MinerChris

There's several ongoing projects on the workbenches, in preparation to take St Ruth down South again, one of which is a County Rolling Stock, or "N'Tastic" GWR Gas Cordon. The progress so far compared to a spare test print shell that I picked up from Richard at TINGS. Whilst photographing out in the Garden, I stumbled across a PW gang member doing some work, Definitely not on the workbench... Best Regards, Miner Chris.

Just for completeness, Ian Morgan has filmed and edited a very good video of St Ruth at the recent rugfest Expo in Wallingford. Apologies for those who have already watched this via a link from the VAG! Best Regards, Chris.

Might I suggest looking at Tom E's Ropley Layout?? http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/347/entry-5444-new-project-ropley-shed/ He has built easitrack points to N gauge standards with little difficulty I believe. N gauge wheels will run on plain easitrack as well. Soldering is also a possibility as the 2010 Challenge Winner, Waton is testimony to. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/4400-waton/ Best Regards, Chris.

Thanks Pete, The good news is that the point building rate has now accelerated, with the final LH point started and finished yesterday afternoon... now just the small matter of making everything work. Just one more thought about doing Moreton-in-Marsh, The train would potentially be twice as long as the layout, is this just a step too far for one of the smallest 2mm layouts? Chris.

Thanks Armchair, I did consider doing an extract of a bigger station a-la Pete Macham's Paddock wood bay, and like you I may well go down this route if I find the right place, particularly as it gives quite a lot of scope for different traffic. A high contender is the single to double line junction at Morton in Marsh, which would also give me a reason to run my FGW HST. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kpmarek/4099419826/ ,Photo credited to flickr) Also, with my research I did also come across Stretton upon Fosse. (http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/gwr/gwrsf542a.htm) So with a bit of modellers licence (i.e swapping the platform side around,) I could just about fit the whole station into my 500mm constraint... Decisions, Decisions... anyone else have any thoughts??

My last promise to update within 6 months may have been broken quite resoundingly… I have been slowly plugging away at some of the projects, the main one to finish off the 14xx “Vomit Comet,” project in order to run it at St Ruth’s various outings, more on this to follow soon. I have also been making a start on the trackwork that will be eventually laid on my dual-boxfile layout “Congdon’s Shop.” As the layout is small, I decided that “easi-track,” points were the way to go, sacrificing potential mechanical strength for some chair detail. Needless to say, the publication of the “Track,” book was enormously helpful, particularly as no-one in the Midland Area Group has any prior experience with building plastic points. After building said first point it was apparent that my preferred method of TOU wasn’t going to work. This TOU is a modification of the film tie-bar, made out of 10thou brass, split in two pieces soldered together with sleeper PCB. Perhaps a picture would be a better description? Installed correctly through a slot in the baseboard, this has the potential to look like a good representation of a locking bar, whilst also having the benefit of being removable and replaceable. These TOU’s are also used on St. Ruth, Swanage and South Yard. They do however have one drawback, they rely on a fairly stable anchorage on the last chair of the switch rail, upon which to spring it. From experience, plastic easitrack chairs don’t provide this The solution I settled on was to substitute the offending sleeper with a PCB replacement also using old chairplates to bring the top of the sleeper to the right height. This took me quite a while to get around to implementing, being mindful of how not to melt the rest of the point in the process. At this point I was becoming increasingly aware that I still didn’t have anything to test the 14xx on and not still entirely sure that the tie-bar would work with the points. Hence, I created a small test layout of a branch line and a siding with the single point that I had made. I actually wish that I had made this layout slightly bigger, as trying to fit a location to the track-plan has been unfruitful (any suggestions??) The original specification had been to create a layout of B5 size (250mm x 176mm), with the TOU being driven by a DPDT switch which also controlled the frog polarity. In order to make the layout “ultra portable,” I have only used a maplin plug-in transformer powering my home made controller. The entire assemblage with some stock fits loosely into a picnic hamper obtained from a Christmas Present. I may one day get around to making it a protective carrying case, using the backscene as two sides. It would have been nice to get the hinge to fold the layout properly, but unfortunately my woodworking skills aren’t that good, and hence they are only used as locating pins. This ramshackle assembly does at least work! It has been out to Aylesbury and Wallingford on St Ruth, wheel cleaning duty taking over from South Yard. I am really unsure as to what scenery to kit this out with eventually, possibly a light railway platform? (I forgot about catch points from the siding :-s) again suggestions are more than welcome. The learning’s from this have been carried forward onto the points for Congdon’s Shop, with construction of the remaining points progressing well. The next probable stumbling block is how to drive the crossover across the board joint, as I am increasingly thinking that using servo’s are a bit overkill for this job.

And perhaps someone needs to put the body on the 14xx on straight... :-D very nice pictures Ian.

Nice to meet you at on Tuesday Ian... That 57xx Chassis will look nice on ST Ruth.. Chaps, I have just measured the bit of scrap that I have left over, It's SWG33, 0.25mm, 10Thou depending on how you lean... I agree that its probably best to use the curl to help you, but the extra thickness seems to be an bit more forgiving at being bent into the correct position without breaking (or passing the yield point if you want to get technical!) I don't know if it will produce too much friction yet, but Rich's experiences sound promising. Glad you like the bracing, I think with an bit more care, they might not have been needed. Certainly for the first few chassis' I will see if they can be fitted on to avoid any more bending. I have to say that I completely agree with you Rich. The one thing that I did manage to do is pack the bodywork full of lead, and more will be fixed onto the chassis once It's running sweetly. Though I was unaware of the test! If Tim and Mike think that all is not lost then I too would be quite hopeful! I may not have been around for long, but there's the starting's of an small pile of loco's waiting for wheels to be sent to Gordon. My problem is that there is also an small pile of steam engines awaiting chassis' as well... Besides there is also the question of unfinished BHE 1Gen DMU's... Mine recently didn't win it's bout with the file that fell off the bookcase. Thanks Gents!

Thank Chaps, Perseverance is one word for it. Madness might be another, Its an close line... There have been an couple of times where the lump of Nickel-Silver have been close to flying out of the window. I definitely could have picked an easier loco than the 14xx. Perhaps an pannier could be suggested for other people starting out? I'm not expecting miracles in the pulling power in the end, If I could get it running smoothly with one or two AutoCoaches, or perhaps three or four wagons then I would be happy. Interesting information Nick! I also have an unhappy memory of the Dover-Boulogne catamaran ferry of an similar nature. Glad that my words raised an chortle... All bad pun's received with gratitude! Best Regards. Chris.

This blog entry starts with the entirely predictable “Has it really been six month since I last wrote something,” comment. Well yes it has. Real life it seems has a way of getting in the way of modelling time, that and commuting into London on Mr Branson's 1:1 train set every day. In that awkward time between graduating and starting the first proper job, I did manage to get some modelling done. This was in the form of one of Mr Higg's excellent replacement chassis for commercial bodies. The body that was donated was a 14xx in lined green livery picked up off an popular auction site. I chose the 14xx in particular as it fitted in nicely with my scenario for Congdon's Shop and it would be useful for the branch service on St Ruth, whilst also making up for the lack of steam on the layout. It also lacks outside pistons which I don't want to tackle just quite yet a I foresee it as another area of problems. I had meant to write something up earlier about the construction of this from an absolute beginner’s point of view but consequently I haven't got around to it. The chassis at one point was running quite well, albeit on a pure smoothed 12VDC supply and with two white-metal cars bluetac'ed on to give some traction. A number of things were changed from this early rendition. Firstly the cars were removed as they wouldn't fit under the body. I also changed the way the motor was mounted, replacing the bracket at the front of the motor with brass rod soldered onto the terminals at the rear. From memory I think the chassis went for 4 rebuilds, mainly due to issues with delaminating PCB. I can't remember how many times the wheels were quartered, but it was probably in the tens of times. You may gather from the title of this entry that the final result wasn't all together successful. I did manage to get the chassis “running,” and the body “fitted,” before St Ruth went to TINGS and consequently it made its show debut there. Needless to say when the Autotank and Autocoach appeared from the branch, it was promptly followed by the “finger of god,” or an “earthquake,” knock from below the baseboard. Even when the loco was moving the juddering was so violent that at one point it lost its Autocoach. This is the reason why the designation “Vomit Comet,” was applied. The Autotank combination then limped back, disgraced by its builder, to the fiddleyard, where it was replaced by one of these newfangled diseasel thingbob’s. Not exactly a good advertisement of the better running qualities of 2mmFS. It was so bad that I even forgot to get a picture of it on the layout. The combination has had one other outing of note, to the AGM in Bedford where it accompanied South Yard. It here that Mr Higg's himself looked at it, along with Rich Brummitt and gave me some pointers as to how to improve the running. After this, it has sat in a box whilst I oohed and arred as to what to do with it. Eventually, after was over Christmas, I decided that I had better stop dithering and start to go through some of these suggestions. I should reiterate that I am not a loco builder, and these practices are probably questionable at best. Those with much more experience would do things differently the first time around. Most of these points seem to have been debated quite thoroughly on the 14 page forum entry. 1. Too much time I spent drinking beer rather than building the engine. Especially a 0-4-2 as a first try, where there is little to no weight. Well... this isn't going to change now. 2. Rusty Wheels. Rich's suggestion was to polish the wheels off with Autosol metal polish. I can definitely see the benefit of this as the steel tyres on the association wheels rust extremely quickly, which is catastrophic for the pick-up on this very light engine. Thus the coupling rods were removed and the drivers pulled off the muffs. The sideframes were then un-soldered from the body, (damaging them in the process ,) revealing the pony wheels to also take off. The wheels were then placed in a mini drill and the polish put on using a cotton bud, at the same time that the Manor's wheels were done. Now the wheels are safely put away in a re-sealable bag away from moisture until they are needed once again. 3. Bent Chassis. This really where the tale of woe begins. Once the wheels and sideframes were taken off the chassis, something caught my eye. The chassis wasn't lying flat on the workbench.... a check with a ruler confirmed my fears. I'm not sure how or where this happened or how, but I am fairly certain that it either happened when the wheel were pressed on the muffs using the bench vice or perhaps an error was made when building the soldering jig. Worse than this, when the spacers were un-soldered it was found that the etched sides were also as bent as a banana. Surely this was the sign to start again from scratch... In an effort to save £15, the etched sides were clamped on the baseboard, and lengths of brass rod were soldered onto the sides in a truss like pattern. These are strategically placed in order to avoid the uprights of the soldering jig. The hope is that these brass rods will both straighten the chassis out and make it stiffer so that it doesn't occur again. Once the soldering jig had been straightened using an set square, the sides were placed in once again, (MK5 remember...) The sides were checked for square-ness by using long lengths of axle steel (~1') Initially pieces of brass were used to “tack,” the sides together, which allowed for the sides to be removed from the jig. It was then possible to check the straightness again using the ruler before placing the sides back in the jig and soldering the spacer’s onto these. Initially I had used the wider 7mm PCB spacer, however I reverted to the 6.4mm wide spacer. I think that using the wider PCB had caused the ends to splay on the sides due to my ropey soldering. The narrower strip certainly left much more “tolerance.” In an effort to reduce the amount of delaminations, I decided to solder the flat spacers in place and then cut the insulation gaps afterwards using a razor saw. This immensely improved the success rate, possibly as it spreads the heat over a relatively larger area. The downside to this is that there is only one isolation gap rather than doubling up. The vertical spacers were similarly treated however an isolation gap was placed down the middle before emplacement due to the difficulties of putting a razor saw into the chassis. 4. Bearings and Simpson spring's As I was aware that electrical pick-up was going to be a problem with a light, 6 wheeled engine. I decided to follow the recommendation to fit Simpson springs and completed these to the letter. This basically involved reaming the bearings out to 1.6mm and using the straightened spring wire from couplers. I found this wire extremely fiddly to use, and when the wheels were fitted the wire had lost its springiness and had already bent into the wrong shape. I had replaced this with DG wire which worked well, however to keep the friction low I only fitted these onto each side. I have now replaced these with slightly finer wire, fitted these on all 6 wheels and used a longer length to try and reduce the friction whilst maintaining the springiness. I have also replaced the bearings on the driving wheels. I know that this shouldn't make any difference under the tolerances of 2mm, however I think that under my loose tolerances it didn't help the quartering. 5. Sideframe Repairs. The sideframes that cover the rear pony truck are folded up from the etch material and then soldered on, and hence not the strongest construction. The etched spacers were replaced with lumps of brass, cut and filed square before being soldered to the main body. The sideframes will be fixed in place with glue once the pony wheels are positioned and fitted, to avoid damaging the paintwork. 6. Motor Mounting. Fitting the motor was the subject of many trials and iterations. I chose the flat can motor to use a recommended by Chris. Others that I have spoken to would recommend shelling out for a coreless motor. I am however told that this could be risky with AMR, PWM controllers around. Perhaps my first mistake was to chop off the wrong end of the spindle as this left the holes for the bolts in the gearbox end of the motor. After trying several different mount configurations I couldn't make one accurately enough to use and maintain electrical isolation. This would definitely be a lot easier if the motor was the other way around. In the end I have opted to use a solution similar to what was used before. The problem with this is that after painting the chassis, the motor has to be soldered into position. I have probably been lucky once already no to get paint in the motor after soldering it on before spray painting it. To solve this problem, I have used brass tube soldered to the end of the chassis attached to the side-frame spacer brass. Into this brass tube, appropriately sized brass rod is inserted which is in turn soldered to the motor terminals which creates a socket. Overall this configuration isn't perfect as there is a lot of strain placed on the solder joints on the terminals, however for the occasional fitting and removal this shouldn't be much of a problem. The other problem is that an old bit of rail ticket also provides the insulation between the chassis and the motor body, perhaps not the most elegant engineering solution. Originally I had used both sides of the gearbox, however I think that this may have been causing an bind in the gear chain. As a lot of other people have done, I chopped the nearside off. With the other end of the motor still supported, there isn’t too much problem with the Motor moving around. This brings it up to date so far. I think that I am now at the point of having to wait for the weather to break to do some painting, and possibly waiting further to use that etching primer that my dad was using for his manor. There is still much more to do, but I will have to save that for the next entry. Unfortunately that will probably be another 6 months away.

Felt tip! Was the printer not working?

Welcome to the commuting masses to the big smoke Pete, although I'm sure that my commute on Mr Beardy's trainset is nothing compared to your's (Stellios' planes perchance?) May I also congratulate you on your new job and again extend the invitation that if you ever find yourself in the midlands...

Not a problem Pete. Assuming that your cassettes are 29.42mm wide (or the smallest ones anyway), you could fit some of the plastic angle to the sides to stop stuff falling off drastically. This is of course providing that you could source some from the Spanish equivalent of a certain hardware shop. Hope this is Helpful... Chris

If you would like an photo or two of our cassettes to better explain what I meant, then drop me an pm and I will try to sort it for you...

Interesting thoughts as always Pete, I also was toying with the idea of an linear traverser for Congdon's Shop, but I likewise thought that this was an bit overkill. I have decided to use the same system as my dad's cassette's and make them compatible (may provide useful if I ever find that I need to borrow some.) Have you thought of using cassettes made with brass strip, with an tube and rod type plug soldered onto the ends to provide alignment and electrical feed? This should have the advantage of being able to connect two, three or four cassettes together without having to really worry about providing power or alignment issues. Best Regards, Chris.

Sorry Pete, missed that one! I'm glad that you approve of the disks. There should be some further words on the warship appearing soon! Best regards, Chris.

Thanks Will, Please make yourself known! Thanks Ian.

Thanks Tom, I look forward to seeing how you do yours! Thanks Julia. I will agree it is quite fiddly, as the many attempts will testify. The solution to the balance weight is quite simple really as its how the real ones work. I'm not sure that I will be able to make both of the balance weights move on the double disks that we require. DevonDynosoar, I wouldn't be put off, This is the first soldering I have done for an few years. Its not too difficult to get it working, if needs be you could try to mechanize and then convert to an static if you can't get it to work. Cheers Jeremy, I would recommend it, It is satisfying to know that they work, even if no one watching actually notices. PM will be sent dreckly about the Par piccies. Although technically not in our period, they are very nice models none the less, (and impressive in real life too!) Its funny you should mention the FGW 153... Thanks Brightspark, Fiddly is our middle name. I do wonder if it affects our sanity at times. Best Regards, Chris

The more recent meetings of the Midland Area Group have consisted of fettling points and generally resolving faults that emerged from the running weekend at the Nottingham show. One of the major alterations consists of altering the traversing fiddleyard so that more than one track is live with DC at a time (John can describe, along with the rest of the electronics.) Eventually with enough operators present, four loco movements should be possible at the same time. This is more impressive when the fact comes to light that the layout is firmly DC, although all of these operators will have to become GWR signalling masters as well. All the fettling is to make sure that St Ruth will be running more reliably by TINGS (affectionately known as the “Thank God its N Showâ€!) on the Fosse way in Warwickshire. It is at this point soldered point construction comes into its own, as the simple application of the soldering iron, a gauge and some green lable, is enough to correct mistakes on the permanent way. The one area of progress that has been slowly developing is building the many signals that will be eventually needed. Andy is working on a fairly complex one, and I will leave him to unveil it when it’s ready. After opening my mouth on his previous entry, I seemed to volunteer to build the ground disk signals needed for shunting movements. What’s more I even offered to light the lamps and make the disk move. Whilst in the fair country, I managed to find myself a prototype at the London end of Truro station. It’s most accurate to say that all of the single disks will probably be based on this one. I believe that this is of the 1960’s replacement design or close enough, although I stand to be corrected. The disk itself is taken directly off the MSE GWR etch, rescued from previous signal building activities. The disk pictured is actually MK2. MK1 was lost to the carpet, with spectacles filled with solder. With MK3 I tried to be slightly smarter with a small piece of 1mm diameter tube soldered onto the back of the disk to act as a pivot. As you probably can’t see in the photograph, when filed down I managed to catch the wire which meant it no longer sat well in the bearing. It was at this point MK2 was rescued which had been discarded due to the same reason as MK1 and a 0.3mm hole drilled to accept the operating wire. The spectacles in this disk were rescued using a small reaming broach as these holes are smaller than my smallest drill. The post itself is fashioned from 1mm tube in order to feed power to the lamp through an wire threaded through the center. The body will act as the return when I eventually get around to making and fitting the lamp. The bearings themselves were formed from a strip of nickel silver, which was bent and then soldered onto the post. The trickiest part so far has been actuating the balance weight. Eventually I settled on a system where the wire that operates the disk is bent through a hole in the balance weight. This isn’t perfect as the wire above the balance weight hole has to be exactly the right length or else the balance beam hinders the movement of the disk. The disk still needs its wiring up to its control servo and there are many details to finish the signal off including perhaps most importantly paint, however progress is progress none the less! I apologise for the poor quality of these photographs, I’m still learning the best way to photograph something that is 7mm tall! We have also made a start on putting catch points onto the layout. These will be purely decoration as we don’t really need an extra obstacle to derail. The catches for the two carriage sidings under the station roof are the only ones to have been installed so far, as per a prototypical photograph. The loco pictured has become the groups test loco, due to its ability to fall off dodgy track. Thankfully it didn’t fall off over the new additions. Finally readers of my personal blog Chris’ Minor Blog will be aware of a number of “lubricated,†purchases. Two Dapol HST’s, in Cross Country and First Great Western Livery are now in the stock box along with a Cross Country voyager to sit next to Andy’s Virgin voyager. Something must have rubbed off on my trips back to the midlands from Cornwall as I traveled on all of these! These have just been plonked on the layout without any conversion to see if they feel at home at ST Ruth. These probably won’t be ready for TINGS due to the lack of Dapol MK3 coaches and wheels. Eventually I might be persuaded to send all the dummy wheels as well to Gordon for reprofiling in order to keep the lightbar compatibility. I wonder with all the tasty offerings released yesterday, how many more “lubricated,†purchases there may be in the coming 18months.

Tom, If they don't run smoothly placed horizontally then you could always try mounting them vertically, which should be smoother as the fiddleyard will act as an big drawer. Which orientation has Jerry used on Tuckingmill? The fiddleyard and wiring for ST Ruth are so complicated as it is designed for four controllers to be used at once (DC I hasten to add.) KISS is long gone! Best Regards, Chris.

St Ruth uses an linear traverser as well. I will write an brief description here, as I'm not sure anything is actually written about it on RMWeb. Sorry in advance if you have already decided your design and don't want any more examples! Ours are built on "Igus Drylin N Series," slides instead. Which according to the bloke who built it are "smooth running and much more precise," (lifted from an discussion on the VAG ~25/6/12.) I couldn't tell you why these ones in particular were picked, I have nothing against the Swedish furniture supplier in question! The slider base comprises of an piece of PCB which has rail soldered ontop of (13 tracks in total.) Below this there are two additional PCB tracks which provide the feed and allow isolation between the two halves. Phosphor bronze strip wipers electrically attached to the feed rail mean that the 3 aligned rails are the only ones that have power. We have nothing to ensure alignment other than using the naked eye. I will only say that there was more than one derailment at Nottingham because of this. I realize that this really doesn't stick to the Kiss principle, as none of the other electrical systems do either. The bloke that built the traverser is around here somewhere If you had any more questions, or I can pass you his email address off topic. Best Regards Chris.

P.S Coach A is the second from last coach going down (the last cream and brown coach, the blood and custard is the support coach) and the second from first on the way back, strangely!

Thanks Missy, I will let you and everyone else know how I get on, when I get around to doing it! I actually need to make some points and tie-bars first. I will concede that you don't have to drink beer to model, however it does help me!! What are these substances that you speak of?? Stu. It had not even crossed my mind... I think that as I already have the bolts, rod and alignment dowels in my possession I will continue to use these for the main join. It is an very good idea indeed (kicks himself for not thinking of before). I might use these on the cassette adaptor at the end. Do you have any Idea on the amount of weight or force they can take before they separate? Best Regards, Chris.

Nick, I agree Beer and modelling do go hand in hand in fact I have changed county and gone for Devonshire beer this evening. The plan to use servos may not be without problems due to the restricted space below the board. Some thought has to be made how to align the servos to fit them in, my thinking so far is to use an small wire in tube coupling to the tie bar. I will probably use whatever is used to control the signal servos on ST Ruth in order to just add onto their orders and make use of the setting up equipment. Thanks Pete, I guess it is what I am aiming for with an starting project so the fact I have managed to hit it is good! I should mention however that this is progress from the last 2 months for the baseboards and 2 years for the planning. Hence progress will appear to slow an little. I hope that my writing style isn't too boring, but I aim to chart both successes and failures in the hope that one day in the far future some may learn from my mistakes. Hopefully if I am going off track with something or there is an better way of doing something then someone on here will have an suggestion. The Control box thingy still needs tidying up (and some wires putting in) and still needs some tweaking to bring it up to drawing office standards. Most of the parts have been bought but the new Truro Maplin keeps running out of the relevant switches, (Student discount, got to use it whilst I still can!) Upon reflection I would agree too that the keeping these two activities separate is an good idea. We could even run a guess the model competition (no prizes but suggestions below please)... The answer may even be an surprise to me... It might not even be the right scale.. Best Regards, Chris.

As suggested in the last entry, Congdon's Shop's home will be in boxfiles that were picked up cheaply from a supermarket. I am still not entirely sure what the future holds with my job, but conceivably I could be flying once a week to a mine site in the middle of nowhere. I'm not saying that the layout would be taken, but it would be nice to have the option. The baseboards themselves have been constructed from plywood and fit into the boxfiles. This gives the baseboards the slightly unusual dimensions of 357 x 235mm or 1' 2 1/16†x 9 3/16†in old money, as it allows a couple of mm to remove the layout whilst maximizing the available space. I'm not sure whether this means Congdon's shop is a “boxfile layout,†especially as two boxfiles have been used for the scenic sections and is quite likely that buildings, scenery and stock will be dumped in a further (two). I'll leave that description for others to discuss. The baseboards are 33mm thick, which leaves enough room for some control below the layout. Construction was based on the same basic structure as south yard, plywood sides glued together by short lengths of hardwood. The 3mm plywood was cut using a high tech stanley knife. For anyone considering the same method, it is much easier to start with a new blade, which I discovered about halfway through after a trip to Wickes. Cutting accuracy was a problem, especially cutting the long side pieces and hence a plane was used in order to ensure that all of the side pieces were the same width. Using this KISS principle, it should have been really hard to make a mistake. However a slight step was observed about half way along the join between the two boards. This was corrected by sliding a knife in the joint, clearing out the dried glue, applying fresh glue before clamping the rise down. Departing from south yard, I decided to incorporate an additional plywood baton down the centre of the boards in order to try to stop any warping or sagging. South Yard has only very slightly sagged in the centre of the board. Additional diagonals had also been cut out but upon consultation it was decided that these weren't needed and would be a hindrance. The other departure was the two blocks of softwood incorporated into the joint side of each baseboard. This will eventually be for the C & L pattern makers dowels, to ensure correct alignment. More by coincidence than planning, the recess incorporated by this is slightly larger than the depth of the dowels. I couldn't find the dimension of these online, so for those who are planning to use them in the future; the screws supplied are 3/4†length with 16mm thread showing when installed, the plate is 1†diameter and 3mm thick. finally the dowel itself 8mm diameter and 11mm length. Keeping the two boards together will be done by a couple of bolts through the softwood blocks. As can be seen in the photograph, when these holes were drilled it dragged some of the side of the block out, coupled with this the bolts are also very tight. Eventually when I make my escape from Cornwall and get access to a drill once again, I will ream these holes out and glue the shown brass tube on the inside. The bolts will pass through these tubes, which I hope will be a more accurate and neat solution that will be less susceptible to wear. The track plan has been drawn based on the layout of platforms and sidings at Callington. This should mean that one day the layout could be back converted with the addition of more modules and buildings. Unusually this means that coaches have to be propelled back out of the station for the loco to be able to run around, which also happens to be excellent for space saving. A standard CAD package was used to draw the diagram in layers with templates for the points recycled from the planning stages of ST Ruth. The platform length was determined by the longest train that I was planning to run, which turned out to be a three car Class 118 DMU. Loco hauled trains will only be comprised of 2 coaches, but in reality 3 coaches for specials can be accommodated with a slight overhang. I will concede that the sidings are probably too long, but there are photographs of lots of wagons surrounding Callington station, so who knows maybe not? I will be using easitrac to build the trackwork, including the milled turnout bases. The turnouts and solitary signal will be controlled using microservo's, should I be able to get them to work. DG couplings will be released using the Gaugemaster EM-1 electromagents to allow for some shunting activities. I only plan to have one controller for wiring simplicity, but isolating switches will be incorporated to allow for more than one loco to be on the layout at a time. Trains will be fed to the layout by cassettes, which will be compatible with my dad's (so I can “borrow,†if I need extra!) Once the track plan was decided upon, the diagram was printed out and laid over the baseboards. This highlighted possible issues with the tie bars fouling the sides and were then adjusted accordingly. It also allowed me to check the clearances around the layout between the sidings. This also gave me an opportunity to play “paper trains,†the results of which can be seen in the photographs below with the limited amount of stock that I have. BHE- WW hybrid Class 118 DMU waits at the platform, and for painting. A perhaps unlikely scene, Dapol 14xx and autocoach’s waits at platform, whilst the Dapol 2-6-2MT shunts association vans in the yard. Both locos are awaiting replacement chassis, 14xx from the association and the 2-6-2T from Nigel Hunt. Construction will be delayed for a couple of weeks, due to recovering funds from an celebratory splurge to Hattons for getting an first in my degree. More details of which may appear on the ST Ruth blog soon. Some eagle eyed readers may have noticed a bottle and glass of beverage in one of the photographs, however the question has to be asked “Have I Earned it?!†(groan...). Predecessors of this glass may have had something to do with the splurge.