Northroader

Wonder what it is about having the FY on the left or the right of the layout? Looks? Ambidexterity? Operating convenience? Treatise waiting to be written on that.

Or bend it like Beckham..

Class Swot…

I had a go at a Crampton, and got a chassis going that functioned OK and could pull a small train. What messed up completion for me was doing the outside Stephensons valve gear with the large eccentrics.

Correct, old boy, Soudley Crossing.

Looking really good, Jordan, thanks for keeping the pot boiling, as I don’t have much to report yet on the transatlantic side of the job yet, although this morning I did start to letter one of the tankcars.

The Irish models I did would be alright on Northport Quay, Don, except that they were done for 32mm gauge, and Northport Q is done to the proper Irish 5’3” gauge, as 36.75mm. Some folks do it the one way, some folks the other, and the same in 4mm scale. You can get the wide gauge driving wheel axles from Slaters, and I gather C&W wheelsets will stand a tweak, so it is quite do-able. The Irish models all got involved in the great de-clutter before I moved, and what’s happened to them has become quite an epic in its own way. You’ll find what went on over on my “Ballycombe” thread, (link below).

Glad you saw it, Don, David Holman has been on the show circuit for quite some time, now. With Northport Quay he’s slimmed down a bit from his previous jobs, which eases the transport logistics, and I think the smaller layout can form a better example for doing something at home. Some of the rolling stock in use on the layout originally began life on Richard Chown’s “Castle Rackrent”!

“Mum,mum, who’s Kruger???”

“Happiness is not the arrival, it is the journey itself”.

That looks like a very promising start to me. Centre third rail, I suppose?

Belonging to the Latter Day Enthusiasts and Adventist Brethren, I can say the LMS did have a nice line in steam shunters as well.

The LMS did a nice line in diesel shunters in the 30s, with a rebuilt steam Jinty, and various inside frame jackshaft drive jobs, which should prove suitable:

Makes you do everything twice…

There’s quite a good range of small Scottish stations available from Pop Up Designs, although you’ll probably find you need to modify them a bit, how they’re constructed, to have a good appearance on a layout, painted. I think they intended them as a kind of craft range with their other bits and bobs, to go on a shelf unpainted, but then did them in the right scales for the model railway market. https://www.popupdesigns.co.uk

The station building kit is progressing, I’ve now trimmed off all the projections, and gone over with a 2mm ply capping strip at floor level, and card capping over the vertical parts. Then windowsills have been added, and a plastikard strip round the outer edges of the window frames. A coat of primer, and now I’m working around with the body colours. I’m comparing it with a photo of the preserved station at Dufftown, taken from Peter Smith’s very useful thread: https://www.stationcolours.info The brown framing was done with Precision Paints P.91, SR freight umber, but the panelling was interesting, as I used P.P. P.476, which is the Stroudley “Improved Engine Green”. This might demonstrate that taking paint samples from full size locos might be too dark when applied to a model, although working here where a darker colour is needed. I’m building a layout whose size would qualify it as a microlayout, but where you normally expect just wagon shuffling, I do want to have some passenger working as well, together with a bit of representative architecture, which is where this building comes in. It’s proved it’s worth with planning, as I find putting it down on the baseboard, the board is just too narrow. The board was brought here in triumph as the last surviving piece of the old lines, and which had been reconditioned ready for the move. Now it’s been widened up to 13.4”, 340mm., by adding some 10mm. foam-board strips along the front. I’m getting into using foamboard quite a bit, there’s a small layout running in parallel with this job using it for baseboard construction, (See over on the “Beyond Dover” or “Ballycombe” threads for details), and I think I’ll do the fiddle board on this line the same way.

Bit lower, bit longer, ramp each end, no railings, fence at back.

https://harwellscouts.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/M4.pdf

I lifted this picture off the Didcot site, a 2-2-2 on a Birmingham train at Goring troughs, the last of which didn’t go til 1914? I would expect if the 4-2-2s displaced the Sir Daniels, the older engines would turn up beyond Wolverhampton?

It was probably changed at Wolverhampton in any case.

Thanks, Eric, a nice bit of urban LBSC. I did see this at a show somewhere, and enjoyed it, much later I met up with you, so belated congratulations on a well modelled layout. The 4’ size in 00 would allow luxury ltems like points, this job of mine will be much more basic. Agreed ref the thin plywood strips facing the layout, sooner or later I must add some.

Actually, one of those was done in living memory, using a brake van, sorry, no pictures. We put a frame like the GWR one in the cigarette card picture round the van, but with folding down extensions like small goalposts done in welding rod. It was needed because the Civil Engineers did their track maintenance by covering it with ballast, then going along with a tamper which set a new level and packed the ballast under the sleepers to get it. All very well, but it meant the height gradually crept up over the years. This was demonstrated by a stone bridge near St.Devereux on the Hereford - Newport line, which had stayed the same since it was built. The highest piece of rolling stock turned out to be the spindle on the safety valves of No.6000 “King George V”, out on a special working. Fairly soon after that there was the gee-whiz laser measuring thingy turned out by Derby.

Sorry, Mikkel, I was going along the top bar, and wondering “what’s this do?”, and now… I recall you did a foamboard construction sometime back for a cameo layout, which worked out well?

Thing Is, I need to move the boards relative to each other to do shunting, the fiddle yard will be treated as a large cassette. There won’t be any points. (help! how do you get rid of that damned “page” command?)

FOAMBOARD BASEBOARD CONSTRUCTION. Well, I need a baseboard for this hypothetical layout, and opted to try out foamboard for a change. Previously I’ve used some 5mm thick for the shell of a station building, and also for the base of a tiny layout, and quite taken with how you can use it, so rather than go out to the big orange shed and get some 2”x1” and chipboard, I sent off for a pack of 10mm thick foamboard. It came in A1 paper size, 33.1” x 23.4”, or 840mm x 594mm, and as I used just two sheets for this job, it comes in quite competitively with using timber, although the timber option would be more durable. I cut a strip off lengthwise 12” wide, which formed the top of the main baseboard, and this left enough to make six 48mm strips, which I stuck together in pairs to form the reinforcing subframe, using PVA Bond for the adhesive. The fiddleyard top was 9” wide and the same length, which should give me three roads, quite ambitious for a simple little line. Here’s a picture of the underside construction, and the two parts together. There’s a small station building and a standard gauge 0-6-0T in 7mm scale to give clue of how it fits together. Obviously it won’t take screws, nails, or track pins, everything has to be glued down. There’s a 5mm thick sheet at the back to support a backscene, and this is bolted on, but where the bolt goes through there’s 2mm ply pads glued on. The two boards are resting on a smooth “tabletop” support (an old foamcore door) and my intention is to have the tracks from the main board and the fiddle engaging with each other for trains passing over, but leave the two boards lying loosely on the support. Whatever next?