Luke123

Reading this tread I should take out shares in a tin foil hat company 

On 02/01/2021 at 21:13, TVLR said:

Haha cheers for posting this here! I ought to get better photos of it, I'm still very proud of this repaint and I want to do more Express Blue repaints. Reading this thread gave me some ideas...

I do love the express blue livery, what paint do you use for yours? 

On 15/05/2020 at 22:39, MarshLane said:

How accurate do you want the signalling to be?  If you want it to just look ok, then obviously it is down to what you want.  If you are looking for it to be prototypical however, the best way is to start by working out all the possible movements:

Thanks Rich.

I want a good representation of the signalling, but i am happy if it isn't 100% prototypical if it would cause issues.

I'll have a think about the movements i want to show and go from there.

I'm happy with the above track plan, so next i've turned my mind to the signalling and this is what i've come up with.

I have added the signals for right hand side (off scene) so that i can still add the appropriate point rodding along the station.

The goods yard might need some ground signals, i need to have more of a think about which points will be controlled by the signalman and which will be controlled by a ground frame. 

I keep changing my mind about  the far right signal, i think it is needed to protect the down line if something is coming out of the goods yard onto the up line, but i dont know if this could be managed another way. 

Not a lot to update you all on, I was finally in a position financially to start working on the garage/ railway room and then we go into lockdown, so i still cant play trains!

I have had a play with my station track plan though, and I have come up with this:

I dont really want a large layout filled with sidings or an MPD, i'd much rather have a layout where I get to watch trains going by, so I feel this will do that well, with a small goods handling area when i want to get a bit more hands on and shunt with a Jinty or two!

2 hours ago, chuffinghell said:

I'm planning on attaching some form of bus bar for the platform lamps. I’m tempted to use some left over track glued to the underside 

 

1) I can glue the track directly to the underside of the platform top

2) Easier to solder to

3) Each Rail is already isolated from each other

4) Will add some much needed extra rigidity

5) Don’t have to buy anything 

What a brilliant idea, i wish i'd thought of that last time i tried building a station!

Duncan looks fantastic

1 hour ago, Kumata said:

It's a little odd that in one of the earliest books (James the Red Engine IIRC) Gordon states that when he isn't there to pull the express they need two engines, this being at a time when Henry and James were already on the island. Indeed in the very first book the express needed both Edward and Henry to pull it. Yet later books seem to contradict this as Henry, James and even Bear are shown to pull the express without major difficulty. A little embellishment on Gordon's part perhaps?

I always thought it was changes in traffic, as time has gone on STH either put on more services with fewer coaches or there was simply not enough passengers to justify a large rack, so shortened it.

Either way it would mean a smaller engine such as James or Henry could mange.

3 hours ago, Ben B said:

The last time I tried to watch the TV series, with the son of a mate from Uni days, it occurred to me that Sodor now probably has a bigger fleet of locomotives than most real-world freight TOC's, and of individual types no less, and either so specialised for the traffic they couldn't do anything else, or vastly unsuitable for anything other than their assigned roles.  Sodor must have a lot of stock sat around idle as traffic fluctuates, which rather undermines Sir Topham Hatt's reputation as a canny businessman.  Mindyou, a line which has so many accidents and deaths of sentient rolling stock would probably have had Health and Safety and the ORR down on them like a ton of bricks by now anyway

I have a running joke with my friend about my loco fleet, every time I go to a model shop I try to buy 'duplicate' class of engine because (and Ii quote my friend Adam!) "it'll start to look like Thomas the Tank engine if all your locos are different classes and liveries!"

1 hour ago, Tom F said:

It think you'll like what I have planned. I'm keeping it under wraps for now until I've started laying some track work down, but I think this will tick all my boxes for an operational layout. 

Sorry to hear the original plan has been shelved, but these things happen, hopefully your new project will relight the model fire!

Looking forward to seeing it take shape 

2 hours ago, micknich2003 said:

Re road closure, there are several alternative routes and for those of you coming from the west the Springbank West closure will have no effect.

1 hour ago, micknich2003 said:

According to the Hull Daily Mail, Springbank West will be reopened today, that's two days earlier than planned, either way, all should be in order for Saturday.

Great news, thanks.

Is there any issues with roads being closed for the show? I saw a sign on Beverley Road this morning saying Spring Bank was shut from the railway crossing?

How do you go about matching the liveries? Do you literally compare the pics in the books to a colour chart or is there anything that can make a good guide?

I like the idea replicating NWR 4 passing though the layout (going foreign!) but I’m not sure on how best to paint it up!

I love the shot of the tender in the last pic, it really does show the subtle weathering

29 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Even Rosberg could win the title in a car that good...

I've never understood the dismissive way everyone talk s about Rosberg. He pushed Lewis time and time again during their time together, far more that Bottas does. (at least in my opinion)

13 hours ago, Tom F said:

Where exactly the coal is coming from is a good point, but with the cumbrian coast coal fields being close by

12 hours ago, Aire Head said:

Coalwise the NWR has quite a range of choice in either the Cumbrian and Lancashire coal fields or even the Yorkshire ones at a push.

Depending on your time period (i'm not too familiar with the timings of specific events in the books) you could have some wagons from Wales too to bring the coal used for No. 3 'Henry' before the Flying Kipper crash and rebuild.

I'm loving this thread!

How many of the roster are you going to try and create? Would the likes of Stepney or the 'one off' diesels like old stuck up make a cameo?

Luke

18 hours ago, Andrew P said:

Bottas, Plan ''B'' and ''C''.

https://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/27345465/bottas-plan-b-plan-c-case-mercedes-chooses-ocon

Interesting that it says Ocon has been linked to Haas given that they are Ferrari lite and he is  one of Merc's young drivers, so imo dont see it happening ... but then again i've been wrong about these things before!

Who predicted that result?!

I have also been playing around with the track plan. My other half got me several track plan books for my birthday and i saw one called Nelson, the book is called PSL Book of Model Railway Track Plans and is by Cyril Freezer.

I have done a crude mock up here as i dont know if i can just add pictures of the plan from the book without seeking permission from the publisher first, so better safe than sorry!

I like the overall plan, it includes the features i wanted to add there is just one or two small things to tweak, like an addition of a turntable so that the Jubilee and Patriot can be turned if I want to, but this should be relatively easy to add.

I also might have the layout curve somewhat so that i can get some more scenery in to the left hand side before it runs to the fiddle yard, but again, this shouldn't pose too much of a problem to do.

I have decided to rename the layout. It was originally going to be Harrofield as i wanted to give a nod to my home town, but i was never fully satisfied that the name felt like an area of West Yorkshire.

It might have just been a case of me over thinking things, but at the end of the day it would have continued to bug me, so i thought it better to take action now rather than months or years into the build.

So now i present to you: Holmthorpe Bridge.

The line will serve the fictional town of Holmthorpe, a West Riding town that sits between Leeds and Manchester. The station will see trans-Pennine services and local services from the surrounding towns like Halifax and Huddersfield, etc.

The loco fleet has expanded again! Whilst browsing the Hattons website last night i saw a Bachmann Patriot; 45538 'Giggleswick' in BR Green with early emblem on the bargains page.

This loco was shedded in Leeds in 1948, so fits nicely with the area and region I plan on modelling without doing anything other than adding a loco crew and some weathering 

11 hours ago, Zomboid said:

It's probably just that Bottas isn't as good as Lewis. No shame in that - whilst comparing eras is futile, it's hard to argue that Lewis isn't the best ever. Certainly by the time he retires he'll be #1 in just about every statistical category that matters in the slightest. And he's consistently matched or been faster than his team mate, no matter who that has been - and they haven't been the bunch of Jabronis that some other top drivers have insisted on.

 

So a salute to Lewis Hamilton, the greatest of the post Senna era at the very least.

 

I'd still rather it was Danny Ric who was winning though

I know what you mean, but for me I don't see Lewis as the best purely because he has always been in a strong car.

IMO his weakest cars were his 2009 McLaren and his 2013 Merc, but even those were still capable of winning races, so that would naturally skew statistics in his favour whereas the likes of Alonso, Vettel, Button et al. all started in a mid field car and managed to push it past its limits and to me that is a mark of a great driver.

He is in the top 10, maybe even top 5, but I cant put in as number 1.

I'd love to see Lewis drive a season in a Racing Point or a Williams and then show just how good he can be. I'm not saying he isn't good, just that I'd like to see how he copes with a very different type of challenge.

I am also waiting for a Hornby streamlined Duchess to be delivered (the previous version before last years retooling). The model is the NRM version of Duchess of Hamilton. The fact that this is a preserved loco may cause a few issues if it has been fitted with any modern safety equipment, but I have also recently purchased a new Duchess, 6221 'Queen Elizabeth' (this will not be getting a repaint!) so hopefully I can keep an anachronisms to a minimum!

I plan on turning this into 46243 'City of Lancaster' so that it can retain its bath tub casing. The plan is that it will be working a larger service passing through to either Leeds or Manchester while on route to London or Scotland.

As part of this conversion I will need to hack some of the casing from the tender. I have seen that comet sell a kit for the cut down version of the tender, so I am willing try and cut Hornby tender down myself and if it goes badly wrong I can look at replacing it with a comet kit.

In terms of details, I have seen pictures showing it still carried LMS lettering on the tender, but I have not seen any pictures of the cabside number, so to me that implies that it did not carry one at this point in time. Does anyone know if this is correct or did it carry a number but it was just to grubby to make out?

The clearest reference pics I could find were of a Hornby model rather than the real thing, so I don't want to take these as  gospel

The easy projects are:

• The compound will become 40910, working from 20A (Leeds Holbeck) and will have the crest swapped for 'BRITISH RAILWAYS'
• The 4F will become 44337 working from 20D (Normanton) and have the crest swapped for an early crest
• The LYR tanks will become 50647 and 50650, both working form (25A (Wakefield), they will retain their respective crest and 'BRITISH RAILWAYS' branding

The Jubilee will be a slightly more in depth project, as opposed to changing the decals on the locos above.

One of the reasons why I chose this period (1948 - 1951) was the mix of stock, styles and branding (engines carrying a mix of BR and Big Four branding for instance).

As a part of this, i would like to try and produce one of the experimental liveries used by BR, so for the Jubilee I would like to try and paint it in Apple Green with the appropriate lining and branding.

I have found some  of these locos were based in shed 20A (Leeds Holbeck), so I plan on turning the Jube into 45565 'Victoria'.

While looking for reference photos I have been able to find photos of (very!) old models of 45565 in this livery, so I feel relatively confident, but if anyone has any good reference pics or information and are will to share these then please feel free!