Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Barry O]

Go for it! Motorisee of course....

[St Enodoc]

7446 is now complete.

 

Having done the touch-up painting last night, today I fitted the final bits including the coupling hooks and spare lamp irons from the detail pack.

 

The spare lamp is glued to one of the spare irons and to the footplate as it will never need to be used. The crew is from one of my favourite Merit sets (5082), which I like because, unlike many that you can buy, the driver has his left arm raised raised rather than his right, which makes them easier to use on Western locos. The coal is from a (relatively) local supplier, Gwydir Valley Models (usual disclaimer) in the New England region of northern New South Wales, and is very fine, washed, genuine coal.

 

As always, a couple of snags showed up during the final stages of the job.

 

First, when I put the chassis and body back together I found that the new front lamp iron was preventing the chassis block from seating properly. That was easily fixed.

 

Not so easily fixed was the weakness of the magnetic lamps. When I trialled these years ago, I used a Replica Modified Hall, which has steel lamp brackets that are slightly overscale. The magnets worked fine with these but with the finer "staple" brackets there wasn't enough force to hold the lamp securely on the bracket. It is OK when stationary but I suspect that it will move out of position or even fall off when in action on the layout. Consequently, I've ordered some slightly bigger magnets - 1.5mm diameter x 1.5mm long instead of 1.0 x 0.5mm. I think that these will still fit the Springside lamps but should have enough force to hold the lamps in position more securely.

 

Finally, the supplied coupling hooks are probably the right size for S gauge but they foul the latches on the DG couplings slightly. I'll replace them with etchings that are closer to scale if that turns out to be a problem in operation.

 

In the meantime, 7446 can now share the short clay workings to and from Wheal Veronica with 1664 (and, in due course, with 2182 - when I build my Nu-Cast kit).

 

Too late for photos but I'll take some tomorrow.

[St Enodoc]

On a bright morning, the top of the washing machine is a good place for photos. Here is the full 360 degree suite of 7446, for the record, with the direction of travel changed from forward to reverse halfway through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about it, I should have put the lamp in the Class G Light Engine position but that wouldn't have worked at the front as only the left buffer iron is steel, the others being the original plastic. I also haven't got any magnetic lamps with red lenses yet.

 

Time permitting, I'll take some more pictures with the wagons on the layout later.

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[St Enodoc]

Time did permit, so here is 7446 in its proper setting (insofar as the plywood skeleton of Nancegwithey Viaduct is a proper setting for anything...).

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Ashley Bridge]

So purposeful in the black, a very useful addition.

 Rich 

[St Enodoc]

Today I hosted our monthly BRMA Sydney area meeting. There were 13 of us in total and rather than run the sequence we unashamedly played trains. I'd set up the loops so trains ran in the opposite direction from normal, so that we could circulate and change trains on both main lines independently. Dave T thoroughly enjoyed himself at Porthmellyn Road signal box, others enjoyed driving trains (including one or two who hadn't had a go before), I enjoyed explaining things and answering questions and others just enjoyed a good yarn.

 

Earlier in the week I drew up the St Enodoc signalling diagram in Modratec SigScribe4 and also created the associated Interlocking Text File. Graeme in Queensland had a good look and came back with a couple of errors that were easily fixed and a couple of other thoughts that I've worked through with Mike the Station Master. As a result, I will make a few changes to the signalling diagram, lever leads, .ss4 and .itf files then after a final check I will be ready to pass it over to Harold at Modratec for his thoughts on constructability before I place an order.

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Today I hosted our monthly BRMA Sydney area meeting. There were 13 of us in total and rather than run the sequence we unashamedly played trains. I'd set up the loops so trains ran in the opposite direction from normal, so that we could circulate and change trains on both main lines independently. Dave T thoroughly enjoyed himself at Porthmellyn Road signal box, others enjoyed driving trains (including one or two who hadn't had a go before), I enjoyed explaining things and answering questions and others just enjoyed a good yarn.

 

Earlier in the week I drew up the St Enodoc signalling diagram in Modratec SigScribe4 and also created the associated Interlocking Text File. Graeme in Queensland had a good look and came back with a couple of errors that were easily fixed and a couple of other thoughts that I've worked through with Mike the Station Master. As a result, I will make a few changes to the signalling diagram, lever leads, .ss4 and .itf files then after a final check I will be ready to pass it over to Harold at Modratec for his thoughts on constructability before I place an order.

St Enodoc signalling updates done, while listening to the cricket, and sent to Mike, Paul and Graeme for (final?) review.

[St Enodoc]

The new micromagnets have arrived. I'll try to find time to fit one to a lamp over the weekend.

[St Enodoc]

No magnet action yet but today I laid five of the last nine points at Paddington. Three of the five at each end are in position now. I couldn't lay any more as it's a bit congested where the last four have to fit up to the others. I'll probably do those next weekend.

[chuffinghell]

Sounds like you’re making great progress 

 

in my case full size points are laid faster than mine 

[St Enodoc]

Today I celebrated my 45th anniversary of starting work in the railway industry.

 

Good news - I still get paid for doing stuff that I love.

 

Bad news - I thought I would have retired by now...

[5BarVT]

48 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Today I celebrated my 45th anniversary of starting work in the railway industry.

 

Good news - I still get paid for doing stuff that I love.

 

Bad news - I thought I would have retired by now...

44 years ago today I turned up at the Railway Engineering School in Derby together with many others on their first day in the industry.  Those of us in WR S&T had already done two weeks in Reading.  Ah memories!

Completely agree with your good news. At only 1 1/2 days per week I effectively have retired, so how come my model is progressing so slowly? !

It’s a good life.

Paul.

[Barry O]

Happy anniversay! So I have known you for 43 years...yikes! Where does time go when you are having fun!

 

Baz

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Barry O said:

Happy anniversay! So I have known you for 43 years...yikes! Where does time go when you are having fun!

 

Baz

2019 - 1975 = 44 in mechanical engineering arithmetic...

[acg5324]

Congratulations John. I thought I did well to last 37 and a bit years.

[St Enodoc]

I laid the remaining four points at Paddington today, plus five of the thirteen short lengths of plain track to connect them to the rest of the layout.

 

Here are two photos showing progress and also showing what a mess I make before I usually tidy up for photos.

 

 

Now to watch Australia v Fiji (recorded) followed by New Zealand v South Africa (live).

 

Honest John's tip: those last two will meet again in the final, with the Springboks taking the trophy.

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[St Enodoc]

A couple of hours in the railway room this afternoon saw the last lengths of track at Paddington laid, to the accompaniment of the Last Night of the Proms on ABC Classic.

 

I used up several offcuts of track for this, which was pleasing - waste not, want not.

 

As this stage of work is now finished, I decided to tidy up before I took the photos.

 

 

There's still a fair bit to do before loops 8 to 13 can be commissioned though:

 

- installing some floating timbers and also a few copperclad ones to support some of the rail joints and hold the track in gauge

- attaching the point motor operating loops to the tiebars

- assembling and fitting the point motors

- connecting the point motors to the accessory bus

- programming and testing the point motors with a throttle

- installing droppers

- connecting feeders

- connecting the point motor frog switches

- testing the new track and points with a loco - usually D3510, as its wheelbase is shorter than the frog sections so it will find any dead rails

- programming the Mini Panel (and the extra macros in the command station)

- test the routes from the Mini Panel

- fitting the track identification labels

- fitting the fouling point markers

 

None of that will get started for a couple of weeks at least as I'm off to Canberra (yes, twice in one year...) for the BRMA National Convention next weekend.

Edited July 18, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[Martin S-C]

On 12/09/2019 at 12:56, St Enodoc said:

The new micromagnets have arrived. I'll try to find time to fit one to a lamp over the weekend.

Please let us know how you get on with this project as steel staples and neodymium magnets inside ModelU lamps are my planned method as well.

[St Enodoc]

24 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

Please let us know how you get on with this project as steel staples and neodymium magnets inside ModelU lamps are my planned method as well.

I certainly will Martin. I haven't had a chance to try a new, larger, magnet yet as I've been rather busy and what train time I have had has been spent on tracklaying as you can see. I think that for Modelu lamps the small magnets will do as, being plastic, they shouldn't need so much force to hold them in place. That would be good, as being closer to scale the big magnets probably wouldn't fit anyway ("big" is only by comparison with the "small" magnets - they are all bl00dy small in reality). I think the big magnets will be OK for the whitemetal Springside lamps.

[Martin S-C]

I have got a stock of 1mm dia magnets off e-Bay, I just need to stock up on lamp models (the more expensive part of the plan). I am having a think though as some magnets will need to be on the rear of the lamps for loco lamp irons (non-GW ones that is) while brake van lamps will need to be right and left handed, so having a supply of the right lamps might get fiddly.

I have concerns about magnet strength and lamp weight and the things falling off in inaccessible places hence was curious to use you as my guinea pig.

Edited September 23, 2019 by Martin S-C

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

I have got a stock of 1mm dia magnets off e-Bay, I just need to stock up on lamp models (the more expensive part of the plan). I am having a think though as some magnets will need to be on the rear of the lamps for loco lamp irons (non-GW ones that is) while brake van lamps will need to be right and left handed, so having a supply of the right lamps might get fiddly.

I have concerns about magnet strength and lamp weight and the things falling off in inaccessible places hence was curious to use you as my guinea pig.

Keep us posted if you fit a Modelu lamp before I do!

[St Enodoc]

Hotel thinking time again...

 

I've made no progress at all for a couple of years on numbering the coaching stock sets, as I have put off repeatedly the tricky and tedious task of applying individual transfers to the coach ends.

 

Yesterday I discovered that I can get white-on-black tape for the label printer, as distinct from the standard black-on-white. Printing labels, trimming them to size and sticking them to the coaches should be a lot easier that applying the transfers, even though the typeface isn't actually Gill Sans. Considering that the set numbers never existed in real life anyway, I'm not at all bothered about that (before you ask, I will use proper Gill Sans on the three Southern sets).

 

More when I've had a go.

[Barry O]

You should be careful thinking...it is downright dangerous!

Baz

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

You should be careful thinking...it is downright dangerous!

Baz

Expensive too, sometimes...

[St Enodoc]

Radio silence for the last week or so was because of the BRMA National Convention in Canberra over the weekend. On Friday we had some interesting demonstrations, of which I found the one on static grass the most informative - not least on account of the "sample board" showing how different makes, lengths and colours (including some blends) look in real life rather than in magazine or internet photos.

 

The talks on Saturday were all excellent, ranging from very personal retrospectives by long-standing BRMA members Phil Knife and Alan Hackett, which showed how their apparently similar initial aspirations had taken them in entirely different directions, to a quick demo of some very simple but highly effective weathering techniques by a modeller of scale plastic kits.

 

The layout tour on Sunday reacquainted me with an idiosyncratic garden layout that, since I last saw it, had shrunk from 0 to 00 gauge; and a clever double-deck P4 layout with two separate scenes linked by moving cassettes from one level to the other. New on the tour were a neat N gauge shunting layout condensed from an H0 plan in Model Railroader some years ago and a big, under-construction, N gauge layout featuring representations of Banbury, Chipping Norton and Wallingford with excellent card buildings and lots of tiny detail.

 

The traditional BBQ at Canberra Miniature Railway rounded off proceedings for another year - roll on Adelaide in 2020!