Burchill Edge Sidings - BR Blue Carriage/NPCCS Sidings, with a nod to Manchester Red Bank & Bristol Malago Vale

[9C85]

 

I found this on YouTube this morning.

If you like your GUVs, check out the clip from about 17:09  to 18:30.

"I guess I'm gonna need a bigger garage " 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by 9C85
Corrected time of relevant clip

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Specify Rail Blue anybody?

 

Mike.

[9C85]

On 21/05/2020 at 19:37, 9C85 said:

I promise that the next picture of wall I put up will be the finished article, so probably a month or so yet.

On 20/05/2020 at 22:41, Enterprisingwestern said:

another couple of dozen layers of "Manchester sunshine" and you'll be there.

 

Mike.

 

On 20/05/2020 at 22:25, 9C85 said:

Back to the subject of consistency - you make a good point about doing things in batches.  I have just counted that I have a total of fourteen single arch wall panels and another ten with double arches. Perhaps I should try doing ' every other 3rd panel ' to break up the job - or is that over-thinking things?

Well, I decided that if was going to get consistency, then I should try and do it in one go. I have two different types of arched retaining wall on the layout, and I have started with the single arched panels first. I have managed to do the job over three consecutive evenings - it took about 40 minutes per coat. I actually ran out of paint more or less finishing the last panel on each of the first two coats. I have ordered more Revell enamels for the remaining panels.

I showed the latest photos to my wife, who is a Northern lass and my most honest critic, and who has less than a passing interest in my exploits  . She said  "ooh that looks like Sheffield, that".

I will take that as a compliment.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Being from Sheffield I take exception to that.

You need a new wife!!

 

Mike.

[9C85]

1 hour ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Being from Sheffield I take exception to that.

You need a new wife!!

 

Mike.

Having lived in and around Sheffield for 30+ years I take exception to that 

 

The backscene  (Gaugemaster) is mostly Port Talbot steelworks with some cooling towers thrown in.

 

I believe Sheffield's retaining walls are more stone rather than brick? I've always thought Sheffield station would be good to model as, at the northern end, the lines disappear into a tunnel that looks like it has been plonked over the track purely to act as a scenic break.

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by 9C85
Added photo

[newbryford]

2 minutes ago, 9C85 said:

Having lived in and around Sheffield for 30+ years I take exception to that 

 

The backscene  (Gaugemaster) is mostly Port Talbot steelworks with some cooling towers thrown in.

 

I believe Sheffield's retaining walls are more stone rather than brick? I've always thought Sheffield station would be good to model as, at the northern end, the lines disappear into a tunnel that looks like it has been plonked over the track purely to act as a scenic break.

 

Sheffield Midland just cries out to be modelled as it's relatively compact with convenient scenic breaks at both ends.

And in current guise - there's a high-level tramway for extra operational interest!

 

My last trip there coincided with my last ride on a 144. (As a matter of principle, it is highly unlikely that I will go to a preserved railway to "reminisce" with one!)

 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

As you have provenance I'll let you off on this occasion!!

Sheffield Midland has great potential, with, as you say, prototypical scenic breaks conveniently provided at each end.

When Red Bank is finished you could top up on passenger stock and model Heeley carriage sidings, my intended basis for stock storage on the magnum opus, or the somewhat grubbier Nunnery!

 

Mike.

[9C85]

4 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

As you have provenance I'll let you off on this occasion!!

Sheffield Midland has great potential, with, as you say, prototypical scenic breaks conveniently provided at each end.

When Red Bank is finished you could top up on passenger stock and model Heeley carriage sidings, my intended basis for stock storage on the magnum opus, or the somewhat grubbier Nunnery!

 

Mike.

I have been trying to get info on Heeley carriage sidings for quite a while. 

I have only ever seen pictures of it on a cab ride video from the 60s/70s. I am guessing it was where the retail park is? There was one building still there which looks classic BR 50s office block, but that may now be under B&M Bargains?

I am kicking myself because I moved to Dronfield in 1989 and was only an hour away from Manchester, Doncaster or Derby and Nottingham.  I never saw Tinsley yard working or Toton while there was still coal traffic. 

I am not sure if I will ever finish my still to be named/located layout.  If I do, I will try to use the full garage for a continuous run and base it on a junction outside a busy station.  Gaer Junction in Newport would be good.  I believe it had 4 tracks with double crossovers when I was a kid? I would give the impression of trains being turned in the 'station a bit down the line ' by having locos using the crossovers to  access the run around lines.

Anyway, getting way ahead of myself.  Still need to finish this layout first.

A couple of pics from today.  Not much activity on the bank holiday. 

[cheesysmith]

Just posting, as a fellow dee dar, that your layout is progressing well and looking good.

 

Question-the track you are using, is it tillig?

 

A like is not enough for what you have done so far.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

You are correct in your assumption, it was where the retail park is, and also there were a few spare sidings on the opposite side of the line adjacent to Little London Road.

I lived in Norton Lees and HCS was my local spotting place, (along with Heeley station when it was open), a steady walk down through Meersbrook Park, although not so steady coming home.

I've got a few b & a photos which I'll post when/if I ever get home.

 

Mike.

[cheesysmith]

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=53.35713&lon=-1.47886&layers=168&b=1

 

That should give you the link to the old maps showing the sidings.

 

Station, goods sidings and goods depot plus carriage sidings all together. Would make a nice model.

[9C85]

3 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

Just posting, as a fellow dee dar, that your layout is progressing well and looking good.

 

Question-the track you are using, is it tillig?

 

A like is not enough for what you have done so far.

I am an honorary Dee Dar but South Wales born and bred.

 

The track is the 'new' Peco bullhead.  It's got more realistic sleeper spacing and chair detail.  Ideally I would have waited for the curved points to come out for a better Red Bank vibe , but I think I have got enough stuff at jaunty angles to get away with straight turnouts. 

The other downside was the cost - the points are about three times the price of the older finescale stuff, but I thought I was only going to do this once, so I would pay the price. I actually got them at a decent price from Rails of Sheffield, but they wouldn't give a 'bulk' discount. I suppose nine points isn't a lot to a shop, but it was two thirds of the cost of trackwork for me.

A plus side is the 'Unifrog ' design of the new points.  In their basic form, they are insulfrog but behave like electrofrog without any extra wiring.  I haven't even wired up the frogs and things work well. I have started to notice some problems with the 08 shunter, but I think that is more to do with track and wheel cleaning .

Thank you so much for your positive comments. 

 

[9C85]

17 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=53.35713&lon=-1.47886&layers=168&b=1

 

That should give you the link to the old maps showing the sidings.

 

Station, goods sidings and goods depot plus carriage sidings all together. Would make a nice model.

 

Thanks for putting up this link.

Fascinating stuff. 

[rob D2]

I agree that the bullhead is good but those frogs are seriously long isolated sections - so I wired them up to the cobalts I use and they worked fine even with short wheelbase stuff.....up until the Hornby 31 came along. Because there is a lot of play in the wheel design it was shorting across both rails , so I had to further isolate them 

[9C85]

42 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

I agree that the bullhead is good but those frogs are seriously long isolated sections - so I wired them up to the cobalts I use and they worked fine even with short wheelbase stuff.....up until the Hornby 31 came along. Because there is a lot of play in the wheel design it was shorting across both rails , so I had to further isolate them 

 

I thought that you may have been mistaken about the length of isolated section, but I have just nipped into the garage and checked with a multimeter - you are quite right.  I was under the impression that either automatic frog polarity was incorporated into the design, or that the dead section was small enough not to worry about. I did include provision for wiring up the frogs (if need be). The wires pass through holes in the baseboard but are just taped up at the moment. I am currently using manual, very basic wire in tube point control for the scenic section. If I go down the point motor route, I will look at wiring up the frogs. 

I have used cobalts on the three points in the fiddle yard.  I find them very good in general but have had a couple of issues with them including having to return one. The people at DCC concepts were really helpful. A couple of times I have had to reprogram all three points, possibly due to a spike/short in the supply.  It's probably my fault because I started out having separate power and accessory buses, but towards the end of tracklaying, I was taking feeds from wherever I could. 

Once I had worked out what needed to be done to reset the cobalts, it wasn't such a big job as there's only 3 of them at the moment.  If I did the full layout,  that would mean having another nine to worry about.  The cost is also a factor.

When my wire in tube system was playing up a few weeks ago, I did start looking at old school Seep type motors. I would quite like a lever frame to throw the points at some stage in the future. 

[rob D2]

I agree , I like the cobalts , but if I get a serious short, I have had to reassign addresses to all of them several times.

 

there are ways round this I’m told, like your separate buses .

[9C85]

1 hour ago, rob D2 said:

I agree , I like the cobalts , but if I get a serious short, I have had to reassign addresses to all of them several times.

 

there are ways round this I’m told, like your separate buses .

It wouldn't take too much effort for me to get the point motors onto a separate bus. 

When I started out, my soldering skills were very rusty.  I began by using Scotchlok connectors but found these not very reliable.  I work with electronics engineers and one of them put me onto Wago connectors.

 

You just need to strip the ends of the wires and they simply clip in place via the cam levers. They are robust and vibration proof and the only issues I have had with them in over a year's use has been the result of me being over-zealous with the wire stripper and taking half the cores away with the insulation.

I have not got the knees to be under a baseboard for hours, soldering droppers into bus wires. With the Wago connectors and my nifty wire stripper, I can cut the bus wire, strip it, and splice in the dropper in less than a minute. 

I would post a picture of the wiring under my baseboard, but I don't want to risk being ejected from the rmweb community 

 

Oh, go on then... 

 

[5BarVT]

5 hours ago, 9C85 said:

 

Thanks for putting up this link.

Fascinating stuff. 

You can (and I have) lose hours on that site!

:-)

There’s a lot more of the detailed maps (6”, 25”) since I first started looking.  A great resource.

Paul.

[9C85]

On 22/04/2020 at 17:20, newbryford said:

 

A Springs Branch allocated 25 or 40 would be a good bet if you base it 'oop north.

Chuck in a couple of Cravens 105 power twins from Newton Heath for good measure.

I have just accidentally bought a 25 off ebay in one of those 'make a silly bid and forget about it' moments. 

A Peak or a 40 to add to that would probably be enough for what I need. Probably 

[9C85]

[Enterprisingwestern]

51 minutes ago, 9C85 said:

 

Yup, that's Manchester!!

 

Mike.

[9C85]

On 21/05/2020 at 19:37, 9C85 said:

I promise that the next picture of wall I put up will be the finished article, so probably a month or so yet.

 

Well, it has been just over a week and I have managed to complete weathering both types of retaining wall at the back of the layout. 

I did the (14 off) single-arched sections over three days, then had to wait a few days for some more paint to arrive. 

I have managed to do the (10 off) double-arched sections over the last two days.

My thanks go to the fella with the YouTube channel for the 'Galgorm Hall' layout . I used the method he describes, but with a few tweaks as I was weathering plastercast as opposed to plasticard. 

It does make such a difference to the layout.  I even found myself letting out a little ' wow!' when I went into the garage last night.

Here is a 'before' shot, showing the point where both types of wall meet...

 

And here's how it looks now...

 

I still have some work to do on it (is anything ever really finished?), like sorting out what's going to be at the base of the wall and adding some moss and foliage, but it will do for now.

I will put a couple more photos up in my next post. 

[9C85]

A photo of most of the double-arched wall panels. The 'mill' building above it screens off the 3-road storage yard...

 

A mood shot with the Gronk...

 

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by 9C85
Replaced 08 photo with filtered one

[9C85]

My attention is shifting to the South West (left hand) end of the layout as I have not finalised the scenic break  I want to use. As per the right hand side, I will have the through tracks disappearing under a bridge or a tunnel.  Having seen a few videos of Red Bank and some pictures of Malago Vale, I was contemplating having some low relief blocks of flats.

I found the 'scalescenes' website this morning and they have a low relief block of flats, apparently based on a building in Salford . It looks good but it is 17 inches high, so it would dominate that area of the layout and draw attention to itself. 

I think that I am going to get a low relief set of terraced house backs, then place a couple of N Gauge blocks of flats behind those, with either an N gauge urban or cloudy sky backscene behind that.

While I was on the scalescenes site, I looked at the weathering tips pages. Something that caught my attention was the 'lime ' weathering of brickwork using chalk and a cotton bud. 

I have had a go on sections of my retaining wall.  I am not sure if I have got the technique right, but some of it looks OK .

I would appreciate feedback on my attempt (see pics) and hints and tips on weathering urban retaining walls. 

 

Cheers 

 

 

[saxokid]

On ‎30‎/‎05‎/‎2020 at 17:07, 9C85 said:

My attention is shifting to the South West (left hand) end of the layout as I have not finalised the scenic break  I want to use. As per the right hand side, I will have the through tracks disappearing under a bridge or a tunnel.  Having seen a few videos of Red Bank and some pictures of Malago Vale, I was contemplating having some low relief blocks of flats.

I found the 'scalescenes' website this morning and they have a low relief block of flats, apparently based on a building in Salford . It looks good but it is 17 inches high, so it would dominate that area of the layout and draw attention to itself. 

I think that I am going to get a low relief set of terraced house backs, then place a couple of N Gauge blocks of flats behind those, with either an N gauge urban or cloudy sky backscene behind that.

While I was on the scalescenes site, I looked at the weathering tips pages. Something that caught my attention was the 'lime ' weathering of brickwork using chalk and a cotton bud. 

I have had a go on sections of my retaining wall.  I am not sure if I have got the technique right, but some of it looks OK .

I would appreciate feedback on my attempt (see pics) and hints and tips on weathering urban retaining walls. 

 

Cheers 

 

 

Very nice weathering here...