Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1

[mervyn]

 this is the above mentioned Loco hopefully the pic turns out okay !

[Nearholmer]

Very nice indeed.

 

I have the SR one on order, and if the engine fund hadn’t been otherwise depleted, I’d now be thinking LSWR also.

 

Looks to me as if they’ve struck the coarse/detail/proportions balance about right.

[GRASinBothell]

Yes, it does look good. I have the LSWR one on order. It's going to have to share my train of South Western six-wheelers with Mr Drummond's replacement for it...

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

There's always debate about models of pre-grouping locos, and whether the model represents genuine period condition, or 'as preserved', with all sorts of alterations by later owners. Does anyone know what the score is here?

 

From what I can work out, boiler fittings and coal-rails or not varied even during LSWR ownership, but the double slide bars seem to be an SR thing ....... although I imagine a single slide bar would survive the rigours of operation on a layout for about 5ms.

Edited July 22, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

Digging in my Bradley, the double slide bars were done in the 1900s to some working from Exmouth Junction, which carried over with the Lyme Regis job, although there are pictures of single slidebar working here in BR days, most of the class had the single slide bar. The obvious changes were Drummond fitted the coal rails above the bunker and lipped taper chimney to replace the stovepipe (I prefer the stovepipe) He also made a few replacement boilers with the safety valves on the dome, which rotated on repair, but the bulk had the Adams boilers in circulation, just variations whether the Ramsbottom valves were cased or uncased.

The class were built with London end workings in mind, so they were hard hit by the LSWR pre WW1 electrifications, a lot went into store at Eastleigh, but some lent out, including the HR. What was left by SR days were on country branch line workings, but there is a reference to Nine Elms having some for a Wimbledon - Ludgate Hill push pull service, so the one youve got could find its way legitimately to Paltry Circus. The last survivors were famously on the Lyme Regis branch in BR times, it looks as if your manufacturer picked double slide bars for this reason?

It does look a lovely model, I suppose it’s got narrow back to back, and I doubt if I could afford it for some time, oh well, good luck with it.

[Nearholmer]

Well I never: I didn’t know that the Ludgate Hill service became PP.

 

There was a hidden fiddle yard for it, in the snow hill tunnel, several parallel sidings with a sector plate at the end to get the loco round. I guess that was a faff to operate, so PP.

[Nearholmer]

Just a reminder for anyone who is into old toy trains and can get to the Aylesbury area on Saturday that the TCS annual exhibition is on at Stoke Mandeville all day.

 

It’s always a good “do”, rather like a pop-up museum with ever-helpful curators.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Nearholmer

[RateTheFreight]

Evening all,

 

I’m in the process of building an inglenook style shunting layout on a door using off the shelf peco track and medium radius points (1 x Y, right and left).

 

I’ve got some modern coarse scale in the form of an ACE Schools and a BL Peckett. Does anyone know or have experience of trying to run such locos on ‘fine scale’ track without suffering either derailments or damage to said track or locos? I’ve got a mix of coarse and modern RTR stock and would ideally like to keep both and mix them on said layout if possible (i’m already planning on using some vintage Hornby metal station figures regardless). The WJ Vintage Adams Radial looks special.

 

As a side I could swear the track in ‘Dream City Railway’ on YouTube (Roy James) is Peco?

 

I’ve got a fair bit of coarse scale track (Lionel vintage style) but have yet to find a comparable reasonably priced point work.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Greg

 

Ps keep up the good work Nearholmer et al; even at the relatively young age of 32 there’s something special and magical about coarse scale and tin plate!

[Nearholmer]

Hello Greg,

 

The really deciding difference between coarse and finescale wheel-sets is the ‘back to back’, which is c1.5mm less with coarse.

 

If you run coarse wheel-sets through fine points, they will catch on the check-rails and either ride up or jam; if you run fine wheel-sets through coarse points, they will hit the crossing nose and bounce up, and usually off the track. The two standards can’t really be mixed happily, unless you build your own ‘universal’ points, which employ the trick of having the wing-rails pivot with the switch-rails.

 

Roy does indeed run coarse wheels through Peco fine points, but he does it by removing the check-rails altogether. He ‘gets away with it’, but I think only because his layout has wide radius curves, and because I think he only runs modern coarse scale, which uses quite thin flanges; I don’t think he runs old Bassett Lowke, Hornby etc.

 

Less extreme than chopping out the checkrails altogether is to move them, which can be done with a bit of skill, but then they won’t work with finescale wheels.

 

Peco SM32 points are set for coarse-scale 0 wheels and the larger radius ones certainly accept Ace etc. However, I have heard that some big Ace locos don’t like the SM32 set-track points, although I’m not sure why.

 

There is no ‘cheap’ solid rail coarse point on the market to my knowledge. Lots of people use Atlas, which are good and practical, but look very American. I use Maldon, which are hand-made and not as robust, but look like 1930s Maerklin or Hornby. Prices for both are similar at about 60-70% more than Peco (but you do get 50% more rails!).

 

So, all a bit of a minefield, especially when you add in pre-WW2 models, a lot of which have wheels to ‘Greenly 1909’ standards, which have a narrower b-t-b than ‘coarse’.

 

Plain track is a lot simpler: post-2008 Ace and Darstaed will run on Peco FB track, and I think 1950s Bassett Lowke will too.

 

Overall message: if you want to include points, you can’t inter-run coarse and fine unless you make your own.

 

Why would anyone want to run finescale, anyway? ;-)

 

Kevin

Edited August 3, 2018 by Nearholmer

[RateTheFreight]

Thanks for the brilliant reply Kevin.

 

I suppose the appeal of finescale was more around the price and varied availability and whether coarse scale was suitable for an end to end shunting layout. I’ve always loved watching coarse scale on continuous loops but alas until such a point when I get round to building a garden railway that isn’t a near future possibility. That being said I don’t want to give up my coarse scale stock.

 

Ironically, one of the reasons I wanted to build an inglenook layout was for nephews, nieces, future children and friends to be able to operate the shunt puzzle as all parties love model trains deep down, especially when there’s a task such as shunting to do. Given my own spare time is often limited by work, football, social life etc I also wanted something personally that would keep me busy for an hour but that I wouldn’t get bored of.

 

Adults also get competitive over who can do the puzzle fastest! I’m not sure I’d be so trusting of them doing so with a finescale loco however coarse tin plate is incredibly robust and so would be ideal.

 

In theory I suppose I could do the best of both worlds in the form of having one half of the door as a finescale inglenook and the same layout but in reverse on the other half as coarse scale, switching between the two as necessary but also treating the two different standards simply as an adjacent line that didn’t connect. It would probably look odd but then I’m not so fussed about spending loads of time on scenery and have always enjoyed running trains more than building layouts.

 

Welcome yours or anyone’s thoughts on this idea.

 

Greg

 

Ps, did I once see that Paul Lumsden (WJ Vintage) sold Czech made pointwork that was comparable with Lionel 3 rail?

Edited August 3, 2018 by RateTheFreight

[brianusa]

Points always seem a problem unless funds are unlimited.  All of my track is either Hornby or Lionel so compromises have to be made as remote control 048 Lionels are on the main lines with 031 in the yards, regular Hornby 2' points are used where they can be easily got at. Obviously the larger Hornby engines and rolling stock can 't go everywhere, whereas Lionel will go around the smaller curves.  The smaller Hornby engines and rolling stock will traverse the smaller Lionel points OK, if with a bit of bumping and clatter, but rarely derail.  It all really boils down to whether two distinctive types of trains is a problem or no.  Works for me!

[GRASinBothell]

Yes, Paul sells the Merkur track. Here's the Merkur page on his website.

http://www.wjvintage.co.uk/product/merkur-3-rail-tinplate-track/

 

Gordon

[Nearholmer]

Greg,

 

A universal point, in this case 00 and, I think, Wrenn.

 

Kevin

[Oldddudders]

Just a reminder for anyone who is into old toy trains and can get to the Aylesbury area on Saturday that the TCS annual exhibition is on at Stoke Mandeville all day.

 

It’s always a good “do”, rather like a pop-up museum with ever-helpful curators.

 

I do like the idea that the same venue that hosts Railex, surely one of the very finest annual exhibitions for serious scale modelling, earlier in the year, then hosts this quite different take on model railways. I do wonder which group has the more fun?

 

I have just spent a most pleasant hour trawling through recent pages in this thread, and was reminded of a couple of things. Edward and Wallis, for example, reminded me of my late first wife's equally late (sadly by her own hand) sister. Her heart had been effectively broken by the failure of a decade-long romance with a man who subsequently took his hereditary place in the House of Lords. He is interesting because his grandfather was Private Secretary to Edward. I believe he is therefore custodian of various papers upon which The Palace would love to get its hands. 

 

The reference to Ludgate also had me recalling the heady days when Thameslink was first being constructed. One or two colleagues went on explorations in the area, although I think I failed to do so. Your reference to sidings with a sector plate made me wonder if this was the former Smithfield Market Sidings?

Edited August 4, 2018 by Oldddudders

[Nearholmer]

OD

 

A very discomfiting tale.

 

The ‘fiddle yard’ was called Smithfield Sidings, but was distinct from the GWR Smithfield Depot, which was under the meat market. I have no idea whether it might have been used as a ‘buffer store’ for wagons to/from the meat market, but I think not, because it would have been a nightmare shunt, or when it was lifted.

 

When the through electric service was instituted, it was necessary to put in quite complex changeover switching to give a return circuit for both 25kV ac and 660V dc, without allowing all the return current from the Southern to go to earth on the LM and find its way back by a million unintended paths. Yours truly designed and oversaw installation of this, and the switch and control gear lived in a little hut down near where the Smithfield Sidings had terminated.

 

Kevin

[Nearholmer]

Now, a live report from the front-line of old-fashiondness at Stoke Mandeville.

 

A bit of good advice on the end of a Gauge 1 Carette goods van.

 

An absolutely brilliant ‘Minories’, all done using 1950s material. The bus on the bridge was carved from a solid block of wood!

 

And, the high-tech control centre of the live-steam layout, including camping stove and gallons of meths. They had a 1930s BL ‘Enterprise’ pulling eight heavy bogie coaches when I was looking, and it chuntered a ah doing that for about 45 minutes on one fill, which impressed me.

 

Finally, JEP tinplate electric H0(ish) from 1925-30. This was the French answer to the Anglo-German Bing 00(ish) system and is even rarer.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Nearholmer

[RateTheFreight]

So, followers of this thread will be pleased to hear that i’ve decided to build my inglenook on a door in pure coarse scale.

 

I’ve spent some time considering what it actually is I like about model Railways and I kept coming back to the pleasure I got from running coarse, with no worrying about rivet counting and a fondness for tin plate and it’s retro feel. I’ve never been fussed about actual modelling, I.e building scenery and prefer just to play trains.

 

I love the age it harks back to which, whilst only 32 myself, is something I love.

 

I also wanted my inglenook to be accessible to my nephews and any potential future children and concluded that tin plate was as robust as anything.

 

Part of me also wants to prove that you can build a micro shunting layout in coarse and keep it entertaining.

 

So all in all I’m excited I’ve finally come to this realisation and look forward to creating a separate topic to show progress. I’m sure it won’t find favour with some traditionalists but at least I know there’s some of you out there who will follow with interest.

 

Greg

[St Enodoc]

OD

 

A very discomfiting tale.

 

The ‘fiddle yard’ was called Smithfield Sidings, but was distinct from the GWR Smithfield Depot, which was under the meat market. I have no idea whether it might have been used as a ‘buffer store’ for wagons to/from the meat market, but I think not, because it would have been a nightmare shunt, or when it was lifted.

 

When the through electric service was instituted, it was necessary to put in quite complex changeover switching to give a return circuit for both 25kV ac and 660V dc, without allowing all the return current from the Southern to go to earth on the LM and find its way back by a million unintended paths. Yours truly designed and oversaw installation of this, and the switch and control gear lived in a little hut down near where the Smithfield Sidings had terminated.

 

Kevin

Not to mention stray currents to and from the Underground.

[Donw]

In the days of Lead sheathed cables such stray currents could be a major problem for GPO/BT. I suspect the electric supply cables were equally affected.

 

Don 

[Nearholmer]

The big issue is the combination of LM track and vast numbers of piled structures in the city of London, which form a huge, effectively zero- resistance earth electrode. The SR traction return is not intentionally earthed, but sits near earth due to leakage paths across millions of rail fastenings, and operates with all of the supply rectifiers in parallel.

 

We measured deviations from earth varying up to about 6V on the SR running rails, which sounds like nothing until you apply ohms law with R at exceedingly low values, when it becomes apparent that current flows from SR return into a low-resistance earth can be very large, plenty enough to cause interference with telecoms and signalling, and to cause burn-out and fires at ‘weak links’, as well as lots of very damaging electrolytic corrosion.

 

All of which is OT!

 

Greg - a ‘shunty’ Layout will work fine in coarse-scale, but your family members might find the couplers frustrating. The most child-friendly inglenook that I’ve seen was one that my son had a go on at an exhibition, and on that the couplers were fully remote-controlled and the control of the loco was a three-position centre-off switch, speed being pre-set to ‘slow’.

 

Kevin

Edited August 6, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

The big issue is the combination of LM track and vast numbers of piled structures in the city of London, which form a huge, effectively zero- resistance earth electrode. The SR traction return is not intentionally earthed, but sits near earth due to leakage paths across millions of rail fastenings, and operates with all of the supply rectifiers in parallel.

 

We measured deviations from earth varying up to about 6V on the SR running rails, which sounds like nothing until you apply ohms law with R at exceedingly low values, when it becomes apparent that current flows can be very large, plenty enough to cause interference with telecoms and signalling, and to cause burn-out and fires at ‘weak links’, as well as lots of very damaging electrolytic corrosion.

 

All of which is OT!

 

Greg - a ‘shunty’ Layout will work fine in coarse-scale, but your family members might find the couplers frustrating. The most child-friendly inglenook that I’ve seen was one that my son had a go on at an exhibition, and on that the couplers were fully remote-controlled and the control of the loco was a three-position centre-off switch, speed being pre-set to ‘slow’.

 

Kevin

 

When I used to exhibit an 0 gauge layout I would let kids have a go on the controls. I found kids could do the uncoupling/ coupling of three links much better than I could. Personally I dont think it is the track standards that matter more the willingness to make compromises to enable tight radius curves to be used and leaving out some of the fiddly bits that seem to reduce reliability and increase costs. Universal points are ideal enabling you to get the widest choice.

 

Don

[Northroader]

If you’re doing a shunting plank to coarse scale standards, with as much pushing as pulling, one need would be to keep the buffer faces away from each other, otherwise risk buffer locking, so I don’t think three link couplers would be the best way forward. Some type of overscale auto coupler, no matter however klunky it was, would answer better.

[Northroader]

Second thoughts to that, I did a very tight radius O a few years back, and I found that the American Kadee type couplers worked very well on it.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, for a public ‘have a go’, an entirely Lionel set-up would work, in that their 0-27 stuff is expressly designed for kids, even down to simple handheld wireless remote control and uncoupling, and Thomas and pals. Have look at their on-line catalogue and talk to the guys at Tennent’s.

 

LGB works too and I’ve seen an inglenook on a standard interior door in that format, which worked well. The guy used N different little wagons and had laminated photos of them all so that you could ‘shuffle and deal’ your target shunt. Again, child friendly.

[brianusa]

Nothing really beats the Lionel knuckle couplers, they've been around for ages!  Oversize they may be but they work well and as Lionel started off as a toy maker, it didn't really matter.

 

Brian.