Nukes. Nuclear trains in the U.K. An overview of prototypes and models

kevsmith Mar 18, 2022

  1. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    First job. Cut and shut and replace the wheels
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    Wheelsets came from Pete's spares

    Spilce

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    Start building up the headstock details

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    More soon
     
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  2. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Handbrake, Distributor, VLVs, Twistlocks, Brake cylinders, Buffers

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    61 additional components added

    Might try and get some primer on tonight

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    The goof thing is the trucks are the same blue as the body so painting will be easier

    There are only three in the fleet so I can model them all if I wish

    Kev
     
  3. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Railtec will do the custom TOPS decals

    Primer

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    So went through the VMI (vehicle maintenance Instruction) to get the RAL colour for the blue. Guess what? No mention of it! but with the vehicles home base being right besides the Irish sea, in all that good salt air, they rapidly fade to a light blue

    Went for a relatively fresh, ex works, colour

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    More soon

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  4. Shortround

    Shortround TrainBoard Member

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    With all the discussions about our American couplers causing problems I am wondering how yours work. With all the movies and pictures I can figure out what those 'bumpers' are for. But, how are the cars connected together? Maybe some pictures. And do they cause modelers the same issues we have?
     
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  5. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    So. In real life and in universal use across Europe, frieght cars are connected together by hooks and assorted couplings. Either screw couplings or in rarer cases three link chains

    In this shot you can see the coupler hook and screw coupling on the buffer beam in between the buffers tha keep the vehicles seperated and absorb any shocks. This is the first loco of Class 88.A Diesel /25 KV AC elecrtic mixed traffic loco than develops 5,800 horse power under the wires and has a 950 horse power Cat engine for the last miles ahere there is no OHL

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    Passenger trains are a different matter these days. From the 1960s Buckeyes were used on the carraiges but recently The Delner coupler has become more common.

    On the model what you can see is one of the many variations of the Triang tension lock coupler in universal use in 00 in the U.K. They are horrid!
     
  6. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Right up to the taking over of Nuclear haulage by Direct rail Services the use of Brake vans ( Caboose as you would call them) was universal.

    Back in British rail days 25 048 hauls a short train of an FNA-D sandwiched between to barrier wagons made by chopping down a pair of SAA Steel carriers. The yellow end denotes that the brake van is air brake fitted

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    Over 5,000 BR 20T standard brake vans were built between 1949 and 1961. This drawing is of a fitted van with the external air pipes coming out of the cabin

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    So I thought I'd make one to with the FNA flask carriers and persuaded Brooklyn to give me on of his Hornby ones to convert. Problem, when compared to the drawing the chassis was a mile out. Way too short and with a competely wrong chassis arrangement. Looks like the good folks at Hornby has used an exisiting chassis and shrunk the body to fit.

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    Still around though are the original Airfix kits of the van now made by Dapol. Old moulds but still worth trying

    So detail pictures needed. This one was seen passing through Ipswich station when I was still shooting a lot of Black and white film. Things to note are the roller bearings, the very bent grabrails and the air hoses on the end. This one is dual fitted and has Air and Vacumm brakes

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    A nice colour shot of one

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    So the floor and underfram have been cemented together on the Surface plate with some heavy weights on top to keep them straight
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2022
  7. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Progress so far

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    All the moulded handrails except the ones either side of the duckets have been removed and mounting holes drilled for wire replacements
    Scale metal wheels fitted

    Bought a couple of bits of rolling stock at the Hartlepool Model railway show at the weekend. Another MK IIe BSO coach so I can model the two later DRS escort coaches of which more very soon. Coach 2 has just come out of the brake fluid and is now down to bare plastic. The origianl Airfix factory applied paint comes off really quickly

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    They will soon look like this

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    And also this. A 46t OBA open wagon made by Hornby. The poor thing has no idea what I'm going to do to it!

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    Going through my old rolling stock reference books covering coaching stock and freight stock i've found two even earlier escort coaches I knew nothing about. These were designed to escort a one off 'Hot Core' Nuclear flask wagon so they are on the list to do as well.

    The wagon was once put in my maintenance shed by mistake. It only took one phone call for the shunting team to come and drag it out

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    Havn't found a drawing for this yet but I will.

    Kev
     
  8. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    So the Airfix 20 Ton Brake van kit was released in 1961 and the tooling is still being used to this day. Now being released by Dapol the flash wasn't bad for moulds that old. I understand that as the moulds wear out they are not being replaced and the models will be withdrawn

    it scrubs up well though. Excuse the roof, it is just resting on. Putting seperate handrails on pays dividends. The two angled white things coming out of the side are the pipes to the air reservoir tank that was fitted inside under the seats. Still needs screw couplings and end hoses fitting, decalling and the last job will be putting the glazing in
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    In practice there would be a barrier wagon between the loaded FNA nuclear flask wagon and the brake van
     
  9. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    I was quite pleased with the progress on the PXA until yesterday when I found another description of the two of them ( I thought there was only one) that said the original floor had been replaced with stainless steel for decontam purposes. I had done mine black. I was also not happy with the height of the container anyway so rapid change of plan.

    New height container. Note the four neodynium magnets on the underside. These are attracted to the steel ballast weight in the chassis and hold the box on. The donor chassis has been superdetailed , screw couplings fitted but I need to change the colour odf the top

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    The decals arived for the next pair of escort coaches. The Mk IIes converted from air conditioned stock and reserved for navy use

    The gloss finish is correct, these are always immaculate

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    So next up will bew the restoration of the Lara Maquette IQB Flask carrier

    in bits

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    Been doing some more research on these assisted by guys who were hands on them when in traffic

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    My model is going to have the U.K loading gauge canopies on as above

    a very early shot of one of these at Sellafield when British Rail supplied a Class 08 shunter from Kingmoor to switch the works. This would not happen now!

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    more soon
     
  10. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    That 4-truck car is neat! I'm a sucker for really big cars, and your work in this thread is great, so I know you'll do a fantastic job on it.
     
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  11. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    While the decals were setting on the PXA I did some more work on the drawing for the KYA. The main structures on these were fully clad in stainless steel so I'm going to drag the Taylor Hobson Pantograph engraver out and cut the body out of Nickel Silver

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    These were horrible things to work on but the sound of 64 brake blocks coming on when you put the brakes into Full service was always impressve

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    Kev
     
  12. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    Good Grief, they had four(!) brake blocks per wheel??? No wonder they were "horrible" to work on. :eek:

    I would have demanded that the car's chief designer be transferred to your shop to only replace brake blocks. :mad:

    Though I will admit they are lovely cars, especially as a model. :cool:
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2022
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  13. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Call me crazy--I'm not a railroader and didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night--but is there a point where you have more braking power (via brake blocks or shoes applied to the wheels) than the coin-sized contact patch of adhesion on the railhead, and will lock the wheels up with little braking effect?
     
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  14. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    well. you have 16 wheels and sat above them when fully loaded you have 160 Tonnes pressing down so they are not that likely to slide. I had forgotten that theoretically we could run these at 75 mph which is a scary thought. Even empty they were touching 60 tonnes.

    When the haulage firm came to take them away for disposal they turned up with a lod loader that was too short!

    Ended up extending the trailer to the max to get them on

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  15. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    So got most of the lettering done on the PXA

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    And the first Mk I escort coach done. Still needs flush glazing and the matching MODA 99152 doing. Wish I'd put seperate grab rails on now

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    Kev
     
  16. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    So even though I had the three BNFL KFAs almost complete I was not totally happy. I had shortened them but they were still too long so, despite having them almost completely lettered, I took a razor saw to the, and took out another section. The bolsters were ut down to lower them and they now look right alongside the other stock

    Happier, but I now have to order another full set of Custom decals. Doh!

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    On my wall in the office, at home, is this Builders plate which came off an OBA long wheelbase open wagon

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    Tomorrow, I'll go into detail on the ill fated Sppedlink project and how 30 OBAs became one of the most elusive Nuclear wagons to find and how to model them in 00

    kev
     
  17. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    The Freight revolution that was christened 'Speedlink' was a vast modernisation of freight vehicles. All of the older short wheelbase, Vacuum braked stock was replaced by long wheelbase, air brake examples that used a common chassis with either Brunighaus or taperleaf springing and in many cases disc brakes.

    The OBA was a multipurpose open wagon and production was close to 800 examples

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    after a period of time 30 were sold to British nuclear fuels and renumbered BNFL 91000-29. 110505 beacme 91020 and used to sit outside my office , out of use, for years. The had the sides removed and were fitted with moveable retainers to carry Skips loaded with Low level nuclear waste from Sellafield to the dump at Drigg four miles away

    A class 25 comes out of the LLW Depository back onto the Cumbrian Coast line

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    I picked up a load of unmade Cambrian kits for the similar OTA timber wagons (Also OBA conversions) for a fiver each at a swap meet. The skips are laser cut by SMS but I had to make the covers.

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    Prototypical screw couplings fitted at each end
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    More soon

    Kev
     
  18. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    With the lugs fitted

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    Kev
     
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  19. kevsmith

    kevsmith TrainBoard Member

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    Martin King has kindly given me an old Airfix Class 31 A1A-A1A. I had one of these venerable models back in the late 1970s and was on a real Nostalgia fest as I inspected it. lovely body moulding for its age and a quirky chassis ( The middle of the axle on the powered truck is just moulded and the dummy truck has all three wheelsets the same diameter) in real life the unpowered centre ones were a smaller wheels. I reckon I can do something with it though.

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    The PFAs ready for lettering and radiation symbols adding
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    So a typical Drigg train with KFAs carrying one use only Half height ISO containers and PFAs with re-usable LLW Skips

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    More tomorrow

    Kev
     
  20. HemiAdda2d

    HemiAdda2d Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Quite a brilliant blue train!
     
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