Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Ground Signals Again

[Atso]

Hi Graeme,

I think that you'll not be fully satisfied if you didn't shorten the body to the correct length. You've got more than enough skill (more in your little finger than I'll ever hope to achieve!) to be able to pull it off - I say go for it!

[Atlantic 3279]

Well, erm, I may have found a dodge or three to alleviate the pressure to reduce the length for the sake of a proportionate appearance. I'd mentioned that height of the side had also been lost, aggravating the problem, but I have now taken steps to increase the real and the apparent height:
1. I've found some Gibson 14mm 10 spoke wheels in my spares boxes and fitted these - a cheap and convenient move.
2. The kerb rail under the verandah entrances was rather heavily moulded, protruding above the floor. The Elf 'n' Safety man wouldn't like the trip hazard for the guard on his way out, so I've filed the rails flush with the floor, and this has opened up the scope for adding another strip of 30 thou plastic to the bottom edge of each side. The whole length of the kerb rail now looks a better depth, the side taller, and more of the depth of the solebar is quite correctly masked.
3. Tatlow's old "Pictorial Record/Overview" volume contains two images of these vans in LNER livery, and I would say that in both cases the cast numberplate on the solebar definitely looks a darker colour than the solebar itself. That gives me an excuse to paint the solebars and headstocks in body colour rather than black, which I feel will further increase the apparent height of the sides.

I'll soon have to change the buffers too. The Bachmann mouldings are too stumpy, have square bases, and are set too far apart which makes it difficult to trim down the ends of the headstocks enough to get the right width. In this case I don't have quite the right ones in my spares box - you don't get lucky twice in an evening - but I do have some turned bases and separate heads which can be adapted.

[Atlantic 3279]

It turns out that there may be an extension, or at least a variation to my brake van building list, as whilst rummaging around for parts I reminded myself that I have an old McGowan w/m kit for a GNR 10 ton brake, and a Jidenco kit for a long-desired GC 15/20 ton 6 wheeler. I'll probably continue to sort out the plastic projects first, then hope that the w/m kit is as simple as it looks, and finish with the Jidenco challenge. That ought to hone up my etch handling skills nicely (if it doesn't push me over the edge) in readiness to go straight into the Springside-Wessex-Pro-Scale P2 loco (about which you may notice I've been keeping remarkably quiet since acquiring it nearly two years ago )

But for the time being, back to the NE V4:

[Atlantic 3279]

I changed my mind about the buffers. The separate heads I had weren't a good fit in the unrelated turned sockets, sinking any hopes of easily springing them, so I switched to some similar looking one-piece turned coach buffers and adapted these, turning down the head diameter, turning off the original bases and adding a new collar to represent a round base plus packing piece on a shorter socket. I've filed the ends of the headstocks back fully to the correct position and shape now that the original buffers aren't in the way, and have filed a suitable taper on the end stanchions. The deepening of the kerb rail and filing down of the verandah entrance "step" has been done, adding an overlay to suggest a deeper bottom corner strap at the same time. The Gibson wheels are in and the buffer height seems correct, so must have been too low originally . I've also made some crude/simple plastic overlays for the axlebox fronts to suggest the style shown in Tatlow's pictures. Roof ventilators and chimney have been replaced. With a little difficulty I scribed some horizontal plank lines onto the inner faces of the outer ends, and also added a joint-line across the top of each headstock, near to its upper edge, so as to represent what appears to have been a visible kerb rail across the ends of these vans. In the photos the gap between the body end and the headstock appears ugly and uneven simply because the parts are not yet glued or screwed together.

I still have to add rainstrips (which style?), strapping on the stanchions, lamp irons, handrails, and possibly a brake V-hanger beneath the cabin. I won't try to add the boltheads for the W-iron attachment to the solebars as that would expose the fact that half of the brackets for the footboards are not in exactly the right positions, but I will dig out my old Slater's hopper wagon/V1 brake transfers sheets to see if I can source some rectangular NE numberplates.

[65447]

I still have to add rainstrips (which style)...

I should go with the Ian Sadler drawings - the full length arc. The accompanying photos suffer from 'white-out' at the roof level, but if you look carefully you can make out that most, if not all, give an indication of being fitted with that pattern.

Looking good...

[mick b]

I think your spoilt for choice

Tatlow had drawings :-

ex NER full width curved and curved above verandahs openings

A photo of a ex NER in LNER livery with dead straight above verandahs openings

[65447]

You could make it a 'flattish' arc...

I think that, as at some point the vehicle will have been re-roofed, the canvas re-puttied and/or a rotting rainstrip replaced, you could argue anything.

[Atlantic 3279]

I've gone for the long arc rainstrips, and have now crossed off most of the jobs on the last list, also scribing in a plank joint line on each end above the main look-out from the verandah. I'm just letting my eyes recover and having a bite to eat before I finish the handrails by adding the horizonatal parts to sides and ends. Plotting and drilling all of the holes I have needed, and bending up numerous pieces of wire to suitably shapes has driven me a bit potty - at least for the time being! Okay, I can hear you all now saying "so what's different to usual then?"........

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm afraid I got telly-watching last night so the horizontal handrails will have to be done later today....

However, on another brake van matter: I alluded earlier (elsewhere?) to another early grouping era brake van design that appeared to be basically GNR but with NE style side duckets. A picture had been sent to me by a friend who found it in a book on the history of Birmingham RC&W Co. I have now realised that two images of very similar vans appear as the last two brake van types in a facsimilie copy of the GNR's own "Illustrations of Wagon Stock" book, published by the GNRS. The two illustrated vehicles may actually be alike, although one is specifically listed as "wood framed" whilst the other is not specifically stated to be wood or steel framed. Interestingly, separately tabulated details show that the Doncaster negatives for the two vans are dated May 1918 and May 1921.
These designs could therefore be considered pure GNR rather than post-grouping hybrids as I had previously thought. But was the GNR decision to add duckets, a good decade after the North Eastern had started to do so, made purely to suit its own requirements, or was it necessary to allow vans to work on foreign metals with guards accustomed to duckets?

[65447]

...But was the GNR decision to add duckets, a good decade after the North Eastern had started to do so, made purely to suit its own requirements, or was it necessary to allow vans to work on foreign metals with guards accustomed to duckets?

Unlikely, since only the NER and NBR appeared to favour duckets. The GCR, GER, M&GNR and H&BR, as the immediately adjoining companies, preferred the end verandah, as did the MR. Apart from that, it was general practice not to let 'your' brake vans disappear onto foreign metals. Were they experiments to trial duckets but, if so, why...? Perhaps Tatlow provides a partial explanation, p94 of Wagons Volume 1 if you have it to hand...

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm afraid I'm one of those skinflints who owns only Tatlow's original "Overview" or Pictorial Record volume. Are you willing to enlighten me?

At last, I believe, the V4 van is done, all bar filler, paint and final lashing together. Trimming all the handrails to exact length, bending to shape, spacing with pieces of card and "spot soldering" T-joints in situ was just as time consuming as I expected, but here's the result:

The brake rigging is a bit rudimentary, but it's all cheap DIY from bits of wire and covers all that can be seen in most photos of the real thing!

[Atlantic 3279]

Now time for a quick tour of the existing brake van fleet (omitting a couple of the poorest examples.....)

Parkside Toad B (as built some years ago, not the kit I only recently bought). Very similar to the V4 in appearance but full of a whole host of differences

Airfix/Dapol kit Toad D, built by me when I was playing Mr Lazy and not paying enough attention to prototype info either. Hence the half-hearted division of the moulded handrails rather than proper replacement, still-too-long footboards, a complete lack of attention to roof details, wrong cabin doors and inappropriate platform end weights. I must either re-visit this one or build another

Slater's NE diag V1

Ditto with added scratchbuilt side duckets, inspired by a picture in a book on the history of the Rosedale Mines and Railway. Don't bother checking all of the details or the number, as this was built long before I had access to Ian Sadler's excellent book on NE brake vans

[Atlantic 3279]

D & S etched kit for ex GNR 8 wheel 20 tonner

Scratchbuilt plastikard attempt at an MS&LR 25 ton bogie brake of a type built in 1887. The model isn't very detailed and contains a certain amount of conjecture and error, as when I built this 15 or more years ago I had rather less information about these vans than I have subsequently acquired. Apparently they were built for mineral service on the heavily graded lines in south Yorkshire. Whether such a van would still be in traffic use and livery in the late 1930s I do not know although photos do show that one such van was still in Immingham's breakdown train in the 1950s. Again I am sure the number is wrong. so don't worry!

[mistahjim]

This is all very inspirational, I think my GNR ballast brake has just moved up the list... darn it I need to sort out my work room...

[Atlantic 3279]

V4 brake van now looking rather orange in this photo, wearing its second light coat of "red oxide" Halfrauds primer:

The first coat had revealed some pinholes in the surface of the resin ducket copies, now filled. I'm thinking in terms of an in-service grey finish for the roof rather than pristine (or even weathered) white. Setting aside any dispute about the correct colour for the "steel but looks like wood" solebar and headstock structure (and I suppose the buffer sockets too) I also have to consider the question of colour of the step-boards. They will obviously be well worn and weathered, but would they originally have been painted as timber (i.e. red-brown oxide) or as a general part of the black-below-solebars underframe? I refer of course to 1930s LNER practice, I don't care what BR did. I've gone with black on nearly all of my other brake vans, as you can see above, but for some reason when I built the Toad D kit I listened to somebody's view that the boards should be body-colour.

On another matter, this link may be of interest to loco conversion freaks such as myself. It covers a conversion that I was planning to have a go at myself some time, but Hornby produced the RTR option just in time to save me the trouble that this chap went to:
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index. ... chmann-v1/