Gauge 1 at Kidderminster 2024

My trip to Kidderminster station on the SVR was a spur of the moment decision. Suddenly finding myself with a free Saturday, and the desire for a train ride while reading the excellent The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks. 

I knew that Kidderminster was celebraiting its 40th birthday,  and that there would be a G1 layout in operation. And that the museum does excellent cake. Not forgetting that Footplate Models is a couple of minutes away. All the ingredients of a nice day. 

Arriving at the station, there was a lineup of classic road vehicles. Unexpected, and a good start. The crowds were thick under the canopy, but I eased my way through to the musem as they listened to speaches. As expected, the Victoria Sponge was perfect, and just as I finished this, and my tea, the crowds started to find their way in. 

The G1 layout operated with the usuaul efficiency. A couple of battery GWR railcars filling in the rare moments when steam engines weren't thrashing around the circuit. G1MRA do this very well. A board keeps the public informed as to what will be running when, and there is rarely a break in operation, perfect for crowd pleasing for the public. 

Outisde, a Pannier, 4MT and Western diesel were all in operation. I understand that a loco had failed during the morning, so all services were suffering an hours delay. 

For me, the only disapointment was lunch. A pint in the station pub seemed like a good idea, and on offer was a "Brunch Burger". I love a good pub burger, especially with beer, so ordered. Well, the beer was very weak, I like a light beer, but this was too light, almost watery. The burger was a cheap patty, with two hash browns and an egg in a bun. None of this sits in there, so at least one hash brown has to be removed. Sadly, someone had already extacted all the flavour, and even a generous dollop of ketchup didn't help. 

After lunch, I bumped into an old friend who works on the signalling side, and he took me (among other places) into the signal box beside the miniature railway. It's beautifully restored in there, and volunteers were offering sessions having a go. 

So, what do I photograph with in a lovely, restored GWR signal box?

Aboard from the modern (1980s?) Stourbridge box. In my defence, I've seen loads of levers, but you don't see the electronic boards. Maybe one day, someone will preserve one? 

Anyway, lunch aside, a good day out. 

More photos over on Flickr.

Saturday Film Club: Diesel and Electrics in the Midlands - 1980s

If, like me, blue diesels are your era, sit back and wallow in nostaligia for a time when the railway was more interesting. Dirtier admitedly, but we didn't care.

Being bowled over with the September issue of BRM

 

Challenges can appear when you least expect them. Obviously, I produce a lot of modelling for BRM magazine, and you think I'd had a go at most things, but it turns out that replicating a 4mm scale bowling green, is much harder than normal scenery. 

I managed it, but there was a fair bit of trail and error along the way. I learnt quite a bit about the sport by Grandad loved along the way too. 

A simpler project is a bus stop. 

This is one of my 4-step tasks, ideal for a lazy evenings modelmaking. 

The camera has been out too.

Scarlington - N gauge

Ddualt - 009

South Wearing - O gauge

September Garden Rail out now!

 

Do you have a shed? Is it full of G gauge railway? Eddie Spencer is lucky enough that his answer to both questions is yes! So, when it's too wet to run on the outdoor line, he can still have friends round for some train fun.

In the rest of the magazine:

• We talk to Sinisa Stanisic from LGB
• Developing a bogie electric locomotive
• Pedal cars and Bond motors
• A summer of development at Lazy Grange
• Looking back at vintage steam
• Building a German brickworks locomotive
• 3D printing “Flying Scotsman” in Gauge 1

Plus all the latest Product News for large scale railway enthusiasts. 

Available from all good newsagents. or online: www.world-of-railways.co.uk

Finished G1 wagon

 

And there we are - job done. If you didn't wait for paint to dry, the kit could be assembled in about an hour and a half, and even that would be a leasurely pace. 

I really like this kit. The finished model feels great. A little weight might me required, but I'll aim to match the Accucraft wagon when that is to hand. It rolls well and has that mass that only a large scale model can muster. 

So, I'll be shopping for more Northern Finescale kits then? Yes I will, but it's going to be tricky.A couple of messages on the G1 Facebook group explain: 

Heads up for this weekend. Chris Arundell will be at Gauge One North Bakewell with the last Northern Fine Scale wagon and van kits for sale, all at discount price, buy for future needs because this is your final chance. Snooze and you loose!

 *

When he died Roger was had turned 78 and wanted to do some Gauge 1 for himself. We were at the stage where parts were getting low so re-investment of substantial $$$$ for more parts was on the very near horizon.......at prices a couple of hundred percent more than before. We had already made the decision that it was no longer cost effective, so to assemble the final kits, I had 500 rims made and I fired up my own bench-top injection molding machine to make buffer heads on a home made mold. There is nobody capable of using the molds we have (some a two-man job to lift) and shipping them (to the UK?) would be prohibitive, especially as Roger was a demon at swapping over ejector systems and water cooling from mold to mold. No, NFS's time has come and just looking at the recent contraction of G1 commercial manufacturers, just confirms we have done the right thing. It's always best to quit when you are on top.

Now, Northern Finescale were at G1 North, and I did spend a bit of time on their stand, knowing that this was the last chance. The thing is, I couldn't work out how much anything cost. Sides were priced, but did they include the chassis? And wheels? And if they don't, how much were those bits? 

I couldn't ask, because both people on the stand were deep in conversation, and later in the morning, I ran out of car park time, and had to leave before I could answer my questions. I suspect that if I had, I might have bought more kits...

So, I missed out. A few more coins in my pocket and my car park time would have been longer (it didn't do contactless unfortunatly), but that's how the cookie crumbles. I'm sure there will be kits on the second-hand market, so I'll keep my eye out. In the meantime, there are other manufacturers, so I'll have to build my train up from a variety of sources.

Buffers and couplings

 

Both buffers and couplings on this kit will be familiar to anyone who has built an O gauge kit. You can see the buffer components above. The only glue required is to attach the ring to the face of the buffer body. 

I screwed the nut half-way along the thread as doing it all the way up seemed to leave too little buffer shank showing. Maybe I'm wrong there, but it's my model, and I like it this way. 

Couplings are again, the same as a 7mm kit. The hook slides through the buffer beam, a spring is put on the back, and retained with a split pin. The only difference is that the chain is chunkier, and needs lot more bending to open out the links for fitting!

Brake gear

 

I'm loving this kit! The brake gear is a joy. For example, the back of the safety loop is moulded in with the main part containing the shoes. The fronts are stuck on and they loops will automatically be vertical and properly positioned. When can't this be done in O gauge, or even OO? 

Brake shoes are close, but not touching the wheels. Certainly close enough for the gap not to be visible in normal viewing. 

I managed to break one of the brake levels cutting it off the sprue, but a bit of Microstrip glued to the back fixed this, and now painted black, no one can see. 

Two shapes of toothed rack are included, and since this is a freelance wagon, I've used the rounded bottom version as I prefer the look.

Smallspace 2024

The thing about the Smallspace show, is that some very interesting people take stands there to show off their models. 

See this "Starbug" from the TV series "Red Dwarf". It's the real one. The one from the telly. And the man beside it is the man who built it. From plastic globes, and parts from EMA. And wood. And Letraline. 

And I had a long chat with him about it. He even showed me, and anyone else interested, the original plans. Fascinating. 

Aprt from that, the full-size replicas of Hewey, Louey and Duey from "Silent Running" impressed me a lot, but then so did a lot of the modelling. So, go and have a look at the photos over on Flickr.

Saturday Film Club: The Lost Art of Paste-Up

I've edited magazines for years, but never used anything but Desktop Publishing. The nearest I got to having to do any pasteup, was creating camera-ready artwork for the DOGA Journal back in the 1990s. Even then, the pages were DTP, but pictures had to be printed on the office 600dpi laser, and then stuck onto the page. The whole lot them being posted to the printers to photograph and turn into pages. 

The full process is fascinating to watch, and I'm really glad I don't need to do it!

Airfix church in The Collector

 

Time to tackle a kit over 50 years old for the Hornby Collectors Club magazine, The Collector. 

Last time, I built a Tri-ang hardware store, and I'd hoped to try the church from the same range, that survived into the 1980s, but I haven't been able to locate a kit yet. 

So, plan B. The Airfix church, now manufactured by Dapol, has its roots from the Kitmaster range that predated the Tri-ang one. Kits designed to compliment OO railways were an excellent idea, even though Kitmaster/Airfix weren't model railway manufacturers at that point. 

The model is fun to build and paint, and I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. The big question is, what do I build next?

Wheels in

 

Another easy job, the W-irons locate into holes in the solebar that match up with a lug on the front. You can't go wrong, and you would have to work pretty hard to fit them wonky. 

Into the bearing hole goes a slippery plastic bearing. Maybe there are brass alternatives, but for the amount of running I anticipate, I can't see this being a problem. Judging by the quality of the kit, the manufacturer knows what he's doing!

Solebars drop in, with some more raised lugs to set the distance apart. Wheels need to be fitted at the same time, i can't see you can spring the sides out to do it afterwards, A bit of juggling, but nothing too difficult, these parts are chunky after all. 

There's a little allowance to slide the solebars side to side to ensure the wheels are perpendicular to the sides. A good wash of Mek fixes everything in place, and I've even been careful enough not to damage the paint for a change.

Body, and a bit of paint

 

Well, this big scale seems simple enough! Building the body is no harder than it is in OO - to be fair, the pieces are just the same, but larger. 

Using Revell Contacta glue, two pairs of corners are assembled, then the four sides come together, and finally the floor is dropped in. The Contact tacks the lot together, with Mek-Pak washed inside the corners to set the joins. 

I took care to ensure the assembly was square - building it on an old bathroom mirror - but this was probably overkill. 

While the sides are prepainted, back ironwork has to be coloured on the ends and solebars. It's not too fiddly, although keeping a brush of thinners handy was a good idea a couple of times. While the paint (Revell 6) was out, I gave the underframe components a coat too. Easier now, that trying to dodge the green solebars with the W-irons are attached.

G1 Anniversary wagon

 

You can't leave a model railway show without at least one bag or box of goodies. That's the law. 

From G1 North, I came away with this Northern Finescale wagon kit. Bought second-hand, hence it being 17 years old, I had checked that all the main bits were in the box, before putting £60 on my credit card.

My long-term needs for G1 stock are half-a-dozen wagons, and a brake van. Plus a loco, which I already have the kit for. I'm not fussed what the wagons are, but pre-grouping will work best with the loco livery I have in mind. One Accucraft RTR model is in the pile, and this is to be the second in the train. Since £60 to £95 seems the going rate for wagons, the process won't be quick, but I'm not in a rush. 

Working in a realatively new scale to me, means I don't have that overview of the market that I enjoy for smaller size trains. Hence my trip to G1 North to look at the trade. 

Anyway, in the box are some nicely painted sides and ends, with transfers already applied to the sides. Everything is plastic, apart from the wheels. Instructions are a single sheet with some photos, but nothing looks too scary. In fact, on first glance, it's a lot like several O gauge kits I've built in the past.

I made it to Wikipedia!

Looking for something online, I alighted on the Wikipedia entry for Gauge 1 model railways. 

Imagine my surprise when I spotted that the main image, was a shot of my Ruston, built in 2009. This isn't my doing, I've never had much success in editing Wikipedia, so someone out there has spotted the photo on Flickr, and decided that it would be ideal to illustrate the scale. 

Long-term readers will know that this isn't really true. My model, built for a customer, is electically powered, and uses a lot of O gauge technology. Something live steam from Aster would probably be more typical, but who am I to argue? 

 

Playing trains with Bole

 

It's always nice to recieve an invitation to play trains on someone elses garden railway, so when Steve from Bole Laser Craft asked me to join him and some freinds for a session on his line. I was promised cake too. 

As it happened, it worked out that I could visit Gauge 1 North, and then head over to Steves after lunch. So that was the plan. 

The line is long. And tall. 6ft from the lowest level to the loops at the top. You have to drive your loco, so manual control Willi was left in the back of the car, and I ran my Merlin Mayflower. 

Not the largest loco in the world, I managed 3 1/2 circuits before running out of gas. Not back going since there is quite a climb, and even with only six skips on the back, it had to work. 

Everyone else was running Darjeeling Himalayan Railway locos, which have slightly larger boiler capacities, but they were also hauling longer trains. 

The day was sunny for the most part, apart from a serious dose of rain towards the end of the afternoon. Steve had just fired up his Darjeeling 'C' Class, but was able to set the points so it circulated on the top circuit, largely visible from under the gazeebo we sheltered under. 

So, another good running visit, with freindly operating (there had to be, at one point three trains were chasing each other) and banter. Plus some very nice cake. A good afternoon!

Saturday Film Club: Dortmund university monorail

Why does a univeristy need a monorail? Who cares, it's cool!

Cav'ndish brass tension locks

 

Here's a new, vintage, product to me. A bag of what I think are stamped (not etched) brass, tension lock couplings. 

The mounts suggest 1960's or 70s Hornby replacements, but smaller than the Margate originals. 

Assembly is required. Pop the hook assembly into the main part, and push a plastic pivot into place. Ideally, these would be chemically blackend before putting things toghether. A dip in Gun Blue would do the job, if chemicals aimed at modellers weren't available. 

Also, why did Cavendish, stick an apostophe in the middle of thier name?

Pug chassis mystery - solved

Back in 2015, I blogged about a mystery chassis for the classic Airfix "Pug" locomotive. At the time, it was a bit of a mystery. 

The mystery is solved, thanks to eBay. It's a Simplas chsssis. 

Currently, yours for £24.99. And no, I don't plan to buy it. I'm tempted, but NO!

Weidly, there was a built up example on too, but I can't find a link for this one. Presumably it sold, so there is a market for weird old model railway products. Good news for me if I ever decide to dispose of some. I might be able to buy a pizza...

Credit to James Finister who worked it out in the comments of the original post.

Brewing up watered-down PVA

 

My jar of watered-down PVA is nearly empty, so it's time to brew up a new batch. The recipie for this most useful of modelling mediums is simple. 

Mix equal parts of PVA glue (woodwork version prefered, not the shiny stuff for kids) and warm water. Add in a couple of drops of washing up liquid, to reduce the surface tension, and give it a good stirr. 

And then, my little trick, leave it alone for at least a day. This seems to ensure the stuff mixes properly, and you don't end up with too many lumps of neat PVA when spreading it around. 

I know there are more modern glues, and some use rubbing alcohol to reduce the surface tension, but this works for me, and I love the simplicy. 

Hornby Ford Sierra

 

The Ford Sierra is a problem car for me. Like the Class 58 diesel that arrived about the same time, I am old enough to see the first ones on the road. At the time the "jelly mould" design was controversial, even if it was logical to anyone who knew of wind tunnels. 

And now, when was the last time you saw either? 

I am old enough to have had an entire car range, and class of locomotives, arrive and depart in my lifetime.This really makes me feel ancient. 

Anyway, this car appeared at about the same time as the real thing. The Class 58 beat the real locomotive to the shops. 

It's a bit boxy, but recognisable. I wonder if they licensed the shape with Ford? Presunably they did as R271, containing three cars, is titled "Hornby R271 Ford Sierra Cars". BAck in the 1980s, and for a good few years later, this, and the Tri-ang cars, were pretty much all us modellers had to populate our roads! At least the Sierra was "modern image" in car terms. 

Anyway, this one cost me 50p. A bargain I think. Who knows, maybe I'll build an 1980s layout for it one day?