A couple of brake vans
I may have mentioned before a plan to have a mixed engineers train for New Street. This will be the closest I will get to what could be vaguely referred to as a traditional goods train. For this I’ve completed a couple of the good old Airfix brake van kits. 
Pictured above on test on Brettel Road, the bauxite one features roller bearings left over from a Chivers kit and Oleo buffers from Accurascale. The dutch one also has Accurascale buffers (spindle this time) and plated ends. Both feature a new, thinner roof. Ive retained the original chassis with internal rocking compensation at one end and added the underframe trussing Airfix missed off. Theres an etched underframe option for those who are interested and I can direct you to this thread if thats something you fancy having a look at.
While time travelling engineers trains were ‘invading’ Brettell Road this 31 appeared!
Bogie Ballast hoppers
The plan for New Street has always been to feature a selection of engineers trains. The ones I have had in mind are a rake of loaded mainly 4 wheeled hoppers, a rake of loaded bogie hoppers, a rake of loaded grampus style wagons (partially fitted), a rake of empty salmons and a mixed rake of unfitted oddities(also empty). All of these trains have been started to a degree and most of them many years ago. However I had an urge to get at lease one of these trains finished off and it was the bogie ballast hoppers that appealed the most.
These have been pretty much done for years with most just needing the hand wheels and safety screens finishing off.
The oldest model is an old Cambrian kit for a Sealion. Because this model does look a little different to all the others it will actually form part of the 4 wheel rake so that it doesn’t stand out.
Next up a couple of Lima Sealions. An excellent model for its time let down only by the odd bogies. Ive replaced them with Cambrian ones.
The Lima tooling went to Hornby and rather than just stick it in a ‘railroad’ range box they did actually do some decent upgrades to this model. Mainly the bogies but also adding the safety screens. The rest is as Lima designed it with the exception of Hornby moved the end handrails from the top of the platforms to the buffer beams and replaced the inner original handrails (which were plastic) with better wire ones.
The above image serves to show the changes made. The hand wheels have been replaced with Stenson Models etched ones and the safety screen, while a commendable effort, wasn’t fine enough in my eyes. I’ve used cut down etches from Extreme etches intended for the class 56 bodyside grills. I also replaced the buffer heads with some from MJT. The livery Hornby applied to these seem to be a hybrid of the earlier light grey version applied in the later dark grey style. I couldn’t find any like this so the lower black band was added.
Also from Hornby the later welded Seacow. Again the screens were replaced. These too had the lighter grey livery so they were resprayed into the darker grey.
Bachmann have also done a Sealion and theres not a lot wrong with it as it comes. I still changes the screens and hand wheels for consistency throughout the rake.
The super easy conversion to a lima Sealion is to remove the vacuum cylinders to turn it into a Seacow. Lima did brand some of their RTR models Seacow but they retained the vacuum gear.
A more involved conversion is to stretch the lima model to produce the larger 50ton Whale. These were started way before the Cambrian Kit appeared although they do now ride on their bogies. Hand wheels are again from Stenson models.
Although a modest train for New Street its still virtually as long as Brettell Road!
New stuff
With the growth of 3d printing theres been quite a few new companies appearing this year offering 3d printed products. The quality of these can vary somewhat and many show CAD renders on their sites so you can’t be all that sure what you are actually going to get. Ive mentioned 3d Printing corner before on my road vehicles thread as supplying some good stuff and recently I’ve been equally impressed with Model Railway Scenes as supplying equally high quality bits and pieces. Some of which are shown below.
The salt and grit boxes come a pack of 4 (2 of each) while the platform litter bins (ideal for New Street) come in 12. The oil drums (which incidentally are a close match to the Bachmann ones although these are a fraction shorter) also come in packs of 12 while the 2 different sized lineside relay boxes come in packs of 6 each. None of the stuff I’ve had so far show any of the layering you sometimes see from a 3d print.
Another new (to me) product that I’ve come across recently is this…
Mr Surfacer liquid filler. It seems to be something that the aero-modellers are familiar with as they use it to fill unwanted panel lines. It comes in several grades, 500, 1000, 1200 and 1500 and much like sandpapers the lower the number the coarser it is. The 1500 also comes in black and they can all be brought as a spray as well. They can be used as primers although I haven’t tried mine for that use yet.
Links
Class 120 revisited.
One of my earlier DMU conversions was a class 120. Built from Craftsman overlays on a Lima 117 it’s done many shows on Moor Street and was probably due a bit of an overhaul.
I had already rebuilt the underframe to better match the prototype and a few years ago I swapped the bogie side frames for Dapol ones* as they better matched the Swindon design the class ran on.
*the older ones from their trans pennine mode not the newer ones from their bubblecars
The big thing I wanted to address was the inner ends. When I built the model the inner ends were void of detail and the instructions just said to stick the Lima gangways and exhausts back on. However the class 120 exhausts are somewhat distinctive and look nothing like what Lima supplied. So the ends have been detailed up to better match the real thing.
As mentioned before I am a fan of the Masokits gangways for DMU’s however I don’t see a lot of point using them if they are hidden behind the exhausts. So for this model i have use paper bellows and moulded gangways I had in my spares box.
Working on wood
Tim Horn and I have been working on a few ideas recently and here are some prototypes.
Starting with a wall mounted version of his display shelving.
Next up a stock box. I’ve long used Ikea ‘Fira’ boxes but for a while they disappeared before returning in some less handy configurations (as well as costing a lot more). The little handle on the front is to stop the drawers sliding out in transit which was an ongoing problem with the Ikea ones.
Each draw can hold 24 standard 10 ft wheelbase sized wagons.
These are a work in progress and Tim is very much snowed under at the moment with work so these are not available yet. I will post here when they are.
Some Steel wagons.
The diesels have escaped to Brettell Road again. Actually its just a convenient photo background but there you go.
New Street isn’t known for its freight operations but there were some services booked through the station on a fairly regular basis. Normally late at night and of those steel traffic was quite common. To that end I have recently finished off a few old Cambrian bogie wagons that have been lurking in my half started box for a while now.
First up a BDA. When I started this model there was no Stenson Models so sometimes, letting a model live in the half started area for too many years works out as a positive. The little kit for the braking gear lifts the model. I’ve used Jon Hall etched bogie inserts with the cambrian bogie sides but if you want better, sprung bogies with nicer sideframes then Stenson models do those too.
I replaced the supplied bolsters (when i say replaced I actually mean lost!) with microstrip which better suited the wooden ones fitted to the earlier conversions anyway!
In a not entirely unrealistic scenario, a class 56 heads towards Round Oak.
BAA also from a Cambrian kit.
… and a BBA.
Although my Yorkshire DE02 is part of the Brettell Road fleet they were still very much around in the late 1980s and still in their original wasp livery so this scene isn’t implausible either!
More Nostalgia
A while ago I mentioned a lovely little book from Hoxton Mini Press that featured images of the east end from the 1960s to the 1980s. Now theres an equally as great follow up featuring 1980-1990. OK still not Brum but the period is about spot on. Loads of great street scenes, vehicles and less than pretty buildings. Simple things that trigger long forgotten memories like the plastic folding seats that bus stops had! Highly recommended.
see https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/collections/books/products/the-east-end-in-colour-1980-1990
or for both books https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/collections/books/products/east-end-bundle
Quietly influential
The two wagons pictured above were the first 2 wagon kits I ever built. The grampus is from the older parkside kit and the turbot from the Cambrian kit. Both have been upgraded since I built them with Rumney models parts and both have seen RTR versions appear in relatively recent years.
When I built these though the options for 4mm scale modern wagons was very limited indeed. Hornby had their range of air braked 4 wheeled wagons on a very generic underframe and Lima had some useful bogie wagons (all with somewhat useless bogies). Bachmann hadn’t really appeared back then so if you wanted the trains you could see at the time you had to build them yourself.
Admittedly the grampus (which was my first kit) was a bit of an odd one out in the Parkside range and it was more the longevity of the prototypes that made this kit suitable. While Cambrian had carved a very nice little corner of the market for themselves with their dual ranges of engineers wagons and airbraked prototypes. Without these who knows where my interest in the making things aspect of the hobby would have gone?
The reason I’m being nostalgic is down to 2 people that the hobby has recently lost and will be sorely missed. Richard Hollingworth was the softly spoken gentleman behind Parkside Dundas while Colin Parks was one of the 2 brothers behind Cambrian models. Rest in peace gentlemen, and thank you.
Accurascale Buffers
Last year Accurascale turned their attention from the railways of Ireland to British rail. While people got very excited about their first wagon (not that the excitement wasn’t well deserved) i was more taken with their decision to sell the buffers separately. 3 types are available and come in packs of 8 for just £2.95. they come ready assembled and are sprung with plastic bodies and metal heads. The lack of a baseplate makes them ideal for the older style of wagon kits from Airfix (see below) and Cambrian and the older Parkside wagons where this detail is moulded on to the bufferbeams. Theres a smidge more work to use them on newer style kits that have the buffer bodies moulded on and you will need to source a baseplate from another source if your intended bufferbeam is completely flat. I like them and i really hope Accurascale continue with this modeller friendly approach.
Ticking off the turbots
A while ago I modified a Cambrian Turbot kit with a Rumney Models bogie bolster E underframe. (see here). Ive finally got around to doing the others too. Here they are on a visit to Brettell Road. 
Return to Motorails
A long time ago now I started work on 3 motorail coaches for New Street. The motorail train at 15 coaches will be the longest on the layout. The first coach was relatively easy (the blue and grey one in the picture) but the blue ones stalled because I wanted to do the ones that had Mk1 style divided windows. I got as far as drawing up and etch but never got it actually produced. However Brian of Extreme etches has done a set of window frames for the BG coach and these are the same so i can finally tick these 2 off as well. Some standard GUVs had these windows too so ill be doing some of those as well.
Weathering track – some thoughts
One topic that seems to come up fairly regularly on forums and Facebook groups is weathering track. I thought I’d do a mini article on my thoughts and how I approach this subject. As always other methods apply.
The prototype
As with any modelling activity you need to look at the real thing if you want to copy it. You don’t necessarily need to understand it and the advice model what you see, not what you think you know applies. If you are modelling a real place then the jobs pretty much done for you but it pays to look at references as close as you can to the timescale you are modelling. 
Even when track is brand new it actually isn’t. this was taken a few days after they relayed the eastern end of new street. Note the use of wooden sleepers, not all brand new track uses concrete or steel sleepers. The rails are very rusty and there’s already evidence of the trains using it. The visible colours of he pandrol clips wont last long. 
Some plain flat bottomed track that to any modeller would be considered clean. things to note are the welds where it was joined, the rail colour has spread to the sleepers in places and some of the ballast is on top of the sleepers. I’ve found when it come to track being really neat isn’t always he best thing. Its subtle but look at how the 2 rails are not the same colour. The inside face seems dustier than the outside. 
The weather changes things – the rails look very dark because they are wet. The wetness seems to mask some of the subtleties seen in the previous picture. 
Around points things have to move and as such they are greased. Note how the grease from the rod passing under the rail has manages to creep onto the web of the rail above it? The rail dust is visible around the baseplates and the third rail is a completely different colour to the running rails. 
I include this picture because it illustrates an important point. 2 tracks can be side by side and look different. There are many reasons for this. The tracks might be different ages. The trains might be doing something different depending on the direction they are going. If they are braking then there will be more brake dust. The trains themselves might be different too, loaded freight trains that carry loose material do tend to drop things and push dust along with them. If your line had a heavy use of a particular type of train then the material itself can affect the look of the track and distort its colouring. Also track weathering is directional. As the trains move along they tend to push any dust or debris along with them. As we run on the left in the UK the left hand line will tend to look the dirtier of the two when looking away from you. You can see this effect here and it pays to weather your track in the direction the trains are moving for best effect.
Modelling it.
If I am using wooden sleepers then I tend to lay the track first then give it a base coat of a mucky brown colour. I use JLTRT track colour but I’m not sure if you can still get it. Halfords do a decent matt brown in their range of camouflage spray paints which is good as well. You don’t need to be too precious as it is just the base colour. I then paint the rail sides with either Humbrol matt leather (look for tins with the union flagon the side, the others are weird and too green) or Revell 84 before ballasting. You can get a little tool for paining rails that consists of a little roller fed from a reservoir. To be honest I tried it ans didn’t get on with it. A nice flat brush seems much easier. Do all this before the ballasting. 
Flat bottom track on New Street. It was pretty new in 1987 and the rails had a distinctly different colour to the bullhead stuff. As its bi directional i sprayed the track from both directions. Firstly with a light coat of Revell 84 and then a mix of gun-metal and black. Note the grease around the fishplates done with the same colour and a simple card mask to prevent overspray. 
Sidings outside New Street signal box, It pays to have all the scenery immediately next to the track in place before the weathering. Overspray onto these elements is something that would happen in real life. Note much more gunmetal/black colour where the loco’s stand. 
Make sure that you repaint the checkrails once you’ve cleaned the rail tops A black sharpie is good for keeping them dirty or you can chemically blacken them as well. 
Close up of the end of a double slip. 
Older sidings on Brettell road. I used my finger to ‘smudge in some powder paint to the ballast to give the less cared for look. Some static grass gives an impression that the yard is losing the battle with nature. While in some cases weeds can creep into sleepers or even force their way through them it pays not to have your greenery on top of them.
Its all pretty simple stuff really but as I said at the start, observation is the key.
HEA steps
As you may be aware my friend Phil has taken over the wagon bits and kits side of Colin Criag’s useful range and set up Stenson models. Its hoped this will grant Colin more time to develop stuff as well as new things Phil wants to develop himself. 
One of the new bits is this rather handy etch for the HEA steps. Phil has used some good thinking in the design ensuring that the end result has a neat and robust way of actually attaching to the wagon (some purveyors of etched bits take note). The same steps were found on the MEA and MFA wagons too. One down 17 to go!
Grampus test etch
A few years ago I was working on a fleet of grampuses (yes that is the plural before anyone asks) for New Street but the project stalled when I decided i wanted to etch new baskets, door bangers and steps for them. This has been on my to do list for a long time but things have changed in that time and when Justin at Rumney models said he was thinking of looking at the same I dropped my plans in favour of just waiting for his. I don’t see a lot of point in duplication in this hobby (although some of the RTR chaps seems a little obsessed with it at the moment) especially when I’m just doing bits I want and someone else is doing bits as part of their business. I’m more than happy to let the guys doing this for a job get on with it basically.
Justin has kindly sent me a test etch to try out and the results of which can be seen above. There is, of course more detail to add but a this point if what you see is plastic it’s from Parkside. If its metal then its from Rumney models. 
The wagon the right way up (I’ve straightened the bent door banger). Justin is hoping to have these ready for September so keep checking his website. I’m going to need a fair few of these!
More mk1s
As coach building continues for New Street, much of it is more of the same and to some extent so is this
Another Bachmann mk1, fitted with replica bogies and the usual details. Like the rest of my Bachmann based NSE liveried stock I repainted the blue to something lighter which I feel better matches the early vehicles so painted. The IC liveried coach behind was completed at the same time.
revisiting a class 47
One of my early class 47s featured a Lima body on an Athearn PA1 chassis as below. 
This was done before I settled on the windscreen modification for the Lima 47 (I don’t think Shawplan actually had done them at the time) so I wanted to revisit it to make the face match the others on the layout. Along the way I had been collecting cheap ViTrains 47s so while it was in for an overhaul I swapped the chassis too. The results can be seen below. 
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.
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!
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.
New Street, new board
Back in the latter half of last year when Tim and I did the boards for Brettell Road we also cut the next 2 boards for New Street. While the boards for Brettell Road were experimental both in design and materials we didn’t want to jump that far with New Street so sticking with what we know we opted for ply.
This is the first of the two. A simple rectangle but the awkward part was that the surface isn’t flat as the trackbed drops down as you leave the station. This board will be entirely under the tunnel but I plan to leave a letterbox in the front so you can peek in. The jigsaw shape in the top surface is due to Tim’s cutter not being long enough (he now has one that can do boards this size with ease).
One thing I did forget was although we etched the track plan and cut holes for the point droppers into the top sheet I forgot to include the holes on the bottom one! (note for next time). I also mistakenly glued the back boards the bring way round (hence no jigsaw as Tim kindly re cut it for me on the bigger cutter).
The next board will be similar and will recreate the area I originally did for the plank.
revisited class 86 – the body
Having stripped off most of the old detail I have now got effectively back to where I started! I have replaced the headcode box sandbox filler covers and TDM sockets with my own etches. The headlight was removed and re-attached straight (Yeah I know) and the jumpers are from a Hornby 50. One thing I didn’t pick up on last time was that class 86/4 had a single body mounted lamp iron like a class 87 and not twin buffer mounted ones like a class 86/2. Not sure why I never noticed this before.
Next project – revisit an old class 86
One of my early electric loco projects was this class 86/4 built using the Craftsman conversion kit. There are several areas that I need to look at but I am hoping I can avoid a complete repaint on this.
First up the chassis, It will need converting to a Bachmann warship drive as per the rest of my class 86 fleet. I’ve covered this in other places but never on my own site so I will give a few tips on how this is done. The blanking plates for the bodyside clips are visible so they will need looking at and the sandbox fillers are the early type. The headcode box will need replacing as will the TDM cables and MU boxes (Spare Hornby class 50 ones at the ready). Also the handrails are too chunky and the bufferbeam detail will need redoing. Finally I will need to knock up another reworked Sommerfeldt pantograph which is something I have been meaning to cover too.
A brief return to the 101
You may remember the discussion on improving the Lima 101 turned to the windscreen problem as this is the only area (at least in the body) where the Bachmann model scores over the Lima one. Well a kind-hearted soul sent me some window frames to fix the Lima model and the results are presented below.
I was never that put out by the Lima windscreens but side by side it’s quite a difference.
A spot of reading
Been doing a spot of reading, one book not very Birmingham and one not very railway! The first, Life on the Lickey 1943-1986 by Pat Wallace appealed because i’ve always had a bit of a fascination with the place, particularly Blackwell, My great aunt lived there (still does) and many an hour was spent with my dad and brother on the old platform watching all manner of things cresting the top of the incline. Peaks and 50’s were always the favorite and Peaks in particular seemed little troubled by the long climb from Bromsgrove. Funnily I don’t recall seeing any banking as a kid but in later years we were treated to such delights as 3 class 60s on a steel train. The book covers Pat’s time working the Lickey from engine cleaner to driver including accounts on working the unique Big Bertha as well as in later days such shenanigans as starting a failed HST when the guard wasn’t quite ready and dumping the poor chap into the ballast. I was lucky enough to meet Pat last year at the launch of the book where he kindly signed me 2 copies (one for my great aunt). Sadly he passed away a short time after but thankfully his experiences live on in this fascinating insight to working this well known piece of railway
ISBN 978-1-85858-523-9 www.brewinbooks.com
The second book is Birmingham in the 70’s and 80’s by Alton Douglas and while there is some railway interest such as the derelict Snow Hill A Deltic at Bromford Bridge and a picture of 210002 working the Cross City Line, this book is very much about the city. The Street scenes are just pure nostalgia and these are intersected with newspaper adverts from the time. Ive written before that New Street has become less about the trains and more about the place as time goes on and this book fits in with that view perfectly
ISBN 978-1-85858-511-6 www.altondouglas.co.uk
Recent Comments