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A ficticious 1958 Colliery layout

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Getting to the Point

Following a shopping trip at Wycrail 10 a Peco SL-E191 short radius point and a pack of PL-9 mounting bases hit the workbench.   So last night whilst watching TV I prepped the point before fitting it to the layout (a bit of a first). The pic below shows what I do to all electrofrogs, nothing new, it's all in the accompanying leaflet, apart from the hacking off of the solenoid mounting points!     I've also fitted the solenoid (an old PL10 with extension pin, bought

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Refresh?

Wow, last update was a long time ago LOL   Summat will be dusted off again for the 10th Anniversary Mansfield Show in March next year and I'm thinking about giving it a bit of a refresh. I've always had a plan to add another turnout with a stub siding up to the loco coal staithe to hold the colliery loco coal wagon     The siding is even in the track plan on the flyers that I give out to folks     Seeing as I have all the bits and there is a spar

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Yellow Peril for Summat?

Ahead of Summat's date with the public in March I've started fettling the RMweb Austerity.   First off couplings. Off to with the front pocket and the hook removed from the rear tension lock. Home made 3 links held in place on the DJM hooks with a spot of Cyano. Done 🙂   Real coal added to the bunker and it looks like the crew have been careless with cleaning out the smokebox....   I've also filled the buffer beam holes as I won't be fitting vacuum pipes. A touch of

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What a Day!

What can I say, Wycrail on Saturday went really well. The journey down on Friday was fine, a bit sticky round Birmingham/Solihull on the M42, clearly the bods in charge of the variable speed limit were bored and were playing silly beggars (40, national speed limit, 50, 60, 50 ......) but despite this I got down to High Wycombe from Robin Hood country in 2 1/2 hours and safely tucked up in the digs by 5pm. Shame it was raining.   Pootled down to the venue for about 6pm and got Summat se

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More Lighting

Added some lighting to the main screen building last night, again the long leaded 6v miniature bulbs bought at the Derby Show masking taped to the roofs in strategic places to get a fairly even spread of light. Only 4 bulbs for the whole building which ends up brighter lit than the "bus garage" on the other board.         Next step is to get some kind of connector for the power as this building is removeable for transport etc - a trip to Mapins this afternoon methin

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Flower Power

Spent an hour last night playing with some miniNatur flowers from International Models and the fibres from a domestic sweeping brush that I found lying around somewhere.       In the photo above there are also some home made purple topped flowers (Hollyhocks?) made by dipping bristles from a wallpaper paste brush into PVA then green flock, wait 5 minutes dip the tip in PVA again then into the purple flock, tedious but cheap (Thanks Mr Nevard for the tip 😁 )  

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All wired up ....

Another evening session sees the bulbs wired up permanently and as night fell over Summat Colliery, the night shift huddled round the brazier for warmth .....     sorry about the quality of the photo, but as I said, my cameraphone is not up to publishing standards 🤣     next job is some more vegitation, got some flowers and ivy from International Models, I'd also like to do something with the roadways, make them a bit rutted etc .....    

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Signal induced eyesight problems

Those of you that followed my Summat Colliery thread in the old place will know that I had an "incident" with the MSE signal before the Elizabethan show early this month.     Time to come clean .........     I have known for a while that my close vision has been deteriorating, but like most blokes steadfastly refused to accept the fact! The carefully crafted signal kit from MSE had been planted for a photo shoot with Mike Wild of Hornby Mag but I hadn't got round to

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Power to the Servo

First problem I had with wiring up the MSE servo unit to drive the signal was that of power supply. My Accessory power bus on Summat Colliery is driven by a laptop psu and whacks out 18v DC, great for supplying CDU units but likely to fry the controller box that needs 12v DC.   Now, the MERG pulsed accessory decoder boards I use also have an option of an on-board 12v regulated supply to drive small steady state devices. These parts are optional in the build, but thankfully I saw fit to

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Fiddly, very Fiddly

And so to the steam pipe to the cab from the dome for Yellow Peril. After studying two photos it is clear that there is some form of steam cock with a handwheel connected to lagged piping coming from the dome.     So 1mm wire, drilled 0.4mm on the end with 0.3mm wire soldered in, then the smallest hand wheel from an 00 mse point rodding set sweated on. The handwheel is a 4 spoke not three like the real thing but hopefully I will be forgiven that ....    

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Setbacks and Progress

OK, safe to say my first attempt at the steam pipework for Yellow Peril didn't go to plan last night!   drilled the 0.5mm hole (only one broken drill) and soldered the 0.45mm wire in place. Started forming the copper wire to shape and the thing snapped where the 0.5mm hole was drilled 🙁   I've started again this time shaping the 1mm wire first but didn't have the heart to start fitting a new handwheel to the end.   So, I cut back the side ladder instead and glued the

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Boston Show

This weekend gone was Summat Colliery's first time out since the Member's Day in July and what a great weekend it was.   The show was held in Stickney Village Hall in Lincolnshire and just at the edge of my limit for a show without accommodation, so it was an early start and quite a few miles under my belt in the Scooby (not all bad then )   Summat performed brilliantly as usual, most problems were caused by operator error (me) in the main. Can't thank my two helpers over the weekend enough

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Exchange Visit?

Thnaks to LN Lancs I now have the possibilty of an Anglo-French exchange on Summat Colliery this year     Should raise a few eyebrows and it makes the Crosti look stylish

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What about another siding?

At the Mickleover show it occurred to me that a short siding running up to the end of the coaling stage would   Provide somewhere to store the Colliery "loco coal" wagon Fill a space that is a bit empty that has been bothering me for a while   So if I ripped up the shed road up to somewhere next to the coaling stage and slotted in a steamline short radius point would give something like this:     The Anyrail diagram is very approximate, I've not measured anything, but I only

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Trains4U Open Day Report

What a day, Summat behaved itself really well - first time out since the Mansfield Show. Had a few odd track alignment problems at baseboard joins. Most sorted with a quick tweak with pliers   Loads of great questions from knowledgeable punters and a lot of customers went away inspired.   I think Gareth should start stocking hanging basket liner as I had a lot of questions about it's use on Summat   Summat Colliery set up and ready on the upper floor mezzanine ready for the the off

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Block Cut Outs

I've been busy rewiring Summat since the Nottingham show. One consequence of using a Powercab on the layout is that the Powercab does not respond gracefully to a short circuit, especially with two throttles in operation. So to mitigate all the unseemly unplugging of power, swapping handsets and reassigning of cab numbers some form of protection was in order.   Many moons ago Mike Bolton at MERG sent me one of his prototype BCO1 block cut-out pcbs to test with Dynamis. It didn't work, being un

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Nottingham Show Report

Firstly I'd like to add a vote of thanks from myself and disco-dave to all the guys and gals at the Nottingham Model Railway Society for their hospitality all weekend. Were looked after very well, even to the extent of moving the demo tables to clear the end of my layout when it became clear that the legs would be kicked all weekend as the main access to the inside of our "block" was, yes, you guessed it, right next to my layout   Had a thoroughly brilliant weekend, it all went too quickly,

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Wigan!

I have great pleasure in announcing that Summat Colliery has been invited to the Wigan show in 2011

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Kitchen find....

Found this in the kitchen today     Now I'm told it's a funnel for adding salt to a device called a dishwasher. However, SWMBO informs me we don't add salt to ours so looking at the photos from New Haden Colliery in this month's HM rang a bell.   Would this be a drying tower (?) for Summat perchance B)

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Nottingham Show

**STOP PRESS**   Summat Colliery will be appearing at the NOTTINGHAM East Midlands MODEL RAILWAY EXHIBITION on March 20th & 21st

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Red Lorry

Took a break last night from the Deltics to do a bit more detailing on the red lorry for Summat, it was about time that the owner's name was added to the sides B)     I've added a sprinking of coal dust to the loadspace floor too   EDIT: looking at the photo there's room to add "UK" on the end as well, not sure how many traders in 1958 were keen to say they were a UK company but hey ho!

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It's far too late now

Tonight I have to pack up Summat Colliery ready for the trip down south for Wycrail on Saturday, so no time left for futher fiddling - frankly I'm getting ready to pack it away under the desk and get on with some other modelling. It's the last outing until the Mansfield show next year - I could do with a few more bookings, so if you have a space to fill .......   So, hope to see loads of you at Wycrail, there's a lot of new detail etc on the layout since Member's Day and the Derby show, not le

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A trip to Maplins

Popped in to my local purveyor of all things electronic (been using them for 30 odd years!) and bought a 2.5mm mono plug and matching screened metal cased socket. Soldered the plug to the end of the bulb wires and drilled a 7mm hole in the baseboard. Glued the socket in said hole and connected wires to the 18v DC bus and hey presto     Also bought a new right angled speaker plug - I use these to connect the DCC signal from the controller to the baseboard(s) - This one has screw connections

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A Signal of Success

Well, in less than an hour we have this ....           Shame that Major Clanger (Wizard Models) only has four or so left of these servo kits left, even I managed to get it up and running

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Churchrail Report

Well, the first exhibition of the season went really well. Thanks to Mark and crew for an excellent show which raised a good sum for the school so I'm told.   Summat behaved itself really well considering it hadn't come out from under the desk since Wycrail last year. Had the odd electrical gremlin (interboard jumper wire loose in choclate block connector) and one point microswitch was a bit reluctant to throw fully resulting in a couple of shorts in running.   Harry and #49 performed really

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