Leaderboard

92061 is now painted, weathered, and ready for action. An initial outing on South Pelaw was rather unsatisfactory. The pickups were not properly adjusted for the new wheels, so progress was rather intermittent. This problem has now been fixed, and I have also added pickups for the centre wheels, which makes a difference on my test track. During this process, one of the shafts that holds the gears in place within the chassis simply dropped out through the spokes while the locomotive was on its side. It slotted back in place with a slight click, and has stayed in since. We will see how she runs on South Pelaw, and as long as all goes well she will join her sister engines for a mammoth running session at RailexNE in a few weeks time. No crew are evident in shot above, and these have since been added. You can see the driver (a modelu one) lurking in the background of the picture below. Those of you who know about these things might have noticed that an air hose is missing from the front of the locomotive. I inadvertently broke it off, and this has now been fixed. These pictures do highlight the rather overscale screw coupling, which grates with me a little. On the other hand having a reasonably large loop to pick up under exhibition conditions does make life easier and less stressful. The handrail knobs look a bit big too ... Overall this has been a satisfying and fairly quick (for me) project. Now it is on to final weathering of the ore hoppers, tidying up broken bolsters, and fixing one or two missing transfers.

Phew! Superb weather but rather too nice to be stuck indoors doing any modelling. Even now (ten past eight), my modelling room is uncomfortable as it gets the sun all afternoon and evening. So, I've been mainly out in the garden reading and having my meals al fresco. Looks like this might carry on for a few more days. However, I did make some further progress with the Standard 2 tank before it got so hot. Using the second batch of custom etched parts from Rumney Models, I've made the cab roof, lubricator drives and fire iron rests. Still got some lamp irons and the shed/SC plate mounting to go, then it's complete. The roof is just temporarily clipped in place and will not be fixed till after painting, glazing and fitting the crew. This latter is a bit of a dilemma. As a push-pull loco, it should have driver and fireman in the cab when loco first but only the fireman when pushing (as the driver is in the driving trailer coach). I'll probably go for the two on board. I took the loco body out into the garden and took a few shots showing the new parts, hence the strong shadows. Dave.

I have now made board skeleton #3. I'm getting quicker! I'm getting used to the process, improving my working methods (e.g. using a longer fence on the table saw to get long straight parallel cuts in the boards) and simplifiying the construction by relying more on glue and leaving out some fixings. This is how the three boards will be arranged with a bridging section where the 6ft level is to form the roundy-round circuit.

In the early days, train brakes were not of much concern to the Knapford and Elsbridge Tramway, all the trains being unfitted goods, slowed either by the brakes on the loco or by pinning down the wagon brakes. It was not until 1904 that the company had to confront this issue, with the expiration of the contract for the W&S to supply passenger services. Both the 0-6-0T No.5, and the two new Kitsons arrived fitted with only steam brakes on the loco, and it was not until 1906 that all locos were fitted with Westinghouse Air Brakes. After the NWR's absorption of the TK&F in 1923, it was fortuitous that the air brakes on ex-LBSCR E2 No.301 had been retained, allowing it to operate the TK&F stock until replacement with vacuum braked coaches.

Evening all, I have decided to set up a blog of my 7mm efforts mainly as I prefer the blog format to the layout threads...too much scrolling backwards to find stuff! This project was started back in BCN when I was having a 2mmFS lowpoint and I confess there is something nice about jumping between the two different scales. Rather than repeat, I will do a short summary intro here but if anyone would like to read in more detail the thread can be found here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/12616-wenford-dries-7mm-1983/ Having always been drawn to China clay and my preference these days for building extracts from prototypes to try and capture the atmosphere, Wenford came in to being probably from an image seen in Maurice Darts superb book ‘Cornish china clay trains in colour’. This seemed the ideal chance to build a small 7mm toe dipping exercise in the senior scale. A Bachmann Brassworks 08 was purchased secondhand and at that time I think the Dapol 08 was not known about. This was followed with 4 Skytrex clay hoods, a Skytrex vent van and a Slaters Brake van kit to recreate the photo from the book. Could this be the first layout where I had bought all the stock prior to layout construction and not end up with an inversely disproportionate stock box to the size of the layout? Well...it could have been if Dapol hadn’t have brought out that 08 at bargain prices! It started with a sketch as most of my layout ideas do...and the use of Ikea Lack shelves as boards... This was developed into a small scale model in white card... Mock ups were produced using crude track templates...this took some time to get right... This was then mocked up with boxes to give a sense of the dries building... Track building commenced in UK using C+L turnout in a bag kits...and Deb’s 31.5mm gauges Track was completed and wired a couple of years ago... And then that Dapol 08 appeared which just had to be purchased... Following some running sessions it all went quiet again until now as I am having another 2mmFS low point! Time to refocus and good to zoom out a little. This brings us almost up to date as the next step is to laser cut the fascias at work from 3mm plywood. I have drawn the CAD plans but decided to mock up the proscenium arch before I cut out 10 or so sheets of ply Armed with foamboard last weekend and a couple of hours I mocked up one end and some of the building at the rear. This led me to reduce the viewable part of the layout to 250mm high which given the width is ok I think proportionately (the initial 300mm height looked too much when first made) It’s crude but has allowed me to tweak the CAD plans accordingly so well worth the effort. Infact I have just brought home some more foamboard to review and build the opposite end and I may try to undertake that this weekend. Here’s some images of the mock up... The main idea of this layout is to try and demonstrate that it’s possible to have a bit of fun in a small space even with 7mm scale. Although quite limited in its scope, it does allow you to shuffle and rearrange the wagons around and the Dapol 08 is soundchipped with the Paul Chetter DCC sound chip which sounds terrific. Another board could be added to the right hand end to make the passing loop but for the moment the aim is to try and complete this as a way of gradually easing into the scale due to more and more frustrations with eyesight and patience as I grow older As always, comments welcome, Pete