Langford Lane & Marlingford - GWR 1940s Oxfordshire

[gazmanjack]

G'day Jon,

 

The layout has come some distance since displaying the track plan back in mid March. Looking foward to seing more progress on your layout if the branchline is anything to go by. Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers, Gary.

[The Great Bear]

G'day Jon,

 

The layout has come some distance since displaying the track plan back in mid March. Looking foward to seing more progress on your layout if the branchline is anything to go by. Keep up the good work.

 

Cheers, Gary.

 

Thanks, Gary. My progress has been slower than I'd hoped. At the moment I'm being distracted by the novelty of trains going around the room and have been acquiring locos and stock and convert locos to DCC - anything that isn't plug and play is a challenge for me. I need to get back to the modelling (and save some pennies)!

[westerner]

Only now just read about the extension. Looks good. there is something enjoyable about watching a long train in full flight.

[The Great Bear]

Only now just read about the extension. Looks good. there is something enjoyable about watching a long train in full flight.

 

Thanks, Alan. I agree about seeing long trains, it would be even more enjoyable if they didn't derail so often, especially the freight trains when going over the curved pointwork on the approach to the staging yard!

 

(The same happens with coaches with the short wheelbase bogies, the 3rd coach in a train consistently derails on the outer two tracks, it looks as though it's the pulling force through the coupling thats doing it rather than the wheels lifting off by themselves.)

Edited November 5, 2012 by The Great Bear

[westerner]

Interesting. I've never had that problem on Wencombe. Whose points are you using. Mine are Peco.

[aberdare]

Hi Jon

 

Don't know how I missed this one but I shall follow it from now on as you have a junction and BLT as I do, like you I hope to move to a new shed to extend what I have. As you are quite a bit in front of me it will be interesting to see what develops but you do really need to tidy that 'scenery' up. I do like the look of your branch terminus.

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Jim

[nickwood]

Jon

 

Like Jim I've only just managed to catch up. Anything with a GWR BLT is good as far as I'm concerned. I wish I had the space to extend mine in a similar fashion.

[The Great Bear]

Thanks for the suggestions on fixing derailment problems.

 

The points are Code 75 Peco medium or curved radius and the plain track in the fiddleyard is Peco code 75.

 

I've solved a couple of problems by a bit of modification to the track:

 

Before I did this everything derailed here

 

This one's appeared to fix problem with some coaches derailing as mentioned above.

 

The wagons, I've checked the back to backs with a DCC concepts 14.5mm gauge. The wagons were either new Bachmann ones or older Bachmann/Replica ones bought from ebay which I'd re-wheeled. Using the gauge eased the wheels out slightly from their default setting. I've weeded out some duff ones, by trial and error, taking out ones which derailed and replacing with others. Not very scientific. The older wagons were the problem and in due course remedial works will follow. At the moment if I run a 20 wagon train at a scale 20mph it seems to work ok. Trains going round and round is still a novelty but at the moment freight trains are offering more "bang for buck", a 100 second lap or so rather than 25 seconds for an express.

 

Thanks for looking and new comments and likes in the last few days.

 

Jon

Edited November 6, 2012 by The Great Bear

[westerner]

I have heard it said that the check rails are too short on Peco points, although as i've said I have not had a problem myself.

[The Great Bear]

Quite a bit of my modelling time has been spent trying to convert locos to DCC. DCC ready ones aren't a problem apart from the Bachmann Hall which still doesn't run as sweetly as I'd like.

 

I am pretty pleased that given my complete absence of electical skill I managed to hardwire decoder for this old dog I found on ebay:

 

The DCC installation - a large (2A peak) DCC concepts decoder with Stay Alive in tender, fitting new pickups to the open motor and some tender pickups to my surprise worked. There's a few issues: the current draw of this is such that it's pushing the capacity of my Powercab setup, at least the way I've divided up the buses. As a temporary fix I've bought some larger (18W) rather than the stock (12W) bulbs for the CP6 I'm using for fault detection. The bulbs still light a wee bit when this locos in motion. More work is needed on the layout power, possibly upgrade to the smart booster and proper overload protection but for now this low cost fix will suffice.

 

The loco needs some cosmetic work and renumbering to a Banbury loco and really could do with a larger tender and different insignia for the period and area I'm modelling. Despite the stay alive it stalls a bit too easily and more pickups and possibly stronger stay alive are also on the to-do list. I had to remove some plasticine in the front of the boiler to get the loco to balance properley and it could also do with a bit more ballast on the loco over the driving wheels as it slips a bit at times, though achieving this looks difficult. I. A nice project for the future, but for now something a wee bit different to plod around. I have a penchant for these smaller tender locos.

 

Again, thanks for looking

 

Jon

Edited November 7, 2012 by The Great Bear

[Donw]

Although the points should be fine it is easy to create slight kinks and dog-legs which can cause derailments. A small mirror place on the track so you can look down the track can often show the links better than looking from above. It is looking good and I like the Bulldog.

Don

[The Great Bear]

Been having a **** week so page 1087 of the latest (Dec) Railway Modeller cheered me up a bit.

 

I'd better stopping playing with trying to DCCify old locos and get on with the rest of the layout so I can run the Milk trains like Matt (Karhedron) has described!

[gazmanjack]

G'day Jon,

 

I have had the same problem on my son's layout with small four wheel wagons derailing on the points, whilst travelling towards the facing point, but not in the opposite direction. His wagons are derailing on Peco Set track curved points. Everything had rolled through the points prior to ballasting, but has been causing problems since. There are no obstructions in the way of loose ballast, but I did notice a dip mid-way through the point. This was eleviated by just loosening the track and placing small pieces of styrene under to level out the length within the point. Seems to cure the problem, but occasionally still derails on or two wagons. Maybe I need to do what you have with the extended check rail, unless it is the wheels themselves.

 

Cheers, Gary.

[The Great Bear]

After a period of hibernation, back to shed. After quite a bit of tidying my first project is to get the branch line going again, it having fallen into disrepair and overgrown with rubbish dumped on it, somewhere flat to put stuff. The branch needs to be converted to DCC, done and I want to get signalling working.

Due to damage to some of the ratio signals, lack of patience and skill and to keep wiring simple the branch has been converted to One Engine In Steam operation, the signal box reduced to ground frame and signalling rationalised. Here's the modified signal box diagram.
 

 

I've gone for DCC concepts Cobalt-S levers. I've painted them based on this. Hopefully it's right?!

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

[The Great Bear]

I've recently completed working signals and signal box levers to the rationalised plan above.

 

 

 

The levers and frame aren't spruced up, there's trim to add and lever numbers, but holding fire on that in case I decide to try and add some working ground signals at later date.

 

Lever colours were paint I had to hand, likely not the proper GWR shade!

 

 

I have managed to interlock after a fashion the signals and points (lever can move but does nothing) and in same way facing point locks and ground frame release.

 

 

Bit of a mess, but works (touch wood). This was hard enough to do and the levers aren't cheap (but do seem good to me and easy to use). The mainline box would have around 50 levers by my reckoning

 

The branch has been wired up for dcc but I need to chip suitable locos before services will recommence.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Jon

Edited July 31, 2013 by The Great Bear

[The Stationmaster]

Jon 

 

In some cases the FPL lever at the ground frame was painted as a release lever but not always (depended on the method of release) otherwise all rather nice and not a bad choice of blue - reasonably good match for the real thing (on the Western)

[DLT]

Lovely layout Jon, I'm very envious.

Cheers, Dave.T

[gazmanjack]

G'day Jon,

 

Those levers do look good. Richard at DCC Concepts is definately on a winner with these, as you are with them on your layout. Don't worry too much regarding your wiring being a mess, afterall, you know where they all run !

 

Looking good and keep up the good work.

 

Cheers, Gary.

[The Great Bear]

Don't worry too much regarding your wiring being a mess, afterall, you know where they all run !

I wouldn't bet on that! The wiring especially the interlocking involved a lot of trial and error. I have hopefully noted it down correctly for future reference.

 

Thanks, Jon

[The Great Bear]

At long last I am moving forward with the mainline station, Begbrooke.

 

Ages ago, when I'd completed a couple of the baseboards, I mocked things up. Having completed the mainline track last year I am about to sort out the track in the station area and move on to the structures and scenics. One of the reasons for the delay was lack of ideas for a backscene. So to move things forward, for now at least it's just plain painted MDF. As the railway is a cutting in not too hilly land, I am not sure really how much of a backscene was needed and commerical ones I could find didn't fit the bill. Something to think about later.

 

To check things out I've revisted the mock ups from before, pieces of card I'd numbered and stored away to my surprise found again.

 

Yes the baseboard by the end of the siding and goods shed does need an extension piece! Platforms still stop just by the lift up section, phew!

 

 

 

 

Orginally the canal was going to be over the edge of the baseboard, on dropped section but this is going to impinge too much onto my view of my messy table so things have been squeezed a bit with walls next to the ramp on the canal side. The highly skew rail bridge like the prototype is a definite must, wondering whether the canal bridge should be skewed too, the bend in road looks bit weird to me; in reality the canal and railway were much much further apart. (I can't stop making comments on highway design: my day job is designing roads/under a railway Ours are, in general, a bit smoother than this!)

 

The goods shed is also going to need the baseboard extended not such an issue in what location. I'm wondering whether I can squeeze the pointwork more to pull it a bit closer to the mainline to gain a few precious centimetres

 

 

I think I can legitimately butcher the trap and y points to get them closer together, this would gain a couple of centimetres. Can I do same for the tap point and the right hand one or does there need to be a decent separation here so runaway vehicle less likely to block the running line, the bay patform line in this case?

 

The platform end by the bridge is narrow, as was the real thing I believe.

OK so not the right signal (bracket wrong side and missing an arm methinks?) but looks like right one should fit albeit tight?

 

Thanks for looking and any comments/suggestions welcome, as always.

 

Jon

[The Stationmaster]

Jon, Where you've got the trap and the Y point can you fit a double slip (or are the 'cutting sides' fixed in position immovably?  Judging by the pics you can't move the trap any closer to the bay line but I suspect you might find the geometry of a double slip helpful.

[cary hill]

" The highly skew rail bridge like the prototype is a definite must, wondering whether the canal bridge should be skewed too, the bend in road looks bit weird to me; in reality the canal and railway were much much further apart. (I can't stop making comments on highway design: my day job is designing roads/under a railway Ours are, in general, a bit smoother than this!)"

 

I agree the close proximity of the bridges looks a bit weird, but presumably you are modelling the pre-1936 arrangements with the three span girder bridge and the original canal bridge, which conventionally bridges the canal at 90 degrees to the canal, making the individual bridges "correct".

 

I wonder if the canal bridge was replaced/rebuilt in 1936 at the same time as the railway bridge was replaced by a single span bridge. The canal bridge is certainly skewed per the OS 1947 map and the road widened and "straightened."

 

A little modeller's licence required perhaps. The replacement bridge isn't as attractive as the original, so a skewed version of the original would be aesthetically better, although they are fairly rare beasts in my canal walking experience.

Edited August 7, 2013 by cary hill

[The Great Bear]

I agree the close proximity of the bridges looks a bit weird, but presumably you are modelling the pre-1936 arrangements with the three span girder bridge and the original canal bridge, which conventionally bridges the canal at 90 degrees to the canal, making the individual bridges "correct".

 

I wonder if the canal bridge was replaced/rebuilt in 1936 at the same time as the railway bridge was replaced by a single span bridge. The canal bridge is certainly skewed per the OS 1947 map and the road widened and "straightened."

 

A little modeller's licence required perhaps. The replacement bridge isn't as attractive as the original, so a skewed version of the original would be aesthetically better, although they are fairly rare beasts in my canal walking experience.

 

Thanks, David.

 

My layout is primarily going to be set post war for a variety of reasons: so I can sneak in a railcar in due course, the slim majority of locos & coaches I have are in post war livery, I succumbed to a couple of Hawksworths (so license there too, depending on opinion), I have acquired a Hornby LNER B1 and I may repaint odd item in wartime brown and black liveries. But, yes, the railway infrastructure like signals and bridges I am going to keep a bit earlier. This gives me scope to acquire and run older locos like Cities, Churchward Counties, a GCR Director - just need RTR coaches for all of these and, should one appear - please Mr Bachmann, a railmotor. The original brick and girder bridge over railway is more interesting than the concrete single span replacement, with the interestng arrangement of the branch shoehorned through the backspan.

 

Just looking at Old-Maps, prompted by your reply gives me an idea to try later: realign the canal. Or I'll skew the canal bridge as suggested.

 

Thanks

 

Jon

[The Great Bear]

Jon, Where you've got the trap and the Y point can you fit a double slip (or are the 'cutting sides' fixed in position immovably?  Judging by the pics you can't move the trap any closer to the bay line but I suspect you might find the geometry of a double slip helpful.

 

Thanks, Mike, I'll try that. The short Y point looks a bit weird to me, a longer Y looked better. Are the clearances to the signal in the last photo OK, if you don't mind me asking? As long as the arms, posts are clear of the loading gauge is that it? The prototype used smaller arms in this location due to lack of space, I think I read in caption under one photo in a book.

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks, Mike, I'll try that. The short Y point looks a bit weird to me, a longer Y looked better. Are the clearances to the signal in the last photo OK, if you don't mind me asking? As long as the arms, posts are clear of the loading gauge is that it? The prototype used smaller arms in this location due to lack of space, I think I read in caption under one photo in a book.

As long as the signal structure is clear of the loading gauge all is more or less well but the arm must be clear whichever position it is in (which it is).  What concerns me a bit more is whether the signal is properly in rear of the fouling point on that diamond/slip - usually it would be back level with the point toe of the other line which feeds across the diamond/slip and it looks a bit too far forward for that (although it could be the angle of view?).