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Ravenser

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  1. Ravenser

    Work in Progress

    By Ravenser,

    I didn't get round to my annual New Year's Resolutions posting this year - a bad sign. Thanks to a new job and various domestic renewals not a lot of modelling was done in the couple of months before New Year, and even less posting on here took place.
     
    Nevertheless rather more modelling took place in 2016 than was written up in this blog. The trouble is, it left rather a lot of unfinished business. For the last few years I've been stating with depressing regularity that I'm not going to take on any more projects - it's time to catch up with my backlog. And somehow it never happens.
     
    Four years ago I decided that it would be a great idea to get various unbuilt kits and unused kettles out of the cupboard and field them as a scratch team to work a (not terribly authentic) steam period , c1958. Four years on, and my best estimate is that the number of outstanding coach kits and upgrade project has reduced by - a big fat zero, thanks to further additions. Mind you , four years ago my coaching stock comprised a few RTR items plus various kinds of material for projects - and only about 2 vans ever turned a wheel on the layout. Since then 10 items of coaching stock have gone into regular service, one more awaits a partner to do so, and 3 more are nearly there. Yes, I keep picking up bargain projects but the total spend including bits has been under £200.
     
    And I now have 6 kettles and LMS 10001 up and running and earning a crust. There are still a couple more that need sorting out, but we're getting there.
     
    So what is currently lingering on the bookcase?
     
    Various items to comprise Sets 4 and 5 of the steam stock are in various states of completeness. This saga started with a BSL Gresley steel CK , which was going to be paired with an LMS non-corridor brake 3rd - until I realised the BSL kit was actually gangwayed. So I bought a Coopercraft /Mailcoach Tourist Brake Third Open, back in the days when Coopercraft still had a few coach kits actually available.
     
    I've heard unfavourable comments about this kit from far better modellers than I , and I now understand why. I started it in the middle of last year, thinking a plastic kit would be a pretty manageable task, and it's proving a pig. It will be paired with the Hachette Mk1 which I upgraded last year having succumbed to the lure of an astonishing bargain - that one did get written up ,http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-17819-set-4-modernity-on-the-cheap-part-2-sidetracked/ though the wretched Tourist Brake Third hasn't been . All the Hachette Mk1 needs is a replacement set of Kadees, as the NEM pockets are at the wrong height.
     
    At Ally Pally last year I bought what I thought was an astonishing bargain - a metal coach kit with punched aluminium bodyshell for an LMS Porthole Brake 3rd "almost complete" for a fiver. Unfortunately it turned out to be MTK , not BSL.... I am told it is one of their best items and perfectly buildable. "Almost complete" turned out to mean "missing one guard's ducket" - replacements were sourced - and it was while I was turning over all the bits to assess what needed to be done that I drifted into starting the Tourist Brake, on the theory it would be an easier job than a metal MTK coach. I'm starting to think that judgement was seriously misguided.
     
    But this has spawned a further project. The LMS used "British Standard" gangways which are not a particularly good match for the Pullman gangways used by the LNER and BR. Dapol produce an old model of a 60' Stanier Corridor Composite, and Coachmann seemed to rate it http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coach-kits/ So at Stevenage a couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and spent £13.50 on a CKD one , plus another £8 on underframe castings and etched frames - some of which will go to other projects. This is in carmine and cream - in 1958 there ought to be at least one vehicle in the fleet still in blood and custard, and I'm scared to attempt it myself. Getting a discount in order to be spared the trouble of dismantling a built coach is a bonus , and work has begun, after an order went into SE Finecast for flushglaze . (This included flushglaze for an old Lima Mk1 SK from my teenage layout which may finally get a heavy upgrade and re-enter service. I sourced three more of the Phoenix Precision Mk1 underframe trusses last autumn , and I've got some Comet BR underframe castings in stock. Maybe a TSO interior can be substituted)
     
    Beyond that the vista opens up of combining Sets 4 and 5 to produce a mainline train, which would look the part behind 10001 if I ever have access to a larger layout. Buried deep in the cupboard is the second hand Triang-Hornby RMB I bought as a teenager and repainted into blue/grey with a basic brushpaint job. Stripped back, repainted back into maroon with a replacement underframe truss and Comet underframe castings , and other detailing , something adequate to sit between the two 2-car sets could result. That's a 5 coach corridor set. Add, in the fullness of time, the BSL Gresley composite...
     
    I digress - which is the problem. I have an exhibition booking for the layout in 2 month's time (bit less actually) . I should be focussing on BR Blue stock for that.
     
    Top of the pile is the 128 Parcels unit, which is most of the way there, and would let me get the NRX and GUV into service - both are too long for Platform 2 in a loco-hauled parcels.
     
    Next priority is the Lima 37 which runs , has a decoder and Kadees, and is part detailed. This needs to be finished as a spare loco in case one of the 31s has a problem at the show
     
    The gangways on the 155 need finally to be sorted out. They still won't take a crossover. This will be attempt 3
     
    And once we are clear of the show I can turn to the Provincial Pacer. I played about with this a little, for the first time in some years , a couple of months ago - though all that was done was a little interior painting . If I can finally get to grips with this unit, which will be a pretty heavy DMU upgrade project, I will have a lot more options for joining and splitting DMUs using consisting
     
    I also really ought to finish off the Baby Deltic. It's not a priority, because it's not suitable for the show, but it's another stalled project that really doesn't need too much to finish...
     
    Something is stirring on the N5 front. I may be going to extend my skill set and we might get another kettle into traffic later in the Spring
     
    As for things like the WD brake and the Toad E, the GBL Jinty, and what have you, they are a long way down the list. Not to mention a few smaller jobs, like lights and weathering on the W Yorks 158, maybe working gangways on the 150, and even weathering the 108. I really ought to install the detailing bits on 20 052 - and it's high time I did something about the failed decoder in 20 063.
     
    There's the maroon ex LMS 42' GUV I bought for a fiver at a show in October (Comet bogies needed?), and the Mainline Mk1 bought at Showcase for a few quid for a possible bullion van conversion (I've since realised why it was so cheap - the windows are wrong. However with this conversion only one compartment window per side will be retained and as it would run in parcels trains I might get away with it)
     
    But if I can finish off most of the projects that have been started, that should go a long way to clearing the decks
  2. Ravenser
    It's been a very long time since I last started a layout project. For the last few years I've been stubbornly trying to get on top of the long, long list of stock projects for Blacklade, and the nearest thing to a new venture was the decision about 3 or 4 years ago to sort out my stray bits and pieces of steam stock, fill in the gaps, and try to have a "funny trains" steam period nominally set in 1958 . That inevitably resulted in me buying cheap new projects as fast as I cleared existing projects from the cupboard.
     
    On the credit side, I now have a lot more serviceable models than 5 or 6 years ago, some of which had been "and then I could do... " aspirations for a wearingly long time. And I have a modest steam age fleet capable of running the layout c1958 (never mind the Corporate Image signage...) , even if there aren't really any spares or coverage. I can field an entirely consistant BR Blue fleet, even if there are a few operational party pieces which still need an item or two of stock, or a rough edge removing. A significantly higher proportion of my stuff actually gets used than was the case 6 or 7 years ago
     
    On the layout itself , various outstanding matters have been sorted out, and Blacklade has been exhibited twice, at a large and a small event, as well as appearing in one of the magazines. Bar a ground signal and an aspect or two, it's a finished layout - and one that normally works pretty reliably these days.
     
    And with another exhibition commitment in less than 2 months, I really ought to be focussed hard on finishing off some projects which are nearly there.
     
    Instead I find myself playing truant and reaching automatically for pen and scrap of paper.
     
    I really shouldn't be contemplating any further projects. Reviving Tramlink and some repair work on the Boxfile ought to be the only diversions to be considered. Space is at a premium in the flat, and I have a great black cloud of unfinished and prospective projects hanging over me:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-5665-the-donkey-and-the-bales-of-straw/
     
    That, it is shocking to realise, was posted 6 years ago now - plus a handful of days. And precisely nothing has happened on any of those fronts (bar Blacklade) in the last 6 years. It's at moments like this that you feel your life running away through your fingers like fine sand.
     
    Well.... yesterday I saw this thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/119680-snack-boxes-are-back-at-ikea/
     
    And I thought the largest size box might make a boxed diorama. It would probably be slightly larger than the boxfile , but really almost the only thing that would work sensibly in such a small space is trams. And trams are unfinished business round my way.
     
    We have been here before.... http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-7164-im-not-committed-to-building-this-you-understand/
     
    Nothing - of course - happened.
     
    Last year my club floated the idea of a "build a 4' x 1' diorama" competition . Since I rarely get up to the club these days I don't know if anything happened. I briefly flirted with the idea of a 1930s N. London tram scene, disappearing round a fierce 180 degree curve to a fiddle yard behind.
     
    And the idea of the tram platforms at Wynyard underground station as a boxed diorama has crossed my mind before - it's just I have one whitemetal kit
    . for which motorisation is less than obvious, and scratchbuilding a fleet of Sydney crossbench cars is "swallow hard" territory. Wynyard in the peak was a very busy place.
     
    But if you combine those ideas with an IKEA "Snack" box.... you might just be cooking with gas. At 57 cm x 37cm x 30cm , there's a fighting chance of finding somewhere suitable in the flat to keep the thing. 37cm wide = 14.5" . Accepted wisdom is that 6" radius is fine for 4 wheel trams , and some bogie cars might squeak round it.
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75301-absolute-novice-help-with-minimum-radius-oo-for-tram/
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75038-tram-tracks/page-2
     
    Allow a bit for the thickness of the sides, assume that the radius is measured at the centre of the track, and you have an inch from there to the edge of the drop-in baseboard
     
    The 180 degree curve is potentially very much on.
     
    Some work with pen and paper this afternoon produced this:

     
    This is very much a "find the problems and limits" sketch, not a final concept. We are in North London, 1933-38. This suits my reference book and the trams I have in the cupboard, and the conduit system avoids the problem of building overhead. I think we are around Highgate - Highgate Hill required the use of 4 wheel cars
     
    Availability of 4 wheel cars is not a problem. I have the Bec LCC B I built many moons ago for Blacklade - the homemade plasticard windscreen has come away anyway, and provided it is stripped back and repainted in LT red , it can pass for one of the ex LCC Bs that London Transport inherited via Bexley. The "bashed" Mehano single decker is closer to a MET E class single decker (as used to Ally Pally) than to the bogie first generation Kingsway Subway cars which inspired the bash. Again strip the paint , tidy up and repaint. I have an LCC stores van, another unbuilt LCC B from ABS, a Keilcraft West Ham kit, and one of Street Level models card kits for an LCC M .
     
    Whether a Feltham could be coaxed round 6" radius seems to be very borderline. Whether an E/1 - for which I have a couple of Tower kits - could be induced to do so . It would be nice if they could. London without an E/1 isn't quite right.
     
    A 4 wheel car is 5" long (I've just measured the Keilcraft roof - as the kit is 1:72 , it's the worst case scenario) . The stub spur at the front is a staging track - it allows trams to disappear "off-scene" to the rest of the system. The idea is that most of the front side-panel will be cut out to provide a framed view into the diorama. The spur track, and any tram sat on it, will be concealed by the frame. A little juggling may be needed to get enough length here to avoid fouling the curve. I think that should be possible - there ought to be an inch or so's "give" on the length
     
    This means handbuilt points, at 6" radius. I tried inserting a commercial point into a 180 degree curve on Ravenser - the much greater radius threw an already tight curve out, and resulted in some very nasty troublemaking geometry. I won't make that mistake again.
     
    Therefore handbuilt points on the depot side. I've assumed 5" long points, as Setrack is 6" . That may be generous . As drawn , the depot will take 4 x 4 wheeler trams. Stabling an E/1 may be an issue. If points are 4" long we're home and dry
     
    David Voice's book describes handbuilt points with full continuous checkrail, - that would preclude using flexible track elsewhere , meaning handbuilt plain track. But that might allow gauge widening on the curve. I don't see how to motorise the sliver-of-nickel-silver single blade he shows. This opens up a nest of problems
     
    DCC or DC ? How easy is it to convert old and new BEC motor units (I've heard it can be done)? Now Beetles are no longer available I have to be cautious and hoard some for DC Kits DMUs
     
    Scenery - I have quite a few card kits for buildings in stock , some of them specifically London models from Streetlevel, some of them low relief. I think the working railway viaduct as scenic break between the two sides is probably a step too far - I don't think there's enough width, though the idea of a Hornby Peckett pushing a couple of wagons up and down is appealing
     
    Nothing - except possibly a lengthy drive to an IKEA to buy some flatpacks - is going to happen till at least April
  3. Ravenser
    [What with a new job and sundry other distractions I've been pretty quiet on here for a while, though a certain amount of modelling has taken place. This entry has been sitting unfinished in draft status for some months - rather than delete the thing I've finally tidied it up and released it into the world out of its time slip....]
     
    I had the layout up and the result was a bout of decoder fitting and test running. And I'm beginning to see why some folk view DCC as black magic.
     
    Four locos or units were involved, plus that long-term problem child the West Yorkshire 155.
     
    First up, the little Hornby J50 which I bought at Ally Pally because I thought the bank might pull the plug on Hornby in the near future so this might be the only batch of the models we ever see. I managed to get a late crest loco for a decent price off Hereford Model Centre - this is a J50/4 and a little online checking reveals that 68982 was at Immingham, Colwick, and Frodingham , probably the only J50/4 with a long term E. Midlands career, most being London engines. Possibly I should have got an early crest J50/3 instead, but the deed is done, and at some point I shall renumber - I just hope that the transfers I have match Hornby's printing and I only need to change the last digit
     
    I had a TCS UK direct plug decoder in stock, so that went in, there was no need to remove any weight,and it runs very nicely.
     
    I have previously toyed with the possibility of using a station pilot when Blacklade runs steam - I have a GBL Jinty and Hornby chassis in stock and wondered about giving them something to do. Once all the decoder fitting was completed I had a kettle operating session and I found that having a shunter as pilot substantially improves operation. It gives you an alternative way of releasing locos when you're boxed in, it's excellent for rearranging parcels vans and a very useful and interesting addition to operating . So I definitely don't regret spending the money: the J50 will see a lot more use than expected.
     
    Here it is in the fuelling point having taken out the LNW set to release a kettle:
     

     
    I was also very pleased with the sudden improvement in reliability when running the kettles. The L1 ran an entire session without falling off, despite it's still unmodified pony truck, the LNW set ran without problems now a bearing has been eased, the MR set behaved itself perfectly and so did the parcels. I found the newly operational electromagnets under platforms 1 and 2 useful to uncouple locos , and generally it was a confidence-building session. The BR Blue period has worked pretty smoothly for a while - now the kettles are getting there, too
     
    I'm even toying with the idea of resurrecting the elderly Bachmann 03 diesel which has been lurking in a drawer since Ravenser Mk1 was dismantled. It will mean hardwiring a decoder and fitting Kadees, but it's very small and I should be able to find somewhere for it to lurk amongst the Blue period stock. There's a Bachmann 08 hiding away in that drawer as well - from the first issue, so there's no socket and hardwiring will again be necessary.
     
    Second up for a decoder was the Replica MLV chassis for the 128. This took a large Gaugemaster decoder, tucked in with double-sided sticky tape, and duly programmed. I found it a distinctly slow-running mechanism until I started doing some tweaks to the motor control on other locos and suddenly discovered that I had input max volts to CV5 as 128 when in fact the values go up to 255. In short I'd halved the maximum voltage... It's been corrected.
     
    Third up for a decoder was the Fowler 2-6-4T which I bought second-hand at Ally Pally a couple of years ago. I took the body off to see what would be involved in hard-wiring the thing - and found that there was a decoder socket in the thing. If I'd known that I'd have had it up and running ages ago....
    A Gaugemaster Opti Small went in this - and the thing barely ran. As it had run pretty happily when I got it (I took the precaution of testing it on the DOGA test track ) I applied a bit of lateral thinking and carefully oiled the valve gear and motion, and anything else that the service sheet said you should oil, using some .033" handrail wire to apply the oil. After two rounds of application, the Fowler tank ran pretty well, though it's not quite as smooth as the L1. I suspect that sustained use will help this over time, since friction in stiff motion is evidently the problem .
     
    The Fowler tank has since received Kadees - another job which I'd been dreading, but which proved surprisingly easy in practice - and is in traffic, replacing the O4 which found the undergauged spot in Platform 3
     
    The fourth loco to get a decoder was a Lima 37, picked up for a song at DEMU Showcase a couple of years ago because it was in two tone Sector grey and carried the number of the intended target loco. That - as far as I can now recall - got one of my last TCS MC2s, since it is a (straightforward) hardwired installation. As this is a vintage Lima ringfield mechanism - albeit a sweet-running one -the speed curve had to be tweaked to hold down the volts at the midpoint : this means that the loco is much more controllable in much finer gradations at lower speeds. In fact you have to get past speed step 90 before you are going to see any surge in speed. On an 8'6" long layout nothing ever gets turned up that far. Whatever may have been the case for Spinal Tap my PowerCab doesn't go to 11....
     
    One problem did emerge during test running - a tendency for the unpowered bogie to derail in platform 3 (yes that bit of track again) . This was tackled by adding the weight taken out of the 155 when I rebuilt the underframe. Unfortunately this proved a bit too much for the motor to handle with comfort, and I resorted to cutting down the weight to about 2/3rd size with a hacksaw. Although a silver metal on the outside , inside it was a soft dark grey metal. It couldn't be lead, of course. After all no Chinese factory would dream of breaking health and safety regs by electroplating a lead weight to disguise what it was....
     
    And so to the 155 , which simply refused to move when taken to the club test tracks a few months before. I put it on the tracks . I checked the programming . It ran fine . I checked if DC was enabled . It was. I have no idea why it refused to run on DC previously.....
     
    (But the wretched thing still derails on a 3' radius crossover, so it needs a third attempt at inter-unit Kadees. I do have some Parkside mounting blocks to take NEM swallow tail sockets, and I hope that will solve the problem
  4. Ravenser
    The Hachette Mark 1 has now been finished, with interior painted
     
     
     
     
     
    And here's the results. There is a problem , but it isn't obvious:
     

     

     
    When I was weathering the underframe somehow a touch of weathering wash got onto the sides. I cleaned it off with white spirit but the panel was still discoloured. I cleaned the whole panel back to plastic and revarnished - still a marked grey discolouration. I cleaned back and rubbed down with ultrafine gritpaper and revarnished - still clearly discoloured.
     
    I then found that Railmatch BR maroon is noticeably darker , and rather more purple. I brightened it up with some Railmatch Royal Mail red, mixed to a good match by eye, and repainted the panel.
     
    It's not an absolute match. In most lights you can't see a difference , and you can't see it on the photos. (It's the long panel under the 4 large windows on the left, by the way). But stick the coach under a fluorescent daylight lamp at a range of 6" and the side is pinkish and the patch is redder. And in some lights you can see a slight difference of colour between the door and adjacent panel.
     
    If anyone had patch-repainted a panel on the real thing after it had spent a while in traffic I reckon this is exactly the effect you'd get. But I can find no photographic evidence of such local emergency patching on coaching stock - and if it had gone near a main works they'd have done a full repaint. In the 1960s there were no graffiti or "tags" - that didn't start till the early 80s.
     
    So after feeling very pleased with how this had scrubbed up, I now feel considerably deflated with a bodged model. But I'm going to leave it "as is" for the moment because you can only see it if you know exactly what you are looking for and where to look. If I notice something when I bring it out again in a few months time having forgotten the incident - there's an issue. If I don't spot it and simply don't notice the issue when I'm not consciously looking for it - then it'll pass.
     
    While all this was going on, I got rather alarmed about the darkness and seeming purpleness of Railmatch BR Maroon. Especially as I'd just bought a spray can of the stuff for the Porthole Brake Third. So I dug the Coopercraft Gresley Tourist Brake Third out of the cupboard, gave the back of the sides a coat of Faded Rail Red - a nice pink shade, to boost opacity and act as an undercoat to relieve an over dark maroon - then one, two coats of BR Maroon on the front, carefully touching round the windows with a small brush - and yes it does need at least 3 brush coats for opacity, like Tony Wright said...
     
    By which time I'd concluded I was probably committed to building the thing. I know I can do a plastic coach kit...
     
    So far I've carefully built a set of Gresley bogies, and added a Comet whitemetal ducket, because I had to buy a packet of 10 for the Porthole Brake, which only needs 2
     
    Speaking of which, as promised here is the MTK Porthole brake kit as unpacked....
     

  5. Ravenser
    A large part of the problem with this unit is the underframe, and the black box masquerading as a large part of it . This was fouling a point motor casting on the layout [quite possibly the one I've now resited] so it needed to go if the unit was ever to run again, quite apart from the fact it looks unrealistic and unsightly.
     
    Fortunately I had two packs of MTK castings on hand . Not all of the castings are actually needed, since the engine blocks and a number of the boxes are already free-standing mouldings. And some of the castings are no use to man nor beast - especially the 4 cast whitemetal dartboards which are supplied in lieu of air tanks. The definitive proof that Dapol sent a development model to China for tooling which used a set of MTK castings is provided by the presence of these same curious dartboards on the RTR model.
     
    The black boxes simply unscrew and drop away, which is great. That on the power car contains a great shiny rough-cast block of a soft but very dense metal. It couldn't possibly be lead - the notoriously rigorous Chinese H&S regulations , tightly enforced by vigilant and incorruptible officials, would never permit that. But there's a lot of weight there and it needs replacing.
     
    I've araldited in place the replacement castings, built up the fuel tank to a box and stuffed in some more lead - fixed with more araldite. I've also removed the moulded underframe exhaust pipe and silencer and replaced them with the equivalent MTK: it looks slightly better and every bit of weight helps . I've left the Dapol/Hornby moulded exhausts on the end - although there is no fat cylindrical section (filter? silencer?) on these, there isn't on the MTK castings either so there's no point in changing them.
     
    The metal plate between the chassis and the seating moulding has been replaced with lead flashing to compensate for the considerable weight lost when removing the black box beneath. Electrical insulation tape has been wrapped round the edges to protect the wires from the trailing bogie which run alongside - I don't want any sharp edges cutting through wires from the pickups. One slight drawback to all of this is that the lead is not rigid and therefore the power car chassis is now a little flexible in a way that it wasn't, even when the seating unit is screwed back into place.
     
    Here's a view of the finished result:

     
    I've also filed down and refitted all the glazing along the sides to achieve a flush result. It was an awful lot of work, and I must admit that I'm now in two minds about the result, especially where the main side windows are concerned. It is not nearly as neat as I would wish, and it does rather shout "hand-made!" at you. It's more accurate, but I'm not confident it's a lot more convincing. I'm seriously thinking about leaving the main windows alone if I tackle my second, long-forgotten, 155 at some time in the future. The small windows in the doors would still need doing, but when surrounded by a very dark blue the main windows are much less obvious and the RTR finish is much neater than I can achieve. The Hornby Pacers, where the inset of the windows is much greater, and the number of windows involved much smaller , are another matter.
     
    Further upgrading work on the ends involved fitting etched gangway plates robbed from an A1 Models 156 upgrade kit (I have all the necessary bits for a 156 in the Hurst kit someone on here sold me), and adding Hurst cast brass snowploughs. The projecting lugs on the latter around which you pour superglue gel need filing down a little to get the chassis to seat neatly at the ends.
     
    One key upgrade, though a fairly simple one, addresses the problem that Dapol simply omitted the solebars and extended the bodyshell down to where the bottom of the solebars should be. The chassis clips inside as if this were an integral construction coach like a Mk2 - which it's not.
     
    The traditional fix for this is to paint on a fake solebar, which is what I've done, using Tamiya masking tape and brush painted Revell anthracite - a useful "off-black". I also added lifting points over the bogies with scraps of 40 thou plasticard filed to the body profile (These actually now help to get the body off)
     
    Roof aerial plates (A1 etch) have also been added. Snowploughs from Hurst Models brass castings (remember Hurst Models?) were deferred as I was hoping to get the unit ready for Blacklade's first show, so I could display multiple unit working with a 155 + 153 consisted.
     
    However the 155 had other ideas and fought back at the last moment, stopping dead......
  6. Ravenser
    Over the last few years I've been very consciously trying to rein in my spending on the hobby, and reduce the pile of stuff in my cupboard. Money has been tight at times, and a couple of short periods of unemployment have brought home to me that I have accumulated an awful lot of unbuilt kits and bits over the years, and that I have made very limited progress with building them.
     
    "Don't buy - build!" has been the watchword.
     
    I'm afraid that my good intentions have not been fully realised.
     
    To be honest Moral Restraint has turned me into a bit of a sucker for the cheap, elderly, and questionable.
     
    Yes, I bought a Hachette Mk1
     
    (And a Great British Locos Jinty and D11/2, and a Hornby 0-6-0T with a dubious shunter body in dayglo livery in order to motorise the former)
     
    The thinking was that this coach might become part of a "modern" mainline set for the steam period on Blacklade. Since the steam period is a not terribly authentic spin-off anyway I wasn't prepared to pay for a Hornby Railroad Mk1 , let alone a pukka Bachmann one. But a Hachette second with flush-glazing for a fiver wasn't bad - especially as I already had a NNK plastic Mk1 underframe truss in stock anyway.
     
    I fitted Hornby wheels and Kadees - and there the matter rested , with the underframe untouched and the coach in a box in the study
     
    The Hachette Mk1 was supposed to be paired with a Mailcoach LNER Tourist Brake 3rd kit which I picked up at Ally Pally for a very reasonable price from a trader a couple of years ago. Fancied the stock, plenty of seats, compatible gangways - seemed like a plan
     
    But then I learnt that those kits are not highly regarded, getting a decent result is thought difficult - and I had plenty of other, more urgent jobs to do involving things in Rail Blue. So there the matter rested....
     
    Until recently , when I thought I'd got a great bargain: an LMS Porthole Brake 3rd kit in the form of a
    punched aluminium bodyshell with bits - almost all complete said the trader, and just a fiver.
     
    BSL kits had a good reputation, and I used to gaze enviously at the Hobbytime adverts in the Modeller when I was very young, listing all sorts of wonderful pre-nationalisation coaches, all quite out of my reach.
     
    I was rather deflated when someone pointed out the MTK sticker on the header card. Aaarghh - garlic and silver crucifix, quick! But he assured me these particular were thought to be quite buildable.
     
    So I got it home, opened the packet , and took a look. You can see the contents here:
     
    First assessment: all the bits that should be in the kit are there except one of the guard's duckets. The coach requires an interior and wheels. I've a packet of Hornby wheels and a rummage in the boxes in the cupboard revealed I'd enough spare bits in the various Comet interior packs I have to cover a 4 compartment brake
     
    Second assessment: the quality of the castings is quite reasonable, given MTK's very dubious reputation. The buffers are a bit basic, but I have plenty of Comet LMS buffers left over from the Dapol Brake 3rd. The gangways are rubber and passable but I found a Roxey pack for two pairs of working LMS/GW gangways . Only one end needs to work, anyway. The vac cylinders aren't great but I found a generic ABS pack in stock which will be an improvement. I have Comet etched crossframes left over from the Dapol Brake 3rd
     
    So far so good. None of these upgrade bits will cost me anything extra
     
    The bodyshell seems to be 2mm overlength, but I'll live with that . A scale drawing is included with the kit, which might even be accurate.
     
    I've bought a Comet detailing etch which will give me hinges, a gangway plate and one or two other bits and pieces, plus a pack of 10 Comet guards duckets , said to be LMS/LNER. Total cost , just under eleven quid
     
    In the meantime, whilst I'm awaiting a pack of transfers from Modelmaster, attention has turned to the Hachette Mk1.
     

     
    As can be seen, I've dismantled it - unscrewing the 3 screws below (two of which are hidden under the bogies) proved an easier route than trying to lever off the roof. The solid trussing has been cut away piece by piece with Xurons - on my model the battery boxes and brake cylinders are very firmly glued in
     
    I sharpened up a fairly blunt chisel blade on a small oilstone to clean up the remains, and duly got Blood On My Hands when the blade slipped and my finger demonstrated that the sharpening had indeed worked. I do have a tin of Birds Custard Powder in the cupboard, but this one's staying in maroon
     
    I then glued in place the replacement underframe truss from Precision/NNK (4PM/022, and still available on their website), trimming around the battery boxes and with some fettling to get the brake cylinder shafts in place, and we get this:
     

     
    I really will get around to writing up the current state of the 155 at some point...
     
    I've also removed the end handrails and water-fillers prior to replacement in wire. The interior will be painted and populated
  7. Ravenser
    I've been pretty busy on the hobby front in the last few weeks. The trouble is that it hasn't involved making any models....
     
    A few weeks back I was helping with the DOGA stand at a show in the Midlands, which meant a couple of days away. Very nice and hopefully productive, some nice layouts , and I was a good boy on the spending front.
     
    Then the following day someone from one of the magazines came over to photograph the layout for an article, which will (I hope) appear in the next few months. This meant that the week before my show trip was spent frantically tidying up the flat cleaning the layout and the stock, and sorting out one or two minor issues - a dummy point motor reseated so that it doesn't foul the underframe boxes on the coaches (which it was doing in one direction) , and one of the accessory decoders remounted - I'd initially fitted it with double-sided tape, which NCE and Tortoise assure us is adequate for mounting purposes, but it must have shaken loose on the way back from the show. It's now held on with two screws as well.
     
    I've written the article, and gone through it three or four times to ensure it reads as easily as possible, unnecessary words are taken out and as much as possible covered within the word limit (I could have probably filled another 500 words, to be honest). Copies of the photos came by post - I've done the captions and the whole lot has gone off to the magazine
     
    After that came the club show and two days of stewarding and help breaking down.
     
    I'm afraid the cheque book suffered this time - when working with the etches for the 128 I was reminded yet again that a bending tool for etches would be very useful. So I treated myself to the smallest size of Hold And Fold - I'm not intending to build any 7mm etched brass Pacifics, so that should be adequate for my needs
     
    And given the shakiness of Hornby I decided I would definitely buy a J50, as there's a risk this might be the only chance I ever get. It's not a loco I definitely "need" but I've occasionally toyed with the idea of a cheap Lima body detailed on some chassis, so - I grabbed an early crest J50/4 off a boxshifter at a good price. A bit of renumbering will be required but 68982 seems to have been allocated to Colwick, Immingham and Frodingham at various times. That will do - I just hope Modelmaster numbers are the same size as Hornby's tampo printing, otherwise I'll have to replace the whole number
     
    Then there's my embarrassing little purchase. Someone had a couple of second hand coach kits for LMS Portholes - punched aluminium bodyshell affairs that I thought were BSL, and a fiver for a Brake Third seemed a great bargain
     
    Unfortunately it's actually MTK . Next time, read the label
     
    Blacklade runs very smoothly with DMUs. We're more or less there with the 31s and loco-hauled trains, though the Airfix 31 is a little sticky - no doubt attributable to its mechanism (I am starting to wonder if a drop of oil may be needed again), and I have had very occasional thoughts that a 25 might be an idea
     
    But the steam stock still has some bugs to be shaken out of it. The L1's pony truck is a particular offender, though it seems this is a well-known issue with various fixes being tried.
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51794-Hornby-l1-front-bogie-derailing/
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87326-Hornby-l1/
     
    (This is by way of a note to myself, so I can find the threads again) .
     
    I was somewhat less than chuffed to discover that Hornby's Fowler 2-6-4T has the same arrangement: that's supposed to be near the front of the queue for a decoder in order to improve the motive power situation
     
    And I'm even more convinced that the MERG accessory decoder must come out - rebooting the layout after a short is getting very tedious
  8. Ravenser

    DC Kits 128 - Bodyshell

    By Ravenser,

    [This is my third attempt at posting this - both the previous two having been wiped and returned to an incomplete draft entry by the software correction]
     
    Progress so far is shown below . Put simply - we have a bodyshell.
     
    I'm not sure it's absolutely perfect but as this project boils down to a bodyshell on a Replica MLV chassis with trimmings, it's a decent start.
     

     
    Bodyshell assembly has been slow . You get four half-sides, two cabs and a roof. The roof has to be cut to length , and then - as I found - you have the fun and games of making sure the cab ends fit square to the roof in both planes, and filing back the roof a millimetre or so in order to match the length of the sides - which at this stage are being dry assembled in a dummy run as a check
     
    It is possible that Charlie has a niche market of Hindu gods residing in West Yorkshire and modelling Modernisation Plan BR multiple units - ideally this assembly process would require 3-4 hands and I come with only two. The instructions recommend that you build down from the roof, and that all the vertical joints between the half sides and the cab are only glued together at a late stage. In other words you have lots of bits of ABS hanging off the gutter and waggling about in the breeze.
     
    The instructions suggest that you assemble the lot on a flat surface. This should be excellent advice: unfortunately I can't quite see how it can be easily combined with building down from the roof using ABS and Plastic Weld. Quite simply by the time you've got the brush to the joint you're frightened there won't be enough solvent left to weld anything, and by the time you can turn it upside down and get it to a flat surface you're irretrievably committed with the joint. There is zero adjustment time.
     
    In short I have a bodyshell that, despite my best efforts at adjustment when welding up the vertical joints, is about 0.5mm out of square diagonally across the corners. Under normal circumstances I'd just shrug my shoulders and reflect that the bogies hang off the floor and flex, it will stay on the track, and nobody will ever notice the very slight twist in the body. However this body is going on a dead square chassis block with a protruding solebar :
     
    I'm hoping that the spacer pieces which I've added inside the bodyshell will push the sides out and straighten the body, and that there will be no visible misalignment against the solebar
     
    A word of warning - the MLV chassis is surprisingly fragile in places . When I tried to pull the coupling out of the NEM pocket the whole coupling assembly came away and one of the mounting rings broke . I've reassembled it and it seems to be holding. Since the maximum load this unit will take is 1 x GUV/NRX + 1 x CCT drawbar pull should be limited and I'm hoping the coupling will be okay
     
    More seriously I found that one bogie was tilted. When I attempted to snap it back into place I found that the mounting bracket above the bogie pivot had broken on one side. The plastic is hard and shiny and I reckoned that superglue was the only option, but it was necessary to force it over with a jewellers screwdriver to get it into place against the break, and it seemed to take an eternity before any bond started to form
     
    eventually, in desperation, I dropped a sliver of microstrip into the joint - and the whole lot bonded firm in about 20 sec.
     
    Presumably this bridged the joint , and meant that there was only a thin layer of cyanoacrylate to bond
  9. Ravenser
    Well, I've actually made a start on something . When Heljan announced their 128, Charlie Petty announced an offer on his 128 kit, pairing it with the then new Replica MLV chassis to give an easy build unit. So I bought one. And it's been sitting in its box, next cab but two off the rank, ever since.
     
    As it's now very close to the top of the to do list http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-17246-new-years-resolutions-version-81/ I' ve got out the box and made a start. It seemed a lot more promising than another bout with the 155
     
    And I'm starting to wonder why I've put it off for so long, because this isn't a hugely complex kit. I don't have to worry about getting it to run - the MLV chassis should take care of that , and its DCC ready as a bonus. There are NEM pockets. The basic bodyshell is 6 bits plus a roof. The livery will be plain blue. This is all eminently do-able.
     
    Needless to say I've created a few complications for myself
     
    Prototype inspiration is here , taken at Manchester Piccadilly on 10/4/85 according to the back of the photo. I'm reasonably certain this is 55994
     

     
    Now as you can see this is one of the 5 gangwayed cars ordered for the WR, with the gangway removed and plated over. All of the ex LMR cars built without gangways and with full cabs had gone by this point: the WR still had two of its batch, which retained their gangways, and the LMR had three, which had lost them
     
    Since Blacklade is somewhere in the Midlands I needed an LMR allocated unit , with plated ends
     
    Charlie sold me a kit with LMR ends on the basis that this would be easier to convert to the plated ends than the fully gangwayed WR ends. But 55994 retained her headcode boxes till the end - and scratchbuilding these onto the moulded ends would be a very awkward job to get right. However photographs show 55993 lost the boxes and had simple marker lights and 55995 seems to have been the same.
     
    Unfortunately I had removed the marker lights on one end preparatory to attempting split headcode boxes before I spotted these other photos. There were two packets of class 50 marker light castings in the box that I had sourced at some stage and these have been superglued in place as replacements on both ends. I'm not sure they're quite right, but they are the best fix I can now attempt. The centre of each cab has been plated over with 10 thou plasticard - I have virtually none left now , and it doesn't seem to be commonly on sale
     
    Here are the bits and the modified cab ends:
     

    Having now checked through what I have I notice that there are no engine castings and no bogie sideframes. Since Charlie Petty has all his kit material packed away in storage there's no hope of sourcing replacement bits from DC Kits, so it's a question of improvisation.
     
    I have an unbuilt Kitmaster kit for a Mk1 SK in my cupboard. I was always intending to replace the bogies with MJT Commonwealths , and I now have - somewhere - some development etched H-frame bogies with which to do the job.
    This means I can use the Kitmaster sideframes for the 128.
     
    Goulding's drawings are a bit basic around the bogies but the wheelbase and general style are the same. Some modification will be needed to cut away the tie bars and the representation of brake shoes , and I need to round the axleboxes and maybe add a couple of vertical strips to the frame. It won't be spot on - the bolster is different - but it should provide an approximation. I don't think there's any other source of suitable sideframes
     
    What I do about the engine is a good question . I suspect it will involve Milliput and probably plasticard, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
     
    There's going to be a certain amount of approximation on this model. If I were working in P4 , no doubt I would be Damaging The Hobby and I might even have Blood On My Hands - especially if I slip with the scalpel while bodging the bogies.
     
    But I'm in OO, and I'm hoping for something that very much looks the part
  10. Ravenser
    It's that time of the year again when I contemplate the modelling cupboard, and mortality and start muttering bits of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress".
     
    Virtually nothing has been done on the modelling front since I got back from Gaydon on 11th October. Post-show exhaustion, helping on the DOGA stand at two large shows , the DOGA half-yearly, a busy time at work, minor controversies , other interests, the run up to Christmas and being away with family during it have seen to that.
     
    The only jobs that have been done are to remount the Kadees on the Airfix 31 so it couples to the stock reliably, and to lower one of the Knightwing point motor castings so stock doesn't clip it. The Digitrax DS64 accessory decoder is still in its packet on top of the cupboard
     
    However I should have a lot more time to do some modelling in the coming months, so it's sensible to take stock and sort out a task list.
     
    Actually I already have two - the original pre-show list and the fault list from the show . So perhaps I should make a start.....
     
    The main task list ended up with three blocks, depending on how critical they were to the show and whether they looked like quick wins. Inevitably things from the first block got left and things from the second got done...
     
    Still outstanding from the Basic List then:
     
    - is the W Yorkshire 155. I'm at least 2 substantial postings behind in terms of writing up progress to date, but the current state of play is that I have an almost complete unit on which the connecting plugs for the Express Models lighting kit are fouling the gangways and causing derailment on any curve. And the motor bogie, which stopped dead before the show, and was diagnosed and fixed at the show with the Chairman's assistance, is now dead as a doornail again. I took it up to the Half-Yearly at Keen House to give it a run round the test tracks and get to grips with the problem of the lighting cable - and it sat there and refused to budge.
     
    Possibly the DC running function has been disabled on the decoder, possibly the thing has seized again, and possibly the problem is beyond the wit of man to solve. At which point I may find myself fitting a replacement Black Beatle and contemplating full-scale reconstruction of the bogies and more internal seating
     
    - A clutch of items are interlinked - and as they weren't relevant to the show they were left. The second board of Tramlink needs rewiring and while I'm about it a point motor installing .
     
    That will then give me a meaningful DC test track back, all of 6' long . At which point I can proceed with DCC installations on the Lima 37 and the Fowler 2-6-4T . From there is becomes possible to run them on Blacklade and start to think about Kadee couplings and upgrading the 37
     
    The rest of the Basic List is done, so we can move on to consider the Second Tranche:
     
    - The Baby Deltic really needs finishing off - it was dropped from the Basic List because it wasn't directly relevant to the show. But it might be useful to have a DC test track while doing so
     
    - And I need to build the DC Kits 128 I've had in stock for several years, and which has always been "next but one cab off the rank". Now I have a completed NRX van I need this to work it, and it would give me some more convenient options for consisting with my Modernisation Plan units: 128+101 or 108 is more convenient than 2 x 2 car units
     
    - Express Models lights fitted to the W Yorkshire 158 are another fairly small job with operational benefits - though in view of the problems with the 155 I will need to make sure that the inter-vehicle connection does not foul the ends of the vehicles on curves. (This unit has been closed up as far as I can with Kadees). I've decided there's no point fitting Kadees on the outer ends as the mechanism in the 158 is completely incompatible with the 153s, and 2 x 2 car units won't fit on the layout when the vehicles are 23m long. (It's not really a proper fit even with 57' vehicles).
     
    - The 150 can't be closed up because of the electric coupling bar. However I do have some A1 Models gangways in stock which can be fitted to sort out the gap. Not perfect but an improvement.
     
    As far as the layout fault list is concerned
     
    - The DS64 accessory decoder needs to go in. Some slight adjustments to the Knightwing point motor castings have been made but more may be called for.
     
    - The couplings on the olive Shark keep parting. I've made one attempt to fix this but will have to try again (the issue seems to be that the plough is deflecting the tail of the Kadee on the other vehicle)
     
    - The existing DS64 was held in place with double-sided sticky tape and this has failed
     
    - The Airfix 31 has caught on the platform edge at the entrance to Platform 3
     
    That then brings us to the Third Tranche - the stuff that last autumn seemed to be over the hills and far away.
     
    - I need to finish the rebuild of the Provincial Pacer with a new Branchlines chassis that was started ages ago
     
    - Weather the 108, paint the interior and add passengers
     
    - The fiddle yard track on the boxfile is damaged and needs replacing. Flexible track for this is already in stock
     
    - Now I have a Hurst Models upgrade kit, I can sort out the 156. This will be a fairly major project
     
    - Finish the WD road van. This took a tumble off the bookshelf and some repairs are needed as well. One for warmer days, given the danger of working resin indoors
     
    - Assuming I can't tweak the current stock, I will need to replace the point into the cripple siding on Tramlink with something gentler and relay the siding itself. I have a point in stock - Streamline small radius live frog - which would be a significant easement , but involves chipping out old track. All a bit messy - which is why I've fought shy of tackling this for a long time. I did think of using Peco's recent code 75 concrete sleeper track , but ripping up all the track and completely relaying and re-ballasting is more than I have a heart for (I'm not Coachmann)
     
    - Insert a Hornby 0-6-0 chassis into the Great British Locos Jinty, and perhaps even getting a DCC decoder into it.
     
    This highlights one issue - I'm getting a bit stale. Blacklade has been my main modelling project , and indeed for much of the time my only one, for about 7 or 8 years. It might be nice to strike out with a fresh challenge. But with such a backlog , and so much other stuff in the cupboard a completely new direction seems a bad idea.
     
    Trying to finish off Tramlink, and knock the bugs out of it would give me a project that's quite different, but which is 60% done already - and it wouldn't add to the oppressive burden of unfinished projects . I haven't built a building in ages......
  11. Ravenser

    First Night Nerves

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    The layout has been to its first show. We survived. (Actually it went quite well.)
     
    Some years ago I was involved with a rather unhappy club project. That layout's career culminated in a disastrous trip to a show as a part built item. Some of us in the group had hoped that this would mark a turning point in the project and that we could put on a good show for the public to re-establish some credibility. Unfortunately that was not to be, as someone who technically was not part of the group unilaterally decided to rewire one end of the fiddle yard and replace the control panel software during set-up. Neither worked, and having left the clubroom on the Thursday with a working layout I walked into the hall on the Saturday morning to be greeted with "We've just run our first test train: there are only 3 roads working in the fiddle yard, and you can only use them from that end."
     
    There were other problems, and in retrospect that awful weekend was the beginning of the end for both the group and the project. At a personal level I spent three-quarters of an hour pacing up and down my room that Saturday night vowing that when I finally extricated myself from the project I was never, ever, going to be involved in any way ever again with any kind of layout group or group layout..
     
    So it's fair to say that I have a lot of what Aussie cricketers call "mental scarring" where exhibiting, exhibition layouts, and operational reliability are concerned, and my attitude in recent years to the whole business of exhibiting has been rather ambivalent
     
    Yes, Blacklade can actually be fitted into the back of my car. Yes, in principle the layout could be exhibited. Yes, it has in fact been taken to a couple of small informal closed events on a "show and tell and run some trains" basis. But - I've not actually done anything to get it invited to any shows, or even tidied up a few loose ends that were left outstanding. If the idea of exhibiting ever crossed my mind I was inclined simply to lie down in a darkened room until it went away......
     
    That was until the chairman of a group I belong to volunteered me for the high-jump.
     
    The society was going to mount a presence at a largish show. The stand would be there, and so would be a couple of layouts owned by members. There was even to be a small dedicated room. Excellent news , and a venture emphatically to be supported.
     
    Then it appeared there was a small glitch. It seemed that there was some kind of small gap.
     
    At which point I get an email from the chairman: "How long's your layout?".
     
    To which I made the mistake of replying - "8'6" " .
     
    "Right , you're going to Middlemarch".
     
    After which there was a reassuring silence for about 6 weeks. Then an email from the organisers arrived. Details and photos were sent back to them, with which they seemed happy , and I received a formal invitation. The first symptoms of panic appeared.
     
    The first task was to tidy up some minor electrical work - detailed here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-16577-electrifying/
     
    Then there was the question of drapes - which was ably dealt with by my operator and his wife.
     
    That sort of cleared the decks on the layout front.
     
    There were various administrative matters to attend to, but basically my attention could be focussed on stock. How productively is another matter.
     
    The big effort was a desperate attempt to push the 155 on to completion, since that would give me a spare unit to play with. More precisely - the layout was to be shown as BR Blue modern image layout, c1985-90, since that's the suite of stock that's more or less complete. For that period the red and silver wave West Yorkshire PTE livery on the 158 is strictly incorrect (although it doesn't jar); however the 155 is in the earlier red with white stripe and would be spot on. Having it in service would also allow me to consist, with 155+153; and that formation fits neatly in Platform 3 and in one road of the fiddle yard. Even better, if I could build my DC Kits 128 I could run 3 car Modernisation Plan formations by consisting it with my 2 car units.
     
    Sadly it was not to be. I'm at least 2 blog postings behind on the 155, but suffice it to say that by the weekend before the show I had pushed it to the point where I had started test-running the chassis - at which point it suddenly died and refused to report CVs. A desperate rushed installation of the new decoder (which I had hoped to avoid till after the show) ended with a dead chassis and the decoder refusing to report CVs. Frantic testing with a multimeter could reveal no shorts and no missing connections. Having apparently blown two decoders in quick succession, I could go no further.
     
    Meanwhile unexpected pressure of work meant that the 128 had dropped off the to-do list entirely.
     
    Back to layout administration. I had knocked up a layout description and emailed it to the organisers for the programme (though they lopped off my opening flourish "Welcome to BR's "crumbling edge of quality" - wholly appropriate I think as description of what I'm trying to portray")
     
    With a new operator, and first time out on the circuit, it seemed prudent to arrange some operator training.
     
    So my main operator came over one Saturday when he was en route to an evening engagement nearby, and we spent a couple of hours running the layout and going through the various party-piece moves and recovery measures. One further issue showed its face - he had only just bought a PowerCab and this was the first time he had tried using one in anger. As we had 2 PowerCabs available, I tried operating with his PowerCab as a "slave" handset. This works , but there is quite a crippling lag in response with the "slave" handset. Another consideration was that all the route macros are on my PowerCab . We agreed he would bring his Powercab to the show as a backup, but mine would be used for operation unless it failed.
     
    The layout behaved absolutely faultlessly throughout the afternoon- much to my surprise and relief. My decorative spirit thermometer was reading about 24 degrees - I suspect that the points may actually be heat-sensitive, since when I was struggling with point throw during the summer the ambient temperature was commonly 25-28 degrees
     
    One absolute essential for a DCC layout, at least in my book, is a sheet for the operators listing every single item of traction, with number and DCC address. Otherwise nobody knows what they're doing. I drew one up in Word as a table, and emailed it to a fellow exhibitor for plastic lamination. The address sheet shows the TOPS number, class, TOC/Livery and address, with a column showing whether the item does or doesn't have lights, and another one showing the consisting code . (see here) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-16399-multiple-as-in-diesel-multiple-unit/
     
    Since I envisage the sheets being used at future shows I added several other items likely to be finished in the near future (e.g. the 128) with a warning mark
     
    The exhibitor's paperwork arrived about a week beforehand. Wheels were cleaned during the week before, and I assembled an emergency toolkit - strictly out of duplicate tools in case I somehow lost the lot
     
    And so to the event itself.
     
    I loaded everything into the car on Thursday evening, and drove into work the next morning: since I have to park in the street on an industrial estate I draped a blanket over the boards and took the holdall with the stock into the office. I left work a little after 1pm , and was soon onto the motorway. An hour into the drive I stopped at a leafy service station for water and a sandwich , then pressed on as the gantry signs were warning of delays ahead - that proved to be a false alarm, and I was checking into the accommodation, a Holiday Inn in a nearby spa town, by 4 o'clock.
     
    I then got a phone-call from my main operator to say he was already at the venue, which was open for setting up, so I drove out with everything to get Blacklade set up.
     
    The venue, a modern museum in open country,, is one of the glitziest places I've seen used for an exhibition; but its one big drawback is that it is cut up into various relatively small rooms - in that respect it was more like the typical school venue. We were in a dedicated room at one end of the venue, with three other society layouts and the stand. For exhibition purposes Blacklade sits on tables (the legs are a bit embarrassing) and two tables (phew) had been provided. Blocking out had not yet been done and proved a little fluid, but to cut a long story I pushed the tables against the wall, set up the layout along the front edge - remember Blacklade is a maximum of 1' wide, narrowing to 5" at the central board joint - and got all the electrical equipment plugged in.
     
    Here we are - I was tense, nervous and uncertain, and not really up for recording every moment for posterity in case I fell flat on my face, so this is the only photo.

     
    I had brought two clip-on lights, but to be honest the lighting in the room was so good that we decided they actually detracted from the overall effect and they went back in the bag. Stock went on the layout, the track was cleaned (do it the other way round) and I did a little test running. Coupled with operator training in recovery measures and stock recognition (Do not assume that a steam-age modeller knows what a 101 is)
     
    We managed to get a short on the station board. That knocked out the MERG decoder , all points on that board dead - unplug PowerCab and 16V auxiliary supply, plug back in, reboot. . Test decoder's back in business- try Point 3.
     
    Point 3 doesn't move. Try point 3 the other way.
     
    Point 3 doesn't respond. Sits there silent and still. Points 1 and 2 throw. Try again in rising panic. A 2 day show with one point on the station board dead and my longest platform locked out of use....
     
    Desperate measures taken. Clear the stock, tip up the layout. I had an earlier problem with intermittent failure of one output to respond . I solved it by moving the point concerned - this point - to the spare output. I'll have to put it back on the old output and hope to limp through the show with all the route macros out of sync.
     
    I had actually removed the first wire when the penny dropped. The point concerned was now on output 4 . Point 3 didn't throw - because output 3 isn't connected to anything. It's now point 4. But as I only ever use the route macros, I hadn't remembered that. Point 4 - throws.
     
    Panic over - stock back on the layout , and we head out of the venue, back to the hotel, and to a local waterside pub with decent food.
     
    The next morning, after an excellent breakfast with operators and adjacent layouts (including the striking sight of Simon Kohler sharing a table with his successor) we headed off to the venue and were in place for 9:30
     
    The first hour, when I was operating, was not good. The Airfix 31 would not stay coupled to the loco-hauled set, due to misalignment of the Kadees. It wouldn't stay coupled to the engineers' train either , thanks to the plough interfering with Kadee tails. (I thought I had sorted that). The parcels derailed. We had several renditions of the Hokey Cokey with the power supplies to the PowerCab and 16V auxiliary bus in order to reset the MERG decoder. A matter of 15 seconds each time, but I was getting tense and edgy given the need to deliver reliability in front of the public, and that tends to result in operator error.
     
    After an hour I handed over to another operator, and took the wretched 155 with me in quest of Digitrains. The venue was by this time packed tight with people, and traders were busy, but I left the unhappy thing with them to test the decoder, having bought a Gaugemaster budget decoder to supply a harness with which to test the TCS MC2.
     
    I also bought a little plasticard with a view to inserting it into the offending Kadee on the 31 to pack it up. That didn't work, so loco-hauleds were canned for the day and we dropped back to a plain vanilla DMU operation. From then on, Blacklade ran more or less without any problems until the end of the day - the only remaining issues being caused by an operator forgetting to set the route or moving the wrong unit. When I returned to Digitrains late on the day, the crush had eased and they confirmed that the decoder was not merely alive but running very happily on their test rig.
     
    We shut down for the day ,and went up to the exhibitors reception. This I think would have been improved by providing something a little more substantive to eat - certainly despite it being billed as a 2 hour affair I think pretty well everyone had gone after an hour. We were with the operators from the other layouts in our room, but somehow folk didn't seem to mingle, and I didn't meet anyone from other layouts. After this we headed back to the hotel and off to the pub for our evening meal. On the way I spotted one of those punning names that you only find on layouts - a local solicitor named Wright Hassell (Just say it... ) Someone is clearly modelling in 305mm to the foot scale.
     
    Sunday began with a determined effort to get the 155 into traffic. A seized armature was diagnosed, oil applied and the whole thing run for 5 minutes to loosen it up. This seemed very promising : unfortunately the plug of the Express Models lighting kit was catching across the gangway and derailing the unit, so that was that, and it went back in the box. On the plus side I remembered that I'd packed a 20 as spare loco, and while it wasn't suitable for passenger trains the oil tank and a limited parcels service could be reinstated. Watching it drift slowly down from the fuelling point into Platform 1 was very satisfying.
     
    Sunday was busy but not quite such a crush and we ran through the day pretty comfortably, with operators changing hourly. This meant we all got a reasonable chance to see the show and the standard was high . It isn't possible to mention all the excellent layouts present - a number of them have operators who are members of this forum - but one layout quite new to me which caught my eye was Sydney Gardens - a finely modelled diorama of an elegant part of Bath which happens to have the GW main line running through it. Cavalcade layouts normally leave me cold, but here the outstanding setting was modelled so well that it was an admirable foil to the trains (I have seen it suggested that Brunel deliberately designed this section as a showcase for the GWR, displaying his railway to the gentry taking the waters)
     
    There were - as it happens - no layouts in non-commercial gauges other than one 3mm layout. I only realised that after the show - which demonstrates just how high a standard of railway modelling is attainable in OO. The absence of P4 and EM simply didn't register - the show was full of top-quality modelling
     
    And by the afternoon I'd had enough of rebooting the MERG decoder and bought a Digitrax DS64 (like wot we have on the other board) to replace it.
     
    After the show closed at 4pm , we packed up the stock , dismantled the layout and took it out to the car. I realised that as Blacklade is my home portable layout I am actually pretty adept at breaking down; and the fact that the boards are light enough to carry in one hand through the venue helps no end.
     
    It's a curious fact that we ran through a 2 day show without cleaning either wheels or track after set up. I had too many other things on my mind to remember - and the stock never reminded us by stalling. This is quite a tribute to the mechanical merits of modern RTR
     
    With good access for vehicles outside the whole thing was quickly loaded, and my wheels were turning at 4:57pm
     
    The journey home was hindered by the major road works on the A45 on the south side of Coventry and at the junction of the M6 and A14, both of which cost at least 20 minutes, and by a stop at a Little Chef for a bite to eat.
     
    The following morning it was back to work.
     
    The show netted no additional invitations to exhibit , which is not surprising since there were quite a few big high-profile layouts at the show, and exhibition managers would naturally have been drawn to them instead. I have no illusions that I was other than last and least in the layout list - but we were to a perfectly respectable standard, and I don't think Blacklade looked visibly out of place in such distinguished company. I was extremely relieved and heartened by operational performance through nearly all of Saturday, and the Sunday. Despite minor problems the layout was running smoothly and reliably - there is a short list of matters to be fixed, but nothing that makes me doubt the fundamental soundness of the layout.
     
    Would I do it again? Certainly
  12. Ravenser

    Electrifying

    By Ravenser,

    More of a brief note but - in between other distractions the layout has been up and run, and while it was out, I took the opportunity to sort out some outstanding electrical business
     
    The NCE PowerCab does not seem to have full short-circuit protection. I'm not sure of the technical details but I've finally installed some additional protection. This takes the form of a cheap and basic circuit breaker from Halfords, price £1.70 or so.
    http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/10a-auto-reset-circuit-breaker-ak07h?gclid=CPiBicHY5ccCFRI6Gwodp54PwQ
     
    As I understand it , the PowerCab doesn't shut off the juice in the event of a short. This little circuit breaker may not be a proper fast-acting breaker - those cost £20-30 - but it will turn the current off fairly quickly, limiting the time the PowerCab is exposed to any short. Instead of a screen full of gibberish and a reboot (pull out the plug, put it back in) you get a blank screen and a reboot . It's a damage limitation device , installed just behind the system socket on one wire of the feed into the traction bus
     
    While I was about it, I had a go at making the Kadee electromagnets work. When the layout was originally built , I installed three Kadee electromagnets beneath the track in the station - in a fit of enthusiasm for flash kit and clever tricks.
     
    I tried wiring one up ages ago - but nothing seemed to happen. I was under the impression that electromagnets were supposed to make a loud buzzing noise , and I assumed that the electrical joints were bad somewhere - presumably due to a failure adequately to strip the lacquer off the ends of the coil wire. (The lacquer made it impossible to perform the usual continuity test with the multimeter to check the joint - so I was stumped as to where the bad joint was). At that point I gave up...
     
     
    After a lapse of several years, I had a go at wiring the second electromagnet. I stripped back the lacquer using an emery board, carefully soldered up the joints, connected the transformer. No buzz.
     
    Then I noticed the coil was jolting when the button was pressed. This could not be mechanical action of the fine wire - and the coil was warm. We were in business. A check with a couple of parcels vans revealed that the electromagnets were effective. One remade joint later, and the electromagnetic uncouplers for both Platforms 1 & 2 were working
     
    (The transformer used is a switchable voltage DC power supply with a highest setting of 15V , which was being heavily discounted in Maplins a few years ago. It is rated for 5A at the lower voltages - no doubt a bit less at 15V. Kadee's recommendation is for 5A at 16V DC / 18V AC - my transformer gives a bit less than that , but it still seems to work)
     
    How much practical use these gadgets will be is a moot point. I installed them suitably placed to split 2 x 153 units , (or 153+Pacer) so they are too far down the platform to suit uncoupling a class 31, though they may suit a 128 unit. Practical experimentation is called for
  13. Ravenser
    There are so many things to sort out with this one it's difficult to know where to begin. I began with the trailer
     
    To my surprise and relief , when I removed the screws holding in place the Black Box on the underframe came off "just-like-that" , and it was empty . No messy sawing and cleaning up needed. Since the weight in this vehicle is all above the floor, there was no need to sort out alternative replacement weights. And if I ever feel bold enough to tackle my second 155 it should be possible to cut out the representational equipment box fronts for re-use, since further underframe castings are unlikely to be forthcoming.
     
    The enigmatic archery targets by the bogies were removed and replacement air tanks fabricated from Plastruct tubing with milliput stuck on each end and filed round when set. I had to buy an entire packet of Plastruct tubing - this should keep me in underframe airtanks for several lifetimes
     

     
    The interior mouldings are the same in both power and trailer cars, and so are the chassis mouldings and bogies. The interior therefore stops well short at both ends of the vehicle leaving vast empty zones in the ends. Remedial action is necessary - and the work done can be seen below. Obviously nothing can be done about the driving end on the power car: as you can see this is filled by the motor bogie. The only possible solution here would involve replacing the motor bogie with a Black Beetle, complete rebuilding of the bogies throughout, new trailing pickup arrangements and completely new pivot arrangements.
     
    The bogie pivot arrangements at the outer ends preclude carrying the floor right through the trailer . I cut away the projections on the bogie unit (which is the base of the power bogie with the mechanism left out) to allow extension of the floor on that side. Additional seating was cut from spare Hornby Mk4 interiors left from the Bratchill 150 project . Not an exact match but packed up to height with 20 thou styrene and painted suitably it is effective. Saloon end and toilet partitions are made from 40 thou styrene. On the trailer I used some Bratchill interior partitions for the cab partition and vestibule/saloon partition , then realised I will need to make replacements if I ever finish the power car on the 150. Photographic evidence for W Yorks Pacers shows red upholstery - so both interiors have been suitably painted with Humbrol acrylic crimson
     

     
    The satellite half of an Express Models 155 lighting kit has been installed running along the vehicle roof (and through cutouts in the cab end bulkheads). A hole for the plug/socket has been drilled out and removed at the base of the gangway
     
    Kadees (number 42 - medium overset with 1 mounting shim) have been fitted to the outer ends . So far the trailer car has a medium underset Kadee at the inner end - there is no need to observe the Kadee height standard on a coupling internal within the vehicle
     
    The biggest and nastiest job is the one I didn't manage to duck - flush-glazing. Nobody does flushglazing for a 155 or is ever likely to - so I had to do it the hard way - remove the glazing strip, cut it into pieces, and file them down until the window glazing fits into the aperture. To minimise any damage to the surface of the glazing during the long and tedious process of filing down I applied sellotape over the raised section of the glazing. In one case - I still don't know why - a small crack appeared in the bottom of the glazing , visible when seen from one direction. The filed-down glazing was held in place by running gloss varnish thickly round the frame of the window aperture with a small brush , then pressing the glazing into place from behind
     
    This took over a week of work, three or four windows at a time - and that's for only 1 vehicle out of 2. There are 60 windows in the sides of a 2 car 155 unit
     
    Yes, it's a big improvement. It has to be, for the effort. And now I'm committed to doing the same with the Pacers, which only makes it worse.
     
    (One additional point - before removing the glazing it was necessary to cut through the downward projections, and glue them in place on the bodyshell using solvent run in under capillary action, very cautiously. This is necessary because these projections contain recesses into which the body-retaining lugs on the chassis fit.
     
    I laid the glazing in the bodyshell overnight - next day I noticed that one strip had become slightly clouded in 2 places. I don't know why , and a coat of gloss varnish on the back was only a partial fix. The final effect is of 3 dirty windows - not perfect but not a disaster. Windows did/do occasionally get coated with a scurf, presumably in the carriage wash, but I could have done without this weathering effect)
     
    The fight goes on...
  14. Ravenser
    The obvious thing to be done when you have a new model is to run the layout... So the 101 was given a thorough workout during a running session, just to make sure there were no hidden bugs
     
    :
     
    Tail traffic is an operational feature of the layout - the CCT will be attached to the outward working of the morning parcels. Hence DMUs need functional couplings. This gets in the way of full end detail, and I'm toying with the idea of giving the 114 fully detailed ends to use the Craftsman pack I have - when I finally get around to building the DC kit in my cupboard. The idea is that a 114 would be 2" longer , and therefore much less suitable for tacking CCTs and the like on the back of.. As it is, a short-frame DMU plus CCT just fits into Pl.1
     

     
    The Blue period engineer's train awaits running round. The Zander has had additional lead stuffed under it to ensure it behaves
     

     
    A busy scene at Blacklade.

     
    While I was about it, it suddenly occurred to me that DMUs do after all work in multiple , and I now have two low density 2 car DMUs of classes 101 and 108. Could they be consisted?
     
    Despite rather different mechanisms (Limby motor bogie and Bachmann motor bogie) it turned out that they could , quite comfortably. Admittedly the resulting 4 car formation is a squeeze into Pl.3 and is way too big for anywhere else , so it's not terribly practical. But I have a DC Kits 128 to do, and that would give me a very workable 3 car formation - so long as the Replica MLV chassis proves compatible with the other 2 units
     
    Along the way I discovered that the Bachmann/ESU decoders I fitted in the 108 don't support advanced consisting - just basic oldstyle consisting. So we now have Coupling Codes: Blue Square for units supporting only basic consisting, Red Triangle for compatible units supporting advanced consisting, Red Circle for second generation units with Limby motor bogie or compatible (Red Triangle and Red Circle units can physically work together, but it's inauthentic) , and Black Cross units - meaning the 158 which has a thoroughly uncompatible centre motor drive and no working couplings on the end.
     
    With a reworked 155 under way I should (hopefully) have another unit that can work with my two 153s, and then finally I start to get a variety of permutations for multiple unit working in the later period too.
  15. Ravenser
    We left matters with a part-fixed Limby DMU and a mild crisis of conscience about details, identities and my general rate of progress on things in general.
     
    Happily the 101 does not add to the latter as it's now finished - despite all the little extras that kept crawling out.
     
    The first little catch was when looking at various photos in Morrison's DMU book and online. Whatever the faults of the former as a piece of scholarship (The Railcar Association compiled 9 pages of errata to it, and I only managed to print off 3 of them before the Railcar website disappeared for protracted and extensive rebuilding like a medieval cathedral), a photo's a photo and dates are normally reliable. Lima produced 101s with both the early 4 cab marker lights and the later 2 + lower 2 digit code panel. What Hornby did not issue was a DMU with 2 marker lights, one over each buffer , and plated headcode box - which is what happened after their refurbishment in the late 70s /early 80s.
     
    This had to be fixed - which meant out with the Xurons and crunch , followed by a good deal of rubbing down with emery boards. Patch painting was also needed, and since Hornby's yellow is a bit orange this meant tinting the Precision Paints post 84 yellow with a spot of Royal Mail red (Railmatch - and to hand from work on the NRX). Since the coats showed further rubbing down was needed, and since yellow takes about 3 coats to cover adequately, this was fun and games - especially with all the colour-matching by eye .
     
    I chickened out on a full repaint because I doubted I'd get near Sandakan's finishing with 3 brush coats, there was a risk of getting on glazing and other areas it shouldn't be , difficulties with achieving neat boundaries and avoiding bits of the old colour showing through at edges and elsewhere. What I did do was give a thin wash over the rest of the cab end with surplus paint (I was painting ends alternately) and apply a satin varnish with a drop of Precision yellow. This should blend everything and knock back the orange tint a little - and it seems to work.
     
    Somewhere in all this I managed to ping off one of the plastic windscreen wipers and a micro-wormhole in the carpet swallowed it. It will probably re-emerge under the headboard of the bed in another room in 6 years time. The plastic wipers aren't great - but I now had to replace them anyway, a job I'd been hoping to avoid. I managed to find an etch of wipers from A1 Models and fitted a pair at both ends, as this seemed to match what was shown by 1980s photos. I know have my own photographic evidence of two refurbished 3 car 101 sets in the E Midlands in 1981 with single wipers so this obviously wasn't a standard change at refurbishment , but is probably correct. Whether the wipers used are entirely correct I'm not sure - but they're much finer than the original plastic and also the right colour
     

     
    The plastic gangways were replaced - I was lucky to have the rest of a packet of MJT British Standard gangways , part of which had already been used for the Ratio LNW set. This time I needed to use the cast whitemetal bases, and I made up new faceplates from 20 thou plasticard, using the gaps in the etch where the original etched plates had been as a template for the scriber. I now have proper touching gangways .
     
    A thin wash of blue-grey Humbrol wash mixed with dark brown wash was applied to the roof and the gloss shine subsequently removed with matt varnish.
     
    A little blue-grey wash with a touch of brown , heavily thinned was applied to the sides and any surplus drawn off with the brush to tone down the finish and blend in the transfers and patch painting . The wash also picked out the door lines, and I dry brushed the hinges with a little dirty black. Inner ends received a couple of wash coats of the blue-grey wash
     
    The underframe was given a wash coat of Railmatch frame dirt
     
    One major issue I ducked was the underframe "black box". I would certainly have had a go if the front bogie wasn't being held together by superglue , and liable to fail if subjected to the stresses of repeated disassembly and reassembly. The "black box" on this unit isn't bad actually - there's only a small area of plastic that shouldn't really be there , and for some time I couldn't work out how it could be cut away anyway. Enlightenment dawned when I saw a posting on another forum. Lateral thinking - or at least lateral cutting - is required. The black box is cut along its length, behind the moulded detail , leaving a thin "façade" on each side , then you file out the bits that shouldn't be there and build up the various boxes behind.
     
    But , as I said, because there is a patched glue repair on the power car I've ducked it for the moment. What I might do , however, is experiment with the "spare" chassis removed from the trailer when converting it from DMCL to DTCL. I could then relatively quickly convert to a power twin set if I ever wanted simply by swapping the interior and bogies from trailer to power chassis moulding and clipping it back into the bodyshell (The trailer car numbering would then be wrong, but how many people would notice?)
     
    What I did do was adopt a bodge mentioned on Jim Smith-Wright's P4 Newstreet website. This consists of painting the few bits of plastic that shouldn't be there with matt black - at which point the underframe equipment stands out and the spurious areas merge back into the shadow under the vehicle . He found it sufficiently effective that it was several years before he got round to doing the full underframe rework, and as the photos show it's quite successfu
     
    I reassembled everything , tested it quickly , then decided to remove the capacitor to improve slow speed running . Having snipped off the beige blob, I decided to remove the wires back beyond the collar . This was a serious mistake - when I put the chassis back on the track, it was dead as a doornail. Panic!
     
    Further inspection revealed not one but two loose wires. The horrible realisation dawned - the capacitor was soldered directly to the motor terminals along with the feed wires, and in wielding the Xurons to take out the remains of the capacitor I had also neatly cut the wires off the motor terminals.....
     
    Having dropped out the motor bogie (it's held into the chassis frame by a screw from above) I managed to resolder the wires to where they are supposed to be and we were back in business.
     
    It's now been cleaned, oiled and thoroughly tested through a full operating session after a proper running in session on club test tracks (something it never got when originally bought). Performance is pretty satisfactory, though not quite as good as other units with the same motor bogie but no traction tyres
     
    That, I think, constitutes a result

  16. Ravenser

    West Yorkshire Sow's Ear - 1 : Diagnosis

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I have two Hornby 155s sitting in the pile of stock boxes
     
    One is in Regional Railways livery. I've had it for at least 15 years and it's never run. It was meant as material for converting into 153s to support a proposed club layout project which never happened
     
    The other is in West Yorkshire red and white . This was acquired as a modest priced placeholder for a later club layout project (which got as far as running bare boards and some scenery before it died ). It has a decoder (a Macoder if you ask), it's run , and as Blacklade is supposed to have services south from West Yorkshire via Sheffield, its perfectly in place. Since the thing actually ran quite well, it was a regular on the layout until I installed Knightwing point motors (the dummy prototype sort cast in whitemetal) . These fouled the "black box" on the underframe, so the unit was stopped.
     
    As the packets of NNK/MTK underframe castings have turned up, and as the 101 is now done, and the Kirk Gresley 51' pigeon van well advanced, attention has turned to the poor old W.Yorks 155 while I still have some modelling time. I want at least to get this started , and resuscitation turned from a good intention into an actual project.
     
    Sorting out the various RTR DMUs and their shortcomings has always been a good intention for the future. However with the 101 done, we move on to the next. The W Yorks 158 is in their later livery and not really suitable for an "early period" sequence set in 1985-90. The 155 is eminently suitable.
     
    The Hornby, (ex Dapol) 155 dates from around 1990, and has not been in the catalogue for a few years now. It's quite probable Hornby will never produce it again. It's not a great model, dating from a time when OO RTR was much more basic than would be tolerated nowadays, and originated by a company whose standards were some distance behind the cutting edge at the time . It was the least worst of the 3 modern multiple units Dapol produced in the Dave Boyle era - the Dapol Pendolino was a crude lemon beside its excellent rival the Bachmann Voyager, and the Dapol 150 is a model that is spoken of with a shudder when old modern image modellers sit in the pub by the fire and tell of the terrible hardships they endured in their youth. Hornby seem to have chucked the tooling for those two in the skip (where it belonged) but they re-ran the 155 for a number of years with a decent finish and an improved mechanism.
     
    However it's considerably cruder than the 156 they inherited from Lima , and since only 7 units survive, owned by West Yorkshire , the rest being converted to 153s in 1990-2, its commercial potential is pretty limited.
     
    For these reasons it is most unlikely anyone will ever produce another RTR model . Like the EM2s, it's been stranded by the tide of history. Unlike the EM2s, it's never going to be iconic. It's a grubby middle-weight Sprinter.
     
    And next to a Hornby 153 (like wot I've got ...) it looks rough.
     
    There's so much wrong with this model that simply listing the issues is going to be quite enough for a substantial post. I'm not aiming at "the definitive 155". Assuming anyone could ever be bothered to attempt it, you wouldn't go this route . It has been suggested that a 155 can be converted from two Hornby 153s - a sort of reverse version of what BR did. However that would cost you at least £200 in raw materials, and assuming a professional paint job is required, the bill will be close to £300.There would also be the fun and games of hacking the chassis and consisting two separate mechanisms requiring two decoders. Money is tight, and even if I could source 2 x 153 it's not on for lots of reasons. I'm not that desperate for a perfect 155.
     
    So this is an attempt to patch up the unit I have , at minimal cost using stuff I have in stock, and tackle the shortcomings as far as I sensibly can.
     
    Here's a picture of the trailer car dismantled to help you spot the problems:

     
    Starting at the bottom - the black boxes on the underframe have to go : not only are they very wrong, the model is out of gauge with them. Fortunately this isn't going to be too hard, as can be seen.
     
    The tension-locks go and Kadees need to be fitted. I'm hoping I will be able to consist this unit with a 153 - the mechanical mismatch between a Limby motor bogie and a big Bachmann centre motor drive having proved impossible. This also means close coupling to minimise the Straits of Dover between the two vehicles.
     
    Unfortunately it's not going to be possible to fit working gangways and eliminate the gap completely. I have an Express Models lighting kit - arguably lights are needed on a second generation DMU and they are certainly an operator's convenience. These kits rely on wiring through from the power car, and they recommend you route the cable and plugs through a hole in the gangway between the vehicles. That's incompatible with fitting a paper bellows gangway. The Kadees would be in the way if I tried routing it below the gangway. And it looks very much as if the gangways are a little too narrow anyway. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the whole unit is 1-2mm too narrow, and that they've lost it in the gangways. (I have a decent scale side elevation drawing from Railnews Stockspot, but no scale drawings of the end from which to check).
     
    There is no solebar. The bodyside has been continued right the way down to the bottom of the chassis, and no doubt panel proportions have been played about with in the vertical axis (I said it wasn't up to modern standards...) . I gather the traditional fix for this was to paint a "fake solebar" along the bottom edge of the bodyshell
     
    Ploughs will be fitted , as I have some. Correct from the mid to late 90s but not in 1987-91. So ok when running in a "late period" running session (2000-06) but not for "early" (1985-90)
     
    The interior is incomplete. On the power car this is because the motor bogie fills up the driving end and the start of the passenger saloon. The only way you could address that would be to scrap the existing mechanism and replace with a Black Beetle and dummy at a cost of about £65, which is a step further than I'm prepared to go. There's a vast gaping hole in the floor at the cab end of the trailer, because they've used the same chassis moulding for power car and trailer car. For reasons which escape me, they've left out any interior at the inner ends as well - the seat moulding stops one window before the end of the passenger saloon and the rest of the vehicle is empty , so you can see straight through to the end doors on the other side.
     
    Providing extra seats and partitions at the inner ends is easy enough. On the trailer car I can fit partitions behind the cab and behind the vestibule , and extend the seating forward by one window : unfortunately because of the way the bogie is pivoted and retained at the sides it's not possible simply to extend the floor all the way, and nothing but complete reconstruction of the chassis at this end, with a totally restructured bogie and an entirely new pivot and retention arrangement would address that. Again, this kind of drastic rebuilding is further than I'm prepared to go: the more modest work will address most of the problem, and a one window gap in the trailer car seating will have to be lived with.
     
    It looks as if there should be clear plastic covers on the gangway doors at the cab ends . One or two shots show a yellow plate (eg 155 341), but generally the cover is clear but frequently very dirty. If it's dirty , it will conceal the wires running up from the Express Models lighting. I'm not renumbering - Sandakan's quality of finish is very good indeed and for my purposes one W Yorks 155 is as good as another.
     
    The final issue - and a major one - is the glazing. The real things are flush-glazed. So are Hornby's 153s. The ex Dapol 155 is not, with very obvious ledges at the windows. The glazing comes out easily enough , but the only way I can see of fixing the problem is to cut out each pane individually and slightly oversize then file to a fit and fix . I am going to give it a first shot on the door windows , where the recess looks particularly bad - if that works , then I may be up for doing all 44 windows in the passenger saloons
     
    As far as I'm aware there's no replacement glazing available from any source
     
    If anyone knows how this problem has been tackled by anyone in the past, I'd appreciate the info. If the work is really too difficult or securing too uncertain I might have to leave the main saloon windows as is , but it's a big visual issue , and I'd really like to avoid that
  17. Ravenser
    Blacklade is in the North Midlands, with services to Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield via Chesterfield. The latter either extends through to Leeds or is worked by W Yorkshire units.
     
    In the 1980s this means that 3 depots would obviously supply units - Derby Etches Park (DY), Lincoln (LN) and Tyesley (TS). Oddly South Yorkshire never had a DMU depot, despite being a fully fledged PTE - their units came either from Lincoln or Neville Hill (NL). There is a minor metaphysical issue about Etches Park, since Blacklade and Hallamshire replace Derby and Derbyshire in the scheme of things, and Blacklade is not on the main line nor a major rail centre. I assume the Midland had their headquarters at Nottingham , their main works at Toton, and where the alternate for Etches Park depot ends up in this parallel reality is anyone's guess (Chesterfield? Burton? Long Eaton? Ilkeston? Swanwick?))
     
    Lincoln had the 114s - all of them - and some 105s. Etches Park (which sounds like it should have had a pile of Craftsman conversion kits and Comet sides) had 3 car 120s until they were replaced by the first production Sprinters of Class 150/1 in 1985. That leaves Tyseley and Neville Hill as potential homes for my 101.
     
    TS looked the obvious candidate till I got out my various ABCs for the period. TS was an exponent of hybrid sets, and when I hunted through the numbers I could not find any pairs of DMBS + DTCL on their books in the period. In 1988 they had DMBS M53222 on the books (scrapped by 1992) but no DTCL. The first relevant listing of TS formations I have is the 1992 Platform 5 volume, when 101 DMCL 53242 was working with 116 DMBS 53073. Even finding 3 car 101 formations to match the original Hornby set was tough although I found M53303/M59124/M53328 all allocated in 1988. No idea if they were in the same set though. TS doesn't work for my 101 unit
     
    Hornby's W-prefix numbers are taken from a photo in Morrison's book of a 3 car Canton unit C813 at Cheltenham Spa in 1982 (p56, bottom). That won't do either - such a unit would not have got past New Street.
     
    At this stage we are down to Neville Hill. You then start hunting through books and looking at photos , and realising that a lot of power/trailer sets were allocated to Chester (CH), Heaton, Hull Botanic Gardens (BG) , Cambridge (CA) and Norwich Crown Point (NC) , and are out of contention. A photo in Morrison just above the one Hornby used shows the end of DTCL E54218 at Leeds in 1983.My books show it allocated to NL in late summer 83 and still there in 85-6, having survived the arrival of the 141s. That's a start. The caption claims it has S Yorks PTE branding , which would be great - but MetroTrain was W Yorks PTE's branding. 101s definitely worked into Sheffield from Leeds - these will have been Neville Hill units - and definitely worked Sheffield- Doncaster: those must also have been NL units
     
    A hunt for a suitable companion found DMBS E51250, also at NL on both dates. Since NL does not seem to have maintained fixed unit formations it's anyone's guess whether they were paired - but you can't prove I'm wrong, either.
     
    The yellow stripe is an issue. Another photo notes the abolition of first class in W Yorks in 1983 - with a TCL which has been downgraded to TSL and lost it's stripe. However abolition of first in W Yorks would not affect units supplied for S Yorks PTE services (On the other hand the People's Republic of South Yorkshire in the 80s might have thought a tumbril to the guillotine a more appropriate vehicle for first class passengers. When BR reintroduced the Master Cutler a few years later as a Pullman, Sheffield City Council officially objected to the new service and called for its withdrawal as elitist.). I found a photo of DTCL E54365 on a Sheffield service around 1990 , with double arrows but no yellow stripe - as I couldn't find an obvious DMBS partner , that was a non-starter, too
     
    Another point which I missed - never overlook your own resources . It was only when I was compiling this - well after I'd finished -
    that I remembered I had this photo. Slightly tweaked as to brightness, contrast and colour for the occasion and with a sharpening tool applied to mitigate its photographic awfulness:
     

     
    In December 1981 we flew back from Sydney for contract leave over Christmas. Dad hired a car at Heathrow, and when we got home he was somewhat frustrated to find that the car hire company's nearest return point was Nottingham - especially as the weather had taken a turn for the worse. So we drove to Nottingham , and I got the rare treat of a train ride back from Nottingham Midland on a freezing day (The rare treat of a train ride on BR that is - train rides on the NSWGR were available for the price of a mile and a half walk to and from the station with some fairly steep hills on the way, and a 30 cent day return)
     
    This was taken at Lincoln St Marks - the 3 car 101 on the left had just brought us from Nottingham. From the fact we were hanging about on the platform at St Marks for me to take photos I think we were waiting to connect into a Newark Northgate - Grimsby train to take us to Market Rasen.
     
    (For younger readers - in those days Lincoln Central could not be reached off the Newark/Nottingham line, which continued through St Marks, over the High Street about 100 yards south of the surviving crossing , and joined the GC Lincoln-Barnetby line at Durham Ox, a few hundred yards east of Central station, just before you passed Lincoln DMU depot. A new connection into Central via the northern part of the former Lincoln Avoiding Line was opened in mid 1985 and St Marks and the last mile or so of the MR route into Lincoln closed. A facinating glimpse of St Marks in its MR heyday can be seen here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/30999-lincoln-st-marks-engine-shed/&do=findComment&comment=1624075)
     
    The salient point here is a comparison of the cab ends with these on the Lima model:
     

     
    Both 101s - presumably based at Derby Etches Park and certainly refurbished (a shot taken at Nottingham before departure shows the lefthand 101 in blue/grey) - retain the original single windscreen wiper, despite my belief these were incorrect for the 80s. The lamp irons are quite noticeable - against my decision not to try fitting the Craftsman ones. And I'm quite certain that the destination boxes are significantly deeper than Lima's letterbox slots. I couldn't get Worksop or Derby from Charlie Petty's sheet into the Lima boxes (Not that I'd have used Derby since Blacklade replaces Derby ) Here DERBY fits with room to spare despite being a much larger font than DONCASTER which only just fits vertically in the box on the model
     
    The reason for this is something raised by other modellers and quite clear in this comparison : the cab windows on the Lima model are rather too tall and more like those of a Derby unit (Yes I know I said these two 101s are probably Derby units. Just not that sort of Derby unit...)
     
    All of this is way beyond my ability to correct and I haven't attempted it.
     
    The difference in yellow is more complex. The Hornby yellow is definitely too orange, though I've toned it down a bit with washes and varnish. But it's not as orange in normal light as it appears here, and it represents the post '84 Warning Panel Yellow , which was a more orange shade. The DMUs in the photo are displaying the pre '84 yellow , which was a paler, more lemon shade .
     
    PS
    (By the way, it's very sobering to read this , when checking back down the blog to make sure I've got the tags right .
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-5627-ive-started-so-ill-finish/
     
    Sorting out the 101 was then a pending job, possibly later that year, as the bits were in hand. That was four and a half years ago. Painting the interior of the 108 and weathering was seen as a quick win for the near future. It's still seen as a quick win for the near future
     
    The Pacer had one brief splutter of progress about 2 years ago . I have hopes of doing something about it later in the year. The Bratchill 150 is indefinitely stalled. Realtrack still haven't got round to a 144 in earlier W.Yorks livery .
     
    The loco-hauled replacement set is a reality. So, as of last autumn , is the upgraded Airfix 31. The Cambrian Dogfish and Shark mentioned are built and in traffic . It only took almost 4 years . So is the LNW set
     
    Some of the rest could be reposted....
     
     
    And I'm shocked to think how long the resin WD road van and DOGACOV B have been pending)
     
    http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/johnsons/idler/chap88.htm
  18. Ravenser

    Damage Control - 1

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I had good intentions, but somehow a 101 didn't feature in them...
     
    I've got a 101 - I've had it for years. A Limby 3 car 101 in blue/grey was one of the things acquired in the RTR buying spree when I started building Blacklade a few years ago. Being ex Lima and a dowdy Modernisation unit it was rather looked down on as a quick placeholder. After all Bachmann would no doubt displace the Limby model with a splendid state of the art model in a few years
     
    Then the power car took a tumble, resulting in the pivot pin of the trailing bogie fracturing and detaching. A panic-stricken repair with superglue took a turn for the worse when I noticed I'd managed to get a superglue mark on both sides of the bodyshell. A hasty attempt to patch paint the mark with an elderly tin of what was supposed to be BR Grey only left it looking much worse. I then found the repaired bogie left one end sitting about 1.5mm high. At which point the wretched thing was bundled back into its box and buried under other stock.
     
    Where it remained for 4 or 5 years. I managed to source some better rail grey point, and also a spare trailer chassis frame and power car chassis frame, along with a pair of what were supposed to be class 101 bogies . But nothing was actually done. The list of jobs to be done was long and resuscitating one mediocre RTR DMU when I have a perfectly good 108 wasn't near the top of it.
     
    Having some modelling time available I thought about patching up the bodyshell damage. I dug out a copy of the shortlived MRM magazine which featured an article by Rich Bucknall on a simple conversion to a 2 car power-trailer unit . This seemed very quick and simple - and had always been on the cards as 3 cars is really a bit awkward on Blacklade.
     
    So one Thursday evening the poor thing was dug out of its box. An emery board and the 1500 flexgrit soon cleaned down the small damaged area on the DMBS bodyshell, and a little Precision Paints Rail Grey made a good job of touching in. It looked like repair might be a success. On the other side damage was confined to the glazing on one window - and after a little scraping with a finger nail , essentially confined to one quarterlight on that window. A little gloss varnish patched that .
     
    The chassis was robbed from the TCL for use under the second driving vehicle to turn it into a DTCL. The exhaust pipes on this were pulled out.
     
    And at this point it all started to get a bit more complicated....
     
    Firstly the holes left by the exhaust needed to be filled (Squadron green putty did the job) and patch-painted (Railmatch BR acrylic was to hand and was a reasonable match) . Not a problem
     
    Then the interior needed painting . That took a good deal longer than it sounds . Seats blue - except in First which was left unpainted to represent the faded gold upholstered armchairs one found there. Duckegg blue is a decent representation of the pale blue-green formica that featured in many Modernisation Plan DMUs , but which bits are duck-egg blue and which bits should be brown is a bit more complicated and I'm not sure I've left as much brown as I should. The interior needed populating - a raid on the figures box managed to cover that. Drivers were added at each end - Springside I think.
     
    At this point I realised there was no drivers' desk on the TCL interior - which by this stage was nicely painted and peopled for the DTCL. I had to cut it off the moulding I had swapped into the centre car, and fix in place on the DTCL interior
     
    The interior of the cab end glazing was painted dark grey where it is between the windows - this greatly reduced the prism effect round the edge of the cab windows
     
    One end of the DMBS was sitting about 1.5mm high because of the bodged repair . I was under the impression it was the chassis frame that had been damaged, but in fitting and removing the interior - to discover that the problem only manifested itself when the interior was clipped in - the repair to the pivot pin failed and I found out exactly what the problem was
     
    The bogie had to be stripped down - neither Humbrol solvent nor Plastic Weld would touch this plastic - and a rather better repair made with Hafix thick superglue. To avoid any repeat fracture I did not plug the bogie back into its hole until very late in proceedings , and I countersank the hole in the interior moulding underneath (using a craft knife) and opened it out with a rat-tail file, since clearly the top of the pivot pin had been fouling against this since the initial repair
     
    When Hornby retooled the power car chassis to take the new Limby motor bogie, they provided NEM pockets on the bogies. However the underframes on the non-powered cars remained exactly as Lima tooled them, complete with great big old style tension-locks . Those had to go and the hoops were trimmed off with Xurons . A suitable platform was left to mount replacement Kadees - I used #27 medium underset , with a single shim underneath, glued in place with a nylon Kadee screw taken through from the top and cut off below as a peg to anchor them. (These were obtained from Charlie Petty at Railex)
     
    This improves the front end appearance no end
     
    I also found a Craftsman DMU detailing pack . There were enough buffers for a 3 car unit - so I replaced the Lima buffers at the cab ends , since the Craftsman buffers looked a bit bigger - but left the buffers at the inner ends, which are less obvious. I still have enough buffers for a 2 car unit.
     
    However it became apparent that I could not fit the cast jumper cable connections , or buffer bean pipeworth as they would foul the swing of the bogie- mounted Kadees. Since I run parcels tail traffic - and it would be nice to work a DMU in multiple occasionally - Kadees are essential. As and when I build the parcels unit I could form up a 3 car rake, and with a considerable squeeze it may just be possible to run a 4 car short underframe set (101 + 108)
     
    A shot of the bits at this stage of proceedings is attached:
     

     
    Then I made the mistake of getting out the books to research a prototype identity , and things got more complicated......
  19. Ravenser

    Bits and Pieces

    By Ravenser,

    I've had the layout up for a few days, and as well as a couple of operating sessions, I've taken the opportunity to sort out various jobs , as someone is slated to come and see it...
     
    The big one is that at long last the station building has been finished off, with an end, back wall and door, and the "bomb damage" is no more. Quite deliberately the effect is that a section has been taken through the building - rather than paint the back wall black , I used some Superquick red brickpaper - this marks the fact that this isn't really a wall of the actual building, but goes with the brown of the fascia, and gives a more muted effect. The overall result adds a seemingly substantial building as an end view block and adds surprising "weight" to the station. It does now look like a significant terminus in a substantial town.
     
    In a similar vein, the buffer stops that I started about 2 months ago are now done and in place. These are balsa buffer planks , painted red with some spare buffers fitted - a packet of old brass buffers which the header card described as GWR but which must have dated from Sir Daniel Gooch's reign , as they seemed to be Victorian solid buffers, plus two spare Mk1 coach buffers - the latter for the centre platform which is supposed to have been added by the LMR in the late 1950s when they were planning to divert trains from the Chesterfield Central line into Artamon Square ahead of the GC closures.
     
    Half a packet of Bachmann TMD figures have been installed - we now have a shunter on Platform 3, to avoid any awkward questions about how the driver of a departing loco-hauled substitute service can see the aspect of the starter when the cab of his 31 is past the signal
     
    While I was about it I had a rummage through my compartment box of small scenic details for any other figures. I came up with some rather useful BR figures and others which now turn out to be these http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69215-1980s-model-people-in-00/
     
    A driver plodding down the platform with his bag, a member of platform staff , a woman in a leather jacket and a standing male passenger have been installed. I don't want a crowded platform - just a handful of people dotted around a half deserted station. After a hasty field survey of prototype examples locally I've come to the conclusion blonde is extremely difficult to paint effectively because it's generally a variable overlay over a darker colour . (I hasten to say I'm not married.... "Oi , what are you doing?" "Researching model figure painting , officer") Basildon station platform at 8am would be a figure painter's nightmare assignment .
     
    Otherwise a second Kadee uncoupler magnet has gone into the fiddle yard , for the release of kettles of the 2-6-4T and 0-6-0 varieties (it should also handle a 20 or 23) . The first one , on the long road, has proved effective in uncoupling the 31 on an incoming loco-hauled : meaning less physical handling of stock/fiddling with poles , which is useful when access to the fiddle yard is restricted and getting things on the rails properly distinctly awkward.
     
    Running with the BR Blue stock is now pretty rocksolid reliable, and certainly better than the steam stock - I have a feeling I'm going to have to do something about the pony truck on that L1 and the bearings on three axles of the LNW TK have been eased with an Antex so it runs reasonably freely
     
    The next job is sorting out the wiring on Tramlink so I have a proper DC test track.....
  20. Ravenser

    Good Intentions

    By Ravenser,

    This posting should have been called New Year's Resolutions but that posting was cancelled due to a shortage of serviceable rolling stock and delays to the inbound service.....
     
    I'm still trying to clear the decks of projects started last year, before starting anything new . However one small project - a rework of an old Mainline GW Mink to supply a van for parcels tail traffic for the steam stock - has slipped through the net and is now at the weathering stage.
     

     
    Still outstanding is completion of the NRX van conversion, which is almost there; the Baby Deltic, which has a nearly finished body and much of the chassis done; and a final matt varnish coat on the two Shark brake vans (one Cambrian and one Hornby)
     
    That leaves on the bookcase the long-term inhabitants: a mostly finished Bratchill 150 missing one etched window frame, a Hornby Pacer rebuild which I started and haven't finished, the Smallbrook WD road van, and a partbuilt vintage Parkside kit for an LNER Toad B . Since the Smallbrook kit is resin and I only dare work that outside, that kit will have to wait for warm light days. There is also a Branchlines 04 chassis kit part built and a part built etched brass LNER van (a DOGA starter kit) that have both been stalled for years, and are hardly on the to-do list at all....
     
    Of that lot, only the Pacer would definitely be of immediate use and I really ought to finish it off this year.
     
    In the meantime income may again be tight this year, so yet again I'm resolved not to go out spending on new projects. Despite my best resolutions 2014 saw various acquisitions - a GBL Jinty and Butler Henderson (plus a cheap Hornby 0-6-0T to motorise the latter), a Bachmann J11 and 10001 , both of which ought to be weathered at some point. But at least not much money was spent , and I'm not planning any RTR acquisitions this year (unless Bachmann somehow deliver a C12 for Christmas or Charlie Petty does a W Yorks 144 in early red).
     
    I've got quite enough stuff to sort out already.
     
    The first new project is slated to be an Iain Kirk 51' LNER full brake , which is needed to complete a proper steam age parcels train. The Hornby LMS CCT can be weathered at the same time.
     
    I've got a number of locos which are in need of decoders and new couplings , and weathering or rework.
    Top of that list is a Hornby Fowler 2-6-4T which would address the noticeable shortage of steam traction in the steam era (and the total lack of LMR steam on an allegedly LMR layout). I also need, finally, to face up to putting a decoder in my Bachmann Standard 4MT 2-6-0. Chipping the Lima 37 (which will need detailing up) and the dormant 29 , which needs some small repair, is rather less urgent.
     
    A rummage through all my boxes at New Year in search of something else turned up treasure - both the packets of MTK 155 underframe castings I bought at DEMU Showcase a few years ago from the late Alaister Rolfe. They were in separate boxes, which is why I had become convinced I had only bought one packet.
     
    The importance of this is that Sprinter DMU underframe castings are a key detailing item currently completely off the market. Hurst Models has quietly slipped into an almost dormant state, and seems unlikely to reappear - it looks very much as if a few residual items are being slowly cleared. That has removed their 156 castings from the market. And although the MTK moulds passed with the rest of NNK to Phoenix Precision, the castings are known to be split over several moulds and though Phoenix would like to rerun the 155 castings, they admit they don't actually know on which moulds they are to be found....
     
    So - a full scale rework of the elderly W Yorks 155 is on the cards. It's always run surprisingly well, but it's currently stopped because the black box fouls some of the dummy point motors I installed 18 months ago. I'm fully aware this is an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but with a detailed underframe, a full (and painted) interior, a fake painted solebar, detailed gangways, close coupling, Kadees and lighting I might get something passable. The biggest unsolved issue is probably flushglazing.
     
    Then there are a clutch of electrical projects to finish.
     
    The external CDU for the boxfile is done, and attention turns to Tramlink, where one board needs rewiring as the feed wire has come off its connection. Arguably the whole thing needs rewiring , to install point motors, a better interboard board connector, attach the external CDU , and probably relay one point.
     
    There is an Erkon ground signal to build for Blacklade, with a decoder to install to work it - and I might build the spare colour light kits as route indicators for the fiddle yard roads
     
    This is before I even contemplate the possibility of dabbling with some trams, and then there's the idea of building the Judith Edge Vanguard Steelman kit - I'm sure I have a suitable Beetle in stock
     
     
    The 108 needs weathering and populating, the station building needs finishing.......
     
    I really mean to build the 128 kit this year
     
    Plenty to keep me busy , even if I find I have a little more time this year
  21. Ravenser

    Hanging By A Thread

    By Ravenser,


    Electrical
    One of my outstanding projects is to do something about electrical connections and points on the boxfile
     
    This arose from some comments from a fellow DOGA member a couple of years ago. DOGA had their stand at Watford show that year, I was helping on the Saturday, and I took along the boxfile as a display item , and also something to provide intermittent movement (We had a Hornby Sentinel on it for a while and it looked the part - I really must built my Judith Edge Vanguard Steelman..)
     
    However this also displayed the boxfile's glaring practical weaknesses
     
    When I built it , some years ago, my knowledge and experience on the electrical side was very limited, and the boxfile represented a major step forward - for the first time I was fitting live frog points and point motors to drive them. This led to some mistakes.
     
    Even longer ago I bought several clearance packs of electrical "goodies" from a company called Greenweld. They were job lots of connectors , cables and such like which in a fit of enthusiasm I thought might be useful. Few have been. A rummage in this stash produced an audio cable with a 5 pin DIN plug on each end, and another with a 7 pin DIN at one end and fine wires hanging out of the other end. These, I thought, would make pukka connectors for the boxfile. DIN sockets were duly sourced and we were in business.
     
    Here they are:
     

     
    The first problem is that those very fine wires are the devil to secure in the screw connections at the back of the Gaugemaster. I tried making them solid with a bit of solder - that just made the job desperately fiddly instead of completely impossible
     
    The second problem is that the points don't throw particularly well. The siding into the wagon hoist is completely reliable, the nearby headshunt can overheat after extended use and the point into the coal siding is a real problem. It worked until I stuck the weighbridge building on top of the motor. Then it would only throw in one direction....
     
    Of course I didn't think to build in a CDU. And since the wiring is hidden inside sealed buildings I'd have to destroy parts of the layout to retro fit one.
     
    My friend recommended an external CDU , which would then allow thicker wires to connect to the Gaugemaster , and make setting up dead easy.
     
    So far so good - and an All Components CDU was duly sourced and has been sitting in the study ever since waiting for me to acquire a round tuit, or more accurately a suitable enclosure.
     
    It was only when I read the instructions that the real problem leapt out and hit me. They recommend using 6A wire, or as a minimum 3A to carry the current to the motor. I don't know what the current rating of the wire in those audio connections is, but it looks well under 1A "layout wire" (7/0.3 wire I believe). Any internal wiring within the file was carried out in blithe ignorance and 1A layout wire.
     
    A little measuring suggests there's 2.4m of extremely thin wire between the 16V AC outputs and the point motor into the coal siding. Plus a couple of foot of 1A wire and various connections. No wonder that point struggles to throw.
     
    A crude hasty test on the remains of a 10m hank of 24/0.3mm wire (say 5-6m) and the 1.2m interboard connector using the multimeter suggested resistance through the audio cable is about 30-40% higher than through a run of 5A wire at least 4 times as long. I'm aware that resistance becomes more serious the more current you push through. Oh heck.....
     
    By this time I'd also come up with the scheme of resurrecting Tramlink by fitting DIN sockets and audio connector as interboard connections to replace the extremely crude arrangement currently in use , whose wiring has come loose on one side, leaving one board dead. Tramlink serves as my DC test track when I dig it out from under the magazines, so something needs to be done. I probably need to replace and relay one point , and the idea of retrofitting point motors to the two points was and is rather appealing. So I could face the same issues there.
     
    Anyway I pressed on, hoping the thing would deliver some improvement. The external connector (the one with a DIN plug at one end) was shortened to about 18". This should remove about 20-25% of the distance from the power source to the furthest point motor (and half the run of wiring to the two points on the first file). Logically therefore , it reduces the total resistance by 20-25% to the worst affected point.
     
    Now if half the power leaving the power supply is lost due to resistance in the wiring, (and the very poor throw of that motor suggests the loss is substantial) a 20-25% cut in resistance should equate to a 20-25% boost to available power at the solenoid. If the loss due to resistance is less than half, the gain in power is less. But if the loss due to resistance is more than 50%, then a 25% cut in resistance would translate into a boost to available power of more than 25% - perhaps significantly more
     
    This is before you add the benefit of upping the current and voltage by using a CDU. If the path from the power supply to the motor is too long in too thin wire, the cumulative resistance can strangle the output from a CDU and you may see very limited benefit
     
    Here are some of the basic components before starting - the Maplins PSU enclosure , the audio cables, and some Maplin grommits (Wallace is not in the shot)
     

     
    A piece of 5mm balsa wood was glued to the base of the plastic box using aradite, with a strip of doublesided sticky tape under a recessed area and some UHU along the top of the sides. I don't want this base breaking loose if the box gets knocked about . The CDU unit is screwed down to this - the balsa allows for seating of the underside where there are projections caused by soldering components to the circuit board . I took this approach with the MERG decoder I built for Blacklade and it seems to work fine, though there the mounting screws do pass through the balsa onto the ply board top.
     
    A second strip of balsa was wedged/araldited across one end to take a small connector from one of the Greenweld bags. It had tags with loops on one side and a larger tag , presumably for some kind of spade connector , on the other side. These fouled the CDU board , so after 24/0.7 wire ("5A") had been soldered in place the prongs were bent over . These form the connection between the two wires in the audio cable which connect to the track and heavy duty black and red wires which run to the controller .The fine wires from the audio cable were soldered to the tags on the opposite side. I was a little nervous about whether the joints might be dry, as the metal is not terribly good for soldering to - a hasty test with the multimeter gave readings of 0.07- 0.05 on the lowest resistance scale through the entire set up fron DIN plug to the end of the 5A wire - a little under half the value originally measured through a 1.2m audio cable. So the joints are presumably good
     
    The two wires in the audio cable carrying the current to the point motors were then extended with short lengths of "1A" 7/0.7 wire , the joints protected with heatshrink, and the extended ends connected to the output terminals of the CDU
     
    A general view (heavily zoomed and not in perfect focus) of the contraption is shown below
     
     
     
    I then set it up, managed to get the wires connected to the correct terminals on the CDU output and we were in business.

     
    Despite my fears , the improvement is dramatic. Instead of throwing with a loud buzzing , the points flick over instantly with a click. Even the point on the second boxfile works perfectly
     
    And connection to the screw terminals of the Gaugemaster is now simple reliable and a matter of a couple of seconds , instead of the previous fiddle trying to get tiny wires caught by the screws
     
    There's a further, unexpected benefit. When I tested the traction current with my lumbering black 05 , running was much surer, smoother and more reliable. Since I'd done nothing dramatic to the traction circuit and I was testing on the second file , with a further audio connector in the path to the motor, this was a real surprise
     
    I can only conclude that the connections at the terminals of the Gaugemaster may have been a significant part of the problem. It looks as if the fine wires were not only fiddly to trap in the connectors, they were making a poor connection even when trapped.
     
    In short , a big improvement all round, and I think I will probably chance my arm and rewire Tramlink using the same set up
     

     
     
  22. Ravenser

    The Ghosts of Flaxborough

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    A very long time ago, I read an article by Cyril Freezer in the Railway Modeller. It was called "Modern Image is Easy" and if you judge by the impact on my modelling it must have been the most important magazine article I've ever read. At least it's the only article that has ever resulted in me scrapping my layout, selling up my stock, and completely changing direction in my modelling.
     
    Mind you I was a highly impressionable young teenager at the time.
     
    I was then attempting to build what can be classed as a trainset, which was supposed to be a GWR/LMS joint operation, and a branchline. It was GWR/LMS because those were the cool companies in those days , unlike dowdy difficult and neglected things like the LNER or SR, where you needed to be a scratchbuilder of the calibre of Frank Dyer , Barrie Walls, Iain Futers or Nigel Macmillan to be able to make a go of a serious model. At that age I couldn't build a wagon kit tidily. It was a branch line - because that's what you did, as evidenced in the Railway Modeller. And it was steam because it hadn't occurred to me that you could model anything else. In those days even modelling BR steam was a case of "why would you want to model a depressing period of decay like that?"
     
    It was a startling revelation to find the editor of the Railway Modeller arguing in detail in a 3 page article that it was not merely possible but straightforward and attractive to model contemporary BR . The attraction of modelling a railway I'd actually seen, rather than one that had effectively vanished about the time I was born and I would never experience, was immediate. The East Lincolnshire line had closed in 1970 so I hadn't seen a lot of the contemporary railway, but I'd seen something . The thing was out there, and getting to Grimsby or New Holland or Market Rasen or even Kings Cross was a great deal more practical than acquiring a TARDIS and visiting the 1930s.
     
    And CJF had explained in detail how it could be done. There were even layout plans, taken from his 60 Plans for Small Railways - one of these (that marked 3) purported to fit a continuous run in 6' x 4', and I came to the conclusion that a version could be done in 10' x 8' in the loft. I didn't much like the through terminus Cyril Freezer had drawn so I thought a few loop lines tricked up like a station would act as a sort of fiddle space.
     
    So I got parental permission and funding for some lengths of half inch chipboard about 18" wide to be supported off the roof trusses on metal shelf brackets There was no baseboard frame - these were effectively crude shelves. My existing rolling stock - three engines, some coaches and wagons - was sold. (There seemed no point trying to sell the few kits I'd attempted to build. Three wagons were much later rebuilt and recycled for the boxfile, one Ratio coach eventually went in the bin, another has just been completely rebuilt for Blacklade, and that just leaves a badly built GW 4 wheeler which I 'm considering rebuilding as engineer's stock.)
     
    With the modest proceeds I had a model railway spending spree. My birthday produced a blue Wrenn class 20, and the rest of the funds went on a blue Airfix 31 - the latest thing in RTR diesels then - three or four coaches and three "BR vans": my first venture into the world of the discount mail order box shifter, bought from a prominent advertiser of the time, Eastbourne Model Centre. I soon discovered that the "BR vans" were not like the ones that took malt from ABM Louth - they were pre-nationalisation types, and further investigation suggested there weren't any of those left. But I was stuck with them , even if they weren't authentic.
     
    Cyril Freezer had claimed that an authentic modern BR train could be made up with a van , two brake seconds, an FO, and a catering vehicle; and that a mix of Mk 1 and Mk2 stock was authentic. I duly bought a pair of Hornby Mk2 "BSK"s and an Airfix Mk2D FO . An old Triang Hornby Mk1 RMB was found on a junk shop, and repainted rather roughly into blue-grey with Humbrol enamel (I remember freezer tape was used as masking, the catering red stripe was actually a narrow strip of the original maroon self-coloured plastic, the corners of the grey weren't rounded and there was no lining. Or numbers and branding). I also acquired two Lima BGs, and a pair of their CCTs - I thought I could add a parcels train to the mix. The idea was that with a BG and RMB I had an InterCity rake, with these cut out and a 31 on the front I had a semi fast/local train. My express loco was to be a second hand Triang Hornby 37 , bought for a tenner from the junk shop. It barely ran. I eventually took it to a model shop I'd discovered near Grimsby station to be sorted out. They did their best , but it was still pretty rubbish . I bought a new Lima 08.
     
     
    It was a badly flawed project. Nobody in the family had ever had a model railway, I didn't know any other modellers, there were no local clubs, no local model shops and in those days of course no internet. I was totally on my own bar a few copies of a monthly magazine, and I had no real idea what I was doing. I was under the impression that Brasso would be an effective track cleaner. After all it is sold for polishing metal and rails are metal... The whole thing ran like a dog with frequent derailments. I'd reused every Hornby point I'd ever bought - it's only now, many years later , that I wonder if there might have been some back to back issues in there somewhere , and whether some of the points may have been a bit coarse for some of the wheels. I remember I ultimately rewheeled the Hornby coaches with wheels sold by a model shop in Grimsby - Romfords no doubt. Were those really going to run happily through 1970s Hornby trainset points?

     
     
    About 18 months into the project my father was seconded out to the Australian branch of his company, and progress stopped.
     
    We spent most of the next few years in Sydney, where I found a 1500V dc suburban railway with a 15 minute frequency service on my doorstep , and in due course acquired a NSW Student Railpass for use on the same. A chance find of a months old copy of the Model Railway Constructor on the bookstall on Wynyard station ramp led to modelling restarting in the form of a small tram layout , which went through 2 versions , the second of which boasted two BEC kits and worked quite well though it ate card buildings and came back asking for more, and I never did get more than a few centre masts without wires up..

     
    An attempt was made to resurrect Flaxborough when we returned home about 9 months before university, and during holidays , but it didn't work well, progress was limited - and when I moved south to start work the project was quietly abandoned . Modelling restarted about 2 years later with Ravenser Mk1
     
    However this was not quite the end of the matter, because I was a good little boy, kept my stock boxes and packed everything carefully away in cardboard boxes in the parental loft (beneath the derelict remains of the layout). Those boxes eventually ended up in my own flat - and as I don't like wasting stuff , the stock is very slowly resurfacing.
     
    The Wrenn 20 and Lima 09 were reused on Ravenser - where their mechanical limitations became abundantly obvious. The Airfix 31 which was probably the best of the locos is now being detailed up for Blacklade. One of the two CCTs has already been comprehensively upgraded, and another awaits its turn. An Airfix LMS van which suffered my first attempt at weathering was reworked for the boxfile, and a Mainline Mink is now earmarked for reworking as a tail load parcels van for the steam period on Blacklade.
     
    Other stuff will surface in due course. The two Lima BGs are earmarked as donor vehicles to take a couple of pairs of Comet sides when I pluck up the courage to face attempting blue/grey with spray cans . I don't suppose there'll be a lot left of them when I've finished but at 64' there's not much else to be done . There's a Lima Mk1 SK tucked away somewhere - which raises the question of whether the secondhand Kitmaster SK kit someone gave me should be built as a TSO instead. Most of the TTAs I got for 50p each second hand have now been reworked , and at some point I may get round to reusing the body of the 37 with an Athearn PA1 chassis and some Dave Alexander bogie frames ( both already stockpiled) under it .Whether the Mk2s are really worth the huge effort of upgrading is moot. I started , got seriously discouraged - I'm not sure I'll finish
     
    There's one other ghost, a slightly more subtle one. The tram layout, allegedly 4' gauge, was set in a Midlands county town, which was supposed to have a GC and MR presence (E Midlands county towns generally did) . I had a copy of the East Midlands volume of Great British Tram Networks, and Leicester, Nottingham and Derby were very much in my mind. There was supposed to be a city centre tram terminus and a depot outside the lesser , MR, station, serving a secondary group of tram routes , and this was allegedly what was being modelled. The town was called Blacklade, and the square outside the MR station in which the trams terminated was named after my initial misreading of the name of one of the stations on the North Shore line. The real station is Artarmon, but I quite liked my version.... When I needed a backstory and scenario for a small rundown terminus in an East Midlands county town , it was easy to blow the dust off the fiction.
     
    I seem to have mislaid the layout photo I was going to scan... (Which is why this post has been an awful long time in draft)
  23. Ravenser

    A Decent 31 - Finishing Off

    By Ravenser,


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

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

    and

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

     
    31 415 ran well and I'm pleased with the results
  24. Ravenser
    Having decided on a target loco (31 415 , MR then BS) http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14486-a-decent-31-prototypes-and-problems/ and with an Airfix body in hand , what needs doing?
     
    Firstly, remove the numbers and symbol with surgical spirit and a cotton bud. Next , a swift appraisal.
     
    The Airfix model was state of the art in it's day, but that was 35 years ago. Still, many competent judges seem to rate the moulding highly in terms of basic shape
     
    The body side steps and roof filler recess need removing. An etched fan grill to be fitted - A1 Models etch in stock. Nothing to be done to the main radiator grills. Flushglaze - SE Finecast pack in stock. Engine room pipe runs - I have a set of whitemetal castings in stock to use . These will sit behind the glazing and have to be done after glazing and therefore after painting. Cab door handrails are beyond me to replace neatly, so leave them.
     
    Much of the work is on the cab front. Cab doors should be plated - I have an A1 Model etch available. The moulded inverted-L handrails are grim and must be replaced in wire , and a top handrail added. Replacing the lampirons is too ambitious.
     
    The buffers are almost 2mm too short compared with a drawing. A1 oval buffers are between 0.5mm and 1mm too long but more substantial - a marked improvement even if not quite perfect. Once Kadees are in place on the chassis it will be possible to see whether any buffer beam pipework can be fitted.
     
    As far as I'm aware, no significant modifications apply to the chassis . This was one of the better runners on my teenage layout - with a decoder fitted it runs quite nicely even if it growls a bit. It didn't see a lot of use so it's a virtually new mechanism
     
    Airfix took the yellow right down the front to the bottom of the buffer beam. A few locos - I think on the WR - had this but normally the buffer beam was black and this substantially changes the look. Photos show a recess under the cab doors producing a notch in the bottom edge of the cab front. Airfix don't model this. All shots except very early ones show two little wings on the shoulders of the cab doors . They're quite noticeable - but Airfix omitted them and I don't see a way to model them neatly so they'll have to be omitted. Possibly windscreen wipers
     
    There's no cab interior of any kind - some basic provision needs to be made
     
    This little list does show why the Airfix 31 didn't really convince me from the front
     
    And here's a shot of the bodyshell with work well under way
     

     
    An A1 etched roof grill has been fitted (I think this is actually meant for the Lima 31 not the Airfix model) , and all the side steps and roof recess filled. The filler I have is not great stuff - it crumbles away at the slightest provocation leaving a pockmark - and I really need to invest in something better. For once the Milliput worked and set - evidently this time the stuff wasn't past it's working life - and was much better to sand down
     
    The etches for plated doors are in place: these were quite difficult to get flush , or reasonably flush , over the underlying moulding despite my filing down.
     
    The replacement handrails are on. It is surprisingly difficult to bend them up exactly alike on both sides despite using one of Bill Bedford's handrail jigs. I was rather nervous about this part having recently acquired a roughly modified second hand Airfix 31 for a spare chassis and seen how crude its replacement handrails were - but mine seem ok
     
    The new buffers are in place - AI Railmatch oval brass buffers from the bits box . Possibly fractionally long - but a good deal better to my eye than the anemic Airfix efforts
     
    The body has been sprayed in Rail blue with a Railmatch aerosol
  25. Ravenser
    I have a few problems with my Hornby 31 derailing when running through the crossover at the end of Platform 2 if set to cross over. As this is part of the run round loop and as the 31 is currently diagrammed for any loco hauled trains (parcels, engineers etc) this is a problem
     
    The problem is caused by the fact that these points don't always close tight when thrown - arising from the fact that I used the wire supplied by Tortoise, instead of replacing it with something thicker and stiffer. I've replaced the throw wires on the other points , but it's now going to be the devils own job to do it on the platform end crossover.
     
    However as my Airfix 31 seems to take the relevant crossover in its stride , there's an obvious fix. I always intended to detail the Airfix model at some point anyway and if I want operate a Loco Hauled Substitute set (2 coach MK1/Mk2Z rake) to cover a DMU shortage - as happened not infrequently in the 1980s - I need a second Type 2 to work it Minories-style (Platform 2 is too short to take 31 + 2 x 64' coaches - a pair of 50' vans is the limit - and this is the only platform with access to the loop. The crossover in question was originally added to the plan to give access to the fuelling point , and the fact it gave me a loop was a bonus) . I've got the blue/grey coaches - all I need is a second loco
     
    The Airfix 31 was bought new in the late 70s for my first modern image layout, and has been stored in its box ever since that unsuccessful project was finally abandoned. It has been given a decoder , and runs well considering what it is, but is otherwise untouched. I also acquired a finished 31 body when Dapol were selling off the remaining stocks of discontinued items some years , and the intention is to detail this spare body and substitute it. Kadees must also be fitted to the chassis.
     
    I have a further rather battered 31 body in stock, plus a rather tatty and roughly detailed specimen acquired for £15 for it's chassis (it's a runner though may need some cleaning up) , a spare Athearn PA1 chassis, and the unhappy remains of a first batch blue Hornby 31 (I seperated the body before mazak rot set in) , as well as 31 174 which is - I hope - fine. If I work my way through that lot over the years I should have quite a fleet of Brush 2s
     
    In my teens I saw quite a lot of Immingham's 31/4 fleet on Transpennine South and Cleethorpes-Newark trains. Hornby have made a 31/1, so obviously if I was detailing an Airfix loco for myself I wanted a mid 80s IM 31/4.
     
    Unfortunately it's not quite that easy.
     
    There's little or no obvious external difference between a 31/1 and a 31/4. The detailed issues relate to date rather than type. Airfix produced a 31 with headcode box, bodyside steps and recessed tank filler on the roof, train heating boiler port,, nose doors and buffer beam cowls. As far as I'm aware this represents a late 60s /early 70s re-engined 31/1 from the latter 2/3rds of the production batch. A good choice for a manufacturer in 1977 but rather more problematic now
     
    By the mid 70s all 31s had lost the bodyside steps and roof recess which had been plated over , so Airfix's blue 31 401 is wrong here . During the 1980s buffer beam cowls were removed . The first batch of ETH conversions (31 401-19) kept them when converted in the early 70s . I'm not sure about 31 420-4 , converted in the mid 70s . The second batch of conversions in the mid 80s , 31 425-469 lost them when rebuilt to ETH, and they also lost bodyside bands. I don't feel up to that level of reworking , so my target loco has to be a 31/4 from the early conversions up to 31 424.
     
    Unfortunately IM's 31/4 fleet was basically the second batch conversions. I thought I'd found a perfect prototype and reference shot here:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31408-bk-090383_t.jpg
     
    (I originally found this on the 53A Models photo site)The train is virtually certain to be a Cleethorpes - Newark Northgate service, as it comprises four Mk1s- the Transpennine South sets were basically Mk2a s , later strengthened to 5 when the Newark sets were broken up and that service reverted to 114s
     
    It is at this point that the problem of fan cowls rears it's ugly head - literally . Note the roof line on the loco - isn't there something projecting ?? Aren't we seeing what is horribly obvious here - a raised cowl around the roof fan grill, on the same loco at Rugby some years later:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/cs31408_rugby.jpg
     
    But in 1976 she was smooth and her roofline unmarred:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/16179216@N07/5187603237/
     
    Some internet browsing suggests that these cowls appeared in 1979-82. Many locos never got them - I have a shot of a gleaming new 31 435 at Grimsby in 1985 (I think) with no cowl, and she's plainly uncowled here (a Hull-Liverpool I reckon) http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31435-sp-0690.jpg
     
    I've no idea how you model such a cowl - so 31 408 wasn't a suitable target loco. And as 31 435 had uncowled buffer beams she wasn't either (Whether the buffer beam cowling has been replaced now she's D5600 in preservation I don't know). She has also had a revised smaller cab window on one side which seems to be a very unusual modification - I've not seen another photo showing this asymmetrical cab window arrangement.
     
    As far as I can see from my surviving 1980s abcs, only five 31/4s from the first batch were allocated to IM during the period (31 403/07/08/09/20) and it appears from the class 31 photo site that all of them had roof fan grill cowling during the 1980s
     
    So a slightly different approach is needed.
     
    The nearest I've found to an ideal target loco is 31 415, seen at Skegness in 1982 in a photo in Diesel Retrospective Class 31. She doesn't have a roof cowl, I think the buffer beam cowling is still in place as something is going well below the buffers, and she's most emphatically in Lincolnshire . She is plain blue with no stripe but bodyside bands are still in place
     
    At that stage she was allocated to March (the train is therefore probably the SO Cambridge-Skegness and return), and by the late 80s she was allocated to Bescot - very suitable for Blacklade. At what stage she lost buffer cowling and bodyside bands I don't know - ignorance is bliss here. (For the record a shot in the same book shows 31 414 at Wellingboro in March 1987 without either). The Hornby body from 31 270 would probably be a much better starting point for a 31 without bodyside bands as the band is done by tampo printing
     
    So - 31 415 it will be...
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