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Greenbooth: EM gauge Industrial/BR in East Lancashire


Persephone
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So just on three weeks of starting on the panel and the wiring, all the final bench testing was completed last night, with just a few jobs to do today reversing polarity on a few motors so that when the "levers" are in the normal position, the road set reflects that on the box diagram.

 

That job done, both boards were put back on the subframe and joined and everything including the NCE kit was plugged in. Granted a class 40 may not be the best loco to test track on a shunting plank but at least it found the bits of track needing attention! Apart from a few dry joints on the track droppers which were quickly sorted it all works. Next is to fettle all the track , and put a chip in one of the locos which will actually be running on the layout!

 

 

 

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Having spent a few days fettling trackwork, Ive spent some time running locos to spot any further bits which need attention before moving onto the next stage. Theres a couple of tight spots I'd not noticed to sort out but other than that its onwards and upwards.

 

I was going to start building signals but I feel a change to doing some of the industrial stock might be a better idea. But is it the Judith Edge Hunslet 16 inch, or making a silk purse out of a pigs ear that is the mechanical and chassis side of the abortion that is the DJM Austerity. (RT Chassis, Mashima 2012 motor, High Level box and Gibson wheels)

 

 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nothing like a change of mind to make you "stay alert" (sic) This week has mainly been about slicing foamboard to make full scale mock ups of buildings etc to get an idea how it will look as a complete model before I embark on any major scenic work. I'm very happy with disguising the entry/exit from the fiddleyard with buildings.

 

The engine house and the boiler house alongside at the entry it are based on buildings found in the Graham  Edgar books, both struck me as very interesting buildings and not unlike each other in style. There will be a pipe bridge between the two. The terrace row is based on those just down in the village from me, a typical stone built Lancashire row, but with a difference as on the model being on a slope whereas in reality they are flat. The mill is basically a cross between Ilex Hall and New Hall Hey mills in Rawtenstall. There is going to be the inevitable large chimney at the side of the boiler house. Where the L and Y signal box base is on the far end will be the enginemens bothy, engine servicing - coal stage and watertower just outside the shed.

 

I will now move on to a loco or two and let the buildings "settle in" so to speak in order to get obver that first rush and look at the composition with a bit of objective critical anaysis - the low relief Northlight shed behind the station is going to be redone for starters!IMG_20200520_161312.jpg.df3cc4388d89d4dcb76f58c70ab9017f.jpgIMG_20200520_161200.jpg.846ff74e4669dc740ea1d6871bef68ae.jpgIMG_20200520_160835.jpg.66be64abe72368fdb4df3269124ca8c3.jpgIMG_20200520_160809.jpg.e7147c1e82b9752faa2e329f4687c66d.jpgIMG_20200520_161120.jpg.cbaa096d190796e7a90524047b1ea904.jpg

Edited by Persephone
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The value of making mock ups of the buildings has been illustrated over the last 48 hours  following a discussion on the Rochdale MRG Facebook isolation virtual clubroom after I'd put the pictures and my thoughts to the group. 

 

I wasnt happy with the appearance of the Northlight weaving shed behind the station building. I'd scaled it down from photos on Google earth, not actually being in a position to go out and actually measure it as I would normally do, and put in place the bays looked a bit too big. After a discussion on the group, and a member who's a surveyor giving some professional advice on the angles involved, I today cut more foam board based on another set of photos found online. 

 

As a result much more happy with the building and how it looks. Just goes to show that even in lock down the club still functions as it should. Social meeja to the rescue! 

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I've a few etched brass industrial loco projects to do, and its a while since Ive actually built a kit so I thought Id start with the easiest project and work up from there. As it happens, the easiest option is that of turning a pigs ear into a silk purse, or  even harder in this case, a DJM Austerity that runs.

 

Lets face it, its all front, a bit like he who should not be named who designed and marketed it. Face value it looks good, pretty much accurate on the body size, injectors look a bit clumsy to me but that can be sorted, it looks fine. The mechanics of this are another story however, it really is the biggest piece of ordure ever made. My good friend Black and Decker Boy of this parish got a couple shortly after they came out  for his layout Kirkmellington. I recall sat with him at Ally Pally with the layout a few years back attempting to figure out how to convert them to EM, they were bad enough runners in OO. Form over substance is probably the kindest thing to say.

 

Anyhow, about a year and a half ago Hattons were knocking them out for a price at which had it been today you'd have thought the boxes contained COVID 19. Although at this stage Greenbooth was just an idea,  I was going to do something industrial in EM for another club members project, so I bit the bullet and my principles and shelled out just short of 60 beer tokens for one. I daresay I could have pulled the wheels out to EM and tried it, but a test run on the grandkids OO layout upstairs confirmed my worst fears, it ran like the piece of s**t it is.  Wheel pulling was not, and in reality never was, an option. Luckily I knew by then that RT Models produce a chassis for it ( B and D boy had already gone down this route). I picked one up from RT last year and like you should do with all pieces of etched brass, put it into the kit drawer to mature. (I've a  circa 20 year old Brassmasters Jubillee in there that's still not quite ready lol)

 

So now it time to build and hopefully produce something worthy of the body work. Yesterday I folded up and put the High Level gear box together - that's paired with a Mashima 2012. Hopefully the soldering iron will be out today to commence the frames.

 

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Edited by Persephone
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Good weather has been interfering with chassis building but some progress has been made. First job on was taking the original model to bits in order to plan out how the chassis, gearbox and motor will fit. Now this should be a doddle but it soon became clear that getting the motor out wasn't going to be the easiest of jobs as the motor fits tightly in the saddle tank  /boiler and drives direct onto the gearbox in the chassis. It's obvious it was originally fitted to the base of the boiler before the base unit is glued to the tank, /top. As a result its a pain to get out and only by a few contortions and just about managing to disassemble the motor mount whilst it was still in the boiler was I able to get everything out. The whole exercise just highlighted what a piece of the design of the is model is. Poorly thought out, poorly designed and piss poor quality of components, the gear wheel the worm drives is full of slop, poor quality plastic which looks like it will wear out pretty fast. 

 

On the other hand the RT chassis so far has gone OK although the instructions and drawings aren't as clear as they could be.  For instance  the instructions say  put the middle frame spacer in after the two end spacers, threading the inside slide bars through it. This is a real fiddle and not easy, if I'd have realised this I would have put it in the same time as the front end spacer, threading the slide bars in on the bench. 

 

That aside everything fits well, it was a joy to get square and has come nice detail. Next job is a clean and a trial fit of the gearbox and motor which will be fun given the limited space available. 

 

 

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