Flying Pig

Interesting. This was the 3H OO kit I never attempted as the subject was then (and remains so now) essentially out of area for my modelling zone. Never any such trouble with the many examples I purchased of the 3H LNE general merchandise opens and vans and the underframe kits, or the LMS opens.

Hoppers are tricky anyway and this one was similar to the Parkside 21 tonner: hopper as a single moulding with sides and ends separate, leading to a lot of long butt joints between flat sections. The real pain however was that the underframe included only the solebars, end platforms and headstocks, which made it fairly flimsy until mated with the body. Mine was very flimsy indeed as I mistakenly left out the end platforms, thinking they were mounts for tension lock couplers only (I was going through a period of 3-links). It still exists, though I wouldn't want to subject it to any kind of drawbar pull.

 

In other respects it is a typical Three Aitch kit - accurate and well detailed. I'd agree about the others in the range too.

Are we about to learn just how many have been sitting in the Round Tuit pile since the late 1970s?

 

Given the Three Aitch habit of short-shot sprues, probably not a whole number. Still, it was a decent kit and would have been even better, and a lot easier to build, if they'd included the rest of the underframe. Now about to be thoroughly eclipsed by a Hornby rtr model though - who'd have believed that in 1978?

The weathering, great though it is, has brought out a kink in the footplate. I hope that this is not a common problem on the plastic footplate. Such a shame if it is a problem, like on the K1. The model is so good otherwise.

Regards,

Rob.

With luck it'll be the lubricator drive that's to blame and amenable to adjustment.

Can anyone tell me what this bird is please?  Someone suggested a dunnock but to me it's more likely a garden warbler.  It has a beautiful song.

 

Singing from the top of a post in March? It's a dunnock. Garden warblers won't be back for another month, tend to sing from deep cover and despite the name they aren't common in gardens. Dunnocks are unobtrusive most of the time, but obvious and confiding when singing and they do have a sweet song.

I could never understand why no one invented the Fell-tic. A 4-8-4 napier powered beast  A Deltic shell on the Fell chassis. It would have been a sure fire winner.

Surely a true Fell-tic would have 4 x Deltic engines driving through the Fell system of clutches and differentials? I agree it's difficult to understand why none was ever built.

 

Also I don't recall ever seeing a RTR bulled up N gauge diesel - the sort you used to see ex-works for special duties with silver buffers and white wheel rims etc. 

 

The Silver Jubilee set included 47164 in full Stratford bling with Union Jack and white rims.

That will be irresistible if they do one in Huntley & Palmer livery - no use whatsoever to me but definitely one to buy and invent a tale to justify it!

I'm not familiar with the H&P livery so I googled it - a bit disappointing really as I was hoping for some thing like this.

I failed miserably to understand the problem in analytical terms so plugged the numbers into Excel instead (see attached).  Having chosen a rough value for the ratio between jib and tower, it's relatively easy to calculate the resulting load height for various angles between the two (I used 5 degree increments between 5 and 70 degrees) with nothing more than the Cosine rule. The range of heights obtained can then be reduced to a single value.  Minimising this value by tweaking the jib:tower ratio gives the optimum proportions for the crane (I use the Excel solver to do this).

 

For a line running 3 times between tower and jib, it turns out that optimum ratio of jib:tower is 3.602:1 at which total variation in load height is about 7.7% of the height of the tower (or about 23cm with a 3m tower and 10.8m jib).  Interestingly, the best result for a single run of the line is 12% of the tower and increasing the runs to 5 only gives a slight improvement to 6.7%, which is no doubt why the prototype stuck with 3 runs.

 

That was my evening.  Andy Hayter reached the same conclusion much more quickly

 

Crane.xls

 

US patent 460649 appears to refer to a variant of the horse head design: http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US4606469

 

This Meccano model may be of interest: http://www.alansmeccano.org/models/pic12.htm Sadly, Meccano omitted to mention how the system works, but it does seem to be a passive feature of the geometry.

Lengths from Wikipedia: Routemaster 27' 6"; Bristol VR (short) 32' 9".

I can see preservation layouts finding a use in the Pecketts too...

A Peckett, a single Mk I looming over it, a yard or two of track and a short, obviously new platform and you've got most 1970s preservation startups to a tee. Actually, it would make a perfect trainset for nostalgic 40-somethings getting back into the Hobby.

Let's just hope it has something resembling accurate Slide bars and connecting rods unlike Hornby's previous 0-4-0 offerings

The CAD suggests it will have:

http://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/news/the-engine-shed/new-for-2016-the-peckett-w4-0-4-0st/

I don't know what the statistically correct roof for a small urban terminus is, but in my opinion this would be perfectly convincing. It's your railway however so go with what suits your vision.

I'm not an engineer, but think what you propose for the train shed sounds pretty good. As the kit is supplied, the continuous girders do look a little odd and it seems a bit high off the ground to my eye as well, but the arch is a good starting point.

 

FWIW, I'd cut the girders at or just below the trusses and add longitudinal lattices (Plastruct?), the whole supported on cast columns (no idea who does those). The columns could be left open or a curtain wall added between or behind them. I think you're right that the screen would be history by 1983 and the whole roof would probable be looking rather sad.

 

Examples that might help: Manchester Piccadilly, Bradford Exchange, Darlington, Bath Green Park and doubtless lots of others I can't think of.

New Romney itself is thumbnailed on the SRS site: http://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/srb/R1873.htmIt appears to be extremely simple with just two worked signals and I'd guess most shunts didn't need to pass the starter.

So are we saying that it is the dog-leg through the throat that makes Minories? And I assume that by "reverse curve" you mean to left-hand (or right hand) points back to back? Because by realigning the platform roads the affect of these curves could be minimised, as can be seen below.

It's a very specific arrangement of points in the throat that makes Minories. As you say, there are other ways to reduce the effects of crossovers, but they are not Minories.

 

That said "Minories" is a proper noun referring to a specific layout plan and not an adjective meaning "well-designed" when referring to small urban termini. There a lots of different ways to drink your Vimto - one of my favourite layouts, Tower Pier, is quite different from Minories (and rather odd) but works very well.

The basic topology of Minories is so simple, just two crossovers and a bay, that it really can't be regarded as a defining feature Of the design. So, for me no CJF Weave, no Minories.

Three coach trains could be seen substituting for DMUs - see for example this thread (particularly the final post).

 

I'm sure there's been a more detailed discussion of DMU replacement workings on RMweb at some time, but I can't find it at the moment.

I still hate the entirely unnecessary double reverse curve. CJF had it in there to reduce length to a minimum. But in N, that probably is not necessary.

The layout of the station throat was intended to eliminate tight reverse curves in the crossovers, not to save length, and I doubt whether the reverse curve in the main platform roads saves more than a very small fraction of an inch. What it does achieve is to accommodate the lower platform at a realistic width without having to push the bay forward and increase the overall width of the layout. I'd be surprised if that was not in CJF's mind when he first drew it.

 

Visually, I find Minories layouts drawn with dead straight platforms look oddly dog-legged. The balancing curve on the original keeps the overaĺl station axis straight and to my eye looks attractive. I also remain to be convinced that it is unrealistic as termini in cramped city locations could involve quite tightly curved platforms.

 

Regarding the kickback siding, IMO a probable original use for this would be fish and perishables or horse and carriage traffic arriving as tail loads on passenger trains. By 1983 this traffic would be long gone and the loading bank possibly demolished, leaving an orphaned siding whose former use was not obvious to the casual observer. The most likely use as already suggested would be stabling of locos or units - dedicated parcels trains would be handled in the main station, though a lot of parcels went in the van of passenger trains at this period.

 

I feel the same about fuelling facilities in small locations like this as Joseph_Pestell does about unnecessary reverse curves ☺.

I've a feeling it wasn't in the first version without goods facilities, but I'm sure you could find the definitive answer by scouring one of the many Minories themed threads on the forum! Given your board split, I would leave it out rather than disort the rest of the plan to fit the point in!

Here we have the plan. It'll be about 4 ft longer than the plan shows, I just wanted to get the track arrangement right. The single line represents the freight only line through Snow Hill tunnel. Once I've sketched it out full size I'm hoping to get 6 Car EMUs into the two longer platforms.

 

Looking at this, I can't help feeling that the junction with its facing slip seems a little forced.  A possible alternative would be to follow the example of Tower Pier (posts 44 and 48 above) where the goods lines are entirely separate from the passenger lines and at a slightly different level. The variation in levels adds a lot to the visual interest of what is a very compact layout.

 

I can think of a couple of ways of doing this.  First keeping it very simple:

 

 

Or, if you have the space for the approach tracks, an 'omage to the Ray St Gridiron:

 

Not forgetting the two burly ex Lambton 0-6-2's at the North york Moors line.

No. 29 is indeed a Kitson engine, but no. 5 was built by Robert Stephenson & Co.

 

The Consett engine is interesting as a late example of the Stephenson "long boiler" layout.

Would it not be more Brunellian to simply demolish the various destinations and rebuild them on a suitably sized traverser so that the train could be pointed at its destination with uninterrupted motive force and without undesirable transverse disturbances to its motion or its passengers'convenience?

Perhaps a bit late for you as you seem to be well on your way, but this is a scheme I came up with a while back for a compact colliery layout that avoids the loading problem altogether.  We see the dead end of the colliery yard and the rear entrance to the screens/loading building which forms the scenic break with the fiddle yard to the right: the connection to the rest of the world is imagined to be well off-stage.  Empty wagons are drawn up behind the screens to the headshunt and then run back through for loading: in real life this would likely be by gravity but on the model perhaps they could be drawn through by hand or by a second loco hidden in the FY.  Note that loaded wagons never appear on the layout.

 

For interest I added a second through line in front of the screens, giving access to loco sheds and workshops and a reason to run a variety of non-coal wagons.  A short runround assists shunting.  The pithead buildings at the very front of the layout hide the exit of this line to the fiddle yard and also help to disguise the shortness of the screens building.  At the other end of the layout, the loco shed and workshops disguise the brevity of the headshunt and can even suggest that the line continues to another pit if you wish (modular NCB standard anyone?).

 

In the annotated N-gauge original, I sited the exchange sidings behind the colliery (some versions of this plan even had a separate BR loco release and headshunt).  This was a blatant fudge to allow BR locos to appear, but TBH I think it looks contrived: the exchange siding would IRL almost certainly be off-stage to the right and I've left them out of the 00 version.  This really is-a-no-main-line-engines scheme and great self control will be demanded of the operator

 

N gauge version:

 

 

00 gauge version squished to 5 feet:

 

I don't think the bearded tit is actually a tit. Chickadees seem to be close relatives of blue tits and coal tits.

Closest to our willow and marsh tits and very similar in appearance.