Harlequin

Interestingly, I recently mentioned the possibility of a modern 57xx model in another thread: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/123937-Bachmann-94xx/&do=findComment&comment=3851101

Hold your nerve a bit longer, John! I think your preference for electrofrog is wise and the double slip could look overcomplicated. There will be Medium Radius electrofrog turnouts again one day soon. (You could look at the classifieds on here or put a Wanted request up.) I'm happy to try to widen the platform and adjust the trackwork if you want. However, consider these points: The bay will probably have to be shortened. Maybe that's not a bad thing. The two goods sidings will be shorter (as they will if a short straight section is inserted). The platform has been compressed both in length and width and I would argue that it's roughly in proportion with the prototypes. It might, in fact, look odd if it's made much wider! It does meet the regulations from the water crane back and, as the knowledgeable folks above have pointed out, there were cases where platforms became thinner than regs, so we're not doing anything outlandish. We can plausibly explain that the platform is that size, and maybe couldn't be widened, because of the proximity of the tunnel and the local geography.

The forum has definitely been behaving better for me since the recent upgrade. I've seen a few long page fetches but they are much less frequent than they were before and on the whole response times are fast enough that they don't distract me like they used to. Well done Andy and team for persisting with it and making a good step forward.

In the drawing the squared off end of the platform is 26mm wide and the track centres are 20mm either side. The platform widens to 55mm by the water crane and you would not expect passengers to be allowed that far.

Incoming traffic can’t crossover to stand at the platform.

If the magnets are being glued to the parts before they have fully cured (implying they have recently come out of a 3D printer) it's not surprising they would become unstuck occasionally.

Hi Richard, In this video you are visiting the "content I posted in" page by fetching a bookmarked URL rather than by clicking the link in the "My activity streams" dropdown, which is what Gordon did. I notice that the URL is slightly different, with a blank anchor pos reference on the end. Bit of a longshot but: Have you tried using the dropdown? If so, is that just as bad?

The Chinese giveth and the Chinese taketh away...

Chinese duck army to do battle with locusts https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-51658145

CAD is a slightly different beast than vector drawing software. CAD is very technical whereas vector drawing software is more freeform. Thus, vector drawing software can be used as digital pencil and paper at first and then later in the same package, even in the same sketch drawing, tying down exact dimensions and details. Vector drawing software: Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Xara Designer, Corel Draw, Inkscape, etc...

Could you mount the motor under the board but offset from the turnout and use a cranked arm to connect the two?

I just had a chat with two guys from Network Rail I met in North Tawton. They said they were out looking at the structures on the line between Okehampton and Crediton because GWR are interested in running a service, probably just a DMU shuttling between Okehampton and Crediton. Apparently the structures they'd looked at this morning (between Okehampton and North Tawton) are sound, just a bit of "de-veging" to be done. The PWay will be separately inspected later this week. Interestingly, they were unaware of the proposals to build a new station on the Eastern side of Okey...

Hi, It’s a bad idea to use your email address as your account name, if it’s real, because the spammers will pick it up.

After today's upgrade the forum response is consistently good for me at the moment and better than it's been for some weeks. That might change as the server deals with more requests and more users online but it's looking good at the moment! @AY Mod Did the upgrade address any performance issues?

There is no right answer to this - everyone will find an approach that suits them, including not drawing anything but laying the parts out on the baseboard! However, many people are very familiar with software solutions in their lives these days, it's not a passing trend. That, and the sheer power and flexibility it brings is why I recommend software (I'm a programmer by trade, so I would!). It's true that some software is really difficult to learn, unfortunately, but there are teams of very clever people spending a lot of time and money to make products that are both powerful and very natural and easy to use. You have to find a program that suits you. P.S. I love to see your drawings, Nearholmer. Please keep them coming!

Hi Amanda, Everything you mentioned is plausible on a generic GWR branch line except that the 4 wheel coaches were being phased out around the time the 57xx was introduced and the Dean goods and Mogul imply heavier traffic than most branch lines. The 4 wheel coaches lingered on in use as passenger coaches (rather than being used for other purposes) in Wales. So you could easily invent a fictional branch line dated 1929 onwards (because of the 57xx) with all the ingredients but the Dean goods and the Mogul make it slightly more difficult. If you replace the 57xx with one of it’s very similar predecessors then you can push the date back. To find a prototype location that employed that combination of rolling stock would require some research. The Whitland to Cardigan branch certainly saw the use of earlier panniers with 4 wheel coaching stock while small prairies were hauling goods but I doubt it ever saw a Dean goods or a Mogul. (I would be delighted to be proved wrong, though!) http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/llanglydwen/index7.shtml

I meant 10 by 5 with an operating well, as per the OP.

Yes, exactly. A proper, fine scale Dean Single (in 4-2-2 form) could be a showstopper in the mould of the Stirling Single and the upcoming D class. Where's me tin hat? I'll have to re-pot the petunias.

I think there's still plenty of scope for new RTR (G)WR loco models. There are pre-Churchward loco classes yet to be done and, as technology and fine scale quality move ever onwards, many others that could be profitably updated. Imagine the humble 57XX pannier tank with compensation, conversion to EM designed in, easy-fit DCC, built-in keep-alive, speakers and firebox flicker, optional top-feed (!), wide choice of GWR/BR shed codes, etc., etc... They would sell like hot-cakes! Maybe I'm "straying into the realms of fantasy" but it's a nice place to visit occasionally!

The original 6 * 6 layout is severely compromised by the space and it should be possible to do much better in 10 * 5. If you can make a computer program work then it's best to use one, IMHO, because it's much easier to try things out on screen using as many or as few parts as you need. You can use a drawing program rather than track planning software if you can make accurate symbols for the turnouts and curves. That's how I create all my track plans. (I have got some Settrack/Hornby symbols if you need them.) But for a small layout, if the baseboard arrangement is obvious, then you won't really lose much time or money by buying some track and playing around.

I have a Bachmann City class "Killarney" fitted with a YouChoos sound project and I love the wheezy, squeaky straining sounds that it makes, which seem to fit this venerable class of loco very well. However, the sound always had the unmistakable quality of coming from inside a thin plastic box. Last week I had a brainwave that would solve two problems at once: I could replace the awful moulded metal coal load with something that both looked better and that would transmit the sound better from the speaker, which is directly below it. My thinking was that there would be enough gaps between the big lumps of best Welsh loco coal to allow sound to pass through. So here's what I did today: 1. Remove the supplied coal load and use it to form an equivalent shape cut from insect screen mesh. 2. Cut a new aperture in the tender body under the coal load. 3. Test fit the new mesh 4. Glue loco coal to the mesh using Copydex. The first layer had to be done carefully to avoid clogging the mesh with glue. A couple of further layers were added mainly to fill in gaps in the first layer rather than to add depth. 5. Fit the new load. You can see daylight through it, which is exactly what we want! 6. Here she is back on the test track. I might need to fill gaps with more dabs of Copydex and more lumps of coal as I watch her over the next few days - but it looks reasonably convincing at first glance. (Maybe the tender is a bit overfilled?) I might also glue some lead inside the body to replace the lost weight of the original coal load. So there it is: A speaker grille made of coal! The sound is definitely clearer but still a little "plasticky" if I'm honest. Perhaps a bigger speaker would fit in the space...?

Here's the revised drawing with the new info about corner angles taken into account: I've turned off some details and added a 100mm grid to try to help with setting out the curves.

Hi John, I think everything's still OK. This is what happens where the branch line enters the scene: I just need to connect the branch line to the first curve again and I will do that by sliding everything very slightly to the left. Notice that the engine shed line in my proposed plan just crosses the edge of your lift-out section (the dashed line is my best guess as to where it is). The easiest solution would be to swing the engine shed more to the left, more diagonal, so it remains on the fixed baseboard. So only one line to cut if you need to remove the lift-out. What do you think?

I'm not sure there's room for a road behind the tracks and the SC. It would arrive at the "wrong" side of the goods shed, as I've drawn it but I'll leave you to work out the details. 860 * 490mm. I gave you a quick answer above in case you were itching to cut some timber! This also answers @Flying Pig's question: The platform is 55mm wide at the water column, grows to ~75mm just before it straightens out and finally is ~87mm wide at the bay buffers. The platform edge is 20mm away from the track centres and because the curvature is so great I think clearances will be fine. Even if a few mils need to be shaved, off there's some leeway before we hit the regulation minimum 48mm (12 scale feet). 1 Long right 2 Medium right 3 Medium left 2 Curved right 1 Curved left Optionally: 2 Right hand Catch/Trap points (1 can be inserted easily, the other not so easily but maybe it could be modified in some way to fit in the curve of the long siding?) Sorry, no - they aren't constant radius curves! To set them out you can either print off the PDF that I will send you at real size or measure distances perpendicular to the baseboard edge at intervals and plot the curves that way. I can tell you how to print tiles in Acrobat or create a set of measurements for you. Let me know.