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Churminster & Stowe Magna, Southern Railway


Tony Teague
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  • 2 weeks later...
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Further progress this week; following a couple of days help from Giles Walburn, the wiring loom needed for the installation of Steve Hewitt's semaphore signals is substantially complete.

 

We have run LED power, servo power and trigger wires for each signal arm from the control desk to each of the locations where signals are to be situated, however, the more complex bits will be actual installation and connection of the signals themselves, and then completing the electrical 'interlocking' at the control panel end, such that signal movements, point movements, and track isolation etc, all work in harmony!

 

Nevertheless, I am expecting to have the first semaphores installed and working within a couple more weeks, so this is real progress.

 

Giles & I then moved on to start work on CCTV installation, which has always been in the plan, so that the operator can see hidden fiddle yard locations from the control desk, but we soon hit a fairly fundamental problem!

 

SJPP605000102210605.jpg.46af51c3e2a31ff9fc93edcafff4ae70.jpg

(15ml paint tinlet included to show scale)

 

Following several recommendations from others, I had purchased the required CCTV equipment some 5 years ago via Flea-Bay, and perhaps I should have remembered my own advice to others in the past, when I have said "you get what you pay for" - because this kit was truly cr@p!  (but perhaps at £6.08 per camera I should have known better....................)

 

Aside from the little cameras not focussing properly, they also ran incredibly hot - so the idea of putting them in hidden locations under baseboards etc would just have been unacceptable!

 

As a result I have had to replace the whole lot - so if anyone wants 8 micro cameras that run red hot and will not focus, they will be most welcome to them! Perhaps they might make good smoke generators....................  (No warranties will be given!)

 

Tony

Edited by Tony Teague
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Not the most difficult kit of all time - less couplings, a small piece of plastic card and the appropriate motor bogie, this is the kit of DS75. The resin bits are now appearing from the resin casters.

DSC_0005 (2).JPG

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2 hours ago, Arun Sharma said:

Not the most difficult kit of all time - less couplings, a small piece of plastic card and the appropriate motor bogie, this is the kit of DS75. The resin bits are now appearing from the resin casters.

DSC_0005 (2).JPG

 

Agree with your assessment Arun, pretty simple to construct and so far as I am concerned a good addition to the collection and removal from the 'missing list'!

Tony

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Further progress but as usual, not in the direction originally intended!

 

SJPP609000102210609.jpg.bb7b1acc904f331c364380f646833ff6.jpg

 

The replacement CCTV kit arrived yesterday and although I have yet to install a camera, I went ahead with installation of the required screen plus the CCTV control box, so the Control Desk now looks like this:

 

SJPP609000302210609.jpg.da3462dd9e30133431dcca70689e3eb4.jpg

 

The Operating Schedule will be displayed on the lower screen, with the camera images above.

Installing the cameras will wait a while as I feel this is a two man job, but it does feel like progress!

 

Tony

Edited by Tony Teague
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9 hours ago, Jack P said:

Looks more like a command station. 

 

Which button launches the missiles?

 

I'll have to look that up in the Operations Manual :search:

 

What makes you think that I know how to work this thing? :O

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11 hours ago, Mick Bonwick said:

 

The one marked "Launch Missiles".

 

18 minutes ago, Nick C said:

No no no, it has to be the big red one marked "do not press"...

 

 

I've had a look, and we seem to have forgotten this button........

Back to the drawing board! :search:

 

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1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

Buckingham has a big red button.

 

 

So this is not a new idea!

I did think of having a button that stopped everything, but with multiple power supplies and conrollers it was left in the "too difficult" box.

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31 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

I do remember seeing a BBC documentary about the Invasion of Iraq, where the weapons officer on a Royal Navy submarine was jokingly complaining that his cruise missiles were launched by clicking a mouse, rather than hitting a big red button. 

 

Ah well I do have two of those! - but which is which....................

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1 hour ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Ah well I do have two of those! - but which is which....................


Well, if it goes bang then it must have been the wrong one!!!

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Moving away from 'big red buttons', I can report a  further addition to stock in the shape of one the new Rails / Dapol ex-SECR Wainwright Class D locos, No.1730 in what purports to be olive green livery:

 

SJPP623000202210623.jpg.c28df993cd181c4e49eb7e3e49445b58.jpg

 

I say "purports to be", because although the model looks reasonably convincing, the shade of green is way too yellow, whilst the numbers are too thick & possibly too long. Obviously I was not alive to witness a D class in olive green and so my opinion can only be subjective........:

 

SJPP623000402210623.jpg.baa162a045c9d35a1c90db06efb1bc79.jpg

 

However, whilst I have rather a lot of locos in olive green, none comes close to this colour, nor to the shape of the lettering applied. Here she is sitting next to another D class, this one from a SEF kit, built and painted for me some years ago by Chris Phillips.

 

SJPP623000602210623.jpg.ccf6ad4403d34f15a4aabbc3c69ba0f4.jpg

 

There has been a lot of comment elsewhere concerning this model, although most of it relates to the ornate SECR livery; it is hard not to be picky or make comparisons, and Rails / Dapol are to be congratulated on producing a model of what is a reasonably obscure prototype, but one wonders where their paint colouring came from.

 

My only other observations at this, straight out of the box stage are that the option of driving wheels with and without traction tyres is a nice touch, the bogie wheels on one of these two locos must be wrong, the front coupling has to go, and the plain, unpainted wire handrails look far too bright - but nothing that some heavy weathering won't disguise!

 

SJPP623001102210623.jpg.600cf08ab7c9e779b11c3807e7659846.jpg

 

On a slightly different note, regular readers may recall that I posted a picture some while back of a remote corner of the airfield at RAF Charmy Bottom, in which an early RAF Land Rover could just be seen hiding behind other assorted detritus:

 

SJPP702000202190702.jpg.9b5ed97ee5f8a380f400b3551ee183e7.jpg

 

Well, it seems that the RAF must have flown them in from another time zone because our resident Land Rover guru rapidly informed me that they were far too late for the era that I model, and so today, they (for there were several) have been loaded into the belly of a Transport Command plane and will shortly depart for another time and place.

 

(No guessing...).

 

Tony

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5 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

the bogie wheels on one of these two locos must be wrong,

 

No to sound like a know-it-all, but despite other 'things' I'm fairly sure the Dapol version is correct. Those 3'7" 10 spoke bogie wheels were pretty prominent. 

I only know because I spent all evening comparing bogie wheels for some of the projects i've got on the go.

 

Chris's model really looks the business though. The SEF kit scrubs up nicely!

 

 

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16 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

Moving away from 'big red buttons', I can report a  further addition to stock in the shape of one the new Rails / Dapol ex-SECR Wainwright Class D locos, No.1730 in what purports to be olive green livery:

 

SJPP623000202210623.jpg.4fc6d845648c4dcf14e226d42537d24e.jpg

 

I say "purports to be", because although the model looks reasonably convincing, the shade of green is way too yellow, whilst the numbers are too thick & possibly too long. Obviously I was not alive to witness a D class in olive green and so my opinion can only be subjective........:

 

SJPP623000402210623.jpg.6cca0da51e8fddb2a0e1e5ea961109a1.jpg

 

However, whilst I have rather a lot of locos in olive green, none comes close to this colour, nor to the shape of the lettering applied. Here she is sitting next to another D class, this one from a SEF kit, built and painted for me some years ago by Chris Phillips.

 

SJPP623000602210623.jpg.fe175ab216e45323e4f9c4dcff0b7069.jpg

 

There has been a lot of comment elsewhere concerning this model, although most of it relates to the ornate SECR livery; it is hard not to be picky or make comparisons, and Rails / Dapol are to be congratulated on producing a model of what is a reasonably obscure prototype, but one wonders where their paint colouring came from.

 

My only other observations at this, straight out of the box stage are that the option of driving wheels with and without traction tyres is a nice touch, the bogie wheels on one of these two locos must be wrong, the front coupling has to go, and the plain, unpainted wire handrails look far too bright - but nothing that some heavy weathering won't disguise!

 

SJPP623001102210623.jpg.6a3473ee459a5ee3b5f2e342c8a55f94.jpg

 

On a slightly different note, regular readers may recall that I posted a picture some while back of a remote corner of the airfield at RAF Charmy Bottom, in which an early RAF Land Rover could just be seen hiding behind other assorted detritus:

 

SJPP702000202190702.jpg.4f985e7f7fdde9e028f3a921b865e202.jpg

 

Well, it seems that the RAF must have flown them in from another time zone because our resident Land Rover guru rapidly informed me that they were far too late for the era that I model, and so today, they (for there were several) have been loaded into the belly of a Transport Command plane and will shortly depart for another time and place.

 

(No guessing...).

 

Tony

 

 

What a strange shade of green on the RTR model, Tony.

 

Is it supposed to be somewhere between olive and malachite? 

 

The numbers look to be the wrong proportion as well. 

 

When I attended the 'launch' of these models, at the NRM in October 2019, the gathering was informed that extensive research had been undertaken to get things right.

 

A pity, because, in all body dimensions, it looks to be perfect.

 

And, as Jack has noted, your kit-built ones bogie wheels are too small.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

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