Birmingham New Street and Brettell Road in P4

[Bigmet]

...we are all happy to bend the historical truth when it comes to places but why not locos too?...

That's the attitude! On a different railway more hard pressed for cash they would have lived on, probably relegated to slower operations. The 'killer' in this specific case has to be the consistent success of the Fowler 2-6-4T and the Stanier development that followed it: work on 'the problem child' or replace with 'as good as it gets'?

Nevertheless makes a handsome model, and bound to baffle a few shown carrying BR livery...

Addition to the 'why not' possibilities: Stanier arguably should have taken up the Garatts for review, to extract the full performance potential from these expensive relatively new builds; 2-6-2+2-6-2 perhaps? "Summer holiday traffic use saw the rebuilds successfully working the heaviest trains on 60 mph schedules, that previously required double heading, but now only required a second fireman on the footplate." Go on, you know you want to...

[Jim S-W]

I ended the first part of this project by mentioning I needed some bits from Scaleforum.  One of these was the injector which I modified a little from an Alan Gibson one.

I also needed some firebox wash out plugs. Again Alan Gibson did the honours. It's worth noting that they are not on the same places either side. The cab roof was just a bit of nickel silver rolled to the right radius and a few bits of strip for the rainstrips. The vent was filed up from Evergreen section.  While on the subject of the cab the kit includes some bits and an etched floor. I found the handbrake column, if mounted to the cab floor as the kit was designed, gets in the way when trying to mate the body and chassis together so I cut it from the floor and mounted it to the body instead. The kit specifies that the reversing screw is mounted on the left side of the cab but, while hard to see in photos, it seems to be mounted to the right side so thats what I did.


With everything in place and being happy wit the fit of things the body was given another light undercoat before the missing rivets were added from my dwindling supply of Archers along with some from Railtec.  Thankfully the flatirons dot have a lot of visible rivets.


I don't normally take a painted but pre-weathered picture but this time I made an exception.  I mentioned in the last post that because of the carzatti front axle the coupling rods seemed backwards to the norm with the joint ahead of the middle axle not behind it. When No.2000 was modified this remained the case.  The kit has the coupling rods the normal way round with the joint behind the middle axle and I've never seen a model flatiron (in either 4mm scale of 7mm scale) that addresses this. I found 52f models do a set that have the right wheelbase with the joint in the right place so I used those instead.  One little tip that seems really obvious but I've never seen anyone mention (perhaps its because it is obvious to everyone else?) is that I line up the coupling rod on this side with the orientation of the grub screw on the final drive gear.  It makes accessing the grub screw simple should you need to in the future as you know where to stop the wheels rotation.

Below some pictures of the finished loco with my usual caveat of still needing coal and a crew.










With her baby sister!

[Bigmet]

Handsome model that looks very well in your on scene pictures.

...One little tip that seems really obvious but I've never seen anyone mention (perhaps its because it is obvious to everyone else?) is that I line up the coupling rod on this side with the orientation of the grub screw on the final drive gear.  It makes accessing the grub screw simple should you need to in the future as you know where to stop the wheels rotation.

This was the sort of know how I acquired at my first MRC; many of the members were in hands on engineering employment, and had the resulting orientation of working to a consistent pattern that makes the job simplest to execute while yielding the best result. Other simple - yet obvious when you stop and think - technique such as doing the roughing out work as a batch on the lathe or mill, then performing the higher precision finish work as a batch with the machine tool and feedstock thoroughly warmed through and thus more stable.

Some years later when management of a large scale precision turnery 'in trouble' was sent my way, I was able to fix it on the first weekend by installation of a second set of outside doors so that the whole shop maintained a more nearly stable temperature, rather than oscillating over every two hours from outside to inside temperature, which was especially serious during the colder months of the year: it was a 3 shift operation. Nothing like model railway for career advancement...

[Mountain]

Your models look great. You have good patience and an eye for detail.

[Phred]

Superb modelling as usual.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Fooled me with the Flatiron, I had to check, as I thought they'd all gone before WW2, they had. Good one, very plausible.

manna

[Jim S-W]

A few years ago I did a model of an ex LMS Oyster ballast plough for Brettell Road See https://p4newstreet.com/tag/oyster-ballast-plough/. I originally finished it in red which i really liked but as that livery was unlikely at best for Brettell Road I ended up repainting it into black. Hover the red oyster proved to be an itch I couldn;t scratch and at Scalefoum last year i picked up another Cambrian Shark kit with the intention of doing another. This time for New Street.



There are differences between this one and my earlier one other than the livery. Some Oysters ended up a kind of halfway house between the original design and the later shark.  They retained the none - heavy duty W irons and didn't get any vacuum brakes but as seen here some were through piped.  They also ended up with bodies and steps the same as a shark although still lacking the doors.  So a super subtle variation then, I wonder if anyone will notice?

[Bigmet]

...So a super subtle variation then, I wonder if anyone will notice?...

What it needs is a sound chip, which when track power is applied regularly says, "By the way, I am an Oyster. I feel you ought to know this." .
Smashing model, it's the 'ship's wheels' on the platforms that always draw my eye.

[Phred]

I was scratching my head for a while wondering what those things were underneath the ends before I realised 'ballast plough' was written in the first line. That'll teach me to read the text properly.

[Jim S-W]

...So a super subtle variation then, I wonder if anyone will notice?...

What it needs is a sound chip, which when track power is applied regularly says, "By the way, I am an Oyster. I feel you ought to know this." .
Smashing model, it's the 'ship's wheels' on the platforms that always draw my eye.

Or redo that annoying song from "baby shark" to "not a shark"

[Dad-1]

Another cracker !!
Why is it my Shark doesn't look anywhere near Jim's standard.
Mind you overall black isn't the most eye catching scheme.
Now if only I'd known an Oyster existed ........
Apart from the eye candy Jim thanks for the educational lesson !!

Geoff T.

[Jim S-W]

I recently picked up a batch of good old Airfix wagon kits.  There were 4 brake vans, a 35t tank, a 16t mineral wagon and a cattle van (the last 2 I've featured before).  Of those one of the brake vans was finished and another one along with the 16t mineral were semi completed. I really wanted the brake vans as I had identified a need for more BR ones and more that were fitted as up until now I didn't have any at all, just a couple of piped ones.


Note to self - if you're going to batch build some wagons don't pick ones that have loads of different sized handrails!


The first 2.  A piped one and a fitted one, both built with Bill Bedford W irons, Rumney models springs and axleboxes and additional details. 


This one is a BR build of the LNER design note the shorter steps, no end handrails and different lamp irons.  Build was the same as the first 2.


This was the last one and the one that was already built.  I replaced the handrails and roof and added the same details as the other 3.  This one is unsprung.


On to the tank wagon. Not one this done before.  This is sprung with Bill Bedford W irons. As supplied the solebars are too shallow so I carefully cut the top rib off flush with the face and added a new top rib from microstrip.  Buffers are from my draw of buffers and I think they may be from A1 models.  RT models do a nice little etch for these and while the ladder supplied is really nicely done it is a flat etch so I replaced them with ones from Rumney models. I replaced the brake gear with bits from the spares box.


The finished wagon.  Transfers are from Cambridge Custom Transfers.

[Dad-1]

Ahhh the good old Airfix/Dapol wagon range.
I know I don't add any of the bought refinements, but always recommend these to
anyone financially embarrassed by the current RTR prices.
Making your own stock can be a free standing hobby in it's own right.

And This is what can be achieved, most impressive.

Geoff T

[Jim S-W]

Making your own stock can be a free standing hobby in it's own right.

Indeed - because i like making stuff if theres a kit or RTR version of the same thing, unless the kit is really bad ill always go for the kit first. I dont get a lot out of opening a box

Jim

[Bigmet]

...I dont get a lot out of opening a box

This needs patience. It's pretty tedious opening and disposing of 60, then fettling what's inside for reliable running, and filthing, detailing and/or loading as required: but once all assembled into a train behind a freight loco out on the layout, grumbling past at 25mph on the main line, it's very satisfying. Timetable operation can never be a completely free standing part of the hobby, and it is very time consuming; that's why I don't do that well known thief of time, non-railway scenic treatment...

It's a very broad church, railway modelling.