Ruston Quays

[Huw Griffiths]

-- NEWSFLASH --

 

Name of next BRM project layout announced.

 

It's to be called "Mousehole Plaice" (for some reason, our shorthaired friend thinks it sounds purrfect).

 

 

OK - Flat cap - wax jacket - gone.

 

Huw.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Huw Griffiths

[paul-dereham]

Because there aren't enough pictures of cats on the Internet, look what I found in the RQ fiddle yard earlier today.

 

Splodge.jpg

 

That's what you get for leaving some foam rubber in there!

 

Interesting to see how many cats are frustrated modellers!

[avonside1563]

I was walking today, with my sister and her dog Maisy along the Basingstoke canal just outside Woking, Surrey and guess what we saw?

 

A Bantum tug and one of it's compartment boats, these were the barges that the phantoms pushed along, often in multiples.

 

IMG_20151204_153025.jpg

 

IMG_20151204_153057.jpg

 

Julie

 

PS this is getting to be a barge blog?

Most certainly not if the narrow canals are being referred to, boats of 7ft beam or less are alway narrowboats, never barges. Barges are only found on the broader canals! [Pedant Mode Off]

[Ruffnut Thorston]

There were boats of 9 ftoot beam in South Wales (Monmouthshire and Brecon Canals).

 

Wide boats of 14 foot beam, but short at 60 Feet on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. (Known as Short Boats, amongst other names)

 

Quite a few waterways on the East side of the Pennines were built to take the shorter boats already in use in the area!

 

After the L&L locks were lengthend from Wigan to Liverpool after the Leigh branch made connexion with the Bridgewater Canal, there were "Long Short Boats"...70 foot long versions!

 

The Bridgewater Canal took the "Mersey Flats...14 feet wide by 70 feet long versions. As did the Chester Canal.

 

The Grand Junction Canal main line (London to Braunston) was built to take wide barges, 14 feet wide by 70 feet long...

 

The amalgamated Grand Union Canal (London to Birmingham) was to be modified to take thses barges, but work stopped due to the Second World War, after the locks had been widened, but NOT all the bridges or all of the channel!

 

In general, the new fangled canals were built to take the boats already in use on the river navigations they joined to.....

 

So, London area mainly Wide and Long.

 

Mersey and Weaver area also Wide and Long.

 

Eastern Side of the Pennines Wide and "Short".

 

Cross-country Canals (Brindley's "Grand Cross") Staffs & Worcs, Coventry Canal, Oxford Canal, and Trent & Mersey for example...Narrow and Long. The new Narrow Boats. Said to have originated due to the size of the bore of Harecastle Tunnel...)

 

The T&M ws in fact buit "Wide" at the Trent end to take Trent Barges.

 

The Mersey end was also built wide for Mersey Flats, but "somehow" the tunnels were built a bit too narrow!

 

"Recently" the River Dane Aqueduct at Middlewich was re-built to about 8 feet wide, isolating the "Big Lock" (14 ft Beam) at Middlewich!

Edited December 18, 2015 by Sarahagain

[BG John]

Who's going to first to build the canal version of Ruston Quays, with working boats moving around on two levels instead of trains?

[Phil Parker]

Those who saw the layout at Warley will have seen the part-finished station canopy. It's now all done and looking, well, tatty.

 

 

Full details in a future issue of BRM.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Phil Parker

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Another good use of "common" model kits there Phil...

 

The Airfix/ Dapol Canopy is just chock full of useful parts....and it can even be made up following the instructions!

 

Have a good Christmas!

[Fastdax]

 

This is the proposed trackplan, from a Templot print overlaid with a few basic shapes (red for warehouse and retaining walls / arches and blue for the canal basin):

 

Offerston Quay.png

 

 

I have started a blog for my new layout here.

 

Duncan

Edited December 27, 2015 by Fastdax

[Steam_Julie]

I've been looking at the entry of 22 nd August & in particular Paul's plan.This rather neatly solved the scenic hidden question, by making the whole baseboard scenic.

Julie

Edited January 2, 2016 by Steam_Julie

[Steam_Julie]

This plan, the complete baseboard is scenic.
 

Sorry about that. the thread spiralled out of control before I posted the plan:

RQplan.jpg

This is Paul Lunn's version of my rather angular original. Needless to say, I've fiddled with it even more now building is well advanced! Nothing major, just a few tweaks to building sizes.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Steam_Julie

[Steam_Julie]

By having a track extension on the LHS of the Borough Lane platforms, it has the effect of increasing the run length, see simulation below.



The basis of the stimulation is that the hidden track is just over 1 coach long!

Julie

Edited January 2, 2016 by Steam_Julie

[5050]

A minor correction to your post Phil. The loco pictured is not a Barclay, the ARC model pictured is based on an 18" RSH side tank with certain proportions modified to produce a shorter body length to fit on the electrotren chassis.

So why has it been described in the article in the current issue as a 'Ruston and Hornsby'!  RSH means Robert Stephenson Hawthorn.  AFAIK, R&H never made a steam loco.

[Phil Parker]

So why has it been described in the article in the current issue as a 'Ruston and Hornsby'!  RSH means Robert Stephenson Hawthorn.  AFAIK, R&H never made a steam loco.

Sorry, this is a typo, as explained over on the magazine thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/105316-brm-january-2016-free-dvd/?p=2125734

[5050]

Sorry, this is a typo, as explained over on the magazine thread: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/105316-brm-january-2016-free-dvd/?p=2125734

That's OK then, I don't visit the magazine section very often so missed it.  I only saw the issue at the clubroom last night, not been there since well before Christmas so I suppose I'm a bit behind the times!

[NickBrad]

So why has it been described in the article in the current issue as a 'Ruston and Hornsby'!  RSH means Robert Stephenson Hawthorn.  AFAIK, R&H never made a steam loco.

 

I was always under the impression that they did, even though they got into the heavy oil game early on, a few years before Rudolph Diesel in fact. I am sure I'd seen pictures of a R&H steam loco before, but cannot find anything now so you may be right.

[Steam_Julie]

Just a few days thoughts about using a cassette or Traverser on the RHS of the layout to simulate the operation of a crossing loop. It is called this because the graphs showing the progress of the trains cross. This is how timetables were worked out pre computers.

Spot the deliberate mistake?

I envisage that the Traverser would  be removed during transport and attached to the layout using over center catches and a 3 pin plug electrically.

 

Julie

Edited February 17, 2016 by Steam_Julie

[Steam_Julie]

I've been examining the operation of Clovelly Road in Inglenook mode. It can be accessed using the link below.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1849/entry-17577-clovelly-road-lets-do-the-inglenook-shuffle/

 

Julie.

[Brian Harrap]

indeed Joseph!

As they are in Milan.

[Suffolk Dave]

Apologies if I missed this elsewhere but I'm interested to know what paint was used to spray the newly laid track. Was it a airbrushed or sprayed straight from a can? 

[rue_d_etropal]

Brian, nice photo of Milan .Is that metre gauge, as it does nook narrower than standard. Would be a nice challenge to build that layout, with points and crossings.

[Phil Parker]

Apologies if I missed this elsewhere but I'm interested to know what paint was used to spray the newly laid track. Was it a airbrushed or sprayed straight from a can? 

 

Humbrol track colour enamel - 173. Thinned and airbrushed over a coat of Halfords red oxide primer before ballasting.

 

I only spray as it's quicker than hand painting but either works.

 

For Ally Pally, I weathered the yard trackwork, will post something on this later in the week.

[Suffolk Dave]

Thanks Phil. An interesting approach that looks very effective. I saw RQ at Ally Pally at the weekend and it looks good in the flesh. I'd be interested to read about your weathering approach too. 

[Phil Parker]

OK, a quick rundown of the track weathering in Ruston Quays yard.

 

In the past I've dirtied down the track on layouts using dilute Humbrol track colour. It's sloshed liberally everywhere until all the ground is the same colour.

 

 

The RQ track is ballasted with fine Greenscene ballast. Muddy bits around the edges and between the tracks were initially attacked with brown emulsions but for the show I coated them with MIG mud paint – a pricey textured brown paint that looks a bit like chocolate mouse. This all looked very neat – exactly the effect I was looking to avoid.

 

In most yards, everything ends up the same colour – track colour with added mucky grey usually. There will be localised weathering but to start with the whole lot needs to be the colour of filth.

 

Thinned enamel is smelly and it was too cold and wet to take the layout outside for spray painting, so I started with Lifecolor track weathering paints. Thinned with the correct stuff (not water, although this probably works OK for this application) with a drop of washing up liquid to make the paint flow, it added a bit of colour but not enough. I reckoned that I'd need to use the stuff neat and that was going to be expensive. Also, I'd left it to a couple of days before Alexandra Palace so there wasn't time to order more paint.

 

Months ago, I'd worked over the tarmac with ground up artists pastels and weathering powders. Where these had spread on the track, I liked the effect so I decided to give these a go.

 

The main powder used was Humbrol Dark Brown but as most of my powder weathering is carried out over a plastic pot to catch the mess, there was a ready supply of mucky colour with greys and rust colours.

 

 

Working this over the yard with a stiff brush, the effect is fantastic. The powder sticks to the ballast and mud very nicely. Varying the mix avoids a uniform shade. Best of all, the powder adds texture, especially on sleepers which get that filthy look of the real thing.

 

I've not sealed the powder in and very little fell off during transport to the show. I'm not fussed as dirt knows no boundaries so any that lands on buildings just adds to the overall effect.

 

(Thanks to Tim Easter for the yard photo, taken using a camera on a long pole )

[Steam_Julie]

I was walking today, with my sister and her dog Maisy along the Basingstoke canal just outside Woking, Surrey and guess what we saw?

A Bantum tug and one of it's compartment boats, these were the barges that the phantoms pushed along, often in multiples.

IMG_20151204_153025.jpg

IMG_20151204_153057.jpg

Julie

PS this is getting to be a barge blog?

 

Avonside 1536 said, Most certainly not if the narrow canals are being referred to, boats of 7ft beam or less are alway narrowboats, never barges. Barges are only found on the broader canals! [Pedant Mode Off]

 

Bantum Tugs and their attendant compartment barges, had a beam width of 7' and operated on broad canals, such as the Aire and Calder in South Yorkshire. Typical cargoes included coal from pit to power station or domestic coal depot, such as the South Yorkshire Coop at Leeds.

 

Julie

Edited April 6, 2016 by Steam_Julie

[Steam_Julie]

Another layout design of the theme of a canalside yard and a passenger shuttle, but this time based on Cromford Goods, as recently examined in Model Rail.



The model is designed to be N gauge and the total layout size is 880mm by 450mm. The scenic section is designed to fit into a 22 liter Really Useful plastic box for transport, thus it's size of 360mm by 200mm.

The design was carried out using Anyrail, using settrack components. If built using the Settrack points and flexiable track, the track will look more realistic as the track spacing can be made correct and slight curves can be introduced, making the track flow.

It is necessary to introduce a slight down gradient on the DMU shuttle track to give sufficent run to hide it at the RH end of the run. I envisiage that the clearence is the minium to allow the unit to pass under the fiddleyard track and that in the event of derailment the unit would be pulled clear of the overtrack, before it being re-railed. I think that the track level should be slightly below the level of the canal, to allow the trains to be seen from normal viewing position. At the prototype location the track is about 16' below the canal level, behind a stone wall.

Julie

Edited April 13, 2016 by Steam_Julie