maunsel

A couple of options:-

Remove point 6, put a double slip at point 5. 

Shift the cattle dock to form part of the end unloading ramp.

Place the Provender Store somewhere around the end of the siding too.

A very crude amendment to your nice plan:-

Overall I do like your plan - simple and unfussy with all the bits a BLT really needs.

Regards

Eric

Inch perfect or not this Ruston looks spot on! 

Eric

Thanks for the advice Peter. You're right about maintaining impetus. I think I'll go for a mixture and see what happens. Then if it's not successful I can always brush on a heavy coat of hindsight to sort it all out....................

The one thing I want are loads that go somewhere and come from somewhere. So I plan to use pallet loads which can be loaded/unloaded inside sheds. But all that will be for a new topic once I've got something to show.

All this is evidence that Two Sisters Farm is certainly inspirational. There can't be much higher praise than that! 

Thank you

Eric

Happy Christmas Rob and Eric.

 

I wish you both luck with your projects. You will not regret taking this path I'm sure. If you need any help just ask.

 

Oh and you will never have any one say " I think you'll find the mark two had a bracket that was bolted on."

 

 

Regards Peter M

Thanks for the encouragement. 

I've been down the narrow gauge route before in the smaller scales. But I like the industrial 2ft and less stuff from makers like Hudson, Decauville etc and in my idiosyncratic eye it never quite worked in those lesser scales.

I also tried a Binnie Skip wagon in 16mm and was almost seduced by IP Engineering's Lister Rail Truck - which are lovely. But I don't have space for something like Fen End Pit.

However having this industrial stuff in 1/35 to 1/32 scale just seems natural. It also has the advantage of having similar dimensions to OO. For instance I mocked up a industrial shed with 8ft high walls and it's about the same height as a two storey house in 4mm. The Kof1 now has a chassis base plate of plasticard and is going to end up a little less than the size of Class 3 shunter. I already have some of Steve Bennett's Gn15 wagons which look acceptable in 1/32 and are similar in dimensions to a 10 ton wagon in 4mm.

In other words this 1/32 to 1/35 scale gives me big toys in a small space without going down the Gn15 path - which I was never really fully satisfied by.

My next decision is about couplers. I've fitted Bachmann EZ mate to the stuff so far, but I'm really wondering if I should go for link & pin instead. Just for the fidelity.

Peter, I think you mentioned in an earlier post that you have both? Bearing in mind I plan for a small (sub 4'x1') layout, without exhibiting, and just for bumbling around with is link and pin worth the extra fiddly fuss & botheration?

Eric

ps. A belated Happy Christmas to you all.

Peter, you have a lot to answer for.

Not only have I been forced (much against my will...................   ) to convert an old Bachmann 40ft US tank car chassis into  a 1/32 scale bogie flat wagon (which is just right to carry a few of Britains loaded pallets), but the body is off the Piko Kof1 awaiting a new superstructure based on a small Battery Electric loco (think Greenbat, Wingrove & Roberts etc).

I've also been sizing up a 1/35 scale Shipping Container from Italeri for use as an engine shed................

But I'll not hijack your thread.................

......Except to say it's all YOUR fault!

Keep up the good work! 

Eric

Thanks for the advice so far.

A few people have asked for a diagram so here's a rough drawing. The 3 boards on right are already in place as my existing layout.

I'm planning on extending into the rest of the garage making a total size 16x8 approx.

Everything on the bottom and left will be new.

I was thinking the entrance on the bottom to descend under the station on the left with a fiddle yard under the boards at the top and the entrance to fiddle yard at top to again pass under station left and have a fiddle yard under bottom board.

Looking at your sketch I'm wondering if the curves are viable, as I had originally assumed we were talking about an OO layout. Maybe I'm mistaken?

16' x 8' also sounds a lot of space to me - until I start laying track.................

If the fiddle yard is to be accessed via two opposing slopes (as opposed to helix) I think you may be looking at another circuit of track below the layout. However with the positioning of the fiddle yard approaches I think you made need to take some great care with the measuring out and some consideration as to the radii of the gradients (gradii/gradius?). Especially with the lower track arrangement under the existing terminus at bottom left.

I'm also somewhat fearful about the accessibility of the rear of some of the boards - ie. to right & top right. It seems a long way to reach over the layout to get to.

It may be helpful to measure out some of the curves with a piece of string and chalk/pencil on the floor before you go much further.

Eric

Good stuff!

The same technique is equally as valid and as effective when using foamcore. Just peel of one layer of paper and the foam.

Eric

Or go in for one of them thar' new fangled helix thingymagigs and go round and around to your heart's content?

Eric

This may or may not help -

8 ton Hibberd dimensions fig 5 at

http://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/14/Planet.htm

& second down:-

http://www.elrdiesel.info/fleet-shunters-other.php

But I'd imagine you've already got hold of these links?

Eric

I think I may have been a tractor fan all along without actually realising it. In many ways it is the farming and agricultural side of this layout that has the greatest impression. And please take that as a compliment. Let me try to explain.

Whenever I see layouts it is always from the aspect of a railway modeller. As such I am willing to overlook some of the surrounding incongruities in order to appreciate the toy trains whizzing about the layout. You know the stuff - a Optaire bus next to a Dennis F8 fire engine, or my bete noir a narrowboat moored up with its tiller tube in situ or even worse - in mid stream without a steerer or a chap on the aft deck instead of sticking out from the cabin.

But in real life (that ugly and course thing outside the front door) the railway is the necessary evil, not the raisin d'etre so the life around the railway is always more important. Very few railway modellers hit upon this little secret. In my opinion Two sister's Farm has.

I also understand the uneasiness of lorry based rail vehicles. After all we are used to wheel arches reflecting the wheels within them, and by nature we see a lorry not a loco.

But there are many examples in the real world to confound us. Luckily!

Some of my favourites are:-

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1848320               go on - think about the Britains Mk1 SWB Landy!

and the Colonel's version:-

http://www.hfstephens-museum.org.uk/rolling-stock/an-oddity-of-oddities

And it is there that Two Sister's Farm hits two birds with one stone. Firstly there is the farm, for which the railway has been built to serve and secondly there are the assorted locos which each have their own story to tell. I'm guessing some of those lorries could tell a tale or two down at the local over a pint of Derv or two.............

In other words, it's convincing. 

Eric

 

 

 

 

 

Peter M

What a superb photo, and not a train in sight. It's certainly captured the scene. 

Eric

 

The next device I made for haulage on the farm was an ex army Quad gun tractor.

I had long fancied using the Tamiya kit as a basis but they had been out of production for some time. Eventually I managed to get one and used an early Bachmann trolley as a chassis, it has a ringfield type motor and with some added weight runs very well.

The motor is hidden under a box in the back of the cab and the fiction is this covers a powerful electric winch with a cable emerging from the back of the vehicle. It is now fitted with a KD coupler on the front. It has four seats so is used to take tractor drivers out to the fields.

 

Peter M

I have sat in the driver's seat of one of these - just the once - before I got caught - I was surprised at how low the seat was, and the driving position. Like a Formula 1 racing car, but without the oomph. the advertising or the Ecclestone dolly birds oozing out of their tailor made boiler suits.........

Keep up the good work, I like the cut of your jib sir!

Eric

Of Course - the Simplex reminded me of "Nocton" which had a similar cab and went from The Nocton Estates off to the Lincolnshire Coast Light Rly:-

http://www.uklocos.com/ngrs/gallery4_files/nocton55.jpg

Eric

Simplex! Yes. 

Why was I thinking Lister...............?

Oh I know - someone was tempting me with:-

http://www.ipengineering.co.uk/page73.html

As if there wasn't enough temptation in the world already

Doh!

Eric

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The driver now has a small helper, I'm pleased with the way canvas cover has turned out. It masking tape

suitably painted and dry brushed.

 

 

Peter M

I fear that dog will be all teeth and no yap....... You're right about the canvas - very well done, and again shows the benefit of the bigger scales for stuff like this.

The second Lister is also fantastic. I'm sure I've seen the same body work in real life somewhere. All I've got to do now is rummage through my collection to find out where. Did you have a prototype for the Lister?

Congratulations on more fine modelling

Eric

I too would support or encourage more 1/32 or 1/35 scale layouts on 16.5mm track. It's nigh on spot on for either 18 inch or 2 foot gauge stuff as you so ably demonstrate Peter.

It also has that satisfying clunk to it. My very first narrow gauge van that I built to 7mm per foot O scale ended up by accident at 1/32 scale. My modelling skills haven't developed much more over the following 40 years, but I still keep coming back to 1/32 on 16.5mm. Despite using HO/OO stuff it just seems easier to fettle about with stuff in this scale.

I could of course be biased - as my avatar might suggest.............

Peter - I think you should be immensely pleased with your work on Two Sister's Farm it is in my ever so 'umble view one of those seminal layouts that demonstrate the potential of mixing up the scales & gauges.

Regards

Eric

edit to correct spelling. Should have been narrow gauge van - typed narrow gauge nan...........  Good Grief!

I thought I'd add a little flavour to the mix. Here's the Dennis Estates line at Deeping St Nicholas:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFi1Tv11WgA

Regards

Eric

 

 

 

I felt that the farm needed more small locomotive power so my next model was a Simplex type 0-4-0 shunter. It was assumed the farm bought a damaged Simplex from the War Department and re-built it their own workshops.

 

The model is made of plasticard and bits of wire. It runs on a Model Power chassis with a vertical motor in the cab, so there is no room to fit a driver. I added more weight where ever I could and bent the pick ups outward to contact the backs of the wheels better. It runs reasonably well given its low purchase price, but needs an extra bit of welly when going over dead frog points.

It is seen shunting in the yard, the man sitting on the bonnet will be getting a lift out to the fields later when the shunting is done.

 

Peter M

I really like this model. With the radiator one just knows it's a Simplex. The locally sourced bodywork confirms it. There must be some very able agricultural engineers on Two Sister's! Well done!

Eric

Me muchee likee Two Sister's.

I have two of these Britains Barns in marination awaiting their début on a 1/32 layout - shades of Woolwich Arsenal or something from the RNAD for me. The biggest hold up is taking the hacksaw to a rather nice Piko German Kof 1. It's not my most expensive loco - but it's ever so cute...........   Every time I take a craft knife blade to it - I see pictures of baby seals being clubbed to death.  

But on a happier note - the layout gets further up the "must-do" list every time I see mention of this layout!

It's lovely stuff!

Eric

Mind you, it is short of motive power, at the moment

You need to have a sharp word with your Chief Engineer about this.

I think he needs a Rocket up him.........................

Eric

I have in the past converted the Peco n turntable to OO. But it was more in the vein of a homage to North Woolwich.

Eric

Many more years ago than I'd wish to admit to, there was a Meccano Magazine article about building n scale tram cars. It basically used a clear perspex shell to which was added a paper sheet to represent the wooden bits (please excuse the overly technical engineering terms). Of course nowadays we have Tomix tram and loco chassis' to make life easier.

I have to declare an interest here, as I am still part owner of an original Mumbles Railway wooden sign.

Eric