Gresby - N Gauge Great Central (MS&LR 90s-2000s)

[MrSimon]

Hello everybody!

 

I first started this thread, and indeed building my layout (Gresby) in 2009.

 

Gresby is a small town in north Nottinghamshire, just outside Sherwood Forest. I have never decided whether the line runs from north to south or east to west, but it definitely connects Lincolnshire/Immingham/South Yorkshire, with the Midlands and the North West.

 

The line was built by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway which became the Great Central Railway, the station was opened the same time mas the London Extension was being built, following a standard design.

 

These days (roughly 1990s sectorisation to 2007) Gresby is served by Central Trains and Northern Rail stopping services, with Midlands Mainline and Transpennine Express services passing through. There is also a rail-served factory on the site of the old colliery exchange sidings.

 

The scenic part of the layout is (now) 9.5ft x 1ft, the total layout size being 12ft x 2.5ft.

 

This first post has always been a bit rubbish, but until I get round to properly drawing up a track plan etc I would probably skip passed it and read the rest of the blow-by-blow account of building the layout.

 

This includes:

• The early days as a shelf layout, laying the track and building buildings
• Its extension into a mainline exhibition layout
• The wiring
• Building more buildings to fill all the extra baseboard
• Scenery work
•  

I started putting rolling stock on here but I started a workbench topic (link below) so it didn't get too confusing.

 

Feel free to ask any questions, hopefully one day you'll get to see the layout at another exhibition!

 

Here are a pair of pictures from when the layout was first planned:

 

The original aim was to jam as much stock into a 2 platform suburban terminus as possible...

Edited December 30, 2021 by MrSimon
Updated the title

[MrSimon]

Yesterday I remembered about RM web and decided it was time for an update, there has only been a half days work done on the layout since collecting the boards.

At Christmas I picked up the baseboards from the man who made the boards for me; here they are fresh from being made:

 

They are made with some sort of ply, glued and screwed together. I decided to swap the traverser for a sector plate, I think it should work.


Here is a shot under the track bed. When I've got the track laid and the point motors installed I will fix the trackbed down and access the wiring etc through the holes in the bottom.


Here is the station throat. I've run out of points and track pins so its not progressed any furthur than this.


Shot of the whole layout. And my dog.


I found a curved point recycled from my old layout and decided to have two kickback sidings instead of one. The front siding will be inlaid into concrete for loading, the rear will be protected by crash barriers and will be for fuel traffic. Last night I got bored and started designing an extension - but it won't be started for a while!

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[MrSimon]

Hurry for payday! After a trip to modelzone (wish London had some better model shops) armed with points and trackpins I made the final push and laid the last of the track in the station throat, secotr plate and over the board joins. It will need tidying up a little and going over with the soldering iron but it should look quite good when its ballasted and weathered.

The main problem I encountered was that I had originally intended the sector plate to line up with the front main line and when I came to lay the track on the sector plate I found that it would have to line up with the rear track. I might still re-lay the sector plate so I can use both main lines but the present compromise is spurring me on to design the extensions I'm toying with to turn it into a roundy roundy.

In the long wait for payday I have been kept busy making a start on the big pile of brass coach kits my dad sent down for building in the summer. I have also been working on designs for the viaduct my track sits on, once I have cleared all the track-laying bumf from my desk I'll get a mock up put together.

See below some photos of the completed station throat.


Completed station throat. The poster tube has my spare track in - plenty left over for an extension!


close up of the track on the station board. The plasticard was to raise the finescale points slightly after everywhere in central London (both shops) had run out of normal peco short radius lefts. It will be secured and trimmed and ultimately be invisible.


close up of the sector plate board. I'm not sure whether I should be worried about the points being so close to the baseboard edges but it was the only way the cross-over could be fitted in. Its a very slow speed layout anyway so there shouldn't be too many issues.

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[Trainsrgr8]

Looks like it is coming on well! Wish you all the best of luck!

 

Danny

[Forward!]

Given both the South Yorkshire/Nottinghamshire theme and your elevated trackbed, it looks almost evocative of the infrastructure of the old GCR London Extension. A might have been layout perhaps? Leicester GCR goods offices frontage struck me as a candidate for a building which would sit nicely under the area beneath the kickback sidings- i.e two storey at the front, one storey at the back at rail level? The GCR's use of subway access to platforms from road under-bridges would also work quite well too. Just an idea.....

 

http://www.gcrleicester.info/html/leicester_central.html

[MrSimon]

Hi,

 

It is indeed Great Central based, but I hadn't really imagined it as being London Extension, more of a MS&LR line, maybe around Worksop/Mansfield but definately Sherwood Forest. I've got some pictures of the waiting room at Quorn to be derelict at the end of the platform but I hadn't thought of an old goods shed. I quite like the idea of a goods office but the kickback sidings are going to be hard standing for forklift loading of cargo wagons/steel carriers and fuel tankers. Maybe I could have the goods office derelict too?

 

Would the viaduct be built in blue brick as on the London Extension, local stone or red brick?

 

Simon

[MrSimon]

Progress on a Monday? Whats all that about? Today I made a mock up of the front of the viaduct to see if a) it looked right and I liked it. It was mainly made of white mount board with raised details made from bricky-plasticard.



I came to the following conclusions:
1) I had measured it to be 2mm too low, this will be fixed either by making it 2mm longer or by raising the ground by 2mm
2) The top of the viaduct looked a bit too low. I allowed 4ft from the for the parapet but when put on the baseboard with some stock on the track it looked a little low. I decided to add coping stones to the top which raised it by about 1.5mm but I think I might still need to add another 2mm.
3) The arches looked about the right width, but I'm not sure whether the tops should be moved closer to the track bed.



I'm not sure how I'm going to model the 5 or 6 rows of bricks forming the arches. Any ideas? I've got 15 to do (more if I build the extension) so I'm not mad keen on scribing the bricks individually.

Also, does it look Great Central (/MS&LR)ish? The prototype I paced out is the District/Picadilly line arches in Ravenscourt Park (London) with the width of the arch stetched by 50cm to make the arch taller - I used this viaduct because it was the closest one to my flat and it was raining.

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[1977joey]

Hi Simon, this looks to be a great layout & i'm looking forward to seeing the progress you make Loving the mock up of the viaduct, this should look a treat when completed. Keep up the good work & all the best

[MrSimon]

This evening I made a second mock up of the viaduct. I think the height is better this time and the coping stones look quite good. I had a look on the GCR leicester site linked in a reply above and tried to base the girder holder bit (I'm not sure what this is called, but its the bit where the girder bridge joins with the viaduct) on the GC types shown, its less ornate than Braunstone Gate bridge but the girder is smaller. In a later extension of the layout I'd like to make a bowstring style bridge.


Here is the end of the viaduct where it meets the girder.

Here is the viaduct, the height is much better this time. I cut out the brick-sheet where the arch is going to be but I didn't scribe any of the arches this time.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to paint the viaduct to represent the blue architectual bricks, as used on the GC London Extension but if I could see pictures of MS&LR viaducts in normal red brick I'd model them instead.

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[pendlerail]

Looking great, nice use of space, will be watching this layout

[slow8dirty]

Promising to be a very good bit N gaugery here. Very interesting so far, now where's that "watch topic" button

 

Cheers, Matt

[MrSimon]

So at the weekend I was "persuaded" to bring forward my plans for an extension to Gresby, the extension will nearly treble the length and turn it into a round-and-round layout. I will put a copy of the plan on here when it is done but I will be continuing to work on Gresby while the extra boards are being built

 

I've been building some LMS coaches for my dad so I've not had time to do any work on Gresby but they're done now so I can get cracking with the viaducts and maybe even some wiring.

 

Simon

[MrSimon]

This week I have been busy making the plasticard sides for the viaducts. The arches are pretty time consuming to build and I'm sort of wishing I had got something ready made/kit built but I'm sure it will be worth it in the end.

Here are the sections I have finished so far - they will all be finished blue and then weathered.

 

Here is the end of the viaduct under the arch. The walls will be finished in white glazed tiles with billboards. I will make a false bottom for the bridge so it doesn't look like ply. I will also remove the track-pins!


Here it is looking down. I haven't finished the coping stones for the top of the bridge piers yet; they take a lot of filing into shape! All the joins will need filling and hiding when I am ready to permanently attach the sides.

Lots still to do...

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[MrSimon]

Hi,

 

After a partial housemove and a period in storage I have managed to dig Gresby out and do some work on the wiring; it is temporarily wired up with all the sections and after a few choice words at the electrofrog points I managed to get it working and ran trains for the first time last night :-D

 

Is anyone any good at wiring in point motors?

 

Simon

[MrSimon]

There was also a bit of damage to the track at the board joints (my fault for not storing them properly) so I relaid the track across the station throat, this gave me chance to tweak the alignment of the track slightly and put in more insulating breaks around the points. I had to cut quite large parts of baseboard out for the point motors, but I don't think the structure will suffer for it and the plastic front of the viaduct will hide it from view. Next job is filling in the gaps in the sleepers, placing and adding holes for the signals and adding cable troughing/paths etc - going to be a fun summer!


Damage to track. I tried to solder new pieces of track to strips of paxolin but I just couldn't get it to work - a combination of short curved sections of track, a rubbish soldering iron and me getting more frustrated with it - so I layed the track how I had before and will use steel pins or somthing at a later date. For now I have reused the paxolin to protect the track as can be seen in the background in the picture below.


Fitted point motor, with the viaduct and test engine. The bridge pier at the other side needs moving a few mm furthur from the track because its a little tight (1mm max) when running a 60 or 66 into the siding but I can do this when I make the station entrance.

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[grahame]

I've just found this thread - and I'm glad I did; it looks great. I like how it's developing and look forward to seeing more. What brick plasticard are you using?

 

G.

[shanks522]

very nice indeed, The arches are superb.

 

Graham.

[MrSimon]

Hi,

Thank you for your comments I'm not sure what make the plasticard is; it just comes in A4 sheets from Gee Dee in Nottingham - maybe its Slater's? I know I need a load more to get the rest of the arches and the platform done...

Here is a picture I took this morning, a pair of class 20s waiting for the Nottingham train to leave


Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[MrSimon]

Hello! I've had a busy week working on Gresby amoungst other things and today I screwed down the trackbed after finishing all the work on adding droppers and installing point motors. Today I installed the three point motors on the sector plate board which I had been putting off because of the large ammount of wood work required to fit one of the motors in.

This shows how close the point motor is to the edge before the sector plate. I should have made the sector plate 3 inches shorter, and I can't remember the reason its the length it is, but it works OK! If (when) I extend the layout the sector plate will be removed and replaced with a section of mainline.


Here is my lovely neat wiring; I just need to wire it all to D Plugs and make a control panel, so it won't be fully operational for a while it does mean that I can start to permanently fix down the arches and start on the platforms and trackbed details though!

Watch this space

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[MrSimon]

Hello!

I started to do a bit of scenic work last night; I did some research on Great Central station entrances on disused-stations.org.uk and today I decided to get cracking with the road outside the station after reading the bit about roads in the second 'n'spirations. I've marked out the pavements on thick-ish card and I have card for the road surface etc, but I can't work out how to make the cobbley-bit in the gutter - biro lines in card?


Here is the mock-up I made, and 51mm looks about right for the road outside my station (with a parking bay and a built-out kassel kerbed bus stop)

I might even cut it out later!

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[MrSimon]

Hello! I've been a very busy boy this weekend and actually got a lot done on the layout... well not much at all but its taken a long time so it must be a lot!

first off I painted all the rail sides that will be hard to reach when I'd built the platform, and then I built the inner frame for the platform out of mounting board.


Here is the entrance end of the platform, with spaces left for the stairs down and a square to anchor a derelic station building. I'm going to make a start on the platform faces later today but first I need to work out exactly where the platform mounted signals/gantries will go and put some K&S in so these can also be removable. I'm not sure about the colour I've painted the rails, but the whole trackbed will be given a spray when I've ballasted.

I seem to have gone slightly out of order in the build of the layout, because yesterday I made some billboards, but I need to get the bridge piers detailed before I can paint and fit the pavement and road under the bridge. I found a really good website which has loads of adverts on (www.advertolog.com) and selected some adverts from late 2003/early 2004 that were suited to the sorted area I'm modelling. I whipped up some plasticard billboards and printed out the posters to the right size using MS Word and put the two together.

 

Here are the nearly finished billboards showing adverts for the New Series of Footballers Wives on ITV, the Silk Cut Fat Lady Sings advert, Boddingtons and Mastercard. All that I need to do is put the identifying marks on the poster housing. I'll try and get this done later and then put them up on the bridge pier (and get it all weathered) I'm not sure if I like the Boddingtons and Mastercard ads sharing a hoarding like that and might put a new advert over them.

Incidentally, are there any rules about tobacco advertising on models if I were to exhibit the layout? The Fat Lady advert doesn't give any brand names and is now seven years old, and will be under a bridge, but I'm not going to fall foul of any rules am I? Its not that much different to all the Capstan etc adverts that are on models is it?

I did some other bits yesterday too but I've not photo'd them yet, but I'll see if I can do that later.

Thanks

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[MrSimon]

Hello,

Here is the picture of the other thing I did yesterday:

Its the pavement! I just need to paint it pavement coloured and pick out the odd slab and then weather the bridge pier and pavement as one unit. I've not made the road/gutter yet but when I will I'll be cracking on with sticking it down (it makes sense to me to get the road down before putting the pavement on top - but do correct me if I'm wrong!) In the foreground of this shot will go a converted shop at the start of a terrace, with access to the yard outside the arches passing behind the it. I thought it would just be a normal terraced house but then I went to Total N Gauge on Friday and saw the perfect building just down the road from it (but I'm making mine in Brick instead of stone)

 

Here is the plan; the original building is on Annesley Road in Hucknall but I've altered it slightly so its the other way on the corner and I've made the corner a right angle to fit the space available. I've copied the drawing onto plasticard and cut out all of the window apertures except the round one (I couldn't find a compass) and I'm going to start work on the mounting board skeleton later today.

This afternoon's work was the plasticard platform faces.

Here is my 66 checking the clearance coming off the loop. It looks a bit tight so i might thin it down slightly more before fixing it into place (or just using smaller engines in the loop). I need to fill in the gaps in the sleepers too!

Does anyone know if MS&L/Great Central platform walls were done in blue or red bricks?

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon

[porkie]

looking good fella. love the brick work on your arch's

[Southernboy]

I like the concept / urban setting / viaducts and the scenic work / details so far - also your plans for future development.

 

One thing I'm curious about:

 

 

The point motor seems to be sandwiched between the underneath of the track and the top of the baseboard, and very difficult to initially position and fix, or later to remove or work on ... is that the case? Or do you have some clever trick or technique? (Sorry if I missed something).

 

Anyway, good luck and I'll follow your updates.

[MrSimon]

Hi Southern Boy,

The point motor is sort of sandwiched but its definitely attached to the board! Its screwed onto the bottom of the trackbed (using a peco mounting plate) with a hole in the wooden viaduct wall to fit the motor in and a big hole in the main baseboard inside the viaduct so the motor can be unscrewed and removed/replaced from underneath in case of failure. I took a clearer photo because its not clear on the pic with the class 20s!

 

Before I put the plasticard brick wall on I'd like to open out the hole a bit more and make a hole in the baseboard large enough to properly remove the motor should it need replacing, the point serves the kick-back sidings so it won't be used as much as the other points which I'm hoping will lessen the liklihood of failure...

Cutting holes in the supports wasn't an ideal solution but its a problem when making viaduct layouts - also I completely forgot about the point motors when I designed the layout! Did you have the same problems fitting point motors on Frankland?

Thanks Porkie, I'm loving Milton Grove - whens the next update?

I've not managed to get any more done tonight, I remembered I was supposed to do some work on an engine for my Dad and he gets back on Friday and I'd not even started... but hopefully there should be some progress on Gresby tomorrow, maybe even with a Thompson O1 on it

Thank you for your comments everyone!

Simon

Edited August 31, 2017 by MrSimon