Bethesda Sidings - Western Region in rural Mid-Wales

[1466]

14 minutes ago, Siberian Snooper said:

My only advice to good track building is not to rush and test at every stage. The 1st test will probably be a wheel set and then a bogie, followed by a short wheelbase wagon and progress upwards. An 0-6-0 chassis without a motor is a good test, that is one that tends to highlight problems. 

I recall Cyril Freezer recommended a short test train in the Modeller , decades ago . He used a Rivarrosi  short wheelbase  0-4-0 with long wheelbase vans/wagons . He said the combination of long and short wheelbases would wobble , hunt  and show up any faults .

If I remember correctly the 0-4-0 was a B & O “switcher”’with Walschaerts valve gear .

 

[Graham T]

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

To add another answer to @Graham T's question, I've used British Finescale OO-SF pointwork with Peco bullhead plain track.

 

Thanks Nick, that's another option I've been considering, partly because of the cost of the C&L track.  The stuff I build doesn't really seem accurate enough to warrant the extra expense on the plain track right now, but we'll see.

[jollysmart]

What about actual SMP, sold by Marcway, £46.50 for a box of 10 yards according to their website?

[Tim Dubya]

18 minutes ago, jollysmart said:

What about actual SMP, sold by Marcway, £46.50 for a box of 10 yards according to their website?

 

Good point, I have nearly 2 boxes of the stuff, "Type J" I think?

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

I remember, as a teenager, being a bit 'late to the party' as regards Peco Streamline, although I eventually adopted it, but not long after, I found out about SMP.

 

[Captain Kernow]

4 hours ago, Nick C said:

British Finescale OO-SF pointwork

Is this the stuff that is 3-D printed?

 

[New Haven Neil]

On 14/03/2023 at 10:26, Captain Kernow said:

An Army diesel shunter has worked down the light railway to Bethesda, to await a train of stores due later in the afternoon. This North British 0-4-0 was always kept spotless by the depot, as were all their locos, but this one was a particular favourite of General Sir Tarquin Cadwallader, who seemed to undertake his very frequent tours of inspection, purely in order to be able to drive it.

 

 

 

Err bit late spotting this.....do you know what kit the NB shunter is from, please?  Judith Edge?

[Tim Dubya]

7 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

Is this the stuff that is 3-D printed?

 

 

I think it's this manufacturer?

 

https://www.britishfinescale.com/category-s/1853.htm

[1466]

1 minute ago, Captain Kernow said:

I remember, as a teenager, being a bit 'late to the party' as regards Peco Streamline, although I eventually adopted it, but not long after, I found out about SMP.

 

At a critical moment in my decision to go to EM , I was  shown SMP 00 gauge track alongside the  then current code 100 Peco  00/HO product.  This was 40 years ago . For a while , I wavered as SMP in 00 looked so good . Eventually I went with SMP but in EM  gauge .

Mind  , there were times later when I thought how easy and nice it would be to just plonk an engine down on the track and run it  … usually when there were difficulties in converting a steam engine to the wider gauge .

If starting again  today with Peco code 75 bullhead , it might be different .

[Graham T]

2 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Good point, I have nearly 2 boxes of the stuff, "Type J" I think?

 

 

 

Thanks for that, will add SMP into the pot of possibles!

 

[Nick C]

3 hours ago, jollysmart said:

What about actual SMP, sold by Marcway, £46.50 for a box of 10 yards according to their website?

SMP track has thin bases though, so doesn't match with the others.

2 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

Is this the stuff that is 3-D printed?

 

Yep, printed bases with chairs Included, so no gauges needed. 

[Siberian Snooper]

Easy enough to pack SMP track up to match other makes of track, but I would suggest that at least the last 3 or 4 inches should be level with whatever the other track is.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, jollysmart said:

What about actual SMP, sold by Marcway, £46.50 for a box of 10 yards according to their website?

 

6 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Good point, I have nearly 2 boxes of the stuff, "Type J" I think?

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

I remember, as a teenager, being a bit 'late to the party' as regards Peco Streamline, although I eventually adopted it, but not long after, I found out about SMP.

 

I've used SMP since about 1979 and never had a reason to regret it. It doesn't suffer from wheels (even Lima) running on the chairs in the same way that C&L does/did.

 

3 hours ago, Nick C said:

SMP track has thin bases though, so doesn't match with the others.

That's true enough. It's easy to compensate with different thicknesses of trackbed though.

[Worsdell forever]

14 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

Is this the stuff that is 3-D printed?

 

 

13 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

I think it's this manufacturer?

 

https://www.britishfinescale.com/category-s/1853.htm

 

11 hours ago, Nick C said:

Yep, printed bases with chairs Included, so no gauges needed. 

 

Just put some EM ones together last week, early cast crossing ones and later rail fabricated ones and they went together in a few minutes, they do appear to curl a little but once glued down seem to be quite stable. 

[Captain Kernow]

12 hours ago, Nick C said:

Yep, printed bases with chairs Included, so no gauges needed. 

I'm wondering if they are the same people who do a printed sleeper base for pointwork in P4, which some friends in the local Area Group had a look at recently.

 

The product is impressive for the price offered (in contrast with the expense of the Exactoscale product - formerly P4 Track Co.), but I have reservations about the brittleness of the plastic and how that would last over time.

 

[jollysmart]

13 hours ago, Nick C said:

SMP track has thin bases though, so doesn't match with the others.

Yep, printed bases with chairs Included, so no gauges needed. 

But so does the printed stuff so a close match I suspect and easily dealt with.

[jollysmart]

55 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I'm wondering if they are the same people who do a printed sleeper base for pointwork in P4, which some friends in the local Area Group had a look at recently.

 

The product is impressive for the price offered (in contrast with the expense of the Exactoscale product - formerly P4 Track Co.), but I have reservations about the brittleness of the plastic and how that would last over time.

 

 

 

All British Finescale according to the Scalefour society.

[Nick C]

55 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

I'm wondering if they are the same people who do a printed sleeper base for pointwork in P4, which some friends in the local Area Group had a look at recently.

 

The product is impressive for the price offered (in contrast with the expense of the Exactoscale product - formerly P4 Track Co.), but I have reservations about the brittleness of the plastic and how that would last over time.

 

Yep, that's the one - British Finescale, they've just released the P4 version, having done OO, OO-SF and EM for a couple of years now. I can't answer for longevity as the oldest ones I have are only about 18 months, but he's been doing N gauge ones for a decade or so as I understand it - so presumably no problems.

[lapford34102]

Quote

May I offer you my experiences of OO-SF at this point......

Thank you for making that post. A couple of years ago I replaced some RTP track with bullhead and copperclad points built to SF standards. Some things were happy running, others definitely not and I note couple are on your list.  A bit disheartening and I put it down to probably indifferent tackbuilding skills and moved on so interesting to learn you've had issues.

While here a couple of questions if I may.

Do you have any bufferlocking problems with the baby Warship and Hymek when pushing stock through pointwork curves ?

And you have some neat looking screwlinks on your stock, can I ask whose makes them.

Cheers

Stu

[GWR57xx]

I think this is the product you're all discussing.

If you haven't found it yet, there's a long-running topic here:

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

1 hour ago, lapford34102 said:

Thank you for making that post. A couple of years ago I replaced some RTP track with bullhead and copperclad points built to SF standards. Some things were happy running, others definitely not and I note couple are on your list.  A bit disheartening and I put it down to probably indifferent tackbuilding skills and moved on so interesting to learn you've had issues.

While here a couple of questions if I may.

Do you have any bufferlocking problems with the baby Warship and Hymek when pushing stock through pointwork curves ?

And you have some neat looking screwlinks on your stock, can I ask whose makes them.

Cheers

Stu

Generally no buffer locking problems, but I tend not to need to propel much through the actual crossover. 

The screw links are mostly Smiths, with an Exactoscale steel end link.

[Nick C]

On 04/09/2023 at 15:15, Nick C said:

I've got a layout with an OO-SF A5 crossover (BF kit), and a Heljan 33, but I've not yet tried running the latter on the former - I shall have to dig it out of it's box and try it...

I got the 33 out today, it's quite happy through the crossover - and the double slip on the other layout. It's D6580, from the first time they released it (in case different versions have different wheel profiles...)

[Captain Kernow]

A new arrival at Bethesda:

 

 

 

 

 

A Dapol large Prairie, renumbered to 5174, of Chester Shed and weathered by Larry Goddard and subsequently advertised for sale by him on Western Thunder.

 

The loco runs nicely and the Dapol flanges have no problems with my OO-SF pointwork on Bethesda (as I suspected), so once I've removed the tension locks and substituted screw links, the loco can go straight into service.

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Captain Kernow

[Siberian Snooper]

It would be great if they came without the cab shutters, or they were an add them yourself item.

 

 

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

A loco from the Light Railway retrieving a box van from the goods shed on a dull, autumnal afternoon: