thetalkinlens

Well that’s put a smile on my face. I like that a lot Paul!

It's another sunny day in the Vale of Pickering as Class B No.860 passes Wilton Carr gatehouse with the daily Scarborough to Helmsley pickup goods.

I'd still be interested to find out. The impression I got for the N.E.R. was there were workings, which included mineral traffic (so that is interesting to hear the Tyneside electric system can be added to that list) which would have a specific headcode and that sometimes included a disc like what was seen on the Southern Railway. But for regular workings, eg express passenger, pickup goods, regular passenger etc, the impression I get is these were standard across the N.E.R. network. That is my guess though, and I could be totally wrong.

Thanks @DCB, I have a small shunting layout using Peco bullhead, so will give Smokey Joe a try on it. I'm fairly sure I've done this before and it was ok though. That sounds like a good idea using DPDT switches for all the sections. I will give the track plan a re-work.

Thanks for your reply @Jeremy Cumberland, this certainly gives me something to think about, and to know the general concept of switching the goods yard or mpd control between the up and down controller as a sound approach is good to hear.

I'm about to embark on a reasonably large scale loft layout tail chaser in 00 scale. The scenic section will use Peco Bullhead track and therefore unifrog points. I intend to power the frogs. Each individual section of track will have droppers to a bus wire. For various reasons, I feel DC is the best choice over DCC. My 8 year old son has models such as Smokey Joe which I imagine will not be an easy prospect to hard wire a chip, nor do I particularly want to modify his models. My father also has a loft layout running on DC. We frequently share locomotives between each other. I have tried running DCC fitted locomotives with the DC cv option turned on and find the quality of running on DC is usually not as smooth compared to being fitted with a blanking plate. I don't really want to be refitting blanking plates every time models need to run on his layout. I still intend to wire the layout so DCC is a possibility in the future however. So turning to DC, I want to keep things as simple as possible, but at the same time offer flexibility in operation. There will be two running lines - one controller for each. Crossing over between the up and down line is something I would like to explore the options. My fathers layout has one crossover - with isolation on the crossover line. Both controllers then have to be turned on, the correct direction set on each and the power balanced. This is to put it bluntly, arduous and therefore the crossover is hardly ever used. I have included below a first draft of the station track plan. The up and down lines are shown in orange and purple. There is then an mpd in blue and a goods yard in green. Under this plan, the mpd and the goods yard can both be accessed in the same way. From one direction access is direct, then from the opposite line access is made via a diamond crossing. Both would be isolated from the running lines on both rails at the positions where the orange or purple change to blue or green. Which controller is providing power to the goods yard would be by means of a DPDT (double pole double throw) on-on switch. I think that is the correct type of switch, but could be wrong! A second switch of the same nature would provide the same logic for the mpd. A final addition would be some isolation protection for the running line if the diamond is set to be accessed on the opposing line. I've really only followed my own logic with this concept and have no idea what other modellers do. What I would really like to ask is whether this is a sound approach or if there are alternatives? There is for example no direct crossover between the up and down line with this idea. Any feedback and ideas would be greatly welcomed.

Here is another old 51L kit I've put together this week. An N.E.R. diagram F2 insulated van.

Re the buffer type.... I think that is because No.1759 is based on the new build. No.2093 is the one to get in N.E.R. period condition, with tapered buffers.

Having a closer look at these in the flesh at Model Rail Scotland today, they look superb... I noticed the Central Division P7 of 55985 has the drop buffers painted black rather than grey. This looked a bit unusual I thought given the P6's and P8's on show were grey. The archive photo of wagon 55985 I would have said they were grey also.

Here is a Rapido "Not Quite Mink", or as I've dubbed it "Not Quite G8", which is the N.E.R. diagram it represents. There are some details which aren't quite right... holes in the solebars, vents on the body ends, axle boxes, brake lever, but these aside, it's a pretty nice model and the livery application looks great. I've fitted three link couplings to the models plastic hooks, which appear strong enough to be put under load in a train. If the hooks fail, I'll look to fitting some metal ones. Other than that, the only job has been to apply some black paint on the wheels and to weathering powders, mostly soot to tone the pristine finish down.

I've now got all of the windows, doors and gutters fitted on the station building. Downpipes and canopy remaining to be added. Also some internal walls to avoid seeing windows through the building.

After a bit of measuring, I realised it only needed a whisker of opening up the hole to fit the Smiths links. 0.55mm increased to 0.6mm. Hopefully the plastic hook is strong enough, as it doesn't look straight forward at all to fit a metal hook.

A little job this morning was to fit the Narrow Planet numberplates to my N.E.R. Class B. This is a NuCast kit, which I purchased last year - built, but had it re-lined and renumbered. A very nice smooth runner.

Maybe, but there isn't much there to make them bigger, so finding some finer chain links would probably be preferred.

Can anyone recommend links for three link couplings which will fit through the hole on the Rapido bufferbeam hooks? Metal ones that can be used as for actual coupling. I usually use Smiths, but the links are too thick to fit through the hole. Possibly the finescale Smiths links are a bit thinner and will fit?

Is there any chance of livery samples appearing before the pre-order deadline?

Could you link me to this thread please?

An update on the Forge Valley Railway Station building which I've been working away on over the last three months. The main structure is complete and painted and focus is currently on windows and doors, before moving onto guttering and downpipes. There are 32 openings for windows in total - thankfully two of them on the yard side are blanked off. Despite looking symmetrical, there are subtle differences on each end. The lack of chimney on one end of the central block is to the prototype - Sawdon. The other five stations all had three chimneys here, but for some reason Sawdon was built minus one. The wings beyond the bays are different in length and one chimney is wider than the other, indicating the end of the building which was the station masters house, vs the other which was the booking office and gents toilets - no fireplace in there! At the far end is an enclosed yard with lean-to sheds, while at the other end is an overall lead roof. To aid moving the building around and working on it, the wings are a push together fit to the central block and the roofs will remove from each section. View of the railway side. There will be a canopy in front of the central block. And the yard side.

Looking good Paul. What's your chosen method for forming the tumblehome?

Love this Karl!

Another white metal kit is pretty much finished and just requires some minor tidying up and weathering. This is a N.E.R. diagram F9 perishable goods van. A 51L kit - one of the few N.E.R. kits still available from Wizard Models. The rest have sadly been out of stock for some time now. This wagon was soldered together by a friend and then kindly gifted to me. I've finished it over the last week, adding the roof, couplings, paint and transfers. I understand that the solebar has a "W" plate if the wagon is Westinghouse fitted or a "V" plate if the wagon is vacuum fitted. The red painting of the vacuum pipe I am not 100% on. I've read an article in the NERA Express archives (issue 135) by David Williamson that if the van was through piped rather than fitted, the pipe would be painted red, however I've also been told that all vacuum pipes were painted red to distinguish them from the Westinghouse pipes. For this van, it is red either way, as it is vacuum through piped, but I was wondering if anyone knew any more on this?

Thanks Mick. Yes, I drilled out the coupling hook on the bufferbeam to fit a metal one and know what you mean with the resin. I may try a quick fix with some styrene rod first and go for the brass rod if that doesn't work out.

Did you use brass rod for the replacements Mick?

I had a bit of a snowplough themed Christmas this year. The NERA snowplough book and a second NIU models NER snowplough to pair up with the one I got last Christmas (link back thread to that one) were waiting under the tree. First of all though, I was never very happy with the supplied transfers the plough came with. The type size and weight wasn't as close as it could be and I did a pretty poor job of applying them. So I decided to prepare my own... Here is my first plough (No.18) with the original as supplied transfers... And here is the same plough with those transfers removed and my own applied instead. This includes a transfer for the works plate on the skirt... It is at this point, I've just noticed that the plough had a broken handrail, which was broken in the first photo too. Something else to fix! Here is a close up of the new transfers... And here is No.18 with her lifetime partner, No.20, currently in the paintshop....

Another view of Nesta, this time having exited the short tunnel and now out in the open.