West End Workbench

[jwealleans]

Cheers, George. All the ones I spotted are Gresley Quad or Quint Arts, so a bit more modern than this set. All useful stuff to store away, though.

[jwealleans]

Been a bit of a hiatus and frankly not the greatest Christmas one could have wished for. Back to the bench now, though and starting to pick things up again. Earlier in the week Mrs. W and I had the pleasure of an afternoon with 2750 of this parish. He asked me to bring some goods stock to run on his layout which as the sharp eyed will note represents the little-known GWR branch through Amazonis Planitia, in the shadow of Olympus Mons.

We ran my weedkilling train - maybe on a trial with the GW with an eye to taking over the contract?







We also ran some goods stock.







Note the excellent ModelU figures visible in this shot. Having met both subjects, they really are very lifelike.



For my own part I have been doing bits and bobs with one eye on the next Grantham outing. The triplet (Diagram 218K) is pretty much externally complete and the interiors are in progress. Running trials to follow.

[Atlantic 3279]

Looks like the triplet was worth the trouble.

Chin up, as they say.

[manna]

G'day Gents

I have to agree, it's turned out well, now how about some ridged eight wheelers, articulated...........only kidding

manna

[Woodcock29]

Manna

You shouldn't be kidding - I know Jonathon has some rigid eight wheelers as part of a quad and so do I.

Andrew

[manna]

G'day Gents

Well, what are you waiting for..................Easter !!

manna

PS Saw hot crossed bun in the supermarket today

[jwealleans]

I'm not the only one who has an artic set with some of those in either. What I'm waiting for... well, a replacement soldering iron for almost a week, but it has now turned up juts in time for me to go back to work.

[LNER4479]

Manna

You shouldn't be kidding - I know Jonathon has some rigid eight wheelers as part of a quad and so do I.

Andrew

And me. To be part of a Quint for the Nottingham services. eta approx. 12 months.

[Dave S]

I have the etches too. I have to clear the bench before I do them so others will finish before me.

I saw a part built underframe yesterday and looked to be going together nicely.

[Atso]

Lovely job on the triplet! I look forward to seeing in the flesh next time Grantham appears at a show I can get to!

[jwealleans]

Thank you, Steve. The St. Neots show at Huntingdon is our next outing, in March. After that you'll have to wait until Hartlepool in October.

I've been catching up on a few jobs for other people this week. I was asked to fit some extra pickups to the G5 we use on Pilmoor. While I was on I also wanted to replace the 'slipped' number which has been irritating me for quite some time. This should make the problem apparent:



I've not seen one do that without coming off, but there is was. They were all removed, replaced with the correct size numerals and varnished.



We had a session stock testing on Grantham at the weekend, where the triplet was tried out successfully. Also under test and being marshalled into replacement sets, two carriages I built to replace the ones we lost after Warley:



GN D 277 BT. I'd like to thank Bill Bedford for making this available to us. It's been built very much as intended except that I used brass bogies. No issue with the resin ones, but I had modified these to take a Kadee box.

I also had access to the Luggage Composite kit which Bill does. Here it is along with a brass one, also by Bill, for comparison.





I can see the attraction of these resin kits, they're very quick to put together and fit really well. I still enjoy the process of soldering personally, but these are a very good idea well executed.

There haven't been enough wagons recently, so here's a very garish one.





This is the tool van (or whatever it was used for) from the Chipman weedkilling train illustrated a few posts ago. I found pictures in a collection of photos of Southern wagons some time ago and have been awaiting the Cambrian kit to butcher it. I still have to make lettering for it and tone down that very bright colour (it was described as 'mid green'). It will darken down once I set to on it. The original van is an LSWR outside framed meat or butter van (you can tell by the extra vents).

While I was up at Grantham I was able to browse through a large collection of wagons brought by Barry and relieve him of a few. I thought some of you would be interested (Dave?)



ex-GE gas tank, very nicely scratchbuilt in plastic. Once the brakes are sorted out I'll probably run this on Wickham Market. This is illustrated and drawn in LNER Wagons Volume 1.



Flat DV, again nicely scratchbuilt in brass with D & S castings. You can see where I've reattached the brake lever.

Lastly, a question. Did Dan Pinnock build wagons on commission? I will ask him when I next speak to him, but the reason for the question is this.



It's unmistakably an MAJ Lancs & Yorks one plank wagon, but underneath...



I shall be intrigued until I find out. I'm assuming the '78' indicates the year of building.

[JASd17]

Jonathan. Yes Dan did produce wagons on commission.

Indeed, his first venture into mass production was when he realised he needed to produce a good number of early pattern LNER Fish Vans for a particular customer; guess who? Not unlike Graeme of this parish?

He continued with plastic for a while, I have some GC carriage kits from that time.

I think there are some reviews in the modelling press around 1976-8.

John

[Atlantic 3279]

The season of long nights, miserable grey days and general gloom has not been wholly unproductive I see, and now we can look forward to gradual improvement too, thank goodness......

[Dave]

You just can't have enough carriages and wagons, and variety too,
what better way to spend your time on (excluding brunettes).

[Atso]

Looking good Mr W. Looking at the two Luggage Composites, I'm guessing that the resin version is in the top picture and the brass one below it. I thought these look really quite neat when I saw Bill's pictures on the dark side and you're teaking abilities have really brought out the best in them.

Please do tone down that green though!