awoodford

Hi Northroader, that's useful advice, thanks. It's not something that had occured to me before but it does make sense. As to the Slaghill siding, the capacity would indeed be increased by taking it off the main line, but unfortunately that would open out the curve to the steel works too much, which needs to be kept at the minimum 21 inch radius in order for it to fit.

Thanks for your comment Scott. Yes, it is a 1 foot grid. Corbs, thank you. I'm not thinking of cannibalising the original Tweedale. I'm quite fond of that old layout and will probably hang on to it while I have the space. Thanks Wenlock. I'm interested to see how this develops myself. Things don't often turn out as I first visualise them, so what I'll end up with is anyone's guess.

As this is the first blog post dealing with the new Tweedale layout, I'll start with some background. 　 The space available for the new layout is a spare room which had long been earmarked for the proper serious layout that never materialised, and has meanwhile been used as a storeroom/workshop/shed. The size of the room is 11x11 feet, though the planned layout only takes up about 8x6 feet. Well I'm not a greedy boy. Actually it had more to do with leaving access to other fixtures in the room, but it's probably just as well my ambitions are constrained if I hope to finish this in my lifetime anyway. The diagram below shows the general set up... 　 The layout follows the general theme of the previous Mark 1 version. The place names are mostly the same and the line still takes a zigzag route up the dale (cunningly contrived so that I only need to detail and paint one side of the rolling stock). Although there is now more space, the stations will still need to be compressed and simplified to fit them in. 　 This is rather an ambitious scheme for me, having only ever had fairly small layouts in the past, and I'm still not sure how well I'll get on with such a monster. Maybe I am being a greedy boy after all. That remains to be seen, but for now the plan of campaign is to expand in stages with a modular approach, finishing off each section as I go. Then even if the layout is never completely finished, for whatever reason, at least what there is will be finished, if you see what I mean. The intention is to start with the area outlined in red above, and see how well I get on with that before committing myself to the rest. Here's a more detailed plan of that area... 　 The greatest concern here is time. The original layout took 6 years to complete, and at its largest extent occupied 12 square feet. This layout takes up 30 square feet. It follows then that short cuts and compromises will be needed in plenty if I want to get it finished in a reasonable time. 　 Analysing the construction of the former 4 foot long 'Tweedale Lite' extension showed that the baseboard, track laying, wiring and gadgetry took about 2 months to complete. That was the technical side of things, all logical and thus fairly straightforward. However the scenery, or arty side, was much more vague and took 2 years to finish. A major part of the strategy with this layout will be to cut down the scenics drastically. After all my main interest is operating the trains, and while its nice for them to run through enough scenery to give them a sense of place, I don't really need to build a whole world however tempting. 　 Rather than fill every square inch of baseboard with scenery, the intention is to model not much more than that within the boundary fence. The track and scenery will be confined to narrow boards that will be short enough to be worked on at a table, and can then just be fitted together on the flat baseboard top. The style I have in mind is something like that of the Totternhoe Mineral Railway layout which can be seen on Mr Arendt's website here. However I may not neccessarily immerse everything in black as done there. I'll experiment with different methods of presentation and lighting later, once I have one or two fully scenified track modules available to test it all against. 　 A start has been made on the first track board here... It's 2'6" long and represents the exchange sidings for the Upper Tweedale line. It has a 6mm ply top braced with 25x6mm strip. The track is Peco code 75 with short radius points. The edging has been tacked on temporarily just to hide the ugliness beneath, but the board will eventually be expanded outwards by an inch or two each side to accomodate some lineside scenery. I've roughly edited the image below to illustrate the idea. If at some future date I feel like adding more scenery I can always spread out further. 　 The baseboard supporting framework for this first phase is now almost complete, as shown below... So far I've managed to make use of timber I had around, much of which was salvaged from the remains of a pine double-bed frame (with all those handy 4'6" slats). It was such a useful source of timber that when the time comes to expand the layout, I'll probably pop down to the local charity furniture store and buy another, which should provide enough wood to complete the framework. Their beds sell for 25 to 30 pounds, which I reckon is a cheaper option than buying new timber from the DIY wharehouse, and I suspect its probably better quality wood as well. Cheers, Alan.

Thanks for your comment John. I guess things will carry on as usual.

Hi Corbs, thanks for your comment. I did get 2 years of operation out of the extension, but it never really seemed to gel with the rest of the layout. If it wasn't for the commitment to show it at the exhibition it might well have been abandonned earlier.

Thanks Wenlock. The new layout will follow more or less the same theme, but with longer runs between stations and a different style of presentation. I'll fill in the details in the next blog.

It's been awhile since I last posted here, but now that the days are getting lighter (and I can see what I'm doing), the modelling juices are beginning to flow again. It's time to stir out of my winter lethargy and get back to the next phase in Tweedale's evolution. First though I thought that a recap and update might be useful for putting everything into context. 　 Tweedale was started in 2014, as a temporary, freelance, low tech bit of fun, with an estimated lifetime of about 2 years. It was intended as a kind of a warm-up exercise (following a period away from the hobby), before embarking on a proper serious mainstream type of layout. However it has proved so successful that 6 years later it still continues to deliver the goods, so to speak. Indeed it has maintained my interest to such an extent that I've now decided to give up all ideas of joining the mainstream in its ongoing quest for ever more detailed photographic realism and prototype fidelity, but instead just eddy around in my own familiar backwater with a completely new and larger version of Tweedale. To that end a good part of the past 6 months has been occupied in idly doodling plans for the new layout. The time has come to start construction. 　 Meanwhile back on the old version (as I now think of it), the story has been one of rationalisation. The most drastic change has been to completely do away with the 'Tweedale Lite' extension. This was dismantled shortly after it's exhibition outing last summer. The modifications that made it workable for the show, such as operating from the rear, made it unsuitable for home use without a lot more work being put back into it. As I was already toying with the idea of a new layout back then, I had no real interest in spending more time on the old. However, on a more positive note, almost everything has been salvaged. The track and scenic items will be reused on the new layout, and the diorama-style box in which it was all contained has been taken off my hands by one of my cronies for a new N gauge layout that he is building. As a consequence the old layout has now reverted to a state it was in about 3 years ago. It does at least still get operated for half an hour most days, and will no doubt continue to do so until the new layout takes over. Apart from maintenance, it is unlikely any more will be done to the old Tweedale, so I'll leave it there to see out the rest of its days in peace, and concentrate in future blogs on the progress of the new layout. 　 Cheers, Alan.

Just a quick update. The railbus had a few issues with intermittant electrical pickup. The 4-wheel Model Power chassis on which it runs has a traction tyre on one wheel which only gave reliable pickup from 3 wheels. To get round the problem, an extra contact direct to the track was added on the side of the chassis with the traction tyre. This simply consists of a piece of brass rod with a short length of brass tube on the end that rolls along the rail - a great improvement. As this is on the side of the vehicle away from the viewer, it's not normally visible.

Very impressed by this layout at Shipley. Searching for more info brought up this thread. Award well deserved. Alan.

Thanks Ed. For a layout with number of different locations where the shunting is more important than watching the trains moving from place to place, I think it works very well. I was surprised at how well the rabbit warren aspect of the layout went down with the public too, not only the children, trying to guess where the train was going to appear next. Thank you John. The next phase will involve a major upheaval of the system, which is why I want to wait awhile before making a start. At least that way I might catch some of the problems beforehand.

Tweedale Lite's exhibition outing has now been and gone. There was a pleasant friendly atmosphere at the show and a good selection of layouts. Tweedale seemed to go down well and received some nice comments. The layout ran all day without any major problems, so I was very pleased with it. Exhibiting is not really my thing, but just as a one-off, I have to admit it did make for a novel and enjoyable day out. Here is a photo showing the layout set up at the show. The church venue was rather dark for my poor old camera, so it's not a very good picture, but I'm including it anyway just for the record. A grubby 03 shunter was hired in from BR to provide motive power, and ran reliably throughout the day. It's seen here at Frog Fen Lane. Mr Blunt is protecting the crossing, but also keeping a wary eye on the chickens (He gets hen-pecked enough at home without having to put up with it at work). Luckily for him they are too busy stuffing their gizzards with clinker and carborundum grit to be bothered by his presence. Down at the docks an infestation of giant plague rats proved popular with the kiddies. The rodents were made from carrot shaped pieces of DAS, with a cactus spine inserted for a tail. They were as small as I could make them but their body lengths still worked out at a scale 18 inches. Meanwhile over at Tweemoor, Mr Yardley the ancient yardmaster bagged a prime position on the longest seat, where he could 'stoppeth one of three' visitors and bore them rigid on the subtleties of the 5-3-3 Inglenook. His nephew, young Angus the boy scout, was on hand to help old ladies up the steep and rickety steps, for which the cafe at the top had promised him a shilling at the end of the day towards his bob-a-job funds. The show marked a good end point to what I think of as Tweedale's 'extension years'. It seems like a good time now to take a break from Tweedale and move on to something different for a change. It's not going to be abandoned completely though. I have ambitious plans for Tweedale's next building phase, but they still need to mature before being put into practice. I'll probably get back to it in the new year, by which time I should be refreshed and raring to go again. All the best, Alan.

The layout extension (aka Tweedale Lite) is now nearing completion for it's exhibition outing later this month. The photo below shows it set up on a table at home. There will be curtains around the base but they have been left off here so that you can see the leg assemblies. These were kit-bashed from what was described as a mini-greenhouse at the cheap and tacky discount store from which it was obtained. For transport, the tubes can just be unplugged from the plastic fittings and flat-packed. The viewing height is a compromise. Adults will have to stoop for a decent view and children will have to stand on tiptoe. The height was actually set to be a little less than I would normally have the baseboard at home, so that I could easily see over the back to operate it from there. The hinged lid is propped at an angle preventing viewers from peering over the top, but still allowing me to peep in from behind. Under the lid a strip of card hangs down to mask the fluorescent lighting tube, so that I'm not staring at it for hours on end. Regarding the lighting, the tube produces a 'cool white' colour which made some of the foliage at Tweemoor look decidedly weird. I thought it might be worth seeing if a colour filter would warm it up. For that purpose I invested in a box of Quality Street, which provided a good supply of coloured sweet wrappers. A couple of yellow wrappers taped around the tube were enough to give a subtle colour cast that improved the look of the foliage. I was so pleased with the result that I also had a go at the industrial Frog Fen Lane scene. Here rather more red and brown wrappers were used, which gave the dark-skied scene a ruddy rust-laden glow, like summer in Scunthorpe (I imagine). I was very impressed. Although the fluorescent tube gets quite warm, I don't think it's enough to set the papers alight. What is more likely is that the tape will come unstuck at an inopportune moment and the wrappers will drop down onto the scenes like autumn leaves. For operating this layout at the exhibition it seemed a good idea to devise a sequence, rather than just move wagons around willy nilly at random. The siding capacities are so restricted, that if I was winging it, there is a very good chance I'd shunt myself into a corner and everything would grind to a halt... embarrassment all round, go back and start again, people walking away in disgust, etc. Hopefully, working to a rehearsed script should keep things moving without having to think too much. To that end the simple sequence shown below has been created. It involves 5 wagons, 3 of which work their way between Tweemoor yard, Castleport, Frog Fen works, and back to the yard, while the other 2 shuttle between the yard and Castleport. The complete sequence consists of 4 trips from the yard and back, and takes about an hour to complete. Actually there are 2 sequences. The other has 2 wagons for Frog Fen and 3 for the port. As both sequences start and end with the same configuration, they can be alternated or repeated as desired. The 'crew instructions' for each trip will be printed on cards that can be displayed at the front of the layout, to inform the public what's going on. As to the show itself, I believe there will be 8 or 9 layouts and one trade stand. A copy of the flyer below gives other details. Cheers, Alan.

Here are a couple of links that might give you some operational ideas. Although they are American they could be adapted for British operation. The first is a prototype example showing just how complicated shunting a simple track arrangement can be... http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/2010/09/stretching-simple-spur.html The other is a layout build by Conrail Joe in the US subforum here. Note the use of 'props' (point and de-rail locks in this case) for slowing down the operations... Alan.

Well it might not be that easy to get rid of them. These are tough old birds, going around in gangs and into heavy metal (they are Dart Castings after all). Any urban fox who encounters this hen party and thinks its his lucky day, will soon find itself scuttling away with its tail between its legs and a mouthful of broken teeth.

Mike Storey - Thanks for your comment. I also use the same method for glazing card buildings - bonding a paper or thin card frame to the plastic glazing with solvent, then gluing the frame inside the window opening with PVA. Mikkel - Thanks. The scene didn't come out quite as I'd envisioned it, but I'm happy enough with the result. As to the chickens, they were added partly as a strand linking the opening waffle with the rest, and partly out of devilment. Whether they'll stay around for the exhibition, or range freely to some other part of the works off scene, is anyone's guess.

My old copy of Tweedale Byways (1908 edition) includes a sketch of Frog Fen Lane, which I've reproduced below... It looks a pleasant enough spot. I imagine the artist sitting happily beside the dusty road on a lovely sunny day, the only sounds being the gentle tinkling of sheep bells and the chuckling of contented chickens, with maybe the odd skylark thrown in for good measure. If you were to have wandered along and informed him that the area was to be designated as a 'green field site', he would probably have complimented the authorities on their forethought in safeguarding this slice of rural idyll. At that point you would no doubt have wished him a good day and walked on, not wanting to disillusion the poor fellow. The photo below was taken from more or less the same spot, but some half a century later in the 50s/60s... The frogs, sheep and skylarks have all gone of course, but strangely enough the chickens are still there. The industry moved in so fast that there was no time to round them all up, and a feral population have infested the site ever since. Actually I've quite surprised myself at how quickly the industry has come together. It's amazing what a looming exhibition deadline can do for motivation. There are still small details that can be added, road signs and so on, but as with the other scenes those can wait until later if I have time left over. The buildings were constructed using my preferred medium of cardboard, but most have been faced with Slater's corrugated Plasticard. I never quite know what is the best way of gluing these dissimilar materials together. UHU glue seems to work quite well in the short term, but I've found it goes brittle over time and the surfaces can come apart. The method used here, though it was more of a bother, was to add a paper backing to the plastic, bonding it by soaking solvent (Mekpak) through the paper to the plastic. I then used PVA to glue the paper-backed plastic to the card sub-structure. I have a feeling it may be more stable than the UHU, but that has yet to be proven. The chimneys and pipes are based on paper tubes. They are rather fragile, but at least having the layout contained in a box reduces their vulnerability somewhat. However the large chimney has already gained a dent at the top, where it was struck by a meteorite. Bends in the pipework consist of sections cut from wooden or plastic curtain rings. Paper collars were added to one end of each straight and curved piece, then a great time was had plugging them together. The pipework could really do with more supports, but the space was too tight fit any more in. As you might guess, track cleaning is tricky, but then the whole layout is a rabbit warren so that's nothing new. It involves the use of a stick with piece of paper towel wrapped around the end which is then carefully manipulated betwixt and between the obstacles. No abrasives or solvents are used but it does a satisfactory job. It's still not clear exactly what goes on at the Frog Fen Lane works. An industrial spy once noted that wagon loads of innocuous materials arrived and drums of noxious substances departed, mostly to Castleport where they were loaded onto a barge and dumped in the Twee estuary. The railway is unconcerned. Traffic is traffic and it pays the bills, with the added bonus that the leaky drums work wonders at keeping the track free from weeds. Cheers, Alan.

Yes that was the one I was thinking of. If I remember rightly the model was a representation the main line between Exeter and Truro, including all the stations en route! Alan.

That model of the ECML is quite wonderful. It brought to mind the model by S.F. Page (Longdon, Newborough & Easthyde Railway) that appeared in 60's RM, which represented a sizeable chunk of the line between Kings Cross and Peterborough, complete with a 3 track version of Kings Cross. I've always had a soft spot for those layouts that go in for such extreem compression of main line subjects. Anyone remember Eric Fisher's model of the GWR mainline in the West Country on 3 or 4 levels? I think it was described in a 1950's or early 60's Model Railway News. Alan.

As the builder of the original EM Horselunges layout (it was later upgraded to P4 by new owners), I can tell you that the original intention was to run the layout with the Hellingly Hospital electric loco under wires, but I soon decided that was impractical for an exhibition shunting layout, and a variety of small industrials were operated instead. These included two Planets, a Simplex, a Muir Hill tractor, a Ruston 48DS, and a Head Wrightson vertical boiler loco, all powered by Tenshodo SPUDs. At the time I belonged to the Hull Miniature Railway Society, as did Steve Flint, who as an RM photographer encouraged other members to write for the magazine, which is how the Horselunges article came about. The Hull club had a good contingent of fine scale modellers, which was a strong motivating force for keeping up with the standards of the time, boosted by inspiration from contemporary MRJ articles. With a move away from the district, a period out of the hobby altogether, and no longer having the patience I once had, my modelling has admittedly regressed since then. However my current Tweedale layout, which is chronicled in the blogs area here, still follows the tongue in cheek attitude that lay behind Horselunges (just not to the same standard!), and is now driven more by a nostalgia for articles from the 50s/60s magazines rather than current thinking. Alan

Thanks Marlyn. Thank you Wenlock. If Filey was a bit closer to Cardiff I'd get to see Sherton Abbas!

Hi Marlyn, thanks for your comment. I think the biggest mistake was agreeing to exhibit before the layout was actually finished. I know some people do this deliberately to provide the motivation to get on, but for me I suspect the pressure is just going to make the modelling process a chore rather than a pleasure. I'm sure it'll all work out OK in the end though.

One problem with having an exhibition organizer among your circle of friends seems to be that you are constantly subjected to thinly veiled hints and an underlying pressure to provide something for a show. I used to exhibit some 20 years ago, but in the end I found that the stress involved outweighed the enjoyment, so gave it up. I have no great urge to get drawn back into all that again. So far I've managed to fend off enticements to show Tweedale, by pointing out that it was designed very much as a home layout with no intentions of it ever being exhibited, and is in many ways unsuitable anyhow. I would then go on about its unwieldy shape, the onlooker's view being blocked by the operator, the slapdash construction, the lack of transport, and anything else I could think of to get out of it. Well, I guess you know where this is going... Yes, in a moment of weakness I finally crumbled under the pressure and agreed to bring Tweedale to a show. Anything for a quiet life. Its a one-off I hasten to add, and not the whole of Tweedale either, just the extension I've been working on lately, which is more manageable and built to a slightly better standard than the earlier section. It will be set up as a stand-alone shunting layout, shuffling wagons between Tweemoor Yard, Castleport and the new industrial zone. In this guise it has been labelled Tweedale Lite, in acknowledgment that it doesn't possess the full functionality of the complete system. The show itself is a small local one day event in aid of church funds at Filey (North Yorkshire) on 20th July. I helped out there last year and it was a very pleasant and friendly relaxed affair, which is all to the good. Now that the official forms have been filled in, signed, and I'm fully committed, the enormity of my folly is beginning to sink in. The image above shows the whole four feet of what constitutes Tweedale Lite in its current state. Not a pretty sight. It has been severed from the rest of the system up in the attic room and dragged down to the chaos of the storeroom/workshop/shed to make it easier to work on. I've made a list of all the jobs that need doing, and a long and daunting one it is too. The right hand third needs finishing scenically, followed by the addition of a frontage with nice picture frames. If it was purely for my own use at home, that is as far as I would have taken it and called it finished. For the exhibition though, extra modifications will also be required. For example, all those the controls spread along the front need reconfiguring so that the layout can be operated from the back, and short trestles made (plus drapes) so that it will stand on a table at a reasonable height. There are still more than 4 months to go, but Speedy Gonzales I'm not, and every time I look at the list I know its going to be a hard slog to get it all completed on time. So much for the quiet life. Filey is a bit off the beaten track, but if you happen to find yourself in the area at the time, do pop along to the show and have a chat. I'll give it another plug with more details nearer the date. Cheers, Alan.

One of the better things on the Internet, I reckon, is Google Maps Street View. I'm a great fan. While there are those who like to walk off their Sunday lunch with a nice stroll along the prom or through the park, you're more likely to find me sneaking around some of the world's more seedy neighbourhoods in the company of Google's little yellow fellow. It was on one such trip, to Ostrava in the industrial heart of Czechia, that I came across the inspiration for Tweedale's new industrial scene... Image capture from Google Street View. URL... https://goo.gl/maps/Uq4KzsXk1Ap The site is some species of iron works where thanks to Google you can just wander around among the abandoned blast furnaces and other weird and wonderful structures. Its weedy and rusty and oozing with an atmosphere of past glories. Well worth a visit if you are into that kind of thing. Just follow the link above and roam. The features that appealed to me in the image, and which I hope to incorporate in the model, were the zig-zag conveyers, the chimney with its 'crow's nest lookout', and the claw-like piping on the side of the building. I've no idea what it all does but I like what I see. By the way, the current street views here date back to 2009. More recent photos show the place being developed as a technology museum and, in my opinion, fast losing a lot of its character in the process. A number of buildings have since been demolished, including some of those in the view above. The weedy track beds are being replaced by neatly manicured lawns with picnic tables, and a torpedo wagon lurking in a shed in the street views has now been placed on a plinth outside. Getting on to the model, the image below shows the area to be developed. There's a fork of track with a capacity of 3 wagons per siding, a track configuration I'm rather partial to. The trees in the background, spilling over from the Tweemoor Yard scene next door, are not really compatible with the grim industrial setting I have in mind, so I've decided to block them out by inserting a new sky backscene in front. Admittedly it reduces the area available for scenery quite considerably, but it should at least help speed up the construction time. I've mocked it up here with a brooding grey sky. I've seen this done to great effect on some exhibition models, but it seems pretty radical and I'm not sure yet whether I have the confidence to actually go with it myself. I'll leave it for a while to see if it grows on me. Some building mock-ups have been added below, to test how to fit things around the tracks. The stash of frozen pizza boxes is a godsend here. I'm just shuffling shapes around at the moment, trying to find an aesthetically pleasing arrangement, before worrying about the textures and details. Although the prototype was concerned with iron, the model will be less specific to allow for a diversity of traffic. It might end up as a vague kind of processing plant with a meaningless name, like the 'Central By-Product Distillation Works' that used to exist in Middlesbrough. The road across the tracks is something else I'm not sure about yet. I quite like the way it leads you into the scene, but it would reduce the siding capacities if I want to keep the roadway clear between shunting movements. On the other hand, by introducing some petty rules for the train crew to follow when dealing with the crossing, it might add a bit extra to the operational challenge. Plenty to think about. We'll see how it evolves. Cheers, Alan

Another uncoupling system that may be worth considering is Roger Nicholls 'Yorkshire Kadee' system (as it is known). It is extreemly simple (and cheap!) but works very well with Inglenook Sidings type of layouts where the points all face one direction. It operates with hook and bar type couplings, but involves removing the hook from one end of the stock. A tuft of bristles is inserted in a hole between the sleepers at uncoupling spots. When the wagons are pushed over the tufts the hooks are lifted, but when pulled the hooks pass straight through the bristles and the wagons remain coupled. Hopefully the image below will make things clear. A couple of tufts can just be seen between the sleepers on the two tracks, and were installed after the track was ballasted. I use plumber's hemp for the bristles but other materials could be used (I believe RN uses Woodland Scenics long grass). The tufts are held together with glue and cotton and are a snug fit (not glued) into holes drilled between the sleepers, where they can be adjusted by moving up or down slightly. A spare untrimmed tuft can be seen on the platform. One downside for a 'have a go' layout might be due to the small size of the uncouplers. Quite slow and precise control is needed to avoid overshooting the tufts when uncoupling. Alan.

Northroader, Neil, thanks for your input. The houses may well be space-thrifty and affordable. The catch is you'd be hard put to find a room large enough to fit a bed, let alone the stairs to reach it.