Bardown Road - BR Southern Region

[wellsy]

Bardown Road – Introduction

 

This 4mm scale layout is the second to be installed in the back of my workshop/shed. It is approx. 6’ by 20’ and is built on the usual framework topped by half inch ply

The first version was on 6mm MDF and sagged horribly as the shed is damp, hence the rebuild which also made more room in the middle for operators. I also set it higher to make it easier to get underneath to fiddle with wiring etc

The photos will show progress so far

The layout is set “somewhere in the Sussex weald”, close to the sea. The main station is Pebsham Bay and serves a small town not far from Hastings, with connections East (towards Ashford) and West (towards Eastbourne) and to the North through Bardown Road to the Tonbridge /Ashford main line

At the minor station is a small siding and connection to a private branch serving a small mine which continues to produce Iron Ore, iron products and quantities of slag, all representing the very last knockings of the Wealden iron industry

Most of the stock is proprietary, control is by DCC, presently NCE units are in use

That’s about it

 

 

[nest]

Good stuff. Going to follow this with interest.

 

Nestor

[wellsy]

Here's a closer look at Bardown Road, the part of the layout with most work done so far

These are pics of the West end of that part of the layout, lots still to do to the bridge and stream under it 

Another look at the signalbox, going to add peco point rodding sometime

The L1 been put in the iron mine siding having failed on a Pebsham Bay - Tonbridge local, something wrong with the motor, experiments show its a bit weak, so will have to get a more powerful one, and a new decoder as the Hornby one wont respond to interrogation on the programme track, which it's standing on

Picadilly belongs to the Bardown Iron Company, nicely restored by them don't you think?

Sometimes Pebsham shed sends their pilot up to help, this is an old "K's" kit dates from the 1970's with a new motor and gearbox, I have a soft spot for this old lady

Another view of the signalbox and a glimpse of the famous retaining wall

The wall is a local wonder!

A before and after look at a tree, Teloxys aristata or Seafoam, grown by me in the greenhouse with seed from Chiltern Seeds 

It's all done with a dilute PVA dip and flock

And now for the control panel, the track diag speaks for itself. Point motors are by Conrad and include a polarity switch for the live frog points, which we wired to the LED's to show how the points are set - spot the difference!

 

More to come one day, after I've weathered the station building and got the lights working ok, also the signalbox lights need to be brighter

[wellsy]

Fatal isn't it - haven't been working on the layout much recently due to other commitments, had a session this week and one of the point motors in the last photo appears to have gone faulty, the polarity change doesn't work so I get a dead short whenever I try to change the points above - will record my efforts to fix it and share them on here for your Xmas entertainment!!

[wellsy]

Well I shut meself in the shed with the heater on, having cleared the bench ( a major task in my shed), removed the offending point motor and got to work as follows 

 

 

 

 

 

[wellsy]

Right then, back to the lighting, maybe a bit crude and brutal, but here we go

 

This is the reel of lighting as purchased 

close-up the arrangement of led's and contacts is clear (or as clear as my photography will allow) Notice the round copper contacts at the cut points

here's the bogie with the phosphor-bronze contacts fitted and wire soldered thereto

rather than cut away the see-through top covering to reach the contacts, I peeled back the cover tape on the back and melted the sticky stuff away with the tip of the soldering iron

here's the contact tinned, one each end and make sure they're not both the same side!

topside view of the bogie before replacing in the chassis

bogie fitted, seating replaced, notice the butchery to allow for the lighting strip to be stuck to the underside of the roof

wire soldered and all ready to instal, remember to clean the underside of the roof of moulding oil, I used track magic on a cotton bud 

this is out of sequence, but shows the resistor which is a must, I used 2 x 1k in series so as not to have too bright lights

bung it all back together pressing the sticky side of the strip to the roof with a fine wooden strip (actually a Wagamama chopstick, a most useful piece of kit but completely beyond my abilities so far as eating the grub is concerned

and that's it folks, Happy New Year

 

Oh, and by the way, if you unfortunately get the impression I know any more than 0 about electronics, it's a misconception, it's all thanks to my mate Roland, many thanks to him

[wellsy]

Back again, the railway room at the back of the shed more amenable now the weather has abated, but the photos don't seem to show much effort since the last post. However we been busy putting lights in coaches and buildings and installing a couple sound chips too, brilliant. Scenic work had progressed recently to another hand-painted backscene and lots of trees. The nudist camp had been installed at the far back corner (where it belongs!), and awaits cars, tents and a badminton court before the figures can be posed there behind the hedge to spare the blushes of passing passengers and train crew. The pictures so far of the far end of the layout follow - next up is the main station at Pebsham Bay and another 2 backscenes

Wellington dragging a maunsell 4-coach set around the curve over the culvert

a general view of the new backscene from Bardown Road - Wellington again

A peep into the deserted nudist camp

33202 in the goods loop at Bardown Road with lots of new trees in the background

another view of the culvert and the mess of fallen trees following the recent storms - nothing if not up-to-date, eh?

 

[bobster]

Lot of layout in a small space - Looks good. 

[wellsy]

Thanks to everyone who like the posts,they are all very encouraging -  will try and update more often

[wellsy]

Now that summer and all it's distractions is coming to a close I can look forward to some serious modelling sessions in the shed. Occasional bashes have made some progress which this is note is intended to show

I suppose the biggest project was to re-lay the storage sidings so as to provide an additional one, making six, and improving the ability more easily to swap from up/down lines as required. I also splashed out in live-frog points to prevent stalling in there, which was a darned nuisance

That and the beginning of work on the main station a Pebsham Bay is illustrated on these photos, if they upload. There are 2 pics of Bardown Road, complete with Tardis which grandchild placed on the platform and I didn't see when taking the pics!

I need a wet day or three (and so does the garden) to keep me in there to complete the missing backscenes and do some merging between the sheets, and the area in front of the coach sidings/loco shed. Then there is a nice big overbridge to cross the station, and a replacement for the temporary platform awnings. And so on!