Dave John

Four candles.... ? Probably off topic, but how many folk said fork handles ?

Is it just me that looked at those empty shop shelves and thought that if all else fails you could buy the shelves and build a cracking height adjustable exhibition layout on them ?

Steam needs heat. That means burning something or using electricity to heat water. Hmm. I don't wish to sound pessimistic but the way things are going the environmentalists intend to criminalise anyone that burns a slice of toast. Enjoy the last few years of preserved steam, I suspect that no matter how efficient any "new" design is it will just get banned to fullfill political tickboxes.

Thanks all, I tried to take a picture in the dark to show the red/green change, but it just looks like a blurry dot in the dark. Given that the prototype had a lens which was adjusted to point at where the driver was looking at it I doubt that they were very bright.

Heh, but it is a little world that generates many ideas Jim, and some of us in the larger scales watch and borrow the good ones. So I would agree with just having one screw for a chassis and something like a slot with a bit of play at the other end. Indeed one of my locos has a screw at the boiler end and a press stud at the other, you can almost see the chassis twist with respect to the body. I keep looking round the flat and thinking about space for a bit of 2FS......

A pair of these control movements across the trailing crossover beyond the platforms. The Stevens pattern dropflap signals themselves are the 51L etch, I had them powered with a servo via a linkage. It was designed to cope with servo overthrow under transient conditions, but it didn’t. So for quite a while now they have been cosmetic. Time for a rebuild. The signals are mounted on a bit of double sided copperclad with some 6mm U section brass on the other side. The flap and conterwight are linked with 0.4 wire which passes through the base and two tube guides. An iron nail is soldered to a short length of tube which in turn is soldered to the wire. The light source is a bi coloured LED. Slightly tricky to flatten the top , drill two holes and glue the fibre optics in. These then pass up into the body of the signal and sit behind the lens. The servo saddle is soldered up from bits of angle and copperclad. The horns at the top are pb wire and hold the signal down to the ground when in place, the screw just tightens against the U channel. A magnet is fixed to the servo horns, which are a nylon type plastic that doesn’t take glue well so again a bit of copperclad, some wire soldered through and the magnet glued to that. If the servo does overthrow it doesn’t wreck the whole thing. A short video of them on test. Ok, that looks like a lot of hassle just to make a ground signal work. I could just sit the signal of a larger baseplate and have the servo fixed to it. Thing is I’m fussy about signals not sitting on large plinths. The Caley sat these on a baulk of wood about the size I have made the bit of copperclad, so visually it looks about right.

Well, 12 spoke wheels did happen. Here is an "obscure" Caledonian 944 class, with the correct 10 spoke wheels on the bogie and 12 spoke on the rear pony. Those are all Gibson wheels. One day I will get the numberplate etched.

Well, building timbers. Ok, I accept its the other end of the country, but look how Victorian and Edwardian buildings were put together. Down to my right is a Bressumer beam across the bay , 11" x 12 " , 16 feet long. Notched for joists , 11' x 3 " at 13 inch centres , the longest 25 foot long . Um, so in this tenement, 8 Bressumers, and 480 ish joists . All that timber needed to come from ports to the cities and towns that were being built during that period. I have a feeling that far more came in by rail than was ever photographed. Why ? Well, its a wagon full of wood. Again. So I think that is a highly realistic wagon load. There must have been thousands like it in the great expansion of cities but they have never been recorded. Just a bit of late night lateral thinking.

Superb modelmaking there.

Aye , but Blue is the new green. Mind you that is two shades of blue about which there is still much debate. If I waited for a definite colour they would be in works grey long after I'm gone. I do like Midland red though. I might still inflict bits of my forays into pre -grouping N on folk . Or bits of NE, some early BR, a try at LNER, or heaven forbid "Modern Image " .

Hmm. Looking at the two prototype pics of 10995. Door spring plates. Square and second plank on one side, round and mid planks on the other. So, new door ? Door from a different wagon ? Who knows, but worth noting perhaps.

True Mikkel, I think many were built from outline rather than detail drawings and a contractor would just construct them in much the same generic style as the rest of the local buildings. Interesting to note that when you do see the overall dimensions they scale out at a fair bit bigger than a lot of the commercially available small buildings.

I did, and really enjoyed Remagen. I have watched it develop on here, good to see it close up at last.

Used some on a job recently. https://www.screwfix.com/p/easyfix-4-pronged-tee-nut-m8-x-11mm-10-pack/47225

Well, in terms of public voting at a busy exhibition large will always come out on top. I had a bit of a look at that at the SECC over the weekend. By eye a spectator takes up about 2 feet. So 10 foot layout , 5 voters / unit time, 20 foot layout , 10 voters / unit time. Twice the potential voters. Now I accept that if you want to really study a layout then you have to be patient and wait for a gap at the barrier. I did, and saw what I wanted to see. But everyone is different and so I rarely take notice of the voting, preferring to speak to the layout operators/owners and show my appreciation that way. Another point. I have stood next to folk who are criticising a layout, which I think is terribly impolite. Always encourage, find something positive to say or keep quiet. Just my personal view.

Well deserved. I enjoyed seeing the layout at Glasgow, most impressive in its level of scenic detail and full marks for producing a very different and original layout.

Following the excellent discussion on the storage of lamp oil I have built a combined lampmans hut and coal store. A dimensioned sketch of the type favoured by the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire ( and other CR lines built later on ) can be found in "Signalling the Caledonian" by Jim Summers. A very common feature in many stations and yards, clearly having a separate small building for maintaining signal and general lamps would minimise damage by fire should an accident occur. So with a bit of simple styrene chopping with the silhouette I have ended up with this. Close photos show a bit of weathering detail needed. Also some bagged coal in the coal store. Just sat there for now, I haven’t decided where it will end up. I have had a few good running sessions too, identified some things that need done to the layout itself. Repairs, some extra uncouplers, various bits. Something to get on with now the light should be improving a bit. Mind you as folk that went to the SECC show this weekend will tell you its still rather dark out there.

Heh , well Compound, the chaps on my recently built brake wagons were Mikkelised from the Andy Stadden "kits". Fiddly but fun. Turn on the high Voltage Igor.........

Very impressive engineering. The shadowgraph takes me back, I remember an optical instrument maker I used to work for using a similar device to inspect small components for accuracy.

Many thanks for those wonderful replies. So I would surmise that for my early Edwardian period a barrel on a stand would be the most likely method of storage, with a replacement barrel being delivered as needed. Not only that it has given me a couple of other modelling ideas, a horse drawn tanker and the Pumpherston tank wagon. I already have modelled a rectangular tank wagon from the Oakbank oil company.

I am currently building a combined lampmans hut and coal store. A dimensioned sketch of the type favoured by the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire ( and other CR lines built later on ) can be found in "Signalling the Caledonian" by Jim Summers. A very common feature in many stations and yards, clearly having a separate small building for maintaining signal and general lamps would minimise damage by fire should an accident occur. I know that lamp oil, which would be paraffin by the Edwardian era, was often transported by rail tank wagon. However a whole wagon full would then be decanted somewhere into smaller containers. I can find references to wooden barrels being used early on, but by 1900 or so would a change have been made to a metal barrel akin to an oil drum? If so what size would they be ? A 40 gallon drum is a fair size, really needs a purpose built cradle to tip it and a tap screwed in to decant from there into a smaller container you could climb a ladder with. Would smaller drums be used ? So the burning question ( sorry ) is how would the oil be stored and decanted within the lampmans hut I am making? How would it be transported locally to the hut? I have had a search but I can't seem to find any good information or photos of the subject. So I thought I would ask. The last stage of the chain would be going round with a smaller can to top lamps up. Oddly I have such a can . Clearly much later , 50s perhaps. Soldered tinplate construction. Its the middle bit of the distribution chain that I would like to shed some light on (Sorry again) .

Well, there are many rubber tyred metro systems around the world. They are quieter and better able to handle gradients than steel on steel, but have higher rolling resistance so are less efficient. I would also suggest that stability at high speeds might be a limiting factor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-tyred_metro But back to the op. Carbon neutral ? So not only does the energy to run the trains over their whole lifetime have to be generated in a carbon neutral way but also all the embedded energy in the materials and methods to build the railway. Would that also have to compensate for all the historic embedded energy if existing infrastructure is used ? Fine, I know the get out clause is "we are going to plant some trees". But sooner or later you run out of space to do that.

I do like blogs that are about making things which show craftsmanship, this is a classic scratchbuild. Split frame electrically connected compensated bogies using copperclad as a spacer then compensated back to the driving wheels. Thats the same method I use and like you I see a huge improvement in track holding and pickup. My influence was also reading Mike Sharmans work many years ago, and one ends up with locos that perform well.

Ruston, I based my ambient sound unit around this; http://www.icstation.com/voice-playback-module-sound-module-music-player-voice-broadcast-device-development-board-arduino-p-6148.html The amplifier in it is fine for a bit of background sound.

I will have a look at those and see if anything appeals to me. I have played about with an ambient soundscape. Details of it here, and the previous blog. I would still consider it a bit of a work in progress, but the method used allows easy updating of sound files , or for that various sets of sound files by simply swapping the sd card. As mentioned above I used audacity to edit the files. In the blog I did say that I wasn't entirely sure about it all, but I find the whole thing catching me a bit. The track with the horses and carts going past with the distant church bells really does make me want to fill an old pipe with a dark tobacco and let a battered 812 class trundle past with a heavy coal train .....