thegreenhowards

Hi Bill, Thanks for the offer of photos. I have found a lot on Flickr, but there were probably lots of useful ones on RMWeb which got lost in the meltdown earlier this year. I’m using 1983 as my base year, so although I’ll run trains from a much wider timespan I’m trying the base the scenery and infrastructure on that year. A lot has changed now, so I suspect many of your visit photos will be too modern, but hopefully some will be useful. I think I have enough of the running lines and station building now, but anything you could help with in the following areas would be useful. 1. The waiting shelter on the up platform. Anything which shows the back and insides. 2. The back and top of the water tank as seen in this photo. 3. The lamp hut and wooden shed on the loading dock, East of the signal box. Any more detail than below, particularly dimensions. 4. This little hut in the mid distance by the point. I think this may have appeared after 1983, so I may not need to model it, but any info would be appreciated. 5. Any more pictures of this concrete shed which was between the signal box and station building. I think it’s been replaced by something bigger and more modern but equally unattractive now. 6. Any information on the line which the camping/ dining coach is on. I know it drops quite considerably below the level of the running lines but can’t quite work out the orientation round the back of the signal box and how quickly it drops. How far below the running lines is the camping coach? I.e. what happens behind where the photographer is standing for this shot. Ernie’s Railway Archive has been a godsend! Regards Andy

Hi Bill, Your layout came up very frequently when I was researching mine. Sadly I never saw it but it looks good online. I’d welcome your comments as I proceed. As for my pride and joy, she was my first car, bought in 1989. She’s now a bit like triggers broom(!) but has been used consistently ever since and was our only car until my son was born in 2003. Regards Andy

I've made some progress on the layout. I've finalised a plan based off my mock up on the old boards. Here is it drawn up in Anyrail. I've had to bodge the point geometry as Anyrail doesn't have templates for my eclectic range of points. Squares are 1 foot. I've also bought the timber. After some online research and discussions at the timber yard I decided on 9mm OSB3 for the track bed. The boards will be open frame with planed 3x1 timber. I will paint the whole lot with exterior paint (primer, undercoat and topcoat) to protect it before track laying begins. Here is my friend Peter helping me build the first board. He is a much better carpenter than me, so he's helping me with the first board and I hope to be able to replicate that for the others. I finished the framework for the first board (blue board above) last night. The drop on the right is to allow me to represent the land falling away on the right as you leave Glenfinnan heading East. I just need to add the track deck now. Any comments welcome. Andy

It’s good to see the sleeping cars again. Are they behaving themselves after Tony sorted out the couplings?

Having seen these in the flesh tonight, I have to say they look fantastic. You’re really getting that teak painting and lining sussed and the speed you churn them out is amazing. You’ll be stocking the whole club layout soon!

I have some similar uncouplers on my 00 sold by Heathcote electronics and using a servo to push up a rectangle of plastic. They use clear plastic to render then less obtrusive.

IGetting away from the DCC debate, today I finished my SR Q Class which I last showed on here back in July before painting. Today the cab number plates arrived from Light Railway Stores. They offer an excellent service producing a bespoke set of plates for £4.95 including postage. Anyway, I stuck them on this afternoon, and here she is finished. Regards Andy

With some Zimo decoders (and maybe others?), there is a bit of software which checks for connectivity as a loco stops and moves it forward a mm or two if not until it finds connectivity. This definitely helps starting on slightly dirty track. Obviously one should not have dirty track to start with….but in the real world it dies happen. Andy

Tony, I think it depends on what you mean by ‘operate’. Both Gresley Jn and my O gauge garden railway are regularly switched to DC to run locos in or let a friend run something he’s brought along. But they can’t be operated fully because there are no isolating sections, so they work on a ‘one engine in steam’ principal. I guess that’s similar to when LB is used for testing DCC locos? The main difference that I don’t have to remove or isolate all my DCC locos - they just sit there ignoring the DC signal as I’ve changed the CV to ensure they don’t work on DC (mainly to eliminate the problems I mentioned earlier). As for point control, I was DC but I’m increasing going ‘digital’. I use my index finger to pull a lever and the point/ signal is changed manually by some rodding. More satisfying and very simple. Regards Andy

Good Morning `Tony, I dont think it would upset locos not fitted with a chip. I think it must have been a combination of the short and the chip which sent a rogue signal to the Portescap. I suspect your high power controllers may have exacerbated the situation but I have blown up a chip on another DC layout and a chip on yours on a separate occasion (last Summer when we did the photos for BRM although I didn’t realise what the problem was at the time and it was only a £10 chinese one). I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that DC and DCC don’t mix and I no longer run my DCC locos on DC layouts except in very carefully controlled ways. I do sometimes convert layouts (mine and other peoples) between the two to allow all locos to run. It’s much safer that way. Andy

I think the issue with that particular incident was that DC doesn’t cut out with a short circuit in the same way as DCC does. It also may be related to LB running on considerably more than 12V DC. I don’t think it was related to the live chassis as the problem was caused by running into a live frog point which was wrongly set. The decoder was actually fine after a reset. However the Portescap was fried. You don’t need to apologise for it though. You kindly showed me how to replace the motor which was a new and slightly scary experience for me at that time and that was very useful training (I now do it very regularly). Regards Andy

I tend to agree, with some reservations. I have several live frame locos running on DCC. It’s no problem provided that shorts are ruthlessly tracked down and eliminated as they are more serious in DCC than with DC. With 0-6-0s it’s no problem but floppy bogies can short out and have to be sorted out with a combination of insulating through araldite or tape and making less floppy. The only insurmountable problem is live frame motors which have to be replaced. Having said that, when I’m building from scratch (rather than sorting out a secondhand purchase), I tend to build fully insulated for robustness with driver wiper pick ups and a stayalive if necessary. Andy

Without wishing to reopen another favourite debate (well perhaps just a little!), the same can be achieved very simply with a DCC chip and a stayalive! I’ll now duck! Andy

Lovely photos Andy. You could have photoshopped my ugly mug out of them though! Andy

Indeed! Although that part of the plan is very much in the long term!

Thanks Rob, I don’t think any garden could do justice to Glenfinnan’s scenery! I don’t have enough level changes to really get the height right but I am planning a water feature giving a run alongside a ‘loch’. I’d love to do the viaduct but that would be over two feet tall, so quite a challenge to fit in! As for cost, I clearly couldn’t afford a fleet like yours but the track work is not too bad if bought secondhand. What you see in the photo cost under £200. And at least the prices of rolling stock are reasonably stable as economies of size from the growing market cancel out the prevailing price pressures. OO seems to be catching up fast! Andy

That SRPS train sounds like my sort of challenge! I was considering the Royal Scotsman, but that would be very tough Do you have any pictures of the SRPS train? Andy

Thanks David, What’s going on behind the box? Are they removing the last remnants of the old loading dock? I’m considering a trip up for the Jacobite in September or October giving me a chance to photograph the station and take some measurements. But Caledonian Sleeper seem to have priced themselves out of the market, so it makes a very long trip from deepest Surrey! Andy

Rob, I hope you don’t mind me hijacking your thread to mention that I have started a thread for my attempt at Glenfinnan in O gauge. As this seems to be the go to meeting place for WHL line modellers, I hope some of your readers will find this interesting. A link is below. Andy

This is a new thread which I’m starting to chart the progress of my attempt to build a dual purpose model of Glenfinnan station in O gauge. It will form the station area of my garden railway but will be kept inside and will also be transportable as an exhibition layout. I chose Glenfinnan because it is a favourite location of mine and the view from the viaduct captivated me when I first travelled the line in 1983 - long before it was popularised in a certain film! The thread will record progress on the layout and the stock to run on it. I’m keeping as close to scale as possible meaning the length of the layout will be c.7Metres. I have mocked up the track plan on some spare baseboards borrowed from a club friend. This is shown below (the lovely station building was built for me by Ed Hall). He is also building me a signal box - the one shown is just a placeholder. The key to the track plan is the station throat. I have built this using points from several different manufacturers, Marcway, Greenwood, Peco and an unknown Y point bought secondhand - possibly Waverley. This has enabled me to have a minimum radius of 8’6” apart from on the inner curve of the curved point where it drops to 6’. While tighter than scale, this was as close as I could get using proprietary products. I think it works well. This is what it should look like. And this is what I’ve achieved. My plan is to build the layout on trapezium style open plan baseboards of c.1.3m in length (on the long side) and 0.6-0.7m wide. I will need to allow for the ground dropping off in front of the station. The track plan and infrastructure at Glenfinnan didn’t change much from LNER days until RETB signalling was introduced in the late ‘80s, so my plan is to run a through the ages sequence starting in the 50s and ending in about 1986 with 37/4s but no ghastly sprinters. I may extend back to LNER days as I build up my stock. I will keep this thread updated as I make progress with the layout and stock. Any comments very welcome. Andy

Fantastic. I’m looking to do something similar to build Glenfinnan viaduct in my garden (subject to domestic authorities!). Do you know if the technique is written up anywhere?

Great photos. I love the concrete(?) viaduct. Andy

Thanks Rich, I see that the third class compartments are 6’1” wide. Do you have the equivalent diagram for the all third D419 to see how much they squeezed the poor third class passengers? Andy

Thanks Jonathan, Looks like I need to join the GER society! Andy

Thanks Steve. The Ellis Clark pair were buried at the back of two different pull out rummage drawers, so quite a satisfying find, especially when he knocked £20 off for taking the pair! I’ll look forward to following your progress.