Michael Edge

8mm bolts and nuts actually but all the boards were doweled together as well. The dowels are still in place apart from the one joint I mentioned, I had to remove those because I couldn’t pull them apart far enough inside the shed. Previous layouts have just used bolts to join them together, this does allow some adjustment if necessary.

You could certainly get away with the scissors crossovers non working, as I said we hardly ever use them. We are using modified DG couplings with a normal coupling on the end coach but without the delay latch. The locos have just a hook coupling with no loop, this is the etch I have done for this, it still has a normal drawhook incorporated in it.

This one is for use on my layout so it does have a delay latch but the Carlisle ones don't. They are uncoupled on a permanent magnet at each engine change point and the ends of the bay platforms, we don't need the delay latches or loops on the locos since no actual shunting is done. Everywhere else we use screw and three link couplings with Kadees for stock which should have buckeye couplers - BR and LNER carriage stock.

Steve delivered all the signals for Hest Bank to me at the Manchester show, very securely packed as usual.

I have to fit the down home (3 aspect colour light) to the gantry but otherwise all ready to transport to the layout next year.

Left to right: bay starter, up home, up splitting starter, down home gantry and goods starter. The down starter will be another 3 aspect c/l fitted to the footbridge at the end of the platforms.

When I put the layout back up after the Barnsley show I started to wonder why the kickback sidings in the fiddle yard stopped where they did so....

Both tracks extended as far as the back of the bridge, I didn't bother with the EM gauge on the inner one as this is now 30" radius and well below Carlisle's minimum. This will make the pit trip much easier to operate since all four 14 wagon sets (two full, two empty) and a few oddments (spare brake vans, pit props ec.) will now fit at this end. It also leaves a spare kickback road at the other end for something else...

This and the additional crossover at this end will make a difference to operation with Herculaneum Dock as well, goods operation and transfer to the docks should be a lot easier - when fitted to HD the top left track is the end of the MDHB lines.

One of the toggle clamps fitted to most of the baseboard joints can be seen in this photo, I've replace nearly all the bolts with these now but there are just a few left, including the joint at far left here where I had to saw through the dowels to get enough wriggle room to assemble the laout in the shed. The scenic part still has the bolts just under the trackbed where I had to add them to stop the boards from sagging apart there but it should make exhibition set up and dismantling a lot easier.

Yes, I would say they were blast deflectors rather than smoke troughs. With regard to the multiplicity of crossovers in the platform roads, as you point out almost all trains changed locos here right through to the end of steam but the additional complication was that there were (and still are) only three through platforms. For this reason all three were split into two with signals in the middle and they still are on our model. I have no knowledge of exactly how it worked in your period but in the 50s and 60s the middle roads were mostly used for stock storage and loco movements - we have all these crossovers on our model but in practice the single ones never get used and the scissors only rarely, on the other hand we have only just started to install couplings which will allow engine changing.

Back to the cork, your baseboards are very thin, ours are all 9mm or 12mm plywood, so may well be a bit noisy. Ballasting our track hasn't made any appreciable difference to the noise level, nor did it on my own layout at home, but I have never nailed track down - always glued it, earlier with Evostik and now with No More Nails.

I can move unballasted track stuck down with No More Nails fairly easily by sliding a thin knife blade under it but the track is never ballasted before it is wired and thoroughly tested. Sequence is, track laid and tested by pushing stock along (preferably when the room is as warm as possible), wiring and proper testing with locos and trains, painting, finally ballasting.

2 hours ago, 30368 said:

 

A useful discussion then? Hope all is well with those loco's you have built.

I have checked the U1 GA too, agree, steam feed at each end of the valve chests.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard B

I've found two which I did wrong, both  3mm scale from last century though. I got the most recent one, a 7mm W, right at least.

1 hour ago, 30368 said:

 

Phil,

 

I'm sure Michael will comment. But all the original Bulleid Pacific's have chain driven valve gear so no return crank to worry about. All the re-built engines have outside admission so the return crank faces backwards from the verticle with the driving wheels at bottom dead centre. Just checked my 34053 (R2586) and it is set correctly. So no need for action on your part unless Hornby have made a mistake.

 

Kind regards,

 

Richard

It's fairly clear from side photos and the SR weight diagrams show the position of the return cranks but I went to check on the U1 GA I sent you and the steam passages are easily seen at each end of the valve chests in the plan view. I think the valve gear drive in the original Bulleid pacifics was to the middle of the valve spindle so outside admission had no drawbacks, the rebuilds retained this feature. I'm now wondering if locos of these types which I've built in the past are correct in this aspect.....

I've just seen your request on the IRS forum, I built one of the 0-6-0F locos for Herculaneum Dock using this drawing.

351 AB 0-6-0F.pdf

I made a few mistakes on it, as revealed when I measured one in Glasgow transport museum but much of it was based on a Barclay weight diagram - it may be of some use to you. The biggest error was the overall width, as shown by the red line outside the buffer beam but from your photo the 0-4-0 may have been narrower.

The model looks OK though

The earlier comment made me think so I went to check - the locos listed, including the U1 do indeed have outside admission valves so the backward lean is correct. Outside admission wasn’t popular with most railways since it made it more difficult to keep the valve chests steam tight where the piston rod passed through the ends.

Locos with inside admission piston valves (nearly all) have the return crank leaning forward at bottom dead centre. Outside admission piston valves (notably rebuilt Bulleid pacifics) and slide valves require the crank leaning backwards.

We use 3mm cork glued down with pva, the track is glued with No More Nails (ni Clous ni Vis en France), ballasting with dilute pva. We haven't actually got round to ballasting in the station yet, it's very difficult to get to and our layout is 5ft off the floor.

PM sent with drawing attached

11 hours ago, Mallard60022 said:

I must admit I wouldn't have noticed Mike. However it really looks weird that the kit actually went together like this. I wouldn't have known had I been doing this.

I've never seen a U1 kit mentioned on RMWeb, so maybe it's not a common build? I know from someone's Kitbuilding posts, that The DJH S15 has a load of errors. Dave someone. I must have a poke if I can find his threads.

Phil

It's very noticeable on a U1, there is a big gap between the valve chests and the footplate but it's a very common mistake, even more so with angled cylinders. I agree about the S15, that's a real dogs breakfast of errors.

10 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

 

 

All long, long gone now. Not just the derivatives of the GC 2-8-0s, but the whole line itself; just a cycle track today, with the land carrying the triangle to Northgate station all built on. Though the line to Birkenhead survives, 3-rail Mersey units now ply the trade which used to be the job of powerful 2-6-4Ts before the DMUs came and went. 

 

Thank goodness I can keep alive my memories by making models of the classes I saw..................

 

 

It is at least a very nice cycle track, we rode the whole length of it earlier this year.

I did consider doing just the framework for our model, mostly from wire soldered in a jig, but it would still be too big for one person to lift off and we really need access inside. For the moment we are ignoring it - and the outside canopies our model should have.

It’s very important to get cylinders in line with axle centres (except in GW 2 cylinder locos), anything else just looks wrong.

You've got the cylinders far too high, centre line should be horizontal and in line with the axle centres.

The EM1 generated a great deal of interest at Manchester, even more encouraging was the sale of two oil fired Sentinel 0-6-0 kits - sales of this have been extremely disappointing to say the least.

2 hours ago, Dunalastair said:

 

How did the buildings make the journey from Ukraine?

Quite complicated actually, they delivered the models personally to Cyprus by air, all extremely well packed in sections (the back wall outside platform 1 is 4m long.

They were then brought to the UK and taken to France by car. They have done most of the buildings for the layout now (others by Peter Leyland and Geoff Taylor), we were expecting the last delivery when the war started and we haven't heard from them (it's a husband and wife team) since July 2022.

You might find these pdfs useful.

Citadel buildings T15.PDFisland platform buildings.PDFisland platform buildings.PDFmain building critical dimensions.PDFmain building full drawing.PDFoutside wall.PDF

These are the outline drawings I did for the brilliant Ukrainian modelmakers who did all the buildings for our Carlisle layout. Our model is exactly to scale but we haven't found any reasonable way of doing the roof - even in its reduced form it's 7ft long.

No, they were scratchbuilt, only mentioned because it was the same customer for a lot of EMUs, mostly MTK kits.

4 hours ago, Northmoor said:

Outstanding work @Darius43 and probably unique, after all how many MTK Cl.306 kits were ever finished?  I'm going to hazard a guess that despite over 40 years passing, this might be the first.

I’ve built a six car set of MTK 306, also a 307 and a ten car set of 309, no digital photos of these though. They all went to the same customer along with a lot of SR EMUs and some London Underground sets. I think most of these have been sold on now, it would be interesting to find out where they have gone.

Not this first one, I have all the etches to cover any of the 0-8-0s but this one is a long wheelbase loco as built for Normanby Park steelworks. I’ve not done any work on it for some time, there rarely seems to be much interest in steelworks locos, they are mostly poor sellers.

Proper Job is available on draught round here in Yorkshire - at least at the Fox and Hounds Newmillerdam (near Wakefield) on Wednesday. That's a long way from Cornwall....