lucas

Does this picture posted in the Park Royal thread not show a dark green one? The 4th coach is a fair bit darker than the first three. But it's hard to know for sure it's not just a shadow. Here's a quote from DCDR's website about the livery: DCDR's 1944 was previously 1381, only the third PR sequentially, so it lends credence to the theory that the first few were painted dark green. Some of the mainline PRs were also painted silver for a time, so there was clearly still some experimentation going on. I think I read somewhere that the mainline PRs were all silver at first, but I'm not sure how true that is.

When I was young I was a passenger aboard a heritage train (in Belgium if I remember correctly) involved in such an accident. A few cars had already queued up at the crossing, but the car in question apparently thought they were just parked up and decided to overtake. How this individual passed their driving test I'll never know! We were sitting in the back of the train so we hadn't realised what had happened until the guard told us. Little 8 year old Lucas was bawling crying thinking the locomotive had been destroyed. In reality the train was going at most 2mph as we were pulling into the station just beyond the crossing; once we disembarked we could see the only damage to the train was a bit of paint transfer on the buffer. Luckily nobody was injured, but the car came out looking a little worse for wear.

According to this post a couple years ago from @jhb171achill the correct dark green is BS 226 Mid Brunswick Green:

If you could get some measurements of the wheelset and the bogie that should be great! Just to double check; wheel diameter should be 12mm, axle length should be 28mm, and there would need to be >~24.5mm space between the frames. And you wouldn't be able to get an accurate measure of the cone angle on the axle pinpoint? I'll get the measurements for the Park Royals when they arrive here, and take it from there. I don't think there is an easy way to avoid that unfortunately. As far as I know I can't deduct VAT the way a business can. I had thought about splitting the shipment (sending half to Ireland and half to the UK) but we'd end up paying shipping twice in that case and for a small order it's actually a good chunk of the overall price. So that really wouldn't end up being any cheaper in the end. I'd read quite the opposite in a few places. Something about the sleeve being what maintains the proper gauge in OO. Also the difficulty in moving metal wheel on metal axle, unless you have the proper tools to do that. I wonder if it's the 2mm axle or the pinpoint angle that causes issues? or both? I know some axles are made to 55° angle while others are 60°. Could it be that the bearing expects a 55° angle while the axle is 60°? It would be ideal if a 2mm axle could work with the correct cone angle.

A couple of weeks ago, while browsing the forums well after my bedtime, I half jokingly asked how difficult it would be to have some aftermarket wheel sets made to regauge the upcoming IRM Park Royals. The Park Royals use split-axle wheel sets similar to the Mark 2s for electrical pickups for the interior lighting. This has the side effect of making them a bit of a pain to regauge. To answer my own question, I did a little digging and found a guy who's happy to run off a small batch of wheels for a half decent price. So would there actually be enough interest to justify producing some wheels? They would 12mm diameter EM profile wheels set to 19.3mm back-to-back on a 28mm long 2mm diameter split-axle. I know this is not ideal for those using P4, but I guess it's better than nothing? From what I can tell 21mm EM seems to be more popular (and it's also selfishly what I'm using). These will be designed to fit the Park Royals when mine arrive. They should also fit the Mark 2s, I don't see why they wouldn't, but I don't personally own any to test with. If someone can send me a few measurements of theirs to double check it would be much appreciated! The cost should work out to around €9-€10 per coach (set of 4 axles), depending a little bit on how many I order and what I end up getting charged for import tax. So, I'm trying to gauge interest to see if anyone else would want a set. I'm happy to take on the risk of ordering the wheel sets, but only if I can be somewhat sure I will sell them. Please reply below or send me a PM letting me know how many sets you would want for either the Park Royals or Mark 2s. This is purely to get an idea of numbers, I'm not accepting pre-orders. I don't want to take anyone's money until I have the wheels in hand. But on the off chance I run out, anyone who expresses interest now would get priority.

I think I might have an old one lying around at my parents' house Not sure if it's still there (or if it still works) but I'll can check next time I'm there

Ok, I know we're getting very off-topic for a thread that's meant to be about Black and Tan. This is my last post about it, I swear. Any of these look better? Seems like almost every website I came across has a similar but slightly different representation of what should be the same colour. On-screen colours are additive while pigments are subtractive so none will be completely accurate. Unless someone gets their hands on some physical colour samples it would be impossible to tell for sure. Then CIÉ's paint supplier may not have matched the intended colour with 100% accuracy either. Of course BS 221 may not actually be correct either, CIÉ did use their own names for the brown and tan livery. So who knows. In doing a little more late-night internet sleuthing I found the question about the dark green livery had already been answered a couple years ago:

Indeed looks promising for (I assume) lighter green. Of course I'm far too young to remember the shade, but looking at photos it's not a bad match. At this rate we'll know all the shades before long

With EdN we did at least know the name, so someone had to stumble upon it sooner or later. I reckon the various shades of green probably also came from the same/similar colour standards, but there seems to be minimal information on them out there beyond a few photographs. Could be worth having a look about the pre-BnT liveries too next time you're there. Anyway, here's the best I could find about CC 222/BCC 74 (Golden Brown, or Saffron according to CIÉ) alongside CC 239/BS381C 279 (Greenfinch/Steel Furniture Green [what kind of a name is that??], or Olive according to CIÉ): Do take this with a grain of salt; the sample on the left may have degraded over time and we are comparing a photo and a computer generated colour. But it gives you an idea of what it might have looked like. I reckon quite a few CIÉ trains actually wore this livery, albeit only when they hadn't been washed in a while.

As far as I can tell the BSI is referring to the BS381 standard I could only only find one chart online which includes this colour (many skip over 279), but here it is: Screenshot taken from https://www.rawlinspaints.com/content/british-standard-381c. I wouldn't exactly describe it as green personally, but not sure how accurate the colour shown on the website is. But even more interestingly, when browsing the same chart I found another colour with a familiar name:

Make that 3 of us Looking at the pictures shared earlier it does look like much the same setup as the Mk2s. Makes me wonder how difficult it would be to get a factory to run off a small batch of 21mm split axle wheelsets

Yes, that's the front footplate I mentioned is still missing. I'm sure that's not the correct term, overhang might be better. I'll be making that out of brass since I reckon a thin sheet of plasticard would be too fragile. I might get the curved shape etched since it saves me a bit of work and I'll be getting some etches made for some of the other details anyway.

Made some progress building the frame out of plasticard over the last week. I had estimated the height of the solebar (or at least the visible portion thereof) to be 4 inches when I created the model, or 1.333 mm to scale. Unfortunately I didn’t have any 1.333 mm plasticard lying around, so I had to laminate together 0.040” (1.02 mm) and 0.012” (0.30 mm) to get the correct thickness. I created the buffer beams by cutting and drilling holes for the buffers and coupling. The detail around the coupling was incredibly fiddly to put together, but the result isn’t so bad. I did a little more filing after this photo was taken. It’s not perfect but once painted and weathered I reckon it won’t be too bad. This was glued to the ends of the solebar along with the triangular gussets which drop from the solebar down to the bottom of the buffer beam on either side. On the prototype there are two plates welded to the underside of the buffer beam and the triangular gussets. You can see in some of Ernie’s photos that it makes the buffer beam appear a little taller on both sides and there is a clear weld line against the gusset on the side. I added two thin pieces of plasticard to represent these. I haven’t cut any holes for the chassis yet, just marked out where the bogie centres should go. That will come later when I have a better idea of what the chassis will look like. For now here is the finished frame sitting underneath the body. It looks a bit weird without the front footplate (or whatever you call it) with the lamp mounts, almost more like an A Class. I will probably try to make this out of brass so it's not too fragile. Buffers and couplings are loosely fitted to show what it will look like. These will be one of the last things to be glued in place as I have a history of accidentally breaking off smaller protrusions mid-scratchbuild. The screw link coupling is a Hornby part, while the buffers are Accurascale Class 37 ones. I will file down the buffer cylinder to remove the little foot step on top, since the Cs didn't have them.

A few people have asked about the 3D model I made, so I've attached them both here and in the original post. The .f3d file is the design file for Fusion 360 and the .stl is the finished model if anyone wants to print it. Feel free to use them however you want as long as you give appropriate credit; i.e. don't pass it off as your own. c-class-body.f3dc-class-body.stl

As long as I can get a little use out of mine before before it gets usurped by a RTR version I'm happy

I recently bought a sound chip for my Murphy Bachmann 181 from Roads And Rails. He emailed me after I had put in my order to ask whether I had the old Bachmann or the new Murphy version, so there must be some difference. I haven't gotten around to fitting it yet so I can't give you the full review, but I might try to tackle it this weekend.

Class 15 is probably the closest BR loco, but it's still 1' 6" (6mm to scale) longer between bogie centres and 6" (2mm) longer bogie wheelbase. I had been using this list http://www.clag.org.uk/wheelbase.html for comparing dimensions. For reference a C Class has 21' 0" between bogie centres, 8' 0" bogie wheelbase, and 3' 2" wheel diameter. I'm hoping to keep things within a mm or 2 which doesn't really seem to be possible with anything that ran in Britain. Unless something perfect comes along I might just end up building my own chassis anyway. Even if not out of necessity, as a challenge to myself. I've always been the kind of modeller that likes building models, not necessarily just playing with finished models.

I figured a 121 would probably be closer, but I hadn't been able to find the exact dimensions. I had always assumed the bogie wheelbase would be the same 8' 1½" as the 141/181, not that you would see the difference. I might keep an eye out for a damaged 121 I wouldn't feel too guilty about cutting up

Here it is sitting on top of my Murphy/Bachmann 181. The distance between the bogie pivots and the overall length are each too long, so it would need a ~10mm slice cut out of the middle. The bogie wheelbase and wheel diameters are both <1mm off, so it could work. But then again they are a bit of a pain to regauge (I've been putting off regauging this 181 for a while).

This is good information, thank you John! To be honest I'd been looking mainly at UK models for a donor chassis without really considering much else. I reckon I'll need to take a closer look further afield before deciding what to do.

At the moment I'm thinking unlined green. But I am the kind of person that changes my mind a lot, so we'll see

I'm not entirely sure yet. Nothing RTR seems to have the same dimensions, plus I'll be building to 21mm gauge which further complicates things. I might well end up having to design my own chassis if I can't avoid it.

I’ve been wanting to build a C class loco for a while now. I was originally planning to use the Silver Fox kit, but there are a few aspects of the kit that I wasn’t super happy with. The main issue for me was the kit represents the later reengined B201 class, not the original Crossley-engined locos I wanted to model. The roof detail in particular changed a lot during the conversion; the existing vents were chopped up and repositioned to suit the new GM engines, the exhausts were completely different, and a much larger cooling fan was installed. The side radiator grilles were also much larger on the reengined locos, but interestingly the kit does use the smaller Crossley grilles here. I figured if I was going to end up cutting up the kit to get it looking how I want, I might as well just start off with a clean slate and build my own. A couple weeks ago I started working on a 3D print of the body shell. My little old FDM printer has neither the resolution nor the willpower to actually print any detailed parts, but I figured it could give a decent attempt at getting the basic shape dialled in. This isn’t just going to be one of those ‘scratch builds’ where the whole thing is just 3D printed in one go, I swear. I forgot to take a picture of the finished print, but here it is after the first round of sanding. I printed in red because I’m modelling Iarnród Chorcaí after the People’s Republic declared independence because I just had a bunch of red filament lying around. Here is the final revision behind an earlier draft. I made a slight tweak to the angle of the upper section of the cab with the windshields. There is only a fraction of difference between them, but the earlier print just looked a little off, to my eyes at least. As amazing as the CAD tools are, it’s a lot easier to see if things look right on a physical object. While I got most of the main dimensions from the C class drawings in the resources section, things like the curvature and angle of the cab ends were done by measuring photographs of the prototype from different angles and adjusting as necessary until it looks right. I think I got it pretty close, even if I do say so myself. To fill in between the layer lines on the 3D print I use Polyfilla (yes, the stuff you use to repair holes in walls) thinned with a few drops of water. I brushed on a few layers and sanded back down to give a smooth finish. I will still need to give it a coat of filler primer when it comes time to paint it, but has smoothed out most of the bigger imperfections from the printing process. The two red rectangles you might notice on the side are slightly recessed to align the air intake vents. I masked them off so that I wouldn’t fill them in which is why they’re still a slightly brighter shade of red. I actually haven’t decided how I will make the vents themselves. I will likely need some etched parts for the roof and the chassis, so I might design some etched for these too. I did pick up Studio Scale Models’ detailing kit for the Silver Fox kit, so I already have etches for most of the other grilles. I’m hoping to start work on the underframe this weekend, but I figured I’d share my progress so far. EDIT: A few people have asked about the 3D model I made, so here they are. The .f3d file is the design file for Fusion 360 and the .stl is the finished model if anyone wants to print it. Feel free to use them however you want, as long as you give appropriate credit; i.e. don't pass it off as your own. c-class-body.stlc-class-body.f3d

I would also put my vote for a G class. I've always found it to be an attractive prototype, but it would easily get lost among larger locos in a OO layout. It would be well suited to a larger scale shunting layout IMO, just like the Accurascale O gauge Ruston from a while ago.

Yes, you're reading it right, one wire to each side of the motor. A capacitor doesn't allow current to flow through it, so it won't short. It only stores a small amount of current which it feeds back to the motor when voltage from the rails disappears.