Merlin242

That was the location at Long Drive in Shady lane. The railway was closed there and lifted around 1997. The stations which were in the garage were saved and moved to an indoor layout at Galgate. George died in 2011 and the railway moved again. I don't now if the railway still survives but the rolling stock does although widely spread amongst family, friends and Gainsborough. I have around 20 wagons and a few locos which I built . George built at least one of every class of great Central Locomotive and a great many others. I did a couple of the GC tenders as well as he was very bored with doing them.

I am delighted that I have manged to get hold of the LMSR rating plan for Windermere station via ebay even if it cost a bit more than I would have liked. Typically its arrived just as I have finished the goods shed and shows that I guessed wrong about some of the inside layout. Its to a 40 feet to one inch scale and will make the rest of the station much easier to model. interestingly it shows an engine release crossover in platform 3. This supposedly went in the 1920's and from then onwards all shunting was by gravity.

The Lancaster past and present Facebook page has had some interesting phots recently . Are they of any interest. I had not seen this one before of greyhound bridge being built. Soory if it all old hat. There are others. Mike

Some more recent video

I have now fitted the loksound 5 chip and speaker supplied by Howes of Oxford and sadly its a great disappointment. The loco still runs well and is probably a bit easier to control at very slow speed. But the sound is hopeless. Its so quiet that you have to be next to the loco to hear it chuff and the whistles are feeble in the extreme. I fitted the loksound 5 chip and speaker and discarded the Heljan installed speaker. Its a bit nerve racking installing it as the loco has to be separated into 3 parts then the boiler removed and I am not looking forward to having to do it again. I have a number of sound locos with Loksound 3.5, 4 Zimo and TTS chips all of which are fine but this is a total waste of almost £120.

Its dcc. with a standard Laisdcc decoder at the moment. However I have ordered a sound chip which is on its way.

Mine arrived and is now running on my layout Windermere and Hincaster Junction. There is some video here of it playing with a 33 wagon coal train. https://www.facebook.com/Windermere.Hincaster.Junction.a.00.Model.Railway/ I am delighted with it. its very quiet and smooth running and looks really good. It does not fit in with my West coast mainline layout historically but I am very tempted to add another. It seems really good value for money.

I am slowly working through the loco stud renumbering and adding details. This is the (in)famous 2-8-2 9F which ran very briefly with the last set of rods off from Carnforth before withdrawal around June 1968. I am very tempted to do the same but it will have to be a lot lot dirtier

A bit of video of trains running.

A contrast in front ends. I think photos are very good at showing the areas eyes seem to miss which need attention.

Yes. I do plan to try one in a Bachmann Fairburn tank. My Bachmann locos do consistently seem to take less power than the Hornby ones. Mike

I have been trying to fit the recent Black 5 TTS decoder into some older Hornby Black 5 locos. These are dcc ready locos with the dcc socket fitted in the loco. However I have accounted a repeated problem. The first one worked ok for a while which encouraged me to buy some more. I have now tried 3 seperate decoders in 3 different dcc ready models. All have been DCC fitted before with either hattons or Laisdcc decoders and ran well. What happens is the sound works ok. But when you tell the loco to start it hisses and starts to move then the sound shuts down and it stops. It then tries to restart with the hiss and then stops. Or it will not start at all. I am pretty sure the decoder cannot supply enough power to the loco and its protection circuit is shutting down. Swapping the decoder for a none sound one and they work fine again. I stripped one of the locos down and found there was some resistance in the back axle which was sorted with some oil. It worked ok for a bit but now works no longer. So my conclusion is the decoders are probably okay for brand new Black 5 models but not suitable for the older types with the dcc socket in the loco. Its very disappointing and has wasted a lot of time. Has anyone else encountered this problem or better still solved it? It seem that the new Hornby TTS Black 5 decoders are not suitable for their older Black 5 models.

A slight diversion into the past and in 0 scale. The late lamented Fort Fahy & Invercliffe Railway was George Hinchcliffe's opus and I helped do some of the work. The full scale model of Glenfinnan viaduct resided at Hest Bank and still hopefully exists even though the tracks have gone. Casting it was a major operation. I found some photos which show a bit of the scale. Later it was extended from Invercliffe station shown in the photo with double track . With operation by block bells you never new what loco train might turn up even if you knew the type of train.

Steady progress working through more of the locos for Windermere. I must stop buying things off ebay though as soon as I finish one another arrives. But you can never have enough 2-6-4T's and Black 5's. I am gradually renumbering them to local sheds especially Carnforth, Tebay, Green Ayre and Oxenholme. I am impressed with the laisdcc decoders with the large stay alives. They fit easily into the Fowler 2-6-4T's and without too much trouble in to the Stanier variant.

Working my way through the loco stud adding details and changing bogie wheels for the Alan Gibson version. The Gibson wheels makes a big difference to the appearance and is well worth the effort. The comparison can be seen below> hopefully the new version from Hornby will have a much better effort.

I can imagine the comments but it was right. In those days there were release crossovers in the platforms to allow for running round. I suspect they were taken out after the gunpowder traffic was lost. Sending rakes of wagons by gravity into gunpowder wagons is not a great idea.

I have also included release crossovers near the buffers as I think they may be necessary for reliable operation. I have been experimenting with gravity trains . Do have a look at the railway facebook page . https://www.facebook.com/Windermere.Hincaster.Junction.a.00.Model.Railway/ I would like to get it to work with gravity even if only for some movements as it was such a unique feature which would never be allowed now and had the inevitable accidents. It needs quite a lot of further work to get gravity shunting to work consistently and even then I suspect will only work with set rakes. I can get the basic 4 coach set to stop in the right place but the wagons stop a bit short in the yard and it depends on which wagons. I have "brakes " on some coaches and wagons to slow them down. I have now made all the baseboard legs adjustable individually> this allows for quite precise adjustment . A set rake does seem to stop in the same place each time. the problem is different rakes stop in different places. This is where experiments with " brakes" come into play. The procedure for running round passenger trains is clear. The train ran into the station and the passengers got off. The train engine then reversed the train back out to the home signal> The engine was detached and ran forward onto the turntable. The coaches were then run by gravity into whichever platform they were to depart from or into the lakeside yard for storage. I believe that the following happened with goods trains. The train stopped at the home signal outside the station just beyond the signal box. The engine detached and then ran forward to the turntable. The wagons were then gravitated into the lakeside yard. An engine then coupled up to the Kendal end and pulled out of the station yard onto the up line towards Kendal. It stopped and reversed into the goods yard. There are conflicting reports but general agreement that the goods trains stopped outside the station and were never gravitated into the platforms. Its pretty clear that for many years no wagons were unloaded in the lakeside yard. Some say they wagons were not run into the lakeside yard but that's the only place they could go. The track layout just does not allow an arriving train to run into the goods yard. The photographic evidence shows no pictures of wagons in the platforms. There are a few pictures of wagons in the Lakeside yard and plenty of pictures of engines shunting in the goods yard. It would be nice to see some clear photos or videos to answer the question once and for all. The sequence below shows how I think goods train were dealt with

I have added the Oxenholme Jinty 47503 from the Bachmann sound fitted LMS version. It runs nicely and is seen here shunting in the coal yard at Windermere.

I am having real difficulty discovering how goods trains were received in reality with some contradictory memories. Its sad but a reality check that nobody seems to be still alive who knows for sure. How on earth the practice of gravitating all trains escaped for so long given that as late as 1962 a rake of coaches went through the end wall and across the car park. Mike

This is a follow on to the Hincaster Junction thread. Windermere is the centrepiece of the layout and as it now well on the way I thought it better to start a new thread. The position is that all the tracks are in, all are wired up and all the points have motors fitted. All 3 major sites are functioning. Control is via a Railmaster system with all the locos dcc fitted with a wide variety of decoders. Some of these are sound fitted. I found the system a pain to set up but now I have got used to it. It suits me to use a mouse to control the layout with a reasonable size screen. So far no diesel has sullied the rails but one will arrive fairly soon. My main focus is to get the scenery at Windermere to a reasonable state. The goods yards are well underway and the turntable in and functioning. It makes a good spot to pose locos for photographs. I have found comparison photos with the real thing a good way to improve standards on the model. My main issue is to finally sort out the gravity shunting to run round. Windermere had no proper run round facilities after pre grouping days and used gravity shunting for all trains. There were the inevitable accidents the last in 1962. Its proving difficult to find out how the goods train were actually worked into the station. It seem the normal method was on arrival to stop at the home signal by the signal box. Uncouple the engine which then ran forward onto the turntable. The wagons were then gravitated into the yard. But I cant find out if it was in one rake or in groups with a shunter in attendance. If its in groups that makes replicating it much harder on the model. Apparently there was a lot of noise from clashing buffers!

I have finally found burried in another forum an acceptable solution to this bug in the Railmaster software. The key is not about setting up loco groups as such but to ensure that when the software is loaded a small loco group under 64 locos is loaded and not one over 64 locos. If you load up on starting with a small group loaded initially you can switch to the all loco group and all the locos will work. There are currently 76 in this group on my Windermere and Hincaster Junction system and all functioned as they should If you forget and shut down Railmaster with the all or other large group loaded then starting next time you have to load the software, switch to a small group then disconnect the elink. Reconnect it and wait for it to intialise. Then switch to the all group and all the locos should work. I daren't think how much time this has wasted for me. As an aside a DJM J94 which I was convinced was faulty is now working well for the first time

I believe that's to suggested work around. But in reality that does not help because you can only have one group open at one time. To move to another group means stopping all locos , programmes and shutting down any sounds. Only then can you access different locos in theory. In practice I could only get the ones in the top 64 to work

Can anyone help who has used the Hornby railmaster system with over 64 locos? It appears that whilst you can add as many locos as you like to the system you can only control the top 64 on the list. This is a problem I have discovered the hard way because I could not understand the problem I was having with controlling newly added locos. Whilst nobody can run so many at the same time on a large layout you can easily do that in sequence> I like to have locos on the layout and not to keep lifting them on and off. If anyone who has had this issue and ideally overcome it can let me know what they did I would be very grateful. Telling me I should have chosen a different system is not necessary as I am only too aware of the time I have wasted Mike

Thanks for the replies to my request for information which are both helpful. I had understood how the passenger trains were run round. The release crossovers were in place in pre grouping days but I have seen no photo after 1920 ish with them present. As you say they were both well up the platform. I have put them in but in the conventional position near the buffers whilst I experiment with gravitating trains. I have also deviated from reality with a larger turntable. I can always replace it later with a true scale one if I live long enough. The tracks are all in and about half of it ballasted now. I attach a couple of pictures to show progress although there are still a couple of details to add to 42613. I am gradually adding appropriate locos which were sheded at Oxenholme, Carnforth or Lancaster Green Ayre The most useful resource I have found as well as the books and the Cumbria Railway association is the Facebook group devoted to the railway https://www.facebook.com/groups/Windermere.Oxenholme.Railway/ I am currently doing some scenic work in the coal yard. This does not seem to be a typical yard with no differentiation between the large coal stocks. I know there were a number of merchants based there and would be interested to know how they made it work. Coal was the major goods traffic in the later days of steam. I am snot clear how the goods trains were gravitated into the yard. In one raft of wagons in seperate groups? One article I have read suggests the latter. But its hard to believe a train was left for quite a time on the main line whilst that went on. The whole process would never be allowed these days but that's part of the charm.

A few views around windermere station