West Highland Line V4, a 1980's West Highland Line layout

[young37215]

37012 at Ardlui continuing its journey north; I cannot imagine that many people alighted here either at 07.29 in the morning. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[lmsforever]

Interesting to see the white striped  37,s  on a dvd I have it says when management saw this they got a wee bit angry with the shed manager and he had to take the stipes off quickly. Shame i quite like this livery it is minimal and adds to the look of a 37.

[young37215]

On 04/01/2022 at 22:25, lmsforever said:

Interesting to see the white striped  37,s  on a dvd I have it says when management saw this they got a wee bit angry with the shed manager and he had to take the stipes off quickly. Shame i quite like this livery it is minimal and adds to the look of a 37.

Deviation from the corporate standard blue in the early 1980's was frowned upon, the white stripes appeared and were removed from several locos just as was the case with the initial large logo repaints. Having grown up with corporate blue I am not a fan of large logo which means that the white stripe is as much a deviation as is allowed in WHL4!

 

37012 continues her journey north seen arriving Crianlarich at 0752. Probaly not many passengers departing here either although a few will have made the fast move for the buffet before rejoining the train.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[03060]

21 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Interesting to see the white striped  37,s  on a dvd I have it says when management saw this they got a wee bit angry with the shed manager and he had to take the stipes off quickly. Shame i quite like this livery it is minimal and adds to the look of a 37.

 

There is surprisingly, when you look closely, quite a lot of change regarding liveries seen on the West Highland Lines with nothing really staying the same for more than a couple of years at a time, particularly through the 1980s and beyond.

 

Just taking the 1980s for example,you see :

 

1980/81 Blue Class 27s with black headcode boxes.

1981/82 Blue Class 37/0s with a mixture of black or yellow heacode boxes.

1983/84 almost exclusively yellow headcode boxes on all Blue Class 37/0s but some with the white body stripes and a couple of others appearing with extended wrap around ends.

1984/85 black headcode boxes take back over and several Class 37/0s appear in Large Logo livery.

1985/86 the Large Logo Class 37/4s take over with both black and yellow headcode box variants.

1987-89 Sectorisation kicks in with Railfreight triple grey and Intercity stripes appearing on some 37/4s in amongst the Large Logo ones.

1989 the Class 156s usurp the 37/4s on almost all passenger work with their Provincial blue stripes.

 

Coaches see Blue/grey, Blue/grey with Scotrail branding, Green and Cream, Intercity and Royal Scotsman/Queen of Scots  liveries. (Not forgetting the odd Sealink coach and specials.)

 

Wagon types also seem to change every few years whilst still transporting the same products ie there's at least 4 different types of wagon seen in the first 8 years transporting Alumina, a similar number for Timber and again for Aluminium.

 

I won't go into the 90s as I know Rob draws a line in the mid 80s with this thread before the advent of RETB and the loss of those lovely semaphores ...or the fact that there are no island platforms North of Corrour. But it all goes to show that there isn't really a 'typical' West Highland Layout ...but there are a heck of a lot of interesting elements to try and model !

 

I do enjoy this thread (along with a couple of other WHL threads) and am looking forward to seeing Rob's progress this year ...it's looking great so far ! 

 

Regards,

Ian.

[young37215]

Passengers refreshed and rembarked on their train, 37012 departs Crianlarich crossing the Glenbruar viaduct as it heads north

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[ISW]

On 05/01/2022 at 08:11, young37215 said:

Having grown up with corporate blue I am not a fan of large logo which means that the white stripe is as much a deviation as is allowed in WHL4!

Rob,

 

Couldn't agree more, although I do think that the Large Logo was acceptable on Class 56s, where it was original from new on some examples. Made trainspotting a lot easier though!

 

Ian

[young37215]

37012 has detatched the sleepers on arrival at Fort William and departed for Mallaig. After an extended stay in the platform to allow the passengers time to wake up and depart their Mark 1 luxury, 20085 retrieves the sleeping cars and takes them off to the depot for cleaning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[ISW]

3 hours ago, young37215 said:

37012 has detatched the sleepers on arrival at Fort William and departed for Mallaig. After an extended stay in the platform to allow the passengers time to wake up and depart their Mark 1 luxury, 20085 retrieves the sleeping cars and takes them off to the depot for cleaning.

Rob,

 

While stabled in the platform, is there any heating provided to the sleeper cars, or do they just 'cool off' as time passes by? I suppose that could be one way to ensure the patrons don't overstay in the coaches ...

 

Ian

[young37215]

On 07/01/2022 at 12:05, ISW said:

Rob,

 

While stabled in the platform, is there any heating provided to the sleeper cars, or do they just 'cool off' as time passes by? I suppose that could be one way to ensure the patrons don't overstay in the coaches ...

 

Ian

 

Interesting question Ian. Short answer is I have no idea and wonder if British Rail paid any attention to its sleeper passenger comfort post arrival. The picture below of a steam heating van at Fort William from 1981 suggests that the SCR did but I have never seen pictures with this attached to rolling stock. There is a thread entitled 'steam heating van 1980s' which is where I found the picture but it does not provide any greater detail. A quick Google search returns a piece by RCTS which indicates there were several SCR steam heating vans but it does not expand on their usage. When I have a few spare minutes I will delve further as I quite like the thought of one of these.

 

 

.Elsewhere and with Doug's assistance I managed to lift Mallaig onto the work bench for an upgrade after we had a short running session. Whilst I can still run trains without Mallaig, I hope that with a few days focusing on Mallaig I will be able complete the upgrade and return it to the layout to get back to normal operations. No need to panic yet as I have a few remaining pictures to use up; 37108 is seen on arrival at Crianlarich with 8D10, the 0707 Mallaig Junction Yard to Mossend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[mallaig1983]

A very interesting bit of information there Rob and thank you for sharing what you’ve learned and for posting the photograph. Could be a nice little project on the workbench but at first glance I have no idea what the van started life as.

 

Im really looking forward to seeing the completed Mallaig.

 

Happy modelling.

[thegreenhowards]

Rob,

 

I agree about large logo blue. I still remember the excitement when it came out and while everyone else was raving I was thinking, that’s a bit ‘in your face’. I loved the Scottie dog and liked the white line as I thought it added variety and broke up the large blue body side in a reasonably subtle way. 
 

I sort of grew used to large logo though and it feels right on 37/4s and things like 56s as ‘ISW’ says.

 

Andy

[young37215]

37108 draws to a halt at Crianlarich where it waits to cross 1B10 headed by 37085 during Thursday's running. 

 

I managed a few hours of work on Mallaig yesterday although it was hard to see much tangible progress; hopefully this will start to show in the next few days. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[BoD]

23 hours ago, mallaig1983 said:

A very interesting bit of information there Rob and thank you for sharing what you’ve learned and for posting the photograph. Could be a nice little project on the workbench but at first glance I have no idea what the van started life as.

 

Im really looking forward to seeing the completed Mallaig.

 

Happy modelling.

It looks as though it may have started out as an early (1926?) LMS tourist open or brake third. There is a similar one on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

 

https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/lmsdepartmentalcoach/h6DC2789#h6dc2789

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by BoD
To include link

[BoD]

Rob, your  photos continue to capture the ethos of the WHL perfectly.

They are an inspiration, thank you for providing a ‘daily fix’.

[young37215]

21 hours ago, BoD said:

Rob, your  photos continue to capture the ethos of the WHL perfectly.

They are an inspiration, thank you for providing a ‘daily fix’.

 

WHL4 and the 'daily fix' of my RMWeb diary has been something of a life saver for me over the past 18 months of lockdown and isolation. I am lucky that I am warm and safe but the restrictions on what was normal daily life during the cold and damp winter months are challenging. Looking for the positives, the construction of WHL4 is much further advanced than it would have been in more normal times.

 

With Mallaig finally on the workbench I started on the work. First action was to add a 100mm piece of baseboard at the town end of the station which will allow the usual 4 coach train plus loco to fit behind the signal.  Track was glued in place, ballasted and the platform was extended creating something of a challenge, some might say opportunity, because I now have space to build about 75% of the station building. The challenge is that this will have to be scratch built which is not something I have done before. I have a copy of BR's plan from the 1970's when an extension was added to the original building which will help in getting the perspective but it will be major activity to create something that looks the part. 

 

Baseboard extension

 

 

 

Track ballasted and the platform wall extended to fit.

 

 

An additional piece of plasticard to form the extended platform was cut and painted.

 

 

 

Mallaig station building in 1988, I can fit about 75% of the building into the space I have available. The picture also shows a derelict building on the right which I may attempt to model in low relief 

 

 

[young37215]

The station at Mallaig was built with a canopy running down the platform which was removed in the late 1970's. Around the same time a single story L shaped extension on the platform side of the station building was added. Fortunately I managed to find some old BR plans/drawings of the extension which allows me to construct my building to the scale proportions of the original. The challenge I face is finding pictures to use as reference material; fortunately Flickr is an excellent source of pictures and a way to spend far too much time surfing!.   

 

I started by making two simple plasticard walls to form the basis for the single story external walls of the extension.

 

 

 

 

I clad these with Slaters dressed stone (Slaters 424) and cut out the windows and doors to the platform frontage. I painted the glazed areas on the plasticard matt black and added a layer of clear plastic to create the appearance of windows which were then divided up to match the real thing. 

 

 

 

Only once I had done this I found a picture which showed that the rear half of the side wall is original build where the stone is different and for which I will use Wills coarse stone (SSMP 200). Never mind, it should not be too challenging to add a layer of the coarse stone on top of the dressed stone to create the impression seen in the 2016 picture below. In the absence of any coarse stone I started in preparing to add the extension roof for which I will use Wills slate roofing tiles (SSMP203). In the course of measuring up I discovered that the extension has both a 45' pitched roof on the outside and an internal flat roof in the middle. This flumoxed me and I decided to stop work for the day to allow time to digest what I had learnt about the roof and ponder how I might create it.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[mallaig1983]

A good start Rob. Obviously I have to tackle this myself soon but as a scratch build beginner I’m somewhat daunted and am honing my skills (hopefully) on more simpler buildings to gain confidence for now. For obvious reasons I’m closely following your work. Good luck with it and as with everything on the layout I’m sure you’ll make a fine job of it.

[young37215]

A lack of materials means no more progress with the station building until my order arrives. I did manage to find additional pictures that show the area of building that I am looking to construct; a 1982 arrival of 37191 is the best I have found so far. In terms of the roof on the extension I think I have a solution but need more plasticard to test my plan.    

 

 

Another picture of the same train taken from outside the station provides detail for the buffer stop and the side of the station building. 

 

 

 

I made a start on the hidden sidings that will sit underneath Mallaig. These provide storage for rolling stock not in regular use such as the Mk3 push pull set and the weedkilling train. The curve on the middle siding is to avoid the servo motor bracket on the underside of Mallaig. The siding on the extreme left and the run round headshunt next to it are accessed from the Oban area of the main fiddle yard which will be easier to operate if motorised hence my lifting of the points to drill holes to allow for motors to be installed.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[meanach]

As I have unfortunately succumbed to the plague , I spent a good hour or so in bed catching up with your layout . Wow , Ardlui is looking great . It was baron the last time I saw it . 

[young37215]

A few days away from home, the first time in over 2 years, in our caravan was a pleasant break. On return the postman had delivered the materials I need to continue with Mallaig station building. It is a good job that I over ordered; my technical drawing skills were never great and they have not been used in many a year which was evident from some of the mistakes made in attempting to design a low relief construction. 

 

It was a relatively simple job to create the 2 original building walls although I have not yet determined their height because the second floor window should be just above the level of the extension roof which is not yet complete. Indeed the extension roof has proved challenging and if I had a swear box the contents would fund a considerable amount of future building work. I wanted the roof to the front of the platform from one sheet of 135mm wide Wills roof slate which is why the  plasticard frame was built 135mm wide. Annoyingly I failed to consider the clading which puts another 4mm on the width of the frame; net result is the Wills sheet is not wide enough. It may be possible to hide the gap under ridge tiles but I have a suspicion that I will have to cut the framework back to allow the tiled sheet to fit neatly.  

 

Outline main building walls, note the amount of internal bracing that will have to come out if I want to reduce the extension by 4mm

 

 

Wills slate sheet is cut and placed loosely it looks OK but it does not fit the gap

 

 

Main building window opening created and walls positioned approximately where they will go

 

 

The extension wing wall slate roof fits neatly overhanging the wall as it should. If only the same could be said for the front roof.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[BoD]

Have you seen this post, Rob?

 

Whilst it might not be totally applicable it could help you get some of the measurements and angles correct.  You would also have to work out some measurements by counting bricks/slates in photographs or taking relative measurements on screen and comparing to known heights, say people.  
 

Forgive me if you already know how to do this.

 

[young37215]

On 16/01/2022 at 18:35, BoD said:

Have you seen this post, Rob?

 

Whilst it might not be totally applicable it could help you get some of the measurements and angles correct.  You would also have to work out some measurements by counting bricks/slates in photographs or taking relative measurements on screen and comparing to known heights, say people.  
 

Forgive me if you already know how to do this.

 

 

Interesting thread which would have been a lot more use a week ago!

 

Last night was not quite a sleepless night but not far removed as the stress of what to do played on my mind. As with many things psychological, a low relief model station building for Mallaig is not a big deal but it felt like it was to me. To put this in context I chose to wash the car and caravan today rather than confront the building. I am also posting in the evening rather than early morning as is my usual practice so that I can draw a line under this part of the activity. 

 

Early this evening I decided to face up and returned to the challenge. I picked up the building which proved providential because the glazing and brick facade to the front of the extension building fell off of the plasticard base. My apparent poor work with the gluing gave me the direction I was seeking, a few minutes later I had seperated the front of the building from one of the side walls and trimmed 5mm off of the width. Whilst the side wall was free to work on I added full height windows to the front and fitted an additional piece of coarse stone to the rear which represents part of the original building (the Gents to be precise). Putting it back together was another straightforward task and after less than an hours work I had something I feel much happier with. I even found time to make a start on the main building roof which looks like being an easier task than that of the extension. Satisfied with my efforts I left the building to allow for the glue to harden off. Hopefully I will get a better nights sleep tonight but I might just open a bottle of Shiraz to ensure that I do. 

 

Poor gluing, wrong sort of glue?

 

 

5mm trimings

 

 

The extension building looks better with a roof that fits

 

 

 

Although the main building is not quite at the right height, with a temporary roof it all looks like it might turn out better than I thought

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215

[mallaig1983]

That’s looking really nice Rob. I think sometimes it’s a good idea to walk away when things don’t go to plan and then when you go back to it it all falls into place. I’m glad that was the case for you this evening. 
I’m currently attacking (part of) the housing estate and I seem to be walking away more than I’m actually modelling. So rewarding when tings do go well though.

Nice job 

[BoD]

Looks like you are well on the way to cracking it.

[young37215]

This scratch building lark is time consuming, I am glad that I dont have any more plans for similar buildings. I spent several hours yesterday on the building but have little to show for it. Having re-fitted the internal bracing, I added the extension flat roof to the front using plasticard sheet painted with Railmatch worn tarmac. This enabled me to measure accurately the required height of the window in the original building. Having worked this out I extended the original building height to fit and started on the hipped roof. Being in low relief this is taking some time to measure accurately and I have yet to determine how to support the roof, the result being that I made slow progress. In between whilst waiting for glue to harden off, I ballasted the station throat area. This still needs scenery adding and the newly ballasted areas require blending in to the existing. 

 

extension flat roof added

 

 

Original building walls built up and braced. 

 

 

Front part of main roof cut to fit

 

 

When viewed from a distance the building in situ is begining to resemble the real thing although there is still plenty of construction to do and detailing required. 

 

 

Station throat ballasted

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by young37215