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Ravenser

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  1. 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...….
     
  2. Ravenser
    The sirens have sounded the final all clear, the blackout and the blitz are things of the past - and about 40 years after it should have , Blacklade has finally acquired station lights and station signs. I'm even intending to sort out the "bomb damage" behind the station facade and actually finish off the station building. Not before time, either...
     
    In short over the last couple of weeks I've had a big burst of detailing on the layout, and it's made a huge difference.
     
    Not, I must admit, to my accumulated stocks of whitemetal detailing bits and sheets of printed signage . Those have only sustained a modest dent. I had a new unused sheet of Tiny Signs modern BR posters (close inspection suggests they are actually mostly of 1975-80 vintage: there's two posters for the new GN Electrics in there and another one advertising the Rainhill 150 commemorations , as well as lots of posters of HSTs). I've used 3 - I have 32 left... And so on down through the box of scenic bits. It's frightening just how much stuff you accumulate - "I'm sure it'll come in useful for a layout and it's only a couple of quid"
     
    Admittedly Blacklade is a pretty small layout, and I've tried to be sparing. With the boxfile I never really got round to adding more than a couple of items and I was surprised by how effective restraint was. It struck me then that it is all too easy to pile in the detail items just because you have them and feel you ought to use them . The result being something unnaturally busy, where the funeral is queuing behind the wedding and trying to avoid entanglement with the travelling fair : a "quintessence" as defined by Charles Lamb - "an apple pie made all of quinces"
     
    In fact reality is pretty quiet and sparse. I go past our local church quite regularly: I might see signs of a wedding once or twice a year. On a Sunday morning or evening you might see people going into or leaving a service, two or three or four of them at a time. But do you want to run the Sunday train service?
     
    Come to that, if there's a wedding on , it must be Saturday, so the freight trains won't be running....
     
    Stations are not crowded places . I used to use Market Rasen from time to time - in fact it contributed a little to Blacklade , in terms of short platforms and vanished trainshed. There is a 2 hourly service in each direction. Get there 10 minutes before the train - you might be the only person there, there might be one or two others. 4 or 5 minutes to go - there's half a dozen waiting on one platform . The train comes - a bustle of activity - 8-10 people get on , 8-10 more get off. 5 minutes after the train's gone the station's deserted ... For at least 45 minutes of every hour, the only sign of life in the place is the cawing of the rooks in the trees behind
     
    Okay, a three platform terminus with services on three routes will be busier than that . But even my local station , with it's commuter service, is pretty deserted for long periods . It may be full of people before the morning commuter trains depart - but 5 minutes after one's gone there's only one or two people there, if that. Go in the afternoon, or the evening , and unless a train's just arrived, the place is almost deserted - just one or two hanging about under the platform canopy with nothing to do
     
    Blacklade is supposed to be a dreary run-down hulk of a station with a train service that is poor for a town of it's size. The effect of Ascot on race days or Waterloo at 5:30pm on a weekday is not wanted.
     
    On the other hand, signage.... The human brain blots out most of it but the modern world seems to be drowning in the stuff. When you actually stop to look how many signs there are in any view, in any street, on any station, you suddenly feel overpowered by it .
     
    And cars (not that I've much road to worry about) . They've been breeding . They swarm everywhere, thick masses of them, swelling from around the buildings. Never mind Day of the Triffids - "Day of the Common Hatchback" is more like it. I reckon that if you take the average street, parked cars outnumber visible human being by a factor of about 5.... And now they're fitting them with computers. You may be able to take out a zombie army with a machine gun but can you take out a lane of slowly advancing BMWs?
     
    Enough....
     
    The lack of station lights and station nameboards was annoying me - the station looked bare , it was completely anonymous and lacked a certain vertical emphasis.
     
    I wanted T lights . Because in my youth , those T shaped fluorescent light standards were the norm , a familiar part of the grey universal BR Corporate image. Some were old and had the station name on them, others were newer and didn't . But every station had them and had had for years. Anything else was cause for a second look
     
    They all seem to have vanished while I wasn't looking. It was only yesterday...
     
    A rummage through the scenic box turned up 3 packets of PD Marsh castings, total 15 lamps. And 3 packets of Knightwing castings , total 18 lamps. I reckoned 15 or less would do it.
     
    The Knightwing castings are bigger - taller , with longer light strips across the top. After a certain amount of throught I reckon that the PD Marsh castings represent the original 1950s version , with station name on the strip light, and Knightwing represent the second generation 1970s/80s version, with a plain strip light . Given that Blacklade Artamon Square is a run down dump that has had no refurbishment/investment since Dr Beeching was Chairman of the BRB, I went with PD Marsh, . Several coats of Centro grey later (the jar has now finally expired) a few coats of Tamiya gloss white for the strip lights and some departmental gray on the top, I had lights.
     
    But not station signs on them. A rummage through the accumulated mass of sheets turned up something from DC Kits with blank Regional Railways plates on it - 9 of them. To get the actual name I produced a sheet of possible sign in Word - for modern BR signage , all that is needed is the name on a plain white background . Arial, in bold at 5 point size seemed to be ok , so that's what I went with. Suitable sized strips were then cut out and stuck to the DC Kits signs with Rocket glue, then the DC Kits signs were stuck to strips of plasticard. Then the plasticard strips were stuck to fixing castings robbed from the Knightwing packets
     
    Poster boards were a next step. Three whitemetal castings for standard notice boards were painted up: departure posters were added to two, and timetables to a third . Two of these three were also glazed with scraps of acetate sheet. After that three poster display cases were needed : these were made with 10 thou plasticard, edged round with square microstrip, the poster(s) added and glazed with scraps of clear plasticard. The route diagram came from a DC kits sheet, and three posters from a Signs of the Timessheet; three more were found on an old Tiny Signs sheet , which seems to reperent 1975-80 . At least it features posters for the 1980 Railhill cavalcade, the 1975-6 GN suburban electrification and lots of HSTs . Fortunately no Jimmy Saville though. I picked a couple of "holiday by train + ferry" posters as Blacklade is supposed to be set in the late 80s or 21st century. This does highlight just how long the post -steam era now is - you can't use posters from the age of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath next to current TOC liveried stock . It's actually more of a gap than using Edwardian posters on a 1950s BR layout...
     

     
    From there I moved on to signage , courtesy of two more sheets from DC Kits and Signs of the Times. By this time I was getting a bit alarmed about how much needed to be done , how long it was taking, (and how much stuff I had available to use) . So I adopted the rule that only the signage and items which were absolutely necessary should go in....
     
    That was still an awful lot. Departure simplifier sheets on every platforms . Timetables (1 set) . Regional route map (1). 3 BR posters, 3 commercial posters . Litter bin on each platform . Platform bench on each platform - these were PD March items , bought at the CMRA Workshop and repainted blue - two went on the concourse , in place of the long - and narrow - platform 3 . Refreshment facilities in the form of 2 vending machines (S kits whitemetal blocks with Signs of the Times wrap round sheets) . Signs - these were stuck to scraps of 10 thou plasticard with Rocket card glue , and stuck to the walls with same.. Platform numbers for each platform.
    I decided after I'd installed the signs that I didn't really want to hide them by installing a length of canopy. Strictly speaking there ought to be some covered area on the platform to protect passengers when it rains , but having worked out what would stop being visible as a result , I've been deliberately lazy and decided to leave it out.
     
    The figure came from Cats Custom Characters and is beautifully painted. As I don't intend to have many figures on the layout I thought I could afford to have one really well done.
    Another job tackled was the installation of some Knightwing castings for point motors - I only had seven , so the point tucked under the bridge hasn't got one. These were painted and suitably weathered. I also installed a signal cabinet - a whitemetal casting from Radley . I still have 3 out of four that I bought in my scenic box , not to mention some InterCity Models castings , and a packet of Hornby Skaledale that turned up the other day. The shading was done with one of the new Humbrol washes , thinned - a technique shown on a video on the Humbrol website and apparently used by aero modellers to emphasise and shade the panel lines on planes.
     

     
    Finally the finishing touches were added to the fuelling point. It's striking how only a handful of small touches have a big impact - and are all that are needed. Two oil drums were added (Merit, weathered) plus one of the cast whitemeal pallets in the Signs of the Times pack , suitably sunk in the weeds outside the doors to the store . Hi-vis warning signs were added , and finally the actual fuelling pump . The support post ,and nozzle are from the Knightwing fuelling point kit - where they are essentially extra bits for an earlier version. And that was all I actually used from the kit... I could still built two entire fuelling points with what was left. The hose is from the Signs of the Times detailing pack , and I used the lot (15" - so it can reach the full length of a parked DMU.). It looked shiny and plastic so I toned it down with the Humbrol blue/grey wash
     
    And that was it on the detailing front . A couple of figures are needed , and I have to sort out the back of the station building
  3. Ravenser
    I had a bout of fitting Sprat and Winkle couplings a couple of weeks back - the vans (see below) were done and released to traffic and I duly dug the MCV out of the stockbox - quick win , low effort and another model back in traffic. I was half way through when I noticed:
     

     
    Remember that the shunting micro is Transitional . Airfix kit - modified without top flaps to represent a rebodied wagon. So it's out of period and can't be made in period - these rebodyings started around 1970. It would have had to have the couplers replaced with S+W at some time anyway , so no loss . I think I was probably quite pleased when I originally did this one , and I've added brake cross rods with brass handrail wire and reweathered the brake blocks
     
    This means I still need to build the secondhand Ratio coke wagon kit, despite having also found this :
     

     
    This is the old Hornby steel mineral - Norstand, Cory, S+C and various other versions down the years - cleaned up. It seems to be based on the GW's "Felix Pole " 20T steel minerals of the 1920s, and the best and closest fit seems to be dia N32, of which about 1000 were built for hire to various private owners as part of the GW's encouragement to private owners to modernise their antiquated mineral wagon fleets. Cory and S&C may be authentic liveries for these (both were major coal traders /coastal shipowners with S.Wales connections) , though I wouldn't bet my life on it and recent debate in MRJ implies that green was not the usual base colour for Stephenson & Clarke. Needless to say MRJ were not discussing anything so humble as a Hornby wagon...
     
    This model has now been displaced in the main Hornby range by the rather better ex Airfix moulding: the Hornby effort is a bit chunky around the top edge. It reappears in the Railroad range , but I am confident none of them ever reached EWS..... The chassis was removed and chucked away, a Parkside 12' wb Morton chassis built onto the bottom , and the whole thing repainted and weathered. A photo in Iain Rice's Irwell book Detailing & Improving RTR Wagons (p10) shows what appears to be one of the breed uprated to 21T (no doubt the standard wartime uprating) and numbered in the PO series as P7826 . This would make some sense with the N32s as they were on hire purchase arrangements with the users, and of course P-series renumbering was completely random , so any P-series number would be plausible on a model. The wagon in the photo is branded under the diagonal stripe "To work within S.Wales and Monmouthshire only"
     
    These wagons are common enough - every second hand table seems to have a few - and if you've got one at home, this is a way of turning it into a credible wagon at low cost. I'm afraid the economics don't quite work if you buy a second hand example - market price for second hand RTR wagons like this seems to be about GBP3 , and by the time you've added the Parkside underframe , wheels and any paint or transfers you need, it's going to be over a fiver. But if you already have one, ex trainset, you can make a proper wagon of it for about GBP2
     
    The tension locks will be ripped off asap, and I need to replace the missing door spring . Given that Ravenser Mk1 was set 1983-4, this wagon didn't really fit it , but as the shunting micro is 50s/60s, depending on the stock used, it is now just as much in period as the MCV is out of it
     
    Couplings have gone on the MCV (obviously) and the remaining vans but not yet on the 21T. I'd like to say that yours truly and S+W couplings were a marriage made in heaven , but I'd be lying . To be quite honest, making and fitting them is a protracted awkward job , and one that I rather dread. If I'm lucky, and determined, I can manage as many as 3 wagons in a whole evening , and this slow messy process rather puts me off.
     
    Sparky has recently posted some shots of the bits and process on his blog here .What follows is my moan after the last bout of S+W fitting reminded me that this is not my favourite modelling job
     
    First fold up your loop, from a coil of brass wire so it isn't straight... If I follow the instructions that come with it (which quote 17mm on each side) , I end up with loops that are far too long and stick well beyond the buffers . Even 15mm seems a bit too long when you try it in place against the wagon . So having soldered the wire in place , you have to unsolder , and then as fast as you resolder one side the other side melts and waves in the air (remember the wire was curved to start with) . So you resolder that , and guess what...
     
    Sparky's tip of using a Bill Bedford handrail bending jig hadn't occured to me and I must try it - it should make things easier, straighter and more reliable
     
    Then you twist up the etches for the coupling hook and counter weight paddle - not a problem - and go quietly mad chasing tiny wire loops with tweezers to form the 3 links of chain. They won't stay together and fall out of the gap in the loop, you drop one on the floor, another one flies out of the tweezers, you try adding them to the coupling hook and the gap opens up and the other two links fall out and you hunt them round the carpet....
     
    Then there's the hasp... Like most folk , I avoid the suggestion of making one from soft wire and us a staple, melted in to the mounting block from above. But straightening one leg of a staple and rebending it to the right width and them leaning on the thing with force and a 25W Antex until it finally starts to sink (but don't push too far else you'll pin the coupling hook etch so tight it can't move) . Then repeat...
     
    I have a little difficulty getting the wire loop to the right, matching height . To deal with this , I've built a gauge or jig from scraps - which is what the wagons in two of the photos are sitting on. The block gives a height for the wire loop, and a basis on which to bend it down - the slot takes the coupling hook and limits the angle at which it is set, to a more or less consistant value. I found you couldn't possibly do either of these by having a "reference wagon".
     
    When a wagon has clasp brakes, the outer brake shoes invariably foul the mounting plate . So out with the tinsnips and chop away the corners of the plate - then flatten them back.
     
    It's all a slow painful process.
     
    How do S+Ws work in practice? Well - one of the purposes of the shunting micro was to test them out. And results have been a little mixed. Coupling is normally reliable - there's one place , crossing a rather rough board joint, where some wagons insist on uncoupling . This almost certainly requires me patiently to track down and tweak each of the couplings that gives a problem. It only happens when the loco is pulling a single wagon : perhaps the drag of a trailing load keeps the couplings in tension (though that would imply the couplings might part at the rear wagon - and they don't. However locos are not fitted with hooks- just bars). It is going to be a long and patient process to find and adjust all the rogue couplings, and to be honest the micro hasn't been run as often as it might, which doesn't help.
     
    I haven't been very successful with auto-uncoupling let alone delayed action. However the fact I was trying the couplings out on a micro forced to me put the uncoupling magnets in thoroughly unsuitable places - the middle of a crossover made up of small radius Y points for example - so I'm not sure this is really fair comment . Manual uncoupling with a jeweller's screwdriver is easy enough , and I've seen them working fine on other layouts , including one I've operated briefly, so I think the problem is simply that I've pushed the application beyond its reasonable limits
     
    How do they compare with the Kadees I use on Blacklade for locos, airbraked stock and multiple units? Fitting Kadees is certainly a great deal quicker and easier - even excluding the NEM versions which plug in in a matter of seconds. The Kadees are slightly more reliable in coupling, but I can't comment much on uncoupling as my electromagnets are not yet wired - exacept to say that manual uncoupling is much more awkward. Where I've operated another layout using Kadees I've found auto-uncoupling using electromagnets a bit hit and miss , though it appears alignment of the electromagnet is actually quite critical (I'm not sure the ones that went onto Blacklade were spot on). Kadees allow you to lift a wagon straight out of a train. But they are quite expensive - fitting them runs out at about GBP2/vehicle . Ouch! S+W is a cheaper option, though it doesn't work out at pennies either
     
    I now have almost 30 wagons fitted with S+W coulings , so in a sense I'm committed. But would I consider a return to tension-locks? No. Despite the problems I've had- which may well not be the fault of the couplers - Sprat and Winkle couplers do everything tension locks do, and do it more reliably- even at this stage. It might be possible to improve tension lock performance by standardising everything on one specific type of tension lock - but that itself wouldbe significant work. And Sprat and Winkle couplings look a great deal less obtrusive than the old "Volvo bumper bar " of the tensionlock
     
    So we press on.
     
    Meanwhile, the saga of the open wagon to go with them continues. I couldn't find suitable Cambrian kit at St Albans, but I did manage to find a second hand Dapol wagon, which I think is one of these (photo courtesy Paul Barlett's site) LMS open .
     
    It looks as if most of these , at least the late survivors, were retrofitted with Morton vac brakes by BR. Wheelbase is 10' The older wooden chassis opens to dia1666 seem not to have been - very naturally - and it has been suggested most of the latter went in the late 50s/early 60s. Since the balance was shifting rapidly towards vans (BR inherited 2 opens for every van , but built two and a bit vans for every open) , it looks like wagon fleet modernisation took the form of breaking up old wooden chassis opens and replacing them with new fitted vans, while upgrading the more modern opens with vac brakes to boost the fitted proportions of the fleet. Hence I intend adding tiebars, vac cylinder and cross shaft
     
     
    Someone has handlettered one side neatly - my dried up old Modelstrip wouldn't shift any of it , so a coat of bauxite will be applied over the top. If the original owner sees this - sorry, but a weathered bauxite fitted version is what is appropriate for my layout....
     
    The wagon seems to have a further type of coupling , which I take to be the"Lincs" coupling. As this is single ended and I have portable layouts, I won't be adopting it....
     

  4. Ravenser

    "Here's one I made earlier"

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    Very many years ago, when James Callaghan was prime minister and I had not yet discovered that it was possible to make model railways without using steam engines, I had a GW/LMS joint branch line. Because those were the popular prototypes. I wasn't very old but I'd discovered the Railway Modeller, and I had a pannier tank and a Hornby GWR brake third. I wanted a longer GW train but not too long, so a plastic kit for a 4 wheel GW coach seemed a good idea.
     
    This relic survived down the decades in a storage box, and in the last decade vague ideas of doing something with it surfaced. Eventually, last year I actually started but didn't get far, and the project is referred to in my annual survey and resolutions posting:  2019 Resolutions
     
    "The Ratio GW 4 wheel coach rebuild (to an engineer's tool/riding van) still needs to be finished, but should be a relatively quick project.". Well...
     
    The prototype inspiration  is two photographs in Cheona's Railways in Profile - 8 : Engineer's Stock 2
     
    These show two ex GW Dean 4 wheel coaches in Engineer's use in 1958 : a neat 4 compartment composite used as the Oswestry Electricians' tool van , taken at Portmadoc , and a rather more battered 5 compartment all third used as a staff and tool van at Plymouth.
     
    Blacklade has an engineer's train in its two "proper" periods - why not for the steam stock too? Since the steam stock is nominally supposed to be 1958 a GW  4 wheeler is at least in period, and one might have been found in the Birmingham area, and come under LMR control after ex GW lines were transferred. 
     
    The whole thing is not completely implausible, and for a convenient scrapbox project for the inauthentic steam era, seemed worth doing. So a total reconstruction of my 4 compartment all first as a staff /tool van was begun last year.
     
    The coach was stripped with Modelstrip and predictably this allowed the brittle polystyrene cement joints to break. Some of the panelling was filled in with Squadron filler, and the whole lot sprayed with the big aerosol can of Games Workshop Chaos Black - because I had it, and it was suitable and convenient. Perhaps I should have over-plated with 10 thou plasticard , since getting a smooth flush finish has proved a little difficult
     
    That was where matters were stalled by pressure of life last year.
     
    On restarting a couple of weeks ago, I quickly cleaned up and assembled the basic bodyshell. A spare compartment partition , built from plasticard sandwiching a piece of lead sheet, was used up - I think this was made for my Ratio MR suburban project ("Set 2"). One plastic buffer was missing so I replaced the lot with some long slender brass buffers I acquired at some point  - I think they may have originated from a Ratio LNWR coach kit.  I have assumed that one central compartment has been retained for staff riding to site, with a long and a short tool compartment on either side
     
    So we get this:

     
    Along the way I picked up one of the Shire Scenes etched brass compensation units for these kits. As originally built (aged about 12) the chassis was not square, and on a long wheelbase 4 wheeler like this it just seemed so much safer to go for a purposely- designed compensating etch. There are separate fold-up cradles for OO and EM/P4 on the etch.  Hornby disc wheels were fitted in brass bearings - as originally built it had no bearings and plastic Ratio wheels - and some whitemetal Mansell inserts from MJT were superglued in place. These too were from stock, left over from the MR suburbans
     
    here we are in the heat of battle, showing how the etched brass cradle works

     
    The pinpoints were duly sawn off the compensated wheelset with my piercing saw
     
    There is one major error in the model. On rechecking the photos it seems the engineers usually cut away a section of the footboards by the axlebox and fitted a hand brake-lever. I haven't attempted it - reinstating the missing sections of footboard lost in 40 years of careless handling was enough hassle, and I'm not sure that cutting out sections in the middle of the footboard here would have been easy or successful here, as I was working with partly-assembled units. 
     
    This is very much a scrapbox project - actual spending has been confined to the compensation unit
     
    I am now deep into the painting - partions and seats in one compartment have been fitted and sheet lead araldited to the floor between the axles to weight it up to 70-75g. Glazing - sheet plastic from the coach scraps bag, I think left over from the LNW coach kits forming Set 1 - has been fitted. The roof now fits - it didn't the first time I built this - and will be glued at the ends and tacked on the sides with a tough of cement, in the faint hope of getting it off without total destruction in an emergency
  5. Ravenser

    "Here's One I Made Earlier" - 2

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    The first part of this project was written up here PART 1 but it's now more or less finished.
     
    And there's a picture to prove it. 
     

     
    As it was finished a while ago some of the details are now a bit hazy but here goes... One of the centre (first class!) compartments has been retained for staff riding and this gives a long and a short tool compartment in the rest of the vehicle. Kadees have been fitted (I think they were long) and a lot of time spent touching up, lettering and weathering. 
     
    I can't remember all the details of weathering. The basic black is Citadel Chaos black, from a can, touch up was Chaos black with a brush - the difference between the two is minimal. (I know they should be absolutely the same, but there's a very slight difference) . Weathering on both vehicles involved AK Interactive enamel weathering washes - Light Dust Deposit was just too light and white and I think I used Shaft and Bearing Grease over the top to knock it back to something acceptable. Other ad hoc enamel washes may have been used along the way , and I think I just mixed up a suitable grey for the roof
     
    The Starfish is an old Cambrian kit someone gave me a while back, which seemed suitable for a vintage engineers' train and for which I had no other obvious use. It has been built essentially as it comes , and though I think a little care and possibly the odd scrap of microstrip packing in the joins were needed in assembly, there is nothing much to remark on in its construction. This is a very small wagon (which is ideal in the context of a small layout) and even with lead sheet araldited underneath it was little more than 25 g - about half the target weight. It therefore has a load - ballast glued onto a rectangle of 40'thou  styrene sheet with artist's matt medium (to avoid discolouration). There is lead sheet under the styrene , to give the additional weight.
     
    Lettering both was a pig. I didn't have suitable Departmental transfer sheets , and couldn't find anything obviously suitable and modestly priced. A large sheet that only does part of the job at £10 was not a sensible approach. So transfers are made up of bits and pieces found on various transfer sheets I have , words had to be made out of several donor bits, and the whole thing took about 4 evenings , with lots of care , and application of microsol in stages to bond the bits in place. They were then given weathering washes to tone them down . I hoped to suggest patch repair of panels . There is at least one lettering element missing on the Starfish, but I'm prepared to live with it for the moment. These wagons survived in this condition into the 1980s so I have a bit of flexibility of use on this. The wagon number is correct - the coach number is a wild guess conditioned by transfer bits as I have no relevant GW reference and online reference here was limited. I have a nasty suspicion I've numbered it as a diesel railcar or an autotrailer.
     
    The intention is to "borrow" the black Grampus and the olive Shark to make up an engineer's train (politely ignoring the TOPS boxes on the borrowed vehicles) . This leaves me one wagon short - the half-built ex LNER Toad B from an old Parkside kit has been mentally allocated as the second brake van . That finds a sensible use for another model, so I have an incentive to finish it. The stumbling block on that project has been the need to contrive wire handrails on the sides
     
    And now  for a 21st century variation on the same theme......
     

     
    I don't know the provenance of this kit. It is a resin-cast body with integral solebars, which was on the second-hand stall at the Stevenage exhibition this January for £4. Included in the polybag were some Cambrian pedestal suspension units. I assume it was being disposed of because there were some small air bubbles in a couple of places and because the solebars were so thin they'd broken away in one place along the edge. That was repaired with a little superglue - I'm not convinced the solebar is 100% parallel on close inspection but it's not noticeable. Wheels are Hornby discs , fitted with disc-brake inserts. These seem to catch slightly underneath  - they are slightly bigger than the 12mm Romfords that may have been intended. I've gouged away at the underside of the mounting (remove the pedestal unit then work on the fixing) and they are a lot freer-running than at first but may still need a little more work
     
    The Bachmann PNA is 5 rib , this is the 7 rib version. Base coat is BR loco green, weathered with various rust potions /browns, and a wash of green let down with off-white. Transfers were again "interesting" and had to be made up with bits and pieces from various sheets - the green and blue patches were done by brush-painting onto some Fox blank transfer paper, then applying transfer lettering from other sheets (sometimes in bits) on top . The patches were then cut out and applied as transfers to the wagon. This has all been another slow lettering job, and I still have to source the Caib transfers and apply a sealing coat of matt varnish. There may be some more weathering too - the originals were pretty beat up vehicles (see below)
     
    The resin used is a soft white substance, not the hard resin more commonly seen in kits.  This vehicle may actually be a purely amateur exercise - I think Jon Hall may have done a few wagons a bit like this as resin casting demos over the years. It has been weighted with lead sheet underneath, but Kadees are still to add. I bought two commercial resin wagon loads at Shenfield , intended for the Bachmann PNA : unfortunately they are fractionally too wide, and more seriously about 3mm too short for this wagon, so a suitable load will have to be made up. . (I have a Bachmann PNA that can use one of the commercial loads and at £2.65 primed it's hardly a great expenditure)
     


  6. 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
     
     
     
     
  7. Ravenser
    It's a sign of something - not a good something - that I find myself doing my New Year stock take /resolutions in the middle of January
     
    Twelve months ago I set myself a fairly ambitious programme of catch up and finish. This was tempting fate, I suppose, and Fate duly obliged, wielding a large blunt instrument. At the end of that January, my then employer embarked on a third major round of redundancies . The redundancy process and jobhunting took up most of my time and energy in the first half of the year, and railway modelling didn't happen. Nor did a lot of other things. I then decided, as a preliminary, to try to get on top of the piles of debris and the backlogs which had built up on various fronts. Since I had been seriously overcommitted anyway for several years this has taken a lot longer than I'd hoped, and I haven't been around here very much in recent months.
    Come to that, I've been to my club twice in the last 6 months
     
    It's still not done. A trip to IKEA after Christmas produced a small bookcase, what is billed as a DVD tower but which can also serve as a narrow bookcase (good for society magazines, Oakwood branch line monographs and old combined volumes) and two magazine boxes - that wasn't sufficient to clear up the piles of books and it will be back to IKEA for another DVD tower and a lower DVD case (for use as a book shelf) to finish the job. The clear up went as far as removing the long defunct board from Ravenser Mk1 which has been cluttering up the study for an appalling numvber of years. I still have a few shelves with books jammed sideways in the top for want of space but I can see and find things and the study looks like a habitable room not the scene of an explosion. A trip to my Mum's at Christmas removed the last salvagable bits of my teenage efforts at buildings from the Blacklade Corporation Tramways, and the BRMs have disappeared into a box.
     
    So what's been cleared and what's to be done for the new year?
     
    Wagons:
     
    There's little or nothing outstanding on the air-braked front. As I said last year, I don't really have much use for airbraked wagons these days . I duly bought a Dapol KQA to support the cause and handle the couple of 40'HCs I'd acquired. Although the container train has no immediate use at present, it's one thing I'm definitely keeping regardless, and (in a very desultry, unurgent way) I may quite possibly acquire a Realtrack FLA set at some point to complete a train from my own resources. Otherwise this front's been closed down for the foreseeable future
     
    I made further progress with the steam era wagons in the autumn - I really must post the results and fit them with Sprat and Winkles. This leaves those stubborn perennials the ex WD road van and the DOGA COV B on the bookcase. The road van will have to wait till the spring because resin has to be worked outside on safety grounds- for that reason I never seem to get on with the kit , and the awkwardness of using this material puts me off exploring it further. A Cambrian Dogfish and Shark for early period Engineers trains might be on the cards, and perhaps one or two more wagons to round off the collection for the boxfile. I need to fit Kadees or Sprat and Winkles to a few more of my older models to get them back in service. And that, essentially is all that needs doing on the wagon front
     
    So this year really needs to be the one where I finally move on beyond wagons into achieving things in other areas . Starting with -
     
    Coaches:
    The Ratio Van B needs finishing , top priority . The sticking point was that the roof needs shortening at both ends. And 2 of the brake blocks have disappeared along the way. An upgraded Lima CCT might be a sensible follow up. Then there's the question of sorting out some loco-hauled coaches from Blacklade as a DMU replacement/steam special set. This is not urgent , and given the complications of fitting Kadees to Bachmann Mk1s, and the fact that DMUs are much more important, it may quite possibly not happen this year
     
    The Ratio ex LNWR BCK got as far as one teak undercoat on the sides and stalled. Unless the group BLT shows signs of progress , there seems no point diverting my efforts in this direction.
     
    I shall probably get rid of the rake of Mk3s I acquired: I can't see I'll ever have the space or need for an HST, and it would reduce the clutter in the study
     
    DMUs:
    Now we get serious. Immediately behind the Van B comes finishing the Provincial Pacer I started and which I haven't touched in over a year. This one's needed for the layout, so must take priority. Behind this comes finishing the Bratchill 150/2. Now I have laser cut windows, the last major stumbling block to further progress is removed. A "quick and dirty" rewheel of the Skipper + DCC installation + Kadees may not be not far behind
     
    About the one thing I did get done on this front last year was to buy a Provincial 150/2 from Trains 4U. Retail therapy is quick and easy..... I fitted a Bachmann ESU decoder , and added Pete Harvey's sillhoutte seat etches which look a treat. Unfortunately the Bachmann decoder doesn't seem to support consisting - awkward when the whole point of the 150/2 is to work in multiple with a 153 joining and splitting. So I've got to take it out , replace with the rather pricy TCS 21 pin decoder I bought at Warley, and weather the underframe. The recovered Bachmann decoder can go in the ROD. As I don't propose modelling Worsborough bank before electrification I can't see I'll ever need to consist my O4
     
    Other modest jobs in this area include populating and weathering the 108, and sorting out the 101 - the replacement underframe mouldings are to hand.
     
    And if I've got time on my hands, a DC Kits Cravens needs building
     
    On the RTR front, a Wagon und Maschinbau railbus would be ideal for the group BLT , and a Realtrack 144 in the earlier W.Yorks red and white would be ideal for me. However as that livery won't appear before 2012 , it can be parked until then. As can the railbus unless a) the BLT makes progress and B) no-one else in the group gets one
     
    Plenty to keep me busy on this front
     
    Locos:

    The one bit of "progress" on thisfront is that I bought a discounted 63601 at Warley. A Frodingham O4 withdrawn in 1966 is as good as I'll get. Its a bit over the top for the group BLT , and if that doesn't make progress it's way over the top for Blacklade , but it's a very fine loco and I've redeemed my pledge on the LNER Consensus thread. I now have 2 kettles in need of chipping. And if I succumb to a discounted L1 (Hornby have done one from one of the local sheds.. perfect for the BLT and suitably compact for a steam special - yes I klnow none are preserved but Blacklade doesn't exist either - we're talking alternative realities) that'll be 3...
     
    The Baby Deltic kit has gone to a good home - someone brave enough to build one
     
    The 57 seems best candidate for aType 5 to trip one TTA, so that ought to be a priority for weathering, followed by repairs to the hapless 60
     
    Beyond that, DCCing and upgrading the old 03, and trying to finish the Drewry 04 for the boxfile are the obvious targets, followed by a detailed bodyshell for the Airfix 31 if I get ambitious
     
    That should keep me busy
     
    Layouts require aseperate posting
  8. 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
     

  9. 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...
     
     
     
     
  10. 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.
     
     

     
  11. Ravenser

    2018 - Deja Vu ?

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    It's that time of the year when I survey the state of the bookcase and the cupboard and post over-optimistic ambitions for the year's modelling....
     
    At least this year I'm sitting down to contemplate at the start of January, rather than the middle of February, which I suppose is progress. There's also the fact that I need to write up some of 2017's output for the blog.
     
    After a pretty patchy year things took a sudden leap forward when I realised I didn't have to wait for a suitable IKEA product in order to mount the Boxfile on a solid base (a chassis??) . That project is written up here, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343-blacklade-artamon-square/ but as noted towards the end, it spread into quite a bit of work on the stock. I don't think I'd done any significant wagon modelling for five or six years.
     
    This gave me a real incentive to finish off the MICA and get couplings fitted. It also spurred me to take action to deal with the Blue Spot fish. Rail Blue looked just too dark compared to some of the photos on Paul Barlett's site - some look almost as if Parcels transfers have been applied straight onto Ice Blue - and I was lucky enough to find a jar or Railmatch faded Rail Blue in the paint box. Much better. With HMRS transfers (and a bit of cobbling from other sources) and Kadees the van is now ready for use as an NRV on DMU tail traffic, though perhaps the weathering wasn't really heavy enough, and I suppose the real things disappeared a couple of years before Blacklade's "mid-late 80s" period (As far as I can gauge from Paul Bartlett's photos they went in 1981-2 ).
     

     
    For the MICA I improvised with the only black transfers I could find in my collection - a Fox sheet for the BR Insulated van in 2mm/4mm/7mm which was a give-away with MORILL.... Ah. That must have been over 20 years ago. It's not surprising the transfers had yellowed, though I managed to touch round with white and after weathering and varnish it's not really visible. The number's not quite right either, although I used a 7mm letter for a W-prefix , and the capacity should be 8T not 10T - but you can't read the capacity from a distance of more than 6 inches.
     
    Another two wagons for the Boxfile were sorted out over the weekend, which takes me to 24 serviceable wagons. The "extra weight plus Hornby wheels" formula is working well. Two wagons more will receive Sprat and Winkle couplings this week. Another wagon should respond to the standard treatment - and then I'm down to a hard core of 3-4 wagons where further thought will be required.
     
    And one Saturday before Christmas I bought another boxfile from WH Smiths and converted most of a corregated cardboard box into dividers... This one takes various bits - the LMS interdistrict Brake 3rd (which had its underframe weathered while I was doing the CK), the Tourist Brake 3rd, a Lima LMS 42' GUV I bought for reworking, the NRV van, a stray Grampus...
     
    I don't think I ever wrote up the Lima 37 upgrade which I was threatening in last year's "2017 programme" posting. I think that one was done in time for Blacklade's appearance at Ally Pally: certainly it was available well before the layout's outing at Shenfield in September. There was nothing ground-breaking about it, I'm afraid, and as Tim Shackleton wrote up a more comprehensive rework of exactly the same loco in his diesels book I shall be modest and brief. A new etched roof fan from Shawplan, Shawplan etched window frames and Lazerglaze windows (fettling them to fit is still laborious - but infinitely better than attempting a home-made job), new and substantial buffers, etched depot symbols and nameplates (more Shawplan) , Kadees and weathering. I'm not terribly proud of the Kadees - there's not enough room for the draft box on the bogies so the box and coupling protrudes and there's an uncomfortable resemblance to a Eurostar 37. It's a lot better than the tensionlock , but that's not saying much. Only touch-up repainting was needed as the target loco (37 688 in two-tone Sector grey) was what Lima had produced in the first place.
     
    And an old Express Models DC directional headlight kit went in. I had it kicking around with no other sensible use , and working headlight when you ease open the controller is better than nothing. Lights are an operator's convenience, basically
     

     
    An interesting minor point concerns the nose grills. Some photos show these in black on 37 688, other shots of 37 688 show them in grey as represented by Lima. So somewhere between 1985 and 1990 this loco got a repaint. I left the grills in grey, with weathering - I didn't think there was any real gain in fitting etches, even though I have two packets of the things from the time when I thought this loco would be done using a Triang-Hornby body (recycled from Flaxborough in my teens - and even then second hand from the Aswell St junk shop) on an Athearn PA1 chassis. (Those bits will now become a plain blue 37 172 sometime in the distant future). the biggest gain on the grills is removing the body grey Lima left showing in the recessed bits. It was an IM loco in 1990, but still carrying BX depot symbols
     
    The roof "shoulder" grills are incorrect for this loco - Tim Shackleton corrected them, I didn't dare to. He also lowered the loco on its bogies - I thought about hand-filing bearing surfaces flat, and chickened out.
     

    This loco was a bargain find at DEMU Showcase - right number, right livery - for £18, it runs well and with all the bits the whole project cost no more than about £35 (plus decoder). I can justify that for a space/backup loco that only needs to shift two coaches- whereas a three-figure sum for a new Bachmann one would be an extravagance
     
    Now to plans for the coming year.
     
    First of all the outstanding projects, and here a little clarity is dawning.
     
    - Finishing the wretched Coopercraft Tourist brake third has to be a high priority, so that I can commission Set 4, and have some proper "modern" mainline corridor stock and some coaches in post 1956 maroon for the steam period on Blacklade
     
    - A relatively quick win would be finishing the complete rebuilding of an elderly Ratio GWR 4 wheeler. This survived intact from my early teenage steam layout, was stripped down with Modelstrip, and duly broke down into its component pieces as its vintage polystyrene cement failed. The sides have been filled and sanded to represent an elderly departmental vehicle with a few plated-over panels, and sprayed with Games Workshop Chaos Black. I have a Shirescenes compensation unit in stock for this for this ( last time the chassis wasn't square). This would go towards a steam-age engineers' train. Again this is a 2017 project I never got round to writing up..
     

     
    - There's a Cambrian Starfish kit sitting in the cupboard that might go nicely with this.
     
    - And if I finished off the stalled vintage Parkside Toad B sitting on the bookshelf , that could be paired with the olive green Shark to make up an Engineer's train for the steam period (It doesn't have hand-rails - and I've been chickening out of doing my own...)
     
    - The 128 made some progress this year , until I realised it was sitting askew on one bogie. The plastic mounting had fractured, and after several briefly-successful homemade repairs with superglue, I discovered at Peterborough that I could get a replacement part from Replica. I now have to do that, and get this one finished. I can then run an alternative parcels train featuring the 128 and NRX or my blue GUV (which has been sitting in its box for a long time). Or a BG. And the 128 can be consisted with my 101 or 108 without forming an awkwardly long train
     
    - I have a more or less finished Silver Fox Baby Deltic body and all the components of the chassis : finishing this should be another relatively quick win. It's been on the list to finish since 2016....
     
    The revival of the Boxfile has sparked renewed enthusiasm over some very long stalled projects.
     
    The correct intergroup ratio for wagons , I read somewhere long ago , is LMS 8, LNER 7 , GWR 3, SR 1. I'm one over the top on GW, have no SR, am on par for the LMS, and two light on the LNER (And one of those I've got is a Single Bolster - useless on the 'file). The ratio adopted between types is 4 vans: 2 minerals: 1 open (the Boxfile takes 7 wagons). I have four rounds or tranches of stock plus 4 locos - and I'm one open over the top and two vans light.
     
    There are 3 vacant slots in the two stock boxes.
     
    So obviously I need 2 x LNER vans... And an etched kit for an LNER van has been sitting on my bookcase part built for an inordinate length of time. I think it was started before the Boxfile. Provenance is 5522 Models, offered as a complete package deal by DOGA long ago. This is an obvious candidate to finish off.
     
    And for the second one, I have a Hornby LNER van sitting somewhere in the cupboard. They've done it in white as N E in the past - I am pretty confident it's an NER prototype but can't confirm (I wasn't prepared to pay £35 for the NE volume of the new Tatlow for 1 wagon - but I do have the old 1 volume Tatlow, which shows some very similar NE goods vans). Whitemetal NE axleboxes and buffers from ABS are in stock..
     
    I have several first loco kits in the cupboard. One is a Judith Edge Thomas Hill Vanguard - slightly late for the Boxfile, but of particular interest as it is designed to fit a Black Beetle . So no chassis building needed... I was getting quite enthusiastic about building this - then I checked and found a) it needs a 36mm x 14mm wheels Beetle , not the usual DMU types and b ) Beetles have almost disappeared. A hasty check round various suppliers ended with me buying one of Branchlines' last two of these units. (I also got a Mashima motor for the Craftsman 02 kit lurking in the cupboard)
     
    So it looks like I will be building show etched kits in the near future.
     
    - Another, much larger, stalled project is the heavy rebuild of a Hornby Pacer using a Branchlines chassis . This would be a very useful model if I can get it into traffic, so I really ought to have a serious go at it once I've cleared the other unfinished items out of the way.
     
    - I have a Lima 42' LMS CCT which can be cleaned up and upgraded: I have Comet LMS bogies in stock. This will presumably be in Crimson - I can't quite make out when they disappeared but I presume they had gone by the mid 80s ? (If not it would be a useful vehicle , as this plus a Mk1 BG would fit into the platform...)
     
    This accounts for all the occupants of the bookcase bar the WD brake and the Bratchill 150
     
    If I get beyond that , there are some DC Kits DMUs I could build, or some blue/grey coach projects. Maybe fix the N5? Or perhaps I could try to sort out Tramlink, still buried under it's pile of magazines. There's an elderly Bachmann 03 and a not so elderly Bachmann 08 - neither DCC Ready - which could live useful lives if given a decoder, not to mention the "stuff a Hornby 0-6-0 chassis under a GBL Jinty" project
     
    I really don't need to buy any RTR this year (though a Stirling Single hauling a couple of blue/grey mark 1s could be justified in the E Midlands in the mid 1980s....)
  12. Ravenser

    A Bit of History

    By Ravenser,

    I think I may have sketched the background for Blacklade a very long time ago , probably when it started as part of an RMWeb Challenge some yearsago. If so , the original posting was probably on a version of RMWeb which disappeared into a vortex in cyberspace/a hosting company's servers, and it was probably buried in other comments anyway.
     
    So it's probably worth giving an outline of the assumed history as a seperate posting - if only to provide a baseline from which it's obvious which bits of the potential steam fleet are actually reasonably plausible and which bits are outrageous strays extracted from the depths of the cupboard "Because It's There".
     
    Blacklade is the moderate sized county town of Hallamshire, a small Midland shire hitherto unknown to cartographers and the Local Government Association. Hallamshire is probably a North Midland shire, as West Yorks PTE units turn up there, and I suspect Blacklade has a passing resemblance to what Derby might have been, if the Midland mainline had never gone near it. It has a population of about 130-145,000: a bit more than Lincoln, about the same as Cambridge , and considerably less than Nottingham or Leicester
     
    In the late 1840s, George Hudson gave it a railway at the expense of the Midland shareholders. This originated from a junction about 10 miles from Toton - the exact railway geography is lost in a maze of connections, but you can certainly get to Birmingham and Nottingham - and ended up at a modest terminus just outside the town centre, where a new square was being laid out in a fit of mid Victorian expansiveness. Somewhat later, the MS&LR arrived in the town from the general direction of Chesterfield . At this point it became necessary to distinguish between the two stations, and the Midland premises took the name of the adjacent Artamon Square
     
    By 1900, the newly renamed and extended Great Central was very much cock of the walk at Blacklade. Its line had been extended southward to meet the GN Nottingham - Derby line and so rejoin the London Extension at Bagthorpe Jnc just north of Nottingham, turning it into a loop of the GC's new main line - effectively a rather longer and grander version of the Chesterfield loop. The new line strood across the town , with a fine new station pointedly called Blacklade Central , because unlike the Midland's Artamon Square, it was. Being significantly longer than the direct route via Annesley and not really suitable for fast running either , just three London -Sheffield day services ran via Blacklade with a night mail and parcels train thrown in , but if you wanted to go to London, Nottingham , or Sheffield from Blacklade , you made a beeline to the Central station. No doubt the GN got running powers into Blacklade too.
     
    For the next fifty odd years the Midland lines very much played second fiddle to their GC Section neighbours and Artamon Square was rather overshadowed by Central . At this period it was rather like the Midland's Lincoln St Marks - two side platforms capable of holding 4 or 5 Midland non-corridor coaches and a Johnson 2-4-0 , with two centre roads used as carriage sidings, all under an overall roof. However for some reason Blacklade's buildings date from the 1860s rather than the late 1840s like Lincoln (perhaps Hudson fell before the line was complete and there was no money left in the till for proper buildings). There was a proper if modest trainshed like Buxton, and a rather ecclesiastical frontage to Artamon Square with faux "towers" a little like Lowestoft. In the late Victorian age , the Midland must have offered London services, but these seem always to have been portions and through coaches. Perhaps the "mainline" was direct to Birmingham and passengers were expected to continue via the LNWR (at the time of opening Midland trains to London ran via Rugby), and prior to the opening of the Manton route a reversal would have been needed at Nottingham. Perhaps by the time the issue arose the site was too cramped for expansion. And once the GC extension was open it was all too late..
     
    In the meantime Blacklade acquired an electric tramway , to 4' gauge like Bradford and Derby , one of whose main hubs was a terminus at Artamon Square on the edge of the town centre. This because quite extensive, was modernised in the 1920s and 30s under a determined and pro tram manager , and remained open until the immediate post war years [When I discovered the existance of 4' gauge it was immediately adopted by my teenage tramway . Broad enough to permit fully enclosed 4 wheelers, narrow enough to stop any awkward questions about the track gauge....]
     
    Around 1960 , everything changed radically . Blacklade was one of the notable casualties of the Beeching era. The LMR having taken control of the GC main line began rapidly to run it down - express trains between London and Sheffield ceased in 1960 , and in 1963 local services on most of the route were withdrawn too. We may guess that the line through Blacklade Central closed amid a storm of opposition in 1963-4, leaving Blacklade (much like Lincoln) with no real service to London
     
    The LMR had been hatching its plot for some time and had begun its campaign by getting the LMR Architects Dept to vandalise Blacklade Artamon Square in the name of progress. The trainshed was taken down in the late 50s , the side walls cut down to around 10'high, and to provide sufficient capacity to concentrate all remaining local services on the station one of the centre roads was taken out and a short additional platform shoe-horned in beside the remaining one. One of the side platforms recieved a short extension for slightly longer trains. Around 1960, when the expresses were withdrawn, a connection was put in to allow one remaining GC route access to Artamon Square - rather like the connections at Carlton which gave the ex GN Nottingham/Grantham route access to Nottingham Midland when Victoria was closed. A small fuelling point / signing on point was established a little down the line and now sits in the midst of derelict and abandoned freight infrastructure
     
    [i now have a way of justifying my brick retaining wall behind the fuelling point which screens the fiddle yard against t-b-g's strictures about modern image layouts. It is, of course, a stump of part of the viaduct line that carried the GC route across the town - here seen very close to the point where the Sheffield line was diverted into Artamon Square - and abandoned since the early 60s . Or possibly it led into the GC goods station. It has been truncated by the bridge for the new inner ring road opened with a flourish by Ernest Marples in 1962.....]
     
    Around 1970 resignalling transferred control of the area to a major new powerbox and the Midland boxes were demolished . This essentially brings us to the station we see modelled . Nothing much has changed in 15 years , though some things have got tattier . Blacklade is a prime example of the sort of place Sir Peter Parker had in mind when he talked about "the crumbling edge of quality" . By the mid to late 80s the infrastructure is still run down , but the station is now seeing the first influx of brightly coloured new Sprinters and an increase in frequency. By 2000 , the paintwork is fresh , the crumbling brickwork has largely been repointed , there are pot plants in hanging baskets and the signage shows the latest branding: perhaps there is even a 3 car Sprinter to London once a day via Nottingham, or was till they bought Meridians which won't fit Blacklade's platforms - but like Lowestoft the place is still in dire need of improvement
     
    This gives a base line against which to judge the correctness of stock and services and to judge how big a liberty is being taken. The layout has always been intended to have 2 periods : 1985-90 (I am a BR Blue modeller at heart) and 2000-6 (to accomodate all the brightly coloured DMUs I acquired while involved with the abortive club project , which was (then) contemporary). The terminus ante quem for the latter period is the end of the Central Trains franchise, which from memory was autumn 2006: I have several units in that livery and it's pleasing on the eye. Also I used CT a certain amount in that era - which is particularly relevant to the 153s.
     
    The early period allows me to run various things which were typical for Lincolnshire and the East Midlands in the 1980s , and to juxtapose the old guard of Modernisation Plan stock with the new order of Sprinters and Pacers. The limits are reasonably broad , as I want both a Cravens class 105 (common in the area, and because they carried plain blue to the end, much easier for a novice to paint) and one or two 153s , so I can play about with joining and splitting units , which was supposed to be a key component of the operational interest. 153s have been the mainstay of local services in Lincolnshire for nearly 20 years, and Central Trains frequently used them as strengtheners to 158s to produce a 3 car train. 105s were withdrawn from passenger service in 1985 , though a few units lingered another couple of years with the Parcels Sector; the 153s were converted from 155s in 1990.
     
    Strictly speaking they shouldn't be seen side by side, but they do belong to the same period and area of my railway experience. It is odd how when we are dealing with a period where we have no experience at all everything is cut and dried, in crisp, exact and precise detail - but when it's something you lived through, it seems to blur into a continuum . How did I discover HEAs were no longer part of the railway scene? - someone mentioned them as a vanished type , and I suddenly realised I hadn't seen any at Bow Goods for at least 6 months......
     
    The intention has always been to have 3 x 153 - two in Regional Railways , and one in Central Trains, allowing me to run two in both early and late period. At the moment I have one of each, and an out of period unit (in terms of paintwork) has to be used in the early period. The W Yorkshire 158 is strictly speaking out of era in the early period (being in the later version of the livery) but doesn't seem to jar , because the main colour is the same as for the earlier W Yorks PTE red/white
     
    The early period also allows me to run a parcels train , and much of my recent stock building has gone into parcels vehicles of which I already have rather more than the handful of vehicles I strictly need, with more to come. This also gets the blue 31s into play, as does the use of some Mk1s and Mk2As as loco hauled substitutes - I now have a decent weathered 2 car set, with another set to sort out (and donor coaches to rebuild for potentially another two sets as well). In practice the layout has generally been run in 80s mode, so I can play with my new built toys, rather than 21st century mode, where there are still gaps in stock. In theory there should also be an engineers train, playing the same trick with engineers brakes as with 153s - however the green Shark is still unfinished , and in early period mode the fiddle yard and layout are already full of stock.....
     
    The notional target date for a steam period seems likely to be 1958: however the anachronisms will be much more marked. Pregrouping carriages are a bit too early (especially the ex LNW set) , Type 2s a shade too late . Ex MR suburban stock just about made it to this point though, the Derby Lightweight single car units were in traffic, the Railbuses came only slightly later (even if the LMR didn't get them till the mid 60s) , C12s were still being used on local trains that year and the L1 and Standard 4MT are bang in period. 1958 is the "least worst fit" of any date. It's just plausible that the LMR have just rebuilt the station and that the connection to the ex GC route has opened - it can't be pushed any earlier.
     
    In theory the three roads of the fiddle yard represent a single track "branch" and a double track "main line" reached via a ladder junction, which splits after a few miles . In practice the roads are used quite indescriminately , but a single track ex GC route towards Chesterfield /Sheffield (the chord/connection being single , at least) and a double track ex Midland route, with lines to Nottingham and Birmingham diverging some miles from Blacklade, fits the scenario nicely
  13. 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
  14. Ravenser

    A Decent 31 - Finishing Off

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    31 415 is now finished - I've done rather more modelling than blog-posting in recent months.
     
     
    Much of the finishing seemed to be a question of paint
     
    I made a serious mistake with the noses and used Railmatch pre1984 yellow acrylic for the first coats. Nothing wrong with the shade , but I got a dreadful tar-brush result. Much careful/desperate rubbing down resulted , with fine emery boards and a little nail block someone directed me to , that has 4 different surfaces on a block and retails for about a pound in Superdrug. The file , ridge-remover, and buff surfaces were all used , and a vast improvement has been made . It's still not as good as if I'd used enamels from the start.
     
    After multiple coats of Railmatch yellow enamel well rubbed down between coats, I got a decent result.
     
    There is a very noticeable notch or recess under the nose door area which Airfix did not model - this was carefully chopped out using a narrow chisel blade in the X-Acto between two cut lines. As mentioned in my original posting on the 31 , the locos have a little wing plate on either side of the shoulder of the cab door. They are noticeable but I couldn't think how to represent them neatly and robustly so they've not been added
     
    The Airfix buffer beam is very bare indeed: there isn't even a moulded coupling hook. I use Kadees, and the loco is required to couple at both ends on a terminus to fiddle yard layout, so the scope for buffer beam detailing is limited. But after looking at various photos of 31s in Diesel Retrospective - Class 31, I felt something needed to be done to give the cluttered coloured lumps and pipes effect of the real thing. I made use of some spare whitemetal castings from an old detailing pack for a class 20 , which were not used on that model because they fouled the couplings... The effect is frankly representational but a good deal better than nothing. To avoid them fouling the Kadees, the pipe below buffer beam level was cut off with my Xurons
     
    One detail improvement that has a big effect is to paint the raised rim of the cab front windows black , to represent the rubber seal - this instantly enlarges the window and improves the proportions substantially, though it needs a very careful hand and a 00 or 000 brush (and quite possibly a little "wipe away and try again" in the odd place when you attempt it)
     
    Flush glaze is SE Finecast - Shawplan don't , so far as I'm aware, do Lazerglaze for such an old model
     
    Transfers are a mix of HMRS and Fox (flashes, blue stars etc) . The ETH box came out of the Howes buffer detail pack. Roof weathering is Revell anthracite, because that was a suitable shade I had to hand. Cleaning away any black paint that got where it shouldn't have sufficed as weathering on the nose, main radiator grills got a wash of anthracite, and other grills a mid grey wash. Beyond that I chickened out on bodyside weathering , other than a sealing coat of matt varnish - the reference photo of 31 415 at Skegness shows her quite clean
     
    The whitemetal castings representing internal pipework were fitted with Superglue on one side and UHU on the other (to prevent differential expansion cracking the Superglue) . The bottom parts of several of the castings had to be cut away to avoid fouling the chassis - needless to say I found this on a trial fitting after initially fixing them in place , so off they came. I also found that pure white made the pipe runs all too visible through the side windows, so a weathering wash (Humbrol blue/grey) was applied to those castings not irretrevably fixed . The others got a very dilute weathering wash over the windows themselves
     
    As an interesting contrast , here is the finished body shell next to the unmodified body I removed from the model:
     

     
    And as a final "as released to traffic" view here are some shots on the layout during a trial running session:
     

    and

     
    show 31415 side by side with my Hornby 31 174 (thankfully showing no signs of any mazak problems) - an interesting comparision between two models 20 years apart.
     
    And as I now have 2 x 31, an attempt was made for the first time to operate LHS1 (the loco hauled substituted set) in place of one DMU
     

     
    31 415 ran well and I'm pleased with the results
  15. Ravenser
    I have a few problems with my Hornby 31 derailing when running through the crossover at the end of Platform 2 if set to cross over. As this is part of the run round loop and as the 31 is currently diagrammed for any loco hauled trains (parcels, engineers etc) this is a problem
     
    The problem is caused by the fact that these points don't always close tight when thrown - arising from the fact that I used the wire supplied by Tortoise, instead of replacing it with something thicker and stiffer. I've replaced the throw wires on the other points , but it's now going to be the devils own job to do it on the platform end crossover.
     
    However as my Airfix 31 seems to take the relevant crossover in its stride , there's an obvious fix. I always intended to detail the Airfix model at some point anyway and if I want operate a Loco Hauled Substitute set (2 coach MK1/Mk2Z rake) to cover a DMU shortage - as happened not infrequently in the 1980s - I need a second Type 2 to work it Minories-style (Platform 2 is too short to take 31 + 2 x 64' coaches - a pair of 50' vans is the limit - and this is the only platform with access to the loop. The crossover in question was originally added to the plan to give access to the fuelling point , and the fact it gave me a loop was a bonus) . I've got the blue/grey coaches - all I need is a second loco
     
    The Airfix 31 was bought new in the late 70s for my first modern image layout, and has been stored in its box ever since that unsuccessful project was finally abandoned. It has been given a decoder , and runs well considering what it is, but is otherwise untouched. I also acquired a finished 31 body when Dapol were selling off the remaining stocks of discontinued items some years , and the intention is to detail this spare body and substitute it. Kadees must also be fitted to the chassis.
     
    I have a further rather battered 31 body in stock, plus a rather tatty and roughly detailed specimen acquired for £15 for it's chassis (it's a runner though may need some cleaning up) , a spare Athearn PA1 chassis, and the unhappy remains of a first batch blue Hornby 31 (I seperated the body before mazak rot set in) , as well as 31 174 which is - I hope - fine. If I work my way through that lot over the years I should have quite a fleet of Brush 2s
     
    In my teens I saw quite a lot of Immingham's 31/4 fleet on Transpennine South and Cleethorpes-Newark trains. Hornby have made a 31/1, so obviously if I was detailing an Airfix loco for myself I wanted a mid 80s IM 31/4.
     
    Unfortunately it's not quite that easy.
     
    There's little or no obvious external difference between a 31/1 and a 31/4. The detailed issues relate to date rather than type. Airfix produced a 31 with headcode box, bodyside steps and recessed tank filler on the roof, train heating boiler port,, nose doors and buffer beam cowls. As far as I'm aware this represents a late 60s /early 70s re-engined 31/1 from the latter 2/3rds of the production batch. A good choice for a manufacturer in 1977 but rather more problematic now
     
    By the mid 70s all 31s had lost the bodyside steps and roof recess which had been plated over , so Airfix's blue 31 401 is wrong here . During the 1980s buffer beam cowls were removed . The first batch of ETH conversions (31 401-19) kept them when converted in the early 70s . I'm not sure about 31 420-4 , converted in the mid 70s . The second batch of conversions in the mid 80s , 31 425-469 lost them when rebuilt to ETH, and they also lost bodyside bands. I don't feel up to that level of reworking , so my target loco has to be a 31/4 from the early conversions up to 31 424.
     
    Unfortunately IM's 31/4 fleet was basically the second batch conversions. I thought I'd found a perfect prototype and reference shot here:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31408-bk-090383_t.jpg
     
    (I originally found this on the 53A Models photo site)The train is virtually certain to be a Cleethorpes - Newark Northgate service, as it comprises four Mk1s- the Transpennine South sets were basically Mk2a s , later strengthened to 5 when the Newark sets were broken up and that service reverted to 114s
     
    It is at this point that the problem of fan cowls rears it's ugly head - literally . Note the roof line on the loco - isn't there something projecting ?? Aren't we seeing what is horribly obvious here - a raised cowl around the roof fan grill, on the same loco at Rugby some years later:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/cs31408_rugby.jpg
     
    But in 1976 she was smooth and her roofline unmarred:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/16179216@N07/5187603237/
     
    Some internet browsing suggests that these cowls appeared in 1979-82. Many locos never got them - I have a shot of a gleaming new 31 435 at Grimsby in 1985 (I think) with no cowl, and she's plainly uncowled here (a Hull-Liverpool I reckon) http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31435-sp-0690.jpg
     
    I've no idea how you model such a cowl - so 31 408 wasn't a suitable target loco. And as 31 435 had uncowled buffer beams she wasn't either (Whether the buffer beam cowling has been replaced now she's D5600 in preservation I don't know). She has also had a revised smaller cab window on one side which seems to be a very unusual modification - I've not seen another photo showing this asymmetrical cab window arrangement.
     
    As far as I can see from my surviving 1980s abcs, only five 31/4s from the first batch were allocated to IM during the period (31 403/07/08/09/20) and it appears from the class 31 photo site that all of them had roof fan grill cowling during the 1980s
     
    So a slightly different approach is needed.
     
    The nearest I've found to an ideal target loco is 31 415, seen at Skegness in 1982 in a photo in Diesel Retrospective Class 31. She doesn't have a roof cowl, I think the buffer beam cowling is still in place as something is going well below the buffers, and she's most emphatically in Lincolnshire . She is plain blue with no stripe but bodyside bands are still in place
     
    At that stage she was allocated to March (the train is therefore probably the SO Cambridge-Skegness and return), and by the late 80s she was allocated to Bescot - very suitable for Blacklade. At what stage she lost buffer cowling and bodyside bands I don't know - ignorance is bliss here. (For the record a shot in the same book shows 31 414 at Wellingboro in March 1987 without either). The Hornby body from 31 270 would probably be a much better starting point for a 31 without bodyside bands as the band is done by tampo printing
     
    So - 31 415 it will be...
  16. Ravenser
    Having decided on a target loco (31 415 , MR then BS) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14486-a-decent-31-prototypes-and-problems/ and with an Airfix body in hand , what needs doing?
     
    Firstly, remove the numbers and symbol with surgical spirit and a cotton bud. Next , a swift appraisal.
     
    The Airfix model was state of the art in it's day, but that was 35 years ago. Still, many competent judges seem to rate the moulding highly in terms of basic shape
     
    The body side steps and roof filler recess need removing. An etched fan grill to be fitted - A1 Models etch in stock. Nothing to be done to the main radiator grills. Flushglaze - SE Finecast pack in stock. Engine room pipe runs - I have a set of whitemetal castings in stock to use . These will sit behind the glazing and have to be done after glazing and therefore after painting. Cab door handrails are beyond me to replace neatly, so leave them.
     
    Much of the work is on the cab front. Cab doors should be plated - I have an A1 Model etch available. The moulded inverted-L handrails are grim and must be replaced in wire , and a top handrail added. Replacing the lampirons is too ambitious.
     
    The buffers are almost 2mm too short compared with a drawing. A1 oval buffers are between 0.5mm and 1mm too long but more substantial - a marked improvement even if not quite perfect. Once Kadees are in place on the chassis it will be possible to see whether any buffer beam pipework can be fitted.
     
    As far as I'm aware, no significant modifications apply to the chassis . This was one of the better runners on my teenage layout - with a decoder fitted it runs quite nicely even if it growls a bit. It didn't see a lot of use so it's a virtually new mechanism
     
    Airfix took the yellow right down the front to the bottom of the buffer beam. A few locos - I think on the WR - had this but normally the buffer beam was black and this substantially changes the look. Photos show a recess under the cab doors producing a notch in the bottom edge of the cab front. Airfix don't model this. All shots except very early ones show two little wings on the shoulders of the cab doors . They're quite noticeable - but Airfix omitted them and I don't see a way to model them neatly so they'll have to be omitted. Possibly windscreen wipers
     
    There's no cab interior of any kind - some basic provision needs to be made
     
    This little list does show why the Airfix 31 didn't really convince me from the front
     
    And here's a shot of the bodyshell with work well under way
     

     
    An A1 etched roof grill has been fitted (I think this is actually meant for the Lima 31 not the Airfix model) , and all the side steps and roof recess filled. The filler I have is not great stuff - it crumbles away at the slightest provocation leaving a pockmark - and I really need to invest in something better. For once the Milliput worked and set - evidently this time the stuff wasn't past it's working life - and was much better to sand down
     
    The etches for plated doors are in place: these were quite difficult to get flush , or reasonably flush , over the underlying moulding despite my filing down.
     
    The replacement handrails are on. It is surprisingly difficult to bend them up exactly alike on both sides despite using one of Bill Bedford's handrail jigs. I was rather nervous about this part having recently acquired a roughly modified second hand Airfix 31 for a spare chassis and seen how crude its replacement handrails were - but mine seem ok
     
    The new buffers are in place - AI Railmatch oval brass buffers from the bits box . Possibly fractionally long - but a good deal better to my eye than the anemic Airfix efforts
     
    The body has been sprayed in Rail blue with a Railmatch aerosol
  17. 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
  18. Ravenser
    A very long time ago, in my teens, I tried to build a layout. It was my first diesel layout and it was definitely modern image : not only was it BR Blue , it was contemporary. For some reason I decided I wanted some parcels vans and I duly bought a pair of Lima BGs and a pair of Lima CCTs. These things have been lurking in boxes ever since the half built layout was abandoned and dismantled (Several years in Australia, followed by university , didn't exactly help progress)
     
    Several decades later, there is still no alternative model in 4mm for the BR CCT. So far as I'm aware there has never even been a kit. Blacklade is small so small vehicles are attractive, and the idea of a CCT as a "swinger" - DMU tail traffic - seemed worth pursuing. When the layout was started I bought one of the Hornby re-releases, but although the body finish and the wheel profile is much better nothing else has changed since the Lima model first appeared 35 years ago.
     
    I had a little time for modelling a couple of months back, and I finally managed to tackle the long intended rework of one of the CCTs - bits had been in stock for a couple of years
     
    Firstly , some shots of the real thing, rather folorn, at the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway this Easter:
     

     

     
    And here is a shot of an unmodified Lima vehicle:
     

     
    (To be strictly accurate, this has an unmodified Lima body with a Hornby underframe swapped under it. I have 3 CCTs, and I decided in the latter stages of upgrading the first one that as I had castings and etched brake gear for only two, and as repainting the body and transfers was a major job, I was only ever going to do 2 CCTs, the Hornby body would save me a job, and the spare components could be assembled into a complete vehicle and sold on second hand)
     
    There are a number of problems with the original Lima models.
     
    The self-coloured plastic bodies do not look good . The windows are not flush , and the recessed effect with slab sides is bad.The internal window bars are just scratches on the glazing
    The wheels are badly wrong - something which should be obvious from the prototype shots. They should be 3'6" wheels (14mm) but Lima fitted 12mm pizza-cutters.
    The underframe is fairly approximate: the buffers are too small and wrong , the brake lever's not much good, the axleboxes and springs are pretty representational, and the brake shoes are an extension of what passes for J hangers
    The roof vents are hopelessly inadequete.
    The massive tension locks are a problem if like me you are using Kadees. No NEM pockets here.
     
    I've probably overlooked several second-order problems in that list , but there's quite enough to be getting on with.
     
    The first step was to tackle the body. The roof was removed - it is a one piece clear moulding, with the glazing on both sides as an integral part, so you have to push in the windows to release it. Then the body was released from the chassis (push in the 4 lugs from the chassis and try not to break them) , and the body sprayed with 2 coats of Railmatch blue . At which point the can expired, but the Lima lettering was virtually invisible by then. Once dry I used a packet of SE Finecast flushglazing which has been in stock for years for this job, stuck in place with UHU - the improvement is huge. Glazing bars were concocted from the spare elements in the Roxey Van B/CCT etch, cut down to fit
     
    The side glazing was cut away from the roof moulding with a razor saw, leaving a small strip about 2mm deep below the guttering to locate the roof . (I had to file this down in places to clear the flushglaze inserts). The very perfunctory roof vents were removed with a file, and I just about managed to avoid damaging the roof ribs in the process. I fitted whitemetal torpedo vents, as a man at Warley sold me some as he believed they were correct for a CCT . Neither the photos in Parkin's book, or on Paul Barlett's site are conclusive, but I've a nagging feeling the real vehicles may have shell vents.
     
    The big problems lie with the underframe. The undersized wheels cannot be readily replaced because not only are them on Lima's 24.5mm European axles, but the bearing holes in the plastic axle guards were set too low, to compensate and adjust the ride height. Not that Lima's representations of axleboxes, springs and W irons are much good anyway
     
    There are 3 possible approaches at this point.
     
    - I know Captain Kernow devised a tool to bore out new bearing holes in the Lima axle guards , and set them at the correct height, and this was written up in an article in an early Hornby Magazine. I couldn't identify the issue in question, and it's probably out of print so this route was closed. I think he left most of the underframe largely "as is"
     
    - I believe Bill Bedford has produced an etched brass kit for a CCT underframe. However I also understand that he doesn't provide any instructions with his products on the grounds that anyone who needs instructions is unfit to build them. My etched kit experience is strictly limited - while I might well be able to build a well designed kit with good instructions , I stand no chance with a naked etch to a complex design which may or may not cater for OO and which may require unspecified modifications in unspecified areas to do so . So that route was not an option, and 15 quid stayed in my bank account
     
    - The third route is to cut away the Lima W irons and springs , and replace the lot with whitemetal castings from ABS. As I didn't fancy my chances of assembling whitemetal axleguards dead square, especially on such a long wheelbase 4 wheeler, this also meant etched brass W irons - which automatically results in a compensated underframe: highly desirable here. This was the route I took.
     
    This shot of the underframe as modified should show the work involved:
     

     
    The whole of the central spine of the underframe has to come out, and so does the floor of the underframe in order to recess the W irons suffiently - I glued a large piece of 40 thou across the area to provide a new false floor. This means you have to discard the long iron plate that Lima use as a ballast weight, since it will no longer fit. I aradited lead sheet into the centre section of the underframe , sufficent to bring the total weight of the CCT up to 75g . All the components and subassemblies were put into the pan of a set of kitchen scales and lead added to make up the weight (Health and Safety note - this is all my scales are ever used for , so there is no risk of heavy metal contamination of food)
     
    Chopping the whitemetal W irons and locating areas away from the axlebox/spring was a very awkward job - every single J hanger broke from the casting in the process and all had to be stuck back with cyano at least 3 times. In retrospect this was unnecessary trouble on the fixed axle - they should just have been stuck in place on the solebar - a scrap of microstrip needs to be slipped underneath as packing . This should be omitted on the rocking axle else it won't rock - and there you really do have to stick the darn things back on the whitemetal spikes at the ends of the spring
     
    I chickened out on thinning down the whitemetal castings before sticking them to the W irons with cyano, so the model is probably a little chunky around the axleboxes . However the overall improvement in appearance is so great I can live with this The W irons are MJT BR heavy duty plate , which are probably correct. The etch supplies coupling hooks - which Lima omitted, though I seem to have used ABS whitemetal ones
     
    One or two bits of struts were lost in the process of attacking the underframe with a cutting disc - my el-cheapo fixed speed mini drill runs at a nominal 18,000 rpm which may be too slow (t's hardly ever been used - which doesn't encourage me to splash out on a more sophisticated one).
    These were reinstated with microstrip and damage where I had to thin the solebars from behind to get the compensation units in patched as best I could. I tried to save the brake levers but eventually concluded they had to go anyway. I drew reference lines across the plasticard floor sections with a set square to enable me to locate the compensation units but I'm still not 100% sure they are absolutely square : all you see is through a small hole in the etch , and to compound the uncertainty my lens prescription does interesting fish-eye things to plane surfaces (think Esscher's goldfishbowl-world engraving, only very very slightly) . However the underframe seems to run okay. Wheels are Hornby 14 mm carriage wheels .
     
    I didn't have an exact match to the buffers fitted - the nearest I could find were a packet of InterCity Models wagon buffers. The fabricated lower-door stops were represented by gluing a cube of 40 thou plasticard to the casting with cyano. Whatever their imperfections they look the part - and a good deal better than Lima's efforts
     
    Brake levers came from a Mainly Trains etched fret drawn by Ian Rice which just happened to have 2 sets of long CCT levers on it (It was at this point I decided I was only ever going to do 2 CCTs). Perhaps they are a bit heavily cranked in order to clear the castings but again they are a big improvement
     
    The tension locks were chopped off with Xurons, 40 thou plasticard glued underneith and the hole made good with scraps of plasticard and liberal quantities of solvent (not filler , as it needs to take the fixing screw for the Kadees, which are long centreset , to cope with the buffers - I think they are no 46)
     
    Lettering is from the HMRS pressfix sheet for BR coaches. I gather Express Parcels is a rare branding but it appears on a 1980s reference photo so is in period and the CCT looked a bit bare without it. I had some trouble with the data lettering - one panel broke up , one was slightly damaged by weathering washes and that meant I used up all the CCT lettering on the sheet - another reason for using the ready finished Hornby body for the next one and stopping there... I had already cannibalised CCT lettering for the PMV I built some time ago . End electrification flashes are old Woodhead transfers, held on with varnish - the CCT and the Van B have used up my last old style electrification flashes and I must get some more (from Fox?
     
    The underframe was painted Railmatch Roof dirt, and weathering featured washes mixed from frame dirt and roof dirt , partly taken off with a cotten bud soaked in whitespirit
     
    The roof was a bit of a nightmare with at least 4 coats with various mixes and washes needed before I got something which was roughly the right shade and reasonably even , not streaky. A coat of enamel matt varish over the lot finally killed the sheen and blended it in.
     
    The whole thing recieved a final coat of Railmatch matt varish from a can (along with the Van B and some 2mm containers) . At which point the can expired...
     
    Here's the finished result:
     
     

     
    And if anyone knows how to delete the duplicate large version of the underframe phot I'd be grateful . It's not showing up on the posting text
  19. Ravenser
    Having chickened out on fitting 4 small etched brass stips as hinges to every door of the Van B, I've decided to tackle finishing the point motors and associated wiring under the layout. This posting is largely to draw the attention of non-DCC users to the query I've just posted on wiring one of the motors here : Hoffmann query, since the solution I've come up with - hardwiring and switching through the spare contacts on another point motor - isn't really a DCC method at all
     
    However this fits into the bigger package of stuff I'm hoping to tackle this weekend (and no doubt next week as well):
     
    - Sort out the unreliable throw of the existing point motors. This is because the wire supplied with the Tortoise is too springy and flexes rather than moving the point blades. Where possible the old wire will be taken out and replaced- where not possible, I aim to stiffen the wire using a tip from an Iain Rice book. There looks to be one point motor I can't get at at all
     
    - Remove the NCE Autoswitch - which doesn't actually work - and fit a DPDT switch to isolate the bulk of the layout when programming
     
    - Install the remaining 3 point motors . I now have a new Cobalt Blue motor (bought at Ally Pally after seeing jim s-w's recent review in DEMU Update) and aHoffmann - these , with a Tortoise , will fit where 3 x Tortoises wouldn't. I'll make sure the wires are stiff enough....
     
    - Install the 16V AC auxiliary bus onto the second board, so it can power the Hoffmann motor, and an Express Models 12V DC 1 amp stabilised power supply
     
    -Install 12V DC stabilised power supplies on each board to power signals, Digitrax decoder, and lighting circuits
     
    - Install Digitrax DS64 decoder to fiddle yard board , to power all points , and replace current NCE Switch It
     
    - Connect up the lighting circuit in the portakabin and hope it works
     
    - Built one or two Erkon signal kits and install - connect up to 12V supply and point switching
     
    I think I've actually got all the bits now , so this lot should keep me quiet for a while.......
     
    Items trial positioned on the boards:
     

     
    And before I started:
     

  20. 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....

  21. 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
     
  22. Ravenser
    I really must get more done this year . In fact I seem to have spent as much time taking stock as making stock. However first things first , and I'm going to try to transfer ORBC from the old forum. This is because half the projects concerned are unfinished - and it's not going to make a lot of sense if I announce with whoops of triumph that the PMV is finished and you haven't a clue as to the long-running saga of distress to this point.
     
    And I have a sinking suspicion the Bratchill 150 hasn't made any progress since I last copied stuff onto a new version of RMWeb...
     
    I will do better next year. I keep saying that...
     
    So - now let's see if I can get my head round Martin Wynne's transfer utility
  23. Ravenser

    At the Dawn of Time - Chapter the First

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    In which the Author discovereth a Cardboard Box in the Study which recalleth his Childhood; and subsequently journeys into the Western-most Parts of Great-Britain.....
     
    A few years ago I saw a reissue of the Airfix kit for Trevithick's locomotive in a shop. I had one of these as a child, when I was too young to have any real understanding of how to build it: I recall some attempt was made at it, though it certainly never got as far as any paint, and one or two cogs and bits survive somewhere in the depths of a scrapbox.
     
    It has always lingered in my memory as one of the most interesting Airfix kits, both for the subject and for the fact that this one was supposed to work. In the 1970s there was supposed to be a motorising kit available, though I never had it, or knew of anywhere you could get it. Occasional sightings of a residual part would prompt the rueful reflection that it would be interesting to attempt the kit now - when I actually know what I'm doing and might make something of it.
     
    So when I saw one I bought it, and brought the thing home - and it's been sitting in a pile of magazines on top of Tramlink
    ever since. I seem to have bought it from Modelzone in High Holborn, it's that long ago.
     
    The kit seems still to be available in places https://www.steamreplicas.co.uk/Airfix-1804-Steam-Loco.asp - I know nothing of these people except that they come up on a Google search and seem to specialise in Mamod live steam.
     
    I was meaning to dig out the Judith Edge Vanguard Steelman kit this weekend . But there was the Airfix kit, and it doesn't need a soldering iron, and I don't have to worry about whether it will run... Also Ally Pally is coming up and there's usually someone there who sells display cases, into which I can put the finished model.
     
    Here's the kit , with the basic boiler assembled:

     
    Essentially the kit is built round the boiler
     
    It's a very long time since I built an Airfix kit , other than a wagon kit, and impressions are pretty favourable.
     
    It takes a little getting used to the idea that every part is numbered on the sprue and you assemble by part order. This isn't what you expect in a model railway kit. The pictorial instructions are clear, and once you recognise the code, quite detailed. I've only found one place where the instructions weren't clear exactly where a piece went in, and one place where it isn't entirely clear exactly how it will all fit together.
     
    The fit of the parts is excellent - quite a bit better than I'm used to. In two places - the boiler and the chimney - two halves leave a seam through slight misalignment, and I've had to use filler and file/emery board to get a totally smooth finish. The seam at the top of the boiler is visible in the photo. Otherwise it's all startlingly good - and this is a forty year old kit. There's minimal flash on the parts. As a result of all this, I'm finding I true up and finish pieces to a fairly high standard
     
    There are prototype issues.
     
    Wikipedia is not a reliable source, but it is a convenient one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Trevithick
     
    In summary, accepted wisdom is that Trevithick's 1802 engine for the Coalbrookdale plateway was 3' gauge, and the furnace door and chimney were at the same end as the cylinder and the reciprocating machinery. It is generally assumed there would have been a small wooden tender pushed in front of the loco.
     
    Firing under the piston, slide bar and connecting rod would seem fairly hazardous, and there seems general agreement -I'm not familiar enough with the scholarship to say upon what basis - that Trevithick reversed the arrangement for the 1804 engine, with the furnace door and chimney at the opposite end from the reciprocating machinery.
     
    What Airfix have modelled is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coalbrookdale_loco.jpg , but to 5' gauge. As a modern image modeller I'm unfamiliar with the detailed provenance and exact sources of this drawing
     
    https://www.locos-in-profile.co.uk/Early_Locomotives/Early_1.html
     
    A further point is the boiler cladding - or lack thereof. Airfix - and modern drawings - assume an unclad iron boiler , probably painted black.
     
    However the only contemporary colour image of a Trevithick loco seems to be Thomas Rowlandson's watercolour of Catch Me Who Can at Euston in 1808. The best version I can find is here:
     
    http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co66226/richard-trevithicks-railroad-euston-square-1809-drawing
     
    And to my eye that clearly depicts a brown /teak boiler , with horizontal lines and boiler bands . In fact it is plainly varnished wooden boiler cladding, as seen on the restored Locomotion No1 and Wylam Dilly, and on pictures of Planet, Murray's Middleton locos , and other early engines.
     
    But Trevithick's tickets for the show just show a plain black boiler : https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Richard_Trevithick:_Catch_Me_Who_Can
     
    That , I suspect is the engineer's view - the boiler cladding is a detail to him.
     
    I can't see why boiler cladding would have been newly invented in 1808 - surely the purpose was to lag the boiler and improve thermal efficiency?
     
    So my money is on both the 1802 and 1804 locos having had varnished wooden boiler cladding as well
  24. Ravenser
    In which the Author maketh a prosperous Journey towards Penydarren in South Wales - where he suffers a sudden Misfortune which leaves him stranded upon a remote Shore...
     
    It has been some time since my initial post on this model  Part 1  when all seemed so promising.   Now, like a message sent in a bottle by a castaway washed up years later on a distant beach I suppose I should write up further developments with what is currently a stalled model.
     
    After much internal debate I finally decided not to attempt a wooden cladding to the boiler, as painting and assembling the cladding round the boiler and the valve gear and gubbins round the cladding just all seemed too much.
     
    Slowly but steadily good progress was made. Yes - I managed to stick the cross-saddled holding the axles in the wrong place and had to remove them and reposition. The carcase of the model was spray-painted matt off-black (Games Workshop Chaos Black from a big aerosol can) as were quite a few of the valve gear and drive components. I was careful to assemble everything so that it would move where it was supposed to move , although the meshing of the gears isn't quite perfect - as can be seen here - and it isn't really free turning in one direction
     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     
     

     
     
    The crosshead moves reasonably freely , even after painting - as a railway modeller I set about making sure everything slid as freely as I could , and gear teeth were checked over to ease any meshing difficulties. The wheels were on, the motion more or less erected....things turned, fine in one direction, not quite so fine in the other, and I was still harbouring hopes of ultimate motorisation ,once I had finally got my head around what Airfix envisaged happening underneath the plastic stand. A motor was supposed to be fitted there, along with a battery - and presumably a switch as well - and I think this was supposed to drive something and thereby turn one of the wheels , so that the motion moved . Effectively the locomotive would work backwards - the wheels driving the motion.
     
    The display base itself was built up, though I'm not quite sure if the stand mounts would hold the loco perfectly level , or so that the wheel would be in contact with whatever's turning underneath. (There's a slot in the base , where this would have protruded, and come in contact with the rim of one of the wheels.)
     
    But still - so far , so good, or reasonably so , and all the problems looked as if they might ultimately be resolvable with a little thought, care and ingenuity.
     
    Then I added the big flywheel and - disaster!
     
    I tried turning the drive train. It was very stiff. I pushed a little harder - and the great flywheel sheered off.....
     
    Somehow the shaft at the back had become  stuck to the bearing when I added the flywheel (presumably solvent got where it should not have been) - and the simply twisted off and sheered at the bearing as I pressed. The damaged area is visible on the bearing bracket at the rear of the boiler.
     
    I tried to drill out the shaft end to take a short piece of brass handrail wire to pin the flywheel back on - but couldn't drill centrally
     
    The only thing I can now see to do is to melt  a short length of 0.45" brass wire into the end of the shaft from above (i.e. the side) , and drill a hole to take it into the centre of the flywheel. A (very small) drop of superglue would then be used so that the wire would "pin" the flywheel to the shaft.
     
    I suppose I could just glue the flywheel in place and abandon all hope of a working model. But having taken quite a lot of trouble to build the kit with moving parts that actually move I'm very reluctant to do this.
     
    Woe is me! The poor mechanical trilobite has been consigned to the shoe box for some months while I get on with other projects that I haven't broken (yet)
     
     


  25. Ravenser

    Baby Deltic - Released to Traffic

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    After a good deal of last minute panic I now have a working Baby Deltic, and here is a picture of it on the rolling road to prove it:
     

     
    The Mk2 stiffened chassis also developed bend, and I stiffened it with two short lengths of brass bar araldited in place. It is now rigid and more or less straight
     
    Fortunately for me the Hornby Ringfield motor bogie I had in stock is the final Chinese-made 5 pole unit with 8 wheel pickup. Not only does this pick up better and run better, it is also not live to the motor casing, meaning that it is within my capabilities to install a decoder. It has accordingly received a TCS MC2 - the last of the 5-pack I bought
     
    The superglued traction tyre has given no trouble and shows every sign of being secure. However there is a noticeable wobble on one wheel of the motor bogie
     
    A certain amount of tweaking of the decoder settings was needed to raise start volts for a reliable start, and hold down mid and top volts. Acceleration and deceleration are perhaps a little too slow for a short terminus to fiddle yard layout
     
    I'm not convinced the body sits absolutely square on the chassis, but that may well represent the inside of the resin bodyshell not being totally square. Given my fear of resin dust nothing will be done about this until next spring.
     
    Running has been a touch erratic. It's perfectly fine on the rolling road, but has an odd habit of sticking on the layout. As this was happening in specific places I set about chasing raised bits of ballast with a screwdriver - the problem is almost certainly deep flanges catching on any slight obstruction . Running this wheel profile on code 70 bullhead is arguably sticking my neck out, and I may need to look at how the flanges could be reduced
     
    Otherwise it seems to run smoothly and reliably enough. Some extra weight has been added in the form of the off-cut from the 155 ballast weight to hold down the unpowered bogie. Waste not, want not (and I am almost out of sheet lead)
     
    I have also weathered the underframe suitably with multiple washes of Humbrol Dark Brown wash, AK Interactive Light Dust deposit, mixes of both, and a final wash of AK shaft and bearing grease in selected areas, and I'm reasonably satisfied with the results
     

     
    As can be seen, the wretched Tourist Brake Third is also effectively finished. As a result I'm starting to get very ambitious about new projects again - though really I ought to finish off a few more things that have already been started.
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