Aberdeen Kirkhill T&RSD

[Dunedin]

Nah, they're Great Black Backed Gulls - Herring Gulls have mid grey wings (and are about 2 mm shorter in OO). Here's a link to the relevant RSPB page, scroll to near the bottom and it shows they stick to the East Coast throughout the winter.

 

So for anyone looking for items of interest we now have the Wheel Lathe at one end of the layout and the Seagulls at the other. Plus the man walking his dog, the scrubbers, two sub-stations, four barrels of Shell Spirax HST Gearbox Oil and even the occasional train!

 

By the way, Glenn has worked out why his phone camera was taking blue tinted photos and corrected it. Expect some better photos of the Wheel Lathe to be posted on his previous post.

 

The gulls are quite partial to the odd red herring though!!

 

We also have Gene Hunt's Cortina from "Life on Mars"! Anyone know if there are any models of Audi Quattros from the early '80s - preferably red, then we could do a cameo from "Ashes to Ashes"? Just to add to the variety of course!

 

Regarding the wheel lathe, I found a few settings to change on the camera - well rather a lot actually - but one of them was for tungsten lighting which I think is what caused the problem. Anyway, here are some better photos with more natural colours: (Incidentally, these are all taken with the building in place looking in through the doors, or the roof lights or the side windows, so you can see that the building doesn't hide the detail.)

 

South end:

 

North End:

 

Through the roof lights:

 

Through the side windows:

 

Yesterday, I set about cleaning the wheels on the loco fleet ready for next Saturday. This is the line-up by the time I had finished:

 

 

There are about another three 47s which already had clean wheels so they missed the photo opportunity, plus the HST power cars, the two 08s, another few 26s and a 37. The 47 line-up might look boring, but as Graham has already said, they are all different in some way or another. Also missing are the 80-odd coaches that we need to run Kirkhill. Over a weekend, they do all get used, but we'll probably only need a subset of the locos next Saturday - but we might just bring them all anyway!

 

Thanks for all the words of encouragement - they are much appreciated and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on Saturday.

[Ramrig]

Nah, they're Great Black Backed Gulls - Herring Gulls have mid grey wings (and are about 2 mm shorter in OO). Here's a link to the relevant RSPB page, scroll to near the bottom and it shows they stick to the East Coast throughout the winter.

 

 

You really do need to get out more!!!!

[Ramrig]

Those pictures look much better Glenn

[Temeraire]

 

Yesterday, I set about cleaning the wheels on the loco fleet ready for next Saturday. This is the line-up by the time I had finished:

 

Thanks for all the words of encouragement - they are much appreciated and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on Saturday.

 

Looking forward to spotting them all next Saturday, there's two of the 'Leaford on the road crew' making the trip to say hello.

[Poor Old Bruce]

Nah, they're Great Black Backed Gulls - they stick to the East Coast throughout the winter.

Is that the extra-strong glue then

[Clagmeister]

Fantastic layout!

 

Could I ask how you did your water hoses in the carriage roads? I have done mine with wire and it hasn't turned out too well. Yours look great.

 

Thanks

Claggy (Caolisport)

[P.C.M]

Hi Flood,

Hope the layout runs well at the members day, I don't think you will have a shortage of 47 power.

 

Cheers Peter.

[Dunedin]

Fantastic layout!

 

Could I ask how you did your water hoses in the carriage roads? I have done mine with wire and it hasn't turned out too well. Yours look great.

 

Thanks

Claggy (Caolisport)

 

Thanks for the compliments!

 

For the hoses, I used wire from an old computer printer cable - you know the sort we used to use before everything went to USB. I originally bought it to connect a control panel to on old layout, but the cable wouldn't handle the current from my capacitor discharge unit and the points wouldn't throw properly, so I found an alternative use for it! The cables have 25-way connectors at each end, but if you cut into them, you find you have 25 different colured cores inside. I use this stuff now for light current applications such as extending or replacing the leads on DCC decoders, but I have a lot of it and it just struck me that the cores looked about the right diameter for hoses. The orange ones looked perfect for the job to me and judging from your comments, they do to you as well. I actually used wire from two different cables so the shades of orange are slightly different and that helps with the effect also. The black hoses for the non-potable water are from the same cable. I haven't painted them; they are just as they came out of the harness.

 

This is the original cable:

 

...and this is it once you remove the outer sheathing and the connectors - lots of useful low current cable and "hoses":

 

I glued the ones on the cleaning platforms with superglue, but had to use Bostick to fix the ones lying on the ballast because the superglue just ran away into the ballast! You can buy the cables from electronics shops such as Maplin.

 

Hope this is useful.

 

Glenn

[Flood]

Once again a big thank you to everyone involved in today's open day. An extra special thank you to Temeraire and Pitbull for making the effort to come all the way from Hampshire and end up having to talk to me! Like I said this afternoon I hope we can repay you by exhibiting down your neck of the woods in the future.

You were both very polite today, I hope you enjoyed the layout as much as Glenn, Richard and I do.

[Arpleymodeller]

Hi flood

 

Kirkhill's wheel lathe is coming along brilliantly,some pics of locos parked above it in the shed would look great.I like the shot of your mass line up of brush type 4s-WOW B)

Are any sound fitted?

Hope your show went well,shame I couldn't make it

Regards

Lewis

[Coombe Barton]

I was really impressed with this layout today.

[pitbull1845]

Hi Flood, Dunedin and Richard,

 

I would just like to say thanks for entertaining us today, I am now much more knowledgeable about seaguls as a result!

 

On a serious note, I was really impressed with this layout and the effort that has gone into it to make it as accurate as possible. I refer to both the scenic side, "Floods Schedule" and the stock details.

 

Its not that often I spend most of a day watching a layout.

I appreciate the efforts you went to today to show it off.

 

Cheers

Scott

(a tired and weary traveller)

[Temeraire]

Guys I can echo Scott's comments entirely, but you do realise we were both itching to have a go but were too polite to ask. We will keep an eye open for you all down here in the future.

 

Thanks again

[Dunedin]

Guys I can echo Scott's comments entirely, but you do realise we were both itching to have a go but were too polite to ask. We will keep an eye open for you all down here in the future.

 

Thanks again

 

Hi guys, it was really good to meet you both and I really enjoyed the discussion. I'm afraid though that subtlety is completely wasted on us - you should have said you wanted a go! We were all too busy concentrating on trying to drive and talk at the same time ...... Hopefully there will be a "next time".

 

Glenn

[Temeraire]

you should have said you wanted a go!

Glenn

 

B*gger!

 

Hopefully there will be a "next time".

 

Oh we'll make the effort to find you somewhere, sometime soon!

[Dunedin]

Hi flood

 

Kirkhill's wheel lathe is coming along brilliantly,some pics of locos parked above it in the shed would look great.I like the shot of your mass line up of brush type 4s-WOW B)

Are any sound fitted?

Hope your show went well,shame I couldn't make it

Regards

Lewis

 

Hi Lewis,

 

Thank you for the comments on the wheel lathe - we are really pleased with it. I'm replying on behalf of Graham because he doesn't have access to the pictures at the moment, so I hope he won't mind me posting these which I took the other night - they are of an HST power car on the lathe:

 

Power car over the lathe:

 

Number 3 axle in position:

 

Nose end over the centre pit:

 

Tail end repositioned for No. 4 axle:

 

The photos tend to blur a little through the perspex side windows - when I get around to re-cladding the building, I'll take a few shots with the glazing (or even the building) removed.

 

Best Regards

 

Glenn

[Flood]

Whilst I appreciate that I am normally first port of call for questions on the layout (solely because I spend more time on the net than Glenn does) I must add that this layout would not have been possible without Glenn's depot knowledge and his construction and modelling skills. The recent input from Glenn's friends Ian and Richard have added even more areas of interest which feel is attributable to different people noticing areas of development which Glenn and I may have missed.

 

We've thought about the possiblity of sound locos in the future but as I have stated before the cost would currently be £3000 which we cannot afford and in addition we would require baseboard speakers with the sound of air-con units, motor alternator sets, slamming coach doors (and possibly seagulls!!!) to give the depot the real feel required to make the scene appear authentic. The open day was quiet and the sounds from Andy's layout were easily heard but in normal exhibition circumstances the amount of movement and people talking tends to drown out any other sounds. Perhaps in five years time....

[76079]

Whilst I appreciate that I am normally first port of call for questions on the layout (solely because I spend more time on the net than Glenn does) I must add that this layout would not have been possible without Glenn's depot knowledge and his construction and modelling skills. The recent input from Glenn's friends Ian and Richard have added even more areas of interest which feel is attributable to different people noticing areas of development which Glenn and I may have missed.

 

We've thought about the possiblity of sound locos in the future but as I have stated before the cost would currently be £3000 which we cannot afford and in addition we would require baseboard speakers with the sound of air-con units, motor alternator sets, slamming coach doors (and possibly seagulls!!!) to give the depot the real feel required to make the scene appear authentic. The open day was quiet and the sounds from Andy's layout were easily heard but in normal exhibition circumstances the amount of movement and people talking tends to drown out any other sounds. Perhaps in five years time....

 

As a visitor/staff its actually quite off putting and i firmly believe sound is fine at home but not on the exhibition circuit. Several shows I have been to recently have had issues, the halls/rooms where the layouts are are noisy enough with people milling chatting and enjoying the show. Several operators who have sound are forced to turn the sounds up on there layouts, this in turn forces people to talk louder, so the operators turn up the volume even more . . . . . . . and so it goes on. Also with more and more depot layouts making it on to the exhibition circuit having 20-30 diesel engines all sat there idling makes quite a racket. Its probably not a problem at the NEC but in small school rooms/village halls and the like it does create problems. Certainly at the exhibition that I help out at every year the organisers have already placed a no DCC sound rule.

 

Now of course im the first to say what an innovation sound is and I quite like it on my stuff at home (the wife is another matter) but when you walk into a room with 6 depot layouts and more than 60 engines all idling at once, it does get a bit repetative

[Flood]

On 12/07/2010 at 08:08, 76079 said:

...but when you walk into a room with 6 depot layouts and more than 60 engines all idling at once, it does get a bit repetative

Seeing as 2/3rds of our locos are Class 47s the noise would be very repetitive, we'd have to find at least three different loco sounds to make it worthwhile.

 

 

Anyway, I've currently got two weeks off work on holiday (yippee!) and I've told Glenn that I'm going to be getting down to some coach renumbering. Seeing as Kirkhill is a rolling stock depot it's about time I did a post on rolling stock.

 

First up the Mk1 BFK. Readers from old RMweb will remember I started this in early December 2008 and it was actually finished for the May exhibition. With most of the stock normally being at Glenn's I've not had chance to photo it until now. This first picture is of one of the two sides when first glued together wih a BSK side for comparison above it:

 

The next photo shows the assembly before commencement of the roof amendments, filling and rubbing down and final painting and adding transfers. With it is one of the donor BSKs for comparison.

 

Now a photo of the finished BFK as used in the Inverness - Aberdeen rakes until 1989.

 

 

Today has been spent renumbering BGs, tomorrow will be renumbering three HST rakes (if I finish them in a day). Not all BGs look the same whatever people may think so we have:

 

SC84399 an NDX with BR1 bogies, dual heat 90mph, dual brake

 

E80861 an NDX with BR1 bogies, dual heat 90mph, dual brake, part of the Bounds Green dedicated parcels pool

 

E92143 an NEA with B4 bogies, dual heat 100mph, air brake

 

and E92332 an NEX with Commonwealth bogies, dual heat 100mph, dual brake

 

All the decals are HMRS Pressfix except the ScotRail transfers which are Fox. That's my excuse for the renumbering taking so long, each regional prefix and digit are separately applied.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Flood

[Poor Old Bruce]

Hopefully there will be a "next time".

 

Won't you be in just about the same pitch for our exhibition on the first weekend in October?

[Clifford Road]

Now a photo of the finished BFK as used in the Inverness - Aberdeen rakes until 1989.

 

Hi guys,Have been admiring your work on the layout for a while now, but having just joined as a member, your latest batch of images have prompted me to ask a question! On the above BFK, there's an unusual 'U' shaped bar protruding from both ends of the coach. I'm presuming this is some form of semi-permenant close coupling system? Do you mind if I ask which one and what?!Regards,Rich

[Dunedin]

Hi guys,Have been admiring your work on the layout for a while now, but having just joined as a member, your latest batch of images have prompted me to ask a question! On the above BFK, there's an unusual 'U' shaped bar protruding from both ends of the coach. I'm presuming this is some form of semi-permenant close coupling system? Do you mind if I ask which one and what?!Regards,Rich

 

Hi Rich,

 

Glad you like the layout. The 'U'- shaped bar you refer to on the BFK is the Bachman close coupling system which they supply with their Mark 1 and Mark 2 coaches (one per vehicle). It clips into the NEM socket in place of the tension lock couplers supplied. When coupled using the close coupling, the gangways are in contact. The NEM socket is mounted on the coach underframe on a spring-loaded turntable arrangement. This allows the pocket to rotate and extend as the bogie rotates so that the coaches can negotiate curves and points etc. without buffer locking. The bar is supposed to resemble the vacuum and steam pipes used on coaching stock of the pre-air-braked period.

 

It works very well, but they are difficult to couple and uncouple and so we only use this system on the Aberdeen - Inverness rake (and I think that's only because we haven't got round to converting it to Kadees yet!). All our other coaching stock and the outer ends of the Aberdeen - Inverness have been fitted with Kadee couplers which allow automatic coupling and uncoupling. We designed Kirkhill deliberately with fairly large radius curves and medium radius points so we can close-couple our stock without too much risk of buffer- or gangway-locking.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Glenn

[Clifford Road]

Hi Rich,

 

Glad you like the layout. The 'U'- shaped bar you refer to on the BFK is the Bachman close coupling system which they supply with their Mark 1 and Mark 2 coaches (one per vehicle). It clips into the NEM socket in place of the tension lock couplers supplied. When coupled using the close coupling, the gangways are in contact. The NEM socket is mounted on the coach underframe on a spring-loaded turntable arrangement. This allows the pocket to rotate and extend as the bogie rotates so that the coaches can negotiate curves and points etc. without buffer locking. The bar is supposed to resemble the vacuum and steam pipes used on coaching stock of the pre-air-braked period.

 

It works very well, but they are difficult to couple and uncouple and so we only use this system on the Aberdeen - Inverness rake (and I think that's only because we haven't got round to converting it to Kadees yet!). All our other coaching stock and the outer ends of the Aberdeen - Inverness have been fitted with Kadee couplers which allow automatic coupling and uncoupling. We designed Kirkhill deliberately with fairly large radius curves and medium radius points so we can close-couple our stock without too much risk of buffer- or gangway-locking.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Glenn

 

Hi Glenn,

Ah! Simple questions always have simple answers! Its a while since i purchased rolling stock - my previous modelling expliots of 10years or more ago were almost exclusively Lima Mk1s and 2s! NEM pockets i doubt had been thought of let alone used!

 

I'm getting back into the hobby slowly - spent this afternoon completing the baseboard for my new layout in the office. Interesting to hear your using Kadee's - i'm planning to fit them to my stock to enable uncoupling without the hand of god! Any tips or advice? With me it will be locos (modern traction) and two-axle wagons in the main, plus possibly the odd Class 150/142! I presume the NEM pockets used are all at the right height? Do you use permanent magnets or electric ones?

 

Tell me to shut up if im asking too much!

 

Cheers

Rich

[Clagmeister]

Thanks for that reply about the hoses. Will get to work and see if I can find one of those. Would be great in Caolisports rustic carriage sidings.

 

great

 

Claggy

[Dunedin]

Any tips or advice? With me it will be locos (modern traction) and two-axle wagons in the main, plus possibly the odd Class 150/142! I presume the NEM pockets used are all at the right height? Do you use permanent magnets or electric ones?

 

Tell me to shut up if im asking too much!

 

Cheers

Rich

 

Hi Rich,

 

If only it was that simple...... Unfortunately the NEM pockets are not at a standard height on stock or locos - they can vary, often by several mm. The manufacturers then compensate for these differences by fitting tension lock couplings with a "crank" on the shank which ensures no matter what height the pocket is, that the actual couplers are all at the standard height. Unfortunately, the Kadees with NEM fittings only have straight shanks, so if you fit them, you will end up with coupler heads at different heights and with Kadees that spells disaster and frustration with your stock uncoupling when you don't want it to and not doing so when you do!

 

Generally speaking, our approach has been to use the No.18 NEM Kadees on the locos - Bachmann seem to get their pockets about right on the Class 37s, Heljan 47s & 26s are slightly high but we get away with it and the Hornby 08s are too low. Within some of the sets of coaches we do use the NEM Kadees because they are all at the same (incorrect) height so that doesn't matter, but at the ends which have to couple to something else, we use Kadee No.5s, glued to the underframe and using plasticard packers to achieve the correct height. We also use No.5s on everything else which doesn't have an NEM pocket including the HST power cars, which I think really ended up looking quite good (even if I do say so myself! B)).

 

Tip: get a Kadee height gauge - it'll save you loads of time and will ensure you get your heights spot on!

 

For the 08s, I removed the NEM mountings altogether, but even if you do that, the cast chassis still gives you a low mounting point and it's also very close to the buffer beam, so a No.5 box won't fit. I used a No.34 Kadee - this has a very short draftgear box which doesn't protrude (much) beyond the buffer beam but it also has what they call an underset shank. This means the coupler head is above the centre-line of the shank and gives you that extra bit of height that you need. The draftgear box is then just superglued to the chassis. (This also applies to Bachmann 08s.)

 

Regarding the uncouplers, we have a combination of No.308 permanent and No.309 electromagnets at various locations depending on whether we always want to uncouple there or not. One thing we found with the electromagnets is that we tend to get inconsistent operation. They will always uncouple, but they won't always force the couplings into the delay position, enabling you to drop a vehicle exactly where you want it. I'm not sure if some of our couplers are stiffer than others (I've tried lubricating them all with Kadee graphite grease), whether some are slightly out of alignment, or whether we just occasionally suffer from low voltage at some venues. It's probably a combination of all of these factors. The permanent magnets are more reliable in this respect.

 

I could probably start a whole thread just on Kadees - if there isn't one already - but hopefully this rather rambling reply has helped somewhat!

 

Glenn