roythebus

I've not been following this thread too closely as I have no interest in DJM, but would make some comments that may not have ben made. 

Liquidators fees may seem high to us mere mortals but I believe they are fixed by law. That is not the wage of one person, but would also include the overheads of running the business, overheads which any business would incur.

I note there's a directors Loan account of some £50,000. That is probably DJ's own money which he put into the business to keep it going, maybe a second mortgage on his house, I don't know, I'm not over-interested.

That there only 10p left in the account is of little importance. Once the liquidators take over, that is outside the control of the former director. At that time there "may" have been many £1,000s in the account and that was legally used by the liquidators to cover their expenses. The fact that there was 10p is down to the liquidators. I know a bit about how these things work as I was MD of a company that went into liquidation in 2003. It was not pleasant but educational in a number of ways.

One thing people tend to forget is that on the prototype there's very little straight track. A gently curving platform always looks better than a straight one, especially on a small lyout.

You say tomaytos, I say tomartos... soldering irons at dawn?

I too have been building copper clad track since about 1964 when I was in the 2nd year at grammar school. That never fell apart. I built most of the original copper clad pointwork for the MRC's New Anningotn exhibition layout. I don't recall a tiebar come unsoldered from a switch rail. there were over 60 pints on that layout.

What I use as a simple in these days is a bit of 0.3mm brass wire in a flat Z shape through a hole in the tiebar. cheap and effective and easier than turning down small pins.

Well done, looks good.

On 19/07/2020 at 22:14, simon b said:

 

 

Thanks for that, exactly what I need. 

 

I've heard the sidings referred to as both north and west, North makes more sense to me but I wonder if it's a hang over from the other sidings that used to exist slightly further out.

 

Anyone know or have pics of what was behind the hoist? looks like some covered walkways to something?

It was known as the North Sidings, south sidings were accessed from Platform 1 on the other id of the station. I was a driver at Waterloo 1980-1988. Never got to use the lift though.

All is clear now, I realised that there's no check rail in the middle of the K crossing on the switched diamond, hence my comment. Interesting to see both sides of the switch rail are planed.

Yes, that was Barn Elms playing grounds, formerly owned by the LCC I think. My mum's old house is only about 400 yards from that frontage, but the other side of the river in Delorme Street, just off Fulham Palace Road. I lived round that area from 1961 to 1973 and again from 177-79. Mum moved out of there about 3 years ago and went into a care home.

There's a lot of railway and tramway interest on that particular map, especially the layout of Hammersmith Station with the GNP&B tube recently extended to there, the Grove Road line being recently closed ( on the next sheet) and the Midland Railway coal depot and of course Lillie Bridge Depot!

I've always wondered what the layout of the Harrods line was, now I know!

I used to use Coca Cola for rust removal and unsticking seized piston rings on vintage vehicles. The Coke factory in Milton Keynes used spilt coke concentrate in their steam cleaner pressure washers. Peronally I'd never drink the stuff having seen what it does to metal.

<insert plastic ruler in waste disposal system>....

I think I can see where Andy's coming from. the distance between the end of the K crossing and the movable switch will only be the flange gauge width, say 1mm, not the usual "point blade" clearance of 1.25 or whatever it is for the standard that is being used.

Hence the throw required would be 1mm, not 1.25mm.

Presumably there's a wing rail in the K crossing not shown on the template?

Talking about hidden narrow gauge, there's one on the Thames that connects the old Harrods warehouse with the riverside. On the south towpath between Putney and Hammersmith, hearer to Hammersmith, there's a quay where barges could tie up. there's a maybe 15" gauge railway that goes along the quay with another line that goes across the towpath into the Harrods warehouse. I've know of the line for about 55 years and never seen any sign of it being used.

Sorting through boxes of "bits" as you do sometimes, revealed 2 or 3 4mm Farish suburban coaches, a couple of them with Farish bogies I think. these seemed to be quite good representations of the LMS suburbans. I don's seem to have roofs for them which ISTR were shaped tinplate.

Anyone interested in them as a restoration project?

The bodies are one-piece plastic mouldings with seats.

Sounds good.

Beware when using copper clad for jigs, it can be very easy to solder the rails to the jig!

On 04/01/2020 at 00:04, John M Upton said:

The bardic I was originallly issued with was fixed to only display red, white and green, however the fourth quarter of the lens, the yellow one was still there and if I recall correctly the removal of a restraing screw enabled the yellow to be displayed.

LT Bardics could only display red green and white.

On 03/07/2019 at 05:21, rockershovel said:

 

The warren under Waterloo was an amazing place. During the early 90s I was scratching along doing what’s now euphemised as “a portfolio of contract work” and I did some settlement monitoring in the Waterloo and City Line. There was, and probsbly still is, an astonishing patchwork of ad-hoc repair work dating from the Blitz and still in situ due to the cost and complexity of doing anything about it. 

I've just picked up on this thread again, when I was a driver at Waterloo we had to use the uniform arch quite a bit. Near that was the plans arch, a treausre trove of old drawings, digrams, photos, you name it. Beyond that were arches full of old office equipment, some of which was "rescued from the skip" or further use in my loft layout at home.

But more interesting was the remnants of a narrow gauge railway system in the arches. This started in the plans arch, went through the furniture store and through locked gates into the bowels of the station. I doubt if it had any locos, but seemed to be about 15" gauge.

I've read that during WW2 the station suffered several heavy bomb attacks and the fires in the arches burned for months, mainly because of the number of bonded warehouses in there! The main cable routes under the station were wiped out during a couple of raids, but with the usual wartime efficiency were replaced and working again in a relatively short space of time. 

There's not many points at Clapham Junction...lots of through lines but very few points.

For me Templot meant being able to build frre-flowing track that looks as good as I want it to look. A few years ago someone visited to buy some secondhand stock. He looked at my layout built to OO/SF with C&L bits and said "this protofour looks really good". He was a bit dumbstruck when I told him it was OO gauge. Says it all really.

I'd agree with what Hayfield says, go with the flow, don't worry too much about the details. In my view it's the overall appearance that counts. And of course does it work?

Yers, that's what I thought.

Surely the magnet would help stop the wheels from spinning?    I took the magnet out of mine and replaced it with a bit of lead.

I would seem to me to be beneficial to limit the side play of the bogie. I don't need mine to go round 1st radius curves, 2' min on my layout.

I'm doing well then with 4 Mk1s!

Thanks, I may well try with the front bogie mounted a bit more rigidly and maybe side sprung. I don't think adding weight at the back end will help much as it will add weight over the trailing axle.

I couldn't get to Alec's funeral and can't remember how I got into conversation with Brian's daughter! A Facebook friend Noel Hutchinson knew Alec from the WR when he was at Southall shed. Alec worked his way up to Board level with BR. He lived alone at North Wembley until he had to move to the Woking Homes. He was often seen round woking taking train and bus photos. 

But we seem to be getting a bit off thread now! Still no answer to the original question.

Has anyone got any hints or tips for super detailing the Triang Lord of the Isles? I have one, probably 1980s version with nickle plated wheels, no smoke, shiny dome and plastic gears that runs rather well.

I've already turned don the loco wheels to let it run on fine scale OO track but its hauling capacity is rather limited. In reverse it will push 6 Bachy Mk 1 coaches, forwards it will just about manage 2.

I need to replace the bogie wheels, I believe they should be 16mm; tender wheels have been replaced, and I've added lead weight in places under the chassis keeper plate and in the smokebox where the smoke unit would have been. It'll now manage 4 coaches forwards with a bit of prototypical slipping on starting.

On 27/06/2020 at 10:01, Il Grifone said:

 

At the time of its introduction, there had been a campaign concerning the lack of Southern models - we got an EMu and the L1 from Tri-ang, an R1, a rebuilt WC and an LMR EMU numbered as SR (the SR version was longer), and a 'Schools' from Trix (only a few examples of this exist as it was very approximate).

 

A previous campaign concerning the GWR gave us the HD Castle and the Trix 56xx. Tri-ang ignored it until later, but gave us the Dean single and their rather pathetic 'Hall'

We also had the Trix Southern 0-6-0t, was it an e or E1? Plastic body with fine wheels. I had one many years ago.

Oops, just read through nd found it was an E2!

A few points raised (and destroyed) in this post; from my rather ancient signed route knowledge of the Met Line when I was a guard at Rickmansworth in 1973 and a few years before that at Parsons Green and a as BR driver post 1974.

The LT train stop/trip cock won't prevent any train from passing a signal at danger. What it will do is make an emergency brake application by opening  a valve on the train brake pipe (on older stock) or break the brake continuity wire on later stock. 

Once a driver has "hit a stick" (to use LT terminology) or a SPAD to use modern terminology, he has to follow the following procedure (apply the rule in old terminology): if it is an automatic signal (signal plate will show the prefix A) the driver can reset the trip cock and continue at caution after waiting 2 minutes until he has passed 2 signals displaying a clear aspect. If it is a controlled signal (with a box code on the signal plate) he must contact the signalman before proceeding. A signal plate displaying the letter X is the last automatic signal before a controlled area and must be treated as a controlled signal.

The Met has a mixture of traditional LT two aspect signals and BR style 3 or 4 aspect signals from Harrow on the Hill to Amersham. It doesn't have AWS or tWPS due to the presence of the centre 4th rail. Signalling on that line was set for the days of unfitted goods trains which shared the fast and slow lines when the line was quadrupled in the early 1960s. The local lines south of Moor Park had disc style distant signals, but these were all removed many years ago.

From information gleaned from a train drivers' Facebook group the Chiltern driver is an experienced driver with many years service. The same group reports that it is fairly common for Chiltern trains to be tripped on debris on the Met for some reason. It also reports the driver "hit the stick"/SPAD, reset the trip cock and continued. Whether or not he contacted the signalman is not mentioned. In continuing, the train ran through the trailing points for the Chesham branch as the road was set for the northbound Met train which was stationary in the northbound platform with the signal there displaying a proceed aspect for the Chesham branch. That signal returned to danger as soon as a the Chiltern train occupied the track section ahead of the signal. The layout at Chalfont is a facing crossover between northbound and southbound lines with a trailing point on the southbound line which leads to the Chesham branch. No switched diamonds involved, all plain points.

So, enough of the speculation, we'll have to find out from the RAIB what actually happened and why.