bigwordsmith

Thanks Gilbert - I alway appreciate your wisdom as it is based on much more experience of actual running than I have. The idea of the 4-track is actually a disguised fiddle yard - as you rightly say a lot of the time trains will be standing in stations doing 'nowt, but I realised that with my restrictions, and insistence upon keeping my rather large engine shed, the smaller room meant I wouldn't be able to fit in station, fiddle yard, running length, return loop and engine shed without a compromise. So the idea of the 'South side station is to give me two 'parking ' platforms, one of which has the cassette facility, the other runs into a potential distillery - offering room for some goods movement. The theory i that trains can terminate there - allowing loco run arounds, or as it is just next door, substitutions, so a lot could go on in that space. The same applies to thebans and extra roads on the North side - I could lose two tracks, but it would reduce the availability of train running. Of course it could be that I don't need so much, and no doubt will dwell on that thought as construciton inches along! I agree it will have a lot of scope, but my inner belief has always been that I will get better - I've lasted 28 years with a condition whose 10 year survival rate is 50% so theoretically I'm already on borrowed time. Perhaps the biggest mistake health wise was putting it in a first floor room above the garage - bit that will give me the incentive ti sleep climbing stairs!

Fascinating discussion in stations I seem to have started here, but the point is that there were four track stations in Scotland with only two platforms, just none on the Waverley Route! Although I did start out with visions of modelling the East end of Waverley Station, there’s no way in the current space that could be achieved. At least not without going to N gauge, which my eyes would not support. So the end result is going to be freelance, and while I’d like to make it realistic, it’s never going to be in the same league of accuracy as Peterborough North, Little Bytham, Waverley West and so on. However, I do want it to feel right for a Scottish main line layout, and all your thoughts and suggestions have been hugely helpful! Many thanks

So I got a letter from HMG in Mid march telling me I shouldn't go out for three months, then one from my hospital saying much the same, which didn't;t arrive until end March. So that pretty much takes us up to end June either way. As it is I think Boris plans to keep everyone imprisoned until end May. After that we'll all be socially restricted, sorry 'distanced' so we're all still buggered! I know I desperately need new lenses for my bins - heaven knows how we'll achieve that!

OK, SWMBO went off to do a food drop today, so I got some time in the loft and set about working out how to best achieve my desires. After a few minutes of that I got back to thinking about the railway again, and decided the old railway arches would no longer work - especially as I'm going to build a four road station in the space they and the carriage sidings used to occupy, so it had to come apart. I know it would have been easier to just junk it and start again, but I am not allowed to cut timber, so had to re-use existing resources, and the ladder rack on which this was built is the widest one I have! So in case you've forgotten what it looked like in its prime - this is it THis was it after about an hour's demolition this morning! After removing all the sidings and consigning the viaduct to the waste tip pile, I'm let with the ladder rack, onto which I will put a new deck to form the station. I may need to experiment with point motors, as digging out large holes for the Peco ones calls for use of sawing kit, which i not allowed! I mayinveftigate the potential for hiding them in railway furniture and running the rodding out for platform surfaces or plate layers' huts. Next stage was to remove all the fallen ballast and other debris from the morning's work, followed by unveiling the engine shed after two years in bubble wrapped storage. As you can see it has actually fared quite well. Some minor scenic damage, but given the general murkiness of the site it shouldn't be too hard to resurrect . I rescued half a dozen points and about 12 metres of Code 75 from the morning's destruction, but also rediscovered that code 75 is a lot harder to lift than 100. Especially when its all ballasted in! After that the next step was securing the baseboard to the trestles. By a near total coincidence I actually spaced the trestles almost to the inch apart from each other as last time, but one was the wrong way round. As you can see there is a lot of timber stored there, so turning it would have been a lengthy option - instead I just screwed the hinge into the other side! So now it sits upright - which it didn't in the last loft, meaning I can re-fettle it when needed without having to crawl around upside down.Its origins as a smaller shed with a big angle on one end from its early days are clear when you see beneath it. The carpentry may be crude, but it ain't half solid! I also make no apologies for my wiring - it has improved with age! Next step is building the new station so it can be dropped into a new frame to be built off the trestles - there's no way I could lean across the shed to lay and wire up track, so a protective layer will have to go across the engine shed base so the new station can be built thereupon before being dropped into place. One challenge is to ensure the engine shed layout can lift up - I may be tempted to run a lift out able canal between the two - I've got 55mm between the two boards, which should be enough? I think I might end up regretting that last idea!

Looks rather fine to Me Phil

Sea Eagle must have been going at a helluva lick to blow those lamps halfway up the irons! Doncha just love the camera! SWMBO is of on errands this am so I might just get to go up the loft.....

I’ve never had the skill, or patience for scratch building, or indeed brass/white metal, so I am full of admiration for those who can do it. however give me a recalcitrant petrol engine and a big enough hammer, and I’m yer man!

I thought the pipes were an attempt at Churchillian cigars!

I thought it had all gone quiet in the Stowe front. I must confess to being an armchair member of the BRPS, I joined after seeing the 9f going to the park on a low loader and have been a member ever since I haven’t been for several years, so suspect there will be much to see. Hopefully I’ll be allowed out for the next model railway weekend!

For once I'm going to be the controversial one..... But then I did commute on the Hastings line for many years, albeit not behind one of these!

I too happen to like them - I'v even got one - how on earth do you get away with that as well as a WC and terrier on a Scottish themed layout - maybe I'll pretend its a preservation railway - Steam Train Britain in miniature!

Trust you to throw controversy into the pot DuckMeister! I always thought there was nothing wrong with them that a good pony truck wouldn't improve!

Seeing that artic set, and thinking how it has become popular again on High Speed trains, I wonder why everyone abandoned artics from the post war years?

My Father was a captain in the Royal Signals during WW2 and was part of Montgomery's HQ Team setting up comms across Europe post D-Day. As a signaller he learned all about wiring , which he passed on to me, and it has meant that while I find live frog double slips deeply frustrating, I am actually reasonably adept at working out how wire A and Wire B should go together. Unfortunately my soldering is a bit ham fisted! I have a very good friend who is an electrical engineer, who volunteered to tidy it all up for me - he of course had not seen it at the time, and so far has failed to arrive with soldering iron in hand!

That's pretty impressive David and far more transportable than mine. It has ended up as a 12' x 2' board tha has grown like topsy, but the whole thing is supported on two trestles, which came from IKEA, as you can see in this pic of it open for maintenance

At yes that gnarly old chestnut! i am forever grateful that when I did my shed, I put it on hinges. There are around 40 point motors there - most hanging off the points, and when solder goes dry, or a motor fails, it makes it so much easier if you’re not trying to deal with it upside down. Not least because reading glasses never quite focus in the right place!

I’m really looking forward to seeing this ballasted! i love ballasting, especially in sheds as you can’t go far wrong- even mistakes can turn out well. The thing is they were so mucky, you really can do a ‘Fidy shades of gritty grey’ jobbie and get away with it. the models are superb, I really enjoy your work David

Could you not cut off the flanges from the middle wheels? I tried that on one of my old ones a few years ago and it meant they could negotiate small radius code 75 points in a goods yard.

That could work!

thanks for the Pics Alasdair, seeing the bridge in Fife is good, but seeing the platforms at Coupar Angus, especially with a Clan, make me wonder if that would not work better- it would allow me to pair the fast and slow lines well....

Good to hear from you David. I watch your progress with envy. Sadly the knackered pipes mean I really have far more limits than before. Having cleared the space, which took nearly a week, Them done a few box moves, I was so bushed I ended up calling it a day at 12.30! as you know I’ve always been one for marathon sessions, but unless they can do something miraculous with my lungs, I fear those days are in my rear view mirror!

I must still be groggy - of course it’s Cupar Fife, I’ve been there for heaven’s sake! thanks for the detail, looks like I may be using my modellers licence, especially as my model is theoretically set in the countryside of the ‘disputed lands’

Quick off topic please Gilbert? just in case any of our two or three mutual friends don’t get an alert from my thread (Waverley Route Revisited) I have just popped a lengthy post, with some actual progress to report! click on the link in my signature, and go to the last page... ”Now, back to the records....” Tx Gilbert

This may not look like progress, but it is - first a little history in case you've missed my whinging on other groups.... As regular readers will doubtless, remember the previous Waverley Route Project had to be dismantled in something of a hurry at the end of 2017 as my dodgy lungs drove us in search of a bungalow with a nice flat garden where we could also park our caravan. AS it happened we ended up buying a two-storey house, with no garage, in a hilly village, with views to the South Downs, which SWMBO has been wrestling with since we arrived. For the first year after arriving I too got involved, albeit on a small scale, but the dodgy lungs and a ruptured Achilles last Summer put paid to that! As part of the works programme we built a garage with a rather splendid 7m x 3 metre (usable) loft, which we all thought would turn rapidly into a railway room Sadly our daughter got divorced, moved into a rental, and needed somewhere to store her fragile stuff. We also brought everything back from storage and the loft rapidly became rather full and used as a dump for the whole of 2019. Then in March this year, just as I had got back to some form of mobility from the Achilles and decided it was Time To Do Something, I got pneumonia. Five days in the COVID Ward, despite not having it, and I came home feeling wretched after being pumped full of antibiotics. Two weeks of misery followed, basically feeling like I'd been run over by one of Aveling and Barford's finest. After I started to feel almost human, I had a big dose of steroids to recover lost lung capacity, which didn't work, and an awful reaction to them, which saw me in bed for another week. On top of that I got a condition called Hypokalaemia, which basically means 'not eating enough bananas' which took another week to get over and meant I couldn't do anything except sleep! The whole thing left me weak and wobbly, but nearly 30lbs lighter and has meant I am no longer hypertensive, or Obese, as my BMI is now comfortably below 30 for the first time since I started dating! So now I'm back in the land of the shielding, but have sod all energy and even less strength, so every movement has to be calculated. I refuse flatly to get a mobility scooter though, so will just have to keep buggering on. albeit slowly and for not very long distances! Anyway enough moaning, back to the progress report. While musing through PN, Over Peover, Grantham., SOSJ, Little Bytham and several other inspiring layouts that inhabit RMW, it struck me that perhaps with a little 'tidying up' I could free up enough space to set up the old Engine Shed and get some tracks on that, so I could be ready for when the time comes and daughter buys her own house again, and I can reclaim t'other side as well! I also looked at different ideas to get in a fiddle yard and lots of useful activities as well as not cover the entire board with track ( yeah right!) So several iterations later I came up with this idea... It basically takes everything I had at the last railway except the fiddle yard and the reproduction of the Eastern End of Waverley and adds in a four-track mainline station along the lines of the old Cupar Angus station which had the arrangement - down slow, Down Fast, Up fast, UP slow, with the two outer roads being served by platforms. THis will allow me to have freight trains lumbering around, and you'll notice it also has a wee distillery in one corner, as well as the ability to load/ unload cassettes ( Thank you Gilbert for that bit of inspiration!) THis is Cupar Angus today BTW To give some scenic interest I plan to play with different levels - not sure of the best way yet, but I'm sure something will come up. It will only be +/- 1=1.5 inches, but should add some operational interest. The railway should be able to comfortably host a good half a dozen trains visible at any time, not including movements, and by using the slow lines of the second station as terminal lines as well, I can do loco swaps, turn trains around and generally enjoy a bit of playtime! SO I can hear you all thinking 'Smiffy's been planning again, where's this so-called progress?" Well in the style of a TV reveal - look no further. As you can see I have actually tidied up enough and moved the shed baseboards enough to start to build that second side! (Note to self - get a decent camera - iPhones have limitations) Now I have a 7m x 2.8m wide length onto which I can erect baseboards. The eagle eyed among you will have spotted a couple of pics back some ready made ladder racks which were part of the old railway, so I'm hoping I might even be able to get away with very little carpentry. As I'm frighteningly allergic to sawdust this is probably a Very Good Thing, and as it happens I've discovered that we moved in opposite a very keen O Gauge modeller who will happily chop down any bits of 2x1 I need shortening - The joys of living in a small village with a lovely Church community! This is from the other end and even though it doesn't look much, there's a railway under there bursting to get out. More progress reports to follow.....

Posted this earlier, but it didn’t stick .. it’s been chucking it down in Sussex most of the day!