Tortuga

Well, I really enjoyed watching that. Definitely brings home just how big the project is!

In that case, I’d say the aluminium ore (bauxite) would be one of Sodor’s imports; most likely unloaded at Tidmouth Docks from a vessel fresh from Australia then moved by rail to the works.

I’d say the presence of lead could be taken as further proof of an intrusion of granite This has got me thinking now: I’m going to stick my neck out and say that Sodor’s geology would probably be predominantly Ordovician mudstones and sandstones (bear with me!), which, being weakly metamorphosed due to their great age, would account for the slate traffic from the Skarloey Railway. A granite intrusion underlying the western half of the island gives us the building stone quarry at Ffarquhar, the ballast quarry and lead mines in the Arlesdale Valley and the china clay from the Brendam branch. I’m not sure how the iron works would fit in. Although the Triassic sandstones that make up the west coast of Cumbria (and I propose, also the east coast of Sodor) are iron rich (iron oxide holds the grains together giving the orange/red colouration), they are not a source of iron ore. Bringing this back to railway traffic, I’d say the waste from Ffarquhar quarry would be suitable as railway ballast or roadstone. Wagons for roadstone would probably be pooled 13t ex-private owners without end doors, while I imagine ballast would be carried in catfish/dogfish/<suitably-aquatic-named-ballast-wagons>. For the rough stone to be shaped and the finished building stone, I’d say the private owner liveried 3-plank wagons with black number patches is the way forward - technically they’d be pooled after 1948 (as the BQC ones were), so would be renumbered, gain a black patch and (possibly) be repainted - but the Ffarquhar Quarry Company is based in the NW Region of BR, a region notorious for following its own rules! I imagine renumbering/repainting of the wagons of the former FQC is on the “to do list” of Sodor’s Wagon Works, but surely only when they come in for repair? Obviously the “Return Empty to Ffarquhar Quarry, Isle of Sodor” branding prevents them from straying into other wagon repair depots where the edicts of ‘The Other Railway’ are more closely adhered to!

Geologist here. Apologies for taking some time to respond; I’ve been following the discussion on stone and wagons with interest for a while and I’m going to put in my tupence-worth. Lets assume Sodor has similar geology to the actual geology either side of it - predominantly mudstone and sandstone as previously mentioned - so the stone quarried could be either of those; most probably sandstone as mudstone isn’t the best building stone. However, we know from the books that both slate and china clay are also produced on Sodor. Now “slate” is a term used to refer to stone roofing material as well as a definitive rock type, so “Sodor Slate” could be a name for the mudstones quarried for roofing material rather than actual slate. China clay (or Kaolinite) on the other hand is a product of weathered granite (hence its predominance in Cornwall), therefore there must be granite outcropping somewhere on Sodor. I’m going to suggest that in addition to sandstones and mudstones, Sodor’s geology also includes a granite intrusion, which is the source of the stone from the quarry on the Farquhar branch (and possibly the small engines branch) as well as the source of the china clay. The Isle of Man has an outcrop of granite (seen on the geological map in the link quoted) that could be part of the same intrusion.

teaky (8:53ish 2nd Feb 2021) “How about a cameo with a painter(s) half way through repainting a scruffy brown building with bright green? “ Surely a case of best of both worlds there?

I think it looks cracking Bob. Best advice I’ve seen regarding if you think you’ve made a mistake or wrecked it, is to leave it out of sight and come back to it after a few days. But this looks like the engineering brick structures that used to exist down by Moor Street - I think they’re gone with the HS2 development - slightly run down with mortar staining - hope that’s what you were going for!

Although I have no experience of loading anything using a hoist, I’m going to say ‘B’ because; 1) I’m fairly certain that particular arrangement of supporting timbers is the one best suited to counteract the stresses generated by a load on the hoist being moved through 360 degrees. 2) the hoist being located toward one end of the shed potentially allows a second wagon to be loaded/unloaded (by hand) while the hoist is in use. In ‘A’ it looks as though only one wagon could be in the shed while the hoist is in use and I think stress generated by a load on the hoist won’t be counteracted as well. The supporting timbers in ‘C’ just looks wrong to my eye; like the hoist has been added as an afterthought; as in “What? You mean you wanted to move heavy items in and out of wagons? Why didn’t you say so BEFORE we built the shed?”

Does that goods shed at Dunster (?) have two doors? The big sliding door with the man access door at the left hand side and a narrow door at the right hand side? If so, the right hand door must be hinged to open into the shed as it won’t pass the arch. I imagine it’s like this so that the sliding door doesn’t slide right across to the far side of the shed and so the office can be accessed from inside. Possible solution Chris?

It doesn’t look too bad Bob! My only criticism would be that it looks a touch tall, but I imagine that’s the fault of the kit and easily remedied by reducing the height of the supports? Any chance of a shot at platform level, to confirm, before you take any further action?

Wow! Leeds City South trainshed was massive! Only ever experienced Leeds from the 80s onward and mostly from the eastern (York) end. Was it really white or was that glazing in reality? What was the reason behind the change from a longitudinal trainshed to the apexes at the end - a later addition? Really brings home the scale of these structures.

Managed to give the wrong volume number - it’s 37 not 32! Foxline books are now published by Book Law by the way - to help with that addition to the Xmas list you know!

Don’t know if it’s any use to you, but I found the book with photos of the water tenders at the weekend. It’s Foxline’s “Scenes of the Past No. 37 Part 2: Onward to Cromford”. Plenty of photos of tenders at the top of and traversing Sheep’s Pasture incline: four-wheel McConnell tender frames with purpose built tanks, four-wheel McConnell tenders, Webb six-wheel tenders without the centre wheelset and what looks like a Webb tender frame with a purpose built tank. There’s also a shot of what looks like two Fowler and one Johnson tenders in a train at Friden, all with six wheels in place.

Liking the tender conversion. Quick question; would the coal space have been covered over? Once again, I’m away from my relevant Foxline books, but I seem to remember a photo of a water tender being emptied at the top of Sheep’s Pasture that was taken looking from the loco end. It might have been a different type of tender to the one you’ve modelled though - I think there was a hand rail at the loco end as well... Why do I always end up reading peoples posts on excellent conversions, feel I can add something to their hard work and never be anywhere near the relevant reference material? Apologies if my question sounds like criticism.

Just going to add my opinion on the goods yard entrance; I think a combination of ‘A’ and ‘the gate in a flat wall’; as in I think the wall should curve slightly into the goods yard, but not by a full 90 degrees, just enough to set the gate back from the road and allow easier turning for vehicles (horse-drawn or otherwise) into or out of the yard

Surely the general structure would be similar? Big post to carry the support cable as long as the entrance to the yard is wide? Lose the lamp, target and netting and replace the ‘X’ bracing with two horizontal bars?

Mastered in four attempts, nicely done! Just a suggestion; why don’t you start with the hot glue on your first attempt at the wire armature? That way you’ve got four progressively better armatures to practice the hot glue on, improving each time!

Saw that, thought “but what loco is that?”, spotted the curved bits, thought “saddle tank, so got to be 47000” and I was right! Good luck with it. I’ve no experience of soldering or brass loco kits, so will follow with interest!

Why not weather the pavements as heavily as the station? Is this part of the town younger than the railway? Not criticising your decision, just curious. I’d always seen your station as being of the same age as the buildings beyond the railway fence, as I’d assumed it was a terminus to a town that was expanding at the same time as the railway was built.

I’m intending on using the copper clad sleeper method mainly for piece of mind - don’t want to rip the finished track out of alignment by catching it on things when moving the boards around!

Thanks @LNER4479 for the comprehensive reply! I did scrutinise those photos at the start of the thread, but the extra detail you’ve provided makes it crystal clear! If you’ll indulge me once more, what timber did you use for the folding legs and what have you used for the permanent supporting framework on the rest of Hills of the North?

Well once again it’s been a while and once again very little progress. A break in the very hot weather in August means the layout room (loft) is now painted and floored. Unfortunately, there are problems. Firstly the layout is curved so, because I’m me and my mind thinks “oh, the track plan is really simple”, I need to build curved points. So I’ve been trying to plan the whole layout using Templot with a view to making a full size template on which to construct it from C&L parts. All well and good? Not really: due to having to compress it lengthways, I end up with a plan where the points are all crammed at one end, limiting the length of goods trains and meaning that all the action will be confined to one end of the layout. Secondly, the real life operation of the Grassington Branch at the time I want to model was limited - it’s very much a case of “Train A passes through, Train B passes through, drops off a wagon, Train A passes back through in the opposite direction”; perhaps more limited than I’d ideally like - especially since the motive power is going to be either all Fowler 4Fs or all BR Standard 4s (albeit with the occasional Ivatt Class 4). I’ve already thought about modelling it as “what if the branch HAD linked up to the MR branch at Hawes”, but in that case I think that the bulk of traffic would have more likely gone north and therefore not via Rylstone. Finally, there’s the signals or lack of. To be perfectly honest, I want my layout to follow the prototype as close as I can and two signals showing danger when the crossing gates are closed just isn’t floating my boat. So there we are. Unfortunately Rylstone isn’t going to be the layout I want to spend my time building and operating. I’ve enjoyed researching it and I’m grateful for all the helpful replies I’ve received since I started this thread. While Gibbs Sidings turned out to be too much of a monster, Rylstone has turned out to be not enough. Clearly I need to aim for something in the middle - I’ve already got an idea turning over, but I’m going to wait until I’ve got something to show before starting another thread for it.

Just finished reading through this from the start (It’s been a slow couple of days at work) and wow what a journey! I remember reading the Model Rail article a while ago and being impressed by Shap, but the scale of Hills if the North is something else entirely! What I really enjoy, reading topics like this, are the discussions, reminiscences and stories about the prototype that come to light - as I missed both mainline steam (by quite a bit) and the majority of loco hauled diesel services, it fascinates me what oddments turn up: for example, I had no idea Class 40s whistled having never seen them running. Most interesting to me was your method of baseboard construction: I’m sorely tempted to replicate the permanently fixed structure with a removable exhibition layout on top for my own layout, which lives in my loft. I like the idea of a layout that is permanently erected, but could be exhibited. To that end can I ask, do the boards for Shap have two pairs of legs each or do some have a single pair? Keep up the good work! Definitely following this thread!

Looks like you’ve made a good job of it in spite of that

I think you’re your own worst critic. I don’t model the GWR, but keep tuning in to this thread to marvel at the quality modelling you keep churning out. Most importantly, you keep trying to improve, learning from mistakes and trying new things. So far the crane looks amazing. I remember my first attempt (at age 12?); a Diag 1/208 van by Parkside - I didn’t know what half the terms used in the instructions were and slapped the bits together with lashings of glue. The end result was awful; gaps everywhere and buffers pointing in random directions, like an Emmet drawing! Don’t give up on wagon kits. As others have said, try a Parkside one for comparison. I’ve built a few wagons since my first disaster (both Parkside and Cambrian) and I’ve got better over time. I find Parkside ones more forgiving, with less flash and more positive joints, but Cambrian ones just need a little extra care and attention - good job you didn’t try a Catfish/Dogfish hopper; they’re a nightmare to get four wheels straight!

Where did you get the signal wheels?