Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Nearholmer]

Consolidated that signal cabin well enough.

[Martin S-C]

I was wondering about that. The rear centre upright looks like an original structural member, so is the collection of wonky timbers also part of the designed support for the lever frame floor or might these be temporary props put in after the accident to stop it all falling down? It does say a lot about the lack of strength of timber built boxes - not that trains habitually crashed into signal boxes of course...

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

I was wondering about that. The rear centre upright looks like an original structural member, so is the collection of wonky timbers also part of the designed support for the lever frame floor or might these be temporary props put in after the accident to stop it all falling down? It does say a lot about the lack of strength of timber built boxes - not that trains habitually crashed into signal boxes of course...

 

The Midland boxes were pre-fabricated structures, in units of 10 ft panels, so the rear centre piece is indeed part of the frame. But the wonky timbers are, I'm sure, there to prop it up rather than being part of the structure. Despite their apparently flimsy construction, Midland boxes have turned out to be pretty durable, as witnessed by the number that remain to this day either still in main line use or in preservation. The weak point was that the bottom end of the vertical frame members could rot; later versions were built on concrete footings. 

[Denbridge]

To cause so much damage with what 'should' have been a slow moving goods train, suggests the crew had lost control of it on a down gradient. It may well have been 'looped' to prevent it causing further damage further ahead. Possibly a passenger train was in a station beyond the Box.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Denbridge said:

To cause so much damage with what 'should' have been a slow moving goods train, suggests the crew had lost control of it on a down gradient. It may well have been 'looped' to prevent it causing further damage further ahead. Possibly a passenger train was in a station beyond the Box.

 

The location is given as Wymondham, also known as Edmondthorpe or Edmondthorpe & Wymondham, the first station out from Saxby on the Bourne line. At the date of the accident, early December 1892, the line was not yet open for passenger traffic, as mentioned above. The gradient diagram shows a descent at 1:00 for a mile and a half towards the station for westbound (up)  trains. The OS 25" map, revised 1902, shows the signal box on the up platform, as do later photos. The OS map shows the line as single, with a passing loop through the station; the goods yard being served off a long headshunt at the west end, along with trailing connections from the eastbound (down) line. I'm wondering if at the time of the accident, the goods yard had not yet been laid out and the signalbox was sited at the west end of the loop, which only had a short trap siding rather than the later long headshunt - which could well have been added as wisdom after the event. There is a book on the building of the Saxby & Bourne - I wonder if that sheds any more light on this incident?

Edited May 27, 2019 by Compound2632

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 The weak point was that the bottom end of the vertical frame members could rot; later versions were built on concrete footings. 

Jerry Clifford (Queensquare) touches on this in his article on building 2mm scale Midland boxes in the latest MRJ.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

26 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Jerry Clifford (Queensquare) touches on this in his article on building 2mm scale Midland boxes in the latest MRJ.

 

 

Indeed, although I have the seminal Midland Record article, it was Jerry's mention of this that no doubt made it fresh in my mind.

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

The location is given as Wymondham, also known as Edmondthorpe or Edmondthorpe & Wymondham, the first station out from Saxby on the Bourne line.

Ah, just up the road, really.

 

Wymondham in Leicestershire is three syllables- why-mond-um - unlike the same spelling in Norfolk, which (like many places like Huns[tant]on, Snet[ti]sham) has the middle part missing, becoming win-dum. But most of you know that.

[RedGemAlchemist]

3 hours ago, Regularity said:

Wymondham in Leicestershire

Ah, right. I thought for a second it was the one just down the road from me.

[Compound2632]

49 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Ah, right. I thought for a second it was the one just down the road from me.

 

No, but there was an accident there, no details yet on Railways Archive, 13 Jan 1879.

 

 

[Martin S-C]

An update on track laying while I was away in the Forest, plus work done last Wednesday.

 

In my absence Neil laid the entire main line bus under the main baseboards so now, when track is laid, it can be powered up in a jiffy.

 

Photos show the current state of play with track being laid in various locations; we're just going through the options of where to lay track and wire it up to the bus as we go, on the basis of what's easy!

Presently we have the hidden storage loops of the circuit laid, the hidden track out of these on the north side towards Puddlebrook, the trackwork at Puddlebrook station and most of the (in tunnel) gradient up to Snarling, plus all the gradients at the west end of the layout which are 1) the branch grade between Catspaw and Witts End, 2) the grade down from Puddlebrook to the Exchange Sidings and 3) the level track curve from Puddlebrook past the colliery and up the grade to Green Soudley.
 

The large radius curves at this end of the layout are looking pretty good.

"Fake" crossover that links the continuous loop to the Snarling/Puddlebrook section of main line. Since taking this photo the right hand point heel has been swung left a little to smooth out the S curve. The curved track behind it has consequently been shifted left to ease the radius.
 

Main line grade from colliery to Green Soudley at the left. Line into the Exchange Sidings in the centre and branch line curve between Catspaw and Witts End at the right.

 

Close up. Testing curve with some rolling stock.

 

Puddlebrook, looking towards the colliery. Pointwork being "fiddled about with" at the colliery entry. The left-most track is the gradient climbing away from Witts End (away from camera).

 

Puddlebrook looking the other way. Witts End board on the right. This area was a real beast to get right due to having to avoid the hinged end of the lifting flap for point motors, etc.

 

Curve beyond Puddlebrook looking towards the crossover seen in the first picture. The curve here needs adjusting , not yet smooth enough, its only loosely pinned down for now so easy to tweak.

 

Another view of the smooth curve leaving Witts End and climbing the incline. I'm really happy with the sinuous nature of this section. Straight track is so dull!

 

[chuffinghell]

Fantastic!

 

The photo of the curve beyond Puddlebrook looking towards the crossover looks great

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by chuffinghell

[Stubby47]

As you'll be using point motors, will you be removing the extended point tie bars with the pips, and thining the sleepers used to fix the peco motors?

[Martin S-C]

12 minutes ago, chuffinghell said:

The photo of the curve beyond Puddlebrook looking towards the crossover looks great

 

Nah, it looks pants. The bit circled in red needs smoothing out so its all one transition curve. We'll get it sorted.

 

3 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

As you'll be using point motors, will you be removing the extended point tie bars with the pips, and thining the sleepers used to fix the peco motors?

That's right, we are just lightly pinning track down for now to get the plan sorted and I will then run some test trains. Later on we'll cosmetically attack it in earnest.

What is really annoying me however is the difference in profile between the flat bottomed rail (pointwork) and the new bullhead rail (all the flexitrack). The sleeper length and spacing is a horrible mismatch as well. As I plan to have ash ballast and almost everything will be covered its less of an issue but I will be bothered if Peco release more points in bullhead as soon as we're finished... which Murphy's Law states they are bound to do.

[lezz01]

Very nice Martin. It's coming on a treat mate.

Regards Lez.

[chuffinghell]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

Nah, it looks pants. The bit circled in red needs smoothing out so its all one transition curve. We'll get it sorted.

 

I’d not noticed that 

[Nearholmer]

You can get too precious about these things.

 

Have a look at photos of secondary and tertiary railways in the pre-grouping period, and it becomes evident that track geometry was not the same as it is on modern railways.

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Nah, it looks pants. The bit circled in red needs smoothing out so its all one transition curve. We'll get it sorted.

Tracksettas are your friend (other radius tools are available).

[Regularity]

3 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Nah, it looks pants. The bit circled in red needs smoothing out so its all one transition curve. We'll get it sorted.

 

7 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Tracksettas are your friend (other radius tools are available).

 

But it's a transition curve...

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Regularity said:

 

 

But it's a transition curve...

Generally, curves consist of two transitions linked by a circular curve. It's the circular bit in the middle that seems to have the problem.

Edited June 1, 2019 by St Enodoc

[Regularity]

Usually a cubic spiral, rather than a circular curve...

...for which the tracksettas at each end are unsuitable.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Regularity

[St Enodoc]

14 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Usually a cubic spiral, rather than a circular curve...

...for which the tracksettas at each end are unsuitable.

The section between the two points in Martin's photo should consist of a transition from straight to constant radius, a circular curve of constant radius and a second transition from constant radius to straight. The cubic parabola or spiral forms the transition. The circular curve joins the transitions. The Tracksetta goes on the circular curve and, as you say, not the transitions.

[Martin S-C]

Almost all the plain track on the layout is in transition from one radius to another. That's partly because I really like softly flowing curved track, especially through station platforms and partly for a need in this restricted width to get any kind of decent curve without tightening the radius under 24" which is my minimum. We're achieving gentle reverse curves in some places which are my favourite in terms of appearance.

I appreciate that the prototype was often less demanding of smooth geometry on the type of pre-grouping minor railway I'm depicting but if I'm to have wonky track I think I'd need to raise the standards to which I'm working and consider things like compensation on all vehicles, proper couplings and sprung buffers. Maybe that's an exaggeration but as it currently stands that curve is bugging me because its visible the instant you enter the room and look along the baseboard and unless its corrected its going to annoy me for the rest of the layout's life, I'm sure.

 

I don't know if people want to read the technical bits as I think the photos show what we are about here, but in case its useful to anyone we are laying a main bus for track power all around the layout and taking droppers from each length of plain track between turnouts so there are multiple power feeds. Track is being loose pinned direct to the ply boards in order to get the track plan finalised. We'll then ballast it which will glue it down as well, then remove the pins and make good any small holes. Locomotive control will be digital using NCE Power Cabs and there will be six locations on the layout where control panels will allow these to plug in. We considered wireless handsets but the nature of how I intend to operate the layout makes these unnecessary. Wireless is great if you are modelling USA practice and a driver drives his train right over a scale Raton Pass for example, walking about the layout from start to destination on one of those drool-worthy huge layouts in a massive basement that our colonial modelling friends are so fond of, but I'll be using British practice where trains are passed from signal box to signal box and so the driver of the train will change as it passes between sections.

The Peco live frog points have been disabled at the toe end (you can see the disconnected wires sticking up in a few photos) and polarity will be switched by the Cobalt motors. The toe end of each point has both tracks isolated using two plastic rail joiners each on one of the rails for the left and right diverging routes. Where a length of plain track between turnouts is assembled from several Peco lengths, we are relying on fishplates for electrical connectivity. Cosmetic bolted fishplates will go in as well once we hit the scenic side of things.

 

Point and signal control is electric but analogue. I put up some photos of the Cobalt lever frame units here a while back and we'll be building control panels that have a raised floor to accept the lever frames, a place to plug the Power Cab into and (I hope) a small LED screen powered by a Raspberry Pi that will be a touch screen to allow a basic form of block signal control with lights rather than bells. The Pi's will be networked and powered by a laptop as a server.

Signalling along the branch will be crude with stop boards and calling on indicators (animated figures). On the main line I would like to use a mix of disc and crossbar types and slotted posts. I'd very much like to use servos on these so we get a pull-and-bounce motion but that is a subject not tackled too closely yet. These signal types are strictly speaking largely out of date for a Great War era model but I am not adhering to history in many places and idiosyncratic signal models and signalling methods are something I have always loved. There may be a conventional semaphore arm here or there to suggest piecemeal improvements as funds allow. There was a disc signal controlling the crossing of (I think it was) Brain's Tramway over the GWR line at Bilson in the Forest until the 1930s. The tramway was effectively disused by this time but the GWR maintained the signal in case traffic reoccurred on the tramway, so there is at least a tenuous precedent for antiquated signal systems in the region.

[Martin S-C]

A little bit of fiddling about this afternoon.

Smoothed out that lumpy curve.

Loosely put some track down at Catspaw, the middle station on the branch to see how it fits.

 

The view in the other direction. Potentially another yummy gentle reverse curve here as the track goes into the tunnel.

And a view of a pile of grot on top of the part of the layout that's not been attacked yet.

[teaky]

"Smoothed out that lumpy curve."

 

Well worth doing, Martin.  It looks much better now.