Heaton Lodge Junction

[SHMD]

2 minutes ago, HeatonLodge40 said:

Didn’t take any of the 40’s sadly but give me a couple days.
I doubt a 40 in real life would have pulled 40 loaded HAA’s though! 

 

 

I do have a pic, somewhere, I took of a 40 pulling the 36 HAAs up through Mossley towards Standedge.

 

 

Kev.

(They must have been empty but I just can't remember now.)

 

[HeatonLodge40]

12 minutes ago, AdeMoore said:

Absolutely fab that as a confirmed kettle man.

is the smoke unit synchronised ? 
More please of the 9f!

Yes it’s synchronised smoke & sound. 
I do love 9F’s ..this one is lightly weathered (as per the real thing on a charter) & will pull ‘The Downesman’ westbound 

[iands]

Absolutely awesome! As has been said many times on this thread, the "like" button just simply doesn't do it justice.

[d winpenny]

Absolutely superb can’t really say much more apart from keep the updates coming when you can

 

david

 

 

[AndrewT]

On 14/05/2020 at 19:21, HeatonLodge40 said:

Rodger thank you for that, very kind.

 

Today 37191 traversed the whole circuit pulling a fully loaded 37 wagon MGR. Taking 6 mins & 40 seconds at a scale 48mph..

I will post some videos in the next couple of days but I will say the objective of waiting absolutely ages for the train to thunder past (after seeing the high intensity light in the far distance) is spectacular!
 

In the meantime I’ve been installing Allan Downes old sewerage works. I’m re-starting on the scenery at the very end and am now working back towards the dive under I started a few weeks ago.

Allans derelict building needed to stand on its own platform between the river and the far end of the model to get the right height.

Using bits of 4x2 to prop up the platform added too much weight so I’ve used scrap aluminium tube, hot glued to the frame.

 

I’ll begin infilling the gaps with polystyrene tomorrow (if I’m not distracted by a huge freight passing by every 6 and a half minutes.)

 

 For all that I spent my youth down there and know the area well, I just can't place where this building was or still is?  I remember the steel bridge carrying a massive pipe over the river (I shudder to think what was in that pipe from the sewage works!), which we used to climb across for a dare.

[Crepello]

19 hours ago, HeatonLodge40 said:

Unsurprisingly I haven’t got much scenic work done since the circuit has been completed! 
Here is Romanian (kit built) 56009 storming through the junction heading east with 40 fully loaded HAA’s.

I’ve loaded each one of these HAA’s a third full of real crushed coal which makes for a proper heavyweight train..
 

 

 

[Crepello]

That's what I've been waiting for; wow,wow and wow again!

[HeatonLodge40]

6 hours ago, AndrewT said:

 For all that I spent my youth down there and know the area well, I just can't place where this building was or still is?  I remember the steel bridge carrying a massive pipe over the river (I shudder to think what was in that pipe from the sewage works!), which we used to climb across for a dare.

Andrew your memory serves you well!

 

The truth is there wasn’t an old building there in the 80’s! 
Allan Downes left me two derelict building which I thought would look good there & double as old sewerage works (as you know there’s a huge sewerage farm there and has been since the ‘50’s).

 

The scenery on this very last frame will be largely modellers license anyway as the scenic break, (which is a road bridge) is also fictitious.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

I've thought long and hard about mentioning this, I am in awe of the project and couldn't hope to achieve the quality of workmanship on a layout one hundredth of the size, but,,,,,, one things grinds my gears so to speak.

IMHO, the loading of the MGR's should be more regular, they are loaded from the same hopper, so each wagon should exhibit a similar (not exactly the same) pattern of loading. You went to great lengths to get the correct size of coal and this rather spoils the effect of the MGR train for me.

11 minutes into this video shows what I'm banging on about;

 

 

I hope this will be taken as constructive criticism, as a mere mortal I bow to your superior skills.

 

Apologies.

 

Mike

[HeatonLodge40]

34 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I've thought long and hard about mentioning this, I am in awe of the project and couldn't hope to achieve the quality of workmanship on a layout one hundredth of the size, but,,,,,, one things grinds my gears so to speak.

IMHO, the loading of the MGR's should be more regular, they are loaded from the same hopper, so each wagon should exhibit a similar (not exactly the same) pattern of loading. You went to great lengths to get the correct size of coal and this rather spoils the effect of the MGR train for me.

11 minutes into this video shows what I'm banging on about;

 

 

I hope this will be taken as constructive criticism, as a mere mortal I bow to your superior skills.

 

Apologies.

 

Mike

Nope you’re absolutely right Mike the coal should be humped either in one or two mounds and be even finer.

I’ve two more rakes of 36 to do yet so I shall get better at it next time! 
Absolutely no issue with constructive criticism like that at all.

I will persuade myself that this first rake was the result of a failure at the loading facility so had to be done manually by JCB :) 

[Stubby47]

On ‎19‎/‎05‎/‎2020 at 21:07, HeatonLodge40 said:

...40 fully loaded HAA’s.

I’ve loaded each one of these HAA’s a third full of real...

 

I'm also confused by the wagons being both fully loaded AND 1/3 full, but that's just me and I'll keep quiet.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, HeatonLodge40 said:

one or two mounds

I seem to remember three from some pits (don't ask me which ones!).

[HeatonLodge40]

7 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

 

I'm also confused by the wagons being both fully loaded AND 1/3 full, but that's just me and I'll keep quiet.

Ah yes right.
The answer is they appear fully loaded but in fact the false foamboatd base inside each HAA is about 2cms below the top of the wagon.
As the crushed coal is piled on this then they are in fact actually a third full but ‘appear’ fully loaded ! 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I seem to remember three from some pits (don't ask me which ones!).

 

It could be the same loader on a different day, depending on how accurate the SSC on the locomotive was.

The loading process was manually automatically controlled, (although weight measurement was automatic to ensure no overloading),  and depending on the speed of the wagon going through the RLB the operator might have time to put three drops in if it was on the slow side, but if it was going slightly overspeed then he might only have time to do one drop, which you'll notice on some wagons as single mound with a flattened top.

 

Mike.

[St Enodoc]

3 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

It could be the same loader on a different day, depending on how accurate the SSC on the locomotive was.

The loading process was manually automatically controlled, (although weight measurement was automatic to ensure no overloading),  and depending on the speed of the wagon going through the RLB the operator might have time to put three drops in if it was on the slow side, but if it was going slightly overspeed then he might only have time to do one drop, which you'll notice on some wagons as single mound with a flattened top.

 

Mike.

Ah, yes. Thanks Mike. Actually, the slow speed control was pretty consistent but what could and did affect the train speed over the ground was the rail and/or weather condition. On a wet day, the operation of the wheelslip prevention system would result in a lower speed through the loader. Thinking about it, as some pits you'd get a different effect in different parts of the train depending how much was on a curve as each wagon went through the loader.

 

No overloading - now that's an interesting topic. Don't ask me about loading ballast at Meldon Quarry into Seahorses in the early 1990s...

[Enterprisingwestern]

3 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

No overloading - now that's an interesting topic. Don't ask me about loading ballast at Meldon Quarry into Seahorses in the early 1990s...

 

Well, at least you haven't told anybody!

 

Mike.

[St Enodoc]

Just now, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Well, at least you haven't told anybody!

 

Mike.

No, just you and me.

[Enterprisingwestern]

4 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

No, just you and me.

 

I won't tell anybody, honest!

 

Mike.

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 19/05/2020 at 21:48, HeatonLodge40 said:

Didn’t take any of the 40’s sadly but give me a couple days.
I doubt a 40 in real life would have pulled 40 loaded HAA’s though! 

 

They could pull quite a lot, but I wouldn't fancy trying to control one down to hopper loading speed or draw one up a wagon length at a time.

[steve45]

Hi Simon,

 

I may have missed this earlier in the thread, if I have I apologise, what control system do you use for this brilliant layout?

 

Thanks

 

Steve

[HeatonLodge40]

9 hours ago, steve45 said:

Hi Simon,

 

I may have missed this earlier in the thread, if I have I apologise, what control system do you use for this brilliant layout?

 

Thanks

 

Steve

Hi Steve, no I haven’t mentioned the control system in much detail -  mainly cos it’s one of the few things I’ve not done myself and I don’t understand it yet :) 

However its soon to be an automated system with a manual option. It uses Digitrax & Digikeijs hardware with Rocrail software.  

[HeatonLodge40]

Last few days I’ve been back on the construction side building the foundations for the scenery on the very last frame - no 40.

This has a (fictional) road over bridge as the final scenic break & the previously mentioned derelict sewerage works situated on it.

Lots of head scratching, aluminium, plywood and foam board. Thank god for hot glue guns.

The Road is partly tarmac & has holes cut ready for the grates and manhole covers. 
The bridge retaining walls I’ve spent days on and made a complete dogs boll**ks of. The very first identical bridge at the opposite end (Woodend lane) I made a decent job of the stonework, but since it’s been 5 years since I made it I can’t remember what watercolours I used!

No matter, I’m going to hide these retaining walls with trees, bushes and earthworks.
The road over the bridge will soon have chainlink fence right across it to stop the local yobs getting access to the derelict building .

 

On a completely different subject I’ve also been adding lead to one of three absolutely beautiful JLTRT Class 40’s I have.
Needless to say I didn’t build them as they are superbly put together with correct prototypical scrapes and dinks that were present on the individual locos at the time.

However, their Achilles heel is they are way too light and it’s no good them just sitting there looking pretty & hardly able to pull 10 wagons.

So I’m adding 1.5kg of lead to each one. This causes another issue in that the JLTRT chassis’ flexes too easily. 

Which is all rapidly making me come to the conclusion that kit built locos are not robust enough for HLJ given their envisaged workload.

We’ll see I guess

 

[class27]

Hi Simon. Outstanding work as always. I never cease to be amazed at the people who rubbish Heljan Diesels at every opportunity, but their Haulage capacity has to be seen to be believed, I have had gear issues with a Hymek , one of my 26's and a 20, I have repaired all of these with gears sourced on ebay and have slightly relieved the interference fit on the shafts, but only time will tell if I have got it right or not. Really sad to hear about your 40's they are beautiful models, but they will have to work for their living on this layout!!!! Keep up the good work

best wishes

[HeatonLodge40]

On 22/05/2020 at 22:43, class27 said:

Hi Simon. Outstanding work as always. I never cease to be amazed at the people who rubbish Heljan Diesels at every opportunity, but their Haulage capacity has to be seen to be believed, I have had gear issues with a Hymek , one of my 26's and a 20, I have repaired all of these with gears sourced on ebay and have slightly relieved the interference fit on the shafts, but only time will tell if I have got it right or not. Really sad to hear about your 40's they are beautiful models, but they will have to work for their living on this layout!!!! Keep up the good work

best wishes

Thanks for that.

Yes the heavy diecast chassis’ of the Heljan diesels definitely help with hauling power. 
I might end up running the two kit built 40’s together with one brake van - this diagram was photographed passing HLJ many times.

 

I’ve completed this weekend all the foundations and groundwork on this final frame. A lot of filling in, chopping and cutting and 1kg of clay later..

As I mentioned before this includes the fictitious road bridge which forms the very west end of the layout.

I’m going to surround the derelict mill with chain link wire fence (from Buzz models) to prevent vandalism. Might even have a burnt out car round there too. 

 

[HeatonLodge40]

Seeing as I’ve finally worn my RTS Greenkeeper static grass tool out, I decided to concentrate on the river the last few days till a new one comes from the fatherland.

 

The River Calder at this location on the prototype is anything but clear running past a sewerage works.

So I’m going to be using about 8kg of casting epoxy resin for the water coloured using Woodland Scenics ‘murky’ tint. (Yes the resin & hardener alone was about £160) ouch.

 

Given we are in winter I’ve robbed an idea off the military modellers to replicate ice which will cover a small part of the river here.

Made by Krycell the ice sheets look pretty good but being large 30cm squares I’ve gone to town on them with a pair of pliers. 
With the casting resin surrounding the broken sheet ‘ice’ this will look either superb or pretty cr*p. I’m going to give it a bash anyway.

 

The base of this river was originally cork over polystyrene covered in a sealer but I ended up ripping the cork up as it warped after the sealer was painted on.
The base is now foam board cut to shape, the edges plugged with clay and sealed with a thick layer of PVA. After this some brown green acrylics are painted on.
At each end of the river is foam board sealed again to stop the resin escaping. I’ll cut this foam board away once the resin is dry.

I’ve yet to add some river ‘furniture’ inc an old leaky rowing boat, a log or two (nothing to do with the nearby sewerage plant :) and some small rocks at the edges.

As I mentioned I don’t want too much of the river bed showing since it’s not some creek flowing through the rockies. It’s a filthy river flowing past a sewerage farm.

Lot of work to do here the next day or so and I’ll be pouring the resin later this week..