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Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.


jamie92208
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Not much to report for the moment but things are still moving on.

 

1. The timber for the fiddle yard has been bought and the first two boards produced. These certainly look big at 1012 mm wide by 5' long but I've got to accommodate 12 tracks to work the proposed timetable. 3 more of the main boards still to build then the two trapezoid ones that join it to the scenic section. Those will be made in kit form then we are proposing to put the whole layout up in my church in August. This will enable to check everything for squareness and fit and the final cut of the trapezoids can take place. The old layout had to be 'strained' a bit to make the two ends of the fiddle yard line up when we erected it.

 

2. At the clubrooms the track is now being laid in the loco shed/turntable area. This has cracked on at a great pace and tonight we hope to get the shed roads laid and 3 pits excavated. Also we are going to plot out the location of the various buildings that go behind the loco shed. Then it's back to the goods yard area to add all the cosmetic half chairs and check rails to the pontwork.

 

Over the last year I have calcualted that we have built 31 points, laid 160' of track and also constructed 3 of the large building, including the station. Away from the layout a lot of design work has been done and a large order is now away for etches to be produced for the overhead and bridgeworks. 19 baseboards have been built and track laid on 16 of them. Only 9 more to cover with track. Not a bad year's work.

 

Jamie

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After 3 weeks of holiday work has now resumed. I have now finished the 5 main fiddle yard boards and am well on the way with the rmeaining board from the front row. A7 is tricky as it has a curved end at one corner of the layout, however it's coming on. All this has to be done so that all the boards can be set up in the church for testing in August.

yesterday was a good day. The main production etch with the parts for the platform canopy, greyhound bridge and some of the OLE arrived. 8 sheets of brass 18" by 12". SWMBO was not pleased about the weight of the parcel that she took delivery of.

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All I've got to do now is to puch out a few thousand rivets and then got it all soldered together. The biggest problem is going to be separating and sorting all the pieces.

In the meantime we are progressing at the clubrooms fitting point motors and also put the floors into the inspection pits. These now need steps at either end. All good work to stop me getting bored.

 

Jamie

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A bit more progress. 23 of the 26 boards are now completed and 2 of the remaining ones are part built ready for final assembly when the whole layout is up in 3 weeks time. (Just in case I've not measured all my angles correctly.) Meantime I've been busy punching out some 8000 rivets from the new etches and this is the result.

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This is what is needed for 1 warren truss. A centre piece for the lattice work and 4 L girders. All produced as a set.

 

These are the three brackets. Etched so that they can be folded to produce some depth.

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Here are the columns, moulded by John Patrick with 2mm threaded rod down the centre for attaching to the platforms. The master was made in brass by Ray Clasper.

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After soldering the truss up (Shown in previous posts) the hole for the rod was drilled out and then the whole assembly put together upright in a jig for the brackets to be soldered on. The bracket that is attached to the station building at the inner end will not be done normally until it's been matched up with the buildings.

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Finally the finished article. It needs some filler/plastic padding to fill in the slots where the brackets go into the column.

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Only another 21main girders, plus 20 front girders to do then some plasticard work to mount the glazing bars.

 

Jamie

Edited by jamie92208
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I've just had the whole layout up in my church for 3 days and have just recovered from the effort of putting it up, working on it for 2 days and then taking it all down and getting the church clean, tidy and set up in time for Sunday, however it was worth it. the main change from earlier this year was that all 24 of the main boards now exist so the main job was to integrate the new boards to the layout and check that everything fitted. The two boards that bridge the gap between the front and the fiddle yard had been left 2 " overlength in case of build errors. In the end there was only the odd mm or two.

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This shows most of the layout with the fiddle yard to the right. Unfortunately a pillar at the far end of the hall is in the wrong place so we had to take the east end down to get the west end up but it did look good with the main line circuit in place.

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Have a guess what this is.

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This shows the loco shed area that has kept us busy for the last few months.

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Here the Castle branch is rising towards it's small fiddle yard. There will be a removable section of shallow viaduct to avoid 3 baseboard joints in 3 feet on a curve with catenary.

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Cork was laid in the fiddle yard where pointwork is to be constructed in copperclad to keep the heights correct.

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We did manage to lay two yards of track in amongst the various joinery jobs, this is the start of the fiddle yard as the track comes off Greyhound bridge.

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One of the main jobs was marking out the positions of buildings and also the platforms were cut out. the noggins support the platforms and will be faced with a length of ply before being covered in stonework.

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All in all a good 3 days even if I did find out that the loco coal road headshunt could only be 6" long but after a frantic session with Templot I managed to redesign that area and create one the same length as the turntable. Fortunately I only have 2 points to take up and rebuild.

 

Jamie

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Well after adding to my profile (Decisions Decisions) I decided to go for No 3 and here are the results. While the layout was up in the church all the platforms were cut out in 3mm ply. However the main section with the awning on was left partially finished with the area where the tracks are left in. The positions for all the awning pillars were carefully marked and then drilled at 2mm.

Tonight, with permission from SWMBO, the platforms were placed on the, suitably protected, dining room table, and then inverted. This allowed me to start soldering the brass work together in the correct relationship, working upside down.

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Here the first three bays of the down platform are assembled. The first bay was tricky but then acted as a support for subsequent bays.

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I did a trial fit of one of the brackets that will support the girders for the overhead equipment.

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After soldering the top joints I then did the bays for the up platform after shortening each longditunal by 2mm to allow for being on the inside of the curve.

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I couldn't resist turning them the right way up to get a little impression of what the awning structure will eventually look like. I now have some plasticard to add to the top of the girders to represent the guttiring and the wooden framework, finally the awning glazing bars that I ahd laser etched some time ago will be added. I also need to sort out how the awning butts up to the buildings and add the inner spandrels and the overhead equipment. However I'm quite happy with the nights work, now for some good malt and then I might start the Steig larsson book.

 

Jamie

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If anyone is interested in seeing the first public appearance of part of this layout, the station area is going to be part of the demonstration area at the Wakefield show this year. I'm not sure exactly how many boards will be there yet but we should ahve the whole station with some platforms and hopefully some of the canopies. Also if I can find enough croccidile leads we may even have a train or two running. The layout isn't wired yet bt by connecting up the droppers with croc clips we can test run.

 

Jamie

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On 02/11/2011 at 22:33, Xerces Fobe2 said:

Any chance that the train will be an EMU Jamie?

 

Nigel

 

I will certainly have what I've got of the emu's there though they are not running yet. They will be on the table opposite the layout as part of the demo on plasticard coach construction by John Patrick.

 

Jamie

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Just in case there does not seem to have been much progress. We have now laid track onto the 2nd Fiddle yard board (E2) and finished E1 and D2 which make the corner. This means that all the track is laid and that the point motors are fitted. (5 of them and a 1 in 14.5 with a moving frog.) We are now starting at the other end of the fiddle yard and on Monday laid the cork and track plans on board D3 which will now be visible and sceniced. We will start laying sleepers and building points tomorrow and then move onto E5 nd E4. once the two corners are finished then we will join up the two ends of the fiddle yard by laying all the sidings. Up to now all the track has been laid as an extension of the very first piece. The two ends are now creeping together and I don't want any misalignment to take place on the curved ends. this may seem complicated but makes sense to my fuddled brain. It should take a month or two to do the corner and then another month to lay the sidings. Then the main track laying is finished and we will move onto electrics and test running.

 

Jamie

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Well some progress to report. 9 boards of Green Ayre are going to be on show at the Wakefield Exhibition this weekend, to fill in for a layout that has dropped out. These will comprise the station/shed area together with Greyhound Bridge. 2 of the demonstrators will be working on stock and parts of the bridge. The upshot of this is that I have spent the last 2 weeks designing and building 4 pairs of crate ends so that the boards can be transported safely. I still bear the scars of what happenned when 2 boards of my last layout were loaded onto the lorry by a well meaning but overenthusiastic helper without proper crate ends. Normally this is one of the last jobs to be done but having been forced down this road it has been a very useful exercise.

 

Our chairman will be laying some of the platform surfaces and I will be working on the canopies if everything is quiet. The EMU's will be on show and there will be quite a bit of stock on the layout. Come and see it.

 

Jamie

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I managed to get to the show today Jamie, sorry I missed you but our paths never crossed. Impressed by the size of the layout, and progress on the station buildings. My wife recognised the coal yard area, she went to school with one of the coal merchant's daughters. Not in 1923 I hasten to add! Can I ask what you have in mind for the Pennsy electrics?

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I managed to get to the show today Jamie, sorry I missed you but our paths never crossed. Impressed by the size of the layout, and progress on the station buildings. My wife recognised the coal yard area, she went to school with one of the coal merchant's daughters. Not in 1923 I hasten to add! Can I ask what you have in mind for the Pennsy electrics?

 

Thanks for the commenbts and I'm sorry that we missed each other. Being exhibition manager and running a layout is not easy at times. I would be interested in any pictures of the coal merchants wagons if your wife still has the contacts.

 

As to the Pennsy electrics, they will continue the running joke that I had on Long Preston. There we always took one of my big Union Pacific locos and ran it round a few times during a show to annoy the rivet counters and to show that we don't take ourselves too seriously. They always got lots of interest and the kids at the big shows were always asking to see the big black engine. I even shunted the goods yard with the 4-8-4 at one show. The 4-12-2 didn't like the points in the yard.

 

In the same vein one of my so called friends made the Percy lookalike and named it Jamie then sent it round from the fiddle yard with a goods train. I thought that we should carry on the tradition. As I have always liked the 1920's boxcabs I thought that one would be nice. On a visit to California in 2010 I went to the Sunset models HQ and got offerred such a good deal on a pair of Pennsy O1's that it would have been criminal not to take them, so they sort of fell into my hand luggage. As they ran on 25Hz they would actually ahve been able to move on Green Ayre, but at reducved power, but might have modified the bridges a bit. So one of these days they will put in an appearance under the catenary on Greyhound Bridge

 

Jamie

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As others have said, very nice to see it in the flesh (and that flesh is Crimson Lake) and as Geoff, I was very impressed with the size, the 'corner' that was there covered about the same area that I have used for my 4 exhibition layouts to date...

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As others have said, very nice to see it in the flesh (and that flesh is Crimson Lake) and as Geoff, I was very impressed with the size, the 'corner' that was there covered about the same area that I have used for my 4 exhibition layouts to date...

 

Thanks for the kind comments. If you have any decent photos if it I would be interested as I forgot to take my camera. I only took it this year becasue I had to fill a space as 2 layouts had dropped out. However Troutons and Green Ayre seem to ahve attracted a lot of attention and worked in tandem with the demonstrators opposite.

 

Jamie

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When I showed the footprint of LGA on the show plan and then explained the size of the WHOLE layout to SWMBO she commented that you must have a large shed :lol:

 

Makes my 11x2 footer look like a photo plank in comparison ...

 

Good to talk Saturday afternoon, well, until George dragged me off to Thomas (again!)

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On an operational level, have you considered turning the layout around, so the viewing area is by the station instead of Parliament Street/Cable Street? All that lovely detail in the station will be obscured by the distance and the mass of the station building. The shed will then be further from the viewer of course. I thought of this whilst watching Horton Regis; the station canopies obscure the detail underneath so it is only when the station is empty that a crouched viewer can see the work that has gone into the station buildings. It will be a shame for all the work that goes into the footbridge and canopy supports if nobody can see them. Just a thought, not a criticism.

I guess the layout will then not work as a big roundy, it will need fiddle yards at each end, one off Greyhound bridge the other off Skerton bridge.

Edited by Ohmisterporter
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On an operational level, have you considered turning the layout around, so the viewing area is by the station instead of Parliament Street/Cable Street? All that lovely detail in the station will be obscured by the distance and the mass of the station building. The shed will then be further from the viewer of course. I thought of this whilst watching Horton Regis; the station canopies obscure the detail underneath so it is only when the station is empty that a crouched viewer can see the work that has gone into the station buildings. It will be a shame for all the work that goes into the footbridge and canopy supports if nobody can see them. Just a thought, not a criticism.

I guess the layout will then not work as a big roundy, it will need fiddle yards at each end, one off Greyhound bridge the other off Skirton bridge.

 

Yes we did consider that way. There have been at least 2 magazine articles that proposed that but it dodn't work for my stock. The full track plan was up on the display boards. It will be viewable from 3 sides and we think that the best will be from the end where the display was along the length of the main line throuh the station. we are also considering making one bay of the shed roof removable to show the smoke hoods and the locos inside possibly with some cameos.

 

Jamie

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When I showed the footprint of LGA on the show plan and then explained the size of the WHOLE layout to SWMBO she commented that you must have a large shed :lol:

 

Makes my 11x2 footer look like a photo plank in comparison ...

 

Good to talk Saturday afternoon, well, until George dragged me off to Thomas (again!)

 

Unfortunately the shed is only 10' by 6' and that;s where all but 3 boards have to live most of the time. Thanks for the comments.

 

Jamie

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Well after the fun of taking the station area to the show it was back to the grindstone with a free evening so two of us went to get some work done on the fiddle yard. Dave and I managed to get the Templot paper down over the main length of the yard along boards E4 and E3. The end result looks like this:-

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E3 which is the central board is nearest the camera. Track is laid onto E2 already so once we take E5 down (The furthest from the camera we can put E2 back up and start to link the siding up. Dave is drilling holes for the 1" No 8 brass screws that go under each rail end at each board joint. Each actual length of rail has a 1" No 6 under it that acts as a dropper for electrical feed. I have seen the plan with the 12 tracks width on screen, but this is the first time that I've seen it full size. The central two tracks that form a loop are for the light engine shuttle unit that will have a set of approx 10 locos shuttling around between the shed and the loop. They will shuttle up automatically using a MERG unit.

 

Jamie

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