Willington (Bedfordshire) LMS in EM

[sharris]

I've found it goes in 3 year cycles.... 3 years for track etc, so having started on the control panel expect something moving in 2020 

 

Although I reckon you must have at least three times as much track as I need, so there is hope for me yet! 

 

Well there was until I started going through the Bill Simpson books and discovered quite how many locomotives I might need - enough to keep me going forever!

[sharris]

It's beginning to look more like a coach now...

 

The roof is a standard Comet aluminium extrusion cut to length (although I still have another mm or so to go, but best cut a little over and whittle it down during fitting!). Truss rods are made up from 1mm brass L rod. White metal fittings from Comet (still have brake cylinders and dynamo to fit).

 

 

The beginnings of some insides - a false floor of 20 thou plasticard- the cut-outs are to clear the screw heads holding the bogies and the bolts holding the brass floor to the sides. The partitions are templated from a left-over end etching but cut about 2mm short to account for the floor thickness. The rest of the partitions, Ratio seats and some guard and driving compartment detail to come.

Edited January 15, 2017 by sharris

[sharris]

Some more work on the coach...

 

 

Since last seen a lot more details have been added:

 

Underneath, vacuum cylinders and dynamo from Comet. I've added a bit of styrene strip to the dynamo to represent the band going under the bogie around the wheel.

 

The roof is now about the right length with ventilators from MJT.

 

At the driving end vacuum tubes are from 51L. The electrical jump cable is insulated wire wrap wire with styrene strip plugs.

 

At the other end brake hoses are from brass wire with stripped wire wrap wire tightly wound around it with a bit of solder to keep it in place. Jumper cables as per the other end (the plugs are thin slices of 1mm round section on 1mm x .25mm strip. Emergency brake pipes are brass wire and styrene blocks, drilled to take it (lots of rejects involved!).

 

Buffers are MJT (sprung heads will go on after painting).

 

On the sides ventilator hoods are 6mm x 1.75mm blocks of 30 thou styrene. I was originally going to use 2mm strip, but on Coachmann's advice in another thread made them a bit narrower so the lining can go around. I'll be doing door handles and handrails after painting.

 

Quite pleased with how it's coming out as it's my first brass coach. Can't claim I'm anywhere near Coachmann's standard though!

[sharris]

Looks like we've got company!

 

The first of a pair of 57' non corridor coaches to add to the push-pull trailer starts to take shape. This time I picked up a couple of Comet underframes from 51L at the Stevenage show to speed up the build a little.

 

Beginning to get the hang of this brass coach building malarkey now.

[chris p bacon]

Looking good. Whats planned to push/pull these ?

 

I haven't even begun to look at LNWR stock for Sandy yet, I haven't got much knowledge either, so things might have to be a bit "generic" for a while

[sharris]

There's a push-pull set pictured in Bill Simpson's book being pulled by an ex-MR 1P. I'm trying to decide whether to try an EM conversion of the new Bachmann model when it appears.

 

Otherwise I've got a couple of boxes from London Road Models - one with a Chopper tank, the other a 5'6 tank to build.

 

You've probably got the same books as me about the line, but I've started to catalogue from them some of the likely LNWR stock.

[chris p bacon]

Yes I have the the Bill Simpson books, plus a few others on the Ox-Cam. Early days it was LNWR, then LMS but when you get to the late 50's and into the 60's the majority of stock East of Bedford seems to be BR Eastern rather than Midland.

 

I've done a lot of research on the GN as it's my main interest but eventually I'll have to cross over to the 'Dark Side'

[sharris]

And then there were three...

 

 

One of the D1734s will be fitted for push-pull working with the converted D1735. From the LMS push-pull pictures I've seen two carriages seems like a common formation (is there a maximum size for a push-pull train?)

 

The other will be assigned to normal passenger train duties.

 

 

Or maybe, then there were six...

 

 

These three old Dapol coaches were sitting in a drawer for many years, originally intended to be donor bodies when my plan was to just use the brass sides as overlays, but since I decided to make complete brass coaches instead I now have three Dapol carriages left to upgrade and add to the collection.

 

Along with the slightly out of region and period MR 6 wheelers I started before Christmas and three Ratio Ex-LNWR carriages I'll get around to one day (I promised someone a year ago I'd report back on compensated bogies for those - oops, sorry I haven't got around to them yet!) that might be enough coaching stock to be getting on with until I do the weird stuff.

[sharris]

After almost two years it's about time to reawaken this thread - oops, has it been that long?

 

So I got busy with Templot and came up with a preliminary track plan.

 

Laid out on the lounge floor (to make sure it will assemble in the lounge!), and ably assisted by a few beer glasses, here is the Mark 1 Willington track layout, looking from the kitchen, err - I mean Cambridge, end towards Bedford at the hallway end. Eventually fiddle yards will extend into the kitchen and hall when running (does SWMBO know about that yet?).

 

 

Essentially the layout consists of three point formations with varying numbers of tracks between them.

 

Formation 1: the Cambridge end of the station platform.

 

 

The line east of Bedford consists of a lot of single track sections with Willington and Blunham on long passing loops. Travelling from the Cambridge direction we enter the passing loop. A video of the journey shows a trap point on the loop - represented here by the rather more complete turnout that doesn't go anywhere.

 

The next section is simply a section of straight double track through the station. As mentioned in an earlier post many photos taken in the 60s show quite short platforms finishing just east of the signal box. Earlier OS maps show the signal box approximately central on the Cambridge bound platform leading to the supposition that they were shorted at some point (I'm guessing early 60s as operations at the station were being wound down).

 

The next interesting track section appears to the west of the station.

 

Formation 2: East end of goods platform.

 

 

In this picture you also get to admire my choice of socks for today.

 

Willington appears to have been built as loops upon loops as there is one loop that runs parallel to the main running line to the north of the goods platform, and one running along the south edge of the goods platform. Willington is an agricultural village so vegetables will have featured largely there along with a bit of cattle traffic.

There is also a short headshunt at the station end of the loop.

 

Formation 3: West (Bedford) end of the loop.

 

 

This is where all the loops and loops within loops converge back to the single track towards Bedford. Starting from the East end of this section the main line passing loop converges back to a single track. The Country Railway Routes: Bletchley to Cambridge (Mitchell and Smith) gives two OS maps for Willington with very different plans - the 1900 plan (pre-station existing) which is a simple siding and headshunt off a single track, and the full loopy layout of the1926 version. Bill Simpson's book gives a signalling diagram from 1912 which appears again slightly different. The points that go nowhere are about where the points on the original siding were, and I've left them there as a possible catch point location. Immediately below that, the goods platform has a bay which I assume had end-loading facilities with a short siding running into it - I assume this would have been useful for the unloading of farm vehicles. To the east of the points into this siding are points to close the goods loop, trap points to protect the running line and points to take the goods loop back onto the main line.

 

I use the word 'assume' with the goods yard a lot - while the platform is still there, and I've roughly paced it up (roughly as the paces involved dodging bushes and a certain amount of dog poo), I've never seen any historical photos of it in use - every picture of Willington focuses on the station and the Bill Simpson video of the line cuts from passing through the station to somewhat closer to Bedford, skipping the goods area completely, although thanks to Mr Bacon I do have an aerial photo which gives some overall context to it.

 

In the Mark 1 plan most of the points are B8 principally because I eventually want to be able to run G2s through and I wasn't sure how well an 8-coupled loco would navigate B6s - maybe I'm being pessimistic, I don't know, but if I could shorten some of the formations a bit it would be useful.

 

One change I am considering is here, the section between station and goods yard:

 

 

Replacing the two back-to-back points with a double slip to save a few inches, although the thought of building a double slip still fills me with fear.

 

Boards will be 3'6" long each as the free wall in my work room is just over 7' long so I can work on two at a time, and about 18" wide. This should also make them shorter enough to fit in SWMBO's car if it ever gets to an exhibit able state.

[chris p bacon]

Willington is an agricultural village so vegetables will have featured largely there along with a bit of cattle traffic.

 

You're obviously forgetting its time as a Motorail Terminal....

 

 

Edit -  I just realised that I posted this 3+ years ago...I blame it on the thread hibernating rather than my memory..

Edited January 3, 2019 by chris p bacon

[L49]

Parking at the Danish camp hasn't improved then...

[sharris]

There's no turning back now! 

 

The timber merchants now have my money and will be sending me lots of bits of pre-cut wood on Monday.

 

Baseboard tops will be 42" x 17" in 6mm ply (the optimum size for working on them 2 at a time in my workroom) with a 5" deep ply framework of 18mm and 6mm ply. 

[chris p bacon]

I've got a chainsaw......I'll even sharpen it..

[sharris]

So during the RMWeb downtime the timber merchant delivered my plywood, nicely cut up into appropriately sized rectangles ready to turn into baseboards. They did a pretty good job and each piece is within 1mm of my specifications.

Seeing as I've spent the week burning off unused annual leave (our leave years end on 31st January) it gave me a chance to start putting them together 

 

The basic Sub-structure. Ends are 18mm ply with Eileen's Emporium patternmaker's dowels set into them, 2" holes to pass any services through and bolt holes to screw them together (I acquired some C&L baseboard joiners some years ago - I think Carrs have taken them on now).

Front and back are 6mm inner and outer skins with 6mm spacers.

Cross members are 18mm ply with holes for services - each 2" hole lightens the structure by about 35 grams. Cross members not yet fixed in place - I'm thinking their positions may need to be set when I've overlaid the track layout. 

The below board depth is 5" - enough to accommodate Tortoise motors with a bit of slack for connectors and wiring.

Construction is screwed and glued - I think I may have over engineered things a bit as I discovered I'd already used 90 screws to get to this point!

The top (just loosely placed on for now) is 6mm ply 42" long x 17" wide - the optimum size for working on them in my workroom.

and stacked up on top, partially constructed front and back skins for the next 3 boards. 

 

I haven't finalised the leg design yet, but a comment in the WesternThunderer pages suggested pairs of 2" wide 6mm ply with spacers - I had a surprising large piece of ply left over which turns out just sufficient to make all the legs I need - how lucky is that!

[sharris]

They seem to be multiplying...and then there were four.

 

SWMBO took one look at them stacked up and said 'you could make coffins'. Where did that idea come from?

 

Laid out...

that's 14' x 1'5 to start building Willington onto.

 

 

[sharris]

To quote ZZTop, She's got legs...

 

 

Each of the four modules has one pair of legs, except for one (the first to be put up) that has two pairs.

 

Legs are 2" wide pairs of 6mm ply strips with 6mm spacers at top, middle and bottom and attached to the boards with M6 bolts. 

 

While most boards only have only one pair of legs, I've drilled them all to accept 2 pairs. This is a cunning plan that means I can set up any two adjacent boards to work on them in my workshop (which is exactly long enough to accommodate 2 boards) while using the leg cross bracing to support the other two boards. This is also the reason I decided to bolt the legs to the outside rather than the inside of the board sides.

 

 

Next steps are to glue and screw the remaining top surfaces (so far I've only done two) - then time to lay down the Templot templates so I can work out where the cross-bracing can go without getting in the way of point motors. Those with eagle eyes might notice a kink in the boards in the first picture- this is down to the lack of levelness in my lounge floor- at some point I'll have to get to height adjusters for the legs.

[sharris]

The baseboards wouldn't be much fun if there was no track to go on top, so over Easter the track-making factory has been busy.

 

In a previous post I indicated that I'd been messing around with Templot to lay out each section - some of these are now being turned into tracks.

 

 

I'm building everything in easy to manage sections off-board that I can put into the final layout once there are enough to set the exact alignments.

 

So far I have a section of double track (the station section), and the entry point of the station passing loop (Cambridge end) which consists of a B8 turnout and a matching trap-point. There's also a 2 panel section of bidirectional track ready for the goods loops when that's ready. For space reasons one end of the goods loop requires a double slip, the other a 3-way point - for the time being I'm concentrating on the main running lines with simpler turnouts until I get enough confidence to do the more complicated ones. 

 

Next up is a B6 that leads off to the station end of the goods loop (the double slip will end up coming off those points).

 

(Edit: ouch - I'm sure that didn't look out of focus when I posted it from my iPhone yesterday).

 

So far I've laid out the sleepers, to be followed by a finger numbing evening in front of the TV threading chairs*.

 

Construction-wise I've gone for thick C&L sleepers and Exactoscale chairs. I've tried some test pieces with C&L thin sleepers and the formations built with the thick ones have a more robust feel to them.

 

After this one only another 2 points and a trap point to go before I get to the complicated bits! 

 

(*Edit: a headache and sore eyes put paid to that idea - probably been spending too long over a jar of butanone trying to focus on tiny things!)

Edited April 25, 2019 by sharris

[chris p bacon]

Looking good.

 

If you did it with concrete sleepers you could say its the new East West rail....

[sharris]

Although all the proposed routes are either north or south of Willington so maybe I could forget  the track altogether and get some model bicycles! 

[sharris]

Today's modelling endeavours consisted of a trip to the Epsom and Ewell show at NESCOT and the purchase on the C&L stand of possibly enough rail to finish the track, after which Phil teased me with hints of new developments that would have made life easier- if he hadn't just sold me the rail to do it the hard way!

 

Also in the purchases a couple of Slaters wagons (shh.. don't tell SWMBO who is convinced I have enough wagons - enough wagons, is that even possible?) - a D299 open (well, you have to, don't you?) and an 8t covered van - thanks, Eileen!

 

Overall an enjoyable show, although it did feel quite cramped. Some lovely exhibits, I'm finding more and more that the most inspirational layouts are the 7mm scale ones - Wolfe Low, St George's Dock, Theobald's Yard and Fintonarg were particularly enjoyable, as was Snowdon, beautifully scratchbuilt in 8mm/ft scale.

 

 

[sharris]

The points factory has been at work again with a pair of B8s. I found I'd run out of Exactoscale chairs (except bridge chairs which I seem to have millions of for some reason) so had to switch to the C&L versions while making these.

 

 

Getting closer to the point where I have to make the complicated bits now - only one more ordinary turnout before I have to tackle the double slip and 3-way! 

 

 

In this sketch (not to scale!) the red bits are the bits of track that now exist, the black bits are still to do. 

[chris p bacon]

A 3 way in Willington. . ..well there's village life for you. .

[sharris]

Well, that's annoying.

 

I was almost through making the last of the ordinary points (a B6) when I found running wagons through the crossing seemed a bit clunky.

 

It was at this point I realised that I'd pulled out an earlier version of the Templot drawing and that I'd tried to put a 1:6 crossing  on an A5 template - no wonder it didn't run smoothly! 

 

New template printed and back to gluing sleepers onto the new plan.

 

Might try rescuing the other points by swapping in a 1:5 crossing to use in another vaguely related project (shh don't tell SWMBO that I already have another project in mind already).

 

[sharris]

Ok, so as they say on Blue Peter (do they still say that? is Blue Peter even still going?) - here's one I made earlier:

 

This is the B6 at the station end of the goods loop:

 

with the distance from the end of the switch rails to the crossing measured to about 21cm.

 

And here's the B6 I thought I was building at the far end of the goods loop

Oh dear - only 17cm - that's not actually a B6 is it? Oops.

 

So back to Templot and a fresh printout and a new set of sleepers laid

and measured again before gluing any chairs and rail to them - 21cm - phew, I got the right template this time!

At this point the main-line is single-track and the arrows indicate the orientation of approximately alternating wooden keys in the chairs so I can arrange them in the right order when threading the rail. 

 

With all the bits in place and things running through smoothly (unlike the wrong one where things just fell off) - check rails? We don't need check rails where we're going!

 

Well, ok, maybe we do, so the final formation before I tackle the difficult bits...

 

Being the entrance from the main line to the goods yard I added some catch points too - they do the job of stopping an errant wagon rolling onto the main line but in reality I would have liked them a little further back, but the bit of spatial compression I'm having to use makes things a bit tight there.

 

So after the blunder of last week things are getting back on track (very obvious pun intended), with the 3-way and double slip still to do along with any remaining plain track to link everything together.

 

No more track-building this week though as my stock of chairs is running low (I now have the grand total of 3 slide chairs left). Fortunately it's ExpoEM next weekend though so not long before I can replenish my supplies.

 

 

Edited May 13, 2019 by sharris

[sharris]

Off to Expo EM this weekend where I'll be topping up my track making supplies.

 

Will Phil at C&L take it the wrong way if I ask how much he charges for a 3-way?