Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Jesse Sim]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Here are the three weathered wagons. I chose RTR versions in case kit-built ones fell apart during the exercise...

 

A very simple and quick process - brushing on a thinned mixture of black, brown and grey enamel with a hint of metallic grey, then wiping it off to a greater or lesser extent with a cotton bud and thinners.

 

Thanks @Jesse Sim and also @jwealleans who showed Jesse the technique.

There goes my secret ingredients….

 

No, it was a pleasure to host such an event and I’m glad i was able to get through it even with the funny faces you were pulling to distract me. 

[drduncan]

Bad luck. Get well soon.

Duncan

[St Enodoc]

Today I installed St Enodoc 12 disc and added the lever leads to the signal box casing, so the signalling installation at St Enodoc is now complete.

 

Here's 12 disc, sitting in front of 11 signal. 11 signal controls movements from the Loop to the Up Main, while 12 disc controls movements from the Loop to the Down Main or the Down Siding.

 

As at Porthmellyn Road, the lever leads are printed on to sticky labels that are stuck to .040" styrene sheet, which are in turn stuck to the casing with double-sided tape.

 

After I'd done that I started roughing out the location for the uncoupler and hand point control panel. That will be just to the right of the old station boards, roughly in line with the overbridge. Photos to follow, when it's a little more advanced.

Edited November 7, 2022 by St Enodoc

[5BarVT]

Just noticed the depth to the name board and Notice.  Are they on styrene sheet too?  Certainly makes them look realistic.

Paul.

[St Enodoc]

35 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Just noticed the depth to the name board and Notice.  Are they on styrene sheet too?  Certainly makes them look realistic.

Paul.

Yes, they're all on .040" styrene. Apart from the depth, which as you say looks good, it avoids any wrinkles from sticking the labels to the wood itself (voice of experience...).

[St Enodoc]

The best place to be when self-isolating is in the railway room, so I went out to do some more work on the St Enodoc uncoupler/hand point control panel today.

 

Here's where it will go, with a strip of wood fixed below the joists to act as a shelf and a bit of packing so that the future fascia and the panel face will (should) be flush.

 

As usual, I used white-faced 3mm MDF for the panel itself...

 

...and glued a frame to the back of the board. I left this to dry with a sheet of thick plywood and five bricks on top.

 

Here's the first trial fit. All seems well so with luck I'll be able to carry on tomorrow.

 

The panel will carry nine biased toggle switches for the uncouplers and a single rotary switch for hand point A in the Up Sidings. You can see the choccy block plugs and sockets for the wiring to the panel on the left.

[BWsTrains]

That's one solid frame, or is it going to part of something load bearing perhaps?

 

Colin

[St Enodoc]

21 minutes ago, BWsTrains said:

That's one solid frame, or is it going to part of something load bearing perhaps?

 

Colin

No, it's just that 42 x 19 is the size of timber I use most so I always have plenty of offcuts lying around!

[St Enodoc]

More work on St Enodoc uncoupler panel today.

 

I drilled the holes for the switches, very carefully, then tidied up the edges including a little repair work with correcting fluid where the white facing on the MDF had got damaged - as usual. The smaller holes are for the biased toggle switches and the larger one is for the rotary switch.

 

The usual 3mm blue car go-faster stripes went on next...

 

...followed by the switches themselves.

 

You can see how the switches fit neatly within the frame (or the frame fits neatly around the switches - take your pick).

 

The last job was to add the labels, which completed the mechanical work. Wiring is next.

[Tortuga]

Very neat!

[Sandhole]

On 06/11/2022 at 21:01, aardvark said:

Best advert Ever!!!
Chris.

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, Sandhole said:

Best advert Ever!!!
Chris.

Wot, better than the Cadbury's Flake girl? You cannot be serious!

[Sandhole]

Just now, St Enodoc said:

Wot, better than the Cadbury's Flake girl? You cannot be serious!

OH B****R!
I forgot about her.
Ashamed,
Chris.

[St Enodoc]

Electrical head on today.

 

First I wired and labelled all the connections to the panel itself. The uncoupler positive feed is looped to the centre terminal of all the biased toggle switches (I didn't label every loop as I can see both ends of them all) and the individual switched feeds are taken from the appropriate outer terminal. The +9V dc Points Normal and -9V dc Points Reverse connections go to the outer ring of the rotary switch and the feed to the motor itself is connected to the inner ring.

 

I then connected all those wires to the choccy block plug. After I took this photo, I also connected the shore side point wires and the uncoupler feed, so all that's left for next time are the switched feeds to the nine uncouplers themselves.

 

Finally, the temporary point control panel isn't needed at St Enodoc any more, so I removed it. It will come back into play at Pentowan in due course.

[Barry O]

Coming along nicely!

 

Feel free to visit and produce new panels for Leeds (London Road)!

 

Baz

Edited November 10, 2022 by Barry O

[aardvark]

I think you must have shares in the choccy block company.

 

Or at least reward points.

 

[St Enodoc]

Today I added the bottom panel to St Enodoc signal box, to support the choccy block for the FCFSTB connections.

 

As it's invisible normally, I haven't bothered varnishing it.

 

I then finished connecting up the nine uncouplers at St Enodoc.

 

This means that St Enodoc is now complete operationally.

 

As the saying goes, it's an all wind that blows nobody any good and the chance to spend a few hours self-isolating in the railway room every afternoon this week means that I achieved as much as I would have done over three normal weekends.

 

Through an abundance of caution, I've postponed our next running session by a week to Saturday 26/11/22. One or two of the team won't be able to come due to existing commitments but it will still be a good chance to run the layout again before Christmas. With this in mind, I ran a few trains today, including both china-clay sets, to give St Enodoc signalling and uncouplers a little work-out. Everything went well, although before the session itself I'll adjust some of the signal On positions.

 

Looking ahead, I can now begin work on Pentowan. I won't start any woodwork before the running session but I think I'll make a couple more points, so that when I do a trial erection of the baseboard tops I can mark out the full sweep of the outer curve as far as, and including, the double slip. That will let me set up a final alignment for Carriage Siding 1, which will in turn let me start working out whether I'll need nine or ten sidings. I don't really mind which, although nine will look slightly less cramped and will also mean that I'll have one fewer point to build! Fingers crossed.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

A Slaters Toplight all-3rd came up on eBay the other day. It sold this morning for just over GBP 50, which isn't bad, but I didn't bid because the wretched GSP cost would have virtually doubled that.

[St Enodoc]

I assembled two B8 RH curved points tonight, having timbered-up the templates and prepared the rails some time ago. When I ticked them off the list, I realised that they were the last B8 curved points that I needed to build. A bittersweet moment really - it's good that the layout is progressing gradually towards its completion but, in a way, sad that I won't need to use the design I cobbled up for the loft layout storage loops, around 30 years ago, again. All is not lost, though - I still have nearly a dozen standard A5s to go.

 

Perhaps a commemorative photo would be in order, once I've added the operating wire loop and gapped the timbers.

 

Of course, I could always build another layout...

 

NO! STUPID BOY! Don't even think about it!

[TrevorP1]

37 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Of course, I could always build another layout...

 

NO! STUPID BOY! Don't even think about it!

 

I'm already doing it! I just enjoy building and planning. It is an 'as well as' though and tucks neatly under the main layout.

[St Enodoc]

10 hours ago, TrevorP1 said:

 

I'm already doing it! I just enjoy building and planning. It is an 'as well as' though and tucks neatly under the main layout.

Yes but don't forget you you'll need room at each end on your "as well as" for 12-coach trains and a MN...

[Neal Ball]

22 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

A Slaters Toplight all-3rd came up on eBay the other day. It sold this morning for just over GBP 50, which isn't bad, but I didn't bid because the wretched GSP cost would have virtually doubled that.

I hadn’t seen that, but strangely I did look at the Slaters website this week to see if they had been relaunched.

 

Sadly not yet, although it looks as if the Midland carriages are back. https://www.slatersplastikard.com/carriages/4mmCarriages.php

 

They do seem to be taking quite a while getting them back into stock, I wonder what the issue is,

Edited November 12, 2022 by Neal Ball
Link added

[St Enodoc]

Here are the two final curved points after attaching the operating wire loops and gapping the timbers.

 

I'll leave the tiebars overlength until I'm absolutely sure that I don't need to offset the motors to one side or the other. This image has inserted itself upside down for some reason - nothing to do with iPhones, as I don't use one - which rather makes a mess of the sequence that follows. Never mind.

 

This is how the overall plan of Pentowan will look, subject to a final decision on the number of carriage sidings.

 

The approach to the station is on a long continuous curve of 48" radius, from which the three platform roads and the loco spur spring at 30" radius. The final version will smooth out some of the changes between curved and straight track, if possible.

 

Here's a mock-up of how the four curved points lead to the double slip (the original that I built as a test piece for Porthmellyn Road - I can't be bothered to build another and this one will be in the yard area, not the main line, at the back of the baseboard, so I think I'll get away with it).

[The Stationmaster]

On 09/11/2022 at 10:51, Sandhole said:

OH B****R!
I forgot about her.
Ashamed,
Chris.

How could you forget the Lambs Navy Rum girl - Caroline Munro?  Now gracing our tv screens every Friday evening presenting the horror films on the Talking Pictures tv channel

 

http://markwestwriter.blogspot.com/2019/01/happy-birthday-caroline-munro.html

[Sandhole]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

How could you forget the Lambs Navy Rum girl - Caroline Munro?  Now gracing our tv screens every Friday evening presenting the horror films on the Talking Pictures tv channel

 

http://markwestwriter.blogspot.com/2019/01/happy-birthday-caroline-munro.html

She starred in an awful science fiction film, together with David Hasselhof and Christopher Plimmer, called Star Crash. So bad , it was kind of good!!
Chris.