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Ravenser

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  1. Ravenser

    Route One

    By Ravenser,

    With DCC Installing the point motors and decoder isn't necessarily the end of the story. Yes, it gets the points working , but more than just that is possible, and yesterday I took the final steps in commissioning the installation
     
    Working the points one by one through the handset is a little slow and clunky . Probably no slower than flicking a set of switches on a DC panel, but just as liable to operator error. I suspect that one of the major causes of derailment and intermittant running on the average layout is the operator having failed to set some point in the route somewhere, and I'm no better at it than anyone else
     
    Much more sophisticated automated approaches are possible with DCC, and most of them cost a lot of money. In fact I believe several small building societies are now offering mortgages of up to 80% LTV for first time buyers of Railroad & Co software... Having been born in Yorkshire I'm not going down any route that involves several hundred euros and the installation of lots of special electronic devices sourced from someone unpronounciable in the Black Forest.
     
    Fortunately that's not necessary. The NCE Powercab - which is what I have - offers a feature called "macros" . These allow you to store instructions to up to 8 accessory decoder addresses , and send them as a single operation. There's even a nice prominent button labelled "macros" between "select loco" and select accessory". Just press it. type in the number of the macro and press return - and instructions to up to 8 accessory addresses can be sent at once (I'm being very careful in my wording here - both the MERG point decoder and the DS64 accessory decoder have 4 outputs and therefore 4 addresses . The Lenz LS150 has 6. And one output/address can work two points , typically as a cross-over. )
    The PowerCab supports 16 of these macros , numbered 0-15 (I presume the Procab does the same)
     
    Blacklade has 9 points (2 of which form a single slip), two point decoders, and 7 addresses in use - there are 2 crossovers, wired as pairs. There are 3 platforms in the station , one of which (Pl 2) can be reached by either front or back routes , 3 roads in the fiddle yard and the fuelling point. That gives 4 x 4 = 16 possible route options , though in reality it's only 14 , as you can't reach the fuelling point from platform 3 (the back platform) or from the back exit from Platform 2
     
    So each possible route on the layout can be given it's own macro which will fire all the points necessary to set it up with a single instruction. Full entrance/exit route setting - for nowt. 'Cos it comes as a standard feature on the Powercab....
     
    The first step was to check each point address and work out which way was Normal and which Reverse (these are the 2 options in NCE - Digitrax prefer Closed and Thrown). I drew a very crude panel diagram in pencil to record this - the standard convention being that Normal is a thick continuous line, and Reverse is a break in the line . Then I started programming the macros starting with macro 1 (Platform 1 to fuelling point) , programming the correct setting for each point in the route with reference to the pencil diagram. When route started to involve the slip it seemed like a good idea to run something through to test it and make sure I had the polarity right through the slip, so out came a153. Program macro , press button, enter macro number, hear points throw, run train. And so on steadily down the list of possible permutations
     
    After about an hour and a half I had a layout where I could set up any possible route in one go , just by pressing a button and entering a number . And the appropriate signals came off as well.. The 153 ran slowly and reliably back and forth across the layout.
     
    For ease of operation, I've written out all the macro numbers as a table on the back of an old business card and stuck it on the backscene at the station end. I've also drawn out the panel diagram neatly on two business cards , with point numbers, so that if I have to change points "manually" I do at least know which way to select on the menu . It doesn't really matter which way is Normal for a point so long as you know which option to select to set the point in the direction you want. The amount of time wasted trying each option in turn until the point moved was embarrassing, and trying to work out the number of a given point without aclear memory aid is very difficult - which is why the real railways put a block diagram with all the lever numbers marked in every signal box. I'd strongly recommend drawing out a panel diagram whatever your system, for these reasons alone.
     
    I don't usually do DCC techno- posts and this posting may leave folk with a different DCC system cold. However the PowerCab is quite a popular DCC system and I don't think I've seen any comment on using this particular feature before. Obviously 16 route macros will only go so far on a large layout, where there are more than 16 possible routes and some involve a lot more than 8 points; though I gather from another thread that great northern has been experimenting with macros on Peterborough North. However you wouldn't use a PowerCab to run a large layout anyway, and for the average small terminus 16 macros should be more than enough, especially if the fiddle yard is a sector plate or traverser. It really is a powerful feature to be able to set up any route completely and reliabilily just with a single entry , and the improvement in speed and ease of operation is dramatic
     
    Something similar should be possible on an number of other systems. The Digitrax DS64 accessory decoder supports "routes" at the level of the decoder itself. Unfortunately you can only set up routes involving points controlled by two different DS64s if they are linked by Loconet, the Digitrax cab bus, which means that you can only get comprehensive route setting thisway if you have a Digitrax system. I think Lenz support route setting , though I don't know any details and I have a suspicion it may even be available with the Multimaus
  2. Ravenser

    Points Arising

    By Ravenser,

    Things are a bit heavy at work at the moment which is probably why this posting's three weeks late, but the wiring is finally done. Well, sort of just about.
     
    The new DS64 decoder is in , the NCE switch it is disconnected, the last two motors (Cobalt and Tortoise) are in , they're all wired up , and they work. I admit that one half of the slip is only about 98% reliable, but this was clearly the stiffest tie bar on the layout and always going to be the place where any intermittant incomplete throw was going to appear
     
    The whole lot is very tightly packed , as you can see - which was always the issue and why it took so long:
     

     
    The Cobart Blue seems slightly more positive in its operation than the Tortoises, even though I've now replaced the wire supplied by Circuitron with something thicker. Also very useful is the solder free connector block - if you have to disconnect or swap over wirews to reverse the direction of throw it's dead easy
     
    A minor benefit is that theboard is potentially self sustaining. Although the DS64 is powered by an independent 12V DC supply from the stabilised converter, and this requires the 16V AC feed from the other board, , in its absence it defaults to drawing power through the DCC data connection. This means the decoder works even without being connected to the other board. The Hoffman motor controlling half the crossover doesn't work (since this draws 16V AC) but the other 4 motors do
     
    The next stage, when things calm down a bit and I can have another play with the layout, is to draw up a panel diagram, showing which way is normal and reverse for each point and their numbers, to stick on the back or end of the layout. And once that's done, I can program Route Macros (a feature provided by the NCE system) for each possible route. So in future all I need do is key in the correct macro and an entire route through the layout comes off, complete with signals. The PowerCab supports 16 macros - there are a total of 14 possible routes on the layout . (For the curious - Platform 1 to fuelling point, FY branch, FY main 1, FY main 2; Platform 2 via crossover to pl 1, to fuelling point, FY branch, FY main 1 & FY main 2; Platform 2 straight ahead to FY branch, FY main 1 and FY main 2; Platform 3 to the three FY roads). Full entrance/exit route control with no extra wiring or cost, and no control panel at all
     
    I've also noted the wiring colour code on the back of a business card and stuck it in a suitable spot under the boards
     
    What hasn't been done is to install the ground signal under the bridge controlling exit from the fuelling point - it will be on the left of the track in this view, taken from the chair in front of the computer looking to my left...:
     

     
    This is because I've run out of contracts on the relevant point motors (the Hoffmann has only one, for the frog, and the spare contacts on the Tortoise at the other end of the crossover are used to switch the 16V AC supply to power the Hoffmann) . The only way to work the ground signal is as an opposed pair of LEDs inserted into one of the power feeds to the Tortoise: one LED will light if current passes in one direction, and the other if current is reversed....
     
    I also intend to install a spare Erkon 3 aspect signal + feather in the fiddle yard as a visible indicator of what routes are set, in an effort to minimise the risk of driving into a point set against the train, and I have to sort out the electromagnet I wired (and which doesn't work) and wire up the other two. I suspect the issue is that I didn't scrape the lacquer off the wires throughly enough to get good electrical joints- afriend suggested using avery large iron (I have a 70W in the workbench) to burn off the lacquer
     
    But I'm leaving thisfinal round of wiring for the moment - the next major task is going to be building the screen walls round the station , the last big scenic job outstanding. Then it's down to detailing, stock, and operation
     
    It should now be possible to use the layout as a programming track while in situ in the study - meaning I don't have to set the whole thing up in the sitting room first. I just need to get at a suitable power socket...
  3. Ravenser

    Single Yellow

    By Ravenser,

    Progress on the wiring continues, though more slowly than I'd wish.
     
    The three station signals were finished and duly installed. . Wiring has proved a rather lengthy and tedious process with 8 fine short wires and two resistors needing to be soldered under the boards for each one. Resistors have been fitted to scraps of veroboard and the various wires soldered to these small boards in situ: the job's done now , but it's taken an evening's work per signal. They are driven off the spare contacts on the Tortoise point motors , and while this isn't perfect it gets a reasonably prototypical set of aspects.
     
    The only real anomaly is that if the roads are set out of platforms 1 and 3, you get a yellow out of platform 2, even though the next point is against you. To achieve a proper aspect here would have required a third set of contacts on the point at the entry to the back platform, 3 , to select between red and yellow. As it is. using the contacts I've got, BL 22 displays either green for route out via crossover /platform 1 or yellow/feather indicating route via the diverging road down the middle. It's almost certain that any route out via Platform 1 must be clear right through - hence the green , - but not certain that the middle road is clear right through - hence it gets the yellow . BL 20, the starter from Platform 1 does all the tricks, as in this case a second point motor on the same board is available for switching. Red shows the crossover is set against it, then switching by the next point gives either yellow ("main" roads in the fiddle yard via the slip on the second board) or green + feather- branch or fuelling point. Since the crossover on the second board is wired as such, there is no possibility of an incompletely set route in this case, hence the green.
     
    And BL 23, the Platform 3 starter at the back, gives either red or yellow. The feather has been wired to two of the pins on the bulgin plug, so that it can be switched by the motor for half of the slip, which is on the other board.The said motor has not yet been installed
     
    All should be a little clearer from the pictures and especially the signalling diagram in the thread I posted on how to wire the Hoffmann motor: Hoffmann point motor
     
    The only catch is that to see the signal aspects you need to stand at the far end of the layout. Unfortunately I tend to operate from the other end - the NCE socket panel is on the fiddle yard board , since this has the fuelling point road / programming track. Thus the signals don't really help check whether I've set the road. At least I know they're there....
     
    The Hoffmann motor is now in place: in fact it's the only new point motor I've installed. The 16V AC is taken directly off the auxilary power bus, with one side switched by the spare contacts on the Tortoise . It is not 100% reliable in throwing and cutting off - ithe motor's shown a tendency to stick and stall in one direction . though the point itself is fully thrown. A quick reach under the board sorts this , and since there isn't space for a Tortoise in this area I didn't really have much alternative. One complication is that there is only one set of switch contacts on the Hoffmann. With the spare contacts on the Tortoise at the other end of the crossover in use for switching the 16V AC supply to the Hoffmann , this leaves me with nothing to switch the ground signal at the exit from the fuelling point . However NCE suggest that a pair of opposed LEDs can be wired into the power supply between the decoder and Tortoise on one side and the Tortoise will act as a suitable current limiter so that no resister is necessary. As the direction of the current changes with the throwing of the motor, the current will flow via one or other LED. They envisage this as a panel indicator - I don't see why it can't work a ground signal instead
     
    Other jobs finished include connecting up the Express Models lightting kit I installed in the Portakabin to the 12V DC stablised converter unit on this board. I found an old rocker switch in my electrical bag that came from I know not where and wired this in. In daylight you hardly notice that the Portakabin's lit : in poor light it's horribly apparent I didn't fit an interior...
     
    I also wired up one of the Kadee electromagnets as an encore, having found a substantial push to make switch in the electrical bag. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work - there's no buzzing noise when you push the button. I suspect I haven't scraped the protective coating sufficiently effectively off one of the wires on the electromagnet. Power supply for this is a variable transforfmer from Maplins , set to 15V (the max) to deliver up to 4A . I presume this is adequete.
     
    I then gave the layout a test running session , which had mixed results. Slow speed running is good . But there were derailments , seemingly caused by the unrestrained slip and dead patches , allied to the board joint , which is not ideal. Coupling issues probably played a part too - the Bachmann GUV has it's NEM pockets set too high , and one Kadee on the PMV needs the spring replacing . And I think the 3link on the Hornby 31 may foul the Kadee slightly. Added to which 31 + GUV + 50 van just fouls crossover 1 at the end of the centre platform - replace the GUV with another 50' van and all would be well. Another reason to finish the Van B. The 101is a little suspect too - almost certainly where there wasapatched repair to the chassis unit after accident damage. I have a replacement chassis in stock, so this could be a priority
     
    And an attempt to fit a replacement TCS decoder in the150 failed because I couldn't break inside - the two end screws just wouldn't shift
  4. Ravenser

    Mind the Gap......

    By Ravenser,

    The trouble with lists is that they show you up.
     
    So how far have I actually got with my ambitious list of jobs? Well.....
     
    5 out of 6 points have had their drive wire replaced with 0.9mm wire . The other seems to work ok anyway. This has pretty well cured the problem of point blades not closing fully. One point , where the commercially available offset drive Tortoise mounting has been used (possibly from Exactoscale?) is still slightly uncertain , perhaps because I've not replaced the final link from the subterranean plastic tie bar to the actual copper clad tie bar. Another point, which I couldn't quite get to close reliably, resulted in so much fiddling, filing, and tweaking that the blade came loose. I then resoldered it , slightly further out, and that fixed the problem of reliable closure . 0.9mm wire does Xurons no good at all by the way: I used the cutters in a large pair of pliers instead, and these survived largely unscathed
     
    On the wiring front, I've installed a 0.5A 12 V dc stabilised power supply unit , from All Components, on one board. That, er , is the sum of it. Very frustratingly I haven't been able to install the Hoffmann point motor , for want of two eightpenny diodes..... One of the consequences of having changed my job is that I no longer walk past a branch of Maplins in the lunch hour, and I can't simply buy a Bumper Bag of Diodes for £1-60. The nearest branch is now 15 miles' drive away. So I've had to order some diodes from Squires, and after a murderous week at work , I only got round to doing so on Friday afternoon. At which point I forgot about the large illuminated push switch I was going to buy to isolate the programming track . So I'm going to have to improvise that bit using the toggle switch and mounting I already have
     
    Being blocked in that direction , I've attacked on another front and built three Erkon signal kits for the station board,. I'd seen these used on afriend's layout and they looked quite effective. Unfortuately the type with a feather - and all three for the station have feathers - have a pair of fine wires coming out of the side of the feather , which is not quite so good. I've painted them black, along with the solder joints onto the diode, which makes the intrusion much less obtrusive , and in 2 out of 3 cases , the offending wires will end up facing the backscene and therefore should largely be hidden. A further complication is that one of the signal heads is rather smaller than the other two.Clearly they've changed/upgraded the kit at some point. I suspect that variations between signal heads aren't unknown on the prototype - after all colour lights have been with us for 80 years, and I would be surprised if signal heads have remained exactly the same size and style throughout that time - and therefore I'm afraid I've just ploughed on. I couldn't really have shuffled the kits around to avoid having one head different, and they aren't the easiest kits to find. It's assumed the area have been changed from semaphore to colour light through slow piecemeal replacement
     
    I also painted the signals. My friend didn't - they looked ok but slightly toylike. Normally I'm sceptical about the idea that prototype info is easy for modern image , but I had only to look up from the bench and look out the window - and there is a colour- light signal. This quickly showed me that posts are grey, and not silver , and that only the signal head itself is actually black. And all the colours are weathered. A hasty coat of Humbrol 183 grey resulted in a much better colouration and also improved the proportions of the signal, as the grey goes further up and down the post, making it look taller, and the ladder is also now grey, and not black . The signal head, phone box, and one or two other bits have been painted with Citadel Charadon Granite, mixed with some matt black . This improved the look of the signals considerably - never use pure black or pure white . All I have to do now is add the signal numbers and install....
  5. Ravenser
    Having chickened out on fitting 4 small etched brass stips as hinges to every door of the Van B, I've decided to tackle finishing the point motors and associated wiring under the layout. This posting is largely to draw the attention of non-DCC users to the query I've just posted on wiring one of the motors here : Hoffmann query, since the solution I've come up with - hardwiring and switching through the spare contacts on another point motor - isn't really a DCC method at all
     
    However this fits into the bigger package of stuff I'm hoping to tackle this weekend (and no doubt next week as well):
     
    - Sort out the unreliable throw of the existing point motors. This is because the wire supplied with the Tortoise is too springy and flexes rather than moving the point blades. Where possible the old wire will be taken out and replaced- where not possible, I aim to stiffen the wire using a tip from an Iain Rice book. There looks to be one point motor I can't get at at all
     
    - Remove the NCE Autoswitch - which doesn't actually work - and fit a DPDT switch to isolate the bulk of the layout when programming
     
    - Install the remaining 3 point motors . I now have a new Cobalt Blue motor (bought at Ally Pally after seeing jim s-w's recent review in DEMU Update) and aHoffmann - these , with a Tortoise , will fit where 3 x Tortoises wouldn't. I'll make sure the wires are stiff enough....
     
    - Install the 16V AC auxiliary bus onto the second board, so it can power the Hoffmann motor, and an Express Models 12V DC 1 amp stabilised power supply
     
    -Install 12V DC stabilised power supplies on each board to power signals, Digitrax decoder, and lighting circuits
     
    - Install Digitrax DS64 decoder to fiddle yard board , to power all points , and replace current NCE Switch It
     
    - Connect up the lighting circuit in the portakabin and hope it works
     
    - Built one or two Erkon signal kits and install - connect up to 12V supply and point switching
     
    I think I've actually got all the bits now , so this lot should keep me quiet for a while.......
     
    Items trial positioned on the boards:
     

     
    And before I started:
     

  6. Ravenser
    I said in a posting on my workbench blog that layouts required seperate comment, and I've remarked a couple of times that I got myself hopelessly overcommitted on far too many fronts , even before work matters absorbed all my energy in the first half of last year. The two things are linked..... so perhaps a survey of my layout commitments is over due, at least to show where I'm coming from
     
    For quite a number of years I was extremely heavily committed to a layout project in my club . It wasn't without it's frustrations and difficulties, but I suspect a good many clubs have housed a struggling project with large ambitions and limited numbers of people and experience actually behind it. Eventually it all got too much, especially when coupled with administrative responsibilities, active membership of a society, long working and commuting hours, and the household chores arising from being single. Something had to give and late in 2009 I dropped out of the project, in the hope of getting my life back - only to be hit by a train coming the other way.
     
    Changed personal circumstances now largely rule out my becoming involved with a club layout group again , even if I wished to. I no longer work near my club, and just getting there costs almost £20 and involves an hour and a half of travelling each way. I've managed it only once in the last 6 months, and while I certainly hope to do better in 2011, those aren't conditions which allow you to be actively involved with a project. And the project itself has been taken on by new people and gone in other directions. There is a club nearer to me where I have one or two contacts, which has a couple of layout projects each of which might connect with some of my interests - but to be honest I'm rather enjoying my freedom and I'm really not sure I want to get involved with layout groups and the Exhibition Circuit in that way again. Quite a bit of my life had to be put on hold in the years when I was spending 2 nights a week at the club and getting home at gone 11 o'clock, and it's nice to have the chance to pursue other interests inside and outside the hobby again.
     
    So that's one bale of straw - a big one - out of the way.... Plenty still to go.
     
    First and foremost there's Blacklade, which is nominally the subject of this layout blog. Unfortunately the lack of postings in the last year would suggest - quite correctly - that nothing has been happening on it. The job is 85% done - I just haven't been in a position to focus on the layout and carry out the few remaining major jobs.
     
    For those who haven't been living in these parts since the last century, a bit of background may be in order. About 4 years, and 2 iterations of RMWeb, ago , there was the Layout Building Challenge. The rules for this were build a layout in 12 months, with a maximum footprint of just 6 square feet, including fiddle yards. Andy Y's Keyhaven started as part of the Challenge and so did a couple of other rather fine layouts . My initial thoughts and a photo of the layout as it stood 14 months ago (and still stands) are in the first posting in this blog , not very far down the list.
     
    One of the major reasons for building it was that I'd started to acquire - almost involuntarily, as you do - stock for use on the club project. I wasn't really supposed to be a stock provider but I'd started picking up a few brightly coloured DMUs that were being discounted and would fit the project perfectly. It was only really backup stock so I didn't work on it, but when we ran the club project there were inevitably gaps to stop up, and you get sucked in. I tucked the boxes in the gap between the bookshelves and the wall and before I'd realised what was happening the pile was 3' high and climbing. Whoops.
     
    The project I was involved with was DCC, so I needed a test track and DCC programming track at home to enable me to do my own installations. I didn't want to be dependant on others to chip locos , especially if that was going to mean paying for a topline decoder every time (My normal fleet decoder is a TCS T1 , which at one point was available for £11.50 sans plug. Prices have climbed a bit since then, I'm afraid) . It occured to me that if I had a layout at home on which I could run this stock , it would give me an incentive to do something with it, and would at least ensure that it all ran properly. And if I could also use the various bits of stock that I had for what was supposed to be my real modelling interest (1980s ER secondary) that would be even better. There were enough gaps to require a bit of retail therapy, plus some kit building, which was better still... If the club project ever fell through or my stock wasn't actually required on it I'd have a Plan B (If this seems a bit dour, somewhere at the bottom of that pile is an elderly Hornby 155 in Provincial, bought to be converted into 153s in support of a previous proposed club project. That dropped through without anything actually being built, and I don't think the 155 has ever run. I suppose one day I'll tweak the wheels, stick in a Macoder which lurks at the bottom of the decoder bag - it's all it deserves - and there'll be another early period DMU. Yes , I know they were all allocated to Canton. It's running trials after visiting Derby for overhaul. It's nil cost - and quite as far down my list of jobs as it is down the pile of stock...)
     
    As it happens, I've ended up there by a different route . However, although I'm now out of the club layout game, with a couple of exceptions, all my stock fits Blacklade very nicely.... Blacklade gets erected in the sitting room when I need to program a decoder, and I even managed one short running session about 2 months ago
     
    I need to motorise the last three points, finish off the wiring, and build the station structure (largely surrounding walls) . I also need to sort out the one major problem to date - the Marcway points are very stiff and the wire supplied with the Tortoises is too flexible, resulting in points not throwing completely. I bought some suitable steel wire for replacements at Warley just over a year ago, but haven't got round to fitting them. If - a very big if - I can get this all done by the middle of the year , there are two modest group events I might just take Blacklade to . Although I originally intended that it wouldn't be exhibited - which is why the boards are 4'3" long - I now have a car, and a bit of measuring suggests I might just get them in with the back seats folded down, and without having to fold back the passenger seat - so a second operator could travel in the car. We shall see.
     
    This is very much my main layout now, and while I'm not really sure if I would want to be on the circuit, I would at least like to finish it and if possible take it out in public a couple of times, just to show that I can actually build something that looks ok and runs ok. At which stage, point made, I might bow and retire
     
    Then there's the Boxfile, which I've referred to from time to time as my shunting plank. It does have a proper name and it's actually two boxfiles, linked, but it's the Boxfile . It was built for the DOGA competition some years ago, and represents a smoky hole in East London which handles a few wagons: the track plan is a loop and two sidings(sort of) and it functions as a shunting puzzle, with a loco and 7 wagons. Period is post war - ranging from the early 50s when the Y3 is running/slipping to the mid 60s, and if I manage to build the Y5 in the cupboard it may even run as early as 1948
     

     
    One of the attractions of the exercise was that it allowed me to build all those interesting wagon kits which are strictly out of period for 1980s Lincolnshire - but which had somehow found their way into my cupboard nonetheless. Suddenly I was free to go out and buy all those kits I really fancied but which were normally strictly off-limits for me; not surprisingly I've ended up with way more wagons than are needed to operate the boxfile. About 4 times as many, to be precise - I'm now slowly reaching the latter part of Tranche 4 - and four times as many locos as well (05, Hunslet tram, Y3 and Knightwing shunter to be precise). I've got a part built Branchlines chassis for an 04 sitting on the bookcase, and a second hand Stephen Poole kit for one of these lurks in the cupboard
     
    :
     
    I believe North Woolwich museum has closed: does anyone know where the Y5 is and whether it's in good keeping?
     
    Quite a few of these wagons have passed through my workbench thread ORBC- the Boxfile is where my steam-age wagons end up. It may seem excessive producing decent kitbuilt wagons just for a boxfile, but turn it the other way round - the Boxfile does at least give me something to run my wagons on. I
     
    've also salvaged and recycled a few of my early teenage efforts, and got decent wagons for the 'file out of them.
     

     
    I originally posted these shots at the start of the very first incarnation of ORBC on RMWeb. The Conflat is "scratchbuilt" to match the Bachmann container (the old Red Panda clasp braked chassis kit, with a spare Parkside floor and side/chain pockets added in styrene) and the Mogo was stripped down , patched up and reworked from a teenage effort
     
    The finished wagon is seen here alone with a Ratio Mink built at much the same age, and also recycled and refurbished:
     

     
    This was one of the reasons behind the whole exercise - get things out of the cupboard, get them sorted out , and get them into use so I have something to show for myself. Both wagons have seen a bit of service since they were done and I'm quite pleased with them
     
    I'd hoped that the boxfile would give me a layout I could run quickly easily, and potentially a lot at home, and it was designed to be set up and run on the dining table. But the sheer pressure of other commitments and stuff needing to be built has meant that this has only happened occasionally. Now I have a bit of time again, I hope that will change. But at least this is one layout I finished (which is more than can be said for the COV B kit, which is supposed to run on it..)
     
    Then there's the little layout which a small informal group I'm involved with are nominally building. We meet up every 6 weeks or so, and it was suggested that we build a small layout as a focus for our activities. So far two baseboards have been built (not by me) and a third is required, for the fiddle yard. That's as far as matters have got.
     
    The other members of the group are a bit older than me, so this layout was only ever going to be steam or steam/diesel. Since anumber of group members would be running stock they've had for some years, it will be DC - in any case there's very little advantage to DCC on a small steam layout of this kind. Track will be Peco code 75, and the track plan is an Iain Rice design , Broadwell Green, which appeared in the fifth issue of the late lamented MORILL. Although based on Fairford, we decided to do it as a minor Great Eastern branch line terminus. My wagons off the boxfile would be ideal, and so would be the Dublo 20 I detailed up a couple of years ago. I've got a second hand whitemetal N5 in a box somewhere... I can't quite recall whether the headshunt was long enough to take an ROD on the pickup goods or not. I remember a B12 would go , but a Sandringham definitely wouldn't. A Hornby L1 would certainly be easier than a kit built Gobbler
     
    My potential contribution includes a couple of Ratio ex LNWR coach kits, as handed down via the M&GN, one of which has got as far as a preliminary undercoat of brown on the sides before construction starts, and a GE station - one of StreetLevel Models' kits sits in the pile. But I'm not the prime mover on this one, and, until it starts to develop, this one is on the backburner as far as my own modelling is concerned.
     
    Then there's my light rail project, Tramlink. I had seen the Alphagraphix kits for light rail, and a book on Croydon Tramlink, then newly opened . I thought a model light rail unit could be made via that route, at modest cost - at that time Mark Hughes was offering a whitemetal kit which would cost at least £100 all up when motorised, and I reckoned that this way I could do it for about £35, with flushglazing and livery ready applied. There's no point building models if you've nowhere to run them, and I rapidly decided a little diorama layout based on scenes from Croydon Tramlink could be done. The unique selling point was that it would be entirely card, even the stock
     

     
    I was younger then, and innocent, and my life was a great deal less encumbered. I was also a great deal less experienced , and several errors were made. The layout was making good progress until I found my second LRV , a Croydon unit , wouldn't take any kiind of curve , and the first (Metrolink) didn't like a reverse curve through a Setrack point in one direction, so it derailed every time it reversed out of the cripple siding. And at that point I was shanghai'd into the club project and the whole thing came to a grinding halt. It got a little further than the photos show, but not that much
     

     
    Tramlink sits, boxed up , in the study, under a pile of magazines, and gets dragged out occasionally when I need a DC test track. A wire's broken underneath so only one board is currently live. And I look at the buildings and think they scrubbed up well (and that the photostat mockup of the warehouse needs to be replaced with the actual kit), and then it goes back in its box again. Two boards , 3' long by 11" wide with integral plywood backscenes, opposable and forming a case , small enough to take on public transport and get through the automatic ticket gates
     
    Then we come to the shadowy realm inhabited by the Ghosts of Layouts Past and Yet To Come (complete with Prieser figure of Bob Cratchitt carrying a 30lb goose)
     
    The first spirits to visit us are those of Ravenser Mk1 and Mk2. Ravenser was a minimum space (in theory) freight only layout set at an imaginary small port in N. Lincolnshire. Think Boston Dock (or Gunness) transported to the banks of the Humber and the top end of the N.Lincs Light Railway from Scunthorpe and you have the scenario. It used a plan published in the June 1988 RM , entitled White Swan Yard, which incorporated a fierce curve, but I enlarged the board a bit and added a fiddle yard.
     
    I made lots of mistakes with this layout. The curve proved unworkably sharp - derailments due to coupling issues were frequent. An elderly Wrenn 20 and Lima 08 proved hopeless for reliable running. Initially I thought only a low standard would be practical on such a portable layout, a decision I rapidly regretted, and could not wholly reverse.Setrack points were another very bad decision: I learned a lot about wheel and track standards as a result. A Lima 20 upgraded with Ultrascales and all wheel pickup could not be got to stay on the track round the loop: I never had the heart to tackle the body as a result. Ravenser Mk1 resulted in my first serious successful attempts at kit built and upgraded RTR wagons, through the fleet was ultimately limited because I ran out of space in the stock box (a converted cassette case)
     
    Ravenser Mk2 was to be built around two walls of the study in my new flat. A design was prepared , this time incorporating a small passenger station. I was going to have 20s, 31s, 114s , maybe a 105. It was never started, because I got involved in a club project. However Ravenser the layout has its place in this story because the stock is slowly being recycled into other projects. The 20s, 31s, and DMU kits can be used by Blacklade running early period. The 03 could be reused for the oil tank on Blacklade, as ultimately could the Bachmann 08. The Knightwing shunter is an interloper on the boxfile, and some of the wagons have gone the same way. Most of the Crane Train I was buil;ding is being recycled for the early period CE train on Blacklade. I still have the buildings , including a scratchbuilt 18th century warehouse from Louth and a freelance 1950s office block. And the baseboard, after cluttering the study for many years, went to the tip a fortnight ago.
     
    Then , older and fainter, come the spirits of the trams - the other Blacklade Artamon Square, and the possible London tram layout.
     
    Long, long, ago, in a far-away galaxy, sorry continent, a teenage boy built a OO tramway in his bedroom. I would very much have liked it to be a model based on the Sydney tramways, but kits were not readily available. I only ever saw such things once - someone was selling home made kits done with glassfibre resin (like wot you use to make surfboards) at Sydney exhibition one year . He had some of them on his layout, built up and they looked good. I only had enough money on me to buy one kit, and no motorising units - so I passed . I'm still kicking myself.Scratchbuilding wasn't an option for me then - Sydney was into crossbench cars big time (and a K-class is still fairly high up my list of Things I Don't Want to Scratchbuild). Anyone got a kit for a Sydney corridor car?
     
    What was available was a Mehano US outline model which I bashed into a British single decker, vaguely resembling the LCC's single decker cars for the Kingsway Subway (guess whose references comprised a couple of magazine articles, a booklet on the Kingsway Subway, and NSW Tramcar Handbook Parts1+2). There were also BEC whitemetal kits available, and I built two - an LCC B , and a balcony car. Both were modified to fully enclosed with 20 thou plasticard and painted for the fictitious Blacklade Corporation Tramways in a simplified version of Sydney's new Mercedes Benz bus livery which I rather liked. One of the minor mysteries of transport history is why Regional Railways then adopted a Sydney bus livery...
     
    I've got two photos of how Artamon Square looked when I dismantled it - annoyingly the scanner refuses to scan them, so you'll have to make do with a blurred shot at a very early stage of proceedings:
     

     
    This does at least show - very badly - the Mehano car, the BEC LCC car (almost certainly still under construction) and the general arrangement. More buildings - the Builder Plus terraces and detached Victorian houses- and some scratchbuilt buildings as well - followed. Builder Plus even did - briefly - a big shop based on Hamleys. I had that, and cut it down to fit the tapering site. This was the first Blacklade Artamon Square..... I reckon the railway station I'm now building must sit in the cut-out.
     
    The stock and buildings came back with us when we returned from Australia and have been sitting in boxes ever since. I collected the remaining buildings from Mum's loft at Christmas and brought them home - most of the Superquick and some of the BuilderPlus were too far gone to keep, but the terraces, Hamley's and the scratchbuild stuff is ok. The trams are stored in the cupboard, though my efforts with the 20 thou had shed too many window pillars and had to be removed. Thorough refurbishment will be needed.
     
    Track was OO , of course , and the back story said this was a 4' gauge system, like Derby and Bradford. Nice little get out clause
     
    Over the years since I've picked up 2 of the Keilcraft Birmingham kits (one for 50p of the DEMU second hand stall) and one of their West Ham kit , a Tower Models Feltham and E/1 (all plastic) another LCC B (ABS/BEC) an LCC stores van (ABS/BEC) and an LCC single deck subway car.
     
    You can see where this is going... I keep picking subjects with overhead, and keep not building the said overhead. The LCC was a conduit system - so no wires. I've got plenty of reference material. I'd definitely want North London not South London , but all the North London routes bar those through the Subway went by 1940. I want a Subway route. I want something more than a straight length of track (Blacklade had a dogbone loop double track route, with a single track branch, and a depot) Highgate Archway in the mid 30s has distinct possibilities....
     
    I'm definitely not committed to this of course. Or do I build the Keilcraft Birmingham cars and revive Blacklade? If I see a cheap Corgi Feltham around I really should grab it. The Festival of Tramway Modelling is back at Kew Bridge this year.... Maybe if I have time on my hands I build the Keilkraft kit for this:
     

     
    Last and faintest ghosts are the other scales. Someone gave me a low emission Dapol 66. I've subsequently acquired another one, a Farish 57, and 04, some modern wagons - the large ones that are such a problem to fit onto a layout in 4mm. Maybe I should build a freight distribution park they can run to?
     
    Then there's the large padded envelope of wagon kits left from my flirtation with 3mm, not to mention the small collection of Traing TT, the Brush 2 and the unfitted new armature, the BEC/2SMR J11kit. I was thinking of an urban goods station, but maybe the boxfile's got that out of my system. Then after I'd built two wagon kits and bought some 12mm Peco points I got heavily involved with a society and the whole thing wasdropped...
     
    Not to mention the HO - a NSWGR 422 class and two NSW coaches in Tuscan. But Currawong Heights, a small terminus in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, is scarcely even a ghost
     
    Projects, projects, projects. All too remininscent of the story of the donkey surrounded by bales of straw, which died of starvation because it couldn't decide which bale to eat first....
     
    No. Blacklade , the railway, comes first. Followed by tidying up stock and bits for the boxfile. Everything else can wait - and some of it, I suspect, will be waiting avery long time
  7. Ravenser

    Motley Assortment

    By Ravenser,

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

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

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

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

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

     
    Much of the effort has gone into an attempt to represent an unfitted wagon showing the remains of late 1930s LMS bauxite, which is a bit more washed out than the photo shows - again the greater contrast under flash is a factor . I've either missed the base of the hook , or the thing's come out and been glued back in...
  8. Ravenser
    It's a sign of something - not a good something - that I find myself doing my New Year stock take /resolutions in the middle of January
     
    Twelve months ago I set myself a fairly ambitious programme of catch up and finish. This was tempting fate, I suppose, and Fate duly obliged, wielding a large blunt instrument. At the end of that January, my then employer embarked on a third major round of redundancies . The redundancy process and jobhunting took up most of my time and energy in the first half of the year, and railway modelling didn't happen. Nor did a lot of other things. I then decided, as a preliminary, to try to get on top of the piles of debris and the backlogs which had built up on various fronts. Since I had been seriously overcommitted anyway for several years this has taken a lot longer than I'd hoped, and I haven't been around here very much in recent months.
    Come to that, I've been to my club twice in the last 6 months
     
    It's still not done. A trip to IKEA after Christmas produced a small bookcase, what is billed as a DVD tower but which can also serve as a narrow bookcase (good for society magazines, Oakwood branch line monographs and old combined volumes) and two magazine boxes - that wasn't sufficient to clear up the piles of books and it will be back to IKEA for another DVD tower and a lower DVD case (for use as a book shelf) to finish the job. The clear up went as far as removing the long defunct board from Ravenser Mk1 which has been cluttering up the study for an appalling numvber of years. I still have a few shelves with books jammed sideways in the top for want of space but I can see and find things and the study looks like a habitable room not the scene of an explosion. A trip to my Mum's at Christmas removed the last salvagable bits of my teenage efforts at buildings from the Blacklade Corporation Tramways, and the BRMs have disappeared into a box.
     
    So what's been cleared and what's to be done for the new year?
     
    Wagons:
     
    There's little or nothing outstanding on the air-braked front. As I said last year, I don't really have much use for airbraked wagons these days . I duly bought a Dapol KQA to support the cause and handle the couple of 40'HCs I'd acquired. Although the container train has no immediate use at present, it's one thing I'm definitely keeping regardless, and (in a very desultry, unurgent way) I may quite possibly acquire a Realtrack FLA set at some point to complete a train from my own resources. Otherwise this front's been closed down for the foreseeable future
     
    I made further progress with the steam era wagons in the autumn - I really must post the results and fit them with Sprat and Winkles. This leaves those stubborn perennials the ex WD road van and the DOGA COV B on the bookcase. The road van will have to wait till the spring because resin has to be worked outside on safety grounds- for that reason I never seem to get on with the kit , and the awkwardness of using this material puts me off exploring it further. A Cambrian Dogfish and Shark for early period Engineers trains might be on the cards, and perhaps one or two more wagons to round off the collection for the boxfile. I need to fit Kadees or Sprat and Winkles to a few more of my older models to get them back in service. And that, essentially is all that needs doing on the wagon front
     
    So this year really needs to be the one where I finally move on beyond wagons into achieving things in other areas . Starting with -
     
    Coaches:
    The Ratio Van B needs finishing , top priority . The sticking point was that the roof needs shortening at both ends. And 2 of the brake blocks have disappeared along the way. An upgraded Lima CCT might be a sensible follow up. Then there's the question of sorting out some loco-hauled coaches from Blacklade as a DMU replacement/steam special set. This is not urgent , and given the complications of fitting Kadees to Bachmann Mk1s, and the fact that DMUs are much more important, it may quite possibly not happen this year
     
    The Ratio ex LNWR BCK got as far as one teak undercoat on the sides and stalled. Unless the group BLT shows signs of progress , there seems no point diverting my efforts in this direction.
     
    I shall probably get rid of the rake of Mk3s I acquired: I can't see I'll ever have the space or need for an HST, and it would reduce the clutter in the study
     
    DMUs:
    Now we get serious. Immediately behind the Van B comes finishing the Provincial Pacer I started and which I haven't touched in over a year. This one's needed for the layout, so must take priority. Behind this comes finishing the Bratchill 150/2. Now I have laser cut windows, the last major stumbling block to further progress is removed. A "quick and dirty" rewheel of the Skipper + DCC installation + Kadees may not be not far behind
     
    About the one thing I did get done on this front last year was to buy a Provincial 150/2 from Trains 4U. Retail therapy is quick and easy..... I fitted a Bachmann ESU decoder , and added Pete Harvey's sillhoutte seat etches which look a treat. Unfortunately the Bachmann decoder doesn't seem to support consisting - awkward when the whole point of the 150/2 is to work in multiple with a 153 joining and splitting. So I've got to take it out , replace with the rather pricy TCS 21 pin decoder I bought at Warley, and weather the underframe. The recovered Bachmann decoder can go in the ROD. As I don't propose modelling Worsborough bank before electrification I can't see I'll ever need to consist my O4
     
    Other modest jobs in this area include populating and weathering the 108, and sorting out the 101 - the replacement underframe mouldings are to hand.
     
    And if I've got time on my hands, a DC Kits Cravens needs building
     
    On the RTR front, a Wagon und Maschinbau railbus would be ideal for the group BLT , and a Realtrack 144 in the earlier W.Yorks red and white would be ideal for me. However as that livery won't appear before 2012 , it can be parked until then. As can the railbus unless a) the BLT makes progress and B) no-one else in the group gets one
     
    Plenty to keep me busy on this front
     
    Locos:

    The one bit of "progress" on thisfront is that I bought a discounted 63601 at Warley. A Frodingham O4 withdrawn in 1966 is as good as I'll get. Its a bit over the top for the group BLT , and if that doesn't make progress it's way over the top for Blacklade , but it's a very fine loco and I've redeemed my pledge on the LNER Consensus thread. I now have 2 kettles in need of chipping. And if I succumb to a discounted L1 (Hornby have done one from one of the local sheds.. perfect for the BLT and suitably compact for a steam special - yes I klnow none are preserved but Blacklade doesn't exist either - we're talking alternative realities) that'll be 3...
     
    The Baby Deltic kit has gone to a good home - someone brave enough to build one
     
    The 57 seems best candidate for aType 5 to trip one TTA, so that ought to be a priority for weathering, followed by repairs to the hapless 60
     
    Beyond that, DCCing and upgrading the old 03, and trying to finish the Drewry 04 for the boxfile are the obvious targets, followed by a detailed bodyshell for the Airfix 31 if I get ambitious
     
    That should keep me busy
     
    Layouts require aseperate posting
  9. Ravenser

    Filed under box van

    By Ravenser,

    I've been building stock boxes : one last weekend and one this. And here are the results:

    which is the air braked box and

    the steam age stock for the shunting plank.
     
    There is absolutely nothing original about this - the idea was taken from Chris Ellis' book "Next Steps in Railway Modelling" , published a couple of years ago, in which it is credited to Stuart Robinson. The construction should be obvious from the photos - take one box file (price 3 quid) , rip out the spring clip and insert dividers using corregated cardboard from a dismembered box and parcel tape. The result is remarkably effective - because the compartments are close fitting and sometimes even a shade tight, the stock doesn't move around and doesn't get damaged. And because of the honeycomb effect , the partitions are strongly reinforced by other partitions and end up pretty rigid
     
    It also saves a lot of space. 2 box files for the shunting plank contain a total of 35 wagons and 4 locos. I reckon you save about two-thirds of the volume storing stock this way compared with leaving wagos in the manufacturer's boxes. Not to mention that the vast majority of my wagons for the plank are kits so there wasn't a box to start with. It's also much quicker and easier to find things in these boxes - just lift the lid and it's all there. As opposed to using the long cardboard loco boxes they sell for a couple of quid, where you have to hunt from box to box and unwrap everything to find the wagon you want.
     
    This was brought painfully home to me when turning out the collection of long boxes that was housing a lot of this stuff before. I found a Conflat or two I'd forgotten about and never run- not to mention a Red Panda Lowfit I'd forgotten I'd ever owned - built for Ravenser Mk1 and rarely if ever used, not least because it was stored somewhere else and forgotten about. Once fitted with S+W couplings it can go into use on the shunting plank.
     
    As well as helping to clear up some of the debris around the place and bring a bit of order and accessibility to my fleet, this exercise has helped to define my wagon building activities for the medium term. As you can see, there are a number of vacant slots. These will take the wagons I'm currently working on, plus the ex WD road van and the etched COV B which have both been sitting on the bookcase for an embarassingly long time. There are slots for a couple more wagons to be recycled out of the fleet from Ravenser and fitted with S+W couplings for the plank. And that leaves just 2 slots for further steam-age wagons.... Plans for Tranche 4 of stock for the shunting plank have therefore been abruptly curtailed, especially as once I'd turned all the "overspill" stock out of it's boxes it was clear I was already almost there anyway. So this just leaves space for a rebuild of a Hornby refridgerator van and an elderly Ratio coke wagon kit I picked up unbuilt at the club, and tranche 4 is done.
     
    On the airbraked side, there's no real need for most of the revenue vehicles now I'm less actively involved at the club. With a little bit of work with a knife, and some more parcel tape I relocated a partition in one of the stockboxes I built about 2 years ago - a further advantage of thistype of construction is that, if push comes to shove , you can modify the size of the compartments. This now provides a home for the Walrus which has acquired its Kadees (no 49 long overset , if you're interested) and in a burst of enthusiasm I coverted two more wagons to Kadees while I was about it. With some wagons transferred from the old box to the new, there are now slots for a Dogfish and a second Shark from the bag of Cambrian kits I was given earlier this year (The idea here is to have an engineers's train for both early and late periods - in the early period it runs with Walrus , Dogfish, grampus and Zander , using an ex GW Toad and a Shark - in the later period it has Seacows, Rudd, PNA, and a pair of Sharks. Hence I could use a Shark in olive green, which could run in either train) I could also probably squeeze in a Starfish with a bit of ingenuity (another kit from the cupboard) . On the other hand there's no slot for a scratchbuilt PNA . And the fact that there's a convenient slot for an old Lima CCT as well as for my PMV means that sorting it out has risen up the To Do list..
     
     
    Suddenly the way ahead on the wagon front is much more sharply defined. If it's in the boxes, it will probably get run....
     
     
  10. Ravenser

    Paint Your Wagon

    By Ravenser,

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

    News and Parcels

    By Ravenser,


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

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


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

    Back in Business

    By Ravenser,

    I've had a fairly strenuous 6 months, involving being made redundant at the end of May . Thankfully I found a new job and started work again just three weeks later, but as all my time outside work was taken up with pursuing avenues for future employment no modelling got done at all. In fact very little else got done at all , with the result that I've spent the last 6 weeks in catchup and clear-up mode, and only now am I getting to the point where I really ought to start doing some modelling again.
     
    However my personal circumstances have changed , and that has a bearing on my modelling. Fortunately I've had only a small drop in income once travelling costs and other factors are netted out, and as I had over 10 years service with my previous employer the payout reached 5 figures, so overall the financial impact is negligable. I've been very much more fortunate than a lot of other people in my position, and I know it.
     
    The big changes are not financial. In the previous job I was commuting by train for about 2 hours a day, leaving home at about 7:20 to get home 12 hours or more later. Now I'm working locally, and driving to work in about 35 minutes. That's meant I've got an hour and three-quarter a day of my life back. It also means I've had to get a small car, after a good many years of not driving. And since my club is near to where I worked and I've surrendered my season ticket, I'm not likely to be going very often in future
     
    There's no doubt that up until late last year I was heavily overcommitted. I was heavily involved with a club project and with other club commitments that meant two nights a week at the club. I'm also actively involved with a society and that took up further time. Add in long working hours, a few shows a bit of time on here, and the rest of my life and interests and everything seemed perpetually to be crowding out everything else.
     
    All this has now been drastically simplified. I can't be involved in club exhibition layouts (except perhaps as an occasional operator or builder of stuff off-site). I suppose now I have a car I could join one of the clubs "near" where I live - but all are about 10 miles or more away. This, obviously, frees up a lot of time and eliminates a lot of commitments
     
    The flip side of this is I may now be in a position to take a layout of my own to a show, though I haven't even checked whether Blacklade would fit with the back seats folded down. And to be quite honest, my feelings about exhibiting are ambivalent. Getting to some shows and events would be possible in a way it wasn't before (bringing the car down from Lincolnshire I broke the journey by calling in on the Nene Valley Railway - somewhere I hadn't visited for a couple of decades). In the past there was no hope I could get to a members' day at Butterley or Chasewater - now it might be an option
     
    I also lose easy and instant access to the big smoke and won't be travelling by train on a regular basis (something I've been doing for best part of two decades). On the other hand I still live next to the railway and my new office is in a former station building. There's a model shop in the high street of the town where I now work - it doesn't sell model railways, but it does sell brass section, styrene sheet, paints and tools . Having lost our local model shop about 4 years ago , this is a useful plus. I should also be able to reach two other model shops within 15 miles drive if I need to
     
    At which point we can cut to the chase. How does all this affect the "catch-up and clear the cupboard" programme I ambitiously committed to in a posting at the start of the year - just a couple of weeks before I got poleaxed by fate?
     
    Actually , almost nothing changes - other than the fact that half a year has gone up in smoke with zero modelling. Pretty well everything on that list was for either the shunting plank or for Blacklade. The few bits that were'nt were for the potential group GE BLT . If I can actually focus on those things without distractions, and with more time at my disposal, I might start to get somewhere
     
    The obvious place to start now is the same as it was then... Finish the Southern bogie van so I have a suitable length parcels rake. Build the Cambrian open kit and fix up the wagon I bought at St Albans for the plank. Sort out the Pacer
     
    Not to mention chip and weather the Provincial 150/1 and the Central 158 . Someone remind me which member does the etched seat outlines for the 150/1 and where I get them? I only want to take the body off once, to fit decoder and seat sillhouettes in one operation
     
    Thankfully change of circumstances has limited effect on my collection of stock and plans . In future I won't have much access to a large continuous circuit . The full set of HST coaches I'd assembled is almost certainly redundant and I may decide to dispose of it at some point (fortunately I never got any power cars). The half a container train is a slightly different matter. I only bought the FEAs to support the cause , the locos can be re-used in a very limited way on Blacklade to haul an oil tank, and the eight or ten boxes are not a problem (I'd have wanted some of them anyway for personal reasons). I'll probably get a Dapol pocket wagon anyway- I've a high cube to accomodate
     
    The Voyager can be stored - those things are short enough that at some time in the future I'll probably build a layout which can accomodate it.
     
    Otherwise I'm more or less fine. The cheap black kettle I bought at Warley can probably just about be used for a steam special, and would not look out of place on the GE BLT. I will still , almost certainly , get an O4 to support the cause- it's just I want to wait to see if the NRM version gets discounted (she was a Frodingham loco until 1966). It would be a bit over the top on a GE branch freight, but not entirely impossible. I may even get an L1 if any end up cheap at the boxshifters - not only would it be suitable for the possible GE BLT, it would be more sensible as motive power for a steam special on Blacklade than the other two
     
    [ I know none are preserved. Blacklade doesn't exist either... And I did say , if I see one going cheap at a boxshifter]
     
    The only other change is that the forthcoming RTR class 144 would be very suitable for Blacklade and a lot easier than fixing Hornby 142s. I think I shall probably end up getting one.
     
    Everything changes , but things remain the same
     
    Now all I have to go is make a start
  13. Ravenser

    Marking Time

    By Ravenser,

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

     
    Remember that the shunting micro is Transitional . Airfix kit - modified without top flaps to represent a rebodied wagon. So it's out of period and can't be made in period - these rebodyings started around 1970. It would have had to have the couplers replaced with S+W at some time anyway , so no loss . I think I was probably quite pleased when I originally did this one , and I've added brake cross rods with brass handrail wire and reweathered the brake blocks
     
    This means I still need to build the secondhand Ratio coke wagon kit, despite having also found this :
     

     
    This is the old Hornby steel mineral - Norstand, Cory, S+C and various other versions down the years - cleaned up. It seems to be based on the GW's "Felix Pole " 20T steel minerals of the 1920s, and the best and closest fit seems to be dia N32, of which about 1000 were built for hire to various private owners as part of the GW's encouragement to private owners to modernise their antiquated mineral wagon fleets. Cory and S&C may be authentic liveries for these (both were major coal traders /coastal shipowners with S.Wales connections) , though I wouldn't bet my life on it and recent debate in MRJ implies that green was not the usual base colour for Stephenson & Clarke. Needless to say MRJ were not discussing anything so humble as a Hornby wagon...
     
    This model has now been displaced in the main Hornby range by the rather better ex Airfix moulding: the Hornby effort is a bit chunky around the top edge. It reappears in the Railroad range , but I am confident none of them ever reached EWS..... The chassis was removed and chucked away, a Parkside 12' wb Morton chassis built onto the bottom , and the whole thing repainted and weathered. A photo in Iain Rice's Irwell book Detailing & Improving RTR Wagons (p10) shows what appears to be one of the breed uprated to 21T (no doubt the standard wartime uprating) and numbered in the PO series as P7826 . This would make some sense with the N32s as they were on hire purchase arrangements with the users, and of course P-series renumbering was completely random , so any P-series number would be plausible on a model. The wagon in the photo is branded under the diagonal stripe "To work within S.Wales and Monmouthshire only"
     
    These wagons are common enough - every second hand table seems to have a few - and if you've got one at home, this is a way of turning it into a credible wagon at low cost. I'm afraid the economics don't quite work if you buy a second hand example - market price for second hand RTR wagons like this seems to be about GBP3 , and by the time you've added the Parkside underframe , wheels and any paint or transfers you need, it's going to be over a fiver. But if you already have one, ex trainset, you can make a proper wagon of it for about GBP2
     
    The tension locks will be ripped off asap, and I need to replace the missing door spring . Given that Ravenser Mk1 was set 1983-4, this wagon didn't really fit it , but as the shunting micro is 50s/60s, depending on the stock used, it is now just as much in period as the MCV is out of it
     
    Couplings have gone on the MCV (obviously) and the remaining vans but not yet on the 21T. I'd like to say that yours truly and S+W couplings were a marriage made in heaven , but I'd be lying . To be quite honest, making and fitting them is a protracted awkward job , and one that I rather dread. If I'm lucky, and determined, I can manage as many as 3 wagons in a whole evening , and this slow messy process rather puts me off.
     
    Sparky has recently posted some shots of the bits and process on his blog here .What follows is my moan after the last bout of S+W fitting reminded me that this is not my favourite modelling job
     
    First fold up your loop, from a coil of brass wire so it isn't straight... If I follow the instructions that come with it (which quote 17mm on each side) , I end up with loops that are far too long and stick well beyond the buffers . Even 15mm seems a bit too long when you try it in place against the wagon . So having soldered the wire in place , you have to unsolder , and then as fast as you resolder one side the other side melts and waves in the air (remember the wire was curved to start with) . So you resolder that , and guess what...
     
    Sparky's tip of using a Bill Bedford handrail bending jig hadn't occured to me and I must try it - it should make things easier, straighter and more reliable
     
    Then you twist up the etches for the coupling hook and counter weight paddle - not a problem - and go quietly mad chasing tiny wire loops with tweezers to form the 3 links of chain. They won't stay together and fall out of the gap in the loop, you drop one on the floor, another one flies out of the tweezers, you try adding them to the coupling hook and the gap opens up and the other two links fall out and you hunt them round the carpet....
     
    Then there's the hasp... Like most folk , I avoid the suggestion of making one from soft wire and us a staple, melted in to the mounting block from above. But straightening one leg of a staple and rebending it to the right width and them leaning on the thing with force and a 25W Antex until it finally starts to sink (but don't push too far else you'll pin the coupling hook etch so tight it can't move) . Then repeat...
     
    I have a little difficulty getting the wire loop to the right, matching height . To deal with this , I've built a gauge or jig from scraps - which is what the wagons in two of the photos are sitting on. The block gives a height for the wire loop, and a basis on which to bend it down - the slot takes the coupling hook and limits the angle at which it is set, to a more or less consistant value. I found you couldn't possibly do either of these by having a "reference wagon".
     
    When a wagon has clasp brakes, the outer brake shoes invariably foul the mounting plate . So out with the tinsnips and chop away the corners of the plate - then flatten them back.
     
    It's all a slow painful process.
     
    How do S+Ws work in practice? Well - one of the purposes of the shunting micro was to test them out. And results have been a little mixed. Coupling is normally reliable - there's one place , crossing a rather rough board joint, where some wagons insist on uncoupling . This almost certainly requires me patiently to track down and tweak each of the couplings that gives a problem. It only happens when the loco is pulling a single wagon : perhaps the drag of a trailing load keeps the couplings in tension (though that would imply the couplings might part at the rear wagon - and they don't. However locos are not fitted with hooks- just bars). It is going to be a long and patient process to find and adjust all the rogue couplings, and to be honest the micro hasn't been run as often as it might, which doesn't help.
     
    I haven't been very successful with auto-uncoupling let alone delayed action. However the fact I was trying the couplings out on a micro forced to me put the uncoupling magnets in thoroughly unsuitable places - the middle of a crossover made up of small radius Y points for example - so I'm not sure this is really fair comment . Manual uncoupling with a jeweller's screwdriver is easy enough , and I've seen them working fine on other layouts , including one I've operated briefly, so I think the problem is simply that I've pushed the application beyond its reasonable limits
     
    How do they compare with the Kadees I use on Blacklade for locos, airbraked stock and multiple units? Fitting Kadees is certainly a great deal quicker and easier - even excluding the NEM versions which plug in in a matter of seconds. The Kadees are slightly more reliable in coupling, but I can't comment much on uncoupling as my electromagnets are not yet wired - exacept to say that manual uncoupling is much more awkward. Where I've operated another layout using Kadees I've found auto-uncoupling using electromagnets a bit hit and miss , though it appears alignment of the electromagnet is actually quite critical (I'm not sure the ones that went onto Blacklade were spot on). Kadees allow you to lift a wagon straight out of a train. But they are quite expensive - fitting them runs out at about GBP2/vehicle . Ouch! S+W is a cheaper option, though it doesn't work out at pennies either
     
    I now have almost 30 wagons fitted with S+W coulings , so in a sense I'm committed. But would I consider a return to tension-locks? No. Despite the problems I've had- which may well not be the fault of the couplers - Sprat and Winkle couplers do everything tension locks do, and do it more reliably- even at this stage. It might be possible to improve tension lock performance by standardising everything on one specific type of tension lock - but that itself wouldbe significant work. And Sprat and Winkle couplings look a great deal less obtrusive than the old "Volvo bumper bar " of the tensionlock
     
    So we press on.
     
    Meanwhile, the saga of the open wagon to go with them continues. I couldn't find suitable Cambrian kit at St Albans, but I did manage to find a second hand Dapol wagon, which I think is one of these (photo courtesy Paul Barlett's site) LMS open .
     
    It looks as if most of these , at least the late survivors, were retrofitted with Morton vac brakes by BR. Wheelbase is 10' The older wooden chassis opens to dia1666 seem not to have been - very naturally - and it has been suggested most of the latter went in the late 50s/early 60s. Since the balance was shifting rapidly towards vans (BR inherited 2 opens for every van , but built two and a bit vans for every open) , it looks like wagon fleet modernisation took the form of breaking up old wooden chassis opens and replacing them with new fitted vans, while upgrading the more modern opens with vac brakes to boost the fitted proportions of the fleet. Hence I intend adding tiebars, vac cylinder and cross shaft
     
     
    Someone has handlettered one side neatly - my dried up old Modelstrip wouldn't shift any of it , so a coat of bauxite will be applied over the top. If the original owner sees this - sorry, but a weathered bauxite fitted version is what is appropriate for my layout....
     
    The wagon seems to have a further type of coupling , which I take to be the"Lincs" coupling. As this is single ended and I have portable layouts, I won't be adopting it....
     

  15. Ravenser

    Payment on Account

    By Ravenser,

    Just before Christmas , Mallard60022 started a thread on "The first models I am going to build in 2010 are.., which you can find here: 2010 model promises
     
    As I said in there, I seem to have posted rather a lot of implicit promises - or at least pointed memos to self - just below in this blog. And as Mallard60022 has recently posted shots of his efforts to redeem his own pledge, I suppose I ought at least to post an installment payment...
     
    Well, for starters , the Walrus is done. Not painted , but done:
     

     
    Everything in white or metal has been added , and the bogies are replacements - current Cambrian 1piece items which are as easy to work with as the ancient originals were impossible . Quite a bit of work with pieces of microstrip, scraps of plasticard and bits of handrail wire was needed to cobble together an approximation of what was visible at the ends in photos in Cheona and Southern Wagons - it would have looked extremely denuded and empty if I had built what was in the kit and stopped there . I'm not saying it's spot on , or all there , but it's passable. And I'm rather pleased with the result. Not in any sense of cutting edge perfection - if I want to see its weaknesses I need only set it next to a Hornby Seacow and look carefully but in the bleaker more basic spirit of "we got a result" - an ugly draw ground out away from home for essential points . Ravenser, 0 - The kit, 0. I beat the kit , the kit didn't beat me... With all its limits, it will be able to sit next to a Hornby Seacow without too much embarassment - a decent weathered paint job can cover a multitude of sins.
     
    (I should stress this is an old kit - my example may be 30 years old - and has been retooled and replaced by Cambrian. Comments are not indicative of today's Cambrian range - other than the favourable ones about the new bogies,- but they may well be indicative of what you get if you dive into your club's rummage sale)
     
    One minor point - the Walrus has effectively decided that the early period Civil Engineers' stock from the crane train will get Kadees not Sprat and Winkle couplings. I can't get the S+W mounting plate under the platform without fouling the wheels - in fact I couldn't fit a full width mounting block under the platforms without fouling the flanges of the wheels. Thus a narrow mounting only , and therefore Kadees. Which means that a spare 31 or a 20 would be motive power and I can stop worrying about how I fit a decoder to the 29 which was never going to get Kadees - that little problem can be crossed off this year's list
     
    First cab off the rank in terms of projects for 2010 is a Ratio ex SR Van B , and I've made a start:
     

     
    This photo does reveal that I missed the top edge of the droplight , which is showing green , and that there is rather a lot of dust on the centre section - it will be washed off . The doors are not yet attached , which is why one has slipped. The bodysides and doors were sprayed on the sprue with Railmatch aerosol - the first coat was done when I was prespraying the PMV, and I gave it another coat at New Year. Unfortunately, the guard's doors are moulded on the sprue in reverse, so the back got sprayed. I painted the door fronts by hand in Railmatch BR blue - and it's come out gloss. I'm hoping a thin coat of matt vanish will leave it a near match for the sprayed version, and weathering will obscure any remaining differences
     
    I will need to touch round the etched droplights by hand which poses the same issue - again I hope differing materials on the prototype and a little matt varnish will deal with any difference
     
    Progress will now slow, as thanks to a link someone posted I've discovered that Roxey do etches for the bars behind the windows . This is infinitely better than messing around with cotton thread , though a hasty look at the relevant section of Paul Bartlett's wagon site suggests strongly that most Van Bs were grubby enough that you couldn't actually see through the windows. Anyway , an order is in the post to Roxey, and I won't be able to fix the doors in place finally till it comes
     
    I've also spotted in the instructions that the interior was largely a reddish brown - I was thinking of the guards compartments in Mk1s which I think were a greyish white. The photos on Paul Bartlett's site also suggest most of these vans actually retained their footsteps till the end, although a shot in the Cheona book indicates some had them removed in the late 70s (PMV seem generally to have lost them). Since trying to fill the slots in the solebar which take the footsteps would be problematic, this van will have the footsteps
     
    Over New Year I put a first brown undercoat on the sides of the two Ratio LNWR coaches. This doesn't mean that I've actually started them - I sprayed the sides for the Van B months before I started it - but I've come to the conclusion that Precision Umber , though in line with the darkest proposed interpretations of LNER carriage brown , is too dark. I let it down with some Precision Teak , but even that's on the dark side : I reckon I will feel most comfortable with a moderately darkened Teak rather than a lightened Umber
     
    And at St Albans I seem to have broken my resolutions to avoid filling the cupboard back up. Not only did I acquire a second hand Dapol wagon , which I take to be LMS dia 1892 - but repainted into a private owner livery and hand lettered on one side - but I also acquired a prepainted Slater's PO wagon kit from C+L "just in case" (it's much easier weathering an existing PO livery), and a wagon body for a spare underframe I have. Paul Bartlett's site only seems to have photos of these LMS opens which have been retrofitted with vac brakes by BR : I suspect as a steel underframe 10' wb type they may have been extensively targeted for this. So strip the current paintwork, add tie rods, vac cylinder and new fitted buffers and repaint. On top of this I've just ordered two wagon kits from Cambrian...
     
    I've made a little progress with the Pacer , in that I've largely removed the "black box " on the second car , but as this is the same work as I've already done on the first car , there's no point posting any pictures.
     
    And the replacement underframes for the 101 have turned up
     
    Focus.....
  16. Ravenser

    Taking Stock

    By Ravenser,

    It's the time of year for casting an eye over projects unfinished and unstarted, reviewing progress and considering what's been achieved, and making resolutions for the New Year.
     
    We could start with the 2009 New Year's Resolution (buried in a transfer off the old site far below):
     
     
    That one I actually kept, more or less. A few bits and pieces were bought - a couple of second had wagon kits, a 153 (but that was a carry over from the 2008 Rolling Stock Programme) , a Central 158 and a cheap black kettle. But I did manage to avoid racing out and buying a lot more unfinished kits. The two Parkside kits acquired are in the thread below , finished. I got round Warley without committing myself to anything significant new...
     
    There is still a large backlog, and some of it has been outstanding a long while. But having wholly or largely shed one or two commitments at the club recently, I have more time and there are signs of progress. So where do I stand?
     
    Wagons
    Air braked stock:
     
    Blacklade was designed as passenger only - apart from a couple of oil tanks (built) and maybe a short Civil Engineer's train it doesn't need wagons. Given the way things are developing with club projects, it's unlikely I will have much requirement for airbraked wagons in the next couple of years, and what I have may be unsuitable anyway . Apart from the PNA (see below) which is not really a priority, I'm not sure there's any point working on more airbraked wagons - I haven't got a use for them. That simplifies things a bit
     
    Steam age stock.
     
    I seem to have launched into a new round of stock for the plank. With 4 vans in the bag , or almost there, this means I need 2 minerals and an open. There's an MCV in the box with the stock off Ravenser Mk1 - a quick change of branding and some Spratt and Winkles and that's one mineral - the second hand kits included an old Ratio coke wagon - that's two. All I need then is an open - there's an ABS LNER 6 plank in the cupboard , and possibly a battered body or two somewhere. I could also very usefully finish off the DOGA LNER COV B which has been lying about part built for an embarrassing length of time, and was supposed to be part of a previous round of stock for the plank
     
    I'd almost forgotten the Walrus and WD brake, both of which need finishing
     
    Coaches
     
    Here it gets a bit more serious. The PMV is built and in traffic. The LMS BG is also finally in traffic. I can run a parcels train on Blacklade . However 50' BG+ 57' GUV + 31 is a bit long for the platform. I can manage, but the train hangs off the end by an inch. And a blue/grey LMS BG with gangways may well not be accurate for 70s/80s parcels - all blue with plated over gangways would probably be better
     
    So the Ratio ex SR BG is right at the top of the list to do. At Warley I got the underframe bits to rework one or more of the old Lima CCTs which were originally acquired a very long time ago for my first teenage modern image layout, so a revamped BR CCT should also be on the agenda this year . I acquired an all blue ex LMS BG secondhand at a show late last year but reworking that is less urgent - maybe 2011?
     
    Then there's steam age stock . The small GE BLT which a little group I'm involved with is nominally supposed to be building hasn't made much progress, so I've done little about stock in that direction. But some old comments I found in Michlner's workbench thread- have sparked a few stirrings. (My minor thread hijack is below all the pictures of fine LNER models...). A hasty check of the boxes has revealed that actually I chucked out the old Ratio clerestory kit as past redemption during a clearout, and I'm increasingly confident that the M&GN would only have had corridor vehicles transferred from the LMS , since Birmingham/Yarmouth on a summer Saturday is a long way for non-corridor coaches. (The kit I kept is a MR suburban, and therefore no use).
     
    For those interested, the Ratio MR clerestories Ratio MR clerestories are those in Historic Carriage Drawings 2 p96-7 ; the 51L clerestory kits, which may well be the corridor vehicles confirmed on the M&GN are covered in the same book p101-3 (and the well known Ratio MR suburbans are covered in the intervening pages). (NB I have no knowledge of the supplier linked to - he's just a convenient source of suitable images)
     
    And the ex LNWR 50' corridors known to have been transferred to the M&GN in the early 30s are these Ratio kits. Once again - I have no knowledge of this retailer, it's simply a source of images. My 2 kits (Brake compo/all third) came from a local model shop's closing down sale . Some survived past 1948 on the GE Section and like other pregrouping coaches maintained by Stratford, would have retained LNER Brown under BR until scrapping (see this rather fine model of a GE brake by Buckjumper). I'm not saying they'll be built instantly, but thanks to the thread discussion, I now have some idea how to do LNER brown, and painting the sides will be the first step.
     
    As for other bits and pieces- the 3 or 4 Bachmann Mk1s and Mk2s bought in the same sale, the Kitmaster Mk1 kit someone gave me, the two Phoenix/BSL kits - not this year. What use have I at the moment for a Gresley buffet??
     
    It's very unlikely I'll have a fresh stab at cleaning up a Hornby Mk2b which I started then dropped in haste when the problems started emerging. There are plenty of more productive uses of time (The coach is off my first modern image layout, again)
     
    Maybe this year will finally get to be "the year of the Coach"
     
    DMUS
    And here it gets very serious indeed. One Pacer is already started, but will be a big job - new chassis, lights, modifications, DCC, Kadees. The second, a chocolate /cream reprobate exiled to the E.Midlands , will be a rewheel/DCC job , and I should have a go at the rewheeling asap as James Makin reports no problems... . That gets 2 unserviceable models into traffic.
     
    Smaller high priority jobs include weather/paint and people the interior of the 108 . (That's a "quick victory" to get another unit for Blacklade completed and looking the part). DCC installation on the Central 158.
     
    And a replacement for the damaged and patched underframe moulding on one car of the 101. A spare has been ordered from E Kent , along with a trailer moulding to allow a power/trailer conversion while retaining easy reversion to a 3 car unit. I'm in several minds where to go with this unit. 3 car is a bit too much and blocks up the fiddle yard. But the unit in question was a Tyseley unit at almost the right period. Did the TS 3 car sets sometimes run without their centre cars? Or should I convert it to a 2 car power/trailer unit - then hope one was allocated in the right area at the right time, and renumber? Leaving a surplus centre car?. Either way, the "black box" underframe needs tackling and if I have to replace the power car moulding anyway, that is the obvious time to do it. This looks like morphing very easily into "upgrade the 101"
     
    I really must build the DC Kits 105 this year - before Bachmann get their's out. It has to be the 105 because the 114 will be in blue/grey - a much more difficult paint job. The original idea was that the 101 could be sorted , slowly, once I had the 105 built to replace it......
     
    And yes - it is high time I finished the Bratchill 150/2. Just to make it more difficult the person who was going to paint it in Regional Railways livery has backed out, and somehow I'll have to do it myself.
     
    What are the automotive spray can equivalents for Regional Railways livery - or at least the Hornby version: 'cos this will probably run with a 153 from time to time.
     
    And I've a Trains4U 150/1 on order which will need the usual weathering etc....
     
    There's a lot of work to be done on this front (We'll ignore the Dapol railbus for the GE BLT..)
     
    Locos:
    None of which are weathered. There's an off chance my 57 might be needed elsewhere so an early weathering is desirable. And it's the smallest of my 3 Type 5s, so the most suitable for fuel tanks on Blacklade
     
    The 60 needs a small bodyshell repair - that's urgent. It and the 66 need weathering - not so urgent.
     
    Now for the more serious stuff. There's an elderly Bachmann 03 off Ravenser Mk1 lurking in a cupboard. I could usefully convert that to DCC - it would be ideal for tripping in a single TTA or shunting a CCT or PMV in the early period. And while I'm about it I should add supplementary pickups as I've done on the Silver Fox 05 (well, large Hunslet) which runs on the plank. And the recent George Dent book on Detailing & Modifying RTR Locos (Diesels) contains some notes about upgrading the handrails, cab interior, and windows....
     
    There is also the case of the Airfix 31. It's running with a decoder but I have a spare body which I'm intending to detail up for it as 31 402 in blue. This may be an early project, and it's just occured to me that with all that fresh air inside if I ever wanted to have a DCC Sound loco , this would be the one to go for. It would give it something over and above the very serviceable Hornby 31 that's its rival (The loco is another vetern off my first modern image layout)
     
    (And while 31 174 is fine, I must check if I really can get the body back on the unhappy and stopped 31 270 - or whether it's a mazak casualty)
     
    Putting a decoder in the 29 was abandoned when it became clear it was one of the earlier Ringfields and not a straightforward hardwired installation. If I have time on my hands , chipping the Bachmann 08 (also ex Ravenser Mk1) would be more productive .
     
    There is also the Dapol/Branchlines 04 Drewery I started building for the plank rather longer ago than is comfortable, and whose part built chassis still adorns the bookcase. I really ought to do something with that, too, this year. It's not made any progress since this:

     
    This is rather a lot of stuff. Visions of stuffing Athearn chassis into a further spare 31 body (whether ochre or not - for the GE BLT) and an old Hornby 37 body, etched loco kits, whitemetal Y5s , Lima 20s etc etc can wait for another year. And speaking of weight, it seems sensible to decide at this point that the wretched A1 Models Baby Deltic kit has a promising future as ballast weights:
     

     
    The Sentinel got built , by the way .
     
    And I will have an ROD . A Frodingham one , if I can afford it...
     
    Then there's
     
    Layouts...
     
    You're probably as sick of me muttering "must build screen walls/motorise remaining points" about Blacklade as I am of saying it. It will get done in the next few months. Promise.
     
    There are a couple of structures I ought to finish for a club project
     
    I'm not even going to think about the half built light rail project , though as it's my occasional DC test track , I must repair the broken wire on the second board....
     
    And if I get even 2/3rds of all that done in 2010 , I'll have had a busy and productive year.
     
    But - and it's a sobering thought - I don't need to buy much for all these projects. It's basically all stuff already bought and projects already committed to. It doesn't even clear the whole backlog.
     
    And the other theme is that a lot of this is about getting stuff from old layouts back into use and circulation. I've quite a lot of stuff that for one reason or another is "stored unserviceable". If I could recycle some more of my yesterdays , I'd have a lot more toys to play with and a lot more to show for myself.
  17. Ravenser

    Fruits of my Labours

    By Ravenser,

    After a rather more protracted effort than it should have been, I've finally finished the vans and here they are:
     

     
    From left to right , ex LNER fruit, BR vent van, and rebuilt BR Shock. And yes , the Fruit and Shock still need couplings.
     
    Unfortunately I've noticed the chassis on the vent van is not 100% square . It seems to run fine, because it's been out on the shunting plank without trouble - it was only some time later that I noticed a fractional rock when stood on a mirror. Since I built it on a flat surface and (as far as I was aware) it was fine then, i don't quite know what has happened . I suspect part of the problem may be the excellent fit of the parts . On the other two vans the wheels are a little loose in their bearings , and there is a bit of slop which will accommodate any slight irregularities. But on this van the whole assembly is tight and the axles have no slop at all.
     
    I'm not sure what , if anything, I can do. The van seems to run fine in practice , and possibly will do, though now I know it's not 100% right I'm uncomfortable and a touch annoyed with myself. The only thing that comes to mind it to attempt to shift the errant bearing slightly with the tip of a hot soldering iron - either down fractionally, or in, which would then make the wheelset a slightly loose fit, and the slop would presumably solve the problem
     
    The box lettering on the Fruit is rather larger than the photograph I have (in Cheona Wagons 2) shows. However an old set of BR transfers (GeeDee?) had a ready made up transfer for the BR built batch of this wagon type and so I used that . The vac cylinder was replaced with an ABS one (I needed extra weight) and the buffers are ABS LNER fitted.
     
    The Shock shows why I thought it worth preserving the body. The brake shoes and cross rods on the new underframe aren't perfect - trying to cut down the Red Panda shoe moulding is not nice and I had to work round the lead weights stuck on underneath. I've added as much more as I can, but it's still only a fraction over 40g and really a bit light
     
    Fruit and BR Vent vans have canvas roofs (one ply of tissue stuck to the roof with solvent - I didn't dare try it on a painted body) and a suitably motley array of rainstrips, based on photos in the Cheona book (micro rod or strip ) . The end cappings were slivers of very thin card or think paper
     
    And yes , I will try to get the couplings on this weekend
  18. Ravenser

    Unfinished Business

    By Ravenser,

    There will no doubt be a proper way to do this, but I can't find a facility that allows me to store snippets of info... I don't know when Andy will be locking down RMWeb3 and whether I will still be able to gain access to old PMs, so to save embarrassment, - dimensions of a batch of PNAs , as kindly supplied by the Fatadder in May (scratchbuilt bodies, for the use of...) . I haven't actually got round to using them, mind, but perhaps this year.(It's the time of year for reviewing outstanding oprojects, progress or lack of it and tasks for the year ahead. This one's on the to do list)
     
    <H3 class=first>Re: On Rich's Workbench - Urchins and Parrs last page</H3>Sent: Tue May 05, 2009 10:00 pm
    From: The Fatadder
    To: Ravenser
     
    PNA details:
    Height - 14
    top rib -2.6
    other ribs - 1.6
    length (excluding end ribs) 105
    width (over top rib) -35.7
    inner width 31.2
     
     
    And I should get a proper blog update on the outstanding steam age vans up in the next day or two. I might even have the couplings on them by then so they can be released to traffic
     
    Addendum - New Year's Day, the year after the end of time...
     
    Just to add some further detail on this one while I'm about it: the Cambrian POA/SSA kits come with a lot of extra bits, including several types of solebar. While the Bachmann PNA covers one type of the wagon, PNAs seem to be a motley bunch, built on a variety of second hand underframes of varying lengths . There is a reasonably extensive section in the recent Burkin/BRM book Modern Wagons in 4mm Scale, which quotes wagons as having lengths of 28' 8" over buffers / 101 mm over headstocks (as Bachmann) , 103.5mm over headstocks , and 106mm over headstocks. The Cambrian solebars are 104mm long , so you get a varient with a very different underframe and length.
     
    Going through the photos turns up several wagons at the 103.5mm length, and CAIB3840 - disc braked , Gloucester suspension units, straight solebars , with 7 ribs spaced very differently to Bachmann and very minimalist underframe equipment - looks the best candidate (p99 bottom). It will certainly be a little different from RTR. One issue may be sourcing suitable transfers for the very weathered Railtrack lettering
     
    I think, as near as I can make out, it's one of these:
     

     
    It ought to be a reasonably straightforward scratchbuild job for the body.
     
    I had understood Cambrian sold their plastic fold up axle units seperately , but can't find them. I may use conventional W-irons as an emergency fudge to attach the moulded plastic suspention units to
     
    (Given how long its taken to find the Burkin book, I badly need a clearup in the study . And yes I am putting everything here so I can actually find it easily...)
  19. Ravenser

    Shock to the system

    By Ravenser,

    The small shunting plank is firmly Transitional. It may use diesels (or an honourary diesel - Y3) but it's the sort of inner city goods depot you really can't justify existing after about 1970. Consequently the modest fleet of stock for it is very traditional indeed: no air brakes here. The ex LMS fish van is meant for it , and various circumstances resulted in me acquiring and building one of the new generation Parkside kits for the BR standard 12T van . Potentially very useful for the plank
     
    In the last couple of years I've been fairly heavily committed on a number of fronts , not least with Blacklade, and not much has happened on the plank side of things . In fact the little depot has hardly been operated - I seem to have been too busy. However with one or two commitments winding down I've a little more time , and one Parkside kit sparked off another and another.
     
    Ravenser Mk1 was a compact shunting micro of an unorthodox design, taken from a plan called "Swan Yard" in RM June 1988 (I think) . For various reasons it didn't work terribly well, but when the trains weren't falling off the tracks the operational interest was high. A fleet of about 20 wagons and half a dozen locos was accumulated over about five or six years. It was set in North Lincolnshire, and, largely by accident, in 1983 - I had some 16T MCOs and then discovered unfitted operations ended in December 1983. The Speedlink airbraked stock was RTR but the traditional stock was virtually all kit built . This was my first serious venture into building wagon kits, and nearly all of them worked . It was also my first attempt at proper weathered stock.
     
    When I moved into my present flat about 7 or 8 years ago, I had grand ideas about building Ravenser Mk2 . The study was earmarked for it. However I'd joined a club and a couple of societies, and became actively involved with a club project and one of the societies, which ended up meaning quite a lot of commitments. I'd also started a light rail project , and Ravenser Mk2 never actually happened. The shunting plank was built as a micro for a competition a little later and then I built Blacklade for the RMWeb Challenge to act as the larger layout I'd never actually managed to get. Ravenser Mk2 was quietly abandoned as an aspiration at that point. The main rationale for the early period on Blacklade is to provide a use for locos and passenger stock acquired for Ravenser Mk2; the later period provides a home use for various items acquired in support of a club project , though in both cases the core of what I had anyway has been expanded with new purchases
     
    However, this means that for the last 6-7 years all the wagons from Ravenser Mk1 have been sitting in a stock box in the study, unused. When I built the current shunting micro , I realised that it would have to be set pre 1970 and it became an excuse to build all the kits which were completely out of period for a TOPS era BR Blue layout but which I had somehow acquired or really fancied - fish vans, Palvans, wooden PO wagons, cupboard door and slopesided minerals , prenationalisation vans etc etc, and Silver Fox bodied shunters. It also became a test bed for trying something better than tension-locks - Sprat &Winkle couplings. TOPS lettered wagons with tension locks didn't suit, and there they sat. I've ended up with three completely different OO fleets, one of which hasn't been used in years .
     
    So, with one or two commitments off my plate , and a nice new Parkside kit under my belt in double quick time, I had a rush of blood to the head. Out came the old stock box and I had a look through it for suitable candidates for a set of new couplings and a revived life on the shunting micro.
     
    I said earlier that nearly all my early ventures into kitbuilding worked. One didn't. I built a Red Panda Shockvan , and it looked very pretty. Unfortunately the chassis wasn't square and it fell off the track with much more enthusiasm than the other wagons. Effectively it was useless . And Red Panda underframes are delicate and fragile and this one got some knocks and was rather battered with bits missing.
     
    A Shockvan would be very nice on the shunting micro , and a Red Panda underframe kit was found in the kits box in the cupboard.
     
    Not a pretty sight at first:
     
    .JPG]
     
    The old underframe has been removed. The problem has been identified - one end is very slightly lower than the floor at one side (the body is smaller than the underframe, since this is a shockvan). This has thrown it out of square. A little work with the file and we are in business. The kit provides for a sliding body and thus fills up part of the area between the solebars . This made it awkward to break out the old chassis bits , and it also means that there isn't much room to add lead . Sadly I didn't remember to put it inside the body in those days. the van turns the scales at about 35g - once the couplings are on and a bit more lead stuffed into the last orifices, I hope to get it up to about 40g , though that's really still too light
     
    I was rather pleased with the finish of the body and have managed to retain this. I was trying to retain the vac cylinder , but unfortunately stuck on the new solebars the wrong way round. I resorted to stuffing clippings of lead inside the replacement cylinder before supergluing it in place , in a desperate attempt to add a fraction more weight. Fitting the brakeshoes was not a nice job - the mouldings have to be cut down severely to fit and are easily damaged in the process. I got them in, just, but not all the push rods (45 thou wire) are dead straight . I've added rain strips of the 3 part variety from microstrip , after cleaning off most of the incredible never-drying matt varnish on the roof ) with white spirit. The van used to stick to the plastic lid of the stock box and was a mess. But I didn't dare try adding a canvas roof - I reckoned I'd damage the finish on the sides in the process
     
    I haven't posted in the first and latest models thread , but this one will have to do. "And here's one I made earlier". Its not in fact amongst my earliest efforts, but shows an old Lima body with vents added on a spare Parkside claspbraked underframe, which was a RTR upgrade for Ravenser Mk1 inspired by reading Rice's book. And next to it is a brand new Parkside kitbuilt van . (The thing they are standing on is my Sprat and Winkle fitting gauge)
     
    .JPG]
     
    The kit provides alternative ends and alternative planked and plywood doors. I went for plywood doors/planked sides for the hell of it , with the later hydraulic buffers. It seems ply doors/planked sides coincided more or less with the change to clasp brakes. Thus the conversion to the left is wrong - the doors shouldn't be planked ,or if they are , it should have push rod brakes; and that on the right is questionable - the clasp braked underframe would arguably have been more common on these , though lot 2990 apparently featured ply doors on the older underframe, and the wagon will carry a number from this lot. But the only photo I've found shows the older buffer design....
     
    Oh dear! I can only plead that published info is limited, and when I did the original conversion years ago I had almost zero info on BR 12T vans
     
    The body and underframe are now painted and await transfers and weathering. I've got Spratt & Winkle couplings on this one andthe LMS fish van , so they are useable on the shunting micro - unfortunately there is a minor clearnece issue with the 12T vent van in one place, so a little discreet carving is called for.
     
    Getting Sprat and Winkles on the Shockvan will be more interesting as the lead sheeting prevents the normal mounting block and melt in staple attachment. It can be done , with wire fixing and the baseplate glued onto the lead sheet but it won't be as good and I'm uncomfortable about hanging a heavy load behind it. Fortunately on this layout it won't have that issue
     
    And with an excess of enthusiam , I've dug a kit for a Parkside LNER fruit out of the cupboard and made a tentative start on that as well....
  20. Ravenser
    I promised someone I'd post a few notes over the weekend on some of the bits I'd been doing to the Pacer ; it's Monday, I haven't, so here we go.
     
    I've assembled and fixed in place the rear trailing wheel assembly. Unfortunately its not absolutely spot on: I reckon the hole is about 0.35mm out to one side. I've made one attempt to drift the hole sidewards with a file , and stuck in a scrap of 40 thou plasticard into the recess above to take the thread , and drilled it out. However this doesn't seem to have eliminated the error, though I hope it did manage to reduce it. The wheels are square and in line - just very slightly off set. Remove the off set and they're about 87 degrees to the chassis.. The Hornby Pacer had a swivelling truck here originally , and the Branchlines assembly is not actually immovably tight to the chassis - it will pivot under a little pressure. I'm not sure whether this may not be deliberate.
     
    At any rate , at this point I don't think I can do a lot about it, and I'm inclined to live with it, proceed with the build and see how we go. If it proves to be an issue, I'll see if I can revisit it
     
    Meanwhile I've been removing the Black Box for the weight , and here are the shots to show the results:
     

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

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

     
    I know the first release Hornby wagon was heavily criticised when it first came out and they subsequently retooled it . I assume this wagon was so cheap not just because it was unboxed , but presumably because it must be the first version and nobody wants it? Without detailed info readily to hand (cue usual moan about state of BR wagon books ) I can't identify what may be wrong with it , so I'm inclined just to weather it and hope. Does anyone recall what the problems were supposed to be - or whether this is in fact the original version? It's just possible I might have struck lucky. I've fitted the usual long NEM Kadees
     
     
     
    I've been doing one or two other things, but they're from a completely different area of interest , so will go in a seperate post.
  21. Ravenser
    It's officially a day for quiet reflection and I'm back from Warley after what inevitably seems to turn into a spot of retail therapy. And since I've not actually made or done anything - I've simply flashed the plastic in various directions - it seems inappropriate to muse on the fact on a workbench blog. That's for making things.
     
    I finally succumbed to an order from Hattons a week or two back . I'm now the proud owner of a Central Trains 158. It needs a decoder fitting of course, but that is one of the shortfalls in stock for the late period covered. There were also two new Skaledale buildings because they're from my home town and I knew the businesses concerned (strictly speaking Mawer & Plenty is actually Rubery's the Chemist where I used to get the meths for my Mamod traction engine, and Rubery's isn't , if you get my meaning , but I digress) . And while I was about it I had a quick hunt through the bargain list and splashed out on a Base Toys 70's lorry because it was only ??2-50 and spreading the postage across more items helps. Just the sort of thing that might come in handy one day - and then you won't be able to find one for love nor money
     
    How much stuff do we buy "because it 'll come in handy one day" even though at the moment we don't, strictly speaking, have any use for it all?
     
    I've got a cupboard full of the stuff .And a small chest of drawers. A hasty check behind me reveals an S-Kits air-con unit etch sitting on top of a card kit for a building in Barcelona (in 1:100) and one of the Maurice Bradley Bilteezi sheets which was intended for the light rail project.
     
    Which has been stalled for at least five years. The heavy rework of a Bilteezi semi detached (cut down to 3/4 relief) is still in a plastic bag in the topmost of the chest of drawers, unfinished. There were supposed to be two pairs of semis. I can't remember if the second one was started or not. If not , the sheet is presumably in the same pile, underneath the building from Barcelona . Along with the part used sheets for a firestation , started but not finished for a competition, and destined for a club project which may have been overtaken by events. The bulk of it is safe in a shoebox cluttering up the sitting room. Now I've got a bit more time - if you ignore the fact I've been out the last 2 Saturdays and will be out next Sunday and the Saturday after that , and then it's almost Christmas - I may actually get it finished and out of my life
     
    On top of that lot is two Knightwing oil tank kits. They were bought for the fuelling point on Blacklade but proved far too big so were never built. They could well come in handy one day..... Or , more realistically, I forgot to get them into the second hand stall at the last club show. A set of C+L plastic windowframes seperates them neatly from a yellow box containing a Ratio Southern bogie brake. This is meant for the parcels train on Blacklade - along with the LMS BG I've already done - since 2 x 50' vans + 31 will fit neatly into the middle platform without hanging off the end. 50' van + 57' GUV won't - though it didn't prove a real issue when I had the last operating session. I sprayed the sides BR blue when I was starting the SR PMV kit - and that's as far as it got, though I have sourced transfers .And on top of those are some blue and white ABS packets newly bought at Warley. They had axle unit castings for a BR CCT along with clasp brakes , and MJT supplied some suitable etched BR plate W-irons. Somewhere in the depths of the pile of stock are two boxes with twenty -odd year old Lima CCTs from my first modern image layout , which I'm hanging on to, with a view to upgrading for parcels use on Blacklade (tail traffic perhaps) . Though now the PMV's built, the need is less urgent.
     
    The light rail project does see occasional use as a DC test track, by the way - though the electrical connection onto the second board has broken and so it is temporarily only 3' of test track. Another job , midway down the list, that needs sorting. Which is why, when I succumbed to the siren call of the Bachmann stand at Warley and bought a medium sized black kettle, cheap, it went round the test track, to check it worked and run it in before chipping.
     
    Yes, I know I shouldn't have succumbed to a loco I don't strictly need. The idea was that it could serve as a sensible sized railtour loco on a club project (it's a preserved example) - I'd resolved I wasn't going to succumb unless and until I saw it heavily discounted : and there it was. Thank you! Which way is the cash dispenser?
     
    The fact that the project in question is a bit up in the air at present , and things could go in a direction where the kettle wouldn't be needed isn't a great objection. It was "only"??50 , and since it has a tender cab it could - I suppose - appear on Blacklade with a 2 or 3 coach steam special without looking completely stupid. And I could actually use the small number of Mk1s and Mk2s I bought when the local model shop closed down . Not to mention the BCK I bought off the Bachmann stand a while back for a tenner, or the unbuilt Kitmaster Mk1 someone in the local group gave me. Or - assuming we ever manage to build the thing - the little Eastern branch terminus the group intends building. I shall probably find the ER never had any.
     
    Anyway , it's a nice loco. And I don't strictly need it. And in its last 3 outings, the Bachmann stand has caught me 3 times in this way to the tune of ??150 in total. All of these locos might run on Blacklade - but strictly speaking they're not necessary. They're nice locos and they run well, though....
     
    And in the top drawer, on top of the plastic bag with the unfinished semis there is now (since last night) a bag with some laser cut sheets for red pantiles, and some laser cut doors and uPVC window frames. Which I'm sure will come in very handy for- something. These are from a new firm York Modelling , and are some of the first British outline products I've seen using this technique. Its been around in the States for a little while I think. He's also done a low relief terrace kit in 4mm as laser-cut MDF. It requires you to add your own brickpaper or plasticard cladding but that's no problem. Unfortunately I've no obvious use for it at present - Blacklade's far too narrow for such luxuries . So I managed to resist it. (We don't seem to have a smiley with a halo...)
     
    I've also sourced 20 swg piano wire from Eileens - who seemed think Xurons could cut the stuff without damage to themselves. This removes the one obstacle to fitting the last few point motors, unless you could the inertia unit fitted to my drive.
     
    And it looks as if I'm going to have to paint my 150/2 myself, somehow. Anyone know any Halfords car colours that match colours in Regional Railways livery?
     
    The two major omissions were a lighting unit for the Pacer - no sign of Express Models - and a replacement underframe for the 101 , though E. Kent gave me a list , which shows this as a spare. However I risk buying other bits to make up the order.
     
    I'm trying to be good and not buy stuff I don't need, or start more projects . But I reckon I must have spent close to ??150 yesterday - excluding travel
     
    (And I'm not even mentioning the tram habit. 4 kits (etched LCC F, whitemetal LCC snowbroom, Keilkraft W Ham balcony, Streetlevel LCC M) in 4 months. I'm not committed to building Highgate Archway circa 1936. Honest. I haven't got room or time even to consider it. I keep telling myself this, at regular intervals)
  22. Ravenser
    Longer-standing members will remember the 2006/7 Layout Challenge which started on RMWeb2 before we broke it. This produced a number of rather fine layouts including Keyhaven. It also - mostly - produced Blacklade.
     
    The basic remit of the Challenge was to produce a small layout providing a showcase for some of the high standard RTR we have enjoyed in recent years . LisaP4 defined the rules to require layout to have a maximum footprint of 6 square feet . That killed off an idea of mine to base a small layout on a version of the Timesaver shunting puzzle and mocked up to represent a version of Tyne Commission Quay transplanted to the foreshore of the Thames in the 1950s and electrified at 1500V dc. It would have required 8 square feet . In retrospect Tynesaver Wharf ("For Your Economical Fuel!") was a merciful escape - the work involved would have been far too much and I'd have been stuck with a half built layout stalled and abandoned. As opposed to a 4/5th built layout stalled, like wot I 'ave..... The scheme would have required amongst other things a DC Kits EM1 and a Judith Edge EB1 (and possibly an EF1 to boot) and a heck of a lot of inlaid track - always bad news on the work front . The EM1 kit I acquired cheap when the local model shop closed down is still sat behind me with no obvious prospect of being built. It's not merely well down the list - it's not on the list at all.
     
    As well as this still born scheme , the Challenge produced a large range of schemes which never quite made it - I think at one point there were just under 80 layout proposal threads in the subforum on RMWeb 2 and to my mind the unbuilt proposals were the saddest loss when that version of RMWeb congealed and froze. I recall Buckjumper had a proposal for a gaslit subterranean S7 affair in 1890s E.London ("Always carry a revolver east of Aldgate, Watson") illustrated by some atmospheric sketches (Sepulchre St wasn't it?). A particular mention is due to two very innovative and radical schemes to use the footprint - Kenton's "Long Thinney" and a bold circular doughnut multilevel scheme in N , whose name and builder I have forgotten (Sorry!) . Both proceeded a long way into construction before abandonment for differing reasons and both used the idea of a very narrow board to maximise length .
     
    But to return to what actually got built on my part
     
    I attach the link to the thread on RMWeb3 (itself starting as a repost of the RMWeb 2 thread - I'm sure some of this material must have been through either the Library of Alexandria or the Saxon monastery of Jarrow at some point):
     
    Blacklade - RMWeb 3 Challenge thread
     
    It is perhaps reposting the initial ideas:
     
    Quote
     
    Plan B revolves around on of the plans from Carl Arendt's micro site , which has attracted me for a while:
     
    http://www.carendt.c...lans/index.html
     
    The plan in question is under Shelf Switchers / Passenger Lines , and is called "Amalgamated Terminal 2" . It's a slight tweak of "Amalgamated Terminal"
     
    Carl has designed this around shunting passenger coaches, thinking in US terms of loco hauled passenger trains being shunted and reformed.
    I looked at it and thought "small terminus for DMUs"
     
    Some people may remember the long threads on RMWeb 1.5 about modern small termini and MUs:
     
    [Links deleted because dead]
     
     
    and there was a discussion on RMWeb 1.0 sparked by some photos of Manchester Mayfield. Cloggydog [Alan Monk] declared an unfulfilled urge to build a small Manchester terminus in the late 60s.
     
    Anyway, my concept here is to take Amalgamated Terminus 2 and lengthen it to 8' 4" : ie 2 boards each 4'2" long, 5" wide at the board joint , and 12" wide at the end.
     
    Someone who can remember things like triganometry may be able to confirm, but according to my maths (done using strips, trriangles , and fractions on the back of an envelope)that's just under 6 square feet.
     
    There are a few tweaks to the trackplan. There'll be an extra crossover between the centre platform and the front platform, giving access to what Carl Arendt marks as "Engine Ready road" and for me will be a small fueling point. And there'll be an extra fiddle yard road at the back
     
    What's marked as "Covered Concourse" becomes the back platform. The middle platform moves to between the front and middle roads
     
    We are in a largish Midlands county town , somewhere between 1989/90 and 2000/1. [in the event, I've slipped into an "early" period 1985-90 and a "late" period 2000-6: The end of the Central Trains franchise closes the latter] It isn't Derby, or Nottingham, or Leicester or Lincoln. Maybe it replaces one of them, and it resembles bits from all. It had an ex GC through station and an ex MR terminus, and now the rather battered MR station remains, served by DMUs
     
    In the early period we get 114s, 105s, 150/2 , 153, 155 and Pacers. (In other words I build the kits in the cupboard and finish the conversions) Maybe a 108 and 101 in blue/grey (I grab some new RTR). Parcels are possible (CCTs + 31). A 20 brings the fuel tank for the fueling point. Maybe a 31 and 2 coaches subs for a DMU [i bought the RTR; Hornby forstalled the 153 conversion , and I bought 2; the other conversions still await - a tentative start has been made on one Pacer: see my blog]
    In the later period the Modernisation Plan units disappear , and I get to run my Central Trains Turbostar and the 156 I'm promising myself. [and got] Maybe a 158 (See Steve Jones picture) [W Yorks 158 in service, and I'm finally going to order a CT 2 car set from Hattons. The photo in question was of a classic CT pairing on the Joint line - 153+158] Maybe I'll sort out the 37 conversion and use it for the fuel [ Maybe by the end of the next decade. A cheap 57 off the Bachmann stand and a discount 66 will serve in the meantime]
    It will be DCC ; some of the interest will be joining and splitting trains. I can just manage 150/2 + 153, and 142 + 142, or 142 + 153 , or 153 + 153 are possible
     
    It will be OO. I want to have pukka OO track, and as beginners don't start with double slips, I'm thinking of investigating Marcway. This may affect the geometry slightly: as drawn it seems to use Peco medium radius. [ I went Marcway]
    It will use stock I'm going to build for the club project , which will be DCC anyway, plus units intended for the home layout I haven't built. The only things I would need to buy is two Pacers. Virtually all the structures /bits can be sourced out of my cupboard.
     
    In any case there's only a few low relief flats involved. I don't need to build stock specially. So it should be a relatively quick project.
     
    8'4" comfortably fits in the "study" where the home layout was going to go [ Ended up as 8'6" long]
    I've roughed it out with stock and Peco templates on some lining paper full size. I've never tried XtraCAD, and this seemed quicker. Also I'd endorse Neil and Shortliner's comments about needing to check every quarter inch
     
    And it fits. I need to get a friend to turn it out in Templot to check the geometry 100% for handbuilt, but it drops in place and all the stock fits...
     
    The "bow-tie" shape has caused a few interesting issues with the pointwork and motorisation of same in the throat area, but works, more or less, scenically
     
    After October 2007, construction gradually slowed down, and by the beginning of 2009 it more or less ground to a halt as I became occupied on other fronts. I repeat the last posting in the old thread , dated Sat Aug 29th 2009:
     
    Quote
     
    Its been a long while since anything was posted - most of my efforts in the last few months have gone into stock.However this does mean that there are a few new items to play with and the other evening I had a running session.
     
    I went for an early period session and managed to get 8 trains on the layout, being W Yorks 158, 2 x 153s, W Yorks 155, 108 , 3 car 101, parcels (31 + 2 bogievans) , 20 + TTA .Operation was on the same principle as those puzzles they used to sell , where there were 9 positions and 8 tiles, so you had to shuffle things round using the one available space. I managed to run trains for over an hour and a quarter before getting myself boxed in to the point where I needed to take something off in the fiddle yard to make another move possible . Given the small size of the layout and the lack of frieght , the operational potential is good, even if permissive working was stretched a bit now and again.
     
    The 3 car 101 is probably a bit much. The original idea was to make up a 2 car set , but as Hornby's unit was actually allocated to TS at the right period, it seems a pity to rework it as power car+ trailer and dump the centre car. Whether such a 3 car unit would ever have run as a temporary power twin at this period is unclear, but there seems to be some evidence formations were starting to get a bit improvised and mix'n match by the mid to late 80s. It would certainly make operations simpler if I just removed the centre car on an ad hoc basis. Both of the DC Kits in the cupboard are for 2 car units (105 and 114) so once one of those is built there is an alternative anyway
     
    The running session has clarified things in terms of fleet strategy and what projects I start next. I was a little surprised to find that I already have almost everything for the early period (1985-90) and potentially plenty to spare, whereas I'm short of stock for the "late" period 2000-7. I'd assumed it was the other way round. To get a complete blue period fleet, I need to swap over the W Yorks 158 and the Central 153 (which was pressed into service to test consisting - dead easy with the PowerCab). I've already got a Provincial 150/1 on order from Trains4U - far from being an unnecessary indulgence, it can replace the 158 with something appropriate in short order. Longer term , I'm intending to buy a second RR 153 to go with my existing one, once Hornby release a RR livery in late condition with ploughs. In the medium term , however, it looks like I need to get on with reworking one of my Pacers with the Branchlines chassis pack. Neither Pacer is operable at present (no decoders/coarse wheels jam in the points) so this would get some "dead" stock into traffic.
     
    I was considering one of 3 possiblities as "next cab off the rank" - the Pacer project, detailing up a body for the Airfix 31 and building the Ratio Southern bogie brake van . However it looks like the choice is made - I already have a perfectly serviceable Hornby 31 and 2 parcels vans...
     
    Another way of freeing up space in the fiddle yard would be to fit a decoder to the old Bachmann 03 lurking in a cupboard , and sort out the pickups, couplings and a few other bits of upgrading . Again it was on the list as a "quick win" project to get some stored stock back into use and may well be prioritised
     
    Looking at the fleet list from the other evening, if I was running late period, i'd need to swap out 2 Modernisation Plan DMUs, the parcels trains, and the 20+TTA. I've a couple of Type 5s and a late green TTA recently finished,so the fuel oil is covered, but the only other DMUs currently available are a Turbostar and a 156. I had been hesitating whether to get a Central 158 from Hattons, on the grounds I didn't really need it - perhaps I do. And it does suggest I should get my finger out and finish the Bratchill 150/2 which has been stalled for an indecent length of time. Even with both I'll only have one DMU spare for the later period. If I just build everything I've already got for the earlier period, I could have 4 spare units, 5 spare locos and at least 3 spare parcels vans....
     
    It's one thing trying to calculate what stock you can and can't run and do and don't need, but once you actually try a session everything becomes a lot easier to see
     
    Nothing has been done on the layout since. However it has seen occasional use as a programming track . You'll have spotted that a couple more items of stock have been finished (PMV , TTA) or begun (Pacer)
     
    Having recently managed to shed a couple of commitments within the club I should now have more time to sort out the long list of jobs to be done in other areas - finishing Blacklade being one. The items still outstanding are the old ones - the remaining point motors and the station walling. But with luck we may see some progress in the coming months
     
    As I've now found the Create Blogs page again, and managed to transfer this to a blog, I can update this entry to say I've given the thing another running session, and what sticks out like a sore thumb is that the points do not throw completely . If you don't check each one is fully over and snug , and push it into place where necessary derailments result . The problem is clearly the one discussed here:
    Strengthening Wire on Tortoises
     
    I can watch the wire bending instead of the point moving if I view it from below. So this will need sorting out when I find out where I can source piano wire - and what I use to cut it with . I'm not going to wreck the edge on Xurons- they're expensive tools.
     
    This time round the 101 was reduced to 2 car, we acquired a "swinger" in the form of the newly built PMV and I found I didn't need the second diesel loco , as the 31 could be used for the TTA and minor pilot duties . That's 7 and a half trains, but proves comfortable to operate: I managed over an hour and a half of train shuffling without getting boxed in. Part of the concept is that each unit needs to go onto the fuelling point as some stage - this gives some point or or purpose to the train shuffling moves
     
    On account as it were are two quick snaps:
     

     

     
    And yes I really do need to add the station buildings, or at least the surrounding walls which would once have supported the overall roof
  23. Ravenser

    Troublesome Bogies

    By Ravenser,

    This is by way of a short bump or plea for help , sparked by a few comments in the MBA thread.
     
    One of the wagons I'm currently working on (or should be instead of typing) is the wretched Walrus. An ancient kit from deceased estate. As I mentioned somewhere down below , the bogies as supplied are unbuildable. I can't get them together for modern wheels ,. The only way forward I've found is to use some A1 Models H- frame etches.
     
    The bogies are GWR Plate type, and even this approach is a bodge. The minimum wb permitted by the etch is about 1mm too wide. The second problem is that the brass of the A1 etch protrudes beyond the sideframe - which will now be cosmetic. I can trim the brass but not quite enough to eliminate the problem completely . It will look okay unless and until you compare it closely with the real thing - at which point it will be not much better than Dapols efforts on the MBA
     
    The frames are soldered up, but before I'm finally committed to this compromise (like it won't get done tonight) does anyone have any really bright ideas for alternative solutions? Anyone built this dratted kit themselves - if so what did you do?
     
    Comments , gentlemen, please....
  24. Ravenser

    Troublesome Wagons

    By Ravenser,

    Now for a proper update (rather than transfers from the old forum)
     
    Some progress has been made in the last 2 months, though sometimes it doesn't feel that way.
     
    The two SSAs are finished , though I'm not 100% satisfied they're OK... One is in blue and is not quite as free rolling as I'd like , while the other is in EWS red and has given a good deal of trouble with the weathering. Really , I think the proper tool for the job - depositing a fine even layer of grime - would be an airbrush. I haven't got one, and painting with washes has resulted in a slightly uneven effect. I hoped a second wash coat would even it out - in fact it looked pretty bad , and in desperation I resorted to the technique of trying to wipe it away with cotton buds and white spirit. The result is a lot better and may even have had an effect on the first wash, which was added weeks ago. But I'm not convinced by the muck in the corner framing - not on these vehicles in this condition. To my eye it looks too much like "model railway weathering - heavy" and not the real thing
     

     
    And next to it is that other problem child, the PMV, possessed with gremlins to the last. I boosted the weight with a bit more lead - and duly cracked one of the improvised roof vents while doing so. Trying to reattach it with a brush full of solvent resulted in the solvent attacking the paintwork around the vent. I've managed to touch it up. And once again I broken one of the underframe tie rods. The dirt on the underframe "makes" the wagon - the light tone works well , but it has very much been a case of pulling out all the stops to patch up an acceptable result. If I'm p[lease with this one its not because of any particular excellence - it's more in the spirit of "we got a result"
     
    Here's the other SSA , in grubby condition, with the LMS Fish next to it. The latter just needs Sprat + Winkle couplings but has weathered up well
     

     
    A very little progress with another beast of a wagon, the Walrus - I've stuffed bits of lead strip between the hopper base and the side to weight it. This throws up an interesting conundrum. The common formula for weighting wagons is 25g per axle . Therefore this would give 50g for the PMV , and 100g for the Walrus.
     
    But both vehicles are the same length. It seems very odd to make one twice the weight of the other.
     
    The NMRA have a formula which is based on so many grams per inch of length, but simply to work on linear measure and ignore the difference between bogie and 4 wheel seems problematic as well. I suppose almost all US vehicles are bogie types , so this does not arise for US modellers
     
    Anyway, I reckoned the PMV was a bit light at 50g and I've managed to push it up to 65-70g with a bit more lead. That should do. The Walrus is now nearly 60g and counting - I haven't even added the bogies yet so we may make it past 75g. Given that the adhesive weight per wheel is reduced because it is spread over 8 wheels, I think it needs quite a bit of weight, but 100g seems over the top
     
    So - 3 wagons off the bookcase, one very close to it, and a very little progress on the Walrus and Pacer.
  25. Ravenser
    Now to try the third part of the old ORBC. This contains several things I'm still working on or have only just finished...
     
    ORBC - Ravenser
     
    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2497&start=50&hilit=ORBC"> original page on Old RMweb
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:30 am
     
    Time for a bit of an update. Contrary to appearances , there has been some progress on the modelling front.
     
    The Parkside PMV is painted , but awaits transfers. Finding something suitable is a problem as the Modelmasters sheets seem only to cover pre 1965 , or cream , and I'm virtually certain it absolutely has to be white for TOPS era. The same problem arises with the Ratio SR bogie brake which is likely to be next cab off the rank
     
    Meanwhile the 40' dry vans require weathering , and a coat of varish, and there are still a couple of hazchem flashes to go on the first tank container before the gloss cote is applied (the barrels are normally kept quite clean). A second one is well under way , as is the fifth 40'
     
    I've also been fighting a pretty grotty old Mendip Models kit for a 20' open top. The fit of parts was not good, and bits of the door locking bars had broken away. It took quite a bit of nervous cleaning up with files to get a passable fit of the parts and I did what I could to patch the pinholes here and there in the castings. All of this was done outside in the garden, up wind and with some trepidation and all files etc used were cleaned with a file card , and washed , at least twice (In other words I treated any resin dust as like poison) . I still thought I was slightly wheezy for a few days afterwards , though that might be for completely different reasons
     
    I've purchased a second 153, this time in Regional Railways , and this has had a TCS T1 fitted and has been recieving interior detailing (paint the seat backs/add Slaters figures) this week. Now all I have to do is add the Kadees - and do something about the underframe . The plain black plastic on this and the Central 153 increasingly niggles , so I have to touch up the the relevant bits in relevant colours , then weather suitably.
     
    Once that is done, I can think of tackling something fresh over the Bank Holiday weekend . I need to renumber the 57 - transfers have to be ordered but I have the plates - and weather suitably. There are a couple of Hornby TTAs that might be tackled. The two resin POA kits will definitely have to wait until the weather is fine
     
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by jim s-w on Sat Apr 25, 2009 12:53 pm
     
    Hi Rav
     
    White numbers will very quickly go off white as soon as there is any form of weathering. Not all vehicles were renumbered into tops straight away and there were ballast wagons around in the 80's without tops panels, usually with the tops codes painted on. If they were going to re-do the numbers they would just do the tops panels anyway, they wouldn't redo the original markings in white.
     
    You should be fine
     
    Jim
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun Apr 26, 2009 10:02 pm
     
    Jim: thanks for the reassurance. An order to Howes for various transfers , including these , has gone in the post tonight
     
    Good progress has been made with the 153s - not only did I finish off the figures for the interior of the RR version, but I've weathered the underframes of both.
     
    In both cases , I used Railmatch track dirt, eased towards a lighter more orange shade with Railmatch brake dust as the main washes (enamel versions in both cases).
     
    However mixing them up as I worked resulted in distinctly different shades. Neither is unprototypical - as the 153 prototype photo thread shows , you get units with a distinctly ochre underframe and some with a more or less off black:
     
    http://www.rmweb.co....p;sk=t&sd=a" >http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=35689&st=0&sk=t&sd=a</a
     
    I've picked out minor details on the underframe in colour - notably the exhaust pipes which seem to be routinely a slightly pinkish shade , and the silencers which are either silver or buff/orange , and given second washes to area which have more brake dir
     
    The net result is that using the same paints at the same time , the units have gone in different directions:
     
    The Central unit towards a heavy coat of yellow/orange dirt
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=75508" alt="">
     
    here the silencer is in Humbrol Leather acrylic
     
    The Regional unit towards a much more new into service condition:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=75509" alt="">
     
    This was already much darker and got very much less of a second wash. The silencer has had a wash of Humbrol metallic aluminium enamel .I still have to do the wheels on this though - along with exhaust weathering on the roof and above the gangways, and probably the perspex shields/door windows on the RR unit
     
    The balance of the last batch of mix ended up on the underframe of the PMV
     
     
    I'm rather pleased with the results actually
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:33 pm
     
    In the words of Dick Dastardly...
     
    Drat. Double Drat and Triple Drat.
     
    The order from Howes has arrived. There were two critical elements to this - the transfers for the PMV and the numbers for renumbering the 57- with a few other useful bits tacked on.
     
    What do I find - a credit note because the Fox Freightliner numbers are out of stock despite being listed on the website . And the Modelmasters transfer pack , whilst including transfers for the BG as a GUV, the BY and an "SCV" (not a TOPS code I immediately recognise, and from the number attached not a PMV) - does not cover PMVs
     
    Anyone know a source for post 1965 transfers for a PMV? Even if I try to concoct suitable numbers from what I've got, the dimensions lettering for shorter vehicles quotes 35'6, which is a good bit longer than a PMV...
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon May 04, 2009 9:09 pm
     
    I had aspirations for the weekend , but I got boxed in..
     
    The containers have been eating up an awful lot of modelling time over the last 6 months , and I'm still not completely done . We have 2 boxes almost completely finished, 4 more with full transfers applied (several will require weathering), 1 painted with transfers to go on shortly, and one tank nearly built requiring more paint :
     
    Here is the wretched resin opentop and sharp eyes may spot the amount of patching needed on broken door bars , though the pin holes aren't noticable. One end is slightly rhomboid rather than square . These are the sort of castings that have given resin a bad name
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77358" alt="">
     
    And here's the one finished tank. For once the imperfections of photography flatter the result - you can't see my struggles with brushpainting a very recalcitrant gloss white to a decent finish, though it's not obvious at a distance over over 18 inches anyway..
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77359" alt="">
     
    And here's the PMV, awaiting lettering
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77361" alt="">
     
    I've at least managed to start something else - I've begun upgrading two Hornby TTAs , one of which was bought from a model shop in Grimsby many years ago for the princely sum of 50p second hand, and the other was Railroad . I have the bits in stock anyway, so the cost is minimal (Well I thought I had the bits till I found I'd run out of cast clasp brakes. An hours rummage unearthed some Comet etchs which are nil cost at this point but will be significant amounts of work)
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by Dan Randall on Mon May 04, 2009 9:33 pm
     
    Ravenser wrote:
     
    "the Modelmasters transfer pack , whilst including transfers for the BG as a GUV, the BY and an "SCV" (not a TOPS code I immediately recognise, and from the number attached not a PMV) - does not cover PMVs
     
    Anyone know a source for post 1965 transfers for a PMV? Even if I try to concoct suitable numbers from what I've got, the dimensions lettering for shorter vehicles quotes 35'6, which is a good bit longer than a PMV... "
     
    Hi Ravenser
     
    Is this the sort of thing you're after....
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77377" alt="">
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=77380" alt="">
     
    I too, struggled to find some PMV transfers in 7mm scale, so I drew up what I wanted in TurboCAD and sent it off to Robert Kosimider at Steam & Things
     
    <a href="http://www.steamandthings.com/" >http://www.steamandthings.com/</a>
     
    He re-drew my requirements using his preferred software and I believe they're now available in both 7mm & 4mm scales. The CCT version should also be available, so it might be worth sending Robert an e-mail. The numbers look a little different and came from a different source. With hindsight, I wish I'd included some of those on the artwork too.
     
     
    Regards
    Dan
     
    Edited for spelling mistake!
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue May 05, 2009 4:27 pm
     
    Thanks for this - it's exactly what I'm looking for . I'm going to have a further attempt to see if I can source some from Parkside - failing that, this looks like the way to go .
     
    I may need some custom transfers for another project so this is a useful link anyway
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PMP on Tue May 05, 2009 9:14 pm
     
    I'll have a look on Pressfix Sheet 15, I think they may appear on there or be 'makeable' from the sheet. I've used Blackham Transfers to do rub down lettering before too, very good prices, turnround time and quality too
     
    <a href="http://www.blackhamtransfers.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.blackhamtransfers.com/</a><!-- m -->
     
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sun May 10, 2009 8:09 pm
     
    I had the usual hopes of lots of progress and the usual outcome - the containers soaked up time like they were a form of blotting paper and not a lot got done. <br />I had wild visions of starting the SSA kits (thanks to the Fatadder for PNA dimensions) but that proved completely unrealistic - try the Bank Holiday weekend
     
    However the second tank is now finished , and I've managed to weather all the boxes that are going to be weathered. A little discreet drybrushing with a mix of track dirt/brake dust (about 2/3rds brakedust) which seems to be my favourite potion for weathering. This was followed by a very thin wash of a mix nearer 50/50 over the whole box to tone some of them down and add the general coating of traffic muck. I also added a little bit of almost matched patch painting on the P+O box. I'm quite pleased with the results , especially the P+O box which now looks suitably tired and worn - it should be 8-10 years old by the intended period . All they need now is a matt varnish coat tonight (Acknowledgements to gloriousnse's The Humble Box for photo reference )
     
     
    There's been a bit of progress on the two Hornby TTAs . I got as far as giving the first a spray with emerald green from an old Humbrol aerosol as a first priming coat. Unfortunately it displayed all the problems that someone was complaining about with spraycans recently , and the result was not good - it aloso looked as if I hadn't given a through clean sufficient to remove all traces of sanding dust. As a result I've spent quite a bit of time rubbing it down with a very fine flexigrit sheet and tidying up the filled areas where necessary (which is what primer coats are for...) . I've also gone back and added a little more filler where slight depressions were still showing up
     
    I still have to phone Parkside about PMV transfers - many thanks for all the alternative approach info to date.
     
    __________________________________________
    Comment posted by PMP on Sun May 10, 2009 11:18 pm
     
    PC Sheet 15 does contain 'PMV' branding and you can probably cut and paste sections of the sheet to make data as per Dans picture. I wouldn't like to do it though so if theres a sheet ready to use, I'd take that just in terms of time saving.
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Sat May 23, 2009 8:05 pm
     
    Slow but steady progress has been made with the TTAs , and I got as far as a coat of some old Malachite green for one of them last night (I've forgotten where I acquired it, second hand - the brand is "gloy" - long forgotten I suspect) Apparently this is a decent match for BP green
     
     
    I've also been attempting a Cambrian Walrus kit, and impressions so far are that it is possibly the most awkward plastic wagon kit I've ever built. Mind you I may have led a sheltered existance. The body is built round the hopper , and there's virtually no way of using a trysquare to ensure anything's square. I've built it largely by eye so far, and I had to take it apart twice as it seemed the hopper moulding was a bit too wide. I had to let a scrap of microstrip into the ends to remove gaps (which will need a spot of tidying up seeing that the inside of the wagon is exposed. There is no floor to build round - the bogies are attached on 2 narrow bolsters whith pegs which do not line up with the holes in the sides which must be meant for them , and are too long anyway, so have to be removed. I've tried cleaning up the top surfaces - if the wagon isn't 100% totally square sitting on its top on the mirror this may reflect the top surfaces not the structure
     
    How I get Kadees on it will be interesting. The bogies attach by a basic plastic peg into a moulding with a hole not dead centre.
     
    In fairness to Cambrian-as-now-is, this is an old kit. I got it second hand , from material donated to the club from the estate of a former member - there were a number of similar kits and I'm glad I only bought one (perhaps he built one and left the rest..) The instruction sheet shows Cambrian at an address in Dyfed, and is a small typescript sheet with a few faint drawings , and one sentence of the typescript scribbled out . I wouldn't be surprised if it is 25 years old or more - the actual example I'm building not just the kit. On the credit side it comes with rub-down transfers for the data-panels , and I'm hoping that if the bogies come out ok I can get away with the rest , since on a bogie vehicle , the absolute squareness of the body doesn't determine whether all the wheels are on the deck
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon May 25, 2009 11:43 am
     
    Some further progress. As far as the TTAs are concerned, most of this has been further painting and rubbing down to minimise slight imperfections , although I've nearly finished one of the underframes
     
    I seem to have developed a standard recipe for these Hornby TTAs, largely derived from the short photo feature in Ian Rice's Improving RTR Wagons (Irwell - and I think now out of print , so bears repeating):
     
    Dismantle , glue the two halves of the tank barrel together. Apply filler to further disguise the end seam. Remove the plastic walkways , fill holes left . File or pare away the square edges of the base of the tank moulding to feather them to meet the chassis moulding. Fit A1 etched walkways . Remove the buffers , coupling mounts (snip with the Xurons) and moulded brake shoes . Also remove some surplus bits of the underframe piping (this really needs a photo to make sense but its mainly a few horizontal connections) . Correct the dimple on the roller bearings to a bump with a bit of sprue glued in the hole and rounded to shape with a file (You will notice this is not a finescale conversion...) . Drill out and extend with files the open area in the brake lever support bracket. Fit new brass Oleo buffers (A1 Models) and replacement clasp brakes . This will mean opening out the slot around the wheel in the underframe moulding to accomodate . Coupling hooks should also be fitted - I think I've got some somewhere
     
     
    In the process I've found I've not got quite enough Hornby 3 hole disc wheels left to do the Walrus and 2 x TTA and have hastily robbed a set of Romfords off another TTA lurking in the cupboard awaiting conversion . These are slightly smaller diameter than Hornby wheels : current thinking is that the two TTAs I've done in the past have Romfords, so the black Shell tank gets the Romfords for uniformity and the green tank (likely to be a singleton for use on Blacklade for the fuelling point) will get Hornby wheels. I've also run out of clasp brakes - I've got 2 cast sets and 3 plastic ones in the box - but have turned up 2 packets of Comet etched brake shoes, which can be sandwiched between strips of 20 thou plasticard to make up an equivalent.
     
    I think I've also run out of suitable airtanks , so another packet will need to be sourced.
     
    After careful examination the Walrus is not quite square , and at this stage in proceedings , there's nothing I can do about it, short of throw the thing away and start again with another kit and no guarantee it will be any better . I'm afraid I'm just going to struggle on, on the basis that no-one should suspect anything unless they go looking very closely for a problem. However I'll be sticking to the efforts of Messrs Hornby and Bachmann if I ever want any more ballast hoppers. I've tackled any slight gaps and irregularities with bits of microstrip and have at least got the big end support brackets in place and fitting at all points . The bogies are too wide as they come to take Hornby wheels and retain the axles, and never in a million years am I using the plastic wheels in the packet (I told you it was an old kit). I shall have to melt Romford bearings into place . I'm trusting that the slight play of the bogies from the body and the wheels in the bearings will deal with the fact the body isn't 100% square and the result will run properly
     
    Does anyone know whether Walruses had a centre divider in the hopper? The Sealion and Seacow do - the kit doesn't and I can't help wondering. Its going to be very visible from normal viewing angles if it should be there and isn't
     
     
    On a happier note I've started on a pair of Cambrian SSAs . These are a rather later kit than the Walrus (1992 to judge by comments in the instructions) and by this time Cambrian were trading from an address in Taunton. Fit of the parts is good, there are places for them to locate, mouldings have very little flash , there are part numbers on them and the instructions are extensive, with a detailed prototype history, and a set of clear well printed detail drawings
     
    One will be built with each type of chassis - leaving me a spare set of chassis mouldings for a Gloucester pedestal chassis 103.5mm long. This is spot on for a couple of the PNAs shown in the recent Burkin book - with different rib patterns and a different length to the Bachmann model. I even appear to have a photo of one myself:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=79916" alt="">
     
    You will note this is a disc braked wagon, meaning no brake lever or clasp brakes to worry about (and no 3 hole discs..) The triangular support plates on the Cambrian solebar will need to be removed and replaced but that ought to be manageable
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:00 pm
     
    Despite the silence a bit of progress , although I seem a bit disinclined to get on with stuff at present - my get up and go seems to have got up and gone
     
    The SSAs are sort of finished. That is , they're built except for me sawing up the triangular section supplied for adding the debris fall plates, and sticking them in place. The corners aren't quite 100% perfect and will need slight tidying. I'm rather impressed by the neat design of the fold up wheel units which deliver built in compensation units, although getting them to fold right took 2 goes (I had to tighten the whole lot up with a second application of solvent and elastic bands to get free running) . Beware : once you've snapped those units in place , they wont come out again without damage
     
    The wagons, obviously , aren't painted or fitted with Kadees.
     
    And I'm really rather impressed by the quantity of alternative/spare parts left over , and their usefulness. This has sorted out the shortage of airtanks for the TTAs quite nicely
     
     
    On the downside, I can well understand the Fatadder's feelings that he can't face more than one EWS rebodied SSA conversion. My own position is that I'm going to need a rake of 6-7 scrap wagon (or at least the club project probably will) - and I don't think you can run these mixed with POA Blackadders. Therefore I suspect I shall take the "easy" way out and buy a 4-pack of Bachmann wagons to bump up the numbers (meaning spill plate conversion work across the lot , but little else) and an extra Cambrian kit for rebodied SSA conversion plus the extra bits for stock. However I suspect this is still , cumulatively, going to be a lot of work , especially on the weathering side. The club project is post privatisation and really a couple of wagons in EWS (plus 1 rebody) is the bare minimum I could credibly get away with so late.
     
    The two TTAs are making decent progress. Painting the green one has been a protracted process : I still have more to do and the quality of finish overall isn't quite as high as I'd hoped but the first transfers are on (and I've realised I need to add solebar plates for the hazchem labels). The fit of top and bottom isn't quite so perfect as it was before I pulled off the top thinking I'd forgotten to refit the weight (I hadn't)
     
     
    The second one just needs one bit of wire for brake yoke and an air tank then we are into transfers, patch painting and weathering. If you're wondering why I'm bothering with a lot of work on the old Hornby model - total spend to date is - about a fiver. All the wagons/materials/ bits/transfers etc are from stock bar one sheet of Fox tank numbers . And with the first transfers on the green one , its starting to shape up and with weathering should look quite good
     
     
    The Walrus continues to be a pig , and after various emperiments/bodges with one bogie last night I've concluded that there's no way forward with the bogies as supplied and I'll have to fit the side frames to some A1 H-frame etches I have dug out of the cupboard
     
    I also made a tentative restart on the WD road van the weekend before last as it was fine weather. I'm scared stiff of resin and the heath & safety precautions treat the stuff like a compound of depleted uranium and swine flu virus - only work outside, all castings + files subject to thorough washing /file card and repeat washing before being allowed back injside because of the safety risk from the dust
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:50 pm
     
    I managed to make some more progress over the weekend. Most of it was on the TTAs - I'm starting to think that one of the hallmarks of modern state of the art modelling is that it takes the best part of a week and a microscope to apply all the transfers
     
    This has prompted some questions and discussion about prototype subjects , and I'm indebted to Pugsley for pointing me at relevant info in another thread:
     
    <a href="http://www.rmweb.co....f=5&t=46978" >http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=46978</a>
     
    A hasty snap of efforts to date is attached:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....le.php?id=87063" alt="">
     
    This shows the green BP tank I've been working on - it just needs current style warning flashes (which I don't have: I need to make up an order to Fox) then weathering. Oh , and brushing off to remove the dust that seems to have got on it. Behind left is "one I made earlier" which seems to have acquired an SUKO prefix number along the way (the 2 white stars are obscured) , and rear right, the Shell branded ex Railroad TTA . These brandings seem to be fine for the early 90s , and therefore it will be entirely in place as a fuel delivery when Blacklade is operating in 1985-90 mode - whereas the BP tank will suit c2005 mode . And as its circa 1992 , I can use the hazard flashes I've got
     
    I've also made some further progress with the WD road van - I'm finding myself seriously hampered by the fact I'm plain scared of the health implications of working resin and everytime I need to do a bit of filing and fitting - such as you'd do automatically with plastic in a few seconds, it means take everything downstairs , into the garden, thoroughly decontaminate workpiece and tools after filing etc
     
    Thus far I'm still avoiding the Walrus . Two preliminary attempts to assemble the bogies as they come failed , and the only viable way forward seems to be to stick the sideframes to A1 bogie H frame etches and bodge from there. This will give a wb which is about 1mm too long , but frankly its the only way I'm going to get buildable bogies
     
    The PMV has hit a further snag. I finally ordered the transfers from Steam and Things, and they arrived from S. Australia with startling speed on Monday. That was the good news . The bad news is they're way too big. The photo in Dan Randall's posting above matches the photos on Paul Bartlett's site : the transfers sit well within the triangle created by the diagonal. The transfers I've got go the full witdth of that end section and pretty well the full height of the van. I reckon they must be at least 50% too big . They're clearly marked 4mm , but I think they're actually 7mm scale. Having spent ??7-50 I'm not sure where I go now - I can't exactly send 'em back (I asked for 4mm , and it says 4mm on the sheet) , I''m no further forward and still have to source something. I'm not even sure I can off load them on the 7mm mob at the club - not sure if any of them model BR Blue
     
     
    Transfers and the cost thereof are becoming a sore point and will become a sorer one when I make up the Fox order. I'm up for ??7-35 just to change one digit on a "bargain" Bachmann 57- plus the cost of the plate . I've spent about as much on PMV transfers as on the kit, without result, and sourcing the hazard flashes for the green TTA will cost another ??4-20. Transfers for 2 EWS SSAs another ??10...
     
    Yes I know in theory I can use them for other projects. Its just I don't have or need a Freightliner 47 or 86 (nor can usethem). I'm not buying and repainting a Heljan 86 just to use a bit more of a sheet of transfers....
     
    Oh and there's no source for Railtrack brandings as seen on the PNA (possibly because of the fate of the company) All I can see to do is to cobble something together with dryprint on Fox plain waterslide sheet then weather it savagely (mostly they're almost obscured by rust and muck)
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:44 pm
     
    Well - two weeks on and the TTAs don't look to have changed dramatically . They do however now have hazard flashes, airhoses, a full set of other transfers on the SUKO tank, and Kadees (46 long centre ). All they need now is weathering
     
     
    The order from Fox has duly arrived (minus the Roof Dirt) and my FL 57 has finally been renumbered and acquired its new plates- now all it needs is weathering and we will have a pukka loco. The Fox transfers are a different weight of type (bolder, heavier) than the Bachmann printed numbers, so the whole lot had to come off - one digit produced a distinct unease on the eye, especially as the top of the 1 was formed slightly differently on the transfers and with 57 011 the two versions were side by side. Thanks to a tip from someone else, I used microset and cotton buds to remove the printed numbers
     
     
    Very little has been done to the Road Van ....
     
    As for the wretched Walrus , there's been other jobs ahead of it and I've gratefully accepted the excuse not to fight the beast, and I really must get round to sorting out the SSAs with their plating so they can advance into painting and couplings come off the bookshelf into traffic
     
     
    I also acquired a not-strictly-necessary second hand Parkside LNER van at the weekend, which will need stripping for a repaint and slight tweaks
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:18 pm
     
    I've finished weathering the TTAs . I'm not entirely sure of the result - I've either done a decent representation of some grubby wagons or a heavy handed misfire and I'm not quite sure which. It seems less satisfactory when the green one is caught in artificial sidelight. I may put some photos up in Weathering& Painting, but as photography will add another layer of distortion it may not really answer the question...
     
    Two and a half months for 2 wagons (admittedly with other things going on round them) . No wonder I don't get much done
     
    Now for handrails on the Road Van and spill plates on the SSAs....
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:00 pm
     
    There has actually been a bit of modelling round my way in the last month. The time has certainly gone in- whether much has come out is a moot point
     
    The TTAs are done, fitted with Kadees , and in traffic (assuming one running session counts)
     
    Was it really 5 weeks ago ~I was girding my loins for spill plates on the SSAs? Feels much longer...
     
    Anyway, the triangular plastic sections were cut and installed - I really don't want to do an EWS rebuild from this kit. We'll keep that to one , and do it from a Bachmann wagon...
     
     
    The SSAs are painted - one in EWS and one in blue/yellow. On reflection I should have painted the straight solebar vehicle EWS to be different from the forthcoming Bachmann release. However, the spill plates are different. Transfers have gone one - well almost. The blue wagon got rubdowns off an old Cambrian sheet that were not good - they tended to come off in bits. Fortunately this wagon was scheduled for heavy weathering - ie overall coat of chocolate brown muck . The EWS wagon has Fox - and making up data panels from individual numbers/letters is desperately slow. I still have the last digit of the tare to add, and Microsol has been invaluable for fixing stuff down so that it doesn't float away when the next digit goes on.
     
    The blue SSA is weathered, and during my holiday one of the few extra things that got donwe was to weather a few wagons - a Sealion bought cheap of DC Kits at Southwold, a Rudd , and my Limby Sealion. The latter required action to cut down the internal partion in the hopper to match the Seacows . The Xurons did most of the work , cleaning up with a file. The Walrus kit doesn't have one......
     
    Individually , I was quite pleased with the results. However put my three weathered ballast hoppers together, and quite sure any of them are right - they don't gel. I think a seperate thread in Weathering may be forthcoming, next time Blacklade goes up and I can take some photos .
     
    __________________________________________
     
    posted on Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:35 pm
     
    Having failed to clear up the "outstanding items" over my holiday period, I was going to tidy up the loose ends and start something new over the Bank Holiday. Did I heck....
     
     
    I have been lettering up the PMV , which had stood forlorn on the bookcase while I tried to source transfers . I said a couple of months back:
     
    "I finally ordered the transfers from Steam and Things, and they arrived from S. Australia with startling speed on Monday. That was the good news . The bad news is they're way too big. The photo in Dan Randall's posting above matches the photos on Paul Bartlett's site : the transfers sit well within the triangle created by the diagonal. The transfers I've got go the full width of that end section and pretty well the full height of the van. I reckon they must be at least 50% too big . They're clearly marked 4mm , but I think they're actually 7mm"

    and I stand by that. They are almost certainly to 7mm , which probably means his 2mm transfers are actually right for 4mm..... . In all the circumstances I've done the best bodge I can. It seems from the Modelmaster CCT/GUV pack that some CCTs were lettered with the dimensions and the description split by the diagonal , using larger lettering. I've done something similar using the dimensions section of the oversize Steam & Things transfers, although it is still a bit of a squeeze, and I had to lose "max speed 70mph" . The bottom lines were taken from the HMRS sheet and actually relate to a BR CCT , so the tare is wrong. I took the letters NOV from the HMRS sheet and then noticed that the photo from Paul Barlett's site is actually headed NQV. Well - if I can read it wrong on a vehicle blown up to 7mm size, then I get away with it (there's no NQV on the sheet). The Railmatch rub down warning flashes are completely useless - I've had hardly any successes - and I eventually resorted to some flashes cut from an ancient Woodhead sheet, laid on a dab of gloss varnish to make them stick, followed up by some microsol. I now need to seal the lettering with satin varnish before weathering - I can't face any of the lettering breaking up under thinned washes
     
     
    Kadees have been fitted to SSAs and PMV - no 26s , which wipes out 75% of the ones I bought from Charlie Petty at Southwold. I've also added weight (lead sheet) underneath with araldite, and have got the SSAs up to just on 50g and the PMV slightly over. I suspect the PMV requires a bit more as its a long vehicle, but I'd used up all the araldite mixed , and would have needed to find some more scraps of lead in the drawer. A little bit of touching up of packing and screw with frame dirt, and a repair of the truss rod on the PMV - the wretched things keep getting caught and breaking . I also fitted cross rods between the clasp brake shoes with 45 thou handrail wire. On reflection I should have painted the interior (its apt to take a green tinge in sunlight) added weight inside before I fitted the roof - and fitted bars across the glazing. Hence It's going to have to have a heavy coat of dirt - including over the windows
     
    At a recent show I picked up a second hand built kit for ??3 under the delusion it was an LNER van. It isn't =- the underframe is BR clasp and some checking reveals its actually an LMS fish van. I've already built one of those myself... I would describe it as competently built by someone who didn't know what he was doing. That is - it's neatly assembled , and the chassis is perfectly square. He's taken the wrong chassis off the sprue (which contains both BR & LMS clasp underframes), and as bought , the van sides had curious horns at the bottom on the ends - parts of the sprue the builder hadn't realised he should remove...It was painted brown (wrong) with the roof and underframe left in bare black plastic.
     
     
    I've started a clean up . The horns have gone, as have the tension locks, and the cross shaft and rod from the brake cylinder have been added, along with cross rods to the clasp brake shoes. LMS vac pipes (ABS) have been added. Rainstrips were removed and one ply of tissue stuck over the roof with solvent for canvas effect - rainstrips reinstated with micro rod. The brown livery was rubbed down , two coats of Precision BR maroon applied and lettering from Modelmaster transfers applied (I had the paint and transfers left over from my own model). Bases to apply the S+W couplings have been built up with plasticard. It needs more weight - its turning the scales at about 37g ( my own kit kept derailing until Ifound it was lighter than all the other wagons on the plank and I glued more lead underneath)
     
     
    I've also made a start on a 40' container from C-Rail (also bought off Charlie at Southwold) . Box is built, a primer coat applied - I just need to spray it.
     
    Minimal progress on the road van - just a few of the handrails have been done. And as I had the soldering iron out to start on the Pacer, I've done the A1 H-frames from the Walrus. That's all I've done on that front.
     
     
    The Pacer project merits a seperate post - if only as a file note for myself
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:10 pm
     
    I should really post some photos of the PMV and fish van , and maybe the 40' box which has most of its transfers in place. Then there's the 29 which is looking like a tough job to DCC , so has been dropped from the list of current jobs...
     
    But I need to set down the parameters of the Pacer
     
    I've started trying to do something about one of the two Hornby 142s I own. They are currently stored unserviceable, as they won't go through the diverging roads of points (wheels are too coarse)and they have no decoders - messy , problematic hardwired installation on 2 motor units
     
    There are two of them , bought second hand: a chocolate & cream "Skipper" and a Provincial Blue unit.The Skippers were exiled to Lincolnshire immediately after their explusion from the West Country in disgrace, and there's a shot of a blue 142 passing Brocklesby in the mid 80s in one recent book.
     
     
    First survey of the units: both are double motored and need wheels replacing and decoders fitting. The Provincial unit was in worse condition , as it has a non-electrical coupling between the units (so 4 wheel pickup) and a screw had stripped the thread resulting in one motor unit flapping loose.
     
    A first attempt to fit Ultrascale wheels to the Skipper failed when it became clear significant carving would be needed to make them fit- and I carved the rear truck too much in the wrong place
     
    A Branchlines chassis kit has been bought (nearly 2 years ago)
     
    The intention is to give the Provincial Pacer a comprehensive job, with new chassis , and retain the existing mechanism on the Skipper - thus using the set of Ultrascales I bought at great expense
     
    First assessment of the Provincial 142 and work needed.
     
    Rewheeling is covered by the new chassis
     
    DCC installation - should be a lot simpler as only one motor, and therefore only one decoder, needs to be considered .
     
    No lights . As this is a second generation unit, really I should install them , especially given all the other work to be done on the unit. Express Models do a lighting kit , but this means wires between the vehicles . However a short unit like this could be kept perminently coupled and stored/handled as a single train without seperation??
     
    The Branchlines kit provides for pickup on two wheels each side, with chassis live. Not ideal. Adding extra pickups all round may mean another cable between the 2 cars... Or I stick with 6 wheel pickup? (Might there be scope to reuse the old Hornby pickups for the "extra" wheels ????)
     
     
    The interior needs some tweaking - it seems some of the partitions either don't exist or are in the wrong place. Repaint and add some figures. Hopefully the decoder won't be too obviously visible
     
    The cab front should be 3 deep window recesses in a thick solid front . Hornby model the top and bottom - but not the bits between the windows and it does affect the look . ??? Insert white plasticard??
     
    The warning yellow looks very orange and may need repainting
     
    Replace the moulded cab front handrail - wire melted in?
     
    I'm not going to attempt the handrails by the doors - I don't think I can make a better job.
     
    Since the unit is to be in 1985-90 condition, there's no need to change the 4 piece doors nor does it need roof pods
     
    I think perhaps I really ought to do something about the "black box" on the underframe. Its only a small one, true, but it really shouldn't be there. But then I have to do the same with the other Pacer... The weight is 50g , so I need to stuff that amount of lead flashing either between the solebars, or else possibly under the seating unit between that and the chassis. I don't think it will be prudent to reduce adhesive weight with only one driven axle. But should I lighten what will become the trailer?
     
     
    Replace the moulded exhaust (so I need to source a casting - on its own?)
     
    Fit decent representation of the gangway. It will help to disguise all the through wires......
     
    Do I attempt to reduce the number of ribs on the roof??? I really do not want to have to repaint the body - I can't possibly do a decent job on the sides , though patchpainting a weathered roof might not be impossible
     
    __________________________________________
    posted on Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:10 pm
     
    Do you ever have a model that seems to be cursed? Or at least to be possessed by a cackling gremlin which is determined that no matter how you try this one is going to come out as a wretched failure?
     
     
    I have. It's a Southern PMV. Readers may recall episodes in this story to date, but now we can see it in its full malevolent perspective. First one of the roof vents pinged into oblivion - I had to improvise representative replacements. Then we had the saga of the transfers, or non-availabilty of same. Then I ordered special transfers from the remotest corners of the earth - only to find they were 7mm
     
    Here is a photo:
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....e.php?id=103381" alt="">
     
    Note the large size of the faint lettering (the only bit of the purchased transfers I used ) - and how it spreads across the whole panel . Now compare with Dan Randall's 7mm PMV above...
     
     
    Also the way the green interior shows up... (I should have painted the inside)
     
     
    I think I must have broken every one of those wretched plastic rod underframe tie rods at least once, and stuck them back together
     
    I've weathered it . The brown has picked out the planking lines in a lighter colour , which looks wrong... I weathered the windows . In the process two of them, being imperfectly attached, fell inside .
     
     
    I've tried making a replacement out of clear plasticard, desperately , to stick in with varnish, . When I'd finally got it just to fit , it fell inside . In shaking the van to get it out , the orignial windows started to appear. I managed to manoevre one back roughly in place , and seem to have stuck it there with brushfuls of solvent. In the process the other window seems to have attached to the back of it - I shook it loose and its now probably stuck to the floor somewhere...
     
     
    I shall now have to attempt to bodge a replacement window (I don't think I can get it properly inset - and the windows on these do not seem to have opened).
     
    Arrghhh
     
    Target condition is now something like this:
     
    Oh by the way the bit of the special transfers I used is now barely visible...
     
    <a href="http://gallery6801.f.../p46201342.html" >http://gallery6801.fotopic.net/p46201342.html</a>
     
    Hopefully a further wash of dark grey with a tinge of dark brown will do the job - and not dislodge any windows
     
    Also the fish van. A much happier tale. Here it is , lurking behind the Sealion I weathered, before work started :
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....e.php?id=103390" alt="">
     
    and a very rough shot before weathering
     
    <img src="http://www.rmweb.co....e.php?id=103391" alt="">
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