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SWAN HILL

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A 7mm GWR terminus somewhere in the Thames valley

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The modeller's apprentice - Swan Hill to Vineyard Hill

The modeller's apprentice - October 2023   Phase 1 [incomplete]:  the layout model ends with a short viaduct at the right hand end,     Phase 2:  the semi-external [car port] type structure is complete and the layout is to be extended through the wall to Vineyard Hill.      Phase 2: there is room for a yard at the right hand end - about 7', which is a bit short.  It can be extended further if needs be into an adjacent shed: maybe it will, maybe it wo

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kitpw in Swan Hill

GWR N5 Horsebox No 88 (7mm scale, scratchbuilt)

There are still a few things to add to the model - trumpet vent on the roof (I can't find a drawing and my attempts from photos don't look right) and lamp brackets: I'm sure there should be a groom seated in the end compartment, reading the Racing Post.  The challenge with this model has been the braking assembly.  I eventually gathered together enough information about the Dean era, outside linked clasp system to make a reasonable stab at it, I don't have an undeframe drawing for this particula

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Horse Box No 88 [a little more progress]

It's taking a long time but... there is progress.  I spent quite a while not starting on the underframe because I didn't have W irons, springs, spring hangers, 9" sole bars or pretty much anything else that looked like the photo in Russell's Great Western Coaches 1813 to 1913 of Horse Box No 88 to diagram N5. I realised that it was taking me longer to not find these things than to draw them out (based on too little information really) and then cut them out with a piercing saw.  So that's where I

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kitpw in Swan Hill

at Swan Hill January '23

January '23 at Swan Hill... Telegraph poles are being fabricated and placed, the signal box is more or less complete with the little brackets under the eaves fitted, an essential bit which was missing from the earlier pictures, and the box now settled into its place on the layout.  It's supposed to work as a scenic break in that it divides the view from the control panel roughly into two halves, terminus one end and 'up branch' at the other end.  The telegraph poles are scratch built using

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Swan Hill: the signal box (and bricks & mortar (2)

Swan Hill Signal Box seems to have been a long time in the making - and it still isn't complete but rather than let 2022 go without an update on Swan Hill, here are some pictures and notes.         Note the 'tilt' under the bottom half row - this allows each row of slates to sit flat on the row beneath it.  The slates are individually placed (the Silhouettte did the cutting) with a head lap so there are always two layers under the tail

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kitpw in Swan Hill

No 88 - the Horse Box

The famous GWR horsebox No 88 - no layout complete without one.  This is the drawing I made to work from and to program the Silhouette to cut out the panelling and openings.  I illustrated the cut out and assembled sides some while ago (2 years+) but stoppages on other aspects of Swan Hill and an awareness that a few things are getting a long way behind has seen an effort to try and tie up loose ends.  No 88 is one of them.    This post deals with the body - the underframe will follow

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kitpw in Swan Hill

A minor update... June '22

Something of a summary of progress on various fronts.  Thorpe's Trial & Error continues.  Work on the little warehouse building (Bricks & Mortar) continues and has been 'on the bench' today (well, this afternoon as domestic duties took up the morning).  The little warehouse drops down behind the viaduct but the drawing below is the 'master' drawing and made up of many layers, mostly transparent, so the whole facade shows up here where, for real, it does not.  So the drawing is always wor

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Bricks & Mortar (1)

Cardboard sketches are one thing, proper models another.  Time to get on and work out a way of doing the buildings on Swan Hill that can be done within a reasonable time scale (I've no idea what that really means) and which fit the overall picture of Swan Hill that I had in mind at the outset.  There is no "backscene" exactly, the present enterprise is more in the way of whole building that's cut off because there's a wall in the way - in other words, there ain't much width to play with.

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Thorpe's trial & error

One or two fictional PO wagons would not go amiss at Swan Hill and a local merchant "Thorpe" has at least one wagon.  Now what to do about the livery?  The well known problem of printers - whether lazer or ink jet - not printing white suggests that a small signwriter is required... or is it a writer of small signs?  So, a thought: maybe I could print outlines onto waterslide transfer film and hand paint the lettering - worth a try?  The shading can be printed, black, red or whatever, so that tak

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Swan Hill at Christmas 2021

A general view of the layout as it is today... 'cardboard city' - some buildings sketched in to build up the picture                 A good deal of time through the year has been taken up with upgrading the stock - most was put together in the late 1980s and much in need of refurbishment. The Toad has been overhauled with new chimney, new rainstrips, new footboards and handrails: I hope it's now correct for a 1927, 6 wheeled brake.

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Signalling Swan Hill

Having made a few posts about the general arrangement and a few details about Swan Hill, I'm just getting around to signalling so it might be a good moment to post the provisional signal diagram "for comment and suggestions" and see what comes up!    Swan Hill is GWR and dates to 1927 (or thereabouts). The track layout is loosely based on a reduced version of Uxbridge Vine Street with the goods yard accessed on a reversal (from road No 3) similar to the arrangement at Windsor central s

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kitpw in Swan Hill

Friday fish...

The fish platform (which includes all fresh produce) at Swan Hill   Fish platform at Swan Hill: it sits on a bridge over a road junction beneath, so timber built.  A second timber built platform is under construction:  same set of details based on a timber platform at Merthyr Tydfil but slightly different dimensions to the fish platform as it's passenger, not goods, so a nominal 3' 0" over the rails rather than a couple of inches higher for goods. Fish platform upsidedown on the b

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kitpw in Swan Hill

...a technical digression

The system devised to motorise the 11 points on Swan Hill may be of interest to others. I wanted a simpl(ish) mechanism using servos controlled from a Megapoints board and toggle switches – all new to me – to drive a protypical angle crank (rather than a slot in the baseboard type arrangement).   The photos show servos mounted under the baseboard in a piece of aluminium angle slotted to carry the servo. The servo drives a short length of 2mm steel rod fitted with spade connectors each

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kitpw in Swan Hill

February 2020....

I had hoped to show more progress at Swan Hill by now but in spite of hours put in, output looks a bit thin.  There's been plenty of drawing (it's warmer indoors at the computer) - part of the current fabrication drawing is shown below together with a few pics of the work-in-progress viaduct and bridge abutment.  The abutment face is slotted for square section rainwater DPs but the bearing shelf is incomplete until the bridge itself is made and can be fitted to get the height exact.  Unusually,

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Update No1

Swan Hill is the terminus of a short, double track commuter branch off the GWR in the vicinity of Langley, imagined/modelled in 7mm. The last mile or so of the branch, including Swan Hill station, is carried on viaduct – Windsor comes to mind. The track plan owes something to Uxbridge Vine Street but with only a down siding for reversing into a goods yard (as per Windsor but off scene) and an up siding, shunting spur and dock. There is a single passenger platform serving arrival and departure ro

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kitpw in Swan Hill

A beginning

On a cold and damp Saturday and having viewed with huge interest various blogs on RMWeb over the last year or two and having revived a family tradition of building model railways, I decided it was high time to dip a toe in the water and share - with trepidation - the state of play on Swan Hill, a GWR terminus station somewhere in the Thames Valley and sometime in the 1920s.    The photo shows the extent of trackwork on Swan Hill as of about three months ago.  If the start of this blog

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kitpw in Swan Hill

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