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MAY 2013 UPDATE
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PETE JOHNSON *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
KEITH TRUEMAN *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
GREG BROOKES *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
KIER HARDY *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
JUNE 2013 UPDATE
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GREG BROOKES *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
KIER HARDY *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
PETE JOHNSON *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
JULY 2013 UPDATE
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PETE JOHNSON *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
KIER HARDY *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
AUGUST 2013 UPDATE
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PAUL JAMES *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
KIER HARDY *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************
The Downing building for Canada Street is still at the basic detailing stage, although the brickwork
is making good progress. This detail view shows one of the loading doors in the old original section of the works.
A low angle shot begins to capture the canyons of brick that were brought to many British cities
by Victorian industry, and that this section of the new layout seeks to recreate.
With the brickwork nearing completion, attention has turned to the roof. This view shows the appearance
after the first few rows of slates had been added.
It’s rather fitting that Slater’s plasticard has been used for the slates! A photocopied sheet of
CAD generated guidelines is used to assist scribing the widths of the slates into the 10 thou plastic. A similar
sheet, with slightly wider line spacing, is then used to guide cutting the scribed sheet into strips.
On the roof more scribed guidelines assist in spacing the rows of slates at an even overlap.
They are then fixed in position with a little Humbrol Liquid Poly solvent.
Helping on Hartburn at the York show, and a visit to the NRM, has inspired some more early 1960s
wagon projects. B192574 is a Dia 1/112 16T Mineral with ‘cupboard door’ style bodywork made using the Parkside kit.
Never a very common variant of the type, what is probably the sole survivor was seen waiting maintenance within the NRM.
A second gunpowder van is being added to the fleet, based on an unpainted bodyshell from the
Dapol shop in Chirk, and a Red Panda clasp brake underframe kit. Although the Dapol shell has some nice detailing,
it is both overlength and overwidth to scale by several millimetres….to make an accurate model the shell had to be
cut-and-shut into 10 separate pieces!
A view of the finished result, Dia 1/261 B887158 of 1959 was one of the final 25 gunpowder vans
built by BR. These saw the introduction of the clasp brake 10 foot wheelbase, however the bodywork remained
virtually unchanged from the RCH format adopted by the big four back in the 1930s.
E260869 is an ex-LNER Lowmac EP based on a nicely lettered Hornby model picked-up off a second
hand stall.
The last new wagon is B410107 a Dia 1/141 rivetted 21T Hopper. BR continued to build the final
LNER variant of the type under this diagram number, complete with the one-side-only brake gear, and unusual
high brake lever style. The model uses the excellent Parkside kit of the type as a basis.
Ex-GWR Bogie Bolster A ‘W107364’ has been pictured on the website before, but is now earning
its keep with a load of telegraph poles (= kebab sticks from the kitchen drawer) for rural Northumberland.
Maybe bringing the telephone to a few more isolated farms, or making good the damage done by the winter of ’63?
The tunnel portal for the 3rd rail electric branch has been constructed and weathered,
although there is still much to add around the walled area such as drainage pipes, electrical cabling
and other details, plus objects placed to hide any joins.
I have built the retaining wall alongside the yard and far enough back to where a warehouse
and factory buildings will be located, along with grass landscaping the hill area above it.
This was my first attempt at using the old fluffy type of carpet underlay, which I was
fortunate enough to have been given a quantity of, then bleached and dyed to represent a summer growth.
The grassed area still needs to be toned for more colour variations, with the planting of weeds and some
bracken to finish it off.
D1047 Western Lord which was featured last month fresh from the paint shop, has now accumulated
a few weeks worth of grime and is seen departing with a Birmingham bound service.
D9535 is captured at BSC Shenston Road between duties.
D1000 Western Enterprise heads a tanker train through the station.
D1047 passing D1000
All the above snaps of Shenston Road were taken by Paul James, including these two showing
the rainstrip modification above the cab side windows which he has been busying himself with.
Before and after examples. There is still the issue of filling in the NEM coupling hole on
the bufferbeam, so will hopefully have a pic of the finished loco soon, and these class 14 details will be
added to the gallery section of the website in due course.
D5909 & D5905 on departmental duties at Hornsey Broadway.
A spot of ballasting having just been completed at the station throat, with some
stone left-over for the next job just up the track.
Prior to ballasting, cosmetic fishplates are fitted to all the rail joints,
etched brass for conductive gaps (Colin Waite) and plastic for insulated gaps (C&L). It's worth noting
that electrical supply to the track does not rely on rail joiners or fishplates...... each separate piece
of rail having a dropper soldered to it for reliability.
The main reason for this flurry of Civil Engineering activity was to construct a portal
for the locomotives heading for the depot.
D826 JUPITER with the depot track disappearing behind under the bridge.
Rail reflections on the approaches to the station.
D1028 Western Hussar is seen at BSC Shenston Road exchange sidings, alongside D6320.
A view of the other side of this Dapol product - the 3rd Western recently into service.
A selection of motive power at the holding sidings awaiting their next turn of duty.
Peak D1 Scafell Pike alongside a line up of NBL type 2 locos.
Another view of the sidings set in a typical West Midlands urban scene.
A close up view of D6327.
Fast forward to 1976 with Paul James' D1023 Western Fusilier heading through the
station at the head of the Western Finale railtour. This is a Heljan model ex-Shenston Road fleet
and now transferred to the Eastwell Ironstone pool.
English Electric type 4 number 233 Empress of England emerges from the depot building
at Hornsey Road motive power depot.
This section of the layout appeared at the Newport Neon model railway exhibition on the
1st & 2nd of June, and this view shows a selection of Eastern Region motive power on shed.
A class 501 EMU departs the bay platform at Hornsey Broadway station on its way to
Broad Street, as a Brush type 2 passes by on the down slow line. Recent work on the layout has been
concentrated in this area with construction of the retaining wall and associated detail. The cables
on the wall are made from ribon cable, and gently eased apart to represent sagging and the occasional
broken clip.
A BTH type 1 trundles through the station with a short freight bound for
Temple Mills, whilst a Deltic is seen heading off to the depot. There is some highlighting still
required on the retaining wall and it will be finished off with small clumps of foliage to hide
the grotty bits.
The midday Yorkshire Pullman speeds through on the down main line, as class 501
EMUs await the evening rush hour.
With the new wagons finished in time for Hartburn’s showing at the recent Expo EM, the
buildings for Canada Street have moved forward again. This general view shows the main Downing building
as detail items are added.
The sliding door and sheeted over opening beneath the wooden bridge.
The blocked-up doorways into the old toilets, and a slatted window made using a grill
cut from an old Mainline ‘Peak’ bodyshell.
The ventilated roof on the old part of the works.
The Victorian cast-iron supports for the hoist outhouse have been made from pieces of
brass ‘T’ section and strip, bent to shape and soldered in a jig made from plasticard offcuts.
The Burton’s building has also made progress again with the flue and
vents added on the back wall.
The flue from the two biscuit ovens is made from 11,1mm diameter Evergreen plastic
tube, cut using a razor saw. It is fastened to the building using strips of aluminium cut from an old
drinks can using a sharp knife.
The basic shell of the Burton’s building is now about finished. Painting the main wall
colour will be the next step, before fitting the window frames. A lucky break with the research for this
model was the recent update of Google ‘Street View’ which showed the ground floor loading bays without
any parked cars blocking the view – unlike the posted images for the last few years (so much easier
than a special trip to Ipswich!)
The frames are bespoke etches from Geoff Taylor, but have been further adapted to
better match the framing patterns and opening lights of the real building. The modified parts are shown
here ready for painting.
What must have been one of the shortest bogie wagons on BR was the 40 ton armour plate
wagon to Dia 2/001. The ‘ARM E.L.’ as it was coded was only 24 feet over headstocks, and of 34 built
some remained in service until the 1980s – although by then most survivors had been modified for
specific special loads.
Having read somewhere that the Cambrian Models LMS BBP kit (Cat No. C47) could
provide a starting point for an ARM, I bought their kit at the recent Expo EM. The main elements of
the model are converted from these parts, which is fitting as the Cambrian Wagon Company built the
majority of the real wagons. The load shackles and brake handwheels are etched items from the 51L range.
An unpainted moulding from the Dapol shop forms the basis for another variation in the
Coal 21 fleet – this time an ex-private owner wagon built in 1939. The chassis makes use of Parkside
and Airfix parts, with added details in nickel-silver offcuts and plastic. The model will be finished
to a 1972 photograph from the David Larkin ‘Working Wagons’ series.
A range of background buildings are being developed at Hornsey and this example occupies
a tapered section of land alongside the railway. Built to represent a reinforced concrete bulk storage facility,
it is constructed as a hardboard shell and then clad with scored styrene sheet. The plastic windows are
left-overs from a previous project and the boundary made from Ratio fencing. The contrast of different colours
at this stage is a bit stark, but once highlighting and toning down have been done, it represents subtle
variations of casting and weathering.
The embankment in the foreground is made from slabs of 4mm hardboard
off-cuts, with hanging basket liner glued to the surface. Once left for a few hours, the top layer of the
basket is peeled off and makes for good ground cover to add other shrubery and grasses to.
Other buildings are starting to take shape and these examples will also occupy land beyond
the railway boundary. On the left is a building made from DPM sections, and the building on the right from
the Walthers Cornerstone range, both being 3.5mm scale and well suited for the area adjacent to the backscene.
The structure in the foreground is constructed from Tri-ang Arkitex components and Plastruct sections, and will
form a row of 1960s style shopswith offices above.
A twice-over with the paintbrush and plonked roughly in place.
I've just converted a Dapol Western to EM gauge using the original wheels. The flanges have been
reprofiled to give better running through pointwork, and are simply pressed back on to the centre boss to gauge.
Peco 1/16th fibre washers have been used on the outer 2 axles of each bogie, and I found 5 on each side (plus
Dapol's plastic washer) worked well with minimal sideplay. The centre axle uses 3 fibre washers on each side
allowing more sideplay for traversing curves.
It's always worth considering articulation of the bogie in relation to the body (the pivot point is
not central on bogie), so the dummy loadbearing points have been chamfered slightly on the inside edge of the body and
bogie frame to avoid snagging on something less flat than a billiard table. I've chosen to remove the brake rigging
on the centre axle, and stick it back on a little further out to allow sideplay.
D9509 at BSC Shenston Road, and ready for transfer back to the Eastwell Ironstone loco
fleet after weathering by Greg Brookes. One additional thing to note as well as altering the cab
rainstrips (previously featured on the Update Pages), studying a few photos of the prototypes modelled,
they both had to have the bonnet door recess filled in just in front of the cab. Also the holes in the
wheel centers left by opening out the wheels to EM will be filled by plastic rod of the right size.
The other class 14 loco allocated to my fleet is D9519, which has also received the
same treatment. With regards to the door recess, it appears from what photos I can find that it was the
first 20 that didn't have them (D9500-19). This is what the photos of them in BR days suggests. However
there may well have been a bit of door swapping as those that went into preservation seem to have the
recess, even the early ones. One of those "I wish I had more photos" moments, but 14s were elusive
and you've got to have the right side as well.
Another background building constructed from styrene sheet - this time a cold store which
will adjoin a lorry loading dock alongside the railway boundary.
Peak D166 heads past the industrial area at Hornsey Broadway with a rake of mark 1 coaches. The
cold store is now in place between the concrete bulk store and lorry loading dock, and a start has been made on
painting and detailing the building.
