Hi Jeff.  Thank you, you "Don't know the half of it". I witnessed horrible some occurances in my daily working life from stray horses on the tracks, to bricks being hung from a footbridge , right in front of the drivers position, and much worse.all the best. Kevin

Yet another project which has been sitting on the back-burner for a while is my Bratchell Models class 319. The pantograph, salvaged from a Bachmann class 350/1 being converted to a class 450, should sit on quite a substantial framework.

I have a good photograph of the pantograph well, kindly supplied by another modeller, so used that as a guide to make up something resembling it, albeit rather cruder. Some of the plastic sections I have used are not only too big, but also the wrong cross-sections, but I had to use what was available. The insulators are from Somerfeldt. There are still a few finer details to add, but I think I have captured the effect, if not quite super-detailed.







And after adding a couple more details and painting:






The pantograph is sprung and capable of being used, but on my layout it will only ever be in the down position, because it is all on third rail!

Looking good Jeff.  And so long as the pan raises and lowers at Farringdon what more is needed?

Thanks, Rick. This class 319 never quite gets to Farringdon!!

Hi Jeff.  Happy New Year. Yes very good, 40 odd years ago, I had an Hornby catenary system and I'm certain that it was functional, but there were doubters. But it seemed okay to me as the feed went via the pantograph . By the way, your third rail, is that connected? or is it a "Faux Set up"?:oops:  Merely for show. Keep up the good work. all the best.  Kevin

I had a layout many, many moons ago with working Triang catenary. Very effective it was too.

The third (and fourth) rails are purely cosmetic. Live ones wouldn't gel too well with DCC.

Some minor additions to the "wiring" in the pantograph well. There should be more of it, but even the bits I have done are not entirely clear in the photos I have. I know one of my runs has no obvious purpose, but I could say the same about what I can make out in the photo of the real one. What I have done is tried to get something that looks representative, rather than being slavishly accurate (beyond my skills!).

And here it is in service. I have painted the pantograph a light grey to match the photos of the real one. It sits a little higher than it should, but I can't do much about that. Maybe later when I can get some supplies of smaller plastic sections I can redo the major parts of the support framework and lower it a little. For now, it looks the part. Once gain, this is a blended photo with two different focal lengths because of dim lighting , which is not conducive to good depth of field.

At a later stage I will be fitting working head and tail lights to the driving trailers.

I am making progress on glazing my Q Stock train. The latest addition is the Q38 car. I tried Phil Radley's moulded flush glazing but didn't like the effect at all. I pulled the bits I had already done back out, and started again from scratch. The four large windows in the middles of each side were glazed as two pairs, and will have the window pillars painted back on from the outside. Likewise, the angled vent glass will have the dividers painted on by hand.

The Krystal Klear I used as the glue was still wet and milky coloured in places when I took the photo.  

Glazing of my Q Stock train continues apace. The Q31 DM has now been completed, leaving only a Q23 DM to be done. The latter is also the only motorised car in the train, with two Black Beetle motor bogies wired together through a TCS T1 decoder.









Another recent project on my workbench: an LT pannier tank, L91. This is actually a new locomotive wearing old clothes! L91 was an earlier release from Bachmann with the dreaded split chassis. I hard-wired a DCC decoder into ti, and the running was good apart from a constant waddle. I replaced several of the wheelsets, but still none were entirely concentric. Eventually, I managed to get a much newer pannier (BR black 9759) with a decoder already fitted. With some very minor modifications, the old pannier body sits very nicely on the new pannier chassis.I replaced the cheap Bachmann decoder with a TCS DP2X-UK decoder for better running (not that the Bachmann one was too bad, but the TCS one allows a lot more fine tuning).

I need to repaint the wheels and coupling rids on the new chassis, but that won't take long to do.

L91 is seen here with much newer DCC-ready L89 behind. The shades of red are quite different, but looking at photos of the real ones, it seemed to darken considerably over time with age and weathering.




I may try to sell off the old chassis and the black pannier body later. The new body doesn't fit the old chassis particularly well.

As I cannot justify the costs of a train of LT Dreadnought coaches from Radley Models, I have been using old Graham Farish OO non-gangwayed 'generic' coaches painted brown instead. I recently purchased off eBay sellers two more all-seconds to go with the two brake coaches and one all-second I already had. One of the  'new' coaches was in fully lined Great Western livery while the other had been very well repainted into BR blue with a first class section designated in the centre. 

It was a real shame to paint over the lovely finishes on these two but it had to be done.

All five coaches have only had one coat of brown so far, but they are starting to look the part. The two brake coaches have Cherry Paints' LT brown, while the other three have two different standard Humbrol browns while I assess which colour best represents the rather dirty brown these coaches ended up in. The Humbrol leather #62 used on the two most recent ones seems a little light but may actually weather down better.

Anyway, here is the full train posed with Heljan LT ex-Metropolitan #8, Sherlock Holmes.






Also off the workbench is a class 25 which has been on the bench for a very long time. It is a hybrid Hornby body on a slightly shortened Bachmann chassis. The underframe still requires me to build a new boiler water tank, because the Bachmann model was a later style locomotive built without this feature. It has been numbered as D5183, which I have photographic proof of having visited the Southern Region. It was also a complete repaint from a blue TOPS numbered body shell.

D5183 is seen here at the end of a line of Derby Sulzer type 2s, on the viaduct over Newton Broadway LT station, with the other two locos being Sutton's Locomotive Works class 24s, D5017 and D5000, which were both Southern allocated locomotives between 1959 and 1962.

Hi Jeff.  Excellent work as usual, my latest kit " 6 ton hand crane " it is really GWR, (but, London Transport could have purchased one ? when they purchased the tank Locos) has just arrived. This is a " Kit of many Parts" but there is an instruction sheet to go with it. I was reading about your eBay carriages to run with "Sherlock Holmes", I would really like some carriages that (something could be done with?) to.run behind my LSWR M7, any ideas?    Kevin

Hi Kevin, short of kit-building, there are no LSWR carriages available at the present time. If you are prepared to accept a large compromise, as I have with the LT pseudo-Dreadnoughts, the nicest mouldings one can do something with are the old short clerestory coaches from Triang-Hornby. I have a rake of five lined up to paint into LSWR colours, although for the time being, I am leaving the clerestory roofs in place.

Longer term, I'll replace those roofs with flatter profile roofs, either by adapting the existing ones or by buying some elliptical roofs from somewhere (Ratio?). Later still there is heaps of potential by cutting-and-shutting the coaches to form more realistic layouts of first, second and third class compartments, maybe even with toilets as well.

To show the effect, I have repainted the first coach, although the roof is in dark grey here - I subsequently painted the whole roof matt white, which looks better.




Question: Is this accurate? 

Answer: Not on your life! Like the LT coaches, it is representative only; something to capture the atmosphere of the times.

Hi Jeff. Thank you for your reply. I was thinking about "L.S.W.R. Roxey Mouldings " Etched Brass kits. And when I met Dave from Roxey, he suggested a two carriage train to run with my Hornby M 7. Would be correct for a Branh Line of the period. But then there is the skill level? That is why I Went out and purchased the "Hurst Nelson" brakevan to run with the London Transport ex GWR Panniers on engineering trains, and I still haven't tried that either.But if and when I get round to it? And it is okay? I will go for the Roxey Mouldings carriages. Then there is the Livery, 
If I go for the correct livery? My Hornby M 7, follows the National Railway Museum M 7 ( some collectors don't like the accuracy of the livery). And I notice that your  M 7 is a different livery to my one , strange that?
all the best. Kevin

Hi Kevin.

there have been two M7 releases in LSWR liveries; I have both! The other one is 252 in Adams' pea green edit: correction: Urie loco green, a plainer livery than 245 in the previous photo.




I have a set of four of the Roxey coaches plus a luggage van, but it will be a very long time before I get around to building them.

M7s in LSWR days were used extensively on suburban services out of London, and could be required to haul long rakes of heavy wooden coaches. One photo I have seen had 11 coaches behind the drawbar. Mind you, I very much doubt the Hornby one could manage that sort of load.

Hi Jeff.   Thank you for your reply. It wasn't until after I purchased the Hornby M 7 that I found out about it pulling power, er well lack of it. And my reasoning for a two carriage train. But at least it does have pick ups on all wheels.I was reading about the "Four car trailer set" considering that they are trailers , why are they so expensive? After all they ran with either a loco or a motorised unit.   all the best. Kevin

I have just had a long session adding transfers to the whole 5-car Q Stock train. Using ModelMaster's Q Stock numbers, I have been able to number the Q23 cars and the Q38 trailer correctly, but there were no suitable numbers made up for the Q27 cars, so, being lazy, I used existing (incorrect) pre-made numbers; for the Q27 DM I actually used an R Stock number inverted with a '2' cut off, to get 6011 (which was 21109). The Q27 trailer received a Q38/O/P Stock trailer number starting with a '0'. I can live with the compromises!

Also added were 'London Transport' underlined fleet names on the DM cars only, and 'No Smoking' roundels on appropriate windows, gleaned from photos in various books I have.

Hi Jeff     Excellent work as usual, " I realise that a lot of water has flowed under the bridge" since I worked on these trains, and they are your models. But I remember the Driving Motors as 44xx series and the trailers as 013xxx and 014xxx, Maybe the numbers had been changed by the time I worked them? All the best. Kevin

The two Q23 DMs are numbered 4404 and 4414, which I believe to be correct for those, and the Q38 trailer is 013109. It's only the 1927 cars that are wrongly numbered.

Hi Jeff      Thank you, Sorry I didn't notice the 1927 car number before,Is that the "Compromise" that you meant?I think the earliest cars I can be certain of working were 1928 and they were nicknamed the "Horsebox" reason being they were the single car trains with one cab being converted to become a "Guards Compartment" but without a cab light? They were rather dark, and you had a hand worked door, which had to be locked when you changed.ends.
All the best. Kevin