Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

Thanks Tony. I don't understand in detail how railways worked either, not even the ones I worked on (which were definitely post-steam), but I learned a lot from observing and talking to operations department colleagues. I never took a Rules & Regs exam, though, as I didn't need to for any of my roles.

 

Like you, I've generated a composite sequence based on various source documents from different years and with a number of trains omitted for reasons of practicality. In two weeks' time we're going to have the first running session with all the main line services - 168 of them - in operation rather than the 48 we were limited to before I completed the storage loop tracks. I do have all three 'namers' running in both directions on both Friday and Saturday though!

 

Oh, and doesn't time fly - the BRMA Sydney Convention was the year before last now of course (2018)!

Thanks John,

 

'Oh, and doesn't time fly - the BRMA Sydney Convention was the year before last now of course (2018)!'

 

Of course it was - I should have written my post three days ago!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[grahame]

8 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

Just 'catching' up after the festivities. There is a double trap, still seeing occasional use in Manchester at Northenden Junction. I have included a snowy image as it is easier to see the rails. It is operated by a ground frame released from the CLC built box seen in the background. Note, it has no protecting signals.

Mike Wiltshire

bui

 

That's a great modellable scene (even without the snow) - compact and with lots interest; structures, vehicles (concrete mixer lorries, van, dozer, digger, etc.,), simple siding layout, signal box and close to a double track line with crossover and junction) . . . . 

 

[ianathompson]

13 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

A procedure I try to replicate in miniature. I stop the loco about an inch from the train (25 mm or about a scale 6 foot) then wait a while and slowly couple up.

 

Far be it from me to criticise this procedure but I notice that this practice is taken from a NSE manual.

 

Was this the standard procedure in steam days? I always assumed that the "stop and then pull forward" motions observed on preserved railways were a modern Elf and Safety innovation.

I was only a kid when steam engines roamed BR's rails but I thought that any loco coupling onto a train in the circumstances outlined ran up to it without stopping and I am sure that this was the case when locos ran round at King's Lynn in the mid eighties (before I worked there).

 

The loco obviously approached at extreme caution 'prepared to stop short of any obstruction' but as I remember it they used to slowly run onto the train and kiss buffers. The fireman/secondman then got out and coupled up.

 

Have I got this wrong? If so I will amend my procedures whenever I operate Inverness Citadel.

 

Thanks in anticipation,

 

Ian T

[Mike 84C]

Not so much kissing of buffers but complete compression. It made getting the loop of the shackle ( thats what we called them) over the coach hook much easier underneath the corridor gangway with maybe a hanging buckeye.  Shackle, vacuum, steam and reverse order to uncouple. It always seemed much easier to roll up to the train at 2/3 mph than to stop and do a controlled( hmm) reverse onto the train. H&S  is in my view a double edged sword in many instances. But how do you argue against it?  So lets just ignore it and use our common sense.

[cb900f]

Mike,

I'm talking 70s/80s here but we were taught that it was uncoupling (vacuum first) and coupling up (vacuum last). The reason being that a loco at either end would not be able to create 21 inch and move the train whilst you were underneath. I used to uncouple the steam pipes before the shackle and couple up the shackle before the steam pipes.

 

We used to roll up to the stock rather than stop and then squeeze "em up".  We also used to bring the stock to a stand with the auto brake and then just before you came to a stand apply the straight air brake which caused the buffers to compress between the loco and 1st coach and consequently free the tension on the shackle so we didn't have to climb out to ask the driver to squeeze "em up".

All old dodges that I'm sure a lot of footplate used.

 

Pete

[grahame]

A couple of pages back I posted up some pics of scratch-built bus stop shelters I'd made. Here's another temporary installation to test the fit and positioning:

 

 

My thoughts have turned to the bus stop poles/flags and I want to replicate the older cast concrete LT deco style ones with integral timetable window, tapered shape and fancy maroon finial (as I remember them) like this:

 

 

I've spent a few minutes whittling a piece of styrene sheet to see if I can replicate the style and it looks like this (below) which to me is quite encouraging. It needs a little tidying up and slimming down plus adding a finial and glazing the timetable window, but at the back of the layout it should be acceptable. Snag is I'm going to need quite a few :

 

 

[31A]

2 hours ago, ianathompson said:

 

Far be it from me to criticise this procedure but I notice that this practice is taken from a NSE manual.

 

Was this the standard procedure in steam days? I always assumed that the "stop and then pull forward" motions observed on preserved railways were a modern Elf and Safety innovation.

I was only a kid when steam engines roamed BR's rails but I thought that any loco coupling onto a train in the circumstances outlined ran up to it without stopping and I am sure that this was the case when locos ran round at King's Lynn in the mid eighties (before I worked there).

 

The loco obviously approached at extreme caution 'prepared to stop short of any obstruction' but as I remember it they used to slowly run onto the train and kiss buffers. The fireman/secondman then got out and coupled up.

 

Have I got this wrong? If so I will amend my procedures whenever I operate Inverness Citadel.

 

Thanks in anticipation,

 

Ian T

 

I agree, that's what I thought too.  I'm thinking of looking through my collection of DVDs - I'm sure there'll be a shot in there somewhere of a loco coupling onto its train.  A few weeks ago I watched Tornado back onto its train in York station, and it was done exactly as you say - the loco didn't stop until the buffers had touched.  I couldn't see where the shunter was at the time.

 

[Tony Wright]

A wonderful start to New Year's operation when dear friend, Richard Irven, popped round and we ran the railway. It performed impeccably, Richard drove with complete control; then there was me! 

 

He brought some most-interesting things, all of which (with one exception) his own work.

 

 

A D10.

 

 

A GCR horsebox.

 

 

A GCR petrol railcar.

 

 

A lovely rake of GCR four-wheelers. The A5 is appropriate motive power, but it's in BR condition of course, and was built/painted/weathered by Tony Geary.

 

 

And a Sacre 2-4-0T. I built the frames for this some little time ago, and Richard scratch-built the body. It had a tight spot but I think I've cured it this afternoon. The retaining washers for the rods are temporary. There's something Dennyesque about this pretty little loco.

 

Richard will give you chapter and verse about these models later. 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

Stopping short or rolling up - it seems that what I remembered (stopping short) wasn't universal practice although I'm sure it happened a lot in Scotland when I was there. Squeezing up (lovely phrase...) does seem to have been the norm.

 

Good feedback that should help those who can be bothered run their layouts a little bit more authentically.

[Coach bogie]

10 hours ago, grahame said:

 

That's a great modellable scene (even without the snow) - compact and with lots interest; structures, vehicles (concrete mixer lorries, van, dozer, digger, etc.,), simple siding layout, signal box and close to a double track line with crossover and junction) . . . . 

 

And it has the added advantage of road overbridges at each end as scenic breaks. Here it is without the snow and how I would model it, in the busy times of the 1980's.

Mike Wiltshire

[Coach bogie]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

I believe that the way such sidings would be shunted would be for the train to come to a stand in rear of the trailing connection to the running line, the guard to put his brake on, and the engine to draw forwards with the incoming wagons, set back into the sidings and do any shunting needed before bringing out the outgoing wagons, setting back on the rest of the train, and preparing for the off. The guard's brake protects the manoeuvre from any following train that might be running through signals. The train remains in section throughout (hence lack of signalling in Mike's example); there would not be so much shunting that the line occupancy would become a problem.

 

At Northenden, the loaded wagons were left on the mainline whilst the empties were extracted, coupled to the loaded, draw all the wagons forward beyond, the entrance points, the reverse back in the loaded and uncouple. Bring the empties forward of the entrance points, reset the ground frame to main, lock it at the frame and in the signal box, then the empties carry on forward . As there are no run around facilities, the train ran round at Skelton Junction, near Altrincham. Now they continue on all the way to Northwich and back to run round, such is progress.

 

The loco is 40126, notorious for involvement in the Great Train Robbery.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Northmoor]

13 minutes ago, Coach bogie said:

And it has the added advantage of road overbridges at each end as scenic breaks. Here it is without the snow and how I would model it, in the busy times of the 1980's.

 

I agree, an excellent prototype location; 25s, 40s, Presflos and Scammell Routemans.  Perfect and in that era it was also the route for regular Trans-Pennine coal traffic to Fiddlers Ferry power station.

Incidentally, does anyone know of a source for Blue Circle logo transfers?  The ones in the Dapol/Airfix Presflo are the earlier design, but I'd like some of the later plain design shown here.  Perhaps I should just learn to print my own?

[t-b-g]

Lovely to see some GCR models but cough, cough, splutter!

 

If anybody can find me a photo of an A5 on a rake of MS&LR 4 wheelers, in any livery never mind one that was 15 years out of date when the first A5 was introduced, I will be suitably astonished!

 

Even allowing for the BR condition of the loco, appropriate it ain't.

 

The vast majority of work done by the big tanks in GCR days was on rakes of modern bogie carriages on medium distance suburban services.

 

Now if you had put the lovely little 2-4-0T on that train, I would have let it pass!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bbishop]

5 hours ago, grahame said:

A couple of pages back I posted up some pics of scratch-built bus stop shelters I'd made. Here's another temporary installation to test the fit and positioning:

 

 

My thoughts have turned to the bus stop poles/flags and I want to replicate the older cast concrete LT deco style ones with integral timetable window, tapered shape and fancy maroon finial (as I remember them) like this:

 

 

I've spent a few minutes whittling a piece of styrene sheet to see if I can replicate the style and it looks like this (below) which to me is quite encouraging. It needs a little tidying up and slimming down plus adding a finial and glazing the timetable window, but at the back of the layout it should be acceptable. Snag is I'm going to need quite a few :

 

 

Grahame,

Negotiate a 3D model with somebody.

Bill

[Izzy]

42 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Incidentally, does anyone know of a source for Blue Circle logo transfers?  The ones in the Dapol/Airfix Presflo are the earlier design, but I'd like some of the later plain design shown here.  Perhaps I should just learn to print my own?

Railtec do some in 2/4/7mm. Might be suitable for your needs.

 

Izzy

[richard i]

2 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

A wonderful start to New Year's operation when dear friend, Richard Irven, popped round and we ran the railway. It performed impeccably, Richard drove with complete control; then there was me! 

 

He brought some most-interesting things, all of which (with one exception) his own work.

 

 

A D10.

 

 

A GCR horsebox.

 

 

A GCR petrol railcar.

 

 

A lovely rake of GCR four-wheelers. The A5 is appropriate motive power, but it's in BR condition of course, and was built/painted/weathered by Tony Geary.

 

 

And a Sacre 2-4-0T. I built the frames for this some little time ago, and Richard scratch-built the body. It had a tight spot but I think I've cured it this afternoon. The retaining washers for the rods are temporary. There's something Dennyesque about this pretty little loco.

 

Richard will give you chapter and verse about these models later. 

 

 

The D10 is a GBL D11 with the detail cut off and for instance wire handrails fitted, a new cab, smoke box frames, etc. the chassis is a D11 kit one, I do not remember which. The tender frames are scratch built. 

The horsebox is a d&s kit built gcr horsebox. The only bit I have added is a photocopy of a real wagon plate to round off the frames

the gcr petrol railcar is next. It was the only one and it ran to and from bollington so was known as the bollington bug. It ran with the engine compartment door open a lot of the time which I sometimes feel I should have modeled. It is based on a 3d print from recreation 21 for the body, though I did realign the exhaust on the roof as it is printed centrally and it should be off to the side. The chassis comes from a USA ho tram with one set of bogie frames lengthened . It still needs the gcr transfers fitted. 

The 4 wheel stock are mousa models kits with added underframe gubbins. There are a full brake, a first, a third, a composite and a third brake. Finished off with a cct body from a kit, and scratch built chassis. TG The loco was picked as it was gcr, I know it is too late but I have yet to build the one which will ultimately pull the train. It is on the build list but as most must be built, it is taking me a time to do so.  We seek your forgiveness. 

The last is my 12at 2-4-0 chassis scratch built by Tony, I tried to finish it but needed Tony’s magic wand to fettle the running gear to make it run properly. The body is scratch built by me mostly out of plastic but with a brass boiler , firebox and smokebox. Tony also helped by providing the chimney and dome from his spares box. It needs the rods and crank pins fettled and finished off. Then brake rods and transfers to finish it off. The photo highlights just how shaky the hand lining is in places. 

 

It it was a great session running the layout, thank you Tony......and obviously Mo for the wonderful meals. 

Richard 

 

[Dave John]

Hmm, compressing the buffers to aid coupling is I think how it would be done, looking at old film. 

 

It's something I try to do. Twenty minerals, mix of things but all fairly heavy with my 812 I can actually manage to back the engine onto the train, compress the buffers a bit and wait a few seconds before pulling away. Sometimes . 

 

The sometimes depends on me being really delicate with the controller, the loco running perfectly, the ajs being in perfect alignment, the wagons just being at the right amount of sticktion so that the buffers compress before they all move, the buffers behaving themselves which despite regular oiling they don't,  remembering to drop the uncoupling magnets, the right amount of light and the right specs on so I can see to do it and the god of Model Railway Operation being in the ascendent in the sky of little things don't move like big things universe. 

 

On a practical note I suppose some sort of mechanism to stop the wagons moving back would help. I did try making a wagon with a working handbrake years ago and failed miserably ( it kinda worked, but you had to take it off the layout and put it on the bench under a serious head magnifier to try and pin the brake down, and that was with just a one side scotch brake ) or a bit of spring steel wire that comes up and catches an axle. I had that on the last layout, but tended to forget to drop the wire before trying to move the train. 

 

Mind you, its a great feeling on the 1 % of times it works perfectly..... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Coach bogie]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

I agree, an excellent prototype location; 25s, 40s, Presflos and Scammell Routemans.  Perfect and in that era it was also the route for regular Trans-Pennine coal traffic to Fiddlers Ferry power station.

Incidentally, does anyone know of a source for Blue Circle logo transfers?  The ones in the Dapol/Airfix Presflo are the earlier design, but I'd like some of the later plain design shown here.  Perhaps I should just learn to print my own?

Sheet BL110 - PRESFLO BLUE CIRCLE BULK CEMENT. Transfers for SIX wagons.

 

https://www.cctrans.org.uk/products.htm

 

Mike Wiltshire

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, richard i said:

The D10 is a GBL D11 with the detail cut off and for instance wire handrails fitted, a new cab, smoke box frames, etc. the chassis is a D11 kit one, I do not remember which. The tender frames are scratch built. 

The horsebox is a d&s kit built gcr horsebox. The only bit I have added is a photocopy of a real wagon plate to round off the frames

the gcr petrol railcar is next. It was the only one and it ran to and from bollington so was known as the bollington bug. It ran with the engine compartment door open a lot of the time which I sometimes feel I should have modeled. It is based on a 3d print from recreation 21 for the body, though I did realign the exhaust on the roof as it is printed centrally and it should be off to the side. The chassis comes from a USA ho tram with one set of bogie frames lengthened . It still needs the gcr transfers fitted. 

The 4 wheel stock are mousa models kits with added underframe gubbins. There are a full brake, a first, a third, a composite and a third brake. Finished off with a cct body from a kit, and scratch built chassis. TG The loco was picked as it was gcr, I know it is too late but I have yet to build the one which will ultimately pull the train. It is on the build list but as most must be built, it is taking me a time to do so.  We seek your forgiveness. 

The last is my 12at 2-4-0 chassis scratch built by Tony, I tried to finish it but needed Tony’s magic wand to fettle the running gear to make it run properly. The body is scratch built by me mostly out of plastic but with a brass boiler , firebox and smokebox. Tony also helped by providing the chimney and dome from his spares box. It needs the rods and crank pins fettled and finished off. Then brake rods and transfers to finish it off. The photo highlights just how shaky the hand lining is in places. 

 

It it was a great session running the layout, thank you Tony......and obviously Mo for the wonderful meals. 

Richard 

 

 

There are some lovely models there Richard. My only issue was in Tony's "caption" describing the loco as "appropriate" for the train!

 

Any true GCR fan would know that it was a deliberate miss match for photographic purposes!

[Tony Wright]

11 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Lovely to see some GCR models but cough, cough, splutter!

 

If anybody can find me a photo of an A5 on a rake of MS&LR 4 wheelers, in any livery never mind one that was 15 years out of date when the first A5 was introduced, I will be suitably astonished!

 

Even allowing for the BR condition of the loco, appropriate it ain't.

 

The vast majority of work done by the big tanks in GCR days was on rakes of modern bogie carriages on medium distance suburban services.

 

Now if you had put the lovely little 2-4-0T on that train, I would have let it pass!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought it was more 'appropriate' than an A4!

[Tony Wright]

Some most-interesting facts about 'coupling-up'...................

 

The only coupling/uncoupling which occurs on LB is that performed by the pick-ups. I'm afraid to say, I don't indulge in the 'niceties' of how it should be done, in terms of time taken. Mind you, any stock picked-up or dropped-off, even if so fitted, would be most-unlikely to have the vacuum or steam heat hoses joined together. 

 

The question of 'real time' operation comes up regularly, especially on exhibition layouts. If one had a terminus where locomotive-hauled trains were prevalent, then I wonder how many spectators would be aware of exactly what was going on, if the correct procedures were actually followed. I can't help feeling many would be thinking 'Why is it taking so long?' 

 

That said, having played a very minor role in operating Grantham, the changing of locos on the real thing during the period depicted was very slick - in around three minutes? On the model, of course, how slick (and quick) the operation might be is entirely dependent on the operators. That's why I say I only ever played a minor role! 

[grahame]

11 hours ago, bbishop said:

Grahame,

Negotiate a 3D model with somebody.

Bill

 

Thanks. It's a good idea (and one suggested elsewhere) but unfortunately I'm not really in a position to do that. It didn't take long to whittle a bit of styrene to shape and it would probably take someone longer to draw it up (in CAD?) and then print it (in 3D) plus getting it sent to me. I'd probably have to spend longer doing something for them in return than it takes to scratch-build a few. That is unless someone fancies doing it as a commercial venture . . . . 

 

Anyway I've probably taken no more than 30 mins to get to this stage. Just the finial and flag to make and add. And it's all my own work. The height is a smidge over 1" and the timetable window is actually glazed (with clear plastic). It'll be located at the back of the layout so no-one will be within 3ft of it and probably won't even notice it. Hopefully the next ones will be sharper and quicker to make. But unfortunately not today - I've got to visit the dentist.

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, Dave John said:

On a practical note I suppose some sort of mechanism to stop the wagons moving back would help. I did try making a wagon with a working handbrake years ago and failed miserably ( it kinda worked, but you had to take it off the layout and put it on the bench under a serious head magnifier to try and pin the brake down, and that was with just a one side scotch brake ) or a bit of spring steel wire that comes up and catches an axle. I had that on the last layout, but tended to forget to drop the wire before trying to move the train. 

 

With DCC, could one not have a brake van that could have the brake put on - maybe not by the blocks but by some sort of axle clamp? Or more traditionally, a magnet in the van and an electromagnet under the track, to hold the van in place? Or even just a sprag that pokes up through the baseboard as required - that could be hand operated!

Edited January 3, 2020 by Compound2632

[ianathompson]

51 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

The question of 'real time' operation comes up regularly, especially on exhibition layouts. If one had a terminus where locomotive-hauled trains were prevalent, then I wonder how many spectators would be aware of exactly what was going on, if the correct procedures were actually followed. I can't help feeling many would be thinking 'Why is it taking so long?' 

 

It is not possible to "scale" time, which leads to problems when trying to operate reasonably realistically.

My own main layout operates to a sequence.

It is a large complex layout however and the best way that I have found of replicating the time taken for station working is to use  what I call "click-clocks".

These also help to replicate late running trains interfering with other trains on a busy single line.

 

They are simply counters dressed up to resemble clocks. 

The idea was lifted from the American modelling magazines which sometimes used to present shunting problems to be solved 'before' the next train arrived.

Each coupling/uncoupling/change of direction takes three minutes on the AFK.

Running a loco around a train therefore takes 12 minutes, (four moves), regardless of how long it takes in actuality.

 

2-118 by Ian Thompson, on Flickr

 

This is an older photo of one of the layout's middle level stations at Urteno with the "operating" clock clearly visible in the station building's facade at the top left. If you look carefully you can see the cog wheels behind the high gable end which are connected to the hands and pushed round as necessary. The two goods trains in the station are working around one another. As I am most interested in operating I happily accept incomplete stock on my layout, providing that it runs fairly reliably, irrespective of its appearance. This holds true for the entire layout which is best described as 'a work in progress'.

 

It is relatively easy to construct these clocks, especially if you want a 'digital' rather than an 'analogue' version.

The system can be adjusted, if your operators are slick, so that each move takes 2 minutes.

Hope that this is of interest.

 

Ian T

[Tony Wright]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

With DCC, could one not have a brake van that could have the brake put on - maybe not by the blocks but by some sort of axle clamp? Or more traditionally, a magnet in the van and an electromagnet under the track, to hold the van in place? Or even just a sprag that pokes up through the baseboard as required - that could be hand operated!

If I recall correctly, David Amias on his wonderful EM re-creation of Wellington (Salop) used a hand-operated metal pin (sprag) coming up through the 4' to stop vehicles running away on sidings with a gradient. I think it just poked up in front of an axle.

 

On the real thing, gravity was employed on occasions to move carriages from these sidings into the station. The problem is that, although gravity is a constant, it doesn't work the same way with models. On the real thing, the guard would release the brake and the carriages would roll out of the inclined sidings and into the station (which was on the level), the guard then stopping them with the brake. On the model, the carriages would stop well short when released. The sprag held carriages which locos moved, but for gravity-operation, David's beautiful solution was to have one carriage fitted with a low-powered bogie - just enough to replicate gravity in operation, the bogie having enough power to move the rake into the station. When the carriages moved off behind a loco (to Stafford probably), the wee powered bogie just trundled along, 'assisting' in a tiny way. Obviously, when returned to their siding after coming back from Stafford, a loco would put them back. It certainly wasn't DCC, so several isolating sections were necessary, which needed dexterous control, but it was very-effective in operation.