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

[young37215]

Ever onwards with the scenic work at Arrochar which occupied most of yesterday. By the end of the day I had laid so much scenic material that I ran out of coarse turf, the upside is I now have scenic material covering two thirds of the area. Only the central section remains largely untouched where I want to make some minor changes to the landscape before adding material. More scenic material was added at the southern end of Arrochar and the lane leading up from the car park was painted. The wing walls to the undepass were fixed in place.

 

Lower level looking north 

 

 

Upper level looking north

 

 

Arrochar headshunt

 

 

 

[young37215]

I have ordered more supplies of coarse turf which should have arrived by the time we return home from a short break. Before leaving I managed to prepare the smaller lochan in anticipation of trialing epoxy resin as water. Having read that epoxy resin is good at escaping I have attempted to make the lochan a securely sealed environment. As a base layer on the polystyrene landscape is cling film on top of which I laid more plaster cloth and painted it using several coats of Woodland Scenics water undercoat of differing colours. I hope that the colour scheme will create the murky water effect that I seek, by the time we are back home the paint should be dry and ready to receive the epoxy. 

 

Cling film and extra plaster cloth added

 

 

First coat of Woodland Scenics yellow silt applied.

 

 

After several coats of Yellow Silt, Hunter Green undercoat was added liberally to the base of the lochan. 

 

 

 

Edited March 23 by young37215

[young37215]

I have renumbered 1 of my 2 Accurascale 37027's to 37022. This involved the removal of the old number and name, a change of buffers from oval to round ones and the painting over of the red bufferbeam. Nothing too taxing although the removal of the old nameplate shows up which I hope will be cured by a pass with the airbrush filled with matt varnish. In addition I added the loco crew at both ends and fitted the Accurascale snow plough for use with tension locks which I shall trial for a while to see how they function. Finally I changed the 4 Ohm Accurathrash speaker for an 8 Ohm one courtesy of Accurascale which makes me feel happier that my loco is now compliant with ESU's 4 Ohm minimum for a Loksound chip.

 

Transfers removed 

 

 

Crew fitted

 

 

Bufferbeam repainted

 

 

The finished loco

 

 

Accurascale snow plough

 

[BoD]

Hi Rob.  That is a neat renumbering job.

 

When you say that the speaker was ‘courtesy of Accurascale’ do you mean they provided a free replacement to correct the impedance or did you have to buy it?  Is it just a case of snapping the new one in place and plugging it in?  

[thegreenhowards]

I like the snowplough idea. I’ll be interested to hear whether it works.

[young37215]

Having created a new version of 37022 for WHL4, the old version need a different guise. Bought professionally weathered some years ago from Grimy Times as 37085, renumbered by them from the original 37049, I renumbered this to 37022 because it had the incorrect cantrail grill arrangement for 37085. A further renumbering to 37037 was straightforward although the round buffers at number 2 end need changing to oval ones. The original model of 37049 has round buffers which need pulling out which I find usually destroys the sheath of the buffer. The Accurascale buffers removed from the new 37022 would have been an obvious replacement but these do not fit the Bachmann loco; fortunately I have a few sets of Hornby class 50 buffers which do a nice job on the Bachmann 37. 

 

The new numbers will be weathered and sealed at some stage to finish the loco off. WHL4 now has a version of all of the main steam heat, split box 37's that worked the WHL in the early 1980's. What I really want now is a manufacturer to produce a BR blue liveried centre headcode, RSH built version with the correct cantrail grill arrangement so that I can recreate the handful of ex South Wales steam heat 37's in the 3718x to 3719x range. 

 

The old 37022, perhaps I should call this 37022 before works visit

 

 

Buffers removed

 

 

Hornby class 50 oval buffers fitted and loco renumbered

 

 

[young37215]

37027 and 2B13, 08.45 Fort William to Mallaig, begin the climb up to the mountaineous section summit with 37027 wearing its new snow ploughs. I am not certain about these but given the tension lock coupling, they are the best solution I have seen to date. To be truly authentic most of the WHL4 37's should be snow plough fitted but this is something I have not found a solution to. I have a number of Bachmann snow ploughs and am wondering if I can create a similar fixing to attach these to a loco bufferbeam.

 

 

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

Rob,

 

I believe that the central section of the snow ploughs was removed in summer (or supposed to be!). Would that make it more practical with tension locks?

 

Andy

[BoD]

Have you given up on the idea of replacing the tension locks with a wire loop?

[Alcanman]

1 hour ago, thegreenhowards said:

Rob,

 

I believe that the central section of the snow ploughs was removed in summer (or supposed to be!). Would that make it more practical with tension locks?

 

Andy

Looks like you're correct. Here is 37027 arriving at Crianlarich and the central section of the snowplough appears to have been removed.

Edited April 5 by Alcanman

[young37215]

21 hours ago, BoD said:

Have you given up on the idea of replacing the tension locks with a wire loop?

 

No but I am some way away from undertaking the work and I remain uncertain about the optimal way of fitting wire loops.

 

23 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Rob,

 

I believe that the central section of the snow ploughs was removed in summer (or supposed to be!). Would that make it more practical with tension locks?

 

Andy

 

I agree, my understanding it was a mandatory thing required by the authorities to make coupling and uncoupling easier. I recently acquired a Scottish Region Sectional Appendix for 1977 which I am working through, it will be interesting to see if the snow plough removal requirement is in here. 

 

Accurascale provide 2 styles of snow plough, the second one is in 3 parts where it may be possible to fit the outer ploughs and retain the tension lock. I'll have a look at this set up on 37027 because it would free up a set of ploughs which might work on a Bachmann loco. Although 37027 only wore the white stripe for a few months, it was photographed both with and without the centre section of the plough.

 

 

 

 

[Matt]

I found that the three separate piece ploughs couldn’t be used with NEM couplings even without the centre section - just not enough space for the NEM to move unless you have get shallow curves.

 

I found the clip on alternative worked well but required some of the pipes trimming to avoid fouling in the plough as it moves with the coupling.  But I’d mounted slightly different to how appears in your photos I think… my plough clips onto the NEM coupling shaft just forward of the NEM socket rather than onto NEM socket directly which is what it looks like you’ve done. This brings plough slightly forward and gives it quite a positive mounting and gets angle more right I think.

 

Have used exactly same setup on my new Bach 37s using leftovers from my AS’s…

[young37215]

Some wonderful scenery in the video below which is filmed in a much higher resolution than was available back in the 1980's. I find video like this fascinating and very helpful in planning how I attempt to model the WHL. 

 

 

 

[meanach]

The first time (I think ) since 1988 that you could record 2 lots of tractors passing on the extension ! It’s uncertain at this stage if the west coast rake had any passengers but it ran as a class 2 headcode , which is odd if it was actually a class 5. I also know somebody who claims a few individuals were on board !
 

A huge shame LSL didn’t advertise their working more than 4 days in advance . I for one would have been straight up there. There aren’t many who could drop everything at such short notice and position themselves for it. 

[thegreenhowards]

Great video. What’s the latest on whether this is going to work this summer?

 

Andy