tigerburnie

Confirmed steam man, but after a week camping at the mouth of Stoke Tunnel in 1963, I quite took to a Deltic in an odd sort of way, preferred the Rods coming out of the High Dyke quarry though.

I've ordered some 1k to start with, but expect that individual lamps will require "tweaking" hence each led will have it's own resistor.

Ok, so a bit more detail, I currently have x4 gaugemaster "trainsave" TSV lamps, it says they can be powered by either dc or ac 9 volts. It goes on to say lights can be connected in series to reduce brightness, but over voltage will result in heat and possible damage. Voltage from the controller is 19.3v. ac which will be switched. I will have x4 each of these lamps at each open end of the platform and another 4 of the same manufacture, but taller for the goods/turntable area. I then intend to fix loose leds under the canopies(that will be 14 of them, one for each Metcalfe Po 340 canopy), there will also be 4 buildings each with an led fitted. Finally there will be 10 street lights added at the lower level later, these will probably be the same gauge master ones.

As a follow on question to this, I am about to wire in around 20 lights on the Leicester GC station, would you recommend a bus line and wire in parallel, or daisy chain them in series in batches? Parallel seems the obvious to me, with individual resistor for each lamp. Thanks p.s. forgot to add switched output from a Gaugemaster 16v outlet.

Thanks Apollo, I have read this very interesting site, with Woodford to the south, this shed supplied most of the locos for the freight on the GC during the period I hope to cover. In the earlier part(pre 1960) the locos at Annesley give me great scope for some interesting locos from the LNER.

Trawling through a 1959 loco shedbook I found 47203, a Jinty allocated to 15E Leicester Central, the only non Eastern Region loco allocated to the shed, the rest were 5 V2 and a dozen B1's, all I need to do now is try and work out what went on what service, I'm guessing the Jinty would have either been a station pilot or in one of the goods yards shunting. The 1959 shed book clearly illustrates the dramatic decline in steam and the equally rapid rise of diesel, all be it not noticeable on the GC so much.

Like the old WD, got out bid on one yesterday , way too pricey for me just now.

I can't recall them either, but there 11 of them in 1963 sheded at Leicester Central, but then at that time all sorts of steam was being dumped on the GC, can't remember a Jinty either, other than at Leicester Midland. Modellers licence will mean there may well be the "Odd special" visiting. As Leicester was a change over station for both engines and crews(or both) we had stuff from the GWR and from the frozen north turn up, especially in the summer when such expresses would run from Edinburgh to the west country holiday resorts.

Starting to look at locos and rolling stock, first port of call were my old Ian Allan loco shed books, I cannot remember seeing many 0-6-0 4f's, yet there was 11 of them in the early 1960's, I even had most of them crossed off, so I saw them. Funny how you remember the glamorous(apart perhaps from 9f's) bigger loco's but not the work horses who probably pulled every pickup freight train in that period. So the Triang, from my yoof, 4f will need some serious upgrading, a perfect place to start after not having touched an engine since early 1983, proper hand rails and maybe some better detailing. Don't think I'll be using the Jinty though, unless any snuck down the Burton line from the LMS.

Late finding this excellent layout, enjoyed JC's jaunts around an area I fished later in the 60's/70's/80's. For me the addition of steam is a most welcome reminder of my "yoof"

How do you know what coach went where, is it because you remember or is there a list somewhere?

From a personal point of view, I don't mind the colour of the ballast , it just looks brand new, maybe just needs a bit of weathering?

Some excellent modelling work, inspiring, but I fear too far advanced for me.

I do have one Andy, but it's old and needs replacing, something I'd over looked so thanks for the advice. I will be installing low voltage LED lighting in there, I don't have any fluorescent light fittings as I've seen too many of those fail and overheat when at work.

Had a small session on the railway, still waiting for the postman with a point for the South goods area, I have pretty much made the station platform and some of the buildings have been made. First attempt at scratch building using card, these will be replaced as I have now sourced some better images of the station, there's a cloakroom to fit on the north end of the platform that I had forgotten about. I took one of these set of Hornby steps, cut it in half, then jig sawed holes to suit for the steps down to the subway, quite pleased with this. . The fencing will not be used, just had some, so tried it to get a feel for how it might look .

Just followed this from start to here, some inspiring work done, given me a few ideas for Leicester Central, though the station side of my layout is now quite advanced, the opposite side of the oval will be countryside, so your back scenes and scenery will give me the desired effect. The station is going to take me the rest of this year, so it will be cold days in the loft in the new year when I hope to start on the other side.

Ran the Hornby A3 "Flying Fox" round a few times both to test the track and to run the loco in a bit(second hand purchase),it ground to a halt, tender motor still running? Inspection showed the drive sprocket had moved on the shaft coming away from the wheel drive sprockets, a dab of glue has done a tempory fix but this will need sorting, any suggestions, can I buy spares?

Both loops now completed and trains have run , some older engines don't like some of the points, my old Jinty I had new in the early 1960's seems to have fat flanges, it won't be running on the railway, so it's not a problem, but I will have to be aware when finding rolling stock I do want to run.

One more image of the station area image removed

Managed a full 8 hour shift on the railway today, nearly finished the ballasting in the station area, not started on the turntable/goods area yet and the "fields" side will also be ballasted as well, just the north and south ends will be just running on cork. I have put a spirit level on this, it's me that on the slant not the railway. The mess will be tidied up and scenic back drops will hide the background a bit, Additional legs/bracing to be added, but I just wanted the bare bones done and I've run a couple of trains round the up line just a pleasure to see something moving more than a couple of feet.

I haven't seen any reference to it on GC metals, indeed it's visual cousins were very thin on the ground too, I know of Silver Link once and I saw Mallard being towed down to London to the museum, other than that Eastern Region exotica seems to have been absent.

Hi James, yes that site is in my favourites, I'm using some of those images to try and build some shorter versions of the station buildings, I'll take some photo's. The station from the throat of platforms 1&2 down to 3&4 is just over 10 feet, I can just fit in the Northgate bridge going to Frog Island,but the south end is a tad stunted, I was hoping to get to the river, but no room for it.

Very late finding this thread, excellent modelling skills and a patience that maybe I lack demonstrated, it also illustrates the amount of work required in searching though the annuls to garner information to add to the reality. I thought I could just make a sort of facsimile and add a load of off the shelf stuff and I'd be happy, that is clearly changing as I go along. I am both motivated and perhaps a bit daunted in equal measure, but my bit of the GC will come along slowly. Thanks for the comment too Richard

Well this is fun!! very time consuming, but quite satisfying in an odd masochistic sort of way, but I will be pleased when this ballast is all finished.

Have you tried a polarising filter on your camera? might help shooting into the light.