Tallpaul69

As this is my thread, I am going off at a tangent! Just taken delivery of a sound fitted (not TTS!!) Bachmann class 121. This has prompted me to get a move on with making one circuit round my test track called Lower Thames Goods Shed (based on Maidenhead) useable as I had nowhere to test run it! So now I have got the Wycombe branch through Branch platform circuit works although there are a couple of places where a loco stops more often than it runs through so tomorrow I hope to sort them out. As well as testing the 121 I want to compare it with my Dapol version and my Hornby version of the Lima 121. If all goes well I may manage to post a video comparison of them in a few days! As well as running them singly I want to test them with my driving trailer and a set of non motorized Lima 117s, as both these combinations are trains I want to run eventually on Lower Thames Yard, and I need to decide which 121 runs best with the driving trailer and the 117. Meanwhile, happy modelling! Cheers Paul

Good Afternoon All, I haven't posted anything for a few days because the arrival of my sound fitted green Bachmann 121 prompted me to get on with making one circuit round Lower Thames Goods Shed useable as I had nowhere to test run it! So now I have got the Wycombe branch through Branch platform circuit works although there are a couple of places where a loco stops more often than it runs through so tomorrow I hope to sort them out. As well as testing the 121 I want to compare it with my Dapol version and my Hornby version of the Lima 121. If all goes well I may manage to post a video comparison of them in a few days! As well as running them singly I want to test them with my driving trailer and a set of non motorized Lima 117s, as both these combinations are trains I want to run eventually on Lower Thames Yard, and I need to decide which 121 runs best with the driving trailer and the 117. Yesterday I exchanged e mails with the guys down to build Lower Thames Yard for me. Since the onset of the Pandemic they have been building smaller layouts with the idea that they were more likely to get them completed if anyone fell ill after they had started them. This apparently has not been too successful, not through the onset of illness but through delays in the delivery of items ordered for them! I am hoping that they will be able to start my job sometime in September. Meanwhile, happy modelling! Regards Paul

Having listened to this video, I think that these Hall TTS are worth a go. I would not want to use them on a one engine in steam GWR branch, where there will be much more concentration on an individual locos performance, but then those branches rarely saw a Hall. However I think in the situation of a main line model such as mine will be, with a number of locos on the go at the same time, they are just the job. I have TTS already on several of my GWR steam locos, and will want to use them as widely as their suitability for my loco fleet permits, except for the shunters and some of the local train locos which will move slowly right in front of my eyes where I feel the expense of higher specification chips are justified. Cheers Paul

Looking Great Nick! I am envious of you having enough room for all four tracks of the main line. My only consolation is that I have managed to plan in up and down loops to my Maidenhead relief lines. Cheers Paul

And, boy did we get some fun out of it! The emphasis then was on the operating, or "playing" None of this accuracy and rivet counting nonsense. I am sure Clive hankers after those days with his coaches that don't quite match for livery and lack of scenery, but emphasis on operation?, and good for him I say! I missed out on the Clockwork trains going straight to a Triang Jinty set, although I had a number of wind up vehicles, of which my fondest memory is of the stop and go tinplate trolleybus! Enough of these rose tinted spectacles memories, I have a couple of Hornby 00 tinplate wagons to sort the wheels out so as to run on my 2 rail! Cheers Paul

Colin Coudrey?- cant remember what he was like in the field? Meanwhile I sit here trying to multitask on RMWeb and Sky Sports Cricket but the Manchester weather is not cooperating! Never mind, we are promised better weather tomorrow! Keep on modelling whatever the weather or virus situation!! Cheers Paul

As if we would!!

Hi All, I was pleased to see GWR Hall TTS chips are now available. I shall be buying a few of these promptly as I think they will be popular. Especially if many folks follow my example and fit them in other GWR two cylinder locos. I am thinking of trying them in a Grange, County ,and 61xx, as well as of course in Halls! If they are good in the other types I might also try them in 28/38xx and when they are produced the Dapol 43xx and Manor! I need sound fitting in all the above for my Lower Thames Yard layout, and I think the saving of £60+ per loco, is worth the downside of performance with the beat maybe not in sync with the wheel revs. It seems to me on my layout where the above locos will in the main be running through at speed rather than doing slow starts and shunting or depot movements, will minimize the downsides and the fact that all are 2 cylinder locos with 5ft 8ins-6ft wheels (apart from the 4ft 7.5 ins wheels of the 28/38xx), I think helps? What do other folks think? Happy Modeling! Cheers Paul

Good Afternoon All, I hope you are being good and wearing your masks in shops and the other listed places? I just hope that the measures do reduce the spread of the virus and give everyone more confidence to visit shops. I have my doubts but hope to be proven wrong! Meanwhile, my modelling has not progressed very much this week. I am holding off on more work on the Goods shed and its extension until I see if more information comes to light. I was pleased to see GWR Hall TTS chips are now available. I shall be buying a few of these promptly as I think they will be popular. Especially if many folks follow my example and fit them in other GWR two cylinder locos. I am thinking of trying them in a Grange, County,and 61xx, as well as of course in Halls! If they are good in the other types I might also try them in 28/38xx and when they are produced the Dapol 43xx and Manor! I have fitted Kadee couplings to some more wagons. I am setting the wagons up in sets of 3 with Kadees at each end and normal couplings in between wagons. I will have to set up some single wagons with Kadees for shunting purposes. Its a while since I did any of these , so I am getting my hand back in on standard Bachmann wagons before trying some kit built wagons which I have not fitted Kadees to before. There has been a couple of signs of return of normality this week. Firstly I was pleased to see an Engineers train, Simplex powered on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway, so hopefully I will soon be able to sit in the garden listening to the shrill of the steamers whistles as they approach each of the three level crossings nearest to our house. The other thing I saw was that the council had cut the square and marked out the boundary for the local cricket pitch! I hope you are all progressing with your models? Best regards Paul

Thanks for the thought Nick, I did have contact with the club around the end of last year on the semaphore signals, so I will check back on who I was exchanging e mails with! Meanwhile my researches for similar extensions to the one on the western end of Maidenhead Goods Shed has thrown up Witney Goods Shed Extension. As you can see from the attached exterior view this looks similar to Maidenhead although I suspect it is of prewar construction whereas Maidenhead's extension is post war (1947. I was intending to fit my Maidenhead Goods Shed Extension with an awning and a full length platform for loading of lorries etc. although I had no pictures to prove that as the case. So now I have some evidence for this! One difference I have noticed is that Maidenhead's extension has a flat top to the wagon entrance as against Witney's shaped one, The second shot is of the interior of Witney Goods Shed Extension which is useful for the construction methods and so I intend to follow this for Maidenhead unless I find anything to the contrary! I welcome any thoughts or suggestions on these photos? Also any sources for other photos of this extension would be useful. Many thanks Best regards Paul

My researches for similar extensions to the one on the western end of Maidenhead Goods Shed has thrown up Witney Goods Shed Extension. As you can see from the attached exterior view this looks similar to Maidenhead although I suspect it is of prewar construction whereas Maidenhead's extension is post war (1947. I was intending to fit my Maidenhead Goods Shed Extension with an awning and a full length platform for loading of lorries etc. although I had no pictures to prove that as the case. So now I have some evidence for this! The second shot is of the interior of Witney Goods Shed Extension which is useful for the construction methods and so I intend to follow this for Maidenhead unless I find anything to the contrary! I welcome any thoughts or suggestions on these photos? Best regards Paul

Nick, Thanks for the thread details which I hadn't seen before. From the line of the photos the extension must be there although, not much detail to be seen. I will try downloading these and see if I can get more detail. The main problem at the moment is that I have no idea of what the road access side of the extension looks like, which being the side to the front of my mode,l is rather important! If the National Rail archive cannot help I think I will have to look around further for similar buildings. Cheers Paul

My investigations into the 1947 extension to Maidenhead Goods Shed continue:- While the Zonal System was introduced during the 1930s, it seems the war delayed its introduction in some areas. In the "Marlow Branch" by Paul Karau and Chris Turner they say that the Zonal system was introduced to the Marlow area in 1946 and that Reading was the main Railhead with a sub railhead at Maidenhead where the Marlow zonal van was then based. So this confirms that the Zonal system was a postwar introduction in the Maidenhead area and hence the need to extend Maidenhead Goods Shed. When I have drawn up my interpretation of the extension I will post a copy for comment here. Best regards Paul

In the "Marlow Branch" by Paul Karau and Chris Turner they say that the Zonal system was introduced to the Marlow area in 1946 and that Reading was the main Railhead with a sub railhead at Maidenhead where the Marlow zonal van was then based. So this confirms that the Zonal system was a postwar introduction in the Maidenhead area and hence the need to extend Maidenhead Goods Shed. When I have drawn up my interpretation of the extension I will post a copy for comment here. Best regards Paul

I agree that it is Exeter Central. There used to be another small Cement Terminal behind the platforms at Lawrence Hill Station on the climb out of Bristol towards Filton Junction. Often thought in the right space this would make a good model with the 4 tracks, the cement terminal, and the Midland Line out of Bristol on an over bridge. Much too big for the concept being discussed here of course, but I think the cement terminal was only 2/3 sidings. Cheers Paul

Good Day to you all, I have been looking at a number of different ways of dealing with the two points I raised as concerns at the end of my last post. Unfortunately, I have decided that I will have to live with the sharp corner in Grenfell road as there seems to be no way of opening out the radius of the curve without loosing the straight portions of the incline which are necessary to portray the houses on the left of the road. But I think I will alter the alignment of the right hand side of Grenfell Road so as to make the road to the right a more definite turning off of Grenfell Road rather than the continuation of Grenfell Road as currently shown. I will then make this South Road and probably leave High Town Road out altogether. The Goods Yard Access Road with a level crossing over the Branch has also proven to be a non starter:- The Grenfell Road side of it would be ok, but running a road on the other side of the Branch would result in loss of the end pair of Houses and their elevated piece of land which mask the continuation of the Relief tracks and their loops. This would make the un prototypical curve of those tracks too obvious. Other changes I have successfully made are to make the open area between the top of the pub car park and Grenfell Road into a nursery. In reality there was a nursery on the far side of the branch in the earlier part of the last century which became houses and industry in more recent times. I might design a removable industrial unit to fit over the nursery for the more modern versions of my layout ! I also intend to break up the edge of Grenfell Road above the controls of the layout with some trees to portray those that still exist along the edge of Grenfell Park. I might also fill in the sharp bends at either end of the lower section of Grenfell Road with a few houses at one end and the Park Lodge at the Station end. However I will probably leave these buildings until after the layout reaches a developed stage and I can be sure they will not block my access to any of the other buildings or the track. I hope the above makes sense, if not please let me know! Cheers Paul

Thanks for this. I guess the GWR timescales were probably also affected by the war! However, the timescales are not the important item here, it is the structures (and one in particular at Maidenhead) that I am primarily interested in. Regards Paul

Many thanks for the info. There seems to be a bit of information re 1930s Goods Shed works but little on the post war works! Any other thoughts welcome! Cheers Paul

I am looking for Photos and/or drawings of the 45ft long 1947 built west end extension to Maidenhead Goods shed (or any other extension of a GWR Shed built at that time?) The extension is thought to be part of the preparations for the GWR zonal delivery scheme. However I am not sure of which other goods sheds were centres for this system, but I assume others that were required similar extensions? The extension was build out of "blocks" with corregated steel/asbestos roofing. I am intending to build a model of the shed for my 00 layout and have plenty of photos including early 2000s colour shots of the brick built original shed but only a couple of distant rail side shots of the extension and none of the road side of the extension. Many thanks Paul

Good Day to you All, I have been working on updates to the plans for the scenic boards for Lower Thames Yard. Firstly, I have redrawn the Goods Shed to better show the Original brick portion and the later block built extension. I would be grateful for any photos of the extension as currently I only have a couple from the rail side. I have yet to decide how to deal with the offices. The options seem to be:- 1) move the shed down the track slightly and fit them in the correct position. 2) place them on the outer end of the original shed, but this makes the extension difficult. 3) put them either end on the side of the shed between the road loading bay and the end of the shed. Other changes in this version include the Weighing office, the Water Tower (W) and its attendant pump at the bottom of the embankment (P) reached by a set of steps, and a garage business at the foot of the embankment in Grenfell Road. The Water Tower should be between the Branch Platform track and the Up Relief track but there is not enough room! Looking at how to deal with Grenfell Road I realized that the incline from the bottom of the embankment to the Branch Over Bridge would be too steep, so I have redrawn Grenfell Road so that it is further from the Branch track and then can turn at the High Town Road junction to climb further to the Over Bridge. I have also included the Pub that was at the end of the Goods Yard Access Road, and given it a car park! I am not quite satisfied with this board so am looking to improve it by: 1) Redrawing the upper end of Grenfell Road so as to give it a more prototypical curve round to the Over Bridge. This may include changing the road junction to being that with South Road which is half way up Grenfell Road and making a junction for High Town Road right by the bridge so High Town Road runs off over the fiddle yard. 2) Take part of the Pub car park to form a Goods Yard Access Road to the coal sidings that then crosses the branch by a level crossing rather than the under bridge that I cannot accommodate . If I do this I will include the Middle signal box that I had omitted positioning it near to the crossing beside the branch. Any suggestions to improve these boards would be welcome? Regards Paul

Good Afternoon Everyone, I have updated Lower Thames Yard in line with my comments in my last post, so I have revised the approach road and added the weighbridge office and yard front wall/gate, but I am playing around with the position of Grenfell road along the front of board 5:- I have tried a bridge under the lines at the right side of board 5 which didn't look right and would make the woodwork complicated, so I have ditched that idea. However in trying this I have realized that the area between the tracks and the road cannot slope towards the road as labelled without changing the edge of board 5 which may already be cut! So I have been playing around with bringing the road away from the tracks to have a slope off the edge of the board and some buildings at the road level. An advantage of this approach is that it removes the road dogleg at the corner of board 4. The thing I have yet to settle on is the width of the area for the buildings. I am inclined to make these industrial units of some sort so that they are mainly single storey and therefore do not mask the trains on the tracks too much. Once I have settled this I will post a copy of the revised versions of boards 4 and 5. I am also debating the best approach to the Goods Shed. I would like the shed and its later metal clad extension to be full size, but this would not leave any open track between the end of the shed and the point connecting the goods shed siding to the Branch Siding. So I am debating whether to reduce the size of the bays in the Goods Shed or to keep their size but reduce their number. I cannot reduce the length of the original Goods Shed too much otherwise it will not look right with two road vehicle loading docks which I am keen to retain to differentiate it from smaller sheds of this pattern such as Twyford or Tetbury. Looking at the article on Twyford in GWJ, an air view of the station has given me ideas on the other small sheds etc. that I should include in Lower Thames Yard's area around the Goods Shed, so these will be included in the next update. Meanwhile, I wish everyone well, especially those in OZ and areas in the UK such as Leicester that have once again to face up to the problems of lockdown. Cheers Paul

Well said, but once again unfortunately the many who are responsible get tarred by the brush of the mad fringe! We have just booked a holiday for our larger family of 9 in Porthtowan, but for August 2021. We don't drink to excess, we take our litter to the appropriate bins, and appreciate the locals and their environment. I hope by the time we go all this will be forgotten and everyone (well, most folks!) will return to being responsible citizens. Roll on August 2021! Cheers to all Paul

Like your "Back to the Future(?)"bus in the scene in the background! Is the plastic case to keep the germs out like the screens that are all the rage in UK (and I guess OZ?) shops etc. at the moment? Talking of plastic reminds me that Anthony at AGM told me during my first post lockdown visit to the shop today that Peco cannot get enough plastic for the sleepers on their track because of the amount being used to make the above mentioned screens! Its a funny old world, but keep at it everyone (modeling that is!) and please don't let the bu****s get you down!! Paul

Good Afternoon All, Here is a couple of Lower Thames Yard sketches that explain how I intend to model Maidenhead Station Approach and Grenfell Road. Remember the railway only portrays the Relief Lines and the Wycombe Branch. The two tracks to the outside of the lines (bottom of the plans are the down relief loop+ its siding (the siding much longer than in reality, and the track down to the low level sidings. I have yet to work out how to shield this track from the layout as trains on it will be seen with their top halfs above the layout track level! The first shows how the Goods Shed, Branch Platform overall roof and Station buildings are grouped to mask the up end of the layout curves. Now that I have more closeup photos of the Goods Shed I may lengthen it to nearer its true length and have a small version of the later metal clad extension rather than the shorter (nearer Tetbury!) length shown here. However I do want to have a short open goods bank on the end for unloading things like horses and fish! The buildings between the approach and Grenfell road may be removed to make the car park area larger. I am also considering a few stands for buses. The goods yard needs smaller buildings such as the Weighbridge office to be added in and a wall/gate is needed to fence off the yard from the station approach. The small square in the middle of Grenfell road is the clocktower, an essential feature of the area although the roads are distorted by the fact that there is no bridge under the railway! The second plan fits to the left of the first and shows boards 5 and 6. This incorporates Grenfell Road up to the bridge over the Wycombe branch. The length of this is greatly reduced so the houses are only a representation of what still exists there. (H= house!) The two sidings next to the road behind the houses run round into the Wycombe line fiddle yard and allow for the swapping of full and empty coal wagons and other open trucks! As I have not been able to incorporate the real access to the yard via the bridge under the branch I am considering a bridge under the whole railway on the right of Board 5. I hope these plans explain what I said in my last post? Keep Smiling, Regards Paul

Hi Nick, Thanks for all your photos, they are a great help. My layout will have the train shed and the Goods shed masking a 2nd radius (on the branch platform) bend to the left. The station buildings at the top of the station approach will further mask the bend. Pleading Rule 1, access to the road side of the goods shed will be round the end of the ticket office where in reality thee is the start of the footpath that runs at the foot of the embankment. Also the station buildings will be at rail level, not below. My station approach will be flat and Grenfell Road will descend beside it to give the railway an embankment then sweep round through 180 degrees to climb up to the branch over bridge that is the branch exit from the scenic portion of the layout. The main line disappears behind houses on the far side of the branch, which will be on a bank that slopes towards the main line from the branch over bridge. I will try to post a plan which shows this area in a day or so, although the railway on it will not be up to date! Best regards Paul