Mid-Cornwall Lines - 1950s Western Region in 00

[Barry O]

Well you knew they weren't there.. not many of my locos  (especially the diesels) have dgs at one end only. 

 

Baz

[St Enodoc]

46 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Well you knew they weren't there.. not many of my locos  (especially the diesels) have dgs at one end only. 

 

Baz

Virtually all the tender locos, a couple of the tank locos and all the main line diesels can be turned between runs so they don't need front couplings. A good proportion will have their lamps/discs fixed too.

[KymN]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Here we are again, happy as can be. All good friends and jolly good company (well, on this topic anyway). I add my thanks to those of the other 40,000+ RMwebbers to Andy @AY Mod for his perseverance.

 

 

 

Glad to see RMWeb - and St Edonoc -  are back up and running.  Many thanks to Andy and team for their hard and effective work.  

[St Enodoc]

Regular readers will remember that in the early days of the Mid-Cornwall Lines the long china-clay train was hauled by 4206, an ancient Cotswold 42xx. I built that loco well over 40 years ago for the first St Enodoc layout, the branch terminus. Although basic, it always ran well and had the benefit (as did 1664) of having been weathered beautifully by the great Paul Fletcher at the 1981 Leeds show, where I exhibited St Enodoc for the first time.

 

When Hornby introduced their 42xx model, I decided to buy two - one with inside steam pipes to replace 4206 and another with outside steam pipes to become 4247, allowing me to represent both St Blazey's 42xx locos on the layout.

 

You will also recall the near-disaster last year when I added extra weight to both locos, so that they could pull the train up the incline from Polperran to Porthmellyn Road, and the consequent distortion of the cab roofs due to my over-enthusiastic application of UHU/Multigrip to hold the lead in place. After that I wasn't entirely happy with the look of either loco, so when the chance came recently to acquire a ready-built kit version from the estate of a Queensland BRMA member, the late Graham Bradley, I did so.

 

Graham was a very good modeller and 4270 is put together far more nicely than my old 4206 - and it has outside steam pipes too! I think it's a DJH kit, fitted with a Sagami motor and (I think) an ESU decoder. With a repaint into plain black, 4270 will therefore become the new 4247.

 

That meant that I had to get the Cotswold 4206 back into working order. Due to lack of use, the lubrication had dried up completely and it just wouldn't run. An hour or so with some sewing machine oil and gear grease took care of that, so with lamps fitted it's now back in action on the long clay train.

 

 

Although, in terms of detail, neither loco can compete with the Hornby ones they somehow have more heft and presence. Seeing 4206 at the head of the train took me back to earlier times and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing 4247 at work too.

 

In anticipation of that, here they both are posed on Nancegwithey viaduct.

 

 

[aardvark]

OMG .... actual images.

 

I'm in shock 🙃

[St Enodoc]

On 19/03/2022 at 18:59, St Enodoc said:

The better news is that David's DCC system behaved faultlessly. This confirms to me that my command station is Donalded, so I'll be arranging for it to be repaired soon.

I spoke to Marcus about this and he agreed with the diagnosis but unfortunately, because of the global shortage of electronic bits in general and NCE bits in particular, there are no CS boards around at the moment. I've joined the queue...

 

However, during the conversation Marcus suggested swapping the two command stations round so that the SB5 reverts to being a combined CS and booster, while the PH Box becomes a booster only.

 

I sketched out how this might work and at the second attempt it did, so the layout is now running with my original PH Box and the SB5. The capacity of the SB5 is more limited than the PH Box but, as it happens, it's just right for me - six throttles, three Mini Panels and up to 16 macros of which I'm only using 6.

 

After recreating the macros and consists in the SB5 everything was running fine. Fingers crossed.

 

Two tips in case anyone else wants to try this:

 

- the SB5 has to drive the track bus and the PH Box the accessory bus. I tried it the other way round to minimise the amount of wiring reconfiguration but all I got was a continuous fault (rapid flashing red LED) on both units.

- the SB5 wouldn't accept macro 16 so I changed it to macro 10, which was fine. The SB5 will drive 16 macros but it seems that they run from 0 to 15 not 1 to 16.

 

Here's a sketch showing what I did:

 

20220402 NCE command station swap v2 jn.pdf

Edited April 2, 2022 by St Enodoc
speling

[St Enodoc]

Last weekend, in a brief respite from the long sequence of wet days that we've had for several weeks now, I managed to spray one of the three points I built at Forestville. That let me lay the third point for the Treloggan Junction triangle and, the following day when the glue had set firmly, the two joining tracks.

 

Both of these are on a 30" radius continuous curve, the turnouts being customised bastardised to suit.

 

 

The main line went in very easily but somewhere my calculations and/or marking out and tracklaying skills had gone slightly awry, so the Pentowan - Polperran curve gave me a bit of grief. At one stage I thought I'd have to come down to 28" radius but, with a bit of wrangling, I managed to keep the curve at 30" radius - although it is now out of kilter with the curve of the foam underlay. That's all right, as I can trim the excess away on the inside and add some more on the outside of the curve.

 

None of this is wired yet, of course, and I still need to fit the point motor.

 

Finally, to bring things up to date, I went over to Charles' yesterday to drill the St Enodoc lever frame locking bars. The first job was to drill two trial holes, one at 2.3mm diameter and one at 2.35mm diameter, to see which gave the best interference fit for the 3/32" brass locking pin material. The answer turned out to be 2.3mm, so we used the smaller size for all 70-odd actual holes. This wasn't exciting enough for a picture, though, I'm afraid.

[5BarVT]

Now that we’re back, I have been looking back through for input on canted track.  You seem do this all below trackbed level, have you done it on a flat board above or below the foam?

Paul.

[Sandhole]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Last weekend, in a brief respite from the long sequence of wet days that we've had for several weeks now, I managed to spray one of the three points I built at Forestville. That let me lay the third point for the Treloggan Junction triangle and, the following day when the glue had set firmly, the two joining tracks.

 

Both of these are on a 30" radius continuous curve, the turnouts being customised bastardised to suit.

 

 

The main line went in very easily but somewhere my calculations and/or marking out and tracklaying skills had gone slightly awry, so the Pentowan - Polperran curve gave me a bit of grief. At one stage I thought I'd have to come down to 28" radius but, with a bit of wrangling, I managed to keep the curve at 30" radius - although it is now out of kilter with the curve of the foam underlay. That's all right, as I can trim the excess away on the inside and add some more on the outside of the curve.

 

None of this is wired yet, of course, and I still need to fit the point motor.

 

Finally, to bring things up to date, I went over to Charles' yesterday to drill the St Enodoc lever frame locking bars. The first job was to drill two trial holes, one at 2.3mm diameter and one at 2.35mm diameter, to see which gave the best interference fit for the 3/32" brass locking pin material. The answer turned out to be 2.3mm, so we used the smaller size for all 70-odd actual holes. This wasn't exciting enough for a picture, though, I'm afraid.

Love that triangle, it's fearsome!
Regards,
Chris.

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Now that we’re back, I have been looking back through for input on canted track.  You seem do this all below trackbed level, have you done it on a flat board above or below the foam?

Paul.

Yes, the whole ply track base is canted using strips of styrene between the joist or riser and the track base. Apart from anything else, the natural twist of the ply gives a nice gentle cant gradient. It's all cosmetic  - I don't go above 1mm cant over a width of about 50mm and the cant gradient is generally not more than about 0.5mm per linear foot (i.e. between joists).

[KymN]

5 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Yes, the whole ply track base is canted using strips of styrene between the joist or riser and the track base. 

 I have canted track on the 700mm radius approach to Fal Vale. I simply put a strip of Plasticard below the sleepers under one rail and let the ballasting to the rest.  Seems to work.

[aardvark]

11 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

Now that we’re back, I have been looking back through for input on canted track.  You seem do this all below trackbed level, have you done it on a flat board above or below the foam?

Paul.

 

I read of someone using a line of string under the outside of the track. Memory provides no further details.

[St Enodoc]

20 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

The answer turned out to be 2.3mm, so we used the smaller size for all 70-odd actual holes.

74 centre-pops but only 73 holes. Not sure how we missed one. Anyway, it'll be easy to put right next time.

 

Just a few odds and ends today. I fitted the motor to the new point at Treloggan Junction, drilled the holes for the droppers and poked the droppers themselves through. I also cut away the surplus foam on the inside of the curve, added a new strip on the outside and laid a short length of temporary track as far as the end of the trackbed towards Pentowan. Finally, I found a couple more offcuts of timber to make another bridge, which of course now has another bus on it.

 

Dropper soldering next so I can wire up the triangle and possibly a temporary point control panel too. Then back to lever frame building.

 

Always plenty to do in Mid-Cornwall!

[Michael Edge]

7 hours ago, KymN said:

 I have canted track on the 700mm radius approach to Fal Vale. I simply put a strip of Plasticard below the sleepers under one rail and let the ballasting to the rest.  Seems to work.

I did the same on Herculanum Dock for the main running lines.

[Regularity]

20 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Yes, the whole ply track base is canted using strips of styrene between the joist or riser and the track base. Apart from anything else, the natural twist of the ply gives a nice gentle cant gradient. It's all cosmetic  - I don't go above 1mm cant over a width of about 50mm and the cant gradient is generally not more than about 0.5mm per linear foot (i.e. between joists).

Shouldn’t each line be canted individually, rather than as a pair? (I may have misread that, but it suggests to me that for double track, you are canting the track base as a single piece.)

[Michael Edge]

Not always, this is Bullhouse bridge on the MSW, the whole trackbed was canted on a concrete slab - quite a sharp curve for a main line as well.

[Oldddudders]

10 hours ago, Regularity said:

Shouldn’t each line be canted individually, rather than as a pair? (I may have misread that, but it suggests to me that for double track, you are canting the track base as a single piece.)

Wouldn't individual canting cause interference of kinematic envelopes, thus needing wider track spacing?

[St Enodoc]

11 hours ago, Regularity said:

Shouldn’t each line be canted individually, rather than as a pair? (I may have misread that, but it suggests to me that for double track, you are canting the track base as a single piece.)

That's right. For double track, I slit the trackbase between the two tracks and cant each one individually.

[St Enodoc]

51 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Wouldn't individual canting cause interference of kinematic envelopes, thus needing wider track spacing?

Possibly, thought on the real thing the curves are shallow enough not to have to worry about it, I think. In model form I increase the track spacing anyway, not so much for "leaning" vehicles as for end and centre throw.

[5BarVT]

13 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Possibly, thought on the real thing the curves are shallow enough not to have to worry about it, I think. In model form I increase the track spacing anyway, not so much for "leaning" vehicles as for end and centre throw.

Except at level crossings, especially with old wooden gates.  Brought Ferry was so difficult that they disconnected them from the wheel and operated by hand . . . . until one day the gates and the signals were out of kilter and a HST made rather a mess of them.  (Early 90s)

Paul.

[t-b-g]

 

This is how Laurie Adams has approached the subject on his 2mm Yeovil Town layout.

 

On the late Roy Jackson's Retford, the ECML across the flat crossing is superelevated with the GCR crossing on a gradient. In that case, the pair of ECML lines were canted together as a pair, otherwise the GC line trains would have had a very bumpy ride. 

[St Enodoc]

I connected the Main and Branch tracks at Treloggan Junction to the Terminus track bus today. Everything seems fine, so that's how things will stay until more track gets laid towards Pentowan and I build a temporary point control panel there.

 

Tomorrow, Charles is hosting a BRMA meeting so I'll take the errant locking bar over and, either before or after the session, we'll drill the missing hole.

 

Separately, a kind RMwebber Pete @PJT has pointed me towards Lendon's of Cardiff as a source of replacement gears for 3862 (they're out of stock at Peter's Spares) and Andrew @Woodcock29 is having a trawl through his spare gears to see if he has a set. Either way, 3862 might be back in action for our May running session after all.

[Sharky]

A bit of delayed response, thanks to the issues we are all aware of.

I had a fantastic time acting as signalman at Porthmellyn Road a few weeks ago at the recent operating session.
Took me a few trains to get familiar with intricacies of the interlocking (just like the real thing!) and not having a 'pull chart' to cheat off meant actually having to read the diagram and lever labels!

I had great satisfaction watching all the working semaphore and disc signal 'come off', just need the S&T boys to get out there and adjust some of the cables.

 

Here's a close up picture of the 'NWR' van I built and weathered sitting in St Enodoc yard.

 

A video of the one of the goods last trains we ran for the session.

 

 

And a picture of the signal box I worked. (You can see me there filling out something in the TR book)

 

 

 

I would've taking more videos and pictures but I was too busy making sure things were running smoothly through the station with the Fat Controller 'Sir Topham Hatt' sitting behind me.

 

Hoping I can make it up there again for another session.

Perhaps once Pentowan is operational so we can see what a busy turn with holiday traffic to the seaside will be like.

[Tortuga]

When I get to it, the curve at Alsop will be super elevated, but to avoid issues with the point where the loop becomes a single line I’ll be starting the super elevation after the point.

On Gibbs Sidings (long since abandoned project) I used Coachman’s method of laying 1.5mm cork along the line of the trackbed, then sanding it into a slope before laying the 3mm cork trackbed on top. The result was very subtle; it wasn’t really evident until there was a train on it, but then the lean of the stock looked just perfect.

[St Enodoc]

34 minutes ago, Sharky said:

Hoping I can make it up there again for another session.

Perhaps once Pentowan is operational so we can see what a busy turn with holiday traffic to the seaside will be like.

You are always welcome.

 

Yes, when Pentowan is working the whole focus of operations will change. The branch will be the dominant feature, especially on Saturdays, with the main line nearly, but not quite, relegated to a sideshow. The single line between Pentowan and St Enodoc will regulate everything.

 

At the moment we are running 168 trains over the course of Friday and Saturday. When we add the Branch workings (plus the Twig to Polperran) there will be 311.