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Midland Railway in EM gauge


Mrkirtley800
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Hi Derek, great to see you've actually started the thread at last, looks really nice and although I've seen some pics before these above are more superb examples.

 

Thanks for sharing and really looking forward to more updates.

 

All the best.

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To show the formation from the station platform, the next pic shows the curved nature of the layout.

The 'hole in the road is where the goods shed was situated, on the long loop, it is now on a spur. 

Pic 2 :This is board 3 as it appeared on 17 June.

When operating Canal Road, I had a centralised control panel.  I would sit on a high kitchen stool balanced on my daughter's stepping stool.  it is amazing how time flies when your having fun (operating a model railway) and after a couple of hours when I tried to get off my stool, I had stiffened up which made it very painful.  So with this layout I decided to change points by slide switches situated opposite the points.  Also the section switches by the sections they control.  It means that when operating I have to keep moving although not very far.

Pic 3 shows a slender shelf made out of ply ready to take the switches.  Signals will be also controlled by levers , the only wiring required under the boards is that used for traction and electro magnets for operating the couplings.  I have used Alex Jackson couplings since the early 1960's.

Final pic shows the switches installed.  Also, I am finishing off with mahogany varnish.  Canal Road was finished in matt black emulsion.  The varnish looks better.

Derek

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Very nice! I also have had some rumination on the route from Kettlewell to Wensleydale and originally thought about std gauge NER/LMS joint with a fictional back story allowing for it to wheeze on till the 50's with the bulk of the traffic taking place in the war years as a relief to the WR. I also had it in mind that Bedale wold have been expanded to allow for loco changes and the route would have split at somewhere between Constable Burton and Harmby. Anyway that plan went by the wayside long ago due to a nomadic life and no space! :) However it was resurrected when I considered NG and Hunslets labouring up t'dale to collect minerals and farming traffic.. Anyway looking forward to seeing your progress.

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Still on board 3, the long siding along the back was to go, so another point had to be made, this time I used copper clad sleepers and thinner cork underlay as I wanted these sidings to be slightly lower than the main lines,

Pic one is where I chopped a piece of track away to take the new point.

The second pic shows the new point installed with a new siding along the back of the station.  The hole in the ground is to take the goods shed, and with a little more track to extend this line, the board is done  The new wiring and point operating arrangements took a fair bit of time but I will not go into that aspect.

Derek 

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Board 3 was wired and working, so work on board 2 commenced  -- the main station board -- required a new crossover.  This was pretty conventional, just two right hand points with 1:7 crossing angle.

I lay my trackwork and ballast it all at the same time.  I have done this since my first decent layout, Grassington, built in 1965.  The new crossover was installed and ballasted.  I pin the track/points in place with small drawing pins so that nothing can move when I add weights.  After a couple of hours I gently brush off the surplus ballast for re-use later.

The pics show the original station minus the old island platform,  preparing to install the new points.  The final two pics are the two boards (2&3) together and at this stage working.  By now we are at the end of July 2014.

The last shot was taken quite a long time after the work was completed and it is really out of sequence, but it does show the effect I am trying to achieve.

Next job was provision of board 1, carrying the buffer stops and a depiction of the village, and board 4 which carries the main lines and yard headshunt and loco shed.

Both these boards were made using old baseboards built at the same time as the original layout in the 1980's.  I had intentions of doing some exhibition work at the time. Soon dropped that idea.

Derek

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That was some layout Derek and a long-lived one at that. Still, it is coming along and I'll bet you are enjoying doing a spot of layout building again after all those years. Sorry to read the knee op went bad on you.....It is an all-to familiar story......Mary is waiting for one. I hope Olga is okay. Blimey, we all had young kiddies when we used to meet up.....It was a different world! 

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The world is certainly a different place, Larry.  I don't think I could set off after work now, and travel to North Wales with a loco for you to paint. 

You are dead right, I have really enjoyed this layout refurb.  Canal Road was essentially complete, just a few details to add like point rodding - which I had started - so it was getting a bit boring.  I had all the stock and locos required so my scratch building operations had gone into hibernation.  Now it is like having a new lease of life.

Olga, also a folk dancer, has started with a bit of hip problems.  Wish we could go back a few years and live it all again.

Derek

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Hello Chris,

          Thank you for your nice comments.  When I started the thread I wasn't sure if many folks would bother with it, as so far all I have done is chop out sections of track and instal points etc.

The ballast is a mixture of Woodland Scenics light and pale brown.  I am sure, when I used it many years ago they were called limestone and ironstone.  Anyway I mixed them in equal proportions and used them on Canal Road when it was first built.  I have just run out so got some replacements.  The new ballast is certainly of a different colour and stands out a bit, so I may have to try dribbling paint on it.  Then again it just might change colour over time.

Derek

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Now that the two main station boards were up and running, as I said previously, I needed to build two more boards, one for the end of the line containing buffer stops and a bit of the village (that is board 1) and the other which will have the yard headshunt and the main lines (board 4).  These two boards were built up very quickly and put in place with rough outline of the lines of rail drawn in.

The first two pics show the new board in place attached to board 5 of which more later.  At the time, I was trying various combinations for a loco shed and turntable.  I wanted a small 50' turntable, and although it would fit in a few places, it was a case of where would the Midland have put it, and where would it have the best visual effect.

By mid September, the two main lines plus the carriage siding (the old up refuge siding) were in place on board 4 (pic 3) and in October 2014 the yard was complete, however I had managed to introduce a nasty little kink right on a board joint which derailed even compensated locomotives.  So, it had to go (pic 4).

The track was carried over on to board 5.  This board was, not to put too fine a point, distinctly ragged.  It had been made back in the 1970,s and had been part of two layouts, and still carried trackwork from Canal Road.  Being a born and bred Yorkshireman, I couldn't part with it, so used it on Kirkby Malham.  It was a mistake really, being pretty heavy and cumbersome, I should have built something much lighter.  Anyway, the final pic shows track being installed on board 5.  I will have to do something about the chipped edges on this board.  You may notice that pics 4 and 5 are a bit out of sequence.

Derek

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Edited by Mrkirtley800
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Now it was time to think about the loco facilities, and decide where the turn table should go.  The base board framing on board 5 got in the way so the table had to go on board 4.  A 50' turn table would just fit between the board frames, so out came my dad's old keyhole saw (it is older than me) and a hole cut in the board.  This is in pic 1 

The actual turn table was built up on a piece of MDF, the basic well was a piece of thick card, covered in brick plastikard.  It fits the hole in the base board from below and is screwed in place.  When finished it will be glued.  Pic 2 shows the early stages of the table, and pic 3 the thing in place.

While working on the turntable, I installed a turnout in place of the 3-way point  on board 5.  This board is so cumbersome, I tried to put on the basic scenery while it was accessible.  In pic 4 I was working on the ground cover.  The point controls the private siding, and pic 5 is shows the first "coat" of grass (that dreaded word).

Finally, in pic 6 we have the basis of the loco yard and the private siding.  This siding will eventually be fenced off from the railway owned lines.

The engine shed is scratch built and is loosely based on the one at Leicester West Bridge.  The building right at the bottom right corner is the engine crew's bothy, a loose copy of the one at Dent.  I built this some years ago for Canal Road, but found there wasn't room for it, so it has sat on a shelf until now.  The 'industrial' buildings are just put there for a bit of effect  and will be replaced by a timber yard.  The row of houses along the back are stood on a piece of 2" by 1".  It will be a cobbled street in due course.

To get to this stage took just over seven months, and the last photo was taken on New Years Eve.  By this time I was getting a bit bog eyed with it all and decided to take a week off.  Little did I know that my wife and I would go down with the winter sickness (man) bug and the winter (man) flu.  Certainly stopped me in my tracks.

Derek


Now it was time to think about the loco facilities, and decide where the turn table should go.  The base board framing on board 5 got in the way so the table had to go on board 4.  A 50' turn table would just fit between the board frames, so out came my dad's old keyhole saw (it is older than me) and a hole cut in the board.  This is in pic 1 

The actual turn table was built up on a piece of MDF, the basic well was a piece of thick card, covered in brick plastikard.  It fits the hole in the base board from below and is screwed in place.  When finished it will be glued.  Pic 2 shows the early stages of the table, and pic 3 the thing in place.

While working on the turntable, I installed a turnout in place of the 3-way point  on board 5.  This board is so cumbersome, I tried to put on the basic scenery while it was accessible.  In pic 4 I was working on the ground cover.  The point is controls the private siding, and pic 5 is shows the first "coat" of grass (that dreaded word).

Finally, in pic 6 we have the basis of the loco yard and the private siding.  This siding will eventually be fenced off from the railway owned lines.

The engine shed is scratch built and is loosely based on the one at Leicester West Bridge.  The building right at the bottom right corner is the engine crew's bothy, a loose copy of the one at Dent.  I built this some years ago for Canal Road, but found there wasn't room for it, so it has sat on a shelf until now.  The 'industrial' buildings are just put there for a bit of effect  and will be replaced by a timber yard.  The row of houses along the back are stood on a piece of 2" by 1".  It will be a cobbled street in due course.

To get to this stage took just over seven months, and the last photo was taken on New Years Eve.  By this time I was getting a bit bog eyed with it all and decided to take a week off.  Little did I know that my wife and I would go down with the winter sickness (man) bug and the winter (man) flu.  Certainly stopped me in my tracks.

Derek

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Edited by Mrkirtley800
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Having, at last, got over the dreaded lurgie we could get down to some modelling again

Moving on, the private siding is looking something like pic 1 although some of those buildings will not stay there.  It is all propped up on a bit of hardboard  -  I'm good at that (propping things up I mean).

Board 6 is almost unaltered from Canal Road and board 7, taking the line round the end on a 4' radius curve is in pic 2.   This board originally carried two '00'  lines as well as my EM ones, and in the alterations was cut in half (lengthways).  It shows what a mess the layout is in and the remedial work I will need to do, with pic 3 looking the other way.  The point in (2) is part of a crossover into the yard.  It is situated on a curve and in the early days on Canal Road gave a lot of trouble until I found I had built it way out of gauge  ----  doh!!

Those who may have looked in on Canal Road may recognise the bridge in pic 4 although it is now cut in half.

It is at this stage I went back to the loco facilities and started laying the line to the turn table (pic 5) then to the shed (pic6).  The turn table is still in it's early stages, so I cannot do any more with the approach track.

Finally the shed in use in pic 7.  The loco is standing over the ash pit, which was dug out of the board but a long way from being finished.

Derek

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