West End Workbench

[Woodcock29]

Lovely coaches as always Jonathon.

I presume the bodies for the twin are also from Bill Bedford?

Woodcock29

[LNER4479]

LNER4479 is speechless

[Atlantic 3279]

I too was thinking that the carriage works had been quite busy!

[52D]

Sorry JW I got myself confused between Marske and Saltburn.

[jwealleans]

I did wonder, George.

Andrew, the twin is a BB kit, with the required additional parts from MJT.

[jwealleans]

I seem to have skipped a few steps in preparing these carriages, but I was working up to a deadline. This weekend was the Grantham running session in preparation for Stafford show. While I do enjoy building models, it's very satisfying to see them doing what they were designed for in an authentic looking setting. This was also the first chance I've had to see the layout back up and with all the winter scenic developments in place.



View from the north end looking towards the tunnels. This area has been transformed beyond all recognition in the time I've been coming up here.



Of course, what I was really interested in was the new CCT in the 'Scotch Goods'.





I can see the opportunity for some really nice photographs at this end of the layout.

Now, we don't run anything on the layout which hasn't been tested in advance. Here Mr King's latest addition to the fleet is being put through its paces. An ambitious attempt at a 9 car express was beyond it so a more moderate load was made up.



In the background LNER4479 is bracing himself to tell one of the GN 4-4-0s that it's redundant....



I hadn't realised that I hadn't put photos of the latest batch of carriages up since they were lettered and varnished. This is the ex-GN twin...



... and D37A BTK (5). The aim is to have all of these glazed and externally finished by Stafford.

[All thumbs]

Do you know if Graeme has discussed a time scale for resin casting the smokebox door?

Or maybe Tom F can talk to his ModelU friend about a 3D replacement... But whose face?

[jwealleans]

Oh, there'd only be one candidate. But I daren't say who - I'd get detention.

[Atlantic 3279]

Hmmm, a fascinating idea.....

[jwealleans]

Well, here we are back after a long absence. I expected a bit of a hiatus as I had a number of shows grouped closely together, but after Stafford I came down with a really nasty virus which has taken weeks to fully shake off (and even now I still get the odd coughing fit). That rather put a spoke in my wheels as far as getting on with anything major went. I did a little tinkering with wagons but only in the last few days have I really felt like getting on with anything.

So, wagons. I had accumulated a number which really only needed small repairs and refinishing, from Ebay and a number of other sources, so they came out one by one and were attended to. Some will do for Grantham, others were just to make space in the 'pending' trays.



These D & S GN 19' vans will go well either in the Scotch Goods or at a push in the meat empties train.



The refrigerated and fish variants of the 19' van . The Refrigerated came to me via Honest Baz and needed the W iron reattaching at one end. Even after that it ran like a dog and so now has a pair of Bill's sprung units on which it glides effortlessly along. Completely transformed. The fish is a Jidenco (I think) which I picked up off the second hand stand when the EMGS had their AGM in Thirsk. I had to make the very characteristic bent straps at the bottom of each door and there's also a very prominent chain fastening to add.



Another two, one for the meat, the other for the Scotch Goods. The Perishable van is the D & S kit - 51L do the NER version which had cupboard doors. One or two of those might be coming along in the future. The GN fruit van was also an EMGS stand find. I do like outside framed vans.



A pair of ex-NER fish vans. I see one of the transfers has pulled up, have to attend to that. This kit is still in the 51L range.



The LNER standard fish van, a very common and useful design. Sadly I don't believe this kit is currently available.



GC fish van - I think this was Dan Pinnock's first cast kit? This was an earlier one as all the planking was plastic. The one I had directly from him much later had brass strip. The L & Y Diagram 3 van was a find at Spalding, just a bag of unlabelled bits. I could see it was pregrouping - Brighton was my first thought - but once built it turned out to be this, by David Geen. I discovered today that it ought to have a horizontal handle on the right had end of the side about a third of the way up.



I think the GC open has been seen before, an Ebay find. The ex-NER open has been refurbished - it was the first whitemetal wagon I built, glued, having bought it from the model shop in Peterborough, now long gone and still missed. I see the proprietor at shows in East Anglia from time to time. I stripped it, soldered it back together and it now awaits a load and weathering. This is also still in the 51L range.



We've had trouble on Grantham with Kadees drooping under load. They tend to be the ones in the NEM pockets and the fact that the pockets start at different heights doesn't help. One of the vehicles under scrutiny has been the Hornby LMS horsebox which runs at the head of the KX-Holgate ECS. It was a quick and dirty way to get a Kadee onto that end of the train (it has an engine change) but I've not managed to pack and persuade it up to the right height. This is the replacement, a D & S NER D 67 box. The Kadee (147-ish) is mounted in a 252 box and has much less vertical movement. This will be tested at the next running session in June.



I've had a fit of conscience about this, which I've had for getting on 3 years. I agreed to backdate it to LSWR condition for Ormesby Hall and finally made a start over the winter. I now need to fit proper couplings, reunite it with its chassis and complete the detailing - there's a donkey pump to fit on the other side and the pipework was different at that time. For the purists, I have chosen not to shorten it by 4mm, I thought that might weaken the front bufferbeam unacceptably.



Lastly, I stopped work on the trio of Atlantics I was doing to ensure that all the required carriages were ready for Grantham's outing to Stafford. That now over with, I dug 706 out of the box again this afternoon. Not much visible progress here but the rods have been refitted, loco-tender electrical connection is in place and it's been test run on the little test track. I had some trouble with the (homemade) trailing truck derailing on pointwork so I've put a centring spring onto it. We'll give this a run next Monday and see how it goes. The two C1s are nearing the top of the pile again as well.

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

Are the teaks lined?

[jwealleans]

What ho, BB, nice to hear from you. They are all lined (as corridor stock in 1938, they couldn't be unlined) and I'll be making interiors soon, quite possibly this week, so they'll be illustrated again fairly shortly.

Today what modelling time there was was spent on the C7. There are a multitude of pipe runs on the loco which I wanted to fit after lining as it would have all been in the way otherwise. I've left it all unpainted for the photos below:





The bunch of pipes on the LHS will be attached after painting. The pipe run goes along the handrail - it may have been attached to the stanchions - and there was no way I was going to manage to paint those without getting it all over the lining with them in situ. Irritatingly, I found my Railmatch Doncaster Green had dried up when I went to use it after taking the photograph, so there will now be a short delay while I source a replacement.



I also did some wagon repairs to the Grantham stock - a W iron had come off a cattle wagon and these grain hoppers had never been glazed. To be correct for the LNER era the end windows need to be reinstated but I had no liquid glazing until Nottingham show. While I had them in hand I also cut back the weathering - the photo has brought out the red tone over the rest, but they were too heavily done and needed a bit of cleaning up.

[jwealleans]

Now then, BB, in answer to your question about the carriages. I dug out the ones which were sans interiors over the weekend - I built them in a bit of a hurry for Stafford and so now's the time to finish them off.

I batch built a set of BCK interiors last year and ended up with two over. One was from a Hornby, which came with the interior, but I had to look at them all to find the other, which was 42777, Teak set 5 formation 1, KX - Newcastle.



This is from a Kirk kit. The seats and pictures are to be added to the basic interior.

I have since made up two new interiors for the two 5 compartment BTKs I made up:



41358 works KX - Leeds in Set 5 formations 2 and 3 and may also feature in the final formation 1. This is an MJT kit with replacement sides from Bill Bedford.



The other side of 41355, which works KX - Hull in Set 3 formation 2. This is a Kirk kit which I understand is no longer able to be produced.

[jwealleans]

Some interiors now complete and in place. Firstly, the TO half of the twin which I note is at the top of this page in primer. This is a GN D218CC, from one of Bill's kits finished with MJT components.





Secondly D 151 RTP. Bill's sides on an MJT structure.





I have since moved the interior along a little as it had slid out of place.

Finally, I've been working on a Beattie well tank for Ormesby Hall, backdating to LSWR condition and livery. I took it for a test run on Monday. The smokebox door was still in works having a new dart fitted, but clearly the resultant hole offended someone's eye as when I looked again it had been modified:



I hope to have this in service fairly soon. With the smokebox door refitted.

[Atlantic 3279]

I know somebody who could take a professional photograph of that for you.