Wright writes.....

[5050]

Re. - 'The entry in the Guide by the P4 Society' - in post 15104

 

Wearing my self imposed anal retentive pedant's hat Tony, the P4 Society does not exist - and never has.  The original society was 'The Protofour Society' and this finally disbanded/amalgamated in the mid 80's.  The current P4 related society is the Scalefour Society.  P4 is a set of standards (some might say a religion....) and can be used by anyone if they have the desire.  Membership of the S4 Soc. - or the EM Soc. who also promote the P4 standards - is not compulsory, although it can be very useful.

 

I do know where you are coming from regarding the running on some P4 layouts.  Even at the various Scalefori ( or should it be Scaleforae?  My Latin is now over 55 years old and a bit vague) and Expos, I have seen where improvements could - and should - be made.  My layouts in P4 have been/are small or smallish but I do try to get the best running I can and generally achieve it - I think!  I still stick with 'basic' compensation rather than springing.  It has always worked for me (apart from one prize example where I was trying to be TO clever!) and if anything does go wrong it is a simple job to fix it.  Building only 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 locos helps too!  One day I'll try a pony truck.  Perhaps..............

 

My personal opinion is that a lot of the suspension ideas that are in circulation can be to complicated, delicate and over engineered.  That they can be made to work is not in doubt.  It's whether or not they can be made to work by everyone without the builder throwing in the towel and reverting to RTR.

 

I like modelling in P4 for the challenge, the degree of manual dexterity required to achieve a satisfactory result and the glow of self-satisfaction experienced when a loco, wagon, coach (not many of them!) trundles away smoothly and (relatively) silently.  Would I go back to OO?  Probably more likely to be O - or even S - with the state of my eyesight these days!

Edited March 1, 2017 by 5050

[Bernard Lamb]

A top City commercial solicitor would be c£700+/hour...

But those people have standards to maintain that cost rather a lot.

As well as having to have a suitable address for the office, there are various overheads.

Corporate tickets to Wimbledon or Christmas parties at The Natural History Museum* do not come cheap.

* Other equally expensive sporting events and venues are available.

Bernard

[Izzy]

Now Ladies and Gentlemen for my final piece...

 

I present a short Film of Little Bytham that Tony and myself recorded whilst learning the ropes of the GOPRO, (which Tony found astounding). 

 

I hope you enjoy it, please continue to check out my Youtube channel and RM web page as i will start to be posting videos and photos of the progress on my layout.

 

all the best Jesse 

 

 

 

Thank you Jesse & Tony. Wonderful. I kept on waiting for the 'whoosh' of the air turbulence in lots of the shots and if I had enough hair left I'd be looking for the brush and comb.....!

 

Izzy

Edited March 1, 2017 by Izzy

[Barry O]

 

 

My personal opinion is that a lot of the suspension ideas that are in circulation can be to complicated, delicate and over engineered.  That they can be made to work is not in doubt.  It's whether or not they can be made to work by everyone without the builder throwing in the towel and reverting to RTR.

 

I added some S4 wheelsets to some Airfix BR Mark 2 coaches- no compensation - they worked fine. Others on the same layout with springy bits and compensating beams just fell off...

 

If the track standards are so good why do yoiu need such compensation? perhaps its the very fine flanges - which, I have to admit, I couldn't see when I bought the wheelsets

 

Baz

[5050]

I added some S4 wheelsets to some Airfix BR Mark 2 coaches- no compensation - they worked fine. Others on the same layout with springy bits and compensating beams just fell off...

 

If the track standards are so good why do yoiu need such compensation? perhaps its the very fine flanges - which, I have to admit, I couldn't see when I bought the wheelsets

 

Baz

I was mainly referring to loco chassis suspension but I agree that short wheelbase RTR rolling stock does work in P4 with just the wheels changing.  None of my RTR bogie coaches have anything else done to them and I also run several RTR wagons with replacement wheels only.  Kits however I find easier to build with compensation as the need to get axles completely parallel is obviated.  It is also perfectly feasible to replace many modern RTR steam loco wheels as many chassis do have some element of wheel movement built in.  I've not done this yet but I have a couple of locos in the pipeline for the future.  Where the loco in question is a 'common' prototype I don't really see much point in building something myself but I have a penchant for small industrials and there aren't many of them available RTR. 

[Focalplane]

Regarding the price of expertise, there was an amusing story going around the oil industry a few years ago. An old hand in a refinery retired after 45 years of service. A couple of months later his old manager called and said there was a problem at the plant and no-one knew what to do. So the retiree visited the refinery and was shown the problem. He picked up a large wrench and whacked the fifth pipe from the left and suddenly everything started working again.

 

His manager thanked him profusely and as a bit of a joke suggested that an invoice for the work done would be welcome.

 

He got the hand written invoice a week later. It read:

 

To visit refinery. $10.00

To know which pipe to hit wth wrench. $990.00

 

Total. $1,000.00

[96701]

But on the layout, mine looks OK and runs well.

What more could anybody want? Well done. I have built a couple of loco kits (2 resin bodied diesels and one whitemetal Drewry shunter) and they are by no means exhibition standard, and they weren't particularly challenging. I am however happy to see them trundling around because I know I had a hand in their creation. Next is a bigger challenge, the GT3, so I'm practising on an old Hornby class 21 into a class 29 with a Bachmann class 25 chassis. I have scrapped a few projects due to ineptitude, but practice, practice, practice...........

[Tony Wright]

Loved the video, especially the shots from above the bridge at the beginning and, even as a P4 modeller, I'd have to say that the trackwork looks superb.

 

The brake van on the train at 5:27 has a very definite limp though...

 

John

John,

 

Since (with just a few exceptions) none of the freight stock is my work, then I 'blame' others.

 

Interestingly, only two wagons/vans (out of over 250) are compensated, one of which is a brake van. 

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Thank you Jesse & Tony. Wonderful. I kept on waiting for the 'whoosh' of the air turbulence in lots of the shots and if I had enough hair left I'd be looking for the brush and comb.....!

 

Izzy

I just popped by and so glad that I did, a magnificent video of a magnificent layout, long trains, mainline speeds and superbly modelled wow!

 

ATVB

 

CME

Edited March 1, 2017 by CME and Bottlewasher

[CME and Bottlewasher]

John,

 

Since (with just a few exceptions) none of the freight stock is my work, then I 'blame' others.

 

Interestingly, only two wagons/vans (out of over 250) are compensated, one of which is a brake van. 

Sometimes Tony - K.I.S.S is best, I keep thinking I should be more FS in my model-making with springing and the like, yet K.I.S.S seems to work okay for now - time will tell!

 

Norman Solomon's track-work is just sublime and no doubt helps!

 

Kindest regards,

 

CME

[Tony Wright]

Hi Tony

 

I know you will say Mostyn runs well because it is P4 diesel. Having played with it, it runs well because of the excellent baseboards, track laying, attention to stock and disciplined team of operators. 

 

Now if I were a cabinet maker, was prepared to take time with my Peco track, check the running quality of my stock before a show and didn't muck about so much I might be half way there.

Good evening Clive,

 

I'm not saying that Mostyn only runs well because it's diesel-outline, but it's axiomatic that diesel/electric-outline locos in P4 are easier to get to run, stay running and perform with fewer derailments. I know; I've done it myself for a friend. 

 

Of course, the baseboard construction on Mostyn is excellent, as is the track-laying, attention to stock and the operation is disciplined. Are you saying then, because the other P4 layout performed so poorly in comparison, that none of the tenets you mentioned was observed? 

 

Irrespective of the gauge used it is much easier to get diesel/electric-outline locos to run very well. All the wheels are the same size (apart from a few weird prototypes), in most cases all are load-bearing and in many cases all are driven. There's no unpowered bogie/pony to push in front or trail behind, no cylinders to clear, no fancy motion and valve gear to erect and no dead-weight tender to haul. With regard to valve gear, the clearances in plan view are often wafer-thin, in OO. Shove the wheels out to the correct gauge and see what happens then.

 

I can't understand why these facts are not recognised. As an example, in the early days of Stoke diesel, the Deltics were modified Lima items. I/we bought some replacement wheelsets from UltraScale and they just dropped in - in minutes. After that, perfect-running. Consider re-wheeling a Lima steam-outline loco (not that we did), say one of the firm's Crabs? How long would that have taken and what guarantee would there be that it would subsequently run properly? 

[APOLLO]

Perfect running Lima diesels !!!! - I agree with you there Tony, though all mine are OO. The Lima Crab (I have one) is tender drive, similar mechanism to the diesels so the tender bit would be an easy job I suppose. The Lima Crab loco mechanism is another story. Unpowered and (should be) free rolling - but it isn't. Most suffer from driving wheel binding due to the dreaded mazac (weight) rot expansion. The whole lot is riveted up, hence i've left mine parked on a distant siding !!.

 

As to P4 running, I know very little - but wasn't there a heated discussion here on rmweb a while ago (in an MRJ thread) where one chap used P4 gauge but wheels with either EM or OO flanges (can't remember). It caused uproar on here - but it worked for the guy who did it, so good luck to him !!.

 

Brit15

[Tony Wright]

Tony,

An alternative method to making a clipping path is to use a layer mask. Whilst it probably isn't any faster it does make editing and altering mistakes much simpler. Since you can use pretty much any tool on the layer mask to add or subtract from mask itself, by using pure black or pure white, you essentially have unlimited options to alter, fettle and correct what you've done. A further advantage of this technique is that you can alter the softness of the mask edges at will allowing you to use different techniques, depending on the definition of the edge you want. Added to this is the ability to hold down the option key means that you can quickly cut the mask to specific straight lines, such as your rigging, with relative ease.

 

That written you've done a very good job with the clipping path.

Thanks Tim,

 

I'm not sure if 'clipping path' is the right description. 

 

I should explain; My photo programme is over ten years old, and it's Paint Shop Pro (which I prefer to Photoshop because it's more intuitive in my opinion). I use the lasso tool, set to point-to-point. I then draw round every edge, isolating areas which are then flood-filled. The tool has a 'smart-edge' function, which, in my opinion contravenes the Trades' Description Act, because it's anything but that. It either ignores indistinct lines or cheerfully nibbles away around the edges of things like telegraph poles, signals or rigging.

 

My computer is even older, but still keeps on going. I have more up-to-date photo programmes on it, but why are the tool positions and functions altered on these? Some favourite tools are now hidden in sub-menus and the like.

 

Oh, for the stink of chemicals and blinking into the light; not really! 

[Tony Wright]

Perfect running Lima diesels !!!! - I agree with you there Tony, though all mine are OO. The Lima Crab (I have one) is tender drive, similar mechanism to the diesels so the tender bit would be an easy job I suppose. The Lima Crab loco mechanism is another story. Unpowered and (should be) free rolling - but it isn't. Most suffer from driving wheel binding due to the dreaded mazac (weight) rot expansion. The whole lot is riveted up, hence i've left mine parked on a distant siding !!.

 

As to P4 running, I know very little - but wasn't there a heated discussion here on rmweb a while ago (in an MRJ thread) where one chap used P4 gauge but wheels with either EM or OO flanges (can't remember). It caused uproar on here - but it worked for the guy who did it, so good luck to him !!.

 

Brit15

'Perfect running' with Lima diesels needed qualifying, I admit. With the replacement wheelsets in, they no longer clattered over the crossings or the chairs on plain track. The pancake-type motor was never the smoothest, but, with the Deltics packed with extra lead, they worked OK. Another bonus was, by losing the traction tyres, the locos ran more evenly with far less wobble. 

[APOLLO]

 

Oh, for the stink of chemicals and blinking into the light; not really! 

 

Ahh for the days of Microdol X solution in a tray on a large light sealed biscuit tin with a 100 watt bulb inside to keep it at temperature.  a touch of vinegar in the stop bath and Sodium Hypochlorate fixer !!. My Dad's darkroom was an Alladins cave. He made an enlarger with wood and Meccano, a Zeiss tessar lens if I remember correctly. After fixing the kitchen sink was commandeered for washing, then onto a double sided glazing machine, the only bit not home made !!!. All my B&W photos on my Flikr site / rmweb post before came from this wonderful workshop, which doubled as a bike and motorbike store. !!

 

Brit15

Edited March 1, 2017 by APOLLO

[Tony Wright]

Jesse,

 

Thank you ever so much for putting together such a splendid sequence of trains on Little Bytham. I think what pleased me as much as anything was that, even when abandoned to your own devices whilst I processed pictures, you were able to operate the layout perfectly and still do the filming (apart from not operating the signals, which I'll forgive). I wished I'd shifted my camera and flash gun, though. 

 

Roy Jackson also expresses his thanks for putting together the sequence on Retford. Both layouts show that big locos, hauling heavy trains and running fast can be made to work perfectly in 4mm scale.

 

I hope your O2 (which featured) is still going well. Why didn't you include the shots of your A4 running? I'm sure folk would be interested in seeing it. 

 

I mentioned the camera and flash gun, and their being obtrusive in some of the shots. 

 

 

Rather than that area being just a 'dumping ground', I've decided to actually finish it off. I've made level the sites of the houses (the road, prototypically, rises and falls) using thin ply, card, PVA and deep-crack filler in readiness for the semis to be installed (which Bob Dawson will be making). There were/are a couple of semi-detached bungalows, but these have been expanded and altered considerably from their appearance in 1958. Scenic Route Models does a handy pair of single-storey buildings which will form the basis for those bungalows. Though they might not be dead right, at least they're an excellent starting point, as I hope is shown here. No photographs have been found showing the bungalows as they were. 

 

 

No photographs have been found showing the stationmaster's original garage, either. Still, now with a felt roof (toilet paper, PVA and dark grey paint), barge boards (card) and weathering, the Scenic Route Models' little garage really fits in well. 

 

In case anyone missed an earlier post, these excellent products can be obtained by contacting scenicroutemodels@gmail.com

Edited March 1, 2017 by Tony Wright

[Willie Whizz]

Regarding the price of expertise, there was an amusing story going around the oil industry a few years ago. An old hand in a refinery retired after 45 years of service. A couple of months later his old manager called and said there was a problem at the plant and no-one knew what to do. So the retiree visited the refinery and was shown the problem. He picked up a large wrench and whacked the fifth pipe from the left and suddenly everything started working again.

 

His manager thanked him profusely and as a bit of a joke suggested that an invoice for the work done would be welcome.

 

He got the hand written invoice a week later. It read:

 

To visit refinery. $10.00

To know which pipe to hit wth wrench. $990.00

 

Total. $1,000.00

 

These days I will only usually admit to having once been a Piano-Player in a House of Ill-Repute.  But as I'm among friends ... long ago, in a universe far away, I once worked for a bank and rose to the dizzy height of Branch Manager as my penultimate job before taking voluntary redundancy.  (This was the mid-90s, when things had begun to change for the worse but not yet gone completely to pot, I hasten to add).

 

We had scales of fees that we were supposed to charge business and personal customers as 'arrangement fees' for assessing and approving their borrowing applications (though in practice there was always a bit of room to manoevre) ... however, some customers seemed to object to the very idea in principle.  One particular businessman wanting to borrow £70,000 asked:  "Why are you trying to charge me £700 for an interview that's lasted less than an hour.  The reply was:  "It's not the hour you're paying for - it's the 25 years' experience and professional training that tells me whether it's a good risk for me to lend you the Bank's money for the purpose and on the terms you're asking for".

 

Every profession and craft has its appropriate charging terms, and much of the time people who have never thought in detail (or even at all) about what is involved in getting a 'proper job done'  fail to comprehend why things cost so much, and baulk accordingly.  Top quality railway models are (and rightly should be) no exception, however much we might wish otherwise.

 

What was startling even to me, with that background but while doing a different role, was the completely eye-watering 'daily rate' some Consultants I had dealings with would charge.  In a friendly moment with one of them I raised the point.  He sighed deeply and gently 'put my hat on straight' by reminding me that for every chargeable day's work on-site, at least 2-3 days' work would take place off-scene; and that it is the nature of such business that even for 'popular' consultants there are some 'blank' days when no work is available to do; and that the daily rate also has to cover back-office costs, IT, secretarial and technical support, HR costs, transport ... the list went on ... and I felt rather ashamed to have asked; but he was a good sport and excellent at the job, so in the end it was indeed money well-spent.

[Black Marlin]

Good evening Tony

I thought you might like to see this: the first train I've ever put together that I'm proud of as a model in its own right. Everything in it, although RTR, has been modified for increased accuracy. The coaches all have roof boards and some have been correctly renumbered; the locomotive has been crewed, coaled, lamped and headboarded appropriately. This is, I hope, a model along the Wright lines! Here is my Queen of Scots:





Regards,

Gavin

 

[uax6]

Jesse,

 

Thank you ever so much for putting together such a splendid sequence of trains on Little Bytham. I think what pleased me as much as anything was that, even when abandoned to your own devices whilst I processed pictures, you were able to operate the layout perfectly and still do the filming (apart from not operating the signals, which I'll forgive). I wished I'd shifted my camera and flash gun, though. 

 

Roy Jackson also expresses his thanks for putting together the sequence on Retford. Both layouts show that big locos, hauling heavy trains and running fast can be made to work perfectly in 4mm scale.

 

I hope your O2 (which featured) is still going well. Why didn't you include the shots of your A4 running? I'm sure folk would be interested in seeing it. 

 

I mentioned the camera and flash gun, and their being obtrusive in some of the shots. 

 

Scenic Route Models semis.jpg

 

Rather than that area being just a 'dumping ground', I've decided to actually finish it off. I've made level the sites of the houses (the road, prototypically, rises and falls) using thin ply, card, PVA and deep-crack filler in readiness for the semis to be installed (which Bob Dawson will be making). There were/are a couple of semi-detached bungalows, but these have been expanded and altered considerably from their appearance in 1958. Scenic Route Models does a handy pair of single-storey buildings which will form the basis for those bungalows. Though they might not be dead right, at least they're an excellent starting point, as I hope is shown here. No photographs have been found showing the bungalows as they were. 

 

Scenic Route Models wooden garage 02.jpg

 

No photographs have been found showing the stationmaster's original garage, either. Still, now with a felt roof (toilet paper, PVA and dark grey paint), barge boards (card) and weathering, the Scenic Route Models' little garage really fits in well. 

 

In case anyone missed an earlier post, these excellent products can be obtained by contacting scenicroutemodels@gmail.com

Blimey Tony, you need to give your GPO Pole a bit of a feed, its very thin! And also very American in looks, certainly nothing like a GPO Pole...

 

Somewhere in the Exchange (yes I have a Strowger exchange at home) I have the GPO Engineering Instructions for Pole routes, which gives all sort of details about poles and how they should be fitted out.....

 

Andy G

[St Enodoc]

A top City commercial solicitor would be c£700+/hour...

 

A reasonable comparison might be bespoke furniture. Again, take your pick, pay your price. Or enquire about Philip Hawkins commission rates...

 

David

It is axiomatic that the hourly rate for commercial solicitors is about the same as the daily rate for consulting engineers.

[jrg1]

I think I was definitely in the wrong profession/business. Retired now so it doesn't make any difference.

 

At the other end of the scale, when I worked at the Donegal Railway Museum, I was on minimum wage, my salary being covered by a government grant. The head honcho took advantage of this, getting me to build locos to order. I never did discover what he charged for them but, although it was probably less than the going rate, it would have been all profit for the museum as the kits were provided by the clients.

 

These were the last two off the production line before I retired:

 

Castlederg.jpg

 

LLSR No 12.jpg

Terrifically good-show us some more!

[Clive Mortimore]

Good evening Clive,

 

I'm not saying that Mostyn only runs well because it's diesel-outline, but it's axiomatic that diesel/electric-outline locos in P4 are easier to get to run, stay running and perform with fewer derailments. I know; I've done it myself for a friend. 

 

Of course, the baseboard construction on Mostyn is excellent, as is the track-laying, attention to stock and the operation is disciplined. Are you saying then, because the other P4 layout performed so poorly in comparison, that none of the tenets you mentioned was observed? 

 

Irrespective of the gauge used it is much easier to get diesel/electric-outline locos to run very well. All the wheels are the same size (apart from a few weird prototypes), in most cases all are load-bearing and in many cases all are driven. There's no unpowered bogie/pony to push in front or trail behind, no cylinders to clear, no fancy motion and valve gear to erect and no dead-weight tender to haul. With regard to valve gear, the clearances in plan view are often wafer-thin, in OO. Shove the wheels out to the correct gauge and see what happens then.

 

I can't understand why these facts are not recognised. As an example, in the early days of Stoke diesel, the Deltics were modified Lima items. I/we bought some replacement wheelsets from UltraScale and they just dropped in - in minutes. After that, perfect-running. Consider re-wheeling a Lima steam-outline loco (not that we did), say one of the firm's Crabs? How long would that have taken and what guarantee would there be that it would subsequently run properly? 

Hello Tony

 

No I am not saying other P4 layouts do not have good baseboards, fine track laying, well maintained stock and team that is disciplined. I am saying the combination of these factors help Mostyn perform well at exhibitions. There are many layouts of all scales and gauges that do not have the same high level of these attributes and the operators and public wonder why they do not run as well.

 

As for diesels not having unpowered pony trucks to push or have trailing behind, how about Peaks and English Electric type 4s?

 

Not all diesel based layouts run well, I know of one diesel layout where the running tonight was appalling. Can I work out why all of a sudden a DMC of my 4 car BRCW unit (converted Hornby 110)  is derailing as it goes over a single slip in one direction? Back to backs OK, one bogie was a bit stiff to rotate, a few strokes with a file in hole in the underframe and nice and lose. Still derails, both propelled and hauled. I first changed the wheels, then the bogies and in the end a spare underframe was dug out of my DMU bits box. Even with a new underframe, bogies and wheels it derailed. The other DMC does not, neither does the TS with the same design of bogie and underframe. I ran the train with a Calder Valley DMC, no problem. But when I tried with a DMC off my 3 car BRCW set, plonk into the ballast it went on the same spot, it hasn't done that before. No other units or coaches jump off there. No obvious track problem. 

Edited March 2, 2017 by Clive Mortimore

[jwealleans]

I was helping a friend at one show where the public voted for the best layout. Most exhibitors were not happy with the winning result. 

 

The Lego layout won.

Southwold 2005? Thurston lost by 1 vote? Not that it's scarred us all for life......

 

In fact, I think they have their place. The kids love them as has been said and in this specific example the chap had built up a collection from all over the world, mixed and matched components to create new vehicles and ended up with what we'd probably term a 'rabbit warren' with things happening and moving all over the place and which took twice as long to set up as our more conventional layout. We invited him to our show, but the setup time made it impractical.

 

It's not railway modelling as we perceive it, but it is a creative inventive pastime and shouldn't be sneered at (although I don't for a moment think that was Clive's intention).

 

(Edit - spelling).

Edited March 2, 2017 by jwealleans

[Killybegs]

Terrifically good-show us some more!

 

 I don't wish to hijack Tony's thread but here's one more.

 

 

There's more on my web site - see link below

[drmditch]

Re: Burntisland and mooring lines.

I agree with the posts above concerning ships with nothing to secure them to the quayside.

 

However, to do the job properly with fore and aft springs, headropes, breastropes etc etc, not to mention fenders, each rope would have to be set up individually around cleats and bollards.. Since (presumably) each ship has to be unpacked and packed up individually this would surely be very time consuming and also quite tricky. Presumably tweezers would be required. There might also be a risk of damage to the ship, especially those square-rigged with yards across. I think it is also difficult to get a scale dimension 'rope' to curve convincingly.

 

After all, on 4mm model railways there are a lot of things that get left out!

 

(Excuse me, I'll get back to my working inside Joy valve gear now!)