7mm Yorky D's LT - Wagonery tales from the Met.

[Yorkshire Dave]

Chiswick and Aldenham have been temporarily relocated to West Yorkshire.....(with a bit of Neasden in the background).

This has been passing through the paint shop....





And there's plenty to do..... interior, glazing, destination blinds, handrails, decals, radiator, etc, etc.......

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

A trip into the paint shop for Sir Ralph Verney...

....all Vallejo acrylics and the body colour was a mixture of dark red and mahogany. I also cheated with the lining and used yellow lining decals - which took one day to apply in several stages!

Now awaiting number and lettering decals before glazing, final details, assembly and light weathering.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Just printed off some destination boards I've either photographed, found on the LT Museum collection website or from t'interweb.

They have been re-scaled but a test reveals further resizing is required.



There are obvious omissions from the list on the left for which I have not yet found suitable photographs and they are - WATFORD, HARROW, LIVERPOOL ST., BAKER ST. and WEMBLEY PARK.

The ones I did not know existed are on the upper right and was surprised to see GREAT MISSENDEN ! Of course the one on the lower right is before LT ceased running trains to Verney Junction.

Another missing destination board is EDGWARE ROAD which I only found out from the RAYNERS LANE board. It appears some of the destination boards are double sided and the RAYNERS LANE board has small lettering running up outer ends and on this face they read RL - ER (Edgware Road). As can be seen below MOORGATE has M - WM P (Wembley Park) on this side.



NEASDEN shows N - BK (Baker Street); BAKER STREET shows STAN (Stanmore) - BK and UXBRIDGE shows UX - H H (Harrow on the Hill). I would assume from the destinations it appears these boards were interchangeable with T stock which would imply there are other destination boards yet to be located. Some of the boards are Met in origin e.g. Baker Street/Stanmore, Verney Junction.

And being tested... A end (from photos I've seen the A end always faces London).


D end

Still waiting for the decals .....

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

And I forgot ALDGATE from the list of destinations !

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

A few bits of 1.5mm brass wire, a bit of brass and scrap etch, a hot stick and we have this...

...... one of the classic LT bus stop shelters - not that it actually protected one from the elements.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The shelter was zapped with grey primer and painted.

Firstly with a coat of Tamiya flat aluminium followed by a wash of Vallejo steel. A further wash of darkened Vallejo steel/gunmetal mix was applied to weather the roof and underside. Once dried Tamiya flat aluminium was drybrushed to create the polished areas on the poles/crossbars where passengers have leaned against them.

A black/gunmetal mix was used around the joins and floor mounting plates.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I've finally installed a decoder and a speaker into L.94. Ripped out the existing circuit board and replaced it with an ESU decoder which sits in the bottom of the boiler.


A hole was drilled into the end block and tapped for M2.5 to mount the speaker.



The opportunity was taken to weather the chassis, remove the buffer beam steam heat and vacuum fittings and make up and fit some cab weather sheets (mainly to keep the smoke out of the cab when working engineering trains in the Met tunnels). The latter made from patches cut from a nitrile glove. I have a box of these for use when I'm working on the car - stops my hands from becoming too dirty when handling oily and greasy parts.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The decals finally arrived to allow me to finish Sir Ralph Verney. Here are some gratuitous photos.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

More recently I've been messing around building a small photographic 7mm diorama using some scrap wood and Peco Setrack.

I've based it on an imaginary branch serving Middle Farm (off the Kingswood Wharf branch) of the Duke of Buckingham's Wootton Tramway (Brill Branch) which has been upgraded to take steam locomotives. The original Kingswood Wharf branch retained it's longitudinal sleepered track as the wagons were horse drawn until this branch was truncated by the Met at Church Farm.

The overal dimensions are 1335 x 404 mm and only the base scenery has been applied thus far. The building is a place holder until I construct one from wood.
The sidings hold two wagons and the switch lead (headshunt) holds a loco and two wagons so there's enough to play about with.








A section of the OS map marked with the perceived route (blue). The red line is the Wootton Tramway Kingswood Wharf branch with the Church Siding Junction at the bottom.


Having recently acquired the Minerva Manning Wardle 0-6-0 my intention is to modify this to represent BRILL No 1 as used by the Met prior to the introduction of the classic A Class 4-4-0 tank engines.

There is a bit of work to do as highlighted on the two photos shown here for illustration. More alterations will be required as I progress. I have managed to locate about half a dozen relatively good photos from various sources.

Some of the alterations are: Wider cab; re-siting of the sand boxes; new brakes to replace the wooden ones represented; new steps; additional piepwork; smokebox door dart; lamp iron; etc, etc.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

I've made a start witha new cab for Brill No 1. Looking at the photos a new shorter safety valve will be added to the list of replacement parts.

A new cab was made up from scrap brass using the photos as a guide. The prominent bolts/rivets will be applied using Archer decals when priming takes place.

Cab as supplied:

Brill No 1 cab made up from scrap brass


The two cabs

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

It's been a while since the last update and, alas, nowt to do with Bow Street Runners, Peelers or Scotland Yard but the Metropolitan Railway .

Broadly the Met's goods rolling stock followed Midland Railway designs with a touch of Neasden influence. These three were converted/adapted from Slaters MR 7mm kits.



All are hand lettered M E T. except the tare weights and numbers which come from a Southern Railway goods wagon sheet as they are similar.

Each one required its own cut, insert and shut with sections from Evergreen Styrene sheet and strips of various sizes and sections. And now for some cruel close ups...

Low Open Goods Wagon (Met term) - 3 plank dropside - conversion of the Slaters MR kit on a 9' wheelbase chassis to a 9'6'' wheelbase chassis.


High Open Goods Wagon - 5 plank - conversion of the Slaters MR 5 plank side door wagon.


Covered Goods Wagon - Van - conversion of the Slaters MR 16'6'' body on a 10' wheelbase van into a Met 17' body on a 10'6'' wheelbase van. This required the most work as both panels either side of the door have the same dimensions.


This shows the original MR van side compared to the new one I made up.


Now to look at one of the Met brake vans which will be a scratchbuild.