“WASHBOURNE”

[Caley Jim]

5 hours ago, Donw said:

 

Bag the leaves up in a black plstic bag put in an odd corner for a while until you have a bag of compost. 

Don

The bulk of them go into a large black plastic bin and are then mixed with next year's grass cuttings in the 'new' compost heap. The 'old' heap is last year's compost given more time to rot down before being spread on the garden in another year's time.

 

Jim 

[Penrhos1920]

On 09/10/2020 at 15:18, Caley Jim said:

I've just spent a couple of hours clearing leaves from our driveway and garden.  Our only tree is one small acer in a half barrel, but our neighbour to the west has a mini woodland of several 60ft+ high specimens of several species.   Guess from where the prevailing wind comes?   

 

Jim

I hope you’ve swept them on the road for the big council sucky thing to take away 

[Caley Jim]

Don't recall ever seeing the big council sucky thing down our road!

 

Jim

[Caley Jim]

On 09/10/2020 at 20:15, Northroader said:

I’ll bet after all that work you were ready to pop down the road for a drink... what’s that?.. oh, yeah, right...

I have plenty real ale in the garage and my supplier, Broughton Brewery, is just a few miles away and does deliveries.  

 

Jim

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I have plenty real ale in the garage and my supplier, Broughton Brewery, is just a few miles away and does deliveries.  

 

Jim

Broughton started up during my time in Edinburgh. What a good thing that was.

[Caley Jim]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Broughton started up during my time in Edinburgh. What a good thing that was.

And the railway connection is that they are on the site of the old Broughton goods yard! 

 

Jim 

[St Enodoc]

8 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

And the railway connection is that they are on the site of the old Broughton goods yard! 

 

Jim 

I didn't know that!

[Caley Jim]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I didn't know that!

As I said, just down the road!

 

Jim

[Annie]

4 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

As I said, just down the road!

 

Jim

It seems that your map is being afflicted with creeping modernism Jim.

[Northroader]

Try this one:

[Annie]

4 minutes ago, Northroader said:

Try this one:

Oh yes that is much better.  

[Caley Jim]

5 hours ago, Annie said:

It seems that your map is being afflicted with creeping modernism Jim.

I was trying to prove that the brewery was on the site of the goods yard.  Anyway, @Northroader's map is earlier than the one I posted as it doesn't show the branch built from just east of Broughton, up Tweeddale, for the construction of  the Tala reservoir in 1895, which is when Broughton acquired the loop and extra island platform.

 

Jim

[Johnson044]

On 17/11/2019 at 15:21, Northroader said:

Mikkel’s kind postulation that a model needs soul as well as accuracy has cheered me up no end, even if Washbourne is part of the Faustian State Railways group. I have to confess that the last three weeks I haven’t really managed much in the way of modelling, which is why I’ve been wittering on about such things as the Knotty. My better half had an operation at the GWH for something we can’t really discuss on a public thread, and it being the NHS she was discharged less than 24 hours later into the care of a “responsible person” (me! - hah!) Very slowly on the mend, but with the TLC involved it’s much easier just to play on RMweb than model. Anyway, for me Sunday morning is a good modelling time (sorry, vicar) so I actually grabbed a couple of hours, and I managed to get a stage progressed, to a running chassis.

What we’re looking at is the first outside framed model I’ve attempted. It started off as a tank engine for a particular line, but then as things went on I became clear it wouldn’t really do for a branch loco for that line, and after collecting dust I finally found another prototype for another line I was interested in, only as a tender engine, the search being complicated as it’s only got 4’ wheels, and so well into the build the back end was shortened quite a lot. It starts off with inside frames as normal, and the outside frames are really dummy. The guy who designed the outside frame MR Kirtley 0-6-0 for Slaters did it like that, so it’s good enough for me, and makes sense. The brass strips for the inside frames are soldered together with the brass bars for the side rods on top in the right position, then  a 2mm pilot hole for each wheel centre through the lot using my vertical press drill, a handy piece of kit. Then it’s unsweat everything and clean up, knowing the wheel centres all match for the frames and siderods. After setting up with spacers and axlebushes, I put dummy axles in and fit the siderods to these. This is necessary to ensure everything will run smoothly before the wheelsets are assembled, because the wheels go on the axles as a push fit on a fine taper. ONCE THEY'RE ON DON’T EXPECT THEM TO COME OFF AGAIN. As a result I have to think through carefully stages such as mounting motor and gearbox, and pickups, frame painting, before I take this step. The outside flycranks are quartered onto the axle ends and secured by the teeniest little cross slotted screws you ever saw. I put them all together with this tiny little screwdriver which I’ve since lost. The siderods can go on, and running checked up, and thankfully it went well, mainly due to the precautions I’ve described. The footplate secures to the inside frames with screws through the frame spacers each end and holes cut to clear the wheels and motor. This forms the base for the superstructure and the bufferbeam and dummy outside frames are mounted on it. There are dummy axleboxes, shaped like triumphal arches, added on top. One thing I discovered is that being an 0-6-0 chassis with a long wheelbase, the outer axles need some sideplay, and the dummy frames and boxes can inhibit this. The frames needed careful setting, and I’ve given the front and back faces around the axleslots a good doing over with a small grindstone, so from the front and on the chassis they look flat and square, but everything goes concave around the wheel and fly crank bosses to get some clearance. It works going through the reverse curve at Washbourne, although I find the platform edging  flagstones might need a trim back in places. Now there’s just the superstructure and tender to do, and as I lost the rear pickups when I shortened the frames, tender pickups would be a good thing to have.

Hi Northroader - just found your double framed 0-6-0. Any progress? Looks really good. I've had a very similar loco in gestation for ages- freelance but so, so similar. I had some old Slaters 4'3" tender wheels that needed a home and a set of parts has grown around them- nothing assembled yet but a large stack of parts including some frames, a resin boiler (SER Kits SER 01), LNWR tender body and all sorts of other odds and sods. What is your prototype? A double framed tender loco with such small wheels is something of a rarity- the Rhymney Railway had something pretty similar, I think- there are some drawings in the Mike Sharman Oakwood Press book of  7mm scale drawings of GWR 0-6-0's. It would be good to know how you are getting on with this- there are so many similarities! 

[Northroader]

Hi, Johnson, thanks for your enquiry, I’m afraid that this thread is a bit quiet right now, all the action is elsewhere, and the chassis in question is still parked at the side of the worktop looking up at me. It’s a pity, because it is a runner, just needs the superstructure finishing. It started off life as an MR “small well tank”. To my mind these are a very attractive engine, which is why I suppose I built it, but then I realised that there were only a handful done, all running around the breweries at Burton, really Kirtley should have built two hundred or more of them for wider use. I’d already got another nice little MR 0-4-0ST finished, and it gradually dawned on me that I was planning a small MR Yorkshire branch, using Burton brewery engines. Nobody wants the.. argh! “Nobody expects the Derby Inquisition!!”, so I started to look round for something else that was suitable. As you say, finding prototypes with the small wheel size is a problem, but one I fancy which will fit in nicely is a North British engine. The original Edinburgh Berwick section opened in 1846, followed by the Edinburgh and Hawick in 1848. Apart from a Crampton, all the original fleet were outside framed engines built by Hawthorns, including eight 0-6-0s with 4’3” wheels for the Hawick line. Two of these lasted into the 1900s, rather surprisingly to me, as I think 1840s locos would have metallurgy going against them, if nothing else. They got through Wheatley, and Drummonds reigns, and Holmes put a new boiler on them to spin them out a bit longer. Here’s an attractive painting by Euan Cameron (his copyright)  of a similar rebuild but with larger wheels. One of these days...

[Johnson044]

Thanks for the response Northroader- when I saw your loco I did think of the little Kirtley well tanks and whilst they are truly delightful I think your chosen prototype really interesting- and, as you say, less likely to be the subject of criticism- anything from Derby, Swindon or Crewe is so well documented. The NBR loco you illustrate seems very familiar- much the sort of thing that I hope to build, although I have considerable freedom, being CME of a completely freelance railway. My loco rather controlled by the Slaters 7'4" x 7'8" coupling rods, which dictate the wheelbase, so possibly a bit bigger than the Kirtley. The Rhymney had some quite big saddle tanks with double frames and 4'3" wheels- and I rather want to capture the ambience of one of these, albeit with a tender- a certain brutish solidity to them. I did look at having a raised firebox and longer chimney etc, which would certainly have been appropriate- and a bit Furness or Cambrian Sharpie in aspect- but seemed a bit effete somehow, so the chimney, dome and firebox front which I'd bought from Laurie Griffin will go on a Beyer Peacock single (one day) and I'm substituting the SER Kits 01 boiler, which I hope will give the feeling of massiveness that these beasts seem to have. Maybe one day some new build group will re-create a full sized double framed six coupled goods- it would fill a noticeable gap - apart from half a loco chassis in the Armley Mills museum they seem to be pretty much extinct!

[Northroader]

Around a year ago I had the idea of rationalising the lines into one combined job, which on the face of it was pretty daft looking back. My justification was trying to simplify as I was getting older, but the end result with American and British on alternate swap rounds never really worked. I had done some testing with American bogie stock, but when I started a shunt with the milk train with four and six wheel stock it became obvious the point needed attention, and the whole lot was flatbottom rail, and one thing and another, I decided to go back to two layouts. The Boss on one of her snap unannounced inspections didn’t like the look of the vacant space in any case, bless her, and I needed to fill it pronto. This led to the Little Washbourne theory, and for a time it looked like a broad gauge line would appear, but priorities have led to the space forming the line for my Continental thread.

For the last week or two, I’ve been busy, well for me that is, downsizing an old baseboard, which I think was about Washbourne DOS 5.0, and I can now start to relay flatbottom track. Then the current Washbourne can also be remodelled with bullhead after some slimming down. Not much is changing for track or layout configuration, and I’m keeping things very simple and small.

Should I mention an idea of proportionality? It struck me looking at the pictures of scene shifting the backscene that I didn’t want my lines so that the layout swamped the loco. 

There’s still things like buildings to add, but I think if I make the layout larger, it will swamp the effect of my pride and joy in the middle. (First loco I built) Should I concentrate on forming a balanced pictorial composition, or do you just let the layout sprawl, and if anything takes your interest, you bend down closer to look? I suppose I’m really trying to make a case for micro layouts from a different perspective.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Northroader

[Mikkel]

Do you mean foregrounding the loco and stock by keeping the layout small, and having just a few but realistic scenic items? I like the sound of it, although it is of course the exact opposite of the "railway in the landscape" approach.

 

I think it would be important then to have a very simple backscene, and avoid too many diverging colours in the scenery.

[Nearholmer]

All the world’s a stage.....

 

I really think the stage approach, focusing attention on the actors, works, and unless you can go much larger, and build an entire functioning bit of railway, is the one to go for.

 

One thing that might be worth thinking about is to reduce the colour saturation of the back-scenes - only a tiny bit, but just enough to make sure they don’t compete with the actors’ costumes.

 

In short, if you don’t have room to go big on operational realism, go small and think mostly about visual realism.

 

K

[Northroader]

Thank you, Kevin and Mikkel, I do have room for a big oval, but I’ve always tended to want really small layouts, and try to form a “showcase” for the trains, with just a small sample of representative structures.

Its interesting that both of you say tone the scenery colour down a bit, which goes with what most folks say, to help keep the trains prominent. When I was doing the Whimsy line, I had thoughts of pale pastels, wishy washy sort of shades, but just to try and create a more dreamy sort of feeling. Generally  I do like stronger colours, and the trains have to take their chance. It’s just to try and give the layout an attractive look, and not dowdy.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

I wasn't thinking dowdy or wishy-washy, merely slightly less saturated. I even wondered if a very subtle mist-coat of a de-saturating colour like pale grey or earth might work - so subtle as not to be apparent.

 

Be assured, it isn't that I don't like the back-scenes, they are mini-masterpieces, its jus that I wonder if they need to recede a bit.

[Annie]

23 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Be assured, it isn't that I don't like the back-scenes, they are mini-masterpieces

I very much have to agree that your backscenes are mini-masterpieces  Mr Northroader.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I very much have to agree that your backscenes are mini-masterpieces  Mr Northroader.

 

Indeed, they are.  And, although muted backscenes can be quite effective, they are not the only tool in the tool box. To my mind it is no mean feat to achieve a 'Hamilton Ellis Effect' with a painted backscene.

 

Courtesy of Annie Images

[Northroader]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Just to prove you can’t teach an old dog to do new tricks, here’s some I was doing around forty years ago, helped along by a nice yellow fascia as well. (My fascias at least are a lovat green or natural wood these days)

well, American roads are supposed to be colourful, but why can’t lines this side of the pond be equally so? Particularly pregroup, to the more romantically minded of us. The CHE painting of Stone station James has given is a good choice to demonstrate this. Now, you could really cut that out into a neat rectangular box, and that’s your layout, the only thing missing is a short siding for one of Stephens wagons.

Taking it on from there, one thing I spotted recently looking over the fence is the new OO offering from the blue box company, the Hardwicke 2-4-0. Isn’t that a perfect piece of workmanship for an RTR job, even if around the same price as a nice little Dapol O gauge job? I won’t be getting it myself, but I’m sure it will encourage more folks into pregroup. Now the question arises to me, is how do you “present” this model, just plonk it on the oval and let it rip, or have it taking centre stage on a small showcase line, such as I’ve been chuntering on about here? Philosophical debate about that, if you like.

I’m getting to the stage where I’m needing three backscenes done soon, if I’ve got sufficient cartridge paper.

 

[Donw]

I think the big oval would be great but with fairly simple scenery with some of you lovely bakscenes. So you could sit and enjoy the loco with a short train gently rolling along . I would choose to create three scenes  a coastal scene  Langstone HArbour sort of feel, a bit wooded Bluebell line sort of thing and the chalk downs.

It would do for me as I like a bit of operating a nice shunt reforming trains a lever frame to operate.   Now if I could fit one of those and the big oval that could be grand.  Out from a hidden cassette area three times round the big oval and into the station  run round remove a bit of tail traffic and back round the big oval t'other way three time and into the casstte. 

A if I stop for a cuppa the train can gently carry on round and round. 

I sat with Ken Payne while my bulldog and his coaches ran round his layout for an hour and half while we nattered over a cuppa bliss.

 

Don

 

Apologies if I have just upset your plans whatever you do I am sure it will be interesting.

[Northroader]

I can see where you’re at, Don, and I really like the sound of it as a dream layout.  It would have to be in O these days, and frankly I just got browned off building a large enough oval in sections from second hand bits of wood cobbling it all together. TBH, I should really expect to pay more for what I want to do than I am. Ever since I’ve been quite content with terminus/ fiddle yard setups.

Before I moved up here from Cardiff, I had evolved a modular layout for HO in boxes, two one side of the room, two on the other, and a couple of non scenic quarter section at each end to join them, duck under the door. As they were constructed as boxes you could have distinct backscenes in each one as you’re thinking. At the time I was working in a wagon shop where you could do staff purchase of wood and ply “offcuts” (happy days!) I had just got the stage of test running all round, and then I got promotion, and had to move. The new place didn’t have the spare room, and I took up residence in the loft. Here the slope of the roof meant that my boxes would only go in low to the floor, and they got scrapped. After that, I did a smaller HO continental circuit which saw quite a bit of use and most of the time I was quite happy to let a train trundle round as you describe, just having something in motion is very therapeutic. This did have a backscene behind half of the circuit, but then I got bitten by the 7mm bug. Evolution of the human species, like Darwin was going on about in the lost dairies.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Northroader