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Bucklers Hard


david51
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:blind: It’s been a while since I posted any thing here . My previous layouts have been adapted as time has passed and I now show my latest manifestation’ Bucklers Hard.’

To be frank it doesn’t look anything like the real place in Hampshire but in my world the river is behind the operator and the area has see a small industrial park grow up providing a reason for continued freight . The branch runs from a junction near Lymington and is electrified. This provides a roundabout route to Southampton via Brockenhurst. The layout is only 7’ long so trains are limited to two coaches or two or three wagons . It sits on top of a bookcase in my spare room . It is not portable . 
I don’t have a fiddle yard but use American style open staging albeit slightly disguised by buildings in the foreground. All points are hand operated and I have no sophisticated electronics. The time span is from 1970 timid 80s but the period is very elastic and I run a variety of Southern based stock 

I hope the attached photos come out .

i will post some more in due course 

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Buckler's Hard?  Don't mess with him, then...

 

(Bury St Edmunds.  Why, is he dead?  Chalfont St Giles. What is Chalfonting and why should I do it to St Giles?  And so on, and on...)

 

A good looking little layout and impressive for 7 feet.  I also hand operate all my points by means of god's finger, and used to do this with signals as well but have over the last year installed Dapol working signals.

 

 

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Thankyou Johnster for your kind words.

There are only two signals on Bucklers Hard , both non working colour lights. 
I’m afraid electrics are not my sting point and as the layout is intended only for me and the odd visitor I am not worried. 
I am afraid that I learned from previous larger layouts that complicated electronics are not my strong point. I like running trains not trying to find that latest short circuit or replacing a burnt out switch.The trees disguise the staging road/fiddle track. For many years I modelled US railroads and open staging is very popular there .

In the photo the trees hide the staging track which has some buildings in front plus two carriage sidings to provide some digitise .

For home use I find it effective and it means I’m not trying to place stock on the rails peering over a back scene .

italso allows the full length of the layout to be seen , important with only 7’ available

 

 

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Preaching to the choir when it comes to electrics, David.  Cwmdimbath is built to a philosopy, KISS.  Not a glam rock band, but a principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid.  Wiring is a single feed and two bridging cables for kick back sidings, turnouts are insulfrog despite advice from the denizens of this forum, and the current goes where the points are set.  Operation could occasionally do with an isolating section in the station platform, but this is one of the 'maybe, someday' projects.  Despite the warnings about insulfrogs, my running is very reliable even at slow speeds, but I do not have any 0-4-0s to worry about and have taken care to lay the turnouts so that there is no instance of all pickup wheels being over dead frogs.  I also took very great care to lay the track, especially the turnouts, level and smoothly connected by the physical means of rail joiners to the next piece, eliminating the need for soldered joints, something else I'm not very good at.  There are 4 soldered joints on the entire layout and these have not given any trouble, fingers crossed, yet, in 3 and half years of running.  I occasionally have to clean the contacts where the turnout blades close on the stock rails, but have no other electrical problems with the layout; one or two locos have not been so reliable but I've beaten them into submission now...

 

We seem to have fundamentally similar views on this matter, and your scenery is much like mine as well; we're not twins separated at birth, are we?  I've long held the view that I was sent home with the wrong people from the maternity ward and am naturally born to a life that I've been tragically denied of luxury and idleness; any of my old bosses will confirm the latter!   There are no trees at Cwmdimbath; it's a South Wales mining valley and they've all been cut for pit props years ago, but I approve very strongly of your collection of huts and outbuildings.  I have a conventional fy, but regard it  as 'semi-open'; there is no tunnel or bridge, just a, A4 piece of matt black thick card with a tunnel hole in it.  A road and a pipe bridge a few scale yards on the scenic side of the visual break draws your eyes away from the black at the edge of the world, and the lighting is arranged to encourage this.  I had intended to provide a photo backscene looking down a valley here, with the black card as the surface for it, but in the event am happy with things the way they are.

 

There is no backscene in the conventional sense behind the layout either; instead grass scenic mats rise directly off the back of the layout, separated from the railway by the Dimbath stream, to represent a steep mountainside rising over a thousand feet above the river, with outcrops of Pennant Sandstone rock and a few thickets of gorse to create interest, along with a tumbledown shelter for the sheep, Wills grotty hut, and a pigeon loft, Harburn Hobbies.  The real central Glamorgan Valleys are steep and narrow, and the Dimbath, which actually exists as a tributary of the Ogwr (Ogmore) but never had a mining village or railway, is particularly steep and narrow, and a fairly claustrophobic atmosphere is required for the effect I want.

 

It's a bleak and miserable spot, but I'm Welsh; we enjoy a bit of misery!

 

Edited by The Johnster
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