Knadgerhill - the long slog

[NittenDormer]

And so, after the appropriate 'lurking' apprenticeship, it is time to start a layout and a layout thread of my own. Watch with bated to see whether I will emerge triumphant or crash and burn…

 

To stat with the basics:

 

Scale – ‘OO’. Which should really be pronounced ‘oooh’ rather than ‘oh oh’?

 

Era – sometime from my own childhood (1980s) to the present. Not entirely narrowed down yet. I am not sure I have sufficiently clear memories to model anything beyond 5 years ago. Diesels, then, which will become extremely relevant shortly.

 

Location (inspiration) – not a specific prototype, but based on my youthful experiences of the trans-Pennine route – rain-soaked valleys of blackened stone and declining mill towns, winding valleys, urban viaducts.

 

Location (actual) – garage. At present not lined/insulated in any way – I want to wait and see whether this hobby is going to be long term before committing to this expense/comfort.

 

Size – obviously it is going to fit the full length of the garage (about 5.5m, or 18 feet). It would be rude not to. Naturally, there have been various expansions from the original plan during the design stage, until at one point it was longer than the garage. Oops! It is going to be 4'6" feet deep, (I will have access to both sides), which is the narrowest I could make it to fit in a 180 degree turn at the ends.

 

Baseboards – I don’t feel on a strong enough footing to claim permanent ownership of the whole garage, plus my kids might want to play table tennis table now and then.  So it is going to be built as 9 boards with a max size 4.5 feet x 2.5 feet, that  can be stacked away when needed. Obviously, also at the back of my mind is the belief that my layout-building is going to be so FANTASTIC that exhibition organisers from far and wide will be clamouring for my presence…

 

Trackplan – to follow, once I get the hang of uploading files, but continuous run.

 

Current status – Boards 1 & 2 under construction. I started off a year ago with a train set and a sheet 8 x 4 foot plywood (9mm) cut into quarters by B&Q (note the Imperial/metric mix – be on your toes for more of that later), supported on 2 x 1 (well, 44 x 18mm) timber. That gave me a flat earth surface to experiment with things like curves and gradients. I discovered an inability to cut wood at right angles (admittedly, with a panel saw). A fair bit of reading and forum-browsing later, I can now do a lot better with a jigsaw, although the cuts are often at 88 degrees rather than 90.

What to expect – slow and steady progress. I have no intention of rushing, partly for financial reasons – to spread the cost across a longer period. Time is the other factor. I bought the Scalescenes ‘terraced house backs’ kit in October and still haven't finished it.

 

Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Quite possibly. I did try to start with a smaller, more finishable track plan, but since it wasn’t going to excite me like this one does, it seemed like a step back rather than forwards.

 

 

And the name? Prototypical in the sense that it is a real place, but not strictly speaking geographically accurate - it is a cemetery in Irvine, Ayrshire, but the name was too good to waste.

 

[NittenDormer]

And so today it is time to share the trackplan.

 

Most layouts start with a ‘what if’.  Mine is no exception. Here the ‘what if’ is: ‘what if the Pennines were proper mountains?

 

The basic roundy-roundy format is roughly 50% scenic, 50% fiddle yard. Was there a way of getting more running distance out of the same space?

 

Of course there was. And so, with my beginners inexperience and blind optimism, I hereby enter the world of gradients. In short, practically everywhere apart from the fiddleyard is on a climb of mostly 1.6%, just over 2% at tight points. Good job I am going to be running diesels!  A few tests of my existing stock revealed that of my 30-year old Hornby 47 could manage 6 coaches, a class 50 would barely move on the flat, and a Lima HST was useless. My Railroad P2 on the other hand, was still fine with 9 carriages. Nonetheless, I have developed a sudden interest in DMUs and other short trains.

 

 

My trackplan, which I have attempted to attach but have no faith in my ability to succeed runs like this:

 

Trains leave the fiddleyard at the back heading right, loop through 180 degrees and climbs along the front of the layout until it is high enough to cross over the FY entrance at the left end. Then they curve around again 180 degrees again to reach the station on the middle level (height gained about 140mm). Heading right (again, a one-and-a-half turn spiral gains another 100mm to pass right to left along the back of the station. Then a 4-level helix returns them to the fiddle yard.

 

 

All this – spirals, changes of direction etc – are prototypical. If you look in the right place. My main inspiration is Wassen on what is now the ‘old’ Gotthardbahn in Switzerland, which uses spirals, switchbacks and shortened freight trains to get to the 1100m-high summit tunnel, all chock full of impressive but necessary engineering.  Wassen sits between two 180 degree curves, so that the village is passed 3 times, from below, level with, and above. The station, on the middle level, is facing the wrong way – to get a train to Milan, you get a on a train facing Zurich, and vice versa (these are in opposite directions, for those of you unfamiliar with the geography). See the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_railway. There is also a good video at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1380/entry-12071-4-hmm-what-does-aussichtspunkt-mean-wassen/

 

So have I solved the 50:50 conundrum? No. Instead of trains passing through the scenic section once, they pass across 3 times. But the return spiral uses so much track that the visible/staging ratio is still 50:50. But I still get a lot more track in the same space.

 

As I think I might have said already, this has much potential to go horribly wrong. But its going to be fun until it does.

 

 

[NittenDormer]

Woo hoo! The basic trackplan (crudely drawn, not 100% accurate etc) has appeared? Fiddleyard is at the top, 'viewing side is from the bottom.

[NittenDormer]

3 weeks since my last post… have I been idle? In a word, no. In another word, Scalescenes. I need a row of terraced house backs along the back of the layout. The Scalescenes kist fits the bill – and helpfully, I can reuse/reprint to make as many as I want. At £5 the kit is not going to break the bank, although the printing costs might – my last trip to Staples translated as £1 per sheet for printing (£3 USB fee, paper 20p, colour print 65p if you must know). I now have a colour printer, which will help for that oft-quoted advantage of downloadable kits – if you mess it up, just print it off again. If only it was that easy…

 

My card kit history started with the Metcalfe Platform Shelter, being given away free at a shindig at the National Mining Museum (of Scotland) when the Borders railway opened. I rather enjoyed it, so graduated on to buying them –pub, signalbox, cottages, school…

 

Time the next step up – downloadable kits. I started with the free Scalescenes coal office (in black and white).

 

Then a tunnel entrance. OMG. All that hacking through 2mm thick card. Exhausting.

 

Next the arched bridge.  OMG even harder.  So many more parts!

 

Then the medium station. At least the tunnel and the bridge didn’t have windows!

 

And now the terraced housebacks. Printed at 90% scale. Using 1.4mm card instead of 1mm card. Since the 2mm thick card should now be 1.8mm, and the 1mm card 0.9mm, this has led to a fair degree of what some call ‘fettling’ (and I call ‘bodging’).

 

I have to say, if you want to get modelling-time-value-for-money, Scalescenes is the way forward. I started my first print of the kit in October (3 blocks, 6 houses). 4 months on, they are nearly finished.

 

Time for the second batch. And this time, total focus. No more baseboard building in the garage, I am on a mission! Other shortcuts: instead of building one block at a time, I am doing all 3 at once, which means making 3 or 6 of the relevant part at the same time. Will this be quicker?

 

I started with the 3 ‘wall A’s, the end wall of what in architectural terms would be called the sticky-out bit. After 2 evenings, the pieces were all cut out: 9 card formers, 3 paper cover sheets, 12 window holes.

 

 

Then I remembered that I had to cut out 30 windows and glue the frames to clear Christmas card boxes.

 

By the end of week 1, 3 x 'wall A' were complete.

 

The next week saw 6 x ‘wall B’ (the sides of the sticky-out bits, smaller, only 6 windows and only 2 thicknesses of card) AND 6 x  ‘wall C’ (the main body of the house, only a single card thickness, but 12 windows to cut out) completed. Oh yeah, I am unstoppable! Wall B parts here:

 

 

[adopt Geordie accent here] Week 3 in the Scalescenes house. the interior is well under way. Can I beat the record or is it all going to go horribly wrong?

 

 

[NittenDormer]

5 weeks since I started the Scalescenes low-relief terraced house backs, they are about finished:

 

 

I say about, because they still need to be weathered to a more grimy (grimier?) Northern satanic-mill town look, various scratches need covering up, and they need placing. The row will be stepped as shown (approx rise of 1thickness mount card (1.4mm) per pair to sit corectly on my 1% angled (1 in 100) baseboard surface.

 

And finally, the 'about' is because the kit includes an outbuilding/back gate backyard. Which has a whole lot less parts and no windows, so I reckon another couple of weeks at the most.

 

Who knows, I may yet decide that the back room is the bathroom, and add some sink/toilet pipes. Where were bathrooms in houses like these? But not tonight, because I have done an unusual amount of cycling this weekend (not mentioning figures, this isn't a competition), and my legs are so tired I can't think straight.

[NittenDormer]

Oops, here are the pictures.

[Adamphillip]

The track plan looks impressive

[ikcdab]

The buildings look great, well done!

[NittenDormer]

Been struggling to achieve right angles in 2 or more planes when glueing. Tonight I suddenly realised I had the perfect accessory at hand... Megabloks (other construction systems also available).

[NittenDormer]

I had hoped to be able to present some fully complete terraced house backs for my next post, but I have been getting frustrated with the slowness of the finishing touches. As a diversion, not only do I now have a nearly-finished low relief terraced houses kit, I also have a couple of partially-built tunnels and the 'free' warehouse. Top logic, eh? No pics this time as I seem to be so bad at attaching them anyway.

[NittenDormer]

And just to prove I have been working, here is the finished Scalescenes warehouse, including rather fiddly signage. Strange how there isn't a 'warning, dinosaurs' sign included. Note the garish mount card used visible in back view - one green, one red. Both were cresm on the other face.

[NittenDormer]

Crikey and other now-rarely used words. Already almost a month since my last update! It is now baseboard season in the Knadger household. There are 9 of the blighters to build, and I am starting with the two running across the centre-back. I thought these would be easiest and safest, being least-visible, but having two separate heights has made them tricky. On the plus side, they both have solid tops, which makes it easier to achieve (and hold) the required right-angled shape. Various what management would call 'blockers' and 'learning opportunities' (and I call 'problems') arose: how to cut plywood accurately, how to get the softwood joint blocks to be right angled etc.

 

The lower level is the fiddle yard, 8 feet x 1 foot, should be enough for 3 tracks each way. It is supported by 50mm of plywood, which I realise is a bit marginal, but is the only part of the layout that low. The upper level will also be surfaced and is just under a foot wide. There will be a 6mm ply backscene rising up between the two. The upper level is rising, 24mm across 8 feet, or to put it another way, almost an inch in 2.44 metres. Either way, a gradient of 1%/1 in 100. The 5 2-foot length supports are each 3mm different in height.

 

I have used a combination of 9mm ply and 6mm ply (or is it 5,5mm?). I've read that the 'sandwich' technique of two sheets with softwood spacers is very strong, but I'm not convinced - the 6mm ply at the ends feels far too bendy. These were self-cut (as opposed to a shop doing it), which resulted in not very straight cuts and literally months planing down the edges. The results are still not that great.

 

Another thing I wasn't expecting for some reason was the sheer number of screws involved. Each 2 foot side/support has 5 softwood blocks attached, so that is 5 screws for the 9mm parts, 10 screws for the 6mm sandwiches. Each support will have a total of 9 screws attaching the long sides/tops. That is 85 screws for a 4 x 2 baseboard. Is this normal? I may replace with glue later, but for now I want everything to be reversible in case of mistakes.

[NittenDormer]

[bimble]

My trackplan, which I have attempted to attach but have no faith in my ability to succeed runs like this:

 

Trains leave the fiddleyard at the back heading right, loop through 180 degrees and climbs along the front of the layout until it is high enough to cross over the FY entrance at the left end. Then they curve around again 180 degrees again to reach the station on the middle level (height gained about 140mm). Heading right (again, a one-and-a-half turn spiral gains another 100mm to pass right to left along the back of the station. Then a 4-level helix returns them to the fiddle yard.

 

 

All this – spirals, changes of direction etc – are prototypical. If you look in the right place. My main inspiration is Wassen on what is now the ‘old’ Gotthardbahn in Switzerland, which uses spirals, switchbacks and shortened freight trains to get to the 1100m-high summit tunnel, all chock full of impressive but necessary engineering.  Wassen sits between two 180 degree curves, so that the village is passed 3 times, from below, level with, and above. The station, on the middle level, is facing the wrong way – to get a train to Milan, you get a on a train facing Zurich, and vice versa (these are in opposite directions, for those of you unfamiliar with the geography). See the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_railway. There is also a good video at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1380/entry-12071-4-hmm-what-does-aussichtspunkt-mean-wassen/

 

So have I solved the 50:50 conundrum? No. Instead of trains passing through the scenic section once, they pass across 3 times. But the return spiral uses so much track that the visible/staging ratio is still 50:50. But I still get a lot more track in the same space.

 

As I think I might have said already, this has much potential to go horribly wrong. But its going to be fun until it does.

 

 

 

I found this quite amusing as I was thinking about starting my layout thread and our trackplan descriptions are very similar.

 

"Leaves fiddle yard, crosses layout on up slope, goes around helix, crosses layout again (still on up slope), goes up a smaller spiral, crosses a third time, then descends helix back to fiddle yard". Though in my case it's a mirror image and the station is on the top level!

 

I wish you luck with your build!

[NittenDormer]

As long as its not a race! I'm not going to get anything done quickly. Happy building.

[bimble]

As long as its not a race! I'm not going to get anything done quickly. Happy building.

 

Not a problem... I started building last spring, currently have a couple of baseboards and the helix built... hoping to get more done over the summer

[NittenDormer]

Well its already been a couple of weeks since my last update, not much progress to show but there has been lots of THINKING. I've built a second baseboard that checks out ok on its own as all right angled correctly etc, yet does not seem to align perfectly with board 1. This is why I use screws and not glue. Also, I can't start adding scenery, or track, to these two boards until I have the neighbouring boards built, because these will dictate the track alignment, and track height. I have it all mapped out on Scarm, but won't trust the numbers until I see it in real life, and test the gradients and bridge clearances.

 

So the only way forward is more baseboards. Two at 4 feet x 2.5 feet will go along the front of the existing boards (the higher level in the pictures) and will be filled by a station (because I am not yet at that stage of my modelling evolution where I think 'a layout doesn't need a station'), and two more (4.5 feet x 2 feet and 2.5 feet) for the right hand layout end, 2hich will contain a spiral. Lots of doodling and number crunching ensued. The two station boards can pretty much come from one 8x4 sheet of plywood. The contours of the spiral end will consume a lot more plywood.

 

And to control the joins (including a junction where 4 boards meet), I reckon I need to build a solid, reliable underframe to control the alignment. All this translates into a need for lots of timber and plywood, but I need to get the numbers and cutting plan double -checked first. No point in ending up with the wrong-shaped parts! Happily there is a bank holiday coming up, but if the weather is good, I will be out on the bike. To be continued....

[Charlie586]

That's an impressive track plan. Have you worked out what the scale length (or time) of a run would be?

[NittenDormer]

.

That's an impressive track plan. Have you worked out what the scale length (or time) of a run would be?

A rough calculation suggests a visible track run of 18m, or a scale 1.3k. The 4-layer helix and fiddle yard add another 15m. Luciky I don't need to buy all the track at once.

[NittenDormer]

I was hoping to buy just 1 sheet of ply, but it wouldn't quite build 2 baseboards. By the time I had used up the rest of the sheet plus some existing offcuts, 4 boards were oh-so-nearly covered. End result - 3 sheets of ply bought and cut. These 23 pieces (24 after realising hthe biggest was not going to fit in the car) need to be drawn, drilled, sawn to shape and turned into 32 parts, then put together.

 

I am having to adapt my plans slightly as the depot saw seems to be measuring 2mm short for all the cuts, but hopefully a 598mm wide board will work as much as a 600mm one. Fingers crossed.

[NittenDormer]

Well, if you must know, tonight I have been drilling 80 locating holes. Sorry, no pictures taken, I know you will be disappointed. The stereo in the garage is an old one with only the tape part still working so I have been revisiting some old music. Tonight was Bat Out Of Hell II. Thanks Mr Loaf.

[NittenDormer]

Although I should point out that the holes are varying sizes, due to first the 2.5mm bit snapping, then the 3mm one going as well. I am down to the 2mm one now. They are all ancient anyway, time I bought a new set.

[LongRail]

Well, if you must know, tonight I have been drilling 80 locating holes. Sorry, no pictures taken, I know you will be disappointed. The stereo in the garage is an old one with only the tape part still working so I have been revisiting some old music. Tonight was Bat Out Of Hell II. Thanks Mr Loaf.

 

I once had a colleague at work who's wife was in the music industry, he was introduced to Meatloaf at some event and was told "Please call me Meat"

[NittenDormer]

It is really time for another update, but in truth there is nothing to report. The garage is still full of pieces of plywood, but what would these days probably be dubbed a 'perfect storm' of holidays, school holidays and a dastardly 3-week long French conspiracy to fill my afternoons and evening with armchair cycling means very little has happened. The motivation is still there, just not the time. Or energy. The dastardly Italians had a similar plot a couple of months ago, the Spanish will be at it too in due course.

[NittenDormer]

Finally progress is happening. Apart from time, school holidays and various sporting events (Tour de France, World Athletics etc), the big blocker has been the garage, the destined home for the layout, occupied 50% by bicycles and 50% by random junk. The bicycles have been organised and the junk disposed of or put up in the rafters, leaving the garage looking more like this.

 

The table tennis table is Incidentally why the layout is being built in separate boards that can be put to one side to hit pigskin with willow, or whatever. Anyway, it also makes a great work table. What I needed before I could build baseboards that aligned perfectly was a perfectly flat under frame, and what I also needed to build a perfectly flat underframe was something perfectly flat to build this on, and so it would have continued but for the TT table, once levelled in the middle and at the door end.

 

Result? This, a frame appox 8 feet by 4 that allows me to build 2 or more boards in situ.

 

Let the baseboards commence!