Les1952 Posted November 9, 2015 Author Share Posted November 9, 2015 With regard to the next project, I half-listened to a thing on Radio 4 the other evening and discovered that one Charles Lutwig Dodgson was a native of Croft Spa originally. Now that provides endless scope for figures dotted around Croft Spa as a layout- a young lady in Victorian gear chasing an oversized rabbit for starters. That large area North of the village isn't going to be as hard to fill as I first thought.... Les 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 Latest Conversion This is a Dapol M7 converted to G5. I bought it a couple years ago from the late Graham Smith. He had decided that moving the dome forward to its proper place was probably a step further than he wished to go. Looking closely at the job I would agree with this. The dome is staying in the wrong place! Photographed on the wrong layout as usual. I took it along with me to the Dapol open day and handed it over to DCC Supplies for chipping. As well as fitting the decoder they have also added extra pickups to the rear bogie. Looking at the pictures I've just spotted it is starting to suffer M7 handrail disease. I'll take it into the workshop later this week and cut them to size. All the very best Les 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted November 24, 2015 Author Share Posted November 24, 2015 Croft Spa Not really time yet to start a Croft Spa thread. I'll do that when the baseboards arrive sometime next May. Meanwhile I'll post things here. Any pics I post here will be repeated in the right place once I start the thread. Trevor turned up at Railway Club this morning with the part-finished station building. I thought these pics would give an idea of how it is going to look. It will be at the left-hand end of the layout facing the audience. Nice, isn't it. We decided that the replacement window in the front was more appropriate to 1960 than the sash original, even though it will have all the bits added that belonged to it, despite them not all existing at the same time. There are the two wooden outbuildings still to go on the right-hand end (facing platform) and maybe the greenhouse on the back. The small greenhouse at the back might be omitted as it may not actually be visible from the layout front. Only one mystery- why did the one-storey wing at the left-hand end have an arched-top to its windows when all the others were flat? More news as things develop. Les 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted December 27, 2015 Author Share Posted December 27, 2015 Hawthorn Dene is still on end in the shed- getting put back up on Monday 28th. In the pic it can be seen just behind Furtwangen Ost, with Gresby erected in the foreground. Meanwhile some more pics of Croft Spa Station... Trevor has passed on the five buildings and the plywood templates for the two platforms. The only other thing to source is the footbridge. The Station building from the front, with the two wooden structures. This is the side that will face the front of the layout. The back of the station, without the outbuildings. The tall signalbox looked over the road bridge, and the wooden platform shelter was a feature on the Richmond-bound (Southbound) platform. These will face the back of the layout. Yes, I know the signalbox was demolished by 1919. Trevor made this up from NER signalbox plans and a photograph of the actual box. If anyone says it is wrong I'll ask how old they are- nobody less than 96 will have seen it..... Les 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted December 28, 2015 Author Share Posted December 28, 2015 (edited) Gresby is now packed up and in the car to take to its secure dry storage at Bingham Clubrooms tomorrow. Mr Simon gave me a hand to put Hawthorn Dene up for working on. Apart from being a few inches nearer the door than usual no problem. I've set the cab bus up the way Jeremy at Digitrains suggested and it seems to work both cabs with no issue. That means I can thank him for his help and report a success before picking his brains about No Place and controlling points. Apart from that I've been sorting out why Bittern kept derailing. Cure was to use the bogie off an NQP A4. I've also worked out a cure that will get Dick Turpin running sweetly using more NQP parts. Successful day for once...... Les Edited December 28, 2015 by Les1952 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 Two play days- or most of two play days. I've actually got some work done (honest) I bought another A2 at Newark Toy Fair. This one runs well straight out of the box and has now had three hours running and been chipped. Time to send for some new nameplates- everyone and their uncle seems to have a Blue Peter.... The G5 has had the first bit of surgery on its handrails- cutting off the wavy bits. All i need is a day when my wrist is behaving and I'll get new side handrails added. It runs well with two coaches in tow- those can be the etched Pixels push-pull brake when it comes back from Mr Simon's workbench and either the surviving Mark 1 suburban or an Arnold celerestory. I've started a hopper kit wrong scale, wrong layout.. Bittern has had its bogie replaced with the one from the NQP A4 and now doesn't derail randomly any more. I've started the rebuild of Dick Turpin using parts of the third NQP A3, which should give a reliable runner. More grot on 90014 and 64840 and the works lightly oiled and wheels cleaned ready for Doncaster next month. I'm slowly going through the loco boxes. The two J27s are now running-in after servicing. Some pics- taken with the mobile phone to see what it can do close-up. The yard grot by the Nissen huts- possibly needs a few more rusty or wooden odds and ends but will only get what I find that looks appropriate- it needs to look as if things were dumped there over a period of time and the best way to do that is to dump stuff over a period of time. By the stores a pair of Scenecraft wood stacks have arrived next to the bigger wood stack. Maybe a little foliage round the base of the bigger one, but maybe not. Close up of the peeing whippet. When people are asked by Jim if they can find the whippet and say whether it is male or female he gets some really funny looks- until they work out how to tell them apart. This one of course is a little boy.. Time for bed... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Les 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian D Posted January 11, 2016 Share Posted January 11, 2016 Hi Les, Following your post on my thread I have tried in vain to find the "lineside hut" to which you referred. Can you give me a pointer please? Regards, Brian. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 12, 2016 Author Share Posted January 12, 2016 (edited) Brian- PM sent about the lineside hut. In case anyone else wants to see it you will need to look at post #286 or #293. Not a lot done apart from servicing engines and making up a batch of trains. This pic seems to have escaped posting. The allotments at the very back between the houses and the chicken run. If you look carefully you can just see the leeks growing out of the brown area. Doesn't Langley man look crude compared to the plastic figures... Time to look at the rest of the Rise Park pics I took this morning. Off to Nottingham tomorrow with some posters and fliers about South Notts show for Sherwood Models. I dropped a thousand in to Book Law last week- hopefully Kath is enclosing one with every book sent out by post. Ignore this show if you dare!!! Les Edited January 12, 2016 by Les1952 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Two_sugars Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 Now come on, Les. . . .You know you're supposed to start your leeks in a cold frame.!!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 13, 2016 Author Share Posted January 13, 2016 Ah yes, but the size of the leeks in that plot they've outgrown the cold frame and had the pots sunk into the earth... Les Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Two_sugars Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 And, no doubt, fertilized with re-cycled Fed. Best. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Barry O Posted January 14, 2016 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 14, 2016 Haddaway everyone knaas that yer feed yer leeks with bulls blood and Vaux's best Scotch! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 (edited) At the pub I worked at in Darlington they fed their leeks Tetleys Imperial (the stuff that was draught beer in the NE but sold as bottled in Yorkshire on the grounds it was too strong..... BTW- how do you tell the difference between Tetleys and real beer? Tetleys turns blue Litmus paper red..... and real beer dissolves it completely. Not original, told by Johnny Handle at a High Level Ranters concert in Richmond sometime in the seventies.... Les Edited January 14, 2016 by Les1952 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 (edited) Not a lot getting done, it seems.. Though I have two new controllers, a Procab and a cab throttle06. The older of the two existing cabs has gone back to NCE (via Digitrains) for sorting out. I'll take out a suitable mortgage to cover the repair.... At least with three controllers, all of which work at the same time, we'll be able to run the colliery a bit more at shows. When the cab comes back from NCE it can go on the programming track and act as a spare. Still going through locos servicing them. This is the only working V2 at the moment- the one with outside steam pipes won't pull the skin off a rice pudding and has a pickup issue. This one at least runs, though it doesn't like right-hand curves, probably the result of a pickup problem here as well. At least it will pull the shorter parcels. Time for bed. Tomorrow brings the box of 9Fs. Les Edited January 15, 2016 by Les1952 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 22, 2016 Author Share Posted January 22, 2016 A little more work done. Having now gone through the loco boxes except the shunters I thought it was time to look at the rather bare areas of the grassy bank. Most of it is getting interesting. I've been doing odd patches and using a slightly different grass mix each time- largely because the real thing was burned in patches at different times so different areas are slightly different in age. This is the latest bit. The bulge on the left is yet to be done... I've also been working on the colliery. Having three controllers available makes it more imperative that I get the sidings here working more reliably. There have been pics of number 8 standing here before, but this time it has actually drawn these wagons out of the screens. I just need to keep working at this so the other locos can do it also..... Les 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian D Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 The Croft Spa station building looks great Les, as does the lofty signal box. The "Federation" and "Vaux" references above bring the North East at a certain place in time all back for me...and Nimmos at Castle Eden - I remember drinking their "coke" as a lad which of couse didn't taste anything like it - happy days. Regards, Brian. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted January 23, 2016 Author Share Posted January 23, 2016 (edited) Update on getting the colliery working. The Jinty will now run in and pick up wagons from the screens. The matchbox and the EE diesel won't, largely because they start off too slowly and find areas to stall on that they didn't stall on when running in... I've also sorted out the shorting-out problem that was stopping the coal drops being shunted. The Jinty runs in and picks up wagons. I'm going to have to use the big hand in the sky for now when putting wagons onto the drops to uncouple them. Not really an issue as it won't be done very often. Next job is to get the kickback siding to the shed working. It is only wired as far as the board join so the least co-operative loco can be parked in front of the shed looking pretty, and allowing the fitter there to look as if he is actually mending something. Many thanks Brian for the comments about Croft Spa. I'm now looking for suitable bungalows for the row of semi-detached ones that run along behind the line North of the station. There is also a singleton next to them at a higher level which is too ornate for the Peco kit- though six Peco kits might form the basis for the semi-detached ones. Bed time... Les Edited January 23, 2016 by Les1952 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Not a happy bunny. Just done a post with seven new pics and RMWeb gave me 501Bad Gateway when I tried to post the thing, having let me preview and correct it three times. Forty-five minutes wasted. Pics to follow later! GRRRRR!!! Les Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 OK, Now lets try the bits of the last posting again. No more than two pics to the post. Its going to be a long read.... Firstly. I had a look in the acrylic thinners jar and realised why my paintbrushes weren't coming up all that clean. What was in it looked more like fairly undiluted grot coloured paint than thinners. So I decided to give some of the buildings anothe wash with the stuff, especially allowing it to run down roofs and into gutters to get some streaking into the walls as well. To the right the fitter shows why an engine needs to be parked on the track outside the shed at all times. The bit between the baseboard join and the shed isn't powered for that very purpose. At least the ash looks reasonable, though the heap is still a little small. The shed roof has had some of this treatment. Pic shows I need to do a little bedding-in here. The cottages got a thin line of diluted black mplaced under the ridge tiles and under the gutterings then the not-so-clean thinners waere applied as a wash. These cottages have stood about 200 yards from the pit ever since it opened, so will have had over sixty years of industrial fallout from the screening house and boiler room chimneys, especially when the wind is coming from the North. Nice warm sooty rain being blown in the wind..... I had been a bit hesitant about the Faller guttering on the cottages. it is made of leftovers from three of the buildings on Furtwangen Ost. However, the discontinuities in colour are probably OK for a row of houses this old. I've also noticed in this pic that I've still not got round to the chimney pots on the Council Houses. Next post to follow... Les 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Colliery working (mostly) I've been working on getting the remainder of the colliery going. All that remains to do is the rear road of the screens, but the point lever for this has come adrift from the wire, and may also be adrift at the other end. That being the case I'll probably leave it and just park a wagon or tow in the mouth of that screen road to look pretty the part. However, trying to get the coal drops to work again I managed to break a rail on the main line (by slitting it too near the point). The replacement centimetre of rail is now in place- soldered to the point next to it, then superglued down so it would remain in place while the Araldite set. then painted a slightly different colour from the mess either side of it so it looks like a new bodge (which the smaller and more neglected outposts of the NCB were just as capable of making as I am.) Oddly enough, despite providing a new dodgy-looking place on the line, the trains don't jolt over it- you can tell that because they don't start bouncing until they reach the point frog going that way..... Even the Paddy Train doesn't derail there- it saves that for plain track behind the water crane going one way and the weighbridge going the other- both plain track with no apparent bits of stray ballast for them to bump on. More on the Paddy Train later..... Les 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 (edited) A distraction or two Real NCB steam. Starting at Derwenthaugh. No.59 ex- Lambton system on my first visit. At this point you could hear her coming sounding like a steam engine should- though it only took a couple of years before she sounded like a sledgemammer in a bell foundry with wheelflats that clanked more loudly than the loco's exhaust. By that time the three Austerities here were so filthy it was difficult to tell them apart. That also looks rather like a 20-ton mineral wagon in the pic. The concrete hut on the right means that the one on Hawthorn Dene is about the right colour. The track here is not too bad, though there are a few weeds here and there. I must add a few to the colliery yard, there probably aren't enough there yet. Nothing really long, though. Number 47 at Whittle taking a break. Note the re-shaped cab where the engine had been bashed into the screens. Despite this and being generally hammered this loco was bought for preservation and still exists to this day, named MOORBARROW. The other loco in the pic, number 38, was out of use but was apparently good enough to transfer to Shilbottle, where they already had a number 38 in their fleet of three engines. So this became 38-and-a-half. Again despite being in grotty external condition she now lives on the Tanfield Railway resplendent in lined black. The trackwork here is definitely more agricultural, nearer the sort of condition I'm looking for, particularly on No Place. Now I've got everything working on HD I might do a little grassing in the colliery yard. More to follow. Les edited for missed typos.. Edited February 1, 2016 by Les1952 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 2, 2016 Author Share Posted February 2, 2016 Next lot of the pics.. I'll have taken some new ones by the time I've uploaded the last lot....... Loco 8 has been giving buffer locking problems with certain wagons going round the top of the colliery. On Sunday I remembered some buffers that N-gauge Bob gave me quite a lot of years ago. They are actually brass oval coach buffers. The advantage they have is that they are a lot shorter in the shank than the buffers on the engine. Now, the only WD saddletanks I've found with oval buffers were the ones on the Cromford and High Peak. However, the NCB didn't have a Geisl WD in South Durham, either so that just makes a wrong loco wronger-er-er. Er- Rule 1. 90014 has had another coat of grot applied and looks suitably disgusting . Barry and John can have a good squint at it as it trundles past... I also found another pack or two of rocking horse droppings Springside tail lamps. As a result three of the BR brakes now have the right number of lamps. One of the LMS ones also has three lamps on the back. I have some LMS lamps left over but the handle running front to back makes it harder to stick the lamps on without gluing the tweeezers to the van body. I still also have a pack of GW style, but no GW Toad to put them on. Not that I remember ever seeing an ex-GW Toad in service in the NE. More to follow. Les 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 2, 2016 Author Share Posted February 2, 2016 Two more distractions Firstly an idea of what I'm hoping eventually to achieve with the ash heaps around the shed area. It will take some time to get this far. This one also shows why No.8 isn't going to be weathered, and neither will the first of the DJM Austerity saddletanks when it eventually arrives (2019 anyone?) Backworth number 9 on shed. The first time I saw this loco it had just been transferred in from Burradon and was best described as needing a bit of a clean. Moving on to pastures new, the idyllic and totally rural scene at South Hetton opposite the loco shed where BETA rests between shifts. Again, the grassy effect around the track is what I'm aiming for. Tomorrow is mostly a shed day so I'll have a play, in between repainting two LNER-coloured locos to BR for Rise Park's debut and rewiring the overhead lighting for Rise Park before we actually fit the LED strips to the gantry I might find some time. Then there are all the non-DCC locos to try to lamp if possible, and some brake vans to do... Yet they say it is all very quiet and boring when you retire. Les 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Two_sugars Posted February 3, 2016 Share Posted February 3, 2016 I still think thay WD is a bit too clean . . .A mean . . . Yer can still read it's numbers. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les1952 Posted February 3, 2016 Author Share Posted February 3, 2016 Frustrating day spent altering the lighting strips for Rise Park. As supplied each lighting strip came with a PSU that had a lead with a male connector on the end. However, the LED strips have bare wires and the female connector isn't available as a separate item!. Good news- we bought three extension cables for the three LED strips, each of which has a male connector on one end and a female on the other. Solution- cut the male connector off the lead from the PSU and the female from the extension and solder the leads together- then use the female connector on the LED strip. It does actually work- and all three done successfully- BUT the extension cables are coax cable which isn't as easy to bare and also difficult to solder. My soldering iron packed up after the first joint- and the expensive soldering station I have in reserve is a waste of space- didn't give enough heat even running flat out - it is now in the bin to take to the tip. Someone has borrowed my Polish leaded solder at the club and given me back the wrong reel. This stuff is lead free and needs a lot more heat. Eventually I got five out of the six pairs of wires joined, and tried rotating the tip of my failed iron. Plugging it back in it works again, but it took over four hours in total to get the lights done. I didn't get anything done on Hawthorn Dene today- other than contacting Sam at Warners to make sure they haven't dropped the same clanger in the Doncaster show guide as BRM have on the "Next Issue" page, where they've added an E on the end of Hawthorn, changing it from the tree to the racing driver. At least they didn't go as far as Nottingham's show programme last year, where the layout was rendered as HAWTHORN DEAN (whoever he is...) Rant over, bed time (once I've looked on eBay to see if I can get another reel of Polish solder. Les Pics of the new Paddy Train to follow. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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