Barry Ten

Was there a point to that, Joseph?

I'll have one of them in N!

Couple more shots for no reason than I haven't posted much lately. Although this part of the layout hasn't changed much since 2008 I have recently returned to it with a view to sprucing it up a bit and adding more foliage.

Have they said that the Modified Hall will be anything other than the old model with a new chassis? I've had a read of the threads can't see any indication that the body itself is going to be retooled. I'd never noticed the (presence or absence of the) frame extensions before, by the way - shows how observant I am.

Hi Jon - I made the bunker hoops from bits of scrap etch, curved around a screwdriver. The lamp irons are indeed from the Mainly Trains etch. cheers!

What are the brakes made from - are they commercial parts or did you make them from plastikard? They look very neat and consistent, more so than the scratchbuilt ones I added to my own 9F. Very nice job overall, in any case.

Mikkel: I think it's called knowing your limitations!

You're right about the Bulleids - I haven't noticed the frame gap so much but they do not ease into corners at all well. I wonder if it's because there's so much slack in the sprung rear axle that they are effectively very long 4-4-2-2s?

Cheap as chips as well.

The Hornby King is not that bad a model, really - it looks the part from most angles, has some very fine detail, and runs superbly. Perhaps some manufacturer will announce a new version, but for the time being the Hornby one is what we've got to work with. The big let-down, for my money, is in the side-on view, which is particularly an issue with my layout set at eye-level. The excessive gap between the front frames and the bogie is distracting, and an ugly throw-back to the tender-drive model of the 70s. Fortunately, the cast frame detail on the Hornby model is very shallow, which suggested to me that a simple solution would be to add a couple of cosmetic frame extensions from plastikard. After some careful measurement using my new best mate among modelling tools - a pair of digital calipers - I cut a batch of frames for my two Kings. Each frame was made from a basic rectangle of plastic of dimensions 12 x 50mm. After checking that all clearances were satisfactory for my layout, I glued the frames in place and added selective detail from wire and plastikard and PVA rivets. The idea is to give an impression of detail when the model is painted and weathered, not to replicate every pipe and rivet. If you want that, buy a Mitchell kit and book a year off work. Here's the "before" shot - my GWR example: My BR King with frames in place. The all-important "weight" of the loco at the front-end has been restored, to my eye, and depending on layout clearances you could reduce the gap between frame and bogie even more. And a close-up of the frames: I used relatively thin plastikard to aid the cutting and shaping but for a model likely to receive a lot of handling, thicker grade could be used. It occurs to me that one of the smaller manufacturers could do a useful King detailing kit with something similar in etched brass and white metal, and maybe include a proper reversing lever on the same etch. Cheers!

What number was Western Meerkat?

Here's a crude sketch of the the current plan: The hatched area is where the layout is finished, or at least presentable; the rest of it either doesn't exist yet or is just bare wood and trackwork. Over the last couple of years I have been grappling with the problem where to add a locomotive servicing terminal. Admittedly a small-ish layout like this could easily manage without one but my thinking was that a roundhouse would give me a nice place to store locos, justify swapping power on trains, and also offer a chance at having a turntable on a layout. None of my 4mm layouts have ever been large enough to include one. The problem is that, as one learns more about US railroading practise, it becomes clear that locomotive terminals were almost always placed in connection with a bloody huge classification yard, which opens a whole other can of worms - where am I going to fit a yard and a terminal into this already half-finished layout? Obviously the smart thing would have been to design the yard and terminal in from the outset, but not only did I not know what I was doing when I drew up the original GA&E plan, but I doubt that back in 2007 I would have envisaged wanting a loco terminal this badly. I have tried numerous permutations of yard+terminal in my head, and on paper. The most elegant solution included a run-through yard on the main with the terminal situated on the central penisula. This would have allowed for double-ended arrival/departure tracks as well as several stub-ended classification roads. The drawback here was that the terminal would have dominated the room unduly, needing to be at least two feet wide and I also felt it would have been vulnerable to damage by being stuck out in the middle. In the end I settled on this arrangement, in which the terminal sits on the lower leg of the layout and the yard becomes a stub-ended arrangement on the peninsula. This isn't at all realistic but the yard can still function as a yard, even if trains may need to back in and out depending on direction of travel. For me this is an acceptable compromise. The yard need not be wider than 18 inches. Here's the rectangular area where the terminal will eventually sit: and here's the template for a 9 or 10 road roundhouse, giving some idea of the scale of these things even in N. When I drew this template it was a real shock to see how much space it was going to need; everything else is small in N so it's tempting to forget that roundhouses ate up some serious real estate. I've no idea how people build these things in HO. More progress as it happens...

Had a bit of a nasty surprise a couple of days ago. I'd bought a new loco a year ago, but had only test run it at the shop (it's CSX so I'll only run it when I operate modern-era). Keen to try it again, I placed it on the layout and selected address 3. The loco ran fine ... but what I'd (stupidly) forgotten was that another of my locos, presently parked in the hidden storage area, had the same address. What happened, obviously, is that the other loco also started moving, although I didn't realise it at the time. Since the point in the exit throat hadn't been selected for this loco's track, it ran into a point set the wrong away and experienced a short. Unfortunately this short wasn't detected by my system - the power stayed on, and I carried on operating for what could easily have been a couple more operating sessions. By the time I discovered the stalled, shorted loco, it had undergone complete meltdown of one of its tender trucks - and I mean meltdown; the truck had literally exploded into about a dozen pieces. Remarkably, the loco was still responding to DCC. Even more remarkably, the point was still operational. I then did some testing and found that the short circuit protection was not tripping reliably at all points on the layout; in fact it only seemed to trip for about 50 % of the places I tested. Obviously this isn't ideal but the layout operates well so I'm loathe to rip out all the wiring and start again. I think the problem is that I wired the layout for cab control sections, rather than using a DCC bus-bar type of arrangement, but there were good reasons for doing that; it allowed me to phase the transition from DC to DCC over several years rather than jumping in headfirst. I've tried to adhere to good wiring practise, using plenty of droppers (well, more than I'd normally bother with) and careful soldering, so what else could I have done, I wonder? The layout isn't huge so I don't know if there'd be any point adding power districts. However, I will admit that I'm not likely to ever go back to DC now so there is always the option to do a complete DCC-optimised wiring job. With lots of the track now ballasted, though, I would not want to go around adding extra feeders in. I don't think I'm likely to make the above mistake again, but it has given me pause for thought. Fortunately the melted truck is available as a spare, so the loco will be back running before too long. I've posted this in the spirit of honesty as I think it is as valuable to document cock-ups as it is progress!

Nothing much to report here, just a selection of recent shots. B23-7s: B23-7s again: And again: MPC15 switcher: E8/9 A/B on a passenger service: Woods Furniture Co: SD24s: And again: Cheers!