t-b-g

I don't know about the West Coast lines but the first all maroon ECML set appeared in 1957 if that is any guide. Tony

Many thanks for posting all those details of the construction. You have certainly set me thinking......

Good point. I should have added that I cleaned the contacts with a bit of brass shim with very fine emery glued to both sides. It is a useful tool in cleaning lots of electrical contacts.

Just had a similar problem with the fiddle yard on Buckingham, which has the same motors. The fault took ages to find but I did manage to fix it by cleaning the contacts. I also gave the whole thing a good clean and a touch of oil on the moving parts and motor bearings and the action is much more positive and the motor is also quieter now. It may be worth (if you haven't already) making little boxes of card or plasticard to fit loosely over the motors. It will keep dust and muck out. Peter Denny had them fitted and the motor that gave me a problem is the one that we lost the box for in the move and I haven't got round to making a new one. Tony

If a kit is too easy to build, some people, myself included, may feel that it is not enough of a challenge. To me, building a kit is not about getting a particular carriage or loco on a layout as quickly and easily as possible. If I wanted to do that I would go down the RTR route. To me, a kit should give a good deal of pleasure and enjoyment in the construction, coupled with a an opportunity to use and maybe develop a few skills along the way. I regard myself as a fairly experienced modeller nowadays and I don't think that there is a task within the hobby that I am scared of tackling. But it wasn't always so. When I was a beginner, my first loco build was a K's "bodyline" kit J50, which was designed to fit a RTR chassis (even I can't bring myself to call a Hornby Dublo cast lump "frames"). I only built one before I decided that just having half a dozen bits to stick together wasn't that exciting So I moved on to things like the Wills J39, which had many more parts but still fitted a RTR mechanism. Even as a 14 year old, I compared the kit with drawings and could tell that the wheels were in the wrong place so my next effort was a NuCast J6. By the time I was 16 I had built a NuCast V2 complete with valve gear and was attempting to scratchbuild. Most of the locos that I built from kits early on are now available RTR apart from the J6 and a J11 would have done instead. So is anybody in the situation I was in 40 years ago likely to start building kits?

I recall that we have touched on the subject before and I fully understand and agree with the reasoning behind the choice. I only raised it because the FB track was mentioned in connection with the later photo but not the earlier one. You are not alone in your selection either. I have seen several layouts (including Gamston Bank and Retford) which should probably by FB on the main lines in the period modelled. Again, a trade off in terms of time, work involved, cost and priorities. Tony G

I have a mixture of 6 wheelers. Some are D & S GNR types and use the kit arrangement. Some are on Brassmasters Cleminson etches and some are homemade using Comet etched internal bearings. They all work but the Brassmasters one gives much smoother ride than the other arrangements and that is what I will use in any future construction.

Being devilish once in a while is not necessarily a bad thing. Big chunks of the ECML were relaid with flat bottom rail quite early and indeed, in the first photo, there is flat bottom on view bottom right. I can think of one or two well known ECML layouts that should really have FB but haven't on grounds of availability or the work involved in making many yards of the stuff! Mostly, nobody ever notices.......

There is always a trade off between available time, complexity and size of the project and how quickly somebody wants to make progress. That is an entirely sensible approach and if I wanted to build a big main line layout I would probably do the same, perhaps with a view to building some locos and stock to replace or provide more variety than the RTR ones once the layout is up and running. I tend to go for less ambitious layouts so that I can build more myself but that is my personal choice and if were were all alike the hobby would be much less varied and interesting. If I gave the impression that I am anti RTR in any way, then I haven't expressed myself very well. The thing I am against is when words like snobbery and elitism are used in connection with people who do prefer to to build items rather than purchase them. I do it because I enjoy it and find it more satisfying to me as an individual. I have no other motivation.

Every once in a while, terms like snobbery and elitism appear in discussions on here. We each have the absolute right to follow the hobby in whatever way we choose. It would be lovely if we could be allowed to get on with building our models without people throwing such words around. You only have to go to something like EXPO EM or Scaleforum and you will quickly find that the finer scale folk are friendly, welcoming, encouraging and very happy to pass on whatever tips and experience they can to those who are perhaps newcomers and haven't tried things before. In 40 years of modelling, I have never seen the sort of behaviour described above. Experienced modellers pulling newcomers to shreds for daring to have a go at building something. There are a few (maybe more!) idiots in the hobby and perhaps people who have experienced such things have been unlucky to encounter such people. A kit or scratchbuilt loco simply has to represent a greater achievement on the part of the modeller than opening a box. The finished loco may not be as finely detailed as the latest Hornby/Bachmann etc. and it may not be as accurate. But in terms of the achievement of the modeller, there is no comparison. If those who just buy and run RTR don't see that, then it is they that have the problem in their attitude, not the poor sods sweating away trying to put a kit together with a soldering iron. And if anybody thinks that the satisfaction of putting the latest RTR model on a layout and saying "I bought that and put a new number on it" comes close to "There wasn't a kit so I got a drawing and built it from scratch" then they need to think again. I have done both. There are lots of people who can build better locos than I can. Mine are not as good as many RTR locos. But does it make me elitist and a snob because I enjoy doing such things? edited for spelling

Many thanks Kevin. My garage is 16ft long and I have room for a 2' x 16 station down one side. I have been drawing plans and reckon that I can get one platform (as an island) and 5 tracks or 2 platforms and 4 tracks in the available width. Mine will be GCR pre-grouping and I also like the idea of using a pilot to shunt the trains. An 8' platform will allow a 4-6-0 on 5 (short) bogie carriages leaving me 8' for the station throat. I have built an EM gauge layout in a very similar style and it was good fun to operate. You have pretty much confirmed my thoughts. I agree 100% about the construction. Adjustability of heights and levels and the facility to removed an individual part of the structure for replacement or repair are high on the list of features that I want to include. Cheers, Tony

Lovely to see this project. I have something similar under serious consideration and seeing what you have achieved has spurred me to even more serious consideration. My station design (or one of the possibilities) is very similar to what you have built. Out of interest, how wide are the boards for the station? Tony G

I have visited DEMU Showcase several times. Not because I am a big modern image fan but because there is usually some high quality modelling, good people to chat to and specialist trade support. I would not say that most of the layouts on show represent the railways of today. The vast majority are historical and go back to blue/green diesel times, when the railway scene was pretty much the same as steam days. The list of layouts this year does not specify what period they represent and I don't recognise (or more likely remember) many but something like "Netherwood Sidings" is an example of a railway which is more historical than modern. One of the reasons why I model the pre-grouping scene is that I can build things from scratch that are reasonable but probably not up to modern RTR standards and I don't have to run them next to offerings from Hornby/Bachmann etc. I agree 100% about the future of the hobby. We may be the last generation that builds model railways the way we do. In 20 years there may be so few railway modellers that all trade support goes and the hobby contracts to a few scratchbuilders. Or it may flourish as things like 3D printing allow tiny productions runs and models made to order rather than a great financial outlay for moulds and tooling. All we can really do is to enjoy ourselves and not get too wound up about having any responsibility for what happens in the future.

Could have been me! Tony G

I would have to agree with you! The valve gear looks very odd. The motion bracket does look as if it has dropped down as there shouldn't be a gap between the top of the bracket and the footplate. It gives the impression that the loco is in reverse gear. The slidebars certainly point down at the back, changing the angle of the connecting rod quite a bit. Whether we accept these things as they are not obvious as a loco runs round a layout has to be a matter of personal choice but I have to say that if it was me, I would be having a look to see if they could be corrected without a major rebuild, especially if photos are going to appear in the public domain. Go on Tony, you know the right thing to do!

Any chance of that one appearing in "Templot"?

Yet looking at your own layout threads, I see lots of very nicely modelled 1960s green diesels. Isn't that nearer the 1950s than the present day? I have read through the thread and can't find a single mention of anybody actually wishing that they still lived in the past. I model pre WW1 GCR but I certainly wouldn't want to get myself there by time machine. All we want to do is to build our model railways set in a period of our choice, when we think that they were more interesting and attractive.

I guessed that somebody with the right knowledge would be able say how to pin it down. I suppose, in a way, it is rather like a modern enthusiast not being able to pick the difference between a GCR or a GWR lower quadrant signal. If I was to sum up how I see the difference between the railways of old and the present day it is that in times long gone, the designers and engineers were not just interested in function and cost. They were artists as well as engineers. There were a tiny number of inelegant, awkward looking locos, often from people experimenting with something new or different. Most were elegant and balanced designs that bore a family resemblance to other locos on the line and created a sense of the company having an identity that was distinct. Liveries, on the whole, were attractive, refined and identified the owning company. Some liveries were so much associated with a particular company that the locos didn't often carry further identification other than tiny lettering on a cast plate or coat of arms (such as the LNWR). Modern liveries, no doubt after the involvement of expensive business image consultants often look to me as if they have been designed by children in a school playground. Funnily enough, the best modern trains I have seen have been the ones painted in liveries that hark back to better times. When my father in law saw the first ECML train in silver a few years ago he asked me if it was painted up to look like the pre war streamliners that he saw. Quite a few years ago I saw some modern DMUs at Carlisle painted up in what was damn near "blood and custard" and they looked superb. Nowadays it is more a case of adding as many bright stripes at funny angles and having colours clashing as much as possible. Going back to Tony's 3 photos of the scene, I could even dare to suggest that if you went back further and the locos were either LNER pre-war or even GNR, with a Single on a rake of 6 wheelers or an Atlantic on a rake of clerestory 12 wheelers, then that would make it even more attractive to some of us! edited for spelling error

It used to be said that you should be able to tell the area of the country that a layout is set in (and also possibly the period) without a train in sight. Looking at those three pictures, the signals and buildings in the first two pictures shout "LNER Main line" to me. Take away the train in the third photo and it could be anywhere. No doubt somebody will tell me that the overhead equipment has features that identify it as ECML but that is clutching at straws. I lost any interest I had in real railways the day the last Deltic was withdrawn. I visited a couple of old trainspotting favourite haunts recently. If they had looked like they do now in the 1970s, including the procession of garish and awful liveries and the only interest in the operation being that some trains stop and some don't, I would never have become a lifelong railway and model railway enthusiast. I know that some people, for some reason that I genuinely cannot grasp, actually like modern railways and think that glass, metal and concrete boxes make attractive station buildings. Or that railways that have bus shelters instead of station buildings are actually an improvement on what went before. Or that a layout where "train arrives" "train leaves" is interesting to operate. I would never dream of telling anybody that they shouldn't like or model modern railways. But I can understand how they don't draw youngsters into a lifelong interest like the railways of 40 plus years ago did to me. Tomorrow evening I shall spend a few hours with a friend (or maybe two) operating a layout set in 1907, which has trains that add and detach vehicles, are re-marshalled, change locos and have wagons shunted to various destinations. Even a slip coach (when it works). Lovely stuff! Tony G.

400 pages and 10,000 posts and still going strong (and showing some fine model making). Deserves a "congratulations". Tony G

There are timetabled light engine movements on Buckingham. At Grandborough Junction, several times a day, a slip carriage is detached. Depending on which working it is, sometimes the slip carriage is worked to Buckingham by a loco shedded at Grandborough. The slip carriage is then marshalled at the rear of an up train and the loco works back to Grandborough light engine. There are other "as required" light engine movements which at one time would have been needed as there were not enough locos to cover the various duties but as the number of locos increased, the number of L.E. workings dwindled.

I finally remembered to ask Vernon Harrod about the coaling hoist on Retford. He did write it up for an article in MRJ No 143, should anybody want to look it up. There are some subtle but visible variations between the hoist at Retford and the one represented by the Walworth kit. There are at least two known variants of the hoist and possibly more. So Vernon ended up doing his own drawings and scratchbuilding and very nice it looks too. The one in the prototype Chester photo is more like the kit version so using that one on the model is entirely appropriate. Tony

Very nice to see the "Denny" approach to wiring is alive and well! I have learned so much about layout wiring since getting involved with Buckingham GC. Sure, it has been a steep learning curve and there are parts of the layout that have been altered so many times that I can truly say "If I were wiring this up from scratch I wouldn't do it like this" but the basic ideas behind it are sound and I will certainly use them next time I get a layout project off the ground.

Sorry, I can't help with that one but I will ask Vernon when I see him (if the old memory works).

I have added photos to my original post but then it crossed my mind that if it doesn't appear as a new post, nobody might know that I have done it, so this is just to say that they are there now. If that makes any sense! Tony