Brettell Road, 1960s black country (ish)

paulc

Western Thunderer
Shake , rattle and roll plus stank are the only things i remember about them , couldn't wait to get off .
Cheers Paul
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
Sometimes it pays to drop back a gear and just do a few simple things that are not too taxing. Things like a few simple wagon kits or just some pictures.
dia102-mineral-wagon.jpg

And what could be more simple than the good old Airfix mineral wagon kit? This ones been converted to a diagram 102 variant and weathered with gouache and a hint of AK interactive weathering pencils for the rust.
hybar.jpg

Next up a mix and match of parkside bits to produce a Hybar. The rail itself is a neat little etched kit from Rumney Models.

Below a few pictures.

class-20-mineral-train.jpg

cowans-sheldon-crane.jpg

class-129-parked.jpg

cobo-rescue.jpg

class-11-parked.jpg
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
A while ago I showed a picture of a Powsides ED 7 plank wagon. ED stands for Earl of Dudley and I said at the time that it was a bit early for the layout and that that PR, Pensnett Railway would be more appropriate. A chance discussion on an industrial railway modellers Facebook group revealed that Planet Industrials actually do a set of transfers for PR wagons so a set was duly ordered.
PR-wagons.jpg

A couple of existing wagons were repainted into red oxide (the 'shunters truck' and a grey 7 plank RCH design) and a couple more RCH wagons were knocked up from good old Parkside kits. I decided to keep the Powsides ED one as it was (although weathered a bit more to make it look more tatty) and do the shunters truck as ED too in a sort of crossover period. Ive never found a photo of ED and PR wagons mixed together mind you.

The above train is all very 'corporate' and it wont appear at shows like this. The PR wagons will be jumbled up among other mineral wagons. One thought I have had though is by making Brettell Road 2 tracks the industrials will look too out of place on the mainline so the plan is to extend the siding the train is on to the fiddleyard and have them appear from behind the warehouse, using the yard as a exchange sidings.

carless-tank.jpg

I was intrigued by the recent Oxford rail tank wagons and decided the yellow Carless Petrol version would break up the sea of grey and bauxite wagons on the layout. As with the ED wagons its really a bit to early for Brettell Road so I've weathered it up to look pretty tired. Theres a few things worth noting with this model. The first is the axle length is odd. Happily its still 2mm and its not odd in a crazy short, Lima way so you can swap P4 wheels onto it and use the original axles. The second thing is that the lettering and the red stripe don't react well to white spirit. If you want to remove them then great but if you use enamel washes thinned with white spirit for any of your weathering, as I do, and you want to preserve the livery its best to give it a quick coat of matt varnish first.

PR-wagons-dark.jpg
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
While I've been in a brake van kinda mood I finally got around to improving an old Hornby LMS 20ton version I had and making it a tad more suitable for Brettell Road.
detailed-hornby-brake-van.jpg

Pretty basic detailing job on this one.

LMS-brake-vans.jpg

A selection of Midland versions.

amlwch-fleet.jpg

Actually this brake van originally came from the Amlwch layout along with the above 47 and 24. Of the three the class 24 is as it was brought. the 47 having been brought a bit more up to date (well 1987 anyway). I wonder if Amlwch is still around somewhere?

round-oak-internal.jpg

Bit of a different angle. Let's call this train an internal user?

D8101-dark-rain.jpg

Haven't done a rainy pic for a while. NBL class 21 nestles between another pair of type 2s.
 

Allen M

Western Thunderer
Hi Jim
Looking at your layout here I think I have seen it but not too sure. It would possibly have been last year at a small exhibition in Wombourn or Blackheath. Please but me out of my misery:(
Regards
Allen Morgan
 

Allen M

Western Thunderer
Jim
So do you you know Stan Summers and his tea making mum at Cradley Heath, Alison? If you do and see them say Hallow from me.
Regards Allen
 

steve50

Western Thunderer
Love the latest photo's. The weathering is superb! How do you use the gouache Jim? I've got few tubes from The Works and never used them.

Many thanks.
Steve.
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
Hi Steve.

It’s very much like water colour but thicker. In this application I just thin it a bit with water and paint it on. Once dry (which only takes a few minutes) I use a damp brush to pull it down and make streaks. You can use people towels or cotton buds to move it around or lift it off too and if in the end, you don’t like it. It just washes off with water.
I find burnt sienna is best for rust but also a bit of orange.
 

steve50

Western Thunderer
Hi Steve.

It’s very much like water colour but thicker. In this application I just thin it a bit with water and paint it on. Once dry (which only takes a few minutes) I use a damp brush to pull it down and make streaks. You can use people towels or cotton buds to move it around or lift it off too and if in the end, you don’t like it. It just washes off with water.
I find burnt sienna is best for rust but also a bit of orange.

Thanks for that Jim, I will definitely give them a go.
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
oxford-shell-tank.jpg

OK this one isn't a particularly difficult exercise. The Oxford tank wagon re-liveried to Shell/BP livery. On my first Oxford tank I mentioned that the printing came off really easily with white spirit but not this one. This needed IPA and a fair bit of elbow grease! I added a discharge pipe and the logos came from Fox (they are a smidge to big for this little tank to be honest). I noticed, too late, that Oxford have modelled both of the vertical end ribs facing the same way on these tanks.

Dia2070-12tvan-raw.jpg

Next up a diagram 2070 12 ton goods van. When I built my diagram 2108 van from parkside kit I used the ends from a ratio 12 ton van as the Parkside ones are the wrong shape. The rest of the ratio kit sat in it's box until I recently decided to do something with it. These vans, although looking very LMS were actually built (for the LMS) by the Southern in 1942. I files off the metal framing a the ends and re-scribed the planks. The ends were just scratchbuilt from plasticard using the vent left over from the afore mentioned Parkside kit.
dia-2070-van-done.jpg

The finished van. Bufffers are from Accurascale and the old label from Holler.

Dia1890-brake-van-disassembly.jpg

Next, an Airfix LMS brake van chopped up to be rearranged into a Diagram 1890 version or 'reverse Stanier' as they are sometime called.
dia1890-brake-van-body.jpg

As can be seen theres not much too this one and it makes quite a good project for those new to chopping stuff up. These models can be found really cheaply so theres not a lot to loose. The ends have been scribed as the upper 'window' section squared off with plasticard as filler. A bit of microstrip for the vertical frame and the upper beading on the sides was sanded back.
dia-1890-brake-van-done.jpg

The finished Van. Don't forget to redo the steps on the solebars!

dia-1940-brake-van-raw.jpg

This is a cheeky little one. Basically the Parkside kit for the diagram 1657 20 ton brake van but with the wheelbase extended from 12 to 14 feet to produce a diagram 1940 version. One of those ones that i'll be surprised if anyone notices!

dia-1940-brake-van-done.jpg


Dia1799-brake-van-raw.jpg

The same cant be said for this though, I think people might notice! Same start point of the parkside kit but rebuilt to a diagram 1799 40 ton bogie brake van. The LMS built 3 of these specifically for the Copley Hill to Armley line and thats where they stayed. I just liked it for its wierdness really!

dia-1799-brake-van-done.jpg
 

AJC

Western Thunderer
Nice D.1940 conversion, Jim. That extending wheelbase phenomenon is something that the LMS seem to have done with other things (horseboxes, for example), presumably to provide a better ride. Of course, with brakevans the ultimate effect was to make to whole van longer, too. The boxvan is one I've contemplated but not (yet) got round to.

Adam
 

Jim smith-wright

Western Thunderer
Midland brake van evolution - a visual guide.

One thing the Midland did well was use standardised bits and adapted them as they went along. This is quite noticeable in their signal boxes but also in their brake vans and, visually at least, the evolution is pretty obvious and logical. So from left to right...

brake-van-evolution-1.jpg

Starting with the early midland 10 ton van. This was very much of its time and featured 3ft 6in wheels with a veranda at one end only. The open platform thats so familiar to the idea of a brake van wasn't something that the Midland really went with and only one lot (D2096) of 4 vehicles would feature this in the future. The rest of standard Midland brake vans would all feature a full length roof.

The later 20 ton van was built to diagram 1659 between 1924 and 1927 and featured a longer 12 ft wheelbase with 3ft wheels and a cabin that was 13ft 4in inside. This would become the standard size cabin for the rest of the midland vans that followed The similarities between the 2 type shown are pretty obvious with vertical planking and basically the same end panels.

brake-van-evolution-2.jpg

Next came diagram 1657 (the diagram numbers don't seem to follow in a chronological order) built between 1927 and 1931. The obvious change was the duckets on the side. The outer ends also evolved to feature a smaller opening and flush planking but still with the same offset central vertical spar.

brake-van-evolution-3.jpg

From diagram 1657 to diagram 1940 built in 1933/34. Virtually identical except for an increase in wheelbase of 14ft which resulted in a visually less nicely proportioned vehicle. It's suggested that the increase was an attempt to improve stability at higher speeds.

brake-van-evolution-4.jpg

On to diagram 1890 also built in 1933/34. Still 20 tons but with another wheelbase increase to 16ft and an increase on overall length from 20ft to 24ft. The cabin size remained the same but there was a change from vertical to horizontal planking. Note the end central spar now really is central!

brake-van-evolution-5.jpg

Finally diagram 2036. Basically the same as before but with the door opening moved to the far end. The planking on the ends is now gone as is the central spar as well as the upper part of the opening following the roof line. There were a few slightly different variants of this design such as diagram 2068 (the last being built in 1950) which featured a deeper ballast box between the wheels. Some of this last batch were also fitted although many of the other types were through piped at times in their lives.
 

andytrains

Member
A quick word of warning about the old Airfix Stanier brake van body.
The plastic had gone very brittle and the first one I tried shattered.
I was using a very fine saw, so will try the piercing saw next.
I have yet to try another.
 
Top