Richard Mawer

BLOCK INSTRUMENTS AND TOKENS Tony Gee, you are right. Somehow you knew I’d go one step further. I’m going to install Block instruments on the mainline. At present we use Block Bells to pass trains between stations, but I’m adding Block instruments which will give us a visual aid to the status. I’m going to use a chicken head knob on a 3 position 2 pole rotary switch to show Normal, Line Clear or Train on Line, operated by the receiving station. This will operate corresponding LEDs on the sending station instrument. The destination drives the train on this layout and track power in the sending station is switched from local to destination “box”, by the sending station pulling off their Advanced Starting Signal. This will remain the same but the second pole of the Block Instrument switch will also be inserted into the circuit so the Instrument will need to be showing Train On Line as well for the power to be connected. This is all very simple to do. The single line branch has always bothered me a bit. Luckily the trains are not too frequent, but there is currently no single line token of any description. Putting in standard Block Instruments will not solve it. But I have devised a simple enough system using push buttons, LEDs and 2 latching 2 pole relays. After accepting a train on the bells, the destination box will press a Release button and the sending box will press a Take Token button. This fires a relay that gives a green light to the sender and a red light to the destination. It mimics taking a token out. The system is locked until the destination presses his Replace Token button. Only then can either end initiate the process again. The second pole of the relay connects power between the 2 stations as well as the Starting Signals. I’ve ordered the parts so I’ll keep you posted. Must do more scenery too.

HOW GREEN IS MY VALLEY? At last some green scenery. This is City of Bath on the Up Leicester express due into Buckingham West at 9.53am. The train is a cross country service running from Leicester Central up the Great Central and then into Banbury. Here the train splits with the main part running onto Reading via Oxford and a secondary part running to Buckingham. Note the mixed GWR/LNER stock. Above the cutting is Evenley goods yard. This is the first attempt at some scenery. It is formed of Readygrass Spring grass mat. This has a vinyl backing which can be formed into shapes when warmed by a hairdryer or heat gun. It doesn’t need much support underneath, just the odd ball of screwed up newspaper. Even though cuttings and emankment sides were well tended in the 1930’s and nothing like the tree strewn modern railway, this grass mat is far too uniform to say the least. I am going to try adding some static grass in places as well as bushes. There will certainly be fence posts along the top of the rear cutting side and telegraph posts added. Overall I’m happy with this as a start.

THE LIGHT’S ON BUT..... The TOTIs are now installed and the LEDs are around the rotary selector on the panel. There is a train in each road which is lit. Its a failsafe so you don’t select a road with a light on. It has been known for operators to misread the timetable. It will also prove the train is fully in when a new LED lights up. The TOTIs work on light but will be under scenery, so I have provided a row of white LEDs above the trains. This is a strip off a roll. It is glued under the first support truss for the lift up scenery. The truss is formed of 2 L shaped plastic strips.

MAKING LOADS As well as the 3 new coal wagons I have others where the existing loads didn’t fit well. So I’ve made 10 new coal loads. The coal train comes up loaded, from Severn Tunnel Junc and empties go back. So at the end of a timetable day loads are removed from wagons at the stations and other loads are put in the wagons in the train in the storage loops. The loads are removed using a handle with magnets on the end. Each load has a piece of metal or a magnet in it. I start by cutting polystyrene to shape, then lining the wagon with cling film to prevent the load from being glued to the wagons. Once the polystyrene is in, I glue the metal on top. I then pour the coal on top. I use artificial coal. I have no idea what its made of, but it looks the part. I have no link to the company. I make sure the layer of coal is thin, but covers the polystyrene and the piece of metal. As my coal train is the longest on the layout and has to go up the incline loaded, its important to keep the loads light. The mock coal is quite weighty. When happy with the look, I dribble 50:50 dilute PVA over the loads, making sure there is a drop or two of washing up liquid to break the surface tension and get between the grains. Then I put them in the airing cupboard. The grains quite quickly set, but getting the glue between the coal grains and the polystyrene to set, takes ages due to the lack of air. After about 24 hours you can normally remove the load carefully using the cling film. I then carefully pull the film off the sides to allow more drying of lower parts. When they are fully dry, remove the cling film and cut off any overhanging excess so the loads fit and are removeable easily.

Good ol’ fashioned stuff here. Some scenery has to be next, then the coaches.

Nice to have you back on board John. The main issue is how much fun it is to operate - which was the aim! But I operate more than build. There are two frequent teams of operators and quite a few guests. All are welcome.

Hi Paul. By building some more I’ve realised they have a sensitivity pot. However last time I just installed under the train shed. One worked fine because of the open vent in the roof letting in light. The other was permenantly on, so I added an LED under the roof. No idea why I didn’t tweak the pot. For these in the hidden loops l intend to add LEDs because it will be very dark.

Thanks Mikkel. Its only a standard Metcalf kit, but does the job. I’ll paint the canopy edge. The dark roof coach was second hand. I intend to paint all the white roofs different shades of grey and cream when I weather them. I read that the white lead paint initially aged to a cream colour, but of course there’s then all the soot. Give gaugemaster a call. The guarantee is certainly on controllers.

WHEN IN DEVON......... Over the last few operating sessions I noticed that the brake control on Buckingham’s local controller was not so smooth at the end of the rotation: the locos were stopping abruptly. Gaugemaster have a lifetime guarrantee so when my wife and I were off to Devon for a week I decided I would send it off for repair. Gaugemaster are simply brilliant! A parcel was waiting for me when I got home. They have changed the brake pots for me. I cannot praise them enough. Unfortunately the weather was going to be really bad whilst we were away, so we took hobby stuff instead of bikes. So Evenley now has a station building. I also built 12 simple MERG kits. These are train detectors or TOTI. One for each hidden storage loop at Banbury and two for the exit line to monitor progress. They light LEDs when the line is occupied. They are really cheap and easy to make. I already have 2 in the train shed at Buckingham. Finally, whilst in Barnstable I found a model shop. There aren’t too many local shops left, so I like to support them if I can. I bought 3 new Oxford coal wagons. As soon as I got home I weathered them. Its amazing what a week away can do.

Hi, as feedback to the testing, the very latest images I posted are there. The previous ones do not show. Thanks

DYING FOR GRASS In a bid to move forward with scenery, I decided it was high time I dyed the hanging basket liners I bought about 3 years ago. So out came a large pan, a pack of dylon tropical green (it is set in Spring), salt and hot water. Its a messy process, but it did produce a reasonably good green and quite hairy mat. So hairy that to scale its rather a jungle. It also shows the loops. The otherside is flatter but has very long threads. I shall have to run over it with beard clippers. You can see a few areas that did not take. The liner is made all sorts of material! I put a second liner in the residue of dye. It has come out far more of a mossy colour, so it clearly only works well once per packet. I have some more packs so will do my third piece. I might redo the second. Whilst I am happy with the outcome, I’m not sure its worth the hassle and mess (dying and trimming) compared to commercial grass mats.

That picture is almost identical to what I am running! 3 six wheel tanks and a passenger brake! Thanks

Thanks for all the help. Rich

Its not for mainline use. Its to trail behind a short rake of milk tanks on a very secondary line. The assumption being that it is a very old brake almost left lying around and pressed into use.

Thanks for this. That's a great way to go for me. Rich

Does anyone know if there are any kits for OO gauge 4 or 6 wheel GWR full brake coaches? 1930’s layout. Rich

Should have said, Ray’s thread is Virney Junction. Rich

Hi. No I didn’t seal it. If you go to the start of this blog there are photos of what I did with the underlay. And around post 75 ish are some photos of gluing curved track with pva. By the way, whilst the super-elevation looks good, some locos don’t like it too much at slow speeds because they have no suspension/compensation so marginally lift wheels. I thought of copydex for track and ballast, but the cost for the amount I needed was quite high. The pva worked fine for underlay to board and track to underlay. The track still had vertical cushioning. You need to make sure the track can’t move sideways! I tried pva on ballast and it really tightened it up, negating the cushioning, so after reading about vinyl glue from Ray H on this site, I tried that. I have read elsewhere that Copydex is good unless you have to drill through it. It can pull like a thread from under your track or ballast. Cheers Rich

Hi Dan, Thanks. Its not track underlay as such. It is foam underlay from Homebase, intended for going under laminate flooring. It comes in bright green or grey. I obviously chose grey. It about 3mm thick closed cell foam. Comes in a big roll. I only needed two for the whole layout. I stuck it onto the baseboard with pva. The track was then glued directly on with pva. No track pins. That way the flexibility remains. The track in the yards are covered with artex which is also flexible. The ballast is glued with dilute vinyl glue - also flexible. I hope that helps. Rich

LAMPED Happy New Year - belated! Apart from a bit of operating, my time over the holiday has been spent on sorting a few wagons and vans with running problems. Since then, for some reason, I then decided to add the lamps and crews to my stock and locos. Wow! How long did that take!! I have glued 17 tail lamps on coaching rakes, the autocoach and parcels rake; 20 lamps on Toads and 4 on the milk vans making 41 tail lamps in total. I have 27 locos in service. I haven’t touched the mogul because that will be replaced when the Dapol model comes out. So I have lamped 26 locos. That’s mainly 2 lamps per loco but of course there are 4 on tank engines. So in total, about 66 headlamps. Given the era, these are mainly red, but it was about the time of the change to white, so a couple of locos have white and one a mixture. Spare lamps are on the sides. The LNER locos have white lamps. All the lamps are Springside. Every loco now has a crew as well - except the banker which still needs a crew and a couple of lamps - I ran out. They are from Bachmann, Peco Modelscene, P&D Marsh and Preiser. Very fiddly getting them into closed tank engine cabs. When I have built some scenery and weathered the coaches, I will weather the locos. I am surprised what a difference the lamps and crews make.

WEATHERED Finally I’ve weathered all the track. I sprayed it with Lifecolor dilute sleeper grime and then weathered black around Buckingham throat and where locos stand. Its just toned down the brown ballast notably (when compared). Its also coloured the sides of the rails and got rid of the brightness. Of course the whole track then needed cleaning!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE.

Thanks John. Looking back back, I started ballasting on 19th November 2017! So I managed to string it out for just over a year!!!! That’s dreadful! Ha ha. But I have managed to get way-layed with a few other bits and bobs, like backscenes, bridges, electrics and electronics, We’ve also done a lot of operating of course!

BALLASTED! I am pleased (and relieved) to report that all of Buckingham West is ballasted at last. What a job! The final parts were the points at Evenley Quarry Junction and Buckingham West throat, shown above. I may not be the neatest ballaster on the planet, but I’m pleased with it. The glue mix was a little too strong on Buckingham and the run off along the edges is a bit cream coloured in places. But the next job on the track and ballast will sort that. I trialled spraying the track and ballast at Brackley Road ages ago and I like the result, so I will do the same everywhere else. The effect can be seen at Brackley Road on the high level. The cess and areas between ballast still need to be sprayed. The rails and ballast on each side of each rail will be sprayed with sleeper grime. This gives the characteristic two (almost) stripes along steam age track. The amount of oil and rubbish sprayed off a steam loco’s wheels and motion left these. I will tone the ballast colour down in station areas as well, using weathered black and dark washes. I will also use weathered black on the cesses. Another view across Buckingham station throat with the Loco yard behind. A 45xx, ROD, Castle, Collett Goods and Ex GCR Director are on shed.

I have a couple of those siphons. What’s the manufacturer? Mine are bad runners. I need to improve them. Is yours ok?