Despite seasonal distractions, members made progress on several fronts. Our featured image is the painted and assembled chassis for the battered Wills T9 that Steve S is building to 00 Gauge for a friend. The Zimo chip is in the Hornby tender and the Hornby loco harness has been wired into the loco PCB. This means that current is collected from the driving and tender wheels.
Shown above are the various painted assemblies built as per the SE Finecast instructions with the addition of a Perseverance bogie to replace the SEF bogie that had been used elsewhere. The SEF etched chassis is implemented as a ‘power pod’ that despite being twin beam compensated runs perfectly well standalone, plus a vestigial section of frame above the bogie. The brake arrangements in the kit are closer to those of the saturated T9, but not actually correct for either version. The steam pipe was not needed by this engine as only two of the wide cab T9s seems to have had them running down the outside of the running plate. Happily, it will come in very handy for a Hornby narrow cab T9, which came with the smaller diameter brake pipe with the tighter bends down both sides – perhaps they all do! News of that EM conversion should feature next month.
This is the very smooth running T9 (on DC) waiting for a test run on its new home layout – and there lies a tale in a future blog! The cab cutouts had to be modified to get the handrails/stanchions to line up with the Hornby tender. The front footsteps had originally been fitted too far back, and initially I just put them back where I found them, having noted the very poor location there. Once correctly centred on the rear bogie wheel the fit was much improved!
Dominic has very sensibly (and successfully) been trialling static grass on the other side of his “photo plank” in preparation for some scenic work on Coombe Town.
Dom’s other picture shows progress on the Goods Shed with the guttering and roof on the office. It is a mirror image of the goods shed at Washford and is getting more convincing with each appearance.
Allan H’s 7mm scale Fowler 4F (complete with tablet catcher) is now ready for the paint shop.
Allan is justly famed for Kingsferry, but it is still quite extraordinary that such a superb model should result from his very first loco build in any scale, and he only started it in the Autumn!
In EM Gauge Pete C has been busy; the two SR Brakes are almost finished, having been sprayed with Halford’s Matt lacquer to blend the transfers, “much nicer to use than Dullcoat – even the Americans have apparently banned its manufacture!” If Pete made a left hand ducket SR Brake van – then he reckons he’d have a complete set of SR brake vans. A Parkside Medfit and David Geen GW Conflat A have now been finished and are shown in a brake van sandwich.
The Trestol is now painted,
Pete’s Ivatt 2-6-0 has had some final adjustments, including polishing the treads of the tender wheels to improve pickup performance as the Gibson finish wasn’t that great. It now runs very smoothly at a nice slow speed.”
Next up a couple of completed 7mm Slaters cattle wagons from Dave H which his kids bought him for Christmas in 2020 (he thinks) – just to prove he does weather things sometimes! They are modelled c. 1900, with the lime wash they used to use in those days to disinfect the insides. Wagons were no cleaner in 1900 than they were in 1950 as far as he can tell.
While he was in the mood, Dave H weathered the two Stephenson Clarke coal wagons he built some time back from HMRS resin body mouldings. You can see how good the detail on the mouldings is – he’s not altered them in any way, just added running gear and brakes mostly from spares.
CS2 layouts have their very own ‘Cripple Sidings’ where wagons and locos go when in disgrace. John M has been attending to some 7mm scale examples. Generally they need replacement axle boxes, couplings or brake gear that have come adrift. This month we end with two such wagons, repaired and ready to go back into service.
Yeovil Model Railway Group (YMRG) 