Corbs

Just need to build one of SCC's FR Sharp Stewart 4-4-0 kits now, to act as a banker....

Somewhere I have a 009 Roco 0-6-0T with a Brian Clarke chimney to anglicise it, must dig that out...

Awesome, I had a similar plan cooking up in the old noggin. You could even do a curved module, or a pair of curves.

Thats really smart, Steve. The shorter wheelbase looks much more prototypical.

The outside framed grafar 08 chassis may be good for that?

Here's the combined build story for the flagship express locomotive of the North Western Railway, No.704 'Duke of Gordon' (or Gordon for short) FACT SHEET NWR No. 704 NWR Name: Duke of Gordon Wheel Arrangement 4-6-2 Builder North Eastern Railway Class A0 Purchased by NWR 1923 FULL BUILD THREAD BELOW So, firstly, the numbering scheme... I always thought it a bit odd that a railway the size of the NWR would have such a small fleet. In 'The Island of Sodor' book, Wilbert refers to many other locomotives not featured in the stories, but the linear nature of the numbering does help kids with counting and recognition of characters. I've decided to re-categorise the locos so I can fit more in while retaining the original character numbers. For my donor loco, I acquired a Hornby railroad 'flying scotsman' unboxed for a very good price. I wished to run an ex-gnr tender, so hunted down the bodyshell from a3 'cameronian' on ebay for about a tenner. Comparing the two, I wanted to have the details included with the a3, as well as the superheater, so decided it would be less effort to replace the banjo dome with a round one, and use the a3 bodyshell. Cutting off and replacing moulded handrails is a bit involved for me at present. 'Gordon' is, in my universe, a prototype a1, the A0. I wanted to use some beefier cylinders, so got hold of some stanier princess examples, again from ebay. This is my first adventure into proper model modification, so it was with a small amount of trepidation I removed the a1 cylinders. I wanted to retain the Gresley valve gear (Partially as it's probably biting off more than I can chew to change it at this time), so it required a slot in the cylinder to hold both the piston rod and slide bar thingy. I removed the back of the cylinders and inserted a piece of plasticard, cut to size. Reattached the cylinder ends and marvelled at how I'd overcome this so easily, put it back on the chassis, looking good, then stuck the body on.... D'oh! Hadn't measured it against the height of the old cylinders! Hacked apart the original bracket and chose to build a new one up in plasticard, measured against the body for height. Much better! Now, I had to re-do the holes for the piston rod and slide bar by moving them down. Fashioned a lower bracket from pieces of scrap plastic. Hopefully I'll be smoothing out the nasty bits with miliput. Still waiting on a dremel to arrive so I can drill a mounting hole for the bracket to attach to the chassis. Overall, I'm pretty pleased! Taped in place, everything moves ok so I haven't wrecked it. Needs finishing off which I need a few more tools for. Next up, need to dremel out the horrid moulded coal from the GNR tender to add something a bit properer! Got my dremel through the post this week so first set about removing the horrid coal to get my eye in with using it. Going to be putting in a false floor and layering up some better coal, nice and full! Removed most of the excess with a file. Then I turned my attentions to the loco. I want to use the better detailed A3 body, from a tender drive chassis, so had to remove the underbody section. There must be an easier way to do this but meh. At first it wouldn't fit, turns out the railroad body's rear cab fitting is slightly further back and some careful grinding was necessary. It fits! Unfortunately I made a bit of a cock up with my cylinders. The piston rods would hit the end of the cylinders, so I cut them down ever so slightly, causing one side to fall out of my homemade bracket and jam the motion. Have extended the bracket as a bodge repair for now but these cylinders have been hacked about so much now, they look a bit carp. I've ordered a replacement set for about £2.50 from ebay. These worked well as a prototype, so hopefully I can do a much neater version now I know the mounting points and mods needed to do a good job. I think a tube (like a straw) will work much better for the piston rod than the bracket, to avoid the chance of it catching. So... the stanier cylinder conversion mk2 mounted on the gresley stretcher. Part of the motion was still fouling the cylinder, I don't know what it is but it's mounted rearward on the other side, so I cut it, and re-glued in position. Not the most elegant solution but probably won't show up too much under some weathering. And mounted on the loco (needs a bit of adjustment) I purchased a battered A1 bodyshell to use as a donor, removed the dome Offered up on the A3 bodyshell Finally bit the bullet today and cut out the banjo dome, then glued a piece of plastic in behind it Then filled with milliput And dome milliputted in place. Going to let this all dry before attempting any sanding, smoothing etc A bit more miliputting and sanding on the boiler top, methinks needs some paint and fine grain sandpaper to get it properly smooth. Also added a personal touch that's bound to annoy some people.... I like it. After a lot of persuasion and adjustment (and filing and glue and miliput) the cylinders now sit evenly on each side as well. Current state: A few pics from No.704. I've used filler primer to help blend in the area of filler, and the new dome. A few cracks/dimples were filled with blobs of paint (The yellow spots shown in the photos). The filler primer is in the process of being sanded back to blend with the original paint. An overall coat or two of primer will be required before final spraying. I might send this loco to the same chap who is doing the 'Green 5'. Livery will be based on BR Express Passenger Blue with the same N W lettering on the tender. As for the tender, the edges of the coal bunker need fillering in and flattening, and the coal itself needs adding. It's getting there... Apologies for the darkness of the pics, the desk lamp bulb has gone - not blown, but literally gone. I don't know where it is! One of the last few jobs to do on 704 was to sort a way of filling the tender with coal whilst retaining the old loco drive weight. I'd been thinking about this one for a while, and today decided to try it out. The idea was to get a bumpy, but not uniformly so, pattern for how the coal sits, without needing to cut the top of the tender weight off in order to fit a flat 'false bunker'. Piece of black material cut to size and draped over the weight Before being glued to the body Done! Needs smearing with some PVA, then will sprinkle some suitable coal on, probably woodland scenics as I have a bag of that to hand (But alas no PVA!) After the coal is added, it's just the smokebox door handle to be added, then it's off to the paintshop. EDIT - Also cut some front frames to shape and fitted into place - these had been cut away during the cylinder conversion. Finally bought some PVA, spread it on the material and added some woodland scenics coal. Rather pleased with how it turned out. That's it! Ready to be packed up and sent off for paint. Super duper! No.704 arrived at my work today, and was unwrapped as soon as I got home. Really please with how it's come out. There's a few things I may still tweak/change/add - needs detailing parts, might change the height of the cylinders as they look too low to me, and I'm on the fence about the N W on the tender - might get changed for a smaller font, but on the whole, I'm pleased as punch. This was my first ever attempt at modifying an RTR loco, and I think it's ended up really nicely. Painting/lining/weathering was done by David Penman of Custom Models - http://custommodels.org/ Have some pics! and with his new stablemate EDIT: In fact it didn't take long for me to take the circular saw and dremel to the model - cylinders removed, measured and re-glued! Also re-fitted a stray front step - had to file down the underside of the bufferbeam a bit. One thing that is missing is the reversing lever, think it might be at the bottom of the spares box... Looking much better now, amazing how a little change can make such a difference. 704 came out onto the layout for a little run today. Still has tension locks fitted which need replacing with Kadees before it can haul stock, but I took the opportunity to pose it with the other two blue locos, 705 and 805. What's in a name? I thought it would be nice to justify some of the names and liveries of the NWR fleet. I'll talk about 503's history in another post, but this came to light today. Upon investigating the origins of the name 'Gordon', I found out about the Scottish Clan of that name, so thought, maybe 'Clan Gordon' or 'Duke of Gordon' would be an appropriate name for the NWR's flagship express loco. It was then that I saw, another name for the Duke of Gordon is 'Cock O'The North'. From wikipedia: "For his notable contributions Alexander Gordon, 1st Earl of Huntly was styled Cock o' the North, a designation which has ever since been accorded to the heads of clan Gordon" So, in this universe, what with 704's Gresley origins, and Sir Nigel using that name on the first member of the LNER P2 class in 1934, the name 'Duke of Gordon: Cock O'The North' was given to the experimental A0, and after that non-standard loco's sale to the NWR, the name was re-used in a shortened form on the P2. However, the name 'Duke of Gordon' stayed with the A0, thus, it is known locally as 'Gordon'. Finally got around to adding a brake hose and front coupling (both GBL parts) to 704 'Duke of Gordon' Front end looks a lot more acceptable now. Finally added a kadee to the tender (had to drill out the tension lock mount and chemical metal the kadee in)

Here's the combined build story for my little Avonside-esque 0-4-0ST, NWR No.106 'Perseus' (or Percy for short) FACT SHEET NWR No. 106 NWR Name: Perseus Wheel Arrangement 0-4-0ST Builder Avonside Engine Company (19??) Rebuilt Peckett and Sons (1920) Rebuilt Hunslet Engine Co. (1946) Purchased by NWR 1920 The loco known to Sudrians as 'Percy' first arrived on the island in 1920. Originally built by Avonside Engine Co. of Bristol, No.106 underwent a rebuild by Peckett (including a new boiler) before transferring to the NWR. Some time after the merging of the TK&F into the NWR, a short wheelbase 0-4-0ST was desired at Knapford docks. Crews were used to using the small wagon turntables to turn the vertical boilered 'coffee pot' locos, but as these fell out of use or struggled to keep up with train loadings, something more powerful but with the same operational flexibility was desired. Thus, 106 was assigned to Ffarquhar from 1935. 106 ran as such until May 1929, when it gained the name Perseus, a ceremony undertaken to coincide with the launch of Barrow-built submarine HMS Perseus, for which the loco travelled to the Vickers-Armstrong works. FULL BUILD THREAD BELOW Much as I do like to model big express and main line engines, my layout is a shunting puzzle so perhaps not best suited to them. Time for some shunters. In terms of NWR locos, I have 308 'Montague', which sadly is non-operational and currently relegated to static display due to the motor issues previously described. 301 'Thomas Allen' is in the queue and, while fully working, needs a lot of work cosmetically (such as conversion to the second batch of E2 locos with extended side tanks) which I would like to get right, so would like to practice some more on something a bit more freelance. What I had noticed when using 'Portbury' (see the cobbling thread) was that the short wheelbase actually allowed an extra wagon in the headshunt compared to using the SCC Jinty or 301. I had scrapped a rather battered Hornby 'Pug' to use the cylinders and motion on Portbury, which left a good starting point for 106 'Percy'. Percy is described as being a mongrel of different manufacturers, Awdry writes in TIOS: I've skewed things a bit in this universe, a lot of things happen earlier than in the original RWS timeline, where Percy arrives in 1949 - I'm under the impression that Awdry was trying to get his stories to catch up to contemporary events rather than being set in the past. I've gone for 1928. Anyway.. I think the LBSC Terrier cab bears a lot of similarity to Avonsides, especially the door cutout and the bunker. Luckily I had a spare A1X body bought from ebay. It nearly fits... Think the distinctly LBSC cab roof needs changing for a curved one. Also bought from ebay was a set of motion and pistons from the Hornby Adams Radial tank loco. A bit of chopping and a bit of stretching to make them fit.... This is actually motion bracket Mk3 after a few false starts The pug running plate is rather bendy and threatening to snap, I would quite like to make one but we shall see... After much fernaggling and confundering, I concluded the A1X cab wasn't going to give me what I was after without major surgery. I did have another 'Polly' in the drawer though, having chopped one up to make the cab for my model of Avonside 'Portbury', so this one went under the knife. Step 1 - reduce the bunker length Step 2 - lower the bunker level with the top of the door Step 3 - start conversion to saddle tank Step 4 - lower boiler pitch, new cab front, new running plate Step 5 - test look of saddle tank Step 6 - splash some paint around to even things out Lots of filling and sanding to do. I'm aiming for something a bit like an 0-4-0ST version of 'Woolmer' https://photos.smugmug.com/Trains-Railways-British-Isles/Miscellaneous/Longmoor-Military-Railway/i-Z99qd2Q/1/M/Longmoor_Woolmer_slide403-M.jpg Sorry, Smokey Joe (and thanks once again to Peter's Spares). Sand, glue, paint, sand, repeat As sanding and filling gets a bit repetitive, it was time to get some colour on No.106 First some green, Halfords paint again Then some cheap satin black. Added the safety valves (a bit wonky) for some pics. 2 Avonsides posed together I've got some transfers on order from Fox, hoping they'll get here soon. Really trying to get as much done as possible before the winter break. Got the handrails on last night Completely by chance, the boiler weight from the Pug donor fits snugly inside 'Percy's boiler. By chopping up some Stanier Jubilee cabside lining, managed to get one side of the cab lined out. Saddle tank is next, or I could leave it as-is, similar to how PBA S9 'Henbury' was lined out in the latter years of steam at Avonmouth Docks. Nearly there! Weight added to bunker, body fixed to chassis, motor fitted and soldered back in, tank lining and lettering, injector pipe added, lubricator fill up tank thing (from one of the pug's dumb buffers) added, a few adjustments to pick ups and she's a runner! The other side needs the lining finishing off, but I've run out of transfers for now. Need to add frame extensions and detail under the front end, and fit Kadees, but I'm very happy with how 'Perseus' looks (number and nameplates on order from Narrow Planet). Once all that's done I'm going to weather it a bit to hide some of the dodgier bits, and add some coal and glazing. It's not all that different from my initial photoshop mock-up I did a few years ago... Perseus has gained some Kadee couplers, which meant I was able to do some shunting with him on the layout. Works great! The tiny wheelbase means that you can squeeze one more wagon into the headshunt compared to using 301, the Jinty or the Pannier. Runs a lot smoother than 'Portbury', too. I had a go at adding some detail to the front in the form of a curved handrail, formed around a screwdriver handle, I drilled the holes slightly oversized, dropped some glue in, then roughly positioned the knobs before threading the handrail through. This pic shows it nearly all the way installed, before a dab of paint. It also shows the front frame extensions to get rid of the 'hovering front end' look. I like my locos to look well-used, so mixed up some weathering powder (smoke) with a bit of micro sol and water, then applied liberally to the body, let it dry, then rubbed most of it off with a damp cottonbud. My aim was to create a bit of streaking and general grime where the cleaners couldn't get to. I've also added some coal to Percy's bunker. This covers some 'liquid gravity' I glued in, to give the back some weight - the loco is very front heavy. I've got some number, name and builders' plates on order with Narrow Planet, then have a few details like glazing (and some crew) to add, then I hope he'll be more or less finished! Let's begin with the bad news. I wanted to paint a few bits of black on 'Percy', stuck it in the vice without thinking, and promptly broke the motion bracket. Hours and hours of faffing and different attempts later, I could not make a replacement up and rather dejectedly gave up. All was not lost, however. I had a second 'pug' which was disassembled to donate its motion and cylinders. I've retconned this by reasoning that No.106 works a lot on the quayside down at Knapford, and the tramway up at Ffarquhar, so in order to avoid more police notices, it's been fitted with covers on the motion, keeping the local bobby happy. The etched plates for No.106 have arrived from Narrow Planet. I've affixed them using some Klear for the time being but we'll see how well it sticks..

Goodness, that period 1 BG is especially nice.

Wow! Most excellent. This used to be my special treat when I was staying at my grandma's house as a boy. Good luck with it and look forward to seeing updates.

Hi Kes, May I ask what slidebars and crosshead you used for this?

looks brilliant!

Very nice. The basic frame in the second pic is a bit like a scaled up NG slate wagon!

Hi mate, thanks for checking in I've been a bit distracted with these projects at the moment (featured in my blog) 3D printed LBSCR E2 on Hornby Thomas chassis Turning a L&MLR Kitson 2-6-4T 009 kit into a standard gauge 2-6-0T, and the hopper wagon behind it is my first attempt at card modelling (using an empty chocolate box and tri-ang chassis) in the style of an enlarged Snailbeach hopper. As for a 4-8-2, I'll try and get a pic of the pony truck mounting so you can see what bogie could be adapted to fit, but I don't thing it would be too difficult to do. I'd recommend the chassis highly as its a very good runner.

Wow. Stunning layout.

Beauties!

As Caradoc mentions above, the Borders railway is a bit like a very long siding. The signalling involved in the Portishead route is quite extensive.

It has to clear the level crossing as well, so presumably they wanted to clear large lorries/low loaders with big items (the road leads to an industrial estate) and double deckers.

Shame there isn't a 'love' button!

Someone was saying its made difficult as the original line had a signal box and passing loop in the middle of the line, south of Pill. I believe Metrobus was mostly funded from a specific grant.

I asked my sister (a graphic designer) to make a suitably period-esque logo for one of the many industries that will abound in this area. Think she did a nice job! Points awarded to anyone who can guess the reference correctly...

Maybe an overbridge or something would work for the middle? Or something like an overhead pipeline?

Can't wait to see the Peckett! In terms of ownership and livery, what company does the MW belong to? Is it another on the same estate?

Great idea Tom, will be watching with interest.

Thanks! That's really interesting, I've been fascinated by the Lambton lines. I recently read an online article about the letters your grandfather/great grandfather sent and how they give an insight into the workings of the railway. Is this the pannier tank you mean?

Another view of Ted Polet's Jintybashes, lined up on Isle Ornsay