Morris J4 British Rail Van

There has not be a lot of time for modelling over the last couple of weeks. A weekend away and heavy workload have all but put a stop to any projects.  However, something I did managed to finish off before last weekend was a small BR van for the Charlton layout.

A BR J4 Morris van!

Note the driver squashed in - he must be tall!

This was a quick and simple project.  I took the van apart, added a driver and weathered the body of the van, chassis and glazing separately.  I gave it a spray of satin varnish before I started a bit of weathering, to give the paints something to key into and then applied some weathering enamels from an air brush.  Before I had sealed the van with a final varnish coat it slipped over in the paint box (it was balanced on a class 37 chassis) and it rubbed some paint off on the sides.  I decided to keep this though, as a few yellower and darker patches seemed to work quite nicely. So the first road vehicle for Charlton.  I really need to get the layout set up and running, as its first exhibition is coming up at the end of June.  Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the space right now...although a finished DCC sound warship is about to roll out of the paintworks....

BR Blue BG with working lights

Recently I finished off another project, this is a MK1 BG coach, in BR blue.  This coach is the Bachmann model with the newspaper lettering.  I decided to do a little bit of experimentation with the interior lighting for this coach, using a layouts4u lighting kit.  These are considerably cheaper than the Express Models lighting kits, so I ordered a couple to have a little play around.  

The lights are on at the station!  The finished BG.

As per normal I dismantled the coach and removed the glazing.  I then weathered the roof and coach sides separately, before rejoining them together and sealing up the gap between the coach sides and the roof to stop lighting bleed.  To do this I glue in some microstrip  and then fill in the gap with glue and glaze.  When this has set I paint it black.  

The coach during reassembly with the stay alive unit on the left.

When it was all ready I added the lighting unit together by super gluing it to the roof and wired it up to a stay a live unit.....and it all failed to work!  I checked the lighting unit and this worked, but the stay alive unit was dead.  In the end I just left this out and wired the lighting kit straight to the pick ups.  Verdict - these lighting kits are pretty good and easy use.  Personally I prefer the effect of the Express Models lighting kits, so although they are more expensive I will continue to use these, as I only intend to do 6 coaches in total.  I thought the lighting in this BG is a little bit fierce, but that is personal preference.

The newspaper BG being shunted around the Charlton station.

Another view looking down the station.

This coach will be coupled to back of the passenger service to Charlton, which consists of two MK1 coaches.  The BG will then be uncoupled at the station.  So this wagon has been finished with a 3 link coupling at both ends, in order to enable easy uncoupling.  I am very happy with this project overall and will add a little variety to the rolling stock at Charlton.  I just need to find a little time and a location to have a proper running session soon.

Working station lights plus some final details

Over last weekend I managed to finish off some of the last remaining jobs on the Charlton layout, which were the adding of the lights to the station and the addition of some trees behind the station.  These were jobs that had been put off for a while, but once started progress was swift.  The layout is only 1ft wide, with the station position near to the back scene.  This has caused some problems, as the station needs some context behind it before the backscene, but there is not a lot of room to play with.

The lights are on at Charlton!  This was photographed in very dim light and there are clear shadows being cast on the backscene from the station lights.  However, I am still very pleased with the result here.

The trees behind the platform help break the scene up.

There was not a lot of room to work with here, so I began by fitting in some trees behind the main platform.  These were off the shelf models from Noch and Faller and it was a bit of a tight squeeze to fit them between the station and the backscene.  I have also recently purchased a big box of sea moss, so I set about making some smaller shrubs and trees from these.  This is a first attempt at using this medium, but I was delighted with the results and these were also fitted in behind the station.

The shadow effect is clearly evident in this picture.

In less dark lighting the shadows on the backscene are reduced, with the lights producing a pleasant effect.

The stations lights were added to the station by drilling some holes into the platform (taking a deep breath!!) and supergluing in place.  The lamps are 3v LED lamps from layouts4u, a cheap and good looking sets of lamps.  These were wired up to a double AA battery holder and hey presto, quick and easy working lights.  The  light from the station lamps is a little bright so I might tone this down in the future with the use of some resistors.  There are shadows clearly being cast onto the backscene.

The far end of the platform with a couple of trees added in.

The station building I constructed many years ago and it is great it has finally found a home.  However, I had managed to place a frog juicer on the underside of the baseboard right under the platform.  This meant I could not simply drill through the baseboard to install a light for the station building.  So, I purchased a 1.5v circular batter and simply bent the connectors of a small 1.5v LED to shape and installed it into the building.  It is a pretty quick and easy fix to give a good light to the building.  As the building was built many years ago it was not designed to have a working light inside it. Consequently, the light clearly seeps out under the edge of the building.  I am going to insert a small floor to plug up this gap in the building.  Both platform structures are simply positioned on top of the platform - so changing the battery will not be a problem.

A simple solution for interior lights!

Over the last few weeks I have also built a little station building to fit over the baseboard join.  This is a run down little structure knocked up from some plasticard and painted with some enamels.  This was placed on the platform with the other station furniture glued down, such as signs.  I think this shelter really looks the part and am pleased with the overall outcome of the station.

The new platform shelter, which will eventually be positioned over the baseboard join.

So the layout is finally finished!  There will be a little bit of tweaking here and there, but overall it is complete. My first completed, working layout.  This was meant as a quickie project over 6 months and has taken on a life of its own.  But it is a real relief to get it over the line!  I need to find of day and some space to set the whole layout out and really give it all a proper work out.  I am generally quite pleased with the result and learnt a lot of lessons along the way.  The problem is, at the moment, I do not have the space to run this layout regularly......so a little 5ft micro-box layout is already on the cards!  I will start this off over summer watch this space!  Until then there is plenty of stock to finish off to run around Charlton with the first exhibition date fast approaching.

Milk tanker - first wagon for the milk train

Modelling railways in North Devon during the 1970s means that certain types of freight wagons are a necessity, principally china clay wagons and milk tankers.  Barnstaple Junction was handling both types of traffic throughout the 1970s, with the milk traffic stopping sometime in the late 1970s and clay traffic in the early 1980s.  So in preparation for getting the Charlton layout ready for its first exhibition I have made a start on these wagon types.  The first wagon out of the paint works is a milk tanker.  This is the ready to run Dapol offering, which has been much lambasted in the modelling community.  The underframe is rather crude, with the wagon seemingly somewhat a generic representation of a myriad of different types of wagon.  I opted for the weathered version as a first attempt.  The crude underframe and generic representation of the wagon does not bother me too much, although if a decent kit was available for this wagon I would certainly prefer to build my own.  However, with time pressing I am more than happy to convert RTR stock.  Anyhow, the finish on the wagon was genuinely awful!  The weathering revealed paint patches everywhere (caused by spraying over the finished wagon) with the tanker itself having mould lines clearly visible.

  

The out of the box finish.  Masking of the weathered finish is clearly visible.

So the first job on unpacking the wagon was to dismantle the wagon, which did require a little bit of pressure (Dapol seem to use some form of superglue to make these) and tidy up the various components.  Fitting the 3 link coupling was painful and required chopping away some of the chassis and supergluing the 3 link coupling in place.  However, after a few hours work the wagon was ready to enter the paint works.

The wagon ready for painting, after fitting couplings and sanding off the mould lines.

Close up showing the underframe, with a cut out made for inserting of the 3 link coupling.  This has been glued in place.

Given the variation in the original finish by Dapol, combined with the additional sanding of the worst offending mould lines, the surface for painting was highly variable.  This automatically meant that the wagon would have to be pretty heavily weathered to blend this all together.  However, some web perusing revealed this not to be a problem, as most of these wagons were absolutely filthy in the 1970s.  Various shades of weathered black, rust, sleeper grime, matt white and underframe dirt were applied to the wagon. The various components were then varnished before reassembly.  

Finished milk tanker posing on Charlton.

Although the underframe is pretty crude, I did try to bring it to life a little, through the use of different colours and highlighting certain details such as the axle boxes.  Overall, I am pretty happy with this.  Yes it is a crude wagon, but with a bit of work I think it can pass off as a milk tanker - at least for now.  So that is one down - and three left to go!  Hopefully the milk train will not take as long as my parcels train to complete!

LMS 20T Brake Van

Another wagon has exited the paintshop, this time a 20T LMS brake van, finished in BR grey.  This was the second brake van built some time ago (alongside the Dance Hall brake van) and has finally been completed.  This was another build I was not happy with, there were a few errors (the replacement of the hand rails was not quite right) and thus motivation to finish off this wagon was lacking. However, as part of a concerted effort to finish off some projects, this wagon has finally been moved out of the paint boxes. The wagon runs a treat and a good paint finish can hide a multitude of sins.  Photographing the van up close I can see a slight gap between the body and roof, so this has just been glued down (post photographing!) and will require a little bit of touching up.  However, from normal viewing distances this wagon will look just fine so it will be lovely to see it running around the layout.

Finished brake van.

The wagon used Lanarkshire white metal buffers and has been fitted with 3 link couplings.  The wagon was painted as per normal using an airbrush and railmatch enamels paints.  The transfers are from the PECO minipack.  All in all, I am reasonably happy with the wagon, although when I have finished something I am always overly critical of it.  In a few months when it finally ventures onto the layout for a proper run , I will have forgotten about the little issues with it!  

Another 12t pipe wagon

Over the last few weeks I have quietly managed a few hours of modelling here and there.  In that time I managed to put the finishing touches to a 12t pipe wagon.  This is another Parkside model that I built several years ago.  It has languished around before painting over the last few months.  As per normal it has white metal buffers fitted from the Lanarkshire range, 3 link couplings, and is finished with a mix of Modelmaster and CCT transfers.  The application of transfers was not quite right, but this is only visible on a super close up shot, so I am going to live with it for the time being.  I had originally intended this wagon to fit into the engineers stock, however, somehow it has managed to come out in a faded bauxite livery, so it is going to stay in revenue earning service for the time being.

Finished pipe wagon.

The underframe colouring is visible in this shot.

A few other projects are also coming to fruition now, notably a MK1 GUV newspaper coach with lights, a few wagons and Maroon Warship.  I also still have to finish off the station properly on Charlton layout ready for its first exhibition.  However, I have a little bit more free time at the moment - so plenty of time for modelling! 

Class 22 with Howes DCC sound

A few of my recent posts have shown a class 22 pottering around the Charlton layout, so I thought that it was high time I wrote a post about the finished locomotive.  The class 22 is a Dapol locomotive, one of the first batches of this model. There are a lot of good points about this locomotive and also some not so good ones too!

The Class 22 during running in, showing the factory finish!

As with all my locomotive detailing projects I took the locomotive apart and weathered the bogies separately to the body and chassis.  With this Dapol offering, there are separate side valances to stick onto the locomotive, which seem resistant to most types of glue!  To be frank this is a poor design by Dapol and some blobs of super glue are required to get these valances to stay in place.  However, with a bit of faffing around I managed to glue these to the chassis ready for painting.  This does make painting a bit awkward though, as the body really needs to sit on the chassis to be able to paint the valances too, which does require a little bit more masking than normal!

During painting with the body resting on the chassis, to enable the side valances to be weathered at the same time.

Anyhow, the first coat I give a locomotive is a wash of heavily thinned weathered black/frame dirt.  Like with the Class 122 detailed in an earlier post, this attacked the paint finish, so be warned!  However, this locomotive was always due to look pretty desperate, so this was duly disguised with more painting.  Using some pictures of Class 22 around North Devon as a guide, shades of white, and various shades of weathered blue, were then airbrushed over the body before weathering of all the various components, such as bogies, chassis, etc.  Like with all my projects, weathering was achieved using an airbrush and shades of weathered black, frame dirt, sleeper grime, brake dust and matt white.

The headcode fitted to plast glazing before adding to the body shell.  These were simply cut to size with scissors.

The headcodes were added to clear plastic before cutting to shape and inserting.  A Loksound 21 pin DCC sound decoder was added, with the sound files by Howes.  The decoder was soldered up to a Road and Rails double Ipone speaker and the locomotive reassembled with baited breath.  On testing I was absolutely delighted with the sound quality.  The pick up of the locomotive when moving from a standing start is just like I would imagine.  I can only regret being born too recently to have heard these locomotives chugging through the North Devon countryside.

The finished class 22 ready to run a parcels service out of Charlton.

Here is the finished locomotive running out of Charlton back to Barnstaple.

When I started programming the locomotive I went through some of the decoder functions and one of the cab lights refused to work.  A quick google and I found this was a common problem with the early batches of Dapol class 22 locomotives. In typical Murphy's law, the end which has the working cab light, is the end without the driver! So half marks for Dapol here - a poor quality paint finish, one cab light doesn't work and the valances are a nightmare!  However, with a bit of work, I am delighted with how this locomotive looks and sounds.  It is definitely a favorite of the growing Charlton fleet of DCC sound diesels.

The class 22 emerging from the tunnel at Charlton, into bright sunlight.

The pick up from the idle to running is fantastic on this sound project I think.

And running the evening passenger service into the station on a summers day in 1970!

So with a class 42 sound chip just in, a class 37 sound chip about to be reblown, and a class 47 sound chip about to be ordered, there is plenty of modelling to be done on the workbench.