PeterH

I love shunting on a layout so it makes sense to keep the sidings, also as you say it doesn’t restrict the time period as much as it would by removing them. Interesting the mystery on the signal box rebuilding, you would have thought that would have been fairly well recorded. I’ve made a little bit of progress on the layout, namely fitting the legs and alignment dowels to the king board. I did want to get the legs on the second board but it is too cold, wet and miserable outside. I’d rather be watching the snooker in front of the fire with a glass of wine! There’s still a bit more work to do on the legs to make them more stable but it’s great to get a piece freestanding.

That’s the DCC controller sorted for the layout. A second hand set on its way so I’ll have one for the up and down lines. I’m hoping to sort out the dowels this weekend and look at the legs the following week. I’ve also purchased a bank of the Peco lever frames for the points, it’ll be a while before I get around to that though.

Below is the track plan I’ll be following. I did consider having a reduced goods yard as per its condition after goods traffic ceased however I think for operational interest it makes sense to keep it. The DCC system has been ordered so I should get hold of that in the next week or two. Club night tonight so I should be able to get my hands on a few bits to sort out the alignment dowels and I need to speak to a member about his legs - or more accurately the legs he made for one of the other layouts up there!

Thank you both for your replies, it is nice to know a bit more and to learn there's a sort of 'Dulverton/D&SR community'. I've made arrangements to get the DCC system and will continue with corking and hunting for further bits of the layout.

A few more pictures of the buildings.

I don't know unfortunately, all I know is the gentleman who constructed the buildings was a Mr. Bird and was built between 1993 and 1997. I will need to find out more but considering the quality of the buildings in comparison to the photos I've seen of it I would imagine he possibly did. I will need to find out more about the history of the models. I do feel like I'm cheating quite a bit, even though no track is down it feels like progress has been made. Even the small buildings are wonderful. I just hope I can find the missing bits and do it justice!

There are a few bits missing, most obvious is the road bridge and the curious pumphouse with the cut-down corner. I’ll have a look up the railway club to see if they are there. I’m also missing a lot of platform ramps oddly. The Carnarvon Arms Hotel will likely be incorporated into the back scene. The Freddie Huxtable books have been a great source of information as has pictures I’ve seen online of the extensive model at the Dulverton Heritage Centre.

I’m a member of the South West Herts MRS. Towards the end of last year we were contacted by a widow who was looking to have her late husband’s model of Dulverton removed from her home. Our club obliged and help clear out his model railway items. The buildings were left for a few months in a storage area and I felt it was such a shame that these remarkably well made buildings were not being seen or used so I decided to remedy that but turning it into an exhibition layout (or so I hope!). As you can see from the photos below the vast majority of the buildings have been built and are roughly in place. I made the baseboards yesterday from 9mm plywood and 20.5mm x 94mm planed softwood. The two baseboards are currently 55” x 4’. The frame so far only extends to 2’ across as I am unsure how much space the yard will take up. I’ll complete the framing and cut away any excess board once I’ve worked out where the track will go in the yard. There will be a third board required for the point work on the Taunton end. Fortunately the road bridge on the Barnstaple end makes a convenient scenic break. I plan on using a ‘cassette’ style fiddleyard and run trains into square modified plastic guttering. Track will be Peco Code 75 on cork underlay and I am aiming for DCC control, most probably the MERG system as that’s what we use at the model railway club and is a system I’m familiar with and enjoy using. Points will be electrofrog powered by SEEP PM1s and the little Peco lever frame passing contact switches. I’ll probably wire on-off-on section switches to the control panel to be able to switch between DC or DCC controllers (although that’s something I’ve not given a huge amount of thought to yet). I may use Dapol motorised semaphores as well. Rolling stock is a little annoying, the layout and buildings are in late 50s / early 60s condition and all of the appropriate rolling stock I have (which is quite a bit) is in GWR or Southern livery! Other than MK1s the only suitable loco I have is a Standard 3MT. Still BR(W) Hawkesworth and Collett coaches are easy to come by and Dapol have done the Mogul and Class 22. I just need to get a few BR liveried items and weather them appropriately. The next job is to fit some baseboard alignment dowels and secure the two boards together with bolts and wing nuts. I’ll continue to work on the track plan and corking.

I see Rails have put a video up of the sound version of the model.

One other thing interesting to note is both models come fitted with front steps. Looking at photos of 4771 it doesn’t appear to have them in real life.

I ran 4771 up the club today with a respectable 10 coach train. I reckon it would have happily had one or two more behind it. Happy to see you can fit the drain cocks and have no issues on curves.

Great performance from the loco as well. A slight oddity I noticed though is that the tender and loco are askew to one another. Something to do with connection I’m guessing.

Took it up the club to run today, including a bit of double-heading!

Like this?

The Locomotion model has arrived today, beautifully model with a striking presence.

A nice arrival through the door!

I didn’t attempt to removed them, I just repainted them gold after the black had dried.

Enamel

Trusty Humbrol Matt 33 (although it’s hardly matt, definitely got a shine to it).

I’ve finished working on my model to be era appropriate for what I want; with the exception of the red numberplates which were no where to be seen when I went to apply them! I’m looking forward to taking it and 1000 up the club on Tuesday for some double heading action!

So the replacement has already arrived! Great service. Happily running it in on my layout at present.

They’ve been very helpful and efficient. My damaged model has already been collected by UPS.

Your damage looked very similar to the one mine suffered. I did notice a slight scuff on one corner of the cardboard outer and the loco did seem a little loose in the plastic bit. The most impressive break on mine was the very rear of the metal chassis where the footsteps are attached to - snapped off.

Stuart at Locomotion has already arranged for my bruised Hardwicke to be collected - I just hope I’m in the minority with the damage.

All credit to Stuart at Locomotion who has already arranged collection of the bruised loco for me.