Leaping 0.63mm from EM to P4
Entry posted by DayReturn
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Hello everyone. I'm Mehmood, I've modelled LMS pre-group constituents in EM sporadically going back over forty years, but recently gauge-widened my mindset by 0.63mm to P4 following the acquisition of the recently late Joe Worrall's boards and trackwork of St Albans Abbey, all 26 feet of it. I was also able to acquire some of his rolling stock before he passed away.
Since then I've been variously renovating parts of the boards, researching the gaps to fill, and reviewing my existing EM to move it to P4. The renovation has mostly been repairing rail end damage, not too bad fortunately, adding cosmetic C&L chairs to the bare Brook-Smith track, patching up the scenery and adding finer details like point rodding. I need also to build two overbridges, the signal cabin, 4 2-doll signals, the station building, goods shed and ancilliary buildings around the perimeter, including a facade for the Royal Vetinary Corps based adjacent to the yard.
I'm hoping to build up the stock to a reasonably interesting assortment, though I'm only really short on the GNR leg of the line. If I can think of a way of retro-fitting baseboard joints that will be both robust enough and accurate enough without lots of joggling every time, maybe I might be able to exhibit it in a year or two. (It was not intended for exhibition as Joe had built it, so although the track lines up perfectly except for eight rail ends that have been buckled, it is only aligned using M6 bolts through 2x1 softwood timber.)
Oddly, given St Alban's' position on the Midland Main Line, I don't have a role for my somewhat larger quantity of Midland stock, which is more main-line oriented anyway, so I also still have vague notions of a Midland through station somewhere, but recently came across Barry Norman's plan for Marple (Midland and MS&L joint) in an older MRJ. An astonishingly busy prototype in its heyday, 96 train movements in one hour, or something of that order, in the 1880s when trains to and from Liverpool were divided or attached from or to their Manchester portions, and all in a compact location with a well defined modellable arena. So at the back of my mind I have the intention of recreating Marple or something similar, in P4 instead of EM. Though to cover that era, I'd need to be making a shed load of 4 and 6 wheel carriages and Johnson engines in shades of green too.
Meanwhile back at the workbench, I've got one segment of the GNR approach to St Albans Abbey with rails being retrospectively chaired up with carved up C&L chairs, and the orange-coloured brick GNR pverbridge under construction. Plus about 150 scale feet above that I have a segment of my "study circle" i.e. a double track oval of P4 under construction with properly chaired rail. That is an experiment to see how far I can reduce the radius before my stock falls off the track as it goes in the shop at 18.0 or 18.2mm and comes out at 18.83, give or take the odd bodge. It also provides a home for my main line stock. Currently 3'11" radius is not a problem, and it goes down to 3'9", 3'7" and 3'5" when the inner circuit is completed. I suspect the six-coupled stock may struggle without drastic work to increase sideplay, but so far the problems have arisen more in the trackwork than in the engines - what is a nominal 3'9" sometimes mysteriously transitions to somewhat tighter radius, but my trackbuilding to fine tolerances is improving. I would never have gone down this particular road but for a chat with Tim Venton last year about his fabulous Clutton and the fact that he also has sub-four-foot radius curves and if I remember correctly, even an 8-coupled that will negotiate them.
Enough for an intro, now back to work!
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