Home For Retired Rolling Stock

Having powered up the narrow gauge test track at the weekend I soon found I exhausted the entertainment value in running a light engine around a circuit, or pushing wagons with no couplings (yet).

The obvious solution was to raid the collection of rolling stock at Himself's place which is not usually required as part of our exhibition fleet.

A number of years ago I sold off most of the redundant carriage stock (which had been replaced by improved models) to help fund the purchase of the last pair of NGG16 kits from Backwoods Miniatures as the business was wound up. 

However, I was careful to keep hold of models which will allow us to run Dduallt at its nominal date of 1988.

I only need a few items to make up a token train for the 'test track' while I build up my own stock for it.

So in the picture above you can see, from left to right:

* Our first model of bogie brake 10 shown in the all-green livery in which it was first restored to service, from the excellent Dundas kit.

* Carriage 16 in as per 1988 red livery which I scratch built in styrene donkeys years ago.  This has been replaced in the exhibition fleet by a brass Worsley body in Col. Stephens era green and red.

* Carriage 17, from the Langley brass kit. Our very first bowsider  (in fact, our first brass carriage) showing it in 1988 'Mountain Prince' livery, but with all the panelling detail which is not strictly correct.

* Bug Box 3 is from a Chris Veitch brass kit. It's a lovely wee model, but it's always been out of era for our layouts in it's all-over red livery.  (Would look lovely behind the new green Earl of Merioneth though...)

* Jerry M is a Chivers white metal kit running on an unaltered Ibertren chassis.   At the time we built it the idea was it could masquerade as Lilla for those who couldn't tell the difference. Since the arrival of the Robex print for Lilla it has been made redundant.

Also out of shot is our first Dundas model of quarryman's carriage 8, with the wood panelling smoothed over with filler to show it as it was in 1988 with its plywood-faced bodysides.

It's nice to see them getting a run again, anyway.

Spare Pickering

I've decided to get a job out of the way which I've been meaning to get sorted for a few months.

You may remember that when we set out to model the Welsh Highland's replica Picking brake our first approach was to use the Dundas brass kit.

Himself got as far as assembling the body before deciding to change tack and switched to the Worsley Works body kit which has a number of perceived advantages.

Among those were the way it's possible to make the floor removable on the Worsley design, and it doesn't have a strengthening lip along the top edge, which was going to make it much harder to insert an interior.

It's still a very nice looking body, however, so the plan was to complete this second one with a view to selling it as a complete, painted carriage.

My part of this arrangement is to fit it out with an interior.

To get over the issue of how to get it in past the prominent lip, Himself had the idea of filing back a short section in the middle, which will enable me to build the interior in three sections which can be dropped in and then slid along into position.

So far I've got the floor sections cut to size and the three compartment dividers fixed into place.

The next job will be to add the bench seats. 

Two Slices

I've been getting very behind in my blogging again.

It's not that there's no modelling going on, but the lack of updates here is because I have been lured back to the dark side of standard gauge and have spent much of my spare time in the last couple of weeks working on the tracklaying on the dual gauge 'test track' in the study.

Officially, this is a more practical solution for my son's OO 'train set'.........

I have stayed away from posting updates about that here because you come to read about narrow gauge modelling, right?

I did manage to get some FR work done immediately after my return from a few days in Wales  - the first time at the railway since 2019.

With the arrival in the post of a pack of fresh Hudson bogies I have trial-fitted the chassis in the toast rack carriage 39.

The task which am putting off - and which the OO track is providing an ideal excuse for - is trying to find a way to represent the tiny mesh safety doors fitted to this carriage.

All suggestions welcome...

The Missing Foot

The Pickering brake van project has taken an unexpected turn.

Himself turned detective and discovered the Dundas body kit is a foot shorter than it is supposed to be.

On a whim he ordered the etch for the same carriage produced by Worsley Works, and when placed against each other it confirmed the earlier kit is longitudinally challenged.

Usually I expect we would overlook this - after all we model in a scale where the track gauge is 1mm too wide for our prototype - but when you factor in the other difficulties with this kit, such as the challenge of fixing in a floor and inserting an interior, it tips the balance.

Using the Worsley etches also means he can solder the roof in place and the floor can be kept removable.

Because neither 'kit' comes with bogies or an underframe it's not like we're creating any extra work for ourselves.

What we'll do with the redundant Dundas body we'll have to wait and see.

Sliding In

There's certainly some head scratching required putting together the Dundas brass kit for the WHR Pickering brake coach, the replica of which will shortly be rolled out from Boston Lodge for the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway.

I hadn't realised that this was as much a case of a 'scratch aid' kit as you'd get with the Worsley product.

One of the issues we've had to overcome is how we'll get an interior in there.

The body has more strength than other brass carriage because there there wide taps top and bottom which fold up and guard against the sides getting pushed inwards and becoming misshapen.

However it does leave you wondering how you are supposed to insert full width compartment dividers and bench seats?

So the solution Himself has come up with is to cut pieces out midway along along the sections at the top of the carriage.

I can then make up the interior in short sections which can be lowered, one by one, into the carriage and slid into position.

A roof will have to be fixed in position as the last thing after painting and when the interior and glazing are fitted.

It's a much more inconvenient way of doing things than with out scratch built carriages where we maintain access at all times so the glazing is the very last thing to go in.

2020 Review - Part 3

July 

 

As we moved into the second half of the year Livingston Thompson had been painted, lined and weathered and taken for its first test runs on Bron Hebog with the formation recreating the train when it was first towed from Minffordd to Blaenau Ffestiniog to try and kick start the restoration.

 

After a false start that ended up with the locomotive on display at the NRM in York where it remains.

 

The Double Fairlie story continued with Himself trying to keep pace with Boston Lodge on progress with James Spooner.

 

 

 

We're doing out best to adapt a Backwoods brass kit - although there will have to be the inevitable compromise on scale. 

On my workbench I was getting to grips with a new project in resin....

 

August 

Those Hula Hoop shapes were turned into the body of Maenofferen water tank wagon which sits on an extended 3 ton slate waggon chassis.

 

 

Almost immediate I was inundated with requests to produce a kit version....

 

And Himself used the first lockdown to reach the finishing line on another long term project, finally completing the painting and lining of our Backwoods Lyn.

 

 

 

The latest of our WHR saloons rolled off the production line, too.

 

 

September

 

Trying our best, once again, to stay synchronised with real world developments, Himself began painting our 130, starting with the bunkers and tanks which received their lovely crimson/plum colour and straw lining. 

 

 

After completing work on the tank waggon I was engaged on a request to produce a kit for the FR's small ex-MOD bogie wagons.

 

The first task was to find a way to produce the bogies.

 

The solution I hit on was to cast a piece which could slip over the very free-running Hudson bogie sold by Dundas.    

 

 

 

In fact, Dundas was doing very good business out of us with Himself deciding it was time to replace a lot of our slate waggon fleet as the 30 year old bodies became brittle.

 

This time instead of a uniform grey he decided to make them a little more colourful.

 

Multi-Coloured Waggon Show

Himself is getting perilously close to running out of modelling projects.

If the situation does not improve he may have to resort to overhauling the collection of Steve Coulson animated dioramas, with all their fiendish cams and fishing line mechanisms, which is a task he's been putting off for years.

The last job on the To Do list is to paint the latest 3-ton slate waggons which have been brought into the fleet to replace some very old and brittle Dundas waggons.

This time he's decided to liven up the fleet by finishing them in an array of authentic, contemporary colour schemes, all to be matched their their correct running number.

Sounds like hard work to me, but it should lived up the gravity trains on Dduallt no end, shame they'll never be used on Bron Hebog.

Tank Talk

I'll soon be in a position to start production of the Maenofferen tank waggon now I've successfully produced a master and test casting of the chassis.

As I explained in a post a couple of days ago, this uses the Dundas 3-ton waggon floor which has been extended at each end.

To make it easier to fit the wheels, however, I opted to design it to use the solebar and axle box part from the kit which slots neatly into place.

The waggon kit will be a relatively simple one, with two big blocks of tank to fit together - and fill / file any obvious join mark - and the floor part.

The other vital bit is the domed cap of the tank filler which is done as a separate casting.

For simplicity for customers I am thinking that for this kit I will look at supplying the kit with the wheels and Dundas parts included.

However, I don't intend to carry a large stock at any time so expressions of interest now would be helpful so I can gauge how many bits I need to buy in.

Emails to the Boston Largs Works address, please.

Sole Man

After a visit to see Himself - and his vast collection of leftover kit parts - have in my possession the bits I need to complete the chassis master for the tank wagon kit.

As with the version I made for our layouts it's going to be based around an extended Dundas FR 3-ton slate waggon chassis.

I intend to fit the extension bits to the floor plate in styrene and cast that piece in resin, but to complete the rolling chassis I'll be using the solebar and axlebox mouldings from the kit, plus the wheels of course.

Hopefully later this week I'll have the first example completed.

Early Progress

So I summoned the motivation to try having a go at the bogies for the MoD flat wagons.

These are much more chunky than your standard Hudson bogie and the idea is to make a master for a piece which can slip on top of the Dundas plastic bogie frames.

I've made up the basic frame with styrene channel and strip although I've yet to do anything about the axle boxes and suspension.

Even so, I'm feeling pretty encouraged.

3 Ton Plus

The plan for the Maenofferen tank waggon was always to try and use a 3 ton slate waggon chassis, the question was always whether the wheelbase would be right or if it would need a lot of hacking about to make it fit.

Himself provided the chassis after purchasing a pack of Dundas waggon kits to renew our fleet and when I compared it with the drawing I was delighted to find the axle boxes in precisely the same place as on the regular waggons.

The tank waggon, is longer, however, but all the extra length is at the ends rather than in the middle, so it wasn't difficult to add some styrene extensions.

The other thing I did was to thin down the main base of the chassis as it was a little too thick, just by rubbing it over fine grade sand paper.

Fortunately the wagon doesn't have anything as sophisticated as brakes, so there's very little that required to be done underneath except extend the frames.

Up top, on the tank, I've made up the tank filler using my ever-handy selection pack of styrene tubes and formed the domed top of the cap with a drop of resin.

 

Ladies Falsies

The final stage of rehabilitating our Blanche is to give the lady back her modesty with a set of outside frames.

In this case she's faking it, because the outside frames are just pieces of very thin, carefully-shaped, styrene which slip between the wheels and the those iconic red fly cranks.

The original ones have long since gone brittle and cracked so Himself has made up a new set.

The reason we went for plastic was to be sure that there could never be any issues with them shorting out against the frame or the wheels.

Blanche Rides Again!

I dropped hints at the weekend on the Bron Hebog social media feeds that things were about to happen with our old Blanche.

This is our original model, made from a Dundas white metal kit with an Ibertren chassis adapted with outside fly cranks, which failed quite spectacularly at an exhibition around 8 years ago.

It has been replaced in service by a Backwoods kit and has sat on a shelf for all that time since.

Rummaging around in his chassis bits box for gear wheels for the Garratt seems to have prompted Himself to take a look at getting it going again.

The thing which stopped the engine was the front 'clock side' fly crank falling off the axle, but the underlying fault was with a gear wheel which was going out of mesh and affecting the quartering,  putting the motion under strain with the inevitable result.

Putting it all right has been quite involved.

Himself has had to make up a new front axle and bearing, and change the gear wheel which drives it.

To do that he had to replace the stub axle the gear revolved on which has broken off in the old chassis - perhaps the root cause of the original failure?

He tells me that there is now noticeably less slop in the front axle and it doesn't disengage the drive gear.

That things are getting a little worn is no a surprise given than it put in 20 years hard service on Dduallt!

The cranks have been refitted and quartered, and the next job is to cut some new fake side frames from styrene as the old ones have gone brittle and are broken.

Hidden Treasures

The recent transfer of two of my a favourite FR locomotives to a shed at the furthest reaches of the railway reminds me that we also have a collection of out of service engines which rarely see the light of day.

In our case they are hiding in plain sight on a shelf in Himself's study.

The most notable of this 'heritage collection' is our original model of Earl of Merioneth which was 'kit-bashed' around a white metal Langley Double Fairlie, and its diesel-locomotive chassis with its absurdly small wheels.

It was retired from service more than 20 years ago when it was replaced by our current machine which was adapted from a Backwoods Miniatures kit.

We also have two old Ladies in this retirement home for old engines, both of them from the Dundas white metal kits.

Linda was also relegated by the appearance of a Backwooods kit, but she still makes a fine model with her Ibertren chassis adapted with outside fly cranks and the conical chimney she acquired in the 1980s during an experiment with gas producer coal firing.

The end of service for Blanche was more abrupt after she failed in the middle of an exhibition with a detached fly crank and has never been properly repaired and now sits with her one of her false outside frames missing.

Hudson Healthcheck

Himself has been doing some last minute maintenance on the stock ahead of the exhibition in Troon which starts tomorrow (Saturday).

We’re still going through the process of converting all the couplings from Bemo to Greenwich ones, and the latest to be done is the replica Hudson ‘toast rack’ 39.

This was a model I scratch built one summer holiday when I was a student, so we’re talking mid-90s here, and I used one of the Dundas kits for 37/38 as a guide and source of bogies.

Eventually I think we might replace our semi-opens with new models in their current liveries.

Since I made my 39 the 009 Society produced a limited edition plastic kit for it.

If anyone knows of an unbuilt example that is potentially for sale i’d Be very keen to hear more about it.

Quarryman’s Train

Among the interesting things to see at Model Rail Scotland recently were these samples of PECO's next OO9 products.

I'm delighted to see another FR product being launched on the market and I've always had a soft spot for these very basic carriages, and their brake van variants.

I could be tempted by a model of Van 2 in its green livery myself.

Our only model is one kit-bashed from the Dundas kit in the distinctly orange colour it sported at the end of the 1980s, so by now it's rather outdated with a lot of our other stock.

I do feel a little bad for Dundas who will inevitably see a decline in sales of what is a very good, and easily put together kit which has served the hobby well.

Models like this feed the narrative of some critics who argue that ready to run is bad for the hobby.

I prefer to believe that the entry of the likes of PECO and Bachmann will have the effect of expanding the market for narrow gauge, bringing new modellers into the scale.

Hopefully those people will progress to expanding their rolling stock from kits, thus making up for any impact on a couple of product lines.

Waggon Tracks

Lilla will be one of the models getting a first run on Dduallt at an exhibition this weekend, having only been completed last year, long after the layout was last shown.

It's been used to give our slate waggon rake a test on the layout, here seen double heading with Moelwyn (one of my favourite models).

I'm told that Lilla is able to haul the full rake around the spiral unassisted, which is rather impressive for a very lightweight 3D printed body, I think.

The slate waggons are starting to show their age.

They're made from Dundas plastic kits and some of them are getting on for 30 years old, and inevitably that material starts to get brittle as it ages.

This is manifesting itself around the axle boxes which are the most vulnerable parts of the model.

Himself is taking about a rolling replacement programme for the fleet.

We shall see.

Dark Side Of The Van

I've hit a snag in my effort to complete the transfers on the WHHR / VofR brake van - I don't know what the other side looks like!

All the pictures of it I've seen in its current BR blue livery are taken from the platform side and they show the stickers for the Midland Region running number on the right hand of the double doors.

The question is, where are they on the other side?

Are they also on the door? Perhaps the left hand one also at the Pen-y-mount end of the carriage? Or is it also on the right hand side of the carriage, in the big panel at the Porthmadog end?

Also, where is the 2 running number at the uphill end? In the top right hand corner of the lower panel as it is at the end with the windows?

Any confirmation from a reader - ideally with photographic evidence - would be much appreciated.

Diss Debuts

By the time you read this Himself and I should be well on our way to Bressingham to set up Bron Hebog ready for Narrow Gauge East tomorrow (Saturday).

It's been more than two and half years since the layout was last exhibited so we've got lots of new things to show you, like our exquisite model of observation car 150 and our equally lovely Lilla.

Both of us have been burning the midnight oil to get a couple of current projects in a state fit to run this weekend.

If you appreciate a nice bit of lining then be sure to look out for our new model of carriage 15 in all its Victorian finery.

I'm also hoping we'll be able to run our embryonic WHHR set with my kit-bashed Dundas Bro Madog carriage and the infamous BR blue-livered brake van.

Unfortunately I've not been able to add any of the iconic 'arrows of indecision' yet, but it's painted and has its glazing, handrails and door handles fitted so my intention is to give it a little test run.

Remember, this is just for one day only, and we're looking forward to running the layout for you to enjoy in Norfolk.

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!