Dave Hewitt
Long time readers will have seen mention on many occasions of a little company called Unit Models. When I first came across them they did a range of resin bits mostly for US modellers in HO scale but what a range it was. Noting spectacular but they produced no end of useful little bits and pieces for people who scratchbuild buildings and the like. Things like vents, wall fans, lockers etc. The sort of stuff that was a bit of a ball ache to scratch build yourself. 
The roof vents you see here are from them and as they didn’t do the exact ones I needed Dave was only to happy to do some for me, he didn’t even seem to charge any extra for them either! Well Sadly Dave passed away recently and the business is up for sale. I hope someone picks it up and continues to produce this specific but invaluable range of bits and bobs and its sad to see such a lovely chap taken from us. My thoughts with his friends and family.
moving stuff around
I want to depict some sort of activity within the current building or at least evidence of it either about to occur or that it’s just occurred (luckily the vans will block the view when the place is the most active) . So I need some way for my mini workers to move stuff around.
These barrows and sack trucks are from Scalelink and depict items of Midland origin. I thickened up the wheels on some using old handwheels from various etches as a single etch didn’t seem thick enough. On the larger sack trucks I couldn’t figure out how the mount for the wheels was supposed to fit, you can see my best guess on the one lying down. On the others I just mounted the axles on plasticard blocks as mounting them on blocks seemed to be more in keeping with a picture of something similar in LMS miscellany bu H. N. Twells. the wheels on the last barrow were supplied as a flat etch so I used some of Colin Craigs handwheels instead as they had a better look. I think the rear wheels are actually too far forward now its built mind you.
Incidentally the brown used for these is from Halfords range of camouflage spray paints and would make quite a good basis for general track colour if you are looking for something for this.
A spot of research showed fork lift trucks to be a lot older than I thought they were so I figured that the owners of the building had got hold of one to move stuff around. My idea is that the building was originally a factory of some sort but now being used as a warehouse so a make do approach seems more sensible than everything being designed for a purpose. Anyway this is a JPG Models kit backdated to look like a generic earlier forklift. I ditched the safety cage and added a grill on the side and some vents on the back as it seemed that the earlier fork lifts tended to be more like this.
The what if factor
What if? We all do it at some point usually with regards to layouts. What if such and such place had a railway or this branchline stayed open to the diesel era? What if Clapham junction was a bit smaller so that it could fit on an 8×4 sheet of plywood? Where we don’t seem to do ‘what if’ as often is with regards to the stock itself and this is where I am heading with this post.
One of the few steam locos that appealed to me before I started Brettell Road was the Midland Flatiron or ‘hole in the wall tanks’. Although not a great success the designed by ruler and no other drawing aids look of the things appealed to my interest in things that look less than pretty. While they made it to the LMS and were reboilered by them (you can tell by the square firebox and the protruding smoke box) the last of the breed went for scrap in 1938. But what if they didn’t? What if at least one managed another dozen years? I could have one on Brettell Road then!
Of course the armchair experts will delight in pointing out that its wrong but we seem happy to basically make up history for locations, why not locos? Id be interested in people’s thoughts on this.
Wanting to see how one would look in BR livery I got my digital crayons out and drew it. I think it looks quite smart myself.
Prototype picture ©Warwickshire Railways and used with permission. www.warwickshirerailways.com
Compromises and trying a different path
What you see here are 3 walls for the same building. The one on the left faces the public, the one in the middle doesn’t but you can see it from the front of the layout and the one on the right you can’t see at all, at least not from this side. You will note that the middle wall doesn’t have representations of the arches but it does have the raised details and sills. This is because from the angle you can see the wall (you will have to look for it) you should just be able to make out texture and relief but not enough to see if those things are accurate or not. The right wall you can’t see at all so I didn’t bother with texture or even the top curve of the windows You will be able to see the windows from the other side so that is one reason they are there. The other is that I hope you will also see the effect the light from the windows will have on the little yard behind it. 
There is a reason that the walls in the first picture look pretty much finished and that is that I am approaching this build differently to my previous buildings. As its right at the front and you can see inside I want to detail the interior and to my mind the best way to do this was to build the structure in situe. We will see how it goes!
Sherpas ticked off
My 4 Sherpas are now done. Aside from the Royal Mail one the transfers were all drawn up in Illustrator and printed on crafty computer paper. I decided that the paragon models wheels that I used for the minibus were too big so swapped them for the wheels from and Oxford beaver tail transit. As supplied they were no smaller but by changing the types for some from their mk3 escort they look much better. Its worth doing this even if you are keeping them under the transit to my mind. On the subject of tyres I tend to paint them Humbrol 67 grey rather than black. You only really see black tyres in car showrooms or at car shows. 
Signal wires and a spot of playing.
Ive recently been adding the signal wires to the layout. The wheels are from Brassmasters with the majority of the actual wires being from easyline. The posts are made from 1mm strip with 0.7mm brass rod for the pullies. 
As with the point rodding I wanted to include some leftovers from the branch line, No wires but some pullies and posts along with a rudimentary walkway over the now long gone wires. 
The abandoned building is now fixed in place too, a bit more work needed to bed it in but here’s a pic of the Deeley tank simmering away in front of it. Ive done a little video of a spot of shunting that shows all of the Brettell Road loco fleet (so far) the limp you can see on the deeley was caused by one of the rods being a bit too long, now corrected.
DCC controlled Dinghams
I originally wrote about this several years ago but since the topic has come up again on a forum I’m going to take a little look back at my thoughts on couplings.
There are 2 schools of thought on the issue of coupling trains together. Something that looks like the real thing, or something that can work automatically. The downsides of these are that the real thing type can be fiddly (and the closer you get to dead scale the more fiddly it gets) and the often bemoaned ‘hand of god’ that seems to be wheeled out as a regular complaint by some forum go-ers. The automatic type doesn’t look like the real thing (unless you are doing some sort of buckeye type prototype) and many of them require fixed magnets and an odd ‘shuffle’ to be performed by the driver to uncouple. How this shuffle looks any better than the hand of god I don’t really know and to my mind its better to credit your viewer with the ability to suspend their disbelief for a moment while you uncouple a vehicle than for said vehicle to look wrong all of the time!
Problem is with New Street I don’t have much choice. Loco’s will need to be changed and all that overhead along with a shopping centre means that a manual hook isn’t going be in any way practical! So automatic it will have to be and as only certain rakes will need to be uncoupled some sort of DCC on board solution seemed the obvious answer
Proof of concept. The coupling of choice being the Dingham coupling which will couple to a Smiths hook (not automatically mind you), By fitting these to coaches that have gangways they can be hidden as much as possible and there’s no requirement for a weird coupling on the loco. As supplied the Dingham has a steel dropper that when passing over a magnet is pulled down to raise the loop. By fitting a magnet instead and using an opposing magnet the loop can be raised from inside the vehicle.
By salvaging an electro-magnet from a cheap relay and wiring it to a DCC decoder this process can be simply automated. with no power the loop sits in its normal position.
But when power is supplied via a decoder function the loop is raised and coupling/uncoupling can be done. It’s all quite simple really!
Deeley Done
Aside from a few little details, adding a crew and grease on the buffers, The Deeley tank is now complete. Just got to make it look wet now!
More brass bashing
I’ve been busy fiddling about with more etched kits. This time a Brassmasters kit for the Deeley 0-4-0 tank engine. It’s all gone together pretty well with just a few areas that needed a tweak or 2 to get right (if that’s down to an error in the kit or my ham fisted effort to bodge it all together ill leave up to you). For the benefit of those who might want to try the same kit i’ll share my findings. On the valve gear the connecting links (part A36 in the kit) are too long and needed reducing in length by about 1.5mm. While the eccentric rods (parts A37 and A38) are also too long and needed shortening by about 3mm. I didn’t bother using the supplied buffers and new etched heads and replaced them with some A1 models sprung oleos. (part A81) Don’t worry as I know the real loco didn’t have oleo buffers but the A1 models ones don’t look much like real oleos anyway.
I found adding the rear lamp irons to be a bit of a faff and lost some anyway. Its much easier to use a bit of fine strip to form a lamp iron with a long foot so that you have something to hold on to while soldering them in place. I decided to make the roof removable by soldering some scrap etch to the edges so that it can be gently sprung into place under the sides. Brassmaters supply the sides for the earlier flush sided loco as well as this one. I prefered the look of the later ones as it looked more antiquated somehow.
I’ve never done valve gear before. The instructions say that valve gear rivets make the job easier but I elected to use brass pins with the heads filed down and located out of view. A slip of cigarette paper and a drop of oil means that the whole lot doesn’t solder together in one big, rigid lump. I’m pretty pleased with how it came out if I am honest.
Happy New Year
Happy new year everyone.
Just a short note to say I’ve been without broadband for effectively the last 3 weeks. Hopefully it will be fixed this week but if anyone has sent me an email recently and not heard anything I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
It’s all getting a bit grim!
I have added the pillars that support the disused warehouse as well as the lower floor. As its nigh on impossible to see I didnt go too mad on the detailing of the lower floor. The pillars are from Scale Link and because they were intended for a footbridge were too short for what I wanted. I looked a the 7mm scale ones but they were too big so in the end I just added bits of evergreen section to the tops and bottoms to get the height I needed. Below is a view along the canal taken with a mobile phone.
On the other side of the canal I wanted a very basic goods yard. The sort of thing where a lorry could be backed up to a wagon and unloaded by hand, no need for cranes or coal staithes or any of the other stuff you usually see. I did settle for a weighbridge as the most minimum of facilities, the build of which was featured in an earlier post. The floor was more powered paint dusted on dry and a few minutes of ‘driving’ a Base toys lorry around soon added some interest to the floor before it was sealed with Klear. I then used Tamiya gloss varnish to create puddles and baking soda for the raindrops. The whole scene was sprayed with Halford’s gloss lacquer to make it all look wet and tie everything together. 
In front of this will be another largish building which is shown here in the early stages of construction. I wanted to deliberately do things backwards as we human being aren’t actually very good at random things. We tend to see patterns easily and even if you have never studied art or illustration we have a natural bias towards well composed things. It would have made a better ‘picture’ if the building was behind the yard but in reality the railway is usually at the back of things not the front, It’s usually tucked away not the main feature.
The Sherpa can take it!
Long time followers of my efforts might recall a batch of 4 Sherpa vans I did from the kingfisher Miniatures kit. I said at the time that I wanted to do more and after a long wait the kit is back in stock so a second batch has been started.
Sherpa’s were a common sight in my childhood as they were produced locally at Washwood Heath. While my travels didn’t take me over there often I tended to see rows of brand new ones parked up between Tysley and Small Heath waiting for shipment by rail. Public bodies were urged to buy British and BR, the Post Office, BT and schools used them extensively over the (better) Ford Transit. The suggestion was that Ford couldn’t make Transits fast enough to meet demand anyway!
Unlike the last batch which was relatively simple (the conversion of 2 to sliding door variants was about as adventurous as I got) this batch is a bit more involved. On the left a BT version with swappable body/ The body being a simple plasticard box. Second along what will become a minibus in the livery of my secondary school. This is a bit of a best guess as I cant find a picture of one. We definitely had them and I am pretty sure they were long wheelbase ones. The back of the BT one was used to stretch the body but minibuses were wider than vans so the whole model was cut in half (2 cuts down the bonnet on the panel lines and spread with microstrip before gluing back together.The wheels are from Paragon models.
Third along is how the kit was intended, this one is destined for British Gas livery. Lastly another port office one, this time long wheelbase and high roof. I remember PO vans being slung round the streets of the midlands with the driver’s door wide open. Careful consideration of where you cut the van bodies mean you can get 2 long wheelbase vans from a single spare shell.
This is the basic surgery stage. The detailing stage starts next.
One of those finished things posts.
The advantages of working on more than one project at once is that, firstly, I don’t get bored and secondly every so often you seem to finish a lot of things together. This is one of those instances with several things that have featured recently have reached the finish line sort of together.
My loading gauge has been painted for a while but now its been planted too. I love stuff like this as its one of those things that I hope disappears into the scene and becomes unremarkable. Perhaps once in a blue moon someone will notice it but, much like the real thing I like stuff like this just to be ‘there’. It’s not supposed to get people’s attention. (don’t worry about the big gap under the wall – that’s not been permanently attached yet)
My Ford Thames and Austin A40. The colours of the Austin have a somewhat obvious Birmingham influence. Cartwrights was a furniture store in Brierley Hill but I have no idea if they used Austin vans or even if they had any road vehicles at all. 
This was a quick win project – Started life as a Bachmann Coke wagon which I imagined was sold to Round Oak and had the coke rails removed. I just liked it because it had a local livery and i’ve never done a distressed private owner before. The lettering was attacked with one of those brass brush wheels in a mini-drill and then the wagon was weathered. The w-irons needed a but more work with the mini-drill and a burr to get the wheels in but this was really minimal effort modelling! 
And so to the big project of the last few weeks – the DE2 shunter. I have to admit I didn’t relish the thought of painting its striped livery but by using some 4mm making tape from a company called Jammy Dog it wasn’t too bad at all. (click here for their website) A few more pictures below.
This is the sort of train I had in mind for the loco – Pushed up the hill with the loco at the rear and no brake van. I will need to add a shunter to the front wagon at some point.
Finally another moody shot of the Jinty heading out of the yard on a train of vans.
Yorkshire Engine DE2 part 2
I can call the build stage of this project complete. The chassis is all wired up and runs and all the little fiddly bits are in place.
Yorkshire Engine DE2 part 1
Part of the plan for Brettell Road is to have an off scene steel works, the real Round Oak was (is) just down the line from the sidings at Moor Street. I plan to use the sidings at Brettell Road as an exchange sidings for this and I like the way that a lot of the uphill workings on the old Earl of Dudley’s railway had the loco pushing trains up from the bottom of the hill so I want to replicate this on the model. My choice of motive power for these workings is the Yorkshire Engine company DE2 0-4-0 diesel shunter, of which Round Oak had a fleet and would be pretty new at the time of the model. Not that the loco’s in such an environment stayed new for very long mind you. Luckily Judith Edge do a kit and this week I set to work.
The kit breaks down into 3 sub assemblies. The chassis, the footplate and the body. It all goes together pretty easily due to the good design of the kit. It has a simple rocking compensation built in and I decided to use it as supplied. The above picture shows the main soldering work complete with the fiddly details stage to come next. 
Losely assembled but not bolted together, I will be getting the chassis running with a high level gearbox and Mashima motor. 
Rear view. The kit provides a resin bonnet top and sandboxes along with a little cover for the handbrake which is mounted on the rear of the cab on the right hand side under the window. I cant find any evidence for this being on the Round Oak examples so I filled the recess for it with a bit of scrap etch and filed it smooth. You can just make it out in the picture.
There was a suggestion that these loco’s first appeared at Round Oak in a plain Yellow livery but I cant find any evidence for this being the case. If anyone has any it would be much appreciated.
Going about it all backwards
One of the first kit wagons I built was the Cambrian Turbot. Back then it had super fragile bogies but was, and still is, a decent kit. The current version comes with one piece bogies so they don’t tend to disintegrate as soon as you look at them anymore.
A while ago Justin Newett of Rumney models produced an upgrade kit for the Lima bogie bolster E and since that where the Turbots came from it seemed sensible to use one of these to update my ancient and small fleet of Turbots. (Kind of the reverse of what BR did.)
Above is a comparison of the new underframe and the old. Because of the good design of he kit its dead easy to build although I did have to cut the baseplate in half as my solebars were closer together than the Lima model’s.
The view no one will ever see! These are the newer type of one piece bogie which Cambrian do as a spare.
Variations on a theme
I must admit I’ve never paid that much attention to the humble 12 ton goods van, mainly because I’ve never needed to before. However once you get into them they are quite addictive little so and so’s! After a good read of Ian Flemings blog and consulting books I now find myself with quite a few of them. 
First up some Cambrian kits. The first 2 were built as per the kit (Although I replaced the roof with 20 thou plasticard) while the third one (far right) was converted to a 10 ft wheelbase diagram 1812 example by carving off the metalwork on the left hand end and, modifying the door mechanisms and replacing the chassis with a Parkside one (code PA16). When it comes to the brake gear you can get etched or white metal replacements for much of the parts but I’m happy to use the supplied ones. I do however replace the safety loops with Bill Bedford etches.
Next the ever so handy Ratio kit for the LMS 12 ton van. The one on the left is built as supplied (but with MJT roof vents) and the one on the right has a modified door , simply using the Mainly Trains etched rivet strips. Buffers are from Lanarkshire Models.
Vacuum braked versions with more rivet strips, spare vac cylinders from the scrap box and (in 2 cases) tie bars from 0.8mm L section from Eileens. The example on the right has a vertically planked door. 
Lot 929 on the left with Parkside underframe bits and on the right the BR build of the same design. The body for this one isn’t a ratio kit but the old Airfix body. It rides on another Parkside PA16 chassis.
A couple of Shocvans. Plywood one on the left from the recently returned Red Panda kit and planked on the right from Parkside. 
I include this one as its a variation on what the kit was supposed to be. Starting life as the Parkside PC42 kit for the BR fruit van I replaced the ends with more Ratio ones and filed off the diagonal strapping and other details to depict a Diagram 2097 goods van. The chassis was replaces with a PA09 chassis. The roof has slightly lifted so I’ll need to fix that.
Some handy links: Ian Flemimgs Windcutter blog, Cambrian Kits, Parkside kits, Ratio kits, Lanarkshire Models and Eileens Emporium (Also for Bill Bedford parts)
More vehicles, greenery and a first for me.
The above 2 vehicles represent a return for me in a small way in that both come from manufacturers I have used before and in both cases I was a little bit disappointed previously . On the left an Austin A40 from Road transport images who I used before for a dodge cab on New Street. In the case of the dodge cab I felt it was a bit too rounded and didn’t really capture the look of the real thing all that well but I must say I’m much happier with this little van which was an impulse buy at this years Scaleforum. This is one of their all in one kits which is unusual for them as they usually sell all their bits separately so you can build the vehicle you want. Road Transport Images
The Lorry is a Ford Thames from John Day models. In this case my previous experience was with a diesel-powered Transit bus and again I wasn’t all that impressed. This model couldn’t be further from the transit though as its much better cast with very little work to do. I swapped the supports in the bed for wire as they were a tad scruffy and the bed and cab both needed a little bit of evergreen 40thou section to make them fit a little better but I like it! John Day Models
I decided that the track in my little yard looked too neat so I have attacked it with some powder paint (rubbed in with a finger then sealed with Klear) and some weeds. I’m much happier with how it looks now.
Although I don’t have a goods shed I do need a loading gauge. I’m reliably informed that these were used to ensure that wagons leaving the yard were within gauge and not as some sort of protection for goods sheds. The above example is a typical midlands one and started out from the Smiths kit, I filed off the moulded lifting gear and replaced it with some spare handwheels (from Brassmasters) and bits of wire and brass.
I mentioned in the title a first for me and this is it. Not that i’ve never built a weighbridge before (Although I haven’t) but i’ve never actually built a kit building before. When I was a kid my dad built some for me, usually Airfix kits and Linka, but all my buildings have been scratchbuilt up to now. So in the interests of breaking new ground this is a Wills kit. I turned the door over as hinges on the outside indicated it opened outwards which seemed a bit odd to me. I also filed off the panels on the end and rescribed the bricks and fancied a brick-built chimney but it is still a kit building. Oh and the guttering is bits of brass from Eileens!
Finally, you may have spotted earlier that Ive bedded in (most of) the abandoned warehouse, a few pictures follow:
Abandoned warehouse, nearly there!
My abandoned warehouse is nearly there now. A spot of paint, Brassmasters windows and roof tiles kindly supplied by Mr Horn. These images show it roughly positioned. You can see a glimpse of the canal which I have also decided to depict as derelict and ill come back to that in a future post.
Unusually for me the more interesting side is actually the side that people will see! The yard has been suitably strewn with waste from plastic strip and Scalelink bits. The 2 tanks are from Unit models.
More wagons
What you see above is a variation on a theme, both started out as Parkside kits for the same wagon (although different generations of the same kit) and both have been built to represent something slightly different to what was intended. On the Left a clasped brake version achieved by substituting the supplied chassis for a PA16 chassis kit from the same supplier. On the right the supplied chassis modified with vac cylinder and tie bars (0.7mm L section from Eileens).
A selection of steel opens built pretty much as intended. The far left is a Red Panda kit the others are Parkside with the usual extra detailing. It’s good to see that the Red Panda kits have reappeared from Parkside although the example shown here remained available continuously.
I decided I quite likes the idea that when the building shown in the last update was abandoned an unfortunate lorry was left behind too. Perhaps it wouldn’t start or its been dumped there? Having mooched around for a suitable victim I quite fancied a kit rather than ready to plonk and I havent built a vehicle kit for a while. I settled on a Coopercraft Bedford ML and set to work.
The kit is quite poor if i am honest. There’s loads of flash and the fit of the parts isn’t great. I also decided that the windscreens were far too small but being all plastic it’s not too much hassle to fashion something presentable and as I’ve mentioned before I find poor kits strangely rewarding. I attacked the bed with a circular saw in a mini drill to gouge out some of the planks and simlulate rot. The above is the more presentable side!
On this side I cut off a wing and cut down the tires to simulate flats. The rubber at the bottom was added with filler. The lorry was first weathered with a light blue to simulate fading, varnished and then gouache was used for the rust. another coat of varnish and washes of enamels were added to simulate dirt and grime. Finally the whole thing was dry brushed with Klear to make it look wet.
On the subject of road vehicles I will be doing a demo at Scaleforum this month so please stop by for a chat if you are going.
A little bit of building work
I’ve started on the buildings for Brettell road with one that locals to the Stourbridge area will recognise as heavily influenced by the bonded warehouse. Construction is based on 2mm card overlaid with South Eastern Finecast garden wall bond. The large tiles were kindly laser cut for me by Tim. I get a kind of perverse satisfaction by putting the interesting bits facing away from the viewers!
The public facing side is plainer than a really plain thing. Only the little bit of detail at the top of the smaller building giving any vague nod to any sort of design or creativity!
I plan to depict this building as abandoned, with all sorts of clutter in the now disused courtyard area. The base of the courtyard is foam-board and bearing in mind my wet theme I cut some holes in the top surface so that I could heat the plasticard with a hairdryer and give some variation to the floor for puddles. You can see how I approach the top of the wall with individual evergreen bricks (some missing of course!) 
Close up of the courtyard showing the battered doors. I decided to depict the main building chained up with the now customary padlock in place!
A technological rethink
A while ago I wrote about the benefits of using modern techniques and processes, specifically laser cutters. However I have sort of come to change my view on this a little recently. You see, if you are doing more than 1 thing that is the same then laser cutting can offer a distinct time-saving. If however what you are doing is pretty much bespoke then the extra effort is, I have concluded, not really worth it. Take my retaining walls for Brettell Road. I did draw up the larger one but it took for ever. It turned out to be much quicker and easier to just get some sheets of embossed plasticard and get stuck in! I have to admit those that protest on forums that laser cutting is cheating really don’t have a clue what they are talking about because it’s a lot, lot harder than the old way. 
These walls use Slaters bricks and I have done the top row by cutting individual blocks from evergreen strip and gluing them in place. Even taking the time to do this (Which isn’t exactly taxing but is long-winded) these walls didn’t take all that long to do.
Wagon building continues and I have amassed a fair few now (probably enough for Brettell Road if I am honest). This is a diagram 1/019 BR medium goods wagon from the Parkside kit which, as is customary for their stuff, pretty much falls together out of the packet. The usual extra bits and bobs have been added to the underframe. 
On the left a BR 13 ton steel open again from Parkside while on the right a 13 ton sand tippler from Red Panda. I originally built this for Amlwch but never actually ran it on that layout so it can go here instead. It’s good to see that the small but useful range of Red Panda kits have recently resurfaced from Parkside. 
Finally this is pretty much what I hope Brettell Road will be all about, dark and wet! It’s always been my intention to depict a rainy night somewhere in the Black Country and this is the first time I’ve really been able to get an image that illustrates what I am looking for.
Some thoughts on springing
No I haven’t put this in the wrong place and yes this is a bogie off a class 31 but it serves to show how the real thing goes about springing 3 axles. When I first wrote about building the chassis for my Jinty I didn’t go into too much detail on how it was sprung, mainly because I wanted to check that it worked properly before telling people how to do it (or leading them down the wrong path , possibly!). In truth I knew it would work as when my friend Simon built his fully spring class 31 (from a Bill Bedford kit) he sprung it using a similar principle. AS he’s an engineer and I’ve seen his 31 perform faultlessly on may occasions there was little to worry about other than I possibly didn’t get it or couldn’t do it!
Anyway after a few days of shuffling wagons around on Brettell Road I feel confident to tell you how it was done. I admit off the bat that CSB’s work and work well as I’ve seen many examples of them (Continuous Springy Beams). I also admit that all the maths, tables and discussion put me right off the idea from the start. It just seems so ‘faffy’ somehow. Sure they first appeared when there was an element of the finescale side of the hobby who likes to pretend they were actually Stephen Hawking and seemed to revel in making things look as difficult as possible but there was always the thought in the back of my mind that a lot of the clever theory, whilst fine on paper, didn’t actually translate to any effect in the real world. That and why don’t real 3 axle vehicles do it that way then? (Yes I know a Jinty isn’t sprung like a class 31 either!)
The principle of equalised springy beams is very simple. If you have a beam with a pivot in the middle the effects on either end will be the same. If you move the pivot to a 3rd of the way along the effects are more on one end than the other, By using 2 beams on 3 axles, with 2 of them acting on the center axle and the pivots towards the outer axles, the effects on all 3 should be about the same. It’s a mix of old-fashioned, very rigid compensation beams and springs to get a sprung result. I am sure that you can apply loads of complicated maths to this to refine the thinking further but it works for me, appeals to me KISS approach to things and all you need is 4 handrail knobs and 4 springs of 18 gauge guitar string. Nothing has to be pivoted and you can just change the gauge of the springs to adjust the effect. 
A return to the panniers
Progress on my 2 pannier tank projects has continued with the 94xx body reaching the paint stage. Bachmann has recently announced a new RTR model of this class but i’ve never been one for waiting for someone else to do things for me. Those who know me will know that my interest is in the making things side of the hobby rather than the amassing stuff side and besides there’s always something new in the pipeline somewhere so if you want the latest and greatest, you will forever be waiting for it to arrive. Nothing wrong with that of course and i’m sure having all the very best offerings from the trade will result in a magnificent layout, even if its only forever in someones head!
The 15xx tank has been a bit more back and forth. Someone kindly pointed out that the roof of the cab I had used was too shallow so this has been swapped for the roof from the original 94xx body. It did need shortening a little as the 94xx cab is bigger. The roof detail on the 94xx is nothing like so that was all replaced with more archers rivets. I also spotted that the rear cab windows are much further in than the way I had them (and the 94xx) so these have been changed too. Incidentally the Ian Beattie drawing in the April 1985 Railway Modeller also had the windows in the wrong place too so it wasn’t just me!)
For such a small class there’s a lot of variety. the cab door handrails were shorter originally and one class member (1506) seems to have had both long and short at the same time. The lower smokebox handrail also seems to have been added later (perhaps when the steps were changed) and 1503 seems to have had straight horizontal handrails on the rear of the bunker rather than the L shaped ones the rest of the class had. These were also mounted lower down for some reason. It just goes to show the old mantra of work from a photo of the loco you are modelling as close to the date you are modelling it that you can find.