Martin S-C

Quite some time ago on RMWeb I recall a discussion about converting the Hornby Kit-Kat van into a reasonable facsimile of a pre-grouping van. I think it may have been a Hull & Barnsley vehicle. I now cannot find the discussion. It could have been on my thread, or on Edwardian's Castle Aching thread, or maybe a conversion Nile did on his freelance kitbash thread. Does anyone recall that discussion and is able to link me to it please?

Thanks Annie, they are cute aren't they? If there's one stage of coach kit building I enjoy its this bit - the adding on of the little twiddly bits. These always bring a model to life; it begins to look how it is supposed to. I've got the end handrails to add as well as door and grab handles. You might be able to see in the photo the 3 holes drilled near each left door edge and there will need to be some lamp irons on the ends as well but before I add all that I think I will paint them and before I do that I need to add the couplings and those are not going to be delivered before mid to late December as I have a part of a group order with the gentleman who we discussed a page or so back whom Corbs recommended who makes the permanent 3-links in 3D prints - there will be permanent couplers between the coaches and a tension hook on each end, but I'm on the hunt for a fifth vehicle to act as guards van. I could use my 1860s Scottish van but it will look very big next to these so I may have to kit bash something. I don't want to add the couplings until I have that vehicle sourced. Alternatively I could make one of these 2nd class coaches in a brake 2nd by just indicating "guard" on one of the doors. If I'd planned ahead I could have cut windows in that end as well but that's too much hassle now. Hm... decisions, decisions. Either way these will have to be put aside for a while which is a minor irritation as I'm itching to get some paint on them.

One thing I remember from the original MSTS was that you could edit the plain text ".wag" files (the attribute file that gave the wagon its weight, rolling resistance, coupling type, spring strength, bounding box dimensions and sound file) and you could do almost anything you liked with this, including any sound file you wanted. If I recall there was a rail joint beat that could be defined by wheelbase, so your 9ft wb wagons, 10ft wb wagons and longer wb vehicles plus bogie freight when they were all in motion made the most amazing discordant cacophony! The sounds were one of the nicest things about the sim but you wouldn't want to have the volume turned up with headphones on.

Slow progress on the Victorian 4-wheelers, but we are at least moving forwards. I loathe - simply loathe - modelling coaches. There's lots of repetitive jobs to do and there are windows that need glazing and I really dislike that job! For some essential light relief between bouts of carriage action there is another apartment-block sized stack of wagons under way (detailing & weathering).

Park Drain. Now there's an inspiring name for a layout.

I got left behind a bit during the summer yes, hence my likes, etc to posts back in July!

For limited lifespan you could try the Duhamel Trestle. Possibly a record holder in a most unhappy way. Construction began in autumn of 1909 and was completed during 1910. However the Duhamel Trestle Bridge was in use for only 14 years before it was dismantled and its timbers re-used elsewhere. The Grand Trunk Pacific's Calgary to Edmonton Line was a victim of company amalgamation and growth and the river crossing here became redundant. At any one time 120 men were employed in the construction with others, some of them farmers, hauling the uncut timber from the township of Camrose where the railway company deposited them, to the bridge site to be cut to size. Still others hauled the cut timbers out into the valley to the construction site. At almost 4,000 feet long and carrying the rails 120 feet above the river the Duhamel Trestle was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, timber constructions ever built.

Well yes, the diorama people do but wargamers don't - and being one myself the paint finish there has to be robust and suffer a lot of handling - and that's just not troops and vehicles but scenery itself. I assume your "don't work" comment was either tongue in cheek or a reference to static/no handling but the latter isn't the case any more than most model railways which are entirely static other than the trains and the occasional moving cameo parts (though that dreadful model railway building competition programme would have us all think every layout was packed with action as though it were populated by Diddy Men). And to stay on topic, here's a pile of wagons. And, for no other reason than its the funniest thing I've seen in months, this: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/posts/5021800391188542

Since I started using Mig Ammo acrylics a couple of years back I haven't touched any Humbrol products except a couple of spray cans used for undercoating, and the few Railmatch pots I have seem to be weak products compared to the paints manufactured for the military diorama and wargame community. I don't know if this is a deliberate thing or driven by market forces or what. Possibly there's a bigger market in the military modelling hobby than there is in the model railway hobby that affects the type and quality of products (that is how much a manufacturer can invest in terms of costs vs market return). I imagine a very significant portion of the model railway customer base use RTR models while almost the entire military modelling customer base buy kits which need painting. That might be one reason why military modelling paints and other supplies like washes and powders and the new generation of "shaded paints" are a thing and model railway paint products appear to be falling behind the times in both quality and breadth of range. Or of course this may be entirely subjective and incorrect!

The varnish I used was Testors Dullcote. Its an old can getting near the end so I wonder if its past its use by date? I've had no adverse reactions between it and acrylic thinners before. Of course it could be something else like a temperature or humidity thing or the paint I was thinning... lots of variables.

Thanks. Though I think the white bloom is a little extreme. I'm using the limestone trains allocation excuse After I week or three I'll go back to it and see if I can lessen the effect by gently rubbing at it with fibreglass pencil or just a cocktail stick. I don't want to repaint it so if the paint starts to come off I'll leave it, but I think it needs a little bit of reducing. I also only just realised the bolster wagon needs an additional upright in each corner They are in the kit - I thought they were spares. Another one to revisit in due course.

I deal with this by creating a completely fictional line in an alternate version of 1910s-1920s Britain. I find it both very cathartic and immensely liberating to model this way. I still enjoy keeping to UK railway practice as regards safety, BoT rules and all of that, but the rest of the fine detail is subservient to my enjoyment.

"The fiddle year" - a good description of my life this last 12 months...

As Neil is very busy with other projects until the new year I have been doodling away on a few other things... ex-Taff Vale 32ft 6ins bogie bolster, taken into GW service as MACAW G but one of them was bought by the NMGS in 1917: An NMGS built express freight van for high value goods and based on the design of a GWR 40ft bogie milk van. The NMGS had plans to move towards more fitted bogie freight vehicles in the 1920s, including steel opens for bulk minerals but the grouping finished those ideas. 3D print GER 10T brake, pressed into service as the WELRs second (and last) brake van. This vehicle is used on the limestone and quarry traffic has developed an unhappy dusty patina... yes I had an unhappy reaction between the satin varnish and the acrylic thinners... A few brick company opens. Nothing special just Dapol & Hornby weathered. and one Oxford Rail Scottish wagon Another F&E Poole & Co wagon joins my growing fleet of these as No.210. For some reason I have quite a few of this grouping of collieries. I'm slowly working my way through them (some details, number changes and weathering). And a random collection of quarry, stone and lime wagons. I have a few of these Hornby ones. I will either retire them or alter them to make 4-plank wagons so that the side hinges make sense. Its a pity Hornby made that design howler as otherwise they are quite nice models, though the HMS Warspite sized brake gear really needs replacing A Lilleshall open based on the recent photo of these we discussed. I enjoyed going to town on this one.

Just a heads up that this is an ongoing issue. Apart from very old pages all new pages frequently don't show photos and I need to refresh the page often several times before the images show. I'm using Firefox and its just been updated to the most recent version.

My NM&GS is structured similarly with 0-6-0 for goods (largely coal, lime and stone traffic) and generally 4-4-0 for passenger with 0-4-4T on the stopping trains. The WELR is a short tramway branch and will sport a variety of 2-4-0T simply because I like that wheel arrangement. There are also 2 GER tram engines in use on the tramway. As I simply love collecting engines I also have two 2-4-0 tender engine kits in the to do pile which will represent the passenger engines of a decade or three earlier, still in service. I must confess I have bought a Bachmann Atlantic as well and the Locomotion/Rapido Stirling single just because they are so nice. How they'll fit into the logic I cannot say.

I was certain you were gong to write "Might that be a model to prevent the malign dominance of the Great Western..."

My eyesight is getting worse. I completely missed the letter "r" in your last word.

Your Peckett lost her whistle as well? I drilled a hole in the tank top and glued a new one there

While waiting for various packs of couplings to arrive I finished the GN GPV. I trimmed off the end vents without inflicting too much damage but chose to leave the incorrect style doors. I understand the corners of the body are not quite right (though to my eye looking at photos I cannot quite see the difference), but as I consider these minor items in the scheme of a fictional railway I'll let it slide. Just this once... Before weathering. The white roof was not a success I think. And dirtyish...

08's for Christmas? For that you will have to be a Very Good Boy. Which means not going over to the Dark Side, which means no 08 which means ... gah /divide by zero loop

I assumed he was saying "There, there, little signal. The engines aren't so scary after all are they? It'll be alright."

I set my layout in 1919 because I wanted it to be pre-grouping but not during the Victorian age (too much scratch-building) and not during the war (too many complications), so 1919 just kind of happened, for ... reasons. However I was born in 1959 and so I have a collection of earlyish BR stock and do run this stuff on the same layout without batting an eyelid. The first period I modelled was 1954 because a loco I especially like had its last example withdrawn in that year. But the 1919-1959 span sort of has a bit of a poetic link ... possibly ... I think. As to why I model railways? I cannot say. I think as children we often like tiny things - dolls, little animals like kittens, mice, hamsters, puppies ... then toy soldiers, toy cars... whatever and so modelling railways is an extension of that. I think there is also deep down a ego-stroking aspect as though you are a god and can benevolently look down upon and control a miniature world that you have created. Freud I'm sure would have a fair bit to say about all that.

Not if you are a collector! The loco could be a total non-runner (and you'd never know since to put it on the track and apply powers destroys its value and you couldn't be a proper collector if you put it on the track!). But boxes... especially good condition ones. They are some serious sh*t.

Apparently some of the plastic toys given away with McDonald's Happy Meals are now worth serious money (in sets) because most of them were simply thrown away. Although why this would imbue them with any intrinsic value I am not sure, but there you are: it's a thing.