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Ravenser

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  1. 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
     

     
     
  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
    In a previous posting , I mentioned trams . I am trying quite hard to be a good boy and finish things off ,not take on new projects and commitments; but despite my best intentions there have been stirrings on the tramway front.
     
    It started when something caused me to look at the Street Level Models website. I spotted a card kit for Manor House tram station (LT), and that started something stirring. Wasn't Manor House the northern terminus of one of the Kingsway Subway routes ? It was - route 33 to be precise, which lasted until close to the end of London's trams. Could this make a modest diorama to display a tram or two? A quick check of the track map in the back of LCC Tramways Handbook ( no doubt long out of print) showed the track layout at Manor House as a crossroads of two double track routes, with a connection between two of the legs. But on which leg was the tram station? Did Subway cars terminate there?
     
    I mentioned in an earlier post about layout projects and commitments (here) that I had vague inchoate aspirations towards a tramway layout, potentially a London tram layout and that the Highgate Archway area seemed to have potential. The trouble with this was that it would also require a lot of space, or at least length, and if I threw in Holloway depot for good measure , probably with as well
     
    Manor House and the kit promised something smaller , but the crossing is a bit of a problem . Still the operating potential should be high . Initial thoughts crystalised into a figure of 8 , with the 4 arms of the double track crossing linked behind the scenes. At the northern end , this would just be a double track loop providing off stage storage, but at the other end, there would be a single track loop past a depot, , and two double track routes going off stage (using a cassette):
     
    A very crude sketch will show what I mean: - top is north(ish)
     

     
    Nearly all of this is prototypical , the liberties being the depot and connecting loop at the bottom , and joining the two arms of the crossing behind the scenes at the top . In reality, the right hand leg of the X continued via Stamford Hill, Hackney and Bethnal Green to Aldgate , while the top leg headed for Alexandra Palace, Enfield and Barnet
     
    Obviously this is all very loose and undimensioned, but then this is only a very general conceptual sketch of a might-be (one day)
     
    In the cupboard I had a Tower Feltham kit, and a Tower E1 kit , not to mention a KeilKraft West Ham car. Of course you can't credibly model London with a single E/1. I made the fatal mistake of looking at ebay for the first time in years , and within 10 days I had won two more Tower E/1 kits, a Tower kit for the centre entrance Feltham prototype "Cissie" and a nice diecast Corgi Feltham in LT livery. I think the whole lot came to about £30
     
    Then there's the ABS LCC storesvan kit in the cupboard, not to mention the LCC B class kit, the etched LCC F class single decker Subway car, and the card M class from StreetLevel
     
    Of course I'm not committed to building anything
     
    Shenfield added the StreetLevel Manor House tram station and a changepit. The north leg of the X was MET , not LCC and therefore overhead - the wires continued to the layby loop at Finsbury Park (represented at the bottom left of the sketch) which was for MET services to terminate. Whether any did , is a moot point, but you could imagine Route 34, which ran from Ally Pally using the single decker cars modelled by Ks, being extended. Failing a Ks kit a plausible representation could be bashed out of a Mehano tram....The LT Feltham displays Route 21, which was a joint LCC/MET service from Holborn taking the left to top connection at the Manor House crossing and continuing to North Finchley. Kingsway Subway Route 33 terminated just south of the crossing
     
    This is all strictly hypothetical, you understand....
     
    A trip to Kew Bridge last weekend was meant to supply some mechanisms for bogie trams. Unfortunately both the trader who supplies tram mechanisms and ABS were absent, and although there was a German trader who had a Halling mechanism on his stand he was only taking cash and I didn't have £47 in cash left ...
     
    Which is a great pity , because what I did buy was this:
     

     
    and about the only thing that would fit to mechanise it is a Halling mechanism. HO is really rather small, and this kit brings it home. Not quite the Holy Grail in whitemetal but not far off - the only Sydney tram kit of which I'm aware
     
    What on earth would I do with this kit ? Well, that's only too easy . A small layout based on the Wynyard terminus of the N Sydney tramways would make a good boxed diorama and could plausibly be done in something like 6 ' x 9"..... The awkward fact is that this is one idea which I might actually have space for , but Wynyard in the rush hour needs more than one trams , and the question arises what else I could come up with
     
    Of couse I'm not committed to building this, or anything else, you understand....
  4. Ravenser
    Longer-standing members will remember the 2006/7 Layout Challenge which started on RMWeb2 before we broke it. This produced a number of rather fine layouts including Keyhaven. It also - mostly - produced Blacklade.
     
    The basic remit of the Challenge was to produce a small layout providing a showcase for some of the high standard RTR we have enjoyed in recent years . LisaP4 defined the rules to require layout to have a maximum footprint of 6 square feet . That killed off an idea of mine to base a small layout on a version of the Timesaver shunting puzzle and mocked up to represent a version of Tyne Commission Quay transplanted to the foreshore of the Thames in the 1950s and electrified at 1500V dc. It would have required 8 square feet . In retrospect Tynesaver Wharf ("For Your Economical Fuel!") was a merciful escape - the work involved would have been far too much and I'd have been stuck with a half built layout stalled and abandoned. As opposed to a 4/5th built layout stalled, like wot I 'ave..... The scheme would have required amongst other things a DC Kits EM1 and a Judith Edge EB1 (and possibly an EF1 to boot) and a heck of a lot of inlaid track - always bad news on the work front . The EM1 kit I acquired cheap when the local model shop closed down is still sat behind me with no obvious prospect of being built. It's not merely well down the list - it's not on the list at all.
     
    As well as this still born scheme , the Challenge produced a large range of schemes which never quite made it - I think at one point there were just under 80 layout proposal threads in the subforum on RMWeb 2 and to my mind the unbuilt proposals were the saddest loss when that version of RMWeb congealed and froze. I recall Buckjumper had a proposal for a gaslit subterranean S7 affair in 1890s E.London ("Always carry a revolver east of Aldgate, Watson") illustrated by some atmospheric sketches (Sepulchre St wasn't it?). A particular mention is due to two very innovative and radical schemes to use the footprint - Kenton's "Long Thinney" and a bold circular doughnut multilevel scheme in N , whose name and builder I have forgotten (Sorry!) . Both proceeded a long way into construction before abandonment for differing reasons and both used the idea of a very narrow board to maximise length .
     
    But to return to what actually got built on my part
     
    I attach the link to the thread on RMWeb3 (itself starting as a repost of the RMWeb 2 thread - I'm sure some of this material must have been through either the Library of Alexandria or the Saxon monastery of Jarrow at some point):
     
    Blacklade - RMWeb 3 Challenge thread
     
    It is perhaps reposting the initial ideas:
     
    Quote
     
    Plan B revolves around on of the plans from Carl Arendt's micro site , which has attracted me for a while:
     
    http://www.carendt.c...lans/index.html
     
    The plan in question is under Shelf Switchers / Passenger Lines , and is called "Amalgamated Terminal 2" . It's a slight tweak of "Amalgamated Terminal"
     
    Carl has designed this around shunting passenger coaches, thinking in US terms of loco hauled passenger trains being shunted and reformed.
    I looked at it and thought "small terminus for DMUs"
     
    Some people may remember the long threads on RMWeb 1.5 about modern small termini and MUs:
     
    [Links deleted because dead]
     
     
    and there was a discussion on RMWeb 1.0 sparked by some photos of Manchester Mayfield. Cloggydog [Alan Monk] declared an unfulfilled urge to build a small Manchester terminus in the late 60s.
     
    Anyway, my concept here is to take Amalgamated Terminus 2 and lengthen it to 8' 4" : ie 2 boards each 4'2" long, 5" wide at the board joint , and 12" wide at the end.
     
    Someone who can remember things like triganometry may be able to confirm, but according to my maths (done using strips, trriangles , and fractions on the back of an envelope)that's just under 6 square feet.
     
    There are a few tweaks to the trackplan. There'll be an extra crossover between the centre platform and the front platform, giving access to what Carl Arendt marks as "Engine Ready road" and for me will be a small fueling point. And there'll be an extra fiddle yard road at the back
     
    What's marked as "Covered Concourse" becomes the back platform. The middle platform moves to between the front and middle roads
     
    We are in a largish Midlands county town , somewhere between 1989/90 and 2000/1. [in the event, I've slipped into an "early" period 1985-90 and a "late" period 2000-6: The end of the Central Trains franchise closes the latter] It isn't Derby, or Nottingham, or Leicester or Lincoln. Maybe it replaces one of them, and it resembles bits from all. It had an ex GC through station and an ex MR terminus, and now the rather battered MR station remains, served by DMUs
     
    In the early period we get 114s, 105s, 150/2 , 153, 155 and Pacers. (In other words I build the kits in the cupboard and finish the conversions) Maybe a 108 and 101 in blue/grey (I grab some new RTR). Parcels are possible (CCTs + 31). A 20 brings the fuel tank for the fueling point. Maybe a 31 and 2 coaches subs for a DMU [i bought the RTR; Hornby forstalled the 153 conversion , and I bought 2; the other conversions still await - a tentative start has been made on one Pacer: see my blog]
    In the later period the Modernisation Plan units disappear , and I get to run my Central Trains Turbostar and the 156 I'm promising myself. [and got] Maybe a 158 (See Steve Jones picture) [W Yorks 158 in service, and I'm finally going to order a CT 2 car set from Hattons. The photo in question was of a classic CT pairing on the Joint line - 153+158] Maybe I'll sort out the 37 conversion and use it for the fuel [ Maybe by the end of the next decade. A cheap 57 off the Bachmann stand and a discount 66 will serve in the meantime]
    It will be DCC ; some of the interest will be joining and splitting trains. I can just manage 150/2 + 153, and 142 + 142, or 142 + 153 , or 153 + 153 are possible
     
    It will be OO. I want to have pukka OO track, and as beginners don't start with double slips, I'm thinking of investigating Marcway. This may affect the geometry slightly: as drawn it seems to use Peco medium radius. [ I went Marcway]
    It will use stock I'm going to build for the club project , which will be DCC anyway, plus units intended for the home layout I haven't built. The only things I would need to buy is two Pacers. Virtually all the structures /bits can be sourced out of my cupboard.
     
    In any case there's only a few low relief flats involved. I don't need to build stock specially. So it should be a relatively quick project.
     
    8'4" comfortably fits in the "study" where the home layout was going to go [ Ended up as 8'6" long]
    I've roughed it out with stock and Peco templates on some lining paper full size. I've never tried XtraCAD, and this seemed quicker. Also I'd endorse Neil and Shortliner's comments about needing to check every quarter inch
     
    And it fits. I need to get a friend to turn it out in Templot to check the geometry 100% for handbuilt, but it drops in place and all the stock fits...
     
    The "bow-tie" shape has caused a few interesting issues with the pointwork and motorisation of same in the throat area, but works, more or less, scenically
     
    After October 2007, construction gradually slowed down, and by the beginning of 2009 it more or less ground to a halt as I became occupied on other fronts. I repeat the last posting in the old thread , dated Sat Aug 29th 2009:
     
    Quote
     
    Its been a long while since anything was posted - most of my efforts in the last few months have gone into stock.However this does mean that there are a few new items to play with and the other evening I had a running session.
     
    I went for an early period session and managed to get 8 trains on the layout, being W Yorks 158, 2 x 153s, W Yorks 155, 108 , 3 car 101, parcels (31 + 2 bogievans) , 20 + TTA .Operation was on the same principle as those puzzles they used to sell , where there were 9 positions and 8 tiles, so you had to shuffle things round using the one available space. I managed to run trains for over an hour and a quarter before getting myself boxed in to the point where I needed to take something off in the fiddle yard to make another move possible . Given the small size of the layout and the lack of frieght , the operational potential is good, even if permissive working was stretched a bit now and again.
     
    The 3 car 101 is probably a bit much. The original idea was to make up a 2 car set , but as Hornby's unit was actually allocated to TS at the right period, it seems a pity to rework it as power car+ trailer and dump the centre car. Whether such a 3 car unit would ever have run as a temporary power twin at this period is unclear, but there seems to be some evidence formations were starting to get a bit improvised and mix'n match by the mid to late 80s. It would certainly make operations simpler if I just removed the centre car on an ad hoc basis. Both of the DC Kits in the cupboard are for 2 car units (105 and 114) so once one of those is built there is an alternative anyway
     
    The running session has clarified things in terms of fleet strategy and what projects I start next. I was a little surprised to find that I already have almost everything for the early period (1985-90) and potentially plenty to spare, whereas I'm short of stock for the "late" period 2000-7. I'd assumed it was the other way round. To get a complete blue period fleet, I need to swap over the W Yorks 158 and the Central 153 (which was pressed into service to test consisting - dead easy with the PowerCab). I've already got a Provincial 150/1 on order from Trains4U - far from being an unnecessary indulgence, it can replace the 158 with something appropriate in short order. Longer term , I'm intending to buy a second RR 153 to go with my existing one, once Hornby release a RR livery in late condition with ploughs. In the medium term , however, it looks like I need to get on with reworking one of my Pacers with the Branchlines chassis pack. Neither Pacer is operable at present (no decoders/coarse wheels jam in the points) so this would get some "dead" stock into traffic.
     
    I was considering one of 3 possiblities as "next cab off the rank" - the Pacer project, detailing up a body for the Airfix 31 and building the Ratio Southern bogie brake van . However it looks like the choice is made - I already have a perfectly serviceable Hornby 31 and 2 parcels vans...
     
    Another way of freeing up space in the fiddle yard would be to fit a decoder to the old Bachmann 03 lurking in a cupboard , and sort out the pickups, couplings and a few other bits of upgrading . Again it was on the list as a "quick win" project to get some stored stock back into use and may well be prioritised
     
    Looking at the fleet list from the other evening, if I was running late period, i'd need to swap out 2 Modernisation Plan DMUs, the parcels trains, and the 20+TTA. I've a couple of Type 5s and a late green TTA recently finished,so the fuel oil is covered, but the only other DMUs currently available are a Turbostar and a 156. I had been hesitating whether to get a Central 158 from Hattons, on the grounds I didn't really need it - perhaps I do. And it does suggest I should get my finger out and finish the Bratchill 150/2 which has been stalled for an indecent length of time. Even with both I'll only have one DMU spare for the later period. If I just build everything I've already got for the earlier period, I could have 4 spare units, 5 spare locos and at least 3 spare parcels vans....
     
    It's one thing trying to calculate what stock you can and can't run and do and don't need, but once you actually try a session everything becomes a lot easier to see
     
    Nothing has been done on the layout since. However it has seen occasional use as a programming track . You'll have spotted that a couple more items of stock have been finished (PMV , TTA) or begun (Pacer)
     
    Having recently managed to shed a couple of commitments within the club I should now have more time to sort out the long list of jobs to be done in other areas - finishing Blacklade being one. The items still outstanding are the old ones - the remaining point motors and the station walling. But with luck we may see some progress in the coming months
     
    As I've now found the Create Blogs page again, and managed to transfer this to a blog, I can update this entry to say I've given the thing another running session, and what sticks out like a sore thumb is that the points do not throw completely . If you don't check each one is fully over and snug , and push it into place where necessary derailments result . The problem is clearly the one discussed here:
    Strengthening Wire on Tortoises
     
    I can watch the wire bending instead of the point moving if I view it from below. So this will need sorting out when I find out where I can source piano wire - and what I use to cut it with . I'm not going to wreck the edge on Xurons- they're expensive tools.
     
    This time round the 101 was reduced to 2 car, we acquired a "swinger" in the form of the newly built PMV and I found I didn't need the second diesel loco , as the 31 could be used for the TTA and minor pilot duties . That's 7 and a half trains, but proves comfortable to operate: I managed over an hour and a half of train shuffling without getting boxed in. Part of the concept is that each unit needs to go onto the fuelling point as some stage - this gives some point or or purpose to the train shuffling moves
     
    On account as it were are two quick snaps:
     

     

     
    And yes I really do need to add the station buildings, or at least the surrounding walls which would once have supported the overall roof
  5. Ravenser
    You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact.
     
    Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction
     
    Here we have the back screen wall - the remains of a former trainshed - under construction. Main materials are mounting board and Howard Scenics brickpaper, treated with pastel crayon (Terracotta) to redden it
     

     
    And here is the vaguely ecclesiatic end elevation of the old trainshed, facing out towards Artamon Square, under construction
     

     
    The lancet windows (echoes of Liverpool St) were worrying me a little , but a peek in Observer Book of cathedrals revealed that the real things are based on an equallateral triangle. Place your compass point at the top of the vertical on one side of the window, and strike an arc upwards from the top of the vertical on the other side of the window. Turn the compasses round, repeat the process from the top of the other side. Where the two arcs intersect is the top of your arch. Cut carefully along the drawn arcs - bingo, a lancet . Phew
     
    The door is a spare from the Scalescenes Retaining wall/archway kit
     
    Only two sides are finished , but the improvement is dramatic:
     

     

     
    In the second view you can see the unfinished section of the wall - this still needs external brick pilasters adding , plus the brickpaper to represent the bricked up former windows . For this I have used Superquick red brick , toned down with pastels (Burnt Sienna, Terracotta) and the arches are from the Prototype models brickpaper sheets (red again, with pastel weathering). It is assumed the LMR Architects Dept vandalised the original station in the late 50s/early 60s. The gap will be taken up by the surviving station building, which is supposed to act as a "viewblocker" at this edge of the layout (I'm not entirely certain about the concept , now I come to execute it, but I hope it adds rather than detracts from the visual impression.)
     
    Just how all this has transformed the station and made it gel can be seen by comparison with an earlier show of the same area:
     

     
    Although width is desperately restricted , I have managed to space the rear wall off the backscene slightly - very slightly where it passes in front of the brown brick office - but enough for there to be a small gap between the wall and the backscene , meaning that the backscene is visibly somewhere behind it
     
    Giving a station this small a trainshed is not in fact implausible . Lincoln St Marks (ex Midland) - which could only take 3 Mk3s on the platform - clearly originally had one , and in its later days had it removed:
     

     
    and this seems to have been a pretty standard scenario for medium sized stations built in Lincolnshire during the late 1840s:
     
    New Holland Town (MSLR - opened 1848)

     
    Market Rasen (MSLR opened 1848):

     
    (Gainsborough Central follows the same pattern)
     
    Louth (GNR opened 1848 - here , as typically on the GNR , the roof was a two pitched affair , supported by cast iron pillars between the tracks )

     
    with Boston being similar
     
    Firsby retained its overall roof until closure in 1970 , and possibly Alford Town may have done the same (all GNR 1848)
     
    In fact the only surviving overall roof is Grimsby Town (again MSLR 1848) which was renewed in 1976
     
    I've leant more to MSLR practice as those are the examples I'm most familiar with, although lacklade is supposed to be an ex MR station
  6. Ravenser
    I promised someone I'd post a few notes over the weekend on some of the bits I'd been doing to the Pacer ; it's Monday, I haven't, so here we go.
     
    I've assembled and fixed in place the rear trailing wheel assembly. Unfortunately its not absolutely spot on: I reckon the hole is about 0.35mm out to one side. I've made one attempt to drift the hole sidewards with a file , and stuck in a scrap of 40 thou plasticard into the recess above to take the thread , and drilled it out. However this doesn't seem to have eliminated the error, though I hope it did manage to reduce it. The wheels are square and in line - just very slightly off set. Remove the off set and they're about 87 degrees to the chassis.. The Hornby Pacer had a swivelling truck here originally , and the Branchlines assembly is not actually immovably tight to the chassis - it will pivot under a little pressure. I'm not sure whether this may not be deliberate.
     
    At any rate , at this point I don't think I can do a lot about it, and I'm inclined to live with it, proceed with the build and see how we go. If it proves to be an issue, I'll see if I can revisit it
     
    Meanwhile I've been removing the Black Box for the weight , and here are the shots to show the results:
     

     
    This shows the lower view of the chassis - the black underframe box has been taken back to solebar level and a new floor added with 30 thou plasticard. The detail on the side of the black box has been fretted out with files and knife. I've also salvaged the engine block shape marked on the bottom of the underframe box and built it up with 3 layers of 40 thou plasticard, filed to shape. This will be glued onto the new raised floor of the underframe weight box
     
    Here's the top view, showing the remaining recess for weight. I intend filling this with lead sheet, araldited in place - as lead is a much denser material than steel, this should compensate for the fact that the recess is much smaller than when it contained Hornby's steel block. And if that's not enough, the seating moulding is raised , and there should be enough room underneath it to glue another strip of lead
     

     
    As an aside , at a show a few weeks ago I picked up a bargain for ??4-50 :
     

     
    I know the first release Hornby wagon was heavily criticised when it first came out and they subsequently retooled it . I assume this wagon was so cheap not just because it was unboxed , but presumably because it must be the first version and nobody wants it? Without detailed info readily to hand (cue usual moan about state of BR wagon books ) I can't identify what may be wrong with it , so I'm inclined just to weather it and hope. Does anyone recall what the problems were supposed to be - or whether this is in fact the original version? It's just possible I might have struck lucky. I've fitted the usual long NEM Kadees
     
     
     
    I've been doing one or two other things, but they're from a completely different area of interest , so will go in a seperate post.
  7. Ravenser
    This one's gone wrong somehow - try the link
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2497&start=25" page on Old RMweb
     
    Comment posted by russellwar on Mon Jan 07, 2008 2:34 pm <br />
    <cite>jim s-w wrote:</cite>
    <br />No, you fit the glazing after the paint. You do need to cut your own but there is a small overlap between the etch and the hole. I have asked a lazer cutting company about the costs of getting windows cut - if its viable i'll let you know<br />
     
     
    Cheers
     
    Jim
     
    />If you do, I will quite happily rip out my windows. Let me know too.<br />
     
    <br />The thought of ctting all those windows scared me until now <br />
    __________________________________________</]
    posted on Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:58 pm
     
    They've done it again.
     
    First Bachmann announce a 150 shortly after I buy a Bratchill kit. I still think I will probably get there before they do though - we've not seen a preproduction model yet
     
    Then Hornby announce a 153 , knocking the project to convert an elderly 155 into 2 x 153s on the head. That's not a problem - I could probably use a Provincial liveried 155 suitably detailed, the beetles can be diverted.
     
    Now Bachmann announce a Cravens. Building the DC Kit in my cupboard (acquired second hand) was going to be next cab off the rank after the 150, given that the 153s have been taken out of the pipeline. This because it can only be plain BR blue - which is the sort of livery even I can do.
     
    Questions, questions. Do I simply plough ahead , on the basis that it will be at least 2 years before I get my hands on one of Bachmann's? Do I really want 2 Cravens ?
     
    Do I try to build my kit as one on the parcels unit conversions of the late 80s ? These would arguably be slightly closer in period to a newly converted 153 , and I think some of the conversions amounted to a stripe down the side and removal of some seats . But this leaves me without the passenger DMU for at least 2 years . Should I convert a Bachmann unit to parcels condition in due course??
     
    Questions, questions....
     
    __________________________________________
     
    Comment posted by PaulCheffus on Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:53 am
     
    <cite>Ravenser wrote:</cite><br />They've done it again.<br />
    <br />Now Bachmann announce a Cravens. Building the DC Kit in my cupboard (acquired second hand) was going to be next cab off the rank after the 150, given that the 153s have been taken out of the pipeline. This because it can only be plain BR blue - which is the sort of livery even I can do.<br /></font></blockquote><br />Hi <br />
     
     
     
    Yep its annoying. I had a DC Kits 105 in the cupboard for about eight years then last year decided to make a start, but I will finish it.
     
    Dapol did something similar to me. I spent two years scratchbuilding a pair of Telescopic Steel Hood wagons. Finished the first one and started applying the transfers to the second when they announced they were doing one in N. I have again decided to keep mine and finish the second as they haven't cost me much and to replace them would be about ??????‚??30.<br />
     
    Cheers
    Paul
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by <b>Platform 6</b> on Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:54 am
     
    <cite>Ravenser wrote:</cite><br />They've done it again.<br />
    <br />First Bachmann announce a 150 shortly after I buy a Bratchill kit. I still think I will probably get there before they do though - we've not seen a preproduction model yet ....<br />Questions, questions....</font></blockquote><br />
     
    I know exactly how you feel. I've a DC Kits 108 unstarted but now have some Bachmann 108s. I really think the DC Kits window bars will not 'cut the mustard' compared to the Bachmanns'. http://www.rmweb.co....es/icon_sad.gif
     
    And then there's the 8T cattle trucks just announced! <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....on_rolleyes.gif">
     
    I've slowly been building up a collection to detail/weather from Dapol - and then along comes Bachmann again. <img src="http://www.rmweb.co...._frustrated.gif"> <br />
    You just can't win! <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....es/icon_lol.gif"> <br />
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:14 pm </font><br />
    I've finally managed to do some modelling (does layout building count?) Well, stock modelling anyway.
     
    I had all sorts of good intentions about kits to be built . With it being so fine I even thought of digging out the resin WD road van kit and having a go at it in the garden - as resin dust in the home isn't good for your health. Only a passing thought though and as its set to rain tomorrow the moment passed.
     
    After attempting to weather a Harburn chemical toilet and not liking the results entirely - I wiped most of it off and touched up the roof - I had the acrylics out. So I decided to experiment with weathering a wagon in acrylics - normally I stick strictly to enamels. Out came a few recent RTR engineers wagons which were embarrasingly untouched ... and I spent most of the afternoon weathering two wagons.
     
    A factory weathered Hornby Seacow was the first victim. I didn';t much care for the effect on the underframe and the interior seemed to have had a faint coat of some spare LMS crimson. The inside of the hoppers and the ballast shoots got a coat of Humbrol matt leather , which proved very satisfactory and makes a big difference. I got enthusiastic and gave a Bachmann Limpet a thin wash of the same over the factory painted interior (much better than Hornby but a shade dark)
     
    I'm not too keen on Railmatch Brake Dust - frigteningly yellow and light when wet and darker but still pretty yellow dry. Rescue for the bogies came with a coat of Tamiya Flat Earth XF52 - the fag end of a jar left over from painting the sleepers on Blacklade. I didn't mix it properly and the thin part proved a very effective wash on the underframe of the Limpet , though things like the air tanks need a proper coat
     
    The chequerplate end platforms on the Seacow got a wash of matt leather, followed by a wash of flat earth. That was it for the Seacow - Hornby had effectively taken care of the sides for me. There will be better Seacows out there - a good few owned by folk on RMWeb - but I'm rather pleased with the result and its certainly a considerable improvement. The Limpet has had a few bodyside streaks but the body needs a proper working over with enamel washed and dry brush to tone it down and give it that faintly rusting washed out look<br />
     
    One thing is nagging at me - I presume I can apply Railmatch matt (enamel) varnish over acrylics? I know one way goes and one way doesn't between enamel and acrylic - I take it it is enamel over acyrilc? I normally apply a sealing top coat of matt vanish and it does tend to lighten and tone down , which the Limpet needs
     
    Overall impressions are that it's worked so far and seems effective over large areas. Thin washes can be problematic , and covering power seems poorer than with enamels . On the other hand , speed of drying means you can almost keep working. With enamel washes the Seacow would surely have taken a couple of evenings
     
    And a photo of one of the kits that didn't get built :
     
    <img src="http://img119.images...1024x768ko0.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    an etched kit for a Warflat , courtesy of DOGA. I'm rather looking forward to having a crack at this because it looks fairly simple and the nearest thing to a quick win possible with an etched kit. However it will have to wait till the vacuum based vice I've ordered from Squires arrives
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat May 10, 2008 2:18 pm
     
    Having just lost a long posting , this will be short but I did manage some modelling over the bank holiday. The Warflat didn't get done , for lack of a vice (Squires didn't have what I ordered) and photos are in short supply because the other thing that didn't get done was sorting out the ground cover and fitting the storage tank to the fuelling point on the layout- at which point it should make a nice little diorama for taking photos
     
    I finished the Limpet - wash of "off black to tone down the rust/black and wash of faded rail red + Humbrol 94 to tone down the orange. Excavating in my boxes to find the WD road van kit turned up a VGA I'd forgotten about which acquired Kadees and a wash of Tamiya Flat Earth on the underframe. Representing a coat of dirt on the stainless steel sides probably needs an airbrush and I haven't got one.
     
    In the same box I found a VDA bought off someone else a decade ago as a doner. I didn't much care for the basic weathering so reweathered in washed of enamel and acrylic andI'm very pleased with the result In a burst of enthusiasm I fitted Kadee no5s - well if it went wrong this was a spare wagon - which was my first genuine Kadee installation . In a further burst of enthusiasm , I added a kadee to one end of the Limpet to replace the pocket I robbed for the VGA. Possibly an underset coupler would have been better than packing it - I suspect it's slightly high
     
    On the wagon kit front, the WD road van progressed as far as cleaning up the flash and drilling holes for the handrails. Being resin, working with files drills etc in the flat is absolutely forbidden onsafety grounds, so I had to wait for a fine day and go outside. The instructions are a possible entrant for Metropolitan's Rubbish Instructions competition. They give tips on using cyano, and on painting, they tell you how to prepare the Dapol chassis and drill the holes. They do not contain any instructions on assembling the parts in the kit, though there's an exploded drawing attached
     
    These 2 can rarely have appeared on the same workbench:<br /><img src="http://img356.images...1024x768xq3.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    The Slaters MR asymmetric box van of 1880 must be the earliest prototype available as a plastic kit. This is for someone else. With the POA Blackadder I have copious amounts of Blood On My Hands [ the last 2 elastoplasts were removed this morning - it seems to be twist drills not craft knives that do the damage]
     
     
    The chassis came from a monstrosity Triang Hornby claimed to be a Winkle - the body went in the bin. That also surfaced from the boxes in the cupboard. Suitably cleaned up and with the V hangers filed out and representational detail . Then I made a blunder - digging in my boxes I found some A1 18" railfreight buffers , which sounded right late on a Bank Holiday without a photo in front of me, and fitted them. Photos of similar wagons in the Cheona books show "two stage" oleos on POAs and TTAs They are very firmly stuck - and they're staying.
     
    The thing is , I'm not attempting to build "the definitive 4mm POA Blackadder" for desplay on the DEMU stand at a show. Its an attempt to knock up another airbrake wagon from bits out of the cupboard at nil cost on a Bank Holiday Monday . I actually havbe a 51L /Wizard Models kit and will build that properly - the likely fate of both is to form a rake of 6-7 scrap wagons for use on an exhibition layout , and quite probably there may be several such rakes required. This wagon is making up the numbers, and I suspect most of the effect is going to lie in painting and finishing . It is already dawning that things like the black and yellow stripes on the top won't be easy. Does anyone do Railease logo transfers?
     
     
    Also the TTA chassis is representational at best - and a hasty look at Paul Barlett's site suggests it may be wrong for this body style:
     
    Wagon with TTA chassis?:<br /><a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p23292324.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p23292324.html</a><br />
     
    Wagons with same body style as jonhall's resin casting from his demos- which is what I found in a box:
    With FAT suspension but longer brake levers:
    <a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p23292333.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p23292333.html</a>
     
    With pedistal suspension:<br /><a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p23292307.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p23292307.html</a>
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun May 11, 2008 5:16 pm
     
    Most of the ground work around the fuelling point was done last night , so we have pictures of the stock. Unfortunately I still have to resort to flash , despite a sunny day , so quality isn't perfect :
     
    Weathered VDA and Limpet<br /><img src="http://img122.images...p1010312bi3.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    home mixed greys in acrylic , Railmatch faded rail red plus a coat of railmatch matt brushing varnish on the VDA . The varnish does bring out the faded silver grey
     
    Weathered Seacow and partbuilt POA Blackadder<br /><img src="http://img158.images...p1010321uu8.jpg" alt="Image" />
    __________________________________________
    posted on Thu May 29, 2008 9:30 pm
     
    Some folk can nearly finish a DMU kit in 72 hrs (my 150 still sits as a black reproach on the bookcase). Me , I had a bank holiday and what did I manage in 72 hrs . Err... I fitted Kadees to two wagons, and part painted the Blackadder . The POA and a detailed Hornby TTA now have Kadees and I've used up all the number 47s in the packet. Possibly I should have used something shorter as the buffers look a bit far apart. The Blackadder is off-black , (except for the underframe which is suitably brown and the interior which is suitably rusty ) I'm in the corse of sourcing transfers. And that's all folks - except I waved the chequebook around in the direction of various detailing bits
     
     
    It may not be quite right in the underframe department , but the POA is starting to look quite good - if you don't know your stuff on the details of wagon underframes
     
    A rummage through boxes turned up some MEA bodies bought for 50 p each off the Bachmann stand. Dangerous things, cardboard boxes . I need some more TTA underframes, cheap
     
    The MR box van was finished, painted in what may be too dark a shade of grey and dispatched to its new owner. I used acrylics cos I was rushing the job , and I have to admit I'm not entirely comfortable with athem as a medium at least for basic painting. Covering power is not as good as enamel - I'd hate to apply yellow acrylics - and they have a habit of drying up very fast - potentially disasterous if you've mixed a shade .
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:41 pm
     
    A little progress over the weekend. Some of the shopping arrived on Saturday, and with a packet of flushglaze in my hot sticky little hand I attacked the LMS BG. It's rather embarassing to have to admit this is my first serious coach project - assuming a couple of Ratio MR coach kits in my mid teens are excluded (results were slightly better than might be expected, but not in the "keeps all feet on the floor" department). The last 2 layouts were freight only , the light rail project was a different ballgame , so its nearly 20 years since I had to worry about coaches
     
    The flushglaze went in neatly enough with UHU - there's probably a much better way of doing it, but this seemed safer than superglue - and an excellent flushglaze effect was achieved [ There is a sequel to this- it doesn't go without saying ].The bars behind the glazing were reinstated with white cotton , a pair of tweezers and more dabs of UHU top and bottom. The old wheels were replaced with Hornby coach wheels , and while the body was off I started weathering the underframe. As it came , the van had the solebars painted blue , and I initially set about painting them black as it gave a most odd appearance, before spotting that the new Bachmann GUV also had blue solebars , and removing most of the black acrylic in haste with a fibreglass pencil. Black and white photos were no help at all here.
     
    The underframe was then treated to a coat of dilute (enamel) Railmatch frame dirt as this seemed a suitable darkish brownish shade to approximate the colour of underframes in various colour photos of coaches. In a fit of enthusiasm, I then tackled the new GUV with the same stuff . It's remarkable how long painting an underframe actually takes , once you've got in around all the detail and painted the fronts and backs of the wheels (as they weren't primed , I'm not sure how durable this will be , but I don't make a habit of handling my stock by the backs or centres of the wheels , so it should stay on . At least it seems to , where wagons are concerned ).
     
    This makes a big improvement to both vehicles and the BG is now starting to come together. I need to weather the ends suitably (the upper footsteps have been removed, as they had gone by this stage - electrification) and fit Kadees. The GUV is a very nice piece of work , and has NEM pockets at the correct height (I think) but a lot of parcels vans got truly filthy and this is a bit of a challenge of one of my first attempts at coach weathering
     
    I'm still not particularly confident about the BG in this livery (blue/grey) and condition (gangwayed) in parcels traffic as late as the 80s, though a little less unhappy than I was. The relevant Cheona book turns up 3 photos - one gangwayed in all over rail blue in parcels traffic in mid 1975, and two with the gangways removed plated in all over blue, one c1980 . Paul Barlett's site turns up photos of derelict vans in the mid -late 80s , but blue, and with gangways removed/plated, and one photo of an LMS BG in blue/grey , from 1968.
     
    So - blue/grey is a geniune livery, and gangwayed vehicles were used in parcels traffic , and to at least the mid 70s . However the only photo of this is in blue .. Blue/grey gangwayed Mk1 BGs were certainly used in parcels trains in the 80s, and LMS BGs were certainly used in parcels trains to some point in the 80s , probably the mid 80s , but the only photos found show vehicles in plain blue with gangways removed. So a blue/grey gangwayed LMS BG in a parcels train in the period 1985-90 is not proved impossible but seems a bit unlikely...
     
    I'm not doing a repaint , and the gangways are rather nice work anyway . But there is enough flushglaze left to do another van, so if an all blue van turns up (they were certainly produced RTR) a pukka plated conversion might well be on the cards . [ Since then another one has turned up...] Overall , the base model seems quite good
     
    In a rush of enthusiasm, I extracted a very elderly Hornby Mk2 from the bottom of the stockpile , in the naive expectation that similar improvements could be made. Alas , this is a very much worse proposition. For starters , the sides are about 4mm thick, so the "flushglaze" doesn't fit flush - there is still about a 2mm step , and it is not going to look too plausible against modern models . Then , the flushglaze doesn't fit. It's necessary to file back the inside of the window apertures to get it in at all , and with all the vents this is a major task, and one that is likely to result in a loss of crispness/minor damage. I wrote off 2 sets of windows before I worked all this out
     
     
    Then the coach is not, as billed, a BSO Mk2c but a BFK mk2a, of which most of us have much less need . The rail blue is self coloured plastic . There is no white lining between blue and grey .There are probably some more faults I was too disheartened to spot. It's now gone back , literally , to the bottom of the pile
     
    But the parcels train could end up looking rather nice...
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:04 pm
     
    The blue/grey BG is now done, barring Kadees , and the wheels on one side which I forgot to brushpaint. Since it's now dawned that a parcels train has a gaurd and a guard needs a van its a necessary item at a practical level 'cos he can't ride in a CCT, the Maunsell Van Bs had gone by the 80s, and there's not really sufficient length for a Mk1 BG and much else, though I shall probably end up with a Mk1 BG in the end because they were so much a staple of parcels and van trains in from the 60s to the end
     
    The Bachmann GUV is also more or less done, and as a payment on account here are some rough shots . You can see that "on Ravenser's bookcase" is not a figure of speech and the Branchlines 03 chassis just visible has made zero progress in at least 18 months . Despite being taken in daylight flash was necessary and played its usual tricks, and without a tripod, strewn with digital noise and not quite pinsharp they are blatently snapshots...
     
    <img src="http://img223.images...3quartertc9.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    <img src="http://img225.images...rguvsidedv4.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    This is my first attempt ever at weathering a coach : I wouldn't use some of these methods on a passenger coach but NPCS notoriously got covered in grime and I can live with the results . The photograph over emphasises colour contrast but clearly the bogies need another wash of track dirt
     
    I've sourced a TTA chassis and it clearly doesn't fit the MEA bodies. I suspect a scratchbuild will be needed . Anyone know a source of suitable heavy plate W irons and FAT suspension?
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PMP on Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:56 pm
     
    The bogies and underframe look too shiney, and the wheels are too brown vs underframe. I'd give the wheels a wash of matt dark grey/black to take the 'earthyness' away, and then give the underframe a coat of matt varnish first, before applying any more weathering. That way it'll harmonise your colours so none stand out above the others!
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....n_thumbsup2.gif">
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:18 pm
     
    The underframe is the bit that didn't get the treatment with matt brushing varnish..... Washes of Railmatch Frame Dirt seem to come out semi-gloss. The bogies aren't quite so shocking in real life as in the photos , but the brown wash was clearly far too weak here and needs redoing, and the ? battery box suffers from the same problem. With varnish on the whole lot , not just the body/solebars/roof , it should look more uniform
     
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Sun Jun 22, 2008 4:16 pm
     
    I've patched up the GUV , the bogies no longer look like a fright (though I think I may have missed one wheel) and if Imageshack would stop running like extremely viscous glue , some pictures could be posted:
    <img src="http://img57.imagesh...41/brguvfg3.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    <img src="http://img57.imagesh...3640x480cd4.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    And here's the LMS BG:
    <img src="http://img57.imagesh...7/lmsbg5vk5.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:45 pm
     
    I've finally got round to doing some modelling , and some Townstreet castings are decorating bookshelf and workbox
     
    These are for some 3/4 relief buildings. You may be unaware that there are any 3/4 relief buildings in the range - this is 'cos there aren't . Once again I am suffering from my usual inability to build anything in accordance with the instructions, compounded by delusions of grandeur. The original intention was low relief but they seem to have grown in stages at the back.
     
     
    In short I'm attempting to kit-bash plaster castings , and I'm not sure if it was a bright idea. The main building I've been working on is by way of a trial piece - the housefront casting (acquired via someone else) suffered some slight damage to guttering and downpipe , which I've attempted to patch - successfully with the guttering, more questionably with the downpipe . If it doesn't work out - well it was a test piece and the bits might otherwise have been ditched.
     
    The main problem is the side walls: Townstreet's only stone side walls have very Scottish stepped gables: entirely authentic for Fife but I'm not a Scot and have no intentions of modelling Scotland. This leaves stucco castings and the need to reface them , or provide an alternative.
     
     
    The low relief fronts are square ended with stonework continued round the edge. The stucco sides are mitred. Option one, based on something I'd seen from someone else, involved sawing off the edge of the end casting to allow for the depth of the front, then cladding the thing in Slaters rough cast stone plasticard, with a suitable cutout to fit round the casting for the front . This was for the chimney end. Option two involved a new end in 1/8th balsa, clad in the same Slaters plasticard, but this time with a sizeable overlap across the end of the facade casting . I had hoped to cover the end completely but there is a small gap : with the edge of the plasticard suitably treated/cut out at the mortar courses this is not very noticeable
     
    I then painted up the castings and the plasticard stonework . First problem - you get a different shade on the plasticard and the plaster with the same paint (I was using Humbrol 94) . This was blended in by a hasty wash of Humbrol 93 on the side/end of the front casting, and the result is a fairly decent match. However a dry run suggests that Option 1 produces a very noticable butt joint with the two castings being very difficult to fit exactly to each other. This is unacceptable : the plasticard has been ripped off the side casting - it was stuck on with Evostick - and a new plasticard overlay will be prepared without the cutout , in the same was as for Option 2
     
    As the building will be part of a terrace, you may well not see the side walls at all , which is the only reason I'm prepared to contemplate these approximations and bodges . What may well be visible is the gable and very top of the side wall, so something has to be done, rather than simply a plain bit of balsa
     
    Its also very apparent why the full relief buildings (from which the side castings come) use mitred corners - I can't see any other way of securing a reasonably neat join between plaster castings. I suppose I could have tried filing a 45 degree mitre onto the front castings , thus sacrificing the cast stonework detail on the edges - the castings are about 9mm thick
     
    I've also painted up castings for a three storey bank. These are over a centimetre thick, and I'm inclined to use the plasticard with a slight overlay onto the casting - anything less than about 9mm out of line with the adjacent building and all you'll see is the cast plaster detail on the side . Anything more - well , a dressed stone facade and rough stone sidewalls aren't exactly unknown , and any difference in texture /colour can be accounted for by the change of material. I suspect this is mainly going to be an issue at the gable and the top storey
     
    I'm also having to cut down slate roof sections to fit the house ( involving careful use of a junior hacksaw ) and it looks like I'll have to cut pantiles to size for the bank
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun Aug 17, 2008 4:47 pm
     
    A little more work on the Townstreet castings, and some pictures.
     
    First the scene of battle (or as the Anglo Saxons preferred, the place of slaughter...)
     
    <img src="http://img507.images...orkbenchpb2.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    You can see I've recently peeled off the Slaters cladding from the end plaster casting after a certain amount of shaking of head..
     
    Here's the rework , showing the large overlap .This time I've gone a bit further and I've cut round individual stones , wherever possible, as well as filing back the edge of the plasticard to a bevel to avoid a prominent line, and filing out the mortar courses at the edge .
     
    <a href="http://imageshack.us" ><img src="http://img224.images...treetendrq2.jpg" alt="Image" /></a>
     
    Here we have the frontages - I have still to paint the window bars white
     
    <img src="http://img507.images...rontageswy4.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    I've been experimenting with the slates. Initially I used Humbrol 112 Tarmac - and after comparing it with some roofs visible out of the window, I decided it was far too dark. The small test piece (off cut from cutting down the roof) features half painted with 112 tarmac then given an acrylic grey wash composed of Tamaya matt white and matt black (roughly to the shade of the darker Railfreight grey) . The other half was an attempt to mix the tarmac with some white enamel to tone it down.
     
    I'll be going with the Tamaya wash.....
     
    <img src="http://img232.images...eettilesbf7.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by c37408 on Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:15 pm
     
     
    How odd, I just spent some of Saturday dirtying up a very similar looking Parcels BG! I'll post some pics later. Yours looks great to me though, I especially the variety of shades of blue it now has in that second pic!
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:28 am
     
    The GUV is partly a demonstration of the difference made by decent photography, as I didn't actually rework the body weathering at all. First shot is taken in haste with flash , close up - which tends to do awkward things to colour and certainly accentuates any contrast. The later shots are taken in natural light . The underframe needed a bit of reworking though
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:40 pm
     
     
    Not too much to report, but on account , as it were , here is a hasty snap of the POA Blackadder, which still needs wasp stripe on top edges and buffer beams , and further weathering
     
     
    <img src="http://img370.images...p1010494zd5.jpg" alt="Image" />
     
    I have been struggling with the roof of the larger Townstreet building , which is pantiles - the supplied castings need to be cut down in both dimensions, and the break on the narrower roof at the back has not come out straight - as it is the back of a 3/4 relief building against a backscene I am pressing on , in the expectation it won't be noticable when in position on the layout
     
    Painting is Humbrol 82 , lining orange, which was the nearest enamel I could find but is still a bit bright and well orange. I have applied an extremely weak wash of matt leather acrylic toned down a little with matt flesh. Perhapsd this is slightly too light a weathering coat , but the results of tests using thicker heavier coats on off cuts were not good at all
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:35 pm
     
    Moderate progress has been made with the Townstreet buildings. The small house is now complete, the windows properly painted , and the bank is complete except for its roof - I think I need a final toning down acrylic wash on the pantiles which are still a bit fresh and new.
     
    I had quite a few problems with the roofs . No way could I get the slate roof of the small house to fit without gaps, and I ended up filling the gaps at the top of the gables and at the ridge with very fine grade milliput (about the first time I've got milliput to work well - maybe using a pack that was less than 5 years old helped ) The gap around the chinmey base was filled in the same way, and painted to resemble concrete flashing (121 pales stone ) this worked rather well.
     
    The stones picked out in 110 chocolate stood out a bit too much even after a grey acylic wash - I had to apply another yellow brown acrylic wash then reweather with very faint dark grey to tone the whole lot down
     
    But I must say the bank looks a very very impressive structure when the pantiles are put in place as a dry run
     
    To give a glazed effect to the windows I painted over the black with Humbrol Gloss Cote
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:19 pm
     
    Well, a bit of progress to report. The bank is finished and I'm pleased with it. I still haven't cracked weathering pantiles, but as reasonably new tiles it looks fine. I've also had a go at paining and finishing two buildings which someone else built, using the same approach. These seemed to come out a bit darker - perhaps ~I was slightly heavy handed with the dark acrylic weathering wash, perhaps I made it too close to black and it should have been more of a grey. But still the overasll effect is good , and stone buildings which have been cleaned up a bit a different times are not exactly the same shade.
     
    Blacklade, my Challenge layout , has been a bit stalled in recent months. The two major outstanding jobs have been fit the point motors /decoders and build the screen wall , and somehow other tasks, commitments, work and so forth have taken priority. But I have at least taken a first step , and built up the first of two MERG accessory decoder kits , kindly sourced by paulcheffus. Now I haven't actually tested the thing yet - it was only finished on Sunday night - but the thing is finished, and I'm very hopeful I haven't accidentally fried the IC chips.
     
    Considering I haven't attempted any form of electronics circuit construction since I was in my teens - and that was only a few very simple projects at school , most of which didn't work - this may seem like tempting fate . However I have to pay tribute to the kit design and technical support provided with it , in that I assembled the thing , slowly, but without any serious difficulties or real problems . Apart from one hasty appeal here to discover which way is positive on a capacitor , there was nothing that actually proved a stumbling block .
     
     
    I think I know the real reasons why my teenage school efforts at simple electronics were normally a failure:
     
    1.They didn't teach me anything about soldering . To be specific , they didn't teach me the necessity for cleanliness of the work pieces and tip to achieve a joint, anything about recovery time, or the role of flux. Maybe something was said at the beginning of the lesson and perhaps I missed those 2 sentences , and perhaps I wouldn't have missed key points like that if it had been an English lesson or a history lesson. I don't know. But I'm quite sure nobody ever actually showed me how to make a solder joint or taught the theory of good soldering - if they did it can have been no more than 10-15 seconds by the desk and half a sentence
     
    2. Nobody ever mentioned that you can destroy an electronic component by overheating it. I didn't hear that till years later.
     
    I remember lots of repeated attempts to remelt joints with a lingering iron in the hope that they would flow properly and not be dry. No wonder most things didn't work - I must have cooked several of the components in the assembly process
     
    This time I've been very careful - fine tip bit , straight in and out, minimal time on the job , give components a chance to cool before the next joint - and the bit time to recover. As I say it's not yet tested , but fingers crossed - the joints look neat bright little cones, as they are supposed to
     
     
    Another job under way is weathering a Hornby PO open for someone else. This is the 4 plank open - acquired second hand for not very much when my local model shop was closing down . Modifications have been slight - I removed the brake gear on one side as a granite company's 4 planker is most unlikely to have had independent brakes like a bottom door mineral . The wagon is beaing worked into post war condition - ie very tatty . After a "toning down " wash of a lighter grey to fade the lettering and a further wash of a timber colour , I've painted out several of the planks in a different timber mix.
     
    I am not quite sure I've cracked a suitable mix for timber. My first effort, concocted out of Humbrol 94, some Railmatch Centro Grey (not sure what use I have for Centro grey.._) and 53 Gunmetal had a faint greenish shade - gunmetal is recommended under these circumstances , but any noticeable quantity seems to have a substantial and not wholly desirable effect on the shade . The second attempt, for the planks, featured Humbrol 110 , Centro grey and a faint trace of Gunmetal and seems rather better , though perhaps rather yellower -
    "representational "; pine planking rather than a faithful shade , which would surely be more of a silver - grey . The solebars got a second wash with the revised wood mix - it's very noticeable in shots of weathered wooden POs that the solebars end up similar colour and of a piece with the body
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PaulCheffus on Thu Oct 23, 2008 8:13 am
     
    <cite>Ravenser wrote:</cite><br />1. They didn't teach me anything about soldering To be specific , they didn't teach me the necessity for cleanliness of the work pieces and tip to achieve a joint, anything about recovery time, or the role of flux. Maybe something was said at the beginning of the lesson and perhaps I missed those 2 sentences , and perhaps I wouldn't have missed key points like that if it had been an English lesson or a history lesson. I don't know. But I'm quite sure nobody ever actually showed me how to make a solder joint or taught the theory of good soldering - if they did it can have been no more than 10-15 seconds by the desk and half a sentence
     
    2. Nobody ever mentioned that you can destroy an electronic component by overheating it I didn't hear that till years later.
     
    /blockquote>
     
    I was originally taught to solder by my Father at the tender age of eight but you are right school never did explain things properly. As one of my hobbies during my teens was electronics (possibly influenced by my Fathers interest as a Radio Amateur) I learn't quite quickly that certain electronic components don't like heat.
     
    Cheers
     
    Paul
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:51 pm
     
    A photo of the wagon - transfers are now on, and a wash of off-black "dirt"; will be added over everything. I'm not entirely sure about the ironwork - flash tends to exaggerate things, but it is slightly red in natural light, and perhaps something a little further towards chocolate brown would be better
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=39204" alt="">
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Fri Oct 31, 2008 11:02 pm
     
    The wagon is now finished - unfortunately I didn't think to take another shot before delivering it . It recieved the thin wash of black (which picked out the planking slightly)and the lower regions got a thin wash of Railmatch trackdirt which makes the wheels stand out less, before an overall coat of matt varnish. To be honest the whole lot didn't radically change the appearance from the photo
     
    A certain amount of time over the weekend was spend playing about with DCC - I was supposed to be sorting out points on Blacklade , but with the layout up it seemed like a good chance to use it as a programming track - one of its functions in life.
     
    The Hornby-Lima NSWGR 422 class was duly fitted with a decoder. Breaking in was something of a nightmare at first as I couldn't get the body off , even though it is supposed just to remove from the chassis . I resorted to business cards down both sides to get some leverage , (and I mean cards plural...) and eventually managed to free the ends . I suppose I should at this point post a photo of the interior /chassis : unfortunately I didn't take one at the time and you can guess why I'm not anxious to remove the body and take one now.... Consequently you'll just have to use your imagination and picture - a chassis with a very Lima looking round pancake motor complete with beige blob , plus a largish circuit board amidships with a DCC socket in it, and at the far end a recessed open area. The loco has working headlights - a twin white LEDs in a block at at each end centrally above the cab windows- which are powered by 4 brass strips fixed to the interior of the roof, pressing on contact pads on the circuit board. There are no cab interiors<br />
     
    The general effect can be judged from the photo - this is in fact an 80-class of 1981, taken at Broken Hill in Dec 1983, and not the earlier 422-class (1969) or 442- class (1971) as the copyright is mine,but the effect of the front end is very closely similar (for the record the top of the cab of the 422 is a lower shallower profile , and it lacks the cut away recess at the apex of the cab in which the horns are fitted on the 442 class and 80 class - I've been doing some hasty looking at photos)
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=40692" alt="">
     
    There are some pictures of 422s on the Aucision site in support of their forthcoming high-spec 422 class
     
    I fitted a TCS T1 with harness - the new version with Back EMF , which was stuck in the convenient recess at the end with double sided tape and the harness wires restrained with parcels tape . Unfortunately the harness can be seen through the cab windows at one end - the recess is where there might be a cab interior but isn't
     
    Performance is good. With a bit of tweaking (and track and wheel cleaning) I managed to get it to move at speed step 2 of 128 . Start volts were set at 1V [entered as 18], and I've played about with the speed curve by making mid volts 4.6V [80] and top speed 11V This reduces the tendency to high speed running at the upper end while leaving a good top speed : an excellent moderate and controllable speed is maintained up to about speed step 70 I left the suppression capacitors in place - it performs as well as I could hope from a pancake motor and rather better than I expected . I tried experimenting with dimming of the LED but it really doesn't seem any dimmer . There is only one function required - for the lights - though the headlights are directional. The decoder has all sorts of wierd and wonderful US light effects , but as I'm not sure if any of them are relevant to NSWGR operations I haven't used them
     
     
    All in all , it looks like a good 'un and I'm very pleased with it. Many thanks to Shortliner and Chris Ellis at MTI for selling on the review copy [ Now all I need is some wagons . And mayby a CPH tin hare for the passengers. And about 6' x 18"; plus fiddle for a small terninus , plus some rock moulds , and some gum trees ... And space to put it... Stop !]
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:54 pm
     
    Contrary to appearances , I've actually been doing a bit of modelling recently .
     
    New Year is an appropriate time for taking stock, and I duly did. There are an uncomfortable amount of projects outstanding , and accordingly this years New Year Resolution comes from Magnus Magnussen : "I've started, so I'll finish" . Or in other words - no new projects . This doesn't mean I'm not going to start anything new - it means I'm trying to avoid buying anything new in order to sort out the stuff to which I've already committed , and which is adorning the book case or sitting in the cupboard. Or worse still sitting on top of the cupboard forming a pile of debris
     
    Buying 153s doesn't count, of course . They were already on the list as a carry over from 2008 , because Blacklade needs 153s to enable multiple unit working . My Central 153 has been rushed into service , with a TCS T1 decoder , the floor, tables, and seat backs painted (I used a spare bottle of Railmatch Centro Grey , for which I have no use at all) and passengers added - Slater's figures painted up with acrylics and the legs cut off. I tried to modify them to remove some of the period air (eg WWI forage caps) but you can't see much inside beyond the shapes
     
     
    I've also had a fit of putting Kadees onto everything with NEM pockets . The 153 requires a long and an extra long Kadee - two longs together are not enough separation with 23m vehicles. The 57 I picked up cheap off the Bachmann stand at Warley has has another T1 fitted and runs very nicely , and has acquired long NEM Kadees - anything shorter fouls the 3 link coupling . So have my FEAs . These were ordered basically to support the venture without any actual need but I decided that if I had container wagons there really ought to be some containers for them , and I've bought some C- Rail kits . Four 40's are now built and nearly all the transfers applied. Yang Ming , in particular, is something of a pig on the livery front with 8 seperate transfers on the door alone. Being a cheapskate I mixed up my own blue for the P+O box and I think its come out a bit light. The containers are the first time I've used Microsol - quite essential given the ribbed sides - and its proved very effective
     
    I've also got a couple of tank containers - on the first one I tried painting after assembly and discovered it makes painting the framing in black very difficult indeed. The second kit has therefore had the framing prepainted before assembly - much easier. I have also struggled to get a decent white finish to the tank barrel - I'm up to 3 coats now on the first tank
     
    The one perminent Kadee fitting was to the 422 class , where I cut off the very obtrusive forward projection from the bogie which carried a Roco coupling . After much headscratching the best I could come up with was plasticard packing behind the buffer beam to create a platform , onto which I glued a piece of 10 thou plasticard overlapping the buffer beam, then glued the draft box in place on top with solvent and reinforced the joint with a fillet of Zapagap cyano. Kadee used was #24 Talgo , but with the draftbox only. I've only done one one end at this stage because I'm not confident of the strength of the joint
     
    There's also the new stock box, mainly for engineers wagons , which I've knocked up out of a boxfile , based on an idea in one of Chris Ellis' books, not to mention the Parkside PMV which keeps failing to get done, and the possibility of sorting out the old Airfix 31 , thanks to a useful note by K9-70 in the DCC forum
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:23 pm
     
    Things are looking up...
     
    I've built the Parkside PMV , although perhaps it's not my best kit ever. Things kept going wrong and having to be bodged. Firstly , when I assembled the underframe there was a slight rock , and the solebars were too firmly stuck to remove one and pack it. After trying to drift the bearing by opening out the hole slightly I was driven to the horrible bodge of getting out the soldering iron , and drifting the bearing with a 25W Antex. That wheel set is now a little loose and sloppy , giving enough float to ensure all 4 feet are on the floor, which is a potential problem with a wheelbase this long.
     
    On the floor is also where two of the roof vents ended up , and as the carpet is green , there they'll stay.... I resorted to bodging up a representation of the roof vents with scraps of microrod and solvent
     
    I had glued on 4 footboards before I checked Paul Bartlett's website and found that by the 1980s all footboards seem to have been removed . I've removed mine and cut away the struts for the lower footboards, though I can't remove the strap across the spring and I haven't represented the brackets which used to support the footboards. The final bodge was that I needed tall vac pipes - I don't have any SR ones, and I resorted to some LNER pipes from ABS
     
    It's going to get Kadees and then I can have DMU tail traffic. Maybe the SR bogie brake comes next.
     
    The Airfix 31 is up and running on DCC as well , as reported elsewhere, though I need to get in and oil the worm gears. Then I just have to produce a detailed body....
     
    __________________________________________
  8. Ravenser

    Layout Operation - Some Definitions

    By Ravenser,


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

    t-b-g notes that Narrow Road operated to a sequence that lasted an hour, and as part of this there were often multiple trains moving at once, sometimes up to five at once. You can only do that sort of thing with a sequence - and also quite a few operators, since controlling two different trains simultaneously is extremely difficult. Since operators' accommodation is the most expensive thing for a show on the layout side, there are practical restrictions on having large layouts with clouds of operators [And at post 442 we seem to have a witness to the famous comment about Heckmondwyke, with its authentic block-bells to offer trains - "the bells ring but the bloody trains don't run!".]
     
    For the record there was another well-known 1970s continuous circuit mainline layout, Winton, which managed a kind of hybrid between the timetable and the sequence. The layout ran to a sequence, but instead of using flip-cards they recorded a commentary/explanation on cassette tape for the public, and the operators had to keep up with the tape... It was written up for the Railway Modeller in the late Seventies, but nobody since has dared to attempt anything like it since.
     
    One caveat is that a complex sequence is not something operators can be expected to deliver on the fly first time. You do need a team of operators who have practiced, so they know what they are doing . Effectively, you are putting on a model railway play, called "a day at......." and like any play you need rehearsals before attempting a performance. That implies a team of regular operators, and opportunities to erect and run the layout away from shows. 
     
    Now such sessions can be rewarding in their own right. In fact - heresy of heresies - it is entirely possible that such sessions, not public exhibition, can be the main object of building a layout. That was the whole raison d'etre of layouts like Sherwood and Crewechester , two generations ago. I was fortunate to be invited along several times to a big coarse scale Gauge O garden railway that had several operating days a year , and ran to a sequence loosely representing a secondary MR main line
     
    And lest we assume that operational layouts are some kind of crude and primitive form of the hobby that went out with spring-drive , it's worth remembering that Peter Denny's Buckingham GC operated with several operators to a complex sequence covering both the Buckingham line and its minor branches for several decades. Buckingham GC didn't fade away when the constructional articles stopped - it was operated, for Peter Denny's pleasure, over many years. It's just that the British hobby, focused on finescale construction and exhibiting , wasn't really interested in that.
     
    In the US , on the other hand, operating a layout is very much the core of the hobby. Indeed I sometimes think that in some ways Buckingham was a rather American layout - it's just that Peter Denny was modelling the GC in the Home Counties, not some subdivision of the Union Pacific in the Rockies.
     
    But I digress......
     
    The next group of ways of operating a layout might be labelled "task-based operating". This can take a variety of forms, moving from the switching micro up to the basement empire; but what links these forms of operating as a group is that there isn't a set list of choreographed moves. Instead the operator is working ad-lib, but to perform a set task or tasks within rules and parameters.
     
     
    "Shunting puzzles" are the most obvious example, but all shunting layouts work on this broad principle. A train runs in, you shunt and sort the wagons into the sidings, and then you form up another train to go out. The arrival and dispatch of trains is a peripheral, vestigial activity - there is no sequence, just a "rest of the world" to send wagons out to and receive from. In some respects this is a game of model railway patience played with wagons rather than cards - and each train in or out is a shuffle of the cards.
     
    Canada Wharf at Ally Pally was obviously being operated on this basis, and so was Kirkmellington Most branchline layouts also tend to work on this principle. The main task is shunting the pickup goods, which can take quite a while - subsidiary tasks are running some passenger trains and maybe one or two "special" trains. Leysdown seems to have run on this basis .
     
    The fact is that shunting a train can provide hours of innocent amusement for all the family - in sharp contrast to what I was once told, that "You can't shunt on an exhibition layout. We never shunted on X"
     
    The big US basement empires commonly fall under this heading. It's startling to discover that a 40' x 25' basement empire with twelve operators for a session lasting a half a day may in fact only run 8-10 trains. However, in U.S. prototype style each train (with 2 operators per train) wanders around the layout, shunting a whole series of separate locations in accordance with prototype rules. This is task-based operating with a vengeance.
     
    One potential problem with shunting is the question of "what do I shunt, and why?" In the US it is normal to answer this question by implementing a system of wagon waybill cards, whereby each location has defined traffic generation, in or out, and cards are produced representing the movement instructions for a wagon to satisfy this. Thus each train is accompanied by a fistful of cards - each one representing a wagon in the train, with its load, and telling the operators where the wagon is to go to, and what is to be done with it thereafter. At each location, the operators find cards for wagons already there, with instructions on what is to happen to them.
     
    Effectively the train runs much like the real thing, and the second operator is there to deal with the paperwork, much like the conductor on a real US freight.
     
    You can do something like this on a British layout - in fact PD Hancock apparently implemented a wagon waybill system on Craigshire in its later years. But in Britain card/waybill systems and other such practices are things tolerated between consenting adults in private but not to be mentioned in front of the children.
     
    Essex Belt Lines seems to have been running a US style operation at All Pally, with a central dispatcher calling the shots and individual train crews working around a series of locations, but I think they had left the car waybills at home.
     
    The very simple layout where the operator performs the same basic operational task over and over again belongs in this group as well.
     
    Finally we have what I think of as the "cavalcade" style of operation. In this style of operation, normally found only on a big continuous circuit layout, there is no timetable , sequence, or tasks - just a socking great 14 road fiddle yard at the back, filled with trains. The operators simply fire out a series of trains from the fiddle yard round the circuit in each direction. Some layouts may run them round once, some may send them round for two or three circuits. Then they run another train . This goes on all day
     
    I have to admit that the cavalcade is not really my cup of tea - certainly it's not what I want to do for myself with my own layout, and I don't have a 36' x 12' space in which to do it. But there is no doubt it is what a significant section of exhibition goers want to see, and some tend to regard anything else as in some sense a fraud on the public perpetrated by the layout operators . As I was once told by a member of another club, "You must remember that people don't go to exhibitions to look at the layouts. They're there to look at the stock". And therefore in his view the actual layout should be as nondescript as possible - the set should not distract attention from the star actors .
     
    For this reason the cavalcade is the natural layout format for those folk who are essentially stock-builders. They simply want a stage on which they can display the trains they have built to the public.
     
    I find I can happily took at a cavalcade layout providing there is enough high quality structural modelling interest around it. Layouts like Gresley Beat, Dewsbury Midland, and Sydney Gardens are fine by me - I am effectively admiring a high-quality scenic model with the trains as an agreeable supplement. It's when the stage is nearly bare that I start losing interest.
     
    It's worth pointing out that a layout running a sequence might look like a cavalcade layout to the punters. I strongly suspect, for example, that Stoke Summit ran to a sequence - it featured authentic ECML services with authentic formations, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they ran in a set order, roughly corresponding to the time of day they ran on the real thing. But the average punter was probably unaware of these subtilties - he just saw a continuing passing parade of trains on a simple 4 track section. It was a very popular layout.
     
    At this point I ought to declare my own hand.
     
    I have 3 layouts (okay Tramlink has been dormant for years...). I've always tried to design in as much operational interest as possible, so that I have something to do with it when it's finished. All three in practice fall under the heading "task-based operation"
     
    The boxfile is a shunting puzzle. You have four wagons on-, and three off-stage. You have to work the three off-stage wagons on, under the hoist, and to the correct spot, and work off the three empties. You swap an empty for a full behind the scenes. Working your way through this can take over an hour. And there is a panel on the flap giving "The Rules of the Game"
     
    Tramlink, and to a certain extent Blacklade, were designed to work on the same principle as those puzzles where you have 8 tiles in a 3 x 3 frame , and one gap. With Tramlink there are two sidings on each board, and it was designed to operate with 3 LRVs, and one empty siding. So you have an empty slot, and a choice of two possible LRVs on the other board to run into it. Soon your choice is constrained (I've just run this in , so I must run the other out...) 
     
    Blacklade has 3 platforms on the station board and 4 roads on the fiddle yard board, one of which (the fuelling point) can only be accessed from the front two platforms. So you play the same game with DMUs, and in the BR Blue period (as we ran at Ally Pally) with a Loco-hauled Substitute - 2 coaches, worked Minories-style by two Type 2s . This can only really fit in the long back platform , and the long front fiddle yard road, with comfort. 
     
    There is a run-round loop in the throat, but that can only really serve the short centre platform. So there's a parcels train that runs in at the start and is run round , before collecting a CCT van which arrives as tail traffic on a DMU. That is then replaced by another DMU. In theory , every item of traction should spend some time on the fuelling point to refuel - think of it as a scenic road of the fiddle yard - and there's a TTA of diesel which either needs to be worked onto the layout and back to the fuelling point, or else worked off, by a loco. Cue some shunting....
     
    And for the first time at a show I managed to run the engineers' train, which comes on, runs round and goes back. That was at the end, when we were starting to box up the DMUs.
     
    So there's plenty to keep you busy , and trains were worked back and forth in rapid succession throughout the show
     
    But it's worth pointing out just how unprototypical all this intensive operation really is. In real life, Blacklade would see 5-7 movements an hour. So something would happen every 10 minutes or so.
     
    That's on today's crowded high-frequency network. Things were a lot quieter in the days of steam.
     
    In 1962 there were 5 trains a day each way between Kings Cross and Edinburgh, excluding sleepers. (In 1910 it was only 3, with two Scottish sleepers and the Aberdeen mail). By 1975 that had grown to 9 trains northbound and 10 southbound, and it went to 11 each way from 1978 with HSTs . It's a lot more today.
     
    Louth was an important double junction on the GN secondary mainline from Peterborough to Grimsby. In the summer of 1922 it had a service of 13 trains a day each way, of which 6 were local shuttles between Louth and Grimsby and a further one a shuttle which ran through to Mablethorpe. There were 6 more trains each way to Mablethorpe, and 4 on the Bardney branch. The entire service on the E Lincs mainline south of Louth was 6 trains each way.
     
    And on Sundays the branches were shut, and the mainline service comprised 2 trains each way.
     
    Freight traffic in 1946 comprised 9 up trains a day and 13 down, plus a pick up goods on each branch.
     
    That's 68 movements a day, spread between 4:00 am and 9:45pm. Almost 4 movements per hour, or an average of nearly two trains an hour each way.
     
    For nearly all the day you could have sat on the platform at Louth for 20-30 minutes without seeing a train move.
     
    This is for an important double junction on a secondary main line , with additional local services running in 3 directions.
     
    An important part of the character of the steam-age rural railway in Britain was the long - often very long - periods of stillness when nothing at all seemed to happen on a sleeping deserted station. The Central Line in the rush hour - which is what people seem to want to see at shows, or else - it was not.
     
    [edited to tidy up typos and commas]. And in a futile attempt to remove underlining...
  9. Ravenser

    Letter from Lockdown

    By Ravenser,


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

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

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

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


  10. Ravenser

    Loco Hauled Substitute - 1 : Overview

    By Ravenser,


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


  12. Ravenser
    As I've mentioned before, in my teens a CJ Freezer article turned me into a modern image modeller , and I attempted a layout set in contemporary Lincolnshire: Ghosts opf Flaxboro'
     
    Eventually the project foundered under many problems, but I hung onto the stock and over the years I've slowly been recycling the stuff as reasonable scale models.
     
    In the photo contained therein, you can see an Airfix 31 heading two blue/grey vehicles entirely washed out by the flash awaiting departure for the E Lincs line at "Grimsby Town"  . They are in fact a Hornby Mk2a "BSK" and a Lima Mk1 SK , and a second Hornby Mk2 brake brought up the rear of the stopping train set.
     
    The Lima Mk1 was resurrected and rebuilt here :  Lima SK to TSO . But at the end of the day the contrast between the SE Finecast flushgalze on the TSO and the flushglazing on the Bachmann Mk1 BSK I commissioned from unused stock to run with it was just a bit much. Added to which the set had no first class accommodation.
     
    So I decided to aim for consistancy of modelling standard and return to another long-abandoned project, an attempt to make something of one of the two Hornby Mk2 brakes from Flaxborough.
     
    The state of play 8 years ago is summarised there:
     
    I started trying to flushglaze one, and it became clear the flushglaze wasn't fitting well. I tried filing out the window apertures from behind , it all started to look very messy, slow, and difficult , the coach would need repainting, there were moulded lining ridges... 
     
    So I boxed it up again and forgot about it. The second Hornby Brake was quietly sold on at the club show a few years later, as I certainly wasn't doing this twice. But the one I had started was now unsaleable, so I kept it.
     
    I've been very evasive how I describe these models because what Hornby produced and sold as a Mk2 brake second is in fact a 4 compartment BFK , and not a BSO. Having decided that finishing this project would give me a coach which would sit better against the upgraded Lima TSO , it was always going to be reworked as an actual Mk2 BFK, thus providing the missing first class accommodation in the set.
     
    The starting point is here:
     

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

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

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

    Magpie's Nest

    By Ravenser,

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

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

    Marking Time

    By Ravenser,

    This is by way of a holding entry - because of a difficult period at work I've not managed to do any modelling for about 6 weeks, and consequently there's been nothing to report. I was really hoping to make some serious progress on the backlog this year , only life comes along and throws a spanner in the works...
     
    However I did manage to get to Ally Pally this weekend, and while I was there managed to purchase some laser cut flush glazing for the Bratchill 150 from Shawplan. I gather these are the "beta" or test version of the thing and they are not yet openly on sale : he had some tucked away in a box. Anyway , £20 and enough for 2 cars was mine.
     
    Some weeks ago I showed a friend the completed Walrus (see below) . A week or so later, when I saw him again he said "I've got something for you" - a plastic bag containing some Cambrian kits. "I'm not going to build these now - you can have them". So I'm now the owner of two Shark kits, a Dogfish kit, and two more Walruses. I admit my feelings about the last are a little mixed, but I sourced some replacement plate bogies for them at Ally Pally. Plus some Modelstrip as I'd run out.
     
    My Provincial 150/1 from Trains4U arrived a week or so ago, and very nice it is too. I remember these units in Provincial on the Lincoln/Nottingham services when they were new and based at Derby Etches Park, so it's a very appropriate addition to the early period for Blacklade. However with pressure of things at work it hasn't even been out of the box and run yet, let alone fitted with a decoder. There seems to be little prospect of getting Blacklade set up to programme and try it out in the next fortnight, the way things are at present. My other purchase at Ally Pally was the 21 pin version of the Bachmann 3 function decoder (for £12 - I'm counting the pennies) . The one I have in my 108 produces excellent running and according to the paperwork the decoder now supports 4 digit addressess . The old version didn't - my addressing convention is class number for the Modernisation Plan units (ie within 2 digit) and for locos and 2nd/3rd generation units - first 2 digits , class, then last 2 digits of the TOPS number . Hence 150 135 needs to be 1035 (I'm never going to own a Western or a Hastings unit so there's no risk of duplication) - there are so many 15x classes it seems best to drop the middle digitof the class number to get a distinctive ID
     
    This may be more or less the last RTR I buy this year as things look at the moment: I've more or less completed the stud for Blacklade, as far as RTR spending goes. The gaps are the things that need to be built, not bought - ie Pacers, 150/2, Cravens , and longer term 114. I've got the kits , I just need to build 'em. There's quite enough on that front to keep me busy for at least 2 years without flashing the chequebook around
     
    About the only thing that's made any progress is the Van B. The droplight etches are painted, the windows glazed, and the etched bars from Roxey have been sourced and fitted behind. Doors are fixed in place and the interior of the van sections has been painted a suitable brown. And that's as far as it's got...
     
    I now have both the Cambrian LMS 5 plank and LNER 6 plank open kits - thanks to Barry at Cambrian. The LMS kit is sitting on the workbench - I've not had chance to start it. And it's looking as if I won't make it to York this year, though if travel disruption during and after Easter is bad enough I may well find myself with some time stuck at home and perhaps something might happen on the modelling front
  15. Ravenser

    Message in a Bottle - 2022

    By Ravenser,


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

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

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

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

    Messing Up Sydney Harbour

    By Ravenser,


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

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

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

    Mind the Gap......

    By Ravenser,

    The trouble with lists is that they show you up.
     
    So how far have I actually got with my ambitious list of jobs? Well.....
     
    5 out of 6 points have had their drive wire replaced with 0.9mm wire . The other seems to work ok anyway. This has pretty well cured the problem of point blades not closing fully. One point , where the commercially available offset drive Tortoise mounting has been used (possibly from Exactoscale?) is still slightly uncertain , perhaps because I've not replaced the final link from the subterranean plastic tie bar to the actual copper clad tie bar. Another point, which I couldn't quite get to close reliably, resulted in so much fiddling, filing, and tweaking that the blade came loose. I then resoldered it , slightly further out, and that fixed the problem of reliable closure . 0.9mm wire does Xurons no good at all by the way: I used the cutters in a large pair of pliers instead, and these survived largely unscathed
     
    On the wiring front, I've installed a 0.5A 12 V dc stabilised power supply unit , from All Components, on one board. That, er , is the sum of it. Very frustratingly I haven't been able to install the Hoffmann point motor , for want of two eightpenny diodes..... One of the consequences of having changed my job is that I no longer walk past a branch of Maplins in the lunch hour, and I can't simply buy a Bumper Bag of Diodes for £1-60. The nearest branch is now 15 miles' drive away. So I've had to order some diodes from Squires, and after a murderous week at work , I only got round to doing so on Friday afternoon. At which point I forgot about the large illuminated push switch I was going to buy to isolate the programming track . So I'm going to have to improvise that bit using the toggle switch and mounting I already have
     
    Being blocked in that direction , I've attacked on another front and built three Erkon signal kits for the station board,. I'd seen these used on afriend's layout and they looked quite effective. Unfortuately the type with a feather - and all three for the station have feathers - have a pair of fine wires coming out of the side of the feather , which is not quite so good. I've painted them black, along with the solder joints onto the diode, which makes the intrusion much less obtrusive , and in 2 out of 3 cases , the offending wires will end up facing the backscene and therefore should largely be hidden. A further complication is that one of the signal heads is rather smaller than the other two.Clearly they've changed/upgraded the kit at some point. I suspect that variations between signal heads aren't unknown on the prototype - after all colour lights have been with us for 80 years, and I would be surprised if signal heads have remained exactly the same size and style throughout that time - and therefore I'm afraid I've just ploughed on. I couldn't really have shuffled the kits around to avoid having one head different, and they aren't the easiest kits to find. It's assumed the area have been changed from semaphore to colour light through slow piecemeal replacement
     
    I also painted the signals. My friend didn't - they looked ok but slightly toylike. Normally I'm sceptical about the idea that prototype info is easy for modern image , but I had only to look up from the bench and look out the window - and there is a colour- light signal. This quickly showed me that posts are grey, and not silver , and that only the signal head itself is actually black. And all the colours are weathered. A hasty coat of Humbrol 183 grey resulted in a much better colouration and also improved the proportions of the signal, as the grey goes further up and down the post, making it look taller, and the ladder is also now grey, and not black . The signal head, phone box, and one or two other bits have been painted with Citadel Charadon Granite, mixed with some matt black . This improved the look of the signals considerably - never use pure black or pure white . All I have to do now is add the signal numbers and install....
  18. Ravenser

    Motley Assortment

    By Ravenser,

    It's about time I posted some stuff I've actually done, rather than grumbling that I've not got much done. These wagons were done in September , but I've not got round to posting them till now. A mixed bag of elderly wagons on their last legs...
     
    Exhibit A , as they say in court, is a down at heel Walrus, unaccompanied by a Carpenter:
     

     
    I have to confess that I've tweaked the photo very slightly in Microsoft Digital Image 2006, to compensate for the effects of flash , though the adjustments to colour balance and contrast
    are only a couple of notches. I feel a bit guilty but the contrast/border between different weathering washes always seems to leap out and hit you on a photo in a way that it doesn't viewed in natural light by the eye. Here the jarring note is the boundary between the track dirt on the wagon (Railmatch brake dirt/track dirt mix) and the general browny muck on the sides
    (wash Precision LNER coach teak - I'm not likely to paint many LNER coaches, and somehow I've ended up with two tins...) It's quite subtle viewed with the naked eye, and I'm fairly pleased with the overall result. This wagon has finished up much better than I'd dared to hope at one time. It's now been fitted with Kadees - I'd no hope of getting S+W couplings under those platforms. - and is destined for the early period (1985-90) engineers train on Blacklade. The SReg off-loaded them on an unsuspecting LMR at the start of the 80s. Not sure I'm up for building another of these though...
     
    Next in this collection of clapped out opens is a Cambrian coke wagon, a kit of very elderly vintage bought off the club second hand stall.
     

     
    I discarded the moulding for the underframe members after using it to set up the solebars - I want to put lead sheet under the floor, not stick a large injection moulded obstacle in the way. Construction is very conventional, and much as it comes. Painting and weathering is according to the recipes given by craigwelsh in his MRJ article, using Games Design Workshop -although I'm certainly not in his league I'm very pleased with the result. This type of wagon with the coke raves is a pig to get into all the nooks and crannies and the photo really shows any spots I missed. I think I've got most of them since then. Transfers are Modelmasters
     
    Next come two LMS opens:
     
    The first, bought at St Albans last year, started off looking like this :
     

     
    and now looks like this - a D1892 open retrofitted with vacuum brakes by BR
     

     
    once again any imperfections are cruelly exposed by the enlargement, such as the tie rod... A glass fibre pencil was used to cut back the weathering, and transfers are a patchwork of Modelmaster bits to give a plausible seeming number
     
    Finally there's a more or less as-it-came-in-the-packet Cambrian kit for the wooden chassis D1666, possibly the most numerous open wagon ever built in Britain and arguably second only to the 1/108 16T mineral as the most numerous wagon diagram ever
     

     
    Much of the effort has gone into an attempt to represent an unfitted wagon showing the remains of late 1930s LMS bauxite, which is a bit more washed out than the photo shows - again the greater contrast under flash is a factor . I've either missed the base of the hook , or the thing's come out and been glued back in...
  19. 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.
  20. 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......
  21. Ravenser

    New Year's Resolutions, Part Umpteen...

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    It's that time of the year when I take stock and make a plan for the year - which then ignominously fails in the next 12 months.
     
    Twelve months ago I decided I really would finish the Tourist Brake Third. And after a lot of struggle I actually managed it - though it still needs writing up here.
     
    The Baby Deltic was another "promise to finish" - and lo and behold it's done. And written up.
     
    There the good news stopped.
     
    However I have recently managed to clear away a lot of obstacles to various projects, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-21655-retail-therapy/ so I hope there will be more progress in the year to come.
     
    Work has actually started on the original condition NBL Type 2 diesel electric, and this is looking promising. I think I have all the bits now
     
    (After that I can contemplate the task of putting a detailed Hornby 25/1 body onto a Bachmann Rat chassis, for a good mid 80s Class 25, but this isn't urgent)
     
    The Ratio GW 4 wheel coach rebuild (to an engineer's tool/riding van) still needs to be finished, but should be a relatively quick project.
     
    Now I have a replacement power bogie I hope I can finally get the detailed 155 up and running and (finally!) into traffic.
     
    And with the damaged bogie of the Replica chassis repaired I can finish the 128 and get it into traffic as well. This (I hope) will give
    me some better options for consisting Modernisation Plan DMUs - 2 x 2 car DMU is awkwardly long but 1 x 128 + 2 car DMU should be much more manageable. It will also bring the NRV and the GUV into play for operating sessions
     

    There are still a number of long-standing projects which need finishing.
     
    The Airfix Trevithick kit proceeded a lot further before hitting a problem with a seized and sheered bit of motion. I have an idea about how to fix this , but I need to find the courage and the focus to do it.
     
    Once other projects finished and the decks have been cleared I can restart the upgraded 142 which has been lying stalled in bits for a long time. This too would improve my options for consisting - and therefore the operating interest of the layout - if I can get it finished.
     
    The two brake vans , long stalled, are somewhere down my list of priorities
     
    But there is a lot to be done on the locomotive front in the next couple of years, turning projects, aspirations and materials already in hand into actual working locomotives.
     
    Type 2s are likely to be the major focus . The Hornby NBL body is well under way, and all parts to finish this should be in hand. It might turn into a quick win I now have the second-hand locos to do a "high spec" 25/1 with a Hornby body on Bachmann chassis. The combined cost of these two should be around £125.- a new Bachmann 25 would cost around £145 at a box-shifter
     
    Then there are the 31s. I have a roughly -detailed Airfix 31, with filed-off body bands bought for £15 second hand as a mechanism donor. Not that the Airfix mechanism is a wonderful thing. But the body is in fact salvageable - at least to my eyes - and I think I could strip , clean up and redetail it as a refurb 31/4 (Transpennine South, for the use of) with decent result. The target loco would be 31 462 in plain departmental grey, and I've ordered the PH Designs etch - which at least takes care of the biggest issue, the roof fan grill cowling
     
    I then have the 1978 body I removed from 31 415; a secondhand body with body bands on but buffers cut off; and the wreckage of Hornby's 31 270, with Mazak failure and a blown circuit board. I got to it before the body split - but there's an issue. In my experience, the Hornby locos are track-sensitive, and my other Hornby 31 (31 174) does not like the crossover outside Platform 2 which forms part of the run-round loop. This means it is relegated to Loco Hauled Substitute duties , and is in fact my back-up 31 , whereas the detailed Airfix 31 415 is front line and handles engineers and parcels trains as well. I like good quality mechanisms with smooth low-speed running , but I also like locos that stay on the track. This means that the obvious approach to providing a decent mechanism - ie stripping out the Hornby mechanism from the unhappy 31 270 and installing it under something else - is problematic.
     
    No matter how you slice it, I have 4 x Class 31 bodies and 2 mechanisms both with question marks against them. I managed to get hold of a Railroad 31 chassis frame - but missed out on unpowered bogies and couldn't find a Railroad motor bogie. I also missed out on Hattons cheap Railroad 31, though that would not have improved the chassis/body ratio. I do have a spare (second) Athearn PA1 chassis, but that doesn't have quite the right wheelbase /wheel size, and would mean cutting and shutting a Mazak chassis frame and a drive shaft, and converting to DCC.
     
    And there is no obvious route to the missing bodyshell variants - a "skinhead" at any date, or of any sub-class; or the Golden Ochre Brush 2 (successively Stratford, Tinsley and Immingham in the 60s , and therefore suitable for Blacklade, an E.Lincs before closure project, or any transitional GE layout)
     
    I shall be on the scrounge for cheap serviceable mechanisms at Stevenage . A donor loco with a wrecked body going cheap; a Lima motor bogie and bits capable of receiving a remotor ...
     
    I also have a vintage Triang-Hornby 37, bought second-hand from a junk shop in Louth in 1978 for a fiver, and used on my teenage layout, where it ran like a dog - a three-legged dog with emphasyma. Mechanically it was - by a country mile - my worst loco.
     
    It has so far failed to be rebuilt as 37 688 or a Baby Deltic because more promising donors turned up for less than 20 quid each . I have an Athearn PA1 chassis, and Dave Alexander replacement bogie sideframes - this time it's a cut and lengthen job. So the long term plan would be to redo it as 37 172 in plain BR blue, on PA1 chassis (not entirely accurate - but it's only a cheap old 37). This because in 1977 we returned from a scout trip to Guernsey via the 01:05 KX Leeds night train (only Deltic haulage I ever got) , changing into what I now know to have been the Manchester-Cleethorpes newspaper train at Retford Low Level at 4:30 am - hauled by 31 172 in blue.
     
    There are all of the issues of stripping and cutting the Athearn chassis, converting it to DCC and the small inaccuracies in wheel size and wheelbase - but this would give me a decent-running 37 of an earlier vintage than I have and I could manage the bodyshell work.
     
    And wild horses and red-hot pincers would not persuade me to put that wretched Triang motor bogie under a 31
     
    Then there's the stuff I have but need to get working....
     
    The 155 has already been mentioned.
     
    There's a Hornby 29 I detailed up years ago as 6119 in blue. Looking at it with fresh eyes , it's rougher than I expect the new NBL Type 2 to be, and it has a 3 pole motor bogie converted to all-wheel pickup with Ultrascales, which will be an inferior mechanism to the new loco . It also needs conversion to DCC , and with the original Hornby Ringfield this is not a simple task. So I intend to delegate the job to someone else at Stevenage....
     
    I also have a Bachmann 4MT 2-6-0 which is compact , has a tender cab and would be ideal for Blacklade's kettle period if I managed to install a decoder. I now have a suitable decoder.
     
    Then there's the Bachmann 08 and original split-chassis 03 (both BR blue) which have been lying in the storage drawer for years because they need hard-wired DCC conversions. Those, too, need sorting out and getting up and running on Blacklade.
     
    Not to mention a few running repairs to coaches, switches and the like
     
    Another purge of the unreliable wagons in the Boxfile fleet might be in order
     
    Some of the things on the bookcase have been unfinished for an appallingly long time. Pacer anyone....
     
    I really mean to get stuff finished and into action this year 
  22. Ravenser

    News and Parcels

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    I've made a very slow start on things, but there is some progress to report with the Ratio Southern parcels van.
     
    I've seen some adverse comment about this kit on here - notable Roger Chivas' remark that having seen somebody build one he went off and designed an etched brass kit because it would be so much easier. Given that most people are frightened by etched brass [I'm not saying they ought to be, just observing factually the way people actually react] this makes it sound like the Ratio kit is unbuildable and may put people off even thinking about trying it.
     
    I'm far enough in now to make some comment on the kit. It is certainly much more intricate and fiddly than the older Ratio MR and LNWR kits. Take the roof - which I'm currently tackling. This is moulded with a slightly textured surface - probably to represent canvas. You have to drill out holes for seperate whitemetal torpedo vents - the instructions say 1/16" drill which equates to 1.6mm in new money. I've still had to ease every hole a fair bit with a broach to take the torpedo vent casting. And at first glance the roof moulding looks a bit long - so I may have to file back at each end. Now compare with the older Ratio kits - a one piece roof with the vents moulded on in the plastic. No doubt not quite as effective but much quicker and simpler.
     
    Take the sides. These require seperate doors to be fitted to the basic side, and etched drop light mouldings to each door window. Not to mention seperate droplight mouldings for the guards' door. The Ratio LNWR coaches have a single injection moulding for the whole side
     

     
    Take the underframe. Each battery box requires the addition of 4 lengths of microrod. The dynamo comes in 4 bits
     


     
     
    There's nothing exactly difficult about each operation, and everything is supplied. It's very far from difficult to build so far - bear in mind that I've not attempted a coach kit since a few teenage attacks on Ratio MR kits, so I must be counted as a novice builder here. But there's no doubt it's a much slower, more laborious and intricate process than the older Ratio kits.
     
    I've added lead flashing along pretty well all the floor to bump the weight up to 130g+ . I know 4 x 25g is the standard formula for a 4 axle vehicle , but that seems a bit light for a 50' coach
     
    Two detailed gripes - not exactly with the kit design. The transfers cover SR and BR pre 1965. Nobody seems to do BR Corporate image post 1965 transfers in white. [The same situation exists with the PMV - the only "4mm" transfers available are actually to 7mm ] This is odd, because these vehicles were well known as the last surviving pre nationalisation coaching stock and ran for over 20 years after the Corporate Blue livery came in. And it's not as if there were only one or two survivors either. There must be plenty of modern image modellers who fancy a bvit of variety in their fleet by adding some Maunsell vans in rail blue
     
    And somehow quite a few of the brake blocks have come out of the sprue, and despite a hasty search on Sunday I'm now two short. I am reasonably certain I had one floating around on the workbench earlier and didn't realise what it was. Somehow I'll have to improvise for the one wheel I can't cover...
     
    I've even made a start on the Dapol open I bought at St Albans , to turn it into a retro-fitted LMS wagon. This is a very simple conversion - a spare Parkside vac cylinder cut down for height, remove the old couplings and securing lugs which hold on the chassis , glue body to chassis , cross shaft from plastic rod, scrap of plastic rod for the crank off the vac cylinder , and there we are, ready to paint. Can't think why it's taken 6 months to do...
  23. Ravenser

    NRX Van

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    Next cab off the rank is yet another project that was supposed to be a quick win - and hasn't been.
     
    In a moment of weakness at Peterborough show a few years ago I bought a Replica Mk1 BG in Transpennine livery . They were being discounted to a tenner at the show, and it seemed too good a bargain to pass up. After all a Mk1 BG is the archetypal modern image parcels vehicle , and I didn't have one for Blacklade.
     
    After I got home I decided that it was a bargain I might have been better missing. The lack of flush glazed windows grated seriously, and the whole thing was more basic than my Bachmann Mk1s. A Transpennine passenger full brake wasn't really likely to find itself on parcels work in the Midlands, and it probably wouldn't have been cascaded to other things until several years into the 1990s . Since Blacklade's "early period" is supposed to be 1985-90 this wouldn't really do (Actually I suspect I am drifting towards this splitting into Periods 1a c1983-6 and 1b 1987-91. And I have a nasty feeling that the steam period may go the same way in the end)
     
    Therefore the box went into the stock pile and stayed there.
     
    Last autumn, while I was off work, I was rummaging through some of the boxes in the modelling cupboard , and found a Hurst Models etched brass kit to convert the Replica BG to an NRX container van. (One of the few things still available from Hirst,actually - rather like the Cheshire Cat they seem to be fading away until only the website is left). These 2 vehicles were an experiment by the Parcels Sector around 1990, the idea being to create a van capable of loading airline hold containers of the type used for airfreight. This would then allow BR to compete for inter-airport transfer cargo. Nothing seems to have come of it: the two demonstrator vehicles rapidly ended up in general parcels traffic, acquiring RES livery in 1991, and in 2001 they were repainted into EWS livery and sandwiched between two PCVs to provide a 4 van express pallet freight service for Securicor between Walsall and Aberdeen. What happened after that I don't know - I suspect this was another of EWS's entreprenurial ventures that faded away later
     
    But in their original guise they're just in my earlier period, and one might just have turned up in a parcels train at Blacklade.
     
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/50619197@N07/7901510494/in/photostream/
     
    [ Errr.. this shot shows handrails on the ends - something that Hirst don't mention. Looks like remedial work is needed....]
     
    The first problem was that the bogies on the Replica BG were wrong . The NRXs had Commonwealth bogies - the Replica model had B4s . These were hastily removed by pulling out , and a pair of Bachmann Commonwealths substituted from the bits box. Since these plug into a spigot on the chassis, and the Replica bogies have a spigot that plugs into the chassis , I used two suitable brass bolts with the bogies retained by two nuts on each, the bottom being retained in place by a dab of UHU on the nut and thread so it didn't work off (This bodge was pioneered on a pair of spectacles where the screws kept working loose - a replacement glass lens cost £100 and I didn't want it happening again).
     
    The coupling boxes were removed, a plate of plasticard glued across the top, and underset Kadees in draft boxes glued in place with scraps of microstrip wedged down the sides to reinforce the thing. Since the van will not run in any train longer than a couple of coaches, this will do
     
     
    Work then began on the body and results are shown here. The Hirst instructions were followed , not necessarily in strict order , though I picked up from an old Model Rail article (Feb 2002) that the top of the roller shutter doors needs to be turned in . I also used a substantial plate of 20 thou plasticard across the back to support the doors
     
    This shows the body more or less complete. It took some time to pluck up courage to saw into the body , but
     

     
    So far , so good, but...
     
    I used an elderly tube of Molak Stucco filler which I think came from a ModelZone. I'm driven to the conclusion it's not much cop, as it seems to crumble away , lift and not fill properly - something which has also happened on the 31 . I suspect I ought to replace it with something like Squadron
     
    I then made a big mistake. After a light spray of etch primer I set about painting the body Royal Mail/RES red, with Railmatch enamel - brushpainted as it doesn't come as an aerosol. I really should have spayed a second coat of normal primer over it first, as the covering power of red is dire . And I should have made determined efforts to remove all the stripes with a cotton bud dipped in surgical spirit. (It doesn't shift the upper blue though) .
     
    Paint , rubbing down and a couple of traces of thick cyano as a desperate filler have pretty well removed the faint traces of the door lines. But they haven't quite removed the very faint traces of the old livery on certain panels, although some of the detail has unfortunately lost some of its sharpness under the coats.
     
    At the time of writing I'm still painting in red.....
  24. Ravenser

    Paint Your Wagon

    By Ravenser,

    My attention span has obviously atrophied and my focus suggests an eye test is required urgently. In short , rather than pressing vigourously ahead with the van B, I've become side tracked into finishing two wagons.
     
    The Walrus has been the subject of long-standing lament round here. In a fit of mental aberration I decided to paint the thing - only to find that it is clearly determined to fight me to the death. A first coat of my home-mixed tin of "off-black" produced a distinctly thin coverage . How can black not cover ? - especially Humbrol which normally has far better covering power than the dreaded Precision . Well, I could have tried mixing the stuff thoroughly . That then produced a shade I thought to grey - and still a slightly streaky uneven finish. I visited the model shop near my new office and , having investigated the Revell Anthracite Black, ended up with the Humbrol equivalent , number 85. That still didn't give a totally even finish - how can thishappen with black. And - whisper it - there was another imperfection: one or two nibs in the finish.
     
    I then did what I should have done in the first place - having rinsed the brush thoroughly in white spirit , I worked it thoroughly on a bar of wet soap . Alarming numbers of little black bits came out on the soap. Rinse brush and soap well. Try again. An almost equally alarming number of black bits came out on the soap. After 5 or 6 separate bouts of working on the soap, teasing out and rinsing, the bit count finally dropped almost to zero. Many of them may have come from the stock of the bristles, but it was still a very sobering exercise.
     
    The wagon side was rubbed down gently with fine abrasive board where there was an imperfection (possibly fine wet and dry paper, wet, would have been better) and a final coat applied. It's acceptable rather than perfect , and my mood wasn't improved by finding I already had a tin of Humbrol 85 on the workbench....
     
    The hopper interior has had two coats (inevitably) of Humbrol acrylic leather and will have a slightly lightened final thin wash
     
    Meanwhile the Dapol ex LMS open collected 4 coats of Precision Bauxite before the old lettering disappeared (I bought a large tin of the stuff - one of my worse purchases)
     
    Transfers were a struggle as well. I couldn't find any suitable waterslides for Walruses in my various packs of engineers transfers. As the wad of transfer packets is over an inch thick, this was just a bit vexing - and I wasn't really prepared to pay about a fiver and wait about 10 days to source a special pack just for one (miserable) wagon.
     
    So I ended up using the elderly rubdowns in the kit. The first broke up partly - I have found the secret is to cut the transfer out, very close to exact size, and them apply , thus making sure it sits exactly flat and in place and ensuring it does not move while rubbing over. The first attempt was patch painted and a second data box transfer was salvaged from one of the other Walrus kits I was given. The rest of the elements came from various Modelmasters packs, plus electrification flashes from a very decrepit sheet of Woodhead transfers (the latter largely held on by a liberal application of microsol - the vulnerable bits will have a coat of varnish to seal them). The lettering elements don't exactly match any of the 5 photos of Walruses in black I've found , but are a free amalgam of all that covers the key needs.
     
    Thus I didn't copy the way "Walrus" has been painted out of the lettering box when YGV was applied over:
     
    Walrus - York 1985 - Paul Bartlett
     
    and that wagon hasn't got electrification flashes - in 1985 I doubt if there were overhead wires on any part of BR within 100 miles of York , and these wagons were not exactly likely to wander, given their crippling limitations. As Blacklade is somewhere in the Midlands and sees a few DMUs from Birmingham, I suspect my Walrus spends much of its time lurking at the back of Bescot Yard, where it most certainly would need electrification warning flashes.. I've also added "min 3 chain curve" lettering and I've still got to add the coat of chocolate brown muck
     
    (I'm just puzzled who else has pushed Walruses into the week's most popular photos. I can't have looked at each shot 5 times. I'm sure of it..)
     
    Transfers for the LMS open have also been improvised . I couldn't find anything suitable, and I'm afraid I bodged it, by cutting out number and other elements from the Modelmaster ex revenue Engineers wagon sheet. They were supplied in a post '64 data box - I cut out the bits I needed for pre '64 style. The number has only one digit wrong for the type, and it really ought to be bang in the middle of a block of LMS opens - only , as it happens, it isn't. You'd have to have a very good knowledge of the subject or careful reference to Essery's book to realise the number is actually wrong
     
    All I have to do now is add vac pipes, tie bars and we're done
  25. Ravenser

    Pardon My French - or Paint Your Wagon

    By Ravenser,


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


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

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