Harlequin

Deleted.

Existing baseboards made my suggestion redundant.
 

Remember the GWR called it a "Service Time Table", STT, not a WTT and that continued even in BR(WR) times.

That might affect your searches.

Hi H,

Assuming that you want to make a OO model (you haven’t told us what scale you are intending) the space available is barely big enough for a small branch line terminus, let alone a mainline through station.

If you are intending to operate the layout, not just treat it as a diorama, you need to leave room for somewhere for trains to go to and come from - usually a fiddle yard or storage yard. A through station like Orpington either needs a fiddle yard at either end long enough to hold the longest train or for both ends to be connected in a continuous circuit. Fiddle yards and curves consume a lot of space.

Fiddle yards are usually on the same level as the scenic area. Alternatively, they can be above or below but to do that you need ramps of one kind or another which themselves take up space and have to be carefully designed to make them work reliably.

You need to consider how far you can reach across the baseboards comfortably so that you can work at the back without damaging the stuff at the front. 1400mm is almost certainly too far.

You are discovering the compromises that modellers have to make to reconcile their ambitions with the space available. This is often uncomfortable.

Look at track plans in books and magazines to see what sort of layouts can fit in your space or conversely, what space is needed to model a station like Orpington.

1 hour ago, pgcroc said:

No it's not because of you Harlequin.

 

It's the not knowing things that get me. I cannot get a book out, look at a formula and solve a problem, if you see what I mean. 

As I said in my first post, I know nothing about the workings of railways. 

All my life I have lived by the mantra of 'I know what I don't know'.

If I did not know something, I would ask somebody. Not trying to bullsh!t my way through a problem, and I saw a lot of that!

 

I am sure I will get there someday.

Don't worry.

 

Cheers

Pete

I understand the frustration.

How about changing tack and getting someone else to design the layout for you? That way the designer's knowledge could be harnessed to produce a design to your specification and with all the right bits in the right places (to paraphrase Eric Morecambe) that would get you up and running more quickly. 

8 minutes ago, pgcroc said:

I am now getting a bit dispirited! 

Pete

Oh dear, I hope that's not because of me! Please don't be dispirited.

Get something working and have some fun!

1 minute ago, pgcroc said:

Now I am really worried Harlequin.

Pete

No, don't worry. Different people do things different ways. I think Chimer is on your wavelength more than I am.

On 18/10/2020 at 11:44, Chimer said:

 

Not quite sure how to take that ...... don't think I actually wield a veto, do I? 

 

The turntable and the roads off it serve the purpose of giving you somewhere to keep locos handy to the station so you can change engines on trains which adds interest to operations.  And the trailing access from platform 1 breaks no rules.  In the real world of course you can't just leave steam engines standing around for hours between jobs the way you can with diesels, which is why they tend retire to sheds to have their ashes hauled etc., so the overall arrangement is a bit unlikely, but probably an acceptable compromise.  A proper shed with all the necessary facilities does take up a lot of space.

 

Going back to your previous post, the throat pointwork can be shuffled around as necessary to avoid baseboard timbers as long as the relationship between the key elements (the crossovers and junctions) doesn't change.  So the crossovers can slide further round the curves, or maybe angling the platforms a couple of degrees, or curving them, could make a difference (tracks rigidly parallel to baseboard edges is something many people like to avoid, see some of the early plan suggestions).

 

The only real-world functions I can see for that trailing point off the inner circuit down the right hand side performing are to lead to a lie-by siding (where a freight train backs in to clear the way for a faster train), some rail-served industry, or exchange sidings.  The space doesn't work for the lie-by (the siding needs to be long, and stay parallel to the main line which is about to vanish behind a wall).  The other ideas could work, but would be competing for space with the branch line if that comes round inside the main lines on that side.

 

It's your railway .....

 

 

Actually, I think Pete needs a single voice advising him - to give the plan some coherence. 

(There are some things I would question about the current plan but I'm staying out of it - too many voices.)

On 18/10/2020 at 12:21, Flying Pig said:

 

Servicing facilities were not unusual at places where trains terminated - turning, watering, oiling and ash removal could all be done on a small site like this without the full facilities of a shed.  It does assume that trains terminate or change engines  at the station often enough to make the loco yard worthwhile though.  If that doesn't happen your locos will live offstage between trains.

 

Also, if I could be really picky, the loco yard layout could be better, as a lot of space is taken up by a long access line that needs to be kept clear and the amount of space for actually parking locos is limited.

 

GWR engine sheds seem to vary greatly in size, character, layout and relationship to stations. I think it's easy to justify one at this station that might have been provided originally for the branch loco and then crystallised and grew from that seed. Especially if you imagine there's some other infrastructure off scene nearby, such as maybe another branch a few miles further down the line.

The layout of the shed area should give locos from the main line quick access to coal and water. Then, further back, provide a small shed building with attached office (one or two roads), turntable, ash pit(s). The turntable is most commonly alongside the shed but may be opposing it. At small sheds, the turntable doesn't usually have any usable spurs off it, just a stub with buffer stop opposite the entry line. Larger sheds might have a few spurs. The coaling stage can be a simple one sided timber platform alongside a suitable track or might be double sided with a short siding behind it for unloading coal wagons. At larger sheds coaling arrangements were even more sophisticated but I think they would be out of character here. Maybe provide a siding to store coal wagons while they're not alongside the stage. The shed area must be trapped before it connects to any passenger lines, either with a simple trap point or a kickback siding that might have some other use.

Further small update:

Added the connecting cable (more correctly the trunking) and plugs in the holes on the opposite side. The "plugs" might be bolts but it's not clear so I've just added non-descript cylinders covering the holes.

Here's the next update:

The shape of the side mounting plates is a bit of an educated guess. I think I see the angled rear in some photos. The electrical cable passes through one of the holes to connect to the ATC device and pick up voltage from the ramp.

I changed some of the washers because I realised that the engineering drawing was showing spring washers in many places.

All the bolts are now oriented correctly. Notice that one of the four bolts connecting each side to the mounting plate is reversed. That's exactly as drawn because the body of the device would prevent a bolt being inserted from the inside in that position.

And I realised what the front guard bar is really for. It is there to prevent the coupling making electrical contact with the device and giving wrong indications in the cab. Note that the guard is fixed to the outside of the mounting, thus electrically connected to the loco frame and insulated from the device.

2 hours ago, Bazza said:

The models on display looked really good and I might be tempted to  a BR green one. Just a little concerned that there appears to have been little reaction to their being shown. With large prairie, mogul and manor around or imminent are GWR/WR modeller running out of cash?

More likely just overshadowed by the beautifully curvaceous Dapol streamlined railcar.

19 minutes ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

That could definitely help - but all of these things are applicable to steam working too so don't really form a differentiator. I guess however, it does ensure there's a base level of things going on - assuming one models the pre-signalbox-centralisation era!

 

  

 

 

This is a bit interesting, reminds me of a videogame development 'challenge' where people are revealed new concepts to integrate into the game during development over the course of a day, i.e. 'time is running out', or 'inversion' or something, and their success is based on including or working around those limitations.

If you find d/emu operations unsatisfying those activities might not work for you, though, because they don't make trains do anything fundamentally different on the layout.

They still just slide soullessly into platforms, stand a while and slide out again. Only the reasons for doing that have changed.

For some people the off-layout activities would add enough interest, but for others, maybe not.

Here's the latest version:

Fillets in all the internal corners of the castings.

Corrected some mistakes and added some details.

Nuts, bolts, washers and bushes.

I know some of this small stuff will hardly be visible at 4mm scale but it's good to do it properly so that the model could be used at any scale. (I'm drawing it actual size - it's about 33 inches high.)

Thinking about seeing the back of one, I just remembered that I took lots of photos underneath Caerphilly Castle the last time I was at Steam...

All I found was this:

D'Oh! Another partial view of the front!

1 hour ago, 5050 said:

Looking at Harlequin's rendered image (which I realise wasn't complete when posted) there is a significant part missing that is not included in the original GWR drawings as part of Justin's post.  This is the  bar that goes across the front of the apparatus, attached to brackets bolted to the sides.  It doesn't seem to have any part of the function of the apparatus - but was it added as an afterthought, perhaps to protect the apparatus from potential damage by a swinging coupling?  Clearly seen here on a 47XX on Old Oak common, a detail taken from a P J Lynch photo.

 

 

Will you be including this in your 3D rendering Harlequin?

Another useful photo, thanks. (I wish I could see the back of one!)

The bar across the front seems to be quite common and is part of the mounting, rather than part of the device itself. I think your idea about it protecting the device from being knocked by the coupling might be spot on.

I will try to model this kind of mounting. I've got a cunning plan to combine it with an NEM tongue so that it will plug into an NEM socket on RTR locos.

32 minutes ago, 5050 said:

Harlequin - is your drawing a prequel to a 3D printed version??

Yes, that's the idea. I hope to make the model available to the community in some form or other.

I'll send you the Sketchup file when I've made a bit more progress if that would help.

I've started to build a 3D model from the engineering drawings in Justin's post:

I have mainly concentrated on the castings so far and there's still a lot to do - rounding off various corners, adding nuts & bolts, etc.

(Don't worry about the colours or extra lines where they shouldn't be - they are all just to help to see what I'm doing during construction.)

It's very satisfying to be able to create something from drawings that are around 85 years old and to see the shapes come to life in a way that the original draughtsman could not possibly have imagined!

Notice that the grey shapes are fibre pads and that fibre bushes and washers are specified (not drawn yet) with all 8 bolted connections to provide electrical isolation between the device and the loco frame.

As Miss P. said right at the top, the device was common to all locos but the way it was mounted differed between classes.

7 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

 

When saving from your graphics editor and uploading, yes.

 

But not when downloading from RMweb. You will get only what the contributor uploaded.

 

The Weppy format has been working in all major browsers for years, so it shouldn't be a problem to view the images unless you are using a very old system. Editing them is more restricted to graphics editors such as Affinity and GIMP (Photoshop needs a plug-in), but editing can also be done in Paint.

 

But there of plenty of online converters which will convert them to jpg.

 

Martin.

That makes sense, thanks.

The "Save As Type" dropdown is a bit misleading but of course it's the standard Windows File Save dialog.

You should be offered JPEG, amongst other formats, in the Save As dropdown menu.

Or am I missing the point?

Photos of 7418 and 7413 on the branch can be found on Everything Great Western.

3 hours ago, Captainalbino said:

The Hattons 14xx has annoyingly found a reason to go back on the shelf again.

This model has given me so many issues, I can’t decide whether to be done with it and sell it, persevere and try to get it to sort of run again, or just leave it on the shelf! I did think about putting a new chassis beneath it, but I’m unaware of anyone having success with a Hattons 14xx.  
 

It's a shame this model is so deeply flawed. Seems to be typical of the problems with DJM's designs, unfortunately.

You need to talk to @Captain Kernow. He fitted a new chassis under the DJM/Hattons body but I don't think it was easy!

It looks good but it's not clear what the bay platform is for. And is it a "bay" if the track doesn't terminate?

(The horribly jaggy graphics from Xtrkcad make it difficult to see the exact details of some of the crossings.)

Going to the source documents isn't just about accuracy - it's also about confirming whether other people's guesses, opinions and maths are correct and not committing the cardinal sin of modelling a model.

Hi Hugh,

You might also consider getting some of Iain Rice's books. He explains baseboard design for both UK and US models, in all the forms you could possibly imagine. His methods are very practical and hands-on.

(Edit: And you might encounter Iain Rice articles in Model Railroader.)

I suggest you try to find a “minimum structure gauge” drawing for your chosen railway company and period. That was the specification that engineers used when designing lineside infrastructure.

For instance, Atkins’ book “GWR Goods Train Working, Vol 2” shows several structure gauge drawings, which include details of goods platforms. (3 to 4 inches higher than passenger platforms, exactly the same distance to the rails.)

37 minutes ago, checkrail said:

I rather like this last one of the forecourt.  It's spoilt by the unwanted view of one of the purlins, but in a busy life the the stolen moments for modelling are precious and leave little time for exploring photo processing.  (Having said that, I did accidentally stumble into the cloning tool on Affinity Photo about half an hour ago, but only succeeded in painting Eternit roof tiles all over bits of the sky.)

 

John C.

Thank you so much, John. They are great photos. (I never really noticed the wonderful wrought iron fence on this side of the forecourt before.)

That last one is the best of the bunch, despite the purlin which I really didn't notice until I read your comments!

The eye-level viewpoint makes a world of difference. Magazine quality. Superb!