SRfanJV

Adding another Layout! 

Our final addition to our exhibition this year is Fawley, courtesy of the Malcolm Snelgrove and Southampton MRS

Details of this wonderful layout can be found at: https://southamptonmodelrailwaysociety.wordpress.com/layouts-2/fawley/

Here are some pictures to wet the appetite courtesy of Chris Nevard. 

We are also very pleased to announce that for the first time, the Bachmann Collectors Club stand will also be at our show this year. 

This will be one of the first opportunities that the public will get to see some of the Bachmann and Graham Farish summer announcements in the flesh since their announcements last week!

More details can be found below:

https://news.Bachmann.co.uk/2024/04/Bachmann-on-the-road-salisbury-60th-anniversary-model-railway-exhibition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Bachmann-on-the-road-salisbury-60th-anniversary-model-railway-exhibition

We are thrilled to have Bachmann joining us this year. 

25 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Plus the Bachmann Collectors Club stand presumably?

 

https://news.Bachmann.co.uk/2024/04/Bachmann-on-the-road-salisbury-60th-anniversary-model-railway-exhibition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Bachmann-on-the-road-salisbury-60th-anniversary-model-railway-exhibition

Hi,

Yes, that is correct. 

I am just in the process of doing a post on that now.

Thanks, 

Josh.

Our 60th Anniversary Exhibition is now less than 2 weeks away. 

The final list of confirmed exhibits and traders is now confirmed above. 

We have experienced a number of difficulties this year with layouts dropping out of the show and then sourcing suitably sized layouts to replace them that are actually available. 

One of these is Kingsmouth, courtesy of Alex Atkins. 

Kingsmouth is a fictional BR Southern Region branch line terminus set somewhere in rural Dorset, and is set roughly between the mid 1950s and the end of southern steam in June 1967. 

The layout aims to capture the feel of a steam era Southern branch, and features a wide range of typical southern region traction ranging from old southern stalwarts such as M7s, T9s and Drummond 700s, to Bulleids and Standards, and finally a sprinkling of typical Southern Region diesel traction.

This layout is new on to the exhibition circuit having only mafe its debut at the Wimborne show back in March.

final details of this year's show can be found at:

https://sandswrs.co.uk/exhibitions/salisbury-south-wilts-railway-society-exhibition-2024/

We hope to see you there! 

It's has been a while since I last updated you regarding our 60th anniversary show. 

I can now confirm that our show will take place at our usual venue of the Michael Herbert Hall, Wilton, South Street. SP2 0JS. 

We are also sorry to announce that Dewerstone has had to withdraw from exhibiting at our show this year due to unforseen circumstances.

We will announce a replacement as soon as we can. 

Since we put both Bodmin General and Wadebridge up over Christmas, it has been very busy. A huge amount of progress has happened on Wadebridge and we are really are moving forward on all counts. 

First, some rectification work. We were very aware prior to putting Wadebridge up fully that the reverse curve on the East fiddle yard was going to cause problems. Simply, it was too tight at one end. As per the previous post, Keith has worked on this and now we have a fully working curve that the manor and moguls run through consistently. A video of this is shown below: 

Next. Historically, we have used wooden 9mm dowels to align our baseboards. However, over the years, I have got so fed up of the them splitting or breaking that I had enough. A good friend of mine had stock of some metal threaded dowel which we normally use to screw in the lighting posts, but they are suitable for dowels as well. I have now fitted these to the layout and the board heights and alignment is so much better. 

Now that the board alignment has been sorted, it has allowed me to focus on getting the backscenes fitted properly. Again, I have used the thread dowels to support these. However, they have been used properly this time and driven into the wood. Once fitted, the backscenes were simply screwed in using threaded cheese head bolts. 

There is still one more board to fit the backscene onto, plus some fettling, but it makes a big difference to the over all look of the layout. 

Above: Please ignore, the state of the cabling, this will be sorted in due course. 

At the other end of the layout and after a break of about 4 years, I have returned to looking at the scenery on the town board (board 6) 

The level crossing gates have been taken back to bare metal to allow further detailing upgrades to be made, such as brackets, lamps and the support rods. 

Whilst doing this, I have also made up new bits of fencing that surround the gates as per the countless number of photos I have of that area. 

I am now in the process of installing drain covers, which in reality were the covers of the level crossing gate control gear. I have also started to cut out the wooden step boards on the Padstow side of the gates. 

Finally, loco detailing. It's important on a project such as this to keep things moving on all fronts. Therefore, I have started the process of detailing a second T9, but this time I have started on the tender by lining it out. I had not attempted 2mm scale lining before, so I am very very pleased with how it has come out. However, the loco is going to be a different animal to line. 

The first photo shows the lining before adding the black pin stripe. This helps to make the lining look thinner and more prototypical. 

Then next photo shows how it ended up once finished. You can see that the lines are now much thinner.

I'll leave you with a shot of things to come perhaps....

39 minutes ago, queensquare said:

Brilliant, I’ve been known to do something similar at the other end of the line!

 

Jerry

 

Oh yes. 

I love that Jerry. 

It doesn't always have be serious!  😀

Thanks, 

Josh. 

What a few days it has been!

Bodmin General and Wadebridge have been set up in their entirety for the first time in 10 years and we did have trains running on both layouts. 

It was a mammoth 4 days that saw us take over a hall in Salisbury to set up both layouts and the very well known Bournemouth West. 

Below is what both layouts looked like set up together. 

Bodmin General was looking its usual self and it was nice to get this running again after 13 months in storage. A few detailing repairs were completed and plans made to finish off the station building and forecourt area. 

The main body of work took place on Wadebridge. 

Keith took time in sorting out the reverse curve that joins up Bodmin to Wadebridge in the fiddle yard area. The curve on Wadebridge's fiddle yard was too tight for the moguls to navigate, so he removed it and has put a new piece of track in. This seems to have remedied the issue . 

Here is a view of both fiddle yards together. We left the roof off of Bodmin's fiddle yard. You may note the line running down the back of Wadebridge. This joins up to Bodmin Road which is currently stored awaiting more scenic attention. 

Whilst I was browsing photos of Wadebridge on Ebay , I stumbled across the shed plate below. I thought that would make a nice additional piece for the layout. It will eventually be placed on the lighting gantry directory above the Engine Shed. 

We also had a visit from Craig Tiley the editor for the Railway Magazine as he was in attendance taking shots for a future article on Bournemouth West.

We have discussed the possibility of having Bodmin General and eventually Wadebridge getting an article in the magazine which would be fantastic. 

Now that Wadebridge is back at the clubroom, we will now focus on getting the backscenes fitted properly and I am very much looking forward to progressing the project in 2024. 

Buts that is all for now, I wish everyone a very happy New Year.

I'll leave you with a couple of other photos.

On 24/12/2023 at 01:33, AdeMoore said:

Excellent stuff, shame the Salisbury venue is not open to the  public!

Super modelling of a location close to my heart.

Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

Hi Ade, 

Thankyou for your kind words. 

We would have loved to open up to the public, but this was very much a working session. There were power tools and wood working machines etc in use making it completely unsuitable for the public on this occasion. 

Rest assured there will be opportunities to view all of the layouts publicly in the future. 

Another month has gone by, but there has been a decent amount of progress on Wadebridge. Plus Bodmin General has also been set-up again. More on that later. 

On Wadebridge, Keith is now down to the final few point motors in terms of connecting them to their respective turnouts. He now has 4 left out of 34. I don't think he'll be wishing to do anymore for quite a while! 

Neil has made the new bridge base which takes the track over Polmarla Brook using 3.6mm birch ply. This will be permanently fitted once I have sealed the river bed and put in the base layer. 

Gordon then swooped in and cut a new piece of Cork for the bridge and the surrounding area. 

Neil then returned to working on the removable point motor cover on board 5. This has not been progressed in many months after some damage occurred, so it's good to finally get this moving again. 

Once everyone had left the club last night, I disassembled the whole layout and boxed it up. It's probably the first time that it has been boxed up in over 6 years. 

Why has this been done you may ask? 

Well, in-between Christmas and New Year, Bodmin General and Wadebridge are going to be set up in a hired venue in Salisbury along with the very well known 4mm model of Bournemouth West (which is also part of our club) to allow testing an further progress to be made. 

It will be the first time in 7 years that the entirety of Wadebridge will be set-up and painfully nearly 10 years since it was last joined up to Bodmin General. 

However, we are excited to get things moving along. Watch out for many more updates next week following the progress we make. 

In the meantime, I wish all of our readers, followers and members and fabulous Christmas.

Whilst Keith has been busy adjusting all of the point motor throes on board 3. I have finally finished wiring up the 13 motors on board 4.

In doing so, all 28 motors are now operational which is a big milestone. 

Some still need the rod and spring system to throw the points, but we are getting there. 

Down on board 6. I have finally repaired the level crossing gate mechanism. 

These gates have been scratch-built in brass. The control board for the servo's is a MERG kit that has been put together. This powers 4 Tower Pro SG90 servos. 

Once painted up again and detailed, these should be a real focal point in the town part of the layout.  

The last couple of months has seen varied amounts of progress due to work commitments and holidays. 

However, we have now managed to get all of the point motors on board 3 working again and testing has taken place. There is one issue to rectify which is a microswitch in one of the MB1 point motors not switching. We have had this issue before so we'll look into that. 

To enable the changeover to MB1 motors away from solenoid motors on the scenic part of the layout. It has been necessary to change all of the point switches on the control panels from non bias sprung switches to normal DPDT switches. This has taken time and more expense than you first think. 

Wiring has taken a while and the process of tidying it all up is now underway.

Another large job to sort was that the LEDs used to change via a microswitch on the old point motors. However, this is now redundant so all of the wiring was removed and the changing of the LEDs occurs directly via the new switches. 

It's like Blackpool Illuminations in low light!

Finally, board 4 which has 13 points on has now had all of the new MB1s installed. The task of wiring the. Up and attaching the rodding to the points has now begun. We are currently complete on 5 out of 13 motors. 

The Salisbury & South Wilts Railway Society is pleased to announce the initial details of our planned 2024 Exhibition. 

2024 sees the club celebrate its 60th Anniversary and we hope to provide you all with another great show. 

Our 2024 show will take place on our usual weekend of Saturday 18th May & Sunday 19th May.

We are currently in discussions regarding the venue, and I will update you all as soon as possible once those discussions have concluded. 

The opening times will be 10.30 - 16.30 on both days. 

Please see below for the current booked exhibits: 

1. St Ruth - 2mm Finescale

2. Penworth - N gauge (Finescale)

3. Dewerstone - EM gauge Fawley - 00 gauge

4. Lochty - EM gauge

5. A Really Useful Railway - 00 gauge

6. Gorsaf Llanbobble - 5mm gauge

7. Worton Court Estate Railway - Finescale O gauge/narrow gauge

8. Over the Top - 1/35th scale

9. Penbooney - N gauge

10. Norge - HO

11. Threwn - 009

12. Kingsmouth - 00 gauge

13. Brighton East - 00 gauge West Clayton- N gauge

Traders: 

1. Wheels of Southsea

2. Portsmouth Model Centre

3. Bachmann Collectors Club

Other Exhibits: 

1. S&SWRS club sales stand

2. Audio-visual Display 

Please note that these are subject to change as we are still a long way off from our 2024 show. Sadly we were due to Host Brighton East, but this layout has had to be withdrawn due to unforeseen circumstances. Further exhibits will be announced in due course. 

For the Latest News on our 2024 show, please visit our website at: http://sandswrs.co.uk/exhibitions/salisbury-south-wilts-railway-society-exhibition-2024/

Ashlands is finally starting to look like a layout again instead of a dumping ground due to the recent work that has taken place. 

I have placed a lot of the detailing and structures back on the layout after giving it a good clean and a hoover.

Hopefully, more progress can be made on the scenery as the winter approaches. 

Although not strictly NCR, I gave my Britannia and Std 5 a run which have just been fitted with loco specific sound files. These are from the excellent Locoman Sounds Range. Both locos are installed with a double sugar cube speaker and a Thunderchuff speaker wired in series. 

One small update is that I have upgraded the the down platform waiting shelter. 

When first built, the layout had what I think are Hornby resin Settle & Carlisle Station buildings and waiting shelter that have been painted into SR green.

Recently Kernow/Bachmann have released a prototypical NCR waiting shelter. I was going to scratch build one, but this model is so nice that there just isn't any point in doing so. 

One of the large jobs coming up is to build a prototypical NCR Station building to match it.

Mind you, what is the bet that as soon as I have built it, Kernow/Bachmann will release a model of an NCR Station building. Its the only one of the typical NCR buildings that they have yet to produce.....

20 hours ago, woodenhead said:

So the operation is a series of matched pairs of trains that cross in the station to end up back in the same place they began?

Not quite, for the purpose of getting all of my stock out to check what rakes I could create, I put 8 rakes facing one way at one end and 8 the other. 

In reality, when it goes to exhibition, I will only have 14 rakes at the back so that either a half or full road is free to ensure that there is always space to run trains in.

At least one of the freight sets will be out on the front of the layout in various sidings to allow shunting to occur. 

The fiddle yard roads will be set up so that 4 roads are set up for down direction running and 4 in the up direction. The fiddle yard operator will ensure that the trains are moved up each road to allow space for next train to enter as well. 

Thanks, 

Josh. 

22 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

Looking good.

 

Have you been test running ?

I only ask that as I note that you have a number of three way points in the fiddle yard and some locos get a bit tetchy on the curved roads out of them.

 

All the best

Ray

Hi Ray, 

Yes I have done a decent amount of testing now. A couple of the locos jumped slightly, I have have adjusted the back to backs on them and all seems to be well now. 

I have two roads out of the 8 that I can't fully test until the control panel is installed because they are only part/ temporarily wired, but all of the signs show that they shouldn't be a problem. 

Thanks, 

Josh. 

On 26/08/2023 at 15:47, grahame said:

This thread is new to me. There's some excellent and interesting work and developments on it.

 

Many Thanks for you kind comments. I am also following your outstanding work on London Bridge. A truly wonderful project in N gauge! 

Great progress has been made and I can now officially say that Ashlands is a 'Roundy Roundy'! 

There is still work to do in order to finish of the wiring and I currently I don't have the point motors working whilst we work out a solution with James from DCC Automation to allow route setting to used. However, all of the track is now allow and I can easily change the points my hand until a solution is found. 

The since the last update, the been wired up, albeit temporarily on some boards to allow a running day to take place. All of the point motors and Gaugemaster autofrogs have been fitted as well as the Yamorc boards to control the point motors. 

I got out all of my stock that is appropriate for the layout in the period between 1956 and 1964. It's scary that my collecting over the past few years only just provides enough rakes to fill up the 16 spaces on the fiddle yard. 

The next jobs will be to tidy everything up, add the fiddle yard side boards on the inside of the layout and install the control panel once we have a route setting solution. So, plenty to be getting on with. 

Away from the layout, I have renumbered one of my Original Bulleid Pacifics. I bought 2 examples of 34078 222 Squadron, one to stay as is because that loco was a regular on the NCR and the other to renumber to 34072 257 Squadron which was another well photographed on the route.

It is also a favourite of mine for various reasons, but mainly because I had my first driving turn on her at Swanage after passing out in 2022 before she sadly left the railway. 

To do this, I used my usual method of using a fiber castell pencil to gently rub off the old numbers. I then applied the new fox transfers numbers with some water and Johnsons floor polish. 

The crests and name plates are also etched examples for Fox and these were applied with Deluxe Materials Roket card glue which does not damage the paint like super glue does. It also gives more time to get them into the right place. 

The finished product which I am very happy with! I had better sound fit it now. 

Finally, I have been working on a good friend of mines DJH SR U class model. It has been sound fitted with the excellent Locoman Sounds SR Q class soundfile on a DJH chip. To fit the chip, speaker and stay alive, I needed to cut out the coal and brass on the top of the tender. Now that the sound installation is complete, I have started the process of 'boxing' it back up. A new removable brass sheet has been made and painted. I will shortly be adding the coal, fire irons, buckets and a shovel for the tender. 

Other detailing work in progress is the fitting of lamp irons, discs, wheel rim painting, draw hooks and the fitting of couplings, which it currently does not have. The last addition will be the fitting of a Modelu crew. 

Progress on Wadebridge has been quite slow in recent weeks due to various commitments, but Keith has been doing a sterling job changing the rest of the point motors over from Peco solenoids to slow action MTB 1 motors. 

This has necessitated a number of cuts to be made in the baseboard tops to slide the MTBs into and these have been secured using pieces of right angle metal bracket. 

A couple of motors have been mounted so that they can be removed from underneath the layout due to the mounting for the backscene being in the way. 

This has a plug in it do that we can un-plug and remove them easily.

I have taken the time to continue with the backscenes so that by the end of the year we will have everything working the scenic section clearly identified and the track fettled so that 2024 will solely focus on the scenery. 

The curves have been made using my usual method of scoring lines in at 1 inch intervals and then pour hot water on to help create the curve. 

Finally, my other half is responsible for this one. I was coerced in to purchasing these three 'for the kids' so that when we take the layouts out to exhibition Thomas the Tank can make a sneaky appearance for the younger viewers. I suppose we can't be serious all of the time now can we. At least my bulleid pacific is going off to be weathered shortly. 

Lots has happened since the last update a few months ago. Ashlands is now a tail chaser (roundy roundy) layout! 

The main reason for this is that the layout uses DCC sound operated locos and there wasn't enough space to realistically have trains get up to speed before coming on to the viewing scene. This ruined the effect for me.

So, over the past 2 months I have been busy building 8 new baseboards. The 4 boards on the fiddle yard side of the layout are 18 inches wide, the two at the ends are 13 inches wide and the two on the viewing side and 24 inches wide. 

The fiddle yard has been designed to have 8 roads which are a minimum of 10feet long each road. This allows for 16 scale length North Cornwall Railway trains 

Each board is made out of 5.6mm ply that is 73mm in height. They are made in a geo-deck style subframe design. 

Once complete, the fiddle frames were joined together and aligned using metal dowels.

The tops were then glued on using 6.5mm birch ply and any adjustments necessary made.

Cork laying and track could then be added to make the right alignment. 

As the layout is going out on the exhibition circuit, I needed a system that allows me to move the boards around regularly and still have consistent track heights. Using a design that a good friend of mine and I designed for use on our 2mm layouts where track height at joints is even more important I set to work on the next phase. 

Using 22mm copper clad strips laid right across the baseboard ends, I placed 9mm springs underneath the clad between where the rails sit and then a screw is put in further into the wood which allows the clad to spring up and down in relation to turning the screws. 

Track was then fully laid to give the current view.

More to follow shortly 

On 13/08/2023 at 12:29, PeterBB said:

Found you at last - interesting evening last Friday.

 

You certainly have Peter, next update is incoming.

Look out for the update on the Bournemouth West thread too.

We are enjoying a fantastic first day of our 2023 show. Those who couldn't make it today, we hope you can tomorrow!