Andy R

Gordon- hi I have not posted on your thread before so forgive me if this simple question has been answered in the many previous pages...but I would simply like to know what the thickness of your copper-clad sleepers are that go with the SMP plain BH track? The reason I ask this is because when I look at the (rather basic) Marcway web site they seem to have two types of copper-clad sleeper strips for 00 gauge, but they do not seem to give the sleeper material thickness -only length. As they dont have a web site 'contact' portal I will have to ring from NZ to ask questions or make an order. I am planning a terminus extension to my layout Hawkinsfield Junction and want to make my own points with SMP rail and copper-clad -but the thickness of the sleeper material seems unclear to me. With your extensive knowledge of hand-made point work I hope you dont mind me asking thanks and regards Andy R

Les- going the way of NZ Rail if this keeps going. Bring back the steam engines mister (: regards Andy R

Thanks John - good idea. I will do this. Regards Andy R

Looking ahead- does anyone know why the Marcway suppliers of SMP track and components dont seem to have a user friendly mail order web site? I have googled the site looked at it with the idea of ordering further track rail and copperclad sleeper material etc, for my new station area, but dont seem to get anywhere with this (I am living in NZ so just cant visit the shop!) I note that several years ago I did manage somehow to get an order done and it arrived ok. Any comment or advice would be appreciated on this. regards Andy R

Cheers Andy P- seems the way to go. On the other side, the subject of recent dialogue, all will be revealed in due course. regards Andy R

Sharky- enjoy the layout construction experience...it seems to go forever. regards Andy R

Sharky- hey thanks for your response and for taking an interest in my topic. Yes, overall the change feels right and certainly makes it easier to see the points! There are some at the other end of the junction, on the branch exit that will rely on the mechnical setting of the points with my newly installed levers rather than visual reliance, but thats ok, its all part of the fun. Now to dive into reconstruction of the other side.... John Flann- as always thanks John for your support. regards Andy R

Back at Hawkinsfield Junction this week and I had cause to take off the proposed road bridge (which I had constructed from foam card and card (see photo below) and which has been sitting on- site waiting to be finished for around 2 years or so. Removing this bridge opened up this end of the junction station and helped me see the mechanical point blades move in the vicinity of the platforms. The bridge was blocking this view, which not fatal, was annoying. After a few days of pondering this situation I made a decision to leave off this bridge and patch up the 'hole' in the back scenery where the bridge intersected with the station and goods yard access roads. I have now done this and the other photos below show the outcome of blending the existing and new scenic bank, vegetation and backscene. I am happy with the outcome. And the bridge...? I think I can reuse it at the station throat to my new terminus or, as per Mr Denny, as a view block when the tracks head 'off stage' through the backscene. Thats in the future. I now turn my mind to deconstructing my current storage yard and its DCC bus and rail feeders, and begining the new terminus baseboard. This will be portable in the sense that I can work on it top and bottom without clambering underneath (like I had done when working on the layout before. Bliss!

Westerner -I have just read this part of your thread and like others, I am sad to see this wonderful layout being dismantled. I have really enjoyed the construction journey that you have presented on this thread after we lost Wencombe! So many of the photos showing the evolution of the different aspects of the layout (I particularly liked the harbour/quayside scenes unfolding) and they are inspirational modelling with good lessons for us all. Not sure of your motivation for change, but I do note the new layout is very different from your recent ones...change is as good as a rest I guess. All the best for this new venture. regards Andy R

Andy P -trip to NZ to fix up my background painting and do new ones please....these are very good trees indeed regards Andy R

Hi Andrew P Thanks for this but to be honest I cannot work out how the existing junction station fits? Can you elaborate further with notes? Kind regards Andy R

Hi Andy P - thanks for this but to be honest I cannot quite work out how it fits with existing junction station? Can you help further with some notes? Many thanks and kind regards Andy R

And the other option I mentioned which is being 'tested' is the storage yard parallel to the new terminus (compared to earlier photo of the centre peninsula and rotating' yard idea) and slightly below and in front of the new terminus - but only a little so that the gradient in and out of such storage yard will be minimal as the curve up to Hawkinsfield Junction will be tight because of the pillar instrusion and the need to make a curved point junction between storage yard road and the continuous run road (if people understand what I am trying to say -again see earlier layout design idea posted. Hence the current storage yard which is part of the continuos circuit would be shifted to create the new terminus space, and be in front - it becomes a stud end storage yard but with a small loco turntable only at the end of each storage yard siding to allow locos to be turned around and sent back to the 'head' of a train...at least thats the theory! With these two options I am now concentrating on getting the best curve radius and curved points (for junction mentioned) combination I get squeeze at the end of the room (looking toward that end in the two photos) I have no idea why one photo is on its side...sorry! regards Andy R

Thanks to those members who liked my lazy Saturday photos...we keep plugging along with next steps but need light relief from time to time by running trains. regards Andy R

sorry - photos 1 and 2 mixed up!!!! -

Hi from deepest winter in NZ; a week of moxed emotions as NZ brings home the Americas Cup in yachting but looses the second rugby test against the touring Lions tream... Cool, wet day here ans so perfect for doing stuff in the railway room- more testing of storage yard ideas with a full sized 'mock up' of middle peninsula storage yard rotating idea as well as second idea of shifting same to parallel with t eproposed terminus. I like to stew on these ideas for a while before comitting to construction- as seen in above posts discussion the jury is still out on these ideas given the experienced modeller feedback I have recieved. In the meantime I ran a few trains with the mock up in place to see how it impeded my movement around the room- and of course it does...as would be expected. I am weighing up how much imposition v's operational potential. I am in no hurry to move on this so just keep looking at ideas with mock up. As some trains were run, on a lazy Saturday afternoon at Hawkinsfield Junction... Photo 1 is a shot from the layout room door showing my rough mock up of the central/middle peninsula idea. Photos 2 and 3 are looking across the junction yard and station area as firstly, a mixed goods trundles through Platform 1 on the main heading east, and secondly a Pannier tank is ready to depart the marshalling yard with a goods heading west.

Hi Les- great to hear from you on this winters day. Wet weather has seen me get several good hours in the man-cave installing the point levers for Hawkinsfield Junction that have been kindly made for me by a model engineer firend. Only a couple to go. Once set up they work really well and there is nothing really that can go wrong- other than operator error! I will then paint the facia board and lever mechanisms black, except the brass levers themselves will need to be white so I can see them to operate against the black facia. I have seen the Cambridge layout and its storage yard /draws and they worked fine. A club mate here (Rob) and I were talking through the various ideas and feedback I have got on my design idea during the week and coincidently the idea of using the sophisticated kitchen draw roller systems now available came up. He has a son who works in a kitchen company and knows the brilliant hardware now around to help us on our model quests! So, your idea is right on the button and Rob and I will be thinking about this some more, to see whether this hardware could assist with the design ideas in my limited space. Hence, again, thanks Les for your interest and input to my stumbling efforts to move to the next stage of this longggggggggggggg..... project. Also I want to record my thanks to Andy P and John F for their continued help and interest in Hawkinsfield. Off to the railway room for some more therepy.....! regards Andy R

Hi Richard- many thanks for your comments back to me on my 'evolving(should that be revolving?) design ideas. As you will see I have had some further on-line feedback and discussion with two fine modellers -John Flann and Andy P. Both raise vaild points in relation to using the limited space with my central turntable idea. I continue to work on a full sized sketch plan of several options. Your model empire seems to be unfolding nicely from what I can see on your topic thread. regards Andy R

Fair enough Andy P. So for me the design issue becomes how to get trains 'back' towards the terminus from some storage facility when I dont have much length or width to do any reasonable gradient space to go under, and no room for a return loop. My aim is to get some reasonable operation without just having trains going round and round, which I have been doing for the last three years -any ideas welcome. regards Andy R

John -as always thanks for your wisdom and honset feedback which I can use to further review the design idea. And, yes Mr D did have more width in his train room than me and so had more operator space- lucky him! regards Andy R

Hi John - I am interested to hear your doubt honestly- can you give me the benefit of your wisdom on this plan please. regards Andy R

In this earlier post I said I would rough out a revised layout plan to show what my new design for the proposed new terminus and new/revised storage yard turntable, which I described as well. This draft layout plan is attached. I apologise for the lack of real clarity in the drawing of the terminus itself but it is rather small scale and the width of the terminus board is only 1 foot wide before widening at the 'pillar' end to accommodate most of the terminus and goods yard. I feel the terminus will have plenty of operational potential and the turntable storage yard facility will assist 'hands-off operation as well. As said in the earlier post there is a 'nod' only to Weymouth- the terminus will be named after the original location name... "Melcombe Regis". I have made a continous run single line connection with the junction to the new turntable storage yard, as shown in the layout drawing. This so we can...watch trains go by...

Hey John -thanks so much for your kind words...lets see how I can transfer plans into reality. I have the done step 1; full size drawing, and step 2; building a storage unit for protecting the small BLT (Stackton Magna) so that I can work on my new plans nearby. Now to turn to step 3; uplifting the storage yard tracks and starting the new baseboard for the terminus. Time to test my poor woodworking skills. I have also noted your later post regarding the rooves of your clerestory coaches which i found very informative John and making me think about how I should rethink the colour of my own -which I enjoy running on the layout. regards Andy R

Getting the modelling mojo back.... Well -its been a long time since my last posting (after the October 2016 show and then adjusting the small BLT siding configuration as shown on pictures above. Also finetuning of wagon and loco kadees to get better running. As a result the layout ran very well at its next outing, in Morrinsville show, April 2017. I also had a visiting operator to provide relief for lunch and tea break one day -thanks to Les (Somewhere Out West) of this forum for his help on the Saturday. Attention has now turned back to the main layout -Hawkinsfield Junction, which has not had a lot of attention in the last year due to my summer bus driving tourism job and working on Stackton Magna as outlined above. My Hawkinsfield layout has got to the point where a major design decision has to be made about the next stage, and I my thinking has been driven by seeking good operational potential for the long term. As those who have read this thread know, the inspiration for my layout design and thinking has been Peter Denny's Buckingham Branch (as it has been for many others over along period of time). I have been lucky enough to have personally visited its new home with Tony Gee and operated the iconic layout with Tony's help. Even though I have explored several design ideas for a branch terminus over recent years (see various earlier posts) my mind keeps coming back to the design principles so beautifully captured in Buckingham. So, with those thoughts in mind I have had a change of design approach for the next stage. In further posts I will post another layout sketch of my latest layout plan but the basis of my stage 2 design is as follows: 1. Generate good operation and reasons for traffic movement through the junction- so construct a reasonable sized terminus that feeds into the junction and beyond (as Buckingham does). As my Hawkinsfield Junction is based in Dorset, loosely on the joint GWR/Southern line to Weymouth, I have designed a terminus station loosely based on Weymouth (I use the term 'loosely' seriously as one would need a very big space to recreate Weymouth as it was in its heyday!). 2. I have drawn inspiration (as have many) from the basic but clever Minories terminus layout design of CJ Freezer...from way back. I researched the thinking of this design on the Web and have come up with a design that adapts Minories for the space I have but maybe captures the essence of Weymouth in its layout -the multi platform, the old trainshed at the end, the goods yard and at least one (there were two) locosheds/yards and a turntable. Best to draw up on paper and share and seek feedback, noting I have already drawn it up on full size plan in the layout room on the terminus site, and I think it will work well. However, I will seek feedback from members should they wish to do so. (I need to draw it and scan for this topic). Can I also say that there will be a single line connecting link between the terminus and the storage yard feed so that at least one train can be on a continous circuit for running in and just 'watching a train go by'. 3. The current storage yard area is to be taken up, as this is where the new terminus should go, and the storage yard to be reestablished in the middle of the layout as a rotating train table peninsula. This will enable the trains from the terminus to 'terminate' in the storage yard and then rotated as required to turn trains around and send them back to the terminus via the junction. To make this work well a timetable will need to be developed in the future. 4. The junction was originally planned to feed a branch line terminus. Under my new design scheme this original idea of a BLT has had to be sacrificed -there is no room for it- and replace by a small 3 line storage holding yard on the outside and hidden by a future backscene. (again to be drawn up to show soon). 5. So, thats the grand scheme that has been evolving of the last 1/2 year or so. In addition, I have stated before that I wanted to run the layout using mechanical point mechanisms (which I installed under the junction already) and wanted to really investigate operating these points with levers from the front fascia. Hence I have been working with a friend who is an excellent model maker/engineer (he an ex engineer) and he worked up a design that is simple, cost effective to make and basically failsafe. We have installed about half in the junction so far and the other half are about to be manufactured. Also, I have done a simple (not meant to replicate and signal box but just to help operators of the points) point diagram with numbers so that each point is identified by number and able to be switched by reference to that number. However, apon further research I believe it fair to say that signals and points seemed to be numbered from left to right as seen from the box, so I think I will renumber accordingly this way - again any comment on this aspect will be gratfully received. (see the photos below). So, thats my update on Hawkinsfield ideas and its time to jump in, remove the storage yard and replace that space with the new station terminus. I feel my modelling mojo is back and its time to 'jump' into it.

Hi Les- just catching up on the web relaxing in Wanaka. SI tripgoing really nicely with reasonable weather but very cold!! We have enjoyed the travel experience and the autumn colours in the landscape are outstanding. Next to west coast then home in 1 1/2 weeks. Great photos again Les and the modelling- Regards Andy R