Hi Jeff. Very good on the bus kits, Maidstone and District? I have heard that called Mudstone & Dirt track before .but your examples are far from that.   Best wishes Kevin 

Hi Jeff - "Maidstone and District" - that took me back a few years!  The number 4 took me to school for 7 years.  Although I also used to have to catch a second bus to take me from Maidstone town centre up to my school.  The second was a Maidstone Borough Council bus which was a hideous sky blue and orange colour.  But they did have open topped double deckers in the summer!

Michael

I mostly encountered M&D buses/coaches in passing. A ride in one of their Atlanteans was memorable though as it seemed a lot more modern than the London Transport RTs I was used to.

There were some shared routes with Southdown along the coast, so we could see M&D occasionally in Brighton as well.

Yes indeed!  I took one with my parents as a young boy!  I think it was put on in the summer for seaside trips.  We also took the M&D bus in the 70s.  I remember because we went to see Being There, at the cinema in Brighton. I would have been 14 at the time.  I remember there used to be an excursion ticket you could buy in the summer holidays that took you a little further afield than the normal routes.

As my father had worked at Ashford railway works, we always got a week's free travel on the trains in the summer, which meant a summer holiday of visits to local attractions in Kent, followed by the bus excursions. Happy days!

Neither of my parents drove, so it was public transport all the way, hence my love of trains and buses!

Thank you for rekindling some memories

Michael

Hi Jeff.  Maidstone and District was the start of a long weekend at New Cross Coach Station to Kent. But, all that changed when I left school, and Mum was really disappointed with us, that is my Brother and myself. East Kent was another good company. Memories , yes , being stuck in a traffic jam, at Strood .  Best wishes Kevin 

Of course, M&D coaches were commonly found in London, particularly at Victoria Coach Station, as well as the more obvious places in Kent. 

East Kent and Maidstone & District came under one management later on, but retained their separate identities.

For those of you who are Maidstone & District fans, here is the latest progress on the Little Bus Company AEC/Harrington Wayfarer II I have been working on. The paintwork is all but done, with just a couple of minor fixes needed. It is still awaiting number plates, destination screens, and the AEC badge (for which I have a few transfers).


P_20181219_145545_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20181219_145600_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20181219_145636_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

The empty cabin on that pink Messerschmidt three-wheeler has been annoying me for some time as it shows up very clearly in the photos. I found a suitable seated figure and amputated his legs from just below his knees to fit him into the driver's seat. It looks much more like a vehicle being driven rather than being parked, now. You'll see it when I take the next round of photos of completed buses.

While my back has been limiting the amount of time I can spend leaning over the layout to do further work on that, I have been working through some of the bus kits I have languishing partly done on the workbench, or still in their boxes.

Yet another 'delayed' bus kit is this original Aubrey white metal kit for a Bedford VAL with Duple Viceroy bodywork. It has been languishing in the 'to do' pile for a good few years. I had glued the body shell together, and started the painting, but that was as far as I had gone.

I am doing it as a Shamrock & Rambler vehicle. It has now had another coat of paint, although there is much tidying up to do. One of the beauties of the white metal is it is much easier to 'polish' up the trim, which is also very convenient in tidying up the paint lines where they join.


P_20181221_182522_vHDR_On cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20181221_182538_vHDR_On cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff.  Have you ever thought about “ Motorising “ any of your Buses, with a wire imbedded in the road surface???It may be a bridge too far, not really Railways at all, just an idea.  Best wishes Kevin 

Hi Kevin. I have motorised two buses on the Faller system, for use on a club exhibition layout. Both use a Faller Mercedes 0405 as their basis, as he wheelbase matches many British 30' single deckers.

One uses a plastic Concept Models LT RF body, the other fits into the EFE BET standard buses - I pulled apart several models to allow swapping of bodies for different liveries to be used.


Lightweight bodies are preferable simply because the more weight there is, the quicker the batteries run down.

Hi Jeff. Thank you. It was just an idea, good to know that you have already tried it, and found a use for plastic bodied coaches.Best wishes Kevin 

An unusual visitor to Newton Broadway: a Model Rail Magazine LNER J70 locomotive, 7139.


P_20190511_214111_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


The loco actually belongs to my good friend Doug. I gave Doug a Bachmann 36-568 6-pin decoder to use with the loco. The decoder sat rather loosely in the socket, and absolutely refused to be read, either on Doug's Digitrax system or my NCE system. I ended up bringing it home with me after the read failure on the Digitrax system, and swapped a rather anonymous blue shrink-wrapped decoder into it, and it worked first go. The decoder read as a Soundtraxx one, but further digging revealed it was the earlier, less sophisticated Bachmann 36-558 version (36-568 is a rather good Zimo product).

Anyway, Doug has a working locomotive on DCC, and I had a dud decoder. Or was it? I decided to test it in something else before writing it off. A Hatton's P class 0-6-0T was the perfect candidate, particularly as it already had a Bachmann 36-568 decoder in it, so I knew it was a workable combination. The swap was completed, the loco placed on the programming track, and it lived! I have no idea why it resisted all attempts on the J70.


IMG_20180607_204715 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Not a new model as such, but new to me as I purchased it second-hand a couple of months ago. This Fleischmann DB BR 120 is actually quite an old model, but ran smoothly on test in the shop (on analogue DC) and it was reasonably priced, so I took a risk on it being either DCC-ready or easy to convert. On examination on the workbench, I found it was not going to be as straightforward as I had hoped, but after languishing on the workbench for a while, while I thought about what needed to be done to isolate the brushes, I bit the bullet, dismantled it and took a closer look. I had planned to drill around the screw holding the motor faceplate that grounded the left brush to the motor bogie frame, but closer inspection revealed a small tag of metal on the faceplate linking the screw part to the brush part of the circuits on the faceplate. A small drill made short work of that link!

After desoldering and removing all of the other wires, I tested the brushes and pickups to make sure they were not connected electrically in any way. All was going to plan now. The original PCB was discarded.

The next stage was to wire in a decoder. I chose a Lenz Standard+ decoder as being entirely suited to this job. Wiring the red and black wires to the trailing bogie pickups and the black to the small metal plate with that previously mentioned screw on the motor bogie, red to the pickups on the right-hand side (with the motor bogie trailing), completed the first bit. Orange and grey wires were connected to the brush plates on the faceplate circuit board. Another test on the programming track proved it all worked perfectly.

I have left the wires to the directional lights unconnected at present, because I am seriously contemplating replacing them with some bicoloured LEDs. The Lenz decoder has four functions, so can be wired to power the tail lights independently of the headlights.

Anyway, here she is: DB 120-160-7 ready for active service, although she won't meet the lighting standards for safety yet!


P_20190525_164041_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190525_164522_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

My recently purchased experimental blue class 30 D5578 has found its way onto the workbench again.

I bought it knowing that one of the side windows was missing (it was accurately portrayed in the photos on eBay), and that the buffer beam cowlings were missing as well. I got it at a bargain price, considering it was sound-fitted, being a code 3 repaint of a factory-fitted Railfreight model. This is the super-detailed model with central can motor and flywheels driving all six axles (which is actually two more driven axles than the real locomotives have!).

The side window was reglazed with a suitable piece of clear plastic, but I will have to restore the handrail bars at some stage.

Initially it refused to run - something was sticking in the motor or transmission, but I got that cleared. Then there was a slight clicking as it ran, but it ran smoothly enough. Subsequently, it would stop occasionally with the driven wheels slipping but two of the axles not being driven. On investigation, I found that the two inner axles (one on each bogie) had so much side-play they were going out of engagement with the rest of the drive train gears. Removing the base plates of each bogie (each has six clips retaining it) showed that for some reason, Hornby have the axle gears near on the centreline, while all of the drive train gears are off-set to one side. When the axles were moving sideways, the gears were moving just enough out of line to lose engagement. The side frames of the bogies help to locate the axles and limit the side-play, but have a tendency to bow outwards slightly towards the ends. The sideframes have spigots that go into hollow posts projecting horizontally out from the inner bogie frame.

After some head scratching, I came up with the idea of trimming the ends off the hollow posts on one side only (the side opposite the sde the gears are on) of the main bogie frame, clipping off approximately 1mm or less from the outer ends to just close up the amount of side-play and forcing the axles over towards the gear train. I used a sprue cutter to do this.

Pushing the sideframes back into the spigots then clipping the base plates back on also locks the sideframes into place. The slight reduction in the width between sideframes has also limited the amount of side-play in the axles and means the loco now behaves properly with no loss of drive to any of the axles.


P_20190522_200045_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

I have been fixing up what has long been a minor annoyance: Hornby's otherwise superb model of the Maunsell S15 4-6-0 no. 30830 had the cabside number on one side on a slight downward slope. This was common to the whole production batch. I got out the cotton buds and T-cut and polished off the numbers on either side of the central '8' - a slightly harder job for me as I had weathered and varnished the loco previously. I chose to retain the '8' as a reference point for the rest.

I dug out the HMRS pressfix transfers, which were an exact match for the size of numerals. I carefully applied a strip of Tamiya masking tape below the remaining numeral and aligned it very carefully so it was parallel to the footplate. Then, to make sure there were no slight colour differences, started with the '8' from the HMRS sheet, then worked on the numbers on either side. 

I am aware that the spacing has gone slightly adrift, but I will fix that before varnishing the cabside again and blending the weathering back in.

The first pic shows the 'before' with the slightly sloping number, the next two show it as it is before I do further fixing up.


S15 edited by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190628_210003_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190628_210019_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Earlier this year I purchased a green Heljan Western diesel-hydraulic, D1002 Western Explorer, off an eBay seller. I got it at a good price, and it came with etched plates fitted and a bit of nicely done weathering. I like the Heljan Westerns, but they do have the error in the cab roof shape that results in a large peak over the windscreens. With my previous Heljan model, D1007 Western Talisman in maroon, I filed the roof shape down until I had it much closer to the correct profile. I couldn't match the maroon precisely, so weathered the whole roof t disguise the colour mismatch. I have now spent an hour or so filing down the peak on the green one, although the shape is not quite right yet, looking slightly too domed. I was able to closely match the green, and once I get the final shape right and can weather the newly painted cab roofs, I should be able to blend the new back into the old. While I was at it, I also fixed a loose lamp iron, which the previous owner had fitted, then painted all four of the lamp irons.

Here is the 'before' for the cab roof shape:


P_20190309_121728_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


And the 'after', as it stands now. Western Talisman is posed beside Western Explorer to show what I think it should look like once I refine the shape a little further.


P_20190707_162431_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


P_20190707_162443_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


Western Talisman also features some home made wire brake rigging and adapted (hacked!) Heljan mouldings for the brake blocks.

Hi Jeff. You do have some lucky finds. Some eBay sellers don’t play by the rules and one has to be careful.I haven’t seen a Western Loco for some time, but to my weary eyes it looks okay, as far as modern Locos are concerned the class 66 really does have a peak and I believe that it has earned a nickname “ Shed “. But I am certain that it has a following or fans/ supporters. Best wishes Kevin 

Some of my efforts from the Caulfield exhibition in Melbourne yesterday (Saturday 24th August), where I was on the BRMA stand.

Of course, much of the time was spent talking to people, seeing as it is really about PR rather than modelling, but I completed the two Metcalfe Models station clocks, seen here upside down or sideways, because one is a roof-mounted clock and the other is wall-mounted, built the Ancorton sleeper-bult hut, and fitted glazing into two Smallbrook Studios LSWR brake vans. I glued the roof onto one, but the other needs a little more fettling before I do so for that one.

One of my fellow BRMA members on the stand very kindly soldered a white metal bus body together for me. This particular bus kit from RTC Models for an Optare Vecta has been giving me trouble for some considerable time, and resulted in being put back into the 'too hard' basket every time I pulled the kit out again! Anyway, I now have no excuses for not completing the model in due course.


P_20190825_093954_vHDR_On by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff.   I do like the crew on the Steam Loco, I don’t know the class, but the cab side number is 30830 . The crew are positioned IMHO standing up and looking like professional drivers, than the goofy characters portrayed in some scenes smiling out of the side window. Please tell me “ and all interested parties “ where can I purchase figures like these?  Best wishes Kevin 

I  think they might be Bachmann loco crew figures, but as I use crews from a whole variety of sources, I can't be sure.