Modelling the 1840s in HO

Wow Ian, you have been busy!

Great to see the progress and I love the little quayside railway. I seem to remember a conversation a couple of years back about casting some suitable seaside railings for you?

Many thanks, Chris. I haven't forgotten your kind offer to cast a set of Brighton seafront railings (just glimpsed on the right hand side of that last photo). If the offer still stands, I'll send you the dimensions and some photos in a few days.

Hope you're well and having a good Easter.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Ian Simpson

Very nice Ian, the quay scene is so full of atmosphere already.

 

I'm trying to work out what the battery does? 

Many thanks, Mikkel! That battery is the controller:

Because it's such a short run from fiddle yard to terminus (about half a metre) the locos don't really get a chance to speed up, and so there's no speed control. I've found a dropper resistor of 45 to 60 Ohms produces the slowest running speed with the Norris locos, although it took some trial-and-error to find this out and it did rather dent my faith in Ohm's Law:

 

Edited January 23 by Ian Simpson

Thats looking fantastic Ian, I especially like the donkey boiler.

 

 

Douglas

Thanks, Douglas! The one in the portrait photo of the goods depot and fiddle yard is a GEM white metal kit. It looks great, but as it was larger than any of the actual locos it seemed a bit out of place. (It would however look great on a set of wheels!)

So I've gone with the smaller version in the other photos, made from Dapol's plastic Rocket kit.

Ian, I noticed Faller do a 90mm turntable and immediately thought of your early locos:

https://www.topslotsntrains.com/topslotsntrains/final.asp?ref=Faller-120276-OO/HO-Scale-Model-Kit-SMALL-WAGON-TURNTABLE-II---WITH-MOTOR&id=15112&manufacturer='Faller Kits'

 

Might be useful for a future layout, and it is motorised too.

 

- Richard.

Thanks, Richard, that's a really useful find!

Perhaps I should add that the small wagon turntable at the end of my layout is a PECO 90 degree crossing from their US Code 83 range, glued onto a thin circle of plastic cut out using a compass cutter, with a drawing pin stuck underneath for the pivot.

Edited April 10, 2021 by Ian Simpson

Update: And So The Cuts Begin

P.J. O'Rourke once recommended his Circumcision Principle to Federal budget-setters - that you can shave 10% off anything.  Austerity-minded politicians should note this is generally agreed to be an procedure that should only be performed once.

In the case of Middenshire, the traumatic cut came because I realised a lot of bookcases and wall units, at least the secondhand ones I tend to buy, have shelves around 30 inches long. The Tinories layout was 32 inches long until this morning, but reducing the fiddle yard cartridges from 11 to 10 inches (which will still - just - take two coach trains) and removing the short length of track between the platform throat and the fiddle yard means I can reduce the length to 29.5 inches. So Middenshire really is a bookshelf layout now:

Now I just have to get rid of two-and-a-half feet of books ...

(Edit: and clean the garden table!)

Edited May 15, 2021 by Ian Simpson

You'll need a new bookshelf for those books. That will give you room for a second shelf layout then!