Wright writes.....

[polybear]

37 minutes ago, sandra said:

This is a J52 I’m building from an unknown kit which I bought off eBay. Rather unusually the kit is entirely nickel silver. 

 

Walsworth Models do a J52 Kit - though the description suggests the etches are both Brass & N.S.

[robertcwp]

Back in 2007, Bob Reid had some etches made for the Mark 1 Diag 16 restaurant first, of which five were built at Doncaster for the Western Region in 1952. Brian Kirby converted a Bachmann RU for me using these etches. 

 

P1040363s by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

P1040366s by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

[Tony Wright]

15 hours ago, sandra said:

Hello Tony,

 

60501 is running well and is usually on one of the principle trains. However Retford does have a further A2/2, 60506 Wolf of Badenoch which here has found itself at the head of the down Yorkshire Pullman.
This is a DJH A2/2 which I bought on eBay. It was built in OO by an unknown builder however I did extensively rebuild it and I converted it to EM gauge.  It’s a powerful engine and I’m convinced that to obtain a locomotive which can haul a long heavy train it’s best for it to be fairly heavy and this can best be achieved by building a white metal kit. I do have a Hornby A3, 60103 Flying Scotsman. There is very limited scope to add extra weight to this loco and as a result it’s not able to haul a heavy train, thus it has be confined to running a Doncaster to Grantham stopper on the basis that it’s running in from Doncaster. When I bought this locomotive it was a special edition in blue early BR livery. I repainted it and converted it to EM gauge. It looks nice but it is of limited use. Incidentally the O4/3 behind the A3 is also a new Retford engine built from a Little Engines kit. I’ve just weathered it.

 

There are probably enough big engines to haul the principal passenger trains on Retford so recently I’ve been building a few of the tank engines which could be seen at Retford.This is a J52 I’m building from an unknown kit which I bought off eBay. Rather unusually the kit is entirely nickel silver. Retford is set in 1957 and there was a J52 shedded there then. However I’ve now discovered that the J52 based at Retford was actually a rebuild of a J53 and thus looks quite different so this model is not entirely suitable. I will number it as one of the Doncaster ones and suggest it’s been lent to Retford to cover a failure.Finally this is an N5 I’m building from a South Eastern Finecast kit. I bought the partly built kit from Geoff West. It’s a very nice kit and I would recommend it to the novice as a first attempt at locomotive building. I have a photograph of the original locomotive on Retford GC shed in absolutely deplorable condition. I will weather it but not as much as shown in that photo.

 

Sandra

Thanks for showing these, Sandra.

 

Little Bytham does have a third A2/2 - a unique one.....

 

 

60501, seen here as first employed on Stoke Summit. 

 

 

It was the prototype for DJH's A2/2 kit. Apart from a bit of scratch-building (central footplate, front end, smoke deflectors) and Jamieson motion parts, everything is DJH, mainly from the A1 kit but with A2 frames, A3 cabsides and tender. The late John Hughes sent me all the DJH bits, and I made this A2/2. It then went to DJH to be assessed, then came back to me, whereupon Ian Rathbone painted it. 

 

 

 

It's usually used on Bytham heading the morning York/Hull Up express.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 21 by Tony Wright
typo error

[Tony Wright]

Geoff Haynes popped round this morning to have a couple of models he's painted photographed. 

 

 

A Heljan O Gauge Class 31.

 

 

And a Caledonian 4-6-0 in 7mm (not his build). 

[Bob-65b]

17 hours ago, robertcwp said:

Back in 2007, Bob Reid had some etches made for the Mark 1 Diag 16 restaurant first, of which five were built at Doncaster for the Western Region in 1952. Brian Kirby converted a Bachmann RU for me using these etches. 

 

P1040363s by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

P1040366s by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

And what an excellent Job Brian made of them.

 

edit - I should add there's quite an amount of modification to the original propane gas equipped RU to accommodate the Anthracite/Electric Equipment and to the roof ventilators etc.

 

 

Edited June 21 by Bob Reid

[Willie Whizz]

Oh for a Time Machine to see the real Caledonian Railway locomotives and trains in all their glory ...!

[uax6]

6 hours ago, Willie Whizz said:

Oh for a Time Machine to see the real Caledonian Railway locomotives and trains in all their glory ...!

 

Not a patch on real Scottish Locos, those of the Highland Railway.... But the time machine would be handy..

 

Andy G

[Iain.d]

It’s been a few months since I’ve shown any modelling here, due to a combination of things but mainly having lost interest in everything on the modelling bench. It was much easier to go and find something else to do instead. Even some of those ‘crap around the house jobs’ got done! I think that much of the malaise was down to having too many things on the go at any one time. Anyway, I have, over the last couple of weeks, spent a little time gently getting back into stuff.

 

Earlier in the year I started this Mallard Models LBSCR Balloon Composite. I’ve done some work on the underframe section, making up battery boxes, truss rods and some of the brake gear.

 

 

And I’ve added the buffers and some brackets to the tops of the ends of the insides to fix the roof to. The brackets are high enough up so they won’t be visible through the windows.

 

 

The roof is a very thin plastic moulding and has been cut to fit. To fix it, I laminated together some pieces of 30 thou plastic card in which I captured a 10BA nut; a 10BA bolt passes through the bracket that is soldered to the end. The bolt is cut short so even if it’s overtightened, it won’t affect the roof profile.

 

 

And with the roof fitted. The provided roof was well over size, so it was cut roughly to size with the kitchen scissors and then filed to size.  I’m always cautious / careful when fitting roofs of this material, there’s almost no room for error. There’s about 10 hours worth of measuring and filing to get this to fit. I think it looks okay.

 

 

I’m now going to look at making an interior from plastic card. The interior will be made in pieces so that it can be made up after the body is painted. I appreciate it will be fiddley to fit the roof after the interior is fitted so I’ll probably make holes large enough in the floor of the inside so the bolts to secure the roof can be inserted, on the end of a screwdriver (using a bit of blue tack). If my final test doesn’t allow that, I will likely make up some long bolts that run from under the floor to the roof.

 

Kind regards,

 

Iain

[Tony Wright]

Just to report that at the Ruddington Show today, I made £39.00 for CRUK; thanks to the sale of donated models, monies placed in the CRUK box and donations for my fixing (four) dud locos. 

 

I'll be there tomorrow as well (just me, Mo's having a gardening day). It's an interesting show and worth a visit.

[t-b-g]

Following on from the discussion about Millholme kits, I retrieved my GCR 0-8-0 from its box, where it has lived since last time it went out to a show with me, several years ago.

 

Here she is, posed on Retford this afternoon. Sadly, a soldered joint on a coupling rod gave way so we weren't able to run her. The rods were originally jointed but there was too much play and she used to lock up. Once the rods were soldered solid the running was very good. Now the joint has broken, the mechanism locks up again. It will be a quick and easy fix.

 

The tender interior had a full makeover, along with a new cab roof and some added detail, including dummy inside motion, just about visible in the photo.

 

When built, the loco was out shopped in LNER livery but was later backdated to GC condition. All apart from the bufferbeam number, which got missed. It has been like that for 20 years now and nobody has noticed but they will now.

 

 

 

[gr.king]

12 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

 

When built, the loco was out shopped in LNER livery but was later backdated to GC condition. All apart from the bufferbeam number, which got missed. It has been like that for 20 years now and nobody has noticed but they will now.

 

Did you alter the splashers and firebox? I can only remember seeing Millholme examples with the final "8K style" continuous version of the rear splashers and waisted firebox.

[Woodcock29]

Graeme

The Millholme Q4 I'm building  was bought from a company called The Kit Connecton over 20 yrs ago. However, it was lacking some parts including all the steps and splashers. As fortune would have it when I was in a model railway shop in Perth, Western Australia in 2005 I found they had a range of w/m parts from various kits in small bags. First thing spotted was a Millholme GC tender which I grabbed (stupid move really given I later decided it wasn't a good model as the body is too long in relation to sole plate/frames- I'd already built one for my B5 seen on WW last week!). Then I spotted another bag with steps in them and others with splashers - both O4 style and also the individual and twin wheel splashers from a Q4 which of course I purchased along with the tender. So I assume these are genuine Mllholme parts I mean what else could they come from? There were no instructions in the kit so I couldn't say 100% they were all supplied in a Millholme kit. Interestingly the twin splashers sit at the same height on the footplate as the curved part of single leading splasher and also the rear splasher. This is incorrect as the twin splasher was a bit taller to accommodate the sand box - like the sand box at the front of the leading splasher. So I'll have to build the twin wheel splashers up in height.

 

The firebox in the kit was the straight sided version but I've remodelled it into the waisted style.

Andrew

Edited June 23 by Woodcock29
Add comment

[D.Platt]

Millholme kits . I always liked my brothers model so in 1993 I built the one below . One of the easiest kits that I have put together . It’s a heavy loco and has a TA12 can motor fitted and will pull anything I ask at a good speed . I suppose one day I could straighten up her number but she is still one of my favourite locos both in model form and the real one , which I remember seeing along with the Bank Hall jubilee’s at Moston station ( in my short trousers ).

[t-b-g]

3 hours ago, gr.king said:

Did you alter the splashers and firebox? I can only remember seeing Millholme examples with the final "8K style" continuous version of the rear splashers and waisted firebox.

 

Hello Graeme.

 

The firebox was from the kit and I didn't alter it. I built it many years ago and cannot remember for certain if an alternative firebox was supplied but my memory tells me that there was only that option. I do remember the kit having both types of splasher included, as I had to research a correct number for the type I had chosen to use. The long splashers are still in my spares stash.

[Tony Wright]

Readers will remember that I bought some un-built loco kits from the Peter Lawson collection late last year, including a Little engines J11, O4/7 and a DJH BR Standard Five. I built the pair of Little Engines locos very quickly (either side of Christmas), and started the DJH kit in January. Now, six months later it's still not finished! 

 

 

This was the state of play at the end of January. 

 

I always like to take at least one loco which I'm making to shows, along with several completed ones (one or two not painted, but finished), and this one above has been to Doncaster, Preston, Mountsorrel, York, Cotgrave, Stamford and, this weekend, Ruddington. Far too many!

 

I did a bit more before taking it to Ruddington, but, amazingly, I actually built quite a bit more at the show. Normally, I get very little done, but several folk requested soldering demonstrations, so why not demonstrate on the model itself? 

 

The result being.............

 

A now-complete tender (well, almost) and more done on the loco. The DJH chimney was pretty naff (Peter had provided this turned-brass substitute in the box), and turned-brass/steel buffers are always preferable to white metal. 

 

The smokebox door is only held in place by friction until all internal soldering is completed.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the Ruddington event, so my thanks to the organisers, the lovely ladies who provided the exhibitors' refreshments, to all those with whom I spoke and especially to those who donated to CRUK by all means - the end result being over £50.00 raised over the weekend. 

 

It won't be long now before the Standard Five is finished! 

 

 

Edited June 24 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Ian Rathbone]

On 21/06/2024 at 21:32, uax6 said:

 

Not a patch on real Scottish Locos, those of the Highland Railway.... But the time machine would be handy..

 

Andy G

They are hard work, especially the earlier liveries -

 

 

 

Every spoke lined and all letters and numbers painted by hand (60 of them plus two full stops).

 

Ian R

 

[Tony Wright]

8 hours ago, Ian Rathbone said:

They are hard work, especially the earlier liveries -

 

 

 

Every spoke lined and all letters and numbers painted by hand (60 of them plus two full stops).

 

Ian R

 

Good morning Ian,

 

None of the response icons seems worthy enough!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[grahame]

I've been struggling with painful arthritis in the hands recently so modelling has been somewhat, hopefully temporarily, curtailed. Nonetheless I can still take a few snaps of my under-construction N/2mm layout, so here's a couple should anyone be interested:

 

 

 

 

[Tony Wright]

7 minutes ago, grahame said:

I've been struggling with painful arthritis in the hands recently so modelling has been somewhat, hopefully temporarily, curtailed. Nonetheless I can still take a few snaps of my under-construction N/2mm layout, so here's a couple should anyone be interested:

 

 

 

 

Superlative!

[Ray Flintoft]

On 21/06/2024 at 12:28, Tony Wright said:

Thanks for showing these, Sandra.

 

Little Bytham does have a third A2/2 - a unique one.....

 

 

60501, seen here as first employed on Stoke Summit. 

 

 

It was the prototype for DJH's A2/2 kit. Apart from a bit of scratch-building (central footplate, front end, smoke deflectors) and Jamieson motion parts, everything is DJH, mainly from the A1 kit but with A2 frames, A3 cabsides and tender. The late John Hughes sent me all the DJH bits, and I made this A2/2. It then went to DJH to be assessed, then came back to me, whereupon Ian Rathbone painted it. 

 

 

 

It's usually used on Bytham heading the morning York/Hull Up express.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Another couple of Millholme kits to look at.

   Ivatt 4MT no.43071 & Thompson A2/2 no 60503 " Lord President

  Hope they are of interest,

                                    Ray.

[sjp23480]

21 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

turned-brass/steel buffers are always preferable to white metal. 

Hi Tony, 

 

Interesting comment.

 

I have an A3 in the last stages of completion (GNR Tender), as well as another A3, an A1 and A2 (all with streamline non corridor tenders).  All with white metal buffers.  

 

Can you recommend a sources of turned brass/steel buffers for them?  I know the loco/GNR tender have different buffers (well the DJH supplied ones are different) and I would really like to replace them.

 

Many thanks

Steve

[Bucoops]

1 hour ago, sjp23480 said:

Hi Tony, 

 

Interesting comment.

 

I have an A3 in the last stages of completion (GNR Tender), as well as another A3, an A1 and A2 (all with streamline non corridor tenders).  All with white metal buffers.  

 

Can you recommend a sources of turned brass/steel buffers for them?  I know the loco/GNR tender have different buffers (well the DJH supplied ones are different) and I would really like to replace them.

 

Many thanks

Steve

 

Hi Steve,

 

They aren't currently in stock at Roxey but other suppliers may stock them https://www.roxeymouldings.co.uk/product/1131/4mb004-lner-spencer-loco-buffers/ - these suit A1/A3s. A2s etc. are too modern for me, I am not sure what they use.

[rowanj]

There may be some interest in the "test photos" for my J24 - the first scratchbuild loco I have ever attempted. To summarise, the cab is from the LRM J21/J25 kit- and the boiler fittings are a mix of ArthurK and Markits. Buffers are Slaters. The tender is a kit, but I may still have a go at scratchbuilding one. The chassis, footplate, boiler and smokebox were built from 10 thou brass sheet. Motor and gearbox from Highlevel. Wheels from Markits. It is all bog-standard OO.

The.Isinglass drawing and the relevant Yeadon were the main sources of info. There has been a couple of posts here recently about rolling and bending bars I  got the rollers from GW models via a phone call to George Watts who I had never dealt with previously\  The bending bars,  I got from Ebay.

I cannot see an RTR J24 arriving any time soon, though ArthurK is taking expressions of interest for a re-run of his kit, This particular loco, 65615,  was one of only a handful to get a BR number and lettered tender.I wanted it to look work-stained but not filthy, so used Humbrol Powders over Halfords Matt Black ( which isnt as "matt" as it used to be) to just dull everything down with a patina of rust beginning to show through.

 

I hope my effort, such as it is, will encourage folk to have a go at the more unusual prototypes, now, should I have a go at an A6?.......

 

There are more details of all this on my thread in Kitbuilding/Scratchbuilding/

 

 

Edited June 24 by rowanj

[Tony Wright]

2 hours ago, sjp23480 said:

Hi Tony, 

 

Interesting comment.

 

I have an A3 in the last stages of completion (GNR Tender), as well as another A3, an A1 and A2 (all with streamline non corridor tenders).  All with white metal buffers.  

 

Can you recommend a sources of turned brass/steel buffers for them?  I know the loco/GNR tender have different buffers (well the DJH supplied ones are different) and I would really like to replace them.

 

Many thanks

Steve

Good evening Steve,

 

The substitute buffers for the BR Standard Five were from Alan Gibson. Colin does a large range, including the Spencer dual-action types for A1s (Gresley), A3s, K3s, O2s and V2s, etc. The tender buffers are different in having parallel (stepped) shanks.

 

There are (or were) several other sources for 4mm brass/steel LNER buffers (all buffers, probably) - Cavendish, Markits, Blacksmith, Replica and Kean Maygib spring to mind.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

Edited June 24 by Tony Wright
typo error

[John Isherwood]

1 minute ago, Tony Wright said:

There are (or were) several other sources for 4mm brass/steel LNER buffers (all buffers, probably) - Cavendish, Markits, Blacksmith, Replica and Kean Maygib spring to mind.

 

..... Slaters .......

 

CJI.