"RCTS LNER Volumes"

If you have a more than passing interest in the London & North Eastern Railway, I urge you to go and buy some second hand copies of the series known colloquially as the "green series" - Locomotives of the LNER by the Railway Correspondence & Travel Society (RCTS).

I have been reading my copy of Part 2A - Tender Engines, Classes A1-A10 and it has opened my eyes to some amazing possibilities in modelling, particularly unusual livery and tender combinations.

That, and it gives some amazing insight to locomotive developments with a few draft line drawings of some proposed steam locomotives from all the major LNER C.M.Es.

Until next time, when I will hopefully have a bit more progress on my 60503 conversion.

"Memories"

We've had a few revelations recently in my family, some good, and one which has caused a great deal of sadness. Sometimes things just pile up on top of you, and you don't appreciate the good times as well as you should.

I forget sometimes that I'm a very lucky individual. Okay, so I've not yet made it as a Children's author, and money is tight, but I have a decent job with a terrific boss, a wonderful girlfriend who has supported me in everything I've done (and I, her), and a family of blood relatives and close friends who have always got my back when I need it.

If there's one thing the last seven years since walking out of Eltham College and into the big wide world has taught me, is that you can't live your life always on a high. You must have bad times, low points, ruts, in order to fully appreciate and be grateful for the good times.

We are a privileged people in the Western world, of many and varied heritages, but we are all of the same flesh and blood template. So many aesthetic and trivial differences compared to the physical reality of it all.

I think back to some of my favourite memories, and then I see only the smallest sample of some the suffering that happens globally, on a daily basis, in the media, and I know that there's so much more I can do to make this world a better place.

But where to start? Clearly I want to support railway heritage in this country. It's my passion, and my ambition to make a difference. However, there's more to life than the just the history - it's the people who will be around to appreciate that history in the years to come.

Last year, Ryan Hagan of the Sodor Island Forums and I auctioned off a print of The British Railway Series main trio of characters, to raise money for the Railway Children charity. This year I think we can go further, and raise more money for this wholly positive charity.

The question is how, this year. I want it to be a decent amount, but at the same time I want it to involve as many like minded people as possible. If this can be an educational and entertaining bit of fundraising for a deserving charity, all the better.

Until next time.

"Defrocking a streak! 60022 Mallard"

Okay, we can all admit it. There is at least one, or two, locomotives that we all want to see on our layouts. There's no doubting that everyone strives for authenticity when building their locomotive stud, but there's always one particular engine which people want "just because". Mallard is one of these for me, though happily as a regular performer on the King's Cross to Leeds expresses in the 1940s and 50s, I have no problem with justifying putting 60022 amidst the A4s in my planned stocklist for Copley Hill:

So with that in mind, we will have a brief interlude from the Thompson Pacific builds for the moment. I had managed to get a right bargain on eBay last week, a £35 "spares or repairs" model of LNER favourite, Mallard. A spare set of valve gear and a new motor were fitted last week after some investigation into the causes of its non running. It's now running as smooth as a brand new model.

However, I am modelling the years 1949-52 for the next incarnation of Copley Hill, and what I wanted was a model of Mallard in her British Railways form. Cue the scalpel, files, and the fitting of a spare smokebox numberplate from a BR Green Railroad Mallard bodyshell (used for the A2/2 and bought in a job lot of spares on eBay), and we get this: a completely "defrocked" and plainly British Railways form, A4!

I had made myself a template for the valances using another spare A4 bodyshell (from the same job lot of spares earlier). I cannot take any credit for the idea behind this conversion, as it is entirely derived from observations of a similar procedure made on the LNER forum, here.

The valances were removed by scalpel, and then filed to their correct shape with a flat file, and then were carefully primed for paint with a wet'n'dry sanding pad.

Of course, a devalanced Mallard model will be missing the bottom section of the firebox, which I created (as a temporary measure) out of plasticard. I am working on a latex mould currently, to recreate the bottom section in resin to add to the other A4s I plan on "defrocking" in the future. When the mould has cured and I've made a few resin copies, these plasticard constructs will be removed and replaced.

With the defrocking done, I turned to rebranding, weathering and fitting the etched nameplates, plaques and worksplates (Fox Transfers). Here is the result:

A bit of weathering with some Tamiya weathering powders, and real coal dust, carefully worked in against the boiler bands and rivets as per the real thing, gives the model of a bit of a "used but not abused" look. I wanted to recreate the strange darkening effect from overpolishing that I had found in a few photographs of A4s in the period I'm looking at (where the paint around the numbers and lettering is slightly darker, giving an odd shadow effect). In hindsight, it's not something I will try and recreate again...

...because it only seems to be noticeable at certain angles or under certain lighting conditions. In real life, it's nowhere near as dark as it seems to show up on camera. C'est la vie, I tried something different and it didn't quite come off.

The inside of the tender was given a bit of a wash with some PVA glue, and carefully selected and crushed lumps of real coal added. On the locomotive, I applied my usual brand of Fox Transfers decals to rebrand the locomotive, sealing them with a liberal coating of Gamesworkshops "Ardcoat" varnish.

I went over the valve gear with a wash of Tamiya's "Oil Stain" colour from their weathering powder sets, and applied several different powders to the chassis (of tender and locomotive) including, but not limited to, "Gunmetal", "Oil Stain" and "Burnt Red" for a little rust relief. A few light coats of Gamesworkshops "Purity seal" sealed the powders and coal dust, and I added the Fox Transfers etched plates to finish the model off.

Overall, I'm happy with the outcome. Hornby haven't as yet offered garter blue minue the valances in the top of the range A4 model, so this is a cheap and cheerful way of getting the combinations I want. I am not certain I will be so confident after taking delivery of a couple of Hornby Great Snipes later in the year, at nearly four times the price of this second hand "spares or repairs" A4 model, but that's another story!

I've certainly learned from this experience, and the next A4 I "defrock" will be finished even better, I would hope!

Until next time, where I will hopefully be finishing 60503 between work shifts, and starting the next locoholism project in the form of another Thompson Pacific build.

"More changes afoot"

There are going to be quite a few changes to the blog, and the associated websites. The British Railway Series mini-site may be unavailable for a period of time, so please bear with me as the changeovers continue.

This blog will officially take on the domain name of www.britishrailwaystories.com from Friday, too - the old address will still direct to this blog from this point on.

Until next time!

"Thompson A2/2 build - 60503 Lord President" - Update

Last time I was getting to grips with the major bodyshell conversions. This time, I've finished the valve gear.


Yes, it's very crude. It uses components from the donor A2 model, and a spare set of Bachmann V2 valve gear I had squirreled away. Does it work? Surprisingly, yes. It works quite well. I have managed second radius curves with the model in its current state quite happily.

I've been making modifications to the boiler - removal of certain boiler bands, and a complete redoing of the firebox end (not finished yet - new washout plugs, handrail and similar to fit). The smokebox is next on my agenda, however, as it needs the extended superheater headers fitted before the smoke deflectors I've been working on.

I've also sorted out the tender connection, so the whole model is now mechanically complete. Onto the aesthetics and paintwork in the next few weeks!

Until next time.

"Tale of the Unnamed Engine - Coming Soon!

Coming Soon to a Platform Near You!

Where it all began: the companion book to "The British Railway Series", "Tale of the Unnamed Engine" is the first book in "The British Railway Stories" eBook series, coming to the Amazon Kindle and Apple's iBooks in 2012!

Find out who the mysterious new Pacific locomotive is, from the mouth of the wise old sage and narrator, Stephen!

Travel to a world set in the 1940s, where steam locomotives rumbled across Great Britain, pulling all manner of trains, and marvel at the beauty of Dean Walker's illustrations!

This is a children's book like no other: Real Locations, Real Engines, Real History!

These are the stories we tell...

Music by Kevin Mcleod, Incompetech.com

The contents of these videos, including all text and photos
(except where credited otherwise) are
©Simon A.C. Martin & The British Railway Stories.

"Thompson A2/2 build - 60503 Lord President"

Whilst I wait for the transfers for 62678 The Morpeth to arrive, I have been working on another conversion, this time using a set of Graeme King's superb A2/3 resin castings - you can inquire about their availability here - to create a Thompson A2/2 using the Bachmann Peppercorn A2 as a basis.

So the current progress is as follows, after a day's work:


The original Bachmann valve gear has been carefully remove, and the chassis filed down in the necessary locations to fit the conversion components (seen in the milky white colour). The front bogie has been test fitted using a bit of Pritt Stick to check spacing, and the same goes for the chimney and front extension ring for the smokebox.


The cab comes from a Hornby Railroad A4 Mallard bodyshell, which was going spare after a few wins of spare parts on Ebay. The cab was simply cut straight from the bodyshell, and filed back to fit, whilst the boiler of the Bachmann A2 was modified to fit.

The tender was a surprise win on eBay for £20. It's the super detail Mallard tender from Hornby and is perfect for this conversion. I take my cue from Mick who put up such a splendid "how to" of his A2/2 build here, and on the LNER forum.

The boiler has had a few modifications done, but there's a lot more jobs to do including, but not limited to, removing the washout plugs and replacing with correct shaped ones in the right locations, and removing two boiler bands and installing one to match the original style of the boiler cladding on the A2/2 I am modelling, namely 60503, Lord President.

This locomotive is destined to be in a filthy LNER livery, as it was in 1949 prior to overhaul and repainting in BR Dark Green with the cycling lion emblem. It had been allocated to Leeds Neville Hill for a short time (there were problems with with a few of that shed's Pacifics at the time) and was used on trains into London King's Cross.

My excuse for running 60503 on my layout, is that it was borrowed to work a train into Leeds Central and has been coaled/watered at Copley Hill before working into London to work back to Leeds Neville Hill!

I'm thoroughly enjoying the build thus far, though I know that the simplistic adapation of the Bachmann A2 valve gear using standard Bachmann V2 components won't be as attractive as the etched Comet conversions which Graeme and a few others have undertaken on theirs. In my defense, I'm not as skilled a modeller as they are, and will be happy with something which runs for the moment, until I can learn and build up the necessary skills that will allow me to replace my crude alternative.

I was initially nervous about chopping up a £100+ model but the conversion is going together so nicely that I feel much happier at having a go myself. So much so that I am certain an A2/3 conversion and an A1/1, again using Graeme's superb castings, will follow later this year.

60503 is my project for February and destined to run at a friend's church fair on his small end to end later this year, so I'd best get cracking when I find the time after work this month.

Until next time!