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Stringfingerling

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  1. Stringfingerling

    Return to Llanidris video

    By Stringfingerling,


    Video
    Here's a video I made recently explaining the backstory for my layout   The location is somewhere to the North of Aberllefeni and South of Brithdir on the Dolgellau to Barmouth GW line.   The idea is that the Corris Railway was taken over by the Cambrian as per the 19th century act  of Parliament that really happened.  The line was built as a through route to the GW at Brithdir from Machynlleth, more or less following the Corris Railway route to Aberllefeni, then plunging through the hills to emerge on the scene of my layout.  During WW2 there were a number of serious floods that destroyed the trackbed beyond the road bridge at the northern end of the station and left it with no usable loop.  As the army had training camps nearby they installed a crossover within the platform limits to enable their supply and troop train locos to run round....
     
     
  2. Stringfingerling
    After various struggles with decoder settings and the realisation that I should never use the momentum button on my NCE Powercab as it over-writes decoder settings, my new Mogul is running pretty well now, though I'm still trying to get to the bottom of the occasional jerky movement, some of which you might see in this video.   When it first arrived with me there was a loose buffer, an under-gauge front pony truck (both easily sorted) and a definite clash in the crosshead and crankpin area, which I think I've stopped with a little gentle outward pressure on the slide bars on one side, so that they are parallel with the loco.  One or two jerks have been due to less than perfect pickup, but a good track cleaning session seems to have solved that.   It's a shame there are no pickups on the loco, although, as others have said, the wheelbase of the tender is at least as long as a lot of tank engines.  
    It's all ok, but I would like it to be as good as possible - the loco looks great and it would be nice to have that same feeling about the running qualities.  I might be a bit spoiled by some of my other locos.
     
     
  3. Stringfingerling
    I'm completely baffled by the interface of this website these days.  Navigation seems like a challenge game.

    Anyway, here is some progress on the engine shed I'm building for my O.16.5 engine.  It's modelled loosely on the shed at Maespoeth on the Corris Railway.  Painting the stone blocks is a slow process and it'll take a while before I can move on to building the roof.

  4. Stringfingerling
    I haven't posted anything here for a while so, here are a couple of pics to be going on with; looking towards the tunnel mouth, and looking out from it. 
    There is actually quite a lot of work going on to the left of the broken viaduct arch in the first picture. A slate works will appear in the background along with some rocky scenic developments around the short narrow gauge section. Pictures soon.


  5. Stringfingerling

    New cottages

    By Stringfingerling,

    Here's view of my new cottages. To the left you can see the start of a derelict narrow gauge viaduct which (in my world) lead to an abandoned slate quarry on the other side of the valley. I'm in two minds about whether to restore the arch across the standard gauge line; at the moment it's not immediately obvious to people what it's meant to be! However it will have a lot more work done on it whether or not the arch gets restored. You can see some cottages that I'm about to paint, on a flat piece of card to be stuck to the back scene. They will be joined by some more buildings before long.
    I've only just noticed the 1:1 scale cable ties abandoned by the trackside!
  7. Stringfingerling
    Here's the new little loco making it's way up the steep gradient next to the standard gauge station. There's still quite a lot to do it; I have started adding some decal rivets, which is very fiddly but it does seem to work. Some are due to appear on the buffer beams (if that's what you call them when there are no buffers). The sound is from the 14xx simmering behind the autocoach. The little NG engine will stay silent as it runs on DC. I did notice that the Kerr Stuart engine on the Sittingbourne and Kemsley railway really is almost silent a lot of the time.
     

  8. Stringfingerling
    I've done a bit more on the little 0-4-0 ... if you haven't seen any of my previous posts it's based on a heavily chopped up Hornby "Smokey Joe" body.
     
    I wanted to use a livery which bore some connection with the Corris Railway, even though in my version of History the Corris "main line" would have been replaced by standard gauge. The idea is that my little loco is working one of the remnants of the lines feeding the "main" line with the products of the few remaining slate quarries north of Aberlefenni. The original livery of the Corris locos is open to some question, at least the exact shade, so I have plumped for something like Indian Red, though it will eventually be weathered fairly heavily so the exact shade is not that important.
    I have done lining by hand many years ago with a bow pen, and the result was reasonably good although it took me ages correcting blemishes; this time around I decided to take some short cuts and use computer decal printing paper. I created the artwork for the lining in Adobe Illustrator and printed the results, allowing spare pieces in case of mishaps. The first mishap was not using enough acrylic varnish - result the printer ink washed off as I soaked the decals.. Second time lucky with a bit more varnish and patience while the varnish dried properly. Having applied the decals I mixed up Humbrol colours to match the plain areas of the decals.
    Here's the result so far. The photograph is very much warts and all!
  9. Stringfingerling
    I've been meddling with loco building. My loco building skills are pretty rudimentary but I did once (25 years ago, when my eyes were better) scratch build a compensated EM gauge chassis for my Hornby 4-4-0 County and it worked pretty well.
     
    Those of you have been kind enough to follow my scenic developments will know that my railway is set in Mid-Wales and there was always the intention of squeezing a bit of narrow gauge in somewhere. The track is now laid, using Peco 00 gauge track with the sleepers respaced to look more like the real thing. My intention is that the track and sleepers will be pretty much covered in weeds, soil, etc when it's finished, as the narrow gauge is line is meant to look run down. To test the track and the horrifically sharp radius curves used to get into the storage area I needed a loco, and having looked at my grandson's Hornby 0-4-0's decided that would be the way to go for dipping a toe in the loco building pond again.
    It occured to me that I could use the existing saddle tank, smoke box/smoke box saddle to create something like a 0-4-0 version of the Kerr Stuart 0-4-2 used on the Corris Railway and subsequently the Tallylyn.
     
    It's probably best to draw a veil over some of my methods for fear of giving palpitations to the extremely skilled loco builders that crop up here, but basically this is what Iv'e done:
     
    1) Chopped away the Hornby cab and part of the saddle tank
    2) Built a new cab, bunker, boiler saddle from brass
    3) Extended the running plates with scrap NS etch pieces
    4) Used a pair of cylinders from a narrow gauge loco kit (I decided the rest of the kit was really not going to cut the mustard)
    5) Used slide bars from a Hornby loco spares supplier
    6) Filled in the gaps between the spokes to look more like the wheels on Corris No3 (which I know wasn't a Kerr Stuart loco).
     
    If anyone is interested in the gory details I have taken plenty of photos along the way, but there are probably much better examples to follow than mine.
     
    Having said all that, it does run nicely, after a fair bit of pick-up twiddling, quartering checking, back to back checking etc etc.
     
    Many many thanks to micknich2003 who very kindly offered to make the brass spectacle frames for the cab and did them beautifully.
     

     
    The plan is use printable water slide decal paper to do the lining and so forth, which should be an interesting experiment, as I can easily create the artwork needed, but that will have to wait until quite a few more details have been added.
  12. Stringfingerling
    I have realised in the last few days how little I know about bridges and their design and how much there is to learn! After some fairly rudimentary research I realised I was trying to build what I think is referred to as a "half-through" bridge where the top girder flanges are above rail level and the bottom ones are well below track level to support the beams that in turn support the ballast/track etc. I hadn't previously spotted that the webbing stiffeners on this type of girder would normally just be on the outside. Since realising these things I've had to raise the level of the abutments and this can be seen in the picture. I'm going to use rivet decals on the plating as life is too short for most of the other ways people seem to do rivets! The handrails will be soldered up from brass wire and angle strip. I may decide to re-align the retaining wall nearest in the photograph, when I've finally decided what building will go next to the road in the foreground.
  13. Stringfingerling
    Sunny weather and grandchildren have kept me away from the layout to some extent but here is a picture of the new cottages in the main street and their embryonic gardens. It can also be seen that I'm finally starting to build the details on the plate girder bridge of the road.
  16. Stringfingerling
    I'm very excited and mildly daunted by having a new Lionheart "B" set on my line.
    Excited because it looks great, the quality A1 etc.
    Daunted, because I have some scary work to do on it
    a) I'm going to fit my version of Spratt and Winkle Autocouplers in the limited space twixt bogie and underframe.
    b) at some point I would like to reduce the brightness of the interior lighting - I'm not sure how it works yet - I assume that if it is LED's providing the light, I can't just put a resistor in series with them? (Expert knowledge welcome here!).
    c) Scariest of all , I shall weather them to have an "in service" look.
  17. Stringfingerling
    This photo shows most of what I've done this year, apart from adding DCC, to the layout. The buildings in the background are easily lift-outable to allow access to the narrow gauge storage siding underneath them, and also to make it easier to work on them as it quite a long reach across the station and yard. Much remains to be added; ground surfaces, some trees, detail on the buildings, detail on the platform, etc etc, but I am quite chuffed with progress so far. I've not taken a layout so near to completion; in the past there always seemed to be some major flaw that made me start to lose interest, but I'm really enjoying this one. It's fun to operate - my almost three year old grandson loves it and is allowed to operate the points and blow the whistles (DCC sound) when appropriate.
  18. Stringfingerling
    For any of you if have read my blog, you may remember that I'm planning a little bit of slatey Welsh Narrow Gauge at the back of my layout. The story is that the whole line (standard gauge) was an extension of the Corris Railway north towards Brithdir, approximately built on the route of the Corris, firstly in 2'3" gauge then standard gauge. Along the way, yet more slate branches sprang out from the line. One of these met my station at a point to the south of the road bridge where there were, originally, some exchange sidings. These were destroyed in the flooding which closed the standard gauge line. However, a little offshoot, formed from a small section of the original narrow gauge route has always remained, allowing transfer of the slate to road vehicles. This is the bit that will show on my layout.
     
    I've started building the track and decided I should built a loco, so I can test points as I build them, and also so I can play trains on the NG section without having to wait too long. Thoughts quickly turned to using a Hornby Smokey Joe type chassis and a Smallbrook body kit. My grandson has a couple of Smokey Joe type engines, and I found it was possible to make them run very well, especially with my ancient ECM Compspeed CF controller. I bought a new Percy loco, which runs better still, especially after tweaking the motor retaining spring wire, so that it doesn't press down excessively. I ordered a Smallbrook "Odin" kit and did a dry run with the parts. It didn't have the look I wanted though; much too chunky looking, too high, too wide. This is not a criticism of the kit; it is probably quite a plausible size for some NG lines, but I like the look of the Corris and Tallylyn locos which seem to be low slung and slim, in relation the height they do have.
    I looked at drawings of Corris Number 3 in Bernard Rockett's book "Corris Railway" (bought from the Corris Railway book stall) and decided I shall try and do a major kit bash with the Smallbrook loco, to turn it into something loosely resembling Number 3, but with the 0-4-0 wheel arrangement. It would have been nice to add some rear carrying wheels but the wheelbase on the Hornby chassis is too long.
     
    For those of you that are cringing at the thought of A) a "Freelance" design, B) that Hornby chassis with no slide bars
    A) The slate branch in question never existed so, I feel I have licence.
    B) The lack of slide bars is my first job to fix. I came across
    , on how to add some slidebars in a simple way. 
    The picture is a screenshot showing
    (left) the rough outlines of the Smallbrook model as intended with the Hornby chassis
    (centre) the illustration of Corris Number 3 from Bernard Rockett's book
    (Right) the outline I think I can achieve by major surgery to the Smallbrook model.
  20. Stringfingerling
    I'm currently trying to develop the area behind the station yard; there is now a goods shed which is nearly finished, and a row of buildings which will be butted up against the backscene. Cunningly concealed below these latter is a new storage track for the future narrow gauge development! Eventually the narrow gauge slate line train will emerge, apparently from behind these buildings, in fact from beneath them, into a tiny yard next to a dressing shed and road entrance/transfer yard made necessary by the catastrophic flooding that has destroyed the original rail exchange sidings on the imaginary North side of the bridge at the left end of the layout. If none of this makes any sense please refer to the plans in my earlier posts! I shall try and make an update diagram of the layout soon so people can see what I am trying to do.
     
    My 14xx and 4575 now have DCC sound. After some fiddling around, they perform very well, but the sound is ok but not as sophisticated as the sound in the Lionheart pannier. If anyone is interested I'll go into that further!
  21. Stringfingerling
    I've finally bitten the bullet, bought an NCE Powercab from Coastal DCC and a sound decoder equipped Lionheart pannier to keep me going while Coastal DCC fit decoders to my 48xx and 4575.
    The Powercab and the pannier are incredible! In spite of the not very ergonomic design and the not very intuitive menus the Powercab gives fantastic control, and the Lionheart pannier is wonderful. I've fiddled around with the sound levels having read the old threads on here from Martyn Welch, touching on the need to moderate the noise of the coal shovelling (which sounds more like a bulldozer demolishing an old warehouse with its default setting) - now it sounds very convincing. The most exciting bit for me is shunting, where I can now inch the loco backwards or forwards to relieve the tension on my slightly modified Spratt and Winkle couplings. One of the photos shows the couplings in this postition. I can honestly say they are now 100% reliable and shunting wagons is very satisfying. When I have time, I'll make a video to show off how well it works.
    Happiness is a train set
  22. Stringfingerling
    Away from politics and back in the world of toy trains, here's a photo taken about five years before I was born, in my imaginary version of Mid Wales. It can be seen that the line beyond the bridge has had very severe flooding and the arch has been sealed with dozens of sandbags to protect what's left of the railway. Scaffolding has been put in place to enable repair work on the underneath of the bridge.
  23. Stringfingerling
    To those of you who have said such nice things about my layout in the past, I'm sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been busy with other things, like becoming a grandad again and other everyday life stuff. Meanwhile back in railway land i've just started finishing (?) the platform, with paving slabs in the area of the station building, coping stones along the platform edge and I've armed myself with a container of pepper! to do the rest of the platform surface; if it's good enough for Gordon Gravett, it's good enough for me. Eventually, as this is supposed to be just after WW2, there will be the traces of white paint along the platform edges, as I understand this was done during the blackouts to prevent people falling on the track, though I don't know whether the black out restrictions applied to stations in such rural areas - perhaps someone will enlighten me.
  24. Stringfingerling
    I have now built the last three wooden chunks of my new railway.
     

    As you can see the front face of the boards bulges out by 12" so the total depth at the left end is 3'6". Because is this is more than a comfortable arms length the six feet of boards at the left end is split into two boards longitudinally, so the front part can be removed to allow work to be done on the back part.
     
    The curvy bit at the front involved quite a lot of extra woodwork, but rather than explain, I would refer you to the photograph below if you are interested in how I built it.

     
    I've had some very kind comments on my woodwork, but I am not a highly skilled woodworker at all, just a DIY level type. In view of this I'm very pleased to find that i've built baseboards that are very flat at trackbed level and extremely sturdy. Fortunately I don't need to keep carrying them around, as they are heavy.
     

     
    I'm not going to start tracklaying until I've triple checked levels, alignments etc, and added alignment dowels to the ends of each board. I've tried hard to anticipate where all the point motors are going, although Sod's law usually means there is something you haven't planned for.

     
    As you might notice from the bits of music gear, my railway room (garden shed) also serves as a band practise room. My band is desparate for me to get something running on the railway, so we can play trains before playing music.......
  25. Stringfingerling
    I've added all the perspex laser cut barge boards now and I'm quite chuffed with how they look. I think I must get on and do the doors next as it is difficult to picture how the whole building will look without them. I'm struggling a bit with the paint scheme - I've looked at some obvious sources on the web, but there seems to be quite a bit of leeway for variation, and, as my layout is set in about 1947 and bearing in mind the run down condition of the (imaginary) line, it's reasonable to assume nothing has been painted for a few years.
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