Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Where has this Blake thing come from?

I just thought he’d captured the ‘man living alone inside a model railway layout’ look to perfection, then realised that he’d captured other important aspects of our hobby too.

 

Very prescient chap Mr Blake, and he truly was.

[Martin S-C]

Did he model railways though?

[Edwardian]

48 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

Did he model railways though?

 

Not that many railways around to model, to be fair, and he inhabited a very different Soho from Mr Hackworth's!

 

Samuel Palmer's rather mystical rural idylls may be more what modellers aim for, though London's chartered streets are also a good subject.

 

And Blake famously wrote a poem about a Todd, Kitson & Laird luggage engine (unless my disambiguation filter is on the blink again).

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

London's chartered streets are also a good subject.

 

 

 

Not to mention dark satanic mills, of course.

 

(a terrible source of trouble, I gather)

 

[Martin S-C]

Oh, no, Edwardian, what have you done? We know where this will lead...
 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Martin S-C

[Regularity]

5 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

We know where this will lead...

The comfy chair?

[chuffinghell]

That was unexpected 

[Martin S-C]

Once Edwardian had  told us there was trouble at t'mill, the flood gates opened.

 

I quote Commander Sam Shore at Marineville...
 

just go to 00:40 ... "Anything can happen in the next half-hour."

 

[Martin S-C]

I have got the new plan printed at 1:1 scale and started laying it out on the floor. The purpose of this stage is to lay the existing frames over the plan and adjust any spacers where they conflict with the area needed beneath points for the motors. Once the frames are modified they will be erected on the old legs and a new ply top fitted.

 

 

 

 

 

[Edwardian]

Wow!  

[Martin S-C]

I'm sorely tempted at this stage to just put trains on the plan and push them around going "Choo-choo!" It would save a lot of money and effort.

[Bluemonkey presents....]

30 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

I'm sorely tempted at this stage to just put trains on the plan and push them around going "Choo-choo!" It would save a lot of money and effort.

 

Try it during a quiet time just for fun. It will probably feel more sane than you think.

[Martin S-C]

Life can't be any more insane than it is right now. I have heard eminent psychologists say that regressing to your childhood is a great stress reliever.

[Corbs]

Perhaps it is a bit like I am living vicariously through you and your project, but I'm possibly even more excited about this new plan than the old one, Martin.

 

[Martin S-C]

That's an interesting comment. May I ask why that is? Was the old plan just too crazy to work from the outset?

[CKPR]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

Life can't be any more insane than it is right now. I have heard eminent psychologists say that regressing to your childhood is a great stress reliever.

I am a professional  psychologist, albeit a not very eminent one,  and I can recommend staying in your childhood in your head. I mean, it's worked for me...

[Edwardian]

16 minutes ago, CKPR said:

I am a professional  psychologist, albeit a not very eminent one,  and I can recommend staying in your childhood in your head. I mean, it's worked for me...

 

Well said.

 

I was going to add that I really had no need to regress.

 

 

[Caley Jim]

46 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I was going to add that I really had no need to regress.

Growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional!

 

Jim

[Corbs]

3 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

That's an interesting comment. May I ask why that is? Was the old plan just too crazy to work from the outset?

 

I think it's the opportunity to combine the shuffling branch line aspects of the previous one with some grand, sweeping 'larger' trains on a roundy-roundy and the play factor therein.

[Martin S-C]

There was a roundy-roundy built into the first plan but it was at least 50% hidden, and its route used up a chunk of the branch-line trackage so I couldn't have both at once. My only regret (well two of them actually, the second one being I cocked everything up on the first attempt) is that Plan B is no longer the self-contained system I originally wanted and which (via the Madder Valley of course) originally inspired me. I've managed to keep several of the rail-served industries but the traffic to/from them all goes off stage to a fiddle yard now and not onwards to another industry on the system. I can do some internal movements such as horse boxes and horse carriages on open carriage trucks from the main line goods yard up to the branch terminus and milk from the branch down to the main milk and parcels office but I suppose what I shall do is move goods from off stage into the main line stations goods yard, things such as cordwood for the wood distillation works, and shift it onwards from there. Coal too might move from the colliery to the goods yard and be sorted into wagons destined for the docks and those to be sent up the branch so I imagine all is not lost.

I do prefer the more open and less busy nature of Plan B, there is a lot of nice open countryside which hardly existed on the first design. The coal mine is better laid out as well. No steep grades though I think is going to be the main success here; they were the bane of my life before. Its my fault for reading too many CJF plans when I was young and impressionable with their 1 in 30 grades

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Its my fault for reading too many CJF plans when I was young and impressionable with their 1 in 30 grades

To be fair, many of those plans were drawn in the days when the "average enthusiast" probably owned two locos, three coaches and a dozen wagons, so 1 in 30 wasn't too much of a challenge.

Edited July 1, 2021 by St Enodoc

[Martin S-C]

6 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

To be fair, many of those plans were drawn in the days when the "average enthusiast" probably owned two locos, three coaches and a dozen wagons, so 1 in 30 wasn't too much of a challenge.

I was also thinking that the average operator had a big beefy H&M Duette and with a Princess Royal and three coaches a train could be hammered up such a grade at a scary speed and people were quite happy with that. Nobody had even thought of tiny RTR locos like Pecketts and Beattie well tanks back then. I remember the first Tri-Ang Jinty was a monster that could pull anything on my layout, but then it was built like a tank, had the level of detailing of one and was quite incapable of running at shunting speeds.

[Harlequin]

11 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

There was a roundy-roundy built into the first plan but it was at least 50% hidden, and its route used up a chunk of the branch-line trackage so I couldn't have both at once. My only regret (well two of them actually, the second one being I cocked everything up on the first attempt) is that Plan B is no longer the self-contained system I originally wanted and which (via the Madder Valley of course) originally inspired me. I've managed to keep several of the rail-served industries but the traffic to/from them all goes off stage to a fiddle yard now and not onwards to another industry on the system. I can do some internal movements such as horse boxes and horse carriages on open carriage trucks from the main line goods yard up to the branch terminus and milk from the branch down to the main milk and parcels office but I suppose what I shall do is move goods from off stage into the main line stations goods yard, things such as cordwood for the wood distillation works, and shift it onwards from there. Coal too might move from the colliery to the goods yard and be sorted into wagons destined for the docks and those to be sent up the branch so I imagine all is not lost.

I do prefer the more open and less busy nature of Plan B, there is a lot of nice open countryside which hardly existed on the first design. The coal mine is better laid out as well. No steep grades though I think is going to be the main success here; they were the bane of my life before. Its my fault for reading too many CJF plans when I was young and impressionable with their 1 in 30 grades

 

You should keep an eye on the Layout Design forum and be the voice of reason when newbies ask the regular question, "Are my gradients too steep?" (often incorporating small radius curves and relying on bodges like "Powerbase" to get anything up them at all!).

Answer: "If you're having to ask the question at all, Yes!"

 

[Nick C]

18 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

I'm sorely tempted at this stage to just put trains on the plan and push them around going "Choo-choo!" It would save a lot of money and effort.

Eminently sensible in my opinion - better to find out at this stage if you've done something silly like making one of the loops half a coach length too short, or not left enough clearance somewhere, rather than discovering after you've laid all the track...

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Harlequin said:

 

You should keep an eye on the Layout Design forum and be the voice of reason when newbies ask the regular question, "Are my gradients too steep?" (often incorporating small radius curves and relying on bodges like "Powerbase" to get anything up them at all!).

Answer: "If you're having to ask the question at all, Yes!"

 

Not just newbies, Phil - I recently nearly had an "Oh Sh1t" moment because I'd set out a gradient on a curve to suit a loco, 6 wagons and a brake van, forgetting that when I was shunting the small yard at the top of the incline an extra 6 wagons would come into play. Fortunately, I was able to cram enough extra weight into the loco in question to allow it to get up the hill when pushing 12 + BV!