Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
Very nice - we have happy memories of riding in that coach
a complete surprise on the day 
About time, too....
- Thread starter tac foley
- Start date
a complete surprise on the day 
tac foley
Registered
I gave my unfinished GRS resin kit to Mr IP Eng. a few years back, in the hope that it might have stimulated him into production, but nothing came of it. The instructions in a kit costing over £225 at that time were appalling, and the cast white metal trucks looked as though they had been made by somebody who had never actually seen one before. I was living and working in Japan at the time, and couldn't be a$$ed to send it back, so Mr IP got it on my return.
It IS a shame that there is so little evidence of REAL customer research carried on in our admittedly small world scenario, but it costs very little more to get it right the first time, and would at least serve to stop whingers like moi from having a righteous 'go' at uncommunicative manufacturers.
tac
OVGRS.org
It IS a shame that there is so little evidence of REAL customer research carried on in our admittedly small world scenario, but it costs very little more to get it right the first time, and would at least serve to stop whingers like moi from having a righteous 'go' at uncommunicative manufacturers.
tac
OVGRS.org
Hi tac
Those GRS white metal bogies can also be a bit of a s*d to get running smoothly in my experience - when I completed my first pair of WHR coaches, the ride height was too high, the car bodies wobbled all over the place and the cars were as free-running as a brick. The solution was to throw away the cast bolsters and bogie pivots, replacing them with a brass cross-piece soldered to a 25mm diameter steel washer to give a wide and stable bearing surface at the correct ride-height. I also replaced the wheelsets with GRS's own pin-point 32mm gauge wheels (very nice) running in Slater's O gauge brass bearings. The cars now ride low, steadily and smoothly, but I still need to add the additional dampers that the real things now have.
Here's a pic of the full rake - ahead of Glaslyn is service car 2010, followed by shorty 2041, standard full-length 2044 and 2045, semi-open 2021 (scratch-built) and IP's NWNGR No 24. 2010 rides on O Gauge Commonwealth bogies while I work out how best to replicate the Romanian originals, while 24 rides on IP's standard wooden bogies that virtually fell together in seconds and ride like a dream. Garratt K1 is out of sight round the corner.
David
Those GRS white metal bogies can also be a bit of a s*d to get running smoothly in my experience - when I completed my first pair of WHR coaches, the ride height was too high, the car bodies wobbled all over the place and the cars were as free-running as a brick. The solution was to throw away the cast bolsters and bogie pivots, replacing them with a brass cross-piece soldered to a 25mm diameter steel washer to give a wide and stable bearing surface at the correct ride-height. I also replaced the wheelsets with GRS's own pin-point 32mm gauge wheels (very nice) running in Slater's O gauge brass bearings. The cars now ride low, steadily and smoothly, but I still need to add the additional dampers that the real things now have.
Here's a pic of the full rake - ahead of Glaslyn is service car 2010, followed by shorty 2041, standard full-length 2044 and 2045, semi-open 2021 (scratch-built) and IP's NWNGR No 24. 2010 rides on O Gauge Commonwealth bogies while I work out how best to replicate the Romanian originals, while 24 rides on IP's standard wooden bogies that virtually fell together in seconds and ride like a dream. Garratt K1 is out of sight round the corner.
David
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
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I'm probably in a minority here, but I don't think it's a little unfair to have a go at manufacturers for not producing rolling stock that's on a few customers' wish list. There is a considerable cost involved in setting up any product, so they need to be sure that there is a decent market out there. It may seem hard, but to produce a wagon that only 50 or so people will buy, would probably price themselves out of the market.
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
Paul, while you're right, the initial thought was about rolling stock to partner locomotives that have already been produced.
Yes, this scale is a pretty small market place, but if there is market for the loco, why not some matching rolling stock?
Rhino(? Not really up on knowing how to address people on the forum, nicknames or aliases!) You are obviously right in what you're saying, you would have thought someone would leap in with some appropriate stock for the engines produced. Perhaps it's something like people are more prepared to pay a lot more in relative terms for an engine than they would for a wagon?
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
Don't worry, Rhino's fine (although some people call me Ian
) I think you've probably hit the nail on the head, that a lot of us look at locos first, rolling stock second 
Could be as Ian said, people spend their cash on engines & worry about the stock later, and let's face it, an engine is much more exciting than a coal truck, so is probably an easier sale.
James Day
Guano Corner Rly - Runs weekly - Guano permitting
Does anyone recall those metal coaches that GRS sold a while ago?
I have a lovely track powered K1 that looked wrong hauling a rake of LGB 3064s, (although these were roughly the right colours). GRS had a special offer, so I acquired a bargain 3 car rake from them in FfR colours. They kind of resemble the FfR Barns. One of them is a brake/obs.
They are really heavy and came back then with strange non - LGB running gear and truly awful composite wheel/axle assemblies they gave them the rolling resitance of Stonehenge! Hardly anything would haul them and the coupling sat too high to couple with LGB, so some work was done: The nasty wheels were removed and replaced with LGB or perhaps Playmobil plastic wheels, eventually metal tyred ones were fitted. Roller bearings with pick ups were added to the Obs, and they all gained lighting, which was fed to the others by an umblical. The new wheels lowered the coaches enough to couple at LGB height.
The looked good behind K1, albeit they were FfR and not WHR outline. Two more were later acquired to make a decent length rake and modified in the same way. Whilst they look OK behind my K1, but are far too big and frankly too heavy to go behind anything else. I can't really reccomend them and if ever I have to downsize, they will be first out the door!
I wish I had the skills to create some of the beautiful carriages and stock in this thread!
James
I have a lovely track powered K1 that looked wrong hauling a rake of LGB 3064s, (although these were roughly the right colours). GRS had a special offer, so I acquired a bargain 3 car rake from them in FfR colours. They kind of resemble the FfR Barns. One of them is a brake/obs.
They are really heavy and came back then with strange non - LGB running gear and truly awful composite wheel/axle assemblies they gave them the rolling resitance of Stonehenge! Hardly anything would haul them and the coupling sat too high to couple with LGB, so some work was done: The nasty wheels were removed and replaced with LGB or perhaps Playmobil plastic wheels, eventually metal tyred ones were fitted. Roller bearings with pick ups were added to the Obs, and they all gained lighting, which was fed to the others by an umblical. The new wheels lowered the coaches enough to couple at LGB height.
The looked good behind K1, albeit they were FfR and not WHR outline. Two more were later acquired to make a decent length rake and modified in the same way. Whilst they look OK behind my K1, but are far too big and frankly too heavy to go behind anything else. I can't really reccomend them and if ever I have to downsize, they will be first out the door!
I wish I had the skills to create some of the beautiful carriages and stock in this thread!
James
tac foley
Registered
There are more than 'few' of Accucraft's beautiful NN/G16 locos here in UK - I went to one meet a few years back where there were seven of 'em, plus my own.
I think don't think that most of us, having invested a serious amount of money in such a locomotive, would be too upset to have to fund a few correct passenger coaches to haul behind it. And who would buy just one?
Apart from the GRS effort, I'd heard of nothing else until this latest news from Bowater hit the page.
I'd like half a dozen of these kits, that I could build to the correct loading gauge for the WHR, and I'm happy to put my money where my mouth is, too.
Will it happen? Who knows? Likely not, given the highly parochial nature of our modelling ethos.
tac
OVGRS.org
Smashing - can't wait to see it in umber and .........erm.............umber
Nice photo Rhinochugger! The model is a long way off being finished, but here's a view of it in umber - the first side is nearly finished (it's still lacking a number, bits of the lining, handrails, glazing for the sides, vac pipes, etc), but it's starting to get there. The front end glazing is only test-fitted at this stage (I've got through a lot of card templates to get this far, and you can see where I've been clumsy and chipped the paint around the top edge). The first couple of armchairs (dolls house) are just visible - they need repainting into ivory and blue, plus new chair legs that I may or may not get around to making. There's also a blue carpet fitted (dolls house again) to give a suitably luxurious interior look. It's going to weigh a ton when fully fitted out, but it should ride well with all that weight.
David
3Valve
Railways; Air cooled VW's; Soul Music
Thank you Gentlemen - going back to some of the comments about small suppliers earlier in the thread, I have to say that the quality of the Worsley Works etchings was first rate. Allen Doherty scaled them up to 16mm for me and I was amazed at how all the pieces making up the observation end fitted perfectly first time - great draughtsmanship. Stan Cedarleaf in Arizona produced the lettering and crests and did his usual first class job, so definitely two bouquets there for a couple of our skilled large scale suppliers.
David
David
beavercreek
Travel, Art, Theatre, Music, Photography, Trains
That is just plain stunning.
Did you do the lining yourself or get is made up as a decal?
If you did do it yourself, how did you keep the multiple lines so beautifully regular and equidistant?
Did you do the lining yourself or get is made up as a decal?
If you did do it yourself, how did you keep the multiple lines so beautifully regular and equidistant?
maxi-model
UK/US/ROW steam narrow gauge railways 1:1
That is utterly stunning. Max
Thanks for the kind comment. The lining doesn't look quite as regular and equidistant if you get up close and personal with it! I tried various ways of doing it:
1. I was going to use a bowpen, but it's a big carriage (46 feet long in real life) and the sheer length of the panels meant that I couldn't get the paint to flow for the full length in a single pass, and I'm not skilled enough to join up multiple passes in a way that looks professional.
2. I then tried using a high quality fine-tipped paint marker, but the gold paint wasn't dense enough to give a clear opaque line over the umber, and the lines looked too wide to my eye.
3. I thought about using Fox gold lining waterslide transfers, but I'd had a bad experience with the centre gold lining for my Roundhouse Criccieth Castle (it crinkled up when sprayed with Halford's excellent satin varnish) and I couldn't begin to imagine how I would feel if I'd completed the lining for Glaslyn and then had to strip it all off again if it crinkled up. I was also doubtful about being able to add multiple waterslide lines without the water dislodging the ones I'd already positioned, which would have meant separately varnishing each line before applying the next one.
4. So I ended up using the Pressfix gold lining from the Historical Model Railway Society (two thick outer lines and one thinner line making up the main panel) that I used to use when I modelled in 7mm scale. Pressfix lining isn't too keen on being moved around, but I was able to use the etched panel lines as a positioning guide, plus lots of close-up eyeball checking along the length of the car. As long as you don't press it down hard until it's in the final position, it's possible to make small adjustments. Definitely not something to do at the end of a long day after a couple of pints!
David