LNER4479

And, now for something on a slightly different tack... Eh? Where's the railway! Well, no-one would have been quite daft enough to build a railway here. This is High Cup Nick, one of the Pennine Way's most dramatic viewpoints, located way up in the High Pennines. But, there is a connection here. You'll have to trust me but we are looking almost directly down the barrel towards Shap Fell, away on the far distant skyline. In the mid-distance is the river Eden, with Appleby nestling in its valley. Just out of sight to the left is the distinctive outline of Wild Boar Fell. Yes, close by is Settle & Carlisle country, where the Midland Railway was - famously - daft enough to build a railway. Another part of the Carlisle master plan features a section of the Midland Railway's mountain masterpiece and, although it's been done to death, I have no qualms to present to you my version of Garsdale. As you can see, the basic baseboard structures have already been assembled; this was the result of some work I did about 12 years ago but has been mothballed since. But it is now time for it to emerge, chrysalis-like from its slumbers. Much careful measurement and marking out was the order of the day, checking and re-checking that I had got both location and height correct. And now the first bits of structure start to grow outwards from the datum points. The idea here is that the boards will sit on a permanent structure, whilst having their own legs folded away - this has also been designed as a portable exhibition layout. More structure building up, getting more solid with each part added. First two (out of four) boards supported. And now the full structure, supporting the full scene. This end has actually got as far as some mod-roc'ing. Those familiar with the location will recognise the road underbridge and the approach road up to the station. From the north end, this gives an idea of the reverse sweep through the site, with the trackbed of the Hawes branch and the 'ole for the 50ft turntable prominent. The best description I've ever read of this section of the route is 'riding the backbone of England' (a reference to my beloved Pennines). A drop of rain falling at Garsdale Head can potentially go three different ways - to the Humber, Solway Firth or the Lune estuary. We're now into serious brownie point territory here. Certain members of the household tend to like things all neat n organised. And inside the doors? Why, stock storage of course! As you can see, some stock goes back 30 years but it will all have some sort of role to play in the years to come. Gonna take a lot of stock to fill this layout

To make neat wiring runs from lever frame to points n siggernals Alexander Graham

Who cares? It tasted as good as Frosties Bo Hemian

Mmmmm! Corn beef quiche lorraine with Lyonnaise potatoes

'One wire should be a blue-ish grey ... and the other one should be a grey-ish blue' [bob Newhart, defusing a bomb]

Ditto. Just found this thread and spent an enjoyable half hour going through and 'liking'. Can't add anything useful or informative at the moment, only to say that views of the internals of (mainly) long lost mechanical signalboxes are great and only usually the province of a privileged few so thanks for sharing.

It's fine, really. Just don't mention the C0cks, that's all...

I knew .. I just KNEW ... it was a mistake including that button / knob in the picture There's me, slaving away at my artickleyations and all you lot are interested in is the red knob! I dunno... For info, when depressed (ha!), it connects the fiddle yard to the inner mainline so as fiddle yard operator can bring a northbound train out into position ready for it to appear on stage round the front. A similar knob allows southbound trains to be similarly positioned and also dragged back into the yard once the front of house operators have finished with 'em.

Copious instructions supplied with the kit, although I wouldn't regard it as a suitable kit for a beginner. I like to do most of my soldering from the inside where possible. The footplate is two pieces soldered together, with alignment pins in each of the four corners. The only tricky bit in what I've shown so far was the cab overlays where a large amount of heat is required to get the solder to flow over such a large area. For this I used my pencil gas torch - but very judiciously, with a large, water loaded brush to hand!

Or...

Does that therefore make you Captain Sensible? At least some of the time? Keep talking the happy talk

Welcome to the G-Train Locomotive Works! Previously, I've featured any stock building on my layout threads; however, now that I'm doing commissions which don't bear any relation to the layout(s) then it seems to make more sense to join the happy throng in this area of the site. My first assignment has been the High Level models kit for the GER Cl.209, better known as the LNER Y5 'Coffee Pot'. This is what turned up at the start of the year (the chassis etch followed later). Footplate etch and overlay. Splasher tops and smokebox in progress Cab former ready to attach Cab overlays fitted Fit of the parts so far has been very good. Clearly a lot of thought gone into the kit. Next time - the chassis work commences.

It's been so long on here since the last modelling post that I'll have to start with the last pic on the previous said post to put things into context. This is where we were up to. Underframes with articliated bits added, ready to be mounted on the bogies. Nothing more sophisticated than opening out the holes to approx. 2mm and soldering in a 8BA bolt Meanwhile, Mr King's resin bogies have been painted and wheels (also painted) inserted. In the centre of the bogie, there is a nice, sizeable flat area where the inter-vehicle couplings can rest on, as demonstrated top right. Bit fuzzy (sorry) but this shows how the 8BA bolt fits through the centre pivot point of the bogie, suitably drilled out to be a snug fit. If the picture was a bit clearer, then you would be able to see how the larger, lower bearing pad sits between the bolt and the top of the bogie. Milestone achieved last night - the full set now on its bogies. Obviously, the end bogies are attached in a more conventional way like a normal bogie coach. But the good news is that it all seems to run OK, negotiating the assault course shown (double slip - three-way point - curved point) without any difficulty. Next step - body attachment then I might just have the bit between my teeth to get the set looking something like complete. Steady on ... In other news ... the recent hiatus is partly explained away by some heavy engineering work being done to the structure of the chapel which has necessitated everything being packed away. However, that is now complete so the layout should be getting unpacked over the next few weeks for some of the remaining work to be done.

Latest progress with the Little Bytham 'retro' signals - arms now fitted and working. Balance weights, bases and connecting it all up next. Two weeks to go until they get trial fitted and tested...

Agreed - I do believe though that the '100' formation were Typhoons? (and there were 22 of them, being even more of a pedant!). It was billed as 'up to 100 planes'. I count 90 from my pictures and I missed a couple of the formations so it could well have been spot on the 100.

Thanks for posting the BBMF photo in particular. I video'd that so it was difficult to make out the individual aircraft in the formation. Both Hurricanes and three Spitfires accompanying the Lanc - magic!

The show-stealer along the Mall today.

Interesting discussion re train lengths. In terms of the capacity at King's Cross, our research indicated that the longest train shown in the 1936-1938 carriage workings was the 10.10am Leeds departure which loaded to 17 vehicles on a Monday (16 on a Friday and 15 the rest of the week). HOWEVER, this included the unique Quintuplet dining set (as its 'core'), the inner vehicles of which were somewhat shorter than a standard coach length. The same argument applies for restaurant triplets and other articulated stock. It got me to wondering therefore what length is being considered for a 'coach' when quoting platform lengths? Interestingly, having recently made (temporary) use of the Grantham fiddle yard for Shap, roads that normally take a nine coach teak set suddenly could only cope with eight MkIs! Finally, seeing as it got a mention, a completely gratuitous excuse to post Tony's portrait of Jonathan's wonderful recreation of said Quint set.

Thought for the day: Everyone looks beautiful as you get older (W Connolly)

Thanks Andrew, I'll PM you to avoid hijacking Tony's thread any further. Graham

Very nice, Andrew. May I ask where the main bracket etches came from? I'm on the lookout for something like that and - for once - the Wizard (ex-MSE) range doesn't include such a thing (unless I've missed it?) Graham

Meanwhile, in deepest, darkest Durham... My little contribution to the forthcoming Little Bytham 'retro' weekend. Our Glorious Leader ('Sir') was heard to say during initial discussions: 'of course, some of the signals were somersaults in the pre-war period'. That sounded like a challenge if ever I heard one. Two of the signals were identified for retro-conversion so here they are well on their way. Of course, this is all complete madness as they'll only be in use for a weekend(!!) but - hey - I'd only be watching the football or something. More soon, with less than six weeks to go...

On the Peco slips, all the switch rails are hard-wired to the adjacent running rail so you don't have to worry about that aspect.

Thanks for comments so far - I can assure all that the slips are wired correctly as described. That bit at least is common with DC!!

OK, listen up SOSJ lovers - time for a serious question. Before there was a peculiar burning smell, some time was spent on Tuesday attempting to fault find some points that our glorious leader asked me to look at. Mr Ducky reckoned that, as originally installed the equipment was working and doing what it was supposed to but then problems had started. What we're talking about here are the frog juicers for the (modified) Peco points. We selected the shortest wheelbase loco possible (some obscure Suvvern 0-4-0T that I hadn't seen before <-- geddit? Oh, never mind...) A job lot of Gaugemaster juicers has been acquired and have been installed on most of the points in the Junction station area. Now, even with my limited DC-with-an-extra-C competence, it would be going some to wire these up wrong - just three wires required (I thought DCC was supposed to be just two wires?), red and black to the terminals at one end (either way round) and the other wire to the frog. All were apparently wired correctly. Here, though, is what was actually happening: We were running over the point from the branch that leads into the sidings, across a double slip and over a further point - the pointwork involved is shown in the photo below on a previous visit prior to being permanently fixed down. The juicers in question were those fitted to both frogs of the double slip and the med. rad. point beyond. The symptom is that, in each of the three cases, the loco would run over OK with the point set in one direction but when the point was changed (by hand - these points have not been motored yet), the loco stopped when it got to the frog (ie fully past the rail break). Note carefully that it did NOT create a short, it just stopped dead, meaning that there was neither a black or red connection to the frog, it was just 'dead'. The consequence of this was that there was only one of the four possible routes through the slip that the loco would run through without stopping. It appears to me therefore (although I am happy to be corrected by any out there with more knowledge of how these things are actually supposed to work) that in all cases, the juicer was half working, ie in one of the directions it would correctly detect the loco and instantaneous switch (link) the frog to the correct running rail - but in the other direction it wouldn't do so and left it not switched to either rail. The lack of a short in any of the testing would indicate that the juicers were NOT stuck in one direction only. Now for one to be doing this might indicate a duff juicer, but three? At one stage, we swapped one out for another (fourth) juicer but still the same. In another instance when we were trying stuff, one of the juicers worked the other way round, ie the route through the frog that formerly worked didn't and vice versa - had we simply swapped the red and black wires to it over?. SO - anybody any idea of what is going on (or not going on?). Is it the case that these juicers don't 'talk' to the NCE PowerCab correctly? Is that possible?! To try and anticipate some questions: Mr Ducky has connected up his layout droppers in three districts: fiddle yard; down main; and up main. It was therefore quite easy to isolate the other districts and just leave the down main (which is the side the branch and associated sidings are on) connected. Made no difference. Mr Ducky has started to fit Cobalts (classics) and the intention is that the majority of points at the Junction will be so worked and make use of the internal switch to connect to the frog (thus eliminating the need for juicers on those points. However, there will still be some handworked points (basically, the up sidings) where Mr Ducky would like to carry on using the juicers (although other options are available, like the linked switch option Clive has highlighted). It would be useful to get the bottom of what is happening in any case The NCE PowerCab is the lower power 1.5A max version. Unfortunately, any further testing / fault-finding was not possible following the burn out so there may be some 'have you tried?' ideas that we didn't get round to. Any comments, thoughts, suggestions, views welcome. Dropping the extra 'C', clockwork power and a chainsaw have already been suggested.