Smithfield - a Minories Inspired Layout in 0 gauge

[thegreenhowards]

I had the layout set up in full on my patio this afternoon and ran the first train from end to end. The fiddle yard is still temporary and the rolling stock is a rather eclectic mixture of liveries but I hope you’ll agree that this is progress.

 

 

We also checked out the fit of the cassettes for the ‘Billingsgate’ fiddle yard and they worked very well. Here is a picture of the cassette about to lock in.

 

 

..and another with it fully pushed into position. The nickel silver strips ensure electrical connectivity.

 

 

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

Another working session in the garden yesterday on my own and today with fellow club members, Peter and Vinnie. We managed to get the whole layout set up and Peter got some more cassettes finished off. I laid track across the baseboard joint into the goods yard, laid out the rest of the yard in a temporary fashion and got some basic wiring in place so we can test run it.

 

I set up and ran my latest loco, an ex-GCR C4, on my newly completed rake of Kirk non corridor stock.

 

 

I also fitted some magnets for the Dingham coupling system. For the moment we’re using these in a slightly unconventional manner. Rather than fitting all vehicles with a different type of coupling on each end, we’re fitting all the coaching stock with the paddle type coupling at the both ends of the fixed rakes, and the locos with the smaller neater coupling at each end.  This means locos can work either way round. Goods locos and stock will stay with 3 links for now.

 

Here is a video of the automatic couplings working. It proved easy to get them to work, but my driving technique still needs some work!

 

 

 

 

 

[woko]

Its definitely coming along nicely Andy, and great work on those Kirk non corridor stock, they look the business behind that GCR Atlantic, can’t wait to see this for real. 

[thegreenhowards]

First proper running session on the O gauge today with some fellow club members and a good selection of rolling stock. It’s in rather an eclectic mix of liveries but it’s still nice to see the layout populated.

 
 

It behaved itself very well. There were a few derailments but less than I expected and all the wiring worked fine after I sorted out one short circuit on a frog. I will attend to the derailments over the next few days.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by thegreenhowards

[RJS1977]

On 22/12/2020 at 15:42, Pacific231G said:

It's looking very good Andy. As for names, any idea which railway it would be most associated with? 

Cyril Freezer always said that he chose a name that sounded City of London without intending to define its location with the real Minories.

 

The Cities of London and Westminster were originally very opposed to letting any of those nasty new fangled railway things into their respective territories. The termini that eventually were built witihn their city precints were only allowed to penetrate them a short way so your terminus would likely be on the side of the city from which your railway came and that may suggest names.  Think of the lines to Victoria, Charing Cross, Blackfriars and Cannon Street coming in from the south but to stations not far from the original banks of the river (a bit further for Victoria but it followed the route of the Grosvenor Canal from the river and was built on the site of the canal's basin) Fenchurch Street coming in a little way  from the East and ditto Liverpool Street from the North East and the Metropitan more or less running along the City of London's northern border.  That may tend to give some ideas for a name but Bank is probably too central. Think also of where a railway would or would not be allowed to knock existing buidlngs down. Basically you can knock down common dwellings and factories but forget about anything like the Inns of Court or any of the guilds. Charing Cross for example was built where Warren's Blacking Factory, that Charles Dickens worked in as a young man, used to stand  and, before the Embankment was built to cover Bazalgette's new sewer in 1865, the banks of the Thames were marshy and insalubrious.

The City of London itself seemed to make an exception on its western side with Ludgate Hill and High Holborn stations and the viaduct over Fleet Steet (all now gone) obscuring St. Pauls Cathedral but that more or less followed the line of the River Fleet (known in its lower reaches as the Holbourne)

 

For anything coming from the north London Wall comes to mind- I think that was the imaginary London terminus in a BBC radio drama series a good few years ago. Think also what name a railway company might or might not want to  diginify its City of London terminus with. Bishopsgate Station sounds alright (except that Liverpool Street Stn. occupies most of the ward) but Cheapside. Cripplegate or Houndsditch Station doesn't.  Lime Street - just to the east of Liverpool St. is available but maybe too associated with that other Lime Street Station.

 

Somewhat late to the party and slightly off-topic, I think there are a number of sites around the City which could have been used for Minories stations:

 

St Katherine's Dock/Tobacco Dock. As shipping became too large for these docks, they could have been drained and the space they took up given over to a railway terminus. In all likelihood, the terminus would have branched off what was later known as the East London Line, giving access to the SER lines approaching London Bridge. The disadvantage of this site would be that it is well placed for the Tower, and not much else.

 

Between Aldgate and Aldgate East Underground stations, aligned north-south, accessed by a bridge across the Thames parallel to Tower Bridge. The difficulty in this one would be levels - the bridge would have to be high enough to clear shipping on the Thames, and the line would also have to clear the Fenchurch Street line, making the terminus a considerable height above street level.

 

North of Finsbury Circus, though this of course would have been Broad Street station.

 

On Bunhill Fields Burial Ground/The University of Law Recreation Ground, accessed from Kings Cross/St Pancras via the route of the Regent's Canal, and possibly from the North London Line. This would effectively duplicate the Widened Lines, the Northern City Line, and Broad Street.

 

On land north of Old Street (the road) by St Luke's church, probably accessed off the Broad Street line and possibly also from the Liverpool Street line. Disadvantage being a little too far out from the centre of the City. Possibly the line could be bent round to the site of Charterhouse Square Campus (north of Barbican station).

 

On the site of Smithfield Market, accessed via a 'straight on' where the Liverpool Street approaches turn south.

 

I wouldn't envisage anything on the west side of the City owing to the presence of Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct stations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

6 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Somewhat late to the party and slightly off-topic, I think there are a number of sites around the City which could have been used for Minories stations:

 

St Katherine's Dock/Tobacco Dock. As shipping became too large for these docks, they could have been drained and the space they took up given over to a railway terminus. In all likelihood, the terminus would have branched off what was later known as the East London Line, giving access to the SER lines approaching London Bridge. The disadvantage of this site would be that it is well placed for the Tower, and not much else.

 

Between Aldgate and Aldgate East Underground stations, aligned north-south, accessed by a bridge across the Thames parallel to Tower Bridge. The difficulty in this one would be levels - the bridge would have to be high enough to clear shipping on the Thames, and the line would also have to clear the Fenchurch Street line, making the terminus a considerable height above street level.

 

North of Finsbury Circus, though this of course would have been Broad Street station.

 

On Bunhill Fields Burial Ground/The University of Law Recreation Ground, accessed from Kings Cross/St Pancras via the route of the Regent's Canal, and possibly from the North London Line. This would effectively duplicate the Widened Lines, the Northern City Line, and Broad Street.

 

On land north of Old Street (the road) by St Luke's church, probably accessed off the Broad Street line and possibly also from the Liverpool Street line. Disadvantage being a little too far out from the centre of the City. Possibly the line could be bent round to the site of Charterhouse Square Campus (north of Barbican station).

 

On the site of Smithfield Market, accessed via a 'straight on' where the Liverpool Street approaches turn south.

 

I wouldn't envisage anything on the west side of the City owing to the presence of Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct stations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many thanks for your well informed suggestions. I quite like the Bunhill Fields idea as that would suit my GNR interests but we also need to accommodate LBSCR interests from other club members. It’s quite hard to reconcile the two in a credible  back story so I think an element of ‘rule 1’ will apply!

 

Building on your ideas, would a combination of the GNR extension to Bunhill Fields and a LBSCR route through the East London Line and joining to the same Bunhill Fields site be vaguely credible?

 

Andy

[RJS1977]

Hmm... yes, trying to get the LBSC and the GNR into the same terminus is a tricky one!

 

The East London Line probably wouldn't work, as what we now know as London Overground's ELL is really a combination of two lines, connected by a new section through Bishopsgate Goods Yard. One line was the old East London Line which connected Shoreditch and the Metropolitan at Whitechapel to the SECR at New Cross via Brunel's Thames tunnel. The other line was from Dalston down to Broad Street.

 

I think the only way the LBSC could have got to Bunhill would have been round the West London line then on to the proposed Bunhill branch by a connection in the Kings Cross/Copenhagen Fields area.

[thegreenhowards]

11 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Hmm... yes, trying to get the LBSC and the GNR into the same terminus is a tricky one!

 

The East London Line probably wouldn't work, as what we now know as London Overground's ELL is really a combination of two lines, connected by a new section through Bishopsgate Goods Yard. One line was the old East London Line which connected Shoreditch and the Metropolitan at Whitechapel to the SECR at New Cross via Brunel's Thames tunnel. The other line was from Dalston down to Broad Street.

 

I think the only way the LBSC could have got to Bunhill would have been round the West London line then on to the proposed Bunhill branch by a connection in the Kings Cross/Copenhagen Fields area.

I thought you might think that was a bit of a stretch!

 

My thoughts are that the most credible /least incredible story is for LBSCR running powers over the Snow Hill line and using the old south to east curve at Farringdon to access the widened lines towards Moorgate. Our terminus would then be an extension beyond Moorgate in tunnel/ cutting to a below ground level station in the heart of the city. Maybe the city grandees decided that they like railways after all and asked for an extension?!

[RJS1977]

30 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

I thought you might think that was a bit of a stretch!

 

My thoughts are that the most credible /least incredible story is for LBSCR running powers over the Snow Hill line and using the old south to east curve at Farringdon to access the widened lines towards Moorgate. Our terminus would then be an extension beyond Moorgate in tunnel/ cutting to a below ground level station in the heart of the city. Maybe the city grandees decided that they like railways after all and asked for an extension?!

 

Come to think of it, maybe reversing my Smithfield idea would work - connecting to the Snow Hill lines to the west, but also with a connection to the Widened lines, so some GNR trains could terminate there rather than at Moorgate.

[thegreenhowards]

1 hour ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Come to think of it, maybe reversing my Smithfield idea would work - connecting to the Snow Hill lines to the west, but also with a connection to the Widened lines, so some GNR trains could terminate there rather than at Moorgate.

I’m a little confused as I thought Smithfield’s was adjacent to Farringdon station. Do you mean in the Finsbury Square area?

[RJS1977]

4 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

I’m a little confused as I thought Smithfield’s was adjacent to Farringdon station. Do you mean in the Finsbury Square area?

 

No, it's the Smithfields adjacent to Farringdon I was thinking of. Certainly accessible from the Snow Hill line (now Thameslink) for the LBSC and theoretically accessible from the GNR, but as you say the proximity of both Farringdon and Barbican makes GNR services serving it somewhat unlikely.

[thegreenhowards]

Long time no post! It’s amazing how progress has slowed down now that the layout has been transferred to our club rooms. We only have Monday night to work on it, but at least we have a team of 3 or 4 regulars who are doing something every week. Latest addition has been some loverly 3D printed retaining walls from club member Rob ( @woko) as shown in the picture below.

 

Our intention is to vary them along the layout to provide variety. 
 

The other main project has been installing working point rodding using the DCC concepts 00 gauge system. This is significantly over sale for 00 gauge but seems to work well for 0 gauge. Should have photos of this soon.

 

Andy
 

 

[Nearholmer]

On 11/04/2021 at 09:39, thegreenhowards said:

My thoughts are that the most credible /least incredible story is for LBSCR running powers over the Snow Hill line and using the old south to east curve at Farringdon to access the widened lines towards Moorgate.

There was a LCDR service Victoria to Moorgate for many years, so it’s hard to imagine them giving any slice of that action to the LBSCR.

[thegreenhowards]

This week I finally finished installing the first tranche of point control using the DCC concepts working point rodding. Here is a picture of the two double slips and one point controlled in this manner.

 

The system I’ve developed uses Gem point levers, 0.7mm wire, 3D printed stools and the cranks from DCC concept’s OO gauge working point rodding which I think are about the right size for O gauge. The layout is DCC so the frogs are controlled by Gaugemaster DCC80 autofrogs. The levers will be hidden in a signal box in due course.

 

Here is a 25 second video of the points working.

 

https://youtu.be/2l7VbxVAPv4

 

 

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by thegreenhowards

[thegreenhowards]

It’s a long time since I posted on here. Progress has continued over the winter but at a much slower rate than during lockdown! We’ve ballasted some track and started producing the retaining walls which are being cast in resin from a 3D printed master designed by club member and 3D printing maestro, @woko. Thanks Rob.

 

 

We’ve decided on a name. The layout will be called Smithfield.

 

I’ve also been test running some stock. Here is my sound and smoke fitted N1 debuting on some Gresley twin arts.

 

 

The layout is designed to be able to represent any era up until the 1970s with a few tweaks,so here is my Heljan 37 representing a later era.

 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by thegreenhowards

[thegreenhowards]

On Monday, Rob (@woko) brought his 3D printed GER 4&6 wheelers down to pose on the layout. I think they will look the business.

 

[Pacific231G]

On 07/03/2021 at 21:11, thegreenhowards said:

A bit more progress over the last few days, although it’s been cold in the garage so I’ve done it in short stints. I’ve built the translator board which will act as the entrance to the fiddle yard and will supply two cassettes on the outer roads and a reversing track in the centre. The fiddle yard in the club room will have to be narrow as a wall comes in to restrict the available width. I anticipate club running nights will only have limited stock so this will probably be adequate. For exhibition purposes we will have to do something different but I we haven’t planned that yet. 

 

 

The cardboard mock up in the middle distance shows where a bridge will cross the station throat.

 

I have used the Modeltech rail aligners at the baseboard join. They seem to work well producing a prefect alignment and look fairly neat. Whether they’re worth the £10 for the pair only time will tell - if they work and we have problems with the other baseboard joins then I guess the answer is ‘yes’. Otherwise they seem quite an extravagance but worth an experiment.

 

Hi Andy

 A year on have you had more experience of the Modeltech rail aligners in practice? 

 

By the way, for aligning boards I've used the MKD  plastic blocks (nylon I think and much the same material that Peco use for their track) that are about tuppence a ton in B&Q. You do have to drill extra holes in them as they're designed to join corners rather than for linear joins. They were a quick solution about fifteen years ago and are still going strong- they're also good for joining backscenes. 

[thegreenhowards]

8 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Andy

 A year on have you had more experience of the Modeltech rail aligners in practice? 

 

By the way, for aligning boards I've used the MKD  plastic blocks (nylon I think and much the same material that Peco use for their track) that are about tuppence a ton in B&Q. You do have to drill extra holes in them as they're designed to join corners rather than for linear joins. They were a quick solution about fifteen years ago and are still going strong- they're also good for joining backscenes. 

I think the rail aligners work well. They have proved reliable and the horizontal alignment is good whereas on other joints we have found that it doesn’t always align. They don’t do vertical alignment although we haven’t had any problems with that. I still think they’re pricy at £10 for two pairs but they do work.

[thegreenhowards]

Recently we had another test running session on the layout. This was the longest running session that we’d had and, I think, the most successful. Trains behaved themselves more often than not and derailments were much less frequent than before although there’s still work to do. Having platforms and the beginnings of our resin cast retaining walls made a difference as did having the over bridge and mocked up warehouse in place.

 

Here are some photos.

The C4 and N2 wait to depart on their respective trains.

 

Wagons on display in the gap between overbridge and warehouse.

 

Rob’s impressive 3D printed 6 wheelers taking centre stage.

 

Milk tanks being reversed into the milk dock in front of the new retaining walls (as yet unpainted).

 

 

[thegreenhowards]

More progress at the club tonight. We glued the platforms down with just one section lifting on each platform at the baseboard joint. Rob has case several more resin retaining wall sections and we got them all painted in yellow filler primer which doubles up as base yellow brick colour. It’s starting to look like a station!

Next week we will hopefully fill in the ballast along the platform edges.

 

 

[harris0169]

On 21/12/2020 at 21:22, thegreenhowards said:

This thread will be a diary of the construction of a new 0 gauge layout by the East Surrey Model Railway Club, based in Merstham. It will be our first venture into 0 gauge for many years so many of us will be on a steep learning curve but we're looking forward to it.

 

The design requirements were:

1.      Needs to be capable of being set up quickly in the main clubroom away from those working on our other layouts.  It would need to be put away at the end of the evening to free the space for our main social and running evening.

2.      It should provide something different from our two 00 gauge layouts, one is a 'roundy roundy' and the other a Branch Line Terminus.

3.      It should be exhibitable.

4.      All rolling stock to be owned by members as for all our layouts.

5.      Create a plausible setting for existing members’ rolling stock.

6.      Allow us to try out new modelling methods and technologies.

 

With these design criteria we developed a plan based on the classic 00-gauge Minories design from 1957 by Cyril Freezer (former editor of Railway Modeller). Obviously done in 0 gauge it will be significantly larger and there was a desire for more goods action than the original Minories offered so we have ended up with the plan below.

 

The design uses two 1220*690 boards and two 1630 * 690 boards. Each pair of boards will fold onto each other for storage and transportation. The section on the right will be a narrow fiddle yard for use in the clubroom. It will be operated from the bottom of the plan but for exhibition purposes will be viewed from the top. We will build a separate fiddle yard board for exhibitions with some (as yet unspecified) goods activity in front.

 

I have a particular interest in the GNR/ LNER/ BE(E) while other 0 gauge interested club members are generally Southern focussed. So we decided it would be a joint station similar to Moorgate but shared between the GNR & LBSCR and their successors. It will be capable of being set in era 2,3,4 and 5 (i.e. pre grouping, big four or BR steam eras) and set in the City of London

 

We envisage an intensive service of suburban trains from both companies with a rush hour longer distance service of mainline stock and parcels, milk and goods trains. The cassette on the bottom left will hold an 0-6-0T, six wagons and a brake van and will represent through goods traffic to Billingsgate fish market and possibly other traffic for city based warehouses or transhipment to ships on the Thames. It will be on a falling gradient and disappear behind the station platforms similar to hotel curve at King's Cross. 

 

We are still considering a name for the layout. Street names in the City of London seem the most promising at the moment. Something like Tower Hill, Botolph Lane, Bank, Telegraph St or Tooley Bridge. 

 

We got as far as agreeing the broad principles in the early Autumn before Covid closed the club. Work has continued on the planning and we have recently started building baseboards (in my garage before London entered tier 3) and preparing for track laying. Now we are in tier 4, one member, Peter, is continuing to build the baseboards while I will be laying track.

 

As this is designed to be a diary of the construction, I will provide regular updates as and when we make significant progress. Comments are welcome on any aspect of the build. I'd particularly welcome suggestions for a name.

 

Andy

 

 

 

I saved the plan from the first page of this thread since I like the Minories track plan.  There is so much lost through The Blip caused by the previous RMWeb hosters I thought other people might want to see the track plan originally posted, I've attached it here. I particularly like it because it gets over the "reverse curve through the two sets of point crossovers" the original plan has. Hope this is ok to add.

 

[woko]

1 minute ago, harris0169 said:

 

I saved the plan from the first page of this thread since I like the Minories track plan.  There is so much lost through The Blip caused by the previous RMWeb hosters I thought other people might want to see the track plan originally posted, I've attached it here. I particularly like it because it gets over the "reverse curve through the two sets of point crossovers" the original plan has. Hope this is ok to add.

 

 

 

I agree it is such a shame we have lost so much by the blip now, that most threads sadly don't make a lot of sense without the images

[thegreenhowards]

10 hours ago, harris0169 said:

 

I saved the plan from the first page of this thread since I like the Minories track plan.  There is so much lost through The Blip caused by the previous RMWeb hosters I thought other people might want to see the track plan originally posted, I've attached it here. I particularly like it because it gets over the "reverse curve through the two sets of point crossovers" the original plan has. Hope this is ok to add.

 

Thanks for adding that @harris0169. I ought to go back and reinstate some of the lost photos, but I’m afraid life is too short!

 

It actually changed slightly in the good yard for the final iteration. So here is the final track plan as laid.

 

 

Now that we’ve had a couple of running sessions, I feel confident that we’ve got a good plan, both for operator interest and for keeping trains running when we exhibit it.

 

 

 

 

[harris0169]

8 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Thanks for adding that @harris0169. I ought to go back and reinstate some of the lost photos, but I’m afraid life is too short!

 

It actually changed slightly in the good yard for the final iteration. So here is the final track plan as laid.

 

 

Now that we’ve had a couple of running sessions, I feel confident that we’ve got a good plan, both for operator interest and for keeping trains running when we exhibit it.

 

 

 

 

That's great to see the latest...

I agree that life is too short to repost photos...just need to keep moving forward I guess. 

 

All the best

[woko]

hello folks I thought I would post some shots of the wall mold we have made at the club, and the corresponding cast sections for the layout above. 

It took us a wee while to completely get to grips with casting if completely honest. None of us had done any casting before so good old Youtube is where we turned to gain knowledge!

 

The first few attempts weren't bad, but not marvellous either if I am totally honest, and we found we had a lot of trapped air bubbles in the resin resulting in quite a pitted final effect once the wall section had set. But literally by accident and more for economic reasons as the first lot of resin we acquired for the job was quite expensive, so we trialled a more cost effective solution and invested in a 5kilo tin of water clear cast resin from CFS as we have near 30 of these wall sections we need to cast off for the layout! This resin takes a lot longer to cure, I would say on average over night and the section sets solid, as opposed to 15mins beforehand for the more expensive quick setting resin we used previously. This slower setting resin allowed us to chase out the air bubbles once we have poured into the resulting mold, it doesn't take long around 5 - 10mins of chasing them out with a small wooden stirrer run across the bottom of the mold to release all the bubbles, and the result gives us a pretty faithful cast from the original section we made as the master.

 

Here is the silicone mold we made

 

 

Resulting casts from the above mold

 

 

 

 

An earlier test section I painted up.