Blacker Lane Disposal Point NCBOE (4mm/OO)

[Dave]

I'm on a roll now

The orange Jinty must be the engine most associated with British Oak and I have one of Bachmann's limited edition models. It's no longer suitable for collectors though. Bachmann took a standard model and painted the tanks in a poor shade of yellowy orange and sprayed what is supposed to pass for weathering all over it. They also left on the vac pipes and ejector. They didn't fit the blue sand box (probably from a Hudswell Clarke) on one side of the smokebox. I repainted and weathered mine and corrected the small details.

Mine runs a coreless motor after the original burnt out. This saves space and has allowed me to fit DCC sound and a Stay Alive.

 

[Dave]

I have made some progress with the final board. This board features the canal and staithe and next to the Fiddle Yard.

There will be a barge fixed into the water effect and the hole in the baseboard is where coal will be tipped from the wagons on the staithe and into a container under the board.

 

[King Crab]

Really atmospheric modelling here!

I have always been fascinated by the coal drop here,
ever since I saw the pictures in Colin Gifford's little known Batsford photo book 'Steam Railways in Industry'.
I am really interested in how you are going to model the installation.
Working bottom doors on the wagons?

Peter

 

[spikey faz]

I made some Batoyle transfers for the oil drums.
View attachment 195430

I'd be interested to know how you made the transfers.

Mike

 

[Dave]

Really atmospheric modelling here!

I have always been fascinated by the coal drop here,
ever since I saw the pictures in Colin Gifford's little known Batsford photo book 'Steam Railways in Industry'.
I am really interested in how you are going to model the installation.
Working bottom doors on the wagons?

Peter

Hi Peter,

I haven't completely decided what type of wagons I will use, but it won't be bottom doors on PO wagons. It'll be either hoppers or end tippers. At British Oak, they used end tippers until 1969, when a new staithe was built for use with hoppers. I have made one working hopper that uses magnets to hold the doors closed and a larger magnet between the rails that overcomes the one holding the door closed, thus allowing the load to discharge. A smaller magnet, also between the rails, repels the one on the now hanging door and closes the door as the wagon is drawn off the staithe. It has been tried only on a length of temporary track.

The PO wagon in the photo has had the end door cut out and a replacement made that is hinged. That's as far as I have got with that and have not yet worked out how to open and close the door without human intervention. If I use end tippers I will also need to construct a tippler and mechanism to raise/lower the wagon, so at the moment hoppers seem to be the favourite as the staithe itself will require no mechanism or moving parts.

 

[Dave]

I'd be interested to know how you made the transfers.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I used a photo of a real oil drum end and maniuplated it in Photoshop. I then printed it onto clear decal paper, using an ordinary inkjet printer. Here is the image. You should be able to copy this and use it. It may appear large on the screen but should print at approx. 7mm diameter. No guarantee though as putting stuff on screens seems to sometimes screw up the resolution. I'm no expert in this stuff.

 

[Dave]

I have decided on hoppers and so have begun the foundations for the staithe.


Signage.

 

[adrian]

Signage.

Those are very nice indeed - lettering perfectly weighted. However my OCD rails against the black and white stripes on the support poles. I'd like to think in that era that the highways department would be careful to align the stripes and google images tends to suggest that to be the case.

 

[Dave]

Those are very nice indeed - lettering perfectly weighted. However my OCD rails against the black and white stripes on the support poles. I'd like to think in that era that the highways department would be careful to align the stripes and google images tends to suggest that to be the case.

You're absolutely correct, Adrian. I just got lazy and didn't think anyone would notice. I'll repaint it.

I have chopped a Bachmann Southern C Class chassis to fit the L&Y Class 27 body. I say chopped but I actually stripped it down to a bare chassis block and stuck it in a milling machine to shave off the excess knobbly bits to make it fit the etched body and keep the alteration to the body to a minimum.

In order to keep the original boiler backhead, and to generally make things easier to fit, I replaced the Bachmann motor with a shorter one. I can't remember the manufacturer's name, but it cost 99p, from ebay. I've used them in several kit-built locos and they have proved to be reliable and slow-revving. The worm is from a Hattons Andrew Barclay that I remotored.

 

[Osgood]

You're absolutely correct, Adrian. I just got lazy and didn't think anyone would notice. I'll repaint it.

Or - put it down to mining subsidence with the board being subsequently straightened?

 

[Dan Randall]

Some interesting stuff, on pre-Warboys signs here….

Pre-Worboys - Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki

www.sabre-roads.org.uk

Regards

Dan

 

[Dave]

Some interesting stuff, on pre-Warboys signs here….

Pre-Worboys - Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki

www.sabre-roads.org.uk

Regards

Dan

Thanks, Dan. I never knew any of that. I picked that style of sign simply because there is one at the other end of the real Blacker Lane and it looked suitably old enough to have been around in the 1950s.

 

[Dave]

Progress with the staithe.

 

[Joe's Garage]

Hi Dave
Don't know how I missed this one, lovely detail, especially the PO wagons. Reminds me of John Sutton's work in 3mm. Very subtle and realistic.
I agree with Osgood...mining subsidence!!
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers
Julian

 

[Dave]

I have spent most of the weekend messing with wagons and getting the L&Y Class 27 running. No photos of the 27 as it is still just a black lump until I have applied transfers and weathering, but here are some of the latest batch of wagons.

I had a go at doing an unpainted ex-PO.


Ex-Newton Chambers IZAL.


And a suitable brake van. I swapped this Bachmann model for a pair of 5-plank minerals that were of no use to me. I scrubbed off the LMS lettering and made some BR transfers for it. All my other brake vans are vac-fitted 20-ton BR types, so this one seems more suited to the unfitted ex-PO wagons.

 

[Dave]

I also started on a pair of Hornby 21-ton minerals that we given to me. The livery is spurious as I don't think any of these "Felix Pole" type wagons were vac-braked. In fact Hornby seem to have given them numbers from a completely different type.


Lettering scrubbed off, a brushed-on coat of Tamiya Hull Red and some Maskol, followed by a blow-over of grey. Some 3-hole discs to replace the original wheels simply because the originals had massive flanges.


Maskol peeled off, a bit of dry brushing and some weathering powders later.



Not bad to say that they cost me nothing.

 

[Dave]

Thanks to @LarryG for the information about how to get a Bachmann Southern Class C chassis into the Lanky Class 27 it is up and running and now finished. I managed to get the sound decoder and Stay Alive in the loco itself, but the speaker has had to go in the tender. It weighs in at just 10g under that of the Bachmann Class C, so is still a useful hauler.

 

[LarryG]

Wow, looking good. Will we ever see one r-t-r....?

 

[Dave]

Wow, looking good. Will we ever see one r-t-r....?

I kind of hope not, now that I've gone to all this trouble. I wouldn't mind a RTR 28 though.

 

[Dave]

A little progress made with the canal area, this evening.