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Churminster & Stowe Magna, Southern Railway


Tony Teague
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Impressive.  That's railway modelling as I understood it from my father's old stack of RMs.  Loads of mainline railway, with all the facilities and still room for a high-level townscene!  C J Freezer would have been proud. 

 

There are not enough layouts like that these days; John Dew's Granby Junction is a superb example: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/2773-granby-junction-00-gwrlms-1947/

 

Can I echo the call for more pictures!

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Hello slowcomo,

 

It's always nice to see another Southern layout, and one on such a grand scale is particularly welcome.

 

Out of interest: You have a timespan of late '30s – late '40s ... but what about location? Do you picture your setting as West Country for eg? Or are you completely abstract in that respect? Like I say, just curious :)

 

In the middle of the picture of your revised fiddle yard I think I see something like a 2-Bil? If correct does that mean we may see some third rail?

 

Either way, I look forward to further posts and pictures, and wonder whether there's any chance of a track plan (or rough sketch of same) - it's nice to be able to picture in the minds-eye an overview of the layout :)

 

Finally, good luck with your project of a lifetime!

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In my initial post I mentioned my target of having at least one model of every loco type that the SR possessed at nationalisation, and that this was my reason for not modelling a prototypical location; I thought that it might be interesting to introduce one or two of the more unusual locos in the collection to illustrate the problem!

 

First is DS 1169, a Ruston Hornsby 48DS shunter acquired by the Southern to work first on sea defences at Folkestone and later at Broad Clyst; this tiny little loco is from a Judith Edge kit and was built for me by Chris Phillips:

 

SJP2O4B937502160826.jpg.96c6b5f9275b0bb8b98acfcd2c0224fc.jpg

 

 

RMWebbers were very helpful on this one in determining the most likely livery for the date that I am modelling.

 

Next up are a pair of PD&SWJR locos, 'A.S. Harris' and 'Earl of Mount Edgcumbe', each from a CSP Agenoria kit by the sadly, very recently, deceased Roger Slade, and again, built for me by Chris Phillips:

 

SJPSJPIMG_11320215113002151130.jpg.9ee79c98e6d793bc518b7074ca5e07ab.jpg

 

 

Next, an ex-LB&SCR E4 tank, this one RTR by OO Works:

 

SJPIMG_104002150403.jpg.0a2be0c10c45bcfbc47d369c83c4a89d.jpg

 

 

One of the advantages that I see from modelling the period that I have chosen is that I can run locos, and trains as well, in a number of liveries through from Maunsell olive, via wartime black, to Bulleid malachite. None of my locos is as yet weathered, although all have coal, crew and more recently SR headcode discs added, whether they are RTR or kit built; one day I shall get around t weathering as I am now convinced that it looks far better!

 

Finally, a Hornby RTR ex-LSWR T9, posed next to a kit built ex-LSWR L11, to highlight the similarities and differences; the latter from a Martin Finney kit and again, built by Chris Phillips ( http://www.crphillips-models.co.uk/ ), whose work I greatly admire - no connection other than as a satisfied customer!

 

541737799_SJP148_2classL11312ClassT902150228.jpg.dfd4dbfd83d0d9af57d00e5c88bd34fe.jpg

 

 

I am now only a very small number of types away from fulfilling my original aim, but it is fair to say that the last ones will be difficult since no kits exist. I am looking at 'kit bashing' for one, and having a 3D body printed for another, but I am determined to get there!

 

Tony

 

Edited 9.10.16 to add link to Chris Phillips' website.

Edited by Tony Teague
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Hi Southernboy - thanks for your comments; to answer your points:

 


Out of interest: You have a timespan of late '30s – late '40s ... but what about location? Do you picture your setting as West Country for eg? Or are you completely abstract in that respect? Like I say, just curious :)

 

In the middle of the picture of your revised fiddle yard I think I see something like a 2-Bil? If correct does that mean we may see some third rail?

 

Either way, I look forward to further posts and pictures, and wonder whether there's any chance of a track plan (or rough sketch of same) - it's nice to be able to picture in the minds-eye an overview of the layout :)

---

 

I think I have partly addressed the location issue in my 2nd post - in that it is almost impossible to tie it down! The way I look at it is that one station (Stowe Magna) is very much an outer suburban location with 3rd rail two electrified terminating platforms where you might see HALs BILs and so on; the main line is also electrified throughout to provide for coastal expresses such as the Brighton Belle etc, conversely neither of the branches is electrified - so the Up branch from Stowe Magna might represent a route around the suburbs to reach locations such as Reading or Feltham for example, whilst the Down branch that includes Churminster might represent a line line to more distant westerley locations. It is deliberately vague but in making it so, I have certainly set myself a problem when it comes to preparing an operating schedule - where are the trains from, where are they going???

 

I will post a track plan for each of the stations shortly and show how they feed into the various fiddle yards.

 

Best wishes

 

Tony

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OK so here is the best I have in terms of a track plan - it is actually from the Control Panel design (by Elite Baseboards) and shows 1st the Churminster and then the Stowe Magna layouts.

The red & blue arrows / labels to the centre of the left side of the Churminster plan and to the top of the Stowe Magna plan lead to the main Up & Down fiddle yards.

The pale blue box at the top right of the Churminster plan indicates the two lines leading to & from the lower fiddle yard / reverse loop, whilst the bright pink box near the top of the Stowe Magna plan indicates the two lines leading to & from the top fiddle yard / reverse loop.

 

360778421_SJPChurminsterplan02161006.jpg.1ddad53f5009d12c5a8bdf5518d2de74.jpg1190099510_SJPStoweMagnaplan02161006.jpg.d39e093f2eeb3c66fc0404003febb958.jpg

 

Because the reverse loops are laid in opposite directions, they can be used to form a figure of 8 continuous run and you will see 6 switches at the top left of the Churminster plan, labelled "Continuous Running" which over-ride the IRDOT detectors which would otherwise stop trains automatically on those lines. Between them, these settings allow continuous running either around the main Up & Down lines or alternately through the figure of 8.

To the bottom right of the Churminster plan are the push buttons (red & black) that operate the lower yard, whilst the blue lights are track occupancy indicators; the red buttons are used to select routes via two diode matrices (entry & exit) whilst the black buttons release the trains which are otherwise halted automatically by IRDOT detectors beneath each track.

The panels for the two other yards are not shown but sit between the two panels illustrated.

I hope this helps, but suspect that it may raise as many questions as it answers...!

 

Tony

Edited by Tony Teague
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Now that's what I call a Lifetime Project!

 

---

Thanks for your comments Dave  - as it happens I am a long term follower of your thread and I believe that I have one of your loco builds on the layout - an SR Q No.531 built from a Wills kit - and very fine she is too!

I will take a picture of her in action and post it soon.

 

Best wishes

 

Tony

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On 07/10/2016 at 11:56, Nearholmer said:

Being a track-plan addict, I would really like to see the plan.

 

Well since you have asked...

 

Here are two images taken from 'AnyRail' which Elite Baseboards used to map the trackwork ahead of building the control panel; the plans are not 100% up to date, especially in the area of Churminster station and yard, but they will give you a good idea when read in conjunction with the Control Panel illustations in post #7 above.

 

The first shows the main and lower levels with Stowe Magna station & yard along the bottom:

 

923494455_SJPMainLowerLevel02161007.jpg.f35082ae3ddcdddcb4ed44fa6748b4a0.jpg

 

 

Churminster station and yard is on the diagonal and everything above the line that runs through it is or will be hidden.

The second image shows the top level and how it connects but I have removed the main fiddle yard (which sits below the top one) in this image to avoid confusion:

 

2096035270_SJPTopLevelexcl.Mainfiddle02161007.jpg.7becc6fd8ffad65ea1f8e991960e7b1a.jpg

 

 

I think you'll agree that there is plenty of room for operational variety!

 

By the way, I have not said, and no-one has asked, but the layout is conventional DC analogue controlled.

 

Tony

Edited by Tony Teague
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Lovely stuff Tony, glad to hear you are "up and running" with it.  

That station looks superb and will certainly define the location dramatically.

I hope the Q-Class has been put to good use.

 

All the best,

Dave.

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On 09/10/2016 at 21:01, DLT said:

Lovely stuff Tony, glad to hear you are "up and running" with it.  

That station looks superb and will certainly define the location dramatically.

I hope the Q-Class has been put to good use.

 

All the best,

Dave.

 

Thanks Dave, and here is a picture of No.531 hauling the pick-up goods through Stowe Magna:

 

SJPAB9A178102161017.jpg.f0b1721e897e94179caa7c2720bddc5f.jpg

 

So far, this is the only train on the layout in which all of the wagons are weathered - another big job for the future...

 

Tony

[Edited to correct spelling]

Edited by Tony Teague
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PS  Anything else you need?

Dave

 

That sounds like a tempting offer...!

 

If I go back to my key aim of having at least one model of every loco type that the Southern Railway had on the books at nationalisation, I reported in an earlier,  separate, thread ( http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/111735-missing-southern-locomotives/ ) that I had reached the point where I only had 7 types missing, and in each case there was no obvious solution or kit available.

 

I am continuously on the lookout for potential solutions for those seven, which are:

 

Ex-LSWR - S11, C14 (have been waiting on CSP/Agenoria for some time on this one, but the former proprietor Roger Slade has sadly now passed away)

 

Ex-SECR - B1, F1 (I have a very old Jidenco kit for the latter, although whether it can be made into anything good is open to question!)

 

Ex-LB&SCR - D3X, C3, I1X

 

So my response to your question is that there are two potential needs:

    (i) finding a solution to one of the above, or

    (ii) building an additional loco for a class that I already have but which may be under-represented in the fleet (one can NEVER have too many locos, although the better half fails somehow to grasp this point!).

 

I'd be keen to progress something with you, and I am certain that if we bat some ideas back and forth we will come up with a plan!

 

Best wishes

 

Tony

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I promised an update on progress made with improving & finishing the area around Churminster Station, so as to bring it closer to the high standard of the station building itself.

 

Well, so far all has not gone well; the platforms are in place, complete with lights and some signage has started to appear; the forecourt area has been laid with granite sets and painting of these has commenced - but what colour should granite be? My first coat in Humbrol 67 dark grey was way out and so now I am going to have to work hard to bring it back to something more sensible! Any suggestions as to the right mix of colours will be greatly appreciated!

 

SJPIMG_106802150522.jpg.e9eb736871e7d6ea492f51077f647cbb.jpg

 

 

Alongside the forecourt, attention has been applied to the locoshed & yard which, like most areas, had been started but never completed; it was here that I found that I had made a pretty stupid error! I fitted a Heljan tunrtable a long while back and then laid track up to it, however I was not able to properly test it as I had not completed the wiring. A little later I started to lay some ballast nearby and took the opportunity to lay a ballast / coal / polyfiller mixture into some of the turntable loco sidings - all good so far BUT...

 

SJPAB9A178402161018.jpg.b461c000056d04fc09634c1c82157e75.jpg

 

 

When I came to test & program the turntable I quickly realised that it was not correctly installed. Heljan turntables (like some others) have an area where no tracks should be connected, since this is the point at which the table itself changes polarity and so is electrically dead - I had installed the turntable with this area precisely aligned with the three storage roads leading off the table....and of course, these were all very well secured under a thick ballast mix.

 

Following the uttering of loud & copious expletives, I reached for the Dremel and cut through each of the tracks to remove the first 2 - 3 inches, before removing the turntable, rotating it about 90 degrees and re-installing it. Should I ever install a turntable again, I will have learned a difficult lesson, because the additional work involved is considerable!

 

SJP2O4B627102160425.jpg.3a1edd1a56606a8a97c4a6bb494cb3b0.jpg

 

 

You live and learn, but what the last picture also highlights is the great need to weather the turntable pit as well as anglicising the deck; again, any experiences in dealing with these issues would be most welcome.

 

Tony

 

 

Edited by Tony Teague
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More excellent photographs.

 

With the granite, I would leave the dark colour as a base and dry brush with enamels or acrylics until an overall lighter appearance is achieved.  Personally I am more comfortable with acrylics, but enamels will work just as well.  I would suggest being bold; as you are dry brushing, you can afford to use a much, much lighter colour.  I might end, or even start with, something like the old Citadel Bleached Bone or Vallejo Bone White.  For an idea of how not-white Vallejo's Bone White is, the upper, cream, panels on the coach in post #1818 are painted Bone Whitehttp://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/page-73.  The cream content will yield a better result than a 'pure' grey, i.e. one with black and white only.

 

I suspect that I am attempting to teach you to suck eggs, however, given the excellent weathering tones already achieved, not least on the concrete platforms. 

 

Keep up the good work!

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It is a little while since I posted an update, and although there has been a little progress with the area behind Churminster Station, I thought I would provide a bit more detail about how the layout is controlled.

 

I have mentioned previously that DC / analogue controls are used - I like to think that I am working on the "two wire principle" - two wires to each & everything!

 

I built the original small control panel which can be part seen at bottom centre of the first picture that I posted in #1 above, but by then it was already becoming obvious that something more substantial would be needed.

 

My highest priority in engaging with Elite Baseboards (as before, no connection other than as a satisfied customer!) was to get the Control Panel rebuilt and developed into something more appropriate, but I found the first question that they asked me - "Where's the plan?", a little embarrassing, given that I have a background in project management - because there wasn't one!

 

Ultimately the new panel will have a printed aluminium top, but the guys from Elite persuaded me that starting off with a paper template would be a good idea, as I was likely to change things; we are currently on version 18 which rather proves them right! The near-current Control Panel design is pictured in #7 above, but the two pictures that follow show how the work to transfer connections from the old to the new panel started out.

 

SJPIMG_107802150611.jpg.0b0237fc2be265991c26086d1549ec90.jpg

 

SJPIMG_107602150611.jpg.7bf0abe7653754826cfdf0bdff252c14.jpg

 

Whilst I am pretty confident with electrics, I feel less so when it comes to electronics, and so I also asked Elite to build several diode matrices to control the entry and exit points to the various fiddle yards; these are quite substantial, in that route setting is done via a single button which may fire up to 5 point solenoids at once - and potentially a number of relays. There are six diode matrices in all, and each is surface mounted in locations close to the points that they control, but where they will not normally be visible. All are fed from a single CDU. Here is an example diode martrix-

 

SJPIMG_108002150611.jpg.be3ea511c577b20cfbad55d2eaf61b4b.jpg

 

Installing these taught me an awful lot about the importance of having the right size diodes, the right gauge of cable, the right size CDU, and the right trigger voltage feeding the CDU; any one of these being wrong can render the whole system incapable.

 

Once set up, route selection is exceedingly reliable; most teething troubles were caused by sticking / poorly installed point motors (solenoids) or faulty points.

 

Whist I did not want the layout to be "automatic", my desire to operate the layout sole meant that it was important for trains to stop automatically when returning to the fiddle yard, and equally where a fiddle yard road held two trains, for these to move up automatically. To make this happen I have used infra-red / IRDOT detectors from Heathcote Electronics and at present there are around 70 of various types installed and operational. Teething troubles with these largely related to my installing them too close to the end of a fiddle yard road - so that the train over-ran the points, or in adjusting the sensitivity to deal with all types of loco or train.

 

A lesson that I learned very quickly when installing the second / top layer fiddle yard above the main one beneath was the need to paint the underside of the top deck in a very dark colour to avoid upsetting all the detectors beneath! There is still some fine tuning to be done at a small number of locations, but I have found these detectors very reliable and will be using more of them in conjunction with signals - when installed.

 

For each storage road, the Control Panel has a red "set entry" button, a track occupied LED indicator (or two for double length roads), a red "set exit" button, and finally a black "release" button; the release button over-rides the IRDOT which has caused the train to stop automatically in the correct position. This arrangement can be seen for 3 of the four fiddle yards in the picture below.

 

477881683_SJPProgress602160302.jpg.dd25510682c1792d7aa329c790dfda2f.jpg

 

At present the occupancy LED's are red, but I have found that this can be confusing with other red/green LED's used to indicate point settings elsewhere on the panel, and so when we install the final "Top" to the Panel, the occupancy LED's will be switched to blue.

 

I hope that this will be of interest - I will revert to an update on progress in my next posting.

 

Tony

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Since my last update I have been working steadily through what was needed to finish off the forecourt and approach to Churminster Station; this does not sound much, but I suspect that it has already absorbed over 25 hours work, and I am still not quite there. Jobs completed include installing painting & weathering pavements, completing fences and filling in odd cracks & joins, as well as getting the colouring of the granite sets in the roadway to a more acceptable colour. I be able to show some shots of this in the next couple of days.

 

At the same time, my good friend Mike Gascoigne who is a local artist who has kindly agreed to help me in painting the backscenes, has been completing the tricky job of decorating the areas between and behind the rows of shops and terraced houses that sit just above Churminster Station. It clearly would have been easier to paint this area before the buildings were installed - but hindsight is a great thing - and so we have, or rather Mike has, had to resort to paint sections of backscene onto card which we have then mounted and affixed to the wall at the rear.

Here is a "before" picture:

 

SJP2O4B627302160425.jpg.39ac0a89286e540671ca988ae9a59b16.jpg

 

and after (sorry, they don't exactly match!):

 

SJPAB9A2925-Pano02161108.jpg.4da7605eee02aa2b9d465f8e658331c8.jpg

 

I am really delighted with what has been achieved, as it really seems to complete the scene and bring things to life; here is a more detailed shot of one section showing the painted buildings in between & behind those along the High Street:

 

SJPAB9A292902161108.jpg.8d566ff5db6e262b37f675e433af40df.jpg

 

 

Tony

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So here now is the long promised update on progress with Churminster Station yard.

 

I have been trying to do justice to Geoff Taylor's excellent model of the station which I pictured in post #13 when it arrived, and then in post #19 once it had been set into the platform edge, however the station forecourt and the area to the right of the station, towards the loco shed had remained incomplete.This could be seen in the 3rd picture in my last post #23.

 

Whilst it is probably not "finished" I have since made enough progress for me to be happy to show what it now looks like; the first picture looks down the entrance road to the station forecourt, with the loco shed yard to the left:

 

SJPAB9A294502161117.jpg.97bd6747feb7e84881cdddab5be57b24.jpg

 

 

The second shot is taken in the same direction but from the loco shed roof!

 

SJPAB9A294302161117.jpg.991bb752f658c3c6a937c12ef11b6a98.jpg

 

 

Finally, I climbed one of the tall loco yard lighting gantries to take an aerial shot:

 

SJPAB9A294802161117.jpg.f29bf93d5b1e1bd71da8381dc9ec79b8.jpg

 

The three locos in the yard when these pictures were taken were all ex-LSWR locos:

No.472 - a Drummond D15 4-4-0 from a PDK kit

No.499 - a Urie S15 4-6-0 from a DJH kit

No.522 - a Urie H15 4-6-0, also from a DJH kit

 

All three kits were built by Chris Phillips whom I have mentioned previously.

 

In the background, and across the tracks shunting the goods yard is No.2473, an ex-LBSCR Billinton E4, RTR by OO Works.

 

Whilst these images show significant progress, there are some small areas to be completed, more signage added, and perhaps some street lights to the forecourt.

 

What the pictures also show is that there is now a further significant amount to be done to get the shed and shed yard up to the same level.....

 

Tony

 

Edited to give credit to the loco kit builder!

Edited by Tony Teague
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