Stoke Courtenay

[checkrail]

Passing prairies, taken just before I cleared the fiddleyard again.

 

 

 

John C.

[checkrail]

A couple more of the little trains on the prairies.

 

 

John C.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

5 minutes ago, checkrail said:

A couple more of the little trains on the prairies.

 

Careful!  The last episode of that series ends with the little houses being blown up!

 

[MrWolf]

18 minutes ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

 

Careful!  The last episode of that series ends with the little houses being blown up!

 

 

Is that why these Prairies are fitted with safety valves?

[checkrail]

Work continues on automating the FY points.  Yesterday I put in a new/old point (actually the one of the fiddle yard crossover points that survived being lifted) and a new solenoid to feed an extra branch FY siding.  This holds three 4-6-0s nicely and will cut out quite a bit of 'crane shunting'.  This is the last installation right at the back under the eaves where I can hardly reach.  Hence the sloppy soldering.

 

 

Now for the up storage loops and the new link to the branch FY via a Peco assymetric point.  I've lifted three point today, of which two have survived.  Don't know what possessed me to glue the FY track down.  One of the survivors could only be lifted by cutting round its dense foam base and prising up the whole caboodle and now looks rather like a piece of old Tri-ang track.

 

 

John C.

[checkrail]

Getting there slowly with the new pointwork and fiddle yard automation, having successfully installed the 3 way point and completed the new link from up main to branch fiddle yard. 

 

 

 

 

Now just 3 points to do, at the other end of the down storage loops. Though I have 3 point motors left unfortunately I have only 2 decoders!  One failed on me immediately after installation (the second of the 18 I bought to do so).  It had worked when I programmed its address and worked again on first test after linking it to the accessory bus.  Next time I tried to change the point it was as dead as a dodo.  (But they're made by DCC Concepts so I shouldn't expect total reliability.) So now awaiting replacement from Rails.  

 

It'll be nice to get back to running trains, building coaches etc.

 

John C.

 

 

[checkrail]

Nearly there with the fiddle yard point electrification.  Just waiting for a replacement decoder from RoS to replace one of the two that failed.  I've fitted the point motor (left hand-most one in photo) and have all the wiring soldered (track power droppers from power bus, point motor power from accessory bus and polarity change wires from stock rails and crossing vee}, so connecting these to the decoder and point should only be a ten minute job.  (Famous last words?)  In the meantime this point can be operated by moving the witch blades with a finger and is in effect a dead frog turnout.

 

Here are some of the neat little surface-mounted point motor before installation.  Look like little robotic salamanders don't they?

 

So today I've been running trains again (pics to follow) and took the opportunity to clean and service all my locomotives.  

 

John C.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Aren't fiddle yards a ruddy nuisance? I've had to devote half of my layout space to somewhere just to park trains...

[Tallpaul69]

35 minutes ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

Aren't fiddle yards a ruddy nuisance? I've had to devote half of my layout space to somewhere just to park trains...

Agreed, but what are the alternatives?

-hand crane trains on/off after each run?

-only run the number of trains that we can hold in loops/sidings in the scenic side of the layout?

- or what??

While on the current extent of Bradenham (see my Lower Thames Yard thread), I only have 5 loops I do have the advantage of the 4 stub sidings that will eventually lead to a second larger fiddle yard. So I can use these either to store spare locos or to store short trains such as 14xx+autocoach, single car DMUs, Engine+van, etc, or a combination of the two.

Realising the effects of a lack of storage is why I am planning to add a small MPD to the layout, which as it is an imaginary station but at a real place, I can just apply Rule 1.

It will get rid of some of the spare locos!

 

John, I like the point motors, they might be the answer for the above referred to MPD where I don't want to drill more holes through the baseboard to mount them below.

Cheers All,

Paul

[checkrail]

3 hours ago, Tallpaul69 said:

Agreed, but what are the alternatives?

-hand crane trains on/off after each run?

-only run the number of trains that we can hold in loops/sidings in the scenic side of the layout?

- or what??

Win the pools (whatever they were) and buy a much bigger house - or just a much bigger railway room.  (But not really - very happy with what I've got and where I am.)

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, checkrail said:

Win the pools (whatever they were) and buy a much bigger house - or just a much bigger railway room.  (But not really - very happy with what I've got and where I am.)

You'd still end up with a big fiddle yard - just bigger...

[checkrail]

Panniers on parade today, starting with 8709 on a local goods.  The very grubby ex-GER van is the recent Oxford Rail model, now fitted with Gibson wheels, shortened Bachmann t/l coupings and a few strips of self-adhesive lead tape between the solebars.  I was going to put the extra weight inside the van but couldn't figure out how to separate the body from the underframe without the risk of breaking something.

 

 

And here's 3603 coming the other way with a train of seemingly empty cattle wagons.

 

 

Here's a cropped version of the last shot.   The close-up seems to lend 3603 a rather businesslike air.

 

John C.

[gwrrob]

John. On the OR van put a scalpel between the black floor and the white body and gently prise them apart. They do/should come away and clip back together easily.

[checkrail]

Panniers passing in the platforms.

 

A view from the footbridge. 

 

John C.

[checkrail]

Final pair of pannier pics from the other day.

 

 

John C.

[gwrrob]

Morning John, how did you get the Gibson wheels to fit your OR van as mine just fall out. Did you have to fit wheel bearings perhaps.

[checkrail]

10 hours ago, gwrrob said:

Morning John, how did you get the Gibson wheels to fit your OR van as mine just fall out. Did you have to fit wheel bearings perhaps.

Ha!  I have (I think) three OR wagons and each time I come to replace the wheels I find I've forgotten how frustratingly unstraightforward it is!  Step 1: insert Gibson wheels, then find that the axles are shorter than the OR ones and - as you say - they just fall out,  Step 2: Thinks! Put the Gibson wheels on the OR axles - brilliant! Then find that the OR axles are slimmer and the new wheels just slide sloppily along the axles,  Step 3:  Curse and swear mightily and wonder why these things can't be standardised,  Step 4:  Hold the Gibson wheels in gauge on the OR axles with a back-to-back gauge and superglue or epoxy them in place (taking care not to glue the b-b gauge to the wheels - been there ,,,, )  Voila!  A pain. but better than those shiny silver steamroller wheels,  And don't start me on those OR couplings which give about half a wagon-length between vehicles. 

[AlfaZagato]

Do you have issues with NEM pockets on the OR wagons?  I've found the ones on my Toad are too short for swallowtails.

[gwrrob]

On 20/03/2022 at 21:42, checkrail said:

 Step 2: Thinks! Put the Gibson wheels on the OR axles - brilliant! 

 

This was the way I went and it works.

[TrevorP1]

18 hours ago, AlfaZagato said:

Do you have issues with NEM pockets on the OR wagons?  I've found the ones on my Toad are too short for swallowtails.

Hopefully John won’t mind me jumping in with my solution as I still use tension locks on my goods wagons.

 

 

After first cutting back the Oxford NEM(ish) pocket, I snipped the tails off a Bachmann short tension lock. This was epoxied into the shortened slot and pinned with a piece of 0.5mm wire for ‘belt & braces’. This works a treat. On the other end I’ve removed the pocket altogether and fitted an Accurascale Instanter coupling.

 

I’ve also done something similar on my KMRC NBL Warship. Hopefully a Rapido wagon will be arriving soon and, from photos in the press, I think a similar dodge will be needed here.

 

 

[AlfaZagato]

Thank you.   Looks like I'll need to dedicate a Kadee to the job.    Did you guys leave NEM along with the EU?

[steve fay]

Can I ask what backscene you have used ? 
Many Thanks 

[checkrail]

On 31/03/2022 at 16:15, AlfaZagato said:

Do you have issues with NEM pockets on the OR wagons?  I've found the ones on my Toad are too short for swallowtails.

Just found out that RMweb is up & running again, so busy catching up,  Thanks to Andy Y for his heroic work - sounds like a right nightmare.

 

Re OR couplings my treatment is similar to Trevor's.  I shorten NEM pockets and tails on all makes of stock (gluing the coupling back into the pocket) so that the coupling loop is in line with the buffer faces, Gives closer coupling but still goes round the 30" curves on the Peco points at the entrance to the fiddleyard.  I have also been known to fuse the tails into the pocket with an old soldering iron,

 

 

[checkrail]

15 hours ago, steve fay said:

Can I ask what backscene you have used ? 

Hi Steve.  Having just dug out the tube they came in back in 2016 I can now tell you that they are from Gaugemaster, GM702. "Countryside Backscene (Large)."  I liked their slightly faded distant look.  I cut the sky elements off and about two thirds of the bottom of the landscape parts to give that sense of distance and wide open spaces (as the Dixie Chicks might say) and glued them to a plywood backscene pre-painted with Dulux "Mineral mist".

[checkrail]

Some goods yard scenes.  

 

Like others on this forum I've recently acquired one of the very nice new Rapido ex-SECR open wagons, a 7 plank version to replace a Cambrian kit that had suffered damage.  It's seen here alongside the recent OR ex-GER van.

 

And below it's seen next to a 5 plank SR open.  This one was from a Cambrian kit, and as I have two of them I felt able to resist the Rapido one.  The new Rapido version has had its couplings shortened and been fitted with Gibson wheels.  Unlike the OR van they were a straight swap.  It's had a bit of weathering too.

 

Out of around 45 'big four' wagons (exc. PO vehicles and Toads) I now have 8 SR ones, and given that it had the smallest wagon fleet of the four I think I'll leave it there.  But it is nice to see manufacturers producing pre-grouping vehicles.  It used to be too easy to create a supposedly 1930s scene in which nothing looked much more than 5 or 10 years old.

 

John C.