This week I’d planned on continuing with my OO Gauge Fixed Link Couplings and showing you where to get them. However, it was announced last week that as of 22nd May 2017 Shapeways are restructuring their pricing system for Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD) and Frosted Extreme Detail (FXD) plastics. As my OO Gauge Fixed Link Couplings will be printed in these materials I’m going to look into this before I release the product.
The main changes Shapeways will be making are lowering the material cost and halving the initial base cost. This, on the whole, is good news as it should reduce the cost of several of my products, but I’ll need to do some re-designing. This will be necessary as they’re also adding a charge for support material and a small charge per part. And as many of my products have multiple parts this may push the price up. But don’t panic; the solution will be to have these parts sprued together or 3D printed inside an enclosure so they are treated as one part.
I have already done this with some of my products. For example the EMD DD35, DT6-6-2000 and RT-624 all have their handrails 3D printed inside their shells as you can see with the DT6-6-2000 below.
So over the next few weeks I’m going to be revisiting all my products and ensuring they are all easy to order and cost-effective; plus a spring clean isn’t a bad idea! This may mean my next few posts are a bit random but I will share with you what has changed as the products are updated.
Again I only have a short post for you this week as having recently got back from the Bristol Model Railway Exhibition and we are now preparing for another show.
This time it’s the Victory Model Railway Club’s annual exhibition in Portsmouth (the UK one!) The exhibition is Saturday 13th May 2017 from 10:00 am till 4:30 pm and is held at the Admiral Lord Nelson School, Dundas Lane, Portsmouth, PO3 5XT.
We will be attending with several modules from our ‘Solent Summit’ layout and I look forward to seeing you if you can make it.
This week’s post will be nice and short as it’s been a busy weekend, so I’m just going to remind you that I, and my fellow members of the Gosport American Model Railroad Group, will be at the Bristol Model Railway Exhibition with our N Scale modular layout ‘Solent Summit’.
The exhibition runs from Friday 28th of April to Sunday 30th and you can find out about it here.
Next week it’s a Bank Holiday here on Monday; so again it will be a short post. But I’ll have something to share with you that will give some new life into old steam engines.
This weekend I had a nice surprise when passing through Corfe Castle which is small village located in Dorset on the South coast of England. There was a special event happening at the local heritage steam railway and I thought I would share it with you.
Corfe Castle is famous for having, as its name suggests, a large castle.
Although in ruins it’s a spectacular sight and it’s situated very close to the railway station which is now operated by the Swanage Railway; which is a heritage line. The station is situated just to the right of the castle behind the town. In the picture below you can see two plumes of steam, each from a different train sat in the station. The line runs to Swanage to the right and Norden to the left passing between the castle and the far hills.
The Swanage railway runs steam trains for most of the year but what made this weekend special, and a nice suprise, was the addition of some visiting locomotives. And they where all Bulleid light pacifics.
As the poster says this year, actually in July, marks the 50th year since the end of steam on the Southern Railway; which was one of the big four. The others where the LMS (London Midland Scottish), LNER (London North Eastern Railway) & GWR (Great Western Railway).
One of the most influential people for the Southern was Oliver Bulleid. He was the chief mechanical engineer for the Southern Railway between 1937 and the 1948 nationalisation. As all four companies competed to have the fastest and sleekest looking locomotives Bulleid designed a class of locomotives called the ‘Merchant Navy’ pacifics to pull the most prestigious trains, as pictured below. Not only where these streamlined but they had lots of modern ideas such as chain driven valve gear and electric lights.
30 locomotives in the class were built between 1941 & 1949 and became know as ‘Spam Cans’ among the loco crews because of the streamlined cladding. These weighed in at roughly 100 tonnes and although perfect for heavy express work it meant they where unable to travel on some of the regional lines on the Southern network.
This then led to the design of the ‘West Country’ and ‘Battle of Britain’ classes of light pacifics being built between 1945 and 1950. 110 were built in total and were used as express passenger locomotives as well as freight. All the ‘West Country’ locomotives were named after West Country resorts and worked the west country routes. The ‘Battle of Britain’ locomotives were named after Royal Air Force (RAF) and other subjects associated with the Battle of Britain and worked the South-east lines.
To mark the 50th anniversary the Swanage Railway brought in four guests to run with their own West Country making a nice set of five:
34052 Lord Dowding – (rebuilt) West Country and originally called ‘Braunton’.
34053 Sir Keith Park – (rebuilt) Battle of Britain.
34070 Manston – Battle of Britain. (Resident at Swanage Railway)
34092 City of Wells – West Country.
34081 92 Squadron – Battle of Britain.
Two of the locomotives are classed as rebuilt and have a very different appearance to the others. This is because under British Rail (BR) all of the ‘Merchant Navy’ and 60 of the ‘West Country’ and ‘Battle of Britain’ locomotives underwent series of improvements in order to reduce the running costs and improve the performance of the locomotives. The ‘West Country’ and ‘Battle of Britain’ locomotives went through this between 1957 and 1961 and the changes included the cladding or casing being removed and being replaced with conventional boiler cladding, the boiler pressure being reduced to 250 psi from 280 psi and the chain-driven valve gear being replaced with a modified Walschaerts valve gear which fitted both outside as well as between the frames making access much easier. The origin chain valve gear was all between the frames inside an oil bath.
Although I didn’t travel on the trains this weekend I was able to catch a few as they passed through Corfe Castle station.
Here is ‘Manston’ arriving with the London to Paris night ferry train. It’s a bit shorter than it would have been but you get the idea.
The real train ran from London Victoria to Dover.
Leaving Corfe Castle station ‘Manston’ heads for Norden.
Although the Swanage railway is a single track main line Corfe Castle station acts a passing point with two platforms controlled from the signal box.
The platforms are connected with a foot bridge which was great place to watch from.
This is looking north to Norden with the Castle on the left.
And this is looking South to Swanage. Corfe Castle station has a small good yard at the South end.
I was able to catch ‘Manston’ and ‘City of Wells’ departing in different directions after an exchange.
‘City of Wells’ was on the ‘Golden Arrow’ which was another ferry train from London to Paris but this time it was 1st class all the way.
The train normally would have been made up from Pullman coaches offering every luxury of the age. And the loco would have been facing forwards.
Lord Dowding (the rebuilt West Country) arrives from Norden.
The rebuilts do look like more traditional steam engines and I think they also look a bit larger however this is an optical illusion as they are basically the same.
‘Sir Keith Park’ (the rebuilt ‘Battle of Britain’) sits ahead of ‘92 Squadron’ awaiting the signal to depart Corfe Castle station.
Double heading was common on some of the steeper routes and is always great to see although for five coaches I don’t think these two have much to worry about.
The scenery in the area is wonderful; and can see why they built the castle here all those years ago; a good rail connection for one!
I leave you with ‘Manston’ running North in the afternoon sun.
This week I had planed on sharing with you the next part of my ‘OO Gauge Fixed Link Couplings’ post. But time has simply got away from me so this week I will be brief and just let you know that I, and my fellow members of the Gosport American Model Railroad Group, will be at the Bristol Model Railway Exhibition with our N Scale modular layout ‘Solent Summit’. The exhibition runs from Friday the 28th of April to Sunday the 30th and you can find out all about it here.
Next week I will be back to the ‘OO Gauge Fixed Link Couplings’.
If you’ve been following my posts for the last few weeks you will recall that this weekend was the Poole & District Model Railway Society’s annual exhibition and I have to say it was a great success.
So this week, while I’m recovering, I want to share with you what I think is a very worthy project.
For many years I’ve been involved with the Dean Forest Railway and back in July I posted about their Steam Gala which you can read about here. The railway has several steam locomotives but one in particular; No. 3806 is named ‘Wilbert’.
This 0-6-0 Hunslet Austerity, originally built for the National Coal Board in 1953, was acquired by the DFR in 1976 and restored to working condition.
In August 1981 the loco was named “G.B. Keeling” after the first Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Severn & Wye Railway. The S&Y was the original railway company through the forest where the DFR now runs. The naming ceremony was carried out by the Rev. W. Awdry; following a members’ ballot for a name for the engine.
The Rev. W. Awdry, as well as being involved with the DFR, was the author of the original ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ books. On September 13th 1987 No. 3806 was renamed ‘Wilbert’ in honor of Rev. Wilbert Awdry and has carried the name ever since.
‘Wilbert’ has also appeared in several of the later ‘Thomas The Tank Engine’ stories as ‘Wilbert the Forest Engine’.
The locomotive has played a huge part in the history of the DFR; not just because for many years it was the only working locomotive, but also it’s a fantastic steamer, very reliable and surprising strong for its size. Although it’s not the most glamourous or biggest of engines it’s popular with those of us who worked on and with it over the years, and this was the first steam locomotive I ever drove.
Currently ‘Wilbert’ is in need of a boiler restoration. All steam engines go through this every ten years or so and it’s a costly operation.
So for the first time the DFR is running a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money to get ‘Wilbert’ steaming again. The campaign is aiming to raise £5000 GBP to get the boiler repairs underway in the New Year. The campaign can be found here.
For those that don’t know how these crowdfunding campaigns work I will give a brief explanation. A target amount is set by the campaign, in this case £5000, as well as a deadline. Then people can pledge any amount they wish to help with the campaign. If the target is met by the deadline then the money is collected and the project goes ahead. If not, then no money is collected and the project is stopped.
The campaign offers rewards depending on the size of the pledge. In this case the DFR are offering membership to the society, among other things. For a full list of the rewards please see the campaign page.
The deadline for the campaign is 6pm GMT on the 1st of January 2017 when, hopefully if successful, the work on the boiler will commence.
I can’t help by 3D printing a new boiler so I will be helping by pledging!
Interestingly a special run of OO/HO scale models have been made of ‘Wilbert’ and can be purchased from the DFR. You can read more here.
Next weekend I will be at Hampton Court Model Railway Club’s exhibition ‘Tolworth Showtrain‘ with our large modular layout Solent Summit.
James' Train Parts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.