6029 King Stephen

Some may have seen my now stalled progress on my OO layout of Plymouth Friary - I will update that thread separately. I have decided to make a return to N Gauge and have always had an interest in the Tavistock North station because the viaduct in the centre of town is still standing and can't be missed when travelling through on the way to Lifton. The line in from Lydford passes over another viaduct before it entered the station and in the other direction, after passing over Tavistock viaduct the line passed under several road bridges in a cutting before crossing another viaduct and disappearing into a tunnel. I have printed the layout plan using Templot onto a scanned image of the Ordnance survey map obtained from Plymouth library and the plan will be for it be a continuous run layout coming in from the left from Shillamill tunnel, then over Shillamill viaduct, through the cutting with overbridges, across Tavistock viaduct, into the station and then out the other side, across the other viaduct (name escapes me at the moment but it is above a quarry, across a few other over bridges and then into another tunnel (this will have to be modeller's licence as there wasn't a tunnel at this end just a bridge where the Southern mainline went over the GWR Tavistock to Launceston line. So far I have build the boards using 18mm ply for the open framing and 5.5mm ply for the trackbed. this will be covered in 3mm grey foam and then Peco code 55 with large radius electrofrog points and track will be laid. I will be using Woodland Scenics fine ballast and once wired and tested, I will profile the track bed supports to enable scenery to be carried out. Control will be DCC using my existing Gaugemaster Prodigy 2 system. The plan has been printed so far for the station area and line across Tavistock viaduct and two boards of 4' x 30" have been built. The third board will accommodate Tavistock viaduct and then the boards will have to curve around to make the continuous circuit (in reality the line continued straight. My track order has arrived as have ratio kits for the GWR signalbox (I know, it's wrong but I like the kit) and goods shed and the Peco goods shed which is similar to lineside goods shed used by the Southern in devon and Cornwall. I also have Peco road overbridges, tunnel mouths and stone walling sheets. I will have to scratchbuild Tavistock viaduct rather than use the Ratio item because there are three arches of 32' and five of 50' plus a kind of "jack arch" in the middle. I have taken some photos already and will upload these in due course. For stock I currently have a Graham Farish Merchant Navy, Dapol M7 and Graham Farish King, three Mk1's in green, a full brake in crimson and cream, four Peco PO wagons and a Langley kit for a rebuilt MN what requires a Minitrix Britannia chassis. Regards, Steve

There is a final method I have just remembered and one I used when I was using code 100 Peco Streamline track. There was a powdered glue called Cascamite that was produced by Humbrol (I haven't seen it for a while) that you mix with your ballast material almost on a 1:1 basis. The ballast with glue mix is the laid dry and is then wetted using a plant sprayer with a drop of washing up liquid, the area being thoroughly wetted. Leave for 24 hours and you are left with rock hard ballast. You may need to scrape some ballast off between point blades and on the web of rails but it was very effective. Regards, Steve PS if this method is one demonstrated in the Polish film; my apologies, i haven't watched it yet.

Please note that in both of my posts above wherever I mention 1.06mm thick PCB, I actually mean 1.6mm. This is the thickness of thin sleeper and the chair when mixing C&L individual parts and PCB soldered track work. Regards, Steve

Fair point, Ray. In fact that is the only negative part about using Norman's method of laying and ballasting track in that if you solder droppers to each section of track before laying, it is almost impossible to feed those droppers through holes in the baseboard when there is a layer of PVA in the way. However, once I have built a section of track such as a junction or crossover I check that it works before I lay it on the PVA and ballast it. After it has been laid and ballasted I then solder droppers to each piece and drill a hole in the baseboard for the wire to pass through. Another alternative for you to consider would be that suggested by Ian Wright in his book about building finescale track but again it has to done before track is fixed down. It should be remembered that Ian is building track to P4 standards with ply and rivet construction which makes his method easier to do for point work because the rivet indicates where the rails will go. For plain track it would work for other gauges or you could drill a new hole to suit OO or EM gauges in the ply sleeper if you marked the hole's position whilst sitting on the template. What he does is fixes the sleepers to the paper template, then spreads PVA between the sleepers and spreads ballast over the formation before vacuuming it off. He then fixes the rails in place using gauges and soldering the rails to the rivets. He fits cosmetic chairs along the rails afterwards. For fixing laying track formations to the baseboard he uses a "floating" track bed where only the sides of the paper templates are gummed down with parcel tape over the cork or foam track bed. I haven't tried the method myself but I suppose a 1.06 PCB sleeper could used instead of a ply sleeper with a rivet in it provided there was a pencil or pen mark to show where the rail should sit. The reason given for ballasting the track before the rails are soldered in place is that otherwise the rails get in the way which is a fair point (no pun intended). Regards, Steve

An interesting topic. For ballasting I use the method advocated by Norman Solomon in the Right Track DVD 10, where you paint Febond PVA (available from Tool Station) onto 3mm foam and then lay the track down, spread over a layer of ballast, wait up to a maximum of 10 minutes before hoovering up the ballast. Similar to Gordon, I use either C&L thin sleepers, 1.06 copperclad or SMP/C&L flexi track and this method results in very good looking ballasted track with minimum fuss or mess. I was reading Ray's problems with sand and thought about Barry Norman's suggestion in either Right Track DVD 5 or 6 where he is creating a goods yard area with ballast that covers the sleepers and is just under the rail. Barry mixes Febond PVA with plaster and water to create a creamy paste. He then has two pieces of material such as cork of the thickness of the sleepers and spreads the PVA/plaster mix and then scrapes it to form a smooth top with a piece of scrap plastic card. He then presses the track into the PVA/plaster mix and then covers the area with his fine ash/cinder mix (I think he uses a dry clay type) and tamps it down before hoovering off the excess. What is left looks really good and will be a method that I will adopt when I get to the goods area of my layout, Friary Green. For ballast I use Woodland Scenics medium grey ballast. I have tried their fine ballast but felt the grains are too small whereas the medium size looks better without appearing too coarse. I am an avid follower of Eastwood Town and look forward to updates. Regards, Steve

Gordon, Thank you for showing the order in which you construct your points. I use C&L components but recently have been soldering the V and the wing rails on to strips of PCB to fit between the plastic sleepers and then cut back the strips to the edge of the rails. I then slide the chairs on to the outer parts of the rail on the crossing assembly and fix these to the plastic sleepers using Butanone. I then cut chairs down the centre and place each part on either side of the rail used in the crossing assembly, again fixed with Butanone. I use a C&L slide chair under the V with half a chair on the other side. Following your tip, I start from the crossing assembly and gauge everything from that including the check rails before adding the stock rails. Using a tip from Norman's DVD on track building, I use a spacing gauge of pieces of PCB soldered together to create the space between the V and wing rails and between the check rails and stock rails. For switch blades, I have a bench grinder that I use to file both top and bottom of the bullhead rail on the side that sits alongside the stock rail and to file the top edge of the other side of the switch rail and to form the blunt/rounded end face of the switch blade. For rail gaps, I will be joining these together using C&L plastic fishplates. My first attempt the other day was a success so I shall be building all other points using the same process. For plain track, my preference is to build it from individual components - there is something therapeutic about feeding 50 odd chairs onto a piece of rail (!?!) - and I don't need to cut away any webs between sleepers. I might even try the Iain Rice method of laying the sleepers, ballasting between them and then laying the rails and chairs. Regards, Steve

Thanks for your advice on using the router - I have one but have not really used it although I did note that it might prove useful for drilling inspection pits in an MPD - and must investigate using a router table. For baseboard framing I was proposing to use a 4mm ply and softwood block sandwich with softwood risers (as recommended by Barry Norman) but was unsure about what thickness to use for the trackbed. Having seen your thread, I think I will go for a 12mm trackbed with a stripwood edging to the underneath to form the "C". The softwood risers should fit nicely into the "C". I will also be using your T shaped legs to support it. Regards, Steve

Hi Gordon, I have just discovered your thread and have spent over an hour catching up! Your layout is very impressive and like others have appreciated your step-by-step photos and explanations. I am also a very satisfied user of Templot but hadn't thought of using printouts to use as templates for cutting the trackbed. I am especially interested in your construction methods for your baseboard and trackbed with its rising and lowering tracks. Can 12mm ply be used as a trackbed without any bracing? I realise that on the single tracks and double-deck tracks that you have used a double-sided stripwood brace but on some of your other boards the 12mm ply base is not braced with wood. I would like to build a model of Plymouth Friary and Laira MPD (excluding the freight yards!) in the steam age in OO and have found Templot invaluable, in particular the ability to place track onto a scanned prototype trackplan - even down to being able to draw a turntable with 28 exit roads each placed 12.84 degrees apart as per the prototype in the Laira roundhouse - giving virtual tracklaying!. As you say, these can then be printed onto several sheets of A4 and placed together on the floor to get an idea of size and optimum baseboard shape - Friary MPD should be achievable in 14' by 2' in OO. There are rising and lowering gradients here as well so I shall take a leaf out of your book and arrange baseboard construction in a similar manner to yours. I had also never considered building the layout in smaller modules (moving away from 4' x 2' baseboards) and using a router and biscuits to connect them together - is this reasonably simple to do? I also liked your upside down T baseboard support legs - simple but effective. Please keep posting so I can keep learning..... Regards, Steve