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DRS ENGINEERING WORKS REBOOT APRIL 2021

To avoid reading through my meanderings, you can jump straight to the REBOOT post by clicking -

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/148501-drs-engineering-railway-works/?do=findComment&comment=4399397

 

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The Long And Winding Road To The Same Destination or How I Got Back Into Railway Modelling

 

I, like many others, am a late returner to the hobby.  I got all excited with a bit of spare cash and a carefree attitude to eBay, which resulted in me gradually amassing a whole raft of Bachmann intermodal wagons, various big locos (Bachmann classes 57, 66 and 70 in Freightliner livery along with a smooth running Bachmann class 08) and a scheme to build an inglenook shunting layout with the containers being the 'identifiers' on the stock being moved!  Scalescenes crane downloaded, second hand track purchased from my local model shop and resurrected my old DC controller.  
 

Experiments followed. Trackplans were drawn. Scenic treatments contemplated. Modern freighter downloaded from Scalescenes so I could model the simple ship to shore facilities of the Manchester Ship Canal down the road from me.

 

Then the penny dropped - how ridiculous to shunt Freightliner wagons around when you can simply shuffle the boxes themselves around! 

 

Another "bargain"* of a Hornby Crossley & Evans Sentinel shunter from Rails of Sheffield, and I got sidetracked into some modern rolling stock, now with the intention of modelling a small Freightliner terminal plus other industries (a wind turbine manufacturer being my main idea).  Then I spotted RES coaches, and a lovely class 47. A Bachmann Voyager followed, and a TransPennine Express DMU ... now I was thinking "what if" Manchester Liners had continued, and furthermore won a rail franchise... a Dapol class 56 and a Lima class 59 (both badly painted in BR green) were purchased off eBay and stripped, ready for some new liveries...

 

Then I only went and won an auction for a Dapol J94 Austerity saddle tank loco, one of my favourite steam engines. I needed rolling stock for it.  Bidding online plus visits to my local shop and toy fairs and I slowly started building up a selection of short wheelbase wagons, late BR period...

 

Does all this sound in any way familiar?

 

The Freightliner stock is now stored in a big box, together with all the “modern” locomotives and rolling stock. I realised that what I wanted to model was a port, with ships (not boats) and warehouses and inset tracks.  An accidental (honest) win of seven upgraded Hornby Railroad’ Pullman coaches and suddenly I was looking at boat trains, train ferries, Weymouth (of course), Dover Marine... helped along, no doubt, by the inspirational article about a train ferry (in N gauge) that I remembered from my childhood.

 

And so another mad round of retail therapy ... this time a bunch of train ferry wagons ... including HO scale wagons ... what a mistake!  (I still have another four to be delivered ... will I ever learn?)  And quite by chance stumbling upon the Wardleworth Lines Committee articles in a freebie magazine box, with the Rev Alan Shone’s description of how he designed and built his train ferry!

 

Now I have become rather more focused - I think - on Southern region, late BR, end of steam and electrification.  (And this from a Northerner?!)

 

What has the above got to do with box files and micro layouts?

 

Well, suffice to say that I built a baseboard to build my harbour layout upon; a seven foot long baseboard. (Yes, I ignored all the advice about baseboard size in my eagerness to avoid joints between boards!)

 

Which I then extended with a narrower “quay" section board (a la Weymouth) behind my computer, to act as a fiddleyard.  Then I started planning passenger facilities, and suddenly everything got out of hand…

 

I had fallen into the trap of doing TOO MUCH and way too soon!

 

So, how to break out of this vicious cycle?
 

I part exchanged some of my stock and locos, and got myself a Hornby Peckett

0-4-0 to go with my Hattons Andrew Barclay.  Another flurry of purchases and I now have a veritable fleet of dock locos - I have a penchant for them, and am 'collecting' them as I am able to!

 

And, finally, I have packed all the track away after settling upon an Inglenook on part of the original board, with kickback sidings into the Hornby Magazine/Scalescenes Railway Works!  Track has been put together and tested for clearances etc, and so now I need to saw the baseboard in half so I can start the laying the track permanently.  

 

And why do I share all this?

 

So that I am committed to moving forward and bl**dy well doing something! This will force ... no, encourage me, to regularly update progress here!  There will be lots of "firsts" for me, so I shall keep it small, keep it focused and get it done!

 

Last but not least, the "DRS" in the title is for my father's initials - a lifelong modeller, he is living with dementia and Alzheimers and can model no longer.

 

Steve

 

Edited by SteveyDee68
Link to reboot post - no, it doesn't - grrr!
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So, tracks are positioned and distances checked to ensure the Inglenook formula will work. The works uses two Hornby magazine facades, with the "bays" re-ordered (kit bashed) to get the sliding doors in the right places. The extension kit has been downloaded and from that a deeper version of the works shall be kitbashed, using the brown brick texture sheet.

 

I had already bought (but not made) the industrial buildings - the boiler house will be at the rear of the works, possibly reskinned in brown brick to match if the aged brown brick finish doesn't blend well enough.  The industrial warehouse will be hard up against the boundary wall, so the large loading door will be moved to the other end. Likewise the unloading platform will be extended along the siding, with the Workshops being served by the same platform.  There are two next to each other - one will be kitbashed so it does not have the large loading door.

 

Further along, the entrance gates are guarded on their left by the works offices, this being the two extensions for the Medium Station Building (to be purchased). The industrial water tower and the freebie weighbridge complete the structures.

 

The photo shows the track plan - there is a dummy siding serving the boiler house at the rear, entering through a wooden gate, likewise the track at front left leaves the works yard via a wooden gate to the rest of the world.

 

So now I need to perform surgery on the baseboard and reduce it to length, before laying the track. After that, a whole lot of buildings need to be constructed before sets/concrete can be added appropriately, and the track ballasted.

 

Well, it's further than I have ever got before!

 

The wood across the right hand end marks where the board will be cut. The whole complex will be surrounded by a high wall ... for safety I think I may use ply and covered with brick papers.

 

In other news, all my locos happily trundle over the insulfrog points except the PLA Janus diesel shunter, which is a bit fussy about the first point until it is pinned flat. The Hornby Pecketts, my Andrew Barclay and friends all cope brilliantly with the dead frogs but I intend to solder lots of power feeds everywhere to ensure power at all times!

 

Hours of fun!

 

Steve S 

 

 

IMG_0516.JPG

Edited by SteveyDee68
Added photo! Oops! Spelling mistakes!
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I forgot - the Inglenook .... doctored photo showing where the puzzle will exist...

 

Forgot to say - DRS Engineering services both locos (top line) and wagons (lower line), making for some interesting shunting... a reason for my lovely new Ruston & Hornsby loco to potter about to pop wagons into the works!

 

IMG_0516.JPG

Edited by SteveyDee68
Corrected spelling errors
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"Then I won a Dapol J94 Austerity saddle tank loco, one of my favourite steam engines. I needed rolling stock for it.  Bidding online and visits to my local shop and toy fairs and I slowly started building up a selection of short wheelbase wagons, late BR period...

 

Does this sound in any way familiar?"

 

Painfully familiar!

 

Good luck with your project

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On 22/10/2019 at 06:23, johnd said:

Nice idea. Regarding points I would use live frog points instead of the dead frog variety, performance will be improved and with you using plenty of power feeds reliability long term will be so much better.

 

I grew up with insulfrog points. I made multiple purchases of second hand points going with the "what I know" principle (live frogs scares the heebie jeebies out of me) and as this is now a vastly cut back scheme from my original I'll stick with these few points and part exchange the rest for live frogs for the next layout ... 

 

I need to do this one first!

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The plan looks great and I can totally relate to the false starts that have lead you to this point! I would however reiterate the advice to use live frog points with those four coupled locos. They will work with insulfrogs, but your shunting speed will have to be higher to avoid stalling. 

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi,

 

Not wishing to start an argument - but I used insulfrog points on my inglenook with no problems at all (see Bratton Lane in my signature below). If you have the point already I don't think it is worth the extra hassle/expense of replacing them.

 

The most important thing of all, whatever point type you use, is to make sure it is completely flat. This sounds obvious but you'll be surprised how many are not after power feeds, underlay and ballasting takes place. 

 

Also make sure you feed power to every section of track, including the point. It takes a little extra time but will save you heartache later.

 

Good luck and thanks for sharing.

 

Regards,

James

Edited by jamest
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  • 2 weeks later...

Having posted photos of my trackplan, I kept wondering to myself about fitting a loop in of some sort... but retaining an inglenook shunting puzzle somehow or other, whilst also keeping the loco/wagon works theme.

 

A dozen aborted schemes later, and I simply couldn't get a loop and a long enough headshunt length for anything workable. And then I fetched out the short crossing...

 

Things improved a little, until eventually I had something that worked but only if two points somehow conjoined! Bearing in mind, this is my first attempt at anything proper, ever... was I contemplating building my own track?! Talk about running before you can walk! :lol:

 

I thought I had better trim a length of flexible track for practice using my lovely Lidl multitool... I snapped the cutting blade! Ever the optimist, I decided to dive straight in to the trickiest bit of track surgery...

 

Forgive me, St PECO, for the butchery I have done in the name of an Inglenook! Pretty it is not, but it appears to work, and it gives just a little bit more headshunt space! Thus emboldened, I merrily trimmed all other track to correct lengths. So, no more changes of trackplan now!

 

Seen more or less from above, as the drone flies:

 

IMG_0535.JPG

 

The "interleaved" (aka "butchered") points, which allow wagons to be shunted into the works yard for the inglenook puzzle:

 

IMG_0536.JPG

Edited by SteveyDee68
Photos sorted!!
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On 12/11/2019 at 21:41, noctilux2 said:

Only thing missing is the size of this micro layout.  Otherwise, all looks VG.

 

Thanks noctilux2 for the positive comment. But.... Oh dear. I believe I may have inadvertently broken the cardinal rule of "micro" layouts, as the length is four feet exactly (48 inches, or 1222mm) by one foot eight wide (20 inches, or 508mm) which means it breaks the "four square feet" definition of "micro"!

 

Plan is for a fiddle stick or even a short fiddle yard on the left end eventually, but it doesn't need it in order to work as a shunting puzzle.

Edited by SteveyDee68
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Now, what's that old saying about pride before a fall?

 

I was so chuffed at the success of my interleaved points (well, I say that, but let me modify it to "was so relieved at  having NOT completely knackered two usable points" in order to be more accurate about my feelings) that I cut the rest of the track.  I took a photo of it all, and wrote about it a few minutes ago.

 

In a flush of "lemme show you what I done", I put stock on the rails to demonstrate the siding capacities and where the Inglenook puzzle is "hidden".

 

3 sidings of capacity 3, 3 and 5 standard wagons. I even worked out how the whole train could have a brake van added. Can anyone spot the not so deliberate mistake, I wonder? :rolleyes_mini:

 

 

IMG_0537.JPG

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10 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Having posted photos of my trackplan, I kept wondering to myself about fitting a loop in of some sort... but retaining an inglenook shunting puzzle somehow or other, whilst also keeping the loco/wagon works theme.

 

A dozen aborted schemes later, and I simply couldn't get a loop and a long enough headshunt length for anything workable. And then I fetched out the short crossing...

 

Things improved a little, until eventually I had something that worked but only if two points somehow conjoined! Bearing in mind, this is my first attempt at anything proper, ever... was I contemplating building my own track?! Talk about running before you can walk! :lol:

 

I thought I had better trim a length of flexible track for practice using my lovely Lidl multitool... I snapped the cutting blade! Ever the optimist, I decided to dive straight in to the trickiest bit of track surgery...

 

Forgive me, St PECO, for the butchery I have done in the name of an Inglenook! Pretty it is not, but it appears to work, and it gives just a little bit more headshunt space! Thus emboldened, I merrily trimmed all other track to correct lengths. So, no more changes of trackplan now!

 

Seen more or less from above, as the drone flies:

 

IMG_0535.JPG

 

The "interleaved" (aka "butchered") points, which allow wagons to be shunted into the works yard for the inglenook puzzle:

 

IMG_0536.JPG


The interleaved point = interesting idea, that I have now squirrelled away as a possible for a future project.

Edited by john new
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It looks like you tried to add a second 5/3/3 set up at the left hand end shunted with loco at the right hand end which can’t work due to the added diamond etc.  However, looking at where you have the stock placed you still have the inglenook concept you outlined in the post of 22nd October, albeit, possibly with more space than loco plus 3 in the shunting neck.

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Yep, been there & got the T shirt !  Best laid plans as they say.  Having previously fallen into the “it doesn’t fit” trap, with my latter micros I design them first on the PC with either XTrack or Anyrail.  This permits sizing of siding lengths before committing track to baseboard & the following headaches.

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Hi,

 

Great job on the points - It is sometimes said that less is more when track is concerned - which is definitely true in certain circumstances......but I do love tightly packed complicated 'non-standard' point work too, and I think it works well here.

 

It might not be how the 'real' engineers would have done it (I don't know because I am a real world railway numpty) - but I think it looks great.

 

A lot of interest in a small space.

 

All the best,

James

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6 hours ago, john new said:

It looks like you tried to add a second 5/3/3 set up at the left hand end shunted with loco at the right hand end which can’t work due to the added diamond etc.  However, looking at where you have the stock placed you still have the inglenook concept you outlined in the post of 22nd October, albeit, possibly with more space than loco plus 3 in the shunting neck.

 

Well spotted, although the Inglenook is actually the two yard sidings on the left plus where the five wagons sit, shunted off the headshunt with the 08, which means the diamond doesn't interfere. Only, when I put the stock out did I realise that in measuring my three wagon headshunt that I forgot the loco! So the 08 + 2 wagons instead of 3! Not sure if that stymies the Inglenook - hope not!! Can't be changed now, unless I add a "fiddle stick" one wagon long!

 

Having said that, the siding into the wagon shed (bottom right) will take 5 wagons - just not in proper view!

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Thoughts, please...

 

I have some sheets of 5mm thick extruded insulation foam from B&Q ... I am thinking of covering my whole baseboard with a sheet upon which to lay tubes for wire-in-tube operation of the points...

 

Do I then lay another sheet over the entire board before laying track, to cover the tubes and provide room (5mm depth) for the point operating wires to bend 90 degrees up into the middle of the point switchblades, or lay two complete layers on top (to give 10mm depth)?  Or not bother?

 

Also, could I use copper tape as a surface mounted power bus on the original board, to solder feed wires to from the track before covering with the second layer of foam? (Am I avoiding having to drill through the baseboard top? Yes!!)

 

Any advice appreciate and considered, as long as it is not "take up golf"!

 

Cheers

 

Steve S

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Handsworth Works and Handsworth Goods are inspiring me onwards with my build, particularly in Locksley's use of Scalescene buildings and his surface power bus using copper tape (I do like the idea of *not* having to drill through the baseboard for wiring!)

 

Experiments with spray mounting glue shows it holds foam incredibly well, and also track too. I reckon some careful masking may be needed on points before glueing them using this method... has anyone used such sprays for track and advise of pitfalls to avoid?

 

Meanwhile the bicycle brake cable has arrived for (possibly) working the points ... and am puzzled that there are big metal blob things on each end of the cables! How are you supposed to thread them through the outer cable with those attached?!!

 

However, work/experiments grind to a halt now as I launch into a week of Bugsy Malone as MD for a school production, with a weekend of frenetic rescoring of band parts into the keys required for the production! I may do some browsing for a bit of relief, but for now it is adieu and see you all on the other side!

 

Steve

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3 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

has anyone used such sprays for track and advise of pitfalls to avoid? 

 

The only down side I can see is when it comes to laying the points. It might be best to not use a spray when laying those, as you'll have to ensure that the sleeper that moves the point isn't glued.

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On 22/11/2019 at 10:31, jbmccarthy said:

 

The only down side I can see is when it comes to laying the points. It might be best to not use a spray when laying those, as you'll have to ensure that the sleeper that moves the point isn't glued.

 

I was thinking of a piece of tape across the mechanism when sprayed, removed as point laid in place.

 

Meanwhile the test piece I glued onto foam is still solid as a rock so initial results encouraging. I need to see what happens with the glue when I ballast it (another experiment!)

 

Cheers

 

Steve

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update...

 

Well, if anyone has seen my question about Southern Region loco stock in the Questions forum, you will have gathered  that I have recently purchased a number of larger locos, including and up to a Rebuilt Merchant Navy class 4-6-2! This means my carefully planned locoworks has a hiccup in that the headshunt won't fit my locos to get them into the shed! 

 

Fortunately, the track at the front right (shown as the Wagon Works) will fit a longer loco and has easy access.  To that end, I downloaded the Scalescenes gable end engine shed in a matching finish to the Hornby magazine loco works. But another thread has pointed me at the Didcot Railway Centre website and in particular the picture of the  engine-lifting shop: the crane gantry inside looks very like the Ratio loco hoist kit (which I have)... so now I wonder, is it usual for such a hoist to be under cover? Or is that peculiar to loco works? 

 

In which case, to paraphrase the film "Jaws", "I think we're gonna need a bigger shed"

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