Grantham - the Streamliner years

[Flying Fox 34F]

The LNER Forum is back and messages can be posted, but I could not attach any files this morning

Paul 4475

(Just back from yet another bridge strike in Grantham!)

[JCL]

(Just back from yet another bridge strike in Grantham!)

 

Blimey! There's something to be said for putting bells on chains at bridge height or something...

[LNER4479]

There's something to be said for putting bells on chains at bridge height or something...

wouldn't that just distract the lorry drivers.... Oh I see bells. I read that as belles  the first time round. That would be interesting...

 

The 'best' one I heard of a few years ago was a bridge strike by a... wait for it... rail replacement bus

[Nelson Jackson]

image.jpg

And just to prove it should fit on a 70 foot turntable, the piece of track it is standing on is 280mm long

image.jpg

Paul 4475

 

What a beautiful locomotive Paul and what a beast as well but may I ask what is she? Never seen one before and would like to have a look at others.

[gr.king]

Time for an update on a neglected subject, namely ironstone wagons. Although I've done my daftest to ignore the advice in the instructions and have obliterated the word "steel" from one set of transfers in the process (a cavalier application by brush of well thinned Railmatch varnish did the damage), here are some pictures of some absolutely exquisite professionally produced transfers applied to a couple of wagons. The steel hopper wagon in Appleby livery is there purely to show the comparison with the sort of result I was able to achieve by means of home-printed decoration on white paper, stuck to the wagon sides with "Pritt" type glue-stick.  The matching style of white-print transfers applied to the Frodingham steel hopper are beautifully crisp and delicate on the model by comparison, with correctly weighted letter styles and the huge advantage that the painted wagon colour shows through, saving the agony of trying to print a colour-matched background to the white letters. The pro-printed transfers were never designed for the planked hopper wagon also pictured, but the Appleby example shows that the transfers can be applied "off piste" with a little cutting and adjustment of layout. A more convincing model of Grantham's late thirties High Dyke - Scunthorpe ironstone train moves a little closer to realisation

Those images certainly re-emphasize the fact that the Appleby-Frodingham steel hoppers were not large by comparison with a standard seven plank mineral.

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say about the origin of the lovely professionally made transfers. I'll ensure that the maker is aware of this post so that he can either take credit or lay low, according to his preference.....

Edited November 16, 2014 by gr.king

[gr.king]

I like big and ugly!

 

Really? What more can we say?

[cctransuk]

Time for an update on a neglected subject, namely ironstone wagons. Although I've done my daftest to ignore the advice in the instructions and have obliterated the word "steel" from one set of transfers in the process (a cavalier application by brush of well thinned Railmatch varnish did the damage), here are some pictures of some absolutely exquisite professionally produced transfers applied to a couple of wagons. The steel hopper wagon in Appleby livery is there purely to show the comparison with the sort of result I was able to achieve by means of home-printed decoration on white paper, stuck to the wagon sides with "Pritt" type glue-stick.  The matching style of white-print transfers applied to the Frodingham steel hopper are beautifully crisp and delicate on the model by comparison, with correctly weighted letter styles and the huge advantage that the painted wagon colour shows through, saving the agony of trying to print a colour-matched background to the white letters. The pro-printed transfers were never designed for the planked hopper wagon also pictured, but the Appleby example shows that the transfers can be applied "off piste" with a little cutting and adjustment of layout. A more convincing model of Grantham's late thirties High Dyke - Scunthorpe ironstone train moves a little closer to realisation

Those images certainly re-emphasize the fact that the Appleby-Frodingham steel hopper were not large by comparison with a standard seven plank mineral.

I'm not sure what I'm allowed to say about the origin of the lovely professionally made transfers. I'll ensure that the maker is aware of this post so that he can either take credit or lay low, according to his preference.....

 

I cannot ignore accolades like these - but I immediately but regretfully add the caveat that I cannot offer such a service to others.

 

Graham and I came to a Tony Wright-ish tit-for-tat agreement; a couple of hopper wagons in exchange for some transfers.

 

I have to agree with Graham that the hoppers look superb after painting and the application of transfers; as do the ones that I painted in BR ex-PO livery. I'll post an image of the latter when I get the chance.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood,

Cambridge Custom Transfers.

[The Blue Streak]

I like big and ugly!

 

Really? What more can we say?

 

I'm sure he means loco's.

[Flying Fox 34F]

With regard to the 4-8-2, she never existed apart from a basic Weight Diagram dated 1939!

History records that they would have been built, but Mr Hitler's messing about put a stop to it!

There are several models of this type out there and quite a view photographs that people have cut and shut!

As for my efforts, take one Hornby A3, and extra body, extra wheels and coupling roads. Mix them together using a knife, pliers, hammer (really big one if you are getting annoyed!) add a dash of nickel silver sheet and voila!

Seriously, though if you want to know more check out the Climb every Mountain thread on LNER Forum.

I'm about to tackle the lining out and re-install the motor with extended drive shaft.

The clock is ticking for next Sunday.

 

By the way, the Iron Ore hoppers are looking a treat. I have located another seam of rock for you to load them with. Just need a Steam Shovel to get it out. Now where's the Meccano set I had when I was a kid!

 

Paul 4475

[LNER4479]

Well a week to go (to Warley) so time for some last minute progress / preparations.

 

First job is to add some ballast to platform 5 (which is beginning to look conspicuously bare in photos). But before I do that, I wanted to replace the fixed uncoupling magnet with an electromagnetic version, as too many vehicles were uncoupling when they weren't supposed to(!) So everything is unceremoniously removed and ripped up.

 

Meanwhile, Mr Scenery returned for a welcome visit and, having expressed satisfaction at the newly-installed geology, wastes no time in covering it.

 

Aarrggh!

 

Obviously unimpressed, scenic work continues undisturbed.

 

Electromagnet prepared and hole ready

 

Flock drying after first application. A fence has appeared. I can tell you're not very interested in the uncoupler...

 

Uncoupler installed and track restored into position. A piece of grey card has been positioned immediately below the track to protect the electromagnetic gubbins from the imminent downpour of PVA and granite chippings.

 

This now allows the ballasting to be undertaken

 

Oh go on then - another 'green' shot. This is after the excess has been hovered off. Looking OK innit?

 

I was quite pleased with how the ballasting turned out. Station pilot and solitary coach sit over the nice-n-hidden uncoupler (which I'm pleased to report works fine - thought I'd spare you the wiring-up details)

 

More to follow, but I need to take a couple more photos yet so that's all for now folks

Edited November 17, 2014 by LNER4479

[Nelson Jackson]

That grass looks lovely, I like it a lot

[Alister_G]

Blimey, that electromagnet looks a bit of a monster, when you turn it on do all the lights dim and knives and forks come flying in from the kitchen?

 

Nice neat job though, as always, and the scenery is coming alive now.

 

Al.

[JCL]

That's looking really great Robert! I've also learnt the professional way to hold a jar as well!

[gr.king]

Didn't you know the posh way to hold a jar? I like the way that the chance alignment with the layout legs in the background makes it look at a glace as if Paul has five fingers (including one at least that is very mobile) plus a thumb on his left hand.

 

Presumably that picture was taken at least six days ago, going by the poppy, so no doubt the entire layout has completed scenery by now.

[LNER4479]

That's looking really great Robert! I've also learnt the professional way to hold a jar as well!

That's not the half of it - wait until I tell you about the tights and the hairspray

[PGC]

That's not the half of it - wait until I tell you about the tights and the hairspray

 

Aren't they more appropriate for the 1890's than the 1930's?

 

Phil

[KevinWalsh]

That's not the half of it - wait until I tell you about the tights and the hairspray

 

Is this an appropriate subject matter for a family forum ???? 

[LNER4479]

Continuing with the good(?) work on the scenery...

 

We had a further muse over how much of Grantham town we can reasonably portray on the model.

 

 

Here, a piece of corrugated card from some wardrobe door packing (never throw anything away!) has been used to indicate the line of the backscene. What might not readily be apparent is that the last couple of inches of baseboard immediately in front of the backscene is actually part of the ‘fiddle yard’ for the road system and intended to fold up through 90deg for transportation. With this arrangement, it should be possible to include some half-relief buildings against the backscene (including the delightful-sounding ‘Belvoir Baby Carriages’ factory evident in one of the 1926 aerial photographs).

 

Now then, you Grantham-onians, recognise this? Thought so! Well…

 

By nonchalantly excluding a whole block of buildings we can incorporate it on the model (all good model railways should have a pub in them somewhere…) and in its correct orientation. Even though just a simple mock up at this stage, the glimpse through to the railway beyond is quite pleasing.

 

Meanwhile, the other side will represent the buildings that backed onto the cattle market which has here been set out in a rough layout of how we intend it to be. The distinctive buildings on the left have been mocked up based on further aerial photos. The straight lines of fence indicate where the pens will be (holding each lot awaiting auction) and we’ll put the parade / auction compound in the bottom left hand corner as shown. The aerial photos from 1950 show what looks like a brand new building nearer the right hand corner; we are assuming that was a new, covered auction area, hence it would not have been like that pre-war. Our ‘open aspect’ auction area probably isn’t in the correct place but I think it should still give a reasonable impression of what should be a most interesting feature on the model.

Ooh - nearly forgot: the local breed was (is!) the Lincoln Red Shorthorn - so black n white Friesians are definitely 'out'! 

 

After all that musing, Paul gives the greenery a second, more uneven layer…

 

…whilst I tackled a small, but important little job, right near the front of the layout (conscious that this will be horribly on view at Warley over the weekend). This is of course the west entrance to the pedestrian underpass beneath the railway.

 

Two brick pillars are involved. As a quick ‘how I did it’ sequence, I made these out of one continuous piece of Metcalfe red brick card and here I’m carefully scoring the back of the card, followed by two cuts at 45deg either side, to create a vee in the card prior to folding. If you don’t do this, the outside of the card will deform as you fold it over.

 

After careful measuring and cutting, the pillars are ‘ready to go’

 

And here they are in position. Offcuts from the Wills occupation bridge will do the rest…

 

Like so! Paul has applied a much-better-than-me application of ground cover to the right hand side (including a representation of what we believe to be the unofficial / trainspotters way up to the depot (a fence is required) – did this also double up as a traincrew route through to the Blue Bull I wonder?!!); the left hand side now cries out for similar treatment.

 

Finally, a couple of ‘fruits of our (well, Paul’s mainly!) labours’ pix to show where we’re up to:

 

 

 

This is how it should look at Warley so hope you’ll enjoy. We’re stand A57 in the demo area (it’s not actually referred to as ‘Grantham’ but goes under the somewhat grandiose title of ‘Prototypical track formations using Peco track’, just in case you have trouble finding us)

 

See you there!

Edited November 19, 2014 by LNER4479

[Flying Fox 34F]

It's nice to see bits of Grantham coming together! With regard to the unofficial footpath comment, there was a bricked up entrance in the retaining wall on the depot side of the pedestrian underpass. This may have been the official route! All lost now under the housing development.

See you Sunday

Paul 4475

[hornbyandbf3fan]

Nice, looking forward to seeing it

[cornish trains jez]

That's all coming along really nicely. It makes such a difference once buildings start appearing on the layout and "greenery" starts going down...it just brings everything to life with the trains running through. Can't wait to see it on Saturday!

 

Best regards,

 

Jeremy

[LNER4479]

Nice, looking forward to seeing it

Thanks Will,

 

Best of luck for your layout at Warley as well. If I get a chance I'll come over and have a look.

[ROY@34F]

It's nice to see bits of Grantham coming together! With regard to the unofficial footpath comment, there was a bricked up entrance in the retaining wall on the depot side of the pedestrian underpass. This may have been the official route! All lost now under the housing development.

See you Sunday

Paul 4475

 

This bricked up entrance Paul refers to certainly was a way in for folk such as me coming on my bike from Gonerby . And in my day was the way to get from work to the Railway Club for a  "quenching refreshment" , not necessarily the Blue Bull , though of course the "club" would'nt be there in the 30's .

Looking good Graham , considering the limited space you have .

 

Roy.

[gr.king]

Eleven Scunthorpe-owned ironstone wagons with detachable genuine High-Dyke stone loads now sit on my dining table ready to assist with the "track bending" demo. Will three P2s, a P1, a neverwas 4-8-2 and a six-wheel-drive Atlantic spoil things by straightening up all that carefully bent track?

[Flying Fox 34F]

I'll admit that I'm concerned about the movement of the Mountain in front of such a large audience! It has the longest coupled wheelbase of the lot!!

However it does run with its homemade extended drive shaft. I will test run as soon as arrive on Sunday to see if the Doncaster lifting gang will be called out?

Paul 4475