Abandoned gauge 1 project

kevsmith Oct 2, 2018

  1. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Hi all.
    I',m running a thread on the Z forum as it is the tenth anniversary of my 'Cuyahoga' Nickel Plate Road layout which has been a firm favourite on the U.K model railway show circuit for years..

    However its success, and a move to a smaller house in the Lake District effectively killed off my Gauge 1 NKP project. This was planned to be a small wayside station on the Clover leaf route and i had started scratchbuilding rolling stock for it in 1/32 scale

    This is as far as I got

    Lima Hamilton 1000HP switcher fitted with two Buehler can motors and completely scratchbuilt in Nickel Silver

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    truck frames cut out on a pantograph engraver

    It just need decals and glazing and it was there

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    The typical Nickel Plate caboose (ex Wheeling and Lake Erie) had the full interior and again just need decals and glazing

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  2. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    An ancient Clover Leaf Route Boxcar. All of the freight vehicles were constructed in Styrene sheet.

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    This was as far as I got with the single sheathed boxcar. The roof and ends were cast in resin to allow me to make a few

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    Ones that did get finished was the short Lehigh Valley gondola

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    And the Erie TOFC Flatcar

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    So you can see I'd made some progress when the axe had to fall. I eventually sold them to a dealer in the U.K who gave me a very nice cheque for them but I do miss them now. perhaps when i retire I'll have another go maybe

    Kev
     
  3. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Scratchbuilt the Lima? Wow! Incredible!
     
  4. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Well I've always enjoyed scratchbuilding Gauge 1 locos. Both Live steam and electric. Probably my magnum opus was the British rail Class 58 heavy haul Co-Co. These locos were built to haul heavy coal and steel trains with an eye on the export market and featured a modular design with the cabs, prime mover, fan room and electric sections bolted on to a heavy underframe

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    I loved these engines so went a bit over board with the gauge 1 model

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    Seen on my Gauge 1 Mardy Colliery exhibition layout is 58 050

    This model could run on 12V Dc off the track or by radio control from onboard Yuasa batteries using a Brian Jones black box connected to a Futuba 2 channel RC set up. It had full cab interiors,working fans and later on working windscreen wipers (until they self destructed at one end!) and a big smoke generator in the exhaust. Like the prototype it was fully modular construction which made painting it a lot easier

    Seen working RC on John Tomlinsongs garden layout in the setting sun

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    Kev
     
  5. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    There was an added benefit to having the onboard batteries. Spirit fired steam locos need a blower motor to give them some draft when lighting them up. rather than cart around extra batteries a simple phono socket allowed me to plug the blower straight into the diesel loco.

    The RC fitted FA1 is seen lighting up my LMS 4F 0-6-0 at a Gauge 1 get-together

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    Kev
     
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  6. ddechamp71

    ddechamp71 TrainBoard Member

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    Wow ! I already knew you're a talented Z-scaler but I just wasn't aware of your 1 scale scratchbuilding skill !

    Congratulations !

    Dom
     
  7. traingeekboy

    traingeekboy TrainBoard Member

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    You've hit on my favorite subject here: Garden railways of any scale or gauge. Keep em comin'! :D
     
  8. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Well, as your'e interested I might as well show you some of the other scratchbuilt gauge 1 I've done over the years

    I'll start with my locos built for my gauge 1 exhibition layout 'Gottersee' (Got to see, geddit) based on the Bavarian branch line to Frasdorf.

    The layout started out running mainly Marklin locos but this little beast really intrigued me. This 0-4-0+0-4-0 mallet was built for the Badische Staatsbahn and was a nice challenge

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    The body was constructed in Nickel Silver with steel chassis for the two mechanisms. Driving wheels turned from SG Cast iron castings. The valve gear was cut out on a pantograph engraver and the tender axleboxes were cast in resin from a home made pattern

    Two Buehler motors meant it would the side out of a house!
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    Painted and slightly weathered. The only bought things were wheel castings, Motors and gears and screw couplings

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    More soon

    Kev
     
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  9. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    If you don't mind I'll hop between German and British stuff as we go along

    So.. I went a bit leftfield for a while and started dabbling in Fine scale Gauge 1 much to the disgust of the Gauge 1 establishment who wanted one wheel standard across the board

    first up, and one of the longest builds from start to completion was an ultra fine scale Beattie 2-4-0. These were built for the London South Western Railway (LSWR) and were typical of the the designs at the time

    In this shot you can see the fine flanges and the inside valve gear. The wood buffer beam is made of real wood, of course

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    Complicated little sod

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    opening toolbox lids and smoke box door

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    So from start to finish apart from painting took 14 years on and off as I wrestled with various problems

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    I never got round to painting it. The LSWR Brown livery with lining of seven different colour strpies was just too much and eventually it went into Mike May's collection

    More soon

    Kev
     
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  10. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Still in finescale I was getting really interested in Scottish locomotives and set about constructing a North British Railway J36 0-6-0. These pre=group veterans survived long enough into British rail ownership for one of them survive to preservation

    I was lucky enough to see one in service when I was very young on a family holiday to Edinburgh

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    My model used 'GFS' Steel for the mainframes (no bar frames here!) Coil spring suspension and a Beuhler motor. I used to pick these motors up very cheaply at an electronics surplus store and they were ideal for gauge 1

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    Again with opening smokebox door and fitted with a 'Mini Plow' ready for winter

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    Model was finished as 65222 'Somme' many of these locos received names in memory of the First World war

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    Kev
     
  11. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    British inside cylinder 4-4-0s were extremely widespread with nearly every Pre-group Railway company possessing some. Not the easiest to get good haulage with as they tend to be nose heavy and be light on their feet with just two driven axles.

    So when I started the Caledonian Railway Pickersgill 4-4-0, designed to run on fairly tight bends I employed a bit of lateral thinking. The chassis is split just in front of the lead drivers and both halves pivot making it a sort of Bo-Bo. Once again it has my favourite Buehler motor fitted

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    Showing its typically clean Scottish lines (NO Outside pipework here!)

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    Again the only bought items were the motor, gears and wheel castings

    Kev
     
  12. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Now in the U.K, which is a very small place by USA standards not many type of locomotives had massive build numbers but one exception was the british railways Class 08. Based on a pre-war LMS design these 0-6-0DE locos powered by an English Electric engine pushing out 400 HP were the standard shunting locos in virtually every part of the U.K

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    Quite a challenge to model as they are quite 'lumpy'

    Fully sprung but using a Johnson motor this time. The wheel castings were intended for Brighton Line(LBSCR) tender and the body was Nickel Silver.

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    Axle hung gear box and semi flexible drive to allow for the springing

    The bulldog clip is just supporting it for the photo! You can see the outside cranks and the extra detail added

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    opening cab doors and cab window droplights that actually moved up and down. I used some commercial white metal casting for the buffers and axleboxes. The complex sand boxes were machined from some thick perspex I had hence the red colour

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    Kev
     
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  13. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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  14. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    As a preview to the British Industrial locos I built I thought I'd give you a previewwith some rare footage of my first gauge 1 exhibition layout 'Mardy Colliery' Shot by my wife's ex boyfriend (Don't ask!) long before I invested in a camcorder it shows the layout in 1992 when it was a trailblazing introduction to the concept of scenic 1/32nd scale modelling. Hugely popular at the time it was only retired when the baseboard tops developed some serious sagging



    Much more soon

    Kev
     
  15. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    So.

    British Industrial locos were built in their thousands by a huge variety of builders

    Hunslet were one of the major manufacturers, based in Leeds in Yorkshire

    A typical 15" (Refers to the cylinder size) 0-6-0ST constructed in Nickel Silver with GFS Frames and Locosteam wheel castings. Beuhler motor, Full cab interior and weathered

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    I wanted to capture the beaten up appearance of many of these hard working engines

    As the second world war started to bite the MOS (Ministry of Supply) decided to try and get the loco builders to standardise on one engine so various builders were allowed copies of the Hunslet 18" 0-6-0ST

    The loco on the right is the 550050 0-6-0ST with its deep buffer beam and to the left the wartime version that became known as the WD 0-6-0ST both constructed on the usual principals

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    all these years later that missing front coupling still bugs me!

    After the war many of these locos were taken over by the LNER Railway and then into British Rail stock as class J94

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    I ended up building four of these with this one fitted with the unique 'Lambton Cab' for the national Coal Board in the Newcastle area

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    With their very short wheelbase these are really useful locos on the tight curves of an exhibition layout

    Kev
     
  16. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    This Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn 0-4-0ST was always one of the best runners on the layout and was given the full weathering treatment

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    The world of industrial locos in the U'K is also full of some oddball items

    Neilson, a famous Scottish builder built this curious 0-4-0T for Lord Carlisle's near Brampton. Note the double set of buffers, the standard set and a smaller lower set for shunting chaldron wagons at the colliery ( A sort of mine tub)

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    I went a bit mad with this one with an Escap coreless motor, Flywheel and layshaft and it turned out to be the worst running loco of the lot!

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    0-4-0 tender engines are as rare in the U.K as the are in the USA. The North British railway had a few of these Y10 examples and mine represented one sold off to Industry

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    If you go back up to the J36 you'll see the distinctive house style of chimneys, cab windows and tender carried through

    Kev
     
  17. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Now you might think I worked exclusively in metal but some locos were constructed in plastic as well

    The unique streamlining applied to Oliver Bulleid's 4-6-2 classes, The Merchant navies, Battle of Britains and West Country classes for the Southern railway got them the nickname 'Spam cans' ferocious steamers and very light on their feet they were great favourites of railfans and survived to the end of steam

    The most famous is probably 34051 'Sir Winston Churchill' named after him during the war and used to haul the great mans funeral train after his passing. Now part of the national collection along with a recreation of the funeral van used to carry the coffin

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    I was struggling to get Nickel Silver sheet at the time as my supplier had shut down but I had loads of Perspex sheet courtesy of a mate who made and installed shop signs, these were his off-cuts

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    The distinctive BFB Wheel castings came from Walsall Engineering

    Difficult to tell its plastic?

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    The unique oval smoke box door was horrid to get right

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    Kev
     
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  18. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Another plastic fantastic was this Ruston & Hornsby 48DS 0-4-0DM. With full engine detail the Rank Pullin Coreless motor was actually the engine sump with the rest of the detail added on

    powere between the axles was delrin chain and gears but it really needed a lot more weight to allow it to pull more stock

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    These things were tiny in real life. Strangely I came very close to buying a real one last year, the price was right and I had a rail museum to take it to but its location, in West Wales, was too remote to get it from

    From one extreme to the other

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    This was my Deutsche Bundesbahn BR 41 2-8-2 with oil fired tender

    Constructed over a period of a couple of years it had roller bearings on the main axles and tender axles, custom cast tender truck sideframes and was powered by two Escap coreless motors

    This was a Big Beast!

    You can see its size by comparison with the loco shed on Mardy Colliery. It would not go through the door

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    I never got around to painting it before I sold it

    Kev
     
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  19. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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  20. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    I still have all sorts of stuff up in the loft but most pressingly are two model that are nearly complete

    One is an almost certainly unique model. A Japanese Railways C56 2-6-0 as handed over to the state railways of Thailand as war reparation after conversion from 3 ft 6 inch gauge to metre gauge. This is 1 scale running on 0 scale track and is fully scratchbuilt in a scale I christened 1nM

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    Not far off finished, just got a bit of binding on the valve gear somewhere to sort out

    seen with some of the stock to go with it

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    One of my retirement projects will be a garden layout in this scale running around the rear garden.

    The other unfinished loco is another Austerity 0-6-0ST which is about 75% complete and is now one of my winter projects now the show season is finished and I can get some modelling done

    Kev
     
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