Flood

Great stuff. Is the white metal object to the bottom left of the second photo the tilted plate separator?

Ekkk!

You did have the lighting over the cleaning roads as well but point taken about other lights. Thanks for the fencing list as well, Glenn thought that was probably the case. The Express Models lights are 240mm which is 18.24m, they should be okay.

Some quality cars there Bob . Which was yours? Good over all view of the arrangement of compounds, very useful.

Now that's what I call a list, thanks Bob. A lot of the buildings are going to have to be "off layout" on the other side of the main shed as we haven't got the space to put them in but the separate ETH, Propane and Lube Oil compounds are a must. The car park was meant to be bigger but it didn't work out like that. We've got an offloading point for the diesel fuel: you can't see most of the pipework, the tankers are in the way! And yes, I know they are a bit clean! I like the sound of BRUTES lying around, we were going to re-paint old Merit brown sacks so they were black and use them as full bin liners. A tilted plate separator? Sounds essential, I'll have to look into that one. Bulk off-loading point for the Lube Oil, were the drums palletised and taken off with a fork-lift? Me bored with carriage depots, never.

Reading through old Rail Enthusiasts I've found out that there were three weed killing trains on B.R. in the 1980s, a Fisons' one , a Chipman's one and a B.R. Eastern Region owned one. Did they all work all over the country as required or were they used in specific areas? Thanks in advance.

Many thanks for the reply Paul, I was beginning to think I was the only person reading my own thread. As I said above things are a bit of a mess at the moment. They'll be no work on the layout this weekend and next weekend Glenn and I will be spending money at Warley. I've been looking through fotopic for images of coaching stock depots in the mid to late 1980s basically to see the ground textures/colours and what paraphernalia is needed to help bring the depot to life. Photos of Craigentinny help but the problem is most of them are taken after the ECML electrification so the amount of diesel movements, and subsequent filth, were reduced. The best photos I've found so far are here and here, if anyone has any more shots of carriage sheds in this era (and preferably Scotland but not essential) I would be very interested to see them. Obviously many thanks to Bob for the two photos he posted on the old RMweb (link). The list of items needed so far is large lighting towers, smaller yard lights, carriage cleaning lighting gantries, stand pipes, battery chargers (portable and non portable) and shore supply boxes. Any photos from depots of these items in the 1980s would be greatly appreciated. If you're reading this Bob (or anyone else) and there is anything major we have missed please say.

Last weekend was spent ripping up track. The two long roads at the front of the layout that contain the washing plant and the toilet discharge points have had a number of changes made to them. In the original set up there was one crossover at the far end of the layout as below: This has now been removed so that left hand points are used instead of right hand points. The set of right hand points are now near to the washing plant to ease stock movements and remove the need to always go into the fuel road. New arrangements as below: The other addition seen on the plans is a wheel lathe at this far end of the layout for even more interest. So this now means more revisions to the wiring and more ballasting. In addition we have succesfully trialled an electro magnet so more of these will be installed. It seems to make far more sense to chop up the layout before any more scenery is added so trackwork revisions will take priority and then the serious business of bring the layout to exhibition standard can commence. I'll post some pictures when I have them but that won't be until early next week.

Looking through Rail Enthusiasts (at ridiculous o'clock last night) I found a photo of the Clansman on the back cover of the February 1986 edition. Taken on 23 October 1985 it shows 47615 on Mk2 air-con stock (BFK, 5 TSOs, RBR, FK?, BG?). This would appear to confirm that the Mk3s only ran for one year.

That's the thing about the Clansman, as stated above it consisted of Mk3s in 1986-1987 and then went back to Mk2 air-cons again in the summer of 1987. Natalie Jones mentioned in her article of WCML trains on the BR Coaching Stock forum "It is possible that Mk3a stock was not actually used as I've yet to see a picture or hear a report of a sighting". The post above confirms the sighting and there is one photo of the stock at Inverness on flickr (see here). Even so accounts of Mk3s on the Clansman are rare and the train may well have only had them for one year. I've also read a note recently about the RMB on the front of the rake and it only ran from Inverness to Perth on the up service and then back to Inverness on the down service. Now where on earth did I read that...... Found it. Natalie's WCML article again, phew.

The Mk3B BFOs were new build in 1986. I've looked through the Coaching Commentary series in Rail Enthusiast from 1987 and they are not listed in the 20 WCML rakes for weekdays. To be honest I've never really known what they were built for and having never modelled the WCML I have never taken much interest. Natalie Jones will know, I don't think there's anything she doesn't know about Mk3 loco hauled stock! Edit: I've had a look on the B.R. Coaching Stock forum and Nat has written a pretty in depth piece on the BFOs. To summarise they should have been the 125mph brakes for the HST-E trains but this was cancelled in 1984. They ran in the Glasgow section of the Clansman when delivered in 1986 (over 13 months late) but Robert Carroll could find no booked workings for them in the 1987-8 LMR marshalling book. In the late 1980s they spent most of their time on test trains including those with the BREL International coaches and the converted modular catering vehicles. By the Virgin era they were being used on the Manchester Pullman and they are now in use with FGW.

As David says the Clansman was downgraded in 1987 to run via Edinburgh (and split there to be a half length), the priority moved over to the HST formed Highland Chieftain. In fact this coach listing in 1986 is very useful, by 1987 the Clansman was yet again formed of Mk 2 air con stock (BSO, 4 TSO, FK, RBR, 4 TSO, FK, BSO) and consists and photos of the Mk 3 rake are not easy to find.

Not much to report over the last week apart from the fact that I've sussed which Evergreen sheets to buy for the depot building sides and roof (from Bob's photo of Craigentinny, many thanks). Over to Glenn's this weekend for a serious discussion on prioritisation for the layout over the coming months. There may well be 6 months and 3 weeks until Derby exhibition but we've basically done nothing for the last 4 weeks and that has now got to change. A visit to Warley in a few weeks time will be very expensive but should also be constructive. 47578 just needs weathering now so I reckon the Inverness fleet is complete, in fact the 47 fleet should now be complete unless we do decide to have a model of 47712. Another HST has been squeezed into the schedule so the rakes diagrammed are now fully up to the prototype (even though we don't actually own a second HST set yet). I'll post some photos of the loco and coaching stock fleets in due course and any improvements to the layout over the next few months. I have no idea of the type of perimeter fencing used in the 1980s, if anyone has a reasonable idea or even photos then that would be very useful. Plus it there's anything we might have missed please feel free to say, sometimes you just can't see the wood for the trees.

And I thought you were modelling in 7mm part of Cowlairs works! Is this location a probable or just a possible, OO or 7mm and which era? I must admit whichever topic you are talking about you have an ability to keep the reader interested so keep us all informed and I'll be following your progress.

That's because they were numbered as they went through works overhaul. Looking at the dates of renumbering you see that the first twenty three 45/0s were renumbered at the same time as the first 45/1s. Then they decided that every 45 needing an overhaul was going to be made a 45/1 so any locos not due one remained in the original numbers. After the last 45/1 number was allocated the remainder of the 45s were numbered in order as 45/0s. This isn't quite true as 45150 was renumbered from a 45/0 for some reason that escapes me.

Now if I'd thought about things from the outset I would not only have put a link to the blog from here but I also would have put a link to this discussion forum from the blog. Being done as I speak....

Now I've got my blog for Aberdeen Kirkhill up to date I have been reading with interest (especially from Bob-65b) the possible lack of interaction available in the blog format. With this in mind I have started this thread so that general (or specific) discussion of any kind with regard to the layout can take place. Please take some time to read through the sections of the blog you are interested in, hopefully the index I have created at the top right hand side will help you in this process. Major developments and periodical updates will be shown in detail in the blog but I will reference them from here as well. The link to the first post in the blog is below: First beginnings I look forward to receiving all your thoughts in due course.

From the outset we wished the layout to be used as a platform for explaining the amount of work undertaken by staff every day (and mostly at night) to ensure the trains continue to run for the public. The backscenes by the wash and toilet discharge roads were unable to have any meaningful scenery added before the exhibition so they were chosen to display information to the exhibition visitors (another of Glenn's ideas). This not only finds a use for the screen in front of the fiddle yard but also gives people a reason to stand at that end of the layout and not solely congregate around the depot buildings and fuelling area. Below are each of the sheets displayed along the screen. I created the first draft with subsequent tweaking by Glenn.

Attached are a few photos from the first exhibition we attended. The first four were taken by Glenn about three days before the exhibition in his front room/dining room. The remainder were taken rather badly by me on the Saturday morning of the exhibition. The hole in the depot building roof is deliberate. Without it the public cannot see inside and we can have difficulties uncoupling. The cut-away edges are to be painted red to simulate the cut-aways done by draughtsmen on their drawings I should add that the exhibition was a complete success. The locos worked perfectly on the track all weekend (apart from three which failed early on but this was due to shorting of the circuit boards under the chips). Great fun was had by me, Glenn and Alex trying to keep to the schedule I had made of all the depot movements. By the Sunday I had decided that writing down all the amendments that were needed was a good idea, in truth there were only about two actual conflicts and the rest was just general tidying up of of the schedule. Being mainly a shunting layout we had been worried that either we or the public would be bored stiff within a couple of hours. I can't speak for the public but operation of the layout was summed up by Alex when he said that by having to follow the schedule he didn't have time to get bored, he was too busy wondering what he had to do next. Not bad for a group of amateurs!

The next job for the layout was ballasting all the viewable track and, yet again, we ended up spending far more time on this process than we first thought. We started the job together but with the layout being at Glenn's all the time I only managed two boards with two lines on each. Writing this report I'm beginning to wonder how much I actually contributed to this layout! In the meantime I was given the responsibility of making the depot shed and Glenn decided to have a side project of making Wellington Road bridge at the scenic break (mainly to stop him going mad having to do all the ballast). I had had an idea on the style of the depot building from early August but the actual construction was debated for a couple of weeks. First it was to be in plywood, then we looked at utilising Scalescenes sheets and finally 6mm plywood was chosen for the frame with either plasticard or Scalescene sheets to cover. A sheet of plywood was cut into the main parts and they are seen below on August 23rd By the 9th September the 2 foot section was complete and the 4 foot section had commenced: 16 days to just do that I hear you say. Yep, you're right, not a very speedy process by me. My time was mainly distracted by two things 1) The completion of a working schedule to cover 24 hours of depot movements for Aberdeen in February 1988 and 2) a summary of CMS 123, the Carriage Maintenance Schedule, so as to explain the workings of a depot to the public. Glenn had continued with Wellington Road Bridge and by 16th September the depot building and the bridge were as below: I had finally given up the idea of cladding the depot building before the exhibition so it was just sprayed in grey primer. The remainder of September was spent by me cutting, glueing and painting the cleaning platforms, repainting two TTAs in BP livery for the layout, building the chassis' for four Post Office vehicles (the bodies were already made and had been given to Alex Carpenter for painting) and putting chips into my last five locos which needed them. The cleaning platforms were finished the weekend before the exhibition and the Post Office vehicles were finished by me on the Thursday and tweaked to ensure good running on the Friday morning. Glenn added some relief to the front of the layout around the area of the bridge, added some grass and trees, painted concrete walkways and tarmaced the carpark/roadways. The weekend before had also meant a trip to Loughborough exhibition where some Knightwing fuel storage tanks were purchased along with more Bachmann buildings and some Taxis to add to the layout. Along with constructing the toilet discharge points on the front of the layout we had somehow managed to make a reasonably acceptable model in time for the show What I did forget to mention was the fact that both the single slip had to be replaced in late August and double slip in mid Setember due to dips in the centres of each point and consequently poor running (especially by the 08s). This was not good for the nerves of either of us!

Construction of the baseboards is in 9mm ply. Below is a photo taken on 30th May showing the basic idea. followed by three of the boards put together. Boards are located to one another by metal dowels and then coach bolted. After construction of all the boards there commenced first the track laying and then the wiring. Operation is by DCC so every length of track on each board is linked to two buses, one for supply of the electricity and one for return. Glenn insists on neatness and his wiring is a joy to behold. Point wiring (including changeover switches for the frogs) was not multi-coloured on the remainder of the boards. Red wire was used for every connection but each wire is coded at each end to ensure ease of rectification. We always said that if the layout didn't work then we could turn the boards over and have a demonstration in wiring! Date of the photo 18th July. Glenn's friend Ian Bush arrived for a few days in August and the layout moved along at an incredible rate. Ian himself constructed the depot inspection pit (inside the depot shed) out of brass angle. The following photo doesn't really do it justice. In addition, end plates for the carrying of the boards and backscenes were made. The way the boards link together for ease of movement and storage is another case of a design working to perfection. That weekend the sun shone again so the first full assembly of the layout was tried. Not only were we able to "play trains" for the first time but checking of all the electrical connections was achieved (and a couple did need changing). To find any faults before ballasting commenced would ease any changes necessary considerably. We had spent 11 weeks so far and had 8 weeks left until the exhibition - a reasonably completed layout seemed a long way away.

Jobs for the next 7 months are: cladding the depot building, brickwork below the windows and general ventilation ducts etc (done) add windows to depot building and finish painting roof (done) depot lighting towers (ordered) small depot lights inside the shed and at the shed front (done) lighting gantries over the cleaning roads (done) add water stand pipes and hoses (done), shore supply points (done), battery chargers (done) overall ballast weathering and weathering the track by the fuelling points, fuel storage tanks and completed depot building changing the proprietory brickwork from red to grey (in progress) add working exit signal (done) add working street lights to Wellington Road bridge (done ) add relief to the whole of the front of the layout and the two ends (in progress) add security fencing along the front of the layout (done) build wheel lathe shed (done) cladding the wheel lathe shed adding brickwork below the windows add windows to wheel lathe shed and finish painting roof finish four Mk2e TSOs cut and shut to make a Mk2d BFK finish the Mk1 BFK (done) add InterCity 125 etc to the ex swallow HST trailers renumber all coaching stock add ScotRail to the Inverness rake (done) paint ScotRail TSOT, two more ScotRail Mk2z TSOs, ScotRail Mk2d TSO, ScotRail Mk2e FO repaint the new Hornby HST power cars to Executive livery (instead of Swallow) (done) add another Inverness 47 (done) and preferably another push-pull 47 (done) buy a full length Blue and grey HST (done) Listen to Runrig As of 13/04/10 13/08/12 Over 2 years later and the items in blue still haven't been done even though we have added 2 more working sidings, overload cutouts, some snow, a DMU, more people and 3 more locos. Just goes to show that some layouts never get finished.

For a layout to work properly (especially if other people are going to be watching it) there needs to be a purpose and a possibility that a ficticious layout could have happened in reality. For these reasons a feasible location was required for "Aberdeen Coaching Stock Depot". We did not want to try to model Clayhills depot because it would have been too long and the station is very close, instead an alternative location was required. My idea was to use the site of Kittybrewster shed as below: Kittybrewster is just to the north of Aberdeen station. Glenn in the meantime had looked at Craiginches Yard, about a mile and a half to the south of the station: A rough sketch had been made by Glenn as to the design of the layout and I downloaded XtrkCAD to check how everything fitted. Mention must now be made of the fact that I had insisted on a full length HST rake thus the original argument to utilise short trains to ensure a smaller layout had been completely throw out of the window! The XtrkCAD image is shown plus a simplified plan (extended vertically for clarity) as below. This plan has changed very little over the months, only the removal of a loco maintenance building by the carriage shed and the need for the far end crossover were required from the initial scribbled idea. The layout had now grown to be 24 feet long! Glenn then dropped the bombshell that Aberdeen has only 2 through platforms, all the rest are bays. The argument for Kittybrewster was removed in one go and the location of Craiginches was chosen. We always stated that Clayhills was needed for City Centre redevelopment (as per Guild Street yard on the other side of the station), and Bob-65B has told us that this plan was actually looked at in the 1980s with a view to using Craiginches Yard - strange how a ficticious layout could have happened in reality. One of the roads running near to Craiginches Yard is Kirkhill Road, hence the reason for the name Aberdeen Kirkhill. Another of Glenn's ideas but it does have a nice ring to it.

In November 2008 I was chatting to Glenn Daniel (Dunedin) at Mickleover Model Railway Club and we thought of making a layout for the exhibition circuit. Utilising one of the other members branch line layouts was contemplated (it was for possible sale at the time) but we decided to go for our own instead. Initial thoughts were around the area of the country to model and, due to keeping the layout small enough for two people to manage, we realised we would need short trains meaning we had two options - Scotland or Cornwall. Glenn has been modelling Scotland in the 1980s, I was modelling Cornwall in October 1976. In the end I acknowledged the fact that the general public are more interested in different colours as opposed to different rakes so Scotland won. The next thought was of location and a station on the Highland line between Perth and Inverness was looked at. Suddenly Glenn stated that he'd always wanted to build a coaching stock depot and with my interest in rake formations I whole-heartedly agreed on the idea. I did look again at modelling Penzance carriage sidings but I was never going to win that battle! First thoughts were about Edinburgh (Glenn had worked at Craigentinny in the 1980s) but I noted that vacuum braked trains were still running from Aberdeen to Inverness so I suggested Aberdeen - HSTs, Sleepers, Push-Pulls and Cross-Country services all being available as well. Thus the area was set, now to find a plot of land we could say the depot could have been placed.