Colonel

Lovely stuff Ernie and so much detail to peruse too. Is there another loco behind 182, or does it really have two whistles, I wonder?

Likewise the bare metal looking good, though if you expand the photos, it makes you realise how etched brass moved things on - avoiding the chunky edges in particular. No need for extra ballast though! Indeed, wonder if the weight has contributed to the cranks fracturing?

Clever stuff, Paul and interesting to read about Loctite 290 too. Seems there's a cyano for everything. Since having to find 4mm scale drivers for my 7mm narrow gauge locos, it made me realise how valuable Slater's wheels are and wonder why the likes of Gibson and Ultrascale can't follow the Romford practice of square ended axles? It's not just the ready made quartering they offer either. It may be me, but I find building, fettling and painting a loco chassis requires multiple fitting and refitting of wheels, which Gibson's in particular do not like - a couple of removals and they are soon loose on their axles. Very neat solution to ensuring the axles will quarter correctly too, by the way.

Crossing everything, am hoping to give back the Bulleid Pacific next week. The photos don't show much, but a lot of fettling has still been going on - most of it around the interface between loco & tender. At first, it was the tender hand brake stand rubbing on the loco fallplate - more than enough to cause derailment of the tender at one end and the bogie at the front! Got that sorted, but still had to made a slightly longer drawbar, as well grinding a bit off the fall plate too. However, something was still causing a derailment on a 6ft radius point, until I saw that some sort of plate thing was catching on the rear pony truck, so that required trimming too. Speaking of the pony truck, that has also taken several goes to get the ride height correct, while the loco brake gear has also tested my patience. It is all white metal and therefore rather fragile. I'm tempted to replace the lot with brass strip, but it seems to be holding together for now... Finally, this afternoon, managed to find a couple of sub-miniature connectors, so the tender pick ups are now wired through to the loco and the ensemble is now able to negotiate the whole of my 0 gauge cameo layout, I really do want to get back to the Pay Train tomorrow - the missus is on a girls day out, so a bit of me time in the workshop beckons.

So, potential for a steam railcar on Northport Quay then... Like Mol, ain't happening anytime soon though - for one thing, I'd have to start a whole new period of modelling and three separate lots of stock seems a bit extreme for a small layout.

Good stuff and nice to see a bit of hybrid/mixed media modelling.

Interesting - thanks John. I've applied modern expectations, when 19th century ones were probably far more basic: keep the proletariat at arm's length! Might need to have a rethink about the interior, giving it all over to pay staff? Still could be three sections perhaps, with secure store as now at the loco end, pay desk/office at the other and staff seating in the middle. With so much money to account for, am guessing there might have been at least four to six staff involved: a person in charge, a couple of clerks and someone with a big stick acting as security?!

The visit to the Club last night did not go well. In my defence, all I can say is that the pacific's chassis works nicely enough on the bench, but it certainly did not perform well on the track. However, the advantage of sharing a model with fellow members means there is more than one pair of eyes to help. The culprits are shown below: At the top is the rear pony truck, where the axles boxes were actually fouling the track. Turns out the builder had installed them upside down!!! Below these are the springs and dummy axle boxes for the rear drivers, which effectively reduced side play to nil, meaning the loco would not negotiate 6ft radius points. Both have been removed. The pony truck axles boxes need to eventually go back the right way round [they add useful weight to the pony truck too], but am tempted to leave the other parts off as they are pretty much invisible being hidden behind the drivers. The tender is connected to the loco by a fairly crude hook and bar. This also needs replacing as it too prevents the loco moving in anything other than a straight line. If you are only building a model as a static exhibit, these things don't matter I suppose - but they certainly haven't helped me... Another thing I found was that the motor gear box needed tethering as it was moving about 120 degrees about the driven axle, causing the main gear wheel to catch on the rear frame spacer. All in all, a pain in the primary orifice! At least the Pay Train continues to make progress and in the case of the loco, has now been through the paint shop, following the addition of various hand rails, pipes, rear buffers and basic cab detail. Way too black at the moment, but getting there. Work has now progressed to the coach, though here what I'm doing is pure conjecture. Each Pay Train worked a two week tour: one around the north of the GS&WR system, the other around the south. One can only assume that, at the beginning of each tour, the coach must have contained a fair amount of cash. Whether this was paid out to staff on the way [form an orderly queue at each station & depot], or maybe just paid to station masters, managers, etc for onward distribution, I have no idea. Indeed, maybe it would have been a bit of both? Either way, I can only presume that part of the coach would have been a secure compartment with, in addition, some sort of barrier/counter between the Pay Train staff and those coming to get their wages. Am also assuming that with multiple stops each day, there would have been no need for a toilet in the coach, but maybe a gas stove and a couple of cupboards for food and drink might have been useful, while comfy seats for long journeys would be valid too. The Pay Trains ran well over a million miles in service - remarkable for such a tiny loco. So, as you can see below, I'm splitting the interior of the coach into three, with the secure section nearest the loco, the pay 'office' in the middle and the public bit at the balcony end. Would probably be further on with this, were it not for that troublesome pacific, that is where we are for now.

Beautifully written, Kevin.

Got the micro lathe from Amazon. It was under £200, though something similar is more now. As far as I can tell, the next step up is a Proxxon at well over £500, after which you are quickly heading towards four figures and more. These days, unless you are seriously into workshop practice, can't help wondering if a 3D printer might get more use, especially for small fittings and the like.

I've taken the Bulleid Pacific as far as I can at the moment. Now need to take it down the Club on Tuesday, to see how it performs on the two 0 gauge layouts. One is an Inglenook type, the other is our tail chaser , North Circular, so it will be interesting to see how it copes with Peco 6' radius points and the outer circle of the same radius on the main layout. So, back to the Pay Train, for a bit of light relief and have spent the weekend producing the main boiler fittings: chimney, dome and safety valves. This meant getting out my 'micro lathe'. Very much a halfway house between using a drill chuck and files to turn up basic components, compared to even a basic lathe, it has nevertheless helped me produce quite a few things - though I shudder to think what true model engineers would say! Here is said machine: there's a three jaw chuck on the left, with just a pointy thing on the right [am sure it has a proper name], so you need to find the centre of the brass rod [or other material], to set it all up. The micro lathe came with this plastic gizmo which helps scribe multiple centre lines. Not terribly accurate, but have found if you do lots of them, even if the lines don't meet up in the centre, you can still mark a centre point as shown below. You then drill a fairly deep hole for the pointy end to go into. Locking this into the brass rod obviously stops things flying off when turning takes place. The lathe isn't very powerful, so how found it is a case of many passes with the cutting tool, doing about a quarter of a millimetre at a time, so as not to stress the motor, finishing things off with files. Tedious, but effective. I keep thinking about buying something better, but for the limited amount of turning I do, it is probably not worth it. The chimney turned out ok, but the dome [above] turned out too small. Bear in mind I'm working from basic, small scale plans and grainy photos, but it didn't look right, on the loco. Waste not, want not, I cut off the base and used this to mount a white metal casting of a pair of safety valves. Luckily, found a white metal dome in my spares box. It was too tall, but about the right diameter, so I filed it down and hopefully, it looks the part. So, the little loco is starting to look the part at last, albeit still a way to go.

Add brake rigging to the list of pains when chassis building! The use of fine tubing to set things up is definitely one I'll be using.

Starting to come to life. Sure you are not working in Gauge 1?

Fairly sure numbers on wagons were hand painted. When you compare pictures there can be quite a few subtle variations. For other stock, have a look at the Fox Transfers website. They may well have something close and remember seeing a BR Mark 1 coach being restored on the Kent & East Sussex at Tenterden and they were using Fox Transfers too!

Mine arrived yesterday and it is a fine thing for which the authors should feel very proud of.

A few days off recently, as I accompanied my wife, who is a member of Rochester Choral Society, on a tour of the Barcelona area, singing in a number of cathedrals and basilica - culminating in an International Mass in the Sagrada Família, no less. Nice weather, excellent singing [none of it by me], along with good food and wine too. Starbucks and others take note: a coffee in Barcelona is only about two euros, a glass of wine four, AND they fill it up too. Anyway, since getting back have been doing battle with the Bulleid pacific. Assembling the valve gear is fairly straightforward, checking it will run smoothly is another matter, simply because with so many parts, there are so many variables: things to catch on something else, fixings to come loose, etc etc. Above, you can see the chassis hooked up to my ancient [over 40 years old] H&M Clipper. When testing locos and chassis, it is very much my first choice, being a very basic controller: if the model runs well with it, chances are it will work even better with something more sophisticated. Have mostly used 12ba nuts and bolts to hold the gear together. Ensuring they don't catch on other parts of the motion is obviously important - likewise not coming undone either! Still some tidying up to do, while [below], the eccentric cranks on the centre driver are proving troublesome as I can't find a reliable way to hold them in the correct positions. Mostly they are ok and I've had the chassis running on the bench for a couple of hours in total, including at full speed in either direction. Nothing has fallen off, which is encouraging and were this my own loco, I'd probably put up with it, because I'd know what to do, but this is someone else's model, so it needs to be both right and robust. 'Tis certainly a handsome beast though and also the largest loco I've ever worked on too.

Even more room in 7mm scale/36.75mm gauge!

Outside frame locos always look good with the cranks twirling.

Great stuff - it is a very nice kit and remember that when I built my first one over ten years ago, it went together really well, especially the simple, fold up chassis. However, might have to hide behind the sofa as recent projects on these locos make me think my model will now be generic at best!

A virtual layout... Guess it had to come sometime and am certainly not belittling such an intriguing project as clearly a lot of work and research has already taken place. The skills are different, but the end product will be fascinating. Looking forwards, with developments in AI, we could get see virtual time machines that could take us back to any point in railway history that we fancy. It may not be railway modelling as we know it, but it still has much to offer.

Don't know, but whoever was sitting on it probably need a fresh pair of underpants...

Having done a decent job so far on the body, I'd say go for it with the chassis. There are rtr and bogie kits out there that are worth looking up. Try 'Locos n Stuff'. Mainly narrow gauge, but Mark Clarke does a large range and offers both etched and 3D printed chassis, including replacements for Tenshodo spuds. I've got one of his bogies under my 21mm gauge Donegal railcar and it runs very nicely. He doesn't advertise widely, but his website is a delight, with all sorts of ideas and products. Even if you are not interested in narrow gauge, there is something for everyone here!

Yep, that is very nice indeed. Always worth filing a small flat on the tyres, which makes any vehicle 'sit' - as though it has real weight.

Great scenes and though I've said it before, fine trackwork that actually looks broad gauge. Just goes to show how lower profile rail improves things.

A Chatham Club member did it back in the early 90s on an 0 gauge LMS Crab 2-6-0, using a Portescap RG7 to move the gear and a second one to drive the loco. At the time, remember I wasn't alone in being very unimpressed at the use of an expensive motor just to move a small part of the linkage a few millimetres. Thinking about it now, it was seriously clever stuff in that pre digital age. Not for me though - but I have put working inside motion in my Sligo Leitrim 'Large Tank'. Fiddly, but easier than Walschaerts. That said, in model form, valve gear isn't as daunting as it might seem. Building a working chassis can be far more time consuming.