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nick_bastable
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t was a quiet 2mm area meet last night, just Martin and I and we spent the evening discussing various things mainly to do with CCMRC latest n gauge layout while my Brighton Belle circuited the clubs test track, the first time it has been really run. Converting this will be difficult due to the traction tyres and Hornby's reluctance to reply to spares requests! However we eventually turned to the DJLC Martin showed me his proposal although he is still reluctant to partake, while I showed my latest thoughts on the subject.

 

 

 

 

It is as usual a Colonel Stephens line but as alluded to on another thread with a narrow gauge twist.

Earlier attempts at design had proved too track heavy and swamped the available space making achieving a viable country feel impossible, I reduced the track-work until I achieved closer to what I wanted. I wanted to be able to join this to line No20 at home and this has and will dictate the direction height etc. As to history a bit of a lot of might have been.

 

The Guildford   Guilford Tramway ran within a mile of the East Kent Light Railway with 3'6" gauge was initially surveyed  by Stephens and was planed to extend to Hastings !

 

Line No16 was projected by the East Kent Railway to serve a proposed colliery at Ripple

 

The proposed colliery would be to large so I needed a industry and eventually I hit on the idea of a Hop Garden, so very rural and so very Kent.

 

Now to build a suitable baseboard

 

Nick

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Slightly behind schedule the wood work has been completed, I chose to make the board 36 inches long to allow a integral fiddle area  this still keeps the board easily manageable.  Plans printed and down I realized I was almost out of 18mm sleepers and had used all the NG sleeper strip I had.  A quick order to shop 1 has been made to rectify this and top marks ( as indeed to all the Association shopkeepers    :thankyou: } who queried if I had ordered the wrong sleepers strip.   Meanwhile I have progressed as far as I can at the moment gluing those sleepers I have to the plan 

 

 

 

 

Nick

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While awaiting supplies I have been conducting further research including today a visit to a working hop garden  on the route of the EKR.   Although modern methods have changed the harvest the general feel is still there, in addition I have read A Clergyman's Daughter by  George Orwell which has  a good recollection of hop picking in the 1930's :

 

Dorothy pushed open the door of the hut. It was about twelve feet 

across, with unglazed windows which had been boarded up, and it had 

no furniture whatever. There seemed to be nothing in it but an 

enormous pile of straw reaching to the roof--in fact, the hut was 

almost entirely filled with straw

 

George Orwell

 

Not a great read although easily found on the web as a pdf, the chapter on Hop picking been useful and contrary to the image now portrayed of a happy working holiday.  Google offered a  pdf of a planning application to convert a hop pickers shed near Sissinghurst which yielded a useful plan although I have cut it down from the original 18 hovels  to 12.   This has been provisional cut although will need cladding and roofing with corrugated Iron ( wish I could replicate missy's roller for this).  The Oast house  is a problem the first one I looked at was a fake,  I have good floor plans courtesy of estate agents sites  but could do with looking at one or two to get the feel of the proportions the real one at Shatterling  ( the hop garden) been far to large

 

post-1480-0-93076100-1506534232_thumb.jpg

 

Hop pickers outside hut 1950's

 

post-1480-0-22244700-1506534294.jpg

 

field after harvesting

 

post-1480-0-99021300-1506534332.jpg

 

field ready to harvest

 

post-1480-0-76846100-1506534383.jpg

 

real Oast house converted to domestic use

 

 

 

embryo hoppers huts

 

 

Sideways progress but enjoyable and extremely educational my idea of quality modelling time

 

 

Nick

 

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If you are planning to include any hops being grown, then photos from the area and time period are a very good idea. I remember my grandfather in the '70s commenting that the rigging (no idea what the technical term is) in Herefordshire hop gardens was different from that used in Kent for example. No doubt in each area it changed over time too.

 

Mim

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A little progress as usual speedy service from the shop(s)  :thankyou:  and track laying in earnest has begun 

 

 

 

 

just to make life awkward I have opted for interlaced sleepers  :scared:

 

Nick

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just to make life awkward I have opted for interlaced sleepers  :scared:

As has been pointed out to you elsewhere, I think you've got the sleepering slightly wrong, in that the sleepers on the diverging road should be at right angles to that track, not parallel to those on the straight road.

 

This how the NBR did it.

post-25077-0-96299100-1506891852_thumb.jpg

 

And how I've done them on Kirkallanmuir.

 

post-25077-0-51381800-1506892053_thumb.jpg

 

Jim

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As has been pointed out to you elsewhere, I think you've got the sleepering slightly wrong, in that the sleepers on the diverging road should be at right angles to that track, not parallel to those on the straight road.

 

This how the NBR did it.

attachicon.gifNB interlaced sleepers.jpg

 

Jim

That is a very early drawing though - 1850 according to Alan Prior's index. Even the NB must have moved on a wee bit from there by Edwardian times, surely? ;)

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As has been pointed out to you elsewhere, I think you've got the sleepering slightly wrong, in that the sleepers on the diverging road should be at right angles to that track, not parallel to those on the straight road.

 

This how the NBR did it.

attachicon.gifNB interlaced sleepers.jpg

 

And how I've done them on Kirkallanmuir.

 

attachicon.gifDSCN1778.JPG

 

Jim

Jim

 

i think you are may be correct although all my previous efforts have used similar arrangements based on quite poor photos of the EKR , first test using a lwb 4 wheel coach and normal wagon have been very encouraging I think I'm inclined to live with it. but I will sleep on it.

 

In retrospect I have realized its how the original non interlaced templot plan was draw unlike the ng / sg feeder above having looked at it it would be difficult to undo without starting from scratch and its it probably the best working point I have ever built, I shall drink a large glass of wine and ponder the issue

 

Nick

 

 

edited to clarify

Edited by nick_bastable
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That is a very early drawing though - 1850 according to Alan Prior's index. Even the NB must have moved on a wee bit from there by Edwardian times, surely? ;)

 

The reason that some railways used interlaced sleepers through pointwork was that it allowed the chairs to be placed in line with the sleepers (as they are on plain track), thus enabling ordinary "narrow" sleepers to be used (which were quite a bit cheaper). Using long sleepers meant that chairs (which HAVE to be orthogonal to the rail) had to be placed at an angle to the sleepers, requiring the sleepers to be wider (and more expensive) and/or two hole chairs to be used if the security of the chair fastenings was not to be compromised. The downside of using interlaced sleepers was that it was very difficult (some would say impossible) to pack the ballast under them properly, which is why only certain companies used them. Using interlaced sleepers that weren't orthogonal to the track would get you the worst of both worlds.

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with some care I have realigned the sleepers as far as practical 

 

 

 

bécasse

 

The reason that some railways used interlaced sleepers through pointwork was that it allowed the chairs to be placed in line with the sleepers (as they are on plain track), thus enabling ordinary "narrow" sleepers to be used (which were quite a bit cheaper). Using long sleepers meant that chairs (which HAVE to be orthogonal to the rail) had to be placed at an angle to the sleepers, requiring the sleepers to be wider (and more expensive) and/or two hole chairs to be used if the security of the chair fastenings was not to be compromised. The downside of using interlaced sleepers was that it was very difficult (some would say impossible) to pack the ballast under them properly, which is why only certain companies used them. Using interlaced sleepers that weren't orthogonal to the track would get you the worst of both worlds.

 

I can see that the East Kent Railway was somewhat notorious for its poor trackwork  ( as indeed where most of Stephens Lines) and used rail spiked directly to the sleeper

 

post-1480-0-67636300-1506954948_thumb.jpg

 

Nick

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That is a very early drawing though - 1850 according to Alan Prior's index. Even the NB must have moved on a wee bit from there by Edwardian times, surely? ;)

Many turnouts in sidings remained on interlaced sleepers well into the late 20th century and in fact most companies didn't change to through sleepering untill the early 1900's.  One reason was that most sleepers were baltic pine and there was an import duty on timber 9' long and over, which is why sleepers were 8'11".  I have seen a report by Mathieson, the general manager of the CR, following a visit to the USA, commenting on their use of though timbers on turnouts, but saying that the CR preferred interlaced timbers as they held the gauge better.

 

with some care I have realigned the sleepers as far as practical 

That looks much better, Nick.

 

It's hard to tell from the photo whether the sleepers on the EKR are parallel or aligned with the track.

 

Jim

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Many turnouts in sidings remained on interlaced sleepers well into the late 20th century and in fact most companies didn't change to through sleepering untill the early 1900's.  One reason was that most sleepers were baltic pine and there was an import duty on timber 9' long and over, which is why sleepers were 8'11".  I have seen a report by Mathieson, the general manager of the CR, following a visit to the USA, commenting on their use of though timbers on turnouts, but saying that the CR preferred interlaced timbers as they held the gauge better.

 

Jim

 

OK I was aware that interlaced sleepers were in use well into the C20. Sorry I did not make that clear - but that drawing shows what appears to be extremely light rail and with sleepers spaced very far apart. If the NBR were installing new track in say 1890, I would have expected it to be more robust with heavier rail and sleepers closer together. The OP is modelling a railway that hypothetically didn't exist in 1850. Should he not be using more up to date drawings than 1850? That is what I was trying to say.

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Following on from the last post, I seem to have acquired an NB turnout drawing at some date in the past - no date but presumably later than 1850. This neatly illustrates what I meant about even the NBR having upgraded its track designs in later years

 

post-26366-0-77695800-1506963189_thumb.jpg

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Following on from the last post, I seem to have acquired an NB turnout drawing at some date in the past - no date but presumably later than 1850. This neatly illustrates what I meant about even the NBR having upgraded its track designs in later years

 

attachicon.gifNB-T-out.jpg

interesting to see a real plan even if for some foreign northern railway, what is reassuring is how busy it is with sleepers towards the toe of the turnout as I have always thought these look a little odd 

 

thanks

 

Nick

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I think the idea that timbering has to be neat and tidy is probably a gross simplification. Just look at photos of Kings Cross in GNR or LNER days, for example. In complex formations, even 'normal' timbering could be spaced very close together in places. If the formation required chairs in a certain place, there had to be a sleeper underneath to support it.

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Following on from the last post, I seem to have acquired an NB turnout drawing at some date in the past - no date but presumably later than 1850. This neatly illustrates what I meant about even the NBR having upgraded its track designs in later years

 

attachicon.gifNB-T-out.jpg

I was merely trying to illustrate the general layout of the sleepers on the diverging road relative to those on the straight road, not necessarily intending to indicate that this was the exact spacing.

 

That drawing looks remarkably similar to this (undated again) CR one.

 

Jim

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some progress has been made the major track is down and wiring and testing commenced 

 

20190512_235241.jpg.e953f0b0d7aa8b84807108fb188b36ca.jpg

 

who said DCC was only two wires?

 

 

20190804_170749.jpg.ad83608a1fc7cb148a94e51bb6cb37d4.jpg

after provisionally sorting  the rats nest , the reason for all the wires been the 2mm standard gauge is DCC the 6.5mm narrow gauge is DC, I think the relay / point interlocking should keep them well apart   :scratchhead:

 

 

 

Initial testing has begun with a test narrow gauge loco run, given that the check rails are yet to be fitted I'm quite pleased.  The balsa walls are added to protect the track while I keep needing to invert it, the loco body needs building  but not worth it while testing and the finger pokes at each end are because the auto shuttle parts need wiring/adding.

 

 

apologies for the lousy camera work holding a phone and operating the control was to much for my feeble mind

 

comments as always welcome

 

Nick

Edited by nick_bastable
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thanks for that although I worked at the Museum occasionally at Tenterden I rarely got down the line

 

In the period I'm  modelling 1920's most likely the internal fixtures would be lots of  straw !

 

the 1950/60's where the period hoppers brought furniture and fixtures for the season

 

they where very small 10' square sometimes smaller for six people !  :O

 

a little web trawling delivered this plan which I have cut to 12 huts for the model

 

 

post-1480-0-07401200-1516046734.jpg

 

rough model has been formed still thinking about the corrugated Iron  

 

 

 

still over scale so need a rethink

 

other than that the new Job and flu have taken up my modelling mojo

 

Nick

 

edited to add extra info

Edited by nick_bastable
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It is possible to make excellent replica corrugated iron in 2mm scale using Slaters' 20 thou diameter round plastic. However, I guess that that would be a bit expensive for a building as big as this.

 

Corrugated iron certainly wasn't the only material used to construct hop-pickers' huts, vertical timber boarding, brick and even concrete panels were also used - although roofing was most often c/i.

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