Northroader

Where’s me calculator gone in the move.? 3/16” x 6’ is, er, an inch and an eighth, which is, durh, about 28mm, so that means you got proper size figures for S scale? Although that’s supposed to be 1:64 scale, and this ere war games is 1:55? and then you go round a model show, and if there’s an S scale job there, it hits you that it’s just perfection, think, ooh, er,.. http://www.s-scale.org.uk/gallery.htm so really, you’re on a winner, me old mate.

The bars are pinned, not fixed, at each end. This allows the two curved rubbing faces to maintain contact on a curve. If you had a central drawbar, I think you’d need to allow a gap when the wagons are in a straight line, or the faces would jam on a curve.

Yes, just a small amount of heat applied to the staple is all that’s needed, you’ll soon get the hang of it. You can just keep your head back from over it, so you’re not breathing any wisp of fumes, but the amount that’s produced is very low, you have a hard job to spifflicate yourself.

Glad to see some creative jobs starting to appear again in your life, good luck with the way it’s going.

With grab irons on plastic car sides, why don’t you make them from brass rod shaped into a staple, position them on the side with a coffee stirrer underneath at right angles, then apply a hot soldering iron. They just sink down into the side, and the stirrer stops them before they go too far. There may be just a little bubble of melted plastic round the base of each one to trim off, but I find it’s quite a good way to do it.

I was looking at some early tracklaying just now: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=297524898087001

Time for a bit of modelling at last. To plan the new line, I need to work the tracks into a space around a station building, which I don’t have. So to cut a few corners, I’ve got a kit from Pop Up Designs. They’re a Scottish firm, and offer a good range of small stations for all the popular Scottish companies, even the Caley. They’re also made in all the major scales, which has to be a good thing. The kit comes as a flat pack in laser cut ply, and which you can just ease the parts out, and glue them together. I chose Longmorn, quite a straightforward building, the prototype being wood tongue and groove boarding, and a slate roof. You can see the saving in modelling time when you examine how the laser has chased out all the fretwork in the upper windows, cutting it out by hand as neatly would be a major job. I'm modifying things as I progress, first off the planking is only lightly marked out by the laser, when I paint the building, this will all disappear, so I have scored along the lines with a craft knife. The kit was designed in 4mm scale originally, I gather, then scaled up or down as needs be. The makers are apologetic in that the ply thickness used didn’t raise in proportion for an 0 scale building, but I think it’s quite adequate for layout use, if it went to Tiny Teds Playgroup, it would get the sh*t kicked out of it, no doubt. The discrepancy in thicknesses shows with the fit of the locating slots, these quite obtrusive, and need to be smoothed level,, and a lot require slips of 2mm ply packing to fill spaces. I’ve added reinforcing fillets inside the corners, and plan to add a thicker ply floor inside, partly for extra strength, partly to fit locating dowels in the base. You'll see in this picture another job in progress, the ends and some strengthening ribs hook over the sides, which leaves very prominent ribs sticking out of what should be a flush side. Now the glue has hardened, I’m working along the side trimming these off, and also the floor projection, starting at the nearest end, and about halfway along now. Then glue some 2mm ply strip capping over the sawn portions, which should look more like the prototype. There’s toilet outhouses at each end in need of filling and smoothing. Still, I’m quite pleased with how it’s going.

Credit to Trevithick with coming up with a transition from the use of steam and atmospheric pressure for water pumping at mines, to demonstrating a neat, compact arrangement for using steam in other ways. Real genius.

Looks like Jack the Ripper territory. Annie, dear soul, going back to your search for GER signal box colours, it crossed my mind that I used to have a book about it, which I flogged off when slimming down for my house move. Since searching for a related matter as I pick up my threads, and I find the author has put it all on a most useful website. https://www.stationcolours.info/london-north-eastern-railway/ click on it and wait, the illustrations take a while to come through, unless you got one of those super megabit thingys, oh, yes, of course, you would….

Well, the move to Cheltenham has gone OK, and I’m reunited with the models I sent on in advance. One job which needed doing was trying to replace some of the pictures lost in the Great Picture Crash, as a lot of the goings on lose any meaning without backup illustrations (if it all had any meaning to start with, you’ll say) I’ve concentrated on the more recent stuff, where the plague of the shortys struck the thread, as a lot of the previous items are no longer with me. As a result the Grand Easter Parade (p.16) is back, and various train makeups for different roads, which should prove most useful for future operations. These will centre on the board I showed a few posts back, some time ago I was looking at a one board fits all policy, and this is now become essential in the space available. So a single track layout for 0 gauge items, with buildings and scenery able to swap round, running American, British, and Continental items as required.

On a technicality, are the tides in the Med. likely to be that critical to fishing boat movements?

Being a former native of the area, I took great pride that the first railway locomotive in the world was done at Coalbrookdale. I used to own a very scholarly book “A history of railway locomotives down to the end of the year 1831”, by C.F. Dendy Marshall. This was the sort of work where there’s more footnotes than text, and quite limited illustrations. He brings out that information on this engine is very shadowy, and early on in its life the boiler failed, leading to casualties and a magistrates court case, which killed the project off. I’ve never come across more detail than this. There used to be a “replica” outside Telford Central station, which was given to a local school some time ago. Would this be the same job which is now at Blists Hill, or are there two? It would seem the creation was done by backtracking from what is known about the better known Pen-y-Darren loco. Just down the river there was Raistricks Hazeldine Foundry, at Bridgnorth, which Trevithick used for castings on further locomotive work.

Well, regular visitors to this thread will have noticed that I have been kicking the can down the road since March. We’ve visited interesting places, and set up links to useful websites, but there hasn’t been much actual modelling output carried out. The good news is I’ve now moved to a smaller house, and am setting up a bit of a workbench and a shelf for a layout. Hopefully I can continue touring the Continent, and do a bit more modelling as well.

Well, I’ve just been reunited with all my modelling junk, so here’s a couple of pictures of my adaptation of the Japanese “Kawaii” model railways, to take a slightly larger scale: There’s an 18” /455mm square outer frame, made out of around inch and a half by three quarters wood (roughly 38 x 20mm), with a corner diagonal brace to keep it square, and a support across the middle. It’s a sort of composite construction, not having a piece of ply I used a piece of 5mm foamboard for a top, glued down to the frame with pva adhesive. I wanted a “water feature” so there’s a square of 2mm ply let into one corner, and the edge of the foamboard is chamfered into it. I then made a circle of track, which is around 14.5” /370mm diameter, using some ancient TT rail about code 80, and soldering this down to some 6mm copper clad sleeper strip from Marcways. The sleeper length is about 33mm, and I used a couple of brass 16.5mm gauge blocks I’d made. The track was used to mark out a track bed on some sticky back cork tiles, which were laid and a shoulder on each side trimmed off. The track was then laid on the bed with impact adhesive. Nice and simple wiring, and a successful test run. This makes the foundation for a lot of scenic work, trying to keep up with the Japanese examples.

Actually, Jim, I can’t praise the removal guys enough, there were just two of them, and they worked their b-lls off. 8:30 am, I’m lying on my back on the bedroom floor, covered in sweat, just detaching a bed head we’d just used for the last night, and succeeding in pulling one of the uprights screws off, and in they come, like the proverbial white tornado. It’s roughly 45 miles trip, and they were done before 3:00pm, and I found one of them had fixed the bed head. I thought quite a reasonable quote, too. But no, we’re still looking for things carefully hidden away.

well, it’s finally happened, we’ve managed to move to Cheltenham, downsizing to a smaller place near my daughters, and without the help of the family it would never have happened, moving is always going to be very fraught, and in old age I’ve found especially so. Actually, we moved a week ago, and I’ve only got my internet today, thanks to technical problems. There’s still boxes everywhere, so getting back to modelling will be a slow old job, but I’m starting to identify possibilities… You’ll be glad to hear that Hilda is getting used to the idea of being a Cheese Roller, instead of a Moon Raker.

I would fancy the western end of the old GWR rather than the eastern end. It’s just that there are more hills, generally well wooded, so the scenery would be better, and all the buildings would be in Bath/ limestone. Places like Box, Chalford, or Bradford, small towns with a Regency upgrade. Having a dock might take up too much space, but there’s a canal in two of the places mentioned. A small yard with wagon turntables, there’s really enough vehicles in your fleet to overstock this already. Points to a minimum, if at all, they take up far too much space.

There we are then, a very useful discussion proving the Midland did have interesting branch lines to form inspiration for a small layout. Quod Erat Demo Demuns Dymn — wot we said.

Agreed, Kirkby Malham is a lovely piece of modelling, but for a simple peasant moving to a small hovel, I’m considering a microlayout where a splash of crimson may appear. The Midland can be a coat hung on a peg where rule 1 applies, lack of branch lines notwithstanding.

No, not that. Something small and neat, with passenger trains. This sort of thing: https://www.staffordrailwaycircle.org.uk/exhibbition-2023/kettlewell/

It’s a somewhat careworn Dean goods, in GWR service, photo taken in 1948, so probably a prewar paint job hidden under the neglect of WW2.

Mention of Edale, and thoughts of happy days walking from there, but best done in dry weather, so best wishes for your sons ventures. It would make a lovely setting for a BLT, rather than a double track main line?

I would have said a slightly neglected 517. or this would be useful:

Aw, shucks, Jordan, I’m touched. And deeply honoured of course. Hope you’re going somewhere nice, that isn’t burnt down, covered in mud, or on strike. Look out for some RMT body shells, Jason’s right out. Have a good one!