of handrail knobs duly turned up, so work resumed . Secondly, I dug out the Boxfile to have a running session. And I dug out the second stockbox - and into use went an LMS fish van that fell off at every turn. Closer investigation reminded me that I have two ex LMS fish vans, after I bought a built kit off a second-hand stall under the misapprehension it was a plain ordinary ventilated van. One is - just about - okay: the other isn't . This was the one that isn't....
     

     
    A couple of years ago I had a big push to sort out the problems of reliability on the Boxfile. This brought on the realisation that all was not well with the wagon fleet, and a determined effort to sort it out: Troublesome Trucks  . Unfortunately, like a lot of my determined efforts, this one petered out about 4/5ths of the way through, leaving a substantial improvement in the situation and a pile of unresolved loose ends. Or at least, 6-7  wagons that definitely derail. Worryingly, at least 3 of them are RTR chassis , which really ought to be square.
     
    So another push seemed needed - especially as 3 of them are vans, and I am under quota for vans anyway, whilst being over quota for opens and minerals.
     
    You will now realise that my latest efforts have improved the availability of serviceable opens and minerals...
     
    The ex Hornby Dublo steel High (OHV) had been a nagging failure for a while, and it sat carded in the storage file. Checking the thing revealed that the Parkside chassis was tight and not quite square. Never going to stay on like that.  I've melted in one bearing to create a little slop - an ugly bodge, but it won't be good enough for the file. (I've been here before with a Parkside BR van that ended up redesignated to Blacklade).
     
    In a box in the modelling cupboard amongst other unbuilt kits lurked an old Parkside kit for said wagon. This was the version without the "dimples" in the side for securing. I'd prefer the more characteristic dimpled version, so I was thinking about building this for a friend's EM shunting layout and buying the more recent retooled Parkside kit... Nothing got done .....
     
    Coronavirus simplifies matters - I'm not sure he still has the said EM layout. Besides, there will be no shows until at least next year. The club's 4mm steam project is therefore stalled. And the employment situation prohibits unnecessary spending. 
     
    So I decided simply to build the thing as a straight replacement, and dug out the kit. While I was about it, I also dug out of a box from the depths a Hornby refridgerator van. This was always vaguely planned as a conversion for the boxfile. I'm convinced it is ex NER from the body style, but I have no firm details. Buying an entire volume of the new Tatlow 4-5 parter on LNER wagons for reference for one wagon, when I also have the old one-volume version was never justifiable. (Pt 1 GN/GC/GE was an indulgence. Pts 4a and 4b a necessity)
     
    So - from a livery diagram in the preface to Tatlow Vol 1  I think this Hornby model may be based on NER dia F3, 17' over headstocks / 10' wheelbase, wooden underframe, presumably clasp-braked. No kit exists for a 10'wb /17' long wooden fitted underframe. (Of course not) The Hornby body seems to be 67mm long - 1mm short (unless I am measuring over angle irons and it's 2mm short.) . I intend to live with this slight discrepancy. A scratchbuilt underframe will be needed - I have plenty of etched W irons in stock. Since the axles are displaced well to the ends, I intend to "adjust" by reducing the wheelbase to 9'9" to compensate and maintain proportions - it's only a matter of where I set the W-irons on what I believe to be a clasp-braked vehicle. 
     
    A packet of ex MR buffers from ABS had been bought years ago as the nearest available match for NER buffers. These will be set on spare Cambrian buffer beams surplus from a mineral wagon kit - which neatly provides the round base. After more hunting through boxes, I found the Mainly Trains etch of wagon strapping where it should have been - so I have crown plates and other garnishings for the solebars
     
    The wagon has been stripped of old paint and a coat of primer and a first coat of white applied
     
    And the remaining MR buffers  have a use too....
     

     
    Many years ago, in my early teens, I bought a Slaters rectangular tank wagon kit and built it. (Not particularly well, obviously.) It ended up painted in a fetching cream lined grey along the edges (not especially accurately) and the battered thing has been lurking in the depths of a box for several decades as not bad enough to chuck.
     
    So I dug that out as well, and stripped off the paint at the same time. 
     
    One solebar broke loose under gentle pressure - the other didn't, but that was enough to rebuild it square. The buffer beams were removed , cleaned up and replacement whitemetal MR buffers fitted, as 3 of the originals had broken away. The whole thing was reassembled, a missing brakelever replaced with something of an old sprue , and another one patched up. A missing V hanger was reinstated (another bit from the boxes of accumulated spare bits from kits  ). As much lead sheet as I could was jammed in underneath - I reckon it's at least 40g which I hope it just enough, though ideally I aim for 50g . Cross-shafts were installed from plastic rod, brass bearings and a pair of split-spoke wheels  fitted from another box and we have this:
     

     
    Transfers are bits and scraps from various sources including the sheet numbers on Modelmaster transfer packs. I'm not sure a wagon with only two brake blocks should carry a fast traffic star but some things that shouldn't really did, and tank wagons could be rather archaic in the 1950s. The fetching weathered effect is where one transfer started to break up under the weathering wash... A little further weathering of the chassis , then a coat of matt varnish, is still required.
     
    Prototype reference is here RMWeb thread and here: Paul Bartlett - Croda Rotherham, 1984   I will repeat my astonishment that such archaic vehicles survived so late, when I was discovering blue 31s on Transpennine South loco-hauleds and approximately the date of Blacklade's "blue period".  Just to ram it home - this wagon kit was originally built 6 or 7 years before the prototypes were photographed at Rotherham. Nobody mentioned I was getting a contemporary wagon kit....
     
    The OHV is a reasonably straightforward kit build, complicated only by my possession of a copy of Geoff Kent's "4mm Wagon". This means that I've done most of his upgrades - whitemetal buffers, profiled brake levers, better whitemetal brake cylinder - and whitemetal clasp brake shoes, though that was much more about trying to build in as much weight as I could. I also made the effort to suggest the drop doors from the inside as the interior is very visible, and the Cheona LNER Wagon book includes shots of the interior of a wagon preserved at  Quorn on the GCR. The door area is cross-scribed with a scrawker to represent the chequerplate, and fine microstrip added on both edges then sanded down
     
     

     
    And painting has reached the point where we now have:
     
    The number is reasonably accurate for the contractor-built fitted wagons with smooth sides and steel doors. Again the underframe needs more weathering washes and the whole thing a coat of matt varnish
     
    I still have to reletter the original OHV that started all this off, and which seems to behave itself on Blacklade, and to sort out the couplings  all round. And the LNER brake van has been given a trial trip out in traffic - though it too needs an underframe wash and some matt varnish to seal the transfers
     
     

  23. Ravenser
    I know I promised a report on the final stages of the reworked NBL Type 2 , but a start has been made on the long- stalled Class 128 parcels unit , and it's getting a little frustrating...
     
    This posting has been sitting in draft for four years with the optimistic stub "Progress on the 128 has been slow, but like BR we're getting there" Very slow indeed... . However on closer inspection I find I am in no sense entering into the home straight with this one
     
    The project ground to a halt when I found that part of the bogie support at one end of the Replica chassis had sheered, and could not be stuck back together. This left one end of the chassis sitting lop-sided. I eventually found out that Replica could supply a replacement, I took it to Peterborough show the following year and they fitted the part .. and other things were higher priority and got in the way.
     
    Having finally got round to the 128  as a result of lockdown I started by trying to fix the mistakes that had begun to nag at me while the bodyshell sat gathering dust on the bookshelf. The lights didn't look right. I removed the whitemetal castings and found they'd been glued the wrong side round. They now look a good deal better, though not perfect. At the left hand end the cab handrail should be inboard of the door. With some trepidation I clipped out my first attempt at a handrail here and put in a new one in the correct place.
     
    There is a problem with door furniture. Two styles were fitted, one to the WR vehicles (of which my model will be one, as inherited by the LMR and modified without gangways) and one to the vehicles originally built for the LMR
     
    A good shot of the WR vehicles is here - M55993 - ex WR and an official photo of one of the LMR units adorns the relevant Railcar.co.uk page Railcar.co.uk - Class 128 page
     
    M55993 is going to be my "target unit" for this model:- the door furniture is visible if you blow up the photo - and I have absolutely no idea how to do the two small handrails either side of the handle , bearing in mind there would be 6 per side and they need to be exactly the same and in exactly the same places . The DC Kits instructions seem to indicate that there are two etched door handles to be applied , one on each door, and no handrails. That is definitely wrong for all units..
     
    After several attempts I eventually got suitable door handles for the three parcels in place, using bits off an NNK/Phoenix etch for Bulleid coaches. As a fudge I've done a rendering of the LMR style handrail , using an etched grab rail from the fret. It is at least regular and neat and more or less the right side, though I had to clip out the first attempts and reposition when I found a good photo.
     
    I also added the vertical handrails beside the windows on the cab front.
     
    This brings me neatly to my big grumble and issue. What I bought from DC Kits was a package deal of 128 body and Replica chassis. The kit instructions are a little sparse and broad-brush. There were a couple of etches of detailing parts. Since what I'm trying to do deviates significantly from the original kit with floorpan and underframe the instructions are not always relevant anyway. There are some sketches but they are not always relevant either. And I'm finding that in a number of areas the parts needed are not included and there are parts included that may not be relevant.
     
    To be more specific - there are no bogie parts included . Since the Replica chassis requires bogie sideframes, I'm on my own. I've managed to find an unbuilt Kitmaster Mk1 coach kit in the cupboard with plastic sideframes that can be adapted to give a decent representation (I would use MJT bogies if actually building the coach , so the mouldings are spare)
     
    There were two fold up etched strips for the underframe equipment, but these were designed for the DC Kits floorpan moulding and the folds weren't in the right place to suit the Replica chassis. And after looking at it for several months I was certain that a fold up etched box with no detail on the face simply wouldn't convince . There are two plastic mouldings representing battery boxes in the bag of bits , so I've hacked away the etched box on each side and made good before fixing the plastic mouldings in place with superglue. But they are hollow, so I'll need to make a back from plasticard… The instructions refer to castings for engines, and two types of airtanks . No such castings are in the box. What lumps I have on the underframe look uncomfortably sparse (and thin) - certainly compared with photos. Golding's book of DMU drawings only shows one side of a 128 , so I'm left to guess if the other is the same , mirrored , or significantly different. The sketch in the kit instructions , and the two identical etched strips imply the two sides are the same but I'm not sure I trust that.
     
    Plastic buffer beams are provided as are etched brass detailing overlays. As I can't see anything on the etched brass overlays that isn't on the mouldings , I've just used the plastic moulded buffer beams. Plastic buffers are supplied but they are round , and by the 1980s M55993 had oval buffers . I found some MJT 1'8" Oleo buffers in the bits box and have substituted those. I butchered the etched brass coupling hooks to get them in, and left off the etched shackles as they would foul the Kadees (There's no diagram to show what the components on the etch actually are)
     
    And I'd already replaced the roof vents with MJT cast torpedo vents
     
    In short this is looking less and less like a 128 kit, and more and more like a scratch-aid for a 128 requiring the builder to conjour up much of the build from his own resources
     
    Progress to date is shown here. I can get a long way towards finishing this, but there are some parts of the underframe equipment where I am afraid I may find myself stumped.

     
     
    And I'm starting to wonder if I was a mug trying to build my own and I should just have paid £50 for a Heljan model out of the Bargains page of a boxshifter… Because I cannot finish this to the accuracy of the Heljan model.
     
     
  24. Ravenser
    The last few months have been somewhat difficult. At about the time of my last posting, my elderly mother had a fall , and I went up to Lincolnshire on quite a few weekends after she was discharged. Then there was a second fall at the start of December, and then we discovered that her cancer was terminal. I spent a fortnight over Christmas / New Year up in Lincolnshire driving back and forth across the Wolds each afternoon to Lincoln hospital to see her: we finally managed to get her discharged into a care home near my brother, and she died peacefully in mid January. After that came the funeral in Lincolnshire and what was to be done about the house; and then coronavirus descended on us. After initially working from home I was furloughed after Easter - when a majority of your shipments are airfreight and high-end goods, things were always likely to go quiet. (I remarked to several people during March that September 1939 must have felt much like this...)
     
    Naturally, very little modelling activity took place during all of this - I've effectively had a 6 month layoff. I managed to get to "Lincoln" show at Newark showground on my way back from one of the early trips, and some things for the prospective OO9 layout were bought - though not the Bofors gun Clive recommended for airfield defence. Thoughts of visits to Spalding and Peterborough shows proved impractical, I managed a day at Warley, and snatched a couple of hours at Stevenage, and that in practice was it until April. Not surprisingly my normal New Year's Resolutions survey on here didn't happen.
     
    I now find everything very much up in the air. With some kind of inheritance to come, there was the possibility of moving from my flat (which is rather full) to a modest-sized house. That rather called into question the OO9 scheme I was drawing up here, since that was predicated on decommissioning of the old desktop PC and using the space for shelves and a boxed diorama layout. If I were to move, there might be a different, larger site. But with the ongoing pandemic , and the resulting economic mayhem I cannot be certain whether I will have a job in the medium term, or what the chaos might do to my savings, (or for that matter the value of my late mother's house.) So that project is very much in limbo. I have stock, a few kits, a little track, and some buildings in store for it - but whether I go ahead with the current plans is now a moot point, and under present conditions there's no question of commissioning a baseboard unit from Tim Horn or buying other items. So starting work on it is for the moment out of the question.
     
    I have been slowly digging my way out of the piles of admin that built up during the autumn and winter. But the model shops are shut (like nearly all the other shops), there are no exhibitions (and probably won't be until late this year or even 2021), and mail-order now involves decontamination and quarantine. My club is closed for the duration, the Area Group can't meet, it's not exactly safe to go anywhere or to see anyone. While I have an adequate income at present courtesy of the Government, that may only be the case for a few more months so it doesn't seem a good idea to spend any money unnecessarily. 
     
    Added to which I have a cupboard full to overflowing with unbuilt stuff, various projects left where they fell last September - and if I'm honest, piles of unread books and various other stuff I really meant to do, watch or sort out . I'm starting to realise that the accumulated backlog - and it's not just railway modelling - is very large indeed. I've tried to be good in the last decade and restrict myself to "one in, one out" but all I seem to have done is slow the progressive accumulation of stuff to a crawl. The size of the modelling pile - and even more, the amount of work it represents - is very sobering. The BBC series on Hornby introduced me to a new acronym from the world of plastic kit modelling: STABLE - Stash Beyond Life Expectancy . I think I know what they mean...
     
    So - the only sensible approach seems to be to work steadily through the various unfinished projects currently littering my bookshelves, and finish them. That would be good for my mental health - not an irrelevant consideration when you haven't actually seen anyone except once or twice in the street for 2 months - since it would clear up a series of nagging dangling loose ends, resolve various outstanding problems, and tidy the flat up a bit. It should also not cost me any money - and if I do need to buy anything it will be strictly necessary and not destined further to clog up the modelling cupboard. Furthermore this approach should provide the biggest return in term of modelling results for the least investment of effort by me.
     
    And once the decks are clear, I can launch into some new projects from the cupboard. There really isn't any need to go purchasing extra projects. 
     
    Added to which, I really ought to run the layouts more often. I don't think anything had been run for at least 6 months.
     
    So what do I have lying around outstanding?
     
    1. OO9 
    I bought - and painted the body parts for - a Parkside brake van kit at Newark. The bits were lying on my table for months , along with a WD open kit. That has been built, with Bemo couplings, and painted, lettered and weathered. Along the way a Bachmann and a Peco open, and two Peco flats were weathered, too, and the WD open kit started. Couplings are an issue with that one so it's not finished... At some point I'll do a posting on OO9, and I still have to finish the larger scale drawing of the intended plan, but this side is more or less tidied up for the moment.
     
    2. OO wagons
     
    There's rather more outstanding here. I managed to finish weathering the resin PNA kit I bought second-hand at Stevenage last year, and while I was about it, I weathered my Bachmann PNA - and I'm pleased with the results. One of the resin loads I bought at Shenfield last September was eased to fit and painted: unfortunately these don't really fit the resin kit. Flushed with success, I moved onto this , which had been sitting unfinished on the bookcase for a couple of years:

     
    Handrails were the issue , and how to do them - this is an elderly Parkside kit bought second-hand. I fitted the vertical handrails, slightly simplified, decided to use handrail knobs either side of the ducket to hold the horizontal handrails - and could I find the packet of handrail knobs?? I think I may have put them in with a loco kit - but I haven't found which one. The idea is to use it as a second brake van for the engineers train now I have some 1950s engineering  vehicles to go with my kettles 1950s engineering stock - but the project has stalled again and it's back gathering dust. Mail order for a single packet of handrail knobs it a bit extravagant.
     
    The poor resin WD road van has taken a tumble or two from the bookshelves, resulting in serious damage to the upper part of the veranda ends. I'm frightened enough of resin dust at the best of times, so any shaping has to take place outsider. And going outside now means hospital-level sterilisation procedures for me, the kit, and the tools. Added to which I don't actually have a use for the thing at present - so the WD road van is near the bottom of the action list.

     
    Then there's this - a 5522 Models kit sold by DOGA a good few years ago, and as it would be quite useful on the Boxfile I ought to finish it, once I am confident enough to fire up the soldering iron. I've managed to trap the supports for the brake gear, so the solebar will have to come off...

     
    And if I'm feeling inspired, while I've got the soldering iron out, I could actually start on the Judith Edge Vanguard Steelman kit I have in the cupboard - which is body-only and would suit the Boxfile...
     
    Finally, rooting around in the drying box (which has sadly degenerated into a debris box) I find the bits of an incomplete Connaisseur Models LNER single bolster. It's twin was finished and sits in a storage box along with the rest of the Boxfile fleet, even though it has no actual use on the 'file. As the whitemetal axleguards failed, it needs etched W-irons fitting, couplings, painting, etc. 
     
    3. Locos
     
    First cab off the rank in this section is the NBL Type 2 diesel-electric I was working on last year: Class 21 . This one needs a full posting to itself, but here it is sufficient to say that although it's been fighting me mechanically all the way (entirely prototypically!) I think we're finally there....
     
    This then brings another loco into view. Twenty years ago (gosh!) my first diesel detailing project was a Hornby 29 I can bought cheap, second-hand, for Ravenser mk 1. Early last year I attempted to convert it to DCC. This was part of a whole block of DCC work, most of which failed for mysterious reasons, blowing decoders in the process.  It was a very frustrating episode - all I got out of it was a resurrected Bachmann 08. I came to the conclusion that the whole of the DC wiring for 8 wheel pickup on the 29 had better be ripped out and redone. The loco also needs a damaged grill replacing, and the cab front windows reworking. This - like the Baby Deltic - can be excused as an RTC loco.
     
    (And if I get very ambitious I have a blue Hornby 25 sans power bogie and a green Bachmann Rat with slight body damage and a good blue 25 could be produced by combining the two with some Shawplan etches and glazing , which I have in stock)
     
    There is also the Airfix Trevithick loco kit in 1/32,  see here At the Dawn of Time 2 which became stuck (literally!) when solvent got in where it shouldn't and a component of the drive train sheered. I really quite want the drive train to work and the wheels to revolve - motorising it , as originally intended for this kit would be excellent. So I need to work out how to pin the relevant components back together.
     
    Then there's this: 
     
    This, too, has been gathering dust for at least a decade - a Branchlines chassis for the old Airfix plastic kit for the Drewry 04 shunter. Someone persuaded me it should be made compensated - and I didn't quite understand what I needed to do with beams and pivots. This has always been intended for the Boxfile. I've never actually built a chassis - perhaps when the decks are getting a bit clearer I should try to finish this. 
     
    Buried deep in the pile of stock for Blacklade is a Hornby 60 which suffered a little bodyshell damage at one end . I really ought to patch it up and get it back into traffic...
     
    And finally there's the problematic 76xxx Standard 4 Mogul with its mysterious short that fried two decoders. I will have to be very confident before I have another go sorting out that one.
     
    4. DMUs
     
    The first priority here is to finish the DC Kits 128 . I am not happy with the headlights, or the underframe equipment, as I originally did them, so these will need sorting out. As will the remaining handrails and the doorhandles. This will at least give me convenient options for consisting Modernisation Plan DMUs (as opposed to inconvenient ones involving 2 x 2 car short frame units ) . And it will allow me to use the 57' Mk1 parcels vehicles (BG , GUV, and NRX) which have been sitting idle for ages, since the centre platform on Blacklade - the only one which has access to the run-round loop - will only just take a Brush 2 and two 50' vans. It will however take a 128 + 57' vehicle.

    (gratuitous picture of weathered GUV)
     
    Spray-painting the body will be "interesting" during lockdown , as the landing outside my flat where it would need to be done isn't exactly a safe sterile area during the epidemic.
     
    Then we get to some very long-standing projects, which bristle with problems.
     
    There is the Pacer:
     
    This is supposed to be getting a Branchlines replacement etched chassis. However I decided I really couldn't tolerate the large black underframe box that replaces the engine block. These have been cut off, replacement weight installed and engines fettled out of plasticard. This lengthy process essentially killed the impetus needed to sort out the new chassis itself. There is also the question of whether it's possible to improve the body - I'd love to flushglaze it but I'm not sure that's practical - and upgrade the interior. Lights are supposed to be fitted, and Kadees, and gangways and DCC...
     
    The first push on this one is recorded here - Pacer - and I'm horrified to see the project has been stalled for exactly a decade....
     
    This too would be give me more options for multiple unit working on Blacklade and it really needs to be finished off.
     
    While I'm about it , I have a second Pacer - actually a Skipper in chocolate and cream - and an Ultrascale rewheeling pack in my DMU box. This would be a less drastic upgrade since the second model is in somewhat better condition, and it would "simply" be a matter of fitting replacement wheels, decoders, lights Kadees and a little detailing. However I am also now committed to doing something about the underframe to match the first Pacer....
     
    The West Yorkshire 155 is a case of "so near and yet so far" . At the last stage of the project, the motor bogie failed. Someone diagnosed a seized central motor bearing , oil seemed to fix it - and then the motor bogie failed finally and irretrievably. There are really only two approaches to sorting this out - rob the motor bogie from a second 155 , in Provincial livery, which has been sitting unused in its box for two decades , or else use a Black Beetle. The latter option would remove the large black motor unit visible inside and would involve me putting  more of the interior into the unit.
     
    This should provide the best result - but the only way to get a suitable Black Beetle is now to rob one out of the Bratchill 150:
     

     
     
    A project which has been stalled a very long time....
     
    The killer issue is that I fitted some etched window frames from Jim Smith-Wright . The model took a tumble at Ally Pally one year during breakdown, several came off, I picked them up - and when I got home I was one short. Since Jim no longer does the etches - I'm stymied.
     
    I really can't see this making any progress in the foreseeable future - hence the decision to take the its motor bogie for the 155.
     
    Getting the second 155 up and running is a possibility, but I'm not sure I can face a second full-dress rework on one of these.....
     
    5. Coaches 
     
    Nothing to declare, officer... 
     
    But if I clear up all the above, starting the MTK Porthole Brake third kit is an obvious option. I could also use the Comet etched Mk1 CK sides and a Lima donor to build a second coach , and break up the scratch set with its mismatched gangways. 
     
    (Though on reflection I started upgrading a Hornby Mk2 BFK and gave up because it was looking a lot like hard work. I suppose that could be finished as well...)
     
    6. Layouts:
     
    Nothing I can see to be done on Blacklade or the Boxfile as layouts, other than to run them more often.
     
    But Tramlink (Kent) needs sorting out, and nothing has been done in over a year. It would make a decent DC test track, and there are buildings to be finished. Not to mention light rail units.
     
    I really don't need to buy any more models given all this...….
     
  25. Ravenser

    This Time I May Be Committed.....

    By Ravenser,


    Layout schemes
    I mentioned in a previous posting   Shifting Sands  that recent developments in RTR had tempted me to consider a possible 009 layout. Things have now moved on...
     
    In the end, the Bachmann Baldwins proved rather too tempting to resist. I think the tipping point was when a little internet research revealed that 2'6" gauge was a de facto British military standard up to WW1, accounting for the Admiralty operations at Chattenden and Devonport and the RNAD explosives factories and depots. 9mm gauge is of course just as "accurate" for 2'6" gauge as it is for 2' gauge. But lines like the Welshpool & Llanfair and the  Leek & Manifold were very much more "proper railways" in character compared to some of the 2' gauge quarry and industrial operations, or the traditional 009 "rabbit warren" layout - and as I noted in the earlier posting, I am after something a bit more substantial than the usual cute 0-4-0Ts and 0-6-0Ts. (The Festiniog was (and is) a substantial operation, but it's loading gauge is very tight - witness the saga of Russell's cab - and this makes its stock seem rather more modest.)  Now one Baldwin was re-gauged for the 2'4 1/2" Snailbeach, so re-gauging  to 2'6" ought to be possible... And if it was possible, why wouldn't a 2'6" gauge line operated by the British military have done exactly that? There must have been hundreds of Baldwins going spare....
     
    In short OOn3 representing 3' gauge would have been a significant hassle to do, but 009 representing 2'6" gauge is now dead easy, and would have some prototype justification. The Peco 009 "main line" track would be ideal for this look.
     
    So - the Dogger Light Railway it is to be. The back story is more or less as described in my original posting: the need to bring fuel, munitions and stores in by sea, and move them up from Doggerport to the RAF base provides a raison d'etre for the line, and a justification for running plenty of freight trains. The fact that the Great Dogger Mole is the only causeway linking the two islands will tend to force inter-island traffic onto the train, justifying some local goods (how else would you move livestock from one island to another?). In the inter-war period there would be hardly any private cars here - probably little more than motorcycles and bikes
     
    I can also justify running prototypical vehicles from other English narrow gauge lines. Some re-equipment would have been needed during re-armament in the late 1930s - the ex WD WW1 stock would have been nearing 20 years old by then. What would be more natural than that the Dogger Light would buy serviceable rolling stock from lines that were closing down, like the Leek & Manifold (1934 - and the same gauge) or the Lynton & Barnstaple (1935) and the Welsh Highland (1936)? In Ireland the West Clare - as the last 3' line to close - ended up with a motley collection of survivors from other 3' systems operated by CIE. A quarter of a century earlier the Dogger Light might have done something similar - after all the Longmoor Military Railway collected quite a few cast-offs from BR as well as its own ex WW2 WD-ordered equipment
     
    I have been quietly buying a modest amount of 009 RTR. I am now the proud owner of two Bachmann Baldwins. A decision has been taken to standardise on Bachmann WD opens , and Parkside kits for ex WD vans - not least because getting lead weight into vans is easy , and the Bachmann open wagons have the merit of weight. (This was after I bought 1 Parkside open wagon kit).  I bought an L&B open in plain grey, and an L&B composite in plain Indian Red. The latter was something of a mistake. I meant to buy the brake composite to give an instant passenger train. And these are really rather big vehicles - a slight embarrassment on tight curves. 
     
    An error when clicking to add to basket resulted in my buying two of the Golden Arrow Models whitemetal kits for the Southwold's 0-6-2T "Wenhaston" when I only meant to get one. Still they are entirely credible as locos ordered as part of the Royal Navy's pre-WW1 buildup. I assume that the railway's earlier locos - or most of them - were worn out by intensive use during WW1and the Baldwins represent replacements in 1918 or so, using what was then readily available. A scout round Newark show at the weekend produced a Minitrix 2-6-2T off a second-hand stall for a bargain price of £30 - it runs very nicely, though I'm a little daunted by the need to cut down the chassis block. Provisional names for these will be "Dogger" and "Fisher" ("German Bight" was vetoed as too long for the side tanks and conceding rather too much to the opposition... )
     
    I also acquired a Dundas 4-wheel passenger guards van at Newark - the composite needs a brake, the goods trains also need a brake and this option was cheaper than buying a Peco Glyn Valley brake and repainting into Indian Red - as well as an Irish 4 wheel open to go with it. This latter is no doubt a relic of the pre WW1 railway... I have a resin kit for a Southwold van tucked away somewhere, and I bought a pair of Peco flat wagons recently because you get two wagons for £17.25... Two whitemetal kits for IoMR bogie coaches (brake and full) from NNK  are tucked away as well. These are more modestly proportioned than the Peco L&B stock.
     
    Liveries of Bauxite/Indian Red for coaching stock and grey for wagons have been adopted.
     
    The concept for the layout is shown here - unusually for a concept sketch this one was drawn to scale.
     
    Dogger Light.pdf
     
    I have my eyes on the Airfix RAF Bomber Re-Supply set: a fuel tanker and trailer is needed to move aviation fuel from the railhead to the RAF station, bombs can be wagon loads, and many of the other items can find a use on the layout. Motor transport on the island is likely to be military. Having bought a boxed set of four Airfix 1/72 aircraft kits cheap a few years , I'm very tempted to have a Mk1 Hurricane coming into land dangling from a little fishing line. They became operational with the RAF in 1938, so that sets the date for the layout - military activity is presumably being prompted by the Munich crisis. Clive Mortimore suggested at Newark that a Bofors gun would be appropriate as both anti-aircraft and anti-shipping defences - Airfix do one of those, too.
     
    I haven't tried any Airfix military kits since I was a young lad - this gives me a chance to dabble in another branch of modelling
     
    I have also acquired two semi-circles of Peco 009 Setrack curves. So I now have a basic circle on which trains can run round on the dining table . Table-top railways indeed!
     

     
    Fortunately the IoMR coaches are at least a centimetre shorter than this one...
×
×
  • Create New...