West End Workbench

[LNER4479]

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.

We had a session stock testing on Grantham at the weekend, where the triplet was tried out successfully.

And here it is under test, with my 6-wheel BT making up a pseudo-Quad set:

[Atso]

We had a session stock testing on Grantham at the weekend, where the triplet was tried out successfully.
And here it is under test, with my 6-wheel BT making up a pseudo-Quad set:

Quad set1_LR.jpg

Nice!

[Atlantic 3279]

I'm wondering if it's a good job we can't see any more of what's in the background of that picture.

[jwealleans]

Well he struggles to keep tidy, someone pinched the hoover.

[LNER4479]

All the best work is done in a sh1t tip. Tidy up and you can never find anything

[Atlantic 3279]

How much of a mess do you need before the art of hiding things completely, in plain view, becomes effective?

Maybe the things I think I'm seeing in that image aren't really there anyway, given that the things I have in mind don't officially exist.

[jwealleans]

Bit of an absence from the bench - things have taken a turn for the busy at work and so I'm not expecting to be overburdened with modelling time for a while just now.

I have managed the odd thing when the opportunity has presented itself: I bought this at Warley wanting to see how it went together and the answer was pretty well for an old kit. This is the R & E Models GC refrigerated van, recently reissued by Brassmasters.



It's put together very much as intended with two slight exceptions - the end ladders are a Wizard etch and the odd axlebox is because I dropped it and the original hurtled off into oblivion. This will be on Grantham at St. Neots and with a fair wind may even be weathered.

With the carriage stock for Grantham all but complete for the moment, thoughts turned back to the stock for Wickham Market. I'd acquired a pair of Comet/MJT kits for Gresley 51' stock some years ago from someone changing scale. One was a D 50 CL. Now, we had one of those already and there's at least one Hornby one been acquired, so the obvious thing to do was to built a D244. For those who don't know, this was the variant built for the GE section with one less first class compartment, so the lav is offset towards one end.



Bill Bedford sides on pretty much everything else MJT except the bogies. I've built up a bit of a stock of 'other' bogies while using MJT ones on Grantham stock, so I'm planning to use a few up on these. In the absence of precise CW documents for the East Suffolk I'm just going from photographs, which show a great deal of non-corridor stock in use. I have a few kits put by so hopefully I can roll a few out by the time we start exhibiting it.

[jwealleans]

Some carriage work which has taken place over the last couple of weeks.



The Lav composite above is pretty well ready for the paint shop.



I built a D 62 (? - is that right) BT from mainly Comet bits. This was part of a bundle of kits and bits which came my way some time ago - there was a J19 in there as well which I built a number of years ago. Maybe it's just what I've got used to, but I don't like these Comet kits as much.


Lastly one which did have me thinking a bit. An Ebay buy last May, one of two D & S North Eastern carriages they were selling and to some extent collateral - I was really interested in the 3 compartment BT which came with it. Remarkably, the Ebay photo is still present:



I thought it was an arc roof vehicle, but set it aside while I rebuilt the other one. It had been glued together, copiously and not too well and so it was stripped and left in a plastic bag until I was idly looking for something to do a few weeks ago. I started putting it back together and wondered what it was. It has a lav, clearly has different sized compartments and was 52' long. Not arc roof, then, that was all 49'. I consulted with Mr. Smart and Mr. Scott of this parish and after debating whether it might be an elliptical roof vehicle but with the wrong ends, eventually we realised that it was a clerestory, but the clerestory roof section was missing.

As luck would have it, Dan Pinnock was at the Huntingdon show at the start of the month and I was able to talk to him and show him the part rebuilt coach. Within a few days I had the missing etch and this afternoon put it together. I made a new roof from brass and then bolted the new section to it. I managed to bow the main roof when attaching it, but I think it will bend out eventually - I've got so far with it already. This will be one of the vehicles cascaded to the GE section, so I shan't be refitting the roof lamps as it will be vac braked and electrically lit, which many were by the end of their lives. Being a lavatory carriage it's ideal for the sort of cross country working I have in mind for Wickham Market and will probably be declassed to an all 3rd.

[JASd17]

Hi Jonathan,

I may have some further information on carriages down-graded to all-thirds. But that will depend on which went to the Eastern Section of the Southern Area.

I think it would be fair to say that Mr Scott actually worked out the clerestory conundrum.

Cheers,

Mr Smart

[jwealleans]

Morning John,

Any and all information is welcome. I have Clive Carter's BRJ article on cascading in the 1930s which quotes carriage numbers, so we can establish exactly what vehicles are concerned.

Will you be at Wakefield on Saturday?

[Pebbles]

A complaint from Campsea Ashe!

[jwealleans]

Please state the nature of your complaint, caller?

[JASd17]

Morning John,
Will you be at Wakefield on Saturday?

Jonathan,

I will be there both Saturday and Sunday

John

[jwealleans]

Splendid. I shall see you there.

[jwealleans]

Lavatory Composite now with added undercrackers. It's also had torpedo and clerestory vents, hinges, light switch and handrails added.



A visit to Scalefour North provided the opportunity to stock up on the bits I needed to complete the underframe fittings and also convert this Luggage Composite to electric light and vacuum brake:



This isn't my work, this was very nicely built by Mr. Scott of this parish and traded to me a little time ago. I had to remove lower steps, gas tanks and Westinghouse gubbins and replace with what you see.

Also at Scalefour North, I picked up a couple of these:



Bill Bedford's resin wagon kits. I could hardly resist something like this and to be honest, why would you? There's less than 2 hours work in this vehicle, it runs beautifully freely on sprung suspension units, will have sprung buffers and still cost less than many of the new Bachmann wagons. The other one is a Colwick open and I expect it will go together just as well.