Zunnan

At Warley I did manage to continue with my tradition of getting in the spectators way and doing some work on the layout mid exhibition...although not on the scale of operation that I usually do! This was just planting ground signals and building three Ratio LMS round posts using the signalling diagram that I had sneaked into the info boards placed around the layout. A Southbound 'Pines' headed by 45699 'Galatea' emerges from Church Road tunnel and coasts alongside the canal as it heads towards Bournville. 'Leander' would probably be more appropriate, there is a D J Norton photo of her thundering past Bournville shed. The 'Pines' is brought to a stop at Mary Vale Road bridge, probably being inconvenienced by a movement on shed. Someone is in for trouble soon! Bournville Station should be at this location, the signal is technically the station starter but it also protects the crossover to the shed and Lifford Loop. 3F 43766 slinks off shed, probably to the exchange sidings at Cadburys. One of those ground signals is in the wrong place...I'll add that to the 'I'm tired and needed coffee at the time' section on the to be fixed list! 43766 was a resident of Bedford in the period of running depicted. It, like most of the other locos I own are eventually to be renumbered predominantly of Bournville or Saltley inhabitants. One that won't be renumbered is the weathered Fairburn that Farish do, it was shedded at Monument Lane very close to our running period, so it is not impossible that it ran the Birmingham West Suburban on occasion. Wind up time at Warley, the shed is emptying itself into the stock boxes and the hall lights give a pleasing dusk light to the layout. So, life after Warley. Whats in store now? Scenically the layout is around 50% complete, so as ever, that is the ongoing task to be worked on. More critically however, the fiddle yard has probably seen its last train. Its temperamental, the switches are way past their best and some of the point motors have given up on life. We've identified a few areas we would like to expand capacity by breaking some roads down into sections to fit multiple shorter trains and the two through roads are redundant for that task so its probable that we'll turn it into a car park for light loco movements on and off shed.

Lets recount the last few weeks... An influx of new members saw some real vigour injected into the layout. My often caustic way of modelling and innate ability to tread on everyones toes and take over the smaller jobs had until now very successfully reduced the number of members willing to work on Bournville Shed to Ed Kyberd and myself. I was completely burned out, and Ed is a Midland hating P4 GNR modeller at heart was nearing the end of his patience with it all too. With Warley only weeks away, I stepped off the gas a bit as more members began to work on the layout, although I'll freely admit that I still got in the way and took over some work going on at times...I'm getting better at leaving people to get on with it without me meddling too much though...I hope! The backscene support finally went in, as well as a basic but nicely effective 12v lighting rig by Arthur and I concentrated on bending the back corner and fascia boards to shape while everyone else concentrated on ground cover, removing the screws that had held the track down for the past 3 years and finishing up the ballasting. By the Thurdsay before Warley all that was left bare was a patch of ground where Dell Road sits. I had also promised myself to at least begin to build some purpose made coaches for the layout in time for Warley. I unceremoniously buried the last of the cork below three 'slightly' modified Kestrel semi detached houses and rather basic gardens leaving Ed and co to blend them in to the layout. My little treat to myself was a welcome departure to working on buildings or soaking hardboard and bending it to shape. An Etched Pixels D1701 non corridor Composite that I cobbled together a while ago was stripped down and repainted, and it was accompanied by two Worsly Works D1964 non corridor Brake Thirds. All still need glazing, interiors building and lettering, but they mark a change in my focus for the layout which should hopefully keep me at arms length and allow club members to safely work on the layout without me hovering behind them and taking over!

Ground cover and more absence from the club have been the running theme for Bournville this year. A nice long break from taking it out on the road took some of the urgency out of things, and while I was away from the club the hanging basket liner disappeared to make way for static grass. Definitely a good thing! I love basket liner, but coming back to see what I saw was a very pleasant surprise. I cracked on and started putting the stub of the Lifford Loop in and bedded in the signal box. For the first time in two years tracklaying in the shed complex began again with the roundhouse innards taking shape just in time for the layout to go out on the road again. At our exhibition the turntable garnered some quite critical 'its too small' comments, which I couldn't help but to laugh at. Bournville had a 57ft turntable, so that is exactly what I have built and posed a Black 5 on it for the exhibition. Now, a Black 5 is 62 feet long, and the tender gap on the model is quite overscale which only lengthens it. 'Its too small, you can't turn that engine! Its not very good is it?!'. Out with the ruler...'This says the table is 57ft long mate, which is what the real thing was. That engine is too long' was quite a common discussion. I think when the guys from Warley MRC came to have a look at progress (or lack thereof) they were quite...errr...unimpressed. I'm glad I could overhear their comments, that gave me the to do list in the run up to Warley! Battle lines drawn and all that.

Around the time of the metal shed being done and the extruded foam being carved to shape I started working on some of the structures along the line. Just in time for our second exhibition the Cotteridge Park and Pershore Road bridges had been completed and were bedded in with hanging basket liner. Parts of the layout were coming to life, but the 3 hours access per week were (and still are) a a complete nightmare to work around. Out on the road again, bare bones and much cork underlay still prevail. Mary Vale Road bridge now has its location to slot into, but this is where things at my end really began to fall apart and my ability to work on the layout waned. For our second exhibition I temporarily planted Mary Vale Road and had profiled the Birmingham end to take the retaining wall which dominates that end of the layout. Everything was a bit of a blur, and for a few months I was unable to get to the club after contracting a mystery illness which almost resulted in kidney failure. With my unplanned exit, I hadn't left any instruction on what I wanted doing to the layout and things stalled. The fiddle yard was patched up, and part of the canal was started. During my absence I pondered more and more exactly how to go about profiling the Birmingham end, and when I finally returned I attacked the layout with a saw, gouging out the embankment that leads from Mary Vale Road down to Cadburys, then bringing it back up to above rail level for the retaining wall. The canal also went in permanently, so that got the saw to loft board and buried in hanging basket liner treatment too! A row of Metcalf houses appeared on the layout as well. Although they're a temporary feature until a permanent solution can be made, I actually quite like the appearance they give the layout. Dave made the panel of allotments which the houses back on to which finish up the houses quite nicely. By the time of Solihull MRCs exhibition in 2013, the ground cover was starting to creep over the layout and the canal was taking shape, but the biggest change was getting rid of most of the visible loft insulating board beneath a coat of brown paint. Simple things make the biggest change sometimes!

The two weeks I had the naked front end at home for gave me free reign to do what I wanted with it. I laid the entire shed complex in a day and then began the task of wiring it up and throwing a control panel together. The layout is wired as two completely separate loops, there is a crossover at the one end of the layout but there is no electrical connection between the up and down line controllers. The shed has its own supply and is wired for one engine in steam, the whole lot is live with isolating sections provided by either pointwork (coal ramp, coal stack and passing loop on the entry roads) or via switch for the roads in front of the shed and the dead lines at the rear. To be able to cross over from shed to Kings Norton running line, a portion of both running lines including the crossover are switchable to be run from the sheds output via two DPDT switches that effectively hijack each of the running lines. Just before its first outing, I returned the front of the layout to the club and with Eddies first build of the shed (a cardboard mockup) we were about as finished as it was ever going to be in time for the exhibition. The back end was also rushed through using telephone wire and all was packed up and shipped out. My memories of that first exhibition were of puffs of smoke from the solenoid point motors and of a very rapid decision to rip out the telephone wire at the earliest opportunity! I remember that job beginning during the exhibition...I also began my now traditional working on the layout front throughout an exhibition by finishing off the wiring of the front end by providing power and isolation to the dead roads and coal stack. The public did seem to enjoy that however and I spent more time talking about what I was doing while laying on the ground below the layout than actually doing anything! After the exhibition, Ed announced that he wasn't happy with the shed he'd built and embarked on what I'd call his worst nightmare! 00 gauge modeller building a fairly complex N Gauge structure. What he did however was nothing short of phenomenal. The club had decided that it would be a nice idea to model the inside of the shed, turntable and all, hence the open roof of the cardboard build, Ed took this idea and went about building the shed out of aluminium so that it should stand up to the rigors of repeated handling to remove the roof as and when needed. I still think he should have built two shells and left one of them in bare aluminium. It looked fantastic in bare metal! Ed also built his first iteration of the coaling stage, which he wasn't really happy with as its proportions were quite some way out. Like the shed, this one was rebuilt with something that he's a little happier with. He also swore blind that he's never going to touch N Gauge again...we shall see!

With the fiddle yards laid, and the code 80 track done away with, I got my wish for laying the rest using code 55. Before too long we had a continous circuit, the track was screwed down (and stayed thus for a few years!) and the wiring commenced. Ken and Arthur took on the fiddle yard, I did the front. I also argued that as we were eventually going to be relying on the ballast to hold the track down, I was no way going to accept using solenoid point motors. I think the club secretary nearly passed out when I said I wanted to use Cobalts and how many we needed! With the running lines down and testing commencing I had one or two incidents with locos falling to their death, so I hemmed in the open track edges with extruded loft insulating board which would later form the basis for the scenery. I made a start on building some of the structures because I could at least take those home with me, and around this point the club committee announced that we were to be holding our first club exhibition at Rowheath Pavillion. The N Gauge layout was to feature and it was literally no more than bare baseboards and a circle of track! Eddie Davis volunteered to build the engine shed, and I had one of my treading on peoples toes moments again, and took the front boards home for the two weeks before it was due to appear in public for the first time...

Given our appearance at Warley this year, I thought it about time that something about this layout appeared....We have been building this version of it for over 3 years afterall! The basic trackplan follows Ordnance Survey maps and signalling diagrams, but away from the shed there are some quite significant compromises made to keep the layout a manageable size that actually fits in our club room and leaves room to work on it. The shed and associated sidings fits nicely into a 8' x 2' area leaving the conundrum of getting to and from the fiddle yard still to solve. Its a long time back now and predates me joining the club, but I believe the original plan was to have a fiddle yard at either end. To this day I sometimes think we'd be finished by now if I hadn't had my way...but I digress. As a club we have had 3 hours per week to access the club room, which is nowhere near enough when we then have to set the layout up and break it down within that time! I joined Bournville MRC back in early 2011 and quickly found myself pushing the layout onwards, allow me to roll the clock back... When I joined the club, this is how 21B looked. Code 80 track and templates tacked to two unbraced sheets of sundela. The track plan was sound given the constraints of code 80 track and laid out well, but for the first few weeks there was mostly discussion and not much momentum. The frames arrived for the sundela boards made from reclaimed ply and pallet wood. I didn't say it then, but I wasn't too excited about the prospect of building this layout on that foundation. Myself and Dave (0121modeller) went home that night and had out own little chat away from the club and came up with a devious plot to do away with both the sundela and the regurgitated framework. Did I mention that I'm very good at treading on peoples toes and upsetting them? We decided that the fiddle yard should form a continuous run, and that we would build the fiddle yard boards more traditionally from timber frame and 9mm ply. The rebuild plot got under way... Dave is a genius with woodwork, so I laid out where I wanted the framework for maximum rigidity in the corner boards and he did the rest. We built the fiddle yard boards around the original sundela, and when complete it was pointed out to us that perhaps we should replace the original layout boards with a similar build to that of the fiddle yard. Devious? Yes. And I know it was probably a step too far for some of the older members for two newcomers to effectively come in and take over. We did lose one or two members and a few others stepped back never to touch the layout again, I'll take the blame for that squarely on the chin. But what it did was give the club something to actually work on, no more discussion, the decision had been made and there was track to lay. Track first went down in the fiddle yard where I could completely deplete the stockpile of code 80 track we had. Farily standard stuff, copperclad and brass alignment dowels at board joins to keep alignment. Tedious work though, and with our restricted access times it took a while to get it down! Wiring it up however was a complete nightmare. Quite how Ken and Arthur kept their sanity doing that job, I will never know. Its due for rebuilding now too as parts of the fiddle yard are pretty much life expired thanks to having to set up and break down every week, so that job is on the menu again following Warley!

I enjoyed an all too brief chat with Ben today while Jason was busy inflicting his Canadian oil burner on Bournville (beautiful loco by the way ), I have experienced Jasons H0 products in the past, and the N scale model he was tinkering with was every bit as impressive as its larger scale stablemates. You'll get more than your moneys worth with the Pendolino if it green lights. I wish you every success to the point that I'm seriously considering pledging even though I don't particularly want a Pendo, but what it could lead to in the future is exciting if Kickstarter funded projects can prove successful. I meant what I said too, if this does well and eventually lead to an N Gauge slam door AC EMU in the future through the same source I'll string up knitting through Bournville and run it as a Cross City layout before the 323s took over!

My only stated downside of these coaches was based on 3 axles falling out of their bearings on two coaches (2 axles on a CK and one on an SK) on lifting them from their packaging, all at the open end of the bogie. Now, as this seems to some to be "wading in with criticism of minor points", I'll simply say that all I want is for them to run, but if the bogie is incapable of supporting and retaining the axle at the open end, then its not going to allow for smooth running until corrected. Am I wrong for wanting the bogie design as has been executed to hold itself together? Its not like its a minor detailing error that can be brushed over, its caused by the design and/or poor assembly. The fix is easy, just realign the bearing strips so that they squeeze on the axles more positively, but it doesn't alter the fact that the bogie design could have been much simpler and more reliable, and has been on pretty much every coach produced until this point. Otherwise my only criticism of them is that I can't afford as many of them as I want, and they're not available in maroon...yet.

I've had the chance to have a look at the bogies of my Portholes thus far received, where it was the apparent flimsiness of them which caused me to note one thing in particular affecting their ride height. Try it yourself, and lift the model slightly on the rails while watching the wheelsets, with mine there is a good 1mm or so of vertical play due to the loose fit of the axles in their bearings. It was an axle dropping out when lifting it from the packaging that caused me to notice this at first, and the subsequent light inward squeezing of the metal strip to stop this axle from dropping also caused the ride height to increase somewhat. There is certainly very little structural strength in the plastic of the bogies, so removing the fitted bearing in favour of opening the plastic bearings out to take longer axles will probably lead to problems, it all seems to come from the metal pickup assembly with the plastic merely holding this in alignment, not the best arrangement really.

The viaduct spanning Sugar Brook, Baddesley Ensor, never fails to get me reminiscing of heavy trains rumbling high overhead on the slender structure. I may have missed the days that the colliery was still active, but the final spoil trains here certainly left their mark.

I always end up coming back to the blues, no matter what I've been up to in the intervening years. As a 70/80s child, it's the first that I saw of the railway and what I grew up watching, my favourite period being the emergence of raspberry ripple livery and the subsequent mixes of livery that ensued. I still cherish the memories of Bescot rats on trip workings being passed by all over blue DMUs and mixed livery diverted expresses headed by LL/blue/IC 47s and on the rare occasion could still conjure up a Peak. Varity that has been lacking on the railway for a long time.

What a wonderful thread, and answers many a question I have swimming through my mind every time I go to pick the little one up from school. Woodley junction isn't even a shadow of its former self...I should note that I currently live split between Birmingham and Woodley, and live my weekends about 50 yards from the junction here...but I still find time to catch the remaining trains on what is left of the line in to Bredbury as it throws up occasional class 60 haulage, which is somewhat a rarity network wide thesedays. When I get chance I may have to take a mosey on down to Bredbury McDonalds and trace what I can of the line, plus I still need to figure what the bridge abutments immediately after the junction and before the Smithy Green bridge used to carry.

Looking at the photos in post #83 I see what appears to be an NEM pocket with a straight shank tension lock coupler, there also appears to be a gap between the NEM pocket and any material that could be a part of the bogie so one would assume that a close coupling mechanism is provided. Unless something has drastically changed since the above samples were produced I'd assume that they'll have a NEM pocket mounted at (or near to) the correct height on a CCM, but as they're still on the slow boat we'll find out when they arrive.

Pics have been added to the products list on Bachmanns website of what appears to be the decorated models. At first glance the BTK appears to have deeper sides as the lower bodyside looks like it rests on the footboards. At a second glance though it looks to me like the footboards are higher up on the solebar in relation to the buffers, and I can't really make out an overlap in the lower bodyside due to the small size of the images. It does look to me like the windows are seated at the same height as those of the rest of the range, the upper lining of the livery appears to be the same proportionally. I guess it'll look neater in a rake of them... On the whole though, even if the BTK has the same bodyside proportions as the rest (CK excluded), I still can't wait for these to arrive. And with a bit of luck, a hopeful excess of 60' first class opens/brakes will wing their way into bargain bins for some Comet sided butchery to get some P3 CKs and BCKs.

I've been waiting to see this update for what seemed an eternity! You certainly don't disappoint!

Now that I have yet another house move out of the way, this one hopefully being the permanent one(!), I should now be back in the position to be able to pick up/catch up on some much needed butchery of RTR models in order to produce offbeat prototypes. My GP38-2 Snowfighter has now been languishing for the best part of 2 years in a near complete state, I think it high time that one was finally put to bed before I decide to do exactly the same thing to one of the new Genesis 38-2s! Also in the pipeline, this one is yet to be started involves these three victims...No prizes for guessing what they will become, although UPY #835 does have a certain significance to this project. Fellow SP fans out there will instantly recognise the core ingredients and what they will become! But why the C628 I hear you cry? Surely its easier to scratch build a slug than to butcher a RTR model and chassis. Normally I'd agree, but the Stewart C628 is a bit different, and so are my plans for it. All of the chassis material above the nose level is screw fixed in place, which means that removal of said parts leaves me with no chassis material to have to machine out for the greatly reduced carbody height. The PCB can relocate in the lower position...you can see where I'm going with this...and I reckon that if I can get a small enough can motor and flywheels, I won't have a dead weight for a slug in the consist. As long as the slug can haul its own weight, that will leave the Kato SD38-2 duo to do their thing unhindered. However, if it can also manage a few cars by itself... Of course, the entire body is going to need quite extensive surgery, the only parts that will survive are going to be the short hood, pilots and the walkway. I need to identify the dynamic braking fans used on the prototype and cobble up the intakes, but thankfully the rest of it is pretty simple with few doors and grilles to replicate, only really weld seams and a new set of handrails. On to those 38-2s. UPY #835 is significant in that the real thing is one of the SPs former units, what better tribute to the old Espee than to backdate a UP unit to its original identity?! In the models favour, the dynamic brakes are correctly modeled back to front, which saves on one hack and slash job to the model. Against the model is the nose and cab, but nothing that Cannon & Co components won't be able to fix, and is nothing that I haven't done before! Of course, with a house move there is certain more pressing issues to address before I can pick up tools once more...but the intention is finally there once more! More anon.

As much as I like the NRM Compound, there are some things that are just meant to be lined black!

I was trying to put my finger on exactly why the tripple grey liveried example looks like the livery is applied incorrectly, with the middle grey band sitting too low below the horizontal line of the black window surround. Now I realise that the middle grey band isn't too low, but the black window surround is too high because of the window position. Its a real pity, its such a nice looking model otherwise but the TTG livery in particular really doesn't help to hide it.

I don't buy into the glamour of high profile locomotives, to be honest I wouldn't and don't give half of them a second glance, so to me the likes of the A4 etc are just met with indifference. The Stanier 8F I think looks fantastic in a purposeful way, and I love the Peckett type R and type W series of 0-4-0STs. My absolute favourites are the SP AC10 cab forwards though, unconventional, ungainly, brutish and yet absolutely captivating. Diesel wise I tend lean towards the same place, I love the look (even more so the noise) of the SD45T-2. It is such an ugly, thuggish machine that it looks brilliant, in much the same way that the R32 Skyline GTR will never win a beauty contest, but I find that to be the best looking car on the planet.

The apparent ducket and corridor door two windows down the coach side makes it either a P3 D.2123 BTK or Porthole D.2161 BTK, the round toilet window makes it the latter with little doubt and the deeper bodyside than end just comfirms it.

It more than passes muster, you're far far beyond that! You've thoroughly absorbed how someone whom I consider to be one of the best bridge scratch builders around (Dave) works and the processes he uses, but rather than a scaled down imitation of Daves work you've made it your own to suit the smaller scale and in the process have produced something that everyone can aspire to. The first thing he mentioned at the club tonight was this latest update, its not often he compliments bridge builds and that was just the beginning! The layout as a whole has just the right mix of neglected old grot, looked after old grot and new build, and there is still so much to be done. I said it before, I think it'll be a sad day for us observers when this layout is finished and the updates end! The quality of the work and of the updates themselves is truly inspirational.

I'm pinching the angle cutter idea, Mark You've succeeded in making me want to rebuild my own bridges while I still can, but then I was kind of expecting something extra special after noticing a snippet 'elsewhere'.

I'm so glad I didn't fall to desp....temptation...and settle for the warmed over Horfix 4F. This ones more welcome than the 3F announcement for me, and a Midland machine too; it just gets better!