Major Clanger

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

It took me a while to work out the signals. My understanding is that both lines had splitting signals for the up fast or up slow but I struggled to work out why the slow line signals have distants. I am guessing they indicate the home signals on the bracket known as "Queen's Boards" and would indicate a clear road round the curve in Pl.1 onto the GC line. 

Tony,

I think the goods line distants are fixed - I can see right through the post where the green spectacle ought to be. So they mean "go, but not too fast as you're likely to be stopped at Queen's boards as well".

Andrew

There may be some difficulty contacting us by phone over the next few days as the line is being switched to digital voice. The website and email should be unaffected, although we won't be able to access either for a short time whilst the changeover is actually being made.

It's working for me, but perhaps a little slower than usual.

Izzy - we have never sold card kits...

Wizard carriage and wagon bearing codes starting with 4000 are made by Alan Gibson; those starting with BPP are made by Markits. The two are never mixed up. Hope that clears things up.

9 minutes ago, gr.king said:

He told me the same tale.

And me. One of the locos was a Standard Class 5; I can't remember what the other one was, but I don't think it was an A2. The commissioner was someone in the Bradford area.

6 hours ago, robertcwp said:

I believe that the signals on 'Retford' are all worked by servos. Most work well. Their workings are not my area, however. I'm the one who overhauls the stock.

All are worked by servos except for one, which is a relay with a bouncing mechanism, and looks quite odd in operation compared with all the others. Generally the servos perform well, but a few are overdue for travel adjustment, particularly Queen's boards. One or two on the GC gantry do exhibit "chatter" , despite having a dedicated power supply. Another thing to have a look at in due course.

52 minutes ago, bbishop said:

You seem to have quite a few problems with Retford...

 

...At least the electrics are properly documented on SB and this could be your biggest problem in operating Retford.  I hope you adopt Brian's suggestions, but if you wish to further develop the layout, you may need to document the wiring!

Bill,

The electrics aren't a problem as such - they are just there to translate the operators' wishes into volts and amps in the right places. The problems probably lie in there not being the familiar (pre-DCC) control panel with section and cab selection switches - with a very few exceptions, all track power is set by the route and knowing which is the correct controller to turn. Simply running trains round the circuits on both the GN and GC is not that difficult, but making them cross from e.g. up side to down side is not intuitive, and very few operators got familiar with the procedure.

The wiring is going to be documented - I will be gathering all the diagrams that do exist, and then as a first step start ferreting around underneath labelling everything. Luckily all my leg joints are still up to it! A track plan would also be a great help - I'm not sure one exists, other than the original BR surveys which were used to plan the layout. Scan, reduce, edit; scan, reduce, edit...

28 minutes ago, robertcwp said:

The flat crossing is worked by South Box. Levers 38 and 98 normal means it is set for the GN. Reversing both levers sets it for the GC. The two levers operate the catch points immediately to the west of the crossing and also change the polarity. 

Robert,

It doesn't have to be both levers - either one will do for the appropriate direction of travel. I would like to interlock these with the signals - at present you can go past a clear signal in the up direction and end up in the ballast because 38 hasn't been pulled. The down direction is not as critical - if 98 is not pulled, you will run out of volts when you get to the crossing before you derail on the catch point. BTW, 38 is a trap point, not a catch point - traps stop movement in the right direction; catch points work for the wrong direction - the classic use being runaway unfitted wagons going backwards on a rising gradient due to a broken coupling. As modelled, 98 is not a true catch point as you can't trail through it in the right direction, it being worked by an H&M point motor.

Robert,

On the real semaphore railway, home and distant signals on the same post are "slotted" in the balance lever arrangement so that the distant arm cannot come off unless the stop is also off. However, provided the box in advance has given line clear and cleared all his stop signals (which implies line clear from the box next in advance), there is nothing to stop the distant lever being pulled off too. Once the box in rear pulls off the associated stop signal, both arms will come off simultaneously. I regularly used to see that at my local station of Castleford.

On Retford (the model), there is no mechanical slotting but it is done electrically. In the up direction, South box can pull off the distant arm on Queen's boards so long as the appropriate platform starter is also off, even though North box has not yet cleared the Queen's board starter. Once this is pulled, the distant arm will also rise. To the best of my recollection, all the distants on Retford are electrically slotted in this way. There is thus no reason for each box operator to watch what the other is doing. The train drivers are the ones that need to do that!

To reply to another point, purely in signalling terms, platforms and signal locations have nothing to do with each other - a signal does not need to be present to admit a train to a platform or another one for it to leave. It's just that most station signalling was laid out that way due to the presence of other features such as level crossings, crossovers, siding connections etc.

1 hour ago, sandra said:

Thanks for that Robert. I will try and find the missing ground signal. I do notice that many of the photographs taken of the flat crossing show stock stored in that siding. As there are now a number of spare coaches I think we should store a few in that siding to recreate this scene.

 

I presume this was intended to be a lay-by siding but it does seem to be in a strange location. Reversing any stock into it blocks both the down main and both lines of the GC. Also a few yards north there is a down goods avoiding line and a goods lay-by siding at the north end by Babworth box. So this siding seems to be unnecessary.

 

Sandra

Sandra,

Roy's intention was to build a rake of carriages (possibly a 6-car rake) to recreate the Leeds excursion which was advertised on the back wall. What the attraction of Leeds for 6 carriages' worth of Retford citizens was I don't know, but apparently it was a fairly regular excursion. Be careful if you put stock in the siding as I don't think it's level, so it might need spragging. I don't know who or what demolished the ground signal, but I think its remains were in a wagon in the fish dock sidings.

33 minutes ago, sandra said:

Robert,

 

I’ve now renamed and numbered the A4 and fitted a front numberplate which was previously missing. I used the original Hornby driving wheels and tender wheels just moved out on their axles and only replaced the bogie wheels and those on the Cortazzi truck. The frames have been widened using lead cut to the shape of the frames and glued in place. I find this effective as it adds weight directly over the driving wheels.

 

What plans have you got for the BSK, is this for the proposed Kings Cross/Glasgow train?

 

I don’t think that is a ground signal but I’m not sure. I’ll have to investigate tomorrow when I go in the shed but I can’t see any point in there being a ground signal at that location. There is a ground signal on the up side for wrong line movements.

 

Sandra

It's South box's no.64, for entering the down lie by.  It was there in 2012 - I built, installed and photographed it... Its partner for coming out of the siding can just be seen at far right.

Wizard Models has a product to solve this problem - put test in the website search box to view...

The phone line is now working.

Our phone line is faulty again. Internet service is intermittent and the phone is not working. We are switching to a backup for e-mail and receiving and processing orders.

9 hours ago, Tony Wright said:

Andrew had started that.

 

I wonder if we could work on it in partnership in future. 

 

I've not long stopped twitching after making/installing 35' of point rodding on Little Bytham. What's that? Less than a tenth of what's needed on Retford?

 

This was the progress five years ago....................

 

 

 

 

Beautiful work here.

 

 

And it'll just go on and on..........................

 

Those houses in West Carr Road make a superb backdrop. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

I started it, but it came to a halt because other things need to be done first. At Babworth, the gantry needs to go in (where the temporary 3-doll signal is in the last photo) as the legs are very close the the rodding runs, and will probably need to go over the signal baseplate(s) . At Retford North and South, the heavy work of putting in the platforms needs doing, to avoid damage to the delicate rodding, plus there are still a lot of signals to go in at that end (including about a dozen discs), and I was doing the rodding and signal wires at the same time. Once able to start again, I'd be glad of any help you can offer. I know where all the rods go for Babworth (there is a large sketch somewhere), but I hadn't started the planning for any of the other boxes.

Whoever was asking about chain (for wagon loads) a good few pages back: I can get it made down to a link size of 1 3/4" and various sizes upwards. Finish would be either black, dull copper or possibly even rust depending on the outcome of experiments. So if someone can discover what the size is, away we go...

4 hours ago, Bucoops said:

 

Not if you model 1939

 

So anyone up for the challenge of producing some accurate 10ft sides?

They're in the Comet pattern maker's list of things to do. 2021 sometime?

On 15/11/2020 at 09:53, Major Clanger said:

UC045A is nothing to do with Coopercraft - AFAIK it is the original Kirk design, as taken over by Colin Ashby. I purchased all his remaining stocks, and when it's gone there will be no more (unless Colin finds another bag full).

UC045A is now sold out and has been deleted from the website.

UC045A is nothing to do with Coopercraft - AFAIK it is the original Kirk design, as taken over by Colin Ashby. I purchased all his remaining stocks, and when it's gone there will be no more (unless Colin finds another bag full).

43 minutes ago, robertcwp said:

I did wonder if any of the signals on Retford had those but don't know enough about the subject.

No, all are powered by servos.

11 hours ago, pete55 said:

 

Nope! As far as I remember they were custom designed for Retford by Buccaneer John, the same chap who did the etched footbridge down near the goods shed. There were definitely at least two large sheets of them.

Yes! Designed by Buccaneer John, but now part of the Wizard range as part BB1R. £4.80 for a carriage's worth.

Two possible solutions to the Boat Train problem - either use the banking engine, as per the newspaper train, or send it in the other direction, so it becomes the Manchester bound train rather than the Harwich bound one (assuming it would cope with the tighter curve out of the fiddle yard in this direction).

4 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Although I only use them cosmetically, I've always liked PC three-link and screw couplings. Not easy to get hold of nowadays though.

The screw version are Wizard Models code UC006, £3.00 for four pairs. I got the rights to them via the ex-PC carriage kits. No idea what happened to the 3-link flavour though.

7 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

I use Birchwood Casey "Superblue" as sold by Wizard Models. As PMP has mentioned there are different products as they do a "Brass black" as well.

 

Not any more we don't, as liquids cannot be sent through the post. Eileen's Emporium will courier it out.

8 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

They are only test etches at the moment, I'm not sure whether we would want to market them but Andrew Hartshorne might be interested in the idea.

Yes, I am. Could you send me some if you have any spare?