Hills of the North - The Last Great Project

[Barry O]

Very impressive... lots of ballasting to be done I see(!)  but it is all coming together well.

 

Baz

[apbolton]

Excellent  work Graham, some rather good camera angles, as Tom rightly said lots of scenic work required, I also noticed a big hole outside of Central Station, which I believe is needs a warehouse.

Looking forward to the time I  can see it in the flesh.

[Bazza]

Hi Graham , great layout in the making and a very good video. Look forward to continuing progress reports. No pressure!

Bazza

[Denbridge]

2 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Absolutely. But for them to be 'pure Swindon' rather implies that they weren't developed which was not the case. You take the best bits that work ... and discard the less good bits which aren't suitable. High superheat certainly wasn't something copied from the GWR!

 

Stanier clearly arrived at the LMS with 'all things Swindon' buzzing between his ears and his appointment was specifically targetted thus as the LMS looked enviously towards Swindon standardisation in the face of the disorganised chaos that was the LMS locomotive department of the time. My point - and happy to agree to disagree - was that, over the next five years he 'made it his own' and established the Stanier marque which, although had its origins in all things Swindon was distinctive enough not to be considered as 'pure Swindon'.

 

Put another way, the development work that Stanier and his team did took the Swindon / Churchward principles on to the next level and formed the basis of much of the BR standard fleet, with emphasis on servicing, maintainability etc in an increasingly difficult post-war world. You might argue that was heavily influenced by the 'Cox-Riddles-Bond' ex-LMS triumpherate; I would argue that was exactly what Stanier built - a highly effective design team that was the best around in 1948 and was therefore the natural choice.

 

Purely conjecture,  but I honestly believe that,  but for Collett Stanier would have remained at Swindon. There was an interesting comment made by him, possibly Institute of mechanical engineers where he said that in an ideal world his pacifics would have been 4.6.0's and 4.8.0's had he not had, through necessity, been forced into incorporating wide fireboxes. As he said, no designer would use rear carrying wheels had it not been necessary. 

I didnt mean to sound disparaging towards Stanier designs. Far from it, I'm a huge fan, but under the clothes and taking aside having the motion bolted on the outside, they were particularly succesful because he had that first hand access to Churchwards theories regarding boiler and cylinder design and steam circuits.

Totally agree regarding superheating, though all the time Swindon machines had unfettered access to Welsh Steam Coal it was concluded that higher temp heating was simply not required.  Of course, along came WW2, followed by nationalisation when governments found they could sell welsh coal elsewhere than the railways, so Swindon were forced into high superheat and re-draughting.

[LNER4479]

Happy to conclude an entertaining discussion. I don't disagree with anything there fundamentally. You may well be right re the Collett thing - although the LMS were rather desperate at the time. One of those serendipitous moments in railway history, I think.

 

Equally, I'm happy to recognise Stanier's faults. He wasn't one for sentiment and one of his more notorious moments was to order the unceremonious scrapping of some older locos that had been set aside for preservation at the back of Derby works. Other railways were more respecting of their history than that.

[LNER4479]

1 hour ago, apbolton said:

 

Looking forward to the time I  can see it in the flesh.

Hopefully sooner rather than later - had me jab today

[apbolton]

Yep got mine booked for the 31st

[Tartaruga]

2 hours ago, LMS29 said:

Really enjoyed the video.  Gave a good feel on how the layout will operate and the work that needs doing.

 

Tom

Seconded. It was well put together and I really enjoyed watching it.

[LMS29]

2 hours ago, apbolton said:

Yep got mine booked for the 31st

Had mine too.

[simontaylor484]

I knew it was a large layout but today's video really emphasised the scale of the layout 

 

Looking forward to seeing how it progresses in the future

[Dragonboy]

Really enjoyed your “news feed” today and whilst I’ve followed your modelling for some years now and mainly as a lurker this video has really brought home the magnitude of your project. 
 

I just hope to see more progress on this over the years please.

 

I did however spot some incredibly over gauge tools hanging on the wall at some point. You don’t have time for gardening.
 

Get on with your next to last project. We need to see what you have lined up next. 

[drmditch]

15 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Hopefully sooner rather than later - had me jab today

Good. Hope you avoided a reaction. I had an interesting episode about 9 hours afterwards. Fortunately I was in bed by then!
Re-assuring to know that the vaccine was exciting my immune system.

Re: Discussions about Sir William. Does not his career emphasise the importance of being a good engineering manager?
Also, what about the box of drawings he is alleged to have brought with him to the 'Ell of a Mess'?
Do agree about the role of Tom Coleman, but what about that of Robin Riddles in managing the 'politics'?

On my late LNER railway I'm glad to have a representation of one of the 06s allocated to the NEA. There is something about them that just 'looks right'.

However, to remember the 'engineering politics', what is the full story about the 'Fowler-Anderson' bypass valves on (some?) of the later Pacifics?

[Barry O]

Good job you build strong baseboards. Some of the shots using the baseboards as  cameraman location look good.

 

Baz

[LNER4479]

Now that the show is over, I'll put this here then I'll know where to find it(!)

 

 

[Tony Wright]

41 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

Now that the show is over, I'll put this here then I'll know where to find it(!)

 

 

Very impressive Graham,

 

Glad to see 70054 and the wee station pilot are still working well.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Jesse Sim]

2 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Now that the show is over, I'll put this here then I'll know where to find it(!)

 

 

Lovely stuff Red Leader, JW kindly sent me link via email last night, we’ll talk about why I wasn’t in the original email during our next Skype call  

 

Its going to be an awesome project and can’t wait to play trains one day with everyone there! 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Jesse Sim

[bbishop]

Eric Langridge (Oakwood Press RS22A) is an interesting read.  He was responsible for the bottom half of Fowler's 4MT tanks locos.  The 8' - 8'6" wheelbase was a given, then he fitted a Schenectady pony and a Flatiron bogie.  Langridge was trained at Eastleigh and improved on their Walschaert valve gear for these locos.  He had a battle to get this past the "short lap, short lead" brigade at Derby!  Then someone else plonked a Midland boiler and cab on top and we have a loco, whose concept lasted through to the BR Standard.

 

Langridge also designed the bottom half of the Austin Sevens.  He used the 4F bearings and argues in his book that the problems were caused by poor quality oil.  He got that wrong! 

Bill

[LNER4479]

11 hours ago, Jesse Sim said:

 we’ll talk about why I wasn’t in the original email during our next Skype call  

 

Please do feel free to take it personally 

 

I'm away to find a handy sackcloth and ashes ... 

[LNER4479]

30 minutes ago, bbishop said:

Eric Langridge (Oakwood Press RS22A) is an interesting read.  He was responsible for the bottom half of Fowler's 4MT tanks locos.  The 8' - 8'6" wheelbase was a given, then he fitted a Schenectady pony and a Flatiron bogie.  Langridge was trained at Eastleigh and improved on their Walschaert valve gear for these locos.  He had a battle to get this past the "short lap, short lead" brigade at Derby!  Then someone else plonked a Midland boiler and cab on top and we have a loco, whose concept lasted through to the BR Standard.

 

Langridge also designed the bottom half of the Austin Sevens.  He used the 4F bearings and argues in his book that the problems were caused by poor quality oil.  He got that wrong! 

Bill

Yes, another often overlooked member of the team. I think I'm right in saying that he was responsible for the design of the Duchess boiler - respect!

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

18 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Now that the show is over, I'll put this here then I'll know where to find it(!)

 

 

 

Right, zoom meetings over, I'm off to get a coffee and watch this.

[Tortuga]

20 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Now that the show is over, I'll put this here then I'll know where to find it(!)

 

 

Well, I really enjoyed watching that. Definitely brings home just how big the project is!

[Barry Ten]

I enjoyed watching it as well. Birthday celebrations, rugby internationals and a new guitar kept me off-line for most of the weekend but I was able to catch up on some of the online content yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed it all.

[LNER4479]

 

Well, after the excitement of the weekend, back to the grindstone. And my least favourite job - wiring.

 

There's a serious amount of wiring required for the full system so it's a case of eating the elephant. This is the installation of a 25-way link between Bog Junc and the points at Grand Junc, to be operated from the former.

 

And here is the start of what looks like becoming a honking control panel at Bog Junc, on account of all the different control positions it will eventually talk to. Installation of the Gaugemaster double panel controller will allow the temporary Duette to be released for ... er ... further temporary service elsewhere!

 

But wiring's not particularly interesting or photogenic so let's run some trains!

 

A somewhat alternative motive power combination for the Thames-Clyde but looks like fun (and not completely unheard of on the 1950s LMR). In case you were wondering, this is not the latest Compound model but actually an older Hornby tender-drive offering wot I did some extensive work on some 15 years ago. Another layout loco ...

 

Out they go, past the now renamed signalbox(!)

 

Meanwhile, there's a partially fitted goods descending Shap, under adverse signals.

 

Quite rightly, it's brought to a halt as the Thames-Clyde gets priority across the junction. Scattered about lies evidence of the ongoing wiring work.

 

And onwards to Garsdale.

 

But not much further as it's all getting a bit congested!

 

I've done a quick bit of temporary work to set up a small loco area for as long as Garsdale is in terminus mode.

 

Right - back to the wiring ... zzzzzzzzzzzzz ......

Edited March 18, 2021 by LNER4479

[drmditch]

Re: Boring jobs (a.K.a wiring). 
What is your maximum length of cable run for point motor control?

(I'm coming to the conclusion that my control panels are in the wrong place.)
 

[LNER4479]

57 minutes ago, drmditch said:

Re: Boring jobs (a.K.a wiring). 
What is your maximum length of cable run for point motor control?
 

I'll let you know in 20 years time when I've finished!

 

For now, that 25-way cable I've installed is approx 12 feet long. This will include indicator lights for the control panel as the points are too far away to visually see which way they're set.

 

It's probably going to be the 'worst' case on the layout of points being remote from operator. Wherever possible, the plan will be for the operator to have a mechanical installation right in front of him. The electrickery will largely be used for box-to-box communication round the layout.