CF MRC

Via Eboracum or York Way viaduct: 2mm scale in the garden. I have been working on this somewhat massive structure over the last few weeks. It started as my summer holiday caravan project and has been the conversion of the temporary York Way Viaduct to a permanent structure (as usual on our layout, temporary can mean anything between 15 weeks and 15 years: the latter in this case). Of this the Romans would be proud, henceforth it is to be known as the VIA EBORACUM. The viaduct has used acres of Slaters brick plastikard and some natty 10 thou thick styrene arches that Mike Randall cut out using a CAD driven Sillhouette cutter. There are 21 arches all told and it will make a very impressive back stop to the goods yard view when complete. It needs the granite road setts and pavements putting in and a lot of painting! Tim

John, afraid they're not Met units, but Oerlikon on the NLR. Originally from John Redrup of London Road Models. Tim

There is 'rule' on minimum track radius that Stewart Hine told me: An inch for every millimetre of scale is the mainline minimum e.g 7mm scale 7'. Nothing in 2 mm scale will have major problems with 600mm radius, but it is surprising how much clearance bogie stock needs behind the solebars, especially with long wheelbase or 6 wheel bogies and 7mm diameter wheels. On the NLR on Copenhagen Fields the Oerlikom set negotiates a < 9" bend at the layout front. To accommodate this, the buffers on the inside of the curve are significantly shorter than they should be to avoid buffer lock, but then nobody ever sees them.... John Greenwood has divine dispensation to do things that others should not try, but he is fortunate that Bulleid Pacifics are relatively short wheelbase engines. Tim

It's a well trimmed laurel hedge. Actually I think a suitable dense green foam would work quite well for the hedge, with a piece of sand paper for the gravel: representing the engine in 2mm scale would be more of a challenge... Tim

Not quite 2mm scale, but the reason I have not been doing the small stuff lately! Back to 2mm in the autumn: we will be working on Copenhagen Fields from the end of the September. Tim

Mark, I'm disappointed that you are not making working Heusinger or outside Stephensons valve gear for this engine! Tim

I put a worm directly onto the motor shaft of Denys Brownlee's N2, which has run hundreds of miles on Copenhagen Fields. However, this motor is a Maxon and I suspect they are a little more heavily engineered than the Portescap type. The worm is actually on a motor shaft extension with a bearing at the far end, but tightly controlled for end float. It replaced a nasty Sagami motor many years ago. More recently I remotored a Farish V2 with an almost direct replacement with a Maxon motor direct onto the worm: it made the engine much more controllable and allowed the hideous skirts to be filleted. This hasn't yet done many miles, but I suspect will be OK. Tim

Unless you use wires on the axles in generous axle holes to give the chassis a bit of flexibility, it may indeed be that the chassis is not dead flat. In fact on an 0-6-0 it's better to have the middle axle a touch high. The old trick is to put the mechanism on a mirror and look / feel for any gaps or rocks between the glass surface and the wheel tyres. If there are gaps then firmly take hold of each end of the chassis and bend / twist it in the right direction to at least make the middle wheels off the ground (only a gnat's whisker of course). I have done this Uri Geller trick on many chassis, especially Farish 0-6-0s and it helps considerably. If this prospect is too frightening, then determine which wheel set is too low and file out the axle bearings vertically to allow its upward movement to bring it into 'flatness'. This axle should then have two light phosphor bronze springs on it. This adjustment must not be done on the driven wheel, of course. As much weight as possible and seriously polishing the wheel rims is also a good idea. Tim

Looks very nice: I like signal boxes too. The ratio handrails do look a bit over over scale, but I am involved with the St Albans preserved box and the handrails on the steps are big bits of timber. Your etched ones on the first two boxes may even be a bit skinny! Tim

After trawling for hours through the archives of the Luftwaffe, held at the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, I have managed to locate this reconnaisance / bombsight view taken from a JU88 in September 1940. It bears an uncanny resembleance to Copenhagen Fields, the model. Tim

First train round the complete Up Goods line on Copenhagen Fields today! After a lot of work this last few months, we finally have the first of the goods lines traversing the expanse of the KX Goods Yard. All things being well, at York next week end, we will have goods trains threading under the NLR viaduct at the higher level via Copenhagen Tunnel. See some of you then? Do make yourselves known at the layout. Tim

I had Denys's plastic version of the coupling on my Kirtley back tank in the 1980's. The problem was that, because of sticktion, the flapper was not as free in plastic as it could be in metal, as it also had negligible weight. It wasn't really compatible with the later etched versions either. Tim

Quite honestly, the concept of this type of coupling goes back more than 25 years, to at least Denys Brownlee's plastic moulded version, which he then made into the BB etched design with Derek Bunting. Any design rights would have long gone: if they were ever enforceable. However, this is a pleasant hobby and it is probably not best to copy other peoples commercial material, other than for personal use. Tim

You make 'em, I'll fit them. Tim

We only let the gorillas from other scales clean the brass strip track. Tim

Don It's not so much the running, as the layout sitting in a freezing cold van overnight and then being heated up in an exhibition hall. We actually have a section of Denys Brownlee's original plastic sleeper based track from the 1960's - 70's on the layout: this has no positive rail location in the moulding, but does have a pin every 6". This has not caused any problems in 25 years. I think the secret is to make sure the track is ballasted early on. CF is built like a battleship, (let's say more battlecruiser, because we try to keep the weight down) which is why it has survived without needing major maintenance. Tim

Truly amazing! Tim

We desperately need some point ridding around the Belle Isle Up and Copenhagen Junction signal boxes: it's on the list. The scenery on the north side of the of the NLR has advanced a bit since these photos were taken. Tim

Thought I would start a thread on the MRC 2mm layout. We are off to Utrecht, Houten ( http://www.rail.nl/ ) this week for the show on Friday 24th to Sunday 26th. Any 2mm modellers welcome to call by. We have been making good progress on the up Goods Line covering the whole extent of the layout with the entrance to the KX Goods Yard, but this won't be complete for this show: it may be for the upcoming York show. The sight of trains transiting the goods lines at the South End will be very welcome after many years of development - there are a few double slips being modelled in the goods yard throat and the offstage civil engineering for the fiddle yard tracks is quite impressive. The layout will be in the RM next month (I think the last time was 1989) and Craig Tiley has taken some cracking photos of the layout. Tim

Thanks for that info Chris. The Chiltern Green rail (strip) was specially rolled to be 55 thou high to represent the combined height of the chair plate and the rail. The track looked finer than the subsequently available Peco code 55 rail because the rail top was narrower. Esitrac could be an option today. The goods lines were N gauge only; the fast lines had swinging frog points in the fiddle yard and there was only one trailing turnout set to universal standards on the Down Fast at the front. Luto Hoo was all 2mm Fine Scale. Copenhagen Fields has accommodated N gauge wheel standards, since its inception, on the Down goods line, but that will change to 2 mm fine scale when the lines are connected to KX Goods. Sidney Pritchard once made us an offer to provide the track for the layout at a price we could not refuse - but we did. It will be in the RM for the Easter issue (to coincide with the York Show). The excellent photos by Craig Tiley show the advantages of the fine scale standards quite nicely. Tim

After writing this post, I Googled the layout name and found the following link: TrainLife - December 1994 - Page 36 Amazing what you can find not he web, quite forgot that I wrote the article. Sorry for hijacking your thread Jerry! Tim

No it's a GF general purpose tank, kind of related to a GE engine. I used to have two on my old N Gauge layout in the 1970's (Gouldby for Caldecote) coupled together for banking trains up the 1 in 37 incline. The noise they made meant that you needed ear defenders and they were also quite good at shedding coupling rods. They were superceded by my model of Big Bertha, converted from a Minitrix 2-10-0. Tim