MAP66

A lot of filing later resulted in a pleasing transformation, the top feed and moulded feed pipes are no more, along with the smoke box door. A little work is required on the white metal replacement door hinges before I glue it in place with araldite. On the prototype, the smoke box wrapper seems to have a bevel or chamfer to its front edge, unlike the model which has a dead square edge. So, I rounded the edge of with some fine emery paper. A couple of moulded rivets where also lost on the smoke box wrap, a result of some careless strokes of the file. These will be re-introduced courtesy of glue n’ glaze applied on the tip of a needle. A close up view of the real thing 'Tivvy Bumper' showing the chamfer detail to front edge of smoke box wrap. My interpretation of this was to slightly round off the square edge with fine emery paper. Note also the shadow imprint left from filing away the smoke box door and draw off tap. This will aid with re-alignment of the white metal replacement door. Side on, showing all the scarring and blemishes in reaching this stage. The raised hole on the smoke box wrapper still needs filing down and some more attention is needed to the overscale boiler band. Then an all over dusting of grey primer should reveal any further body work necessary for the boiler and smoke box.

Well that was a bit of a dry spell at the 48XX work bench! I have been instead, constructing the first helix on the main layout and am finally on the last circuit. But then, the announcement from Dapol yesterday that they will be producing under new tooling the GWR Class 517 0-4-2T as well as a new range of GWR Class 14xx/ 48xx/ 58xx 0-4-2T vehicles (How marvellous I thought, and with interior cab detail, how very dare they 😆) was the encouragement I was waiting for, to get my little project over the line. The Dapol models are not expected until Q4 2025. so even I, at my current speed, have a good chance of completing my version before Dapol release theirs into the shops. As a progress re-cap, the cab window bars are now all completed and I am just taking a break in-between furiously filing away some unwanted features of the old Airfix body shell, namely the smokebox door and the top feed. The smoke box door will be replaced with the Mainly Trains cast white metal one. A couple of before pics below, after ones to follow… First image, just to show how the window bars ended up, the enlarged holes will be concealed with filler. As it looks before being attacked with the file, top feed and smoke box door are soon to be history.

I suppose the questions to ask yourself are; Moving the baseboard: Do you want the fiddleyard to also serve as a place for extra staging and storage tracks which depends on how much stock you have. I would suggest using Anyrail to plan out the fiddle yards and sidings on the 8'6" x 30" board to see what's possible. It may also look odd to have a much wider baseboard below and a narrower curved profile scenic board above. If you opt for this choice you might need to consider a curved profile for the front of the lower board as well so think about that when planning the track work. Station baseboard built on a curve: How much do you like modelling scenery? As you will lose quite a bit of the area in front of the station itself. For me, a layout is how it fits into the surrounding scenery and it would be a shame to lose a lot of the area in front of the station. How much operating space do you comfortably need? In the railway room you could mark out on the floor (using masking tape or similar) the area you currently have as per your plan for operating space. Then ask yourself, is there enough room to comfortably move about, reach everywhere and access all that I need to. If not, would a narrower curved baseboard be required and solve the problem? If so, then the decision is made as there is little point in a model railway if there is not adequate space to operate it. Best of luck with the planning and decision making. and hopefully further advice from others will follow.

Superb work Neal, it's all about the fettling as I am beginning to find out. Can I ask where you source your coal from, is it real coal crushed up or do you use one of the so called realistic scatter types, as I have never found anything of the right size and realistic as yet.

That's the way to spend an evening. I do hope the 7F ends up a success, it will be my first sound decoder install. I will be following a step by step guide from a back issue of Hornby Magazine HM166.

50% success so far with the track cleaning wagon. One bogie assembly has set and has wheels fitted. I’ll try the other end tomorrow, however a massive distraction has occurred which is testing my urge to resist until the wagon is completed. What’s the distraction I hear you all ask? Well this arrived in the post today… The bits I need to give the 7F sound. There's a compromise to be had here me thinks. Tomorrow, when the other end of the track cleaner wagon is setting, I don't think it would be cheating if I take the tender of the 7F apart and take a peak inside. You know, just while the glue is setting.

You're quite right, if I sneeze in the near vicinity there is a danger that I will blow it off the tracks 😆 However, if my cunning plan works, the flatbed will accommodate the necessary weight required. The weight on the flatbed will oppose the spring trying to push the wagon upwards and If I get the balance right then there will be just enough force to keep the hardboard track pad in good contact with the tops of the rails but not too heavy that a loco struggles to get it up the helix. At the moment, the construction of the wagon is waiting on one bogie assembly curing with araldite. The stupid black plastic doesn't want to bond with anything. So far I've tried numerous superglues, deluxe materials plastic magic and a few other glues, all to no avail. Araldite is good but it takes ages to cure, so I can only do one bogie at a time for fear of dislodging it all at the other end.

Hi Travis, I’m not familiar with the Cumbrian coast line areas or St. Bees, but I’m impressed with your track plan. Very creative for such a small room and offers bags of operational interest using the 2 fiddle yards off scene. Now we seem to have solved the concerns around the helix through our recent exchanges, I will be following with interest and looking forward to watching your layout develop. Mark.

I thought it was time for a small side project diversion and that diversion would be track maintenance or track cleaning to be precise. I intend to keep my track work as clean as possible, lets face it, we all know that when I eventually embark on laying trackwork on all the upper level scenic sections, it will soon be subjected to all manner of unwelcome invasions. Glues, scatters, paint, coffee (mostly beer) are just some of the unwanted guests to find themselves stuck to the tops of the rails, despite my best efforts of prevention. So, I thought, let’s have something in the tool box to help keep that track clean and at the same time make it a bit fun, after all, who wants to clean all that track by hand within a twin track helix more than once in a lifetime, and I will have two of them. I purchased a Parkside wagon kit ‘PC562 GWR Bogie Bolster’ for the donor wagon. Early developments are shown below… On the work bench we have the Parkside kit. I intend using a piece of hardboard (rough side to track) for the track cleaning pad. This will be suspended beneath the wagon under a little tension to force it against the rail tops. Others have done this type of thing before and this is nothing new, just my version. I have made an attempt to start assembling the bogies which are made from some 'orrible black plastic which refuses to bond, no matter which glue you use. I will go old skool and bring out the araldite. While I'm having a moan, the black plastic parts had more flash on them than Lord Flashheart himself. Don't talk rot, no ones got more flash than me, Woof Woof. A side on close up of the hardboard track pad and my cunning Heath Robinson device for providing the tension. We have two 8BA brass bolts which are soldered together at their heads. The top bolt has a compression spring over it and passes through the deck of the wagon and is secured by a nut and washer. The lower bolt passes through the hardboard and a recessed nut is used to secure the hardboard in place. Underside, showing the recessed nut so no fouling on the track. How it all looks when fitted. It will be a fairly easy procedure to change the hardboard pad when it gets dirty. That's it for now, I will be attempting to get that black plastic to actually stick next and then I will be able to get the wheels on.

Well there I was, finger hesitantly hovering over the confirm purchase button. My shopping basket containing lovely items to make my recent Bachmann Fowler 7F purchase sing. My conscience wrestling with the idea of departing with £148 of cash, a moments relapse and boom the deed was done. If all goes to plan, within a week from now, my 7F will have full sound.

Nice work Neal, I will soon be tackling something not too dissimilar when I attempt to install a sound decoder, speaker and stay alive into the tender of a Bachmann Fowler 7F. Having never tackled anything like this before it was timely to see your efforts have paid off and it was good to hear the sound on the video.

I think we’re all a bit guilty of looking at models we worked on years before and thinking, I wish I had done that bit differently, I certainly do. Even stuff I’m working on now, I constantly ask myself “why on earth have you done it like that.” Thanks again for all the comments and for sharing that image of your Pannier which I think has definitely stood the test of time and those window bars look dam good to me. Fifty years ago, that would have been the envy of every modeller to own it and It still looks amazing now.

That’s a shame, I missed SWAG last year as the Mrs was in hospital. I do hope your able to attend the shows again soon.

I'm using Peco code 75 flexi track which is nickel silver.

Thanks are in order for the avalanche of likes just received on this thread and the layout one. I must be doing something right then! It would be nice to meet up at the SWAG event and put a face to a name. Best Regards Mark

The helix is still getting taller, but its progressing very slowly. Let’s face there’s nothing much exciting about building a helix and how many images can you post, it all looks the same just a bit taller each time. In other news, while trawling the interweb, I came across a second hand Bachmann Fowler 7F 2-8-0 which had already been weathered, re-numbered and re-liveried to LMS ‘13806’ and at £65.00, I thought that was a bargain. 13806 could be found at Bath in the late 1930’s, so it would not look out of place on my, at the moment, fictitious stretch of SDJR railway. I went ahead and purchased the model anyway and it arrived today. It was transported immediately to the railway room, where it received a thorough visual inspection. All looked in good order and so, to the test track. A sigh of relief was expelled when the motion and wheels all moved and turned as they should. 13806 ran nicely up and down the helix and across the diamond crossing without issue. The testing concluded with the loco hauling a maximum of 5 coaches up the helix without wheel slip. This loco, I thought, could potentially manage 8/9 coaches with say 2 magnets fitted. That will be tested at some point but my next venture will be to fit a sound decoder to 13806. I was trawling that interweb again and found a feature from the April 2021 edition of Hornby magazine where the very same loco was subjected to having a sound decoder inserted into its tender. I have never installed a decoder before and I thought following a step by step installation guide, would be the way to go. With that said, I ordered a back issue of the mag and am currently checking how deep my pockets will go for that sound decoder, speaker and probably stay alive. Watch this space for further developments… Well here it is, my latest purchase 13806 is about to ascend the helix in charge of a rake of 5 coaches. And only because you love these pictures so much, yet another view of the helix which is currently about two thirds through the second circuit.

The Traction Trials - Results are in I shall summarise; my findings have resulted in no less than 5 magnets to be fitted on the underframe of the 51XX to haul 7 coaches up the first 4th radius circuit and even then, some minor wheel slip was observed. A disappointing result and certainly not the expected 2 magnets to do the job. The full 12V was required from the controller and it will be interesting to see if running under DCC will make any difference. Unfortunately, that test will be some time in the future as I do not presently own any decoder installed locos. Maybe, some further minor tweaking is possible to enhance performance by way of securing the magnets under the loco, so that they are slightly closer to the track to increase their pull. Failing that, if I want to run 9 coach holiday specials then I guess there’s always double heading. So now I am embarking on building the second circuit and will soon need to order a load more powerbase. There was also a pleasant realisation and that is, you can never have too many clamps when constructing a helix. That impulse buy of a set of clamps from the middle of Lidl paid off 😄 A ridiculous amount of magnets was necessary for the tractive power required. These are all temporarily secured with blac-tac. It will be a real head scratcher to come up with a workable solution to fit the magnets permanently without covering any of the cover plate screws. Side view showing the magnets which are held within the blister bubble carriers which form part of the powerbase packaging. You are advised to secure the blister packs with the tiny screws supplied drilled into the locos cover plate. With 5 magnets the cover plate will end up looking like swiss cheese. Beginning of the second circuit, start collecting clamps if your taking one of these on.

Ahhh, that's interesting to know, I think I must have an earlier version as the tops of the wheels foul on the bottom of the sole bar on the 3rd radius. There's a few things I can try to improve the extent of pivot rotation on the bogies, including modifying the sole bar where the wheels catch it and of course introduce a bit of side play on the wheel sets. I'm grateful, however, that I haven't any 1st radius to contend with 🤪 Thanks again for the heads up.

The Somerset Levels I thought it was appropriate to introduce a landscape feature attributed to the region and here is my version. A pretty handy tool for those wanting to get their inclines sorted quickly. The helix rises 80mm each circuit, I have also introduced a slight camber of about half a degree so the tracks lean inwards a fraction. I need a total rise in height of 300mm. Four complete circuits equates to 320mm from point of entrance, so I have planned the helix for the exit road to be at a height of 300mm which is 3.75 circuits. Coaches have arrived, a mixture of Airfix, Hornby, Mainline and a Lima utility van. All came with fine scale wheels already fitted apart from the Lima wagon. Amongst the lot was a 12-wheeler restaurant car. Unfortunately, it does not negotiate the 3rd radius curves. I noticed that the wheels which had been fitted have absolutely no side play. I plan to slightly under gauge the wheel sets and take some material away from the insides of the bogies to introduce some side play. I think that should do the trick as it only binds slightly but enough to de-rail. Next step will be the traction trials and results (favourable or not) will be reported in due course.

Its been a bit quiet on here recently, there is a reason. Well, two reasons actually. I am waiting on an order from Squires and I have also been working on the new layout and have now started a new thread for it. There’s nothing exciting happening on there yet, all the boring stuff has to happen first and that’s going to take some time. Anyway, for those interested, here’s the link for the new thread https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/185439-shepton-mallet-charlton-rd-for-now-yet-to-be-renamed/?do=getNewComment

The last couple of days has seen me laying on my back staring at the undersides of the baseboards while routing out and securing the 2 power buses around the helix. Not the most enjoyable of tasks but necessary, none the less. It also allowed me a closer inspection of the carpet, an area which normally escapes my attention, there was quite an accumulation of detritus from my recent activities. Time for Henry to make an appearance and for a general tidy up, as soon it will be time to test my track laying capabilities. Just as soon as I have completed the 3rd radius on the first circuit and soldered in all the droppers to the track rails. For electrical continuity and to confirm that I have not crossed any wires anywhere, I will be checking frequently with my multi-meter. I am using solderless connectors for attaching the droppers to the power buses. As you clamp shut each connector it cuts through the outer insulation of the cable and makes an electrical bond with the cable conductor. I have also started to glue down the powerbase to the outer 4th radius up line, this could prove expensive as I am going to need quite a few. For this reason, I will not order any more (I have enough for one circuit) until I have conducted some traction tests on the first circuit. I have zero coaching stock, so I need to source some cheap second hand stock for testing. In an ideal world I would like at least 7 coaches to glide up the helix without causing the loco in charge any wheel slip. I will need to experiment with how many magnets are required to be slung under the loco to achieve this, or not as the case may be! The loco I have chosen for this task is a Hornby R3719 class 51XX Large Prairie, as its literally the only large loco I have and it will be under analogue power. Lets hope the results are encouraging. The first circuit of the inner 3rd radius is nearing completion, just the droppers to sort out. The power base is also being glued down in place. View from another angle. I found the Peco code 75 flexi track a little challenging to connect together on the tighter radius. Staggering the joins between the inner and outer rails made it easier and helped maintain the seamless curvature of the rails at the join. It has resulted in a few sleepers missing between track ends and these will be replaced later. Underside of the infill section of baseboard, showing the 2 power buses running from right to left and the solderless cable connectors for attaching the droppers.

Well done for cracking on with it, looks like those track rails are not going anywhere. As long as it provides smooth running then that's done the trick. Unfortunately, I can't comment on the adaptability of the Modeltech product in its use on curves and angles, if indeed that is possible. Reviews for it are good though.

What about this as a solution from Modeltech, haven't used it myself but looks like a good bit of kit for aligning track over baseboard joins. https://www.marks-trains.co.uk/shop/layout-accessories/modeltech-ho-oo-protrack-rail-aligner-standard/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5fTRjuewhQMVD5dQBh2aCQwkEAQYByABEgLK-PD_BwE

He, he, he, one of my traits. I cut something and then think about the mess only when the Mrs points it out 😄

Some painting of the baseboards has occurred since we last visited. I’m not painting the cork underlay on the lower non-scenic levels, that can stay au naturale. On the underside of the boards I have started to route and install the power bus, I am using 2 power buses, one to serve the up lines and one for the down lines. I have started to lay some track, starting with the inner track on the first circuit of the helix and also the lower diamond crossing. Past the diamond crossing the up and main lines curve off to the left across the infill baseboard and will lead into their respective fans of point work to create the entrance and exits to the through fiddleyard. View of the diamond crossing where the up and down lines cut across each other. A start on track laying is also in progress on the inner 3rd radius of the helix. An underside view of the large angle brackets used to support the baseboard, apologies for all the clutter! No warping so far but eventually I plan to fit angle iron along the front edge to prevent warping.