Distillery yard micro layout - back out on the exhibition circuit

[andyram]

Thanks Andy. I have a Hornby sentinel already but it needs a repaint. I would like to get a peckett/andrew barclay in the future to run on this layout.

 

 

I still have some of the Lilleshall Pecketts available for pre-order on my website. Goodness knows when Hornby will send them of course - the release date keeps slipping.

[luke the train spotter]

Well the layout is progressing nicely. I have laid all the track and wired it all up so that I can run a test train. I also installed all the seep pm2 motors which control the frog. The point motors haven't been wired up to the stud and probe control board yet as I need to build it. This means that the frogs are currently dead until I get that done so I can't test with a small wheel base loce hence the use of my class 20. I hope to get a sheet of 8x4 ply at the weekend so that I can make a start on the back scene and lighting rig which I have also ordered a few bits and bobs for. In the meantime, here is a picture of the track that has been laid. Oh and I also need to build a small extension for the fiddle yard to lengthen the train capacity for the branch line track. Thanks for looking.

[sulzer27jd]

Luke, I would suggest a purchase of "The Speyside Line", available from the GNSRA  http://www.gnsra.org.uk/master3.htm which details the whisky trade on a line that generated considerable quantities but also has colour photos of both Balmenach and Dailuaine. 

 

Remember also that, given your available space, you may not be modelling the distillery itself, but more likely the bonded warehouse. This is the secure building where the finished product is stored prior to onwards dispatch, usually to the central belt for blending and bottling. 

 

All the best

 

John

[Guest ShildonShunter]

Hi Luke all coming together nicely looking forward to seeing more.

[luke the train spotter]

Luke, I would suggest a purchase of "The Speyside Line", available from the GNSRA http://www.gnsra.org.uk/master3.htm which details the whisky trade on a line that generated considerable quantities but also has colour photos of both Balmenach and Dailuaine.

 

Remember also that, given your available space, you may not be modelling the distillery itself, but more likely the bonded warehouse. This is the secure building where the finished product is stored prior to onwards dispatch, usually to the central belt for blending and bottling.

 

All the best

 

John

Hi John i will check them out. Most of my prototype photos I have found are of dailuaine and balmenanch so it would be interesting to read up on them. The plan isnt to model the actual distillery at the moment (but that could be a possible future extension) and I am planning on scratch building a bonded warehouse on the top right hand siding. Thanks .

[luke the train spotter]

 

Hello Luke and Hello John and Hello all,

 

Very interesting web site that GNS one I spent quite a bit of time looking at it.

Then I went to the GANSG site and found these wagons the top two are 9ft WB and the van 10ft.

 

GNS_RMW.jpg

The drawing is at the very odd 299.72 ppi and the wheel base of the van is 14.0 mm, altering the ppi without re-sampling the image to 104.9 brings the drawing to 00 gauge.

 

The van is very unusual with both wood and metal straps and would make a very distinctive model.

 

Cheers

Hi Jim that top wagon is very tempting! I think I might have to build it. I will measure some stuff up tonight and see what i have available. Do you know what the colour scheme that it would be in?

[sulzer27jd]

 

 

 

This an extract from the GNS GANSG page;

 

 It is also noted for its involvement with the whiskey industry, 

 

 

 

 

This, of course, should be the whisky industry. 

[luke the train spotter]

Hello Luke,

 

This an extract from the GNS GANSG page;

 

"On the freight side the company promoted the local fishing industry, offering special trains and fares for the trade inland and, as in many Scottish areas, the arrival of the railway stimulated the cattle trade. It is also noted for its involvement with the whiskey industry, transporting grain and coal to the many distilleries located in the river valleys (notably on Speyside) and lifting the bottled spirit for transport to the docks or to the rest of the country. There is a rather good and inexpensive little book 'The Speyside Line' published by the GNOS Society which is well worth reading if you have any interest in modelling this area.

 

Goods stock had dark grey bodies, black ironwork and white lettering. The initials used were GNS."

 

The grey would fade so you could call anything 'authentic' and be quite right :-)

I see that they advocate the book that John mentioned.

 

Cheers

Thanks Jim. I'm currently having trouble finding a wagon chassis which I already have which has the right wheel base so it might be a bit of a cut and shut job. That book is sounding more and more useful! Edited June 20, 2018 by luke the train spotter

[luke the train spotter]

Hello Luke,

 

I'm finding the same in trying to buy some 9ft WB wagon chassis kits, Peco/Parkside ostensibly do some quite cheaply, but without wheels, no one seems to have any at the moment. Dapol do some as well with wheels but they are expensive, such is life I suppose. Though if you have some 10ft WB ones you could lengthen the drawing a bit without affecting the height, no one would notice, a bit like the Garstang and Knott End Rly using old coal wagons and converting them to salt vans.

 

Cheers

Very true and I think I will have to extend the drawing like you say. Not ideal but nobody will notice. I could do with some wagon building after todays work on the layout. I decided to wire up the point motors and i have stupidly used pm2 motors which wont power the frog as they dont have an inbuilt switch. For my budget it is an expensive and stupid mistake but the packaging inside the point motor packet is very misleading as it makes out that seep motors 1 to 4 are capable of changing the frog polarity. Its quite frustrating after spending a long time doing all the electrics then I'm going to have to rip it all out and start again. Electrics are my least favourite part of a layout so I'm quite disappointed that they dont work as I want them to. The point motors are now stuck to the baseboard with the pin trimmed to the right length and I bought them a while ago so there is no chance of returning them. It looks like they will be removed and i will experiment with the wire in tube method with an sdpt switch instead. This also provides reliable operation so it should work just as well. Anyway, thanks for looking.

[luke the train spotter]

Hello Luke,

 

If it's possible for you to do this the cost will be zero.

 

Just a loop of wire under the board with another wire attached to the frog.

The blades act as the switch, if they don't make contact just bend the loop wire a bit.

I make mine from the earth wire in Twin & Earth cable.

Whether it will work with Peco stuff I don't know I've always made my own.

 

Cheers

ahh ok. But doesnt that make the electrical connection to the frog dependant on the connection between the point blade and the stock rail?

[luke the train spotter]

Hello Luke,

 

Yes of course the insulation gaps on home made points go like this;

 

p02_post.jpg

I would have thought that the Peco ones would have been the same.

If you have a battery an LED and some wire you would be able to check it.

 

Cheers

That's exactly how the peco ones are. They come with a bit of wire on the bottom of the point which you can snip if you want to have an individually switchable frog or if you dont snip if you will have an auto frog powered off the connection between then blade and the stock rail. For reliability as I always seem to have dirty track, i think i might go with an external switch to change the frog polarity. On ny peco points i have also snipped the wire and stuck them down so it would be difficult to add more wire and drill more holes at the moment. Thanks

[luke the train spotter]

Hello Luke,

 

The only other way I can see you could do it is to use a double pole slide switch, both your points operate at the same time as its a crossover.

I've got some spare ones I would gladly put one in the post for you.

 

 

Cheers

 

[edit] I clean my rail just once with Meths and then rub graphite over it, I keep a carpenters pencil and if a loco stalls I rub more graphite in at that spot, I never do any other cleaning and I have one layout still working perfectly after 7 years.

Thank you very much for the offer Jim but I have just ordered a pack of switches myself coincidentally. Graphite sounds like and interesting solution and of course it conducts electricity (one of the few things GCSE chemistry taught me). I will give that a go. Normally track cleaning for me is a combination of white spirit and track rubber. Thanks.

[luke the train spotter]

Well at the moment i cant really progress with the layout until early next week when the switches etc arrive. So, in the meantime I thought I would crack on building a wagon from a set of drawings which Jim mentioned. It is quite a small and basic little thing and it looks very light railway to me. It is the top wagon from this set of drawings. For the chassis I had to stretch the drawings slightly so that it would fit the smallest available chassis that I had to hand. It was this old milk tanker. For it to be suitable i had to remove most of the underfame detail especially the brake gear and reservoir tank. I built the wagon body separately from the chassis in 4 pieces from a card cereal bar packet. Nothing like a bit of budget modelling and using what you've got. It was stuck together with PVA glue and some rocket card glue. Here is a pic of this stage. At this stage i also made a dummy floor. This sat flat on the chassis once I had removed the plastic lugs which clipped into the bottom of the milk tanker part. Once the body was stuck onto the chassis (with super glue at either end) it was fairly firm. The floor was then stuck down with some super glue and packed in at either end with a dummy plank. For the chassis I made 2 new brake levers out of strips of card and another brake shoe (one had accidently been taken off when the brake gear was being removed). Here is a picture of it. Next up will be the paint shop where it will be painted a light grey colour with black under frames. Im unsure about how to make the letter gns on the side but I'm sure that someone will know how to do it without going and buying a sheet of transfers. Thanks for looking.

[Guest ShildonShunter]

Luke I like your little wagon look forward to seeing it finished.

[luke the train spotter]

Luke I like your little wagon look forward to seeing it finished.

Thanks Kevin. I will have the wagon finished and painted by tomorrow.

[Thunderforge]

That's a great little wagon! :-)

[luke the train spotter]

That's a great little wagon! :-)

Thanks Thunderforge and there will probably be more to come!

[Jerry1975]

Great job on your wagon.

 

Jerry.

[sulzer27jd]

It's always good to see someone modelling the GNSR.

 

As a point of interest, the GNSR had some unusual wagon habits. For example, their steel frames vehicles used channel section as their headstocks, with the open side facing out. Into this open channel was placed sections of timber into which were attached the buffers and couplings. As well as using 3'1&1/2" wheels, they also used 3'7" wheels with 9 or 10 spokes. It's interesting what you find when you look beyond the usual railway subjects. 

 

 

Keep up the good work

 

John

[luke the train spotter]

It's always good to see someone modelling the GNSR.

 

As a point of interest, the GNSR had some unusual wagon habits. For example, their steel frames vehicles used channel section as their headstocks, with the open side facing out. Into this open channel was placed sections of timber into which were attached the buffers and couplings. As well as using 3'1&1/2" wheels, they also used 3'7" wheels with 9 or 10 spokes. It's interesting what you find when you look beyond the usual railway subjects.

 

 

Keep up the good work

 

John

Hi John, those are unusual wagon habits! I really enjoy modelling things that are rarely modelled so the GNSr is right up my street. The fact that it is scottish and similar to many light railways males it even more attractive to me. Do you know pf any other GNSR layouts and builds/layouts here on rmweb?

Thanks - Luke

[luke the train spotter]

Here is one of the final updates of the wagon. It has been painted (the main body with humbrol enamel no. 64, the frames and iron works are in a cheap artist acrylic black and the lettering is hand brushed white acrylic). The lettering isn't the neatest but it will do as I didnt want to invest in a new set of transfers and I think it gives the wagon quite a nice hand made look. The inside and floor of the wagon is also painted in that grey. It still needs a weathering and a removable load making but this has been a very enjoyable project and I look forward to building my next GNSR wagon. Thanks for looking and for all your kind amd encouraging comments.

[sulzer27jd]

Hi John, those are unusual wagon habits! I really enjoy modelling things that are rarely modelled so the GNSr is right up my street. The fact that it is scottish and similar to many light railways males it even more attractive to me. Do you know pf any other GNSR layouts and builds/layouts here on rmweb?

Thanks - Luke

 

I don't think there are many, but have a look at - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/13818-albannach/&do=findComment&comment=124104

 

And my 2 - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129281-rosehearty-gnsr/

- http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/58728-claterinbrigg-gnsr/

 

Regards

 

John

[luke the train spotter]

I don't think there are many, but have a look at - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/13818-albannach/&do=findComment&comment=124104

 

And my 2 - http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/129281-rosehearty-gnsr/

- http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/58728-claterinbrigg-gnsr/

 

Regards

 

John

It definitely isn't a common thing to model. Ive never seen a GNSR exhibition layout before so I don't think it os widely known about - I didnt know about it until it wad mentioned on this thread. Those links are very inspirational and interesting so thank you for sharing them.

[Thunderforge]

Hi Luke, that wagon looks good painted, hand painted lettering is something I struggle with, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but a good layer of dirt helps.

My method of painting comes from war-gaming, so I’d recommend a black wash which should fill all the gaps where the planks meet. Then dry brush some brown and a dash of grey/green. Except of course if you want clean, well maintained wagons!

So, what will the load be?

[Guest ShildonShunter]

Hi Luke nice job on painting the wagon a little bit weathering to the wagon will be good.