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Hawthorn Dene


Les1952
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Les,

 

Like the pictures.

 

Have you done some work on the A4 chimney too? Early pictures of the Dapol A4s showed a pronounced lip at the base, which they never had in life (also the noticeable on the Dapol A3s). This put me off a purchase, because I didn't think it would be within my capability to fix. I'd be tempted now, I think, to give it a try. Presumably the lip (if there is a lip still on current models) means it's a separate part?

 

I was looking at Gladiateur in Peter's Spares today and I didn't notice anything around the double chimney, but I wasn't looking intently, being there only for bits and bobs.

 

Good work anyeway.

 

Regards,

 

Roy

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Stock packed up and ready.

 

Stage one complete.   Locos and stock packed.

 

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"Wasn't that one on the pickup yesterday?  Haven't they got one we haven't seen?" 

 

Tomorrow is Railway Club day.  Next job (on Wednesday) is to get the layout down and then sort out the travelling bags ready for car loading on Friday.

 

Time flies.

Les

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Hello.

 

Simon- I'll strip the bottom end of the O1 when I get time- the other project on the workbench (DCC fitting a Hornby J94) has also stalled.  Once HD is packed up I've got to get Furtwangen moving - I've still a switch to replace and the overhead needs colouring.  Meanwhile the O1 and one or two others will miss Sileby but once Lincoln show is out of the way I have three weeks before Nottingham to attend to causalties etc.

 

Roy- all that has happened to the A4 chimney is that I've applied some black weathering powders to the front of the loco.  All 5 of my A4s (which stared out as an early Wild Swan, a second batch Charles Newton, the silver club special- now in the showcase- and a pair of recent production Bitterns) have chimneys that sit well.  The chimneys on the A4 and the chimneys and domes on the A3s are separate parts.

 

The withdrawn A3 had had a body swap to put a blinkered body onto a good chassis.  The chassis bought for spares then got a single-chimney body from the other loco.  I converted it to double-chimney using a  BH Enterprises double-chimney intended for a Duchess.  Another of these chimneys is on V2 60880, another loco waiting sorting out.

 

Generally A3 domes and chimneys fit OK, though there is an odd rogue one.   My best advice with all locos, Dapol or Farish, is get a good look at it out of the box and see it run before buying.  I've sent too many locos back over the years.

 

All the very best

Les

Edited by Les1952
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Some detail pics.

 

(Post 1 of 2.)

 

I've taken a few cruel close-ups of some details where I can't remember if they've been picked up again.

 

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Mrs Thingy feeding hens in the allotments under the tree.

 

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I found the goat that was left over from the animal pack for Furtwangen Ost.  The goat is tethered on the public side of the railway fence, the NCB line is unfenced at this point.   I've since added a tethering post.

 

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A new rabbit has appeared on the bank.

 

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A close up of the sea coal scavengers with their pushbikes.  This shows how poor the detail is on the whitemetal figures compared with the plastic ones.

 

More to follow.

Les

 

 

 

 

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Les,

 

Sea coal hawkers (don't know why we called them that) - we had them down in Hartlepool too - some of them took lorries on to the beach!

 

Regards,

 

Roy

 

PS pictures with this level of resolution are very unforgiving, but we don't see anything like that with the naked eye.

Edited by R Marshall
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Les,

 

Sea coal hawkers (don't know why we called them that) - we had them down in Hartlepool too - some of them took lorries on to the beach!

 

When I was teaching in Hartlepool I had a rather large boy in my tutor group of 11-year olds. The following year he stopped coming to school for a while.  Eventually the police dragged him in- he had been caught driving a Bedford Sea Coal wagon on Seaton Carew beach......

 

There is a sea coal wagon stuck under the bridge.  They've freewheeled and the engine is stopped.  Ernie is swinging the handle while Eric looked on.  Grandad is in residence on the tailgate.- repeated below.

 

 

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Also added is the motorbike, placed by the engineering shop.  Another pic that shows the limitations of even painted whitemetal.

 

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A pair of swans have landed in the mucky puddle in the pit yard.  Mr Swan is displaying to Mrs Swan, or he might be explaining his cunning plan to take off again from a pond that is far too short.

 

All the very best

Les

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Sileby show day 1

 

Setting up last night was a bit fraught. The cab at the cottages end of the layout firstly failed to boot up and then wouldn't talk to trains.  The only thing we didn't try was plugging it directly into the power booster.  Backup cabs and leads were arranged and I took the cab home with me to test it on the programming track.  Then the remaining A1 decided it wasn't going to run and was returned upside down to the stockbox.   Lastly one of the new Farish Mark 1 coaches took a dislike to its designated partner (which it has been coupled to for over a month).  It also took a dislike to all the other coaches in the train, refusing to stay coupled to anything.  It has been brought home and placed in the eBay pile.

 

The cab works so this morning I plugged it direct into the power booster and it works.  A little rearrangement of leads and lifting the power booster onto a chair means the layout was got fully running within five minutes of our arrival.  The first replacement Mark 1 was no better than the original (eBay pile one coach bigger tonight) but the next one runs perfectly.

 

Nice to meet a few readers of these ramblings this morning including APA box Steve.  Always good to put names to faces.  Loco casualties- the V2 has decided it's front truck is too precious to run along rails like common locos and replacement A3 Book Law started off trying to imitate a kangaroo.   A4 Sparrow Hawk ran for about half of the day then dropped the drawbar securing screw and retired hurt.  The screw turned up on the track an hour or so later and this evening a five-minute repair sees it ready to run again tomorrow. 

 

Apart from that VERY few derailments and no reboots of the system.  Layout ran reliably and we are getting better at running it, with a lot of nice comments from punters. .  Pics to follow later.

 

It looks as if the servicing session tomorrow morning might only need to be fairly short.  Team of four tomorrow, Jim, Geoff and myself are being joined by Tony again.

 

Time for bed said Zebedee

BOING!!!!

Edited by Les1952
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Sileby Day 2

 

Four of us became five for a couple of hours as Chris Burch decided he needed a refresher course.

 

No real further problems except I didn't manage to get 60018 running again so Blink Bonny stayed on the short train with 60030 and 60019 on the long Northbound express.  Only one new casualty- J27 65860 stopped dead and has stayed put.  I suspect its chip has lost the plot.

 

Repairs required to layout - nil.  So for the next 4 weeks it will sit in the shed (pic to follow) while I spend a week working on Furtwangen then make a start on the new layout.  Not only that but all of the rolling stock went back into the boxes in the correct order!

 

Repairs to locos- two A4 bogies to look at, one J27 to reprogram, one A1 needing its pickups looking at and the other away for a new motor.  One V2 requiring adjustment to its pony and the other needing a lot more work, and the Tyne Dock O1 needing a stripdown and clean.  One A3 needing some attention to pickups- I think I've overweathered its wheels....

 

All in all a good weekend.  Next stop Lincoln.....

Les

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A couple of the promised pictures

 

Five days between shows with two different layouts is a little tight for a turnround but Furtwangen now only needs its protective boards adding and we're ready to go tomorrow.

 

The layout as set up at Sileby.  Jim on the left deciding if a Powercab is fit to eat, and Geoff on the right programming his next two trains into the cab.

 

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On Sunday a lady with a child spent some time looking over the layout, taking in the details.   Some time later child reappeared with Mum in tow to show us his latest purchases.  He'd been so taken with this little cameo he'd persuaded Mum he really needed an open wagon for HIS trainset.

 

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The layout is now on end in the shed (Furtwangen Ost in the foreground with its proscenium [green] to the right), but will be moved onto the side wall tomorrow when we've loaded the car to allow Furtwangen to be stored on end here when it comes back from Lincoln as its next outing won't be until June.  In the meantime I'll be able to get to HD's sides to sort out patch panels for the cabs.

 

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Time to feed the cat.

Les

 

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Typical.  Having held off ordering the baseboard frame kit for the new layout so it wouldn't arrive until this week I've now been told it won't be here for an extra three weeks.   Hopefully nothing will need doing to HD between Nottingham and Cotgrave four weeks after that so I can at least get the new frame erected.

 

Les

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A few more cruel enlargements-

 

this time the colliery end.

 

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Looking along the conveyors.

 

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Those tipper men again.  Will they ever get that roof clean?  Wouldn't it be easier just to repair the conveyor?

 

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The reason there isn't a pit head on the layout- they are cutting the wheel up for scrap.

 

Still haven't done the pics from Sileby (mostly).  These were taken in the workshop with the other lot.

 

Les

Edited by Les1952
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  • 2 weeks later...

Layout still stored on end.

 

All I've done is to go to Lincoln to get Digitrains to check out the suspect grey lead.  There isn't anything wrong with it but Jeremy made up a new one in any case.  I've also replaced the patch panel on the back at the Hawthorn end and added a new one at the Colliery end.  Hopefully we may be able to operate with three controllers at Nottingham.

 

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Baseboard frame kit for the new layout arrived on Tuesday, and I've got it erected and the top on.  Pic shows Hawthorn Dene on end behind it,  waiting for the electric screwdriver to charge up so I can fit the new patch panel, and beyond it Furtwangen Ost also stored on end (FO now has a flat plate on the underside to protect it from getting more wires pulled off).  New OO running-in track on floor round trestles.  Laptop on bench pointed at the RMWeb page on how to chip a Hornby OO gauge J94.  The uprights on the new baseboard are to build the proscenium directly onto.   Shed tidy as ever.

 

Now- the provisional name for the layout is SELDOMSEEN.  However, I remember seeing a Northern General bus in Chester-le-Street with the destination "NO PLACE", to which it travelled via Twizell.  Google Maps shows Twizell Lane, West Pelton so I assume No Place is/was in the Pelton area. 

 

How about NO PLACE for the name of the new layout?  Or has it been used already?

 

Les

Edited by Les1952
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  • RMweb Premium

No place sounds good! Shame you couldn't use Pity Me -there some cracking place names in the North East!

 

Ham and pease pudding stotties being prepared for Nottingham...

Baz

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Nottingham Show day 1

 

Pics hopefully day 2.

 

Layout set up- replacement cab bus didn't work so we ran with the setup I had at Sileby.  No major issues seen out front.

 

Backstage a couple of problems- we managed to damage one road in the fiddle yard and did a temporary repair with Jim's hot glue gun, but one of the trains running over it keeps splitting- the connection between the two events only occurred to me on the way home.....  

 

For day 2 I'll lengthen the local passenger on that line and swap the coal train (problem child) with the DMU on the next line.  Hopefully that will keep things running smoothly to the end of the show.

 

We have pride of place- the first layout punters see in the first hall containing layouts!

 

Must dash- off to pick up Howard for day 2.

 

Les

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Nottingham Show day 2

 

We won a cup!

 

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The silverware is the cup for most authentic layout-  previous winners include Chee Tor, Gamston Bank, Chiltern Green, Billingham,  Stainmore Summit, Highbury Colliery, and many more well known and inspirational layouts.

 

I'm chuffed!

 

 

Nice to finally meet and have a chat with Barry O, and work out which of the pair of trainspotters is a younger Barry.   A couple of enquiries for the layout next year, including one from the North East.  I'll keep everyone updated if that comes off. 

 

Time for bed, said Zebedee...........

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Home again with a bump

 

Mentally, that is- not physically.

 

Two shots to show damage that needs to be repaired....

 

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At the back the damaged bit of track in the fiddle yard.   Note where it is wide to gauge, and note also the glue from Jim's hot glue gun stopping it becoming even wider to gauge. Explains why goods trains kept splitting and the D20 tender occasionally jumped the track passing over it.

 

I had to go to Grantham on Friday with the show guide for South Notts show and went into MRSG (after searching for the place for over an hour then spotting it as I was driving home) and got a couple of lengths of rail.  Saturday was a success- the offending rail is lifted and replaced, and runs perfectly in the direction trains normally travel in.

 

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Fixing this one is more of a disaster...   Note the point sits nicely between the two ponds I spent a week making.  Note also that the tie bar is cream crackered (or something).   Needs a live frog replacement as trains stalled on it too often.   On Wednesday I took a bus ride out to Sherwood Models (Service 1 Coddington to Newark Bar Gate, Marshalls Fosseway Flier to Nottingham, loo pause then Pronto from Victoria to right outside Sherwood Models' door- travelling time a little shy of two hours.)  Here together with some bits for the OO project I carefully bought the wrong point (a Code 55 version that is vastly too long for the site despite being medium radius..

 

On Friday at Grantham I bought the correct point (code 80 live frog) from MRSG.  The old point came out beautifully.  The ponds are undamaged.  The correct point didn't fit in the gap- too many liberties taken last time.  Not only that I damaged the replacement point AND the one next to it.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to see if Access Models (ONE bus ride) have two Code 80 medium radius live-frog points.  Otherwise it is a long bus ride to Grantham and back, or get the car out, or try eBay.....

 

Three weeks to the next show.

Les

Edited by Les1952
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