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London Calling.. WR Mainline - Acton Green


SparxD428
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Opportunity tonight to do a bit of layout work thanks to 5-a-side being cancelled. Unfortunately I decided to finish the grey baseboard painting. Which means a lot of stuff is wet and I can't do much more on the boards. Still its another step forward. I could continue working under the baseboards but can't face any more wiring up tonight.

Cheers,

Stu.

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Managed to do a bit of modelling on Friday night and start on the middle overbridge on the layout to the West end of the station.

Due a workmates stag do this weekend Saturday was a non starter and today has been very much the recovery day as the older i get the longer the recovery is needed.

Took a couple of pics though of 11 on a test train on the up relief as well as of the start on the brickwork on the bridge, which is the more rigid Wills stuff as opposed to the flexible stuff i am using on the retaining walls at the back of the layout.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

 

50011 on the up relief test

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The overbridge brickwork has begun

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Right then. Sleeves rolled up and ready to go. Continued overbridge building last night as well as some more rail sides painting. Am continuing today and hope to make real progress although work is potentially lining me up for a trip oop north for a few days this evening. So no time like the present.

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Many hours modelling today spent doing the centre overbridge. To create the bridge effect i have used a sandwich method so there is a centre layer of card which is sandwiched either side by more card or wills rigid brick plastics cut to size. I have used some small plastic strip to create the ironwork effect on the girders and will detail further with some rivets when I have decided how. Nothing is pinned down yet in terms of the bridge or the retaining walls as i need to be able to remove them to paint & weather them before they are finally planted..

 

Took a couple of pics whilst a lot of the glue is drying.

 

View from the station end:-

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And from the other side - a lot of work still needed.

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Cheers,

Stu.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Cheers guys, much appreciated. Managed to do a bit more today on the bridge with painting and weathering the main side.

Also put some backscene up in approximate locations as I think I will split it between with a block of flats and put some low relief shops in front on the street level.

Beginning to slowly take shape in the scenic area.

 

A couple of pics below.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

 

 

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Today I continued with some work on the layout and was planning to continue tracklaying. In the end I decided to have a serious think about remodelling the plan for the fiddle yard, and as such it will now be 9 roads rather than a crammed in 12. This will limit each main line to 1 storage and 1 through road but with a couple of crossovers makes it a little better. Also the inside line (Down Main) has an extra road with a headshunt which I will use as the "loading" road. This trade off means I can have an extra 2-2.5feet of scenic area and less tight angles for points to feed the yard. The inside lines (Mains) can take Loco + 6, whilst I think the reliefs will take Loco +7, possibly 8 so I guess in the future I can have a couple of long freights or Padd-Oxford commuter services. In the headshunt main I could hold a 5 car possibly 6 car HST at a push, if of course I ever owned one !!

 

In terms of scenics I have continued with retaining walls work. Will hope to continue more this week and get a few pics on later in the week.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been busy where possible drilling holes, laying track , soldering etc. I now have the Down Main and Up Main fiddle yard roads down and most of the droppers through and holes drilled in readiness for point motors in the future. My diagram of how the bus is connected and the labelling of the terminal blocks was getting a little scruffy so I have redrawn it much neater tonight, showing locations of droppers and point motors, and how they are configured in the radial.

Currently I still only have the DC controller but this is very useful for testing a single engine on the system for electrical continuity.

 

I have scanned the documents and hopefully they may reproduce OK enough here so anyone can see how the layout is/will be wired and offer any advice as I am a complete DCC novice, so hope I haven't overlooked anything.

 

Track diagram shows what is actually laid and annotated notes are for droppers that are in place (i.e. DM1 = Down Main 1)

The Bus Map Part 2 Shows what is actually currently connected to the Bus and confirmed as juiced.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

 

 

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Work has continued at a steady pace on all aspects. More wiring, some rail painting and also some scenic. The mini embankment by the fuel point which will be behind the end of the station is taking shape and an evening has been spent weathering walls, covering everything in polystyrene and then adding hanging basket liner and some lichen to give a bit of effect. Quite happy with the results, just need to tidy up the top of the walls. On the large retainers I am using thin card to look like concrete stone trimming, but on these may just paint dark brown as it seems to give a reasonable look. A good excuse to pose 50031 arriving on the fueller I think.

 

Looking forward to Christchurch exhibition on Saturday & Sunday and being part of Ian's Tidworth crew as well. Busy times !

 

Cheers,

Stu.

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Edited by SparxD428
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The rear retaining wall behind what will be the station and shed/yard is coming along fine. Finished most of the work tonight. It will need a little touching up and trimming of the basket liner, and addition and maybe trimming of the base lichen I have put on but overall I am happy with the effect, together with the depth and perspective of the backscene. Some more loco's have come out of storage for testing, namely the 08 and the 33. Both need a bit of a wheelclean and pickup service mind. Grabbed a couple of longer range shots to show the depth of the backscene. Even managed to paint some more rail.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

 

 

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Been very busy this weekend starting to build station platforms, as well as a single road stabling shed, and laying out the final trackwork positions for the relief lines and storage roads. Unfortunately my phone has developed a swine of an error stopping me taking pictures which will take some fixing. I will try and get some pics up this week taken from the work phone or another camera source if i can't get mine working in the foreseeable future.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

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I have been busy again, slowly slowly. However I have been thinking the layout needs a name. As its imaginary location now is somewhere shoe-horned west of Acton Main Line (to enable freight traffic across the north London lines) and probably East of Southall, I have been thinking. East Drayton ? or Brent Vale ? I can't really shoehorn Acton in to the name as North/East/South/West are all realistically taken as proper locations.

Answers on a postcard please.. I am thinking East Drayton at the minute.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

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Hi Stu

 

How about

 

(West) Acton Broadway

(West) Acton Lane

(Old) Acton Common

Horn Lane

 

Words in brackets are optional! Just some early suggestions, I used to work in that area so I need to look at a map to remember other names that would link locally.

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Don't know how i have missed this so far, clearly come on in a short space of time. Good luck as it continues to evolve.

 

With regard to a name, (almost) all of the towns close to the railway already have a station, but you could pick a suburb.... Norwood Green is just over the railway at Southall. How about Old Norwood Broadway or Old Norwood Green/Common.

 

Good luck, Neal

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Some more work tonight but less scenic more wiring and drilling, the DCC bus is slowly getting around the layout.

Did take a couple of pics of where I am with the basic platforms and shed frame as I said last week. Why on earth did I even think of trying to make curved platforms, both sides and on curves of tight(ish) radius - ok not train set tight but still a leap of faith for any commuters.

Luckily, Platform 1 on the down main will be realistically barely used like most in exisitence between Paddington and Reading at the time, so most traffic will be on the relief lines platforms 3 & 4.

 

A couple of piccies.

Cheers,

Stu.

 

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Another busy weekend as the layout progresses. Mainly with wiring this week. The 2 main lines are now fully "DCC bussed" along with their associated fiddle yard loop and siding. I haven't updated the bus map yet as there will be some tweaks to the route as the relief lines and fiddle loops are placed. So i thought i would have a DC running test session, single loco at a time to also check again the lifting hatch alignments. A couple of minor hiccups but nothing too major, and mainly only the very old DC loco's make the odd jump, the newer and those that i will eventually convert to DCC seem to be OK. 

I also decided that i needed to unbox all the decent stock and get it on the layout to get an idea of how it will look in the future and i have to say i am quite happy so far.

 

And so i thought i'd post a few more pics as below

 

50 004 St.Vincent on the down main with a service from Paddington

 

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I had to shorten the fuel point buffer stops so i could fit 3 x TTA wagons on the fuel point, although only because i own 3. It wouldn't have been any bother to only have fitted 2 !

 

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The old bay platform will be mainly used for parcels traffic along with some shunt manoeuvres and the odd DMU. So it was out with the BG, GUV and a couple of Brutes.

 

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And finally a view through from the lifting hatch scenic break, where the station disappears under an imaginary road and roof. this allows me to model only the half station format but still can have a loco & 5 visible on the down main, Loco & 6 on the up relief if needed.

Some tidying up is needed and the conundrum of cutting the final difficult platform pieces will need to be solved. Logic says i should have started this end and built the overbridge after, but hey thats no fun is it !!

 

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Cheers,

Stu.

 

 

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What is the radius of the curves with platforms on them please?

 

Hi Sub39h,

 

The inner curve (down main) is a standard 3rd radius (505mm) and the up main is 4th radius (572mm) although they are not quite 90 degrees as i squeezed the track a little away.

The relief lines are approximately 700mm and 760mm respectively, so the largest is about 30 inches in old money. These are more of a complete quarter curve.

So it's a little bit tight in places.

 

Cheers,

Stu.

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