Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Atlantic 3279]

Aha! B12 chassis, now there's a thought......

As I have already suggested to Earl Marischal, I believe another option with the pacific chassis is to oust the 17mm wide Hornby motor (X4026?) and do some adaptation to a Mashima 14 x 16 x 28 (+/-2)mm flat-can. Both have 2mm shafts. The boss at the end of the Mashima can that has the screw-holes in it needs a simple collar to enlarge it to about 4.5mm dia. This will become the front end of the motor in the new application. The brush-holder end of the case (the plastic bit) needs layers of "hole in the middle" plastikard adding to it to extend the motor to the same length as the Hornby motor, the final layers of this plastic needing to mimic the boss-with-flats at the rear of the Hornby motor. As far as I can envisage the Mashima should then fit straight into the Hornby brackets - just connect the wires up the right way round, stick a dollop of goo under the motor too if you want to fully emulate the Hornby mounting method, and I hope all should be well.

Orrrr......get rough with a slim-motored 4-4-0 chassis by pillar-drilling a new axle hole,

orrrr......get some brass sheet out, scribers, files, rule, top hat bearings, soldering iron etc, and make your own frames, to match either a suitable set of Gibson rods or "some made earlier" from finescale nickel silver rail or what have you,

orrrr.....as this loco and tender can justifiably be permanently coupled, bung the big motor in the tender and run a flexible driveshaft (say some steel piano wire?) through from the motor to the in-loco gearbox. Then give the loco the Al Capone treatment (fill it full of lead).

[Atlantic 3279]

Yet another thought. B12 chassis with narrow motor offers convenience, but probably not such sweet low speed running. The last one of the most modern Hornby B12s I saw still had only single reduction gearing, and not much reduction at that - although exactly such a chassis sits beneath my B4 Immingham class.

[52D]

Ive been looking at St Js drawing and trying to work out how the tender is connected to the loco, are there one or two pivot points. I can see what seems to be a fairly substantial pivot under the cab did everything rely on this?

[Saint Johnstoun]

The engine's articulating casting rested upon that of the tender which was in turn supported by the booster bogie. All three had a common pivotal centre which was 13 feet to the rear of the trailing coupled axle centre. (52mm in OO).
What you see on the side of the bogie frame is a steam connection to the booster.

[52D]

Thanks SJ another mystery solved.

[Saint Johnstoun]

Two Shire bodies arrived today and it looks as if the rear part of the loco can be dealt with by simply leaving the footplate and splashers where they are (removing and filling in the splashers next to the cab) and working with the second body forward of that point. Chimney and dome will need to be replaced with more suitable ones I think.

I'm going to have a go at creating the loco body before I attempt anything else! I will post photos as I work on it, as I will also do with my 4-8-2 which is now progressing.

[Saint Johnstoun]

Yeadon 31 arrived today with details of C7 and C9 Atlantics.

Readers beware - Yeadon wrongly describes the tender bogie as being two fixed wheelsets. RCTS describes the construction in detail and both booster and tender bogies were fitted.

[CVR1865]

There seems to be an O4/8 conversion in this months Model Rail, by a Mr. G. King.....

[Atlantic 3279]

There is indeed. Thanks for noticing and mentioning it. I was actually quite "chuffed" with the presentation when I first saw it, after fearing that the editing might have really knocked the stuffing out of it. Within the dictated space limits and requirement to conform to house-style in Model Rail, I suspect it is probably about as good as it can be as a condensed piece, though inevitably one or two fairly important points in the text have not survived, and the picture sizes are a bit restrictive. It is slightly odd, possibly even disappointing, to see that the key pictures for the main conversion are smaller than the optional add-ons for the alteration / improvement of tender, slidebar and pony truck details.

I've spent much of this week trying to shake off fatigue, get back up to normal levels of modelling speed and enthusiasm, re-make some moulds for resin pacific parts, and add a couple of new moulds for both "tall" and "shallow" elongated steam-collector covers (i.e. Banjo domes that aren't actually banjo / tear drop shapes). Discussion mid-week revealed that the etchings for valve gear, smoke deflectors and so on have been held up by the fact that certain computer programs can't understand one another, but all is not lost, not yet anyway.

Now this image may not look very exciting, but it is of significance. I've spent some time this afternoon cutting and shaping some 15 thou brass accurately into this channel shape with rounded lower edges. So at last I've made a start on a master for those 40 ton bogie coal wagons!

[Atlantic 3279]

Here's the basic wagon shell, with ends soldered in place, sitting temporarily on two neatly moulded one-piece-frame Cambrian LNER bogies. These may not be my final choice - they are more finely moulded than the Parkside multi-piece version but the centre spring and bolster detail isn't right for these wagons.
My plan now is to clad the exterior of this shell in thin plasikard to create the appearance of panels, doors, framework and rivets. A further interior lining of plastikard may be called for to bring the sides up to a thickness that will cast and survive satisfactorily. There will be no internal representation of the framework and the doors (which would call for rather awkward-to-create squared lower edges to the body space behind the doors) so fully-loaded operation or inspection by a blind eye will be necessary!
The cantilever frames to the wagon sides should be 4 inches wide, and the sloping sections of these below the wagon body, running down to the central girder, should be (inverted) T section, with free space above. For the resin copies of the master wagon I had thought about casting these integrally, with a thin web above (to be knocked-out or ignored after casting), but I think the potential for trapped bubbles in the thin T-sections &/or for breakage of these on trying to remove the web will be too great. I now plan instead to arrange for the sloping parts of the cantilevers to be added on after casting. Both 3/64" (scale 3.57" width) and 1/16" (scale 4.76" width) T section material is available fairly readily in both the Plastruct and Fine Brass ranges, so I'll have to decide whether to slightly over-represent or slightly under-represent the width of the more highly visible upright parts of the cantilever frames - or just hpoe that the mis-match won't show, largely hidden under the edges of the body.

[S.A.C. Martin]

Looking very bulky there Graeme - will go nicely with the Great Central Baldwin when complete, I am sure!

[Manxman1831]

Looking very nice there.

[WOOTANG]

atlantic
it may be a stupid question but what would the main load be for a wagon like that

[Manxman1831]

Coal from Yorkshire going overseas at the docks at Immingham.

[Bill Bedford]

Coal from Yorkshire going overseas at the docks at Immingham.

Errrn no

They were always used for loco coal. There was no way of unloading them at any port.