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A 4mm Scale Model of Bristol Barrow Road Engine Shed in P4

 

 

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Entries in this blog

Bristol Barrow Road - Templot & Trackwork

A few weeks ago I received the second phase of Templot from my good friend Morgan consisting of the south exit including a single slip, Lawrence Hill Junction and some modified trackwork that goes behind the junction signal box to the shed. In the prototype the double track lines, from the Junction, that run behind the junction signal box operated as two single lines, one to St.Philips Station and the other to the Carriage Sidings, St Philips Goods Yard and the Cattle Dock, however for the mode

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Shed STOP sign

This morning I decided to have a short interlude from trackwork and completed work on the shed entrance STOP sign produced for me by Chris of York Modelmaking. After spraying it yesterday with Halfords red primer and finishing with Humbrol 5070 acrylic red I spent around half an hour carefully removing the paint form the raised lettering and lines before fixing it to the front wall of the roundhouse. A rather pleasing result.  

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - 20ft WorkshopTurntable Update

Since my last entry I have made the majority of the track situated at the rear of the roundhouse. This trackwork is quite interesting as it not only links the two 20ft turntables but gives access to the workshop at 90deg to the turntables. Two spurs off turntable 4 run alongside the boiler house and were used for storage of withdrawn engines [Pugs 51218 & 51217 together with Johnson 3F 43444 are known to have been on these tracks]. Turntable 2 gives access to the water softening plant [ wago

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Test Fit of First Roof Pitch

With the layout now fully erected again following the Christmas and New Year break - the room doubles up as accommodation for guests - I have now had the opportunity to test fit the first of the roof pitches on the roundhouse girders.                 In the meantime I have managed to build another 14 trusses so hopefully the second pitch is not too far away from completion.

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Roundhouse Roof Girders - Update

I purchased a Proxxon Cut off saw a few weeks ago to enable accurate cutting of the brass and nickel silver sections required for the roof girders and eventually the roof trusses [ the likely follow on project after the girders ].   I did send the first one back after discovering a problem with the on/off switch - it tripped the RCD each time I switched it off! The replacement appears to be alright and I have used it to produce all the diagonals for the lattice girder with pleasing results.

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - an interlude

On friday my former LMS crab returned from the Severnside Works paintshop for a test run up the main line. Formerly 2798 it has re-emerged as BR 42763. Here are some before and after photos.         The Hawksworth coach is a modified Hornby with drop in P4 wheelsets and has been weathered for it's owner, Morgan, by Gerry Beale.   Another visitor was a Gresley RB dia 167 in BR rebuilt form which Morgan has started to build for the Bradford train.         And finally a shot o

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road

It's been a while since I posted anything about Barrow Road what with holidays and sorting out the garage not to mention helping my son move to London for a new job.   Yesterday evening I hosted an evening for several members of this illustrious community who wanted to see what progress had been made since their previous trip.   What progress? - well not a great deal on the layout although I am making some, if slow, progress with the trackwork. Last night Morgan brought the 8F, now 48079,

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Roundhouse - Second Roof Pitch

I have made good progress since my last posting and the second roof pitch is now finished and test fitted.   In order to fit the roof pitch on the sidings side of the roundhouse the side wall required some modification to position and fit the 22 roof trusses. This meant hand cutting a new set of 22 slots for the new roof, filling the original 13 laser cut slots and the scribing the brickwork. The new slots were carefully cut using a fretsaw, scalpel and drill - an interesting exercise.   I h

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Turntable Pits

I thought it about time I added some track to the turntable pits so for the past week I have spent some time making up lengths of nickel sliver bullhead track adding M1 Exactocscale chairs and Palatine rail droppers. One length of track is then carefully positioned and fixed using Butanone. The second rail is then added using gauges.             UPDATE 13th July 2016   After adding around 1100 M1 chairs the 24 shed roads now have rail added.   Here are a few photos.    

barrowroad

barrowroad

Barrow Road - Cowans Sheldon turntable

Following the show last weekend at Cirencester I am looking after the Brinkley 60 foot turntable bridge and couldn't resist placing it in position inside the roundhouse. It looks rather good... maybe I should keep hold of it;)     Meanwhile back to the ash disposal pits...........

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Lawrence Hill Signal Box - Update 9 - Masokits levers & frame

I have had a quiet week on the modelling front due to son number 2 going for a job interview and the mother in law going into hospital..................................   However on the positive side I now have a copy of George Pryers book 'Signal Box Diagrams of the LMS - Bristol Area' which gives details of Lawrence Hill Junction Signal Box for 1950. The book confirms that the frame is at the back of the box and that a M R tappet frame with 6" centres was installed in 1938. It also shows the

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - The Workshop Roof Ventilation

The Midland roundhouse roof has slatted ventilation louvres along the full length, on both sides, of each of the three roof pitches and although a number were missing during the 50/60's they still pose challenge to accurately model them.   As a trial I decided to try and model the rectangular roof ventilator situated over the machine shop in the Workshop building. I decided to use 2mm x 1.5mm 'T' section brass in which I cut 8 x 45deg slots using a piercing saw. 16 of these were made, three

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Black 5 44965 plus Comet Coaches

Diesels are alright but I thought it about time we had steam so this afternoon my modified Hornby Black 5 44965 stretched her legs around the layout for the first time.   The engine is converted to P4 using Alan Gibson wheels. The Hornby chassis has cosmetic frames - a Gibson milled version - which I attached using strips of plasticard, as spacers, to widen the distance between the frames. The coupling rods and valve gear are the original Hornby ones - I removed the threaded nuts from the Horn

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road Roundhouse - Third Roof Pitch

Having got past the summer break and all the house and garden work I have spent the past few weeks working on the third and final roof pitch for the Roundhouse. This required a modification to the assembly jig as this roof pitch is sectioned to permit viewing of the inside of the shed. This morning this pitch was test fitted and a few photos taken.....................             Next task - to make a jig for the Workshop roof trusses.   Edit Monday 9th.   The jig and the f

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Lawrence Hill Junc Signal Box

A package form York Modelmaking dropped through the letter box yesterday containing the laser cut parts for Lawrence Hill Signal Junc signal box which stands at the entrance to the shed yard.   I need to familiarise myself with the kit of parts but hope to start the build over the next week.   The box opened in 1908 and a replacement 45 levr frame was put in in 1938 at the time the shed was modernised with the installation of the coaling plant and ash tower.   To wet your appetite here

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - New Baseboards

Bristol Barrow Road now has a full set of baseboards - 21 in total - to enable the layout to operate as a continuous circuit with Up and Down main lines and a 20ft plus fiddle yard. All the baseboard construction is the work of my friend Chris Yates who has made all the additional boards over the past 12 months. The curved boards at both ends of the layout have proved to be an interesting exercise the sides formed from three layers of 3mm ply glued and clamped around former jigs. Board 19 lifts

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Pete Harvey PHDesign Buffers

Before I show the PHD buffers here are a couple of photos of the nearly finished set of buffers in position at the end of the head shunt.       Two sets of buffer stops on Barrow Road are very similar to the design catered for by Pete Harvey's etch, which consists of a set of suitably shaped brass plates and rail jigs. The following series of photos give an idea of the build sequence.               Two pads of double sided pcb have been added to the beam in order to

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Bachmann S&D 7F 53809 makes an appearance

As mentioned in my earlier blog I now have a Bachmann 7F 53809 to add to the locos available for the shed. Of course it will now take it's place in the queue for conversion to P4 but for now here are some photos taken on shed the other night.   I wonder if Ultrascale will do a wheel conversion set.     I should have removed the Bachmann couplings - sorry.

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Roundhouse Roof Trusses - Progress

It has been some while - June in fact - since I posted anything about the roundhouse. Since then I have had a closer look at the structure of the roof and realised that I had seriously under estimated the number of roof trusses required for the roof. Looking at an aerial photograph of the shed roof I plotted the 13 trusses and realised their positioning made no sense. This made me have another look at my collection of photographs and I have now calculated that the majority of the trusses are at

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Boiler House and Stores

By way of a change I have spent some time assembling the two kits of laser cut parts for the boiler house and the stores at the rear of the shed these being the last of the buildings provided by York Modelmaking back in 2010. Both buildings are made from 2mm laser cut mdf with hard plastic [Rowmark] for the window frames and brick details which I glue to the mdf. Each building was given a coat of grey primer and coloured using Faber polychromos crayons. The tiles are also from York and are self

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Trackwork Update

Most of the trackwork in and around the coaling and ash plants is now ready for attaching the droppers, however my next task will be to complete the approach and four sidings, with their pits, alongside the roundhouse and workshop. I'm very pleased with the progress over the past few weeks as I have got into the swing of producing lengths of track using timbertracks sleepers as exactoscale chairs. Of course the track assembly jig I borrowed from my friend Graham has helped enormously.    

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Roundhouse Ventilation

Roundhouses used a variety of smokehoods for smoke ventilation and Barrow Road was no different. In Midland/LMS days these were made from timber and at number survived late into the BR period. However these were replaced by asbestos/concrete units which lasted until the end of the steam period.   Timber Smokehoods inside Barrow Road   Smokehoods - Roads 11 to 16. Note that roads 12 and 14 retain the timber version.   My friend Morgan kindly produced a CAD drawing for the later version

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - Days Road Bridge - New baseboard

I have recently received delivery of the first of a new set of baseboards which will extend the layout into a continuous circuit with a long fiddle yard down the opposite side of the shed. This first board is at the rear of the shed and workshop and will allow trackwork extensions to the roads off the 20ft loco turntables outside the workshop; the sidings alongside the shed and workshop and an extension to the main line under Days Road Bridge towards Bristol Temple Meads. All the new boards are

barrowroad

barrowroad

Bristol Barrow Road - The engine sidings

More progress on the trackwork this time on the engine sidings alongside the roundhouse. In addition to the two main lines there are five other lines which cross the board joint at the throat of the sidings. Track fixing across this joint, as all board joints, is by positioning ply sleepers adjacent too, and across the joint and inserting 12BA brass bolts into pre-drilled holes in the ply sleepers. I usually do this on two or more sleepers either side of the joint.   One length of rail - 120f

barrowroad

barrowroad

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