ISW

Have you tried a fibreglass pencil to remove the 'ballast dust' from the sleepers. They are quite 'aggressive', and mind the bits of fibreglass that fly off! Keep a vacuum handy ... Ian

There is a little more 'detail' in the second photo, if you do some 'image manipulation': Ian

Absolutely great stuff. You really are capturing the scenes from Exeter brilliantly. This is just so recognisably Exeter St. Davids looking north. Extremely well done to get it looking so good. I just miss that old centre-track through the station ... Ian

Rob, Crickey, those Hornby bogie spares are getting a tad expensive, far outside my 'acceptable' price range. Time was (not so long ago) you could buy the entire coach for much less! Just as an alternative, have you considered Replica Railways commonwealth bogies: Yes, you do need to provide the wheelsets, but these can come off the bogies you're replacing. I've fitted several to old (~1980s) Lima Mk1 stock (I had to buy some Hornby wheelsets), although they do look better if you raise the coach floor by a couple of millimetres. Ian

Tim, I've wired something like 20 baseboards on my 2-level model railway, always using the same methods / techniques / ideas. Here's some of my 'rules': Use the same colour wire for each 'purpose' with one colour always to the 'back' of the baseboard. I used: DCC Power: Black & Red. Back to black (very common rule ...) Servos: Brown, Red, & Orange. Back to brown Network: Blue, Green, & Yellow. Back to blue Frog Power: Green Use 'modules' where you can, that can be built off-board. I made little veroboards for all cable connections (as below) and had practically no soldered connections under the baseboards: I started out by actually 'drawing' the wiring before I built it (as below). This really helped 'get into the swing of things' on the first few baseboards. After that, I could work it out 'on' the baseboard as I went: Keep things neat and tidy, and be logical in your wiring layout. This'll help immensely later on during troubleshooting or future maintenance. Here is the underside of one of my baseboards: Label everything. This can be tedious, but really essential later on: In the photo above, you can also see my chosen method of attaching wires to the baseboard. I used cheap plastic cable clips (of various sizes), but removed all the nails and replaced them with little screws. It's much 'gentler' on the baseboard using a screwdriver than a hammer! And they can be easily relocated if necessary. Finally, I'd say that it's best to plan, plan, and plan some more. You can solve many / most of the problems on the computer (or paper) before you even get to a baseboard. Here's my 'drawing' for the Power Districts of my Upper Level, showing all the Areas and where the wiring needed to go. As a result, the actual wiring was fairly simple; just follow the drawing ... Hope some of this helps. If you want links to any of the products I used, let me know. Ian

I'd have expected the latter 'parcels rake' (M80905) to get B2 bogies, and the former 'passenger sets' (W80723) to have B4s. However, you have it the other way around ... Unfortunately, the bogies are correct for the running numbers (according to the RCTS Coaching Stock Book on 1981), so you can't just swap them. Ian

Paul, As a guess, I'm saying the emblem off the side of 86214 or 86235: 86214: 86235: Ian

Now that's 'simplification' ... Ian

Ian, You might be 'overthinking' this one? Although I do appreciate that you want to make it as automatic and foolproof as possible. In my 'simplistic' world, it was just a case of correctly 'representing' the track arrangement on the mimic panel. Here is one of my 3-way turnouts, also confabulated (?) with one of the adjacent turnouts to form a crossover: What I did was to simply show the 3-way on the mimic panel as a pair of turnouts in 'series' (the bit you want is blue in the lower-right): To ensure the route(s) through the 3-way turnout are correctly 'configured' I therefore simply have to check that the two push-buttons (the turnout and the crossover) are correctly set. The only important part is to design the mimic with the 2 turnouts, representing the 3-way, in the right order! In both of mine (Peco Code-100 SL-E99) the RH comes 'before' the LH. Hope this helps. Ian

Nothing to worry about on that front. We've all done both of those things .... Neat website, and a useful tool for those who don't have the necessary 'photo manipulation' software on their computer. Myself, I have 2 programs that do 'perspective correction' The first is my usual drawing software 'Xara Designer Pro X10', but I also have 'ACDSee Photo Studio' that can do the same thing. The former has an 'automatic' setting that does it all for you, while the latter is 'manual', just like the Lunapic online one (well, my 2023 version is manual. Maybe the 2024 is cleverererer). My only issue with both (and also the online one you found) is that you can't be certain that you have the 'aspect ratio' exactly correct. It's too easy to 'stretch' the photo in one direction or the other. Therefore, I don't use it for scaling off dimensions, just for getting something to 'look' right. As an example, here is one of my photos of Ripon cathedral: After Xara Designer Pro X10 has 'corrected' the perspective it looks like this: Yes, it 'looks' much better, but I wouldn't be scaling off it. Just maybe @Harlequin can enlighten us on how accurate the 'correction' actually is (without disclosing any trade secrets ...) Ian

I have to agree that the photos are an essential part of the postings on RMWeb. Railway modelling is essentially an 'art' and therefore it's next to impossible to describe things without the odd photo are two. They also help to breakup the continuous text, and provide useful 'bookmarks' when navigating by scrolling through the pages. Thankfully, I was taking quite a few photos during the construction of the layout (and continue to do so) for my own records, and I simply select from those to post on RMWeb. It therefore wasn't too difficult to locate the photos missing from postings. I just had to resize them again (I downsize them to ~1080 pixels wide/high) and re-upload them. The ones that were hard to relocate were those that weren't a 'photo', but were 'screengrabs' from the modelling software I used. Some of those I had to re-create. At least the result is that the 'story' is complete again for others, like yourself, to read through. Ian

Which looked like my photo (below) back in 1982. A quick check on Google Streetmap shows just how much has changed! View from the footbridge at Sellafield station, looking south: Ian

Am pleased to hear that you are enjoying reading my musings. I've found that it helps a lot to write these postings to both record my progress and motivate me to keep going. I've an awful long way to go with the scenery, but I think it's important that I get the buildings done first. I spent my career on large railway projects, so 'planning' has always been at the heart of everything. I also detest having to do anything 'twice', so a good plan is essential to avoid such eventualities. The 'staircase' I started earlier this month hasn't progressed much (aka, not at all!), but I should be able to get back to it in the New Year. Ian

I can offer you the following photo, taken in 1979 from an excursion train from Liverpool. The photo is looking towards rear of train (loco at both ends as no turning facilities at the destination, Meeth) in direction of Torrington. Not sure if this helps? Ian

That was the original plan for my layout, until I discovered just how much space they take up! And I have a room roughly 5m x 4m. I decided that 'ramps' were a better (space saving) option, and I managed to install them with gradients of ~1in45. This 'might' help you to visualise the arrangement of the Upper Level: The ramps disappear / appear on the Upper Level at Connection 1 & Connection 2a. The 'trick' is that the Upper Level is not 'level', but falls ~100mm in a full circuit, allowing the tracks to pass underneath themselves (at Connection 1). I'm not the first to have done this, as I copied the idea off the Crewisle layout. Ian

I'd have thought you'd go for the Sellafield to Drigg section, where BNFL had/has sidings at both connected to the mainline. I know these quite well, having worked on their design and installation back in 1982. The trains were a lot more 'interesting' back then as well (in my opinion ..) as evidenced by this photo of Drigg station in August 1982: BNFL had trains that shuttled between the 2 sites, taking low radiation waste to Drigg for dumping using skips (the ones for lorries) that could be transferred to/from rail wagons. Ian

A really useful site indeed. I found it back in 2015 and it was that site that got me started in cardboard model building. I started off with this one from the website: I then moved onto: And finally this one, although I took the opportunity to 'recess' the windows myself: After that, I moved onto 'designing' my own buildings with Xara Designer Pro X (software) and built them out of paper and cardboard. After a few years of 'practice' I'm building my own buildings for my layout. Here's the station Overbridge building: Ian

According to the Combined Volume 1983, 08818 was vacuum only (but had radio telephone fitted). By Combined Volume 1988, 08818 was dual braked. Ian

That's a 5-car Voyager. If you want to increase the 'length' of the run (to have a tunnel), then you'll have to use the third axis 'up/down' and have 2 Levels (Upper & Lower). It's what I did for my layout, following the 'formula' laid down by the Crewisle layout. It takes a train about 3-minutes to complete a circuit of the layout. If this is of interest, I can provide drawings/plans to explain. Ian

I thought you would. Happened to me too. To me, the overriding 'feature' of Darlington station is that the 'fasts' pass down the side of the station, outside of the overall roof. I would want to retain that in a layout. So, if you put the 'fasts' behind the station, you can effectively 'hide' the tight curves required to get around the corner of the layout behind the station structure. Just a thought ... Ian

Here's an option for you, 3mm closed-cell foam. I bought mine from Homebase. It costs ~£40 for the 10m2. I think it's sound-deadening properties are better than cork. Ian

If it helps, think about the 'racing line' that race cars take through a corner. They start out to the left (of a RH bend), swoop into the apex on the right, and end up on the LH side of the track again. This increases the radius of the curve through the bend. They do not drive "... roughly run down the centre ..." as you put it. Ian

By which they mean sweeping curves of long length and very large radii (almost, but not quite, straight). Not easy to do, but look great. Ian

I think your best bet, at this early stage, is to get some track layout software (eg: AnyRail) and draw out some of your proposed turnout fans / junctions. You'll soon realise (like I did!) that these take up huge lengths of baseboard and that 'scaling back' becomes the order-of-the-day. For my OO layout I wanted to model Burton-on-Trent to Branston, including the Leicester Line Junction, the MPD and Branston Sidings. Boy, was I in for a shock when I drew out just the station (4-tracks with Island platform) and the turnout fan at the south end; over 3m long! And I had much 'compressed' the station length as well. I have a bedroom space of ~5m x 4m and this (below) is what I ended up with (note: this is just the Upper Level, the tracks are in a folded-eight configuration continuing on a Lower Level as a tail-chaser). I managed to get the station (RH side), a 'reduced 'Leicester Line Junction (LH Side) and a much reduced MPD (Top). The Green bits are an 'interpretation' of some Brewery Tracks (Bottom). I originally drew the track layout in the 3DPlanIt software (a very old version): Hope this helps. Ian

I don't seem to have any photos, but the scan extract below indicates that 1100-1102 were different to 1103-1105, both internally and externally. Ian