Harlequin

You don't have to slavishly reproduce a prototype track plan. Almost every model railway that represents a real location is a compressed and simplified version of it.

Interesting topic. Here's the Dapol loco-tender coupling on their first batch 00 GWR Mogul (loco on left, tender on right): The camming mechanisms are hidden in the boxes and you can see how the two parts of the connection click together to form a rigid bar. One of the ideas behind this connection is that it also carries electrical connections between the two parts, thus removing the need for those fiddly and fragile little nylon plugs. What do the Bachmann and Hornby versions look like?

Drew, have you given any thought to modelling all the houses around the railway? It would be a mammoth task, comparable to Copenhagen Fields: https://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/layouts/copenhagen-fields/

1:1250 map dated 1954: https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.5&lat=51.60161&lon=-0.12242&layers=173&b=1&o=100

The depot in its current form makes the scene difficult to design because of its sheer size, it will be very difficult to model those large sheds and they are of questionable value anyway because trains disappear into them and become effectively non-existent at that point. (Presumably in the prototype they remain in the shed for weeks at a time...?) Changing it for the earlier goods yard would be more correct for the 55-70 period, would keep things out in the open and would arguably be a more interesting scene with more interesting stock on display. I view helices as the spawn of the devil, only to be used as a last resort when there's no other workable alternative. You have plenty of room to avoid them and in fact if you did need to change levels to reach a hidden fiddle yard (not always the best idea either) then you could do it by building long gradients into the main layout itself, without needing to have dedicated helices.

This is getting wildly off-topic (and it might be worth creating a specific topic if this really is a big issue) but what makes these connections inadequate? I don't think I've seen one yet. Are they copying Dapol's click-fit loco-tender connector?

Robin's plan looks good but it's squashed into the space. Can the main board be made any wider? What about the fillet in the corner? Could that be bigger? (Cross-posted.) If the fillet and the main board were a bit wider then it might be possible to use one or more curved turnouts in the entry curve to make the lengths of everything longer and splay out the goods yard a bit more like Delph. The other great thing about Delph station is the massive woollen mill building as a low-relief backscene.

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There’s a dedicated area of the forum for layout and track planning. https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/forum/66-layout-track-design/

Have you got any reference photos? Cast iron lettering was not really standardised in that period so you probably won't find a "correct" font, just something that's close enough. The lettering would have been based on some outlines in a book and then patterns made by a craftsman and adapted to meet the needs of the casting process. BTW: You might find that the scale depth of relief of the lettering is so small that it makes it really difficult to paint the letters neatly. I know - I tried.

Yes, but it was within warranty so I got a direct replacement. The first motors were superior but they were in a flawed body. The later ones with the body corrections have these smaller motors with a plastic cradle to make them up to the right shape to fit in the casting. I avoid "Sam's Trains" as far as possible but he does have a video showing how to make a new cradle and fit a new motor to the Dean Goods. This model has had a chequered history. It's a shame because it could have been so good!

Could be that one of the coils has burnt out. That happened to one of mine with similar symptoms.

I've been building up the texture of the roof with reference to a photo in Amyas Crump's book, "Great Western Architecture in colour", including adding lichen growth: In this photo you can barely see the slate texture that I painstakingly built up in 4 stages - but it does show up better in real life. I might be able to get a better photo. What does show up, though, is the grain of the ply crossing the slates. This is the biggest problem with this laser-cut ply kit and it shows up in other places. If I was starting again I think i might try to fill in some of the grain before assembling the parts. The "lichen" looks OK at the near end but three-quarters of the way back there are some big bright slodges that don't look right. I'm going to have to do something about them.

"What are you looking at?" "You didn't want to use this warm damp compost you just put here, did you?"

No, but I'll give it a try! You may have solved two problems at once: What to do with the annual courgette glut and how to satisfy the cats endless appetite cheaply and healthily.

Ah, I see. Fair enough - and it makes more sense with the revised FY you show above. Sounds good. (The station looks a lot better without that bay!)

Has he got them close-coupled and are his track radii small?

I think the goods yard is too fiddly - too many short sidings with unnatural wiggles to fit them in. The "bay" siding makes the main line platform shorter than it could be. If the goods yard were just two or three long sidings it would be much more usable and more interesting to shunt. @Chimer is right that the double track into the tunnel on the right is weird: The inner track is really a headshunt for the goods yard but it's connected to the FY. At a small station like this, as Chris has said above, it's unlikely that a headshunt would have been provided but sometimes they were and in the model it would allow you to shunt the yard while something circulates on the main line. So you can justify it but then it seems odd to build a double track tunnel to accommodate a headshunt. You could maybe say that it was originally double track and the line has since been singled and that side retained as a headshunt...? But I agree with Chris that it would be simpler and more typical to keep it single track all round with no headshunt. And the facing siding bottom left niggles me for the same reasons. It's not typical in the prototype and has to be specially justified. Obviously you need to maximise the use of the space in this plan so you could: Where the end curves are hidden and the tunnel mouth is reasonably within the scenic area, move the curves as close to the edges as possible to maximise the length of the station and the FY. Add a thin extension to the front of the baseboard(s) to give you more options. You could place a platform (with station building) for the outside loop on it or use it to widen the oval or add a siding. BTW: How are you going to get at the FY? The photo on the first page shows panels fixed to the back and sides of the baseboards.

It's somewhere in a parallel universe that happens to have the name "Helston".

Yes. Why can they not be bothered to do a decent render of their CAD? It’s really easy and they’ve had ages to do something that would promote the model much better than this carp. It shows a lax attitude that probably permeates everything they do.

A bit like this, then: I only issue three commands here: Whistle, Lift the regulator, Close the regulator.

New lamps and lenses:

Hi all, I've been slowly working on one of these kits with the aim of making a generic 1930s GWR station building. It's gone together really nicely and I'm coming to the end of the build with only a few minor issues to fix before detailing. (At least, I thought that was the case before I took photos to post here. The camera is a harsh critic!) I have followed the "GWR Structure Colours" book closely to get the colour scheme right but I'm making use of the latitude that was allowed/applied in the prototype in a few places. (Roof not painted yet.) There are some gaps to fill on the corners of the building: Given that this is a laser-cut ply kit, what sort of filler would you recommend, folks? Polyfilla? DIY wood filler? Or something more specialised? I would like to fix a representative set of timetables and advertising posters to the walls. They will ideally fit in the poster frames supplied as part of the kit. That means they need to be thin. Who makes the best GWR 1930s posters in your experience?

I always used a tiny dot of superglue when I was fitting the Modelu self-adhesive lenses, because I didn't trust the adhesive and because half the time I'd left the adhesive on the backing anyway! Having said that, the last batch of lamps I got from Modelu had a different type of lens. Maybe they realised those self-adhesive ones were problematic. P.S. Great shots from inside the scene, John!

End loading banks were provided at many stations. They're just a normal part of the infrastructure so they don't get special mentions. I don't think they had a specific purpose - they are just for general access to load/unload low trolley wagons or van or wagons that open at the end. (End loading at Fairford is provided on a short kick-back spur from the goods loop, which angles slightly but still requires the rear corner of the signal box to be cut away to provide access!) All drawings in "Branch Line Termini" are 4mm scale.