ianb3174

One of the nice things about forums is the way you can digest huge swathes of information from the contributors. Not so this site. The constant ad bombardment hogs the bandwith (even on a 1gbps pipe) and makes each page tiresomely slow to load. Basically I'm saying that I would previously spend hours on here being inspired and hoovering up advice. Now I come for a few specifics and depart, any new content dismissed because of the loading times. 

I've just counted a page load time of over 90s. In that time there was one huge targetted ad which had to be manually closed and a permanent annoyance in the corner which scrolled through inane contact on 5 loops before I got to my message. It's 2022 and this is not good. Selling out to some advertisers that hog your space is an extremely shortsighted move. 

Have you not studied the demographics of sites (non commercial) with ad bombardment? It's a major turnoff. 

Enjoy your revenue because it's killing your user base and they only want your traffic, when they go It'll be time to switch off the hosting

Highlevel motor and gearbox ordered. Markits order in on old school paper order form in the post. Not had a response to numerous emails to unwilling to send my card details to an unreposnsive address. Let's see what arrives. I think I've got the right bits.

It's not that I wouldn't, it's more that I would have less of a connection to the locations. Though I did plan layouts of Nanttle and Chwilog back in 4mm days. 

It will likely be a development of the core Drakelow idea of a former quarry branch co-opted by the MoD during wartime to store munitions in the caves/armament production etc.

I'd love to model a whole station (prototype) and have planned out several over the last 12 months as a test. Holborn Viaduct, Millwall junction, North Greenwich, North Woolwich etc, basically lots of Victorian East London locations. Sadly all too big to do properly in the space available and/or requiring lots of stock to do it justice. 

I've thought about sticking to one company, usually defaulting to LNWR as it's in our family, and spent last night trying to get Wednesbury Town station to fit into the Templot pint pot (it didn't). 

I will always like the uniqueness of lines like the Bishops Castle Railway and the Shropshire and Montgomery along with other farmers lines heading nowhere important with a four wheel coach and a couple of vans. 

What it won't be is a quadruple mainline station on two levels with a bus station.

A short train appears on the test track. There is potential for more, except in my quest for a tidy(ish) workspace I've squirrelled parts away and completely forgotten where. I'm having a clear out of accumulated stuff of other gauges soon so my hidden stuff should show up. 

The upshot of the clearout will be to realise more space and a significant (to me) increase in railway space. I won't have to cram it into 1.5 x 0.5m. The new plans involve 3x 1.2 x 0.6m boards with A frame legs so can be assembled elsewhere in the house. They'll be small enough to work on individually and feature all those mod cons like alignment dowels, holes for wiring runs & depth for servo turnout operation.

Obviously the biggest plus in all this is that I get to design more, and probably ram the space with track at all angles. 

Existing Drakelow above will feature in some fashion, either incorporated or relaid on the new boards. Off to scribble some ideas on the pavement in chalk.

They're society chairs and code 87 rail. Two of the sidings have some Code 75BH and 4mm C&L chairs and are packed up slightly to maintain the rail head height

Just to show that I'm not all neat trackwork and excellent craftsmanship (jokes) here is my recent test track plank. It's a 450mm piece of 12mm ply with some copperclad sleepers glued on it. I've gone multi-gauge as I intend to use 1/64 as the basis for many projects. This is built on the idea of a common rail with the various gauges measured off it.

In order of top to bottom

1. Common rail 1

2. 9.42mm to represent 2ft (610mm) gauge (actual 9.53)

3. 14.2mm to represent 3ft (914mm) gauge (actual 14.28)

4. 22.45 Standard gauge

5. 33.43 to represent GWR broad gauge 

6. Common rail 2

7. 12mm to represent 2'6" (762mm) gauge (actual 11.90)

8. 16.2mm to represent both/either Metre gauge (15.62mm actual) or 3'6" (16.67mm actual). A compromise but it's neatly between the two.

9. 25mm to represent 5'3" (1600mm) gauge.

As you can see my soldering is top drawer and I've almost kept the rails straight along their length. At least they're consistently gauged. 

I've added check rails to a small section which are all set to 0.71mm. I am standardising on the S scale wheel profile as suggested above. 

I was going to clean it all up and give it a dust of paint before show and tell but it's not meant to be pretty.

1/64 lends itself to a multitude of gauges, there's probably others that will catch my eye and make an appearance on the board. 

The broad gauge may not be prototypical rail but I'd love to build some mixed gauge track for a cameo. Has anyone done BG in S? 

I'll put my verniers down now and build some things with wheels...

Hope all goes well and you can get back to inspiring us with your modelling, as well as your recovery

I’ve built some 3ft gauge in S using 14.2mm gauge. 

I'm hoping to purchase an Elegoo Mars or similar in the new year so watching these threads with interest. I'll certainly need to up my CAD game (odd for someone who started out in a drawing office). For those with a penchant for track there is an excellent thread on the Templot forum about 3D printed track. So many possibilities I'm going to need a bigger house

2 hours ago, steverabone said:

Are these wheels the plastic centred Gibson wheels? I found (in the days when I used these wheels on rolling stock) that sometimes the plastic centres were not pressed properly into the metal tyres. Pushing them out and the pressing them back in again with a drop of superglue often cured the problem. The same has happened with some of the loco wheels that I continue to use.

 

I can vouch for the usefulness of the L shaped back to back gauges.

I believe they are. I shall try your technique and see if it improves the running

My next question is to contestant number 2.

Is there, to anyone's knowledge, an S scale BB gauge available for purchase? Specifically I'd like one of the type that is a grooved brass bar which would also help me true up wheels on axles. I've got a number of wheelsets that are out of true a small amount and although I can run my verniers between they remain annoyingly out of kilter. I can either make them slightly out, or very out. Neither option is what I need. 

Thanks in advance

In the spirit of Question Time, what do the panel suggest as the best approach to ballast? I'm a byway type line, so what would be appropriate in S?

Tuesday progress. I added a bay platform turnout to make the layout into an inglenook with a kickback. There will be (in operating mode) an add on headshunt at the toe end of this turnout. I may also add an sector plate at the far end to allow runround. That is for the future if I ever get any linear space of sufficient depth. It might have to live in the shed which will be the only place long enough. Anyhow, construction. Usual stuff except I've used Code 75 rail for this one and packed up the sleepers at the heel end to match the Code 82 of the existing track. As a result I've still got an annoying step between sizes. I claim the prototype would have dodgy track at this location under Rule 1. I'm only annoyed because, to me, it detracts from the smooth running through the crossing (and the wobbly wheeled 7 planker). The bay the wobbly wagon sits on will be extended further, you can just make out the sleepers laid in preparation beyond it.

I have been reading Iain Rice's MRJ article on less than perfect track which make a lot of sense. Some years ago I went on a brakevan ride around the sidings at Highley SVR and was surprised at how bumpy the track was off the 'mainline'. My sidings will be rough, mind you, so will the mainline. 

As I can't get much more track on the board now, it's only 1200x300, I'm going to start making some stock. Yes, it is about b***dy time. I reckon a dozen wagons and a coach (6w) and some motive power, which I intend to use RC control. Before I go down that rabbit hole i'll get ballasting done and turnouts fitted with WIT/levers. 

As ever, critique is welcomed, and sometimes acted upon. 

The tracks to the left were Shropshire & Montgomery

Also the site of the only double junction on a light railway in the UK, apparently

It's Llanymynech on the Shropshire & Montgomery. This is, I believe, during the period of neglect between the Old Potts company and the S&M taking over. 

There won't be any mixed gauge track on this. I will try some regauged S wheels in the test wagon and from looking at the relative sizes there isn't much difference, 0.18mm width increase and 0.05 extra flange thickness over P4. With the same BB they should work as well. 

I doubt my models in this experiment will come under too close scrutiny though. It's likely destined for lying unused on a shelf for the foreseeable.  I have some CDR and LLSR wagon drawings so might have a bash at a wagon , or even a coach. Such fantastic prototypes that look good in any scale

I've been very quiet of late and my only modelling time has been spent watching others. As I'm now on 10 days isolation for catching Covid I thought I'd have a play.

First up, I found a box of P4 bits and pieces and did think about a cheeky build in that 'common' scale. After giving myself a stern beating I realised I had the ideal and unique scale already at my disposal and my designs would work equally well scaled up. 

To that end, Cookley is now more likely to function as the fiddle yard for a larger layout now I've had a move round in my cellar. 

Whilst I was thinking about that (I have said I'm easily distracted) I remembered some ideas I had with the Irish narrow gauge. I saw a great photo of chaired track in 3ft, NCC I believe, which got me pondering.

A few hours later we arrive at the following:

3ft is 14.28mm in S. As near as finescale 3mm on 14.2mm track. Using 4mm chairs and code 75 BH, 0.8mm flangeway chairs and a bit of borrowing from the 3mm Society standards to use 12.8mm BB and a check gauge of 13.30mm. 

The wheels, and wagon are to P4 and I pushed them in on the axles to narrow the gauge. 

yes, they're a bit rusty, having been in a drawer for a while but you can see it works fine. It runs through nicely on both routes and the gaps look proper. 

The Templot plan was drawn up using some arbitrary dimensions picked up over the years, namely 72" sleepers for running lines. Plan stuck to a bit of 5mm foamboard and the ply sleepers PVA'd on. Standard Exactoscale/C&L chairs etc. It was all spaced out by eye/vernier so I'm not claiming 100% accuracy but using P4 wheel profiles should give a lot of options for the smaller wheels of the prototype. 

Going to build the remaining parts tomorrow with a bit of plain line each end but early signs are good (I didn't have to dremel anything). Rather enjoyed my adhoc session tonight. 

Thoughts and critique welcome as ever

In Birmingham today and noticed they've dug up the tracks and road in Corporation street and the signs tell of new tram lines to Edgbaston village. Build it one end, take it up the other

Awesome work again

The ideal garden scale?

Nice. Reminds me of a family friend 40 years ago who owned a small icecream factory in a similar yard, but no railway

The foamboard idea was primarily for a micro layout with handbuilt track and wire in tube point operation, so all the mechanics were on the surface of the board. Mounting a point motor shouldn't be an issue but you'd have to glue a piece of ply to the underside to support it then drill through. That would help fixing it to the underside. It might need deeper section sides and bracing than the 60mm I used. I always handbuild my track onto Templot printouts glued to a separate piece of foamboard. Sleepers glued and ballasted then rails added, TOU added then I glue onto the baseboard itself. I don't use any pins or flexi. 

In terms of track at the edges, there was only one exit road onto a fiddle board. This was done in the same way, reinforced with ply. 9mm as I recall, on both sides with washers and wingbolts to secure. The whole thing was still very rigid but probably wouldn't stand up to much moving. It felt twice as heavy with a loco on it. 

The Celotex efforts were much more robust. That can be cut through for point motors etc and bigger panels (450x1200) don't sag when edged with ply. 

It depends on how you're going to store and use the layout really. Those laser cut ply ones are very robust and I'd probably use one on my next layout. I only have room for a cameo atm, on an IKEA shelf 1200x300.