Churminster & Stowe Magna, Southern Railway

[Tony Teague]

What about rostis & rissoles then?

 

(I feel thi may deteriorate!).

[Mick Bonwick]

I think that your use of the future tense is inappropriate.

[Tony Teague]

29 minutes ago, Denbridge said:

It might be worth looking at the high level range. He does a kit for motorising a wagon which might fit. If not, he's invariably very helpful in solving any motor/drive fitment.

 

Thanks Denbridge, I will certainly look if what I have already ordered proves problematic.

Not being much of a loco builder I am hoping to make this as simple as possible!

Tony

[mullie]

1 hour ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Thanks Denbridge, I will certainly look if what I have already ordered proves problematic.

Not being much of a loco builder I am hoping to make this as simple as possible!

Tony

I hope you get what you desiree!

 

Sorry couldn't resist, I will go now. 

 

Martyn 

[Tony Teague]

28 minutes ago, mullie said:

I hope you get what you desiree!

 

Sorry couldn't resist, I will go now. 

 

Martyn 

 

Oh no, just how many varieties of spud are there?

[mullie]

I hope you get it 'elektra' fied and it doesn't go off like a 'rocket.'

 

I really will go now!

 

Great modelling by the way. 

 

Martyn

 

[Sandhole]

15 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

A very pleasant surprise today was the arrival of the kit of parts for DS75, as promised by Arun Sharma at the foot of p.41!

 

 

The quality of the 3D print looks excellent and is very detailed - I had to turn down the exposure here because the print is brilliant white and none of the detail would have shown at all.

 

I'm now awaiting delivery of a suitable Spud-type motor so that construction can commence and make an early contribution to my 2021 goals.

 

Sincere thanks to Arun for his design work.

 

Tony

This looks a lovely little beast.
I saw it as a little boy. Just this weird looking thing .
I run spuds in a Pirate Models LT 1938 stock train, an EFE 38 and 62 train and a Nonminstre Muir Hill loco as well as a Branchlines Planet loco.
OK, contolability is a bit iffy. 
I have only gone through the power bogies on the Pirate LT unit. The rest have their origional powerdrives.
If anybody here has a Pirate LT unit, you will know how heavy the beast is.
I'm looking forward to seeing this made up.
Thanks for a great thread Tony.
This layout always brightens my day.
I'll wish you a Happy and Peaceful New Year.

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, Sandhole said:

This looks a lovely little beast.
I saw it as a little boy. Just this weird looking thing .
I run spuds in a Pirate Models LT 1938 stock train, an EFE 38 and 62 train and a Nonminstre Muir Hill loco as well as a Branchlines Planet loco.
OK, contolability is a bit iffy. 
I have only gone through the power bogies on the Pirate LT unit. The rest have their origional powerdrives.
If anybody here has a Pirate LT unit, you will know how heavy the beast is.
I'm looking forward to seeing this made up.
Thanks for a great thread Tony.
This layout always brightens my day.
I'll wish you a Happy and Peaceful New Year.

 

Thanks Sandhole, very kind!

A Happy New Year to you and to all followers of this thread.

Tony

[Tony Teague]

Well speaking personally, that's the 2nd year in a row that I'll be happy to see the back of!

 

Hoping for a vaccination soon, and a return to some kind of normality.

 

A quick update - I spent the last 2 days working on the Operating Schedule / sequence for the layout; this is one of those times when modelling a real location would actually be a lot easier, because I have to make up the timetable from scratch!

 

I haven't made it any easier by choosing a 10 year timespan plus a fluid, central Southern location through which anything can pass from the Night Ferry to the Atlantic Coast Express; in addition, trains in my top fiddle yard have to travel down to the bottom one, and then come back again to complete the cycle - two moves each.

 

Nevertheless..... I had a draft written a couple of years back so the task was to update it with known changes to stock etc, improve it, and essentially, finish it!

 

So, after two days, I have something that looks OK and hangs together; It's long, approaching 200 moves, but then if you haven't got a sense of humour, you shouldn't have storage for 85 trains!

 

Now all I have to do is run through and see if it works..... I bet I get my testing finished before Crossrail finish theirs.

 

Tony

[thegreenhowards]

Tony,

 

As you know my location is also fictitious and I also have a wide time frame ‘48-‘62 in my case. I have solved the schedule problem by basing mine on Hatfield in Summer 1958. I have then added a few bells and whistles for trains which didn’t run in 1958 -  like the ECML Presflo cement train. One of my branches is based on the Dunstable branch and the other made up (as the other two Hatfield branches closed in the early ‘5os and I don’t have a TT.

 

You added an extra degree of complexity with your rangIng geography but you may be able to get some inspiration by studying a TT and trying to base yours on that as much as possible. It does make me run a lot more local trains than I did before.

 

If you already knew all that then please ignore but I thought it might be useful.

 

Andy

[Tony Teague]

2 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Tony,

 

As you know my location is also fictitious and I also have a wide time frame ‘48-‘62 in my case. I have solved the schedule problem by basing mine on Hatfield in Summer 1958. I have then added a few bells and whistles for trains which didn’t run in 1958 -  like the ECML Presflo cement train. One of my branches is based on the Dunstable branch and the other made up (as the other two Hatfield branches closed in the early ‘5os and I don’t have a TT.

 

You added an extra degree of complexity with your rangIng geography but you may be able to get some inspiration by studying a TT and trying to base yours on that as much as possible. It does make me run a lot more local trains than I did before.

 

If you already knew all that then please ignore but I thought it might be useful.

 

Andy

 

Andy

 

Yes that is a useful thought and you may be right about the balance between 'specials / expresses' vs. local trains - especially since on some SR lines there were EMU services running at clockface intervals.

Aside from the complexity of getting the sequence right, I don't actually think that it matters how long it is, or how long it takes to work through; so long as one knows where one is up to, resuming one a subsequent day is easy and it should add more variety to running days.

As it is, there is always the easy option of just ignoring the two branches that make up my figure of eight overlay, and working through the trains in the main fiddle yard one or two at a time - which can be stopped or started at any point and is what I do when I just want to "run a few trains".

 

Tony

[thegreenhowards]

10 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Andy

 

Yes that is a useful thought and you may be right about the balance between 'specials / expresses' vs. local trains - especially since on some SR lines there were EMU services running at clockface intervals.

Aside from the complexity of getting the sequence right, I don't actually think that it matters how long it is, or how long it takes to work through; so long as one knows where one is up to, resuming one a subsequent day is easy and it should add more variety to running days.

As it is, there is always the easy option of just ignoring the two branches that make up my figure of eight overlay, and working through the trains in the main fiddle yard one or two at a time - which can be stopped or started at any point and is what I do when I just want to "run a few trains".

 

Tony

Your 200 move sequence will take days, if not weeks, to run through. That’s fine as a solo project or to share on here if that takes your fancy but I think you need something shorter for when you have visitors (if that’s ever allowed again!). I have a rough short sequence based on running everything already set up on my fiddle yard rather than the ‘made up’ trains. But my fiddle yard is only 15 roads (some of which contain 2 trains)  and a few lay backs. So this amounts to around 25 moves which takes 2-3 hours. I think that’s the practical max for a friends visit.

 

Andy

 

 

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Your 200 move sequence will take days, if not weeks, to run through. That’s fine as a solo project or to share on here if that takes your fancy but I think you need something shorter for when you have visitors (if that’s ever allowed again!). I have a rough short sequence based on running everything already set up on my fiddle yard rather than the ‘made up’ trains. But my fiddle yard is only 15 roads (some of which contain 2 trains)  and a few lay backs. So this amounts to around 25 moves which takes 2-3 hours. I think that’s the practical max for a friends visit.

 

Andy

 

 

When the Mid-Cornwall Lines are complete there will be approximately 300 trains of all types in the sequence. In a typical two-hour running session we get thought about 50 and (in more normal times) we hold a session every alternate month, so the full sequence will take about a year to complete.

 

When I show the layout to visitors, or when I just feel like playing testing, I can run any of the trains at any time anywhere on the layout. To make sure that this doesn't create complete chaos, at the end of each running session I record the train number we have reached and where everything is, so that I can put it all back in place before the next proper session.

[Tony Teague]

16 minutes ago, thegreenhowards said:

Your 200 move sequence will take days, if not weeks, to run through. That’s fine as a solo project or to share on here if that takes your fancy but I think you need something shorter for when you have visitors (if that’s ever allowed again!). I have a rough short sequence based on running everything already set up on my fiddle yard rather than the ‘made up’ trains. But my fiddle yard is only 15 roads (some of which contain 2 trains)  and a few lay backs. So this amounts to around 25 moves which takes 2-3 hours. I think that’s the practical max for a friends visit.

 

Andy

 

 

 

8 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

When the Mid-Cornwall Lines are complete there will be approximately 300 trains of all types in the sequence. In a typical two-hour running session we get thought about 50 and (in more normal times) we hold a session every alternate month, so the full sequence will take about a year to complete.

 

When I show the layout to visitors, or when I just feel like playing testing, I can run any of the trains at any time anywhere on the layout. To make sure that this doesn't create complete chaos, at the end of each running session I record the train number we have reached and where everything is, so that I can put it all back in place before the next proper session.

 

Quite agree, and currently its the main yard & outer circuit only that I use.

Once the sequence is settled I think Andy is right that I'll need an "extract" for visitors that includes the figure of eight, otherwise they would be missing a good 2/3rds of the layout.

Looking at what Andy has been doing by running through his sequence on RMWeb, one train at a time, I think this is a great idea that I have always intended to get to, but it is now clear that it would take the best part of a year to get through - even without other digressions!

 

Tony

[Mick Bonwick]

Digressions? Perish the thought!

[Tony Teague]

Just 10 days ago I published what I thiught were my "goals for 2021", and yet here we are on 3rd January and I have spent the last four days on things that didn't even appear on the list!

 

Hopeless!

 

First I spent two days on the operating schedule, but since then I have been working on scenery - but not on the 'scenic refresh' of Stowe Magna; instead I have started to attack the one remaining area of the layout where the baseboards still showed, the track was unballasted, and it was not at all clear even what the shape of the land would be -  well not to me anyway!

 

 

This is a very old shot of the area concerned which lies between Churminster Quarry and the airfield - the latter having has seen some development since this shot was taken - see p. 22 above!

 

I had held off working on what will be a deep cutting down towards the tunnel, because the narrow gauge line above and behind it was not yet working and access was required, but this was completed pre-Christmas and so I felt the need to work on what is a big eyesore - a gap in the model railway universe!

 

So I have been working on two fronts - 1st to ballast the branch line that serves the airfield - mainly worked by War Office oil and munitions trains on an autonomous shuttle :

 

 

and then secondly to develop the land form that will shape the scenery as the main tracks lead down from the quarryto the tunnel beneath the airfield:

 

 

I am using a variety of traditional techniques such as card formers, covered with thinner card strips and will be followed by plaster bandage, but also some use of polystyrene blocks and plaster cast 'rocks' to help with the very steep cutting sides:

 

 

There are two places where I am having to make the scenery removable as there is a lot buried under the 'hill' - this is the shuttle and related electronics that work the narrow gauge line, which you can see above,making its way up from the quarry towards the airfield station.

 

 

There is a second aperture to the left of the first, behind which there is a major electrical junction which will serve the second, small Control Panel that is to be installed on a pull-out shelf below:

 

 

This panel is currently being printed in the same way as was the main Control Panel, and it will allow autonomous local control of either of the two lines that are otherwise automatically operated by shuttle modueles - the NG line and the standard gauge RAF branch. As can be seen, mst of the wiring is in place, including LEDs to show the positions of both points and trains; these indicator lights are duplicated on the main panel, but the only controls available there are to turn the shuttle mechanisms on or off.

 

I intend to progress this work a bit further before reverting to other things.

 

Tony

Edited November 23, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Mick Bonwick]

Impressive progress. This must have been Plan B. The one you kept quiet about.

[Tony Teague]

On 03/01/2021 at 22:09, Mick Bonwick said:

Impressive progress. This must have been Plan B. The one you kept quiet about.

 

The sliding shelf for the side controller was installed about 6 months ago, and the wiring was done when Giles and I got the NG shuttle working back in December, so what I have been able to do in the last couple of days is to start building the landform around it.

I suspect that I will have to construct the two removable sections before I can finish all of it to final surface level.

Even when this is complete there remans about a 6 ft length back from what you are seeing towards the main Control Desk to be dealt with, and the top above the quarry, which is 3 ft wide is completely bare from the airfield back down to the Quarry & the Abbey Barns (where the cyclist tends to be seen!). See below:

 

 

So much to do, so little time!

 

Tony

 

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Tony Teague]

A USA friend sent me this:

 

 

Nine Important Facts to Remember as We Grow Older:

 

#9 Death is the number 1 killer in the world.

 

#8 Life is sexually transmitted.

 

#7 Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

 

#6 Men have two motivations: hunger and hanky-panky, and they can't tell them apart. If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich.

 

#5 Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

 

#4 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospital, dying of nothing.

 

#3 All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

 

#2 In the 60's, people took LSD to make the world weird. Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.

 

#1 Life is like a jar of jalapeno peppers. What you do today may be a burning issue tomorrow.

[Tony Teague]

Four days on, and progress has been slow but steady; other distractions have reduced my time in the railway room, whilst I also seem to have to wait quite a while for things to dry - especially casting plaster!

 

Nevertheless there has been progress - first I made up frames for the two removable sections, using foam board:

 

 

Note the rockface to the right is now nearly complete, and one can now start to see the full length of the cutting:

 

 

The sides are extremely steep, but there is no escaping this because of what is hidden above the lower baseboard and underneath the airfield; the descending line at the front turns 180 degrees and enters (& exits!) the lower fiddle yard which sits behind the rock face to the left.

 

Meanwhile the higher level line that come in across the viaduct to the right, turns through 90 degrees and rises behind the backscene to enter the top fiddle yard:

 

 

(please excuse poor image); the second line crossing the viaduct is the exit from that same top fiddle yard which has descended through a helix and also crosses under the airfield.

 

In between these lines, the narrow gauge track climbs from the quarry behind the rockface, turns 180 degrees and emerges behind the standard gauge lines in the airfield 'station', whilst the Faller Road system descends into the hill to a hidden turning circle, somehow fitted in between all of these!

 

 

Removable section now covered with strips ready for plaster bandage and below, fitted back into what will be its normal posistion:

 

 

In between times I have been tidying up the airfield which will get some further attention once the current job is complete, so in the next few days I will be finishing off the 2nd removable section and then bandaging the whole thing - if I have enough plaster bandage in stock!

 

Tony

Edited November 23, 2022 by Tony Teague

[thegreenhowards]

4 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

Four days on, and progress has been slow but steady; other distractions have reduced my time in the railway room, whilst I also seem to have to wait quite a while for things to dry - especially casting plaster!

 

Nevertheless there has been progress - first I made up frames for the two removable sections, using foam board:

 

 

Note the rockface to the right is now nearly complete, and one can now start to see the full length of the cutting:

 

 

The sides are extremely steep, but there is no escaping this because of what is hidden above the lower baseboard and underneath the airfield; the descending line at the front turns 180 degrees and enters (& exits!) the lower fiddle yard which sits behind the rock face to the left.

 

Meanwhile the higher level line that come in across the viaduct to the right, turns through 90 degrees and rises behind the backscene to enter the top fiddle yard:

 

 

(please excuse poor image); the second line crossing the viaduct is the exit from that same top fiddle yard which has descended through a helix and also crosses under the airfield.

 

In between these lines, the narrow gauge track climbs from the quarry behind the rockface, turns 180 degrees and emerges behind the standard gauge lines in the airfield 'station', whilst the Faller Road system descends into the hill to a hidden turning circle, somehow fitted in between all of these!

 

 

Removable section now covered with strips ready for plaster bandage and below, fitted back into what will be its normal posistion:

 

 

In between times I have been tidying up the airfield which will get some further attention once the current job is complete, so in the next few days I will be finishing off the 2nd removable section and then bandaging the whole thing - if I have enough plaster bandage in stock!

 

Tony

Tony,

 

That looks over steep to me. Have you considered a retaining wall ( perhaps just for the lower section) which might look more credible?

 

Andy

[Michael Edge]

At that height it couldn't be anything but solid rock but at the back of Brunswick shed on my layout the rock wall is 60ft high (solid sandstone). Olive Mount cutting in the same rock on the Liverpoool & Manchester is even higher. These are both nearly vertical, yours looks as if it might be stepped.

[Tony Teague]

10 hours ago, thegreenhowards said:

Tony,

 

That looks over steep to me. Have you considered a retaining wall ( perhaps just for the lower section) which might look more credible?

 

Andy

 

2 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

At that height it couldn't be anything but solid rock but at the back of Brunswick shed on my layout the rock wall is 60ft high (solid sandstone). Olive Mount cutting in the same rock on the Liverpoool & Manchester is even higher. These are both nearly vertical, yours looks as if it might be stepped.

 

Andy, Mike

 

Thanks - yes I feel it needs to be a sheer rockface, with perhaps the odd bit of brickwork or concrete inserted to give it support. I haven't easured it but I will - I think 60' is about right. As this is Kent / Sussex we would probably be talking about chalk or limestone, so I am thinking Shakespeare Cliff etc.

 

Tony

[thegreenhowards]

5 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

 

Andy, Mike

 

Thanks - yes I feel it needs to be a sheer rockface, with perhaps the odd bit of brickwork or concrete inserted to give it support. I haven't easured it but I will - I think 60' is about right. As this is Kent / Sussex we would probably be talking about chalk or limestone, so I am thinking Shakespeare Cliff etc.

 

Tony

Tony,

 

That makes sense, I didn’t realise quite how tall it was! I still think it would need some extra support. These days it would be covered in chicken wire or gabbion baskets but I don’t know what they did in the 1940s.

 

Andy

[westerhamstation]

Hi Tony, the  Hastings line to London ran through the North Downs with some very steep sided chalk cuttings.

 

All the Best Adrian.