kitpw

Thanks Mikkel - much entertained (and informed) by that and Farthing too, throughout the year.

12 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

It seems to have been a popular style at that period.  I grew up in Southport and had a nagging feeling that the style of the towers was familiar

(If I remember rightly) it's called "French Second Empire" style, characterised by mansard roofs. Quite why it was seen as appropriate for GWR station buildings, I cannot imagine.

I think you should award yourself several bites for the building so far (and several more when it's done, I dare say). 

4 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Interesting developments!

 

It's good to get an overview of things. I've just revisited your January entry to help visualise the station end, and I assume the header photo here shows the viaduct end and future hole in the wall. 

 

Are you building the complete viaduct in one go, or only part of it until the hole in the wall is made?

Overview... yes!

The hole in the wall is made.  The viaduct is made but as yet undetailed - no rivets and detail.  The current header shows the hole (old photo). The baseboard for Vineyard Hill will wait on finding the Vineyard Hill end of the viaduct to get the location exact, (it was nearly a ferro-cement viaduct but...). The viaduct is a separate "baseboard" which can be removed and the hole shuttered against the cold.  Then, before winter sets in, "car port" (model port) baseboard making.

The modeller's apprentice has learned much from Swan Hill but has a long way to go yet.

Kit PW

3 hours ago, Chrisbr said:

That's going to add so much potential...

I hope so... as trains at Swan Hill run round outside the station (run round loops inside seem to take more than their share of very limited space), the extension to Vineyard Hill permits that and increases overall movement activity.

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

Of course, Rome famously was built on seven hills (though not in a day) - just sayin'.

Ah yes, the eternal city...

Kit PW

40 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

a row in a style that seems very widespread in that town

...and all over late Victorian / turn of the century London as well.

42 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

little further down the same street, the building on the right seems Victorian to me, but again I am not sure.

...a bit earlier I think: the storey heights suggest it could be pretty old, possibly a timber frame which has had a brick facade added by way of an upgrade or repair. The ground outside appears to have been graded to respect an earlier road/pavement level.

A nice collection of buildings.

At less than £3 s/h, the Observer's Book of Architecture (I think now out of print) is an excellent investment. Amazon have several for sale: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Observers-Architecture-Forewordby-Written-Illustrated/dp/1854710397. Very good for a general sense of dating and style.

Very tempting to follow your example but I have rather more than 9 levers which put me off a bit and then, like you, I woud be termpted to go the whole hog and look at mechanical interocking. For now (which means indefinitely), I think I'd better stick with switches and relays.  I like the idea of developing a Stevens-like frame but scaled to suit the operator's fingers: very nice. WIll you translate the basic frame into brass/steel?

I think I've understood how the atmospheric railway carriage was engineered to move along the track but the Dawson illustration (feature photo in part 1) seems to show that not all the trackwork was fitted out with the atmospheric tubes.  Was it intended to operate the railway as part atmospheric, part steam hauled? It looks as if the tube lying between the rails (in the 7'?) would not interfere with a more conventional loco and carriages:  the inability to turn or turnout an atmospheric train would seem to suggest that additional or alternative traction might be desirable.

@MikeOxon "it was used to carry paperwork and cash in small canisters around a building." ("quote selection" not working)

Not just a building: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_pneumatic_post  "The Paris pneumatic post reached its greatest extent in 1934 with 427 kilometres (265 mi) of pneumatic pipes and 130 offices in service". 

I'll look forward to seeing this model and thread develop.

I know very little about DCC but I can see that when planning a layout now, it would be hard not to look at DCC as the way to go - a bit like your move to Scale7 before putting down the first piece of track on the layout. It all looks rather tidy and well thought out which is entirely consistent with the standards you've set yourself, evidenced by the models you've posted on Netherport.  And I agree about the meters - I took out digital meters as I couldn't see the need for two places of decimal when I use them mainly for registering shorts/bad track feeds and so on and I didn't much care for the constant twitching of numbers on the panel - the needles describe a rather more sedate progress.

4 hours ago, Mikkel said:

And thanks for explaining how the brake works in detail. I have been wondering about it when running my 4mm one.

Mikkel, thanks.  I hope I've got it right!

14 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Early Clayton Midland carriages have a similar arrangement

Thanks Stephen and for comment about early Clayton carriages (and presumably NPCS). I'd be interested to see what Clayton produced - I did look for other companies' similar dated braking apparatus and there are plenty of diagrams for the general arrangement but with underframes represented by wheels and not much else - no detaill of brakes (mea culpa - most of my library is GWR so I was relying on the web!). 

It looks like the closest relative in the bicycle world is the 'cantilever brake' with a right angled crank arm each side of the wheel. The "outside link" is provided by the wheel forks. It's an interesting comparison because the brake works across the wheel, not on the circumference, and therefore the blocks tends to rise on the coned rim where Dean's outer brake shoe would tend to move outwards, reducing its efficiency.  The coach at Diccot that I referred to above appears (from one photo) to have a bar linking opposite brake shoes on the outer ends of the vehicle which I assume is to counter that tendency.  The inner brake shoes are held more firmly in place because their lever arms are anchored to the stub pillars which are themselves linked together. 

Another interesting thing I noticed with the Dean system on a 6 wheel coach is that the very long pull rods running from the central brake cross shaft to at least as far as the buffer beam show self weight deflection: I haven't seen that with with the shorter pull rods offered by the later system of triangular yokes/tumblers and a single pull rod.

3 hours ago, brossard said:

I am very grateful to RMweb members who provided me with much valued information.

Thanks brossard - yes complex, and yes, RMweb is an amazing rescource (and full marks to those who restored pictures after the great disappearance).  In this instance - the Dean era brakes - it was Western Thunder which helped as well. My last post on RMweb about No 88 produced some comments and more photos of 'boxes which sent me off in several very useful direcitons:  the comments are always welcome!

4 hours ago, magmouse said:

I have used just the etched ratchet part and made the rest from NS strip, but you method correctly represents the twist where they meet - very nice.

I did get some of those from Ambis and they are very nice but, as you say, rather delicate and not up to the twist necessary to turn the rack perpendicular to the vehicle side.  I didn't think I could make one - until I tried! Amusingly, it works a bit like a safety pin once the extended bit is cut to length, it can be pinged into a slot in the little stub that holds the lever when parked 'off'. Referring to photos of the real thing, it looks pretty chunky so I thought I could get away with a reasonably heavy material - 0.4mm n/s. Thanks for your kind comment (and for pointing out the anomaly in the initial post: I'm not sure what happened there so I deleted the post and re-did it).

4 hours ago, Dave John said:

I think the brake gear was worth the effort with so much being visible around the wheels. 

It was an effort! - I wondered what I'd got myself into but, on the other hand, I couldn't quite see what I could leave out to simplify things!  It became an exploration of the Dean outside link brake which is a bit counter-intuitive in its operation as, on first inspection, it looks as if it couldn't possibly work.  Musing on this a while ago, I realised that it works just like an old nutcracker we have which has an "outside link" and cracks nuts very nicely (I included a picture in an earlier post). Once you've seen it, you can't see how it wasn't obvious in the first place: it's a clever piece of engineering and I think unique to the GWR.  There were clearly developments in the design either as retro fit or perhaps just on newer vehicles but I think the equipment on the model is a reasonable guess at its date of building. To quote from Monty Python "...and now for something completely different" - perhaps some further building devlopment on the layout.

"the simple answer is just to make some straps and hawsers and hold the tank on with them." @Dave John (quote selection not working (again)).

...which is one of the reasons I started modelling in 7mm/ft rather than 4mm/ft - 1:50 appeals more than either but I intended to mix scratchbuilding with kit building so stuck with 7mm/ft.  I did a similar thing with a Slater's twin tank wagon, using short lengths of 14BA threaded road and nuts for both the transverse straps and the inclined ones - I coudn't see how else they'd stay put (and I can't remember now what the instructions said about it).

The tank wagon is looking like a tank wagon that could carry a heavy load of liquid stuff - excellent!  You're having some fun with 1:50 and it shows in the result.

The tank wagon has the look of something engineered from first principles which is nice to see and will make for a convincing model. Have you started planning a 1:50 layout?  

Kit PW

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/658721882970201795/.  Pinterest "cards" which include the Rolles Quay access swing bridge (Pottington).  I believe it was originally an iron drawbridge before installation of the swing bridge but have no reference for that.   There is better reference for the swing bridge at Hayle which looks to be broadly similar to your sketch for Coastguard Creek - but now replaced.  

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Hayle_wharves_swing_bridge.jpg

Off topic, sort of, I followed the link you posted on the D299 thread to magmouse.co.uk - very nice photos, some of them of familar scenes in the south west of London and of Bude and the coast up towards Hartland which I know well.  I meant to post about it weeks ago but have been working, (not full time nowadays) and travelling and I can't seem to write more than a couple of (misspelt) words on a mobile phone.

The Mink roof is challenging and I'll look forward to seeing how you get on - I've never used the Archer type rivet transfers but it sounds the right way to go with those paired rows of rivets.

Kit PW

Not the easiest of things to put together but it seems to be turning out pretty well. Getting the doors into the right relationship to the sides looks to be worth the effort and all nicely detailed too. 

What have you got up your sleeve for the roof ? 

And the underframe - as you know, I've been working on the underframe and braking gear of the N5 horsebox with the externally linked clasp brake system:  I did one end first and learnt a lot, in particular, to put the draw hook and buffers in before assembling the brakes as fitting them after proved near impossible with the brake rigging in the way.

Kit PW

@magmouse ("quote selection" from your posts seems not to work sometimes, this morning is one of those times!).

"the hand painting ensured a paint-texture finish, and adjusted the subtleties of the letter-shapes to be those of the sign-writer, not the typographer".

And all the more convincing for it, particularly when done that well.

"made with plywood sides and ends, and strapping made from toothpaste tube".

Proper modelling! Ingenious.

Kit PW

"...and done!" ['quote selection' not selecting again]

....yes, and very well done.

[but works for the comments...odd]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

how much overhang before brackets get used?

There may be an answer in that some versions (e.g GWR Siphons, straight sided horseboxes) have a cast or forged triangular bracket taking the load from the side of the van when all or most of the side overhangs the sole bar.  I suspect the simple L bracket on the one plank wagons and other similar types hold the kerb rail in (lateral deflection), not up: otherwise, if there was any significant load on it, it would bend.

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

From a modelling perspective, there comes a point where you have to build the darned thing 😬.

....and then, of course, one has to paint it:  now what colour would that be?

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

As it happens, I have a scan of the page in Atkins (3rd edition) with the sketch.

The Atkins I have is the first edition which includes both volumes 1 and 2 (1986): it doesn't have that particular page/sketch. It's not the first time I've been in the dark with Atkins references so I thought perhaps I should modernise and looked for a later edition (2013) - s/h £112. Ouch! Modernisation postponed.

There is a very clear photo of an 8 ton Open (with sack load) on page 53 of my edition:  a few detail differences (for instance, a screw shackle top link to the coupling) with Nick's model but comparing one with the other, it looks right to me.  One thing that does show up in the Atkins photo (as wheels have been a topic in the Netherport thread) is the wear on the tyres which look well overdue for replacement.

There's much to congratulate you on in this post.  The incised letters in the sole bar have turned out very well, a nice touch.  The scrap brass shield as bolt cutter guide is a clever idea.  It's all looking very good, It has the look of the prototype(s) (I had to get out Atkins et al) and, at the same time, shows up the difference between kit building and scratch building. With a kit you can mostly get away with not necessarily fully understanding how things are built in the real world: with scratchbuilding, as you've pointed out, you really do need to understand it to make a convincing model - which it is.

Kit PW

1 hour ago, magmouse said:

I do have a kit for a 517 class in the cupboard, awaiting its moment...

I'll look forward to that: if it's to the same standard as the wagons so well illustrated on your Netherport thread, it will be a treat. (And thanks for your kind comment about Swan Hill).