Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.

[gordon s]

I'm at Castle Royle not to far away. Played Sand Martins a few times but have one of those job things that gets in the way. Look forward to see how this version evolves as the same with watching trains go by. Have to say in my case n gauge may just be starting to beat my eyes.

 

Played Castle Royle many times and was at your sister course, Mapledurham on Monday...

 

I suspect Mapledurham is quite a nice course when it's not peeing down and blowing a hooley….

[Ray H]

I can but echo the other sentiments about your modelling skills Gordon.

 

There are so many layout threads on RMweb and it is impossible to follow everyone - I simply couldn't find the time to do that even if I didn't have a layout that I'm supposed to be building!

 

I've tended to hit on a few threads and regularly read the associated posts partly for the banter but mostly for the excellent modelling that one becomes privileged to see by doing so.

 

Eastwood Town has always been high on the list of "is there an update today" each time I switch the computer on.

 

I truly hope that you've found the formula this time as it must be heartbreaking to get so far advanced in a layout only to decide it isn't going to work. I for one will be with you all the way (via RMweb).

[unravelled]

As a "View new content " rmwebber, I don't "follow" anyone, but Eastwood Town is always one of the threads I'm hoping to see a new post in. However much detail you plan in, it's often not until something is built that you know whether it works for you. It's valuable to see people with the confidence to take stock and start again, especially when  write positively about their decisions.

 

Looking forward to this incarnation of ET, and any to follow...

 

Thanks

 

Dave

[PhilH]

From what I can make out Gordon is the only one who has thought that any incarnation of Eastwood Town has been less than satisfactory....

[sp1]

Great to see you back Gordon - it was your pictures that converted me to hand-built track , and 00-sf!

[Jock67B]

Afternoon Gordon,

I keep a list of 'must visit' threads and yours has always been on the first page. I'm really glad to see some action again and have always admired your work. ET has been truly inspirational and the new incarnation will also be a useful tool for watching amateurs like myself. I've noted down countless ideas for when I finally get around to re-starting my own modelling and I hope your Mojo is back to stay, certainly as long as the weather precludes playing golf!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[The Stationmaster]

Oh I wish you hadn't said that.  With two reversing loops coming down from the top in each direction, Bastille terminus could sit right down the middle of the room and it then becomes a continuous loop plus an in and out terminus.  I'm closing my eyes, blocking my ears and shutting down the web forever…..

 

La di dah, di dah, di dah……I'm not listening.

 

Block it out, block it out…….

 

Oh alright, save the idea for a year or two's time...

 

I love this place..:-)

It was a good plan Gordon, no doubt about it but I think you might have found it quite frustrating to operate on your lonesome.  But with a well trained team it would have provided an interesting challenge and considerable fun- provided everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing because if they didn't it could quickly have become even more frustrating.

 

The new idea - and I truly hope the one which takes you from being a builder to running your railway - sounds as if it has the right sort of potential but not too potentially boring I hope.

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Gordon, as an official follower I'm glad you're back. It was your thread that encouraged me to learn Templot, build my own trackwork and have now graduated to the proper chaired stuff. Looking forward to progress via photos.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Rowsley17D

[sp1]

Hi Gordon, as an official follower I'm glad you're back. It was your thread that encouraged me to learn Templot, build my own trackwork and have now graduated to the propper chaired stuff. Looking forward to progress via photos.

I wonder how many of us on RMWeb have been inspired to do just that by Gordon? (Although I haven't progressed to the chaired stuff!)

[gordon s]

Evening all...

 

Getting towards make your mind up time.  The two large sections of the previous incarnation of ET are now starting to get in the way and a decision needs to be made.  To be honest I have made it, but it it's going to be hard to scrap some more work, but if I don't bite the bullet again, nothing will get done.  The new boards have gone together like clockwork.  I salvaged all the old Brilliant Baseboards and will use them all again in the main boards.  Depth of boards has always been an issue and hopefully I'm limiting myself to just 600mm depth wherever possible.  The track bed is plain 12mm ply with the raised sections using 6mm mdf as a longitudinal support to stop the waving I have seen with ply before.  I used to stand raised trackbed on 45 x 45 blocks, but found the ply sagged between the blocks after time.  A true, flat track bed is my number one build parameter as you cannot expect stock to run faultlessly if you are starting with poorly laid track.

 

Here's a few pics showing the build process.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's the first couple of straight boards out of the way.  Corners have always been an issue for me and I hope I have finally cracked it.  All the corners are built from 100 x 25 softwood frames and 45 x 45 legs.  These are a couple of spare legs in the pictures that will be removed as work progresses.  These were just put in place to support the three rectangular sub frames whilst the whole corner unit was built.  It's one of those jobs where you need an extra pair of hands, but I managed it eventually on my tod.

 

Templot proved invaluable once again.  The two outers are the slow up and down, with the centre two being two fast lines.  The turnout shown on the curve may go to a proposed reverse loop across the centre of the room.  This has only been made possible by the increased height allowing an easy duck under even though a lifting or swivel section is likely to be built if that bit of the plan goes ahead.  The two fast lines are the centre pairs and these are set 82mm lower than the outers. The outers will now drop 41mm and the inner rise by 41mm to allow all tracks to be on the same plane in ET station which will be on the opposite wall.

 

Hopefully these pics will make sense.  Even though the boards are covered in junk in this pic, you can see how the additional height has allowed all my storage cabinets to sit under the main boards.  That was a real issue on the old plan.  The plan chest is 950mm high and just would fit under the old boards.  One of those design faults, that caused me to slow and eventually stop the build.  This wasn't a cock up as such as I always planned to have this particular storage chest in another area, but sitting it underneath has freed up a whole lot more space and is the right decision.

 

Clearance for the signal box is pretty tight at this new height, so it may well be re sited in the final build.

 

So far, so good.  The gradient build will be interesting….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[coachmann]

Looking good Gordon with your usual flowing trackwork plans. The wiring would worry me, but you must be a dab hand at this by now. If I missed it, are you modelling a particular location?

 

As you maybe know, I too had problems this year with plywood warping. The present stuff from B&Q was varnished with matt varnish and left for a while before laying track on it. A wood protective stain was applied on the outdoor extension and it too is water repellant (good job as it got flooded recently). 

Edited October 16, 2014 by coachmann

[trisonic]

Gordon,

I can see the longitudinal MDF in the last photo but not in the second photo - is that an old section, presumably? I seem to recall that you routed out the MDF to accept the ply on some of the old sections (like an H girder) has that gone by the board or am I just showing incipient senility? Quite possible.....

 

Btw I understand from the US forecasters that the Weekend in your area is going to be rotten weather wise. So can we expect an action packed 48 hours or so?

 

Best, Pete.

Edited October 16, 2014 by trisonic

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Gordon,

Great to see Eastwood Town progressing on a new front.

 

Do you have a rough layout plan you can share with us please, that shows what you intend to do?

 

Regards,

Peter

[Siberian Snooper]

Hi Gordon

 

Good to see you've made a start with the new version of ET. and another good advert for Martin and Templot.

 

SS

[gordon s]

Morning guys.  ET has always been a fictitious location.  I know that is not to everyone's taste and ultimately freelance designs will generally be seen as lacking something when compared to the fine prototype layouts.  The station buildings I bought from Gilbert were built by Alan Downes and based on Spalding.  They seemed a great idea at the time, but have proven to be a controlling factor in any design.  The choices that left me were to model Spalding, sell the buildings on or incorporate them into a freelance design and get something running.

 

Spalding is a great location and I did spend some time looking at the track plan and its complexities.  It would be wonderful to have the room to build that layout, but sadly the space I have is probably only 50% of the length required and compression is not an option with the various pointwork configurations within the limited space available.  Selling them on is still an option, but to be honest, the buildings are really good and would form a good centrepiece for whatever I come up with, so that left a freelance design.

 

The only goal this time round is to get something running and then take it from there.

 

Plan wise, it is just four loops, with the elevated crossing shown in the pics above.  I have drawn up other areas within the loops and you will see access turnouts around the plan as work progresses.  I don't want to publish these at this stage as they will prove a distraction and stop me working.  The depth of knowledge on this site is immense and I really value others input on designs, so don't worry, that time will come, but right now the basics are in place and the goal is to have trains running first.  

 

Larry, as a fellow serial taker downer, you are an inspiration.  The speed of your work is amazing, but there is no hesitation in moving on.  If it's wrong or falls short of expectation, down it comes.  I see nothing wrong with that at all as every failure is a learning curve.  The worst thing that can happen is to carry on regardless as the faults will always be there, so any work after that discovery will always be wasted.  

 

The old boards will have to be scrapped.  I need the BB subframes as they are no longer in business.  The ply trackbed is screwed onto the subframe, but of course the screws are hidden under the cork trackbed, so that has to come up.  Anything that can be reused is removed and the scrap ply cut up into small pieces for kindling in our woodburner.  Very little is not reused in one shape of form.  A quick soak in boiling water is sufficient to soften the glue and the pointwork comes up easily.  I probably have over a hundred turnouts kicking about in one form or another.  I will sell them for a nominal sum, but of course every one has been tailored to fit a 'flowing' plan and all are larger than 3' radius.

 

Edit:  Sorry Pete, I forgot to answer your question.  You are very observant!  Yes, that was a pic that was taken right at the beginning of this work.  The base was just laid in place and hadn't had the side cheeks fitted.  The trackbed is still the same, but the later pics show the side ribs fitted.  I did play around with routing, but it was a ton of extra work and glueing the side rails on was just as effective.

Edited October 17, 2014 by gordon s

[eldavo]

Good to see the wood burner is well stocked with fuel. Its wet and nasty outside so no point in venturing out onto the course, crack on while herself sits by that nice warm fire.

 

Cheers

Dave

[PhilH]

Gordon...,

 

Lay track

 

Open red wine

 

Play trains

 

Enjoy (whilst supping red wine)

 

Worry not....it will be fun...not perfection but fun.

[eldavo]

Gordon...,

Lay track

Open red wine

Play trains

Enjoy (whilst supping red wine)

Worry not....it will be fun...not perfection but fun.

Correction....

 

Lay track

 

Invite friends

 

Open red wine

 

Enjoy playing trains, talking b*ll*cks and drinking red wine.

 

[PhilH]

That'll do.

[trisonic]

 

Edit:  Sorry Pete, I forgot to answer your question.  You are very observant!  Yes, that was a pic that was taken right at the beginning of this work.  The base was just laid in place and hadn't had the side cheeks fitted.  The trackbed is still the same, but the later pics show the side ribs fitted.  I did play around with routing, but it was a ton of extra work and glueing the side rails on was just as effective.

Come to think of it, modern glue is probably as strong as MDF anyway!

 

Thanks, G. Pete.

[The Stationmaster]

Come to think of it, modern glue is probably as strong as MDF anyway!

 

Thanks, G. Pete.

Good quality white pva wood glue is stronger than ordinary timber (or that seems to be the case when I try to dismantle things  )

[gordon s]

Thanks for your comments as always.  I like the idea of drinking wine, but maybe that was my downfall last time.  The engineering aspects of layout building are hard enough when sober, let alone playing with large power tools that would take your hand off given a chance.

 

Within the last year I have said many times that gradients are off limits, but somehow in simplifying the track plan into running loops, I had to add some height differential to provide running interest.  Gradients to be have always proved problematical on several counts.  The first being the angle itself and really 1:100 is getting close to a minimum where steam engines are called to haul seven coaches or 30+ wagons.  Diesel loco's just laugh at those figures with their additional weight and multiple driven axles, but the time period I'm looking at really dictates that 80% of my loco roster are going to be steam.

 

The second problem has been the supports and how to support the ply without it looking like a mini roller coaster as I have seen sagging between supports before, even down to 200mm centres.  Cutting one support face with a 1 degree slope has also proven difficult, even with a bench saw.  Maybe I'm being a bit anal, but without a slope on the supporting face, I'm still able to see some distortion in the gradient trackbed and the roofs of a seven coach train moving up a gradient seems to highlight any discrepancy in alignment.

 

I'm hoping this will solve the problem.  As always I mapped everything out in Templot and then cut a trackbed for the curve.  Once this was laid on top of the baseboard, I was able to align it correctly and then draw around the outline.  Careful use of a jigsaw has allowed me to cut out an 800mm aperture which then accommodates the new trackbed.  This will allow a 250mm section for a shallow vertical curve and then into the 1:100 gradient.  It then emerges from the board aperture at a point where the gradient is approximately 12mm high from the datum and from there onto board supports.  I'm still trying to come up with a design for the side cheeks and vertical supports, so more of that to come.  These two tracks have to rise around 40mm with the outers dropping 40mm until they all meet at ET station on a level plane.

 

As always I'd love to hear of any processes that can be used to construct a gradient that is true across a length of 12' or so, so please chip in….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[coachmann]

I would like to put an idea forward........Build something simple and get a loop and fiddle yard operational, then I am sure ideas will come into your mind about how it could be extended or developed. Maybe you will remember something from childhood or maybe a scene in a book and think it might be an idea to incorporate that. Unless you already have a definite route in mind, you could be treading an old path Gordon.

Edited October 18, 2014 by coachmann

[gordon s]

Thanks Larry, apologies, maybe I didn't make it totally clear, but that's exactly what I am doing.  The simplest plan of all with just four loops serving the through station.  All the add ons and nice to have's, have been sketched out but are out there in the future.  I'm not even going to lay track until I get a complete circuit of boards.  The cork track bed will go down, but nothing else.  This has all been constructed to allow each board to come out on its own.  With careful planning, I can pull out each board in turn, lay the track, paint, ballast and wire as a separate module, away from the restrictions of the sloping roof and reduced headroom. No pointwork over joins and plain track will be terminated at the edge of each board.  

 

Perish the thought, but this would even allow me to take ET out on tour….:-)

[skipepsi]

Would making a T beam work i.e. an upright section of ply glued under the trackbed you might have to build it in a jig....