Lancaster Green Ayre - The Barn Owls have returned.

[jamie92208]

As well as Sam's excellent repair shop I've been busy. The three EMU cars were resprayed yesterday. Today I made a resolution to actually try and get the bogies for the two trailer cars completed. These are the fiendishly complicated Slater's Midland 8' ones. I've been struggling to batch build them for at least 4 years. Today, after much procrastination I girded my loins and made a determined effort to get on with them. This morning I found and assembled all the necessary parts and sub assemblies for the 4 bogies. Then I hand fitted all 16 axleboxes and made sure that they all moved freely in the honrblocks. That was 2 hours work. This evening I set to work and fitted three missing brake shoes to one of the frames together with their operating rods. The wheelsets were then fitted along with the springs and all soldered up. Lo and behold after another 1.5 hours I had a bogie that is spring nicely and runs sweetly. Hopefully I should be able to get the other three bogies finished next week. Also after looking at photos I now realise that most of the bogies will be different as two of them have solid wheels and full length footboards and the other two have half length footboards and spoked wheels. All steady progress.

 

Jamie

[sir douglas]

Bbishop and furness wagon, jamie has 3 bunker wagons, though one of them is painted the wrong way round

 

Dava, or the midland engine works at Hunslet

 

the wagons

Green Ayre at Alexandra Palace (1) by Sam, on Flickr

Edited October 27, 2017 by sir douglas

[bbishop]

Marc, My recurring theme has been that some of my stock will not survive the rigours of the main line freights, either the Heysham express or the Morecombe pick up. I'm confident that your resin kits will cope but would like to experiment with one initial 3D kit before progressing with any more.

 

Sam, A distinguishing feature with the freight trains will be that the Morecombe pick up will have private owner wagons whilst the Heysham express will transport bunker coal. I'm tempted to lay it on a bit thick with a rake of D721 wagons. Meanwhile Jamie is building the PO wagons from the kits he acquired at auction.

 

Bill

[MarcD]

Marc, My recurring theme has been that some of my stock will not survive the rigours of the main line freights, either the Heysham express or the Morecombe pick up. I'm confident that your resin kits will cope but would like to experiment with one initial 3D kit before progressing with any more.

 

Sam, A distinguishing feature with the freight trains will be that the Morecombe pick up will have private owner wagons whilst the Heysham express will transport bunker coal. I'm tempted to lay it on a bit thick with a rake of D721 wagons. Meanwhile Jamie is building the PO wagons from the kits he acquired at auction.

 

Bill

Bill,

I Have ordered you one of the new ones. Due to The cost of production the bunker coal wagon will now only be available as ready to run. I have been told I should have it by the 11th and you should get it a few days later.

 

Marc

[jamie92208]

Thanks for that Marc. I think I've also got an unbuilt bunker coal wagon at home. My plan was that I would have a couple of empties and a couple of fulls on the Through freights to and from Heysham.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

We're starting another work week at the clubrooms today.  Last night we got 4 boards erected after the meeting.  The plan is to out up the station, goods yard, loco yard and Castle Branch and run trains over all the trackage to get used to the way the three panels communicate with each other, as well as general fettling that needs to be done.  Reports will be issued later.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

For various reasons I haven't given daily updates.  Last night's was because I left the laptop at the club.  However there has been a lot of steady progress.  Sm has been in mot days. Mark has been in twice and Luke has been down.   Tuesday and Wednesday were spent putting the bits of layout up and jury rigging power at one end.  Then Sam and I started doing fettling jobs and some test running.  By Wednesday afternoon we were running the castle branch and that evening I was able to train Luke how to hand trains over to the Castle Branch.    There has been more steady progress today and we got the Loco shed area all working properly.  Ted  came over from near Scunthorpe and Chris Stevens came up from Loughborough.   By late afternoon trains were running on all areas and I spent my time replacing LED's and similar jobs.   Much operator familiarity training has been possible and all parts of the Locos Shed/ Good Yard and Castle Branch are working as they were originally intended some 12 years ago.   At one point whilst I was fettling a point frog Chris was driving up and down the Goods Yard, Ted was playing with the main line and Luke was shunting locos on shed.   It was great to watch.

 

Jamie

[Dava]

Jamie,

 

You can be forgiven no daily updates with all that activity! But a photo or two before its all packed away would be popular on here with the Green Ayre fan base. 

 

Dava

[jamie92208]

Jamie,

 

You can be forgiven no daily updates with all that activity! But a photo or two before its all packed away would be popular on here with the Green Ayre fan base. 

 

Dava

 

I'll take my camera in tomorrow morning before we pack it away.  Most of the work has been minor tweaks to rails or electrical.  Getting operator feedback was very helpful so I prioritised things like LED indicators that show who has control of certain shared sections.  There are a few other jobs that I will work on when the boards are crated up again.  As we were operating the Castle Branch and the Goods yard together for the first time a problem arose that Castle Branch couldn't be isolated when working the Goods Yard.  I was able to sort that by re wiring a DPDT switch in 10 minutes whilst other trains were running.

 

Jamie

[45156]

Great to see the progress Jamie - seems that a lot has been done since the Lancaster outing last year when we just kept them running.  Different audience at Warley, though, who will be expecting a bit more, and it looks as if the improvements are going to achieve just that.

 

Hope it all goes well for you there, and I agree that I'd like to see a few more pics of the progress since May last year.

 

Regards

Stewart

[bbishop]

The wagons progress.  Four vans are near enough complete: 2 x MR tariff; GER van; NSR van.  The two NER perishable vans are further behind and today I have to sweat up their brake gear.  I shall undercoat all the wagons.  I've realised the NER vans should be Indian red so they will stay in undercoat, the others will get a top coat.  I 've dug out Fox transfers for the MR vans and POWSides for the GER van, but I've knot got transfers for the NSR van.

 

Then on to the Furness, GER and L&Y opens, not quite sure how far these will progress before Warley .....

 

Bill

 

PS: anyone spot the pun?

[steve4rosegrove]

The wagons progress.  Four vans are near enough complete: 2 x MR tariff; GER van; NSR van.  The two NER perishable vans are further behind and today I have to sweat up their brake gear.  I shall undercoat all the wagons.  I've realised the NER vans should be Indian red so they will stay in undercoat, the others will get a top coat.  I 've dug out Fox transfers for the MR vans and POWSides for the GER van, but I've knot got transfers for the NSR van.

 

Then on to the Furness, GER and L&Y opens, not quite sure how far these will progress before Warley .....

 

Bill

 

PS: anyone spot the pun?

Ah, not a typo, referring to the Staffordshire knot, for The Knotty.  :0)

[jamie92208]

As requested by Dava here are a few photos I took in the clubrooms this morning before I took the boards down.

The first shows the Castle branch and Goods Yard.

Locos are in both sections and even a rake of wagons in track 2.   I do rather like seeing locos and trains going up the Branch on the curve and the gradient.

 

Then a general view of the section of the layout that was up.   This selection of boards allows us to have all three control panels plugged in and talking to each other as well as being able to test all the hand over sections.  I don't take much stock for these sessions but a good selection of locos is used.  0-6-0's and 4-4-0's plus some tank locos.   They all run differently.

 

Then a view of the station area. 736 is hiding behind the newly planted horse dock.   It's in the headshunt that leads from the coaling stage back to the shed. 

 

Unfortunately we didn't get time to do any more work on the OHLE.  I really need quite a few more boards up as I need to have the ends of each section so that the right tension can be maintained.   There fore I've decided to leave the sections through the station and along to Skerton Bridge but take off the other bits.   All being well these will be completed in France and I'll send pictures.

 

One of the main things needed whilst testing, apart from tea, is the book of words which has a collection of wiring diagrams and what I call pin charts which document all the inter baseboard connections and are invaluable for fault finding. A couple of these are on the layout at the back of the station in front of the control panel .

 

Jamie

Edited November 3, 2017 by jamie92208

[Dava]

Thanks and good to see the Castle branch bridge over the Lune looking as it should. Hoping to get to see the layout at Warley but will be just back from a long flight so can't be sure.

 

Dava

[sir douglas]

the next loco was 311

 

this is it last night after cleaning the wheels

311 (5) by Sam, on Flickr

 

the brake gear cross members had to be replaced

311 (3) by Sam, on Flickr

 

the end of the right hand tender railing was loose and soldered back on

311 (2) by Sam, on Flickr

 

while i was replacing missing buffers noticed a mistake, the frames are a little too close together and fouled the buffer bolts, so the ends were to cut out to fit the buffers by who originally built 311, i dont know if that was a mistake in the kit or a mistake building it but i cant do anything about that so i had to open out the cuts a bit to fit the new buffers

311 (4) by Sam, on Flickr

[jamie92208]

the next loco was 311

 

this is it last night after cleaning the wheels

311 (5) by Sam, on Flickr

 

the brake gear cross members had to be replaced

311 (3) by Sam, on Flickr

 

the end of the right hand tender railing was loose and soldered back on

311 (2) by Sam, on Flickr

 

while i was replacing missing buffers noticed a mistake, the frames are a little too close together and fouled the buffer bolts, so the ends were to cut out to fit the buffers by who originally built 311, i dont know if that was a mistake in the kit or a mistake building it but i cant do anything about that so i had to open out the cuts a bit to fit the new buffers

311 (4) by Sam, on Flickr

 

That problem with the tender frames/buffers is generic to many kits that use Slater's buffers as the buffer centre's line up with the frames for strength on the prototype.  Gibson buffers are self contained and don't project through but Tony Bond, who built the model, used the same technique that I had to use to get the supplied buffers to work.  I think that 311 was a Janick kit that I bought from Ian King who produced it and he had close ties to Slaters.  The Gibson 4-4-0's (996, 736 and 483) have the proper Gibson buffers. On  most locos the rear tender steps hide the bodge.

 

Last night we put the boards away and tidied up.  I'd had a couple of trays of wagons there for testing and Sam and I had both noticed that some of them needed more weight.   So this morning while the boss was out I used up more supplies of liquid lead and matt varnish and now have 8 drying n the kitchen window sill.  

Several of them need transfers but that shouldn't be a problem so after I've painted the wagon floors, tomorrow when the varnish is dry, I'll get the Meths out.!!!!!

 

Jamie

Edited November 4, 2017 by jamie92208

[sir douglas]

No 924 only needed the crew gluing in and wheel cleaning

924 (2) by Sam, on Flickr

924 (3) by Sam, on Flickr

 

ive now got 2716 again to fit the missing safety valves which is the last job to do on the locos

[bbishop]

A few problems with the vans. The wheelbase of the MR tariff vans would appear to set at less than 10’, such that the brake gear would not fit between, even with the brake shoes filed down. So a couple of lugs filed off and the shoes are now in front of the wheels. Won’t win any prizes, but these are layout wagons and will be seen trundling round LGA on the Heysham freight. I’m waiting for the glue to set before adding the V hangers and brake lever, and making up some safety loops from scrap brass.

The brake gear for the NER perishable vans is in a sort of brass tray. A neat idea, but these vans have 3’6” wheels which are an interference with the trays. So some ungluing of W-irons, and a day spent filing down the trays didn’t resolve the problem, so I’ve glued a skim of Plastikard underneath the sides – a trial fit indicates success. The next problem could be the buffing gear as the trays may interfere with spring mechanism. Anyway leave until Thursday.

Finally I will complete the brake gear on the NSR van tonight, so that is another one finished.

Bill

[jamie92208]

Well I have finally got myself out of the purgatory that is Slater's coach bogies.   I finally finished No 5 today and as expected couldn't wait to see what the unit looked like sitting on them.   The excuse was to check ride height so that I can work out how much packing is needed to mount the bogies on the two scratchbuilt coaches.  They obviously have to match up to the Slater's D502 that was converted to a driving trailer.

Here they are on a piece of test track.

 

Everything is very temporary at the moment and there is a lot of work still to do.   However the target is still to have the 3 car set running at Warley.

 

The bogies are the standard Slater's 8' Midland ones however with modifications.  The ones under the specially built stock have spoked wheels rather than the normal solid ones.  The trailer cars also have half length footboards under the doors and the steam stock has full length ones,  The motor bogie is obviously different.

Here are the trailer car bagies.

Here is one of the steam stock ones.

 

Jamie

[Dava]

'Wayoh' Midland bogies would have helped so much! Hope the EMU goes together well for Warley.

 

Dava

[sir douglas]

The saftey valves on 2716 are laurie griffin brass castings, the vertical and horizontals were soldered to each other and soldered to the boiler barrel but superglued into the dome because its whitemetal

2716 (16) by Sam, on Flickr

 

now all my work on the locos is done

Edited November 8, 2017 by sir douglas

[Dava]

Good to see Green Ayre featured in Railway Modeller for December!

 

Dava

[45156]

Good to see Green Ayre featured in Railway Modeller for December!

 

Dava

Must get one then.  Didn't know what month it was due to appear.

[jamie92208]

Must get one then.  Didn't know what month it was due to appear.

 

The December issue in time for Warley.  Published this Wednesday I believe.

 

Jamie

[lezz01]

Hi there Jamie.

Looking very good in the toddler mate very good indeed.

Regards Lez.Z.