dikitriki

Hi Monday's first running session went very well, and a great time was had by all. Everyone was able to see their models run properly for the first time on meaningful trains, and there were a number of very broad grins on display. Tim also brought along his DCC controller and a sound equipped Hymek, but it wasn't on long enough for me to grab a photo (sorry Phill). The layout behaved very well considering that it had just been bolted together, and none of the rail ends had been fine-tuned between boards. There's still a stack of work to do, not least the control panel and signals, but a promising start. Some photos from the day..... Richard

Thanks for your comments. Mikkel, we could do with your eye for detail when we come to redevelop the scenic side Alcazar, yes. The layout is sited in the undercroft, fortunately with pretty easy access to the outside. I have spent a lot of my time over the last 11 years making the barn into a home. Richard

Hi I've spent a fair chunk of the last two days in a frenzy of tidying after the big push in December to get the layout runnable. The inaugural running session takes place on Monday, so the room has to look its best; besides which, I couldn't find anything, and it was getting a bit frustrating. So everything is in its place, the boards have been vacuumed, and the carpet is down. Since it won't be this tidy again for months, I took a few photos. I haven't cropped any of these so you can see Heyside, warts 'n all, as it fits in the room, and with views that wouldn't normally be seen. There are no trains in the picturs with the exception of 10001 under test to give you an idea of the size. I hope to grab more pictures during the running session, so I shall post those then. Richard

Hi It's been a hectic few months, seemingly a huge amount of work for little progress, as the trackwork and wiring have slowly taken shape. 1 year ago to the day, I went to the Wigan show to collect Heyside. Fast-forward to this morning, and at 10.00am the very first loco, symbolically, the Aspinall saddle tank I have been working on, went gingerly round the full circuit. Since it didn't come off, excitement got the better of me, and I thought I would test the Brit. So, I am proud to present the first train round Heyside. Robin Hood with 8 Mk 1s on. Thanks to Clive for a lot of hard work , pretty much weekly, Steve who has worked weekends when he can and put in a huge shift yesterday to level the last few boards, Tony for the electrics (and the manual to let us know what it all means) Jim for Templotting help and latterly Tim who mucked in with the droppers and bus bars, and who is our resident DCC expert, whether he likes it or not. No doubt all sorts of visiting locos will appear as we need to test all the trackwork, so I shall have my camera at the ready. In the meantime, I have a huge clean-up task ahead of me to make the room presentable....until we have to start again in the New Year! Richard

Nah Can't let that run on Heyside. Too clean. Bring it along on Saturday and it can have the honour of being the first loco round. Great stuff as ever Tony. Cheers Richard

Hi Martyn The plastic fishplates are proper 'H'shaped fishplates from Exactoscale. Because they have the web in the middle they are genuine isolating fishplates, and I use them to insulate the V and wing rail areas. The brass fishplates are from C&L, etched and come in pairs. There are no rail breaks where these are shown. They are glued on either side of the rail and the top of the rail is then cut to simulate the join. I use a third type which I haven't shown yet, and that is a proper cast brass 'H' shaped fishplate from Exactoscale, and these are used throughtout the layout where I join rail sections (I still use droppers to each separate length of rail though). I've lost count of how many packs I've used. C&L also do cosmetic plastic fishplates, in pairs to be glued on either side, and I shall use these to simulate the rest of the track panel joins once the layout has been tested. Regards Richard

One of the areas I had to address was the trackwork in general, and pointwork in particular. Since the rebuild was to be so extensive, I was faced with building a good few points. I didn't realise just how many until I got stuck in, but suffice to say that none of the original ones remain, apart from 4 Vs and 9 stock rails! In many ways that is a good thing in that there is going to be a consistency of construction, and it will be nobody's fault but mine if it doesn't run well. At the outset, Clive and I spent nearly all of one day positioning just one key board, from which everything else had to follow, and although it's taken a great deal of time since, we pretty much got it right. The available space was measured, and the ideas were sent off to Flubrush (Flubrush and Dikitriki eh! God help us!)who very kindly played around with Templot to see if our ideas could be turned into reality. They could, and they were, but it was all horribly tight with little room for manoeuvre. I had to start with the crossover approach to the yard... and the exit from the goods loop... as these were at the start of the curve to the fiddle yard, and were very close to the limit of the layout. Here the crossover is in place in front of the huge warehouse modelled on that at Royton. Some detailed shots of construction - stretcher bars, switch anchors and fishplates. At the other end of the layout, the 3 existing points were found to be under a 4'6" radius in places, so they had to go. That of course caused considerable problems with alignment as they were replaced with 5'6" radius points, so space suddenly became much tighter. In fact I was able to get away with a reduced radius on the inner main loop of 5' 9 1/2" instead of 6' so it's not worked out too badly. It was Clive who worked out that we could put a yard run round in, so I had to build 2 further points, but it will much enhance operational interest. Here are the new points at the branch throat showing the run round, and the board in place in front of the factory. I also wanted to expand the minerals yard in front of the factory, so a new board was built, but I also needed a very compact layout. Alan MacMillan and Martin Wynne came to my rescue by Templotting a 3-throw point. Very unusual in model form (not that common in real life either) because they are tricky to build as there are 2 pairs of blades occupying the same space. However, it all worked first time, and I enjoyed building the rather unusual turnout. This illustrates the difficulty with a lot of rail in a small area. The next 3 photographs show the blade settings for the different routes. and here are 2 pics of the finished item... The railway room is in a mess currently, as we are all working on different areas. The last of the boards should have the droppers and bus finished tomorrow, which means the whole thing can be put back together and we can have a massive tidy. At that stage, I shall take some more photos so you can see where we are now. Richard

Hi At the Wigan show in 2008 I bought the 7mm scale layout Heyside. It was acquired as a short-cut to getting something running at home, though as with all such things, it is never as great a short-cut as one hopes. This blog will detail the trials and tribulations of the extensive rebuild of the layout. Heyside is a fictitious station set in Lancashire around the Oldham Loop. The layout was built as an exhibition layout by Trevor Smith, and exhibited just 4 times in the UK. It was featured in BRM November 2007 in its original form. While the layout as built had some great strengths, the urban setting and buildings, and general observation, it had significant weaknesses too, and we are now well on the way to addressing the amendments required. Heyside will be off the exhibition circuit in 2009, but will be available by the autumn of next year - at least that is the target we have set. In the meantime the work we will be doing encompasses: Reducing the size of the layout. The original size was 38' by 16'. It is now 31' by 14'. Increasing the storage space in the fiddle yards from 6 main loops to 11. Adding a goods loop on the outside running road, and all catch/trap points and blind sidings as necessary. Adding a run-round on the yard and increasing the capacity of the minerals yard. Have fully working signals, including ground signals and repeaters, and operate to the signals. Redesign the control panel so that the yard can be operated from the front of the layout. DCC the layout but probably only once the layout has been rebuilt. All new pointwork is built to 31.5mm gauge, and a minimum radius on the main running lines of 6' is in force. In fact one section had to be built to 5' 9 1/2" following a rebuild to the branch throat. As an introduction, the following photos show the layout much as it was purchased, although some of the rebuild is in evidence. They are shown in order from left to right as one looks at the scenic part of the layout. Trevor's buildings are excellent, and I particularly like the huge warehouse modelled on that at Royton. It's 4' long, 2' high and is a 2-man lift! The station bridges are redolent of Werneth and the railway buildings - station buildings and signal boxes are pure L&Y. The next instalment will look at the alterations to the trackwork. Richard

Strewth Tony, I wouldn't recognise a mistake on that, deliberate or otherwise! You have signed the document that says you have to be on hand at all exhibitions we attend, haven't you? Richard

Not a prototype that interests me (Great Western you see), but a lovely piece of modelling none-the-less. Definitely worth all the effort in the pipework. Do you fancy keeping a log of your construction time on the MMP BG? Richard

Well done Phil on making the rods. That's a very satisfying achievement. At the risk of being shot at dawn, there is no requirement to spring or compensate 'normal' finescale 7mm locos. If the chassis is built square, and careful attention is paid to tracklaying, they will run fine with a rigid chassis. My last loco was an all singing, all dancing fully compensated A3. My current loco on my blog is a rigid 0-6-0. There is no difference in the running quality. Richard

Hi Mike That looks really nice, captures the proportions very well. :icon_thumbsup2: Another lovely build. Which crew did you use? I'm now waiting for the grunged up pictures. Yours Richard

Hi I've had a little time between the layout work to progress the Aspinall saddle tank, aided by the 2 days demonstrating at the BRM show in Peterborough, and took some photos this morning in the decent light. The first one shows the basic chassis, milled frames and rods, and general battleship construction. I'm not compensating or springing this one. The next three show some details on the chassis - Laurie Griffin brake hangers, shoes and spreaders, and Warren Shephard springs. The next is of general progress to date. This shows the bunker and buffer beam, together with the nutted buffers! The body was built separately from the running plate, on a piece of glass, and these two units will be screwed together after painting. And finally for the moment, the 3 units separate. I'm currently awaiting some Laurie Griffin cast L&Y lamp irons before I can do too much more to the body, so it's back on the chassis now. Richard

Every so often, a visiting loco appears, a cop if you will. Today, a B17 appeared deputising for a failed B1 on the Red Bank Parcels. It was briefly on the goods reception road, so I took the opportunity to grab a few photos. (OK, I know it's a Great Eastern Loco really) Another very good model from Clive :icon_thumbsup2: , but probably not on the exhibition roster. Richard

Hi Christian It does take a bit of time locating everyone on the new board doesn't it? The MOK 4MT is unstarted unfortunately. Since getting involved seriously in my layout, all my plans and timetables (such as they were) have gone out of the window, and loco and stock building has very much taken second placed to layout work. I mentioned that I had 3 locos to build to set the layout's location, and while the 4MT would be ideal, it's at number 7 in the list at the moment - Aspinall Saddle tank, Aspinall A class, Crab, 8F, Black 5, Fairburn, 4MT. As to the hydraulics........ I still look in on your Warship regularly for updates. Regards Richard

Hi I had a little play last night with the buffers. The stocks come as brass turnings, which are fine as far as they go. Except that they are round (they should be clipped top) and they have no details (there should be 5 bolts securing the buffers to the beam). The first part was easy, the flat could be filed on the stock. There second problem is a little trickier. Time to live up to my moniker I needed a jig first of all if I was going to drill the holes, and I came up with the idea of using a Slater's axle washer which was almost a perfect fit on the back of the stocks. I carefully marked out and drilled 6 0.4mm holes, evenly spaced around the washer. Brilliant, only in the wrong place, too near the centre. Being mean, and unwilling to sacrifice another Slater's washer, I split the differences and drilled another 6 holes further out. Now it was a case of tack soldering the washer on the back and drilling the 6 holes through the stock, removing the washer and moving on to the next stock. This was entirely successful, even if the washer looked a bit diseased by the time I had finished. The Scale Hardware bolts (yes, I think I satisfy Scale7JB's criterion as a rivet counter)were soldered in, the stocks cleaned up, and hey presto, proper buffers. I took the following photos this morning....and was horrified to see how rough the turnings looked. They honestly do not look that bad in real life, but I am going to have to finish them off better. I also note that one of the bolts is not seated properly. Aren't photos depressing, you can see all your mistakes Richard

Hi Adrian It is an MOK 8F. I unreservedly recommend it. It's going to the BRM show at Peterborough for my demonstration stand, along with the A3. Yours Richard

It is a cast 'pewter' firebox. There is precious little 'white-metal' in the kit - firebox, smokebox door, backhead and tender springs/axleboxes - the rest of the castings are brass or nickel-silver. Richard

Hi Mike (and 28ten) S'funny you should mention that. If you mosey on over to my blog... Regards Richard

Hi And just for Ressaldar and 28ten, here's one I made earlier Great minds etc. Still awaiting final detailing and painting, and yes, it's a fantastic kit. Richard

Hi Mike Welcome aboard. Nice work on a very interesting prototype. I've very nearly bought one on a couple of occasions, but other things seemed to come first, so it's good to see a workbench example. On my favourites Regards Richard

Thanks for that. Will you make your etchings available if others (ie me) wish to follow suit? While I liked the HH idea, I felt that they were just too bulky. I only saw the prototype that Phil was working on, so I wasn't sure whether he had made any amendments. Richard

Hi After a furious bout of layout building I have returned to my workbench for a rest. I am assuming that my layout Heyside will be on the exhibition circuit next year, and I have identified 3 locomotives that I need to assist in setting the location - on the Oldham Loop just up the road from New Hey. They are an Aspinall 0-6-0 saddle tank, an Aspinall A class 0-6-0 tender loco and a 2-6-0 Horwich Crab. I'm starting with the easiest first, the saddle tank, which started out as a Chowbent Kit. Those familiar with Ressaldar's work will recall he built one of these in double-quick time, and between us, we came up with a full set of instructions, and exchanged notes at various times. So thank you Mike for your assistance. My kit is not complete either, being a sort of hybrid; part etched, part milled and very confused. So I'm missing the etches (because they are on the etched chassis sheet, only I have a milled chassis) for the brake hangers and shoes, brake spreaders and pull rods and ashpan sides, and some white-metal castings. Nothing is a huge problem, and with a resin smokebox/boiler/firebox/saddle arguably the hardest work is done for you. In fact, assuming that the kit contents are sorted out, and the kit is listed as a current JLTRT kit, it would be an ideal beginner's kit. As is my wont I shall be adding extra detail, replacing castings etc, but in truth they were fairly clean simple locos. The following 2 photos show the components I acquired with the box: and the motor was disposed of and replaced with an ABC motor and gearbox (??94) The only thing I'm not sure of is whether I want to fit inside valve gear. The A class will have inside valve gear, but it's not really visible in the saddle tank, and I'm unsure where to anchor the anchor link to with the Joy's gear. Anyone have a drawing/photos of between the frames? Richard

Hi 28ten Are these the Hobby Holidays hornblocks, or to your own design. If HH, how easy were they to use? Regards Richard