ParkeNd

8 hours into the Park Dundas CCT wagon kit. The build is done other than attaching Peco Anita R-4 tension lock couplings which I have sent for - there’s adaptors for each end in the kit. Cost so far for kit, adaptors, and labour at my pre-retirement rate is £215. There’s still painting and transfers to apply yet. I haven’t found a CCT other than in Southern green so there was no option but to make one. Would I build another one? Well, the instructions are useless, all the parts as supplied are either too long or too short, the handling and positioning of parts has had me swearing, and it may yet go in the bin if it doesn’t look good painted and weathered. At a final cost of about £300 ......... No.

Construction has been delayed until today whilst I spent three days on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Very very good. Today, since I am waiting for Rocket gel glue to attach the embossed thin Slaters Plastikard of various types to the currently bare platforms (still awaiting DCC kit) I decided to start building a Peco Parkside Dundas kit of a GWR CCT which I thought would look good outside my Goods Shed later on. I already have Liquid Magic glue for the job. You wouldn’t do this to save money - it’s going to cost somewhere between £200 and £300 in labour alone. To start with it took me about an hour to realise that the sides are 2mm too long, and that’s too much to file off so I resorted to scalpel and steel rule and holding my breath. Next comes the chassis!! As you can see the plans were possibly drawn by a 4 year old with a Bic Biro, which coupled with duplicate parts for different wheels and Hornby couplings meaning some are not required. Furthermore my lack of knowledge of the real names of the components of a braked wagon is hurting. They might as well say “cement the trundling whoopers to the back of the grunging pins and fix in their correct position as per the diagram. Work continues.

Still no availability of track power in the form of Prodigy Advance2, and no news on when it might arrive either, so I’m doing what I can - daren’t ballast. The bare carcasses of both platforms are finished awaiting detailing with Plasticard which still isn’t here yet - maybe today? Had to change the method of construction of the platform ramps because the method I used for straight N gauge platforms wasn’t going to work - used side struts as outriggers plus sandable balsa slope. Slopes a bit steep perhaps but I need longest possible deck length to accommodate trains. Now have rigger brushes and Railmatch Sleeper Grime acrylic paint so might start painting side of rails although I would rather ballast first. Need that power!

Now four days into building the curved platforms which, as with my N gauge layout, are the biggest construction items on the layout. Will photograph them when both undetailed “carcasses” are built - only one is at the moment. I’m using Daler Board for the decks with cut and sanded balsa for the sides, and cross bracing and it’s working well. Detail will come from Slaters Plasticard (on the way) coarse stone, paving slabs, 2mm scale pebble dash for gravelled tops, 2mm scale bricks for platform edges, and diamond pattern metal sheet for drain covers etc. Finally dry brushing with acrylics. Also bit by bit, because it’s boring, I shall paint all the rail sides with sleeper grime, which has arrived, applied with a rigger brush, which hasnt arrived yet.

Hi. Haven’t heard from you for a while. What I wanted to avoid is rail joins which don’t follow curves but suddenly jerk left or right like the edges of an old UK threepeny piece. The original Speech House Station site is right on the edge of Speech House Road a few yards before you reach it - yes. But DFR’s intention is for a station on the far side of the road to be within easy reach of Beechenhurst Visitor Centre. Cars approach from both directions downhill and straight at 70 mph and to offload people who would have to cross the road is out of the question nowadays. A bridge or tunnel to get the railway to the other side of the road is required by the planners.

Whilst I’m waiting for the lawns to dry so I can mow them the platform profiles have been developed with a coach, and pencil in traditional fashion. These are the two longest trains that will inhabit those platforms. The empty one is for a two coach Derby Lightweight still in its box, and the shortest platform with the 14xx and Autocoach will also service the GWR Railmotor on pre-order. Virtually all the stock other than the 14xx rig and a shunter is pre-owned as new, including a 57xx and goods vans. Platform construction will be in Daler Board and Plastikard cladding built a bit like a model aircraft wing.

The cork has just been trimmed with a Swann and Morton scalpel - the blue handled retractable one with blades changed with narrow nosed pliers which I have used ever since I discovered how much blood a finger could lose without even feeling the cut! What I really really need is the power from my “on order” Prodigy Advance 2 to test out the track so I can get on with the ballasting but there is no word on it’s availability. I visited DFR yesterday and looked like a right anorak taking pictures of ballasted track with oil stains, weed, clutter etc. Since OO gauge has 4 times the surface area of my previous N gauge a bag of mottled granite grit isn’t going to be OK on its own. DFR ballast seems to have grey, white, and a hint of pink in each stone. Rather than mark time until the power comes I suppose I can paint the rail edges with Railmatch Sleeper Grime using one of those long haired brushes used to freehand coach line posh cars, and start making the two curved platforms. Photo is taken across the future fiddle yard which is very handy at the moment for tools! PS. Now also added sleepers in the joining places. So it’s got to be platforms next.

With storm and pestilence forecast today I decided to start braving the electricals- especially now that I know what a DCC bus looks like having bought a kit with all the parts perfectly matched to each other by someone who knows what they are doing. So I lifted the front of the baseboard and held it in place with two rolled up bath towels (no-one to tell me off in the past two years- sadly) and cut out notches in the cross members for the bus to drop into. Then I soldered 12 pairs of power leads to the sides of the rails. I did this in situ this time which was easier than my N gauge layout - the cork closing up around the leads held them in place while I soldered. True to prediction, now I have done all the soldering except for joining the capacitors and resistors together for each open end of the DCC bus I have improved to a level that I am half good enough to start the job! I’m going to use the suitcase type connectors supplied to join track power connection leads to power bus. One thing I was really grateful for - when upgrading a Fender Stratocaster I had to strip the insulation a bit more off a wire under the scratch plate, and I would only get one chance at it. So I bought the wire strippers in this picture positioned just behind my last two bits of soldering. They have proved a wise investment this last couple of weeks. Don’t know wether to drift the track pins in further yet?

Apart from two medium curved points and 4 flexi roads on the L shape into the fiddle yard that’s the track laid including modified points and the green wires for the point motors. The Tracksettas, including the straight one, were invaluable for not only keeping to smooth 2nd and 3rd radii But also for spanning between two pieces of track to get smooth joins with no rail gaps. Don’t want to move onto the 750mm L shape yet because it would stop me raising the main board to 90 deg to avoid crawling around under the board. Next step is to “power up” for which I really need the Prodigy Advance 2 which is out of stock in the UK except for a few chancers on eBay trying for £200 over list price! I have one on order with Derails in Coleford. In the meantime I might start making the platforms.

The two points arrived so I modified them, added leads and two carefully cut and formed pieces of flexi, and the area with the paper templates looks like this now, The two tracks at standard spacing in between the platforms will be added tomorrow. Then I start on the tracks going to the right of the board.

Progress continues with point modification, soldering of wires, and track laying onto cork which is to be trimmed with a scalpel later - I found this much easier on my N gauge layout than trying to cut precise pieces to save cork. I have found and purchased a metal vise to act as a third hand which has facilitated me being able to raise my personal rating of my soldering abilities from “totally zero” to an improved “embarrassingly awful”. This is is the hardest section of the layout comprising a series of points joined together. In the area in the middle with the two paper point templates the track planning software and the physical layout differ as to which two of Peco’s Finescale points allow a precise alignment of track - I don’t want it to look like one of those American remote goods railways where you are waiting for the derailment. Which brings me to a confession - having had to wait 6 days for my car windscreen smashed on the way to GWSR Diesel Gala (it was an overtaking Audi that squirted up the huge stone!) to be replaced so I have sent for the two correct points mail order from Liverpool.

More done today but it’s still slower than it should be, even allowing that I’m taking my time. The soldering is my weak point - it’s taking me 20 minutes per soldered joint to modify each point and add a green wire for switching and red and black power leads where required. The two extra points and one short piece of flexi added today took me 5 hours! I’m filing each soldered joint to keep things neat and taking care with track alignment. The brake van is to check smooth running. My new pet hate on OO gauge is insulated rail joiners - when connecting a piece of track to the next piece which is already pinned down they like to go under the rails rather where they should.

This had to be the hardest bit. Started. Retained skills from N Gauge layout at their lowest ebb, first ever point modified for DCC and not having to rely on blade contact, and most critical piece in place to make sure it all fits. By the time I have modified 11 more points, and established all track power connections, and leads to Cobalt devices I shall be 20% as skilled as I need to be to do all the soldering!

DCC power bus kit has arrived promptly - much cheaper than buying all the individual bits in multiples I didn't need assuming I had even been able to find out what they were. With OO gauge rails being much meatier than N gauge I've bought a 40W soldering iron and stand to use instead of my old 25W, but was prevented from buying solder with lead in it because I'm not a professional. Just flux and a device to hold the workpieces to arrive and I can start fitting track. I am not an experienced solderer having just about managed it with the N gauge layout albeit by holding my breath and with my tongue hanging out so I shall do a bit of harmless practice first. I watched a couple of videos about modifying new Peco points so they don't rely on blade contact and now know how to do that - luckily the videos were better than those loco review videos where someone just sits and wags the not yet opened box up and down for the first 10 minutes.

Managed to find the answer to my DCC bus question and have sent off for a kit that contains all the parts I need. Still nearly as mystified concerning the Cobalt bits but knowledge increased and as I want to use DCC to set routes I shall ask advice on which Cobalt items I need - there seem to be three options. I know I could reach out and trip points over with my fingers (there are only 12) but it's the journey here thats more important to me than the arriving - I want the layout to challenge me and provide a vehicle for keeping my brain going.

Collected track bits this morning. The physical part of laying down the track transfers directly from my N Gauge experience so no worries there. But because I am going for DCC this time there is more to learn. I’ve looked at many diagrams, hunted the internet, and watched many videos (aren’t some of them awful), and I still don’t understand what you do with the two extreme ends of a bus wire, and dropping the three soldered wires from a modified Peco point into something like a Cobalt ASD-sfx to change polarity automatically looks simple at first until you start to ask yourself how does the Cobalt thingy get its power and what are all the other terminals in the two green blocks for - no one I’ve found yet has even mentioned them and I don’t have a 12 year old grandson to explain it to me. I know I’ll get there in the end but it’s zapping me out at the moment.

Collecting the track from Derails tomorrow morning so I now have to really learn how to modify Peco electrofrog points to not rely on the blade contact for polarity change and continuity - as opposed to just looking at the instructions on the internet, muttering "that doesn't look too hard", and then forgetting how to do it. Also I have to find some electrical solder with proper lead in it that comes on reels smaller than a BICC cable drum for £30 a throw. What I have done this time is tracked down in advance and purchased some Copydex latex glue for the cork track underlay and other scenics in a 500ml pot instead of the midget pots they sell in the shops at printer ink/champagne prices per ml. I'm using the cork underlay to lift the track above the cess and form a ballast shoulder, although I realise that there are many folk who defend the science behind glueing the track direct to the baseboard. I'm not skilled enough to glue curved flexi-track whilst wielding Xuron track cutters at the same time, and like to believe that pinning it through cork still helps with sound reduction despite reading evidence to the contrary. So photos of progress in a few days.

Thanks for your good luck message Captain Kernow. The goods shed conundrum. Having played around with scaled paper cutouts I am moving forward with a plan to build the Cinderford goods shed 3/4 full size. As a non-prototype location (unlike Parkend) it’s difficult to predict what DFR will achieve by installing a station near the site of the original Speech House Road other than an additional length of rail to drive trains along. Visiting the original station site with a camera to get an understanding of the way the land undulates there’s nothing to see but trees. So trying to guess what the prototype might look like is hard - what would people do if they get off the train - so my layout will work best for me if I make it a sort of railway St Fagans building museum/Black Country museum and pretend the freight businesses are still in operation on Wednesdays and weekends for passengers to go and see. Collecting track early next week so I can move forward - but now with full knowledge of the spaces I will need between sections of flexi track not dictated by points alignment.

Peco Code 75 Finescale track, cork, rail joiners etc, and Prodigy Advance 2 now ordered from Derails in Coleford. Have to admit I couldn’t resist Derails lightly weathered Hornby Sentinel to work in the freight area of the layout so I brought that home with me in case someone else buys it. Therein lies a need for more research - the goods shed. I don’t want to use a kit although I am using one for the signal box because of all those joined together windows in the top section. Using my printer to upscale a scan of the line drawing the original Coleford station building reveals it’s a perfect size - well DFR might have found its rubble in a field somewhere before it got built on! But the Cinderford GWR Goods Shed is too long and too tall to be believable near Cannop Ponds - I should have known this by looking at the Coleford SW Goods Shed now serving as the museum next to the Co-op car park. One option is to reduce the length and height of the line drawing - the style seems to be classic GWR shape. The other option is to find another smaller country goods shed to copy. Research continues until the track comes in.

After much judicious placement and alignment/PritStik tacking of physical 100% printed Peco points templates and wielding of a 6ft way gauge two points have been changed (still medium radius) from straight to curved and vice versa and the plan has been confirmed to my current satisfaction. Overly wiggly planner software Flexi sections have been eliminated and the length of platforms and the fiddle yard settled on. I've cut the fiddle yard worktop too. The planner software print of the layout has been modified to match the actual marked up layout boards and annotated with what I have in mind for the intended purpose of Speech End. Two images attached. Next is purchase of track and installation along with droppers for DCC.

Baseboard finally assembled and in place. I have the worktop for the L shaped fiddle yard cut professionally (cleanly!) to width but will cut it to length when track plan transferred with pencil and points templates. I’m using two second radius curves, one inside the other, with different centres to turn onto the main base top so as to avoid an inner first radius curve - longest loco will be a small prairie but I wanted to be on the safe side. I found that by using a second plan with RailModeller Express with Setrack selected I could find the position of these centres which gave the right entry and exit points of the curve.

Baseboards are 95% finished - just need braces for the legs which will need some more antique pine varnish. Then it’s on to transferring the RailModeller Express plan to the baseboard surface with pencil and Peco points templates. During this process I shall attempt to win as many extra mms as I can to add to the 500mm platform length - and extra 100mm would make a big difference. Will take and post picture of bare baseboard when it’s no longer upside down with 6 legs pointing at the ceiling and board surface is in place. Just a note. It won’t be a copy of the original Speech House Road station and track layout. Because I am guessing that any new DFR station will be on the “other side” of the race track road up to Speech House, and I have only 3 metres of baseboard, I have coined the name Speech End to represent what might be a terminus for many years after 2030. The station building will be the original Coleford brick and stone building, with Bilston Signal Box.

Following on from me donating my Parkend N Gauge layout and all rolling stock and accessories to DFR Museum, I have just started construction work (yesterday) on a new layout. A change of gauge to OO, and a change of controls to DCC within the same domestic environment will be a new challenge. Using Railway Modeller Express (and that’s new to me too) I have planned the track layout and purchased the timber, screws, and varnish for the baseboards. My judgement is that a “real” location using OO isn’t feasible for me because I want it to have some operating potential. So I must be the umpteenth person to opt for a C J Freezer Minories based layout within a main baseboard of 2020mm x 650mm plus an L extension of 650mm x 300mm fiddle yard. DFR haven’t reached Speech House Road yet, and when they do I’m guessing it will be a Northern terminus on the “wrong” side of Speech House Road for quite a few years. So my layout will be a Severn and Wye/GWR style heritage country terminus with station building and goods shed using scratch built recreations of genuine Forest buildings - with a few low relief scratch built Forest buildings against the backscene. I can run only 500mm long trains so Hornby Class 14xx and Autocoach already purchased from Derails to assist with track laying and wiring, to be joined later by GWR Railcar, Derby Lightweight 2 car DMU, Class 57xx and Parcel Vans, and a station pilot (a small diesel other than an 08). Track will be Peco Code 75. My plan is to post photos and construct scenery virtually to completion in distinct modules as with Parkend.

New thread about to be started - Speech End.

It’s ages since I posted, and this will probably be tha last on this page. I have donated the layout to the Dean Forest Railway Musem with all its stock and they collected it a few weeks ago. I never did start the proposed extension so it remains as shown above. I be.ie e the intention is to put it on display next year.