Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[St Enodoc]

Isn't it funny how your brain works when you're asleep? When I woke up this morning I realised that if I used the spacer jigs to solder the viaduct guard rails direct to the sleepers I would end up with all sorts of problems due to expansion and contraction of the fixed rail. The answer was to solder fishplates to the sleepers and anchor the guard rails to those at one point only, near the middle.

 

I therefore made up a modified spacer jig.

 

It's similar to the earlier one but with a short length of the guard rail T-beam assembly on the outside of the spacer rail itself.

 

The fishplates themselves are my favourite Minitrix ones, which have a vertical part that sits nicely in the web of SMP rail. I had the foresight to buy several dozen packs of these many years ago and I still have plenty for the rest of the layout - I don't think you can get them any more.

 

After threading a fishplate on to the bottom of the T-beam, I placed it on the sleeper and soldered it in place, being careful not to solder the fishplate to the spacer jig as well.

 

When the solder had cooled, I slid the spacer jig out of the fishplate. Rinse and repeat.

 

Here are all the fishplates soldered in place.

 

The next job was to fabricate the T-beams. These are about 45 inches long, so needed more than one yard length of rail for each of the base and the top. I staggered the joins for strength. I also bent the end of the top piece down at the running-on end, as per the prototype. There aren't many good photos of these viaduct guard rails (plenty of the later flat-bottom ones) but there are a couple of Hayle viaduct on the Cornwall Railway Society website, which show this fairly clearly.

 

Threading the rails into the fishplates was surprisingly easy. Here's the complete assembly looking in the Up direction...

 

...and here's a close up of the running-on and running-off ends at the Up end of the viaduct.

 

Fitting the plastic brackets will be next. The great thing is that they are now purely cosmetic.

 

Once I'd done all that, I still had a bit of time left so I recovered three more points from the old St Enodoc. There are another four to be recovered from boards that won't be used in the new configuration and I will also need to relocate two others to convert the Up end of St Enodoc from single- to double track.

 

Overall, a satisfactory weekend's work.

 

 

[Barry O]

What gauge is the distance between the inside rail and the "support"rail? EM???

Baz

[St Enodoc]

9 minutes ago, Barry O said:

What gauge is the distance between the inside rail and the "support"rail? EM???

Baz

Ha ha, not quite. The distance from the outside of the running rail to the inside of the guard rail is the height of a piece of SMP rail, about 1.9mm, and the thickness of the running rail is about 0.9mm. The "gauge" is therefore about 16.5+0.9+1.9 = 19.3mm. The guard rail top surface is also about 0.5mm higher than the top of the running rail.

[teaky]

I am concerned that Baz has broken lockdown and is in Western Australia!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52787152

[5BarVT]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

and here's a close up of the running-on and running-off ends at the Up end of the viaduct.

Interesting that only the running on end had a ‘ramp’.  I would have thought that a ramp on both ends would be appropriate for SLW.

Really rather nice.

Paul.

[Michael Edge]

1 hour ago, St Enodoc said:

Ha ha, not quite. The distance from the outside of the running rail to the inside of the guard rail is the height of a piece of SMP rail, about 1.9mm, and the thickness of the running rail is about 0.9mm. The "gauge" is therefore about 16.5+0.9+1.9 = 19.3mm. The guard rail top surface is also about 0.5mm higher than the top of the running rail.

About P4 then, only a bit wide.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

Interesting that only the running on end had a ‘ramp’.  I would have thought that a ramp on both ends would be appropriate for SLW.

Really rather nice.

Paul.

Interesting, isn't it? Information on these guard rails is not easy to come by and apart from the actual dimensions in the GWR Permanent Way Notes, which are available from Keith Norgrove's website http://www.norgrove.me.uk/, the rest is anecdotal/empirical. For example, as far as I can establish (and I hope I'm right!) the guard rails on bullhead track were only fitted on the outermost rail of double tracks. Why? Dunno. I also read somewhere, but I can't for the life of me remember where, that guard rails were only needed on ballasted non-masonry viaducts but there is plenty of photographic evidence to the contrary, for example Barmouth Bridge and Trenance Viaduct outside Newquay.

 

I'm happy with what I've got now, or will be once the brackets are in place. It's not something you see every day on a model and even though it is impressionistic rather than finescale I rather like it.

Edited May 24, 2020 by St Enodoc

[St Enodoc]

4 minutes ago, Michael Edge said:

About P4 then, only a bit wide.

If I had a guard rail on both sides the "gauge" would be about 22.1mm. Slightly too wide for Ireland/Victoria but not far out for Indian broad gauge (or S scale, come to that).

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Going 'Southern' eh, REP's and VEP's ...................good oh.

 

manna

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, manna said:

G'Day Folks

 

Going 'Southern' eh, REP's and VEP's ...................good oh.

 

manna

If I were to go that way, which I'm not, it would be CIGs and  BIGs on the Brighton line.

Edited May 25, 2020 by St Enodoc

[St Enodoc]

Another non-work day today, so I put it to good use by fitting the little brackets to the viaduct guard rails.

 

I had to trim the C-shaped section from the back of each bracket, as that was just too tall to sit under the guard rail in its new configuration. This left just the main L-shaped section and the little gusset, which was handy for picking the brackets up with tweezers.

 

Because the brackets are purely cosmetic now, the strength of the bond to the sleepers is not so important so I used Multigrip (UHU) instead of the All Plastic Fix. That saved a lot of time and mess.

 

Some of the brackets stick up further than the others because they are sitting on solder fillets where the fishplates are fixed to the sleepers. Once the glue has dried completely I'll trim the all the tops so that they're level with the top of the guard rails. The whole assembly will then be ready for painting.

 

After lunch I went back to the old St Enodoc baseboards and recovered the last four points. While doing this I found two more uncouplers, which will still be needed at the new St Enodoc but in different positions, so I tested them (they were both good) and put them to one side. All the other St Enodoc uncouplers will be in the same place as before.

[Stubby47]

Assuming you'll have riser poles from each bracket, have you assessed clearance for locos ?

[Barry O]

On 24/05/2020 at 09:57, teaky said:

I am concerned that Baz has broken lockdown and is in Western Australia!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52787152

I have not done a "Cummings" so that weather has nowt to do with me! As it is no rain here for over a month so my garden is parched (no rain as we have nor cricket to cause it!)

Baz

[St Enodoc]

19 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Assuming you'll have riser poles from each bracket, have you assessed clearance for locos ?

Do you mean stanchions for railings Stu? They will be further out, on the viaduct sides themselves when I build them. There is nothing else to go on the guard rails now except a coat of brown paint. See this photo:

 

http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/uploads/7/6/8/3/7683812/sid-59-1057-western-chieftain-hayle-viaduct-11th-april-1973-copyright-sid-sponheimer_orig.jpg

 

I have indeed checked for clearance with the guard rails spaced as they are and everything should be fine, as long as there are no rogue pieces of stock hiding somewhere, waiting to catch me out.

[Stubby47]

Ahhh, my misunderstanding of the term 'guard rails' - I was thinking more 'Personnel' rails, not rolling stock wheels.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

20 minutes ago, Barry O said:

I have not done a "Cummings" so that weather has nowt to do with me! As it is no rain here for over a month so my garden is parched (no rain as we have nor cricket to cause it!)

Baz

Interesting that that word is acceptable to the RMweb censor, whereas the bit in the middle of that place-name near Manchester that has (along with Chester-le-Street) no cat on a seat is not.

[St Enodoc]

Since working from home started a couple of months ago I've had time to do some little odd jobs as well as the big tasks on the layout and working on rolling stock. Yesterday evening, over a year since it arrived and nearly a year since I put it into service, I fitted some of the details to D601.

 

I was going to fit more than I did but, frankly, I couldn't get on with the little pipes at all. The vacuum and steam pipes didn't really look right and the others (control air pipes?) were so fiddly that in the end I left the lot off. I did fit the steps, which got rid of the rather large void under the buffer beams; the jumper receptacles; drawhooks (and shackle at the non-coupling end); the extra central lamp brackets; and the headcode discs. All these were fixed in place with either cyano, liquid poly or UHU.

 

I also fitted Fox nameplates, which are longer than the Kernow ones and, to me, look less squashed-up. I didn't bother with the etched builder's plates though

 

As D601 will only work Class A trains I arranged the discs at A end to show this.

 

At B end the discs are all in the closed position. The pipes were irrelevant here because they would have fouled the coupling,

 

I will now be able to recreate properly Mike @The Stationmaster's first sighting of a Warship on the Up Postal.

Edited July 17, 2023 by St Enodoc
images restored

[TrevorP1]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Since working from home started a couple of months ago I've had time to do some little odd jobs as well as the big tasks on the layout and working on rolling stock. Yesterday evening, over a year since it arrived and nearly a year since I put it into service, I fitted some of the details to D601.

 

I was going to fit more than I did but, frankly, I couldn't get on with the little pipes at all. The vacuum and steam pipes didn't really look right and the others (control air pipes?) were so fiddly that in the end I left the lot off. I did fit the steps, which got rid of the rather large void under the buffer beams; the jumper receptacles; drawhooks (and shackle at the non-coupling end); the extra central lamp brackets; and the headcode discs. All these were fixed in place with either cyano, liquid poly or UHU.

 

I also fitted Fox nameplates, which are longer than the Kernow ones and, to me, look less squashed-up. I didn't bother with the etched builder's plates though

 

 

Pretty much my experience John so you're not alone. I got most of the pipework onto the leading end but as you say some of it doesn't  look right. No matter, at least we have the loco and when the offending pipes fall off  I'll replace them with something more robust. Incidentally I splashed out on two Ark Royals. One of them is now Active - pun not intended!

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Not bad looking loco's, the only one I ever saw was at Barry, but there were other distractions, to take a lot of notice of it.

 

manna

[St Enodoc]

I was busy doing other things today, so not much train time - just enough to trim the tops of the brackets level with the top of the viaduct guard rails. They're ready for painting now. I'll do the viaduct and the rest of the bare timbers, sleepers and rails at Porthmellyn Road at the same time.

Edited May 30, 2020 by St Enodoc

[St Enodoc]

I had a productive and destructive afternoon today.

 

First the productive bit

 

I painted the viaduct guard rails with Railmatch 402 Frame Dirt, which is a good match both for SMP sleepers and the brown vinyl car spray I use to paint points. While the pot and the brush were out I also touched up the bits of pointwork at Porthmellyn Road  that hadn't been painted since they were laid, including the trap points I laid earlier this month. I'll leave it all a day or two to harden before cleaning the rail heads.

 

Then on to the destructive part - well, not really destruction, more dismantling for reuse.

 

I finished stripping everything off the six old St Enodoc boards that won't form part of the new layout - keeping the jumper cables and connectors, signal current regulators, a couple of DCC Concepts Masterswitches that were still attached and half-a-dozen or so choc-block connectors. I threw all the wire out except for some decent lengths of thick white and white/black that might come in useful for uncoupler power in future. Finally, I stood the bare boards behind some of the magazine racks under the layout to get them out of the way. No photos of this because they're all hidden now!

 

That was a satisfying way to round off a very good month's work.

 

This gives me a clear run to start ballasting soon. I'll begin with the viaduct, as I have in mind to develop this scenically at quite an early stage to form a nice photo plank, then work my way gradually round through Porthmellyn Road to the Penzance throat. After that, signals!

[teaky]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I threw all the wire out

Are you not planning on making any trees?

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, teaky said:

Are you not planning on making any trees?

Wrong sort of wire I'm afraid Rob!

[sandwich station]

12 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

I painted the viaduct guard rails with Railmatch 402 Frame Dirt,

 

Hi John, where do you get your Railmatch paint from?

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, sandwich station said:

 

Hi John, where do you get your Railmatch paint from?

I bring back the odd jar when I visit the UK.