Atlantic's works: Portable layout - Scenic details next

[Bill Bedford]

Yes i think its Cam Camwell the photographer and there are black and whites from the opposite side this is the first colour shot ive seen. I thought you would be interested in the wagons. If you look almost at the harbour there appears to be a van or grounded body painted green.

This looks too narrow for a van body.

[James Brodie]

going back a few pages-54 I think- the photo of the two brake van ends and one with a white lamp on it--the lamp being use is a loco headlamp-remember the tail lamp version has the shaped carrying handle-fixed side to side and also shaped to be able to hang on a drawhook. The van side lamps their carrying handles went from front to back and had a fixing on each side to fit on a lamp bracket plus could shew lights back and front and alterable with red shades.Hope this is of some help. I don't have a GC van or would be interested in some swivel lamps -but in 0 gauge.
Jim Brodie.

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks Jim, that lamp is one of Springside's so-called tail lamps, complete with red "jewel" lens. Its shape and colour provide part of the motivation and justification for my attempts to produce some lamps in a different (better?) style.

[2512silverfox]

I think that Jim is talking BR for removable side/riding lights. In LNER days (and earlier) they were usually fixed and serviced from inside the van - except the GC and sometime GE system where they swivelled.

Returning to your excellent riding lights Graeme, I manufactured mine in a similar manner but used clipped off dressmakers' pins for the two 'bulls'.

Nick

[James Brodie]

No Sir-talking LNER days where the platform brakes had the sidelamps on the coloumns supporting the roof overhangs but do accept that the earlier version van had the side lamps located over the ducket-if fitted-The vessels and shades were all operated from inside the van and their removal was needed because of the fire risk if a vessel had been overfilled or spillage if the guard was trying to fill the vessel without taking it out of the lamp body. sometimes the slides that held the vesel in place got filled with 'muck' and wouldn't slide out very easy-also a bad burning wick filled the van body with fumes making you feel sickly, you didn't het this with outside fitted sidelamps. and then you had to run with the front door part open.I have about thirty assorted vans on my layout and only three of the NER vans have fixed sidelights and a Maryport and Carlisle Van No7 with fixed lamps and a NER BY with fixed sidelights over the ducket. When at work you could identify a modified inside to outside lamp by the wood patches covering the empty space left.
I once remember a fireman calling me over to talk to an AYM at Newport who wanted the fireman to couple the engine to three ex LMS LWB vans to use for a fitted head. The AYM wouldn't listen to the fireman--who at that time would have had 25 years service in. I quietly pointed out to the AYM that the three vans concerned all had white painted vacuum pipes !!! Nice to see authenticity being aimed for.Wish I could build models like these pristine ones shewn in the photographs. Mine 0 gauge models tend to look a bit rough and ready even when newly painted!
We never seemed to get ex GWR vans in our area yet the GW men used to delight in our platform vans. This is only my opinion as the next yard down the line might have had a glut of them....Latter days P/W vehicles excepted.
Jim Brodie.

[Atlantic 3279]

Although it may not have appeared in my photos, the cabin door on the end of my Airfix Toad D opposite the (wrong, and to be changed) tail lamp is modelled slightly ajar. I am therefore indebted to Jim for providing a new (to me) and fascinating possible prototype reason for this

[Atlantic 3279]

In some ways it seems a shame to weather vehicles when time and care has gone into creating nice details and liveries, but for realism I have thrown some grime at the collection of brake vans and insulated vans that I have been tinkering with since last December.

Note the end door ajar, to vent the fumes from the troublesome riding lamps, when I eventually fit them.....

And yes, I was too late spotting that the GC brake's middle wheelset was off

[Atlantic 3279]

So I hope these will show that I can put the wheels on the track

[Atlantic 3279]

By the way, I'll be fitting most of those basic square riding lamps to my vans in the next day or two. Although I'll have a few left for a while, it may not be at all tempting for me to make a mould and resin copies once my number of originals is reduced, since I'll then be able only to make a mould that will cast a very few at a time, which isn't very economic. Should anybody want some lamps in resin, now is the time to speak up........

[James Brodie]

Lovely models and very good detail, may I ask and forgive me if I am presuming too much.....do you intend to paint the vacuum standpipes white on the vans that do not have vacuum cylinders under them?
The signalman fraternity will tell you if you were running an Aberdeen to KX fish train that the bell signals altered between a fitted van on the end of the train to a piped van on the end of the train. naturally these fully fitted trains only had tail lamps and no side lamps. If for any reason an unfitted van was at the end then tail and side lamps would be displayed.
Just to be contrary I was brought up on the footplate where we didn't use vans on the rear of our trains, daytine a red flag was slotted onto the rear vehicle coupling and in darkness the tail lamp was hung on the drawhook-hence the peculiar shape of the carrying handle.
My ambition is to build a model of the SR bogie freight brake van.
Happy 'van' building....Jim Brodie.

[Atlantic 3279]

Hello again Jim,

Thank you for your comments. Thanks to those, and to re-reading the advice you gave Richard a while ago in connection with lamps for his NE V1 van, I am learning more about the proper use of ridings lamps by the minute. None on a fully fitted fish then, just the tail lamp?
I regret that I shall have to fall short of providing my lamps with white aspects as well as reds, and rotating internal shutters are right out .
As far as I know, all of my brake van models with pipes represent fully fitted types, even if in one case (the GC brake) I don't know where the vacuum cylinder should be and hence haven't fitted one - it would be difficult to see one anyway with so much hiding the underside of that van from view.
I must also apologize (to anbody who has noticed) for my failure to add the authentic words "Not to run in express trains" to the livery of my GN ten-tonner (so why was it vac-fitted?). I had no intention of attempting freehand 000 brush work or a forlorn struggle with a pen to produce the words. I suppose I could have made a transfer with a red-brown background to frame the white (uncoloured paper) lettering, but were the ink to subsequently fade it would look a bit odd. I can probably get away with it if the ink fades on my "fish" plates, as these are raised separate features on the doors of the modified F10 insulated van.

[James Brodie]

Hello young sir,
ANY fully fitted train -just the tail lamp on the rear of the van (there are exceptions to everything)-
I can do you an e mail if you wish to guide you on some of the aspects of running lamps.
Look under your models and if a brake cylinder is fitted then red train pipe , no cylinder white train pipe. just as a rule of thumb. I presume your lovely models are 4mm scale?
Regards Jim brodie.

[S.A.C. Martin]

There's a thread over on RMweb talking about the P10 tank engine, so I went back to take a look at yours Graeme - still stuns me, the final product. Did you end up selling it after all?

[Atlantic 3279]

Thanks for the further brake and lamp comments Jim. Am I correct in thinking that on the pre-WW2 LNER brake vans "as built", even if the fully fitted train required no riding lamps to be shown after dark, the lamp casings would still be there, bracketed to the van sides, but with no light showing to the outside? Hence from my modelling-only point of view it makes little or no difference what the train might be, as the brake van will appear to have (unlit) riding lamps anyway????

So the P10 has reared its ugly head again has it Simon. I'll try to have alook at the thread in question. That indirectly raises a point that occasionally proves awkward enough to annoy me: Have you (and others) also found that the internal search engines on websites such as this cannot/will not look for entries such as "A1", "B12", "P10", which is not very helpful given the LNER classification system for locos? Or am I doing something stupid (as usual)?

I still have the P10, hardly used. The e-Bay bidding never got anywhere near to the amount that I thought would cover the time and effort that I had put into the conversion process. Given the colossal amount that somebody paid for the P10 model that Vectis sold, I was a bit disappointed, but I'll live.

[madusjockus]

Graeme- excellent work on the GCR Brake Van- glad it agrees with the drawing in Model Railway Constructor courtest of Nick Campling
On a more serious note the drawing doesn't show any underframe components so either Campling didn't have the details available and didn't want to make them up OR they are hidden behind everything else as you have surmised.

Cheers
Mad Jock