Geordie Exile

I'm currently in the North East and have taken a couple of hours to walk the wagonways leading from Fenwick Pit. The exchange sidings have mostly disappeared under modern roads and housing. This is line from the colliery and shows what I'm wrestling with in terms of baseboard design. We tend to start on something flat, and build scenery up, but this line 'floats' on an embankment almost all the way from the colliery to the sidings with most of the landscape ten or fifteen feet below it. I want to somehow replicate this, with the trackbed on a skeletal 'baseboard' sitting above the actual baseboard. But of course this presents challenges such as running wire-in-tube, and TOUs underneath the turnouts but above the baseboard, and all the access issues that raises. I'm looking forward to Derby which no doubt will give me lots of pointers.

@Curlew Thanks Simon - that's incredibly useful. I've trawled through Sassaby's albums on Flickr and somehow hadn't spotted that one (although my focus was on Fenwick Pit itself at the time). Don't think I'd found the North Tyneside Steam Railway album, so there's another great source. That square crossing is going to be fun replicating! Richard

I love the internet. (Well, some bits of it.) I've been staring at the OS map trying to figure out how Fenwick pit connected to the Backworth system, the North-South running Blyth & Tyne, and the North Tyne Loop of the NER that served - and continues to serve - North Tyneside. And I stumbled across this: I've rotated it 90 degrees and shown it alongside the nearest OS map to the same time that I can find. I'm trying to work out why the Church Colliery lines are shown as dashed: were they lifted at the time the map was drawn? They're almost certainly what became the exchange sidings for the Backworth System and show as "Mineral Railway" on the east of OS Map. I'm similarly confused by the solid lines which appear to have two catch points, then become dashed. I can't see them on the OS Map, and I'm not aware of anything more than two roads heading North-South at Earsdon Junction. The OS Map is labelled as "NZ37SW - A, Surveyed / Revised: 1953 to 1964, Published: 1966", so the dates of the two are remarkably close. Any thoughts from folk who understand all this? Either way, this is quite a leap forward in producing a track plan for me.

I found the only way to pop the frame was from above. I'm now wondering whether I could have done that from below...

For anyone wondering how difficult it is to re-wheel a 108: absolute piece of cake. The most difficult part was having the courage to wrench the motor bogie out of the chassis. It takes a damn good tug. If you're doing it for the first time, a couple of thoughts: - Watch the delicate parts. Today's models have a lot more detail than when I was playing with N Gauge in the early eighties*. - You'll need to bend out the electrical pickups before putting in the replacement wheelsets. They can be gently squeezed behind the wheels as you click the wheels in. - Test each pair of wheels for electrical contact. *Yeah, I need to glue a bit back on. Ho hum.

And I am still modelling. I'm now the proud owner of a re-wheeled Class 24, and two Class 108 DMUs. The first 108 was dutifully run in for an hour each way. A couple of days ago, I popped it on the track and it made an unpleasant crunching sound, and one of the teeth has disappeared from a driving wheel. Fortunately the Association replacements are already ordered, and they're made of sterner stuff.

I've spent the last two months in the loft, adding 100mm of insulation to every surface! Another couple of weeks, and it might be ready to be considered my train room. And I know I was warned against covering the hatch, but this is temporary, and the chances of me having a medical emergency and collapsing on the boarding are FAR outweighed by the chance of me stepping back to admire my work and seriously delaying any more! I'll build a guard rail eventually. Honest.

Fantastic, thank you all. I'll drop this off my list of things that concern me, and go back to worrying about turnout operation, frog juicing, track bed composition, automatic decoupling etc etc etc 😁 Richard

I'm blessed with a loft that will allow me a circular layout some 7.0m x 5.5m (ish). The thought of a DMU trundling endlessly around a loop while I play with a specific bit of the layout pleases me no end. However, does a loop of 25m mean that the resistance of the rails, or the 1.5mm cable I'm planning to use as a bus, will reduce the current so much that at the furthest point from the DC controller the said DMU will simply grind to a halt? I know that DCC will give me a higher voltage, but I'm trying to avoid the expense and complexities of DCC.

Thanks @Caley Jim, @richbrummitt & @Nig H. Some proper food for thought, especially as I'd been looking for a solution at the lever end rather than the turnout end. Much appreciated. Richard

I'd ordered a bunch of track for Fenwick Pit, so knew I had to get on with my contribution to the FCAG's layout, namely a couple of huts. The first is a scratch-built brick hut: other members suggested that the warm glow of a stove would enhance it (it was snowing, a lot, while I was building it) so, yeah, OK. Oof, that downpipe's a bit chunky. Never mind. The second is a grounded wagon, courtesy of Shop 2 (2-580) but bashed about a bit: And my track arrived today, so it's time to get serious with actually building my own layout. (Hmm, I think I've said that more than once...)

I'm mulling over how best to combine a lever for wire-in-tube turnout operation with a polarity switch for the frog. Before I reinvent the wheel, does such a thing already exist somewhere, or does someone have a working design they'd be willing to share? Cheers, Richard.

Hi Jim You're probably right, and I've a couple of photos which seem to confirm it. I've also photos (early '70s) which seem to show the blue area as more populated by sidings than the (mid '60s) map shows. Doesn't really matter, as - to quote a great modeller - "It's your model, so make it how you want it" 😁 R

Eek. Just done some measuring (that 200m scale on the map is useful) and it turns out that the length of track I'd planned on replicating is about 2000ft which would be 4m just for the exchange sidings with a nice approach from the east and that "Y" at the west. Think I'll be compressing that somewhat.

Well then! I found my modelling mojo: it was buried under a long list of things to do in real life, but as most of those are outdoor jobs and it's currently -7 in our part of the Highlands, they can wait. I've ordered a bunch of 9mm (how appropriate!) ply and planed timber to make a start on elements of the baseboard. I promised myself I wouldn't get too complicated for the first attempt, and this was confirmed when I blew the dust off my two-year-old test track and saw just how badly I'd laid it. So, here's the plan for the first bit: (probably copyright National Library of Scotland, so I'd better credit them) The pit itself sits at the top of the map (the orange rectangle), but I'm going to start with the exchange sidings. I'm pretty certain they sat in the blue rectangle, and weren't much more complex than is shown in the map. However, the red rectangle gives me a set of sidings, lots of straight lines, some fairly simple pointwork, a nice headshunt and the possibility of a couple of non-descript and out-of-commission buildings , so in my version those will become the exchange sidings. The lines originally served Church Pit ("Mine (Dis)" on the map), later the Abbey Shot Factory (which used the pit shaft as the drop rather than a shot tower) and then, well, I don't know after that. I could have it all wrong and they actually were the exchange sidings. It'll all be good practice, as it'll feature actual track and scenery, plus wiring, plus (semi-)automatic uncoupling. Time for a shopping list...