thegreenhowards

Sounds tasty! Would they differ much from brambles at 7mm scale?!

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on the unkempt grass areas on either side of the station. I’m now pretty happy with them. The basic theme is over green grass and weeds with lots of gorse, bramble and Rhododendron at the back. The red tipped plants near the steps are supposed to be Crocosmia - probably left over from when the garden was cared for. I’m sure I’ve seen a picture of them in that position somewhere, but I can’t remember where! Andy

I need to get my colours right for the station infrastructure. When I commissioned my buildings, I didn’t appreciate the change in colours which I now realise must have happened about the time the museum opened at Glenfinnan when the whole station seemed to be tarted up. But in my era the station buildings were in a mix of two shades of rather tired yucky green as shown below (Flickr photo from Ernie’s Railway Archive). I’m starting with the station benches which seem to have white ironwork and the darker green woodwork (see in background above). I’ve had four attempts as shown below. The one on the left is Humbrol 101 ‘mid green’. For the others I’ve tried adding various amounts of Humbrol 104 ‘Oxford blue’, to make it more ‘turquoisy’. I think I like the one on the right best, but I know my colour perception isn’t great and even I realise it’s not quite right. So my question is, does anyone have a recommendation for the correct WHL colours? I’m after the two greens and the cream used on bits of the signal box as below. Thanks Andy

If you were being commercial it would be (2) every time. It’s just not worth the time to do anything else. Anything more is for love and I can’t see you putting much love into a Lima loco, so it’s still (2)!

Hands off - We need Ellis to continue to concentrate on O gauge! Andy

Correct me if I’m wrong (I’m a bit rusty these days), but this was a fair sized train from KX, splitting at Hitchin. So the pacific power would be justified for the first half of the journey. The other similar train got a pair of B1s I think. Andy

Hence the existence of P4! Lights blue touch paper and stands back!

If you know what you’re selling and are prepared to invest some time, I’d say ebay or the GOG bring and buy for this sort of item. I suspect that when a widow has to dispose of an estate the temptation to chuck the lot at an auction house is too great. I’ve just taken on an estate for the widow of a former club member. I’ve got 20 badly renumbered pannier tanks (amongst other things) to sell! I can’t face listing them all on eBay, so may have to do a stand at a toy fayre. Andy

Tony, I’ve no idea what a RTR Castle costs….nor do I want to know! But I do know that a new Bachmann V2 is around the £200 mark. Sadly kits don’t go for so much in my experience. I recently tried to sell a Nucast V2 on eBay, beautifully built (not by me) and running well with a Portescap. I even included a video to prove that it ran well. But no interest at £120. Sadly I think unbuilt kits go for more! I’m sure you manage to sell nicely built locos for more, partly because they have the ‘Sir’ seal of approval from a running perspective. But in my experience the market for second hand kit built locos is quite limited unless there is no RTR equivalent. I keep bidding on DJH A1/1s and losing! I hope I’m wrong but that’s my experience. Andy

Thanks Stuart, That largely makes sense and is in accordance with what I’ve done But the use of lever 8 to control the points to the loading dock is not something I’d seen before. This picture shows 6,7&8 as spare and on that basis I’d assumed that the loading dock point was hand controlled. I’ve actually put a point motor on it and controlled it using lever 6. If you’re sure of your source, I may change that over to lever 8. I’ve actually arranged a visit to the Glenfinnan museum on 14th March, so will see what I can find then. regards Andy

Tony, At my club we use a similar method to you, but with a more engineered fixing slot which positions and provides electrical connectivity. Possibly, the most significant difference is that we use nickel silver strip for the connectors. I believe this is more springy than brass. This works on both our exhibition layouts, Oakbourne in 00 and Smithfield in 0. I don’t have any photos to hand, but will take some next time I’m in the club if that would be useful. Andy

Very definitely cream Bill! I actually posted the image on my way to the match and it never occurred to me. And thank you Southampton…although you left it rather late! I actually don't think either Huddersfield or us will go down. There are plenty of other teams freefalling into the morass.

Rob posted the green and cream coaches on his WHL4 thread recently, so I thought that while I have some baseboards up, I’ll show what I intend to do with mine. Here we have the new Ellis Clark Black 5 which will become 5407 once I have some transfers. I have 5 of the coaches but only two would fit nicely on this board! Here is the full train on the EKOGG test track. I’ve obviously got some sorting out of lamps to do! Andy

Can I echo @mallaig1983 ‘s thanks to Jeremy. This signalling technical stuff is a complete mystery to me, so very useful. How far I’ll go down the locking bar modelling I don’t know. But at least I’ll know what to do with the rodding! Andy

The glue has dried on yesterday’s work and I’ve cleared the debris for a few photos. I’m trying to create this area. The scene is very different today, so I’m going on a limited number of old photos, some of which I can’t show for copyright reasons. This is where I’ve got to. The steps are a bit of a compromise because the ground should drop off more but I didn’t do that for baseboard integrity reasons. I also need to put in much more weed undergrowth. But I hope you can see that it’s getting there. The barrow crossing is also new. Andy

Thanks both, I wondered about the point lock but couldn’t see why it went beyond the point. Now I understand!

I’ve also been thinking about point rodding at the west end of the station. This photo shows the point rodding emerging from under the barrow crossing and heading for the West end point. But I don't understand why there are two rods. One seems to stop at the point but the other continues West for a few yards and ends about where it disappears off the photo. What might this be doing? The signal control wire appears to be on the other side of the track, so I don't think its signal related. Any thoughts? Andy

I did think about that….but not until after I’d wired several levers! As the distant won’t exist on the layout, I can’t be bothered to go back and redo it all. I would like to make 4&12 actually lock the points - presumably electrically rather than physically. But I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. I think I could route the electrical power for 5 through lever 12, but the DCC powered 11 will be more problematic.

Thanks. I think the lever frame really adds to the operational interest of what is a fairly basic railway operationally. For garden operation on my own it sits on the inside of the layout, but at exhibitions I see it being on the outside where I can get kids (of all ages!) to pull the levers. Four of the points are on the same board and remain operated by tortoises directly from the DPDT switches. As this is the board onto which the lever frame attaches, it’s quite simple to plug in the cables. The two signals at this end will also remain servo analogue operated. I’ve never been convinced by DCC for accessories, but in this case, it will save15ft of trailing cable (once I’ve converted the two Dapol signals over). Andy

I’ve been working on the area in front of the station - it’s starting to look like the pictures. Photos tomorrow when the glue and paint have dried! In the meantime, I’ve also been working on the lever frame. It’s now looking more like the Glenfinnan frame. Here’s the prototype. And here’s my version. I’ve matched all the colours apart from levers 6 and 15. Lever 6 I’ve painted black as it controls a point into the end loading dock which I assume must have been hand operated on the prototype. And lever 15 I don’t have on my frame. As it’s for a distant which is well off scene, I’ll live with that. This hangs on the edge of the layout and acts as the switches for all the points and signals. Andy

Here’s my DJH standard five - also one of the KX three. I bought it on eBay and then had to make it run (as with 95% of eBay kit built purchases!). It tends to work Cambridge services on Gresley Jn, although I believe that they did work some of the Grimsby fish turns. Andy

Feel my ‘O’ gauge pain! Loco prices seem to be converging a little, but we still have to pay best part of £200 per coach.

Here’s my first attempt at ‘The West Highlander’ (forerunner of today’s Jacobite) running on the EKOGG test track today. The loco will become 5407 once I have the LMS transfers which I think are in the post. I was impressed by how well she handled the five weighty coaches and she drew a fair bit of favourable comment. Andy

Thanks for the gen Ian. I’ve managed to track down a copy of the mag, and it’s a good photo. I don’t think this trial lasted very long, so I think a green 37 might be an extravagance! The caption is somewhat misleading describing D6936 as ‘the motive power which would replace the NBL machines’ . That somewhat omits the 1970s and might upset a few McRat fans! I like the one of D6133 at Glenfinnan as well. I hope to recreate that one day. Andy

It certainly stinks and there are warnings about toxicity, although if it’s sold for public use it can’t be too bad. In our case, we mixed it outside and opened the windows in the room. Then poured, shut the door and left it to set.