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Midland Railway in EM gauge


Mrkirtley800
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Thank you all for your comments.  You are quite right Al, everywhere was kept much tidier in days gone by.  You only have to look at old photographs in the various railway albums to see that.

I think in the case of the Kirkby Malham turn table, probably less is more.  Perhaps a bit of weathering and a little dropped oil and coal might be the answer.

Derek

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I have been busy cleaning up the '0' gauge 2F ready for painting today, so no work on Kirkby Malham'

However here is a pic of the first T/T I made for the final version of Grassington.  The photo taken in 1983 on Agfa.  That single looks familiar!!

When I first built the layout it was a 75% accurate copy of Grassington, a station I knew very well.  Two house moves, and the layout did not resemble the original at all.  Colours are a bit intense, the pic was scanned from a slide, and the original taken with flash.

Derek

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Edited by Mrkirtley800
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That does bring back the memories!!!! When I see that loco it reminds me that I am sure I used to badger you to double head it with the Compound....which then entailed you having to get some wire out to hook round the coupling hooks!!!!

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That does bring back the memories!!!! When I see that loco it reminds me that I am sure I used to badger you to double head it with the Compound....which then entailed you having to get some wire out to hook round the coupling hooks!!!!

Ok, not the Compound but...

 

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Derek, you were asking earlier about the colour of the turntable. I suspect the metalwork was painted the usual brown. When I added digital colour to the black & white photo some years ago I would have got information from the 'Midland Style' livery book, not that I can find it when I need it now.  Anyway, the period shown below should be right up your street....

 

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Based on a monochrome photo by J A Wright (R J Essery Collection). COPYRIGHT OF COLOR IMAGE : L GODDARD 

Edited by coachmann
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Luverly jubberly, Larry.  What a beautiful scene.  I have looked at a few pics of Midland T/T and it looks as if I have got it wrong.  They did not seem to have the heavy girders that I have put on mine.  However mine works OK so will leave it as it is.

Derek

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Thanks for that, Paul.  I had forgotten we double headed when you took the photos.

No.48 by the way, was one of the engines involved in the accident on Christmas Eve morning in 1910 when two light engines were ambling along between Moorcock and Shotlock Hill tunnels when an express caught up with them.

This is why I date my layouts 1908 - ish. 

Derek  

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That is No48!!

Derek

It is a lovely loco so I hope you are not planning to replicate the accident!

The Edwardian is a lovely period. There have been some interesting discussions of the period around the turn of the century on Chris's Traeth Mawr Thread.

 

Don

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All these lovely red engines. below is a picture of my 2mm scale 800 class 2-4-0 under construction and posed on Highbury. The brilliant John Greenwood built her in exchange for my doing some buildings for Wadebridge. She will double head the Manchester Diner along with a 3P 4-4-0 on my Bath Queensquare layout - link in signature below.

 

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Jerry

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Morning Derek,

About time I said a big thank you for the continuing master class on railway modelling. You've doubtless noticed my ratings! I am hoping to start the first module of a layout I've been dreaming of for years, based fairly loosely on the old G&SWR shed and yard at Hurlford, 67B where dad was a driver, and I lived for a time in the adjoining railway accommodation in the early fifties. They installed a 60ft turntable there to accommodate larger locos - there was a lot of testing done on the Nith Valley line, including the Crosti boilered 9F for instance, and a well respected repair/servicing facility. My only problem is that nobody has produced a proprietary model turntable like the one we had there, and so your blow by blow account has been most timely as it looks like a scratch build will be needed. I've almost completed drawings for the first module which will include the coaling stage, turntable, bothy and ash pits! My start date is dictated by my illness, so I won't begin a thread until I get fully under way, having amused myself with a few wagon kits meantime.

I don't think I'll be able to approach anything like the skill you've exhibited, but I'm sure the inspiration you have produced is felt by all your thread 'followers'. I hope you don't mind me cribbing ideas from your thread.

Kind regards,

Jock.

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Crib away, Jock.  I'm glad you found some interest in what I have done over the last year or so.  One thing about the turn table.  If I were do build another, I would do the central bearing first with, in my case, the mecanno gubbings below.  The make a gadget shown earlier to fit in the central bearing and

1. scribe the wall of the T/T well

2. scribe and fit the rail

In the one I built recently, I had to do a bit of bogging to get it to work.  Accuracy is so vital in a T/T.

Jerry, that looks a little beauty, and in 2mm as well  ---  wow!!

Thanks for putting it on the thread.

Derek 

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  • 4 weeks later...

It has been some time since I put anything on this thread.  I have not been exactly idle although not too much progress has been made on Kirkby Malham.

I wanted to paint my sons/grandsons '0' gauge 2F, and made provision one morning to do some spraying.  I intended to do the job in the garage, which is attached to the house and accessed through the conservatory.

Olga, however, had other ideas and forbad any paint spraying in the garage, on the grounds that the smell would permeate the whole house. Must admit, she had a point, especially as I am a bit asthmatic.  So, the painting had to wait for a still, fine day and be done outside.

Fortunately, such a day dawned and the job was done.  Every day since then has been windy.  Is it my imagination, or have we had an unusually windy summer?

I use car paint spray cans, and at the moment the loco (in bits) is in a box for a couple of weeks to allow the paint to harden.

One of Olga's best friends, a keen gardener, wanted a potting bench.  So, I have been making one for her.  Not an onerous job but did create quite a lot of dust, which, as always, covered the layout.

That is now finished, so I can get back to work on the important things in life - doing a bit of modelling.

During my period of absence, we had a grand family reunion (there are fifteen of us) and to our intense surprise, Olga and I were given an ipad as a joint birthday present.

We are still learning to drive it, but here are a couple of pics of a rather dishevelled Midland 'flatiron' on Kirkby Malham turn table, taken with the ipad.  You may see the start of scenic work, with cardboard formers in place.

Derek

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The '0' gauge 2F paint job is well under weigh and now awaiting transfers, which need to be obtained from the Historical Model Railway Society.

Back to Kirkby Malham.  The lack of scenery was beginning to get to me, so having decided to have a blitz on the station boards, I started on the road bridge.

The first couple of pics show how it was in it's Canal Road days.

In the chaos that followed when I hacked the boards about, the bridge was cut in half.  This is seen in pic 3

So, the first job in the restoration was to add side walls to extend the bridgework to the base board edge, and this is shown in pic 4  The extended walls were in card and then covered in plastikard.  The walls on the top flanking the road will be of the dry stone variety so typical of the area.

The stone work on the extension needed to be the same style as the bridge sides.  It was originally done by scribing plaster, and pic 5 is when I was covering the plastikard with a thin wash of soft plaster.  The stuff I use is the 'base' plaster which I think was called 'redding', although I may be wrong, but the plaster must be soft.    Anyway, it needs to be a mixture of the consistency of thick cream and painted on.

When dry, usually overnight, soak in solvent.  This keys the plaster to the plastic.  Pic 6

When the solvent is dry, I give it an hour, then repeat on the other side of the bridge.  Then it will be ready to scribe in the stonework..

It is, admittedly, a slow process, but it gives me good results.  Although having seen Allan Downes work, I'm not so sure.

If all the foregoing is elementary, I apologise but someone somewhere just may find it of interest, and anyway, I am a simple soul.

Derek

 

Once again the pics have gone walkabout and are in the wrong order.  Is it me or do I encourage gremlins?

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Edited by Mrkirtley800
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Now we come to scribing the stonework into the plaster.  The plaster must be dry with no traces of solvent.

I use a scriber which belonged to my father who probably bought it in the 1930's, but any sharp pointed object like the point of a dart for example.  With a pair of dividers, very lightly mark the horizontal courses of the stones, then with the scriber, mark more heavily the verticals and go over the horizontal lines more heavily.

After that comes the painting.  I am trying to reproduce stonework in the Yorkshire Dales which generally can vary from dark grey to white, so the first coat of paint or my models is grey diluted with white spirit.  Leave that to dry thoroughly then dry-brush with white, and when that is dry run very dilute black down the vertical courses.  It is easier to do than to describe and it does allow for endless experimentation.

Also, by painting in this way, it toughens up the plaster.  My large water tower used to sit on the front of Canal Road.  One day while working on the back siding my elbow knocked it off the layout on to the concrete floor four feet below,  The thing was completely undamaged, and may be seen on some of the pics of Kirkby Malham.

Pic 1 is of the bridge plus extensions fixed in place.  The profiles for the scenics are cut from a box that contained our new vacuum cleaner early in the year.  Olga was not happy about me saving old boxes, she likes to keep everything tidy, a continuing source of irritation to both of us.

Then I stick thin card strips to the profiles.  The card I use for this comes  my stock of old cereal packets.  Yes, Olga doesn't like them either. Anyway this is in pic 2.

Finally comes the 'top coat' which in my case is plaster bandage.  Some years ago at the local surgery, the Practise Nurse was sorting out and disposing of old and redundant stock.  She was throwing away several boxes of plaster bandage which I managed to scrounge off her.  They were kept in a cupboard for years until last weekend, when I put them to use on Kirkby Malham.  When wet, instead of being smooth, they were gritty and obviously long past their sell-by date.

I used them but put a layer of PVA on the formers before the plaster bandage. Now waiting for everything to dry out.  Pics 3 and 4 show what I mean.  That old 'flatiron' is still on the turn table - can't have much to do.

Lets hope the piccies are in the correct order now.

Derek

No those pics are not in the right order.  Must try harder!!

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Edited by Mrkirtley800
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Looking very good Derek. I have seen quite a bit of Dales stonework over the past few days. It changes from the Limestone up at Grassington to the warmer sandstone towards Bolton Abbey. Yours are obviously Limestone. I know little of York limestone the stuff which is the wenlock edge was very hard and so the quoins etc. tender to be done in brick. The stuff up here must cut easier. Kirkby Malham  is just over the moors from Grassinton. The chap a couple of caravans along was walking on Malham moor last week and met Julia Bradbury had his photo taken with her quite made his day. He did suggest to me that Garsdale Scarr was worth a vist Julia or no. All this is by way of saying what you have done so far captures the feel of those hills to me. Good modelling.

Don

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Thanks very much for showing us your techniques Derek, I do like the way you scribe the stonework, and the cardboard weave on the hillside, and as Don says, you definitely capture the colours and feel of the Yorkshire Dales.

 

Just a note regarding photos, if, when you attach them to a post, you position your cursor at the place in the text where you want the photo to appear, and then click on the "Add to Post" link at the right-hand side of the photo, it will appear where you want it to in the post, and you can choose which order they appear in.

 

If you just leave them, it will arrange multiple photos in alpha-numeric order by filename, which is invariably not what you want.

 

example here

 

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Thanks Don and Al for your nice comments.

Don, I think you meant Gordale Scar, and yes, it is worth going to see.  It has, however, been subjected to official vandalism.  Some authority or other has laid a path to the Scar and installed steps by the side of the waterfall.  It was far better and more exiting to climb up the rocks through the scar to the top. I once took a friend up there and after climbing to the top, we went round to the side and slid down the scree slope which ended at a low stone wall.  My friend vaulted the wall and ended up knee deep in icy cold Gordale Beck which flows alongside the wall.  It was one of the few times I heard him use bad language.

In all my visits to that part of the country I never met Julia Bradbury.  What a shame.

Al thanks for the tip about putting pics on RMW.  I will try it later on.

Derek

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Grass!!  we need grass.  I have a large collection of flocs and died sawdust, tee leaves and what not, which I tend to mix together.  So, a mixture of dilute-ish PVA plus some burnt umber powder paint was applied to the plaster bandage with a brush.  Scatter material as generously applied and patted down gently.  When everything was dry the excess scatter was brushed off then the remainder hovered up,

The first tree pics show the result.  This is the first coat, the plan being to build a dry stone wall along or near  the top of the grass bank, then apply more scatter and bushes.

 

 

Coming nearer the station, I have stopped short with the embankment.  I had the idea that I could have a milk dock by removing the buffer stop and continuing the line for a couple of feet.  The platform, which is not yet fixed down would need a bit chopping out.  But then I am getting pretty good at chopping things about these days.  I have had plenty of practise this last year.  Anyway, when Paul (Worsdell forever) called, I discussed the idea with. He thought it would work and give some extra shunting moves.  The two pics show the area from each side. 

Derek

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Edited by Mrkirtley800
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Busy now with the milk dock, but before cutting the platform I need some more track. So have been rivetting sleepers this afternoon.  I won't bore you with my method of making track again, I did describe it earlier in the thread.

However, as a break from track building, I started to install the coal stage.  It is a model of the one that used to be at Redditch, and I used a drawing/article that appeared in the 'Modeller' many years ago.

It was made for  the loco yard on the '00' section on Canal Road.  When I removed it quite a lot of damage was done to it, so the first job was one of repair.

It required some of my newly grown grass to be cut out.  Pity I never think about these things beforehand.

Before actually fixing in place permanently, I will need to test clearances, so tomorrow I have set some time to run all my outside framed locos into the yard to make sure none foul the coaling stage.

Here are some not very good piccies of the coal stage as it looked on Canal Road.  Some are a bit fuzzy, pretty typical of my photographs.

Derek

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