Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[aardvark]

Glad that someone made good use of the National Day of Morning.

 

Here's hoping that there's a National Day of Afternoon to keep things in balance.

 

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, aardvark said:

Glad that someone made good use of the National Day of Morning.

 

Here's hoping that there's a National Day of Afternoon to keep things in balance.

 

A National Day of Night might be confusing....

[Coach bogie]

4 hours ago, aardvark said:

Glad that someone made good use of the National Day of Morning.

 

Despite having both the bank holiday and today booked off, my wife was summoned into work on both days with yet another corporate crisis that would not wait.

 

with planned overnight trip cancelled, I used the time to build up this GWR C25 non corridor third from 5522 etches. Back on with Dreadnoughts now.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

[St Enodoc]

I had a good session this afternoon connecting the signals to the relay modules. Apart from the three signals that are not yet installed, all the others are now connected and working except 17, the Down Loop Starting (to Wheal Veronica), where I found an open circuit. This seems to be in the JST RCY plug, so I'll fit a new one tomorrow.

 

Some of the signals need a bit of fettling to get the proper angle of dangle in both the On and Off positions but it's good to see them working at last.

 

Here are 27, the Up Main Home, and 21, the Up Branch Home to Loop. In the distance you might just be able to make out that 26, the Up Main Inner Home, is also Off. 21 definitely needs work. You can also see 17's hole after I removed it to fit the new plug.

 

This is 2 signal, the Down Main Starting, which also needs work...

 

...while 1, the Down Main Home, is probably just about OK.

 

Finally, here's what three of the four fully-wired relay modules at the Down end look like, with the orange and violet wires to 20, 21 and 27 signals leading off to the right.

[St Enodoc]

On 23/09/2022 at 17:53, Coach bogie said:

with planned overnight trip cancelled

You could have gone on your own...

[The Stationmaster]

The S&T Techs in west Cornwall seem to be very keen on making the angle of the dangle look impressive.  This is Truro's Down Main Starting Signal last Saturday afternoon (taken while I was on my way from Falmouth to St Ives).   I will leave my opinion of the excrescence  over on the right to your imagination but at least it has a finial and the arm goes the right way when it is 'off'

 

N.B. you can see the light because - like all the semaphores in Cornwall - this one was converted to electric lighting some time back.

 

[5BarVT]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The S&T Techs in west Cornwall seem to be very keen on making the angle of the dangle look impressive.

Although 45 degrees is the alleged off position (as with UQ) my recollection is of a ‘much better’ off just as shown in the photo.  Much closer to the 70 degrees maximum.

Paul.

[Nick Gough]

2 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Although 45 degrees is the alleged off position (as with UQ) my recollection is of a ‘much better’ off just as shown in the photo.  Much closer to the 70 degrees maximum.

Paul.

 

Didn't the older GWR signals have an elongated blue/green spectacle to allow for a variation in the drop angle?

[Coach bogie]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The S&T Techs in west Cornwall seem to be very keen on making the angle of the dangle look impressive. 

 but at least it has a finial and the arm goes the right way when it is 'off'

Unlike some.

Mike Wiltshire

[Nick Gough]

1 minute ago, Coach bogie said:

Unlike some.

Mike Wiltshire

 

A travesty!

 

Yeovil Pen Mill?

[BWsTrains]

On 17/09/2022 at 18:25, St Enodoc said:

Today's running session went well. With just eight of us we were single-manned at Paddington and Penzance,.......

 

Towards the end of the session we actually managed to have three trains moving at the same time (intentionally). That was good.

 

 

Ha! 😈

My 11 year old grandson could operate 3 locos with sound and point control all on his own over on W-H with some quite complex manoeuvres and never a collision. No where near your level of layout complexity I admit.

 

I suspect he treated operations as a simpler version of the highly complex computer games and simulations which he handles with ease. Problems only ever arose when a second grandchild wanted in on the "action"!

 

Of course he had to put up with all the "difficulties" of working with DCC power, as I noted elsewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by BWsTrains

[Coach bogie]

43 minutes ago, Nick Gough said:

 

A travesty!

 

Yeovil Pen Mill?

Cosford

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Although 45 degrees is the alleged off position (as with UQ) my recollection is of a ‘much better’ off just as shown in the photo.  Much closer to the 70 degrees maximum.

Paul.

That's what I'm aiming for, Paul.

 

With my memory wire actuator design, the difficulty is adjusting the arm position using the metal part of a choccy block connector. Every time you tighten the screws the wires seem to move a bit and when the total throw is less than 3mm that makes a big difference to the position. I haven't thought of a simpler way yet - anyone?

[5BarVT]

8 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

A travesty!

 

Yeovil Pen Mill?

 

7 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

Cosford

They’ve been at that game for almost 60 years - ever since the WR Birmingham and Shrewsbury districts transferred to the LMR in 1963.

Paul.

[5BarVT]

8 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

Didn't the older GWR signals have an elongated blue/green spectacle to allow for a variation in the drop angle?

Almost all do, it just shows up in different ways.  The green spectacle is a much bigger circle than the red spectacle, on short arms the holes a reduced in size (by an infill I think) so the green becomes elongated, and on the very old spectacles where it is more just a frame round the glass, yes it was elongated.  Even the ‘travesty’ at Cosford has the same functionality as the green spectacle is elongated horizontally.

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

It didn't take long to fit a new plug to 17 signal, place it back in its hole and connect it up.

 

I think that's quite a good Off, so I'll leave well alone now! The backlight blinder seems to have broken off but, as the signal is in advance of the signal box, I don't think it needs one anyway.

 

Over the past couple of days, in between other things, I've also done more work on widening the gangway between Nancegwithey Viaduct and Porthmellyn Road.

 

I glued some 18mm ply offcuts to the lifting flap...

 

...then trimmed them, and the inner edge of the flap, back as far as possible to maximise the space between the flap and the single line. That's as much as I can do here for the time being but it should now let me find the best place for St Enodoc 3 Down Advanced Starting signal.

 

Next weekend we have the BRMA National Convention in Adelaide, so I won't be doing any more work on the layout until after that.

[Coach bogie]

14 hours ago, Nick Gough said:

 

Didn't the older GWR signals have an elongated blue/green spectacle to allow for a variation in the drop angle?

The Westinghouse Signal arms such as Newton Abbot had an elongated danger/caution lense as the electric motor ones could be unreliable returning to danger. I do not have the drive here with images but found some on the web instead.

 

https://www.roscalen.com/signals/NewtonAbbot/index.htm

 

Mike Wiltshire

Edited September 25, 2022 by Coach bogie

[The Stationmaster]

Spectacles and angles of Western semaphores have changed somewhat over the years.  The short goods & siding arms with earlier type of  metal sheet spectacle plates had a crescent shaped 'green spectacle and a round red spectacle, as did Backing signals.  The original type of built up (from angle) spectacle plate for 4ft and 5ft arms had the red spectacle (and later yellow spectacle) slightly larger than the green.  But the relative sizes were reversed with the introduction of the cast spectacle plates used with signals with the enamelled signal arms introduced in the 1930s (see my photo above) and continued with the second pattern of enamelled arms which appeared post-war (the only date for these I have seen is 1947 but I don't know if this was the year in which they first appeared.  Centre pivot arms used on running signals seem to have always had a larger green than red spectacle.

 

What was consistent as far back as I can reliably date it from original sources (September 1920) is that measured along the centre line of the arm they were siupposed to be within +/- 5 degrees f horizontal with the arm at danger and within 45 -6p below the horizontal with the arnm in the 'off' position.  Interestingly the 1920 information says between 45 and 70 degrees for the new 'alright' indication but the 1936 and 1960 sources refer only to the 45 and 60 degree figures.  

 

These are Operating Dept sources but if normal practice was followed they would have been signed off by the Signal Engineer so it is a little odd that the reference to 70 degrees disappeared.   I wonder if it reflects an error - which was then repeated 24 years later - or if the 70 degrees figure might only have applied to 5 ft arms which were becoming rarer by 1936 and had all but disappeared by 1960.  Didcot West End's Up Main Home Signal still had 5 ft arms at that although it was replaced by a new tubular steel post signal in the early 1960s  and there were definitely a few other examples about including some with enamelled steel 5ft arms. 

[5BarVT]

My recollection is that the figure against the con box on diagrams was 45-70.  Unfortunately the standards that I can access now just say On and Off.

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

6 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

My recollection is that the figure against the con box on diagrams was 45-70.  Unfortunately the standards that I can access now just say On and Off.

Paul.

If I've got the right picture in my head, that would make sense as wouldn't you want a bigger tolerance on the con box than on the arm itself?

[5BarVT]

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

If I've got the right picture in my head, that would make sense as wouldn't you want a bigger tolerance on the con box than on the arm itself?

Agreed, and I wonder if it was 40-70 rather than 45-70.  I’ll have to see if any of my contacts can shed more light.

Paul.

[Chamby]

On 25/09/2022 at 01:59, St Enodoc said:

I haven't thought of a simpler way yet - anyone?

 

If the wire is long enough, you could insert an omega loop that can be eased open or closed, as required.  I haven’t tried it with signals, but it works with ‘wire in tube’ point control.

 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Chamby said:

 

If the wire is long enough, you could insert an omega loop that can be eased open or closed, as required.  I haven’t tried it with signals, but it works with ‘wire in tube’ point control.

 

That's a possibility, Phil. I made the first prototype that way (with a Z bend rather than an omega loop but the same principle) but I decided it was too awkward. I might think again.

[Chamby]

Just to say, John, that there are some really nice views along that beautifully flowing trackwork among your recent photo’s.  The ballasting and signals make a big difference, as will a bit more scenery when you get around to it (!)    Watching a train potter along the branch line must now be a very rewarding experience...

 

A credit to all the thought and effort you must have put into the planning and build.  

 

Proper job!

[St Enodoc]

Just back from the BRMA Convention in Adelaide - an excellent weekend, as expected.