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Ravenser

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  1. 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.
  2. Ravenser

    Troublesome Bogies

    By Ravenser,

    This is by way of a short bump or plea for help , sparked by a few comments in the MBA thread.
     
    One of the wagons I'm currently working on (or should be instead of typing) is the wretched Walrus. An ancient kit from deceased estate. As I mentioned somewhere down below , the bogies as supplied are unbuildable. I can't get them together for modern wheels ,. The only way forward I've found is to use some A1 Models H- frame etches.
     
    The bogies are GWR Plate type, and even this approach is a bodge. The minimum wb permitted by the etch is about 1mm too wide. The second problem is that the brass of the A1 etch protrudes beyond the sideframe - which will now be cosmetic. I can trim the brass but not quite enough to eliminate the problem completely . It will look okay unless and until you compare it closely with the real thing - at which point it will be not much better than Dapols efforts on the MBA
     
    The frames are soldered up, but before I'm finally committed to this compromise (like it won't get done tonight) does anyone have any really bright ideas for alternative solutions? Anyone built this dratted kit themselves - if so what did you do?
     
    Comments , gentlemen, please....
  3. Ravenser
    One of the "benefits" of a blog is that it records just how long certain projects have actually been stalled.
     
    This is a case in point - behold I bring you the world's slowest quickie loco kit!
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-14093-baby-deltic-1/
     
    The Silver Fox Baby Deltic has been stalled and lying in the paint-drying box for a horrifying 4 and a bit years....
     
    I am at least now making some progress
     
    One issue was highlighted here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/137857-traction-tyres-repair-or-replace/
     
    I now have a traction tyre from Kernow - their last of that type apparently. On comparison with the wheel it looks a little small - but there are no other more suitable traction tyres available. (I also have a kind offer of large section heatshrink)
     
    For the moment I'm going to gamble and hope the superglue bodge actually holds in traffic. Tyre replacement , and heatshrink are fallback plans 1 and 2
     
    In the meantime matters have advanced this far:
     

     

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

    Payment on Account

    By Ravenser,

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

    Work in Progress

    By Ravenser,

    I didn't get round to my annual New Year's Resolutions posting this year - a bad sign. Thanks to a new job and various domestic renewals not a lot of modelling was done in the couple of months before New Year, and even less posting on here took place.
     
    Nevertheless rather more modelling took place in 2016 than was written up in this blog. The trouble is, it left rather a lot of unfinished business. For the last few years I've been stating with depressing regularity that I'm not going to take on any more projects - it's time to catch up with my backlog. And somehow it never happens.
     
    Four years ago I decided that it would be a great idea to get various unbuilt kits and unused kettles out of the cupboard and field them as a scratch team to work a (not terribly authentic) steam period , c1958. Four years on, and my best estimate is that the number of outstanding coach kits and upgrade project has reduced by - a big fat zero, thanks to further additions. Mind you , four years ago my coaching stock comprised a few RTR items plus various kinds of material for projects - and only about 2 vans ever turned a wheel on the layout. Since then 10 items of coaching stock have gone into regular service, one more awaits a partner to do so, and 3 more are nearly there. Yes, I keep picking up bargain projects but the total spend including bits has been under £200.
     
    And I now have 6 kettles and LMS 10001 up and running and earning a crust. There are still a couple more that need sorting out, but we're getting there.
     
    So what is currently lingering on the bookcase?
     
    Various items to comprise Sets 4 and 5 of the steam stock are in various states of completeness. This saga started with a BSL Gresley steel CK , which was going to be paired with an LMS non-corridor brake 3rd - until I realised the BSL kit was actually gangwayed. So I bought a Coopercraft /Mailcoach Tourist Brake Third Open, back in the days when Coopercraft still had a few coach kits actually available.
     
    I've heard unfavourable comments about this kit from far better modellers than I , and I now understand why. I started it in the middle of last year, thinking a plastic kit would be a pretty manageable task, and it's proving a pig. It will be paired with the Hachette Mk1 which I upgraded last year having succumbed to the lure of an astonishing bargain - that one did get written up ,http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-17819-set-4-modernity-on-the-cheap-part-2-sidetracked/ though the wretched Tourist Brake Third hasn't been . All the Hachette Mk1 needs is a replacement set of Kadees, as the NEM pockets are at the wrong height.
     
    At Ally Pally last year I bought what I thought was an astonishing bargain - a metal coach kit with punched aluminium bodyshell for an LMS Porthole Brake 3rd "almost complete" for a fiver. Unfortunately it turned out to be MTK , not BSL.... I am told it is one of their best items and perfectly buildable. "Almost complete" turned out to mean "missing one guard's ducket" - replacements were sourced - and it was while I was turning over all the bits to assess what needed to be done that I drifted into starting the Tourist Brake, on the theory it would be an easier job than a metal MTK coach. I'm starting to think that judgement was seriously misguided.
     
    But this has spawned a further project. The LMS used "British Standard" gangways which are not a particularly good match for the Pullman gangways used by the LNER and BR. Dapol produce an old model of a 60' Stanier Corridor Composite, and Coachmann seemed to rate it http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coach-kits/ So at Stevenage a couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and spent £13.50 on a CKD one , plus another £8 on underframe castings and etched frames - some of which will go to other projects. This is in carmine and cream - in 1958 there ought to be at least one vehicle in the fleet still in blood and custard, and I'm scared to attempt it myself. Getting a discount in order to be spared the trouble of dismantling a built coach is a bonus , and work has begun, after an order went into SE Finecast for flushglaze . (This included flushglaze for an old Lima Mk1 SK from my teenage layout which may finally get a heavy upgrade and re-enter service. I sourced three more of the Phoenix Precision Mk1 underframe trusses last autumn , and I've got some Comet BR underframe castings in stock. Maybe a TSO interior can be substituted)
     
    Beyond that the vista opens up of combining Sets 4 and 5 to produce a mainline train, which would look the part behind 10001 if I ever have access to a larger layout. Buried deep in the cupboard is the second hand Triang-Hornby RMB I bought as a teenager and repainted into blue/grey with a basic brushpaint job. Stripped back, repainted back into maroon with a replacement underframe truss and Comet underframe castings , and other detailing , something adequate to sit between the two 2-car sets could result. That's a 5 coach corridor set. Add, in the fullness of time, the BSL Gresley composite...
     
    I digress - which is the problem. I have an exhibition booking for the layout in 2 month's time (bit less actually) . I should be focussing on BR Blue stock for that.
     
    Top of the pile is the 128 Parcels unit, which is most of the way there, and would let me get the NRX and GUV into service - both are too long for Platform 2 in a loco-hauled parcels.
     
    Next priority is the Lima 37 which runs , has a decoder and Kadees, and is part detailed. This needs to be finished as a spare loco in case one of the 31s has a problem at the show
     
    The gangways on the 155 need finally to be sorted out. They still won't take a crossover. This will be attempt 3
     
    And once we are clear of the show I can turn to the Provincial Pacer. I played about with this a little, for the first time in some years , a couple of months ago - though all that was done was a little interior painting . If I can finally get to grips with this unit, which will be a pretty heavy DMU upgrade project, I will have a lot more options for joining and splitting DMUs using consisting
     
    I also really ought to finish off the Baby Deltic. It's not a priority, because it's not suitable for the show, but it's another stalled project that really doesn't need too much to finish...
     
    Something is stirring on the N5 front. I may be going to extend my skill set and we might get another kettle into traffic later in the Spring
     
    As for things like the WD brake and the Toad E, the GBL Jinty, and what have you, they are a long way down the list. Not to mention a few smaller jobs, like lights and weathering on the W Yorks 158, maybe working gangways on the 150, and even weathering the 108. I really ought to install the detailing bits on 20 052 - and it's high time I did something about the failed decoder in 20 063.
     
    There's the maroon ex LMS 42' GUV I bought for a fiver at a show in October (Comet bogies needed?), and the Mainline Mk1 bought at Showcase for a few quid for a possible bullion van conversion (I've since realised why it was so cheap - the windows are wrong. However with this conversion only one compartment window per side will be retained and as it would run in parcels trains I might get away with it)
     
    But if I can finish off most of the projects that have been started, that should go a long way to clearing the decks
  6. Ravenser
    [What with a new job and sundry other distractions I've been pretty quiet on here for a while, though a certain amount of modelling has taken place. This entry has been sitting unfinished in draft status for some months - rather than delete the thing I've finally tidied it up and released it into the world out of its time slip....]
     
    I had the layout up and the result was a bout of decoder fitting and test running. And I'm beginning to see why some folk view DCC as black magic.
     
    Four locos or units were involved, plus that long-term problem child the West Yorkshire 155.
     
    First up, the little Hornby J50 which I bought at Ally Pally because I thought the bank might pull the plug on Hornby in the near future so this might be the only batch of the models we ever see. I managed to get a late crest loco for a decent price off Hereford Model Centre - this is a J50/4 and a little online checking reveals that 68982 was at Immingham, Colwick, and Frodingham , probably the only J50/4 with a long term E. Midlands career, most being London engines. Possibly I should have got an early crest J50/3 instead, but the deed is done, and at some point I shall renumber - I just hope that the transfers I have match Hornby's printing and I only need to change the last digit
     
    I had a TCS UK direct plug decoder in stock, so that went in, there was no need to remove any weight,and it runs very nicely.
     
    I have previously toyed with the possibility of using a station pilot when Blacklade runs steam - I have a GBL Jinty and Hornby chassis in stock and wondered about giving them something to do. Once all the decoder fitting was completed I had a kettle operating session and I found that having a shunter as pilot substantially improves operation. It gives you an alternative way of releasing locos when you're boxed in, it's excellent for rearranging parcels vans and a very useful and interesting addition to operating . So I definitely don't regret spending the money: the J50 will see a lot more use than expected.
     
    Here it is in the fuelling point having taken out the LNW set to release a kettle:
     

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

     

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

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

     
    I've also filed down and refitted all the glazing along the sides to achieve a flush result. It was an awful lot of work, and I must admit that I'm now in two minds about the result, especially where the main side windows are concerned. It is not nearly as neat as I would wish, and it does rather shout "hand-made!" at you. It's more accurate, but I'm not confident it's a lot more convincing. I'm seriously thinking about leaving the main windows alone if I tackle my second, long-forgotten, 155 at some time in the future. The small windows in the doors would still need doing, but when surrounded by a very dark blue the main windows are much less obvious and the RTR finish is much neater than I can achieve. The Hornby Pacers, where the inset of the windows is much greater, and the number of windows involved much smaller , are another matter.
     
    Further upgrading work on the ends involved fitting etched gangway plates robbed from an A1 Models 156 upgrade kit (I have all the necessary bits for a 156 in the Hurst kit someone on here sold me), and adding Hurst cast brass snowploughs. The projecting lugs on the latter around which you pour superglue gel need filing down a little to get the chassis to seat neatly at the ends.
     
    One key upgrade, though a fairly simple one, addresses the problem that Dapol simply omitted the solebars and extended the bodyshell down to where the bottom of the solebars should be. The chassis clips inside as if this were an integral construction coach like a Mk2 - which it's not.
     
    The traditional fix for this is to paint on a fake solebar, which is what I've done, using Tamiya masking tape and brush painted Revell anthracite - a useful "off-black". I also added lifting points over the bogies with scraps of 40 thou plasticard filed to the body profile (These actually now help to get the body off)
     
    Roof aerial plates (A1 etch) have also been added. Snowploughs from Hurst Models brass castings (remember Hurst Models?) were deferred as I was hoping to get the unit ready for Blacklade's first show, so I could display multiple unit working with a 155 + 153 consisted.
     
    However the 155 had other ideas and fought back at the last moment, stopping dead......
  9. Ravenser
    I've been pretty busy on the hobby front in the last few weeks. The trouble is that it hasn't involved making any models....
     
    A few weeks back I was helping with the DOGA stand at a show in the Midlands, which meant a couple of days away. Very nice and hopefully productive, some nice layouts , and I was a good boy on the spending front.
     
    Then the following day someone from one of the magazines came over to photograph the layout for an article, which will (I hope) appear in the next few months. This meant that the week before my show trip was spent frantically tidying up the flat cleaning the layout and the stock, and sorting out one or two minor issues - a dummy point motor reseated so that it doesn't foul the underframe boxes on the coaches (which it was doing in one direction) , and one of the accessory decoders remounted - I'd initially fitted it with double-sided tape, which NCE and Tortoise assure us is adequate for mounting purposes, but it must have shaken loose on the way back from the show. It's now held on with two screws as well.
     
    I've written the article, and gone through it three or four times to ensure it reads as easily as possible, unnecessary words are taken out and as much as possible covered within the word limit (I could have probably filled another 500 words, to be honest). Copies of the photos came by post - I've done the captions and the whole lot has gone off to the magazine
     
    After that came the club show and two days of stewarding and help breaking down.
     
    I'm afraid the cheque book suffered this time - when working with the etches for the 128 I was reminded yet again that a bending tool for etches would be very useful. So I treated myself to the smallest size of Hold And Fold - I'm not intending to build any 7mm etched brass Pacifics, so that should be adequate for my needs
     
    And given the shakiness of Hornby I decided I would definitely buy a J50, as there's a risk this might be the only chance I ever get. It's not a loco I definitely "need" but I've occasionally toyed with the idea of a cheap Lima body detailed on some chassis, so - I grabbed an early crest J50/4 off a boxshifter at a good price. A bit of renumbering will be required but 68982 seems to have been allocated to Colwick, Immingham and Frodingham at various times. That will do - I just hope Modelmaster numbers are the same size as Hornby's tampo printing, otherwise I'll have to replace the whole number
     
    Then there's my embarrassing little purchase. Someone had a couple of second hand coach kits for LMS Portholes - punched aluminium bodyshell affairs that I thought were BSL, and a fiver for a Brake Third seemed a great bargain
     
    Unfortunately it's actually MTK . Next time, read the label
     
    Blacklade runs very smoothly with DMUs. We're more or less there with the 31s and loco-hauled trains, though the Airfix 31 is a little sticky - no doubt attributable to its mechanism (I am starting to wonder if a drop of oil may be needed again), and I have had very occasional thoughts that a 25 might be an idea
     
    But the steam stock still has some bugs to be shaken out of it. The L1's pony truck is a particular offender, though it seems this is a well-known issue with various fixes being tried.
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51794-Hornby-l1-front-bogie-derailing/
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87326-Hornby-l1/
     
    (This is by way of a note to myself, so I can find the threads again) .
     
    I was somewhat less than chuffed to discover that Hornby's Fowler 2-6-4T has the same arrangement: that's supposed to be near the front of the queue for a decoder in order to improve the motive power situation
     
    And I'm even more convinced that the MERG accessory decoder must come out - rebooting the layout after a short is getting very tedious
  10. Ravenser
    Well, I've actually made a start on something . When Heljan announced their 128, Charlie Petty announced an offer on his 128 kit, pairing it with the then new Replica MLV chassis to give an easy build unit. So I bought one. And it's been sitting in its box, next cab but two off the rank, ever since.
     
    As it's now very close to the top of the to do list http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-17246-new-years-resolutions-version-81/ I' ve got out the box and made a start. It seemed a lot more promising than another bout with the 155
     
    And I'm starting to wonder why I've put it off for so long, because this isn't a hugely complex kit. I don't have to worry about getting it to run - the MLV chassis should take care of that , and its DCC ready as a bonus. There are NEM pockets. The basic bodyshell is 6 bits plus a roof. The livery will be plain blue. This is all eminently do-able.
     
    Needless to say I've created a few complications for myself
     
    Prototype inspiration is here , taken at Manchester Piccadilly on 10/4/85 according to the back of the photo. I'm reasonably certain this is 55994
     

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

    Having now checked through what I have I notice that there are no engine castings and no bogie sideframes. Since Charlie Petty has all his kit material packed away in storage there's no hope of sourcing replacement bits from DC Kits, so it's a question of improvisation.
     
    I have an unbuilt Kitmaster kit for a Mk1 SK in my cupboard. I was always intending to replace the bogies with MJT Commonwealths , and I now have - somewhere - some development etched H-frame bogies with which to do the job.
    This means I can use the Kitmaster sideframes for the 128.
     
    Goulding's drawings are a bit basic around the bogies but the wheelbase and general style are the same. Some modification will be needed to cut away the tie bars and the representation of brake shoes , and I need to round the axleboxes and maybe add a couple of vertical strips to the frame. It won't be spot on - the bolster is different - but it should provide an approximation. I don't think there's any other source of suitable sideframes
     
    What I do about the engine is a good question . I suspect it will involve Milliput and probably plasticard, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
     
    There's going to be a certain amount of approximation on this model. If I were working in P4 , no doubt I would be Damaging The Hobby and I might even have Blood On My Hands - especially if I slip with the scalpel while bodging the bogies.
     
    But I'm in OO, and I'm hoping for something that very much looks the part
  11. 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......
  12. Ravenser

    Electrifying

    By Ravenser,

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

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

     
    The satellite half of an Express Models 155 lighting kit has been installed running along the vehicle roof (and through cutouts in the cab end bulkheads). A hole for the plug/socket has been drilled out and removed at the base of the gangway
     
    Kadees (number 42 - medium overset with 1 mounting shim) have been fitted to the outer ends . So far the trailer car has a medium underset Kadee at the inner end - there is no need to observe the Kadee height standard on a coupling internal within the vehicle
     
    The biggest and nastiest job is the one I didn't manage to duck - flush-glazing. Nobody does flushglazing for a 155 or is ever likely to - so I had to do it the hard way - remove the glazing strip, cut it into pieces, and file them down until the window glazing fits into the aperture. To minimise any damage to the surface of the glazing during the long and tedious process of filing down I applied sellotape over the raised section of the glazing. In one case - I still don't know why - a small crack appeared in the bottom of the glazing , visible when seen from one direction. The filed-down glazing was held in place by running gloss varnish thickly round the frame of the window aperture with a small brush , then pressing the glazing into place from behind
     
    This took over a week of work, three or four windows at a time - and that's for only 1 vehicle out of 2. There are 60 windows in the sides of a 2 car 155 unit
     
    Yes, it's a big improvement. It has to be, for the effort. And now I'm committed to doing the same with the Pacers, which only makes it worse.
     
    (One additional point - before removing the glazing it was necessary to cut through the downward projections, and glue them in place on the bodyshell using solvent run in under capillary action, very cautiously. This is necessary because these projections contain recesses into which the body-retaining lugs on the chassis fit.
     
    I laid the glazing in the bodyshell overnight - next day I noticed that one strip had become slightly clouded in 2 places. I don't know why , and a coat of gloss varnish on the back was only a partial fix. The final effect is of 3 dirty windows - not perfect but not a disaster. Windows did/do occasionally get coated with a scurf, presumably in the carriage wash, but I could have done without this weathering effect)
     
    The fight goes on...
  15. Ravenser
    We left matters with a part-fixed Limby DMU and a mild crisis of conscience about details, identities and my general rate of progress on things in general.
     
    Happily the 101 does not add to the latter as it's now finished - despite all the little extras that kept crawling out.
     
    The first little catch was when looking at various photos in Morrison's DMU book and online. Whatever the faults of the former as a piece of scholarship (The Railcar Association compiled 9 pages of errata to it, and I only managed to print off 3 of them before the Railcar website disappeared for protracted and extensive rebuilding like a medieval cathedral), a photo's a photo and dates are normally reliable. Lima produced 101s with both the early 4 cab marker lights and the later 2 + lower 2 digit code panel. What Hornby did not issue was a DMU with 2 marker lights, one over each buffer , and plated headcode box - which is what happened after their refurbishment in the late 70s /early 80s.
     
    This had to be fixed - which meant out with the Xurons and crunch , followed by a good deal of rubbing down with emery boards. Patch painting was also needed, and since Hornby's yellow is a bit orange this meant tinting the Precision Paints post 84 yellow with a spot of Royal Mail red (Railmatch - and to hand from work on the NRX). Since the coats showed further rubbing down was needed, and since yellow takes about 3 coats to cover adequately, this was fun and games - especially with all the colour-matching by eye .
     
    I chickened out on a full repaint because I doubted I'd get near Sandakan's finishing with 3 brush coats, there was a risk of getting on glazing and other areas it shouldn't be , difficulties with achieving neat boundaries and avoiding bits of the old colour showing through at edges and elsewhere. What I did do was give a thin wash over the rest of the cab end with surplus paint (I was painting ends alternately) and apply a satin varnish with a drop of Precision yellow. This should blend everything and knock back the orange tint a little - and it seems to work.
     
    Somewhere in all this I managed to ping off one of the plastic windscreen wipers and a micro-wormhole in the carpet swallowed it. It will probably re-emerge under the headboard of the bed in another room in 6 years time. The plastic wipers aren't great - but I now had to replace them anyway, a job I'd been hoping to avoid. I managed to find an etch of wipers from A1 Models and fitted a pair at both ends, as this seemed to match what was shown by 1980s photos. I know have my own photographic evidence of two refurbished 3 car 101 sets in the E Midlands in 1981 with single wipers so this obviously wasn't a standard change at refurbishment , but is probably correct. Whether the wipers used are entirely correct I'm not sure - but they're much finer than the original plastic and also the right colour
     

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

  16. Ravenser
    Blacklade is in the North Midlands, with services to Birmingham, Nottingham and Sheffield via Chesterfield. The latter either extends through to Leeds or is worked by W Yorkshire units.
     
    In the 1980s this means that 3 depots would obviously supply units - Derby Etches Park (DY), Lincoln (LN) and Tyesley (TS). Oddly South Yorkshire never had a DMU depot, despite being a fully fledged PTE - their units came either from Lincoln or Neville Hill (NL). There is a minor metaphysical issue about Etches Park, since Blacklade and Hallamshire replace Derby and Derbyshire in the scheme of things, and Blacklade is not on the main line nor a major rail centre. I assume the Midland had their headquarters at Nottingham , their main works at Toton, and where the alternate for Etches Park depot ends up in this parallel reality is anyone's guess (Chesterfield? Burton? Long Eaton? Ilkeston? Swanwick?))
     
    Lincoln had the 114s - all of them - and some 105s. Etches Park (which sounds like it should have had a pile of Craftsman conversion kits and Comet sides) had 3 car 120s until they were replaced by the first production Sprinters of Class 150/1 in 1985. That leaves Tyseley and Neville Hill as potential homes for my 101.
     
    TS looked the obvious candidate till I got out my various ABCs for the period. TS was an exponent of hybrid sets, and when I hunted through the numbers I could not find any pairs of DMBS + DTCL on their books in the period. In 1988 they had DMBS M53222 on the books (scrapped by 1992) but no DTCL. The first relevant listing of TS formations I have is the 1992 Platform 5 volume, when 101 DMCL 53242 was working with 116 DMBS 53073. Even finding 3 car 101 formations to match the original Hornby set was tough although I found M53303/M59124/M53328 all allocated in 1988. No idea if they were in the same set though. TS doesn't work for my 101 unit
     
    Hornby's W-prefix numbers are taken from a photo in Morrison's book of a 3 car Canton unit C813 at Cheltenham Spa in 1982 (p56, bottom). That won't do either - such a unit would not have got past New Street.
     
    At this stage we are down to Neville Hill. You then start hunting through books and looking at photos , and realising that a lot of power/trailer sets were allocated to Chester (CH), Heaton, Hull Botanic Gardens (BG) , Cambridge (CA) and Norwich Crown Point (NC) , and are out of contention. A photo in Morrison just above the one Hornby used shows the end of DTCL E54218 at Leeds in 1983.My books show it allocated to NL in late summer 83 and still there in 85-6, having survived the arrival of the 141s. That's a start. The caption claims it has S Yorks PTE branding , which would be great - but MetroTrain was W Yorks PTE's branding. 101s definitely worked into Sheffield from Leeds - these will have been Neville Hill units - and definitely worked Sheffield- Doncaster: those must also have been NL units
     
    A hunt for a suitable companion found DMBS E51250, also at NL on both dates. Since NL does not seem to have maintained fixed unit formations it's anyone's guess whether they were paired - but you can't prove I'm wrong, either.
     
    The yellow stripe is an issue. Another photo notes the abolition of first class in W Yorks in 1983 - with a TCL which has been downgraded to TSL and lost it's stripe. However abolition of first in W Yorks would not affect units supplied for S Yorks PTE services (On the other hand the People's Republic of South Yorkshire in the 80s might have thought a tumbril to the guillotine a more appropriate vehicle for first class passengers. When BR reintroduced the Master Cutler a few years later as a Pullman, Sheffield City Council officially objected to the new service and called for its withdrawal as elitist.). I found a photo of DTCL E54365 on a Sheffield service around 1990 , with double arrows but no yellow stripe - as I couldn't find an obvious DMBS partner , that was a non-starter, too
     
    Another point which I missed - never overlook your own resources . It was only when I was compiling this - well after I'd finished -
    that I remembered I had this photo. Slightly tweaked as to brightness, contrast and colour for the occasion and with a sharpening tool applied to mitigate its photographic awfulness:
     

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

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

    Bits and Pieces

    By Ravenser,

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

    Good Intentions

    By Ravenser,

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

     
    Still outstanding is completion of the NRX van conversion, which is almost there; the Baby Deltic, which has a nearly finished body and much of the chassis done; and a final matt varnish coat on the two Shark brake vans (one Cambrian and one Hornby)
     
    That leaves on the bookcase the long-term inhabitants: a mostly finished Bratchill 150 missing one etched window frame, a Hornby Pacer rebuild which I started and haven't finished, the Smallbrook WD road van, and a partbuilt vintage Parkside kit for an LNER Toad B . Since the Smallbrook kit is resin and I only dare work that outside, that kit will have to wait for warm light days. There is also a Branchlines 04 chassis kit part built and a part built etched brass LNER van (a DOGA starter kit) that have both been stalled for years, and are hardly on the to-do list at all....
     
    Of that lot, only the Pacer would definitely be of immediate use and I really ought to finish it off this year.
     
    In the meantime income may again be tight this year, so yet again I'm resolved not to go out spending on new projects. Despite my best resolutions 2014 saw various acquisitions - a GBL Jinty and Butler Henderson (plus a cheap Hornby 0-6-0T to motorise the latter), a Bachmann J11 and 10001 , both of which ought to be weathered at some point. But at least not much money was spent , and I'm not planning any RTR acquisitions this year (unless Bachmann somehow deliver a C12 for Christmas or Charlie Petty does a W Yorks 144 in early red).
     
    I've got quite enough stuff to sort out already.
     
    The first new project is slated to be an Iain Kirk 51' LNER full brake , which is needed to complete a proper steam age parcels train. The Hornby LMS CCT can be weathered at the same time.
     
    I've got a number of locos which are in need of decoders and new couplings , and weathering or rework.
    Top of that list is a Hornby Fowler 2-6-4T which would address the noticeable shortage of steam traction in the steam era (and the total lack of LMR steam on an allegedly LMR layout). I also need, finally, to face up to putting a decoder in my Bachmann Standard 4MT 2-6-0. Chipping the Lima 37 (which will need detailing up) and the dormant 29 , which needs some small repair, is rather less urgent.
     
    A rummage through all my boxes at New Year in search of something else turned up treasure - both the packets of MTK 155 underframe castings I bought at DEMU Showcase a few years ago from the late Alaister Rolfe. They were in separate boxes, which is why I had become convinced I had only bought one packet.
     
    The importance of this is that Sprinter DMU underframe castings are a key detailing item currently completely off the market. Hurst Models has quietly slipped into an almost dormant state, and seems unlikely to reappear - it looks very much as if a few residual items are being slowly cleared. That has removed their 156 castings from the market. And although the MTK moulds passed with the rest of NNK to Phoenix Precision, the castings are known to be split over several moulds and though Phoenix would like to rerun the 155 castings, they admit they don't actually know on which moulds they are to be found....
     
    So - a full scale rework of the elderly W Yorks 155 is on the cards. It's always run surprisingly well, but it's currently stopped because the black box fouls some of the dummy point motors I installed 18 months ago. I'm fully aware this is an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but with a detailed underframe, a full (and painted) interior, a fake painted solebar, detailed gangways, close coupling, Kadees and lighting I might get something passable. The biggest unsolved issue is probably flushglazing.
     
    Then there are a clutch of electrical projects to finish.
     
    The external CDU for the boxfile is done, and attention turns to Tramlink, where one board needs rewiring as the feed wire has come off its connection. Arguably the whole thing needs rewiring , to install point motors, a better interboard board connector, attach the external CDU , and probably relay one point.
     
    There is an Erkon ground signal to build for Blacklade, with a decoder to install to work it - and I might build the spare colour light kits as route indicators for the fiddle yard roads
     
    This is before I even contemplate the possibility of dabbling with some trams, and then there's the idea of building the Judith Edge Vanguard Steelman kit - I'm sure I have a suitable Beetle in stock
     
     
    The 108 needs weathering and populating, the station building needs finishing.......
     
    I really mean to build the 128 kit this year
     
    Plenty to keep me busy , even if I find I have a little more time this year
  19. Ravenser
    I have a few problems with my Hornby 31 derailing when running through the crossover at the end of Platform 2 if set to cross over. As this is part of the run round loop and as the 31 is currently diagrammed for any loco hauled trains (parcels, engineers etc) this is a problem
     
    The problem is caused by the fact that these points don't always close tight when thrown - arising from the fact that I used the wire supplied by Tortoise, instead of replacing it with something thicker and stiffer. I've replaced the throw wires on the other points , but it's now going to be the devils own job to do it on the platform end crossover.
     
    However as my Airfix 31 seems to take the relevant crossover in its stride , there's an obvious fix. I always intended to detail the Airfix model at some point anyway and if I want operate a Loco Hauled Substitute set (2 coach MK1/Mk2Z rake) to cover a DMU shortage - as happened not infrequently in the 1980s - I need a second Type 2 to work it Minories-style (Platform 2 is too short to take 31 + 2 x 64' coaches - a pair of 50' vans is the limit - and this is the only platform with access to the loop. The crossover in question was originally added to the plan to give access to the fuelling point , and the fact it gave me a loop was a bonus) . I've got the blue/grey coaches - all I need is a second loco
     
    The Airfix 31 was bought new in the late 70s for my first modern image layout, and has been stored in its box ever since that unsuccessful project was finally abandoned. It has been given a decoder , and runs well considering what it is, but is otherwise untouched. I also acquired a finished 31 body when Dapol were selling off the remaining stocks of discontinued items some years , and the intention is to detail this spare body and substitute it. Kadees must also be fitted to the chassis.
     
    I have a further rather battered 31 body in stock, plus a rather tatty and roughly detailed specimen acquired for £15 for it's chassis (it's a runner though may need some cleaning up) , a spare Athearn PA1 chassis, and the unhappy remains of a first batch blue Hornby 31 (I seperated the body before mazak rot set in) , as well as 31 174 which is - I hope - fine. If I work my way through that lot over the years I should have quite a fleet of Brush 2s
     
    In my teens I saw quite a lot of Immingham's 31/4 fleet on Transpennine South and Cleethorpes-Newark trains. Hornby have made a 31/1, so obviously if I was detailing an Airfix loco for myself I wanted a mid 80s IM 31/4.
     
    Unfortunately it's not quite that easy.
     
    There's little or no obvious external difference between a 31/1 and a 31/4. The detailed issues relate to date rather than type. Airfix produced a 31 with headcode box, bodyside steps and recessed tank filler on the roof, train heating boiler port,, nose doors and buffer beam cowls. As far as I'm aware this represents a late 60s /early 70s re-engined 31/1 from the latter 2/3rds of the production batch. A good choice for a manufacturer in 1977 but rather more problematic now
     
    By the mid 70s all 31s had lost the bodyside steps and roof recess which had been plated over , so Airfix's blue 31 401 is wrong here . During the 1980s buffer beam cowls were removed . The first batch of ETH conversions (31 401-19) kept them when converted in the early 70s . I'm not sure about 31 420-4 , converted in the mid 70s . The second batch of conversions in the mid 80s , 31 425-469 lost them when rebuilt to ETH, and they also lost bodyside bands. I don't feel up to that level of reworking , so my target loco has to be a 31/4 from the early conversions up to 31 424.
     
    Unfortunately IM's 31/4 fleet was basically the second batch conversions. I thought I'd found a perfect prototype and reference shot here:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31408-bk-090383_t.jpg
     
    (I originally found this on the 53A Models photo site)The train is virtually certain to be a Cleethorpes - Newark Northgate service, as it comprises four Mk1s- the Transpennine South sets were basically Mk2a s , later strengthened to 5 when the Newark sets were broken up and that service reverted to 114s
     
    It is at this point that the problem of fan cowls rears it's ugly head - literally . Note the roof line on the loco - isn't there something projecting ?? Aren't we seeing what is horribly obvious here - a raised cowl around the roof fan grill, on the same loco at Rugby some years later:
     
    http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/cs31408_rugby.jpg
     
    But in 1976 she was smooth and her roofline unmarred:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/16179216@N07/5187603237/
     
    Some internet browsing suggests that these cowls appeared in 1979-82. Many locos never got them - I have a shot of a gleaming new 31 435 at Grimsby in 1985 (I think) with no cowl, and she's plainly uncowled here (a Hull-Liverpool I reckon) http://www.class31.co.uk/picture/31435-sp-0690.jpg
     
    I've no idea how you model such a cowl - so 31 408 wasn't a suitable target loco. And as 31 435 had uncowled buffer beams she wasn't either (Whether the buffer beam cowling has been replaced now she's D5600 in preservation I don't know). She has also had a revised smaller cab window on one side which seems to be a very unusual modification - I've not seen another photo showing this asymmetrical cab window arrangement.
     
    As far as I can see from my surviving 1980s abcs, only five 31/4s from the first batch were allocated to IM during the period (31 403/07/08/09/20) and it appears from the class 31 photo site that all of them had roof fan grill cowling during the 1980s
     
    So a slightly different approach is needed.
     
    The nearest I've found to an ideal target loco is 31 415, seen at Skegness in 1982 in a photo in Diesel Retrospective Class 31. She doesn't have a roof cowl, I think the buffer beam cowling is still in place as something is going well below the buffers, and she's most emphatically in Lincolnshire . She is plain blue with no stripe but bodyside bands are still in place
     
    At that stage she was allocated to March (the train is therefore probably the SO Cambridge-Skegness and return), and by the late 80s she was allocated to Bescot - very suitable for Blacklade. At what stage she lost buffer cowling and bodyside bands I don't know - ignorance is bliss here. (For the record a shot in the same book shows 31 414 at Wellingboro in March 1987 without either). The Hornby body from 31 270 would probably be a much better starting point for a 31 without bodyside bands as the band is done by tampo printing
     
    So - 31 415 it will be...
  20. Ravenser

    Baby Deltic 1

    By Ravenser,

    I'm conscious that the blog has been inactive for a long time , and it certainly feels as if I've been inactive too
     
    However a certain amount of modelling has been done - I just haven't written it up.
     
    One project that has been making intermittant progress is the Baby Deltic referred to in an earlier post here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/296/entry-12459-baby-needs-some-new-paint/
     
    Much of the progress has been painting - however despite seeing this as a "quick win" project it's proved to be rather a slow process.
     
    Nothing very much got done during my convalescence - to be honest I didn't really feel up to much for at least the first week - and as a result the useful tip about Halford's paint wasn't taken up. Railmatch green in due course it was, and I've managed to get the bodyshell painted and lettered . Sourcing transfers for the headcode boxes was a bit problematic - I finally acquired some bits from someone but I've not certain they're all exactly the same size. I've done my best to cover any blemishes by deliberate misalignment
     
    The mechanism is a Chinese era Hornby ringfield pancake and trailing bogie : this has been oiled and test run - cue another lengthy delay until I dug Tramlink out from under a heap of magazines, as Tramlink is currently my only DC test track (It doesn't help that one board of Tramlink is currently dead due to a broken wire somewhere) . This had to be done prior to fitting into the bogie frames as it seems that once you snap the thing into the frames it's irrevocably located
     
    Some pictures:
     

  21. Ravenser
    I haven't posted much recently in my blogs - but some modelling has been going on in dribs and drabs over recent months
     
    The two Ratio ex MR suburban coaches which are to form Set 2 have made intermittant progress and have now reached the stage shown:
     

     
    and
     

     
    The second being the recycled and rebuilt kit I originally made in my teens and which completely dismantled itself when I applied ModelStrip to it
     
    This is now a composite, with 4 first/3 third . Passengers have been painted with acrylics and added to all interiors - Slaters figures in the all third and Monty's Models pewter figures in the composite, because I'm fairly desperate to get weight in that, as there's no van in which to add lead sheet. Metal Hornby coach wheels have been fitted, and MJT whitemetal Mansell wheel inserts superglued in place- this adds a bit more weight
     
    The sides had a tendency to bow because I left the coaches for a few weeks before adding partitions - in addition I managed to warp one side of the all first (now composite) when I orginally built it, and I haven't quite straightened it completely this time around. This meant a little paring away of the top of the sides /rebate of roof in a few places on the brake to get the roof to sit properly, but overall the result seems acceptable
     
    The original plastic vents on the composite have been replaced with whitemetal LMS vents - I fitted the plastic torpedo vents the wrong way round at the age of 12 - and the gas pots removed
     
    The final major task will be battery boxes and vacuum cylinders - my two enquiries about how the battery boxes may have been done when these vehicles were converted to electric light have drawn no response, so I'll go with the logical solution, and cut a cast LMS twin battery box in half .....
  22. Ravenser

    Thoughts on Track

    By Ravenser,

    I wouldn't normally touch on controversal subjects in a constructional blog. But in the case of the current OO track thread, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79416-poll-ready-to-lay-oo-track-and-pointwork/ my views arose in the context of the layouts on this thread, and are best explained in their context , and flow back into "matters outstanding" with the layouts, and things that need to be done.... So really it's more sensible to reflect on how my own approach to OO track has developed and some of the practical issues involved here, in a rather quieter atmosphere
     
    We start with Ravenser Mk1 - so far , for various reasons , which can be summarised as life getting in the way, there has't been a Mk2.
     
    Ravenser Mk1 was a portable small industrial layout , based on "Yarmouth Quay", the Plan of the Month in Railway Modeller June 1988. I was living in a bed-sit at the time and assumed no very sophisticated level of modelling would be practical under the conditions. This decision I rapidly and bitterly regretted. Setrack points seemed to be the obvious accepted way on a layout with severe curves - the plan called for something like a 9" radius in places, and the authors assured us that they had tested these with a Mainline 03 and it was very happy. So I bought a new Bachmann 03, and a Hornby 06 because it was cheap and I was young and poor. I added a connection to a traverser fiddle yard and the rest of BR. The Airfix 31 and Triang Hornby 37 from my teen-age modern image layout, Flaxborough, were patently unsuitable, but the Wrenn Class 20 was pressed into service as the mainline loco, and the Lima 09 was also recycled
     
    Ravenser Mk1 never worked very well, and the main reason was those wretched Setrack points . Operationally it was very interesting , with a lot of traffic potential - when things weren't derailing. I discovered Parkside wagon kits and started building them - and Romfords and Setrack points don't mix very well. At first I thought it was just me , and some negative force field I exhuded. However somewhere in its early years I joined DOGA and duly discovered the subject of wheel and track standards. Such things simply weren't mentioned in the magazines of the day - and hadn't been for about 20 years
     
    In those days Setrack points featured flangeways 1.55mm wide - as I found out when I eventually measured one with feeler gauges . Perhaps they still do. This proved disasterous. I had bought a secondhand Lima 20 to replace the Wrenn 20 in the hope it would run better. It still stalled on the dead frogs, so I invested in a DOGA pickup kit [now discontinued as all RTR locos come with decent pickup] This meant replacement wheels - and the only available replacements were Ultrascales. I invested 30 quid in a set - but Ultrascale wheels are EM profile. And the EM value for flangeways is 1.0mm. I rewheeled the loco, fitted the pickups - and every time it went round the run round loop it fell off somewhere, because the check rails were far too far away to check anything and the gaps at the frog might as well have been the Grand Canyon
     
    I got clever, hacked out the plastic check rail and superglued in a short length of rail gauged out using a Romford wheelset (a technique gleaned from an Iain Rice book) Unfortunately the new checkrails sat rather higher , and as the additional pickups had had to be fitted under the keeper plate , they fouled it. Result - an abrupt halt. Any plans to detail the Lima body quietly died at that point. After a nice new Bachmann 08 failed to deliver reliable running Ravenser Mk1 was effectively abandoned, though it lay around for a number of years before I acquired a car and carted it down to the tip.
     
    Next came Tramlink. Croydon Tramlink is laid in concrete sleepered FB track , with concrete sleepered points.Until recently , Peco only provide concrete sleepered flexible track in code 100. So unless you built your own plain track - and 10 years ago that meant sleeper by sleeper, and only one very obscure product catered for FB track with concrete sleepers - the only option for modern image modellers was Peco code 100. After all modern image modellers are just teenagers running brightly coloured coarse scale RTR with steam-roller wheels, one stage up from the train set, aren't they?
     
    So Tramlink was laid with Peco code 100 . Because I thought that light rail meant sharp curves, and because it is a small diorama layout (it was supposed to be quick - except that everything had to be near scratchbuilt ) I used a Peco code 100 small Y and a Setrack point to save space.
     

     
    This proved to be a mistake. My cardboard Manchester Metrolink is feather-light, and the Tenshodo is at one end. It would go through the Setrack point into the Cripple Siding with the Tenshodo leading, but propelling the unpowered half through that point via articulation comprising 2 panel pins invariably resulted in a derailment... Conventional RTR locos were fine, but not the LRV. Since the idea was that 3 light rail units would have 4 possible sidings , and operation would consist of shuffling a unit into the empty slot, like a form of Light Rail Solitare , this was serious. I removed the check rail on the point and fitted a replacement, gauged with a Romford wheelset (see above) but while this didn't foul anything it didn't solve the problem, either When I tried to build a proper Croydon unit from an Alphagrafix kit, the skirting around the bogies fouled them ( I was using A1 Models etched H frame wagon bogies) and the unit wouldn't take any kind kind of curve. Drastic rebuilding was called for, and the project ground to a halt to a soundtrack from the musical Oliver ("I'm reviewing the situation... - and I think I'll go and think it out again")
     
    Tramlink is currently sitting boxed up about 18" from my right shoulder as I type. Where it has been for quite a while. At some point, when I've caught up and finished off other projects, I really need to turn back to the project and try to finish it and sort it out. One big question is whether I rip up all the track and relay or not. Or put another way - can I somehow coax the Metrolink unit and other light rail vehicles through that dratted point or not? Ordinary railway models (eg a Bachmann 08) were fine - but light rail vehicles made from Alphagraphix card kits are really very light - and as I built them , sealed units . The Croydon unit stalled at the point where I realised to modify it I'd have to get inside - which would effectively destroy what I'd built this far. I've got a couple more Croydon kits in stock , a Midlands Metro kit , and one DLR unit kit from Street Level. Yes , the Halling model would almost certainly take the point happily - but it was pricey, at the time it was released my employment was uncertain, and it's HO, whereas everything else is 4mm. Now Croydon Tramlink units are big and boxy, and so should a model be (as this is a text-heavyposting, cue a gratuitous shot of a Croydon unit last year,
     

     
    and a model of a unit seen at Kew Bridge model tram exhibition a few years back

     
    ) . And the Halling HO models would look a bit petite. Not to mention that I'd need at least 2 , arguably 3, and that's around £500 spent on what has become a side interest when money is a lot tighter than it used to be
     
    Or - if a bit of weight won't cure the problem - rip up all the track and relay with Peco's new - and distinctly more British looking - code 75 concrete sleeper flexible , and their new concrete sleeper code point. I'd still have to use a small Y point with the sleepers painted at the Beckenham end . But I would get live frogs , and it would make it much easier to fit point motors - which I omitted first time round . The baseboard frame isn't really deep enough to allow a Cobalt Blue , never mind a Tortoise (two of which I do have surplus - as they were too big to fit in the narrow neck of Blacklade), A Hoffman/Conrad could be fitted, but with commercial points there would be no objection to using SEEP or Peco solenoids - I'm sure I have a CDU or CDU kit somewhere.
     
    However the track was pinned and ballasted with PVA and ripping up might be rather destructive. And the replacement point would be longer, and the fouling point on the Cripple Siding further back , and in the context of a diorama layout I'm not sure if I have those few critical inches.... [ I don't , as the below shot illustrates. A Peco code 75 concrete sleeper point is medium radius and therefore 2 inches longer than the point currently used - the frog is 4.5cm further along] Then there's the thought of drybrushing all the ballast for that "brand new look" . Last time I used an ad-hoc mix from white and black - so the whole thing had to be done in one hit with one batch because colour matching was impossible. Maybe Railmatch BR Grey acrylic??
     

    Hmmmm . Where've I put the "too hard" basket?
     
    Next came the boxfile. This was built for a DOGA competition some years ago. The catalyst here was my discovery that yes, two Peco small Y points would fit in a boxfile back to back, and there was even enough room for a headshunt which would just about take an 08 with the switch blades of the point snapping at its heels , sorry wheels. At which point my scepticism about Phil Parker's competition idea evaporated and I got cracking...
     
    Given that there was a deadline and that the whole concept was based on the fact that two Peco small Y points would fit , this was never going to be a "teach yourself pointbuilding" test bed - especially as the thing was , well - a boxfile (Two boxfiles, to be pedantic). But I was determined to raise my game in the matter of track, so the boxfile was done in Peco code 75 with three small Y points. Not only that, but they are operated by point motors - I fitted Peco solenoids under adjacent small buildings operating the points from the side. With switched live frogs and full sectioning this was a considerable advance on Tramlink (I'm still wondering why I fitted section switches - on a one engine in steam shunting puzzle I've never found any need to use them and they're left permanently switched on).
     
    The problem of the incorrect sleepering was side stepped by making part of the visible area cobbled with inset track (Metcalf cobbled card) and swamping the rest in black flock, representing ash ballast, so that you only see bits of a sleeper here and there. This is effective , but it's a bit of a fudge, and only offers a solution in very special circumstances.
     
    My big mistake was forgetting to fit a CDU . One point is , at the best of times, unreliable in throwing in one direction - at the worst of times it just gives up. Another point is liable to stick when it gets warm, and only one point is rock-solid reliable. A CDU might have cured all this or at least greatly mitigated it. But I can't retro-fit one because all point motors - and the relevant bit of wiring - are sealed inside buildings , and I'd have to destroy one to get access to wire in a CDU.
     
    Whoops. Running on the boxfile is not of exhibition quality - but coaxing small 4 wheel (or occasionally 6 wheel) shunters across a lot of point frogs and board joints at minimal speed with absolute precision of positioning is a very demanding application . And the worst problems relate to the rather dodgy track joints between the files and couplers uncoupling thereon
     
    Which brings us to Blacklade . This time I was determined to go the whole hog. Hand built track to a proper track standard (DOGA OO Intermediate) with 4mm sleepering, using wheels to a standard (RP25-110) which fits the track properly . The last bit was the easy one, since this is essentially what you get on modern RTR - subject to the manufacturing tolerances of Chinese factories on things like Back to Back . The biggest compromise on wheels is the use of Romfords on a few kit built wagons (If they don't come with Romfords I fit Hornby wagon and coach wheels set to the correct back to back of 14.4mm)
     
    The original Carl Arendt plan envisaged Peco streamline points,no doubt hand operated. Since I was once again up against a deadline, and a slip was involved, I chickened out of attempting to learn point building and contacted Marcway . A full size plan of the layout on lining paper using Peco templates was sent to them - this was a very useful exercise as it allowed me to check clearances and train lengths full size. They advised that almost the whole thing could be done with their standard 3' radius points. However I did have to order two bespoke units - a single slip more or less to the same footprint as Peco, and a crossover at 2 '6" radius with continous checkrail. This is not quite as bad as it might be, since one leg is kinked - but the dogleg to straighten up for the platform still introduces a reverse curve.
     

    (considerable progress has been made since!)
     
    This one kink apart, the whole thing flows in a very pleasing manner and I was feeling really quite chuffed with the result until I saw a shot of one throat on Jim Smith-Wright's P4 New St.
     
    Running reliability is generally good . Occasionally a piece of stock derails at the board joint on the back road, where alignment is not perfect and I had to tweak a rail out slightly. That's more down to the imperfections of my carpentry - I didn't quite focus on the need for absolute precision there
    The wheels on a second-hand Hornby Pacer jam in the continous check rail at the crossover at any B2B - but then they are coarse steam roller wheels. Pacer rebuilding is one of my stalled projects.
     
    The major problem in terms of reliability is the points , and their uncertain closure. I've already had a couple of goes at fixing this: round one is reported here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-6357-mind-the-gap/ where thicker wire was fitted to everything bar the bespoke crossover at the platform ends, and round two last summer involved a lot of digging round with a scalpel blade. They now close with reasonable reliability except for the slip (occasionally) and the bespoke crossover. The plan to solve the latter involves detailing up the old Airfix 31 , which is normally very happy running through it - whereas the Hornby 31 generally derails (Hornby 31s do seem to be a little track sensitive.)
     
    As an aside , the Airfix 31 runs perfectly happily through pointwork built to the the old BMRSB OO track standard (which lies within the envelope of DOGA OO Intermediate) and I'm glad of the fact . Indeed it runs a great deal better than it ever did on Flaxborough , for which it was originally bought, long ago - this is possibly due to the fact that 30 years ago I thought Brasso would be an effective track cleaner, and Flaxborough was laid with 1970s Hornby points. (There were no internet forums in those days and no local clubs so I was very much on my own.)
     
    But the fundamental issue is that the Marcway points are very stiff. I've come to believe that the real problem is that the switches are not loose heeled and rely on the rail bending. My experience is that all too often the throw rod from the point motor bends before the switch rail. The smaller Cobalt Blue , with it's shorter throw rod, seems more effective than Tortoises- and the wire supplied seems to be thicker than that supplied by Circuitron with the Tortoise. It's almost certainly significant that the points where the problem is most acute are the shortest - the bespoke crossover at 2'6" radius and the slip, which has very short switch blades .
     
    At this point we come to Joseph Pestell's OO track thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/79416-poll-ready-to-lay-oo-track-and-pointwork/page-54 Go back through the pages and many contributers are hotly denoucing Peco's loose heeled switches and demanding flexing switch rails. Based on my own experience with Blacklade I'm firmly opposed. Even at 3' radius I've found "flexible" switch blades stiff and potentially unreliable. Go below 3' radius and they become a serious problem.
     
    A number of contributors to the thread seemed to deal with this and other issues by arguing that there is no need to cater for radii below 3' because OO modellers oughtn't to want to use anything below 3' . I have to say that those contributors who model in EM , P4 or S7, not OO, generally seem to take this view - and of course 3' is the accepted minimum radius in those finescale gauges
     
    Again I have to disagree, sharply. Every single layout mentioned in this posting would have been impossible if a minimum 3' radius constraint had been imposed on me. By most modellers' standards, Blacklade is pretty generous in terms of radius - generally 3' with 2'6" in one or two places and not in the form of reverse curves. Many OO modellers find themselves using crossovers formed of small radius points. But Blacklade does not meet the minimum radius standard many are advocating.
     
    In fact a lot of modellers are in OO precisely because it allows them to build a layout in the restricted space they have -which the finescale gauges would not permit. Any OO product which ignores that reality is not going to meet the needs of a large part of the target market. Certainly medium radius is the place to start, if there's only one point in the range . But a smaller radius point is going to be required on occasion by 75-80% of the OO market
     
    This brings me to a further point. The idea that OO track is basically a matter for those working in OO seems to be viewed as aggressively provocative rather than uncontroversial. However people who don't model in OO have no real interest in seeing OO track brought to market. They aren't going to buy it - the lack of it doesn't affect their own modelling (A few may even regret the introduction of such a product because they would like to see people abandon OO in favour of their own gauge , and if OO points were available they would weaken the case for doing so)
     
    In addition people who don't model in OO are naturally ignorant of conditions on the ground . Of course finescale modellers - who adopted the 3' constraint so long ago they've forgotten about it - can't see why anyone would want to use radii below 3' . Of course they think such radii are unacceptable. The trouble arises when they assume that OO modellers must see things the same way. OO track threads sometimes seem to become a strange world in which the one group of people whose opinions on the subject of OO track have no real validity are those actually working in OO.
     
    Enough - this has run to considerable length . I'd encourage anybody reading to vote in the poll in Joseph Pestall's thread . The more whjo vote, the more useful the data becomes. No doubt it isn't representative of the statistical average - but perhaps a more useful question is what does it represent - and what does it tell us about them. In this context the fact that users of code 75 is currently outscoring the total for users of the various flavours of code 100. This seems to suggest that the poll is representing the views of those looking for something better than code100 Streamline - and that - as a minimum - the market for OO track might very roughly equate to the existing market for code75, perhaps plus a bit (to allow for those "converted"by seeing a superiore new product)
  23. Ravenser

    Work in Prospect

    By Ravenser,

    This is one of those posts that could go on the layout blog (here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343-blacklade-artamon-square/ ) but as it amounts to a note-to-self of stock construction jobs that need doing, it's more logical to put it on my workbench thread . So here it is...
     
    I had the layout up for an extended play a couple of weeks back. Things came out of boxes that had spent an awful long time in them . For the first time I actually got round to trying to run a Civil Engineer's train - and found that 2 brakes , a Zander, a Grampus, a Dogfish and a Walrus (all the non-airbraked stuff) were too long for the run-round loop . Pity - they looked rather nice - so the Zander will have to stay in it's boxfile
     
    I also found or was reminded that Hornby 31s are a touch track-sensitive, and as the track in question (in several senses) is the crossover at the end of Pl 2 , forming one end of the run-round loop, and as 31 174 has been doing duty on anything that requires running round (the two parcels , the oil and now the CE train) this is a problem . An alternative loco is required for this duty - and a quick trial on the tension-lock fitted Seacows (also never before run in anger) showed that my old Airfix 31 is quite happy taking the crossover even when the blades are 98% across (It's sat modestly hidden at the back). It also runs perfectly well, with inbuilt analogue sound . I already needed another 31 so I could play with a 2 coach loco-hauled substitute set , so detailing up a spare Airfix 31 and fitting Kadees was already high on the "to-do" list. It now becomes an urgent priority
     
    It's also painfully obvious that the Hornby Dutch Shark needs weathering, so perhaps I need to finish off the olive green Cambrian kit one, which really ought to be used in a mid 80s CE rake
     
    I made the melancholy discovery that my elderly W Yorks 155 may run okay but the wretched black box on the underframe now fouls the newly installed cosmetic point motors on the back road. The 158 just clips them too but keeps going - demonstrated by the appearance of bright metal on the bumps on the casting. A bit of resiting and an emery board and a paint brush has sorted this out as far as the 158 is concerned, but the 155 needs it's chassis sorting out. I have a pack of NNK (ex MTK) underframe castings for a 153..... Fortunately what Dapol tooled up was evidently based very closely on a built up MTK kit, and with a bit of ingenuity it should be possible to use the castings on the powered car for weight, and fret out the plastic on the trailer to build up various boxes without any difference between the cars being obvious . A heavy rework of the W Yorks 155 to make the best of a bad job now rises right up the DMU agenda. On the other hand thoughts of sticking a decoder in the Regional 155 that has never run and has been sat at the bottom of a pile of stock for over a decade have now receded
     
    I even got to try running the layout in steam mode for the first time:
     

     
    Now I know this is full of ghastly anachronisms . Nothing can be done about the station signage - that was always a reason why any "steam period" was not going to be a serious exercise, and would simply be a case of giving my out of period items an occasional airing and a raison d'etre
     
    But it does show progress and problems,,,,
     
    Set 1 (ex LNW) is up and running. Set 3 (Grouping non-gangway) is also up and running , though the coaches need weathering . After I found the Hornby Thomposon non-gangwayed stock is delayed till next year, I thought laterally , and acquired a carmine Gresley CL instead of a maroon Thompson CL
     
    Set 2 is still progressing, slowly.
     
    But we have a motive power crisis. I have 2 serviceable kettles, and one's an O4/1 and totally unsuitable for suburban passenger working. I have no serviceable green diesels (you can't readily DCC an ex Hornby Dublo Class 20). I ended up using 31 174 and a blue Bachmann 20 just to run trains and check that the coaches ran and a Minories style shuttle could be operated. Really , I need 4 locos to run 2 or 3 trains
     
    Someone put a decoder in my secondhand whitemetal N5. I got the 4 digit address programmed then the whole thing started shorting. A check with the multimeter showed a dead short across one pair of driving wheels . It went back in its box pending detailed examination (I suspect it may work fine when the body's removed....)
     
    I bought a Fowler 2-6-4T as "secondhand new" at Ally Pally. It needs a decoder hardwiring (when I pluck up courage to get the body off) and more seriously , somehow I have to fit Kadees
     
    So I've dug out the resin Silver Fox Baby Deltic kit I bought cheap second-hand at St Albans , and started painting. Then I found my warning yellow had dried up. Now I've got some replacement from Precision at Shenfield (but I dread to think how many coats will be needed - Precision have poor covering power and yellow's a problem at the best of times )
     
    So - finish Set 2 . Two Type 2s to be done (D5901 first - as the RTC Derby loco it only needs a slight stretch to have her survive into the 80s in the Midlands , or indeed to be preserved, then 31 408 ) Finish the NRX conversion . Finish the Cambrian Shark . All of those are existing commitments
     
    It becomes a question whether the 128 kit or a heavy upgrade of the W Yorks 155 is next cab off the rank behind that lot. I have no steam age parcels stock . A 51' Gresley full brake (Kirk kit) would be a fairly quick win , and I have 2 old 12T vans with no obvious use which could be done with new chassis and Kadees for parcels tail traffic...
     
    That should keep me quiet
  24. Ravenser

    For One Night Only...

    By Ravenser,

    Blacklade had its first tentative public appearance a few weeks back, when I took it along to the CMRA Workshop event as a display item. It's been taken along to a society area group meeting twice, but this was the first time it had gone into the wider world.
     
    Chiltern Model Railway Association is the federation of model railway clubs and societies in the South East of England and beyond (Indeed over the last few years they've picked up members well into the North of England, and seem to be growing into the nearest thing to a national association of clubs we have.) As well as organising the St Albans exhibition each year in January, for a good few years they've run an event for members of CMRA clubs at Watford in July. Essentially it's a bit like the demonstrators section of an exhibition - except that there is no general public, just the folk demonstrating and other club members . (There's also a programme of talks and a couple of traders)
     
    It's a good event , and I've gone for a number of years and enjoyed it (both my club and a couple of societies I'm a member of belong to CMRA). This year I decided to take something along to display, under a society banner
     
    The theory was that the layout, spread across two tables on its side, would be a demo of DCC for layout control - as opposed to DCC for loco control. I don't claim to be any kind of guru , techie, or expert, but after being involved with a club project and my own layout where all the points etc were DCC controled without a conventional panel , I suppose I must know more about it than most. With three types of point motors, and three types of decoders on view , working signals interlocked with points , and route control by macros , I was hoping there would at least be something to talk about and show.
     
    If I'm honest , I wasn't exactly knocked down in the rush . A couple of people were interested to see the working signals, and whenever a potential punter came in view I gamely launched into my "what this is all about" spiel. I'd prepared some handouts on DCC , plus a sheet giving the background of the layout and a copy of the DOGA OO Intermediate standards, but I think only one of the DCC sheets was taken. However I did get a potential invitation to demo at a show so someone must have been moderately impressed, and I think there were some tables that were quieter than mine
     
    While in theory Blacklade was there as a static item, I did bring some stock on the sly, and for the last hour and a half I turned the layout right way up and ran it . What I hadn't realised was that Bradfield Gloster Square was also going to be there , and inevitably made my little effort look like a clockwork torch in competition with Spurn lighthouse. Even worse , the gremlins came out for a carnival as soon as they saw one of the Bradfield team was watching - and no layout on the circuit runs as flawlessly as Bradfield . I think part of the problem may have been that access to the fiddle yard is tight, and it is difficult to see if all wheels are on the track - some stock may not have been on the rails when it left the fiddle yard....
     
    Once this was sorted out, things settled down and it ran reasonably smoothly while a couple of people from the adjacent EM gauge tables were watching. The main weakness of the layout has been reliable throwing of the points - the Marcway points are very stiff , and I didn't cut adequete recesses in the cork before laying them. In the run up to the show I had done a lot of work digging out the cork around various points to free them up , and this paid dividends. I also refitted the Hoffmann point motor , which in one direction was buzzing - meaning that it wasn't moving quite far enough to work the cut-off switch . The overall result was that everything bar No 1 crossover worked every time and point derailments, except at No 1 crossover (which has teeth and likes a Hornby 31 for breakfast) stopped.
     
    In the run up to Watford Workshop I also , finally, managed to sort out various ragged edges to the ballasting , and touched in exposed cork with brown cork acrylic, as well as touching up a few bits of the hard standing. That dealt with the obvious defects - the rest of the scenic work had to wait till after Watford (and merits a separate post)
     
    One discovery was that Blacklade is most comfortably operated from a chair at the station end , with the layout set up on a pair of tables. Unfortunately the clutter in the study at home has prevented it ever being set up as originally intended - on top of the bookcases and modelling cupboard. It only ever gets set up in the sitting room with the (very basic) legs....
     
    I also had a running session with the layout the week after Watford . One of the Bradfield crew recommended a Peco railer, which does seem to help get things on reliably in the fiddle yard. The main problems seem to be with the parcels train - the body of the kitbuilt Van B was lolling to one side enough to catch the bridge abutment and derail (I've tightened up the fixing screws on the bogies as far as I can , though one bogie is still loose) and the 31 and No 1 crossover kept disagreeing. As this is one end of the runround loop, and as at present the Hornby 31 is the loco that works the two parcels trains and the trip TTA , this is unfortunate. One solution may be to get on with the detailed body for the old Airfix 31 (not to mention the fitting of Kadees) on the theory that Hornby 31s are a little track sensitive, DMUs seem to cope, and a loco with a slightly coarser wheel profile may be better
     
    (This is in no way a problem of the track standard - it's a question of the wire from the point motor to the tie bar being a little too flexible leading to closure not being quite positive enough. A more drastic step is replace one or both Tortioses with Cobalt Blues - meaning shorter, stiffer wire, over £30 and a certain amount of rewiring work.)
     
    It's clear I need a second 31 if I'm to run loco hauled stock as a DMU-substitute - that will have to go into Pl 3 as the only platform long enough, and that doesan't have access to the run-round loop. So the Hornby 31 will still be needed, and it's not as if I'm adding an extra project to the list
     
    Also on the subject of Pl 3 , despite efforts to ease the clearances of the edging slab - through repeated rubbing with an Xacto knife handle to crush the balsa down - the 108 seems to stick , derail and somehow this scrambled the decoder. I tried to reprogram in haste, forgot that the MERG point decoder is sensitive to programming commands , and scrambled that... Reprogramming the thing requires flyleads , taking down the layout etc so that was the end of a running session.
     
    I hope this is the last time for this particular problem. Some time ago I removed the NCE AutoSwitch which was supposed to switch off the rest of the layout when programming - because it didn't seem to be doing anything. I fitted a DPDT switch instead - and that doesn't seem to be doing anything either. It looks like I have somehow created an inadvertant connection across the isolation of the programming track (the fueling point siding) . However all this meant I had an unused NCE Auto Switch in the decoder bag, so I installed it between the MERG decoder and the DCC bus.
     
    Oh and a fault book is now in operation , to identify any gremlins...
  25. Ravenser
    The sirens have sounded the final all clear, the blackout and the blitz are things of the past - and about 40 years after it should have , Blacklade has finally acquired station lights and station signs. I'm even intending to sort out the "bomb damage" behind the station facade and actually finish off the station building. Not before time, either...
     
    In short over the last couple of weeks I've had a big burst of detailing on the layout, and it's made a huge difference.
     
    Not, I must admit, to my accumulated stocks of whitemetal detailing bits and sheets of printed signage . Those have only sustained a modest dent. I had a new unused sheet of Tiny Signs modern BR posters (close inspection suggests they are actually mostly of 1975-80 vintage: there's two posters for the new GN Electrics in there and another one advertising the Rainhill 150 commemorations , as well as lots of posters of HSTs). I've used 3 - I have 32 left... And so on down through the box of scenic bits. It's frightening just how much stuff you accumulate - "I'm sure it'll come in useful for a layout and it's only a couple of quid"
     
    Admittedly Blacklade is a pretty small layout, and I've tried to be sparing. With the boxfile I never really got round to adding more than a couple of items and I was surprised by how effective restraint was. It struck me then that it is all too easy to pile in the detail items just because you have them and feel you ought to use them . The result being something unnaturally busy, where the funeral is queuing behind the wedding and trying to avoid entanglement with the travelling fair : a "quintessence" as defined by Charles Lamb - "an apple pie made all of quinces"
     
    In fact reality is pretty quiet and sparse. I go past our local church quite regularly: I might see signs of a wedding once or twice a year. On a Sunday morning or evening you might see people going into or leaving a service, two or three or four of them at a time. But do you want to run the Sunday train service?
     
    Come to that, if there's a wedding on , it must be Saturday, so the freight trains won't be running....
     
    Stations are not crowded places . I used to use Market Rasen from time to time - in fact it contributed a little to Blacklade , in terms of short platforms and vanished trainshed. There is a 2 hourly service in each direction. Get there 10 minutes before the train - you might be the only person there, there might be one or two others. 4 or 5 minutes to go - there's half a dozen waiting on one platform . The train comes - a bustle of activity - 8-10 people get on , 8-10 more get off. 5 minutes after the train's gone the station's deserted ... For at least 45 minutes of every hour, the only sign of life in the place is the cawing of the rooks in the trees behind
     
    Okay, a three platform terminus with services on three routes will be busier than that . But even my local station , with it's commuter service, is pretty deserted for long periods . It may be full of people before the morning commuter trains depart - but 5 minutes after one's gone there's only one or two people there, if that. Go in the afternoon, or the evening , and unless a train's just arrived, the place is almost deserted - just one or two hanging about under the platform canopy with nothing to do
     
    Blacklade is supposed to be a dreary run-down hulk of a station with a train service that is poor for a town of it's size. The effect of Ascot on race days or Waterloo at 5:30pm on a weekday is not wanted.
     
    On the other hand, signage.... The human brain blots out most of it but the modern world seems to be drowning in the stuff. When you actually stop to look how many signs there are in any view, in any street, on any station, you suddenly feel overpowered by it .
     
    And cars (not that I've much road to worry about) . They've been breeding . They swarm everywhere, thick masses of them, swelling from around the buildings. Never mind Day of the Triffids - "Day of the Common Hatchback" is more like it. I reckon that if you take the average street, parked cars outnumber visible human being by a factor of about 5.... And now they're fitting them with computers. You may be able to take out a zombie army with a machine gun but can you take out a lane of slowly advancing BMWs?
     
    Enough....
     
    The lack of station lights and station nameboards was annoying me - the station looked bare , it was completely anonymous and lacked a certain vertical emphasis.
     
    I wanted T lights . Because in my youth , those T shaped fluorescent light standards were the norm , a familiar part of the grey universal BR Corporate image. Some were old and had the station name on them, others were newer and didn't . But every station had them and had had for years. Anything else was cause for a second look
     
    They all seem to have vanished while I wasn't looking. It was only yesterday...
     
    A rummage through the scenic box turned up 3 packets of PD Marsh castings, total 15 lamps. And 3 packets of Knightwing castings , total 18 lamps. I reckoned 15 or less would do it.
     
    The Knightwing castings are bigger - taller , with longer light strips across the top. After a certain amount of throught I reckon that the PD Marsh castings represent the original 1950s version , with station name on the strip light, and Knightwing represent the second generation 1970s/80s version, with a plain strip light . Given that Blacklade Artamon Square is a run down dump that has had no refurbishment/investment since Dr Beeching was Chairman of the BRB, I went with PD Marsh, . Several coats of Centro grey later (the jar has now finally expired) a few coats of Tamiya gloss white for the strip lights and some departmental gray on the top, I had lights.
     
    But not station signs on them. A rummage through the accumulated mass of sheets turned up something from DC Kits with blank Regional Railways plates on it - 9 of them. To get the actual name I produced a sheet of possible sign in Word - for modern BR signage , all that is needed is the name on a plain white background . Arial, in bold at 5 point size seemed to be ok , so that's what I went with. Suitable sized strips were then cut out and stuck to the DC Kits signs with Rocket glue, then the DC Kits signs were stuck to strips of plasticard. Then the plasticard strips were stuck to fixing castings robbed from the Knightwing packets
     
    Poster boards were a next step. Three whitemetal castings for standard notice boards were painted up: departure posters were added to two, and timetables to a third . Two of these three were also glazed with scraps of acetate sheet. After that three poster display cases were needed : these were made with 10 thou plasticard, edged round with square microstrip, the poster(s) added and glazed with scraps of clear plasticard. The route diagram came from a DC kits sheet, and three posters from a Signs of the Timessheet; three more were found on an old Tiny Signs sheet , which seems to reperent 1975-80 . At least it features posters for the 1980 Railhill cavalcade, the 1975-6 GN suburban electrification and lots of HSTs . Fortunately no Jimmy Saville though. I picked a couple of "holiday by train + ferry" posters as Blacklade is supposed to be set in the late 80s or 21st century. This does highlight just how long the post -steam era now is - you can't use posters from the age of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath next to current TOC liveried stock . It's actually more of a gap than using Edwardian posters on a 1950s BR layout...
     

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

     
    Finally the finishing touches were added to the fuelling point. It's striking how only a handful of small touches have a big impact - and are all that are needed. Two oil drums were added (Merit, weathered) plus one of the cast whitemeal pallets in the Signs of the Times pack , suitably sunk in the weeds outside the doors to the store . Hi-vis warning signs were added , and finally the actual fuelling pump . The support post ,and nozzle are from the Knightwing fuelling point kit - where they are essentially extra bits for an earlier version. And that was all I actually used from the kit... I could still built two entire fuelling points with what was left. The hose is from the Signs of the Times detailing pack , and I used the lot (15" - so it can reach the full length of a parked DMU.). It looked shiny and plastic so I toned it down with the Humbrol blue/grey wash
     
    And that was it on the detailing front . A couple of figures are needed , and I have to sort out the back of the station building
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