Goings on behind the scenes
At Macclesfield the chaps from WFRM kindly let me borrow one of their Digitrax UT6 utility throttles and I was very quickly sold on the idea of them (Thanks again guys). On the left one of the DT402 throttles I was using and the UT6 is on the right. The 402 has 2 throttles per handset and while this is a good thing, in the reality of an exhibition you don’t really use them much and if you do you can easily end up driving the wrong loco. The other thing about the 4o2 is after a while the buttons get a bit sticky and they use 9v batteries which these days are not cheap. I found that one battery would last 1 day, roughly speaking, per throttle. The guys at WFRM confidently say that the 3 AA’s the UT6 uses will happily last a whole exhibition. I’ll find out at Stafford in September. The UT6 fits nicely in the hand and comes with a lanyard so you don’t drop them, yes I have dropped the DT402’s in the past – thankfully without damage! You can’t do everything on the UT6 that you can on the DT402, so they aren’t completely redundant but you can do everything you would expect to have to do at an exhibition.
Remember my thoughts on uncoupling in the dark? No? Well you can have a refresh here if you want to.
I ended up using a somewhat expensive laser UV torch which worked quite well if everything was set up perfectly. In reality though, because the light is so small, one slight ding on the coupling hook and you couldn’t see it anymore to pick up the links. Also the eye strain over 2 days was quite noticeable. Phil never really got on with it and I found myself reverting to the much cheaper pen torches that I also took along to shows.
A lot of talk is had on forums and social media groups of the “hand of god” and how unrealistic it is. However experience shows that people are generally quite fascinated by the coupling up process. I wonder if it’s because of the darkness? I still feel that the cheapo pen torches chuck out too much light though and given that when operating (and viewing the layout hopefully) your eyes adjust to the gloom it can take a moment to re-adjust back after coupling something up.
The low tec’ solution is a simple rubber washer and a 2mm brass washer to drop the intensity and size of the light down. Again Stafford exhibition will be a test for the new approach.
Macclesfeild Show
Last weekend we had a great outing to the Macclesfield Show with Brettell Road. A good time was had by all and the layout performed very well. Above picture ©Tim Horn and used with permission.
Tim also did a great little video of the layout for which I send my thanks. As always thanks to all of the guys for their efforts over the weekend.
As always theres a list of things to do but I think it’s fair to say these are tweaks and improvements rather than dramatic changes. Theres a small rake of wagons that need looking at as well as a few locos. I think it’s just a fact of taking layouts to shows that these will always come up. Bouncing stock around in a vehicle isn’t the best way to care for it, especially with the roads in the UK being the state they currently are.
One of the vees under the bridge (of coarse it is) might be dead. I will need to investigate. Because most stock could straddle it at the show and all the steam locos have stay alives fitted it wasn’t something that affected the running. Who knows, if it is dead, it might have been so for a while and I just didn’t notice! Also one of the short protectors played up. The layout is fed from the middle and the DCC power is split either side of this into 3 districts. One for the yard, one for the mainline and one for operating things like points and signals. The one for the yard on the right (as you look at the layout) was still providing short protection but it wasn’t resetting meaning we needed a couple of times to cycle the track power off and on again. I had a spare board with me but like the vee it wasn’t enough of a problem to worry about at the show. It’s been swapped now.
Simon spotted there was a height difference of about 1mm between the Dudley scenic end and the fiddleyard so I will look at that and we managed to scratch the paint on the fiddleyard front loading it into the van. Ive already repainted it but i will rotate the carrying handles so that its naturally always the right way up in the future.
Finally a recurring problem. At the first show we did with the layout in its current form some of the captive nuts that are used to hold the roof uprights in place bound up and we couldn’t get the uprights off. Since then I ran a tap through them and they have been fine but last weekend one bound up again. Luckily the design of the uprights meant they could be taken apart and the offending upright taped to the board to be dealt with at home. The captive nuts have been relocated to the bin and I will use wingnuts going forward.
Looking East
Ive seen this picture pop up a couple of times on facebook groups, which depicts the daily Wolverhampton to Great Malvern pigeon train at Brierley Hill. Theres a couple of things I like, the Eastern Region BG and the big loco on a single van. Given that Brettell Road is set in the late 50s I am aware that I don’t have any BR steam locos, more on this aspect in a future post.
The picture features a Gresley BG but having done a little research it appears that the Hornby one, although nice on first inspection has some issues with the shape. So I went with an old Bachmann Thompson version instead. These also have issues with the shape as the roof had a bit of harsh angle on the sides but thats a relatively easy fix with a file. Underframe details are from MJT, bogies Brassmasters 8ft versions and the gangways are from Wizard models. The buffers are MJT as well being cut down 18 inch heads mounted on bit of tube to thicken up and lengthen the shanks. The cosmetic bogie sides (which I was waiting on when I took this image are again from MJT. The Bachmann ones seem a bit of a weird wheelbase for some reason.
Another slight advantage of doing this coach is I can substitute it for a Midland BG on my milk train and make it a little more eastern region for when I get to play with North Elmham. 
Eagle eyed readers might spot the screw coupling on the one end. These coaches didn’t have them but anyone who has tried to couple a loco coupling to a coach with gangways at an exhibition will tell you that it’s nigh on impossible so in this case it’s a necessary compromise.
Speaking of North Elmham Tim mentioned that he liked the idea of a single car Derby lightweight. So given he knows I quite enjoy chopping DMUS about and having been suppled with a Bachmann 2 car set Ive come up with this. I wanted to avoid repainting it and found where i did need to revisit the green, Pheonix Precision BR logo green (post 1954) is an exact match.
The Bachmann drive arrangement is pretty big and chunky on these. In a regular Derby lightweight you can sort of get away with it as it only really protruded as far as the last passenger door. On the single car with its extra window it would be way to obvious so a Hight Level Kits Lo-rider power bogie has been used instead. As North Elmham is set in the daytime Tim didn’t need the lighting so that was all removed.
You can see from tis image why the original drive arrangement had to go. I used a slightly lighter underframe colour that usual as North Elmham isn’t set in the rain.
In just under a month Brettell Road will be making its first outing of 2026 to the Macclesfield exhibition. For more info click here.
Hope to see you there.
Forever Autumn
Wandering around at the back end of October last year I became aware that Brettell Road might not have enough fallen leaves to accurately represent the time of the year I was trying to depict. Theres 2 types of autumn. The really pretty one thats kind of fleeting and gets used in image libraries and on jigsaws. Then theres the drudgy one that doesn’t but hangs around a lot longer. You can probably guess which one of those two I decided I wanted.
On the backscene on the end of the layout theres a line of trees that hints at the line continuing to curve to the right as you head towards Stourbridge. So these are the source for a spot of leaf litter. Ive always assumed that the wind is blowing from the left as you look at the layout and the weathering of the wet bits has always reflected this. To get the mulch I wanted I used a combination of kids power paint scatter and a couple of different types of autumnal leaves from AK Interactive mixed in place on the layout in a somewhat haphazard way and sealed with AK sand and gravel fixer. Once dry it was given another coat of wet effects fluid to blend it all together. I included a little more overflow down onto the platform and the tracks and I might revisit this and add more along the platform edge. Although the line speed on the layout is only 35mph and most trains entering the platform are going slower than that it’s still reasonable to assume trains will blow leaves from the other side of the bridge along with them.
This is the central bridge and Ice assumed that there are more tress behind me. Again with a bias toward the leaves being blown from the left. Im not sure if they look a little bright here (no idea why as its the same technique using the same stuff) but next time I am weathering some underframes I might give a very light coat of dark mud to tone them down a little.
The same scene as above in a more intentional lighting.
While I had the wet effects fluid out I gave the platforms another coat. Here we see the station in a quiet moment.
Progress with the frames.
The 2 sub assemblies shown last time mated together and fitted with some of the 3d printed parts.
On a simple set of loco frames such as an 0-6-0 loco where the sides are mirrors of each other you can easily check everything is square by popping them on a bit of glass and see if they rock. If they don’t you are all good. On a larger set of frames thats made up of sub assemblies, not all of which are the same height you need another way and the easiest Ive found is to use a few chunky bits of evergreen strip and see if everything looks parallel when viewed end on. Things can then be tweaked and when reasonably happy the heights of the ends measured from the surface to check each side matches. The above image shows my start point.
Moving on the bogie is basically 3 sub frames. The finished bogie is shown on the right. 
The motion bracket and cylinders. 
And assembled onto the frames. 
Once in place the motion bracket and cylinders become one unit that is held to the frames by 8 small bolts.
Back to square one.
It was decided that so many changes had been made to the test etches for the Duchess that it would be best to abandon the build and start again with what we believe will be the production etches. It’s important to check that all the changes David has done are fine and it all goes together as intended. Also it’s an interesting exercise for myself to see how far I have come since I started this project way back in October 2019.
The main frames. Some small changes on this bit. Unlike the previous build I will be painting bits as I go along this time when it reaches appropriate points of the build
The front frames. Although it wasn’t apparent on the first build the frame spacers on this but where all a bit messed up resulting in a front frame that wasn’t exactly square. This has been rectified.
Variations on a theme – More vans
My somewhat hopeless addiction to building kits continues, I passed the point of having enough a long long time ago but there you go. This time all variations on types I’ve built before. Starting with the classic Airfix meat van. Or in this case just the ends of one and even then only part of the ends! Some meat vans lost their side vents and all but the top end vent. The Airfix ends are kinda chunky and can easily take having sections of them cut out and replaced with bits of plasticard. The rest of the van is all Parkside. Behind it is a standard Parkside plywood sided kit built as a fruit version.
The Ratio Banana van kit. These are the second and third times I’ve built one of these and I’ve still yet to build one as the kit intended. On the left is the standard body and on the right modifications to convert it into the diagram 1/224 version.
The first body was mated with a 9ft wheelbase chassis (stretched at the ends to fit) to produce a ex-LMS D1672 insulated meat van. By the time these were in BR service they lost the modifications that made them interresting. Those being roof mounted ice boxes and end ladders. Note the different wheels as per the prototype image in LMS wagons volume 1.
And the Diagram 1/224 version. Mounted on a detailed Red Panda chassis. Im just waiting for my friend to supply me some flexible steam heat hoses.
Some meat van variations – Left to right – the modified one shown at the start of the post. A similar one by the same method but with unmodified ends. A bog standard Parkside insulated one. The good old air-fix original (with Parkside doors and underframe) and the D1672 version.
And similar for Banana vans – Left to right D2111 LMS van from the Ratio kit on a shortened Parkside chassis. The Diagram 1/224 van. The ex GWR Y7 i featured last time and 2 Diagram 1/246 from the old Hornby Dublo bodies mounted on detailed Red Panda Chassis.
A few old kit builds
Been filling the odd moment here and there with some kit builds of fairly old vintage. The above is an LMS 22t tube from the old Ian Kirk kit. I replaced the bearings with MJT roller bearings based on a photo of a very similar wagon in Don Rowlands Twilight Of The Goods book. The hand brakes (which are too long in the kit as provided and are only one type) are spares from the Parkside 12ft chassis kit. 
Digram 1/120 LNER open from the Parkside kit. Whilst this kit is still readily available it is one of their older toolings. I enjoyed doing the weathering on my china clay rake and have seen photos with similarly weathered opens in normal freight trains so I returned to that for this one. The cattle van is a diagram w5 from the Coopercraft kit. Both have had extra detail with the GWR brakes coming from Mainly Trains and Morgan Designs etched parts
Next up another Ian Kirk kit, this time for the GWR mink C. I used the ends from the Ratio GWR 12t van kit, the ones in the kit had end vents and looked too narrow to me. I’ve added extra details to the body and underframe. Being on a 12ft wb underframe it’s something a little different.
Finally the left over sides from the above model were mated with Airfix cattle van ends to produce a Fruit B Diagram y7 banana van (I’m not sure that this designation is correct but it what the Didcot Railway Centre website refers to them as). The end vents were scratch-built and the underframe is a Parkside 9ft one with the ends stretched a bit.
Not me
Appearing at Scaleforum was this Hurst Nelson 14T chlorine tank, incredibly generously donated by Colin Craig. He was building a batch for Mostyn and added an earlier version for me. These would not have ventured to the Black Country but years ago I helped Dave Clarke, Along with Simon Stephens, take out his layout Amlwch to various shows around the country. Amlwch (pronounced Amlook) was the location of the Associated Octel plant and while the exchange sidings for it never featured on the layout and we never had the chemical tank trains its a nice little nod to a bit of my personal modelling history.
None of this wagon is any of my work. I did tweak the weathering a little from how Colin supplied it as the top of a white tank in the steam era wouldn’t be a clean as in Mostyn’s diesel era. I added the required wet look for Brettell road.
For more on Associated Octel click here.
Next up another tank that I’ve not had a lot to do with really. The recently introduced demountable tank wagon RTR from Clarke Railworks. I rarely buy anything new RTR and this is the first brand new rail vehicle I’ve brought from any of the new generation manufacturers. In fact it’s the first new RTR thing I’ve brought since 2017 and the time before that was 2012 I think. I seriously doubt I’m paying any bonuses in RTR land at the moment.
So the wagon then, nice box and instruction booklet (looking at youtube reviewers these things seem important). The box will still look nice in my bin too! To be fair the instruction booklet is nicely laid out with clear illustrations of how to swap the wheels for em/P4. Which is dead easy, P4 wheels just drop in once the brake rigging has been unclipped and brass bearings are already installed. The brake shoes are kind of wide for 00 and a bit narrow for p4 but not enough to make you want to faff about moving them. The wagon weighs 30 grams out of the box which is lighter than my aimed for standard of 50g but some test shuffling around on Brettell Road didn’t show up any problems with this.
The couplings were replaced for Smiths and the (strangely) missing brake gear safety loops added. There a bit of a trench down the side of the tank and this was filled with Mr Surfacer 1000 liquid filler and gently sanded back. The colour was matched from a mix of blue and black. You don’t want to completely eradicate the line as it is visible on the real wagon. I think the branding should be parallel to the wagon and not the tank (which itself slopes at one end) but I might be wrong. Either way I left it as it was. The lamp irons were painted black (white lamp irons weren’t a thing yet) and that was about it, with the obligatory weathering of course.
Scaleforum 2025 ticked off
Well Scaleforum 2025 is ticked off as is my exhibition diary for this year. I’m happy to report that everything went very well and all that effort put into amending the cassettes post York was well and truly worth it. Theres a small list of things to fiddle with, there always is, and less than an handful of errant wagons are waiting to be spoken to. We all enjoyed ourselves and I’d like to extend my thanks to the Scalefour society and everyone who took the time to stop by. Many kind words were humbly received.
It’s changed a bit since the first Scaleforum we did back in 2017. Next up is Macclesfield in April 2026.
Another Oyster
A few years ago I did a model of an ex LMS Oyster ballast plough for Brettell Road (see here). I originally finished it in red which i really liked but as that livery was unlikely at best for Brettell Road I ended up repainting it into black. Hover the red oyster proved to be an itch I couldn;t scratch and at Scalefoum last year i picked up another Cambrian Shark kit with the intention of doing another. This time for New Street.
There are differences between this one and my earlier one other than the livery. Some Oysters ended up a kind of halfway house between the original design and the later shark. They retained the none – heavy duty W irons and didn’t get any vacuum brakes but as seen here some were through piped. They also ended up with bodies and steps the same as a shark although still lacking the doors. So a super subtle variation then, I wonder if anyone will notice?
In a little under a month Brettell Road will be returning to Scaleforum. Its changed a bit since its first showing there back in 2017. For more info on the show click here
A bit of Deja-vu
Ive been wagon building again but but its all stuff I’ve done before (well sort of)
Starting with this little selection of fairly mundane vans (with a cheeky Airfix mineral tacked on the end). The nearest van is a Southern diagram 1452 plywood van from the Ratio kit. I used a parkside underframe and reprofiled the roof as the moulding flared out too much at the bottom. The repair patches are a neat little etch from RT models. The next one along is a bog standard Br 12 tonner from the Parkside kit and the cattle van is Airfix. You can see what i did to an earlier one by clicking here.
Next up an ex GWR Y8 fruit van. This uses Bachmann RTR sides and Parkside ends as the RTR body is too wide. Steve Carter has already written about this conversion on Kier Hardy’s site so there’s no real point in repeating whats already put there. Heres a link scroll to about halfway down. Just a quick note of thanks to Richard Oldfield for assisting with locating some buffers. On the 3 10ft wheelbase vans I’ve deviated from my normal approach of building them rigid by using the Dave Bradwell spring plates. Just as a bit of an experiment. See here – about halfway down
Ive been here before too – LMS D1994 milk tank from mostly Rumney models etches with a Lima Tank. My original one is the one on the right. As a slight variation the one I’ve just done uses the earlier style of underframe. (see here for the original build)
And D2173. These had sloping tanks and discharge at only one end. Justin kindly supplied me a test etch for the platform.
My little milk train in its entirety.
Project 2f part 2
Concluding my 2F project by starting with the tender The coal rails were from the kit as was the tool box.
Lamp irons from Stenson Models – Vac pipe from Lanarkshire Models. 
On the inside I made a representation of the coal space from thin plasticard – I wasn’t too fussed about blending this into the existing space as it will be covered in coal.
On to the loco then, with details fitted.
The washout plugs are kind of loco specific so as always – check your prototype. Also check the date. I found another picture of 58185 at Harbourne, so the same loco, at the same place, even under the same bridge, but as it was a little later the smokebox door was different. Alan Gibson do some nice lost wax washout plugs (I used them on my flatiron) but he hadn’t got any so i knocked some up from bits of brass.
The kit includes a casting for the injectors but its the later combined type. I previously made the version I needed for my 2441 tank from bits of wire and tube so I just copied what i did last time.
Some rudimentary cab details – I tend not to go too mad on this stuff as there will be a crew in the way. The floor is a bit of lead as any weight helps. The inside of the firebox is also lined with lead.
Inside motion modified from the Brassmasters etch. (This is the fifth time I’ve done this now – does it count as an addiction at this point I wonder?) I soldered some small tubes of brass on the chassis side face of the CSB springing plates to give me as much room as i could otherwise the tabs would have been in the way.
Next stage – – couple of light coats of etching primer. Check for any gaps or rough bits and add any needed rivets -Luckily theres not a lot of them on this class of loco. 
The end result.
These locos really are diminutive – pictured here alongside a 3f
A comparison of the 2 tender sizes.
Not by any kind of deliberate design I have ended up with quite a little family of Johnson designs now.
Project 2F
Those who kindly stopped by for a chat at Scalefour Crewe will have seen me fiddling with a set of loco frames. Above is the progress I made over 2 days which to be honest isn’t a lot but that’s a good thing. I always feel that if you get a decent amount of stuff done demoing at a show you’ve kind of missed the point of why you were there!
The Johnson 2f minefield.
The frames are an old Alan Gibson kit for the Johnson 2f or 1142 class, sometimes referred to as ‘mineral engines’. These and the similar 1357 class are often lumped together as 2Fs but there are a whole ton of differences between locos regardless of the actual class. I recommend a couple of books if you want to go into a lot of detail These being Stephen Summerson’s ‘Midland Railway Locomotives’ Volume 4 and Bob Essery and David Jenkinson’s ‘An Illustrated History of LMS locomotives’ volume 4.
The 1142 class 2fs were built by 4 builders over a 2 year period. Those being Kitson, Dubs, Beyer Peacock and finally Neilson. Initially they were very handsome locos and had a family resemblance with the 700 class Kirtley goods, if you put the laters outside frames to one side. As with all things Midland they were modified over their lives with Belpaire fireboxes and 2 different types of Deeley cab. The lower roof one being the better proportioned of the 2. The class had so many modifications that it’s definitely a case of pick a prototype and model what you see. Some had sandboxes at the outer end of the frames. Some either side of the middle driving wheels. Chimneys were all sorts of different heights too. The main oft’ quoted difference between the 1142 and 1357 classes is the wheel size. the former having 4ft 10in drivers and the latter 5ft 3in. An easy way to tell them apart is the 1142’s had brake linkages outside of the wheels while the 1357’s had them inside. Well most of them did anyway but there are some exceptions to that as well.
So my intended victim. Pictured here at Harbourne station in 1957. Ive long like the first image due to its run down nature. The station having been closed to passengers in 1934. At the time the picture was taken it was beign used as a wood store for the nearby Chad Valley toy factory. Note also the LMS open stil with its LMS lettering. Both images © 2015 – 53A Models of Hull Collection and used with kind permission.
58185 was one of the Neilson builds being constructed in 1876 and lasting until 1962 (86 years!). It was originally numbered 1245, then 3013 followed by 23014 before receiving the BR number in 1948.
The Kit
It would be fair to say the Alan Gibson kit is of its time and was probably towards the higher end of kit design when it was released. It doesn’t have any of the slot and tab style niceties we are accustomed to these days though. You can see from the top picture that I used some Alan Gibson frame spacers and drilled the frames for CSB suspension using the info on the CLAG site as a guide (see here) 
Progress so far handrails and details next. I found using a High Level Kits road runner plus gearbox with their D1 drive stretcher and a smallish motor I can get the gearbox into the boiler without having to cut into the boiler itself (which was just a bit of brass tube). It’s worth noting that if you want to do the original version London Road models do a kit for it.
The Johnson tender
Yes another minefield. These come in a multitude of different sizes. those being 2,350 gallons, 2750, 2950, 3250 and 3500 gallons. Some of the early ones came with springs above or below the footplate and there were were different inner face designs too. My kit came with the 2,350 gallon version but my prototype has the 2,950 gallon version. As the kit as clearly too small a Bachman spare body for the 3,250 gallon one was brought from their spares site. Im far from put off by a bit of plastic bashing.
The Bachmann model is pretty accurate for what it represents. A comparison of the key tank dimensions are (Bachmann/3,250) length – 77mm, width – 28.3mm, height – 16mm. The 2,950 gallon tank is length – 76.3mm, width – 26.1mm, height – 15.6mm. So that differences of 0.7mm, 2.2mm and 0.4mm respectively. I often think it’s a good exercise to think of these number in 2 ways – percentages and relationships. Dealing with percentages first the differences are 0.9%in the length, 8% in the width and 2 and a half% in the height. Its fair to say that the difference in length is all but impossible to see. The height probably not but the width is probably pretty noticeable. That brings me on to relationships. The tender and cab width are the same. If the tender was over a mm wider each side that would definitely look odd. The height as a number is harder to tell but the bottom of the beading lines up with the top of the cabside beading and this relationship is kinda obvious. Some of the class had the larger 3,250 gallon tender and this height is pretty obvious once you are aware of it.
Modellers licence
Some quick measurements showed that dropping the height of the tender by half a mm wouldn’t give the relationship to the cab I was after so I reduced the heigh by 1mm. Yes it means the tender is now a bit too low but the relationship to the cab is better.
The Bachmann tender cut into manageable chunks. The new lower beading is 10×60 though evergreen strip.
A rough mock up. The inner chassis is Brassmasters from their 3f easychas and the outer frames, brakes and springs are from the Gibson kit. The bufferbeams are also Brassmasters and the buffers are from Lanarkshire models.
Progress so far.
Post York show Part 2
Continuing from the last post. I mentioned a revision to the lead in from the cassettes to the layout. Below is a quick video of a bit of a drastic test.
In reality no trains will inter the layout at this speed and aside from the industrial entrance behind the warehouse none of them will be pushed.
The cassettes are finally done. This is the long ones in their storage position in the station end fiddleyard.
And the DMU and loco ones in the Dudley end fiddleyard. Im not usually one for counting parts but including the 5 connectors on the layout thats a total of 86 ends, 172 springs and just over 6 meters of copper strip. Ive had better projects to do before now!
On to the tweaks on the layout itself. Just a few of these. Those at the show may have seen the odd derailment of stuff coming into the Stourbridge platform. The Derby lightweight seeming particularly susceptible to this. Turns out the barrow crossing on the left hand rail has become loose and was higher than the rail head. The crossing on the Dudley line was also a tad high but not loose so I’ve removed both to get a better fit. The Derby lightweight will be checked too to see if theres any problems on the stock side.
I noticed when cleaning the track that one of the smaller sections of track on the threeway was a little low. I don’t recall anything coming off on this particular bit but I’ve fixed it anyway. There were a few tight spots that have been amended too. My mint block would go through but with a bit more resistance than I liked. One of the tight spots was between the running rail and the check rail. Just need to put new half chairs in place and cosmetic fishplates. Then paint the rail and blend it all back in.
Finally the check rail coming in to the yard was originally an after thought on normal flexi-track. It wasn’t as neat as it could have been and being normal track there was no gauge widening on what it the tightest curve on the layout. The far rail was removed with the moulded chairs smoothed away and the rail replaced with proper check rail chairs.
21st May 2025
In a couple of weeks i will be heading back to Crewe for Scalefour Crewe 2025. This time I will be there demonstrating my approach to building steam locos. Who would have thought id be getting up to something like that a decade ago?
York show post-mortem
Over the Easter weekend Brettel Road headed north 3 hours to the York MRC exhibition. 
Despite a minor cardiac event at 5pm on the Thursday evening when it looked like the van may not be available due to a medical emergency set up went smoothly. Little did I know what was to come over the next 3 days.
We had problems! The biggie was that the cassettes were still not reliable, to the point where they were the worst they have ever been. Despite this the guys battled on against the layout that was absolutely determined to fight us ever step of the way (thanks again chaps). There was a problem with the main point into the yard behind the station which I did manage to patch up on the Saturday afternoon and the track in the yard under the bridge (of course it was!) had become damaged. Something we didn’t notice until a member of the public kindly let us know. The whole show was a mixture of frustration and some degree of embarrassment really that the layout was performing as smoothly as the proverbial bag of nails. Despite all this we did still attract a lot of interest throughout the 3 days and many kind compliments were received along with 4 or possibly 5 requests to take it out to more shows so I guess from the public side of the barrier it didn’t seem quite as disastrous as it did to me. Thanks to the guys at York MRC for having us and looking after us so well. The elements of the weekend that didn’t involve the layout were great!
Diagnosing the problem
The problem with the cassettes was two fold and wasn’t something we could really address at the show. Brettell Road actually has 45 cassettes in total in 3 different sizes.
When I built and tested them originally, I tested them for resistance using the buzzer in my volt meter. What I didn’t test was if there was any voltage drop or not. On the left are 3 loco cassettes of the design we had at York showing a voltage drop of over 5 and a half volts or as good as 40%! Little wonder it caused us grief. On the right a revised design tested on 3 cassettes with no loss of volts at all. 
A little diagram of my cassette evolution. The top design is what I used on the short version of the layout and that seemed to work fine. As these cassettes were single ended I also fitted a light to them so that we could see that they were electrically connected.
With version 2 I wanted them to be double ended and introduced the idea of smaller loco cassettes. This had 2 effects. While on version 1 the rails were squeezed tightly by the guide rails on the revised version the fit was less positive. The second effect is a loco cassette doubles the number of connections. If everything is really clean they work just fine however in the real word things don’t stay really clean for long. Because of the design, the bits I needed to keep clean were hard to get to and the sort of area what would naturally collect dirt and crud. The loose stock rails were also still prone to go the wrong side of the guide wire and I found many had failed at the soldered joint on the third sleeper in exaggerating the problem. I guess my absolute minimal solder approach I use when building kits isn’t such a good idea in this application.
The solution is to add contact strips from 0.2mm thick, 5mm wide copper that fold down the front giving a much bigger contact area that, just as importantly is easier to get to to keep clean. I also reduced the length of the rails that stick out and soldered the loose rail to an extra sleeper so it doesn’t move as much. The cassettes are kept in compression when on the layout by a simple peg (actually cheap, small screwdrivers) fitted into holes drilled into the baseboards.
Now this is a bit belt and braces but on an exhibition layout thats never a bad thing. Rather than just rely on the springiness of the copper strips I drilled holes behind them and fitted a couple of spring (actually springs from smiths coupling hooks that id been saving for some unknown reason).
Before and after. The little side parts that hole the cassette ‘buffer stops’ were still causing problems so I’ve decided to remove them completely and redesign the stops.
I also took the opportunity to move the cassettes back a little and extend the lead in roads as we were having derailments coming onto the layout at both ends. This may have been the cassettes or it may have been something else. Originally I had check rails here but tests of the new sections without them is making me think they were unnecessary.
Pre-show tweaks.
Been doing some final pre show tweaks before Brettell Road heads off to York in a little over a week. 
After the last show (nearly a year ago now) there was a little bit of damage picked up. Nothing too major and the kind of job that I intend to get around to at some point but then don’t. Case in point this but of fence which got squished. 
While working on this area I took the opportunity to add some rudimentary steps to the signal box. Something I meant to do at the start but didn’t. I had put the gate in but the poor signaller would break his leg falling off the edge of the platform! There was also a platform light that got bent and thats been repaired and replanted.
Something else that got bashed but didn’t actually break is the chimney on the platform shelter. This has very little clearance to the other board when packed up so rather than wait for it to get smushed I decided to make it removable. A few magnets popped into holes and a bit of steel on the roof and hopefully thats a problem averted. I also decided that the roof was a bit too vanilla for a building due to be closed in a week so I’ve had a look at this area too. 
You may remember i talked about distress paint before when I was building the signal box and I’ve used it again here. For some reason it didn’t really crinkle up this time so a wash of Tamiya extra thin cement was painted on to add some more wear and tear. The mossy deposits are AK Interactive dark and light slime with some of their moss deposits.
Next is track cleaning and hoovering before packing the boards away, then the joy that is cleaning wheels!
In an uncharacteristic fit of tidiness I’ve made a proper box for the road vehicles, removable chimneys and coupling poles. When I say ‘made’ I mean got a box off ebay for around a tenner and stuck some foam in it!
The saddle mounted tank I featured last time is done and tested. 
Finally Railcar W14 waits for the road. The cats are undisturbed by its presence.
Info on the York show. Please say hi if you are going.
A trio of tanks.
A trio of tanks this time starting with…
… the LMS milk tank I featured last time. Now ready for service.
The Bachmann 14t cradle mounted tank wagon. Very much of its time with a very generic (and pretty rubbish if I’m honest) chassis. 
Luckily Justin does something a little more refined and very nice to build it is too.
Ready for the brass bits to be painted. The ladder is only loosely in place. The walkway is from my box of useful stuff (I think Stenson models) and the buffers are from Lanarkshire Models.
Still sticking with the theme of tanks but is a slightly dubious way, work in progress on a 96xx tank. I originally picked this up quite cheaply with and idea to include it in my scrap train. Round Oak scrapped quite a few locos, but it didn’t take me long to decide to do it as a working loco instead. Especially as a picture of this very loco heading a freight train through Brettell Lane cropped up in my facebook feed.
As far as I can tell this model by Bachmann is an evolution of the Mainline model I’ve already used to do my 57xx tank, with a later cab and other refinements. All of the handrails are separately fitted but I felt the handrail knobs were way too big so I replaced them with Alan Gibson ones. I reused the long handrail but as its not so wide i had to cut it in half to lose a little from the middle. The sandbox fillers are too far forward as they were repositioned with RT Models linkages but not before the front splasher was cut down in height. A compromise for the over sized flanges on the RTR wheels and something that has entered my ‘now I’ve seen it, i cant unsee it’ mindset when looking at model steam locos. Smoke box dart is also Gibson and the lamp irons are from Masokits. I also replaced the pipes on the footplate. Some 96xx had a bracket half way along with i quite liked but unfortunately 9614 was one that didn’t.
Rear view. The lamp irons were too high up on the bunker. This is correct for a 57xx but on the 96xx tanks they were lower. I was replacing them anyway. Buffers are Lanarkshire models. I prefer a better detailed solid buffer over a less detailed sprung one.
Drivers side. The pipework just in front of the cab is the same on both sides of the model. Again OK for a 57xx but on the 96xx they were different with a somewhat more barren look on this side. The footplate pipework is also routed differently around the cab footsteps. Chassis will be a high level one with my working inside motion bodge as described here. https://p4newstreet.com/an-unremarkable-little-tank-engine-part-1/
Finally something that you will never see – Brettell road in the sun! It was coming in the shed door and caught my attention.
return to milk tanks
My history with milk tanks has been, to an extent unnecessarily convoluted. Originally I planned to build a David Geen kit for a midland one and I got the Rumney Models underframe for it in preparation. However when I came to get the kit from David he only had one left and that was for a GWR one. Justin kindly swapped the chassis kit for me and, as I’ve mentioned before, doing battle with my collection of bits I ended up with my model of a milk tank.
However the desire for at least one LMS one never went away and for more years than it really should have been I would discuss the idea of doing one using Rumney bits with a Lima tank when I saw Justin at a show. Apparently I wasn’t the only one
Well finally, heres what I’ve come up with, The only bits of the Lima one left are the tank – end supports and filler hatch. The rest is pretty much all Justin with buffers from Lanarkshire models and the tank supports kindly cut for me by Tim Horn.
The diagonal bracing is obviously over-length at the moment. The strapping isn’t tight and the ladder is just rested in position until after painting. This seemed much less of a fight than my other one, so much so that I’ve ordered bits to do another 2.
Duchess progress March 2025
Some progress to report on the Duchess test build.
The original design that Geoff did for the cylinders was the same as the 7mm scale Finney kit. That uses cast slide bars soldered to the rear edge of the cylinder frame. In 4mm scale that wasn’t going to work so David has redesigned this area to use a layered etch that goes through the rear face and solders to the front. This will be much stronger.
The cylinders viewed from above with the wrappers in place. Just behind the cylinders are the Valve rocking arms which as they need to be removable are held in place with a small screw.
Theres a lot of piping on the footplate of a Duchess! 
The footplate is pretty much complete now.
Made a start on the valve gear
Progress so far.
A batch of good old Airfix kits
I recently picked up a batch of good old Airfix wagon kits. There were 4 brake vans, a 35t tank, a 16t mineral wagon and a cattle van. Of those one of the brake vans was finished and another one along with the 16t mineral were semi completed. I really wanted the brake vans as I had identified a need for more BR ones and more that were fitted as up until now I didn’t have any at all, just a couple of piped ones.
Note to self – if you’re going to batch build some wagons don’t pick ones that have loads of different sized handrails!
The first 2. A piped one and a fitted one, both built with Bill Bedford W irons, Rumney models springs and axleboxes and additional details. 
This one is a BR build of the LNER design note the shorter steps, no end handrails and different lamp irons. Build was the same as the first 2. 
This was the last one and the one that was already built. I replaced the handrails and roof and added the same details as the other 3. This one is unsprung.
On to the tank wagon. Not one this done before. This is sprung with Bill Bedford W irons. As supplied the solebars are too shallow so I carefully cut the top rib off flush with the face and added a new top rib from microstrip. Buffers are from my draw of buffers and I think they may be from A1 models. RT models do a nice little etch for these and while the ladder supplied is really nicely done it is a flat etch so I replaced them with ones from Rumney models. I replaced the brake gear with bits from the spares box.
The finished wagon. Transfers are from Cambridge Custom Transfers.