Cuckmere Haven - a very small slice of southern electric.

[Nearholmer]

Mud up the back.
 

It’s very clayey in places near where I live, and fitting mudguards just causes everything to jam solid with mud, whereas with no mudguards, it mostly self-clears, or can be poked clear with a handy stick.

 

But, sometimes it all just turns into a giant mess:

 

 

 

 

 

[Dunalastair]

7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Mud up the back.
 

It’s very clayey in places near where I live, and fitting mudguards just causes everything to jam solid with mud, whereas with no mudguards, it mostly self-clears, or can be poked clear with a handy stick.

 

But, sometimes it all just turns into a giant mess:

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is the stage my bike used to get to before I invested in disc brakes when riding in Trailquest events on clay Midland field bridleways. Hub brakes did make a difference, but I tired of the time it took to clean up after an event. Swapping to a smaller car also did not help - I could wrap a muddy bike and throw it into the back of the Vectra without taking wheels off. South Coast chalk sounds like an easier option, but I never got that far unless you count a London-to-Brighton charity ride on the roads over the Beacon. The bike has not been touched since before COVID and the shed it lives in is now buried in ivy.

Edited March 12 by Dunalastair

[5BarVT]

6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Mud up the back.
 

It’s very clayey in places near where I live, and fitting mudguards just causes everything to jam solid with mud, whereas with no mudguards, it mostly self-clears, or can be poked clear with a handy stick.

 

But, sometimes it all just turns into a giant mess:

 

Ahh, memories!  I used to cycle old railway lines.  Fine when they have a proper surface or in dry weather, but I have had the “all jammed solid under the mudguards” experience.

Paul.

[Nearholmer]

27 minutes ago, Dunalastair said:

South Coast chalk sounds like an easier option

Chalk is absolutely treacherous in winter, incredibly slippery, so descents are potentially quite dangerous. Having had a couple of “exciting” moments on the Dunstable Downs, I now won’t go on chalk in winter at all.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Dunalastair said:

That is the stage my bike used to get to before I invested in disc brakes

Thats with disc brakes!

[Compound2632]

On 04/03/2024 at 12:25, Nearholmer said:

My instinct is that it could possibly have been done by using “negative reinforcement” (scrap running rail laid in the four-foot and bonded to the running rails), 

 

How does that work? I can see that it improves the conductivity of the ground return; is the resistance over six miles enough to seriously reduce the potential difference across the motors, when full current is being drawn?

Edited March 12 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

Yes. The loop resistance is that of the conductor rail in one direction, plus the parallel sum of however many running rails can be bonded on the return (which aren’t grounded in a conductor rail system, BTW). Without going and unearthing lots of old paperwork, I can’t remember what the resistance figures are for 106lb/yd conductor rail, or 95lb/yd BH, or what the starting currents or no-volt relay settings (400V iirc) on the old trains were, but I know without checking that such a long, single-track section would be a challenge, even limiting to two cars.

 

The other issue is providing short-circuit protection, so being able to circulate enough current through a fault at the remote end to trip the circuit breakers at the feed-in end. The breakers installed in the 1930s were the most elegant and ingenious contraptions imaginable, but their lowest settings were quite high compared with the sort of short-circuit currents that would be involved here, and when long single-end feeds were involved, protection got quite tricky. Later, devices that monitored current, then later still current and voltage, part-way down the section and signalled back to the substation were introduced, but I don’t think that was done until the 1960s, maybe even 1970s.

 

 

 

Edited March 12 by Nearholmer

[Dunalastair]

If the rails are not welded, then does the rail bonding not make a significant contribution to the overall resistance?

Edited March 12 by Dunalastair

[Nearholmer]

If it isn’t looked after properly, yes, which is why there were “bond testers”, chaps with “ductors” (devices to measure very low resistances) allocated to look after each area. They went round checking the integrity of the bonding, testing any bonds that looked questionable etc, then arranging any remedial work. The guys who looked after this area were based at HaywardsHeath IIRC.

[Nearholmer]

To prove that this thread isn’t just about interesting diversions, here are some baseboards undergoing primer-undercoating, with the stowed-away 0 gauge in the background. 
 

 

I’d run out of my favourite primer-undercoat (Ronseal 10-Year Exterior Wood), and bought some Sandtex stuff that happened to be in stock, thinking it was a near equivalent, only to discover that it is oil-based, and truly horrible. It does the job, but the brushing-on quality, and ‘build’ is far less, and it stinks the place out!

 

[5BarVT]

That’s a fine piece of instrumentation on the O gauge shelf.

Paul.

[Nearholmer]

If you like that one, you might appreciate it’s bigger brother.

 

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

The other issue is providing short-circuit protection

When I did my short-circuit bar and shoe paddle training at Stewarts Lane in 1983, we were told to make sure we cleaned the bottom of the juice rail with the shoe paddle before using the bar, otherwise the resistance might be too high to pull the breakers and we could just be left holding a slightly charred wooden pole.

[Nearholmer]

Wise precaution.

 

Years back, I was involved in designing and testing SCDs, jointly between NR and LU, with the final functional tests taking place just south of Willesden Junction on the DC Line (naturally!). The guy who was actually applying the devices was an Irishman from the local pway, and before every application he would look up at a statue of the Virgin, silhouetted against the night sky at the edge of Kensal Green Cemetery on the far side of the mainline, ask for her blessing, and cross himself. It was evident that he wasn’t placing much faith in engineers!

[5BarVT]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

If you like that one, you might appreciate it’s bigger brother.

Do you need that many volts for O gauge?

:-)

Paul.

[Northroader]

There’s no whitewash patches round the 13amp sockets to tell which one’s tripped, either?

[Nearholmer]

I’ve decided that the EST&T line will go into the FY, rather than simply wander off the edge of the baseboard.

 

 

Now, the arc of movement of the turntable FY means that this road will only be useable in one position, but TBH that doesn’t matter a jot, and I’m even toying with the slightly radical idea of making the front bit of the FY scenic, to portray EST&T loading hopper. Imagine scenery painted on this sheet of plywood, and the “girder” at the front having been cut down to maybe c10mm high, so the siding appears to be running in a shallow cutting:

 

 

That would only leave room for two FY roads round the back, and in practice would confine the FY to being used as a sector-plate, rather than a turntable, but given that I’m only ever going to need to store two trains (EMU and sand train) off-scene, that doesn’t seem to matter.

 

Maybe if I’d thought this all through in advance, instead of making half of it up as I go along, I wouldn’t have bothered with a turntable FY at all, because one turnout would do the necessary!

 

Incidentally, I subscribed to the Seven Sisters Country Park newsfeed, so now I get pictures of the locale every day. Here is one showing CVLRPS volunteers clearing undergrowth to allow work to start on extending a siding.

 

 

 

 

 

[Northroader]

There’s an 0 gauge line, Blackney, set in the Forest of Dean, terminus to fiddle yard set up, with a kickback siding into the fiddle, where he’s recently made the fiddle yard a scenic section. Works quite well, IMHO.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

By no means all of this is fixed down, and there will be a lot of fiddly stuff to do around the baseboard joint, but I hope it illustrates the general direction of travel.

 

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

the general direction of travel

North/south, obvs.

[Northroader]

Could be East/West…

 

[Gwiwer]

Following this with interest

 

Please feel free to also browse my "Waddlemarsh" topic which includes a scratch-built halt of SR "Exmouth Junction" style modelled more or less on those along the Sussex coast including Aldrington pictured in this topic.  

 

I am happy to share techniques and thoughts.  

[Nearholmer]

Good hint, thank you.

 

I've seen and liked Waddlemarsh, but hadn’t remembered that it has a nice spindly station.

 

Questions will definitely follow.

[Nearholmer]

That is one heck of an atmospheric railway; I’d forgotten how very good it is.

 

The station construction pages have, I think, been denuded of photos, so questions:

 

- did you use the Dart Castings “legs”?

 

- any hints/tips on them if you did?

 

- what did you use for the platform “deck”? I’m thinking at the moment that I will possibly go for 1mm brass, to give me a nice bed to solder the legs to, and which is close to scale thickness.

 

 

[phil_sutters]

5 hours ago, Northroader said:

Could be East/West…

 

The Cuckmere meanders and the Seven Sisters cliffs seem to have an almost mystical attraction to visitors from the far east. They come in all weathers and in all sorts of dress - some wind and weather-proof, some in totally inappropriate clobber. The last few hundred yards to the beach is a quagmire at times in the winter.