Railway Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 2

This project is turning out to be very fulfilling with periods of  excitement and anticipation as I research, design and build the two ballast cleaning vehicles for this train. So much so that I have been up at 5 am to spend most of the day on the project. There is also periods of frustration, not too many though. It feels a bit like two steps forward and one back, as is often the case in product development.

Not much to show for my efforts in this posting as a lot of the time is spent on research at this stage. Any how, I now have the chassis designed and 3D printed for the cleaning machine. This is the simplest part. I do not have a clue how the design of machine parts used for ballast cleaning will turn out - they are quite complicated.

The two grampus wagons for the train have arrived. I was a bit too hasty in purchasing these. I think I was influenced in seeing that traders stocks appeared quite low so wanted to be sure I got them. In fact, I purchased the last two in stock at Hattons. I wanted black wagons, being the colour for engineers trains in the 1960s. I did not initially see these for sale so, I opted for the Dapol unpainted variety. Thinking they would be a neutral grey I was pleased to see on arrival that they were already black, which saves on the paint job, although I may apply weathering. They will need appropriate numbers added of course. It was then that I found fully finished black wagons were also available, albeit a few pound more expensive. If I buy transfers for numbering the wagons then the total cost will be about the same!

The wagons come with a ballast load. These are not needed for this train as they were loaded with a variety of objects, including ladder and oil drums. Fortunately, the ballast load is not fixed and was easily removed.

My brake van is an old Airfix kit that I may change for the more detailed R.T.R. model.

To Part 3

To Part 1

Railway Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 1

Little Bro' kindly gifted me a Hornby T9 no. 30313. This is a loco I always fancied but had not got around to obtaining. I had in the back of my mind for some time making up the ballast cleaning train that I saw in 'Southern Steam from Lineside' page 69. The photo portrayed the train as (in order) T9 30729, 20T grampus wagon, ex-SE&CR 'birdcage' BCL or BT staff coach (have not worked out which yet), A Matisa 3B5 (or variant) ballast cleaning machine with separate electric power generator wagon, another grampus and a 20T brake van. A close up view of the same train (front end only) appears in 'Southern Steam in Action 1' page 36. Matisa, a Swiss company, supplied the 3B5 to British Railways in the 1950s and it remained in service into the 1960s.

Watch it in action at YouTube.

I already have a brake van. I have ordered two Dapol unpainted Grampus wagons that I'll paint rusty black. I'll purchase the coach later. However, its livery for departmental use was likely a dark green. R.T.R. model coaches do not depict this. The ballast cleaning machine is a very complex piece of kit that is not available in model form from the trade. I'll need to make one which, is the subject of this posting series.

After much research on the web I have gathered a number of photos to work from. (Example:  http://www.leedsmrs.org/jpegs/Gallery/AlanSmith/P/Ponteland%20plant%20exhib%20Matisa%20Ballast%20Cleaner%201961.jpg). Being photographed on a track bed allowed the track sleeper pitch of about 2.5 feet to be used for scaling purposes. However, the 'jumble' of machine parts are in an open frame making it difficult to understand function and form. Therefore, my model cannot be accurate to prototype, it being just an interpretation.

Having made rolling stock before I always start with the wheel bogies (or underframe for fixed wheel sets). The bogies were designed in 3D CAD and 3D Printed (FDM) in three parts that were glued together. The coupling is by Hornby and wheel sets are from my spares box. For wheel bearings I found some electronics, brass terminal posts in my spares box that have mounting cylinder posts just about the right size. These were cut off and pressed into the side frames.

Wheel Bearings


To Part 2

Read about the SLA resin 3D print version here.

Corona Quay Video

Threw this little video together using the default Windows 10 Video Editor. 

Corona Quay was created in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here we see a Class 33 and Terrier shunting wagons on the quay to deliver a chlorine tanker to the paper mill and an open wagon to the transshipment shed. Class 33 and rolling stock are scratch built using 3D printing. Terrier is the Dapol offering. Vic 24 Clyde Puffer is a Scalescenes 00 card kit blown up to 0 gauge. Buildings are mostly scratch built in corrugated cardboard.

Whilst much enjoyment was gained from building the layout it is rarely run because it can only be fully set up in the garden, due to indoor space limitations. Hence summer running on fine days only.

Layout construction detail appear under Project 20 on the right.