Wentworth Junction

[Enterprisingwestern]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

For those watching in black-and-white, that's about half-way between a No 71 and a No 72 drill.

 

What's a thou between friends?!!

 

Mike.

[Michael Edge]

It's a good few decades since I used number drills, metric dimensions are a lot easier to work with.

[Michael Edge]

Fencing

All threaded on, this is how they arrive at the layout with all the posts at one end. First one is planted then the others are slid along and planted one by one, black dots in the grass at 12ft intervals.

They still have to be pulled tight in this photo, pva glue round the base of the posts holds them well enough. Threading all the posts takes a long time but planting this 3ft length takes about 10 minutes.

Another job done quite quickly yesterday with the fiddle yard control panel.

Working the layout at Leeds last year led us to the conclusion that the original idea of setting the points at both ends of the loops together was slowing things down, although it works well enough with Herculaneum Dock. Extra switches now in place to set each end of the loops independently, this allows the operator to set up the road for an arrival while setting a different road for a departure at the other end, 5 extra red switches at the LH end. This turned out to be much quicker than I expected since the connections between the points was only in the panel. I ran out of red switch sleeves so put blue ones on the crossovers to free some up, blue and green sleeves on the link switches as well. The long back road didn't need an extra switch since it's only accessible via the brown section at far left.

 

 

[Barry O]

Time for a running session Mike!

 

Baz

[St Enodoc]

13 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

Fencing

All threaded on, this is how they arrive at the layout with all the posts at one end. First one is planted then the others are slid along and planted one by one, black dots in the grass at 12ft intervals.

They still have to be pulled tight in this photo, pva glue round the base of the posts holds them well enough. Threading all the posts takes a long time but planting this 3ft length takes about 10 minutes.

Another job done quite quickly yesterday with the fiddle yard control panel.

Working the layout at Leeds last year led us to the conclusion that the original idea of setting the points at both ends of the loops together was slowing things down, although it works well enough with Herculaneum Dock. Extra switches now in place to set each end of the loops independently, this allows the operator to set up the road for an arrival while setting a different road for a departure at the other end, 5 extra red switches at the LH end. This turned out to be much quicker than I expected since the connections between the points was only in the panel. I ran out of red switch sleeves so put blue ones on the crossovers to free some up, blue and green sleeves on the link switches as well. The long back road didn't need an extra switch since it's only accessible via the brown section at far left.

 

 

Ah, good old link switches!

[Nicktoix]

Turn your bl**dy link off !!!

Nick

[Michael Edge]

We're not always so polite....

[peak experience]

On 06/07/2023 at 08:50, KeithHC said:

Use a sewing threader you might get a few looks when you buy one though.

 

Keith

Keith, it's the 21st century. No one cares about things like this anymore 😉

[Michael Edge]

Some more fencing in place now.

 

I've never done a signal box interior before but the Severn Models kit was too good to resist.

 

Wentworth Junction was a 30 lever frame and I had the signal diagram so the levers have been set out for a train signalled through in both directions, plus one heading up the branch.

 

It's all quite visible through the windows at the back, I'll have wait until it's out of the shed to see what it looks like from the front.

[uax6]

Mike,

You might want to shuffle the frame a bit tighter to the front of the box. Our Saxby and Farmer frame here at Littleport sits so that the rear of the quadrant slot is about 25" from the wall, which is similar to all the frames down the Lynn road, including the old Saxby frame that was in Magdelan Road, which is an ex-GC box for some lost reason reason...

 

(that kit looks very GW with the treaded quadrant).

 

Andy G

Edited August 31, 2023 by uax6

[Michael Edge]

It will do as it is, you can't see any of that with the roof on.

[5BarVT]

Googled Wentworth Jn to see if I could find a diagram too.  Found it on Lymm Observatory.  Of a later date than you depict as is doesn’t have xover 23 that you have, but still has the disc (24) that would have read through it.  Presumably kept as a sort of repeater for 11 when propelling back.

Fun this signalling detective work.

Paul.

[Michael Edge]

The track layout was simplified a bit later on with bankers running through from Wombwell but it stayed much the same as I have built into the 1960s which is all I'm interested in. The original layout concept was going to go right through to blue locos and MGR operation, with the idea of gradually changing the stock through an exhibition but this was going to require far too much stock. At the moment it's all steam (although we can run an EM1 in a train with its pans down) and will go partly electric when all the wires are up - between 1952 and 1954 the line can run steam and electric. When the new Woodhead tunnel opened in 1954 steam locos were no longer allowed across the Pennines but the colliery trip remained steam worked for a few years until diesels took over.

[polybear]

Hi Mike,

 

Is there any news on the possibility of making the chair bases available?  Are the bases flat in profile, or do they have any representation of the chair "jaws"?  I looked back at your previous posts for photos but sadly the "Great RMWeb Picture Crash" a while back has lost them, as well as the track tools/gauges you use for 16.2mm construction ☹️

I'm experimenting with different track techniques at the moment (I prefer soldered construction), which includes using single sided vero pins thru' copper clad sleepers and also ply & rivet; for both of them the fitting of a plastic chair is made difficult due to the pin/rivet head size and I'd rapidly lose the will to live on a complete layout.  Do you use the 1.6mm copper clad or the thinner 1mm version?

Thanks,

Brian

[Michael Edge]

No news on a production version of these, they are flat on top, no representation of chairs. The timbers are thin pcb, the whole idea was simply to get the rail lifted above the timbers - originally I used short strips of brass or n/s to do this. I'll dig about and put some photos of this back on here when I've got time.

[polybear]

On 09/10/2023 at 08:57, Michael Edge said:

No news on a production version of these, they are flat on top, no representation of chairs. The timbers are thin pcb, the whole idea was simply to get the rail lifted above the timbers - originally I used short strips of brass or n/s to do this. I'll dig about and put some photos of this back on here when I've got time.

 

Thanks Mike - that would be great.

Brian

[Michael Edge]

I can't find all the stuff that went missing in the great crash, most of them were temporary files just for this thread but here are three pictures of the finished pointwork anyway.

My main purpose was to lift the rails above the timbers to create the right appearance, I wasn't really trying to reproduce proper chairs. I don't like the current fashion of building pointwork with plastic chairs glued to the timbers, they are just about impossible to adjust/fix if anything goes wrong.

[polybear]

Many thanks Mike - that looks good; I also have suspicions about plastic chairs - I don't trust that they won't go brittle with age.

I'm currently experimenting with single-sided Vero Pins (terminal pins) into copper clad sleepers in order to raise the track (in the same way as ply & rivet does) and then add cosmetic plastic chairs by gluing on afterwards (which would be a b@ll ache to do).  Fortunately the head of a vero pin is smaller than that of a rivet so as long as the rail is centred on the pin head they fit ok without too much fuss.

As to whether or not I'd just do the turnouts with copper clad using this method and rely on flexitrack for the plain trackwork is undecided; I think if your plates were available I'd do the whole layout with them.

I've also experimented with Masokits etched brass chairs for a turnout and plain trackwork - very strong, looks reasonable and is adjustable - but is very time consuming to do as the chairs all have to be folded and formed prior to soldering.  Mike Clark has been selling the chairs for 13+ years now so presumably there is a demand; some people on the S4 Forum are using them for their layouts.

Cheers,

Brian

[Michael Edge]

I've just got the Mk3 version of the DG coupling hook.

I've modified the latch again, now the top part is half etched to fold over. It rests on the peg quite securely now and the loop can't catch on the top of it - worked perfectly on test with this J10 on the colliery trip.

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

I've just got the Mk3 version of the DG coupling hook.

I've modified the latch again, now the top part is half etched to fold over. It rests on the peg quite securely now and the loop can't catch on the top of it - worked perfectly on test with this J10 on the colliery trip.

Yes please!

[polybear]

Incidentally, it does seem that the J.E. Kits site can't be accessed at the moment (as well as others hosted on the UK Model Shops Site) - I've tried two separate browsers without joy.  Were you aware Mike?

[Michael Edge]

No idea, it's all there now anyway, I've just checked.

[Michael Edge]

Working on the big water tower now.

The tank has been 3D printed by Innocentman, not entirely successful yet but it's looking OK. The support structure was a mixture of wood and steel girders, assembled out of Plastruct sections so far.

[Michael Edge]

Water tower now painted and in position.

Still needs a ladder to the top platform and a chain to operate the filler with.

[65179]

Great to see such a defining feature of Wentworth Jct taking shape.

 

Odd vac pipe position on that J11.

 

Simon

Edited October 29, 2023 by 65179