"Final stages before release"

I've finished up some of the last bits of paperwork today for the first book in The British Railway Stories. Tale of the Unnamed Engine will be appearing for sale on the Amazon Kindle within the next few months, shortly followed by an iBooks release for OS devices.

I hope to be able to show off the first official piece of merchandise soon, too. It's a new enamel badge based on the logo which Dean Walker, the stories' artist, drew, and can be seen above in the banner.

So - watch this space - we're so very nearly there! :)

Until next time!

"An A Class Dillemma"

Sorting out my stocklist, I looked over my two valance conversions and spotted that something was amiss compared to my Walter K. Whigham A4 Pacific. The problem lies directly with the use of either Kingfisher or Mallard models as the donor locomotives for these conversions.

The short access hatches at the front end under the nameplates, are wrong - they should be the double length ones as seen on the Walter K. Whigham model, and any of the BR green liveried A4s that Hornby produce.

So the dillemma is simple - the choice is, cut the valances from the same donor models - but modify the hatches, or repaint BR liveried A4s garter blue with coronation red wheels.

Hornby have not offered an A4 Pacific in the garter blue/single chimney/long access hatches form yet, so it is up to me to decide whether I can live with the knowledge of this fairly minor physical discrepancy, or want to repaint a vast number of A4 Pacifics in the forms I want.

I do know that at this point in time, I am not comfortable repainting a vast number of A4s - so am leaning towards ignoring the discrepancy, OR...

...designing an etched replacement access hatch to fit onto the A4 bodies which need it. Good idea, bad idea...?

It really can be thoroughly infuriating finding a new problem once you think you've cracked the method!

In terms of the stocklist, I am debating adding Dwight D. Eisenhower and removing Sir Nigel Gresley, as Dwight D. Eisenhower was the only A4 to remain in LNER livery through to 1949. Albeit, I believe as E8 and not 4496 as it was post-war. This would add something a little different to the other planned garter blue A4s.

Until next time.

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

In a change from the wonderfully satisfying A4 conversions - which can be done in a few hours, spread over a week, my current long term project, 60503 Lord President, has had a few changes this morning and test fitting of components. The vacuum pipe and new coupling have been test fitted to the bufferbeam along with the buffers. Nothing has been stuck down or painted, and all will in all likelihood, be fitted after final painting and lining.

The one thing which eludes me at present is a firm statement either way confirming or denying the colour of the buffer shanks in 1949. I had thought that the LNER would have kept painting these black, but the photographs I have of 60503 I can't make out if these are red or not. It seems to depend entirely on the locomotive concerned in 1949.

I have found other Pacifics, A3s, with either red or black, and the A2/3s all seem to have had red. 60506 Wolf of Badenoch, however, definitely has black buffer shanks in 1949 as seen in Power of the A2s, so I am wavering with 60503 and leaning towards black buffer shanks.

The next change was the addition of handrails on the cabs, and the longer handrails on the firebox sides - correct for 60503 in 1949, but not for 60501 or 60504 as far as I can see. I have not yet removed the washout plugs, and the reason for hanging fire on this is that Graeme King is currently working on a sheet of etched components for his conversion kits, which will cover A2/1, A2/2, A2/3, and A1/1 along with some other items for the remaining Pacifics of the LNER. Having seen a few pics on the LNER Forum, I can state happily that the parts look well worth waiting for, so for the moment 60503 is going to have a nice rest from being hacked about until I can finish the job properly!

So that's all for the moment, but I will hopefully be making further modifications and finishing this model in the not too distant future.

Until next time!

"60010 Dominion of Canada"

How else to describe this particular conversion, but "emotional". There's a lot of emotion behind this one.

It all began on a family holiday to Canada. We had met up with my Uncle Edwin and Aunty Grace in Toronto, and taken a variety of transport to arrive in Quebec. Saint-Constant, specifically. Uncle Edwin, or "Uncle Ed", wasn't actually relative by blood, he had married my maternal grandmother's younger sister, but he had always been a close member of the family, and such a wonderfully informed and gentle individual.

I had no idea what was in store for me at the age of seven. I had been much enthralled with my Uncle's work on the Canadian Heritage Museum's Lysander, a World War Two spy plane, and in that amazing trip around Canada I had seen some incredible engineering ranging from that beautiful, part restored aircraft to the old Cadillac my uncle Ed ran around in.

I gazed up at a particular Canadian steam locomotive - I think it was CNR no.4100 (one time most powerful locomotive in the Commonwealth), and heard my father saying those immortal words "I thought you chaps had a Gresley?"

My Uncle went and spoke with a member of the museum, and we were ushered away from the main exhibits, and into a different hall. I can't remember exactly whether we walked, how far we walked if we did, or where it was in relation to CNR no.4100, but all I can remember was seeing shafts of light bursting from a section of roof onto a big, dark, gloomy hulk at the back of the shed.

As we approached, I could hear my Uncle correcting my father that "It's just a headboard - we haven't taken Flying Scotsman!" and as I looked away from them to the engine, I saw the word Canada shine gold for a brief second, before the sun outside faded, and the nameplate become a dull and dusty black and tarnished bronze colour.

It clicked into place only when I stood back from the dark hulk. I had seen this shape before; three times before, in fact, one in the museum at York, one in steam that was visiting the Mid Hants railway, and one in the Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in the United States the year before.

"It's an A4" I said, and I remember Uncle Edwin beaming. "Yes - it's our little piece of British Railways", and he went on to describe Dominion of Canada's working life, its preservation years, and the eventual plans for further restoration in the years to come.

"Of course", he said, speaking to my father, "I have always wanted to see it in that beautiful french blue - garter? Garter it is then. Garter blue with the maroon wheels. It's how I remember it, in my last days in Britain. It was a comfort to see this engine during, and after the war. It felt like a piece of Canada I could take comfort in, away from home".

He went on to describe the functioning of the bell, how he'd like to see it restored one day with both the bell and the Canadian whistle it had originally had - but "it has to have the valances off. It looks better without the valances, more functional". We all stood there for a few moments longer.

60010 looked, to me, like it had just come straight out of service and into the shed. It still smelled of coal and oil, and though the paintwork was worn and there were patches of rust in places, 60010 looked majestic. A great streak, seemingly forgot by time.

Over the next decade and a half, that conversation faded from memory, until I got the call in early 2007 that my Uncle Ed didn't have long to live. I had started an Aeronautical Engineering degree at Loughborough, which had been almost entirely his influence, and whilst the mathematics was getting me down, the fascinating theory behind the principles of flight had kept me going.

My last phone call with Uncle Ed talked over some portions of gas turbine theory, his work at Pratt & Whitney, the restoration of the Lysander, which was nearly complete and ready to fly; and to my surprise, a few railway anecdotes that I wrote down and filed away, including this one.

I didn't really believe - because I didn't want to - that he was dying. By the time I'd got the money together to fly over there, he had already passed on.

I don't think I've ever fully forgiven myself for not spending more time out in Canada over my formative years, seeing Uncle Ed. I am in a way grateful that he didn't live to see me change my degree from Aeronautical Engineering to English, for I fear he would have been disappointed.

He would never have shown it - he was that sort of a person, always very glass half full, but I lived to hear the pride in his voice when we used to talk about aircraft. He didn't have any children of his own, and in myself and my cousin Mark, he had what was probably closest to grandchildren.

When I found a bell, a turned brass whistle of a size and shape suitable for 60010 in 1949, and managed to get a Hornby model of LNER liveried Kingfisher (single chimney) off eBay - well, I followed the same method I used in making 60022 previously.

I made a slight change to my method this time. I had no spare Hornby bracket for the smokebox numberplate, so I stuck the etched nameplate onto a bit of spare brass, and filed/bent it to shape for fitting on the smokebox.

I then added the bell (which ironically, has come off a scrap Canadian Pacific locomotive I got off eBay as a spares or repair job) and the turned brass whistle to get 60010 - not as I remember it - but as my Uncle Ed remembered it.

And through it, I will always remember him, and the good times we had together.

"Identity Change! 60028 Walter K. Whigham"

The deed is done! 60034 Lord Faringdon (the mistake of the last blog entry) has been swiftly changed back to single chimney form, and renamed and renumbered as 60028 Walter K. Whigham, thus filling another gap in my stocklist, and correcting the embarrassing mistake of last time!

All in an evening's work, and I can breathe a sigh of relief. Spare Hornby A4 chimney fitted, Gamesworkshop "green putty" and Humbrol Plastic Filler used to fix the smokebox, Archer's Rivets to reline any areas affected by the sanding down.

I then used Gamesworkshops Chaos Black acrylic paint to seal and finish off the smokebox, numbers removed with a wet'n'dry foam pad, the area polished, Fox Transfers numerals applied, and sealed with Gamesworkshops Ardcoat applied lightly.

The next stage will be to add real coal lumps in the tender, and then weather the model, but it just looks so good at the minute I haven't the heart to do the deed yet. I have a few more spares on the way to fit to the model, including doors thanks to a tip off on the LNER forum, and to my relief, missing reversers to fit to this one, and the earlier Mallard conversion.

Next time will no doubt involve more Gresley A4 antics, given I've decided to "de-frock" another two garter blue models. Just watch Hornby this livery variant next year!

Until next time - have a good evening.

"Mis-identity change! A4 Pacifics"

It's been a while between blog entries this month, mostly because I've spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping when at home. The traveling is finally starting to get to me! But I cannot complain because I like my job and it pays well for the time I put in. However with the tiredness, comes mistakes, and for anyone who has a copy of RCTS volume 2A, you'll spot the mistake which creeped into my modelling this month in about three paragraphs time.

I choose to relate it here, because in a noble sense, hopefully it will stop others from making the same mistake - and in a less noble sense, it should give everyone a bit of a laugh on here at the schoolboy error! I will make a case for the defense later on, however the background first:

One of the things I have wanted for a while now was an A4 Pacific in the BR experimental purple livery. But not just any A4 - it had to be a purple A4. I found, many moons ago, a photograph by a T. Revelly at a model fair of one such engine sitting at Leeds Central in this livery, with the Yorkshire Pullman behind.

I was therefore delighted when a recent eBay bid came up trumps and a second hand and clearly quite battered 60027 Merlin came into my hands. I say battered, and I mean battered!

I really do mean battered, by the way. The plastic cartazzi was split and needed replacing. The motor needed to be re-soldering to the connector for the tender plug. There was a chip on the tender's top side sheet, on the driver's side which I carefully stuck back and then went over with a wet'n'dry foam pad and water to hide the crack. The valve gear was split on one side and I took the opportunity to replace it entirely. The reverser was missing entirely, and like my de-frocked Mallard, Lord Faringdon is still missing this until I can source replacements.

The worst part came with the realization that the previous owner/s had clearly ripped off the original bufferbeam at some point, and replaced it with an older Margate version of the A4 bufferbeam, clearly cut from a spare bodyshell. On removing it, a whole load of material came away, and the clear extent of the damage to the front end of the model was shown.

So I rummaged around in my spares box and came up trumps with a spare bufferbeam from a Railroad Mallard model. This also provided a spare, more realistic looking chime whistle (possibly of Bachmann A4 origin), and some Humbrol model filler.

One of the things I would also need to change on 60027 would be the chimney. I knew from my research (!) that Lord Faringdon was a double chimney A4 for her entire life, and luckily I could call upon one of the excellent Graeme King resin double chimneys to fit, after carefully removing the original single chimney (which may be used for another A4 Pacific project later on).

So I fitted the new bufferbeam using a few drops of loctite, on the bufferbeam tabs, to hold it into position. The next stage was adding Humbrol plastic model filler and filling down the bufferbeam section until the seam was removed. This seam aggravates me on the Hornby A4s, and the purpose of this particular project to some extent was to see if this seam could be reasonably removed and the rivets reinstated on the front end to a good standard.

After a further sanding down with wet'n'dry paper, I added two lines of archers rivets to each side of the streamlined casing it was required, the originals having been sanded down in the rebuilding of the bufferbeam end. At the same time, I added the Graeme King resin chimney (but somewhat aggravatingly, didn't photograph it before I painted it. D'oh!)

The resin rivets were sealed with a coat of Gamesworkshops Chaos Black acrylic paint before I started the identity change. The Merlin nameplates were removed carefully with a scalpel, the area for the nameplate being carefully and lightly sanded with a wet'n'dry foam pad from B&Q, and the Fox Transfers nameplates stuck into place.

The same wet'n'dry foam pad was used, with copious amounts of water, to remove the Merlin crests and Hornby numerals without damaging the paintwork. Fox Transfers numerals were applied, and sealed with Gamesworkshops Ardcoat varnish, mixed 1:3 with water for a light sealing. The current state of play can be seen below:

The idea was to replicate the Hornby rivets whilst also removing that seam, and to some degree I think it's been a success. It looks a bit better minus the seam, but I clearly need more practice with applying the rivets to the model. Note the curly 6 numeral on the Fox Transfers smokebox numberplate, correct for this period (1949).

However...returning to the issue of the "mistake" or in this case, the mis-identity. Yes, I've managed to get it hopelessly wrong. 60034 was never a purple A4, and none of the A4s which were purple had a double chimney at the same time. Two instances have caused me to get this wrong - the first is my own fault:

Yes, I managed to get "GB" (garter blue) and "EP" (Experimental Purple) the wrong way round. I therefore should have been modelling Walter K Wigham. There is some relief as that nameplate is as long as Lord Faringdon's. Less relief when I realize I have to revert the model back to being a single chimney A4 and it needs the 34 changed to a 28.

However there is a further point which may have forced the error further. If you have a copy of Railway Modeller, February 2012, and you turn to page 138, you will see a familiar looking purple A4 Pacific, on Mr Eric Walford's excellent Boreham MPD layout. It seems this mistake is more common than I thought! With apologies to Mr Walford, whose modelling is excellent, but whose A4 is sadly identical to mine in that it's wrong.

So, what to do? Well, I will be finding out if there is a supplier of single chimneys to replace the double chimney I have fitted, and I will be changing the model posthaste over the next few weeks to Walter K. Whigham. Ah well, I only have to do it once more now!

I thought I'd end on a high after the severe low of realizing the mistake, so here is the purple A4 sitting with Mallard, Sir Ralph Wedgwood, and the lone W1 in a lineup which would never have happened either!

Until next time!

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

It's been a very busy start to 2012, and the time I've had for modelling has been at an absolute premium. Between travelling around the country for my work (I was in Arundel yesterday - a beautiful, magical place), sorting out the plethora of paperwork for my forthcoming children's book, and various other family related odds and ends, any time to dedicated to modelling has been solely confined to snatched moments in the dead of night!

That has not stopped me from pressing on with the 60503 build, though sadly I'm not as far enough along as I'd like to be at this point. A set of Archer's resin rivet sheets arrived this week, so I thought I'd have a go this afternoon.

Now this particular build is something of an experiment. There's no way it is going to be a model of museum quality, that is for certain, but the lessons learned from this build can be applied later in life to those that follow.

What I learned today is simple. Archer's Rivets are a brilliant product. Fiddly, at times, and you do have to cut the carrier film carefully for it to be less noticeable, but overall the waterslide rivets really look the part. Thanks to Mick for his help in procuring the correct rivet sheets. I have applied rivets to the smokebox and to the now complete smokebox saddle, going off the many photographs I've picked up for this build. The results can be seen below:

The one thing which has struck me about 60503 is that she has many, many detail differences to her classmates. In 1949, she sported a slightly different smokebox saddle arrangement (which I have tried, with various degrees of success, to replicate here), and a different smokebox superheater arrangement. The latter will be the subject of my next update, no doubt.

The washout plugs will be the next to arrive, and will be fitted forthwith. The boiler has been finished in terms of rubbing down the unnecessary details. The cab is finished too, albeit awaiting handrails, which I will try and tackle next time.

I managed to take 60503 over to a friend's last week whilst passing after work, and she was quite happy working trains of nine Bachmann MK1s without slipping. I was delighted with her performance in terms of the valve gear - I had some fears it would all go horribly wrong, but happily an intense six hour session of running in on Thursday last week has paid dividends.

So that's my not-quite so brief update on 60503 as it stands. If time allows, I should have finished 60503 by the start of May, ready to embark on the next project, which involves a Bachmann A2, a Hornby A3, a Mainline V2 and some more Graeme King resin components...! The devil is in the detail and I am taking my time with planning that one all out.

Until next time - thanks for reading.