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Charlie Strong Metals (and Watery Lane Sidings)


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On 02/02/2020 at 20:22, 5050 said:

Do I recognise the Barclay as well?

Yep. It's that one again.

 

Both baseboards are now painted and the track has been given an all-over spray of a dirty brown/grey. to cover the rail sides and sleepers.

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Charlies-031.jpg.53a2070701792f9d26e4270d4b795b24.jpg

Edited by Ruston
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Testing the clearances of the bridge. If the Class 45 will go through then anything else will. This is another from the original scrap yard layout and it hasn't moved, or been on a track, since the early 1990s but I placed it on the rails and it runs very nicely. If I stick a sound decoder in, it could peek it's nose under the bridge to collect loaded wagons from the yard now and again.

 

The model is Bachmann and started off and The Leicestershire and Derbyshire Yeomanry but I renumbered it and renamed it as 45022 Lytham St. Annes. The Yorkshire rose and 41A transfers were current on the prototype at the time, only I think it may have become 97409 by the time I built the layout. I chose 45022 because it stuck in my mind as the engine that took us from Wakefield to Torquay, on a family holiday in 1980.

Charlies-032.jpg.8a7c579a68b35d49bacf1787ea2c726c.jpg

Edited by Ruston
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Probably more in keeping with the 48DS Rustons in terms of date and what the prototype could handle, are 16-ton mineral wagons, although that's not to say I won't run them with the POAs. I do like a 16-tonner and I bought a couple of cheap, second hand, Bachmann wagons at an exhibition in 2018 ostensibly to add to the stock for White Peak Limestone & Tarmacadam. They were in the original BR unfitted grey but with that awful factory-applied "weathered" finish.

 

To use them as early 1980s here on CSM I am converting them to vac-fitted Morton brakes and am repainting and giving them some severe weathering to become TOPS numbered MXV/MCV.

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MVXMCV-007.jpg.552531bdf510436f7ec38db4d4775940.jpg

 

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I'm happy with how the first one has turned out but less so for the other. I made the transfers on the computer printer and it shows. For some reason black always comes out in shades of grey, so I may have to find some proper transfers from somewhere.

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They should have two brake cylinders, a rib along part of the brake lever, and the tie bar between the axle guards should be L-section but it's all so small in this scale that I can't be bothered. They just need couplings now and whilst I'll make my own 3-links, I'm going to have to buy some instanter links for these.

Edited by Ruston
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I had a small spending spree, at Doncaster, today.

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With the wagons that I have already, that lot ought to provide enough rolling stock for the carriage of scrap in the early 1980s. I'll need a couple more air-braked wagons for the later period but I may already have those after a bit of repainting/re-branding/weathering of a HEA and one of those long wheelbase open box wagons, the code of which I can't remember.

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The first of the Airfix 16-tonners is almost ready for the paintshop.

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I have replaced the plastic wheels, of course, and the brake gear has been replaced with etched brass parts to help the conversion to brakes at both sides for vac-braking. I forgot to add a second cylinder on the Bachmann conversion but have added it this time, not that it can be seen very well. Additional parts are the frame extensions under the stanchions either side of the door, plus the angle iron that runs below the door and some 20 thou rod as a rough representation of the hinge. Tie bar from plasticard - this should be angle but not only do I not have any so small but I don't think it's noticable in this scale. It just needs vac pipes and couplings to finish the actual construction.

 

 

 

You may notice the cork in the foreground. I have laid this to bring the ground level up in the area that will have setts and concrete. It will save on the amount of DAS clay required to bring the surface up to rail top level.

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On 16/01/2020 at 02:00, Ruston said:

Baseboard in progress and placed in the slot where it will live. That is only one side of the bookshelves and the centre support, to the right of the bridge, will need a hole making in it so as to allow through running to a fiddle yard.

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On a side note - nice library Ruston!

 

You never fail to amaze me how quickly you seem to crack on with these layouts/scratch build/detail projects. Top work. Looking forward to this one

 

James

 

 

 

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On 10/02/2020 at 20:06, Ruston said:

 

You may notice the cork in the foreground. I have laid this to bring the ground level up in the area that will have setts and concrete. It will save on the amount of DAS clay required to bring the surface up to rail top level.

 

Have you considered removing the rails from the chairs/sleepers and laying them directly to the base ( cork?). This should allow cork/card to be used to raise the ground height without using a filler.

The rails will need gauging, but you can use the discarded sleepers/chairs upside down on the top of the rail for this.

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4 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

 

Have you considered removing the rails from the chairs/sleepers and laying them directly to the base ( cork?). This should allow cork/card to be used to raise the ground height without using a filler.

The rails will need gauging, but you can use the discarded sleepers/chairs upside down on the top of the rail for this.

I've already laid the track that is to be inlaid with concrete and setts on just a few copper clad sleepers and have filled to the bottom of the rails with cork. Most of the setts will only come up to the edge of the track, as if this used to be a public goods yard at one time. Concrete will be represented by balsa wood.

 

For embossing the clay with setts I have this:

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My Rustons have returned, complete with DCC sound. I decided that I didn't like the stripes on the front of the open-cab one, and that it didn't look sufficiently distressed, so I weathered it more before it went away.

SoundRustons-008.jpg.a1cf7b9e44445d991d39d4c5a6f36226.jpg

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I've got Rustons, I've got track laid, and I've got wagons, so I've been having a play.

 

The magnet coupling system that worked so well on the POA wagons doesn't work so well on the 16-tonners. It works perfectly when coupling but poking the coffee stirrer in to uncouple doesn't work as well. First of all, the wagons, both kit-built and RTR are too light and pushing the coffee stirrer down on them lifts the opposite end of the wagon off the track and derails it.

 

So, I added lead in the floors of the wagons. That caused the tiny Rustons to slip to a stand on the curve of the turnouts when trying to pull just three wagons. I weighed the POAs and they are 60g, unaltered, out-of-the-box, so that's what I weighted the 16-tonners to but the 16-tonners don't run as freely, particularly the RTR ones. Evidently I can put a wagon together better than Bachmann!

 

I'm going to have to experiment with the weights so there is sufficient weight to prevent the wagons derailing when being uncoupled, yet not too much that three of them can't be pulled as a train. I think there's also some experimentation to be done with regard to how far out under the headstocks the magnets protrude. Too far out and it appears more of the iron link of the coupling sticks to it, and makesa joint strong enough to cause so much force to be required to uncouple that it derails the wagon, against too far in and the link may not attract when buffered up and the joint may be too weak to keep a train of three together.

 

I need to come up with the right weight/magnet position combination.

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Today's effort produced the ground for the former railway goods yard that was taken over by the scrapyard upon closure. It is fortunate that I am modelling the surface as being well over 100 years old and ravaged by time, neglect, crawler cranes and heavy lorries as I don't think that I could have made a decent job of it if I had wanted it to look as it would back in Midland Railway days.

 

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The areas that are still drying in the photo represent where the setts have become so damaged and potholed that they have been filled in, or covered, with ash and tarmacadam. I've left a very small area completely uncovered to try and represent a puddle. If it doesn't work I can always fill it in. I won't really know how it looks until it's painted but the next job is to try and clean the rails and dig the flangeways out so that something can run on it again.

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And the concrete pad for the gantry crane and the shredder/baler machines. Balsa wood, treated with some stuff to harden it and painted with suitably concrete-like colours.

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I also found some foam board to make formers for the road embankment.

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A couple of very low-relief buildings for the backscene.

Charlies-Yard8-001.jpg.f883a65c45e529f4596e5ee8d096b73f.jpg

Made from Walthers Modular parts, kindly given to me by 5050.

 

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Made from Skyrex resin parts that have had a lower storey cut off so that they can sit atop the retaining wall and still fit under the bookshelf. There may be some weathering required to the signage and, perhaps, some weeds growing from the ledges.

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Legs for the gantry crane. One down, eleven to go. It isn't finished yet but I don't have any angle to use for the diagonal bracing until I can get to a model shop.

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Inside the concrete plinth (made from thick plasticard) are a load of iron pellets, as used for weighting wagons and locomotives, contained in superglue. A recess has been cut in the plinth so that the base plate (the black plasticard) can have a small but powerful magnet glued to it. The idea of this is so the crane isn't physically fixed to the baseboard to make track maintenance easier and also if it is accidentally knocked by a hand it is more likely to come away from the plinth than to sustain damage.

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Ballasting, using sand from the Yorkshire coast. Spooned out of the wagon and brushed between the sleepers before dripping dilute PVA all over.

Charlies-Yard-8.jpg.4d657084b24bba8f6ecb5748bbe04b0a.jpg

I'll have to leave the ends of these sidings unballasted until I get the buffer stops in place but they have had to be ordered online as the Peco bullhead buffer stops haven't reached my local model shop yet. In fact they'd never heard of them when I asked.

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Agreed about ballasting Dave, mind I always found sand had a tendency to show how thick Peco sleepers were when used with Code 75, seemed to form a meniscus up the sides of them! I imagine it should be less of a problem with the bull head. The speed of this project is impressive, great stuff so far!

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Most of the ballasting is done now. The "main" lines will be left until the retaining wall is put in along the rear.

 

I've also got all of the crane supports done and in place. They've had a blow-over, using a rattle can of red oxide, which will probably remain as the finished colour but will require some weathering once the crane is completed.

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I hate using flash photography but until the layout is in its proper place, with proper lighting, it'll have to do. At least it shows the parts that I've missed with the spray.

 

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The buffer stops arrived, yesterday and are now built, painted and in place. The road embankment has a piece of grass matting that I found in the loft. This should give a good base for adding bushes and static grass.

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The retaining wall now extends the length of the scenic section and incorporates a bridge abutment from a disused and demolished bridge.  All of the ballast is now down but some still awaits painting.

171502685_CharliesYard10-3.jpg.490fbeba3a95bb688f14f48b78254e4a.jpg

 

The corner building for sorting non-ferrous metals (and possibly an engine shed?) has been made from Wills corrugated iron sheets, windows that are left-overs from previous projects, and a doorway from some shed that was a give-away from a modelling magazine.

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The Knightwing container kit is unfinished and  will probably be Freightliner liveried. The Coles crane is something that I bought for River Don works but never used it on there.

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