7mm Birmingham Moor Street

LarryG

LarryG

Western Thunderer
I like the shot of the 14xx between the two 70' auto coaches. It is difficult to determine the livery of the coaches. Could be all over GWR brown from the war years or BR carmine red. Non-panchromatic film would render the carmine as dark grey. They wouldn't have lasted much beyond 1956.

I only built two 7mm coaches so Paul did 'corner the market' haha. It was the time it took to build each coach that put me off 7mm scale seeing as I prefer building coaches to everything else. Another was lack of space and the eyesore the railway presented in the back garden when I had to build beyond the confines of the shed.
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Type in "Dudley Dodger" to google search and lots of images come up, including the ex GWR diesel rail cars. I have a Dapol GWR rail car on order for later this year in Crimson and Yellow livery which appears to be the right choice from the various photos. Photos also show this rail car was an occasional visitor to Moor Street. That's probably as "modern" as my nostalgia will allow even though memory reminds me that I did sit behind the driver of several early DMUs on the North Warwickshire Line. But soon after that my interest in trains started to subside.

Right now, though I am focussing on adding to the goods vans and wagons needed to provide the night time activity at Moor Street each summer. Fruit, vegetables, fish, even Guernsey toms. I am also looking at parcel vans for services to Platform 3, often recorded in photos on line.

Larry, I do remember the photos or your "garden" railway and wondering at the time if the image would stay the course, which it didn't. I also do respect the time you spent building those two coaches. They spur me on to finish the clutch of SideLines kits after my own fashion and skills.
 
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Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
More sorting through the railway room clutter and out came the almost finished SideLines LMS coaches. There really isn't much left to do on three of them (one even has MagClic couplers fitted) while the Period I brake corridor third needs its bogies completed. I might fit that in to today's busy schedule. In comparing the stash with my plan for a maroon Midlander rake, I now realize that the first corridor coach is in blood and custard, so I will be ordering a new kit in the near future. I don't want to repaint the existing coach as it was build by Malcolm Binns to a much higher standard than I can manage!

Malcolm's kit boxes, by the way, have become very mouldy as have the Haywood coach kit boxes. Nothing else is affected this way. How very odd, particularly as the railway room is located in a dry, Mediterranean, climate.

The wish list has grown for a shopping spree after Easter:
  • Dapol Auto-coach
  • Dapol Bogie Bolster 7F-061-006
  • Heljan HJ4991 GUV
  • PS29 Fruit Van kit
  • Fox coach transfers
  • MagClics x 10
  • SideLines SL-7043 D1917 Open First 60ft Period 3 plus extras
The MagClics are an expensive (I think) luxury but my fingers cry out for them every time I try to couple up two coaches.
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Just for fun, playing trains. The Midlander has been diverted into Snow Hill and the driver should be slowing down to enter Snow Hill Tunnel and its unusual destination. But it doesn’t matter. The tunnel entrance by the way is where the orange painted sand traps end. The station throat to Moor Street is in the foreground. Just shows how much still has to be done!

 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Back in England and I brought the water tank model with me. So after unpacking, checking on the state of the garden and so forth, I sat down with my Metalsmith rivet press and punched rivets. This was aided by the paper "go-by" sheets adhered to the brass but I still got a headache from concentrating too hard - I think I might need to visit an optician, my last test was several years ago.

45C0ECCD-4F7D-47B1-A689-823FA924F980.jpeg

The next job is to solder the sides and ends to the tank floor and then add corner angle to cover the corner joins. The ends also require a horizontal strip as shown in the photos so I will add those first.
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Soldering the tank sides has been started but first a tip. I used a spray adhesive to fix the paper guides to the brass sheets for riveting and then had to remove it. WD40 to the rescue. Spray it on the paper, leave it to soak and then the paper will slide off. Then wash in hot water and your favourite degreaser. No problem with soldering as long (as you have enough heat).
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
I have been thinking about dropping Focalplane and changing it to Paul Ashton. Focalplane used to be a "doing business as" registration in Texas but as I no longer use it at all, I think the change is justified. Any comments? Oh, yes, I don't think PaulA would work, I am not planning anything too drastic!
 
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simond

simond

Western Thunderer
I would only say that my wife regretted dropping her maiden name at work, it was a while ago and she’s now known by her married name. But there was a transition period of course.

So given you’re well known as Focalplane, and could sign yourself off as Paul, why bother?
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Back to the modelling. The water tank brass has been soldered together, cleaned up and now photographed:

4BACF625-EEED-4B88-9AD7-84D67E0FB80C.jpeg

Edit to add: The timber encased down pipe is represented by a section of balsa. It clearly isn't straight so I think I need to redo it. End of edit

Next, the roof. I am thinking of using plasticard with spacers below tight fitting into the tank interior, so some experiments are now in order.

I received a Parkside Dundas Fruit Van kit the other day and this is a perfect fit for the above ground goods shed where Guernsey tomatoes would be received. Also a Blue Spot fish van seems appropriate, bringing fresh fish from Immingham via Banbury. In the late 1950s, before the first Bull Ring centre was begun, the old market hall on the Bull Ring, which lost its roof in WWII, was the main retail fish market and the wholesale market was down the hill in Digbeth. I remember the old market hall well, mainly for seeing writhing live eels on ice.
 
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Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
There’s probably going to be a hiatus in activity for the next 10 days. We have a nearly three year old little boy staying with us. He and his mother arrived from Montpellier yesterday. Owen knows all about the Railway Room so “trens” have become a bit of a passion. But my workbench is just a bit too dangerous and there’s no lock on the door, so everything has been put out of reach.

This caused me to think that there probably aren’t that many active modellers with 2 year olds in the house!
 
simond

simond

Western Thunderer
My two are now in their twenties, but “Daddy’s workbench” has been a fixture in the lounge since before Miss D was born. We were obviously keen to prevent accidents but pretty much from the time they were able to understand, they just knew “don’t touch without asking”, and looking back, I don’t recall every having to worry that they would do something daft in an unsupervised moment, and as they got a bit older, they were very clear to their friends too.

Thinking about it, there was/is quite a collection of sharps and toxic nasties….

OTOH, I do recall saying to them in teenage years that I knew that they would want to experiment with the contents of the drinks cabinet. I pointed out the bottle of Passover Slivowitz that I’d been given in Poland, and noted particularly the ABV: “There’s easily enough alcohol in this bottle to kill someone”.
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Right now “interdit” is a popular word in my French vocabulary! Owen is growing up to be bilingual so might be behind the speech development of a monolingual child. But what an advantage it will give him in the future!
 
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Peter Cross

Peter Cross

Western Thunderer
All my kids grew up with me having a model bench, somewhere, they were taught not to go to it unless I was sat there. It was when they teenagers that they would borrow tools, which generally meant I had to interrogate to whom had not put it back.
 
adrian

adrian

Flying Squad
Focalplane said:
The ordered Side Lines open first period 3 coach kit just arrived. As usual, beautifully wrapped. I have also found all my coach kit extras so what are we waiting for!
Click to expand...
Likewise a nicely wrapped Sidelines brake third has just arrived here. But in my usual inimitable way I'm looking at a few mods - first tweaking the bogies for sprung suspension. I'd be interested to see how you get on with yours as there seems to be a paucity of build threads for the Sideline kits.
 
Focalplane

Focalplane

Western Thunderer
Adrian

This thread has been mothballed but when I start anything to do with coaches then it will become alive again.

Paul
 
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