Harlequin

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.)

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!

Hi Nick, Do you mean the building or the general shed area trackwork? Edit: It is covered in "An historical survey of GWR engine sheds 1947" by Lyons.

More info about the two whistles from P.W.B. Semmens' book, "The heyday of GWR Train Services". He describes slip coach operation in some detail. The operation of the slip gear was quite a complicated process, which I won't got into in detail here, but it involved both the slip guard and the engine driver. So imagine the situation where the slip guard has detached his portion and achieved a "sufficiently large" gap between it and the main train ahead. Both would be travelling forwards in relatively close proximity, but imagine then that the driver of the main train had to apply his brakes for some reason. In that case the driver "had to alert the slip guard immediately by sounding the deeper-toned brake whistle with which all GWR locomotives were additionally fitted".

I'm struggling to get to grips with the results from the two colorimeters... You would think that devices like these, which claim to be calibrated, would give consistent results but I'm finding that they differ from each other and worse, not in a consistent way. So at the moment I don't trust either of them!

There are lots of RAL colours in the area but I don't think you can fix one as a standard. For interest here are a bunch of GWR loco greens collected from the web, including some RAL colours (and along the bottom row a few from photos - very dangerous): WARNING: This graphic almost pointless! None of the colours above are specified in CIELAB colour space. The point about the CIELAB colour standard is that it takes the light source into account and so a colour is completely defined and we can calculate what it will look like under other light sources (The Johnster). There are several different RAL standards (just to make life even more confusing) but only one of them, RAL Design, has a well-defined mapping to CIELAB space. (None of the RAL colours above are specified in RAL Design.)

Hi Richard, There seem to be some inconsistencies in your plans... The prototype station is straight but your model space is L shaped. The bit of the prototype you are interested in, the shed area, is relatively simple and well-defined but the peripheral bit that you are less interested in, the passing lines, are complicated and extensive. To model the shed you only need storage space for locos but if you model the mainlines you seem to be thinking about mainline traffic, which will need much more storage. I’m sure all these things can be resolved. One idea might be to use just one leg of your L shaped space to model the shed area with simplified mainlines either in the foreground or background just as a non-working scenic element?

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

" Captain Webb the Dawley man, Captain Webb from Dawley, Came swimming along the old canal That carried the bricks to Lawley. Swimming along - Swimming along - Swimming along from Severn, And paying a call at Dawley Bank while swimming along to Heaven "

Hi John, Do you do requests? Could you snap the same scene from closer to eye level? I bet it would look even more wonderful (apart from not showing off your new fence so well)...

That’s what my brief research suggested too. A “snubber”.

That sounds great! I had to ask because a number of people who start threads here haven't really considered whether their space is suitable for a railway or not and we only find out after multiple plans have been proposed... What's the rest of the loft used for???

Hi spikey, This is a really interesting query because it's not something that has come up much before. If it was a general problem you'd expect to see lots of people saying the same thing but that doesn't seem to be the case, AFAIK. I can imagine that cheap switches might go wrong after a while but I think point motors ought to be more reliable than you suggest. So, I'm wondering whether the CDU is in fact the real problem? Maybe it's just putting too much energy through the system? Arcing in switches is a well known problem and it's worse in DC systems than AC because the conditions for the arc across the switch contacts can last longer and always transfers metal the same way. With AC the voltage reverses very quickly, of course, and any arc deposits metal randomly between the contacts. There are simple ways to reduce arcing but you'd need an electronics expert to suggest what might work in your case. On my old layout (40 years ago) we used stud contacts to drive our point motors and it worked well except that the violent flashes were a bit scary and there was always a small chance that the probe tip would weld itself to the stud when you touched it!

Loft spaces can be very tricky. Are there any beams crossing through the space that would affect the plan? Does the roof slope inwards? Are there any purlins getting in the way? (Hopefully the space isn't filled with braced trusses every 2ft!) Has the loft space been "converted"? If not you need to think about the temperature extremes and humidity levels.

No substantive updates yet but I have some more technology. The website I was using to convert CIELAB values to RGB belongs to a company that makes another affordable colorimeter. (I didn't that realise until the wonder of cookies showed me adverts for their devices while I was looking at the weather forecast... ) This device, a NIX Mini 2, is a very different beast: The original blue device is far eastern basic technology - a standalone workmanlike unit. The new device is a slickly designed, tiny sensor module from Canada that pairs with a swish app running on a Smartphone. So I can now compare samples from the two devices and hopefully solve some of the problems with the initial measurements from the big blue device.

"Loft eaves"? "a more precise measure up"? I have a bad feeling about this....

I think you need to "report it" to Andy and ask him to move it, but... IMHO, it would be cleaner to start a new topic because people who like to follow builds might not be interested in the design process and it might seem odd to have all that discussion suddenly appear as if it's still "open" in some sense. I would suggest just putting a link to this thread on the first page of your new thread.

Time to start a Layout topic?

You'd be surprised how many people don't think of that!

Hi Reg, Have you considered using more prototypical looking track for your layout? E.g. Peco Streamline? Lengths and curve radii would be more constraining - i.e. you would get less into the space and you wouldn't be able to have a loop in the head of your tadpole but it would look more "grown up", as you put it. Since you say you're into the scenery more maybe that would still work for you? 4ft is generally considered to be too far to reach across. Remember that when you put your hand down you will inevitably be degrading some bit of scenery and your clothes will be catching the little details at the front. Most stock these days is made to work on R2 curves. You see it stated on the boxes. (There are exceptions like the beautiful little Pecketts and their like.) Curves less than that radius will be a pain when you want to run some new stock and find it derails, locks buffers or needs to be modified to run on your layout...

Remember to leave enough room for the traverser to connect the front road to the rest of the layout - not how your sketch shows it.

Just needs a bit of plastic sheet across the opening and I'm sure Mrs Bacon can make do until the railway is up and running...? Got to get your priorities right!

And leave room for the band, of course... But whoa! Hold on there! We didn't see Bradley Manor in the loco release spur! Wasn't that what the tension was building up to?