Jump to content
 
  • entries
    93
  • comments
    685
  • views
    144,705

Guest Op at DEMU


D869

2,139 views

Spent a pleasant day today at the DEMU Showcase in Burton helping out on Jim Allwood's Welton Down along with fellow Midland Group member John Russell and lapsed member Richard Lake. Thanks to Jim for inviting us and the show organisers for putting on a good do.

 

I thought I'd take a few trains to play with but having precisely zero appropriate items to fit in with the 1990s Network South East theme, I just had to take along some inappropriate ones.

 

First up, I thought I'd hijack Jim's continuous run to really give some Warships their legs with a recreation of the late 1960s 14 coach double headed Cornish Riviera which for some unaccountable reason has been diverted onto ex LBSCR SECR lines.

 

blogentry-9623-0-15732600-1433018603_thumb.jpg

 

Going the other way in time, I decided that I would use DEMU as a prompt to finally have another crack at turning my Virgin Voyager into a useful member of society by trying to tame its excessive speed and unwillingness to stay on the track. Surprisingly given the completely slapdash and rushed job that I did, it seems to have worked really well.

 

blogentry-9623-0-26950200-1433018735_thumb.jpg

 

Finally, I took the Hall along to run on Jim's preserved branch line. Later in the day I couldn't resist the opportunity of a 14 coach train, so the Hall was tried on that. Naturally there was some wheelslip but surprisingly it managed to drag the train around two complete circuits.

 

blogentry-9623-0-30247400-1433018901_thumb.jpg

 

A few other sights from the show...

 

An unusual sighting on Wibdenshaw.

 

blogentry-9623-0-81644900-1433019013_thumb.jpg

 

A day out in Dudley (Blowers Green)

 

blogentry-9623-0-83234400-1433019126_thumb.jpg

 

Kinmundy

 

blogentry-9623-0-97142800-1433019193_thumb.jpg

 

Wheal Mannidge (geddit?)

 

blogentry-9623-0-97194600-1433019244_thumb.jpg

  • Like 10

9 Comments


Recommended Comments

  • RMweb Gold

The double headed warships look good but do I understand the hall took the same train on its own? Sounds about right HaHa.

You seem to have had a good day.

Don

Link to comment
  • RMweb Gold

Great shots Andy. I get the Wheal Manidge, when I saw the excellent Kinmundy recently I assumed it was a play on the feeling when the alarm goes off the day after Sunday but evidently it's a real place.

See you all in a couple of weeks at expo.

 

Jerry

Link to comment

The double headed warships look good but do I understand the hall took the same train on its own? Sounds about right HaHa.

You seem to have had a good day.

Thanks Don. Yes, I certainly enjoyed myself, which is hopefully an important part of exhibiting. The Hall with 14 on is probably very untypical but it was more of a last half hour experiment than anything else.

 

The strange thing is that my Manor (which I didn't take to DEMU) is mechanically virtually identical to the Hall but often shows signs of slipping with just six coaches. This puzzles me a lot so I wanted to see whether my impression that the Hall had better grip was correct. It seems that it really does have better grip so the mystery of why the Manor is more slippy remains.

 

Great shots Andy. I get the Wheal Manidge, when I saw the excellent Kinmundy recently I assumed it was a play on the feeling when the alarm goes off the day after Sunday but evidently it's a real place. See you all in a couple of weeks at expo. Jerry

Thanks Jerry. Dodgy puns eh? Shouldn't be allowed ;) Looking forward to Expo. Should be a good opportunity for a catch up.

 

Regards, Andy

Link to comment

The station building and goods shed were constructed using drawings found in John Minnis's book on Country Stations of The South Eastern & Chatham Railway. The former building is based on the Adisham (EKR) drawing pg 60/61/62/63 and the goods shed on Rainham (also EKR) pg 104/105. The style was used in various forms throughout the SECR and former constituents which I found to be the case for both Farningham Road and Sole Street.

My own layout Cotstart East had earlier used these drawings and later inspired Bill Rankin to use exactly the same for Welton Down. Although Bill was very much a Brighton devotee the architecture has "strayed" but at least was still Southern.

Link to comment
  • RMweb Gold

Great pics Andy

 

Interesting that all of the other layouts you included are all diesel too :D

Link to comment

The station building and goods shed were constructed using drawings found in John Minnis's book on Country Stations of The South Eastern & Chatham Railway. The former building is based on the Adisham (EKR) drawing pg 60/61/62/63 and the goods shed on Rainham (also EKR) pg 104/105. The style was used various forms throughout the SECR and former constituents which I found to be the case for both Farningham Road and Sole Street.

My own layout Cotstart East had earlier used these drawings and later inspired Bill Rankin to use exactly the same for Welton Down. Although Bill was very much a Brighton devotee the architecture has "strayed" but at least was still Southern.

 

SECR it is then. Don't know why but for some reason I've always thought that Welton Down was in Brighton territory.

 

Great pics Andy

 

Interesting that all of the other layouts you included are all diesel too :D

 

Thanks Pete. I'm not sure how many layouts were 'de-steamed' specifically for this show - certainly Fencehouses was but at least Jim A has the excuse of a preserved line on Welton Down. I'm not sure if any of his kettles are actually converted to 2FS so thought it would be nice to take along some guest steam that can traverse 2FS pointwork.

 

Regards, Andy

Link to comment
  • RMweb Premium

Hi Andy,

 

Good to see the Hall living up to expectations. The only time I have found these chassis slip is if the tender or the front bogie is somehow lifting the loco slightly. The tender coupling being really sloppy helps here. Other than that, the driveshaft can have a jacking action if there isn't enough slop. Hopefully fixing the Manor will be simple. I will have one of my Manors and a 63xx using the same chassis at Chelford, so we could compare notes with you then.

 

I remember operating Welton Down at Horsham when Bill Rankin still owned it and it had the Wurlitzer fiddle yard. Great fun and really helped me feel part of the Associaton. Hopefully we are as welcoming to new members now as Bill was back then. It is good to see Jim still using the layout.

 

I must admit I'd always thought of Welton Down as in the Salisbury direction, but good to be told the true (imaginary) location.

 

Nigel A

Link to comment

Good to see the Hall living up to expectations. The only time I have found these chassis slip is if the tender or the front bogie is somehow lifting the loco slightly. The tender coupling being really sloppy helps here. Other than that, the driveshaft can have a jacking action if there isn't enough slop. Hopefully fixing the Manor will be simple. I will have one of my Manors and a 63xx using the same chassis at Chelford, so we could compare notes with you then.

 

Hi Nigel,

 

I've fettled the bogie on the Manor a few times so hopefully it's not that. The Hall has exactly the same springing arrangement so it does actually work. I need to do a test with the bogie removed just to be sure but haven't had chance to do that yet.

 

I did ponder whether the tender coupling and/or driveshaft might be involved but have not really done anything to investigate in that direction. To be honest it's not exactly a major issue but if it could be even better then that would be nice.

 

It could also be the train (at least in part) - the Manor is rostered to pull a train which includes three Ultima Hawksworths so those metal coaches and etched bogies may be contributing more than their fair share of weight and friction.

 

More testing needed!

 

See you at the Expo.

 

Regards, Andy

Link to comment
  • RMweb Gold

Halls were usually good haulers. I seem to remember seeing them pull some pretty long trains through Reading.

 

Don

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...