Model Rail Scotland Debuts

Excitement is building ahead of us taking Bron Hebog to Model Rail Scotland in Glasgow in a month's time, which will be our first show in more than two years.

While I was thinking about that the other day it occurred to me that there must be a number of models we built in that time which have not been seen in public yet (aside from on this blog and our social media).

I stopped counting when I got to 15.

So I thought you might like a reminder of what's among the new stuff.

The steam engines include NGG/16 130, which is all new, and in the last two years Himself has got round to painting Lyn and Welsh Pony.

The diesel fleet has been bolstered by the recent arrival of our green Vale of Ffestiniog, and the duplicate of Conway Castle in the livery in which it served with distinction on WHR construction trains and as the Dinas shunter for many years.

Now, we also have the locomotive which replaced it, the big yellow Baguley number 9, and at the other end of the spectrum the former Boston Lodge gofer Harold.

New carriages include 2048 and the fourth of the opulent observation cars Gwyrfai, as well the much less salubrious Ashbury replica 21 and the Pickering brake for the WHHR excursions / incursions. 

If Rule One is enacted at any point over the three days at the SEC you might also be lucky to see some of our new tow-along amusements including a derelict Livingston Thompson on ambulance bogies, and a freshly un-plinthed Princess.

Both are completely out of era - being 1980s representations - and completely out of place on the Welsh Highland section, but you never know...

More prototypical is a deconstructed NGG/16 loaded onto DZ flat wagons for transfer between Boston Lodge and Dinas.

This little tableau is a consequence of us being offered the chance to buy the remains of a Backwoods kit which someone made such a Horlicks of building that the best thing to be done with it was recover any parts which could be used as spares and turn what was left into a conversion piece.

Review Of The Year - Part 2

Picking up on our look back at the year, and a lot of what we were up to in the spring revolved around the carriage fleet.

 

April

A long-term ambition had been to get round to buying and assembling a Chris Veitch brass kit for the FR 'sentry' brake van, which makes a very distinctive model full of Victorian character.

Trying our best to keep up with the carriage works in Wales we also set making a miniature version of the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway's new Pickering brake replica.

This project had a false start because, at first, I purchased the Dundas brass kit.

Once Himself put the body together he found there were a few inaccuracies in the dimensions, but more importantly from our point of view, the design made it difficult to paint and to fit an interior.

So we put that one on ice and got hold of the alternative body kit from Worsley Works.

If you read the first part of the Review you'll have seen a picture of the early stages of my commission to scratch build a model of Carnforth buffet car 114.

This was a snap I took just before it was sent off to its new home.

May

A crucial part of the Pickering project was to find a way to depict the fake lamp pots on the roof.

I had a number of goes at scratch building one which could be copied with resin casting.

Himself got round to finishing off the paint job on the 3mm scale ex-GWR 2-8-0 tank engines he'd been building for the Engineering Consultant.

It was just as well we kept in his good books, unknown to anyone, he was about to become a very important person in the top left hand corner of Wales.

In this month I also resolved that the time had come to make a model of the WHR's diesel shunter at Dinas.

The post about my intentions resulted in an offer to try out one of the prototype body kits from RT Models....

June

The paint job on the Pickering brake was one of the more straightforward ones so we didn't have long to wait for a picture of it posed ready for service on Bron Hebog.

With the Pickering built it left the Hudson toast rack carriage as one of the obvious missing vehicles from our WHHR sets.

We managed to get hold of one of the 009 Society kits before they sold out, but I was also keen to have a second model of the FR replica 39 in its current green livery, so the only option left was to scratch build.

This was a fortunate move because it transpired that Winson Engineering wasn't capable of making an exact copy of the original carriage, and there are some fundamental differences between the 1990s version and the original carriages.

My plan was to make a master for the carriage sides in styrene and cast a copy of it - the one in the picture shows me starting to embellish it with extra details in brass and styrene.

And June was also the month when, after much planning, we began installing the baseboard for a permanent dual gauge test track, my first home layout since I was a teenager.

We came up with an 8ft x 5ft board which can be folded into a frame on the wall when the space in the study is required for something more boring, such as *spoiler alert* self-isolating from Covid-19.....

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. 

Painted Pickering Carriage

And just like that, a few days later, a new carriage takes to the rails.

Himself spent the week putting the finishing touches to the Pickering brake replica which looks quite the part posed at the platform at Beddgelert station.

When the body side is brass, as this one is, it makes painting the drop lights neatly especially challenging.

I'm also very pleased with how the resin cast lamp pots on the roof look now they're been picked out in black with the base ring matching the off-white roof.

What really sets it off, of course, is the W H Rly lettering.

This has been done by transfers, rather than the slightly raised metal letters on the real carriage, but at this scale I think it hardly matters.

I look forward to seeing it as part of a WHHR rake running behind Russell, and hopefully it won't be too long before that scene happens in real life.

Painting The Pickering

With the construction phase done Himself is putting the Pickering brake carriage through the paint shop.

After being sprayed with primer it has now been treated to four coats of gloss green before the tricky task of picking out the window droplights in a woody brown.

I'm still quite satisfied with how the third generation lamp pots look.

Hopefully that won't change when they're painted black against the light grey roof.

Pot Luck

Or perhaps more a case or persistence pays off.

I think we're both satisfied with the result of version 3 of the lamp pots for the Pickering brake replica.

They are without a doubt the biggest pain in the backside I've had on the modelling bench for quite a while but I think the result of many weeks tinkering will be worth it.

You'll also notice Himself has added the air and vacuum pipes, this being a dual braked carriage, and a very pragmatic decision by the WHHR which is to be applauded. 

The long, sweeping rain strips have also been soldered onto the roof.

It's details like these, and the styrene ventilation hoods above the doors, which really make the difference on these Worsley scratch-aid bodies.

Benches In

Today's update is to show you where I've got to with the interior for the Pickering brake.

As carriages go this is a very simple one with only three compartments and basic bench seats.

The real ones - as you may know - are made up of horizonal slats, but I'm not motivated enough to try to recreate that when you won't have a hope of seeing them inside.

Same goes for the vertical boards on the compartment walls - I'll be quite content with plain panels as long as they're the correct shade.

What I am going to be fussy about is getting the lamp pots to look right, and in the background of the picture you'll see a tiny styrene box filled with RTV rubber.

Under there is my third prototype!

Having seen the pictures of the carriage being delivered to Gelert's Farm it's obvious that I need more of a stacking rings effect, so this latest effort uses a smaller diameter tube for the very top section.

Once the rubber is cured I can cast a few and see whether I've cracked it at last?

Petit Pots

I've had a second go at the lamp pots for the roof of the Pickering brake.

I reckon I've shortened them by around a 1mm and to my eye they look a bit better, although it's very tough to properly recreate the look of the real ones.

Why are carriage lamp pots the hardest thing to get right?

Covid Safe Carriage

Little Welsh railways have had lots of reasons to thank Victorian carriage designers in the last year, as compartment stock has become the solution to running Covid-safe services.

I suspect the walls between the seats was probably more to do with wanting to keep the riff-raff away  than concern for keeping out infectious diseases - although all the No Spitting signs on the old Glasgow trams show us that was also on their minds.

The more we learn about the current pandemic also gives us a greater appreciation of the excellent ventilation afforded by all those droplight windows on the more traditional carriage.

All of which will no doubt make the new replica Pickering brake carriage a very welcome addition to the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway fleet.

As you can see from the image above, I've started work on the interior for our model.

Already I can see that his fancy idea for disguising the vacuum pipe bend, which means the chassis has to be fitted with a twisting motion, is going to have to go.

Get the cutters out....

P - P - Pick Up A Pickering

A Sunday morning off - the first in ages - gave a chance to catch up with Himself for coffee in the garden and get instructions for what I'm to do with the interior of the WHHR Pickering brake replica.

I haven't decided whether to take the easy route and do the inside of the carriage first, or have another crack at the lamp pots.

So long as the Indian variant doesn't begin to run riot across the whole of Scotland we can, from today, socialise in each other's houses again, so we also spent some time working out the basics of a design for a fold-down layout in the spare room in my house to be built over the coming months.

Ostensibly this is so my youngest has somewhere more practicable to run his burgeoning 00 collection than the current layout-on-wheels which lives under his bed, but I've got a secret plan to make sure that it's a mixed gauge layout with some 9mm NG track on there as well.

Purely as a test track, you understand......

Pickering Pots

Apologies for the unusually long gap between posts on the blog, which I can attribute mostly to the inconvenience of the election, and its aftermath, here in Scotland, which has required a lot of overtime in my professional life.

Added to which, Himself has been occupied with projects which I am not going to publicise on this page.

So the upshot of all this is there's not been a lot to tell you about, expect that I managed to get the experimental lamp pots for the Pickering brake carriage passed to Himself, but I fear it's going to be back to the drawing board.

It's always hard to judge when the model is unpainted, but I think it's pretty clear the pieces are too big and I shall have to try and make some smaller ones - which is a real pain because these were very fiddly to make.

In my defence I would say that these items are always one of the hardest items to judge because you rarely see them in real life from the sort of angle that you view a model - from above.

Pots Of Joy?

As I mentioned in my previous blog post I have had a go at replicating the lamp pots from the replica Pickering brake, and with one master made from sections of styrene tube I have cast a set of four.

They look for all the world like very miniature chess pieces - narrow gauge pawns, perhaps?

I know that they don't completely match the real things in every detail, but they are a very complicated design, and there's a limit to what you can achieve with something that's only a few millimetres high - at least that's my excuse.

I'd like to think they're a passable representation, but the test will be when I can take them over to Himself, perch them on the carriage roof and compare to the photographs we have.

Brake Two

I've had an update from Himself on progress with the second of the Pickering brake carriages.

This one is the Worsley Works version.

It is the correct length but has the wrong panelling detail on the doors - you can't win!

Himself has also made a correction to the windows at the van end, which needed a fillet of brass on their outside edges to make them the right width.

Regular readers will also be please to know that I found the motivation to return to the work bench and have a bash at making a master for the rather ornate lamp pots on the roof.

More to follow....

Going Potty

Another challenging part of the Pickering brake project is going to be replicating the lamp pots along the roof of the carriage.

These look much more detailed than the usual plain cylinder shape we see.

My intention is to try to knock up the closest-looking thing I can in styrene and then use it as a master to cast the full set.

While Himself solders together the Worsley etches I've brought back the redundant Dundas body to practice on.

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.