A bit of progress to report. I'm currently waiting for a delivery of copperclad strips for board end track attachment and alignment, so in the meantime I've done some test setups of the boards; checked for alignments; put the templates on top; checked some track positioning issues; cut the cork underlay for turnouts and plain track; and started punching holes into the templates to allow marking of the board surfaces where the rails need to go:
An initial set up of the ends and the pr
The first board (numbered 5) is now assembled. The cutting of the holes was very 'splintery'. I need to come up with a way to reduce the sheer amount of splinters that come off the cut plywood (both for the holes and the edges). I'm wondering if varnishing now might not be a bad idea to help seal up the edges. Another idea is to put insulation tape on the straight edges. I don't know how I could do the sam with the hole edges though.
A quick knock up of Bere Dene's track plan:
Again, signals are educated guesses, rather than final arrangements. This time the passing loop lines aren't bi-directional. It is my intention to model a section of line between Bere Dene and Arnford as a simple, single straight line through a forest, on a set of 1 foot wide boards I already have. Although I don't think I'd ever have space to put it with this vignette, I like the idea of it being possible to directly connect it to the left e
From the large market town of Sayersbridge, the line diverges from the national network southwards, keeping to the level of the plain and with a straight run through the town's suburbs. Once through Steepleham station we leave the town behind us and the line drops lazily down along the West side of the Arne Valley, past the old hill farming area of Dunstow before emerging at the base of Knowle Hill and the station for the Grange. It crosses the Arne here to the East side and parts with the Arne
I've been working on reworking some javascript code I found online to produce a gradient profile using the Canvas element from HTML5. This is my initial gradient profile for the S&PR:
Any feedback gratefully accepted. I would prefer to make corrections and modifications to the gradients sooner rather than later to save hassle, even though the generator can handle the data independently of the drawing better than the original code could
Edit: profile replaced with an updated one
The strips of plywood have been cut to length for all the outer frame parts of the boards. There's some additional cutting to do for reinforcing the board ends so they can take alignment dowels. The ply is only 6mm thick, so not deep enough to drill for the dowel parts and still have something to put screws into. Also, cross members still need to be added, but I'm waiting till the outer frames are in place before sizing up and cutting those.
The six main boards and the four add-ons/expanders are now structually complete. There's a bit of a bigger gap between number 5 and number 1 than I would like (approx 1mm more than I'd like) but I don't think I can lessen the gap within the boards. The thought has occurred to me to pad the gap, so that is probably what I will do when the time comes.
The next job is fitting the pattern maker alignment dowels, which I'm not looking forward to despite having the necessary t
The first full assembly. With the living room floor cleared, I have been able to do a test assembly of the left and right throat boards, to check their overall alignment in combination with the old curves from a previous test layout build. It was very nearly spot on. Unfortunately the natural variability of a less skilled hand made build has meant that there's a slight gap between the two fill-out boards added to the curves. I'd already added 9mm ply ends to them as I knew they'd come out short,
I've knocked this up today. Took a while to get that subtle curve in, AnyRail doesn't provide any tools for quickly doing curved shapes so shape control points have to be added and aligned by hand:
Note that, in the fiction, the 'goods yard' is a late addition to allow reworking the demonstration freights away from the main station of Tynworth. In the fiction's original idea there would have been no freight sidings for the railway as the station was for boat trains only,
In 1860, the port of Penmouth was a smallish port on the Wessex coast, with only turnpikes to get goods in from and out to the country. The port commissioners, seeing the 'success' of the London and South Western Railway's routes to the West Country, consulted with the town council of Tyneworth and other nearby local landowners on the building of a railway to connect with the nearest main line. The route decided on a connection at Sayersbridge, and construction commenced in 1861. Completion of t
Here's a first version of the diagram for the S&P's line, distances not to scale:
As part of understanding operation and signalling, I've indicated where the passing / run round loops are with green infills.
So the first dowel fitting didn't quite work well enough. I used small blobs of epoxy to try and hold the back sides of the dowel parts to the recess in the plywood end, but its hold on the metal is just to fragile. The parts moved and the end result is a 1mm error. I can use sheets of paper built up in layers to raise track on the 'lower' side for this join, but I need to have a different glue of some kind to hold the dowel parts properly for future joins. I'm now thinking of Original Gorilla G
How's this for a wiring diagram...
This is my first attempt, using LibreOffice Draw in this instance. It really doesn't like the complexity involved in the diagram, but it's what I had to hand for now.
A couple of diagrams. First Cold Holt and then Penmouth Waterside. Both featured in a thread on RMweb for signalling advice. Apologies for image quality, the files get compressed by RMweb's upload process and there's nothing I can do about it (it seems to be something to do with their pixel width, not their actual file size).
Cold Holt is an interchange station between the S&P and the National Network. None of it exists in model form at present so it would be entirely new.
The third board (the first of the fiddleyard throat boards) now painted. I've included a series of images as the painting progressed for this posting to see the 'effect' in action, so to speak. I won't bother with the later boards as it's just outright repetition really.
First white undercoat, brush painted, underside:
Second white undercoat, brush painted, underside:
Topside, ply delamination repaired and abuttment screw dips filled (with wood fille
... as in ten boards, painted, looking 'decadent'... 😁
I'm now working to make space in the 'railway' room to do a first post-painting assembly to make sure all is still OK with alignments. Once done, I'll be temporarily sticking the templates to the tops to work out the precise track positions at the board ends and deal with any misalignments in the boards due to 'skew' where
The idea of the S&PR - The Sayersbridge and Penmouth Railway - is for a series of related model railway boards that will utilize materials I already have but don't fit any particular prototype. As such, the model would represent a heritage line with some commercial freight operation on it. It is set in a fictional landscape and as such can't be directly linked to any existing lines or geography, but it gets pretty much all its ideas from the Hampshire - Dorset - Devon coastal area and as suc
Following on from the blog post from some while ago 'Barriers to Entry', I've now drilled and cut the derailment barriers for the 'test track arrangement'. This has been done to fill in time while still waiting for copperclad strips for board ends. I've also marked both outer rail and outside edge of cork underlay positions on these boards for eventually cork and track laying. I will be in need of some kind of 'clip' to hold the barrier ends together between boards, I've not yet researched what
Second, because I'd dropped a board during build which dented a corner and bent one of the join clips.
This time though the damage is a little more terminal to the recently attached barriers:
Occurred during disassembly this morning when I wasn't being quite cautious enough to ensure that the board was properly supported during leg removal. Proves that the acrylic is pretty fragile, and acts as a reminder to me to be careful in all respects when as
Currently still waiting on production and delivery of suitable copperclad to allow track laying to commence.
I went to the Bristol show at the weekend and was able to buy a Dapol Class 22 in BSYP, something I'd missed out on for a long time due to money being tight and then there being none to buy. It got me to thinking about headcodes for the S&P.
I've read up a bit on how such four character train reporting numbers work, and realised that though the basic arrangemen
...the 7mm copperclad for securing of rail at the board ends has arrived! Yay!
Unfortunately the railway room is in a mess, as I had decided to try and sort out what boxes of stuff I have and try and get everything grouped more suitably in my various boxes. So the floor is not exactly clear. Being a hot weekend and all, I think I won't be fixing any track down just yet. Not so yay.
...or, in layman's terms, bu**er.
I had been planning to try and get tracklaying complete during this week, as it's my annual kind-of week off. However, before beginning, last week I had a chat with model railway friends, and they informed me I was right of something I had been concerned about. I have been using cork to boost the height of the copper clad strip up to the underside of the rails for the board ends, but I felt it was really too soft for the job. My friends agreed. I was
