checkrail

Thanks Edwardian and chrisf for this info. I can't replicate through coach workings as per Kingsbridge in all their complexity, but I find them fascinating. At the Christmas MMRS show I picked up a copy of Semmens' 'GWR passenger train services', hoping it would throw some light on the subject but unfortunately it didn't (or not as much as I'd hoped). But the whole business of splitting trains, attaching and detaching coaches/portions, and the various engine movements all that required is full of interest. John C.

You're certainly cracking on with this. Impressively so, given all the other stuff on your plate! Your locos look great by the way. I now need to concentrate on improving mine. John C. My layout: STOKE COURTENAY, 4mm scale 1930s GWR junction station. See layout topic.

You assume correctly! Many thanks for the info re through workings. I too have read somewhere that the Kingsbridge through coaches were dropped off at either Exeter or Newton Abbott. (Maybe it changed over time?). I wasn't sure how they continued their journey, but attachment to a stopper would suit me: the train to which I usually attach the coach will, when coaching stock is all sorted, become a Newton - Plymouth stopper. Earlsbridge has just one through coach, hence the van composite, as with my restricted space everything including train lengths has to be scaled down. It'll eventually share these duties with a Toplight van compo. Neither can be 70 footers I regret as my curves and clearances rule them out. Can't have everything, so I invoke modeller's licence. On the return journey my small prairie attaches the TC to the rear of an up train, There's an informative caption (and great picture) in the Hubback Collection (Hodge, Great Western Pictorial No 2, p75) suggesting that on the 9 am Perranporth - Paddington the Cornish engine was changed for a King at Brent and that the up Kingsbridge through coaches were added to the front of this train at the same time. If I want to replicate this (which would at least keep the TC at the right end of the train) I'll have to dig up the ballast a bit and add another magnet towards the up end of the up main platform. It might also be worth my reminding anyone trying to work all this out that in my very perfunctory NTB, Stoke Courtenay's 'up' is Brent's 'down'! John C.

Haven't done much sustained operating yet, but here's one of my favourite sequences as a down express pauses to detach the Paddington to Earlsbridge through coach. Meanwhile, in the branch platform road, 5555 stands poised to retrieve it. The express has now pulled away, while 5555 has moved out onto the up main then backed onto the through coach via the up end crossover ... before coupling up and drawing the coach across the up main and onto the road overbridge to clear the turnout to the branch platform. It then backs the vehicle into the platform where it's coupled up to the branch B set. The loco then runs round in the normal way before departing along the branch towards Earlsbridge with its 3 coach train. All this is done with one hand from my handset controller, without touching track or trains, or activating any other switches. This is due to three elements: DCC control of trains; DCC control of points via Cobalt point motors including route selection to throw several turnouts at once; and automatic hands-free uncoupling via under-track permanent magnets plus the Brian Kirby modification to the Bachmann tension-lock coupling. (Hats off to Brian BTW.) It's fun. I'm pretty sure that I should really have a plethora of calling on arms and backing signals to enable such manoeuvres with occupied passenger vehicles, but I'm not letting that stop me for now. The coach roof boards (if you can make them out) are from Sankey Scenics. They will custom-make them for any real or fictitious destination at very modest cost within a day or two. (Though I believe Precision Labels do some good ones too.) Final note: I know that trains are crying out for loco and tail lamps, and crews. I'll be placing an order with Modelu tomorrow before I disappear for a couple of weeks mountain bashing in the Pyrenees. John C.

Like this pic very much. By uncanny co-incidence when I came across it yesterday I'd just finished compressing a few shots of its Stoke Courtenay counterpart through coach, prior to posting. In reality I suppose it's not that much of a coincidence, as we both have layouts based more or less on Brent (yours more, mine somewhat less), and are both using whatever appropriate products Mr Bachmann supplies. I'll post the pics soon. BTW, thanks for mention of layout and King pic in ANTB. Appreciated. Regards, John C. ​My layout :STOKE COURTENAY, 4mm scale 1930s GWR junction station. See layout topic.

Thanks Don. 35 x 17 feet - I'm jealous! I'm grateful for what I've got, but the biggest constraint has to be the fiddle yard. If only I could fit 10 trains instead of 8 (but then I'd want 12 wouldn't I?) Thanks for tips re photo placing. What you suggest is actually what I try to do, but on occasion I find that RMweb has a mind of its own. Look forward to hearing how you fill your loft. Regards, John C.

No, it's the old one. It wasn't a bad model really, though I believe some period-specific details such as the cab roof shutter are incorrect (not that such things really bother a heretic like me). Its biggest drawback was the inordinate amount of daylight between footplate and top of bogie - which was why I didn't photograph it from eye-level on the embankment! The new Hornby King looks like a thing of joy and beauty, but I've resisted as I have a Hattons/DJM version on order (King Richard II in 'shirtbutton' livery). Regards, John C.

Thanks Chris. Sounds promising. Will give it a go next time (if there is a next time!). John C.

I'm an admirer of Gordon's work. He's one of those - (along with Martin Wynne, Brian Tulley ('Polybear') and others - whose contributions to this forum opened my eyes to 00-SF. Coachman's method is that which was always recommended back in the 60s, but you need to be sure you've plonked the track down in exactly the right place! John C.

Ballasting - aaargh! I mentioned earlier that I had no success with 'the usual methods'. I found it fiendishly difficult to get the stuff (Carr's sandstone ballast; Carr's ash in the goods yard) to settle and lie neatly between the sleepers despite all my careful dispensing and tapping with a spoon etc. Then whenever I came to mist it prior to glue dropping the mister blew half of it away. The only thing I can say in my defence is that under the purlins at the sides of the layout it was impossible to mist from above, so my angle was across the tracks (which meant I ended up misting the backscene as well!). I had just as much trouble dropping the diluted PVA/washing-up liquid mix onto the new ballast, with it curling up in balls ( I think 'balls' and 'up' are the operative words here) and coagulating. The result was like a rigid relief map of the Alps but with large bald patches. I had to scrape it all off with the sharpened blade of a small screwdriver, which did the nice paint finish on the track no good at all. Neat and even ballast was important to me. One of the advantages of C & L flexitrack over its main rival (up until recently) SMP, is that unlike the latter it isn't designed to match PCB sleepered pointwork, so the rail sits at the correct height allowing daylight to be seen beneath it. Lumpy ballast would spoil this. So it was time for a rethink. In the end I 'painted' a layer of very lightly diluted PVA round every sleeper with the point of a syringe (nozzle about 1mm or a bit less if I remember rightly), so that the layer of glue came just to the top of the sleepers, then scattered ballast all over it, weighed it down with old copies of BRM etc. and let it set. The surplus was then vacuumed up for re-use with a little hand-held vac I bought for the purpose (and for vaccing up static grass residue). Where the ties between sleepers were most visible I cut them out prior to ballasting. This all took a couple of weeks or so. doing a few feet at a time, and trying to keep a wet edge as I worked. I was ready for a pint by 5pm on those days. On some lengths, towards the end of operations, I actually removed the rail from the chairs, ballasted, and then replaced. If I was doing it again I'd do this throughout, and indeed I'd stick down my point timbering,transfer the template lines to the sleeper tops, and drill any necessary holes for dropper wires before ballasting, then build the turnouts themselves in situ afterwards. Having made a mess and recovered the situation I now had to re-paint the track with the ballast present, rather than just tone the two together, which had been my original intention. The whole lot was given a spray coat of Halfords grey primer, then subsequent light spray coats of various browns, mainly Humbrol 29. The rail sides were then panted with - I think - Lifecolour 'sleeper grime'. Rail tops which wouldn't have wheels passing over them (wing rails, check rails etc) were coloured with a brown marker pen. It didn't work out too badly, and fitted with my desire for neutral tones and the avoidance of strong and clashing colours. So a case of taking the long way round, but I got there in the end. Anyway, here are a couple more train pics for light relief. The old Lima siphon behind the Hall still has BR Mark 1 bogies with 1970s Lima 'pizza cutter' wheels (I have some 8 foot American bogies to replace them when I get round to it). Amazingly this vehicle rattles through all my 00-SF pointwork with its 1mm flangeways without coming off the rails, but it makes a hell of a racket while doing so! John C.

Grahame, Rich Thanks both for kind words and supportive comments, encouraging me to keep posting. I will! Don't want to bore anyone or look like I'm teaching Granny to suck eggs but it's good to know that some of you are interested in my experiences and techniques. So more on various topics to do with the construction of Stoke C. in due course, and more pics. I hope that over the weeks you'll begin to see some incremental improvements in the actual trains as phase 2 gets into gear. For now here are a few scenic details: Not so much sparse or austere landscape in this corner, but I liked this Bachmann low-relief church, went to town a bit with a lych gate (Langley), gravestones (Dart Castings and Langley), a replacement stained glass window (also Langley) and a flagpole (brass tube left over from point tiebar construction). Couldn't see the stained glass at first but found a spare wall-plug 12v transformer and bought a little bulb holder. I think that's where lighting will begin and end on this layout (except for the Dapol signals of course!). Here's another case where I ignored my own 'rules' and veered from my view that human figures are best when in repose. Couldn't resist this Monty's Models porter (and he's deliberately half hidden by the footbridge). Incidentally white metal is a great material for model milk churns - a quick polish with a glass fibre pencil and they look just like the real thing. This pic also makes me wish that one of the RTR firms would produce a 6-wheel low siphon like the old 1960s K's kit. Would be ideal behind the branch B-set once or twice a day. Regards, John C.

Hadn't really noticed that until you mentioned it, but comparing with photos and drawings in Russell I think you're right. Not sure I'm going to change them in a hurry, but once they stand next to a coach with cast white metal vents it might be more noticeable and spur me to action. I'm also going to live with the under size buffer heads at present. John C..

Thanks for this Martin - and for your interest. Have had a look at the video and a bit more of the Templot site. I'll know what to do next time. ( I might only have one layout in me, but I wouldn't mind having another go at track building some time when I have the leisure. I enjoyed it.) Regards, John

So many of the comments above re preserved railways echo my own long-held views. We've got to the stage where our models often look more like the real thing than the real thing (if you know what I mean!). John C. ​My layout: STOKE COURTENAY, 4mm scale 1930s GWR junction station. See layout topic.

Yes, stock will be weathered in due course as part of Phase 2, now that Phase 1 (building the layout) is almost complete. But I'll need to practise first! By 'plain point timbering' I just mean lengths of 4mm wide ply, cut to suit. I found that the Timber Tracks bases didn't always match up exactly to the C & L templates. Add to that the fact that I was building curved turnouts in situ it only needed a bit of creep in my alignments for some sleepers on some points to end up a bit too short. As I said before, if I did it again I'd use Templot and cut the sleepering to fit the Templot templates exactly. I didn't use turnout kits, but I did use C & L's pre-fabricated crossing assemblies, which have the right flangeway gap dimensions for 00-SF (and for EM and DOGA finescale). It saved time and ensured consistency, but I did remind myself of the old Victoria Wood skit on ready made meals - "Nowadays we use the Marks & Spencer's 'Lazy B*****d' range".) I'll come back to ballasting. In the meantime here are some pics showing a quick makeover job on some RTR coaches, with weathered roofs, closer coupling, gangway connectors and repainted droplights. Those gleaming white roofs have been glaring at me and annoying me for four years. John C.

Below are a few more notes on the track theme, followed by some pics of Llanfair Grange on a fitted freight. The track layout was planned and drawn out, at first on the loft floor then on the baseboards, once they were built, using a set of Timber Tracks thin ply templates for the plain track (I used the EM set as it included a wider variety of radii plus a very useful transition curve). Paper templates from C & L were used to plan pointwork, slitting them part way across and bending them for curved pointwork. (Shame on me – I was too lazy and impatient to master Templot, which might have given me some better alignments in places and saved me from some point timbering errors.) Peco templates were used in the fiddle yard. The pointwork itself was built on Timber Tracks bases (at that time sold via C & L) in conjunction with aforesaid templates, but if I was doing it again I’d use Templot and plain point timbering. The first two points were built on the workbench. After installing the first one on the layout I wondered why locos kept binding when running through the blade end, until I realised that I’d omitted to put the ‘set’ in the curved stock rail. That’s when I discovered how easy it is to adust pointwork made from plastic chairs and plywood sleepers, by slicing chairs off and repositioning with a dab of Butanone. On the other hand, when left alone they form a much stronger bond than I’d expected and I’ve had no need to re-inforce with copper clad strip etc. Subsequent turnouts nearly all involved some degree of curvature, so were built in situ, and from then on the whole exercise proved to be very satisfying and enjoyable. Then it came to ballasting, blithely dismissed in countless magazine articles as having been done by ‘the usual methods’. Well, ‘the usual methods’ didn’t work at all for me, and I ended up chiselling quite a bit of lumpy, concrete-like porridge off my nice new spray painted track prior to a rethink. More on this later if anyone’s interested in my blunderings. ​John C. PS. The first photo reveals another example of my laziness - I can see that I've omitted to complete painting and weathering behind the bridge parapet, where I thought no-one would see!

Hi John - thanks! Nice that an expert track specialist takes an interest. (BTW, I like your ‘turnout workbench’ – very instructive.) At the start back in early 2012 I did a lot of internet searching to see how people made tie-bars, so let me pay credit to whomever first set out the method I describe below. It was very probably someone on this forum. The tie-bars are made from strips of PCB sleepering on edge, moving in a slot below the turnout, so only the thickness of the PCB presents from above. My track is laid on 3mm cork on top of 2mm medium density black rubber foam. This provides a bit of sound deadening, enables a decent ballast shoulder, and brings the rail height to match with the Peco track on 4mm underlay in the fiddle yard. But it also meant I could create the aforesaid slot without having to cut it through the MDF trackbed. Three short lengths of brass tube are soldered vertically to the PCB strip, with insulating gaps filed between them. The two outer ones have brass lace pins inserted from below, bent over and cut short, then soldered to the point blade. This provides a pivoting action and avoids stress on the soldered joints. The middle tube is of a slightly larger gauge (I forget the actual sizes but I’ve written them down somewhere!) to take the actuating rod from the sub-baseboard mounted Cobalt Digital point motor. Not being an ace solderer (an understatement!) I found this the trickiest bit of point building by far, with several false attempts. Holding the tie-bar in place with tweezers while soldering it accurately to the point blades (points were already stuck to the layout, having been built in situ) was a bit of a nightmare at times, and had me wishing for three hands, if not four, and it was hard to judge the optimum gap between point blade and stock rail. Obviously I wanted to get it as close as possible! Anyway, I got there, and I’m pleased to say none have yet failed in four years. I hope you can make out some of the details I’ve described in the accompanying pics of four different turnouts. On one or two of the others I’ve messed up the timbering intervals a bit (should have used Templot, I know!), so the ‘pit’ in which the tie-bar sits is a bit too obvious. But I’m not doing ‘em again. I’ll write a bit more about my track building experience in an upcoming post. ​John C. PS. I have no idea why, within the same post, this site sometimes lets me place pics within the text but at the next attempt parks them at the end. With the latter there's no indication that the pic has been added until one looks at 'post preview' and sees that it's actually there under the heading 'Attached thumbnails' . Baffling!

Some of you have commented favourably on what you describe as the spacious, uncluttered look of the layout and the muted colours. This was a conscious aim, so the feedback is very pleasing, but it was achieved by trial and error, and by as much luck as judgement. From the outset I wanted an impression, on a narrow baseboard, of wide open spaces (cue the Dixie Chicks), of a quiet, sparse, almost austere look to the environment. I was very conscious that this was the deeply rural southern fringes of Dartmoor in the 1930s and not the bustling midlands or the fleshpots of Torbay. I suppose my guiding rules were: Don’t try to cram too much into the space available Simplify and omit Less is more Keep colours relatively neutral - the layout is just a foil to show the trains to best advantage. I wavered a bit from this as things progressed. At first I wasn’t going to have any non-railway buildings on the layout, but the Bachmann ¾ view low relief church cried out to be installed in an otherwise difficult to fill corner, and once acquired cried out in turn for a village pub. The Bachmann ‘Pendon’ series pub fitted the bill admirably with a repaint (not too many bright yellow pubs in the 1930s, maybe?) and the addition of curtains etc. And anyway, my pals wouldn’t have believed that I could build a layout without a pub. The addition of a garage from the Ratio kit plus a couple of garden shed kits spliced together gave the hint of a village community near the station, and provided a more ‘workaday’ element to take the edge off the chocolate box look that was developing. I had bought another nice ‘Pendon’ cottage, but decided it was too much and sold it on eBay. The other week I looked round and realised there were now 20 human figures on the layout (though some are semi-hidden), and cried, ‘Whoah, John – stop there!’. So however delightful current trade offerings are I’m going to resist – this ain’t Platform 1 at Paddington. (But I’ll make an exception for footplate crews and a signalman!). Another early decision was to have only three road vehicles on the layout, one of them horse-drawn. I half-broke this too, as the back of an Alvis Speed 20 can just about be seen in the garage repair bay. But I’ve resisted buses going over bridges, wedding parties, vicars, funerals, police incidents etc. They can be very well done and entertaining, but not on this sort of layout. As some have noted, colours are fairly plain and muted (and usually pale). I use Lifecolor weathered black (really a dark grey like all these ‘weathered’ or ‘dirty’ colours) on anything that’s nominally black, e.g. parts of signals. I was keen to avoid the ‘noisy’ effect of lots of bright or bold colours in proximity. At present I have a painted and almost completed 1936 pattern telephone box kit which was intended to stand in front of the station. But I’m now having second thoughts, as its bright red finish might draw the eye on first view and ruin the effect. It’s another of those cases where something prototypically correct and appropriate can yet look wrong, or at least detract from the illusion. To finish, the one element I’d stress in getting the look I wanted was the backscene. If you want the illusion of distance keep the profile low. Mine’s only a printed one from Gaugemaster, seen on many layouts, but the same thing applies to hand painted or bespoke photo-produced versions. After cutting off the ‘sky’ bits I then cut about ¾ off the remainder – from the bottom – meaning that the distant horizons are only about 3 to 4 inches on average above the trackbed. It is of course all best viewed – and photographed – from eye level. Hope none of this sounds too didactic – just my way of approaching things. There are many others equally valid, depending on the effect you’re after. ​John C.

Thanks Tom. Glad you like the layout. The grass beyond the trackside fence (i.e. outside the railway boundary) is all from Noch grass mat, available through Gaugemaster. There was a good BRM article by Tony Wright a year or two back on using this product. Mine was the 'summer meadow' colour. Where joins occur they were masked by hedges, fencing, or field paths (made from a smear of PVA on the grass, scattered with a bit of Treemendous 'earth powder'), as shown in the photos below. I originally used the same stuff on the embankment and cutting sides, but it didn't look quite right - too lush - so I got myself a World War Scenics (WWS) static grass applicator and re-covered it all, using a mixture of static grasses from the same supplier, stirred together in a plastic container until I'd got a colour more like the rough grass I was aiming for. (I was very pleased with the whole static grass thing. A big step change from the messing about with dyed lint in my far-off teen years.) Both types of grass can be seen in the picture below. Incidentally, the substructure for this landscaping was done by the glueshell method described in Iain Rice in his 'Railway modelling the realistic way'. Profiles are cut from stout carton cardboard (I used Peroni boxes throughout!) attached to the L-girder cross-members and to each other in egg box style with a hot glue gun. The surface was then formed from a lattice work of thinner cardboard strips from cereal boxes etc. with the glue gun, before the whole lot was covered in a shell of torn up paper towels painted over with diluted PVA. Quick, easy and a whole lot of fun. Had no desire whatsoever to monkey around with plaster or plaster bandage! More train pics soon as Phase 2 - 'Tarting up the trains' - gets under way. John.

Thanks for recent positive reactions to Stoke Courtenay.. So glad that lots of you seem to like the layout. I'm a 'lone wolf' modeller, and though I have a busy social life and lots of friends I know nobody who's into model railways (except my son who still takes a bit of an interest). Down the pub I still get a lot of 'Choo choo!' or 'Where's your engine driver's hat?'. You know how it is. I just smile and ask whose round it is. So until I put Stoke Courtenay in front of the RMweb community I was more or less the only railway modeller who'd ever seen it, and even though I was pleased with some of what I'd done I knew my own view was necessarily subjective. So it's great to have that external check and feedback. I'm now moving on to Phase 2, doing something about the trains. Tradition suggested I should start with the locos, but I decided that the thing that would make the biggest immediate impact would be to improve the coaching stock, with close-coupling, gangway connections where appropriate, and weathered roofs. It's also made me get out the airbrush the kids bought me 3 or 4 years ago and learn how to use it. (Learning curve at the moment re paint consistency - having to clean out blocked airbrush too often. Sure I'll get the hang of it in due course.) I started with the branch B-set. I'd close-coupled the pair with a bit of brass wire when I got them, but since then I've cut away the outer end curved buffer beams and added straight ones from Plastikard fitted with MJT sprung buffers and a dummy coupling hook. They also have my usual shortened Bachmann T/L couplings. The droplights have been repainted in venetian red (Hornby have them coach brown, which I suppose is an advance on earlier incarnations when they didn't paint them at all) and the roofs had several airbrushed coats of Lifecolor roof dirt. I know there is still one guard's window too many on one side, and that the underframe arrangement isn't quite correct. But life's too short, and I fall back on my usual mantra - 'approximation; suggestion; impression; flavour; atmosphere'. They'll do me. Here are a couple more pics. John C.

Interesting. Though I've no gradients a 43xx is on my wish list, and I've read some recent speculation that it might be on Bachmann's list for an upgrade to current standards. If so it might be a better performer. Bu I guess we might be talking a couple of years or so. John C. My layout: STOKE COURTENAY, GWR junction station. See layout topic.

Continuing with the track theme: One of the aims I set myself with the track was to replicate as faithfully as is possible in 00 gauge the look and proportions of typically British double track with bullhead rail as seen throughout the country, and which has fascinated me since childhood. There’s something in its appearance and the way it has blended into the landscape that speaks of history and heritage, and while it’s in sight there’s always the implicit promise of a train. So I needed to establish the largest ruling radius I could for the main line (it’s about 4 feet) then carry out a few experiments to see how close together I could get away with placing the tracks. (I determined the clearances for the curved platforms at the same time, as I wanted to avoid my passengers having to leap a scale 2 foot gap to get on or off the train!). It turned out that a ‘six foot’ of 27mm, just 3mm over scale, would fit the bill. This had the fortuitous benefit that the 3mm nicely absorbed most of the total by which two adjacent 16.5 gauge tracks are underscale, meaning that the distance from the outer rail of one track to the outer rail of the other was very close to scale. Together with the deliberately underscale 8 foot sleepers of the C & L track I feel they’ve provided the illusion I was after. (Of course, 4 foot radius is way tighter in scale terms than anything on a prototype main line, and 60 foot coaches pass by a hair's breadth. The Board of Trade would have a fit. But it looks great from above when trains pass so closely!) There is however, a downside! I guess I’ve ruled out 70 foot coaches, which of course dominated on the main Paddington to west country expresses. If I ever find the time or develop the skills to build metal coach kits I may live to regret that. But in the meantime I’m happy with the look of the track. ​John C. My layout: STOKE COURTENAY, 1930s GWR junction station. See layout topic.

Just read through all previous pages to catch up with this layout topic. My hat goes off to you sir! Frighteningly complex, admirably ambitious and I'm sure, in Kipling's words, "the work will be a marvel when it's done". Will now follow avidly as it develops. Best wishes, John C. My layout: STOKE COURTENAY, 1930s GWR junction station. See layout topic.

Thanks for kind words Andy. Yes, I realise that at present the footplates of my locos look like the deck of the Mary Celeste! But while working hard on Phase 1 (building the layout) I've been steadfastly resisting getting sidetracked into messing round with the stock, tempting though it was. Now it's time to start Phase 2, in which stock will be detailed, repainting done, coach & wagon kits assembled and locos fitted with crews, coal, engraved plates etc. etc. I hope that means I'm in for an enjoyable couple of years, during which I'll keep posting pics as things progress. (At least in the shots below you can't tell the footplate is deserted!) John C.

Have now had time to read through your topic retrospectively. (I first viewed it when it was just Marlingford and I too was thinking of a BLT to start with.) I can see the big change came with the shed. So, uncannily, we've both been developing GWR junction station layouts in near-as-dammit the same space, supported by L girders, and using RTR models in a similar way. I really enjoyed going through recent pictures, which really capture that GW atmosphere. I'm also full of admiration for your point rodding (mine is a much more impressionistic stab at things), and the lovely scratchbuilt structures. Please keep the pictures coming! John C. My layout: STOKE COURTENAY (see layout topics), GWR 1930’s junction in 4mm scale.