Caley Jim

Up until the recent re-signalling at Stirling there was, IRC, a Stevens lattice post with an upper quadrant signal, carrying a bracket with a CR lower quadrant subsidiary signal and at its base were a modern disc signal alongside which was a Stevens drop-flap ground signal.

Jim

.......

'Scottish First Potatoes' were very much sought after for planting elsewhere, especially south of the border (possibly even down Mexico Way?), as they were deemed bug free due to the Scottish harsh winters.  

So more Scottish Wagons or Vans loaded up with potatoes and travelling to far distant places......

Much of this traffic came from Strathearn, around Crieff was a big seed potatoe growing area, hence the preponderance of CR vehicles.

Details can be found in 'Branchlines of Strathearn' by John Young.

Jim

Countryfile this evening says the Stirling Cattle sales where the biggest in the UK, in the past and now.

Mainly for the Shorthorns and Aberdeen Angus Bull's for breeding - and exported all over the world.......

But whose cattle wagons were used I don't know.(in the UK).

The reply on the CRA forum was as follows:

I think you will find that the animals sold at the Perth Bull Sales ( the Stirling sales are a fairly recent innovation) were of such value that they would be transported in horse boxes or special cattle trucks of a similar style and comfort. The HR at least had two vehicles described as "Prize Cattle Vans". Ordinary beasts would be transported in normal cattle trucks and I guess that they would be either NBR or CR depending on destination or the preference of the consignee.

So perhaps Stirling didn't figure in pre-group days. 

Jim

Countryfile this evening says the Stirling Cattle sales where the biggest in the UK, in the past and now.

Mainly for the Shorthorns and Aberdeen Angus Bull's for breeding - and exported all over the world.......

But whose cattle wagons were used I don't know.(in the UK).

I've put the question to the CRA forum.  There's bound to be someone there who knows the answer!  My own thoughts are that it would be CR and/or NBR ones.

Jim

Somewhere, and at the moment I can't recall where, I've seen a photograph of a CR train passing Perth ticket platform and in the background is a Metropolitan Railway cattle truck, so such vehicles certainly got about!

Jim

Will you be offering these etches for sale when you are happy with them?

 

I will be, but I have 5 other ones to build first along with some other items!

They look great!

thanks for that.

Jim

Some more products from my sheet of trial etches, both still to be painted.  First up a CR Dia 24 8T open, the same vehicle for which i made a kit in self curing acrylic resin many years ago.

Secondly, the last and largest version of the CR 7T mineral 'bogie' in its offset door form.  This etch has a number of flaws, not least that the W-hangers are a wee bit too narrow and the door is in slightly the wrong place, resulting in interference between the bottom of some of the vertical frame members and the tops of the W-hangers, something i should have checked at the design stage!      This has been corrected on the artwork!

Painting will have to wait until I get more of the trial etches built.

Question for Richard.....identify the 'cutting mat' in the last photo!

Jim

My Grandmother used to talk about "tin tack and elephant shops", which (unless there was a steady demand for pachyderms in deepest Hampshire) must have been the same sort of thing.

 

 

Up here they are called 'Jenny a' things'.

Jim

Right index finger shows a nice evidential "v" cut.

Have you found out the hard way that scalpels are sharp! One might ask why you use a finger as a cutting mat?

In fact a really sharp (i.e. new) scalpel or craft knife blade will often cut you without you being aware of it.  First thing you know is a spot of blood on the workbench or something you've just been holding with the damaged digit!  How do I know....?  Many a time and oft!

Jim

Maristow (7mm) is standard gauge GW laid on baulk.

Another example of baulk road, this time in 2FS is here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/106076-blog-modbury-2mm-finescale-brunels-baulk-road-modbury-signal-box-5/?hl=modbury.

Jim

........ and signals from the far north - 

I wouldn't say they were from the FAR north - some modellers of the Highland Railway would challenge you on that!  But then you folk in the far south consider Manchester to be 'the north' and equivalent to 'pith helmet' country!!

Jim (note where Biggar is in my location)

Tonight's mystery object from my workbench

 

 

If this had been posted by Tim I would have said it was a jig for drilling the holes in Lord President for the boiler handrail knobs.  Otherwise.....

Puzzled of Biggar

........  I enjoy what I do, which is all that matters. 

Poggy, that last phrase is the most important.  The purpose of a hobby is enjoyment!  

Jim (read my signature!)

As a diversion from the student reminiscences of Tim and i, I present for your delectation Sauchenford down home, a 40ft Stevens and Son lattice post signal with CR style arms.  The height is necessitated by the presence of a road over-bridge.  The gallery to allow servicing of the lamp of the repeater arm is based on a photo in Jim Summer's book or CR signalling showing a similar post with a lower calling-on arm.

Jim

I think I just find it easier to modify the body rather than the chassis - the one 2mm kit I got near to finishing I tried to modify the chassis and made a real mess of it so reverted to how I used to build 4mm kits - body first and then chassis. Also find it spurs me on to get the chassis built.

 

I try not to modify the chassis, but to adjust the body part I've just added to clear the interference/shorting.  Usually it's just a matter of moving it a wee bit to provide more clearance.

 

Cab sides were a bit of a pain to solder to the front spectacle plate - ended up hot taping them together and then wedging them up against a block of wood whilst I applied the iron. 

When attaching these sort of items (including joining coach/van ends to sides) I simply tack one top corner with a quick touch of the iron, then the other one and then adjust theses joints until I'm happy with the positioning before sealing the whole joint. That way, if you not happy with the positioning you only have the tack joints to un-solder rather than the whole seam.

Jim

I've always preferred building the body before the chassis - as you say it becomes easier to fettle plus if you start making modifications to the chassis before trial fitting the body, how do you know you're not making a monumental cock up?

 

 

I always prefer to build the chassis first and then build the body round it.  Clearances are so tight in 2mm scale.  On the occasions where I've built a new chassis for an existing body I've always had a h**l of a problem figuring out either why the body won't sit down properly on the chassis, or what is causing a short.

i always check for shorts at each stage of building the body so that I can identify what is causing it and make the necessary adjustment(s).

Each to his own!!

Jim

You could always use a half potato for driving the molten alloy into the investment cavity, Jim. Bits of string could be risky!

 

The casting machine in the students lab in Glasgow in the late '60's was a fearsome beast operated by compressed air.  A single knob controlled a rising platform and when the casting ring made contact with the top you had to quickly turn the knob hard round to redirect the compressed air to a nozzle in the top which forced the molten metal into the mould.  If you got the timing of that last twist wrong, half the lab got showered in molten metal!

Jim

I can't see them either - so please, if you can, repost them.

 

Thanks

I can see them OK, and they are repeated at the bottom of the post.

Jim

(P.S. I expect this has stimulated a few of Jim's memories from his dental undergraduate education)

I did take the precaution of keeping a tin of investment when I retired, but haven't had the occasion to use it yet.  I do not, however, have access to an induction casting machine.  Might have to resort to the ancient technique of centrifugal casting with a bit of string!!

Meanwhile the 40ft signal with co-acting arms is making slow but steady progress.  The fret was on the under-etched side, so the root canal files have been busy opening out the small holes!

Jim

Not sure what to do with the stones in the wall. Include in the model, stick on stone effect afterwards or leave as is. The stone work on the prototype is pretty flat and probably wouldn't be visible at scale. What's the general consensus on the best approach for 2mm?

If the stonework is generally flat, then I would not put any relief on the model.  Scribing the beds and joints and running a thin wash of white over them would be enough.  An alternative might be the downloadable papers from Smart Models www.smartmodels.co.uk if there is a suitable one in the range.    All the brick buildings on Mick Simpson's 'Wansbeck Road' use brick papers.

Jim

...... I would suggest some form of table is advisable as if something were to run off the cassette it would be a disaster if it fell to the floor. 

 

That's why I make all my cassettes with'end doors' which slide between two strips of 40thou and have a stop at the top so that it is difficult to remove them completely.  It just becomes a habit to always shut the doors.

Jim

I'm not familiar with GC signalling practice, but it is clear that the yard can only be worked by down trains and that part of the train (brake van at the least) would need to be left on the down main.  In that case an outer home signal, off to the right of the diagram, would be required to protect that.  Yes, 1 and 2 would be worked from one lever, crossovers generally were.  There would either need to be a catch point to protect the down main from anything in the yard, or 3 would need to be worked from the box and act as a catch point.  It couldn't be worked from the same lever as 3 has to remain set for the sidings except when the yard is being worked, in which case the vehicle(s) left on the down main line would stop a run-away going any further.

Your G and H would be ground signals controlling access and egress to/from the sidings.

it's a slightly strange set-up and I suspect that the connection from the down main to the yard is more likely to have been on up side of the point where the up and down lines merge.

Jim (not a signalling expert)

 

.....On the only signal that I've so far made I filled the spectacles with a small amount of "Canopy Glue" (which dries clear).  .......

 

Unlike Mr Carlson, my signal lamp is just a simple turning and does not present a pretty light like the ones on St Ruth do (or do when wired up to do so, we are still working on general illumination of the St Ruth environs)

As I said in an earlier post, I experimented with the red glass by mixing a spot of red paint into some Clearfix, with the result shown (probably too much paint). For the green glass I used the Clearfix as intended and washed it with then green paint - Humbrol Multi unit stock green (don't ask!!).  This was both easier and gave a much better result, as per your 'canopy glue'.

Likewise my lamps are simple turning in the minidrill.

Jim

I adopted cassettes as an alternative to a train table as I was finding myself with more stock and trains than could be accommodated on the train table.  My cassette system was designed for both operation and stock transport.  With the train table system I found that at shows it took me more time to put all the stock on the layout than it did to assemble the layout  and, at the end of the show, took more time to pack it away than it did to dismantle the layout.  On Kirkallanmuir I have cassettes specifically for trains of mineral wagons which have a piece of nail embedded at a strategic point near the end of the cassette.  These are slightly shorter than the slot in the baseboard, by 150mm.  In a corresponding postion below the slot is a fixed magnet.    I connect a 150mm cassette beyond this, drive the train in, reverse the loco when the dropper of the AJ coupling on the first wagon is over the nail with the magnet below it, the coupling uncouples and the loco is then driven forward onto the 150mm cassette.  The cassette with the train of loaded coal wagons is then turned round and transferred to the colliery branch cassette slot where another magnet uncouples the brake van.  The loaded wagons can then be drawn back into the interchange sidings and a rake of empty wagons taken up the colliery branch and pushed onto the brake van.  The cassette with the loco is then placed in the slot for the arriving main line, the rake of empties turned and coupled to it (once removed from the magnet the brake van becomes coupled) and that train is now ready to be brought in as a train of empties.  No handling of locos and/or stock ionvolved.

Hope the above is clear and not too convoluted.

Jim

 

Someone on the CRA forum has suggested that some spots of black paint on the finial might create the illusion of it being open.  I'm about to give that a try!

Here's the result.  Phone camera hasn't focused very well on the finial, I'm afraid!  Certainly takes the 'solid' look off it.

This photo also shows up the rather too opaque red spectacle, but the green one looks OK.

Jim