Churminster & Stowe Magna, Southern Railway

[Michael Edge]

Your C14 is getting close to the top of the pile now.

[Tony Teague]

1 hour ago, Michael Edge said:

Your C14 is getting close to the top of the pile now.

 

Excellent!

(I intend mailing you direct about a couple of other matters).

Thanks

Tony

[Tony Teague]

 

On 23/12/2021 at 20:32, thegreenhowards said:

Seems like reasonable progress for a ‘low mojo’ year! Are the parts for the S11 available for me to work on?

 

On 23/12/2021 at 21:09, Tony Teague said:

There is a box out there marked "S11" which is promising - I'll check the contents and report back, so that if there is anything missing I can source it.

Will get back to you and then work out how I can get things to you.

 

Hi Andy

Have retrieved the S11 box and will mail you privately about how to get it's contents across to you!

Thanks for being prepared to take this on.

Tony

 

[Tony Teague]

A Happy New Year to all followers of this thread!

 

Having set out my 2022 priorities in my last post I have made a little progress - but needless to say this has no bearing on the things I highlighted as either important or urgent!

 

Back in May of last year, @Nick C who follows this thread offered, and I accepted, a 3-D printed model of No.3458 'Ironside', a loco that was missing from the fleet at that time; the model needed finishing and some fettling and I finally started on this during the last week.

 

 

I have rubbed down some areas where the cast & or paintwork were a bit rough, filled others, added the tool boxes (or are they sandboxes?) to the running plates, added the buffer heads and re-touched paintwork in the areas that I had adjusted. Decals, nameplates and further painting plus weathering are now needed to finish the job.

 

I can also report that Security Services recently detained a man on the road from Churminster towards RAF Charmy Bottom as it appeared that he had been attempting to take photographs of the airfield; they were able to recover this image:

 

 

The intruder has been taken to an unknwn secure location for what was described as "interrogation".

 

Readers of this thread are fortunately covered by the Official Secrets Act and so we can reveal (in strictest confidence) a further image that shows the latest progress in erecting the perimeter fence to the airfield as well as the scrubby area in front of it.

 

 

A second image shows a short train arriving with tank wagons containing aircraft fuel into the now requisitioned Charmy Bottom Station that forms part of the military complex.

 

 

Both images reveal that the sky currently ends just to the rear of the aircraft hangars and that the required 3 strands of razor wire have yet to be installed at the top of the new fencing!

 

Further progress will follow, but who knows when!

 

Tony

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Tony Teague

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Tony Teague said:

A Happy New Year to all followers of this thread!

 

Having set out my 2022 priorities in my last post I have made a little progress - but needless to say this has no bearing on the things I highlighted as either important or urgent!

 

Back in May of last year, @Nick C who follows this thread offered, and I accepted, a 3-D printed model of No.3458 'Ironside', a loco that was missing from the fleet at that time; the model needed finishing and some fettling and I finally started on this during the last week.

 

 

I have rubbed down some areas where the cast & or paintwork were a bit rough, filled others, added the tool boxes (or are they sandboxes?) to the running plates, added the buffer heads and re-touched paintwork in the areas that I had adjusted. Decals, nameplates and further painting plus weathering are now needed to finish the job.

 

I can also report that Security Services recently detained a man on the road from Churminster towards RAF Charmy Bottom as it appeared that he had been attempting to take photographs of the airfield; they were able to recover this image:

 

 

The intruder has been taken to an unknwn secure location for what was described as "interrogation".

 

Readers of this thread are fortunately covered by the Official Secrets Act and so we can reveal (in strictest confidence) a further image that shows the latest progress in erecting the perimeter fence to the airfield as well as the scrubby area in front of it.

 

 

A second image shows a short train arriving with tank wagons containing aircraft fuel into the now requisitioned Charmy Bottom Station that forms part of the military complex.

 

 

Both images reveal that the sky currently ends just to the rear of the aircraft hangars and that the required 3 strands of razor wire have yet to be installed at the top of the new fencing!

 

Further progress will follow, but who knows when!

 

Tony

 

Like the water tower!

[Tony Teague]

On 11/01/2022 at 23:27, St Enodoc said:

Like the water tower!

 

Thanks St Enodoc!

 

 

I believe that the RAF found it necessary to install the water tower because the airfield is on top of the hill and would otherwise suffer low water pressure.......(it's an old Arfix kit).

 

[NB the Land Rover has been removed since this image was first posted, on advice from the late Mr Bonwick who (correctly) informed me that it was 'out of era'.]

 

Tony

Edited April 3, 2022 by Tony Teague

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

(it's an old Arfix kit)

I know, hence my comment!

[Arun Sharma]

The B2X tender for the C3 [in its 7mm form] has been almost finished. The 4mm kit should end up looking something like this:

If I ever produce it as a kit, I will do something about the coal rails - these look a little two-dimensional.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Arun Sharma

[Tony Teague]

3 hours ago, Arun Sharma said:

The B2X tender for the C3 [in its 7mm form] has been almost finished. The 4mm kit should end up looking something like this:

If I ever produce it as a kit, I will do something about the coal rails - these look a little two-dimensional.

 

Really looks the part Arun!

Tony

[Tony Teague]

I was joined for a further couple of days this week, by my good friend Giles Walburn, who has been working with me for seven, yes 7, years on the control systems and control panel for the layout - which is iteslef a lesson in why to "keep things simple"!

 

At the end of his last visit we were just a "gnat's" from finally completing the panel, but I had foolishly run out of LED's - we were just 6 short!

 

I was better prepared this time and so these were rapidly installed, after which I had decided that we would work through every switch, function and LED in order to give the panel & the layout a thorough test and to fix one or two faults that I had spotted in the intervening period.

 

 

I am happy to report that the session was completely successful, however, one fault took more time to trace that all of the others put together!

 

As can be seen above, one lever in the frame is currently unpainted - which is because it has been replaced - and whilst I like the quasi-authentic look of these DCC Concepts Cobalt levers, and their functionality, I'm afraid that I have found them less relaible than I would like. In this case the lever was creating a dead short, but only in one position.

 

This is the third one of these to fail over roughly 6 years, despite fairly light usage. I admit that the wiring of the layout is complex, but it is very well documented, and so faults can usually be traced fairly quickly, however, I suppose that each of us suspected that the fault would relate to a loose wire or a dry soldered joint, or something we might have inadvertantly damaged; neither of us expected the fault to be inside the switch itself.

 

 

The switches come with a tag board to solder connections to, or as an optional extra, one can also acquire a plug-in connector which should make connecting wires simpler. Of the two switches that had failed previously, one fault related to the switch itself and the other to the connector; the underside of the latter are factory soldered and in that instance the solder - which had been fine on installation - seemed to have spread under the pressure of the connector being screwed down to the base board, so that eventually one terminal was incorrectly connected to the next!

 

 

As you may imagine this is pretty difficult to trace! After 2 hours however, we found that in this cas the problem lay inside the switch itself and so when I have the time I will strip it down and see whether it can be repaired and held as a spare.

 

Despite the problems, we had a very successful couple of days since everything is now working as it should, so there is now no excuse for me not to play trains!

 

Tony

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Tony Teague]

In completing last week's testing & fault finding session, almost every train on the layout had tio be moved, and not all of them were returned to their 'correct' starting position within the (slowly) developing operating schedule.

 

It will take several hours to re-shuffle all of the stock back to those correct positions and so I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a few pictures as the moves took place.

 

 

First up was this short milk train which collects supplies locally and deliveries them to the nearby creamery, headed by Hornby M7 no.678, and seen here heading north past Churminster South box.

 

 

Next, E4 no.2505 awaits the off at Churminster Station headed in the opposite direction with a short local passenger train made up of Maunsell non-corridor stock.

 

 

Given the road, she moves off.

 

 

Meanwhile, further up the line at Stowe Magna station, a loaded coal train with wagons for local merchants & the gas works, & headed by a Schools class locomotive, waits at platform 6 to be called into the goods yard whilst being passed in the down direction by a pick-up goods.

 

 

Seen from the opposite end of the station, the pick-up goods is passes onto the main line at Stowe Magna Junction, headed for Churminster.

 

Plenty more to follow!

 

Tony

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Tony Teague]

Some further stock re-positioning moves around Churminster station:

 

 

First, Schools class No.924 'Haileybury' passes Churminster quarry & cement works as she comes up the bank & crosses the canal tunnel with Maunsell Set No.447 on an empty stock working.

 

 

Following the Schools class through Churminster Station is N class No.1836 on an up un-fitted pick-up goods train.

 

        

No.1836 has just got the road onto the main line at Churmnister Junction and pulls slowly away whilst P class No.1555 shunts the coal yard.

 

Finally in this sequence, a second Schools class, No.907 'Dulwich' follows up the bank with the loaded local coals train, bound for Stowe Magna yard.

 

Meanwhile.... over in the work in progress department.....

 

 

The large remaining un-scenic'd area above the quarry and between the Abbey Barns at Churminster and RAF Charmy Bottom has been cleared of rubbish and general detritus; the intention is that this fairly large area should mainly represent open countryside and so it will need to be filled with grass, hedges, dry stone walling and trees.

 

This will not be a small task as the area is around 12' long and up to 2'6" wide, but sitting as it does, right in front of the control panel, it is an eyesore that has been irritating me for some time and so a start will be made on it shortly!

 

Tony

Edited April 3, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Tony Teague]

I imagine that, like others, there were times recently when I missed RMWeb, and times when it enabled me to get on and get things done. I might get around to re-instating the lost images but having just re-posted those in my last entry, I found it quite time consuming, so I shall certainly wait until whatever can be recovered, has been!

 

If in the meantime anyone is desperate to see a particular image from the past 56 pages, then please just ask!

 

Even before the great "RMWeb outage" it must have become apparent that I had well and truly lost my modelling mojo, however, I am pleased to say that following a recent visit from my good friend Giles - during which we worked on one or two items - it seems to have returned at least for the time being.

 

I had intended for some time to improve the lighting of the layout; because it reaches back under a descending ceiling , whilst all of the lights that exist are situated up at the centre of the room. I decided to follow the method used by @KNP and ordered pairs of LED strips in warm white and briliant white, however, when they arrived they were both the latter.....

 

 

Needless to say, the idea of returning them to China did not appeal, and this means that the lights have a bluish tinge, however this can be corrected in-camera and within post-processing of the images, whilst it certainly brightens up the darker spaces. We used lengths of extruded aluminium angle to mount the LED strips and a laser level to ensure that that thet were straight along the 32'6" length, but what this highlighted was that the ceiling was not as smooth as I had thought - perhaps the plasterers had been drinking when the put it up? 😏

 

 

Whilst working in this area we took the opportunity to install a series of back-scene cards which had been painted by Mike Gascoigne many months ago, and whilst these await some titivating by him at the joins, they have already significantly improved the overall look of this part of the layout:

 

 

We had to move some existing scenery & buildings in order to insert these scenic cards behind them and there is now some work of restoration to be done, plus some improvements and enhancements are planned, but I now feel able to move forward in this area.

 

Tony

 

[Tony Teague]

It always takes me a couple of days to clear up after Giles and I have been working, but on this occasion I decided that I also needed to clear my workbench so as to provide the space for me to work on the current priorities.

 

Over a period of months, most of what had accumulated consisted of rolling stock and locos which had been declared 'failures' for one reason or another, and removed from whatever train they were on; I am pretty strict about this, but not so good at then remedying the defects, so by the time I get around to it, I can't remember what was the cause of the problem..........🙄

 

Anyway, this is what I found on the bench and in sundry other convenient, 'undeveloped' spots around the layout - all needing some kind of attention:

 

 

At the point of taking the picture I had already removed 6 further locos, 2 of which are 'in hand' on the bench, 2 are back in stock drawers because they now work but are not yet weathered, one is back in service and the last is in bits in a bag in the 'cripple' drawer because it is currently beyond hope!**

 

The current / next priorities include repairing & improving some buildings and scenery in the Stowe Magna area, damaged by being moved to fit in the scenic back panels, plus starting work on that large, un-scenic'd area shown in my post of about a month ago - so whether the items shown in this picture will all get dealt with anytime soon must be doubtful.

 

**The 'beyond hope' loco is a Hornby Schools, no.925 'Cheltenham'; it got dropped from a considerable height some time ago, and whilst I managed to repair the body which had come apart, examination of the chassis revealed it to be broken in two - very soft metal & suffering from mazak rot. The Schools chassis block is not available as a spare and so this joins two other Hornby Schools that are in the drawer with damaged front pony trucks; whilst this is a spare part which is still current, there are actually none available. A good job then, that I have 'several' Schools locos!

 

Tony

[Nick C]

15 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

Over a period of months, most of what had accumulated consisted of rolling stock and locos which had been declared 'failures' for one reason or another, and removed from whatever train they were on; I am pretty strict about this, but not so good at then remedying the defects, so by the time I get around to it, I can't remember what was the cause of the problem..........🙄

Maybe worth keeping a 'defects book' next to the workbench - record any fault when it occurs, then tick it off when fixed. That's what the real thing does after all!

[Tony Teague]

36 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Maybe worth keeping a 'defects book' next to the workbench - record any fault when it occurs, then tick it off when fixed. That's what the real thing does after all!

 

NIck

Don't worry I have one - and I'm afraid it's a spreadsheet!

Repeat offenders or recurring problems are easily identified.

Tony

(Oh, but sometimes I forget to fill it in as things actually happen - which is what I think you were getting at).

Edited April 4, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Tony Teague]

A month or so ago I mentioned that one of my priorities was to deal with the large un-scenic'd area down the centre of the room, which lies between Churminster and the RAF station at Charmy Bottom.

 

 

Whilst progress has been slow, some changes have started to appear; the sloping area to the rear has all been covered in plaster bandage and is ready for painting and grassing, whilst a dry stone wall has been built, and some very significant trees have sprouted, to the foreground (the backscene board has currently been removed and will go back in once painted).

 

 

This marks the edge of a major country estate & deer park that stretches into the distance; the lodge shown in the top picture being one of the gatehouses that guard the entrances & driveways into the estate (excuse the detritus at the back - this is work in progress!).

 

Next steps will be to finish off the 'driveway' and then move on to grass the area beyond, plant shrubs, populate with deer, etc, etc.

 

Tony

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Tony Teague

[westerhamstation]

hi Tony, that's quite some transformation, looks really good. All the best Adrian.

[Tony Teague]

16 hours ago, westerhamstation said:

hi Tony, that's quite some transformation, looks really good. All the best Adrian.

 

Thanks Adrian - an awful lot more to be done!

[Tony Teague]

The foreground of the last picture I posted shows the headshunt to Churminster yard containing a number of wagons, all of which are weathered and in the operational fleet, however, this is the siding where in the past I had assembled my "waiting for weathering queue"!

 

Aside from working on scenery, I have been trying to clear the mass of assorted rolling stock shown in the top picture on this page, and which had previously been cluttering up my workbench, and it turned out that a number of the wagons in that 'mass' had no other problems but were simply awaiting weathering.

 

So as you may imagine, the weathered stock has been dispersed around the layout and that siding is back to being the "waiting for weathering queue" - and it is already quite long at 15 wagons & brakes:

 

 

Some of these wagons had other issues and each of these has been attended to prior to them joining the queue; examples included adding guards & / or lamps to guards vans, fixing loose couplings, and reparing damaged brake gear.

 

Four new wagons have also joined the queue and these are two each of the new Oxford Rail LNER ex-GER 10T covered van, and the same manufacturer's LNER ex GER 10T banana van, which I bought to run in one or other of my inter-regional freights; they are really very good models.

 

 

These can be seen towards the other end of the queue, but as you may note, the 2 banana vans have been re-lettered to show "SR" and in doing this, I have shamelessly copied research published by @Graham_Muz who revealed that a number of these vans were lent by the LNER to the SR from 1933 - 1937 - and this sounded like an excellent idea! Thamk you Graham!

 

The queue currently comprises the following:

 

 

2 LMS 8T vans from Slaters kits, plus the first banana van

 

 

The first Oxford Rail 10T van, the second banana van, plus an LMS 12T steel ventilated van from a Cambrian kit (this one only really needs the roof weathering)

 

 

A GWR 12T box van from a Ratio kit, an SR, ex-LB&SCR 8T goods van from a Smallbrook Studio resin kit, and a Bachman Esso tank wagon

 

 

The second Oxford Rail GER 10T covered van, a SR ex-LSWR Gunpowder van from a Ratio kit, and a Kernow SR ex-LSWR 10T Goods brake van

 

 

And finally, 3 further brake vans - an SR 25T Queen Mary by Bachmann, an SR 20T Dance Hall by Hornby, and a further SR ex-LSWR 10T road van by Kernow.

 

Looks like I need to get my weathering kit fired up!

 

Tony

 

[Tony Teague]

As the layout has grown and successive complications have been added, so too has the number of electrical power packs, transformers and connections needed to run it.

In recent weeks I suddenly became conscious of the mess behind the control panel caused by the continued addition of these differing power sources, which cover - aside from running trains - the CCTV system, the numerous IR detectors, both semaphore and coulour light signals, and so on - so I resolved that it must be tidied up!

 

 

So this is the new power connection board, situated underneath and behind the control panel - and I am sure it will be enough to give some who have an allergy to electrickery an apoplexy!

 

Suffice to say that everything is on the "two wire system" - negative and positive!

 

Tony

[KNP]

I expect the power around the area drops when you switch that lot on….!

and hopefully not all fed from a single 13 amp plug!!!!!!!

[Tony Teague]

Yes, lights dim, trains passing on the WCML slow down.............

No, it is fed from 3 separate 13A sockets!

What is not clear from the picture is that the 5th socket on the top row, labelled "Power Box" covers a separately constructed fan-cooled transformer box which I originally constructed to house 8 x Gaugemaster transformers, plus another twin transformer / rectifier controller.

So plenty of power available to play with - I think I must have a good case for putting solar panels on my roof...............

Tony

[Tony Teague]

With nothing much going on today I managed a little more progress - this time returning to that large scenic gap beyond the barns at Churminster.

 

The entrance into the deer park at Churminster Grange continues to take shape, although nothing is even close to being finished (please excuse the modelling detritus!):

 

 

The wall needs fettling, the road needs some grass along the sides and re-painting, plus we need some deer in the park:

 

 

Further along towards the airfield the landform is now fairly complete and has had a 2nd covering of plaster bandage, followed by a first covering of paint in a shade which I refer to as 'fecal brown' (not to be confused with Fecal Sharkey, a popular singer of the '80's!):

 

 

I bought 2 litres of this paint a while ago in a sale for 50p - easy to imagine why no-one would want to put it on their walls! Nevertheless it does a reasonable job as what will be an 'undercoat' for plenty of static grass. The area should look pretty different once completed and with the backscene back in place (and this will hide the two tracks at the rear, which are the entry roads to the upper fiddle yard), but there will still be plenty to do towards the front of this section where the main line descends into a cutting whilst the narrow gauge quarry line climbs between two tunnels.

 

 

Given the long weekend I am hoping to make further progress over the next few days.

 

Tony

Edited June 2, 2022 by Tony Teague

[Dragonboy]

17 hours ago, Tony Teague said:

With nothing much going on today I managed a little more progress - this time returning to that large scenic gap beyond the barns at Churminster.

 

The entrance into the deer park at Churminster Grange continues to take shape, although nothing is even close to being finished (please excuse the modelling detritus!):

 

 

The wall needs fettling, the road needs some grass along the sides and re-painting, plus we need some deer in the park:

 

 

Further along towards the airfield the landform is now fairly complete and has had a 2nd covering of plaster bandage, followed by a first covering of paint in a shade which I refer to as 'fecal brown' (not to be confused with Fecal Sharkey, a popular singer of the '80's!):

 

 

I bought 2 litres of this paint a while ago in a sale for 50p - easy to imagine why no-one would want to put it on their walls! Nevertheless it does a reasonable job as what will be an 'undercoat' for plenty of static grass. The area should look pretty different once completed and with the backscene back in place (and this will hide the two tracks at the rear, which are the entry roads to the upper fiddle yard), but there will still be plenty to do towards the front of this section where the main line descends into a cutting whilst the narrow gauge quarry line climbs between two tunnels.

 

 

Given the long weekend I am hoping to make further progress over the next few days.

 

Tony

That’s taken me back Tony as when I was living at home I painted my bedroom in that shade of brown and if memory serves it was still that colour when I moved out. 
 

When I next stayed in that room I was sure I could hear the cursing and mutterings of my dad who had the unenviable task of redecorating. Ooh did I forget to say? The emulsion was over wood chip. Sorry Dad.