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kitpw

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  1. kitpw
    The modeller's apprentice - October 2023
     
    Phase 1 [incomplete]:  the layout model ends with a short viaduct at the right hand end,
     
     
    Phase 2:  the semi-external [car port] type structure is complete and the layout is to be extended through the wall to Vineyard Hill. 

     
     
    Phase 2: there is room for a yard at the right hand end - about 7', which is a bit short.  It can be extended further if needs be into an adjacent shed: maybe it will, maybe it won't. It depends if the trains get long enough. 

     
    The viaduct is under construction - pictures to follow.  The grid is 300mm , the layout about 2' at its narrowest and widens to about 3' at Vineyard Hill. 
     
    Kit PW
  2. kitpw
    There are still a few things to add to the model - trumpet vent on the roof (I can't find a drawing and my attempts from photos don't look right) and lamp brackets: I'm sure there should be a groom seated in the end compartment, reading the Racing Post.  The challenge with this model has been the braking assembly.  I eventually gathered together enough information about the Dean era, outside linked clasp system to make a reasonable stab at it, I don't have an undeframe drawing for this particular vehicle and what is modelled is based on best guess from a set of drawings included in a thread on Western Thunder (https://www.westernthunder.co.uk/threads/v2-4-wheel-parcel-van.10709/) for which I'm hugely grateful, from Great Western Railway Journal No 76 (Autmn 2010) and No 78 (Spring 2011) which carried a two part article by John Lewis  "GWR Horse Traffic and Horseboxes": from Russell's "Pictorial Record of GW Coaches" Vol 1 and a couple of photos of GWR 820 Dean Broad Gauge Six-wheel Tricomposite built 1887.  Below is my working drawing for the N5 which is a fitted vehcile with a "Dean dustbin" vacuum cyclinder and a handbrake acting on two wheels.
     
    The brake action (vacuum brake) works like the nut-cracker I illustrated in an earlier post.  Looking at just one wheel, there are two levers with a brake shoe about mid span on each lever. If the inner ends of the two levers (closest to the longitudinal centre line) are pulled closer together, the outside link between the two will ensure that the clasp action will move the brake shoes onto the wheel.  Closing the inner ends of the two levers is effected by a single pull rod on the inner end of the outer lever: the pull is provided by a crank arm on the central cross shaft. The inner end of the inner lever arm is fixed to a stub pillar and it's a fixed point so that only one pull rod per wheel is required.
    The handbrake works in a different way and although the handbrake assembly is also pivoted on the central brake cross shaft, there must be a disconnect between the vacuum and handbrake systems or they would act against each other.  The handbrake actuating rods work in compression and are therefore a heavier gauge rod than the vacuum brake pull or tension rods.  The central cross shaft is not on the same centre line as the wheel centres and the various actuating rods are not therefore symmetrical - the angle of the rods in side elevation is different for both vacuum and handbrake. Notice also that the lever arms are cranked so that the pull rods don't foul the axles.


     
     
     
    The Horsebox is almost all scratch built. Wheels, axles and buffers are Slater's as are the coupling hooks and chains.  The Brake shoes and lamp housing are from the Broad Gauge Society and decals from Fox.
    One thing that worked out better than I expected is the brake rack - folded, bent and filed from n/s.
     
    As a footnote, for anyone contemplating building this kind of brake, the following is an
    inventory of just the vacuum and handbrake assemblies:
    For one wheel:-
    1# outside link - 2 x fork ends (drilled 6#): music wire
    2# lever arms (drilled 5#): from 0.4mm n/s sheet
    1# pull rod - 1 fork end & 1 flat link (drilled 6#): music wire
    1# mounting pillar (N/s, turned, threaded 14BA): 14 BA nut
    1# strut to mounting pillar (drilled 1#) 0.8mm N/s wire
    2# brake shoes (Broad Gauge Soc)
    2# brake shoe hangers (drilled 2#) N/s strip
    Steel pins, heads turned down: fork ends from n/s strip, silver soldered to music wire.
    Common to all 4 wheels:
    2# links between mounting pillars: 1 safety loop (drilled 4#)
    2# cross shaft brackets (drilled 2#)
    central cross shaft: 1 length music wire & brass tube sleeve
    handbrake actuating lever (drilled 2#)
    pull rod actuating lever (drilled 2#)
    2# vacuum actuating levers (drilled 4#)
    1# vacuum cylinder (turrned): 2# fittings to cylinder (drilled 2#)
    1# handbrake lever (Slaters)
    1# handbrake rack, fabricated from n/s strip
    2# handbrake links: 2# fork ends each (drilled 8#): music wire
    (I think that's a total of 104# 0.4mm drilled holes.)
     
  3. kitpw
    It's taking a long time but... there is progress.  I spent quite a while not starting on the underframe because I didn't have W irons, springs, spring hangers, 9" sole bars or pretty much anything else that looked like the photo in Russell's Great Western Coaches 1813 to 1913 of Horse Box No 88 to diagram N5. I realised that it was taking me longer to not find these things than to draw them out (based on too little information really) and then cut them out with a piercing saw.  So that's where I started.

    Next, I needed to get some nickel silver strip to represent the sole bars and flanges.  When making signals, I faced the same problem of making narrow strip down to about 1mm width and buying in strip is hugely expensive, particularly when various sizes and thicknesses are needed.  I developed a tool for shearing sheet material using some steel angle (part of somebody's bed frame, I think: they never complained so I guess they didn't miss it), draw filed so that the angle is a touch less than 90 degrees and set in a big old vice. The sheet is marked out and scored with a hardened steel point and set between the angles with the scored line at the meeting of the two. A hard steel bar is then cranked to and fro until the sheet shears at the scored line.

    The last part of the operation is a small piece of 6mm mdf with several thin kerfs of varying depth machined into it.  Thin strip can then be planted in the appropriate kerf and the edge cleaned up with a file. The cross kerf with a slip of n/s in it acts as a stop. The strip shown below is 5mm wide which is more than most of the strips needed.

     
    This re-purposed drll press (off Ebay "for spares") in its guise as a rivet press (the drill chuck is mounted on a MT0 taper which also fits the little Simat lathe).  It can also be used as staking tool.

    So cutting, filing, piercing out, a bit of riveting and soldering and this is where I've got to:

    Dusty!  Much cleaning up necessary, a few things to add and some tweeking of this and that but it's getting there The brake gear is drawn and I'll start on that next). Only the Slater's axle boxes and the draw hooks are bought in (well, from the spares box), the rest is scratch built. I've also got some Slater's coach buffers to fit.

     
    There are a few other odds and ends worth posting here -

     
    These are the top leaves of the springs.  The little "T"s are brass, silver soldered. The end of the spring is wrapped round a 0.8mm round and a slot filed in it:  the wrap is opened enough to slot the T in which provides the pin that drops into the spring hanger.  The T remains movable. Below is a simple jig to hold the framing for soldering. 

     
    Framing...

    So plenty still to do and a good deal learned along the way. Next post will be, I hope, the completed Horse Box No 88.
     
     
  4. kitpw

    at Swan Hill January '23

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    January '23 at Swan Hill... Telegraph poles are being fabricated and placed, the signal box is more or less complete with the little brackets under the eaves fitted, an essential bit which was missing from the earlier pictures, and the box now settled into its place on the layout.  It's supposed to work as a scenic break in that it divides the view from the control panel roughly into two halves, terminus one end and 'up branch' at the other end. 
    The telegraph poles are scratch built using insulators from the Peco kit, the rest of which wasn't used:  the posts are made up from jelutong offcuts, 4 pieces glued together and shaped in the lathe.  The laminated assembly should keep the posts straight over time.  The ground ends are turned to 5mm diameter and set in aluminium tubes (1/4" diameter) so the posts can be removed easily. Cross trees are 1.5mm ply drilled for either straight wire "brackets" for intermediate posts or little U shaped brackets for terminal or lead-out posts.  I'm not adding wires which are mostly invisible in photos.  I'm indebted to Wenlock at Sherton Abbas for convincing me to have a go at telegraph posts at all and to various sources not least of which is the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society and also "Warwickshire Railways" https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/misc/misc_equip192.htm.  Basic dimensional information for poles, cross trees etc comes from a very useful paper on the subject but it isn't signed or titled and I cannot remember where it came from - possibly a reference on the Sherton Abbas blog but the quoted link seems not to work so I can't check.  If I can turn up the weblink, I'll edit this post accordingly.



  5. kitpw
    Swan Hill Signal Box seems to have been a long time in the making - and it still isn't complete
    but rather than let 2022 go without an update on Swan Hill, here are some pictures and notes.
     

     

     

     

    Note the 'tilt' under the bottom half row - this allows each row of slates to sit flat on
    the row beneath it.  The slates are individually placed (the Silhouettte did the cutting) with
    a head lap so there are always two layers under the tail of each slate (so three layers in all).

     

    Rear elevation with stove pipe 'lead slate' ready for the stove pipe. No fascia board yet.

    'Lead flashings are grey card, shellac'd for a slight sheen.  Guttering is brass U channel, mitred and soldered.  DPs are awol.
     

    Components for the cabin walls, glazing and door openings (laid onto drawing for assembly).
     

    Assembled.

    The framing members are kerfed to take 0.5mm ply slips for more accurate and secure joining
    and to provide the glazing frame stops.
     
    Bricks & Mortar (2)
    The brick base is formed on a 1.5mm mdf box.  The facing all round is regular printing paper (about 80gsm) with the brick pattern printed on it.  That's mounted
    to a high quality blotting paper backing (A1 sheets ex Jacksons) with spraymount (3m permanent type) and then the whole lot mounted to card.  Brick
    joints are scored as described in "Bricks & Mortar (1)". The paper/blotting paper/card is shellac'd and when dry, glued to the mdf carcass with pva.
    The blotting paper is a much better ground for scoring than the plain card used in B & M (1).

     

     

    Sample of brickwork from same area and date as Swan Hill.
    Vallejo 'concrete' over Vallejo 'grey sand' in progress - an attempt at London stocks as per the sample above.

     
     

    Levers are bought-in from Severn Models, not scratchbuilt - the windows are shellac'd Bristol baord, deep scored on the Silhouette (0.75mm thinnest width)
    and finish cut with a scalpel: glazing is acrylic sheet from an A1 size poster clip frame.  The 'dark stone' colour is Vallejo (white, flat brown and red leather): foolishly,
    I didn't note down the formula for the 'light stone' - I think it's titanium white/raw umber but might be tw/raw sienna: have to do it again with notebook in hand.
    I'm probably wrong but it looks like GWR London division signal boxes didn't always have the Staffordshire blue dressings to quoins and openings - I've gone for the
    lighter, harder engineering version of a London stock brick for the openings and no emphasis to the quoins at all. 

    It's lit by 4no 3mm clear LEDs just under the ridge, suitably dimmed in the control panel.
    There's more to add - handrails on the stair, the name board (painted but not fixed yet) a ventilator at the ridge, some  loose furniture,
    door handles, fire buckets and, imortantly, the little raking brackets under the eaves.
     
    Ah yes, and Happy Christmas to all on RMweb. Thanks for looking in on Swan Hill.

     
  6. kitpw

    No 88 - the Horse Box

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    The famous GWR horsebox No 88 - no layout complete without one.  This is the drawing I made to work from and to program the Silhouette to cut out the panelling and openings.  I illustrated the cut out and assembled sides some while ago (2 years+) but stoppages on other aspects of Swan Hill and an awareness that a few things are getting a long way behind has seen an effort to try and tie up loose ends.  No 88 is one of them. 
     
    This post deals with the body - the underframe will follow but the post ends with a question about how the clasp brakes with outside tie work - they're shown in the drawing (on the right) with my current best guess. More of that later.
     

     
    The basic material is Bristol board treated with shellac before the Silhouette cuts out the mouldings on one layer and the apertures on another layer.  There is an intermediate layer so that the rule of uneven numbers of laminations is respected (balancing layers/veneers) and to allow the glazing to fit into pockets.  The louvres are made with a steel comb filed up from an old cabinet scraper (last used for the scratchbuilt Siphon G pictured a few weeks ago):  the hinges are shellac'd paper with embossed bolts and bits of regular telecom single strand cable (orange and blue as it came to hand).  The wire is staightened by rolling on a flat surface.  The body ends were made in the same way - three layers with details added to the grooms' compartment end: steps are there but handrais and lamp irons will follow.
     
    The roof is cold moulded on a former, in this case, made up of three 6mm mdf layers.  The roof profile (underside) is transferred to both ends and with a small plane, gradually brought to the required shape:  once the ends are pretty close to profile, the middle is completed using a  straightedge end to end.  The roof material is two layers of (approx) 0.4mm ply (aero-modeller's stuff) with a core of paper (overall, 3 layers for stability - balancing veneers).  The overall finished thickness is a touch under 1mm. I cut out the top sheet to the finished size required and mark it with longitudinal centre line (CL).  The paper core is a few mm larger all round, again with centre line.  The inner lamination is a few mm bigger again with centre line.  Working fairly quickly (hot weather requires greater speed) I coat the underside of the top sheet with pva, brushed to get the surface properly wetted.  That's plonked down on the paper layer and aligned to the CL.  The upper surface of the inner sheet is then coated with pva and the first two layers added - then rather quickly, the assembled sheets are stretched onto the former, using the centre line to get the shape right and the top former can be fitted and clamped on. 
     
    There's a press on top which is designed to hold the middle down to the very flat arc centre section in the correct alignment.  The outriggers are shaped to hold the outer edges of the roof onto the tighter arc each side.


     
    When dry (allow 24hrs), the roof can be released from the mould and, curiously, I haven't found that there is any spring or recoil in the shape. 
    I've pictured (left) a test piece of a shell roof which I made at least 20 years ago by the same method - it hasn't moved at all in that time and it's a much more complex shape.
     
    More or less complete body + roof, now with its first couple of coats of paint.  The cold moulded roof sits down nicely on the end profile.


     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The sketch below is the question I put in the first paragraph - how does the clasp brake with outside tie work?  There are some illustrations in GWR coaches vol1.  What I've drawn here is my take on it showing two brake blocks for one wheel (wheel not shown) called up as Left & Right.  L has a conventional hanger and a lever arm A to C to operate the brake.  R has a conventional hanger and a lever arm B to D.  The lever arm B to D pivots on the base of the column at point D.  The column is attached to the wagon underframe and stabilised by the raking strut. Also attached to the column is a cross tie to which is fitted a safety loop.  When the actuating rod C to E is pulled (by hand lever or vacuum) brake block L is pulled onto the wheel and, simultaneously because L and R are tied by the rod A to B, brake block R is pulled onto the wheel. The lever arm A to C also works the brake on the other side of the vehicle. From the photos I've studied, this sketch includes what can be seen of the braking arrangement and my experiments with the nutcracker illustrated below (which works on the same principal and has reliably cracked nuts these last 100 years or so) suggest that that's how the GWR arranged things  - but did they? 
     

  7. kitpw

    Bricks & Mortar (1)

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    Cardboard sketches are one thing, proper models another.  Time to get on and work out a way of doing the buildings on Swan Hill that can be done within a reasonable time scale (I've no idea what that really means) and which fit the overall picture of Swan Hill that I had in mind at the outset.  There is no "backscene" exactly, the present enterprise is more in the way of whole building that's cut off because there's a wall in the way - in other words, there ain't much width to play with.

    Drawing stuck down to 1.5mm mounting board...

    Base coat of Middelstone colour from Vallejo - approximately the colour of a newish London stock brick.

    First set of cuts for apertures - the cuts which aren't windows or doors are a bridge beam and parapet... more of that anon

    The back tells the story:  the overall thickness is now a scale 'one and a half brick' wall - a sandwich of two layers of 1.5mm mounting board and hardwood filling.
    The gable is a scale one brick thick and the apertures for windows have a half brick reveal (4.5") on the outside. The long, uninterupted edge is bevelled to fit against the railway room wall:
    the only edge which mates with the rest of the visible model is cut with a 45 degree mat cutter to make a mitred joint - the brick courses will run round the corner in the proper fashion.

    The facade courses have been scribed in with a just-not-quite-sharp point, the street doors fitted together with a rivetted beam above: cills are in (not glued yet)
    and the ventilator louvres in the gable pushed into place.

    45 degree bevel...
     

    Where it fits on the layout...

    Some colour and texure reference examples - I've collected dozens over time

    and sketches of brickwork - the courses and perpends are incised in these examples.

    A couple of examples of real things - a rather clunky brick terraced house which tries too hard but I love the dog tooth brick cornice and there are other clues for models -
    the depth of window reveals and shadowing from cills and cornice in particular. The other picture is a bridge abutment, actually the truss bridge over Little Petherick Creek near Padstow.
    I particularly like the combination of rivetted plate structure and masonry and this abutment has it all: battered piers, troughed floor, curved ends to the ironwork above...not to mention
    the fine array of lichens.  Much still to be done... Part 2 of Bricks and Mortar to follow....
     
     
  8. kitpw

    Update No1

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    Swan Hill is the terminus of a short, double track commuter branch off the GWR in the vicinity of Langley, imagined/modelled in 7mm. The last mile or so of the branch, including Swan Hill station, is carried on viaduct – Windsor comes to mind. The track plan owes something to Uxbridge Vine Street but with only a down siding for reversing into a goods yard (as per Windsor but off scene) and an up siding, shunting spur and dock. There is a single passenger platform serving arrival and departure roads. As at Uxbridge, there is no engine release crossover, so trains reverse and run round outside the station and in doing so, move from part 1 of the model - the station - to part 2 which will be in an adjacent covered area and may never consist of more than a sector table.
     
    As there is little room for much width to the model (it's basically 600mm wide), height has been used instead, thus the viaduct. The dotted lines on the drawing show roads and lanes under the viaduct based pretty closely on Fenchurch Street/Crutched Friars (wrong company but never mind) with pubs and other enterprises waiting to be installed underneath. It is not intended to develop goods facilites at ground level – these are “off scene” allowing goods trains to appear and reverse into part 2. It is planned that there will be sufficient building appearing above the viaduct formation level to give the impression of a very constrained town centre site where the road and building layout pre-existed the GWR's intervention in providing the citizens of Swan Hill with a railway station.
     


     



     
    edited 15/02/22 to restore photos and plan of the layout.
     

     
  9. kitpw

    ...a technical digression

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    The system devised to motorise the 11 points on Swan Hill may be of interest to others. I wanted a simpl(ish) mechanism using servos controlled from a Megapoints board and toggle switches – all new to me – to drive a protypical angle crank (rather than a slot in the baseboard type arrangement).
     
    The photos show servos mounted under the baseboard in a piece of aluminium angle slotted to carry the servo. The servo drives a short length of 2mm steel rod fitted with spade connectors each end. This drive rod turns a vertical 3mm steel shaft mounted in a 4mm steel bolt bored 3mm lengthwise. The 3mm shaft is turned down at the top end to make a 1.5mm diam x 1mm long stub to which a point crank is hard soldered. The whole assembly is mounted on a small piece of plywood and the 4mm bolt holds it against the underside of the baseboard, assisted by one or two screws as necessary. On top, the bolt head is lost in the track underlay. The whole lot can be assembled and tested on the bench before fitting.
     

     

     
     
     
    Above board, I end up with a fairly p/t (prototypical) arrangement with an angle crank located adjacent to each set of point blades. The cranks are the correct p/t length from pivot to pin connection but a bit beefier than scaled p/t cranks. The crank sits on the small rectangular base plate (p/t cast steel), itself sitting on a larger plate (p/t sheet steel) which often carries more than one crank/compensator or whatever.

     
    The point blades are joined using a version of the excellent system devised by David Nicolson and described in his article 'Floating Scale Pointwork' in MRJ 227 but amended dimensionally to make use of 2mm diam red plastic straws as supplied with WD40 (actually ex Ebay by the handful) for the insulating joiner. The rail section is drilled using jigs to control dimensions, all as described by David Nicolson, and the sleepers are set out to suit those dimensions. The remainder of the point rodding is cosmetic and I have yet to devise a sliding connection of cosmetic rods to working cranks... more on that when I've cobbled something together.
     
    The loose fittings in the last photo are parts for the only facing point lock on the layout - work in progress.
     
    I think the illustration below was part of this post but the reference is missing - I've posted it again 14/06/22.  It's a section through the point tie rods using the red tubes from WD40 cans (in quantity ex-Ebay without the WD40). It has been tested over the more than two years since fitting and seems to be OK, which is to say, none of them have failed (yet!).
     
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
  10. kitpw

    February 2020....

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    I had hoped to show more progress at Swan Hill by now but in spite of hours put in, output looks a bit thin.  There's been plenty of drawing (it's warmer indoors at the computer) - part of the current fabrication drawing is shown below together with a few pics of the work-in-progress viaduct and bridge abutment.  The abutment face is slotted for square section rainwater DPs but the bearing shelf is incomplete until the bridge itself is made and can be fitted to get the height exact.  Unusually, the bridge carries three tracks where an even number would be the norm - but there is such a bridge over Battersea Park Road which only goes to prove the old adage that there is a prototype for anything.  The last photo (of the trackwork leading to the bridge abutment) is included because until I looked at it, I hadn't noticed the missing chair - it's odd how pictures can show up things that otherwise get missed.

     

     

     
    ...If you're reading this post in 2022 (or later!), the bridge abutment which forms the country end (right hand end in the photos) of the layout has been completely re-built since this post was first uploaded - I didn't like it, so I changed it,
     
     
     
     
     
     
  11. kitpw

    A beginning

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    On a cold and damp Saturday and having viewed with huge interest various blogs on RMWeb over the last year or two and having revived a family tradition of building model railways, I decided it was high time to dip a toe in the water and share - with trepidation - the state of play on Swan Hill, a GWR terminus station somewhere in the Thames Valley and sometime in the 1920s. 
     
    The photo shows the extent of trackwork on Swan Hill as of about three months ago.  If the start of this blog shows up OK on the website, I'll elaborate on the track plan and add some detail as to what has been built so far and what is intended - I'll add some up to date photos as well.  It's worth mentioning that even this much progress on the layout has taken about 2 years as full time work gave way to part time retirement and, more recently, to more full time modelling.  The stock, such as it is, was started some 25 years ago -  a scratch built Dean Goods, a Vulcan 57xx pannier and various trucks and vans were completed (and now need upgrading and repair) and a splendid Slater's clerestory coach which is sitting in front of me now, still incomplete after all this time but shortly to be worked on.  So back at Swan Hill.....

     

     
     
     
     
  12. kitpw

    Friday fish...

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    The fish platform (which includes all fresh produce) at Swan Hill
     
    Fish platform at Swan Hill: it sits on a bridge over a road junction beneath, so timber built.  A second timber built platform is under construction:  same set of details based on a timber platform at Merthyr Tydfil but slightly different dimensions to the fish platform as it's passenger, not goods, so a nominal 3' 0" over the rails rather than a couple of inches higher for goods.
    Fish platform upsidedown on the bench

    ..and right way up on the bench.

    Framing up second timber platform - all jellutong bought in in large sections 80 x 125 and milled down to size, first on a largish saw bench, then on a Proxxon small bench saw to final size.

     
    Detail view

     

  13. kitpw

    A minor update... June '22

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    Something of a summary of progress on various fronts.  Thorpe's Trial & Error continues.  Work on the little warehouse building (Bricks & Mortar) continues and has been 'on the bench' today (well, this afternoon as domestic duties took up the morning).  The little warehouse drops down behind the viaduct but the drawing below is the 'master' drawing and made up of many layers, mostly transparent, so the whole facade shows up here where, for real, it does not.  So the drawing is always work in progress, constantly revised and updated and has now reached 'S' in the revision alphabet, sub-revision b. The drawing was started 2 Jan 2018.  The left hand end is the terminus or town end;  the right hand end is a plate girder bridge and the faint line cutting it in two marks the end of the workshop/railway room:  the bridge carries the layout into the car-port type structure (covered over but not enclosed) and will be drop-in so that the workshop can be secured with a lockable hatch and operated as a shunting layout in cold weather.  The half-a-bridge inside the workshop will be replaced with a very short traverser to allow a tank engine to run round - parts for that are ordered and, I'm told, on the way (thanks @Mikkel for the tip about linear rails).
     
    `
     
    A couple of photos of the layout, taken in poor light in order to show up the signal lighting.  They look too bright in the pictures but can be controlled with a set of tiny variable resistors in the electrical department.
    The drawings for the signal box are completed (and it appears in the drawing above) and having tackled brickwork for the little warehouse, I will probably make a start on the box in a week or two.  One thing I hadn't expected is the sensitvity of the signal mechanisms (above baseboard) to changes in temperature - it was 22 degrees today in the w'shop. Just as soon as I adjust them to level on the servos when set 'on', the temp changes 10 degrees and they aren't level again.  The ringed starter - showing green - allows a movement from the goods road to the Up Branch line.  The three doll bracket in the middle is the Up Branch starter from Road No 1, the starter to Up Branch from Road No 2 and backing from Road No 2 on the Down Branch line.  By the signal box, there is the Up Branch starter from Road No 3 (5' arm due to its height), backing signal for Road No 3 to the Down Branch and the small signal on the right controls entry to the Goods Yard.  In the distance, there are the Down Branch home signals for Roads 2 and 3 (2 doll bracket) and a ringed signal controlling exit from the Goods Yard to Road No 3.  I have yet to make a start on ground signals....but they are planned.

    Another view of the country end.  The left hand track terminates in a stop block.  The other three tracks will exit through the (newly refurbished) hatch.  It may seem counter-intuitive to place a long plate girder bridge where one might have put a tunnel or an overbridge as an exit but I think there's enough space around it to make it work and having what is effectively a lift out section solves the security/weather questions.
     

    Over a few months, I've been working on an alphabet. It's based on a variety of sources, none of them quite the same - so this alphabet is another variant. It all needs more work but is usable in its present form although I still need a 'V' and a 'Y' but won't bother with 'X' or 'Z' (unless you want Devizes).  As these are drawn letter shapes, they can be used to make up signage - they are not a "font".  Many years ago, as comic relief from A levels, I studied typography at evening classes and have retained an interest in it (see also Thorpe's Trial & Error). There is so much signage associated with railways and stations, I couldn't imagine not having the capability of turning it out here. Notice how different black out of white is compared with white out of black - the latter being the more usual arrangement.  The letter shapes, sizes and spacing are identical in each.  I trust two full stops in GWR is correct for 1927.

     
     
    And lastly, this one for one of the arches in the viaduct.  It's pretty much a copy of the cover of a book of 1920s French postcards (no, not that kind, actually scenic views of Cannes) so is authentically early Deco and something I can probably paint, using the transfer method I used for 'Thorpe'.

     
     
  14. kitpw

    Thorpe's trial & error

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    One or two fictional PO wagons would not go amiss at Swan Hill and a local merchant "Thorpe" has at least one wagon.  Now what to do about the livery?  The well known problem of printers - whether lazer or ink jet - not printing white suggests that a small signwriter is required... or is it a writer of small signs?  So, a thought: maybe I could print outlines onto waterslide transfer film and hand paint the lettering - worth a try?  The shading can be printed, black, red or whatever, so that takes away some of the requirement for a steady hand (which I have not got) and sharp eyes (of which I only have one good one).  First up then is to design/print (lazer).  The lettering is an adapted "font" which has been exploded in a CAD programme back to an editable outline and then adjusted to give a slightly bulkier letershape and shaded.  The transfers are printed direct from the CAD programme. 
     

     
    Then cut out and place on the wagon in this case a Slater's kit, more or less ex box:
     

     
    Then some white paint - actually, it's acrylic ink....the block of ice is the piercing out-saw table made of perspex which I also use to support hand/brush...
     

     
    then the other side...
     

     
    And to complete the job, some of the other details and a good deal of dirt:
     

     
    Like every good experimenter, some evaluation of the resuts is required....well, the sharp eyed will notice that the edges of the transfer film are definately not concealed by the dirt so a thinner carrier film is necessary: somebody will have tried this before and probably sourced a thinner film...get in touch and let me know!  Second thing I noticed is that the transfer film doesn't take paint very well, it's too glossy.  I sprayed the second side with a light dust over of matt acrylic varnish which improved matters but not that much.  A heavier matt coat would help.  I intentionally placed the lettering to avoid the lumps and bumps on the wagon side as the carrier film didn't like stretching over the obstructions - I've noticed a few PO wagons show the same disinclination by the signwriter to give themselves a hard time:  to that extent, there is some prototypical evidence.  Again, a thinner film would perhaps allow the more common approach of trying to paint a letter over a wagon strap and latch - which is pretty daft, if commonplace.
     
    Trial and error- well it was a bit of a trial and there are some errors but running in a train of wagons, it looks passable as a first "go" so I'll leave it at that.  There isn't a cripple siding at Swan Hill anyway so it's on the layout or back in the box - I think I'll leave it on the layout. 
     
     
  15. kitpw

    Signalling Swan Hill

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    Having made a few posts about the general arrangement and a few details about Swan Hill, I'm just getting around to signalling so it might be a good moment to post the provisional signal diagram "for comment and suggestions" and see what comes up! 
     
    Swan Hill is GWR and dates to 1927 (or thereabouts). The track layout is loosely based on a reduced version of Uxbridge Vine Street with the goods yard accessed on a reversal (from road No 3) similar to the arrangement at Windsor central station.  Traffic is predominantly passenger and the branch is double track throughout (for a double track branch with nothing much at the end of it, see GWR Uxbridge High Street). As at Uxbridge Vine Street, engines can only run round by reversing stock out of the arrival road (No 2) and running round on the crossover (points 1a and 1b). Parcels, horses, milk and other perishables are unloaded in Siding 1 and the loading dock.  Other freight - coal, timber, construction materials and so on - goes to the goods yard via Road No 3.  Road No 3 can be used by a push-pull service in addition to providing goods yard access: all three roads have direct access to the Up Branch line.
     
    The layout is wired for DC operation with 4 controller "zones" - the Up sidings (siding 1, loading dock and headshunt) are on controller 1 (C1: coded yellow for wiring). The Up branch is C2 (red), the Down branch C3 (blue) and Road 3 and the goods yard are C4 (green). Switches, relays and a Megapoints servo driver reverse the points, change frog polarity and allocate controllers and track feeds. Thus, reversing point 11 on the diagram allows C2 to take over control from C1 and, similarly, reversing points 10, 23 and 24 allocates C2 to take over from C4. Reversing point 23 causes C3 to take over from C4 (except for the line to the right of point 24) so that access can be obtained from Road 3 to the Down Branch.  The same actions remove power feeds to parts of the track so that conflicting moves are prevented. When all points are set normal, the 4 controllers can operate the different areas independently. 
     
    What is needed now is signals...
     
     
     
     
     
  16. kitpw

    Swan Hill at Christmas 2021

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    A general view of the layout as it is today... 'cardboard city' - some buildings sketched in to build up the picture




     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    A good deal of time through the year has been taken up with upgrading the stock - most was put together in the late 1980s and much in need of refurbishment. The Toad has been overhauled with new chimney, new rainstrips, new footboards and handrails: I hope it's now correct for a 1927, 6 wheeled brake.  The Siphon G was scratchbuilt in about '87, all wood construction but now needs some better brake equipment. The Opens and GW vans have been improved and should now be correct for date and type:  the "GW"s are transfers and the lettering is hand done - I haven't quite got that yet but it's improving with practice. There's been a lot of work on the electrical side - all the points and signals are working (servos with Megapoints controllers) with interlocking between points and signals (a good many relays).  Signal building is about 75% complete with the last of the semaphores in progress. Ground signals are yet to be started. Most of the point rodding is complete and signal wires are about to be installed.  There are a few new items of stock - the Slater's twin tank milk wagon (a little anachronistic, arriving in 1927 Swan Hill a few years too soon):  there is a match truck and a rectangular tank wagon tucked in the siding, running but not yet painted and lettered.  In a few months time, when some of the buildings are installed, I'll start on some coaching stock.... but that's for 2022. 
     
    Swan Hill is the first layout I've worked on - I built some test trackwork in the 1980s, enough to decide that O gauge standards (at the time) didn't seem to work very well and so, after a bit of calculation and close observation, I test built some pointwork to 31,5mm gauge and amended other dimensions to suit.  I built most of the stock in the later 1980s, the pannier from a Vulcan kit and then scratchbuilt the Dean Goods.  I see from my shelves that I have copies of MRJ from the first issue, numbered 0, through to about 25 and then a long gap until issues dated 2018 and later: that reflects the story so far... first experiments with 7mm scale models coinciding with MRJ issue 0, a long gap when nothing happened and then beginning Swan Hill in 2018.  I thought I might be finshed by 2027 and, for that reason, decided on 1927 as the nominal date line for the layout.  With progress as it is, that looks a bit doubtful....ah well, we'll see what turns out during the coming year which I will try to document as I go along.
     
    Thanks for looking in during the year and best wishes for 2022.
     
  17. kitpw

    ...no story but a few details

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    From my notebook...
     

    ...dimensions and cutting notes (on the small lathe) for signal lamps, based on GWR drawings reproduced in Adrian Vaughan's 'Great Western Signalling".  The lamps are bored out 3mm to house a 3mm water clear LED. Although not common, I sourced some flangeless LEDs (Toby Electronics - Toby.co.uk) which will fit right into the lamp case, leaving only the clear base of the LED to be painted and stop light spillage. The lamp is cross drilled to take the front and rear lenses which are thick walled brass tube, turned down at the ends to fit the cross drilled holes in the casing - then soldered in, filed to length and cleaned up.
             
     
    The lamp cases are Birchwood blacked and glazed with Glue'n Glaze. I forgot to put a kerf to house the wiring into one of the signal dolls so the wires run up the face of the doll but in all other cases, a pair of 0.02mm wires are set into the posts and dolls (www.componentshop.co.uk for the wire). The same cases are used on the buffer stops but with flangeless red LEDs.
     
         
    The lamps are powered by an ex mobile phone USB charger via a set of circuits incorporating a fixed resistor sized to suit the number of LEDs on each circuit and also a variable resistor to control brightness.
     
    I've made fork end connectors for the signals - the Up starters use a "compensation" beam and really need an engineered connection which is to say that I've never had much success putting a small bend on each end of a length of piano wire and getting it the right length - the advantage of the fork end is a small measure of adjustability - the pictures show how that's possible.
        
     
    The same fork end detail is used for the point rodding, but smaller - 2.75mm long x 1.2mm square with a 0.7mm diam pin onto the cranks. The pins are about 1mm long and I dare say there are a good few spread round the workshop - missing in action. The pictures show one set of rods/cranks, recently installed and waiting on Birchwood metal black. The dimension between rods (centre to centre) is setup by the ModelU rod guides - where there is a 90 degree turn, the cranks need to be set very close together using the GWR type curved/straight cranks set at different levels.  The point rodding "works" although it's the point servos moving the cranks and not a set of levers in a signal box - some runs aren't connected to anything but there's enough that are to create the illusion.
     
       
     
     
     
     
     
  18. kitpw

    A short story and some signals...

    By kitpw,


    Swan Hill
    In our back garden when I was a boy, we had an old signal box. I don't know where it came from - we certainly didn't have a (full size) railway to go with it.  My grandfather (always known as GP) lived in the cottage next door and used the signal box as a workshop; I spent a good deal of time there, avoiding homework and learning how to make stuff.  On my workbench is a steel try square which is in daily use just as it has been for some four generations:  it was in the signal box when I was a boy and it's stamped with GP's father's initials - my great grandfather. He was a railway carriage joiner in a south London workshop - his brother was a railway signalman, somewhere adjacent to New Cross.  So with such appropriate credentials, I set out to make some signals for Swan Hill.

    This picture shows the first signals made for Swan Hill:  it's pretty much the same picture that I posted at Christmas 2020 but then, they didn't actually work.  Now they do. Great excitement and if I could master how to do it, I'd post a video.  Not content with having them just go 'On' and 'Off', they needed to be doing a bit more than that and so work began on "the brain".

    All the wiring on the layout is led back to a junction box which, in its primitive state, allowed the track and point servos to be tested and checked.  Now there are also a bunch of relays which interlock the signals with the points so that, for instance, when the points are correctly set for the route, the 'Up' starter is enabled and when the Up starter is set 'Off' the train can be sent up the line but only in the 'Up' direction as there are diodes preventing reversal - which foxes my grandsons.  As and when signals are installed, the primitive circuits can be adapted and further relay logic interposed from the comfort of a deck chair in front of the layout.
     
    I started with a signal ladder...
        
    The stiles are drilled 0.5mm using a jig-with-bent-pin to determine the hole locations.  Assembly on a (scalded) jig made up from nails and a straight edge.  One side is soldered up first and then the ladder turned round in the jig, the stile pulled straight and the other side soldered.  The completed ladder (lousy photo).  The next pictures are actually another bracket signal which is not yet installed but show the same methods as the bracket signal above. All the n/s strip is cut on a small table saw (Proxxon) having been cyano'd to 4mm mdf. 
         
    Making the bracket - flat n/s strip curved in a jig (shown in an earlier post) and set against some nails on a knocking up board - jig too posh a name for that. The other part of the angle is set on and soldered in.
    The rest of the bracket is made up from strip, set out on the drawing using s/s pins to hold things in place.  Next, landing planking - the GWR insisted they run fore and aft rather than side to side.  Then guardrailing.  The stanchions are 1mm diam n/s turned down each end to 0.7mm and set in drilled holes in the planking at the base and soldered into notches filed into the lightly flattened gaurdrail at the top;  The shoulder produced by turning at top and base controls the height which otherwise, in my hands, would be a wobbly muddle - or more of a muddle anyway.
                
     
    The completed home signals which are yet to be installed on the layout...

      
    The finials are ModelU - very nice they are too.  I've made up fork end connectors for the rodding and the cranks are all hand cut and filed to shape. The posts and dolls are hardwood - American walnut (see living room coffee table)  and the signals arms and spectacles are from Scale Signal Supply.  The spectacle glazing is bubble type packaging cut to shape and painted with glass paint.  

     
    The two 'Up' starters and backing 'Up' 'Down' line signal and the Siding to Up line starter.
     I'll post something about the lamps and lighting in a day or so: lamps are all working and show up as pin point back lights in the picture above. I've also fitted working lighting to the buffer stops - red, but fairly impossible to see  here.  
     
  19. kitpw
    I might do several posts in the next couple of days to summarise what I've been doing - I've been busy but there doesn't seem to be much to show for it! Nevertheless, I've tried to take some pictures along the way - this post is about buffers.
     
    There are five end stops required at Swan Hill so it's worth making up a tool for bending rail and a jig for assembly. First up is the tool for bending rail on its wider axis so that it doesn't distort at the bend, followed by a (scruffy looking) jig for assembling the buffer stops and some views of the stops installed on the layout - some painting still required. The stops are based on the GWR double headed rail type illustrated in Tavender's 'Railway Equipment Drawings' but adapted for use up against a platform edge.  They aren't a promine nt feature on the layout but the end of the line looks a bit forlorn without them.
     
    Edit - pictures all in the wrong order - but self explanatory I hope!








  21. kitpw

    ...bridging the gap

    By kitpw,

    I've always rather liked the rivetted plate bridges which are commonplace all over the railway system and which are the subject of this post.  I've included a couple of GWR bridges in the Bristol area for reference and from which the particular shape of section supporting the raised steel parapet is drawn (Google "fair use" credit): it may be particular to GWR plate bridges as I haven't noticed it elsewhere. For general reference on steelwork (and in particular on rivetted structural sections) Dorman Long's 1906 handbook is useful (https://www.dormanlongtechnology.com/Download_files/DL%20Historical/Dorman%20Long%201906%20handbook.pdf).  It covers compound girders such as the one I've represented at SwanHill together with things like rivetted columns and column cappings as well as standard equal and unequal angles, Tees and so on.  There are some illustrations of bridges at and after page136 including cross sections of single and double track railway.  The photos show the build up of the compound girder with a raised parapet, both about a scale 6' high over a span of 65' (so a span to depth ratio of about 1/11).  The bottom flange will carry a coffered brick soffit running back under the railway to an equally long beam which is supported mid span, so less deep and buried underneath somewhere.  It may seem counter intuitive for the more detailed part of this structure to be facing away from the "front" of the layout but the beam soffit can be seen from underneath and it may be that "the railway" is not always
    housed where it is now. It's my intention, where there is a front and a back to something like this girder, it will have both front and back, whether seen or not. 
     
    There are a few rivets on this model - I haven't counted them - put in with a handy little bench top rivet embosser, a pillar drill ex Ebay "for spares" re-purposed as a staking tool and rivet press.
     










  22. kitpw
    No great excitement but the last section of trackwork for part one at Swan Hill was completed over the weekend (including the bare bones of the last base framework required).  The Slater's all 3rd coach standing in the down siding is also now complete (except for one or two brass fittings for the ends) and a 1900 vintage rivetted steel plate bridge beam installed on its padstones over one of the lanes under the viaduct.  Work on the viaduct walls and the shops/warehouses underneath will be the focus of the next few weeks - oh, and tidying up the controllers and electrical junction box which is presently an unholy muddle.


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