I Stand in Awe of...

As some of you may remember, back in 2018/2019 I designed a new Narrow Planet kit so that I could have a model of one of Alan Keef Ltd.'s K12 diesel locomotives; specifically AK6 of 1981. Having finished my model and produced the kit I then wrote two articles for Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling REVIEW; one detailng the model and one the K12 class of locomotives. For that second article I was lucky in that I managed to persuade Alan Keef to write it with me. As the K12 was the first new locomotive design Alan Keef Ltd. produced the K12 class covered works numbers 2 to 7. Not long after that article was publshed (see issue 119 f the REVIEW) Alan told me he was going to continue documenting the locomotives the company had built. Originally he was intending to cover the first 100 locomotives, but a global pandamic got in the way, and instead he was able to cover the first 50 years of the company instead which amounts to 119 locomotives.

Having waited three years to see the book appear it was great to finally get hold of a copy on Saturday. Entitled "Half A Century of Locomotives from Alan Keef Ltd 1972-2022" and published by Lightmoor Press it's a nice hardback running to 160 pages, and was well worth the wait.

Looking at the cover it's nice to see a photo of AK6 (middle left) given that was the start of the journey for me building the model and then writing the article with Alan. Alongside the main content of the book are three pages towards the end which look at models people have built of the companies locomotives, and not only does that include my model of AK6 but the following lovely caption:

I stand in awe of Mark Greenwood for this model of a "K12", specifically AK 6, with a peat wagon in tow. Even this picture may show it as bigger than the actual model, as can be seen from the shot below of the locomotive alongside a 20p piece!

As you can probably imagine reading that for the first time made my day. I model first and foremost for myself, but it's nice when someone else appreciates my modelling or when I can make some of the things available as kits for others to enjoy.

Alan Keef K12 Diesel: Finished

Whilst there is still only a little modelling happening I thought I'd try and keep the blog alive (or more than it was anyway) by making sure all the loose ends from previous posts were tidied up, even if that meant going back even further than finishing Canopus in February.

We last looked at the Alan Keef Ltd K12 diesel locomotive I was building all the way back in March of 2019 when I explained the origami required to turn the flat etched parts into the bonnet and cab. Having successfully (on the third attempt) designed the etched parts I was able to finally build and paint a complete model; and I'm still really quite impressed with the stencil idea for the wasp stripes!

And here it is posed on my tiny photo plank with the etched peat wagon I started working on at roughly the same time as the locomotive.

If anyone is interested in more details then I wrote a nice long article, complete with drawings, which appeared in issue 119 of Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling REVIEW in July last year. That issue actually contained two articles from me (and two separate reviews as well) because in co-operation with Alan Keef (yes the founder of Alan Keef Ltd. and the man behind the design and build of the K12 locomotives) I wrote an article discussing the six original K12 locomotives (there were actually seven in total but the last one was a bit different and we managed to miss including it).

Oh, and of course if you want your own 4mm scale K12 locomotive, then it's available as a kit in both OO9 and OO6.5 from Narrow Planet.

The Big Reveal

Having hinted at some modelling in a new scale for the last couple of weeks, the time has finally come for the big reveal. So without further ado we have a 16mm Hudson Skip locomotive that runs on 32mm gauge track.

The loco is built from a kit from I P Engineering that consists mostly of laser cut plywood, although the skip itself is an injection moulded piece. You should also be able to spot the hand brake wheel and clutch pedal from previous posts, plus two gear levers and some extra rivets (possibly more on those in a later post) that I've added to the basic model. All these bits were modelled on a drawing of a similar loco in issue 9 of Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling REVIEW.

Unlike any other locomotive model I've built before this one is battery powered rather than being powered through the track. It's also why the skip looks over full as that's the smallest mound I could make and still hide the batteries and on/off and direction switches.

One of the advantages of battery power is that I don't need expensive track to run the loco on. In fact I can use track that is also made from lasercut plywood, specifically the Ezee range of track also from I P Engineering.

As I mentioned in an earlier post the aim of this little bit of modelling was to give me something I could do in the lounge after the little one was in bed but also to see how much I liked 16mm as a scale to work in without spending a lot of money. I think I've achieved that as (barring paints, glue, etc.) the loco, driving figure and track has cost me just £80 and I've had a lot of fun, and enjoyed scratch building details in this larger scale. Which just leaves the question.... will I be doing more 16mm scale modelling? At the moment I'm not sure. I don't have the space inside the house for much more than that temporary oval of track and I've not thought about modelling in the garden..... yet.

21 Pages

Some of you may remember that way back in July of 2015 I started work on a small diorama depicting a disused railway bridge. I built the model as an entry into that years Dave Brewer Memorial Challenge held at ExponNG at the end of October.

Over the roughly three months I spent working on the model I learnt an awful lot of useful and interesting techniques, and while I'd documented them on the blog I thought that, even though I'd not won the challenge, an article on the building of the model might be interesting to a wider audience than this blog enjoys.

Having written for Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling REVIEW before I ran the idea past the editor, Roy C. Link, who agreed it was an interesting topic for an article. My original plan was to put an article together fairly quickly by pulling text and images from some of the blog posts I'd already written. Clearly things didn't quite go to plan as it took a year before the article was finished, but it finally appeared in the most recent issue (109) of the REVIEW.

It wasn't that I was particularly slow in writing the article, in fact as I hoped it would it started to come together quite quickly from the posts I'd already made. What happened was that I decided to include a little more of the history of the bridge and the railway it was part of in the article and once I started to do some research things kind of snowballed.

What I discovered was that the line over Duchal Moor was one of only two railways in Scotland, the other being at Dalmunzie, that had been built to aid access to grouse shooting moors. So my research expanded from a derelict bride to two entire railways and as such took a lot longer than planned. It also resulted in more details emerging than would sensibly fit in an article that was predominately about a small diorama so it became two articles; one on the modelling of the bridge and one entirely devoted to the history of the two lines.

Given that both lines were closed or abandoned over thirty years ago and neither were ever open to the general public tracking down enough information to produce an interesting article took some time. I was very fortunate that requests for information in a couple of places turned up people who had either visited one or other of the lines, or had useful photos and documents which they were willing to share. The result was a 12 page article including a detailed history of the lines and rolling stock, maps, and a number of previously unpublished photos. Of course these 12 pages are in addition to the 9 page article on the bridge model, hence the title of this post as issue 109 of the REVIEW contains 21 pages of my work. Viewed another way, assuming my maths is right, about 45% of the magazine is stuff I put together, so hopefully people will enjoy both articles; it's worth buying for the other 55% alone!

If you are interested in reading the articles then you'll have to pick up a copy of the REVIEW as I can't simply repost all the material here (you should be able to get issue 109 as a back issue shortly) but I do have one thing to share with you all.

When researching the line at Dalmunzie I came across an old cine film which had already been digitized and uploaded to YouTube. The entire film is made up of a number of reels shot over a number of years and shows life on the Dalmunzie estate. While the whole film is interesting if you are only interested in the railway then there are three clips at 8:30, 29:50, and 30:40.

No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?

Over the last couple of months my modelling has been featured, one way or another, in three different magazines. First up was the June issue of British Railway Modelling, then the July issue of Railway Modeller, and then the most recent issue, number 107, of Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling REVIEW. The mentions have all been very different but they've allowed me to reflect on whether or not the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity is really true or not.

Let's work backwards through time starting with the article in the REVIEW. As you can see from the cover this was a locomotive builders special issue and the editor, Roy C. Link, asked if I could write an article about the Hudson-Hunslet model I built that became the Narrow Planet kit. In a slight departure from other articles I've written this one is essentially a set of photos with extended captions and runs over six pages. It's been beautifully laid out by Roy and I think gives a nice overview of the whole process from initial idea through to the release of the kit. The whole magazine is stuffed full of wonderful modelling (as it always is) and hopefully readers won't think I bring down the tone with my modern 3D printing approach.

Next we have the July issue of Railway Modeller, which included a short item, about a third of a page, on the Lynton and Barnstaple detailing pieces available from Narrow Planet, which includes the chimneys and finials I designed. We had sent the magazine some samples, and while the item was short it was very positive, and probably explains the sudden surge in orders for chimneys I've had to deal with recently.

Which brings us finally to the article in the June issue of British Railway Modelling. The story behind this article goes all the way back to ExpoNG last year when the Hudson-Hunslet kit first went on sale. One of the kits sold on the day (rather than as part of the pre-order) was bough by Ben Jones the editor of British Railway Modelling. I had a really nice chat with Ben and he took a number of photographs of my prototype model (the red one). No promises on an article were made but I made it clear that if he wanted any more information or needed any help with the kit he only had to ask. So when I heard that there was an article on the kit in the June issue I was full of hope. Unfortunately, as I alluded to in a previous post, hope turned to disappointment very very quickly.

Even before I'd managed to get my hands on a copy of the magazine I'd heard rumours that the article was problematic. Unfortunately this proved to be true, but the situation was a lot worse than I feared. In the magazine the article ran over three pages; one page of build photos and captions and then a double page spread mostly taken up with a single large photo and a column of text. Taking a model that is so small and printing a photo across a double page is always going to be rather cruel, but it helps if the model has at least been put together properly. Unfortunately the body and chassis clearly hadn't been fitted together correctly as the axle boxes and axles didn't line up; probably only a mm both vertically and horizontally but when blown up it was glaringly obvious. Plus the locking handles on the bonnet panels hadn't been fitted (even though they were mentioned in the text of the article) leaving odd holes in the model.

The article itself is fairly positive and the build sequence is nice and clear. Unfortunately, Ben admits to having "hit a brick wall" assembling the chassis and having to ask Phil Parker for help, and then states that the supplied figure is "too large for the seat". Yes the driver is a little large but exactly how to make him fit is covered in the instructions, which Ben suggests "reading thoroughly before you start". The issues with the chassis are then covered in a 3 minute video on the accompanying DVD. Essentially once Phil had got it working rather than writing an e-mail he filmed a quick video for Ben never expecting it to be published. Unfortunately it comes across as Phil simply listing things wrong with the kit:

• Mounting pins in the wrong place: no they aren't I'm guessing when Ben added weight to the body he got it in the wrong place so the two halves won't mate properly. An issue highlighted in the instructions and which would explain why the axle boxes and axles don't line up in the photo.
• Replacing the phosphor bronze wire as we only supply a tiny amount: we actually supply three or four times more than necessary so I'm not sure where the extra went.
• That the etched brakes can't be fitted as they would interfere with the pickups: it's clear in the video Phil is trying to fit them to the mounting pins between the wheels not the ones on the corners of the chassis. Again covered clearly in the instructions.
• A general lack of weight: getting weight into such a small model is hard which is why we supply a whitemetal driver figure so it's a shame it wasn't used.

Now I wasn't expecting a glowing review but as you can imagine, when you add all those things up, I was rather disappointed with the article. Of course the magazine is free to run the article as they see fit. After all it wasn't an advert as Ben had paid full price for the kit (he didn't even ask for a discount), and I'm not trying to denigrate either Ben or Phil's modelling; I read Phil's blog on a daily basis as I enjoy his modelling output. Mainly I'm disappointed as pretty much all of the issues come from not having read the instructions carefully, and I could have helped solve them with a single e-mail had I been asked.

The article raises a wider issue though. Having seen how misleading the article is (in my eyes at least) how can I, or anyone else for that matter, trust any other kit reviews in the magazine? If I'd read the article with no prior knowledge of the kit I'd probably have thought it was badly designed and wouldn't have bought one. Is every other bad kit review I've read similarly misleading? What about good reviews how accurate are they? Of course I'm not talking just about British Railway Modelling here but magazines in general.

I understand from talking this through with some other people that the REVIEW avoids mistakes like this by often running a copy of the article past the kit manufacturer before publication. This probably explains why it's such a well respected magazine. Maybe the main high street magazines should follow suit?

3D Printed Wagons Printed in 2D

Some of you might remember that back in October last year I blogged about a model of the 3 sided breaker wagon from Trevor Quarry. Given that the drawings I used came from the sample issue of NG&IRM Review I thought it was worth writing the process up as an article for the magazine. I submitted the article late last year to favourable comments from the editor, Bob Barlow, and the article has now appeared in print in issue 102.

The issue was actually issued back at the end of April, but unfortunately due to a mistake at the printers, and Bob's untimely death, it has taken a while before I finally got my subscription copy. It's strange seeing the article in print as a few editorial changes have been made to it; not all of which I would necessarily agree with.

I publish articles fairly frequently in academic journals but in those cases whilst the editor may often request or suggest changes they never actually edit an article; the authors have the final say on the content. The audience of a modelling magazine and an scientific journal are very different and the different approaches are perfectly understandable and it clearly hasn't put me off as I already have an idea for another article.