“WASHBOURNE”

[F-UnitMad]

Blimey it must be cold if Hilda has that much clothing on.

[Northroader]

You’re just after a picture illustrating the perils of global warming.

[Annie]

All the very best for Christmas Mr Northroader.  The pre-grouping forums certainly have been a source of respite from the madness of 2020 and I don't know if I would have done so well as I have without visiting here most days.

[Donw]

Very best Christmas wishes to you and your family. I always lookforward to postings on Washbourne and your other threads more often than not something inspiring.

 

Don

[ChrisN]

Yes, always something to look forward to on this thread.  Have a good Christmas, stay safe, and have a good New Year.

[Nearholmer]

Merry Christmas to you and yours Mr Northroader, and it’s probably unnecessary to say that I wish you all a better 2021, because we all wish everybody that.

 

I did enjoy The Annual State of the Layouts Address, good idea that, which like many of your others I shall steal.

 

And, a Merry Christmas to Hilda and her dog.

I’m just out of shot, cos I thought me in red long Johns and vest would be too much.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

Start knitting.

[Caley Jim]

Either that dog didn't enjoy its walk, or it is not looking forward to being dunked in the sink/bath to have all that muck washed off!

 

Jim

[Northroader]

I thought how well it was posing on the stool, as near a good match to Hilda’s picture as you would get. Now I’m hanging on for the Lego Santa Claus to appear.

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Either that dog didn't enjoy its walk

 

It very much enjoyed it, having gone off on its own into the big thicket where the foxes live for ages, and emerged looking like tramp. 

[Caley Jim]

Just as well it wasn't a beagle, or you might not have seen it again for days!

 

Jim (from experience of my daughter's, beagles!)

[Northroader]

It struck me, when I popped into the loft for a brief session this afternoon, that the view when you enter through the door might help pad up what I was describing last night, so:

 

Left foreground is Washbourne, with the fiddle yard end nearest. Hopefully I can going on bringing this up to speed in the new year. Beyond that, hiding behind the scenic support, is Englefield. This is nearly runnable, depending on how much I can slope off into the loft without looking antisocial over the Christmas, and a fiddle yard beyond that. Across the far wall is the Whimsy line, currently hosting the Irish backscene to pick things up a bit. To the right is the Continental line, this should get a name with a couple of backscenes by springtime. (Suppose I’m tempting fate too much about when things are planned to happen, heigh ho) Behind this is a couple of overcrowded worktops, full of junk, under the dormer windows. Then there’s a pillar drill sticking up, my one machine tool, very useful when you’re a scratch builder, for drilling loco frames. In front of the Whimsy line there’s an easy chair crammed with all the packing for the Christmas decorations displayed downstairs. My little unfinished empire.

 

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

It struck me, when I popped into the loft for a brief session this afternoon, that the view when you enter through the door might help pad up what I was describing last night, so:

All you need to do is link all those little layouts together, and you'd have one great big one....   

 

Hat, coat etc....

[Northroader]

Well, if I’d set my heart on just one system a long time ago, it might have suited, but it’s just there’s so many different railways that interest me that I’d rather have small adaptable fragments scattered around. Way back, the loft was just bare rafters, no floor, and entered by press ups through a hatch from a step ladder, something like -4degrees in the winter and +30 in the summer, playing hell with track expansion, nothing like the cosy little slum it is now. Anyway, at that time I did try to get a large oval going, but I never got very far with construction. Sometimes you see successful big ovals, a tribute to drive, single mindedness, and lack of distractions, other times folks start with big ideas and struggle. I know which camp I’d fall into.

[Mikkel]

I see that you are real layout lighting pro .  (I'm allowed to say that as my own lighting is even more basic).

 

Interesting to see the layouts together. I like how the curved backscenes on Englefield, Whimsy and the Continental one envelop the layouts, creating little worlds of their own. Very effective even from this angle.

[Pacific231G]

On 09/12/2020 at 10:30, F-UnitMad said:

You mean Moor Street? Same city, same line, next station.

Updated after fact checking

No. Snow Hill did have a sector plates at the end of a couple of bays. Moor Street had traversers. The Moor Street traversers had three sets of rails and slid under the platforms so, when it was locked, there was a always a complete track to the buffers. The sector plate at Snow Hill had a similar arrangement but the odd think was that the the BoT were normally very strict about passenger lines in termini not converging at the terminus end but in this case that's exacly what happened. Normally, where turntables were used between  roads used by passenger trains, there were points that could either be set either to a buffer end or onto the turntable. Apart from Sheerness there was a very good example at Ramsgate Harbour (or Beach ) station .  At termini like Bembridge with only one platform  road that wasn't necessary, the turntable would simply have been set and locked for the platform road before a passenger train could arrive or depart

Turntables used for loco release weren't that uncommon especially in earlier times when locos were relatively short.

The problem with traversers is that they were so rare. On SG in Europe I think there were only Moor Street and Paris Bastille and there were one or two in Australia. 

There used to be a huge sector table plate at Boulogne Maritime with about six roads coming off it and no arrangement for avoiding voids but, as it was right at the end of the quay, there would have been no room for pointwork. I think it was probably built in the 1950s so by no means a heritage structure.    

 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Pacific231G

[F-UnitMad]

20 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

No. Snow Hill did have sector plates at the end of a couple of bays. Moor Street had traversers.

Yes, as Northroader posted a couple of links just after my comment faux pas....

On 09/12/2020 at 14:39, Northroader said:

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1680.htm

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrbsh1679.htm

 

On 09/12/2020 at 15:44, F-UnitMad said:

Learn something new every day

 

Or alternatively, receive confirmation every day of how much I don't know!!

I have been suitably re-educated, and privately kicked myself anyway for missing the distinction between sector plate and traverser in the first place!!! D'oh!!   

[Northroader]

Mind, it would be best when talking traversers to qualify how they’re used, as you say, they’re very restricted in application to traffic purposes for runrounds, but away from passenger train operation, they were very popular for compact layouts in workshops.

[Pacific231G]

22 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

Yes, as Northroader posted a couple of links just after my comment faux pas....

 

I have been suitably re-educated, and privately kicked myself anyway for missing the distinction between sector plate and traverser in the first place!!! D'oh!!   

Well the links did. The sector plate at Snow Hill was an odd beast to say the least though.

Moor Street does seem  to have been the GWR's exhibtion of "the many things that can be done with the modern marvel of electricity".  Apart from the passenger platform traversers they had another in the goods yard that sat on top of the rails (a bit like a Peco loco lift) allowing wagons to be shuffled fromsside to side, electric capstans, wagon hoists to the lower goods shed and electric conveyor belts and cranes in said lower goods shed.

I assume that, apart from the loco release traverses, most of that kit could be found elsewhere as well but there just seem to have been an awful lot of it at Moor Street.

I actually came on all this while searching for sector plates and traversers for fiddle yards for reasons that anyone following the General Theory of Minories topic will have probably heard me agonising about far too much already- gallon jars and pint pots!

Edited December 26, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Northroader]

Looking round some of the pictures in fellow colleagues “state of layouts” recent posts, I’ve decided my New Years resolution must be to try harder to improve my housekeeping, and get  things more organised.

There hasn’t been a flying start to the year, mainly dark thoughts about the virus outbreak have undermined any drive, but I must try to be positive, and hope we all get through safe and sound.

As you know, I like to put any examples of what appeals to me as “good practice” on here, besides what I’m doing, so I’m adding a link to a little line that Jordan (Funit mad) created some time ago, but he has recently dusted off. It’s as compact as you get, and deserves contemplation as what can be achieved in a limited space.

 

[F-UnitMad]

11 minutes ago, Northroader said:

I’m adding a link to a little line that Jordan (Funit mad) created some time ago, but he has recently dusted off. It’s as compact as you get, and deserves contemplation as what can be achieved in a limited space.

Glad it's an inspiration!! ...but just to clarify, I didn't actually build "Lyddlow Goods"; it was built by Bob Hughes of Cheshire, who used to be "Yorkshire Pullman" on here (he has long been an Ex-member though) and I bought it off him for 3 pieces of Peco O flexitrack I had spare at the time.

I have added a few details of my own, such as the roller-shutter door, dis-used Peco crane, scrap Morris Minor & the figures, & of course locos & rolling stock are all my own.

[F-UnitMad]

Of course it's named "Lyddlow Goods" because it's a 'little O' layout...    

 

I know - a terrible pun, but it didn't seem right to change it.

[Donw]

Cyril Freezer would have been proud of that name

 

Don

[Northroader]

Into the New Year, and I’m concentrating on overturning last years rationalisation plot, with the American job coming on nicely, and working up the intended common layout to form Washbourne only. First off the subframe and baseboard top have been narrowed, I’ve decided that a rectangular plan with rounded rear corners is much more efficient than a plan with a half elliptical rear. Then track laying, using some reconditioned Peco Streamline bullhead track and a point, giving a far more British appearance, and more reliability for milk train shunting.

Putting the track down and seeing the options this gave has now led to revising the fiddle yard, not only on this line but also for the other two layouts. It’s stating the flipping obvious, but using one active cassette to link in with the runoff lines on the board, and another two cassettes for storage to keep out of the way, and the fiddle board must have the room to do this. The last two days I’ve been playing musical chairs with three fiddle yards on three lines to get the best match, and one gain has been some tidying up thrown in.

The boards are essentially trays, supporting the cassettes, so there’s no concern in getting perfect alignment with pattern makers dowels and so on, for the cassettes engage with the runoff tracks on the main boards. The fiddle yard and the main board just join together with a couple of 6mm bolts, which of course aren’t drilled to standard measurements. Anyhow, the dust is settling from that, and we can proceed, although I need to make a new scenic back, as the old one is now elsewhere, and this will wait until our local iron monger is open again.

 

you may have spotted that I’m not waiting for Hattons to release generic 0 gauge coaches.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

Interesting.

 

BTW, have you managed to find a supply of old school dexion somewhere?