What figures do you use for the engineer/driver for your Gn15 locos?

Carl Arendt: Preiser, LGB, SLM (both 1:24 and 1:22.5) and Italeri (1:24 truck detailing kit) all have figures you can use.

SLM are by common reckoning the best figures available in this size (I can’t see any difference between 1:24 and 1:22.5, so use both together). SLM are at SLMonline.com. “Jon” and “Fred” are both good seated engineers.

Almost any seated figure will do, actually, it’s just a matter of painting. I buy groups of six Preiser seated passengers (four men, two women) and get 2 or 3 engineers out of each group while the rest go in the back of the railcar.

The scale for Gn15 seems to vary between 1:20.3 and 1:24 - isn’t there a lot of 1:24 stuff produced for dolls’ houses?

Carl: Yes, I use a lot of 1:24 (”half scale”) doll’s house stuff — barrels, petrol drums, Grandt Line styrene castings and a variety of textured styrene sheets of various sorts. For a look at what is available, try Oakridge Hobbies (under Dollhouses - 1/2″ scale). Here is a photo from last year, shot to illustrate some 1/24 stuff I found on one sweep through the local crafts store (another great source of accessories and pieces/parts!).

The moral is: Keep your eyes peeled!’

Emrys: I found a number of useful online sources for 1:24 accessories including Half Scale Minis, Miniature Concepts and eDieCast. [Dead link removed]

You can also try other retailers listed on our links page (I’ve personally bought a lot of Scale Equipment Ltd’s castings and have been very happy with the quality once the flash is trimmed off.

What are you using for ballast?

Ian Holmes: Woodland Scenics medium grey talus. Probably a tad overscale but it looks good and when it gets weathered down should look even better.

Carl: You might want to consider adding patches of coarse cinders here and there. Little railways couldn’t afford to maintain good ballast like their main line cousins, so they replaced worn spots with anything they could get …. usually cinders or local gravel. Might make for some interesting variations in the colour/texture. And of course, grass patches here and there are very prototypical! I also use pieces of hemp twine, cut about 1″ long and unravelled, stuck in pools of white glue, to represent taller weeds.

What size are the ties (sleepers) in 15″ gauge railways?

Carl: As far as prototype 15″ gauge lines are concerned, Sir Arthur Heywood decreed in 1877 that sleepers (ties) for 15″ gauge railways should be 6½” wide x 2½” thick x 36″ long, laid at 18″ intervals for 12 pound rail, 27″ intervals for 16 pound rail, and 36″ intervals for 22 pound rail. And so it was. He used cast iron sleepers of those dimensions at both Duffield Bank and Eaton Hall.

For the Squarefoot Estate Rly, I used 1/16″ thick basswood ties, ¼” wide and 1½” long, set at 1¼” intervals, with code 100 rail. I glued them directly to the foam board and spiked the rail with four spikes per tie. No ballast, just earth, cinders and vegetation (from Woodland Scenics) that essentially covers up the ties. Most extra narrow gauge lines’ ties were almost completely covered, and doing so gives your layout that “atmospheric” feeling.

How do you* get the brickwork on your brickworks looking so realistic?

Ian Holmes*: I’m glad you asked about the brick work. Well, actually, I hoped someone would, I’m really proud of the way it came out. Especially as in no way can it be considered rocket science.

The shell of the building is 4mm foamcore with Plastruct embossed plastic sheet stuck to it.

First of all, I brushed patches of my chosen brick colours onto the plastic. My colours were Leather, Roof Red, Rust, Red Oxide and Dark earth. I just dipped the tip of the brush into the paint and painted it out on the wall so that you had a definite colour in the centre of the patch fading outwards. My patches were totally haphazard and mixed up.

Then when that was dry, I took my mortar colour - Freight Beige - applied this thickly and quickly to the wall in small patches (about 2″ square) making sure I got it into the mortar course, then immediately wiped it off the bricks leaving it in the mortar course. Always use a clean piece of paper towel each time you wipe.

Then I repeated step one again, maybe taking a bit more care to not get any paint in the mortar course. This time I added an extra colour - Reefer Orange - in a couple of patches. The only philosophy I had in this stage was “keep going until it looks right”. Then to finish off I picked out a few individual bricks in black.

All the paints I used were water based acrylics from the Polyscale and Model Master ranges.

What thickness sheet styrene did you use when you built Mosca?

Actual Size		1:25 scale inches
Inches	Nearest Fraction
.010	1/100	1/4
.015	1/64	3/8
.020	1/50	1/2
.025	1/40	5/8
.030	1/32	3/4
.040	1/25	1
.050	3/64	1 1/4
.060	1/16	1 1/2
.080	5/64	2
.100	3/32	2 1/2
.125	1/8	3
.188	3/16	4 1/2
.250	1/4	6

Carl: I used .005″, .010″, .020″, .040″ and .080″ thicknesses of plain sheeting. What thickness is used in which place is largely a function of how thick the original prototype sheet would have been.

Here’s a handy table, provided by Evergreen (one good brand of styrene sheets and shapes) on every package. It shows the actual dimension and its scale equivalent for various sheet thicknesses (actually for 1:25 scale, but that’s close enough for our purposes!).

Brands of sheet styrene that I’m aware of include Slaters (U.K.), Evergreen and Plastruct (U.S.). You bond them with liquid plastic cement, such as Testers or Plastruct Bondene, both of which actually weld together the two pieces of styrene.

How did you make the hinges?

Carl: The hinges may look tricky but they’re actually easy to make. I chose to model the kinked kind that are on the outside of the bonnet but inside the engine cover sheet. They’re made with a couple pieces of styrene sheet, a short length of wire, and some small dressmaker’s pins (see illustration).

Provides a good effect with minimum effort — my goal in modeling!

I imagine that if I just order a Bachmann 44-tonner I’ll get a “new” kit with only one motor. Will that unit fit the BVM adapter? If not, where can I get an “old” 44-tonner with two motors?

Dallas Mallerich: You’re right. The new one has a single motor and will NOT work with the adaptor. The old one has two motors as shown on my web page.

Trainworld advertises in every issue of MR, and they list both versions. I’ve gotten them there and sent a few folks.

Here’s what they list:

GET THIS ONE:

#80001 Spectrum 44-tonner, asst. roads @ $24.99* each
 

DON’T GET:

#80034 Spectrum 44-tonner, asst. roads @ $32.99* each - that’s the new one

Alternatively, you’ll probably find lots of them at swap meets. Before you buy, tip the loco on its side and look between the body shell with the mechanism photo above in mind - you can see the two motors and large brass worm gears even with the body shell in place. If you’re really lucky, people will be trying to get rid of the ‘old’ versions at a discount!

Hope that helps!

Note that this was written back in August 2002. If you find a source of the old 44-tonners buy every one you can - I’m sure you’ll find GnAtterBox members happy to buy them off you! - EH