After a pleasant couple of hours at the Gresford gauge 0 get-together, (where I met fellow RM Webbers Dikitriki and Dibateg, nice to meet you fellas!), I returned home to daub a bit of paint on ET’s replacement, the stone bridge.
The results can be seen below and I’ve left it with Steve to install and bed-in.
Once it’s in, I’ll blend in the surrounding stone-work and I’ll then be ready to re- install the signal gantry.
This will be moved so it’s on the “approach†sid
Firstly, must apologise if these entries seem to be coming a bit thick and fast. Just trying to bring it up to date without making each entry too big!
Steve had a bit of luck when someone gave him a load of photgraphic backscene sheets. OK they were seconds but very useful nevertheless. They were quickly mounted on boards and installed (to hide my point motors!)
A bit of work with the plaster bandage, paint and green lumpy stuff and a nice scenic area was the result.
I placed my detailed Alph
When the old Talacre gauge 0 garden railway had to come down in October 2009, we were feeling a bit down. We had amassed quite a bit of stock and a lot of scenic work had been done in the sheds. We were left with a lot of very second hand track, a mixed bag of locos and stock,quite a few working signals and all the elctrics. We even salvaged most of the buildings. What we didn't have was somewhere to build a new layout.
Steve found the answer on his doorstep. A secure lockup, 27 X 17. A bit tig
In our banker siding, Steve has provided a little coaling facility to feed the bunkers and tenders of the busy bank engines.
Another ex Talacre signal has been re-furbed and positioned at the LM jc; this is now the home signal coming off the incline from the GW station.
More retaining wall has had its lumpy stone added ready for painting and the yard at the LM station now has a cobbled area. Steve has left a space that might as well have a big arrow with flashing lights that says "The good
Making the loops
There are 2 sizes of hooks and loops, and the shorter ones are for short buffered vehicles so I tend not to use them.
Clean up the loop with the scratchbrush and run a 0.8mm drill through all 3 holes.
(Pic12)
The instructions recommend a 0.9mm drill but the idea is to have a nice free pivot but without too much slop or side play so a 0.8mm waggled about in the holes does the trick.
Bend the dropper down at 90Ëšas close to the pivot holes as possible (Pic 13)
Try to avoi
Seems a bit busy for a Sunday here in Chester PSB Interfering with my modelling time
Had a huge T3 block that had to be shortened and re-written then when the trains started running along come a load of diversions. tsk.tsk.
Still... managed to cut out a roof truss from foamex sheet for the goods shed. I reckon I'll need 6 or 7 so being a lazy b+++++r I'll draw round the first one a few times rather than mark them all up. They won't be part of the structure as such, just there to create a b
A recent visiting loco in the form of J94 68006 brought an ER flavour to the layout. This was until someone pointed out that 68006 had done time at Birkenhead shed in the early 60’s! A bit more local loco than we thought..
My Arriva liveried bubble car escaped from Cardiff Bay and managed more mileage round the layout in an hour than the real thing does in a day (probably)
Another visitor in the form of a GW liveried auto trailer looked rather nice (even if it was with a BR liveried l
Another loco has now joined the fleet in the form of an LMS compound 4-4-0. Steve is in the process of altering this chap from right to lefthand drive and has already moved the reversing rod and vac ejector. In the fullness of time this will eventually have coal rails fitted and be re-painted in BR lined black to represent one of the 6 or so that were shedded at Chester in the `50s.
On a more modern note, 58047 has emerged from hibernation to have a blast round with the MGR rake.
Steve’s now done the scenic trimmings on the top of the cutting (still waiting for the sea-moss) and has decided to use the converted low relief cottages. They will get a re-paint and re-weather and be bedded in shortly. I then painted the retaining walls a stone colour in readiness for the dark browny gunge colour to go on top.
The re-cess in the wall for the surface mounted point solenoid was going to get the ubiquitous PW hut in it to cover it up, but I’m trying to persuade Steve
Well, it’s been a while since the last update and we’ve been busy with a lot of things, not all of them layout related.
The signal gantry seems to be behaving itself and has settled in well. I think I’ll eventually convert most of the signals to servo operation as the operation of them makes things like basic interlocking and route selection much easier to install (when I get round to it!).
Steve has laid and wired up the rest of the track in the high level station and made up &
Steve’s now done his Bedford TK coal lorry and added some rather nice little coal sacks. These are made from some old material, and filled with yer actual coal.
Note the empty sacks folded and weighed down with a 5lb weight.
I’ll do some transfers for the doors (T. Watkins I think) as soon as Steve gives me some details.
As has been pointed out, our yard footbridge wasn’t quite right so Steve’s set to with fixing that. I think this arrangement should be ok once the rest
Hook and latches.
To match the hook and loop, on the other end of vehicles there is a hook and latch.
The latch is to provide a delayed coupling function. When the loop is lifted up by a magnet to uncouple, the latch is also flipped up at the same time but immediately drops again. When the loop drops after uncoupling, it will drop down on the latch rather than the hook so that vehicles can be propelled and left in a siding without having to uncouple again. To re-couple just draw away and re
Finally got round to painting the retaining walls along the edge of the LM yard. About 9 foot of it..
It was all painted in a concrete colour, allowed to dry then a colour mixed about 50/50 matt black and Humbrol 26 ("matt dark earth" I think) brushed diagonally over the raised bits. took about 3 and a half hours including brew breaks. I think it looks ok.
Steve's now started the GW station track laying. The station throat board is removeable at the moment, so
Fitted a banner repeater signal and the home signal it repeats. Both are worked by the now standard micro servos.
Steve has finished the cottages. Someone's moved in and got the washing out already .
Work will now concentrate on building & fitting the rest of the mainline signals and monitoring the working of the Dingham couplings fitted to some of the stock.
Someone say Dinghams?... Next time we'll have a look at those....
More Soon.....
My knees ache… after last nights gantry re-fitting session during which just about every problem expected, turned up and brought its mates with it.
I must have spent about 2 hours under the baseboards trying to align the gantry with somewhere that didn’t have cross-members, wires through those cross-members, screws, brackets, areas I couldn’t reach, wires that needed lengthening and/or re-routing.
The gap between the down main and the loop was only just enough so positioning was cr
When the track was layed into the LM station, we knew we were on the very limit of curvature for most of the locos (we reckoned some of the curves were 4' 6" radius) and this proved to be too much for some. A re-think was necessary which resulted in much alteration of the woodwork and a reduction in complexity of the trackwork. We had originally envisaged a double track into the station but this was reduced to single. Many attempts were made before a compromise was reached.
As the corner by t
Fitted the gantry at the LM Jc today, with it's associated servo gubbins.
Wired up to 12vdc, lit up and operative via on/off switches it twitched and grumbled into life, settling down to relative silence about 15 seconds after each activation.
As you can see there is still a little bit of "stand off" on the 2 miniature arms but this is mechanical rather than anything to do with the servo action. A little adjustment will be required.
Still a bit buzzy sometimes but nothing serious.
Very sa
First and Last
Well… this is the first blog entry of 2011 and will also be the last, as for various reasons I will shortly be starting a Saltney thread.
Steve has got stuck in with the upper level station details and is using all sorts of bits and pieces of printed brickwork and ex Talacre structures to see what works. Some may stay in place and some may be swapped for better bits.
An old ex Talacre signalbox has been put on a gantry over the tracks (due to the usual space constrai
Yes I know…. It’s been a while. I seem too busy building stuff to be writing about it, although not as busy as Steve’s been…
There’s a popular myth that the only water troughs in a Tunnel were at Standedge on the ex LNW transpennine route…not quite;
Some have been discovered in a tunnel near Saltney….
Made from plastic channel and constructed “in situ”, the many support brackets were glued down as the channel was laid. The planking (provided to stop the water from washing the ballast aw
The cutting sides by the new bridge have had the basic scenery work built now and resemble a snow scene. Steve has decided a couple of railwaymans cottages would look nice there, with a pathway and steps down to them. There may even be an allotment or 2 as well. The cottages in the pics may or not be used eventually as they are an old low relief building from the bits box with a temporary “back half†added on!
Railings along the top of the retaining wall will keep the people where they s
Yes, I know I said that the last entry was going to be the last but I couldn’t face starting a thread from scratch…
We reached at that time, what Steve called “the crest of a slumpâ€.
Astley Bridge station was all but complete, and everything else was just ticking over. There were a few bits of the layout that all of us liked and a similar few that most of us didn’t, there was too much stock, not enough operational flexibility and too many other distractions. It seemed we had lo
Well, here we go. It’s been ages since the last update, and quite frankly I’ve lost track of what’s been done since the last one. I’ve attached a little gallery as a bit of a “catch-upâ€
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/gallery/album/7179/1299-saltney-railway-catch-up/
but far more pics are available at
http://thesaltneyrailway.fotopic.net/
Things we’ve done that come to mind (not necessarily in date order!) are..
1. New roof on the loco shed. It dated f
Steve’s finished the footbridge over the lower yard and I think it’s blended in well and adds a bit of interest.
Still in the lower yard, some of the sidings have been partly buried in plaster to represent the ash and general waste material that was traditionally used to ballast the track in sidings during the steam era.
Still a lot of work to do on it with bits of grass and weeds etc.
The goods shed looks a little more “planted†now as well.
I’ve now fitted
Some old friends have returned to the layout recently;
My JLTRT 10001 has spent too long on the shelf at home and needed a run out and Steve’s Springside “Foxcote Manor†made a welcome return having been crocked for a while.
Also, a couple of Ex Talacre signals have been planted and are awaiting their servos to operate them.
A batch of Metcalfe stone card has been unearthed and pressed into service, on the long wall round the edge of the LM station. We’re not
Just a quick update on the Skytrex “L&Y style†signalbox kit.
Looks more like an RSCo. Box as supplied to the LYR.
Seems to be fitting together ok but I’ve had to shorten the cast whitemetal handrails for the staircase by about 5mm.
The interior kit is (as usual) a bit Great Westerny so I’ll use the lever frame but scratchbuild the rest
I think it’ll look suitably Lanky-ish when its done and painted.
