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Compton - 7mm narrow gauge


Goose95
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After a few years away from the hobby whilst at uni and following completion of renovation work on the house it seemed like a good time to get back into it and have a go at building  my first 'proper' layout (the obligatory train set in my parents spare room was dismantled some time back now).

 

Straight away I was coming up with plans for a terminus to fiddle yard layout based on the North Cornwall lines in 4mm scale that would fit nicely in the designated study/railway room of the new house which at 10' 10" x 9' 10" and no awkward doors or built-in cupboards was too good not to use! Then lock-down happened keeping me either stuck in the office or sat at home and the prospect of launching into a large(ish) project for a first layout quickly started to show some flaws, so back to the drawing board. Instead I have gone back to one of my old plans I came up with a few years back when reading up on the Selsey Tramway which in its later history re-named itself to the West Sussex Railway (Tramway Section) despite there being no other sections to distinguish itself from......or was there?

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And so the West Sussex Light Railway has come into being. I propose that with the opening of the Portsmouth Direct Line and the South Coast Line the residents of the small valleys on the edge of the South Downs felt bypassed and so in the late 19th century formed together to build a 2'6" line from the mainline at Bosham north to Compton with a branch later built up to East Marden along with shorter branches to serve the various mills that were present around the southern section of the route.

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The plan (bottom) is inspired by a plan I'd seen in a book on micro layouts which after some re-drawing I think I'm happy with in terms of being relatively simple but should be interesting to operate. The idea is that Compton represents the site of the WSLR's locomotive and carriage sheds as the target town of the original route but now (late 1920s) the line has quietly settled into its role as a common carrier still busy with the agricultural traffic of the area although the lines finances are starting to dip. The line off to the right of the layout beyond the platform/milk dock leads to a supposed mill of some agricultural product which should make shunting a little more challenging although I do wonder if an additional short spur in the goods yard leading to an end loading dock might work. The scenic area is 6' x 3' split between 3 boards of 3' x 2'.

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Edited by Goose95
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Getting on with testing the plan a little more before committing to getting baseboards just yet by drawing out the plan full size to see how it feels with some rolling stock to give a better idea. One of the things I really want to achieve is a sense of space so that front siding may need to be brought further out.

 

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On another note I think the station buildings are coming along alright so far, just need some more weathering and a few notice boards to go on.

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Edited by Goose95
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Now received a much anticipated package from Slater's containing some of their embossed plastikard sheets among other things. I haven't been able to find a kit of a building suitable for converting to a narrow gauge engine or carriage shed so they will both need to be scratch-built from the corrugated iron and shipboard sheets. Inspiration is mainly coming from those structures on the Southwold and L&B railways with the Middleton Press book for the latter being  particularly good having scale drawings of  some of the buildings included. 

 

Also in the package was one of their kits for L&B Coaches 15/16, I've not yet built one of Slater's kits yet but my first impressions from trimming and dry fitting some of the parts are very good. The details are really good and the construction should make painting the thing far easier (hope I haven't now jinxed it). 

 

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The Slater's coach has gone together very well so far, enough that I could put the two shells together loosely with the bogies attached to see how freely it runs (very!). The body seems rather keen to rock from side to side but hopefully with some added weight along the centre I'm hoping this might be lessened. Still need to add the running boards and fix the roof to the outer shell prior to painting to make it more stable.

 

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Finished off by assembling a mixed train with some of the other stock under construction at the moment.

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The weather this week hasn't been great up here in the Valleys but once it brightens up I can get on with spraying the outside shell of the L&B coach, how I envy those with a workshop or shed. In the meantime the interior and chassis have been painted and are ready for the outer shell, glazing, transfers, weathering...... so much still to do.

 

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One job I've come to realise I will need to do is scratch-building motive power, as much as I like my Smallbrook 'Iris' I think the West Sussex probably would've had its own unique motive power for when it opened with the little Hudswell joining them at a later date. Challenge there is to try an pick a design to work from let alone what comes next. It'll probably end up mostly plastikard since I wouldn't even describe myself as a novice with a soldering iron...

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Looking good Mr.Goose, I will be watching this one develop. 

A fortunate choice of title, West Sussex Light Railway, for lettering you can use LSWR transfers re-arranged!

Cheers, Dave.

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4 hours ago, DLT said:

Looking good Mr.Goose, I will be watching this one develop. 

A fortunate choice of title, West Sussex Light Railway, for lettering you can use LSWR transfers re-arranged!

Cheers, Dave.

Thanks Dave, it was meant to be the West Sussex Railway but on reading that you had used HMRS transfers it seemed silly not to rearrange them! Also wanted to say thank you as Bridport Town was the layout that got me into 7mm narrow gauge. 

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Fortunately the weather cleared up for about half an hour, just long enough to get outside and spray on the main coat following masking. Not sure if anyone else has had any luck using Humbrol's masking fluid or has any tips for future use, this time definitely went better than previous attempts but still needed a lot of touching up to look vaguely presentable.

 

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In all honesty it will probably go through another touch up once this coat is fully dry as the lining is still a bit rough. Still, I'm happy with how the colour scheme is going for the line.

 

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20 hours ago, Goose95 said:

Also wanted to say thank you as Bridport Town was the layout that got me into 7mm narrow gauge. 

Thanks very much!

The coach is looking great, and I really like the livery.

I've had problems with Humbrol Maskol, the paint creeping underneath.  It must shrink slightly as it dries, pulling the edges away.

All the best, Dave.

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On 27/06/2020 at 18:52, Goose95 said:

The Slater's coach has gone together very well so far, enough that I could put the two shells together loosely with the bogies attached to see how freely it runs (very!). The body seems rather keen to rock from side to side but hopefully with some added weight along the centre I'm hoping this might be lessened.

Try adding some kind of lateral stability to one of the bogies (not both). This should stop the rocking. I had this trouble with some scratchbuilt coaches I made in 009. I fixed it with some tiny foam pads that rested on the top cross-member of the bogie.

 

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Just a little update now the transfers have been applied. Plan is to make another brake composite as well as an all third to make up a 2 coach set with a 3rd vehicle for strengthening or services on the East Marden branch (that'll be fun to try and timetable).

 

Will be interesting to see which coach type Slaters have been developing for release once their kit for 'Lyn' is out. 

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6 minutes ago, DLT said:

That's beautiful, what paints/colours have you used?

Thanks, Dave.

 

Thanks! It's Arriva Cream (Phoenix) and Dark Olive (RailMatch) . The running boards are Teak Basecoat dry brushed with Coach Teak (Phoenix). I'm using Humbrol 32 for all rolling stock on the roof. 

 

 

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14 hours ago, Goose95 said:

Thanks! It's Arriva Cream (Phoenix) and Dark Olive (RailMatch) . The running boards are Teak Basecoat dry brushed with Coach Teak (Phoenix). I'm using Humbrol 32 for all rolling stock on the roof. 

 

Thanks very much, it looks splendid.  And whats in the glass in the background...?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very little going on at the moment mainly as I've been thinking a lot about baseboards, probably will be a few questions going out soon about that and how best to configure everything. 

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The only job attempted so far has been attempting to weather this little engine made from a Smallbrook 'Iris' with some weathering powders. Unfortunately while attempting to test fit it with the Electrotren chassis a few of the wires came loose. It might seem a minor issue but if like me you've used a soldering iron maybe once before at most it becomes quite daunting. 

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Socially-distanced club meeting today as one of the club members has a lovely garden railway (he refers to it as more of a test track!), good to get feedback and talk to someone in person who isn't a co-worker. He also managed to fix the chassis for me in a few minutes which should make it more durable to being handled in future. All that needs to be done now is to weather and dull it down to match the body, just need to get couplings and works plates for finishing off then. 

 

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Just to finish for the week are a couple of photos from the running session, none of the stock is mine unfortunately and very jealous of the gorgeous 517 (with sound!). Something immensely relaxing about sitting with a cup of tea, some cake and watching the trains go by.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Had a bit of a break whilst waiting for the baseboards to arrive, good time for further research. 

 

Baseboards from Model Railway Solutions arrived today and so had a test fit, very impressed how well they align with each other. 

 

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They also line up with the Grainge and Hodder boards for the fiddle yards. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

First lot of baseboards gradually being assembled now, I'd be a lot quicker if I didn't keep getting distracted by the trains on the other side of the valley.....

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  • 2 weeks later...

A couple of weeks ago I purchased a few 3D printed wagons off ebay, they were cheap (~£4-5.00) and had a good variety of types. Unfortunately on closer inspection when they arrived the quality was pretty rough especially on the chassis (the wheelbases were also way too short and couldn't hold the wheels in place even with bearings fitted). It's a shame because their variety of wagon types on offer is really good but the quality makes them practically unusable., but then in the photos it's hard to tell how detailed the print quality is. 

 

 

 

Fortunately, the ends of their tarpaulin wagons were ok after a good sanding so they weren't so abrasive and with a little trimming they match up well with the newly re-released Chivers 4 planks. I'll definitely be using Chivers now instead, guess I've learnt the lesson that buying cheap is an expensive mistake (although at £10.00 I think these are a bargain).  Their 2 plank is on the left and on the right is their 4 plank but with the 3D-printed ends attached instead.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

There hasn't been much real progress lately, the guys at the club have been kind enough to draw up several diagrams on ways to wire the track up for flexible operation (I'll leave DCC for some time in the future) but it seems there's a shortage of Peco 0-16.5 track at the moment so I'm holding off laying anything down for now. Instead I just have a few small updates on minor projects:

 

With the main board structure now together I've been playing with building placements again, this time with the boards off the floor to look for ways of hiding the entrance and exits at either end. There was a rather empty area at the front left which now may be filled with a cottage/garden if I can make a suitable model that doesn't crowd or dominate the corner too much.

 

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I've also added an additional siding at the front of the layout for end loading. The single siding in the yard might otherwise get over-filled trying to cater to all traffic types and I want to keep the line to the right as leading to a mill/industry rather than another place to hide extra wagons.

 

Also newly arrived are the trestle legs for supporting the layout. I know many people say you should build your own but with my woodworking skills that would be rather risky. There was also the fact that I can adjust the height of these and guarantee they are all the same height. Can't say I was particularly popular testing them out in the living room, really should get round to tidying the modelling room out at this point.

 

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Finally I've been having a play with the chopper couplings produced by the 7mmNGA. They're much cheaper than the other options but I did find them rather delicate, still these will just be practise ones for now. I'm not sure if there's a way to blacken them though?

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Over Christmas I took a little time to step away from building the layout itself and to have a rethink about some of the details such as wiring/electrics and couplings. I've ordered a few Zamzoodled coupling parts to see if these would be easier to assemble and I'm looking into the new Peco TwistLock point motors next so maybe by the end of lockdown there might be something moving on the layout.

 

The layout has recently been fully assembled for the first time and *just* fits in the railway room (this was taken from the hallway since that was the only place I could get most of it in shot), the rest of the room will have to be reconfigured though as crawling under to reach the modelling bench is starting to get tiring.

 

 

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Progress on a suitable cottage for obscuring the left hand exit to the fiddle yard is coming along. I've used a shell from Petite Properties covered with Slaters embossed sheets to recreate the style of the buildings in the area. The edges and joins are a bit rough at the moment but once the drainpipes, porch, and vegetation is eventually added this should hide the worst parts.

 

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Finally I've taken the plunge and started my first metal kit using Dorset Kit's Leek & Manifold Railway ventilated van. This definitely isn't a starter kit but I've actually found it really enjoyable so far despite the steep learning curve. Since the West Sussex shares the same track gauge this may be the start of building a short L&MVLR train to also run on the layout, better start saving up.....

 

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