Michael Edge

It looks like a test train to me - was this after the reverse turbine had been altered? Running in reverse was important at Euston because the arriving train loco was normally required to bank the train on its way out, at least as far as the platform end. It might well have been needed at Lime Street as well given the sharp gradient into the tunnel just off the platform ends.

This was the only way I could think of to keep track of about 200 locos on the layout, especially as they are often too far way (and the lighting isn't very good) to read the numbers - and some earlier "weathering" has obscured the cabside numbers completely. The only thing you have to remember is to take the tag with you when you move a loco from one location to another. They are also colour coded, red for express passenger, blue for mixed traffic, green for diesels and yellow for local passenger and DMUs.

No idea, it's all there now anyway, I've just checked.

They are swinging arms for one axle, beams if they are connecting two. Most modern railway rolling stock is suspended this way but with springs and dampers rather than compensation - not many hornblocks around these days. In this case the knife edge is done simply by trial and error until the frame rides level, if I had designed it as a kit the height and position would have been set with the etches.

C&L, all the plain track on the layout is from them.

Moving on to the second week in France More baseboard construction, the plywood had been delivered to the railway room but turned out to be nearly twice as thick as what I had specified before so construction was a bit different. This stuff was really difficult to saw as well but it did make one part easier... It's so thick it was self supporting at the narrower end so I didn't have to move any of the control panels, they are all still easily visible underneath - one did have to be undone, threaded back through its hole and fixed lower down. Pointwork laid out to see exactly where it would fit - in the end it all moved back a bit. Designing this at home without actually being there meant a lot of work was done as I went along. Finished boards with just a narrow fill in bit to join it to the scenic part, the slightly odd reverse curve shape was to clear the panel and control sockets on the right at the end of Garsdale without getting too close to the Citadel tower at the other side. It does lengthen the loops a bit as well. View down the whole length - it's quite a big layout in itself. Overall from the scenic break bridge The first down train running on to the loop. Once I get a crossover which was missed off the plan up and down trains will use the track on the left with four loops for storage. The only access back to the main lines through our existing storage area is via the loco yard road which is the only one with up and down connections at the far end. This will access the main line into Citadel and both goods avoiding lines to Bog Junction.

I only did an hour or so on this yesterday. Frame etch is OK but the "00" spacers were more than 13mm wide - far too much for these Markits wheels - so it has some of mine. I'm not going to build this tiny 0-4-0 rigid so the frames were modified with my usual compensation system. Two hefty brass beams pivoted as far forward as I could get form swinging arms to carry the leading axle which can rock under a knife edge. The pivot pins can be seen in the first photo just above the guard irons, these are far too long but easily shortened. Back to this on Monday.

I've just got the Mk3 version of the DG coupling hook. I've modified the latch again, now the top part is half etched to fold over. It rests on the peg quite securely now and the loop can't catch on the top of it - worked perfectly on test with this J10 on the colliery trip.

Looking again that might be the altered setting, I'll check with Tony.

My original Templot drawing had 1:7 crossings, between two B7 turnouts - I haven't seen Tony's altered plan. They do work perfectly though.

Back at work here now, next up is this: I'm a glutton for punishment, here we go with another Jidenco/Falcon Brass kit.

Just back from another trip to France, Yorkshire weather today a bit of a contrast to Dordogne though. I left Hest Bank in May with baseboards for the scenic part and not much more, back this time with all the pointwork and the cork had already been laid so I could start with tracklaying. The weather was extremely hot (for October) and sunny - ideal conditions for the job. Tony's pointwork comes neatly packed on the Templot printout so it's easy to set it all out and see how it fits together. This time we have prototypical fixed diamond crossings instead of the switch diamonds we had on the approach to Citadel. When I drew the pointwork out to scale Tony quite correctly pointed out that the crossing angles were too flat for fixed diamonds in EM but this time (I wasn't involved with the earlier stuff) I simply asked him to adjust the angles and lengths to bring it with the range for fixed. The switch diamonds work now but they were a real pain fix motors to and set up, comparison below shows the minimal difference it woould have made. This is one of the new ones laid over the Citadel approach junctions, the very small difference in length would not have been noticeable. To form the approach to the new section I had to rebuild one turnout into a tandem, minimum (4ft 6in) radius here but it works. There was only room for a single track connection to Hest Bank, anything else would have involved points in the tunnel between here and Garsdale, northbound trains will run wrong line here, crossing back over on the approach to Garsdale. This is the very long sprung point which turn it back into double track through Hest Bank, it just fits in the original return loop structure (this is part of the return loop made for this end of the layout which couldn't be fitted when we added Garsdale). Tracklaying as before, glued down with No More Nails, weighted with a variety of steel and iron lumps for a couple of hours or so, then move on, point motors fitted now. The coach is for testing purposes, no power on the track yet but a free running vehicle can be hand propelled along to check the alignment. The curve of the main lines here is about 40m radius and it wasn't easy to set out. When I originally drew the plan, tracing from OS 1:2500, this looked just about straight. When we went to Hest Bank and looked at it there was a very visible curve all the way through which we found a little worrying - but once the model track was actually laid the curve was just as apparent as it had been full size. Looking the other way it's not so tidy! This is about four days work before I got on to the missing baseboards, I left these longer so that I could still walk round the end rather than ducking underneath all the time. More later

I always use compensation for 4-4-0s, I find bogie springing too hard to get just right, especially for a lightweight loco like this.

Yes, it had an LMS BCK at one end - our Caledonian set on Carlise has a BR catering car though, not an LMS one.

There's a video of one of the Swedish turbine locos, I'm not sure if it still runs though. I do remember seeing the few gas turbine racing cars which have been run, they were almost silent in comparison to the other cars, just a whoosh with not much whine. There was an F1 car, an American sports car and the Rover/BRM which competed (and finished) at Le Mans.

At least it was easy to take apart - unlike many rtr locos today.

The Kitmaster 350hp was fairly accurate but I've never done anything with one. I do sometimes run a Hornby Dublo one (fitted with Sharman wheels though) on Herculaneum Dock, it goes unnoticed next to a Bacnmann one.

Overall dimensions are about right but Hornby lengthened the cab to fit the Ringfield motor in, the engine casing is correspondingly shorter.

I can't find all the stuff that went missing in the great crash, most of them were temporary files just for this thread but here are three pictures of the finished pointwork anyway. My main purpose was to lift the rails above the timbers to create the right appearance, I wasn't really trying to reproduce proper chairs. I don't like the current fashion of building pointwork with plastic chairs glued to the timbers, they are just about impossible to adjust/fix if anything goes wrong.

6202 always ran with that cover at the front end open - as in the scratcbuilt one.

No news on a production version of these, they are flat on top, no representation of chairs. The timbers are thin pcb, the whole idea was simply to get the rail lifted above the timbers - originally I used short strips of brass or n/s to do this. I'll dig about and put some photos of this back on here when I've got time.

I've never used Peco points..... Until I built Wentworth Junction I'd never used Peco track either.

You can find photos in a folder of “layout photos” but there’s a lot to wade through. Ours is 70ft anyway, it’s one of three I built for Leeds Victoria, the 60ft one is now at Brunswick, this one was for the loco shed and is 70ft and the Victoria one (65ft) was given to the club for another project.

We only had room for a small segment of the Upperby roundhouse, no turntable (or track for that matter) in ours. These photos taken in 2014, this part of the layout is still very unfinished, track not even painted yet although it's all working. The roundhouse would be more than 4ft in diameter to scale and this part of our layout isn't, there's a good deal of compression south of St Nicholas bridge. We did have room for the outside 70ft turntable though - originally built for Leeds Victoria more than 40 years ago. Close up of the building, constructed by the amazing Ukrainian modellers who did most of our buildings. Sadly and worryingly we haven't heard from them for over a year now.

A bit of both, I etched the frames, motion and a few other bits but the rest of it seems to be scratchbuilt.