Les1952
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Posts posted by Les1952
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News-
Furtwangen Ost is to appear at Model Rail Live at the GeorgeStephenson Pavilion, Newark Showground, on September 21-22.
Website is here http://www.modelraillive.co.uk/ but pics etc aren't yet up...
Les
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Just read the whole thread, a very nice set up, loving the tramway & trams, hope to see it at a show sometime.
Many thanks for the compliment- no shows booked other than those in my strapline, but got two more enquiries from Sheffield so may yet venture a bit further North next year.
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Pics from Sheffield show.
Not a lot in the way of captions to go with these- the show went well, though the Glaskastern, the big Combino and the Waldbahn railcar all developed faults- the two from the railway now fixed and the tram waiting doing. Shame there weren't more punters as the show definitely deserved to be better supported.
Lots to get on with.
Les
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Absolutely not. It's pure co-incidence. The Model Rail USA has been commissioned from Dapol, who are designing it to accommodate a variety of different details including smokebox fronts and bunkers. The HO Hornby/Rivarossi model will not need these variations as the European USAs were not modified in the same way as the Southern Railway ones. The detail variations will enable us to do many different livery variations in future, if the demand is there.
CHRIS LEIGH
The NCB ran three (at least) in Northumberland that were sbstantially unmodified....
Les
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Week Twelve
OK- week eleven went the same way as week nine, and I suspect a few more as we are definitely in a non-photogenic section of the business.
Fixing pins. The boards are held in line with patternmakers' dowels and then secured by split pin hinges. However at a recent show wit Stamford East (may have been Sileby) we were back to back with a layout where the pins of the split hinges had been replaced by large split pins. A few weeks later Trevor has found some.....
Jim has had a go at soldering up the next pair of SCART leads. The Thing-um-me-jig has developed into a mark 2 version with the plugs held vertically.
Using print-offs from the spreadsheet to mark the circuits on the tag strips has proved OK, but relies on me getting a consistent size out of the printer (then remembering what it was for next time....)
To explain the colours- black/red are any circiuts for clockwise and pink/blue are the corresponding wires on the inner (anticlockwise) circuits.
The main line is sectioned A1 to A5 and C1 to C5 respectively with the loop at the front being CL2 as it is opposite section C2 on the main (CL=clockwise loop)
Fiddle yard roads are numbered 1 to 10 from the board edge, prefixed with the direction of travel and the letter F for fiddle yard. Each is divided into two sections with the rear one in direction of travel having a suffix A-
so section AF8A is Anticlockwise Fiddle yard road 8 second (long) section
and CF3 is Clockwise Fiddle yard road 3 front (short) section.
Logical and theoretically simple provided every wire is marked at both ends.
Les
PS- I've just spotted a misprint in pic 3 - AF1 should read AF10.......
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Proscenium lowered
I took the proscenium over to Trevor's yesterday and 5 inches has now come off the height of the proscenium. A wobble has needed correction but here it is in the workshop with proscenium attached and Hawthorn Dene Washery standing on its end behind it.
I've had a go at the trackwork at the top end and most trams have no problems with it. However the Hiroshima combino is currently withdrawn for a rebuild as it doesn't like quite a few places on the layout, and I've identified a couple more surplus Tokyo types that will be sold off before too long- with a service that needs four trams to run it I only really need eight. Sheffield will run with the Erfurt combino, the little blue Waggon Union tram and two of the Tokyo cars, with two more as very reliable spares. I'm still waiting news of the Kato Hobbytrain Stadtbahn car- one of these will be added when it finally appears- to replace another Tokyo car.
Show night tonight- second performance of Sweeney Todd - I'm knackered after just the first one (and technical, dress rehearsal etc). Still, there's only three more performances including tonight and then I can hang up my tonsils for a while and get back to modelling.....
Les
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Friday update
Hawthorn Dene Washery is now on its end and Furtwangen Ost has been brought out of its corner and is standing on its trestles again to be prepped for Sheffield Show in three weeks time.
Jobs to do-
1. The proscenium is to be lowered by about 4 to 6 inches. If it ends up too low the trsetles will be lengthened after Sheffield show to raise the layout a couple of inches..
2. Running of the tramway to be improved at the top end where it passes under the houses.
3. Goods stock to go back to Rapidos as I now have three locos with Simplex uncoupling mechanisms. The Dapol buckeyes released will go onto hopper wagons etc for Hawthorn Dene Colliery.
So far I've tested the railway and it is ass running well even before I've cleaned the track!
All the very best
Les
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Friday update
Layout is now standing on its ends while I get Furtwangen Ost ready for Sheffield show. Surprisingly just running Stan the Knife through the bits where I'd sceniced across the board joint was enough to allow me to split them first go.
While it is in two pieces I'll take the opportunity of getting ant protruding trackpings out from the underside, and wire in as many drop wires as I can reach. Hopefully it will be back on its feet in June.
Meanwhile still plenty of work going on to improve the trains.
All the very best
Les
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Hi, following your layout with interest didn't know if you'd seen these, its where I got mine control panel from
http://www.conrad-uk.com/ce/en/overview/0203053/Plastic-Desktop-Enclosures-Sloped-Front
Prices not bad and delivery was good. I had one of the Teko ones.
Nigel
I hadn't seen them - will investigate further. Very many thanks.
Les
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Week Ten - Final Spasm
A prototype control panel box has been sourced- we decided that using ready-made boxes was likely to be more efficient than making out own. Two of these will sit above the clockwise tracks of the fiddle yard at either end of the middle board. Each is about A4 length. They will be mounted upside-down as the securing screws are in the bottom, with the switches on what was the underside. Wires will be brought in through the back, rising in looms between the clockwise and anticlockwise tracks of the yard. The panels will be hinged at the front to allow access to casualties and for track cleaning.
Drilling and cutting the slots for the looms to pass through the main board. First Trevor drills two large holes, then opens them to slots with a power saw. Some filing of edges from Geoff completes the job.
The final slot
The wires will be guided upwards so that they don't catch passing trains.
That's all for this week.
Les
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Week Ten Continued Again
Trevor and Geoff have been looking at the rows of houses that will sit on the wall behind the railway on the centre board. As they look at different prototypes Trevor has been making plasticard mock-ups of the front walls. These will be positioned roughly before being passed for completion. Some won't make the cut.
In the meantime Geoff has been looking up buildings by Watson Fothergill, who was responsible for over 100 public buildings in the Nottingham area.
The downloaded pics are some that may be built- Trevor has already started on the terrace that rises up the hill........
Part 4 to follow.
Les
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Still Week Ten
Second batch of pics- goings on under the baseboard.
All the drop wires on the two end boards have been put through and wired up to the tag strips. From here they will be taken through SCART leads to the next board. The strips will be labelled up and cross-referenced to the spreadsheet containing the wirng instructions over the next couple of weeks.
The SCART leads are double-ended with no crossover. The sockets are a little fragile so we have devised a way of getting them done quickly and being certain the wires at each end are wired to the same place. They will be labelled up in pairs before being wired to the tag strips. The jig has a certain Shadows ring to it.....
More to follow.
Les
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Week Ten
OK, I hear a chorus of voice saying (there must be one person asking, even if only me...) what happened to week nine? Simple- I forgot to take the camera! Stupid boy.......
There is enough this week to take up more than one post, so I'll divide the bits into groups.
First group this week- trial fitting and near-completed bits.
To start with, a better picture of the brewery front. At least this one is in focus, though Trevor thinks the missing window is either in his box or on the work bench at home. Note I've got a better focus on the Fleur-de-Lys on the right-hand gable.
The front of the bridge at the platform end- this sequence minus the platform under the buildings, which is also on Trevor's workbench at home.......
The other side of the bridge- which is just about complete apart from the road surface on the top, which will go into position when scenics start on the baseboard, some time well after Easter. The stub end of track is where the sand drag at the end of the loop will be.
One I was asked to take- looking through the bridge to see if the camera can focus the drill sitting on the far end of the baseboard.
More to follow...
Les
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Looking closer at pylon 1
Basically there are two ways the cableway can leave the screening house- either in front of or behind the screens themselves. That means there are probably two sites the first pylon can occupy. It can either sit behind the colliery line and in front of the roads coming from the screens or it can sit behind the roads from the screens. I've placed it both ways and am presently thinking. Fortunately the final decision is several months away.
In front of the screen roads
Advantages - easy to get at. more room in front of the screens than behind to get the cable end into.
Disadvantages- the pit head baths were going to be somewhere here. Removing these means the area becomes a little too open for my liking, and the bath house has few alternative positions. Cables pass over main shunting area
One solution could be to sit the pylon on top of the baths. Cables still pass over main shunting area (disadvantage) but at a higher level meaning less conflict with the "hand of God". Problem with this is I'm certain it is totally unprototypical.
Alternatively the pylon could sit behind the screening roads.
Advantages of this- the cables are now clear of track cleaning and "sorting out" accidents etc.
Pit head baths can go back where they were and still give hand-room while interfering with the sight line to the screens.
Disadvantages- the cable end becomes cramped BUT it is behind the screen house so limitations of my modelling are harder to spot......
The backscene is extremely close to it so will need to be installed first- difficulty keeping it clean given my hamfistedness..
Overall I'm beginning to come down in favour of putting the mast behind all the tracks- the cableway will be almost the last thing to be installed and there is little important or fragile that can be knocked while installing it- most of the colliery buildings are Lyddle End or Scenecraft, and those that are going to be scratchbuilt will be near the back and end.
Looking closer at pylon 2
This one turns the cableway through almost a right-angle, and the runner at the back will need extending a long way before and after the pylon- the forward runner is inside the bend and needs much less extension. The question is, whether or not to sit it on top of a square machinery house.
This shows it without. The snag is that the cableway passes over the colliery line at a low level. If I place the pylon on top of the machinery house it gives more clearance where it passes over the line, and a steeper angle going down to pylon 3. I'm going to have to see if there are any examples of a ropeway pylon with a plant room built under it. The steeper cableway is probably better aesthetically and gives the impression of heading for the beach. This one needs a slightly earlier decision as the plant room goes in the ground at an earlier point, though still not until after the summer.
Another consideration is that there will need to be protective netting where the cableway passes over the track to the beach, and over the main line.
Ah well, back to the research.....
All the very best
Les
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Friday- Pylons arrived.
A pack of three pylons for the cableway has arrived from Germany. Looking at the Brawa cableway the expansion pylons for this were almost the right shape- and the differences are mostly in the cable guides at the top. One is going to have to turn the cableway through a big angle. This will be pylon 2.
The three pylons placed on the layout to see if three is enough (ie should I send for a fourth?). I think three is the maximum number. At this point pylon 1 is sitting on the baths building, and pylon 2 on a plant room. Pylon 3 is the one forward of the tracks, and this is where it will finish up (within a couple of centimetres in any given direction).
More to follow
Les
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Waiting for glue...
As there is quite a bit of paint and glue still setting I've turned my mind to locos and stock for a time. The push-pull brake might be good enough to photograph in a few days (or maybe not) and I've been making some progress with the Hunt and the V1/3 tank.
The V1/V3 has been lined out on one side, with the other started. I've got buffers ordered for it. It needed a go at the track tp get it to run across the front as it has deeper pizza-cutter wheels than the Hunt.
I've also been running-in A3s, which are now all quieter than any of the V2s- as is the A4 now. Pic shows Colorado after being given some more weight to the Cortazzi truck to keep it on the track.
All the best
Les
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Friday again- the vacuum cleaner strikes....
Actually this was pre-planned. Off came anything portable and the whole top was given a good going over with the vacuum cleaner nozzle. About 95% of the ballast has survived- I made a much more thorough job of glueing it down than I did with Furtwangen Ost.
I then got out a pair of locos with pizza-cutter wheels (the Hunt and a Baby Deltic that has been hiding in Stamford East's shed at exhibitions until I fixed it last week) and ran them round and round on the hopper trains until they ran smoothly with no bouncing on bits of stray ballast. Everything with finer flanges runs nicely, and looks a lot better.
The South end of the layout- progress overview. Note I've still got to fill in Trevor's saw cut just North of the bridge. Slightly soft focusing hides the missing bits of ballast just beyond the bridge.
Looking the other way- the train hasn't moved, the 4MT has stalled through lack of decent pickups. Having to keep the motion swimming in more oil than the prototype uses in order to stop it locking up doesn't exactly help pickup either. I'm debating whether I actually need a 4MT. It will go for "sorting"- probably next month sometime. If it behaves when it comes back I'll keep it.
The stalled 4MT is passed by a Nothbound DMU. Ballasting has improved this aspect.
The new billboards have arrived- Blackpool is the brighter one of the two. The other one is for The Bridge Over the River Kwai, which is nearer the period than Get Carter. I'll keep that one in reserve, however.
I'm still looking at ways of hiding the holes in the backscene at the ends. These are hawthorn trees, at least according to Busch. There is an overbridge to go just to the right of them, with a level crossing on the colliery line about where the loco is standing - ungated as the NCB often didn't bother with such things- a flagman for a road and a loud whistle for a farm track. This will be a farm tracfk. I've another group of Hawthorns which might go on the near side of the cutting between the bridge and the baxckscene. However I'm still not fixed on this, and will play with a few other ideas. Off to the right, starting behind the hopper wagon, will probably be a row of terrace backs.
All the very best
Les
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Week Eight
Only two pics this week, largely as I spent much of the time talking to a prospective new member while soldering to one of the tag strips.
What I thought was the bad news was that of the extra bits I ordered last Wednesday the SCART leads (which we didn't need today) had arrived while the tag strips (which we DID) hadn't. The latter were waiting for me when I got home- of course.....
As it happened we didn't get as far as needing the tag strips on the second board.
Soldering was a divided task, with Alf doing most of the soldering above the board, and me doing the soldering to the tag strips, largely as it was quicker to do them that explain which one went where. Lighting isn't a strong feature of the BMRC clubroom so the anglepoise came in useful for us to be able to see what we were doing.
Trevor and Geoff spent a lot of time planning the backscene. This is a prototype former. The hillside will continue half-way over the fiddle yard and there will be little or no sky at the top of it. Trevor is checking reachability under the prototype to see if a coach standing on the furthest track from the board edge can be reached under the proposed angle of the bank. The top edge will actually be at a small orange pen mark about two-thirds of the way along the former.
All the very best
Les
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Hi Les,
The layouts coming along nicely. It's good to see the pictures of the layout develop and the people behind it.
Cheers
Scott
Many thanks for that- we're moving into a much less photogenic stage, putting wiring in place will take us through weeks eight to twelve on current estimates....
All the very best
les
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Les you said The end of Get Carter was shot on the beach below the headland just North of where the layout is set- the idea is to use it to set the location. I'm not sure how many will equate the date of the film with blue diesels- and can always invoke Rule 1.
No it was south of Hawthorn - Blackhall to be exact I know cos we were there being asked to "go somewhere else" at the time. Strange they picked Blackhall as, at tehy time, there was a lot more spoil being tipped at Horden ( but less photogenic I suppose)
Thanks for that- I knew it was along the coast but was told it was here. I'm replacing Carter with a Blackpool billboard when it arrives- I was also a little concerned about the cigarette in the poster- not wanting to get into arguments with punters about promoting smoking (I never took up smoking)- bad enough having a woman complain the sunbathers on Furtwangen Ost were rude- and she didn't know about the bonking bankers behind the blue glass window, thank goodness.......
I'm sure there was a coach company in Easington that used to run a weekend express to take holidaymakers to and from Blackpool. Certainly I remember seeing one of Select Coaches from Horden in one of the Blackpool coach parks- shame I didn't get a picture at the time.
I'd originally thought of doing the Blackhall area and turning it round to look out to sea, but was told that would be too difficult. Looking inland Blackhall is still on the part of the land where the main line runs on embankment, which is more difficult to hide the ends convincingly. I can remember looking out of the train window on Sunday afternoons as we passed Blackhall Colliery to see if the WD "Delta" was still standing outside, and to see what diesels were visible. Blackhall had the first diesel I remember with a Durham plant number painted on it- that was 20/110/702, a North British 0-6-0DH they got from Appleby Frodingham steelworks. They also had similar 20/110/701 but I never saw that one. I seem to remember a Barclay 0-4-0 saddletank, but only caught a glimpse of it once.
All the very best
Les
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Monday- main line ballasting day 1
Today's music by the Shadows and Status Quo. No visitors.
One thing I didn't do was check the PVA supplies.
I managed to mix enough PVA/water to do the bridge board. I'll get another lot tomorrow on the way back from the railway club and do the other board on Wednesday.
Ballast down, but plenty of loose to get rid of before trains run again. I'll vacuum both ends on Friday together with the workshop floor.
All the best
Les
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Sunday Morning
Day out of the shed altogether- eBay and catching up paperwork this morning then off to Nottingham to rehearse "Mikado" with the Raymond Gubbay chorus- first time I've sung with them, though I've sung with most of the members in other companies....
Yesterday I finished the green areas in front of the main line- just the part behind the colliery line to get the ground in.
Still not drawn the route of the ropeway but it will come out of a forward extension of the screening house (probably a "wiggly tin" structure) then rise to a pylon by the left end of the run round loop, continue left to a second pylon on the green mound just to the left of the coal drops (passing behind the drops. At this second pylon it will turn sharp left and drop across the main line to a third pylon by the board edge, with just a couple of pieces of plastic strip jutting forward from this pylon to represent the ropeway continuing off the board and down to the beach. There will need to be netting over the main line below the ropeway. I've found some good pics of a cableway in Northumberland I can use for source material.
The green in front of the railway has made a difference. Not the final colouring but it gives me an idea of where it might be going scenically. Lemberg on a down express for Sunderland and Newcastle.
The washery end- the conveyor belt will pass between the two buildings above the wall top and cross the railway heading downwards. A little belt-and-braces this but I may model the conveyor as out of use. The alternative to a conveyor is a pair of pipelines heading the same way taking waste water from the washery to the sea for disposal. Whichever it is eventually it has the purpose of hiding the exits to the fiddle yard.
Also in the background are the winding house and a fan house where the shaft used to be- the old headgear has been removed and coal is no longer wound at Hawthorn Dene. The washery remains and one shaft is now use to ventilate the mine, the other having been capped off. Hawthorn Dene coal is wound either at Easington (just a little South) or Hawthorn Combined Mine to the North West. The screening house will be behind these two buildings.
I've found two more pics of coast line trains- a B1 on a train of all-Stanier stock forming a Liverpool to Newcastle express, and a Hunt on a Newcastle-Saltburn working with a non-corridoor rake of very mixed stock including two celerestories..
All the very best
Les
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Week Seven
Working this week from 10am to 2.30pm, later start because Jim is on early shift and can't get here at all. New driveway to the clubroom looks nice but they've left a step to fall down off the roadway edge. I proved it by falling UP it in the evening after an exhibition meeting that finished after dark......
As expected Trevor brought along a part-completed brewery front.
Work today involved getting the rest of the track laid across the front. A breakaway group to put the point motor under the track laid last week failed when we realised we'd no screws short enough, though we did get the tag strips put under the Top valley end board.
Flattening fingers
A view along the front of the board- all trackwork for the Rise Park roundy-roundy is now laid. Wiring commences next week with droppers and temporary connections to get trains running for a soak test of the track in week ten.
Stock used to clearance-check the platform and overbridge while the track was positioned, with two coaches used for running checks (play "hotwheels" by pushing along at speed to check the rail joins and cross-board points are smooth.). Loco is a 9F as the widest we've got measured at platform height. The short bit on the point at the loop exit will run into a sand drag.
More next week.
Les
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I've just looked at the Trackside Signs website and ordered BR period billboards for Blackpool and Whitley Bay.......
Pics when they arrive- the bank will get two signs probably as they are different sizes.
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Rise Park
in Layout topics
Posted
Update
All droppers are wired in, as are most of the connections across the board joins. We are now in the holiday season but testing will begin over the next couple of weeks......