Coalorsdale - A shropshire Branchline - 1965 to 71

[DLT]

Fabulous stuff!

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

As I teased above I managed to blend the viaduct scene in before leaving my parents house and returning to work. I also wired in both modules. 

 

To add detail to the viaduct scene I added a row of seafoam trees along the backscene to blend in the painting before installing 4 woodland scenics birch trees ( I improved them before installing by adding some fine turf and hairspray). I also added a landrover which I had weathered up for a previous layout. 

 

 

 

The final tree I bought at the model shop was to go behind the model of my childhood home. I have built Many tree houses over the years so was taken by this skaledale tree with tree house attached, although I may 3d print a tree house that looks more similar to my childhood engineering attempts. 

 

 

I wired up the modules using 23/0.2 colour coded wires for track distri t bus wires, a 12v accessory bus and CBUS. 

 

 

 

 

The "brain" of the modules contains a MERG CANVOUT, DTC8A and a relay board from Amazon. I got this mostly programmed but much more work is required in future. The aim is to provide block detection to allow automation, as well as relays to turn on and off building lights and control absolute aspects signals. 

 

 

Speaking of signals here is one of my absolute aspects orders as installed at the exit to the future storage yard. 

 

 

The final bit of electrickery is my interboard connectors,  for which I designed and ordered Pcbs from China before assembling with components from cpc and 24 pin pc psu extension cables from ebay. 

 

They provide means to connect all bus wires plus 10 spare connections across each board join. They have leds to show 12v bus power and 12v cbus power and finally a jumper that enables a Cbus termination resistor 

 

 

 

More to follow... 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Here is the state of play before leaving the layout and returning to work. I hope to be able to work on the new module in the spring/ summer adding all of the scenery and backscene before turning my attention to whichever module I build next. I can only work on the actual modules when visiting my parents and unfortunately due to changing locations at work have had to leave most of my kit building / electronics projects at home too. I'll post as and when I buy any new, rollingstock or complete any other projects.  I do also have some loco photos to post in the near future. 

 

 

Here are a few photos of the work completed over my new year break. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

As I dont have access to any physical model railway parafonalia at the moment, I have spent my time looking over my plans and searching for inspiration. 

 

One of the first modules I had designed for the layout was the Traction maintenence depot. Its something I have wanted to model for a while but can be quite a cliche. The final plan I had come up with was 12ft by 2.5ft and centered around a Bachmann two road shed. I then ended up wanting to run a retaining wall around two sides and have a rough representation of coalbrookdale works on a raised level behind the yard.

 

Having recently been working on the viaduct scene, i realised i much prefer modelling countryside to modelling built up industrial scenes so was having second thoughts. Moreover i realised that the tmd i had drawn up filled pretty much all of the standard tick boxes of a cliche depot with mostly rtr buildings that are seen on dozens of layouts. There was also very little functionality from a 12ft long scene and the track plan looks quite boring.

 

The straw that broke the cammels back was when I bought a Hornby 7mt last week on ebay. I soon reliased my depot was entirely focused on my diesel fleet, something that seemed wrong for the mid sixties and that i had no where to display steam locos where they'd be able to get coal and water etc.

 

After much planning and research I altered the track plan to represent a medium sized steam shed that has had one end of the yard rebuilt to maintiain diesels and provide them with fuel. My idea is that this was once a GWR shed to support some nearby station not too far offscene, and that BR has come along and demolished an old section ( I'd imagine it was once a wagon repair shop or lifting shed) to build a modern diesel shed and refueling point. I've also added in a turntable on scene (allowing me to remove the one had initially planned for the storage yard) as well as adding a point and a diamond crossing to allow easy access from the up main. The altered plans are below.

 

Im much happier with the flow of the new design and think it will be much more enjoyable to operate. The left hand side is where BR have chucked up a new shed and i'll probably add an admin building and car park too.

The shed and coaling stage will be based on standard gwr designs similar to those in didcot, but obviously very run down for my end of steam era. Finally i've given a whole load of space back to countryside scenics and even managed to better represent the branchline junction instead of hiding it under a factory.

 

a Labelled plan is below, let me know if theres any screaming errors or oversights.

 

 

A bonus dodgy render of the main pointwork mostly peco medium and large radius points.

 

David

 

 

 

 

[GWR57xx]

I’d say the coal road is a bit of a problem because it’s a dead end and there’s nowhere for engines to queue to be coaled and dump their ash. Otherwise I think it has far more interest than the diesel only MPD.

[Railpassion]

The second plan is so much better. I do think there's a lot of track around the shed and turntable and it may look cramped. Do you need the purple road to the turntable? Without it, you would have more space and one less point. 

 

Yards were quite spacious around turntables. 

Here's Fort William in the final years

 

Photo: Eastbank Model Railway Club

 

 

 

 

Edited February 9 by Railpassion

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

5 hours ago, GWR57xx said:

I’d say the coal road is a bit of a problem because it’s a dead end and there’s nowhere for engines to queue to be coaled and dump their ash

I hadn't thought of this, I was thinking of putting an ash pit just in front of the shed on one or two of the tracks but hadn't considered the queue. I might just make them queue in another siding before setting back to coal but will look into prototypes. 

Iwas going to use that third purple loop to stable locos / brake vans that are just arriving or departing if that makes sense. The two blue tracks will have to be left clear to allow fuel tanker and coal trains to be run around before being split and shunted back into their respective sidings. I may end up removing the pinky red track just below the number 9 as this may be overkill but I'll see how the space looks when I get round to ordering a full size print out. Thanks for the reference photo. 

5 hours ago, Railpassion said:

. Do you need the purple road to the turntable? Without it, you would have more space and one less point. 

[Davidl66]

Could you not shuffle things around a bit at the steam end and do something like this at Leamington Spa.

 

From - https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrls2200.htm

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

3 minutes ago, Davidl66 said:

Could you not shuffle things around a bit at the steam end and do something like this at Leamington Spa.

 

From - https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrls2200.htm

Leamington spa was one of my track plan inspirations, however the need for a long runaround for fuel trains pushes the turntable to the right and forces me into putting the shed above the turntable unlike 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Whilst at work I have been visiting various model shops and browsing eBay. 

 

I have managed to pick up three locos so far this year ( limiting myself to one a month). 

 

A Hornby Brittania with faulty dcc sound. I am going to renumber this and rename it as 70000 Britannia before heavy weathering. 

 

A Bachmann standard 5 tender, weathered with dcc sound ( again the sound was listed as faulty but I've not had chance to test it). 

 

And finally after stumbling across a second hand model railway shop I was surprised when I managed to find a Dapol 61xx. I have 5101 on pre order from the next Dapol release (the current run is very hard to get a hold of) . I may well end up cancelling my pre order now I have the second hand example. I have purchased a loksound 5 decoder and will chip and weather the Loco when I next visit home. 

 

 

My other railway outlet has been vising various second hand bookshops and buying reference books as well as browsing antique shops for any old railway bits. Just today I visited an antique shop and managed to pick up some belisha beacons. 

 

To that end I am looking at photographs of the village shop scene and working out if a zebra crossing makes sense or is too contrived.  I'd like to keep the parked van (I'll move it further back) and have plans to add fruit and veg outside the shop. 

 

The bridge will be on brick piers with embankment either side and the empty space across the road will be a hedgerow lined horse field.  I'm not sure if the crossing is contrived or will look good. It will also give an excuse to have pedestrians crossing and holding up road traffic.  The other option is to have it just past the bridge. This will have a cottage on the left and woodland on the right. 

 

 

 

Any thoughts on road crossings welcome. 

David 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lezz01]

I think the crossing's too close to the junction myself. I think it would be better where the post box is.

Regards Lez. 

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

2 hours ago, lezz01 said:

I think the crossing's too close to the junction myself. I think it would be better where the post box is.

Regards Lez. 

 

Agreed. Will obviously be able to tell better in a few weeks when I can see the physical layout but I think I'll put the crossing next to the bridge and then move the street lamp to the junction. 

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Evening all, 

Popped to trains4u in Peterborough today on my travels. Picked up some wills kits for the coalorsdale village board. I'm planning on gluing them up whilst away at work then if and when I visit my parents I'll just have to paint, weather and install them. Photos to follow. 

 

Plans for the mpd are also ticking over in my head. I've been thinking about using my single track stone shed in this back corner. Or maybe building a custom coach/ wagon repair shed or lifting shed. What would reasonably be able to run over the turntable to access this corner. Not sure on regs re rolling stock on tables but think it's an ideal place for some sort of long thin wagon shop.  

 

Location of proposed shed marked with an X. Any inspiration as to structures welcome. 

 

 

 

David 

 

 

 

 

 

[GWR57xx]

Could you move the turntable to the left a bit to where the engine shed & pump house currently sit, and move the shed to where the X is?

Maybe straighten the coal stage ramp a bit, and have the coal road run onto the turntable, with an ash line beside it?

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

As i make final plans for a weeks stay at my parents, I'm looking at ballasting the shop module. Is there anyone in the know re cable trunking.

 

Im assuming as I'm using colour light signals then telegraph poles would have been replaced by trunking in the 60s ?

 

would the trunking run straight over my girder bridge and viaduct or would there be a different arrangement?

 

should I have a relay box with every signal ?

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

I have been designing GWR esque fencing to 3d print to avoid spending a fortune on ratio posts. Im going for simple square concrete posts with some rough spacings for 5 wires ( 5 instead of 7 to save on EZline). Ive then used some photographs to mock up 2 styles of bridge rail tensioning posts. I'll add some sort of fixing spikes to the bottom of these designs and do some trial prints next week before going ahead with a final design.

 

 

 

 

 

[Railpassion]

On 04/03/2024 at 20:16, GWR57xx said:

Could you move the turntable to the left a bit to where the engine shed & pump house currently sit, and move the shed to where the X is?

Maybe straighten the coal stage ramp a bit, and have the coal road run onto the turntable, with an ash line beside it?

 

Good idea. The turntable could tuck into the space and the shed would have more room at X.

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

My week stay at my parents has turned into a long weekend due to work commitments. Final day tomorrow so I hope to get a decent amount done. 

 

Here's the rundown so far. 

 

I started by dcc sound fitting 6167 with a loksound v5. 

 

Then I set about building a lighting rig out of 38mm square pine. The top section is slotted into some aluminium box and is therefore easily removable. 

 

3 rows of 5000k 24v led strips were added and the backscene was prepped for painting. 

 

 

An initial layer of sky and clouds painted on ready for more detailed painting after scenery is finished. 

 

 

It wad then time to make up and paint the bridge abutments and retaining walls using various wills kits. 

 

 

Meanwhile I added a valance to the lighting rig and added an extra set of warm white and cool white leds shining down from the front. 

 

 

Today it was time to start scenery and I began by forming the embankment and the start of a horse field using foam. 

 

Here is the view after some sculptamold was applied (upper railing section of the bridge is yet to be installed). 

 

 

... 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

I then proceeded to paint the sculptamold brown and airbrush all of the track with some rail match sleeper grime. 

 

 

Before finally ballasting the track using some woodland scenics fine grey ballast. 

 

 

More to follow tomorrow. 

David. 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Will post more photos this evening, but for now... 

 

 

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Dapol 6167 weathered this morning before leaving my parents house. Now en route back to work. Will post layout progress photos in next few days. 

 

 

[Railpassion]

Does the foam set instantly, or can you work it a little? 

 

Super pics BTW.

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

38 minutes ago, Railpassion said:

Does the foam set instantly, or can you work it a little? 

 

Super pics BTW.

Should have made more clear. I used polystyrene sheets and a hot wire foam cutter for the embankment 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Will upload rest of photos after work today. 

 

This one shows my old Hornby 61xx vs the new Dapol version. Also the difference in my weathering style and ability from 2022-2024

 

I'll be keeping the Hornby edition but renumbering it. It will probably end up sat on shed whilst the Dapol version  will be added to my running roster. 

 

 

David

 

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Evening all, 

Finally got time to upload some photos. 

 

There will be a lot more detail on my YouTube channel in the next week or so but here is the rough process :

 

I started by installing a lars opt hof grass mat to make the field ( I could have grassed it by hand but wanted to test some new scenic products). This mat is called "pasture with weeds" 

 

 

I then used my new wws static grass applicator and wws glue and layering spray to apply a mix of autumn, patchy, muddy and dead static grass, followed up with some straw and mud colours through the airbrush. I also put in a hedgerow using rubberised horse hair, seafoam and woodland scenics turf. 

 

 

The finishing touches were my 3d printed fence with some EzLine a wire twisted tree from MP scenery and various seafoam bushes that I quickly made up. 

 

 

The horse was downloaded online and then printed on my resin printer before hand painting based on a horse that lived in the field opposite my house growing up. Took me a while to paint and dry brush but I'm proud of the final look. I think it is much better than any off the shelf offerings which also tend to be under scale. 

 

 

Overall I'm. Very happy with the finished field. 

 

 

(This photo was before I filled and painted the facia black) 

 

I also came back and re touched the old static grass with my new applicator and techniques. This signal still needs bedding in with ballast. (once again I re-painted the facia after this shot) 

 

 

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