10800

Not had too much time on this the last few days, but the replacement turnout is now done apart from the check rails. I did replace a lot of timbers eventually (of course, who was I kidding?!) but given the provenance it's worked out OK. Now on to the diamond - I've kept the 'alignment rail' in position as long as I can, and now added one for the other road to define the bend point in the outer stock rail. This is key, once that's in and I'm happy with it all the other rails follow automatically with gauging. I've taken out a couple more timbers for replacing to ensure the bend falls between timbers. I hope I don't have to go through this process again, even though it's been worthwhile. If I'd left it as it was I'd certainly have regretted it. Much easier to lay track on top of Templot plans that fit what you want to do!

Time for some high tech jigs - my eyes, a length of rail and some Blu-tak. Assessing the angle and position of the turnout crossing vee. It's a curved B8L (effectively a 'Y' although I understand there's no such thing outside RTR model track), so the actual crossing is 1:6 not 1:8. You have to be careful here with gauging, because you have a fixed stock rail (bottom) and an upper stock rail on the new alignment you want. You wouldn't normally do it in this sequence so you just have to be careful to gauge in the vee otherwise you box yourself in. Fortunately the nose falls on top of an existing timber. Obviously the check rail bottom left will have to be removed and replaced further to the right. You can see how far the original Templot plan has been departed from as I strive to get this right; redundant rivets can be removed with Xurons, and a few timbers will need to be replaced with new ones and newly placed rivets.

The basic solution is to replace the C10L with a B8L. This brings the toe of the turnout a few sleepers nearer the platforms, which fits with the photos I should have scrutinised more carefully in the first place. Ignore the straight road of the template, this is just to get the curved road right. This now gives the required smooth curve through the diamond and into the platform. The P Way gang have been in removing rail. The stock rail on the right can remain because that alignment is fine; and it is still far enough along to be beyond the very slight bend to accommodate the planed section of the switch, which is now a bit closer for the B8. The engineer's 16 ton mineral is filling up with the smaller stuff. I'm going to try to retain as much of the timbering as I can, but some will inevitably need replacing. That's better!

Very enjoyable Scaleforum last weekend as a demonstrator with Lewes, and thanks to all who dropped by and made very encouraging comments. Excuse the warped temporary mockup platforms! Now to tackle that problematic turnout/diamond combo!

I've been doing a bit more on the track before taking it to Scaleforum this weekend as a track/baseboard/research demo. I'm not happy with the partially built diamond above - it should be on a continuous smooth curve running into the double-faced platform, but I've got the alignments wrong so the diamond and adjacent turnout will be removed after Scaleforum and rebuilt on a better Templot overlay (should have done that before of course ...)

Apologies for the hiatus, I've been up to other things! But I have been buying more stock (!) and making some progress on the buildings. Most of the photos in this topic were lost, and I'm not intending to replace them - rather, I will be posting new ones over the coming months as the layout gets ready for its debut at the RMWeb Taunton show next April.

Hi Roy Thanks for your comments. Re the Q1, point well made (or it was a very short possession!); and of course shorter coupling on coaches would be desirable. At the time some trains with close Kadees we couldn't run because the uneven floor affecting the track profile was causing them to decouple, especially between Bachmann and Hornby vehicles where the coupling heights differed to start with. The Brighton Belle was running with its original fixed couplings. Closing the gap between corridor connectors is also on the list.

Mine too, many thanks for doing this.

Three of Grahame's Rivarossi locos are surplus to requirements and so are up for sale on Ebay. Andy has kindly allowed me to flag them up on here 🙂. All have DCC chips, and the steam loco a sound chip. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225034252079 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225034276696 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225034267728

Ordered! Maybe you could ask Andy to pin this thread for a while so it stays in view?

With hindsight I wonder why the inter-board wiring connectors weren't fitted nearer the inside of the boards in the first place! I can only think that we were a bit more sprightly then, or maybe we needed to keep the inside board faces flush for transportation purposes. Then along came the signals and the control cables between their electronic boxes of tricks; these cover long distances so rather than daisy chain across many boards I decided that separate looms would be more convenient, bypassing the intermediate boards. Not a bad idea as such, but it added to setup and breakdown time. I'm now going to expand the inter-board connectors to include the signal cables, and mount the terminals on the inside faces of the boards. I don't like loose flying leads - they get caught on things! - so I will do short jumper cables to connect the boards electrically. The only cabling that will stay 'external' will be the DCC control point connectors which use telephone type plugs and sockets anyway, and which are already at the inside faces of the boards. So this hopefully can enable most of the setup to be achieved without John or myself having to bend down! (Now we just need a footbridge to get in and out of the layout!)

Probably setting in 50s/60s. Our late friend Grahame Hitchen (bgman) left some Rivarossi locos and beautiful scratchbuilt buildings for a proposed Italian layout; John Farmer (Re6/6) and myself have decided to make something of it.

Thanks, and what's the difference please between Castano-Isabella and Isabella? (just ordered some books on coaches from Treni e Treni).

As a newcomer to Italian railway modelling, can anyone tell me what coach livery is appropriate for Isabella-liveried locos?

The best uses of W3W I'm aware of are when rescue helicopters have to find some hiker who has broken his leg in the middle of nowhere - but he had to be lucky to get a phone signal of course. On the ground does it tell you how to get to the W3W address from where you are? (I'd check but my phone signal is so rubbish where I live I can't load the app.) But I know where Staplegrove Hall is - immediately after the road works traffic light control ...

Speaking of which (AFAIK still on display at Pecorama, with automatic lighting shift)

This is why the buildings and images brought to mind Cittàgazze from part 2 of 'His Dark Materials'! (and also with a bit of a nod to Shirley Rowe's 'Catalunya').

Some shots of the trees on John Farmer's 'Marsh Sidings', benefitting from the natural sunlight coming through the window.

A lovely service on a suitably sunny day. I'm going to have to revisit my music choices for when I go!

The last time I saw Grahame was at the Scalefour area group event last September. Here he is in earnest conversation with Iain Rice. This is an uncharacteristic look because he was usually grinning or laughing at his own banter.

Very very sad. I can't say I knew him as well as some, but he lit up anywhere he was present. RIP Grahame.

Thanks John. I think there is an REE one, but mine is from LS Models

Thanks guys. I have a brown-liveried bogie postal vehicle (LS I think) which I can run with passenger trains, and a few wagons like the photo above which I presume aren't NPCS so would run in goods trains. I also have this rather nice vehicle (REE)

With my UK modelling hat on, I'm a fan of parcels trains, but I can't recall seeing any photos of such trains in France. Did they have them - early SNCF period especially?

And some reminders on what the trackwork looks like. For health reasons I haven't done anything more on the track since July 2020, but I hope to recommence soon. In a way it's probably just as well because information acquired since then has meant a change in some alignments in the station, hence the mismatches between the platforms and Templot that might be apparent in the photos above. The original plan was done in Templot from a 1:1250 or 1:2500 OS map, and if that was all I was ever going to have all would have been right with the world. Then along came the acquisition of a station roof plan from Network Rail, which shifted some platform alignments, albeit by a pleasingly small and manageable amount. Similarly, the (then) new ability for Templot to do tandem turnouts changed some approach angles slightly and required some on-the-spot changes to some crossing positions. (This actually made more sense of the updated platform alignments!) Then about a year ago I acquired some extracts of a 1:480 station plan from the late Glen Woods and had them blown up to 4mm scale in a print shop. This forced a more significant change in alignments, especially on the Brighton side, so if I had laid more plain track much of it would have had to come up. Silver linings and all that. So now I will use the platforms to gauge the track through the station, moving outwards from the V.