Fishplate

I do like that bridge @Gopher . It is also nice to see pictures just of the railway infrastructure, free of trains, both in real life and of models. Very nice.

First picture : Right hand brake shoe/ connecting rod upside down so not connected to brake lever assembly at V hanger? Ps. I'm not a brake gear officiando, so have assembled a sentence using words I've heard 😀

Why does the same job take twice as long (or more) the next time you do it? Tried to get a point operating mechanism working today. No luck. Just a solid wire from the front of the layout to the higher level at the back. What could possibly go wrong? Will creep up behind it another day and surprise it 😁

Viewed from an inbound boat, and with a sea fret rolling in behind her, ex-works E6002 is on the dock side having tested out diesel mode.

Mmm. That sort of thing happens when Mrs FP is with me. Remarkable how these coincidences can occur isn't it?

We do. Looking great 👍

Thank you! I have bookmarked your explanation.👍

This little piggy went to market . . . .

Thanks @Gedward. I am surprised by how much time I have taken to get the layout properly wired back to one control panel, with another still to do. Plus the added bonus of space for a traverser served fiddle yard and the extra complications / wiring that brings has meant some additional thinking out. I really thought I had the joints between boards cracked by using copperclad sleepers. I thought trying to line up several tracks across board joints using fishplates would be too difficult, so adopted what I thought would be a robust solution. Having found that the copperclad arrangement wasn't effective, for reasons already mentioned, it turned out to be surprisingly easy to connect up with fishplates by slowly nipping up the bolted connections between boards. I hope you get settled in quickly. Will be looking forward to following your progress on the relocated Bovey.

Hi @roundhouse. The picture below the quote above has a superb representation of ash ballast. I've looked back, but can only find the first quote on how you've achieved such a realistic representation. Please can you provide some more detail on what you have done ?

Tidied up the alignment into the back of the turnout mentioned in the post above, but that involved sluing towards the edge of the board. I will compensate by offsetting the viaduct wall in due course as there is dead space on the level below. I've also sorted out the alignment through the curve on the insulated joints (by the track pin in the second photo). No jerks going through any now. Started wiring up the carriage sidings and added the vertical rocking rod to the two turnouts that will link to the point operating wire that comes out of the front of the board. Doesn't sound like a lot, but roughly five hours work. . . Now just to link back to the control panel.

Different times!! Presumably the fermenting killed off anything undesirable. . . . ?

All your road vehicles are looking really nice Rob. Congratulations on reaching page 700 👍

A bit more progress. Carriage Sidings laid. To be wired back to the control panel. I think if the layout was still in its original location, laying these would have been challenging. They would have to have been reached from the central operating well. However here I've been able to get right next to them. Carriage Siding 2, on the left of the picture, is long enough for a 4CEP + MLV with the shorter Carriage Siding 1 able to accommodate two 2 car EMU's with ease. I've provided joints on the Carriage Sidings at the board joints to match the other tracks, even though this is definitely its final home. The buffer stop ends have isolating sections long enough to hold a Pacific loco. There will be a boundary wall to the left of Carriage Siding 2 butting up against the backscene. A concrete carriage platform will be built between the two sidings. The next track across is the Down Main (with coach and milk tanker) running around the space for the island platform, mock up on previous posts. The alignment of the Down Main from the bottom of the picture into the crossing of the turnout to the Carriage Sidings needs a bit of attention. I wasn't aware of the clear misalignment previously, but it jumps out in the photo. There are a couple of places where I have the 'floppy plastic' insulated fishplates on a curve which need similar attention as they aren't stiff enough to hold the radius after removing the rail fixings on the sleepers either side of the joint. I plan to re-establish the radii and glue the insulated joints to the sleeper base to fix that particular misalignment issue. Continuing right is the Up Main with temporary buffer stop in front of the nearly 4ft drop to floor level. I use that line for testing locos. Finally, followed by the Up & Down Goods (with three wagons on) which descends to the lower level Goods Yards.

Choices, choices . . . .😁

To keep the buffer face in the same position, you could match the rake/ angle of the supporting rails behind the buffer stop to those at the front? This looks like it would leave two sleepers space at the back of the buffer. Sleeper spacing on a siding would probably be 2ft 3in centres. Taking the width of the sleepers into account would probably give you 3ft, or 12mms to play with for a walkway behind the bufferstop. Enough to get a barrow through for anything heavy. Would that help?

Looking really good @chuffinghell. Not aware of a crossing that would be so close to a buffer stop, given railway rules about passing between vehicles, but prototype for everything etc. In considering where the van would be located, the Bogs and Bicycle Sheds Dept would, I suspect, either: Have the bank dug out behind the buffer stop to create a walking route to the rest of the yard. Or, as a crane would probably be needed to position the van, it could have been utilised to move the buffer stop to avoid excavating the bank and building a retaining wall. Unless the siding needed to be a specific length.🤔

Indeed. One of my Rule 1 acquisitions 👍 . . .

When the layout was set up to be able to be demolished on the planned house move, copper clad sleepers were put either side of the joint on individual boards. These were square to the edge of the board, rather than square to the track, except in a few locations. When the move came up the rails were cut. The theory being that everything would line up horizontally and vertically when the layout was reassembled. Whilst this has been successful on the dock, on the split level section currently erected, this has not been the case. I think this is because the underlay and the copper clads with some plasticard shimming wasn't firm enough to maintain alignment. So part of today has been spent removing the copper clad sleepers across the join between boards 2 and 3 and replacing with fishplates and the sections of sleepers cut out several years ago and saved accordingly*. Picture below shows the first carriage siding loose laid and the copper clad sleepers replaced with original sleepers and new fishplates. It can be compared with the pictures of the same area at the top of page 9. The worst part of the exercise was cleaning off the solder left from the copper clads so the fishplates would slide on. The introduction of the fishplates also negates some of the wiring between the two boards. However, I have been told before that there is the potential for fishplates to lose electrical contact over time. But they still correct the alignment issues. I suspect if I had ballasted the track then this would have 'fixed' the horizontal and vertical alignment of the rails much better. Pictures show up discrepancies and I've poked a couple of the new inserts to line up better. *see comment on post above about saving things, 'just in case'.

I understand what you say @SirPhantom, but I suspect that there are many on here that have had a long journey to get to the standards shown. But everything starts at the beginning. Why not start a topic of your own for your shelf layout? You will find lots of positive help on here to get you towards where you would like to be. There are oodles of resources that you can find online, plus the bookmark feature on RMWeb to help you save those inspirational posts. I 've personally had the creativity problem, but by following the inspiration and methods on here and elsewhere, I eventually managed to get my only post (so far) on one of the 'realistic models' pages. It's taken me a while! So the only advice I can give from my personal experience is Go For It. Good luck with your shelf layout 👍

Old wall advertising sign in Scarborough

Well, two Code 100 live frog points laid for the carriage sidings and wires threaded through to underneath. Then the point mechanisms and microswitches to install. Learnt from the previous lack of insulated joints, so should be no shorts. Hopefully. It has been interesting adapting the previous design from cassette to a traverser as I've ended up with a short piece of baseboard under the first turnout. However, all glued and screwed and very firm. Which it has to be for the run-on from the traverser. Picture of the rail head. Will plod on over the BH weekend. I'm aiming to have the layout fully wired from the main control panel and erected before I go back to work in January (2024). Not a great picture, but tells the story 🙂

Tracked the black underlay down. There is sufficient to do the traverser and part of the new fiddle yard. However, have found some white stuff of similar thickness amongst the 'might come in useful one day' bits and bobs. Which proves the point. . . . On with wiring the two turnouts feeding the traverser and carriage sidings this weekend. Then lay new fiddle yard tracks. Have moved the boards apart to facilitate track laying. It is clear the floor slopes in at least two directions. I had a Lidl special laser level, but found the battery had been left in (obviously by me) and it is jiggered. So now pondering on the best place for a datum line, when the high point under the part of the layout that will be free standing. I think I will revert to my Dads long level with a good old fashioned bubble, rather than fork out for a replacement laser . . . . I can mark out a datum on three (recently painted) walls.

Hi, just picking up on that point, it is possible to get UV film to cover the window. I have been looking at that as I have a South facing velux in my railway room. The sun does a full circuit of the layout and display cabinets during the day. I don't have links to hand on my kindle. A search for "UV window film" should get you some appropriate results. As a note of caution . . . . The site I visited had length in metres and width in millimetres. I hadn't spotted that until I realised the astronomical price was for 900m of film rather than 900mm ("why are you mixing your units? " , my O level maths teacher would ask. . . . .). If I remember correctly the film cost under £10. There are YouTube videos on how to apply it. It is nice to see other people's railway room as well as the layout itself. You can then understand the constraints that have been overcome to create a scene. Lovely layout. I've only visited Edinburgh a few times, but always have to pass over that footbridge. Have shown the photos above to Mrs FP this morning as she went to Uni in Edinburgh. She knew where it was straight away and said it was hard to believe it was a model. Agreed !

Agreed, an unusual modelling item I've not seen before. Really like it. Would be interested in knowing how the finished vessel will be launched. Somewhere (!) I have a link to an old photo of the creekside line at Faversham which crossed a slipway from a boat yard. The track appears removable. I 'll see if I can dig it out. I tend to take a snip of the photo, save on a word document, and paste the link underneath. Then if the link is broken at least I still have the picture and know I can't post it.it I presume the Google image search could find the picture again to enable a new link to be found (?). Not had the opportunity / need to do that as yet.