Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Barry O]

Good work there mate! Looks like the loops should be finished when I see it next.

Baz

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Good work there mate! Looks like the loops should be finished when I see it next.

Baz

Thanks - I hope so. I've got 9 more points to build and lay, then the motors and all the wiring.

 

As Baz has hinted, two more meetings of the Leeds Model Railway Society Eating and Drinking Section (Australasia Branch) have now been scheduled for the early part of next year!

[nerron]

Congratulations John. Now onward to a double century!

[St Enodoc]

There was no cricket or rugby on the box last night, so I thought I'd open up my Hornby County of Monmouth (R2211), which has the old Ringfield motor and no decoder socket, to see about fitting a decoder.

 

There isn't much room at all and I came to the conclusion that I will either have to chop away some of the weight in the boiler or put the decoder in the tender.

 

Has anyone else chipped one of these and if so how did you get on?

 

Thanks.

[Mulgabill]

On 13/07/2019 at 08:06, St Enodoc said:

I laid the temporary track at the right end of Paddington loop 13 today.

 

This is how it looked before I started...

 

...and here it is with a length of SMP held down by masking tape. 210 point on the right is isolated from the rest of the layout at the moment so I had to feed it from the "wrong" end, which doesn't matter as it is clipped and padlocked in the reverse direction for the time being. To get power across to the toe I fitted one of my usual frog jumpers, which is the loop of green wire that you can see on the right.

 

This is how the power actually gets there. I've jumpered across from the Up bus, as shown here, to one of the new pairs of droppers on loop 13.

 

Here is 4206 with the long clay train in its new home, which frees up loop 2 for other trains. I ran all the main line trains to test that the sequence worked with the new tracks at both Paddington and Penzance and with all trains terminating where they should instead of running through as before. The yardmasters will be very happy with that. I only had to make one very minor change to track occupation, which was good.

 

I also brought D601 into service, having fitted a DG coupling last night. Well-known photographer W C Wolseley was out and about while the testing was going on and this is his photo of D601 crossing Nancegwithey Viaduct with the Up Postal. This picture is especially for one of the regular followers here, to whom I must apologise because I have yet to fit the discs and front-end detail that came in the box with the loco.

 

Everything is now ready for next Saturday's running session - I think...

Hi John

 

Is Mr W C Wolsley booked for a return visit next week?

 

We can but hope.

 

All the best

 

TONY

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, Mulgabill said:

Hi John

 

Is Mr W C Wolsley booked for a return visit next week?

 

We can but hope.

 

All the best

 

TONY

Possibly! Generally we're too busy at running sessions for photos or video - it's easier to make those on a separate occasion - but I'll ask him (or at least his alter ego Charles) to bring his gear along. If there are enough of us to have a spare body we'll see what we can do.

[St Enodoc]

On 14/07/2019 at 18:07, St Enodoc said:

Possibly! Generally we're too busy at running sessions for photos or video - it's easier to make those on a separate occasion - but I'll ask him (or at least his alter ego Charles) to bring his gear along. If there are enough of us to have a spare body we'll see what we can do.

Charles will bring his equipment with him. If everyone turns up that has said they will, all should be well.

[St Enodoc]

On 14/07/2019 at 18:07, St Enodoc said:

Possibly! Generally we're too busy at running sessions for photos or video - it's easier to make those on a separate occasion - but I'll ask him (or at least his alter ego Charles) to bring his gear along. If there are enough of us to have a spare body we'll see what we can do.

 

On 15/07/2019 at 19:54, St Enodoc said:

Charles will bring his equipment with him. If everyone turns up that has said they will, all should be well.

One of our number has had to drop out as his wife is poorly, so we shall have to see how things go.

[St Enodoc]

On 13/07/2019 at 17:06, St Enodoc said:

I laid the temporary track at the right end of Paddington loop 13 today.

It's just occurred to me that I could do the same at the left end of the same loop, which won't make any difference as far as the sequence is concerned but will satisfy my preference for symmetrical orderliness (or is it ordered symmetry?). It won't be done by Saturday afternoon though.

Edited July 18, 2019 by St Enodoc

[chuffinghell]

6 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

........preference for symmetrical orderliness.....

 

This is a preference of mine too, although it can be a bit of a curse sometimes especially when trying to make something look real/natural

[St Enodoc]

We had a pretty good running session today. There were a total of nine of us, so Charles spent the whole afternoon with his cameras while the rest of us played trains. One or two people took new roles, including Rod at Penzance and Steve at Porthmellyn Road signal box, while I, as usual, acted as Fat Controller. This time, for a change, I did so from the corner under the train indicator screen, which gave me a very good view of the whole layout. There were, as always, a few glitches but nothing major - the least-expected was that one of the number plates fell off 5972 (fortunately we found it) - and having the extra loops at Penzance plus half of loop 13 at Paddington certainly seemed to make life easier for the yardmasters. Once we expand to the full main line sequence I think we will need a couple more operators so that we can double up at Paddington and Penzance - one person can set the routes and regulate the exit and entry of trains, while the other can do the remarshalling.

 

Once Charles has edited his video and stills I'll add some captions then I will post the final result here for all to see.

[St Enodoc]

Charles has sent me the "rushes" and I hope to have time at the weekend to write the captions, after which we can post the video here.

 

Charles has done a great job in condensing two hours of running - warts and all - into just over 20 minutes. Though I say so myself, I think you will like it.

[St Enodoc]

I wrote some captions last night and sent them off to Charles so I hope that the video will be available before too long.

 

Today I tidied up the layout after last week's running session and laid some temporary track at the other end of Paddington Loop 13, so it can now be used as a through track. It's still only fed by the crocodile clips and fishplates so I made sure it passed the "coin test" before signing it into use.

Edited July 27, 2019 by St Enodoc
Speling

[Barry O]

As it is raining here (it is a cricket Saturday after all) i have finally caught up with how things are going on here. Lot of work being done....well done.

Baz

[St Enodoc]

39 minutes ago, Barry O said:

As it is raining here (it is a cricket Saturday after all) i have finally caught up with how things are going on here. Lot of work being done....well done.

Baz

Thanks Baz - and no Test Match to watch either...

 

Progress is a bit sporadic at the moment as we're busy with preparations for the builders to start on the new kitchen - putting stuff in boxes and so on. Fear not, it will all be finished before you arrive!

 

[St Enodoc]

Good news - I built three more points today.

 

Bad news - I'll have to file up more vees and blades before I can build any more.

[St Enodoc]

Here's Charles' video from two Saturdays ago - complete with rough shunts, noisy locos, facetious comments and all.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

[Stubby47]

At 2:55 you have a pannier on the 'Truro to Tavistock Junction Class K freight' - would a pannier really travel all that way ?

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

At 2:55 you have a pannier on the 'Truro to Tavistock Junction Class K freight' - would a pannier really travel all that way ?

Well spotted. No, it's supposed to be a Big Prairie. My Wills one (5148) won't run over the slips so I need to put some light springs on the pony trucks to give a bit of side control and stop them bouncing off. My Airfix one (4167) won't run at all as the traction tyres have perished. That's going to be replaced by a new Hornby model.

[Mulgabill]

Hi John

 

Most excellant, and well worth the wait

 

Its so good to be able to see whats happening, and follow the timetable from the captions.( I especially

liked the railbus to Porthmelly Road at about 17:30 - Georges antipodean brother parhaps?)

 

Looking forward to the next edition, already.

 

All the best

 

TONY

[Martin S-C]

Very entertaining. I notice you're well stocked up on buses for when you start building all the road overbridges.

[Brinkly]

Lovely video John, I really enjoyed watching the trains go by. The station layout is really interesting, lots of interesting shunting moves.

 

Regards,

 

Nick.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Mulgabill said:

Hi John

 

Most excellant, and well worth the wait

 

Its so good to be able to see whats happening, and follow the timetable from the captions.( I especially

liked the railbus to Porthmelly Road at about 17:30 - Georges antipodean brother parhaps?)

 

Looking forward to the next edition, already.

 

All the best

 

TONY

Thanks Tony. I could try to be clever and say that it's a short working but no, it's amazing that after nearly a week of to-ing and fro-ing with the captions that one still slipped through - I noticed it about half-an-hour after I posted.

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Very entertaining. I notice you're well stocked up on buses for when you start building all the road overbridges.

Yes, that's going to be a problem as there aren't going to be enough bridges to go round.

 

That's the end of page 100, so I'll take a new guard and get my head down for the next century.

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Brinkly said:

Lovely video John, I really enjoyed watching the trains go by. The station layout is really interesting, lots of interesting shunting moves.

 

Regards,

 

Nick.

Thanks Nick. As you know, the track plan at Porthmellyn Road is based on Par. There's a lot of shunting of clay trains at the moment as we are using the station to reverse trains that will in due course run down the branch. When that happens we'll have plenty of branch passenger trains to take their place.