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Its all gone a bit Eastern Region – Part 2

Earlier in the year I showed progress on a test build of the Brassmasters J17 kit test build. What follows is progress since then.

To be fair there wasn’t a huge amount left to do as I left it. One of the jobs was the business end of the brake gear on both the loco and tender.

The other little job on the tender was the guard irons which had been missed off the test etch. These were fashioned up from scrap using a scaled image of the production etch as a guide.

When I showed the side on view before I had managed to get the sanding linkages all wrong. This was subsequently corrected.

(Video © Tim Horn and used with permission) Then it was off to Tim’s for a few days work blocking in the basic greenery on North Elmham which was also an ideal opportunity to give the J17 a chance to stretch its legs. It was unweighted at this point except for a few pound coins in the tender. Attention then switched to getting Brettell Road ready for Scalefour Crewe and besides I thought it would be good for the loco to be displayed on the Brassmasters stand in the raw so to speak. However since then it’s now been finished off with the exception of a crew and some coal in the tender.

For part one of this little project click here

Time for an Update

Its been 10 months since I did an update on the Duchess test build so its probably a little overdue.

The first bit of news, for those who don’t follow the Brassmasters blog is that Geoff Hurley, the original kit designer, sadly passed away at the end of November 2023. He had been with Brassmasters for 20 years and in that time he designed their kits for the rebuilt Royal Scot, the LMS 4F and the Princess Royal as well their detailing kits for LMS locomotives. The Duchess was his last project before he became ill in 2022. I had a hope that I would get it finished and he would be able to see it but alas that wasn’t to be.

This had meant that at lot of head scratching and trying to figure out where the project was has gone on since (not much of it by me I must add). So theres actually been an awful lot of work going on but it may not look like it.

Some new bits for the tender. Originally the water tank hatches were white metal castings but these have been changed to 3d prints produced by David. The external part of the coal pusher is another 3d print.

Moving foward the exhauster pipe and the under cab injectors. The latter have been through several versions mainly because of how we were going to mount them to the loco. This latest version seems to have cracked it but has necessitated a slight change to the etched artwork. The cab roof is a loose fit.

While on the subject of the cab heres some of the inner detail.

Some of the footplate details in place.

Moving on to the front, with health problems at Markits at the moment and being unable to supply stocks of their oval buffers we have looked at a 3d printed body with an etched head. This allows the buffer to be much more accurately detailed and while it does lose the springing the prototypes were not particularly know for coupling up to trains at this end.

Post Scalefour Crewe reflection

Scalefour Crewe was an excellent show in my opinion and feedback from my operators was that they all enjoyed themselves (thanks for your help guys). Thanks to the show organisers for inviting us. The layout seemed well received and many people were kind enough to say nice things about it. We seemed to be quite successful in holding people attention throughout the weekend.

As with any outing theres aways a period of reflection on how the show went. The layout seemed to fight us a little in the morning but settled down. The main issue being the cassettes were causing a few problems.

There were 2 areas with the cassettes that need addressing. Area A is that any stock that wasn’t on the rails would strike the edge of the end stop supports and bring the whole train to a halt. It’s unrealistic to think that everything on a cassette will always be on the track 100% of the time as the cassettes are moved around. Thats the point of them after all.

Area B is an easy fix. Theres a bit of wire that holds the connecting rail (which is loose at the end) in line with the rail on the cassette and agains the guide rail. These bits of wire were too straight meaning the joining rail could go the wrong side and all the stock would fall off. A little more of an angle to the wire will solve that.

First approach to fix problem A was to shape the end supports so that stock doesn’t stop when it hits it. A few trials showed this to be effective but it merely gets the stock past the ends and it still stays off the track. Plan b was to make a re-railer from 30 thou plasticard so that any errant stock is pushed back on to the track. The advantage of this is that I don’t need to reshape the end supports at all as the stock is on the track as it runs off the cassette. This is just a rough proof of concept of course but if I fit one to the end of every cassette, as wagons will need to run of their own cassette and through the loco cassette that gives 3 opportunities to re-rail any rogue wagons and if they are still off after all that then they deserve to go back in the box for attention back home!

Above is a little test video. The brake van is running along the edge of the cassette before the join.

Aside from the usual small stock of wagons that need attention either through failures or just a general refusal on their part to play nicely we had a few issues taking stuff in and out of the yard. There were also a few clunks when running through the slip which is a dead giveaway that something is not quite right somewhere. So on returning home and when I had just 2 boards up, allowing me better access to the slip this has been investigated, tweaked and one of the check rails replaced.

A Bachmann brake van (straight wheel swap, no compensation) does the testing.

Artistic licence

This weekend I was helping Tim at Railex (helping in the loosest term – I was there anyway!) and had a very interesting chat with a chap about lighting on layouts. He explained that lighting is what he does and he was obviously somewhat of an authority on the subject.

Anyway the subject of this image came up, Apologies for posting it again, I get people are probably sick of seeing it but I have added a bit of rain as some people asked for it. He explained that sodium lighting on a scale of colour gives a very high spike in the yellow range and doesn’t output any other colours. For this image to have the colours it does it would need a white light source, I cant say its the moon because its raining! It actually does have a white light source as I have a string of dim-able LEDs on the wall of the shed that I use to infill my night pictures. He very obviously knew exactly what he was on about! People may have noticed that at night we sometimes see in black and white. It was something I was already aware about on a very basic level. Cameras are much better at picking up colour in low light than the human eye as anyone who recently saw and photographed the northern lights probably noticed.

So I could say that the above image has a certain degree of artistic licence to it. Or at least I could if it was deliberate but the reality is it wasn’t. I hate it when people throw the term artistic licence around to justify missing something or some sort of mistake after its been pointed out. It’s OK to miss things, just don’t try and claim it was deliberate after the event.

So by taking all of the colour out except yellow (and putting some back in for the lorry lights and inside the phone box) we have an image that more accurately depicts what you would see if you were really standing on a rain sodden bridge in the Black Country at the end of the 1950’s. Two questions now though, The first is which of the two is actually the more pleasing, or nicer image? and the second is anyone actually bothered?

3F and using a Brassmasters Easychas conventionally. Part 2

Much as I quite liked the accidental JPS tribute look of my 3F (Fans of retro Formula 1 will know what I mean) My 3f has now been painted and weathered.

I found this image of 43687 at New Street on station pilot duties around 1957. The loco was allocated to Bournville shed at the time so it seemed suitable to me. Image ©John Turner 53A Models of Hull Collection and used with his kind permission.

Below a few images of the finished model.

Just waiting for a Modelu crew to arrive. Does anyone know how the cab rain sheets were attached to the tender on these locos? Ive found several images of them with the sheets stored on the edge of the cab roof but none with them in use. I guess back in the day people didn’t go out to take photos of mundane freight locos if it was raining!

3F and using a Brassmasters Easychas conventionally.

Ive always quite liked the Midland 3f tender locos. They seem to be quite nicely proportioned, more so than the 4F’s that looked kind of tall and somewhat top heavy. A while ago in quick succession I picked up a Bachmann body followed soon after by a tender body and a Brassmasters Easychas for it. In the last week or so Ive decided to get some sort of progress on it.

So starting with the tender. I never had the Bachmann chassis and if its anything like most RTR tender chassis it will no doubt have all been a bit flat and kinda naff. Brassmasters do a detailing kit to replace the tender chassis completely so I used that. This is just built as per their instructions.

The rear end. Buffers are from Lanarkshire models as is the vac pipe. I think I’ll replace the lamp irons too.

On to the loco. If I had the original chassis then based on the 1F I did I’m confident you could have something up and running in a somewhat leisurely afternoon. If you use the Bachmann coupling rods and brakes you might not even need to fire up the soldering iron! However as I didn’t have the Bachmann chassis I decided to build the chassis up as a more conventional one by adding spacers left over from a High Level Models Jinty chassis kit. As the easychas caters for EM and p4 the EM spacers are perfect. If you don’t have any leftover Jinty bits though Alan Gibson do a neat little etch of spacers.

Before I show you the chassis though some decisions need to be made. The splashers suffer from the usual RTR problem of being too big. Brassmasters do a separate etch for ones that are the right size. The above image shows a comparison so you can decide if it bothers you or not.

As you can probably guess it bothered me so they were all replaced. The original footplate has a solid floor back to the front of the chassis casting so I cut that out. The new reversing lever is part of the chassis kit and the boxes on the side of the cabs have been thinned down by 2mm as per the instructions.

All this means that a little bit of rectification is needed on the body as it had recesses in the boiler for the original splashers that are no longer needed. I believe the Bachmann chassis block comes quite far forward so the base of the boiler was put back in using layers of thin plasticard. Theres not really much else to do to the body other than this.

Back to the chassis then – with the inside motion kit from the 4f – You didn’t expect me to leave a gaping hole did you? The gearbox is a high level loadhauler+

How the loco looks mocked up. I will leave the sandpipes until the very end as they will trap the centre wheels in place.

Going over old ground

Ive recently been doing a few revisions on the layout.

The first was prompted by a failure. It had always irked me a little that the above lamp was a little bit crude and the top wasn’t really the distinctive shape the lights at Round Oak had. Being at the back in a dark corner it wasn’t noticeable enough to invest any time into. However when it recently failed why not kill two birds with one stone? So after a bit of tweaking I’m much happier with it now.

Ground Signals. I originally used the MSE kits but I had found a few drawbacks. First thing was A few had took some knocks while cleaning the track. As they use a whitemetal casting for the main body and legs they really didn’t like this at all and were starting to look a bit bent and battered. Secondly as I had fitted lights there wasn’t a lot of room to work and I had just drilled out the lamp housing and shoved a nano LED in there with slightly mixed results.

One consequence of this wass more light bled out of the bottom than through the signal despite various attempts to fill the hole

So step in the Palatine models etched kits as a replacement. These are hopefully stronger and being an etch theres more room to position the LED in a better controlled way. I say more room but in 4mm scale ground signals are tiny but because of that even a slight gain is a big help. I modified the kits a little to make them work and drilled a couple of holes for the lights. Results are below

On the subject of signals Ive been playing around with resistors again to try to get the lamps a bit closer to how the real thing looked and less like a modern colour light. I think I’m there now.

Up on the road Ive added a few telegraph poles meaning I think I can call this area finished now. A revisit to my classic (or is that cliché?) scene. This time a wider verson.

24 April 2024

Nearly time to hit the road again. Brettell Road will be appearing at Scalefour Crewe on the 8th and 9th June.

The show guide can be viewed via this link, hope to see some of you there.

Back to wagons – and a correction.

A while ago I did a batch of shock opens including an attempt at an ex-LMS diagram 1983 variant. Justin of Rumney Models noticed that I had used the same ends as the BR version with inset corrugations while the LMS wagon has corrugations that stick out. Something I had completely failed to notice myself. So that wagon had its top lip removed and renumbered back to a BR one. A new kit was brought (well a few actually – saves on postage!) and a second attempt made using cut down spare ends from a Parkside 12t van kit. The BR version is at the back. Theres a few other differences too like the bang plates for the doors, the shape of the panelling on the ends and the braces under the door.

The finished wagon in the company of yet another D2150 13t open.

The BR wagon has had a Rumney models sheet rail added and been mated with a clasp brake chassis to produce a D1/040 variant. Buffers are from Lanarkshire Models.

Moving on to a couple of hoppers. First up the Accurascale 24.5t hopper which i picked up cheaply from a private sale on Western Thunder. It came in brown livery and with a certificate saying it was a limited edition number 061 of 500. If this sort of thing matters to you and you have one you will be pleased to know that your model is now even more limited being 1 of 499 (You’re welcome!). It was separated into its component parts (a process that had already started in the box) and the body resprayed. These are not a straight drop in wheels job as the axles used are a little short and theres a boss on the back of the W-iron, much like Lima was doing 40+ years ago. Its not a huge problem though as a few turns of a bearing cutter (I use Ed’s tool) and a little bit of thinning the boss down and off you go. I also cut off the NM pockets.

What is a little bit more of an issue is it doesn’t weigh anything, just 21 grammes out of the box. Obviously if you plan to run your wagons loaded no problem but if you want them empty (as did ) then a little bit of trickery is required.

My solution was to make new lower sides from 1mm lead. This brings the wagon up to 50 grammes. If you would like to follow suit I drew up a little cutting template which you can download from here

Another parkside 21 tonner based on a picture that came up on my facebook feed. (some of the wagons in the post are waiting a delivery of couplings you may notice). Theres often a discussion when these kits crop up that they are difficult to build but they really aren’t. The trick is to assemble a side and end as 2 pairs on a piece of glass with a cutting matt to ensure they are square, let these set fully before assembling the rest of the wagon and theres no problems Any slight gaps between the panels can be filled from the inside using Mr Surfacer 1000 liquid filler.

Now a few oddballs – this is an ex L&Y diagram 81 loco coal wagon from the old MAJ models kit. The kit is supplied with a wooden chassis which is correct for the earlier wagons but i wanted the later one so only used the body. The brake gear on these were a little weird to say the least

The plan is to have a short train of condemned wagons that is delivered to the yard as a trip working from Bescot. These are then to be collected by one of the Round Oak locos to be taken away for scrapping and the metal bits melted down in the furnaces. This is basically what happened and quite a few locos met their fate this way in real life. Unlike some of the more famous railway scrap yards stuff didn’t hand around for long so nothing from my scrap train will have any hope of reprieve sadly. The condemned markings are from Railtec,

Another victim this time a GWR diagram 04 open from the cooper craft kit. Like another Coopercraft kit I’ve built this has the bearing holes mounted too low meaning that the wagon looked like it was on stilts. This one has slightly odd brake gear as well. You can just make out the old GW branding.

The LMS traction truck has finally been mated with its load.

Also based on a picture that cropped upon my facebook feed is this Borail from the Cambrian kit. Making the load was far from the most interesting task I’ve ever done I can tell you and despite it being essentially hollow this wagon still hovered up 5 meters of rail!

Its all gone a bit Eastern Region

Over the last week or so Ive embarked on another test build for Brassmasters. This time a J17 kit thats been designed by David Barham. Its not really any use for Brettell Road but it would fit North Elmham (which I have been know to help out with).

The basic chassis build with a High level Loadhauler gearbox. The loco and tender use CSBs throughout. The kit will be supplied with both printed and etched brake shoes.

The tender subframe – Again with options on the brake shoes.