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Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1


Nearholmer
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23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

OK, so my good lady has gone to a long hospital appointment, and accidentally locked me out of the house, in the layout/utility room, where I was loading the tumble-drier.

 

This is is not all bad, ...

 

Hmmm... I wonder how I can get my SWMBO to accidently lock me in the loft?? :yes: :good: :jester:

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Hope you’re back in the house and your wife is alright. Thinking this through, really you need a nice compact layout which is adaptable. You could get it to fit on a 4’ board if you didn’t have a crossover for the run round but instead have a traverser - forget points, nasty expensive things taking space up. Then a platform line, a runround / goods line, and a short siding to take a few of your lithographed wagons, the three disappearing under an overbridge into a small fiddle yard. Then simple plug in buildings, station, signalbox, warehouse, and a painted backscene. Then swap round, the water meadows of the River Alne for your GWR birdcage, The lower reaches of the Thames with Victorian warehouses and lighters to go with a buckjumper, the Midland Hotel and Hemel Hempstead Town with ? 4-4-4T? That Hammersmith place for the LSWR stuff? Do I know of such a layout?? (Inclines head modestly to hide a shy smile)

E4240F3C-A20B-49C3-AAC8-CB0D252D3469.jpeg.99506f3f6cf08716e73cbdb14e3d5275.jpeg484F08B7-3DE8-42F1-956B-E3943DF55087.jpeg.11043b4d9c204414850951462b7c78bc.jpeg

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Northroader,

 

My wife returned after about two hours, with the OK to move onto the next phase of her treatment.

 

As has been said many times, and very deservedly, your layout is beautiful, but I don't think a "Rice-esque" treatment is the way to go for an old-fashioned-inspired layout, because it hadn't been invented by the early-1950s (unlike, possibly, your controller -_-).

 

Whatever I eventually build has to look, at first glance, as if it might have been built at some time c1935-55, which seems to mean an entire station track-layout squashed, rather than part of one to scale, although I have noticed that Greenly included some sidings that didn't connect to the main running lines on one of his shop-window layouts, presumably to show wagons off.

 

That having been said, interchangeable buildings would, I think, be admissable, although at the speed I go completing one lot would be a triumph, and I have been reading-up about the run-around traversers at Birmingham Moor Street station. I didn't know what a modern and high-tech complex Moor Street was when first built, and I now realise that the Birmingham area contained a lot of very interesting urban stations ....... plenty of people make models of London grot, so I wonder why so few decide to represent Birmingham grot? maybe I should make a station called "Hull Street", in tribute to W H Hull.

 

If you recall, it took about a thousand iterations of indecision to get to a final design for Paltry Circus, but when the right one popped into my head, I instantly knew that it was the right one. That moment will occur with this new one; it just hasn't occurred yet.

 

 

 

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Must admit that Iain Rice did good work, have to be diplomatic here, but the stuff that turns me on was happening before he came along. Certainly with buildings you can create a pre WW2 look if you get a simple structure and wrap printed paper round it, if you can handle the technology (my computer and printer have beeen upgraded and in the process I’ve lost the capability!) so with different track and stock it would be doable, just as a means of having a quickie layout that would go in the back of a car for an afternoon with your accomplices.

The GWR in Birmingham is fascinating, and the Warwickshire Railways site a marvellous resource. Moor Street and Snow Hill benefited from a rebuild in ‘modern’ times when electric powered traversers and sector tables (downside bay at Snow Hill) were available.

oh well, continue the searching, it will happen.

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I reckon people don't really appreciate/model the Birmingham area because of that awful, dreary, boring-sounding Brummie accent. It's bad enough to make the description of even the most fascinating & innovative things sound as dull as the ditchwater that fills the local canals...

:mosking: :D

 

@Northroader; I love the look of that small station layout! :good:

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One big problem with small layouts is the need for a run-round and the points and neck required therefore. Certainly the space taken up by these are massive on a small layout, really restricting the look.

 

One way of getting round this is to have a pilot, but that is just silly for a branch (although there was a line on the Caley (which of course I can't remember the name of!) where there was no run round and two locos were required...theres a prototype for everything if you look hard enough!) so maybe moving the run round to the yard, which is in front of the fiddleyard (are you having a fiddleyard on this bit?), which means that the train comes in and does station duties, then sets back into the yard. When in the yard you can then run round. The yard doesn't need to be huge, maybe a siding behind the platform, and a crossover at the end of the run round, which allows a siding adjacent to the neck.

 

Andy G

 

Edit: I've spent the last hour trying to find the thread that has the trackplan in it unsuccessfully. I can't think of the title, but it had pages worth of replies, and lots of trackplans from the old days.... I think I bookmarked it, but the new software makes it almost impossible to find stuff in that list, as it just doesn't want to list it all.... grrr.

And then I was unfollowed from this thread as well.....

 

Andy  

Edited by uax6
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Yes, pilots or ‘turnover engines’ are a fine solution, and one that looks well for an urban terminus - we run Paltry Circus like that when there are two of us, and in  the mood to play rush-hours. Ian Futers uses that way of creating tiny termini, and his always look attractive.

 

To me, it makes sense to be able to run-around off-peak, though, which is a point I always make in the many Minories threads.

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Thanks for your link to the Melyn Valley Line, Kevin, I was just catching up on the web after breakfast time and had a quick peek, decided to settle down after tea and take it all in, I liked what I saw, both the line and the visits he pads it out with. Its funny how you can bumble round the web for years and miss really good threads. For me Sunday is the best day of the week for modelling chances, so once lunch settles I’ll be off and try some more.

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I’m going to get a terrible reputation as a naysayer to all these very constructive suggestions, but ......... there is a challenge with a ‘piano’ in 0, in that if one attempts to get all the pointwork on one board, said board becomes too long for sensible portability, and it can’t easily be done on two boards, because the point entering from the FY to the loop has to fall on the join, in order to make the geometry work. I spent a good while mocking it out full-size, as well as drawing it multiple times, to check. 

 

It’s a brilliant design that loses its USP (super-portability on one board) when taken to 0 SG.

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My trains won’t run on those points, because mine have coarse-standard wheels, but the points I use are almost exactly the same radius.

 

Piano has very carefully worked-out lengths of FY etc, and it is possible to get all the points on one board of reasonable length in 0, and use two point-free end boards, but only by keeping the train length even shorter than I can live with.

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33 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 ......... there is a challenge with a ‘piano’ in 0, in that if one attempts to get all the pointwork on one board, said board becomes too long for sensible portability, 

 

If that were true, a piano would be too long for sensible portability ....

Piano Movers, 01.jpg

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To make this slightly fairer, some rules:

 

- two boards, each 1120x420;

 

- entry must be 145 from rear edge, to match other things;

 

- we have one LH turnout, and three RH turnouts, each being 300 long, 18 degrees;

 

- we have one Y turnout, which is 215 long, 12 degrees on each leg;

 

- track centres are set at 93 as standard when using two points to make an ordinary crossover;

 

- we must be able to run around a train 800 long, and the minimum loco release allowed is 250, and there must be one at both ends (no running round via the FY).

 

Each entry should be accompanied by a wad of used fivers to cover expenses.

 

Of course, a baby grand might we do for 0 scale.

 

 

FF2BE4C8-8644-4523-BAE1-953B94C355A1.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
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A couple of calming hours spent working on the old crocks.

 

The Hornby No.2 4-4-0 is now dismantled ready for clean-up, probably repainting, then fitting a new electric mechanism, which is now to hand.

 

The Bing KGV has been test-reassembled. The tender arrived like this, and the loco is a combination of parts from two wrecks, one without mechanism. The mechanism is the one I boil-washed ages ago, and runs very well. A few fiddly bits to do, and the big question is: how much, if any, paint? 

 

Incidentally, the contrast between the Bing pre-WW1 design (immediately post-WW1 manufacture), built like a battleship, and made from very many parts that take ages to assemble, and the Hornby, which is lighter (still hardcore by modern standards) and has many fewer parts, is great. You can see how Hornby ‘value engineered’ their product.

EC317E93-518A-432A-AA94-AAA1FCDD6EA5.jpeg

D3E10E60-6CB7-4B8F-B66A-6EB29648F5BA.jpeg

Edited by Nearholmer
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