Weight Watcher

As a general principle of modelling in 009 you aim to make your locomotives as heavy as possible and your rolling stock as lightweight as you can get them.

I'm completely ignoring that with the WHHR brake van project because I spent time last night trying to discreetly add some weight to it.

Why?

Well, this kit-bashed Dundas van is made entirely from plastic / styrene and our thinking is that with it being the end vehicle of a set it pays to have a little bit of mass about it so it avoids being caught in a tug-of-war between the locomotive and the bogie carriages behind.

Especially if your coupling heights are a little off, you can end up with the first vehicle in a set wheelie-ing along the line behind the engine looking like a plane about to take off.

As I didn't have any sheet lead to hand to fix between the fames I decided the best thing to do was form a wee box on the floor of the van, fill it with some 'liquid lead' shot that I've had in the drawer for years, and seal it with a lid on top like a coffin.

(I was careful to leave it loose and not make the mistake of fixing it in place with PVA glue because the lead will react to it and expand, with unfortunate consequences.)

The other benefit is, should be wish, we can now form a Bron Hebog percussion section using the WHHR brake van as a maraca!

Blue Van

The painting of the WHHR van is going very smoothly so far.

The exterior has now had three coats of Rail Blue.

For a colour that was so ever-present all through my childhood it's very novel, and fun, to be applying it to a narrow gauge model.

It won't be properly finished in time for Bressingham but I'm hoping it might be possible to get the van, and the Bro Madog carriage, in a state fit to at least make an appearance as the first stage of a WHHR set.

First Coat

Yet another week has gone by with less progress than I might have hoped for on the brake van project, however I have been able to begin applying some of the final finish.

It's been given a coat of cream around the interior and the underframe received some matt black last night.

Hopefully over the course of the weekend I might also be able to begin applying a little bit of Rail Blue to the outside.

I ordered a bottle of Railmatch enamel from a very well known, large, model shop in the north west of England and was very impressed when it turned up on my doorstep within 36 hours.

The packing was perhaps a little over the top for a small glass jar (and thanks to postal restrictions these days the courier charge was more than one and half times the value of the product) but these are just minor grumbles,

I'm really looking forward to having narrow gauge model in BR blue - the colour of my childhood.

Running Out Of Puff

Being a legendary cheapskate I decided that rather than buy a whole new can of primer just to coat the new brake van, I would try to eak out what was left in an old aerosol on the shelf in my modelling den - with predictable consequences...

Well, at least the outside is more-or-less covered - it's a thin coat but it'll do.

There wasn't any paint (or puff) left in the can to spray the inside, but I'm sure it won't matter too much in this case if I paint the top coat straight onto the styrene - it's not as if anyone's going to see much in there because the van doesn't have many windows.

As it is I've already had to set free the digital moths from my wallet by ordering online an entire bottle of BR blue paint for one wee model - I'm hardly likely to need it for anything else!

In the same manner I'm also facing the prospect of having to fork out for a whole sheet of double arrow transfers when I'm only going to need 2 of them.

My dedicated to the cause is unstinting, as you can see.

It's All In The Detail

Himself and I spent an enjoyable afternoon at one of those typical small, local shows at the weekend - in this case the Kyle MRC event in Troon.

I hadn't expected to find much of narrow gauge interest - continental modelling is surprisingly popular here in Scotland in my experience, much more so that south of the border it seems to me - so I was delighted to find an excellent little OO9 layout called Bachdale and Dibley Level.

It's not large - in fact so may call it a 'rabbit warren' - and it's completely freelance, basically running anything which will fit inside a loading gauge which makes the original FR seem generous.

What impressed me, though, was the high standard of execution in everything to with the layout, especially in places that you can't ordinarily see into.

The engine shed is a case in point.

The interior has been modelled in exquisite detail, but you won't see any of it unless the operators are kind enough to remove the roof for you.

Among the items of rolling stock which caught my eye were these four wheel carriages.

As far as I can tell they've been made from plastic kits which are readily available, but they've been finished with a beautiful teak-effect scumble.

I clearly wasn't the only one impressed because, quite deservedly, it was voted the best layout by the visitors.

The other thing which really pleased me was to get my first proper look at one of the new Bachmann Baldwin 4-6-0 tanks.

Previously I'd only seen them in a display case so this was an opportunity to hold and examine one and see it running.

(And it was a case of only seeing it because it ran almost silently.)

The level of detail and finish is extraordinary - like nothing that's ever been seen in 009 ready-to-run before.

Bachmann haven't just raised the bar, they've shot it into orbit!

It's only increased my excitement for receiving the 590 version which we have on order, and I can't wait to see what sort of job they do on the Quarry Hunslet tanks.

Van Rails

I've been adding the final details to the WHHR ex-VoR brake van, such as the couplings, air brake pipes and grab rails.

The holes have also been drilled for the T door handles and the glazing cut to size.

The next stage, I suppose is to prime it.

Hitting The Road Again

It's still two weeks until Narrow Gauge East at Bressingham but Himself is already getting things organised and Bron Hebog has been packed up ready for the long journey to Norfolk.

The main reason for getting so far ahead of the game is that the stacking arrangements have had to be revised since it last went out.

The boards are paired up, face to face.

In the last could of years, however, we've done a lot more scenic work, in particular planting trees.

Trees have an awkard tendency to raise the height of the scenery and so some of the bracing pieces have had to be adjusted to take account of this, making some of the units slighty wider.

What we won't know for another fortnight is whether we've gone our back of the envelope calculations correctly so that it still fits in the same size of hired van it always used to fit into......