Anthony Ashley

Ed, Thanks very much for the photo. All photos add to the quality of the layout, as you never know what additional gem is hidden in the detail. Thanks again as I appreciate your contribution to the process. Regards, Anthony Ashley

John, I am happy Bunnings have raised the quality of the XPS from the green stuff. I used the green to create my castle floor but would not use it for hills or mountains. Ross and I spent today working on levelling both storage yards. This required adding a few more support rods and supporting braces under the boards. Thanks to Ross for his ongoing support and assistance. He has an large electronic leveller which indicates on the read out how much the end of the level needs to be raised or lowered to get a flat area. Minimum measurement is in mls. I think it was 2.4 m in length. We were happy when we got a reading of 1ml over the length of the level. If so this works out at a maximum gradient of about a 0.3%. This should be fine for the yards. Next is to prepare the many points I need to incorporate into the layout and then lay the track. No need to alter the uni frog points but I have many older stock as well which will need to be cut and wired across 2 rails. Have had a great discussion with Lez over a photo posted by Jamie (7APT7). This photo by him showed a very dilapidated trackside building beyond the Pen-y-clip viaduct. Unfortunately this photo has been lost to the site on server transfer. At the time of posting I looked at the photo posted on 23 Feb 20 at page 38. I thought I would go back to it on modelling the building, but as I said it has been lost. I have tried to contact Jamie without success. Lez and I have agreed that we think it was probably the smallest LNWR stone loco shed possible with some internal wood framing. The roof from memory was also wood. Given the photo was taken in 2020 the structure was to say the least very dilapidated. I only remember the floor having stone and with some very rusty rails evident. I think I shall create a shabby stone building 30 mls by 70 mls with a poor wooden roof. If anyone can remember any other details from this photo which will assist please add a comment. Thanks to Lez for assisting in this process. Regards, Anthony Ashley

John, Sorry I misinformed you the other day. The other material I saw at Bunnings a few years ago was green and not dense enough. Went to Bunnings and looked at the blue XPS by Bastion. It is almost exactly the same as the Knauf board. I think the blue stuff is good and have bought some to supplement my dwindling yellow material. Have a few photos of the storage yard boards. Both are about 21 feet or about 7 metres long. View of the "Chester" storage yard View of the Holyhead yard We need to level off these yards and then start laying track. Regards, Anthony Ashley Regards, Anthony Ashley

John, Looked again on line. Redbak do a sheet called thermal gold which looks the same. Only issue is that they are in North Geelong. A long way from Sydney and either further from Brisbane. Have not found a Brisbane or Sydney supplier yet but will let you know if I find one. Getting back to the modelling, I fitted the last storage yard board last night 505mlX1,220ml. It fitted like a glove and neatly fits the gap!! I am going to get Ross to help level off all of this new work with is long electronic level this week and then on with the storage yards track work. Regards, Anthony Ashley

John, I looked at the blue material from Bunnings but it is much less dense that the yellow Knauf board. It is no wherenear as good, but have a look and see what you think. It is really unfortunate that Knauf are no longer making the board. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Sorry John, I did not see your post over the page. The material is Knauf Multi use Foam Board. I used to get it from Bunnings but it is no longer stocked. I rang Knauf directly and they no longer manufacture it. Looks like we need to look at alternatives. I have 2 sheets left!!! The other word for it is extruded polyurethane, I think. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, Have glued and shaped the rest of the hill under the road viaduct. Photos below. Sulpted hill I have also added another base board for one of the storage yard run around loop. The only major base board section left to fit is the joining section, which will fit in the gap area in the above photo and create the Holyhead run around loop. Hope to fit this in the next week. It is only 508 mls wide and will be supported by the two existing edges either side of the new board. Next is to paint the new hill brown and then look to add vegetation to them. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, Road base has been sanded back and the hill next to the rail viaduct roughly shaped and laid in position These still need to be glued. The pieces which have had the shaping finalised have been glued into position. Photos below. I think gluing these together and then shaping will be the best plan. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, Have laid the last section of road. First section was laid a few days ago and has been sanded. The patches showing below will fill a few gaps. The upper section of the road is the newly laid, but prior to sanding. The new section will need to dry for a day and then be sanded. Then I shall add the cardboard edging and then the foam hillside in front of the road. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Ade, Thanks for your post. Will try to maintain a regular posting of material!! Have been sculpting the foam around the edge of the mountain. Photos below. Prior to the foam being added to the right end of the rail viaduct. First foam section Next piece Have cut a track in the bottom foam section to insert a cardboard support to act as a brace for the last pieces of foam. They will stadily climb up the wall. Next to lay the plaster road base and then fit the cardboard backing to the above section and fit the remaining foam sections. Regards, Anthony Ashley

John and Scotty, Belatedly thanks for your comments. I did a lot of work on the layout prior to the layout tour which John mentioned above. With the extreme humidity in Brisbane over the last 4 months I have had a layout break and working in the train shed was really difficult. A couple of months ago I did cut and fit the next section of the Chester storage yard. Had to cut a large sheet of ply down the middle, then place both pieces across the grain of another sheet, glue, corn and paint. Then had to fit more suspension rods around the perimeter of the layout and fit it in. Definitely a two person job and Ross helped out again for this task. Photos of the finished board with some temporary track work in place. Track section on plan With cooler temperatures and less humidity I will get back into the shed regularly. Have started to tidy up the right side of the mountain section with foam board edging added to lay the bitumen road base. Some licence has been taken with the actual road formation due to space constraints. I will continue to work on this section over the next week. In addition there are only 2 sections of base boards to add to finish this part of the layout, one 1.22 mX1.3 m and the other 1.22m X.57m. This board has been prepared to be cut to the required sizes. Happy easter all!! Regards, Anthony Ashley

David, Thanks for the comprehensive post. I agree with most of your points. I think you are saying that the front elated building had a ground and first floor. The photos that I have seen are indicative of the ground floor being free of any building around the entire U shape. I think there was no building in the ground floor but only the first floor. I have the book Railway of North Wales Bangor which has a very distant photo of the building. Cann't see the lower floor occupied. I will make the elevated section 30ml wide and 30 ml tall. The building is framed with white pots both vertically and horizontally. 2ml square plastic rods should do the job nicely. I shall fit the carcass of the building inside this frame work. Thanks for your contribution. I might create a short paragraph on the layout about the building using the info you have provided. Thanks again for your contribution. Last weekend the British Railway Modellers of Australia held their annual convention in Brisbane. Layout tours were conducted on Sunday afternoon and mine was a part of the list. I tried running the Irish Mail rake and manged to do so for about 5 hours. Have added a couple of photos to show the rake ( not accurate in this photo but I have the exact coaches to make the 1960 rake) I have been busy with Bangor yard buildings. The goods shed is nearly complete and the Engine Shed only needs a roof to be added. Photos are below. A class 55 diesel and a 17 coach rake, showing the size of the Irish mail rake. The engine shed is visible on the left of the photo with the Goods shed on its right. The Engine shed is 6 tracks and inspection pits on each. I had some trouble making the roof supports which needed to be exactly the same. Eventually used one as a template to cut the rest. I think they are well lined up and should produce the required effect. The engine shed roof only has a few pieces placed in position but not stuck down. More work needed on the roof. Both sheds visible. You can see the detail in the engine shed. Once the roof is cut and stuck it should be effective. I need to download the Scale scenes zinc roof sheet to cover the non glass sections. Lining up the roof supports to match the window frames was a nightmare. Cloe up of the Goods shed. Over head view with the uncompleted Engine Shed roof very obvious. I shall add drains and down pipes on the top of the pylons on the side of the shed. I need to get my son to 3D print them! Side view of the Goods shed. Rear view of the shed. I shall finish the Engine shed roof and apply the drains to the Goods shed once I have then . Next is the Repair shed in Bangor Goods yard. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Mr Gibbons, Thanks for your comment. Bangor at its height had 3 large sheds, ss shown in the plan below. The engine shed and Goods shed are named in the plan. The Goods shed is exactly that same design as part of the Repair/Engineer shed which is the large shed on the left of the plan. The additional part of the repair shed is the elevated section. This is not really shown on the plan as it extended the brick saw tooth section both in width and in length. I used the design from the scale scenes North Light engine shed for the Goods shed and will do so for the rear of the Repair shed. It is exactly the correct design if made wider and much much longer (Goods shed is 15 roof sections and the Repair shed 10 saw tooth sections. Given both of these are mainly brick I think it would have taken much work to move from another site even if nearby, but I do not know. Some of the bricks may have come from an earlier engine shed if this was demolished and relocated. Thanks for your comment. I had looked at the disused stations web site but unfortunately it does not have any detailed photos showing the relationship between the two repair shed sections. Your comments are really appreciated. Regards, Anthony Ashley

GWR, Thanks for your contribution. I had no information on the Railway Institute. The link to the web site is very valuable and I shall use those photos to help construct the building. It is quite large and relatively isolated from most other buildings, so will look impressive against the hill bank on which it is situated. Thanks again for your help. I am a little disappointed that there have been no response directly to my questions on the Bangor engineering shed, as I have exhausted my resources in trying to find relevant information. Ross came around the other day and we agreed upon the most likely building arrangement between the saw tooth section and the U shaped wrap around elevated building. Will need to implement those decisions unless I get something more on it. Thanks to all for your contributions to date. Regards, Anthony Ashley

John, The mainline is operational apart from a triple point which needs replacing, so I should be able to have a train or two operating on the mainline. The layout is on the layout tour so all are welcome to come. Thanks for the question. Am expecting Ross to come over tomorrow to assist with the bus lines from the Bangor Goods Yard switch to the terminal strips. There are 6 lines to lay. I have also been studying the Bangor Goods Yard Work Shops shed. The building is about the same size as the engine shed but comprised of two parts, The first is about ten sections of roof structure similar to the Goods shed- a saw tooth roof line of 10 sections. At the front of this structure is an elevated U shape building of standard design. The elevation allows the locos passage underneath the U shaped section into the saw tooth section. The photos that I have are below. I have spent about 5 years trying to find better photos, but with no success. The issue is that I can not see how the two sections are linked or joined. If anyone has access to better photos or knows the structural arrangement of the 2 sections I would appreciate a comment. Photos are below of what I have. The workshop is the middle of the picture with the front section elevated on white piers and the saw tooth section behing it. Cloer picture of the workshop just bekid the climbing road. A white framed building is behind it. The three main sheds are visible in this photo starting with the engine shed at the bottom right, goods shed in the middle and workshop on the left If anyone has more info on hte workshop I would really appreciate contact through this blog. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Paul, Thanks for the info. My knowledge of vehicles in the UK is limited. I have a better grasp of Australian vehicles and their history. Your contribution is really appreciated. Have been busy with wiring. Have connected all of the Bangor goods yard to the relvant terminal strips apart form 3 small pieces of track which go into buildings and another 2 track pieces on the extreme right of the pictures below. You can see some of the unpaonted cork under one of them. The switch board for Bangor yard has been created. I need to lay the colour matched bus lines from the switches to the terminal strips and then join from the bus ines into the terminal strips. Not many connections are required compared to the inputs from the track work. The inspection pit next to the coal shed has also been cut into the board. Photos of the completed track work are below. Over view of the completed track work with wiring completed to termina strips. Some of the wiring for the new area. Once I have done the bus lines and connected them I am going to focus on the goods shed and maybe start the Bangor engine shed. Regards, Anthony Ashley a

Howard, Thanks for the great photos of Bangor. I have just seen them. The last one is actually my favourite as it shows the environs of the station. I am modelling that area. I wonder what colour the bus is. I have green buses in double and single decker for the layout. The last photo looks possibly taken in the 70s from the look of the carsl but just guessing. I have been busy wiring the Bangor goods yard and am close to finishing minus the wiring for the swithes ie all track is nearly finished. Just a coulple of more terminal strips to finish up the areas and a few flex track pieces to add dropppers and connection wires. Not much to show by way of photos. Thanks again Howard for your contribution. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, Connected up the inspection pits with track. Photos below. Engine shed and Motive area with inspection pits and rails connected. The first row of inspection pits is outside hte engine shed. The scond inside. More wiring tomorrow. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, More work on wiring and then cutting the slots for most of the inspection pits. Having firmly established the layout for the Coal shed and turntable I realised that the last point on the motive track area was too high on the layout. Eliminating the piece of flex track between it and the ajoining point allows the lines going off at an angle to be closer together and more closely align with the coal shed, which the lines need to enter and run along adjacent.The two photos below show the better alignment by the elimination of the flex track and joining the points together. The second photo still has the old cork for my original track plan still on the layout. I overlaid the point on a new position to show the change in angle which better matches the line requirments. I have been busy cutting the slots for the areas incoroporating the inspection pits, both exterior and within the engine shed. The longer ones are inside the engine shed. Close up of the shorter inpection pits. I had to position them right on top of the suporting framework. The riser underneath attached to the framework is at the extrmem left end of the small pits just off to one side. The elevation board raised the board about 30mls off the frame, so just enough clearance to drill and hand saw the slots. You can see the light green framework undeeer the slots. A tight and difficult task. I have preparde two of the wiring boards, holding 7 of the 18 terminal strips required for the Bangor goods yard. As you can see we have made a start on the wiring but much more to go. More wiring to follow for the Engine she, Motive, Goods Shed and Engineering shed areas. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, I have checked the wiring requirements for the Bangor goods yard and the 2 storage yards. The Bangor goods yard will require about 18X12 block plastic terminal strips. This means about 192 wires to be connected to the droppers and then have the copper clips attached for screwing into the terminal strips. The two storage yards combined will require about 65 12 block terminal strips. This is a total of about 768 droppers and then additional wiring joined to extend to the terminal blocks using the copper clips as well!!!!! I have completed 16 of the wires to the terminal strips. The S inputs are for the point switches which still need to be added once I have got the two lever frames for Bangor and Penmaemawr. For Bangor only another 176 wires to go! A little more wiring to go. I have nearly run out of terminal strips. Regards, Anthony Ashley

BANGOR GOODS YARD TRACK Dear All, I have been busy the last week adding droppers to the Bangor goods yard, having finished laying and painting the cork base. Although the photos seem to show little change the addition of droppers to this trackwork has taken about a week to complete. A few photos are below. I think my track work, while the plan is complicated is good enough to support consistent running. I have already used wire and tube with an all brass lever frame in Conwy goods yard. The plan was to use the same method for Penmenmawr and Conwy goods yards. Penmaenmawr can just get by with a 12 lever frame with some parts of the eastern side of the yard remaining under electronic control rather than the physical lever frame system. Bangor will require a 27 lever frame to operate. I believe I can source the all brass lever frames from Brisbane still thanks to a generous offer. The all brass lever frame is very strong and reliable. I think I shall need to develop an L shape crank to switch both points of a cross over using one lever. I have tried to loop the wire up to ne and behind the other in a cross over but the run is too long and the switching is unreliable. I need a shorter more direct wire and tube to be more accurate with the switching. It is quite annoying as the existing longer loop of wire works sometimes but not consistently. Although it does not look substantial, the photo below represents a week of work in adding droppers as compared to the last photos. I like the overall shape of the yard and think it looks much more logical than the first photos posted where I had the plan error incorporated into the plan. The underside of the board shows more progress with a sea of droppers evident to the background in this photo. I need to complete the wiring process with wiring from the droppers to the plastic terminal strips and then to the main bus lines. These bus lines then go to a board with potentially 5 -6 different switches which all connect to a the Bangor goods yard power source. It is much easier to do this wiring with 2 people, one below the layout wiring the droppers and another person above the layout adding clips for insertion into the terminal strips and then screwing the line into the right terminal input (ie labelling and keeping an ordered system). Getting out form the layout for each dropper extension is exhausting, hard work and inefficient. Regards, Anthony Ashley

John and Paul, Thanks for the encouragement!! I suppose the line time-tablers would need to draw up a similar document to ensure best station through put for each station. It took me a couple of weeks to get the extra points needed to rearrange the Bangor motive area. I had to pull up some of the cork area and start some of it from scratch. Have now finished the gluing down all of the cork for the Bangor goods yard. Next is to lift the track. paint the cork and then wire in the track. A lot of the platform area has not had the wiring completed except for the 4 tracks between the platforms. I shall be under the layout for a week or so. In addition most of the points I have used need DCC preparation by cutting rails and adding relevant wires for power. At least 4 of them are the new Unifrog so no preparation required there. I checked on the availability of the ESU switch pilot servo I used previously and found the 4 output version no longer in use. They have gone to an 8 output version. This will reduce the cost per frog so is good news. I need to work out numbers but think it will be un the order of about 20 required. I have provided photos of the new goods yard track configuration. I think it looks a lot neater and closer the the real thing than the last version shown in the photos above, posted on Apr 26. Wide view showing passenger and goods area for Bangor station. Closer of the goods area. There is a track missing on the extreme right of the motive area. This leads to the turn table. Also one rail is off the cork near the engineering shed. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, Have revamped the Chester yard timetable and constructed one for Holyhead. Found a double up on the Chester timetable so was able to reduce it by one track. Have also reconfigured the yards to required lines only rather than 34 but added some redundancy. Photos are below. Not sure how much interest there is in this material but will post anyway. Chester yard Holyhead yard Chester timetable until 1100. Holyhead timetable until 1000 Red indicates two rakes on same track but two different detection zones on the line, both rakes can fit in the limited space and leave and arrive at appropriate time to ensure movement. I need to rework some point to use all of my existing point. Minor changes required though. Regards, Anthony Ashley

David, Thanks for responding to my unifrog query. I shall be using medium points in hte yards as much as possible given they are the only code 55 converted to unifrog, although I have the others as well. As discussed above I still have 70 elecropoints still in stock so will use those for sure. I shall try to contact Jamie. I am particularly keen to get a copy of the photo of the ruined building near the Penmaenmar viaduct. I feel I need to consolidate the track layout, finalise exactly how many points I still need and order them. Accordingly I spent all of yesterday plotting the arrival times of the rakes into the two yards and how long they occupied that yard. It was laborious and time consuming, but by the end I had a timetable for Chester. Yet to do Holyhead. Below is the timetable for Chester. Conducting this process has shown me I need a minimum of 24 tracks in Chester, and perhaps with more rial sharing I could reduce the number further. I am not sure if with track detection I can double occupy a line of the yard. The issue is then timings for departures, ensuring that the train next to leave is at the front of the que. More analysis may create greater efficiencies and more dense track occupancy. I think if one track of a yard was isolated in the middle it would create two sections for track occupancy. As long as both trains fitted onto both sections and had access to leave I think this would work. The picture below is the Chester yard timetable, the fruit of yesterdays planning. Tracks in the yard are listed on hte side and a 24 clock across the top. d Obviously the times in the yard are not indicative of the time a rake is actually in a station. The Chester yard is occupied from the tiem the rake reaches it from Conwy, but in real life the rake would still be travelling to Euston, Manchester, Liverpool etc. I need to complete the time table for Holyhead in a similar fashion. It will be much smaller as many more rakes came through Chester than terminated at Holyhead. If anyone has any other experience with unifrogs I would appreciate any comments. Regards, Anthony Ashley

Dear All, First question to all. I have noticed some of the photos from May 2020 to some time in 2021 are missing from the site.(pages 36 to 42) Jamie was prolific during this period with some great photos which I want to use for modelling but they are no longer showing. Does anyone know how to retrieve them. I messaged Andy Y but no response as yet. I was looking closely at the track plan of Bangor goods yard given I have started laying the cork and noticed some odd issues in the plan. The coal shed and turntable seemed far removes in terms of track travel from the engine shed, which seemed to make no sense. I revisited the map I was using which was that in the book No 14 Railways of North Wales Bangor. The plan goes over 2 pages and the middle of the book does not quite align with the track sections. Accordingly I think I put the connection to the coal shed and turntable on the wrong line. Given the complexity of the yard this is not surprising and I am glad I caught the error prior to track laying. Will just have to rip up some 1 ml cork. The down side of this process was that I need 3 extra left hand points, either small (123 ml or medium 136 ml). If I slightly alter the design I can use 3 medium points. The plan looks much better with distinct areas bounded more by function. The advantage of replanning this is I can use the new code 55 unifrog points. Has anyone any experience with these points. They look much easier to install then the electrofrog given I am using DCC. Advantages include no need to cut both sides of the rails with a jewellers blade to isolate the frog area. The stock rail electrofies the frog rails minus the frog point at all times, meaning the track joiners no longer need to be isolating. This should create much better joins with use of purely metal joiners. With the electrofrog I have soldered a wire to both frog blades just above the last sleeper. With the unifrog there is a preattached wire to power the frog poit off a switch. Much less work in preparing the pints as they are ready to install for DCC. If anyone has any comments on these points I am interested in hearing from you. Given my focus on the Bangor goods yard I thought I should look at the storage yards and how many lines I actually need. The design of the yard allows me to have some up to 14 feet. Potentially I could have 34 tracks obviously some much smaller. I originally used 3 way points but my experience with them has not been great and two 2 ways are cheaper then a 3 way. To minimis the number of lines required and hems save on points I need to work out the occupancy of the two storage yards, called Hoyhead and Chester. I might be able to double up on track usage by using a line for maybe 4 rakes, depending on the occupancy of the each rake at a particular storage yards at anyone time. The proposed first part of the time table of train movements from 0001 to 1030 is below. I shall have to do an occupancy chart for each yard to see how many locos are in it at any particular time in order to minimise point usage. For instance the Fairburn leaves Rhyl at 0830 to arrive at Bangor at 0938. It leaves Bangor at 1000 and departs Conwy at 1222. Meaning it leaves the layout at about 1230 ie gets to Chester yard at about 1240. It therefore occupies Chester yard from about 1240 to 0830, but does not enter Hoyhead yard at all. If I have another rake that is in Chester yard between 0830 to 1240 it could use the same yard line as the Fairburn rake. I shall need to examine each rake and plot timings in a similar fashion, before I work out the size of the yards. Below is my current rework of the yards, being in the process of removing 3 way points. I need to do the analysis to decide on how many tracks I really need. Chester yard in process of variation. Holyhead prior to amnedment. I have the following points left : 35 curved rights, 8 curved left, 15 right large, 7 Ys, 4 right small, and 1 left small. I need to wait for delivery of my 3 missing left points to complete the scenic track. REgards, Anthony Ashley