Mrkirtley800

The world is certainly a different place, Larry. I don't think I could set off after work now, and travel to North Wales with a loco for you to paint. You are dead right, I have really enjoyed this layout refurb. Canal Road was essentially complete, just a few details to add like point rodding - which I had started - so it was getting a bit boring. I had all the stock and locos required so my scratch building operations had gone into hibernation. Now it is like having a new lease of life. Olga, also a folk dancer, has started with a bit of hip problems. Wish we could go back a few years and live it all again. Derek

Board 3 was wired and working, so work on board 2 commenced -- the main station board -- required a new crossover. This was pretty conventional, just two right hand points with 1:7 crossing angle. I lay my trackwork and ballast it all at the same time. I have done this since my first decent layout, Grassington, built in 1965. The new crossover was installed and ballasted. I pin the track/points in place with small drawing pins so that nothing can move when I add weights. After a couple of hours I gently brush off the surplus ballast for re-use later. The pics show the original station minus the old island platform, preparing to install the new points. The final two pics are the two boards (2&3) together and at this stage working. By now we are at the end of July 2014. The last shot was taken quite a long time after the work was completed and it is really out of sequence, but it does show the effect I am trying to achieve. Next job was provision of board 1, carrying the buffer stops and a depiction of the village, and board 4 which carries the main lines and yard headshunt and loco shed. Both these boards were made using old baseboards built at the same time as the original layout in the 1980's. I had intentions of doing some exhibition work at the time. Soon dropped that idea. Derek

Still on board 3, the long siding along the back was to go, so another point had to be made, this time I used copper clad sleepers and thinner cork underlay as I wanted these sidings to be slightly lower than the main lines, Pic one is where I chopped a piece of track away to take the new point. The second pic shows the new point installed with a new siding along the back of the station. The hole in the ground is to take the goods shed, and with a little more track to extend this line, the board is done The new wiring and point operating arrangements took a fair bit of time but I will not go into that aspect. Derek

To show the formation from the station platform, the next pic shows the curved nature of the layout. The 'hole in the road is where the goods shed was situated, on the long loop, it is now on a spur. Pic 2 :This is board 3 as it appeared on 17 June. When operating Canal Road, I had a centralised control panel. I would sit on a high kitchen stool balanced on my daughter's stepping stool. it is amazing how time flies when your having fun (operating a model railway) and after a couple of hours when I tried to get off my stool, I had stiffened up which made it very painful. So with this layout I decided to change points by slide switches situated opposite the points. Also the section switches by the sections they control. It means that when operating I have to keep moving although not very far. Pic 3 shows a slender shelf made out of ply ready to take the switches. Signals will be also controlled by levers , the only wiring required under the boards is that used for traction and electro magnets for operating the couplings. I have used Alex Jackson couplings since the early 1960's. Final pic shows the switches installed. Also, I am finishing off with mahogany varnish. Canal Road was finished in matt black emulsion. The varnish looks better. Derek

So, after quite a long time thinking about what to do, I decided I could convert the main part of the layout into a terminus, at the same time slicing off about 11" along the length, in effect, cutting away the 00 section. On May 14th 2014 a loco plus brake van travelled the line picking up wagons standing in the yard. Then everything removeable was taken off and stored. The island platform unscrewed but the main platform with the station building could not be taken off without fairly serious surgery. Baseboards were taken down starting at the northern end of the fiddle yards. The two main boards containing most of the station are 4'9 " long, so with a friend on a hot day at the end of May, took them on to the patio and cut a section off lengthways. At this point I looked at the wreckage and asked myself "what have I done"? The first two pics are when the layout was being pulled apart. The gods shed unplugs so was easy to remove. By 21st May board 3 looked like pic 3, with a new edge to the board and preparing to install a crossover in the main lines. I had used some thinking time to build some pointwork ready for the big renewal. Piccie 4 shows the new crossover in place. I had decided on a small loco shed and turntable. This area will come off the original up refuge siding via an interlaced point (3-way). All this new pointwork had to fit in with the track already in place which followed a large 'S' shape sweep. By 27th May this is the progress made. If all this description of slotting in pointwork to existing track is trying to teach granny to suck eggs, I do apologise. Derek

I hope they are tasty trousers Jason. Thanks anyway. Derek

One or two more pics of Canal Road at it's peak and before dismantling. My apologies, once again, if I have put them on RMW previously. I did not keep any sort of record of the piccies I have shown before. Derek

I have been threatening to start this thread for some considerable time. Our layout, part 00 part EM was started in 1985 when I acquired from the EM Gauge Society a large number of wooden sleepers and an even larger number of brass rivets plus a couple of packs of code 75 rail. The track building commenced with inserting a rivet into a pre punched hole in the sleeper, swaging it over then hammering flat on a steel block. Tedious? yes but once in the swing of things I could proceed remarkedly quickly. I took sleepers/rivets to work and during lunch time prepared hundreds of sleepers. On one occasion the door of my office burst open and in came the managing director demanding to know what I was doing, it was driving him mad. His office was directly below mine. He took an interest when I explained and even had a go, but politely declined when I offered him some bits to take home with him. The layout proceeded quite rapidly, the EM track built using the prepared sleepers, my son's 00 was Scaleway, with points scratch built using copper clad sleepers. The track layout in the station was a Settle/Carlisle type and based on Lazonby, although transported to the south, approximately where Embsay Junction was in reality. The 00 lines represented the Skipton to Ilkley, while the EM was supposed to be a line which was heavily promoted but never built, linking Skipton with the North Eastern Railway somewhere near Leyburn in Wensleydale. The date being early June1908 It was an area I knew well as a lad on my cycling trips out of Leeds but somewhat later than 1908. This railway became fully operational about 1990, when I was able to start the scratch building of many of the buildings, signals etc.which were required. Time passed and my son left to go to university then into the world of work over 170 miles away. The 00 lines became used less and less, usually only when a couple of mates, Fred and Peter called. Both these two friends have, sadly, died so the 00 was virtually redundant. The layout was set at 4'6" height and the station boards nearly 3' wide and to keep things in order I had to climb on my bench to reach the long siding at the rear. So, when, after a lifetime of abuse, my knees gave up the ghost, I wasn't able to do any climbing. Don't believe what these experts tell you. Sport is bad for you. I played cricket, tennis, table tennis and badminton plus years of English folk dancing and now can't walk very far. A knee replacement was done in 2009 which went wrong and which required two more ops to put right. All this led to a serious rethink regarding our model railway. Here are a few piccies of Embsay Canal Road in it's heyday. Many of them have appeared in RMW before, usually in the Lunesters in the Settle Carlisle section, so my apologies if you have seen them before. However, because of my cranky knees I made the decision to partially scrap the layout, so the demise of Embsay Canal Road was put into operation. If anyone is interested I will describe how Kirkby Malham arose from the ashes.

AKA the Lunesters nuclear shelter Derek

Oi Andy just slow down. I'm exhausted trying to keep up. It's sort of running like hell to stand still. But well done anyway, nice to see you at full throttle, or are you just toying with us all, and you will pick up speed when we have all dropped out? Derek

I like it, Andy. Super idea, wish I had thought of that before fitted my electrics --- such as they are. Only power to track sections and electro magnets. Points operated by switches and rods from the edge of the board, signals will be by levers again at the edge of the boards. Derek

Gordon, forget about it. When our club was building a large layout back in the 1990's, I encouraged everyone to have a go at building half track. I produced a jig and the club members, in turn, took a bag of copper clad sleepers and some rail home with them after club. They came back next club night with a yard or two of half track so that we could lay it that evening. On quite a few occasions the rail was upside down, but no one else noticed (it was code 75) and I wasn't going to tell them, and so it remained until the layout was scrapped a few years ago. Thing was, some of the members had never built anything before and were so proud of having contributed to the club layout, I wasn't going to tell them they had got it (slightly) wrong, and, lets face it, no one was any wiser. Derek

Jeff, I also used solely metric all my working life, having started as a lab assistant in 1953 (wow!!) but for my joinery work, like building baseboards and dolls houses (for the grand children) I stick with feet and inches. I find it much easier that way. Derek

Late again! Been missing again for the last few days, doing - you know what. Suddenly here we are, with KL2 thread up and running. Wonderful to see Jeff. Good luck with the story as it unfolds. Derek

Very nice indeed, Paul. But don't you think it would look much nicer in C.L.. Why not try it? You know you want to. Derek

All good stuff, Andy. You must think you are getting somewhere now that the first points are installed. Looking forward to the rest of the build. All our best wishes to you. Derek

Andy, I hope you have got some ballast weight on the other side of the shed. Don't want the PS to heel over as it might turn turtle and sink. Derek

Don't be in awe of anyone, Mike. Just admire other folks' work and get on with it. I build to EM gauge and because of the period that interests me 1880 to 1910 nearly everything on my layout is scratch built or from kits, it had to be years ago, there was little rtr which would fit in. Only recently have we got rtr pregrouping items. So bite the bullet and do your own thing. We all can't model to the standard we see on RMW but so what. If what we do satisfies us then that is all we can ask for. All the best for Christmas and the New Year. Happy modelling. Derek

Hello Ray, I always try to introduce a straight exit from the points I build. especially over the common crossing. It almost makes check rails superfluous. A chap called Wing Commander Burns published a series of three articles in the Model Railway News in the early 1960's on building pointwork. I would love to reproduce it on RMW but not sure about copyright issues. In it, he advocated the 'straight across the crossing' for reliable operation. He also introduced me to the 'set' at the toe end of the point, which I have used in my pointwork for fifty years. Hope all this makes some sort of sense to you. The pic is of Canal Road being rebuilt with a crossover installed at the end of the platform. EM gauge Derek

A few more pics from Canal Road. The layout is now dismantled and being rebuilt in a more manageable form. Always seems to be a busy day (at the office) at this station. Derek

Hello Andy, I have used the 'Larry way' since 1965 when I built Grassington. I would not use any other ballasting method. The thing to remember is not to put the glue where tie bars will be. I originally used Casco glue -- anybody remember that. Used to mix it with water then wait 20 minutes before use, bit of a pain really but a good glue. Now use PVA and found it perfectly satisfactory. Admittedly it is a bit noisy but then that did not bother me. My son's plain track was SMP and the PVA stuck it down OK Here is a pic of Canal Road. The '00' lines (SMP) are to the left of the signal box. Derek

That is superb, Clive. Where does it fit? Derek

Don't mention Fiery Jack, gives me shivers down the spine. Was my dads favourite remedy if I got hurt at school footie Derek

Congratulations on the quantity of quality work, Al. Your model of Bakewell is looking just superb, just like it looks in my memory. In the early 60's I worked in Stafford but went home to Leeds on weekends. Used to set off 5.30am Monday and travel Sheffield, Bakewell, Baslow, Ashbourne, Uttoxeter. No motorway network then. Derek

Jason. I have used A-J couplings since about 1960, having seen them in action on one of the layouts from Manchester. I wouldn't use any other. My early couplings were made from 11 thou plain steel wire. This on a train of scratch built Midland 5 plankers. Unfortunately after all this time they have rusted so will need replacing. It was quite some time before the penny dropped to use 11 thou guitar strings. I went for some in Whitby to the local music shop. His reaction was "not ANOTHER railway modeller". I never found out who had been in before me. Used them on Kirkby Malham mk1 on the exhibition circuit. To see the bafflement on spectator faces was very funny. There were no other automatic couplings like the A-J's at the time. Sprat and Winkle were around but with those you had to shuffle the engine backwards and forwards to be able to uncouple and then push the stock forward. Don't forget this was 1980's/90's. Carrying the wagons to a show can easily couplings out of alignment, so be careful how you transport them. Derek