Adam

Not a huge amount of time this week but some relatively small things have been done. The most significant thing is the steps - missing from the bits I got but no matter, they're pretty easy to make. You can also see that I've added a walkway over the rodding (ok, where the rodding *should* be, but likely *won't*. The bargeboards and their beading have been added and the next step will be fascias and guttering. From the close-up, we get a better sense of the footboards. These end here because there's boarding across the tracks in order for the bobby to collect the single line token from trains which once came off the branch. I've knocked those boards up - repurposed sleepers - but you'll have to wait and see on those. Adam

Classic Cornish Unit houses - made from ECC byproducts. The style of Mansard roof is very distinctive, even when the lower floor or floors has been reclad. Adam

Since the name appears in Domesday Book in 1086 as Camelle, we can safely rule any association with Sopwith out! The runway only came that far out when it was extended in the '60s in any event. West Camel (and it's neighbour, Queen Camel) were named after a local river, the Cam, a tributary of the Yeo, though there is a roof boss depicting a camel in Queen Camel parish church just over the hill. I note that my predecessors in the day job completely ignored the unusual form of construction of these houses, though they did mention them: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol3/pp71-81 There are lots and lots of books about local authority housing and prefabs in particular (some of them even affordable). Here's a download from Historic England: https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/dlsg-modern-housing/domestic_4_final.pdf/ And a nice case study from Portsmouth: https://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/ext/documents-external/hou-100years-history-of-housing.pdf Adam

Not quite - the four at West Camel are the best known bacause they're easily seen from the 303, but there were (and are) some more in Goldcroft, Yeovil (these are listed, grade II - the listing reveals why no more were built: they came out rather pricey). The West Camel houses were an experiment which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Navy; the airfield wasn't even started until 1939. As the link Arthur gives in his post above: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/120128-council-houses/?p=2638261 explains the connection between one of the Petter family, known for oil engines and Nautilus grates, and Colonel Nissen. Those actually in Yeovil were built by the town corporation, the survivors at Queen Camel by Yeovil Rural District Council, the connection being the architects, Petter and Warren, based in Yeovil; hence they were and remain unique to the area. Pre-War council houses were very area-specific with the degree of uniformity being dependent upon who was commissioned to design them, the scale of development and how many builders were involved. All were a response to the demands of the 1919 housing act which is what brought about the 'Council House' as we know it. Adam PS - there's quite a good blog about these: https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/nissen-petren-houses-not-obnoxious-and-the-people-would-be-delighted-to-pay-an-economic-rent/ (declaring an interest, I was one of the author's informants).

Pushing on, what I'm choosing to call Canal Junction 'box (the junction really is under the canal) has acquired a roof, or rather, roofs. The toilet roof is separate and built in which may cause a certain amount of fun later on as the toilet door was glazed and painting this neatly could be fun. Thankfully the glass was frosted so I can ignore any thoughts I might have about modelling the bowl and so on - the door will be made from clear plastic with some sort of overlay, probably made from self-adhesive label: watch this space. The main roof is removable and will remain so. What you can see is 40 thou' with a sub structure of 60 thou' - I did some roofs of similar size about a decade ago just like this and these are still warp-free so I'm fairly confident this will survive just as well. In other news, you should note that the locking room door has gained a sill and a start made on the veranda rail. I probably ought to think more about the window-cleaning platform before going too much further: the fumble-fingered chaps in P-Way will do their damnedest to knock them off... My favourite scene from South Junction looks from a lineside scrapyard behind the existing 'box, but really needs a bit more in the way of junk to hide some of the more unlikely contents; a Foden steam lorry and bits of railway signalling equipment for a start! Hence this, idly imagined to be the gaffer's Ford Zodiac Zephyr mk 1 rolled on the way back from the pub and dumped in a corner of the yard. This really is a bit of a modeller's cliché but one used unrepentantly here. It's a Pocketbond model, bought as a detailing project but unfinished owing to an indifferent paintjob. So, roof bashed in with a hammer, a dose of rust and a renewal of the two-tone paintwork and here we are: still with its whitewall tyres and chrome trim, you'll note. That's all for the mo', Adam

I believe that it was a design modification, born out of experience with the early production which suffered excessive corrosion in that area (or something like that). Later Mk1s had the raised frames from new, and many of the early ones were retro-fitted and so the majority in preservation have the raised frames. Adam

Superb! Just an idle thought, however: are you certain that the strapping was picked out like that? I know from bitter experience that interpreting monchrome pictures is hazardous but there seems to be no obvious contrast in the prototype shots, and the paint on the woodwork is also in rather better condition. I'd agree with Simond that the wagons as they stand are rather too clean, but again, that's partly a matter of personal taste. Adam

Having mentioned the Taunton show, the inevitable examination, tidying up and corrections that no one has bothered with up until now. For reasons which escape me, some time ago an extra 2'6" of board was added and one of the consequences of this is that the junction on the operators right to a disused branch and controlling access to the up yard is a bit more than a scale quarter mile (and we know this because South Junction has appropriate quarter mile indicators at measured intervals). Always on the edge of the reach of mechanical rodding, it's now much too far and we need to address this. The site is immediately behind this Midland bracket which has lost the arm on its right hand doll with the closure and partial lifting of the branch - in fact, it is now wholly out of use having been replaced by a colour light. If it is to remain in situ, I'll need to add a couple of white crosses... So the obvious things required are the site to be cleared, fence moved, retaining wall constructed, and a 'box built to suit. That pill box will also have to move, because its field of fire will be directly into the bobby's back (the entrance faces the field)... * Under instruction from the Divisional Civil Engineer and chief Signalling and Telegraph planner - dad - I was informed that the new box should be something different to South Junction A cabin, a standard Midland Railway structure, recently refurbished. One of those (concrete) quarter mile markers can be seen by shiny new coal bunker. Some oaf has already knocked a couple of bricks out of the coping... http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/98198-tri-ang-r145-modern-signal-box/ * In fact it's been in totally the wrong place for thirty years: it will be redeployed to obstruct the road. The DCE's initial suggestion was that it should be something with a flat roof - think Tri-ang - or possibly rebuilt Midland. The issue with that is that the Tri-ang one is probably a bit modern and we still run some pre-Nationalisation stock and flat-roofed rebuilds on Midland boxes were relatively rare. So with some delving on the web and with reference to Graham Warburton's very useful tome on LMS signalling an LMS standard box (basically the Midland design, but with a simple pitched roof) allowing the use of Ratio's kit, suitably-modified. A second hand example without a roof turned up on ebay and the result thus far can be seen below: This is rather small for an LMS box - imagined as a replacement for an earlier Midland 'box destroyed in some forgotten accident - most seem to have been of two bays like the existing 'A' box but there were some of this halfway house size: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonhazan/3263344107/ The small site and neighbouring embankment mean that the bobby gets an en-suite! I've ordered some etched windows from AMBIS and I've made a start on some of the ancillary structures; the coal bunker: And finally, for the moment, here's a sense of the complete scene. Adam

The thickness of plastic sheet was chosen to allow the seats to sit at the correct height relative to the windows. Bachmann's method of construction - in which the moulded floorpan sits below a sub floor as opposed to the real thing where the chassis stops at the top flange of the solebar - is never going to allow a fully-modelled, scale height, seat. This is a reasonable compromise, though even with this modification, any passengers will still lose their feet, sadly. Adam

Dad has asked if I could post this for him - his reworked interior of the Bachmann Hawksworth auto trailer. Obviously, as supplied, the floor level is rather higher than the prototype (true of pretty much all RTR coaches in 4mm) and this is really rather noticeable owing to the number of windows. Dad's solution was to take the supplied interior, cut out the seats, and to mount them on new sub-floors of 40 thou' plastic sheet with another layer of 40 thou' between the reused mouldings and this sub floor to raise them up. The results are shown below: Note that the ceiling has also been painted white though without the nicotine stains and smell recalled from his experience of them in service and on the early days of the Dart Valley - he was one of those who painted them chocolate and cream. Hopefully this detail view should demonstrate the work done. It's taken a bit of time but the results are worth the effort. It does require a driver, however! Adam

What fitted head? The first wagon is an LNER diagram 100 - riveted bodywork, high, NER-style lever - and none of those were fitted. The second vehicle, an iron ore tippler, has a tiebar and no tippler with a tiebar was fitted. The brakes aren't pinned down so it isn't the brakeshoes, therefore Dave's note and recollection is most likely correct and the front pair of wagons are running on hot 'boxes. Adam

A quick trip back to Somerset and a bit of a play in the very cold home of Yeovil MRG and with South Junction which, I learn, will be at the Taunton show in October - I seem to have volunteered to erect a new signal box - the layout has been extended (again, this is extension no. 3!) and thus the crossover the wagons below are sat on are over scale quarter of a mile away from the existing 'box. Anyhow, here's a short freight of recently completed wagons: The van has been seen recently, but perhaps not the mineral, also now complete. In front of them is the Italian Ferry van tacked, in typical Southern style, behind a loco massively over-powered for the job, a Merchant Navy. All run as required, I'm pleased to say. Next! Adam

And here's a bit more - the lettering on the tarp is based on the sheet shown at the centre of this picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/31890193@N08/14550628482/in/album-72157643950295015/ from Ian Nolan's wonderful Flickr galleries. Since neither the sheet, nor wagon, will be clean then the raggedness of the lettering (white ink drawn on with a mapping pen - basically an old-fashioned dip pen - and filled in by fine brush) should be hidden. One feature I wanted to include was having at least some of the lettering changing planes on the tarp' - I think this is fairly successful? Adam

Interesting - and daresay that somewhere in the 550 pages (and counting) I might find it! Adam

David - this is mid-way through the process; the tarp has now had a coat of darkish browny-grey, prior to lettering (a pair of BR brands and numbers at each end together with preventative maintenance dates) and then weathering since it's too clean to be plausibly in need of a tarp' at present. I've got four wagons sitting above the desk at various stages of the finishing process. All have brown underframes and all but this van have the lettering complete. More of those later, but in the meantime: Adam

Thanks Justin, under paint it looks better yet: the next job is to paint that tarp', brake pipes, chalk boards and so on - there's a bit of a glut of wagons being painted at present but none of them ready for weathering. The lettering pattern is based on this Paul Bartlett photo: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brfruitvan/h3d2994fc#h232ecbb0 Adam

Ha! Much better - so far as I am concerned - to apply a set of stock buffers that happen to suit than build a wagon just to use up a set of buffers (I may have done this...). While we're considering the covering up of errors, here's this afternoon's quick win. I found this BR-built, LMS-designed fruit van [PC42] which has been kicking around for far too long - Parkside got the end profile and top of the sides not quite right and my efforts at repair were sub-standard. Having given the thing a new roof of 20 thou' plastic sheet, formed in a cool oven round an empty wine bottle, I proceeded to do what is often referred to as a modellers' cliché, to wit, modelling a van with a leaking roof kept in traffic by adding a wagon sheet. Such a cliché this is that I cannot for the life of me recall the last time I saw it done. So here we are, two layers of tissue from my new shoes and a bit of watered down PVA later, one van with a leaking roof: I'm happy enough with that so once dry, it'll be time to sort out the brake levers, a missing safety loop and then, paint! Adam

I don't think this is a bad kit: difficult, yes and that's inevitable given the nature of the prototype, but far from terrible. The main issue, I think, is that the internal framing is not full depth. If I do another (possible), what I'll do is to reinforce the ends of the chassis with rectangles of 40 thou' (about 5mm should do) spanning the width of the chassis with blocks behind the coupling hook holes filling the frame below, as I did on this one. This should lend some useful strength and rigidity while being reasonably discreet. See the modified picture below: Something similar under the central spar would probably be beneficial as well as being more or less invisible. Adam

Thanks for that Andrew - painted, they'd have been quite at home! So, to come up to date (well not quite, I've primed both of them this morning), a handful of finger-numbing tasks later - strip steps (the easy bit, even allowing for the drilling of pairs of 0.5mm holes at less than 2mm apart on thin strip) and the retaining chains which led me a merry mile or two before they were finally secured. Before that, of course, came the brake levers which are 1. an unusual shape, and 2. slightly longer than any of the etches I had to hand. The length was made up at the handle end with a bit of scrap etch. The nickel silver lever guides came from the Scalefour Society (bought via their public e-shop). The results of the intricate work is shown below - that's 40 link per inch chain from AMBIS - modelled per this picture from Paul Bartlett's collections: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brmermaid/h3bded897#h1a339eb5 The buffers are from Lanarkshire Model Supplies, their B042 which may, or may not be 100% right but I reckon match this picture: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brmermaid/h3bded897#h1af51760 B014 are also correct as are OLEOs (the latter being the most common, but I had a set of B042 that I'd bought in error so why not?). Still, all done bar the paintjob. Adam

Something from the same source - but a little more protracted - is this Mermaid. One of Cambrian's most ambitious kits, once you've worked out how to assemble the chassis square, it's actually quite straightforward though it's taken a bit of thinking time. From underneath the key challenges are obvious: the tiny surface area of the joints is apparent, as is the reinforcement in each corner, at the end of spars and even the vacuum cylinder (a Parkside spare - the Cambrian one had hidden itself while I was doing this) is structural! More gubbins added and with them, a bit more strength. This would be easier if the framing was full depth - I've had to build the height up with 40 thou' sheet to mount the vac' pipe level with the bottom of the headstocks. The reason is something to do with the size of the injection moulding machine employed when the kit was engineered in the '80s. Colin Parks who made the moulds tells me that this was at the limit of what he and his brother could do with regard to part size, complexity, and mould pressures and temperatures. In other words, like all these things, it's a trade off and a more or less scale version of these complex wagons in moulded plastic would still be tricky. Though there has been some whinging about the complexity of this and other Cambrian kits they have two things going for them. The parts go together and include pretty much all the detail of the prototype. They can be built consistently square. It's still better that the RTR equivalent (good photos available here) in terms of detail and accuracy [RCH rather than BR type W irons, naff buffers, over thick bottom flange to the solebar and so on]. Weight is another issue, but the Mermaid has plenty of space under the floor. The white brakeshoe is my fault as I've lost one of the moulded ones and thus replaced it with a new one cut from 40 thou'. Adam

Ah yes. The how is the simple bit, it's the doing that I'm trying to avoid! Adam

I said it would be quick. This is the opposite side showing by home-brewed GWR type ratchet brake lever guides, three parts in each, all butt jointed! This joins the queue of wagons waiting for the weather to warm sufficiently to put some primer on. Looking at the forecast this may be some time yet. This should be incentive to actually finish a few other things. Now, about those conflat chains... Adam

By way of a break from chasing tiny fragments of plastic strip around the workbench I've started something else; a quick project, albeit building a very unusual wagon. Last time I went visiting my parents in Somerset, I flipped through a back issue of GWRJ and found, on the letters page, a nice picture of a GW dia. O30 open at Reading in 1965. These differed from those I built a little while ago by being constructed from steel sheet rather than planks. Given Swindon's form with building iron wagons in its early days it's perhaps surprising that they didn't pursue this beyond the 50 of these that they built between 1932 and 1934, but having found this picture I thought a model would be fun and Cambrian produce a kit in 4mm. As originally built they looked much like W124189 in Paul Bartlett's collections: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwropenmerchandiseowv/h1a0647b8#h1a0647b8 More detail can be had from John Lewis's article in GWRJ, no. 38. My model (it will represent W124174) differs in that the prototype had been modernised as part of BR's vac' fitting program in the 1950s with tiebars, Dowty hydraulic buffers and, presumably, the usual modifications to couplings, gaining either instanters or screw links (I've assumed the former) and, probably, a couple of lamp irons. It retained spoked wheels at the time of being captured on camera, but very little paint which is what makes it fun. The kit is one of Cambrian's most recent and comes with a one-piece chassis which is excellent, even if it does feel a bit like cheating. I've replaced the supplied axleboxes and used some Parkside mouldings for the brakes because they happened to be loose on the bench - the Cambrian ones will be used somewhere else at a later date. Buffers are on order and the sole modification to the body, thus far, is to add a protector plate to to door and to rescribe the plank lines inside the door; Cambrian still make these raised on the inside of wagons but that's easily dealt with by a couple of passes with a scalpel blade, first with the tip to scribe the plank line and then flat to remove the raised bits and probably bolt heads, but such is life. Adam

No idea, sorry! Adam

And here's another, slightly clearer and in colour: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/351952195370?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Adam