Les1952

Many thanks- it is a recurring problem, repetitive strain injury. Carpal tunnel part sorted out leaving something that is either tennis elbow or arthritis, and they're not entirely sure which (probably some of each). A bit of rest should see it well before the next examining season and all the heavy work on HDC is done for now. All trackwork on the main line part is complete. There are no points out front on the lower part. I'll ballast it this side of Christmas, a boring task but one with low physical stress. The colliery railway isn't started, and will in any case not be done until I've decided what sort of track I'm using. I want it to run well and look grotty, with wagons lurching about just as in the real thing. This probably means some form of setrack laid in short sections with lifts and angles at the rail joints, then infilled with colliery grot and weeds. I'm thinking of Tomix finetrack at the moment as it has a 6.5 inch curve available. I've got a circle of this ordered and have some straights and a power clip left over from the tramway on Furtwangen Ost. I'll do some extensive testing of this before I make a final decision. There is also an electric 3-way point with the motors embedded in the ballast, which sounds like a good handy item. If I take the Tomix route I'll need to talk nicely to Heiko at Modellbahn Union and see if I can get a decent price on an order. The backscene can't be done until the colliery line is laid as there are three holes to cut with positions determined by the exact route of the colliery line. All the best. Les

Very many thanks, gents, for the kind words. It helps having a cabinet maker construct the boards for me, though I did design them. WD is still too clean for a North Eastern one but will get its turn to be weathered as soon as it gets out of warranty. In the mean time it is finally behaving itself on trackwork. Saturday again.... Meatloaf and Status Quo still keeping vistors at bay so I can get on undisturbed...... By 11am yesterday the final siding was laid in the fiddleyard, and in the afternoon I got the protective L-shaped plastic strip on the side. Now I can run locos through the clockwise exit fan at speed without having to worry about them going off over the board edge if they derail. However, my right wrist is letting me know I've seriously overdone it this week, and is now in its splint for a coule of days, so I'm doing no building at all next week and concentrating on soak testing the main line circuit with any locos that might run on it. I've already found one fishplate that was under the rail it was supposed to be holding in place (only one so far ). I'll also make sure everything that is going to Warley with Stamford East gets a good run. First up is the 4-car DMU which now has corridoor connections. I tried tissue paper connectors and couldn't get them to behave, so these are made of layers of felt. Not so forgiving but I've also labelled each car on the underside to show what it should be coupled to at each end. It works OK with the power car pulling (fine for Hawthorn Dene). I've not yet tried it propelling, which it will need to do 50% of the time at Warley. One car is still to do. This one has lurked in the bottom of the loco box for some time. Originally I think it came from eBay, though it might have been a toyfair. It is a D49 on a Poole-built Farish Midland Compound chassis. It got put aside on acquisition as a lousy runner- due to having traction tyres and tender pickups that didn't pick up current. It originally had a Langley? tender top superglued to a Farish chassis, and set too far back. I thought originally the body was a shortened Langley B1 but now I'm not sure. it appears to be all one piece and is held to the chjassis with blu-tack (and sitting slightly too far back at the moment). So far I've taken off the original tender and failed totally to get to the pickup strips to bend them to touch the wheels. Plan B was then to see if I had a better tender. This one is off a Dapol B1 bought for £10 at Dapol's open day as a non-runner for spares. Its motor has already gone to another loco. I've run the original tender pickup wire to one side of the tender pickups and a new wire from the drawbar to the other side- not easy as there isn't a lot of wire from the pickups to the former motor. The drawbar also now has a joggle in it to get the height of the tender front down so it has its wheels on the rails. The tender has been filled with lead strip to keep it on the track. Currently it is on test and will toddle round the layout with eight mark 1s in tow with no pickup problems. I've got to check that the nameplates are correct for one of the Hunts of the final batch that DIDN'T give up its 4200 gallon flush-sided tender to a V2, and then repaint it all black and line it. I'm hoping it is one of the eight that got late crests (lion facing forwards both sides and never corrected). Its duties will be Middlesbrough to Newcastle semi-fasts. Time for bed... Les

Thursday excitement - TRAINS RUNNING. Three days spent mostly in the workshop laying track with Meatloaf and Status Quo repelling visitors successfully. Most of the fiddle yard is now done- or in the case of the siding furthest from the board edge, re-done. Only the road nearest the front edge to lay and I've run out of track pins. I've run a pair of drop wires from each main line track on each board to my On-Tracks twin controller, and have used this to test for shorts- I got a nice puff of smoke from the fiddle yard on one track where there was some copper in the dust across a break I'd cut in the copperclad, but brushing that away solved the problem. Now power is in I can test my tracklaying with some of my more track-sensitive locos and stock. The G5 rebuilt from a Dapol M7 won't run on Stamford East at all. Apart from problems with taking three dead frog points in quick succession it has no major issues. Solution here will be to keep it on a straight road, probably sharing it with a J27 on hoppers. The WD derailed on the first point it came to- then its copper flat spring over the bogie appeared as I was lifting it upright again. Removing this altogether has stopped it derailing and climbing points. Siding length means the lonest mineral train is likely to be 20 hoppers, so it won't be outclassed by the smaller locos. Tomorrow should see Cock O'The North on test, and maybe the last bit of the lower circuit (the final fiddle yard road) laid in. The WD on a train of hoppers passes one of the A3s on a passenger at the site where the underbridge is going to be. All for now Les

Monday Blues Another frustrating day at the office workshop. No visitors to distract me, loud music from Status Quo then Sweet kept them away. On the positive side I've got both ends of the fiddle yard laid and put down the copperclad at the board joins. I've got the first two wires soldered in and hopefully will be able to test with a loco tomorrow. On the negative side one thickness of copperclad is adequate for the board join at the front but not enough for the code 80 in the fiddle yard. Two thicknesses are too much after smearing the glue on. I've had to add a thickness of balsa either side of the copperclad but have ended with a slight incline either side of the board join at the back. On the better side- checking clearances with the A3 results in these. Clearance is slightly more than with two coaches passing. The new cutout has given me the space for the coal drops as a landsale yard. It will be a little higher and the road will rise up past it. The track at the front is now stuck down for one metre from the right end swinging inland to the underbridge. Hopefully I'll get that bit laid tomorrow. Plenty yet to do. Les

Should be OK, the throw of one coach outwards against the overhang of another is critical- but I'll try an A3 on the inner against a coach overhang on the outer. 9F cylinders won't be a problem as there isn't a platform. Boards are now back and the upper level is cut back in width on the colliery board. Pics on Monday (Spalding show to buy bits tomorrow). All the best les

A Day of Progress (in both directions) I've been looking at copperclad sleeper strip for the board joins, and something 5mm wide or bigger will be best. Packs of 10 are enough for this layout AND Rise Park, so I'll source a pack for that. I picked up the two packs of Code 80 track, and a replacement point for the one I couldn't find (I'd used it on Furtwangen Ost), together with rail joiners (12 packs for the two layouts). Todays jobs done are fiddleyard jobs. There is less end clearance on the colliery board than on the bridge board for the turn, so I've laid in the end first. 12" radius Strack for the outer and 10.5 inch for the inner. As already explained the fiddleyard has to be two fans of sidings running in the same direction rather than them both fanning out from the middle. Checking clearances at the tightest point- there is actually almost 3mm between coaches as they pass- I've used Mark 1s as they are the longest planned for the layout- I'll cross-check later with a Class 156 and a Class 153 in case Mr Simon gets big ideas Showing how the entry and exit open out from each other at each end. Mark 1s are a mixture of ancient Farish, new Farish and MTK. I also laid in the front point fan and curve at the other end- the front one goes in first as it then sets the boundaries for the one behind it- I felt it was easier to lose a road from the inside if I'd miscalculated. A temporary length of track has allowed me to confirm the length of the shortest siding- a 4-car DMU plus an eight-wagon mineral train or equivalent. An express plus an inspection saloon will also fit. Pannier still awaiting conversion to open cab saddletank. The backwards step When I marked out the edges of the upper level at the front I marked the lower edge rather than the upper, but have got the edges of the upper level made at the lines.... As a result there are too many cliff edges! Tomorrow the colliery board is going back to Trevors for the front edge of the upper level to be cut back to a new line further back. This will restore the planned gradient to the road, and allow space for the landsale yard to sit below the colliery level. This will effectively give the following levels - main line at datum, colliery at +1.5 inch, road under bridge at -1.5 inch and landsale yard at +0.5 inch. There may yet be more above the colliery level, but they will be minor.

First track now laid. The curve at the North End of the fiddle yard on the main line clockwise has now been laid, together with the final point of the exit fan (only four track pieces but it is a start). I've also got another four ventilators done on the push-pull brake roof (only four more of these to go) and have finished the underside between the bogies and applied a first coat of paint to it. Tomorrow I've got to pick up a box of Code 80 from Access Models for the fiddle yard, and look out for some OO gauge copperclad sleeper strip for use at the board edges. I'll hopefully get these at Spalding show on Sunday, together with 4 reels of wire for the electricals. And so to bed.. Les

The 66000 is a "sercondhand" addition to the Bregtalbahn fleet, hence the Dapol couplers for freight duties, which it shares with the MaK diesel and the 0-8-0 with the flashing lamp. The only two items giving coupler problems on a regular basis were the stake wagon which caught its dropper on the checkrail of the point by the shed when being propelled and the bogie tanker which likes the uncoupler by the platform too much. Not a lot to sort out rolling stock wise before next September (the next exhibition for it), thank goodness. The 66000 did a spell at braunstone with no problems other than an occasional stutter on the new point where the track wasn't quite clean enough by the dead frog for a loco that still needs a bit of running in. In the meantime it is all systems go for Hawthorn dene Colliery for a couple of months. All the very best Les

Going into hibernation. I'd thought there might just be enough space in the workshop for FO and Hawthorn Dene Colliery both to be worked on. WRONG. I can fit both in lengthways but can't get round. So FO will sit on its end for a month or two while I get HDC's trackwork done. One thing I did finally get done was the point indicators. They'll not get any white as they don't rotate. Adding wires to the point tensioner can wait until spring when FO comes out of hibernation again. All the very best Les

Boards are back again The boards are now fitted with their legs and the upper level for the colliery is built- there is less room between it and track level than I'd planned so I'll have to think carefully about gradients of edges etc- it might be a little more clifflike in places than the real thing... With Furtwangen Ost in place there isn't all that much space in the workshop- so as FO isn't due out again for several months it has gone on end to allow more access to HDC. By putting it at an angle the full 10' by 2'9 fits in the workshop so I can use the door, get round the end, sit at my workbench AND reach both sides of the layout- in a space of 16' X 10. That's part of Gresby under the workbench on the right- Mr Simon still hasn't got the go-ahead for its new home move. Looking the other way showing FO on end. Top level being used to store bits while tracklaying takes place on the lower circuit (the main line) The front of the layout is get-attable. Shows the dip, and the steepness that will have to be put on the road upwards to reach the top level. More new stock- or what I've been up to- an LNER driving trailer for push-pull services- an Etched Pixels Ultima kit. Must get on. Hopefully things to report will now happen a bit more frequently. Les

New Toys Knowing the Bregtalbahn was an operation of the SWEG up to its closure in 1973 I've been waiting for the Brekina MAN railcar in SWEG colours, which were to all intents and purposes the same as most other minor railways in Germany, it would seem, unlike the rainbow hues of the present day. Courtesy of DM Toys.de here it is, arrived in today's post Designed about 1950 and introduced to the SWEG in 1955 or thereabouts, it could have run on the Bregtalbahn for up to 18 years before closure. There were at least eight of these in the SWEG roster (VT3,6,7,9 and 25 to 28 were still running in the 1990s and some or most into this century- VT9 being photographed as recently as 2006) so the real Furtwangen may well have seen one. Also likely to have run on the Bregtalbahn is this one- My photo, at Endingen on the SWEG Kaiserstuhlbahn on 11th April 1987. I'm still looking for one of these..... Not likely to have reached Furtwangen in reality is this, bought from Mount Tabor Models at the Wirksworth show and now fitted with Dapol couplers to take its turn on the goods. Very much a rule 1 loco this, but the local Eisenbahnfreunde might have acquired one and restored it to vintage SNCF blue... Ballast now laid around the new point and drying for two days. Some wheel cleaning to do and the blue tram needs motor bearing attention before Saturday. Plenty to get on with. Les

Replacing the point First the latest full length pic- the colour is slightly different as it is under its own warm white LEDs which tend to yellow the colours a little. Taken set up at Wirksworth. Now to the point. The board under the offending point is too thick for a PL10E point motor and the point is too close to the board edge for motors with longer actuators. Next problem is that there is literally no place behind the backscene for a switch and the wire in tube runs under the higher level meaning a switch can't be inserted here either. Hence the dead point has to go. ..... and has. The end of the wire-in-tube can just be made out here- look downwards from the two legs at the top of the pic past the flower in the railings and it is just visible. For the replacement I've decided that electrical integrity is paramount. Accordingly I've gone for an INSULFROG point. This isn't as daft as it seems. With no way of switching the frog of an insulfrog point externally it would rely on blade contact to pass current to the blade and frog. This is the bit that failed on the one that I've removed. An Insulfrog point can be (and has been) bonded with a short wire loop from the blade to the adjacent rail, meaning the blade is always live. Colour difference is because the last pic was taken with flash. By now I've upset a lot of people as it is against received wisdom, BUT the shortest wheelbase loco in the stud (the Glaskastern) has no problems whatever with dead frogs, which are used in the fiddle yard for space reasons. Given the level of traffic on the layout the nylon frog isn't likely to wear significantly in my lifetime, and the simplicity of operation of the railway is maintained. Meanwhile ballast needs laying. Pics of new toys (plural now) to follow..... Les

Wirksworth Show went well, lots of positive feedback, and a lot of people staying to look for some time. Two more invites to exhibitions, and three enquiries, which when added to the enquiry I had earlier means 2014 might be a busy year.... Downside is that the switch blade on the point in front of the brewery has given up the ghost. There isn't any way I can get power directly to the frog (baseboard too thick for a motor and nowhere for a switch round the back) so it has had to come out and be replaced- a bit of a panic rebuilding this week as the layout is out again on Saturday morning. Pics later (and of another new toy....) All the best Les

Off to Wirksworth Just a quick photo to show how it all fits into one car- with room for myself and a spare operator. Operators for this weekend- Trevor Webster and myself on Saturday, with Mr Simon instead of Trevor on Sunday. If you are in Wirksworth please say hello. All the very best Les Thinks- could do with a protective lid for the layout. Must talk nicely to Trevor about it- BMRC have a load of spare ply in the clubroom I can scounge......

Nothing said about the conversion packs at Dapol's open day last Saturday, though there is one shipment from China waitaing at Southampton and another arriving this week (may even have docked) so it is possible they might be out in the next week or so. If not then no information was given as to when the next consignment is due.... I'm also waiting for them. All the very best Les

What a difference some overhead makes... It may only be 0.5mm thick (scale 3") but it does make a difference. This second one shows I need to lift a mast a little..... It even shows up where the tramway crosses the top road. Still quite a bit to do to before Wirksworth in 8 days time. Les

Baseboards arrived (for first time) The two boards have arrived for checking and for the trackplan to be drawn out full size. Once this is done they go back to Whatton for finishing off. The two boards side by side waiting to go into the workshop. Looking through the workshop door showing the amount of floor space the boards take up. On the right at the near end half of Gresby packed up (still) ready for its move North, and at the far end Furtwangen Ost being prepared for its two outings in the next three weeks. The cutout for the underbridge has been started- the shape of the edge on the front edge has to be drawn out before being cut with a jigsaw. The underside of the plain right-hand baseboard. The boards can stay stacked on edge when not being worked on for now. Plenty to do, more pics when I've actually done something. Les

Springy wiring The 0.5mm knitting elastic arrived yesterday, and I spent this morning getting the first length of tramway wire added. 3 inches scale diameter, and plinks when you catch it - and more importantly will snap before the masts do! Pics will be posted as soon as I finish the job. Next is to find a means of colouring it. All the best Les

OH CLANG! I've miscounted the points in the fiddle yard. The total number of points (16) is correct but the number of trailing and facing of each hand isn't. The diagram might help. There are 16 points in the yard, 8 for trains arriving and 8 for trains leaving. The bottom fan is a reflection of the top, so you need 4 lefts and 4 rights for arriving trains (which are thrown), and 4 left and 4 right for the exits (which are trailing and have been converted to no moving parts), right------ WRONG. The bottom fan is a ROTATION of the top one. All arriving trains are faced with a sequence left-right-right-right whether in the top fan or the bottom one. All departing trains have the sequence right-left-left-left regardless of which fan they are in. Number of points - total 16, thrown 2 left and 6 right, trailing 2 right and 6 left. Multiply this by two layouts starting simultaneously and we have 8 left and 8 right trailing, needing 4 and 12, and 8 left and 8 right working, needing 12 and 4. Being code 80 insulfrog they aren't useable elsewhere. Shortfall means that another 4 right-hand trailing points need sourcing, with 4 now spare, and 4 right-hand working points need exchanging for lefts as the new Peco points aren't suitable. Still awake? However... There is an alternate solution, fortunately. This is to flip the lower fan to the same way round as the upper one. Again the diagram will help. This now means that trains running clockwise round the layout enter their fiddleyard through an oppositely handed fan to those arriving travelling anticlockwise round the layout. Total cost two additional short Setrack straights for each layout to move the clockwise fan approach from the centre to the edge of the yard. So in three years' time if anyone notices that Hawthorn Dene Colliery or Rise Park have fiddleyards looking like the lower plan view, this is the reason.... Time for bed, said Zebedee..... Les

Pics of the Day I've been doing a few more high-res pics to make up a CD of images. Here's three of the new ones. Looking along the layout with the brewery front (new marker on the projecting wall), Dr Who on the roof, and the town in the distance. Bemo railcar gets a green light to continue to Furtwangen Stadt at the end of the line. Combino tram passes the Marktplatz, showing the effect of the new masts for the tramway. Hopefully the cord for the wire will arrive tomorrow. All the very best Les

More Legs That one sounds like a Pennine village. I took the timber to Trevor's yesterday, and after trying to do something about the bump in the middle of Stamford East ready for it to go to Warley- we've improved it a bit but the track is likely always to be a bit lumpy across the join- we got down to business with Trevor's bandsaw and cut the sides and timbers. The underbridge will be on the left hand board about a foot from the join. This gives room for the road under it to climb up to track level by the join and then continue upwards afterwards- makes joining the boards simpler. After talking things over I've taken datum down from 48 inches above the floor to 45. This is still higher than most layouts but a little more wheelchair friendly- it isn't a deep layout and I want a view upwards rather than just the usual one inwards over the rooftops. The colliery will be at a higher level than the railway, and with a mixture of embankments and cuttings going on there shouldn't be too much of the flat-topped railway effect (which I hope I also managed to avoid with Furtwangen Ost). First causalty was the trestle- the right-hand board will now have two legs under it and the left-hand one only. One less thing to forget when packing the car for a show. Plan and side elevation of the baseboard joint. The left hand board will sit on two ledges made of 9mm ply and be pushed forward and located with three alignment dowels. It will be held with either two split hinges (one front, one back) or a split hinge at the front and a spiral locator at the back. I have had to go to Screwfix for a pack of hinges and a pack of split hinges, but I've not lost out on the trestle chain as I'd forgotten to buy it..... Meanwhile work continues on stock. This Fairburn finished up at Darlington and was used on Darlington-Saltburn parcels and Darlington-Sunderland-Newcastle parcels work. Cruel enlargement shows I've managed to scratch it somehow below the number. Lettering and lining by Fox, done by me very slowly and carefully over a number of weeks. Loco is a bitza, bought as a Stanier 3MT 2-6-2T on eBay , stripped down and given a correct front end from a toyfair luckybag, and a chassis concocted from parts of the 3MT and 2 others in the scrap box. It runs nicely. Not bad with a right hand with Repetitive Strain Injury and a pair of hands that don't always do what the brain tells them to.... All the very best Les

Hello Stephen. Nice to have an update to do.... All analogue- kept simple, though the layout is surprisingly intensive to operate, especially when running it single-handed. The guys who stood in at Upton Hall (when the layout could attend the show but I couldn't) said they were exhaused at the end of the day. The level of concentration needed to avoid mistakes on the tramway is very high. All the very best Les

I did cheat and leave the power car as the end one- it meant I only had one underframe to do, but means the DMC is full of motor. It is the full Bo-Bo chassis, and doesn't have problems with the 4-coach set. One other thing to do is to find some shorter Rapidos in the scrap box to get the trailers a little closer together if possible. I'll put another pic up (probably some weeks away) when it is nearer complete, though it will be running on Stamford East again at Warley. At least on Hawthorn Dene it will always have the powered car leading. All the very best Les

I must confess I have in mind using a couple of old bell pushes "liberated" from an old Darlington Corporation bus in a local scrapyard in 1969. Nice and big and unmistakeable- even have "push once" embossed into the shiny aluminium surround! I only need two distants. I'm wondering if I use the square post and cut off the finial if anyone will spot they're not really NER slotted post types. I am talking N-gauge, by the way. Les

Not a lot happening.. Trevor has been on holiday this week. Hopefully I'll get over there with the timber during the coming week. In the mean time I've been upgrading the 4-car class 101. I originally started this as a train for Farndon Road, largely because I had a 3-car class 101 and a spare centre trailer. The main surgery is to swap coach ends so the guards and luggage are in car two. Closer view of the swapped cars. The set has had new exhausts fitted to the end cars, and a dummy engine on the unpowered car at the far end of the set. I gave it a run out on Stamford East at Loughborough last weekend. It coped with the "interesting" trackwork running with power car leading and trailing. Next job is to dig out some brass buffers I got yonks ago from N-gauge Bob, and to blacken some tissue paper to make corridoor connections. The back end (in the pic) needs a headcode adding- I did the other one some time ago. Why not make a "New Farish" set? To do this you need TWO three-car sets at a cost of £250, then have to cut two cars up. Get it right and you have a 4-car and a power twin. Bog it up and one set is totally useless. Why a 4-car? In the period I'm modelling DMUs round the coast were either 4 or 8 car sets (with an occasional stray power twin from the Whitby area). I'll stick with the 4-car (and probably run my 3-car 108 as a power twin from time to time). All the best Les