Heritage Line Layout-a change of plan

[PD.]

Only one complaint with this layout, your backscenes are so good I keep forgetting to look at the foreground!

I particularly like this one...

[Bufferstop]

Glad you like it. The canal visible through the arches is the stretch between the two locks at the top of the Hatton Flight, about eight miles from where live. The country scenery at the branch line end is a paste up of pictures taken on the main road out of our village, and the hill to visible above the retaining wall is part of the view from the balcony at the Camel Valley Vineyard near Bodmin. I find it helps to use your own images as you understand the vantage point that was used to take them, that makes it easier to get the angles looking natural. I dislike seeing the join between foreground (roads, canals etc.) and backscene so I try to obscure them. In the canal scene the small towpath bridge and the narrowboat cabin block out the join. On the hill top by the water tower the path disappears Through a dog legged gap in the hedge. I've recently added lighting to the interiors of the station building, loco shed plus office and the signal box beyond. Next to tackle is the platform canopy. Then it might be time for a night time-running photographic event.
John W
aka Bufferstop

PS I must remember to turn out the central room light when photographing the viaduct. The shadows on the tree tops annoy me! The layout is lit by three five foot natural daylight tubes close enough to the back wall to prevent "shadows on the sky".

[Tiddles]

Fantastic layout, an absolute inspiration

I notice you also have a feline invasion problem It’s amazing how the tip toe between the sidings without knocking the trains off

[Bufferstop]

A couple of weeks ago I got PM'd by a young whippersnapper who spends his Saturdays in Shrewsbury. Yes Kenny this is the update you wanted. Scenerywise I've done about nowt, apart from squirrel away some ideas to try out later. I've been concentrating on things that move and making them either move better or get moving as they should have done years ago. When I was doing up the 0-4-0 Dock Shunter BernardTPM posted this link http://www.maciulaitis.com/nzrolling/ind_diesel/bagnall3144.jpg showing that it was based on a real range of diesels made by Bagnalls. Now the link shows a 3'6" gauge 0-6-0, but I would guess that Bagnall did a range of gauges and wheel arrangements as they did with their steam locos. Now at the end of that job I had a rather tatty body, and a bogie frame left over. Shuffling things around in the draw one day the body ended up next to a Hornby 0-4-0 chassis which was left over from something else. I looked at it and this is what followed

Now I could tell you how I stripped the chassis down and measured the body before carefully shortening the chassis, but I tell it as it was. I held the body over the chassis, scribed a couple of marks on the top edges, then attacked it with a razor saw. Below you can see what I ended up with. I glued two blocks made up from layers of plasticard which would fit into the channel of the chassis and also provide anchoring points for the couplers. I've picked them out in white so that you can see them.

I also cut off the rear extension of the footplate and fitted the buffer beam below the back of the cab' just to be different. It runs ok, I swapped it gears for a bored out Thomas worm and a spare gear from the old motor bogie. They mesh ok and give lower speeds than the originals, but even with a load of weight added it's no match for the original when it comes to pulling power.

And Now for Something Completely Different

M' Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Fellow Anoraks and Gricers let me introduce Nell!



For those who remember when the sixties were swinging you may recall that Tri-ang introduced an 0-4-0 in 1962. Nellie and for the next five or so years Nellie and her sisters appeared in a range of liveries. Now Nell is the diminutive of Nellie, and she is minute. Here she is lined up between GWR 101 and a L&Y Pug.

The chassis is plasticard with brass axlebushes, the wheels were some Romford 12mm ones that I've had for donkeys years, the coupling rods and chimney came from a 14xx and the cab and footplate steps came from the 0-4-0 that gave its chassis to the diesel. The body was made from plasticard wrapped around a section of 10mm copper pipe and the side tanks are filled with fluid lead. I used a Thomas motor and worm matched to the other gear from the old motor bogie, but it has turned out a little too fast so she is currently waiting for a Romford 40:1 set, as well as some handrail knobs to finish off the job.

I was a little reluctant to leave her with inside cylinders until I saw a picture of an NER Y7. Purely by chance I seem to have got most of the dimensions similar.
And Finally, Coming Soon


+



=

The cheaper alternative!

With all the excitement about railbusses I thought I should rescue the one that is stranded in my display cabinet. I think it was a Dapol rather than Airfix one but it was early enough to be moulded in the finished colour. I have an almost complete unmade kit just in case any parts are damaged in the conversion.

Well that's it for now
John W
aka Bufferstop

[GeraldH]

Some fantastic model bashing there. You could use the Hornby Bill/Ben/Toby chassis under the dock shunter as it's much shorter than the Smokey Joe one. Bill/Ben/Toby also have double reduction gearing, but the chassis are hard to find and the locos sell at inflated prices due to the Thomas licencing fees

The Bachmann Junior locos seem to have some potential for bashing and apparently run very well.

[Bufferstop]

The railbus promises to generate a few headscratchers. The motor centreline comes about 1mm above the floor. I did consider making my own mounting bracket so that a could turn the motor on its side but the flywheel would still protrude by the same amount, so I went with what I had. I've decided to make a set of inside bearings for the trailing axle and join the two with a strip of flat brass which will allow some vertical rotation of the trailing axle. That way hopefully I can keep four wheels in contact with the rails. I've wanted to motorise one of these models since Airfix introduced them back in the 60s. I suppose it was a recently departed dead end when Airfix then Dapol produced RTR versions of the kits, otherwise it might have happened then. Of the various types produced I think the Park Royal was the best looking, mechanically I don't think there was anything in it.
I think once I've done the railbus I must try building a chassis in brass, plasticard with brass inserts works but a thinner sheet of brass for the side frames makes it easier to ensure that axle holes are parallel. One of my chassis has turned out like a 1960s Ford Anglia where the wheels might be pointing straight ahead but the chassis is pointing five degrees to the right. At least I could true up the body unlike the Anglia which was very obviously proceeding like a crab.
John W
aka Bufferstop

[Tiddles]

The Bachmann Junior locos seem to have some potential for bashing and apparently run very well.

You are right

They lack weight but are lovely runners and come with RP25 wheels.

Like the Underground Ernie models they are not advertised as DCC ready but do come with a plug (8 pin I think).

[kennyGWSR]

Excellent stuff John! Nell looks pretty amazing, as does the dock shunter and the railbus. Always something excellent on your layout, FR 20, Cadbury 1 etc just stunning!

[Bufferstop]

Thanks Kenny, my modelling is far from high precision, but I try to capture the essential elements that distinguish a loco, details can follow. The close ups reveal some of my shaky painting but if it looks good at normal viewing distances that'll do for me. Considering I assembled the railbus about 15 years ago it has come apart amazingly well. The underframe was held on with two self tappers and I left a hole in the centre of the floor to help in assembly. So I pushed in a marker pen and with a bit of prodding the roof came off clean. I'd glued the doors closed so the floor and body panels together are still one piece. The windows pushed out easily apart from one of the curved end pieces which broke in two along the centre join. Fortunately there are two spares in the collection of parts that I have. I've emailed Branchlines to see if I can get an interior kit from them and I'll be poring through Fox's lists for a set of first generation speed whiskers and light yellow lines. I've got an unused Dapol decal sheet but the whiskers are a bit bulbous and it leaves you to do the lines by hand (No chance). Pictures will follow when it all goes together
John W
aka Bufferstop.

[35011 GSN]

beautiful work looks quite cheeky

[Lofty]

Just stumbled across your little loco's John, very nice.

I am currently researching the converting a couple of small diesels into industrial shunters

[Bufferstop]

Industrial diesels seem to come in just about every possible configuration, except the one that sits on top of a 1950s Tri-ang Transcontinental bogie

[Bufferstop]

A quick recap. Talk elsewhere of the affordability of locos has prompted me to take stock of what I have done over the last 18 months or so. Here's the line-up of locos I've created from scratch or serious modification of RTR models. In the same timeframe I've splashed out on two RTR models, City of Truro and the Sentinel shunter. I reckon that my homebuilds have cost in total somewhere between the price of the two RTRs. Here they are

From left to right we have Furnace Railway No20, freelance 0-4-0 "Nell", re-worked Hornby GWR 101, modernised Triang Dock Shunter, Airfix/Dapol railbus, Cadbury No1. There's also an alternative version of the dock tank and a static freelance B+B shunter based on two dapol kits.

Furnace Rly No20 is my first attempt at scratch building. Power comes from a Black Beetle bogie under the tender, the boiler barrel was a metal tube that contained tablets, the dome was from a 14xx with an unused brass eyelet melted into the top. I turned the chimney by griping some platic rod in the jaws of a drill and filing away as it spun.
Nell is another freelance but shares her main dimensions with an LNER Y7. She's intended as a present day take on Triang/Hornby's first 0-4-0 Nellie.
GWR 101 is a rework of my old faithful clapped out Hornby. It has Romford wheels axles and gears on a plasticard chassis with brass bushes and is powered by a Hornby 0-6-0/Thomas motor, as is Nell.
The Triang Dock tank has it's original motor with Ultrascale wheels fitted. It also now sports a glazed cab, separate handrails and working directional lights. There's a second version awaiting detailing fitted on a Hornby 0-4-0 chassis.

The Railbus is a Dapol(may even have been Airfix) Park Royal kit with a Romford motor and gearbox mount with the axles holes bushed down to 2mm to take and ordinary Honrby 12mm wheels, the trailing axle runs in pinpoint bearing cups and is sprung loaded by a set of pickups bearing down on the tread. The motor is a double ended jobbie so I put a brass flywheel on the end and it coasts over any dead spots. Finally we have Cadbury no1. This is a real quicky plasticard and printed paper body on a Smokey Joe chassis fitted with Romford wheels and gears, and a lot of fluid lead. It crawls beautifully but the gear noise is horrendous. I went a bit OTT on the gear ratio and I think I'll have to revisit this one to make it a bit more operator friendly.
Would I rather have had another magnificently crafted RTR loco for around £120? No way, these have been a challenge and great fun, and isn't that what the hobby is all about?
John W
aka Bufferstop

[siquelme]

Isnt your Freelance Bo-Bo Shunter missing from that line up?

[Alexander Court]

I love your homebuild locos, they are simply awesome

Alex