I have had a couple of weeks sorting out a few problems on the layout. I have had some difficulty with the long crossover to the storage sidings which had decided to get themselves out of gauge a bit. Add to that a couple of other electrical problems and all in all it has taken a while to fix.
Of course getting it all sorted meant running a few trains to test it all. Which led me to improve the traverser control panel a bit. I haven’t really mentioned the traverser much, its not the
I have been reading “Operating the Caledonian Railway”, volume one, by Jim Summers. It is an excellent book, explaining many of the technical, economic and social reasons that led the railway to operate in the way that it did, and I have learned a lot from it.
Let me give you an example. Here is a picture of a goods train passing through Kelvinbank. It might be argued that it is a bit on the short side and that there should be a few more sheeted opens, but generally the stock and the
Time for spring cleaning so I have given the railway room a good going over this week. Dust accumulates and I’d rather be making stuff but if I don’t keep on top of it I will have twice as much to do as all the stock fills up with fluff. Not to mention all the points, signal and things that just seem to jam up if you don’t.
However essential cleaning is it cannot be described as photographically interesting.
This is a LNWR D 466 open carriage truck made from the 51L etch
Mikkel asked what was between the main part of the layout and the Viaduct sections. The simple answer is a gap. The boards need to move towards the window wall to give them enough room to swing round into the room to be worked on, so they stop short of the window wall by a foot or so.
I always had a vague idea that I would build a lightweight scenic extension to take the eye round towards the window. Well, I have finally got round to it.
All things considered the modifications to the body were straightforward. It all comes apart easily and the plastic seems to work well. The list of things which need to be altered to make a Caledonian version are as follows;
Replace buffers with continental style ones. ( these are from shapeways)
Fit westinghouse pump, smokebox rhs.
Remove safety valve cover, fit ross pop valves.
Square off and slightly reduce chimney height.
Reposition and fit single whistle.
Following WW1 the Caledonian, like many other railways, were short of locomotives. They therefore hired 53 surplus Robinson ROD 2-8-0 s from the large pool available locally at NBL . They ran 1919 to 1921. A comprehensive thread is available on the CRA forums
Really it is a decade out of my time period, but Hattons were selling them at low prices so I bought one ( BR, ex GWR version ) just to see what I could do with it.
First off loco chassis. I could buy all the stuff a
I made up most of the tender body and then spent a while getting things level. Set the buffer heights and shim the compensation beams so the footplates are lined through. Then place the loco and tender on the tightest curve I have ( about 48 inch radius ) and that gives me the minimum length for the tender - loco drawbar. The Caley coaches tender kit includes these, but the size I needed was between the two. Easily adjusted. I put the whole thing together and ran it up and down for a while. Tend
I have got on fairly well with some free time over new year. The last difficult bit of the body was getting the roof soldered on neatly and adding the cab handrails. The spectacles were giving me a bit of grief, and awkward thing to form in brass. So I stopped and thought about it. 10 minutes later I had enough to do a fleet of engines thanks to the silhouette. The dome and chimney from the DJH kit fettled up reasonably, safety valve and whistle are from Caley coaches.
Getting the boiler and footplate fitted together was a time consuming task. Try, file a bit, try again, file a bit more. When in place I could make the spectacle plate and get the whole thing looking a bit like a D1.
So here it is actually sitting on the track. Also seems to pass the push along through points and curves without the wheels fouling the body test. In theory that means the Gibson wheels will be fine.
From the rear with the motor and gearbox in for a trial
Boiler next. Hmm. I had a look at the DJH one and decided to give it a bash. Well, quite a few bashes. Removed the alignment tags which didn’t align, got it in a jig of scrap wood bits and whacked a lot of lowmelt solder at the gaps. I then filled all the bits that needed filling with lowmelt and attacked the whole thing with a variety of knives, sanders and files.
Most of the “detail” on the castings was overscale and I would have removed it anyway. So after a fair amount of work I now ha
Having got a rolling chassis I turned my attention to the footplate. The one from the kit was unusable so a brass plate cut out and the valance added.
Next part, splashers. The DJH Dunalastair 1 is a kit for OO. With EM you need about 23 mm to clear the wheel fronts, the cast wm ones were much too thick to be any use. That also made the cab too wide. I rather think that the kit was always a bit too wide, in EM it was going to be far too wide. There was no way the outer splashers would clea
Well there we are, a backscene in place. I’m not completely happy with it but it is just pictures stuck to cardboard and I can look to improvements over time. Taking a break from it and thinking about it while standing back from it all and running some trains is more likely to inspire me to better things than flogging on with it at the moment. The mirror across the end does give a feeling of depth. Again I think I’ll leave it there for now, if it begins to look wrong I could try and generate s
This started with me trying to do a backscene. Well, I almost have but it has led to other things. To get the backscene onto the backing boards I have to divide and move the layout about to get at them. Not all that difficult since it was designed to be moveable. While it’s out I might as well pave the street between the station wall and the backscene since its much easier to do from the rear of the layout. Oh, and sort out various bits, add the fixings for the station platform and stair. Of c
Bit by bit I am getting on with with the backscene. I think I have set myself a difficult task, trying to get a feel of depth and perspective in 2d. If I was a skilled artist it might be easier just to paint it, but I am not so the only thing I can do is the collage of photos method. I have played around with the panorama tools in Affinity. They work well with stitching a set of nice countryside photos together but can’t really cope with the complexity of a row of slightly different tenements.
I could just buy a backscene. Lots of companies offer them but the thing is none of them say “west end of Glasgow”. Or for that matter any real part of Edwardian Glasgow. Anyway where is the fun in just buying stuff? So I have an idea in my head, long rows of traditional tenements interspersed with some industrial buildings. Maybe some older houses tucked in there too. Well, quite a few buildings, I am going to need about 18 feet of backscene in total. Easy then, its what I did on Kelvinbank
I decided to move the roof on a bit, seems like a good idea to get the lighting in at this stage. Very simple really , just 3 copper wires with LEDs via fine wire and suitable protection resistors. The internal and canopy lights will be separately dimmable. Easier to show a couple of pics than describe it all.
Fairly fine wire, I think I’ll get away with it looking like gas pipe.
A good week, thats the basic structure put together. Simple really, just put some plasticard on a nice flat surface and make sure it all goes together square. I was concerned about the top edge and so decided to strengthen it with some brass strip. A thought struck me, why not use the strip to feed power to the fireplace LEDS? Now I wouldn’t want a soldering iron too close to the walls, so I soldered some sockets from a turned pin IC socket to the strip in the right places before glueing the s
Things are progressing slowly. Winter tends to slow modelling down, paints and glues take ages to dry, the light is bad, there is a tendency to sneeze all over what you are trying to build. Must be a lot worse for folk who model in lofts and sheds. Really a case of watching paint not drying. Anyway, thats the major sections of the platform building ready to form into a structure. All still delicate, I think I am going to have to add a top internal rail to prevent it warping over time. A coup
Well, there they are, painted and in service. Firstly a couple of photos in harsh artificial light, the colours may look a bit more natural in real daylight. Overall I’m happy with them, though the spring suspension system doesn’t seem to hold the track as well as I’d like. A bit of running and it might bed in a bit. I haven’t added any weight, lets wait and see if it is needed.
A couple of shots of them in a train .
A useful week, both chassis up and running so on to the bodies. My first concern was the buffers. The whitemetal ones supplied are ok, but they are solid and they don’t have a footstep. Magnifying the best available picture of the D11a I am sure that they did have a welded on footstep. So I opted to use a L+Y buffer which is very close in shape to the CR one and solder a footstep to it. More solid than the whitemetal one, and of course it will give me working buffers. Here is one in progress.
A bit of stock construction, always a joy to do . In this case a pair of CR Dia. 11A CCTS from the latest “True lines Models “ kit. Historical notes can be found in “ Caledonian Railway Wagons” by Mike Williams, many thanks to Tony Brenchley of the CRA for producing the kit. Ok, so preamble over, lets have a look at it all. A cast resin body, etches for the chassis and springs and castings in brass and whitemetal for details. The body tends to curve inwards at the top, seems resin does this
Now that I have fitted the uncoupling magnets it is time for a bit of real world playing, er, testing. Sorry about the rather rough video but it shows what I am trying to be able to do without the magic hand appearing. I think I’m slowly getting there, but all that pushing stuff about really shows up any errors in track or stock. Anyway, hope its all vaguely watchable.
The layout is now back in one piece with a full set of plugin signals. A bit of evening sunshine tempted me to play about with the camera. An artist might call it atmospheric.....
Having built all the signals it seems like a good idea to install them. The first step in the process is the baseboard waltz. Way back I was asked about my baseboard construction, and I said I would post some pics when I shifted it all about. Much has been said about baseboard building over the years but it basically boils down to designing them to suit the type of layout you want to build in the space available. So firstly, castors. All the boards and for that matter the workbench and various
