Someone commented while I was down at Ely helping with the show that I hadn't been posting as much as usual. Well, I have been busy and travelling for work recently, but fundamentally I haven't been doing anything new, just more of the same. However, not wanting to disappoint a clearly eager public, I made sure I took some pictures last night. I had a session a couple of weekends ago making corridor connectors. This was the last thing a number of carriages needed, including some which had been otherwise complete for a while. You've seen them all before, but I like looking at them, so here they are coupled up to check clearances and the like and in no particular order:
Still in works is the Kemilway GN BCK although the body is largely complete. It really only needs internal handrails and signage. In the background is the 5 compartment BTK, the last of this batch of carriages and now making its way through the paint shop.
Note the naked bogie. Dart Castings have changed the design of the etched 8'6" bogie, doing away with the 'figure 8' hole which allowed two positions for the bearing and etching only one. This has the effect of making the bogie about half a mil higher - not much, but you can see that it shows on the photo. It also means that bogies are no longer interchangeable across the whole of the stock and given the design of Bill's couplings which I use, means that a higher carriage will lift a lower one slightly off the rails, making it easier for it to derail. I know there were height variations on stock, but on models it looks odd. Anyway, they've kindly agreed to make me some more of the old design, but these things take time to come through. That means I currently have five carriages 'awaiting bogies'.
These ought to be ready for Grantham in September. Visible above is the same diagram of carriage from 4 different manufacturers, nicely consistent in appearance. They are fairly readily distinguished when seen close up.
On the subject of bogies, I need to be able to fit Kadees to some of these carriages to allow for engine changes, detaching, etc. I've obtained a couple of packs of Bachmann Gresley bogies from my friendly local model shop and have been working on getting them consistently level with the MJT ones and then fitting a NEM pocket.
This involves cutting out the centre and lowering the level of the central part, then using the gap at one end (where the original tension lock coupling went) to house a NEM pocket. The standard screw-on pocket holder from a Bachmann wagon was too low, being designed to go under a wagon buffer beam. Fortunately a friend gave me some moulded in ones which he'd cut out of a wagon floor and which therefore sit much higher above track level. That was the idea I needed, so a donor wagon was ripped mercilessly apart (it would have had - will have - 3 links fitted anyway):
The coupling mount and base were files down to fit the roughly triangular slot in the bogie and then attached. You can see in the first picture that I've added a layer of plastikard over the top of the hole to give more 'land' for the coupling to adhere to.
After that the presstud has to be soldered to some small pieces of brass (scrap fret) such that it just sits above the level of the central bolster.
It's a bit of a fiddle, but ultimately these will go under almost any carriage and allow them to be coupled/uncoupled as the whim of the Grantham timetablers dictates.
