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Felton Lane (Goods). West Durham in the 1940's.


Worsdell forever

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  • 4 months later...
  • RMweb Gold

Just put Felton Lane up for the first time since last October to do a few little jobs on it as it has a very busy year coming up. The main job to do is to replace the FY sector plate which at the moment is a very twisted piece if 10mm ply. The new FY will be pivoting cassettes (it is part of the run-round loop) made from MDF which should be more stable than the ply. I also intend to replace the plastic weighbridge with a D&S etched 'Pooley' one that I picked up recently for £1. There will no doubt be other detailing bits that I will add in due course.

 

Exhibitions 2011.

 

Bishop Aukland 1st & 2nd May.

RMweb members day - July.

Pickering - August.

Shipley - September.

Rochdale - November.

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
  • RMweb Gold

Felton Lane ran impeccably at the members day yesterday, the only problem was muck on the J77's wheels despite them being spotless before the event they seemed to pick up all there was on the rails! The track usually gets a bit mucky but this looks worse than it is as I use RailZip which keeps conductivity. It seems yesterday the temperature conditions conspired against the J77, it was replaced by the N10 and it continued till the end.

 

I'm hoping to get more electromagnets installed for it's next outing so there will be less use of the 'long thin screwdriver from the sky'.

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  • 1 month later...
  • RMweb Gold

Had a good weekend at Pickering and Felton Lane ran well despite the track being absolutely black by Sunday night, that is the benefit of using Rail-Zip B)

 

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As we were running as the second Saturday in July we could run a passenger train (one in the morning and one in the evening).

 

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For those who don't know, the second Saturday in July is the Durham Miners Gala and trains descended on Durham from all parts of the county.

 

A couple more photos taken on Sunday.

 

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'Av you got Mallard mister?...

 

...Was the question asked by a small child quite a few years ago and the joke has lasted, the 'spare' operator regularly asks if we have 'Mallard'. the answer is invariably yes even though I have never owned a model of the green headed water fowl...

 

...until now...

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • RMweb Gold

What better position to set up the layout... Q7 No 901, North Road Station, Darlington...

 

post-7104-0-08632700-1315851748.jpg

 

I've started to install some more uncoupling magnets, I noted where they needed to be while operating at Darlington.

 

The Memory wire signal mechanism gave up a few weeks ago at Pickering, so I'm fitting a Cobalt point motor to operate it. Photos to follow.

 

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There seems to have been some spillage of coal...

 

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Photo of the signal motor as promised. The signal operating wire drops through the baseboard and is looped around the wire from the motor. The switch will eventually (tomorrow night) be mounted on the aluminium angle in the background, I need to extend the wires first.

 

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First a little silliness on Sunday at Shipley...

 

post-7104-0-30027400-1316546633.jpg

 

I've been looking around for a while for some pigeons for the lofts on board 3, I finally found some on Sunday at Shipley, as bought some were white and some were brown, they have now been painted various shades of grey and super glued to the lofts.

 

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First a little silliness on Sunday at Shipley...

 

That new catenary is almost completely invisible. well done :D

 

Can't beat a bit of silliness every once in a while...

 

I've just been reading a book on the proposed North Eastern electrification (between York and Newcastle), and something like that isn't quite as far fetched as it might seem. They had plans for battery locos for 'off the juice' shunting not unlike an ES1....

 

Maybe a bit far out of the way though.

 

Best keep an eye on them pigeons, there'll be thousands of them before long...

 

Mike

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  • 3 weeks later...

Dont know how I missed this topic. Just finished reading it all and really enjoyed seeing the layout develop. Particularly liked the idea that you modelled a closed station with just the goods service remaining. Knew it had to be Gala Day when I saw the passenger service!

Was also interested as this is the area I'm looking at for a posible future OO gauge layout.- Crook-Tow Law c1959-66. Unfortunately didn't get to Shipley this year to see Felton Lane but I'm sure I'll catch up with it somewhere, sometime.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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The Memory wire signal mechanism gave up a few weeks ago at Pickering, so I'm fitting a Cobalt point motor to operate it. Photos to follow.

 

Well that was the 12th September, it was installed on the 14th and it failed on Sunday 19th at Shipley. The gears were 'clicking' at the end of their travel and eventually the motor failed to stop, it just kept on clicking. I returned it to Mike at DRM who replaced it (I actually had the new one before I had removed the old one from the baseboard) and I've fitted it this morning. Lets hope it's third time lucky and it lasts the whole of the weekend at Rochdale... Hope to see some of you there.

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Fed up with trying to stop stock rolling of tables, I've made a shelf to fit onto the fiddleyard board to hold stock. This should hold more than enough stock for the needs of the layout. This will only be a temporary 'fix' as a new fiddleyard board is being planned.

Construction is a piece of MDF 27" x 11" with a thin strip of softwood around the outside.

 

post-7104-0-61571300-1320354155.jpg

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Tea stains? none actually, just heard today that we can't take food and drinks into the halls, the floor has just been re-laid.

 

Not really strong enough for full mugs as well as stock! not that mugs stay full for long...

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Water only I'm afraid Paul. Mind you there's some stronger stuff available in the Cemetery Hotl not too far from the Show :drink_mini:

 

The floors been stripped over the half term holiday and they don't want it getting stained.

 

Safe journey over tomorrow.

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That new catenary is almost completely invisible. well done :D

 

Can't beat a bit of silliness every once in a while...

 

 

Mike

 

Could add a third rail they worked equally well on that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

ArthurK

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Hi Arthur, it's done plenty of running over third rail on Fellburn hauling (perhaps not prototypicaly) a train of plate wagons, it just lives in the same box as my J24 & N10 and got dragged along to Shipley. It is in the box in the car now so may even get to stretch it's legs at Rochdale...

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  • 1 month later...
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For a while now I've been wanting to add a proper fiddleyard to Felton Lane, the constraints of the 2010 challenge rules meant I could only have a small single road sector plate as the FY which also acted as the 'other end' of the run round loop. Now that my 2011 exhibition schedule is finished it's time to start work.

 

The fiddleyard will be a 5 road traverser using 14" long ball bearing draw runners with an MDF top 30" long, mounted on a 3" x 1" PSE frame. I was lucky as when I asked my Dad if he could get me some 3" x 1" he said that he was getting quite a bit for work and there will be offcuts to the lengths I needed, free wood! I already had some MDF in stock, the runners came from B&Q.

 

Back to the main board, the area where the sector plate was will be raised up to track bed level and a new point built to complete the loop. NER central division signals will be installed and an appropriate signal cabin built. I think I have the right bits for the signals, or at least as near as I'm going to get, Stevens & Co arms are very close and small McKenzie & Holland brackets (H&B/LB&SC) and timber posts, all from MSE.

 

Progress with the frame.

 

post-7104-0-20073000-1323018918.jpg

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