Les le Breton

Hi Edwardian, I have nothing but awe for your embarking on such a complex challenge,I have followed it for some time now and hope that the RMweb dons can help you out. I too have had long periods of despair with Aberaeron; notably a huge loss of modelling time, trying to get my turnouts to be operative. It was advice on the RMweb which saved my sanity, suggesting alternative products. There have been a few times I have felt that my efforts were getting me nowhere. My biggest mistake has been attempting a relatively large layout for my first effort, now in my 70's. The scary thing, is that I still have some 0 and N gauge stock, I put in store 30 years ago, when the model railway club I was a member of had to return the premises to the owners! I am lucky to have a very observant, supporting wife, she spots my black dog days and suggests that I need to visit the Forest of Dean, to have lunch and a search for a kit of some sort or other modelling items, to keep my interest going. I hope folk continue to rally round, supporting Castle Aching on the work bench and/or in your brilliant, erudite threads.. "A layout is a little theatre and the trains must act in character; it's all about illusion. " Swiss Rail Passion.”

Greetings, fellow students, also dons of RMweb University. Following a busy domestic period I returned to modelling, I bit the bullet of attaching the station building and its’ platform onto the aforementioned removable baseboard. Tins of Heinz products were added to ensure the baseboard and platform were seriously flat. (Other manufacturers were not available chez nous.) I realise that my (available) Goods Crane isn’t prototypical for Aberaeron, but having it to hand I built a plinth to raise it to a more practical height for the traffic. More weathering will follow when it is planted on the layout. “Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages” Terry Pratchett

Greetings fellow RMweb fans; after returning from our Brittany holiday, I have been using the small amount of free time available, to concentrate on the ballasting of my three baseboards. Like most railway modelling I only managed to become reasonably competent near the end of the work, despite the determination of some ballast to move position with the slightest excuse. However, I am reasonably comfortable with the results. I found it interesting to change the recipe of ballast to match (what I thought prototypical in the post-grouping era,); the coal siding being dark and with real coal lumps on the surface, the engine shed with dark stone and the main lines with the appearance of nearly new ballast. Whether I was right or totally wrong in my planning, I’m now, literally stuck with it! Buffers were fixed in place before ballasting commenced, followed by gluing the loading ramp. At the other end of the layout, strangely, the coal siding had a wagon from Cradley Heath, I can only surmise that it was carrying bricks, (Welsh coal being de-rigeur for the GWR,) and marshalled to the coal siding by mistake. A small cattle train is awaiting the animals consigned for Smithfield Market, with the Old Oak ‘Toad’ on guard’s duty. A clearly non-prototypical, overcrowded, goods yard, prepared just for my pleasure, giving my stock an airing on fresh ballast. Spot the schoolboy in his new uniform, confined to the waiting room so his clothes don’t get soiled with coal, smoke or steam, purgatory if he is a train spotter, (although train spotting didn’t really start in earnest until Ian Allen booklets were published). The rolling stock was laid out in categories:- Wagons that have Sprat and Winkle couplings; Wagons that have three link couplings; Stock with Bachman NEM couplings; Stock with Hornby spade couplings. I will have to prepare my locomotives, so I can use each of the above systems, but I hope to change the spade couplings a.s.a.p. so they don’t look too much out of place. "A layout is a little theatre and the trains must act in character; it's all about illusion." Swiss Rail Passion.”

Hooray, bring them on! More exquisite dioramas to survey, thanks for posting your wonderful craft, a treat to follow.

Hi there fellow students and dons of RMweb University; following on from my post above, it struck me that the use of independent, scenic boards as demonstrated by “Little Muddle” and other magnificent layouts, could be part of my solution. This has a number of advantages:- Modification of buildings and other items, will be easier to work with, on a small base; There will be less chance of damaging surrounding scenery; Model electrics above the baseboard should be easier to connect with cables below; for example, lighting in buildings, street and platform lights etc. I applied undercoat and matt brown, to both sides of my independent boards, trying to reduce the nuisance of boards warping. A couple of pictures of some independent boards might demonstrate my (somewhat tardy) progress: The bottom board has an access hole for the station lighting cable connections. This picture shows the cable connector which will be underneath the independent station board; the seemingly random O’s are where two sets of cables leave the station building floor, above. Again I am indebted to the generous posting on the RMweb, online university, thank you one and all, with apologies for posting what is probably obvious to the multitude of expert modellers. P.S. The colour scheme isn’t final and ballasting hasn’t happened yet! “I wanted an electric train for Christmas but I got the saxophone instead.” Clarence Clemons

Greetings RMweb Dons and students, I have a question which I hope someone might help me with. Although my Aberaeron won’t have a lot of traffic, am I correct thinking that in the 1920’s, private owner wagons are likely to arrive in multiples; those bringing coal or bricks for an example. I have been given a lovely Bachmann wagon and if I get another, could someone tell me the best way of changing the wagon’s number, or should I just adopt heavy weathering? I am sure this has arisen before so please point me in the right direction. I apologise for the boredom inflicted by my ignorance in this post. There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this. Terry Pratchett

Apologies for this tardy post, Castle Aching gallops along with so many contributions it is hard to keep up. My humble thoughts came to mind very late. Modern Bicycles are really designed for the young, but writing as a septuagenarian with one I have experienced the following. If you have one of these (I do) :- You really need a pair of these:- And possibly one of these (to start with):- Although Edwardian machinery is elegant, it is painful on any slope, hard uphill and with scary brakes downhill. A GOOD modern cycle is a joy to use with clever gears, good brakes and light as a feather. Remember there is a difference between a GOOD bicycle and a cheap Bicycle shaped, heap of iron. Unfortunately:- "Cycling has encountered more enemies than any other form of exercise." Louis Baudry de Saunier, French Journaliste

Hi RMweb readers, I concur with most of this post. My two grand-daughters have a number of small Lego ice palaces which they love; they are well designed, if you like that sort of thing. As for a fitness regime, one can survive unscathed and fitter, if you find a regime which suits you. I have lost four stones over two years with the 5/2 diet. I also recommend cycling. When the weather is fine, it is uplifting at many levels. However, with the ghastly weather inflicted on G.B. recently I have been grateful to use a gismo which enables me to use my bicycle indoors. It is much safer than slippery, potholed roads. I have my bike facing my layout, with headphones on. This juxta-positioning for an hour of cycling allows me to scribble ideas whilst pedalling. It is surprising how many revelations are found, good and bad, which help my railway modelling. The hardest part of learning to ride a bike is the pavement.….Anon

Would this fit the bill for Tabitha, it does fill some of her wish list requirements? Thank you Edwardian and acolytes for the erudite and interesting posts of Castle Aching. As a former head teacher (I'm alright now thankfully,) I applaud your encouragement of Tabitha to learn the joys of modelling, particularly as it coincides with your building of Castle Aching, meaning two layouts to work on. Keep up the good work, you are giving her a proper education, which will put her in good stead for her future. I recently read "The Reassembler" and the quotation below might be pertinent to some earlier posts on Castle Aching. “The dreaded soldering iron and solder are the reason why swearing was invented” James May in “The Reassembler”

Hi there fellow students and dons of RMweb University, I have been considering many conundrums arising for my building of Aberaeron. After perusing pictures of the real GWR Aberaeron, I realised that I had made another basic error of design. This time, my early use of underlay instead cork sheet, has compromised the modelling of the track, particularly the goods sidings. With my fanciful suggestion of more traffic I might get away with a shouldered track bed for the most important lines but in reality, the GWR wouldn’t add this to the goods sidings etc. The following pictures will perhaps demonstrate my current solution:- This photo is of the progress adding height to the roads and tracks of the goods sidings and access. The top soil has been created with polystyrene pizza packaging followed by strata of Slater’s .060” Plasticard. (Other products were also available).The road dressing is 120 gauge glass papers, all cemented in place by PVA. This demonstrates a mock-up of my buildings, none of which are fixed in place yet. The final positioning of the buildings will be followed by weathering the current, pristine goods yard surfaces. As an aside, I found that station fencing is more stable when positioned leaning against handy buildings, as well as the fence posts. You may also notice that the passenger's shelter to the left of the photo alongside a low shed, (with fire buckets,) helps to camouflage part of the baseboard join, from baseboard 3-4. I hope that the above does make sense. If anyone has some advice for me I would be eternally grateful. “The caption as it turned out was ‘Let the train take the strain’ It appeared that Mr. Worde and his wife were very impressed with the toilet facilities.” Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Hi fellow RMweb followers. I have been pondering how to make life easier to understand how my model of Aberaeron works! Adding control switches on the front of the baseboards has been fairly easy, but if friends and family are to enjoy it they needs some help. As posted earlier, the switches are arranged to operate the turnouts on the fascia of individual baseboards, in the way that the prototype signal boxes are organised from left to right. I came across a photograph of brass signal box tags, formally used on Henwick and realised that this might be useful. Since switches for lighting are also fitted on the front and the power for turnout motors as well, it made sense to use more tags with dedicated colours etc. I have made tags for the controls I have installed up to now, with more to come later! When turnout switches are up, the route information is just below the switch; and when down, the lower route information applies. I hope the above makes sense and if I’m not using proper prototype nomenclature I would be grateful to be told. “The dreaded soldering iron and solder are the reason why swearing was invented” James May in “The Reassembler”

Wyre Piddle anyone?

Greetings Edwardian, IMHO stripping mid wire is a pain and adds a chore of insulating a lot of soldered joints. I use tag boards for connecting wire and it is easier to differentiate the different coloured wires. There are plenty of emporiums selling these tag boards. They are relatively cheap and useful for tagging other than track wiring; signal controls, level crossings, lighting come to mind. Be sure to use different coloured cables for different classes of use. Another tip is to attach the boards well to your baseboard before diving into the soldering. Happy modelling one and all.

Hi Edwardian, I’ve just followed my recipe and come up with a diagram which might help. Happy electrifying. Edited:: Try and find my accidental miss of a critical insulation!

Hi Edwardian, you have my deepest sympathy for your current predicament, I have populated that daunting place myself, as you may have noticed on my own RMweb posts. The way I approached it was as follows:- I used the Any Rail program to get a clear picture of the track. Your layout is more prototypical than my own but, to understand what the wiring needs you don’t have to map the track accurately, but show all of the turnouts and the track they connect, rather like a signal box’s mimic diagram. The simplified but accurate map should be saved and then transposed into a j.peg, I use a screen shot to achieve this, there are probably more technical ways, but it works for me. The j.peg created can then be opened with a painting program, I use paint net but there are others to use. What you have now is a canvas to add details onto the diagram. Decide which colour cables are to be used only for the track, (Brown and Blue in my case). Use the colours of your painting program for the straight track first, I tell myself in this process, that the brown track is nearest the back-scene and the blue is nearest the front of the layout. Use a colour to clearly mark track which requires insulation, (I use yellow), starting with the track joint which is at the opposite end of the turnout to the toe, (the end where the frog lives). You now need to determine, in a DC analogue layout, where you want your locomotives to be stationary when another loco is moving. Treat each length of track where you want to hold a loco in place, like a hand-brake, (Quoting the blessed Iain Rice,) with insulation of the rails at both ends. [it would be a good idea to only isolate the tracks of one colour only; i.e. only isolate the brown lengths of the hand-braking straight track, this means your isolation switches need only a simple switch.] Having dealt with the straight track, and track insulation, inspect the turnouts and colour the rails with a colour which continues naturally from the toe of each turnout. Now you are in a position to see where your cables need to be and more importantly what colour they should be, because now you have a colour coded plan, each cable must be connected to a rail of the same colour you have prepared. I hope the above recipe helps. I have discovered that the process of drawing with paint net helped me to make sense of the wiring. Good luck with it all. “The caption as it turned out was ‘Let the train take the strain’ It appeared that Mr. Worde and his wife were very impressed with the toilet facilities.” Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

When I lived in Alfrick, Worcestershire, I noticed that there were a number of Victorian houses scattered along the nearby lanes, with similar styles, with identical types of lintels, bricks and so on. When seeking the reason I discovered that the contractor building railway stations on the line, from Worcester to Leominster, had embarked on building the ones which intrigued me. An elderly neighbour told me, his grandfather was sure that the builder was using railway materials for the " domestic houses!" I don't think the Victorian era clerks of works would have missed the loss of so much material. IMHO it was more likely that the contractor managed a deal for the railway company to deliver the various materials, it made sense to source them from the same suppliers; unless the clerk of works was a scallywag! “They turned to look at the engine, which had come to a stop in a kind of human way, not all at once, but settling down like an old lady making herself comfortable in a favourite armchair, except that at that moment Iron Girder, the locomotive, blew out a hissing stream of shining water vapour, which does not normally happen with old ladies, at least not in public.” Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Greetings fellow RMweb folk. A special thanks are required for those members who have advised me how to proceed with my layout. Today I managed to get one of my locomotives to travel along every length of my track and safely over every turnout. I am now able to get on with modelling etc. In between my attention to the electronics, I have managed some modelling, including the water tower. I had quite a lot of fun adding the water heater with a heap of ash for the staff to remove, also the locomotive water hose. I’m not sure that the decrepit look I have added, is what would be the norm in an inter war terminus, with a growing holiday traffic. {Modeller’s license at work here!} "A layout is a little theatre and the trains must act in character; it's all about illusion." “Swiss Rail Passion.”

Hi fellow RMweb followers, I thought I was making good progress with the Cobalt iP motors, until it came to the baseboard which has the code 75 PECO double slip. I have spent many hours trying to get everything sorted. The only way this septuagenarian could cope, was to painstakingly record the polarity for every change of direction; using my multimeter to test the connection of each adjacent length of track. The following four plans are my results:- The nasty surprise was discovering that two of the double slip point rails were unconnected to the DCC track. A temporary solution has been to fit two Hornby spring connectors to test the track, which may be O.K. on code 100 but not code 75 for probable issues with fine, modern wheels and because of the appearance. I don’t know the cause of the failure but remedial soldering is rather a challenge on track which is glued to underlay. I hope the illustrations are understandable; and not a bore for the many modellers more knowledgeable than me. I was deluded when thinking that railway modelling would be restful; however, with any luck, the various challenges will be keeping my grey cells fit, in the same way that my exercise bicycle, aids my fitness, [allegedly]! "Why make life difficult when, with a little bit of thought, you can make it damn nigh impossible?" Terry Pratchett

Thank you for your notifications, dons and students of RMweb University. I have come across another Pre-Raphaelite picture which has Railway interest, but of doubtful provenance. “There is less in this than meets the eye.” (Tallulah Bankhead)

Or crêpes, or galletes.

Greetings to all fans of railways and Preraphaelite pictures do these meet the criteria for display within the pages of Castle Acheing, since it is clearly based upon an old underground train? Art work by Alexey Kondakov London Underground driver announcement. "Beggars are operating on this train; please do not encourage professional beggars, if you have any spare change you can give it to me. "

Hi fellow RMweb followers, I mentioned in my post of 8th January 2018 that the Cobalt turnout motors were slightly proud of the sides of my baseboards. I added plywood to the bottom of the built baseboard and I have just finished reinforcing the three cross members of each baseboard, I hope the pictures below, (not a pretty sight), makes sense. I am gambling on the hope, that placing the baseboards onto a flat surface will not damage the motor cabling on the 9 way spring terminals. However, I will add some kind of protection above the motors if I have any problems. I am pleased that “baseboards and other boring bits” (as Iain Rice describes), are mainly finished and I can concentrate on real railway modelling! “Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can” Terry Pratchett Railway Modelling is another exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Thank you Terry. Plagiarism by Les le Breton

Greetings RMweb followers, I have finally managed the installation of nine DCCconcepts, ip analogue, Cobalt Point motors. In the process I managed a number of issues which may be a help for folk like myself with little experience of dealing with current technology. After the motors were in position I created the following agenda for myself:- I regularised all the turnout switches, arranging them, so that when operated towards the top of the facia, most the turnouts, will be allowing stock to travel lengthwise, parallel to the front of the layout. [The asymmetric three way is an exception to this rule!] If the turnouts did NOT have their blades set for traffic to travel parallel, I swapped the 9vDC cables of the motor connections 1 & 2, [yellow and pink on my layout], then checked that the switches operated as required. When satisfied with the switch positioning and operation I then tested the polarity of all the frogs. Any incorrect frog polarity was changed by swapping the brown and blue cables using motor connections 4 & 5, [brown and Blue on my layout,] double checking the connections etc. I have kept a record of all the relevant cables; what follows is the record of the current cable positions of Baseboard 2. BASEBOARD 2 TURNOUT MOTORS MOTOR 1 MOTOR 2 MOTOR 3 MOTOR 4 POWER SWITCH 1 YELLOW PINK PINK PINK POWER SWITCH 2 PINK YELLOW YELLOW YELLOW SWITCH 3 NOT USED NOT USED NOT USED NOT USED TRACK SWITCH 4 BLUE BLUE BLUE BROWN TRACK SWITCH 5 BROWN BROWN BROWN BLUE FROG SWITCH 6 GREEN GREEN GREEN GREEN I apologise yet again for teaching many RMweb experts to suck eggs but hope my scribbling will be of value to someone. Ladies and gentlemen, sorry about the delay – someone forgot to fill the choo-choo with diesel. The guard of a London to Oxford train

You are one of the lucky ones Poggy1165; being fortunate to tell the difference between education and learning. Your real education occured when you followed your own interest, because your inquisitive nature wasn't beaten out of you by the drudgery of school. Don't knock your interest in railways, you are far from alone, I heard someone on the haunted fish-tank say that railway modelling is the second most popular hobby in the U.K. “The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.”― Noam Chomsky Posted with sincere apologies, continuing the non railway thread of the brilliant Castle Aching, somebody's struck one of my nerves!

Hi there fellow RMweb browsers, I'm having a break from wiring. I have just assembled the 5 PECO SL-40 Rail Type Buffer Stops. I am using code 75 track so, because they are really for code 100, I thought lowering them would be a good way of making them look more authentic. On a small length of track, I discovered that removing 3 outer sleeper chairs on each side, allows the top of the horizontal buffer parts bolted to the track to be at the same level as the top of the rail. As the buffer stops will be glued in place it should be safe to retain the tracks. I hope the birds-eye view below is self -explanatory. Birds-Eye view of one Buffer The three sleepers with dabs of grey paint had the outer chairs removed, allowing the buffer to look more realistic. I hope this is of some value to the steam era and preserved railway modellers. It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done