Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.

[davidw]

Whose kit is the K1 Gordon?

[gordon s]

Sorry David, I'm not sure. A quick search would suggest DMR or NuCast. Somewhere upstairs, I have the RM article so that should tell me. I would guess it would be around 2001/2002. It was a two page article detailing the whole build, so it should all become clear.

[gordon s]

I haven't found the magazine as yet, but a Google search would suggest it was Railway Modeller Dec 2000 and the LNER forum talks in terms of a DMR kit.

 

http://www.lner.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6316&start=0

[davidw]

Thanks Gordon - the builder of the DMR kit you refer to on the LNER forum is a good friend. He's been encouraging me to have a go at the DMR kit.

 

Yours looks really good.

[ColinW]

Hi Gordon,

 

I like the way you have the station, and the aerial photo you have put up showing the whole station is great.

 

Colin

[trisonic]

The Platforms came out good, didn't they Gordon? Watch out for the "levitating shelter pillars" - see photo two.

I think you're now doing the right thing re the underlay....

 

Best, Pete.

[gordon s]

I had forgotten about those Pete, so well spotted. I am aware of some minor distortion in the platform canopies and will work on them. I think I'll have to strip them out and pack them out at the top end or try to straighten out the whole canopy with some additional bracing. The quick fix will be to superglue the bases in position whilst under pressure from a heavy weight on the roof.

 

They're on the list...

 

Going back to the underlay, the problem is that most of the suitable materials have some give in them or you are dependent on how well they are glued to the ply base. Controlling the thickness of cork can't be the easiest job in the world and a few thou here and there can make quite a difference. There is no short cut in laying track well and I do get wound up when I see the ends out of of vertical alignment. It's not that easy to deal with as whatever you do in one local area has a knock on effect and some point in the track work.

 

Balsa is certainly stiffer than cork, yet should still have good sound insulation. It's easier to cut, although controlling the thickness may still be an issue. Just waiting for a few sheets to be delivered. Ballasting track in situ on ET is quite a difficult process in some areas with limited access and depth of boards presenting some challenges. Being able to lay track and then ballast away from the layout is so much easier and I'm hoping balsa sheet will allow me to lay track in modules with each turnout having it's own base. Then it's just a matter of laying the modules and dealing with the joints between them.

[trisonic]

I've never tried balsa so your experience will be interesting!

I think that the problem with Cork and the Foam kind is that the "Give" seems to be unquantifiable - and it varies greatly too.

As you know I too like building track off site so unless you go the fullly soldered way balsa could be the answer.

 

Best, Pete.

[Jason T]

Hi Gordon,

 

I have a question. Your station platforms, and specifically the height. Are they designed to sit on top of the underlay (if used) or at baseboard level with the height of the underlay taken into consideration, e.g. the platforms are n mm higher (where n is the thickness of the underlay)? I ask because I built my platforms as such but after reading your thread and your thoughts on underlays and whether to lay the track direct on the baseboard, it strikes me that if I was to do so, the platform would be a tad high.

 

Cheers,

 

Jason.

[gordon s]

The platforms were built directly onto the baseboard. According to the spec sheets I have seen, the height of the platform above rail level should be 12mm. To that I added 3mm for the height of the rail and 3mm for the thickness of the cork underlay, bringing the height of the support walls to 16mm after deducting 2mm for the thickness of the mdf platform top.

[eldavo]

That really is going to look the dog's whassanames Gordon. Great progress even if there are frustrations along the way.

 

Cheers

Dave

[gordon s]

Seems like I've been ballasting for months. Plain track is pretty straightforward but I must have had three goes at trying to ballast pointwork. There are so many nooks and crannies in these slip combinations and try as I may, the ballast and PVA mix went everywhere it shouldn't and gummed up things several times.

 

There is no repair option as such, so up came the track, complete with 1/8" balsa sheet underlay and into the sink for a good drenching with hot water. Thankfully everything came up and the ballast came off with zero track damage, so with a quick scrub down and a refreshing cover of track brown it was ready to be laid and ballasted again.

 

Thanks to some more input from RMWebber's, I finally managed to get a reasonable result and most of the station complex has been laid, painted and ballasted. Once this piece is complete, I shall start on the raised goods loops which I hope will be much simpler.

 

Just in case new readers are wondering why I'm doing things in such a strange order, this board sits under the eaves of the roof and as such will be difficult to access once in position. The track will be fine but the rear scenic section will have to be completed before the board is pushed back into position. The upside of this unusual build is that I do get a good variety of jobs rather than total electrics or total ballasting, which does go someway to preventing apathy setting in.

 

Next job will be to finish off the platforms and get those fixed into position.

 

[tetleys]

Gordon,

 

I've bought myself a lap top to help compile my Self Build House VAT claim in the comfort of my fire side armchair rather than the study and a bonus is that I can just drop in on RMWeb during the evening. I'm pleased to see Eastwood is progressing and I like your gently curving platforms. As for the levitating canopy columns I noticed the problem in their original home, I think the canopy has warped but you'd already know that, may I suggest a possible cure which I used on my own layout. I drilled into the column base and inserted a piece of wire or was it a fine nail? Anyway,once the base has a 'spike' I drilled corresponding holes into the platform and inserted the spikes, if you are considering super glueing I suggest the spikes might increase surface area and give some lateral location.

 

We still have room for a visitor and you can use one of those flash vehicles from your car club, do they have a JCB?

 

Dave

[gordon s]

Thanks for that tip, Dave. I'm a long way from fixing down the canopies, but the pillars do appear to be metal, so should drill OK. They may even take a small self tapping screw, but you're right they do need a fixing of some type. I have cut one of them into two sections which has eased the problem, but a better, if not more drastic solution, may be called for.

 

I was considering playing with a Merc SLS but having seen Top Gear on Sunday, decided to give it a miss. There are a couple of AMG saloons kicking around, so who knows I could be knocking on your door one day. Not sure what the BHP of a JCB is, but I'm sure they may have something close. Certainly most of their cars could end up in ditches....

[The Stationmaster]

Gordon, Sorry if I might have missed it previously but how did you set about sorting the clearances - platform and 6ft sides - through the curving platforms?

[gordon s]

Mike, it was a mix of theory and practical. The station curves are generally over 30' radius, so there are few places where overhang of a coach across a curve may be an issue. I took a Bachmann MK1 and having placed it on the track, set a nominal clearance for the platform edge to the centre of the coach. I was then able to take a measurement from the platform edge to the track centre line. The platform wall wall was set back a few mm from that line as per the standards drawing on clearances. I don't have that to hand at the moment, but it was something like 3mm back from the platform edge.

 

Templot has a facility for adding trackbed edges to the track outline and having calculated the distance from the centre line to the platform edge, it was straightforward to set the trackbed width in Templot. This generated a drawing for the platform edge, which I taped onto 2mm MDF to provide a cutting template.

 

Quick tests would suggest all is OK, but I can always make minor adjustments with a Surform plane if there are any tight spots.

Edited February 9, 2012 by gordon s

[gordon s]

Valentines Day and all is peaceful at home...

 

And the beat goes on...or should that be ballasting goes on. Will it ever end?

 

At last ET is starting to take shape. The trackwork in the station area for the goods loops has been completed and three of the four sections that make up the loops have been painted and completely ballasted. I have to say that using balsa sheet as underlay has been a huge improvement over the cork tiles that I experimented with. I was able to bulk buy 4' x 3" lengths of 1/8" sheet and they are strong and very easy to cut with a scalpel. I found that trimming the edge to a true straight edge allowed me to accurately butt join the sheets and then use 'Magic Tape' to hold the sheets together. The track templates were then printed off, taped together and then stuck to the balsa with Photomount. The final job was then to simply trim the balsa mounted template to shape.

 

I've used double sided tape to hold the track in position, which was then sprayed with an acrylic grey primer and finally a brown top coat. Once dry the top surface of the rail was cleaned and ballasting began in earnest using the CK tried and tested method of painting PVA between the sleepers and then sprinkling the ballast straight onto the wet glue. Tip off the excess into a tray and move onto the next section. This can then easily be tipped back into the ballast container without having to use a net filter bag inside a vacuum cleaner.

 

The loops are split into four modules which will be aligned on the bench before mounting onto the baseboard proper. Each individual piece of track has a soldered pcb sleeper connected to the rails with a wire dropper in place to connect to the DCC bus.

 

So that's about it so far. Hoping to get the loops into their final position this week and then I have to finish off the retaining walls and start thinking about the access road etc to the rows of houses and local pub. Still undecided on this one as to whether to have a through road or dead end with a step access to the overbridge at the station building end. This will provide a scenic break to the storage roads beyond.

 

[davidw]

Gordon, This is going to be magnificent when complete. Thanks for sharing.

 

What I mean is with all those loops your going to have plenty of movement.

Edited February 14, 2012 by davidw

[The Great Bear]

I can only echo the compliments so far and am enjoying watching the layout in its new guise develop.

 

Further to a thread I'd started http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51868-roundy-roundy-layouts-how-do-you-run-yours/ if you don't mind me asking, do you have any plans as to how you are going to operate the layout when complete, run to a timetable, just run what you fancy?

 

Thanks

 

Jon

[gordon s]

Hi Jon, I haven't even thought that far as right now all my mental capacity is being taken up with building this layout. Having had several failures to date, my dear lady wife who has her eye on the space, has already threatened me with 'this is the last one'....Bless her.

 

My over riding passion is my childhood memories of being stood on the northbound platform at Wood Green and seeing the best ECML could throw at me, thundering northwards towards Scotland. I've had to make compromises with ET platforms, so ten coach trains behind A4's will probably pass straight through whilst B1's etc will call with six coach trains. Once it is up and running I'm half expecting the novelty of fast expresses may fade after a few months and it's at that point that I will become more selective. Over the years I have built up quite a eclectic collection of loco's as a result of travelling extensively with my job. They will all get a run from time to time, but I have been impressed with Gilbert's discipline on Peterborough North, so I expect some pruning, particularly of some of my US stuff in the years to come. My stock will allow steam/transition and diesel trains to run although the scenic elements will be firmly in the '60's.

After all, it's my train set...

 

My starting point was always seeing trains run, but I have taken a much greater interest in other aspects of modelling as my own skills have improved. My first scenic efforts were average but my real love is mechanical engineering and the joy of building my first Comet chassis was most unexpected. I guess this element will continue to develop as the layout moves steadily forward.

 

Right now I feel like a kid building a big train set and I'm enjoying the journey, but I suspect that I will move towards something else as time moves on. I'm not sure I could live with the discipline required of a timetable schedule, so expect it will be more freelance, with the enjoyment coming from building locos, weathering stock and limited scenic work.

 

The whole layout has been designed to be operated by one person although there is no reason with six continuous loops why it cannot become a social gathering for friends to bring their own stock to run. DCC control will allow several operators and the shed area could keep one person occupied for some time. The goods loops and associated industrial areas could be another and then you have both up and down fast and slow lines to deal with.

 

Of course I realise I haven't answered your question at all, but then had you asked me a couple of years back if I would ever build my own chassis the answer would have been a resounding no. That's what makes this hobby so special. It's a very broad church and what excites one could be boring for another.

 

I guess the answer could be 'it depends who's watching'....

[PhilH]

I'm sure I've seen a photo of an Allegheny on the Flying Scotsman.....

[Robert McGee]

Just noticed, congratulations on the 100,000+ views. Just shows how much an amazing layout it is. And I must say, the atmosphere of the above photos are brilliant, would that be the last page.

[The Great Bear]

Of course I realise I haven't answered your question at all, but then had you asked me a couple of years back if I would ever build my own chassis the answer would have been a resounding no. That's what makes this hobby so special. It's a very broad church and what excites one could be boring for another.

 

I guess the answer could be 'it depends who's watching'....

 

Not a problem, you have answered it indirectly and most eloquently.

[eldavo]

I'm sure I've seen a photo of an Allegheny on the Flying Scotsman.....

 

Nah, that was a SAR Garret.

 

Cheers

Dave (looking good Gordon)

[gordon s]

Just a few lines to thank all those who have followed this seemingly endless journey. To have had over 100,000 views is staggering.

 

Maybe it's that uniquely English quality of taking pleasure in watching someone fall flat on their face....

 

Thanks guys, it really is heartwarming to know others are taking an interest in what you are doing.