GWC1

Sorry - I didn't actually take any! I don't know whether anyone else here has some, there were a few photographers looking at it. I don't have any other firm exhibition bookings at present though I do have an enquiry for a show in late 2018.

Thanks to everyone who came and saw us at Stevenage. The layout ran well, though we did have a few problems - like when a controller started to show odd messages and not do anything. Thankfully, the writer of the handset firmware was on the stand next door and spotted that we had a damaged push button - thanks Pete! Having the system software designer on the adjacent stand was an incredible level of software support for the MERG DCC system! The star of the layout was the Dapol 08, though. With its Zimo sound chip it looked and sounded amazing and lots of visitors asked about it. It ran faultlessly shunting trains of 10-15 wagons up and down the yard for the whole 2 days without any wheel cleaning or other attention.

Netherwood sidings is all crated up and standing in the garage awaiting the arrival of the van. We look forward to seeing you all at Stevenage this weekend. The weather here in Derbyshire is fine, nice and sunny with just a light sprinkling of snow here and there.

After much sweat and toil Netherwood Sidings has left its home in the loft and is now crated up ready to go to Stevenage. Let's hope that the Met Office predictions of bad weather are as over-hyped as they usually are!

If you want to see it for real, we are at Stevenage next month.

I didn't use a cutting disc for fear of melting something. I tried a junior hacksaw but it didn't work very well in the space available so I switched to a piercing saw which worked fine. The only difficulty was keeping the fine blade straight. I filed the axle ends afterwards to level them off. The cab does look a bit different to the MMP one. The door on the Dapol one seems a bit further forward than the MMP one. It shows up when trying to fit the numbers in. I used what are now HMRS transfers (I bought them when they were PC models!) on both locos and while they fitted OK on the MMP cab they were very tight on the Dapol one. Dapol have used smaller sized numbers and I wonder if BR did the same. I have ordered some Railtec numbers to see if they fit better as at the moment it looks a bit squashed. regarding running, I have only ran it on rollers and a couple of times round the layout. Its big test will be at Stevenage show next month when it will be the main shunter on Netherwood Sidings.

Thanks CME & Bottlewasher. I didn't note the quartering before I took the rods off but I ran in on my rolling road which now has a tacho fitted. The speed was very constant right down to stop, with no sticky spots. After I refitted the cranks I had to adjust them slightly to get them smooth and it runs just as well now as it did before. I also corrected the balance weight position when I refitted the cranks. If you plan to only adjust the cranks, it will be tricky I think as the cranks are pressed on and hold quite firm. You may have to remove a crank then put it back in the new position, so have the loctite handy.

Afraid so, have a look at post 1026 in this thread.

No, I thought I might have to put some thin washers in, but there is enough clearance without any spacers. I was careful to only cut off a bit of axle the same length as the thickness of the Dapol spacers that I removed. The wheels still have some sidefloat but not much and they miss the detail on the frames quite easily.

Thanks to everyone who has been posting information on the 08. I stripped mine down to paint some cab details and add a driver. While it was apart I looked at the cranks and those spacer washers and decided to do something about it. This is a warning - it isn't easy! The cranks are metal, probably diecast, and the axles are plain steel, so I had to make a makeshift gear puller to get the cranks off. I made it up from a piece of 22mm copper pipe and an M3 screw and nut. Steel square section would have been better than the copper as the pipe is quite soft and distorted easily. I soldered a piece of N/S strip on to strengthen it. It is a bit basic, and can be seen creeping into the photo of the refitted cranks. Having got the cranks off I removed the washers and, while they were off, decided to add a working speedo drive to match the one on my other 08, a MMP kit. This involved drilling into the back of the rod and glueing in a piece of steel wire. This mates with a brass arm that revolves in a brass bush glued into the plastic sideframe. The second picture shows it. Having removed the cranks, I cut about 2mm off the end of each axle. I found it easiest to do this with a piercing saw as it was difficult to get in with a junior hacksaw. I didn't remove the wheels from the chassis, which might have made it easier. When putting the cranks back, as they are metal on plain steel, it is necessary to use some Loctite on it. I only had 243 to hand but I think 601 is best for this job. When reassembling the rods it is, of course, important to set the quartering. I did this by eye and it seems OK. Press the cranks on carefully and go part way then check the quartering, adjusting if necessary. I did the trailing axles first so I could check they were free before doing the last pair onto the powered axle. I then ran it up and down on power very slowly watching the current meter so I could make sure there were no tight spots. When satisfied all was right I pressed the cranks fully on then painted them and the axle ends black. This photo shows the reassambled loco part way through weathering. The final photo shows the Dapol 08 next to the MMP one (which has a loose cab roof awaiting insertion of a driver). They are very similar in levels of detail, which is amazing as they cost about the same, but the Dapol one comes ready to run! I am very pleased with mine.

Trying to run two trains at once, with them passing in the fiddle yard and on the double track at the front, is a challenge of coordination. JMRI lets you run trains entirely automatic or partly auto partly manual; I can run one and the computer run the other. Ideally, I could have trains running round on auto while I shunt the yard. Handy for lunch breaks at shows! The auto facility also lets you program in 'actions' like sounds. I had the 20s start up the sound as they ran onto the scenic section then fade out again as they returned to the FY. I could also program the pans on the 76s to go up and down automatically, but as I don't have pan clearance from the timbers in the loft I won't do that at home!

A small milestone was reached yesterday when the first automatically operated train ran round the layout. A speedlink train behind the pair of 20s (with added brake van for track circuit purposes) ran round completely under the control of the JMRI auto dispatcher. Next challenge is to get a second auto train going round the other way. This is a real challenge as the curves at each end of the layout are single track!

Very pleased with my home-made transfers on my home-made ferrywagon! It is scratchbuilt from plasticard of various thicknesses and uses cast whitemetal bogie sideframes plus some detailing bits from the Heljan Cargowagon. The transfers were made by tracing the VTG logo in Autocad then sizing it to fit the wagon drawing that I also made in Autocad. The lettering was tricky to sort out as the photos available (I bought a couple of Paul Bartlett's) are not generally of a high enough resolution to be able to read all the small print. The transfers were printed out on laser transfer paper, white for the blue stripe and clear for the black lettering. I just have to do the other side, add the couplings and it is ready for the Harwich-Ashburys Speedlink (which I think was the last train over the Woodhead route).

I will take some close up pictures this weekend and post them here.

Yes, Gordon is correct - I replaced the catenary wire with the EZ line on sections of simple catenary (i.e. 2 wires). I replaced the intermediate (i.e. middle) wire on compound so that this wire, when it springs back, pulls the other two clear of the baseboard joint. And, yes, it is the reel of EZ line you gave me to try on Carstairs Gordon! (plenty of it left though).

Netherwood Sidings doesn't get very many exhibition invitations and I am afraid that, at the moment, Stevenage is the only one next year.

Thanks for the kind comments, Rich. I am still active here, but don't tend to check it all that often! The layout was Layout of the Month in January 2016 Railway Modeller and I gave a short description of the OLE there, but basically it was made from 33SWG nickel silver wire strung from gantries soldered up from brass sections. I made a drawing of each type of gantry and stuck double sided tape on it to hold the brass while I soldered it. The brackets which hold the wires were etched using spare space on the class 76 fret I had made. Since the last show I have modified some of the overhead to replace the contact wire with EZ Line. This is threaded through loops bent in the tops of the droppers. The advantage is that the elastic line is always straight and, in the case of removable sections at baseboard joints, springs back pulling the contact wire clear of the baseboard joint. I will see how it performs at the next show, which is Stevenage in Mid January next year.

.. forgot to mention. That's me (or rather the ModelU print of me) standing on the footbridge with my camera.

Well that's DEMU show done. We had quite a few electrical problems, which is somewhat ironic considering that I have an article in the current MERG Journal talking about the control electronics! I eventually isolated the main panel and we ran on Sunday with just the manual panels and no working signals. I hope nobody was disappointed with the performance of the layout. The new backscenes seem to have been appreciated, and one old gent thought he recognised the industrial backscene as Sheffield. This was nice, but I don't know if he was right; that section of the backscene is a Gaugemaster print and I don't know where they took the picture. On Sunday Legomanbiffo lent us a Deltic with his sound decoder in. That was pretty amazing and we ran that on a Transpennine set standing in for the 123/124 unit which first slipped a gear then had a short circuit. The 76s worked well though and we had very few OLE problems, just a few pans getting caught (not much different to the present day ECML really!). Thanks for coming and saying hello, those who did, and special thanks to my fellow operators, one of whom is Great Central of this parish.

Thanks Dava. The photos used in the article were concentrated on one area and I didn't notice that we had also missed all the signals and that most of the loco shots were of the same loco (76 007). I also mentioned the scenic break bridge halfway down the yard but then didn't take any pictures of it! Ah well, you will have to see it for real. Next outing is the DEMU show at Burton on Trent in June.

Look out for the January Railway Modeller, which should be out tomorrow. Netherwood Sidings is Railway of the Month! Steve Flint took some great photos while the layout was Telford last year. (I get my RM on subscription and these days it doesn't arrive until after publication, so I haven't seen it yet!).

As promised, here are a couple of pics of my latest project, a class 124 trailer to go in the class 123 3-car set. As the 123 is a bit underpowered, this 'trailer' actually has a motor bogie in it. The coach body is made from the seating parts of two Lima BSKs put together. There are, of course, two spare brake ends left, and fixing these together gives a 'bonus' BG (OK, not with the correct pattern of doors and windows at the centre, but near enough in a parcels train). The motor bogie for the 124 TSL coach is a simple home made job with nickel silver sideframes holding the wheel bearings, 3ft wagon wheels and cheap nylon worm gears. The motor is from an Epson printer I had to scrap as its ink paths dried up and it refused to work again. Cosmetic sideframes were made from resin castings of a plasticard pattern. The coach was test run on our Nottingham MRS 'Market Witham' layout last night and performed very well, considering the pickups are only on one bogie at the moment. More pics when it is a bit further advanced.

It has been a long time since I last updated this - sorry! I have been busy with building some more passenger stock. First to enter service, and longest in building, was a mk 1 SK from a MMP kit. The picture shows the coach body propped up on the workbench with the interior lights powered up by shore supply. Next was a TSO from an Easy-Build kit (haven't taken a picture of that yet though). These kits really are very easy to build. I was so impressed I bought another one, a CK, and that is in service now too. The current project is to convert two Lima BSKs into a class 124 TSL and a loco hauled BG. I will post some pics of that when it is finished. The 124 trailer will go into the class 123 unit to make a 4-car set of typical formation found in Sheffield in the late 70s/early 80s.

The OLE is looking great Jamie! but make sure that the joint between the register arm and the contact wire has a smooth lower surface so the pan/bow collector slides over without catching. In the photos it looks like the collector might catch on the joint. I can bring my test vehicle along to the Nottingham show to test it, if you like. The test vehicle is a class 76 pan mounted at the height it would be on a 76, but attached to a styrene box in a Lima mineral wagon.