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Express Daisy Sidings - Anshurst - an Inglenook


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For some time, I have been intrigued by the Express Dairy sidings at  South Morden. Sketching plans that grow larger than the back of the envelope. With  the expected release of the Ruston & Hornsby 48DS in Express Dairy livery by Hornby, I suggested to SWMBO that this would make an ideal Christmas present. And so in June it arrived and I am delighted with it. 

 

20210803_200500.jpg.3c953c0805d19113dfc635800d16cc31.jpg

 

However I realised that I really don't have the capacity to build a large layout., so perhaps this was the opportunity  to build that small shunting layout that I had always meant to do but always became larger and larger as the planning went on.

 

But then it occurred to me that I should just bit the bullet and get on with a restriction that already exists. So from the back of the garage I pulled out a couple of baseboards from a layout that never got properly started back in the early 1980's.  These were made before I fully discovered the delights of motorcycles and women, so they are of the 2x1" timber frame construction with good old Sundula on top. (baseboards - not the motorbikes or women)

 

Each board is 1' x 4'. 

The first board I found was very handy for my home office as I can elevate above the modelling table and it holds 2 monitors and a docking station. Handy for when working from home. This effectively reduced the layout footprint by half giving me the challenge I needed.

 

The remaining board was therefore going to be my layout and I decided that this would be the size of my envelope. 

 

The restricted size meant limited possibilities and I studied Mr Rice's written wisdom carefully sketching and resketching until I realised that what I was really looking for was an Inglenook shunting puzzle!

This smaller project suddenly gave me some clarity as to the scope of the project. This means that

  • I could put together the stock for the larger future model based on South Morden,
  • test out my existing stock
  • actually prove that I could build a working layout
  • try out a few ideas.
  • Plus I can play trains as I have really missed operating layouts (other peoples).

 

So there you have it. "Express Daisy Sidings - name to be decided" is basically a 4x1foot Inglenook shunting plank in EM and will be based on a Express Dairy milk receiving station.

 

The Name

The Express Daisy Sidings name is of course a misspelling of Express Dairy Sidings. I read somewhere that the name was vandalised (written over) on the signal panel at South Morden or St Helier.

Hopefully  we will see a few Daisy sidings out there.

I also need a name for the location and will change that in the title above when a suitable name comes up. I am open to suggestions, perhaps as the layout progress's it may become apparent.

 

TTFN

Andy

 

Edited by brightspark
edit for typo. Photo reposted.
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Interesting stuff, Andy. Don't look too closely at the available RTR milktanks (take it from one who has... and has the shelf-queens to prove it) and enjoy building something that works would be my suggestion initially. The Ruston looks splendid.

 

Adam

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Hi Adam,

 

Thanks, you are quite right and that is the plan.

 

As Adam says, all of the available RTR milk tanks are rather generic and do not represent any particular prototype.

There is a David Geen kit, but this doesn't represent a type used by Express Dairies and are no longer available. Rumney Models do offer kits that are able to offer variants, but seem to be based on the Geen kit.

 

However all is not lost as Justin has published a handy list of milk tank types and who operated them.  

There does not seem to be a single source of information of milk tanks and there function, so I have spent many happy hours searching through my library as well as the web and RMweb on the subject.

 

I concluded that to produce a set of milk tanks would require a lot more research and scratch building which would take too long and away from the objective of actually playing trains.

So figured that despite being generic in design that the RTR is a good as it gets for the moment and more importantly would be about the correct length. So I set about acquiring 8 milk tanks suitable for a ED depot.

I ended up with 8 Dapol tankers in 4 liveries. 

 

The paint finish is acceptable and the tanks themselves seem to be the correct size. The chassis and detail can be modified or replaced later. 

But the key point here is that I can now determine the length of the sidings for the Inglenook.

 

The result is that I can just fit in to 4' an inglenook with 2 A5 points.

 

I then set about building, without even stopping to take photos, as I didn't want to lose momentum.

 

Construction started with a sheet of 4mm ply that I had cut into a wedge shape and screwed on top of the Sundula. I did consider removing the awful stuff, but it has good sound insulation properties and adds an extra ½" to the baseboard depth under the track. Onto this I stuck two A5 track templates and started building.

The track is an heathen mix of old ply and rivet with the odd bit old copperclad. The head shunt is an old length of K&L.

I really wanted to use up all those old bits of half started projects.

 

The result is this...

 

 

20210714_184747.jpg.c4cea7ed595934593ad196ec86a1b221.jpg

20210714_184723.jpg.030cefbec956b2d9770fb773d96129ab.jpg

 

As I put this together I found that the plan changed. My intention was to have the long siding at the back of the diorama, but it quickly became apparent that this wouldn't work or look right. So this now sits at the front and the loading platform will be the short back road.

I also considered adding a small fiddle yard. A short piece of track hanging off the end as on Trerice. This could go at either end, either extending the head shunt, where I would have to hide the hole in the backscene, or from the long road. But I stopped myself just in time, it doesn't need to be there and would start to become a too larger project. Hmm perhaps I could link it up to.... No stop! 

This is to be a 4x1'.

However a criticism of the inglenook is that it is an unnatural restriction, so I will put at the end of the headshunt a gate that justifies the shortness of the scene. Although 8 milk tanks will take some explaining, even 5 going out on a train is an awful lot of milk.

 

To be continued...

 

Edited by brightspark
Yet another typo. reinstated photos
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Once in a while, according to the law of averages, things break down. And so it was one morning about 50 years ago at Morden South, the little Ruston had had enough for today, thankyou. So the dairy appealed to the signalman at St Helier, and he got onto Control, i.e. me. It was his opinion that on a good day the Ruston wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, but today it wouldn't go at all - was there any chance of a big railway loco just to help out with a shunt, please? I can't recall details but my loco colleague obliged and all was well. 

 

If you ever feel the need to ring the changes with motive power there is your precedent. 

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17 hours ago, brightspark said:

Express Daisy Sidings

 

You might want to take another look at the title of this thread. To my great disappointment, it’s not about flowers! :tomato:

Edited by Kylestrome
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On 07/08/2021 at 15:17, Oldddudders said:

Once in a while, according to the law of averages, things break down. And so it was one morning about 50 years ago at Morden South, the little Ruston had had enough for today, thankyou. So the dairy appealed to the signalman at St Helier, and he got onto Control, i.e. me. It was his opinion that on a good day the Ruston wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, but today it wouldn't go at all - was there any chance of a big railway loco just to help out with a shunt, please? I can't recall details but my loco colleague obliged and all was well. 

 

If you ever feel the need to ring the changes with motive power there is your precedent. 

 

Then Charlie, who did the shunting, burst in to the foreman's office shouting "That loco with a bit more power that you promised is rubbish!" 

"Why?" asked Mr Brown, the Foreman, who had gone to a lot of trouble arranging a more powerful engine with the local signalman.

"I can only move one wagon at a time!" explained Charlie.

"What do you mean?" asked the frustrated Mr Brown. "I was told that it has a lot more power. It should be able to shunt more than one wagon?"

"Look for yourself" exclaimed Charlie, pointing out of the office window at the chaos outside.

 

20210807_170714.jpg.02b320258d1cf8fa49cda266d61cabf5.jpg

 

20210807_170743.jpg.cf5c95472f1356ad1e4c94c3756a5dbd.jpg

 

"It's too bleedeen big to get more than one wagon up the headshunt!"

Edited by brightspark
additional text for clarity. reloaded the photos
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21 hours ago, Kylestrome said:

 

You might want to take another look at the title of this thread. To my great disappointment, it’s not about flowers! :tomato:

Hi Kylestrome,

please read the bottom of the opening post. 

At some point, I will make up a suitable sign for the layout.

 

I think all dairy based layouts should try and get Daisy mis-spelled into the name so that it becomes as much of a cliché as the bus on the bridge.

 

Andy

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So the next stage was to arrange a means of operating the layout.

 

First the two points. Or to be pedantic, the turnouts.

In a box of stuff I acquired from the late Gordon Wedell, marked up "A miscellany of signal parts", were various point levers, from manufacturers GEM and Wrenn. 

There were some early type Wrenn ones (the weight style made from a soft alloy, possibly white-metal), but when I tried to use them I found that the metal was too weak as they started to wear too quickly, and then broke.

So I moved onto a later lever type of a design like a normal signal lever.

These operated a wire in a nylon tube, that was also in Gordon's box. This was attached to a lever made from old rail that transferred the motion via a 1mm steel pin (a paperclip) to the baseboard top where another lever was attached to the point tie bar.

A microswitch engaged with the throw of the lower rail type lever to change the polarity of the crossing vee.

 

1289375236_20210714_184824(2).jpg.92eee94b1d135e1d8f0115a25768eda4.jpg

Photo of the rail built lever and microswitch. (purchased many decades a go from Electrovalue in Englefield Green)

 

With that arrangement in place I set about laying in the wire loom.

 

20210714_184817.jpg.dbc60130e6fa28b4b3c0d2fec49f1dea.jpg

 

I found that this arrangement of controlling the points was less than satisfactory as the point blades did not fully throw over. One of these I managed to improve by a bit of strengthening of the rail and better fixing of the nylon tube. The other required a rebuild and this now looks more like the arrangement on page 91 of Cameo layouts. In that instead of transferring motion horizontally and up through the board with a shaft, I hold the lever vertically. In the horizontal position the rail has too much flex about the axis. But by using a vertical transfer lever this is considerably reduced.

 

It was at this point that I also considered how I was uncouple the wagons.

One thing I dislike when watching layouts is where the shunter has to play find the uncoupler. This is  normally an electro-magnet hidden in the track. Get the positioning right and it works and looks a treat, but get it wrong and it becomes a source of frustration as well as looking silly. Who wants to see a train constantly running backwards and forwards until it uncouples. 

 

My experience of operating St.Merryn is that this takes good markers on the layout and plenty of practice

But I wanted something a little less precise so that anyone could operate the layout first time.

 

For that reason and to make the wiring simpler I wanted to avoid the electro-magnet and find some other method. A few pages on in the Cameo book on from the point control diagram, on page 97, Iain Rice describes a nice method that uses a permanent magnet.

I happen to have some Spratt & Winkle magnets and set about using this method. 

 

This is fix the magnet onto a bracket that hinges down and away from the track bed when not in use, then swings up to uncouple.

 

20210714_184839.jpg.97c66efb004a0d49477faef61c6d5897.jpg

Note, that the magnet is a little slow to drop as the board was on its side and I had to lower the board while trying to hold the camera. Not easy which is why it goes a bit out of focus.

 

The joy of this method is that the landing area to uncouple is an inch long as opposed to the 3 to 5mm of the usual pin of an electronic affair.

The only thing that I would do differently is ensure that the magnet falls further away by making the arm longer and adding more spacers under magnet, because I have found that when in the lowered position some coupling tend to still get attracted.

 

Here I decided to have a little fun with anyone who operates this layout in the future.

The usual thinking is to put a single uncoupling magnet at the neck of the yard, that is at the end of the head shunt by the first point. But again I think it looks silly to have to reverse the whole way down the yard to uncouple. You normally don't do that on a real railway. So I put an uncoupler at the start of each siding. Just at the point where you can can only get in 3 wagons.

This also means that there is no opportunity to leave a wagon on the second point as a bit of extra shunting space from the long road. 

 

'Oh no, that wouldn't do. Sir, doesn't approve of that' , is the story if anyone asks.

 

But this is to ensure that puzzle rules are followed.

I did toy with the idea of adding further magnets along the sidings and if really required a 'cheat' magnet in the neck. But early trials in operating the layout have proved this to be unnecessary. 

 

So that dear reader brings you up to date so far with the layout.

The R&H 48DS has been converted to EM, and I am currently going through my collection of wagons to adjust and correct the AJ couplings so that they work.

Of these I have so far 8 wagons that I use to shunt with. Using either the 48DS or an elderly model of a Johnson half cab made from a Hornby Jinty and a Crownline conversion kit.

 

Other locomotives may appear, but so far only testing purposes. They seem to be too large for headshunt. :)

 

Play safe

Andy

 

Edited by brightspark
reapply photos
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I've had similar problems with wire in tube. My original set up with straight runs of tube buried in the ballast has always worked well but when I came to a more complex part of the layout where the tube was required to wind this way and that to reach the point I have found it almost impossible to prevent some form of movement, and every bit of wiggle on that tube is lost throw at the business end. 

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13 hours ago, Barclay said:

I've had similar problems with wire in tube. My original set up with straight runs of tube buried in the ballast has always worked well but when I came to a more complex part of the layout where the tube was required to wind this way and that to reach the point I have found it almost impossible to prevent some form of movement, and every bit of wiggle on that tube is lost throw at the business end. 

I think that on the next project I will go back to push rods.

On a  project I did years ago, I used model aircraft linkages and a wire that was possibly aluminium. 

 

On reflection I think that the one that I replaced did have a larger S bend. So perhaps that is the problem.

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On 07/08/2021 at 15:17, Oldddudders said:

If you ever feel the need to ring the changes with motive power there is your precedent. 

Or there is the other industrial that shunted the sidings, a Hunslet Yardmaster. No kit as yet but the drawings are out there somewhere. @Michael Edge?

Milk to Morden

 

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11 hours ago, Ruston said:

Or there is the other industrial that shunted the sidings, a Hunslet Yardmaster. No kit as yet but the drawings are out there somewhere. @Michael Edge?

Milk to Morden

 

It's a wonderful looking thing.

The photo is interesting.

First it was taken after the rebranding, with the swooshy E. The 48DS did get painted in that livery (another Hornby variation perhaps).

To the right of the loco is an tank on brick columns. It is obviously an old milk tank, 2,000gallon? I was thinking that this could be a fuel tank. But there doesn't seem to be much oil spillage around it.

Above the roof behind the two tankers is the top of the company offices, with a very fine fire escape.

On the right hand side of the picture is the base of the chimney. Although the building were demolished the chimney still stands as part of the Mosque. Have a look on Google earth and see if you can spot it.

 

Meanwhile here is a link to a film about milk production held at the Yorkshire Film Archive. 

At 8 minutes in you get to see the R&H shunting 4 full tankers at South Morden. 

 

That is 3000 gallons a piece so I estimate that's 13 ton load per wagon plus say 11ton tare gives a total load  of  96tons. 

Please correct me if I made an error there.

But that seems quite good for gutless locomotive and it doesn't look like it was struggling.

 

Also seen in the film, at 5minutes in, is the receiving depot at Billingshurst in Sussex.

This is the kind of thing I want to represent on the shunting plank.

 

Which takes me to a possible name. I am thinking of Anshurst.

Hurst being a common Saxon place name and An or Anse being Saxon for the number 1 or first. (according to basic research done on the interweb)

 

Andy

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2 hours ago, brightspark said:

That is 3000 gallons a piece so I estimate that's 13 ton load per wagon plus say 11ton tare gives a total load  of  96tons. 

Please correct me if I made an error there.

But that seems quite good for gutless locomotive and it doesn't look like it was struggling.

It wouldn't have been struggling at all. Even in top gear, they could move 126 tons on level, straight, track. I think when people say that such-and-such was gutless, or couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, it should be taken with a pinch of salt. This thing was new to Express Dairy and if it couldn't handle the work expected of it at the time, they wouldn't have bought it. In fact Rustons wouldn't have sold it to them, knowing it wouldn't handle the work. It would harm their reputation, and why sell a cheaper engine when you can sell a larger and more expensive one, if that's what was actually needed anyway?

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8 hours ago, brightspark said:

Which takes me to a possible name. I am thinking of Anshurst.

Hurst being a common Saxon place name and An or Anse being Saxon for the number 1 or first. (according to basic research done on the interweb)

 

Andy

 

Hurst just means a wooded hill in Old English (which explains why it's so common), but then, so are any number of tree-related names.

 

The fuel(?) tank looks like a normal 3000 gallon tank to me; the 2000 gallon tanks were noticeably smaller in diameter (LIMA got the diameter spot on).

 

Adam

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On 06/08/2021 at 22:15, brightspark said:

The Express Daisy Sidings name is of course a misspelling of Express Dairy Sidings. I read somewhere that the name was vandalised (written over) on the signal panel at South Morden or St Helier.

I’d say it makes a perfect name and could include a photo of ‘Daisy’ too from their advertising. 
 

3C009D09-1763-496C-A391-717B2D6DFDE7.jpeg.5c5785cc4e57c6b22240c894716332fb.jpeg

 

106FC07F-95A2-447F-BDF1-22DA3F50E6F4.jpeg.371d6031b09c03fd09ee1be080f8c021.jpeg

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That Dutch shunter looks very close to the Triang Dock shunter. 

OK I'll wash my mouth out.

 

Adam,

I think that you are right. After looking at the picture on a larger screen it is the same size as the other tanks in the picture so 3000 gallon.

Ian,

I am not sure that the lack of bunding is an indicator. 

Does anyone know when bunding became a requirement?

 

A work colleague had a look over my shoulder at this and his first thought was it was a milk tank as it painted white. But water for cleaning does seem likely. as it is slightly higher than the tank still on its chassis.

But there are water facilities in the shed with good drainage between the track.

So is this to supplement that? 

Notice in the  film that the rails are painted a silver/aluminium colour.

 

So I will give it the location of Anshurst then. I like the look of the Billingshurst railhead as it is quite open so suitable for a shunting plank. 

I will leave the London based depot to the next project. I have even thought up a name for it, it will be Express DairSy Sidings XXXXX.

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  • brightspark changed the title to Express Daisy Sidings - Anshurst - an Inglenook

Hi Andy,

 

It's been a while since we spoke, how are you doing?  I like this thread, my kind of layout (I like micros), you may have seen from my Cliddesden thread that layout has been packed away since having a lot of building work done around the house, so to keep myself occupied I have been building a micro.  This just has one turnout and a running line to the rear, it's just a glorified test track really, and certainly not to your high standard of modelling.  Think you may have inspired me to post more, maybe even it's own dedicated thread?

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Hi Alan,

"High standard of modelling"! are you sure?

Dodgy old baseboards, awful trackwork, locos that don't  run properly and stock that won't couple.

 

But thanks for your supportive words. I have sent you an email with details of tonights NWSAG EM meeting if you care to join us.

 

This shunting plank would work well with Cliddesden Buggleskelly good yard. You could have Gladstone as the engine (Roxey Mouldings?) and a collection of wagons labelled SRNI and no's 1 to 8. 

 

Andy

Edited by brightspark
missing word.
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So that is 2 people who are now inspired to have a crack at an inglenook based on seeing my small effort.

 

It has been suggested that a layout like this would be a good introduction to finescale modelling.

It was my intention to take it to exhibitions (when they start and if I get an invite) and let members of the public have a go at the challenge of operating it. 

I think that it will accompany me with the EMGS stand that I happen to be looking after. (There are several stands dotted around the country.)

 

Meanwhile I have been testing the layout out with my existing stock. This is a large collection of wagons already converted /built to EM and fitted with AJ couplings. So far most of them have needed some adjustment and far to many have been put into the cripple box as requiring overhaul or rework.

These will probably take priority over other projects as exhibitions have been booked and these will need to go into service on Swaynton.

 

This also gives me the opportunity to really test the layout out and work out desirable and non desirable features.

So far I have found that the uncoupler handles need labelling and stops so they can't be turned the wrong way and jam/ break the mechanism.

The track can be made quite rough. The 48DS will take quite a lot of rough uneven track even where the larger locos fail. So there can be loads of fun here.

I have levelled out some of the sidings. But I think that it will be desirable to give them some slop so that any over-enthusiastic shunting,  for instance, too hard buffering, too fast moving, causes problems like wagons running away.

One thing that I don't like is the speed of the Hornby model.

I am running the layout on DC, and I think that it is a shame that the model has such a low gear giving a too high top speed. Without converting to DCC, does anyone have any ideas how to restrict the top speed of the model?

I am currently using an old AMR hand held controller, which is lovely to use, so I would prefer not to adapt that.

 

Andy

 

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8 minutes ago, brightspark said:

I am running the layout on DC, and I think that it is a shame that the model has such a low gear giving a too high top speed. Without converting to DCC, does anyone have any ideas how to restrict the top speed of the model?

Don't turn the knob on the controller so much? It always worked for me with DC.

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13 hours ago, brightspark said:

I was thinking more for the guest operators.

Tell them not to turn the knob so much. I'm being serious. I've read the same question several times here on RMweb and I've never understood why folks don't just do that. They talk about putting resistors and what not into locomotives to solve this "problem". They're just over-thinking it, IMO. I use DCC and some of the RTR engines will run a lot faster than is realistic and whilst I could look up how to do it, and set a CV or other, I find it easier to look at the engine and how fast it's travelling and then not turn the knob any further.

You could determine the top speed that you want and see where on the dial that is, and then tell them not to exceed 3 or whatever it may be? Or if you do want a physical means of restricting the speed, how about some sort of pin in the control knob and a stop glued to the body of the controller?

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