Echo

Good & bad news. Claire, my dear wife, found she was pregnant at the end of November. I (we!) have now concluded that it's goodbye to railway modelling, the model railway room and all my spare time for the foreseeable future. I have scrapped most things but will keep the work I have done on Lausanne for now, just in case I find the time to proceed with it again before the DJLC. Ever an optimist! Bye to RMweb and everyone on here for a long while to come, I guess!

I have read that the Board of Trade definitely did discourage railways from using 0-4-0T engines on passenger trains. The North Sunderland railway was a long way from London and does seem to have got away with a few no-nos including putting the carriages at the back of mixed trains from time to time, so I wouldn't read to much into their use of 0-4-0Ts The Wantage Tramway was legally a tramway, not a railway, so was subject to a completely different regime of rules and regulations. It too seems to have ignored a few of those.

You need to consider SER and LCDR wagons too, as these were the constituents of the SECR. Roxey do some nice kits.

Thanks, Ian. I don't find it frustrating though - sorry if it came across that way. This part of the project is all new ground for me, so quite interesting to do (sorry for the unintended pun). Nevertheless, I do want to prove this bit thoroughly before I embark on baseboard construction etc. Other things to experiment with before building the baseboard include the building and operation of the gradient for the short funicular, the sector plate and the trams.

Slowly, but surely the winding mechanism is coming together. Having looked at the photos in my last entry, I decided that the winding drums could be a lot closer together, so I cut the assembly down the middle, trimmed the motor shafts, cut some wood out of the middle and stuck everything back together again. I have also installed the winding cables - polyester thread. I tied a short section to the motor shaft and secured with glue, then powered up the motors to wind the thread in. Each thread is around three times the length of the incline. This allows me to cut bits off if necessary, due to wear and tear, entanglement etc. several times without having to install a completely new thread. I have also added wires to the motors, ready to connect up to the control box. The pulley assembly has also been completed, now the pulleys have arrived. These revolve freely on a metal shaft, which also revolved freely in some brass tube. The ends are deliberately long, so I can rotate the shaft by hand once everything is assembled, if ever necessary. This assembly will be attached vertically to the front of the winding mechanism. The centres of the pulleys line up with the track centres at the top of the incline. I have also made the control box. I still have to do a bit of wiring, so it is not yet connected to the winding mechanism. This will eventually be screwed to the baseboard. There was almost a disaster here, as the retaining nut for one of the controllers had a damaged thread. After trying without luck to find an alternative, I glued it in position, so one controller is now permanently fixed to the control box lid. The run up to Christmas is likely to be a bit hectic, so I don't expect to proceed much further for the moment, other than finishing the wiring. There's still 2.5 years to go, so no need to panic just yet!

Thanks for the explanation Mark. I hadn't made it very clear which way the banana effect was shaped on mine - it was the same as yours. Kind of relieved to hear that even a master craftsman like you is not completely immune from the phenomenon!

Sorry for a late response, but I only just saw your reply, Mark. I always find doing this kind of construction that I end up with a kind of banana effect as the rail expands more than the PCB and therefore shrinks when it cools. Do you find this too, or am I just being extremely incompetent as usual?

Google Maps is helpful https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5625773,-1.9911154,315m/data=!3m1!1e3

Is this this new announcement just for England though?

Out of curiosity I meddled with your crank photo to bring out more of the detail. I would gently question a few of your assumptions in the light of this. The enhancement suggests that some of the detail is in fact disguised/confused by strong shadows. Firstly, the "end of the sleeper" is more likely a bracket coming from the "compensator" or whatever it is. It seems to form a loop surrounding the point operating rod. Secondly, the "crank" is more likely a piece of iron helping to hold the underlying timbers together. Thirdly, the assumed connection of the main rod run to the crank is probably not. It doesn't have any obvious link to anything in the photo. It is possibly raised above the base, as there is a suggestion of shadow below it. I am only guessing, but I hope it helps.

Surprised that the Peaks came out so well, relatively speaking. Without looking at the figures I would always have assumed they were amongst the very worst.

Have you ever browsed the Warwickshire railways site? This has some fine photos in Midland days, including this one http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/mrwo1045.htm It would take a fair bit of patience to go through all the pages and images, but you might find some useful track details there.

Capturing that last image in model form would be difficult. The atmosphere is created by it being boxed in on every side. Not good for viewing!

Class 04 with all the window/skirt variations

Retford wasn't demolished all in one go. You can still see the main station building in one of the Britain From Above images. I suspect the overall roof and maybe the westbound platform buildings etc were demolished, but the main building (on the north side of the line) survived much longer. OS maps also show the main building lasting a long while. EDIT 1948 shots here https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW016456 https://britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW016454