RateTheFreight

A productive clearout of the garage allowed me to finally put the door (aka baseboard) down. Pics below show a BL Peckett named Wenman and an assortment of various wagons, a Hornby station and some station staff! Greg

The Van Riemsdijk trams look incredible, especially the double deck ones! I’ll have to keep my eyes open at auctions as they don’t seem to come up for sale very often based on what I can see! I noticed the other day that ETS produce streetcar style trams too. Greg

Afternoon all, Is anyone aware of any historic firms that made tinplate (or otherwise) trams? Whilst I appreciate trans may not have had the appeal of twins, they were common in most towns and cities and so would have been in a he popular conscience. I’d love to get one to add to my proposed layout. Thanks in advance. Greg

Jim, First off, I wish you all the best with GB. You did great things at Colas and I’m sorry there wasn’t any fanfare to you leaving albeit there were no senior managers on today (that I could see). Doesn’t make it right or even close albeit it is holiday season. I hope the middle manager you refer to in this post wasn’t aimed at me (I manage train planning, performance, etc, think Scott) however if it was we definitely didn’t have the conversation referenced as I distinctly remember saying I was a fan of your posts. It’s been great to see how you’ve engaged people with how important modern Railfreight is. Either way, I’m glad you’ve decided to take a positive high ground with this blog and focus on the future. it’s a very small industry and you don’t know who might be reading this! I’ve yet to meet anyone in the rail industry whose profited from burning bridges. Either way, all TOCs/FOCs/other companies outside the industry have similar failures disregardless of how it may seem on the outside. There’s lots of good too! Here’s sincerely wishing you all the best for team blue. Rail freight is driven by yours and countless others efforts which altogether benefit GB PLC regardless of livery. I look forward to hearing about your adventures at GB. If you happen to be passing Rugby in the future and have spare time please pop up for a brew! Greg

Looks a stunning loco Mark, especially pared with those coaches. I’ve always really liked the look of them in black so am tempted to get a BR one! Greg

Indeed it is, albeit strapped to a very thin/small torch to provide additional light!

By way of an update (and thanks to Kevin for his advice!)I’ve got an idea of my next steps. Given the appeal of being able to operate coarse scale on a ‘roundy roundy’ and watch the trains go by but with me lacking the required ‘permanent’ space in the garage I’ve come up with the following idea. The layout will be set on two doors. One door will form the ‘permanent’ part of the layout and will be the aforementioned inglenook layout I’ve talked about. The second door will then have the ability to be placed next to the first for running sessions with the ability to set the track in an oval with sidings therefore essentially creating two very different layouts. My plan is to utilise appropriate style buildings, vehicles, figures etc in different locations to maximise the space available on each layout. The doors roughly measure 6ft 4 by 4ft 6 which allows for 24 degree curves which seems to be the minimum for ACE and other manufacturers medium to larger size locos. It’s still a small layout but should still be fun to operate and watch. Given the track etc etc wont be nailed down (albeit the underlay will) my theory is that switching between the two different layouts shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes. It’s got the wife’s approval and gives me the ability to showcase different stock and the ability to have a decent-ish running session. There’s a future option to build something outside in the distant future too albeit this may follow in my Dads shoes and be G scale. On the topic of couplings, I’m in the process of creating a form of tool that at present seems to answer when trying to uncouple and couple standard coarse style couplings. Greg

So, followers of this thread will be pleased to hear that i’ve decided to build my inglenook on a door in pure coarse scale. I’ve spent some time considering what it actually is I like about model Railways and I kept coming back to the pleasure I got from running coarse, with no worrying about rivet counting and a fondness for tin plate and it’s retro feel. I’ve never been fussed about actual modelling, I.e building scenery and prefer just to play trains. I love the age it harks back to which, whilst only 32 myself, is something I love. I also wanted my inglenook to be accessible to my nephews and any potential future children and concluded that tin plate was as robust as anything. Part of me also wants to prove that you can build a micro shunting layout in coarse and keep it entertaining. So all in all I’m excited I’ve finally come to this realisation and look forward to creating a separate topic to show progress. I’m sure it won’t find favour with some traditionalists but at least I know there’s some of you out there who will follow with interest. Greg

Thanks for the brilliant reply Kevin. I suppose the appeal of finescale was more around the price and varied availability and whether coarse scale was suitable for an end to end shunting layout. I’ve always loved watching coarse scale on continuous loops but alas until such a point when I get round to building a garden railway that isn’t a near future possibility. That being said I don’t want to give up my coarse scale stock. Ironically, one of the reasons I wanted to build an inglenook layout was for nephews, nieces, future children and friends to be able to operate the shunt puzzle as all parties love model trains deep down, especially when there’s a task such as shunting to do. Given my own spare time is often limited by work, football, social life etc I also wanted something personally that would keep me busy for an hour but that I wouldn’t get bored of. Adults also get competitive over who can do the puzzle fastest! I’m not sure I’d be so trusting of them doing so with a finescale loco however coarse tin plate is incredibly robust and so would be ideal. In theory I suppose I could do the best of both worlds in the form of having one half of the door as a finescale inglenook and the same layout but in reverse on the other half as coarse scale, switching between the two as necessary but also treating the two different standards simply as an adjacent line that didn’t connect. It would probably look odd but then I’m not so fussed about spending loads of time on scenery and have always enjoyed running trains more than building layouts. Welcome yours or anyone’s thoughts on this idea. Greg Ps, did I once see that Paul Lumsden (WJ Vintage) sold Czech made pointwork that was comparable with Lionel 3 rail?

Evening all, I’m in the process of building an inglenook style shunting layout on a door using off the shelf peco track and medium radius points (1 x Y, right and left). I’ve got some modern coarse scale in the form of an ACE Schools and a BL Peckett. Does anyone know or have experience of trying to run such locos on ‘fine scale’ track without suffering either derailments or damage to said track or locos? I’ve got a mix of coarse and modern RTR stock and would ideally like to keep both and mix them on said layout if possible (i’m already planning on using some vintage Hornby metal station figures regardless). The WJ Vintage Adams Radial looks special. As a side I could swear the track in ‘Dream City Railway’ on YouTube (Roy James) is Peco? I’ve got a fair bit of coarse scale track (Lionel vintage style) but have yet to find a comparable reasonably priced point work. Thanks in advance. Greg Ps keep up the good work Nearholmer et al; even at the relatively young age of 32 there’s something special and magical about coarse scale and tin plate!

Thanks all for the really helpful comments; once again RMWebbers have been an invaluable help. Greg

Thanks all; I thought it might be that simple but then confused myself! One final question, with Electrofrog points, are all sidings always 'live'? For instance, on my inglenook if I had a spare siding for a second loco, would the siding it sat on be live if the road/points are set against it? Greg

Thanks John, the plan is to use them on a basic inglenook shunting layout with three sidings and no continuous run. Would I need to purchase insulated joiners (comments on the internet seemed to reference them)? Greg

Morning all, I'm building a small O gauge shunting layout on a door that will utilise Peco's 'Y' and medium radius Electrofrog points. The layout will be DC operated. Now for my basic question given my lack of wiring knowledge. What would happen if I took the points out of the box, connected them to the rest of the powered track and tried to run trains? I'm not fussed about wiring the points to points motors as I like manually switching them (each to their own!) and I want to keep the layout as basic as possible. I've tried looking at various things for electrofrogs on the net however most seems to be aimed at wiring for points motors or in relation to DCC. Any help/advice greatly received. Greg

There are also JGA wagon (unsure of livery) operations out of Oxwellmains on Scottish cement flows though principally on the Oxwellmains - West Thurrock flow. G

Had a quick mock up using the medium radius points and Y point templates and it appears it all fits in theory so I should be able to do as I originally wanted and be able to shunt with larger than 060 locos should the fancy take. Greg

Thanks for this pic, really useful. As suspected it looks as if when joining set track straights (the 400m ones or any for that matter) to either the Y point or medium radius points some cutting of the sleeper to make them fit is required but doesn’t look challenging. I’ve got some templates made up at home and so will see how they fit. As David stated I suspect I will be able to fit them in but will just need to slightly re-jig where they sit to get the same inglenook siding effect. Greg

Out of interest, for anyone who has used Peco’s medium radius right or left hand points, what’s the clearance like in terms of adjacent/adjoining roads? I’ve probably not explained it well however i’m wondering whether indeed I could use the medium radius points vice the set track ones in the same space (door is 1981mm x 610mm) with some compromise on sidings length. Provided two of the sidings can accommodate 2 x 4 wheel wagons and the longest one can accommodate 5 x wagons (3 x if compromising) then I’d be happy. Greg

Both, thanks for the replies. The thing about using ‘larger locos’ was more about adding some variety and being able to run some diesel locos I like. I suppose in theory I could still run them albeit as light locos. Does the same buffer lock and derailment occur if hauling vice propelling? As a novice to all this, why are smaller RTR locos such as terriers, jinty’s, panniers and 08’s able to negotiate the points when coupled to wagons without suffering buffer lock and derailment? My layout is only the length of a door and so the Peco medium radius points don’t seem to fit in the configuration I need (think inglenook). From the templates it also looked like you’d have to cut away sleepers in order to attach track. Greg

Thanks for taking the time to check, much appreciated. Do you think the buffer lock might of been down to the length of the Class 40/it’s bogie size of would likely be an issue with any larger loco? Cheers Greg

Afternoon all, Hopefully a quick question to answer. Has anyone tried to run larger Heljan RTR (think Western, class 37, etc) locos over Peco’s set track points (the ones designed for smaller layouts). Before I purchase I want to make sure i could run larger locos on the small shunting layout I’m building. Cheers Greg

Evening all, I’d been reading through a book on the Westerns and noticed a great pic of ‘Western Renown’ on the branch with a wagon and brake van. From the pic it looked like the loco was propelling the service. It seemed odd to use a Western for such a trip working but were they common? Who was the coal for? I’m building a micro inglenook on a door in O gauge which will utilise a Western to shunt (as I like them!) so seeing that it wouldn’t be that unprototypical has been a real boost. Thanks in advance for any info. Greg

Much Obliged CP; will purchase accordingly. Greg

Hello all, Does anyone own a copy of the October 1987 edition of Railway Modeller who could confirm something for me? The magazine contained a layout I believe called ‘Holkham Granpus’. I was intrigued as to whether it was a layout based on Holkham, on the Wells Next Sea - Heacham line or something else. There’s a copy for sale on eBay but wanted to see what the layout of was before purchasing. Thanks in advance. Greg

Afternoon all, Does anyone have any record of a Western working away from the Western Region, in particular i’m Hoping someone has a record of one in East Anglia. In general I’m interested in their working lives as opposed to their preserved adventures. Thanks in advance. Greg