“WASHBOURNE”

[Northroader]

Ian, it’s struck me that if Bodran is the curtain raiser for the AFK, it could well be a bit, er, different? You’re very welcome to stick any pictures of it on here, as I like this thread to wander a bit.

[Donw]

Maurice Hopper built several layouts that could be taken by public transport. St Juliet an S gauge layout was taken from the South West to Utrect for an exhibition by public transport in part on the Eurostar. 

 

12 hours ago, Northroader said:

The thing is when I’m using it at home, I’d want to access the fiddle yard from the front, as there’s a worktop behind there, Don. As long as it gives a definite break between the station and the fiddle yard it’s doing its job.

Your Maine twofooter sounds a real labour of love, Kevin, a pity it turned out like that. I started to realise about board sizes with the Canadian line when I was kindly invited to take it to a show about two years back. I was euphoric about this, but reality started to kick in when I realised that I couldn’t get it up there in my car, and the struggle I’d have in setting up and so on, as I don’t have any “roadies”, so in the end I declined the offer. (Somewhere on the web here there’s a guy who takes his line to shows on the train in a small suitcase size set up)  Miniturisation is slowly setting in, will I achieve it in time before I go into a care home?

 

I had in mind having access from the front. I was thinking  in say a bedroom a screen blocking the fiddle yard so just the scenic bit was visible normaly but the screen could be slid along to give access to the fiddle yard when required,  but looking neater otherwise.  

 

Don

[corneliuslundie]

There is someone who has been to our local exhibition who builds layouts in violin cases and similar containers. Definitely public transport friendly.

But a bit difficult to fit in 40 wagon coal trains, as required by every proper layout.

Jonathan

[St Enodoc]

55 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

There is someone who has been to our local exhibition who builds layouts in violin cases and similar containers. Definitely public transport friendly.

But a bit difficult to fit in 40 wagon coal trains, as required by every proper layout.

Jonathan

N gauge in a double-bass case?

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

N gauge in a double-bass case?

I can only presume that you haven’t tried to manoeuvre a double-bass case about the place?

(Daughter’s musical instrument of choice.)

[Northroader]

I All this talk can only lead to one place in the end, Mr. Bryant’s “inversnecky & Drambuie” which happened quite a time ago now, so perhaps not everyone has heard of it?  2mm scale,at a time when bits weren’t so available, and consequently real modelling skills needed, pre group Highland Railway, what’s not to like?http://www.2mm.org.uk/articles/inversnecky/index.htm

Edited March 28, 2019 by Northroader

[Nearholmer]

Super-skilled, eh?

 

I'd forgotten the trick of using a simple flat sheet of shiny stuff to represent the sea ....... its a really cracking way to keep the baseboard size minimal for transport. Filed for copying!

[ianathompson]

18 hours ago, Northroader said:

Ian, it’s struck me that if Bodran is the curtain raiser for the AFK, it could well be a bit, er, different? You’re very welcome to stick any pictures of it on here, as I like this thread to wander a bit.

 

A reply in this forum would not constitute thread wander so much as complete hi-jack!

 

As I contemplated a reasonable reply it became apparent that no photos of the layout existed with the track down and operational.

I have spent this morning remedying that and include one photo below.

 

23 by Ian Thompson, on Flickr

 

If you want to read a full appraisal I have added a new page on the website at https://myafk.net/bodran

 

Hope that this is of interest. 

 

Ian T

[Northroader]

Well, I’ve had the Marrongaco visa applied to my passport for a pleasant visit this afternoon, Bodran is an interesting imdependant addition to the goings on on the main system. I’m always impressed by the operation that’s being carried on. Thanks for that, Ian.

Super skills in 2mm? Well, back in the 50s Percival Marshall published a small softback on doing 2mm Railways. I suppose it must have Ron Bryant that wrote it? (Jim will know) I was interested in what it might offer, and was reading about how to build your own tiny motors from cocoa tin stampings, then what wire to use for the windings  and so on, and made a rapid decision to stick with stuff you could get from a shop.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, Regularity said:

I can only presume that you haven’t tried to manoeuvre a double-bass case about the place?

(Daughter’s musical instrument of choice.)

Absolutely right Simon. Going to school with a trombone on a Routemaster was challenging enough for me.

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, Northroader said:

..... Well, back in the 50s Percival Marshall published a small softback on doing 2mm Railways. I suppose it must have Ron Bryant that wrote it? (Jim will know) I was interested in what it might offer, and was reading about how to build your own tiny motors from cocoa tin stampings, then what wire to use for the windings  and so on, and made a rapid decision to stick with stuff you could get from a shop.

I'm not familiar with that book, so can't confirm the author, but when I joined the 2MM SA in the late 60's, any articles on loco construction usual started with 'chuck a 1 inch bolt in the lathe...'.  This being the starting point of making driving wheels.  As I've never possessed a lathe, it was fortunate that the Association started to produce a range of driving wheels a few years later!  Transformer laminations were the recommended material for motor cores.

 

Jim

[Northroader]

It’s been quiet for a bit on here,  I’m still busy, but nothing new to report for the Washbourne line. Not long ago, I was pushing the idea of having “through line” layouts instead of termini. I’m not thinking of applying this to Washbourne, but I’ve been looking at the Englefield layout, just over the way, on which nothing has happened for at least eighteen months, just the odd outing with a loco. Sooo.. not wishing to be thought as someone who doesn’t practice what they preach, it struck me that the idea could be applied here profitably, and the last three weeks have seen me working on some changes, mainly an overall shrinkage of the main board, and various associated tweaks. This will go on for a bit yet, as I want to get stock, scenery, and buildings more advanced than I left it. In the meantime, have a happy Easter.

[Mikkel]

That sounds intriguing. I am convinced that somewhere just beyond the grasp of our consciousness lies the golden solution to the challenge of how to fit a two track mainline onto a very small layout - with full through running and without resorting to a huge fiddle yard of course.

 

Happy Easter to you too 

[Northroader]

I’m trying to get to this golden solution, honest...

[Donw]

Trying to achieve it all is impossible. Put a circle of track in a square room and you worry about not making full use of the corners. Fill the baseboards with track and you have no room for scenery. It is all about choices and balance. If you add something extra understand what you will lose as well as what you may gain.

Washbourne achieves a lot in a very small space.

 

Don 

[Mikkel]

How about this plus some serious magnadeshion.

 

 

Gives a whole new meaning to "watching the trains go round".

[Nearholmer]

There was a whole genre of clockwork-driven ‘animated scenes’ in the late C19th, small dioramas, a bit like miniature stage settings, through which flat trains moved using belts as above, or discs set horizontally. I think most of them were printed paper/card, but that there were some wooden and printed/painted tin ones too. They even had sound, in the form of musical box tunes. German, of course.

 

I’m not sure you’d actually call them model railways ....... they’re sort of cuckoo-clock meets musical-box meets mini-stage mash-ups.

 

And, there are some superb modern mini music boxes showing scenes through which a magnetically hauled train moves!

Edited April 19, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

When I was a kid, our church fete used to have that idea for “horse races”, where you turned a handle which gave some vibration to the belt, rather than acting as a “conveyor belt”, although there must have been a slight gradient, then you placed little lead horses on the belt, and the vibration made them progress along, side by side or whatever. Way back, I was fiddling around with the idea of magnets on trolleys under a thin sheet acting on those Lone Star OOO thingys. Don’t think I’ll be trying that now, though.

[Guest Isambarduk]

15 minutes ago, Northroader said:

there must have been a slight gradient,

 

More likely the vibration was of a saw-tooth (wave) form so that the belt slid under the horses on the sharp/fast rise part of the wave but dragged the horses with it on the gentle/slower fall of the wave.  This is a technique that has been around for a long while and is much used in industry for moving (small) objects, particularly if they need to be lined up to be counted.   David

[Nearholmer]

One of the guys in the TCS sets up a huge Hornby 1930s layout called ‘A Day at the Races’, the centrepiece of which is exactly the horse race game that you describe. I’ve never looked at the mechanism in detail, but I don’t think it’s a belt, more a large sheet of tin, which is vibrated by turning the handle - it certainly makes a fair old racket, and the lead horses sort of ‘buzz’ along. 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

When I was a kid, our church fete used to have that idea for “horse races”, where you turned a handle which gave some vibration to the belt, rather than acting as a “conveyor belt”, although there must have been a slight gradient, then you placed little lead horses on the belt, and the vibration made them progress along, side by side or whatever. Way back, I was fiddling around with the idea of magnets on trolleys under a thin sheet acting on those Lone Star OOO thingys. Don’t think I’ll be trying that now, though.

Escalado.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalado

 

http://gamesyouloved.com/game-genre/traditional/escalado/

 

We had one donkey's years ago and I suspect it had been around for a long time even then - it was in a box like this:

 

https://cf.geekdo-images.com/original/img/syJN8kuJ7otdlfXwWA1R6xPZ6Dk=/0x0/pic1033781.png.

[Mikkel]

On 18/04/2019 at 20:32, Northroader said:

I’m trying to get to this golden solution, honest...

 

Are you there yet?

[Northroader]

Thank you for enquiring, Mikkel, I’m afraid I’m still at a standstill with the Washbourne line, as all my energy (?) has been going on to the Englefield line for something like two months.  Over there I’ve decided that it was ripe for a rebuild from a terminus / fiddleyard into a through station with small fiddle yards each end, as I’ve been pushing recently on here, and this is shaping nicely, and I’ve decided to stay focused on getting it somewhere near finished. 

Funnily enough I’ve been off today to the ALSRM do at Reading, which I think is always good for finding good layouts to admire. One line worth looking at was “Fen Drove” based on M&GNR practice, which should suit the Norfolk lurkers on this thread. This is designed in just such a manner, a nice variety of trains passing end to end through the station, with a shunter doing simple moves in a goods siding in the foreground. I can’t find a thread on .this one, it has featured in the Railway Modeller a couple of years ago, but here’s a tantalising short glimpse.

https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=851513218286416&_rdr

Then on to a real treat, Fintonagh, a 7mm Scale 3’ gauge Irish line, which I’ve been hoping to see for some time. Extremely well modelled, very reliable operation, nice compact plan,(which always gets my approval) and very good building placement, and had a pleasant chat with its creator, David Holman, (61666), who also made a great 5’3” line, Arigna Town, currently in rebuilding throes. If you want a pleasant evening curled up for a read, here’s links to these two lines.

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/110546-clogher-valley/

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/96349-arigna-town/

you'll also be happy to know, I hope, that I returned from the show totally skint.

Edited May 11, 2019 by Northroader

[Annie]

Fen Drove RM November 2016.  I love my on-line subscription with its magic search function.

 

Reminds me that it's been a while since I gave my own M&GNJR line some love.

[Northroader]

Thanks, Annie, here’s me thinking about pouring my Saturday night bottle of beer, and you’re up cooking Sunday breakfast.