Life in a Northern Town

[Guest Jack Benson]

Gosh,

 

I am enjoying this build, thanks Neil for sharing.

 

Lots of great ideas and pragmatic modelling.

 

Cheers

 

 

[Neil]

The latest project is a step away from stock and a return to the layout itself. One of the features of the design is one of the typical NER coal drops; in my case a two road affair. I though it best to build this off layout as a separate unit which can be installed once complete. So far I've put together the basic carcass from MDF, ply and some pse timber strip. The timber strip is a little thicker by a couple of mm than a typical pier should be so to keep the proportions looking about right I've increased their spacing a touch.

 

 

The rails should have a deeper section than I'm using but I want to avoid difficulties joining to the rest of the layout so code 100 it is. I'm using steel stripped out from old set track. I'm not bothered if it goes a bit rusty in the garage as I won't be powering rails over the drops. From questions asked it seems as though locos were banned from running over the coal drops so I won't be allowing my operators to cheat.

 

 

I thought at first I'd solder the rails to pins driven into the tops of the piers, but as I'm a little worried about the different materials expanding and contracting at different rates when the garage goes from cold to hot I think I'll just use ordinary dressmaking pins to spike the rails in place.

 

 

 

[Stubby47]

Should the drops be a suitable width to match the wagons above, so the doors are all in the right place without having to move each wagon into place?

[Worsdell forever]

53 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Should the drops be a suitable width to match the wagons above, so the doors are all in the right place without having to move each wagon into place?

The drops would have been built for 10 ton hoppers rather than those posh modern 20 tonners. 

[Worsdell forever]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

The latest project is a step away from stock and a return to the layout itself. One of the features of the design is one of the typical NER coal drops; in my case a two road affair.

 

 

The rails should have a deeper section than I'm using but I want to avoid difficulties joining to the rest of the layout so code 100 it is. I'm using steel stripped out from old set track. I'm not bothered if it goes a bit rusty in the garage as I won't be powering rails over the drops. From questions asked it seems as though locos were banned from running over the coal drops so I won't be allowing my operators to cheat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Felton Lane the track was c. 75 bullhead and the rails over the drops were c. 100 flatbottom on 4mm square timber, looks close enough to the prototype to me. 

[Stubby47]

8 minutes ago, Worsdell forever said:

The drops would have been built for 10 ton hoppers rather than those posh modern 20 tonners. 

 

So would shunting be a faff if longer wagons were used, or would the 10t wagons be retained in service just to serve the drops?

[Captain Kernow]

6 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

 

So would shunting be a faff if longer wagons were used, or would the 10t wagons be retained in service just to serve the drops?

Shunting is fun!

 

[Neil]

14 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

 

So would shunting be a faff if longer wagons were used, or would the 10t wagons be retained in service just to serve the drops?

 

Photos from the late fifties, early sixties show an overwhelming preponderance of the 21t hoppers. Given that the wagons will be unloaded by me hoicking out the card, sponge and coal loads then I'm happy not to worry too much about the accurate positioning over the cells. The operating team will have enough on finding reach wagons to drag out short rakes that have been punted all the way down to the stops without having to worry where they park the loaded ones.

[LBRJ]

If "the staff" complained about a bit of shunting to get the wagon spot-on for the cells; just give em a shovel and point at a 16t mineral wagon

[5BarVT]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

 The operating team will have enough on finding reach wagons to drag out short rakes that have been punted all the way down to the stops without having to worry where they park the loaded ones.

Be fun to watch the first time they remember the hard way that the staithes are isolated. 

:-)

I’m friendly like that!

Paul.

[Neil]

Supplies of brick plasticard arrived in the post yesterday dinnertime so I've made a start on the cutting and sticking.

 

 

 

The experimental bits of rail have been temporarily removed by easing up the pins and pulling the rail out. They'll stay that way until the walls and base of the coal drops are complete and painted. Only then will I refit the rails, add in the rest of them and make a start on the decking.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Neil

[Neil]

Some days I wake up knowing that it's not a good idea to make anything. If the mood's not right then there's a very good chance that whatever I build won't be right either. Normally I use these days to have a good tidy up but as my playroom was already unnaturally tidy this morning I had to cast around for something else to do. For some time I had been meaning to overlay my fictional design for Northern Town on top of its supposed location; today gave me that opportunity. I downloaded a series of map sections from the Old Maps website; 'right click, save as' doesn't work here so the 'print screen button' is your friend. Some cutting and assembling of the individual print outs gave me a large scale map of the Bishophill area of York. Some more work with tracing paper, pencil and pens allowed me to drop my fantasy into the reality of 1960's York.

 

 

I'm pretty pleased that it has proved possible and reasonable to fit my concocted version of events into the space I hoped for. On the model what appears in a straightish line here has to be bent round a corner to fit into the garage but apart from that not too many liberties will have to be taken with geography.

 

 

[Stubby47]

Do the residents of Buckingham Street know their houses are due for demolition?

[Neil]

Well it's not the first time their houses have been under the threat of demolition and redevelopment. Here's an image from the Esher Report of 1969 which has the street firmly in its sights.

[Captain Kernow]

Nothing quite beats walking around your chosen area with a camera and clipboard and looking important.

 

I got some funny looks in a part of Bath, when a friend and I were 'surveying' the route for a projected layout that never got built.

 

Mind you, I get funny looks even when I'm not surveying for model railways.

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Captain Kernow

[31A]

19 hours ago, Neil said:

Some days I wake up knowing that it's not a good idea to make anything. If the mood's not right then there's a very good chance that whatever I build won't be right either. Normally I use these days to have a good tidy up but as my playroom was already unnaturally tidy this morning I had to cast around for something else to do. For some time I had been meaning to overlay my fictional design for Northern Town on top of its supposed location; today gave me that opportunity. I downloaded a series of map sections from the Old Maps website; 'right click, save as' doesn't work here so the 'print screen button' is your friend. Some cutting and assembling of the individual print outs gave me a large scale map of the Bishophill area of York. Some more work with tracing paper, pencil and pens allowed me to drop my fantasy into the reality of 1960's York.

 

 

I'm pretty pleased that it has proved possible and reasonable to fit my concocted version of events into the space I hoped for. On the model what appears in a straightish line here has to be bent round a corner to fit into the garage but apart from that not too many liberties will have to be taken with geography.

 

 

 

I don't know whether you were aware (and may have mentioned it before) but a friend recently came across an early proposal for a terminus for a York & Selby Railway in that part of town, including I think a Micklegate tunnel - so maybe your fiction could have an element of historical accuracy?

 

[Neil]

1 hour ago, 31A said:

 

I don't know whether you were aware (and may have mentioned it before) but a friend recently came across an early proposal for a terminus for a York & Selby Railway in that part of town, including I think a Micklegate tunnel - so maybe your fiction could have an element of historical accuracy?

 

 

That's not something I was aware of Steve. I suppose that I shouldn't be too surprised as all sorts of unlikely and difficult proposals were generated at the peak of railway mania.

[Neil]

Progress has been made on the coal drops. I finished off covering the piers and applying capping strips and then covered the floor of the drops with sets. I used a sheet of plasticard which I suspect was intended to represent slates but it looks fine on the ground too. By the time this photo was taken I'd had the paints out for both base coat and weathering washes.

 

 

Because the individual cells will be difficult to work on once the rails and decks are in place I next set about creating mounds of deposited coal. I used sponge rubber hacked into shapes and dyed with ink on the visible faces. Here they are drying.

 

 

The same faces were then covered in glue (UHU) and various grades of crushed coal sprinkled on top. By the time of the next image I'd installed these blobs and blended them into the drops with loose coal glued in place.

 

 

This afternoon I fixed the twin tracks in place by pinning the rails to the tops of the piers. Still to do are the timber decks but I feel as though I'm on the home straight now.

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

Ingenious use of foam as the basis for the coal heaps!

 

[Neil]

I'm pleased to say the coal drop saga is almost at an end. There's just some further paint and weathering before I can install them on the layout.  We last saw them with rails pinned in place but the decking yet to arrive. The decks are a laminate of various thicknesses of plasticard. The inner layer, the foundation, is 30 thou cut to fit loosely and notched to avoid the pins which secure the rails.

 

 

Underneath are short sections of 20 thou, cut to sit between the piers.

 

 

On top, trimmed for a snug fit, are sections of 2mm planked plasticard 20 thou thick. You should be able to make out from the photo that I weathered the rail sides before fixing the deck in place.

 

 

The railings at the front of the drops are Ratio items. I cut off the tops of the posts level with the top rail to better match the look of the real thing. They're still not an exact representation but they convey much of the character. I built the railings into a single length on the bench, making sure to keep them dead straight by lining the tops up along a 2 foot steel rule. The uprights with the grey streak of filler are where the joins were made. I cut and filed the end posts down to half their width and butt joined them with solvent. It's a shame Ratio didn't mould them thus as it would make joining to make long lengths much easier; half posts for finishing the ends off could have been included on the sprue.

 

 

Though there's still a little more to do I'm already taken by the way light and shade is cast into the recesses underneath.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2020 by Neil

[Neil]

Yesterday I temporarily installed the coal drops on the layout for the evenings operating session. This morning the camera came out and I took a few snaps.

 

 

 

 

[steaming_chris]

Hi Neil

 

I've been following your thread with great interest. I noticed in the last few photos that your baseboard uses "rough" plywood. Do you notice any warping, compared to more expensive plywood, or do you have it well braced ?

 

Regards

[Neil]

Hello Chris,

 

It's osb board or Stirling board and to be honest it's a bit pants. It doesn't seem to warp (reasonably well braced) but it can swell at the edges. However the track is on what effectively are  box beams with an mdf surface which has stayed pretty stable so far.

[steaming_chris]

Thank you Neil

[Neil]

Having plenty of time on my hands at the moment and having no external commitments has meant good progress being made with structures for the layout.

 

I've made good progress on repurposing the soup works I built for the GMRC into an ice cream factory. It was originally built with this in mind as it seemed wasteful to put effort into something that would only have one short life on screen. The soup works signage was plucked off many months ago last year but I've only recently got round to painting on its new identity. It's been a simple if fiddly job using home cut stencils.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not just been refurbishments that have taken a turn on the workbench. Here's a new build knocked up out of plasticard over the last week.

 

 

Both buildings immortalise my fellow GMRC team mates in the Cambrian Coasters. More will follow.