Adam

This picture from Paul Bartlett shows the brake arrangement nicely: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brherring/h193152ea#h193152ea Note the vertical vac' pipe and stay for it attached to the hopper. Adam

The instructions say 'between 1945 and 1948' - no reference is given for this statement (a general point: I spend my days trying to explain to students and authors the importance of showing the provenance of any information they quote, it would be nice if this happened at all in railway publications) and I don't have any GW reference books to hand. There is nothing very helpful in terms of representative number ranges for GW (as opposed to the BR batch). Since I model north of 1960 this isn't too problematic, but... Adam

And there's a good reason for this: the Cambrian kit depicts a vehicle that may never have seen service with the Great Western. The earlier versions were heavily riveted in traditional Swindon fashion but these were built at the tail end of 1948 according to Paul Bartlett. I've no idea how they'd have been painted... Adam

I've laid my hands on one courtesy of Rural Railways at the Southampton show. Components shown below: It is to the usual modern Cambrian spec': 1 piece body and chassis and two sets of sprues for all the details. There's some nice etched tiebars in the packet too. It looks as though it should be reasonably straightforward, which is not something you can say about every Cambrian kit! Adam PS - to edit the thread title, go to the first message, click edit. Below the message you will see two buttons: the right hand one says 'Use full editor' or something like that. Click of that and the title box will display for you to edit. HTH.

The bogies look reminiscent of Underground stock of some kind, probably way off beam... Adam

Here's the last of the Coil Js (for the moment, anyway) converted from a tippler of the 10' wheelbase variety. The body is from the chassis that is now the Coil C described above, the chassis is an etch from AMBIS, axleboxes spares from a Parkside underframe, springs 51L, buffers MJT and the whole now wants a coat of primer. Adam

Thanks again Hywel, that's really helpful, hope that the refit of the inspirational Morfa Bank Sidings is going well? Here's the current state of play with my Coil C: On page 82 of http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/BRBDocuments/BRFreight2Issue.pdf can be found a dimensioned sketch of the Coil R, quite detailed by the standards of these things and plenty good enough for the job. Time for a sacrificial Cambrian Turbot or two in good time... oh, and some more shocvans. Also of interest in there are some more detailed drawings, with numbering, of Mincoils (pp. 46-7). Lots of other good and useful stuff too. Adam

That's great Hywel, I'll sub the shochood into the rake instead. There's no way I'm building another Coil H, but a Coil R sounds an intriguing (long-term) possibility, despite the hoods, which they would have had in my period. You wouldn't happen to have a picture of them in that form? I assume that they had the same sort of three bar hood as the shochoods and like everything else seemed to have in about that period? Coil Rs are the subject of a Paul Bartlett gallery I hadn't seen before: http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/brcoilr (thank you again Paul) which is compelling in itself and which provide far more information than I had to do the Coil H. Too many projects... Diolch yn fawr! Adam

Thanks for this Hywel - knowledge of the way in which the traffic actually worked is something I lack, equally, the whole rake will be running empty, on a layout where they have no rightful place so that's a secondary issue at present. Would a Coil H be a likely pairing with, say a Shochood B in the same traffic? Adam

Could the loco at Yatton be black rather than green? I've known pictures of both black and green engines to prove misleading in this respect, especially when reasonably glossy. Whatever, it does look good. Minion is still too clean though - a bit of oil here and there will stop it looking as though it's been stuffed and mounted in a playground! Adam

A little while later, here's the modified cradle for the Coil C. Some strapping and the pins for the moveable bolsters to go and it's done. Now, what about the rest of the wagon? Adam

Should anyone else be contemplating this sort of thing, then you might find this picture useful: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rivercider/6635481867/in/photostream/lightbox/ Note that the Coil Cs - the wagons closest to the camera - have a more sophisticated sort of cradle arrangement than the Coil Js nearer the loco'. So, back to the workbench... Adam

Probably the messiest modelling job I can think of is distressing plastic to make it look like baulks of roughly-cut, ill-used timber. Yes, I know that strip wood is available, but it's expensive and can't be had off the shelf anywhere near here. 80 thou' plastic sheet, however, is in stock and can do the job so if a mess is going to be made batch production is the way forward. Five cradles have been produced all at once; three for the Coil Js in progress, one for the Coil J without a and the last for the final wagon in the rake, a pig iron conversion which will use the remaining Hornby chassis. The full rake will consist of: 7 off Coil J, 1 off Coil C, one off Coil H and a bogie strip coil. Really- like most other freights in South Wales c. 1968, it should have an EE type 3 on the front but my class 14 or Dad's Western will have to do for the moment, the dedicated brakevan will have to be thought about at some point as well. Adam

CW02 John - there's no thumbnail unfortunately, but there's an image here: http://www.scalefour.org/eshop/i?sku=CW02&s=welsh Hope that helps Adam

Brakegear complete, safety loops from staples, brake levers and guides 'Craig Welsh' via the Scalefour Society public e-shop, vee hangers by Masokits. Several tiny bits of 5 thou', 10 thou' and rod later... Now it's time for rivets and buffers but the end, so quickly really, is in sight. Adam

Separate guard irons I see. That's pleasing since it's a particular 'thing' I have (silly much of the time I grant you, but where you can see them it's worth it). Adam

A few little extras for the Chas Roberts mineral; axleboxes, inner vee hangers, blob of epoxy to secure the couplings, that sort of thing... And, thanks to Hornby's 'Black Friday' (how I hate that term) sale, the Coil J breeding programme has restarted. I think that's up to 7 and one more that will be longer in gestation. More of that anon. Adam

Now that does sound interesting - the addition of the 3' gauge operations would make for a captivating layout, especially given the unusual nature of the locomotives on that line, and the LSWR in the early years of the 20th century seems such an attractive railway. What scale are the French tramways in? Adam

Something closer to the finish line is this, an RT Models Hudson tipper. For more, see here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/61780-hudson-tipper-in-em-take-2/?p=1728359 Adam

The latest wagon project, the first for 2015, is another mineral wagon and after a good quantity of 'ordinary' 1/108 types I fancied a change and happened upon a picture of P 144303 in part 2 of the Modellers' Backtrack opus on steel mineral wagons. Now, P 144303 was a fairly unremarkable 1/100 built by Chas Roberts for its own hire fleet in 1947 and, unlike some of its earlier sisters, operated all its life on British metals before being withdrawn presumably shortly after it was photographed at Poole in 1967. Somewhere along the line it was partially replated along the sides and ends but the reversed channel solebars were original, if unusual. All this makes its key distinguishing features - continental pattern 'W' irons (of all things) - the more baffling and almost certainly unique. Body by Parkside, 'W' irons by Ambis Engineering, brakegear by ABS. They'll be another dozen 1/108s as penance in due course... Adam

A few pages back, I detailed some of the work on regauging a Bachmann 66xx. Dad has had the chance to waft some weathering over the tanks to flatten them back a bit but test running on South Junction found it lacking pulling-power: it was outperformed by a humble pannier, tackling about 15 wagons (or naff all) round the circuit. South Junction is reasonably challenging since one end of the fiddle yard consists of a flying junction with flyunder and flyovers, all curved (about 4' radius in EM) but if a RTR pannier can do better then something is amiss. A simple regauging effort with Ultrascale wheels meant that the original Bachmann mechanicals were untouched and a bit of bench testing and prodding showed that the lack of adhesion was because the carrying wheel was lifting the rear driver, the driven axle. For those of you not familiar with Bachmann RTR steam locos, what should be a radial truck is actually a sort of sprung plunger in which the axle runs and can flap around all over the place. This is ugly, but does work reasonably well in terms of track holding but with a loss of haulage because the plunger lacks sufficient vertical play. There's not much that can be done about this, but the slot that the axle runs in has a couple of ridges on the outer edges that serve as the bearing surface. The available options were either reworking the radial truck altogether or filing these ridges away. The former seemed like a lot of effort so the latter was tried. This might have caused problems of rolling resistance or yet more play in the system but Ultrascale trailing axle in the conversion set runs inside tube so the outer face of said axle is more or less irrelevant. Did this work? 50 wagons* on the drawhook says yes, it did. And on the flat: Adam * The wagons were not a scientific selection: sprung etched brass, re-wheeled Bachmann, whitemetal kits and plastic kits on pinpoint bearings. It was found that 52 wagons made the poor thing slip rather a lot and 54 would probably have stopped it altogether but we didn't try: we can't really take more than about 45 in the yard...

Here you go David. Dad and I went playing trains this afternoon on Yeovil MRG's 'South Junction' (it'll be in Model Rail in the New Year some time) and the NBL got commissioned. It did quite well, taking 24 wagons plus brake round quite a challenging circuit: The challenging bit is shown below - flyunder/over and 4' curves: Adam

Well, that didn't stay clean for very long... With my first attempt at the same kit which I must have added additional dirt to at some point: And finally, dad's kitbashed LMS-bodied example based on a Dave Larkin photo. Well, I say that it's dad's, I dropped it two or three years ago so the chassis is my work from Parkside bits as it was easier than repairing the original (which had axleguards from an ABS CCT - a bit over size). Adam

Back in Somerset for Christmas, two more projects are inching towards completion. The Shocvan has appeared before and is now fully lettered and partially weathered. The decaying and faded ICI fertilizer post is from Hollar Models and I'll probably add another when the weathering is further advanced, but it's a start. As ever, the lettering is a right old mix of Woodhead (glued on with Klear), SMS and a couple of bits from a Modelmaster (ex-Cambrian) sheet. Once the Testor's Dulcote has gone off properly, I'll find the weathering paints. Below is much longer running project, a Brassmasters GWR Match truck, intended for a D&S crane, well, as an when Brassmasters actually release the upgrade kit for it. The transfers are from Fox (the sheet is a poor example of their output in terms of what it includes*) and are a 'best guess' as regards the prototype, which finished its career at Newton Abbot. I've yet to see a photo taken from closer than a hundred yards or so but a similar vehicle served as an exemplar. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/gwrdeptcoach/h1CA67166#h1ca67166 It's entirely possible the real thing was GW grey, re-lettered. Does anyone know? It matters to me... Adam

Thanks David - a sheet of clear plastic sheet I picked up years ago. The level of dirt seems typical. Adam