The need for a decent UK outline turntable at Thurso was eventually solved by using the kit from LR Models and I thought I would add a few words about it here about it here, not really a blow by blow account but some observations, as it is something that most would build once, I would have thought, and thus have no fall back experience to draw on.

The kit is a nickel silver etch, and obviously well designed and thought through - I encountered no real problems with it, but it does need a good deal of precision and care in assembly in order to function properly, so I approached it with more care than I often apply to stock builds, reading ,and mostly following, the instructions to the letter. They are well written, but need going over a few times to get an overall picture, and might have benefited from a few images for clarity; at least I would have found this useful. However, a bit of searching threw up this topic, which was most helpful in my build.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97785-london-road-models-50ft-cowan-sheldon-turntable-4mm-kit/

This is what you get in the box, along with sufficient bits and pieces of brass and plasticard to finish it off.

The sides are two layers sweated together, and holes are provided to put brass rods through to keep everything aligned. I put everything with Carrs 188 degree solder paste which gave a solid easy join with little extra overrun and was easily cleaned up.

The table deck and sides are removeable with electrical contact for the rails coming through the pit rail and carrier wheels, so these need to be isolated from the main decking with layers of Plasticard and are attached by screws to allow some degree of adjustment. I had to open out the holes in the carriers slightly to get everything aligned, but this was because I managed to get the holding nuts slightly off position when soldering them in place. Not a big problem, but indicative of the care needed all the way through.

The carriers and the T shaped drive shaft holder and bar that the deck sits on.

The carrier wheels as assembled off the etch- layered and soldered together. They then need to be filed down to a finished diameter, and as smooth contact with the rail is critical, I realised that hand finishing was not going to give a consistent surface. Also in view is the box that drops over the brass rod and which the table sides and deck is soldered to.

Being no engineer, I cobbled this assembly together, and fixing the wheels into the mini drill, I reduced them to the required diameter. Homespun, but it did the job.

I managed to forget to photo the deck assembly, but it all went together without hitches and the wheels were jiggled to keep in contact with the rails by trial and error. The whole table is held in place on the rod by two bushes that are located at the end of the slot in the box - I was a bit unclear about this from the instructions, but got advice from LRM and LNWRmodeller, which cleared things up. They can be placed either inside or outside the box, with a tiny clearance, as sen in the second photo.

There is a plastic pit available, which I used. It's fairly flimsy, and I did think of reinforcing the base, but in the event it proved unnecessary A brass bush is placed at the centre and care is needed to get this exact, although the base is marked as a guidance. Then it is a case of fixing the guide rails in place, again to precise placing. I made use of a Metalsmiths jig supplied with his T/T kits - I don't know if LRM supply one, but it would be easy enough to make ones own. Once the first couple of chairs were fixed it was a case of setting and gluing around the circumference two or three chairs at a time, letting them set before the next set glued.I would advise a strong solvent for this - I used one that did not have enough grab - some came away when I cut isolation gaps in the rail later, so Plastiweld was run round them with the jig in place which did the job properly if adding a few days delay to it all.

Eventually it was tested, fettled and fitted on the layout, and the drive motor fitted to the shaft. this is a motor /gearbox combination and gives a slow rotation speed ,but without any indexing. As the table is right in front of me I can align by eye, and is not really proving a drawback. The motor is attached to a strip of brass and screwed to the baseboard as shown.

This set up took some work to get a smooth rotation, thanks to crossbeams being in exactly the wrong place, resulting in the whole length of the strip being used. I would far rather had the fixing holes much closer together as the strip has too much flex in it, and might need work done to it yet, although it is working well just now. Finally, a couple of shots of it in place, looking quite at home on a branch line.

All in all, a pleasure to build, and supplies something that is essential for UK modellers - a pregrouping turntable suitable for secondary services.

Edit

Reinstatement of what images I could find, in no particular order, but better than nothing. Hope this is of help to someone...

D20 Completed. The couple of water marks on the tender have now been removed !!

Mick

The above lining videos relate to straight lining. To see how I lined my Rails Dynamometer Car with a different style of lining see:

Well, many thanks for all your comments. I appreciate you taking the time.

The most consistent opinion is 'lose the loop' and I think I'm persuaded about that, although it grates just a little as I would otherwise have replicated the trackplan spot on. But the saving of up to two feet I think will be critical in getting the balance of the key features right.

This rather dramatic drone picture (from the internet, consequent upon the search "Dandry Mire viaduct") shows how close the start of the viaduct is to the end of the station area - the loop ended more or less level with the still extant sidings on the up side. By contrast, it is a lot further from the far end of the viaduct to the road bridge.

In passing, this view highlights the alignment of the Hawes branch diverging away to the east.

This view (my photo of an image in Bradford Barton 'LM Steam Skipton to Carlisle') emphasises the distant between the viaduct and the road bridge - eight (Gresley!) coach lengths to be exact, in 4mm scale about seven feet - current mock up has this distance as a mere 14.5 inches!

An interesting mix of opinions re the road bridge - for me, it is an essential part of the scene (I think Lofty.Ian summed that up best); it also has a sentimental aspect for me as it was from more or less this viewpoint that I witnessed No.4472 pulling away from its photostop (remember them?) at Garsdale and head towards me with its 1979 Cumbrian Mountain Express, on the day that I first 'discovered' Garsdale. More recently, we also walked along this road on a lovely starlit winter's evening, on our way from station cottage No.4 to the Moorcock Inn for our tea!

In passing, another interesting glimpse of the Hawes branchline, in the background.

Sorry, Jamie - Dandry Mire has a strengthening pier every fourth arch! I think I'd like to retain as many arches as possible (richard i expresses this quite well) but a full size representation would require virtually the whole nine feet (227 yards long) which would be completely overwhelming.

(picture from the internet, consequent upon the search "Dandry Mire viaduct")

I think, therefore, I move the south end of the viaduct to within six inches of the existing station board, expand the size of the viaduct slightly (3.5 feet long, rather than 3 feet) which would increase the distance between the viaduct and the bridge to more than two feet - I might be able to nudge the road bridge along a touch to get this to 2.5 feet, which would get the two key dimensions more or less in proportion (8 Gresley coach lengths is about 165 yards).

As a final thought, the bit of Garsdale already built was with exhibitions in mind. So - as a fully confirmed candidate for the funny farm - that would require a complete repeat, second version of the Dandry Mire scene to be constructed!! But, at least that would allow me to depict the down loop as it should be - result!

Here's another example of through traffic being worked - horses! Photos taken by my late stepfather.

Leyburn was a centre for horse traffic,  being two miles away from the town of Middleham, a traditional centre for horse training and racing (I only know that cos I just Google'd it!). This Garsdale-bound working picked up a horsebox at Leyburn and attached it to the front of its train.

Upon arrival at Garsdale, the G5 loco can only have drawn forward out of the branch platform with said horsebox (possibly topping up the water supply at the water column if there was a live nag on board?) before reversing over the south end crossover and attached it straight on the rear of a (conveniently timed) mainline stopping train, heading north. Slick working or what?

Loco then pulls away forward again as a direct reverse of the above move. It's none other than 67345, a minor celebrity on the line and remembered to this day at Hawes station through the medium of an industrial tank loco., liveried up as if it were 67345!

Now run round its train and preparing to head back down Wensleydale. And proving me wrong from earlier post by working bunker first. The old NER men obviously of a tougher breed than the Midland men!

One more coming up for this evening...

Having revised the details a little (thanks to input from on here), been plodding on with 'Garsdale North'

I have a sort of triangular area to cover to provide support for the railway as well as allowing us to get at garden implements, as this is the closest point to the chapel side door to the outside world. The first support is in (the batten heading roughly towards the bottom centre of the picture, otherwise everything else is just roughly propped up in this view. The main object of the exercise here is to create a level piece of board (the half inch chipboard) which in turn provides the support for the viaduct. The curved piece of hardboard (actually two pieces screwed together) is my 3 foot radius template and is purely plonked in position here to give a rough indication of the need for the Hawes branch to curve round, behind the backscene as part of this area.

A serious outbreak of structural carpentry. You might just be able to see the bottom of the battens firmly anchored to the floor via 90deg brackets, rawl-plugged into the concrete floor. This railway is going nowhere anytime soon (all being well!)

Structure complete (for now) and the afore-mentioned piece of chipboard affixed in place. The crucial difference here is that the template has now been modified to reflect the altered size and position of the viaduct, as per previous discussions. Gone is the trailing crossover from the down loop / siding, allowing the viaduct to start approx. 1 foot earlier. I've 'pinched' a bit of that to enlarge the viaduct slightly so that it is now 3' 5" long, but still 8 arches. The key process going on here (not immediately obvious) is to measure the drop from the viaduct base to the chipboard so as to create the supports for the viaduct. This is not as straightforward as it sounds as this length of mainline needs to be on a falling gradient! The reason for that will become clear in a couple of pictures' time. The 'sweep' of the mainlines from the station area out onto the viaduct looks good from this viewpoint.

Here is one of said supports, a piece of 70mm stripwood fitted nice n square and central to the footprint of the central pier.

Now with newly cut trackbed piece in place. Temporarily fitted, for now.

Here I am at work with my favourite track alignment pin / versine* technique. The location of these pins is derived from the template piece and is intended to be a constant 6 foot radius curve. Once marked, there was then a final check and further slight adjustment, indicated by my pencil scribbles. Once THIS is done, then the board can be marked to final shape, indicated by the lines close to each edge; the final piece will be 90mm wide throughout, as slender as it can be whilst maintaining scale clearances.

(*the offset of each pin from those either side of it. This gives an inverse measurement of radius)

Meanwhile, this revised mock up is to do the all important clearance check at the far end before finally committing to all this. It all gets a bit complicated here with three different levels going on. The higher altitude of the Shap section should be fairly obvious; however, what needs to be squeezed between the two are the running lines immediately north of Carlisle (where the passenger and goods lines converge and the Caledonian and North British routes diverge). The trackbed of this has been roughly mocked up by the short piece of wood with the pencil on it - it should eventually be hidden by the southern portal of Moorcock tunnel, as marked. It's minimum clearance time in this area (75mm) and the reason why the Garsdale North curve needs to fall, a total of 25mm. The curve's roughly 9 feet long (2700mm) so that's a gradient of 1-in-100 or so - wouldn't you know it: the S&C's ruling grade!

Meanwhile, the short piece of ply jutting out is to show the extremity of the board where the Hawes branch will run, still behind the backscene. Ideally, I'd have liked this to be wider but I'm at the limit of intrusion on the domestic space!

Talking of domestic harmony, its brownie point time! The area underneath was promised as storage, to keep stuff as neat and tidy as possible so a shelf has duly been installed to double up the amount of space for junk (ouch!) valuable garden equipment.

And now, the fun part. The revised viaduct dimensions have been transposed onto some 3mm ply which has been duly set about with the jig saw. A couple of points here - it is set out on the falling 1-in-100 gradient. Also, the two pieces are not to the same dimensions, as the rear piece has to be longer than the front on account of the curve, to keep the piers tangential. Lots of hard sums and double checking required at this point.

And now in position, albeit temporarily so far as the rear piece is concerned. Access is still required in between to get the intermediate pier supports in. The 4MT is obviously champing at the bit to try it out.

And now, we can see something of the revised effect, albeit with rear viaduct side piece removed for now. A little better I think. If the piers appear almost too slender then panicketh not - I've cut them 1mm undersize each side to allow for the thickness of stonework covering (almost certainly the good 'ol Wills sheets). Also, they're longer than they'll eventually appear as the idea is to built up the ground cover around their base with polystyrene sheet affixed direct to the chipboard in this area.

And a slightly more dramatic view to finish with for now.

Next time - an access door is desired into this area!

I'm pretty sure that this amazing resource has been mentioned several times in the past, but as its original URL may not now be active, here's the archive link, for those who may have missed it before.

Our thanks, obviously, to the late David Heys for producing it in the first place, but especially to his family, who recognised it for its significance & kindly arranged for it to be available to all.

https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20141204183156/http://www.davidheyscollection.com/