Maurice Hopper

Why bother to look for a bigger venue?  That it was a small intimate show was the whole point.

Hi fellows,

Checked this out as until two weeks ago I had not touched a Kenline kit since c1969.  

However, two of the Southern open wagon pair kits came to hand and are already built, if not yet with the detail bits like strapping added.

Enjoyable, but some of the castings, in what I suspect are later kits (I understand Kenline continued to produce into the 1990s), were not as good as those very finely cast individual items like 'W' iron/axle boxes I used under my own card bodies for my never to be finished 4mm layout.

They are just right to go with a Hornby Peckett W4 and a Dapol tar wagon, for use on a small shunting layout.

Maurice

You might like to talk a look at my post........   "Rolling Roads to on the blocks, a response to being 'grounded'."

Keep well....

Regards

Maurice

Indeed. As a “younger one” in them thar days, the hanging around at Exeter to drop off catering cars, Okehampton to lose the Plymouth portion and Halwill to uncouple Bude coaches meant that the desire to get to Port Isaac Road only increased. And I’m sure one year we hung around at Meldon Junction awaiting the single line. I last did the trip in 1962.

You were lucky.... I did the 01.10 Newpapers from Waterloo to Plymouth North Road, Plymouth - Bodmin Road, Bodmin Road - Padstow (dmu), return on the same train to Boscarne Junction were I changed onto the railbus for Bodmin North. Walked across town to Bodmin General and the dmu for Bodmin Road. Returned to Paddington by 18.00 ish. This (I think) in the October half term in 1966 with the North Cornwall already gone.

All for the price of a couple of Lyon fruit pies and some Kia-ora orange juice... well squash to extend the packed breakfast and lunch. How lucky those of us who could travel on passes were. Ashtead to Padstow, any permitted route.... ie. a different route each way. Try doing that on today’s tickets..... singles all the way.

Great layout. Great weekend..... Maurice

Anywhere's better that Cullumpton !

Leave Cully alone..... it was good enough for Ann's father to defend as a bank manager in The Home Guard.

We should be pulling together at this time of national crisis!!

Sorry I did not make LarkRail.... finishing off the new workshop stud work that will carry the new roof!

Mark, I very much agree with your comment about getting on with it.... but experience would suggest this is not the easiest resolution to follow!

However, the quiet satisfaction to be seen when John is operating all that he has achieved is clearly an example to us all.

As I was leaving on Saturday John made mention of another appearance of the layout in its home town on the 17th June. For some reason it appears I might be the only additional operator in the west that day as all the others are heading for Jerry's show at Warminster. What a wonderful dilemma - to go to Wadebridge or Warminster.... and all for wonderful modelling.

A pedant writes:

It looks like 21C107 in Mr Bulleid's intriguing numbering system and before it had received its name. Maybe a small re-enactment of the naming ceremony at the platform could be called for

 

David

A pedant writes:

It looks like 21C107 in Mr Bulleid's intriguing numbering system and before it had received its name. Maybe a small re-enactment of the naming ceremony at the platform could be called for

David, I am sure you know the intriguing numbering was a copy of the system for French steam locos current at the time of construction. Bullied had some links with the French engines who used the following....

C = 0-6-0 ...... as in Q1s

1 = 2 as in 2-6-0 .... so John's green N would have become 1C37

2 = 4 as in 4-6-0 ...... so an Aurthur would be 2Cxx

And 21C as in 4-6-2

And D as in the 0-8-0 Southern Z class........ perhaps there is a question here for Round Britain Quiz!

A pedant writes:

It looks like 21C107 in Mr Bulleid's intriguing numbering system and before it had received its name. Maybe a small re-enactment of the naming ceremony at the platform could be called for

David, I am sure you know the intriguing numbering was a copy of the system for French steam locos current at the time of construction. Bullied had some links with the French engines who used the following....

C = 0-6-0 ...... as in Q1s

1 = 2 as in 2-6-0 .... so John's green N would have become 1C37

2 = 4 as in 4-6-0 ...... so an Aurthur would be 2Cxx

And 21C as in 4-6-2

And D as in the 0-8-0 Southern Z class........ perhaps there is a question here for Round Britain Quiz!

This event was clearly the 'talk of the town'. Well at least the talk of the bus from Bodmin Parkway. Not often that one hears a model railway being discussed on both the journey too and from the exhibition. The expectation of the outward journey was clear fulfilled in the comments made by my fellow travellers on the return journey.

It seems I might be repeating the trip on the 17th June when the layout next appears in Wadebridge, as most of the normal crew are at Jerry's show in Warminster.... I would like to do both, but the opportunity to have another go with "Wadebridge", both 21C107 and the layout. Thanks John for a good day. Sorry my back could not take more than three and a half hours.

Maurice

Brilliant pictures. Don't forget the pedestrian wickets on each side.

Bars on a gate are the horizontal members.... As in a five bar gate... Rails closer at the bottom to stop small stock, with wider gaps further up.

The cross sections could be called 'bays', as in a building having so many bays in a side... For example each window in a church is a separate bay.

What a wonderful set of pictures on the CRS website of the Bodmin, Wadebridge and Padstow lines.

..... And there we have it! The evidence that the gates were hung on the right.

Excellent

Nick,

Stick with the ply! (Sorry about that.) It will be worth the trip to town to have something that is more dimensionally stable and water resilient when you start ballasting.

Try and find a long, straight and narrow offcut of something - 12 mm ply, Conti board - to put your array of weights on so you get a good flat finish. You may want to put a piece of paper between this and the thin ply when glueing, in case the glue 'catches' it all.

I will be most interested in which way you do this.... Ply glued to extruded polystyrene or track glued to the ply and then lay it as a single unit. I have been planning the latter for my home layout in 1/64th Scale but have not got round to the experiments yet. The tendency might be for the ply to curve if attached to the track first. As you are using ready made track it would probably be easier to drop it straight onto a fixed, flat ply surface. I will be building the track from components that will be easier off the board for at least some locations on the layout. I also intend to work on C&L foam underlay so it will be better to build on a firm, off-board surface.

On St Juliot I laid the cork straight onto the extruded polystyrene...being careful to get it flat. I think a thin ply would be better as used on Tresparret Wharf and Lambeth Walk, where two laminations of 0.8mm ply and the centre core of the blue stuff make the whole baseboard!

(Nick, The timing off this post does not indicate progress... Just another rather sleepless night)

Somewhere I have a picture (slide) of the Boscarne gates slung in the hedge long after closure. They had red targets on them but I can't remember which way they were hung. I think it was normal to hang a single gate from the left as view from outside the railway. (As you know Nick, I am away from home so can't check my references.

You have made a wise decision to use the foam.... Your weights are more interesting than mine. I hope the children don't buy their own presents for teacher!

Nick, you have made excellent progress since the end of term.... But that of course is the teacher's lot!

I very much appreciate the way you 'show your working' in the resolution of problems that arise in building a layout. With the guiding sense of place and reference to actual locations for operating this has the potential to became a Cornish classic.

Now as to size.... This has to be a small layout for you at just over 50% of the length and 30% the width of the Horrabridge station boards (let alone the rest of the circuit).

It will be a pity to loose the steam, the under bridge and with it the opportunity for below line landscape. Look at the pictures again. How often is the railway perched above the hedge or field? There is something significant about land falling away from the permanent way. Something to do with the rake of the stage that it offers to the scene. I could always run up some nicely profiled new fronts for you! Just trying to confuse the issue. The little dip in the front of Tresparrett Wharf makes all the difference compared to the flat St Juliot. See. - modellingat164scale.wordpress.com

Additional comment.... Perhaps the fall away at the front of the layout is better illustrated by Stroudley Green, of which there are more pictures than TPW.

.... This student shows great potential as does his chosen project. I look forward to watching developments... Even if only in holiday periods!

Maurice

Wadebridge has come on a very long way since I had the privilege of operating the quay at Bodmin a while back. It really is looking very good. Congratulation to all those involved, especially John, with his ability to keep a focus on a single long-term project. Excellent... Maurice

Being an oil based product, Devon Wood Oil has the advantage of penetrating into the baseboard side material, which in my case is birch ply, so not only renders a pleasant colour but a surface this is more resilient than a hard finish. A quick pass with an oily cloth brings the finish back to new if it is needed to remove marks or just to build up the colour. If you can't get Devon Wood Oil, appropriately, Danish Oil is also more generally available from woodcraft suppliers. I think Wilsons of Exmouth will send by courier. A litre goes a long way.

Very good to see this delightful piece of Danish countryside at Wells.  Sorry I did not have more time to watch the passing of trains.

On the inspiration front, how much I agree with Don, Jerry and others.  

It is just over 9 years ago that I got back into serious railway modelling.  I had thought of 4mm RTR as there was so much stuff coming out that was good and suitable for the North Devon Line, especially the Bachmann Mogul.  

Then I spent a day operating Trevor Nunn's goods yard at East Lynn and to put it simply, the world changed.  Well, not quite, but my little part of it and my view of railway modelling did.  As Dave says, "Size (or should that be scale) isn't everything."  

It happened to be Trevor, it could have been John, Jerry or Dave, but it triggered a need to move to something more demanding and more rewarding both for me as a modeller and hopefully for those with whom we are lucky enough to be able to share our endeavours.  It is not the scale that matters but the quality that counts.

It is too late now to take on another scale, but I still have plans to put some rather more fine scale track down for my German N gauge collection which will greatly improve the look of Holtzapfel.  Time forces a compromise!

Talking about roof names.  There were a number of places where the Southern Railway painted the station name on platform awnings to help early aviators find there way around, and check that they were following the right railway line.  One such example came up on one of the first Britain from Above pictures to be posted on their website in mid 2012.  

http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw001418?search=tonbridge&ref=0

Having been lucky enough to see this (and indeed operate a bit of it) on Sunday I will watch progress with great interest.