BWsTrains

She "featured" in an establishment somewhere in the appropriately named "Combat Zone" in downtown Boston when I was a student there in the early 70s. Hence I needed no research! We used to go to an excellent ultra-cheapie Chinese restaurant which we still fondly remember. Main issue we faced was to cross The Zone to get there from our place, needless to say we didn't go after dark on any account! More info for anyone interested in this phase of her career can be found on the "Faceache" page "Old Dirty Boston" - disclaimer, no association, promise!

Upper Hembury stands a tad under 1100mm = waist height for me. I've just tested my footstool (200mm) and that gives me enough elevation to reach the very back corner (1250mm) directly over the station building. I'm sure I tested that during the build phase but it's comforting to confirm now there's the infrastructure in situ. Colin

Sorry Andy, I had the wrong page number (now corrected) but correct date. The photo is this one top of p62 And this one from October I spent so much time scrolling thru that my head must have been spinning 😵‍💫

At a tangent to the current topic flow, I'm interested in your and the followers' thoughts on the loading gauge at Helston. I went looking because with no prototype to guide my work I thought Helston might be an excellent model, with the various goods lines all converging near the main. It turns out the gauge was located on the single siding with a dedicated loading platform #; the main Goods lines do not fall under its perview. The photos are all here: CRS - Helston Branch I'm sure you're very familiar with them. Given a single catch all gauge was clearly not possible, it's interesting that: 1) It's operating on the line in question and not the two main goods lines 2) Why wasn't there simply a second one for outgoing traffic from the Goods Shed Perhaps Mike @The Stationmaster could provide some insights here? # In the photo of your post of Nov 30th (p62) it was located before the turnout at extreme right of pic. Colin

IMO that's a great choice to go with the British Finescale turnout kits. They totally transformed my outlook on layout design and raised the quality of the finished laid trackwork. There's a lot of useful guidance over on the topic devoted to these kits. For example extending one or more of the roads' lengths beyond the default length of the template. Very handy when two turnouts follow one after the other but a short length of track is needed between them. Another big feature is the ease of curving the default geometry as far as a "Y" one way or to double curved the other. You probably already know the reference, here: The first page of my layout topic has some details on assembly of the kits which might be of interest.

SR 182 - Adams O2 by EFE Bachmann The route from Sidmouth Junction to Upper Hembury passed across the lower sections of the River Tale around Lower Hembury (below the Fort) which are level and tending to boggy so only the lightest engines had permissions on this SR Route. So for my operations we will see the Adams O2 along with the occasional Terrier co-opted in. This present project has been rather long in the making; I bought the model early on in the life of UH once I'd decided on the Southern access route. It is a very "pretty" model in the DJM manner and consequently has many fine and fragile items all around. Similarly it has the excellent removable smoke-box door and DCC socket. If I were starting from scratch and wanted Sound + a modest Stay Alive I'd go for the latest generation ZIMO which are tiny and have SA support up to 1000uF on board. These will easily fit in the boiler space without any drama. As it happened my project was on an older Generation ZIMO (MX 648) with no onboard SA support. So, I had to follow the YouChoos guide to install, first removing the DCC socket and wiring direct. No need for photos, they're all in the install guide but given the fragile nature of the body-shell it's not for the fainthearted. The minor compensation was that I could add the firebox glow LED while the body was off. This is conveniently mounted on the cab rear panel projecting forward to its place (photo below). I later lowered the LED by shortening the leads to lessen the effect in the cab. A video shows it going thru its paces.

A lot depends on if you need it portable, to attend shows etc. For a fixed setting it's hard to go past the L-Girder method which provides lots of rigidity yet flexibility regarding managing different levels. "Mid-Cornwall lines -..." by @St Enodoc being one outstanding example. Colin

For what it's worth a few related comments which may be a help. TBH I've never found the need for a very large Stay Alive even with my most inefficient loco motor (Older Hornby style) operating in those days over long curved insulfrogs. I was charging up 2000uF of Cap to ensure smooth sailing over those frogs at low speed and the charging current draw never even brought on a twinkle from my fuse lamp which lights fully at ~0.65 Amp. I've always used the ZIMO control circuits in my sound setups and what you describe is strange. I hope John can sort it out for you. Putting an ammeter in the circuit might shed some light on what's going on. Or you can simply turn on the Power Cab on-board meter (Cab settings under PROG 6). I did this when I was getting transient shorts showing on my lamp/alarm. I videoed the display on the power cab to see when precisely the short was occurring. It was a wagon with its BTBs out of wack and bridging across the rails. good luck, Colin

That's my plan! I like the Shunt mode which I have activated on all my Youchoos (sound) DCC Projects. Lets you toggle into lower speed / momentum and back easily. My grandson was shunting away for ages using it, the extra control you get over the uncoupling zone makes for a big improvement. Speed is halved and momentum/inertia at 1/4 normal according to the specs. My only minor issue is that Youchoos new Projects have this allocated on F20 which is far from ideal for the NCE PowerCab. I relocate mine to the easy to find without looking "F12". The required F-Key # needs to be entered in both CV 155 and 156. PS I might be wrong but I think that's one thing you can't do easily under DC. Colin

It's happening everywhere, my auto insurance this year was an epic example, huge premium increase while imposing ever more more constraints each year. Went and found a better deal. Colin

I think the electrical gubbins spanning the motor terminals should be taken off for the test. AFAIK this is for RF suppression, no other useful purpose, test the motor standalone without further unknown variables. Again AFAIR, Hornby advise that these are sealed motors, no serviceable parts, I've had one in another large 4-6-0 GWR loco fail on me after little running time, others have perfectly fine and done substantial duty. There could be a dead short in the motor. I think 25-30 quid for the replacement based on when I looked. Colin

Agreed, for load bearing it's going to have to be metal. Mine gained its good rigidity from quantity of substance rather than the physical quality! Colin

Hi Andy, I had the same issue regarding Bridge Rail for the fencing of my cattle dock extension. There were 13 different profiles of this rail from the earliest Brunel on with a diverse range of profiles, BGS has a chart of them all here: http://www.broadgauge.org.uk/history/bg_track_sig.html A great photo of them as posts and rails can be seen in the Cattle Pens at Shirley - Glos Warwickshire Rwy. In the end I decided to bodge a suitable profile out of PS sheet. The logic was as follows: 1) probability favours a later track profile 2) these have a 6" sole plate (if that's the name) = 2mm at scale 3) The most typical were only 3" height, max 4" so 1-1.3mm at scale 4) This is so small, precision would be overkill - hence scratch build The fencing made can be seen here. As you'll see I even managed the groove up the middle. Colin

Thx John, most useful input for my purposes as well. Have just been delving thru my archives pulling together ideas for train composition on UH. Colin

Interesting that at ~70 quid in 2023 that's up from the 42 quid charged in 2017 for R3589 (GWR 4837). This latter was the "new improved" Railroad model where the COG had been moved back (less weight up front IIRC) and the axle spring taken out. Consequently and as covered in this OT, it ran like a dog. I suspect the "Plus" is a new Dog in old Clothing. (see earlier in this Topic https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/127966-new-Hornby-14xx/?do=findComment&comment=3243896) By way of comparison I picked up a full range model, the R2778, featured in my posts above, for the princely sum of 48 quid, pre-owned. A far better model all round once the appropriate remediation to wheels and pickups has been completed.

4869 Video After some useful time spent working out the subtleties of iMovie to advantage, I assembled this video of Upper Hembury with the arrival / runaround of 4869, to demonstrate the recent Youchoos sound install.

Always nice to nudge an old topic back for 15 minutes of sunshine, which I shall attempt to extend by including a short video of 4869 with sound. For those of you kind enough to guide my early steps through the design of Upper Hembury you will see some progess has been made. Many cardboard cutouts of future buildings and a lot more work in 2024 but recently a sense that it is coming together. Colin

Small Steps Returning to the platform, one small unfinished task was the end ramps. I’ve made the entire platform and station approaches in five parts: the main platform and forecourt, the bay loading area, the lower main approach road and two end ramps. This being so when access is required (if ever!) it can be disassembled in an orderly manner. The end ramps use my favoured technique of magnetic attachment as shown in this photo. Two small neodymium magnets on the end of the base and a thin angle strip of galv. steel on the ramp. A recent discovery is how useful builders’ “Liquid Nails” (TM Selleys) can be, even on the smallest project. It sticks like the proverbial, has instant hold but remains flexible for up to an hour to allow minor realignments. My trick for using this heavy-duty product on a very small scale is to add some turps to the top of the product in the tube, cap it off with a clean closed nozzle (a small screw will suffice if the nozzle end is open) and leave standing upright overnight. This softens the adhesive enough to allow application by toothpick in small amounts. You can gently (ever so) advance the adhesive with a caulking gun if it’s too far down to reach. The liquid nails was used on all joins in this build; fixing magnets to base, galv. to end timber and the edge pavers. The centre inserts are made from the now standard of 2.5mm EVA foam with gypsum topping.

Returning to my GWR Class 48xx, no 4869, the Youchoos sound install went perfectly. I used their smallest current Generation sound chip the MS 500. The gained space was amazing and early tests running with 950uF of Stay Alive most encouraging. The chip (3mm thick) sits easily over the motor. I'll do more slow speed operation now that I have "Shunt Mode" operational to make sure that's enough SA storage, if so further tidying up in the cab space should be possible.

Having spent a lot of time and invested patience trying to find a "decent" 48xx I finally settled on the 2008 Hornby release (R2778) which lacked many of the problems of its predecessors and following releases. It still needed attention in some key problem areas, viz. the traction tyres and wheel pickups. My efforts resolving these were reported here: I needed some substantial Stay Alive support on my former layout so that little room beyond a basic DCC (Zen Nano) was left anywhere at all. Even the Zen was a force to get between Motor and bodywork so that ended up in the bunker. It wasn't a pretty picture! Advance six years and both sound DCC and Stay Alive technology has advanced to the point I could now consider SOUND! My current layout is electrofrog and good flat track so the SA support was reduced. This shows 4869 with the smallest of the latest Generation ZIMO chips MS 500 and 950uF of Stay alive. The processor sits easily (only 3mm thick) over the motor, leaving plenty of room for a speaker in the rear. Not the final install as I've still firebox glow to set up. Just my first try to see how it ran. - Answer - delightfully.

That sounds like a great idea. I've some very old Polypropylene shade cloth which was not that great in its original role, too stiff, but very handy for this, No risk of shorting the speaker either. Useful reference to the DCC Sound Forum, didn't realise it existed!

The Bridge What was in a recent view a colour print from a stock photo has been turned into a model to fill the end of the layout area. It is a modest affair, just 5mm thick, the parapet width, made out of card and Scalescenes Coursed Rubble Printed Paper and suitable pieces from various curved lintels. The coping was made from the ever useful 1.5mm EVA sheet with the stones press marked in the usual manner. The rest is a little painting of the underside and waterway. It's not really meant to be noticed or closely examined but just create a logical conclusion to the run of the main street as it crosses the river leaving the town.

Not much I can add to what's been said above other than to note that the opportunity we three foreigners had to catch up over a meal and a most memorable evening in Vienna will always spring to mind when CR-III rises Phoenix-like some time hence. Best luck for your future, Colin and Heddy

Pushing ahead with the Back Scene I went back to Google Street View for more insights on the weather in late autumn, the colours, clouds, etc. One thing which became very clear was that the Western slopes of the Blackdown Hills get plenty of "weather". Barely a shot posted around all the local roads and lanes without the hills shrouded in mist or worse, medium to dark clouds and fields in a dull olive green. So to complete my setting I decided the mixed clouds over Hembury Fort (Trraverser end) would mark the rear end of a passing rain system, still visible over Upper Hembury itself (looking to the North East). My first efforts are shown here, with suitable cutout props to represent the future buildings and at @john dew 's suggestion, a hint of a bridge in the background.

BTW, my post was not intended as a plug for a newbie. I'm very satisfied with what I've achieved using a 16 year old pre-owned relic of former times. Mine you now that a new 57xx is in the wings, anything might be possible...... Never say never.