Adam

Gradually, the loco is coming to life - it now has a full set of boiler handrails, vacuum ejector pipework (an SR retrofit - no two were alike). The smokebox has also acquired rivets (Archer's Transfers) applied over Klear and sealed with more of the same - I used a spot of Microsol to help them the transfer film sit right and the effect looks quite good but we'll see what it looks like under paint. There's a blower pipe on the right hand side of the boiler to go on and then the boiler will be painted - being a shed pet most of the pipework was burnished and will have to be added once paint and lining is in place. Work has now moved on to the cab. The back sheet has had window bars added (fuse wire, soldered to strips of scrap etch). Most of this will be invisible... With the coal rails added, you may wonder if that was worth the effort! What unquestionably was is the enlargement of the tool box on the back of the bunker: normal size toolbox, tiny wee loco. I've also plugged the holes for the Westinghouse pump prior to adding a Gibson brass item (again, this will have to be pre-painted). Thank heaven for transfer lining... Adam

Mis-remembered on my part - should have checked the book myself, so thanks for clarifying. Even so, the bane of 'not invented here' was especially pronounced on the steam-era railway and survives to a certain extent even now: I've heard modern railwaymen talk of 'Paddington' or 'Waterloo' as though they were special sorts of obscenity, perhaps requiring complicated equipment. 'Waterloo' incidentally, being reckoned - even ten years back, I wouldn't like to say whether that still holds - to care more about timekeeping than the 'Western'... Adam

I don't think so - Salmon and its sister loco, Swordfish, were named in quarry service, apparently after naval vessels lost the year before they were built (1940, both locos built 1941): http://www.brc-stockbook.co.uk/swordfish.htm It's difficult to make out, but the loco in David's picture appears to be named XXnton (possibly 'Denton'). Adam

Definitely a Barclay - though Avonside and Bagnalls both built locos with similar shaped tanks. I can't quite make out the name though. Adam

I suspect that you've simply been lighter on the solder (though in fairness to myself, the first was some time ago) and thus incurred less cleaning up. You really can't tell on the completed wagons which appeared on an external host on an earlier version of RMweb and seem to have vanished into the ether. If I can find some I'll post them in my workbench thread. They're nice kits for interesting wagons. I've currently got a Masokits CCT/PMV chassis on the go and it's not so bad on the fiddliness stakes though some of the early brake gear etches were 'tricky'. Adam

Nice work - I've built one of these and a couple of the larger, 16 ton examples, but will confess that I didn't make such a neat job of the brake gear - is that using an RSU? I look forward to seeing what you make of the rest of the wagon. Adam

Yep, I'd reckon 0.3mm is in the ball park and the cause must be the one you identify - that's the only variable I can see that might have caused the shift upwards and irritatingly, one you can only spot with everything else in place! Still, it's nice clean work and that's to be admired. Nice to see the progress, and I look forward t seeing it finished. Adam

Very nice - but is the cab roof meant to be angled forward (streamlined? ) like that? The cab back definitely seems to be higher than the front and I find it difficult to believe that the real thing was quite like that. Adam

Fabulous! I can see that my version is going to have to be recalled for some extra work... Still, it probably is 10 years old at least. Hand lettered 'Not to be used...' too. Not sure that I could do that again! Adam

Hi Jo - the story about generators is quoted from SR wagons volume 4 (I believe that Gerry Bixley, one of the authors, worked in the relevant department and was citing contemporary documents) - see below for an important correction! As you say, it has the ring of truth! My experience of shunting is limited to 4mm so an insight into the real thing is interesting. Thanks again. Adam

No, NER or LNER going on the shape of the ducket (though the PLA may have bought them from a contractor - I know more or less nothing about PLA stock!). Adam

Thanks both - as I suspected then, continental practice brought into UK use. 'Not invented here' is probably the answer - the UK was extremely conservative in these things: the generator sets and lighting rigs eventually fitted to Seacows were originally proposed by the civil engineers in the early '60s. They were deemed 'not British practise' by the rolling stock bods and the proposal rejected! Actually, the earliest applications on UK stock that I know of date to the Second World War. The 'SNCF' type minerals (an odd mix of British and European practice) and the slope-sided types (a stock Chas Roberts design with minor modifications) had them as well and in some cases, retained them in BR use: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brsncfmineral/h22f2461f#h22f2461f The question that springs to mind is this - do they actually help? I can see that they should, but equally, I can imaging finding all manner of ways to bang my head on the things... Adam

That's my best guess too - different ideas and practises I guess, much like the preponderance of self-contained buffers and longer wheelbases on the continent (and three holes on our disc wheels). Thanks again, Adam

Some further development on the Italian ferry van, preparatory work for the roof in the form of a central rib to prevent sagging and some transverse ribs to support a 40 thou' sub roof over which - owing to the design of the real thing - there are a couple more layers to go. The holes in the flat sub roof will be well-vented to allow fumes from the solvent to escape. Also added are the curious things below the buffers - they're often referred to as lashing points but photos of the wagons show that they were never used for that on train ferries at least. Lots more detail still to add, of course. Adam

Well I'm not so it's moot. The solution, if you must have sprung buffers, would be to come up with some sort of self-contained arrangement - tricky - or to model one of the class that had lower mounted buffers. The Dapol/Hornby buffer beams are extremely thick and too tall so perhaps the Albion kit available from Roxey would be the route to go with. Adam

Moving on for the momeny, I've made up some splashers - in 4mm a good template for scribing the circumference is a 2p piece (though my compass cutter has been located!). The sandbox lids were spares from something else, though they'd be easy enough to knock up from plastic rod and sheet, and the start of the cab floor can be seen - some splashers are wanted there, too. Otherwise, the Italian ferry van has moved forward too with the first brakegear elements assembled. The vee hangers are Masokits parts intended for LMS vehicles are are a pretty decent match, I think. These vehicles were dual braked: the vac' cylinder acted on one shaft and the air brake gear on the other with a linkage between the two. The question (I have an excellent isometric drawing showing what goes where thanks to Jonathan Weallans) is how much of it to add... Coming on. Adam

My last lot of flashing did emerge from a skip as I remember - I've just run out - and I do have some liquid lead, but I want to keep that for more difficult applications: this isn't, it's just long! So back to mucking about with the Terrier. At this point the work is about putting the detail I removed back on in the right place or simply more of it. So the straps on the smokebox have been replaced in 10x20 thou' strip, thinned down, the buffer beams have been tidied up and a bit of plastic strip added to represent the overlap of the footplate, the plate for the drawhook knocked up from 10 thou' and, obviously, new buffers (no, they won't be sprung). I've also moved the buffers down a smidge. Strangely, the drawhooks on the back of a Terrier are at a slightly different level to those at the front. Easy enough to do. I must get on and make up the splashers now... Adam

An owfit indeed... Trouble is that my nearest B&Q is a pain to get to without a car (they're not mad keen on bicycles on the M27) which rules that out until I'm next in that direction. A worthwhile thought though. Adam

Another thing that emerged in the course of the move was this Cambrian kit for a SR Borail. Such long wagons often adopted a bow in reality but in moulded plastic this is not always desirable. In this instance, the floor is moulded in two halves and there is precious little structure to prevent it warping all over the place. Here's a crude but effective (and cheap!) solution: A waste bicycle spoke (the wheel was written off in a collision my sister had a few weeks back - she's fine, mercifully) is stiff, straight and was epoxied in place (held in with a pair of clothes pegs while the glue cures) quite messily - but invisibly - when the wagon is the right way up. I'm wondering now about how to add some more weight, so it's back in the box... Adam

Yep - 4SLP037 - I ran a bead of Milliput around the edge to get the diameter right and decided at that point that the straps were a bit close together. It'll come together in the end. That was a Terrier variation I wasn't aware of (not difficult!). Adam

o, the workbench, and everything else, has been relocated and is now sort of up and running again. It's a bit slow, however, because I painstakingly stored everything very carefully - though the bench itself moved in one piece with all its drawers - and I now have to find it again. With that in mind, it made sense to take one project and use that as a search aid and in the process get some modelling done. In this instance, it's giving my plastic Terrier a facelift. So, starting with the bit that Dapol got 'most wrong' (at least for an A1X), the smokebox. In the previous post, the bones of the new smokebox saddle were shown in all their gory detail. I didn't take any pictures of the process of building up the saddle in Milliput, partly because my fingers were covered in the stuff but some way down the line, this was the result: Note the nice even curves and the 'orrid file marks on the buffer beam. No matter, we'll be coming back to that. The white area is 5 thou' plastic sheet which represents the smokebox ring behind the door. And so, a day or two later, spot the difference: There's a dart (made from a turned base and a couple of handrail knobs for 0.3mm wire - a Terrier is a small machine, the real things are appropriately dainty: one size does not fit all). I'll be using these for the boiler handrails as well once I've bought some more. The buffer beam has been slightly reduced in height and you should be able to see that the hole for the coupling hook is now in the centre of the 'beam as it should be. It also means that the buffers look as though they'll be in the correct spot for this engine without too much modification to what's left. This is where the detail oddities come into play. Terriers had (have!) buffers at two different heights and different brake fittings. This one, weirdly, only had an air pipe on the bunker end in its latter years for example. The straps have yet to go on the door (modified from an RT Models item), but the Marsh chimney (Perseverance - happily available again) has and the loco looks better for it. Side on the effect is clear: The tank fillers - somewhat underfed - have been sheaved with plastic tube and look better for the weight gain. Work still to do includes making the corners of the valances sharper and fabricating enormous amounts of pipework. The seriously eagle-eyed may notice that some of the filled holes in the boiler have been redrilled, but not all. Why? Well, I discovered that most of the 'boiler' handrails were - and are - located on the tank tops, as this photo from John Turner's collection on Flickr shows: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue-diesels/6846352536/ Onwards and upwards. Adam

Dave Bradwell does (etched brass): http://traders.scalefour.org/DaveBradwell/rolling-stock/ And very nice it is too. Adam

That seems to run rather nicely which must be a relief. Well done. Adam

Top one, I think, is Great Northern. The diamond framing on the doors is distinctive. Adam

World of Terrier, same but different. Brighton Works's striking Stroudley colour scheme takes several steps forward and, in the midst of it all, it runs, which is quite exciting. First, a view of the mechanics: Just this once I put some thought into this. The chassis a basic compensated job with a beam connecting the front two axles and the axles themselves running in tube sleeves which the beam bears on for lower friction. Drive is on the rear axle with a Mashima 1024 installed via a High Level gearbox. Note that the pick up assembly consists of a pair of pieces of PCB screws to cross members and linked by bus bars - the lengths of brass wire running fore to aft - onto which the pick ups for the centre wheels are fixed. The kink over the cosmetic ashpan is invisible the right way up. Happily, the pull rods on these are outside the wheels and that makes life easier. As luck would have it, I even wired the thing in the correct orientation at the first time of asking which is truly remarkable... This way up shows the paintwork: the Precision paint yellow (sorry, Improved Engine Green) had to be let down a smidgeon with some very light grey to match the colour Hornby painted the body and is the better for it, I feel. We also have claret-coloured frames, and rods, green rims and the axle ends (the Gibson standard 1/8" axle being somewhat oversclae here), picked out in black. The guard irons and sandpipes are painted bright red which is all rather exciting while the continuation on the spokes over the balance weights is a neat touch on the real thing that was a bit of a fiddle to add. It appears much less gaudy than might be expected because, the red guard irons apart, the colours are tonally similar in intensity. The body is coming on a little too, with a couple of wedges added to build up the smokebox saddle. This will be completed using Milliput. Adam