92220

Echoing other contributions, I’ve recently discovered this thread and I am hugely impressed and inspired by both your work, Pete, and the layout as a whole. In my case, building a smaller section of a significant mainline I also have some decent sized buildings to make so I hope to learn from your expertise. One question at this point is where is a good source for large sheets of plasticard? thanks for sharing, Iain

Many thanks Brian, yes, I had seen but had forgotten both the aerial photo and the final 2 seconds of the YouTube clip which shows the use of one turntable and the entrance to the goods shed well. The aerial photo seems to show no change in the ballasting arrangements until at least quite close to the shed entrance, perhaps 2 wagon lengths short of the building. I am guessing it would go to track inlaid into hard standing of some sort. Given the age of the goods shed, possibly concrete? I don’t know really. EDIT - no, from 0:37 in the clip it looks more like hard standing for the row of turntables a long way short of the shed. Now I am clueless. My memory isn’t perfectly clear but I think Leicester South has a big goods yard and shed with working wagon turntables and capstans? Or am I mistaken? Wondering whether @Headstockmight be able to help here. Lez - I think I will probably leave both the scissors and therefore the tandem out if I am honest. But who knows. I’ve done stranger things. Iain

Hi Lez, I very much doubt it. The whole area is just a 3D backdrop to the main scene with a small amount of movement possible. Of course, the alternative view is that if it’s there I should model it and the fact that it can never be used means that the standards for construction are lower and it would be a good practice piece for the scissors off the down fast which absolutely has to be perfect! Iain

Thank you Brian. I’ve studied some more of the photos of the site in my period and I think those dimensions seem spot on. I know that @Martin Wynne looks in here from time to time (and I appreciate every bit of help that he has given me in particular, and us all in general) so he may like to add something. It is really only the bit circled in red below that I need: the rest of the entire baseboard area at its lowest (apart from the dive under, pits and turntable well of course) is packed ash cinders. Which neatly or not so neatly brings me to another question. I am planning the representation of the goods yard and its approaches. From what I can see the track is laid pretty much as normal in yard-type ash cinder ballast, level with the sleeper tops. Nearer the shed there are wagon turntables. I am wondering whether the whole yard area including the lines of wagon turntables was in the same lowish quality ballast - I guess a mix of ash, cinders and a few stones - or whether there was some transition to inlaid track. Do wagon turntables need more anchoring than just in ballast? It is viewable on this link: maps.nls.uk/view/102902575 from which I have taken a tiny crop which I hope does not infringe any copyright. I will of course remove if so. The red lines are the up lines already laid. Blue is the corner of the goods shed, and in green is some portion of the approaches I would like to model. I won’t be too assiduous as much out of necessity has to be ornamental - the scissors will bite the dust for a start. Probably just the 3 wagon turntables adjacent to the shed, and not the earlier group. Presumably Cn means capstan? If I am honest, I’d probably prefer to model the whole lot in low grade ballast, but if I have to represent inlaid track, how, into what and where would the transition be? thanks in advance for any thought. Iain

I have a quick question about ballast shoulders in the 58-62 era that I am modelling. When I did the templot plan I did not activate the trackbed function so it is not on the printout and I just can’t remember the basic dimensions. This post: from: seems fairly definitive - would I be sensible to follow these dimensions? I was going to chamfer the closed cell foam to the right profile. I know more modern ballasting guidance has ballast ridges heaped behind the sleeper ends but this era would have a profile much more like the picture above. Iain

Thanks Baz yes, so left of the dive under there will be the up fast, the goods yard line and the line through the station. Sorry, I thought you meant 3 in addition to the up fast. I think that will work ok. A couple of hours blitzing the new goods shed today: has become: Apart from making it very narrow as a backdrop on the previous layout, I also made a couple of errors that I will try to rectify this time. This photo on John Turner’s Flickr stream shows just how enormous the real thing was. Hopefully this iteration will capture more effectively the imposing backdrop to trains passing Camden No. 1 box and beginning to “descend the bank to Euston” (in my imagination!) Iain

You reckon I should fit both goods lines and the NL DC in there Baz? Seems too tight to me.... This is at 44.67mm track centres That was what I was leaning towards, yes. There is quite a complex formation in the space of those 2 lines that I would never dream of trying to replicate. Thanks Brian and Baz. Appreciate your thoughts and any others. Iain

Then, at the far end, the Goods Station was much slimmed down on the previous version due to space but here I can model it more in proportion, even though there will only be just over 11% of its total width. There are wagon turntables (fairly obvious from the loosely placed track I expect) So the old goods shed needs rebuilding. Which begins with dismantling - I built this too solidly to make this easy, and I really wanted to retain both the roof detail and the side wall because they took ages, and both look right apart from the spider debris. Then building a new shell from 3mm card Iain

Planning a few things for the area occupied by Primrose Hill Station at the NW end and Camden Goods Station at the SE end. I see this area as a main part of the backdrop to the layout, so rather like a 3D backscene, but with a small amount of movement possible on some parts of it. Like an occasionally moving diorama. Regents Park Road bridge should have, under its main span, the 4 mainlines, one line through Primrose Hill Station and two lines, albeit with some quite complex S&C, for the goods yard. On the real thing, these two lines would I imagine have been in and out, but they diverged to well over 45 roads. Clearly I am only going to be able to show a very small number of those roads as they approach the goods shed. However, my bridge only has room for 2 lines in addition to the mainlines, not 3. The other line to the station on the prototype passes left of the bridge pier on this photo. So a slight dilemma. Do I do as here, and take one line through the station and leave just one line for in and out of the goods yard, or shift the station building left and run that line left of the bridge pier? I’m not keen on building another bridge, I’ll just throw that out there, I am leaning towards the former - only a few roads within the goods yard can be modelled and even those will be largely static. That leaves some sort of diverging pointwork like this: Any thoughts welcome. Iain

ahh thanks Pete - that might (no it almost certainly does) mean I misinterpreted you, for which many apologies. I can imagine all sorts of locos having steam heat but no pipe at the front. I’ve certainly never fitted one to the front buffer beam of a model of a Coronation. Iain

Add the plastic strips. I spot weld them at each end first so they can be accurately repositioned inside the tender top, and only once happy, plastic weld the whole length: Cut strips of .010x.125 and trim the corners. Then fit as shown: I also at this point rewire the tender pickups so they can be used with a homemade connector. Reassembled: A bit better? I think worth the work. This took me about 50 mins in total. Iain

Thanks Mike, that’s what I thought in fact but someone earlier in the thread told me I needed to remove the steam heat pipes from 45027 as it was never fitted. l will add them to 44875/0 Hornby Stanier tender ledge removal. Here is a better account with some photos. I just pulled a Patriot tender out of the drawer where it has been in some queue or other for I don’t know how long. As standard: Dismantled Measure the ledge so you know how much to cut off from the top: Mark the step profiles: Careful Stanley knife scoring: You may notice I have also removed all of the extra pips, knobs and bars from the surface, except of course for the screw mounting holes. Much easier to cut straight and cleanly. 2 strips of plastic 80mmx5mm tbc.......

I don’t seem to have taken many or indeed any decent pictures of this, and it’s the sort of thing better explained in pictures. Basically, a new sharp Stanley knife blade. Carefully and repeatedly score a line from above until the ledge is removed. As memory serves me, it is 4.5 mm in from the edge. There are some pips and ledges that are best removed to allow an accurate straight cut. Take care to preserve the step shape, ie don’t score right along. Clean and tidy up as necessary. Then reinstate a piece of plasticard using the tender top to locate so this piece sits on top of the tender base and inside the tender top. I then cut 10 off 5mm sections of plastic strip, I think 0.010x0.125 trim the corners to a v shape. These are stuck to the underside of the plasticard strip, one above each axlebox and one between each pair of axleboxes. There, clear as mud. I will do another one with pictures. Sorry. Iain

Well they say you can never have too many Black 5s. Someone did anyway. Maybe it was Baz. I still haven’t quite decided on 44875 of 1A as it is, or 44870 which was also 1A Willesden and regularly seen at Euston. So likely to pass the shed a lot but not use it much, if at all. Realised when I had taken these that I had forgotten to add the circular cylinder inspection covers and also the cover for the expansion link bearing or whatever it is. Now added. I also forgot to note down from photographic evidence whether it had steam heating fitted. I have left off the AWS equipment and bang plate until I decide which one it will be, but otherwise it is ready to clean and paint. As built - Hornby body on Comet frames, it ran smoothly but I doubt it would have won a tug of war with some rice pudding at 136g. Judicious filling of the body cavity with lead gets it up a bit. It will now pull the 9 coach test train on the main thread albeit with a little slip to start. And, although I do say so myself, it runs really smoothly. These Hornby tenders look so much better to my eyes when the ledge is removed and replaced with the more prototypical-looking strengthening plates. Iain

Yes, I imagine it was all to do with aligning the up and down DC/slow lines for the dive under at the north end by the bridge. At least this is how I have interpreted various maps and photos, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’d done either of those wrongly! Thanks again for your help so far Graham. Hopefully it is beginning to take shape as you imagined, albeit somewhat more slowly than a Red Leader project! Definitely don’t need any stock just yet and I am sure we can work out loaning arrangements anytime there is a show where Shap is appearing. Indeed, I might have a whole load more (locos especially) that you might want to utilise. Iain

Hi Mike, of course. 46251 build starts here goes here: 46251 also features heavily in the videos in the two posts above. I hope soon to get round to painting all of the unpainted bits, turning the Hornby weathering into something more akin to photos, and adding final details like coal etc. I would normally prefer to put a refined and modified Hornby body on Comet frames but as an exercise in making the standard item work well, this was worth it. Iain

A very good point well made, thank you. I must admit (I mean I could just lie and pretend it was all worked out) that I’d not considered that. But, happily all northbound i.e. down banking will cease (banker will drop off) by the middle of the shed or before. No up banking because it’s down(hill). As for the EMUs, I was tentatively hoping to have one 6 car 501 set in each direction. Just one set will take me ages so two might be too much. In which case I will have to be very careful as even having pickups only on the driving trailer, which is possible, that will work only in the pulling direction. Double heading was rare but definitely not unheard of. Rod Steele’s book has a few examples and I have a photo of 44687 piloting a Jubilee on the Midlander, which is my excuse for having it. The green zones will just about work for double heading, but it’s tight. thanks, Iain

Hang on. Done. Better, I hope. Iain

Thanks Brian x 2 (46256 I feel I really ought to call you Bill but anyway) and Steve. To answer the qs, I’m not a complete one-man band here no, although I guess not far from it. Graham gave huge assistance with the overall plan (make the scenic part diagonal to create the space to get in and out, then take the curves under the bench). Then he also came for a couple of days in early Feb 2020 to basically lay the north end of the storage yard and sneakily in the process teach me about Peco products that I had never used before. Including bending and splicing. Then I did the rest so far. I learned a lot from several experts many of whom are on here - including but by no means exhaustively, Graham himself, Tony Wright, Norman Solomon and Geoff Taylor (mainly via the DVDs), Mike Edge, Vincent Worthington, Mick Moore, Tony Gee, plus many others I’ve missed off for sure - for some of those listed they might not even know how much they have helped but simply being in the presence of some of them seems to allow wisdom to percolate. Sometimes I am a quick learner, but not always. I am more than happy to accept help from people more expert than me in particular areas, and happy to pay where I can afford it or barter in exchange. Just not always easy to see where that is possible. This was always meant to be a long term project! I do use some rtr mechanisms, yes. Until Hornby bring our their new one, I honestly don’t think there is a better 9F chassis than the Bachmann one. Even Killybegs had the Bachmann wheels machined to accept P4 tyres on his incredible Bradwell/Bachmann body 9F: there are simply no more accurate wheels out there. Now the Hornby one may or may not be as good in that department. There will only be one 9F on Camden except for occasional visitors and it doesn’t take a genius to work out which one. The Rebuilt Jubilee 45735 Comet has the standard rtr mech, as does 44687. Graham has a few of my modified rtr for use on Shap. 46146, 44684, 92056 and some others I think. I’ve just completed 46251 using the Hornby chassis as a basis too. But more and more, I will move towards Comet or similar frames if I use the rtr body. They just go better and look better. Graham - thank you too. As for your query, I was thinking much the same. It does look a lot less severe from most angles but from some, it is not quite right. It is partly about the realignment of the tracks about halfway along. At the north end, I goes DF 10’ DS 6’ US 10’ UF. At the south end the spacings are 6’ 10’ 6’ so there is a geometry change anyway, I think in most modern times, the entire curve around the shed area (now carriage sidings) is a more constant radius but in those days it does not seem seem to have been so. But I might yet just realign it very slightly. These photos show it more clearly. Oh, and the up slow/DC is now fully wired. 45027 on a short local commuter train. More on the video below: Iain

Now I have some much bigger news. We have........a full circuit! At least on the up fast and up slow/DC. So the only sane thing to do is to put a few of the existing buildings and structures out and run some trains. Bear in mind that I have not fully wired up the slow so I only ran a few on the up fast. I just picked out a few carriages - 4 rtr, 4 kits and a hybrid, so not a representative train. 46245, 46248, 46251, 44687, 46145, 92220 all made an appearance. None have turned a wheel in anger for at least 4 years. Some need a service and a spot of oil. My videoing and editing techniques need refinement. But this was such a genuinely exciting moment that I just took a few clips and wanted to share them. Iain

Thanks Keith, yes I have been looking with some excitement at Wayne’s planned new releases. Plenty of the pointwork in the shed area is simple enough - a lot of B7s as would be expected, I guess. So if I can save some time it will help a lot because these 2 long crossovers were errr...... somewhat longer than that to build. I think they sound very cost-effective regardless of the time saved as well. So, a couple of updates: I will start with the boring bit, but it’s necessary. The gate had to be reliable in terms of running etc but also foolproof that I couldn’t accidentally run a train into the gulf of emptiness above the hard floor. My first effort at Sir Bill a few years ago already bears the scars of being dropped a few years ago, and I think it’s fair to say it didn’t do him a lot of good. So: The red zone is the gate section that swings open. It is always live, but fed by the blue section. when the gate is closed, the two green sections are fed by making connections: At the storage end, the gate closes and makes these choc blocks connect. At the scenic end, there are 4 bolts and locks, and each one makes good the circuit to that green section. So you have to close the gate and make all 4 connections to get trains to run within 18” of the gate. Hopefully it makes sense and might even work. I made it up myself. There will be cleverer ways, but there are certainly cleverer people. Going to have to split this up I think. Iain

That’s extremely kind Mike, thank you will send you a PM Iain

I think I opined much the same on the very first post on this thread. I would seriously struggle to think of a loco more deserving of preservation that wasn’t. That might of course turn into a barrage of possibilities and before we know it there are 2 Peterborough North threads. Hope that Camden could one day become as scenically “complete”, or indeed as impressive overall, as Gilbert’s Peterborough North. So anyway, back to commemorating Sir William, I have now accumulated the bits to build another. It’s probably not too difficult to work out how I plan to do so, and it’s unlikely to happen all that soon, but the principle is, why not have two versions of the same loco on the roster but depicted in different condition? I definitely ought to build more run-of-the-mill locos and these wouldn’t be duplicated, but for the odd special one I quite like the idea. Obvious ones might include some that I’ve built already but know I can improve upon (46170, 71000, 46256, 44741) Ive already over-represented the unusual ones but these are the most fun ones to build. So rather than build both Ivatt Pacifics, I could build one twice, have just as much fun and only have one on scene at a time. Just re-read that. The drugs are kicking in..... Iain

Morning Lez, I use just a gapped copper clad timber so it’s basically a moving timber. I’m aware of several shortcomings of this method, and others, but I’ve gone for this on balance. With switchblades as long as these, the angles and stresses placed on the joins by a tortoise motor are very low. It would be better certainly to have 1. Full timbering with tie bars between the timbers 2. Two tie bars or even three for such long blades (or is that a more modern practice?) 3. Pivoted joins of tie bar to switch blades. But this (I think rather graceful?) crossover will be hidden behind the shed building anyway, so viewing and photo opportunities will be fewer. You can see it here on the opening to Train of Events (screenshot from YT). On the mainlines, I wanted the prototypical-length trains to be seen to run smoothly around the sweeping curve on accurately built track so I need it to work reliably: I hope most people’s attention will be on a kit or semi kit built Coronation with 14 on. Once I add the DC rails and associated on/off ramps, I guess some sort of early 1960’s vintage AWS ramp, facing point lock (?) etc, attention might be deflected further. When I get onto the shed area, where viewing will be far less obstructed, and everything will happen at a slower pace, I may try something different. thanks for the contribution. Just followed your layout thread with interest. Best wishes, Iain

When you haven’t built any track for at least 6 years, you start with a straightforward B7 tucked away in a corner of the goods yard that will be modelled non-functionally, don’t you? You know, ease back into it? No, if you’re a muppet, you do a full D12 up fast to slow crossover that is about 3’ long in OO-SF and has to be spot on or it will grate every time a train passes over it. I did a little more after taking this final one so tie bars etc added and all electrical connections done, and we are actually only one trailing turnout away from a complete circuit on the up fast. Although that is also a crossover so will be built as a pair (up slow/DC to fast) I will try to get a video - somehow this is really really smooth. Iain