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Ravenser

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  1. Ravenser

    NRX Van

    By Ravenser,


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

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

    Set Two: Finishing Off

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    In the absence of better information, I reworked the underframe as proposed, sawing the Comet LMS battery box castings in half in then X-Acto mitre box, and plating the cut ends with 20 thou plasticard. The Comet vacuum cylinders were also installed , though possibly they could have been filed down to sit a bit lower. The completed bogies were fixed onto the composite and I had two completed coaches. They've come in at 110g all up: slightly more than the intended 100g (25g x 4 axles) , but a satisfactory weight to achieve good running. As the kit comes in the box, it would weigh about 40g and give lots of trouble
     


     
    A first test run on the layout when I was programming the decoder for the Bachmann Ivatt Co-Co revealed an unexpected problem - buffer locking at the brake end. I'd done all I could to close up the gap between the coaches with short Kadees but the intermediate buffers are about 4mm apart. Nothing can be done - and as I'd run out of suitable short heads , the bogie with the medium Kadee went under the brake end where the longer buffers would cover it.
     
    After the fight with the intermediate couplers it never occurred to me that a medium head would be too short. But the long shank buffers at the brake end are much longer and the knuckle on a medium head is a little way inboard of the buffer heads. It would be extremely destructive to attempt to remove the draft boxes and change the head - I'd probably find myself writing to Peco to source a pair of new bogies
     
    My intitial thought was that I'd have to remove the buffer heads with a pair of Xurons, tidy up and shorten the shanks a little with a file and glue the heads back on. A nasty bodge, but less destructive of authenticity than anything else - the buffers would simply look compressed. However the other evening I was combining programming of a decoder in my J11 with a bit of test running. and it became apparent that only the L1 actually had a problem with Set 2 , and then only at one end. (In fact I was able to swap Kadee 19 NEM longs for 18 Mediums on the Bachmann Ivatt diesel and it could still handle Set 2 without trouble).
     
    So I did the sensible ,easy, thing. The NEM Kadee at the bunker end of the L1 seemed to be slightly the shorter of the two , so I replaced it with the next size up. Provided the loco is run so the bunker end couples to the brake end of Set 2 , trhe problem is solved. The coupling at the smokebox end is in fact ok except through the curved front exit from Platform 2 via the crossover - at 2'6" radius the only curve on the layout below 3'
     
    The remainder of finishing off comprised lettering, weathering and vanishing, and here there were setbacks and disappointments . The coaches were numbered using bits taken from a couple of Modelmaster sheets for other things . After much poring over the sheets andHistoric Carriage Drawings 2. I managed to get a suitable number for a Birmingham area D501 6 compartment brake out of what I had, but I couldn't readily make up a suitable number for a Birmingham area D551 composite , and I ended up with a number falling in the block allocated to the slightly different Nottingham area composites. Then I realised I'd put the number on a panel at the brake end on both sides of the Brake - meaning it has left hand numbering on one side (used up to 1952) and a right hand number (1952 onward) on the other....
     
    I gave the sides a brush painted coat of satin varnish, as there are too many small windows to attempt masking , and then decided that perhaps I preferred the sides dead matt. I suspect really old wooden coaches at the end of their lives wouldn't have had any sheen. The one colour shot I have of ungangwayed stock in this livery (from Parkin's Mk1 book , taken at Bradford Forster Square , lurking behind a nice blood and custard SK ) shows them a rather brown and dusty colour , but I don't necessarily trust colour rendition in a photo of that age . However I wasn't really up for a second brushpainted coat , and in any case the matt varnish has had a few "issues" of its own.
     
    Weathering owed a lot to Humbrol's blue/grey wash. This is far too thick for my taste and was thinned with white spirit . I also added a little of the brown wash into the mix to represent traffic muck from below. The blue grey was used almost neat but thinned on the ends with excellent results - it approximates very well to a colour photo in Parkin's Mk1 book of the grubby black ends of a maroon Mk1 (A grubby black end in one red livery is going to be pretty similar to a grubby black end in another) With a bit more brown in the mix a similar wash was very effective in toning down the underframe - the brown in the mix was stepped up a bit more for the top surface of the footboards
     
    At about this point disaster struck.- I dropped the composite on the table. To my horror I found that one of the seats in a third class compartment had come loose - the roof is sealed irremovably in place and you can't get inside . Still worse, it was now the wrong way up and I couldn't seem to get it back the right way by shaking the thing. I seemed to be stuck with a beige blob at the window - admittedly , with a bit of care it didn't look much different from the other coloured blobs at the windows (my carefully painted Slater's figures) from a distance of 2 ' And the Kadee head had taken the force of the impact and the knuckle wasn't springing back properly. Just when I was starting to feel quite pleased with my efforts all the gilt was taken off the gingerbread
     
    Somehow - I don't quite know how - the wandering seat has subsequently managed to right itself and is no longer noticeable ./ And the affected Kadee head will still couple up - and as it's the end inside the set, it won't have to do much coupling and uncoupling anyway.
     
    Set 2 undertook its trials while I was programming and testing the J11 and a couple of photos show it in all its glory . (I know that a modern image layout isn't really the right setting for this kind of stock, but at least it gives me a place to play with it)
     

     

     
    The shiny roof is undesirable - unfortunately the Humbrol washes come up quite glossy. I resorted to a brush coat of Humbrol matt varnish , which swiftly became two coats of matt varnish. Then I had to remove the areas where it was drying white (too thick) with a brush loaded with white spirit, and finally touched up the remaining marks with a grey-brown compound of acrylic dry brushed. I'm now happy with the result.
     
    And just as I was putting the set away, finally complete - disaster struck again . One bogie dropped off the composite. Inspection revealed that the plastic pin through the plate into the bolster had become glued solid both to the mounting plate and the bolster - and had sheered neatly across , probably as a result of being required to flex while trial running
     
    Since I couldn't get at or replace the plastic pin, I resorted to an emergency bodge. A few years ago I saw someone's multiple unit where they had left the bogie loose and it fitted onto brass bolts protruding from the body as pivots. I don't recommend this approach - it seemed to cause a number of problems - but it suggested a desperate remedy. I found some thick brass wire - I think about 0.9mm diameter - and drilled a hole dead centre by eye into the two halves of the pivot pin - the bogie and the bolster - using a 1.0mm drill. A short length of the wire was super-glued into the hole in the centre of the bogie , adjusted by eye as near dead straight in both planes as possible and allowed to set hard. It gives a fairly tight fit into the bolster, so there should be little slop , but the bogie will fall off when I try to manoevere the composite into its slot in the stock box. I'll probably need to wrap this end round with tissue paper to keep everything together when putting it away.
     
    The Ratio bogie is designed to rock relative to the stretcher piece (which you don't glue in - it's just trapped) , thus taking care of any inacuracy in the for and aft plane . I just hope its ok in the lateral plane. I haven't actually re-erected the layout to re-test it
     
    Still , I've come a long way from where it all started , with this gruesome object
     

  3. 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:
     

  4. 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)
  5. 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 .....
  6. Ravenser
    I'm feeling annoyed.
     
    As mentioned I've started work on a Baby Deltic - a Silver Fox kit I picked up cheap secondhand at a show in January. It really should have been a "quick win": just paint the body, hack and assemble some RTR components I already have and there we are - a new Type 2.
     
    I want it in 2 tone green (as it will spend most of it's time working with steam stock) and it will become D5901 - which became an RTC Derby loco, allowing me maximum excuses if it appears on a north Midland layout in the blue period.
     
    I primed it with a coat of Tamiya detail primer , and brush painted the light Sherwood green along the lower bodysides. Three coats that took. Then I went to prepaint the warning panels and found that my pre 1985 yellow had dried up. I had plenty of tins of post 85 yellow, but nothing before. Sudden grinding halt to progress while I waited for a show on Saturday where Precision were in attendance. Couple of coats of yellow, then this morning , before my blood test at the hospital , I dug out the spray can of Railmatch Brunswick green . I masked up the loco laboriously , I shook the can (perhaps not long enough - it's supposed to have 2 mins agitation) I sprayed, or tried to.
     
    At first nothing came out , then I inverted the can and it sprayed. The result was a loco drenched in thick paint with blotches . I hastily wiped the lot off with thinners and kitchen roll, removed the lower masking and went off to the hospital.
     
    When I came back I gave it another go. Remasked lower area, shook the can for over 2 mins , went out to spray. Nothing came out. Well a very little mist. Then the button wouldn't depress - removed it , tried again and the can died with a faint gurgle. (It was an old can, but I'd hoped I'd get more than 2 locos out of it)
     
    I have now cleaned it all off with white spirit on kitchen towel and cotton bud. This has taken most of the primer off the sides as well , even though the primer must have been sprayed a fortnight ago. When I removed the masking ,parts of the Sherwood Green lower strip on both sides debonded.
     
    And I've chipped a buffer head, which will have to be patched
     
    I'm having a minor operation on Friday. I may not be able to drive for a fortnight . The nearest model shop is in the same town as the hospital - but not the same part of it - it's not walkable from the station or the hospital . Couldn't have got a can today - it's their day off. Don't think I can get one when I have my stitches out - I'll be dependent on public transport. I can't phone them and ask them to send me a can - Royal Mail have banned sending paint and spray cans in the post (Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do not pass Go . Do not collect £200, or a can of Railmatch Brunswick Green)
     
    I could walk to Halfords and try to get a spray can of a suitable green. But that would be cellulose, and you can't spray cellulose over enamel (meaning the yellow warning panel and the Sherwood Green band)
     
    So instead of being able to finish the Baby Deltic during my convalescence , I'm snookered.
     
    Drat. Double Drat. Triple Drat.......
     
    I suppose I'll have to finish an NRX and some Midland suburbans and start a 31 instead.
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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...
  10. Ravenser
    This is a quick posting , just to record that there's been a bit of progress with Set 2 since I last reported on it , but mainly in the hope of flushing out some info to resolve a problem that is delaying progress:
     
    Here is the underframe of the Brake 3rd (the composite is identical) - I have played about with contrast on the image so you can see the framing . Posed on it is a Comet LMS battery box casting
     

     

    Two problems are immediately apparent . Firstly, the battery box casting is just a little bit longer than the gap between the cross members . Secondly, there is a cross member down the middle of the coach.
     
    The only photo I am aware of showing a MR suburban as converted to electric light ( in Historic Carriage Drawings 2: LMS) shows a vehicle with a centre mounted battery box, and a flat centre section to the trussing- an example of the sets produced for the London area, which differeed in this respect (and presumably therefore had a different layout of underframe cross members)
     
    There's also the question of the large gas lamp pots on the roof . Were these removed on conversion to electric light?
     
    I did ask the question in what seemed like the appropriate existing thread, here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51824-ratio-mr-suburban-coaches/ but it didn't draw any response
     

    Since then I've had another look at the various drawings in HCD 2 . Two things are obvious - battery boxes were always mounted to floor level , and LMS battery boxes are exactly the same size as LNWR ones. Both comprised two compartments for the batteries.
     
    Except that on some 65' WCJS clerestory stock there are two half-length battery boxes and probably some 2pm Corridor stock shows a short battery box (at least the photos of the brakes do, though the drawing doesn't)
     
    The only solution I can see at present involves sawing the Comet casting in half in a mitre box , and making good the missing side with 20 thou plasticard to produce 2 x single compartment battery boxes, one of which can be installed either side of the centre cross member. From first principles , this is the only way the LMS can have done it......
     
    Is any one able to shed any (electric) light on this one? I can't make up the underframe till it's settled, and I can't do the roofs until I know if the centre lamp pots should be there or not.
     
    In the meantime , the coaches have reached this point, with partitions, seats and weight installed in the brake.
     

     
    For the composite, I have made up a partition with lead sandwiched between plasticard (these were essentially all firsts with additional partitioning to narrow the third class compartments)
     

     
    I've also drifted into yet another project , which will be written up in due course - converting a Replica BG to an NRX container van using a Hurst Models etch I bought second hand years ago (The BG was an ill-thought out impulse purchase at Peterborough 2 years ago, so this is another nil cost /clear the cupboard project)
     
    On the credit side, the Dapol LMS nongangway lavatory brake third is finished, except for a bit of weathering
  11. Ravenser
    Just to round off a couple of projects - and prove that I do occasionally finish things as well as starting them, here are some hasty shots of the Met Bo-Bo and the Set 1 coaches at the DOGA AGT . Two coaches proved a little too much for the card loco , though one was easy enough - at 100g+ each this is not too surprising
     

     
     

     

     

     
    This one was taken in it's working environment before weathering and lettering - also before I fitted gangways to the inner ends :
     

     
    Somewhere along the line I managed to lose the moulding for one pair of gangway ends . The work around for this was to fit the Ratio mouldings at the outer ends - representing retracted gangways - and working gangways to the the inner ends . I had a packet of MJT "British Standard" gangways in the bits box, possibly bought for use on a Mainline LMS BG which didn't need them in the end, so I found a use for them here. Despite fitting the shortest possible Kadees, there is still about 3-4mm gap between buffers and the final result is a little more reminiscent of Hornby tinplate than I'd like, but at least there is no tell-tale gap between corridor connectors
     
    Numbering and lettering is from some Modelmaster WR and LMR sheets cut up to get the required numbers. I have heard that HMRS have problems obtaining transfer paper for their Pressfix range - certainly their stand at Ally Pally did not have any BR 1948-65 coach lettering sheets so I was driven to improvise from what I could find in the Modelmaster range.
     
    I'm indebted to Bill Bedford for BR (E) numbers for the ex M&GN coaches surviving in 1952 . As none of the brake composites survived that long - presumably because their small guard's compartment wasn't ideal on a line where the main passenger traffic was holiday makers - I've used a number very close to that of the surviving brake thirds.
     
    The roof was originally painted in Railmatch Centro grey (because I have a jar and have no real need for it). This didn't look quite right , so it was overpainted with a 50:50 mix of acrylic Railmatch Roof Dirt and Frame Dirt, with a touch of Tamiya Flat White to lighten it. I brushpainted the sides with satin varnish to even out the fininsh(I couldn't face masking up the windows , and after 3 brushpainted coats on the body there seemed little point spraying the varnish) More or less the same acrylic mix ,very heavily thinned, was applied to the sides , working down, and drawn off where it gathered, and a similar mix, with a bit more brown, to the underframe. I'm satisfied with the result
  12. Ravenser
    Despite having two sets of coaches on the go already , I seem to have drifted into starting a third. Admittedly the LNWR set is almost done - just a bit of weathering still to do , and the new project is supposed to be a quick win....
     
    When, early this year, I decided to use various steam era kits and bits I had accumulated to operate a steam period on Blacklade I quickly found I was very short of brake coaches. As money was tight at the time , I looked for the cheapest options to plug the gap and bought a Ratio MR suburban brake 3rd and a Dapol CKD LMS non-gangwayed lavatory brake third. The latter cost the princely sum of £9.30 at St Albans show
     
    The original idea was that this would run with an unbuilt BSL kit for a Gresley steel composite. It was only later, on digging the BSL kit out of the cupboard, that I found that it was a corridor coach. Plans have since been revised , and I now intend to get a maroon Hornby Thompson CL when they are available in a few months time to pair with the LMS brake. The BSL kit will ultimately be paired with a Mailcoach/Kirk Tourist Brake third open kit which I bought at Ally Pally
     
    As a CKD kit this ought to be quick. However there are various improvements to make asit's an old model. I won't give a blow by blow account, as the ground has already been covered here:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/64375-Dapol-ex-lms-non-corridor-lavatory-coaches-a-review-of-sorts/
     
    SE Finecast flushglaze was sourced at Ally Pally, and fitted with UHU. This is a substantial improvement. It's necessary to carve away from behind the curving "rail" at the brake end to get the glazing in. Arguably I should have taken this "rail" - actually the toilet filler pipe I believe - right off and replaced it with some .45 handrail wire standing proud of the end . But by this time I'd painted the ends , and I wasn't sure of my ability to form the necessary curve neatly and accurately - so I chickened out on this. The alarm gear on the other end is a bit flat. I'm sure etches and detailing bits must be available to do a better job (from Comet?) but I didn't have any and chickened out again. Arguably you could replace the moulded handrails on the sides in wire - but that would have meant a complete respray , and one attraction of the CKD route is a finish to RTR factory standard.
     
    The number is applied on the left hand side , and has no suffix letter. The Modelmaster Ms I had were visibly not in the same font as Dapol used on the coach, so I couldn't add them. Numbers on the left applied from mid 1949 to late 1951 according to Parkin's book on Mk1s : lack of the origin company suffix letter points to the first year or so of BR liveries, so as produced by Dapol the finish represents a vehicle repainted in 1949-50
     
    I did tackle the roof . The coach is supplied with the roof from the composite , so most of the holes for the vents are in the wrong place . I fitted ventilators into those holes that were in the right place, lined the moulding up against the drawing in Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 2 LMS , drilled pilot holes in the correct places , and filled the wrong holes with filler, which was sanded down with an emery board. Two and in some cases three applications were needed to get the holes filled absolutely flush. The new holes were then opened out with a larger drill and the vents fitted , with solvent/cement applied from the underside of the roof.
     

     
    The underframe was reworked largely in line with the pdf linked in the thread above, but I retained the truss rods and therefore the moulded regulator. Coachmann in this thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67996-making-use-of-Dapol-lms-coach-kits/ demonstrates sawing the back off the misplaced battery box and reusing it (they're tight with their brass in Lancashire). I tried, but my razor sawblade was too wide to allow me to get it in between the truss rods to make the horizontal cut . The plastic moulding had to be carved out, and as I had a Comet battery box casting I glued it back to front behind the moulded representation of the battery box front . Since most of the detail was at the top, and is therefore hidden by the solebars , and the whole thing is painted black anyway, this bodge is not visible . Comet whitemetal LMS buffers , vacuum cylinders and dynamo and etched V hangers and crossframes were added with superglue.
     
    Kadees have been added to the bogies :
     

  13. Ravenser

    Winter Wonderland

    By Ravenser,


    Reflections
    This post is partly to link back to the card Met Bo-Bo, which has certainly been on my workbench and bookcase even if it got a seperate thread of its own: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63781-elementary-my-dear-watson/&do=findComment&comment=832586
     
     
    It is now even more finished than before - the shoebeams are on, and a good deal of time was expended on the DOGA test track at Ally Pally trying to make the thing run. With very indifferent results until the wire detached from the back bogie and I bent the pickups away from the wheels. Then it ran fine. I'm still not sure why the MJT bogie etch was shorting out, but shorting it evidently was.... So much for my extra pickups to improve running. This fixed, it proved capable of shifting one of my Ratio LNW coaches and one of L49's featherweight Ashburys (front and back, like certain push pull trains) . I ended up buying a pack of card Ashburys , and although they won't be tackled in the forseeable future I will at least be able to build some suitable stock at some point. The pack also includes some detination boards , which should be a good deal neater for the Bo-Bo than any effort of mine . Thanks to all for kind comments on the model.
     
    Ally Pally proved a rather expensive show, despite my continuing intentions to economise . Despite the push to provide stock for a steam period on Blacklade it has become apparent that I'm rather short of locos that can actually run on a DCC layout for this period. Assuming I don't intend to operate a suburban service with a Frodingham O4 , I currently have just one serviceable loco - my L1. I was therefore looking for something cheap and vaguely appropriate , but the Bachmann stand seemed to be devoid of tank engines , and I ended up acquiring an early BR Fowler 2-6-4T from someone - this appears to be "secondhand new stock" and cost all of £56. It's also more authentic than some alternatives - a quick look at photos seems to show E Midlands LMR locals in the hands of 2Ps , 4Fs, 2-6-4Ts , 2MT 2-6-2Ts, and more rarely 3MT 2-6-2Ts, 1P 0-4-4Ts and Tilbury tanks. Admittedly the 2-6-4Ts seem to be on heavier trains such as 6 coach Nottingham/Lincoln St Marks services, but the Fowler tanks , as the oldest 2-6-4Ts, do feature. The model is not DCC Ready - but as I have a small stash of TCS MC2 decoders and Digitrains couldn't supply any 8 pin harnesses for them this should not be a problem...
     
    Another £50 went with Digitrains - two decoders (UK direct plug and a TCS Z2 to get the Standard 4MT up and running - having read Bromsgrove Models' installation guide I am not looking forward to this...) plus an NMRA plug harness for a T1
     
    £30 more went with a trader who had some Kirk/Mailcoach coach kits - a 51' LNER non-gangwayed full brake , and a Tourist Brake Third . I need some Parcels stock , and for preference something short, and this fitted the bill (as well as Platform 2) - it looks a straightforward kit, so long as I can attach Kadees, and being a parcels van I don't have to worry about getting matt varnish on the windows. The Tourist BTO will be a bit more interesting , as the sides are moulded in clear plastic - the rationale is that I need something with Pullman gangways to run with the BSL Gresley steel CK on the day when actually pluck up courage to build it , and this is something you can't get RTR , is not too grand and new, and delivers lots of third class seats. Both were modestly priced plastic kits
     
    Add in two packs of Modelmaster coach transfers - rumour had it that the HMRS can't get carrier film for their transfers , so I got what was available at the show - a replacement spray can of etch primer, flushglaze for the Dapol LMS noncorridor brake, nose door etches for an Airfix 31, bits for a possible NBL diesel electric Type2 and £25 in petrol and you get to quite a bit of money.... At least I have pretty well everything I want/need for the early period now.
     
    As for the show in general - well, perhaps I'm biassed but it seemed a good one, though something about the atmosphere , remarked on by many can perhaps be explained by the weather. Instead of the joys of spring , Jack Frost had Ally Pally in his icy grasp - and I think the cold did chill the atmosphere. One factor in the perennial debate about prices is easy to miss and bears comment. Car parking at Ally Pally is free (and easy) and getting from the car park to the venue is a 5 minute walk through wooded parkland in daylight. Compare and contrast the NEC where the price of the car park is almost as much as admission, and getting from car park to show means 5 -10 minutes wait for a bus on what is often a cold wet night
  14. Ravenser
    For my next trick, as they say, I have a pair of Ratio MR suburbans. These are intended to form the second set of steam age coaches on Blacklade
     
    The reason for selecting these is simple. In my early teens, before discovering modern image modelling , I perpetrated several Ratio MR coach kits . The best of them, replacing my first attempt at a kit , was this gruesome object . It's also pretty well the only one to have survived . I remember I was quite pleased with this at the time
     

     
    The worst of this is the dire paint job, and since money is a little tight at present , the idea was to strip it, patch it up as best I could and pair it with a newly built brake. A Ratio MR suburban 6 compartment brake 3rd kit has duly been sourced
     
    So now the weather is a bit warmer , and hile I still had a bit of time available it was subjected to Modelstrip overnight and cleaned up with a toothbrush under the tap.
     
    The roof had already come off , but as I cleaned it up most of the rest started to come away as well. I think I painted parts before assembly with this one , and I suspect elderly cement bonds may be affected by Modelstrip, especially if they were patchy to start with. With a bit of judicious encouragement , I was soon left with this:
     

     
    This is no longer an attempted patch up but a complete rebuild, though in terms of the final result that's all to the good . It also gets me round one potential difficulty , which was repainting with spray can paint - now the sides are seperate , or more or less so, and the glazing removed, they can be sprayed normally, along with the sides for the brake.
     
    Like Ratio's other LMS coaches, these vehicles are covered by Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 2 - LMS. The Midland built a number of batches of arc roofed bogie non-corridor suburban coaches during the Edwardian period for suburban services around Manchester (1903) , Birmingham (1907-9), London (1910) Nottingham (1911-13) and Sheffield (1912) . The last three batches featured 8' bogies, not the 10' versions depicted by Ratio, and those for London and Nottingham were 9' wide not 8'6"
     
    These coaches are, for a miracle, more or less authentic for a steam era period for Blacklade set in 1958. The Nottingham area coaches survived until 1957-8; the Birmingham area coaches until 1956-7: Blacklade Artamon Square would have LMR local services to both. It is extremely unlikely any of the ex MR suburbans ever recieved maroon, so these will be painted BR crimson
     
    Since a total reconstruction of the all first is now in hand, I can take advantage of the fact that the composites for Manchester and Birmingham sets used the same body as the all firsts , with three compartments reduced in size by internal partitions for third class . I have a Cunning Plan for using this fact to improve the weight , which is a major problem with these kits. Before dismantling , the all first weighed only 50g , which is about half what it should . No wonder my teenage Ratio coaches were not reliable runners
     
    A reasonable start was made on these kits while I had time available , and progress shots are shown here:
     
    The reconstructed all first - to become a composite

     
    and the new 6 compartment brake third

     
    Sides were prepainted with an aerosol can of Railmatch Crimson, 3 thin coats, and the improvement in quality of finish compared with the brushpainted LNW coaches is substantial
     
    The instructions urge you to start with the underframe . The all first has a very slight twist in the floor pan , probably caused by it's previous incarnation: I didn't quite manage to eliminate this in reconstruction, though it's possible that adding the roof will finally do so, and since there is inherently a bit of slop and rock between bogies and body, absolute squareness is less critical than with a wagon , where if it isn't square it won't run . The brake 3rd seems to be dead square
     
    I now have two bogies, one suitably cleaned up from the all first, and the second reconstructed from the heap of bits into which it had disintegrated. I'#m sure the bit of the sprue with the brake blocks was knocking around in my box of spare sprues for ages , but I have an awkward suspicion I eventually threw it out....
  15. Ravenser
    I've made further progress with the bodies, though it hasn't been without problems and blemishes , and I'm afraid the all third is definitely going to be the inferior model of the two. However the brake composite is thus far (fingers crossed) going pretty well
     
    All the sides have been fitted,without any further damage to paintwork. I then moved onto fitting seats, and here I made a blunder from sheer ignorance.I dug out what turned out to be almost all of a packet of Ratio coach seating strip which has been lurking in a scrap box for very many years. This wan't enough to cover all requirements for these coaches and the second set of MR suburbans , so some undignified expedients and a Comet interiors pack had to be resorted to... But I sawed up the Ratio seating strip in the mitre box, painted it a golden brown with hastily mixed acrylics and duly installed the seats in most of the compartments of the all third. I had a problem in one place where solvent leaked onto the glazing and marked the compartment window, taking a little of the paint with it. This was bad enough but it was shortly afterwards that I checked a few photos, and then photos of other coaches and realised that even in third class compartments you shouldn't really be able to see the edge of the seat protruding beyond the window frame. And you could..... With narrow panels between windows on the compartment side , thick plastic compartment dividers and narrow compartments, the Ratio seating strips were too thick. I had made the classic blunder of blithely assuming that Ratio's seats must fit all Ratio's coaches properly.
     
    I managed to extract the worst offenders (those where for one reason or another the seating strip wasn't entirely seated against the compartment divider) and filed these down from the back by rubbing up and down on a big coarse file on the workbench. I did the same with the seating strip for the compartments I hadn't yet fitted out, and for the third class compartments in the brake composite . Thus treated the Ratio strip was just about thin enough to just about sit behind the windows. But there was nothing I could do about those seats I had already installed which were firmly stuck in place. They are still visible behind the edges of the compartment windows . A damage limitation exercise , but not, sadly, a full cure . The brake composite is fine - the all third is compromised on one side. I have a feeling this set is going to spend most of it's life with the corridor side facing the viewer . For the first class compartments I used Comet seating strip , painted blue . I have no idea what colours the LMS - or even the LNW - used : post 1934, the LNER used brown moquette in third , and I had had quite enough of painting the coach in slightly different shades of mid brown, so I'm afraid I opted for an attempt to approximate the pre 1934 fawn moquette in third and blue pattern moquette in first.
     
    It was at this point that it dawned on me that I don't possess a single book on carriage modelling , and have in fact being flying more or less blind, guided solely by some very hazy memories of misbuilt Ratio kits perpetrated in my early teens and a section of a DVD by Tony Wright on detailing and improving RTR - though that involves some heavy duty reworks, it doesn't, obviously, say a work about building kits. I must have at least half a dozen books and DVDs by various people on wagon modelling, a similar number on reworking locos and building loco kits, books on scenery, buildings , painting ... But when it comes to coaches, I suddenly realise that the cupboard is almost entirely bare.
     
    Some Slaters figures were painted with acrylic and the tiny stump of an old paint brush . I took the chance to off load all the figures which are really not suitable for a modern image layout, so passenger traffic from Blacklade in the 1950s appears to consist very largely of nuns and National Servicemen
     
    I've also touched up the paintwork where required: it's adequete rather than a top class finish. It seems necessary to paint the leading edge of the tops of the sides, else slight bits of grey may show when the roof is fitted
     
     

     
    I've also made up the roofs - the two part lamp tops are a bit of a nuisence , and as I managed to damage two , I'd have been introuble if just building the all third. As it was, I had some spares on the other sprue. A point to watch for: although the understide of the roof marks different positions for lamps and torpedo vents for the brake third and brake composite, they've got the kit numbers the wrong way round. I drilled out the first two lamps in the position marked, fortunately checked them against the body before going further, and found they didn't line up with the first class compartments. They had to be hastily filled, and the holes marked for the other kit drilled out instead....
     
    Some thoughts on the kits as a whole, from what I've seen so far. These kits are significantly more sophisticated and elaborate than the very straightforward MR kits . There are the first signs of the unnecessary over elaboration of seperate parts which makes the Ratio Maunsell Van B kit such a laborious chore to build - two part lamp tops, two part floor pan, seperate duckets, corridor handrail and so on. The need to build up the interior and assemble the sides round this makes for more work and parts, but it also results in a strong structure , and makes the kit rather heavier , which is a useful bonus. The fit of parts is good. By modern standards things like metal buffers and metal wheels are desireable features. The kits are still pretty straightforward to build: there is nothing I can see technically difficult for someone familiar with plastic kits , and provided you work with care a neat result ought to follow
     
    I'm intending to build these kits as they come, but in one area I've had to deviate. Somehow I seem to have lost the sprue with the corridor connectors from one of the kits. A hasty rummage in the parts box turned up an MJT LMS gangway ,which I bought for some reason and have no other obvious use for. Since I'm building these coaches as a 2 car set, I'm going to fit the working MJT gangways in the centre of the set, with the fixed plastic mouldings at each end. I've therefore fitted a plate of 20 thou plasticard across the end of one corridor on each coach supported by a cross piece of 40 thou styrene across the inside of the gangway extension. This then will then form the baseplate for the MJT gangway - the other end gets Ratio's plastic moulding with endplate
     
    I've also weighted the coaches to get them over the magic 100g mark (4 axles at 25g/axle) . This is easy enough in the brake composite - two slabs of lead flashing on the floor of the guard's compartment , stuck down with araldite. For the all third it was more difficult , but I glued pieces of lead to the inside of the walls of the toilet compartments , and to the floor next to the toilet compartment , to balance that in the toilets. I intend to build both coaches with battery boxes not gas tanks , and if I need any additional weight there should be room to superglue lead sheet inside the battery box mouldings
  16. Ravenser

    A Bit of History

    By Ravenser,

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

    Set 1 - Under False Colours - Pt.1 - Overview

    By Ravenser,


    Constructional
    Having rashly flung down the gauntlet and declared I'm thinking of running a third , not terribly authentic, period on Blacklade to give an airing to the bits of steam era /green diesel stock I seem to have acquired, I've actually made a start in the form of a pair of Ratio kits: two of the LNWR kits to be precise. The twist is that these will actually constitute the ER's contribution on the coaching side, until I lay my hand on some Kirk kits.
     
    I've rather fancied the Ratio LNWR coaches since they first came out . They were new products, they looked really rather stylish with those big windows, and I suppose they were a bit cool. As I went modern image in my early mid teens, there was never any scrap of justification for buying one - until I got involved with a small informal group locally. Amongst other things we were talking about building a small branch terminus, and because of others' interests it was bound to be steam.
     
    The LNWR seems to have embraced the concept of corridor coaches and gangwayed connections very quickly and with some enthusiasm. By 1893 they had commissioned a full train set for the 2pm Euston - Glasgow express - thereafter, for a generation "the 'Corridor'"(until the LMS formally named it "The Mid Day Scot") - and by the late 1890s they were building corridor coaches in volume for their own main line services, not just the WCJS. Ratio's range of 4 kits represent these , built from 1898-1903, and not extinct until after World War 2. I've always been surprised these kits never took off - there was a time when their MR coach kits seemed virtually ubiquitous and if you wanted a pre-grouping coach it was a Ratio MR kit or a Triang clerestory, but somehow I've hardly ever seen the LNWR kits crop up in layout articles. The prototypes feature in Historic Carriage Drawings Vol 2 - LMS , edited by David Jenkinson, as do the MR suburbans and the MR non-gangwayed express clerestories : and no doubt that's how Ratio came to choose all three types.
     
    The twist in the story comes in 1936 , when the LMS offloaded some of them on the M&GNJR, apparently along with some ex MR gangwayed clerestories which I think are available as kits from 51L Models/Wizard , and which are far too grand, sophisticated and expensive for me to consider... A few months later (October 1936), the LMS offloaded its interest in the M&GN on the LNER. Given that the LNER promptly scrapped most of the M&GN loco fleet -, and the LNER wasn't rich enough to indulge in extravagences like "scrap and build" - I think we can take it that the M&GN was in dire need of re-equipment by that point and the LMS wasn't prepared to stump up hard cash. It's pretty clear why the choice fell on these coaches for transfer. The M&GN was a lengthy cross country main line and its big passenger traffic was holiday expresses from the Midlands. A lot of those passengers were families making 3-4 hour journeys, and by the mid 1930s subjecting them to non-gangwayed stock without access to toilets was unacceptable. The LMS duly off-loaded some of the oldest corridor stock it had in order to "modernise" the M&GN, and since the MR came to corridor coaches much later and more tentatively than the LNWR , inevitably old LNWR stock was going to feature in the transfer.
     
    So some elderly ex LNWR and MR coaches ended up as LNER stock in E Anglia . Beyond this point we find ourselves peering into the mists of history - which are pretty thick and misty hereabouts. As a modern image modeller of Eastern leanings , my references for this are pretty scanty : 3 volumes of Historic Carriage Drawings, Harris' LNER coaches and the notes to the Ratio kits , prepared by a Mr P Millard. According to the latter "several" vehicles were transferred to the M&GN , but he doesn't say what. I have been shown a photo of an M&GN train from the mid/late 1930s with one of these coaches clearly visible , still in LMS livery . It wasn't a brake, and holiday expresses aren't obviously in need of lots of all firsts, so I think we can assume some all thirds were transferred. Whether any brake coaches were is anybody's guess: Historic Carriage Drawings does not even mention the transfer, and nor does LNER Coaches
     
    The Ratio instructions claim extinction dates of 1950 for the brake composites, and 1952 for the brake thirds, but 1947 for the all thirds, even though more of them were built than everything else put together. Historic Carriage Drawings gives an extinction date of 1953 for the all thirds, and says extinction dates for the other types cannot be established but all types reached BR and probably became extinct 1953-5. It's evident from one or two other entries that events in apple green territory are beyond the ken of LMS coach scholars, so these will be for the vehicles which passed from the LMS to the LMR
     
    It is quite possible the vehicles which passed to the LNER lasted a little longer. By M&GN standards, in 1936 these were relatively modern coaches. In late 1934, the LNER had set out to eliminate 4 and 6 wheel coaches - of which it still had several thousand - "except for third-rate branch lines, miners' and workmen's trains". What this meant in practice in E Anglia can be established by looking at some branch line monographs. Witham/Bishop Stortford trains were still 6 wheelers until 1940 , when they were replaced by ex GE 50' corridor coaches. The Thaxted branch retained 6 wheelers until 1946-7, when GE 50' corridor coaches were provided - working in 2 car sets. The Mid Suffolk became the last place in Britain served by non -bogie coaches (until the DoT inflicted Pacers on us) - here the 6 wheelers survived until a few months before closure in 1952, again replaced by ex GE corridor coaches working in 2car sets.
     
    Given this , it seems unlikely the LNER would have scrapped these ex LMS vehicles before the war. In fact it seems quite plausible that after 1940, when holiday trains would have been few and far between, and the M&GN section probably had surplus coaching stock, they might have been pressed into service to replace 6 wheelers on some very minor branch. Photos show elderly pre Grouping coaches as branch sets on many ex GE and ex GN branches in the early 50s - what probably swept them away was a combination of the first round of ER closures in 1951-2 plus cascading following the arrival of the first Mk1s in 1951-2
     
    So - a pair of ex LNWR coaches from the Ratio kits make a plausible E Anglian branch set on a very minor branch in the early 1950s. By that time they would have been in brown - on the GE, pregrouping stock was not given BR crimson, but was repainted in brown with BR lettering , and examples survived beyond 1955. When my local model shop closed down about 4 years ago I bought a brake composite and an all third , for use on the little group branch terminus project. All the other authentic options would have been difficult to source and much more difficult to build. I think they had been in the shop some time - one kit was the earlier version with plastic wheels - and they were discounted. I gave the sides an undercoat and , since it wasn't an urgent job, they sat in the cupboard , waiting for the branch terminus to happen first......
     
    As these two kits include the only kit for a brake vehicle I have , it seemed the obvious place to start. I have very little coachbuilding experience - a couple of Ratio kits in my early teens - and Ratio kits seemed an easy place to start. (That theory took a serious knock with the very over-complicated Southern Van B kit, which took me 2 years to finish)
     
    First stages are shown here. The exact shade of LNER brown seems to be open to question and photographic research. I bought a tin of Precision Pullman umber and another of LNER dull teak. The original idea was to mix up a suitable brown , but then I reflected that Precision paints don't cover half as well as Railmatch or Humbrol and I'd never match the colour for the second coat - or the second vehicle. So I gave the sides an undercoat in umber, in order to darken the teak top coat - and stopped there.
     
     

     
    On restarting last week it became clear that the undercoat on the brake composite was badly affected by nibs and whiskers . I don't have an airbrush , and neither colour is available as an aerosol can. The all third was ok, if not 100% perfect . So I gave the latter a coat of teak - and the brake composite sides got a coat of Modelstrip. The teak coat wasn't 100% perfect either: Precision paint seems to love to form tiny bubbles as you brush . I did the best I could. The brake was given a fresh undercoat of umber, and then teak over. Despite my careful cleaning/degreasing of the sides and cleaning of the brush on a bit of soap to rid it of any nibs, the finish still wasn't perfect - and all sides visibly needed a further coat. There is no way you can apply three brush coats of paint and get a flawless result. I have learnt my lesson and sourced a spray can of Railmatch crimson for all the other coaches, but with the LNW set , damage limitation is all that's possible
     
     

     
    These kits are slightly peculiar - at least to me - in that they are built round the interiors. In this they differ from the other Ratio coach kits I built long ago from the other 3 ranges. They also show early signs of the overcomplication which makes the Ratio Maunsell Van B such a laborious pig to do. I can't see that moulding the floor pan as two halves which join together with a kind of mortice joint is any improvement on the single piece floor pans found in the MR kits - unless there was an overriding technical reason in the design of the moulds, and since they produced a lot of earlier kits with single piece floores , I can't see it. Similarly, the all third corridor sides are two pieces with a tenon joint - though in the brakes these have to be two seperate mouldings , as the guard's van is in the centre not the end. However the fit of the parts so far has been excellent - the floor pan needs only routine cleaning of the edges and no packing or filing down has been required. In one or two places a few strokes of the file were necessary along the compartment partitions to get the side even. There are little locating pegs on the floor to locate the interiors (except for the toilets) - the all third has these pegs on the compartment side too, but the brake doesn't
     
     

     
    In the process of fitting the first side, stage by stage along the side, and holding it tight to the compartment partitions till the solvent set , I managed to get solvent onto the side with some damage to the paintwork . As "cracklature" was definitely not wanted, I have rubbed down the affected panels and they will need touching in - the damage can be seen on the photo . The compartment interiors have been painted with Tamiya Flat Earth acrylic, to avoid anything embarassing being seen through the windows. I am starting to feel that if I have to apply any more coats of brown paint to this kit I'll scream
     
    On the corridor side there are recesses for the glazing strip - why the glazing on the corridor side of the all third has to be 4 seperate recessed sections , when the brake manages with just two sections, beats me. The corridor handrail is a piece of styrene micro rod (more brown paint) applied between slots . On the all third, I made the mistake of using solvents at the retaining slots, As a result , I have marks on two windows just above the rail, where it wasn't 100% straight and capilarity drew the solvent where it wasn't wanted. Damn. On the brake third , I learned my lesson , and used the Revell Contacta bottle . In fact I've taken the heretical approach of using Contacta cement very sparingly applied as the first tack bond for the major pieces, with solvent applied to finish the join
  18. Ravenser
    This blog hasn't been too active recently. Not a lot has happened on the layout in the last 18 months , though it's been up and run a few time. I had some time for modelling in the early part of last year , but that was almost completely absorbed by a bout of stock building. Only some of that was written up in my workbench blog , and I must add the other items.
     
    Basically the idea was to try to sort out the outstanding/stalled projects , plus the easy bits and pieces then get stuck into some of the major projects I've been meaning to do for so long. Needless to say, what actually happened was that I made limited progress with a couple of stalled projects, finished off a few bits and pieces , started several new wagon kits and didn't finish them , weathered a couple of items and only really managed one modest new project....
     
    Somewhere well down the blog , I mentioned the very long list of started or possible layout projects I have : http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/343/entry-5665-the-donkey-and-the-bales-of-straw/
     
    Since then there has been a development - a simplification in one sense, a complication in another. The GE branch terminus project which was mooted by a group I'm involved with seems to have drifted into limbo. We haven't seen one key player , who was to build the boards, for about a year because of domestic circumstances , and there's no imminent prospect of anything happening.
     
    Having acquired a discount Hornby L1 during the year because it might be suitable for the GE BLT , as well as to "support the cause" in terms of manufacturers producing LNER locos, I find myself with a modest amount of steam era stuff that has no obvious use. The thought occured to me that I might be able to muster enough to run a steam era period on Blacklade. This would not be very authentic - the station will have corporate image nameplates and so forth - but at least the steam stuff would get used occasionally rather than spending the rest of its existance in its boxes.
     
    What I actually have is a Bachmann 4MT 2-6-0, and O4, a Hornby L1 , a secondhand whitemetal N5 (all in BR black) and a detailed Hornby Dublo 20 in green. I'm likely to get a Bachmann J11: in the mid 1950s 40C (Louth) had C12s, J11s, and N5s , so I need to have one , and the recent future of kitbuilding thread seemed to suggest that the Craftsman C12 was an excellent easy to build kit . Perhaps I should try it... Diesels could be added, and DMUs - and at this point a problem became apparent.
     
    Coaches - Blacklade being a passenger layout.
     
    At the moment I don't actually have any serviceable and complete steam era coaches for any of these locos to pull.
     
    What I do have is a very motley assortment of basically unbuilt kits:
     
    - 2 Ratio ex LNWR corridor kits. These were to provide the branch set on the GE terminus . If this seems bizarre, the LMS off-loaded some of these vehicles on the M&GNJR in 1936, shortly before walking away from the joint venture leaving the LNER holding the baby . These coaches might well have been found eking out their final days in LNER brown on some minor branch in the late 1940s /early 1950s . If you consider what kits might be available for other pregrouping coaches more typical of the early 50s GE Section , how difficult they would be to source and build for a novice, and what they might cost, you will see the thinking here.
     
    - a second hand BSL kit for a Gresley steel composite
     
    - a battered Ratio MR suburban first, built in my early teens and not well finished
     
    - a Ratio GW 4 wheeler ditto, whose chassis isn't square, and which can be discounted
     
    - a secondhand BSL kit for a Gresley Buffet. This can also be discounted
     
    - Various Mk1 and Mk2 project coaches, some in blue/grey and none really suitable for local services to a minor urban terminus in the 1950s
     
    - An unbuilt Dapol/Branchlines railbus kit, meant for the GE BLT
     
    - DC Kits' Test Car Iris, which isn't really fundamental to Blacklade, and is therefore nowhere on the work list. I was already inclining towards doing it in late 90s overall green , as this would be much easier than the blue/salmon RTC livery , even if the latter might look more attractive and be appropriate for Blacklade's "early" period (1985-90). Of course this,was originally built in 1956 for minor branchline service on the LMR, and wore green . So it wouldn't look immediately out of place in a mid /late 1950s LMR local service
     
    - a Triang Maunsell Passenger Luggage Van , passed to me third -hand after someone had gone most of the way upgrading it with the Roxey kit
     
    The problem is obvious - not only is nothing actually built, only one kit is a brake coach so forming sets is very difficult.
     
    I had been hoping to pair the Gresley composite with one of Hornby's Gresley or Thompson non-gangwayed brakes. But they were very pricy , it wasn't urgent, I was waiting for them to be discounted - and when I looked around late last year I found the brakes had all disappeared from the shelves. No matter - what about a Kirk kit? Much cheaper. I phoned the model shop near where I was then working , only to learn he had none left and wasn't expecting any more until some time in 2013. Chivers Pigeon van and another short coach? (we're getting desperate). Chivers kits are out of stock...
     
    This left me searching for ideas, especially as money is relatively tight at present , and I'm not prepared to spend large sums on a sideline like this.
     
    The most suitable, cheapest and easiest to build brake coaches I could come up with were a kit-form Dapol LMS ungangwayed brake third, and a Ratio MR suburban brake . I duly went to St Albans last weekend ,and acquired a Dapol Crimson ungangwayed brake third for under a tenner.
     
    I also spotted a Silver Fox Baby Deltic body kit for £15 - which after a moment's thought, I went for. I have toyed with the idea of doing a Baby Deltic in the past, and I even sourced some mechanical bits: with a bit of modeller's licence D5901 in her RTC days might just be faintly credible in one of the proper periods (Perhaps she was preserved......)
     
    It had also dawned on me that I don't actually have any useable green diesels at the moment either. The Hornby Dublo 20 is one of those models which are nearly impossible to DCC: one brush holder is integral with the chassis block, which is electrically live. Certainly it's far beyond my capacity to convert. I have a detailed blue 29 , with one slightly damaged grill, which is not DCC . I have a spare Hornby 29 body, acquired with faint ideas of producing an early NBL Type 2 for someone else's London area layout , but they went EM.. And I have a second spare Airfix 31 body, and a spare Athearn PA1 chassis and some very faint aspirations towards a green 31 for the GE BLT. Maybe something can be done with an old Lima 20.
     
    I've now driven over to a model shop about 15 miles away and acquired a Ratio MR suburban brake, and a few relevant bits , and for about £50 total outlay , we look to be in business . Three 2 car rakes and a green Type 2 should now be possible with modest effort. I need to fit decoders to the L1 and 4MT . The N5 is parked in the "too hard" basket for the moment, since the chassis is live to the rail on one side. Most of the stock can come from the pile of unbuilt projects, which should be suitably reduced. I even have very wild ideas about a possible project involving two Dapol non-gangwayed brakes, a Black Beetle and a 1956 Derby experiment with a DMU conversion
     
    All a bit of a diversion from my main interests, and it's definitely not going to be a strictly prototypical mix of stock - but if it gets stuff out of the cupboard, built and into use, so much the better
  19. Ravenser
    A very long time ago, in my teens, I tried to build a layout. It was my first diesel layout and it was definitely modern image : not only was it BR Blue , it was contemporary. For some reason I decided I wanted some parcels vans and I duly bought a pair of Lima BGs and a pair of Lima CCTs. These things have been lurking in boxes ever since the half built layout was abandoned and dismantled (Several years in Australia, followed by university , didn't exactly help progress)
     
    Several decades later, there is still no alternative model in 4mm for the BR CCT. So far as I'm aware there has never even been a kit. Blacklade is small so small vehicles are attractive, and the idea of a CCT as a "swinger" - DMU tail traffic - seemed worth pursuing. When the layout was started I bought one of the Hornby re-releases, but although the body finish and the wheel profile is much better nothing else has changed since the Lima model first appeared 35 years ago.
     
    I had a little time for modelling a couple of months back, and I finally managed to tackle the long intended rework of one of the CCTs - bits had been in stock for a couple of years
     
    Firstly , some shots of the real thing, rather folorn, at the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway this Easter:
     

     

     
    And here is a shot of an unmodified Lima vehicle:
     

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

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

     
    And if anyone knows how to delete the duplicate large version of the underframe phot I'd be grateful . It's not showing up on the posting text
  20. Ravenser

    The End is Nigh

    By Ravenser,

    Despite the silence I have in fact been doing some modelling over the last couple of months - I just haven't written it up . However this is to record that I have finally finished construction of the Ratio Van B . It still needs lettering , spot painting and weathering, and there's plenty of scope for things to go wrong in all of that, but the last tiny scrap of etched brass has been stuck in place . At least the last one that I'm sticking on - there are still a small number of tiny bits on the etch whose purpose is a mystery to me. At the death , I decided to use the etched chalk boards , as they are abit neater and more regular than my home made replacements - I've stuck them over the card versions which makes the detail a little chunky , but then the chalk boards are.. It won't be the best coach kit ever built, though I hope it will at least look adequete against the rest of my fleet . This is my first proper attempt at a coach kit, if you discount some cack-handed teenage efforts at Ratio suburbans
     
     
    It's taken two and a half years to get to this point , although there have been some delays , distractions and interruptions along the way. That's surely too long for a plastic coach kit. The trouble is that everything has been made into as many individiual components as possible. I've just finished sticking 4 tiny etched door handles on one side of the coach with cyano. Not to mention 4 very very small grab handles just below them, each of which rfequires it's two tiny legs folding into aright angle to enable it to be stuck to the side. and so on. I can't help feeling all this would have been better moulded onto the side itself - certainly there would have been a little less finesse if the kit was in the hands of a skilled builder, but for 80%+ of purchasers it would have vastly simplified and speeded the build. Why were seperate doors and seperate etched brass hinges necessary? Couldn't the side simply have been moulded as a single piece of plastic?
     
    One area I am not sure is entirely satisfactory is the attachment of the bogies. This is by a pair of screws, but I can't get them any further home and the bogies hang very loosely. The coach runs ok , but the body flops and rolls about a bit , and on its one trial outing on the layout it seemed prone to the occasional derailment . Nothing I can do about it (this is afirst kit, and rearranging the running gear is a step too far for me at this stage), and the coach works , but I think there are better arrangements on other kits.
     
    Since I started , Hornby have announced a RTR model , and I think the first batch may even have been released. I recall someone expressing the view that Hornby's model was a waste of time and no benefit to modellers because there was already a kit. Well, having built the kit, I beg to differ. Hornby will achieve a better model than I've managed to achieve , a significantly higher standard of paint finish, and it will run better, and have better engineered bogies. It will also come with NEM pockets, making changing couplings a matter of seconds. And it won't take 2.5 years of anyone's life . There's nothing inherently unbuildable about any part of the kit - but I reckon at least 90% of modellers would not manage to finish it.
     
    I do have one consolation - Hornby haven't so far annouced a version in BR blue
  21. Ravenser

    Fools rush in

    By Ravenser,

    It's been a long while since anything was posted here - most of the modelling in 2011 was on the layout, where the bulk of the major work still outstanding was tackled , but some progress has recently been made on stock as I currently have a little spare time .
     
    Firstly the Ratio Van B. Work resumed last Autumn , only for me to find that that I couldn't find the etched sheet . Eventually I swallowed hard and decided to improvise. This meant fabrication of replacement door hinges from microstrip and of replacement chalk boards from card. The bogies were made up and I found a way of inserting Kadees.
     
    Three days ago the etch turned up - it was in the paint-drying box in the airing cupboard, where I had put it having primed the thing....
     
    A comparison shows that my replacement hinges are about twice as wide, but I think I would make a mess if I tried to cut them off now and I will live with a slightly chunky look . The chalk boards are slightly too long, but only slightly. The handrails, door handles etc etc can now be added using the original components. I hope it should now be possible to make reasonably rapid progress to a finished vehicle - though lettering and weathering make prove a further obstacle (But at least at that point I'll be able to run the thing in a parcels train)

     
     
    I have started dabbling again with the Pacer, which had been stalled for two years . I have a DC Kits 128 + Replica motorised chassis which I'm intending to build but that keeps not getting started ... In the meantime, I've been picking away at other jobs lying stalled on the bookcase . Two N guage containers with part applied YML transfers have been almost finished . A spare C-Rail 40' kit has been built up , and two more which had a first coat of paint have been rounded up (this being when I found the etch for the VanB ) I need some more transfers for these, and probably some paint as they are likely to change colour. This can be sorted out at Ally Pally this coming weekend
     
    Meantime, as the ex WD road van has been stalled for a long long time and I have no steam era brake - the boxfile doesn't really need one - I thought I'd get a refreshing quick win by building a kit I acquired as an easier alternative - a secondhand Parkside kit for an LNER Toad B , bought for £2 from a trader's second-hand box at Peterborough last autumn. (The kit has not been in the Parkside range for some years)
     
    Progress to date can be seen here .

     
    I was expecting the fit to be a little rough and ready in an older kit like this but so far it's been good. . However the big snag is obvious - no handrails. These have to be added , "freehand" as it were, by the modeller. The continuous H handrail on the side - with two handrail knobs thrown for good measure ., one each side of the ducket, is not going to be easy , and I've decided to cheat , and do them as 3 seperate handrails. I'm still not looking forward to this at all...
     
    The windows to the veranda have been glazed and areas that will be difficult to get at once the roof is on have been painted
     
    In parallel , I started playing about with the WD road van as well. More of the handrails have gone in - I'm about half way through the job now. One or two of the holes may need redrilling - which will have to wait till the weather improves . One handrail is not absolutely straight, but several attempts to adjust have not brought an improvement -- the problem is that one of the horizontal handrails touches it. The van has a further weakness in that one corner is not absolutely square . I didn't know that resin could be bent slightly if it's dropped into hot water and left. I now think I can get it very close to being finished - to the point where an afternoon's work outside will be enough
     

     
    The two brakes and the trailing car of the Pacer have had lead sheet araldited into them as ballast
     
    As my "quick win" was looking distinctly problematic , I went looking for another quick win, and dug out a Cambrian Dogfish kit....
     
    This is not a quick win. It looks like one of the most challenging wagon kits out there. The problem is that there is almost nothing to it . There is a nicely moulded one piece hopper, but that is no help at all because you don't build the wagon round it . Instead you are supposed to build the pretty skeletal underframe on its own. In fact the instructions tell you to assemble the headstocks and solebars on their own with nothing else attached to them. And you're supposed to get it square. Somehow. Multi-armed Indian deities are at a big advantage here - ordinary mortals may struggle
     
    I rapidly decided that this was simply not on, and I fitted the end plating to the two half-underframes, on the basis this would at least give me two reasonably strong, reasonably square, halves to join. A quick look at Geoff Kent's 4mm Wagon Pt 1 shows that he had serious problems with this kit . (Strictly speaking he built the Catfish , but I'm pretty certain it's actually the same kit with a different, shallower, 1 piece hopper) . He had to resort to bodging to get a square underframe , and I'm hardly in his league as a modeller. In the end I held the two halves together with large blobs of blu-tak at opposite corners ,with the wheels and bearings trapped in place, and tweaked it intil it sat square on the mirror, at which point I ran in the solvent at each corner , and waited till it set
     
    The pretty-well inevitable result was blu tak stuck to the plastic in one or two places . Not good, and not entirely unexpected, but by this point I didn't think there were any good routes out of this one. I've removed it, and the only visible damage is to the detail on about 4-5 mm at one end of one solebar. I have managed to clean this up, more or less, and once painted it should not show. This sort of thing is highly undesirable, obviously, but I think the only alternative would have been to abandon the kit as effectively unbuildable
     

     
     
    A second area where Geoff Kent had difficulties - and I'm struggling too - is in fitting the hopper . In order to get this to sit on as many places as possible I've had to add scraps of microstrip to the tops of the lower struts - a quick look at some photos shows that there is in fact a plate here to reinforce the join. Any residual difficulty will hopefully be taken care of by melting of the plastic when solvent is applied . The poor quality photo shows the hopper still loose in position . Getting the hopper to sit level in both planes also requires careful adjustment
     
    All in all , not a kit for a novice. I'm not a novice when it comes to wagon kits, and it's taken all the tricks I know to build it with some imperfections
     
    Why tackle such a difficult kit in the first place when there's a perfectly good Heljan RTR model? Well it was one of four Cambrian kits for Engineers wagons I was given by a friend about 18 months ago. It cost me nothing, it would suit an early period Engineers train for Blacklade and before starting
    I thought this was going to be the best kit in the bag (Also the alternative was a Shark - I didn't fancy a third brake van)
  22. Ravenser

    Way and Works

    By Ravenser,

    As well as floating various tramway pipe-dreams I have actually made a bit of progress with Blacklade in the last 2 months. A sustained attack during part of my holiday last month has cleared a number of outstanding jobs . The remainder of the station screen wall has gone in , and although the back of the station building needs adding (I'm not actually basing the model on Kings Cross circa 1942, even though it looks remarkably like bomb damage!) , we are more or less there in terms of the station building
     
    Various other nagging jobs have been sorted out as well. I originally painted the baseboard fronts black, "as you do" but a friend urged me strongly to change the colour as he reckoned black was far too strong and dominant. As the frontage needed a second coat anyway, I decided to do something about it: unfortunately I couldn't find a small pot of a suitable gloss paint and had to shell out for a full sized tin - £10's worth , even sticking to the cheap B+Q range. The closest I could get to the recommended brown was something called "Cocoa Bean" , which is a purplish brown. It's much less prominent, and being much closer to the red-brown of the brickwork helps as well. I painted the plywood bracing straps on the legs while I was about it, which
     
    I'd had problems with running out of the back platform: somehow, despite my best efforts when laying the track , the back road had become misaligned at the board joint and although trains running out of the centre platform seemed to cope, things running out of platform 3 tended to come off. I know its a fudge, not recommended in the best finescale circles, but I unsoldered the rail ends and eased them across a bit so they aligned reasonably well, using a roller gauge to maintain the track gauge . There may be a very slight kink in the alignment as a result, but it's dramatically better than the status quo ante, and trains no longer derail. I also sorted out a minor programming error in one of the macros, resoldered a stray signal wire that had come loose , and Blacklade seems to be running well.
     
    A few other DCC jobs were also sorted out - the 150/1 is now fitted with a replacement TCS decoder so it can be easily consisted, the Bachmann 21 pin decoder I removed has been cascaded to the ROD which is now up and running (not that there's much call for it on Blacklade) A cheap Central 158 acquired from Hattons last year has also been chipped and runs very nicely
     
    A couple of shots of the station area as it now is:
     

     

     
    There are still a few things needing finishing off - I should probably fill in some more of the gap along the top of baseboard and touch it over , the Kadee electromagnets need sorting out (the red button is for the first of them, but for some reason , the magnet doesn't seem to be live - I've now got a further 2 heavy duty push to make button switches from Squires for the other electromagnets), and a couple of signals on the other board. Not to mention "make good and touch up" some holes in the ballast
     
    But for the moment I shall probably focus on the stock. The 3 long outstanding jobs - Van B kit, Pacer upgrade and Bratchill 150/2 - are all still outstanding. I seem to have backed myself into another parcels project, and have ordered a Replica chassis and DC Kits 128 Parcels unit body kit. Van B and Pacer are quite badly needed for operations, and the 128 is apossible workround , as 31 + 57' coach+ 50' coach hangs over the edge of the central platform and stricklythe Kadees on the Bachmann GUV are too high . And an awful lot of stuff needs weathering . Starting with the 150, the 108, and arguably the two 158s . The 156 and 155 are another matter - both need underframe surgery and sourcing castings is a problem . The 155 , being worse, and more frequently used, is probably the higher priority. I might even sort out the unused Provincial 155 sat somewhere
  23. Ravenser
    In a previous posting , I mentioned trams . I am trying quite hard to be a good boy and finish things off ,not take on new projects and commitments; but despite my best intentions there have been stirrings on the tramway front.
     
    It started when something caused me to look at the Street Level Models website. I spotted a card kit for Manor House tram station (LT), and that started something stirring. Wasn't Manor House the northern terminus of one of the Kingsway Subway routes ? It was - route 33 to be precise, which lasted until close to the end of London's trams. Could this make a modest diorama to display a tram or two? A quick check of the track map in the back of LCC Tramways Handbook ( no doubt long out of print) showed the track layout at Manor House as a crossroads of two double track routes, with a connection between two of the legs. But on which leg was the tram station? Did Subway cars terminate there?
     
    I mentioned in an earlier post about layout projects and commitments (here) that I had vague inchoate aspirations towards a tramway layout, potentially a London tram layout and that the Highgate Archway area seemed to have potential. The trouble with this was that it would also require a lot of space, or at least length, and if I threw in Holloway depot for good measure , probably with as well
     
    Manor House and the kit promised something smaller , but the crossing is a bit of a problem . Still the operating potential should be high . Initial thoughts crystalised into a figure of 8 , with the 4 arms of the double track crossing linked behind the scenes. At the northern end , this would just be a double track loop providing off stage storage, but at the other end, there would be a single track loop past a depot, , and two double track routes going off stage (using a cassette):
     
    A very crude sketch will show what I mean: - top is north(ish)
     

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

     
    and about the only thing that would fit to mechanise it is a Halling mechanism. HO is really rather small, and this kit brings it home. Not quite the Holy Grail in whitemetal but not far off - the only Sydney tram kit of which I'm aware
     
    What on earth would I do with this kit ? Well, that's only too easy . A small layout based on the Wynyard terminus of the N Sydney tramways would make a good boxed diorama and could plausibly be done in something like 6 ' x 9"..... The awkward fact is that this is one idea which I might actually have space for , but Wynyard in the rush hour needs more than one trams , and the question arises what else I could come up with
     
    Of couse I'm not committed to building this, or anything else, you understand....
  24. Ravenser

    Safety Valve

    By Ravenser,

    This is by way of a moan... I'm trying to sort out various bits-and-pieces jobs, and one is to replace the Bachmann/ESU 3 function 21 pin decoder in the 150 , which doesn't support advanced consisting, with a rather expensive TCS 1344 21-pin decoder that does. I have no need whatsoever for 6 functions - it was just that 21 pin decoders are few and far between, and a DMU that won't work in multiple is rather a nuisence on a layout where operational interest is supposed to be boosted by joining and splitting the things
     
    (Memo to Messrs Lovatt and Kohler - consisting is a Useful Thing, and even your cheap decoders should support it. I don't give a stuff about Mars Lights, function mapping and flickering fireboxes, but I do care about Advanced Consisting in DMUs)
     
    Attempt one was an ignominous failure - I couldn't get the body off because the two small screws at the gangway end wouldn't come out , being too small for any of my jewellers' screwdrivers . Having bought a new set of jewellers screwdrivers from a local shop, for a couple of quid - this time with some very small ones in - I managed to get them out with a 1.0mm flat screwdriver . The screws, though crossheaded, were way too small for my smallest crosshead Phillips screwdriver (00 - what else - it seems crosshead screwdrivers are numbered like paintbrushes or model railway gauges...). Thankfully I hadn't mashed the heads fatally in the first attempt
     
    The game plan was to switch the Bachmann decoder into my nice new ROD 04 . The decoder sits in the tender and all you have to do is remove the tender top . Carefully poised upside down , using the packaging as a protecting cradle, out come the back 2 screws withb a 1.0mm flat , cos they are way smaller than 00 crosshead. The front two won't come out.....
     
    The ROD is not going to be up and running this Bank Holiday weekend
     
    A hasty check of the Squires catalogue reveals - in 3 pages of jewellers' screwdrivers - just one set with 0000 screwdriver , at £13.99 . Which I will have to order - tools, Bachmann locos, for the opening of....
     
    Question to Barwell - why are you fixing together parts of your models which lots of people will need to undo , using fastenings that require tools which are very difficult to source in order to shift them???
  25. Ravenser
    You may have noticed in these postings occasional mutters that "I must build the screen walls for the station" . In most postings in this blog , in fact.
     
    Well, with the electrics more or less done (only the Kadee electromagnets and a couple of signals remain to nag at my conscience) I've finally attacked what is the last big scenic job on the layout. Quite a bit of tidying up, fettling and detail work remains but this is the last big block of new construction
     
    Here we have the back screen wall - the remains of a former trainshed - under construction. Main materials are mounting board and Howard Scenics brickpaper, treated with pastel crayon (Terracotta) to redden it
     

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

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

     

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

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

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

     
    Market Rasen (MSLR opened 1848):

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

     
    with Boston being similar
     
    Firsby retained its overall roof until closure in 1970 , and possibly Alford Town may have done the same (all GNR 1848)
     
    In fact the only surviving overall roof is Grimsby Town (again MSLR 1848) which was renewed in 1976
     
    I've leant more to MSLR practice as those are the examples I'm most familiar with, although lacklade is supposed to be an ex MR station
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