Elsbridge Tramway Company: Elsbridge Town - NeilHB's layout

[NeilHB]

Thanks Sam, something along those lines is probably what it will end up looking like. 

[Nearholmer]

I think the key to these roofs, apart possibly from the OTT gateway to the next world, is that they provided some overnight shelter for the tramcars/carriages, which is something that small independent railways needed to do. So, a good idea from a prractical as well as an aesthetic standpoint.

[Annie]

6 hours ago, NeilHB said:

Yes, one of my long term aims when planning the ETCo has been to include an overall roof, although I'm still not sure if Ffarquhar Road will have one as I think it may overpower given the relatively small size of the layout. I'll have to mock one up and see how it looks, though perhaps something akin to a shortened version of Callington may be suitable as it would still allow the trams to be seen: 

 

 

A lot of my thinking has been influenced by Wantage, Corris, Fintona and Dave Holman's 7mm scale 'Loose End' and Giles Barnabe's 7mm scale 'Stratford Waterside' etc. I'd not seen a photo of the one at the Zetland Hotel, that's rather cute and compact. I particularly like the ironwork on the gable end.  

 

Have you got any plans for your Severnbury (Riverside) please? Quite interested to see how other freelancers approach station design etc. 

That's a very nice overall roof.  Yes I noticed the Wantage influence with your Elsbridge track plan.

[NeilHB]

Thanks Annie, definitely shades of Wantage with the overall roof. Add to that a good dash of Lambton Town (O-16.5 steam tramway - RM May 2016) which had a big influence on the trackplan. 

[Johnson044]

21 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I think the key to these roofs, apart possibly from the OTT gateway to the next world, is that they provided some overnight shelter for the tramcars/carriages, which is something that small independent railways needed to do. So, a good idea from a prractical as well as an aesthetic standpoint.

Exactly. This is exemplified in The Titfield Thunderbolt where a corrugated metal barn is lifted bodily into place to fulfil that very purpose.

 

[Johnson044]

On 19/07/2022 at 09:26, NeilHB said:

Yes, one of my long term aims when planning the ETCo has been to include an overall roof, although I'm still not sure if Ffarquhar Road will have one as I think it may overpower given the relatively small size of the layout. I'll have to mock one up and see how it looks, though perhaps something akin to a shortened version of Callington may be suitable as it would still allow the trams to be seen: 

 

 

A lot of my thinking has been influenced by Wantage, Corris, Fintona and Dave Holman's 7mm scale 'Loose End' and Giles Barnabe's 7mm scale 'Stratford Waterside' etc. I'd not seen a photo of the one at the Zetland Hotel, that's rather cute and compact. I particularly like the ironwork on the gable end.  

 

Have you got any plans for your Severnbury (Riverside) please? Quite interested to see how other freelancers approach station design etc. 

Couldn't get off to sleep last night with heat. Had a bit of a breakthrough with scheme for Severnbury (Riverside) and come up with a cunning plan to squeeze a lot of conflicting design aspirations into a compact layout. Will try to draw up some sketches over the next week and I'll post them on the L&H thread.  All the best. John

[NeilHB]

1 hour ago, Johnson044 said:

Couldn't get off to sleep last night with heat. Had a bit of a breakthrough with scheme for Severnbury (Riverside) and come up with a cunning plan to squeeze a lot of conflicting design aspirations into a compact layout. Will try to draw up some sketches over the next week and I'll post them on the L&H thread.  All the best. John

 

Glad to hear that you've had a bit of a breakthrough with the scheme for Severnbury (Riverside) John, I look forward to seeing the sketches over on your L&H thread. For those of you not aware of John's thread it's here: 

 

[Johnson044]

Thank you Neil!

[NeilHB]

I did a bit of doodling yesterday to sketch out a design for the train shed at Ffarquhar Road:

Its a fairly basic affair, but will do to give passengers and rolling stock a bit more protection from the elements. 
 

There then followed a lengthy discussion with my fellow co-conspirator of silly ideas regarding some changes I’ve been thinking of making to Ffarquhar Road for a while…which I then put into motion earlier today! 
 

I’ve had some issues with the siding behind the platform for some time now, as it was too close to the backscene and the platform to enable me to fit in the goods shed which should have been located there. So that got promptly removed as the first step. 
 

This meant that I could then shift the whole platform along closer to the fiddleyard, which meant that it was contained on one board and not crossing the board joint. Therefore that can now be fixed down permanently (one less thing to forget to take with me when the layout does go out!). There’s enough room at the end for the local omnibus to sit and wait for the onward connection to Ulfstead, which makes for a nice little scene:

 

 

The water tower and associated bothy could then be relocated to the other end of the platform:

Which I think works quite nicely there.

 

The next step was very drastic, and the track cutters and scalpel came out to play and the moths flew out of the wallet…
 

Ffarquhar is getting an extension! Albeit a very narrow one. Two additional 900x200mm boards have been ordered to extend the layout to 600mm width, which then allows me to fit in a new siding along the front edge of the layout:

 

As mocked up here. The coal merchant will be relocated on to this siding, and the railways goods shed will go where the coal merchants currently is.

 

Hopefully the new plan helps to makes sense of the changes. It also means I can fit in the station masters cottage too, which will do nicely as the view blocker to hide the entrance to the fiddle yard. 
 

I’m feeling a bit more enthused now about cracking on and finishing the layout off :D 

 

[Annie]

Definitely an improvement.  The new siding will help a lot with creating additional operating interest as well as completing the classic minimal arrangements a light railway would have at a small terminus station.  I like your trainshed sketch, - it's another nice practical arrangement with it doubling as a carriage shed and it will add yet another characterful light railway touch to your layout. 

[Northroader]

Funny thing, I find my lines turn out to be too narrow rather than too short, in an ideal world.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Northroader

[Johnson044]

2 hours ago, NeilHB said:

I did a bit of doodling yesterday to sketch out a design for the train shed at Ffarquhar Road:

Its a fairly basic affair, but will do to give passengers and rolling stock a bit more protection from the elements. 

Now that I really like!

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 21/07/2022 at 20:03, NeilHB said:

I did a bit of doodling yesterday to sketch out a design for the train shed at Ffarquhar Road:

Its a fairly basic affair, but will do to give passengers and rolling stock a bit more protection from the elements. 

This is really cute! I like this a lot.

[Nearholmer]

I like it a lot too.

 

The only thing is, my instinct is telling me that if I was to build the real thing, I would make those two sway-braces slope the other way, to put them in compression with wind pressure on the gables of the train shed. 

[Johnson044]

Valid point, Nearholmer. And maybe a pair of diagonal braces crossing over in the middle bay.

[Nearholmer]

When you look at the real examples, they seem to make do with ‘Dutch Barn’ style sway-bracing in what might be called the top-quarter, although things changed as designs moved from ‘vernacular cart shed’ to ‘engineer designed prefabricated’, which Callington was, being quite modern.

 

 

[Schooner]

After a spot of light Googling, was just about to make the same comment as @Nearholmer.

 

That said, if it were me I think I'd be guided by visual impact more than anything - any diagonal bracing will add significantly to the perceived 'bulk' of the the shed. Suck it and see, I reckon :)

[NeilHB]

So effectively it needs the small angled timbers at the top of each post then, rather than the large cross-bracing? That would at least enable the trams to be a bit more visible. 

 

What sort of size do we reckon for the timber uprights/framing etc? 12inch square? 

[Johnson044]

Given the size of the structure then 12" square for the principal framing members sounds about right but if you are just having some small diagonal braces in the top corners then these (by the 19th century they'd be straight, rather than curved / arched) would probably be thinner - say 12" x 6" (Callington's look about 9" x 6") . Probably British Columbian Pine. Don't forget to sit the post bases on a bit of lead for best practice where they are supported by the dwarf wall. Callington's just seem to go straight into the ground.

[NeilHB]

Thanks John, I'll source some suitable size plastic strip/section and get cracking with building the train shed. It'll sit on a low wall to support the non-platform side so that the legs are all the same length, I just need to order some more platform edge sections from 422 Modelmaking to do this. 

 

Last night was our bi-monthly zoom meeting, so I actually did some modelling, and made a start on ETCo No.4, "St Machan". This was the largest and final design of the Hatt tram locos, being an enlarged version of No.3 "Gerda", and having a six-coupled wheelbase: 

 

 

At lunchtime today I cracked on and got the basic bodywork sorted, and then added a few of the details so that you get an impression of how it will look: 

 

 

Having felt a bit flat and meh for the last couple of weeks it feels good to be doing some modelling again. 

 

Next step is the oh so fun task of adding all the beading! 

[NeilHB]

Plenty of progress to report on “St Machan” over the last couple of days. 
 

All beading was completed, and (thanks to a suggestion from Mr Young), No.4 was used as a prototype to trial some steps out:

 

 

These worked nicely so I started retro-fitting them to No.2 “Sigrid”:

Just the other side to do, before a trip to the paintshop and then No.1 can be sorted. No.3 will be tackled when she returns from being sound fitted. 

Having got all of the major bodywork completed on No.4, it paid a visit to the paintshop this afternoon for its first coat of ETCo Indian Red:

 

Next comes the fun task of sorting the roof out, but that will have to wait until my restock of glue has arrived. 

 

[Annie]

Ah yes footsteps, - very much the needed finishing touch.  Now the tramway staff won't have to make any more heroic leaps to get themselves up and onto the footplate.

[NeilHB]

It is suspected that some of the staff had been circus acrobats in a former life, owing to their ability to enter/exit the tram locos without any form of steps...😆

[NeilHB]

The extension boards arrived this morning, and by the end of my lunch break had been assembled and taped up to within an inch of their lives 😁

 

Whilst they were setting, I took the opportunity to do a much needed revamp of the FY entrance trackwork, to give a slightly longer lead in and a bit more trackwork so that I can scenic it, hopefully blurring the lines a bit between layout and fiddle yard:

I also took the opportunity to replace my dodgy soldering on the power wires with more of the pre-wired Peco ones, much flipping easier!! 
 

Post work I’ve bolted the boards on temporarily so that I can get a feel for what works etc., and what doesn’t. The proposed goods shed has already been canned, as it looked too cramped.

 

It’s so much better now, with loads more room to play with, and a cope for some moorland scenery at the front (still not sure about the house). 
 

I rather like this shot looking down the layout, it’s amazing what an extra 200mm width does to the whole view of the layout. Final placement of the front siding is still to be determined. 
 

I’ll finish off with this view of No.4 “St Machan” arriving on an early evening up passenger. 

[harris0169]

On 07/08/2022 at 22:39, NeilHB said:

Plenty of progress to report on “St Machan” over the last couple of days. 
 

All beading was completed, and (thanks to a suggestion from Mr Young), No.4 was used as a prototype to trial some steps out:

 

 

These worked nicely so I started retro-fitting them to No.2 “Sigrid”:

Just the other side to do, before a trip to the paintshop and then No.1 can be sorted. No.3 will be tackled when she returns from being sound fitted. 

Having got all of the major bodywork completed on No.4, it paid a visit to the paintshop this afternoon for its first coat of ETCo Indian Red:

 

Next comes the fun task of sorting the roof out, but that will have to wait until my restock of glue has arrived. 

 

 

The steps look really good - nice technique to craft them - I've made a note so I can use the idea - thanks for showing/sharing this.

 

Cheers

 

Andy