A garage, O scale and the Ploughley Hundred Light Railway (was Gawcott & Westbury Light Railway)

[Ray H]

Tuesday was a wash out layout wise. I spent all day on the phone trying to arrange cruise travel insurance because I have a couple of medical conditions that needed to be declared. I managed it in the end (and at cost), but only just.

 

Anyway, back to the layout. By yesterday evening I had re-connected all the frog wires to the relays and all the servos to their controller board.

 

The conduit is now in place on the front edge of the baseboards which has made a big difference. The only wires on now the baseboard surface are (a) those from the frogs to the relays with each having an in-line connector in case I need to remove/lift the baseboards, and (b) the track power wires between tracks and baseboards with the latter's in-line connector hidden under the signal box seen towards top left in the image below.

 

 

I still have to set up the new servo horn movement limits for the Arduino and re-fit the platform surface. The latter will need extending because I extended the base to accommodate all the electronics.

[Ray H]

A few weeks back I decided that it would be good to have an independent device to assist with setting up servo horn travel extremities rather than do it by guesswork and keep having to alter the values in the main Arduino's program code.

 

I used said device yesterday so that I could simply update the figures on Gawcott's Arduino. Imagine my surprise when, this morning, I updated said Arduino's code and tested out the responses from the operation of a couple of the levers only to find that they were nowhere near the required values.

 

I thought that my )independent) servo setter and the layout's Arduino were set up the same component wise - which they are. Without boring readers with too much technical stuff, I traced the problem to a frequency value difference in the two Arduinos. The value is now the same in both and the setter's figures work in the layout's Arduino.

 

All that was left to do once that problem was sorted was to have a bit of a tidy up and add (and paint) the extra coffee stirrers on the extended part of the platform's surface.

 

 

There's a 19mm hole in top and bottom baseboard skins under the platform near the station building where the various wires emerge from the trunking that can be seen on the front edge of the baseboard in the above image, thereby keeping everything tidy.

 

I think that I may run some trains tomorrow for a bit of light relief.

[5BarVT]

On 06/04/2023 at 09:15, Ray H said:

I spent all day on the phone trying to arrange cruise travel insurance because I have a couple of medical conditions that needed to be declared. I managed it in the end (and at cost), but only just.

Know what you mean.  It’s the hassle that is involved as much as the cost that makes it so tedious.  And the simplistic methods that insurers use - no medication, condition not managed = no risk (allegedly); medication that manages the condition = high risk!

Paul.

[Ray H]

Work on the layout hasn't been excessive since the previous update although I have done a bit over the last few days.

 

Sometime after I returned to modelling after the usual - others things got in the way - extended break, I bought a roll grass mat for one of my previous attempts at building an OO layout. It didn't seem to work then and has remained in its long cardboard tube (and getting in the way) under the present layout (and in our spare bedroom prior to that).

 

Having decided that it was time to exert some effort on the layout's scenic front and wishing to be free of the aforementioned long cardboard tube, I extracted it from under the layout to see what use I could make of the contents (and to discover how much of the content there still was).

 

The first thing I did upon opening the tube was to extract the contents and (heaven forbid) read the instructions! These indicate that heat needs to be applied to the mat once in situ. I don't remember that element of the previous use attempt which may account for why I hadn't had a great experience when used previously.

 

 

I cleared all the clutter off the Gawcott baseboards and applied several pieces of the mat between the track and the backscene with the mat padded out with some scrunched up newspaper and narrow strips of foamboard no more than 15mm high (and with irregularly cut top edge) to support the mat against the backscene and give a gentle slope upwards away from the track.

 

I'd previously affixed some more foamboard, this time a bit taller, along the front edge of the same baseboards. I then used more foamboard and/or some stiff cardboard spacers at right angles to the front edge strips tapering down to baseboard level. I stuffed more scrunched up newspaper between the spacers and stretched 50mm masking tape over the top, fixing that to the spacers.

 

I covered the masking tape with pieces of newspaper pre-soaked in diluted PVA a bit Paper Mache style. A second layer of PVA soaked newspaper followed.

 

Having used up all the grass mat I turned to Artex which I mixed with some cheap green acrylic paint and covered the now dry paper with said mix.

 

I've since given the Artex a coat of acrylic green and will now leave everything to dry for a while.

 

The above picture doesn't do the overall impression any favours whereas I can really see the difference, possibly aided by the fact that baseboard top is no longer used as an open top store of miscellany.

[Ray H]

Had a visit from Jim this morning. He brought his class 13 here for a run.

 

He did have a small problem with the rear loco's coupling rods jamming at one stage but we think we managed to resolve that issue.

 

The locos were photographed near the top of the LR gradient up to Gawcott.

 

 

[Donw]

Just read most of this. Reaally interesting nice layout. I like the way  you mention the problems as well as what went right.

 

Don

[Ray H]

Thanks Don and apologies for the delayed acknowledgement. I was away for a couple of weeks and was then unable to pick-up all the updates that I'd missed whilst away.

 

And so to an update . . . . . . . .

 

Firstly, the excuse for not posting recently (other than the holidays 😃). I think I've finally (for the time being at least) resolved the various Arduino problems on the club layout so the bench is clear at last.

 

Secondly, my preferred local modelling shop's website is being overhauled and is not currently available so I can't see if they have the few things I currently want in stock - I also keep forgetting to phone them at a time when they're open 🙄

 

My love of doing anything but the extremely basic scenic work has been mentioned before which is a further reason for no updates.

 

Anyway, I took Peter Denny's two books on the Buckingham branch to read on holiday and that has stirred my mojo slightly.

 

The opposite end of Gawcott to the loco shed currently looks like this:

 

 

but what the above picture hides is this . . . 

 

 

The mains sockets and, just visible in the corner - top right in the image - is a mismatch between the backscene sheets.

 

My present thinking is to straighten the siding nearest the backscene - the trees are just resting! - and add a removable low relief structure that is:

• high enough to hide the sockets and the various wires, and,
• is deep enough to hide the backscene mismatch, and,
• is compact enough to retain the rural atmosphere of the area, and,
• is blessed with a trackside external loading platform.

The single storey Skytrex low relief north light structures are too low to hide the sockets whilst I think that the two floor version would be a bit over powering in a rural area. The jury is still out on other options but scratch built isn't out of the question.

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the garage . . . . .

 

There is this.

 

 

which morphs into this if you angle the mobile phone's camera appropriately.

 

 

Here, I can live with the plugs & wires just visible in the upper picture but the steepness of the embankment leading from the BR track up to the LR track has never looked right to me. That may or may not be because of the really noticeable "hump" just below the top.

 

Recently, I've also been wondering if it would be possible to disguise at least part of the incline so that any LR trains on it are not fully visible all the time. A couple of largish bushes and or a suitably placed tree or two might do the trick (and I don't think moving the backscene forward with the incline behind it would look acceptable).

 

And so my present thinking is to replace the present embankment with a wall that has a parapet on top that should disguise the lower part of a LR train (i.e. the wheels). A truly vertical wall would then leave enough space along side the LR track for some substantial bushes (height wise) and possibly a tree or two.

 

However, I'm not fully convinced that a wall whether vertical wall or one with a slight backward lean would be appropriate for the area. I have ruled out arches and because significant vegetation would surely find it hard to take root, a rock face - I don't think that there are too many substantial rocky outcrops around the Westbury area!

 

Maybe I need to find an excuse to play with an Arduino again 😃,

[jcarta]

Ray

 

How about leaving the lower part as an embankment and around about the station area this will then turn into a wall right up until the bridge at the far end?

[Ray H]

That's a thought, Jim.

 

One option that I hadn't considered for the Gawcott factory (or whatever) and its surrounding area was to raise the wall sockets above the backscene so that they don't need to be hidden thus:

 

 

Some people may call me a hoarder (amongst other things) but it sometimes works to my benefit. By pure chance the first piece of backscene offcut that I happened upon when I started looking was the very piece that I'd previously had to cut out where the sockets previously were. I'd had to trim what was left on the main sheet subsequent to the first cut so there is a slight gap around the infill which the two trees on the left in the above image are doing their best to disguise.

 

I hadn't realised that the heel end of the point leading to the siding that I planned to straighten had a slight curve (to the right) in it. Luckily, home-made points built using PCB sleepers can be a blessing at times and this was one of those times. A bit of attention with the soldering iron and voila!

 

 

By another piece of luck I also found the remains of the cork sheet that was trimmed to suit the siding's original alignment.  I didn't quite cut the new piece I wanted to the correct size so there's about a 5mm gap between the two pieces but that can be infilled where needed in due course.

 

Now to see what I can mock up as a building.

[Donw]

A Mill of some sort springs to mind.

 

Don

[Hal Nail]

Just reading through this and thinking "why not just move the sockets" - but I see you have!

 

I wish mine were fed externally - I've got some tunnelling to do at some point!

[Nearholmer]

This is all coming along splendidly!

 

I think I might have suggested something ‘boot and shoe trade’ for the small factory at Gawcott before. I don’t think a mill, because it’s in the wrong place, and there was a big mill at Westbury, in the right place.

 

Whatever it was, it seems not to be mentioned in the 1907 Directory, and it isn’t in the maps, so maybe it was built a little bit after that. Perhaps William Healey, boot-maker, found a niche in the trade that he could exploit, got a contract to make boots for the London Fire Brigade, or spotted the huge growth in popularity of football and began making boots and balls.

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Ray H]

Now that's an idea. Presumably I could get away with a fairly non-descript building with (at most) two floors. I knew boot & shoe making was rife in the Northampton area, I didn't realise that it came further south.

 

I could do away with the building's exterior loading platform I was considering and, instead, have a large sliding door (or two) adjacent to the track edge and extend the building's roof over the track to keep the worst of the weather out.

 

Reading the attached summary from Nearholmer alerts me to the need to provide for the postal traffic to/from Buckingham (via Westbury) which gives me a time not only for the first BR train but also for the LR train to connect therewith in order for the mail to get to Gawcott on time. Then there's the further delivery around 2.30pm and despatch at 6.30pm.

 

It also looks like there might be a reasonable amount of farm related carryings with 6 in both Gawcott & Lenborough.

 

Another point of interest is the existence of Gawcott's four pubs: Red Lion, Crown, Royal Oak & New Inn. Presumably only the more affluent residents of Gawcott are listed in the above otherwise I can't see the taverns doing much trade!

 

Maybe Messrs. Bloxham & Healey, Boot & Shoe makers (to the nobility?) joined together and became the occupants of the (yet to be designed/built) building at Gawcott 😃.

[Ray H]

I'd never taken too much notice of the physical geography of the area and probably wouldn't have done so had it not been for the mention above of Lenborough, somewhere I'd not heard of previously even though it isn't too far from where I now live.

 

A look on dear old Google's map of the area reveals that both Gawcott & Lenborough are much nearer to Buckingham than Westbury is, but Gawcott never had a BR station whereas Westbury did. Time for a rethink?

 

I'd settled on Gawcott & Westbury for the layout purely because having acquired the Terrier loco named Portishead, I didn't feel inclined to deface the loco's side tanks and remove the GWR totem.

 

I'm still not inclined to do so but think I need to look again at the Light Railway's route. I favour retaining Westbury (Crossing) as the BR interchange but am now looking at the LR striking out in a south-westerly direction therefrom. The little halt that has, so far, been called Tingewick could become Fulwell and the terminus changes from Gawcott to Mixbury.

 

(And so the revised story goes) The LR had originally been designed to continue on to Cottisford & Hardwick to meet up with the G W & G C joint at Ardley between King's Sutton & Bicester but the pennies ran out (as they frequently appears to have done) and the LR got no further than Mixbury. 

 

And Portishead? It only arrived a few days ago and hasn't yet been repainted 😄 . The real loco was broken up in 1954 so it isn't pushing things too far to think it came to the LR around the time that the BR railcars existed and were, in my world, working in the Buckingham area (and why the Class 121 is still looking very new.

[Nearholmer]

I can see your logic, and the area in question is easy LR territory, with no steep hills.

 

 

Village boot and shoe makers were everywhere until industrial production finally put them out of business, but as I mentioned before there was some small scale industrial production as far as Buckingham.

 

If you go to Mixbury, I think you’re probably stuck with agricultural goods only, mostly lots and lots of cereal crops. “The flat, wheat-growing north-east corner of Oxfordshire”, as Flora Thompson wrote. She grew-up only about two miles from Mixbury, and went to school in Cottisford.

 

TBH, I can’t imagine this LR making much money, but maybe it struck lucky like some little lines in East Anglia, and I think the Derwent Valley, which did survive as grain haulers.

[Nearholmer]

Further thought:

 

This is how things stood on the Derwent Valley LR in 1967:

 

“The shortened line served a store for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food at Wheldrake, a liquid fertiliser plant at Elvington, a grain drying plant and sugar beet loading bay at Dunnington, a pre‑mixed concrete plant at Osbaldwick and a mechanised coal depot and fuel centre at Layerthorpe.”

 

Maybe yours also serves one of those MAFF storage depots (weren't all the huts at Quainton Road one of those) and/or a big grain silo like that one that used to be beside the railway and main road just north of Oxford (Water Eaton Silo, Kidlington), that was a government store too.  They would make plausible excuses for it lingering on into the BR period.

 

Here we are: https://inlanding.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/latest-post-a-little-bit-of-secret-britain/

 

 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Ray H]

Your extracts and links make interesting reading, thanks for them.

 

I've made a start on the mocked-up building:- 

 

 

The doors are made from coffee stirrers - nothing looks like wood, other than wood (or should that be coal 😄 ).

 

There will be a lean-to roof over much of the front, mainly to keep the weather away from the two doors, and there'll be a tiled/slate roof on the building - any resemblance to Scalescenes OO kit TO24a is not surprising as I scaled up that kit to get an idea of size. As a recent convert to O gauge, I still find buildings seem very large compared to OO ones.

[34006]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Further thought:

 

This is how things stood on the Derwent Valley LR in 1967:

 

“The shortened line served a store for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food at Wheldrake, a liquid fertiliser plant at Elvington, a grain drying plant and sugar beet loading bay at Dunnington, a pre‑mixed concrete plant at Osbaldwick and a mechanised coal depot and fuel centre at Layerthorpe.”

 

Maybe yours also serves one of those MAFF storage depots (weren't all the huts at Quainton Road one of those) and/or a big grain silo like that one that used to be beside the railway and main road just north of Oxford (Water Eaton Silo, Kidlington), that was a government store too.  They would make plausible excuses for it lingering on into the BR period.

 

Here we are: https://inlanding.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/latest-post-a-little-bit-of-secret-britain/

 

 

I rather thought that large building was a cold store,similar to the one at Kennington,which was shunted daily(not Sat or Sun) by the train that went from Moreton Yard(Didcot) to Hinksey Yard (Oxford) via Abingdon(MG cars and Morells (or Morlands - it was a looong time ago!)Brewery)

 

Phil

[Nearholmer]

Definitely a silo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-24743727.amp

 

The cold stores weren’t as tall.

 

 

[34006]

Fair enough.I suppose the ventilator on the roof should have given it away.However as a postscript,I did deliver drainage there a couple of times during the building of the car park and station.

 

Phil

 

 

[Ray H]

And now with roof & lean-to.

 

 

And with the tree moved

 

 

The roof is only lightly tacked in place for the time being - I obviously need to stick it in a few other places judging be the bow in the front edge.

 

I'll add the windows in due course. The adhesive brick papers were ordered today and should be here by the weekend.

[jcarta]

That has come out rather well and it covers up the join in the back scene 👍

[Ray H]

Thanks.

 

I still need to sort out fixing the backscene sheets as the top right corner of the lower picture shows another place where the double sided tape hasn't stuck. I managed to tack one full sheet back in place yesterday with a few minute splodges of hot glue along the top edge.

 

I was originally going to use superglue blobs to hold the backscene but two of the three bottles that I'd been using until a couple days ago suddenly glued themselves shut and then a fair bit of the (then) unopened minute tube of the stuff went everywhere when I screwed the cap down to break the seal - 😒

 

Can't do much today as the garage is now full of furniture in preparation for the carpet cleaning later this morning.

[Ray H]

I reckon that our local postal service is awaiting the building of a new Light Railway around here! The delivery delays that we seem to be experiencing certainly don't appear to show their road based motor vehicles in good light, but I digress (although you can probably take it from that, that the adhesive brick papers that I ordered several days ago still haven't arrived 😒).

 

I think that I'll go with the name changes previously mentioned viz: the halt will become Fulwell and the terminus will become Mixbury.

 

The remaining question then is, does the light railway thus become the W (for Westbury [Crossing]) & M (for Mixbury) or do I call it the W & A (for Ardley, which was the originally planned terminus)?

 

When the money ran out and lines stopped short of their originally intended terminus, did those lines change their name to reflect the truncation or did they stick with using the originally intended terminus in the line's name?

[Nearholmer]

They seem often to have started with grandiose names, which they then retained even when they petered out in a boggy field miles from anywhere. Now, Westbury spans the Bucks-Oxon border, with a bit of Northants dangling down very nearby (Evenley is in Northants, I think), so yours could have a really verbose title: The Buckinghamshire, West Northamptonshire and North Oxfordshire Light Railway. That would be particularly apt if it never actually went into Northants.

 

Here’s the Three Shires point, right by the LNWR/GCR crossing:

 

 

Is there room along the sides of the carriages for that?

Edited August 5, 2023 by Nearholmer