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2 minutes ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Many thanks Nick,

These photos are very useful. I think my up platform buildings could be low relief, but narrowing the platform too much could make the awning a bit tricky! We will see?

I think, depending on your viewing height and angles, it would be possible to make the slopes on the awning steeper, without them looking too odd.

 

4 minutes ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Am I  right that in your photos there is a new 2nd bay platform beside the original one?

 

Cheers

Paul 

Yes, an outer platform had been installed - if you look closely you can see a fence along the original platform edge.

I don't know why. Maybe something to do with the fire, or they wanted to extend the platform and the subway was in the way.

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34 minutes ago, Nick Gough said:

These photos were taken in 2006 and, not long before, the main building on the down side had suffered severe fire damage. It was repaired and I should have some more, later photos, when I can track them down.

Found them.

Looking in the Up direction with the bay line in the foreground:DSC02273.JPG.0d19fe09d195cccf4e67c94fe070286d.JPG

 

Several of the Up platform:DSC02274.JPG.24ac8b9e29e0d29e4e332665deeea592.JPGDSC02275.JPG.09e15d401d6e528c7cad6e751bd058cb.JPGDSC02276.JPG.645d014922f09a132064a22d598d0225.JPGDSC02277.JPG.458a66c5798e30196a2f28f069d3dced.JPGDSC02278.JPG.3f96df07c687aa6a43b1649ff3969967.JPGDSC02280.JPG.5a66d0eb982b25db5dca42860416cee8.JPGDSC02281.JPG.b55e2c9cf1204233ba02f301a930f7b4.JPGDSC02282.JPG.e873b6492f1c80ae60c64ee669ee30d0.JPGDSC02283.JPG.b7692ab61571e603aa3db3168d7bd490.JPGDSC02284.JPG.73dd716729c69d6de08005b451232fb6.JPG

 

These are from 2009 and not as sharp as I'd like. My normal camera had died and I had to use an alternative.

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Hi Nick,

Many thanks for all the photos, they will be very useful.

 

Do you have any idea when the Wilkinson block behind the up platform was built? - I was thinking that would make a good backdrop over the middle of the storage loops. However, that won't work if it's a 1970s build!

 

Best regards

Paul

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1 hour ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Hi Nick,

Many thanks for all the photos, they will be very useful.

 

Do you have any idea when the Wilkinson block behind the up platform was built? - I was thinking that would make a good backdrop over the middle of the storage loops. However, that won't work if it's a 1970s build!

 

Best regards

Paul

I don't know, but it's not there on a 1966 map on the 'Old Maps' website - that has a large car park there.  Older maps have, what appears to be, a couple of rows of terraced housing.

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17 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

I don't know, but it's not there on a 1966 map on the 'Old Maps' website - that has a large car park there.  Older maps have, what appears to be, a couple of rows of terraced housing.

Thanks Nick,

That item is now on my "think about it " list! 

I might well invoke Rule 1 if I find it was built in the late 60s/70s, but later than that might be too unrealistic.

 

Meanwhile, I am working through plans for the Marylebone suburbans.

My current thinking is to portray them by five trains. Four of those will be steam and one a DMU.

Looking at my 1958 and 1962 WTTS, in 1958 all of these suburbans were steam. By 1962 they were all DMUs. Also by 1962 there were more of these trains through HW  to Haddenham, Aylesbury, Brackley and Princes Risborough than in 1958, but many of the timings were similar.

 

I will have to look at the 1960 and 61 WTTS downloaded from Mr. Carroll's excellent works (but not printed) .

My back of the hand theory is that in 1960/1 there might have been a mixture of steam and DMU, so I will use steam for the through trains and DMUs for the terminating trains which makes the termination easier!

I think I can get away with 2 up and 2 down through steam hauled and one (maybe later 2) terminating DMUs, remembering I don't have the right DMUs (or steamers/ carriages , for that matter!). I don't think I will have space for any more without cutting out other desirable trains.

 

This means day 1, Rule 1 will be in charge:-

Anything except a WR steamer will haul anything I have in LMR/ER coaches for  these suburbans and the DMU will be a class 117(!).

Gradually I will acquire the correct items, but it may mean selling my much loved SR loco and coach collection with just a few retained for summer south coast through trains. 

I think I am going to stable a DMU in the bay platform overnight. There is one that arrived at HW at 1.57pm and the first one left at 6.00am. (In reality there were after midnight and after 4am double sets run to/from Neasden.)

 

Currently I am thinking to run the layout either 4am to midnight, or 6am to Midnight, initially just running the trains in the right sequence with breaks for shunting. Probably do this in daily 2 hour running sessions and see if I can get through a days sequence in a week (or two)! 

 

Tomorrow I will have the NG photos I have promised you, plus some thoughts on a HRMS book on Oil trains and Terminals which arrived today.

 

Best regards

Paul 

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23 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Tomorrow I will have the NG photos I have promised you, plus some thoughts on a HRMS book on Oil trains and Terminals which arrived today.

So here we go with the NGR Gala photos:-

I am afraid the commentary is a bit thin, I can't remember all the details from a year ago! 

 

134187812_NGR-Gala02.jpg.832c477b421e4456d8010b64a0603efe.jpg

Mind your step!

 

1668806391_NGR-Gala03.jpg.89d4a251f8c52fa7b9ede257e919fa6c.jpg

A  double header arrives at Pages Park. There is a limit on how many trains you can run on a 25min trip single line with one passing place 10 mins run from one end. So if you double head all the trains (they don't need it for power!), you can use twice as many locos.

They rang the changes by only swapping one loco each turn round at Pages Park!

 

722427930_NGR-Gala04.jpg.d6a4c3917c813fbc087a5dd3b1e8d5cb.jpg

 

Elf at rest outside the shed, awaiting her turn for a trip up the line!

Blue overall man" Did I ever tell you about........!!

 

1031854106_NGR-Gala05.jpg.a034e7fff0e721a0fdb0e2b799e04e5a.jpg

 

Another pair return to Pages Park, while another loco loiters on the run round loop!

 

396375305_NG-2019Gala01.jpg.7882fcc1c958aa62e17edaf5dc69cad9.jpg

 

Now where's my train?

 

Chanking subjects:

The "Oil on the Rails" book, is hugely informative. Already having R. Tourret's "Petroleum, Railtank Wagons of Britain" I wondered if this one would be useful. However, I am very pleased with it, - one of those books that really needs reading properly, so more on it anon.....!

 

Started this morning on the documentation of my Thame Signals ready to get them priced by Stephen Freeman.Hopefully get the details off to him later in the week.

 

Tomorrow is a bit of a non day modelling wise as my wife has got to go to the hospital for an MRI. Should be just a routine follow up to surgery a couple of years ago.

 

Keep on modelling!

Best regards

Paul 

 

 

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On 20/10/2020 at 18:06, Nick Gough said:

I hope all is well for your good lady tomorrow.

Thanks Nick,

The worse part of the day was the weather!

We were a bit worried with Luton having sprung to the top of the Covid chart for our 5 counties (Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Herfordshire, and Northamptonshire,) so our fingers are crossed nothing was picked up.

 

Today, neither of us can seem to settle at anything, so, for me, no modelling or planning for the layout is likely to get done.

However, I will try to finish my run through the Marylebone Suburbans for High Wycombe.

Having looked at the morning timetable and decided I can portray them with two up and two down  through steamers and a terminating DMU, I have managed to look at the afternoon and evening times, but only for 1962.

These seem to work ok with the above five trains although of course, as with the morning trains the trains terminating and starting from High Wycombe are a bit thin. I do need to look at my 1958 WTT to see how the steam runs finished the day, as at the moment in 1962 more trains seem to terminate and stable at HW than start from there in the morning!

I may have to put an additional DMU on my "see if I can fit it in" list.  This may be a problem in terms of where to hold it during the day, and where to stable it overnight.. 

However, having "found" my copy of Celebration of Steam - The Chilterns, I have found out that early 1962 was the end of steam on the suburbans so I can reasonably claim a mixture steam/diesel ran in 1961.  This also provides me with an excuse to run my Muckey Duck and Standard 2-6-0s as Neasden had several of each at times in the late 50s.

 

Best regards

Paul

 

 

 

 

 

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Good Afternoon One and All,

I have done some work on revising the layout plan for High Wycombe.

 

The idea of three through tracks seems to work, although I am keen to keep the Down Platform line as a turn out from the Down Main just south of the down platform southern end.

 

So this means that from the south the lines will be:-

1) Down Main

2) Up Main

 

These then become:-

1) Up and down maidenhead single line branch (which on the model is a loop off the Down main)

2) Up and Down Main (the Up main leaves this line and joins the Up Platform/extrension line) 

3) Up Platform line/ extension

 

At the start of the yard these become:-

1) Yard and Bay Platform access (the Branch having joined the Up and Down Main via a crossover)

2) Up and Down Main

3) Up platform

 

A little further along these are:-

1) Down Platform (having branched off the Up and Down Main.

2) Up and Down Main

3) Up platform

 

Past the end of the Down Platform:-

the Up Main splits to form the Up Platform line and also joins the Down Main.

The Platform loop joins the Down Main, so leaving the HW scenic area there are again two lines:-

1) Down Main

2) Up main  

 

You will make better sense of this when I post an update of the HW plan in a day or two.

 

This idea will work provided there are no Up Main movements at the same time as Down Main movements!

So some intense work on the WTT front is required to sort this out.

 

I will get away with this provided the general theory of the majority of Up trains in the morning and the majority of Down trains in the evening is true! 

 

I have made some progress with the Marylebone Suburbans. One of the unbalances in the evening was because I had not realised that in both 1958 and 1962 one of the down trains to HW returned to Marylebone as a Parcels train. I tended to think of dmus being used for parcels at the end of the first generation's life, but not so!

I had also failed to recognise that a late evening dmu from Bicester North to Marylebone was the return of a earlier down dmu. I had been thinking the train was run empty from Banbury and was not part of the suburban workings.

 

Hope you are all making progress with your models?

Best regards

Paul

 

 

 

 

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Morning All,

Not much to report on today as after lunch we are off to our eldest son's for the rest of the day to view the refit of their kitchen.

This will make a break as we haven't been over there for a few weeks while the work was being done, so they came to us for a few meals when all they had was a kettle!

 

Have received an order of six TTS decoders and passed them quickly on to Anthony, my local model shop, for installing in some of my locos while they are weathered or renumbered.

Also sent off a Black 5 TTS whence it came as it is completely dead, hopefully a replacement won't take too long. This is the first sound chip of any type that has failed or been dead, so I guess i mustn't grumble. 

 

Some more working documents arrived yesterday from jtpend1 including most interestingly a 1953 Paddington Pilot Locomotive Workings book. It will take me a while to get my head round the intricacies of these workings!

 

Best regards

Paul 

  

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Good Morning,

 

Keeping my eye on things, I know Paul has asked about the starting signal separately, but like me it got lost in more detail than was really needed. So I asked Mike by PM. The simple answer is for the Colour light situation no GPL for shunt ahead, Semaphore shunt signal - yes but not needed if shunting was rare.

 

Hope that helps.

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Hi Stephen,

Yes, that is what I gathered from the various posts!

I just need to update the signal schedule in the light of this and then I will get it with a signal schematic and a layout plan off to you for pricing. 

 

Cheers

Paul  

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Good Afternoon All,

Got my info off to Stephen Freeman this afternoon.

The stationmaster has given me a link to one of his earlier threads that has photos of signals such as "shunt ahead" which are useful.

I have tracked down a couple of LMR 2-6-4 tanks for my Marylebone suburbans, which will go nicely with the Standard 2-6-4 I already had.

Now I need some Gresley or Thompson suburban coaches.

 

Still working on revising my High Wycombe track plan.

 

Hope you are all fit and well?

Best regards

Paul

 

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Hope everyone is well?

Had to get up bright and early today as we were expecting a new 3 piece suite to be delivered at 9am.

Good job we were prompt as they turned up at 08.30!

Never mind, we were ready. The whole exercise of getting the new suite has gone very smoothly considering these Virus times we are in and we are very pleased with the outcome.

 

Got a bit of a puzzle on my hands with a Hornby TTS Chip.

Have bought and had installed a number of these both in the locos they were designated for and in similar locos.

This one was a Black 5 chip going in a DCC ready Black5, so should have been straightforward.

My local shop doing the install, as they have done a number of ones before, reported chip as "Dead"!

Sent it back to the supplier, (several other TTS bought from them at same time worked perfectly).

Got an e mail from them last night saying they installed it in a loco and worked perfectly(!) and would I call them to discuss what the problem might be?

Emailed them that I would get the installer to ring them as he has the loco (which he is doing). No way am I going to get caught as piggy in the middle in a discussion I don't know the technicalities of.

I await developments.........

 

Also managed to find a class 168 for the modern running of High Wycombe. Was pricey, but there arn't many about.

Am thinking of calling the Layout "My Wycombe Railway" as both Thame and High Wycombe were on the original Wycombe Railway. 

 

Tomorrow is a bit of a dead day model wise as we are off for annual retinopathy  tests, this a trip to MK Hospital.

We are almost equidistant from three hospitals. Luckily this is the only service we need to go to MK for. Most things are a trip to the Luton and Dunstable, which we know well from living in Luton.

Luckily (touch wood!) we don't have to go to the third one, at Aylesbury for anything.

 

Best regards

Paul

 

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6 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Hope everyone is well?

Had to get up bright and early today as we were expecting a new 3 piece suite to be delivered at 9am.

Good job we were prompt as they turned up at 08.30!

Never mind, we were ready. The whole exercise of getting the new suite has gone very smoothly considering these Virus times we are in and we are very pleased with the outcome.

 

We had a new settee delivered recently, and told we would get an e-mail on the day to give us the delivery window.

At 7:15 - fifteen minutes before the alarm - ding at the front door!

 

6 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Am thinking of calling the Layout "My Wycombe Railway" as both Thame and High Wycombe were on the original Wycombe Railway. 

 

Sounds good, or you could have "Just in Thame"?

 

 

Edited by Nick Gough
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Hi All,

Today's hospital trip went well. Was concerned as had not been to MK Hospital under Covid, and they have moved the department to a new location!

In the end probably went better than pre Covid visit to the old location.

 

Have got an estimate for "Thame" from my builders. About what I expected, am going backwards and forwards sorting queries and some final details.

 

The biggest problems initially were code 75 or code 100, and them to ballast or me.

 

They seem ok with code 100 although quoting code 75, and I went for code 100 to allow older items to run on the layout and also for robustness.

Ballasting may be more difficult:- I am not keen on doing it because I have never attempted ballasting something of this size, I did a very small amount many years ago, and from what I remember it seemed to take ages, the two points got clogged, and it looked awful!

However, the builders seem a bit reluctant to do it. They say it will take 2 weeks, blocking up their workshop, and temperature/humidity in the workshop will be a problem.

 

Anyone got any thoughts?

 

Best regards

Paul  

 

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Hi All,

much toing and throwing with the layout builders, on the finer details.

 

Am getting my head round the idea of doing the ballasting myself.

There are some advantages.

It seems to me that painting the side of the rails will be easier without ballast in place.

It should also be easier to position the magnets for the couplers as I can test each one and adjust its position as necessary.

It should also be easier to get a realistic look to the sidings eg the coal unloading area.

 

I posed a question on the Track and infrastructure Thread as to the pros and cons of code 75 and code 100.

One of the interesting thoughts posted in reply was the suggestion of having code 100 on the main tracks and code 75 in the scenic sidings. Will discuss that with the builders.

Might also go for concrete sleepers on the main tracks in the scenic area and wooden in the sidings and the non scenic area as I think the range of concrete sleeper points is limited to mediums?

 

Will need to research ballast, ballasting techniques, and also fixing techniques. 

A few people seem to have had problems with ballasting points so I need to lookout for ideas on that.

My concerns are the time it will take, the mess it will create, and can I produce something that looks good?

 

I am going to dig out the few bits of code 75 track I have and also some of my code 100, and old points and do some trial ballasting.

Wish me luck!

 

Another wet and dull day, still tomorrow should be better!

Take care

Paul

 

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26 minutes ago, Tallpaul69 said:

I think the range of concrete sleeper points is limited to mediums?

Concrete bearers for points are a recent innovation.  Plain line track on main lines went concrete in the 60s concrete bearers were at least 30 years after that as far as I can remember.  Fir somewhere like Thame I would expect wood in your era, possibly some concrete plain line through Wycombe.

Paul.

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26 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Concrete bearers for points are a recent innovation.  Plain line track on main lines went concrete in the 60s concrete bearers were at least 30 years after that as far as I can remember.  Fir somewhere like Thame I would expect wood in your era, possibly some concrete plain line through Wycombe.

Paul.

Thanks

That is what I thought.

 

However, the layout is to be run in multiple time eras, on the idea that the Thame line was rebuilt as per Chiltern's 1990s evaluation, and was built instead of  the chord at Bicester! (uneconomical, I know!)

 

So Thame might well have had concrete? Off cause if this had happened the yard would not have been built (here I'm invoking Rule 1!) and perhaps the pipeline to the oil terminal might not have been, so the oil trains would have continued?

 

Cheers

Paul

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