James Harrison

Bit more of a rethink on the track plan. A multiple level layout would be brilliant for getting in pretty much everything of what I want but it'd take decades to complete, probably be too much for me to maintain and definitely be too much for me to run. So; back, once again, to the drawing board. I've quietly been re-appraising a layout plan in CJ Freezer's 'Plans for Small Locations' book which, whilst it doesn't provide everything on my list, actually lets me model the line as I see it- it's two lines that come into one terminus. It will also allow me to use, pretty much unchanged, my station diorama I built a few years ago. Plus it's designed for a room slightly smaller than my available space, so I've been able to stretch the plan slightly and draw it up around using Streamline / Peco bullhead pointwork. This feels more manageable and achievable.

Indeed, and I've built one.

I'll have to try and track a copy down.

Which book or magazine is that drawing in Richard?- and are there other GCR carriages in it?

Well, those three and more. I think it would be quicker to list the railways he wasn't involved with in some way or another.

I think you mean Edward Watkin.

I've got some Ratio ones but these are closer to what I want. I've gone for the GNR type myself as I need a teak/mahogany sort of finish, with gas lighting. Now it's just darkening that down. I'm sure I'll find a more appropriate starting point, but GNR seems to fit the bill. If they were offered undecorated that's the option I'd have chosen too!

What is the difference between modifying a kit, and modifying one of these though? And what if the kits that you're asking about are either 1) difficult to come by 2) in materials that I don't feel comfortable with 3) the manufacturer has assume a degree of ability that not everybody has 4) more expensive than this RTR alternative 5) require additional materials and components to be sourced, at additional expense (assuming that between the kit being tooled and the present, they haven't been taken off the market) Or what about if 6) I'm buying these specifically for the challenge of seeing whether they can be made closer to my prototype 7) these are quite close enough for my purposes 8) I happen to be modelling a freelance railway Or are we driving more at the 'you're not a proper modeller if you buy these' sort of attitude?

Because the livery I want isn't on offer.

My experience with re-wheeling Hornby chassis has been that half the time the axles are different diameters, so you end up swapping the complete wheelset.

My only worry is, when mine arrive, will I decide they're too nice to risk repainting?

Mouthwatering. I can't wait for mine to arrive.

Yes, I was rather surprised by that as usually I build an interior and marvel at how it then becomes practically invisible. I think it just goes to show that a little bit of effort (and really it was the work of maybe an hour) to fit even a basic interior can pay off.

I'm now the very pleased owner of one five carriage rake of GCR clerestories, after completing the last of the hatchet jobs. The other rake of clerestory stock is simply repainted Hornby, with scratchbuilt interiors. On, now, with the brake carriages for that second rake.

A12 'Jubilee' class?

For the last few weeks I've been quietly getting on with a few projects... The lavatory brake third clerestory, which I made the sides for just before Christmas and then put aside for a few months. I've stripped down the donor vehicle, fitted my new sides, painted them and built and fitted an interior. I'm now just waiting on some new material before I can reinstate the roof. These two aren't quite so involved. They're Triang-Hornby clerestories, which have had their cookie-cutter wheels swapped out for ones which will be happier on Code 75 rail. Then I've taken the couplings off and started to repaint the bodies. These will also be getting an interior.

Thinking ahead for the future, does anybody know where I could find drawings of Chesterfield Market Place station? I've drawn a blank in Chris Booth's excellent LDECR trilogy, I don't recall seeing any in volume 3 of George Dow's GCR trilogy, nor in Cupit and Taylor's work. I could crib something rough from the few photographs I've found, but I'd sooner be working from the original designs.

So, presented in no particular order... Rufford Red Lion Square station. No provision for goods at all, except for parcels traffic- and a couple of carriage sidings. The plan is based, quite loosely, on C J Freezer's Cretun design (see the PSL book of track plans for that original design). The passenger trains have to have somewhere to go, so I looked to Chesterfield Market Place for inspiration. The goods yard I scaled right back to the bare minimum, and this deck I'm actually thinking as presenting as two separate scenes, rather than one L-shaped vista; I took Iain Rice's plan for a GC loco depot (see his 'Designs for Urban Layouts' book) and found that whilst his turnouts are 'optimistic', shall we say, I could thin it down a little and get it in. Now this deck I've drawn up simply to make use of the country station diorama I built a few years ago. It will sit between the crossovers, but then for a bit more interest I've drawn up a spur leading off into some sort of industrial area, probably a waterworks. If I have to scale my intentions back, this is the deck I can dispense with. Lastly... that's the sort of goods yard I've had in mind since starting planning four years ago. It takes its cues from a couple of Iain Rice designs, cut up, mucked about and spliced back together.

I've scrapped the helix idea... I mentioned a few days ago what I considered my maximum train length- 4 50' carriages and a loco- well the 50'ers that's obviously 200mm per carriage (say 210 including a coupling), a Sam Fay (the biggest loco I anticipate running) clocks in at 260mm, that's (210*4) + 260 = 1100mm, or a little under 4'. The room is 8' wide, I'd be losing half of that width for a helix, at least, assuming trains can even get up it. Why not just have a 1200mm length of straight track on a lifting system... I'd need to keep some room in front of it open to allow access to move stock around (so that when moved to another level the train is facing the right way and running on the right road) but suddenly I've got at least half of that 4' x 4' zone back. Also, on at least one of the decks I can carry the scenery and on-stage work right up into the corner, in the foreground at least. The concept seems to have grown like topsy over the last few days, I'm now thinking of a four-deck layout consisting of -Cremorne & Pittance set up as the end of a truncated branch line, with some sort of industry (a water works perhaps) that justifies at least keeping that station open; -Red Lion Square itself, with fairly modest goods-handling facilities; -An extensive goods depot, probably based on the LDEC at Attercliffe or Chesterfield Marketplace; -Something like a repeat of RLS, or a Minories, with an MPD on the same level. Consider how this then lets me operate it. Obviously running it alone I can only make full use of one deck at any time- the rest of the layout is basically scenic staging. If I let others come play with it we can then run trains between the levels and they'll actually seem to go somewhere. On a note that's almost put my enthusiasm through the roof- suddenly all the ideas which I have had or found and really liked and wanted to put into it and then had to regretfully file away as there not being enough to space- I can get them all in...

Thanks for everyone's thoughts so far- I agree, it's going to need a bit of thought and forward planning to see if it's even possible. I think I could do worse than starting out with some haulage trials, maybe a circle of 4th radius set track and those bridge ramp things Hornby produce, and see if my locos can drag anything worthwhile up them. I'm thinking more of a single track helix, to keep things fairly simple, of about 4' radius. If it starts getting wider than that then I'm probably going to be better off with a train lift sort of arrangement, which then also means that the train that disappears offstage on one level is not necessarily the one that appears on the other level a minute or two later. For operational flexibility that's probably a better idea all round, however what I don't want to find is that a sizeable chunk of an operating session is taken up with running a lift rather than trains.

It's struck me somewhat that I might have been looking at this all wrong. Consider my list of wants; a decent-sized station, an interesting goods yard, a loco shed and a bit of open mainline; consider the room- 12' x 8', realistically reduced to about 9' x 7' when you allow for the door and the chimney breast, and then further consider that I don't want a roundy-roundy that eats the entire space- and consider how if I rearrange the furniture I can get a 9' unimpeded length of wall... Realistically I've got an L shape 9' x 8' to play with, allowing for the depth of the inglenook, I can get all the scene track I want in that space but the payoff is no scenery, and also no fiddle yard... something's got to give somewhere. One thing I can pare down is my train lengths, the more I've considered Red Lion Square the more I'm thinking of it as being the hub of a network of branch or secondary lines, rather than being on the main trunk. Sufficient services to merit a multi-platform station with a bit of architectural nous, but only a few of them going further afield than Sheffield/ Nottingham/ Lincoln/ Chesterfield. So less big 4-6-0s on rakes of long bogie stock, and more 4-4-0s on sets of non-corridor arc roof or clerestories and small tanks with 6-wheelers. Four 50' carriages with a van and a 4-4-0, or 6 or 7 6-wheelers with a 2-4-2 on the front, looks impressive enough but will sit in a platform only 1100mm or so long. Go up to the bigger Barnums and the Robinson matchboard stock, and you'll struggle to get three carriages and a loco tender in there- my post-1910 mainline stock should really be thinned out just to one or two short rakes. I'm minded that Mansfield Central had a direct service to Marylebone and I doubt somehow that merited a full mainline set. This means my Sam Fays and Jersey Lillies and Lord Faringdons will probably be more shelf queens with occasional running rights than DIDO motive power. Directors and Imminghams will probably be the upper end big 'uns to see regular use. I've recently been finding a lot of my time on Youtube is spent watching American trackplanning videos, and it's struck me how more spatially-aware some of their designs are. We tend to forget it seems that a room is measured in the X, Y and Z axis, and my railway room has a lot of the Z dimension. A surfeit of it, you might say. So what is there to stop me looking at a layout with two decks, joined by a helix sitting at least partially in that inglenook? I could have a point to point layout, one deck could have the interesting goods yard and the other the loco depot, operationally I could work one deck on my own and use the other as staging, or I could have people over and run it like a real railway with trains actually going somewhere. I could have one deck where I concentrate on the track layout with perhaps almost minimal scenery beyond the boundary fence, the other I could have a more minimalist design but really go to town- if you'll pardon the pun- scenically, I'd get a mainline that is something a bit more than your typical fisherman's walk, which can only be good for the locos (even if a lot of that run is uphill on a curve), it seems a bit of a rare win-win-win-win. I wonder if with a bit of thought it might even be possible to work a junction into it and put a third deck in, maybe freight-only to a colliery or something. On the face of it this might give me two or even three 9' x 5' L layouts on the footprint of one, and suddenly I'm looking at this thinking I might be able to squeeze the proverbial quart into a pint pot, even perhaps working Cremorne for Pittance into the scheme.

Think I need a drive up to Barnards Castle to check my eyes...

I mean of course, diminutive in comparison with what followed, which for some unfathomable reason is what a good many people think of when you mention 'mainline': 70-foot pacifics and ten or eleven-car rakes of 60-foot-or-thereabouts stock. My point about short trains was in reference to your average run-of-the-mill service, not ones like the Corridor which run maybe once or twice a day which then neccessarily load to the double digits in vehicles.

I'm envious (to the nth degree) of your coach building skills. Very, very nice work. Presumably the next project is a Parker or Pollit 4-4-0 (or even a Pollitt Single?) to haul them?

I can't help but think that this lightbleed issue is a problem that shouldn't be down to the purchaser to fix. They'd be packed off back to Hornby for putting right if they were mine.