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Life in a Northern Town


Neil
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Some nice atmospheric photographs from your homecoming Neil :good_mini: The factory building is very interesting, with some lovely architectural features - I love the windows and the detail around the door.

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Changes have happened since I last ventured into my playroom with camera, the most time consuming of which has been the raising up of the trackbed. Creating the cutting template on the lining paper surface was easy using this wagon conversion.

 

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Then the hard graft started cutting the trackbed out of mdf and raising it off the deck on sections of two by one. Once I'd finished phase one I got out brushes, roller and emulsion and applied some sky to the walls.

 

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I'm pleased by the change in colour balance that it has effected.  Even though it's darker than the previous white walls it gives a more blue cast which improves the look no end.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Stubby47 said:

Have you removed the lower baseboard under the now-raised trackbed?

Just wondering how you'll attach point mechanisms and power feeds.

 

An excellent question. The lower baseboard is solid, the point mechanisms will either be surface mounted motors (Hattons H&H lookalikes) or slide-switches again surface mounted dependent on whether they would be controlled from the lever frame or individual point levers. Power feeds wont be a problem as I have a selection of long woodworking drill bits which will go straight through both layers. I then propose to fit tubes into the holes which I can then thread the wires down. I have some 4mm thick, black yoga mats which I'm going to use as underlay so at the top of each tube I intend to cut a + shape which will allow the wires through but will disguise the top of the tube.

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The last couple of weeks I've been on holiday with Mrs R in Spain. Seeing as you asked, Sitges, very nice and by train. When we arrived back a parcel was waiting for me; yes I've indulged in some Ruston style retail therapy. It seemed to run fine without the weirdly articulated coupling bar so I pulled it out of the socket and replaced it with the included coupling. I also took out the blanking plate at the front and fitted a coupling there too. While my version of York's dusty corners remains in an unphotogenic state I thought I'd swap out a few of my Belgian layout's buildings for British examples. Here are the results.

 

Here the Ruston hauls a couple of coal hoppers over North Dock Road.

 

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Returning light engine after completing the shunt.

 

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I’ll need to remember this.  Some of my layout ideas have used a Peco short crossing: although I expect my locos will not stutter, it’s always good to have a plan B.

Paul.

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2 hours ago, sb67 said:

Great work on the crossing Neil, how will you deal with the electrics, I'm guessing the polarity will need changing during operation?

Steve.

 

You're quite right Steve, the polarity will need changing. Fortunately I've a tried and tested method for doing this nicked from Iain Rice's book on building track. Here's an explanation I prepared some time ago  ...

 

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The simplest way of explaining what is going on is to say that all the same coloured rails are electrically bonded with jumper wires. The red and blue sets of rails are positive and negative and do not change. The green and purple rails will change depending on the setting of the points (like normal live frogs. If you hold a piece of paper over the diamond and just look at the pair of points all seems normal, logical and unthreatening. All that happens is that the frogs of the diamond are linked to their companion point frogs to enable through running. The only restriction on a formation wired thus is that both routes cannot be set across the diamond at the same time; one of the points must be set for the avoiding route. There is no problem with both points being set to avoid the diamond.

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You have made a good job with the diamond crossing.

I am surprised, however, that you do not scratchbuild using copperclad sleepers.

The skill sets are almost the same and you end up with what you want rather than what you are given by Peco.

All the rails are then metal, you can have whatever angle you want and curve both roads through the crossing if you are so inclined.

 

Ian T

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4 hours ago, Neil said:

It's also most enjoyable to be able to short cut some of the donkey work by judicious retail therapy.

 

Totally agree. My latest N gauge layout uses Pecos rather than handbuilt.

Nice to see some-one modelling York as well. Been there twice this year, to watch both football codes.

Ian T

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Just in case you thought I'd run out of angles to take photos of diamond crossings from here's one of the underneath.

 

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It shows how I've reinstated the jumpers from the outer to inner rails. Note if you intend to do something similar it's not an exact like for like replacement of the Peco items as both of the inner rails of the K crossing are connected to their neighbouring outer rail.

 

Now the diamond id done next up on the workbench is this sixties vintage Triang building. It came out of one of those rummage boxes at a swapmeet and for many years has done service as one of my placeholder structures when setting out layout ideas.

 

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I'd always had in mind to tart it up into a proper layout building; now its time has come. The biggest of the drawbacks is the excess height between the top of the door and the bottom of the roof which gives it strange proportions. With a canopy all would look well  but as far as I know this smaller of the platform buildings never had one. As Northern Town is to be goods only (at least the British Railways bit) I couldn't use a canopy to rebalance the appearance so instead it was out with the cutting disk and files to take a chunk off all round.

 

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The Triang office has progressed some more today. Most of the effort has gone into filling in the hole in the front but you might also notice that the noticeboards(?) either side of the window have been shaved off as have the representations of drainpipes.

 

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I've been bricking it; literally.

 

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The original Triang structure and the new wall have been blended together with the application of brick cladding all round. I can't pretend it was anything other than a fiddle to get the holes lined up with the doors and windows but worth it I think. The other, easier option would have been a rendered finish, however this would have far less typical for a railway owned structure in York so brick it had to be. Like most of my plastic builds and mods it has had a witness coat of Halfords grey primer applied. I can see little areas of filler need to be applied here and there, particularly round the window sills.

 

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I should mention that the raw brick plasticard was lightly sanded before I applied the paint. It gives a better surface for the paint and by flattening the face of the bricks, improves their appearance too.

 

 

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Today I finished trimming the last piece of underlay back to the edge of the raised trackbed. There will be more to do later when I tackle the remaining areas of the layout but I've now covered all the existing trackbed.

 

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This week I've also fitted the point which will feed the two coal drop roads to the end of the diamond crossing. Can anyone tell me if locomotives were allowed onto the coal drops or would reach wagons be used?

 

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Also receiving attention this week, the Triang rebuild. Matters have taken a radical turn as the original roof was put to one side and I started experimenting with a representation of a concrete flat roof. It's not pretty but I'm rather taken by it's brutish simplicity.

 

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Thanks Ian, it looks like shunting will have an extra twist to it then.

 

I wondered about a fall on the roof but the old ones (WW2) that I could find seem not to have a fall on them. It may have made casting in situ a bit awkward, wet concrete and a slope and all that. If I'm honest the model has been done that way because I needed the top course of bricks to be level in case the flat roof felt too austere and I needed to refit the original pitched example.

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2 hours ago, Neil said:

Thanks Ian, it looks like shunting will have an extra twist to it then.

 

I wondered about a fall on the roof but the old ones (WW2) that I could find seem not to have a fall on them. It may have made casting in situ a bit awkward, wet concrete and a slope and all that. If I'm honest the model has been done that way because I needed the top course of bricks to be level in case the flat roof felt too austere and I needed to refit the original pitched example.

The concrete roofed shed (ex air raid shelter) I hand demolished in 1980 ready for the bathroom extension to be built onto my first house in York (during 1980-81) had a roof that was as flat as made no difference to the eye. The flat roof looks authentic.  Have never seen a brick built building with thick concrete slab roof with a slope apparent to the eye - if they have one that is not discernible.

 

Surely to get a slope you would have to cast it off site and crane it on; wouldn't they have been wet cast in situ? The only one's I have seen sloped are the pre-cast buildings definitely batch made off site, plate-layers huts and the like.

 

 

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