BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

martin goodall
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BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sat Dec 23, 2017 3:09 pm

BV0.0.jpg


I submitted a series of five articles under this title to MRJ in September 2009. It was deemed that there was insufficient space in the magazine for any 2 to 3-page articles on GWR Brown Vehicles, and so Barry Norman and I jointly edited the articles down to a little over a page each, and three of them eventually appeared in MRJ (Fruit A in No. 228, Siphon C in No. 232 and Siphon F in No. 234). Whether or when the last two articles in the series (Fruit C and Low Siphon) will appear in MRJ is beyond my powers of prediction. After more than eight years I am beginning to lose hope of ever seeing these last two articles in print.

So I have decided to post copies of Philip Hall’s photos of these models here (with his kind permission), plus a few B&W photos of my own, and to include PDFs of the original unexpurgated text of the articles (complete with prototype details, and rather more information on their construction than appeared in the magazine). Members can download the full text, or not, as they prefer.

1. FRUIT A (Diagram Y2)

Kits in both etched brass and whitemetal are, or have in the past been, available for this prototype, but this model was produced by kit-bashing a Coopercraft plastic kit for a Mink of Diagram V5.

You can read the full text of the article here:
BV - PDF1.pdf


All the black and white photographs below are copyright © MARTIN GOODALL, and all the colour photos are © PHILIP HALL. Captions have been omitted in most cases, as the text explains what is being illustrated.

BV1.1.JPG

This next photo shows an original Coopercraft V5 Mink next to the Fruit A by way of comparison
BV1.2.jpg


BV1.3.jpg


BV1.5.jpg
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martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sat Dec 23, 2017 3:31 pm

2. FRUIT C (Diagram Y9)

So far as I am aware, no-one has yet produced a kit for the Y9 diagram (although David Geen has done a whitemetal kit for the earlier Y3 version). My model was kit-bashed from a Colin Ashby Mink C kit (which produces a Fruit C that is 4mm short, as explained in the article).

You can read the full text of the article here:
BV - PDF2.pdf


BV2.4.jpg


By way of comparison, this next photo shows a V7 Mink C built from the same kit, alongside the Fruit C.
BV2.3.jpg


BV2.7.jpg


BV2.1.JPG


BV2.2.JPG


BV2.5.jpg


BV2.8.jpg


BV2.9.JPG


BV2.6.jpg
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martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sat Dec 23, 2017 4:32 pm

3. LOW SIPHON

This model was made from a really old K’s kit – the whitemetal version, dating from the 1960s. (I am sure there are quite a few of these kits lurking at the back of various kit cupboards around the country!)

You can read the full text of the article here:
BV - PDF3.pdf


BV3.1.JPG


BV3.2.JPG


The next photo shows the crude but effective sprung suspension for the middle axle, as explained in the text.
BV3.5.JPG


BV3.3.jpg
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martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sat Dec 23, 2017 4:51 pm

4. SIPHON F

This model was produced from a K’s plastic kit, but modified in various ways, as explained in the text.

You can read the full text of the article here:
BV - PDF4.pdf


BV4.3.jpg


BV4.1.JPG


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The photo below shows the ‘B’ side of this model (should be ‘D-minus’ !). For a full confession, see the full text of the article in the PDF attached above.
BV4.8.jpg


This sketch shows how the sides of the K’s kits were cut to make the Sides of both the Siphon F and the Siphon C.
BV4.7.jpg
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martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sat Dec 23, 2017 5:03 pm

5. SIPHON C

Many modellers will nowadays make use of the etchings for the Siphon C body produced by Dart Castings, but this model was produced by cutting and shutting the sides from a K’s Siphon F kit, and mounting the resulting body on a Ratio coach underframe.

You can read the full text of the article here:
BV - PDF5.pdf


A diagram of the cuts made to the sides to produce the Siphon C is in the post above, with the Siphon F article.

BV5.4.jpg


BV5.1.JPG


BV5.2.JPG


BV5.3.jpg


On the other side of the model, I applied the earlier G W lettering, in case I might want to run the model in the earlier (pre-1934) period.

BV5.5.jpg


That's all, folks (at least for the time being).

Merry Christmas!
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Guy Rixon
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby Guy Rixon » Sun Dec 24, 2017 9:49 am

Those are really very nice, Martin. Where did you get the underframe bits for the Y2?

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Dave K
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby Dave K » Sun Dec 24, 2017 10:44 am

martin goodall wrote:3. LOW SIPHON

This model was made from a really old K’s kit – the whitemetal version, dating from the 1960s. (I am sure there are quite a few of these kits lurking at the back of various kit cupboards around the country!)

You're correct but mine is plastic not whitemetal.

martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:11 pm

Guy Rixon wrote:Those are really very nice, Martin. Where did you get the underframe bits for the Y2?


Thanks for your kind remark, Guy.

Various bits and pieces were gathered together for this model from a variety of sources. If you open the PDF of the article attached to the first of these posts above, it lists some of these components. I'm sorry, I haven't got a more detailed note to hand at the moment that would enable to list them here, but if you have MRJ No.40, the original construction of the model was described there in slightly more detail, explaining the components that were used.

martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Sun Dec 24, 2017 12:19 pm

Dave K wrote:
martin goodall wrote:3. LOW SIPHON

This model was made from a really old K’s kit – the whitemetal version, dating from the 1960s. (I am sure there are quite a few of these kits lurking at the back of various kit cupboards around the country!)

You're correct but mine is plastic not whitemetal.


The plastic kit came later. I have one of these, but have not yet built it. The plastic kit is also a good starting point for a model, and lends itself more readily than the whitemetal version to cutting it down to form a 4-wheel Siphon to the original O1 Diagram. The only trouble is that these 4-wheel Siphons had all gone by the time of the First World War, so I am proposing to add one (when my model is built later this century [!!!!]) to the stock of the Mid Wessex Light Railway, which tended to acquire old cast-offs from the mainline companies. [Excuses, excuses.]

Colin Parks

Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby Colin Parks » Thu Dec 28, 2017 6:24 pm

Hi Martin,

A very nice collection of brown vehicles indeed and it has been a pleasure to read through your article. It seems hard to think that some of those K's kit are so old. It is testament to the pattern and tool makers back then that these models stand the same kind of close scrutiny as a modern offering. Would I be right in thinking that the wheels on the 4 and 6-wheelers have slightly deeper flanges than the standard P4 profile? I only ask because you are a known proponent of this solution.

All the best,

Colin

martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Thu Dec 28, 2017 8:48 pm

Thanks, Colin. I certainly had fun building these models. As you will have gathered from the articles, only one of these vehicles (the Low Siphon) was built more or less as its manufacturer intended, and even this has a plastic roof, replacing a badly misshapen cast whitemetal roof that came with the kit.

When I took the black and white photos, all these models had P4 wheels. But by the time Philip Hall took the colour shots, three of the five models had had these wheels replaced with EM wheels (set to the P4 back-to-back gauge). The two models that retain P4 wheels are the Y2 Fruit Van (because 14mm wheels with EM flanges won't fit inside the original Studiolith W-iron units) and the Siphon F (because it would involve too much trouble to change the wheels inside the completed bogies). It will be interesting to see whether these two vehicles, with their P4 wheels, prove to be any less sure-footed than their EM-wheeled companions. (At present nothing is running on the layout, as I have been concentrating exclusively on modelling buildings over the past two years. The layout is fully operational, but I simply haven't 'fired it up' or cleaned the track for rather a long time.)

Colin Parks

Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby Colin Parks » Thu Dec 28, 2017 11:55 pm

Hi Martin,

I have been looking at your work on the buildings and they do look very convincing. Two years working on those structures takes some dedication, but it must be encouraging to know that the layout is ready and waiting to be run when you finish them. As for wheels and reliability, the Siphon F and Y2 van will test your theory, but the flange depth of the EM Pendon Fine profile looks like it should give that little bit extra surefootedness!

All the best,

Colin

martin goodall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby martin goodall » Fri Dec 29, 2017 3:42 pm

As I understand it, the 'EMF' wheel profile, originally developed for Pendon, differs from the standard EM wheel profile only in the overall width of the wheel, which in the case of the EMF wheel is 2mm (the same as a P4 wheel). The flanges are the same as the current 'EM' profile (as distinct from the deeper flanges of 50+ years ago, such as those on 'Nucro' wheels, etc.). It is the standard EM wheels that are in current production which are now fitted to three of the five Brown Vehicles, and to many (but not yet all) of my other carriages and wagons.

I am, on the other hand, fitting the slightly narrower (i.e. 2mm wide) EMF wheels produced by Ultrascale to my locos. As I have mentioned above, they have the same EM flanges; but the slightly narrower tread (identical to the P4 dimension) makes for an easier fit, especially where clearances are tight.

Just to complete the picture, the back-to-back setting of these wheels is close to the minimum P4 setting (17.7mm)(using an original Studiolith BB gauge), and when using these wheels the track gauge must not be less than 18.83mm anywhere on the layout. In fact, all the track settings (including flangeways, check gauge, etc.) are to the recommended P4 standards. No easing of clearances has been found to be necessary, other than the avoidance of any gauge-narrowing below the minimum 18.83mm figure.

Colin Parks

Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby Colin Parks » Fri Dec 29, 2017 4:58 pm

Hi Martin,

I do have a set of 00 Pendon fine profile wheels which used to run under my class 73 loco. It never derailed even on the rather less than perfect track of my previous layout! Your comment about avoiding gauge narrowing seems to apply to all P4 applications, judging by the discussion here on this forum in the topic on back to back settings.

One other thing that occurred to me when reading of your detailing of the brown vehicles, is how well we are served by the trade for accurate components, in comparison to the era when the kits were originally produced. In the 70s, I had a K's GWR full brake plastic kit which was very well tooled, though the bogies were very basic and it had the buffers were those generic turned brass ones, it made up into a nice model. There were a couple of unmade K's full brake kits in our local model shop a month or two back - I should have bought one for old time's sake.

All the best,

Colin

Philip Hall
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Re: BROWN VEHICLES ON THE BURFORD BRANCH

Postby Philip Hall » Sun Dec 31, 2017 12:38 am

Colin,

It is of course important, if you are to use an EM wheel on P4 track, that the back to back is as Martin has said, to allow some small freedom between the rails. Ditto there must be no gauge narrowing, and Martin has got this to work, and I saw the results on Burford for myself when I took the colour pictures recently seen here.

I have reservations, though, about clearances through pointwork, where the fatter EM flange has no leeway through the finer P4 flangeways (even though this seems to work for Martin) and for this reason, on one particular long wheelbase uncompensated vehicle, I took a standard EMF wheel and turned about 7 thou off the back of the flange. This left me with effectively (but not precisely) a P4 wheel, 1.85mm tyre width but with a slightly deeper flange. I say not precisely because the root radius on a P4 wheel is approx 7.5 thou, and that on an EM (Ultrascale) wheel approx 6 thou. This has worked on this vehicle, and I have had this running extensively around a large layout recently, but I only used this approach because I did not want the work of re-engineering the chassis of this particular van (a Bachmann SR utility van). I also added quite a lot of extra weight, but then I like heavy vehicles.

I must emphasise that I am not advocating this for general use, I find it unnecessary, but for problem vehicles it is a solution which I might use again.

Philip


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