SRman

Hi Peter. I think it needs to be a girder of some sort, although not necessarily the Wills style plate girder. It could be a much plainer 'H' section girder, although to disguise the thickness I would use only a very thin 'U', so it would be as if we were looking at only the outer side of the 'H'. Anyway, here's that last idea illustrated:

Continuing the work on the plate girder bridge sides, The next photos show how I have added the plasticard base and the Wills top plates. I'm no civil engineer, but I thought the very long span on the far side should have extra support or bracing to be realistic, so added an extra layer of the top plates. The first photo shows the side without the top plates fitted, and the plasticard base only partly fitted. The next two show the sides tack glued in place with Blu-tack to hold them while the glue sets. The next two show the upper sides in what I hope to be the final configuration, but as yet unpainted. I also cut one Wills panel in half to see what that would look like as another layer along the sides of the wooden deck. It is only Blu-tacked in place here. An alternative idea is to do a 'U' or 'L'-girder with the flanges facing outwards horizontally. The jury is still out on this! Either solution will require a little rebate cut into the brickwork to represent a support buttress. Edit: Another thought occurred to me: I could use some of the Wills panels sideways, so they would be shallower but longer between ridges. That would be easier as cutting all those panels accurately in half is a little daunting!

I believe the Southern Region started the trend of painting the ends the same as the body colour, somewhere around 1965, or possibly even earlier. Other regions followed suit later. I slightly back-dated my Invicta Models Bachmann maroon CCT by painting the maroon ends into black, to better represent the 1957 - 66 period. I also believe that the SR was a little inconsistent with the ends on the CCTs and PMVs, but it is sometimes difficult to tell what colour the ends were in photographs because of accumulated dirt and grime. Come to that, it is sometimes almost impossible to tell what colour the sides are on the SR vans for the same reasons!!

Inspired (and shamed) by Peter's (P.C.M.) rapid progress with his scenic break bridge (see his post at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/1560-llanbourne-north-wales-in-the-80s/?p=1939133, here is my progress report on building up the plate girder bridge sides, using the Wills vari-girder kits. I bought quite a few of these kits with a view to replacing those temporary, recycled sides which were acting as place-holders. I have used up two complete kits so far, plus a few sprues from the third kit. The nearest sides are virtually complete, but the other, longer side is single-sided so far. I have to duplicate the panels to provide the double thickness, then add the top plates. I am using some 40 thou plasticard to form a lip at the bottom, to allow a little overhang at the sides of the bridge. At this stage, I am thinking that I will probably use some half-height panels for the lower overlays, to be attached directly to the wooden sides of the bridge deck. Note that I changed the topic title as the layout can no longer be considered "new"!

Perhaps that shoud also be at Platform 9¾! It really is a superb photo.

Thanks Rick. I will have to get a couple of the Bachmann SR type CCTs too. I currently have a mix of Wrenn (ex-Hornby Dublo), K's and Parkside kit-built ones in service, plus a couple of Hornby's van 'C' in green and crimson. I may be able to retire some of those once the Bachmann ones come along to put them to shame. I have a good variety of bogie parcels stock (NPCCS) besides those, including the old Triang-Hornby gangwayed bogie van, Hornby and Ratio Bogie 'B' vans, BR BGs in various liveries, one each of Hawksworth, Stanier, Thompson and Gresley types, and a couple of BR GUVs.

Two things to show off here ... or really three things in two photos! One is my new maroon CCT from Invicta Models. I have already painted the ends black to back-date it slightly. I also toned down the wheel faces a little with paint (although you can't see it in this photo!). It is a very nice model but I had a little difficulty ascertaining which of the add-on detail pipes and fittings went where. I eventually found a photo that showed my guesses were correct. I have also now eliminated the gap under the bridge support girders, using layers of plasticard with recesses built-in to accept and locate the girder ends. The girders are vertical and parallel, in spite of what it looks like in the photo: a combination of the back walls being angled, and the lens distortion towards the edges of the photo make them look quite out of plumb! A quick coat of buff and black paints makes the job look more complete. I was also going to start on the plate girders above the track level, replacing the temporary, recycled ones I have had Blu-tacked in place so far. However, I haven't found where I put the new girder kits! They aren't in the box I thought they were in, so I'll have to keep looking. Also showing in the pic are my Bachmann LT pannier tank, which is still crying out for a little weathering, plus two ex-BR brake vans which came from the Bachmann train sets. Both were numbered the same, so I used some Modelmaster transfers to renumber one, before weathering it to provide a contrast to the original. I really need to renumber two of the three identical low-sided wagons I have as well. The Modelmaster sheet has quite a few suitable alternatives. Maybe later.

I agree regarding the effect of the translucency of Hornby's finish, but since these vehicles were very rarely cleaned, a layer or two of weathering helps the realism and reduces the 'see-through' effect. These are their crimson/carmine SR van C and LNER CCT that I have done. With apologies for taking us slightly off-topic.

That's looking really good, Peter. Won't it damage your stock when you drive off the end of it though?? It also puts me under notice that I must get some more of my own bridge construction under way too, preferably before August!

I'm still running pre-grouping trains at the moment and have been working on some Smallbrook Studio LSWR 'road van' kits (see my blog for the details). Here I have posed the 18T D.1542 van with a Hornby LSWR M7. The van is all but complete now, after receiving another coat of matt varnish this morning. I have accidentally omitted one door handle on each side, so those remain to be done before I can say it is properly finished. I also tweaked one of the photos to give it an older feel.

When I fitted a Howes' ESU LokSound decoder into one of my Hornby Q1s, and like those mentioned above, in the tender, I also had to discard the Hornby weights to make room for the decoder and speaker. To add weight back in, I used a layer of "lead" ball bearings glued in the coal space, followed by some real coal on top of that. While this makes the Q1 tender feel a little top-heavy, it has proved to be quite stable and has presented no running problems to date. The 700 and T9 tenders would probably be even better using this technique as the coal spaces are lower down (in absolute terms), therefore putting the weight a little nearer to where it belongs.

Aaaarghh! I've gone blind!

'Ere. Wot you tryin' to say?? Out wiv it, man!!

At least they gave a contrasting colour (grey!) for the roof. It relieves the livery a bit. I wonder whether a grey or black roof might have relieved the EWS livery a little, too, making it look a little more "traditional" in its application. I don't mind the appearance in the OP's photo, but some of the plain green locos in BR days did look a little drab, even with grey roofs - classes 16 and 37 come to mind here, especially before the application of yellow panels. Still, beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder, and with a simple livery like this one, there's not too much to criticise or go wrong, and it won't take too long to apply, so the locomotives and stock will spend less time out of service for repaints.

Those neo-magnets are good but I did encounter one problem, with a Hornby Dublo (so called) Southern electric. In this case, the motor runs perfectly well with the new magnet but the magnet is also attracted very strongly to the tinplate sides, This does affect the ability to run reliably, as the motor bogie tries to remain firmly 'glued' to one side or other. The above should not be a problem with the Co-Bo!

Blow torches out and at the ready ...

I have made further progress with finishing the Smallbrook Studio LSWR 18 ton 'road' van (D. 1542) - the right-hand van in the photos below. Transfers from HMRS have been applied, although much of what I have done was guesswork, based on photos of other types of brake vans in LSWR livery, since all of the photos I have been able to find of D. 1542 vans were in BR grey, in various states of decreptitude! I used the smaller LSWR lettering as the panels are a bit tighter in dimensions than the other vans. The D. 1545/1549 20 ton van has had a few more paint touches applied and all the holes for the handrails drilled out, and couplings fitted, but otherwise looks the same as before - middle van in the photos. I commenced work on the D. 1541 10 ton van and it has now caught up to the 20 tonner, apart from the roof not being painted. This is the single-ended van on the left in the photos. I pre-drilled all the handrail holes before fully assembling the shell on this one. Both this and the 20 ton van's roofs are only black-tacked on at the moment, pending fitting the glazing.

Ken: Rule 1 applies. If your SR General Manager wants to send a 700 down the North Cornwall, then let it be so!

Leeds is an interesting place. It is also very central and allows easy travel to many other parts of Britain (especially by rail!). It is also the home of a certain DC Kits ... now who do we know from there??

Mike, if they have the sound project, then it will go on to any version (number of pins or even the hard-wired type) of the LokSound 4 decoders, as long as they have a way to plug or connect the decoder in to program it (I usually program with the decoder in situ in a suitable chassis). I was one of the testers for Bryan's original version of the class 73 sound (for Howes) on LokSound 3.5 decoders. He upgraded and refined it a little before releasing it for general sale. I have since had mine reblown with the production version, still on version 3.5 LokSound. I'm not sure if he has improved it for LokSound v4, but I would be surprised if he hasn't done so. I also have another 73 with Legomanbiffo sounds. That has a few other refinements, such as the ability to start the diesel engine while on the move. Both are good in their own ways and each has a few features that are one up on the other. Both benefit from a decent speaker set up.

On the weekend just gone, I decided to do something about the too steep drop on the hill in the village. A couple of layers of card tapered to a single layer where it joins the old road surface and the appearance is much better, as well as now allowing the 4mm bus drivers to get down the hill and around the bend without scraping the ends of their buses! I still need to paint and texture the road surfaces properly and to blend the slight level changes where the different bits of card meet, but it is taking shape and I am much happier with the result now.

Was it really as long ago as November 2013 that I first reported on this and another LSWR 'road' van from Smallbrook Studio? I have taken all four of the kits I purchased (LSWR and 'Met' versions) along to a couple of exhibitions with a view to continuing construction but ended up operating the BRMA layout on each occasion, with no productivity as far as kit construction went! Anyway, I dug out the LSWR 18 tonner and fitted the handrails last night, followed by the glazing, roof, gutters, chimney and couplings tonight. There is still a bit of painting to do and transfers and weathering to go, but it is now very close to being finished. I have posed it with the Bachmann LBSC E4 0-6-2 tank locomotive for effect. Next to complete will be the diagram 1545/9 20 ton van. Much later, I'll do the as yet unstarted Metropolitan Railway version of the 20 tonner, and the D.1541 10 ton brake van.

I had a quick look under my BR version to see what might be done. The centre axle is also the driven one, so that's not really practical to spring. However, the balance point for the weight distribution is behind the centre axle, meaning that it may be practical to spring the leading axle instead, or at least, to add a little extra vertical float to it. At this stage, that is only my musings as I haven't tried anything yet.

While agreeing with you, Steve, regarding the excellence of the weathering on the Westerns, I cannot recall seeing any photos of class 71s with anything more than light weathering. It would have to be done accordingly, otherwise we will have a similar situation to the debate on another thread about the forthcoming Bachmann weathered class 450. My own recollections of seeing them in green in the earlier 1960s were that they were fairly clean and shiny machines (usually followed, in my case, by clean and shiny Pullmans on the Golden Arrow!).

Interestingly, the one without gutters (1963) is two years later than the one with gutters (1961) - assuming the dates given in the captions are correct. The process of adding them must have been spread over several years.