Brighton Trafalgar - An Edwardian LB&SCR Terminus

[Lacathedrale]

All is well - mum is resting and everything is about as prepared as it can be.

 

@Nick Holliday re: battering of time period - I've decided that my 'ideal' date is 1911, I am going to flex a little either way - a couple of year either way.

 

From a functional perspective, I only need one motor-train fitted A1, and one station pilot - whether the latter is a Terrier or not is somewhat irrelevant, but I have no idea what other locomotive might perform this duty? I understand the following would be suitable for Terrier variations in the Brighton area:

 

2-4-0T A1 in IEG

I could run the Dapol Boxhill converted to a 2-4-0T in IEG. While you mention the loco was shedded at TW, there are pictures of it at Brighton and Hove between 1905 and 1909: 

 

 

0-6-0T A1 in Goods Black

Using one of the new Dapol A1 models as a basis, it could be repainted into LBSC Goods black and numbered 682, lettered Locomotive Department - maybe a bit of a stretch that it would be performing pilot duties at the station, though?

 

0-6-0T A1 in Umber

Re-numbering the Dapol Umber Terrier 643 to 679 would fit the bill for a motor-train fitted Brighton-shedded A1, at least until reboilering, as would 673 (pictured at Lewes 1906-1912 in Modeller's digest in an article by Mr @Nick Holliday). The below photo is has no confirmed identity but illustrative:

 

0-6-0T A1x in Umber

An A1x is the wrong side of my desired time period really, but may be expedient to leverage if an RTR A1x is going cheap. It's not clear at all to me what A1X's would have been shedded at Brighton - any ideas? 

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[Nick Holliday]

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

All is well - mum is resting and everything is about as prepared as it can be.

 

@Nick Holliday re: battering of time period - I've decided that my 'ideal' date is 1911, I am going to flex a little either way - a couple of year either way.

 

From a functional perspective, I only need one motor-train fitted A1, and one station pilot - whether the latter is a Terrier or not is somewhat irrelevant, but I have no idea what other locomotive might perform this duty? I understand the following would be suitable for Terrier variations in the Brighton area:

 

2-4-0T A1 in IEG

I could run the Dapol Boxhill converted to a 2-4-0T in IEG. While you mention the loco was shedded at TW, there are pictures of it at Brighton and Hove between 1905 and 1909: 

 

Boxhill was at Brighton until 1911 (your chosen date) when it was sent to Tunbridge Wells, as a 2-4-0T.  As I noted before it is very unlikely that it would have retained IEG as late as that, probably reverting to umber prior to it becoming shed pilot at Brighton in 1909.

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

0-6-0T A1 in Goods Black

Using one of the new Dapol A1 models as a basis, it could be repainted into LBSC Goods black and numbered 682, lettered Locomotive Department - maybe a bit of a stretch that it would be performing pilot duties at the station, though?

If you want an A1 in black, then, for your period, 638 (Millwall) is your answer.  It had been pumping at Three Bridges from 1901 and, rather surprisingly for such a relegated loco, it was towed to Brighton in October 1905 and emerged shortly after in black with red lining, lettered LOCO DEPT and fitted with wooden number-plates but without condensing pipes. (Photo in Middlemass - a must if you're modelling Terriers) It remained on duty at Brighton until 1918 when it was sold to the Admiralty for use at Invergordon.

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

0-6-0T A1 in Umber

Re-numbering the Dapol Umber Terrier 643 to 679 would fit the bill for a motor-train fitted Brighton-shedded A1, at least until reboilering, as would 673 (pictured at Lewes 1906-1912 in Modeller's digest in an article by Mr @Nick Holliday). The below photo is has no confirmed identity but illustrative:

Bradley reports that 673 was initially allocated in 1907 to the Hayling Island branch and 679 was sent in 1906 for Chichester to Portsmouth workings. This would suggest that they were shedded at Fratton.  In 1912 (close to your date) 673 had moved to Tunbridge Wells, with 679 still at Fratton.  In March 1912 Brighton had 642, 644, 647, 674 and 681, the last (681) NOT fitted for motor train use.

3 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

0-6-0T A1x in Umber

An A1x is the wrong side of my desired time period really, but may be expedient to leverage if an RTR A1x is going cheap. It's not clear at all to me what A1X's would have been shedded at Brighton - any ideas? 

As two A1X were rebuilt in 1911 (albeit in November) they meet your chosen date criteria. However, those two, 677 and 678, were at Tunbridge Wells and Horsham respectively. However, only just outside your chosen year, 647 was a Brighton loco emerging in January 1912 amd another was 644, a touch later, coming out in November 1912.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Nick Holliday

[TJ52]

William. I'm always following your progress though I rarely post stuff. Congratulations on being a father, interesting times ahead.

 

Terry

[Lacathedrale]

@Nick Hollidaythank you so much for your thoughtful and illustrative replies. Do you know of any pictures of boxhill as a 2-4-0 in umber? 
 

It looks like my IEG boxhill is going to need to be repainted regardless!

[Pacific231G]

On 05/08/2022 at 00:23, Lacathedrale said:

No danger of that @Nick Holliday - I’ve just become a dad!

Belated congratulations - so that will be his or her first model railway in what- five years?

[Nick Holliday]

5 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

@Nick Hollidaythank you so much for your thoughtful and illustrative replies. Do you know of any pictures of boxhill as a 2-4-0 in umber? 
 

It looks like my IEG boxhill is going to need to be repainted regardless!

I’m afraid that I am not aware of any photos of No. 82 as a 2-4-0 in umber, or anything other than a Stroudley-esque livery.

[Lacathedrale]

Control panel is almost done:

 

 

The unmarked toggle on the far right will be used as a temporary toggle to energise the connected traverser track.

 

The guts:

 

 

The terminal strip at the bottom shows all of the outputs (P1-3 main, P1-3 buffer-end, Loop, Loco Siding, Empty (FY Controller), Station Controller, Down Main, Up Main. All the switching logic is kept inside the box.

 

I have a little more to do:

• The big rotary knob is used in conjunction with the adjacent shunt signal to determine which target road to make live, so I need to wire up the rotary knob outputs (it's double pole so only half are being used) to the various shunting destinations.
• One of the poles on all the light blue DPDT switches needs to be bonded together and proxied through the Advanced Starter
• The Advanced starter needs connecting to the two Controllers.

 

I have checked all the circuits for everything that's in place and it appears to work a treat. I've got some more wire on order so I'm hoping with its arrival I can finish up the box. The plan is to build the layout and use this box as an interim lever frame with finger actuated turnouts and then eventually transition to a S4S frame. I have wondered whether it might be prudent to set up the TOUs and the relevant polarity microswitches for lever frame actuation, but have the rodding terminating temporarily through the baseboard fascia? Though I don't get the full lever frame experience the layout could be fully operable much earlier. Thoughts?

 

Speaking of the actual layout itself: the laser cut baseboard parts arrived today, but probably going to sit gathering dust for a little while...

 

 

Slightly horrid to think that's about £700 sitting those boxes! Why did I ever stop with the tinplate 0 gauge?!

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[BlueLightning]

@Lacathedrale We finally have things sorted for the Lined Black E1s, so as promised, some links.

 

We are doing 113 and "Loco Dept. New Cross." as I expected when we spoke on the phone. So I'm going to have to take lots of money from you 😛

 

Full announcement here

 

Pre-order 113 here

 

Pre-order Loco Dept New Cross here

[Lacathedrale]

3 hours ago, BlueLightning said:

@Lacathedrale We finally have things sorted for the Lined Black E1s, so as promised, some links.

 

We are doing 113 and "Loco Dept. New Cross." as I expected when we spoke on the phone. So I'm going to have to take lots of money from you 😛

 

Full announcement here

 

Pre-order 113 here

 

Pre-order Loco Dept New Cross here

 

Preordered 113 without a moment's hesitation! Thank you!

 

I guess I can't really justify No. 127 Poitiers in Goods Green, even with the Westinghouse lining it's ~4 years too early, but hard for me to pass up such an iconic livery.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[BlueLightning]

Excellent! Glad to hear it!

 

Goods Green is certainly a good livery on them I will be getting at least one of each livery for myself, hopefully I can buy enough to convince Rapido to follow up with a D1!!

 

Gary

[Lacathedrale]

An RTR D1 would be all my Christmasses coming at once. I was planning on building one from a kit to fill that gap...

[BlueLightning]

I agree it would be wonderful, not sure how feasible it would be if I'm honest, since none of them got BR livery, and we all know how important that is to manufacturers! 😛 The SE Finecast kit is nice though, I've built a couple of them

 

Gary

[Lacathedrale]

It may look like a rats nest but its all documented:

 

 

And, marvel of marvels: it all works!

[Lacathedrale]

OK, finally finished and last picture of the control panel before it's being used to run trains:

 

 

You can se the rotary knob that's used in conjuction with signal 19 as previously described.

 

Levers 1-3 and 4-6 are electronically identlcal - ultimately in the real lever frame they will throw different signals - but for the purposes of this box there's no point duplicating all the wiring! 

[Lacathedrale]

"So what are all those carriages FOR?" she asked.

 

"Well," I reply, "it's for a layout eventually"

 

The hairs raise on the back of my neck, has she forgotten our discussion about the garage wall?

 

With three umber carriages almost complete we are rapidly approaching the point at which track laying needs to commence. Let's find out...

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

Though stock construction continues unabated on the workbench, I'm feeling a little less confident about the layout - particularly the peco double slips. It seems the 27" radius is most certainly going to prohibit me using three links. So I guess I need to go fit S&W's to my stock? That's not the end of the world but I've never done it, and spent all that time putting hooks and coupling links on everything :( 

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

It seems the 27" radius is most certainly going to prohibit me using three links. 

 

How so? I have little problem with three links on 2nd radius (17¼") curves.

[t-b-g]

My suggestion is to temporarily pin down a few points to create your worst reverse curve scenario and try pulling and propelling vehicles through the points.

 

Very often, problems with buffer locking are caused by reverse curves or poor alignment of track and buffers rather than the actual radius of a curve.

[Lacathedrale]

Not a bad shout! The garage is being slowly cleared, although it probably doesn't look like much: 

 

 

I'm getting daylight bulbs fitted and some more power. Layout will run at a little over the height of the trestles on the left hand side. In theory it should be able to curve around under the boiler, with the traverser in the back-right corner.

 

I'm afraid that plans extending further are on indefinite hiatus, as the area currently occupied by the bench is pegged for a home gym. That's also the reason for a high baseboard height - so bicycles can fit underneath! 

[Lacathedrale]

Lighting and power is in - floor is on-site and awaiting wall repaint (matt white) next week before it goes in..

 

[Lacathedrale]

So, we've had a bit of progress:

 

 

White-painted walls and PVC Garage flooring has transformed it somehwat!

[Lacathedrale]

In the ever only-tangientally-related posts to this thread, the first board is up: took about an hour using Titebond 2 and panel pins:

 

 

This is a custom size from Grainge and Hodder of 4'6" x 19" and looks good to me! 

 

They haven't included instructions for their traverser board, so I think that's going to be a bit more of a challenge....

[burgundy]

Take it slowly and it will all go together fine.

The photo above shows two 3ft boards bolted together. The only issue is that my loft room got a bit warm during the Summer and the soldered track started to do some prototypical buckling. I resoldered it while the weather was still hot and am now waiting for it to shrink in the winter........ 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Lacathedrale]

@burgundy can you please send a picture of the ends? I've got mine built but the traverser tray neither fully overlaps the ends (and if it is wedged in place it's quite a tough fit and affects the rolling), nor does it butt up against them flush? ps. beautiful trackwork :) 

 

On the normal board I have sets of lozenge shaped reinforcement plates (full width) - I assume they go behind the existing ones, and I have these tiny pads that are just the size of the bolt hole pattern - any ideas on those? Same question for the diagonal struts- I have four pairs, but each baseboard has four voids!

 

Anyway, this is the result of another few hours in the garage:

Birds eye view with loosely laid track

 

Throat with loosely laid track (the single slip is the wrong way around)

 

I'm hoping there might be enough time today to do some staged shots with rolling stock/etc. 

[burgundy]

Do these help?

The track can also end up looking like this. 

Best wishes 

Eric