locotracteur351

Well having sat and looked at the old screens building and never been happy with it, not the style, more the location, I have moved the screens and the colliery has been modernised! I recently purchased a number of Gordon Edgar’s brilliant books on ‘Industrial Locomotives and Railways’ and have been inspired by excellent pictures of screens in the North East and Scotland. The locos bring the empty wagons into the loop, run round and shunt them a couple at a time for loading under the screens. I imagine that the majority of this colliery’s coal goes out by canal to power stations but a rail link is there to connect to the rest of the colliery system. Plenty of room in the foreground for smaller buildings and general colliery rubbish now. I keep looking at my wooden engine shed and thinking about modernising that too...

I think this is a possible explaination. Having had to manually fire a loco with damp coal sludge, I can testify for its fire retardant properties; definitely something to keep dry! I’ve also found that coal dust is an incredibly abrasive paste once damp, certainly something you’d want to avoid in a mechanical stoker.

Well I seem to have got my wagon building under control finally! Though I now have enough wagons and locos to run different decades, with locos and wagons being swapped as I go along to transition though the years. I keep wanting to extend the layout to add more scenery but I think the best thing for me to do is add a backscene and concentrate on finishing what I’ve got! There’s enough of a layout here to keep my interest and maybe even to exhibit one day, which I would love to do. I’m now going to concentrate on detailing my rolling stock and working on the scenics. One project that I do want to finish off before that however is building a body for the Agenoria Kerr Stuart ‘Victory’ that I’ve recently acquired. It runs really nicely and although I didn’t buy one from Minerva because I decided it was too big, I couldn’t resist a bargain!

Doesn’t time fly... I spent the summer restoring my Land Rover and no sooner had I got that on the road; I was given a pipe organ (if you think you haven’t got room for a model railway, you definitely don’t have room for a pipe organ)! Things seem to be settling back down again and although I put the organ in the space that the layout was, the layout fits on top of it. Not the best for working on the layout, but it can easily come down to the kitchen for that. It does at least mean that I can play trains again, I hope to make progress now it is back out from the attic...

I shall have to do some research and see what I can find, I would like to replace the gaugemaster, as you can see one of the controllers has been removed and the wires cut inside by whoever had it before me, as I mentioned I can’t remember where it came from! I managed to get my 85A Hunslet unbuilt so it was incredibly light with no extra weight, not a problem on flat flexitrack but as I say it really didn’t enjoy my lumpy colliery track. @doilum Do you have a topic on your Frydale layout anywhere? I’d love to see more! Thanks, Jagger

Badly running locos are probably one of the most frustrating things for me, this is why I have yet to build a proper loco kit! I have also used the Peco set track points to ensure good running and reliability from the start. I was getting frustrated with the Hunslet, I think due to its lack of compensation so it was very sensitive to the uneven track that I have laid (intentionally). Filling it with lead has now completely transformed it and now it runs over the lumpy track right down to a crawl. The Hudswell Clarke runs beautifully over the whole layout even with its comparatively long wheelbase. I use an old gauge master two track controller of unknown origin, and it’s only the Heljan loco that seems to run oddly which suggests it’s the loco not the track or controller. As I mentioned, the track is intentionally lumpy as it is a colliery, and the loco seems to run away down gradients and then bog down going up them. I have an old re-wheeled Hornby Dublo standard tank that behaved the same way on my old 00 gauge layout. The one thing that they have in common is their great weight!

I made another visit up to the reservoir to collect some more ‘ballast’ and I’ve completed the basic ballasting now, just gaps to fill and the baseboard joint to do when I get round to splitting the boards to put some plastic in between. The excellent etched weigh bridge from Severn Models has been inserted into the road to be bedded in when I complete the road surface, I just need to build a small building for the scales etc next to it. I was getting increasingly frustrated with the toy-like appearance of the Ixion Hudswell Clarke that I couldn’t seem to put my finger on and the poor running 85A Hunslet, but after painting the tyres on the Hudswell Clarke and filling the saddle tank of the Hunslet with lead I am incredibly happy! the Heljan 05 that I have is a very smooth runner but seems to have poor low speed control. It seems like I am constantly adjusting the controller to maintain a constant speed, it’s like steering my Triumph Herald before I replaced the track rod ends! I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do to smooth out the running but I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks, Jagger

I’ve been continuing with the layout this week as a distraction from working from home! When out with the dog earlier in the week, inspiration struck when walking along the ‘beach’ at the top of the reservoir we had walked up to. Perfect ballast! The colour isn’t right, but I intend to correct this with painting as I begin to weather the landscape together. I’ve finally added the muddy track crossing at the far end of the layout, with ruts in the mud from many heavy passing vehicles, this was inspired by a brilliant photo of an austerity on a muddy headshunt with some mgr hoppers that I keep coming across when looking for inspiration. I’m looking forward to painting this up to look muddy!

Success, I found some flat strip to do the bracing on the tower base and gave it a blast of primer, I’m very pleased with how it’s come out!

Well before I get distracted by the temptation of a loco kit just yet, I’ve got to make my layout feel like a colliery! I am have no real intentions of exhibiting this (though I wouldn’t say no) and as such I am shunting with 3 link couplings and it is set up to be operated from the front. I needed somewhere to hide the controller and I’ve built myself a fan house with its engine room that hides the controller and the exit to what will be the fiddle yard. This is a very basic structure at the moment and required cladding in brick and all the details adding (the arched roof of the fan itself being quite important). I plan to have a conveyor (assumed time come from the drift mine off scene) that will cross over the tracks and enter a more modern extension to the left and in front of the current wagon loading building. I like the railway running between and behind buildings that I’m starting to see now. I have also built the basic structure of the water tower for the locos. The tank itself is made of 4mm scale Wills girder bridge sections that I found in the attic yesterday and I’m very pleased with how it looks so far. The fan house, loading building extension and plinth that the water tower sits on will be brick built to differentiate them as more recent developments than the loco shed, main loading building and retaining walls around the road entrance. I need to find something to do the masses of bracing to the water tower base so I think I’ll go and have a rummage in the workshop this afternoon....

It always surprises me how the coal mining industry seemed to cling on as the seams became exhausted and the politics crushed down. Much of my dads family worked in the collieries between Huddersfield and Wakefield and ended up hopping from one pit to another as they all closed down! I don’t really want to set my layout at a specific time like I have with my 4mm modelling, more a feeling of late fifties to early seventies. Looking at photos of pits on the edges of a large system it’s like time almost stood still at the end. Haha, I have made that mistake before! With scratch building I always get to the detailing and grind to a halt, I do also fancy giving a proper kit a go though so I appreciate the recommendation, thank you.

Good idea, I wanted to have a couple of older coal wagons filled with scrap or such like, I also like the idea of a mobile workshop. I’m considering scratch building an austerity to break my teeth on o gauge loco construction. I’ve had an unsuccessful day mocking up the pit head and wagon loading facilities (I hesitate to call the screens as I imagine this small pit feeds into a larger collieries washery). I’m very happy with the small wagon loading building based on the style of the one which now resides at Beamish, but I’m going to re-try a small winding house and head gear.

More progress on the shed this weekend, the shell of the roof is completed and just awaits corrugated iron now. Painting of the exterior will wait until there is a colour scheme for the colliery. The shed is imagined to be original to the colliery, which subsequently became a part of a larger colliery system and is now no longer in use. There will be facilities for filling steam locos with water but in order to refuel the diesels, a wagon has been built that can be taken where required. This still needs detailing but the idea is together now! The headshunts that flank the entrance road have gained simple sleeper wheel blocks to prevent wagons rolling into the walls. The paper is a template for a disused weighbridge that will be inset, from a time when the colliery was busier. Behind the wall that the ex-midland van is parked will be a small embankment with the rear of a small chapel or miners cottages I think, I’ll have to mock the options up and have a think! My thinking is that, like many collieries, once earmarked for closure the miners did all they could to boost production. This means it will be a run-down but busy atmosphere.

Well the shed did indeed get started today, I’ve made it up to eaves level and I think I will split it here with a detachable roof as I can hide the join with the gutters and then have the option of detailing the interior when I get as far as detailing! It has a stone base with a wooden superstructure. The roof (and probably the upper gables) will be corrugated iron I think, I’m very pleased with how it has gone so far.

Well having never really got beyond ballasting on my previous OO gauge layouts, I’m quite enjoying adding a little bit of interest with small variations in ground level before I start with the ballast. The track up to the loco shed has been cobbled and started to be bedded in, looks like I’ll have to make a start on the shed itself tomorrow!