Dave John

I too used the H type insulated fishplates, in my case from C+L. In most cases they tended to snap or end up )-( shaped. In the end I just used half of one superglued to the outside of the rail and a short length of plastic strip on the inside. Good luck with the DCC.

It's ok, I haven’t suddenly decided to start a revolution, tempting though the idea is. I am of course referring to the figures for the layout. These are a mix, mostly from Andy Stadden with some from Prieser and a few older ones in places they can only be glimpsed at. The men are the problem. Most of the Edwardian ladies have wide skirts and so stand up without too much of a problem, though the ones with the hemline daringly 3 inches off the floor do tend to tip up. The men will too but the smallest disturbance and they all fall over. Hmm, fine if you are modelling a Glasgow Friday night. So, how to make them stand up? The obvious answer is glue but it is rather a permanent solution. Done it in the past, if you want to move a figure for variety or to add detail it tends to take a lump of the scenery out stuck to the feet. So I bought some “Tacky wax”. Maybe its just me but I didn’t really like it. Doesn’t seem to stay tacky enough to hold someone up unless you put a fair sized blob on the feet. Then they just look like a figure stuck in a big blob of wax. I tried a few things, such as warming it first, but to no avail. Still didn’t like it somehow. I did have a play with magnets, but getting ones tiny enough is not a practical proposition. Finally I decided to go for the wire in the foot method. I’m sure its not new, but very few good ideas are. Drill a 0.4 hole up through the foot. Superglue in a short length of 11 thou piano wire. When set grind it back to about 5 mm. Drill a 0.4 hole in the place when you want a figure and plant them. Advantage is that you can take them out and swap them round easily. The hole is tiny and easy to fill if you don’t want it there but from normal viewing distances it vanishes anyway. Some pictures to give an idea. A man thinking about some work. But he went off for tea, leaving just a hole. His mate turned up for the back shift. How many ? Well that many for a start.

Top class. They really were a most elegant design.

I do like the little culvert under the bridge, reminds me of somewhere years back, but I can't remember where.

Very fine track laying.

Looks very good. I tend to touch in the buckles and ring bits ( er, they probably have more technical names ) with a spot of metal/light grey mix just for a bit of effect.

Thanks Clydebridge. I do have some early pictures looking east but I might go for the mirror at the end trick to give perspective. I am working on a tenement backscene for the rest, slow progress. I know its technically swapping the river and the street round but its the only way I could get the railway to fit in the room. A case of trying to get a feel for the place rather than geographical correctness.

Very good scratchbuilding, I like the proportions of the warehouse. Just out of interest this is one of the few brick industrial buildings close to the canal that is still about A few miles up from bowling basin at Firhill. Might help with local brick colours.

Fair comment, maybe a brush of a brown over the coal would help and looking at photos the track, particularly the chairs would accumulate more dust. The colours do seem a bit stark, but its the general problem of needing more light for photography than you would use for general viewing. Maybe time to revisit layout lighting.

It has taken a while but I now feel that the overall scene is looking a bit more like a busy urban coal yard. Details and carts are from langley or dart, most figures are Andy Staddens. Anyway, pictures speak louder than words so I’ll shut up. Something missing though……. Oh yes, the stock. So just for fun. Perhaps a lot of pictures, as ever helps me to see stuff this way.

Well, it can wander a bit as it expands and contracts, but since all the boards are connected together it tends to just sit. I can lean on it, it won't move. I got the castors from an online firm that just sells castors, well made and relatively inexpensive

I actually have no idea. But a thought occurs to me. The more unusual the subject of a layout is the more time a modeller will spend on research and gathering the information to make that layout and associated buildings and stock. Does that make it more valuable? I doubt it, it probably makes it less valuable since the number of people who would be interested in buying such models is a small number who are probably already making them for themselves. Regularity makes the point that a less popular scale reduces the sellable value, I would argue that that is true of subject too. Anyway, how do you explain to an insurance company that you have spent a lifetime accumulating information and that part of the model you have made is probably beyond price ? Er, sorry to the op for drifting off a bit.

Well, baseboards on castors which hinge up. Just an idea. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/2091/entry-19250-the-baseboard-waltz/ I think you could use kitchen cupboards as the trolley part, but I'd agree they would need strengthening.

I purchased some direct from the redutex site using paypal a few months ago. http://tienda.redutex.com/en/ Delivery was prompt and I rather like the product.

Useful period pictures. I was interested to see the gateposts have a different style of gas lamp on each. Odd, but one for the "prototype for everything" file.

Looks good. Just an idea for the electrics, you may already be thinking this way but it might help others. The garage is 2 zones, the utility bit and the railway bit. You have a decent consumer unit , 5+5 twin RCD , looks like a wylex so breakers are readily available. Put in a 32 A ring for the utility bit. For the railway bit come off a 20 A mcb and go via a 20 A switch by the door to a 4 mm radial set of a lot of model railway sockets. That way you can switch on and off all the railway stuff easily so you don't wake up in the middle of the night panicking that you have left the soldering iron on ...... If you need an anti frost heater in the railway section put in on a separate circuit, easy to do at this stage. Sorry if its what you already intended, but might help.

Heh, well, approximately Sir Topham. However you can add into that list; Do lots of prototype research. Make the track. Do more research. Make the rolling stock. A bit more prototype research. Buy some good books on say, signalling. Build the signals. Make some buildings. Do more research into what it was actually like. Realise that you got bits wrong. Rebuild them. Do some more research. Refine what you have built on the basis of what you now know but didn't when you built it. Ok, its a tongue in cheek reply, a bit naughty of me. However the point I'm trying to make is that it is an iterative process, but you have to start somewhere. There isn't a rulebook, we all do things in different ways. Part of the whole fun of modelling is improving on what you have done and what you know. Of course its a personal thing, Rule 1 always comes first but trying to push my knowledge and abilities is the most satisfying part of it all for me.

It is a fine view Marly, myself and the pup spend many hours walking the kelvin valley.

Some very good points, thanks all. The figure of 1 ton per person is interesting, the population of Glasgow was about a million people at the time I'm modelling, so about a million tons for domestic use. The overall population of Scotland from the 1911 census comes in at 4.7 million, but the figure for coal production in Scotland in 1907 is a huge 40 million tons. So roughly 90 % of coal production was being using directly by industry and transport or being shipped out for export. That is an excellent picture Compound, I will have a go at modelling something like that too.

Really excellent modelling.

I have been thinking about urban coal. Victorian cities consumed huge amounts of coal and of course Glasgow was no exception. Statistics for the quantities mined and moved are available, but staggering though they are do not actually make me think about coal. So instead I started to look at chimneys. I live in a normal west end two bedroom tenement flat which as built had three fireplaces and a kitchen range for cooking and hot water. So thats 32 fires in this block of 8. 14 closes and 2 churches in this street . Up to 450 now. An interesting aside is this link which gives a feel for the the kind of architecture I am on about, I live at the west end of Woodlands. Also has a good map showing how kelvinbridge station and yard was sandwiched in there. https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=16798&p=0 Have a look on google earth at the west end and try and guess how many in total. I gave up, the answer is a very big number. So how did the railways and in particular the Caledonian deal with the need to bring in and facilitate the distribution of all the coal needed? Firstly, they had a lot of coalyards, I reckon at least a dozen to the west of the city centre, including the NB ones. Thats just yards for wagon to bag to cart deliveries, big factories and institutions such as hospitals had private sidings for direct wagonloads and the tramways were connected to the railways at various places to allow wagonloads to be delivered at night. Hmm, so not a couple of small coal staithes then. Here is a picture of Kelvinbridge yard, note the piles of coal between the six sidings. Piles that are actually the height of wagons. Bagged coal was used to form “walls” to support it all and anecdotal evidence suggests that summer stockpiles were built up to cope with the winter months. Bear in mind that the photo is from the 1950s when gas and electricity were beginning to have an impact on coal usage. As a personal aside I remember talking to the elderly lady who lived in the flat below me many years ago who had been resident in the west end long enough to remember the yard being shunted at night in the 1920s and 30s. To quote her “ I have no idea how the people that lived next to the yard ever got a wink of sleep” Thats the background to my thinking, sorry to blether on a bit. Therefore I have started to make some piles. To the modellers eye these may at first look excessive. But given the evidence it seems to me to be along the lines of what must have gone on. Still a lot of detailing but it does begin to look very urban. Just a couple of snapshots to give you the idea. As ever, comments welcome.

"Cardean might have been the darling of the Caledonian's publicity department but it was a black 0-6-0 moving coal which paid the bills" Oh well, my ratios may be all over the place but at least I got something right........... http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/2091/entry-21153-cr-d63-brake-in-service/

Top class modelmaking.

Very good, I do like the natural look of the horses too.

There we are, the D63 in service after its 30 year refurbishment. I’m not sure that I’m completely happy with it but perhaps we are all getting a bit harsh on ourselves since close up photography shows up all sorts of things that are just invisible from normal viewing distances. You never know, one of the rtr manufacturers might bring out a very nice version. Probably by the time this one has been in service for another 30 years…… So a close up pic; Aye, well. In practice these vans would have spent most of their time on coal traffic so thats the service I will be using it for.