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Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.


jamie92208
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I've found a photo of one of the original MR sets that I am sure is out of copyright and is attached here.

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It's not brilliant but shows the Westinghouse equipped motor car leading with two trailers, one of which is Midland behind it. Initially they ran with a trailer either side of the motor car but I have various photos showing other formations. Various coaches were modified to provide extra workmen's coaches and I am modelling one of those. There were two types of motor cars, 2 with Siemens equipment and one with Westinghouse. The Siemens cars had 2 bow collectors rather than one pantograph. They bodies and bogies were the same however.

All the coaches had chicken wire covering the roof as a protection against wire breakages. I've reproduced this using 'bridal veil' material from a haberdashery shop that has the correct hexagonal mesh.

 

 

This is the state of play so far with Gavin watching over it. The kit is a standard Slaters one of the correct diagram that I've cut a hole in one end of to produce the driving compartment. The mesh shows up quite well.

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P1248344.JPG.00dc972b5b4ee8efab8cc2bf673f6e81.JPGBuying it was an interesting exercise as the assistant was very helpful and showed me all sorts of different materials but we were surrounded by several anxious mother/daughter pairs trying to get their wedding outfit materials who were not at all amused at the talk of old EMU's and model railways. Very amusing and well worth the 50p that 1 square yard cost me that will cover all the 6 vehicles. The other 3 trailers and the 2 motor cars, (1 of each.) are being scratch built with plasticard and will have the correct spoked wheels. Slaters have supplied me with 4 sets of bogies with the correct wheels.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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The EMU's that worked on the line were in fact Siemens units from the NLL which looked very similar to the Oerlikons.

 

XF

Apologies for getting that wrong. I had always assumed that the units were built after the LNWR took over the NLR. I didn't realise the North London Railway introduced electric units itself. Guess I had better stick to topics I am sure I know something about!

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Apologies for getting that wrong. I had always assumed that the units were built after the LNWR took over the NLR. I didn't realise the North London Railway introduced electric units itself. Guess I had better stick to topics I am sure I know something about!

 

Don't worry about that. I'd always asumed they were Oerlikon sets and I'd been researching the line for 6 years.

 

Jamie

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Out of curiosity, I checked a few sources about the Oerlikon/Siemens sets. Apparently they were built for the LNWR. The main difference was the electrical equipment, supplied by either Siemens or Oerlikon. The Siemens sets saw action on the Willesden Junction to Earls Court service.This is known as the West London Line. The service was suspended after sustaining bomb damage in WW2. This is why they were available for conversion for use on the Morecambe line.

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Out of curiosity, I checked a few sources about the Oerlikon/Siemens sets. Apparently they were built for the LNWR. The main difference was the electrical equipment, supplied by either Siemens or Oerlikon. The Siemens sets saw action on the Willesden Junction to Earls Court service.This is known as the West London Line. The service was suspended after sustaining bomb damage in WW2. This is why they were available for conversion for use on the Morecambe line.

 

That is correct they were stored for @ 10 years however that was only the first 3 units another was converted in the late 1950's which I think came from the remaining NLL sets that still operational at that time. The name Oerlikon was and is still used to describe all these sets as it almost impossible to tell the difference between a Siemens and an Oerlikon set and to make life a little more complex there are also detailed differences within each type as well!

 

XF

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Last night (Tuesday 31st Jan) Jamie and I started to drop the base boards of the fiddle yard as we have finished the track laying. Tidy up is the name of the game for a while; also I finished fitting the point tiebars and we fitted a couple of point motors to ensure the throws were correct. Everything now looks scruffy, with bits and pieces hanging here and there, but a good clean up and paint job will cover the ' broken bottles, empty tins, discarded pizza boxes, scrap cars, beached ships and general waste'. Will post more pics when it starts to look a little more presentable.

 

Supersonic

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I'm being very good on holiday and progress has not stopped while I lie in the sun. Good progress has been made with the train plan. I've brought a Track plan with me and some coloured lollipop sticks and have finally cracked the train sequencing to inorporate all the light engine and EMU movements plus the trip workings and the through trains. Some confusion between the up and down yard could be caused by too much vino tinto. Hopefully it will all work out when I type it up. However I'm sure that it will all fall apart the first time we try to run it.

 

Jamie

 

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Rest in Peace Bernard, our recently departed friend and great modeller.

 

Yes Bernard Shaw one of our team died 2 weeks ago. An LNWR modeller in 7mm nad a very skilled engineer. He had made the coaling stage for Green Ayre that was on display at Wakefield in November. I will post a photo of it in due course. he will be sadly missed, if only for us marvelling at how he was able to straighten a nail that bent as it was being driven, without appearing to miss a beat with his hammer.

 

Jamie

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A good two days with a lot of planning and thinking done. We had some good ideas for the cassette rack that will sit on the inner edge of the fiddle yard and also sorted out how we think the back scenes are going to be constructed at one end of the layout. We also spent an hour or so marking all the fouling points in the fiddle yard and then working out the capacity of each siding. (The longest will take a loco, 35 wagons and a brake).

It was good to see it with a fair bit of stock in the yard. We also worked out how much stock needs to be placed in the various yards at the front of the layout at the start of a show. (Over 50 wagons of various types.)

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I even got chance to try a couple of scenic features.

 

Here the water tower is coming along. We had been struggling to find a supply of Denby pottery cream for the centres of the panels. Fortunately the guy who has restored Settle Station water tower and made it into his house is an ex colleague of mine. I am going to advise him on installing a 00 layout inside the tank at Settle and he is going to give me all the paint that I need for the tower and the platform canopies.

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I also tried erecting the first of the etched catenary supports on Greyhound bridge

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The height looks about right even if it was only held on with Blue Tac.

After a quick trip to the ALSRM show at Bolton this morning,we had a short further planning session then dismantled everything and put the church back together. As tomorrow's preacher is a railway enthusiast I did think of putting the chairs inside the layout. Glenn (the preacher) would have liked it but I suspect that SWMBO would not and divorces are expensive so we did tidy it up. 90 minutes from the start of dismantling to it set up for church.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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That's an impressively quick set up / take down time considering the size of this.

 

Those mast are a very interesting shape, far better than the modern ones.

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That's an impressively quick set up / take down time considering the size of this.

 

Those mast are a very interesting shape, far better than the modern ones.

 

Thanks for that Kris. Yes we put a lot of thought into the board design following many hard lessons learnt with the predecessor layout.(Long Preston.) There were only three of us putting it up so at a show with a full team of ten it should go a bit faster. Two of the main points are

1) no separate legs, all of them are integral to the boards. The self locking legs work very well.

2) washers attached to the boards so we are not scrabbling for them.

 

As to the catenary supports they were very distinctive and were an integral part of the bridge structure which was built by Butlers of Stanningley. The Midland supplied the actual overhead fittings which wwere the same as on the other parts of the line. They are a bit tricky to solder up but worth the effort.

 

Jamie

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No we haven't all gone to sleep, work is still ongoing. The corner baseboards for the Castle branch are now erected in an L shape at the clubrooms. We have 2 points to reconstruct near the coaling stage after I got the design wrong and didn't leave enough room for road access to part of the station. The coal stage headshunt has been moved to sort this out. As a result we lifted the trackwork near the coaling stage and the sleepers are now laid for the two points to be reconstructed. We have also erected the first 3 backscenes which go round between the Castle branch and greyhound bridge. Over the last two weeks the last piece of curving viaduct for the Castle branch has been built and tonight we finally got it all plumbed it. Part of it is removable and will have three catenary supports on it. This will act as a test piece for the OLE but will need a special carrying case making to protect it. I have also made the first OLE support after tapering some dowel to the correct taper. 160mm's of 6mm dowel tapered to 3.5mm at the top. I clamped my electric drill in the workmate and used a 1" file to do the tapering while steadying the free end of the dowel in my fingers to stop it whipping. These were then assembled with some cross girders and etched parts and look OK. I now have a lot of stonework to make on the viaduct from DAS. Having got the viaduct in place we have worked out where the goods shed is going to go as the geometry is different to the prototype. the stonework will keep me busy. Supersonic and I also had a trip to Lancaster and saw it at high tide for the first time. It looks totally different.

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The height the picture was taken when it still had a couple of feet of rise to go. It was rising at an inch a minute.

There is now debate as to whether we use real water and have dynamic tidal range. However the decision was taken quite early on to model it at low tide so that the the cross girders on the bridge show. There is much mud to make.

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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At last I managed to get a photo of the first OLE mast. It still needs some trimming and cleaning up and hasn't got a registration arm fitted but it looks OK.

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This is for the single track Castle Branch and will be attached to a viaduct.

Yesterday I took the train to Settle and spent some time with the gentleman who has converted the station water tower there into a house. (This was subject of a Channel 4 documentary in the Restoration Man series). Mark had researched the colours that the tank was painted and had had several gallons of the correct Denby Pottery cream mixed by a firm in Shipley. This was a light cream colour used by the Midland Railway for much of their station furniture including the iron and wood work on the station awnings. In exchange for some advice about putting a model railway around the inside of the old water tank (A 50 yard run ) I obtained a jam jar full of paint.

I then started to do more work on the awning glazing bars that we had assembled in November. (See page 4 for earlier pictures) These were supported on a timber framework that rested on the support girders and formed a lead lined gutter all round. These are about 6" high so I have made a wooden framework to go on top of the supports and now need to make individual frames to go under the glazing bars. I decided to make these from two layers of 40thou plasticard, these were cut into strips 4mm and 3.5mm wide and then assembled into a frame that will fit inside the awning canopy.

You can probably just see that the inner ply is slightly higher than the outer ply. (I could have done with Ron Hegg's guilotine for cutting the strips.)

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These were then mek pack'd into the canopy, which strengthened the whole assembly and then the canopy was painted in the Denby Pottery Cream.

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I now need to glaze the units and add finials before gluing them onto the plywood frame and forming the front gutter. Hopefully the effect will be worth the effort.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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Well the light nights have meant that carpentry time on the drive has been extended dramatically. I have been making the last baseboard for the last few days and have nearly finished it today apart from a few tweaks still needed. Board D1 is the traverser board that goes at the end of the Castle Branch. The traverser deck is the last remaining part of Long Preston and was one side of the fiddle yard under the turntable board if anyone remembers it. It has been put in a framework mounted on three filing cabinet ball bearing runners suitably cut down. The end part for the loco run off hinges over and locks the traverser in transit. At the other end of the board is a removeable piece that will contain the scenic break and which will link up with the back scene. I finished these at about 7.45pm this evening. This means that all 27 boards are now made which is quite a milestone. The first one was started in December 2009.

 

Here is the board with the loco run off in the operating position.

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Here the board is how it will be for transportation but with the self locking leg still extended.

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Here you can see inside the scenic break area. There will be some half relief houses on the right hand side, a footbridge crossing the line behind them and then a park on the left hand side above a retaining wall.

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Real progress, no more major carpentry apart from another two control panel boxes, the rest of the backscenes and a road bridge for the east end of the layout.

 

Jamie

 

 

Edited by jamie92208
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That looks good Jamie, I note that 'we' have gone for a lateral operation rather than your previously favoured vertical option; so long as it fulfils its' need to be easy to operate and reliable. The things you get up whilst I am otherwise occupied!! Do you know I think I recognise the small turreted end board from somewhere..........................ha. Don't tell me you dovetailed the joint tongues?

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Just for information, the station area of Green Ayre will be at a small show at Upton Methodist Church Hall on Saturday 14th April between 10.00am and 2pm if anyone is pasing on the A1 and wants to come and have a natter. It's just off the A638 and the A1 between Wakefield and Doncaster postcode WF9 1HQ , to find it follow this link. I'm not sure what else will be there but there will be a portable G scale layout and some other things.

 

Jamie

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The boards Jamie posted yesterday were incorporated into the Castle branch area of the layout last evening (Monday) as follows:-post-13806-0-06097800-1333438023_thumb.jpgpost-13806-0-38433700-1333438061_thumb.jpgpost-13806-0-33684300-1333438087_thumb.jpg.

In the background of pics 2 & 3 you can see the club layout Eagle Rock. Please note for the interest of casual observers I have endeavoured to include some human interest with various club/layout members in attendance.................................ha!

Oh! yes we also finalised the general ideas for the fitment of the control panel and transformer for this fiddle yard - remembering, of course, to ensure that all trailing electrical leads were to end up INSIDE the layout footprint (health and safety don't you know????) :stinker:

Edited by supersonic
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Phil and I worked on last night, in spite of it being a holiday! For some reason it was lovely and quiet in the club rooms; anyway 'we' laid more track, cut some track (baseboard joints) did some wood carving in the baseboard side to allow access to the new controller................................and!!!!! I swept the da*n area up after finishing, just as I was taught to do before putting my ( sorry, HMQ's) aircraft to bed. We will have more pictures to show soon. I am finding this area very interesting JP is making half relief terrace houses, a road and footbridge to cover the scenic break, the start of which is seen in my last picture dated April 3. it will straddle the apparent single track ( the plain brown part adjacent to the traverser) behind the rule part of the square is resting near the orange handled screwdriver, hope that makes some sense

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I've spent much of the last 3 days trying to get the platform canopies looking somthing like before we go out to Upton on Saturday. This has involved gluing glazing material into three of the assembled roof units. The glue that I'm using is some model aircraft canopy glue and takes 3 hours to set. This means that to each of the four pieces to be glued into each awning have to be done over 2 days and left to set for several hours with weights in them. The end result is worthwhile and i have also got the first coat of paint onto one unit of three bays fof the west end of the up platform. The result looks OK and I will take some pictures over the weekend.

 

I've also managed to put the framing onto another three roof sections and have got 75% of the three painted. Steady but time consuming progress.

 

Jamie

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