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The North Cornwall line in 2mm Finescale


queensquare
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I'd back up Mark's comments. I didn't find anything about the locos jarred. To me John's locos look great and (most importantly) run really well although my personal favourite is the spam can in Bulleid livery.

 

I think that the question is whether you're willing to let John transport you to North Cornwall in the days before Nationalisation. I certainly am and I thoroughly enjoyed my unexpected spell operating Wadebridge on the Saturday at Railex.

 

Regarding DCC, Railex was also my first experience of running a DCC layout. I think it does the job very well although it's not the answer to everything. I was very impressed by the rarity of stalling, particularly given that (as far as I could see) neither track nor loco wheels were cleaned during the course of the day. I did have one strange DCC specific problem though - a loco that was heading for the buffers refused to slow down when I turned the knob back to zero and continued pushing away at the buffer stops until I hit the 'stop' button and ground everything to a halt. The handling of short circuits is another well known challenge. John has sectioned the feeds and has car headlamp bulbs wired in series. These are effective in stopping the whole system from tripping out for some of those inevitable operator errors (e.g. running against wrongly set points) but not every time - we still had the whole system trip on a few occasions... at least some of them my fault.

 

Regards, Andy

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I agree that the lining looks very good. I have also had the "fun" of lining a steam loco in N gauge and it is not easy to get it looking right. The thing to remember is that in many cases, the lines we are trying to represent were only half or a quarter of an inch thick on the real thing. Even if you could reproduce that sort of lining at 1:148 scale, it would be practically invisible to the eye and the loco would look wrong.

 

Overscale lining is unavoidable in very small scales but I have to say that the examples on this thread are some of the best I have seen, certainly better than my own efforts.

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Unconnected with the quality of the modelling, which is at the usual exquisite 2mmFS level, one small detail spoils the operation on the video. It is my belief that each train in both directions would slow to a crawl passing the signalbox to acquire or relinquish the token for whichever single line it is using.

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Unconnected with the quality of the modelling, which is at the usual exquisite 2mmFS level, one small detail spoils the operation on the video. It is my belief that each train in both directions would slow to a crawl passing the signalbox to acquire or relinquish the token for whichever single line it is using.

 

This is true and we will try to enforce it next time out. The one clanger which nobody has spotted is that the 02 on the Bodmin train is coming in off the North Cornwall line.

Oh well, amongst the other myriad of jobs that need doing we hope to have a basic sequence in place for its next outing which is York, Easter 2015.

 

Jerry

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This is true and we will try to enforce it next time out. The one clanger which nobody has spotted is that the 02 on the Bodmin train is coming in off the North Cornwall line.

Oh well, amongst the other myriad of jobs that need doing we hope to have a basic sequence in place for its next outing which is York, Easter 2015.

 

Jerry

 

Possibly a feature of the track plan behind the scenes?

 

One thing that I couldn't figure out was a good way to get a train that had departed to Bodmin and gone anticlockwise around the fiddle yard to reappear from Bodmin on its next working. My answer was to propel it back over the hidden crossover so that it could reappear in the right place, but maybe there's a better answer that I didn't figure out?

 

Regards, Andy

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Possibly a feature of the track plan behind the scenes?

 

One thing that I couldn't figure out was a good way to get a train that had departed to Bodmin and gone anticlockwise around the fiddle yard to reappear from Bodmin on its next working. My answer was to propel it back over the hidden crossover so that it could reappear in the right place, but maybe there's a better answer that I didn't figure out?

 

Regards, Andy

 

You need to physically run it round which, in the heat of battle didn't always happen. The problem is that in John's loft the train simply runs through to Bodmin as it should. The exhibited bit is only part of the layout - see the full track plan Phil posted a few pages back.

 

Jerry

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Living in Belgium, I haven't seen the layout in the flesh, at least, not at all recently (although I had seen, and admired, Wenfordbrridge on a number of occasions), and I do realise that photography "enhances" the white lining.

 

In theory, at least, the "white" lining on the prototype was only 0.25 inches wide, or 0.02mm in 2mm scale (if I have my arithmetic right), and should "disappear". In practice, it unquestionably punched above its weight on the prototype even without any photographic process intervening and can't, therefore, be ignored on a model. Even in 4mm scale it can't be done to scale width (other than using computer-produced transfers) and I was therefore trying to make the point that if the model lining was straw instead of white - as it does seem to have been on the prototype in use - then it would still be visible but would stand out just a little less.

 

I don't have any locos of my own in either 2mm or 4mm scale to demonstrate but I have, hopefully, attached a photograph of a 4mm scale model of an IoW O2 tank which was painted by Alan Brackenborough well over 40 years ago and which I believe captures the effect quite well. I neither built nor painted the loco, although I did build the turntable on which it is standing. Furthermore, just in case anyone thinks that I have no experience of fine-line painting, I have also attached a cruel blow-up of the poster boards on the same layout - I painted both the board headers and all the posters by hand c1970 simply because nothing suitable was then available from the trade and b/w photocopiers had only just started to appear let alone colour ones. I have to admit, sadly, that I couldn't do anything like it today.

 

David Woodcock

 

post-10038-0-18906800-1401824354.jpg

 

post-10038-0-42883100-1401824385.jpg

 

 

 

 

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Lining is indeed a problem in any scale let alone 2mm. Alan Brackenborough is a real master and will carefully choose his colours. He often uses a yellow rather than gold because it looks more correct. He also prefers to work in 7mm scale most of the time. Another well known modeller Martin Brent would add a bit of body colour to the varnish to tone down the lining.

I attach two pictures of Colbourne taken at Havenstreet

post-8525-0-53495800-1401990168_thumb.jpg

post-8525-0-67896200-1401990146_thumb.jpg

 

It seems to me that in the first photo the lining appears thicker than in the close up

I admit these are post preservation photos.

Don

 

 

edit The red line has also disappeared on the first photo

Edited by Donw
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In the first photo I can see the red line on my screen. I had to check for it because it's feint and I'm pretty sure I'd be agreeing with you if it wasn't looking at a QHD+  display.

You would probably need magnifying glasses to see a 2mm model the same size Rich!

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Blimey, was that really back in April - where has the year gone!

Thanks for posting Phil. Looking forward to seeing you and Maurice at Larkrail this weekend with St.Juliot -see http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/87613-larkrail-2014/

John (complete with load shirt!) will be helping me out with Highbury.

 

Jerry

 

Edited to correct my shocking spelling

Edited by queensquare
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The vinyls for the fascia, which should have arrived in time for the Aylesbury outing but didn't, have finally  vinylly been applied.

 

attachicon.gifIMG_1526a.jpg

 

Jerry

 

There, I fixed it for you.

Edited by 2mmMark
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Absolutely enchanting - but like the best of films - such simple delight is only created through high production values and a director's integrity.

 

For me very impressive.

 

I do love this following picture. It really is a snapshot of a time-and-place from some long-forgotten collective memory.

 

post-14107-0-97712800-1405549890_thumb.j

Edited by Southernboy
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Lovely set of photos Phil. The buildings are realy impressive. I don't know whether the buildings are exact copies or have just captured the style but that really does look like Wadebridge.

Don

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