Cramdin Yard

[mudmagnet]

Dave - thanks for the info about the Chinchilla dust, I was begining to think it was me doing something silly!

 

Mudmagnet - Mine came in a big polythene screwtop cannister from a petshop in Inverness about a kilo I think (its out in the garage and it is currently minus 12C)- it is like a very fine sand that Chinchillas "bathe" in and it cleans their coats

 

Thanks Shortliner. I will investigate my local pet store (when I can get the car out the snow!).

 

Cheers

[eldavo]

Well it seems Cramdin is all dressed up with nowhere to go. Looks like the weather has caused the cancellation of the freight weekend on the MHR this weekend so all the layout prep of the last few weeks was a bit unnecessary. Still at least it means I've got a lot of stuff sorted out that I was putting off and there is now less to do for the next outing in March. The MHR are looking at rescheduling the event but we will have to see what dates they come up with.

So some gratuitous shots of red and yellow locos from this yesterdays testing session. Here's a shot of a somewhat crowded fueling point with two 08s and a 47 in residence and something else lurking behind. At least it's giving the oik spotters on the bridge something to do.

Looks like I need to revisit the weathering on the EWS 08 as it was one of my early attempts, looks a bit naff next to some of the other stuff. The green FGW 08 was weathered yesterday as the spare shunter for this weekend as the EWS jobby is misbehaving and we can't have that in front of the public!




47787 moves off the fuel point passing 37114 that seems to be held up on a red on the mainline. This 47 was at one time used on royal train duties and it looks as though it is still being kept relatively clean by EWS standards. Note: This layout works on flexible and very variable time and thus locos from different time periods may appear together whenever the operator deems fit and without any form of justification.

The 47 was another very hasty weathering job done yesterday to get more of the fleet in shape.





With the 47 out of the way we can see that actually there is a 66 sitting in the arrivals/departure road having just arrived with a motley collection of open wagons. Doesn't seem to be any rush for the shunters to do any work.




Onward and upward. Now everything is largely up to scratch, apart from fixing the odd recalcitrant 08, I don't really have any excuse for not building a baseboard (or two) this weekend.

Cheers
Dave

[Leon]

Very well done Dave, Great set of photo's

 

Regards

 

Leon

[James Hilton]

Hi Dave - great to see some new photos! Where is the GWT 08 from? Looks nice although I have no excuse to have anymore on my layout yet every year another one seems to appear (3 and counting...)

[eldavo]

Hi James, The First Great Western 08 is a Bachmann Kernow limited edition (I think!). I picked it up new for a silly price as "shop soiled" as the box apparently has water marks on it! Absolutely no reason why one of these should be ambling around Cramdin but some deals can't be ignored.

 

Only 3 Gronks! That's a weekday one, one for Sundays and a spare. No probs! Four of them on my roster (so far).

 

Cheers

Dave

[eldavo]

Can't be wasting a free day in the garage/workshop. Not playing trains so time to bodge up a baseboard. Cramdin baseboard 3 is now sat while the glue dries amid the chaos that is my workshop.




This is the scenic side and it doesn't look too bad from this distance. I'm not letting anyone near it until I've had a go with some filler and paint!

All being well tomorrow it will be offered up to the main baseboard and have locating dowels and cabinet latches fitted. Then it needs a hinged cover to match the others and a lighting pelmet. More wood, glue and swearing tomorrow then.

Cheers
Dave

[steaming_chris]

Hi Dave

 

great work, I really enjoy this thread. Does the control panel in the background give a clue what to expect ?

 

Regards

Chris

[eldavo]

...Does the control panel in the background give a clue what to expect ?

 

Nope 'fraid not. That's just a scrapper I'm salvaging bits from.

 

Cheers

Dave

[eldavo]

More progress this eveing. Assembled the trestle to support the new board which didn't take long given I've assembled 3 others previously! New board was offered up to the existing lash-up then clamped in place while I drilled a couple of 8mm holes through the baseboard end frames into which brass locating dowels have been epoxied. A pair of case latches were then fixed, one front one back to clip the boards together. After glue had set clamps were removed and the board seperated and then reassembled. Amazingly it all looks OK.

A couple of gash metal clamps have been made to mount the new lighting crane to the 4th trestle and then I ran out of energy!

Here's the first shot of Cramdin assembled to its full planned length. Seems an awful long time ago that I envisaged this!



The hinged covers have not yet been fitted, this will be done after the board has had track laid and wired as they make the thing a fair bit heavier and more awkward to move around on a day to day basis. The only problem encountered so far is that I don't have enough space in the garage to easily work on it. Sometime soon I am going to have to take down the South fiddleyard and shuffle the main board down a bit so I can have the new board up all the time for track laying and scenic machinations.

Time for a snifter I think. If this had been a vertical extension I could have used the excuse of a topping out ceremony!

Cheers
Dave

[Shadow]

WOW, fast or what

 

Been following the thread for a while and it seems that every time I look

there's a new extension.

 

By the way, who's brass locating dowels do you use?

 

Shadow

[eldavo]

I use the very simple 8mm brass alignment dowels. I think I got mine at a show from Rural Railways but they are available from multiple places. They are simple to fit which is key for a bodger like me. Here's an example of the sort of thing from an ebay seller (no recommendation, just that they have them)

 

Alignment dowels

 

Cheers

Dave

[Jack]

Yikes, if you keep extending it at this rate you'll have to be band from calling it "Cramdin"!!!!

 

Keep up the good work.

[SouthernMafia]

Nope 'fraid not. That's just a scrapper I'm salvaging bits from.

 

Cheers

Dave

 

Looks very familiar, old Itchen Bottom panel isn't it?

 

I reckon you've got room for at least another couple of boards Dave!

[eldavo]

Looks very familiar, old Itchen Bottom panel isn't it?...

 

I reckon you've got room for at least another couple of boards Dave!

 

Heck I've been rumbled! Part of this years grand clubroom clearout.

 

I think I'll stop when this board is complete. It'll be time for another project by then.

 

Cheers

Dave

[russellwar]

NIce work, great to see how it has come on. How long is it in total now?

[mason]

great work dave, if its as good as the last extension then its gonna be good, out of interest what are the plans for the new extension ( iv probably missed this somewhere )

 

regards

 

neil

 

 

[eldavo]

... How long is it in total now?

All up length is now approximately 12'6" (3.9 metres).

 

Lighting pelmet now completed.

 

 

Cheers

Dave

[Arpleymodeller]

Well it seems Cramdin is all dressed up with nowhere to go. Looks like the weather has caused the cancellation of the freight weekend on the MHR this weekend so all the layout prep of the last few weeks was a bit unnecessary. Still at least it means I've got a lot of stuff sorted out that I was putting off and there is now less to do for the next outing in March. The MHR are looking at rescheduling the event but we will have to see what dates they come up with.

 

So some gratuitous shots of red and yellow locos from this yesterdays testing session. Here's a shot of a somewhat crowded fueling point with two 08s and a 47 in residence and something else lurking behind. At least it's giving the oik spotters on the bridge something to do.

 

Looks like I need to revisit the weathering on the EWS 08 as it was one of my early attempts, looks a bit naff next to some of the other stuff. The green FGW 08 was weathered yesterday as the spare shunter for this weekend as the EWS jobby is misbehaving and we can't have that in front of the public!

 

 

 

47787 moves off the fuel point passing 37114 that seems to be held up on a red on the mainline. This 47 was at one time used on royal train duties and it looks as though it is still being kept relatively clean by EWS standards. Note: This layout works on flexible and very variable time and thus locos from different time periods may appear together whenever the operator deems fit and without any form of justification.

 

The 47 was another very hasty weathering job done yesterday to get more of the fleet in shape.

 

 

 

 

With the 47 out of the way we can see that actually there is a 66 sitting in the arrivals/departure road having just arrived with a motley collection of open wagons. Doesn't seem to be any rush for the shunters to do any work.

 

 

 

Onward and upward. Now everything is largely up to scratch, apart from fixing the odd recalcitrant 08, I don't really have any excuse for not building a baseboard (or two) this weekend.

 

Cheers

Dave

 

It never ceases to amaze me how realistic the scenery is on Cramdin Yard,the 08s really have atmosphere about them

[Shadow]

That's coming along nicely. Any chance of a "Behind the Scenes" view at the layout.

i.e. How have you mounted / fixed the lighting. How the trestles connect etc.

 

It's always those sort of things that rarely get shown.

 

Thanks,

 

Shadow

[moorlander]

Do you have any plans to bring the layout to the north of england ?

[Wibble]

The ballasting and the track look superb. A nice balance of colours and sympathetic weathering, and shows that copper clad construction can still look good in a realistic setting.

 

Looking forward to seeing this layout at a show

[eldavo]

Yesterdays progress. The extension only has 3 turnouts but it seemed to take most of the day to build 'em. First up the tedious bit, stick the template to a bit of board then layout the timbers. I've used Pritt stick to tack the sleepers to the template. It was only after I had finished this that the wife helpfully pointed out that I was using extra strong glue!




The template is not an exotic affair being created using Trax2 rather than the more sophisticated Templot. The are this all fits in is pretty small so they are not quite bog standard turnouts. All three are A5.5 geometry which I hope equates to a tad over 3 foot radius. As I had to make 3 I knocked together a crossing vee jig from a couple of bits of cardboard.

Two of the turnouts have sort of been interlaced/squashed together to save space. They are not quite a Barry slip but close. No idea whether this is prototypical but it seems to work in OO! Half past nine in the evening and the rails are finally all in place.






Thankfully the track lifted off the template quite easily with the application of a wallpaper scraper. Today I managed to get all the track laid on the new baseboard. Next up will be tiebars, point motors and wiring. Here's a general view.



I didn't have quite as much SMP flexi as I thought, must have used it at the other end, so I had to knock up a bit of plain track to fill in. All whacked down with Evostick to hold it until the ballasting locks it down for good.

There's quite a lot of track in this small space so I will avoid putting in too many buildings and try and give it an open siding area feel. I know what I mean even if nobody else does! The TTA tanker is sat on a short kick-back siding where I plan to have a fuel off loading point with a couple of storage tanks separating it from the line behind (probably). Not a very original concept but it's what is in mind at the moment.




Looking the other way there are a couple of basic sidings which will be used for loco or wagon stabling. Currently there is nowhere to store a loco apart from the fueling point so this will provide more options and allow more of the toys to be on display.

The line at the back is an extension to the arrivals/departure road and will probably be fairly overgrown with a few battered engineers wagons dumped in it (maybe).



Plenty to do yet.

Cheers
Dave

[eldavo]

Do you have any plans to bring the layout to the north of england ?

 

No bookings in the North at the moment I'm afraid. The short version of the layout will be at Alresford goods shed on the MidHants Railway on 6/7th February then the whole shooting match will be at Basingstoke exhibition on 13/14th March. After that it will be at the Kernow/YMR exhibition in September down in Redruth, Cornwall.

 

Cheers

Dave

[eldavo]

That's coming along nicely. Any chance of a "Behind the Scenes" view at the layout.

i.e. How have you mounted / fixed the lighting. How the trestles connect etc.

 

It's always those sort of things that rarely get shown.

 

Thanks,

 

Shadow

It's a bit tricky to get a decent shot of the rear of the layout at the moment due to the amount of clutter around it. Here's some odd details that may help. The trestles are not linked together in any way at present but are all free standing. It does mean you have to juggle them about a bit to get everything positioned correctly when setting up. The lighting pelmet is a crude affair of MDF and softwood with cheap fluorescant fittings which hang on bolts with wingnuts from the support cranes/jibs/thingies. Here's a shot from the rear.

 

 

Each support frame is secured to both cross members of a trestle with a crude clamp made from a bit of scrap metal and again using bolts and wingnuts.

 

 

 

The control panel is linked to the layout with 3 large cables using SCART plugs and sockets plus 3 power feeds that use phono plugs/sockets.

 

 

The boards are connected using the normal brass dowels and held together by case latches front and rear. The power feeds for each of the 3 power sections in the layout are connected using phonos. This shows how crude the woodwork is!

 

 

The whole things can be assembled in about 30 minutes and stripped in less. In fact when we took it to the Taunton SWAG bash last year two of us stripped and loaded the layout and were setting off for home in less than half an hour. Not a record by any means but pretty easy to manage.

 

If you want details of anything else just shout.

 

Cheers

Dave

[Scale7JB]

Spectacular. I haven't seen this thread since the old RMWeb.

 

The traverser section looks fantastic... Great work Dave :icon_thumbsup2:

 

JB.