Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, Regularity said:

It was just cobbled together, and rather soulless…

He's not down at heel is he?

 

Jim  (windae picked!)

[Skinnylinny]

Not for my layout, but technically pre-grouping (and I daresay they will appear on a Linton Town at some point, even if not prototypical!). A pair of renders of the forthcoming Rapido Wisbech & Upwell tramcars, shown here representing no. 7 & 8 in GER condition. Up until now I believe all the public renders have either shown an assortment of detail variations, or the Titfield version specifically. 

 

The renders and any further updates can of course be seen on the thread in the Rapido section of the forum. 

 

 

[Annie]

Lovely, - now there's a sight to soothe sore eyes.

[Skinnylinny]

All we need now is a GER liveried tram loco to haul them! 

 

Meanwhile, for those of us no longer using the Julian calendar (don't give that straw-mop in Westminster ideas!), we have now entered June, which is Pride Month. As such, it felt appropriate to add Pride flags to my On30 Mogul, in place of the more usual classification flags. 

 

 

The flags were produced last year by Corbs at Railway Mania to raise funds for an LGBTQ+ homelessness charity. 

[Skinnylinny]

It's been a heck of a month, but things are progressing slowly. Very slowly. Work has been keeping me busy, and after being knocked for six by a rather nasty few days of illness, I'm back on the go again.

A chance eBay spot resulted in the acquisition of two rather nice scratch-built lever frames (in need of some TLC to return them to working order, but basically complete) which I've been "tarting up". In order to use them on the layout I needed to work out the layout of levers in the 'box, which I've now done. I'm also looking at mechanical interlocking. The points and signals will still be operated electronically by servos, but the one thing that bugged me about the DCC Concepts Cobalt lever switches was that they couldn't be interlocked. I actually asked one of their staff at the Glasgow show this year about interlocking, and they very kindly sent me a lever which had been returned (electrically faulty, but mechanically fine!) to see if it could be linked up to interlocking, but unfortunately the way it's all laid out inside prevents that.

As the frames arrived, they looked something like this:

 

They'd clearly been used to mechanically operate points and signals, as they came connected to rods and cranks, and in the case of signals, tiny chains going around pulleys before being attached to cord running to the signal (note: This photo shows an additional frame that came with the other two, this one not having catch handles)

 

A fair bit of fettling, re-soldering, and painting later, and with the addition of the etched number plates available from DCC Concepts, they're starting to look fit for service. From the handle of lever 1, you can see that I tried polishing up the handle to see how it would look, but I'm not very keen on the brass look, so they'll probably get a coat of some hard-wearing silver paint. The variations in lever height aren't very noticeable in person, especially looking down on the frame, but they do hint at the rather scratch-built nature of the thing.


 

The planning of the interlocking is still in-progress, and about 70% complete (with lots of reference to Railway Signal Engineering in the Mechanical Era by L. P. Lewis. Then the next step will be to build a test version, possibly out of Lego (!) to ensure I've got everything right before making up the final locking tray. This will most likely be laser-cut, with a clear panel allowing viewing of the mechanism.
 

[Nick C]

Ooh, laser cut interlocking! That'll be fun :)

[Skinnylinny]

Very much a mix of the old and the new! 

[Nick C]

I think someone on here has done 3d printed interlocking too...

[Skinnylinny]

I considered it, but I reckon that laser-cut acrylic parts will have a much smoother surface finish and should slide over each other much more easily than 3D printed parts, even resin ones. 

[Skinnylinny]

A little over a week ago I attended the Perth exhibition with the Edinburgh & Lothians MRC. It was great to bump into some familiar faces, and there was some fantastic modelling on show. I fell in love with this P4 Highland Railway "Yankee Tank"...



And then saw a rather more utilitarian livery on a gorgeous 2mm finescale model while chatting with @Caley Jim at the 2mm FS Society stand:



There was plenty of lovely pre-grouping modelling to be seen about the show, and I had my eye drawn to a lovely ochre locomotive, thinking it might be a Stroudley-liveried Craven tender engine... only to discover it was a North British single belonging to the Burntisland 1883 P4 group: 



I picked up a building for Linton Town (the first RTP building to make it onto the layout) - a Bachmann low-relief brick Victorian school, which I've fancied for a while, and when offered at £20 (half RRP!) was too good a bargain to miss.



Finally, I spent a fair amount of time watching Bridgwater, modelled in 7mm and set in 1904. Some absolutely stunning locos and stock (including plenty of local PO wagons), set in a lovely, spacious station and yard. With DCC Sound, the layout won a well-deserved award at the show.





Anyone would think I had a thing for small blue Victorian locomotives and carriages scuttling about!

Edited July 5, 2022 by Skinnylinny

[Caley Jim]

20 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

And then saw a rather more utilitarian livery on a gorgeous 2mm finescale model while chatting with @Caley Jim at the 2mm FS Society stand:


 

For the avoidance of doubt, the 2FS Yankee tank is not mine, but was built by fellow 2 FS aficionado Alisdair Campbell.

 

Jim

[Corbs]

I think I saw that Bridgwater layout at the Bristol show... Gorgeous it was.

[Skinnylinny]

Not much to report this time - I've acquired some gold lettering transfers from the US (with surprisingly low shipping costs) which I've been trying out on shop fronts. The J. MacVicar butcher's shop I misjudged the spacing on, slightly, but used the new transfers. I'm rather pleased with the typeface ("Railroad Roman"), and they offer Roman letters in various widths so I may add the condensed ones to my next order.

LeLacheur's groceries was lettered using black-shaded white letters intended for private-owner wagons. I would have preferred to use red-shaded letters on the dark green, but I couldn't find a suitable smaller-sized "e" with red shading, so black shading had to do!

Burton's boots and shoes used some leftover gold lettering from a Fox Transfers set intended for the West Highland Line "Hebridean" coaches, which I had originally bought for the fine black lining in the set! Chopping and changing the letters from the (very Scottish) carriage names gave me the name I needed, although the sign needs a coat of varnish.



I've also been away from home, and while away I have been working on a Keil Kraft kit of an Edinburgh standard tram, which has been keeping me busy for a week or two now. There's still a lot to be done, but I've been extremely impressed by the fit of the parts, especially the windows. These are all individual panes, with very slightly bevelled edges which fit perfectly in the bevelled edges of their respective frames, leaving no "lip" on the inside. A light touch of Plastic Weld near each corner is drawn along the join by capillary action, and the result is a neat window... as long as you don't slip with the brush as I did at one point.

About half of the body is assembled and painted so far, and I've been working on the interior.



There is the possibility that this may end up being motorised, but I'm loathe to lose the interior detail, so I don't really want to carve it up to fit the motor bogie which was in the box. Then again, judicious addition of passengers would probably hide most of the necessary sins...

[Skinnylinny]

I'm choosing to blame Gary ( @BlueLightning ) for getting me back into doing some of my personal (i.e. not work-related!) CAD. Quite some time back, I *mostly* finished an LSWR open carriage truck and 16' horsebox, but I've not been having much luck with my own printer. Well, I'm travelling down south for the Bluebell Railway terrier gala at the end of the month, and knowing that he has a rather nice printer in the shop, I got around to finishing the CAD for these.

At 16' long, the horsebox is rather small, slightly under half the length of a BR Mk1 horsebox (at 34')! The horsebox has already come off the printer, and the carriage truck is mid-print.



I also discovered a half-completed LCDR open wagon in my "unfinished projects" virtual drawer, so I've spent a pleasant half-a-day bringing that up to this point:


(And yes, I know the internal bolt-heads are hugely overscale, but when combined with a weathering wash on the interior they should appear clearly enough, hopefully). I hope to have this one finished shortly so that it, too, can be printed before my trip! It still needs ribbing adding to the buffers, brake gear, and the NEM pockets, but there's not much more to be done to it.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Skinnylinny

[Skinnylinny]

Minor update: the LCDR open is now done, and will be going to Gary this evening!

[BlueLightning]

I am more than happy to take all the blame for this! and I'm not mad about the free advertising of the shops 3D Printing service either 🤣

 

Gary

[Skinnylinny]

I mean, with print quality like this, you'd better believe I'll tell folks about it!



Even the ribbing on the vacuum pipe has come out!

[BlueLightning]

Yeah, it's not bad is it! 😛

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 22/07/2022 at 16:57, Skinnylinny said:

I mean, with print quality like this, you'd better believe I'll tell folks about it!



Even the ribbing on the vacuum pipe has come out!

For a 3D print, that detail is insane!

[Regularity]

On 22/07/2022 at 23:06, BlueLightning said:

Yeah, it's not bad is it! 😛

What printer (and resin) are you using?

[Mikkel]

Extraordinary.  We knew the day would come but I thought it would take longer.

 

I'm aware of all the work that has gone into this, but it still leads to the thought: Now everything is possible. Whether that is a good thing is up to each of us to decide, I suppose.

[Andy Hayter]

Apart from the buffers, vac pipe and ventilators, everything was already possible in plasticard.  I am therefore not as worried as you seem to be.  The tools have changed but skill is still required to get the good result.

[Skinnylinny]

2 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Extraordinary.  We knew the day would come but I thought it would take longer.

 

I'm aware of all the work that has gone into this, but it still leads to the thought: Now everything is possible. Whether that is a good thing is up to each of us to decide, I suppose.

 

24 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Apart from the buffers, vac pipe and ventilators, everything was already possible in plasticard.  I am therefore not as worried as you seem to be.  The tools have changed but skill is still required to get the good result.

I have to say, I agree with Andy here. It's true that the modelling itself is done on the computer, rather than with scalpel and ruler. That being said, I'll still be hand-painting, applying lettering transfers etc. in the traditional way. I find it interesting to see peoples' reactions when I present a train with 3D-printed locomotive and tender, laser-cut card carriages... and then tell them I'm still studying the use of ruling pen for lining! There are definitely parts of the layout that will be old-fashioned and labour-intensive - the embossed DAS clay setts around the goods yard for example. Using @Giles' excellent tool (which speeds things up while still allowing curving of the road surface and different angles of edging setts) this will hopefully save me a fair amount of time and energy, which is very important when one has chronic fatigue. 



For me, the use of the 3D printer has the advantages that if I want multiple of something (for example, the dumb-buffered open wagon I designed many months back) I don't have to batch-produce, and make the same mistakes (and corrections) multiple times over. I can also re-use bits that I already have designed (I think I've used my LSWR Panter axleboxes under several wagons). I can also offer copies to friends who express an interest in the models (converting more to the joys of the pre-grouping period), and I've gained a fair few other models through trading of CAD files. Finally, I don't have to spend valuable energy at the start and end of each modelling session finding the bits I was working on and the appropriate tools, and then tidy up at the end. 

In the end, is it really all that different from a resin-cast bodyshell, such as the Gramodels LSWR stone wagon seen at Farthing? It will still need some fettling (removing of supports and tidying up), painting, lettering and (where appropriate) lining. Except, of course, that I had to design it myself!

Edited July 25, 2022 by Skinnylinny

[Caley Jim]

The difficult bit, as I'm discovering, is getting your head round 3D CAD!🙄

 

Jim

[Skinnylinny]

It's certainly a different approach from designing for laser-cutting or etching!