West Kirby Town: narrow gauge may be coming to town.

[Dmudriver]

So now some pics of the NG layout I'm working on - "Rixteth".  The tram loco is built - it now needs painting.  I've done some of it and I've just taken delivery of some BR Maroon paint for the main body colour:

 

 

Yes, that is a bell on the roof!!  The chassis is built and running:

 

 

I've painted the wheel rims which may just be visible under the skirts and the footplate has a coat of new timber, which will be weathered soon.  The Blutack holds the motor in place!  I've also bought a second loco kit:

 

 

and this is powered by a Dapol 00 gauge B4 chassis:

 

 

That is a really superb runner!!  I find these 4mm chassis a bit fiddly, but I manage!!  On top of those, I'm building a couple of bogie coaches - here is part of the first one:

 

 

 

They're basically 2x 4w coaches joined together - with a kit bought from the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association.  The seating is made up of some spare Easybuild DMU seating I had in my spares box - one 3 seater plus half of a 2 seater!  Not ideal but when painted and inside the coach the joins shouldn't be obvious!

 

 

The chopped bits are a 2-seater part sawn, part cut in half.

 

I'm enjoying my narrow gauge adventure but there is so much to learn!!  It's fascinating!!

 

More soon.

 

 

Rod

[gismorail]

Morning Rod well impressed with the progress on the narrow gauge and it’s good that you are taking on a new challenge and enjoying the journey. I have to take my hat off to you as it all looks a bit fiddly something my clumsy fingers wouldn’t cope with. WKT is looks superb as usual excellent .

[Dmudriver]

Wow, it's nearly 4 months since I last posted on here!  Time does fly, doesn't it?!!

 

I had a bit of a parcels playday yesterday, so here are some pics of it.  Firstly, 2 trains are ready to go to Moreton, Headed by 25275 and 50021 "Rodney".  08078 stands at the fuel island ready for duty later:

 

 

Surprisingly, there are no DMUs around!!  A closer look at the 2 trains ready to go:

 

 

The 25 has left and 50021 awaits its turn:

 

 

In the fiddle yard later a bit of hand shunting has moved a rake into road 3 and the released 25 has manoeuvred onto the rake the 50 brought in. 

 

 

Much later in the sequence 2 parcels trains have arrived in the sidings - still no DMUs about!! - and the 08 has dropped onto the rear of one to enable the loco to run round:

 

 

And finally, a look at the 2 uncoupled locos:

 

 

The 50 is uncoupled, but there isn't a lot of room between the buffer stop and the uncoupling magnet!

 

This was all done yesterday and this morning an idea flashed into my head: I could convert the station into a parcels handling depot!  Replace the station building and canopy with a warehouse of some sort, accessible from the platform and make an overall roof to cover the platform and the 2 adjacent sidings.  I quite like the idea and it will continue to give me some food for thought but I do still have loads to do on the NG layout yet: progress on that is slow, but satisfying.

 

And as an aside, I took these pics on my Samsung mobile phone and transferred them to my PC.  However, when I came to add them on here they weren't acceptable, being in HEIC format (whatever that is!!) - and that's the first time it's happened.  Fortunately, I found a programme to convert them to JPEG but it looks like I'll have to do that every time now: I'll look for a quicker way round it.

 

More soon - hopefully!!

 

 

Rod

 

 

[5BarVT]

There should be a setting in the camera on your phone to say what format to save it in.

Paul.

[Dmudriver]

23 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

There should be a setting in the camera on your phone to say what format to save it in.

Paul.

 

Hi Paul.

 

Thanks for that but, as it happens, I have already found it - after a fair bit of Googling!! And quite a long time after my post - when I was trying to avoid anything to do with the Aston Villa v Everton match!!**

 

I don't understand how it changed, unless it was during an update, but at least now I know how to sort it!!

 

 

Rod

 

** That was a real disaster - but not for Villa!!

[Hroth]

Its not been a good day for Foot-The-Ball, has it?

 

Nevermind, good to see some happenings at WKT again!

 

BTW, the Wirral is now getting its new electric trains, which look dynamically modern compared with the old EMUs that replaced the 503s.

https://wirralview.com/safe-vibrant-communities/new-state-art-trains-arrive-wirral

 

As these come in a battery/electric form*, they could run into the non three-rail WKT!

 

* Running services on the Border line towards Wrexham as well as Headbolt, wherever that is!

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Hroth
A bit more stuff

[Dmudriver]

WKT is still alive and kicking!!  A couple of weeks ago it was a lovely day so I had a bit of a play - no photos, though, I'm afraid!!

 

But during that session, while I was giving the 03 a really good run to stretch its legs along the layout, I came across a problem: it stuttered and/or stopped on frogs on the double slip in the fiddle yard in spite of having a stay-alive fitted.  Checks with my multimeter showed a microswitch on top of one of the Peco point motors wasn't working but I put it aside for another day as it was getting a bit late and the temperature was beginning to drop.  I don't know how long the microswitch had been u/s as the pickups on all of my other stock straddle the frogs anyway.  The only other loco I could have checked it with was the 08 but that was in store so I didn't use it and my 2 kettles (BR(W) 0-4-2T and Ivatt 2-6-2T) have decent stay-alives in them and have not previously indicated any problem.

 

So today was the other day - a window of decent weather for a few hours so I set to to change the point motor and microswitch.  Having changed them, there were still problems!!  it turned out that one feed on the new microswitch and the corresponding one on the other motor on the double slip were connected to each other but weren't actually connected to anything for power to come from so no power would have been getting through to the frogs anyway!!

 

This is the errant point motor and microswitch and the 03:

 

 

After much playing about with wiring and the multimeter, including causing a few short circuits, I ended up providing power to the microswitches from an apparently unlikely source, shown here:

 

 

It looks completely wrong - the blue wires from the microswitches going to a brown busbar, from which there are purple wires feeding the track.  It took a lot of testing and overcoming thoughts of "that can't be right", but it works!!   LEARNING POINT: make circuit diagrams in future!!

 

And yet, the 03 still stuttered and/or stopped, but only on occasions.  Further testing revealed I was relying on point blade contact for some short stretches of rail so some cleaning up sorted that (the problem being due to being outside - even though undercover.)  

 

But still the 03 stuttered/stopped!!  I decided it must be dirty pickups so I took it inside to my workbench but couldn't work on it immediately as my work bench had on it an NG coach kit I am building:

 

 

Those seats are from a spare pack of Easybuild DMU seats which I am using!! 

 

Once the bench as cleared, the 03 ran reasonably well with DC power applied (sound and all!) but I stripped it down anyway to make sure the pickups were clean.  I then tried it again and it was DCC dead.  The motor turns OK on direct DC power to the motor leads so I've reasoned that, after all that work, the chip is ****** - or dead, to put it politely!!  I tried it on the WKT layout and zilch, nada, nothing!!  So the chip is coming out and I'll sell the 03 and it's match truck as a DC loco.  I've got an 08 for shunting anyway, so the 03 was surplus to requirements and I was only keeping it for sentimental reasons really.  

 

So ends that saga!!  But whilst I've not done much on WKT, I am making progress on the NG layout.  Here's a loco shed I've just built:

 

 

 

The blue light is from an LED torch I used to give a bit of light to the pic (could be better, I know!)  The kit is by LCut Creative: it's laser cut wood:  I've made up the doors and windows are due to go in after painting.  The paint arrived yesterday but I'll finish the coach first and then do the shed - well, probably -- I might just decide to have a break from coach building, depends how the mood takes me.

 

So that's the up to date situation on WKT.  I don't put anything on here for ages and then you get a post this long!!

 

More soon - hopefully!!

 

 

Rod

[Hroth]

Bravo!

 

Good to see that WKT is alive and kicking (apart from errant track...) and that things are happening on the NG too!

 

 

[Dmudriver]

Well, here we are - well into 2024 and this is my first post of the year!!

 

Today dawned bright and sunny and as I had nothing else planned for the day, I thought I'd get WKT ready for this year's running.  The first job (after getting the covers off outside) was to clean the track: it really wasn't too bad but nevertheless I was still getting "track cleaner's elbow" by the time I'd finished - there's quite a lot of track, really.

 

The points all worked OK but out in the fiddle yard there were a couple of microswitches that need some TLC before I could run anything over them without shorting!!  I ran the model I've had the longest over every section of track to test everything: it's the blue/grey 2-car 108 which I reckon I've had for about 20 years - and it still runs well!!  I took a couple of pics of it at opposite ends of the layout:

 

 

 

The only real problem was with the operator - i,e, me!!  I'd forgotten exactly how things worked - so that when sending the 08 out from the fuelling point to the back siding to shift some parcels vans ready for track cleaning, I forgot to reverse the catch point.  It did it's job and the 08 ran on the ballast for 8/9 inches before I could grab it!!  Even then, the wheels kept turning for a few more seconds - it's got a really good stay-alive in it!!  Otherwise, a succesful wake-up to 2024, and looking forward to more playperating sessions.  Unfortunately, this session was cut by the rain that was forecast for about  4pm actually starting about 1pm!!

 

In other news, the NG layout is coming on:  I've relaid some track (changing the formation) and done a bit more coachbuilding.  No pics in this post in case I go over the limit.

 

More soon.

 

 

Rod

[Dmudriver]

The second post for today - a bit more on the NG layout.  Here is the revised layout: the platform line goes off to the right rather than the left; the engine shed has moved alongside the platform headshunt and the 2 long sidings bottom left are carriage sidings.

 

 

A second bogie coach is runnable, just needs details fitting:

 

 

and I'm building a 4-wheel brake coach from a pack which is basically partway between scratchbilding and a kit: this is what you get;

 

 

and this is where I'm up to (the roof isn't attached yet):

 

 

All rather fun!!  More soon.

 

 

Rod

 

[Dmudriver]

My last post here was on the subject of my narrow gauge layout and this post will also be in relation to it.

 

At the moment, I am a bit torn: as I said in an earlier post (I think) the advent of the Lionheart Lynton & Barnstaple locomotives and stock in 0-16.5 got me thinking about narrow gauge and my little layout above was a result of that.  Now Bachmann have also entered the 7mm narrow gauge market with Quarry Hunslet locos and stock.

 

So, ....... I have been out in my shed today - ruminating!  And at the moment, my thinking is going like this:  I started WKT 12 years ago and, as I've said before, it does everything I wanted it to.  I've varied the operations and changed the stock to maintain the interest, ......... but now NG has come along and I'm attracted by it - which is, of course, why I am building that small layout.

 

So (again!), ... if I were to single the standard gauge line into WKT, using just the Up line, and just use the far platform and the siding outside it - with maybe a loop prior to entering the platform - I could keep all my DMUs (sorry, Craig!!) and the front of the layout would then become a narrow gauge station, using the other platform (with the track raised accordingly) and the approach running on the trackbed of the Down line.  A back story is forming in my mind on the basis that the River Dee never silted up so the coast became a sought after seaside location.  The narrow gauge railway was formed by enthusiasts to run along the trackbed of the old West Kirby - Hooton line along that seaside coast.  Additionally sufficient reserves of clay were found on the Wirral peninsula for a brickworks to be established and a narrow gauge railway from there would also run into WKT, providing revenue for the enthusiasts.  Traffic would be exchanged to the standard gauge line somewhere (I've not worked that out yet, but probably off scene).  

 

I'd sell off all my parcels stock and 4 diesel locos (I'm keeping my 50 and one of the preserved steam rakes) and there'd be a lot of track and points to take up but hopefully I could sell most of that too.

 

Whether this will happen is, of course, another question but I'm certainly giving it a lot of thought.  My main interest is building up a layout and then operating it as prototypically as I can: I've done that with WKT and I can't see anywhere else to go.  It just happens that 7mm NG could easily fill that gap.

 

Any thoughts or comments would be welcomed - even expressions of shock/horro!!

 

 

Rod

 

 

[MarshLane]

Hi Rod,

My immediate response is Don’t do it! You have created a lovely, fully operational layout that you enjoy, so enjoy it! 
 

However, I am also a big believer in that if your losing interest, or not enjoying running it, or don’t have the incentive to go out and run it, then now is the time to change. I do like that your idea combines both the current layout (or parts of it) with a new incentive. 
 

I think my only advice would be to consider the pros and cons and think carefully about what you want to achieve out of a model railway.

 

Good luck!

Rich

Edited April 16 by MarshLane

[Hal Nail]

I can understand the desire for change - its a remote prospect admittedly but i have often wondered if i did ever finish anything, would it leave me unfulfilled? :)

 

if you did the change and didn't like it, at least you'd have something to do converting it back!

 

 

[Hroth]

Shock! Horror!

 

Ok, got that out of the way, now down to considerations.

 

The only way to prevent the English side of the Dee from silting would have been to build the training walls, where the river turns into the estuary, pointing away from the Welsh side.  I don't think that would ever have worked, but it does mean that the Wirral side silting is becoming worse* over time.

 

Now, not having a geological map of the Wirral to hand and thus relying on observation, the Dee side of the Wirral is mainly sandstone.  At Neston there was an underlying stratum of coal, which was the reason for the building of the original Hooton - Parkgate branchline, the extension to West Kirby came some years later. I think the colliery was exhausted by the 1930s.  Clay deposits did exist, but these were concentrated in the flatlands between Meols and Moreton, on the coastal side of the current railway, and its a long time since these became worked out!  The site of the brickworks is now part of an industrial estate.  There was never a rail connection, product was probably for local use and taken away by road.

 

Given the above, I can see a case for the development of a narrow gauge tourist line along the branch, this is what happened to the GWR line at Bala**, and provided they got in early enough, the destruction of the trackbed at Heswall and the sewer pipe in the cutting at Neston might have been prevented.  A line between West Kirby and Neston, with the views across the Dee would be very attractive!

 

But sadly, there would be little in the way of mineral traffic.

 

Another thing.  I've just cobbled together the West Kirby 25" OS sheets ( XXI,7 and XXI,11 rev 1909) showing the station site.

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/#zoom=11.1&lat=53.35169&lon=-3.10594&layers=101&b=1&z=0&point=53.37854,-3.18248&i=114581380

 

The alignment is a bit wonky, but it does show the relationship of the Wirral Railway station to Birkenhead Park and the Birkenhead Joint branch station to Hooton. Siting a narrow gauge line on one of the WK Town platforms would take it across Grange Road and through the block of buildings between Acacia Grove and Tynwald Road, at a diverging angle to the alignment of the Joint Branch!

 

Now, there was a suggestion to merge the West Kirby stations in the late 1940s, aligned on the Joint branch (discussed many pages back) which would make more sense for a Narrow Gauge interchange, but you'd have to remodel WKT completely, lose the old Victorian station building and replace it with something like Hoylake station.  It might make sense to widen your baseboard by some inches to accommodate the narrow gauge and have a fiddle yard going out into the open on the other side of the Grange Road bridge, then you could keep the operational flexibility of WKT.

 

It would also give you hours of planning and the fun of a complete redevelopment of WKT to keep your creative juices flowing for another decade!

 

Just a thought!

 

 

 

* The spartina encroachments and spurious SSSI designations are now threatening the Hoylake RNLI station.

** I remember visiting the Bala ng in its first years, what I recall is very basic track laid on the standard gauge formation. The loco was a 4 wheeled Ruston Hornsby.

 

Edited April 17 by Hroth
Thought about remodelling WKT and a map, plus link to NLS map source...

[Simond]

"The site of the brickworks is now part of an industrial estate"

 

My mum was the secretary there long before I was born!

 

Barker and Jones if memory serves. 

 

it does, and look what Google finds, very sombre.

 

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/barker-and-briscoe-brickworks-wirral-april-2018.113996/

 

 

Edited April 16 by Simond
additional info

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, Simond said:

"The site of the brickworks is now part of an industrial estate"

 

My mum was the secretary there long before I was born!

 

Barker and Jones if memory serves. 

 

it does, and look what Google finds, very sombre.

 

https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/barker-and-briscoe-brickworks-wirral-april-2018.113996/

 

 

 

Interesting!  I didn't realise that the kilns still existed up to at least 2018.  You could see them from the railway when the brickworks were in operation, but in more recent times there was a concrete pipe works next to the railway fence, and I thought the kilns had been swept away.

 

There you go!

 

[Dmudriver]

This is beginning to get serious!!  I've spent a couple of hours running DMUs between the station and the fiddle yard and worked out that I can keep the 2 platform roads for the SG together with the rear siding and still have plenty of room for the NG at the front of the layout.  I used the rear 3 roads of the fiddle yard and there is plenty of space for my 5 DMUs on the layout.  So that is the latest plan - which I have drawn out below:

 

 

I want to retain decent signalling so I've added a couple of ground signals for shunting from platforms (I've got them in the sidings) and I'll add a Limit of Shunt 6 coach lengths or so from the resited Down Inner Home Signal.  I want the signals interlocked with the points but I just cannot remember how I did it 10+ years ago!!  I've found the diagrams but I can't follow them - yet:  I need to do more studying!!

 

In the fiddle yard I can do away with the 4th, front, road and kick back sidings and I'll then have a reasonable amount of space for the NG fiddle yard.  The double slip will be replaced by the left hand point currently leading to road 3 in the FY.

 

 

This is going to be a pretty major exercise and I am minded to start by taking up track in the fiddle yard and then the Down line up to the trailing crossover - just to get the hang of demolition.  For a while - until I've removed the DMU stabling point and the sidings - I'll operate the station as I have done it so far: using Up and Down Lines from the trailing crossover.  Once those lines are removed, I'll redo the station throat in one fell swoop.

 

So that's the grand plan, obviously details might change parts of it, but that, at the moment, is how I see the process.

 

Comments, suggestions, etc, more than welcome.  More soon.

 

 

Rod

[muddys-blues]

Hi Rod, I hope you are well ? I must get hold of the Chaps for a visit to West Kirby Ffestiniog 😃

 

Everything is plausible Rod, and if it ticks your boxes, go for it, essentially you will have 2 x lovely layouts in one, itches all nicely scratched 😊

 

Best regards

Craig