Titanius Anglesmith

Why does the goods train arrive in the loop? Normal practice would be to arrive on the platform line then run round.

Thank you you for the link. As you say, their range is extensive! Thanks for the tip, if I can find a suitable scrap of card I’ll give this a go. Then I submit to your greater knowledge When I was active on the woodworking forums, all to often I would see terms such as lumber, rabbet or dado displacing their British equivalents. In the woodworking media the American voice is far more ubiquitous than the British.

Greetings All, It pains me to use the term clapboard, it is another invasive term used by our American cousins that is overtaking our native Weatherboard. Can anyone please point me towards a source for 4mm scale weatherboard sheets? I am aware of the Wills / Peco sheets. I am also aware of the Scalescenes sheets, but unfortunately I do not have access to a printer at the moment. Are there any other suppliers of weatherboarding papers or sheets? Or is there any merit in simply scribing some lines on blank card? Thanks in advance

How have I missed this? Following with interest

Beautiful layout, looking at the photos up thread I didn't realise how small it was!

Me too, they remind me of my father's layout so for nostalgia's sake I have some too

I use unbranded SG90s from eBay, and I’ve had a few fail after a very short life. I have no complaints for the price but in future I’ll try to buy better ones. I made my servo mounts easy to change so it’s no big deal if a servo does fail. Apparently the genuine TowerPro servos are quite reliable.

No problem at all using a lower voltage. When I had some Dapol signals, they worked fine off a 5v PSU. The LED was just a bit dimmer, which is no bad thing. It was mentioned in the long-running Dapol thread that the motor is worked from a 3v(?) regulator. That means that any big more than about 3.5v is just burnt off as heat. My theory is that many of the failed signals are due to burnt out regulators.

I've had a similar experience with cheap SG90s fom ebay, though my failure rate isn't quite so dramatic as yours. I didn't expect much better for the price I paid but it is quite inconvenient having to change out servos that fail in service after a short life. Next time maybe I'll try hobbyking

This doesn’t really apply in the Network Southeast era. By then the two separate points would be preferred over the slip.

I used ball catches like that on my traverser, there’s a very brief description here: I also used the ball catches to transfer power so that only the appropriate road is energised at any time. That’s not really a concern though if you’re using DCC.

I have a 5-road fiddle traverser that connects to a double-track main line (up and down). On the fixed support frame under the traverser I have mounted two brass ball catches such as these: (random photo pinched from Google) The two ball catches are wired to the up and down lines respectively. The ball catches engage with a row of striker plates on a batten attached to the underside of the traverser deck. The striker plates are then wired to their respective traverser roads (and all common/return rails are wired together separately). On the striker plates I drilled and countersunk a new smaller engagement hole in the "tab" part so as to make better and more accurate contact than the gaping hole they come with. The ball catches and striker plates are arranged so that when a traverser road is aligned with the Up road it is connected via the Up ball catch, and likewise the Down road. The ball catches also provide the indexing of the traverser.

@The Stationmaster has often said that this would be very untypical for a small station, and the signalling would often allow trains to arrive only on the platform road. In that plan above, signalling the goods loop for arrivals would over-complicate the signalling, especially with those shed and turntable connections which would have to be worked from the ‘box instead of being hand points. Im no expert on the GWR (or SR) though so happy to be corrected. Edit- ... but I also acknowledge that prototypical practice doesn’t always make for fun model railway operation...

West Ruislip was originally planned as having three platforms but for whatever reason the third platform was never built. The platform track however was laid and is used as a siding. Evidence of the missing platform can be seen in the staff bridge at the London-end. The metal stairs on that side end at platform height, and there's three or four concrete steps at the foot to make up the gap. A similar thinning of the service happens at the east end with trains reversing at Loughton and Debden on the Epping branch, and at Newbury Park and Hainault on the loop.

At my local goods yard there was a brewery alongside one of the sidings. The brewery stores building had doors at wagon floor height just like the OP’s photo. As far as I can tell the siding wasn’t private as it was never fenced off from the rest of the yard. Incidentally the stores building still exists, now a glaziers. The goods yard of course is long gone, now the station car park.

Just a guess, steam heating?

Maybe I’m misreading that, but are you thinking about rodding for the signals? Signals were usually operated by wire.

That Venetian red looks very..... brown? Or is it a trick of the camera? Either way it contrasts nicely with the cream! Thanks all for the replies, most informative

Thank you for the link @ianLMS, that’s useful. I’ve noted your water cranes already, Jencaster is one of my favourite layouts on here. My father painted his the same, but he’s no longer with us to ask why. On the other hand @Rowsley17D has painted the ones on Derwent Spa (another favourite) cream all over, which also looks ok. Photos of my local LMS line in the ‘30s definitely show the columns painted in two colours, but what colours? The photos from that era are all black & white.... Crimson and cream sounds like a safe bet.

If I may be so bold, Point X should be double-ended with 13 to trap the siding, as you mentioned in a previous post. Y is still handworked. Ground signal 8 should be moved to the other side of X. May I also suggest a ground signal at the toe of 11 reading towards the platforms for running round etc?

Another vote here for a lever frame. My own “lever frame” is a bank of toggle switches that input into an Arduino - The Arduino does the interlocking, switches power to the track (no separate isolating switches required), and operates the point and signal motors. Like @LNER4479 I’ve made compromises for convenience; e.g. the distant is fixed, FPLs are economic, certain ground signals have multiple routes off a single lever. One signal lever has a “selector”, so that the correct arm is lowered depending on the lie of the points. (In case anyone was wondering, the “spare” lever in the photo actually operates the “hand-worked” yard points)

Greetings All, Sorry if this has been asked a hundred times, but if it has I can’t find it..... I have just bought a P&D Marsh Midland water crane. What colour should it be for an LMS, ex-Midland Railway location in the 1930s? Present-day photos of Appleby show the water crane there as being either red or (primer?) grey. The P&D Marsh crane is ground-mounted, but I’m also looking for a platform-mounted equivalent. Can anybody point me towards one please? Thanks in advance

I must be missing something, @Pacific231G‘s suggested shunting method makes perfect sense to me

Another vote here for Screwfix’s No Nonsense PVA. I haven’t done much scenic work with it but I’ve used it for 10+ years for woodworking and not had any problems with it.

Those figures (and the horses) are beautifully painted