MickRalph

I was about to post a note about this video, but I see that @Schooner got there before me. The video was taken last September, when we took the Pulborough (LBSCR 1912) layout to display in the village of Pulborough during the annual Heritage Weekend. During the weekend Barry Luck took enough video content for 3 or 4 videos, so watch out for more content in due course. All the locos and stock were built by Barry or his son over the course of the last 40 years or so. During the weekend, we decided that the layout (and its operators) are getting too old and the layout requires to much work before each outing to make it viable to keep the layout in good operating condition; also, storage of the layout had become a problem. Thus, the decision was taken to withdraw the layout from the exhibition circuit. It was fitting that the last outing for the layout was in the village on which it is based - it is an exact scale model of the station as it was in the 1912 period. This was not a usual model railway exhibition and there was much interest from the local public about how their station area looked around 100 years ago and the way the railways operated in that era. During the course of the weekend we offered the layout to the Pulborough Society (without any stock or the controls) and they accepted it. I do not know how or whether they intend to display the layout in the future. Mick

De Dion Bouton seem to have built their own engines at some time; in the book "Voie metrique en Correze - P.O.C.", it is stated that 6 autorails bought in 1936 and 1938 (de Dion Bouton type ML) were powered by De Dion-Bouton petrol engines of 6 cylinders of type 100/140 of 70HP. The neighbouring Tramways of the Correze had several types of De Dion Bouton railcars; the JA and JM models had motors of 20HP and 25HP respectively - the builder of these engines is not stated. The book "Les Petits Trains de Correze" confirms that the MLs had de Dion Bouton engines and similarly doesn't say who built the engines for the JA and JM models. Edit: this seems to be at variance with the information given by Gordon above, These books state that Willeme provided the motive power for later Verney railcars. Mick Ralph

As one of Barry's operating team, I would point out that this is an exhibition layout, not full size, so that we have some constraints. We have to keep a steady stream of trains moving to keep the public entertained; and the distance to the fiddleyards is a few feet, rather than several miles to the next signal box. The layout (which is DC) is fully signalled, with full interlocking, and drivers drive away from themselves and must drive by the signals. The home and distant signals are on not actually on the layout and are represented by LED lights on the control panel indicating to the driver whether either or both signals is pulled. Clearly, there is no starter signal in the fiddleyard, so that when a train has been accepted by the Plumpton signalman, the indication that the train may leave the fiddleyard is pulling off the home signal (and the distant, if the train has been accepted by the other fiddleyard and the route is set all the way). As the train enters the layout shortly after the lever for the home signal has been pulled, we c ould argue that Rule39(a) was observed; of course, pulling the signal is necessary to release the train from the fiddleyard. As to closing the crossing gates to traffic before answering the bell code, this is necessay to avoid undue delay in the procession of trains through the layout. Mick Ralph

I have previously drawn attention to Barry Luck's P4 model based on Plumpton (ex-LBSCR) in 1912. Barry has started a series of films about the layout and its operation - we run to a "timetable" sequence and the layout is controlled by a fully interlocked mechanical lever frame, with communication between the "signal box" and the fiddle yards being by bellcodes using replica block instruments. The films are on Barry's Youtube channel. The first of the videos can be found here. Mick Ralph

I remember that I was in contact with Paul a few years ago. I have a house in the Correze (though sadly I have been able to visit it only once this year). It is near Treignac, which was a terminus on the POC, but the TC is my favourite line. There is are long-distance signposted routes (both by road and on footpaths) along the whole of the TC for the POC), though sadly the Syndicat which oversaw the creation of the trail is no longer around. Several of the station buildings and other infrastructure or vehicles have been restored. I, too, have four or five books on the lines. My avatar is of the Viaduc des Rochers Noirs. My intention is to build a model of the TC - the station being a copy of Lapleau (which had an engine shed and workshop), though named as Marcillac, so that I can also build the line ascending through Marcillac town centre on a 90 degree curve, before crossing a representation of the Viaduct. However, realistically, this is really too big to build, as the viaduct itself is massive and the valley it spans is very deep. I have put up a new bench in the garage, using old kitchen units, so that I may be able start the layout before toooo long I model otherwise in P4, so that I am modelling the TC in 1:55 scale, with a P4 track gauge - EM would be closer to scale, but ... I have some partially completed scratchbuilt models of the various early railcars of the TC and have been wondering how to model the Billard railcars - don't think Simon does the correct version yet? I have drawn up the plans for the Piguet locomotives and have used my Silhouette cutter to scribe the plans onto nickel-silver, but have not yet got round to starting to cut it out (after several years). I have a plasticard body for one of the locos, but need to start building the chassis - I have all the parts I need, wheels, motor gearbox, etc. I have also part completed models of the station and the engine shed, and also of my house to put on the layout. Mick

I presume that you are aware that the next issue of Voie Libre (due July) will cover the A80D in its Dossier feature? I would be interested in buying the Tramways of the Correze version in 1:55 scale. I have been contemplating scratchbuilding one to go with the earlier Saurier, Tartary and deDion Bouton railcars which I am building in plasticard. Mick Ralph

Oh dear! I haven't used the cutter for quite a while, but I have some work I need to do soon. I must connect the cutter with the laptop to see if it works or not. If not, it is a good job we are going to France on Wednesday, as the only non-win10 computer I have is in our French house. I will have to take the cutter with us so that I will be able to flash the firmware on it. Mick

... and the person in the foreground was an exhibitor (me), not a visitor! Mick Ralph

We will be exhibiting Plumpton Green (LB & SCR c1910) at the Bluebell Railway show over this weekend. I will be operating the layout on Sunday (in the carriage shed at Horsted Keynes) and will be operating the signal box at Kingscote all day on Saturday. Come and say hello if you visit the railway either day. Mick

The phrase in question (in broad dialect) was printed in a Progress Report on Torpoint Mk IV (not a letter to the Editor) in the December 1963 issue of RM. I have been scannining all my old issues of RM and MRC. Mick

Superb - I'm fascinated to see the approach to operating the jacks, as I have been struggling to work out how to operate a self-contained turntable mechanism on some French metre-gauge railcars, where a plate was would down to the rails and then wound further to raise the railcar, which was then turned to face the other direction by shoulder power. Mick

Graham, In the "material settings" area you can set the "number of passes" for the material you are using. If this is set to "2", then there will be 2 cuts made; if you click "Send" twice, then you will get four cuts in total. I would check this first. Mick

I, too, arrived at 11:00 on Saturday and found that the streets opposite were full. I found plenty of parking space on the roads just under half a mile back towards the motorway. A great show and lots of young families present. I would have gone on Sunday, when it is always much quieter, but I was otherwise busy then. Mick

The issue of scribing/embossing has been covered a couple of times in this thread, using a diamond dresser tool purchased from Ebay. You could look at post 541, or do a search for "diamond dresser" in <this thread> to get a listing of the various references to the techniue. Mick

Thanks for the information about the repair. I have one that probably needs that replacement. Now to look for a capacitor, with no Maplins to help out. Mick

Returning home from France tomorrow in order to assist in operating Plumpton Green. Very much looking forward to the weekend. Mick Ralph

It would be good to get my subscription copy by post, as WHS has it in-store. Mick

Back in post 179, I mentioned Pulborough, which is a scale length depiction of the LBSCR station in 1910-12. We are exhibiting this layout at Scalefour North in Wakefield this weekend. This may well be one of the last opportunities to see this layout, as it is so large that it is difficult to maintain and exhibit it to the highest standard. There is detail about the layout, and the stock which runs on it, on Barry Luck's blog here. Mick Ralph

Sadly, there are no pictures in the posting. I look forward to seeing them. Mick

Join the 009 Society and subscribe to their email sales lists of secondhand models. The monthly magazine is a great read. Mick

Yes, it is interesting to see that there is now a new group of people using Inkscape and the Silhouette (and Emblaser) and showing new tips and techniques. Mick

Thanks Paul, I certainly didn't think that you ignored my post - indeed, I have only just logged on again so I saw your replies to Jason and me. I had fogotten that, particularly with the laser embosser, people prepare the interlocking brick courses, so I concentrated on creating a rectyangular shape. I have so far only made buildings which are planked or have a DAS covering for inscribing rough stone. My main use so far has preparing sides for coaches and waggons. I think that your proposal for preparing the sides/ends of walls is probably the best approach. Certainly, your questions are not "Noddy" questions. We all have to start somewhere and we keep on learning, particularly when we don't use the program/cutter all the time. I bought mine soon after Jason and Mike started their threads, so I was learning at the same time that they were experimenting. However, it was only recently that I learned from Jon Hall that there are two buttons on the Portrait - one for feeding in material on the mat and the other for when the material is not on it; I had been using the latter and wondering why the cutter started cutting above the material and damaged the mat. There are lots of knowledgeable and helpful people on the forums, so that any question should get a prompt answer. Mick

Jason's suggestion of using the geometric bounding box to ensure that lines overlay each other, rather than butting up to each other, is a very useful one, as you will frequently need this when drawing up plans. As Jason says, you need to remember that these lines will be cut/scored twice, so that you need to account for this when doing the cutting. For a wall, this is not a problem, as all lines will be scored twice (except for the very outside ones, so they will all be scored to the same depth. However, where an individual item is overlaying another, you will find that some parts of the drawing will be cut twice and others only once. The same applies when creating the final cutting pattern by butting different parts of the design against each other, in order to use the minimum amount of plastic sheet. Actually, thinking further about the wall, if you use duplication of sections of the wall to enlarge it (rather than simply duplicating a single brick multiple times), then some parts of the wall may have multiple lines overlaying each other. This can be dealt with as below, the technique of “Path > Object to Path” and “Path > Break Apart” being very useful. For this, you select an object or multiple objects and apply “Path > Object to Path”. Then select “Edit paths by nodes” (F2 or the second icon on the left toolbar); now select pairs of nodes (or all nodes using crtl-A, which allows you to turn the rectangle into four separate lines, which can be turned into different colours so that they can be cut separately to avoid the slightly rounded corners that a single colour rectangle gets on cutting). With, for example, two nodes selected, click on the arrowed icon for “break path at selected nodes” and then use “Path .> Break Apart” (or ctrl-shift-K) to form the separate lines. Now selecting the pointer mode, select the line you have just separated and you can then delete this line – you may need to bring it to the top, if another rectangle has been laid over the one you have worked on. I think that Jason's suggested way of completing the outer shape of the wall by creating a bounding rectangular shape is easy enough, but other ways would be to create a simply rectangle around the wall – this would create the half-bricks and then paste into place, using the snap function, or to make the wall half a brick too wide and then use the technique of turning the end bricks on the odd rows into paths, selecting the two outside nodes, and then by clicking onto one of the pair move them inwards until they snap onto the outer nodes of the rows above and below (using the control key to ensure the nodes move truly horizontally. I hope this all makes sense. Mick

Happy Christmas to all following this thread. Following up on Mike's informative posts, I am somewhat confused, as I have no problem in altering the Custom Size units in v92. As you may recall, I had difficulties in sizing when trying v92 immediately after its release, so I reverted to using v91. I use Silhouette Studio Designer Edition (SSDE), so I don't need to export from Inkscape in dxf format. Noting that the dialogue for converting from earlier versions of Inkscape has changed in the later version, I took Mike's suggestion and installed the Portable version of Inkscape v92.2 (I had not previously found the portable versions). I then took advantage on Thursday of a quiet shift in Kingscote signalbox on the Santa Specials at the Bluebell Railway to conduct some tests. When using v91, I have found that saving the Inkscape file with Custom Size units set to px and saving as standard Inkscape format allows the file to open to the right size in SSDE. My tests also showed that using custom size measurements of mm and saving in plain svg format has the same effect. The other options of px/plain and mm/inkscape turn out respectively too large and too small when opened in SSDE. I then tried importing the files created in v91 into v92 and here comes the confusing part: I will cover the conversion in a moment, but having opened the document in v92, I find that, unlike Mike, I have no difficulty in changing the custom size units, nor the display units, as required and they stay as I have changed them. Hence to be able to open the file in SSDE I have no need to go through Mike's dodge of converting first to pdf format and then reimporting into v92. I have no idea what is different in my setup to allow me to change the display units on converting to v92. As to the conversion, I found that when the document has been saved in v91 in plain svg format it opens in v92 without the dpi conversion dialogue, but when saved in inkscape format, the dialogue appears. In all cases, the document opens with the same custom size units as it was saved in v91, while the display units are px for a plain svg file or mm for an Inkscape svg file. I found that all three of the options for saving a file in v91 opened it at the correct size when opened in v92, while for the fourth (custom units in px and plain svg format) , the drawing was too small in v92. I then tried saving the drawing in v92 and opening it in SSDE. I found that when files were saved at the correct size in v92, if I saved the file with custom size units in mm and plain svg format, then the file opened the righgt size in SSDE. Finally, I tried saving the files in dxf format and found that if the drawing is the correct size in v92, then it opens at the correct size in SSDE. Consequently, I found that if I have a document created in v91 and saved with the custon size units as px in inkscape svg format, then it opens at the correct size in v92 and if I then save it in plain svg format with the custom size units set to mm, then it opens at the correct size in SSDE. Also, if I save the file in dxf format with the custom size units as either mm or px, then the file will open to the correct size in SS, without the need to employ Mike's intermediate pdf stage. Lastly, I always create the drawing in Inkscape and add layers for each size of plasticard (10 thou and 20 thou) which I want to cut and I save separate files containing only those two layers, for opening in SSDE. This will avoid the problem that Mike experienced of the layers being lost when opening a full file in v92. Sorry about the length of this post. Mick

Barry Luck described how he built the block instruments for his modle of Plumpton Green (LBSCR c1912) on his website at http://www.lbscrmodels.co.uk/instruments1.html. (Sorry - for some reason I can no longer post links when composing a reply. Mick