A few bits and bobs left over... (in honour of Dave Lister)

"There's a few bits and bobs left over, but its always the same when you do a bit of do-it-yourself, isn't it?" Wise words from the guy who mended the Chicken Soup machine on the 'Red Dwarf'...

But it is indeed true.  Having completed three Dapol Railbus/Drewery Shunter loco bashes over the years I have rather a lot of left over parts, including spare window-wide panels and the sliding doors by the plenty. Some time ago I hatched a plan to use these, plus a complete new kit, to make an O9 railbus, as previewed here in 2012. Last November I did actually start to put together the parts for this project, however, despite making up sides (one side with doors, the other without), and front ends, something didn't quite gel.

Having put all the parts to one side, on re-examination I decided not to go ahead with the railbus and I took apart many of the parts and sought out how to recycle them. The door-less sides and ends, plus roof, were re-purposed as parts for a diesel loco with Evergreen 'siding' used to make grilles, and subsequently sold on as I couldn't see me completing it any time soon...

So what to do with all those window-wide panels...  well, would you believe that the width of a window frame from a Dapol railbus kit matches almost exactly the width of the Chivers seat moulding?  You may ask how I found that out, but kicking about for ideas I somehow offered the Dapol parts up to the Chivers kit... What you see here is actually the window panel with the bottom half of the side cut off and then turned upside down so that the top panel replaces the armrest of the Chivers kit side. The roof is made from further Dapol left-overs.

Inside I have created a footwell for the middle doorways to give a bit more legroom for passengers, this modification could be applied to other Chivers conversions.

After a lot of fettling and filling, sanding etc the coach was primed and I think the overall result justified the work involved, it is almost impossible to tell it is a kit-bash. The roof is currently loose-fitted to allow access to the interior for finishing off, hence the gap!

With a few panels and all the doors still left over, I looked for a further project to use up some parts. This coach started life as eight (much modified) doors and two side panels, plus a roof offcut.  The underframe is scratchbuilt in styrene, incorporating a much cut-up wagon bogie to hold the axles. 

It is based loosely on coaches built by the Parkinson's for the Southend Miniature Railway in the 1920s (to a similar style to the Great Yarmouth/Sutton bogie stock) - but my model is somewhat larger than scale, despite which you can't actually sit a figure in it... not to worry, my plans possibly see it as a static item, awaiting restoration. A comparison with the Chivers conversion shows they are about the same height but different window lines.

Both coaches now await painting but colours and finishes depend on future use...

Colin

Preservation in Miniature

I've alluded in a past update to a project to restore my early miniature railway models, from my 'experimental' phase almost 10 years ago, to something close to their original condition.  This involves the first 'Intrepid'  being lowered to as-built ride height on a dummy chassis and my Routemaster based coaches being given new bogies.

Here's the target 'look' - the yet to be named locomotive with the Routemaster stock in tow:

The bogie donor is a Del Prado UP locomotive, sadly the cast chassis block is too long for this project. Interestingly the body of this has a separate roof panel in just the right place to sit a miniature railway driver...

The bogie details were stripped back and modified to resemble the conversion carried out originally on Bachmann bogies.  2mm Evergreen channel added over the top edge, plus new bufferbeams and other details in styrene.  In the background MicroTrains 'Archbar' bogies are having the mountings altered to suit the Routemaster coaches and hook and loop couplers replacing the MT originals for between coach couplings (i.e. the cheapskate way!):

A styrene chassis frame will hold the dummy bogies in place, this will locate into the fitting used on the frame I built to fit the present Atlas chassis (now what will happen to that....?!)

A waft of primer over the bogies and chassis frame was followed by a spray of matt black on the frame itself, whilst the bogies were painted using Valejo acrylics and everything subsequently varnished using Humbrol 'Matt Cote'.  A bit a dry brushing here and there has brought out the detail in the bogie sides:

The dummy couplers are Bachmann mouldings as supplied with wagons in the US N range, they are bit on the chunky size but do the job (i.e. are cheap and non-functioning).  They don't look so bad with the body in place.  This picture is an attempt to re-create one that I took for 'Model Train International' several years ago which has featured on the blog before:

The coach bogies were also toned down with Matt Cote and a bit of drybrushing, three coaches have been treated this way, this photo is of coach number 1 which was repainted a couple of years ago after a disastrous attempt to re-livery it in Maroon.  The underframe was modified at the same time to better resemble my loose prototype of the ex-Sutton Miniature Railway coaches.  This is set off by the 'Archbar' bogies that closely resemble those of the Sutton Stock:

The completed train presently has pride of place in my display cabinet.  Which reminds me, I better find something to fill the other shelves...

The Great Barnes, Clayton and Lowke Connundrum

It may sound like a firm of solicitors caught up in a Sherlock Holmes tale, but the purpose of these scribblings is to give an idea of the dilemma I'm currently having as to what outline my embryonic 'Atlantic' will take in the future.  Given that I will probably only have one shot at building an Atlantic (donor chassis are not easy to come by at my near-Yorkshire kind of price), I want to ensure that the final choice is one that I'm happy with.

So what are the options?  Ruling out the earlier Bassett-Lowke class 10 and 20 'Little Giants' on size (I've already blown the class 30 drawings up to 7.5mm scale), there are three key options to consider in outline:

1) Bassett-Lowke Class 30 outline, - 'Synolda' or 'Count Louis'...

'Synolda' on a visit to the Kirklees Light Railway

'Count Louis' at the Evesham Vale Light Railway

The classic Greenly design of these locos is a big plus point for me, however there are many differences between the survivors (and indeed the lost machine 'Sans Pariel' had a flatter cab roof), note the different drop in the rear footplate for example, whilst 'Count Louis' retains it's later cab, possibly built by Trevor Guest.  The greatest temptation is perhaps 'Count Louis' with the larger Fairbourne tender, not one for the purist but at least a Kato bogie chassis can be secreted away in there.

2) Clayton/Cannon Iron Foundries/Hunt outline - 'Sutton Belle' or 'Sutton Flyer'...

'Belle' and 'Flyer' with authentic stock at Cleethorpes

The two Atlantics that I am most familiar with, 'Belle' is very much an "improved class 30", constructed by Douglas Clayton (and indeed originally named after him) from Bassett-Lowke castings, whilst 'Flyer' is a later, further refined design completed by Hunt's for the Sutton Miniature Railway.  They may superficially look the same, but as with the surviving class 30s, there are many differences.  Tender drive would be a Kato 4w unit disguised as a 6w tender.  My biggest problem here is which one to choose - and how to explain to people that I won't necessarily be building the other one!

3) Barnes 'Albion' outline - 'Joan', 'John' etc

'John' at the Evesham Vale Light Railway

I'll be honest, in the past I've always looked on the Greenly designed, Albert Barnes built Atlantics as inferior to the class 30s.  I am of course wrong, perhaps my view was tainted by the pictures of the Rhyl line in the 80s in a rather run down state.  However, as the picture above shows, they can scrub up rather well, also evidenced by the recent restoration of 'Michael' at Rhyl.  I'd need to drop the ex-V2 Cartazzi truck at the rear and find a suitable wheelset, but these rugged machines have an advantage over the others in that the driving wheels are spaced slight further apart.  Tender drive would be as above, the disadvantage here is a slightly more open tender frame, less easy to hide that Kato unit!

4) The outsider - the 'freelance' approach...

It isn't inconceivable that a miniature railway operator could have built a loco themselves, perhaps like Douglas Clayton they bought the castings and drawings from Bassett-Lowke and slowly built it over a period of time?  We have no idea how many other sets of 15" Atlantic castings Bassett-Lowke sold that were never built, there may have been many, or simply none.  Or perhaps a complete new build?

Austin Moss' Atlantic project at Windmill Farm

 In the world of miniature railways, almost anything is possible!

The ones that got away... No. 3: Class 30 Atlantic

So we've had an abandoned 'Badger' and half-baked 'Pioneer', but the third loco in this series is different in a number of ways.  Firstly, I actually still have the bits (although finding them proved fun), and secondly should it ever get finished in this form, it will be a static model.

It is perhaps the holy grail of miniature railway modelling to achieve a model of a Bassett-Lowke 'Atlantic', certainly the person who produces an early style 'Little Giant' of Class 10 outline, to scale, will be worthy of much more than a shrubbery. There are design features across all three of the Bassett-Lowke Atlantic designs that make locating a ready-to-run chassis a potential problem, that is before you consider the issue of there being no ready to run N gauge Atlantics!  The driving wheelbase is very tight, and perhaps almost impossible to scale.

So my attempt was to be a static model in the style of Kitmaster, based around the undergubbins of a Del-Prado 'Flying Scotsman' model:

As can be seen, several years ago I got as far as rebuilding the chassis as an Atlantic and shaping up a running plate. Andrew Blackwell had suggested using parts from Dapol Drewery Shunter wheels as splashers which I duly did, before giving up on the model as other priorities took over.  The shape is certainly there...

The Del-Prado tender chassis was re-shaped to look like two bogies rather than the 4 fixed axles of the A3, and at this stage things faltered as I couldn't decide which way to go next, did I go for a fictitious name, or model 'Synolda' or 'Count Louis'?  Then I hankered after 'Count Louis' with the later, longer tender and things ground to a halt, not before I had wondered about one of the Sutton Miniature Railway locos, then couldn't decide between them either!

One person who has proved more decisive is Tim Ellis, a member of the NGRM Online forum.  Tim has taken on the completion of a loco started some years ago by another member of the forum based around a Minitrix pacific chassis.  I seem to recall that I had some correspondence with the original builder over the choice of chassis and even which N-Brass fittings to use for the chimney, dome, buffers etc based on my experience.  Tim has finished the loco off as 'Count Louis' and it has won much praise for it's appearance (as has all of Tim's work):

(C) Tim Ellis

Tim's entire workbench thread can be found here, with the Atlantic build starting on page 11 (my apologies for non-forum members, but trust me, it is an incentive to join!).  Tim has promised me an extra special picture of the loco on his O9 micro layout but he is a busy chap...

So what hope is there for the rest of us?  Well, I do have a Minitrix chassis courtesy of Andrew Blackwell, and one day an Atlantic may be built on it following Tim's lead.  However, like a bolt out of the blue, there is a remote possibility of a commercial model of a Class 30.  Roger Chivers, of Chivers Finelines fame, has recently posed the possibility of a kit to build one of these delightful machines here.  If you would be interested in the model, please do respond to the forum thread and make yourself known - with no commitment to buy at this stage.

Us O9 modellers live in interesting times!