Middlepeak

Pete, Just to add my support for such a simple concept but excellently presented. I stopped many times in front of your layout over the Uckfield weekend and found something new to look at every time. Putting the two layouts together like this, running independently off the same fiddle yard, is a great idea, and there will be three things to look at within the space normally occupied by a single layout. One suggestion though. The fiddle yard window encourages people to bend down to look inside. Would there be any problem with raising the overall height slightly? Peering 'in' is always better than peering 'down' in my view. Good luck and I look forward to seeing progress. Geraint Hughes (Obbekaer)

Further to Chaz's request, a few more shots of the layout following our outing at the Uckfield Show over the weekend. Firstly, my two colleagues Ian Thomson and Brian Page fully occupied with operating. Despite the fact that this is basically a passing loop and a siding with a fiddle yard at either end, we do run a very intensive service, which requires the second operator to keep turning the cassettes as each train arrives. We've also started to develop the dialogue with the punters a bit more, explaining the purpose of each train, and highlighting some of the details, such as the operating point lanterns, track scotch protecting the loop and the water crane. In the second picture, the skinnebus is seen crossing the river bridge on its way into the station. This railcar has a resin body from Tikob, with a scratchbuilt chassis that uses High Level gears and 6mm diameter wheels expertly turned down for me by the ZOB Works (thank you Baron!). The other end of the vehicle has the luggage rack lowered to carry crates of herrings and eggs back from market. The third picture shows the 'sprojtevogn' or weed-killing wagon that is attached to the end of the PW train, usually hauled by the RGVJ's Kof tractor. This is a scratchbuilt model of a wagon from the Kalvehavebanen, where the end of an open wagon was removed and an old boiler installed as a weedkiller tank. Picture 4 gives you an aerial view along the platform as loco nr.3, the RGVJ's 0-4-0WT, arrives with a short freight from Gram. Finally, picture 5 shows the DSB Litra D in its new guise as Esbjerg engine nr.850. The loco has had a lot of work around the front end to improve its appearance, on top of the major tasks of converting it to p87, some of which have been described briefly here before. The remaining job is to weather the beast and add the crew, who have been waiting patiently in the box and ready to give her a spin! So that's about it for now. For those of you in the area, you can see Obbekaer at the High Wycombe show on 7 November, after which we shall be taking a mid-winter break - to get some modelling done! Regards, G

Thanks Chaz. I'll try to post some more photos next week once this exhibition is out of the way. Regards, Geraint

Thanks for your good wishes Brian. Skibbroen will be some way off yet, but I have some interesting ideas on construction which I'll share with the masses when I have a bit more time. Anyway, hot off the press (literally) is the news that we have made it into the Norwegian modelling world, thanks to Haavard Houen of MJ Bladet - who happened to see this series of posts a few months ago. Thanks Haavard, and although I can't dash out to W H Smith to buy one, I'll treasure my copy when it finally arrives in the post! Now to brush up on my Norwegian ....... In the mean time, here's a sneak preview of the cover. Geraint

Dear All, The next chapter in the intermittent saga of Obbekaer happens this weekend when we head off for a convivial weekend at the Uckfield Show. I'll post some pictures after the event, but for those of you who have seen the layout before, there are some small changes, including revolving point lanterns, accommodation for the RGVJ's skinnecykel (you should be able to translate that one) and the Litra D in its new but unweathered guise as Nr 850 from Esbjerg shed. I'm also hoping to have the first models for the new layout 'Ribe Skibbroen' there - if I can find a way to transport them and exhibit them safely - but at the very least you will be able to see the layout plan in its final form. As to when it will be finished, I'm taking no bets at this stage. These things have a nasty habit of taking much longer than you expect! If you're in Uckfield, please drop by and say hello. In the mean time I'll leave you with a photo of one of the local inhabitants pondering over the problems of the M25 on a Friday afternoon! Geraint

A brief report to confirm that all went well yesterday at Sawston. The layout ran perfectly all day, so we were able to enjoy running some trains and indulging in polite conversation with the audience, including some old friends that we hadn't seen for some time. However, the big news of the day was the first appearance of the Litra D after a long period of time in 'the works'. You may recall from previous posts that the conversion of this beast to p87 has been something of a tortuous process. Initial assessment of the chassis showed it to be a rather sloppy affair (literally!) which ran reasonably well out of the box, but which would not be adequate for the more exacting standards of p87. I reported before that the wheels had been turned to p87 profile by Ian Thomson, and Ian had also produced a set of accurately milled brass channels for the axles, which were positioned in milled slots in the Mazak chassis block. That was not the end of the problem however, and the work since then has involved design and etching of new coupling rods, connecting rods and return cranks, and the insertion of small coil springs on the centre axle. Final assembly happened over the course of a couple of evenings this week, and I'm pleased to say that the loco came through its initial trials on the test track successfully, in time for it to appear as a 'running-in turn' from Esbjerg shed yesterday morning! The inhabitants of Obbekaer had never seen anything like this come through their sleepy little station, but hopefully when the final fit out of brake gear and other details is completed and the loco in renumbered as nr. 850 (an Esbjerg engine from the early 1960s), she will be seen quite often on the RGVJ. A photo of the trial run is attached, and more will follow once detailing and weathering is complete. Regards, Geraint

Apologies Trevor and all - I missed the most important bit! The Sawston Modelling Day is on Saturday 30th May, 1030-1600 at St Mary's Church Hall, Church Lane, Sawston, near Cambridge. Hope to see you there! G

It frightens me how the time passes. A whole winter has gone by, with intermittent progress on the Litra D and two additional etches produced to replace coupling rods and bits of valve gear that didn't pass muster on the original. And now we have the next exhibition commitment looming! Our regular group of 'Friday Nighters' here in darkest Cambridgeshire are putting together one of their 'mini-exhibitions', this time to give some financial support to the activities of St Mary's Church in Sawston. This will be a very informal affair - just a collection of layouts and modelling displays from our group across a range of scales from 2mmFS to Gauge 3! Among the exhibits will be - Alex Duckworth, a frequent contributor to MRJ and Greystar Publications with some of his 2mmFS models running on a small test track, including some stock he is building for a future 'Woodhead' project. David Barham (Fen End Pit on these pages), with his 16mm scale sand quarry, complete with working dragline. Brian Page, with 'Oxenbridge', a superb rendition of the Keighley and Worth Valley terminus in the 1960s in P4 Alan Browning will be showing a section of his 'Isle of Dhoon' system in 009, recently featured in Railway Modeller and finally Ian Thomson and I will be playing trains on Obbekaer. The venue is St Mary's Church Hall, Church Lane, Sawston, near Cambridge, CB22 3JR. Doors will be open from 1030 to 1600 and a small contribution for entry will go towards the work of the church in the community. We hope to see you there! Geraint

I would say yes, 18 inches is definitely enough. Furthermore, there seems to be a tendency for a lot of layouts to have half a forest underneath them, when in fact because the weight of the layout is being held in compression by the legs, much smaller sections of timber (or other materials) are ample. My layout 'Obbekaer' is 5 metres long and a maximum of 500mm deep and uses small section hardwood legs connected by IKEA bookcase braces. All very light and easy to erect and it takes up minimal space in the car. I've used the same legs on my previous layout 'Middlepeak' so I now have nearly 20 years of use out of this system and its never failed me once! Regards, Geraint Hughes

With exhibition commitments out of the way for a while, we have committed ourselves to more rolling stock for the layout. At the top of my list is a loco which would certainly have been seen in Ribe in the 1950's - we have the photographic evidence to prove it - but we may need to stretch a point to run it through Obbekaer. It's a Litra D 2-6-0, a real mixed traffic 'Maid of all Work' and often referred to as the 'Sondagsmaskine' because it was often used on weekend passenger trains in addition to its regular use for goods traffic. The model is a Hobbytrade one, purchased around 4 years ago when they first came out. It's quite rightly gone down a storm on home territory, for accuracy and running qualities, and so I thought this might be a relatively straightforward project for my first steam loco. That couldn't have been further from the truth! The first job was to find suitable wheels to P4 standards, which could be used to replace the originals. Quite simply, these were not available, either because the number of spokes or the crankpin throw were wrong. I managed to acquire suitable Alan Gibson wheels for the bogie and tender, but the only solution for the drivers was to use the existing wheels and turn them down. Thankfully, Unklian's lathe (and expertise) came to the rescue, and with a spare set of wheels from Hobbytrade in case we made a mess of things, the tyres were first removed and the wheel centre castings were thinned down to accommodate a tyre that was 1.75mm across tread, rather than the original 2.8mm. Alan Gibson P4 steel tyres of the appropriate diameter were then pressed on to the wheel centres, using a wafer thin piece of brass tube to take up the minute difference in diameters of tyre and centres. The end result is very convincing, as the attached picture shows, and a world away from the steamroller wheels of the original. That was assumed to be the hard part completed! Unfortunately, that was not to be the case! Having assembled the wheelsets and put them back in the chassis, the loco adopted a very ungainly motion as it lurched along the track. I had noticed that the whole chassis seemed to be engineered to very liberal tolerances, with considerable slop in the rods, but it now seemed that the axle slots were not machined particularly accurately, resulting in some torsional movement of the axle in its slot. Even with the slop in the rods, this was resulting in very poor running, as you can imagine. A further conversation with those patient souls at Hobbytrade during our Danish exhibition appearance in April resulted in another chassis casting arriving some weeks later. Although better, the axle slots were still somewhat inaccurate - more frustration and another period back on the shelf for the model! One of the benefits of our Friday night group modelling sessions is that there's a ready-made think tank if you have a problem to solve. In the end we decided that the best way forward was to mill out some new bearing channels from 3.5mm thick brass, and to accurately mill out slots in the chassis casting to take them. Again, Unklian and his workshop have come to the rescue, and I now have a better chassis block with accurate bearings running in parallel slots at the appropriate 23mm + 23mm spacing. Hopefully, chassis construction will now be more straightforward, with new rods made to match the axle spacings and black plasticard frames attached to the sides of the block at a wider spacing to reflect the wider back to back measurement of the P87 wheels. I hope the pictures help to explain this. There will be further reports as we proceed, with the target being to have a rolling chassis completed before Scaleforum, when there might be an opportunity for a brief outing on Baron Harrap's 'Axalp'! However, given case history, it's probably better not to count my chickens! Regards, Geraint

Maurice, Many thanks for your kind words. I was very pleased to be able to spend a few minutes talking to you on your stand the other weekend. I'd admired your work through this forum for some time, so it was good to see it in the flesh. I'm not sure I could ever part company with a layout at the end of an exhibition as you did that weekend. Layouts are very personal things for me - maybe that's why I don't build too many of them! There were rumours going round the hall on the Sunday that maybe you would be considering a future effort in P87. Any truth in this, or is it just the rumour mill going completely off the rails? Best wishes, Geraint

Last weekend saw the introduction of Obbekaer to those charming folk down in Zummerzet as we appeared at RailWells. A fantastic show with a wonderful atmosphere for both exhibitors and visitors and time to catch up with many old friends. We try to have something new to show each time we hit the exhibition trail. I'd been doing quite a bit a work to make the point indicators turn as the prototype, but time ran out on me, and these will have to wait until the next time. I'll post something later in the autumn when they're successfully installed. However we did have a new train to run this time. The RGVJ now has a track maintenance train, pulled by our Kof I tractor, which is seen in the foreground of the attached photo waiting its next departure from the Ribe fiddle yard. At the front of the train is a G10 van, which I scratchbuilt a few years ago, with a brass chassis and plasticard body. Behind that is a litra PUR open wagon carrying ballast - this is a conversion of a Fleischmann or Roco product done by Ian, and lettered for the FFJ (Fjerritslev - Frederikshavn Jernbane). This is followed by a new addition in the form of a ballast hopper, which is unashamedly 'foreign', even for Denmark. It's actually an FS wagon, made from an Italieri kit with the chassis sliced very delicately to accommodate my home produced w-irons and springs. It's assumed to be another of the RGVJ's second hand imports, and is duly weathered to convince the onlooker that it's seen better days. Bringing up the rear is the company's 'sprojtvogn' or weedkiller wagon, which is a copy of the one from the Kalvehavebanen, courtesy of information, drawings and photographs provided by Jens Bruun-Petersen. Essentially it was a conversion of an open wagon, with one end removed and an old boiler installed, feeding a spray pipe at the rear. Most of the wagon is brass, apart from the bodywork, and the boiler is formed from a piece of pipe with plasticard overlays. I went to town on the boiler with the Archers rivet transfers, the first time I had used them - they are quite addictive! As the layout doesn't see the light of day too often at home, I took the opportunity to take some more photos of bits of detail which hadn't come out too well on previous shots. I hope you like them. Our next exhibition appearance is potentially over a year away, so we're planning to spend the intervening time on more stock to give us some additional coverage in case of failures. More on that later! Regards, Geraint

David, Looking good. My only comment is that the quoins (Cambridge Whites?) are possibly a bit too 'creamy' and might benefit from a wash of light grey to bring them back into line with the prototype. Just a thought. Definitely worth putting the roof on! Geraint

Maybe a little update is in order ....... The last post focused on the 'home leg' of our European double, but the first weekend in April saw us embark on the 'away leg' with the layout safely packed in the car for the long drive to Kolding in Denmark. The venue was the Danske Model Jernbane Union (DMJU) annual exhibition, which this year was held at the Bramdrupdamhallen, on the outskirts of Kolding, and our good friends in the Ribe club had managed to secure us an invitation as the international 'guest layout' for the weekend. After two whole days on the road, we arrived safely at the hall on the Friday evening, to be met by Anders Lehnsted and Jens Bruun-Petersen from Ribe, and within a couple of hours, the layout was erected and running perfectly. Our previous 'exposure' through the pages of Lokomotivet magazine had clearly whetted the appetite of modellers in Denmark, and the whole weekend was the most convivial of events, with many people stopping by for a long chat about the layout, the techniques we had used in building it and the whole question of building a 'might have been' layout, which is clearly something novel to many Danes. What helped was that we had two local people on the team, who were happy to spend their time delivering a short lecture in Danish on p87, Obbekaer and the RGVJ to a very interested audience, which left Ian and I to do the operating. Above all, we were so impressed with the camaraderie amongst exhibitors and the trade at the show. On the Saturday I found a photo of a steam loco I am modelling on one of the trade stands, and when I indicated my interest, the proprietor went away and found me 7 more of the same loco! A request to one of the kit manufacturers for some castings for a project resulted in him bringing them specially for me on the Sunday, and a deal was done for me to source some parts for him in return for a 50% discount. On the Sunday, a visitor politely pointed out that the numberplates on my road vehicles were incorrect- it turned out he was the proprietor of trader Witzel Hobby, and he returned later from his stand with free samples of the correct numberplates from his product range! All in all an excellent weekend, and lots of inspiration to press ahead now with the remaining stock construction for Obbekaer, and to give some thought to the next layout 'Ribe Skibbroen', which is where this idea all started. Out thanks go to our very special friends Anders, Jens and Claus in Ribe, to the DMJU organisers, and to Carsten at Hobbytrade, Peter at Freja and the many new friends we have made. Our next outing is to Scalefour SouthWest at Wells in August, where rumour has it that we will be appearing alongside the noble Lord Harrap and his Quai 87. Do come along and say hello, if your preference is for the unusual in fine scale HO! Pictures from Kolding attached. Regards, Geraint

I can report a highly successful foray to Aylesbury last weekend, where an 'upstart' Obbekaer performed well amongst the heavyweights of the P4 world. We took the opportunity of providing our own insurance against disbelieving souls by including a couple of international guests in the team. Anders Lehnsted and well known Danish railway historian Jens Bruun-Petersen were with us for their first experience of a major British exhibition, and brought a number of pieces of Danish rolling stock with them, including the brand new Litra F 0-6-0T from F2010/Hobbytrade. Jens also brought a number of Powerpoint presentations on Danish railway history, which helped to entertain and inform the punters. Both are members of the Ribe Model Railway Club, and have provided much inspiration for my project over the years. A weekend spent in their company has generated some inspiration to take the project a stage further, with a number of rolling stock improvements to follow. Monday evening saw us playing with a 1:1 track plan of the proposed Ribe Skibbroen project, and Jens re-writing Danish railway history in order to provide some substance to the idea - a novel experience! Many thanks to our two Vikings for making the long journey to see us, and to both Ian Thomson and Brian Page from our regular team for very welcome and much needed assistance, both in the run up to the show, and over the weekend. Our next outing is at Wycrail on 2nd November, after which we shall be taking a winter break to consider the further projects on the stocks! Regards, Geraint

John, You might well ask! Back in my 'yoof' whilst serving the good populous of Hertfordshire, we had a proposal using what was then termed as 'Guided Light Transit' (but essentially the same as Translohr) to create the Central Herts Rapid Transit system. This would have run from Watford Town Centre, along the route of the St Albans Abbey branch, then via the centre of St Albans to Hatfield. We actually got a reasonable way towards establishing a business case, the theory being that the end product was cheaper to construct than a tramway, and the vehicles could actually come 'off the rails' and run as semi-conventional buses to expand the network. In the end, the project hit the buffers because of two specific local factors - the unacceptable nature of 'wires in the street' to the good folk of St Albans, and the Holy Grail of through trains to Euston for supporters of the Abbey Line. The project was therefore abandoned towards the end of the 1990s. 15 years later, and traffic is even worse in St Albans, and the Abbey Line still stops at Watford Junction! What price progress? Regards, Geraint

Almost Trevor, actually drawn in TurboCAD and printed very small ..... Can't be Stevenage Horsetan - that's grass in the picture! Here's another one that is taken from a photograph. A famous Tuborg advert from (I think) the 1950s, with a crate or two of the real stuff just being secreted in the Pakhus (goods shed) by one of the station staff. He appears to be responding to requests for a taste with a firm negative! Geraint

Good to hear from you Ian. For those of you who have to travel northwards to London (think about it!), there is a chance to see Obbekaer in the flesh at the Crawley show on 14th and 15th April. We're making reasonable progress here, and I'm hoping that my efforts with the hitherto uncharted areas of servos will produce one or two working 'accessories' for the show. The layout is presentable, but still some way off completion. However, it will hopefully simulate a little interest amongst those of similar persuasion! And to close, here's a close up of the street sign near the level crossing - one of the little bits of detail that keeps me amused! All the best, Geraint

Trevor, I still have the mental scars of that day in the car showroom in Saffron Walden when the flash went off just as I was lining up another brick. The scalpel did fly and I avoided injury by a whisker. Those were the days when I was literally laying things brick by brick and wondering why I couldn't get them to line up straight. Then along came some bright spark (can't remember who) with the suggestion that I lay a whole course at once and then mark off the vertical joints later, and hey presto, things lined up and the process suddenly got easier. And so the time honoured method now known as 'Knick Knick Flick' was born (see previous post for an explanation). Funny how you remember the awkward so and so's, but not the enlightened ones! Ian - ah yes those dim and distant days in Herts! I finally escaped 6 years ago and haven't looked back! G

Thanks David. The trick is in the grid which is drawn on the paper template, which you can see on the top half of the unfinished tower. The horizontal lines mark the courses, and the verticals are spaced at half-header intervals. They are drawn to scale to represent Danish bricks, which are smaller than English ones. After that, it is down to the Mark 1 eyeball, aided by the magnifying lamp. Here's another picture, this time of the first row of houses for Ribe Skibbroen, which is the 'ultimate' layout. These are models of the houses along the quayside in Ribe. Regards, Geraint

It's been a while since I posted something on here, but we're currently in the throes of getting the layout ready for an outing at the Crawley show next month, and (as they say) "time is slipping by"! Anyway, I thought you might like to see some old shots showing how the transformer tower by the level crossing came to be. These are typical of many rural locations in Denmark, but each area electricity company seems to have had its own design. Scouring the net produced one or two photos, but I had some difficulty in scaling them up correctly. This is where my good friends in the Ribe Model Railway Club came to the rescue. Claus Riber is a wonderful modeller and a local architect to boot - still continuing his profession way past the time that most of us have thrown in the towel. I mentioned that I was looking for good photos, and within weeks he had found a surviving tower in Sonder Hygum, photographed it and produced a scale drawing! No excuses now then! My buildings are all produced in plasticard, and the first stage is to draw out a kit of parts on TurboCAD, with the printed version then being stuck to the plasticard with MEK and the parts cut out carefully. The advantage of this method is that you don't have to transfer dimensions, and you can include a basic grid on the drawing to indicate the brick courses. The 'under construction' photo shows the lower part of the tower complete and the upper part being assembled on top. The brick courses use strips of Evergreen 22thou by 11thou (HO scale 2"x1") stuck on and aligned with a scalpel point. A few minutes later, when the bond has started to harden, I go along the row making two parallel cuts with a sharp blade at each vertical mortar joint and 'flicking' out the small piece in the middle. Finicky I know, but remarkably relaxing and it's fun to watch the wall 'grow' before your eyes. The paper between the bricks and the base wall actually helps the bond, and the result is a very sturdy structure, with all the appropriate bonding patterns faithfully reproduced. I have also used this method for herringbone brickwork - now that did fuzz up the brain somewhat! The final structure is then sprayed with Humbrol grey primer for the mortar colour, and the bricks then painted with different shades of acrylics. The second photo shows the tower in position, waiting to have the power lines connected up to the pole on the other side of the track. Hopefully I can have that finished for the show! Regards, Geraint

David, The perennial problem! If I recall, these are the originals from Fleischmann subtly 'transformed' in the lathe, and doubtless with fingers firmly crossed! Ian has the benefit of the appropriate machinery, and indeed since then has performed similar miracles with a Roco Bavarian Mallet - see picture below. As I mentioned earlier, the wheel problem, particularly for steam outline locos, is a difficult nut to crack. Fortunately I have been able to get round this by astute purchase of Gibson P87 or Sharman P4 types for most of the models I'm likely to make. Operating a few diesels from the transition era (Epoch III) helps to relieve the situation, as these are easier to turn, even if you don't possess the best equipment. This all brings back memories of early days of P4, when folks speculated long and hard about the availability of driving wheels - something we now of course take for granted. Regards, Geraint

In one of the previous replies I mentioned the fitting of servos to various bits of moving equipment. Well we're not quite there yet, but one of the other bits of kit that will operate is this water crane. The prototype is from one of the private lines in North Jutland, and was located on a rather isolated bit of line that crossed a river by a low girder bridge. The water crane was fed by a pump in a small cabin, with a feeder pipe from the river - too quaint and obscure to pass up on really, so here it is! The crane is scratchbuilt from numerous bits of brass tube and washers, all fettled up with files and 'turned' in an electric drill. I really love this kind of project because it's literally straight out of the scrap box. The arm of the crane will be motorised to swing out over the tank of the loco, hence the servo. A friend pointed out to me that two adjacent switches on the control panel, for the protection on the loop and the crane, were labelled 'Scotch' and 'Water', which does not mean I'll be running a bar during exhibition hours! The loco is worth a word or two. Built by my good friend Ian Thompson, it started off life as a Fleischmann 'Black Anna' 0-4-0T, and has undergone various levels of mutilation to produce a wonderful representation of the 0-4-0T from the Lemvigbanen. Not much capacity in the well tanks of this loco, hence the need for the water crane! Regards, Geraint

David, You're right, it is Code 55 rail, soldered to my own etched railplates, which in turn are soldered to rivets in the plywood sleepers. This all makes for very sturdy trackwork, and gives you the opportunity to adjust each joint to 'fine tune' the running. John, Thanks for your comments - seems a long time since you saw the layout at the P87 Convention in Utrecht! Things are progressing - albeit slowly! Geraint

Thanks all for your comments. Here's another shot to reveal a little more of the project. It's mid-afternoon now and the school train has just arrived at Obbekaer taking the children from the villages home from school in Ribe. The motive power is a 'skinnebus', a product of the Scandia factory in Randers and a common sight on many Danish private railways from the early 1950s onwards. They could run singly, pulling a trailer, or in multiple, and this example has roof and front and rear luggage racks. The front rack is folded down ready to pick up some supplies at one of the local stations. The model started off as a resin casting from Tikob, with scratchbuilt chassis and wheels (6mm dia!) courtesy of the company's sister railway , the ZOB (thank you Mr Harrap!). After many long years in the making, the last 6 months has seen two 'off the peg' versions of these available in Denmark, from Heljan and Epoke Modelle, so I'll just bite my lip and say that I enjoyed building it! The shot also shows the station building (more on construction of buildings at a future date) and the two-arm signal that controls entry to the station. Until next time .... Geraint