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The Other Auto-coach
Some time back I posted about the construction of a NER autocoach that I was building for Benfieldside and subsequently what it looked like once painted by Warren Heywood.
The NER generally used these in pairs, with a loco sandwiched between, although they did go out singly and even as quads. In this case, the Benfieldside team wish to operate them as a pair, as the bay to the right of the layout is conceived to receive such a train, with a NER / LNER G6 in between. This means that there was pressure to build the second from the moment I handed the first over. They have recently given me a favour, so it was high time I repaid it.
It is now completed down to the final check over stage (which has indicated that I need to put the steam heating pipes on – doh!) and then it can be delivered. So I have braved the fading light this afternoon (so sorry about some of the depth of field issues) to take a few pictures and to prove to the fellas it is done!
I completed a few personal upgrades to the kit in both this and the earlier autocoach. Chief of these is around the roof where I ditched the plastic roof and replaced it with rolled brass. This was formed of 0.25mm to give it a tangible depth, which makes its rolling a fair challenge. Add to this, I elected to cut out the portion below the clerestory, so that it was a clerestory! By the time I had added the gas lines and the various gas lamps and ventilators, I reckon there is around 20 hours in making the roof alone!
The prototype coaches were fairly long lived and numerous. They thus collected a good number of alterations and differences over time. I took some guidance to David Addyman and tweaked the kit in respect of gas lines, foot steps, handrails, footboards and gas cylinders. If someone thinks this is wrong, please don’t tell me!!
It always amuses me that the driver had to stand and peer down the line through two tiny windows. They lived in different times – could you imagine the snow-flakes tolerating this in the 21st century?
These are rather beautiful coaches, but not for the feint-hearted as there is a lot of time invested in these. I am pleased I do not have to paint it!
News from Miscellany Models
Followers of this blog will have noted that various test builds of my artwork coming together and I am now able to offer a number of these for sale under the name of Miscellany Models.
First up is a Highland Railway/LMS/BR diagram 51 full brake – priced at £48.00 for a 4mm and is suitable for OO, EM or P4. These were the last generation of full brake produced by the Highland, built with both cupboard doors and sliding doors as well as alternative forms of guards duckets (all of these are included in the kit). The kit inclusive of fully sprung Fox bogies (see below), roof, corridor connections (also see below) but all castings and buffers will need to be sourced separately. The castings for the bogies are proposed, but are not presently available.
As was common with many pre-grouping coaches these vehicles utilised Fox Bogies (£16.00) and these are being made separately to the remainder of the kit, These bogies have been developed in conjunction with Justin at Rumney Models and are fully sprung, with both the axleboxes and the bolsters sprung. They really do glide across track and look as if they weigh many tons rather than a few grams! They need castings for your favoured axleboxes/springs and bolsters but do include the foot steps and all of the bogies sides, brakes and details. Suitable for oo, EM and P4.
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The second coach kit is for a MR/LMS/BR: Dia 530 Passenger Brake – priced at £36.00 in 4mm scale (suitable for OO, EM and P4). This prototype was built in some numbers and by the 1920s they were spread extensively across the LMS system. The kit is for full etches covering the roof, body, underframe and footboards plus parts for the sliding central axle included. It needs axlebox/springs (available from Branchlines or Coopercraft), gas lamps, buffers, brake and gas cylinders.
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On the wagon front, there is an etch to detail the NER/LNER/BR: Dia P7 Hopper Wagon – £13.50 4mm (sufficient for two wagons). They cater for a large number of the variants to this numerous and long lasting hopper wagon. Needs wheels and the Slaters kit P7 kit for the donor model. Variants that can be made include the end braked version, improved components for the Morton braked version, outside twin W irons and also the anti-friction wheel device.
All of these are available from my website https://miscellanymodels.com/ and in addition to this from the Rumney Models stand at the following shows – Scalefour North in April, Railex in May, Scalefourum in September and South Hants in November,
All of these have been extensively road tested by me with a couple of test builds for each of them. You can see this unfold on my blog and if you are interested in seeing how they go together do take a look!
Please remember that the availability of these models is an adjunct to my own hobby and this has to be accommodated within the constraints of my day job and general life! In particular I can’t get to post these orders until Saturdays so do please give me a little slack when it comes to getting the goods to you!
Dia 51 Test Build – Fox Heavyweight Bogies
After the painting disaster, I have been working on the latest version of the Fox Bogies. The prototype utilised a patented design with pressed steel plates to form the sides and ends which produced a stiff and resilient frame, better than the other contemporary options. Thus these bogies were very common amongst the pre-grouping companies with most of using them to at least some degree.
Although there are several model manufacturers that produce Fox bogies, there are no versions that use springing which I now prefer. As they were the primary form of bogie used by the Highland Railway, I need a few of them and thus I have been putting some effort into getting a top notch solution. In this regard, I have been assisted greatly by Justin Newitt if Rumney Models whose design of sprung bogie has formed the basis of this.
The model has primary suspension on the pin points based on guitar wire springs,
In addition to this, the design has a sprung bolster, also based on a guitar string suspension.
The castings I have used on these are from Lochgorm Models and the design has been conceived to enable these to be used either retaining their dampers (the cylindrical appendage at the end of the leaf springs) or with replacements that are a little more defined.
The etch is also designed to be provided with full stepboards as below or with only a short section to one end – as they typically were converted to during their life.
There is full brake gear provided, with a little trick where they do not pass under the axle (remember this view is upside down!) – this enables the wheel to be removed if this is required.
This is not the first version of these (don’t accuse me of not test building my designs!) and they are very close to done. The final change is to adjust the primary spring hangers slightly so that they are not visible when they are depressed (you can just see it poking above the sides in line with the axlebox), The advantage of computer drawn artwork is that things like this can be changed relatively easily.
These, and indeed the rest of the dia 51 full brake, will be made available for sale quite soon.
Previous parts to the test build can be found here:
- part 1 – the main body shell of the cupboard door version
- part 2 – the underframe
- part 3 – the second one, the sliding door version
Dia 51 Test Build Part 3 – and then there were two…..!
Following the first test build of the dia 51, I took account of what I had learnt from this and completed various amendments to the artwork. There was nothing truly major, so I was fairly confident that the corrections would get the model to the point where the artwork was done. But of course, to prove this, another test build was required and this is where we got to………..
And this is what it looks like……..quite handsom I think and certainly quite differnt from all the pother stock I presently have.
The eagle eyed will spot that the vehicle is slightly different in that this one has sliding doors, whereas the previous had cupboard doors. The kit is intended to cover both options and does successfully do so.
The ducket also has cut outs for a lamp at its head (a feature of Highland duckets). This proved quite challenging to model and I will avoid doing it again because it seemed to fall out of favour prior to the end of the Highland era so having only one or two would be right for my timeframe.
There remains a bit more work on the bogie to do; they can be made up to work very well but are a little more difficult to build than I had hoped. Once this is cracked, I will be making the dia 51 available for sale.
Dia 51 Test Build – Part 2: Nearly There
I no longer affix roofs firmly to the body of my coaches as makes both the building and the painting much easier. The downside of this is that there is the challenge of keeping the roof on tight without there being any visible joint between the two as this looks terrible. The solution I now use is to clamp this to the floor with 10BA bolts by way of brackets as can be seen in the photograph below.
As built, these coaches had full length step boards but they lost most of these through their life. They were electric fitted from the outset. The chassis below is close to finished except I have run out of vacuum cylinders so these will need to be added, along with the vacuum pipes.
The bogies are also a key part of the proposed kit and are something that I have been working on with Justin Newitt of Rumney Models – the idea being to combine the sprung bogie design that he has prepared with cosmetic etches for the sides and then the castings from Lochgorm Models or perhaps our own in due course. The bogie is quite sophisticated with both primary and secondary springing – the latter is on the bolster and is as below.
The primary springing is on the axleboxes and has bearing carriers, much like the Bill Bedford sprung W-irons. There are still some wrinkles to iron out so it is not there yet but they do make up into some pretty neat bogies; don’t you think?
The only area of the first test build that truly did not work was the corridor connections and it is going to be a case of back to the drawing board for these but other than the final few bits to be completed, the build is finished and I think the vehicle is handsome.
So, off to the paint shops soon, but there is a bit of a holiday to squeeze in first!
Dia 51 Full Brake – Test Build Part 1
Following the last delivery from the etchers, it was time to get on and do the first test builds. First up was the dia 51 Full Brake. This vehicle was one of the later coaches from the Highland Railway and was of similar design to the cove roof corridor coaches that have been available from Lochgorm Models for some time. They were also amongst some of the last highland coaches to service as tool vans etc. This is what one looked like late on in its career after its corridor connections had been removed.
As with my efforts for the scrap tank, I am seeking to try and be a bit smarter with some of the kit design to draw together ideas of assembly of my own and also those of others. So starting with the ends, these will be made with a double skin to both provide the footsteps and, less commonly, some tabs to allow the sides to be secured to them.
I have always found that too many etched coaches have flimsey sides that become distorted as they are made (or when ham-fisted me does anyway). Therefore, I have designed this such that the head and base of the side have significantly sized stiffening pieces, as can be seen below. These are designed to interlock with the tabs at the ends such that most of the locating of the parts is largely defined by the kits components.
Once the basics of the shell are together, this is what it looks like.
The roof proved to be one of the most challenging parts of the build. I had originally designed this with an inner to form the shape of the roof and then a thinly etched outer layer to go over this to provide the rainstrips and other detail. It proved too difficult to get the two to laminate well or even be rolled to a similar curve.
Instead, therefore, I ditched the outer layer and relied only on the inner. This had been half etched on the underside to assist its rolling to the curved profile. I found that it was still difficult to roll the roof due to the tightness of the curves at the extremity of the roof but by simply using bending bars it was quite easy to put the curves in with a limited amount of faceting. Faceting is where short straight sections with bends to the next short section that gives the impression of a curve. Once this was then filed on the outside to smooth out the facets, a smooth curve became pretty good. Thereafter, it was necessary to form the rainstrips with wire and file them back to square sections and as you can see, the effect is pretty convincing.
The underframe and bogies are to follow, in part 2.
Goodies – time for some more test building….
I had a delivery at work which was rather more interesting than the average box of lease documents I usually get…………it looked like this.
There are a number of items in this, some parts for some locos I have underway and an attempt to adjust the ECJS 6 wheeled bogies but the key goodies in this are a MR 6 wheeled full brake (to dia 530) and an HR bogie full brake (to dia 51).
The MR full brake should look like this:
and the Highland’s full brake here
So all I need is some time to do some more testing building…………..
Christmas Layout Wiring (Not!)
I promised a number of people that I would be making sure that the layour had at least the main elements wired up over christmas, so that it could at last run. But then it was a bit wet and cold so I did not fancy it out in the summerhouse so I applied rule no 1 – its my trainset!
Instead, I stayed at the bench and made a pair of the signals that still remain to be made for Glenmutchkin. The signalling plan has developed very slightly since I originally showed it back here and is shown below (actually this is the artwork for the control panel facia).
The signals that I built were those that control the main loop prior to the shed link – levelrs 27 & 28 – and then the outer starter (that covers both the main loop and the main line) – levers 23, 24, 25 & 26. Only a pair of two doll signals, I thought, they shouldn’t take more than a day or two? Phew, well that wasn’t right; the more you look at the prototypes, the more you find there is to model!
Having created much of my own etchings and castings for MacKenzie & Holland signals I have obviously made good use of these. In this case, the small brackets, arms, ladders and castings.
Both of the signals have used the small brackets to create smallish landings. The smaller of the two signals has only one arm per doll, the larger two. The dolls and the posts are made up of square brass section which is filed to a taper – a certain amount of elbow grease is needed to acheive this! The posts are then sandwiched between some transom beams that also clasp the doll post – this is all soldered with a high melt solder to stop it ungumming later.
The brackets are then offered up from below, with scrap etch forming the bearing plates to pick up the transomes. In the etch I also included smaller brackets to pick up the free end of the landing, along with the landing itself. This gets you to the stage shown above.
But this is not the half of it on a signal, there are the finials, lamp brackets, lamps, cross stays, access steps, access ladders, pivot plates, handrails, operating cams, safety hoops and ladder still to do………..
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In a departure from my previous practise, I made the main ladders detachable (they will be held with the wire that can be seen in the pictures being turned over in secret pockets. I am also going to paint this prior to the final assembly; which will mean some touching uo of the painting later but I hope will make it easier.
And of course, I had to sign them with these rather nice custom name plaques from NBR 4mm Developments.
This is the first time that I have used the brackets in signal making and I was pretty chuffed with how they have come out. This is where things presently stand and we head for the paint shops tomorrow…….
Going Long…….Part 1; the Underframe.
In comparison to the coaches that I use on Portchullin, most coaches from the 1920s (my chosen period for Glenmutchkin) are shorter and in many cases, even without considering the six wheeled vehicles, a lot shorter. This was driven by the technology and in particular the materials available to the railways of the time. There were exceptions though, and my present build is dealing with one of these – an East Coast Joint Stock 12 wheeler.
In the early 1890’s, the journey north was all about speed and culminated in the Railway Races to the North where the rival east and west coast companies competed to get their services to Aberdeen first. This came to an abrupt end in July 1896 when a west coast train took curves too fast at Preston and left the rails. Although the loss of life was relatively limited (for the time), excessive speed as a result of the desire to “speed to the north” was firmly blamed. As a result, the competing companies agreed no longer to race each other and instead sought to compete on the basis of the quality of their service and the luxury of their trains.
A GNR small altlantic hauling an ECJS express at the turn of the 19th Century made up predominantly of 12 wheeled stock
One product of this competition were some really fine 12 wheel coaches built for the East Cost Joint Stock Company (which was a joint company with the GNR, NER & NB contributing to the cost for trans-company trains). Built from 1896 onwards, these were several different lengths (this particular example was 66’11″) but all were long, seeking to use length and mass to iron out any track irregularity. To support this length of coach, six wheeled bogies were used, although these were rather infant in their design and used big transverse leaf springs as bolsters. In addition to being really characteristic and obvious – so they need to be modelled – I suspect they gave a somewhat bouncy ride!
Barry Fleming’s scratchbuilt body and part completed roof
I have been given a big headstart on this build by virtue of being given a nearly complete body/roof for a luggage composite (diagram 6 for those in the know). This was scratchbuilt by the late Barry Fleming in the 1980s and is a class bit of modelling! Barry gave it to my father, along with a couple of other coaches, to complete but as he has not managed to get this particular one, he has passed it to me to have a bash!
My etchings back from PPD
One of the reasons that this model was put to the back of the queue previously was that almost none of the parts required to complete it – in particular the bogies – were available, so it was all going to be a scratchbuild. As I was pouring over the drawings and pictures in the bible on things ECJS it dawned on me that the missing parts would be best dealt with as an etch and given my developing skills in etch designing, I might was well have a go. This is the product, an underframe, some cosmetic bogie sidesand some underframe details fresh back from the etchers.
The basic underframe has fold up solebars and buffer beams. Each of these also has integral fold over layers to laminate on the cosmetic exterior. This just about worked for the solbars but definitely did not for the buffer beams which distorted due to their thinness. I will make these seperate pieces next time, but might use folding jigs.
Coaches of this era tended to have four truss rods, each with a pair of queen posts. Stealing an idea from Alistair Wright’s designs, I made the queen posts up by a long etch that has a half etch length to wrap around the wire used for the tie rod. By folding this over the wire and then laminating the two parts together, a robust and simple post can be created. As it is two layers soldered together, it has the strength to allow it to be filed to a round shape to create the appearance of the original.
Although originally gas lit, by the time I will be modelling this vehicle it was electrically lit. Whilst I probably could have bought cast batter boxes, I decided to include them in the etch and very pleased I am too – they have come out much more crisp than any of the castings I have seen and were really easy to both draw and make. The remainder of the fittings seen here were bought in castings though, typically from Comet Models (now distributed by Wizard Models).
And this is where the underframe has presently progressed to.
I will describe the building of the bogies in the next installment, they are not for the faint-hearted!
Scrap Tank Test Build Part 9 – Finishing the Body
I have now had the castings back for the various fittings for the Scrap Tank; the masters being in part my own 3D prints and some turnings that I commissioned from Jeremy Souter. This is what they look like:
I did not seek to do everything for the whole model as some parts are available from other suppliers and I did not want to duplicate their work. Thus, I needed to get the safety valve/safety valve bonnet from Alan Gibson, a smokebox door from Lochgorm, a whistle from Markits and smokebox door handles from Comet.
Once these, along with the remaining handrails, were fitted, the body is complete and it certainly appears to be taking on the character of the real thing so far as I am concerned!
So next up will be the cylinders, crosshead and connecting rods!
highland miscellany 