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barrowroad

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  1. barrowroad
    It has been some while - June in fact - since I posted anything about the roundhouse. Since then I have had a closer look at the structure of the roof and realised that I had seriously under estimated the number of roof trusses required for the roof. Looking at an aerial photograph of the shed roof I plotted the 13 trusses and realised their positioning made no sense. This made me have another look at my collection of photographs and I have now calculated that the majority of the trusses are at 7ft 6in centres.
    This gave me a grand total of 22 trusses for each of the three roof pitches or 66 in total. My first thought was unprintable!
     
    Being a glutton for punishment I have plodded on making roof trusses - in between making up an S&D Sentinel kit - and recently achieved the grand total of 22 - time to assemble one of the roof pitches.
    First stop was to make a suitable assembly jig on a piece of white melamine board and then solder the longditudinal purlins to each truss.
     
    Here are some photos of progress:-
     
    A batch of 11 trusses
     

     
    Assembling the jig
     

     

     
    Soldering the purlins
     

     
    Purlins added
     

     

     

  2. barrowroad
    For those who follow this blog you will remember that after attending the RMweb members day at Taunton in 2011 I purchased a number of P4 locomotives that were painted in LMS livery.
     
    One of these was Patriot 5535 in full crimson lake livery and after much thought I made the decision to strip this livery in order to transform the engine into Bristol Patriot
    45504 'Royal Signals' in lined British Railways lined green.
     
    The loco has spent the last 8 months with Ian Rathbone awaiting its turn in his paint shops and on Friday I collected it.
     
    Ian has done a superb job and the 'Royal Signals' now has its BR lined livery and has been lightly weathered.
     
    Here are some photos:-
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    Bristol Barrow Road will be at S4 South West in Wells on the 11th and 12th August 2012
  3. barrowroad
    Scalefour South West is approaching in August and when I was invited to bring Bristol Barrow Road to the show I realised the trolley system I have for transporting the layout was not really suitable for this venue. The trolley is suitable for sports halls but not for Wells Town Hall where the main display hall is upstairs and the lift is not big enough.
     
    With much of the trackwork now in place the ends of the boards needed protection to prevent damage to the track. Similarly some of the board sides have track which crosses the joint and also need protection. So what to do........
     
    Enter my good friend Chris Yates who came to the rescue by designing and producing a set of end protectors and side protectors for the layout. Chris designed and built the baseboards for Barrow Road and has since used his workworking skills for a number of other layouts he has been commissioned to build.
     
    Chris let me have the 'kit' of parts and I have spent the last few days fixing 'T' nuts to the baseboards and attaching the end and side protectors. Once fitted pairs of boards are fixed face to face with a carrying paddle. All that is need for Wells is some fit assistants to help carry them into the hall and up the stairs.
     
    Here are the 7 boards with there protectors in place. Note the carrying paddles on the 3 pairs.
     

     
    The large roundhouse board required protection not only on both ends but also both sides. This is necessary to protect the roundhouse and wokshop buildings which will be permanently fixed once the turntable and floor and finished.
     

     
    This photo shows one of the side protectors in place.
     

     
    whilst this shows one end protector board with a section routed out to clear the ends of the trackwork.
     

     
    Back to the roof trusses.............................. Oh and I also need to add all the droppers on the main lines as I would like to have part of the layout wired up for the show.
  4. barrowroad
    The roundhouse kit of parts provided by York Modelmaking contained 13 roof trusses that were cut from 2mm mdf, but having made the decision to replace the two main girders with metal versions I decided to go the whole hog and replace the roof girders. Now I know some will think this to be foolish but I have concluded that the mdf versions are not robust enough to facilitate removal of sections of the roof for display purposes.
     

    the mdf version of girders and trusses
     
    This decision has not been taken lightly as it will involve fabricating 39 seperate trusses - 3 bays each of 13 - and then joining each set with longitudinal roof bracing.
    I carried out the necessary research - always an enjoyable task - and produced a drawing of one roof truss. Here are a couple of photos of the interior of the roundhouse showing the best close ups of the roof truss structure I could find.
     

     

     
    I produced the following drawing and used it to calculate the quantity of nickel silver and brass I required to make the structure. Rectangular section brass,T section brass, brass tube and nickel silver wire formed the shopping list.
     

     
    The best way to produce a consistent product is to use a jig so I constructed one on a scrap piece of melamine board using pieces of track ply and made a trial truss.
     

     
    Some while later I now have three completed trusses.
     

     
    Each truss is held together as per the prototype using tie bars and clamps which are formed on the model using 1.5mm tube and 0.8mm wire. These dimensions were upgraded from my original choice - used on the trial truss - of 1.2mm and 0.7mm wire. Why you may ask? The 1.2mm tube has a bore of 0.6mm and required enlarging using a 0.7mm drill. I subsequently found a supply of the 1.5mm tube which makes life easier and speeds up assembly and cuts down on the number of broken drills.
     
    Only another 36 to go......................................
  5. barrowroad
    I have been at Railex all weekend helping to operate our S4 group layout Brinkley. One of the highlights of my weekend was collecting the Turntable Pit for the 60ft Cowens Sheldon turntable used in the roundhouse.
     
    Thanks are due to Morgan Gilbert for all his hard work with the design and the CAD modelling and to Phil Hutfield for producing the turntable pit on a CNC machine out of an acrylic polymer - [brand with-held].
     
    I have attached some photgraphs which show the pit in position. Of note are the series of steps in the pit floor which fall from the perimeter and the centre to a drainage channel. Laser cut 10thou card overlays will form the pit floor of circular rings of engineering bricks and another overlay will also form the vertical wall of the perimeter.
     
    Also of note is the10mm cut out in the pit wall - on the prototype this is used as an access point to inspect between the plate girders of the turntable bridge. The method adopted involved a member of the shed maintenance staff squatting in this recess and waiting for the bridge to be turned and positioned with end of the bridge girders either side of the recess - he could then climb out and carry out any inspection and maintenance work to the inside of the plate girders.
     
    This photo shows the access recess between shed roads 4 and 5.
     

     
    Anyway here are the photos;-
     
    This is the underside of the turntable pit.
     

     
    and the top:-
     

     
    and with the inspection pits in position:-
     

     

     

  6. barrowroad
    Before I show the PHD buffers here are a couple of photos of the nearly finished set of buffers in position at the end of the head shunt.
     

     

     
    Two sets of buffer stops on Barrow Road are very similar to the design catered for by Pete Harvey's etch, which consists of a set of suitably shaped brass plates and rail jigs.
    The following series of photos give an idea of the build sequence.
     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    Two pads of double sided pcb have been added to the beam in order to insulate it and prevent sorting across the buffer stop.
     

     
    This is my method of ensuring everything is soldered up nice and square using a variety of track jigs.
     

     

     
    Here are two of the PH Design and two of my fabricated buffers, the latter with a coat of matt balck paint.
     

  7. barrowroad
    Most of the trackwork in and around the coaling and ash plants is now ready for attaching the droppers, however my next task will be to complete the approach and four sidings, with their pits, alongside the roundhouse and workshop. I'm very pleased with the progress over the past few weeks as I have got into the swing of producing lengths of track using timbertracks sleepers as exactoscale chairs. Of course the track assembly jig I borrowed from my friend Graham has helped enormously.
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  8. barrowroad
    Having formed and soldered up the two main support structures
     

     
    the main beam was formed from two pieces of rail each 30mm long. There is a narrow gap between the two rails so I used a short length of 0.2mm nickel silver strip as a temporary spacer during soldering. I also used two additional pieces to join the rails together.
     
    I have since modified this by using a couple of pieces of thin double sided pcb to make the beam insulated from the trackwork - [ Mark, I have taken note of your sensible suggestion.]
     
    Next I bent 4 pieces of nickel silver strip to form the mounting brackets for the beam and soldered them up.
     

     
    This is followed by drilling 4 x 0.7mm holes into the brackets and the rail to enable lengths of nickel silver wire to be inserted to form cosmetic bolts.
     



     
    Similar holes are drilled into the base a track rail attaching the buffer to the track.
     

     
    The components ready for final assembly....
     

     
    The completed assembly, with cosmetic bolts inserted through the beam and brackets................
     

  9. barrowroad
    I have now finished laying the four sidings which are alongside the roundhouse and workshop, the track over the pits laid using Exactoscale M1 chairs. I have extended the track on the engine release road - in one of the photos there is a section of this track with one length of rail positioned using pins - but this is as far as I can go with this track at the moment as the templot drawing needs adjustment to the south exit trackwork. All the new unstained trackwork is still in need of the addition of Palatine Models droppers - my next task.
    Here are a few more photos......................
     

     

     

     

     

     
    The 8F, 48079 has been the subject of an excellent repaint by Morgan and the Ivatt 41204 is courtesy of Steffan Lewis.
  10. barrowroad
    More progress on the trackwork this time on the engine sidings alongside the roundhouse. In addition to the two main lines there are five other lines which cross the board joint at the throat of the sidings. Track fixing across this joint, as all board joints, is by positioning ply sleepers adjacent too, and across the joint and inserting 12BA brass bolts into pre-drilled holes in the ply sleepers. I usually do this on two or more sleepers either side of the joint.
     
    One length of rail - 120ft with a rail joint at the mid point - is then threaded with the correct number of exactoscale chairs which are glued to the ply sleepers. I then glue two lengths of 6mm wide black card to the track base and glue the sleepers, with rail, to the black foam base making sure they are in the correct curved position. Once satisfied, the track is weighted and left to dry. Once dry the second length of rail is marked and cut, chairs added and the assembly fixed to the sleepers using track gauges.
     
    Once the rail is soldered to the 12BA bolts the track and sleepers are cut using a razor saw.........................................
     
    a few photos of the results......................
     

     

     

     

  11. barrowroad
    On friday my former LMS crab returned from the Severnside Works paintshop for a test run up the main line. Formerly 2798 it has re-emerged as BR 42763. Here are some before and after photos.
     

     

     

     
    The Hawksworth coach is a modified Hornby with drop in P4 wheelsets and has been weathered for it's owner, Morgan, by Gerry Beale.
     
    Another visitor was a Gresley RB dia 167 in BR rebuilt form which Morgan has started to build for the Bradford train.
     

     

     
     
    And finally a shot of the trackwork now complete under the coaling tower
     

  12. barrowroad
    Having decided to use the new Cobalt digital point motors with the Brian Morgan TOUs I thought a few photos would be in order to explain how I have decided to fix them to the underside of the baseboards.
     
    The Cobalt motors are attached using M3 screws fixed into M3 Rivet Nuts, positioned in the baseboards using the rivetting tool shown in the photos.
    The position of the 4 holes is marked using a home made jig, whilst the hole for each TOU has been cut out using the Bosch multitool.
     
     
     

     

     
    Jig for marking position for rivet nuts.
     

     
    Rivet tool
     

     
    Three ready for motors
     

     
    Bosch multitool with plunge blade attached
     

     
    Cobalt Digital in place
  13. barrowroad
    Having promised some photos of recent work on the layout I managed to find time today to take a few. Time had come to cut a suitable hole in the baseboard to fit a removable pit to accommodate the wagon hoist apparatus for the 150ton Coaling Plant, so out came the drawings and after taking the appropriate measurements I marked out the outline shape and literally took the plunge using my Bosch multi-tool - what a useful piece of kit.
     
    I then made up a removable pit which is bolted to the underside of the board together with a temporary platform for the track. It is my intention to make the hoist operational at some stage and therefore provision has been made to accommodate the girders and hoist mechanism.
     
    As you can see from the photos work on the trackwork has progressed and now some crosses the first baseboard joint on its way to the coal tower and preparation pits.
     

     

     

     

     

     
    Here are a few shots of the Ash Disposal Pits which run under and alongside the Ash Plant. Included is a close up of one of the water hydrants in the pit wall - there are a total of five in the two pits.
     

     

     
    Finally a few more shots of the Coaling Plant showing the hoist pit.
     

     

     
    Oh I nearly forgot 51218 a Barrow Road L&Y Pug with a few empty minerals.............................
     

  14. barrowroad
    The additional Masokits etches arrived in the post this morning so work on the Metro tank ceased temporarily - I need some extra information on it anyway....
     
    I have now made up the remaining 17 lever slots for the frame and now have the complete 47 positions for the levers which will, hopefully, be added tomorrow.
     
    Here are a few photos of todays work.
     




  15. barrowroad
    I am still waiting for the two Masokits etches so I've made a start on an EM GWR Metro tank kit I promised to build for a client a while ago....... feeling a bit guilty about the delay.
     
    In the meantime here are a few photos, as promised, of some of my locos taken around the shed yard.
     











     
    All the locos on view, apart from 75004, are Bachmann and Hornby origin which have been rewheeled to P4. I have another 40 odd RTR and kits in the stock cupboard
  16. barrowroad
    It has been a while since I updated my blog so I thought it was time to let you know what progress has been made.
     
    I have finally completed the first batch of 15 turnouts and one double slip. These are all now fitted with Brian Morgan TOU's and are ready to be installed on the layout. I have also finished the task of making a further 8 and a double slip for our Scalefour Society area group layout Brinkley [ attending Railex next year ].
     
    Whilst at the Manchester Show in October I decided to purchase a Cobalt point motor to test out on the layout. I am pleased to annouce I have decided to fit these to Barrow Road rather than my original choice of Tortoise ones. They are around the same price and have the benefit of being smaller and quieter.
    Here are a couple of photos of my test rig with the north exit turnout temporarily fixed and the test Cobalt installed underneath.
     
    DCC Concepts have just introduced a digital version which will now be my choice for the layout.
     

     

     
    I have also decided to use ply sleepers on the scenic parts of the layout and this has necessitated the removal of the C&L flexitrack which I had fixed to the main line. The reason is the turnouts are all handmade from stained ply and I want consistency across the layout. The first piece of replacement track was laid yesterday.
     

     

     

     

  17. barrowroad
    As mentioned in previous posts I have decided to use the Brian Morgan turnout operating units for all the pointwork on Barrow Road. Brian has produced some superb etches for B & C switches in P4 which can be obtained from the Scalefour Stores. His main interest is the GWR and whilst the original units were designed specifically for Great Western loose heeled switches he has also produced the other version for non GW railway turnouts.
     

    The TOU etches, one for the standard B, C switch, the other showing one half of the double slip. Brian also does a single slip.
     

    Here is a close up of the underside of the TOU for Barrow Road north exit. It shows the base plate, tufnol operating bar in it's guide, and the operating crank on it's etched mount. The crank gives 12mm clearance under the board but Brian also provides a 15mm version as an extra. I have chosen to replace the 8BA crank nut and bolt with M2.5 as this allows the use of a M2.5 nyloc [ to be added] rather than fixing with loctite or nail varnish.
     

    A close up of the top side of the unit
     

    The north exit unit
     

    An overall view of the underside of the north exit TOU. The strips of 6mm wide black card have been added to minimise the contact surface for gluing to the baseboard and assists future removal of trackwork without damage. Credit for this idea goes to group a member Graham Turner who, unknown to me, incorporated it in the original build of Brinkley. It is well proven as some of the track on this layout required relaying and was removed without damage and relayed. The advantage is the card can be cut to remove trackwork.
     

    Here is the Brian Morgan etched jig showing an tufnol operating unit with 10BA bolt and brass tube inserts for the switch droppers
     
     
    Having built the north exit unit I found that the spacing of the Brian Morgan jig at 16.5mm meant that the spacing between the switch and stock rail looked too wide. Brian gives the required spacing as 1.45mm but I think 1mm looks better. Discussion with others, including Morgan Gilbert, resulted in a new specification of a 17.5mm spacing a a new drilling jig - thanks Morgan.
     

    Here is Morgan's new jig with the 17.5mm centres for the droppers. The centre hole is for the 10BA bolt for the operating crank.
  19. barrowroad
    This morning I decided to have a short interlude from trackwork and completed work on the shed entrance STOP sign produced for me by Chris of York Modelmaking. After spraying it yesterday with Halfords red primer and finishing with Humbrol 5070 acrylic red I spent around half an hour carefully removing the paint form the raised lettering and lines before fixing it to the front wall of the roundhouse. A rather pleasing result.
     


  20. barrowroad
    After what seems ages I have now completed the first 18 sets of pointwork for the layout. By completed I mean all trackwork shown in the attached photos are now fitted with Bill Bedford slide chairs, Palatine models electrical droppers, are electrically bonded in the appropriate places and have been fully fitted with cosmetic [ around the track rivets] and functional chairs.....what a job!
     
    The next task is to fit Brian Morgan turnout operating units..................these will be the subject of my next post.
     
    All trackwork shown in the following photos has been temporarily positioned for photographic purposes.
     
    Two views of the trackwork, including double slip which allows access to the shed yard from the north end.

     

     
    These show a close up and overall view of the Tandem 3 way positioned under Barrow Road Arches


     
    A close up of the threeway which feeds the sidings alongside the roundhouse.

     
    The turnout for the Coaling Tower wagons sidings

     
    Two views of the trackwork in front of the roundhouse

     

  21. barrowroad
    More progress this week with the completion of 6 turnouts - droppers; TOU base plate and all the cosmetic chairs in position - what a job Yesterday I stained the sleepers using
    Colron Wood Dye - Jacobean Dark Oak with pleasing results.
    I have now started on the three way turnout leading to the shed sidings......... still not half way there yet
     
    Anyway here are a few photos taken before the stain was added.
     
     
    C8 crossover on the main line with the north exit leading to a double slip and the various roads into the shed yard

     
    Close up of the double slip showing the various different types on chair, dropppers and TOU baseplate.

     
    View looking towards the roundhouse showing the various tracks under and alongside the coaler.

  22. barrowroad
    It's been a while since my last post but I haven't been wasting time. I purchased three magnificent scratchbuilt P4 locos after meeting Graham Warburton at the Taunton members day; a Patriot, 8F and Crab, all of which were in LMS livery. After much heart searching I made the decision to remove this livery and have them repainted and renumbered in BR livery to suit my 1950/60s modelling period. With the help of my friend Morgan all three had their paint stripped and removed and the 8F and Crab are currently with Morgan at his SWL paintshops.
     
    You can see the result of the work on Morgans Blog
     
    Morgans Blog
     
    Meanwhile I have returned to work on the trackwork. First of all I needed to rework the north exit board containing the start of the incline leading to Fishponds Bank. I have decided to add extra track at the rear of the signalbox and this meant reworking the incline on this board in order to include this new trackwork. I had to remove all the existing trackwork and replace the original foam subbase with a new ply base.
    Here is the result
     

     
    This photo also shows the C8 crossover on the mainline, the B6 north exit and double slip which gives access to the shed yard. All this pointwork was started a couple of years ago, before I embarked on the shed building and signal box, and has now been reworked to add Bill Bedford etched slide chairs, Palatine models etched droppers and Brian Morgan turnout operating units.
     

     
    Double Slip

     
    Base plate of Brian Morgan TOU


     
    Close Up of Double Slip showing Bill Bedford etched slide chairs and the Palatine Models droppers which have been attached to a rivet on the underside of the ply sleeper. As they form a mechanical joint I chose to solder it for additional strength.

     
    All still require the addition of cosmetic chairs but the majority of these will be added once the track is laid.
     
    This evening I had a play around with some lengths of C&L track to plan the arrangement of additional trackwork at the front of the layout. I can get an extra track from the departure road next to the office which will run under the additional arch of Barrow Road to the side of the shed entrance steps. Turnouts from this lead to the carriage sidings - not modelled. This track will then divide into two tracks which will run behind the signal box.
     
    This photo will give you an idea of the proposed additional trackwork.

  23. barrowroad
    I've had a few days off from Barrow Road at Railex with my other layout Sheep Pasture, a Cromford & High Peak subject.
     
    Sheep Pasture at Railex
     
    [ See Kempenfelt photos of layout dated 2nd June - please ignore his earlier post ]
     
     
    I'm now back on the job finishing the girders, both long and short, by forming all 1400 rivets in the overlays for the top and bottom of the girders.
     
    Here are some photos taken today during completion of all the girders - trial assembly revealed the girderd to be 2mm too long
    After shortening the four 18ft 6in girders the two sets were soldered together ................................
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  24. barrowroad
    Having measured the remaining stock of 5mm x 3mm slotted 'T' section I was pleased to find my calculation for the original order was just enough for the 8 pieces required for the top and bottom parts of the short 19ft girders. It did mean that 3 pieces would formed from off cuts - two per girder which is better than purchasing more .
     
    The wall end of each of the four 19ft girders will have downward extensions to form the wall fixings. During fabrication I soldered a 2mm x 0.5mm piece into a cut in the slot at one end of each girder so it extended upwards and downwards to enable me to make sure the proposed wall fixing was in the correct orientation before cutting of the top piece.
     
    So far the middle verticals and diagonals have been soldered into position in the slot using 179 solder cream with an RSU - the girders now await delivery of the 'T' section brass in order to complete the build.
     

     

     

     

     

  25. barrowroad
    Well it's been a while since I posted anything on the progress of Barrow Road. After an enjoyable day out at the members day at Taunton I returned to domestic duties and have finally managed to decorate two rooms in the house which included replacing the flooring.
     
    I have now returned to more interesting tasks and have made some progress on the girders for the roundhouse roof. I have nearly completed the six 46ft long girders but have run out of 2mm and 2.5mm 'T' section brass so further work is on hold until fresh supplies are received from Eileen's Emporium.
     
    I the mean time I decided to make rivet overlays for the top and bottom of each girder these being formed using 5mm X 0.3mm nickel silver. I used a GW rivet press to make the rivets, an interesting task with around 100 rivets per length. The three 46ft girders have been soldered together with a 4mm square piece of brass spacer in between. This spacer will have a piece of tube inserted into it and will form the fixing position over the top of the octagonal support columns.
     
    The next task is to start on the short 19ft end girders and find a solution to enable fixing the completed unit to the shed wall.
     

     

     

     

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