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


young37215
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43 minutes ago, 03060 said:

Morning Rob,

 

I haven't found the Crianlarich DVD footage yet but the Mallaig Jnc Yard shots are on Train Crazy - BR Remembered 4  - ( Class 37s in Scotland part one.)

 

20 mins in at the start of the Freight section, 37 190 collects 12 full wooden bodied clay wagons (+ a tube and a pipe wagon) and heads past the camera for Corpach. Several more full clay wagons remain in one of the loops. (Very good clear early 80's footage.)

 

Regards,

Ian.

Hi Ian

 

We must having typing at the same time. I am familiar with the clip of video you refer to, its an excellent example of a Corpach trip working. My uncertainty surrounds the journey south of Fort William and consist of the trains that the OWA's were in. The only 'evidence' at this stage is the RE report of OWA's on their own which would have run as a vacum braked train.

 

There were only 3 freights in each direction north of Crianlarich each day on the WHL and I have not seen anything to suggest that the OWA's got their own exclusive train. Indeed I am confident that they were included in the scheduled services and marshalled to the back of the train hence how I model them. The PRA's appear in a number of pictures showing consists just as I think with the OWA's albeit their air brakes meant that they could be anywhere in the consist. My issue is I would like a picture to confirm my view about the OWA's.

 

Edited by young37215
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I'm still trying to scratch that itch .... but love any excuse I can find to look through my West Highland stuff.

What's really bugging me is that I have a strong feeling of 'deja vu' around us talking about this type of working with the clay wagons ..... in which it was proved that the traditional 'clayhood' type wagons (UCV minus the hood) also found their way up to Corpach.....Hmmm, I'll keep scratching !

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1 hour ago, mallaig1983 said:

Really David? It's funny that you've never mentioned that before ;-)

And Heljan have announced class 27's and Mk2 coaches in 7mm scale so two locos and six coaches. Ouch, it is going to be an expensive year! But a good one.

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18 hours ago, 03060 said:

What's really bugging me is that I have a strong feeling of 'deja vu' around us talking about this type of working with the clay wagons ..... in which it was proved that the traditional 'clayhood' type wagons (UCV minus the hood) also found their way up to Corpach.....Hmmm, I'll keep scratching !

 

Not sure that I recall seeing any of the UCV's on the WHL, I think this was discounted as likely to have taken place although there is a thread running about them somewhere which might give you a better insight.

 

Most of yesterday afternoon was spent soldering dropper wires at Mallaig. I hope to complete this today and install the point motor servos. If all goes well on the electrical front I might even get to ballasting this evening which would be good because it should dry overnight leaving me free to start painting tomorrow. Before lifting the baseboard I had a short running session, partly for fun and partly because I wanted to clear the hidden sidings that are underneath Mallaig and the surrounding areas just in case of any mishaps. 37051 took the sleeper north from Crianlarich.

 

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Electrical stuff is not a strong point for me, I am seeking guidance on wiring 12v lights which the instructions tell me require a resistor wired in series.  The picture shows what I think is required but when I attach my 12v source to the two wires the light doesn’t!

 

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

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Although I spent several hours soldering and wiring yesterday, I did not get as far as I had hoped.  I am having to use a new type of servo bracket which is taking time to get used to, fortunately there is a review of the Dingo brackets in a recent ModelRail which helped build my confidence. I also hit an obstacle with wiring up some cheap Chinese LED lamps bought which I think I can make them look reasonably like those found on the platform at Mallaig. Try as I might I could not make the lights work; I hope it is my electrical incompetence and not a problem with the LED's!  

 

By the end of the day all BUS wiring was complete and secured to the underside of the baseboard. 2 of 6 servos were installed albeit without the frog polarity microswitch wiring being checked. Today I aim to finish the servo installation so that I can test run a loco around the station to prove it all works. If all goes well then I can ballast.

 

I can still run trains although it is all a little congested with the temporary loss of 4 long storage sidings. 37085 followed the sleeper north with 7B02. Note the lady collapsed on the platform in the 3rd picture, it must have been the excitement at hearing 085 arrive!

 

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Edited by young37215
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Yesterday was a bit of a shocker, if it could go wrong it did go wrong. I managed to install the remaining 4 Dingo servos but these proved more challenging than the first one which only served to emphasise how much I miss the so simple but effective Alurailtech brackets. To finish the day off I was outbid on an Ebay auction that I really wanted to win.

 

My experience of servos is that you get a wide variance of installation even when attempting to follow a standardised process. Some just slot in to place and work first time, others require repeated tweaks to the alignment before they work as required. The crowning glory yesterday was a fault which I could not resolve, the installation worked fine when under test using the servo controller but when the network was connected up, the servo refused to work. I checked and double checked the wiring was all correct which it was, I then started looking at the connections on the control panel only to find I had not connected the switch to the network! Even more annoyingly I did not have any more cables which meant I had to remove one of the as yet unused signals and use this. Problem solved, the servo responded to the control panel and finally all was well.

 

The net result was all 6 points are now motorised but the frog polarity switching is still outstanding. Hopefully I will get this resolved today and be able to test Mallaig fully before ballasting this afternoon. After yesterday though I am not holding my breath...

 

A couple more shots of 37085 departing Crianlarich for Fort William.

 

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Morning Rob,

 

Well ...after 3 days of scratching I finally found the still image of the wooden clay wagons in transit on the WHL that I knew I had seen somewhere ! Having searched through a lot of my WHL material Ì found it in OPC's 'An illustrated History of West Country China Clay Trains' by John Vaughan !

 

Plate 184 is a 1/2 page image of (surprise, surprise) 37 021 with at least 19 wooden bodied clay wagons in tow heading North through Crianlarich on 22nd June 1981 ...obviously this is where the Train Formation mentioned in previous posts has come from, although I can definitely count 19 brake levers (18 quoted in TF) and suspect that there is at least one more around the corner.

 

I did find another image in Gerge O'Hara's 'BR Diesel Traction in Scotland' which shows a distant overview of Tom-Na-Faire depot into which half a dozen full clay wagons have found their way. On the line from Mallaig there are 6 tanks returning from Corpach which look like the ones in your Class 27 picture (ie with 'torpedo' ends) which are described as caustic soda tanks although I thought they may be for clay slurry (??)

 

Further wagon type, including individual wagon numbers, info can be found in 'Freight Train Formations' by David Ratcliffe which lists the composition of the 7M86 St. Blazey - Carlisle Speedlink service (23/9/81) which includes 17 OWV and 3 UCV wagons bound for Corpach. There's also mention of 8 OWV and 1 UCV exCorpach in a return formation.

 

I realise that you are content with what you currently have but thought this might still be of interest. I still haven't found the DVD clip (which is much as described above regarding 37 021) ....but have certainly enjoyed looking for it !!

It's high time that I started keeping a notebook for this sort of info though.

 

Regards,

Ian.

Edited by 03060
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Hi Ian

 

Excellent research, thank you for providing more clarity on the china clay subject. I stand corrected on the UCV point although they unsurprisingly appear a minority performer on the WHL. I am content that for WHL4 the 4 OWV's and 4 PRA's that I run provide representation of the Corpach destined china clay. Whilst I could justify more OWV/UCV's this comes down to space and I do not really have the space for more wagons.

 

Yesterday was another frustrating one, I soldered all of the polarity wiring quite quickly only to find that I had the 2 power supply wires the wrong way round on each bracket because of my misreading the micro switch settings. Late in the day I briefly managed to get a loco running around the station but unidentified issues meant I gave up. I am getting irritated by the problems I keep creating and might take a rest from Mallaig today to calm down.

 

In an effort to get away from the Mallaig frustrations I spent a little time adding weight to 3 TTA's.  The few derailments that I encounter usually ocur with the lightest wagons and the TTA's at 40grams are amongst the lightest that I run. I prefer to add weight where it cannot be seen but in the case of the TTA, I have glued two 5g weights on the underside of the chassis directly above the wheels. I will monitor performance and if the 25% increase in weight delivers a reduction in derailments, I will do the same to the remaining TTA's and paint the weights black to reduce their visibility.

 

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Edited by young37215
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Morning Rob,

 

Can I ask where you get the 5gsm weights from, please. A chap in the 3mm Society used to use something similar but he worked for a tyre fittìng company; it always seemed a well measured idea as opposed to just cutting strips of lead sheet.

 

Regards,

Ian.

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Hi Ian

 

Weights are from Road and Rails, the attached link takes you to what I bought

 

https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/collections/accessories/products/five-strips-of-model-railway-weights

 

I agree that it is easier than cutting lead although I have a supply of scrap lead being the offcuts of a recent job I had done on my roof. I used the lead to weight the OWV's and found it easy enough to cut to get to the 10g I wanted. The Roads and Rails weights have the benefit of a sticky pad which makes them perfect for the underside of a wagon. 

 

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At last Mallaig finally test run and ballasted. I even found what I was doing wrong with the lights and now these are working. Depending on how dry the ballast is this morning, I may be able to get a first coat of paint on the track. 

 

I celebrated by by running an engineers train!

 

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1 minute ago, young37215 said:

At last Mallaig finally test run and ballasted. I even found what I was doing wrong with the lights and now these are working. Depending on how dry the ballast is this morning, I may be able to get a first coat of paint on the track. 

 

I celebrated by by running an engineers train!

 

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And I see you are already mocking up the oil terminal with your glue bottle!

All looking great

Cheers

David

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23 hours ago, young37215 said:

Hi Ian

 

Weights are from Road and Rails, the attached link takes you to what I bought

 

https://www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/collections/accessories/products/five-strips-of-model-railway-weights

 

I agree that it is easier than cutting lead although I have a supply of scrap lead being the offcuts of a recent job I had done on my roof. I used the lead to weight the OWV's and found it easy enough to cut to get to the 10g I wanted. The Roads and Rails weights have the benefit of a sticky pad which makes them perfect for the underside of a wagon. 

 

 

 I also get mine from a local tyre fitters - I do use them regularly for various projects. The ones I have come in strips with alternating 5g and 10g weights on double sided adhesive foam. I also use a rather expensive product call Liquid Gravity by Deluxe Materials (also known as Liquid Lead by other brands) which is a fine grade shot made from some type of lead-substitute available at many craft and model shops. I find this is really good for pouring into the underside of wagons that have the chassis framework moulded in - you then just as a few drops of very thin cyanoacrylate to set it in place. Great for N gauge wagons !

 

 

 

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The glue did not fully dry overnight and as I spent the day fine tuning the ballasted area which involved more glue, it was still damp last night. I managed to add the base of the oil terminal, a simple affair made of an off cut of baseboard and Wills coarse stone as a wall. I am still pondering oil tanks, as David identified yesterday, the glue bottles are acting as a proxy in between use. Not a lot to show for several hours work but hopefully the fine tuning will pay a dividend with the finished station. 

 

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Yesterday was all about painting. A bottle of Railmatch sleeper grime was airbrushed over the track and surrounds. My intention is to add some colour variation once everything is dry and the platform walls are built up. 

 

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7 hours ago, young37215 said:

Yesterday was all about painting. A bottle of Railmatch sleeper grime was airbrushed over the track and surrounds. My intention is to add some colour variation once everything is dry and the platform walls are built up. 

 

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Rob,

 

Any particular reason why you weathered the track after ballasting? I was under the impression that ballasting was done after rail/sleeper weathering ...

 

I'm probably the only one who doesn't know, but whats' that short bit of track near the 'fuel' area?

 

Ian

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