Inspired by Brent June 1947

[The Fatadder]

A little more work this evening 

 

4547 shunts it’s it’s train after arriving from Kingsbridge with a goods.

the wide expanse of the yard, in prototype terms this should be narrower, but as mentioned before the compression in length has made it necessary to have the lower siding further apart to clear the goods shed.

 

4582 departing Brent bound for Kingsbridge, I almost had enough grass to finish this area but ran out with a short length remaining…

the large bushy area by the wall is made from a hair based packing material, covered in glue followed by a coat of forest floor, before covering with hairspray and various Greenscene materials.

 

A little more work on the infill, with the final possible area glued in place. Just need a goods shed now so that I can finish it off…

There is a lot of shadow from the cross beam on the garage door, improved lighting will be a must in the future!  In the mean time I must remember to check the light alignment, I have a feeling I moved one last time that I was painting…

 

another view of the Kingsbridge bound passenger service, it does highlight the need to get the bank in place the other side of Station Road.  Once I’ve finished with the grass (and installed the missing signal) I think this will be the next task…

Edited August 17, 2021 by The Fatadder

[The Fatadder]

A little work this evening sees another Dapol signal installed (the final one on the main layout, slightly repositioned and as a round post a little early.  This will eventually be replaced with a scratch built square post to the same height as I think the Dapol square post looks too tall here.)

 

I have also finished off the grass area, the Peco pasture grass was a rather odd bright green (rather akin to the old sawdust scatters of the past).  It needed a lot of dead grass adding to get an acceptable colour, followed by another layer of dead grass to blend in.

 

Berkeley Castle passes through Brent with a Penzance bound sleeper in the summer of 1947 while a 4575 is about to depart for Kingsbridge.

While the coach formation is mostly still RTR, it does have a toplight from Slaters and a Phoenix/BSL sleeper.   I completely forgot to fix the lighting angles so it still has the dodgy shadow, at the weekend I need to get some roof tiles cut to finish off the hut.

 

other than a few minor jobs, with the roof tiles / adding a fence across the raised area / road.  That’s it for the main layout scenics for now, the next job is back to building the ground works for the cutting north east of the line and building the tunnel mouths.  
 

I also plan on doing more work over the next few evenings completing the drawings for the down waiting room and signal box, as it will make a massive difference to get there built! 

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

I think the Dapol square post looks too tall here

Try dropping the base of the signal below the baseboard as @chuffinghell has done on his Warren Branch.

[The Fatadder]

I had thought about going down that route, will give it further thought in the future.  For now I can live with the round post (the real

thing was change just a couple of years later).

 

right now I have bigger problems, before I start on the next area of ground works I decided it would be good to run some trains.  Particularly as thinking about it I have not actually ran the layout this year!

 

As usual after a long brake, all locos were removed from the track before powering up in case of shorts.  Initially there was a bussing sound (akin to a non DCC fitted loco being on the track).  With the Powercab not going into auto shutdown.   This was eventually traced to a Ks Siphon F, once removed from the track however there was the a ‘real’ short which did trip the powercab.   So I am now at a total loss as to where it is.  Most likely it will be down to rails expanding and closing an isolation gap on a point.  Though I guess it could be a case that part of Kingsbridge  is unintentionally live…. Once I have found the multimeter I will investigate further.

 

I did find two track issues where a rail had split off the copperclad, which will need resoldering before running can commence (neither of which could cause the short though)

[The Fatadder]

After spending ages this afternoon checking every point and I have finally found the short.   In the end it was nothing to do with track…. 
After failing to find the source while checking the points, next on the list was to try and spot sparks in the dark.  While I had no luck, with the music off I could hear that the short was coming from somewhere h set the station.  The sleeper formation was parked by the down platform so this was moved out the way.   However when I pushed the coaches out of the station the noise of the short followed it.

 

Removing the coaches one at a time traced the short to the toplight third, oddly I had used split axle wheels in one bogie (as a stop gap while waiting for good wheels to arrive). I had then clearly forgotten to swap them out.  Of course split axle wheels in a brass bogie frame is not ideal……  After dropping in some new wheels, no more short!

After which I could do some running, although at least one king and a DCC ready 57xx refused to work and will now need further attention.   As there is currently no programming track that will have to wait…

 

finally the framework has now been added for the other half of the cutting to the east of Brent, if dry hopefully I can add the mesh tonight and get a feel for the look of the ground level.

77289 waits for the road running light to Laira.  The plan was to do some test running with the mineral rake, however it turns out that I haven’t quite finished it as there is no end wagon with a Dingham to couple to the loco…

A lot of stock has been finished since I last tested and today’s testing did show up

a few coaches which need longer coupling arms fitting.  
 

[The Fatadder]

Rather than continuing with the semi off scene scenery, I have flipped attention to a much more important area.  There are currently 4 major buildings required for the layout, along with a couple of smaller huts which will need to be integrated into the up platform.

Of these the goods shed is in the care of Intentio and hopefully will not be too much longer until their goods shed kit is ready to go.  The down waiting room and signal box were fully designed on my old laptop, but unfortunately not saved on the cloud.  Thankfully I was able to recover an earlier iteration of the drawing, so have spent the evening doing the finishing touches.  My approach is to draw the whole building as a single drawing, (utilizing different layers) and then split them out into a cutting plan.  This of course requires some parts to be redrawn (where the same line needs to be on several layers), along with making adjustments to allow for material thickness not being duplicated.)

 

The down waiting room is now pretty much ready to cut, it just needs the canopy redrawing (thankfully I have a card version of the missing drawing for this that is currently on the layout).  

In this case the red lines are 10 thou, white is 20 thou and blue is 20thou but only a single cut.  Lessons have been learned from the up waiting room, with bigger (simplified) clearances for the window holes.  If the blue planked layer does not work to plan, (I am worried that it will have a tendency to bow with all that scoring), an alternative will be to cut it from Evergreen sheet.  Although this will require redrawing to split the side in two parts in order to fit the narrow width of the sheet.  I still need to draw up the screen in front of the down (and up) gents toilets.

 

The signal box is in theory a simpler design, this still needs adjustment to allow for the material thickness plus the roof and floor drawing up.  Likewise the end steps are currently omitted and will be a further drawing once I am happy with main structure.  In this case the windows are of course close to the edges of the sides, this does not leave much space to rebate the glazing on the innermost 20thou sheet.   The obvious solution is to paint everything prior to assembly, and use a sheet of 20thou clear plastic in the sandwich.  In both cases the light  / dark stone areas were planned to be painted prior to assembly anyway.  

 

The final building that is required is this house opposite the yard entrance (as per this extract from Google Maps) 

 

A little playing with its location is needed to get it to fit properly, but the aim is to get this drawn up this week so that it can be properly integrated into the hill side. 

[The Fatadder]

This evenings work on the layout got a little side tracked with some running.

 

First up the failed rail on the exit to the up fiddleyard was resoldered into position.  With that sorted I moved onto a little more testing on the sleeper highlighted some coupling issues.  Where the hook was not quite long enough, it was easy to adjust. There is also an issue with the wheel sets in the toplight third,  one axle was consistently derailing which appears to be due to a dodgy axle.

 

With that sorted it continued to derail on the entrance to the down fiddleyard.  It turned out that another rail had badly buckled across the middle of the point.  This needed to be cut in the centre and resoldered into position.

moving onto the up milk, and Eynsham Hall.  The loco is need of oiling, while there appears to be an issue with one of the coupling bars not being long enough causing buffer locking.  

 

I seem to be suffering from some random  DCC issues as well, with a few locos no longer working properly for no reason.  So sorting out a new programming track is now a priority 

 

Berkeley Castle crosses the Avon with a down sleeper 

 

The fence for the perimeter of the yard is now drying pending fitting tomorrow.  So I am now waiting on a couple of deliveries, with 3 more weathered Bachmann private owner wagons and a basket case of an Oxford Rail Dean Goods.

 

the latter was more of an impulse buy to see what I can do with it (for £30 I couldn’t resist), while the PO wagons will mean that I can complete the mineral set and finally give it a run (as it can’t currently couple to anything).

Edited September 2, 2021 by The Fatadder

[Siberian Snooper]

One of your cows has died, and they all look a little glossy.

 

 

 

 

[Nick Gough]

52 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

One of your cows has died, and they all look a little glossy.

 

 

 

 

 

It's not dead - it's resting.

[The Fatadder]

That will teach me for not checking before taking a photo.  (Though the photos had originally been intended as close ups of The coaches rather than the wider shot I went with).  The cows have yet to be glued in place as I don’t want them to get in the way of future static grass applications.

 

I will give them another spray of Dullcote (if there’s any left in the can).  Hopefully it’s still available, I recall they were going to stop production…

[checkrail]

I'm sure you'll sort out these little gremlins that haunt us all from time to time.  It's great to see this coming together and to view such an interesting train crossing that fine river bridge.  Look forward to more.

[The Fatadder]

28 minutes ago, checkrail said:

I'm sure you'll sort out these little gremlins that haunt us all from time to time.  It's great to see this coming together and to view such an interesting train crossing that fine river bridge.  Look forward to more.

In part it really reiterates the "do not take shortcuts" principle, If I had just built the fiddleyard trackwork with plastic components (as per the main layout) I am sure I wouldnt be having these issues.  I cant see any way to deal with expansion on track where the rail is securely fixed to the sleeper with solder every inch or so.  However, I have always worked on the principle of using as long a length of rail as possible, I am now thinking about going back and adding cuts wherever possible to reduce the rail length and hopefully limit the risk of further issues.   (This is pretty much what I did for the repair, which reminds me I really ought to check the wiring as I now likely have a 3 inch length of rail which does not have a power feed!  

 

The sleeper set is one of my favourite formations, (not entirely sure how I managed to only get the end of the sleeper into the photos though!)  Really it could do with the Hawksworth replacing with something older, but its likely to stay for quite a while as new build brake thirds are already earmarked for reducing the number of Hornby Collet brakes in use on the layout

I posted this on the other Brent last night, for a photo of the missing sleeper as the train heads out of Brent.  Still need to work out a better way of blending the yard service into the track.   Will need to start hunting for photos to compare with the prototype, along the edge of the brick work will be a small amount of long grass.   

[The Fatadder]

Just a little more work this evening, adding another fence.  

I didn’t paint enough posts to add the fence on the other side (just the gate posts).

 

 

I have also fixed up a temporary programming track so was able to do a little reprogramming to try and get some more locos working.  
 

it did the job on 6000, but 4855 is still playing up (despite the programming working ok).  I’m thinking the next step is a factory reset. 
 

 

Looks like the goods shed isn’t too far off, cannot wait to complete the front of the layout!   

 

 

[The Fatadder]

I had planned to finish off a few scenic jobs over the weekend, however other than verifying what should be the final set of drawings for the goods shed, I have mostly been carrying on with the test running.

 

First up was the down main which had developed a new issue at the entrance to the fiddleyard, this centred around the point on which the rails had previously distorted.  The gauge was all correct and a 4 wheel test wagon was fine, yet 4085 would derail every time it passed over.  In the end I tracked it down to the curvature of the repaired rail having a kink at the joint, so all needed to be carefully realigned after which the Down Main was given the all clear.

 

Next up was checking the Up Main, so after cleaning the track I set off with 4855 on a Bristol bound goods.  As usual it highlighted a couple of troublesome wagons (a repair to a suspension unit and a tweak to a coupling).  Unfortunately getting two thirds of the way round the layout it hit an issue, the point between the up main and single slip (connecting to the branch) has failed and will no longer switch.  Not only is this the most awkward point to access, it is also the only one on the whole layout which uses a remote operating base to extend its reach.  Naturally this is making things a lot more difficult to resolve the issue, unfortunately I think it is going to require the motor removing and refitting.   Maybe a job for tonight....

 

4855 Approaches the Avon with a Bristol bound goods

 

4855 Continues on towards Brent

4582 has just departed bound for Kingsbridge, while 4855 awaits the signal to clear to depart Brent 

A view of the rear half of 4855's train, the two engineers wagons still need a layer of ballast adding (however I want to wait until I have finished ballasting the layout before adding this).  The second to last wagon really needs to be moved to a down working (seeing as it models a deliver of a new locomotive wheelset for a 45xx being delivered.

 

Edited September 6, 2021 by The Fatadder

[checkrail]

21 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:

Not only is this the most awkward point to access, it is also the only one on the whole layout which uses a remote operating base to extend its reach. 

Sod's Law.  Been there, experienced that!

[The Fatadder]

20 minutes ago, checkrail said:

Sod's Law.  Been there, experienced that!

The one bit of advice I would give anyone from building Brent so far is that you should always take the time to build it right and never talk short cuts.   With this point I should have just moved the support structure, but I hate woodwork so found a work around.  That work around is now has caused a lot more issues over time than the pain of just doing the woodwork right in the first place.  Of course now with all the track / scenics in place, changes to the sub structure are not really an option, so I will have to spend the time underneath the layout to fix the point. 

 

My assumption is that the slide bar (Exactoscale) under the baseboard is no longer sliding, so loosening the screws might do the job,  the point did previously work properly so I don't think it could be the alignment.  If I cant get the current setup to work I do still have a single genuine Tortoise remote unit which I could try using. 

[The Fatadder]

A quick ten minutes in the garage at lunch and I think I have solved the issue with the point, simply loosening two of the screws holding the Exactoscale baseplate onto the underside of the baseboard (those closest to the slidebar).  I think the issue must be a slight change in shape of either the wood or the slider has resulted in too much friction for the Tortoise to shift it.  Will have to keep a close eye on the base going forward as I suspect this is not the last if have heard of it.   

 

With that sorted I tried to continue to drive 4855 into the fiddleyard, however there were two further derailments.  One at the joint between the lift up section and the fiddleyard (which will soon be inside a tunnel) and at the second point in the up fiddleyard.

 

The former will be an easy fix, the paper template has separated from the baseboard for the final inch or so, so the track is free to slightly move.  It should be a quick fix pin pricking lots of holes in the paper then covering with superglue.

 

At first inspection I cant see whats wrong with the point, but I suspect much like with the issue on the exit of the up fiddleyard a rail has deformed in the heat causing part of the point to be out of gauge.  I think I will attack all of the fiddleyard points with a cutting disk to shorten any long rails and minimise the future risk of heat expansion.   

 

 

I have also had a delivery from eBay with a set of 3 weathered private owner wagons.  I'm not entirely happy with the distressed printing on one of them (which will likely get a bit more distressing with a fibreglass brush).  But it was a good price and finishes off the mineral train.  I still need a few more PO wagons to do the local goods / branch though.   These 3 were in the "BR condition" pack with Pxxxxxxx numbers, thankfully these are fairly well obscured by the weathering for now.  I will be painting out the P and adding the owners name above it (eventually once I sort out the transfers).

[The Fatadder]

A quick half hour between work and the girls getting home and I am slowly getting to the bottom of the issue.  
 

the baseboard joint was an easy fix, i then started looking at the point.   The first thing noticed was that it was slightly tight to gauge through the switch, however much like with the down fiddleyard point at the weekend the second I touched it with the iron the rail pinged inwards due to the heat expansion.  so another cut and realign was necessary, followed by adding a couple more expansion gaps.

 

However this didn’t resolve the issue, more testing with a Dapol milk tank (not the best choice) showed the tank lifting on the vee of the point before.   Looking closer the exit of the vee does not have the right curve, so I think this is pushing the stock to the wrong side of the switch.  On light/ close coupled stock this then causes it to rise over the switch rail, while short wheel base wagons were fine

 

Once the girls  are in bed I will try and get it fixed…..

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

However this didn’t resolve the issue, more testing with a Dapol milk tank (not the best choice) showed the tank lifting on the vee of the point before.   Looking closer the exit of the vee does not have the right curve, so I think this is pushing the stock to the wrong side of the switch.  On light/ close coupled stock this then causes it to rise over the switch rail, while short wheel base wagons were fine

A short check rail to guide the wheels into the point should do the trick. Also, make sure the switch opening is big enough. For standard 00 I set mine to 2.4mm (two SMP sleepers thick), which is overscale but reliable.

[The Fatadder]

At the moment it has already got both a check rail and an extra wide gap.  I did some more repairs this evening trying to tweak the vee, it not works with most stock but fails with the Dapol milk tanks and the 28xx. Not such an issue with the milk (for a start it may well be the rubbish wheels fault) as that rake doesn’t go in this road.  It is however a big issue with the 28xx not working…

 

next thought is to reduce the gap on the exit half of the check rail to the C&L gauge thickness, which in theory should help keep the wheels towards the correct side of the switch.     What is particularly annoying is that I am sure I’ve tested this all before with an 8 coupled loco….   
 

Tomorrow I think I will try a different 28xx (and maybe the WD) as well as tweaking the check rail.  Would be good to see if it’s loco specific.   I know a 460 Is fine, but that’s not much help when this needs to store freight!

 

 

once that’s done I need to work out why the 57xx and 42xx won’t work.  No sign of life on the prog track, but I have a feeling my powercab is not working properly.   I have had it before where someone has put a loco that is not responding for me onto a Sprog and it’s reprogrammed fine.   (So I guess I ought to get one ordered….)

[St Enodoc]

Dapol milk tanks are not good test vehicles. A friend of mine had a set which derailed regularly on plain track. He fitted Hornby wheels and they are now fine.

 

I would set the check rail to the same spacing as the check rails at the crossing itself. I'd try to improve the curve through the previous vee too.

 

Good luck!

[The Fatadder]

A very successful evening (if a ridiculously hot one).

 

first up was an adjustment to the check rail on the point referred to earlier.  Narrowing it so that the width was set by the C&L gauge pulls the loco over towards the near rail as hoped.  It passed the Dapol milk tank test, closely followed by running 4855 back into the fiddleyard with the much delayed Bristol goods.

 

confident that I could get a complete run it was sent straight back out, only to derail on the first scenic point for the up loop.  This has caused intermittent issues for some time, but not enough to spend a lot of time investigating.  However today 4855 just would not pass without derailing (the wagons however were all fine.)

 

Closer inspection highlighted a potential issue, (a pretty glaring omission).

 

I had never added the check rails!

 

these were quickly pulled together with some scrap rail (ex Blackcombe) and Exctoscale chairs (ex Kites Croft), after which 4855 ran perfectly.  So the new check rail just needs painting to match now…

 

in between all of this I’ve been stripping the dodgy paint off the Dean Goods.  It now needs a coupe of new handrail knobs and a repair to the cab rear handrails, but the awful paint is gone (as are the splasher rivers).   Unfortunately I’ve also managed to loose half the parts (including buffers, screws and whistles.). They are all stuck to some masking tape for safe keeping somewhere in the garage….. 

 

From this:

 

To this:

Now to start rebuilding it (although I still cant find the missing parts.....)

 

Edited September 8, 2021 by The Fatadder

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

I had never added the check rails!

Don't worry, it happens in the best of circles.

 

In about 1986, on a Monday morning after some weekend engineering work, a loco derailed at Leeds City station because the renewed points had no checkrails.

[Neal Ball]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Don't worry, it happens in the best of circles.

 

In about 1986, on a Monday morning after some weekend engineering work, a loco derailed at Leeds City station because the renewed points had no checkrails.

Theres a prototype for everything!

[The Fatadder]

In between messing around with the Dean Goods, I have managed a little more work on the layout.  The banks at the London end are starting to be formed.  The core takes my usual approach with wooden formers and a mesh sub structure stapled into place.  I have also made use once again of some old towels to fill the bigger areas.

this will now all be covered so the plaster bandages as a base for the future fields.   There are still gaps where the mesh doesn’t fully join up on adjoining strips, this all gets sorted initially before doing the plaster 
 

for the lift up section, I have used expanded foam formers for the edges, I may still end up using them for the rest (for the additional stability when being lifted up and down.   The retaining walls and tunnel mouth need installing before much more can be done here.

the idea here is to get two views, the Mainline and the branch, without seeing the other (seeing as on the prototype they should be a good distance apart)