Roger.s

The Outer Circle ran from Broad Street to Mansion House not Victoria. On electrification the District Railway provided some electric locomotives to haul the LNWR trains over the electrified section the loco change taking place at Earls Court. Due to shortage of paths to Mansion House the service was cut back to Earls Court from the end of 1908. The locos were later used for the Ealing- Southend through trains and other shorter workings over the Whitechapel & Bow Rly and LT&SR (then owned by the Midland. The Middle Circle which started in1872 by the GWR was cut back to Earlscourt in 1900 and further back to Addison Road in 1905. The aformentioned Edgeware Rd/Addson Rd Shuttle was all that was left after further cutbackshad taker place. Regards Roger

Has anyone tried making 2mm finescale track using this method and if so was the result favourable? I would be most interested to receive your comments as I have a new la.yout to build. Regards Roger

Michael and Andy, Thank you for your replies. Now all I need to do is to sort out some new sholdered axles! Roger

The article onPontfadog in theDec/Jan 2mm Magazine mentions "American Full Throttle 4mm diameter wheels". Does anyone know where these can be obtained? Roger

Don't tell the little man with a stick (and a high vis jacket) at 1min 46 sec that he isn't there because he might disappear. Roger

London clay before it is exposed to the atmosphere is a blue-grey. It only becomes brownish when exposed to the air and the iron content is oxidized. Roger

Three of them will delay it until July comes Roger

The class F cars (Nos. 552 - 567) and class G cars (Nos. 568 - 601) were all "reconstructed" and became the last batch of class E/1 cars (Nos. 552 - 601). New double deck bodies provided by English Electric Co. Ltd. were put on the old bogies and the existing electrical equipment was reused. Regards Roger

Does anyone know if the LT&SR 4 wheel coaches were repainted in Midland Rly or LMS livery and if so when this was done. I am particularly interested in the 4 wheel stock which worked onto the District Railway and was hauled by the District electric locos. Roger

Hi Andy, For the 0-4-0 I I etched a "spider". I had turned the rimes myself as the association rims were not the available. I did not make a recess on the inside of the rim as my turning skills are not that good and I did not want the rim any thicker. For the 0-6-0 I used the association rims which have a rebate on the inside of the rim. I included enough rim on the etch to fill the rebate flush with the inside edge of the rim. My aim is to make the rim as thin as I can to balance the oversized flange. The outermost layer has just the balance weights and boss and no spokes and sits inside the rim flush with the outer face. I used 1mm rod for the axles for the 0-4-0 so the I could make the boss smaller than a 1.5mm axle would allow. Regards Roger

Here is are photos of them. The 4 coupled are 7mm dia. and the 6 coupled 8mm dia. I made a jig from a piece of Tufnol with a hole for the stub axle and a second the the crankpin. The axle rod is pushed up through the hole which needs to be a tight fit. The etched layers are tinned and then threaded onto the axle. The crank pin is used to align the spokes and the end of it fits into the other hole. The inside of the rim is also tinned, I used Carrs green label flux, and the rim put round the spokes. The wheel can now be sweated up with pressure applied to the rim to hold everything tight.# Regards Roger

I have done it twice! I assembled them with a crankpin in place which aligned the spokes. I needed to trim the centres slightly to fit the rims and I did this by hand with files. Regards Roger

I am going to try using 3D printed arches to support the trackbed and I think that I can easily make this strong enough. It looks as though I will have to have a mixture of occupied/unoccupied arches and I shall continue to look for period photos so I can get a reasonable mix. Many thanks to all who replied. Regards Roger

I'm with you at the top of the support but I am concerned that where the pillar joins to the ground level baseboard there is no spare space for fillets to go. I also have point motors and uncoupling magnets to hide, Regards Roger

I am thinking of GER arches similar to those at London Fields and these have pillars which are 3ft wide. Allowing 1.5mm for the 3D printed walls this leaves space for only 3mm ply which needs to be rigidly fixed on end. Regards Roger

Thank you for your replies. The London and Blackwall also had houses under the arches, still in use in the 1930s. Virtually all of the arches were let by about 1846. A lot were used for stabling which gave over to motor garages in the 1920s. Looking at Google Maps I see that groups of arches have had a makeover in the last 20 - 30 years and all I can see is their modern appearance which does not help me much. I'm not worried at the present about who the tenants are just how many. I am building the elevated section of track and I need to know how much space I have in which to put supports. 2mm scale means that the width between typical arches is barely sufficient to provide a rigid support. I like the openness of empty arches but walling them up would hide lots of things, supports, point motors and uncoupler mechanisms so I am trying to find enough early photos to form an idea of what was typical in 1910 -1923. Regards Roger

I am looking for information on occupied arches under urban railways. Particularly when they became common and what sort of wall (if any ) was used to enclose the arch. Searching the internet seems only to give modern views and I am interested in the pre grouping era. Regards Roger

Hi Julia, Driving tow or more steppers simultaneously is not that hard; after all your friendly CNC machine or extrusion 3D printer manages it. For these there as to be X steps on one motor to Y steps on the where X and Y are unrelated. It is errors in the timing of the steps that causes errors in the position of the cutter/extruder and hence the accuracy of the workpiece. In your case the two step rates are related by a simple integer N. In the simplest case where the step angles of the motors is the same and the motors have no gearing (or the same gearing) then N is the number of teeth. The hob stepper is the faster motor and its step rate can be set to give the required cutter speed. The workpiece is stepped once each N steps of the hob. The workpiece will have an error in position of -1/2 to +1/2 step so it is necessary to make the steps as small as possible so you must count steps not revolutions of the hob. If this does not give enough accuracy then you will need to micro-step. Alternatively gearing the steppers increases the number of steps and thus reduces their size. Driving a stepper with an Arduino is easy enough but will need an interface circuit as the Arduino cannot deliver the required current. The circuit depends on the particular stepper motors and this impacts on the Arduino code. Start with a simple sketch to step the hob motor with a timer or delay to control its speed. when this is working then add code to count its steps up to some hard-coded value of N and use this to step the workpiece motor. Then try it with a different value of N. At this stage you should be able to decide how much you want/need to optimise the code you have. Regards Roger

Hi Julia, Have you thought of 3D printing it?

Hi Julia, You need to heat only the bit you want to bend so could you mask the rest as you would for spray painting. Use something like 1/16" wood which has a low thermal conductivity. If you fixed it with double sided sticky tape it might help keep the end flat and concentrate the bending force at the bend and reduce the force needed to produce such a tight bend.

As well as the wrong angle to the knuckle, bécasse's picture shows up the difference in flangeway widths. This posses two questions:- 1, Which flangeway is correct. 2, What marvel of technology was used to draw the yellow lines! Regards Roger

The flangeway on the lower wing rail is less than that on the upper one and the knukkle end is narrower than the flaired. This means its knuckle is nearer to the vee to line up the running edge with the vee. It is possible that this has made the distance over checks greater than the back to back and the loco is riding up at the knuckle not the vee. Regards Roger

A normal check rail pulls the wheelset away from the V in the crossing. This "check" rail is to push the standard gauge wheelset towards the gap beyond the NG rail so it has to be on the outside of the wheel. Regards Roger

If this were full size then the platelayers would have the same problem. They would pack the NG rail-head to be level with the mixed gage rail-head making the NG sleepers higher than the standard/mixed gauge sleepers. So the sleepers would look wrong if they were at the same height. They would also use special fishplates rather than cut a taper in the rail. Regards Roger

Yes!. Pre-grouping railways used loose heel switches and there is a visible kink in the open switch/closure rail. I drill a hole in the end of the blade then make a fishplate from a length of wire bent double and soldered to both sides of the closure rail. I file a flat on one side of the wire so that it sits further under the head of the rail to clear the passing flanges. Regards Roger