Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Another nest of cockroaches hatched today. I'll fit some of them to the temporary coaches and the rest, probably, to some more RTR wagons. I'll keep one pair aside in case the Accurascale Manor suddenly appears...

 

Speaking of the temporary coaches, most of them have plastic wheels. As long as these don't derail, I'll leave them as they are. No point changing them out only to have to change them back later.

[Chamby]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

Speaking of the temporary coaches, most of them have plastic wheels. As long as these don't derail, I'll leave them as they are. No point changing them out only to have to change them back later.

 

It’s plastic axles (especially square ones) that are the real bugbears....!

[Keith Addenbrooke]

41 minutes ago, Chamby said:

 

It’s plastic axles (especially square ones) that are the real bugbears....!

Hands up everyone who had to read that twice to check it didn’t say square wheels.  I know I did.  Must be Friday.

[Barry O]

you need some more cockroaches for the wagons here in Leeds!

 

Just saying!

 

Baz

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Barry O said:

you need some more cockroaches for the wagons here in Leeds!

 

Just saying!

 

Baz

Don't worry, plenty of frets still to go. I'll sort those out after they touch down here.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

I've finished sorting out the couplings on about ten temporary coaches, so all the passenger sets except for the H38 restaurant car (set 511) are now ready for the full sequence. As this car only ever runs together with other coaches, I can ignore it for the time being.

 

I'm still missing four single BGs but the only effect there is that some trains will run short.

 

Apart from the not-inconsiderable paperwork regarding track occupations, the main remaining task before we can implement the full sequence is to restore front couplings to some of the tender locos from which I removed them to improve their appearance. I did that on the basis that, when double-headed with a tank loco, the tank loco would always be inside. I've now found some photos showing the tank loco leading the tender loco on Up branch services. This will simplify, hugely, attaching and detaching locos at Porthmellyn Road, so I'm going to adopt that arrangement wherever I can now.

 

My current plan is to have everything ready to start the full sequence at our January 2024 running session.

[Northroader]

I thought following the Loughor derailment in 1904, assisting locos. had to be placed inside of train engines if they didn’t have a leading bogie, GWR rulebook?

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Northroader said:

I thought following the Loughor derailment in 1904, assisting locos. had to be placed inside of train engines if they didn’t have a leading bogie, GWR rulebook?

So did I, until I (re)discovered a photo by R C Riley of 4167 in front of 6869 on 9/7/55, being detached at Par from the 0750 Newquay - Manchester before 6869 continued up the main line. Consequently, I checked the Sectional Appendix for the Mid-Cornwall Lines and found that it does indeed permit such arrangements!

 

The photo is in the Transport Treasury collection and can be found in Mitchell & Smith's Branch Lines to Newquay and the Transport Treasury's own Cornwall - Transition from Steam (which also has another photo of the train after 4167 was detached).

[Northroader]

Mind, at Loughor the assisting engine was  0-6-0T, whereas 4167 does have  leading pony truck, which would make it alright?

[Tankerman]

14 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

So did I, until I (re)discovered a photo by R C Riley of 4167 in front of 6869 on 9/7/55, being detached at Par from the 0750 Newquay - Manchester before 6869 continued up the main line. Consequently, I checked the Sectional Appendix for the Mid-Cornwall Lines and found that it does indeed permit such arrangements!

 

The photo is in the Transport Treasury collection and can be found in Mitchell & Smith's Branch Lines to Newquay and the Transport Treasury's own Cornwall - Transition from Steam (which also has another photo of the train after 4167 was detached).

 

Could it be that locomotives with a pony truck were allowed to be the leading one on such lines as Par  to Newquay because the line itself did not permit high speeds?

[GWR57xx]

Came across this old post from The Stationmaster and thought it might be of interest here:

 

 

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Tankerman said:

 

Could it be that locomotives with a pony truck were allowed to be the leading one on such lines as Par  to Newquay because the line itself did not permit high speeds?

 

3 hours ago, GWR57xx said:

Came across this old post from The Stationmaster and thought it might be of interest here:

 

 

 

All very interesting, thanks.

 

I must revisit my copy of the General Appendix (which is where I suspect that @The Stationmaster Mike's information came from) and also the (real) 1960 Sectional Appendix when my copy arrives.

 

Notwithstanding, the simplicity of detaching the leading loco rather than the trailing loco at Porthmellyn Road remains very appealing.

[St Enodoc]

On 03/09/2023 at 22:42, St Enodoc said:

the main remaining task before we can implement the full sequence is to restore front couplings to some of the tender locos from which I removed them to improve their appearance.

Last night, I confirmed, using the master sequence, that nine tender locos will have to run double-headed - six Halls, two Granges and one Mogul. Of these, I'd never removed the front coupling from the Mogul or one of the Halls, so this morning I refitted them to the Granges and five Halls. A very simple process, as I'd kept all the couplings and of course the bogies were already drilled through the NEM pocket. I thought about adding more detail to the locos at the same time (lamps, crew, coal) but in the end decided to leave that for now, until I'm in the mood to do a bigger batch.

[Michael Edge]

Would these do the job just as well on the front of your tender locos?

I still haven't perfected the latch operation but you might not need that if the pilot locos are detached on a magnet rather than pushing over one. You can also leave the screw coupling on the front of the loco.

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

Would these do the job just as well on the front of your tender locos?

I still haven't perfected the latch operation but you might not need that if the pilot locos are detached on a magnet rather than pushing over one. You can also leave the screw coupling on the front of the loco.

Thanks Mike. Yes, I'd forgotten about those. May I pick some up next time time I'm over please?

[Nicktoix]

Ony let him have some if he comes to see us in Leeds. 

He oswe a few pints.

Nick

[Michael Edge]

I'm not sure how many of these couplings I've got and there will be a Mk3 version - mostly to get a better latch but you may not need that. I'll have some for you anyway.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Nicktoix said:

Ony let him have some if he comes to see us in Leeds. 

He oswe a few pints.

Nick

Be careful what you wish for...

[St Enodoc]

Two useful items have arrived (separately) in the post.

 

One is an ESU LokPilot Next18 decoder, which is for the Accurascale Manor that should itself arrive within the next few weeks.

 

The other is the 1960 Plymouth District Sectional Appendix (plus the 1965 Supplement, which makes for gloomy reading as it is little more than a series of deletions consequent on line closures). When I have an hour or two spare I'll go through it and my other relevant documents to work out in simple terms the double-heading rules in real life and, possibly, tweak the arrangements to correspond with the slightly different natural laws in Mid-Cornwall.

[St Enodoc]

With our next running session coming up on Saturday, I haven't done any physical work on the layout or stock for the past week. I haven't been idle, though, as I've been putting some time into the Paper Railway.

 

Now that there are enough coach and NPCCS sets, including the temporary coaches, to run the full sequence, I decided to start working out the track occupation for Paddington and Penzance, using the track occupation planning sheet and its sticky notes.

 

First I had to check that the sequence was, in fact, complete. This might sound trivial and, like all verification, checking that it would work was. The harder part was checking that it wouldn't fail to work and, in doing this, I found a small number of anomalies in the allocation of sets to trains. I think I've fixed these but until I do a dry run of the full sequence I won't know for sure. The most likely problem will be exceeding the capacity of individual roads at Paddington and Penzance, which will mean a bit of juggling. The other thing still to confirm is the platform occupation at Pentowan. I'll check both of these things before our following session in January - we won't be holding one in November as I'll be away . More on that topic later!

 

I now need to transfer the pencilled allocations to the master sequence spreadsheet. Once I've done that, I'll post it here (without the Pentowan platform occupation at this stage) so that the resident experts can pull it apart and tell me what they find.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

9 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

With our next running session coming up on Saturday, I haven't done any physical work on the layout or stock for the past week. I haven't been idle, though, as I've been putting some time into the Paper Railway.

 

Now that there are enough coach and NPCCS sets, including the temporary coaches, to run the full sequence, I decided to start working out the track occupation for Paddington and Penzance, using the track occupation planning sheet and its sticky notes.

 

First I had to check that the sequence was, in fact, complete. This might sound trivial and, like all verification, checking that it would work was. The harder part was checking that it wouldn't fail to work and, in doing this, I found a small number of anomalies in the allocation of sets to trains. I think I've fixed these but until I do a dry run of the full sequence I won't know for sure. The most likely problem will be exceeding the capacity of individual roads at Paddington and Penzance, which will mean a bit of juggling. The other thing still to confirm is the platform occupation at Pentowan. I'll check both of these things before our following session in January - we won't be holding one in November as I'll be away . More on that topic later!

 

I now need to transfer the pencilled allocations to the master sequence spreadsheet. Once I've done that, I'll post it here (without the Pentowan platform occupation at this stage) so that the resident experts can pull it apart and tell me what they find.

The importance of the paper planning stage is not to be understated, so thank you for sharing it.  For those of us who haven’t worked on the big railway, it’s not always an obvious step to plan out in such detail - I’ve only occasionally read articles on ‘prepping for ops sessions’ in the UK modelling press (it seems to be a more common topic in the US).  

 

It is well worth the time and effort to get the most out of the layout - but worth noting perhaps it doesn’t just apply to large layouts.  I thought I had a design for a small US layout a few months ago until I tried plotting an operating sequence, only to discover I’d made a basic beginner’s error in the track plan and everything would grind to a halt within a few minutes of getting started.  On that occasion it spared me the pain of building a layout to discover my mistake when I was finished!

 

All good stuff, thank you, Keith. 

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Keith Addenbrooke

[St Enodoc]

Having filled in the track occupation for Paddington and Penzance on the master schedule spreadsheet, I decided to do the Pentowan track occupation too, while the process was still fairly fresh in my head. I therefore did those today.

 

Here's the current draft, which I think is about 95% complete now, with only some of the carriage/NPCCS shunting moves at Porthmellyn Road and Pentowan missing. After this week's running session, I'll start a leisurely dry run of the new sequence to a) find and resolve any clashes; and b) document the shunting moves where necessary.

 

If you are bold/foolish enough to open the spreadsheet, note that the schedule itself only covers columns A to AO - everything to the right of this is just a selection of filters for different parameters.

 

Comments and observations welcome!

 

wtt mid cornwall 1952-1957-1958 draft 11.xlsx

Edited September 13, 2023 by St Enodoc
columns not rows!

[St Enodoc]

I cleaned some loco wheels and tidied up the railway room today, so we're all set for tomorrow's running session. 5972 Olton Hall isn't though - its drive gear train seems to have jammed up. I'll investigate that later - in the meantime another Hall can stand in.

 

Looking ahead, in the full sequence there won't be so many spare locos available so I might need a strategic purchase of an extra 4-6-0 or two. There are four Penzance Granges that I haven't got yet, so that's probably where I'll look.

[5BarVT]

Strategic purchases are usually good.  Mind you I have a box full of strategic purchases that turned out to be not so strategic.

:-)

Paul.

[Mallard60022]

Hello St.

On that little bit of info I posted elsewhere I forgot to mention that I have a 18 Volt DC (controlled) input to my Power Cab. 

The Manor performs perfectly, but the non Sound Decoder I got from Accurascale, although excellent, needs large tweaks to the Accel and Decel! Don't know about anything else  and there is no sound gubbins to worry about.

Incidentally, the Rapido 1500 is absolutely superb mate. Not got a Chip in that yet.

Hope that helps...again?

All the best.

Phil

Edited September 15, 2023 by Mallard60022