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Ravenser

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  1. 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)
     


  2. 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)
     
     


  3. Ravenser

    Skeleton in the Cupboard

    By Ravenser,


    Tramlink
    A very long time ago, I went to one of the CMRA Workshop events. The bookseller was selling a copy of "Tramlink - Official Handbook" published by Capital Transport. (It was Geoff Gamble - I told you it was a long time ago)
     
    Anyway I bought the thing, discovered that Alphagraphix were doing card kits of light rail units, and I got fired up with the idea of building one , and making a working model. This obviously would need somewhere to run, so the idea of building a small layout based on Tramlink was rapidly born. The overhead was fairly simple posts, concrete sleeper track could be used... Ravenser Mk1 was visibly a problem - try again with some proper boards
     
    This whole thing occupied much of my modelling in the early part of the millenium, along with the club project and the Boxfile. The baseboards were constructed in a one bedroom flat using a junior hacksaw and a plastic benchhook - the main plywood plates being cut to size by the timber yard. (Never again... I bought a Black & Decker Workbox not long after. And the timber yard has now closed and been flattened for redevelopment as housing. No-one within 15 miles can cut time to size as far as I know)
     
    The basic design can be seen from the photos:
     
    Each board is 3' x 11" - they box up as an opposed pair, and the idea was that they would just about be carriable on public transport as a boxed unit. At that time I didn't have a car, as I was commuting daily by train .
     
    Here is Elmers' End. Two Wills kits are still in stock for the platform canopy. The photocopy mock-up of the Goods Office is still in place, pending the rework and building of the full kit...
     
     
     

     
    And here is the second board, labelled as Beckenham. I know you can't actually run from Elmer's End to Beckenham on Tramlink, but this was not conceived as  finescale layout. In fact Beckenham was originally conceived as the fiddle yard, until I thought that a terminus in a station forecourt could be suggested, and therefore I could have a fully scenic layout:
     
     

     
    The "unique selling point" was that it was to be an all-card layout
     
    I built the first LRV . It was successful - sort of . It has a Tenshodo at one end , it runs - but it's very light weight and propelling trailer first into (or was it out of?) the cripple siding at Elmer's End it came off every time. 
     

    The system of articulation  was shall we say basic, and would never feature in MRJ. I think the idea was to have one trailing bogie live vto one side, and the other to the other rail. These were A1 etched H frames for wagon bogies, and I cadged some bogie castings off Mark Hughes, who makes a respectable whitemetal kit
     
     

    But it did get written up in the DOGA Journal (also a long time ago)
     
    Then I attempted proper Croydon cars from an Alphagrapix kit. These are skirted vehicles, and the skirts fouled the H frames and it wouldn't take a curve at all.... Since the body is a sealed unit there is no way in bar tearing it apart....
     
    (That photocopy mockup really needs replacing. The back of an advertising hoarding was to go in the gap)
     
     


    Oh and one end sat too high....
     
    About the last thing to be done was a push to build super-detail semis from Bilteezi sheets, which stalled:
     
     

    There was even briefly a thought of expanding it with a representation of the depot inserted in the middle
     
     

    Tramlink (Kent) has been stored, boxed up, in the study with an ever growing pile of Railway Modellers on top for more years than I like to admit to. For some years it was occasionally hauled out for use as a DC test track, The wiring was always very, very, basic with hand thrown points and something has come adrift and the Beckenham board is dead.
     
    After I built the external CDU for the Boxfile external CDU and connections I had good intentions of sorting out poor old Tramlink with a rewire. Suitable DIN sockets were sourced from Maplins (remember them?) to take the connectors from the Boxfile. I even sourced a new small radius point , to replace the troublesome Settrack  point at Elmers End, with a view to lifting and relaying and realigning the lead into the cripple siding . Not to mention two solenoid point motors - might as well fit a point-motor while I'm doing it , and then we could see if a point motor could be retrofitted at Beckenham.
     
    I have all the bits - nothing has been done, as I have a long list of jobs with more urgency and more obvious reward.  When I still haven't fixed the W Yorks 155 , Tramlink is unlikely to get priority.
     
    Once or twice the idea has crossed my mind of scrapping it and reusing the boards for a shunting layout to give the stock off the Boxfile more room to breath (and maybe some of the kettles a chance to use it, too) . But to be honest I don't really want to destroy all the buildings which took a lot of work and scrubbed up well, and I can't see how any kind of meaningful shunting plan could be arranged without doing that. Come to that I don't actually have a meaningful 6' x 11" shunting design
     
    So poor old Tramlink stays in its box buried under the magazines....
     
     
     

     

  4. Ravenser
    After a brisk start , this project seems to have gone to sleep again. 
     
    Not quite true - in the last 10 days I've actually managed to paint the bodyshell, and matters now stand thus:
     
     
     

     
    I see I have managed to capture the corner where one of the window pillars became damaged and had to be repaired. It looks much worse blown up to around 7mm scale. I also haven't removed the Maskol from the handrails
     
    Transfers are Modelmaster (someone said he's dropping transfers?) and the etched NBL diamonds are 247
     
    All it now needs is a coat of matt varnish - and a working chassis to put it on
     
    (As an aside I now have a further excuse to own one of these locos. There's a group talking about building a replica Class 21 Class 21 replica project  - and from them I learn:
     
     
    The possibility of running one in Lincolnshire - maybe even at a pinch on the E Lincs line - hadn't occurred to me)
     
    I've also added a little representational buffer beam detail. When I were a little lad (ok, armed with an ABC..) buffer beam detail seemed to be the core of diesel modelling. It was almost the whole of "detailing a diesel" - and as I used tension-locks in those days it was out of the question for me. These days I use Kadees, which though neater still swing, and I've still pretty restricted in what I can do below the buffer beam. I do try to do something but it veers from the representational to the frankly vestigial.
     
    However all Hornby attempted in the 1980s was a vague blob where the coupling hook should be, and so something had to be done to fill up a notably "busy" area. I've now replaced the blob with a proper whitemetal coupling hook, and fashioned a very rough representation of the two large jumper sockets on the buffer beam out of the ends of two Langley cast speedo cables, with a bit of cable - probably overscale - looped up to one side. It's not much, but it's something , and should be a significant improvement on the starting point. I'm not 100% sure about the shade of red on the buffer beam , but looking at the photo above I think it might be ok
  5. Ravenser
    We left this saga a couple of months back with me finding that the NEM pockets on the Hachette Mk1 were way too high, and that I therefore couldn't couple it to anything. Pro tem the Coopercraft Tourist Brake 3rd was coupled to the Dapol LMS Stanier  Composite from Set 5 and pressed into service as an improvised set:
     
    https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/21622-baby-deltic-released-to-traffic/
     
    I don't seem to have written up the final rounds of my bitter fight with the Tourist BTO. The Wizard aluminium roof was cut to length, filed back on each side at the ends, and stuck on with Evostick. The roof detail is plasticard strip, stuck on with superglue, and with a distinct tendency to break off. It may be a little heavy, but it was the best that could be done under the circumstances. The whole lot was sprayed with Halfords Grey Primer which proved to be too light, then weathered, patch-painted , re-weathered.. The body was patch-painted again, transfers and Modelmasters post 1956 lining were applied, and the whole thing was brush-painted with gloss varnish. Then the underframe was weathered.  A working gangway was added to one end , and we were done.
     
    It's not wonderful but it will pass as a layout  coach and to be honest, given the "quality" of the kit and the number of coats of paint that have to be applied by brush to get sufficient opacity, not much more could be hoped for from it. Very much better modellers than me have struggled to get good results with this kit. There is a metal kit available from Wizard Models , and if the Coopercraft kit is never seen again I doubt we've lost very much.
     
    So to the present...
     
    I went to Ally Pally last weekend , and by chance I came across a Hornby Gresley BCK in blood and custard at a silly price. After a moment's reflection it was too good a bargain to miss , so I bought it. (The awkward lack of first class accommodation in Set 4 and the fact these BCKs were intended as through coaches was also in the back of my mind when I bought it)
     
    I also managed to source a solution for the coupling height problem on the Hachette Mk1. After a lengthy conversation on the Keen Systems stand (during which I was repeatedly told that Kadee couplings don't work) I acquired a converter pack for a Bachmann Mk1, which is intended - amongst other things - to put the NEM pocket at the correct height. 
     
    I've never before dabbled with Keen Systems products. This is mainly because they are based on rigid fixed links between the vehicles, and that is not much interest to me when I run 2-car sets on a portable layout and want some flexibility in how I can deploy my stock. And the quoted ability to get a rake of coaches round first- and second-radius curves close-coupled is of limited relevance  when my tightest curve is 2'6" and the general radius on Blacklade is 3' or greater. In any case I fit working gangways to the inner ends of my coaches and my DMUs - and there's only one set of gangways in a 2 car set.
     
    Sadly the replacement resin close-coupler cams are nowhere near a drop-in fit for the Hachette, despite the latter's origin as a back-engineered "Bachmann knock-off".
     
    I had to file out the cam to get it to fit in place on the coach,  and of course the profile of the resulting hole isn't a great match for the taper of the Hachette original. Then I found the Keen Systems cam wouldn't seat correctly . This was because the head of the screw holding the coach together was fouling on it. Cue more filing to create a suitable recess to clear the screw head... Because you really don't want to breath in the dust created as the screwhead grinds away at the soft coupler arm....
     
    I thoroughly dislike anything that involves working with resin castings because of the health risks from the dust - and the huge awkwardness imposed by the  precautions you have to take as a result. All working of resin has to be done outside in the open, wearing a mask - with (of course) no modelling bench - meaning that every check or new round of fettling means running up and down two flights of stairs to the flat and though one or two doors with Yale locks. And the need to wash down and decontaminate the tools means carrying water jars and kitchen roll up and down as well. Not to mention the fact that washing your files thoroughly in water isn't exactly very good for them. Oh, and under normal circumstances it also means that resin items can only be worked on during British Summer Time or at weekends , otherwise it's dark outside.....
     
    Fortunately on this occasion I'd taken the day off, and the job was done reasonably quickly, without it (so far) killing me. I suppose white lead from dust-shot and PVA or working depleted uranium are much greater health risks. But this was one occasion where a drop-in fit would really have been appreciated.
     
    You will not be surprised to hear that I decided that sorting out one end for a Kadee was quite enough. This will be the end where the loco couples on, and the intention is to use one of the NEM plastic steam-pipes Bachmann supply with their Mk1s as the coupling within the set. This can adjust for the mismatch in NEM pocket heights between the vehicles.
     
    However this does mean that the Hachette Mk1 can't run with the Coopercraft BTO, which has fixed Kadees. It will have to be paired with the newly acquired Gresley BCK.
     
    So Set 4 as it was originally conceived is no more... Long live Set 6!
     
     
     
    (This isn't the end of the matter - I still need to resolve the mismatched scratch-set of Tourist BTO+ Stanier CK. And there is the question of blue/grey sets as well
     
    Here we take a detour through ancient history, set out in an earlier posting on my layout blog:   Flaxborough Almost all of that layout's coaching stock is visible in the photo , and it has all been in stock, pending reworking...
     
    One Lima CCT has been thoroughly reworked and written up. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/9843-a-small-parcel-arrives/
    I decided that all the lettering was really too much of a bind to do a second time, so I salvaged the Hornby-release body, swapped it onto an old Lima underframe as the next "donor vehicle" and disposed of the hybrid Lima body/Hornby underframe CCT on the club stall this weekend.
     
    I started trying to upgrade one of the vintage Hornby Mk 2 brakes (really a BFK) a few years ago but it rapidly became clear this is not a quick or easy exercise. Partial repainting will be required, the window openings need filing back....It went back in its box, and I decided I didn't have the moral fibre to do it twice. So the second Mk2 brake , still in its box, was also disposed of on the club stand. Thus the BCK is nil cost in terms of both space and money...
     
    In the course of time I have also acquired two sets of Comet sides (Mk1 BSO and CK), sundry Comet castings, a large pile of MJT and Bachmann bogies, assorted SE Finecast flushglaze and an unbuilt Kitmaster Mk1 SK kit. Not to mention a Tony Wright DVD showing carriage conversions and quite a few vague aspirations.
     
    When Blacklade runs as BR Blue , I use a 2-car loco-hauled set  composed of a BCK off the Bachmann stand and a Mk2Z TSO acquired when my local model shop closed down almost a decade ago. In the same closing sale I bought a Mk2a BSO, and a Mk1 BSK and SK. I have had various aspirations to sort out some more blue/grey coaching stock, but it has never seemed urgent - DMUs are a higher priority. 
     
    In steam mode Blacklade requires at least three 2-car sets plus a parcels train to operate - which explains why most of the carriage-building activity has gone into the steam-era stock. The dates on my blog reveal it has taken just over 6 years to reach the dizzy heights of five serviceable steam-age sets plus a parcels train.
     
    Building the MTK LMS Porthole Brake 3rd as a proper partner for the Dapol Stanier CK is still firmly on the agenda. But that means I need a new partner for the Tourist Brake 3rd to form Set 4. The best option, given what I have available, is to build a Mk1 CK using the Comet sides on one of the old Lima BG bodyshells, but to put it into maroon livery, not blue/grey. I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of spraying a single-colour livery like maroon, whereas the challenge of doing blue/grey properly , with its rounded corners and white lining, is a major obstacle to tackling several modelling projects. Most if not all of the Lima underframe will have to be removed, but I have all the necessary replacement bits in stock. It would be a chance to do a first "proper" coach conversion project, though obviously I'm not in the same league as Larry Goddard.
     
    And as a medium term project I could strip down the Triang-Hornby RMB, upgrade it as far as it can be reasonably taken, and put it back into maroon. Sandwiched between a pair of my 2-car corridor sets, it would  provide an instant 1960 5 car train...)
     
     
     
     
     
     

  6. 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
  7. Ravenser

    New Year's Resolutions, Part Umpteen...

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    It's that time of the year when I take stock and make a plan for the year - which then ignominously fails in the next 12 months.
     
    Twelve months ago I decided I really would finish the Tourist Brake Third. And after a lot of struggle I actually managed it - though it still needs writing up here.
     
    The Baby Deltic was another "promise to finish" - and lo and behold it's done. And written up.
     
    There the good news stopped.
     
    However I have recently managed to clear away a lot of obstacles to various projects, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-21655-retail-therapy/ so I hope there will be more progress in the year to come.
     
    Work has actually started on the original condition NBL Type 2 diesel electric, and this is looking promising. I think I have all the bits now
     
    (After that I can contemplate the task of putting a detailed Hornby 25/1 body onto a Bachmann Rat chassis, for a good mid 80s Class 25, but this isn't urgent)
     
    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.
     
    Now I have a replacement power bogie I hope I can finally get the detailed 155 up and running and (finally!) into traffic.
     
    And with the damaged bogie of the Replica chassis repaired I can finish the 128 and get it into traffic as well. This (I hope) will give
    me some better options for consisting Modernisation Plan DMUs - 2 x 2 car DMU is awkwardly long but 1 x 128 + 2 car DMU should be much more manageable. It will also bring the NRV and the GUV into play for operating sessions
     

    There are still a number of long-standing projects which need finishing.
     
    The Airfix Trevithick kit proceeded a lot further before hitting a problem with a seized and sheered bit of motion. I have an idea about how to fix this , but I need to find the courage and the focus to do it.
     
    Once other projects finished and the decks have been cleared I can restart the upgraded 142 which has been lying stalled in bits for a long time. This too would improve my options for consisting - and therefore the operating interest of the layout - if I can get it finished.
     
    The two brake vans , long stalled, are somewhere down my list of priorities
     
    But there is a lot to be done on the locomotive front in the next couple of years, turning projects, aspirations and materials already in hand into actual working locomotives.
     
    Type 2s are likely to be the major focus . The Hornby NBL body is well under way, and all parts to finish this should be in hand. It might turn into a quick win I now have the second-hand locos to do a "high spec" 25/1 with a Hornby body on Bachmann chassis. The combined cost of these two should be around £125.- a new Bachmann 25 would cost around £145 at a box-shifter
     
    Then there are the 31s. I have a roughly -detailed Airfix 31, with filed-off body bands bought for £15 second hand as a mechanism donor. Not that the Airfix mechanism is a wonderful thing. But the body is in fact salvageable - at least to my eyes - and I think I could strip , clean up and redetail it as a refurb 31/4 (Transpennine South, for the use of) with decent result. The target loco would be 31 462 in plain departmental grey, and I've ordered the PH Designs etch - which at least takes care of the biggest issue, the roof fan grill cowling
     
    I then have the 1978 body I removed from 31 415; a secondhand body with body bands on but buffers cut off; and the wreckage of Hornby's 31 270, with Mazak failure and a blown circuit board. I got to it before the body split - but there's an issue. In my experience, the Hornby locos are track-sensitive, and my other Hornby 31 (31 174) does not like the crossover outside Platform 2 which forms part of the run-round loop. This means it is relegated to Loco Hauled Substitute duties , and is in fact my back-up 31 , whereas the detailed Airfix 31 415 is front line and handles engineers and parcels trains as well. I like good quality mechanisms with smooth low-speed running , but I also like locos that stay on the track. This means that the obvious approach to providing a decent mechanism - ie stripping out the Hornby mechanism from the unhappy 31 270 and installing it under something else - is problematic.
     
    No matter how you slice it, I have 4 x Class 31 bodies and 2 mechanisms both with question marks against them. I managed to get hold of a Railroad 31 chassis frame - but missed out on unpowered bogies and couldn't find a Railroad motor bogie. I also missed out on Hattons cheap Railroad 31, though that would not have improved the chassis/body ratio. I do have a spare (second) Athearn PA1 chassis, but that doesn't have quite the right wheelbase /wheel size, and would mean cutting and shutting a Mazak chassis frame and a drive shaft, and converting to DCC.
     
    And there is no obvious route to the missing bodyshell variants - a "skinhead" at any date, or of any sub-class; or the Golden Ochre Brush 2 (successively Stratford, Tinsley and Immingham in the 60s , and therefore suitable for Blacklade, an E.Lincs before closure project, or any transitional GE layout)
     
    I shall be on the scrounge for cheap serviceable mechanisms at Stevenage . A donor loco with a wrecked body going cheap; a Lima motor bogie and bits capable of receiving a remotor ...
     
    I also have a vintage Triang-Hornby 37, bought second-hand from a junk shop in Louth in 1978 for a fiver, and used on my teenage layout, where it ran like a dog - a three-legged dog with emphasyma. Mechanically it was - by a country mile - my worst loco.
     
    It has so far failed to be rebuilt as 37 688 or a Baby Deltic because more promising donors turned up for less than 20 quid each . I have an Athearn PA1 chassis, and Dave Alexander replacement bogie sideframes - this time it's a cut and lengthen job. So the long term plan would be to redo it as 37 172 in plain BR blue, on PA1 chassis (not entirely accurate - but it's only a cheap old 37). This because in 1977 we returned from a scout trip to Guernsey via the 01:05 KX Leeds night train (only Deltic haulage I ever got) , changing into what I now know to have been the Manchester-Cleethorpes newspaper train at Retford Low Level at 4:30 am - hauled by 31 172 in blue.
     
    There are all of the issues of stripping and cutting the Athearn chassis, converting it to DCC and the small inaccuracies in wheel size and wheelbase - but this would give me a decent-running 37 of an earlier vintage than I have and I could manage the bodyshell work.
     
    And wild horses and red-hot pincers would not persuade me to put that wretched Triang motor bogie under a 31
     
    Then there's the stuff I have but need to get working....
     
    The 155 has already been mentioned.
     
    There's a Hornby 29 I detailed up years ago as 6119 in blue. Looking at it with fresh eyes , it's rougher than I expect the new NBL Type 2 to be, and it has a 3 pole motor bogie converted to all-wheel pickup with Ultrascales, which will be an inferior mechanism to the new loco . It also needs conversion to DCC , and with the original Hornby Ringfield this is not a simple task. So I intend to delegate the job to someone else at Stevenage....
     
    I also have a Bachmann 4MT 2-6-0 which is compact , has a tender cab and would be ideal for Blacklade's kettle period if I managed to install a decoder. I now have a suitable decoder.
     
    Then there's the Bachmann 08 and original split-chassis 03 (both BR blue) which have been lying in the storage drawer for years because they need hard-wired DCC conversions. Those, too, need sorting out and getting up and running on Blacklade.
     
    Not to mention a few running repairs to coaches, switches and the like
     
    Another purge of the unreliable wagons in the Boxfile fleet might be in order
     
    Some of the things on the bookcase have been unfinished for an appallingly long time. Pacer anyone....
     
    I really mean to get stuff finished and into action this year 
  8. Ravenser
    It is fair to say that the North British Locomotive Company's attempt to move into the brave new world of modern traction was an ignominious failure. After six decades as one of the leading locomotive builders in Britain it attempted to enter the diesel era via a licencing deal with MAN of Germany; but the results of this push can be classified into two groups - failures and complete failures. NBL folded in April 1962 under the resultant weight of warranty claims and lack of new orders, its financial position being made even worse by a commercial policy of selling the Pilot Scheme batches at a loss to buy its place in the new diesel era.
     
    Which of NBL's four classes of diesels - TOPS classes 16, 21, 22, and 41 - was worst is debatable. A sufficient commentary on them is that 3 of the classes were eliminated immediately by the National Traction Plan in 1968, and the Class 22 "Baby Warships" succumbed in 1971. Since the latter were still in original form and were further doomed by being hydraulics, they were arguably the best of the very bad bunch.
     
    20 of the Class 21s were rebuilt with new more powerful Paxman engines in the mid 1960s and became Class 29 , but even that was not enough to save them , and all the rebuilds had gone by the end of 1971
     
    Of NBL's British diesel designs only classes 21 and 22 proceeded beyond a pilot batch. 58 Type 2 NBL diesel-electric lemons (designated Class 21 under TOPS) were built between 1958 and 1960, but as early as March 1960 most of the ER allocation was reported as being stored unserviceable at Peterborough. The entire class was banished to Scotland a month later, on the theory that it would be quicker and easier to send them back to NBL under warranty from a Glasgow shed (although there was speculation that the move was in fact an attempt by the BTC to hide the debacle from the London-based national press); but NBL's collapse two years later put an end to that idea. Class 21 locomotives were being stored unserviceable as early as 1964; and some of them may never have turned a wheel again, being sent directly to the scrapyard from store. It seems to have been ScR practice to send them out on trains double-headed in the hope that at least one of the locomotives would still be working when they finished their diagrammed day's work.
     
    It is therefore arguable that Class 21 constitutes the worst design of diesel locomotive ever to go into volume production. Bad as the Type 1 locos of Class 16 were, there were only 10 of them, and they lived out their short lives at Stratford. Some of the Class 21s may have had service lives of as little as 4 years before they were stored; and there is no parallel to their mass withdrawal and exile to Scotland in 1960
     
    I've always been intrigued by these locos ever since Hornby introduced their "Class 29" in the late 1970s. This was a strikingly ugly loco, and a fascinatingly obscure one; when Ravenser Mk1 was struggling to find a small mainline diesel that would work, one turned up in my local modelshop second hand for not much money and I promptly bought it. I later detailed and repainted it as a Class 29, and getting the thing converted to DCC is now high on the agenda. (The back story being that RTC Derby claimed one of the last locos in traffic to replace the Baby Deltic, so it survived to c1980 as an RTC loco)
     
    At some point I also acquired a second battered body for £2, followed by a chassis frame and Hornby power bogie. The latter items went to my Baby Deltic project - but with that complete the possibility of a second compact Type 2 for Blacklade's illicit "steam period" began to stir in my mind.
     
    The "funny trains" period on Blacklade is nominally set c1958. We may imagine that an NBL Type 2 has been sent to BR's principal diesel-loco building works for evaluation trials to find out what is wrong with the thing. These trials can quite plausibly bring it to Blacklade on short trains. (Since Blacklade and Hallamshire replace Derby and Derbyshire , Derby Works doesn't exist under this scheme of things, and the MR's locomotive works is now at Toton. As there is a regular Nottingham/Blacklade service, the appearance of an NBL Type 2 hauling two Midland suburban coaches is perfectly plausible.)
     
    Dapol are bringing out a new high-spec 21/29 any year now. When it finally appears it will cost at least £150 - and I don't want a Class 21 that much. So this is an exercise in a fun loco on the cheap.
     
    For a power plant, I bought a second hand Hornby Class 25 at Warley. This will provide a 5 pole all-wheel pickup Ringfield motor bogie , and the Hornby body can be donated to a "high-spec 25/1" project
     
    I have a Class 29 chassis frame and weight from Peter's Spares and a pair of Class 29 trailing bogies - the second will donate a bogie frame to the motor bogie.
     
    Detailing bits come mostly from the scrap box - an A1 Models roof fan etch, another A1 pack giving cab-end detailing etches. These are supplemented by some very nice etched nickel-silver etches for cab windows from Shawplan. (A tip from C.A.T.Ford on the DOGA stand at Warley)
     
    Progress to date is shown here:
     

     
    The biggest problems with the Hornby model are in the cab front. They modelled a weird arrangement, with a Class 29 headcode box overlying nose doors - I can only believe that someone was working off an NBL drawing amended to show revised arrangements. For a Class 21 the headcode box must go - A1 provided a replacement etched nose door and etched discs.
     
    And the transformation provided by the Shawplan etch for NBL cab windows is dramatic . I have deliberately photographed the end where I haven't finished filing out one window so you can see what I've done. Getting these in place with superglue - and making sure they stay in place during filing - is a little awkward.
     
    One buffer head was missing - I've fitted replacement turned brass buffer heads from an A1 Models buffer beam detailing pack. I really had no other obvious use for these.
     
    This is about as far as I am taking the bodyshell . I know someone did an extensive conversion building up the nose and reprofiling it. I'm not really sure what was involved and I'm keeping it simple and leaving the basic shell as it is.
     
    Hornby modelled the original form of the main radiator grills - rapidly replaced by a squarish grill .I do have a set of replacement A1 Models etched grills, but as I am modelling a Pilot Scheme batch loco in 1959, I shall be leaving these grills alone.
     
    As an original condition ER loco, livery would have been plain green - which is easy enough to do with a spray can.
     
    The Baby Deltic proved to stall in some places on the layout - no doubt due to its deep flanges fouling lumps of ballast or chairs on code 70 bullhead. I've managed to remove projecting bits of ballast in several places , which has resulted in a partial cure. But (as noted elsewhere) I've developed a further fix - replace the chunky Hornby wheels in the trailing bogie with Bachmann coach wheels with their pin-points sawn off with a piercing saw. I still have to give the Baby Deltic a test run to see how much of an improvement this gives, but the theory is that if only one end of the loco is vulnerable to grounding then there should always be a supply of power to avoid stalling.
     
    (I also suspect that - as with other defects - once the underlying issue is found by a vulnerable loco and tackled I'll see better running from other items of stock , which were just about coping with it)
     
    The NBL Type 2 will be fitted with Bachmann wheels on the trailing bogie, and I bought a substantial DCC stay-alive along with a suitable decoder at Warley - I'm hoping this will result in a smooth-running and reliable loco.
     
    I'm aware the Hornby model sits too high. But as I can't see any obvious easy way to fix this , I'm intending to leave this issue alone
     
    I'm very pleased with the relatively quick and painless progress made to date. This should be a distinct cut above the 29 I detailed nearly twenty years ago
  9. Ravenser

    Retail Therapy

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    Last weekend but several was , of course, Warley. Feeling a little buoyant after completing the Baby Deltic I went with a list...
     
    It was one of those occasions when you end up buying all sorts of things you didn't know you needed until you got to the show. And I didn't get some of the things I did know I needed.
     
    But the result of all this is a number of new projects opening up so -
     
    - The first cab off the rank is an attempt to follow the Baby Deltic by assembling a home-brew NBL Type 2 diesel-electric from bits. (That's a Class 21 in decimal money, but in 1958 TOPS was a long way away). I have long had a second-hand Hornby 29 body , bought for a couple of quid. The Baby Deltic used up the chassis and bogie frames I had bought for it - so I sourced some more from Peter's Spares
     
    But they didn't have a power bogie.
     
    So I went to Warley on the scrounge for a cheap second-hand loco to cannibalise for one. With the further thought that if I managed to get a Hornby 25 then the body is reckoned to be better than the Bachmann one, so putting it on Bachmann chassis is a known route to a 25....
     
    And I found a Chinese-production Hornby 25 in BR Blue with 5 pole motor and all-wheel pickup for £39.50 . Thank you!
     
    A tip-off from the Chairman on the stand sent me scurrying across the gangway to Shawplan for their etched NBL cab window surrounds - which radically improves the cab end of the Hornby 29. I also bought a suitable etched fan and a set of laserglaze windows for the Hornby 25. 247 Developments supplied NBL worksplates
     
    Dart Castings visited us to advise of a new etch allowing the fitting of couplings to bogies. I went round to their stand and bought a couple.
     
    And then there is the GBL Jinty which I've recently disassembled. I think the wheels on the Hornby 0-6-0 chassis - or at least their flanges -may prove a bit big for the moulded chassis. But an etch on Brassmasters' stand for a fiver, intended for the Bachmann Deeley 3F , offers replacement splashers for a larger wheel.
     
    I sourced a Zen Nano Direct for a Bachmann BR Standard 4MT 2-6-0, and a couple of other decoders from Digitrains , including a big stay-alive to help the 29
     
    Two weekends later was Peterborough. The list was shorter, but I still needed sheet lead. I took my part built 128 - or at least it's Replica chassis with a damaged supporting yoke at one end - and Replica fitted a replacement part for me for a modest sum - I bought a few small bits from them as well. That unblocks the 128 project , which I hope to finish in the New Year
     
    And I also managed to find a second-hand Bachmann class 25 , at a very reasonable £49.50 - probably because all the cab handrails were broken. But I don't care about the cab handrails because I have a Hornby 25 body....
     
    Also part of the Peter's Spares order was a Hornby Javelin motor bogie to repower the recalcitrant 155 with its seized motor bogie, and a Hornby Railroad 31 chassis frame . All I need is some suitable bogies so I have a mechanism for another of the stored Airfix bodies.
     
    I hope to make some inroads into the list of outstanding projects in 2019
     
    Meanwhile I think I have found a solution for the Baby Deltic's annoying tendency to stall. The culprit is almost certainly the deep flanges on the old-style Hornby wheels combined with code 70 bullhead track - removing prominent bits of ballast has eased but not quite cured the problem. After various wild ideas about somehow turning down wheels in a lathe I don't possess , I realised there was a simpler solution . A quick rummage in a box produced the remains of a packet of Bachmann coach wheels. Pinpoints were quickly sawn off and the wheels replaced on a trial Hornby trailing bogie .
     
    But I could have sworn there were 4 axles in that packet when I found it, and when I went back to do the next pair - there was only one axle left. I've had to buy another packet from the local model shop...
  10. 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.
  11. Ravenser
    One of the "benefits" of a blog is that it records just how long certain projects have actually been stalled.
     
    This is a case in point - behold I bring you the world's slowest quickie loco kit!
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14093-baby-deltic-1/
     
    The Silver Fox Baby Deltic has been stalled and lying in the paint-drying box for a horrifying 4 and a bit years....
     
    I am at least now making some progress
     
    One issue was highlighted here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/137857-traction-tyres-repair-or-replace/
     
    I now have a traction tyre from Kernow - their last of that type apparently. On comparison with the wheel it looks a little small - but there are no other more suitable traction tyres available. (I also have a kind offer of large section heatshrink)
     
    For the moment I'm going to gamble and hope the superglue bodge actually holds in traffic. Tyre replacement , and heatshrink are fallback plans 1 and 2
     
    In the meantime matters have advanced this far:
     

     

     
    The bodyshell has been weathered, and given a coat of matt varnish to seal. The glazing has been fitted.
     
    The stretched cl29 underframe, which had been floppy to the point of breaking has now been heavily reinforced and is solid. I'm not convinced it's actually 100% straight, but I hope any error (of the order of 0.5mm-1.0mm over its length) will be taken out by natural flex as it is fitted into the body
     
    The etches for the fuel tanks etc have been formed and superglued in place. I've added plasticard between them to make the whole thing look vaguely solid rather than simply two facades. One of these has acquired a hand-carved shallow curve after I spotted that the thing projected rather lower than the bogie frames and panicked. The resin generator/alternator/whatever has been cleaned up (outside - resin scares me) and glued in place
     
    The motor bogie, which has been cleaned and oiled now needs a test run with clips before fitting into the bogie frame. Then it only remains to wire up, add a decoder (a TCS MC2 is in stock) and test run on the layout. A good run in on the rolling road can follow.
     
    Oh, and add another cost of glass varnish to the headcode boxes and side windows
  12. Ravenser

    Payment on Account

    By Ravenser,

    I haven't updated the blog for rather a long time. The truth is that I've been rather quiet on the modelling front - but a bit less quiet than it appears.
     
    Now the prospective exhibition booking has slipped into next year, I'm suddenly feeling a bit disinhibited. All the things I couldn't really work on because they weren't relevant to a BR Blue period I can now work on again. So.…
     
    Some progress has been made on the wretched Coopercraft Tourist Brake Third this year. Unfortunately it is never going to be my best coach - there's been a further minor issue with the glazing - but it does now possess a roof, and that roof is now weathered and ready to stick down . Detailed post will no doubt appear at some point
     
    I've bitten the bullet and acquired two of the new Bachmann OO9 Baldwins . So the possible OO9 layout sketched here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-20376-shifting-sands/ is now a project not a pipe dream. The second Baldwin came as a bargain from Rails so I also acquired two Bachmann WD opens - on the premise that vans are more expensive and can be built from Dundas kits, with weight inside. Both locos have been run in on the DCC Concepts rollers I bought last year at Warley. I also now own a Peco brake coach in nondescript Indian red (shades of the NSWGR..)
     
    I have made further progress with the Airfix Trevithick loco. Unfortunately one shaft bearing gummed up and the motion sheared off the flywheel. I need to sort out reattaching it , somehow - having come this far , I'm not giving up on working motion. Another detailed post to follow....
     
    And I dug the part-finished Baby Deltic out of a box. That looked like a quick result might be possible , until I found this: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/137857-traction-tyres-repair-or-replace/
     
    And I haven't got hold of Kernow during the week, so the project is still stalled, although I have at least given the body a weathering wash this afternoon - the roof was already done. The motor bogie has at least been dusted off and oiled, and can be tested. Once this issue is resolved , it should be fairly quick to finish the loco
     
    And a strictly off topic distraction... During my holiday , the local WH Smiths had the first issue of a Games Workshop partwork . I thought £1.99 for 3 pots of Games Workshop paint and a brush seemed a bargain , so I got one - the "magazine" and figures effectively coming free. For the hell of it I read the painting instructions and painted the figures, in pursuit of developing figure painting skills . Something was learnt , though more colours are plainly needed to do the job properly. I was even tempted to pay another fiver for the next issue with three more figures, another pot of paint, and the basic items for games play - but as WHS didn't seem to stock it I didn't. Still, a good deal more than £1.99's worth of value has been obtained
  13. Ravenser

    Messing Up Sydney Harbour

    By Ravenser,


    Layout schemes
    This is another of those speculative posts about possible layouts, so here goes....
     
    Not so long ago someone posted a video to Clive Mortimore's layout thread that got a few people going - including me.
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87205-sheffield-exchange-what-a-to-do/page-66
     
    In short it was a rather eye-opening documentary film about operations at Darling Harbour Goods in Sydney in its dying days during the late 1970s. Backed up with another film mostly shot 7-8 years earlier showing the last stand of steam shunting in the Darling Harbour yards using Victorian 0-6-0s : these locos were over 90 years old when finally withdrawn in 1970-1. A total of 35 minutes of fascinating and very high quality rail video.
     
    Now, the family went out to Sydney in 1979, and came back at the end of 1983 - Darling Harbour Goods shut the following year. Although the general lack of rail enthusiast material in Australia meant I was only very faintly aware of the existence of the place, never mind what was down there, and so never attempted to go and have a look myself, still - this is very firmly in "my period". And 35 minutes of video is a lot of reference material - about as much as my treasured copy of Sydney's Forgotten Goods Railways which I was lucky to get my hands on.
     
    So I went poking around on a few Aussie manufacturers/retailers sites to see what is actually available for the period. There's no 19-class , 73-class shunters have been done and sold out, its all pricy , but still... Somewhere tucked away I have a Hornby-Lima 422-class and two NSWGR coaches. Arguably I need to acquire a few more bits of stock while I can - say a brake coach, some wagons , a brake van...
     
    What would I run them on? Well, a half-formed idea about a NSWGR industrial shunting micro set on Sydney's North Shore has been kicking around my head ever since I reach a brief comment in Sydney's Forgotten Goods Railways about an obscure operation in the North Sydney area served from Darling Harbour Goods:
     
    For those unfamiliar with the geography - ie 99% of the forum - this is almost under the shadow of Sydney Harbour Bridge, on the north side of the harbour, directly opposite the Opera House. Admiralty House is the official residence of the Australian Prime Minister in Sydney - in other words Kirribilli is today a very posh harbourside suburb with historic properties and the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron
     
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Sydney_Harbour_Bridge_from_the_air.JPG
    In this photo Kirribilli is in the lower centre, and Lavender Bay is upper right, above the Bridge
     
    And in the heading photograph, Lavender Bay is to the left of the Bridge, and Kirribilli out of shot to the right (I think this photo may have been taken from the Opera House. Ahem, Fort Macquarie tram depot, as was...)
     
    Half-remembering the details I went searching on Google. As I searched on the wrong point, I didn't find much , but what I did find was this:
     
    https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lzw1AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA9-PA14&lpg=RA9-PA14&dq=lavender+bay+goods&source=bl&ots=s8FGT8HpJF&sig=SvkuezDcD6ccu9cUHa_aOxsXdMs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwig3abN64rbAhUrAsAKHYjKDocQ6AEIQzAF#v=onepage&q=lavender%20bay%20goods&f=false
     
    which is a transcript of hearings by the Public Works Committee of the NSW Legislative Council into the proposed extension of the North Shore Line from St Leonards to Milson's Point in 1890 (a gentleman will be passing among you handing out matchsticks for your eyes very shortly, though I assure you it's really quite fascinating if you know the patch, and the history of what was actually built and when...)
     
    Here is chapter and verse explaining the background to that car-float operation , complete with all the politics and arguments in Dolby Surround-Sound and glorious Technicolor
     
    What seems to be a talk on Darling Harbour Goods given to the NSW branch of the Australian Railway Historical Society (whose bookshop in a terraced house near Central I remember from my teens) gives a few further details of the operation:
    http://www.arhsnsw.com.au/lunchclubnotes/1309dharbour.pdf
     
    There is even - this being the age of the internet - video of the fire on Facebook
    https://www.facebook.com/nfsaa/videos/1457559367588249/
     
    This seems to have been Sydney's - and Australia's - only car-float operation: something quite common in New York and some other big American cities, but - as far as I'm aware - extremely rare in the British Empire.
     
    Now car-float operations have been seen by US HO modellers as an ideal subject for an urban shunting micro. Here is a self-contained freight facility to shunt, with a built in "fiddle yard" in the form of the car-float . This can be made removable so that you can actually dispatch and receive wagons in a prototypical manner , giving the layout operational credibility. I think Chris Leigh floated the concept a few times in Model Trains International
     
    Very promising indeed. And here's one right on my patch,just down the hill from where I went to school for a couple of years, which was supposed to be served by what was my local line. .Mmmmmm.
     
    Some historical background is useful to make sense of the sources. After a long - and in places, wild - boom, Australia entered a severe depression in 1891, culminating in the collapse of most of Australia's banks in the first half of 1893 . My fifth-form History of Australia notes three pillars of the boom - the "land boom" , speculative property development ; the wool industry; and public infrastructure, above all railways: "the colonial governments had carried their railway building to excess, just as private investors had done with urban building and pastoralism....lines were pushed out into thinly settled districts where there was likely to be little settlement for years to come...freight rates were kept artificially low to stimulate traffic so that although in the long run most lines were of value in encouraging economic development, in the short run few of them could pay their way."
     
    All of this is vividly on display in the testimony to the Public Works Committee in 1890.
     
    We learn that the NSWGR were offering wool shippers free cartage from Darling Harbour Goods to any wool store in the city centre - not, say the Railway Dept witnesses, out of the goodness of their hearts, but because Darling Harbour was so congested that they needed to get the stuff out the door straight away or they would be overwhelmed. Not being in the city centre, the Pastoral Finance Association’s warehouse didn't benefit - so they wanted their own direct rail link with wagons delivered to their door.
     
    It becomes painfully obvious why "acquiring the necessary property proved too difficult". After 1891 Australia was in much the same state as Ireland after 2008 - the cash just didn't exist for this kind of "top of the boom" project. Extension beyond Milson's Point was quietly forgotten about and once the worst of the crisis eased, the Pastoral Finance Association was offered direct delivery by car-float as a compensation. A lot of time before the committee was spent arguing about the idea of running trains onto train-ferries at Milson's Point and floating them across the harbour to meet a new railway (which didn't exist either) round the city centre to the main railway station, as an "alternative Main Northern", based on US models. This was nonsense, if not nonsense on stilts, but you can see where the idea of a car-float came from.....
     
    It is also clear that a number of witnesses were adherents of the "if you build it, they will come" theory. Unfortunately in the end you will build it, and there will be no-one left to come, and the sky will fall in on you..... The first whispers of the gathering storm can be heard in the admission by a number of witnesses before the Committee that in the last year or so trade has been a little quieter.
     
    It is fascinating to see the idea of a harbour bridge being considered so early - that was still four decades away. And some prize should be awarded to the proponent of the alternative route, who was also proposing a cross-harbour railway by laying two tubes on the bottom of the harbour , to be reached down a bored helix at Milsons Point on a 1 in 70 grade , the whole thing to be worked by steam...."1073 Q: Can you refer me to an example of such a railway? A: I do not know. Q: Then we should have to make an experiment?" Ouch!
     
    What was actually built shortly after was the railway to Milson's Point, as proposed by the Railways Dept; and it was a purely suburban line - and in due course a very busy one. The ferry connection to the city was operated by the existing ferry company. Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge was the centrepiece of the 1915 Bradfield Report, the blueprint for Sydney's 20th century public transport - construction began in 1924. As the North Pylon of the Bridge essentially obliterated the old Milson's Point terminus the line was cut back to a new terminus part way up Lavender Bay - after the new line opened, the platforms were removed and it became carriage sidings. They can be seen here- despite all the grand talk about "1560 feet of harbour frontage " nobody has ever built commercial wharves in Lavender Bay. It remains a quiet anchorage for small boats.

     
     
    The North Shore line was electrified at 1500V DC in 1932 in connection with the opening of the new line through North Sydney, across the Harbour Bridge and in tunnel under the city centre to Central. There was talk between the wars of a Northern Beaches line turning east towards Manly - it was in the Bradfield Report, the Depression killed the idea and I suspect that it will never happen.

    In the late 1970s there was a pickup goods along the North Shore line - I never saw it , but I saw occasional traces of its presence in the appearance or disappearance of a refridgerated box car outside what appeared to be a coldstore dock at St Leonards. I think it disappeared sometime in the 80s
     
    So - any model would be a compact urban shunting layout, with a small two wagon or four wagon car-lift as fiddle yard. Almost a cassette fiddle yard. It would feature a big Victorian Italianate warehouse as its backdrop. On one side there would be a blocked tunnel mouth for the access route that never happened . It might be set into a ledge carved out of the sandstone hillside.
     
    Traffic would be wool and meat for the cold-store. Possibly some general goods across a wharf, maybe a little timber.
     
    We need a trackplan. Now the only space which might be available is the 4'3 x 18" where the desktop computer currently sits - and which has an alternative claim from a possible OO9 layout: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-20376-shifting-sands/
     
    That's too short for the obvious candidate, John Allen's Tymesaver . Cut it how you like, 51" is not enough length unless you lose chunks of the layout to a sectorplate. And how you would arrange the carfloat connection on such cut down versions I can't see:
    http://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/micro-tymesaver-designs/
    http://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/dense-track-designs/
     
    A hunt around Carendt.com turns up one possible design - Triple I Industrial Park:
    http://www.carendt.com/micro-layout-design-gallery/dense-track-designs-2/
     
    Something can certainly be done with this. The great Victorian warehouse towers at the back in half-relief - I can certainly spare an extra 4" depth to take it, and it provides a perfect backscene. "Industry A" then becomes the wool reception road, and "Industry B" the cold-store road. The extra 3" in length would be added on the left side: "Industry C" becomes a track on the wharf, and "Industry D" gets a Y point and becomes the car-float connection. What is marked as "office" is the plant where the wool is "dumped" (compressed into bales). Wool wagons are shunted across from A into here, after which they are empty and due to go back to Sydney on the barge
     
    Yes, using C as the headshunt off the car-float is awkward, but this would be the least used siding of the four. With the extra length you would have about 20" clear of the point after allowing for buffers
     
    Stock? Well NSWGR refridgerated vans are available RTR from specialist Australian sources. As is the 4 wheeled S-wagon , prominent in the Darling Harbour videos , and evidently still in regular use as late as 1977. Other opens and vans can be sourced.
     
    But some of these vehicles are big - NSWGR and VR bogie vans can run out at 56' or longer. That starts to be problematic for micro plans based around US 40' cars. There's no justification for goods brakes
     
    Traction is a little complicated. For the 1970s you'd need a 73-class. But if you go back before 1970 things are more difficult. The NSWGR wasn't really into tank engines - and definitely not small ones. Their idea of a dock shunter was - as we've seen - a long-boiler 0-6-0 goods. They never owned British-style 0-6-0 diesel shunters. C30-class 4-6-4Ts seem to have been pressed into service for trip goods /shunting : these were what worked Sydney's suburban lines before electrification (limited to 6 bogies on the N Shore line out of Milson's Point). A Baltic tank is nobody's idea of a small shunter....
     
    And currently 73-class are out of production, while nobody seems to have produced the C30s RTR , never mid a RTR 19-class.
     
    There's also a serious issue with period. As already noted "my period" would be the 1970s and early 1980s. But we are talking about an operation that in real life ended in December 1921 - a huge time- gap. In the USA car-float operations were vanishing fast after about 1960s and seem to have barely made it into the 1970s. If I were to push things back a decade or two for credibility - say to just before the end of the N.Sydney tram system in 1958 - a suitable loco is quite a problem
     
    And this highlights a real problem. The Aussie stock I actually have comprises a 442-class - that is, a 1970s mainline diesel - and two coaches. I could not run any of it on such a layout, and in any case it would all be out of period. If there was access from the right, as envisaged by the designer, I might have a pickup goods, perhaps worked by a 48-class diesel - something that is small, available, and which I understand worked the N Shore goods. But on the right there is actually the external wall of the flat. And a 48-class would not have come across on a car-float
     
    Oh, and any rail access would have been from the left, not the right, in reality.The thing starts to bristle with problems and won't quite gel.
     
    I might well attempt a version of this project at some time, but as far as the space in the study currently occupied by the desktop is concerned, the 009 scheme fits more neatly, works a little better scenically , and uses things I already have in stock. And the extra stock to be bought can be obtained from a nearby model shop or from traders at shows . There are no currency issues to face.
     
    Hmmmmm
  14. Ravenser

    Magpie's Nest

    By Ravenser,

    A couple of weeks ago I was meant to have someone round to see the layout . Unfortunately they went down sick on the day, Blacklade was up so I had a bit of a play - and things weren't running especially well. So I started fixing things and well...
     
    In fairness I'm not sure the layout had been run more than once since Shenfield last September. My attention has been fixed on sorting out the Boxfile for the 4 months. If you don't use things it shows, so action had to be taken. I bought a rolling road at Warley, and while it proved very effective in freeing up the shunters on the Boxfile I hadn't used it for any of Blacklade's stock.
     
    First things first. I treated myself to a Bachmann 4 wheel track machine a couple of months ago . It is best described as a small self-propelled crane/ballast wagon in yellow. I duly fitted the Gaugemaster direct decoder I had bought , and programmed it. It wouldn't run on DCC. It would run, a bit roughly, on DC but not on DCC . A session on the rolling road on the Boxfile failed to cure it, nor did a little oiling - eventually another decoder (too big to fit under the diecast ballast load) revealed the Gaugemaster Direct was a dud
     
    The 37 was running badly. A thorough lubrication and a decent session on the rolling road along with wheel cleaning sorted that out. Unfortunately it kept stalling on the point at the entrance to platform 3, as did the Airfix 31, indicating that the whole frog might be dead. I decided to give the 31 some oil as well, and while I was about it a support clip on the motor bogie was reinstated , along with a whitemetal piece representing interior pipework that had fallen out and was glued back in - though you can't really see it through the grime on the bodyside windows.
     
    By now I was on a roll and the kettle-tanks came into my crosshairs. The Ivatt 2-6-2T got the running in on the rolling road it never received when I bought it last year, plus a little oil . I'm convinced there's something very slightly bent in the motion of the Fowler 2-6-4T somewhere , though I don't know where , and doubt I am capable of straightening it without making matters worse even if I knew where it was. Certainly it doesn't run as easily as the L1 or Mickey Mouse tank, can "stick" occasionally , and certainly needs its motion kept well oiled if it is to run well (I have a shrewd suspicion why I got it "new second-hand" of a decent price).
     
    The Bachmann Ivatt Co-Co had lost a bit of its sparkle . So I cleaned the wheels thoroughly, gave it a good run, and decided to take the top off, for a good lubrication. I then found myself confronted by a large metal block, with no obvious way of getting inside to get at the worm/gear. Oh, and there appeared to be a unit under the fan grill, with sprung prongs onto pads on the circuit board. The 150 equally has a massive block....
     
    The man on the Bachmann stand at Ally Pally assures me you aren't supposed to break in, and that the gear trains oughtn't to require additional lubrication by the user. And the fan isn't supposed to work. It is possible to oil the axle bearings, but you need an electrically conductive oil.
     
    Having done the 101 and 108, I got to the 155. And it wouldn't run at all, despite a current draw of 0.63 amps... I suspect that the central spindle of the Ringfield has seized (again) and that this is probably the reason for all the troubles with this mechanism over the last 2 years. The problem presumably originates from the years it spent in store without being lubricated , but I think we are probably past the point of no return with this motor bogie now - it's never going to run well. I tried to find a suitable replacement Beetle at Ally Pally (12mm x 34mm) but without success.
     
    I now have two options - rob the motor bogie out of a second Hornby 155 which is languishing at the bottom of the stock pile and has been there for nearly 20 years, unrun - or rob the Beetle out of the Bratchill 150/2 kit which has been standing stalled on the bookcase for many years. I'm strongly inclined to the second option, as it should produce better running , and allow full seating throughout the unit. But doing that will probably finally kill the Bratchill 150. It might possible to finish the trailer car and use it as a trailer with the 150/1 - as was done with some of the real things to build them up to 3 car I've invested too much effort in upgrading the 155 to scrap the thing now.
     
    Next on the list was the Turbostar - and the problems uncovered prompted a thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/132711-help-Bachmann-170-turbo-threatening-national-grid/
     
    I haven't had the heart to open up the 158 which popped it's drive shafts to see if the same problem has manifested itself there....
     
    Oh, and the feather had fallen off the starter signal to platform 2 and was nowhere to be found . I managed to rework a LH feather I had spare to replace it , and I was able to buy a spare LH and RH feather at Ally Pally - I still have a couple of Erkon kits in stock
     
    My other find at Ally Pally was this:
     

     
    which is going to be built as this https://transportsofdelight.smugmug.com/RAILWAYS/LOCOMOTIVES-OF-BRITISH-RAILWAYS-EASTERN-REGION/TYPE-C-442-LOCOMOTIVES/i-MxPHtMm
     
    Honest! I even bought a Mashima motor for it from 3SMR (a 1024) . All I need now is wheels gears, courage.and time...
     
    The real thing was shedded at Louth from 1925 to 1955, and then seems to have ended up around Peterborough , working the Stamford line until withdrawal in 1958 . So it's more or less in period and not far away from Blacklade - and it would look rather more sensible on a 2 coach train than a 2-6-4T
     
    At £35 I reckoned I had a bargain - Craftsman had a good name , and etched brass should be readily solderable. On peeping inside the box, the kit is unstarted, and it has preformed cab roof, tanks and boiler. Very promising
     
    Wheels - well that's a question. A full set of Romfords for this kit is listed at £44.74 - and that's the 2013 price. Those are 20 spoke drivers . and I'd like insulated wheels both sides, as this will be DCC. Meanwhile Scalelink offer plastic centred 18 spoke drivers for just under £4 a driver. Is 18 spoke right? I can't see the whole wheel on a photo. But if I count a half wheel - I get 10 spoke if I include both the start and finish spokes of the semi-circle, and 9 if I only include one. But if I include both doesn't that mean there are only 8 spokes left uncounted....?
  15. 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
  16. Ravenser

    Troublesome Trucks

    By Ravenser,


    Operational
    When I built the tea-tray in which to mount the Boxfile, I had the naïve idea that replacing the damaged track and sorting out the track joints between the two files would solve all the 'file's running problems.
     
    Unfortunately what it actually revealed was that there were problems with the stock. A replacement Tenshodo rejuvenated the Y3, a little running in helped the Knightwing shunter - and then it became painfully obvious that all was not well with the wagon fleet.
     
    An extensive programme of testing , recorded in a spreadsheet , resulted and it seemed that Romford wheels and lightweight vehicles were the obvious issues. So I set to, and started tackling them.
     
    It's been very much a snakes-and-ladders experience and my last comment was, once again, over optimistic
     
    Things that were supposed to work - turn out not to. I took the boxfile along to a recent DOGA area group meeting, and a fresh clutch of gremlins crawled out to gloat at me. (What is the correct collective noun for gremlins? A breakers' yard?)
     
    The LNER unfitted van -compensated -that ran with rock-solid reliability before I fitted the couplings now falls off with absolute predictability. The GE open jumped the rails unless taken very gingerly. That one at least is explicable - at just 32g I was pleasantly surprised it ran in the first place. And several locos found a tight spot at the file joint on the coal siding and fell off.(The wagons didn't seem to mind it),
     
    The latter problem was duly sorted out with a couple of panel pins inserted to force the track back to gauge and a careful trimming-back of one of the plasticard gap-inserts , which was not quite flush - and now all locos run down the siding very happily.
     
    But the wagons are proving more difficult. I've just tackled another 4 of them with mixed results. An ex Airfix LMS van has received Hornby wheels and more weight, and lo and behold it now runs reliably. However at some point it's lost its vac pipes, so I need to reinstate those
     
    And while I was about it I managed to get a little more weight into the GE open , which is now about 45g and much more reliable
     

     
    (However the Cowham & Shearer PO seen next to it is still a bit marginal at only 32g and with nowhere else really to add weight)
     
    A little testing and tweaking of couplings meant that a Bachmann Conflat lost its red-card and was declared fit for traffic. But despite adding still more lead under the load and pushing its weight up to 50g a Bachmann 16T slope-side mineral still falls off, every time a coconut, when running one way round.
     
    What's disturbing about this is that these two wagons have ready-to-run chassis, and Bachmann wheels. Both weigh 48-50g. You'd expect these to be absolutely and unquestionably reliable - instead I've been struggling with them.
     
    Even more disquieting - when I started tweaking the height of the wire on the S+W couplings to stop the Conflat uncoupling at the file joint it promptly started to derail on entering the siding - every time
     
    I really don't understand why adjusting the couplings should result in a wagon derailing. The only thing I can come up with is the brass paddle touching the axle and somehow causing a derailment. Anyway I now have a Conflat that doesn't derail, but uncouples every time it's pulled across a particular joint. And if I adjust the wire I get a Conflat A that stays coupled - but derails every time it's pushed across the joint. Not a happy set of alternatives
     
    But this throws a worrying light on two of my other failures - the LNER unfitted van and the 16T slope-sided mineral . Is it the couplings that are somehow causing derailment? These two chassis really ought to be completely reliable. I have an awkward feeling the van may have couplings salvaged off the Blue Spot Fish - which also derailed
     
    I don't understand what is going on here, or what should be adjusted , and I have a regular problem with wagons becoming uncoupled at a particular joint. I can no longer simply put this down to a really ropey track joint because that has been patched.
     
    Some pictures to lighten the mood. Here's two I made earlier
     


     
    These two now have Sprat & Winkle couplings and seem to run reliably - touch wood.
     
    I'm now down to 5 "hard cases". The LNER van and the Chas Roberts slope-sided 16T have been mentioned already.
     
    There's the Conflat V I built with a Red Panda chassis under a spare Parkside floor and homemade bits along the edges (I don't think you can say a Conflat has sides) with a Bachmann container on top. It weighs 48g, the sheet says Romfords though they might just be Hornby under the paint, and it falls off with great reliability. My spreadsheet notes that the chassis is tight
     
    There's the Parkside BR van I built at a wagon-building class. It's always given trouble because the chassis was completely rigid and somehow twisted during drying. I ended up melting in a bearing to create a little slop - but it doesn't like the back siding. My spreadsheet says Hornby wheels and 48g. There is framing on the underside which rules out compensation. I really don't know where I go with this one.
     
    And finally the steel High - an old Dublo open body on Parkside chassis. 35g, Hornby wheels, and no room underneath to stuff more lead. Hmmm.
     
    Perhaps I ought to finish this off as another LNER van...
     

     
    It's been gathering dust on the bookshelf for a frighteningly long time - I think I started it even before the boxfile...
  17. Ravenser

    Shifting Sands

    By Ravenser,


    Layout schemes
    This is by way of a speculative post.....I've remarked before that it's been a very long time since I started a new project. Over a decade in fact. Between 2000 and 2007 I launched into 4 different layout projects, all 4mm/OO - Tramlink, a club layout project, the Boxfile, and Blacklade - but since then, nothing.
     
    I've recently resurrected the Boxfile - see postings here - and though I'm still hunting gremlins in the stockbox it's working a whole lot better than ever before. Proper systematic debugging will hopefully get it running with a high degree of reliability - in the meantime it's already possible to have a play at shunting as originally intended, quickly and with reasonable reliability (except for the couplings).
     
    Blacklade has been out a few times to shows and it works reliably as a home layout. The club project is long buried. So...
     
    A long time ago, at the end of the last century, I joined the 3mm Society. I acquired a little secondhand TT3 - a Brush 2 and a diesel shunter, along with some wagons and coaches. Matters got as far as an ambitious order for about 15 wagon kits from the 3mm Society, and the acquisition of a 3SMR J11 kit and an etched brass diesel shunter kit. A design for a compact urban goods depot was sketched, I built a couple of wagons which didn't seem to roll freely , and I bought about half a dozen of the then new Peco 12mm gauge points. At this point I got shanghaied into the club layout project, I became involved with a society, and what with Tramlink, work, commuting, etc. anything in 3mm was squeezed out.
     
    I'm still a member of the 3mm Society. It's a nice size. The padded envelope of wagon kits is still in the cupboard . The replacement armature for the Brush 2 is still in its packet somewhere.
     
    In the years since the idea of doing something with those Peco points has crossed my mind occasionally. A 3mm layout is one possibility , but what about OOn3 ?
     
    That means staying in my familiar 4mm scale - for which I have masses of stuff in the cupboard and elsewhere.
     
    Now narrow gauge and me are not a natural match. Because narrow gauge normally means OO9, and OO9 has traditionally meant rabbit-warren layouts dripping cute and twee - the Hobbiton and Munchkin-land Junction Railway, with a spur to Ivor the Engine's branch operated by an Eggerbahn railcar on a 9" radius curve using a Gaugemaster shuttle unit, the whole thing being built on a 4' x 2' board in four tiers of granite hillside, modestly populated by colonies of small pet Welsh dragons who eat buns from the tourists.
     
    I'm afraid I tend to penny-plain realism in muted shades of grey, and minimum gauge railways have never really gripped me. I like proper trains on proper railways doing a proper job - it's probably no coincidence that the narrow gauge locos that instantly appealed were the WHR's Garretts. I come from Lincolnshire, and Eastern England is a plain spare landscape with a notable lack of thatched cottages with holly-hocks round the door set amid rolling hills, nor does the Celtic twilight rise at dusk like a mist.
     
    My idea of a toy railway is Canary Wharf DLR. (I'm sure they must have used lithographed tinplate somewhere in the structure. Hipster-designer lithographed tinplate, of course.)
     
    But 3' gauge railways are another matter. The CDJR , L&LSR, and the Manx railways were serious and substantial operations. So were a number of Midlands ironstone systems. OOn3 means something a bit different (definitely a plus for me) and in prototype terms implies a proper railway which feels much more like a minor standard-gauge rural railway, doing a proper job. (There's also the faint possibility of what MORILL years ago called 3n3 - that is 3' gauge in 3mm scale, using OO9 track and N gauge mechanisms)
     
    This thinking has, over the years, led to the acquisition of a Southwold Railway van kit in resin, and a couple of ex MTK Isle of Man coach kits. Oh, and there's those Peco 12mm gauge points. But what might be modelled has been rather hazy.
     
    Only once in my life have I been to Ireland, and then only to Dublin, with a day trip by rail to Galway. (For much of my lifetime Ireland has been the island of bombs and balaclavas - I've never been to Northern Ireland and still feel no urge to go). Consequently I don't really feel any personal connection with Irish railways - certainly not enough to commit to the solid slog involved in building a OOn3 model of one.
     
    I don't really want to build an accurate model of a specific Manx prototype, and there isn't really space on the island to accommodate a fictitious one.
     
    There was no 3' narrow gauge in Wales, and almost no narrow gauge at all in Scotland. In any case granite mountains are not me.
     
    That leaves English 3' gauge lines, of which there are usually said to be two - the Southwold (closed 1929) and the Rye & Camber, a rather small operation abandoned in 1945 after the Admiralty had finished with it. In fact there is also the original Ravenglass & Eskdale (1875-1915) and a number of fairly significant ironstone systems in the Midlands.
     
    I have occasionally toyed with the idea that the promoters of the Mid Suffolk Light might have made it a 3' narrow gauge line, using Leek and Manifold style transporter wagons, in which case they might have focused on the proposed line from Needham Market via Debenham and with the reduced construction costs of narrow gauge have made it into Halesworth to link with the Southwold - the whole 3' gauge empire being inherited by a rather reluctant LNER (and no doubt worked very hard in support of the USAAF during World War 2)
     
    But the most tempting scenario involves "conjuring spirits from the vasty deep" in the general vicinity of the Dogger Bank.
     
    Long ago as a child I read that until the 12th or 13th century the coast of Lincolnshire was sheltered by low sandy islands on what is now the Dogger Bank - their loss began a cycle of occasional devastating storm surges across the North Sea, starting with the loss of much of Mablethorpe in 1283 and continuing down to 1953.
     
    Whether this is true I do not know. In recent years prehistoric archaeologists have conjured up a very much larger ghost, in the form of "Doggerland" - a vast region of low hills and plains spreading across what is now the North Sea until rising sea levels drowned it in stages in the later Mesolithic and early Neolithic:
     
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
    https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/doggerland-rises.htm
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27224243
     
    What we know as the Dogger Bank represents the central uplands of "Doggerland"
     
    It's fair to say that modern archaeologists believe this whole area was under the North Sea thousands of years before the 13th century - but for the sake of a layout, we can envisage that two or three largish sandy islands continue to exist on the Dogger Bank down to our own day - thus permitting not merely Early English narrow gauge, but emphatically 20th century narrow gauge too.
     
    Whilst medieval Great and Little Dogger would have been inhabited only by a few wretched fisher-folk, from the 17th century onwards they would inevitably have been of great strategic importance to the Royal Navy and from the reign of William III through to the late 1950s there would have been a strong naval presence there. As well as being dotted with 18th century batteries and Napoleonic Martello towers there is also the famous Great Dogger Mole, an 18th century naval equivalent of the Cob at Portmadoc, which links the two islands and creates a sheltered anchorage for small naval vessels in the inlet which separates them - as legend tells us , this was built out of ballast stones brought from England in the holds of ships which came to Dogger to load barrels of the celebrated Dogger herring. Horatio Nelson's famous letter, written as a young lieutenant in 1776, in which he complains of being cooped up on "two miserable sandy islands containing a handful of mean houses and meaner inhabitants" has been rather generously rewarded by the signboard of a large pub overlooking Dogger Haven, the Lord Nelson....
     
    Railways came to the Dogger Islands as a result of hasty repairs to the Great Mole , and the construction of two new batteries, at the start of the Crimean War. A narrow gauge horse-worked line was established from Doggerport, up to - and across - the Great Mole, (and thus past Dogger Haven) and up to a suitable point on Little Dogger for the off-loading of stone for the new fort . This stone obviously had to be imported, since the islands have no stone ( and not many trees ), and afterwards the tramway was found very convenient by various parties, civilian and military, for moving stores, coal , herring barrels and the like around the island. It was upgraded to a steam-worked line in the early 1870s with a passenger service serving the islands' three main settlements and the naval installations - a small number of Beyer Peacock 2-4-0Ts and some 0-6-0Ts reminiscent of the R&ER being supplied.
     
    The naval arms race before WW1 saw it modernised and developed, and this accelerated during WW1 when the Dogger Islands were a key base for minesweepers and torpedo boats in the N Sea : indeed in 1917 the Dogger Light Railway acquired Britain's only narrow-gauge rail gun. Petrol locomotives appeared during WW1 and the railway's rolling stock was augmented by standard WD narrow gauge equipment, running on 3' gauge bogies.
     
    After a quiet period between the wars, the Dogger Light Railway was again at full stretch during WW2, but thereafter things began to run down and when the RAF Coastal Command base ran down in the late 1950s , that was the end.......
     
    Buildings - brick boxes. I have a number of Lincolnshire buildings in Skaledale form which could find a home on such a layout.
     
    I've also acquired several Dundas WD wagon kits. If I could get someone to produce a fold-up etch H-frame wagon bogie, to which you could stick the moulded bogie sides , they could convert to OOn3...
     
    But I have to admit that the new Bachmann OO9 stuff looks rather tasty. I don't quite see that you could regauge the Baldwin 4-6-0T. And nobody could accuse the Western Front in 1917-8 of being cute or twee.....
     
    Hmm.
     
    I have Stewart Squires' "Lincolnshire Potato Railways" - I knew his son at school. There is however a large gap between the handful of systems in the Tetney/Grainthorpe area and those in the fens or Nocton Estates.
     
    Suppose there had been some potato railways in the Marshes between Mablethorpe and Skegness. Chapel St Leonards has caravan parks - but it never had any railway near it.
     
    Suppose someone in the early-mid 1920s proposed a 2' gauge narrow gauge line from Mumby Road on the Mablethorpe loop to Chapel St Leonards, linking several private farm lines with the LNER , and offering a primitive service to holiday makers going to Chapel St Leonards - using surplus WD equipment (shades of the Ashover Light Railway)
     
    Hmm
     
    The only space that might be available for this would be if I finally decommissioned the old computer and removed the computer desk . That might give an L- shape about 4'3" x 2'4", with the short leg being a narrow ledge under the window sill.
     
    But 4'3" x 18" max doesn't really seem too promising for depicting low coastal sandhills or flat Marshland potato fields - both of which require a sense of flatness and openness
     
    Hmmm
     
    Somehow nothing has quite gelled on this one....
  18. 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....)
  19. Ravenser

    Served Up On A Tray - Dessert

    By Ravenser,


    Boxfile
    We left the Boxfile last time safely installed on its new tea-tray, but with the track joints still to patch, and scenery to touch up.
     
    The track joints were not at all good - they never have been. In the worst place I think there was a horrifying 4mm long gap in the railhead.
     
    The solution was a bodge I've used in one or two places on Blacklade, though not on quite such a scale. This is to cut a sliver of 40
    thou plasticard and superglue it in place in the gap. Once the cyano has thoroughly set - i.e. after an hour or two - trim it down to rail level with a sharp craft knife, and the gap is patched. The plasticard "railhead" will inevitably show white, but the patches are normally very short, and the wheel ought to be fully supported across what was once a void - with all the benefits that implies in running
     
    This is fine if you have a fishplate underneath. You then have a firm base on which your scrap of plasticard can rest , and to which it can also be glued.
     
    However thanks to my losing battle with the fishplates, in several places I didn't have that luxury. At least on the middle road (cue a photo so you can see what we're talking about) there were plastic insulated fishplates underneath, even if they didn't actually connect with one side.

     
    I managed to get scraps of plasticard in place and solidly set with superglue . I trimmed them down - the rail is now more or less continuous - but unfortunately this revealed that the track is not quite flat across this joint, and small 4 wheel shunters may stall at this point and need a touch of the finger. Admittedly it's a lot better than watching the Y3 claw itself out of a pit, like a WW1 tank crossing a trench.
     
    The final joint was rather more trouble, and desperate expedients were tried. I superglued a scrap in microstrip in the rail web across the gap, I packed the Gaping Void with scraps of balsa and bits of Exactoscale support foam , and once the Void was no longer bottomless I managed to superglue another scrap of 40 thou in place in the gap. I left it a couple of hours to set completely , and trimmed down the plasticard - fixed.
     
    The Exactoscale foam proved an excellent colour match for the ash ballast, and I packed the gaps . Then I managed to find the original black flock to sprinkle over it - and found that the original black flock was not a colour match with the rest of the "ash ballast". I had to resort to off-black paint let down with grey - and it still isn't a perfect match , though you won't notice this in the photo.
     
    The next job was trying to restore the rubbed areas of the Metcalfe cobbling . I tried a grey watercolour wash, in the hope this would penetrate the card, so that the colour would persist. Colour-matching again proved a little tricky - and how far it will resist continued cleaning we will see. But for the moment at least the damage has been patched up.
     
    Then I test ran a few locos - and was sharply reminded of the running problems with the Boxfile. Further action required...
     
    As Warley was only a few days away, I headed for the West Midlands with resolution, my debit card and a list. On the Saturday evening I returned with a DCC Concepts rolling road, and a new Tenshodo for the Y3 - the existing one being a hopeless case. Branchlines sold me a 26mm wheelbase unit, which they tell me is what it should take. This replaces a 28.7mm unit, which is what
    was recommended when I built it.
     
    The Knightwing shunter was given a good long run on the rolling road and is greatly improved . The Boxfile's worst two locos are now as good as the best..
     
    Then I started testing the wagons in a fit of enthusiasm - and it rapidly became clear that all was not well. To cut a long story short, I ended up testing all the wagons , and even resorted to generating a spreadsheet...
     
    The problems largely involve wagons derailing when entering the back road which serves the cold store and wagon hoist. Clearly this is not an issue caused by a dodgy joint between boxfiles. In principle it's a track issue, but it's exposing marginal problems with the wagons. And since "the rules of the game" require all wagons to go under the hoist first, the problems need to be sorted out.
     
    The spreadsheet logs wagon description, weight, wheel type, company, work needed, whether compensation units could be fitted, and performance - Go (meaning it runs consistently reliably in both directions through both roads, either way round), Go? (a slight query over reliable running), Marginal (it derails intermittently) and No Go (consistently derails in one or more of the permutations)
     
    When wagons stopped because of broken or missing couplings were added to the equation I had a wretched 14 wagons serviceable out of 32...
     
    Of 11 vehicles marked No Go or Marginal , 7 have Romford wheels. 8 of them weigh 35g or less - none weigh the full 50g, though several were only a little short
     
    A GE open weighing only 30g on Hornby wheels is Go. So is a compensated single bolster weighing 35g
     
    Action was taken. Three wagons have had broken couplings fixed and are back in traffic. Two more have been fitted with Sprat and Winkles and released to traffic. The Blue Spot fish , which looked a bit too big anyway , has been repainted rail blue and consigned to Blacklade; I've pushed on with the MICA which is to replace it , and which only needs varnish and couplings. A fish van has received Hornby wheels and been pushed up to 50g - it's now fine
     
    I aim to finish off a couple more wagons this weekend, but I now have 22 serviceable wagons (plus 3 more which are unsuitable for the Boxfile anyway)
     
    And so the current state of play....
     

     
    The LNER van has acquired its couplings, the PO coke has had a coupling mended, and the MICA awaits a varnish coat and couplings
  20. Ravenser

    Served Up On A Tray - Main Course

    By Ravenser,


    Boxfile
    The deed is done - or at least most of it. On Saturday I duly trotted off to the local DIY sheds. Unfortunately Wickes and B&Q locally do not cut timber , and Buildbase - who might - were closed. But a sheet of 5mm ply in B&Q was only £5.47, so I bought it anyway.
     
    Having got it home and marked out the cutting plan I discovered that if you heavily score the desired cutting line on both sides with a Stanley knife you can snap 5mm ply along the line much as you would do 40 thou plasticard. This is a great deal quicker, easier and more importantly neater and more accurate, than cutting it with a tenon saw.
     
    I rapidly had a base plate , two sides 2" deep, and a back 1 3/4" deep (the lesser depth being in order to clear some of the switches and sockets at the back )- the components are visible here
     

     
    I then marked out where holes needed to be drilled for the two switches and one socket that fouled the back and drilled accordingly - the DIN socket required a 20mm wood drill and some hacking with the Stanley knife. A check fit revealed that the holes needed bevelling with a knife to allow the switches free play - this was done before I started assembly, with one side and the back glued to the base with PVA. This was left to dry hard overnight
     
     
     
     
     
    The next day - being Sunday - I set about trying to sort out the damaged track, removing about 2 inches of damaged Streamline from the fiddle yard area. I have to say that getting fishplates to slide on to anything was a terrible struggle - I managed to write off the first bit of replacement code 75 in the process, and the second had its integrity maintained by soldering in two sleepers improvised out of PCB sleeper strip. In the heat of the struggle, I ended up with the two rails about 2mm out of alignment lengthwise, which created further problems - ie gaps at the rail joints.
     
    Possibly I might have done better by trying to insert a couple of PCB sleepers into the original damaged track to restore it. However as one rail had ripped out of the moulded clips over at least an inch and a half , that too might have turned out to be a struggle
     
    And in the process of checking alignment with the other boxfile , I found that one rail of the point had also come loose, and had previously been kept in position by the fishplate. As I could no longer get a fishplate on the relevant rail, I had to resort to inserting a half-sleeper of PCB strip and soldering the errant rail back into place, assuring the correct track gauge by use of a roller gauge
     
    You will gather that having separable boxfiles leaving the track ends exposed at the joint is not a great idea if you want long term reliability
     

    I managed to get the two files together (I got fishplates to join 3 of out the 6 rails!), and stuck them down in place on the plywood tray and stuck the remaining side in place. We then reached this stage:
     

     
    At this point I retired hurt to bed.
     
    Having applied a second coat of laquer black, on the Monday night I was ready to attempt a little test running. The results were mixed.
     
    Yes, everything was now quick to set up. A little paring of one hole, and all the switches worked without obstruction. The points all threw reliably and emphatically.
     
    And locos ran. They ran across the joints between the files as well as they had ever done - which is to say not especially well. Because the gaps on the rails were in places pretty horrible. As the photo below shows....
     
    Next step - patch up the joints with plasticard, and touch up any damage to the scenic - notably where the Metcalf cobbles had been worn by track rubbers

  21. Ravenser

    Served Up On A Tray

    By Ravenser,


    Boxfile
    This is by way of a short "statement of concept" note.
     
    The Boxfile (formally Whitefriargate Goods) has been out of commission for a couple of years, after the end of the fiddle yard track became damaged. At one level this simply means a basic and fairly straightforward repair. But it has thrown into sharper relief the main problem with this layout.
     

     
    That's the board joint. The two files are currently held together - when assembled - by fishplates connecting the tracks. This arrangement has proved vulnerable to damage of the exposed track ends, and it's a bit of a pig trying to slide everything together, as some of the track doesn't cross the joint at 90 degrees. It's very fiddly, and there's a risk of damaging the track.
     
    As a result of this setting up the 'file has taken 10-15 minutes of fiddling about, which is a serious disincentive to using the layout
     
    And when you've got it all together - the track joints across the gap are pretty rough, which has affected running
     
    When I was toying with the idea of building a tramway micro as a boxed diorama, using IKEA storage boxes (see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-18982-im-not-committed-to-building-this-you-understand-mark-2/) I noticed that there was a version of the product that was effectively a tray, and I had the idea of buying one and fitting the Boxfile inside it, permanently assembled
     
    This idea faded away when I discovered that IKEA weren't actually selling the storage item in question http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119680-snack-boxes-are-back-at-ikea/ but has now resurfaced.
     
    I thought the stumbling block would be storage. At present the Boxfile lives in a storage drawer under the bed, along with two boxfiles containing all the stock, a small stash of modern N gauge which I ended up acquiring, the controller, light and some empty boxes. I had thought that if I mounted the complete layout on a tray it would no longer fit in the drawer.
     
    And the flat is very full, and there is nowhere else obvious to keep it.
     
    However some actual checks last night revealed that if mounted in a tray it should still fit.....
     

    (This picture may be some help to those folk who believe they "don't have room for a model railway")
     
    So it's game on.
     
    The intention is to use 4mm ply to construct an open-fronted tray to act as a frame around the assembled layout. This means in practice a flat piece of ply (tee-hee - the ply will have to come from Wickes or B&Q as the local timber merchant has gone) with strips of ply along the sides and back. The files can then be glued down inside, with the track properly joined , and the damaged piece replaced and relaid across the interfile joint
     
    I don't think the bottom of the files are entirely rigid anyway, so the whole thing may actually end up flatter. Sides will be 1 3/4" deep , as this should avoid some of the switches and DIN sockets . Holes will have to be drilled for the rest , and I might consider removing one or two of the entirely pointless section switches I originally installed
     
    The fronts and lids of the files would still fold up to provide a sealed and protected unit, but the layout would effectively be a single unit 29.5" long, meaning I could simply put it on a table, plug in the connectors, set up the light, add the stock and away we go.
    Some of the reliability problems at the joints would also vanish. No longer would trains auto-uncouple entering the fiddle track, or jolt across a chasm.
     
    The ply tray will probably be painted black - I have a tin in the airing cupboard, so long as it hasn't gone off
     
    And if the layout can be set up quickly and runs more reliably it should be used more. I can invest time in finishing off a few wagons, and maybe building up a Judith Edge Sentinel or two from the cupboard. A Peckett or a Barclay could be contemplated.....
     
    The DIY sheds beckon tomorrow
  22. Ravenser

    Set 5 - Quick and Slow: Part 1 Quick (I hope)

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    After a long while contemplating the idea, I finally bought one of the Dapol LMS coaches in CKD form . I prefer CKD form as it's a little cheaper, and as I'm going to work on the thing I am saved the trouble of finding out how to dismantle it. The intended victim is a CK in BR Blood and Custard
     
    The CK seems to be the pick of Dapol's ex Mainline Stanier coaches - Coachmann's expert assessment is here
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coach-kits/?p=958249
     
    And it's also - perhaps not by coincidence - a notable omission from the high-spec range of Stanier coaches that Hornby produced a few years ago.
     
    Having decided to build the Mailcoach LNER Tourist Brake 3rd as a partner for my Hachette BR Mk1 SK (forming Set 4) , in part because their gangways match , I was left with an LMS Porthole Brake 3rd kit.The obvious question was what could it be paired with - and a Dapol CK seemed the cheapest and fastest answer. That would also provide some First class accommodation - something which will be conspicuously lacking from Set 4. Also conspicuously lacking from the steam stock is anything in Blood and Custard - because I don't feel up to doing two tone liveries myself . Getting a factory applied finish is therefore a big bonus.
     
    What needs to be done to these CKD coaches? The 60' underframe on the CK is basically correct - unlike the 57' coaches, which incorrectly have the non-corridor underframe . Detailing work is shown in the photo:
     

     
    The new whitemetal buffers aren't terribly clear, but they are there . I bought an LMS underframe pack and set of etched crossmembers from Comet at Stevenage , at the same time as buying the coach. The spare battery box casting will be donated to the MTK Porthole brake as an upgrade
     
    So to the body
     

     
    The first job - and the biggest "win" is flushglazing. I used SE Finecast vacuum formed glazing because Shawplan have not done this vehicle in their Lazerglase range - a surprising omission given that this is a decent model; and the only RTR option for a key type of vehicle. I also touched in the window edges in black to reduce the slab-sided effect - since my hand wasn't absolutely steady and the black line isn't absolutely perfect this is a double edged benefit, but it doesn't detract overall.
     
    The roof vents are a story of blunders . I "upgraded" with a packet of whitemetal torpedo vents. But... LMS official photos in Historic Carriage Drawings show shell vents on LMS Period 3 stock. Pothole stock - which was built under BR - clearly had torpedo vents , and so did the push-pull conversions of Stanier stock . LMS Period 3 vehicles in preservation often - but not always - have torpedo vents. I eventually found a photo of a coach on the ex GW Birkenhead route that seemed to have a mix of shell and torpedo vents - then I found a comment suggesting these were a special type of vents made at Wolverton.
     
    It looks as if some LMS Period 3 vehicles received torpedo vents at a later date , but how many, and whether it was while they were blood and custard, or only after preservation I don't know. By the time I realised there was an issue the vents were irretrievably stuck with cyano and the roof was painted a suitable muddy brown-grey, so I've left it. It may be right, after all.
     
    The interior was painted and a small number of figures added, though you hardly notice there are passengers in there.
     
    The plastic wheels were replaced by metal Hornby ones. I retained the Dapol gangway on one end, and used a Roxey pack to sort out the other . I say "used" advisedly , as most of it wasn't. To be honest the project stalled for a couple of months because I was scared of assembling the Roxey gangways , and in the end I looked at the etch, looked at the drawing and instructions, should my head in several places and only used the etched back of the gangway. The paper looked impossibly flimsy, and I used black card, but 5 folds proved too much and cased problems (read "derailments") on sharp curves , so I cut one fold away with scissors and reapplied the end plate. This was black painted plasticard - I used the Roxey etch as a gangway cover on the fixed end
     
    All it now needs is a weathering wash on the underframe
  23. Ravenser

    Butchering a Meat Van

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I've been fairly quiet for a few months, partly because of work getting on top of me . But after finally managing 2 weeks holiday , having previously not managed more than an odd day off since I started the new job just over a year ago , I'm feeling human again , and I'm trying to resolve some of the various unfinished projects .
     
    One small project is nearly there - an ex GW MICA meat van.
     
    At present the main vehicle available for the cold store on the box file is a Blue Spot fish van from a Parkside kit. Nice kit - but it's really a bit big for the box file. The thought occurred to me that I should repaint the Blue Spot van as a BR Blue example in parcels service , for use as tail traffic on Blacklade - and replace it with a reworked RTR body from the junk box - either the Hornby ex NER refrigerated van, or an elderly Hornby Dublo GW MICA. As I didn't fancy scratchbuilding a 9'6" wooden underframe using castings, I went for the MICA.
     
    There is nothing original about the conversion - it's based on one of the first "proper" wagon-building articles I ever read as a boy - "Taking the MICA" by Grp Capt Brian Huxley , in the Railway Modeller for July 1977. It was the first of a whole series of articles covering different headings in the GW wagon diagram list - he was trying to build a "representative collection" of GW wagons, meaning a model of pretty well every wagon diagram
     
    However as most people won't have access to 40 year old Railway Modellers, the details of this exercise are worth summarising here.
     
    The old Hornby Dublo MICA is a hybrid. Most MICAs were 16' long and had full width bonnet vents on the ends. The last diagram, X9, was on a 17'6" RCH underframe with bonnetless ends . Hornby Dublo, Wrenn and Dapol sold you a 17'6" van with bonnet ends.
     
    There were therefore two approaches in the article.
     
    Firstly you could cut out the van sides neatly, reduce them by 3mm each end, chop 6mm out of the rest of the body moulding , stick the whole lot back together , add a suitable underframe (Dean-Churchward brake gear, anyone?) and get any type of 16' MICA.
     
    Or secondly, you could cut out the ends, replace with plain planking . add a standard RCH 10' wheelbase fitted underframe and get X9 of 1929.
     
    The world has moved on since 1977 - there is now a recent Parkside kit for the 16' X7 MICA , and that is probably the easiest route to the 16' vans. And these days most folk model post war, not - as was the norm in 1977 - the interwar GWR. The earlier vans are probably much less relevant now.
     
    So finally, after 40 years, I've done the deed. (Since the wagon had a cast Hornby Dublo chassis it must be nearly 60 years!)
     

     
    The ends are Slaters planked plasticard , as recommended by Brian Huxley. However the planks don't line up exactly these days, despite my efforts - mind you some of the preserved examples have the same issue.. The steps were removed from the original ends with a chisel blade in the craft knife . I seem to have found this rather easier than it was in 1977 , though there are plenty of spares.
     
    A Parkside 10' wheelbase underframe has been fitted from the spares box, built onto a 40 thou plasticard floor. Unfortunately, at that point I realised the kit was clasp-braked, and the prototype had 4 shoe Morton brakes. A rummage in the cupboard produced a packet of ABS Morton brake gear, and this was added with cyanoacrylate. I couldn't find the buffer beams so used some which I think came from a Cambrian PO wagon. They were rather too deep so had to be filed down top and bottom, and cut to an angle at both ends. The buffers had to be replaced with more ABS whitemetal castings for RCH fitted buffers. I had glued a couple of strips of lead flashing inside and with the whitemetal parts the total weight was up to the desired 50g (25g per axle)
     
    These later vans used dry ice, and had a single hatch at each end, not two - so the roof hatches had to filed off the model and replaced with new ones (7mm square in 20 thou plasticard). Brake pipes are DMR brass from the bits box, and spoked wheels are Bachmann
     
    It now needs only the end handrails and axlebox tiebars adding, priming (I'm not taking a chance with different coloured ends and white paint) and painting into BR (grubby) white
  24. Ravenser

    Layout Operation - Some Definitions

    By Ravenser,


    Operational
    This arises from the recent thread on Ally Pally.
     
    Blacklade's modest experiences at the show are matter for another post, but one aspect of the post-show discussion was the claim by several people that many or most of the layouts were not running trains, and somewhere [probably at post 358] the idea arose that this was because the layouts and their operators were using timetables or sequences or something of that kind.
     
    As will be evident from the subsequent discussion http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/117493-london-festival-of-railway-modelling-alexandra-palace-2526-march-2017/page-17 there was some confusion as to exactly what was meant , what it is called, and what might or might not have been going on.
     
    I've no wish to blow on the embers of an almost dead argument; but by that stage the discussion was largely about general principles, rather than the specifics of a particular layout or even show. And as the issue and argument seems to recur I think a few definitions and clarifications are useful, in the interests of light, rather than heat.
     
    "Timetable" operation I understand to mean that there is a WTT with actual times at which a train runs. And there is some kind of clock, and the train does not run until the clock shows the correct time for it . Moreover the times of the trains are almost certainly derived prototypically, from an actual timetable for the full-size prototype, or from how long it would take to make the move in reality.
    The Yanks do this quite a bit I believe on their big basement permanent layouts, which are designed for private operation by a team of operators. A "fast clock" - running several times faster than real time - is often employed (Apparently the NCE Powercab has a built-in fast-clock function)
    For obvious reasons this is extremely rare, if not unheard-of at British exhibitions. I've never encountered such a layout in over 20 years of visiting shows. (I believe the Sherwood Section and Crewechester may have worked like this but those layouts had a lot in common with the big US basement empires in their concept). Post 426 notes that Heckmondwyke tried it once - and then reverted to operating a sequence.
     
    Suggestions that some operators /layouts at Ally Pally were standing around waiting until it was the right time according to their timetable to run the next train were at best extremely sarcastic (and at worst misleading - some people evidently started to think that there were actually layouts at Ally Pally running to a timed timetable . To the best of my knowledge there were none.)
     
    Running to "a sequence" is a much more common practice. There is a list of each movement to be run, in correct order, and traction and stock is allocated to each. There may well be a list of what points have to be set. But, critically, there is no clock. Once you've run move 22, you then run move 23 . You don't wait until it is "the right time" (If you have to wait until someone else has finished doing something else , then the operator's instructions will say so - "Wait until move 21 shunting is complete, then run move 23")
     
    The sequence may be based on the prototype timetable, suitably condensed - or in the case of a rural branchline, augmented - and the time the real thing ran at may be noted in the sequence - "Move 22 - 3:10pm Peterborough-Grimsby semi-fast". Some layouts display the move and its details somewhere on the layout , so that spectators know what they are seeing. But none of this makes a sequence into a timetable. There is no clock, and no "waiting for time" - Move 23 still follows Move 22 as soon as practical.
     
    This point is worth stressing, because it seems some people are under the impression that running a sequence slows down the operation of a layout, and results in periods - perhaps frequent periods - of inaction.
     
    On the contrary, a sequence should speed up operation. You cut out all the "head-scratching time" while the operator tries to work out what is possible given the current state of the layout and how he can or should make his next move. In fact this is probably the only practical way to operate a large layout with junctions that set up conflicting routes at all intensively . Otherwise you end up tripping over your own bootlaces at regular intervals and operating becomes limited and erratic to avoid the possibility of conflicts.
     
    But if a sequence is in place, operators can make the next move quickly and confidently, knowing exactly what they are supposed to do, and having full confidence that the move won't conflict with anything else. All the thinking has been done for them by the person who developed the sequence.
     
    A good sequence will allow your "party piece" operations to be shown to the public on a regular repeatable basis, as well as ensuring a good variety of stock appears front of house and your choicest models.
     
    And for exhibition use it's essential that the sequence returns all the stock to their starting positions, so you can repeat it.

    t-b-g notes that Narrow Road operated to a sequence that lasted an hour, and as part of this there were often multiple trains moving at once, sometimes up to five at once. You can only do that sort of thing with a sequence - and also quite a few operators, since controlling two different trains simultaneously is extremely difficult. Since operators' accommodation is the most expensive thing for a show on the layout side, there are practical restrictions on having large layouts with clouds of operators [And at post 442 we seem to have a witness to the famous comment about Heckmondwyke, with its authentic block-bells to offer trains - "the bells ring but the bloody trains don't run!".]
     
    For the record there was another well-known 1970s continuous circuit mainline layout, Winton, which managed a kind of hybrid between the timetable and the sequence. The layout ran to a sequence, but instead of using flip-cards they recorded a commentary/explanation on cassette tape for the public, and the operators had to keep up with the tape... It was written up for the Railway Modeller in the late Seventies, but nobody since has dared to attempt anything like it since.
     
    One caveat is that a complex sequence is not something operators can be expected to deliver on the fly first time. You do need a team of operators who have practiced, so they know what they are doing . Effectively, you are putting on a model railway play, called "a day at......." and like any play you need rehearsals before attempting a performance. That implies a team of regular operators, and opportunities to erect and run the layout away from shows. 
     
    Now such sessions can be rewarding in their own right. In fact - heresy of heresies - it is entirely possible that such sessions, not public exhibition, can be the main object of building a layout. That was the whole raison d'etre of layouts like Sherwood and Crewechester , two generations ago. I was fortunate to be invited along several times to a big coarse scale Gauge O garden railway that had several operating days a year , and ran to a sequence loosely representing a secondary MR main line
     
    And lest we assume that operational layouts are some kind of crude and primitive form of the hobby that went out with spring-drive , it's worth remembering that Peter Denny's Buckingham GC operated with several operators to a complex sequence covering both the Buckingham line and its minor branches for several decades. Buckingham GC didn't fade away when the constructional articles stopped - it was operated, for Peter Denny's pleasure, over many years. It's just that the British hobby, focused on finescale construction and exhibiting , wasn't really interested in that.
     
    In the US , on the other hand, operating a layout is very much the core of the hobby. Indeed I sometimes think that in some ways Buckingham was a rather American layout - it's just that Peter Denny was modelling the GC in the Home Counties, not some subdivision of the Union Pacific in the Rockies.
     
    But I digress......
     
    The next group of ways of operating a layout might be labelled "task-based operating". This can take a variety of forms, moving from the switching micro up to the basement empire; but what links these forms of operating as a group is that there isn't a set list of choreographed moves. Instead the operator is working ad-lib, but to perform a set task or tasks within rules and parameters.
     
     
    "Shunting puzzles" are the most obvious example, but all shunting layouts work on this broad principle. A train runs in, you shunt and sort the wagons into the sidings, and then you form up another train to go out. The arrival and dispatch of trains is a peripheral, vestigial activity - there is no sequence, just a "rest of the world" to send wagons out to and receive from. In some respects this is a game of model railway patience played with wagons rather than cards - and each train in or out is a shuffle of the cards.
     
    Canada Wharf at Ally Pally was obviously being operated on this basis, and so was Kirkmellington Most branchline layouts also tend to work on this principle. The main task is shunting the pickup goods, which can take quite a while - subsidiary tasks are running some passenger trains and maybe one or two "special" trains. Leysdown seems to have run on this basis .
     
    The fact is that shunting a train can provide hours of innocent amusement for all the family - in sharp contrast to what I was once told, that "You can't shunt on an exhibition layout. We never shunted on X"
     
    The big US basement empires commonly fall under this heading. It's startling to discover that a 40' x 25' basement empire with twelve operators for a session lasting a half a day may in fact only run 8-10 trains. However, in U.S. prototype style each train (with 2 operators per train) wanders around the layout, shunting a whole series of separate locations in accordance with prototype rules. This is task-based operating with a vengeance.
     
    One potential problem with shunting is the question of "what do I shunt, and why?" In the US it is normal to answer this question by implementing a system of wagon waybill cards, whereby each location has defined traffic generation, in or out, and cards are produced representing the movement instructions for a wagon to satisfy this. Thus each train is accompanied by a fistful of cards - each one representing a wagon in the train, with its load, and telling the operators where the wagon is to go to, and what is to be done with it thereafter. At each location, the operators find cards for wagons already there, with instructions on what is to happen to them.
     
    Effectively the train runs much like the real thing, and the second operator is there to deal with the paperwork, much like the conductor on a real US freight.
     
    You can do something like this on a British layout - in fact PD Hancock apparently implemented a wagon waybill system on Craigshire in its later years. But in Britain card/waybill systems and other such practices are things tolerated between consenting adults in private but not to be mentioned in front of the children.
     
    Essex Belt Lines seems to have been running a US style operation at All Pally, with a central dispatcher calling the shots and individual train crews working around a series of locations, but I think they had left the car waybills at home.
     
    The very simple layout where the operator performs the same basic operational task over and over again belongs in this group as well.
     
    Finally we have what I think of as the "cavalcade" style of operation. In this style of operation, normally found only on a big continuous circuit layout, there is no timetable , sequence, or tasks - just a socking great 14 road fiddle yard at the back, filled with trains. The operators simply fire out a series of trains from the fiddle yard round the circuit in each direction. Some layouts may run them round once, some may send them round for two or three circuits. Then they run another train . This goes on all day
     
    I have to admit that the cavalcade is not really my cup of tea - certainly it's not what I want to do for myself with my own layout, and I don't have a 36' x 12' space in which to do it. But there is no doubt it is what a significant section of exhibition goers want to see, and some tend to regard anything else as in some sense a fraud on the public perpetrated by the layout operators . As I was once told by a member of another club, "You must remember that people don't go to exhibitions to look at the layouts. They're there to look at the stock". And therefore in his view the actual layout should be as nondescript as possible - the set should not distract attention from the star actors .
     
    For this reason the cavalcade is the natural layout format for those folk who are essentially stock-builders. They simply want a stage on which they can display the trains they have built to the public.
     
    I find I can happily took at a cavalcade layout providing there is enough high quality structural modelling interest around it. Layouts like Gresley Beat, Dewsbury Midland, and Sydney Gardens are fine by me - I am effectively admiring a high-quality scenic model with the trains as an agreeable supplement. It's when the stage is nearly bare that I start losing interest.
     
    It's worth pointing out that a layout running a sequence might look like a cavalcade layout to the punters. I strongly suspect, for example, that Stoke Summit ran to a sequence - it featured authentic ECML services with authentic formations, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they ran in a set order, roughly corresponding to the time of day they ran on the real thing. But the average punter was probably unaware of these subtilties - he just saw a continuing passing parade of trains on a simple 4 track section. It was a very popular layout.
     
    At this point I ought to declare my own hand.
     
    I have 3 layouts (okay Tramlink has been dormant for years...). I've always tried to design in as much operational interest as possible, so that I have something to do with it when it's finished. All three in practice fall under the heading "task-based operation"
     
    The boxfile is a shunting puzzle. You have four wagons on-, and three off-stage. You have to work the three off-stage wagons on, under the hoist, and to the correct spot, and work off the three empties. You swap an empty for a full behind the scenes. Working your way through this can take over an hour. And there is a panel on the flap giving "The Rules of the Game"
     
    Tramlink, and to a certain extent Blacklade, were designed to work on the same principle as those puzzles where you have 8 tiles in a 3 x 3 frame , and one gap. With Tramlink there are two sidings on each board, and it was designed to operate with 3 LRVs, and one empty siding. So you have an empty slot, and a choice of two possible LRVs on the other board to run into it. Soon your choice is constrained (I've just run this in , so I must run the other out...) 
     
    Blacklade has 3 platforms on the station board and 4 roads on the fiddle yard board, one of which (the fuelling point) can only be accessed from the front two platforms. So you play the same game with DMUs, and in the BR Blue period (as we ran at Ally Pally) with a Loco-hauled Substitute - 2 coaches, worked Minories-style by two Type 2s . This can only really fit in the long back platform , and the long front fiddle yard road, with comfort. 
     
    There is a run-round loop in the throat, but that can only really serve the short centre platform. So there's a parcels train that runs in at the start and is run round , before collecting a CCT van which arrives as tail traffic on a DMU. That is then replaced by another DMU. In theory , every item of traction should spend some time on the fuelling point to refuel - think of it as a scenic road of the fiddle yard - and there's a TTA of diesel which either needs to be worked onto the layout and back to the fuelling point, or else worked off, by a loco. Cue some shunting....
     
    And for the first time at a show I managed to run the engineers' train, which comes on, runs round and goes back. That was at the end, when we were starting to box up the DMUs.
     
    So there's plenty to keep you busy , and trains were worked back and forth in rapid succession throughout the show
     
    But it's worth pointing out just how unprototypical all this intensive operation really is. In real life, Blacklade would see 5-7 movements an hour. So something would happen every 10 minutes or so.
     
    That's on today's crowded high-frequency network. Things were a lot quieter in the days of steam.
     
    In 1962 there were 5 trains a day each way between Kings Cross and Edinburgh, excluding sleepers. (In 1910 it was only 3, with two Scottish sleepers and the Aberdeen mail). By 1975 that had grown to 9 trains northbound and 10 southbound, and it went to 11 each way from 1978 with HSTs . It's a lot more today.
     
    Louth was an important double junction on the GN secondary mainline from Peterborough to Grimsby. In the summer of 1922 it had a service of 13 trains a day each way, of which 6 were local shuttles between Louth and Grimsby and a further one a shuttle which ran through to Mablethorpe. There were 6 more trains each way to Mablethorpe, and 4 on the Bardney branch. The entire service on the E Lincs mainline south of Louth was 6 trains each way.
     
    And on Sundays the branches were shut, and the mainline service comprised 2 trains each way.
     
    Freight traffic in 1946 comprised 9 up trains a day and 13 down, plus a pick up goods on each branch.
     
    That's 68 movements a day, spread between 4:00 am and 9:45pm. Almost 4 movements per hour, or an average of nearly two trains an hour each way.
     
    For nearly all the day you could have sat on the platform at Louth for 20-30 minutes without seeing a train move.
     
    This is for an important double junction on a secondary main line , with additional local services running in 3 directions.
     
    An important part of the character of the steam-age rural railway in Britain was the long - often very long - periods of stillness when nothing at all seemed to happen on a sleeping deserted station. The Central Line in the rush hour - which is what people seem to want to see at shows, or else - it was not.
     
    [edited to tidy up typos and commas]. And in a futile attempt to remove underlining...
  25. Ravenser
    This is the story of a cheap and nasty kit for a cheap and nasty coach. Actually that's a little unfair - to the prototype
     
    In recent years Coopercraft , like the Cheshire Cat in Alice , has been slowly fading away. Two or three years ago, before matters reached the final stage of a Smile Without a Cat, I purchased a couple of kits from their stand at Ally Pally.
     
    One, the Kirk non-gangwayed LNER 51' full brake was a decent kit, and was built some time ago.
     
    The other was the Mailcoach kit for the Tourist Brake third . For some reason , these slightly unusual Gresley vehicles have always caught my interest - they were not teak, they were built for a rather different purpose, and they stood apart from the general run of LNER coaches in most respects. However they do seem to have been used in general service post war - and here was a plastic kit . Moreover I reckoned I could build a plastic kit..... Added to which, here was a mainline corridor brake with an unusually high seating capacity which might well appear on marginal duties like short portions .
     
    I'd heard one or two grumbles about the kit from the likes of micklner and Tony Wright - but I assumed that as their level of refinement as far above mine (and above what is being attempted with a theoretically quick 'n cheap fleet of coaches for RTR kettles) this just meant it wasn't really up to the standards of a Comet kit. Little did I know.......
     
    Firstly some comments about the prototype, since there appears to be little on the internet - the following rests on Harris' LNER Coaches.
     
    Once the Depression began to ease, LNER management decided it was time to eliminate the remaining 4 and 6 wheel coaches from revenue service. One pocket of this would found in excursion traffic where 36 sets of ex GN suburban 4 wheelers displaced by the Quad-Artics had been retained [The idea of KX to Skeggy in those makes Liverpool St-Cromer in a Cravens unit seem positively civilised....]. The LNER commercial management wished to compete with coach operators, and Gresley came up with the idea of some special modern excursion stock as a part-replacement. Five 12-car sets were ordered in 1933, each comprising two Brake 3rd Opens , four articulated all 3rd twins and two buffet cars. Four more sets were ordered in 1934-6 and one in 1939
     
    These coaches were all opens with low backed bucket seats, plywood paneling, and finished in a surprising green and cream . Interiors were cheap Art Deco, and by the mid 1950s a BR report was speaking of the buffet cars - by then in general service - as "truly very bad indeed". High backed seating seems to have been fitted post- war. The plywood panelling was liable to deteriorate badly and many of the coaches ended up replated with steel panelling. They finally disappeared in 1963-4, though a couple of buffets lasted on the LMR (who must have been desperate) until 1967.
     
    These coaches seem just right for a place like Blacklade
     
    I wanted to check the actual colour of Railmatch maroon jars against the Hachette Mk1 since patch painting was required. So - I did the obvious thing and hauled the Tourist Brake kit out of the cupboard. The sides are moulded in clear plastic with raised window frames and whatever opacity they acquire is given by the paint...
     
    The maroon was dark. I tried lightening it by applying a coat of Railfreight Faded Red (=pink) on the inside. And after a couple of coats of paint I found I was committed, and the Porthole Brake 3rd was laid aside unstarted.
     
    Matters have now reached this stage:

     
     
    I think this has now taken 4 coats of brush-painted maroon, and a certain amount of patching along the way. Tony Wright , who evidently has a higher-opacity red, only required three. In the circumstances it's a reasonable finish, but nowhere near sprayed standard. It's also had about three interior coats. The opacity still isn't all it should be around the window frames - painting these without getting paint on the glazing is very difficult, especially around the ventilators
     
    And I was several coats in and part-built before I realised there were long sunken marks at the bottom of the sides in several places (Perhaps the mould pressure wasn't quite high enough?) . I rubbed back and patched the worst of these with filler, then touched back in. Obviously I should have spotted these, and filled them systematically, at the start : I suspect they weren't terribly obvious on translucent sides - and of course I got stuck straight in to painting as a colour test patch.
     
    There is a pinhole in one of the door droplight windows. I've tried patching it today with some Microsol product - only to find the whole bottle has congealed over years in storage. That's been thrown out
     
    The seating provided seems to derive from longer (compartment?) mouldings , roughly sawn in half , apparently with a Junior hacksaw. Not having spare 2+2 seating available (the remains of some sawn up Mk4 interiors are not suitable here...) I cleaned it up as best I could , painted it and installed it, on the basis that you can hardly see the interiors of coaches anyway - so any unevenness won't be visible
     
    The battery boxes were mere facades. As a bodge, I've thickened them up with a piece of 40 thou styrene glued behind. I didn't feel up to the delay, and the cost of sending away for proper Comet ones, when the overall quality of the kit is so mediocre. "Lipstick on a pig" is the phrase that comes to mind. I has whitemetal Gresley buffers on hand so I substituted them. The Gresley bogies seem to have built up ok - I just need to get my head around fitting Kadees
     
    As I had bought a packet of 10 LMS/LNER coach duckets to replace one missing from the MTK Porthole kit , I used one here. It seemed a better proposition than the one in the kit
     
    Then there's the roof. After a bit of playing around and thinning the ends with a Stanley knife blade, I reluctantly concluded that the profile of the roof moulding supplied , and that of the ends and partitions simply could not be reconciled . I therefore bought an aluminium roof from Wizard Models . This will need to be cut to length, and then a suitable - and matching - rake back filed on every corner. So far I haven't plucked up the courage to attempt it.
     
    That is the current state of play. (And I've just realised I'm out of torpedo vents). The thing has been sat in a box for at least 3 months.
     
    This is not a particularly good kit. It's certainly the worst coach kit I've encountered - but as my experience has been confined to Ratio, Parkside, Dapol and Kirk, I've led a sheltered existence.
     
    I'm sure that the MTK Porthole must be better than this - though I may live to regret those words
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