Philou

Hello chaps and chapesses,

Good news - Christmas at the Philou household is cancelled! No it isn't, but Santa came twice today.

Firstly, a nice parcel arrived by the postlady from the UK. @lezz01 kindly sent me some bridge chairs and six pieces of Exactoscale bullhead rail so I can do the timber baulks on my bridge. What a good chap he is - thanks Lez, it was very much appreciated.

Secondly, my BiL called in with my sister and brought me my two pieces of pointwork all the way from Cardiff - another good chap. I did also note that surreptitiously (but ol' eagle eyes saw) a Rapido box changed hands between him and Mrs Philou. I looked away and I haven't tried to find out what it was, so it'll be a big surprise - yay!

Buoyed up by all of this, I did some overtime this evening (hence the late update) and completed this bit of retaining wall, and I have a photo:

^ It will need to be weathered and given a waft of varnish - perhaps tomorrow, but I've got council business to attend to - and then fixed into place. The fixing will be done via the tongue under the wall. Two glue blocks are to be screwed to it and then the blocks fixed onto the underside of the trackbed. Bit of a faff, but it'll be secure and I can't glue it as there's nowhere to get any purchase with mini-clamps while it's drying.

All being well, it'll be fixed by Wednesday.

Definitely more tomorrow.

Cheers,

Philip

Sanity Clause got waisted!

Yeah, I dressed up as Santa and did my Ho! Ho! Ho! bit and gave out the one (symbolic) hamper to the oldest citizen of the village (there wouldn't have been enough room in our tiny council room for them to be given all at once). I got waisted because I had to stuff cushions around my mid-riff to make me look like Santa - I tell you what, he must be a really big fat rotund person! It all went well.

I have started on the one retaining wall - half done and it ought to be finished tomorrow - I'll show a picture then.

That's it! Sorry, not much more to tell - no joke, nothing, nada. :)

Less tomorrow (only joking!).

Cheers,

Philip

A really small update as I had an hour to spare before getting ready to go to a funeral after lunch.

I have measured up for the retaining walls that form the continuation of the rock-face behind the mainline at Dymented and the one that will be the separation between the mainline and the branch back up to Ledbury.

Over the next couple of evenings I'll shall have them covered in card and papered as appropriate with some buttresses - can't have a wall without a buttress ;).

It's in the bag!!

Tomorrow is the giving out of the municipal Christmas hampers to the oldies of the village (over 70s). No prizes, but guess who is having to dress up as Santa? Ho! Bah! Ho! Humbug! Ho! I dunno how I'm going to give a parcel to myself. Perhaps I'll become a Schrödinger's Santa for the day :).

More tomorrow,

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chums and chumesses,

Unfortunately real life came knocking at the door asking for its day back - so nothing happened in the railway room and there won't be anything much tomorrow either :( . Sunday may be my best day to get on as after that we're heading straight into Christmas and we're going to celebrate at others' this year - so parcels to wrap, cats'n'dog to sort out, suitcases to fill etc., etc! Just hope my mojo won't stay on holiday when I get back.

Hopefully an update anyway tomorrow.

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

Work restarted slowly as it was rather cool in the barn and I had a fit of the yawns this afternoon - found it a little hard to concentrate.

Nonetheless, having been satisfied that the rest of the bark had stuck to the polystyrene behind the Dymented platforms, I went back to the branchline cutting to try and fathom out what happens at the interface of an embankment and a cutting. I decided that normally there ought to be a retaining wall either at the foot of the cutting rising to max height at the start of the overbridge with the embankment reducing to zero at the bridge abutment, or a wall alongside the mainline increasing in depth on approach to the overbridge, with the cutting below running out at the abutment.

In the end I decided on neither because I considered it geologically near-impossible (and even allowing for Rule 1) to have a rock faced cutting one side and no rock the other. So I shall amuse myself with a bit more bark in the cut, but less than on the other side (the rock outcrop is on a tilt, innit) and the lack of depth will be the reason why it's a cutting and not a tunnel.

As there was a bit of time, I also backfillled the gaps between the rock face and the plywood trackbed so I'll have a near-level surface right across when it comes to ballasting and doing the cess (won't be any 'mind the gap') and losing material down the black holes.

Here's the photo of Tuesday's work:

^ The rock cutting has continued behind the mainline and peters out a little way before the end of the retaining wall. Here I shall continue with a brick or sandstone wall until that too runs out (just about on the edge of the photo).

I'm glad I haven't decided to go OTT with the rock faces as you need to give a reasonable reason why it's there in that particular form (outcrop in this instance) - bit like tunnels that appear on layouts - just because ;) .

More tomorrow.

Cheers,

Philip

I use sieved builders' sand - looks similar in colour to the brown parts of your photographs. I 'borrowed' ordinary kitchen sieves of varying mesh sizes to give me the grades I need. I don't know if prototype continental ballast is different to that in the UK, but in the 60s the UK sizes were specified as 1/2" to 2 1/2". This would give you at 4mm scale 0.17mm to 0.84mm and at H0 from 0.15mm to 0.73mm grain sizes - reasonably achieved with different meshes.

After sieving I had larger grains that I gave to an 0 gauge modeller, the fine stuff to another modelling in n and the dust I used in the cess and as surfacing for roads - suitably coloured.

For UK ballast, I found that it was a bit too brown for my liking (but I'd been used to a uniform grey colour), but it does take paint as mentioned by @shipbadger  . I have been advised that ballast does vary with local quarries anyway and it doesn't always have to be grey - so nothing to say 'brown' isn't right and as @roythebus1 has said, whether it was all ballasted at the same time.

Cheers,

Philip

Boo!

Surprised? So am I.

Mrs Philou and I did what we had to do and I found I had a spare hour, so into the barn I went! I have now recut where needed the 'styrene in the next module and glued it into place. Having still a moment to spare (a bit more really), I then trimmed and glued all the bark I thought I needed along the face of the now glued 'styrene. I have no picture today to show unfortunately.

Whilst that will be drying off, I shall tackle a retaining wall alongside the mainline from where the rockface finishes and the end of that particular module. I wonder whilst I'm in that area if I shouldn't just go in guns blazing and actually complete the Dymented station area. What's going for it is that it'll be one part done - which I think is always a bit of a morale booster - AND I can start re-learning things like scenics, electrics, soldering, ballasting etc. Something for the New Year, eh?

No update tomorrow, so speak Thursday.

Cheers,

Philip

No update tonight due to to-ing and fro-ing to the ozzie and doing some domestic stuff in between. I'd don't think there'll even be a posting tomorrow or Wednesday due to getting the house cleaned up for visitors arriving on Wednesday.

One good bit of news was that the 'no-nails, no-screws' has set - I was concerned that due to the low temperatures it wouldn't hold the bark to the 'styrene, but it did. The other thing is that as part of my shopping duties today, I was able to get a small bag of plaster to in-fill and coat the scenery that has been done so far - so not all bad.

Maybe more tomorrow.

Cheers,

Philip

Go and have a look at the 'Hills of the North' project by @LNER4479  of this parish. He and his cow-orkers have a chapel within which to 'play' and they still can't get one of their stations in - a front bit but the rest ends up as an exceedingly tight turn and much reduced similar to that shown by @HillsideDepot above. I'm not trying to put you off, but just so you can see how big a space is needed. You may want to consider something less ambitious, say a smaller station, with perhaps a branch leading off and still have a reasonable layout.

I've got an old barn to use and even in a space of about 8.2m x 6.4m, my stations (though of prototypical length) are limited to 1.4m and 2.2m platforms and I still ended up with 1.0m (3') radius curves at the ends, by the time all the pointwork was in place - and just using Peco, not bespoke near-to-scale points.

I feel your pain.

Cheers,

Philip

@lezz01 I didn't have much choice as with having short arms (and deep pockets some might say), I didn't want to struggle working over laid track and getting it mucked up with scenic materials. I've seen layouts where that was done, lovely jobs, but a whole load of flock stuck in the ballast, for example. We'll see how I get on and hopefully this will be in the right order - many a slip and all that!

Sorry to hear that you had problems - care to share for the benefit of others?

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

The weekend is nearly over :( , but never mind, there's another one next week :)) !

The pilaster was wafted and glued in place which meant I could get on with the rock faced cutting of the branch as it dives under the main line. As a picture is worth a thousand words, here are some for today - lots to be done yet, but it won't be until Tuesday and even then limited, as we're having a lunchtime bash on Wednesday to celebrate belatedly Mrs Philou's birthday. Nothing meaningful will happen until Thursday most probably:

^ Now things are looking more as they should. The abutment needs toning down a bit as does the new pilaster - powders will do that after the rock face has been undercoated.

Talking of rock face, here's one I did earlier:

^ The oak bark was roughly cut to size and then numbered. I trimmed the pieces using a jigsaw blade and stuck them in place, in order, with 'no screws, no nails' (other adhesives available). There's back-filling to be done with PVA dampened kitchen towel and plaster. Thinned plaster will be brushed over all the surfaces and then a coat of white vinyl over that (I will remember to protect the bridgeworks first!). (Apologies for the rockfall - I should have cleaned up before taking the photo).

^ A view looking down the incline of the branch. Crevices in the bark will represent water erosion, I've already had the hot-knife out and cut out the polystyrene to form gullies. They're a bit 'harsh' and need to be softened - the plasterwork will do that.

^ Bird's eye view of the rock face.

I really, really want to get on with this as I'll be able to do the other side of the branch line as it drops alongside the mainline and then start on doing a bit of trackwork - yay!

Perhaps a little more tomorrow.

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chums and chumesses,

I was pilastered today - enough to drive one to drink. I managed to do all my tasks this morning and despite the very wet and windy weather that arrived unannounced, I managed to get into the barn and check on a couple of measurements and this evening, I had the missing pilaster done. A waft of matt varnish tomorrow and with a bit of luck, glued in place. It wasn't difficult to do, just very fiddly as the pieces of card were small and all had to be glued together and then papered and it just took time to do - s'done.

Last night I wandered into the world of the web and I found quite by accident a RAIB report on a derailment that occurred on a section of elevated railway in the Forest Gate/Ilford area of London that destroyed about 8.5miles of track including a section of baulk timbered rail on a rail overbridge. The report was very interesting from how the investigation was undertaken but my greater interest was drawn to the 10 x 8 colour photos that were included in the report - especially as it showed details and measurements of the baulks. Added to that, the railway at that point was on a curve and the bridge skewed and it showed how the 6.0m baulks were laid to the curve, canted and the overlap at each end making a transition between baulk and ballast. There were also some nice pictures on Google Streetview showing the underside of the bridge (built in 1893) with all the rivetted details. I am indeed now very much wiser of how to tackle my model.

The one thing that I did also note is the report stated that the curve was of a small radius and when I worked it out the 400m radius (1220' R) worked to be 'only' 5.25mR at 4mm scale - I've got curves greater than that on the layout! I was very surprised!

More tomorrow,

Cheers,

Philip

3 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Exactoscale ........ probably disappeared with most of the range.

Didn't Jackson do some at one time - or am I mis-remembering? I have some 'working' ones from the '60s on my whitmetal kit and tarted-up H/D locos in that you can use them to hook to another vehicle but you can't screw 'em up. They were well made and other than enlarging the slot in the buffer-beam, easy to fit. They were provided with a spring for fitting on the shaft behind the 'beam and a split-pin to hold it all in place.

Cheers,

Philip

Did I say I'd do the pilaster tomorrow? Well scrub the morning and I have a feeling Mrs Philou may have something lined up for the afternoon!

If I have an hour or so, I should get it made up (takes time as it's in small sections of card that will need to be trimmed, then glued and papered).

Hopefully more tomorrow and then underway again Sunday. Monday will definitely be scrubbed as Mrs Philou is having her repeat coloscopy and I'm taking her there and bringing her back - so I'll be out most of the day.

Cheers everybody and enjoy your weekend (are we back there already!!?)

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

I didn't do any updates yesterday as there wasn't much to tell. Today, as I'd finished the wall and given it a waft of acrylic matt varnish, I thought I'd better get it into the railway room as soon as. My goodness, it was c-c-c-c-c-cold in there. Down to 5° but the trusty heater had it up to 10° by the time I was ready to go back into the house!

The wall is in position but it doesn't tie absolutely with the adjoining abutment as the angles are not quite identical, it'll disappear under the bridge eventually. In any case, I need to tone the stonework of the abutments with a bit of weathering and it'll all marry together. I shall do a photo later.

Feeling flushed with success, I started re-assembling and glueing the 'styrene decor and once in position I started to set out the bark as the rock face. I did most of the length but had to stop as I realised I hadn't done the opposite side pilaster and I shan't do the rock face until I have that in position, which was a good enough reason to go back indoors for a warm up! I shall assemble the pilaster on Saturday as tomorrow I'm again tied up - real life is definitely getting in the way especially as Christmas is calling!

We're due a spell of damp but warmish weather this weekend - up to 15°!

Cheers everyone,

Philip

What a good effort! Especially in N!! I am a great fan of trolleybuses and I rode them a lot when I lived in Cardiff and it was with sadness I rode the last day special in January 1971 - was it really nearly 53 years ago? I really do wish local authorities would consider bringing them back - there was a-nearly-but-not-quite effort by Leeds a few years ago - cheaper and more flexible than trams and quite 'green' too.

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chum and chumesses,

Despite being waylaid by a lunchtime birthday celebration (I did say party didn't I, but that's more birthday cake, pop and silly hats) I did manage to weather the wall - dirt in the upper areas normally unaffected by rain and a bit of green for moss and algae where it's more affected by damp plus a bit of 'weeping' from the mortar joints. I haven't yet given the wall a waft of varnish and I expect it will tone it down a bit (usually does). Here's a picture (and apologies for the quality of the photos):

There you have it - fix in place tomorrow and continue with the scenic stuff behind and come back to the station area shortly. @lezz01 has kindly offered to get me some bits and pieces of rail to fabricate baulk-mounted rails for the bridge so I may be back to that sooner rather than later.

More tomorrow,

Philip

5 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

It's a GWR Backing signal

Dash! I knew I'd get it wrong - though in defence it was a couple of years ago - ahem!

But thanks for the correction - at least @BluenGreyAnorak has the right description!

Cheers,

Philip

I don't know if this sort of thing would be of use to you - it's an old Ratio signal kit (probably 40+years) that I put together with Mike, @The Stationmaster 's help during the Covid lockdown ready for my proposed layout. It's non-working in that the display is 'fixed' but it is a calling-on signal, with working LEDs. When the theatre box light is off , the display 'disappears'.

Cheers,

Philip

Picture in-coming!

The wall is finished, but tomorrow I will go find my coloured pastels and do a bit of weathering and then a waft of matt acrylic varnish to give some protection. It's going to have to be really well sealed anyway due to the need of ballasting alongside. (There is a water mark already on a buttress due to a wet cat shaking a paw going past.)

I am pleased how the end buttress/pilaster came together in the end. Here we are:

^ Having done a dry run this afternoon, it should all go together with the abutment that's already in place.

^ The full wall. There is a short return wall at the far end to create and some more retaining wall parallel to the track - about 300mm worth. It gives an idea of the total length of the platform at Dymented. I think the next sections of wall will be simplified as this exercise has taken me a little longer than anticipated (I did have to re-learn a thing or two).

What's next? I'm a little dependent on the weather at the moment - it's gone mighty cold and damp lately - and I really ought to do the scenic stuff first and then do the bridge - but it's very tempting to do the bridge in the warm and dry :) .

Thanks to @lezz01 's suggestion, I now have options of doing the bridge - rail chairs direct onto the deck (I haven't seen that modelled before) or the more classical way of sleepers on ballast on deck. The other way is to have baulks bolted onto the deck - I saw a photo of Crumlin viaduct (I think it was) with that and timber planking laid to both outer sides of the rails - similar to a promenade.

Anyway, all of that will be for Wednesday as we're off 'lunching' again tomorrow - the birthday party season has restarted!

Toodle pip,

Philip

@lezz01 What a man you are! That is a kind offer - and it certainly would be a bit different than having a deck covered in ballast. If I take up your offer I wouldn't need more than 4 pieces of bullhead no longer than 450mm each - that ought to pass in the post!

Today I'm finally on the home run - been fabricating some odd-shaped bits of card to get the right profile as there is one very acute angle and the other very obtuse. I've been to the barn and checked the retaining wall against the station 'floor' and the mainline and it all seems to fit. Next step will be glueing the paper and two bits of corbelling and that should be that.

Picture later.

Cheers,

Philip

^ What's with the partially lifted crossover? Asking for a friend ;) Looks nearly new.

2 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

I have a Legrande double socket where the internal connections on the socket means that on one side the right pin is live and on the other the live pin is left.

Eh? All my Legrand (Mosaic) are all the same. I do take the point regarding cable colour though. All mine are brown/blue/green-yellow with the exception of the two-way lighting circuits where there's purple for the double interconnecting wires. In the UK I think they use black and grey (never had to do a UK two-way). Oh, and some red for the unswitched live circuit bringing power to the two-way.

You USED to be able to do a ring circuit in France, but it was rather frowned upon - couldn't really understand why as there was a saving in cable size and it spread the power through the circuit - oh well, their country, their rules.

Cheers,

Philip

At least the modern electrics are very similar to UK domestic wiring (brown, blue and green/yellow) AND some socket manufacturers colour the inlets at the back so that everything SHOULD be the same. If I remember correctly, the phase is on the right hand side - same as the UK. Don't get me started on the safety guards inside the sockets, as unlike the UK earth pin being longer than the other two and also chamfered to depress the shutter inside, EU pins are round and there being no earth pin on the plug (the earth pin is part of the socket, if you didn't know) and a round-ended round pin isn't. the. easiest. to. PUSH. AGAINST. THE (straining now). SHUTTER! I have been known to take a persuader to the shutter (hammer and screwdriver) to force it or break it, and I'm not the only one - apparently.

I get on fine with the plumbing as I tend to use 12mm only though I did find it very irritating at first.UK 10mm will join quite happily to French 10mm. Did you know that the majority of French iron or brass fittings are BSP threads? Usually 3/8, 1/2 or 3/4" threads to which UK plumbing will fit - there is a lot of metric coming on the market now though :( .

Back to this retaining wall ....... progress was slooooowwwww, but I've done all the corbelling and plinths and just started doing the very end bridge support and pilaster. Should be done and dusted tomorrow. (No photo today).

I have another bridge question and it follows on looking a plate girder bridge with channels on the underside. Do the sleepers sit inside the channels? If they don't, then there's 9" missing somewhere when counting bricks (3 courses). I thought the construction was that the channels gave support to a decking plate above upon which there would have been a thin layer (or perhaps not any) ballast with the sleepers on top. I don't think it's that at all now.

I would have rathered post some photos to illustrate the point- the one picture is no problem as it's a Google Streetview but the other is one I - um - er - borrowed off t'intertubes and I shouldn't want it to cause a problem to @AY Mod - it's oldish but as with all these things, may be subject to copyright.

Thinking caps on as I didn't find what I wanted going via @lezz01 's route of a couple of days ago.

Cheers,

Philip

Hello chaps and chapesses,

You know what I said about good intentions a couple of posts ago? Thwarted yet again as I was roped in to do the municipal Christmas decorations. M. le Maire and his helper were both inside a bucket of a 4w drive telescopic armed JCB-type (no straps! Eek!!) agricultural vehicle with the various ornaments clipping them to the lamp/electricity poles and plugging them in. I decided I'd be better off on the ground in my hi-vis jacket warning any on-coming vehicles. It was done and dusted in about 30mins but I had to suffer them plugging a double socket (non-waterproof) into one of the plugs on the column and then plugging one of the decorations into that plus an extension lead that was wired with a plug with exposed pins on the end (deliberately to plug into a wall socket to power up elsewhere).

They also found themselves with an extension that was the wrong way about - socket at one end and nowt the other whereas it should have been a plug one end and nowt the other - could I look at it. I took the battered cover off the distribution box to fond two rows of 6 choc blocks - one for phase and the other neutral that had been daisy chained using green and yellow wiring. There was no earth either. The distribution box had more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese! I was not a happy bunny.

I rewired it for the 'proper' extension lead and I did say to M. le Maire that it's all going to have to taken apart and rewired correctly and we shall use Wago connectors instead of choc blocks - he didn't say anything and it's not as if it's going cost the commune very much either £30 tops. Better that than someone getting a rude awakening when it rains or holding the live pin extension when it's powered up!

Rant especially as I've got a CCS card which is worthless over here - elf'n'safety, eh?

Today I only managed the capstones to the buttresses and a bit of the plinths. Tomorrow I'm on my own so I expect to be able to crack on!

More tomorrow,

Philip