Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Looking North

[Skinnylinny]

Well, yesterday the heavens opened while I was at my Saturday market job. It was very quiet (at one point we went two hours between customers!) so I got out my lining transfers. I think the black/blue/red livery looks quite smart, although I think I'll adjust the width of the blue borders somewhat. What do people think to this as a goods livery? I suspect the polished dome might be unlikely, but it does add a nice splash of colour to an otherwise very black area of the loco.

 

I still reckon this loco will get a number plate and a nameplate (as a sort-of "pug", this might end up as Gaspode...)

[RedGemAlchemist]

Gaspode is a perfect name for it!

[Skinnylinny]

The blue does look a bit wide, maybe if it were a couple of mm less deep?

Perhaps - it's only about 2mm wide on the cabside at the moment (I have it about 1mm wide on the front and back of the tank) but finding the sweet spot on the curves at the bottom of the tank is tricky... I'm also trying to avoid having to lay lining transfers over the rivets, but might just have to bite the bullet and get the decal softening solution out.

Edited October 14, 2018 by Skinnylinny

[Compound2632]

I think wideish borders were quite the thing - 4" - 5"? Once everything's blended together with a coat of varnish it'll look even better.

 

How about a thin blue lined red bottom edge to the valence? 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Compound2632

[Skinnylinny]

Possibly, but I had in mind something more along the lines of this (but in reverse):

 

 

where the black borders around the blue panels are fairly narrow. Again, keeps the company style fairly consistent. The saddle tank at least means I won't need to apply boiler band lining.

The running plate valence I'm going to play around with. Given the space there, it might be possible to do something with red and blue, but I'm not sure what. yet.

[Caley Jim]

The running plate valence I'm going to play around with. Given the space there, it might be possible to do something with red and blue, but I'm not sure what. yet.

The Caledonian passenger livery had the lower edge of the valance black with a white line separating this from the lake of the valence itself. Could you do the same with a blue edge and a red line?

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

Is The Patrician really happy about having his name applied to a 0-6-0, even a mixed-traffic one? (Noting AVB and passenger livery.) You may find yourself summoned to the Oblong Office. Shades of the trouble the Great Western had with their Earls! 

[Skinnylinny]

Havelock Vetinari was always envisaged as being a passenger loco, rather than mixed-traffic, which would likely be operated by tank engines. She (he?) has relatively small driving wheels because of the somewhat rugged gradients and fairly closely-spaced stations. She won't run the long-distance sprints into London, that being the purview of the solitary 2-4-0 that is under construction. As you point out, though, the nameplates might have be moved onto the prestige, express loco which is it assumed was built after Havelock Vetinari when the GSR amalgamated (from the Linton & Bagshot and the Guildford & Surrey) and gained running rights on the LSWR line into Waterloo (in exchange for the LSWR being allowed to use the GSR as a bypass route between Guildford & Bagshot when necessary, the slower-pace of the GSR being less likely to be disrupted by goods trains than the LSWR lines).

[ianmaccormac]

Hi Linny

Great to put a name to a face at Uckfield show on Sunday. You didn't show me the SECR carriage for long enough, it looked good!

I have seen somewhere your post of Gary's I3 using the Umber transfers and your description! Many thanks for that. It s good to see them in use.

Can I have a copy of the photo please?

Hope you are either having a great time still down south or have got off the 'bus'. That must have been an epic journey - bad enough on trains to Blackpool!

Anyway, cheers, I am off for an early night as I am shattered!

Thanks again

Ian

[Skinnylinny]

Hi Ian,

 

As you say, it was very good to put a name to a face! Thank you for the kind words about the SE&CR coach. I really must get back onto getting those finished.

 

I've put up a photo of the I3 on Twitter ( twitter.com/LinnysTrains ) but there's still more work to do on it - I think I've used an incorrect piece which I couldn't see with the naked eye (just behind the smokebox saddle, the lining goes from black/gold to gold/black/gold). I'm hugely impressed by the transfers, both with how fine they are but also with how easy to use - I've not had any breakages or irreparable tangles, where in the past I've had trouble with certain brands falling apart even as they're being floated off the sheet.

 

I'm happy to send you a full resolution copy of the photo once I'm back somewhere with decent wi-fi. Right now I'm just passing through Alnwick on the coach (got woken up at the stop at Newcastle) but should be back in Edinburgh in about two hours. The things we do for our hobbies!

 

Hope the early night does you good - I'm at the club tomorrow evening (well, technically this evening I guess!) so a live-in on Wednesday is called for!

 

All the best,

 

Linny

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by Skinnylinny

[ianmaccormac]

Hi Linny

Well thats me all refreshed after a good nights kip in my own bed!

Hope you feel okay after your long journey as well?

The photo is really good, many thanks - I think someone showed it to me on a phone from twitter.

I can confirm the bit you are talking about is the gold black gold srtip which is meant for the westinghouse pump lining.

I will be out this morning but will try and get some labels on the sheet explaining what is what later today.

Glad you are finding them nice to work with, all the messing about with Tasmanian printing seems justified now!

Cheers

Ian

Edited October 23, 2018 by ianmaccormac

[Skinnylinny]

Indeed, not too bad - I arrived early (!) at about 7:50, and am now safely in the office, and actually managed to get about 6 hours of sleep on the bus, so not too bad at all. 
Ahhhhh that explains it! Frustratingly the frame lining parts on the sheet aren't quite long enough to cover that part on the I3. Is there any more straight black/gold lining on the sheet? Those labels will be helpful, as most of the bits are fairly identifiable but there are some very strange squiggly bits!

[ianmaccormac]

Umber 4mm explanation.pdf

Hopefully that will help a bit

Cheers

Ian

[Skinnylinny]

Ahhhhh that is very helpful. Thank you! I'm just on my way to the club now so I'll try to correct my mistake. Other than that it looks like I've used the correct parts

[Skinnylinny]

Well, I'm home and have a decent internet connection, and some time off, so it's time to have a quick reflect over the weekend, and what a lovely weekend it was!

 

It all started on Thursday night with an overnight bus from Edinburgh to London (which broke down at about 5:30am, so we all got piled onto another one with non-functioning heating), a morning and lunch in London, then a train to deepest darkest Sussex, where I was met at the station by Gary (BlueLightning). I stayed at Gary's for the weekend, so that I could go to and help out with the Uckfield model railway exhibition. That evening, we had a poke at his layout of Hailsham, working out point rodding routing and how the platforms will fit together, which led to a fair bit of head-scratching and hair-pulling!

The next morning we set off to Uckfield, and I was very impressed with the show, and the organisation that had gone into it. The club members and other stewards were very friendly and helpful, there were several excellent layouts (The Yard, Leysdown, Fen End Pit and Llanfair Caereinion spring to mind, among others) and a good selection of traders. I may have spent rather more than I intended, but did come away with a Roxey Mouldings etched brass kit (SER Grand Vitesse van), and various useful bits and bobs from Squires that I didn't realise I needed.

The Yard in 7mm, featuring radio-controlled road vehicles, a narrow-gauge and standard-gauge system, and an operating gantry crane, all carefully arranged for totally hands-free operation. Very impressive - I must have spent nearly an hour just watching the crane shuffling crates and pipes and various other loads between lorries and wagons.

 

 

Llanfair Caereinion in 4mm/009. One of the things that's hard to get across in photos is the sheer sense of space and airiness on this layout, which has been modelled with absolutely no compression. The yard is big enough to turn a horse and cart around in (something which is making me re-think Linton yard *again*), and the locos ran like Swiss watches. The auto-couplers were very unobtrusive too, and very effective. The builder was also showcasing this exquisite kitbuilt 009 L&B loco and coach:

 

The evening was spent going to a Bonfire March (apparently a curiously Sussex tradition, involving lots of people dressed up in strange outfits, parading down the street with burning torches, before setting off firecrackers and lighting a huge bonfire. I'd never heard of it!) and then playing around with paint and Ian MacCormac's new lining transfers - see the post above to see what I achieved with the I3!

Sunday was more of the same at the exhibition, although I was lucky enough to be invited to operate Llanfair Caereinion, which was an absolute pleasure. With its carefully-placed uncoupling electromagnets, I could have shunted for hours with only the two sidings and the platform run-around loop. Lots of fun! I also got to meet Ian MacCormac (another face put to a name), and have an all-too-brief chat, which has left me wondering why I have yet to join the Brighton Circle (even if I'm not strictly a Brighton modeller!). I also picked up some prints from Matthew Cousins, being very impressed with the technical accuracy as well as his ability to set a scene. I did, however, choose some simple loco portraits (a D1 in Improved Engine Green and an E3 in Stroudley Goods Green) - the photos really don't do them justice. I could easily have gone for the fully-lined Wainwright H class too, but I don't really have space for an art gallery in my room!

 

After packing up once the exhibition had finished, we headed back to Gary's for another evening of chatting while modelling and discussing our plans for our respective layouts. All too soon, it was time to sleep, then on Monday it was back to the railway station for a trip back to London, lunch with my family, and then back on the overnight bus to Edinburgh! An exhausting, but absolutely worth it weekend. I'll definitely be back down next year, if Gary will take me!
 

Edited October 24, 2018 by Skinnylinny

[BlueLightning]

I'll definitely be back down next year, if Gary will take me!

 

Of course I will, and who knows, at the rate Hailsham is moving I might be ready to lay the point rodding by then!!! :jester:

 

Gary

[Skinnylinny]

Just a quick update before work today: The laser cutter has been busy and the first (pretty much) production model of the LB&SCR Open D has finally made it out. Only two tiny adjustments to be made (~5 minutes in CAD) and then I can get writing the instructions. I'm hoping for a release by/at the end of next week. The changes I need to make are to extend the diagonal strapping very slightly in length, and add a card overlay for the bufferbeams. Meanwhile, here are some photos.

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

Brilliant, as ever. You can put me down for a couple.

[Skinnylinny]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm particularly pleased with how close I've managed to get the brake shoe to the wheel tread! However, I might add a little leeway for those using, for example, Hornby wheels with their slightly larger diameter, otherwise they'll have to model a wagon with the brake hard on!

 

[Killian keane]

So, to make a change, I've got some actual modelling on my workbench. Tom (TurboSnail) has been working on a 3D printed kit for a Sharp Stewart 0-4-0t, and kindly offered me one to do a test build. Well, the box landed yesterday, and what a beautiful kit it is! It comes in three 3D printed parts (bodyshell, cab roof (making cab interior painting much easier, as well as meaning that there's much less by way of support material to remove from an enclosed space), and chassis (including coupling rods)). The kit also comes with a motor with integrated gearbox, and a set of bevel gears, as well as a screw and nut to hold the body to the chassis. After removing the coupling rods (and promptly forgetting to include them in the photos!), the kit looks something like this:

 

IMG_20181010_170306582.jpg

 

The fit of all parts was nice and snug, with nothing needing any filing - it just worked first time! The motor and gearbox sits nicely in the chassis, looking something like this (photo shows the recommended (but not included) DCC Concepts wiper pickups - there's even two neat little slots for these which hold the tips just in line with the inside of the tyre of the wheels, and keep the wipers nearly invisible, hidden behind the wheels). All very neat and organised!

 

IMG_20181010_170718006.jpg

 

Once I got home, I got the chance to roughly put the whole thing together with some wheels, only to realise I'd forgotten to order the required brass axle bushes, so the following photos are purely to give an idea of the whole thing assembled. Hopefully the bushes should arrive soon and I will be able to assemble a running chassis.

 

IMG_20181010_170718008.jpg

 

IMG_20181010_170718007.jpg

Overall impressions: A very nice piece of work, some beautiful design, and perfect fits throughout. The SLA printing knocks Shapeways "Frosted Ultra Detail" into a cocked hat in terms of surface finish. No stepping visible to the naked eye at all. Very much looking forward to building this one up, and also now impatient for the Neilson 2-2-2 and the SE&CR F class. My poor bank balance...

That is absolutely brilliant! There was one in Ireland as well as the three examples on the Cambrian to my reccolection, one shunted just up the road from me

Edited October 26, 2018 by Killian keane

[RedGemAlchemist]

That is a chimney and a half.

[TurboSnail]

The reject shell (Linny's is a reprint, as it was a bit broken) is also being experimented with in a slightly different style with a simple weatherboard cab. Not sure if I'm going to build up into a full working loco though.

 

[Skinnylinny]

An Unexpected Journey...only this time, not to Middle-Earth, but to Bo'ness! A chance conversation with a club member who was giving me a lift home on Thursday (thanks Peter!) meant I found myself being given a lift to Bo'ness on Friday - a few of the members of the Edinburgh and Lothians MRC are members of the Bo'ness Gauge O Group and help operate the rather lovely layout housed in two old Norwegian carriages at the railway.

When we arrived, the smell of steam, oil, and coal smoke was thick in the air, there already being three locos in steam (an Austerity 0-6-0, no. 19; a Neilson Reid 0-6-0T "Lord Roberts" and a Barclay 0-4-0T "NCB No. 6"), although, just inside the shed, a blue bunker could be seen:



We started setting up the layout with as much pre-grouping stock as we could find, including:

A Caledonian 439 Class:

 

A North British Class L (later C16):

A G&SWR 4-4-0 (unknown class, sorry about the terrible photo - this ran non-stop and is the best of a bad lot!)

 

an NBR Class C (later J36):

 

And a very lovely indeed NBR Atlantic

 

A wander around the Museum of Scottish Railways showed lots of lovely Scottish pre-grouping wagons too, including an interesting NBR both-end-door loco coal wagon (presumably so it didn't have to be shunted a particular way around into the tippler?)

 

A lovely, typically Scottish mineral wagon:


An outside-framed Caley van (which it's quite tempting to get in touch with the museum about measuring up!)

 

and a Midland 5-plank open (sadly not a D299!), although whoever rigged that tarpaulin's going to get their backside handed to 'em by the yard supervisor!)

However, the real reason for going wasn't really for wandering around the museum, nor was it entirely for the opportunity to operate Glenauchter, but to see two full-sized Caledonian locos. When I came out of the museum, these two beautiful machines were being pulled out of the shed by no. 6:

 

Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to get any closer to them, nor were they running (as several people had expected), instead they were slowly and gently warmed up through the day, then ran on Saturday and Sunday, including running services with the two Caedonian coaches (yes, I was frustrated to miss that, and I would even have paid the £5 extra surcharge to ride in Caley coaches behind Caley engines! Ah well...)

[Caley Jim]

No need to measure up the CR van, there's a GA drawing of it in Mike Williams CR wagon book. For photos of the two locos in steam, see my Kirkallanmuir thread over in the 2mm finescale section. (sorry on my phone so not able to post a link)

 

Jim

Edited November 4, 2018 by Caley Jim

[Skinnylinny]

I had a feeling you might be there at some point this weekend, Jim! Some lovely photos too ( HERE for those who want to click through )! Looks like proper dreich weather though - we had glorious sunshine on the Friday!

Sadly I don't have that wagon book, but I often find photos (and getting up close and personal) can be much better for getting a feel for the wagon than just a drawing can do, and certainly in the case of coaches can make the difference between having windows where blank panels should be and not!

Edited November 4, 2018 by Skinnylinny