[kevsmith]

I've recently been running threads on some of American and Japanese forums I write for on the gauge 1 rolling stock I had back when I was heavily involved in Gauge 1 and thought i'd share it with you. Now for the USA in particular I have had to explain at length why British railway wagons are so radically different to the stuff they are used to. They cant believe that the basic open wagon had hardly evolved from the mid 19th century up to the BR 16T mineral wagons still being churned out in the late 1950s!

So I'll use the text I used on trainboard and apologise if you know some of this already

With your indulgence I'll give you a look at the rolling stock of my gauge 1 coalmine layout 'Mardy Colliery' featured in another thread in this forum. There will be a bit of a history lesson, I'm afraid, as it explains why we ran such a strange mix on the layout

British freight wagons right up to the 1970s barely differed from the ones in common use in the mid 19th century. Four wheeled, unfitted (no automatic brakes), constructed mainly of wood and still running on grease or oil axleboxes. Vast quantities of them were owned and operated by the 'Big Four' railway companies and the coalmines themselves and they still carried the owners colour scheme when the second world war finished and the railways were at their lowest ebb. One advantage for the gauge 1 modeller is that being so short you can pack a lot of variety of vehicles into a relatively short train

When the post war government took the decision to nationalise the railways and create the state owned 'British Railways' the railway executive inherited a decrepit system run into the ground during the war years with a staggering mix of wagons owned by the 'big four' railway companies and also thousands of private owner wagons now in the hands of the nationalised coal industry under the banner the 'National Coal Board'

A typical Private owner wagon (I'll refer to these from now on as P.O wagons) lettered for the Babbington Colliery in Nottingham

So I developed a standard way of constructing this type of wagon with a plywood body with the planks scribed on and the strapping represented by embossed plasticard, Wood underframes and the wheels, running gear brakes and buffers from a company called Tenmille

This unpainted example had a working end door to operate on my never finished wagon tippler. The plastic components are bonded to the wood with Mekpak liquid cement which dissolves the back of the plastic, When pressure is applied the plastic goes into the grain of the wood and then sets and is well and truly stuck

So I lettered some of them up in a fictitious Mardy Main colour scheme

The period Mardy Colliery was set in most of the 7 planks had been painted in internal use livery

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

Another internal use example. I was trying to get the weatherbeaten look of the real things

Their replacement was the ubiquitous standard 16T all Steel mineral wagon. over 300,000 were built over the years with minor differences. Most were unfitted and finished in grey paint and vacuum brake fitted ones that were painted in Bauxite.A preserved fitted example is seen on the 'Battlefield line' last year

In this early 1960s shot a WD 2-8-0 trundles through Tupton on the Midland railway main line with 16 tonners in a mixed freight passing the sidings for the Avenue Coking plant with hundreds of them in the background.

So wood was out as a construction material because of the grain and so I settled on 2mm Acrylic sheet sold by a local DIY store (Wickes) as secondary double glazing sheet. This was stuck together with Plastic weld and the underframe and details were Plastruct ABS sections. Running gear was Tenmille again

An unpainted one is seen with a complete example. One thing I discovered early on when I left one on the windowsill was that even when painted with strong sunlight behind them they were almost transparent! After that they were all given a couple of coats of Matt black before any top coats were applied.

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

A bit of judicious weathering helps

These had quite a hard life so occasionally a bit would fall off but a quick dab of cement soon put them back on

Now not all the wagons inherited by BR were completely ancient. The LNER bequeathed some all steel 13 ton opens and these were constructed in Acrylic as well. BR kept on building these for years after

The standard cattle van was a design inherited from the Great Western and again BR kept producing these until livestock traffic died out in the 1960s. This was an all wood kit from Tenmille with white metal detailing

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

Now there was nothing like a 40ft boxcar as seen in the USA. British vans, rated between 8 to 12 tons, were the same length as the open wagons and again were a mix of fitted and unfitted examples

A relic of the pre first world war era was this Midland railway van that survived into BR ownership. Of all wood construction with injection moulded strapping and hinges from a limited edition kit by Tony Riley

Tony's kits were a real pleasure to put together as using PVA wood glue you has to take a more leisurely approach and I'll come back to them when I get to the Pre-group stuff

Acrylic to the fore again for a 12t Plywood sided fitted van

Another example of an acrylic van under construction is this 'Insulfish' fish van introduced as BR moved towards longer wheelbase vehicles. What I used to notice was that up to the cleaning and painting stage they used to show every fingerprint!

As fish traffic died out these were converted into parcel vans although you do wonder if they ever got rid of the fish smell before loading it up with people's Christmas presents!

More tomorrow

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

British Railways first attempt at container traffic! I seem to remember this was a Tenmille kit

So although we didn't have that much room on Mardy it was always nice to have something different to run at shows

A 21 Ton Double Bolster with a pipe load based on a longer standard length BR underframe

The same basic chassis was used for this coil steel carrier with removable cradles

In the same way that all American freight trains used to have a caboose on the end we had our 'Brake vans'

An ex LMS one inherited by BR

 

[kevsmith]

A BR built one from a Tenmille kit

The Tenmille GWR Toad brake van was painted in Engineers livery as we had a P-Way train we could run occasionally

The humble 'Grampus' ballast wagons were batch built to save time

again weathered to represent their hard life

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

This one was finished in the earlier black livery

more soon

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

Now I never turned out gauge 1 coaches in the quantities I did with freight stock.

Gottersee, my German layout, ran with RTR Marklin four and six wheelers and though I had plans to scratchbuild some it never transpired

On Mardy the space limitations meant main line coaches were out of the question but the 'Mardy Dido' was an exception. Some colliery systems in the U.K ran works train to bring the miners in. These were typically formed of ancient main line coaches from before the turn of the century and in many cases were four or six wheelers

Mardy Colliery acquired an ancient Highland Railway 'dogbox' as their first passenger vehicle which was usually hauled by the Neilson 0-4-0T 'Dandie Dinmont'. This was scratchbuilt in Polystyrene. You get an idea of just how basic the real thing was.

Relative luxury arrived with the purchase of a longer wheelbase Great Western coach, This was an etched set of sides, memory fails me on who produced them but they weren't very good!

Now the Premier Railways coach kits were very interesting. Mike May wanted to do some kits that could be used to make generic Victorian bogie coaches. His team came up with the idea of injection moulded window and door details and profile milled wooden sections for the rest. In effect you could create any configuration of pre-grouping coach you wanted. I decided to do a rake of Barry railway six wheelers.

The basic construction

In primer. Now I had a choice of how I was going to get these around corners and opted for a 'half bogie' design rather than a Cleminson design. In this, one outer axle is fixed and the other two were on a hidden four wheel truck pivoted in the centre. These rode very well.

 

[kevsmith]

Waiting to be lined out. The wood grain could have been a bit less prominent.

Now some coaches that I did not build were some LMS (London Midland and Scottish) period III coaches.

A mate of mine , Terry Rose, was a master of constructing flush sided coaches from punched and formed Aluminium. His paint jobs were superb

An LMS 'Stove R' six wheel parcel van

A superb LMS six wheel diner

At a swapmeet on day I picked up a load of punched aluminium Midland railway Clerestory coach sides. This was as far as I got panelling was being added in styrene strip

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

On other threads I've mentioned that the lockdown and increased working from home at the same time as all the Model railway exhibitions I was due to attend being cancelled meant I had no excuse not to finish some very long standing projects off.

The Thai C56 2-6-0 in 1nM was featured in the October 2020 issue of Continental Modeller magazine and I've submitted an article about the Dutch Austerity tank NS 8811 to the editor as well.

Still bugging me was the two set of etchings for the Gauge 1 LMS Coke hoppers that Peter Prydderch did back in 1994 and which have languished in the loft ever since. While I was on with the Hunslet 0-6-0ST I kept doing odd bits on the first one as I planned to grit blast it and etch it at the same time as NS 8811 and paint the two together

That idea work didn't work! I had decided to use up some solder that had a higher melting point than I normally use mainly because I had a lot of it. It was taking the 100W and 200w soldeing irons to work it which should have been a warning but I perservered and got the wagon to near this stage. When set the stuff was so hard that it wa a nightmare to clean up. A fibreglass pencil just bounced off it

I resorted in the end to using sanding drums in the mini drill to get the worst of it off. In the process I lost some of the embossed rivets I'd punched in to it.

This model also let me fulfill an idea I'd also want to do for years. I'd seen these wagon decades ago around the coking plants of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire and had seen one fitted with one wheelset of spoked and one axle of 3 hole wheels. Back in those days film was expensive and I was only interested in photographing locos so didn't snap it, damn!

Meanwhile, Martin, a friend of mine turned up at the front door and said 'You used to do gauge 1 didn't you?', 'Er, a little bit, yes' I said. he then proceeded to bring three banana boxes into the workshop full of G scale and gauge 1 bits and pieces and said 'you can have this lot'

Amongst it was an unmade Tenmille 20T LNER loco coal wagon kit which spurred me on the get cracking.

First Coke Hopper painting underway, second one sat on its wheels, Loco coal wagon started

coming on

With NS 8811, the three wagons are now painted and lettered. All in BR unfitted grey

In fact they are now weathered but I want to photo them outdoors when the weather lets up

More soon

Kev

 

[dwb]

Like those very much

David

 

[kevsmith]

I had three pairs of whitemetal archbar bogies that martin gave me. in pretty ropy condition bent and covered in steam oil

fairly easy to refurbish,cleaned up with 'Red magic' and straightened out and the loose tyres bonded back on the wheel centres

main thing was to decide what to use them on. I thought about the Walrus ballast hoppers but there is a lot of work on the hopper bottomes so decided to do a couple of 'Warflat' tank carrying wagons

more soon

 

[kevsmith]

I know of at least two preserved ones. This one is in the care of the Deltic preservation society and was used to store spare Napier Deltic engines at Barrow Hill

main body bits were cut out of a sheet of 28thou brass

inverted and with the bogies trial fitted

The ends are quite complex with the lowerable jacks used to steady the wagon during loading operations. These have been made to actually work. The lugs for the side chain rings have been added and the buffer heads are in but I've not put the springs in yet

 

[kevsmith]

Tedium! Cutting the individual planks for the decks. Found it easier to do about twenty then have a break

These are just placed on for now as a test. What has become apparent is that if I leave the tops unpainted the brass will show through the gaps so I might as wll spray the whole lot

With the jacks screwed down onto a timber baulk as per the loading pattern. Side chains need the hooks adding. I've made a start on adding the shackles and chains needed to hold a tank down

This is a Mk V showing the tieing down method on a Rectank wagon. (Just blown the drawings up for this to 10MM as a potential next project)

Spent today cleaning up the two bodies. First a good wash in white sprit to clean off any residual soldering past flux, Then grit blasting to key the whole structure and key the brass and then a good soak in white vinegar to etch the brass

Last thing I did tonight was spray first coat of etch primer (Hycote, it stinks!) and then left to drya dn sure overnight

More soon

Kev

 

[dwb]

QUOTE Tedium! Cutting the individual planks for the decks.
Indeed. Larger projects don't just mean larger parts. Often it's more parts all the same as well.

David

 

[kevsmith]

Now before the flat earth society jump on me let me explain that I KNOW this is not strictly accurate

One of the issues we have in gauge 1 is the British doing 10mm to the foot, the continentals doing 3/8" to the foot and the plastic kit manufacturers making AFVs to 1/35th

So, not quite finished but not far off.

still needs UIC screw couplins, vacuum hoses etc

The two with the Mk IV tanks sat on, one male one female. these are the Emhar kits ( 1/35th) so underscale for the wagons but look alright to me.

I've been building a collection of first world vehicle for years now, some based on articles in old Airfix magazines

in the background are two Ford model T conversions. The Airfix 'Prince Henry' Vauxhall as a staff car. All 132nd . The Emhar Whippet is 1/35th. The GS 3 ton truck on the left is a conversion of the Airfix London B type bus so 1/32nd

can't win really

Now I have only ever seen the real ones close up loaded and wasn't allowed to take pictures sadly but they were loaded wiith FV 432 APCs

curiously we still have one running around our village

privatley preserved in full working order seen in the middle of the annual Askam parade outside my house

more soon

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

I was saying to the guys over on trainboard how much alike the FV 432 and the American M113 are so being cheeky

My collection of 113's (actually supposed to be Royal Thai army but not marked up yet)

Kev

 

[kevsmith]

The M113s are a bit of a red herring really. If I'm going to keep dabbling again in gauge 1 I need to start trying to at least keep everything the same period. So the period around WW1 looks promising. I am going to do a couple of Rectank tank carriers as well to go with the Warflats but I started to wonder what I had still lurking in the loft.

Back in 1971 when I was 16 I was an avid reader of Airfix magazine I used to do some of the 1/32 conversions described in the magazines

In this shot, taken on a not very good Lubitel 2 1/4 square twin lens reflex camera, are a couple of such conversions, The Rolls Royce armoured car converted fron the Airfix Rolls Royce Silver Ghost and the Austin armoured car converted from Airfix's Dennis fire engine

So into the deepest recesses of the loft to emerge with the following treasures

two boxes of Airfix Dennis fire engines that actually contain three kits. One completed but has fallen apart and two unstarted, An Airfix model T Ford, three 1904 Mercedes and an out of period 1930s blower Bentley. So I might have a couple of nights kitbashing inside when the weather is too bad to go out to the workshop and do the Austin Armoured car again 49 years after the first one.

I think amongst the large collection of cast iron wheels I have left over from my gauge 1 heyday I've got enough to do a R.O.D 2-8-0 (Copy of the GCR O4) so ther might be a plan emerging maybe?

Kev