Tinories, a gauge 1 terminus

[unravelled]

When I was a child, my father was building a Gauge 1 railway round the garden, sadly never completed. For a time in my teens, we had a portable track which went to about a dozen exhibitions, with live steam running provided by members of thr Gauge 1 Model Railway Association. It had its last outing at Erith in 1980, by which time I  was employed, and had bought a house in South London.

40 years on, and the models were gathering dust in the cellar despite some false starts at getting a line round the garden. Retirement allowed me to get the cellar dug out with reasonable headroom, and space for a workshop and train room. There are plans for gauge 1 and 00 on different levels. Another 5 years on, and the latest stall to the 00 layout is a wait to see Peco bullnead...

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to again try to do something with the gauge 1. I have been playing with trackplans for ages, and baseboards were alrfeady down. After ferreting about in various locations for the old pointwork, I worked out what I could do without building anything extra. The result is this, essentially Minories layout, though without as smooth a flow.
 

 

 

There is still some track to cut and fit, then it'll be a case of working out the electrics. It will be stud contact of course, but at present I'm trying to decide how complex. The current options are  sections controlled by the point settings, or simple isolation of all sidings. Once it's wired up and operational, I'll get the stock out , cleaned up and play trains.

 

Glad to answer any questions, more soon if anyone is interested

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

[Talltim]

Great name!

[roythebus]

All good vintage stuff.

[unravelled]

Thanks.There won't be much to show for a couple of weeks, as all the track is coming up again for electrical  work. Running rails will be bonded throughout and each siding controlled by a switch beween the sleeper ends isolating the stud feed. This should be simple enough for a little playing. The stock won't come out until the track is permanently down. The track is relatively modern, having been built by my father in the late 50s and early 60s.

 

Dave

[unravelled]

If you mean the locos in the pictures, they are a clockwork 112 tank, and a handbuilt electric dock tank used for testing. I'll get some photos later and post them. Everything needs a bit of a clean at the moment. I also have a load of archive pics I'll post in this thread.

 

thanks

 

Dave

[Nearholmer]

Hey, this I will follow with immense interest!

 

It's the big-elder-brother of my 1910 mini-layout, which has now been christened "Paltry Circus".

 

Looks like vintage track, as well as engines, but no third-rail, so, is it all clockwork, or are some of the locos 2-rail? [ edit: sorry, I was so excited I overlooked the mention of stud-contact]

 

Kevin

Edited February 21, 2016 by Nearholmer

[unravelled]

Hey, this I will follow with immense interest!

 

It's the big-elder-brother of my 1910 mini-layout, which has now been christened "Paltry Circus".

 

Looks like vintage track, as well as engines, but no third-rail, so, is it all clockwork, or are some of the locos 2-rail? [ edit: sorry, I was so excited I overlooked the mention of stud-contact]

 

Kevin

Thanks, It was your initial post which spurred me into action with this. I hope there will be plenty of updates as I can see the way forward quite well.

 

For 32a here are pics of the current test locos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as the tinplate and scratch built locos I have a Bachmann Brassworks pannier, fitted with radio control, and am building a Hibberd Planet kit from Woodbury Models. I'm taking photos of the planet build and hope to write it up.

Locos are steam, clockwork and electric.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[unravelled]

While I make slow progress with the wiring, I thought this picture might be of interest.

 

 

It's a full view of the piece of trackwork in the bottom left corner of the first post, taken 50 years ago when first purchased. The packing case got  bad woodworm and had to go. The person my father bought it from told us it had been made for Count Zborowski, of RHDR fame. He had been killed before it had been used.

It proved not to be practical to use as is, having been built to finer standards than some of our stock. I will just be using it as siding space. It has been stripped of the point levers, and extra sleepers have been installed to improve the look. The intention at one stage was to fit stud contact to the new sleepers, but that is unlikely to be done now.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[Nearholmer]

Whoa!

 

That should be preserved as an example of early railway modelling beauty/skill.

 

What wheel standards does it accept? Have you considered lugging it to a BL society meeting or a TCS gathering to allow people to drool over it?

 

Kevin

[rockershovel]

That multiple slip, or whatever it is called, is really quite exceptional. I can't imagine what function it would actually serve, although I'm sure there are crossings like it somewhere, but it is a masterpiece of some sort.

[pointstaken]

Anyone reminded of the "Paddington to Seagood" railway and book  ?

 

Dennis

[Nearholmer]

Indeed.

 

One of my "Desert Island Railway Books".

 

K

[melmoth]

Great name!

 

My current armchair modeller's layout is called "Theories".

[unravelled]

I think this was bought with a view to chopping it up into component points/slips, but the garden  layout was replanned to use it as a station throat. 4 patform faces on one side, and out to the garden on the other. I think the rebuilding has made it look better, even with the lack of chairs on the added sleepers. I felt the point levers and widesleeper spacing made it a bit toylike. I haven't compared it with G1MRA standards,but it won't take some of the old coarse wheeled locos.

One interesting feature is that it is built with properly keyed chairs. None of your slide on chairs here. I'll take some detail photos later.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[rockershovel]

That Dock Tank (?) is rather atmospheric, too..

[unravelled]

While slow but steady progress is made on th electrics, another picture from the past. This is 1955 and an aerial view of the trackbed then in progress. That's me playing with the boats.

 

 

Indoors this was the simple layout.

 

 

Things were later modified to put the 4 track crossover into a widened opening, and make the trackbed  double throughout.

 

Coming back to the present, I'm using a H&M CU1 controller once part of a Hornby Dublo 3 rail layout. This is fed 24 volts from a transformer rectifier unit made from government surplus parts, (and Juneero), by my father. It's at least as old as I am.

 

 

For those who worry about such things, it has had a new mains cable and is used with care.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

 

[Nearholmer]

The aerial view is particularly good - you are very fortunate to have such an image from childhood.

 

I'm taking it that the original railway got completed and was operated for a fair while. Did I get that right?

 

K

[unravelled]

Unfortunately not. On a couple of occasions, probably in the early 60s, a single track circuit was put out, and some trains run. These would have been clockwork and pot boiler steam only. In the mid 60s the portable track was constructed with the idea that the curved sections could be used on the existing concrete base, though this never happened. When I bought my house in London, (late 70s), a similarly shaped track was plannedm but never got beyond the posts, which are still there. Again these would have used the portable baseboards. In spite of  a few false starts on the indoor  section, my present efforts are the furthest I have got. Whether it will ever circle the garden is uncertain.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[roythebus]

You might want to send a photo of the original track work to the RHDR museum heritage group? you can find their details on the RHDR website. That bit of track is excellent for that era.

 

The layout is a near copy of West Crossing at Waterloo.

Edited February 29, 2016 by roythebus

[unravelled]

Recent progress has been slow, although all the track is now wired up. The section switches have arrived, and will be wired in as soon as I have lasercut suitable mounts. The switches will be mounted to the sleepers and cut the power to the stud supply.

 

One thing I'm working on at the moment is what to use for platforms and buildings. I have no original tinplate  buildings to work with, so will have to invent something. The idea I'm toying with at the moment is to scale up an 00 range, possibly the airfix kits. I think they will have the right model railway look.Time for some mockups I think.
 

Thanks
 

Dave

[Nearholmer]

Interesting.

 

I'm at the same stage in 0 on my main layout, and have been procrastinating about the best approach to platforms for months, mainly because mine need curves in them.

 

For buildings, I'm gradually drifting away from ideas I had about high-Southern "deco", made from plywood, because it is to era-specific, and am currently heading in the direction of Superquick on Steroids.

 

Kevin

[BG John]

Scalescenes 4mm kits scale up to 7mm nicely, although printing them can be "interesting", unless you have a large format printer. I'm not sure what the quality would be like in Gauge 1 though, as I haven't tried it.

[unravelled]

I was wondering about blowing up card kits too, but paper size and loss of detail issues bother me. They would have the "flatness" of tinplate, but would lack its impresionistic suggested detail. Airfix blow ups will be my first attempts, but I may end up with something different. I have already stepped out of the pure tinplate experience by using wooden sleepered/chaired track, so tinplate  style building probably wouldn't suit.

 

I hope to post some samples soon

 

thanks

 

Dave

[Il Grifone]

 

Recent progress has been slow, although all the track is now wired up. The section switches have arrived, and will be wired in as soon as I have lasercut suitable mounts. The switches will be mounted to the sleepers and cut the power to the stud supply.

 

 

One thing I'm working on at the moment is what to use for platforms and buildings. I have no original tinplate  buildings to work with, so will have to invent something. The idea I'm toying with at the moment is to scale up an 00 range, possibly the airfix kits. I think they will have the right model railway look.Time for some mockups I think.

 

Thanks

 

Dave

 

 

Plywood was the common material of choice for vintage buildings, when tinplate or aluminium was not used.

[Nearholmer]

What we really need is some of that sheet wood (I'm not sure it was actually ply) with rather over-scale bricks/tiles pressed into it, the stuff that several makers, including BL, seemed to use. The modern equivalent must be thin MDF, with laser-cut surface detail, but it looks a bit too fine.

 

I've also thought about using plywood and simply painting it dark red, with no surface detail at all, to represent brick buildings. I've seen a few buildings done that way, it the lack of surface detail isn't all that apparent.

 

These " in the style of" models are really beautiful http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/midland/index.html

 

K

Edited March 14, 2016 by Nearholmer