Industrial Railway Locomotive Sheds by Adrian Booth

Any book written by Adrian Booth is always worth a look, and this one is no exception. It contains 146 black and white photographs of industrial railway loco sheds, both standard and narrow gauge.
As you can imagine there's a huge variety of sheds featured, from the clean, efficient multiple road sheds of the larger systems to far more basic facilities. That lovers of industrial grime will find much of interest goes without saying, but there are some sheds featured that appear to by in quite rural settings. There's also quite a variety in design as well, from austere corrugated iron to some rather ornate brick structures.
Recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in the industrial railway scene.

Industrial Railway Locomotive Sheds, Adrian Booth, Industrial Railway Society ISBN 978 1 901556 81 0

Paul.

A1 Models Freelance OO9 Diesel

A1 Models make a range of etched brass body only kits for narrow gauge locos, designed to be fitted to RTR mechanisms. Some are based on real locos, but this one I think is freelance.
Its designed to fit the Bachmann N gauge Plymouth 6 wheel switcher chassis, however I felt that it would look far nicer on a Farish 04 chassis. The kit is for the bonnet and cab only so I fabricated a footplate from brass;

Scratchbuilt footplate.

Cab soldered in place;

Cab.

Followed by the bonnet;

Cab and bonnet in place.

An exhaust was added from 1mm brass tube, buffers are from RT Models and the roof beacon from a model lorry supplier;

Detailed up.

A coat of etch primer was applied followed by white acrylic primer;

In primer.

And how it stands at the moment;

Almost there.

Window frames are picked out in Tamiya Flat Aluminium. It still needs glazing and weathering, but that can wait for another day.

Paul.

RT Models Hudson Tipper - part 6.

Both wagons now have their brakes fitted.

The first job was to fold up the two cross beams, different length beams are provided for either OO or EM/P4. The instructions tell you to assemble these together with the shoes then solder the completed assembly to the chassis, I chose to solder them directly to the underside of the sole bars, lines are half-etched on the bottom of the solebars to aid placement. It took a few attempts to get them central and square, I tacked one side and kept adjusting until I was happy. Perhaps if I build some more of these I'll make up a little jig.
Once I was happy with the beams the shoe assemblies, which simply fold up into a two piece lamination, could be sprung into place and soldered up (click on the photo for a bigger image);

 

The next job was to form a bend in either end of the brakehangers. I used a 2.2mm drill to form the bend, after practicing on the unwanted OO hanger first (again alternative parts are provided for different gauges). .45mm brass wire is provided with the kit for the brake cross shaft, I replaced this with .6mm wire from Eileen's Emporium as I felt that the cross shaft needed more 'bulk'. As the cross shaft fits through both the shoe assemblies and the hanger I used it to check the fit and then hold the hanger in place whilst soldering the hanger to the chassis. In the pic. below the cross shaft has been left overlength, to be trimmed later, and the hanger for the second wagon can be seen in the foreground;

The holes etched into the hanger allow the enclosed box which results from the hanger being fitted to be filled with liquid lead.

The brake levers were soldered in place next after forming to shape, note that these attach on a tag above the pivot unlike conventional wagon brakes. There's nothing in the instructions about forming the levers, they just show the lever being straight, so I worked from photographs. After fitting the levers I folded up the lever guides and soldered them under the bufferbeams;

Note the stepped hanger behind the guide (admittedly quite difficult to see in the above photo), I assume that this was for chaining the wagon to the track when tipping, can anyone confirm this?

There's still a few more parts to be added, but they're coming along nicely and I'm really enjoying the build;

 

Again all soldering done with a 25w Antex and 188 degree solder.

Paul.