Scotland Street

[Dave Elbourne]

Have a look at:

 

http://rctrains.co.uk/index.htm

 

Rik markets user-ready versions of the Deltang kit.  My only connection is as a satisfied customer and I can vouch for the fine control of an O gauge loco.

 

Regards.

I guess, when I'm feeling flush, I need to buy a set and experiment ! I am a reader of Riks blogspot and have been following his conversion from track-power to the Deltang system with interest. I think I need to "feel it" for myself !

[toplink@()1989))((]

Hi I know its probably a bit late, but I have just found and read your thread and I was looking at how you made a stone wall and it set me off thinking, I have bought some textured brick in 7mm scale off ebay, it is really good, so I went back and found this on the same site, 

 

ebay stone.htm

 

I hope this works, it is 1/24th scale, but may be of interest.

 

Cheers, Pete.

[toplink@()1989))((]

Hi I know its probably a bit late, but I have just found and read your thread and I was looking at how you made a stone wall and it set me off thinking, I have bought some textured brick in 7mm scale off ebay, it is really good, so I went back and found this on the same site, 

 

ebay stone.htm

 

I hope this works, it is 1/24th scale, but may be of interest.

 

Cheers, Pete.

It doesn,t look to have worked, I will see if I can get a link.    Pete.

[Astir648]

Thanks to everyone for their responses - loads of food for thought. Happily the exhibition is noly 20 minutes from my home, so I can always nip home for something, but I'd far rather be prepared, so all the hints and suggestions are really useful. 

 

Having a trial run makes a lot of sense Peter - there's always something you don't thin of, regardless of how well you plan. In my radio ham days I used to do VHF contesting, where we'd set up a high-powered radio station, with a massive antenne array on the top of a mountain for 48 hours. That taught me the importance of very detailed planning and trial runs. Finding you were missing a vital antenna clamp (or worse, the tea-bags) when you're 100 miles from home on the top of a mountain was upsetting to say the least!

 

Dave, you're point about track cleaning is something I hadn't really considered. Contact on Scotland Street is generally very reliable, providing I clean the track every 4-6 weeks. I hadn't considered the amount of dust and other contaminants that will be floating about at the venue.

 

I'm quite concerned about the Dingham couplers - they're bound to get knocked a little in transit and it doesn't take a lot to misalign them. My plan is to set up early on the Friday evening and then have  big operating session, fettling as we go. Hopefully that will give me the chance to iron out any niggles and show up what needs fixed at home later and what I've forgotten to bring (there's bound to be something!).

 

Battery powered, radio-controlled DCC - that's I've been waiting for...

 

David

[Astir648]

Hi I know its probably a bit late, but I have just found and read your thread and I was looking at how you made a stone wall and it set me off thinking, I have bought some textured brick in 7mm scale off ebay, it is really good, so I went back and found this on the same site, 

 

ebay stone.htm

 

I hope this works, it is 1/24th scale, but may be of interest.

 

Cheers, Pete.

 

Thanks Pete - the link worked ok for me. That looks exactly right. I've ordered some and I'll let you know how it looks when it arrives.

 

Cheers,

David

[Dave Elbourne]

Thanks to everyone for their responses - loads of food for thought. Happily the exhibition is noly 20 minutes from my home, so I can always nip home for something, but I'd far rather be prepared, so all the hints and suggestions are really useful. 

 

Having a trial run makes a lot of sense Peter - there's always something you don't thin of, regardless of how well you plan. In my radio ham days I used to do VHF contesting, where we'd set up a high-powered radio station, with a massive antenne array on the top of a mountain for 48 hours. That taught me the importance of very detailed planning and trial runs. Finding you were missing a vital antenna clamp (or worse, the tea-bags) when you're 100 miles from home on the top of a mountain was upsetting to say the least!

 

Dave, you're point about track cleaning is something I hadn't really considered. Contact on Scotland Street is generally very reliable, providing I clean the track every 4-6 weeks. I hadn't considered the amount of dust and other contaminants that will be floating about at the venue.

 

I'm quite concerned about the Dingham couplers - they're bound to get knocked a little in transit and it doesn't take a lot to misalign them. My plan is to set up early on the Friday evening and then have  big operating session, fettling as we go. Hopefully that will give me the chance to iron out any niggles and show up what needs fixed at home later and what I've forgotten to bring (there's bound to be something!).

 

Battery powered, radio-controlled DCC - that's I've been waiting for...

 

David

The track cleaning regime is the result of experience. The shunting locos.(0-4-0 & 0-6-0) on the 4mm version were built with compensated chassis to maximise contact and always worked very reliably, but you will be amazed at how much dirt does accumulate at certain points on the layout. You will be operating a lot more intensively than you do at home, but 7mm scale locos. have more mass so you will get inherently better contact anyway. For the couplings, just be very carefull as you pack and un-pack, and use whatever height or alignment gauge you had when you installed them, as you put them on the layout. This first showing will give you a good idea of any improvements you need to make, that's for sure ! (my first to-do list involved changing most of the varied makes of wagon wheels for one make and standard, (Romford/Jackson in my case) and reliability improved 100% straight away). You may find that your very finely detailed rolling stock won't travel very well, so it may be worth being prepared to compromise with a set of stock just for exhibitions. (brake gear always seems to be the most fragile part). You will soon find out what suits you and the layout, and if you don't intend to exhibit very often, you may not have to change too much, so don't worry, but be prepared !

[Siberian Snooper]

The most important bits of kit have not been mentioned for an exhibitor, a mug for refreshment and somewhere to park it too hand, but where it will not get knocked over. All the layouts that I go to a show with have a couple of brackets which take a universal tray, which will hold two, pint mugs and/or beer glasses.

[Astir648]

I love the idea of a built in mug holder! Very civilised :-)

[Astir648]

Sorry I've been quiet for a couple of weeks, but it suddenly dawned on me how little time there is until the Tweeddale model railway show, so I've been hard at work fettling things in readiness. A lot of time has been spent on details like fine-tuning couplings, weathering track etc. There's lots more of that kind of thing to do and it won't all be done before the show, so I'm now focusing on the remaining essentials: extra rolling stock and the fiddle yard. I can come back to the small stuff once these are functioning.

 

I've fitted my Heljan class 20 with Dingham couplings, though they don't work well on even the slightest curve - something to do with the length of the loco causing the couplings to move too far to the side. The Dingham hints and tips leaflet suggests attaching the couplings to a piece of stiff wire attached to the underside of the bogie but I'm not sure I want to muck about that much with a £500 loco.

 

I've built a couple of extra wagons from Parkside Dundas kits. Not my ideal rolling stock, but perfectly adequate and very quick to put together. I've been promised the loan of a Little Loco class 15 (there was one in Edinburgh, albeit VERY briefly) and a Class 03, for whose presence there is no excuse other than that the layout needs variety and I like Class 03's! Neither of these locos have Dingham couplings so we'll either have to use a shunting pole or a barrier wagon (for which there probably isn't space).

 

The biggest addition is the fiddle yard, which I'm rather pleased with. It makes a huge difference to operating the layout - I wish I could use it all the time, but it simply won't fit in the room! The fiddle yard is 5'6" long and has two tracks entering it: single track from the distillery line, with an isolated section and the main BR line. The latter splits into three sidings, using a section of flexi track to swivel into position, as required. At the far end a sector plate allows for loco release and run-round. I've added isolators to the three loops and the traverser, to give maximum operating flexibility.I took some pictures of it, whilst I had it set up in the living room for testing.

 

 

 

 

 

I took Friday off to go to Modelrail Scotland and was pleasantly reassured at the sheer number of people I saw struggling with couplings or nudging locomotives! Actually I saw even more people fighting to overcome the complexity of DCC controls, which is one thing we won't have to worry about!

 

David

[birdseyecircus]

Looking really good David. I have the little loco class 15. It's a lovely model.

 

Paul

[Astir648]

Here's a link to a brief segment of video I recorded whilst the layout was set up with the fiddle yard. It shows the Dingham autocouplers working quite effectively.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6htw7ikre6uc3jc/MVI_0857.MOV?dl=0

 

David

[MarshLane]

Hi David,

Nice to see the layout working Well done.

 

Rich

[Markchef]

There's a picture of that layout (I assume?) on-line here: https://kgvsy.wordpress.com/history/ . I would have liked to have seen it.

 

The interesting thing about the yard was the way it used tight curves to access the sidings (plus a tiny headshunt). Although the distance between the tunnels was remarkably small - basically the length of the original platform - the width of the yard was relatively broad. Sadly the very narrow space of my layout prevented me from replicating it properly so the layout aims to capture the atmosphere of the two yards and I'll try to overlook its practical shortcomings.

 

Scotland Street track layout (real).gif

 

David

[Markchef]

Hi David

I am lucky enough to be the custodian of Scotland Street by Dave Elbourne.

I thought you may like to see some pics.

I am mainly restoring at the minute but looking to add to it eg back scenery etc

I wish you well with your build

Regrds

Mark Gow

[Astir648]

Well, isn't it amazing how quickly time passes! I can't believe it's over ten months since I last posted on here. In my defence, I got married in that time, with the slightly challenging requirement of having to build the massive garden we got married in (2 pallets of brick edging, 62 paving slabs, 20 tonnes of gravel, a pond etc etc), so modelling had to be put on the back burner for a while (though I managed to squeeze a visit to Pendon Museum into the honeymoon!).

 

Anyway, although it's been on the back burner I've still been dabbling away when time permitted and when I posted a video sequence on a couple of Facebook groups recently the response was so positive I thought I ought to get myself back on here! 

 

So, what have I been up to?

 

First, I couldn't resist the new Heljan Class 05 in green livery. It's a little bit early for the layout, but it fits with a plan I have to make the layout date-variable. A quick swap of road vehicles will, I think make it possible to move it back up to 50 years, allowing for some fun (and excuses for new toys). It's a very nice model and runs beautifully at slow speed. It does have one significant problem, which is the height of the buffer-beams, which means that installing Dingham couplings will be challenging. The hook will be fine, but the loop end will be a problem, as there won't be room for the dropper crank to move far enough back. Any suggestions?

 

 

My other purchase was a DCC controller. I've wanted DCC for a while, not because the digital system is particularly interesting, but because it allows sound to be installed. I invested about £200 in a Signa-Trak controller. It's touch-screen and I've found it very easy to use. Thus far I've simply connected it to the DC wiring. Re-wiring the layout and fitting decoders for the points etc. is coming soon! I also spent £28 on a hand-held plug-in loco controller for the Signa-Trak and that has proved very handy, though I have to say it's cheaply made, compared to the main unit.

 

 

So far I have fitted sound decoders to three locomotives, all ESU Loksound v4.0. The Heljan 05 and Dapol 08 both have "legoman biffo" sound and the Ixion Hudswell Clarke has Southwest Digital sound. The latter has very convincing brake squeal on stopping, which I rather like! Sadly space for the soeaker on this engine is limited, so it's smaller and can't match the diesels. An interesting an unexpected angle on installing sound was he discovery that the Class 05s had what sound like a real beast of an engine - it sounds fantastic.

 

Here's a link to the video sequence I posted on Facebook, which illustrates the sound from the Class 05 quite well: https://www.facebook.com/d.a.dodds/videos/10215210757408845/

 

Other than that I've been working on a brass Clayton (Class 17) kit, but that's a whole story in itself - a kit I bought without instructions, which has been  fascinating to dabble with when I feel the need for a challenge, and probably will be for some time to come.

 

I've also invested in some drivers and guards from ModelU - these are scanned from live people and then 3D printed and the detail is excellent. One painted I think they'll be much better than the whitemetal ones I've been dabbling with until now.

 

 

Finally, I've made my first faltering steps into the world of weathering. I've used a variety of shades of rust colour to represent rust on a 16tonne open wagon. Just now it looks awful - like a sort of camouflage pattern, but hopefully the addition of a load of filth will tone down the grey of the bodywork and black of the underframes.

 

 

Onwards and upwards

 

David

[luckymucklebackit]

Hi David - just found your thread while looking for references to the old 4mm version of Scotland Street - I see that we have used a very similar technique for the backscene, mine came from a picture of an estate agents website!

 

 

Great layout!

 

Jim