DavidBird

Picked up mine this morning. 

On 18/03/2024 at 19:51, Boris said:

..

I did find WCRCs refusal to fit CET toilets disagreeable, railway folks shouldn't have to be playing in aerosolised poo in 2024.

Neither should their immediate neighbours.

On 21/03/2024 at 10:08, Wickham Green too said:

I've never figured out why they felt those Power Cars needed to be fitted with buffers !

On 21/03/2024 at 10:22, 65179 said:

 

Operational flexibility. See post 5 here:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/the-hsts-with-buffers.36134/#post-489260

 

Simon

I remember seeing these on the Bradford drags with the 31s.  They were hauled in both directions by the 31.  Strangely, I don't remember 47 in use, but that's possibly because that was what was expected, while the use of 31s was unusual, so has  stuck in my memory better.

But why not just use the 43? Apparently the 91 only had enough battery power to raise the pantograph, so running it at the front, with the 43 propelling, would have flattened the battery and lost the control.  So when the loco was used one way, it still had to be returned, so it saved a LE movement to use the same loco to haul the train both ways.

On 05/02/2024 at 09:52, Wickham Green too said:

 

All we need is a ( rail ) bus on the bridge an' the model's complete !

Like this?
 

Ok, so the scenery needs a bit of work....

On 11/11/2023 at 11:17, Ian Morgan said:

Having a road go under a rail bridge and then across a level crossing never looks convincing on a layout.

 

 

On 28/01/2024 at 10:40, melmerby said:

Even closer together (Waupaca, WI):

No barrier either.

The low level track is a loop off the high level track for access to a foundry

How about a road going across a level crossing AND under a bridge at the same time...

https://flic.kr/p/5VE3HC

https://flic.kr/p/5VzUXB

On 13/01/2024 at 16:08, Chris Williamson said:

Beware Belt Sanders!  Fitted with a course grade belt they can remove more material than might want to before you've realised it.

 

I've seen medium to dark grey used to good effect on baseboards.  Grey usually has the benefit of being neutral with respect to any scenery that runs up to the edge of the board.   Dark olive green would be second choice, but risks jarring with scenic colours.  Black is too harsh and quickly shows marks.

 

A final thought regarding your most excellent track plan: do use the AnyRail gradient checking facility to ensure the climb to the Mine isn't too steep.  I have a gradient of about 2.7% up to the Mine on Balley-yn-Eas.  In practice it couldn't have been any steeper and still operate.  Based on this experience, if I was to build another layout with a gradient, I really wouldn't want to go over 2%, 2.5% at the very most.  You can afford to be steeper on the straight but not on any curves.  Such a gradient will also be very visible and can look too steep regardless.  When checking clearances where tracks cross, don't forget to allow for the thickness of the material carrying the track as well as the tallest loco or item of rolling stock you intend to run under the upper track.

 

Oh, and regarding Flanders and Swann: there's plenty of railway related dales scenery to inspire you both east and west of Miller's Dale for Tideswell...

  

Would that be Ocean Grey or Military Grey? Or is it the other way round?

Thanks for the tips about the gradients. I still need to do a gradient test to see just what a Quarry Hunslet with 3 tipper wagons will do. I've got a set of 6 V-tippers from Nigel Brooks, my 1st experience of 3D printing.

 https://brooks3dmodels.com/#HDVT1

I'm pretty sure that it will manage something quite steep, but I'd not considered if it would look too steep for the setting. A cardboard mock up is needed before cutting any polystyrene.

3 hours ago, BoD said:

 

...

According to that report on the cruise economy Fort William only allow one cruise ship to dock per day and then it is one of the much smaller boutique size ships. I have only ever seen that size ship at Oban too.  Do any cruise ships get to Mallaig?  When I have been in Mallaig the town certainly seems to fill and empty with the coming and going of the Jacobite.

 

I don't think WCRC are overstating things when playing the tourist effect on the economy card - I'm not saying that that it makes it a valid argument in this case though.

 

 

Yes, they do... and on at least one occassion they involved "The Jacobite"

An early morning encounter with the "MV Boreal" and it's foghorn got me out of bed to see through the fog the ECS Jacobite private charter arrival and departure full of cruise passengers

https://mallaig-harbour.com/harbour-news-june-2018/

 I did even post a photo of the train, but it was lost in the forum crash...

20 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

... The question now of course is whether the Jacobite is bigger than WCRC and could some other operator with compliant stock and suitable traction step in?  We'll see.

There is an obvious candidate for that, with a local connection too...

Does WCRC own the paths on the line? Could they prevent another operator from running trains in the paths?  It was apparent from the publicly available data on RTT that they were activating trains on TRUST that they were prohibited from running, during the period that ScotRail were running an additional service.

Progress has, unfortunately been "glacial", if not "geological". The kitchen table work area has been unavailable due important things like eating, and its been far too cold for the attic.

Yesterday  i made another mistake. 

The baseboard box suffered both from soot from the lasercutting and slight staining to the surface of the ply.  I was planning on varnishing the outside to preserve a nice timber effect, but a coat of varnish would have sealed in the stains.

A bit of hand sanding didn't seem to have any effect so after Christmas I borrowed an electric belt sander. This initially didn't have any effect, so I used a bit more pressure. 

It was at this stage I realised I was actually removing the outer layer of good quality ply, and what i thought was slight surface staining was really dark blemishes on the second layer of lower quality ply.

The finish is now worse than it was before, so painting it will be.

Any suggestions on colours? Plain black, dark green, Madder Red or even Primrose Yellow?

On 03/01/2024 at 10:59, StuartMc said:

 

This reminds me of a story, of fish and of the amazing the things you do when you are young.

 

In 1988 or so BR had these cheap go anywhere tickets offer and about 5 of us from the Rail and Transport Society at Aberystwyth Universitity looked to see how far we could go and back in a weekend - so Aberystwyth to Mallaig and (immediately ) back it was - just becaues we could for £15 or something.

 

The memorably point is that for the whole journey one of the guys was telling us how good the fish is at Mallaig, and was really looking forward to it - but after hours and hours of travelling we arrived - only to find the fish shop did a half day Saturday and didn't reopen until Monday.
 

It's not like that now.  They close in November and don't open again until March.  Still, the Pub does F&C carry-outs - and does them very well, too!

On 19/11/2023 at 19:23, JustinDean said:

 

 

 

Strange how your memory plays tricks on you.  From seeing that in the early 80s, I was sure it was a metal-bodied BR std 16t mineral wagon...

On 25/11/2023 at 19:40, Porkscratching said:

Best fish and chips I ever had in my life was in Mallaig, that was about 1990, no doubt it's changed a bit now. 

No, still the best fish and chips!

1 minute ago, Aire Head said:

What scale are you working in?

4mm/00/009

1 minute ago, Aire Head said:

 

HIGHFITs are 5 planks. Fitted 7 planks weren't really a thing. You want a good mix of 5 planks from across the Big Four and BR.

Thanks very much.  I'm not too well up on pre-TOPS wagon designations, and I only just remember steel 16T wgons in real life...

7 hours ago, Stoke West said:

Highfits at Eastleigh full loads with copper ingots for Pirrelli cables . late 60's  RTZ had 4W wagons for zinc ingots between Avonmouth / Bloxwich and another destination on a triangular service . Wagons need access for cranage  so vanfits not suitable later air brake had wider doors for forks to load . West highland used early air brake OAA then OBA probably tubes or bolsters before

7 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

For an alternative angle, from the mid-1960s into the late 1970s, copper ingots from Canada were imported to Manchester in half-height open top containers. Some of them were transferred to Freightliner services from Trafford Park.

Some can be seen here, which also gives an idea what the ingots looked like:

http://sutherland.davenportstation.org.uk/ws-173.html

It might take a lot of transporter wagons to carry a 5-unit FFA+FGA set! But you could consider a narrow-gauge wagon for carrying ISO containers, like the Isle of Man railway used.

Thanks very much for your info.

So I'd be OK using sheeted loads on fitted 7-plank for a 1960s, with OAAs for slightly later, or PFA with half-height containers for late 80s/90s/early 21st C operations, all capable of being carried on transporter wagons. Alternatively I could use Vanwides (1960s) or VEAs (1970s/80s) and assume forklift loading and COV-AB/VAA type vans for traffic in later eras.

It all sounds easy to do, thanks again.

Back in "the good old days" the railway carried absolutely everything, indeed it had to under common carrier legislation.

Did the carriage of non-ferrous metal continue into 1960s and 70s and even later* and if so what sort of wagons would be used for the metal ingots?

I'm intending to model a What If the Leek and Manifold narrow gauge railway had actually served a viable copper mining industry and shipped out copper metal ingots to industrial customers on standard gauge wagons on NG transporter wagons.  Would normal 12T vans have been used? Or would it have been something with a bit more security?

* The only one I know of was aluminium ingots from the Fort William Smelter to, amongst other places, Bridgenorth in Shropshire.  Even this traffic is now carried by road, if only there was a rail connection to Bridgenorth....

I seem to have changed my mind more often than my underwear* between the oval and two cassettes on either side, but I think I've settled with this plan.  I do really like the idea of the layout being self-contained, with a cassette removal from the back (top).

In the top left corner will be a mine scene, possibly by a 3-D "decoupage" method of the scene in the header photo of the Peak District Mines Historical Society page here https://pdmhs.co.uk/magpie-mine-peak-district/ and with the Kernow N-gauge Graham Farish Scenecraft Derelict Engine House as a bit of forced perspective.

The green line is the edge of the "plateau", the land will slope gently down from top left towards the green line, with a dry-stone wall around the edge.  The purple/lilac line is the bottom of the valley side, between the two lines, the ground will slope about 45 degrees (or even steeper depending on what gradient I can get on the mine branch and how it actually looks). 

The ground will be more-or-less flat between the lilac line and the front of the layout and the the tan line in the bottom right corner which is the dried-up river bed.

The trees on the right will have 2 or 3 "commercial" models of recognisable tree species at the front with home-made generic trees behind into the top right corner, to hide the tracks' disappearance.

I hope to be able to preserve the essence of the L&MVLR with the limestone dale scenery with dried-up river, the minimal station facilities (with ostentatious sign - 7mm GWR-style possibly?) and of course the standard gauge siding in the bottom left.  I have been promised a few kits of the transporter wagons, these are intended to be hauled while on the main line and only shunted on the straight from the goods loop to the siding.  If the long rigid 4w wheelbase actually does preclude operation around the settrack curves, then the layout (or at least this iteration of it) will be definitely set in the preservation/tourist-only era, although there may be a 4-wheel PO wagon posed on the siding "for display purposes".

I may need to tweak the overall width to ensure that stock overhang doesn't foul the sides of the box and the radius of the mine branch on the left to allow sufficient clearance between the back straight of the branch and the removable cassette.

I have the Peco 009 Starter track pack, I am now confident enough in the plan to be purchasing the extra track required.  More photos to follow when I've got something to show.

* Not really 🫢

10 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

26.035 was waiting with RMB 1808 and a BCK while the Thurso portion backed on - then it departed south and 26.024 followed ( calling-on signal ) before backing into the siding until next needed

......... OR, perhaps, doing a double shunt to wait on the Thurso line.

 

What's the diagonal wooden structure opposite the far set of points?

33 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I think I’d go for lead or copper mining, and draw inspiration both from local Peak District mines and from Snailbeach Mine, which is well preserved and very interesting to visit, and assuming a connection to the L&M “lower down”.

 

Could you make the lower front scene the point where the twisty and steep quarry branch joins the L&M proper, maybe having the ore tipped from small wagons into SG ones carried on transporters, and have the L&M siding enter from a “fiddle stick” poking out from the side of the scene?

 

 

 

 

You, or I, or both of us might be telepathic.  As you were typing that, I was thinking the same - a generously laid out through station with fiddlesticks on each side.

But I was hoping to make it operable and self contained, which it wouldn't be if I needed the extensions. Besides,  I quite like the mind-bending aspect of the left and right main line going to different locations,  but the left and right mine branch being parts of the same line...

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

IMO, it’s going to be challenging to make that look convincingly L&M, because a characteristic of that railway was how generously it was aligned, reflected in, by British <3ft gauge standards, long and wide rolling stock. Nothing is impossible, but if you superimpose an L &M coach to scale on that, you might see what I mean.

Indeed it will be.  I've found this photo here staffspasttrack.org.uk which shows the civil engineering side, with the straight route with the fresh earthworks showing how substantial they are.  No Spooner-ish clinging to the sides of mountains...

In fact, I'm thinking of moving away from strictly L&MV to a more wider Derbyshire Dales setting, a bit like this here, with a steep bleak hillside leading up to a plateau-ish area

Cales Dale and Lathkill Dale, picture from https://www.ramblers.org.uk/go-walking/group-walks/youlgreave-cales-dale-lathkill-dale

11 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Operational or static? Would be interesting to see a third gauge making an appearance.

 

Just to add to this point, what size are the squares on the plan? If they are foot squares and it’s 9 inch set track I somehow don’t think you will get away with transporters on 9 inch radius, just because of the compromises in how they need to be modelled and resulting long fixed wheelbase - I’m using 18 inch radius for my transporters and in my case it is only one point anyway, the rest of the plan consisting mainly of straight track.

Static, but yes I thought it would be interesting to have 3 gauges on the same layout.

The squares are 1ft, with 9inch setrack.  There is a small amount of wriggleroom with the radius if I use streamline to transition into the curves and the transporters would only ever be hauled apart from shunting over the straight route from the loop to the siding.  I will still go ahead with using them, if they don't work, a single transporter will be confined to static display on the siding.  But if I'm successful with the layout as a whole, a version 2, with at least 12" radius curves may be in order.

As I said at the start, I'm looking for an excuse to run 009 locos and stock, that's different from a north Wales slate quarry line, and the connection with the Peak District meant the L&MV was an obvious choice.  If I can include the unique features of the L&MV, such as the transporter wagons, so much the better.

AnyRail seems to have been more cooperative, so here is a first attempt at a track plan with (mostly) setrack.

The "dotted" tracks are hidden under the hillside, the fully shaded straight at the back is a cassette type fiddle yard track, accessed through a hatch in the back of the plywood box.  I have also included a bit of 18" gauge mine track.

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

The Ecton creamery was United Dairies rather than Express but we can probably extrapolate reasonably well what might have happened.

 

Let's imagine that in the early 30s, United expanded the dairy rather than closing it. Ecton was only dispatching about 4000 gallons of milk per day to London so you would need to get it above 10,000 to be worthwhile. This would have had a knock-on effect in that Express might not have opened their Rowsley depot (which took a lot of the milk that had formerly gone to Ecton). Now instead of 2 x 2000 gallon tanks per day, we would be talking 3-4 3000 gallon tankers which might have been enough to keep the line open.

 

There were a couple of occasions when milk traffic might have ceased, I don't know how the efficiency of the narrow gauge transporter wagons would have held up during the manpower shortages in WW2 but if we are being generous, the traffic might well have survived into the BR-era. It would certainly have finished in the mid-60s when BR and the MMB signed the "Western agreement" which ended milk traffic into London on the MR and ER and concentrated traffic on the SR and WR.

I was going by Wikipaedia here, which says Express Dairies.  Of course, it was before my time...

But your points there are interesting, in that I can justify a more intensive service of the 3000 gallon milk tanks than actually happened.

1 hour ago, Karhedron said:

Just a thought, points 1 and 2 in your original list might be a bit hard to reconcile as the Ecton dairy was built in the buildings once used by the copper mines as a smeltery. If the mines had not closed, the Dairy might not have been built where it was.

In this world of "what ifs" I'm quite happy to ignore that point, just as I'm happy to treat 1ft 11.5", 2ft3 and 2ft6 gauges all as 9mm...  😆

19 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Looking very nice so far and reasonably sturdy. Do you happen to know if they do a 3’ x 1’ board (or thereabouts)? I’ve been looking at various laser cut boards for my own project (the SMS ones I often use aren’t available in quite the right size) but not really decided yet. 

It is very sturdy!  He doesn't currently have a website or other product listings anywhere that I can see.   I emailed him on timhornlasercut@gmail.com and got a quote back very quickly. I get the impression it's a "made-to-order" service, but whether its a custom-made or just standard sizes I'm not sure.

The track plan will be a kidney-shaped oval, with a scenic section in front of a hollow hillside.  To get the feel of the L&MVR, it will have a steep valley side, topping out into a more-or-less flat plateau, together with a dried-up river bed across one corner.  Unfortunately I don't have the space to include the railway repeatedly crossing the river-bed. 

There will be a station - name yet to be decided - with an Up and Down main line with a minimal-height platform, a goods loop with a siding off the goods loop ending in a short length of standard gauge track.  The station will have basic passenger facilities, I'm thinking of using the Scalescenes 009 Structure Set in timber finish. 

The main line will disappear into the hollow hillside at one end into a tunnel, of sufficient loading gauge to accommodate bogie coaches and  a std gauge van on a transporter wagon; and at the other between trees to hide the hole in the hillside.

The quarry line will branch off the main platform line and will spiral around and up within the main-line oval, running across the visible hillside, to a mine working above the tunnel.  I need to research into what gradient the Bachmann Quarry Hunslet will tackle reliably with propelling a set of 3 Peco V-tipper wagons.

I've tried doing this up in AnyRail, but without much sucess.  A large sheet of paper, real points and flexitrack will be out tomorrow....