DM4 Restoration

A Dundas 4-wheel Coach Restoration 

Completed restoration

The early Dundas 4-wheel coach below once belonged to Norfolk 009 Group co-founder Ray Fothergill.  It is one of the only items I have from his "Fother Valley Railway", after he sadly died in about 2011.

The coach is a DM4 and dates from about 1981 when Dundas had just started,  it has the white metal sole bars and gives the coach a nice bit of weight.
What would we have done without Dundas Models?

So I thought it was about time I did the right thing and re-painted it for use on Shortwaite Hill, which I am sure he would have liked.

I did think about trying to strip the body, but as I've never attempted this before, from plastic anyway,  I took the easy way out and carefully sanded the panels with 500 grit foam-backed paper.

Here is the completed coach before adding weathering.

I added some seats and seated passengers, re-glazed it, and retained the original roof adding new rain strips and gas lamp tops.  I am having a dilemma concerning which couplings to use for the stock, and at the moment it is fitted with "period" Peco GR-101 couplings with a loop only on one end of the vehicle.
For the SHLR livery I played around with brown, cream and tan colours but decided to use Humbrol 133 "brown" and 71 "oak" cream.

Shortwaite Hill Tunnels Mouths etc.

Tunnel Mouths etc.

The tunnel entrance under the upper station.

I have made one or two walls and tunnel mouths for "Shortwaite Hill" this week. 

Built usually with Wills Coarse Stone sheets, I have added capping stones from thick plasticard.  The above tunnel entrance has a girder support, and Ratio Double Rail Stanchions added between the pillars.  The stonework is painted with a mix of Humbrol matt 121 and 29, then after 48 hours drying time, thinned Humbrol 28 is washed over to collect in the mortar joints, and also thinned Humbrol 75 used for the mossy corners and damp mortar and stones, this is all rubbed off the stones with a lightly turps-soaked rag, to leave the mortar lines in the joints.  Dry-brushed matt 80 is also used for more moss effects.

Left-hand tunnel mouth made with sanded Wills Coarse Stone and also uses Peco N gauge wing walls from an NB33 kit.  It is the entrance to the hidden gradient.

 Right-hand tunnel mouth made with sanded Wills Coarse stone and also uses Peco N gauge wing walls from an NB33 kit.  The upper bridge, which spans the line running under the village is a modified NB33 Bridge Side.

This structure is going to be the bottom of the lane which passes cottages.  

A stone wall which borders the railway line on it's scenic ascent.  The track at right angles will be inside a goods shed, accessed by a wagon turntable.

   

Shortwaite Hill

Shortwaite Hill

(22nd layout)

There comes a time when one has to get things off one's chest.......

The Minitrains Bagnall Wing Tank 0-4-0 (as new), part of the catalyst to try something different.

Plan "S34*" has always appealed to me, and quite recently several others have used the plan as a basis for a 009 scale layout.  Then I saw Mr Tincknell's "Return to the 70's" layout which was based on the same track plan.  For me, it was quite inspirational with the well-modelled buildings in a Northern England setting, much like the Yorkshire Dales.  I never got round to my own project though, fearing that it would be labelled as "un- prototypical", or worse still, called a "rabbit warren", which I don't think it is.

* (S34 - in the PECO 60 Plans for Small Railways booklet)

Then, the Minitrains Bagnall Wing Tank appeared on the market, the perfect little loco to run on it.  But, economy had to be the watch word here.  We haven't all got a bottomless pit of money, so I sold some books and die cast buses that I did not need, and hey-presto the Bagnall has arrived, along with some new irregular sleepered track.

So, why not try to build it, or my version of the S34 track plan?

It's been adapted slightly to what I require, mainly, in that the return loop has gone, and in place of it is a line returning to the lower level so it can be run as a continuous run if required.

"Shortwaite Hill" - bare baseboard and track with point controls being installed.

It's certainly not easy to build.  My version is 44" x 24" (because that's the size of the 6mm plywood I had in the garage that was spare) - it is slightly smaller than the original plan.  It is necessary to decide on a, not too high, measurement for the high level, the higher you make it, the steeper the gradients and the more the locos will struggle.  I chose 50mm as the height, plus the thickness of the 6mm ply-wood.  The gradients have to be gradual and consistent, especially at the top and bottom of the run.  There also has to be enough clearance underneath the high level baseboard at various points, and allowances where the point rods are run.  I thought an important provision was to have access to the hidden tracks for cleaning, and to recover accidents.  Then there is the point control itself, mine is wire-in-tube which brings new problems, especially when you have a long descending gradient behind the back scene, and tubes under the high level base making the clearance less at odd points.

"Shortwaite Hill" will be another North Yorkshire style layout.  It's not an enthusiasts layout, but I'll see where it all goes...