Wright writes.....

[Michael Edge]

I remember trying very hard to get Brian to lower his camera when he was photographing Cwmafon in my loft (stifling hot in there with all his lights) and I got him to do one under a bridge. Brian's comment was "I'll do it but it will be hopeless and RM won't publish it" - I insisted and they did put it in the article.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

I suppose Barry Norman showed the way to take 'realistic shots'. 

Following in the footsteps of John Ahern and George Iliffe Stokes.

[Clem]

On 13/10/2021 at 08:52, dibateg said:

64219 was one of the last survivors at Colwick.

Yes Tony, it was *the* last survivor being the last and only one for over a year, finally succumbing in November 1961.

[Tony Wright]

Father and son, Steve and Robin Smith of the Wakefield Club visited today.

 

Robin brought some most-interesting models he's working on.........

 

 

An A3.

 

 

A B1.

 

 

A J6.

 

 

A J39.

 

 

A Fairburn 2-6-4T.

 

 

A 'Cauliflower'.

 

 

Some wagons.

 

 

And an eight-wheeled brake van.

 

Robin dips regularly into Wright writes, so I'll let him explain what all these are.

 

Chaps, thanks for your hospitality, donations to CRUK and for a most-enlightening day. 

 

 

 

 

[Bucoops]

Wow, I've seen 6 wheeled brake vans but not eight, apart from Queen Mary's of course. Was there any lateral movement in the wheelsets to aid curves or restrictions on routes?

[rob94]

1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:

Robin dips regularly into Wright writes, so I'll let him explain what all these are.

 

Chaps, thanks for your hospitality, donations to CRUK and for a most-enlightening day. 

 

Thanks Tony, we certainly had an enjoyable day and was a good birthday treat for my Dad.

 

The A3 is a DJH kit fitted with their own gearbox this particular was bought a few years ago and has a Mashima motor. Once completed it will be painted in BR blue and named Diamond Jubilee. 

 

The B1 is the usual Bachmann/Replica body on a Comet chassis, power is supplied by a Mabuchi motor very similar to what was provided in the old Bachmann split chassis, it drives through a High level HiFlier with a 34:1 ratio giving a good all round performance.

 

The Nucast J6 was acquired with the body already built but was supplied with the white metal lump for a chassis, this was discarded and replaced with the etched frames available from the Nucast partners. The motor and gearbox are both High level the 1320 coreless motor and a 45:1 road runner.

 

This J39 was once one of the GBL static models, now it rides on a Comet mechanism powered by a Cannon motor and the gearbox that Comet designed for it. Due to the footplate needing a lot of cutting before the frames fitted there are easier ways to get a J39. The lubricator drive was fashioned from 0.7 brass rod flattened where appropriate.

 

The Fairburn came from Ebay it required a new motor and gear box to replace the rather noisy open framed motor it came with although this hasn't been as successful as I'd hoped and needs more work. I will persevere with it because as we agreed it has quite a good paint job.

 

The Cauliflower is an old GEM kit on some etched frames of unknown origin, Gibson coupling rods were made up to match. The backhead is scratch built from various bits of brass. A Mashima 1024 and Comet GB5 make up the transmission in this loco.      

 

These three wagons are built near enough as they come from the manufacturer, the only additions are the superb Lanarkshire model supplied buffers. The Parkside plate wagon is the meat in the Ratio van sandwich.

 

The final piece I brought along to show Tony was the D&S 8 wheel brake van, it just needs a little bit of work doing to it before its ready for paint. 

 

Thanks Tony once again for a superb day and hopefully next time you see these models a few of them might actually be finished.....

 

Thank you 

Robin

[Tony Wright]

Thanks Robin,

 

Your work shows great promise.

 

I'm delighted I was able to quieten-down the A3 (the noise definitely didn't come from the made-up DHH 'box), fix the short on that beautifully-running J6 and repair the cab roof on the Fairburn. You really seem to be well on the road to excellent running with regard to your loco builds. 

 

I'd like to see how that Bill Bedford Thompson FO turns out. Without the tools I employed, forming its tumbleholme would have been very difficult, even ruinous.

 

I'm so encouraged to see the work of 'budding', up-and-coming modellers like yourself. Without a younger generation coming through to pick up the 'baton' of personal modelling, then the hobby will drift into even more reliance on RTR. You've not only picked up that relay stick, you're positively running with it! As I said, I own very little now of what I built when I was 27.

 

Regards,

 

Tony.

 

P.S. Don't forget to change those 12-spoked bogie wheels on the A3 and the B1. I have some ten-spoked ones here, but forgot to give them to you. Next time. 

Edited October 16, 2021 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Jesse Sim]

47 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Thanks Robin,

 

Your work shows great promise.

 

I'm delighted I was able to quieten-down the A3 (the noise definitely didn't come from the made-up DHH 'box), fix the short on that beautifully-running J6 and repair the cab roof on the Fairburn. You really seem to be well on the road to excellent running with regard to your loco builds. 

 

I'd like to see how that Bill Bedford Thompson FO turns out. Without the tools I employed, forming its tumbleholme would have been very difficult, even ruinous.

 

I'm so encouraged to see the work of 'budding', up-and-coming modellers like yourself. Without a younger generation coming through to pick up the 'baton' of personal modelling, then the hobby will drift into even more reliance on RTR. You've not only picked up that relay stick, you're positively running with it! As I said, I own very little now of what I built when I was 27.

 

Regards,

 

Tony.

 

P.S. Don't forget to change those 12-spoked bogie wheels on the A3 and the B1. I have some ten-spoked ones here, but forgot to give them to you. Next time. 

Pray tell how do you roll the tumblehome? I’m useless at it

[Tony Wright]

18 minutes ago, Jesse Sim said:

Pray tell how do you roll the tumblehome? I’m useless at it

With rolling bars and a steel rule, Jesse.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[gr.king]

12 hours ago, Bucoops said:

Wow, I've seen 6 wheeled brake vans but not eight, apart from Queen Mary's of course. Was there any lateral movement in the wheelsets to aid curves or restrictions on routes?

 

Whether for reduced axle loading or improved ride, eight wheeled brake vans were for a while a standard arrangement for 20 ton vans for some purposes on the GNR, although presumably such things as better track on various routes (among other things) also allowed four wheeled twenty tonners before grouping. As real railways don't feature train set curves, and eight wheeled tenders without bogies became common, I doubt that a short wheelbase eight wheeled brake van would need any particularly special arrangements on normal routes, although I'm not sure whether they were used on work taking them into industrial settings with tight curves and uneven track such as colliery sidings.

[Compound2632]

37 minutes ago, gr.king said:

Whether for reduced axle loading or improved ride, eight wheeled brake vans were for a while a standard arrangement for 20 ton vans for some purposes on the GNR, although presumably such things as better track on various routes (among other things) also allowed four wheeled twenty tonners before grouping. 

 

I can't think of any other examples of 8-wheeled non-bogie brake vans. On other lines 6-wheelers were the norm for 20 ton vans, until 4-wheelers started to appear after the Great War (or earlier on the Great Western) - I suspect improved bearing lubrication played a part there. I wonder if the Great Northern went for 8-wheelers to give greater frictional area (more brake blocks), considering some of the steep gradients on the West Riding lines?

[LNER4479]

13 hours ago, Bucoops said:

Wow, I've seen 6 wheeled brake vans but not eight, apart from Queen Mary's of course. Was there any lateral movement in the wheelsets to aid curves or restrictions on routes?

One of them survives, due to it being used for internal NCB duties at Ashington colliery. Now at the Tanfield Railway, having been originally preserved at the NYMR

2009_0822_154153 | John Irleand | Flickr

[Compound2632]

Has it got (did they have) unusually small wheels?

[Dave Hunt]

On 12/10/2021 at 10:42, Barry Ten said:

 

 

Readers of Wright Writes will remember that a few months ago the opportunity came to make an offer on the fine collection of Midland models kindly built and donated by Dave Hunt. I put in a bid for the items and was very pleased to have it accepted. The models rested with Tony until it was feasible to collect them, but they are now with me and I've begun test-running on my own layout.

 

The collection includes four locos, a number of fine Midland carriages, and quite a large selection of goods vehicles. From the outset, Tony advised that two of the locos in particular might struggle with less-than-generous curves, so I made my offer in the full knowledge that the two passenger engines - the Compound above, and a Single - might have to remain cabinet cases. Pleasingly, however, it turns out that both engines are able to run on my layout. The Compound will go around both clockwise and anti-clockwise roads, while the Single needs to be confined to the former, but that's still a very good result as far as I'm concerned.

 

In the brief video below, both locos are shown running as-is, with nothing but a touch of lubrication on the Compound. Both need a bit of attention with regard to pickup, being wired on the American style with loco and tender at opposite polarities. The Compound runs fine in forward, but shorts out in reverse. The Single runs well both forward and reverse but is prone to dips in power at various spots on the layout, which I think is due to it only picking up on two axles on either rail.  For that reason I've cranked it up to nearly top speed on the layout, but it should run much more slowly once the pickup is amended. My intention is to modify the arrangement to the normal style, both to give more collection points, but also to enable both engines to run independently of their tenders. This will be done in as "minimally invasive" a style as possible, so as to preserve the integrity of the models.

 

As it happens, I do now need to do a bit of surgery on the tender of the Single. A captive nut inside the body has come loose inside, meaning the rear bogie can't be attached. I've devised a repair plan which will involve a bit of keyhole surgery, but nothing that will harm the details or beautiful finish. I think  once I've done that, I'll have no qualms about adding a few extra pickups and wiring, all of which should be invisible.

 

My video work isn't the best, but hopefully some of you will enjoy seeing these fine models running under power. Thanks again to Mr Hunt for this generous donation, and to Tony for facilitating it.

 

 

cheers,

 

Al

 

Al,

 

Thanks for posting that. I'm glad that you are happy with the models and it's good to see them run after so many decades of them sitting in boxes. Sorry about the remedial work you will have to do on them though.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[Woodcock29]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Has it got (did they have) unusually small wheels?

Normal 3ft 1in wheels. I built the D&S kit back in the 80s. Unfortunately the kit is based on a one off version. It has one door each side on a diagonal basis which are placed at the end of the verandah, whereas the other GN 8 wheel brake vans built had the doors on the inner end of the verandah. The kit could be kitbashed into one of these with a bit of work. The steps are rather fragile and benefit from some reinforcement. They are covered in Tatlow's LNER Wagons Vol 1. Note the example at Tanfield has a rebuilt body without the larger GN style verandahs, more LNER standard style.

Andrew

[gr.king]

6 hours ago, Woodcock29 said:

Normal 3ft 1in wheels. I built the D&S kit back in the 80s. Unfortunately the kit is based on a one off version. It has one door each side on a diagonal basis which are placed at the end of the verandah, whereas the other GN 8 wheel brake vans built had the doors on the inner end of the verandah. The kit could be kitbashed into one of these with a bit of work. The steps are rather fragile and benefit from some reinforcement. They are covered in Tatlow's LNER Wagons Vol 1. Note the example at Tanfield has a rebuilt body without the larger GN style verandahs, more LNER standard style.

Andrew

 

The need for extra bracing of the steps was apparent in the case of one example of the D&S van that persistently derailed during the recent Grantham practice weekend. Built with the kit's non-prototypical concealed short bogies, the steps had been pushed inwards since construction to the extent that the bogies were rigidly held in slight misalignment...

On the theme of getting real rigid eight wheelers around curves, it is of course less of a challenge for the same overall wheelbase than it would be for a six wheeler with evenly spaced axles. The GNR had possessed non-bogie eight wheelers much longer than brake vans or tenders too, including some relatively long engineer's wagons and longer still some coaches at around 45 feet. I assume they did have to have some provision for side play in some of the wheel sets.

Edited October 16, 2021 by gr.king
Spelling mistake!

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, gr.king said:

coaches at around 45 feet. I assume they did have to have some provision for side play in some of the wheel sets.

 

Did those have outer radial axles, à la Webb?

[brightspark]

On 13/10/2021 at 09:08, Tony Wright said:

I'm writing a piece for BRM on point rodding.

 

It's one of those details which often get missed off model railways. 

 

 

Yet, it's so distinctive when installed.

 

 

Even just a hint of it.

 

 

In last year's lockdown, I completed the lot on Little Bytham!

 

This was all made/installed using MSE's components. 

 

Has anyone used the Wills system for 4mm? I acquired some, but found it just too big - nearer 7mm if anything; certainly S Scale. The rods themselves wouldn't go underneath SMP plain track. 

 

I'd be interested to see what it looks like, made-up and installed.

 

Thanks in anticipation. 

 

 

Another layout with point rodding is D.A. Williams Metropolitan Junction. 

 

 

 

Note that the rodding is NOT cosmetic, it actually operates the points and signals.

 

I took these very hasty snaps on Thursday when Richard had set the layout up for a running session.

 

 

[Chuffer Davies]

3 hours ago, gr.king said:

The GNR had possessed non-bogie eight wheelers much longer than brake vans of tenders too, including some relatively long engineer's wagons and longer still some coaches at around 45 feet. I assume they did have to have some provision for side play in some of the wheel sets.

Hi Grahame,

As you have stated, as well as 6 wheeled coaches the GNR had 8 wheeled (rigid) coaches designed by Howldon.  The 8 wheelers used the same w iron arrangement on the inner axles as was used for the centre axle of the 6 wheelers.  The main features being; the inner axles had their W irons mounted outside the sole bar, longer leaf springs and flexible spring hangers.  I have drawn up etches for one of the Howldon 8 wheelers because these  were subsequently converted for use in various articulated sets including the quint sets found on the Queensbury lines, but for which no kit existed.  One of my colleagues (Russ Whitwam) is building stock for our Clayton layout and is in the process of building one of my etches in the original 8 wheeled rigid form.  The method of mounting the inner axles can be seen in this part finished model along with a 6 wheeler for comparison.  Only the outer axles had brakes.  

 

 

Regards,

Frank

[CF MRC]

On 14/10/2021 at 19:38, Tony Wright said:

The post by Clearwater earlier set me thinking with regard to  the number of articles I've had published in the model railway press down the years and the number of layouts I've photographed which have been published.

 

Had I been diligent and organised, I'd have kept copies (and of the books I've written) but that's not the case.

 

One thing I must do is digitise all the tens of thousands of B&W negatives I have and the transparencies. This has been done in the main with my prototype railway images (their having been published).

 

I recall chatting to Brian Monaghan shortly after he retired and I asked him about his vast library of model railway pictures (all of which had been taken using a 5"X4" Linhof). 'Are they catalogued?' I asked. The gist of his reply was probably not, if any survived at all. Once a commission had been completed, the prints/transparencies were sent off to the editors and he kept very little, not even negatives, it would seem. HIs name was prominent in the model press for a long time, though I wish he'd left his 'helicopter' behind on occasions. He photographed Fordley Park for Model Railways, at the request of Cyril Freezer, and I asked him if the camera could be lowered (to no avail, though the picture quality was impressive). I took the pictures for any subsequent Fordley Park articles (locomotives of, etc.), but, though taken from eye level, they didn't have the quality of Brian's; until I bought into medium format equipment. It carried on through Leighford, Stoke Summit, Charwelton and so on, gradually evolving into digital imagery. 

 

I suppose Barry Norman showed the way to take 'realistic shots'. 

The amazing thing about Brian was the speed with which he photographed a layout and the fact that he could keep talking all the time: he could make a cat laugh with his stories.
 

Tim

[thegreenhowards]

3 hours ago, brightspark said:

Another layout with point rodding is D.A. Williams Metropolitan Junction. 

 

 

 

Note that the rodding is NOT cosmetic, it actually operates the points and signals.

 

I took these very hasty snaps on Thursday when Richard had set the layout up for a running session.

 

 

I’ve also been building a layout with working point rodding. This is the new, as yet nameless, O gauge layout of the East Surrey MRC which is based on a ‘Minories’ type track plan. 

 

 

The cranks are from DCC concepts, the stools are 3D printed by club member @woko, it’s 0.7mm wire and the levers are Gem which will be situated in the base of the signal box. 
 

A video of it working is here.

 

 

[Tony Wright]

This afternoon, Tim Watson of Copenhagen Fields fame popped by in passing.

 

A pleasant time was spent running trains on LB. Sad to relate, a V2 succeeded in derailing its pony wheel beneath the cab and one of the pins on the lifting section decided it was time to stop passing electricity. Both 'disasters' were cured in seconds, but there you go.

 

Thanks for the stimulating conversation and most-generous contribution to CRUK, Tim.

 

And, I've got one of the finest contemporary modellers signed in my visitors' book! 

[Tony Wright]

I've just heard today from Mike Russell (DMR) that Dave King, one time proprietor of Crownline has died.

 

A maker of countless conversion kits and some very fine 4mm loco kits, yet another fine modeller gone. 

 

My condolences to Sheila and all his family and friends. 

 

Since I'm not sure how to start a new topic, perhaps one of the moderators can place a post in the obituaries section. Thanks in anticipation. 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Tony Wright]

Dave King's passing has prompted me to find a few images showing some Crownline loco kits I've built...............

 

 

The A1/1, painted by Ian Rathbone.

 

 

An A1, painted by Geoff Haynes.

 

 

An A2, started by Rob Kinsey, completed by me and painted by Ian Rathbone. 

 

 

An A2/2, painted by Ian Rathbone. 

 

With Bytham's point rodding having been completed last year, I've now completed my article on the subject for BRM's next issue.

 

 

An A2/3, painted by Ian Rathbone. 

 

 

A V2, painted by Ian Rathbone.

 

 

A J17. This has now been weathered by Tom Foster.

 

 

And an original 'WC', painted by Ian Rathbone (yes, it does get a run from time to time).

 

These are among the current Crownline locos running on Little Bytham. I've built many more from Dave King's kits, but they're not in my possession. 

 

Many of the kits in the range were reintroduced under the PDK label.  

 

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Tony Wright
typo error

[johndon]

39 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Since I'm not sure how to start a new topic

Two mouse clicks:

 

1. Click on the Obituaries forum. 
2. Click on the Start New Topic button.