Northroader

Thanks, actually I was just looking at it and thinking I should have gone over it again. Normally I do it in pencil, then go over with white paint on a draughtsman's pen, then touch up round the edges with background colour, giving straight corners to blobby areas, maybe getting the levels right against a straight edge, then more white, then perhaps more background, so that it gets trued up by degrees. It never happens first go, and I should have done one more pass with the brown with this one, now I think.

One thing about changing the layout spec. to slightly increase train length is that some more wagons are needed. Here's one the shops have just completed, using a kit from Furness Wagons. It has a one piece resin casting for the body and underframe, white metal axleguard/ box/ spring units and buffer housings, steel buffers, and brass etching details. It's a LSWR lowside with fixed sides and ends. They classed this as a 'stone' wagon, and used it for traffic from the quarries on Portland and in Cornwall. I thought a suitable load would be paving slabs, which I made from plastikard, but hollowed out to take steel strips in the middle, to give plenty of weight. (I think a heavy wagon will think twice about derailing, where a light wagon will just go "yippee") Photos show they were normally very dusty from the quarries, so I scuzzied it up with pastel chalk dust, though I don't try to "fix" this with any sprays. Looking at the picture, it looks very grey, but it is umber brown, honest. Edit: to keep things neat and tidy there’s a more recent discussion on the way this wagon has been loaded further on in this thread here:http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107190-washbourne/page-29&do=findComment&comment=3258569

Thanks for taking the trouble to show that job. It all makes good sense. Now I know what bits and makes to look out for, and try that on my heap of junk when I can find time. The thing about Alco switchers that turns me on is the Blunt trucks. The steel company of Wales had them at Margam, and I thought they looked great, like nothing else around. Like you say, Jordan, those Lionel wheels, nooooo!!!

It needs to be bigger for that:

The trouble with Facebook is you can't put a lot of detail on it. Looking at your video, I'd like to see a bit more on how much of the trucks, drive train, wheels were done. I picked up a Lionel nw1 conversion very cheap at a show a long time ago, and it was very badly done. I'm looking out for ideas on how to do it properly. Merci, mon brave.

Good plan for some excellent track, and I was enjoying your S2 rebuild on the Facebook. Any chance of more detail what went in below the deck on that one?

There's a lot of people want to go through to Oxford. They can't turf them out at Didcot from an emu to a dmu, surely?

Something funny to share with you, as somehow we've got to muck spreading, sorry, James. I was out walking along a field where a farmer was using a mechanised muck spreader, a hopper thingy towed behind a tractor, with a rotating thrower underneath which was flinging it out in a flat arc at about five feet high behind the trailer. His sheepdog, black and white collie, was trotting behind, and, to keep himself amused, whenever an extra large piece came sailing out, Fido was leaping up in a graceful arc, and catching it in his mouth. It was fascinating to watch.

It was the dieting so as to get through the loft hatch I was thinking of. Still, now you're up there.

About the time of your modelling era for the WNR, Heligoland was ours, not theirs. (We pinched it off the Danes sometime earlier, but gave it away to kaiser bill a few years before WW1. Talking of affairs German, could the WNR use some latrine wagons, rather than manure wagons? Used to ferry contents of sewer outlets from the cities to some convenient discharge point well away. Whoops, splash!

That train does look really nice, love it.

In America, Boxpok drivers were often used when doing an upgrade in the thirties, particularly on 462 and 482 types. You can call them "center disk" if you want. Here's a PRR K4 with a normal spoked leading set, boxpok centres, and a webbed spoke trailing set.

Your mind must have been fertile even whilst you were laid up with the lurgy.

Having the shim in shows that I didn't get it near enough to the gauge standards while I was building it. I have a roller gauge which wouldn't go in the confines of this job, and a GOG "commemorative" gauge, the flat one, which does, which I use a lot, although obviously not well enough here. I didn't want to get the checkrail up, partly because soldering and unsoldering on and off copper clad sleepers isn't good for the cladding (I'm sure you know that, already, John) and partly because the gap has got a flat infill of fibre glass strip, to support wheel flange tips, araldited in. This morning I got an 0-6-0T propelling a rake of wagons up and down through it quite happily, also tried a 2-4-0T and an 0-4-2 tender which you haven't met also run through OK. The problem with the Brighton tanks is they started off a couple of years ago running on a 14" radius "pizza" layout (yes, in O) and had huge amounts of swing on the ponies. I fancy if I take this freedom off them they'll perform just so. I like Don's dads phrase, but I'm been fighting the huge temptation to start aiming "Mockney" at Mikkel, he's such a diamond geezer.

It might be misleading to write off finescale flangeway clearances on the strength of my poor workmanship. TBH, the inner crossing checkrails really should be taken up, reprofiled, regauged, and replaced, but I CBA. The shim has done the trick, but it highlights what is lacking in the construction. As the wagons will propel through OK, I'm turning my attention to the pony trucks, as other locos perform well.

While I'm banging on about Colonel Stephens lines, I'd like to offer another example of a layout which struck me as a really inspirational job. In this case it's an O gauge line by Mr. Ivan Maxted called "Darenth", which I saw at a show in Southampton in 1993. It's based on the idea that a projected lIne along the Darent valley between Dartford and Sevenoaks in North Kent had actually been built as a Colonel Stephens line, and had been nationalised by BR just like the KESR, giving quite a good selection of SR steamers to choose from, as well as a small BR diesel. Very neat, compact, good finish, buildings typical examples of the Stephens lines. There were accounts published in MRJ #55, 1991, and GOG "Small layouts". I've drawn it as I saw it at the show. There was also an extension which could be added at the RH end with 3way point and engine and carriage shed. One thing I particularly liked was the way the line ended on a level crossing, which gave a really neat look, I thought. From the sublime to the gorblimey, on my own line I've put the double slip back into position, and trying it out. The wagons like it, but the small Brighton tanks are Prima Donna-ish, the pony trucks being troublesome, so I'm looking at restricting the side swing, springing (at present they're just deadweight) and pickups while I'm at it. If you look closely you'll see that there's now a shim along the one side of the check rail of the centre crossing at the top, which seems to have done the trick. Just in case anyone should be thinking of placing a double slip centrally, the geometry is worth mentioning. I've built this one with 15degree crossing, and it still has 72" curvature. The Peco point is similar curvature, but made for 8degree crossing. It's roughly the same length as mine, but by the time the lines have diverged to a clearance you can add quite a bit on the length. This is particularly critical at the right side where the lines pass in front and behind the scenic back.

I've only just managed a trip into town for some thin ply for the feed mill, so in the meantime I've been working on the fiddle yard end. A while back I said the handles needed checking for clearances, so I've done that, and also got some short cassettes made. Here's what the yard looks like now: There are now four 48" cassettes, and two 21" matching the three at the other end of the layout. I find they're useful for parking the odd loco or coach on. You'll see the CNR fleet are all in port, three diesels now, one steamer, (the mogul, needing to be finished) one combine coach (likewise), one hopper, one gondola, one reefer, four boxes, two cabeese. So there's still plenty to keep me occupied.

Sorry to hear of your tribulations, hope you don't mind me taking comfort from the thought it ain't just me.

They should last much longer, too.

The Terrier has become a "cliche" because the LBSC were offloading them as they upgraded suburban lines and services in the 90s just as every Tom Dick and Colonel was building light railways, and buying cheap second hand, rather than new Manning Wardles. It didn't happen with, say, the GER "Buckjumpers" as you'd expect. The survivors came to be representing part of a much loved scene for nostalgia for railfans. From a modellers point of view, you've got a simple, good looking small engine available RTR in OO and now O. So you could put a lot of attractive prototypes on the WNR, but all for more work than something off the shelf. I'm scratch building pretty well everything, and I'm coming to realise that my modelling time is far more valuable than money outlay, maybe because of my sell by date. So, I'm all for Terriers in general and one on the West Norfolk. Are we confused? Nah, we seem to have settled on the British Isles, 1880 -1930s, secondary/branch/city lines, maybe something run by the big boys, maybe an independant, that's pretty straightforward, surely? Kevin and James, in particular, have settled in comfortably, and livening up the thread, so no apologies needed at all. Keep on jumping! (Threads, of course) As our learned and snuffily counsel (get well, soon, bye the bye) says, "Back to Washbourne". In the Christmas week the wiring crew were busy putting feeds back to a switchboard, so I could power up and get something running and test it all. The fun has been the double slip, which is at the centre of all the operating moves. I want to propel wagon sets through this, and with a lot of tweaking I'm doing this, but it's still not 100% certain in the area of the obtuse crossings in the middle. At present I've lifted the point out and it's on what I jokingly call the workbench. I'm looking at clearances and alignments here. I'm also aware that I've got a deadline to meet on my other Englefield line, so Washbourne ain't getting the priority it should have. (Then theres threads 3 and 4 straining at the leash)

Yes, the Colonel Stephens lines did start out looking quite well turned out, the colonel was a military man after all. It amuses me that the Selsey line was built with no basis as a legal Railway at all, how would we get on without solicitors? Very dangerous idea there! They were very simply and cheaply built, but once finished they had to survive on minimal funding. After WW1, labour costs and road competition became insurmountable, as the report shows. I liked it as a sort of "be a Railway manager for a day" excercise. What could you do? You'll be doing the KESR with a nice blue Dapol Terrier, I hope?

Glad you liked the cartoon. Have you ever met anyone from England who could actually speak Danish?