coachmann

To me, it's simple. We have had years of Hornby and Bachmann producing generally sturdy models with a basic 'two-crews out and off comes the body' design. Oxford Rail came up with a novel chassis in its Dean Goods, but some batches turned out to be poor runners. The DJM 14XX with a geared chassis, floppy cosmetic con rods and a basket-case design in which to install to DCC sound was a complete break away from simplicity. The Heljan 47XX was yet another break away from simplicity with its remove cab, remove boiler but the running plate is attached to the chassis! Put together like a kit using Loctite, it is small wonder the detail falls off during handling. My bottom line :- I will always buy Hornby. I will buy Bachmann if it is DCC sound friendly. I am now dubious about Heljan. I wont touch DJM with a barge-pole.

Looks like an injector overflow pipe from under one of the cab steps. It glues under the bottom step with the other end going into a pip on the chassis, however, do not glue that end. I made new ones from brass rod.

Thanks for the map Phil. The curve through the station and environs is far shallower than I imagined, but modellers compression will make it sharper. I will aim for an essence of Ruabon. For instance, I could easily build a model of the stations main entrance building, but I am not going to waste the building I made of Carrog.

Hi Dave, You are not far out, as I told PGH I might do Greenfield again. I didn't have DCC/Sound last time and so I had in mind recreating the sound of Austerities hammering upgrade through Greenfield and clanking downgrade afterwards! I saw your Blog the other day.............. That BR Std. Class 2 2-6-2T looks mighty tasty!

Thanks Philip. Fascinating and really useful views, as they show parts of the station I haven't seen before. Is that a private dwelling behind the bay platform? The long wall on the right is presumably a bridge parapet. I am surprised at the narrowness of the up platform, in fact I would go further and say it is weird how small stations look today when stripped down to bus shelters in the middle of some waste land. My renewed interest in BR did not take place until late-1976 and I was wondering if this route had only just been passed for mainline steam at the time of your photos. I had driven to Shrewsbury on business a couple of years earlier to meet the importer of the Fulgurex brass 'Kings', and I wish now I had taken more notice of the railway. I think I drove past Ruabon station as I seem to remember the roadside railings for some reason.

There were three types of Pressed Steel bogie. The 'passenger' version with long springs and long footboards. The freight version with short springs and short footboards. The 'Centenery Stock' version with long springs and short foot boards. No footboards appeared on some official photos, but did they enter traffic like this?

I think around 800 houses are being added to Abergele. Our Conservative representative put forward local displeasure as well as what we considered to be valid objections, but in the end he told us he could go no further. We need not vote any longer because we are ignored......The socialist dynasty in South Wales is determined to build these houses in North Wales and that is that. So its stuff the schools, the surgery, hospital places, drains, inadequate roads, traffic in Abergele (A permanent red line through the town on the 'Traffic Wales' website). No one knows who the people are who have moved in so far and the general consensus is they have been imported! I reckon you will arfe to get back to Eastwood Town now Gordon to stop the off-topic....

You are back and I am off to pastures new once again. Stuff sleepy branch lines! I wouldn't mind betting that 'something to get up for' is what keeps most people going, which in our case often means a new layout.

I have been self-employed for most of my working life and was used to waking up and planning. Since taking semi-retirement, I have depended largely on waking up and thinking about 'todays project' on the railway layout. It is having no project to dive into that sends me in a spin, but this is what happened to me in early summer. It took a while to realize I had achieved what I had set out to do, that of building and all-but completing a layout based on Carrog. But when it came to gathering in the fruits of my labors, the layout was actually operationally boring. I wasted July through doing nothing and I thought back to my wife's father who started his day picking hit bets, then going ot the betting shop and sitting around in the afternoon hoping his nags had won. In short, he had no hobbies to retire to. Since starting considering what to replace Carrog with, I have woken up each morning with a project in mind. Sorted!

Mines 14ft long in one piece! And it won't re-cycle nowadays...... Council tip want me to give them around £9.00. Fly-tipping is a growth industry....

How about Code 55 used for N gauge?

Thanks Baz. It threw me because the track looks like ultra finescale. Your track is food for thought right now I can tell you.

Thanks for this Peter. You're doing it the proper way with independent cant on up and down tracks plus a flat siding. I like it.

I wrote some drivel last night at the worse time of day for straight thinking so cit has been deleted ot keep things tidy. The approach track to Carrog is on open-frame baseboard and it is the plywood track base that is cambered, not the cork. I intend using this method through Ruabon station. A cambered cork base is actually very simple to form. I mark out the radius on the baseboard and glue down 1/16" cork to double track width. It is then sanded down until the inside edge of the curve is flush with the baseboard surface while the outer edge remains 1/16" thick. I check to ensure the cross-section is a constant 'cut' with no dips. Then a track-bed of 1/8" cord is glued on top. It is tapered off to match adjacent 1/8" cork where the curve ends. A 2' steel rule is used to check all is well at transition points..........I enjoy the work and never rush it. This morning's chivvy at photos of Ruabon plus viewing some video shot in the early 1960's have put some new ideas into gear. A Dee Valley train is seen departing the bay over the off-set scissor crossover. The curved complex of track can be seen extending far beyond the station platforms.... This is how I want to view model trains leaning to the curve as they speed through non-stop....

One of my DJM's had a duff motor. I suspect it got burned out. Anyway I removed the motor, but the chassis was not a free runner. Brute force & ignorance was put to work yesterday and I split the chassis to remove all the intermediate gearing. Surprise-surprise, the very slack con rods do the job that con rods are intended to do and the chassis is now very free running. At least this loco is still usable if only for fake double heading.....

Code 100 is so rigid that it is forgiving of a less-than-even trackbed, but it is worth recalling that the section through Carrog's platforms served me well and was never relaid unitl code 100 replaced it. Time moves rapidly in Coachmann Tower and I am definitely adopting Peco bullhead and tracks through the curved platforms will be very carefully cambered. Curving points and slips only leads to poor running so I am not continuing the curve beyond the platforms. That said, it will all be laid on new baseboards.

Good to see something from you again Dave. Nothing short of what i have come to expect from you.....One of Lees's best.

Fkcin' hell, get me out of here....

Currently, it seems to be 'whats the latest e-cig', a prize example being the GNR Stirling Single. 'Useful' it is not, but it is flying off the shelves, so maybe we have now to combine 'useful' with 'e-cig'. The D20 4-4-0 seems to me to have some strengths because it carried a colorful pre-grouping livery and lasted long enough to be useful to BR modellers. By the time of their demise in 1957, I don't think there was a more graceful looking loco in the country. That said, if I had Mystic's crystal ball, I would likely see a MR Single...

Reading off a computer screen does my head in some days and so to save me plowing through the pages, I would like to know which track has been used please. The rail section looks very fine. For some reason, I always thought LNER4479 used Peco Code 100 in foam, but I must have mistaken the user-name for another. An excellent layout all round.

Thank you very much for this. You obviously know your stuff. I have been trying to make sense of photos taken at the Chester end of the route. In other words, what would have been seen passing Ruabon.

Below are three LMS 57' Period I coaches not quite sharing identical corridor sides.... Identical corridor sde for all-third.... The compo lost a window because of a corridor partition between first and third.... The Period I compo came in three varieties, but that would be a digression....

I rather fancied one of these Maunsell Dining Cars, which i was going to respray BR locos-hauled stock green. But it seems the pesky diner was detached along with other coaches at Wolverhampton and so would never have been seen up north. A caption in 'Rail to North Wales' states " No.1022 County of Northampton heads away from Wrexham on 8th August 1958 with the 14.35 Birkenhead-Paddington train. The loco will be changed and the extra coaches, including the restaurant car, attached at Wolverhampton.

It is documented in a 1930's 'Railway Magazine' that the GWR was being parsimonious with its green and had been thinning it too much to make it go further. It started to go khaki or blackening after a short time in traffic and shareholders were doing the equivalent of asking question in the house. One would think the Western learned from this. Also, I wonder what Riddles would have said had he been made aware of Swindons tactics in BR days. After all, it was Swindon that wanted to re-adopt green for everything. I would have told the works that if it cant do the job properly, then revert to LNWR livery!

Nothing more will be done to Carrog now that I have determined what I want to do next. Carrog's stone station building will not go to waste, as I have it in mind to attach a platform canopy for use on the Up platform. The front face of the building will become the street entrance at the front of the layout. A pal has sent me a RTP building which i intend using on the Down platform, again with a new canopy. The project will keep me occupied for some time I should think. Track is taking up my 'lying in bed thinking' time. This is the big teaser! It will be either all-Code 100 or bullhead augmented by flat bottom Code 75 turnouts not currently in the bullhead range.