BelsteadLane

cheers Jerry!

The wait is over for you @Squirrel Rail The ohle masts are now back on the layout in their original positions. They’ve been tested to check the registration arms line up with the pantograph nicely which they do. I won’t be adding the wires this time though. These will be done when the rest of the electrification has been made which will be in the form of headspans. Speaking of which... The first headspan was made over the weekend and this was fully scratchbuilt using brass H section, 0.45mm nickle wire, 0.8mm brass rod, N Brass insulators and 3D printed concrete bases. Measurements were taken from drawings by Clive Mortimore who has done a few threads on ohle which are well worth checking out. I found a headspan on google which has a return wire running through the centre inbetween the upper cross span wire and the headspan wire. Note the tube/rod and insulator in between the left and centre registration arms. Rather unusual considering both return wires are normally on the posts of the headspan. As I model the return wires, and have the layout of the track the way it is, it made sense to copy this mast and after double checking with some experts, I went ahead. this was my first go at making it with no trial runs beforehand. Very happy with how it came out! one down, eight to go!

Thanks Jerry. The locos are in desperate need of a weathering! May have to send them your way

Last night saw the completion of all of my catenary masts - at last! Soldering is much better this time round and the joints are nice and strong but I will only find out how good they really are when I come round to string the layout and add all the tension! These are now ready to get installed back on the layout and I’ve arranged them in their pairs so I don’t get mixed up! They’re the same height as are the registration arms and I’ve tested the pantograph heights and positions of the registration arms and all is good! Loving how low the wires will be when entering the tunnel, I’ve always thought low pans look cool. I’m still enjoying the layout as diesel only mind you so I may leave them out for a little longer. Ran some more diesels over the week as running trains and music provides some nice background noise when working. and some rather nice or strange panoramas which always makes things interesting.

Been working on more ohle masts over the last few nights! Only a couple more pairs to go. In the second picture, one of these masts needed a new set of cantilevers made. So I took the opportunity to take pictures to show how I made them. Although I started off with a (messy) Peco H section, the whole method applies to scratchbuilding too. So just pretend that I’m using a fresh clean h section and you’ll be able to see how to scratchbuild a mk3 cantilever mast. the h section untouched. I first measure and drill two holes in the sides of the h section. These are where the rods for the seperate cantilever pieces will slot into. These were made to suit the layout so work with your own measurements and diagrams. These are drilled with a 1mm drill bit using a hand drill. Please excuse the mess 3 pieces of 0.8mm brass rod were cut to the required sizes. These make up the top tie, cantilever arm and registration tube. slot the ‘top tie’ and ‘cantilever arm’ rods into the holes. The top tie goes in the top hole and the cantilever arm goes into the hole lower down. The top tie gets soldered straight while the cantilever arm gets soldered at an angle - the masts counterpart in the pair was used to dictate the required angle so they matched. you will have to determine what angle you need. at this point I didn’t take photos from the side because I totally forgot. But you can see in the photo below that the solder bonds to the inside of the h section making it a strong join. next came the insulators. I used some coils that are made for jewellery. These aren’t the best representation of them but they’re not far off - plus it’s all I had. And a pack of around 30 from hobbycraft only costs a few quid making them very cost effective. the insulators are slotted onto the top tie and cantilever arm rods and soldered on each side - one side to the rod and the other side to the h section. be careful when soldering to the h section as you may end up heating the solder keeping the rods attached to the h section. When everything is soldered properly and you’re happy with positioning, then the top tie and cantilever arm gets soldered together. Next comes soldering the rod for the registration tube which gets soldered onto the cantilever arm. The position of this was taken from the masts counterpart so it matched and was the same height. use your own measurements to work out where it needs to be attached to your own mast. Note: If you’re making a mast with a ‘push off’ registration arm then be sure to keep the registration tube longer so the registration arm gets installed in the correct place. The thin wire that runs between the top tie and registration tube was added next using 0.2mm brass wire. And last comes the registration arm, which is the most fiddly stage so be sure to use tweezers! this mast was going on the outside of a bend so it needed to have a ‘pull off’ position registration arm. If you require a ‘push off’ registration arm then it’ll need to be attached next to the 0.2mm brass wire. the photo below shows a mast with a ‘push off’ registration arm. this concludes the soldering stage and it will just need the concrete bases attaching to finish off construction - these are available through scale model scenery or can be 3D printed. I didn’t need to do this of course as the Peco masts come with one glued on so it was a matter of putting it in place on the layout to see how it looked and if it would work. I compared it to its counter part too and all was good. The section gets trimmed down so it’s the same height as it’s pair before finishing off with a light coat of grey primer and then a dash of brown on the insulators. Job done! not the most accurate looking mast but it’ll work and looks half decent. If I was to critique the mast, it would be the insulators. There’s better options for the insulators such as n brass, sommerfeldt or 3D printing. But the two coils look okay and equate to a few pennies each. I have a load of n brass ones but those are for the headspans! Hopefully this post helps a few who want to build some of their own ohle. any further questions feel free to ask

66418 on the head of a liner exiting the tunnel

Thanks but I should be all good with the springs

Crikey I didn’t realise how long my last post was sorry! Today, I ran some trains and had a small ‘diesel only’ running session. It’s nice to run trains every now and again but felt sad not being able to run my 90s! the 156 and a couple of sheds came out to play and I got some pretty nice pictures. It’s fair to say having no ohle makes for more photo opportunities and vantage points. Some photos wouldn’t of even been possible or came out as nicely if the OHLE was still installed. This last one is my favourite, I really love this photo despite the back of the tunnel showing the light - I need to have something bigger to place behind the backboards so it will look like a proper tunnel! But having no ohle brought out the best in this photo IMO! I love electric locos too much though so it won’t stay diesel forever! Whilst the trains were running in the background getting a good run, I made a start repairing and sorting the masts out. I completed two pairs of masts today. Im working backwards with the masts so I done the two masts going before the tunnel entrance and will be working my way back. How I done the repairs was marking and drilling two small holes into the side of the H section for the cantilevers to slot into. These are then soldered in place and the solder runs into the gaps between inside the holes and against the cantilever creating a nice, strong joint. They proved worthy in the tensioning test so I have high hopes! some of the cantilevers required re-jigging and some registration arms needed re-positioning so they’re at the correct heights for the wires. The cantilevers can be gently manoeuvred so they straighten out perpendicular to the H section. Then after an application of grey primer and a bit of brown paint on the insulators, they are ready for re-installation. But I’ll do this when all the masts are ready. Here’s some close up photos these will be going in front of the tunnel: and these will be the next masts in sequence. Still got another 4 pairs to go which I’m hoping to get finished by the end of the week but I am enjoying this and things are going to plan. Hopefully it all works out in the end.

thanks in my opinion, ohle is one of those things that’s as easy or difficult you want it to be or make for yourself. Some layouts that are described as ‘ohle’ layouts just consist of Dapol ‘Ready-to-plonk’ masts and nothing more. Some take it a bit further by adding wires whether it be Dapol wires which are useless and are purely for the cosmetic effect. I remember a guy saying he doesn’t want to add wires to his layout because it’ll ruin pictures... yet I honestly felt/feel having the masts and headspans with no wires between them ruins pictures a lot more than having wires would! To me, Having masts with no wires is like having track without ballast... Any layout with the masts & no wires set up would look better if the masts weren’t there. But that’s just my opinion. Most layouts that do full ohle with masts and wires don’t seem to run with their locos up in contact with the wires. A lot run with the pan 1mm lower than the wire which looks okay but this means the ohle needs to stay at the same height through the entire run of the wires. In real life, the wires change height depending on the location - they decrease in height to get under bridges and through tunnels and are at their highest points through stations where possible for safety reasons. At the end of the day though, running 1mm below is better than having the pan not even up! If your mad enough to go full authenticity and realism with it then things get even more complicated. Pretty much everything needs to scratch built. If you want to run pans up then the wires need to be tensioned so you don’t get that uplift when the trains run under them. The pans of the units/locos themselves need to be softly sprung, otherwise they can bend your wires out of shape if it’s not tensioned enough. Then there’s the whole science and regulations of the real ohle too. Overlap sequences, boosters, heights of wires. It’s more than just throwing some wires together. If your making a roundy roundy layout then you will need to have pretty realistic bends so your masts are prototypically spaced out. Not everyone is as lucky as that of course. It’s no surprise that pretty much every layout I’ve seen that’s gone for ‘full realism’ on ohle are small end to end layouts. A lot less work required than doing it to a roundy roundy. The best ohle I’ve ever seen is what’s on P4 New Street. It’s phenomenal. Outon Road and Parrot Hall have (or had in Outon Roads case) fantastic ohle also. And it was the two latter layouts that made me want to sort my ohle out! An example of a roundy roundy with stunning ohle is Minsterley on YouTube - he’s on this too. He doesn’t run up mind you, but his ohle is so stunning to look at, it doesn’t even matter! as for my layout, I just want something that looks good and works well so I can run pans up. I don’t see the point going for ultimate realism because I didn’t have realism in mind when I first started the layout. Plus my bends are too tight anyway and I’ll save money. So I’m quite happy redoing my Peco ohle which will/should be strong enough by the end. The Peco wires seemed to perform well when under tension but it was only around a 1.5m run. The shortest run on the layout will be around 4 metres and I’m hoping it will only require one spring for tensioning! The longest run will be the mainlines which will be around 6 metres each but ill be springing those both ends anyway. I’ll be running pans up like I always have but hopefully, there will be no uplift. The Bachmann 90s are the only electric models I have and they’re perfectly sprung. I’m hoping the upcoming Heljan 86 will be too. Ill also be incorporating differing heights for the wires so they’ll lower when approaching my tunnel then raise up when out in the open before lowering back down to go under the two bridges I’ll be building. So I’m doing what I can to make it as nice as possible but I’m saving ultimate realism for my next layout which will be much bigger than this one so I can model realistically from the get go.

Oh no, where have my masts gone? no need to worry. I uploaded a layout update to YouTube earlier in the week and those who watched it would of heard me state that my ohle was giving me some problems, mainly down to poor construction and soldering. Plus the lack of tension in the wires was causing an annoying uplift when the 90s would pass under them. I spent tonight removing all the wires and masts and I have to say it looks really strange and bare! When I first installed the ohle, I was a novice and didn’t really strive for realism. Didn’t know the ins and outs of ohle and just wanted the effect. But now I want the effect, functionality and realism too! Of course, skill, experience and confidence only ever increase in this hobby so I’ve taken it upon myself to rebuild and repair the masts making them as strong as possible before I scratchbuild the headspans to complete the ohle circuit. I done a lot of research and looked for advice from the ‘experts’ and learned quite a few things so I will be doing the ohle different this time. something else I did during the week, which I didn’t take photos of, was knock up a board to test tensioning methods. I bought a load of materials from eileens emporium before new year which included a pack smiths coupling springs. These seem to be used by the ‘experts’ and the test proved successful. The mainlines will be sprung both ends while the reception road/siding will be sprung from the non scenic section side for obvious reasons. Hopefully it all works out okay. Now all the masts are removed, I’ll spend the next few nights sorting them all out and reinstating them. The rest of the structures (headspans and anchor/spring structures) will get built. The wiring comes last. hopefully this all proved worthwhile and my ohle will be much better. It’ll never be super realistic due to my tight bends but that’s a compromise I’ve got to live with.

thanks Neil

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and new year. Despite the disappointment we had to put up with, quickly followed by even more disappointment! oh well, it’s not all doom and gloom as the new lockdown means more modelling time for me! The first purchase of 2021 is a Bachmann Class 37, 37425 ‘Concrete Bob/Sir Robert McAlpine’ which I bought from CMC. A great model which will be getting paired with 37424 and other future DRS 37s to operate the short set and RHTT. I spent An hour detailing the model and I’ll be sending 37424 and 425 away for sound fitting very soon. I couldn’t resist getting photos of the pair with the short set and the rhtt - both of which still looking far too clean! While the tractors are away, I will start ‘Project Short Set’ where I will paint the interiors tables, fit passengers, interior lighting and more fine details on the inside and weather the coaches too. One of the TSOs will need to be renumbered. By the time the 37s are back, the short set coaches will be ready and I may do the RHTT as well!

Hi all. I’m wanting some advice and tips on modelling ohle. I already have some Peco masts on my layout which have recently started to give me problems but this is mainly due to how I built/assembled them. I modified them a while back to look a bit more accurate to the prototype. These will be getting repaired and improved or completely replaced - will probably repair them to save a bit of money. I’m about to scratchbuild several portals for the layout which will complete the ohle and I want what I already have to be spot on before I add these to the layout. when I first started adding the ohle a couple of years ago, I was a novice and wanted the easy life. I didn’t pursue realism. But now I’ve gained more confidence, skill and knowledge under my belt, I am wanting to improve the ohle as much as possible. Improving the masts is one thing so they’re more strong and durable. I also want to get rid of the annoying and unrealistic uplift of the wires when the pantograph press up against them - I run Bachmann class 90s at the moment and the pantographs are beautifully sprung. I’m under the impression tensioning the wires will solve this. Again, I was a novice and had no knowledge on ohle so had no idea what tensioning was! Jim Smith-Wright’s P4 New Street along with Outon Road and Parrot Hall are big inspirations to me and the two latter layouts I recently discovered. It was these two layouts that prompted me to improve my ohle. here’s a few points on my own layout I think I should add: • The layout is a 10ft x 8ft roundy roundy so it’s not big at all. It unfortunately consists of tight bends meaning the masts have to stay close together. Because of this, I’m not bothering pursuing ‘ultimate realism - that’ll be when I build a much bigger layout with more realistic bends and overall track work. But I want to get the ohle as good as I can so it functions well for now. • it consists of three lines that’ll be electrified. Two mainlines and a reception road with terminating siding. The total ‘run’ of the wires on the mainline will be between 8-10 metres at a guess and the siding around 5 metres. This is probably more than it really is but I havn’t measured the total distance around the layout following the track but maybe I should if it helps. any information, tips, techniques and general ‘rules’ on the subject from experts and experienced, clued up ohle modellers will be greatly appreciated! If there’s any more info you need then please ask thanks.

id say do it, got to have some electrics especially with the outstanding Bachmann 90s and the upcoming Heljan 86s. The Hornby 87s can do with better pans but those are fixable. Hopefully you go ahead

Hi jerry, just catching up on the thread. Super work as usual. Happy Christmas and new year!

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and new year. got big plans for Wratting Road in 2021 with plenty of exciting projects in the pipeline Hope everyone stays safe!

Thats a possibility I suppose. Even 045 and 049 had very dirty centre bars too. DVT is fine mate! Thanks again for sorting it out

Super work as per usual Jerry, 90030 is a beast! funny you mention the window divider bar on the Powerhaul 90s. They all have yellow bars but because of how filthy they get, they look black on all of them. Here’s a photo from Flickr of 042 and you can (just about) see that it does, in fact, have a yellow dividing bar. A good spot indeed, I missed it when you asked me over pm about the differences lol!

DVT 82126 in Virgin’s Pretendolino livery awaiting its rebrand as Abellio Greater Anglia.

Spent all week with the other half, we was due to go on a nice break in the Peak District, but never got to go in the end due to the place we was going ending up in tier 3 after lockdown... so after stepping back for a week, I was quite eager to get back in the shed as I had plenty of deliveries over the week! I spent tonight fitting 82126 with a new lighting board. I approached Illuminated Models a while ago to see if they could come up with something that would give the prototypical bi directional markers and tail lights appearance that modern DVTs have. 82126 received this LED set up by AGA when it was on lease to them. I approached Illuminated models and within a couple of months, they had came up with a new lighting board identical to the original Hornby one, so all the acrylic and plastic ‘router’ pieces can be reused. A simple but fiddly job to fit and is cheaper and quicker then adding LEDs. the incorrect (and annoying) cool white wipac set up was a thing of the past. I just need to try and improve the headlight, not sure what causes it to be so dim, it’s probably something I’ve done. I’ve tried cleaning the glue off everywhere and also checked the led for the headlight but it’s fine. Just got to persevere with it! It’s not a million miles out, but if I can have it the same brightness as the markers then I’ll be happy.

not the first time I’ve heard that When I first started building the layout, I wasn’t clued up at all on track infrastructure or anything like it. To me, track was track and I didn’t know the differences between the different types of track, or how wrong standard OO track is. Or any of the lineside detailing so I’ve learned mostly as I’ve carried on building. Plan is to have a much bigger layout next time so I can incorporate everything I’ve learned from the beginning (spaced out sleepers, super elevation and concrete sleepered track) plus having prototypical spaced out catenary masts. Hopefully the next layout will be something special. thanks for the kind words though!

Abellio Greater Anglia 156422 exiting Wratting Road Tunnel

thanks Jerry for the mention

Thank you very much Dave, that’s very kind of you. Can’t see the same as what you see though! The 90 is indeed great and can’t fault it at all. as for the bridge, again thank you. My first scratch build project but doing the cardboard structures and given me experience which has boosted my confidence a lot so hopefully I can pull it off. The fact it hides the bend a little too is one of my favourite things about it too. The perfect place rather than have it dead straight and perpendicular to the track.

90034 was a beast when it was hired in, it’s probably one of my favourite 90s due to how simple the livery is, I don’t like liveries cluttered with colour and stripes or fancy designs. A simple two colours (or three if you include the yellow fronts) and a logo can’t be beaten imo. pretendabellio hopefully won’t take too long