Wright writes.....

[Tony Wright]

8 minutes ago, robertcwp said:

I think this view is the other way round. The trains on the right-hand side are heading north and will cross over the GC fiddleyard before entering the scenic section at the 'south' end. Those on the left are southbound trains that will enter the scenic section at the Babworth end. 

 

This photo shows in the background a complete maroon Talisman set behind the West Riding set (also all maroon). I find it odd that the London end BSO disappeared from the Talisman and did not make it to Sandra. I would have thought that Roy would have built the whole train rather than have one carriage that belonged to someone else, but perhaps not. 

 

I thought that Thomas and Gordon were for Roy's grandson but I might have been mistaken.

Me again, Robert,

 

I should have read your whole post!

 

Yes, I find it odd that the last BSO car of 'The Talisman' was missing. At least I've been able to replace it, even if it is in carmine/cream (not uncommon, though).

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

2 minutes ago, Denbridge said:

It strikes me that such a huge and wonderful layout, doesn't have that much more off scene storage than your own Little Bytham. I think you stated you run around 45 different trains in your sequence, where I think I counted around 50-55 In these pictures. Please understand I'm in no way criticising Retford, it is an amazing achievement. Purely an observation from one who loves seeing the non scenic aspects of layouts.

I think the main difference is that I've packed every available space on the non-scenic section with fiddle yard roads, several in the form of kick-back sidings.

 

If you look at the available free space around Retford, the fiddle yards (at least on the GN) could be doubled in size. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[robertcwp]

8 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

I think I'm right, Robert (though that's always open to conjecture). My captions are always underneath the picture to which they refer..................

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

I see now, I was looking at the caption above the photo.

[robertcwp]

8 minutes ago, Denbridge said:

It strikes me that such a huge and wonderful layout, doesn't have that much more off scene storage than your own Little Bytham. I think you stated you run around 45 different trains in your sequence, where I think I counted around 50-55 In these pictures. Please understand I'm in no way criticising Retford, it is an amazing achievement. Purely an observation from one who loves seeing the non scenic aspects of layouts.

It would take quite a while to run 50 trains on Retford.

 

There are three GN lines in each direction that can hold two trains so there is capacity for a few more than appear in the photos, which may date from before the GN fiddleyard was adapted for two trains on one line, which Roy had hitherto been against having.

 

Sandra and I thought about timing a train round a circuit if it was doing 65 mph through the station but didn't have time last weekend. 

[robertcwp]

10 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

Me again, Robert,

 

I should have read your whole post!

 

Yes, I find it odd that the last BSO car of 'The Talisman' was missing. At least I've been able to replace it, even if it is in carmine/cream (not uncommon, though).

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

The plan I hatched was to take the maroon BSO off of the West Riding and put it in the Talisman as the colours match and the Talisman was typically all maroon in the Summer of 1957 as the stock had just been overhauled and fitted with roller bearings.

 

I doubt that the West Riding was all maroon in the Summer of 1957. The one photo I have of it from that year shows crimson and cream stock. No headboard but the formation matches and some maroon is just visible, meaning it's no earlier than 1957. The date provided with the negative was a Saturday:

 

60141_WestRiding_Hatfield_6-7-57 by Robert Carroll, on Flickr

 

 

[robertcwp]

12 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

I think the main difference is that I've packed every available space on the non-scenic section with fiddle yard roads, several in the form of kick-back sidings.

 

If you look at the available free space around Retford, the fiddle yards (at least on the GN) could be doubled in size. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Does that mean you are volunteering to provide the trains to fill a GN fiddleyard doubled in size? 

[Chamby]

On 27/08/2020 at 14:53, rowanj said:

 

So, given that 50% of those adjectives are "negatives", it is just as well that the same formula does not apply to the posts.

50,000 is a milestone, but it would be interesting to see how many posts are a]about model railways or b} would have been better undertaken by a personal message. How many pages could also have been made more concise by not replicating all of the message to which the poster is replying , including the reposting of all the photos? I suppose occasional pithy posts show the wit and wisdom of the poster, but do they do anything more.

For those who enjoy the "clubishness" of the thread, then good luck to you all, I look for rather more of the "creative, helpful, enlightening" .

But I did enjoy the videos.

 

Having been upcountry for three days (looking after grandchildren whose parents are supposed to be working from home and home schooling at the same time), I’ve had a lot of catching up to to with this thread.  I agree that there is a lot of ‘chatter’ to grind through but think of it like panning for gold, it is well worth doing because there are some real modelling nuggets that keep cropping up.  And lots of them, even in the last three days... 

 

Good stuff.

[Porcy Mane]

Two more unedited photographs of Retford backs scene holes.

 

 

[PMP]

6 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Next time you are there Tony, put a spirit level on the GN main line to see where the gradient starts and ends.

 

I did once and was astonished as there is virtually none, other than slight dips and bumps at joints, where timber has moved slightly.

 

Most of what looks like a gradient is an optical illusion caused by the way the GC fiddle yard slopes.

 

Trains do sometimes struggle there and I put that down to the curve and a slight hump at the joint at one end of the bridge, rather than any designed gradient.

The bridge is indeed virtually flat, the illusion is emphasised by the GN being on an embankment in the scenic section, and that we don’t associate fiddleyards to be on a gradient, we assume they’re level.

 

Re DMU’s the lightweight being JM’s rings a bell with me. There’s an EM one not a million miles from me that could do  with its legs stretched once in a while

 

On the train formations I recall Roy did mix some of the coaching stock from different ‘sources’ to get the consist he needed. I did some work on a few GN trains and recall Roy pointing out various vehicles, mentioning that X or Y had built that one.

Edited August 29, 2020 by PMP

[robertcwp]

7 minutes ago, PMP said:

The bridge is indeed virtually flat, the illusion is emphasised by the GN being on an embankment in the scenic section, and that we don’t associate fiddleyards to be on a gradient, we assume they’re level.

 

Re DMU’s the lightweight being JM’s rings a bell with me. There’s an EM one not a million miles from me that could do  with its legs stretched once in a while

 

On the train formations I recall Roy did mix some of the coaching stock from different ‘sources’ to get the consist he needed. I did some work on a few GN trains and recall Roy pointing out various vehicles, mentioning that X or Y had built that one.

If the GN is virtually flat then something else must cause some of the engines to struggle a bit, possibly the curve round onto the scenic section. 

 

Your train formations comment might explain the missing BSO from the Talisman.

[sandra]

1 hour ago, robertcwp said:

If the GN is virtually flat then something else must cause some of the engines to struggle a bit, possibly the curve round onto the scenic section. 

 

Your train formations comment might explain the missing BSO from the Talisman.

The GN where it goes off stage is not flat, trains do struggle at that point and a few times if speed is too low a heavy train will stall.

 

A few days ago I was testing a coach I’d just converted to EM gauge and I propelled it across the flat crossing to make sure it ran freely through the crossing. It disappeared through the scenic break then rolled back towards the crossing which I think indicates it’s not level. I do note that lots of the baseboard legs have been adjusted in height and as the GC at the same point has a steep downward gradient, I wonder if the GN has been raised to lower the gradient on the GC.

Sandra

[pete55]

40 minutes ago, sandra said:

The GN where it goes off stage is not flat, trains do struggle at that point and a few times if speed is too low a heavy train will stall.

 

A few days ago I was testing a coach I’d just converted to EM gauge and I propelled it across the flat crossing to make sure it ran freely through the crossing. It disappeared through the scenic break then rolled back towards the crossing which I think indicates it’s not level. I do note that lots of the baseboard legs have been adjusted in height and as the GC at the same point has a steep downward gradient, I wonder if the GN has been raised to lower the gradient on the GC.

Sandra

 

Hello Sandra,

yes the GN does rise towards the backscene and the offstage curve, although where past the flat crossing it starts to rise I wouldn't like to say offhand.

Trains can struggle up and round there in either direction if not driven fast enough as you quite rightly say. It often caught out sedate GN drivers.

As far as I am aware, no gradients have been altered since the original construction, and the GC yard does have a distinct gradient to it!

As for the baseboard legs, yes many are packed a bit, but that was to keep the layout level as the floor has moved a bit over time.....I'll tell you the history of that sometime if you want to know.

 

Pete Hill

[t-b-g]

41 minutes ago, sandra said:

The GN where it goes off stage is not flat, trains do struggle at that point and a few times if speed is too low a heavy train will stall.

 

A few days ago I was testing a coach I’d just converted to EM gauge and I propelled it across the flat crossing to make sure it ran freely through the crossing. It disappeared through the scenic break then rolled back towards the crossing which I think indicates it’s not level. I do note that lots of the baseboard legs have been adjusted in height and as the GC at the same point has a steep downward gradient, I wonder if the GN has been raised to lower the gradient on the GC.

Sandra

 

13 minutes ago, pete55 said:

 

Hello Sandra,

yes the GN does rise towards the backscene and the offstage curve, although where past the flat crossing it starts to rise I wouldn't like to say offhand.

Trains can struggle up and round there in either direction if not driven fast enough as you quite rightly say. It often caught out sedate GN drivers.

As far as I am aware, no gradients have been altered since the original construction, and the GC yard does have a distinct gradient to it!

As for the baseboard legs, yes many are packed a bit, but that was to keep the layout level as the floor has moved a bit over time.....I'll tell you the history of that sometime if you want to know.

 

Pete Hill

 

There was certainly no gradient 10 years ago. I put a spirit level all round the track from the flat crossing to the far end of the bridge, which is where trains usually stopped struggling. I was sure I would find one and it was a huge surprise when I didn't. Roy wanted to mention it in one of his articles and when he said that he wanted to mention some trains struggling on the gradient, I said "Why don't we measure it and you can say "They struggle up the 1 in 75" or whatever it was. He thought it a good idea as it was more railway like than saying "A bit of a slope".

 

So we had a chat about the best way of measuring it and decided that finding where it started and ended plus the height difference, measured from floor to track level, would tell us what we wanted. We were both astonished that we couldn't find it as we were convinced there must be one.  

 

If one has appeared since then, it is due to sagging of baseboards or floor since then and could probably be corrected by having a look at the packing, which hasn't, as far as I know, been looked at for many years.

 

 

[Theakerr]

First, many thanks for the pictures of the 'Yards'.  As another poster has said they are remarkably normal but normal doesn't tell the complete story of how they all feed into the layout from the different directions.  Very nice. 

Watched the Little Bytham video last night, not bad at all!  Comments were requested so here are a couple.  Cab doors and loco to tender coverings.  I would suggest that on any express loco doing 65 mph+ the doors between the loco and the tender would have been closed.  Secondly there is the loco to tender cover, especially on the A4s but also on some of the other pacifics.  The loco to tender covering is a feature seen an almost every picture I have seen of an A4.  My research suggests that initially it was made from a specially cut piece of neoprene like material and was close to 1" thick.   So I wonder if it was an component part of the streamlining.   After the war the neoprene cover was replaced by a simple tarp but all the pictures I can find show it there, rain or shine.   So why it is there?  I have tried to find someone who can answer, but so far have hit a blank.  My suspicion based on some of my working background is that the streamlining resulted in a venturi effect at the cab tender interface that sucked in hot cinders etc.

[PMP]

2 hours ago, sandra said:

The GN where it goes off stage is not flat, trains do struggle at that point and a few times if speed is too low a heavy train will stall.

Sandra

My understanding was similar to @t-b-g‘s, however thinking about it when driving southbound Roy would often encourage extra speed south of the station/crossing, but not opposite direction on northbound trains. I’d always assumed this to be replicating accelerating once clearing the station, and to ensure a clean pull round the curve ‘westwards’ in the GC fiddleyard,  a gradient from board movement over time may of course be another factor I wasn’t aware of!

I have of course occasionally placed a free running wagon in the GC fiddleyard and caught it unassisted travelling ‘east’, hence the assumption all the grades were on the GC.

Edited August 29, 2020 by PMP
Add para

[Tony Wright]

4 hours ago, Theakerr said:

First, many thanks for the pictures of the 'Yards'.  As another poster has said they are remarkably normal but normal doesn't tell the complete story of how they all feed into the layout from the different directions.  Very nice. 

Watched the Little Bytham video last night, not bad at all!  Comments were requested so here are a couple.  Cab doors and loco to tender coverings.  I would suggest that on any express loco doing 65 mph+ the doors between the loco and the tender would have been closed.  Secondly there is the loco to tender cover, especially on the A4s but also on some of the other pacifics.  The loco to tender covering is a feature seen an almost every picture I have seen of an A4.  My research suggests that initially it was made from a specially cut piece of neoprene like material and was close to 1" thick.   So I wonder if it was an component part of the streamlining.   After the war the neoprene cover was replaced by a simple tarp but all the pictures I can find show it there, rain or shine.   So why it is there?  I have tried to find someone who can answer, but so far have hit a blank.  My suspicion based on some of my working background is that the streamlining resulted in a venturi effect at the cab tender interface that sucked in hot cinders etc.

Many thanks,

 

Cab doors? Yes, you're probably right but their closure would not be universal, even at speed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No stopping here as 60054 is well notched up on the southbound climb to Stoke. Cab doors not even half-closed.

 

 

Stationary, but cab doors almost wide. Locos didn't normally change crews at Retford, so why open?

 

 

Locos/crews did change at Grantham, so is this the reason for the doors being open?

 

Covers between cab roofs and tender fronts on A4s. Yes, almost universal, but I have heard tales of fireman putting a shovel through them in very hot weather.

 

My problem is that, on a model, they never look right because they cannot be attached to both loco and tender, as they were in reality. 

 

Even on the real thing, they could come adrift.........

 

 

Crumpled on 60028.

 

 

And flying off on 60030. 

 

I know some other Pacifics had them.........

 

 

But not this A2/3.

 

I think the principal problem with cab doors and cab/tender coverings is that we ask our models to go around ridiculous curves (in scale) compared with the real thing. Cab doors can catch and cause derailments (unlike on the real things, where they'd just be ripped off if they interfered with each other) and the cover would just be torn to shreds. 

 

I think they're details which, in the interests of pragmatic good-running, I'll pass on. 

 

Two observations, if I may? The cab eaves below the rainstrip in BR livery were painted black, not green, and there should be no 'line' where the streamlined non-corridor tender sides curve over at the top.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2020 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Dave John]

Well, I had an issue with cab doors and came up with this solution. 

 

 

I accept that it may only work with generous curves and is really a bit of a cheat, but given that Caley doors were lined I thought it worked as a reasonable compromise. 

 

Later blogs show it painted . lined and in action. 

[Woodcock29]

On my second visit to Retford in 2013 when I had a drive I distinctly remember Roy telling me I needed to drive the train up the grade heading south on the GN mainline. If I didn't have enough speed it would stall.

Andrew

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Nice to see so many pictures of 'Retford' I've always felt as if the pictures were being 'Rationed' as we only ever saw one here and one there.

 

Terry (aka manna)

[Tony Wright]

8 hours ago, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Nice to see so many pictures of 'Retford' I've always felt as if the pictures were being 'Rationed' as we only ever saw one here and one there.

 

Terry (aka manna)

Good morning Terry,

 

As Tony Gee has mentioned, Roy Jackson wasn't keen on Retford appearing 'all over the place', though I was always allowed the privilege of taking photographs whenever I visited. 

 

Some of those are already appearing on here for the first time (Sandra is happy to see them shown), though I'm not posting every picture I've taken or will be taking. 

 

My 'plan' (if ever anything I'm involved with could be described thus) is to take more shots whenever I go over, recording (hopefully) further progress (as Covid allows), building up a portfolio of pictures of this incredible creation. 

 

I'll also try and replicate prototype shots....................

 

 

Like this fantastic image, from 1963. Note the lovely flowerbeds (is anyone in the Retford 'gang' into horticultural modelling?), the 'sagging' running-in board (and the lamps to illuminate it) and those massive telegraph poles (not to mention so many other details).

 

Regards,

 

Tony.  

Edited August 30, 2020 by Tony Wright
to add something

[Tony Wright]

Cab doors on steam-outline models?

 

Though I've only got one Hornby A4, the cab doors which that had (which had to be glued in place) dropped off years ago.

 

Looking through some images, despite my saying they're a detail I'll pass on, it seems that several of my locos have them........................

 

 

 

 

DJH A1s certainly have them (as part of the cabside etches), but they have to be cranked inwards slightly to avoid fouling the tender sides. 

 

 

So do DJH's A3s...........

 

 

And DJH's A2/3s (as well as the firm's A2/2s). On this example, I've soldered them to the tender.

 

 

DJH's 9Fs also have them at source (though the instructional drawings show them upside-down, with the cut-out - to clear the tender footplate - to the top!). 

 

 

Only half on a Pro-Scale A4.

 

 

This Crownline A1/1 had doors on both tender and cab, but they must have caught and the ones on the cab have gone!

 

 

The opposite seems to have happened on the same firm's A2/2.

 

 

I've bent these doors (attached to the cabsides) inwards on this Crownline V2, otherwise they caught on the tender sides.

 

I think part of the problem with model cab doors is that they have a tendency to snag with each other, especially on the sharp curves we have to 'endure'. Anyway, because of those sharp curves, our locos and their tenders aren't as close as they should be, meaning either too-wide cab doors (if any), or gaps between them.

 

It's all compromise...........

 

 

[cctransuk]

16 minutes ago, Tony Wright said:

It's all compromise...........

 

Precisely - and, in my case, it's loco lamps.

 

My locos will be required to perform a variety of tasks and, despite the S&DJR having a minimalist headcode regime, I believe that no lamps are preferable to the wrong lamps.

 

One point that is rarely mentioned is that loco headlamps - contrary to almost universal modelling practice - were NOT pristine, brilliant white. In my experience, they were usually filthy, and therefore often difficult to detect on an approaching loco.

 

John Isherwood.

[great central]

58 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Precisely - and, in my case, it's loco lamps.

 

My locos will be required to perform a variety of tasks and, despite the S&DJR having a minimalist headcode regime, I believe that no lamps are preferable to the wrong lamps.

 

One point that is rarely mentioned is that loco headlamps - contrary to almost universal modelling practice - were NOT pristine, brilliant white. In my experience, they were usually filthy, and therefore often difficult to detect on an approaching loco.

 

John Isherwood.

 

And then there were those that were painted black anyway........

[DougN]

Well as you are showing some lovely models off there Tony... all to do with cab doors... here are my V2's back heads  these are a work in process as I spent about 2 hours fiddling getting more parts onto the back heads. 

 

these are still removable but once the cab seats and seats and brackets are installed they will be permanent, as they will be captured. These kits are a wonderful challange. Getting almost the bits in and take my word for it you run out of room and this is already after a bit of simplification by Martin Finney! I can see why the real fitters and engineers had a challenge getting every thing into the cab! 

[Willie Whizz]

On 27/08/2020 at 15:27, Headstock said:

 

Basford North 1960, no fun at all, as John Lydon would say. Basford North 1950, I've died and gone to carriage heaven.

 

 

 

Basford North 2020 - "Railway?  What, round here??  Really???"   

 

(Actual conversation).

Edited August 30, 2020 by Willie Whizz