Castle

Hi Mikkel, Thanks for the kind words as always! I know what you man about the brass! It always looks kind of cool - especially a fully etched kit! Many is the time that my other half has said “your not going to PAINT that are you?!” She is not always 100% in jest either. It is a sad tale - having managed to exist - albeit in pretty rough shape - into the twenty first century... I guess it wasn’t to be. All the best, Castle

That’s right Ducky - No need for del flectoratoration on them there Castles - a nice strong exhaust beat to start with... Deflectors always put me in mind of a racehorse with blinkers on! All the best, Castle

Thanks BGman!

Hi Dave, No plans as of yet but I hope so! All the best, Castle

See - much more coach knowledge that me! All the best, Castle

I know what you mean - those darn locos are SO tempting... Still, a tasty wagon kit or seven rarely offends! All the best, Castle

Hi Rich, Thanks for the kind comments! Go for it - sounds cool! Stick a dub-dee on the list too... All the best, Castle

Hi Coppercap, Sadly not - I’m otherwise engaged at Fawley! Thanks to your Dad by the way - things like this don’t happen without people like him. All the best, Castle

Hi All, This ANTB - GWR version of Christmas wagon required! Standard size... ...or super family economy size? Over to those of a photoshop persuasion... All the best, Castle

Hi All, For this weekend only, the brand new saint, No. 2999 Lady of Legend, will be appearing in plain black livery prior to her final GWR paint scheme being applied. The press release is as follows: The Saint’s boiler is now in the frames and has been clad, the fittings and remaining pipework are being fitted, which it is hoped to complete by Christmas; in the meantime, we are working towards an official launch for No. 2999 Lady of Legend next year – hopefully in the spring. Prior to the launch, we have agreed to display the locomotive in a black livery, which is now being applied, prior to final painting in the Edwardian lined green livery which she will carry in service. We are planning to display the Saint in this condition at Didcot over the weekend 17/18 November – she will not operate any trains but will be posed for viewing and photography. She will also not carry the 2999 Lady of Legend plates, but on one side will be 2908 Lady of Quality (the plates of which are in the possession of the Great Western Trust) and on the other side 2983 Redgauntlet with a red background – the latter are replica plates. The weekend comprises exhibition only days where the history of the Great Western Railway is captured by our unique collection of buildings, locomotives, carriages, wagons and other artefacts. Here is a little teaser I took a couple of weeks ago to whet the appetite... I hope you can make it! All the best, Castle PS: The No. 4079 team and I will be working on our project loco on Saturday. Please come up and say hello!

Hi Ben, If you go to the society website and look through the carriage collection descriptions, I THINK (won’t swear to it and all...) that those vehicles that were in the Vintage train are mentioned. I can ask at the weekend if you like? Send me a PM to remind me tomorrow evening as I will forget... All the best, Castle I’ll give Pete S (K14 of this parish) a prod too - he will know more than me on this front.

Public Service Announcement: This beastie will be on show this weekend only finished in plain black livery. If you want a colour shot that you can photoshop to your hearts content of just want to stand in the presence of this beautiful machine, come and see us at Didcot Railway Centre. No. 2999 Lady of Legend is on display all weekend and the No. 4079 team and I will be on shed and working on our steed on the Saturday. I hope you can make it!

Hi All, Just to let you know if you followed this thread or helped me out with information, little No. 48518 has now made an appearance on Little Didcot: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51212-little-didcot/page-47 Many thanks for all the help! All the best, Castle

To me, it’s like Rammstein - foreign heavy metal... Hi All, Well, here we are again! The loco we have on offer today is a little unusual for the Little Didcot collection. It is one of very few non GWR designed pieces of rolling stock that is even vaguely suitable for my collection so let’s dive on in shall we?! Sir William Stanier was a product of Swindon training and engineering prowess but after being head hunted (as we would put it today) took the technology in a new direction and revolutionised locomotive development on the London Midland and Scottish railway (LMS). The 8F (originally 7F) was introduced 1935 and, in accordance with that classification, were used mainly for heavy, long-distance freight trains. Some regard it as simply a freight version of the Black 5 4-6-0 locomotive but that is to denigrate the massive achievement that this class achieved. 849 locomotives of this type constructed, of which 666 (the engine of the beast?!) passed into service with British Railways. The engines, as the art of the war effort, were produced in a total of 11 different locomotive works over the uk: LMS Crewe Works (137), LMS Horwich Works (75), North British Locomotive Co. (208), LNER Darlington Works (53), LNER Doncaster Works (50), GWR Swindon Works (80), Vulcan Foundry (69), SR Brighton Works (93), SR Eastleigh Works (23), SR Ashford Works (14) and Beyer, Peacock & Co. for REC and MoS orders (50). Not only that, they were also used extensively in WWII and after, with examples serving with not only across the UK and with the War Department but also with the Trans-Iranian Railway, Palestine Railways, Egyptian State Railways, Iraqi State Railways, Ferrovie dello Stato, Türkiye, Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları and Israel Railways. The design was a classic and was one of the GWR last steam types in main line service in the UK. No 48518, formerly LMS 8518. Built in 1944, was the only surviving LNER-built example. Unfortunately, despite being a resident at the South Wales Home for retired steam locomotives, it never found the saviours that so many did find and remained at the yard until the project to rebuild a number of lost classes found the last few in the yard - the so called Barry Ten - saw some of them dismantled them and a number of their major components will live on in such creations as the New County 4-4-0, 4-6-0, 47XX, Patriot as well as providing spares for a number of other members of their classes. The end for No. 48518 finally came when the frames were scrapped at Bury in mid 2013. Not the best end we could of hoped for but at least a certain amount of Phoenix like rising from the ashes will be the result. The model comes, unsurprisingly, from the Hornby stable. I got hold of this one as an absolute bargain so I couldn’t say no(!) but the only issue is that No. 48518 never carried a Fowler tender. Guess which one this model came with? So - what to do? A quick trawl round on the Internet showed that a Hornby item was available and it had all the pickups and so on attached too! Great! Then, post order, I found out about the Hornby offering’s shortcomings in the tender frames area. Bummer. Back to he eBay and as luck would have it, a Bachmann item was also available. To paraphrase Postman Pat: There’ll be knock, Ring, Tenders through your door! It was just as well this happened as it seems that the tender that was assigned to No. 48518 was a riveted example. This lead me to and interesting thought. The insides of the Hornby one are mechanically better, having a set of pickups. The frames however have a large problem. The lower Hornby example has the spurious hanging bar and the Bachmann example doesn’t. The other issues Is the placement of the rear buffer beam. It’s part of the frames of the Hornby example and not on the Bachmann one. Hmmmm... I won’t ever have a use for both genders and I now own them both. What if we took the aesthetics of the Bachmann one and added it to the operational superiority of the Hornby version. Out with the razor saw... First job was to separate the more accurate frames from the Bachmann chassis. They were then stuck to the tender body. The Hornby frames then had their outer frames removed along with all the electronics and the mounts for the body screws. Some of the holes in the frames were enlarged to allow it to be attached to the new body. A light tickle with the glass fibre brush gets rid of the LMS paint scheme. The superior Hornby front handrails were also installed. Under the body, a few sections of styrene strip were added and drilled to accept the mounting screws. The metal weight was added to the inside of the tender. On to the body. I bought the detail kit for the 8F from Brassmasters. I enjoyed doing the one for the 72XX for a friend and I used parts of another on my ongoing PDK kit build. First stage is to clear the running plate to accept the etched brass overlays. Like these! A little light detailing to the rear of the tender... ...and a start of the detailing on the running plate. There are LOADS of options to choose from and, as always, consult a picture! I bet I’ve got it wrong. Not my area these LMS machines, but they do have a purposeful look don’t they? A bit of front end fettling! The Hornby steps are on there too. The blutack is there as a mask. The other side of the running plate, now finished. The reverser reach rod comes in two flavours and the straight one is correct for our subject. A little light wiring! Actually a little light is in there. My much maligned flickering firebox LED! I never thought that would be controversial... The cylinder drain cocks and pipework are also in the Brassmasters kit. As with all these projects, there comes a time when all the different colours makes it look really weird. A coat of paint always makes you feel better! Primer and matt black are from Halfords and the gloss black to accept the tender logo is from Humbrol. The same is also done with the loco body. The windows are blanked out with Maskol on the outside and tape on the inside. Most of the transfers and etched were from Fox - except the front numberplate. This one wasn’t available from Fox so I got this from Narrow planet as a special order. Along with a pair of Doncaster works plates. The shed code plate is for 87K Swansea Paxton Street (Victoria). I usually put an 81E plate on all the Little Didcot locos as you really have to be looking to see it and it’s nice for them all to be acknowledging their home shed today. However, it didn’t feel right for this one so I looked up where the real No. 48518 called home during my time period and in 1950 she was remarkably on the Western Region. Too good to pass up frankly! The last thing to do was to apply copious amounts of dirt, real coal and all the other usual stuff I slap all over a model. With that, one of Little Didcot’s more unusual residents is completed and a tribute to a valuable machine that, in its demise, sparked so much regrowth, is completed. I hope that I have done ok buy my fellow RMWEB members that follow the LMS way. It’s nice to dip into things you don’t usually deal with once in a while. I have to say a big thank you to all of them that helped me when I asked questions on the thread I set up (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/135425-stanier-8f-no-48518/&do=findComment&comment=3229645) to get some help to do this and what I got right on little No. 48518 is purely down to them. The mistakes however are all mine... All the best, Castle

Hi All, I’m frankly amazed that the likes of Heljan have not done either No. 18000 or No. 18100 yet... Seems like a no brainer. All the best, Castle

Yes, yes I do... Sorry Stubs - couldn’t resist it! I’ll get my coat... All the best, Castle

Hi Mike, That’s the sort of thing. I will of course go straight for the GWR prototype (that’s the stuff I’m familiar with) but other crazy size and weird load freight vehicles from other UK railways are available and are equally valid choices. The one from the British Transport Film with the transformer / generator thingy on it (please forgive me - I forget the name of the film!) with the documentary on a disc / digital download in the box is another possibility. Bringing it to life like that with period footage included would be cool too. It’s surprising that the foreign manufacturers do this a fair bit but we have never really had an equivalent release here in the UK despite there being a good few candidate prototypes, many of which had quite long working lives. Great picture that one by the way! All the best, Castle

Hi RJS1977 Did a bit of work on it today and it is now cradled in a new, much stiffer frame (it was designed originally to be fixed to the main baseboard of course) and it is now not warping and I am confident it can be manoeuvred and up ended so that the rewiring can begin. I’m having a bit of an issues with the servo control that I need to get to the bottom of as well. As soon as there is news, I will let you know! All the best, Castle PS: It’s not exactly small - the yard layout itself is 8’ long and we need to build a new fiddle yard to feed trains coming in and out and to act as the headshunt. It’s probably going to be at least 15’ all told!

Hi All, I am not surprised to see the Manor (given its high survival rate and use in preservation) at the top of the list but I am surprised that out of the potential GWR offerings - especially as No.2999 is due to be launched really soon - that the Saint isn’t higher. Perhaps it will be after the launch of the new one? I was thinking that it might be due to the limited life of the class under BR but it isn’t that far different to that of the Stars and that model seems to sell well. The Saint has a massively important place in UK steam loco development so it deserves a release. Interesting to see the 15XX up there too! Totally useless to me, but the S160 and WD 2-10-0 in 4mm scale would be cool to see! I have a couple of friends that would be all over those releases, especially the latter. They do occasionally work on Dame Vera Lynn at the NYMR though... All the best, Castle Edit: Another thought strikes me too. The propensity for foreign manufacturers to do some of the truly massive outsize load wagons is quite noticeable and they seem to sell well even if they are special editions. It wasn’t on the wish list but what if there was a special edition pack of the CROCODILE L, both it’s carrying frames, the accommodation bogies and a load for each frame respectively in a mega pack. Expensive? Yes, certainly! If tackled by someone like Rapido? Almost irresistible I would have thought...

Hi All, I’m at Fawley today and we have just noticed an - er - infestation... If anyone would like to claim said beasts then applications should be forwarded to: The RSPCD (Royal Society for the Promotion of Children’s Dinosaurs) Fawley Hill C/O Me This has been a public service announcement to reduce the threat of dinosaur infestation in workshops everywhere. I’ll get my coat... All the best, Castle

Hi All, There was a question about the challenge - here is my entry for the Fawley Fliers: Picture professionally purloined from Kathy’s website - I hope that’s ok Kathy! I didn’t have one myself. The wagon had an operating N gauge loco in it. The wagon was labelled with FMS for the Fawley Museum Society and was (naturally) weathered! The idea was to combine the GWS loco (14XX Class) with the notion that the FMS runs trains in unexpected places. We were going to do a forced perspective thing with the N Gauge 14XX and an autocoach but when the challenge came up, the resources for it went into this. All the best, Castle

Cheers Rob! I will get a few sent through from my fellow Fawley types! The main layout has been dismantled sadly as we don’t have space for two but the shunting yard section is going to be converted tomorrow into a small exhibition layout. Watch this space... Perhaps as it is now mobile, Little Didcot should Visit ANTB? All the best, Castle

PS: I must get off my virtual backside and get a few posts done in here - I have a finished 8F and some coaches to discuss! Oh, and a 47XX and a Brittania to finish. And No. 18100... It’s been a while but I have been a little busy! Sorry to all Little Didcot fans!

Hi Ric, That you did! It was mostly Little Didcot’s collection or at least stuff owned by friends that has passed through the Little Didcot Railway Works for friends (the ROD, 97XX and Grange at William Street Shed or the WD on Fawley Cutting / William Street Marshalling Yard for example). Hope you enjoyed it and that I came across OK - I haven’t watched any of it at all! All the best Castle

Hi All, Yep - Pete is right, it is Hiderton Hall. Sorry, thought I’d mentioned that! All the best, Castle