Ray H

As you may discover in a while, and if I do get to have a station on the inner side of the fiddle yard, accessing the fiddle yard to swap cassettes may be a little difficult but I will keep it in mind especially as I'm hoping to be able to swap from steam to diesel and back again as well as mix the two together. Any chance you could post a sketch of how you'd envisage the storage track layout to accommodate your cassette idea? Another option that I have is to use the hidden part of the main line - see later posts - to queue trains or to even double up on the main line tracks on the hidden section to accommodate a few more trains. Apologies if that's a bit difficult to picture, I hope all will be revealed in a few posts' time. I don't want to cram everything in one post because it gives people a chance to comment on each section in between without drifting too far off track (if you'll excuse the pun)

Forget the steam, concentrate on the mouse!

The garage is 17ft long by 7ft 10ins at the narrowest. The textual description of the layout in a few posts' time will outline the plan in a bit more detail. I have had a tinker with the fiddle yard track layout based on your ideas for Bitton. I think I can get two trains on at least one siding in each direction but I want to devise a way to move the rear one forward automatically when the front one departs so that there's space at the rear to accommodate the next arriving train. I don't fancy having to keep manually moving the trains forward in the fiddle yard when I should be concentrating on what's happening on the scenic section. The station boards will probably remain at 2ft wide as they're over some cupboards of the same width. The width of the fiddle yard boards is currently undecided as I want to try to do a "Larry" and have a small station at the front.

Thanks. I've got those mats under the chipboard panels at present and the two together seem to do the business. I've written a few other posts to continue the thread. I'll post them over the next few days and by then I may at least have an outline track plan to add as well. It will be a while before I start on the baseboards as there are a few other jobs in front of them in the queue. Hope you're feeling even better today.

And it came to pass My current Wynsloe Road layout has stalled because I have found using the traverser for virtually every train movement distracts from my main interest which centres around the operation of (varied formation) trains. Chuck in an oft repeated suggestion by Management to re-carpet the adjacent bedroom that I have regarded as my office for the last thirty years (and has more recently incorporated my limited modelling workshop) and the recipe for chaos was rife. Consequently I started thinking about replacing and possibly re-locating the current layout. Although entitled Wynsloe Road after an initial abortive attempt to do something very loosely representative of Winslow on the Bletchley - Oxford line, the current layout ended up with a track plan nothing like it due to space limitations. Instead the layout was more like a heavily compressed version of Broom Junction on the S&MJ. After a couple of false starts involving re-sizing or relocation options I seem to have now firmly settled on moving all the model related railway activities downstairs and into the integral garage. More to follow

He's too busy laying track!

As Andy P might say - What! No grass? That really does look the mut's. I want one! I can't wait to see track, then ballast and finally some trains. I bet you're in a better place mentally now with this one than the previous ideas although I can appreciate that it required tough decisions in the past to rip them all out and start again.

I don't know. We guessed the model would need some work on it when it was bought because we'd bought a different railcar from the same source and had seen the few posted images. In the end we'd largely re-built the other railcar. On reflection and knowing the state of the other railcar we should have given this one a miss and just bought the kit but at that time we'd not done our research and had no idea whether this one was a kit and if so the origin thereof.

I don't think I could achieve a satisfactory result if I attempted a rebuild with my limited - some may say very limited - engineering skills so I've decided to purchase a replacement set from EasyBuild. The motor bogie is in a worse state with a couple of the etches broken. I presume both bogies were fitted with brakes and whilst I'm not a rivet counter I would like to include that basic detail. The bogie illustrated above seems to lack provision for brakes and they haven't been fitted to the other bogie nor did they come lose with the model. Today's chore [once I've completed the annual exploration in the loft for the (Bah! Humbug) decorations] is to see if I can complete adding the horizontal bars to the cab windows as the body sides are those of M79900 (aka Iris) and those bars were present on that vehicle. The cast ends have had all the simulated cabling below the cab windows filed away but I've left the jumper connector boxes where they were - apologies for the lack of the correct technical terms. However, I now realise that even they are in the wrong place (and seem to be to the wrong pattern) so they need to be removed as well although I've no idea where I can get the relevant replacement parts so would welcome feedback on that. The body side had holes drilled for some grab rails and the door handles - those fittings that did exist were removed before I stripped the paint off. The holes have all been filled with Milliput because of their random placement. Now I'm a little concerned that the filler will drop out when I attempt to reposition the holes if the new and old positions overlap.

This is what the unpowered bogie looked like after it had been stripped of the cast components which had all been assembled with compact adhesive. I'm not engineer (and I not a much better modeller) but I'd like to think that I could do better. I refitted the wheels yesterday because I'd been building a couple of points and wanted something to test them with and this is the only thing I had that stood any chance of keeping the two axles together!

Presumably they were all day trips. I'd have thought that the Saturday trains - and you try finding anywhere that allowed you to take a holiday that didn't start and end on Saturdays seven days apart way back then - would have set out from the seaside before lunch taking one week's holiday makers home and passed the next week's holidaymaker's train en route. Even as late as the 1970s the Festiniog railway recognised that Saturday was changeover day and their custom was significantly less than the rest of the week and Friday afternoons were busier than Saturdays but quieter than the rest of the week as people started getting reading to head for home the following morning. I doubt it was too common for holiday makers to stay in their chosen holiday town for too long after breakfast as their journey home wouldn't be exactly quick and they'd generally aim to be home in time for their evening meal. The new arrivals were generally travelling at the same time but in the opposite direction having left home after breakfast and, in a number of cases, after lunch because Saturday morning working was still common even when I started work in 1964. I seem to recall having been told that a lot of the seaside town stations had numerous sidings specifically to accommodate the stock for the "Saturday" trains with the odd one or two possibly being used for short day trip extras during the week.

David Thanks for your informative post. Unfortunately the person who built the kit that I bought must have found the problems you described but tackled them in a completely different way. As a result whilst those cast parts of the bogie assembly that remain could be re-used, the etched parts are more than beyond redemption and a replacement set is on order from a different source. Edited to correct typo

I didn't know Andy was working for you! :-)

Both of the points are for a sidings off a 100" radius curve with the curved element being the main line. I shall see how they fit on the layout at club this evening and then decide whether to curve the exit. Many thanks for the comments and apologies once again to Andy for taking up some of his thread's page count - can we get to 150 pages before any grass is laid? At least the discussion hardly mentioned s*u*a*g*s!

Here's the first of the two 100 inch radius points for the club 7mm layout. Unlike the previous one which was a re-make of a Blue Peter one - one that I made earlier (did you see what I did there?), this was built from scratch. The previous one was built before I learned of Brian's easier method of making the common crossing (frog), the latest was made using Brian's method and was a lot quicker. With a bit of luck I'll have time to make another 100 inch one this afternoon, before I go to club. The point was made from a Templot template. Consequently I'm a little puzzled that the divergent track is not curved throughout. The exit end looks straight on the template and as can be seen from the above that's mirrored in the point itself. I wonder if that is because I used a previous template of a 100" inch curve to which I had insert a point and latterly set the point's geometry as straight. Apologies to those who struggle with Templot - I'm not much better myself, hopefully those with more experience may advise. Apologies also to Andy for hijacking his thread but I suspect there will be a few followers of Bitton who are considering making their own points using Templot so hopefully this post will be of use.

Mike Andy would have built two layouts in that time! Me, I might just manage to uncover the woodturning lathe in the garage to take a few snaps to put it on ebay so that I can clear some space and start making baseboards for the new layout.

Perhaps I may be allowed to show my most recent construction just so that I can be considered a member of the club! This one is 7mm and is hopefully to the same dimensions as a Peco one which it is designed to compliment. This is the test bed for a couple based on Templot templates to a 100" radius for the same layout (at our club). My intention is to use these three points as practice pieces before I endeavour to build all the scenic section (4mm) points on my next layout.

I wish my handwriting was that neat!

Ah, yes, I forgot . . . . . Railwaymen get (?) double time for working on Sundays!

I had a vague association with the ECML special traffic planning in the mid-sixties (as a very young man) and yes, Kings Cross platforming was a nightmare. By the time all the specials had been slotted in there wasn't room to swing a cat. That said, I recall that some of the stock for the extras was that which would have otherwise worked in or out of the Cross as ECS so that saved the odd path. Some of the suburban trains that were normally booked into the main line part of the station were occasionally diverted to the CWL to reverse to free up a platform and putting one unit on top of a second (or third) in the suburban side to release a platform for another unit (normally reversing in the main line side) was another trick. We should also remember that not all local services were DMUs so there was the added problem of loco releasing which extended the platform occupation time. Luckily although not too frequently used if I recall was the ability to divert via the Hertford loop to overcome Welwyn viaduct's restriction. Another thing to remember is that in those does the class system dictated the priority of trains so the lower class freights that may have had a path where you wanted to put a relief Class 1 were simply shown to be regulated as required in the almost certain knowledge that they would have already been regulated elsewhere and therefore weren't going to be there at the time the extra was scheduled. Those were the days when theatre scenery and pigeon traffic were still reasonably plentiful and parcels traffic movements in the run up to Christmas meant no end of extras.

Track laid by Tuesday, scenery finished by Wednesday lunch time and the next layout started by Thursday morning. You can't keep a good bodger down!

It does beg the question whether Adrian and Andy P have been drinking out of the same glass, wink, wink! Or, just maybe, the germ is being carried round the country on 4mm scale trains! P.S. Hope you feel better soon

Sorry to hear that and that you've got a cold. I hope yours is better soon and that George recovers quickly from his ailments as well.

Will we have the benefit of sharing the tales of your exploits today Mr. P? We understood that you were to be visited by a certain gentleman from further up north, presumably to finish all your track building, laying, ballasting, signalling and scenic work so that you can press on with your next venture - hand-built points in 12" to 1' scale - which we believe you have every intention of completing by Tuesday evening! P.S. I hope you both had a good day!

Fell running?