Boris

Lighting test number 1, definitely has promise.

I haven't made it to the club for a few weeks because of work, but in the meantime Mrs Boris has been extremely busy with the signal box, the roof is now finished aside from a couple of finishing touches and work has started on the interior and lighting. Some of the furniture is in as is the clock and stove, to date she has finished about half the lever frame which so far includes a detonator placer correctly painted for a bidirectional single line and a cut down electric ground frame lever! I think I saw a tensioning wheel for the distant as well somewhere. There is still a figure to be sculpted and painted, the rest of the lever frame, a block shelf and a diagram that I know of. She seems quite keen to have a 'bus phone near the desk and some form of SPT on the block shelf. The back wall isn't quite as rough as it looks, its a really bad angle on the camera with the flash!

Plenty of bad Manors around.....

Something big and important fell off it (one of the waggly bits in the middle I think) in February so the NYMR have repaired it. It's off to New Bridge Monday afternoon to be stuck on a roofrack to get it home.

Mrs Boris has been busy replacing the moulded tiles on the signal box roof with something a little more three dimensional. Doesn't look too bad.

ISTR when a number of railway lines were closed there was often something written in the deeds that the property owner would have no choice but to sell if the land was required to be returned to railway use.

I've been to a few of these incidents over the years and in some cases it is quite literally a fingertip search to make sure you have got all the squishy bits, that really does take time. You've seen what happens when a bird is hit....

Everybody needs a bit of emborisment in their lives

For protecting staff working in buildings, or in the case of severe gradients to stop vehicles wandering off down the siding on their own if the handbrakes aren't applied correctly etc. It's no different than remembering to apply a handbrake, chock or sprag stabled vehicles, reset a hand point or many other things the shunter has to remember to do because its part of his job. Incidentally this folding stop block from cherry tree survives and is now installed on the shed road at Goathland. Bloody heavy thing it is too!

Indeed, an experience that definitely will not be repeated.

Mrs Boris has been quite busy with her signal box having finished the exterior and glazed all the windows. The roof is a bit 2 dimensional so the next job will be to add some slate strips or individual slates to give a much more three dimensional appearance. Once she has done that apparently the interior building can begin along with the fitting of lights. i think she will also have to do something about some form of mortar on there.

I know as an EMU a single car is no use, but restored as a loco hauled coach (modify the cab end to include the luggage area and turn it into a wheelchair saloon) it would be really interesting to play with.

I was actually hoping it was working after withdrawl, but not to worry. I keep looking at the 4-6-0s and thinking I need one of those in O gauge and then realise our new club layout is late LNER in early BR so there's my excuse, although I feel a photoshop coming on to create 61692!

I'm a little confused, that B15 is photographed working 4 months after withdrawl? Certainly some impressive limescale staining on it.

Whilst Mrs Boris is playing with her signal box I have moved over to the other side of the layout to start making the bare shell of the loading dock. It is quite a simple plasticard structure, but in operating terms is important because it what gives the yard a little more flavour. Its not a simple shape which is why the base had to be trial fitted last Wednesday before the structure was assembled, because the dock also serves as a dumb end for the end on road it needs to be a solid structure so it doesn't move when buffered up to. This has been achieved by giving the dock a wooden spine which will pin into the layout and reinforciing the end with a soldered brass substructure. The dock also needs to be removeable because it covers a board join between boards C & D. The plasticard will be clad with either embossed brick plastic or brick paper depending on my whims further down the line, the stones painted and the mortar lines deepend and highlighted and the slight well on the top filled with ash ballast. I need to cover a few gaps in the structure with some filler and add an end ramp as well. I might need to look at some cap stones or similar for the end ramp as well.

It does indeed, thank you

At the risk of spamming our own topic we made solid progress tonight with cosmetic fishplates being added to board D, the loading dock base plate being trial fitted (essential as it is not a wholly square structure) and Mrs Boris' signalbox being trialed on the layout because she told me to. The layout looks quite odd with 3D bits appearing on it now after having been completely flat for 12 months!

Thanks for the link Colin, my wife has fallen in love with the bobby sitting on the stool gossiping on the phone so that may well be making an appearance in the box in the future. The P-Way guy with the spanner is likely going to be bought and left near the ballast bin on the layout as well.

Looking for a bit of help guys. Can anybody reccomend some paint colours (Humbrol, Vallejo etc) for LNER green and sand (building colours) and a good brick red, ideally an acrylic? TIA

Mrs Boris has also been busy assembling some interior bits for the signal box and has been trial fitting them. I believe these items are from a Springside pack, there is also lighting to fit inside, a red bulb for the stove and 3-4 white bulbs form the roof to fully light the interior. To provide ambient noise she has a battery bluetooth speaker from the pound shop and is programming a phone app with signal box noises, the idea being that its not making noise all the time - you'll get random footsteps, phones ringing and kettles boiling. You'll also get random lever movement noises and buttons for bell codes/block machine operation so you can hear the signalman accepting/offering the next train, so you can start the correct sound sequence for the correct class of train to/from the fiddle yard.

Mrs Boris has been extremely busy and has so far assembled the basic shell of the signal box, this is as far as the main structure will now go pending painting and interior assemble. More information should follow soon. She has also undercoated the ballast bin this afternoon.

You bring it, you can run it. If I can shoehorn a blue 20 onto the layout (sometimes) I'm sure we can run one of those. I would advise against loitering around the layout too much otherwise as you will likely be given a job to do. My wife has now decided the layout needs a signal box and intends to build it herself, complete with interior and lighting, there was even talk of a soundboard app and a bluetooth speaker for ambient effects. No doubt I will be made to post updates on it on this thread.

A busy night saw 3 of us working on finishing the fiddle yard wiring this evening to make sure the layout is ready in time for its running slot on the 6th March. This entailed us fitting 2 common return harnesses to the fiddle yard (one to each half of the folding over sections) and then wiring the whole lot together using 7 core trailer cable with the insulation stripped off all but a small part to get main power from the yard entry feeds right up to the end of the traverser. The whole lot was then tested with a multimeter from the 5 pin feed plug so we know there are no shorts and it all connects through. Next week we start adding cosmetic fishplates to the scenic boards.