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For about 12 months now I've been dabbling in O gauge. I've built a few locos and wagons so it's time to build a railway for them.

 

Scene:

 

Part of the internal railway system of a tar distillers/chemical works, somewhere in the West Riding, mid 1960s. A BR connection and more of the works is off-scene.

 

Traffic/Rolling stock:

 

Goods in - unspecified goods in covered vans, tar from NCB coke ovens in rectangular tanks.

 

Goods out - chemicals to industrial users in cylindrical tanks, smaller consigments and household chemicals to retailers in covered vans.

 

Locomotives:

 

Ruston & Hornsby 44/48HP type diesel shunter, Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. 14" 0-4-0ST and a Hudswell Clarke 14" 0-4-0ST.

 

Track Plan

post-494-127507993751_thumb.png

 

Locos

post-494-127220278656.jpg

 

file.php?id=84307

 

file.php?id=86707

 

There's nothing of the layout itself to see yet but I've begun cutting wood for the baseboards, which is a hateful business so I thought I'd start a topic about the layout in the hope that the good people of RMweb will spur me on to doing something more about it. biggrin.gif

 

By the way, Bury, Thorn & Sons is an anagram of something... wink.gif

Edited by Ruston
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Yes, all the weathering is really good, but the Tar Wagon is just superb..!! I bet your N scale stuff feels absolutely tiny nowadays!! :D

 

By the way, Bury, Thorn & Sons is an anagram of something... ;)

Oooh, let's see now... "Ruston Hornsby" perchance...?!? ;)

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Was that a guess or did you work it out? :D

 

I was going to crack on with the baseboards today but it's rained non-stop so I haven't been able to get outside to cut any wood. Instead I went out and bought a LH PECO bullhead rail medium turnout (why do they call it medium when it's the smallest one they make?) and painted it. It takes some painting with all those chairs and keys does an O gauge turnout!

 

I also did some work on a Parkside GWR van kit. I had the N gauge running around the loft while I was working and yes, the physical size difference is huge but so is the price! I could have bought 4 N gauge turnouts for the price of one O gauge or 7 van kits for the price of one. :blink:

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Not thinners but Plastic Weld, daubed on with a brush until the paint crinkles but not so much as it completely penetrates the paint and melts the plastic underneath! I've since added a thin wash of black to the tank, just to tone down the decals and take a little of the shine off the thick streams of 'spilt tar'.

 

More wood cut and some glued and nailed together. It's not worth putting up any pics yet though. By the way, the layout is going to be about 10mm shorter than planned so far... Ever heard the phrase "measure twice, cut once"? Well mine is "Measure twice, mark it out all wrong and cut once". :rolleyes:

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Ever heard the phrase "measure twice, cut once"? Well mine is "Measure twice, mark it out all wrong and cut once". :rolleyes:

Certainly doesn't apply to your fine models but I think the professional version of this is :

 

Measure with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an axe! Probably less inaccurate in scales somewhat larger than O.....

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Well whatever it is I still hate woodwork! Just to prove it's not all hot air and that something is actually being done here is a photo.

 

Some wood today.

post-494-127540168212_thumb.jpg

 

I can't do anymore until I have more pieces to assemble but whenever I get some time to work on it the rain starts again and I can't go outside to cut any more wood. :rolleyes:

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As someone who has just "taken the plunge" to try O gauge, in what may well turn out a fairly similar sort of project, I shall follow this with interest.

 

Currently have 3 points, 6 lengths of flexi, a Ruston 165 kit, a VDA wagon kit, a footbridge kit and a station building kit - but haven't quite figured out the track plan as yet...

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Excellent locos/stock..... infact so nice you have me tempted...very very tempted!!! please could you point me towards where to buy/view more details of the "Ruston & Hornsby 44/48HP type diesel shunter" Please???

 

good luck with the weather....

 

Charlie

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I'm afraid you can't buy a 44/48HP shunter. I wanted a 48DS, which is very similar, but no kit was in production at the time (I don't think one is available now either) so I scratchbuilt the 44/48 as something slightly different.

post-494-127542410031.jpg post-494-127542417954.jpg

The bodywork is plasticard and plastruct, the buffers were turned in a lathe, as were the wheels, and the chassis itself was milled from brass. A small Mashima motor drives through a 45:1 worm and wheel, which is further geared down 2:1 by delrin chain and sprockets. The chain arrangement is more or less like the real thing but the chains are overscale. This doesn't really matter as the only way they can be seen is from the side and so the depth isn't an issue from that viewpoint.

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A whole day at it has resulted in 4 boards ready for legs. I laid them out in the place they will reside and as I laid the last board it wouldn't fit! Then I realised I'd left a large gap between the first board and the far wall - panic over! :blink:

 

Some more wood today:

post-494-127584638744_thumb.jpg

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As a break from wood I'm now playing with plastic.

 

It's a conversion project that came about due to ignorance of LMS wagon liveries. I went to the O gauge exhibition at Halifax on Saturday and bought a Parkside kit for an LMS van, which said on the box that LMS and BR transfers were included. The picture on the box showed the van with LMS lettering and in a bauxite sort of livery. So I assumed it that the LMS painted it's wagons as BR did and that it was vac-fitted. Fail!

 

It turns out to be an unfitted type. I scoured Paul Bartlett's site in the hope I would find one that was vac-fitted but otherwise identical but I couldn't find one. I did however find something with a similar body but a different wheelbase and different suspension. So I have begun to convert a Diagram 1832 ( http://gallery6801.f.../p44090749.html ) to a Diagram 1830 ( http://gallery6801.f.../p44090675.html ). This has invloved removing some outside strapping and recutting planks on the body and the cutting away of the W irons and springs on the solebars in order to change the wheelbase from 9 to 10ft. The nice people at Slaters provide extra parts with their BR 12t van kit so I've used the suspension from that. I'll have to scratch build the brake rigging and brake cylinder and will have to find a pair of vac pipes from somewhere.

post-494-127609583027_thumb.jpg

post-494-127609586158_thumb.jpg

 

And the BR van I built earlier

post-494-127609603733_thumb.jpg

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Dave, as I said to you elsewhere I don't know how I missed this excellent thread.

 

The 0-4-0ST in the first photo is superb and I love the weathering. Is it kit built?

 

I am looking forward to seeing what you do with the LMS van. I take it you used the Parkside PS09 (LMS Ventilated Van-Corrugated Ends (Diag. D1832A)) and if so, you have already done a lot of work on the sides and door because there is a lot of 'ironwork' to remove.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Willy

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Yes, Willy, it is the kit you mention. I've not made any progress on it recently with real life getting in the way, mostly. The other thing that's holding me back is axleboxes for said wagon. The kit comes with the type that split horizontally but all the wagons of the type I'm altering it to seem to have the type of axlebox that has a cover across the front. The Slaters 12t BR van kit comes with a spare set of these but I used them on my GWR van so I'm wondering if they are available as a spare part? Or if anyone who has recently built a Slaters 12t van and used the split type 'boxes could let me have the spare, ones with the covers? (I hope I've made some sense of describing the types) :huh:

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Yes, Willy, it is the kit you mention. I've not made any progress on it recently with real life getting in the way, mostly. The other thing that's holding me back is axleboxes for said wagon. The kit comes with the type that split horizontally but all the wagons of the type I'm altering it to seem to have the type of axlebox that has a cover across the front. The Slaters 12t BR van kit comes with a spare set of these but I used them on my GWR van so I'm wondering if they are available as a spare part? Or if anyone who has recently built a Slaters 12t van and used the split type 'boxes could let me have the spare, ones with the covers? (I hope I've made some sense of describing the types) huh.gif

 

Hi Dave,

 

I'd be surprised if Slaters did not supply as a spare part. I have not dealt direct with them for some time but always found them helpful in the past. A phone call is probably worth it.

 

Alan.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Dave,

 

I'd be surprised if Slaters did not supply as a spare part. I have not dealt direct with them for some time but always found them helpful in the past. A phone call is probably worth it.

 

Alan.

 

Thanks, Alan, I haven't enquired. I'll be buying another van kit at some point so I'll use the spare axleboxes from that.

 

I'm still doing a bit now and again but it's a matter of the heat, rather than the rain now. It seemed like a good idea to build a railway in the conservatory back in March but with 30+ deg. C, temperatures it's not so much fun. In fact I'm beginning to worry about how scenery will stand up to the heat and prolonged sunlight over the long term. My previous railways have always lived in the loft so while heat is an issue it's no quite so hot as here and light isn't a problem at all.

 

Anyway, three of the boards have legs and are bolted together now. The last one is the hidden traverser board, which should be in a pic below. I've made a well for the traverser, which will run on a pair of cut down drawer runners. Getting the alignment right will be the difficult part...

post-494-127800715558.jpg

This board goes at the far end and is is the wrong way round as shown.

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I've fitted the runners to the well with screws so that they can be adjusted for squareness. A short piece of plywood connects the two but I had then fitted the top surface proper. This was meant to be on a level with the fixed part of the board so that track could be laid. It didn't go to plan though as I'd also made the top from ply, which resulted in the far end being level but the near, and critical, end was about 3mm too high because it turned out that the ply was warped. :angry:

 

I'm going to have to have a think on this. Something made of metal is in order, I guess.

post-494-127809707882.jpg

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Yeah, I know it's a bit boring - lumps of unpainted wood and all that, but I'm amazed that it seems to work because it's made of wood and I built it!

 

The traverser is almost done so I can progress to real tracklaying now. All it needs is some elavated handle between the tracks so I can push it back and forth when both tracks are full.

The solution to the warped ply was to buy a slightly better and thinner bit. I must have gone through a dozen sheets of the stuff in B&Q before I found one that was any good. I have also araldited two lengths of aluminium angle to it to prevent any future warping. It may seem wasteful buying an entire 1200x600mm sheet simply to make the traverser deck but the rest will be used for the backscene, eventually.

post-494-127853324945_thumb.jpg

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I love your little traverser Dave, the drawer runners are a very clever idea.

 

How are you going to turn trains around and deal with all the extra stock that you will no doubt have in the future?

 

Keep up the good work and keep us posted.

 

Cheers,

 

Willy.

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