Leaderboard

Early railway companies were usually launched in a mood of heady optimism, only for the disgruntled shareholders to learn that building the damn thing was going to take a lot longer than anyone had expected. You may have noticed that the Middenshire & Fiddleyard Trunk Railway continues this venerable tradition. Even so, taking 18 months to ballast two foot of track did rather play on my conscience. I decided to tackle the problem with sheets of Poundland sandpaper. Early railways completely covered their sleepers with ballast, so I figured I might as well use paper inserts and have done with it. I don't expect my layout will get too many knocks and all my locos moved out of warranty more than forty years ago, so I'm prepared to try this idea out - but at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious I guess I should point out that delicate precision mechanisms and abrasive flakes of grit may not be the best combination for prized locos. This is an experiment to test whether it really is possible to seal the surface of the sandpaper so it's not a risk to stock (nor a constant source of tidying up). The sheets of sandpaper come in an assortment of grades, and I used the fine sheets for this project. I'll explain this choice and discuss whether I should have used a larger, coarser grade in my next post. The sheets have thin backing paper, making them easy to score, easy to cut – and also quite easy to tear. I shook them and vacuumed them to get any loose grains of sand off the paper, then sprayed glue over the sheets to try and fix all the remaining grains in place. (Matt vanish works as well, but I had a spare can of spray mount glue to use up.) Here's my recipe for anyone reckless enough or desperate enough to consider sandpaper inserts: Place the sandpaper face up over the trackwork, and holding the sheet firmly in place rub a suitable object over the top of the rails so that they are embossed through the paper. I used the rounded handle of a disposable knife to do this, but a coin would do just as well. It’s basically brass-rubbing for modellers. For sections where the rails are straight, it's best to move the now-embossed piece of sandpaper to a cutting board and use a steel ruler to produce a perfectly straight edge. Given the rough surface you'll be cutting and the thin backing paper's propensity to tear, make sure the ruler is positioned so that any slips or tears are on the outside of the insert. When working over curved rails or pointwork it's probably easiest to just cut the paper in situ using the inside of the rail as a cutting guide. The best way to do this is to make shallow cuts with just the tip of the blade, running it along the inside face of the rail just below its head, using the web as a guide. (I'll very happy to admit it: I'd never even heard these terms until I visited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_profile ) Don't cut deeply enough to hit the chairs or sleepers, or you won't get a smooth edge that fits snugly against the inside of the rail afterwards. Cutting through gritty, abrasive material does your knife blade no good at all. Change it frequently to avoid tearing the backing paper as it gets blunted. Actually, make that very frequently – I found one of those cheap tear-off-the-blunt-length-of-blade-with-pliers DIY knives is much more convenient for this work than a Stanley knife. Once the inserts are in place, push a wagon (ideally with the deepest flanges you can find) over the rails a few times to press down the inserts where they fit up against the rails. Very small blobs of blutack on the sleepers at strategic intervals will keep the inserts in place, while still allowing them to be easily removed for track repairs. Here's my first attempt, warts and all. And since all the materials cost me less than a pound, and the inserts are only held in place with Blutack, it'll be quick enough and cheap enough to do it all over again properly now I've had a bit of practice! I'm not sure any railway did have ballast this colour, so my next blog will describe my attempts to paint it a more realistic colour.

I've had a rolling road for some time, but have always preferred to run locos in on a circle of track, in both OO and P4 gauges. My 16XX (built from the old Cotswold kit, now available again from SE Finecast) was constructed a few years ago, but I've never been completely happy with the running. I had given it what I considered to be a 'good running in' (several hours, all told) on my circle of P4 track, which has to be laid out on newspapers on the floor, but that didn't improve the quality of the running to the extent that I had hoped. The loco has a heavy whitemetal body, on a pair of Gibson 64XX milled frames (the wheelbase is the same as the 16XX, but the frames need to be slightly lengthened at one end and shortened at the other by the same amount to get the relationship between the axle centres and the splashers on the body right). It is driven by a Mashima motor via a High Level gearbox. I've tinkered with the quartering and the side rods, but never quite managed to get the level of smooth running that I wanted. A few months ago, however, when I was doing more work at my workbench and could keep an eye on proceedings, I decided that I had nothing to lose by putting the loco on the Bachrus rolling road and giving it a significant spell of running forwards and backwards. At the end of that process, given the running on the rolling road under the control of my Gaugemaster (DC) controller, I was still sceptical, but I hadn't tried it on a piece of track and under the control of my slow speed hand-held controller until this afternoon. Whilst still not quite 'perfect', I was pleased to see that the running was better than I had expected, so rather than rush into building a Branchlines chassis for it (the parts for which I obtained earlier this year), I will persevere with another spell on the rolling road and see how that goes.

I've posted a few updates on my Blue Pullman project over the last couple of years, but I really thought I ought to get my a*se in gear and finish the thing! One of the sticking points (other than the boredom and laziness instilled by a very repetitive, drawn-out project) was a lack of suitable decals, but on a recent ebay search I found that suitable British Rail style "Pullman" lettering was now obtainable, so over the last weekend or two I've cracked on with some of the jobs that were still to be done. These included: Adding bogies to the trailing power car Completing glazing of all units Completing interior work on all units Tackling some of the underframe differences between units General tweaking of couplings etc to ensure reliable running It's not all done yet! I've begun reworking the underframe details, but I'm taking if carefully one set of vehicles at a time, and so far I've only made a good start on the parlour firsts. I've also still to add the kitchen car roof detail, as well. Nonetheless I am very pleased with the look of the semi-finished article, and it''s a relief to find that the power car has no trouble shifting the complete rake. This is the undriven end. At the moment a couple of raw Tri-ang bodies are standing in for the parlour firsts, while I finish the painting of the intended shells. There's nothing wrong with these Tri-ang bodies as they stand, except that they don't allow for flush glazing (unlike the earlier livery models, where the window inserts were a separate moulding) so for that reason I'n repainting the earlier Nanking blue shells. The driven end. I won't add the decals until I've finished the testing of the rake, as I don't want to handle it excessively once the decals are on. Cheers, all.

Nothing particularly exciting to write home about, but the next board has been wired up in fairly short order. Only logical as there were no points and as I'm getting towards the end I'm running out of things to have wire up! The good news is that just leaves one to go. Then I can start assembling things and testing in earnest. I'd discovered since I built the track that there was a vehicular access route through the down yard to the goods shed which required a couple of crossings with check rails. Needless to say I hadn't put those in so a little bit of track lifting and re-chairing was required. I also had to extend the goods shed track and the back siding to the up yard across the board joint. Other than that it was relatively plain sailing. I've drawn the outline of the station building to get a feel of the layout and as you can see it'll take up most of the board! Still, it's all starting to come together!

To add a little variation to the rake of brake vans for the Brake Van Special, I decided to dig out a Parkside's kit of a Toad B. I believe that some lasted into the 1960s in their original state so thought one might have found its way down to Cornwall. This is probably unlikely but as a Toad E was used on the Wenfordbridge Branch it might have happened... When building plastic wagon kits I normally remove the plastic w irons complete with springs and axle boxes leaving just the wagon solebars. I then reduce the thickness of the solebars so that MJT W iron suppression units can be installed. Appropriate cast springs and axle boxes are then added to complete the running gear. In looking at the Toad B solebars I became aware of some very fragile components that, knowing me, would get damaged in the above procedure. This got me thinking of using MJT 2291 suspension units instead which would enable me to keep the Parkside offerings on the kit. I believe the standard way to install these compensation units is to only use one rocking unit and insert bearings into the opposite end plastic axle boxes to create a fixed axle. In this instance, to make sure the ride height is parallel, I decided to install two units making one non rocking by slipping an appropriate thickness of plastic card between the mounting plate and the rocking assembly. The only other requirement was to create a groove in one set of the plastic axle boxes to allow one unit to rock. Other minor modifications I made to the kit are: Replacing the plastic buffers with white metal ones supplied by Lanakshire Models. Replacing the plastic torpedo vents in the roof with Lanakshire Models castings. Installing three link couplings. I've left the roof loose so that a few figures can be easily added to each veranda. The model's weight can then be checked and, if required, more weight can be added inside the van. Next stage is making and fitting all the hand rails... Hmmm, this should be fun!