Jump to content
 

HAYMARKET CROSS 1961/62 East Coast main line shed


silverlink

Recommended Posts

Hello all,

After numerous requests to show some details of my layout Haymarket Cross I am going to try & explain with words & pictures how I built my exhibition layout. The layout measures 22' x 2' with 18' been the main layout & 4' been the fiddle yard. First picture is showing control panel in early stage of build to give an idea of track layout.post-4401-0-58925200-1318707365_thumb.jpg

Baseboards measure 5 x 4'x 2' & one of 2' x 2' built with 9mm ply on the normal 2" x 1" frame screwed & glued (PVA) boards are fastened together with pattern makers dowels for location & 8ma coachbolts & nuts.post-4401-0-91389100-1318707814_thumb.jpg

Picture of attached boards.

post-4401-0-60057600-1318708263_thumb.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Please forgive me if I have a few blips whilst doing this thread only I haven't done anything like this before.

Trackwork is Peco code 75 nickle silver with Electrofrog points, most are large radius with just a couple of medium ones. All track is laid direct onto the baseboards as I wanted to get it as low as possible for when I ballested it. Putting it on cork would have meant using a lot more ballest to get it up to sleeper level & been a tight Yorkshireman I couldn't help thinking of all the extra ballest I would have to buy!!! As I have done it this way I have been very pleased with the finished result.

The inspection pits are Peco code 75 and I routed the baseboards first just deep enough for them to drop into.post-4401-0-22748500-1318709215_thumb.jpg

After checking the pits fit ok the whole layout was painted in dark grey paint

post-4401-0-02109400-1318709328_thumb.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ian,

you always get one so called friend being nasty,just ignore Mike like most sane people do and continue with a very interesting thread.

Regards,Derek.

Hi Derek,

Nice to hear from you & hope you are keeping well. Actually Mike isn't been nasty he has an aversion to wiring! as soon as I try to explain that you solder this wire to that one he falls asleep! totally hates wiring. you will see later on when I get to it the work he has done on the loco shed & weathering all my buidings, he's just brilliant.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Ian

 

Glad you have set this thread up :)

 

I'm interested regarding not corking....one of those things I was told from being a nipper....you must cork.....seen as in a couple of weeks we will be coming to that point, my question is then....is there a downside to not corking? i.e sound wise...or does the ash and ballast literally dampen the sound.

 

Cheers

 

Tom

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Derek,

Nice to hear from you & hope you are keeping well. Actually Mike isn't been nasty he has an aversion to wiring! as soon as I try to explain that you solder this wire to that one he falls asleep! totally hates wiring. you will see later on when I get to it the work he has done on the loco shed & weathering all my buidings, he's just brilliant.

Yes I know Ian,I have had several long chats with him when hes been out with Haymarket Cross & The North of England Line. He is a First Class chap I know. What more can I say other than that he's alot like your goodself & me.

Regards,Del.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Back to the main thread :

Once happy with the baseboards it was time to lay the points & track, been my home town I wanted to use the shed plan for Scarborough shed as it was in the late 1950's. This I got from a book of North Eastern shed plans which I purchased at York show a few years ago. Track was first laid out to check it would all fit ok, also as I was going to be using Tortoise poit motors I need to check there was clearance for them. As this layout was going to be DCC lots of insulated rail joiners & frog switching would be needed. Laying of track followed standard principles but to get as near as possible the first track dead straight I used a piece of cotton thread held tight at each end of the layout with pins. This gave me a good straight line for the full lenth of the layout and once the first track was lightly pinned I was able to lay ajacent tracks using a Peco track gauge & a straight tracksetter. before final fix the slot for the point operating wire was drilled along with soldering dropper wires to the underneath of rail joiners & pushing through small holes directly below the rail. Doing this you will not see any wires above baseboard level. Doing only so much at a time I then PVA glue the track directly to the baseboard & put a heavy weights on it for 24 hours until dry. Once dry I move on to the next bit of track, at the board joints I soldered the underneath of the track to small brass screws and then using a rotary cutter cut off the bits that overhang the rail edges so as not to be seen.

Board C with double slip :post-4401-0-10441900-1318759691_thumb.jpg

looking down over Board C & D :post-4401-0-83896500-1318759785_thumb.jpg

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Fitting the Tortoise point motors was not as difficult as I first thought it would be, you have to bend the piece of wire supplied to a certain shape which was done quite easily. It was later on when I first switched a motor I relised I would have to use a stronger wire as the one provided was to flexible. In the end a friend from our club got me some very thin welding rod which has worked brillianly. In fairness to Tortoise they do mention you may need a stronger wire to work your points more easily.

Tortoise Motors :post-4401-0-74432000-1318760262_thumb.jpg

The motors are held in place with small wood screws :post-4401-0-96203100-1318760348_thumb.jpg

on the above picture you will see a green connector strip for the wires which pushes onto the motor terminals, this was a disaster as the connector could move out of line (not a very tight fit) & in so doing connect the 12volt point changover current to the frog polarity changeover tags (16volts AC ) which blew the directional LED's & stopped the point working. In the end I took them all off & wired direct to the motor.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The final part of track was the turntable & for this I used the excellent Fleischmann model (which I will mention in detail later) which is located on board A . After cutting out the hole as per the instructions the turntable was laid into place but at this point not fastened down. I found that there was a small step up onto the table so used card & very thin ply to gradually raise the track up level with the turntable entry road.

FIXING TRACK UP TO TURNTABLE :post-4401-0-81740400-1318788091_thumb.jpg

post-4401-0-15750100-1318788124_thumb.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Moving on to ballasting, something I wasn't really looking forward to ! but as it turned out I quite enjoyed. I remember in one of the modelling mags someone mentioned that when they did ballasting they put some classical music on the CD payer & ballasted away. This I did & found it worked well. I decided not to lay the track on cork as is normal, the reason for this is to keep the sleepers as low as possible to the baseboard which means using less ballast to get it level with the sleepers. As a shed I wanted to cover much of the track with a general layer of dirt, ash & oil. I used 2mm Ballast in Light Grey, Dark Grey & Ash from the C+L Finescale range. I masked up a line aprox 2-3mm from edge of sleepers & brushed the ballast into place up to the edge of the tape. (see below)post-4401-0-51666400-1318874874_thumb.jpg

I then sprayed a mix of water & a little washing up liquid over the ballast followed by a mix of PVA mixed 50/50 with water via a dropper which you can buy from Squires. (See Below)

post-4401-0-09748300-1318875238_thumb.jpg

after aprox one hour I then carefully peeled back the masking tape leaving a nice sharp edge to the ballast. (See below)

post-4401-0-41773700-1318875399_thumb.jpg

The reason why the track in the foreground is missing ballast is because I could only do so much at a time & had to wait for it to dry before moving on to the next bit. I had decided when I started to use different colours in different areas and once dry I woud then add the ash to build up in the areas you would expect to find it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Enjoying the progression of work you are narrating here - thanks for sharing!

 

Can you tell me what the title is of the NE Sheds book you used as a reference, please?

 

Hope you don't mind me responding to this query. There is a series of books called 'BR Steam Motive Power Depots' with six in the series, all printed by Book Law Publications of Nottingham and all authored by Paul Bolger :-

 

North Eastern Region

Eastern Region

London Midland Region

Scottish Region

Southern Region

Western Region

 

The cover price for these is £9.99 though I bought one this past weekend (North Eastern Region) in a bookshop in Whitby for £4.99. The book features photographs at each shed (though not perhaps enough detail to determine the architecture of individual shed buildings) and shows the track layout, for each of the ex-NER sheds extant in 1950 plus any built after that date i.e. Thornaby (51L), usually drawn as they were c 1950 - 1960, and the allocations at 1950, 1959 and 1965 (or at the time of closure).

 

More detailed layouts can be obtained from the copies of the NER/LNER 'white plans'. These show the detailed track layouts i.e. number of stalls within the roundhouses, location of the coaling facilities, as well as locations of signals and other civil engineering features for the whole area including the station and goods yard layouts. These white plans are very detailed and show the distances between turnouts, the length of crossovers, the standage on each siding plus many other details. These white plans can be obtained from the NER Society. Some years ago I bought the plans for Selby, Bridlington and Church Fenton areas and I seem to remember they were then around £3 each.

 

Oh to be able to see these places as they were on a Summer Sunday afternoon in 1950!

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

Link to post
Share on other sites

Enjoying the progression of work you are narrating here - thanks for sharing!

 

Can you tell me what the title is of the NE Sheds book you used as a reference, please?

Hi Jukebox,

the book I used was produced by the North Eastern Railway Association in 1997 & is called LNER N.E. AREA LOCOMOTIVE SHED DIAGRAMS-Volume 1

as I said earlier I managed to get it when I visited the York show a few years ago but I'm sure I saw it this Easter when I was at York show.

With reference Mike's input, thanks Mike for that & I know what you are referring to as I have the one on NE area. The one I mention above is really good as it is produced on A4 size paper that pulls out to A3 giving good detail of each shed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Once the PVA mix has dried I clean off any ballast that has stuck to track & carefully clean around point blades followed by a rub over all the tracks with some very fine wet & dry (2000 grade) paper & a track rubber. Don't forget to do the inner edge of all the rails (where the wheel flange runs) follow up with a vac to remove loose bits. Should you find any bare patches just sprinkle some more ballast over it & PVA. I found I had to go over the layout a few times as I kept finding little bits that needed redoing.

Picture shows first ballasting with a little light weathering (will show this later)post-4401-0-93659700-1318953198.jpg

I then follow on with some more ballast from the edge of exsisting ballast to edge of baseboard or to where I intend to lay grass & bushes. I find building up in light layers works really well.

Completed Ballast

post-4401-0-92111600-1318953443_thumb.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Before I start on the electrics I will show you the main layout turntable, this is a Fleishmann electric one & works really well. Although of continental design I have altered it to look more British, unfortunatly I lost some pictures of it when I was modifying it. I really went to town on it cutting off the small shed & handrails & replacing them with some more British looking ones.post-4401-0-80290600-1319566544_thumb.jpg

This shows the underside prior to cutting off the bottom right hand portion & reattaching the outer wheel to a new location.post-4401-0-09097000-1319566784_thumb.jpg

I have also used a Fleishmann turntable in the fiddle yard which has 34 roads, I will cover this a little later.

silverlink

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes all this technical stuff is really interesting Ian, but when are you going to get onto the best bit..................... the seagulls!!! :P :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

Whilst preparing to paint the roofs on Haymarket Cross I found myself studying the splatter patterns made by seagull droppings on the slate roofs opposite my house. Funny what railway modelling reduces you to........sad........so sad.

 

Seriously Ian, thanks for putting this part of the layout build on thread as I obviously missed this part before making my own small contribution.

Link to post
Share on other sites

With reference the last two posts regarding the seagulls, I will in due course be putting up some pictures of the buildings that Mike J has helped me with. This includes the weathering & seagull droppings that he has done so realistically, are you sure its paint you've used Mike!

silverlink

Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Hope you don't mind me responding to this query. There is a series of books called 'BR Steam Motive Power Depots' with six in the series, all printed by Book Law Publications of Nottingham and all authored by Paul Bolger :-

 

North Eastern Region

Eastern Region

London Midland Region

Scottish Region

Southern Region

Western Region

 

The cover price for these is £9.99 though I bought one this past weekend (North Eastern Region) in a bookshop in Whitby for £4.99. The book features photographs at each shed (though not perhaps enough detail to determine the architecture of individual shed buildings) and shows the track layout, for each of the ex-NER sheds extant in 1950 plus any built after that date i.e. Thornaby (51L), usually drawn as they were c 1950 - 1960, and the allocations at 1950, 1959 and 1965 (or at the time of closure).

 

More detailed layouts can be obtained from the copies of the NER/LNER 'white plans'. These show the detailed track layouts i.e. number of stalls within the roundhouses, location of the coaling facilities, as well as locations of signals and other civil engineering features for the whole area including the station and goods yard layouts. These white plans are very detailed and show the distances between turnouts, the length of crossovers, the standage on each siding plus many other details. These white plans can be obtained from the NER Society. Some years ago I bought the plans for Selby, Bridlington and Church Fenton areas and I seem to remember they were then around £3 each.

 

Oh to be able to see these places as they were on a Summer Sunday afternoon in 1950!

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

 

Hi Jukebox,

the book I used was produced by the North Eastern Railway Association in 1997 & is called LNER N.E. AREA LOCOMOTIVE SHED DIAGRAMS-Volume 1

as I said earlier I managed to get it when I visited the York show a few years ago but I'm sure I saw it this Easter when I was at York show.

With reference Mike's input, thanks Mike for that & I know what you are referring to as I have the one on NE area. The one I mention above is really good as it is produced on A4 size paper that pulls out to A3 giving good detail of each shed.

 

Greatly appreciate both responses - thank you! I grabbed a copy of the NE Bolger book about a month ago, and agree it is very good title for getting a feel for overall track plans and how sheds were arranged.

 

The White Plans sound like someting worth following up, cheers.

 

FWIW I've also bought a small softcover item "British Railways Engine Sheds - Number 1 An LNER inheritance" and chased down back issues of BRill that feature a series of profiles on NE Sheds and found these very useful, too.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Once all the track was down & the electrics were all in place it was fully tested to make sure everything worked ok (all points thrown both ways, all on off swiches tried) by running one or two loco's over every piece of track. I then airbrushed the track & sleepers with various track colours. I have always used Precision paints when doing anything model railways they are superb & offer the most realistic colours. Paint was mixed with white spirit 50/50 & sprayed over the track with slight colour variations being applied in paticular areas. I used a more dirty black in the shed area & a mix of dark grey/brown elsewhere. You can always go back & overspray an area with a different colour shoud you not be happy. The track top is wiped off with a piece of rag with a drop of white spirit on it. Once dry you can clean up the track with very fine wet & dry followed by a track rubber, don't forget the inner rail edges. I next moved onto the greenary using different colours of grass & bushes from the excellent range of Woodland Scenics. These were glued down with neat PVA first then the usual 50/50 mix dripped over it.

TRACK COLOUR ON

post-4401-0-57352500-1320683105_thumb.jpg

GRASS & BUSHES FIXED IN PLACE

post-4401-0-46882400-1320683260_thumb.jpg

silverlink

Link to post
Share on other sites

This is the Fleishmann turntable in place after cutting up a bit !!! I call it Anglasised, the handrails are from the Hornby turntable. I still have a little more to do before I will be happy with it. I get more questions about this than anything else at shows. It is controlled by a Fleishmann 6915 digital control unit. I hope in the near future to be able to control it via my Lenz handset. I also have a Fleishmann turntable in the fiddle yard with 34 roads! this is controlled by the standard controller.

TURNTABLE SIDE A

post-4401-0-05852300-1320785788_thumb.jpg

TURNTABLE SIDE B

post-4401-0-69790400-1320785875_thumb.jpg

silverlink

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Since my last post I have been busy adding more detail to the layout. First of all I have had the turntable out and added some more extra detail to try and make it more British in appearance. I fitted some plasticard and angled plastic to represent girders under the table followed by painting and weathering which seems to have worked quite well.

post-4401-0-96944400-1331118626_thumb.jpg

I have also spent some time on my stock adding real coal, drivers & firemen and working lamps. Shown is some of the steam stock, I still have a few A4's, A3's & A1's that need decoders fitting + all the above extras.

post-4401-0-58597000-1331118918_thumb.jpg

I will try and get some pictures of the buildings on next where you will be able to see the superb weathering that was done by Mike Johnson of NoEL fame.

Link to post
Share on other sites

That last picture should go in the loco lineup thread!

 

Can't believe I've not seen this gem of a layout before on here. Fabulous work. I'm particularly intrigued by the Fleischman turntable - the modifications really transform its appearance; most convincing.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...