Dunalastair

Our local 'modern standards' road is the A14, with a 12 mile new section being completed just a few years ago with a £1B price-tag. While the cutting sides are not obviously slipping much (helped by wide verges making the cuttings 400 feet wide - much more land take than historic railways) the embankments for the over-bridges seem to be slumping significantly, with remedial works requiring road closures. And going back to mid-20th century motorways, I seem to remember seeing a good few cutting side repairs over the last few years. So the standards in terms of gradients may be better, but geology and poor materials still seem to be causing issues.

Reviving another old WHR thread, I have been playing with pushing my long-in-the-tooth 1966 WHR N gauge layout back into the early days with some static models. Inspired by those 'West Highland saloons' on the cover of the John Thomas book (I have a well-thumbed PAN edition), I did a little more reading. The NBR Study group has some details on the three diagrams (first, third and brake-compo). They only lasted on the WHR until about 1912, long enough to see the NBR Intermediates, but not the Glens. NBR vol 2 has a good official photo of the first class saloon. So I hacked together a very simplified 1:148 design in 123D, both 1st and 3rd class variants, together with a four-wheel van which appears in an early photograph - I have not found a clear photograph of the brake compo, never mind a drawing. So here are a couple of initial print assemblies from my filament printer - at this scale resin would be much better. They are sitting at my version of Banavie station, which normally sees BRMW and NBL type 2s with maroon Mk1s and a few Gresley and Thomson coach prints. It looks as if the NBR coach colour was not so very different. I was trying to print the third class variant when my Monoprice MP10 printer failed, apparently with an end-of-travel switch issue. Getting this sorted is not proving easy, sadly. I had got as far as roughing out a design for a much simplified static NBR 'Intermediate', but that will have to stay in screen-only form for now. Which will help postpone the question of loco colour ... The layout is not about to go 100% pre-grouping, but it would be nice to be able to pose a 'ghost train' from the early days if / as I make progress tidying up the rather crude modelling.

And not to forget the steamers on the loch, here shown at Kenmore pier. https://www.dalmadan.com/?p=3621 The service ended with WW2, but 'Queen of the Lake' apparently lasted at Kenmore (here in 1949) until being broken up in 1950. If the railway had made it to Kenmore pier, then perhaps the steamers might have lasted a little longer? You can perhaps tell that your chosen subject is one of interest! While at college, I paid several visits to the outdoor centre at Firbush on the south side of the loch, latterly driving the university minibus on the narrow roads.

That was what prematurely closed the Callander - Crianlarich section of the Oban line in the sixties. Comments were apparently made locally about how little material was visible on the line, but it was the rocks still on the slope above which made it unviable to reopen, given the short time left to the railway before scheduled closure.

Aberfeldy always appears in my mind with the slab sided HR four wheelers, which would allow even shorter cassettes. However, transition era sounds good - there was still pre-grouping equipment in use, albeit not from the original company. If you do use cassettes Just take care not to replicate the 1959 Balnaguard incident with those two coaches. https://breadalbane-heritage.org.uk/aberfeldy-weem-heritage-walk/20-aberfeldy-branch-line/

So I took the microswitch off and checked the operation with a DVM. It seems to make and break contact according to the position of the lever. Put it back together again and get same result. I did wonder if the machine has simply set a new z zero, but driving it most of the way up does not seem to help - it still goes up but not down there. But when I ask it to print I can see it going down as well as up, so I don't think it is the stepper motor.

Thankyou for the useful feedback. It looked as if the stepper motor mount and hence the microswitch mount had been twisted (must have taken some force as the screws were tight) so I straightened those back up and took the chance to unmake then remake the microswitch connector. But no improvement, though I can see that the motor will move a little down when it tried to home. I tried to check the microswitch in situ but could not get the DVM probes in - perhaps I need to remove the microswitch altogether and verify its operation. If I have killed the switch then that might explain the issue - and a switch would not cost much to replace. Any further advice gratefully received!

Nice prototype, I remember going to a school music camp at Aberfeldy in the mid seventies. But I'm not altogether clear what your problem is. If simply space, then could you go down a scale? 8' would be generous in N gauge, though if you are looking for HR period rolling stock then there would be more choice in OO. If space for a fiddle yard, then cassettes or a traverser might help. Curved corners do look better on a backscene but could be smaller radius.

I had a filament print fail on an MP10 printer, with filament all over the place. After clearing up, the printer head will now only go up - not down - through I can lower it by turning the leadscrew. From what I have read, it seems as if the travel has triggered the 'gone too far' microswitch at the bottom, and I need to work out how to reset this (assuming it is not a hardware issue). I have seen some snippets of G-code suggested, but any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Nice viewpoint under that bridge - very believable.

Thankyou for the kind words. Three more, probably final, images of the Manor Powis drift, with the ground colour reworked and one or two other changes. There are limitations to this style of using filament 3D printing for 1:148 NG dioramas, but hopefully these images might evoke something of this short-lived narrow gauge railway by the banks of the Forth. It is both invidious and interesting to compare this static diorama approach with the finer scale and artistic approach to micro-layouts epitomised by @James Hilton. I could perhaps have used prettier Oxford N gauge diecast vehicles, but that might have jarred with the more impressionistic approach to the NG rolling stock. My rapid-turnaround small scale dioramas do help me to learn what does - and crucially what does not - work, but it does leave me with the issue of where do I put them all. Even if I don't seem to be learning to keep trains upright for photocalls. Unlike James, I do not have the option of selling or gifting them on.

After some painting, but rather untidily put together.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the tubs (often known as hutches in Scotland) under the loader would probably have been moved not by the loco but by a creeper. These were chain drives between the rails more often used either underground to load tubs into cages at the pit bottom for winding or at the colliery screens, as below. https://co-curate.ncl.ac.uk/seaham-colliery/ The photograph at Manor Powis does not show the creeper as the tubs / hutches obscure the view. If I fully load the model loading road with tubs / hutches then I can save myself the issue of modelling a creeper (even if static) in 5mm gauge.

I have been guilty of drifting other people's threads with mentions of my ideas for a diorama of the little known 2' 6" gauge surface railway connecting the drift mine with the main pit at Manor Powis colliery near Stirling in Central Scotland, near where I grew up. So it is about time that the topic was given a thread of its own. The NG line was used to haul power station coal for Longannet to the screens at the deep mine and onwards by the SG railway. There were also NG manriding trains as the mine was in a remote location by the banks of the Forth. The prototype looked like this, but there are very few other photographs I have found, though there is an image taken by Norman Cadge of the manriding train in the IRS Handbook, together with details of the Ruston locos used on the system. https://canmore.org.uk/site/132571/manor-powis-colliery The geometry of the site was strange, with the NG lines apparently running diagonally under the loading hopper. The signal-box-like building was apparently a control room - I did have some advice from an ex-NCB engineer who knew / knew of the site. The few old OS maps available at NLS seem to show a very different earlier arrangement, possibly before production started. To try to have some confidence that I could fit a diorama at 1:148 onto my usual A4 footprint, I worked up a 3D design for the whole site, before breaking it up for individual prints. After several days of printing on my filament machine, I had a lot of grey plastic waiting for the paint brush. The yellow manrider was the only print to have seen paint at this stage. Since the photograph was taken, the drift entrance has been sunk into the surface and the contents of some of those acrylic paint pots applied to prints. 5mm gauge track (2mmx2.5') also now leads out from the drift incline. This has been a slow-burn project, due to the paucity of information on this railway. I understand that Eric Tonks book on Rustons may have another photograph of RH 476133 and RH 398118 by Norman Cadge, but I have not seen that. I bought a copy of Guthrie Hutton's "Mining from Kirkintilloch to Clackmannan and Stirling to Slamannan", which has a photograph from an elevated perspective of the terminus facilities at the pit end of the NG line. Although now possibly too late for the model, I would welcome any further information on this little-known narrow gauge railway system.

Brake van parked 'off stage' during shunting?

Ouch - that does seem pricey - but the 'frosted glass' patterned windows look well. Overall, it seems to have more 'presence' than card kits, which I guess it what you were after. I wonder why Bachmann chose to use an 'Inn Business' branding rather than a more traditional brewery? I guess it makes it less geographically specific, but does seem to set the establishment in a specific time frame, perhaps a little later than your layout. Were there alternative signs provided?

At the risk of being pedantic, 'lochan' has a better ring to my ear than 'small loch', and even your larger hollow is more lochan than loch. Clear resin makes sense for the 'babbling brook' type of water feature, but between peaty water and wind-rippled surfaces, you cannot see far into a typical lochan even vertically, and the viewing angle on your layout looks more oblique. I also wonder about the visual impact of the location, above the steep drop to the lower level. Breaking up the edges with reeds, rocks and islets (which you probably have planned) and some birches might help to persuade the eye that these are two separate scenes, rather than two railways in one valley (as at Tyndrum or the CR's rejected scheme to parallel the WHR down Glenfalloch to Loch Lomond). https://www.jasonfriendprints.com/scotland/scotland-scottish-highlands-rannoch-moor-3997617.html

Back in the seventies would probably not look very different, bar the station nameboard, but there would presumably have bene signals then. A starter would be conveniently 'off stage' but have you thought about how Lochdubh would have bene signalled through the years? Presumably RETB in later years?

Interesting conjunction, thankyou - presumably an early test. Was there a date on the photograph? Searching on that loco, there were a couple of sightings in 1968 mentioned on this short thread. Possibly the same image. 1968 is just after my period of interest, but very close!

Thankyou - I look forward to anything you have. I was born a decade before you, just a few years too late to go to school on the C&OR (bus to Callander instead), but I can just about remember steam and green diesels turning blue were part of my childhood.

It is hard to abandon committed work, but that looks like the right decision. When I have been designing water craft for 3D printing, the stance was indeed important (along with the vertical curve often apparent in bulwarks) to make the result convincing. There is apparently quite an art in marine modelling ... For powered empty vessels which 'sit down' at the stern, it seems likely that the weight of the engine is a likely contribution.

Bumping this renewed query with an image of what happened to the Corpach paper mill rather after my period of interest. https://www.building.co.uk/news/former-paper-mill-crumples-after-textbook-demolition/3112709.article I also noticed today that my 'period of interest' is when John Thomas was writing his book on the WHR, which later kindled my interest in the line when it came out as a low cost paperback. Thomas closes his book as the diesels took over in the Glens.

Happy birthday Ollie. Friends have a similar dog which comes running with us. Approaching two now but he still has infinite amounts of energy.

NIce looking dog, even if he does pinch tools. What is his name?

I should have asked @Geoff Endacott how his layout came together all those years ago - the one linked photo seems to be broken.