Dockside - Small(ish) shunting layout

[The Johnster]

Those Bachmann sections look the part.  What are they made of, resin?  I found a junior hacksaw will deal with this, but it makes a lot of dust so you want to be doing somewhere well ventilated and easy to clean up afterwards; keep it away from the layout because the dust'll get everywhere and you don't want it in your drive trains...   You will be unable to get a perfect join unless you are a sawing genius, and can fill in the gaps with Milliput or something like that, scribing in the stonework to match the sections either side and painting over the join to blend it in.

 

If your crane is to slew (crane people word for turn) you need to make sure that it cannot slew over the main line or the Board of Trade will want to know what you're doing to prevent it.  The other crane people words are 'winch', which means wind in or let out the cable raising or lowering the hook, and 'luff' which means make the jib go up or down.

[Tomr91]

I use Kadee couplings and you can use permanent magnets under the track.  But when I tried using them to uncouple wagons, the magnet pulled the wheels/axels of the uncoupled wagon towards it.  I then decided to use the Kadee electromagnetic uncouplers instead and these work fine - not as cheap though!.

 

 

Simon

 

Thanks for that Simon, could become a bit pricey as I'd need at least 3 for the layout to be effective. I'll do a bit of research and see what can be done. 

 

 

The wharf was made from  couple of layers of foam wall insulation salvaged from our builder's leftovers, when we had a loft conversion - not for model railway use unfortunately. As that section of the wharf is pretty straight I carved the foam with a multitool half-round saw blade. It could be done with any fairly fine hand saw. I then stuck a length of scrap laminate floor plank to the sloping surface with a hot glue gun - a rapid zig-zag of glue - with the plank pushed rapidly against the foam. To this I stuck an assortment of timber planks - mainly lolly-sticks from craft store - The Works I think. I cut the rounded ends off with a pair of sidecutters - sawing would have taken for ever. I staggered the planks so some joins were visible, but most I tried to get behind the uprights. I gave these timbers a brush over with a thin mix of filler, black acrylic paint and PVA, to give a rather more rough surface than the lolly sticks had - brushing along the planks, keeping the basic outline of the planks visible.

The uprights were more difficult to source as they needed to be about 5mm square. I live near Newhaven harbour and went and looked at the timbers around the quays there. They seemed to be about 15"-18" square. I had some used rocket sticks squirrelled away that worked for some of them. I then ran a circular saw down a bit of 3x4 and took off some 5mm strips, which I then sliced with a Stanley knife. The bottom of the wall had a curious quarter round structure all along the timber wharf. This was a handy bit of quadrant moulding from the garage stockpile. The uprights were kept fairly neat, sitting on top of this structure, with their angled supports leaning into them from in front of it. I put in a couple of step ladders between uprights where I had narrowed the spacing. Being a miserly person, I had cut up a redundant wire mesh bird feeder into one square-wide strips and then, after tidying the cut ends, glued two lengths face to face, staggered so that the steps were half a square apart. Nothing I do is finescale!

The top of the wall was capped with a suitable length of timber, which was rounded slightly on the top edges and then scored with a razor saw blade, to look like the heavy beams that take all the rubbing of the mooring lines, gangways etc.

Another coat of paint - white emulsion with cheap black emulsion and a bit of brown thrown in to vary it. I was trying to emulate the bleached raw timber I see at Newhaven. A certain amount of dry brushing, with lighter mixes helped to add character to the timberwork. Along the bottom, with some ad hoc masking, I used a very fine coating of rattle can green to represent the algae that wood below the waterline acquires. The rusty metal strapping was some orange craft card, nicked from the grandchildren's stock - well I bought it! It was sprayed with matt black paint and, when dry cut into the tapered strips and sanded with a coarse sandpaper to reveal random orange patches. The rings for the mooring lines were just two links of a charity shop necklace chain, with one fitted into a thick card square with a hole punched through it. These were used, I think, so that the ships crew could adjust the lines as the Bristol Channel tides went up and down by considerable amounts. Wrapping the ropes around bollards would have made it a more cumbersome task.

I hope this rather long-winded description is helpful. I shall watch your progress with interest. If you need to know about anything else, let me know.

 

 

 

Thank you very much for that Phil, very helpful indeed, it's incredibly effective. I'm on the hunt for some lolly sticks already. I shall be updating as I go, thank you for your help thus far,

[Tomr91]

 

Have recently bought one of these to go into my dockside section. I'm planning on having it turn using a servo motor controlled through a MERG board - basically a spare channel on one of the points control boards. The crane will live here, straddling the tracks but won't be mounted on rails - in fact I may cut the legs down a bit.

 

 

Am finding it a right pig mitreing these Bachmann dockside sections - didn't realise they were made from such hard material! They're obviously designed only to be used at right angles.

 

They wall look really good! The crane went together very easily (I haven't painting, or put the chain on yet however). Will you be mounting the servo inside the hit itself? 

[hockeyshooter]

 They wall look really good!

 

They do - but then they cost a fortune!

 

Will you be mounting the servo inside the hit itself? 

 

That's the plan, yes. There will be a light inside too.

Edited July 22, 2017 by hockeyshooter

[Tomr91]

Some small updates from the weekend, but a major leap - I have settled on the layout. 

I've made some small tweaks from the plan, due to there being some anomalies in the angle of the points (I used Empire Express to design it), but I'm happy with the final layout, I even plugged in an old Hornby control and had a bit of a play - I mean did some very important research! 

 

So here it is properly mocked up in track (minus one part I'm yet to fit).

 

 

All the shuts and sidings are the correct size, I can easily fit 5 wagons into the main siding, and 8 between the two at the top of the layout (well bottom left on the photo) and 4 at a push in the loop. The 2 loco sidings are being made big enough for 2 loco's, for those times when the timetables go out of the window and too many consignments turn up together. 

 

I am also going to create an abandoned line to the side of the dock, and I've already made a couple of eBay purchases today to make a start with that. This week however will be creating the baseboard and backdrops.

After some research, I am going to attempt to make the crane move along the tracks, I'm confident it will work, and I will document it as I go.

 

So time to rip it all up, and get everything prepared properly, ready for it to go back down again. 

[The Johnster]

Looking good, Tom.  Docks tended to be beyond the world of timetables, as the traffic depended on irregular shipping and regular, but not clock friendly, tides, so sudden rushes of traffic requiring more locos or wagons are entirely justifiable

[JST]

Yes I'm a big fan of the mk2 plan, just having the quayside run straight onto the 'mainline' makes things flow much better.

Good suggestions on the boats, I've still not really decided on what industry is going on here, I do like the dredger idea though, plenty of modelling scope then. 

 

It was my intention to run the dockside line off the scene, the board will have a backboard, and what I might attempt is a 1 and a half open viewing side, rather than just the long side, so the backboard on the right edge ends at the inset track section - This will give some nice interesting viewing angles, especially if I can get the crane moving! (stopping it falling off the edge could be entertaining).

 

As for the bottom left, something going off scene interests me, I'm not too fussed about it being part of the layout, If I do something there, it will be something derelict definitely.

 

 

 

 

That's superb Phil! That Steamship crane is amazing. How have you made he wooden dock wall if you don't mind me asking?

 

 

In other progress, I couldn't resist making the crane when it turned up earlier! Roof is loose still, as I still want to light the interior if it moves or not, so that needs furnishing and painting properly!

I also printed out a 1:1 plan of mk2 with an additional siding, which if I go with the crane, can't be there as there isn't enough room, or it has to move over slightly, we shall see when I lay some loose track tomorrow. 

 

IMG_2899.JPG

 

I may have missed something so Ignore me if I have, but that crane kit looks identical to an Airfix one I built about 55 years ago! Did Dapol buy the rights or something?

Edited July 25, 2017 by JST

[Tomr91]

I amy have missed something so Ignore me if I have, but that crane kit looks identical to an Airfix one I built about 55 years ago! Did Dapol buy the rights or something?

 

 

Yes, same kit. I think Kitmaster acquired the moulds from Airfix, and then Dapol purchased the rights to use them and their name - I think, happy to be proven wrong.

[The Johnster]

Not sure that's right, not that it matters much really.  IIRC (not claiming for certain that I do, mind, it was a long time ago and I was quite young), Rosebud Kitmaster went under around 1962ish and some of their moulds were bought by Airfix, including the Schools, BoB, Cot, Large Prairie; all the loco models later produced as kits by Airfix except the 04 diesel shunter and the Park Royal Railbus.  These were developed by Airfix alongside a range of '00/H0' lineside builidings and accessories they'd introduced off their own bat as plastic construction kits, and which was then expanded with more railway goods vehicles and lineside kits.  I cannot now recall if the 'Dockside Crane' (in reality more a dockyard crane and not powerful enough for rapid cargo handling) was pre- or post the Kitmaster moulds purchase, but I do not recall that particular kit being one of the ex-Kitmaster ones and AFAIK it was always and originally an Airfix product.  

 

Move forward into the 21st century and the Airfix range of railway construction kits is still going strong, marketed by Dapol, and recently, Airfix owning the rights to the Kitmaster name and logo and Dapol owning the rights to Airfix, Dapol have begun to market the range under the Kitmaster banner; nice to see it back after well over half a century!  The 'Dockside Crane' has been in production more or less continually for a similar amount of time, and is still a good little model. basic by modern standards but it makes up well into a satisfying crane and most owners are happy with it, especially as it is still as cheap as chips (think I paid 3/6d for my first one, 17 and half pence in modern!).  It can be made, even by a 12 year old (I did it) into a crane which will winch, luff, and slew, a delight to build and a standard feature of railway modelling for a very long time.  It can be adapted to make all sorts of things, and my only reservation about it is the relative crudity of it's corrugated roof!

 

The original Rosebud Kitmaster range was only sold from 1959 to 1962, and consisted mostly of locomotives, not all of which are available now as the moulds were not bought by Airfix and have not survived.  These included a Swiss Crocodile, Rebuilt Royal Scot, LMS Beyer-Garratt, Stirling No.1 Single and the only scale length LMS Coronation Pacifc available in 00 at the time.  You could 'motorise' these with the aid of an rtr vanfit or a mk1 power bogie; a range of mk1 stock covering BSK, CK, SK, and RO (no actual kitchen car in which food could be produced) were available in maroon or malachite green, but did not feature lining.  The RO featured interior detail with laid tables! There were also all 3 vehicles of a Midland Blue Pullman.  They were the only available scale length mk1s available in their day and critcally acclaimed, good runners that are still seen sometimes on layouts to this day (they were a feature of Borchester for many years).  There was a TT (3mm) range of the mk1s and Rebuilt Scot as well.  Other foreign models were a Wild West 'General' 4-4-0. DB 23 prairie, SNCF 241P, a NYC Hudson (unstreamlined version) and a little Italian 0-6-0 tank that I don't think I ever saw.  A survivor is the Blue Deltic which AFAIK was never released by Airfix.  There was an intention to release a Flying Scotsman, USA tank, and a Canadian National Railways 4-8-4 U4A class, to retail at 13/6d (67 pence).

Edited July 29, 2017 by The Johnster