brightspark

Good news is that Swaynton is going to be at The London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace. This weekend the layout comes out out storage and we will set about cleaning off the cobwebs, fixing the things that broke at the last outing and trying out the rolling stock that has been acquired since then.

Fair enough. But I think that you are over estimating the difficulty level of producing a home brewed chassis. Have a look at my first attempt in the loco challenge. I started off by thinking that it was going to be a total dog. But was delighted at how easy it eventually turned out to be. Mind you I am pretty confident with a soldering iron, I have made a few kits and had quite a few 'opportunities for improvement' over the years.

I assume that this will be in OO. If so then you should have bags of space. EM or P4 things get tight. An RTR chassis may be an obvious way forward, but have you considered scratch building a chassis from sheet brass?

Springside as well. https://www.springsidemodels.com/ Tail lamps are hidden in loco lamps

So far no guesses at all for any of the blanks above. Hint you don't have to guess the whole thing, unless you want to. 20 questions? OK so I have just cut down the axles to size. 21.3mm long. Then I will blacken the ends and the wheels.

Brightsparks next loco build. What is it? What is going on here? I thought that I would have a bit of fun. Normally I start each thread with a description of the model that I am planning to build. Then I do another entry with the kit/ model details that I am making it from and then a list of things that need correcting or modifying. But this time I am going to leave that to you dear reader. What I am hoping for is that you will use your wit and skill to work out what the model is going to be of. What I have made it from and what I have to or should do to it to make a decent model. I have created the first two posts above with loads of blanks. I will fill these out when they have either correctly guessed them (or parts of them) or I can’t avoid disclosing it. I will be leaving odd clues, but my plan is to show the work done and only showing stuff that has either been guessed or is a clue as to the final identity. There are some clues already in the posts above. I will amend the title to reveal what it is at the right moment. Now all guessed and the details are filled in in italics. There were a lot of blanks at the front end.

This where I list the problems and shortfalls of which there aren’t that many. However let’s look at the minor issues. Most of which come with a model of this age. It looks like it has sat on a shelf for some time. So the first task is get rid of the dust and dried up grease. I found that the front bogie had seized up due to the old grease. This is not a problem because I will be modifying this in the EM conversion. Another thing to check with this model are the idler gears. Make sure that they are not split. Spares are available, I am told. Photos of the loco in its 1960 condition are hard to find but I have found two published that show the colour of the nameplate and the correct motif on the tender. Apart from that I have identified only two issues. The first is that Hornby used a weird bearing arrangement on the centre axle. This has caused bearing failures on previous Bulleid pacifics that run on Swaynton. The other issue is that the Gibson wheels that I am using have a different crank throw to those of both Hornby and the prototype. Being 4.5mm instead of 4mm. The current status is that I have stripped the loco down and it all fits very snugly into this box. Oh yes, here is a picture of the work done so far.

I bought this via E-bay for a reasonable price with the intention of running it on Swaynton, an EM Gauge layout set in the New Forest in May/ June 1960. As you can see it is in good condition. So the only thing that I need to do is to convert it to EM and make the correct adjustments for this loco in its 1960 condition. As this is a conversion not a kit/scratch build I think that I can get this done quite quickly and aim to have this running on the layout Swaynton at The London Festival of Railway Modelling at Alexandra Palace in March.

So with the Southampton show being cancelled, the 48DS blowing its motor, I have parked the project so I can concentrate on getting stock ready for Alli-Palli in March. So far this month I have converted a set of Bulleid 59' coaches, a GBL and tidied up an N15 purchased from e-bay. The good news about the 48DS is that Hornby came straight back to me and offered a free repair. But then had to decline this offer when I told them that I had converted it to EM. They then sent me a new motor to fit myself. So now it whizzes up and down quite happily. I removed the little circuit board, as one of the components had burnt out, and wired the motor directly to the pickups. So a big thank you to Hornby. It also shows that just because you mess around with the model that all warranties are not automatically voided. I will return to Daisy sidings in a few weeks.

I'll finish this thread with a lovely portrait taken by Mr Tony Wright. His comment was along the lines of, "lovely loco, but why did you bother to add compensation".

Ah-ha that's how he did it! Thanks Gordon.

Happy New Year everyone and here is the latest progress report. First the sad news that the Southampton show has been cancelled. I had an email from the organiser before Christmas advising the cancellation. It's a shame but understandable in these difficult times. Next the lights are all installed and working. I decided on warm white arranged in two rows with cool white at every third section. The photos hopefully shows the arrangement. The front row of lights (top of the pictures) sits inside the lighting pelmet. The intention being to throw light onto the front of the layout and to provide sufficient illumination to see the wagon numbers. The lower photo shows the arrangement of jumper wires between the two rows and between the cool white LED strips. There is a handy cut line printed onto the strip. The strips are protected by a layer of silicone that has to be cut back to expose the terminal points. I took the precaution of adding solder to these as soon as I removed the protective layer before any surface corrosion/ tarnishing set in. With the lighting in place I could then start to concentrate on the back scene and the ground cover. Nothing much unusual about the ground cover. But the backscene has not gone well. The idea was to show the main line entering from stage left and disappearing into the distance on the back wall. Never mind, I will keep trying until I get it right. At the same time I will also try to make the Peco backscene look a little less like Devon. I must also consider the road that the gates protect. Where does it go? Finally, disaster! Today the little Hornby 48DS made a horrible grinding noise, gave a flash from the wheels and overloaded the controller. Removal of the body and a second attempt at applying power saw smoke coming from the small circuit board. Further stripping down finally found the fault within the motor. Something has come adrift in there, possibly a brush, causing a nasty grinding noise, short circuiting and a lot of heat. I have written to Hornby and await their reply.

When posting the last missive, I thought that I had taken a couple more shots of the left hand side, but alas. To make up for the shortfall, here is an offering of the level crossing. Now more or less complete with the mocked up backscene in place. You will just have to imagine the trees in the foreground. Unfortunately, last weekend, I found myself having to isolate as I had caught the dreaded lurgy. SWMBO had a cold when I cam home from work on Thursday. So having heard the article on the PM program [R4] I suggested that she did a LFT. It came back with a positive result immediately so we booked a PCR test for the next day. Of interest on the Friday morning, I took another LFT and it still showed negative. But the PCR in the afternoon eventually came back positive. This means that to progress I have to use what is around me. Which is great because the Devil (procrastination) had held up progress while I pondered the next stage. With no means of getting down to the builders merchants I decided to use up part of the pile of wood in my SABLE and started to make progress. So I present, the lid. This is the lid and lighting panel ,made from hardboard. The strips of wood are to provide a less flexible base for the light strips. I had just enough white paint to cover the inside. (The last tin in the back of the garage) Fortunately, just before I had to isolate, I managed to obtain some LED lights and a driver. My choice is from Toolstation. I based this on price, adaptability and locality, no other connection. The LED strips are made by Green lighting. I selected 2400mm Warm White and 1200mm Cool white with the intention of good colour balance. These are 12v powered strips with a lead1800mm (6ft) ending in a plug. I was warned off using the 12v DC fixed out put on the back of the controller as it may not provide sufficient power. The required rating being 4.8 watts per meter. So I also purchased a driver from the same supplier. This is a Sensio Low-profile driver unit. I got the 30w to make sure I had enough power. This unit is intended to screw onto a panel. The sockets fit the LED plugs very well, ensuring that they don't fall out and have the correct polarity. It looks like these are a standard fitting across the industry. So any driver should fit any LED strip. (unless someone knows different) The only complaint that I have is that the mains lead connection to the driver is not as good. There being no positive lock, in fact the connection feels quite loose, and if holding the driver up the mains lead will fall out under its own weight. So this means that some thinking will have to go into how this is mounted. Ideally I want all the mains stuff on the floor. Andy

I built one from the Hornby Magazine as a low relief model. See my thread Daisy Sidings. It comes up quite nice. If building it again I would do something with the downpipes.

If you like the money and the organisation and feel that the time isn't right to change ships. Then have you considered changing or adopting your role in you existing employ to something that does give you fulfilment?

So time out taken and the clock is counting down to Soton. My time out, by the way, was spent on an E-bay purchase, a rather nice King Arthur already made to EM. It needed some tidying up and a few repairs. But is now a good'un and ready for the next test test day for Swaynton. That will be prep for Ally Pally. So another dead line. Which I find rather refreshing and I am looking forward to all of these shows. So fingers crossed that they can go ahead. Right back onto this deadline. So I now have some LED light strips but as yet no drivers. I was warned that it is not a good idea to use the 12volt output from a controller. So I await a call from Toolstation. Hopefully I have a compatible unit as it's the only type they sell. Today I took a trip to Kernow in Guildford to purchase some PECO backscene. (Kernow being the closest shop that stocks it). Luckily that is all I came out with. There are so many tempting goodies in there. I was a little unsure about using Peco as the photo papers are very good and are the correct height. But decided that this was the way forward as the backscene has to curve around three sides and would have to be modified. I don't think that the photo scene would be that friendly. However before purchase I thought that I would practice on some very old PECO backscene to see what I could achieve. I am encouraged by the result. (oops I thought that I had taken another picture here showing more of the scene. But you get the idea.) The main area for modification is the left hand end were the level crossing is. After crossing the road I imagine the line leading into a goods yard and station that has been built on a curve like Billingshurst. The line disappearing to the left and out of site. In this view the line is curving away and off into the background. At the other end... ...the concrete has come up. The area in front of the dock will be cinder and ballast. Before I did this drastic surgery, I did experiment with a paper flap between the tracks as suggested by Paul RhB on page 3. Sadly I couldn't get it to work. The paper offers too much resistance to the spring in the coupler wire. Still a great suggestion. Keep them coming. St.Merryn has a similar problem in front of the cattle dock. But they fixed this with gully running down the centre-line of the track which doesn't look out of place. A thought has occurred to me that there is space inside and behind this building for the umbilical connections. So I plan to cut a hole in the rear board and install a panel to which the various plug sockets can be installed. I am also pondering as to the best way to finish this end. The carboard strip represents a wall. Is this to go the whole way or should there be a gate? The gap between the wall and the end of the dairy dock building is also a problem. I have stuck a Wills wooden garage end in there for the moment. Can i get away with that? Or is there an alternative to a wall? While I was thinking about that it also occurred to me that some thought should be given as to how to move this layout to and from the car and exhibition hall/ storage area. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on this? Andy

OK, I have walked away so I can think about what I want to do here. But what I find really annoying is that Gordon Gravett managed to do it on Arun Quay. See 6 minutes in on this video. I know that it is the senior scale, but still annoying. Andy ps this is now down as a layout on the Southampton Show in January. So I had better get a wiggle on.

I will look forward to seeing your solution in action. Hopefully in the not too distant future. It's a cracking layout.

The backscene, now painted smog yellow is a great improvement and it certainly drew a crowd when I was looking at it on Sunday afternoon. My only complaint, if you will allow me, is that it suffered from roundy-roundy layout syndrome. That is that the same train(s) is allowed to circulate continuously. But I think that the crew were having issues at the time. Apart from that I remain impressed, the running was done at a convincing speed, the sound was good and I am looking forward to seeing it again.

So thanks for the suggestions. Please keep them coming. But to look at what we have. PaulRhB nice idea. But I have found that AJ's need free movement and I suspect that the extra springing of the flap might resist the coupling dropping properly. Pauls 3 link couplings. I did think of replacing the iron wire with iron chain. But I was reminded that this is also a test track for my AJ's. [it was said in the hope that it would encourage me to set them up properly, so that work correctly - which they do now.] I am a fan of 3 links but not for this application. Now the grill idea. Have a look at this screen shot from the 1954 Express Dairy film. But first I shall measure up how much depth I have between the rails. I might have to go to a ballast mix. Andy (I got a great idea lads)

Go wash your mouth out!

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, having infilled the track and given it a quick coat of concrete paint. Yes, that is exactly what I was after. A little bit of cleaning up as I had to get the paint off the rails. The little 48DS doesn't like having any interruptions on the rail front. Then it was time to have a quick play...errr run through an operating sequence. And this is where I realised that the design had a flaw. Mr Ruston had asked about seeing the sleepers and baseboard being visible, I have that covered. I was concerned that there may be tightness of the back to back clearance, also covered and ready to some adjustments. But what I had not considered was the space required for the AJ coupling. For those who are not familiar with this and for people like me who thought that they were... The AJ coupling can be described as a wire that protrudes out of the end of the wagon with a bent end that hooks onto the next coupling. The other end being fixed at some point further along the wagon. Hanging down from it is a 1mm iron armature located behind the wheel nearest to the coupled end. When this runs over a magnet it pulls the coupling down and causes it to uncouple. The armature must be 1mm to 1.5mm above rail height and when pulling the coupling down will move 3mm. If some fool has infilled the track flush with the top of the rails then the stock won't uncouple as the armature hits the infill. As a short term remedy, I have cut a slot in the middle of the 4' to clear this. The coupler now works. I will also have to do the middle road and rethink the scheme of the infill. Does anyone have any ideas?

I was walking around the area a couple of months ago and I think that you have the incorrect location for the station site. The siding to the left of the 455 is for the sub-station. The actual site is the brightly painted portacabins going into the concrete tower block with the black windows. These portacabins were the training rooms and are now something to do with film making. They are still accessed by steel stairs. The frontage is still in place. The building to the left is the concrete block. When looking at the station plan the entrance was off to one side and there were buildings between the end of the platforms and the road. Considering the bomb damage, I would not think it unreasonable that the station could have been repaired with lengthened platforms and using the station frontage. Passing through were the concrete building and up to the Westminster Bridge Road. Perhaps even going over it. The station would be nearer to Lambeth North Underground station than Waterloo so that might be a name for it. Andy

Hi Dave, I took the precaution of painting the area inside the groove a dark colour. John Pryke used black, but I preferred a dark grey as I think that it will be less of a conflict with the other colours. I took some photos trying to be a cruel as possible. By the way, I only painted the areas that were likely to be seen. This photo is really zoomed in. Yes I am still painting on the concrete and it does need both rubbing down and a few more coats. The problem is that we have to compromise as our track and wheel standards let us down. HO/OO wheels and flanges can be quite thick and the tighter radii that are possible in 16.5 means that the gap will be wider than the broader gauges. A study of JP's Union Freight Railroad shows what he did with Peco short turnouts. That included narrowing the flangeway gap for NMRA HO wheels. This track is in EM, that means that I can't have curves that are as tight. These points are A5's so are approx 3' radius. Of course the real problem is the flange thickness and to get that shallow flangeway you would have to go for P4 or even S4. Yes, you can still see sleepers and baseboard. But I think that in this case it will work. I am hoping that the combination of a suitable colour fill with a smaller flangeway gap coupled with a restricted view that only allows it to be observed both side on and at a shallow angle will hide the compromise. Andy

So this week... Today I have started on the scenic box that forms the backdrop, sides and wings etc. This I made out of hardboard. Perhaps not the best material, but I have a lot of it and I think that it will be strong enough if correctly braced and doesn't suffer a heavy trauma. Here is the box so far with some old Peco backscenes tacked on to test out the idea. It has gone a little awry at the left hand end. The level crossing will need some fettling to fit. But the corner should be hidden by the gate and whatever I stick in the corner. Probably a hedge. At the right hand end, after some fiddling around with yet more cardboard mock-ups, I have decided that a wall will mark the end of the layout. I am planning on having a road entrance between the front and middle sidings. ( to the right of the picture below) In the corner between the wall and the dairy building, I am thinking of a small nondescript structure. This week also saw me finishing infilling of the track in front of the dairy. I have always wanted infilled track. As a child I used to look at the Triang Minitrix road system, where the railway line was embedded in the road. I had never seen anything like that in real life until a visit to the Navy day at Portsmouth. It was here that I saw for the first time rails in the road around the docks. I was so enthralled that when I got home I started to make an inlaid trackway. This I did by pushing down hard a Triang fish van into the soft wood of the windowsill in my bedroom. Dad was not so impressed by my handiwork. But inlaid track is, to my mind, pure industrial,. With the exception of trams. There are several methods of filling in the tracks. The most common is to infill with either plaster or DAS and push a wagon along it to clear the flangeways. I have used both of these techniques in the past and found them unsatisfactory. First because of the weight of all that plaster. Secondly because any rough handling causes the plaster to crack. Third is that wear caused by passing rolling stock exposes the white plaster, that then needs retouching. So I was rather taken by an article by the late John Pryke in the Model Railroader of his layout Union Freight. This was a five part article in the four editions from September 2000. He later wrote a book called Building City Scenery for your model railroad, that I believe also describes the technique. The method is simply to use poster board on the areas outside of the 4 foot and to use Plastikard (I used 0.030") between the tracks. This should be more reliable and avoid the problems that I mentioned. The next task is to paint it. I have a pot of acrylic concrete by Mig. My local model shop advise that this is what the military modellers use. I'll let you know how I get on with it.