Johndc120

progress over the last couple of weeks on the layout has mainly been focused on the river bridge. The handrails are now all in place and we've soldered in brass Ballast strips to the inside of the girders, this makes a trough for the ballast to sit into. On the abutments, string courses have been added to complete them. With the bridge sides complete we could now test fit the decks and and try it in place. this also meant we had to do a fair bit of carving of the scenic foam to get i to fit in. (Please excuse the Flat bottom concrete track, it will be Bull head on wood when our C&L order arrives) Once we started sculpting the foam we continued up the front of the layout and started to shape the firs part of the cuttings

Over night last night we let the printer do it's thing with the crane print file. 10 hours later this is the result, still a lot of cleaning up to do where the supports were attached. We're really happy with the outcome and will give us a very unusual bu very typical GWR yard crane.

This week we have added all the main sections of foam to the layout, this is bow ready for carving back to give a natural look to the layout. We have also cut in the main bridge so the abutment can be placed in. For the first time we can now see the river which follows the railway for a short section before turning away from it.

Over the past few months I’ve been searching round for a suitable yard crane for the layout. One of the little scenes we had in mind was the loading/unloading of long timbers from a pair of ex-GWR open C wagons which are old ratio kits. I’ve managed to find a few prototypes for this, in particular at Cadeleigh in Devon on the exe valley line. Cadeleigh’s yard crane was upgraded to the GWR 6t ‘heavy’ crane for dealing with the timber work from the local saw mill. This seems like the ideal scenario for us to follow. Unfortunately after a lot of searching around, the only kit we could find is an arch laser kit, which being laser cut wood, We feel it’s going to be too crude to be of any use. This left us with no other choice than to try and make our own. This os our design although there was lots of details added to the winch body before it was finalised Having previously designed the goods shed We have shown it in the rough location it’ll be on the layout in comparison to the shed We’ve also got on file the rough shape of a 57’ coach so this also gives a good perspective of the crane Below is the print design with all the supports included. At 2750 layers and 9hr 26m print time this is definitely the largest thing I’ve printed

Progress over the last week, The fixed section of the F/Y has been added, the rest of the F/Y will be cassettes so we'll have to produce a couple of transition pieces so the Aluminium cassettes fit into. Foam has now been added and stuck down on the back portion of the layout. amazing to see the space we have for scenics. plenty of scope for decent size farm and doing a river nicely # This week we have started on the cladding of the culvert for the leat. lots more to do on it but the difficult bit of the roof and internal walls are now done

Last night we added the first layer of Styrofoam to the front of the layout, from here this can either be built up or taken away to give us the landscape we require for the first time we get a chance to see how much room on the edges of the layout we have for scenery, our station mock up is seen in it’s correct place. There’s a bit of room for the forecourt but not much

We have finalised the design for the goods shed, it is based on the design of Culkerton and Coleford but with the slightly larger footprint of princetown. This is the first trial print of the basic shape to gauge the size and positioning of the shed (The final position is slightly further down the siding than shown in this pic) This is the final design with the thicker brick sections added, a double height office like Culkerton and the roof and platform put in to show the look of the shed We have found some great shots of Princetown showing the position and type of the crane, also great pictures to show the inside detailing including a caged area for which we assume is valuable goods. Nice to see the wooden buffer for road vehicles on the end of the loading platform note the crane in this shot reaching out through the open doors to the wagon. This is obviously why the doors are so massive note the crane is on the very left of this shot

This week we've stuck down all of the cork. I really like this phase as for the first time the track plan can actually be seen. before it's just a design on a piece of paper but now we can put stock on it and see what it'll look like without too much imagination involved.

Hi Matt, I generally use Tinkercad which is a free online software. I like it as it's really quick and easy to use but also I can access in on works computers which is great when I have a bit of down time Thank you, I'm really happy with the process and once they're clad they come out really well. This is a bridge I did a while back for the layout John

First section of the shed printed, proportions look good to me so far.

Tonight we have been producing the 3D drawings for the engine shed and water tower. These are both a touch under size as they will be clad with slaters plasticard brick

57xx sits over the inspection pit while a 10T loco coal wagon is being unloaded at the coaling stage

A little bit of work on the engine shed base/pit and also the ash pit and concrete surround The pits will now be brick lined and steps added before they are stuck in from underneath. The concrete pads have the correct size hole cut into them but also L1 chairs glued in place. This rail was only for construction and has now been removed

We have now cut the slots which will be for the inspection pit inside the engine shed and the ash pit outside. We have also dug out the slots for the Kadee magnets

The other bridge that had to be cut in is the mill leat bridge. The reason for this goes back to having the river going across the baseboards, we didn’t want a cut straight across the river as that would look unsightly. The answer was to put a weir on the edge of the baseboard. So the water going over the weir will hide the gap on the baseboard. we then had to think of a reason for why a weir would be in the river. A common use was to control the level to keep a constant feed to a mill pond, so this is what we are going to try and model. Here is the 3D printed bridge which can now be clad in brick plasticard

We have cut the baseboard for the bridge so we’ve now had a test fitting to see what it’ll look like. We’re really happy with it especially as it’s a big statement piece on the layout

Hi Paul, so yes these are the soft undertrack magnets which we’ve cut down the length but kept the width the same. we have tried it with a loco and it seemed to work better, I think the loco is smoother than a finger. on Shwt we have to aim for small neo magnets which are marked with a bit of highlighting on the chairs so these should be a bigger target that those John

Experimenting with Kadee couplings We have used kadees for many years now and one of the big problems for british outline stock is the way the magnet pulls the vehicles towards the magnets causing them to uncouple. The way we have always got around this is to fit foam brakes which rub on the axles of the stock and prevent the pull. This has always worked well for us but on the longer trains of Elmore and having gradients another method had to be found following a thread on here, we have been experimenting with cutting down the length of the magnets to 15mm, this reduces the pull, but also when the stock is pulled by the magnet the couplings are off the magnets so the vehicles won’t uncouple

I’ve just been reading this thread with interest, I’ve been using Kadee’s for years on british stock and always suffered with the effect of stock being pulled towards the magnets. My usual get out for this is to fit foam pads to the axles of the brake vans, this provides a small amount of rolling resistance to prevent the pull of the magnets. My latest layout, Elmore is steam outline with gradients, so too much rolling resistance is going to be a problem. following Ben’s suggestion of cutting the magnets to 15mm this vid shows my trials Very happy with the result. The second plus benefit is with a reduced size magnet you are less likely to stop over the magnet and accidentally uncouple. Small 4 wheel wagons are a pain for this! John

servo brackets for points This week we we have also fitted all of the servo brackets, below shows the process we followed to fit them, the brackets are our own design although they are available on ebay should anyone need any. The servo mount, drilling template and a 2mm hole which was worked out from the templates as the centre of the drive with a 2mm drill bit in the hole, the jig is aligned with the point timbers, the first 3mm mounting hole is drilled. An M3 bolt can the be placed into this hole to hold the alignment while the second mounting hole is drilled The operating hole can now be opened up to 6mm all 3 holes are then countersunk M3 countersunk bolts are then pushed through the holes Nyloc nuts are then fitted to the underneath to fix the brackets when fitted the bolts heads must be flush or lower than the baseboard and the pivot point of the bracket should be directly in the centre of the operating hole

Seen as the signals are coming along and the track plan is drawn on the layout, we have been able to drill the holes for the signals. This gives us another glimpse into how the layout will look when completed The 2 platform starters, the full brake is in the main platform and the track closer is the bay, the shunt signal on the main platform is to go into the yard area This is the end of the double track section, the left signal is the normal direction which clears the train into the main platform. The bracket on the right is for trains from the branch which travel wrong direction down the double line, this signal clears into either the main platform on the left or the bay at the other end of the double track section, this bracket clears either to the branch on the left or the main line on the right The 2 signals on the branch and mainline which protect movements onto the double track section. These have both been cut down for sighting through the bridge The sighting of the signal through the bridge

Last night I managed to fit all the staging and ladders the the signals, next job is lamp brackets and counterweights

Some work on signalling equipment last night, these are all part of the token exchange apparatus to be arranged at the junction

Last night's task was o confirm the positions of all of the points, this wen surprisingly well so with the spare time available we had a play with some of our structures and stock o ensure the planned movements would work and it looked how we wanted it to a Branch line freight is stopped at the signal waiting for the midday passenger to arrive at Elmore the same positions but in this shot the leat bridge can be seen which needs to be cut in and fixed underneath the baseboard After arriving at Elmore the Midday passenger has run round ready to depart The passenger, now departing, passes the freight as it crosses onto the mainline The freight now arrives at Elmore and runs round The freight has now proceeded up to the end of the loop where it waits for the local suburban train to arrive

Last night we managed to cut all the baseboard tops and dry fit them on the layout. The main part of this is trimming the risers which we put in as we were building the layout, either sanding the ones too high or adding plasticard to the ones which are too low It’s great to see the tops on the basboard as you can really see how some of the layout is going to look