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
For those who follow this blog you will remember that after attending the RMweb members day at Taunton in 2011 I purchased a number of P4 locomotives that were painted in LMS livery.
One of these was Patriot 5535 in full crimson lake livery and after much thought I made the decision to strip this livery in order to transform the engine into Bristol Patriot
45504 'Royal Signals' in lined British Railways lined green.
The loco has spent the last 8 months with Ian Rathbone awaiting its tur
Scalefour South West is approaching in August and when I was invited to bring Bristol Barrow Road to the show I realised the trolley system I have for transporting the layout was not really suitable for this venue. The trolley is suitable for sports halls but not for Wells Town Hall where the main display hall is upstairs and the lift is not big enough.
With much of the trackwork now in place the ends of the boards needed protection to prevent damage to the track. Similarly some of the board
The roundhouse kit of parts provided by York Modelmaking contained 13 roof trusses that were cut from 2mm mdf, but having made the decision to replace the two main girders with metal versions I decided to go the whole hog and replace the roof girders. Now I know some will think this to be foolish but I have concluded that the mdf versions are not robust enough to facilitate removal of sections of the roof for display purposes.
the mdf version of girders and trusses
This decision has no
I have been at Railex all weekend helping to operate our S4 group layout Brinkley. One of the highlights of my weekend was collecting the Turntable Pit for the 60ft Cowens Sheldon turntable used in the roundhouse.
Thanks are due to Morgan Gilbert for all his hard work with the design and the CAD modelling and to Phil Hutfield for producing the turntable pit on a CNC machine out of an acrylic polymer - [brand with-held].
I have attached some photgraphs which show the pit in position. Of n
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
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.
Having formed and soldered up the two main support structures
the main beam was formed from two pieces of rail each 30mm long. There is a narrow gap between the two rails so I used a short length of 0.2mm nickel silver strip as a temporary spacer during soldering. I also used two additional pieces to join the rails together.
I have since modified this by using a couple of pieces of thin double sided pcb to make the beam insulated from the trackwork - [ Mark, I have taken note of you
I have now finished laying the four sidings which are alongside the roundhouse and workshop, the track over the pits laid using Exactoscale M1 chairs. I have extended the track on the engine release road - in one of the photos there is a section of this track with one length of rail positioned using pins - but this is as far as I can go with this track at the moment as the templot drawing needs adjustment to the south exit trackwork. All the new unstained trackwork is still in need of the additi
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
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
Having decided to use the new Cobalt digital point motors with the Brian Morgan TOUs I thought a few photos would be in order to explain how I have decided to fix them to the underside of the baseboards.
The Cobalt motors are attached using M3 screws fixed into M3 Rivet Nuts, positioned in the baseboards using the rivetting tool shown in the photos.
The position of the 4 holes is marked using a home made jig, whilst the hole for each TOU has been cut out using the Bosch multitool.
Having promised some photos of recent work on the layout I managed to find time today to take a few. Time had come to cut a suitable hole in the baseboard to fit a removable pit to accommodate the wagon hoist apparatus for the 150ton Coaling Plant, so out came the drawings and after taking the appropriate measurements I marked out the outline shape and literally took the plunge using my Bosch multi-tool - what a useful piece of kit.
I then made up a removable pit which is bolted to the under
The additional Masokits etches arrived in the post this morning so work on the Metro tank ceased temporarily - I need some extra information on it anyway....
I have now made up the remaining 17 lever slots for the frame and now have the complete 47 positions for the levers which will, hopefully, be added tomorrow.
Here are a few photos of todays work.
I am still waiting for the two Masokits etches so I've made a start on an EM GWR Metro tank kit I promised to build for a client a while ago....... feeling a bit guilty about the delay.
In the meantime here are a few photos, as promised, of some of my locos taken around the shed yard.
All the locos on view, apart from 75004, are Bachmann and Hornby origin which have been rewheeled to P4. I have another 40 odd RTR and kits in the stock cupboard
It has been a while since I updated my blog so I thought it was time to let you know what progress has been made.
I have finally completed the first batch of 15 turnouts and one double slip. These are all now fitted with Brian Morgan TOU's and are ready to be installed on the layout. I have also finished the task of making a further 8 and a double slip for our Scalefour Society area group layout Brinkley [ attending Railex next year ].
Whilst at the Manchester Show in October I decided t
As mentioned in previous posts I have decided to use the Brian Morgan turnout operating units for all the pointwork on Barrow Road. Brian has produced some superb etches for B & C switches in P4 which can be obtained from the Scalefour Stores. His main interest is the GWR and whilst the original units were designed specifically for Great Western loose heeled switches he has also produced the other version for non GW railway turnouts.
The TOU etches, one for the standard B, C switch, th
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.
After what seems ages I have now completed the first 18 sets of pointwork for the layout. By completed I mean all trackwork shown in the attached photos are now fitted with Bill Bedford slide chairs, Palatine models electrical droppers, are electrically bonded in the appropriate places and have been fully fitted with cosmetic [ around the track rivets] and functional chairs.....what a job!
The next task is to fit Brian Morgan turnout operating units..................these will be the subject
More progress this week with the completion of 6 turnouts - droppers; TOU base plate and all the cosmetic chairs in position - what a job Yesterday I stained the sleepers using
Colron Wood Dye - Jacobean Dark Oak with pleasing results.
I have now started on the three way turnout leading to the shed sidings......... still not half way there yet
Anyway here are a few photos taken before the stain was added.
C8 crossover on the main line with the north exit leading to a double slip
It's been a while since my last post but I haven't been wasting time. I purchased three magnificent scratchbuilt P4 locos after meeting Graham Warburton at the Taunton members day; a Patriot, 8F and Crab, all of which were in LMS livery. After much heart searching I made the decision to remove this livery and have them repainted and renumbered in BR livery to suit my 1950/60s modelling period. With the help of my friend Morgan all three had their paint stripped and removed and the 8F and Crab a
I've had a few days off from Barrow Road at Railex with my other layout Sheep Pasture, a Cromford & High Peak subject.
Sheep Pasture at Railex
[ See Kempenfelt photos of layout dated 2nd June - please ignore his earlier post ]
I'm now back on the job finishing the girders, both long and short, by forming all 1400 rivets in the overlays for the top and bottom of the girders.
Here are some photos taken today during completion of all the girders - trial assembly revealed the
Having measured the remaining stock of 5mm x 3mm slotted 'T' section I was pleased to find my calculation for the original order was just enough for the 8 pieces required for the top and bottom parts of the short 19ft girders. It did mean that 3 pieces would formed from off cuts - two per girder which is better than purchasing more .
The wall end of each of the four 19ft girders will have downward extensions to form the wall fixings. During fabrication I soldered a 2mm x 0.5mm piece into a c
Well it's been a while since I posted anything on the progress of Barrow Road. After an enjoyable day out at the members day at Taunton I returned to domestic duties and have finally managed to decorate two rooms in the house which included replacing the flooring.
I have now returned to more interesting tasks and have made some progress on the girders for the roundhouse roof. I have nearly completed the six 46ft long girders but have run out of 2mm and 2.5mm 'T' section brass so further wor
