West End Workbench

[Dave]

Happy New Year JW.

Excellent work as usual, what I find strange is how do you get the time (and the ok from the boss) to do modelling on Christmas eve, you are a lucky lad, I was up to me nose in turkey weird bits..........

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Turkey weird bits........ Is that a strange GWR wagon....?

manna

[Atlantic 3279]

No, they are Mr Mathoooos latest tasty offering....

[jwealleans]

Turkey weird bits...

Gobbler, anyone?

[john coffin]

Just to confirm, the dimensions originally mentioned appear to be over the eaves of the roof.

Howlden 6 and 8 wheel carriages over the waist are pretty constantly either 7ft 6 for breaks, 7ft 9, 8ft 3, 8ft 91/2 and 9ft for man line and also
suburban types. With the last suburban 4 wheelers being 9ft 3 with recessed doors.

Paul

Nice Gobbler too.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Nice 'Gobbler' (one day) but you've put the wrong number on it...........should be LNER etc.

manna

[jwealleans]

Still working through the wagons; had to remake this D & S Colwick open as it fell apart in the paint stripper. The other open is a Colin Ashby GC example. This came from the second hand stand at Wakefield in 2016 and was built at the Ormesby modellers weekend last October. I wouldnt' mind finding some more of these but he tells me he has none left.



I thought this twin bolster was D & S as well but on investigation it's NER, ex-51L and now with David Geen. Another which had to be resoldered. I also had to make up a bolster as one was missing when I bought it.



Most of the effort this week has been concentrated on the 6 wheelers. I was away for work most of the week but that did allow me to fit the beading to 3 of the four sides I have in stock. That done, I've moved ahead with the D 155 Composite, really to establish a best methodology for building the others.



The sides have had a coat of filler primer and the beading then gently filed so it has a flat top surface. This is prototypical (although too fine to see) but will also help with lining as it levels it all out and shows up any gaps. Here the ends have been attached with superglue. Ends are from 20 thou plastikard using one of Dan Pinnock's as a template. Beading from Evergreen 10 x 20 thou strip.





The floor is cut from Paxolin, which will allow solebars and underframe fittings to be soldered. It also strengthens the whole assembly without being too heavy. Inside, plastic angle is glued to each end then captive nuts on offcuts of fret glued into place, allowing the floor to be bolted up from underneath, which is my preferred method of building carriages. I've no 4mm brass angle left for the solebars, so while I wait for that I can get on with the fourth side and and start putting the first D 84 together.



Finally, as I had made up the W irons while the iron was on, I couldn't resist putting it next to the D. 245. It's starting to come together.

[jwealleans]

Progress on the 6 wheelers has slowed as another Grantham show hoves into view and so attention turns to testing, preparing and repairing stock. I tend to leave repairs and servicing until just before the next show, then any defects are fresh in my mind if they recur.

A few pictures from the running weekend - I don't put too many layout shots on the thread, so here's something different. These are almost all taken at the south end during a pause in running on the Sunday.



Mr. King's J2 about to push its train back across the main to platform 5, I believe. The local coal empties in the foreground (these are only lettered one side, so you can see that the wagon to the left has been put out the wrong way round). Wagons outside the Ruston works are a Cambrian Midland van, 51L H & B van and a Stelfox GE open.



More wagons (and why not?) - these are the full local coals which have been worked in on one of the southbound coal trains and detached. The LMS open is Parkside, the G2 van either 51L or D & S and I think the Garton wagon is a Slaters. The SC is a Bachmann by the look of it.



Right down at the south end the on loan shunter didn't do a great deal all weekend. The van here is a converted Parkside, the LMS open a Slaters ex-Midland, the longer LMS a Cambrian and I think the one nearest the Sentinel is by 51L, an ex-NB open.



This is the other end of the local coal working, ready to be collected and tripped out to Ambergate. The GN brake is a McGowan kit, the 4 plank mineral an Ian Kirk and the Thorne 7 plank by ABS. Both the Bowman and Garton wagons were found in the background of other photos.



At Hartlepool, JASd17 of this parish most generously gave me a D & S GE horsebox which occupies the south end bay. It's a lovely bit of construction which deserves to be prominently displayed.



Here it is seen again from above the coaling stage. Mr King's B5 on shed and his NRM Atlantic awaiting a southbound working.



I do like a C1. After disgracing itself on Saturday morning by shedding a wheel, 3276 behaved much better over the remainder of the weekend.

In preparation for the weekend and the upcoming show, I had started to detail and weather a couple of locos. With that perversity which makes model railways an unpredictable hobby, when I took the weathering mixture to Bachmann's 4482, it removed the white lining from the tender (but not the red) while equally stripping most of the red lining from the loco (but not the white).



I left the loco as most of the red lining would be lost under the dirt. The tender has been stripped back, new lining applied and it now awaits a second dose of the dirt.



Also complete and awaiting weathering as they may be called into service at Lincoln or Ally Pally, a pair of D & S NER insulated vans.





These have been lettered for a couple of weeks and may well be weathered with the current batch. The G2 is either D & S or 51L, the NB van definitely 51L and the Mac L a really nice scratchbuilt example which came to me last year.

[Woodcock29]

Hi Jonathan
Nice wagons as usual. I received a D&S GE Horsebox kit a couple of days ago in a parcel from Dan. I note the model from John appears to have black ends.
Interestingly a long time ago when I built several horseboxes I painted the ends brown, then a bit later decided they should be black so I painted them black but after more recent research came to the conclusion the ends on horseboxes and other LNER brown vehicles should be brown. That is consistent with what I have seen from Steve Banks. I have intended to paint the ends brown again but haven't got around to it yet!
What is your view on this?
Andrew

[JASd17]

Andrew,

The ends should be brown. I pointed this out to Jonathan when I gave him the model, he agreed.

Nice to see it on Grantham, rather than sitting in a box doing nothing. Most of my work is now in EM which is why the GE horsebox was surplus to my requirements.

John

[jwealleans]

Morning Andrew and thank you for your kind words.

As you can see from Graham's photo above, I hedge my bets. I don't have Haresnape to hand but off the top of my head he says ends were brown or teaked until the livery changes of 1928 and then black. That said, he is talking about carriages as I recall and the practice may have been different for NPCCS. It may also have been different where a vehicle was to be finished in teak or painted brown. I seem to have painted the GN brake black and the others brown above. Those vehicles were built over a number of years - I think the GN brake was the first D & S kit I ever built - so I may have changed my thinking. On the other hand I almost certainly followed Dan's instructions to the letter.

John will undoubtedly read this - and has indeed commented. I'm not going to change it, it's too nicely done.

[JASd17]

Jonathan,

Non-corridor carriage ends were black after 1928. For some reason this did not apply to NPCS, particularly horseboxes. I was originally following the livery notes in Peter Tatlow's Historic Carriage Drawings Volume Three, which does state that ends were black.

Matching the paint would be a slight problem, as I made up my own 'brew'.

Some weathering may help?

The roof is aluminium, in an attempt to solve the warping problems with plasticard.

John

[Woodcock29]

Thanks for your comments Jonathan and John.
I note that Haresnape doesn't appear to be definitive on the colour of the ends of NPCS.

Andrew

[JASd17]

Hi Andrew,

Here is a definitive comment extracted from an LNER Drawing.

'Dave' of this parish copied the full original, showing the later lettering style.

John

[jwealleans]

Can't argue with the sources.

Was there any difference do we know/would we care to speculate between the treatment of end door vehicles and those with sealed ends?