The Waverley Route revisited!

[bigwordsmith]

Ah Phil, the joys of massage at the hands of a professional

 

I have visited several young ladies in the last six months who have bade me to enter their rooms, remove my garments, then proceeded to relieve me of both money and discomfort, and generally found the experience beneficial if not long lasting.

 

This one sadly is beyond even the firmest ministrations so I'm afraid I must surrender to the surgeons knife...

 

No Scottish Country Dancing for a few more weeks yet!, but thanks for your good wishes.

 

Are you back to full fettle yourself?

[Mallard60022]

I am, at the moment, thank you. 

Surgery will probably sort the whole thing and you will leaping around with those Gay Gordons and avoiding swords on the floor in no time at all.

Best wishes

Quackers

[bigwordsmith]

Not a brilliant shot for my first with the new iPhone, but I thought it would be wroth capturing the 'Ghost Train - a P2 with 9 teak Gresleys astern of it

 

 

Who says there isn't a prototype for everything?

[bigwordsmith]

Just thought you might all like to see a better picture of the 'Ghost Train'

 

 

Before everyone points out that this is definitely not BR c. 1960, let me point out that the Gresleys are a bunch of Ian Kirk's I picked up for no reason other than to have a train that would look good with a P2 on the sharp end.

 

At this time the length of the embankment is as far as it can go, as there is no more track yet, but it does give a fascinating view of what modelling scale length in 00 looks like.

Edited May 18, 2015 by bigwordsmith

[great northern]

That is very impressive Peter, and I'm pleased that your suggestion on my thread has been realised. I couldn't do it, as I have neither the loco nor the coaches.

 

As to cleanliness of locomotives, Haymarket shed was renowned even in the 50's for keeping its top link engines in mint condition. There are shots of 60162 which have to be seen to be believed -it actually looks cleaner than it did when it came out of the paint shop. Alas, when it comes to St Margarets, be heavy handed with the grime.

[bigwordsmith]

Fair point Gilbert - I've so far pushed weathering along way down a very long list - at the current rate of progress it'll be another two decades before I've even got a full loop round the room - but I found in the past it is too easy to build the line then backfill the scenery, which of course doesn't end up getting done!

 

IT is a problem with Waverley that the bulk of the locos were St. Margarets based, or Carlisle, neither of whom seems to have my cleaners other roster in the late '50s. One of my plans is to have a number of 'Footex's which will legitimately allow for even more exotic visitors!

[Mallard60022]

Rug X could also give you all sorts of excuses................! Especially with 'Internationals'.

[bigwordsmith]

Hmmm- so do you think I could get away with a RugX featuring the Bridgend 1st XV taking on Edinburgh University having made their way on a chartered train of cram and brown Mk 1s hauled by an immaculate Western?

[bigwordsmith]

So being unable to get around much SWMBO suggested that I might as well sit upstairs in the loft passing the time as mope around downstairs complaining about getting old, while she gets on with the garden.

 

So I've had quite a productive couple of days. I'm letting the ballast dry out as I've only just sprayed it before I do my Cecil Beaton bit, but in the meantime here's a shot of my able assistant doing her bit to promote the ongoing construction of Waverley East!

 

 

the eagle eyed among you will notice that there now appears to be a solid board running from the shed to the carriage sidings - this in fact is a long length 3mm MDF that's been screwed through to a 1x1 batten to give strength that can in fact be lifted out so the shed board can still hinge freely up - something that will be rather important when we come to wiring up the controls!

Edited May 20, 2015 by bigwordsmith

[Mallard60022]

Nice bog cart peeping out from in front of that large piece of scenery.  I use teddy bear fur for some of my scenics; I hadn't considered using dog products. 

C.Rufts.

[bigwordsmith]

The only problem with dog products that they're a real bitch when you get them wrong.

 

I was so barking mad the last time I did, SWMBO told me to stop howling about it and get back in my corner!

[JeffP]

Needs a dogged approach.

[bigwordsmith]

Woof Woof!

[Mallard60022]

Still waiting to know what the bog cart is............got  any leads?

B. Asketcase.

[bigwordsmith]

Pepper says if all you're going to do is take the 'P' as opposed to take her for a walk, she's going to withdraw her consent to be photographed!

 

No more pics tonight as I've had a very frustrating time trying to solder two bits of track to screws at baseboard edges - code 100 one side and code 75 t'other, and progress on the big plan got rather held up.

 

Finally achieved it but the light has gone for photography

 

Going to hospital tomorrow for another knee op so will be off the radar for a few days. Next task is to start reinstating all the stonework around the shed from the move, doing the door inside the shed building, and a million other little things, but that''s all for now!

[Mallard60022]

All the best Smiffy. I know the knee must be causing problems, however the time it allows you and the excuses it provides should allow good progress.

Looking forward to seeing stuff once I'm back off hols.

Phil

[bigwordsmith]

Thanks Phil

 

I actually woke up from the anaesthetic gasping in pain  which apparently never happens with an arthroscopy, but they increased the painkiller strength until finally Tramadol did the trick

 

When the surgeon came over I asked what he had done and he told me that he had to repair a massive tear in the medial meniscus that was so bad it had folded back inside itself. He was amazed I had been able to put any load on it, and said it was a good thing he got in there when he did or we'd be talking Total Knee Replacement in a very short time.

 

Makes you think doesn't it? I presented to our local A&E ( Worthing ) in screaming agony Monday 2 weeks ago and they X-rayed it, said nothing was wrong and centime home with crutches and paracetamol. According to my surgeon if I'd been at Tunbridge Wells, where he is the Ortho consultant, they would have called down an otheopedic registrar to examine it and sent me immediately for a CT Scan

 

He said if we'd seen how much damage was there, they would have admitted me as an emergency case.

 

Postcode lotteries anyone?

 

Anyway on the road to recovery now and hope to get back up stairs in a week or so.

 

ATB

 

Peter

Edited May 23, 2015 by bigwordsmith

[Mallard60022]

Oh dear. Yes the lottery is there sadly. SWMBO worked in the NHS for most of her career but not in nursing or A & E (which can save lives of course but doesn'rt seem to deal with diagnosis very well and we can't fathom why!)

Her work always seemed OK with Stroke and Brain Injury etc but she was specialist. Sadly the Primary and front of house care can be very hit and miss as you found out! I am now worried about how the NHS will continue and also worried about my own situation as my personal health has been quite poor for a few years now and nobody seems to know what's up!  Don't get me wrong, I admire the staff who are overworked and underpaid and also shafted by management a lot of the time, but my faith in that they will look after me and mine is now very dented.

Anyhow, it is good you are sorted. 

Phil

[islandbridgejct]

My 'agree' tick was really saying good to raise the point. It is a subject dear to my heart at this very moment, as I am tackling exactly this over at Grantham at the moment.

 

Part of the problem is the viewpoint of the model compared to that of the prototype. Many prototype pictures do indeed convey the impression of a dark ground cover, as you're seeing it from a compressed viewpoint. But when you do get an occasional aerial view, then it can look a lot lighter. There are a couple of views taken from the top of the Grantham coaling plant (one pre-war, one post-war) and, although black and white, it is clear that the area between the roads is quite light in colour. It looks darker in the 'four foot' (which has a logic to it, as that is where the oily deposits etc would more naturally fall).

 

So which do you go for when trying to create a realistic looking scene for your average 'helicopter viewpoint' model observer?

 

There's also the issue for me (as alluded to above) that depot cleanliness was better in the 1930's than it was in the 1950's / 1960's!

 

Your picture in #245 above Peter is certainly a more convincing representation.

Thanks, graham. It was more entertaining to assume the worst- and I really should try to get more modelling done. A useful trick is to paint up a grey scale - 10-15 blocks of grey shading gradually from black to white (not more or you get copyright issues). You can use it against old black and white photos to measure tonal values. Often your eye corrects to what it thinks is there without you realising.

 

As one who had 2 arthroscopies in his early 30s after overdoing it on the bike and running, you have my sympathy, Big. It takes about 8 weeks before the knee begins to strengthen properly. Sore but not serious, apart from impeding the use of layout duckunders.

[bigwordsmith]

The whole ballast colour thing is a debate in itself - I've been doing some stone walling and found that a dirty grey wash applied overall does a great job of weather ng it, but the truth is the whole layout does have a rather grimy feel - as indeed did the original.

 

I have experimented with the odd sprinkling grey poster paint and powders - same as a weathering powder, but in reverse. 

 

The problem with B&W pictures is that they are very chromatically limited - Forget 50 shades of grey, there are actually around 255 shades between white and black, whereas the human eye can differentiate between 16,000 shades of colour, so there's a god chance we'll all get it wrong. My father was always one for erring on the dirty side - as we lived backing onto the ECML and the goods yard at Joppa, until coming south when I was 5, I deferred to his advice.

 

On the knee issue - if it takes 8 weeks to get back after an arthroscopy, no wonder I'm still somewhat lame six months after a new kneecap! The oddest thing is trying to do sensible work while being gently spaced out on Tramadol!

 

Peter

[bigwordsmith]

So I just thought I'd look back to see when it was that the original Waverley Shed was closed and the entry showing the last movements was 24th March 2014, so 13 months ago.

 

As you all know much has happened since then, what with building, various knee operations and limited mobility, it's been a very good thing that the layout has been there to provide some light relief - without it I'd probably have gone bananas.

 

Anyway today has been pretty momentous because it marks the final ballasting, and starting to re-fix different parts to the layout. Actually a lot of this, especially remaking walls and roadways has been happening over the last couple of weeks, since the baseboard and the main lines got loaded into place.

 

Let's not even get into the subject of fixing the ends of track at flying junctions. Suffice to say it is all now done with solder and screws!

 

There's been a lot of wiring and electric fettling to get everything back into running order, but I didn't bother photographing that.

 

However the last few days have seen major progress on scenery, including the reinstatement of the arch bridge at the Western end of the shed, and the ramp coming down to ground level.

 

 

As you can see I haven't yet reinstated the turntable deck - I need to paint the well before doing that and would welcome any suggestions on colour.

 

You can also see the engine shed has been put back on the board - getting the inside of this to look like a level concrete floor took three hours of careful ballasting and levelling this morning using a mix of sand, poster paint and cascamite, but the net result - which of course you can't see because it is inside -  is excellent.

 

 

Flipping to the other end, this is a view from the top of the ash tower, the road beneath which now runs beyond the old baseboard edge to branch off the main feed road - This means locos can now run straight in off the main, drop their fires, then proceed to turn, coal up and go to their stabling roads.

 

It also means that LWB locos like the P2 and Peppercorns which don't like the 3-way point and the S-curve leading from it to the turntable, can by-pass that tricky section!

 

 

While at this end I took a couple of effect shots to see who the thing looks from the ground

 

 

 

Stepping back, here's a couple of shots of the whole layout - If I had Photoshop I could crop out the 12" to the foot world and pop in some decent scenery, but that is beyond my tech!

 

 

 

 

Anyway , next stage is final titivation, lots of track cleaning, then start bringing the locos home!

 

On the ballast colour point, as you can see from this lot there are many, many different shades lots of greys and browns - I have yet to do some greens for weeds, but these too will come!

Edited May 28, 2015 by bigwordsmith

[bigwordsmith]

So of course no sooner is one job completed on the railway, but the next one starts!

 

I spent some time last week and over the weekend building the slide out to go across the doorway to the loo. I road tested this idea with the original shed layout when I needed to be able to easily lift locos off the layout - you'll see several pages ago that locos ran off stage onto a traverser, which was made of a piece of track set at the right height, onto which went a Peco Loco lift, all mounted on a slide out section.

 

The sliders are a set of kitchen drawer runners obtained from the local B&Q for about £4.99 ( other DIY stores are available but not as friendly). The original one was a piece of 9mm ply, but with a decent doorway to span, and the need to be able to incorporate pointwork on the bridge, this called for something more substantial.

 

So the first thing was to build the deck, which involved selecting a suitable piece of ply, and creating a 2x1 frame for it. This needed to be pretty square, so I also cut a cross brace that runs diagonally across the piece. Once happy that the whole thing is true, the plywood deck was then screwed on, giving rigidity, and the sliders affixed to the sides.

 

Much mucking around followed in an attempt to make sure the deck height of the bridge is contiguous with that of the road over to the engine shed/carriage sidings, which the eagle eyed among you will recall is on a falling gradient.

 

After trying various ideas to provide a rigid mounting that would stay in place, the final solution involved creating a buttress out of plywood onto which the lower runner of the pair is fixed. This is secured to the desk top below with a piece of 2x2 at the bottom, and will be fixed at the top by the board running round the corner to the main lines.

 

This pic is the left hand abutment:

 

 

This pic shows the bridge and the left abutment.

 

 

As you can imagine there has been much use of spirit levels and set squares, but the net result is pretty good - I drew a line across the bridge and adjoining track bed after all was completed then slid the bridge in and out 10 times to test alignment.

 

This pic is the 'before' 10 slides

 

Here's the bridge being slid out. 

 

 

When you get to the end of the runners you lift it to clear the wheels 

 

 

and pull it away completely 

 

 

This is the alignment line after 10 slides

 

 

So although some of the earlier shots show the new decking for the main lines, in fact this was built after the bridge was completed. Although it only rests on the desk using legs, it is screwed to the bridge abutment at one end and the main lines baseboard at the other

 

As I needed to curve the baseboard around to clear the falling grade of the carriage sidings feeder, the cut was bit rough. The board also needed to be 1500 wide but the widest piece I had available was only 1200. Remember that I'm using left over timber wherever possible to keep costs down and reduce waste, so I also had to deal with the fat that this particular piece of ply is 5mm thick - I think everything else is either 3,4,6, or 9!

 

Having learned from the bridge that you need to have a rigid and flat frame before screwing the deck this one got jigged out on the desk behind the photographer, and as you can see from the shot below, my carpentry may not be pretty but it's blooming solid!

 

 

And here's a shot of the whole lot assembled

 

 

and the bridge in place

 

 

Next stop is playing with some track to see how it will lay out to get into the western throat of the station

 

Way hay!

 

[Mallard60022]

Good Lord old bean. I had not quite cottoned on to the fact that you had ripped up what looks like it was a superb layout. Coacmanitis is deffo spreading, or maybe you started it  Not only that, you have a layout toilet as well..........with cunning access. (That sounds a bit rude that last bit, sorry.) Oh look, there's also a real window as well and a brush and pan. I'm well impressed.

Methinks some horse trading could be in the offing here? Woodwork advice for hinge fitting advice?  . 

B. Norman.

[bigwordsmith]

No Phil I didn't rip it up - It just got a bit knocked about in the move from last house to spare bedroom to the loft.

 

When we moved to his house 36/12 ago I purchased some Ikea trestles off a chap in a lay-by beside the M4 which gave me something to sit the original Waverley Shed board upon, and at the same time expand it from an odd shaped 10' x 2' to  a proper shaped 12' x 3'.

At the time we had no plans to build the new extension, so the whole thing remained in the spare bedroom. It was a single board which was fixed to the trestles with door hinges  so I could lift it up for wiring and maintenance. 

 

When we decided to do the kitchen extension, which sadly necessitated a whole new roof to the right hand end of the house according to the architect (me) space was magically found for the current railway room. To get the layout over there,  we had to pack up what was by now an extremely heavy board, and relocate it from one end of the property to the other.

 

This actually involved removing a window at the foot of the new stairs and manhandling it up into the new loft, having previously encased the whole thing in clingfilm to stop it dropping ballast throughout its journey.

 

For a while it lay in a corner f the lift, surrounded by boxes, broken and unloved, while I debated whether or not to keep it as part of one of the 50+designs that eventually became Waverley East,. 

 

Then the decision was made to keep it and locate it on opposite side of the room to the new main station and work started.

The good news is that it is actually now in far better fettle than it ha ever been. All the paintwork works, the sections all liven up as they should and I can even get Bachmann peppercorns to run thorough all roads without derailing.

[bigwordsmith]

Very pleasant afternoon the sun yesterday with family enjoying a barbecue so today SWMBO decided the garden need watering, but without my help ( awww Shucks)

 

So up in the loft and cutting out cardboard to see how the tracks will run across the bridge, and loosed the west end of the station throat - not this isn't properly fixed, wired or around 80% of th work that needs to be done, so alignment isn;t 100%, but Iam so delighted with the look of it I had to share!

 

 

The two tracks in the bottom right are going to dive under the main station - so are running round behind it to come out at -3 inches and be the branch station, while the other 4 are going to go into the station and form 4 of the 6 roads - there will be two bays fed from the other end.

 

BEst bit is I happened to have the ghost train on the mains running behind the shed, so to check the point work , as I have power to that end, eased the train back and ran it over the double slips to the platform roads.

 

 

The P2 starts this ( 9 Ian Kirks) without breaking sweat, even on the 1 in 100 incline of the main roads!

 

SO not much more activity for a while as I have work to do!

 

ATB

 

Peter